The Curse of Self-Awareness (Every Cycle Breaker Dad Needs to Hear This) | First Hero EP009

The Curse of Self-Awareness (Every Cycle Breaker Dad Needs to Hear This)

The moment you start to see yourself clearly, you can't unsee it. And nobody warns you what that costs.

In this episode of the First Hero Podcast, Corey and Rich break down the one skill at the center of conscious fatherhood — self-awareness. Not the watered-down version. The real thing. What it actually is, what it's not, the gifts it gives you, and the painful price it extracts from every dad who chooses to do the inner work.

Because here's the truth nobody tells you. The moment you wake up, the gap between you and the people who aren't growing starts to widen. Friendships shift. Relationships get harder. And sometimes the people who loved who you were don't know what to do with the person you're becoming. That is the curse of self-awareness. And it is also the greatest gift you will ever give your daughter.

In this episode, you'll learn:
— What self-awareness actually is and why most dads get it completely wrong
— How to separate your behavior from your identity so you stop carrying guilt that doesn't belong to you
— Why the curse of self-awareness is the tool that breaks generational cycles
— The real cost of doing the inner work — and why it's worth every bit of it
— How giving your daughter this one skill makes her unshakeable for life
If you're a girl dad who's already started the work and felt the weight of it — this episode is for you. You're not broken. You're awake. And your daughter needs you exactly like this.

👉 Take the Girl Dad Quiz — find out exactly what kind of father you are in less than 5 minutes.

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Timestamps:
0:00 — The Cost Nobody Warns You About
1:12 — Self-Awareness Is the Superpower at the Center of Fatherhood
1:53 — What Self-Awareness Actually Is (And What It's Not)
2:49 — The Ghost in the Room: Corey's Visualization Framework
4:26 — It's Not a Destination — It's a Daily Practice
6:20 — Observer to Investigator: Self-Awareness Paired With Reflection
8:08 — How Pain Unlocks Self-Awareness (Their Personal Stories)
16:08 — The Curse: When Growing Creates a Gap Between You and Everyone Else
20:21 — Rich's Raw Story: Setting a Hard Boundary to Protect His Daughters
26:45 — Hot Take: The Privilege of a Lifetime Is Becoming Who You Truly Are

