growNman
growNman
158 Choosing Peace Or Building Love
Stop trading quiet for connection. We explore how “choosing peace” can become a shield against the deep work of love, and why a real partnership often delivers a richer, steadier peace than solitude ever could. From a season of separation to a renewed marriage, I share the routines, rules, and conversations that turned effort into trust: journaling, meditation, better sleep and diet, and a communication practice built on tone, timing, and respect.
The heart of the story is accountability. I thought showing up—dinners, trips, being home—meant I was doing enough. It wasn’t. What changed everything was learning how to make care land: asking for feedback, accepting a timeline I didn’t control, and proving growth in ways my wife could feel. We talk about 10,000 hours of conversation, de-escalation tools, and how to approach tough topics without triggering new wounds. You’ll hear practical frameworks: set boundaries for hard talks, pause when emotions flood, return to finish, and read the nonverbal cues that often say more than words.
There’s a larger call here for men to mature on purpose. Dating gets smarter when we ask better questions early about conflict, money, family, health, faith, and long-term goals. Communication isn’t a vibe; it’s a craft that cuts chaos, strengthens parenting, and improves your work life. If you’ve ever felt stuck between comfort and connection, consider this your nudge to practice love like a skill. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a hopeful blueprint, and leave a review with the toughest conversation you’re willing to have this week—we’ll tackle it together next time.
What up, Doe, and welcome back to I'm Growing Man, Shaman John D in the building. I hope everybody's having a wonderful start to whatever part of the week uh that you've decided to listen to this to. I was telling my friend last night that my wife and I haven't created a new episode on uh doing too much podcasts, uh, our show since June, and more downloads have come from our relationship than anything that I'm putting out. But I said all I had to say is that relationships are really important to me. And he also said the reason why, because a lot of men are not ready to follow a different message. Um most men are they follow what they think that they would get the best benefit out of, and a lot of times it's the wrong message. But my wife and I try to share the conversations we would have on a regular basis. And what I'm learning when I when I go on social media and I see people saying that they choose peace with themselves over the idea of a relationship, like it's it's cool for the temporary gratification that it's worth. Now, some people may disagree, but I want to try to add to the plate that you're eating from. When you choose peace, you limit the fruits you can get. When you choose a relationship, now mind you, there is there are rules to a relationship. There's rules to get to the relationship. But if you don't know these things, you'll either get hurt or hurt somebody and in the process create your own defense mechanisms for your future relationships to work. So those of you that are choosing peace and having meaningless relationships, I want you to put this into perspective. The more time you waste with people that don't matter, the more the level of difficulty increases for you to truly get what you want. If you want to be happy in a relationship, it's gonna take type of work that we really have not seen. And the reason why I know this to be true, because it happened in the relationship that I'm in with my wife. I believe my wife, well, from what she said, she was burnt out. She she felt like I didn't listen. Now, mind you, I come home every night, we eat dinner, we we watch things, we go out, we travel. But there were certain pieces in the relationship that I just didn't know how to do. And she didn't know how to tell me what I needed to do for me to receive it. So when I learned, this is by the grace of God and her, of course. Shout out to her for giving me enough time to mature. When I got it, it was so much easier to do the things that she needed to feel like this relationship was worth keeping. Now, mind you, when I learned this, we were separated. I was in Abu Dhabi, she was in Michigan, establishing things, preparing for my return after my contract. Now, with the information that I have now, she gave me six months. And mind you, this entire time that I'm gone, I'm gone for like a year and a half, I've created a routine, I've started journaling, meditating, eating better, uh uh, having consistent activities to challenge myself, creating this routine so that when I get back, I can maximize my time with my family and still learn how to work on myself intentionally every day. So a year and a half, I was working on it. When I'm gone, now mind you, I am coming home on different breaks. I'm trying to at least, because this is the COVID time. So when I do come home, we don't have the best relationship, but she is she's really good at what she does, and she made the most of it, I guess, for the kids. Now, when I move back, my mindset, my mindset has completely changed. I want to do whatever I can to prove to her that this relationship is going to improve. Now, mind you, I don't know that I have a time limit. She told me she gave me six months. Now, I do want you