Get relationship coaching with Dan by contacting him personally dan@brojo.org

Nice Guys tend to be very caring, empathic and nurturing. Unfortunately, this can often create a real problem in relationships where their partner has long-term issues of mental or physical suffering.

Dan’s Top Resources

Books

Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:

• The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
• Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
• The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle

Online courses

Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform

• Nice Guy Recovery: how to transform from a people pleaser into a confident beast.

• Shamelessness: how to relieve yourself of the “not good enough” story
• Powerful Honesty: takes you through step-by-step development of your communication skills to be more charismatic and powerful in your honesty
• The 3X Confidence and Authenticity Masterclass program: use the famous 3X Model to build confidence in all areas of life
• Financial Freedom for Beginners: includes everything from budgeting, to getting a raise, to investing in the stock market, to starting a side-business and more
• Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection… Permanently!: covers the psychology of “rejection” and what actions to take to make yourself immune to the fear of it

Full transcript (unedited)

All right. Looks like we’re underway. Shaky, as usual, was up with the lighting on the bench as my InfoWindow did all right. Welcome back to yet another live rant. Or an egotistical dude, pretends he knows how to live tells everyone else how to do it. So I’m good. Good. All right. Once again, big thank you to all of those of you who show up live, have a GIS. And for those of you watching the recording, in your own convenience that you guys as well, please, as always share your thoughts, comments, criticisms, questions, anything in the comments below. And I’ll try to address them as we go through. So I’ll be also talking about I’ve had, you know, developing the program in the background here, and we talked about some of the questions that have come up about it, you know, what it’s going to cover what it won’t, I’ll talk about that at the end as usual. Today, we’re going to be tackling the sticky topic, kind of a controversial one, which I was surprised by. Long story short, I commented on a YouTube video. They were go, Bobby Lee comedian who broke up with his girlfriend Calella something talked about the unexpectedly devastating effect that caring for her through a sickness had on their relationship. And I commented like, you know, this is an issue that people don’t talk about enough the risks that carrying or should I say caretaking can have on your attraction for somebody and on the health of the relationship? And Whoo, we did I get a response to that. And then think it’s the most responded to comment on that video. But oh, I got a big range. That was a polarizing fucking thing to say apparently. I was actually just saying congrats on him for having honesty, but a really stuck product a wound for people here, a lot of people are very upset that our data suggests that caring for your partner might have a negative effect on the relationship. And usually, when I get a response like that, I’m like, Yep, we got to talk about this, we need to fucking talk about so we’re gonna today. For those of you bold enough to stick into this conversation. Thank you very much. Because this is a this is a topic that if you can have the fucking balls to get into it, face the truths, face your own demons and darkness, your relationships are much more likely to be healthy and much more likely to survive the inevitable downfalls of life, which include one or both partners getting sick, either mentally or physically. And especially chronic illness. That’s what we’ll be talking about today. So what we’re really going to be talking about today is the difference between caring and caretaking. And getting the getting that difference, right, knowing which is which and doing one rather than the other makes a huge difference to how likely it is your relationships going to survive when you your partner needs care. Right or unique hear from your partner goes both ways. But in particular, if you identify as a nice guy, you know, that people pleasing thing and you this is a very, very important topic. So I’ll start with keeping it personal. And making sure you know, the understand that this is not something that I’m being hypocritical about, I have to go through this myself. So my, when my wife and I met, we’re both doing really well, you might say but they’re really happy lives, so on so forth. And so the start of our relationship was just all guns blazing. Brilliant, it was brunstetter relationship. I was very excited about it. And, you know, other than the usual status that I have, when I’m starting a new sexual relationship with someone you know, but a premature ejaculation here and they infer I get my shit sorted and you know, we developed a healthy, robust active sex life early on, you know, that typical honeymoon phase six life where you’re just doing