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Nobody tells you this part. They tell you to grow, they tell you to do the work, they tell you to wake up, level up, be better. Nobody tells you what it costs. Nobody tells you that the moment you start to see yourself clearly, I mean really see yourself clearly, you can't unsee it. You can't go back to who you were. And sometimes the people who loved who you were don't know what to do with the person you're becoming. That is the true curse of self-awareness. And today we're going to talk about it. Welcome to the First Hero Podcast. I'm Rich. And I'm your host, Corey. Co-host, Corey. Whatever. And today we're going to be talking about self-awareness, the goods, the bads, everywhere in between. And for those of you listening that have done any amount of personal growth or had any amount of breakthrough in your life, you are going to appreciate this episode. Yeah, it's a good one's a good one. So listen up. This is a good topic, especially for girl dads. Self-awareness is really the building block for us girl dads to step into the greatest version of who our daughter needs as a father. And ultimately that version of a first hero, the standard that the first hero in your daughter's life represents. The superpower, if you will, at the center of you being a first hero in your daughter's life is awareness. And I truly believe that. I think it's, it is, it is the it is the absolute core, the nucleus we share that sentiment. Of of everything beyond it. And so we're going to dive in because first, let's talk about what self-awareness actually is and what it's not, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions around this as well. It's it's clouded in this some sometimes mystique. Yeah. Um, so we're gonna dive in now. Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly. And what I mean by that, it could be your patterns, it could be your triggers, your defaults, and more importantly, your impacts on others. Your actions and inputs have results. And just having a simple awareness of how all of these things are in sequence, um, having, you know, we we refer to it all the time like our blind spots. Yep. Self-awareness is this, is the ongoing study of your blind spots. Now, some blind spots are blind spots for that reason. They're blind to us, but it's being it's being in search mode, yeah, right? It's being in exploration mode of these things and trying to understand impact, usually where it shows up, right, is our we see an impact that we had, whether it's positive or negative. And that can be a cue for us to start to rewind the clock and start to see, wait a minute, what created that, right? What what results created that? Yeah. That's the pathway of self-awareness.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, 100%, man. I I agree with you. It's the nucleus. It's the like without self-awareness, there's no growth. Zero growth. And and the definition, I'll the definition of self-awareness for myself as a man is uh is more visual. So I want you to to to envision yourself, you're standing in a room. Now I want you to envision yourself as a ghost and you're you're you're a spirit and you're floating up out of your body, and I want you to move yourself back away from your body, your physical body is still standing in the middle of the room, and now you're now you're a fly on the wall or a ghost on the wall, and you're watching yourself interact. Now, self-awareness in and of itself is relatively inert. There's really no action you need to take other than becoming the observer. You're observing yourself inside of whatever dialogue, action, event, whatever, right? You're not, you're not, you're not labeling anything. You're not saying, hey, I'm you're there's no shame, there's no grief, there's no guilt involved with that because those are interpretations of meaning and that those are evaluations that that's not what self-awareness means, right? For you to be guilty. That's another layer that we can get into. But self-awareness is just becoming the observer, being a fly in the wall and watching yourself interact.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yep. And I think that's a good segue into what it's not. I think a lot of people avoid or there's this misillusion or or delusion of what self-awareness is, and people avoid it maybe because they think that self-awareness means they have to shit on themselves. There's a lot of shame and guilt and insecurity and anxiety tied to uncovering what they are, right? But the reality is that self-awareness first and foremost is just an unbiased look at the chessboard of where the pieces lay, right? That's the first step. Self-awareness doesn't have any action. It is like you said, it's inert. It is just simply, it is just simply a a viewpoint. Yep. And another thing that it's not is is a destination. It's not a it's not a finish line, right? You don't, you don't, you don't, it's not, it's not an identity. I am self-aware. You are someone who exercises self-awareness. It's a skill. It is a it is a habit. It's like, you know, it'd be it would be the it would be similar to saying, um I've gone to the gym, therefore I am fit, right? And it's like, well, you could have gone to the gym 10 years ago. That doesn't mean you're fit today. Same thing with self-awareness. It is a, it is an it is a constant thing. So something that it is not is a one-time thing. It is this this is a this is a an action trait that should follow you for all of your fatherhood, you know, your whole life. You got girl dad, if you're a girl dad and you got girls, they deserve this trait to be part of your life forever.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

100%.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

100%. Yep. And the go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah, I was just gonna add that there's so we can talk about some of the differences, right? The the man, the man who ra reacts versus the man who observes themselves reacting. You did a it's a perfect visualization that Corey did. I haven't used that before. I mean, I've done visualizations like that, but in the capacity of awareness, dude, it's super, super helpful. It's a great visual to kind of see what it is. It's it's it's less about controlling, it's less awareness itself is less about controlling the reaction, but just simply observing yourself reacting so that you have that audit of like, oh, I did do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Right. Right. It it's it's that third-party look at yourself. That's the best way, right? I think it's self-awareness. That's the visualization I get in my head. But most of us weren't taught that. We weren't taught to look inward. And I think self-awareness by itself, you know, again, it's relatively inert. I think paired with, and you can use these interchangeably, I think repair repaired paired with the ability to reflect, I think those two are the ultimate powerhouse powerhouse. Those are reflecting in the moment and then after the moment hindsight. I think those two paired together is the nucleus. Those are the two that's like that is the the seedling to growth, right? Being able to see yourself as an observer and then ask questions like was I too rough there? Was I too hard on that? Was I too easy? Was I too like, you know, really becoming the investigator? Now you're moving from observer to investigator. Okay, now like how did I how did I interact in that dialogue? Right. Really reflecting on social cues, body cues, right? Verbal and nonverbal cues on the other listener, right? Because great communicators, they understand feedback is great communication, not what that, not what they say. So those are those those two paired together are very important. And we're not taught that in school. Like I literally wasn't taught that in in elementary school.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

But like your teacher's like, okay, and now we're after our ABCs, we're gonna go sit in the corner and and reflect on the last hour and and you know, you know, to think about ourselves and in self-awareness. I wasn't taught that. I was actually taught self-awareness at a very old age, like in my 30s, like early 30s. I literally fucking woke up. I like was like, whoa, one day I'm just like, holy shit. Well, there was there may be mushrooms involved, but I don't know if it was in your late 30s. It was probably in your late 20s. Early thirty early 30s.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Early 30s.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

