Episode 37

Strengthen Your Relationship Connection By Applying Gym Principles with Carl Berryman

Full show notes, links, and video available at https://ownyourcalendarpodcast.com/episode/applying-gym-principles-to-your-relationship-with-carl-berryman

Episode Summary

In this episode of Unshakable Habits, Carl Berryman shares his journey of personal growth and how applying principles from fitness training has revolutionized his relationship. Carl highlights the importance of self-awareness, managing reactions, and gradually progressing in both physical fitness and emotional well-being. He emphasizes the need for men to start at their own level in relationships, communicate effectively, and become their partner's rock. Through insightful personal stories and practical tips, Carl inspires you to embrace discomfort, have difficult conversations, and create lasting change in your relationships. Discover how tracking progress and reflecting on mistakes can lead to extraordinary growth. Get ready to transform your relationships and become the best version of yourself.

Quotes We Loved

  • “I actually started tracking because the first step to change is always gonna be awareness...So tracking the number of times that I didn't jump in to solve the problem was a big game changer for our relationship, for sure." — Carl Berryman
  • "I remember thinking "I have no idea how I'm gonna live without her." In other words, I put all of my happiness, all of my sense of being on my relationship with Jenny Lee. How much pressure does that put on her? to perform, to make me feel whole. Like, how unfair is that?" — Carl Berryman 
  • "From my experience, the number one pillar is self-awareness." — Carl Berryman
  • If an intruder comes in the house, I've gotta be the first one there. I gotta protect my wife. I gotta protect my kids. I have to be that guy who can be there with anger, with rage, whatever. But when my son comes home from school or my wife comes home from work and they're just been beaten down, they're feeling super hurt, I need to be the one who shows compassion and love and holds that space for them." — Carl Berryman
  • "The things we ignore don't get forgotten, they get built upon." — Carl Berryman 

Guest Bio

Coach Carl is a Personal Trainer turned men's health advocate after realizing that his struggles with intimacy, depression, and a lack of concrete purpose were not unique. After hitting rock bottom in 2020, Carl started taking the principles and strategies that work inside the gym and applying them outside the gym.

Carl's Instagram

Links & Resources

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Transcript
Intro/Outro:

Are you ready to break free from your old habits and create a better

Intro/Outro:

life for yourself and those around you?

Intro/Outro:

If so, welcome to Unshakable Habits, the podcast dedicated to helping

Intro/Outro:

men be better husbands, fathers, and leaders by prioritizing their

Intro/Outro:

physical and mental wellbeing.

Intro/Outro:

Each week we'll look at health from a 360 degree perspective with

Intro/Outro:

inspiring stories and practical strategies for building Unshakable

Intro/Outro:

habits that'll transform your life.

Intro/Outro:

Join Stephen Box, a board certified health and wellness coach, and

Intro/Outro:

let's change the world together.

Intro/Outro:

One habit at a time.

Stephen Box:

welcome to another episode of the Unshakable Habits podcast.

Stephen Box:

I am your host Stephen Box, and today our episode is going to be all about

Stephen Box:

relationships and more specifically communication in relationships.

Stephen Box:

I know for a lot of guys out there, this is a a point of frustration, we

Stephen Box:

go, man, my girlfriend, my wife, I just don't know how to talk to them.

Stephen Box:

I feel like every time I say something, I'm saying the wrong thing.

Stephen Box:

I'm getting myself into trouble.

Stephen Box:

I just, I don't know how to communicate with my significant other.

Stephen Box:

What do I do?

Stephen Box:

And today my guest is a former personal trainer who has come up with a really

Stephen Box:

unique idea here of taking the things that he's learned in the gym and applying them

Stephen Box:

back to life, and even more specifically, how do you use these things to help you

Stephen Box:

in communication for your relationships.

Stephen Box:

And he now coaches other men on that.

Stephen Box:

So, excited to introduce you today to Mr.

Stephen Box:

Carl Berryman.

Stephen Box:

So thank you for, coming today, Carl.

Carl Berryman:

Thanks for having me, man.

Carl Berryman:

That was, that was a beautiful way of putting it and I know a lot of

Carl Berryman:

men are probably either shaking their heads up and down or laughing at the

Carl Berryman:

things that you said because you're describing so many of our experience

Carl Berryman:

in that little beginning right there.

Carl Berryman:

So that was awesome.

Carl Berryman:

Thanks for having me, man.

Stephen Box:

Yeah, absolutely man.

Stephen Box:

so tell me a little bit about yourself,

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

So really long story short, I've been having conversations with,

Carl Berryman:

some of my brothers as of late.

Carl Berryman:

Like I call the guy friends and the men friends in my life, brothers.

Carl Berryman:

So you'll probably hear me refer to brothers all the time.

Carl Berryman:

I really only have two.

Carl Berryman:

So family's not massive or anything.

Carl Berryman:

one of the things we talk about, as of late is do you need to hit

Carl Berryman:

rock bottom in order to change?

Carl Berryman:

And so for me, I'm not gonna say whether that's yes or no for anybody else.

Carl Berryman:

For me, that's exactly what happened back in 2020.

Carl Berryman:

And when I say rock bottom, what I mean by that is from a physical

Carl Berryman:

standpoint, when I looked in the mirror, I did not see what I liked.

Carl Berryman:

I didn't look anything like I wanted to, when it came to my relationship.

Carl Berryman:

I asked myself, Kay, does my relationship look the way that I wanted it to?

Carl Berryman:

And after having some pretty intense conversations with my partner at the time,

Carl Berryman:

Jenny Lee, who I'm now back together with, we actually separated for three months.

Carl Berryman:

Because while there was no animosity or anything like that, just there was no

Carl Berryman:

intimacy, there was no passion, there was no fun, excitement, communication as we're

Carl Berryman:

gonna talk about was just wasn't there.

Carl Berryman:

So we ended up calling it quits.

Carl Berryman:

and then mentally and emotionally, I went to bed and woke up with anxiety,

Carl Berryman:

depression, and panic attacks and just, even though I was a personal trainer and

Carl Berryman:

still am a personal trainer, even though that was supposed to be the purpose that

Carl Berryman:

I had found to live my life and give back to the world, I felt totally empty.

Carl Berryman:

some things needed to change and things needed to change quick.

Carl Berryman:

And luckily, I stumbled upon this idea of taking what works inside the

Carl Berryman:

gym and applying it outside the gym.

Carl Berryman:

And ever since then, things have just like in the gym, how you, one of the core

Carl Berryman:

principles is progressive overload, right?

Carl Berryman:

just getting a little better over time leads to massive results.

Carl Berryman:

That's what's been happening over the last three years,

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

I'd love this idea because this is something, as a, a longtime personal

Stephen Box:

trainer myself that I also picked up on, so many of the things that you

Stephen Box:

learn in the gym are, applicable to the outside and whether it's relationships,

Stephen Box:

whether it's business, whatever, you can apply a lot of these concepts.

Stephen Box:

but I have to be honest, I've never really given it much thought

Stephen Box:

in terms of communication skills.

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

yeah, and trust me, you're not alone there because it took me a long time to

Carl Berryman:

figure out how to apply to this because, when I thought about how I'm gonna apply

Carl Berryman:

some of the principles inside the gym to relationships, One of the things that

Carl Berryman:

was super easy to figure out was, okay, I've got a training split for my body.

Carl Berryman:

Like I know, okay, today's Tuesday, so today's gonna be lower body day for me.

Carl Berryman:

When I go into the gym, I know what exercise I'm doing, I

Carl Berryman:

know what weights I'm doing.

Carl Berryman:

Not only that, but I've got my journal where I'm tracking.

Carl Berryman:

So I'm not going in trying to remember what I did last time.

Carl Berryman:

I know I did this amount of weight for six reps.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, so I want to try to do this amount of weight for six reps.

Carl Berryman:

So I'm tracking all that thing.

Carl Berryman:

So one of the things I actually started doing was tracking my communication

Carl Berryman:

with Jenny Lee, but the question is how do you track communication?

Carl Berryman:

I think first and foremost, we need to define what communication looks

Carl Berryman:

like because anybody who's been in a relationship before knows that men

Carl Berryman:

and women communicate differently.

Carl Berryman:

They just do.

Carl Berryman:

so one of my biggest mistakes.

Carl Berryman:

That I used to make all the time, and I've been married and

Carl Berryman:

divorced before Jenny Lee as well.

Carl Berryman:

And looking back on that, women are very good at expressing

Carl Berryman:

their emotions verbally.

Carl Berryman:

And when they do that, they don't want solutions.

Carl Berryman:

They don't want solutions.

Carl Berryman:

Whereas we men, if we have a problem, we want it to be fixed.

Carl Berryman:

Don't get me to talk about my feelings, just tell me what to do.

Carl Berryman:

So guess what I was doing?

Carl Berryman:

Whenever my ex-wife would come to me with an issue, I want to jump

Carl Berryman:

in there and provide a solution.

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

So I actually started tracking that stuff.

Carl Berryman:

I actually started tracking because the first step to change

Carl Berryman:

is always gonna be awareness.

