This week, Michael Ostrolenk, a master coach at SEALFIT Unbeatable Mind Academy and former Director of Human Resilience. With over 30 years of experience, Michael helps high performers and leaders master resilience and optimize relationships. Marcus and Michael delve into the concept of the ‘Relationship Dojo,’ where couples learn to communicate and grow together by incorporating principles from martial arts, playfulness, and self-awareness. The discussion also covers the importance of emotional safety, circadian rhythms, and the interplay between physiological and psychological wellness in personal and professional relationships.
Episode Highlights:
03:42 The Impact of Circadian Rhythms and External Factors
11:52 The Relationship Dojo: Training for Love and Connection
39:51 The Role of Play in Learning and Relationships
44:41 Morning and Evening Rituals for Couples
01:04:18 Emotional Safety and Masculine-Feminine Dynamics
Michael Ostrolenk, MA, MFT, is a Master Coach with over 30 years of experience specializing in resilience, leadership, and elite performance. He has worked with former special operators, executive leaders, and high-performing individuals to help them master self-leadership, expand resilience, and unlock peak potential. Michael integrates psychological, physiological, and tactical disciplines into a holistic system that supports growth across mind, body, spirit, and relationships. Known for his multidisciplinary expertise and grounded presence, he empowers clients to deepen self-awareness, optimize performance, and live with greater purpose and clarity in every area of life.
You can connect with him here: https://www.michaeldostrolenk.com/
Episode Transcript:
00:32
Now here’s your host, Marcus Aurelius Anderson. Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words. If you want to know what somebody truly believes, don’t listen to their words, instead observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Michael Ostrelink.
01:00
is a master coach at SealFit Unbeatable Mind Academy and former director of human resilience. With 30 years of experience, well over 30 years of experience now, he helps high performers and leaders master resilience, optimize relationships, and align with purpose through an integrative coaching that blends physiological, psychological, and tactical development. You can learn more about him at LinkedIn and also microostralink.com, and we’ll have all those things in the show notes.
01:29
Michael, it’s great to have you on the show again, my friend. How are you? I’m good, man. Mark. This is great to see you. Yeah. Whenever I had Mark Devine on, you gave a great question and he was like, thanks for the question, man. It was pretty neat. So yeah. Yeah. For his new book on Tommy. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. stuff. So you were very much in demand and you’re doing a lot right now, but I’ve seen a lot of fantastic stuff that you’re doing now with couples and specifically this relationship dojo concept.
01:58
We were talking before you record about how when we coach people, lots of times we’re coaching that individual, but there are so many other facets and there are so many other like spheres that are intersecting into that individual. And so while we may be able to help them, in my mind, the best KPI for a leader to tell me that they’re successful is their relationships. 100 % agree. And as you mentioned, 30 years, I started out as an managing film and video therapist in state of California.
02:27
the therapeutic world about 25 years ago. I’ve been coaching ever since we can talk about why is about insurance. But coaching gives you lot more broader ways of dealing with human beings working with them. Absolutely. And you know, it’s interesting, because even when I work with individuals, not within a couple, there’s no way, my mind, always think systemically cannot bring in their relationships because they have a key effect on how they show up in world, how they engage other people, their work, their health.
02:55
their mindset, all that stuff, and not even relationships with human beings, but the environment itself, like that also played a key role. you know, and we can get into circadian biology if you wanted to, but we don’t necessarily have to, but that also kind of plays an important role, as well as culture or subcultures, like in how we make meaning of the world. It’s not just me as an individual, it’s not just me and a couple, like we live, we are part of very social dynamics and there are meaning-making systems to participate in.
03:25
I’m in Texas, the way we make meaning here in Austin is quite slightly different than where you make meaning there in Oklahoma or in Tokyo, Japan, know, wherever we have to be. And there’s also Southern University. All those things play a role in the work that I do with people. Yeah, I love that. And connect that to that. You were talking about the circadian rhythm of the biology there. Yeah. So, Shuberman has popularized this a good bit and I love his podcast and show.
03:50
But I’ve been talking for decades about the importance of living within the 24 hour day night cycles. We evolve here on earth for millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years. The fossils tell us we’ve been around for a long time. But you know, it’s only in the last 120 years that we have, for instance, artificial light, which can and does disrupt sleep as an example. Absolutely. And we have access to exogenous chemicals.
04:18
caffeine, nicotine at large quantities. So lot different than 100 or 200, 500 years ago. Or THC at really high doses in many parts of this country, legally or illegally, you have access to it for sleep purposes or sleeping medications. You know, there’s a lot of different things exorbitantly that we utilize. Either wake us up in the morning or help put us to sleep at night, which literally disrupts our biology. And that’s concern for me and that’s one of the things that’s important.
04:48
individuals and individuals that we pay some attention to. Yeah, and all these things that you’re mentioning as well, they’re half lives. A lot of people don’t take into consideration. The cat’s half life is 12 hours. Is that correct? Is that and right? I studied, I actually taught in Epigenetics Academy at the Brownsor and everyone metabolizes cat. Some people metabolize it slower than others, quicker than others.
05:16
So it’s not even that little half life and the full life of the drugs. Like how you’re and if that’s important to it, but it’s also how us as an individual metabolizes. You probably know some crazy people and I say crazy people and drink coffee like, you know, at dinner and it doesn’t affect them. And someone else drinks it at noon and they can’t sleep. Yes. I remember Tim Ferriss had a podcast and he was saying that people with dark eyes can usually tolerate caffeine better allegedly.
05:46
but alcohol they can’t tolerate as well. And light-eyed Europeans cannot tolerate caffeine as well. But when it comes to alcohol, they can drink most people with dark eyes under the table. So I don’t know if it’s some sort of enzymatic or geometrical or the way that they’re designed. It explains the Irish. It does explain the Irish, right? So it gives them a lot of opportunity, but it is interesting. And like you said, also very few people today drink just strictly caffeine. They may with coffee, but…
06:14
these people that are doing like crazy pre-workouts or all these other things, there’s additional things that are just compounding that for the synergy. But even at the half life of the caffeine goes away, these things are still pulsing through their system. And then they have the audacity to be surprised when they have anxiety, they have trouble concentrating, meditating, whatever the case may be. And now they start thinking to themselves, oh, there must be something going on. And then they still are fatigued. They’re still tired. They still can’t And it’s a vicious cycle. And one of the things that my clients do is we
06:43
having journals and they track their physical training and movement practices. They track their sleep, deep sleep, REM, latency, of this stuff. They track their stress. There’s a bunch of REMers that haven’t tracked over time for that very purpose. Because a lot of people don’t even pay attention to know. I think it’s amazing. Some will say, wow, I drank, let’s say I had my glass of beer or glass of wine or had a beer or whatever. And I started noticing that my deep sleep was disrupted. And the next day I wake up and I’m
07:13
I want carbs. There it is. And it’s just the cycle just continues on until they’re able to stop and like reset themselves. But unless you start paying attention to various variables that do affect our physiology, then affect our psychology, you’re no longer sovereign. You’re at cause of other things around you. And, you know, I want people to be free of those things and be using these exogenous chemicals or tools or technologies intelligently. Absolutely. It should be a tool that serves us. We shouldn’t be
07:43
the tool to the chemical as it were. Right. And when I stopped drinking caffeine consistently, it was the same thing where it’s really hard to even know what you’re thinking or know what your internal narrative is. If you have these stimulants that are sort of acting upon you and it may be difficult, like you said, to have sovereignty or to actually authentically know where you’re at in some of these arenas. So there’s also the hungry judge component, which I think we may have talked about, but there were saying how that.