And then that's when I'm like, holy shit. Like I just kind of woke up. Yeah, like pulled my head out of my ass. I'm like, okay, self-awareness, this is what it means.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

You got to have something big too, if you're not already committed to self-awareness um in the pr in the pursuit of it. I think it has to be something big. We talk about if you're familiar with pain versus pleasure, it can be the avoidance of pain that guides you to self-awareness, or it can be the pursuit of pleasure. I would I would venture to guess for most of us, pain is a bigger motivator, so it could be rock bottom. I can speak from my experience. I became highly self-aware out of a devastating low. And um, that was in my mid-20s. And um, dude, it completely pivoted my life, you know, in a in a direction that uh today I'm living a version of my life I that is so beyond my wildest dreams 10 years ago. I mean, seriously, dude, I I have exceeded every level of what I would hope my life would be, if you had asked me when I was 25. And um it's all due to to self-awareness. And self-awareness isn't about beating yourself up about who you've been in the past. It's it's truly about getting honest enough to choose who you're going to be in the future. And this is why this concept is so important for us dads, because let's face it, if you are here, if you're listening this to this, you have you have an awakening. You understand that there's a better version of yourself, just like Corian and myself. We are men who are who are in pursuit of something. And we we are we are aligning to be in pursuit of this version of a first hero for our daughters and self-awareness, this is exactly why this is important, because we have to choose, we have to make a conscious decision who we're going to be in the future, whether we're going to be the first hero, or whether we're going to choose to continue to hide under the rock of self-awareness and never open that box. Yeah. So if this is landing for you, hit that plus symbol. If you're listening on a podcast and if you're watching on YouTube, like and subscribe because we're going to continue to launch weekly episodes like this. And we're building a community of people and men, sorry, men and fathers and girldads just like you. So make sure you subscribe or hit the plus button, depending on where you're listening. And we definitely want you in our community. There's also something powerful that we've been working on. If you're asking yourself, do I actually know what kind of father I am? Right now, you have to go take our girldad quiz. It takes less than five minutes. It is an incredible quiz. It gives you a very detailed breakdown of different styles of fathering that each of us have. It is, it is pretty comprehensive. It's going to give you a full detailed report. It'll cover your blind spots, your strengths, your weaknesses, the situations you execute really well in as a father, the situations you probably need some help in as a father. And it will help answer so many questions for you that you're probably going through in your head right now, which is why you landed on this podcast. So go grab that. It's in our description, it's in the show notes. Go grab that. You'll thank me later. So, next, let's talk about the gifts of self-awareness, because there are quite a few gifts of being self-aware, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Oh, yeah. Yeah, quite a few gifts. I mean, it puts you again, like we just talked about, it's the nucleus. Like it's it is the seed in the soil that sprouts the flower, the roots, the flower, everything. It's it's at the center because without being self-aware and the skill set of being reflective, you can you are not in a learning state. You are just drifting, you are floating through life, bumping into people, things happening to you, not for you. You're reacting, you're not responding. And it's honestly a miserable place to be. A miserable place to be. It was a miserable place for me, and most likely for you, Rich, in my 20s and you know, late 20s. Uh, and if you're a girl dad and this is you, I can only imagine it's amplified because you're feeling the pain of disconnection with your daughter.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah. No, it was, man. And and when I found self-awareness and I truly found it, meaning I could stand in it objectively and just view myself and able to shed all of the judgment of myself and sit in the in in in in the pain. It was it was almost it was almost separating the pain from being willing to be aware. Dude, there was an incredible enlightening that happened where I felt a million pounds off my shoulders because it wasn't that anything was solved. It was just that I could see myself. Woke up. I woke up and I realized that all of the things that I was doing, they didn't, they, they, they, they didn't define me.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Right. And so now all of a sudden I had separated what the actions were from the human being.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Behavior from identity.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Behavior from identity.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