it all the time and you’re doing it in public and all that crazy stuff, right? So we had all that gun. stuff happened, blah, blah, blah. And then Lucy develops depression. We didn’t know that’s what it was until much later, but it was definitely depression stuff sliding And it was you know, something that had been building up for many years and finally her when she sort of relaxed with me which is what often happens when your relationship with a nice guy you know you’re with a guy actually treats you well and you feel safe you guard finally comes down and whatever you’ve been suppressing and holding back comes out and so nice goes off and complain like Jesus people just like download their problems on me and treat me as like a as a counselor and so on. I’m like, Yeah, because you’re the only person they feel safe with and all that shit they’ve been waiting. And so quite often it’s quite normal in both big and small factors, Victor’s that people crash with a nice guy. Okay. So anyway, that happened, Lucy crashed with me. And she crashed her. This was long term significant, you know, major depressive disorder, depression, I can’t remember how long it went for, I think about a year. It was really, really dark. She could barely get out of bed, crying all the time. Couldn’t hold down a job, didn’t want to socialize, couldn’t make decisions, super stressed out very, very negative and pessimistic. Easily, just destroyed emotionally by the very smallest of upsets, you know, something doesn’t get delivered on time, that’s a day over kind of things, you had proper depression. And this weird thing start to happen. I mean, we had the natural kind of consequences of depression, our sex life basically died off completely. It was really hard to talk to her without upsetting her. It was very, very stressful. She was living with me at the time. And I was just worried about it all the time. Just constantly worrying. So while she had depression, I started having anxiety as a response. And I could be really focused on a coaching session without thinking like, gosh, she crying right now, like how’s she doing today? You know, some minor bad news will come and like, Oh, God, what’s gonna happen when I tell her about this, you know, fuck, I broke her favorite plate, Jesus Christ, and we’re gonna tell it, it was like, walking on eggshells, it got to that point where I was just constantly worried about, like, I was trying to protect her from things going wrong. And constantly trying to come up with ideas of things that might booster, you know, try to take an interest in activities, try to see wonderful things. Give her the love and affection that she might need transport a hug her to health, you know. And I was very sensitive, because every time let’s say I take her to a dance event cheer up. What if someone doesn’t want to dance with a you know, what if we get there and it cost more than she thought it was going to or you know, if it’s not her type of music, I mean, she was that sensitive, the service could totally destroy the night. So I felt like I’ve seen all these big risks all the time, and quite often would lose. And you get to the side, you know, again to this idea in my head, I can’t win. No matter what I do, she doesn’t get any better. And that’s a huge red flag that I’m thinking like that. For two reasons. One is on building up resentment. Whenever you start saying to yourself, I count when you start to build up resentment, when you start to feel like life is unfair. This is classic, nice guy stuff. This is unfair, I’m getting, like worse treatment than other people get. And I don’t deserve it. That kind of narrative in the heat, however it plays out. It’s always very specific to the situation like this shouldn’t happen. That should be better by now. so on. So I’ve got this narrative building up. Very, very dangerous. Resentment is about the most dangerous emotion for a relationship. Because it’s going to try and land somewhere. Now, whose fault was this? Who do I blame? And eventually, you’re going to be like, she’s always here when I’m feeling this way. And then it’s gonna land on it. And once once you resume and lands on your partner, it is a fucking nightmare trying to pull it back. Because an resentment leads to content. Once you start to look down on your partner, see them as weak see yourself as him as inferior see them as a barrier to you enjoying your life. It’s very, very hard to pull that back. That is almost certain death sentence for a relationship if you get to full contempt. And there’s actually scientific data to back this up, but contempt kills relationships. So on one hand, I had this risk this resentments building up because I can’t win and I’m a problem solver. So when I get a problem, I can’t solve I get very, very frustrated and agitated. I can’t remember what the other thing was. So I’ve got the resentment building up. And then of course, I’m very, very focused on things I can’t control and I’m starting to become obsessed with Lucy’s depression. You know, it’s become like the center of my existence. It’s all I can think about the real issue here was that once again in my life, despite coaching people