Carl Berryman:

So if Jenny Lee would come home and she would be upset about something at work

Carl Berryman:

or something else, completely unrelated to work, whatever it was, she was upset.

Carl Berryman:

I would have to catch myself and be Carl.

Carl Berryman:

K.

Carl Berryman:

Don't solve the problem.

Carl Berryman:

And I would track it literally in an app on my phone and say, how many times this

Carl Berryman:

week did you not try to solve the problem?

Carl Berryman:

And it's okay, oh, I only did it two and I wanna do it five because

Carl Berryman:

these three times I couldn't help.

Carl Berryman:

I had to jump in there.

Carl Berryman:

She was crying and I had to get her to stop crying.

Carl Berryman:

no.

Carl Berryman:

I had to stop doing that.

Carl Berryman:

So tracking the number of times that I didn't jump in to solve

Carl Berryman:

the problem was, was a big game changer for our relationship.

Carl Berryman:

For sure.

Stephen Box:

Okay.

Stephen Box:

and if we can just throw a, pro tip in for people here.

Stephen Box:

guys, do not pull out your phone and record your tracking in the middle of.

Carl Berryman:

No, you don't.

Carl Berryman:

No, you don't wanna do that.

Carl Berryman:

You're giving her a hug and she's crying on your shoulder and she

Carl Berryman:

feels you looking at your phone.

Carl Berryman:

What are you doing?

Carl Berryman:

Oh, no.

Carl Berryman:

I'm just tracking the fact that I'm not trying to solve your problem here, honey.

Carl Berryman:

I'm good.

Carl Berryman:

I'm good.

Carl Berryman:

Keep crying.

Carl Berryman:

Keep crying.

Stephen Box:

yeah.

Stephen Box:

That,

Carl Berryman:

Good pro tip.

Carl Berryman:

For sure.

Stephen Box:

yeah.

Stephen Box:

Just a pro tip there.

Stephen Box:

don't do that.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah,

Stephen Box:

so talk to me, let's rewind just a little bit here.

Stephen Box:

'cause we'll do, we'll deep dive into some of the specifics how

Stephen Box:

to stuff here in a little bit.

Stephen Box:

But I want to hear your story about where were you in your relationship

Stephen Box:

and what kind of helped you to realize that this was a problem that needed

Stephen Box:

to be fixed in the first place.

Carl Berryman:

it, you know what, it was really weird because it was

Carl Berryman:

a moment and I honestly don't know how the question came to my mind, but

Carl Berryman:

it was December 4th, 2020, and I was gonna get a jump on the New Year's

Carl Berryman:

resolution from a physical standpoint.

Carl Berryman:

So I went to the mirror in the bathroom with my shirt off and took the picture.

Carl Berryman:

That was gonna be the day zero, and I didn't realize that December

Carl Berryman:

4th, 2019, I had done the same thing, so exactly a year ago.

Carl Berryman:

And those pictures looked exactly.

Carl Berryman:

there was no change, even though I went an entire year thinking

Carl Berryman:

I was doing everything right.

Carl Berryman:

And I don't know why.

Carl Berryman:

This next question came to mind.

Carl Berryman:

I just asked myself, Carl, if you've been fooling yourself

Carl Berryman:

with regards to your body, where else are you blind to the truth?

Carl Berryman:

Because if you looked at Jenny Lee on an I on the surface, yeah.

Carl Berryman:

when we're out with couples and everything like that, we seem happy.

Carl Berryman:

We come home.

Carl Berryman:

if you were to put a camera in the house, like it's, we're not fighting

Carl Berryman:

or anything, but my body, even though I wasn't super fat or overweight or

Carl Berryman:

anything, I was not even remotely in the shape that I wanted to be.

Carl Berryman:

And even though Jenny Lee and I weren't fighting, there was no

Carl Berryman:

animosity, nothing like that.

Carl Berryman:

We didn't have the relationship that we wanted to have.

Carl Berryman:

It was far from it.

Carl Berryman:

And that was a hard wake up call that Carl, you're not being the

Carl Berryman:

man that you need to be for her.

Carl Berryman:

You're not being the man that you need to be for yourself.

Carl Berryman:

So that was tough and.

Carl Berryman:

One of the, I remember this so much, 'cause as soon as we

Carl Berryman:

separated, we were living together.

Carl Berryman:

As soon as we separated, Jenny Lee gets her own place.

Carl Berryman:

And I remember going over there for the last time before we

Carl Berryman:

had our three month separation.

Carl Berryman:

And when I left her place, I was absolutely bawling because there was

Carl Berryman:

one thing I kept saying to myself that now I realize how dangerous

Carl Berryman:

this is and how selfish it is.

Carl Berryman:

I kept saying to myself, I have no idea how I'm gonna live without her.

Carl Berryman:

In other words, I put all of my happiness, all of my sense of being

Carl Berryman:

on my relationship with Jenny Lee.

Carl Berryman:

How much pressure does that put on her to perform to, to make me feel whole?

Carl Berryman:

Like, how unfair is that?

Carl Berryman:

But I wasn't aware of that until the separation.

Carl Berryman:

So that was a massive turning point for me.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

So one thing that you just touched on there, and I wanna make sure

Stephen Box:

that people don't miss this, is when you're looking in that mirror and

Stephen Box:

you ask yourself that question, Of what else am I fooling myself on?

Stephen Box:

And especially when it comes to your relationship and realizing that maybe

Stephen Box:

you're not doing everything you can there.

Stephen Box:

I think this is one for a lot of guys where it's a struggle, right?

Stephen Box:

Because I hear this all the time with my clients, where when we start

Stephen Box:

talking about the relationships, it's, my wife doesn't support me in

Stephen Box:

this, my wife doesn't wanna have sex.

Stephen Box:

it's always, my wife doesn't, right?

Stephen Box:

Never.

Stephen Box:

I'm not doing this.

Stephen Box:

So when you first had this thought, did you just immediately recognize

Stephen Box:

that you needed to make some changes, or was there a point where maybe you

Stephen Box:

were doing some victim blaming too,

Carl Berryman:

Absolutely.

Carl Berryman:

Like the victim game was huge in my mind, especially before the separation.

Carl Berryman:

It was huge.

Carl Berryman:

In my mind it's Jenny Lee isn't into this.

Carl Berryman:

Jenny Lee doesn't do this.

Carl Berryman:

Jenny Lee isn't this, and it reminds me of a conversation I had on my podcast

Carl Berryman:

last week where I asked the guest about his relationship and something

Carl Berryman:

that transformed his relationship and like all relationships, this

Carl Berryman:

gigle with family members, friends, significant others, whatever.

Carl Berryman:

And he said it went from blaming them to blaming us, to blaming me.

Carl Berryman:

Blaming them to blaming us, to blaming me because let's face it, one of, one

Carl Berryman:

of the things I think that causes us the most stress in any area of life is

Carl Berryman:

trying to control the uncontrollables.

Carl Berryman:

And I can't control Jenny Lee's behavior.

Carl Berryman:

I can hope to influence it, but at the same time, I have found for me, and this

Carl Berryman:

is a lesson that took me super long to learn, if I am ever wanting Jenny Lee

Carl Berryman:

to change anything, whether it's with fitness, nutrition, or communication,

Carl Berryman:

whatever, this is gonna sound so cliche, but the cliches are cliches for a reason.

Carl Berryman:

I need to be the example.

Carl Berryman:

If I want Jenny Lee to stop doing something, I need to make sure

Carl Berryman:

that I am not doing that thing.

Carl Berryman:

If I want Jenny Lee to do more of something, I need to make sure

Carl Berryman:

I am doing more of that thing.

Carl Berryman:

If that doesn't work, then it's time to go back to the drawing table and see, okay,

Carl Berryman:

is this really the right person for me?

Carl Berryman:

Do I need to have a different type of conversation?

Carl Berryman:

But we, you can't, anytime it could be something as small as

Carl Berryman:

leaving laundry in the dryer.

Carl Berryman:

I used to get super choked when Jenny Lee would do that.

Carl Berryman:

I'm going to put my clothes in the wash.

Carl Berryman:

And it's oh, you always leave her stuff in the dryer.

Carl Berryman:

I just stop to say, Carl, have you ever done that before?

Carl Berryman:

And the answer is always yes.

Carl Berryman:

So it, it always starts with us.

Carl Berryman:

I have been in a situation where, Jenny Lee's just not into the things that I'm

Carl Berryman:

into, whether it's building the business or any type of personal development.

Carl Berryman:

She's hardcore to that stuff now, but, Because of me realizing the best

Carl Berryman:

way to change or influence somebody else's behaviors Through your own.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

you just gave us a lot there.

Stephen Box:

I'm just gonna say that, Carl, me and you could never have been

Stephen Box:

roommates 'cause I'm, but you just gave us, a lot to unpack there, right?

Stephen Box:

Because I think you hit on a couple things.

Stephen Box:

This is really important here.

Stephen Box:

So one is we cannot change other people.

Stephen Box:

So often I see this conversation, my wife told me that she wants me to

Stephen Box:

do more stuff around the house and she wants me to help, with the kids,

Stephen Box:

help the dishes, help cook, whatever.

