190 Relationships Require Maturity

Transcript

Summer Break And School Life

SPEAKER_00 0:11

What up, Doe, and welcome back to I'm Growing Man. It's your man John D in the building. So I'm on summer break. Well, no, I'm lying. I got a couple more days of this admin retreat. So far, so good today. I was very productive. The principal and I continuing to find ways to help create this planning period for this next school year processed so that we can get this result we're

Changing The Culture Through Conversation

SPEAKER_00 0:40

looking for. Yeah. So school's going well. Today, I wanted to talk about, you know, of course, I'm trying to change this narrative, changing the culture one conversation at a time. I truly believe we can change the culture one conversation at a time. If we as mankind have been following messages, the wrong messages, and we're here where we still haven't figured out why people aren't successful in relationships, we have to look for new information. So one of the questions that I got was what responsibility do men avoid in relationships? And I was like, that's tough. Because there's so many. You know, I feel like men fail in relationships because they don't know the rules. Like we are a very competitive being. You know what I'm saying? Like we, we, we there's a way to compete, we, we trying to, we trying to win. But I think because men never found out the real rules on how to make a successful relationship. Okay, let me let me clarify too. When I say successful relationship, I am referring to both parties are mutually excited about what things are still to come, still in the fact that this is just everyday life.

What A Successful Relationship Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 2:14

We enjoy each other's company that much, where it's everyday life. And and this is this is something some people say, I feel that way also already. Okay, so this is what I'm saying. Where the relationship makes you work harder in other parts of your life, because your relationship has become the safe place. Like when you get off work, you know you can talk about the job, you know you don't have to talk about the job, but whatever you talk about is something you want to do, and it's like peace. So when your relationship turns into a safe place, and and this is what I'm saying, my wife knows my goal was to, or is to, become a better communicator every single day. And there are things that she don't talk to me about, and some people would, some men would be like, she's supposed to be able to talk to me about my husband. If you were a safe place, she would have spoken to you. The problem is, there's so many problems to that, and I'm in it. But the problem is we all need therapy, and she and I haven't had enough conversations for her to feel comfortable enough to share those things with me yet. Like, I know men, that's why I say men don't know the rules on what a successful relationship looks like. Like, and look, at some point, there are going to be very successful relationships because I feel like once you hear this information, if you haven't already heard it, there are gonna be men that challenge it. And I'm so excited about that. Like, relationships are for mature people, period. So if you are not mature, this information's not even for you. So understand that. Now, if you're immature and you know you're immature, this information could be for you whenever you mature. Like when I was younger, we were taught, you know, like there's a lot of fish in the sea. So play as much as you can, do all of these things, right? And I remember when I was real young, I remember being a virgin was like, you're supposed that's what you're supposed to do. But nobody really made it marketable enough for me to feel like that was the truth. Like everybody I heard was talking about it. So I was already torn with the messages I was getting. So I can only imagine the men with the same idea. So wherever you get your information, it's always a better way to do it. And if men accept the responsibility of learning more, the relationship will grow. Let's start from the very beginning.

Bad Messages About Sex And Dating

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Men can't identify a woman who's qualified to help him get to the next level. Men are attracted to the wrong features. Men have insecurities that if they get played by somebody that's out of their league, the young lady could have a thousand red flags and he'll pass it because he was attracted to the wrong features. It ain't a game. Like, there are there are things that I feel like I wish my father could have articulated to me because then maybe I wouldn't have endangered my life from getting to hear. Like, I hear that there's young men still, like, like really young men, like in high school, that are promiscuously participating in intercourse with any and whoever they can. And I'm just thinking, like, we have to be better messagers than that. We like we can't possibly think that that is okay. Like, consensual or not, they are too young to be participating in those activities because the consequences of them, them different. You're a different person from the consequences, anything that could come up from that. Whether it's heartbreak, you know, you thought that you were supposed to get this, but you got that, and you're torn, you could like lose relationships with friends, you could get in fights, you could get a disease, you could get pregnant, you can get somebody pregnant. So, you know, it's so crazy because I tell my students, you'd be a terrible father if you got somebody pregnant. It's like, why would you say that? I was like, because the baby's going home with the mother and you won't be able to spend the night just gonna be flat out with you. I don't know of a group of parents that's gonna allow a 15, 16, 17-year-old young man to stay at the house of a daughter. You know, you shouldn't be participating in those activities. Like, there's so many messages that we keep passing on that are getting these young men stuck. Like, intercourse is not as important as everybody makes it seem. It's almost like this. Yeah, I mean, just think about this. This message we've been following has been from the beginning of time, and women's always got the shorter end of the stick, right? So imagine that message. Like, we as men have this idea that the woman has to do everything that got him and do more to keep him. You know, I I I got friends that say that she gotta do this to keep me, you know. I do know a thing about relationships, and I do know that nobody wants to lose in it. And the reason why we keep losing is because men don't know the rules.

