growNman
growNman
163 Why Relationships Fail And How To Fix Them
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If love keeps feeling harder than it should, the fix might not be a new partner or a perfect script—it might be maturity you can train. John pulls back the curtain on the habits that rescued his marriage and reshaped his life: clear communication, daily movement, disciplined diet, and practiced emotional intelligence. This is a straight, practical playbook for anyone ready to stop reacting and start building a relationship that can handle real life.
We walk through why clarity beats clever comebacks, how journaling turns noise into insight, and why eight to ten thousand steps can save your patience at the end of a long day. John explains the trap of chasing money without inner stability, the hidden cost of sugar on mood and self-esteem, and the ripple effect that accountability has on trust. He shares how solitude, financial missteps, and the pain of separation forced a reckoning—and how owning hard truths led to a routine that honors his wife, kids, and students.
You’ll leave with a framework you can use today: CADE—Communication, Activity, Diet, Emotions. Start small, be honest, and let integrity guide your choices when no one’s watching. If you’re ready to make today better than yesterday and focus on what you can control, this conversation is the nudge to get after real change. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and tell us which part of CADE you’ll work on first.
What up, Doe, and welcome back to I'm Growing Man. It's your man John D in the building. So what I'm gonna do, or what I'm going to attempt to do, is uh instead of going so off the top, I want to uh kind of share my thoughts with you guys because this is what I'm recognizing. When I discuss relationships with men, um I think there's a misunderstanding of, I don't know. So today's episode is going to be about me sharing my perspective on why relationships are failing as a whole and what we can do to turn that around. Um now I will say this everybody can win. When I say everybody, if you put in the work, you will get what you deserve. If you don't put it, if you're not, this goes to all of you. If you're not happy in your relationship and you want it to work, what I'm gonna give you will completely change the dynamics of how you view that relationship. This goes for women also, and I'm gonna tell you this. My wife didn't know that I could become the man that I am today. And she still doesn't know what it's gonna look like. I created a podcast to learn how to communicate and deliver a message to help men grow in ways that I don't believe we've been challenged. And I am going to attempt to come up with words that's going to change the mindset of all men. I've been on this journey for about six years now, and the more I learn about this journey, the more I'm excited about seeing what's gonna happen. You know, I don't worry about things I can't control. And it's giving me so much more focus on things that make me happy. And a happy me makes a happier environment. And and I believe that wholeheartedly. So I wrote some things down. So I'm not good with editing, I can't afford anybody to do this stuff for me. So I I I asked ChatGPT to um kind of give me some points I need to discuss. And the reason why I'm sharing this because a lot of the writing that I have now, it's all polished by ChatGPT. But ChatGPT and I have a pretty good relationship, I I definitely give as much information as I can so that if anybody is watching, maybe we can push a different message where humans could benefit. But I think as a man, we need to consider that maybe we're immature. And and the reason why I say that is because before I went on this journey, I didn't realize how many people are not on this journey. Like, everybody has the freedom to do whatever they want, right? But I don't have I don't have people around me that are telling me that they're working on their craft every single day to develop something they haven't seen. And if they are, they haven't shared it with me. But everybody around me know what I'm trying to do. And I feel like when you truly mature, you'll value your own time and you'll be very useful with your time. You wouldn't let anybody waste it more than a moment because you can only control what you can control, right? And you could get caught up. Uh, but overall, if you're more intentional with your life, like on a daily basis, that's a different level of maturity. You know, uh I remember when I first started, and people were like, they were like, you you're too hard on yourself, or you know, you're gonna you're gonna work yourself to death. And I'm like, I just didn't understand that because I understood it on other things, but as far as working on yourself, how could you get tired of working on yourself? Like to me, that's that's that's backward thinking if you think you you really think that. Like you're the most important person in the world. And it deserves pretty much all of the attention. The immaturity in men, and and and it doesn't matter your ethnic background, your your class, station, uh it doesn't matter. Anybody can develop some habits that will allow them to continuously work on themselves. You know, when you're a baby, you know, people feed you and then you learn how to feed yourself, right? And