to know, if I was, if I wasn't mature, if I wasn't trying to intentionally do this, I would have been another statistic. But I had already thought about what I could do to practice and show growth. And I even asked her, I said, how does a woman, why would a woman stay? And then she said that, you know, if I see improvement, I mean, I mean, I think I can be able to see that. And in my head, I didn't worry about anything else again. I never thought about that we were going to go a different way, uh, because she was definitely outshot of just her and the kids. Uh but as things changed, I started to be more included in things. And mind you, we're in the house. And I look, I'm not feeling the type of way because whatever my behaviors before made her feel that way. So in my mind, she deserved a person that was willing to take whatever she was with. If she wanted to make it the most difficult, difficult journey for me to get here, I was willing to do it because she was not like this before I met her. She was not like this in like in our marriage for the most part. And then I created this part of her. And I and I said, I'm going to different happiness for you. And as time went on, like in my mind, I was like, I hadn't read Malcolm Gladwell's uh The Outliers. I was just talking about, you know, the outliers of any particular area. I was just talking about I wanted to be the outlier of the relationship. I want to be the coldest husband ever. And the coldest husband to me was like, the only way I could be the coldest husband is my if my wife feels like that no other man is willing to do the things that I'm doing. And right now, you know, I have a lot of conversations with men, and most of the men, they somewhat agree with the way that I approach the relationship, but you can see that they don't really want to give that effort because what I'm learning with mankind is people want to discover their own growth or ways to grow. And sometimes the way that I talk, because I told you guys I'm working on communication, sometimes the way that I talk, it sounds like I'm telling you what to do. And it's very difficult. I've noticed that it's very difficult to receive a message from somebody who's telling you what to do. And if it doesn't sound like, it doesn't sound like the the things that you're used to, especially if it could challenge your norms and the way that you look at life. Now, I'm not saying the way that I look at life is correct, but I do know that if you work on anything, it'll get better. Why not the relationship? So over this time, as far as I wanted to get these, so the 10,000 hours for the outlier, I was going to put that in conversations. Me and my wife was going to have over 10,000 hours. And I do believe we've eclipsed that because our relationship is where it is. Even if we aren't going to continue, like we have real conversations every single day. The only way we can't have a real conversation is if somebody's out of town. And we even, we're even trying to, like when somebody goes out of town, like we're gonna go with them. Like if my wife has some, like the last trip she had to go to Cadillac, Michigan, and I took off and I and I spent the day with her, you know what I'm saying? So that's that's the type of relationship that we've created where the relationship is the best friend that I didn't even know I could create. So when I hear people deciding they want peace, you can have that. But I've seen monks have peace and they don't look very happy. I want, I'm telling you now, I don't think, no, I don't want to, I don't want to challenge anybody in any way because I don't want it to be taken the wrong way. The peace that I have now, I've never had before. And I know that the happiness that my wife and I are creating, it can only improve because we work on it every single day. And then when I say work on it, it's not like, hey, it's okay, we got this, it's time to work on our thing. We just have a routine and rules and boundaries of how we approach whatever we're gonna talk about. Because most of us haven't talked enough to really understand how somebody would feel about a situation. And this is what I'll challenge you guys. Whatever you consider a tough conversation and y'all don't have them, can't get to the point that I'm talking about without trying to cover as many tough conversations as possible. Because when you handle and iron out all of the tough conversations, you you know how to handle your partner. And I and I'm not saying that handle them in a way where you're manipulating. I'm like, handle where you don't want to hurt them unintentionally. Like if it's something that you don't like to talk about for whatever reason, and if I'm gonna talk about it, I think I need to pre-plan before I trigger you in a way where you feel like I'm being disrespectful. And I think before, I didn't know how bad of a communicator I was. So the things that I knew that bothered her, I thought I was saying it in a different way. But it was still offending her, and I wasn't even doing it on purpose. But when I realized my communication was so poor, I had to be more accountable of the conversations we had because I really wanted to talk about the tough conversations because that was a part of my goal. My plans was to learn as much about her as possible so that I don't ever hurt her again. You know, and when I say that, I mean I'm talking about