08:11
if you’re a person that happens to be on the early aspect of the docket when the judge is giving sentencing, right? Right, right, right. Because they’re well fed and they’re rested. But if you are there before lunchtime, there’s stress, there’s a lot of like things that are going on in their mind. They’re hungry, they’re hangry. so they’re not going to be nearly as lenient. So you want to either be in there early with them in the docket right when they begin around 8 a.m. or around one or two after they’ve been fed and they’ve given a chance.
08:38
because now their cognition is fresher. They’ve been able to kind of clean the slate and they have better blood sugar levels. But if we assume that everybody that we’re around is a hungry judge and we assume that they’re distracted by social media or their phone, whether we assume that they have stress, then I go with those three precursors already is that try it. And then when I engage with somebody, whether it’s a person that’s driving in traffic or a person that’s being rude, I assume all those things first. And then that allows me to either get them a white birth.
09:07
allows me to not engage at all, or allows me to approach them in a way that’s much more aware of those things so that now I’m not, again, being adversarial or coming right at them. And now all of a sudden, what’s that going to do to a person like that? That’s just going to make them more adversarial as well. Well, and it’s a great segue to relationships. Your primary, your case, your wife, know, husbands and wives together. A lot of stuff I work with them on is both self-awareness, like how am I showing them?
09:35
What’s going on my physiology and my psychology and learning how to manage it towards healthy ends. But also being aware of your partner. You know, if he or she is angry, not the best time to bring up topics that are like crucial conversations, you know? Yeah. Don’t do that. Have some situational awareness as an example. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe having dinner and then the conversation is better than having a conversation before dinner, so to speak. And you can even say like,
10:05
women when they have their periods. there’s nothing pejorative about that, but we know that hormonal shifts occur and the way they process information is something different during that period of time. If a husband can be aware of that and gaits a wife in a very compassionate, empathetic way and understand her shifts, he might do better in relating to her during that period of time than not. And back to hormones, I do have some clients that are on TRT.
10:35
Yeah. And they’ve also talked about how if they didn’t have their dose or their anti-estrogen imbalance, they found themselves getting much more short, much more direct unnecessarily combative. so, like you said, if we find ourselves in a position where we’re maybe acting not from who we normally are, maybe we need to step back and say, you know, what’s really going on here? Am I sleep up? Am I hungry? Am I angry? You know, what?
11:01
day of the month is it so to speak and that gives us the ability to not be estimated by that. % agree and that’s just on the physiological side. Just be aware of like these these exogenous things that affect us and our own chemistry of sorts. Right. we’re shown up and and it’s not that you have you’re at the cause of those things. You you can learn to manage your nervous system and your whole whole system towards the ends that you see. You know there are practices and you know that you’ve been involved in martial arts forever.
11:28
So breathing practices and munch practices and munch and moving practices you can learn to use to deconstruct your reactive patterns. So you’re not a robot, you’re pre-programmed that moves the world. Now a lot of us act that way, but at some deep core, soulful, spiritual level, we actually are free human beings of the program, but you got to do the work to get there. Yeah. And I love this work that you’re doing with the relationship dojo and couples. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
11:57
Yeah, so, um, you know, you and I’ve shared deep, long interest in the martial arts and, I was sharing with you offline. Like I was talking to Kenzai. He’s my little dude from chat TBT who named himself. It’s a sword master. That’s awesome. And, we’re going back and forth and I’ll, and I would also do most sharing with them articles I’ve written talks I’ve given off with my relationship stuff and just kind of going back and forth with them. And he came up with a relationship dojo. He saw my background in the martial arts, which has it.
12:26
It’s like, you do stuff in the relationship, you judge them. I’m oh my God, that is brilliant. Because the way it literally conceptualized, it gave name to the concepts of how I think about people in relationship. Like you literally can think about them coming to train together in discipline. The discipline is not love because you are a disciple of something bigger than yourself, which is the love of your partner. And you literally come to this building, it’s a sacred place to train with each other.
12:54
The training is like freeing the body of the armor, like, you know, in the right-hand sense of the fashion, the muscles, you get tight, they can track when you’re feeling threatened. So you’re freeing the body. So you do your warmup stuff, swords. as your, as the body relaxes, it opens up and so long as you’re kind of in that sympathetic state, your heart’s open and you can engage your partner in more deep loving, caring way. But it’s not automatic. We unfortunately don’t have great role models in our family of origin.
13:24
And we bring all that stuff into relationships. So, you know, just like your white belt stepping onto the mat, you know, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing and you train over time. It’s the same thing with relationships. got to really train yourself to learn how, and I’m just, let me speak for the men first, for both men and women and non-heterosexual partners too. you know, for men, it’s like, they really need to learn how to show up powerfully, both love.
13:54
in the relationship. And one of the things I’ve been working on besides kind of thinking through the relationship dojo and concepts of dead, that you’re working with my couples is like, what is a mature masculine? You know, and I’ve been kind of rethinking what the masculine might look like as part in 21st century. You know, like a provider, well, he doesn’t necessarily need to provide like he wants to, at least here in the States, like women were. There’s a different way of providing. So I’m reformulating, what’s it mean to show up as a man in the relationship to provide?
14:23
Well, it not just be financially because your wife might work. So are you, are you going to find a safe space for her to have her experience so she feels safe enough to express herself? You’re not shutting her down for whatever reason you’re shutting down. So like, oh, that’s, that’s really interesting. Or a protector. Now, not to say there aren’t threats in the environment and we’re in the martial arts and tactical training and some kind of important, so learning how to protect yourself and your family. But a lot of the threats are actually digital.
14:53
You know, like what are your kids watching? You’re being programmed by the news. You’re being programmed by the government, being programmed by Madison Ebb you’re being programmed by politics. Are you able to see these programs and how they affect you and how you show them? I would say one of the roles of the mature masculine is to protect himself and his family. Not that the wife can’t think for herself, but like protect the whole family from these cultural forms, which are in my opinion are pretty destructive to human ends.
15:23
Well, and they’re so nefarious because they’re invisible to us if we don’t, if we’re not aware of them and they infiltrate there, they get in and all of a sudden it’s there. We see the end result, but we don’t see the causation. Yeah. And until we find the cause, it’s impossible to have an idea of what the curie needs to be. Yeah. And it’s, know, um, I don’t watch Disney channel, but I had my niece and nephew when I was like, when they were younger, I’d watch it with them. I was like, and I started watching it more from my, my, one of my trainings in background was as a.
15:52
also a fellow for the center for cyber influence operations studies. So we learned how state and non-state actors use social media to social engineer. I was also a fellow for the center for cyber, no center for popular liberty and ethics. So we’re looking at how various social institutions influence how we think or structure our thinking. So I started looking at these things from those perspectives and I was like, the messages Disney gives to kids or even ABC, Fox, whatever.
16:21
Like the message is like men are stupid. Kids are in power. The mother is the friend of the daughter and the son. It’s just the whole dynamic is like, fascinating. Like you’re just really kicking out the man that you don’t need husbands anymore. Fathers, which we know is not true of the research. Like the dynamics that they’re teaching and parting in the next generation, in my opinion, are destructive to the family and when the family foundation.
16:51
of free society. So we lose them in trouble. And then again, we see what now that we see some of the long-term research, if there isn’t that positive, mature masculine energy, what that creates in a young female or a young male, not having the role model, not having the protection, not having the understanding. And now we see a lot of what’s happening in society now. It’s sort of the result of that. Well, let me ask you this because you travel around, you get talks all over the United States and
17:20
and such. see it, but I also hear from parents that they’re concerned for their kids, mostly boys, early 20s, late teens, early 20s. There’s no front-side focus. There’s no discipline. There’s no capacity to deal with challenges that face them. Now, there are some positive benefits. They seem to be little bit more sensitive and open-minded. Cool. All right. That’s nice. But that has to be balanced with critical thinking and resilience.