and everything I had crossed the line from caring into caretaking. What do you guys think about and you put your answers in the comments when you hear this, but what’s the difference between caring in caretaking? There’s a key difference here. There’s a few key differences. But there’s one in particular I think the simplest way you could describe caring is love. Support, kindness. It’s about being a person that is very loving to be around. When someone’s caring for you feel that they care, you feel that they that they love you that they they place you very highly in their priorities in the hierarchy. And that they therefore you should you really need someone caretaking is about control. It’s about fixing or preventing problems from occurring. And the secret darkness and caretaking is where you’re really doing it for is not them but yourself. So the narrative in my head is I’m trying to help Lucy with her depression, I’m trying to make her feel better. I want her to get better. And there is genuine that in there is real caring, and they don’t want to see someone I love suffer. But underneath that’s the truth I had to face was her suffering is a burden to me. And that’s what I’m really trying to get off my shoulders. But the thing is a caretaking Is it her suffering was only a burden to me. Because I told myself it was because I told myself it’s my job to fix it. That’s not hers. She’s too weak to fix it, I have to do it. And I got myself into this horrible loop that nice guys do is when you start caretaking, someone they become dependent on you. You know, you think about anytime your partner has been unwell, or had mental health issues or whatever. And you felt like you know, without me they would completely fall apart and you forget that actually, prior to meeting you in their life, they’ve been through things like this before they’ve been sick before they’ve been depressed. They’ve been stressed before, and you weren’t there. And yet they got through it. So what is the story like they need me? Where’d you get that from? isn’t real? Or do you create it. And it’s one of the most dangerous creations codependency is one of those dangerous creations you can bring into a relationship where you enable the kind of dependence on you. So the point where it actually comes true, it really do. You know, and I did it again, when Lucy not so much during the pregnancy as much. But when daughter was born, it was way harder than we thought it was going to be just physically way harder breastfeeding and hormones and, you know, damage to the body and everything that I was expecting a few weeks recovery, not many, many months of recovery. And you know, postnatal depression, all the stuff have we had all this stuff. And again, I keep trying to fix it. Keep trying to go like what can I do? That takes away the pain. Rather than seeing the truth, which is a there’s nothing I can do to take away this pain. I mean, I can ease the surrounding environment. I can help. But I can’t make breastfeeding not painful. That’s outside of my power. Right? I can’t make my child sleep. Well, that’s outside of my power. I can’t make my partner worry less about the little things. It’s outside of my power. But I kept trying to take power over them. I keep trying to control it. And then yet again, the resentment builds. I can’t do this because my wife’s do that. These narratives start to come in simple factors. You know, there’ll be these moments where say I was busy for one day or something and Lucy didn’t have me there and she didn’t die. Turns out maybe she doesn’t actually need me as much as I tell myself she does. Because problems don’t actually need to be solved and certainly not by me. And they can’t be anywhere. So caring and sustainable. You can care for someone be their partner be on the side of them as they suffer, thrown out. have around them. So you’re not alone, that you can do forever, without losing interest in your partner without the anxiety, killing your sex life and so on without starting to see them as a sick, weak person. As long as you’re always viewing them, as somebody who can get through this on their own, doesn’t mean they don’t need help. But what it means is, you’re not the person to fix this, they, you’re just gonna be beside them, like an assistant, rather than in the lead role. You know, I think maybe that’s the best way like a cheerleader assistant. That’s caring. Whereas caretaking is actually like the physician in charge. The one doing the fixing. The partner, your partner is always the one who’s in charge of fixing themselves, their own issues, their problems, solving those, you never take the lead there and vice versa. You never let them solve your problems, fix you. They can help. They can assist, they can cheerlead encourage, give you a hug when it’s tough, but the solution lies with you responsibility must always be with the person who has the issue. Now one of the reasons that this caretaking really affects your sex life, which builds a resentment even more is partly because of a deeper thing, which is nice guys in particular, but a lot of people have shame around sex. And guys in particular taught that sex