And that was a really powerful thing, dude. It just gave me this huge, huge confidence booster of like, okay, dude, I've been acting broken, but that doesn't mean I'm broken. Love it, dude. Right? And so for us dads, dude, there's there's so much of our prep past wiring that we know the moments that we don't show up at our best. We know the moments that fucking haunt us at night when we react a certain way or we say a certain thing or we discipline a certain way. And those hurt, dude. Those are those are the those are the things that are the the most, those are the heaviest weights that I have to carry on my mind, are the mistakes that I make with my daughters. And if you're anything like us, you know what I'm talking about. Those are the ones that you go, the the last thought you go to bed with, the first thought you wake up in the morning with, the thought you can't shake at lunch, when you're in the middle of an important meeting or conversation, when you have a moment, you know, this this thought comes back into your mind. And the awareness is the only way that you're going to be able to wrestle that. And so it truly is a gift because right on the other side of just of of very objective awareness of actions that you're taking is this is this huge empowerment of, oh, I can do something about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

I can fix it. Yep. Right? I can separate the two. This doesn't, this isn't, I'm not viral.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

It doesn't define me.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Right? It doesn't define me. I can still save myself and therefore the people that depend on me, like my daughter.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, absolutely, man. Your behavior does it your behavior does not define you, right? They're two separate things. And once you see that in yourself and even your daughter, like you can rule that's when you grow. Yeah. That's when you say, I, I am a blank. I am I am a hero to my daughter. And then you can start doing the things that it takes to be hero. You can flip the switch that fast. When you're stuck in this story, negative, negative feedback loop of I am this person because I did this thing, you're never gonna grow, you're never gonna change. That's not being self-aware. Being self-aware, you're able to look at yourself, separate your behavior from identity, and say, hey, this is not the person I am, therefore, this person that I am does this sort of behavior. I'm gonna just start doing that now.

unknown 14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And it you can shed the guilt, the shame, the pain. And you can learn from it because you're gonna be reflective now, right? You're you're you're you're a hero. You're gonna you're gonna reflect on all that pain and suffering guilt and you're gonna learn from it because you're now you're awake.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah. And and dude, I have to talk directly to the dads. If you're watching this, you can look me right in the eyes. But dad, listen up. How cool is it to envision your daughter having a relationship with this where she has learned from you? One of the most critical skills that will stay with her for the rest of her life. It will make her unshakable, it will build her confidence, it will make her show up in situations and people in the room observing her will think, holy shit, uh, who parented this girl? Right. She is incredible. She is a force to be reckoned with. This skill set of being able to separate her actions from her identity is the key. Right? It's it's it's because she's going to make mistakes and she's going to be given the gift of self-awareness so that she can observe those mistakes unbiasedly, and she can separate the wholesome goodness of who she is and will always be from the actions that she took in that particular moment. And by giving her that gift, you are setting your daughter up for something that that is legacy, my friend. That's legacy. That's legacy. That's the thing that will outlive you. And on your deathbed, you will be thanking your lucky stars that you listen to that podcast and that you were introduced to this idea. So keeping moving. Let's talk about the curse.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah, there's a downside to self-awareness that we don't really talk about either.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah, let's talk about the curse. I mean, as you raise your standard, the gap between you and the people who aren't growing, that gap widens. Yeah. And um it doesn't it it is it is indiscriminate on who it impacts. It could be parents, siblings, best friends, spouses, right? Yeah. It could even be adult children or children. And I think we we this is the curse because sometimes it can feel like there a chasm that we have to cross. And like, how do you get people across, right? Or how do you bridge that gap?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

And I don't know that I have that solved either, guys. I'll be a hundred percent sh I'll be a hundred percent honest with you. I've felt this big time, big time. And for those of you listening who have done some big self-work and um been on a mission to better yourselves, you guys have probably felt it too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

I mean, you've felt it at some capacity.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You felt it. I mean, you do you still have the same friends that you had with your 20s? Yes, I do, but I also have a lot of friends that I don't have anymore.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah, and and things change too. Yeah, you felt it to some capacity for sure. Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah, and and it's it's not being like arrogant, like you're not being like, I'm better than you for being more self-aware. It's just reality. You're like, okay, well, things changed a little bit. My my my my needs are a little different in relationships, and they just can't fulfill those needs. And that's okay. They're still them. Yeah, and and you you you just simply start to have different interests. Yeah, you typically want to go deeper, like in conversations that really I love like that's why you and I, it's so organic for us to do this because you and I had those deep conversations for years um that we we couldn't really get elsewhere.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Yep. You know, it was it was where we ended up, every every conversation. Yeah, yeah, that's a good cue, dude. I think that when when my tolerance for surface level conversations and like how's the weather type of conversations started to go downhill quick, dude. My tolerance used to be so big for just bullshit bar conversations versus like what I mean by like you're bullshitting at the bar type conversations. Um my capacity for that used to be so big. My tolerance for that used to be so big.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