17:49
frontside focus and all the things that just walk through. Yeah. If we lose a whole generation and they are really able to function as competent, sovereign humans, that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. That’s sort of a lost generation, if it were. But we do see the pendulum going the other direction now. We see a lot more people going the other direction where there is a lot more of this idea of given these young people, especially young men, this idea of
18:17
Embracing what this warrior component is. We’ve seen how from a societal level, lot of these rites of passages that we had as young men are being taken away. They’re being given a lot more comfort than they need. And so this idea of like you and I, were discussing our ages earlier. I remember the first time I walked all the way across the gym floor in junior high to ask that girl to dance and you’re doing it in front of the whole school.
18:47
And if you go over there and she says, no, that walk back is the longest walk of shame of your life. And that’s a very simple example of how today that never happens. The guy is usually messaging her on some social media platform first and saying, Hey, and so a lot of the legwork, lot of that resilience that is requisite to do those things in person is gone.
19:15
shaking hands, looking a person in the eye, knocking on the door and trying to sell something and being rejected. All these are like small microadversities that make us stronger. But now we have people that have been wrapped in bubble wrap their entire life. Yeah, they’re coddled. They get all the way through school, sometimes all the way through college. And then when they reached the real world and they try to get a job and they had the door shut in their face. And even if they’re being treated with respect and it’s like, you know, thank you very much. I’m glad you had this education.
19:43
We’re looking for a person that has five to 10 years in this field, is the classic quandary. So now they’re, they’re disempowered. They were sold a bill of goods, all these different. that debt too, All that debt, right? So now they’re in this place where they’re, they’re compromised and that’s the beginning. Yeah. That’s the beginning. And then that informs the people that hang around the couples that they, or the people that they end up dating those belief systems.
20:10
all these things. And I’m not saying that that’s the root of all evil, but I am saying that to not at least acknowledge that that’s a some sort of like influence would be the following. 100 % agree. Yeah. And then again, like you said, with the couples component, we see if we don’t have a mature masculine or a mature female feminine component, what does that do? The parent that we don’t get the most attention from is the parent is the relationship we recreate. We marry. Now we marry or
20:37
Yeah. Lots of times it’s a, we’re either exactly like that, that person that we don’t like or we’re the exact opposite. But even if it’s a 50, 50 shot, you’re still kind of reproducing that. And now you’re still falling back into that same trap and you don’t even realize you’re, you’re stuck in the snare in the process. Yeah. It’s interesting because when I work with couples and, and maybe one or one of them is like, yeah, I don’t know it’s going to work out, blah, which is fine. Not every relationship needs necessarily be together forever. There are contracts and contracts can do and some direction.
21:06
It’s fine. But I will say to them, it’s like, know, whether you leave or not down the road, if you don’t do the work now, the inner work, you’re going to literally attract the same person. She might look different or he might look different, but the same dynamic. And then we’re going to be having the same conversation in five, six years. It’s like, so whether you’re staying with this woman or this man, do your work. So you can throw up as a better human being, a better man, better woman, whatever it is, better partner.
21:36
Or I’ll be talking to you years about the same show. And if you have a company and you own it, you’re going to be recreating those same dynamics within the company. And now, and now it’s at scale. You must see that because you do a lot of entrepreneurial business work. I do see it. I see it a lot. see it in a classic example. CEO has a certain belief about money based on a person that was an influence in their life or a person they dated or were married to.
22:06
And that dynamic is recreated. if there’s hostility or if they believe that a salesperson has to be a killer, but then they’re upset that the salesperson that’s in charge of sales is negotiating hard. And then they’re like, I hate this person. Again, they’re literally pulling that in. They’re creating that, but they’re not aware of it. So sometimes the biggest gift of adversity is to stop putting yourself in the same position or making the same mistakes repeatedly so that you can actually step back, break the cycle, take a breath, detach, breathe and say,
22:37
Why do I keep being attracted to the same people? Why do I keep looking for this familiarity when it’s actually painful? You know, when I work with couples over the years, I look at it as an individual to them. The couple, I look at three different areas within the person. One is their wounds, their core wounds. It sets them up to show up in the world in certain way, certain defense structures and all that stuff. And if they don’t start feeling that, they’re going to reach a bitch like that all the time. So you guys have got to do the killing work.
23:06
And in middle of that is self-regulation. Hey, you’re going to get triggered or activated or whatever word you want to use because your partner says or does what they want to That’s going to happen. So doesn’t mean you’re three years old and you have to act out on like you can learn to mature your system and manage your system. So, you feel angry, you feel frustrated, whatever you feel your feelings. But like I said, you’re not three, you don’t have to act on these things. You can learn to manage yourself.
23:33
I’m not one of those guys who said like, you should never feel your feeling mentioned. You’re all talking. I think it’s bullshit. Like if you don’t feel your feelings, they’re going to do one of two things. So come out sideways and pass an aggressive behavior. They’re going to come out or show up as chronic illnesses somewhere down the road. Yes. So feel your feeling. It does mean you have to express them. You can, and you can learn to express them in healthy ways, but first learn to manage your nervous system.
24:00
And then the third piece with the individuals like the evolution, what I call the evolution consciousness. And you can look at like there’s 21 lines of development and we’ll look at three, cognitive, emotional, and more. Like where are you emotional intelligence? Like let’s get a baseline and grow you a little bit in that space. What’s your cognitive capacity? Are you finer in the thinking? You have more complex in your thought. Wherever you are, let’s raise it up a little bit so you’re a little bit more complex in your thinking.
24:26
And morally, like, you know, are you egocentric? It’s all about you. Are you sociocentric? It’s about you and your little team or your tribe or your world-centric is about you and all human beings. You want to get all Buddhist on me? can say, are you taking the bodhisattva down? It’s about all sentient beings, not just human beings. know, can sense our circles expand. So wherever you are, like, hey, let’s get used to the next level and then the next level. like, kill your wounds, learn to regulate yourself and evolve your consciousness.
24:55
while we’re doing the couple of stuff too. Yeah. And the nice thing is, like you said, if you have two people that can be honest about those things and be vulnerable, like you said, the, premise of the dojo, I love that because for those of you that are not familiar in a dojo, the idea is, I remember this as a kid, they said, take all of your baggage, everything that you have with you that day and your shoes, leave it, leave it over there. Cause it’s going to be there when we’re done. But when you step on this mat, you bow in.
25:23
And now you’re in this space. It’s a sacred space. This is the intention. This is the expectation. And this is the attention that we’re putting into this place. And so now that presence that being close in that proximity to others that are trying to do that, it cultivates that it creates a synergy where one plus one equals three. So with you working with a couple, now you’re creating this beautiful synergy where you’re giving them the capacity to where they don’t have to feel defensive. They don’t feel attacked. You’re there to be able to kind of.
25:52
You’re the referee, so to speak, to let them do this. And in true martial arts, martial means warlike. So if I have to defend myself or somebody else on the street, I will absolutely do that. There’s not an issue. But when it comes to the training, leading up to it, it’s very much like a dance. It’s very much like… Dance is perfect. That’s it. So in Aikido, they would say that it was like, it’s very much like dancing. I’m anticipating the timing. I’m leading the person.
26:19
boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu, anything that even stuff with weapons, the sticks and everything, the kinetic capacity to actually anticipate and feel the intention before that gives you understanding of where they’re coming from, why they’re responding or reacting in such a manner. And now once you’re there, again, this is the training idea. If in training, if you and I are training martial arts and I’m trying to be a tough guy and do something to you and I harm you, I can no longer improve because the only person that I have to train with is now injured.