Stephen Box:

And I did those things and I'm still not getting sex, so I'm

Stephen Box:

not doing those things anymore.

Stephen Box:

And it's like you are doing those things strictly to try

Stephen Box:

to change someone's behavior.

Stephen Box:

So I love the fact that you pointed out we can't change someone's behavior.

Stephen Box:

We can hope to influence it, but we can't change it.

Stephen Box:

You have to do the things that you're going to do because they're

Stephen Box:

true to who you are because it's the things that you want to do.

Stephen Box:

When you're doing things to help around the house, you're not doing it because

Stephen Box:

it's gonna turn into sex or because it's going to get you a pat on the back.

Stephen Box:

You're doing it because you love your significant other, and

Stephen Box:

you know that makes them happy.

Stephen Box:

That's why you're doing it right.

Stephen Box:

But if you're doing it because you want something out of it, it's

Stephen Box:

probably gonna backfire on you.

Carl Berryman:

Absolutely.

Carl Berryman:

And I love what you said there about it needing to be about you being true

Carl Berryman:

to who you are because, when Jenny Lee and I separated for those three months

Carl Berryman:

back, early 2021, I, my number one goal there that I took away from this idea

Carl Berryman:

that I cannot live without Jenny Lee and therefore my happiness is dependent

Carl Berryman:

on her, was to do everything I could to make it such that I never needed anybody.

Carl Berryman:

I could want somebody, but I wouldn't need anybody.

Carl Berryman:

So after three months when Jenny Lee and I spoke again, which happened by accident,

Carl Berryman:

interestingly enough, it was funny.

Carl Berryman:

But, when we discussed the possibility of getting back together, I.

Carl Berryman:

I didn't know if I wanted to.

Carl Berryman:

I didn't know if I wanted to, 'cause I was so happy on my own because I really

Carl Berryman:

went outta my way to do things for myself that represented me, loving myself.

Carl Berryman:

So it just so happened that she was doing the same thing.

Carl Berryman:

So an agreement we've always had is that the only time we'll really

Carl Berryman:

break up is if we feel we're not expanding as a couple and individuals.

Carl Berryman:

If we feel like one of us is holding the other back, or the other one's just not

Carl Berryman:

living up to their end of the bargain.

Carl Berryman:

Right?

Carl Berryman:

And that's just not happening and hasn't happened since.

Carl Berryman:

don't get me wrong.

Carl Berryman:

There are d The one thing that I don't really like talking about, just all the

Carl Berryman:

good stuff about our relationship is it's not like we don't have bad stuff.

Carl Berryman:

It's not there aren't days where I come home, it's oh man, is

Carl Berryman:

this really the way that it is?

Carl Berryman:

But I know that's more, that's about me.

Carl Berryman:

That's about me, not about her.

Carl Berryman:

So really focusing and staying true to yourself because what you said there

Carl Berryman:

with regards to not doing something for the sake of hoping to get an outcome

Carl Berryman:

or changing somebody, but rather as a, as you just being true to yourself.

Carl Berryman:

That is, that's really step number one when you think about it,

Carl Berryman:

is just, it's amazing how much more attraction there will be.

Carl Berryman:

And this has been my experience anyways, how much more attraction there will

Carl Berryman:

be on every level from your partner when you are stepping into the truth

Carl Berryman:

of who you are, unapologetically.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

Something else.

Stephen Box:

You didn't explicitly say this, but.

Stephen Box:

It tied into what you were saying.

Stephen Box:

One of the things that I talk about on my website is, this idea of

Stephen Box:

helping men to become better fathers, better husbands, and better leaders.

Stephen Box:

And a lot of times when people hear that we're the leader, they instantly

Stephen Box:

think if they own a business, that they're a leader in their business or

Stephen Box:

maybe they're a leader at their job.

Stephen Box:

But I think equally important, if not even more important that

Stephen Box:

people don't talk about is your role as a leader in your household.

Stephen Box:

And just really touched on this, because being a leader doesn't mean

Stephen Box:

that you have to make all the decisions.

Stephen Box:

It doesn't mean that you like sit on the throne and rule the house.

Stephen Box:

What it means is that you have an understanding of who you are and

Stephen Box:

you are living that truth and.

Stephen Box:

When you do that, my experience has been that your wife, girlfriend, whatever, will

Stephen Box:

automatically follow your lead, right?

Stephen Box:

Because she recognizes that you are stepping out in confidence

Stephen Box:

that you are being true to yourself and she can see that.

Carl Berryman:

That is an incredible point because two things, number

Carl Berryman:

one, really hard to lead others from a place of integrity when

Carl Berryman:

you're not leading yourself.

Carl Berryman:

like it'd be super, it'd be pretty, it just, I wouldn't feel comfortable training

Carl Berryman:

my clients in the gym if I couldn't demo the exercises that I want them to do.

Carl Berryman:

Because I was so horribly outta shape, or I wouldn't feel comfortable coaching

Carl Berryman:

'em on nutrition if I myself am not living the practices that I'm preaching.

Carl Berryman:

And when it comes to leading the household, there's it.

Carl Berryman:

I would find it very difficult to lead anybody else if you're

Carl Berryman:

first unable to lead yourself.

Carl Berryman:

And what you touched upon there, Stephen was so good with regards

Carl Berryman:

to awareness is always going to be the first step in change.

Carl Berryman:

Like becoming aware that change needs to be made.

Carl Berryman:

But the, from my experience, the number one pillar is self-awareness.

Carl Berryman:

So for example, I have conversation with one of my brothers, oh, I

Carl Berryman:

did this or my wife said this and she wants me to do this.

Carl Berryman:

So I started doing it and just like you said, even she's

Carl Berryman:

just still not responding.

Carl Berryman:

I don't get it.

Carl Berryman:

I don't know what she wants.

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

W is this something that she's done before in the past?

Carl Berryman:

Or is this just a complete out of the blue thing?

Carl Berryman:

It's no, she does this all the time.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, if she does this all the time, then maybe it's time to take a look

Carl Berryman:

at how you're responding to what she's doing, because she's just

Carl Berryman:

gonna, she's gonna keep doing that.

Carl Berryman:

Like you need to accept right now.

Carl Berryman:

She's not gonna change.

Carl Berryman:

She's not going to.

Carl Berryman:

So you need to be able to figure out some way to manage your reactions,

Carl Berryman:

go from reacting to responding.

Carl Berryman:

But one of the, one of the pieces that I think.

Carl Berryman:

It is super, super critical.

Carl Berryman:

That gets played under the radar a lot is with regards to fitness inside the gym.

Carl Berryman:

Every single one of my classes, when I have multiple classes especially,

Carl Berryman:

or multiple person classes, especially when I have PE new people, I

Carl Berryman:

always talk about level 1, 2, 3.

Carl Berryman:

So level one, come in, take it nice and easy, like just learn the

Carl Berryman:

movements, don't look around you and see the people that have been coming

Carl Berryman:

for 10 years that are just crushing it and compare yourself to them.

Carl Berryman:

'cause you're not ready to play at that level.

Carl Berryman:

So go for level one, something nice and easy so you don't hurt yourself.

Carl Berryman:

Level two, after you've gotten a little bit more comfortable,

Carl Berryman:

dial it up when you can.

Carl Berryman:

But then when it starts to get to the point where, ah, this is

Carl Berryman:

gonna be a bit too much dial back, there's nothing wrong with that.

Carl Berryman:

And then level three is okay, I've got this down.

Carl Berryman:

My form's good.

Carl Berryman:

I understand how this's supposed to work.

Carl Berryman:

Now I'm gonna give it.

Carl Berryman:

We never apply that to our relationships.

Carl Berryman:

So like a level three would be okay right after this podcast going and

Carl Berryman:

sitting if you're not in the habit, Having conversations with your partner

Carl Berryman:

on the regular, and you go, oh, I listened to this, I can't remember his

Carl Berryman:

name, something Berryman and Stephen's podcast, and they were talking about

Carl Berryman:

having these conversations that we really need to get deep in conversations.

Carl Berryman:

Let's go do it.

Carl Berryman:

That is gonna freak a lot of men out.

Carl Berryman:

That's if you can only deadlift two plates, putting on five plates

Carl Berryman:

on each side, that's insane.

Carl Berryman:

Why would you do that?

Carl Berryman:

So men need to figure out what their level one is and start there.

Carl Berryman:

Just start there.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

it will also freak your significant other note.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

And not in a good way because you're gonna give her exactly what she's been asking

Carl Berryman:

for you to open up, but she won't be ready for it if you just fire hose her.

Carl Berryman:

it's just, it doesn't work that way.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

so let's talk a little bit about that.

Stephen Box:

let's say that I'm a guy I've never really been able to open up.

Stephen Box:

I'm very frustrated in my relationship.

Stephen Box:

I don't feel like my significant other is meeting my needs, and I'm just really at

Stephen Box:

that point where I'm throwing my hands up in the air and I don't know what to do.

Stephen Box:

And maybe I'm even at the point where I want outta the relationship.

Stephen Box:

But like you said, you found yourself in that situation of, I'm

Stephen Box:

at that point where I don't know how to live without this person.

