174 Guard Your Future, Choose With Care

Hard truth lands softer when it saves a life. We’re speaking to young men, future fathers, and anyone who wants to stop repeating preventable mistakes: master yourself first, then step into romance and parenting with clarity. The framework is CAD—communication, activity, diet, and emotional intelligence—and it’s less a slogan, more a daily operating system.

We start with communication because it powers boundaries, repair, and trust. You’ll hear practical prompts that defuse tension, ideas for relationship rules that keep love safe during hard talks, and a simple way to avoid fights that never needed to happen. Then we move into activity as a backbone: walking 8–10k steps, hydration, journaling, meditation, stretching, and skill practice like chess. It’s the quiet, consistent actions that build grit and shift identity.

Diet gets honest. We unpack addiction to “delicious” foods, why cooking at home beats the myth that eating healthy is expensive, and how time-restricted eating and simpler meals can reset energy, mood, and body composition. Emotional intelligence closes the loop: choosing calm over ego, leaving charged spaces, and refusing environments that keep you on tilt. Along the way, we talk responsibility—guarding your heart and your seed until you can hold the weight—and why mature relationships multiply your purpose instead of stealing it.

If you’re ready to replace impulse with intention and attraction with alignment, this is your playbook. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a stronger foundation, and leave a review with the one CAD pillar you’ll build this week.