We saw it. We went after it. Like, I want to go over to the bar and have those dumb bullshit bar moments.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Yeah, and think we're solving world problems when in reality we don't remember what the hell we were talking about the next day and we're hung over, right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, dude, now the tolerance is so it's so small, bro. It's so small. Like if you're not if you're not willing to go deeper to a deeper level of conversation in the first, you know, if I'm just meeting you and and you're not willing to go deeper in conversation in the first five minutes, like I'm I'm I'm respectfully like great to meet you, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna head out. I don't think I'm that I don't think I'm that that intense, you know. I definitely I definitely tend to be that really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yeah, no, I I can I can definitely feel that. And there is some sort of grief to that too, man. Like, like I'm fortunate. Like, dude, like I can I can turn it off and on. Like with with a lot of my friends, I can go and sack tap with the boys and bullshit, you know, and still have fun. Um, and then I have my relationships where that go a little just a little deeper. Yeah, you know, like the ones that you know, you and the one that you and I share. Yeah. We can go deep. We can go so deep. I mean, obviously, you know how deep we're going with these podcasts. Um, but there is some sort of grief, you know, when you kind of realize, and it's funny because at a young age, I've always thought like I always had this like thought. I'll share a quick story. You know, it was I always thought, like, who was the first like caveman that like really just like became conscious and aware? You know, that poor bastard. Like, how alone and how alone he how alone, dude? You just like fuck, I'm uh I'm the leader of a bunch of it of idiots. What the fuck? I always thought about that and put myself in that position. I'm like, what a lonely life. Or he's you know, you know, having a great time, just manipulating everybody. Who knows? Exactly, dude. Who who can we who can I talk to?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Right, like what do I do with this information for sure? Um, I want to share a quick story because I know how important this this this curse can be or how prevalent it can be. Yeah. Talking about talking about um relationships, like there was there was in the last couple of years, I experienced something with um my with someone very, very close to me, a very, very close family member where um we, because of my self-awareness, um and and just uh an effort to improve myself and the way I operate in my own life, I I, as a byproduct, I started to recognize patterns, not only patterns within myself, but patterns of the people around me. And I started to recognize that boundaries were needed to protect other people. I'm specifically talking about someone who had uh an extreme proximity in my life to me and to my little girls. And when I recognized that there was a pattern that this person brought into my life that was completely wired into my mind from a very early age as being acceptable. And I had never audited it. I had never shown the light of awareness on it. And I saw the pattern for the first time about two years ago, and I just had an awareness around it for the first time. Dude, my my whole my whole world blew up. And not necessarily in a good way. Of course, there was some, there, there is some good that came out of it just in terms of the awareness. Um, but it it it has complete, it has completely divided us now. And I'm I'm I'm hopeful that it's a temporary divide, but ultimately what what happened was there was a I was forced to choose between allowing the same pattern to affect me. But more importantly, allowing it to affect my little girls and create the same negative feedback loop for my little girls that that and the negative emotional loop that it created for me. And I, as their father, and as their protector, as their first hero, I either could allow that to then be passed on to them and allow no boundary, or it was time to set a boundary, a new boundary and hold it. And that was a that was a super, super, super fucking difficult thing to do. Super difficult thing. Um, someone in my life that is as close as you could possibly imagine, and I had to set a new boundary. And that boundary was set by me and held by me, and the response from the other person was not positive. And therefore they elected to remove themselves from my life and my little girl's life, which was which was really, really, really harmful to everyone, including them. Um, but it it it was out of it was out of a a sheer place of being unwilling um to first on my part, being unwilling to allow that pattern to continue for the people that I am I am set in on this world to protect from the things that I am aware of. And from that person's perspective, they decided to remove themselves from our life because their their pain was their pain of facing who they are was greater than the pain of losing us. Yeah. And that's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

