growNman
growNman
153 Becoming Important On Purpose
What if “being important” isn’t something you earn later, but something you practice today? We open up about the hidden cost of distractions, the power of intention, and why routines—not moods—decide who we become. This is a candid, practical guide to building a life that compounds, one habit at a time, with stories from marriage, parenting, and personal growth that keep it real and usable.
We break down how to design routines that match your values, why journaling your thoughts (not your triggers) sharpens self-awareness, and how small disciplines like diet and sleep clean up mental noise. You’ll hear the marriage rules that protect respect when emotions run high, including our boundary around tough talks after drinks, and the daily choices that make a partner feel safe—especially when they’re not in the room. Safety breeds counsel, and counsel fuels better decisions. We also unpack a tough truth: purpose isn’t missing, capacity is. Build the habits that can carry your calling before you demand one.
If you’re feeling stuck on the hamster wheel, consider this permission to start where you are. Pick a craft and a character trait, train both every day, and let compounding do its quiet work. Expect unexpected fruits—opportunities you didn’t plan for that show up because your consistency speaks louder than any pitch. Make today better than yesterday, remove one distraction, add one habit, and keep going until that becomes your normal. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a push, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll commit to this week.
What up, Doe, and welcome back to I'm Growin' Man. It's your man John D in the building. Today's uh episode, I'm gonna focus on what's preventing man from becoming better than it is. Uh and when I say man, I mean like just just man in general. Why are we still in a place where we are with all this technology? Why haven't we found ways to improve? And I think that if you look at your previous examples, those who are or were trying to create movements or like areas to learn more information, just so many distractions going on through life. And I think that the the life we're in, depending on where you are in your journey, if you've started it or you're not aware of how important you are yet, but and I'm only talking about those because those of you that have started your journey, I commend you all. But I'm just wondering what's taking so long for like why is it why is it so tough to like be important? And I was talking to a friend of mine. Um, you know, he's he's famous for running through uh end zone to end zone at Ford Field. And we were just talking about if you're important, would you do the things that you do? Like if you were really important, what does your routine look like? How did you become important? You didn't just like wake up and your parents made you important. Like a lot of us um are trying to figure out really how important we are, because if you have kids, you want to make sure you're given the best example. And even to that degree, what does the best example look like? And I think as we get older, we have to understand that intentional effort changes results. So if you work on something and you dedicate doing it for the remainder of your life, nobody's ever done that before. So whatever you decide to do is gonna be an unseen result where you'll leave you'll put your family in a different place. And I think the sooner uh humans learn how important they are, like at a young age, because you you you see trouble with people that got money, people that don't have money, and you see like beautiful products being created. But just imagine if you have some parents that are so intentional where they enjoy each other's company because they've vetted each other out and they know that they're going to have some misunderstandings, they're gonna have some questions that need to be answered, and that won't create this idea that it's not gonna work. So they don't have that energy. And just imagine that type of relationship raising a kid. That's a different kind of kid. And I feel like we should have gotten there by now. And I think the only way we can do that is if we work on something for the rest of our life. I I challenge each and every one of you. Like, like I feel like everything that we've grown up to has been like to some type of retirement or some type of degree. It's like a little term where like if you get there and you gotta like look around, are you happy where you are? And I thought, look, today I can say I'm happy where I am, because I never thought I would get here. But when I was in Abu Dhabi, taking my family across the world, um graduated from multiple institutions of higher learning, married to a beautiful woman with better credentials than I as far as academia, and and my kids are going to international school, like I wasn't happy. Like at that point, I thought I would be doing better than that. But now, you know, like I didn't know that I would fall in love with finding ways to improve. I think that's what it is. Like, if we can get into the mindset that we're working, like we're a constant work in progress, but it has to be intentional every single day. And I tell you this the people that I talked to this past weekend over Homecoming Weekend, everybody was all about it has to be intentional. And I feel like it it it's it's going to become a trend where we're going to practice being intentional on ways to improve, like who you are. Because I do believe that we are really some good people, but if you don't work on it every day, how do you become better? And we can't just assume because that's something you would do. Like, we should be working on ourselves. Like, there's no, there's no, I don't know how to say it, but there's no block of period that says you, you, you shouldn't work on yourself. So what I want to give from from just my own personal experience, like, I've been working on myself so intentionally that I was writing everything down. I'm telling you, like, I had these routines where I was, I had to make sure that I was gonna learn about myself. I was journaling. I still journal, I just don't journal as