Stephen Box:

So I'm afraid to leave, but I'm not happy.

Stephen Box:

I'm super frustrated with all these things 'cause I have no idea where to start.

Stephen Box:

What does level one?

Carl Berryman:

So it's interesting that you bring this up because I

Carl Berryman:

just recorded a podcast episode yesterday and I talked about this.

Carl Berryman:

one of my really good brothers was talking about how men typically.

Carl Berryman:

Are meant.

Carl Berryman:

We've been talking about leading men are meant to lead, we're

Carl Berryman:

meant to be the forceful type.

Carl Berryman:

We're not the, we're not meant to show emotions or anything like that,

Carl Berryman:

but in a successful relationship, you need to be able to hold both sides of

Carl Berryman:

that coin or play both sides of that.

Carl Berryman:

So he said like an offense, defense kind of thing.

Carl Berryman:

So he said, you know what, if an intruder comes in the house, I've

Carl Berryman:

gotta be the first one there.

Carl Berryman:

I gotta be, I gotta protect my wife, I gotta protect my kids.

Carl Berryman:

I have to be that guy who can be there with anger, with rage, whatever.

Carl Berryman:

But when my son comes home from school, or my wife comes home from

Carl Berryman:

work and they're just, they're beaten down, they're feeling super hurt.

Carl Berryman:

I need to be the one who shows compassion and love and holds that space for them.

Carl Berryman:

So we talked about that and getting to your question in terms

Carl Berryman:

of what a level one looks like.

Carl Berryman:

If we wanna learn how to communicate better with our partners, if we wanna

Carl Berryman:

learn how to hold space for their emotions without jumping in with

Carl Berryman:

solutions, Level one would be to just listen to how other men are doing it.

Carl Berryman:

That's it.

Carl Berryman:

don't even do anything yet.

Carl Berryman:

Just listen to how other men are doing it.

Carl Berryman:

Listen to Stephen's podcast, listen to whatever, read a book,

Carl Berryman:

whatever level two would be.

Carl Berryman:

Now you need to start communicating with yourself.

Carl Berryman:

Like you need to figure out.

Carl Berryman:

And that's a really simple way to do that is just journaling.

Carl Berryman:

There's a reason why every single coach recommends journaling because it works.

Carl Berryman:

so journaling with yourself.

Carl Berryman:

So just writing down your feelings and seeing what it's like to

Carl Berryman:

actually get them out on paper.

Carl Berryman:

And then a level three would be essentially communicating

Carl Berryman:

with other men about this or.

Carl Berryman:

I'm never gonna be the one one to shy away from professional help.

Carl Berryman:

Like I've had therapists that have therapy is one of the best things

Carl Berryman:

that has worked for me in the past because it's nice to not just have a

Carl Berryman:

professional help you, but somebody who's completely outside of your circle.

Carl Berryman:

Somebody who doesn't know you, doesn't know your significant other, and could

Carl Berryman:

just give you completely unbiased opinion.

Carl Berryman:

That would be like a level three going to that.

Carl Berryman:

But level one is just listen to other men who are going through the same thing.

Carl Berryman:

So number one, you realize you're not the only a-hole out there who is doing the

Carl Berryman:

things that you're doing and everything like that, but also so that you can

Carl Berryman:

realize, okay, these dudes have been in my shoes and they've somehow made it work.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, maybe there is hope for me and hope's always a starting point.

Stephen Box:

Cool.

Stephen Box:

so one thing that you pointed out there that I love too, this idea of.

Stephen Box:

Working with someone else, right?

Stephen Box:

So whether that's a therapist, whether it's a coach, whatever.

Stephen Box:

because I think this is also a great place to start to learn how to communicate.

Stephen Box:

Now you have to be careful about who you hire here because there are coaches

Stephen Box:

out there that don't know any better and just will tell you could do this,

Stephen Box:

and this without really talking to you, without really seeing what you are about.

Stephen Box:

and, but if you can find somebody who is really good at asking you questions and

Stephen Box:

giving you space to communicate and not judging you, not trying to just hand you a

Stephen Box:

solution, not trying to fix things, but is really just like getting more detailed and

Stephen Box:

asking the questions and things like that.

Stephen Box:

This is behavior that you can start to model

Carl Berryman:

right.

Stephen Box:

now.

Stephen Box:

Now, Don't model it.

Stephen Box:

Exactly.

Stephen Box:

'cause your wife or girlfriend or whoever also doesn't want you to

Stephen Box:

have a therapy session with them.

Stephen Box:

But it will teach you how to get outta that mindset of,

Stephen Box:

I need to solve everything.

Stephen Box:

And it will get you into the mindset of getting curious about things.

Stephen Box:

Right?

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

That, so that word definitely needs to be emphasized.

Carl Berryman:

Curious, like being curious is so big when it comes to communicating

Carl Berryman:

effectively in relationships because it's funny, especially since I

Carl Berryman:

gotta be careful how I phrase this.

Carl Berryman:

I don't wanna say, I'm getting away from saying I've battled with depression for

Carl Berryman:

a long time because I no longer, I've just come to the point where I don't see

Carl Berryman:

depression as a bad thing anymore, just because I know every single time I get

Carl Berryman:

into a really dark place, like it's just, Something amazing always comes from it.

Carl Berryman:

Like I always come out stronger.

Carl Berryman:

It's no different than the pain inside the gym.

Carl Berryman:

And speaking of which, this is another strategy that was, it just, it blew my

Carl Berryman:

mind that this alluded me for so long.

Carl Berryman:

It's imagine somebody comes to me for a personal training session.

Carl Berryman:

I'm like, okay, we're gonna do an assessment.

Carl Berryman:

Let's see how many pushups you can do.

Carl Berryman:

And then they go and they do, let's say they do 15 pushups.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, you got 15.

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

So going forward, I know what I'm working with, so I know maybe

Carl Berryman:

the next step is to get us to 20.

Carl Berryman:

And yet the next workout, they come in and as soon as they get

Carl Berryman:

to 12 reps, I see them starting to struggle and I tell them to stop.

Carl Berryman:

And they're like, what are you doing?

Carl Berryman:

Like I thought the goal was to get to 20.

Carl Berryman:

yeah, but you were starting to hurt, right?

Carl Berryman:

Like it was getting hard.

Carl Berryman:

So I stopped you.

Carl Berryman:

Like they would fire me in a second because they came here for that.

Carl Berryman:

Because they know that there can be no progress without discomfort.

Carl Berryman:

And yet in our relationships, the moment.

Carl Berryman:

Discomfort kicks in.

Carl Berryman:

We either avoid the, I used to do this all the time, walk away from

Carl Berryman:

the conversation, just ignore it and then wake up the next morning.

Carl Berryman:

Pretend it never happened.

Carl Berryman:

And that just one of my good friends the other day, what did he say?

Carl Berryman:

He said, the things we ignore, don't get forgotten.

Carl Berryman:

They get built upon.

Carl Berryman:

They don't get forgotten.

Carl Berryman:

They get built upon, which means it is it's like an injury in the gym.

Carl Berryman:

yeah.

Carl Berryman:

okay, my back's hurting.

Carl Berryman:

Ah, I don't need to go see physio.

Carl Berryman:

I'll just do this and I'll modify this.

Carl Berryman:

guess what?

Carl Berryman:

In a few weeks or a couple months, whatever started then is gonna

Carl Berryman:

put you outta commission now.

Carl Berryman:

So you better look after it at the first sign of that.

Carl Berryman:

And the longer you put it off, the worse it's gonna get.

Carl Berryman:

So we have to be, I think it was Tim Ferriss who said, your success in life.

Carl Berryman:

Is dependent on the number of uncomfortable conversations

Carl Berryman:

you're willing to have.

Carl Berryman:

And nowhere is that more true than relationships.

Carl Berryman:

We gotta be willing to step in the gym, realize, okay, that was, that was a little

Carl Berryman:

bit too much weight this time maybe.

Carl Berryman:

So I'll take some weight off the bar next time I go in and, we'll

Carl Berryman:

try it again, but it doesn't end.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

and we can even expand upon this, right?

Stephen Box:

Where, excuse me, where it's this idea that, when you start.

Stephen Box:

guys, listen to this very carefully.

Stephen Box:

You're going to be bad at it.

Stephen Box:

Okay?

Stephen Box:

it's like when you first walk into, and you start into the gym and you

Stephen Box:

start working out, and like literally you're just going in, you have no idea,

Stephen Box:

excuse me, what you can lift, right?

Stephen Box:

You're gonna pick up some weights and they're gonna feel super light, and you're

Stephen Box:

gonna be like, this is way too easy.

Stephen Box:

And there's gonna be other weights you're gonna pick up and you're

Stephen Box:

gonna be like, I almost died, right?

Stephen Box:

that was probably dangerous, right?

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Stephen Box:

and it's gonna be like that as you get into these conversations and

Stephen Box:

as you start to explore these different things in your relationship, because what

Stephen Box:

you're going to find is that there's gonna be some times where they feel really easy.

Stephen Box:

There's gonna be other times where it's gonna be really difficult.