And how how awesome is that that your daughter gets to watch a man, you, choose growth over comfort, over what's easy, what's comfortable. Like, that's the most powerful lesson you can teach your daughter. At some age, she's gonna understand you like, holy shit, dad, you just set this boundary out of love, not out of judgment or spite. You set this boundary and you held it. Wow, to this person who's so dear and important, like dad, that's crazy. How did you do that? And that's gonna, dude, that is that like gives me goosebumps because I know I know the situation, and it's like, dude, you're like, I remember watching you go through it, and I'm like, holy shit, like it had an impact on me.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

It's hard, it's hard, guys. And I can only hope and pray that one day when I have to answer for my actions in this whole thing to my daughters, um, assuming that this pattern, you know, that that us being separate from this person continues for a long time. I hope that it doesn't. I hope that it doesn't, but I am also prepared for that outcome. If that were to be the outcome, I'm gonna have to answer, I'm gonna have to answer for it someday. Yeah. And I I can only, I can only pray that my actions that I take on a weekly basis to continue to reach out to that person and remind them that I love them unconditionally and that the love that I have for them isn't subjected to any version of themselves. However, the boundary and the awareness that they have around their impact to our family is the precursor that starts the conversation of us all being whole again. You know, that door is always open. And that's the only thing I can think of is like over time, if I were to look back over my lifetime and if this, if this, if this gap remains when I die or when I eventually have to answer to my daughters as to why this person never was in our life anymore, I have to be proud of my actions. And so my actions have been exactly that. They have been to remind this person that I love them, that I, that I appreciate them, that I do have a lot of respect, that I'm inviting them back into our life, and that this, that, that, that we have a new set of standards that all of us need to operate for from in order to be a whole, um, healthy family in a version of our family that we've never had before.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah. And that's the curse that becomes the gift. You know, that's the curse that becomes the gift because most men, like there was a cost to that rich. And the cost was heavy that you were willing to pay, you to protect your daughter, right? Most men, they stay comfortable. Most girl dads stay comfortable and they're not willing to pay the cost. They're not willing to take that curse, that burden to give the gift to their daughters, right? They never break that cycle and they keep passing it down. Yep. That's the severity that we want to, that we want. Hopefully, that landed with you. Yeah. Right? The curse of self-awareness is the greatest gift you can give yourself, not only yourself, but your daughter. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Absolutely. Well, let's jump into the hot take. Yeah, let's do it. So if you don't know if the first time listening, this is an opportunity where I've got a quote for Corey. He's never seen or been exposed. Maybe he's been exposed to, but he's never he doesn't know what I'm about to drop on him. He's gonna give us his uh his very intentional thought process as he works through it. So here it is. You ready? Let's go. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah. Yeah. So Carl Jung said, I'll answer that with um uh I'll answer that with another quote.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Uh and I'm gonna go. Don't do that to us. Carl Jung said, you really, you really become who you are after the age of 40. And I really think I I say, I see he says that because you really wake up and you and you learn that ego is the enemy, not enemy. It's it's the ego is no longer serving you. And you you wake up and say, okay, I can really become the person I am, because up until the age of 40, or it could be it could be subjective, up until the time I wake up and be conscious, I've building my ego. I've been perfecting my ego, chasing this, chasing that, being and then once you wake up, you're like, oh, wow, I really need to unbecome who I was to become who I'm supposed to be. And that's a rare gift that most people don't really get in this life. And I'm so glad that I was able to get that self-awareness and say, okay, the the accolades I was chasing was was coming from my egoic self, not my ideal self. My ideal self coming from a hole, right? Not coming from a hole. A whole versus a whole self. Yeah. A whole like a hole in the ground versus a hole in the self, uh, a whole self. Love it. Right? That's that's my take.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

I love it, dude. Self-awareness is not a burden you have to carry alone. It's a lantern you can carry for your daughter so that she can see the light. The man who knows himself is the man she can trust. The man who does the work is the man she will remember. You didn't wake up by accident. You woke up because she needs you. She needs a first hero. If this episode hit you and you felt seen at the in the in the cost of your own growth, you're one of us. You're a cycle breaker, a man who's choosing awareness over comfort, a father who refuses to pass his wounds down to his daughter. Go take the girl dad quiz, find out exactly what type of father you are, and join our community of like-minded fathers who are in pursuit of a better version and ultimately becoming a first hero for their little girls. As a reminder, distraction is the enemy, breaking the cycle is your duty, and legacy is the only thing that we get to leave behind. You are one decision away from becoming the hero your daughter deserves.