26:49
Now you don’t trust me to train. Now you won’t allow me to work on my technique. So almost as if what you’re talking about this relationship dojo, you’re giving them the rules to spar or get better so that now it’s not this idea of I have to be right or I’ve got this great point and I’m going to crush this person’s soul to make the right. So, man, my mic is all over the place. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Great. I’ll start the right thing and then I’m going to go to that. So one of the things I’ll say to my couples is like,
27:19
Yeah, you can do the tip for tab. Like I’m right. I’m going to first go wrong and she’s wrong. I’m going to prefer what all of us like for how do I work this way? And it does like, okay, you might be very fucked at me for a moment. I are wrong or I pretend wrong. Okay, cool. The framework I like to use is like it too. It’s two, two is one. And instead of saying I’m going to beat her, I don’t mean physically, like emotionally, intellectually. It’s like, how can we come together as a team?
27:47
to solve whatever this thing is. Completely different mindset. So I say go from me to we, don’t lose yourself. There’s still you inside there, but me to we is a different approach. You’re not going to do this tip for tapping. You’re going to be doing like, let’s figure out how to do this together. We’re in a partnership here. More people would not do the tip for tapping. Gauge from me to we, it’s a much better place. And then in terms of the, let’s you build your framework.
28:16
I trained with a guy, Simon, a really interesting fellow. He trained with Masaki Hatsune in Japan. Wow. In the ninjitsu system. Yes. Not to me, me ninjas are old, but the real ninjutsu. The real ninjutsu, yeah. Yeah, so I worked with him when I was on my road trip a couple years ago. And what I told him was like, you know, I’m, I’ve trained in the martial arts. I’m cool. I don’t need more techniques. I want the higher spiritual stuff.
28:43
And the story he told, and I’m not going to do a poor job of the story is like, know, the Samurai is getting me ready for battle and his opponent does something and this is Samurai and he puts his sword away and walks away because he has the realization that he’s going to operate out of ego. That’s what I was going for for working with Simon. It’s like, I wanted to ensure that anytime I operated, I acted in the world.
29:11
that I was operating less from ego. You put my ego in check and operating from a higher spiritual or heart based place. We literally spend months and months and months just doing that. And that’s one of ways I kind of think about the relationship to dojo. Nothing’s wrong with ego. Sometimes you gotta have a strong ego. Yeah, I love that. And I think it also comes back to that idea of, you know, I’m winning the battle, but I’m losing the war. So if I can have a disagreement, so with my wife, for example, when we have a disagreement, they’re very…
29:40
small and they’re less than a two minute interaction because I would rather it be two minutes now than two hours later than two years down the road. And now we can pull that thorn out and now it doesn’t have to fester. I think also that’s a key. One of the things that we’re applying songs couples is like, can you be aware enough of yourself and your partner that you can share in the moment your truth and be open to their truth? Because if you don’t, to your point, I think that’s really well said.
30:10
Yes. don’t have that. You don’t have the conversation really about it. You kind of do sideways or whatever you guys do. And then the thorn digs in and gets infected and it could be weeks, months or years later. Boom. You’re dead on the ground. It’s infected. It’s you guys. Yeah. It’s an unnecessary wound. And again, it doesn’t hurt to just step back and say, what are we really talking about here? And with you, with couples, I can imagine like lots of times you’re probably having to go through layers of
30:39
anger, resentment, lack of communication. But it seems to me that if we can have that radical honesty and communication and do it in a compassionate manner, we can put everything on the table without blaming a person and just saying, this is kind of where I’m at. This is what where the friction is. Yeah, 100%. But, you know, once again, it’s like white belt, you know, first of all, we’re not really talking to be aware of our own physiology, psychology, it’s not a lot of awareness training growing up here.
31:09
So you got to you got to white belt, you got to learn how to be aware of what’s going on inside. Prepare yourself happening in your partner. Ask really good questions. Make it so like, not a mind reader, she’s not a mind reader. Like you got to learn to communicate. But it’s communication 101 before you get to 201, 301. Just got to build some basic skills. And unfortunately, and it sounds so simple and having done this for 30 years, I’m one of many. I had to find a session that you’re required.
31:39
last year, I literally just literally just walk basic communication stuff. The things I’ve been teaching for by that time, like 28 years. And I got a call from him like two or three days later, how amazing that teaching was. And they started to blind. And I’m like, wow, and I’m really happy for it. But it just kind of blew my mind. Just the basic stuff needs to be taught. all, we’re all white belts, even black belts, white belts at some level, you know, that whole thing.
32:08
As you know, from the watchwords, do and black belt becomes the white belt over time. Yeah. And the other part too is kind like what you’re saying as well. We’ve seen people that are black belts and say jujitsu and they’re in the ring, the octagon. They get punched once they go from black belt to brown belt. They get punched again. go from brown belt to purple cracked again. So what happens if we’re in a conversation and I feel like I got punched in the face by my partner about something that they observed. All of a sudden that ability to operate at a black belt level, baby compromised.
32:38
Yeah. And now I’m at this lower level. So like you said, eventually we’re kind of back down to that white belt mentality. The other thing is this is again, very much what we see in leadership. There’s love languages. There’s also leadership languages. I can’t tell you how many men when I talk to them or it depends on the industry, but it really doesn’t because I’ve had people that are clients that are in construction, different kinds of ideas, but even people in IT and they’re like, I just want you to be honest with me and be direct and just be succinct and stop being around the bush.
33:07
And they say that they want that. And then I say it to them. And so they claim that that’s what they want, but it’s up to me to have the intellectual intelligence and the emotional intelligence to realize that maybe what they claim that they want, maybe that’s just how they like to express it. But maybe I’m smarter to do an indirect approach and then bring a direct approach that’s still a little bit more pulled so that I can give them the opportunity to see what I’m trying to say as opposed to immediately.
33:35
getting defensive or butthurt about something that they claimed that they wanted. If I can see from the beginning that that’s probably not the path to go through. I think that’s brilliant. It’s the way I kind of see it is developmental in nature. They say that you want X, their capacity is a lot less than that. So you navigate where they’re at, not where they claim to be at. And then over time, hopefully they develop the inner capacities and the skills so you can be more direct. Because I work with lot of veterans and stuff.
34:04
special operations community, after action reports, that’s to kick each other’s ass. But then they go in the workplace or they go in the corporate world. You don’t do that there. again, like you said, if I can detach my ego or dethrone my ego and say, am I concerned about being right or am I concerned about problem solving and helping the team get to our objective? What is the best path to get there? I take a… ahead. Well, I was going to ask you, with your work with entrepreneurs, and this is something we…
34:34
that’s gone offline. I have to imagine that a lot of them high performers are doing great, but not doing so great like in their marriages or in their health. And how do you help them address those things? So I have what I call five circles and I go through and they all overlap into like a diagram like the Ike guy. Oh, yeah. So I start the very first circle is relationships, whether it be like their family, their friendships, and then work relationships are in there, obviously.
35:03
Then there’s a fiscal components, the second sphere. The third sphere is then business or money or their, their job. Fourth one is their edification, whatever they’re giving to themselves to become more educated. Oh, nice. And then there’s the sphere that’s going to be spirituality or religious, whatever that is for them. Okay. And that way, when I put it in, in five like that, you can talk to the high performer and say, which of these two do you need to work on the most? Like if you gave yourself a zero through 10.