Stephen Box:

And I think, an analogy that you used a little while ago was this

Stephen Box:

idea about the pushups, right?

Stephen Box:

And what I find that for a lot of guys, and I'm only bringing this

Stephen Box:

up 'cause I, I don't want people to get the wrong idea from it, right?

Stephen Box:

Is we've been taught as men that if you did 15 on Friday and you can only do

Stephen Box:

12 today, that even if it absolutely kills you, you have to do at least 15.

Stephen Box:

and there's a difference between your brain telling you to stop at 12 and

Stephen Box:

your body telling you to stop at 12.

Stephen Box:

Right?

Stephen Box:

And a lot of times when we get into these conversations or these situations in our

Stephen Box:

relationship, we haven't yet learned to distinguish the mental uncomfortableness

Stephen Box:

from actual damage being done.

Stephen Box:

and we try to push through and we cause more problems just trying to push through

Stephen Box:

and that's why I completely agree with what Carl said earlier about the first

Stephen Box:

thing you have to do, the first skill you have to develop is awareness.

Stephen Box:

Because awareness is what starts teaching you the difference between

Stephen Box:

I am avoiding this thing just because it's uncomfortable, versus

Stephen Box:

I'm avoiding this thing because doing this would be really stupid.

Carl Berryman:

right.

Carl Berryman:

You bring up an amazing point there, Stephen, because I.

Carl Berryman:

I never really thought about it that way before in terms of, what?

Carl Berryman:

Some.

Carl Berryman:

So say for example, I am going on week number six of the

Carl Berryman:

strength training program.

Carl Berryman:

Now I'm gonna be doing strength for the next six months.

Carl Berryman:

And obviously the first three weeks I'm experiencing the newbie

Carl Berryman:

gains again, where the weights are just flying up every single work.

Carl Berryman:

And I'm like, yeah, I'm the strongest person in the world.

Carl Berryman:

This is awesome.

Carl Berryman:

and then all of a sudden it's okay, where you used to jump up 10 or 15 pounds, now

Carl Berryman:

you're going up two and a half or five.

Carl Berryman:

And it's ah, what's wrong with me?

Carl Berryman:

This workout, I have to do this.

Carl Berryman:

there was a workout last week where I actually had to go down in weight.

Carl Berryman:

I'm like, okay, does that mean that something's wrong with me?

Carl Berryman:

And it's I gotta assess that.

Carl Berryman:

I gotta say, was it my that my head just wasn't in it?

Carl Berryman:

And that wasn't the case at all because when I lowered the weight, I

Carl Berryman:

really wanted to focus on my form and it was my body that was telling me.

Carl Berryman:

To slow down, not my head.

Carl Berryman:

but that's something that's really hard to distinguish

Carl Berryman:

without awareness and reflection.

Carl Berryman:

So going into relationships and communicating and having conversations

Carl Berryman:

and everything like that, there needs to be that awareness there in

Carl Berryman:

terms of, and one of those things to be aware of might be the fear.

Carl Berryman:

is this fear a little bit too much to handle for me right now?

Carl Berryman:

Is this fear rational?

Carl Berryman:

is it like perfect example?

Carl Berryman:

Jenny Lee has always been incredibly receptive to whatever I've had to say

Carl Berryman:

that I thought she might like just completely go off the deep end on.

Carl Berryman:

she's always been very understanding.

Carl Berryman:

and yet there are times where there are some difficult conversations that I

Carl Berryman:

want to have and I would hesitate now.

Carl Berryman:

Is that fear rational?

Carl Berryman:

no, it's not, but it's there.

Carl Berryman:

So I have to be asking myself, okay, do I need to have this or am I gonna

Carl Berryman:

have this conversation because I know it's a conversation that needs to

Carl Berryman:

be had, or am I gonna avoid it out of something that really isn't real?

Carl Berryman:

Anyways, so it's, it all boils down to getting in the reps, whether it's

Carl Berryman:

in the gym or not, and especially like the whole self-awareness piece

Carl Berryman:

and reflecting on that and saying, okay, just like in the gym too, it's

Carl Berryman:

okay, I hurt my back doing deadlifts.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, I need to adjust this and now I know I can go for forward doing it safely.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, we had this conversation.

Carl Berryman:

This is what I said, and it triggered that and her, ugh, I'm gonna wanna

Carl Berryman:

stay away from that language next time.

Carl Berryman:

But it's all about getting in the reps.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

to use the gym analogy here, right?

Stephen Box:

So let's say that you, you're one day not quite as strong, like

Stephen Box:

you can't do as heavier weight or you do hurt your back, right?

Stephen Box:

It's that reflection piece that you're talking about in the gym.

Stephen Box:

It's easy, right?

Stephen Box:

I can look at things like, what's my sleep been, right?

Stephen Box:

How's my nutrition been?

Stephen Box:

am I eating enough?

Stephen Box:

Am I fueling my body properly?

Stephen Box:

Am I getting enough rest?

Stephen Box:

am I doing, Proper recovery.

Stephen Box:

Am I giving myself enough rest days and things like that, right?

Stephen Box:

Am I can analyze all that stuff and I can figure out where I am,

Stephen Box:

or at least pe people who have our training know how to do that

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

but you can do that.

Stephen Box:

it's possible to figure those things out and figure out is this just a bad

Stephen Box:

day where I haven't been recovering well enough, or I haven't been, nourished

Stephen Box:

my body enough and that's leading to this, versus say, an injury where

Stephen Box:

I'm now, okay, I need to back up.

Stephen Box:

But it's not just a matter of oh, I hurt myself doing deadlifts.

Stephen Box:

Let me just avoid deadlifts forever and let me take deadlifts out of

Stephen Box:

my rotation until I get healed up.

Stephen Box:

But while I'm healing, let me do other exercises that are going to

Stephen Box:

strengthen the muscles that got hurt.

Stephen Box:

From my deadlift, right?

Stephen Box:

Or let me make sure that my deadlift form is great because those are things

Stephen Box:

that would've led to the injury.

Stephen Box:

And I think, to translate that back to the relationship, what I'm hearing you say is

Stephen Box:

we take that exact same approach, right?

Stephen Box:

It's you do something what we call outcome-based decision making, right?

Stephen Box:

You do something, you see what the reaction is, you see what happens, and

Stephen Box:

then you go, okay, what led to this?

Stephen Box:

What do I need to change?

Stephen Box:

What do I need to fix?

Stephen Box:

What is it, something that I'm doing wrong?

Stephen Box:

Is there something in the environment?

Stephen Box:

Is just, is there a, was just the one off my, significant other, just had a

Stephen Box:

bad day and what was the root cause here and what can we do to start to fix it?

Stephen Box:

And fixing it might not be something that's just one step, right?

Carl Berryman:

no.

Carl Berryman:

And it's so funny, like one of the things that irritates me the most about, the

Carl Berryman:

health and fitness industry, and it's been like this for forever and today,

Carl Berryman:

but the whole quick fix, oh yeah, you can do this in 30 days, this in 90 days.

Carl Berryman:

And sure you there's obviously people that can do that, but it's just, it's,

Carl Berryman:

it, to me it's pretty simple math.

Carl Berryman:

How long did it, if we're talking about weight loss, for example, how

Carl Berryman:

long did it take you to put it on?

Carl Berryman:

Okay, so it took you 15, 20 years.

Carl Berryman:

it's probably gonna take longer than 30 days to get it off then because we got 15

Carl Berryman:

to 20 years worth of habits that we need to look at before we can even contemplate

Carl Berryman:

looking at getting off that weight, right?

Carl Berryman:

Because yeah, sure we can help you get it off in 30 days, but those

Carl Berryman:

habits are gonna come creeping back in, so we need to do that.

Carl Berryman:

but I love what you talked about there with regards to,

Carl Berryman:

like the injury piece of it.

Carl Berryman:

is this something that I need that's just hurting a little bit

Carl Berryman:

or is this a legitimate injury?

Carl Berryman:

Because in relationships, if it is a legitimate injury, then.

Carl Berryman:

You're probably gonna want to see somebody professionally who can

Carl Berryman:

diagnose that injury and help you find out what that root cause is.

Carl Berryman:

Because trying to find it out on our own, oh man, that's, you

Carl Berryman:

gotta be willing to put in some serious reps to make that happen.

Carl Berryman:

Whereas if you listen to guys like Stephen, if you listen to guys who have

Carl Berryman:

been in the game for a little while in terms of relationships and coaching and

Carl Berryman:

things like that, it's okay, just like if somebody is having an issue with their

Carl Berryman:

squat, I can watch a few reps, boom, tell 'em, okay, this is what you need to

Carl Berryman:

adjust and let, instead of them having to try to figure it out on their own.

Carl Berryman:

And that's where the benefit of not only, sure, of course, professionals, but even

Carl Berryman:

having, and this is one of the biggest things that I harp on all the time now,

Carl Berryman:

that if you wanna improve the quality of your life, you need to improve the

Carl Berryman:

quality of the men and your relationship you have in your life as a man.

Carl Berryman:

because if you're around the right men, they will be able to tell you straight up,

Carl Berryman:

Carl, you were an idiot for saying that.