much, but I still have signs where I'm supposed to like stop whatever I'm doing and write down my thoughts. And then I just heard something recently, and it was like you shouldn't write down, like whatever somebody gives you something, you shouldn't write down what made you have that thought. You should literally write down your thoughts down. And I feel like the more you do that, the more you're when you're in idle mode, you can trust that you're doing the right thing. Because a lot of times we, I'm telling you, we're in a ham, we're in more of a hamster wheel than you could ever imagine. Um even those who are intentionally living, that's a particular type of hamster wheel. It just looks different every time because every day could be that day where your life completely changes. But if you're not working on something, why is anything supposed to change? So I was telling my friend um a few years ago, I said, you know what I do? I look at YouTube and just go to like the views, and I'm like, one day that's gonna go. And I was like, that's my lottery. That's something that I'm working on every single day so that I can help people enjoy life that much more. So at some point my language is gonna be so easy to receive that people are gonna be like, hey, that sounds pretty good. I think I can do that. And you know how people look at the lottery ticket and they, you know, they're looking for the numbers, they're addicted to it like this could be, I'm just one number away. To me, I feel like I'm actually putting the work in. So, and you guys have been watching all these years, I've said, like, at some point I'm gonna become really good at what I do. And what I want, and this is the good I want you to know. The intentional practices that I've developed over these years, this is just to be a better example so that whenever you see me, you can be like, that's what he he chose to do. Like, my practices are so much so intentional because I know that my kids are watching. And somebody told me and was like, kids don't know good and bad habits, it's just what your parents do, right? So I was like, I don't want them to have any of my bad habits. So I had to like really like identify what about me has been known to be negative throughout my life. And then I had to like figure out how I even got those traits, and I was just, it was, it was so much, but it allowed me to realize that I was just protecting the kid that I was on the inside. Like I adapted to my surroundings, if that makes sense. Like nobody wants to act the way that I did, and that would, it it just allowed me to be, it allowed me to be alright. Like it didn't allow, like I didn't want to be caged in, but in order for me to move around, I had to develop this, I don't know, this attitude that people just let me be. And looking back, it's it's it's embarrassing because you know, I still have moments where I talk to my wife in a way that like it's tip, now I will say this, it's typically when I'm under the influence of adult beverages. But I don't, and that's what I mean, like when you practice, no matter your most vulnerable moments, you can still say the truth without offending somebody. And when I get under the influence, my my language sounds a lot more matter-of-factly, and I'm telling you what it is, and this is the only way. And who wants to talk to anybody like that? So, you know, we have different rules on when we're talking about particular subjects that if I've had more than two drinks, that we can only talk about things that's gonna make us smile and laugh. It can't be anything that's going to make us argue because that's not what we're here for. We're here to have a good time. So me and my wife, that's why this relationship is so cold, because when I hear men talk about their relationship or uh the many relationships they have, they have no idea that the longer they play, the the like the clock hasn't started yet. Like when you work on a relationship, I mean like when I say you work on a relationship, I truly mean like you're getting to know this person. Like you your intention is to, if she does not want to participate in intercourse with me, I know that will come, but the intention is to say, like, what is she not willing to share with me and whatever it is, am I willing, am I willing to keep going with her once I find out? And a lot of times we don't reveal the bad habits to our mates because we don't want to scare anybody away. That's crazy, right? But the thing is, if you talk to a person and they're ever able to be vulnerable with you and you hear it, it changes the relationship. Because if you're willing to help them through it, that's a different type of ride or die person. You know, and like I told my wife, like, I didn't know, I didn't know how to be a partner. No, I did know how to be a partner. I didn't know how to be a husband or a, I don't want to say a lover, um, a companion. I didn't know how to do that. And now I'm in love with the relationship we've created, and I want to just keep pushing it because I think if we keep working on ways to get better, we'll create better relationships. And that's when men or man will transform. Um because you know, everybody tells me that, you know, it's it's only necessary for for people to grow with each other. You know, like you gotta have a partner because it's like we're we're the that's just the type of animal we are. We are we we can't be by ourselves. We gotta have something. And the idea that we can still be distracted by looks to create a possible mistake, it says that we don't know how important we are, like I said before. And when you realize that we learned the wrong rules, or the rules were they they were complete misunderstanding, they were misunderstanding because nobody wants to be on the wrong side of history, okay? And Lord knows I have played my time with being on the wrong side of history. And now that I've seen it, I just want I want to show that life can be so much better if we worked on ourselves and the mate that we want. And I'll say this some of you may disagree, but it's okay. Like, I do believe all the women, like all women before they were compromised, would like to be where my wife is. Like the way that she knows how I view