is something we kind of take from woman, you know, a lot of us are raised and conditioned to believe that men benefit from seeks way more than women do, and their women actually have to give it up. You know, we often, you know, we were talking about getting laid down, we like we’re taking something right. And often will describe the woman allowing us to have sex, as if it’s like some sort of burden she has to take on. You know, like she let me get a bit sort of thing. We’ve grown up with this idea that, at the very least men enjoy it more than women do. And so woman, therefore, in charge of deciding when happens, or too much more extreme, especially for nice guys, this idea that this hurts the woman in some way, that takes us somehow a burden on them, especially if we figure ourselves to be bad and bad, we’re going to double up on that. And thanks also always has that edge of violence to it, doesn’t it? Six is a physical act has aggression to it, no matter how delicate and gentle you are going inside somebody else’s body. Like there’s a penetration there, isn’t it? And so a nice guy, a person who genuinely is caring, does not want to be violent towards a sick person do they? And this filters in we don’t really think about it consciously like this. But you know, when you’re looking at someone and she’s crying in bed, you’re not thinking like, damn, when mine hit net right now. Right? I mean, listen to their hissing that that’s what we call it, right? So we’ve got to 60s as age of violence to this connotation of violence. And the last thing we want to do is be violent towards someone we love and care for someone we’re worried about someone we’re concerned about. One of the things I noticed in my life is that I was so much more, shall we say wild in bed with a girl I didn’t really care about emotionally. Like, I didn’t care about hurting her. And therefore I was much more unleashed and unlimited sanctuary and actually much better in bed, according to the feedback. But when I really love a girl, when I really care for her, I can’t do it like that. I’m much more gentle and considerate. I’m always sort of a little bit worried, is she enjoying this? Is she going to come? All those kinds of things that don’t occur to me when I’m with some girl like, Yeah, let’s just use each other’s bodies, you know. And so when you got someone who’s you love very deeply, and you’re very worried and very stressed, and they look sick, the last thing you want to do is shake, right? Even when they’re feeling better. I often think of men, a woman having a slightly different effect when it comes to emotions, which is like woman can sort of spike up and down very quickly so women can be really upset, and then like really happy. And the transition takes less than 20 seconds. Right? I’m not saying it’s superficial, it’s just they have this ability to shift gears emotionally so much quicker and more efficiently than men do. Very generalized here. Whereas like if I’m stressed, it takes me hours to get out of it. You know, if I’m sad, it takes me hours to cheer up. If I’m happy I can stay you know, it takes a while to piss me off. You know, you have to irritate me for a long time for I get angry once I’m angry. I’m stuck there for a while, you know, so I got this like long sine wave that right? of emotion like this, whereas my wife’s more like those heart monitors, right? So I don’t know if this actually applies to all men a woman but certainly applies to me and my wife. As you might be very sick in the morning, and then full of beans in the afternoon and ready to go. But I’m still worried About the morning, right? The her change hasn’t changed my worry, my worry is still down, I’m still in the same emotion I was when she was really, really sick. So I still don’t want six, I still view her as recovering and weak and so on. I don’t want to add to that. Until you end up in a loop. The guy starts withdrawing sexually, he starts walking on eggshells around. He’s does real people pleasing type stuff, constantly hovering and trying to fix and trying to prevent getting very frustrated and angry at life, for adding to their misery and for her for not like getting better and the resentment builds and not just your sex life, but your communication, your love for each other starts to take a serious hit. And this is the danger. caretaking brings into a relationship. But the issue it’s about responsibility, versus your new careers because you’re taking responsibility for their pain and their suffering. And it’s actually not your job. And caring is not the same as fixing it also when you’re when you’re doing caretaking, when you’re desperately trying to solve a problem that’s out of your control, you start to get apathy for it. I mean, you can see this right now with the Ukraine Russia war, you notice how much you stopped caring. If you’re honest with yourself and you’re not personally affected, like you don’t know anyone personally there or whatever. So you can just you can help them move on. Because there’s a huge issue but you can’t do anything about it. So you rage about in your mind for a little while. You have some really intimate fucking confrontations