Carl Berryman:

you never should have said that.

Carl Berryman:

So I go, oh, Jenny Lee did this, and Jenny Lee.

Carl Berryman:

Oh, Carl, what did you say?

Carl Berryman:

Oh, I said this.

Carl Berryman:

And they'll just be like, and they'll laugh because they'll be like, Carl,

Carl Berryman:

you never should have said that.

Carl Berryman:

You are totally in the wrong here.

Carl Berryman:

It's not her, it's you.

Carl Berryman:

And so having guys in your world that have the capability of doing that from a loving

Carl Berryman:

and compassionate standpoint is awesome.

Carl Berryman:

Rather than just having echo chambers all the time, guys

Carl Berryman:

saying, oh yeah, you know what?

Carl Berryman:

Yeah, she shouldn't have done this, or she shouldn't have said that.

Carl Berryman:

It's no.

Carl Berryman:

Like maybe you're the problem, not maybe like you are the problem.

Stephen Box:

yeah.

Stephen Box:

and the thing is, to me, it always also comes back to something

Stephen Box:

we talked about earlier, right?

Stephen Box:

Which is this idea that even if she is in the wrong, even if.

Stephen Box:

What she did is, completely unacceptable.

Stephen Box:

A, you can't change it.

Stephen Box:

B, you have to ask yourself, is her reaction based on

Stephen Box:

your past behaviors, right?

Stephen Box:

Have you created this issue for yourself?

Stephen Box:

Because if so, just like Carl just told you, if it took you 30

Stephen Box:

years to gain the weight, you're not gonna get off in 30 days.

Stephen Box:

If you spent the last three years conditioning your significant

Stephen Box:

other to respond a certain way, you're not gonna fix it in five

Stephen Box:

minutes or one conversation.

Carl Berryman:

That is a huge tie in right there in terms of conditioning and that

Carl Berryman:

is a question that actually I'm gonna pose to myself as soon as we get off this.

Carl Berryman:

I'm gonna write it down.

Carl Berryman:

I'm gonna ask myself this question when it comes to the things that Jenny

Carl Berryman:

Lee does, and for anybody, like for the guys listening, think about your

Carl Berryman:

significant other when it comes to things that they do that irritate you.

Carl Berryman:

How have you conditioned them with your responses that is acceptable?

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

So that's super powerful because our actions are conditioning both

Carl Berryman:

ourselves and our significant others.

Carl Berryman:

And if all of a sudden, just because you wake up one day and say, oh man, I

Carl Berryman:

heard this thing on the podcast today.

Carl Berryman:

I'm gonna start doing this.

Carl Berryman:

You start doing it and you don't get the response you want.

Carl Berryman:

it's like getting back to the gym for the first time.

Carl Berryman:

You go back to the gym once, regardless of how hard your workout is, your body

Carl Berryman:

is super sore for the next like week.

Carl Berryman:

And then eventually that starts to fade off where it's you know what,

Carl Berryman:

sometimes you're not even sore.

Carl Berryman:

Usually it might be a day or two, but that's it.

Carl Berryman:

So you go into your relationship trying to just have this

Carl Berryman:

crusher workout into nowhere.

Carl Berryman:

Guess what?

Carl Berryman:

There's gonna be some soreness.

Carl Berryman:

But when that soreness is coming from your significant other,

Carl Berryman:

it's gonna hurt a lot more.

Stephen Box:

yeah.

Stephen Box:

so Carl, I did not ask you about this beforehand, so I hope

Stephen Box:

you're okay with doing this.

Carl Berryman:

I'm sure I will be.

Stephen Box:

what I would like to do here is let's run through two

Stephen Box:

very common scenarios and help guys figure out, figure how to start

Stephen Box:

responding in these situations, right?

Stephen Box:

So we're not giving them like the entire playbook right now.

Stephen Box:

'cause we could spend easily another couple of hours talking if we did that.

Stephen Box:

but one situation is, you brought it up.

Stephen Box:

They come home and they've had a rough day and they start

Stephen Box:

unloading their problems on you.

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Stephen Box:

So because guys have listened to us today, they now

Stephen Box:

know not to just jump in and start problem solving, but that's gonna

Stephen Box:

leave them with this awkwardness now because now I don't know what to do.

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Stephen Box:

okay, I'm gonna be quiet, but then what?

Stephen Box:

Because I'm not used to showing empathy.

Stephen Box:

I'm not, and I think what a lot of guys are gonna automatically do

Stephen Box:

is they're gonna go, I'm so sorry.

Stephen Box:

I'm sorry to hear that.

Stephen Box:

And guys, I'm gonna tell you from personal experience, it doesn't work.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

that's be, that's better than problem solving, but not much.

Stephen Box:

so can you give them just a very simple blueprint here of what.

Stephen Box:

What is that first baby step that they can start to take here?

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

So the first baby step for sure.

Carl Berryman:

and I'm just gonna speak from my experience, the first baby step,

Carl Berryman:

so let's say jail comes home and she's super upset, like the

Carl Berryman:

waterworks are going and I'm just.

Carl Berryman:

One, I'm gonna first talk about a mistake that I would make and

Carl Berryman:

then an alternate that I would do.

Carl Berryman:

So a mistake that I would make, I used to make in the past is yes, I'm holding her.

Carl Berryman:

I'm making sure that I'm physically creating a loving environment for her.

Carl Berryman:

because in the past I would like totally, like with my ex-wife, she'd be sitting

Carl Berryman:

down, I'd be rubbing her back totally insincerely, just thinking, I cannot

Carl Berryman:

believe you're crying about this stuff.

Carl Berryman:

This is so ridiculous.

Carl Berryman:

Not the right way to go, hence why I'm divorced.

Carl Berryman:

but with Jenny Lee, the first thing I'd want to do intrinsically as a man

Carl Berryman:

is I would want to get into her head and figure out the thoughts that she's

Carl Berryman:

thinking, because if I can change her thoughts, I can change the way she feels.

Carl Berryman:

That's what I would do for me.

Carl Berryman:

No.

Carl Berryman:

Don't do that.

Carl Berryman:

So the first thing I'm doing is I'm making sure I'm holding that space for her, like

Carl Berryman:

physically holding her, whatever it is.

Carl Berryman:

Whether it's rubbing her back, just giving her a hug, whatever that is.

Carl Berryman:

Step number one.

Carl Berryman:

Step number two, what I have found with Jenny Lee works really well is validation.

Carl Berryman:

So we want to validate the way that they feel.

Carl Berryman:

Now, what does that look like in practice?

Carl Berryman:

So if Jenny Lee comes home and after she's been crying and talking

Carl Berryman:

through the things, eventually she'll usually say something along the

Carl Berryman:

lines of, I know this sounds stupid, but I'm gonna let her know that it

Carl Berryman:

doesn't sound stupid and here's why.

Carl Berryman:

And then I list off an example how I have acted completely irrationally

Carl Berryman:

in the past before because I have.

Carl Berryman:

So they're thinking their behavior is irrational and they want

Carl Berryman:

validation that it's not, even though they're not asking for that.

Carl Berryman:

So validating how they feel is huge.

Carl Berryman:

And then really, My number one job.

Carl Berryman:

What has worked with me so well with Jenny Lee is I now assume

Carl Berryman:

the identity of being her rock.

Carl Berryman:

So what does that mean for her?

Carl Berryman:

That means that I just need to bring her back down to a calm

Carl Berryman:

place as much as possible.

Carl Berryman:

She's on the ocean driving the ship, or it might be, let's go back to the gym.

Carl Berryman:

She's on the bench, she's getting ready to do bench press

Carl Berryman:

and she's pressing the weight.

Carl Berryman:

It's the last rep.

Carl Berryman:

She can't get it up.

Carl Berryman:

She can't get it up.

Carl Berryman:

I'm there to spot, not lift the weight, but spot just enough so

Carl Berryman:

that she can re racket herself.

Carl Berryman:

So I'm not going and solving the problems.

Carl Berryman:

I just wanna ReRack help her get the weight up to ReRack it.

Carl Berryman:

And the way that looks like is just if you want your partner to calm

Carl Berryman:

down, provide a calm environment.

Carl Berryman:

Really that simple.

Carl Berryman:

I say simple, but that's not.

Carl Berryman:

That doesn't mean easy, like even la like when I said that whole thing about

Carl Berryman:

thinking what she's thinking about and asking her words, I actually did that last

Carl Berryman:

week and then I caught myself right away.

Carl Berryman:

Right after I said it.

Carl Berryman:

I was like, ah, Carl, you shouldn't have said that.

Carl Berryman:

So then I just went back and just took that away and yeah, it takes some time.

Stephen Box:

yeah.

Stephen Box:

It takes a lot of practice and you will slip up.

Stephen Box:

Yes.

Stephen Box:

something you just touched on there that I think is super important to highlight.

Stephen Box:

guys, think about this for a second.

Stephen Box:

Have you ever had somebody come up and put their hand on you?

Stephen Box:

it could just, be like they put their hand on your shoulder or they wrap

Stephen Box:

their arm around you or whatever, right?

Stephen Box:

Imagine someone that you're really close to.