when I think about information, if you stop going to school, what what are you doing to continuously find information? Because it's we don't know. There's so many things that we don't know. But if you don't intentionally look for things, you're hoping that your friend group is going to bring some new information to you where you can be like, hmm, but I'm gonna tell you, if you look at your friend groups, if you guys don't talk like that, where are you getting the information for you to continuously grow? So I do believe that we should get into a practice of constantly learning new things. And honestly, you don't really have to learn new things. You could just learn the things that you know really well, and then things will start to change. I'm telling you, when you work on yourself, doors open that you didn't even know were there. And typically people only work on things to like look for money. You know, like, and this is one thing that I've I've learned on this journey, also. Like, people are really gone off of like the idea of an abundance of money because they want to be able to do whatever they want to do, right? But you can have all the money in the world, and if you're not right on the inside, you're just gonna be not right on the inside with a whole bunch of money. And you know, you're more you're more dangerous like that because you think you can buy these things. You can't buy improvement, you have to put the effort in to improve. And I don't believe mankind believes that they should be in a continuous evolution of mastering a craft. And the most important person in the world, like I said, is you. Why wouldn't you learn to master yourself? You know, mastering yourself, it's that is the journey of life. I think that's what it is. I'm addicted to trying to improve and improve myself. And I want to master myself. And I believe it at some point. And when I say mastery of self, I there's so many different things, but the things that I focus on, y'all know, K, uh communication, uh, that's all forms of it, where nobody can misunderstand you, and the person that's receiving the message will receive it without any type of you know, negative feeling. Like I feel like when you can go that way, you put this effort in making sure that you have less conflicts around you. Activity, activity, remember, you gotta have 8 to 10,000 uh steps a day. Uh walking is a very healthy exercise, and I believe that everybody, including young people, should get into it. Um, you have to drink half your body weight in water. Uh you need to, you could do push-ups, sit-ups. Like I said before, you don't have to go to a gym, but if you're a gym rat, go for it. But if you have uh a money thing where you, you know, you don't have as much money, you can still get healthy by doing basic calisthenics. I mean, everybody knows how to do some push-ups. And if you can't do push-ups, get on your knees and then you know, work yourself up. But at you have to master these things in your life to reap the benefits that you're truly looking for. So we got communication, activity, the diet. If we can teach young kids how to master a diet at a young age, they don't they won't worry about nearly as much uh much uh self-esteem issues or anything related to that, you know, because when you master the diet, you can master the diet where you can still enjoy the deliciousness that man has created, but you can you understand there's a possible addiction from the sugar. So in your genetic makeup, you're not even thinking about like, why would somebody overindulge in this? But if you don't have an understanding of how to master the diet, it's a problem in a lot of people's lives today. Like, I don't know where we are in obesity, but nobody wants to be there. Nobody went on a journey to go there on purpose and somehow we got there, right? But if we can learn to master the diet, we'd have better esteem of people that would understand the addiction that a lot of people were born into. Just think about it. A lot of the sugar that was invited in your life had a lot to do with your parents providing things to you and don't even know the significance of this thing. And then the ball is rolling. That it's already hard to parent, let alone creating an addiction in your kids on purpose through sugar. And I'm not saying you can't have sugar, but these are one of the things that I think the problem with the maturity in men, because diet is so important. It helps maintain the body. You know, food is only fuel, but we're so great at doing things like making food delicious. We get in this idea that it's okay as long as I work out. And that's not really the case. You know, you shouldn't overindulge in anything. You know, we have to make better decisions as human, you know, and I'm not saying we can be perfect, but we should be improving so that we don't have to have the, you know, the, what is it, the consequences of a poor diet. People are dying, like I had people die in their 30s, being overweight. Like, there's nothing, nothing good about that. You know, that parent had no idea what they were doing with these, with, with their kids. So with the information we have today, we have to take that seriously, seriously. And then the last part, as far as the maturity in me, is emotional intelligence. And I feel like if we can truly control our emotions, like