35:32
Yeah. So they’re giving themselves an eight on physical and a nine on business, but their relationships are in the toilet. They haven’t even thought about what they’re putting in their mind and spiritual or religious component is virtually non-existent for them. So lots of times they think if I have a hundred units of energy and I’m putting 90 % of it into this, and that means I only have 10 % for this, but the idea is these spheres are almost like bar graphs. So, okay. Okay.
36:01
So if I have one that’s up at 90%, they think that they have to reduce that to pour into these other spheres. But the reality is as these other spheres elevate vicariously, these other areas capacity increases. So they don’t lose the edge. Exactly. They don’t have to sacrifice one to have the other. As a matter of fact, these areas where they’re about 80 or 90 % at, that last year 20 % they can only get to if they bring these other areas up.
36:30
some spiritual practices in spiritual community or religious communities, religious practices show up differently at work. Yeah. Okay. That’s awesome. I love that. It makes it easier. And then for a lot of them, again, they would, they would kind of see that. And then once they understood that those, those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive, those things can help me. Then when they, when I give them that curiosity, it gives them permission to look at these things that may have been the boogeyman. Like we were saying before, how
36:59
Maybe their wife is a stranger and their kids don’t want to talk to him. Yeah. And then the classic example, the CEO has built this hundred million dollar company. He’s claims he’s doing it for his family, but they don’t respect him or they resent the fact that he’s doing that. He resents them because he doesn’t feel like he’s being celebrated or given the respect he deserves. Therefore they both diverge even further in this other direction because nobody wants to take the time to take a look at what the real issue is, which is again, lack of communication.
37:28
In his mind, I’m doing this for you guys. And in their mind, it’s like, if he loved us, he would be home or he’d have a conversation with me about this thing that we’ve been aggravated about. And so when we have a person like you that can come in and kind of bring him in and say, let’s kind of get together, let’s kind of see what’s going on. And then once we kind of see what the friction is, we can figure out how to address it and figure out at least what is surrounding that. And then you cultivate that environment like a dojo that is about this idea of learning.
37:57
Nobody’s winning. And we go back and forth in the dojo, right? You do the rep, you do it on me. I tap, I do the rep on you. I tap. And if we both do it correctly, nobody gets hurt. Nobody’s he goes bruised. And the practitioners, like my goal is when I have a call or, any kind of session, the practitioner that steps on the mat should not be as good as the practitioner that steps off of the mat. should improve after every session in some way, in some shape or form.
38:25
And whether it be better sensitivity or better technical or better physical or better spiritual component, that’s the goal. And if we set that intention and it doesn’t have to be like leaps and bounds every time, but even that 1 % increase, even that small percentage of increase is fulfilling. It’s satisfying. And many times I have found these higher achievers or like you and I is high achievers. That fulfillment that we get from that consistency over time is just as fulfilling, if not more so.
38:54
than the actual long-term objective that we get to this place. And it’s like, Hey, I’ll get this big celebration because how many high performers do we know? Right. Because the high performers that we know, lots of times they hit that. They can’t celebrate it or they’re not used to allowing that. So they push it aside and say, what’s next? Because they’re just used to the drive. So you’ll appreciate this market. So we had, yeah, the concept of 20 actually doing 20 times more than you think you can do, which is great. I completely agree with it. We are capable of so much more.
39:23
But working with a lot of these guys who are like, I’m going to do the next pump motor and the next part and raise or the next GoPro camp or whatever the next physical mountain they’re going to find. I came up with a concept called negative 20. I think it’d be even harder for you to sit still in your own experience. know, be things long, tear them long distances. Why don’t we just take a month off and just sit there? No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s exactly it. I love that.
39:52
But especially, um, operators, right? They’re more comfortable in a gunfight than talking about their feelings. sure. So, yeah. want to throw out a word. your that if you place any role in your work, your work plays. Because, you know, I, it does play a huge role in my work with my couples and individuals, but I was just thinking of martial arts at really high levels, earlier levels, technique, you know, trying to get all right and muscle through things. But like at the higher, higher levels, it plays.
40:20
It was more of dance. It’s more of a dance. Yes. And to play with the energies and interactions and stuff like that. It’s everything because it’s literally the mindset. It shapes the way that you’re informed to how you approach the technique. I saw something recently and I don’t know how true it is, but they were saying that creating a new synapse, trying to create a new like habit, so to speak, takes four to 800 repetitions unless we’re doing it from a place of play. And it takes like 10 to 20 allegedly. Now I’m not sure how correct that is, but
40:50
If it’s even remotely correct, shows us, uh, Josh Wayskin, who wrote, um, the art of learning, searching for Bobby Fisher. He was the Brazilian judo practitioner. He’s a surfer and a foiler now, but he comes from this idea of whenever he would do things, it was this idea of play because to him, it removed the pressure. It removed unnecessary tension in the body and it made him more curious because it is play because at end of the day, if you and I are sparring.
41:19
If we both had the same mentality, if you get me, I just kind of smile and say, that was good. Good job. And now we go to the next thing and we learn. But if it’s this idea of I can’t let him beat me, what am I doing? Just the verbiage, just the internal dialogue of that, or I must win. I must overcome that really. And again, I’m not saying that there’s not a time to do that. I’m not saying there’s not a time that we had to push through our power through, but a lot of times it’s for a lot of people. That’s their only default.
41:48
Yeah. And that’s the only solution that they have. If everything is, well, they have as a hammer, then everything does become a nail. And then that’s that mentality of the Marine we were discussing earlier where it like, listen, I can just keep heading this wall and eventually it will fall down or I will. And it’s like, have you thought about going around the wall? There may be a door right next to it. Like there’s a lot of options and we’re making friend of our, our jarhead friends, but it’s the reality. It’s like, does it have to be this hard? Do I have to make it this difficult?
42:17
What would this look like if it were simple? What would this look like if I was not so engaged in being correct? And when we do that, or it removes that pressure and now we can breathe and step back and say, maybe there’s another option. you know, my couple is one of the, I love the mindset of playfulness because, you know, everyone comes in and like pre-program with how they do relationships. This is the right way doing it. This is the right way doing it. How does that work for you? I said, well, But if you, and it’s not just a cognitive thing.
42:45
Like you have a playful mindset. Yes, it’s a mindset, but it’s actually physiological. It’s in built in the nervous system. Cause you can think you’re pretty less than rigid, but you’re literally rigid. You’re saying, you know, it’s tight ass, whatever it is. So you’re not really flexible. I don’t mean physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically flexible, but a playful attitude like it really shows on the body, how the muscles work and the fashion and movement and all the stuff.
43:11
And when you’re with a partner and you’re able to be more playful and experiment and try new things, doesn’t mean what you try is the next thing. Maybe it doesn’t work. Okay. Let’s try it. Doesn’t work. Awesome. You’ve tried something new. You’ve broken your old way of doing things. And when I work with couples, like I won’t do that, I don’t have the answer for any couple. How they should do everything in the box. My only answer to them is like experiment, try new things, see what’s going to work for you guys.
43:40
This way you do things might be different than what you do five minutes ago or five years ago, or your parents did or your best friends did. But if you can really free the whole nervous system and the physical body and the mind and emotions, kind of it play you and move like the dance you talked about earlier. Figure it out. You can figure it out together. And when I say figure it out, it’s not just like, think through this stuff. It’s literally a whole system dance with another human being. It is. And if you notice kids when they play, you’ll also notice something else.
44:09
They’re laugh. There’s joy. Nice, nice, nice. And so if you look at these environments where somebody laughs, we can only laugh when there’s, what, safety. That’s a point. Right? So if we’re playing and we’re laughing, we feel safe. And now what happens? Let the guard down, ego goes away, allows us to be much more receptive. Again, those things create curiosity. Let’s go experience this together, right? Let’s go have this adventure together. Let’s go do a comedy club together. And now we’re both laughing.