Maturity And Owning Your Choices

SPEAKER_00 8:15

So, rule number one, you have to truly be mature. If you in your mind think you will, if she cheats on you or she does anything and you out, you should not be in a relationship with that person thinking about marriage. Like, relationships are for mature people. And unfortunately, a lot of us are immature. And I'm talking about men, you know, people can call me out. I'll I'll eat that for sure. But I do know this. I'm married and I'm happy. My wife is happy, and I created a podcast to try to change a narrative to help men become more successful in relationships. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I'm telling you the messages we got will make you lose. It will increase the chances of you losing. Like yo, you, your babe could be out cold. And the messages we we we've learned will make us lose them. And sometimes you don't get a second chance. And I want everybody to maximize it. So, rule number one, relationships are for mature people. You have to ask yourself, are you mature? She cheat on you, are you out of there? Because men have to understand this. If your babe cheated on you, what did you do for her to cheat on you? And if you say you can't make her do anything, then why did you pick her? Did she trick you? Why didn't you do your due diligence? You picked her, right? She in a relationship, she cheated on you, and you picked her? Come on, talk to me. Me and gotta understand this. You picked her. You don't know what a woman looks like, or you pass some red flags because relationships are for mature people. Like, you gotta give yourself an honest assessment. And now, you know what? I like we've been using courageous conversations at my job, like in our school district. Courageous conversations are tough conversations with people so that they can like reflect and understand it was tough to have, but it's for us to grow. And I think the messages we've been following, just like listening to people who say this is how men think or whatnot, we we we real simple out here, B. We real simple. Like people don't even understand that. But if the men knew all the rules, we could become severely complex. We just don't know how. So this relationship can only grow if a man is mature enough to know that he's gotta be open to being wrong. Like a lot of the this a little, so

Fatherhood Regrets And Being Present

SPEAKER_00 11:04

check this out. This is just a sidebar. So I've been married 18 years, and the first nine years in Atlanta was my kids is this, so zero to nine, right? Or zero to eight. Like I I was a father, I was in a life, I was at home every night, cooked dinner, we did things. But one, there's a period during that whole time that my wife has with my kids that I was nowhere near there. Like, whether it's like because I was at work, I had two jobs, or whatever reasons, or you know, a game was on and I had to go. Like, they have so many, so many different like experiences without me. And I was just thinking, like, as a son, as a son, would you want your father having these experiences, like missing, you know, these experiences? You know, I remember, like, I remember it was like, man, you gotta be happy if you're gonna be a good parent. Like, what? That's that goes without being said, right? But as a kid, that kid wants his parents around. And I chose work to make money or a game, a Sunday game that came on every Sunday, Monday night game, Thursday, you know, a doubleheader, all of these experiences, right? I'm like, I missed. So I was like, as a father, I can't get that those years back. Some people don't care about that. But it's gonna come a time if they haven't gotten there when the reflection comes, it's tougher than people think. Like when you be like, man, I could have done more. I could have done more. The thing is, it's like you can't worry about what you can't control, right? You can only worry about what you can do today to make sure that it was just ignorance in the past, selfishness, you know. Like when you have kids, you can't be selfish anymore. And I learned that you're supposed to be selfish. That's why relationships are for mature people. So having kids, you have to be really mature to give up yourself for these kids. And, you know, I wasn't mature enough to even know. Nobody told me. My father was, he had passed. So as a man, like, where was my guidance coming from? I was just out here willy-nilly, kind of watching the people that I looked up to, watch how they moved, and I tried to move like that. Well, the problem was is that I really didn't, I was I was balancing outside and inside, and I didn't even know what inside was supposed to look like. So I really wasn't balancing anything. I was off-balanced. That's a tough place to be, too. Being off-balanced, like I lost that part of my kids' life, you know, and now I'm so much more intentional. So even with my wife, like I was telling you, I've learned so much more that my father couldn't teach me, that most men can't teach you because they don't look at relationships the way they should be looked at. This is gonna rub some people the wrong way. But it don't really bother me because it only, it's only for the people that's mature enough to receive the message.