we're less likely to overreact. And I think that we need to come up with better ways to help. I know people have therapy, counseling, but at a young age, we need to come up with a game plan to help, even as we grow. Because when I was young, I I remember, you know, you would feel this way, and somebody will say that and you just associate it with that. But there's so many feelings that haven't been described in the proper sense, and it's like we can't explain it. But if we learn to control them and then learn about them, I think, like I said, we would respond differently. So if we focused on these things that I'm talking about, I do believe that man will start the process of maturing because this life we do have is very short. Uh it's crazy for me to say that because as I was telling you guys, Cade, uh, communication activity, diet, and emotional intelligence, like I'm telling you these ideas, and I was just thinking in my head, like my experience as a kid and what my parents introduced me to and didn't even know what they were doing. And I think that stunted the growth of humans because we don't understand how important those things are. Those are something that can continuously get better. So I don't understand why we don't, why we don't push that idea to master self. Because if you master yourself, you'll be able to do anything you want. You know, you we need to we need to create a movement of people wanting to improve through intentional work. And that will like when you do that on purpose, it's it's a different maturity. Because that means you're more aware of the time that you don't want to waste, unless it's it's helping you grow as a person, you know. What the the way that I want to grow, I want my kids at some point to look back and be like, he was on that. And even my students, like I am, you know, I was look, I want to share this with you. So I was talking uh to a colleague, and you know, I remember when I was a teacher, and you know, like most teachers don't are not able to cut off uh when they get off work because they have to grade papers or they have to do something for the next day, some type of planning. But I've met teachers in my in my 25-year uh in my 25-year practice, I've met people that were able to just go home and turn it off. I didn't know if that was good or bad, but I know in my position, I have not turned off. I am in constant, I'm constantly working on different things that's going on to improve the school. And the benefits for me are it doesn't, it doesn't prevent me from enjoying my life. Because the things that I feel like the school needs to improve on is me, first of all, is just working on myself. So I'm I'm always thinking about what I can do to change some behaviors because when these students leave us, in my mind, I just want to plant a seed to say it's time for you to start maturing. You have to focus on these areas. But a lot of these things are so far away from my students, you know, I can only just plant a seed because, you know, I only see them so much, you know, in one given moment. And, you know, even teaching, like you only get them an hour out the day. Me and my wife was discussing how that's just like a smallest percentage you're just hoping to plant a seed. And that to be an educator, it's it takes a different energy where you you have to learn to turn it off because it can overwhelm you. So I've met some people that's able to do that, and it's it's it's it's a it's a balance that I don't know if if educators should have, because I think when you're able to turn it off, that means that you have things in everything is in order. There's no room for improvement. That's in my mind. So if we just spent a little more time in our craft, I think that would help us mature as men. It just takes intentional work. Um my second thing I need to do, uh, oh yeah. You know, when you're this is the thing. When you're wrong about something, you being accountable and owning up to it is a different type of maturity. And it comes with a lot of integrity. I that is my that's my number one thing I believe in. When when nobody's around, I need them to believe that I'm gonna do the right thing. Like, I've I've I've returned large amounts of money, I've I've turned in wallets, like I've I've done things that because I feel like I want somebody to do back for me. But looking back, I don't know if it was just I was in the moment or whatnot, but typically I want I want to do the right thing because the person on the other end, I've been that person where you're like, golly, I gotta call these cards and get them canceled, I gotta get an ID, I gotta do this. It's just like so many things that you you just feel like, why? You know, so I try to do the right thing. And I believe if we owned up to our past mistakes so that we make sure we don't do them again through. This is this is this is one thing you could do. Like I I do this, I've been doing it since I started to. I've written. I'm telling you, I'm not a great writer. And it's not even that to become a better writer. It's to help me articulate my thoughts. It's to help me uh talk about the things that I want to do. So it's in writing, you know, uh Habakkuk223 says if you write it, and it'll happen. So I've been in the practice of just trying to create and inspire people who may not have the best environment that they live