Transcript

Early Choices, Maturity, And Consequences

A New Standard For Young Men

CAD Pillars Introduced

Communication Solves Most Problems

Activity, Discipline, And Monastic Models

Daily Routines And Lifelong Practice

Diet, Addiction To “Delicious” Foods

SPEAKER_00 0:12

What up Doe and welcome back to I'm Growin' Man, it's your man John D in the building. You know, this is this is gonna be probably a controversial podcast episode. But what I wanna do is know that it's coming from a genuine place. And know that if this message is not for you, you don't have to respond. This message is to help and probably reduce some of the mistakes that we keep making. So this message is for people that have kids, they call themselves parents, people that want to be a parent. You know, in a perfect world, you would want parents to give you the information that you needed to get what you want in life, you know, like to achieve your dreams. But some of you were in tough situations where um your dreams probably were taken away from you at a very young age due to for whatever reasons. I know this. And me being in education, I feel like I can give an honest assessment that all parents want the best for their kids. All of them. All of them. There have been situations where parents have said some of the meanest things you could imagine to kids. And then I just think, how did it get there? And those of you that have been following me know that relationships are for mature people. If you do practices that adults do at a young age and you haven't matured enough, you're gonna be responsible for somebody's existence and you haven't even completed your own maturity. That just shows you the maturity where you are. If you get a baby by someone you don't want to have a baby with, that just shows you the immaturity of it all. Now, we made some bad decisions because of the information that we got when we were younger. I was one of those participants, and I realized that my father he he told me it was okay to participate participate in adult activities as long as I use protection, and I was 12. So I was just thinking, I started practicing at 14 and every one of those instances I think before I had my first child could have been a trap to change my life where I'm not here today. My father gave me that message. I'm trying to give a different message. Young men, if you truly believe you are important, do not give your heart, do not give your your seed to someone if you're not prepared to be responsible. If you out here just practicing, having fun, understand consequences come from that. But those of you that are doing this because you just feel like you're supposed to, it's not worth it. It is not worth it. I just think about if I was a kid that didn't get to grow up in a two-parent household. I don't know any kid that says, I wish I grew up on a single-parent household. So we have to be more responsible for what we put out in the world. And I just believe it's because as kids, if you're unsupervised, you're going to find adult things to do, and consequences come from those actions. So if you're being promiscuous or you're considering participating in these activities, and you end up being a victim, you can't say, God, don't make mistakes. And that's what people be saying, God don't make mistakes. You made the mistake. Don't put that on God. But I'ma tell you, like I said, I was a participant. I could have got trapped at a very young age. And you know, I had friends that got trapped. And I still believe it's it's the message of the man. We have to know we have to do better. So, young man, again, if you think you are that important, get to know who you are. Find mastery and self. If I were to do it all over again, I'm trying to practice this with my son, try to let him know. CAD, communication, your activity, your diet, and your emotional intelligence is what's ultimately going to protect you from the world. Communication. That's how the person receives your message, how you deliver the message. Um, how anything could be misinterpreted as far as misunderstandings, disagreements, how to respond from those things, how to know when to just be silent. Like if you can communicate, it will solve 99% of your problems. 99% of them. Because at the end of the day, we don't know how to establish boundaries and ask for help. That's 99%. People let people cross boundaries and people don't know how to ask for help. So if we learn how to communicate effectively, people won't get in fights. Like wars would stop. I was just telling a friend last night, you telling me we can't sit down and talk about this? You gotta like kill people? We have to learn how to communicate. There is no reason we that why we can't make this work. And I just feel like the message is so poorly written that we can't even establish great relationships through just communication, just talking, having a conversation. You feel that way? What happened? Why do you feel that way? What can I do to make it right? Let's make something happen. And I just feel like at this point, I am going to continue working on myself, of course. I want to be the example, I want to see, and spread the message that young men, if you believe you're that important, focus on K, communication, activity. Your activity is how active you are every single day. Like you should be walking 8 to 10,000 steps a day. You should be drinking half your body weight and ounces of water every single day. You shouldn't be eating a couple of hours before you're gonna go to sleep. Um, if you can meditate, like journal, like your activity, the things you're doing outside of work, and when you are maybe engaged with, you know, your partner, your kids, your family, what are you doing by yourself? Like, how are you becoming a better person? How are you finding self-mastery within yourself? And that's that activity part is very important because being in the United States, you know, obesity is real. And I truly feel that people look at health the wrong way, also. You know, I've been studying monks, like, oh my God, if you guys like, it's a different discipline. Y'all know what I tell you, I'm working on communication. I'm gonna work on all of these things for the rest of my life, right? I want to be code at it. These guys that became monks were doing this like at young ages, like their discipline is it is it isn't even discipline. It's like a way of life. And I, in my mind, I studied it but didn't study enough until something I saw yesterday, and I said, I am so sorry for violating anything. But I do anticipate doing things for the rest of my life that's going to sharpen my sword so that I can show others how to sharpen their sword. The art of improving in whatever you want, the rewards are so fulfilling, like within inside. You know this. Even if you don't get anything today, you know that if you worked on it today, it's going to accumulate over a course of time. And at some point, it's going to blossom into this creation that we haven't seen before. And I believe monks are probably the closest thing to that today, but I want to do that. I'll explain that part after. I don't want to get distracted, but activity is so important. So I journal, I