Stephen Box:

It could be your significant other, it could be a family member, whatever, right?

Stephen Box:

somebody you're really close to.

Stephen Box:

Just think about how you feel in that moment.

Stephen Box:

and by the way, I forgot to mention this earlier, but we talked about it, and I

Stephen Box:

just wanna kind of slide this in here.

Stephen Box:

For every guy out there that goes, I'm a guy.

Stephen Box:

I don't have emotions.

Stephen Box:

I don't think about my emotions, I don't talk about my emotions.

Stephen Box:

If you acknowledge anger, then you have emotions and you talk about

Stephen Box:

them because anger's an emotion.

Stephen Box:

So put that outta your head, okay?

Stephen Box:

so think about the way that makes you feel when that familiar person touches you.

Stephen Box:

And then think about when an unfamiliar person touches you.

Stephen Box:

And think about the dis the difference in how those feel.

Stephen Box:

So Carl pointed out, like rubbing his ex-wife's back.

Stephen Box:

Very insincerely guys.

Stephen Box:

I'm gonna tell you, she could tell

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

it felt different to her.

Stephen Box:

And that's why don't do things just because, right?

Stephen Box:

This isn't a checklist.

Stephen Box:

I know there's a lot of guys out there that love their checklist, right?

Stephen Box:

They're tell me what to do.

Stephen Box:

I'll check it off the box.

Stephen Box:

I rubbed her back.

Stephen Box:

I held her.

Stephen Box:

I don't know what the problem is, right?

Stephen Box:

You weren't sincere in it.

Stephen Box:

You weren't doing it because it was the right thing to do.

Stephen Box:

You weren't doing it because it was what you wanted to do for her.

Stephen Box:

You did it because you thought that's what she wanted, and you thought it

Stephen Box:

was going to get a certain reaction.

Stephen Box:

That's the key.

Carl Berryman:

Super key.

Carl Berryman:

And that makes me think of one more important thing.

Carl Berryman:

Even though I was doing all those things for Jenny Lee, ironically enough, I was

Carl Berryman:

being a hundred percent selfish there.

Carl Berryman:

And here's what I mean by that.

Carl Berryman:

For me, I have found that my level of happiness and fulfillment

Carl Berryman:

in life is 100% in relationship to me living with integrity and

Carl Berryman:

fulfilling who I feel I am as a man.

Carl Berryman:

So one of the things that I do in my journaling experience every morning is

Carl Berryman:

it always ends with an I am statement.

Carl Berryman:

I am this.

Carl Berryman:

So inside of my relationship for, I did actually today's Tuesday.

Carl Berryman:

So today is always, or Tuesdays are always relationship, health and fitness for me.

Carl Berryman:

And so my I am statement today was, I am the king, my queen, and I deserve,

Carl Berryman:

I am the king, my queen, and I deserve So as much as it, you know what?

Carl Berryman:

It's cool that I can calm Jenny Lee down and provide that safe environment.

Carl Berryman:

I feel proud when I do that.

Carl Berryman:

Like I feel like I'm being the Carl that I know I can be.

Carl Berryman:

So yes, I do love Jenny Lee and I wanna support her to every end.

Carl Berryman:

At the same time, my number one priority, and she's very well aware of this, is

Carl Berryman:

me fulfilling my purpose in whatever way, shape, or form that looks like.

Carl Berryman:

And in this scenario, a king isn't how I've defined it.

Carl Berryman:

Somebody who will come in and provide solutions.

Carl Berryman:

It's somebody who will create the environment where solutions can

Carl Berryman:

be found by the other individual, whether that's a man or Jenny Lee.

Carl Berryman:

So even though I'm doing this for her, it's really all about me.

Carl Berryman:

And you've talked about that so many times, Stephen, in terms

Carl Berryman:

of not doing things for the sake of just trying to get the other

Carl Berryman:

person to change or do something.

Carl Berryman:

No, this has to be about you being you, being authentic to yourself.

Carl Berryman:

And then it's so amazing when you let go of that stuff, how all of a sudden

Carl Berryman:

it just, it comes to you even though you weren't even necessarily looking for it.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

so one other scenario I want to touch on here.

Stephen Box:

The other common scenario that I think a lot of guys are gonna find themselves

Stephen Box:

in, so we just talked about when she comes home and something has happened,

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Stephen Box:

but what about when the something is us?

Carl Berryman:

Oh, that's a gooder.

Carl Berryman:

Okay, so let me think of a scenario where this something was me.

Carl Berryman:

Oh man.

Stephen Box:

you didn't do something that you said, whatever, right?

Carl Berryman:

Yeah, so that one's more so the way that I like to look at that one.

Carl Berryman:

If Ken we're gonna go back to the gym, if I'm doing something stupid, it's

Carl Berryman:

almost going into the gym and just loading the weight up on the bar that

Carl Berryman:

you are going to use for your heavy sets.

Carl Berryman:

Without warming up.

Carl Berryman:

Without warming up.

Carl Berryman:

Like you just go in there, you are going to hurt yourself.

Carl Berryman:

You don't wanna do the warmup.

Carl Berryman:

You know what?

Carl Berryman:

You know what?

Carl Berryman:

Maybe a couple sets of this and then get right at it.

Carl Berryman:

No.

Carl Berryman:

So me being able to manage when I have something, when I've done something

Carl Berryman:

wrong is all about what I've done previously To prepare for that.

Carl Berryman:

I know guys want to have an answer, oh no, just do this one thing,

Carl Berryman:

do X, and it will lead to Y.

Carl Berryman:

guess what?

Carl Berryman:

There's quite a few letters in the alphabet before Y, and you need to

Carl Berryman:

tackle those things ahead of time.

Carl Berryman:

But to answer your question more directly, when I do something wrong, oh,

Carl Berryman:

now I'm thinking about something I did.

Carl Berryman:

Oh, it might've been Saturday.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah, it was Saturday.

Carl Berryman:

no, it was Friday and it was bad.

Carl Berryman:

Like it wasn't terrible.

Carl Berryman:

Like I went, Jenny Lee was on the phone, it was her last day

Carl Berryman:

at her previous job on Friday.

Carl Berryman:

So it was gonna be a good celebration at night.

Carl Berryman:

We're gonna have happy hour and just celebrate her moving on to a new

Carl Berryman:

job that she really wanted and got.

Carl Berryman:

So it was awesome.

Carl Berryman:

So she's on the phone with her boss.

Carl Berryman:

I'm upstairs trying to take a nap, and she's got him on speaker phone.

Carl Berryman:

And I'm like, why do you have him on speaker phone?

Carl Berryman:

I'm trying to take a nap and if I don't get a nap in, at that point

Carl Berryman:

in time when I'm exhausted, oh, I'm such a horrible person to be around.

Carl Berryman:

And so I go downstairs to use the bathroom and I slam the door.

Carl Berryman:

Like I'm upset, but I'm not upset at her.

Carl Berryman:

I'm upset at the fact that I'm just, I'm tired, I'm exhausted.

Carl Berryman:

I didn't get to sleep.

Carl Berryman:

So I come upstairs and I'm like, you know what?

Carl Berryman:

I'm just gonna chill out here.

Carl Berryman:

And she's downstairs and I know she's done work, but she's not coming upstairs.

Carl Berryman:

And I'm like, so I go downstairs and I can tell.

Carl Berryman:

She took me slamming the door.

Carl Berryman:

Really, personally, she thought I was mad at her.

Carl Berryman:

So what I should have done in that situation that I've done in the past,

Carl Berryman:

it actually worked out pretty good.

Carl Berryman:

'cause I wasn't mad at her.

Carl Berryman:

was go down and really explain.

Carl Berryman:

Actually, now I think about it.

Carl Berryman:

I did do this.

Carl Berryman:

I went downstairs and I explained to her, listen, I slammed the door.

Carl Berryman:

It wasn't because you, it's 'cause I'm exhausted and I was tired.

Carl Berryman:

That was it.

Carl Berryman:

Like it, it didn't have anything to do with you.

Carl Berryman:

So really long story short there, the quicker you can own the fact that

Carl Berryman:

you were in the wrong, the better.

Carl Berryman:

Never expect your partner to do that.

Carl Berryman:

Don't ever expect your partner to do that.

Carl Berryman:

But if you want them to start doing it, the sooner you can own up to

Carl Berryman:

where you're wrong, the better.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

Yeah, I think taking ownership is important.

Stephen Box:

And you could even maybe in that situation have shared and said,

Stephen Box:

the fact that you had the phone on speakerphone, it was preventing me from

Stephen Box:

taking my nap, is what frustrated me.

Stephen Box:

But I should have just, came down and like gave you like the wave and

Stephen Box:

can you take it off speaker phone and trying to sleep versus slamming

Stephen Box:

the door like a child, right?

Carl Berryman:

And and here's the thing, what you talked about there

Carl Berryman:

is try to put the fire up before there's a fire in the first place.

Carl Berryman:

So for I know we, we've been together for now, including

Carl Berryman:

that separation like nine years.

Carl Berryman:

I know there's things that she does that I'll never understand that

Carl Berryman:

she does that used to irritate me.