44:38
in this area and we’re learning like, so there’s all these boxes we can check if we are cognizant enough as you’re saying to kind of look at these areas that are necessary and then say, okay, how can we 80 20 this for my wife for she and I the morning walk is the non-negotiable. nice. Nice. Okay. We get up, we take our puppy for a walk, but for us as entrepreneurs, what are we doing? We’re moving. We’re outside. We talk about our day. Hey, what’s your day like? Hey, I’m stacked from this to this, but I’ve got time from here to here. Perfect. So do I. Let’s.
45:08
Let’s go get dinner. Perfect. We can do that. Hey, I’m, all the way through. I’m to be doing this and this. No problem. I’ll see you around whatever, but that gives us clarity. That gives us intention. That gives us specificity. We’re getting cardio. We’re getting outside. We’re connecting. And now by that half hour when we’re done, we’ve done so many things. We’re getting sunlight. We’re doing all the, know, certain sort of your rhythm, the cubicle. Yeah, exactly. It’s like, wow, you guys are killing it, but that gives us the ability to really do this thing’s all at one time. And again, lots of times.
45:37
for she and I, I told you that she thinks I’m humorous still, which is great. But, um, cause I had that, that immature, no, and the, the laughter that we have is everything. So in the mornings we’re laughing or we’re kidding with each other or we’re laughing at our dogs or whatever. So that sets the intention and that kind of sets us up. You know, on a win, you’re already getting those endorphins. You’re getting that positivity. I love that. And actually I will tell clients or recommend the clients that they do have a morning ritual. Yes. That’s fantastic. Especially their dogs.
46:07
Do you guys have any kind of evening rituals when you guys were together? It happened to be time together in the evening. Yeah, so I should send you that interview that I did with Dr. Mark Woolston before he passed away. So to make this marriage work, when we got back together, as I explained to you, this was an opportunity for us to come back together. And when you’re due to a relationship, everything is open. Everything’s on the table. There’s no past. There’s no prejudice. There’s no expectation. You’re just kind of there experiencing it.
46:37
But once you feel friction, once you feel that thorn, you have to address it right now. So for us, if there is anything that needs to be addressed, I call it cleaning the slate. And like you said, if it was passive aggressiveness, if it was shortness or whatever it was, that gives us a chance to kind of clean the slate. And if I feel tension or she feels tension, or if I need to apologize for being short or she needs to apologize or she’s upset about something or whatever it is, that gives us the chance to do that.
47:04
And then that way, before we try to sit down and decompress or just watch a stupid show or whatever, to kind of relax and unwind, that gives us the ability to do that. So we have the opening loop in the beginning, and then that’s the de-escalation, and that allows us to close that loop. And now by the time you brush your teeth, nothing’s left unsaid. There’s no tension. There’s no aggravation. It doesn’t affect your sleep. It doesn’t affect how you feel in the morning. And now you at…
47:32
tech the next day again, and now you can do it together. I’m going to send my couples to summer party. We’ll do it. We’ll do a big group training. That’s awesome. Not really happened for you for that. Well, I, and the only reason why is this the first relationship and that’s because of my immaturity. She’s the first woman that I trust implicitly. Like I trust her with everything. She has my back all the time. And so
48:00
Once we had that opportunity again and I felt friction, I was like, please, you know, tell me what it is. She, because of her dance partners, you don’t talk about that stuff or you kind of, you know, brush over it. And I finally just said, if you want us to work and you want us to keep this, what we have, we have to get back to that place. We have to be able to have everything. To have LaRoss just clear slate, let’s go. So you’re unique as a male.
48:28
In that, at least in my experience, I’ve not surveyed every single male in the world, but working with couples, it’s a lot of men aren’t thoughtful like that. Or in order they have the skillset in order to have those conversations. Now you mentioned like you do so good in your previous relationship, but you thought, want to do better this time. Did you do anything particularly to mature yourself and develop your emotional intelligence? It’s actually trying to be a coach and then be coachable in the environment.
48:57
Again, you know, my history being paralyzed, being injured. That was my reset. That was my enlightenment. That was my midlife crisis. My dark night, the soul, my all is lost rock bottom moment. And then being given a second chance truly made me realize I’m not going to compromise. I’m not going to follow any ideology. I’m going to figure out what is true for me and walk boldly in that direction fearlessly. And if I’m wrong, I can at least fail on my own terms. And when we had that second chance.
49:26
It gives us urgency. When we had that second chance, we see what’s truly valuable, what’s not. We let go of the shit that doesn’t matter. We let go of the distractions and we focus on what is important and what is real. For me, that relationship still is very important and very real. And the only way to have even a breath of life and even an opportunity to make that something true, it had to be that kind of focus. So I allowed myself to step back and actually see what was happening, which sometimes we can, but then can I actually take my own coaching?
49:56
Can I actually apply that? And that’s what I did. And it was, it was not easy. I was afraid to have the conversation. I swear to God it was. No, I believe that I’ve been there myself. They’re not easy to have. There’s some things you don’t necessarily want to No, but yet it was so necessary because had I not done that, there would have been however much resentment built up around that. And once we’re honest about what we know is true,
50:24
It’s amazing how false and how hollow a lie sounds, even if we tell it to ourselves, or if we’re trying to echo it to someone else. So by having that presence and being able to be radically honest with ourselves and see radical realism of the situation, you empower, you give permission to the other person. Just like in the dojo, if I show you, want you to win, I want you to feel like you’re executing the technique properly. I want you to get to that place. If you don’t win, I don’t win. That’s the way I look at it. So like you said,
50:53
It’s either one person winning and we both lose or we both win. And that’s how we have to move forward. Yeah. I love talking to you and we, I mean, know we’re recording right now, we need do this more often off the air. Absolutely. And, and what is it? It’s, it’s often non-verbal like we talked about, right? I, I’ve said this before, but I realized at 40, like I was patting myself on the back for being smart. Cause I could, I was reading all these books and I felt very well read and I could regurgitate quotes from all these smart people.
51:23
But I wasn’t doing any of it. wasn’t executing on it. So knowledge that is acquired but unutilized is the equivalent of ignorance. So how good is it for me to read all these books and interview all these people and to do all this work and to teach all these things all over the world and not be able to apply it in my own life? Speaking of that, you as simple as eating your own dog food, getting your own dog food. When I hit the road and I travel around the country in South America for about a year and a half, I was fortunate to
51:53
Almost every person I stayed with, a therapist, a coach or a killer. So I got away with nothing. And my friends are like really hard core like, I’m going to call you on your shit, which I love. And it’s like, you know, you’re kind of the average of the five people you’re trying yourself with. And I’m wondering in your work, you, is that something you teach people? Like you need to be around people who are going to pull the best step. Yeah. And I also, I have a variation on that where.
52:18
We’re not the average of the five people, but we’re the average, five emotions that are evoked by the people closest to us most readily. Oh, okay. So if you’re around people that have a high standard, around people that expect more from you, around people that are demonstrating that with octononverbal, so shall you be. But if you’re around a lot of people that are complaining and they’re victims, they’re doing just enough to get by and it’s everybody else’s fault, so will you. So that’s the way I look at it. And the beautiful thing is,
52:45
So for those of you that are listening to say, I don’t have the luxury of having a Michael Ostrilink that I can just talk to on the phone or call up whenever I want to or Marcus Aurelius, you can actually still find great people by reading Marcus Aurelius’ original writings, by reading Seneca’s original writings, reading Steven Pressfield, reading Robert Greene, reading Lao Tzu, reading Sun Tzu, reading any of these things. And here’s what I would say, try not to read it from the interpretation of another author because
53:14
Whether they mean to or not, they’re going to have some residue of prejudice and their expectation of what the writing is. But if you can just read it for yourself and say, does this resonate with me? Does this strike a chord in me? Whatever you read that does that, get more of that. Because now, even if you don’t have five people around you that are influencing you in a positive way, you can surround yourself with five different books or five different autobiographies that will give you that direction. And now you can choose whatever philosophy and embody it however you see fit.