meditate, I play chess, I study chess, I listen to videos on how to improve in chess. Like, I've I've made this a part of my life. Like, I don't want to be a grandmaster. Shout out to them. But I want to be good enough to be able to compete with a grandmaster because the things they do to become a grandmaster, I don't have the time in my life to give away to that. Because there are other things that I want to become cold in. So my time is very valuable. So I use these opportunities to still improve in chess. So I say these things, I'm doing these things every single day. Like there's no, like, even when, like if I'm sick, like I had COVID like two or three years in a row on my birthday. And those days I still did my whole routine. And now I'm going to incorporate some better stretching practices and some different body weight activities where I'm not trying to become bulky big. I just want to be strong enough to keep my flexibility in all aspects where I'm just learning to master my body. And that's what I want. If if anybody that's young and you know, you kind of like get stuck, you don't know what you want to do, if you work on yourself at an early age, you got to head start on the rest of the world because there are people that aren't working on themselves and they're way older than you and they don't understand life. But if you started working on yourself today by the age of 25, and I'm saying 10 solid years of just working on yourself, the age of 25 is going to be crazy. Now, communication activity diet. Your diet is very important. If your parents are aware enough, they can introduce you to what a good diet is where you can't get addicted to poor habits. Now, mind you, we like we just learning this, right? But if we were aware enough, we could have prevented our kids from being exposed to misuse of delicious foods. That's the problem. You know, we got people that think they can just go to the gym and work off whatever weight, but at the end of the day, they're creating an addiction to delicious foods that eat up the body. Like there's so many things that people develop due to obesity from the overconsumption of delicious foods that health complications develop. So imagine if you had parents that knew all of these things and was giving you things and showed you that, hey, you can have delicious foods, but it's every once in a while because we don't want it to become this thing where it takes over and makes bad decisions for us. Because adults make bad decisions from their food selections on a daily basis. You can have these things, but there's no reason why we should be eating delicious foods every day where it's impacting our health. So if you're young, you can eat healthy. Like people say it's expensive to eat healthy. It isn't. Like, I don't know what type of healthy foods people be looking for, but I'm just talking about if you get eggs, you can get chicken, uh, beef, and you can even get pork. You know what I'm saying? Like, people think pork is bad because it's in the Bible or it's in the Quran or it's in other books that say it's bad. There are parts of the pork that's better than parts of the beef. And you can look it up. I'm just going by what scientists and researchers have said. Like, a lot of the practices we have come from religious backgrounds, and we're at this day and age where technology has shown that there are better ways to improve your life versus practicing what is written and translated to that magnitude. So, vegetables, like, I don't understand when people say that eating healthy is expensive. Um, are you eating out or something? I don't know. Like, I do feel this way. You should learn how to cook if you haven't. Uh, learning how to cook allows you to make the food you want. And I know you think it's it's it's time consuming, but that's a practice that can develop other skills within itself. And I'm saying it's improving you and your usage of time. So if you master this diet, your kids, they'll have high self-esteem. They won't have low self-esteem because of their body structure. Like they would they would look probably healthier than everybody else, and they'll get compliments throughout life because they're physically fit, because of their practices, but it's nothing that everybody hasn't had exposure to. But you have to make it an everyday practice just to maintain. And and I'll say, there are things that I don't do to maintain physically, but I am I am so for this life. Like I feel like I'm gonna live as long as God lets me continue to improve and you know, don't take my body from me, I'm going to try to find ways to make life a lot more fun. Because where I am now, I can't believe I'm here. So it's like I'm out here trying to show people how to enjoy the quality of life if they just worked on themselves. And that diet part, it will kick your butt. It will kick your butt. I was 231 at one point in my life. And I didn't even know I was big. Today I stand like a 186. My goal is like 178. You know, I'm in this health thing, but 178 puts me in my BMI. And I'll tell you, I've been in my BMI for a few years and I got out of it because I was trying to figure out what was the best diet for me. I've been fasting for the last couple of years. Now it's gotten to the point where I fast every single day, and all I drink water, and very rarely will I eat at work. Very rarely. Um unless they have something, some kind of special meal or something. But typically, I just eat at home. I eat dinner. I might have a little small meal. No, I can't even say a small meal, uh, uh, two meals. I have one when I get off work because maybe I'm hungry, and then I eat one at dinner with the rest of the family. But sometimes I don't even eat the meal. I just eat the meal with the family. And the more and more I do research, I realize that our body can operate off less food. The three meals a day, the five small ones, it's it's so many different ways you can do it. But you have to find what your body can do, what best works for you. And if you don't look like what you want to look like, you're not working hard enough. Now, I'm not looking like what I want to look like because I now know that different ways that I can work on my body without leaving the house. And I'm excited about trying these things because it's some practices that monks do for strength, and they do it like for their rest, their whole life. Like they can do push-ups like on their fingertips, and I'm like, I want that life. I want to see what I can do with my body at this age. Now, granted, I may not become that strong at all, but the idea of me getting closer is going to be way stronger than I am today. And it has to be on purpose. But who's to say I can't get there? So I've accepted that part. So I'm telling you guys, communication, activity, diet, last but not least, emotional uh intelligence. I think if you can control your emotions through any type of heated engagement, you will always look back and be like, I'm glad I did it that way. Some people always want to possibly do an aggressive uh response. They wish they would have done this, but you don't know what that person would have done to you. And I don't want anybody to feel like the loudest