our relationship, I think all women would want a man to have this view of her like this. And I'm gonna tell you why. I know that my wife has given me a relationship that I didn't even know I could create. And I've had a lot of friends in my past. I've moved throughout the world where I created great groups of friends. But the relationship my wife gave me, not to say that I wouldn't miss everybody, but my wife and I talk about like anything because we feel like we don't want to waste each other's time and we're with each other a lot. So the things that we talk about, I think it allows us to grow together. It gives us different views, and uh, we don't agree on everything. And that is okay, but this is the the beautiful part of it. She and I have this relationship where she'll give me a set of eyes on a view of something that I can't see because I only have my eyes, right? But she wants me to win. Like, sometimes having a counsel that can give you wisdom where you know that they want the best interest for you, it's it's an anxiety I don't have. And I and I I don't I wouldn't say I had it before, but I can say that when I make decisions now, I know that I can run it by her, and she is going to give out a well-thought-out response because she wants us to win. So I know that in order for me to be able to get the best out of her, I have to make her feel safe. And I didn't know how to do that before. Learning to keep my wife safe when she when like she's not around is I don't know. It was to know how to do it now is beautiful. But before, I didn't, I I just didn't know for sure. And now showing her that how I can keep her safe, it makes me feel. And and like mind you, this is a guy who's almost 50. But I do want to say this though. Whoever may say that that's how old people think or whatnot, if I had this information now, I wouldn't have made nowhere near as many mistakes in my 20s. Like, I could have, I would have definitely been with my wife, though. No doubt. Like, even if it was like some type of change in the matrix or whatnot, I if the information that I have now, I would have, I would have been more intentional. That's what I'm saying. I feel like if people knew how intentional they could be to create something they haven't seen, they would do it. So just imagine, I'm almost 50. I've lived a wonderful life. And the information that I'm practicing now, I just started in six years. If I started at 20 something, my gosh. Like, I just couldn't imagine what it would look like at this point. And I think about, I think about, you know, your professional athlete. They start playing at a certain age. They already know what it's gonna look like by a certain age, what it's gonna project, right? Like they know by like 17, 18, people should be looking at you. You should be getting some letters, it anything, you know, just to see if you're on any kind of trajectory. Now, there's some outliers, of course, but I'm talking about the majority of people know that you ain't you're not gonna start playing basketball at 15 and be co by 18. Those days are over. So I'm saying now, if people worked on themselves intentionally every single day, like they were gonna go pro in like 10, 11 years. Like, but it it could be even less than that. Because it's no telling where you are on, it's no telling where you are on the the spectrum of how good you could become at something. But it's gotta be something you want to do. And you know, I was talking about, I don't know if it was in the last show or what I was. If you worked on yourself, you would find your purpose. The problem is, if you knew your purpose, you're not ready for it because you're you haven't invested enough time in yourself to take on the responsibility of your purpose, if that makes sense. Like, people's like, I don't know what my purpose is. I know because you have so many distractions in your life right now that if you had your purpose, you would probably drive yourself mad because you wouldn't have time to be able to do it. That's the reason why I said if you worked on your diet, mastery of your diet can help you relieve a lot of your anxiety, your pressures that that people just kind of make excuses for. And I'm not gonna say it's a it's a it's a tough thing, but I'll tell you this. When you do get to that point, nobody can't tell me that they don't enjoy the way that they're thinking at that point in life. I know people that have fallen off and they was like, man, when I was in shape, man, I was just thinking differently. Like distractions are real, and I need I need us to find ways to remove our distractions and replace them with better habits so that you can create an unseen result. Only you can do it, but you have to believe you're that important. Like, and I'll say this once you see your first thing that you didn't even know you were gonna do, it's like you're working on something, right? And you think it's supposed to look like this. And then along the way, somebody blesses you with something and be like, oh, they recognize something you're like, wow, I wasn't even working on that. And you're like, man, I want to just keep working because I'm telling you you'll get fruits from so many different places that says, continue working on yourself. Don't stop. And I want everybody to know you can you can do it. And and I don't want to beat you over the head with it, but it's not ever too late. And I think in my last show, I did say this: God will protect you as long as you do what you're supposed to do. But you have to intentionally work on yourself. That's what God wants you to do. No lie. Because if you worked on yourself, everything else around you would get better. Your job would get better, you'll be a better husband, better wife, better parent, better student, better kid, better son. Like if everybody did their part, it would be beautiful. And I'm thinking that if this game is about anything, we can actually say that AI cannot create what it would look like if everybody just worked on themselves. What would the world look like? I think I'm gonna ask that soon just to see what it would say. But y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G A, T A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.