with people down the pub about it. But you know, she’s just talking about it less and less as time goes on. And you’re moving on the wall still fucking raging. It’s worse than it ever was. But it’s really hard to keep caring about it, isn’t it? Because you’re not really caring. You can’t taking which is like, I’ll fix it. I can’t or I give up. This is bullshit. And you start to get resentment. Because you can’t control some. Well multiply that by 1000s. When it comes to a partner, when they have a long term chronic issue and you’ve thrown all your best work at it, then it just won’t get better. You start to get mad, you start to feel that things are in fear. Like you might start to tell yourself maybe she’s resisting help, you know, she’s getting in the way of the recovery that I’m giving her. The key is to understand that caring is not you taking and then if you want to really help them, it means you’re going to let someone else do the work. Right? They have a physical illness. You’re not a doctor, you’re not a surgeon, you’re not a pharmacist, you probably know fuck all about whatever’s happening to her physically. You’re not the one doing the lab testing. You’re not the one who’s studied this illness in a laboratory and come up with a solution or anything. You’re not the person so why are you taking on they’re always trying to fix the sickness. It’s like I know almost nothing about engines, but of my you know, my wife’s car broke down as like I’m opening the hood and just pulling up fucking pipes and unscrewing stuff and pouring liquids into holes and just go I’ve got this mess and then annihilate a fucking mechanic and what are you doing? You don’t know what you’re doing? Get out of here. What I might do is go you know what, I’ll help you find a mechanic. That’s caring. That’s helping right? As we go i Let’s let’s find an expert who actually knows what the fuck they’re doing. That’s in a me being the one that fixes this. Right? Oh, he’s up the bed. I’ll make the phone call phone calls are uncomfortable. So I’ll make the phone call for you. Right? I’ll go with you to the doctor and hold your hand if you’re scared. But the doctors going to be the one doing the fixing know me. Right? And actually you’re going to be the one who makes sure she takes her medication not me. Okay, because you’re in charge your body right now unless you have a disorder that affects your memory. Right I’ll I’ll make sure the medicines right beside you beat Okay, in the field lifted downstairs I’ll go grab it for you. But I’m not going to tell you to take your medicine. I’m not gonna ask you if you’re taking it. If you need pain pills, you decide how many you gonna take. I’m not gonna say a rampage take some pills. I’m not gonna try and control this is on you remember, she was sick before she met you and she got through it. If she has depression, she’s probably had a many times in 18 years whenever it was that she didn’t know. And she got through it. Maybe she didn’t get through it well by your standards, but who are you to fucking judge? It’s not your job to fix her. And the problem is, is if you start, then she’ll back off and let you do it and she gets weaker. Right? Because you’ll notice that you’re also probably not in every case, but I’m probably there’s some hypocrisy here when you’re sick you don’t want anyhow, right? You’re gonna get away from it I got this and they say the kind of guy that like falls into codependency when they’re saying like Dude, you’re me, right? There’s sort of two types I guess. But me personally like, I’ll hover over and bother while she’s sick or depressed. But when I’m like that I might just get off me I got this, suffocating me you making it worse? They tell me what to do I know how to manage myself. So why would I do that to her? If that’s how I feel about it being done to me? Good question. So the key is brokerage and detachment. You can’t compute confuse empathy with sympathy. So sympathy is actually feeling their pain. And knowing what it’s like, an empathy is kind of imagining it and trying to understand it. So empathy is healthy, like, Man, this must be terrible for you. So empathy is I know how that feels off. That’s a dangerous place. brokerage, you know, get the professionals to do the work, help your partner, find the people who actually know what they’re doing with this and let them work together to fix this, right. So you got depression, great. Encourage you to go see a doctor. Get her a list of recommended therapists from your friends who have found good ones. But don’t force her to go to a therapist. Don’t demand that she goes to the doctor. Don’t ask her Hey, have you been taking your medication? It’s up to her. If she just wants to live in just be depressed and not fix it. Okay, then. It’s her choice. Right? So body, let her do what she wants to do. She might actually need to go with like further down, pushing come back up, she might need a bit of a crisis. So don’t get in the way of that. Don’t stop her from hitting bottom. If that’s what she needs to do. It won’t bother you unless you’re trying to control it. Right? Surely you might be like me, she’s really down, bumming me