53:43
So I’ll stack on that. I have a couple of clients who I will encourage them to read certain books, but I’ll say, it’s not just reading the books. can do a book report. You tell me what learning from the book and how you’re going to apply it life. Exactly what you It’s not where you can read all you want, but you’re not actually utilizing it. It’s a waste of time and energy. So I tried to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations at 12. Wow. Yeah, because I was named after this guy, but…
54:11
I didn’t know what his book was. So I’m trying to read meditations. I was 12. I just started martial arts, but I had no context. So if you’ve read meditations, he starts off and he says, from my father, I learned this and from my mother, I learned this. And I’m like, who are these people? Didn’t read the forward, just started reading it. I’m like, am I supposed to know who these people are? So I hear him like verbally blather for two or three pages and I’m 12 and I’m like, this is stupid. I don’t even like this guy. don’t even like what he reads, what he writes. So I go back to the bookstore the following day.
54:41
And say, is there any other books on Marcus realized they were like, no, this is the only book that he wrote. didn’t really understand. So as I’m leaving the philosophy section with my tail tucked between my legs aggravated, I see this book that has Chinese symbols on the front, which looks like my martial arts symbols from when I was in martial arts. And I pick it up and it’s the Dow de Jing. Okay. And the first thing that I opened up to is it says, continue to sharpen your blade and it will go dull. Now, even at 12 that hit me. And I was like, okay.
55:11
And I continued listening and it was saying, you know, if you continue to care about the opinions of other people, you’d be there prisoners the rest of your life. And I was like, I don’t know anything about this thing. And it was like 88 pages, right? Very simple. But I went and bought that book. And so I went home and it made me feel like I was accomplishing something because I could read one page and it was like, I finished this chapter. So I would read and eventually what my, my protocol was, and this is a 12. I don’t really know what made me do it.
55:41
But in the morning I would get up and I would read one page and that would set my intention in the morning. And I would try to, I would try to find that lesson throughout my day. Wow. Okay. And then, before I went to bed, I reflected on where did I find that? I let it go the next morning. I would go to the next page, look for that. Great practice. Right. So within three months, I’d gone through this entire thing over a year. I’d gone through that entire book, practicing it every day.
56:11
And all of a sudden it was like, wow, things just started making more sense. And I started seeing connections and this is the Dao Jing, which is very much, you know, Zen based Daoist based, very simplistic, you cut through a lot of the BS. And frankly, there was still a lot of it that I didn’t understand and that’s okay. But just being exposed to it at that age, give me an opportunity. Then when I re approached meditations, that was my gateway to better understand Marcus Aurelius who of these stoics, in my opinion,
56:40
Marcus release was more Taoistic Zen based, even though he wasn’t, you know, influenced by that directly because of geography, made a lot of sense to me. So now all of a sudden it gave me that full circle. Yeah. I love that. That’s cool. Yeah. His thing is the sense. So like, what a great thing you did 40 years ago. Well, you know, 30 some years ago. Yeah. And it
57:08
It just made sense to me. then, that’s again, the idea, cause I, cause who we hear these executives, I’m reading one book a week. It’s like, no, you’re not, you’re skimming a book a week. And it’s like, tell me how many books you’ve read this year. Well, it’s this many weeks. So blah, blah, blah. I’m like, okay, tell me the last five books you read. Tell me three things you got out of it. All of them. And they can’t. And it’s like, so why are you in such a hurry to learn something to not get it? When I was with them.
57:37
grew in a center, Bruce leash protege. He was here in Tulsa. Oh, oh cool. Okay. And, uh, and I’m an instructor under him. think he knew that. Right. Right. This, scrimmage, also call it in the screen and everything. Yeah. So I have to have 20 hours of continuing education to keep my certification and get promoted. But he made a comment to the instructors while we were there. He was like, why are you guys in such a hurry to make a mistake? And they kept us honest because he’s doing like an eight piece combination and it got turned to a fast, but they could not do it smoothly. Slowly.
58:06
He’s like, why are you in such a hurry to make a mistake? He’s like, why don’t you just do it slowly? Cause if you can’t do it slowly, how do you expect to do it quickly? Cause they were trying to just sort of mumble their way through the technique. And so he’s like, why are you so to me, when I hear people saying that they’re reading all this stuff, it’s like, you’re not processing it. Yeah. Why are you in such a hurry to forget this stuff? Why don’t you find three books, four books, five books that really means something to you. Read them deeply. Take your time. Read a few pages a day.
58:35
See how you can apply it in real life. See what that looks like at the end of the week. See if that informs how you see these things. To me, that makes more sense. So it’s about depth and breadth. It’s not about being a foot wide and an inch deep. It’s an inch wide and a foot deep. You inspire me to go back and read more. It’s literally in the other room. I was going to say, and there’s, it’s just like anything else, right? I mean, there are some great books that are out there and there’s some great authors, but frankly,
59:03
There’s a lot of advice out there that’s not very good. And even mediocre advice is bad advice unless you’re actually trying to execute against great advice, in my opinion. So again, that, that sphere of like edification, if we’re constantly just having stuff yammering in our ears, listening to podcasts or whatever it is. And I know this is a podcast, am I, but my goal is for our podcast to create something that is worthy, but it’s useful to somebody.
59:30
There’s a lot of people that are out there that are on social or whatever that are just trying to put out content and what are they trying to do? They’re trying to create a way to sell you something, which there’s nothing wrong with trying to do that. But if you do it from that vantage point and you’re just trying to lead somebody to buy something, in my opinion, you’re already sort of skewed from the intention. And so the goal is get them something valuable that’s true. And all of a sudden they’ll start listening to what you have to say.
59:58
And now as they continue, just like this conversation, we’re going to have a conversation, the stuff that you’ve already given about couples, the stuff you’ve already talked about with relationships. People are going to be compelled to know more about that. People are going to naturally figure how to get a hold of you, how to find out, how to get you to come speak, give seminars, coach, et cetera. So we don’t have to beat them with the head with it. Why not just have an honest conversation about something that’s meaningful? And then the right people will follow you anyway, because if it’s somebody that we have to them with the head with it, chances are that’s not going to be your client long-term anyway. Right on.
01:00:26
Right. It’s actually really funny because I get pushed back for me not to say, but when I, when I do interviews with individuals from my individual program, it’s six months. And I actually try to talk to a lot of working with me because I’ll say, you know, it’s really heavy. There’s a lot of work to do. It’s not like you’d talk to me over a couple of weeks or 45 minutes or an hour and just blow off steam. Like I give you a homework between sessions. There’s spot drills. There’s crucibles. You’re going to do a deep dive into yourself, into your relationship, that’s relationship based, all that stuff.
01:00:56
I want you to think about that. I don’t want you to be excited by this competition we’re having. I want to work with you. I’m like wait 24, 48 hours, sit with it and realize it’s just really what you want to do. And you’re just kind of excited by the conversation because you’re going be doing work because this is is practice. I mean, I’m an American. Yeah. love ordering from Amazon and it shows up yesterday. That’s awesome. Cool. But like there’s no biohack for this. There are neurohack. Like, you know, there are some tools you can use to assist.