Carl Berryman:

So why am I surprised when those things happen?

Carl Berryman:

But on top of that, why am I not taking measures to not

Carl Berryman:

allow those things to happen?

Carl Berryman:

what can I do on my end to prevent the things that might irritate me?

Carl Berryman:

Like she's putting out landmines and I know exactly where they are.

Carl Berryman:

Why did I go pick them up before I step on them?

Carl Berryman:

Like it's that simple.

Carl Berryman:

So yeah, going down ahead of time, being like, Hey, can you

Carl Berryman:

take that off the speakerphone?

Carl Berryman:

Absolutely.

Carl Berryman:

But also being able to communicate the fact that, listen, I know you

Carl Berryman:

think that it was you that was irritating me, but I'm just irritated

Carl Berryman:

because of this, because of that.

Carl Berryman:

Like really accepting and this is really tough for men and takes practice.

Carl Berryman:

Again, accepting responsibility for your feelings regardless of whether or not

Carl Berryman:

your significant other did something to really trigger you is one of the quickest

Carl Berryman:

ways to close the time period that'll take you guys to get back to your equilibrium.

Carl Berryman:

And if both of you can do that's awesome.

Carl Berryman:

It's if I'm in the kitchen and Jenny Lee's tired and she's on a meeting,

Carl Berryman:

whatever, and then she snaps at me when I ask her a question, she'll

Carl Berryman:

be the first person to come to me after that saying, you know what?

Carl Berryman:

I'm sorry.

Carl Berryman:

It's just I, this person was irritating me.

Carl Berryman:

I didn't mean to snap at you.

Carl Berryman:

I'm like, I know it had nothing to do with me.

Carl Berryman:

That's why I didn't take it personally.

Carl Berryman:

which is tough, but doable.

Stephen Box:

Awesome man.

Stephen Box:

love it.

Stephen Box:

Really appreciate you, coming on today, man, sharing all these insights.

Stephen Box:

do you have a final thoughts you wanna share with people before you,

Stephen Box:

tell 'em how to get ahold of you?

Carl Berryman:

One of the final thoughts that I would say is something, one of

Carl Berryman:

my brothers, Dennis Papa Dental, we call him, came up with, amazing man.

Carl Berryman:

we talk about this idea of level one, two, and three all the time.

Carl Berryman:

okay, so you get, you have to know what your level one twos and threes are

Carl Berryman:

before you can start playing at that.

Carl Berryman:

first of all, starting at level one, but then he brought something up with,

Carl Berryman:

and this goes with the gym, this goes in relationships, this goes with anywhere.

Carl Berryman:

This idea of no more zeros.

Carl Berryman:

Like no more zeros.

Carl Berryman:

So it's okay, I know I need to have this conversation with my partner

Carl Berryman:

because this is just something that's been going on too long and it's

Carl Berryman:

gonna keep getting worse and worse.

Carl Berryman:

But I just, I don't have it in me to have the full blown conversation.

Carl Berryman:

Maybe a level one is, you know what?

Carl Berryman:

Write it in your calendar for a day that you do wanna talk about

Carl Berryman:

it and that you'll commit to it.

Carl Berryman:

That's it.

Carl Berryman:

that could be a level one, just keeping awareness alive.

Carl Berryman:

Or it could be something I got from another brother of mine, his name's Mike,

Carl Berryman:

him and his partner, they've actually worked some things out in advance.

Carl Berryman:

Let's say, for example, if it's money, they say, okay, how do we want to

Carl Berryman:

talk about this when we talk about it?

Carl Berryman:

So they're not having a problem right now, but they can anticipate

Carl Berryman:

some problems that will come up.

Carl Berryman:

We all have problems with money.

Carl Berryman:

We all have problems with communication.

Carl Berryman:

We all have problems with intimacy.

Carl Berryman:

And then discussing ahead of time when you're not in the mix of it.

Carl Berryman:

Okay.

Carl Berryman:

How do we want to talk about this?

Carl Berryman:

When we want to talk about it?

Carl Berryman:

'cause then you at least have a reference point.

Carl Berryman:

That was a really good tip that I got from him.

Carl Berryman:

That's super, super easy to apply.

Stephen Box:

Awesome.

Stephen Box:

and I'll add one, just for myself there that I've found, my wife is

Stephen Box:

one of those people that really needs time to process things.

Stephen Box:

If you just dump something on her, and one immediate answer,

Stephen Box:

she's just gonna get I irritated.

Stephen Box:

what I've learned to do is if there's something going on that I wanna talk

Stephen Box:

to her about, I'll go to her and I'll say, Hey, This has been going on

Stephen Box:

it, it's something that, is causing, me to be irritated or whatever.

Stephen Box:

And I want to talk about it.

Stephen Box:

I honestly don't know what the solution is right now, but I just

Stephen Box:

wanted to bring it to your attention so you could start to think about it.

Stephen Box:

And it gives me some more time to think about it and then we can have a

Stephen Box:

conversation and figure out like, how can we make this work for both of us?

Carl Berryman:

and that goes to you reflecting back on how your wife responds

Carl Berryman:

to things, and then remembering that in the present situation, knowing

Carl Berryman:

that she's gonna need some time.

Carl Berryman:

So that reflection, not only, we talked about self-awareness being super important

Carl Berryman:

and a relationship awareness of the other is gonna be pretty important as well.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

So that's a huge one.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

and and the thing is, I don't know if guys caught it or not, but in the example

Stephen Box:

and the way that I was wording that, I'm also very careful to not go, Hey,

Stephen Box:

you're doing this thing totally wrong and I need to talk to you about it.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

you're doing this thing and this is how I'm feeling about that thing,

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Stephen Box:

right?

Stephen Box:

and you might even include in there, I know you probably don't mean to

Stephen Box:

make me feel this way, but this is how I'm feeling about it, right?

Stephen Box:

and I'm, and you're really, you're doing everything you can to not place any blame

Stephen Box:

on them, but you're allowing them to self-reflect and place blame on themself

Stephen Box:

if there's something they need to change.

Carl Berryman:

Yep.

Carl Berryman:

Yeah, I can support that one a hundred percent.

Carl Berryman:

Because language is anything that the smallest tweaks will

Carl Berryman:

make the biggest difference.

Carl Berryman:

Like General Lee and I, same thing.

Carl Berryman:

I know this probably wasn't your intent, but when you said this came up for me.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Carl Berryman:

That's it.

Stephen Box:

Yeah.

Stephen Box:

So, awesome man.

Stephen Box:

so if someone is listening to this entire hour plus of our interview

Stephen Box:

today, and they are thinking to themself, this is really great stuff.

Stephen Box:

I learned so much today.

Stephen Box:

I love this.

Stephen Box:

Which I know every single person who's listened has walked away with that today.

Stephen Box:

But if they're thinking to themself, but I have no idea how to do this.

Stephen Box:

I, I need help.

Stephen Box:

how do they get ahold of you?

Carl Berryman:

Instagram's the best way to go.

Carl Berryman:

It's at Ignite the impact.

Carl Berryman:

And on there it's funny.

Carl Berryman:

On March, what is it?

Carl Berryman:

The 21st, I believe?

Carl Berryman:

Yeah, the 21st.

Carl Berryman:

I'm actually having a relationship masterclass that

Carl Berryman:

goes over all of these things.

Carl Berryman:

A lot of the things that we talked about here and now.

Carl Berryman:

Some of the tidbits you've given me, I'm most certainly gonna add there for sure.

Carl Berryman:

but at Ignite the impact because there they can get, if you wanna work on your

Carl Berryman:

self-awareness, I have a journal on there, a free digital download you can

Carl Berryman:

download to start just getting aware of how you communicate with yourself.

Carl Berryman:

And then most importantly, taking steps on an like actionable steps

Carl Berryman:

every single time you journal.

Carl Berryman:

So it's not just a matter of, oh, this is what my feelings are and whatever.

Carl Berryman:

And there's not, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with

Carl Berryman:

just writing out your feelings.

Carl Berryman:

I've just found for me, if I can actually find steps, small steps

Carl Berryman:

to take as a result of getting in contact with my feelings, then

Carl Berryman:

it's just all that much better.

Carl Berryman:

yeah, just hit me up on IG and I'm more than happy.

Carl Berryman:

I do free coaching calls too, so if anybody wants to hop on a coaching

Carl Berryman:

call, that's totally cool with me.

Stephen Box:

Awesome.

Stephen Box:

appreciate, very much for, coming on and sharing your insights today, Carl.

Stephen Box:

I just want to remind everyone that while none of us are born unshakable,

Stephen Box:

we can all become unshakable.

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for Own Your Calendar: Aligning Your Business & Life Goals
Own Your Calendar: Aligning Your Business & Life Goals
Build Unshakable Habits For Health, Mindset, Relationships, Faith, and Professional Growth

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About your host

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Stephen Box

Stephen is the Founder of Unshakable Habits and the host of Own Your Calendar. He's on a mission to show that you can build a thriving business without losing your mind (or your weekends). As a productivity and health coach, Stephen helps online business owners, coaches, and course creators ditch burnout, reclaim time, and align their business with a life they love.