in. And me owning my past mistakes, and I think I do believe I've told my wife everything that could come back to harm me. Because I wanted her to know that when I went on this journey, I was gonna own each and every single thing that I've did in the past that could possibly stop this relationship that I promote so much. Like it just changed the person that I was when I was able to become honest with her. And I'll tell you this before you get into a relationship, you can avoid all of that. But you know, I grew up with not the best examples, and not to say that they weren't trying to lead me in the right way, but I just did know how to do it. And that's why I say like the maturity part changed when I owned up to understanding why I was doing the things that I was doing, or acting the way that I was acting, or talking the way that I was talking, to this point, I have I understood why I was like that. And this is the big thing. If you understand, it's easier for you to walk the way that you want to. And a lot of people, I don't think they understand how easier it is in life when you master yourself. Everything's so much easier. And I think that we like being busy and like being seen. But if you take care of yourself, people gonna watch. And you'll enjoy your life that much more because a lot of times we are where we're distracted. And I maturity will reduce, like if as you mature, you're gonna notice your distractions and you're gonna limit them because time is too precious. But that is the part of maturing that I'm talking about. Okay, in the last part, action creates maturity. So in order to truly like accept the idea that you want to get better, you have to be completely honest with yourself. You you should journal. You know, I this is what I'm gonna do. I'm going to share some things that that I think helped me mature along the way. Now, I do believe that I was able to be, I was able to mature because I was alone for such a long time. Um when my family moved back to the States, I was by myself for about 20 months. I came home on breaks, but it was just quiet. And I've never lived like that before. And I just, it a lot of self-reflection came where I had to figure out how did I lose my family? And because I was financially ignorant, you know, and then when as a man, when I realized I was financially ignorant, I could say that out loud, I had to ask myself, what else didn't I know what I was doing? And then when I started to break it down, I was asking myself, why was I doing those things and why didn't I know enough to not be there? And I had to be accountable for just being, for just being ignorant. I didn't know better. And that's crazy to be a 41-year-old, 40-year-old man is I would I want to say I was 41. Yeah. And um just just the simple reflection of the things I was doing, I was uh I was too arrogant for my own good. And I don't think I had any type of consequence that could change my behavior other than me losing the family, my family the way that I did. And that was tough because I had to go birthdays without my family, or their birthdays, you know, like we're a real family, and like I can't even celebrate them because I was financially ignorant. So when I started to be accountable for the things that I was perpetually doing on a daily basis, I was I became a different person. I realized how much time I was wasting on things that didn't even matter. And when I wanted to get back, well, by the time I got back home, I had created a routine where I was going to polish the person that I wanted to become so that my wife could know that she's appreciated because she's the one that makes my family so beautiful. Like when I put pictures up on social media, like my kids are happy because she she showed me what the inside of a home is supposed to look like because I just I didn't grow up that way, this way, you know, and I used to always be hating on my kids. Like, why are they getting that? They didn't even ask for that, you know, and I'm like, why are we doing this? And I didn't grow up like that. I grew up like, you know, don't ask for nothing. You know, it was crazy. But uh I had to realize that I just didn't grow up with enough information to turn into this person. Like some things had to be taken away. You know, like if you lose your sight, your hearing gets better, or vice versa, like because it helps you navigate. Like when I lost my family, like I had to really dig down, like why? And when I accepted that my upbringing was a little different, and everybody has their own story. So that's why I said everybody can benefit if they just intentionally try to work on themselves to become a better version. Like, like I said, everybody benefits, but the person that benefits the most is you, because you know that it can get even better than that, but it can't without the intentional work that is necessary to improve. I didn't even know I was gonna talk this long. I try not to go over 26 minutes, uh, and I don't even know if the edits is gonna get less than 26 because according to um, you know, the things that I read, you know, the an adult that is focused lasts about 26 minutes on the average, I guess. And I don't want to talk people to death, so I'm gonna end it here and I'll catch up with you guys on the next episode of I'm Growing Man. 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. Boom.