through tone, response, facial expressions, because the way somebody looks at you when they respond or how they hold on to a particular part of a word can offend somebody. And you could take it in the wrong way and lose a part of your piece because you feel like they should know better. And more I you know I'm in education, the more I practice, I'm realizing how bad communication is just period. And if we all don't work on it, it's very difficult to receive a message at the time it's being delivered. A lot of times we receive a message when it's too late, where a consequence could happen. So I want to practice where I can show you guys. I'm not saying you shouldn't have peace, but I do believe all of us should be trying to develop a relationship where you can build with a person just through conversations. Because they say you can enjoy life more with a partner. And imagine if you enjoy talking to them, it's going to always challenge you, you know, because it's a different perspective. And not only this, you always got another set of eyes that's in your best interest because they want you to win. And if you don't know, if you don't understand what I'm saying, understand this. Relationship is probably the greatest thing that you could work for. Like when you're younger, if you learn how to, at a young age, if you could teach, communication should be worked on every single day so that nobody misunderstands you and you'll have less arguments, uh, reduced chaos through misunderstandings. You'll know how to de-escalate versus being triggered by, you know, people who aren't very good communicators. Just imagine having that at a young age. This is going to allow you to mature also because you're going to look around. Communication is so important. Just imagine if you have a good diet and your body is the way that it's supposed to be because you're eating the right things, your activity is consistent where, you know, it you're healthy, you're drinking enough water. Like it changes your self-esteem because there are people that's overweight that have self-esteem issues, and they have to create these boundaries to say they don't have to have these issues, but they're there. But I'm I'm this is not to knock anybody. I'm just saying if you are a young kid, just imagine if you have these things. You don't have to worry about uh, because most of the time, your your health was given to you from your family. And if you don't intentionally break on how you grew up, you'll create excuses saying it's okay to decrease the chances of living a long time because it's definitely evident that if you don't eat the right things, that your body breaks down and it causes other organs in the body to work harder and something fails, and then, you know, it's all from food. Not all from food. It's part a lot of it's from food, though. But just imagine you have that and you will mature differently. You would focus on things, but as you get older and you look for your partner, you're gonna be able to think. You can ask the right questions to get to know them. You won't be distracted by what they look like or where they come from or who raised them or what their major is gonna be. It's somebody that you feel like this can be my person because I've interrogated them uh in a in a in a way that if you're into a person, you're like, I'm glad they asked me these questions because I wouldn't have thought about that. And now I have a better idea of how I want to proceed with this possible relationship. We often miss the most important parts of the relationship in the beginning, because if you really ask these questions, you would learn if you're wasting your time. And I feel like we feel like wasting our time is the fun part of life. Wasting your time, wasting your time is probably a mindless thing to do because that's the only thing that we really can't control. Like, we don't know when it's over. So all we can do is just prepare today and do what we can. So asking your potential partner the right questions will it will reduce your heartache. Because I don't think, well, I don't believe we know how to date correctly. Um and I I do believe it's the immaturity in men. And when I say that, this is not an attack on men, I just feel like where we are in life, when like I guess whenever the first man was created in here, I feel like we haven't grown that much. Men still think they know everything, and the relationship is suffering because men make the decision of who they're gonna be with. And if you don't protect that, you're going to create chaos, like I said before. So women often get, very often, get the short end of the stick. And if we don't pass on better information, and this is what I've been pushing for a long time, we need to pass on better information so that we can get that happiness we deserve. And when I say happiness, I mean like if it's a scale of zero to ten unhappiness, right? I'm definitely at a 10. The only way I could be less than a 10 is that I can't figure out why. So that was, I just said that so you guys know. You could say, like, he's just saying that. No, zero to ten, because this is one thing I do know. Tomorrow, God willing, that I'm going to try to improve better than the day before. And these are choices that I have to make. So I already know that if I keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing today, tomorrow it's already