person is right. I want you to be like, I made the best move because I wasn't willing to go do what he was willing to go do because I want you to go back home. So I I truly believe like sometimes you just got to be quiet. No matter how you feel when you get home, if you get in that practice, you won't even get in situations like that that often. Because you're like, oh, this environment creates those. I refuse to put myself in that environment because I want my own peace. And then you'll become this person that understands that you don't have to live a particular life unless you choose to. And I know fun is fun for different people, but if we can't control our emotions, we tend to get into arguments that can escalate into a physical altercation where the worst to worst could happen. And I don't I don't want that to happen anymore. So I feel like if we as young people, when I say young people, ages babies to 25, if we can somehow adopt better practices where our parents are more aware of what we're telling our kids, our kids have a better shot at taking on the world. Communication, activity, diet, emotional intelligence. You get out in the world, just think about it. Graduated high school, 18, you're probably the sharpest person there because nobody is really thinking about that part. The communication, activity, diet, and emotional intelligence. You can just talk to your classmates and ask them what's important, what are the things that they're practicing? What things are they doing to prepare themselves for the world outside of academics and sports? Like there are things you can work within yourself. Like, like I said, journaling, listening to other people's examples of what helped them. All you got to do is take a little bit from everybody, and you'll be a reflection of everybody's great habits. And then you're this person. You focus on that your first 25 years of your life. You're going to only attract the energy that you want. And I'll tell you this relationships are for mature people. If you can do that, you're going to have a great shot at enjoying every single day of your life because the person that you pick is only there to help you to get to that goal. Because if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, she's going to become the happiest woman in the world. And she would do anything for you. But if you're not practicing these things, you're going to let distractions prevent you from enjoying the quality of life. I'm telling you, there are things that I look back and I just thought I was supposed to be doing. Like, I'll give you an example. Uh gambling. I used to gamble every day. Like, I like I grew up gambling. Uh, I remember gambling in school, and I look back at it now, I'm like, what was I thinking about? But it was just like a common practice. Like, we would find some way to like play some cards, shoot some dice, and after school, like it just, in my man, I was growing, and I was thinking, I did pretty well. How about this? My high school and college returns, I did well in the public's eye. Like, if we had a game, I'd have broke dice games up. But it made me believe that I might be good. Gambling is what it is. It is gambling. And if there was anything I could take, I love the energy I had when you know I was doing those things. But when you lose, ooh, I don't, I don't want to feel like that. Feeling like this is so miserable. Like, what was I thinking? Those feelings, when your stomach feels like, like, where did it go? No. Like the happiest I've ever been can't compare those days where I'm like, well, what was I doing? So I was just thinking, like, that is what I thought was a part of my life. And when I stopped, I realized that I can I can do it now. It's different now. You know, it's really just fun. Other times, I'm really trying to make some money. You know, so it was a different mindset. I I just thought that was a part of my life. When you find that person, though, you guys can truly be a And those of you that are thinking about a relationship, create some rules. I mean, because you guys don't really know how each other respond when they get angry, or because you guys are going to trigger each other because you haven't talked about certain things. So if you create a set of rules, this will protect you, both the both of you. And this is the mature way of looking at it. Understand the other person's not trying to hurt you, but you have to share with each other some rules. Like, okay, maybe we should, when we drink, we shouldn't talk about certain things because I see that you're passionate about this, and I don't want to trigger you where we could go in a back and forth. You don't want to do that. If this is your personal, like, let's not do that. You know, because sometimes we say some mean things. Um, you want to set boundaries, like, okay, we're not mature enough to talk about this yet. But understand, it is on the table. Every difficult conversation that you are aware of needs to be discussed. It should be in a book where you'd be like, okay, are we ready for this one? Because if you don't talk about it, it's it's going to create a per a different person. You're going to be different people. And you guys have to have that conversation so you guys can have a mutual understanding of the direction you're both going to go in so that you don't have to have it there. Because I'll tell you this, some people say, that stuff don't bother me. But the things that bother you that you don't know are the ones you haven't dealt with. Because when you remove it, you are a completely different person. I'm telling you. Relationships are for mature people. If you want a relationship where, like, this is your partner, like, man, I didn't know I could become this, I didn't know I could enjoy this type of camaraderie with your partner, you really have to work on yourself. Because if you get distracted by somebody that you're not supposed to be with, that's a, I'm not saying you can't still win. I'm just saying it's gonna be a lot more difficult because sometimes, most of the times, they're not even where you are because you didn't have enough conversations to determine if this person was even qualified to hold your heart. Like, if we don't understand better dating practices to actually build, we're gonna keep making these mistakes. And I think that's what's preventing the evolution of man because men have not figured out why the relationship is so much more important than being single. Like, we haven't seen healthy relationships in our history. We haven't seen healthy marriages. It's always like world domination created by man, but if men really wanted to change the way we exist, they would have to learn how to become code in a relationship because then they would create a community of people that are in a different place. I'm telling you, I was like the happiness that I'm that I practice, that I that I live, is so invigorating that it makes me want to share. So just imagine if you was like, dang, there's something they can make you want to tell people about. Because the way you feel. And I feel like it would be so selfish if I kept this to myself. 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.