01:01:26
Disultated, like this is work. CLA practice in the dojo. Yeah, you have to go in there. You have to end. And if you’re in the dojo, uh, just like you’re talking about with couples, it’s a 60, 20, 20, 60 % of the time, it feels kind of like you’re just doing the same thing. 20 % of the time, you’re going to have just horrible days and nothing’s going to feel like it makes any sense. But the other 20 % of the time you will find that sweet spot.
01:01:53
And all of a sudden that’s the breakthrough. And that’s what encouraged you to go through the other 80 % to continue to do the work, to cultivate, to excel, to elevate. That’s cool. I’m enjoying this conversation. You know the martial arts, so it’s kind of fun to this conversation. Yeah, it’s everything. And there are times for hard sparring, so to speak, but that’s for a person that’s competing for something. The beautiful thing about a relationship is there is no competition. There is no event that’s coming up that we have to work through.
01:02:22
You don’t have to work through an injury. can actually sit here and say, how do we heal this? How do we prevent this from happening? How do we see the air marks? What were the signs that we were approaching this so that we don’t have to get to this point again? And even if we do, it’s fine. There’s no, again, we’re playing, but, but Airbnb likes to play a little bit better next time. I hope so. I love it. Their marriages and religion just improved by osmosis. I recognize it. They are in the dojo.
01:02:52
Not what it to be. So it was one, like just that framework and work on your physiology and your psychology. You can shift how you relate to your wife or your husband. I love that. Can you give us, know that I want to be respectful of your time, but could you give us a couple of other examples of maybe advice that you would give couples to try to give them a fighting chance to begin doing this work, whether it’s with you or on their own? Another framework I like to use is think about the
01:03:22
privilege it is you with this other human being. Like if you take that, privilege, because when you first most likely start dating a person, you’re like, Oh my God, I’ll for this person. And you get married, you go to the boy side. Like it’s a privilege for this person. You’ve committed to this person, maybe for the rest of your life, but at least for a certain long period of time. And they’ve agreed to be with you. That’s a blessing. Like if you can like look at this as like literally from a spiritual perspective.
01:03:51
privilege blessing that can also change how you kind of see this other person or is one thing. And then you brought up safety, emotional safety, marriage partnerships to really fully express what they’re thinking and feeling. And I understand why, because the husband or the partner does not give them the space because of their defensiveness to actually express fully what they’re thinking and feeling. So I think it’s.
01:04:21
I’m going to on the husband and wife has responsibility. So he talked to guys like, Oh my God, want my wife to feel safe physically against threats in the environment, bears and predators and all kinds of cool. That’s right. Awesome. But that’s not it. That’s not. She needs also emotional safety, mental safety. So like as cool as you think you might be doing lifting weights and low, do the martial arts and you’re making your little castle safe. Do all that. But you really want to show up for your wife or your partner.
01:04:51
and do the inner work necessary. So she feels safe emotionally. What that looks like when I do this resilience optimized management with JC, men seem to like to fix their partners. Like their, their, their wife gets messy. She’s emotional. And I’ve been told by my women friends, I can say it’s messy. Women get messy. They’re emotional. Cool. Nothing. No, it’s not pejorative is somehow some women in touch. They’re feminine. Get that way. Cool. Now,
01:05:20
That makes a lot of men uncomfortable. And he’s like, Oh, I’m uncomfortable. You’re doing what you’re all the feelings you’re got going on. So I’m going to fix you. I’m going to fix this problem and resolve it. And we can move on. And I’m like, Oh, maybe she doesn’t need you to fix shit. Maybe she does. Maybe he lets you ask her, Hey, do you want, does this a problem that we want to solve together? Okay. But your assumption shouldn’t be like, I’m going to fix her because I’m uncomfortable. It should be like, what does she actually need for me at this moment?
01:05:49
Does she just want to share her feelings? Does she just want to complain, bitch, moan, share whatever words she wants to use to get this stuff out? If that’s what she wants, are you capable of sitting there and holding the space for her without getting activated, angry, frustrated, annoyed, whatever it is. And even if those things emerge in your system, like we talked earlier, hey, I’m going to breathe through it. Learn to relax yourself. So you’re not like, oh, I can kind of get out of this place, but she’s going to feel that.
01:06:17
Like if you’re getting aggressive, even not even being physically aggressive, but like energetically aggressive or withdrawing energetically, she’s going to pick that up. She’s not going to feel safe. She’s not going to to share anything with you. She’s going to shut down. it’s really interesting if you want to kind of use the and feminine things. You want her to be more feminine, you need to be more and masculine. That doesn’t mean being a tough, tough guy. It’s like holding the space, being strong.
01:06:46
being committed to her, what she needs from you, being loving, caring, compassionate, but strong. You’re plugging your around, but you know, really strong, space for her so she can do what she does. If you’re more masculine than what you were talking about earlier, gives her permission to be more in that feminine space. If you’re not, she can have to jump into the masculine and solve problems and do the things and be tight and strong and powerful. That’s not, you don’t want two guys in your relationship. Unless you’re gay, like that’s a whole different conversation, but like
01:07:15
You know, two masculine in the relationship, that’s not going to go so well. You want both people who can play, know, one’s more masculine, most likely, man’s more masculine, has some feminine qualities, nothing wrong with that. It’s important to be able to integrate the anima and the animus, if you think of the union terms. So woman tends to be more feminine naturally, biologically speaking, that’s necessary. Doesn’t mean she can’t have masculine traits and get things done and kick some ass. All that’s also true.
01:07:44
But if you can be more mature in the masculine, you give her permission to more in the feminine space. She’s happier, she’s healthier. You’re happier, you’re healthier. It’s a nice relationship. Yeah. Like you said, if she has to step into that dominant, into that masculine space, it doesn’t give her the bandwidth or the capacity to work on the feminine component, which is exactly what she needs. And to your point also, to anybody that’s listening to me right now, male or female, that’s like, man, I don’t have the time or the bandwidth to do this. It’s like, do you have the time or the bandwidth for a divorce?
01:08:13
And the emotional costs, the cost of your family, the financial costs. Yeah. All of it. And most of the time, again, it comes back to that idea of where’s the evidence that this is actually hurting your ego. It’s mostly our own perception. Can I step back? Can I step back and allow this to just sort of be again, like in the dojo where I allow the person to demonstrate the technique. They’re not putting, they’re not keeping their hand up. I don’t have to fix them. Just ask them.
01:08:41
is everything where it’s supposed to be. Are we in this place? Allow them to express it. Eventually it starts to correct itself. Eventually when they know what’s correct, but we have to give them the what? The repetitions, the space, a good enough partner to allow them to get that repetition in space. So again, the martial arts analogy, the partnership is key. And I think it’s a great analogy for the relationship, Dejo.
01:09:07
Where can we learn more about you about these things about everything you’re up to with the relationship dojo and all the other programs you have going on? So Michael D. Ostralen.com and has my individual, my couples, my co-led, co-facilitated men’s group information on there. Also team Fuchin information on there. We can talk about another time. I’m on Instagram, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, Michael D. Ostralen for Facebook and LinkedIn. We do Instagram and Twitter.
01:09:36
and I’m on some of these things way too much. But I do put out content on a daily basis. Yeah, and it’s quality content. He’s not just trying to put out stuff that’s junk or just trying to stay on the algorithm. Well, that’s the truth because frankly, I would rather hear quality content a few times a week than have somebody that’s constantly trying to, you
01:10:05
by the algorithm or trying to get in my face with something that’s not worthy of it. If it’s something of quality, it will surface where it needs to, in my opinion. So. Thanks, buddy. Absolutely. Great to see you as well. Thank you for being on and I will talk to you next time. Sounds good. Appreciate you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.