out. But you’re not going to feel that rage and frustration agitation unless you’re trying to control it. If you feel those feelings, if you’re resentful, feel like you’re frustrated, feel like come on, where’s the solution, you’re trying to control it. And that’s not her problem as yours. The key that I found to escape this problem. It sounds bizarre, but it really worked for me. And it has worked for the others that have worked on this with my clients and such. You basically act as if they are okay. Which is under the umbrella of kind of like, go get rejected rather than imagine rejections. So, you look at how you behave when they’re doing really well. Okay? Maybe you initiate events and activities. You let them make decisions, you let them take their 50% of the workload so on. You initiate sex and you know, talk about your day and you do all these things that like you only do when they’re really well. Keep behaving like that until you hit an actual barrier. Okay, and this doesn’t mean you become completely oblivious to their sufferings. No, what I’m saying. If you take it that way, then I think you’re being facetious. Unless they’re obviously incapacitated, obviously writhing in suffering. Assume that they’ve got the strength to say No, not today, or are not up for it, or can we talk about something else or whatever it is they need to do to manage their health? Right? Then if you try to initiate sex, I’m not really feeling it, Nick. Okay. But you’re still dragging tomorrow, right? You’re gonna be oh my gosh, she’s sick. I’m never touching her again. Because it makes me feel bad. You’re not going to let her illness stop you being you. That’s what she needs. She needs you to maintain to be strong nets, Kiran. Because they, for example, you know, took me a long time to get here. But when Lucy was depressed, I found like, if I just keep coming back fresh each day as if, maybe today’s the day the depression laughs then occasionally, I kind of hit the target. So I might be like, Let’s go dancing tonight. She says no account and I fucking Baba. Okay. Then I asked her again tomorrow, as if last night never happened. She’ll go dancing tonight. And every now and then it’d be like, Yeah, I think I can do it tonight. And we’d get out of the house and we’ll do something and I’d be like, Okay, I just need to maintain a lot of force or I’m trying to control but each day is like a fresh slate. You might be better today might be alright today. Maybe she didn’t want to six this morning that she wants it this afternoon that can change that quickly. And I should just be honest about what I want. You know, and she could be like, Oh, my God has been such a terrible day. You really well. That sucks because an awesome day this happened and this happened. This happened. And maybe she actually needs to hear that you had a good day. And she doesn’t need to be A therapist, you know, she doesn’t need you to come in and dig into her issues every single time she has them. Maybe that doesn’t actually help every time. Maybe she needs to get out of her head. One of the amazing breakthroughs I had when Lucy was depressed, because it really helped her, I actually told her about my problems. And I had held back on that for so long as I got it, I had to burden you know, but turns out fuck has really helped her to have someone else’s shit to think about once because she can solve other people’s problems quite well. It’s always been a gift. She likes giving advice and such, you know, I’m a good listener when it comes to advice. So I’d tell him my issues, and she would give me advice and guidance and stuff, and it’s still gold. And then she’d feel like she did something, you know, like she helped, like, she has some fucking purpose, like she’s a value. And I realized that I wouldn’t, whenever I came in and dug into her issues and tried to solve her made her feel like the weak one, like the patient, like the victim, and she hates being the person who’s a burden, she hates no help. And so I actually started adding to her workload rather than reducing it. And that was one of the main things that helped her with a depression was to treat, I’d be like, Hey, I’m going to be out all day. So you need to clean up the house or whatever. And she would, you know, look like soon as impossible but come back home, the house is clean, and she feels good about herself. And that was my huge breakthrough. Caring and caretaking. Caring means you keep being you, but you support and help them to achieve their own health. caretaking is where you try to control the health so that you feel better know the difference. Cool. Hope that helps some people can’t imagine why it’s so controversial, but it is. And then we’re now I’m gonna answer some questions some people had about the program. You’re interested in the program, you could sign up if you aren’t listening. So a couple of questions, one is just wondering whether some form of inner work kind of module would be useful self leadership, where you take charge of your inner barriers and have some tools to stay centered. When in situations that could inflame anxiety. As a recovering nice guy, there’s been great revelation