The Work It Takes To Be Happy

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I truly believe relationships are controlled by whatever the man says. If you treat the relationship like it's a game and you gotta win, and the end is like you guys gotta be best friends and you guys are gonna know any and everything about you. Whatever the end is supposed to look like, you gotta work to get there. Most people don't know the amount of work it takes to be happy in the relationship. That's it. I don't really know a man that knows how much work it really takes to be happy in a relationship. Like for real. I know me and this happy in a relationship, but I don't know how often they're happy. Like the relationship that I that my wife and I have created has created a different assistant principal for my students. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm a different assistant principal. Like, because she became my safe place. And then how about this? If men knew, if I could articulate it in a way where a man be like, man, that's what I that's what I want to do. I want to be where Uti's talking about. If I could say it in a way like a man would say that, I'm telling you, you would run this way. When you developed a relationship with a woman where, and it ain't even about you thinking about her when you're not with her. That's kind of like childish, honestly. It's like early, like when you just constantly think about people. Like that's that's childish. It's like immature, like immature feelings. Because when you're really into somebody, you don't have to think about them all the time. But when you you don't know that when you're young. And I think a lot of times people think you're supposed to find a person that you're supposed to think about all the time. No, that's not the case. But I'm gonna tell you this: if you're not happy inside without a woman, no woman will ever make you happy. And when I say that, I'm saying you have to know how important you are to be able to get the blessing from a woman. You can be with a woman, but you have to put the work in to truly get the benefits that I'm talking about. If I'm gonna say this, be diligent on who you pick, being attracted to the wrong features will have you talking about a different, a different story. Like nobody ever wants that story. So if you don't have a father, if you don't have, if you didn't have the guidance of men, I'm telling you this. You talk to any man that you respect and you ask them, if I'm if I'm lying to you. Like relationships are for mature people. You need to love yourself, you got to know how important you are to even be able to be in a relationship, and it's way more work to be happy in a relationship than you could ever imagine. But the benefits are way, way more beneficial than getting here. Like, people don't want to put the work in because they don't know how much work it really takes. My my my clearest estimate of saying how you could develop this relationship is doing the 10,000 hours worth of intentional conversations. Like, if you can just get into the, and some of y'all are gonna be even, it won't even take that long. But I think if you had 10,000, you guys are gonna learn boundaries, you're gonna learn how to talk to each other, you're gonna learn each other's insecurities, you're gonna learn how to protect each other. You're gonna develop a relationship that nobody in your family has ever had. That means whoever's watching you is gonna have a better chance of finding somebody that they deserve versus us being the guinea pigs of trying to figure this thing out. But the only way you can truly be happy in a relationship is not avoid the responsibility of learning more information. Like we was tricked. The people that tricked us, they didn't really do it on purpose. They just didn't know how to do it. And now you got people that really don't know how to do it, giving advice or giving poor suggestions. And at the end of the day, it's just your effort. Intentional effort changes results. If you don't put the work in, why are you supposed to get the benefits of a relationship? Because honestly, relationships are for real men. And when I say real men, when a real man understands how much work it takes, they plan differently. They don't find the cheat code, they find a way to how to get there. So when real men accept the responsibility that they need therapy so they can accept the fact that their childhood was out of their control, they learn how important they are, they attract the energy they deserve. He asks real questions to find out if it's somebody that even deserves his time. Because I tell you, whoever you pick is gonna give you what you deserve. But if you don't put the right work into it, you end up with the wrong person, possibly having a kid out of, I don't even know what you want to call it. But nobody wants that story telling you. Work on yourself. You'll attract the energy you deserve. Therapy is important because a lot of you guys are holding back because of insecurities. Before I get out of here, I want you to know this.

Therapy, Self-Work, And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Men, public service announcement. They do not think like men. Women do not think like men to say the least. To say the least. And most of the insecurities are because men think that women think like them. If a woman thinks like a man for real, it was because she wasn't protected by a man. Because a man was supposed to protect her from thinking like anything other than a young lady. So remember that. If a woman's out here doing bad things, she wasn't protected by us. Some father did not protect her. She ran into a bunch of guys who didn't have fathers either, took advantage of her, and she's making bad decisions because she wasn't protected. If you get to the root of the problem, we'll find out it's us. And once you correct you, everything else gets better. But it has to be on purpose. If you don't do it on purpose, why does any of this matter? You know what I'm saying? Like, I work on myself every day so that I can create a better version of myself to the world. Not only that, I want my kids to say, my father never stopped working. Like, I'm working on things that I enjoy. Like things I feel like I could become really good at if I do put some intentional work, I could possibly change like a generation of people just through an education. The better I become, the better my communication gets, the easier it is to receive where people can change their families. This is where it led to. After I learn how to develop this relationship with my wife, I can go outside in the world and be a better version of myself and say, hey, you can do this too. 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.