prepared. Outside of something changing the way that I feel, I'll tell you this. And I know that I'm getting to the point where people close to me are going to start dying because I'm I'm almost 50. So I got people way older than me, so I know that it's gonna happen. I've I've I've learned when I lost my father that he told me, death is inevitable. You're gonna die. And he said he didn't want us to be sad and all of that. You know, I've learned that if you're gonna die, you shouldn't be sad for somebody else's peace. Because as people die, I'll be happy for everything that they've given me, and hopefully I can return the favor because they've, you know, they had to go to a better place or wherever, you know, that you're supposed to go to after your body breaks down. But I'm going to try to use and get all of the message from those people that spent time with me to help me get to this mindset where I can help share information that I believe will change mankind. Just imagine if men decided I want to become mature enough to make this relationship work. And if it doesn't work, it's because of me, because I don't know what a woman looks like, or I don't know what a partner looks like, or I don't know if I can put the effort in to make it work. I didn't know I could do this either. But it has to be on purpose. You cannot accidentally get to what I am talking about. And as look, I'm look, I'm dedicated to working on my communication for the remainder of my existence. So I get to live to 100. By the time I'm 100, at some point, some men will be like, it'll be like a generation of people that will believe like I'm going to work on myself before I go even try to get into something as complex as a relationship. And I'm hoping that the younger generation of kids, I mean like people in elementary and middle school, they're talking about relationships. And you know what I tell them? I said, hey, you're still learning who you are. You're just complicating things beyond measure. Adults aren't even good at relationships. Why would you get in this? And, you know, they look at me like, I guess they aren't good, you know, but we need to work on ourselves. We need to teach ourselves to learn how to improve on a daily basis. You know, I heard somebody say, you know, you just got to do 1% a day. You could, but you could do a whole lot more too. So all of the people that think that you only have to do so much or you can skip days. Like, why are you that good in life where you skip days on improving you? And my wife has a problem with me because I say sometimes people are bots. You have to be a bot if you're not trying to create something that you're intentionally making on purpose, you're a bot. Like, what are you making? A lot of us, the scapegoaters, like when we have kids, we're developing our kids, but you can still work on yourself. Because when your kids are gone, God willing, you're still gonna be in pretty good shape. And you should have been working on something the whole time while your kids were there so that when they do leave, you already know what you want because you've been working on it the whole time. And then you develop this, like, I don't know, this it just depends on what you want to do. Um and I'm I'm praying, you know, the things that I'm working on are going to uh come to life where not only my my kids, my wife and our kids, like our family's kids, but the students I work with, like they'll they'll know because there are certain things that I've told them, and if they are able to watch this, it's gonna change their life. And you know, I have great relationships with these parents, and I'm willing to do whatever I can to help. So the relationship with my wife has allowed me to benefit from my professional career because I can get better in that also. So when I learned how to get better with being a father and a husband, I it started going into all other parts of my life. And it's it's put me in a mind space that I was really fooling in my younger life. Like I think I was just trying to find a way to not have any of this. And I hate, I hate the way that I was walking uh before because people were watching. And now, like I told y'all, I refuse to anybody catch me slipping. So I had to change how I walked. And the way that I walk now, I feel like it's upright. It's like any noble man would do. So I will continue to find ways to improve, be the example that I want my kids to have, uh, be the husband that my wife didn't even know a man could become. That is the man I'm trying to become. The husband that my wife didn't even know I could become. Because when you when you challenge that, you don't know what it could be. Like, and as a man, I feel like if we really control our own destiny, what are we doing to actually control it? Because our life is a series of practices and routines, and if our habits are not good ones, we are finding ways to destroy what in our mind, like, oh, it'd be nice to have that. We can't have it because we're supposed to be going up going this way, right? But for some reason, we're over here. We're distracted. We need to get back to focus on who we are and do what we need to do to be great. And if we don't do that, we're gonna make excuses on why, you know, oh, we knew that that was gonna work for them. But why won't it work for you? You have to believe in yourself. 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.