to me, while we don’t have 100% control of our inner reactions, we can influence redirect them towards more effective outward actions. This will be very practical. So basically, this has texted and throughout the entire course. Okay, so while the course is going to the program is going to be focused very much on how to practically express yourself shamelessly, powerfully get respect, confront and, you know, hold boundaries and maintain healthy relationships by being that kind of masculine energy leader that’s needed. throughout every module, we’re going to be talking about the inner work. And we’re really going to be focusing on the beliefs that prevent this kind of behavior from him. We’re going to take our beliefs and emotions around, we’re going to take our beliefs that you might need to manage somebody else’s reactions, we’re going to take our beliefs that rejection or people reacting badly to you as something that you need to be afraid of. And we’re going to make sure that these behaviors are designed for you to challenge emotional beliefs. So you can’t change emotional beliefs of rationality. Right, you can’t change an emotional belief by convincing you of facts, but you can with experience, and the course is going to have lots of very practical experiences and exercises to do that will just destroy beliefs that have been holding you back, you have a belief, and you’ll go and practice something and you’ll see that their belief is wrong, and then it will change. So the inner work is done through the outer work essentially, equation. One person asked you, what’s the difference between you know, what’s your stuff? And what’s the stuff that goes is pretty much exclusively focused on what’s your stuff. And the idea being is if you know what that is, then you’ll be able to identify what somebody else’s problem and so if you having a conflict in the relationship, I generally recommend that people view it as a 5050 This is my stuff versus the stuff we’re both creating this issue. And my program will be designed to help you figure out exactly what your part and this is, what are your insecurities, what are your misinterpretations and judgments you know, what are your sort of unhealthy assumptions and so on. And because you’ll be identify that you’ll be able to go okay, now I’ve got that sorted. I can see on their side of the fence what’s not going so well. Next question. Does the course include anything about triggers that cause feelings of guilt in particular like incompletely resolved childhood experiences reinforced reordered? Yeah, there’s a huge I mean, one of the great Just barriers to people being more assertive as this idea, I’m going to hurt someone else’s feelings as guilt that you’re going for what you want to somehow harmful. Again, the exercises than the course are going to address this in multiple ways. One, as you’re going to see that actually people don’t get harmed by you going for what you want, in quite the opposite. Actually, people are relieved to see that side of you and to know exactly what you stand for. And also combining that with being okay with a no. So if you go for what you want, a person says no, and stands up against you, you go, Okay, fine. It’s not right for us, rather than seeing it as I did something wrong, or I asked for something bad. We’ll be talking about misfires and the core. So when you have emotions, like guilt, they’re inappropriate. They’ve come up, but you’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve talked about how to identify those and just sort of let them sit rather than reacting to them. Somebody asks isn’t it’s good to be shameful sometimes. In the course, the word shame will be representing when you attach something wrong to truth about yourself. So when you think it’s bad to be you feel guilty for behavior that you know breaks your own morals, and your own ethical code, that’s different. Okay, so we’ll separate those two in the program. So shameless, is a good thing to be in this program, it means you’ve got no wrong attached to who you are. So doesn’t mean that you should always get what you want. It doesn’t mean that you’re always right in your beliefs. But the fact that you want something and have beliefs is fine, right? And we’re going to behave according to that. Will the compulsion to say sorry for things you have no control over, we’ll cover that a little bit. We’re not going to have a specific module around apologies. But being non apologetic is woven throughout the whole course, especially we’re doing a whole module on being bold. So we’re going to be removing apology from the way you present yourself. At least as training wheels later on in keep saying sorry, if you think it’s appropriate. But in the beginning, we’re going to be looking at you just saying what you think what you believe, without trying to moderate it with apology without being sorry that it exists, removing that shame, essentially. One guy says, I’m a big fan of Bite, bite sized action steps or exercises during the various lessons. Yeah, every single module has an exercise. And then when we do the group coaching, which is where we will actually get together and talk, each person will be challenged to come up with a specific action based on what they took away from that week’s coaching, and from their own sessions with me. So everybody’s going to be constantly doing little movements, little actions, that are new little bit uncomfortable, but are designed to put the stuff into action. Basically, you shouldn’t even show interest in the program if you don’t want to take actions because the actions are everything, right? Everything adjacency is interested in find out what artistic language is all about. This is a particular section in the module where we’re going to be looking at how to understand that when someone’s emotional, especially a feminine person, are their languages, not what do you call it? Literal. But it’s not lying, either. It’s artistic, it’s metaphors it’s representing. So if someone says I can’t believe you lift, lift the dishes unclean. You know, they’re not really talking about the dishes. They’re saying, I’m upset, and I feel hurt. And I’m going to teach you how to hear what they’re really saying. And then speak to that rather than getting caught up in the details of the literal content and going completely off track, which is what almost every guy does an arguments in a relationship. So if you said this, I did exactly what you said, I know you didn’t hear. She wasn’t saying that. She was using there to represent how she feels. And that’s a bit you didn’t hear. So it also helps you a lot with not taking things personally, you know, so when your partner says, Oh, you never spend any time with the kids. I’ll ask them fucking yesterday with the kids. Like she’s not saying that. She’s saying she feels overwhelmed. She says she feels unsupported. Write the details about how much time you spent with the kids irrelevant. It’s not what she’s talking about things they are so you’re not feeling well supported at the moment. Then you’ll nail it and you realize it was never about the kids was another one a few here choosing your battles we just as it’s quite a long one. Let me just read this attempting to control because apparently what I’m being asked here so assertive, aggressive on matters that aren’t within your severe influence or control. We’re going to be looking at specifically how to To express your boundaries, what you want, what you disagree with, and so on, without any attempt to actually control the other person, it’s more like an invitation, you’re going to be learning how to invite them to change their behavior so that you can get along with them better, you’re going to be showing them what respecting you looks like. But at no point will you be trying to make them respect you. I mean, if you have to try and make someone respect you, then you don’t really respect yourself. That’s kind of a theme throughout the course. So one of the key things, you’re going to learn how to set very strong boundaries and barriers. But actually, without any attempt to control someone else’s behavior, it’s like an art to this, it’s actually very effective in changing other people’s behavior, even though that’s not the goal. And some personal challenge the use of the word nice guys, because that’s often gets challenged, because people like what’s wrong with being nice? When I say nice, guys, you know what I mean? I mean, nice guy syndrome. I mean, people who are people pleasers in order to overcome their own insecurities, or people who sacrifice what they really want to say and what they really want to do and how they actually feel so that other people feel good, right? I’m not talking about people who are kind and generous from a pure altruistic place around or there are people who their baby appears to be nice, but it’s actually kind of an act. And it’s kind of a manipulation to get what you want. Those are the guys I’m working with, by the end of this, you’ll still be generous and kind and compassionate. But you’ll also have balls, right? You won’t allow boundaries to be crossed, you’ll stand up for yourself, you’ll speak your mind clearly and concisely and be taken seriously, BTS, as my therapist calls it, right, you’ll learn to when you say something of your life, this goes for real, as well as kindness right now, it’s gonna be scared of you after this. They’re going to respect you. That’s the point. And respect comes from the combination of like, well, if you behave well, I’ll be kind to you, if you don’t speak up. So that’s the questions I got sent on recent posts. I hope that answers it for you still in developing the content for the course. But halfway through now, it’s almost there. And once it’s ready, I’m going to be running a kind of trial version of it. It’ll be invitation only. So those of you have been answering my questions and messenger and stuff. Thank you very much. You’ll be the first to be invited. This is not going to be open entry. I’m going to be doing a discounted first run through for for the people who get invited. So I’ll let you know more about that soon. If you want to be on that list, let me know and we can go through the questions together. And I’ll talk to you guys next week. Cheers for showing up and have yourselves an awesome week. Cheers.