This video library documents my intentional pursuit of becoming the best version of myself. Every episode captures the lessons, successes, failures, questions, and conversations that are shaping me into a better husband, father, leader, and man.
My greatest goal isn't fame or recognition.
It's to become the husband my wife deserves, the father my children can always depend on, and an example that inspires others to pursue intentional growth.
Along this journey, I'm committed to mastering one of the most powerful skills a person can possess—communication. I believe the way we communicate shapes our relationships, our families, our communities, and ultimately, our lives.
I know this work will never be finished.
That's the point.
Growth isn't a destination. It's a lifelong commitment.
If you're willing to challenge your thinking, embrace accountability, and become better than you were yesterday, I invite you to walk with me.
Dating gets messy when everyone pretends they want the same thing. We’re saying the quiet part out loud: men and women are often playing different games, and the most common “game” men are taught is chasing the score. That message doesn’t just create awkward dates, it creates unsafe situations, resentment, and marriages that never get a fair shot. So we slow the whole thing down and talk about what a better message sounds like, especially for young men who are still learning who they are.
We get practical about relationship boundaries and why early dating needs clarity. Public places, real conversation, and patient trust-building remove the pressure and confusion that show up when someone ends up in a bedroom too soon. We also weigh consequences versus rewards with zero sugarcoating: pregnancy, STIs, heartbreak, and long-term regret are real outcomes, and no quick story is worth blowing up the life you say you want. This is dating advice for men, but it’s also a call for mutual safety, respect, and honest intent.
Then we go deeper on emotional maturity: therapy on purpose, journaling, filling blind spots, and learning how to communicate when attraction is no longer enough. We talk about compatibility beyond shared hobbies, the impact of age and life stage, and how becoming a better husband can ripple into better leadership, better work, and a better example for kids. If you want a healthy relationship and a strong marriage, this is the work.
If this hit home, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a new message, and leave a review with the one belief you think dating culture needs to drop first.
What up Doe and welcome back to I'm Growin' Man, Shaman John D in the building. Today I am going to focus on I guess the game of life when it comes to men and women. And I'm willing to sit down with any and everybody. Because I do feel like messaging is so real that we didn't even challenge certain practices. Men and women are playing different games. And if we don't change the messaging, the relationship thing will seem pointless. The more and more I practice this, this is the only thing I wish I could give to my friends. This is like the ultimate gift. If my friends knew how I truly felt, and there's gonna be some of you guys that's gonna take on the challenge. When you're true enough to yourself where you're mature and you can go seek a relationship, it's the sweetest gift in the world. I can't even put it into words where I'm comfortable enough to say that should make sense. The relationship I've created with my wife is, by the grace of God, complete luck, because it the information that I truly believe that will help people, I can't get here because I didn't practice these things. It was like God was looking out for me. And I know that might sound crazy, but the way that I feel about my wife, I want my friends to have. Because I enjoy finding ways to get better so much that I talk about it. And I know that I've limited the interactions with a lot of my friends because I'm in love with getting better. And I know it's only so much a person can take if they're not, if they hadn't went on that part of the journey. To me, I want to be really cold at this. This is what I do know. If a man had gotten here where I am, they would have charged people for the information that I'm given. That's why there's no price ticket for my family's website. It's free information. This feeling that I have it's gotta be the rarest element, and I think it can help humanity create something that we've never seen because we've never seen it. So if anybody cares to dispute my claims, I'm willing to sit down and talk logical because I'm only gonna talk the life that I lived. Listening to the information from different
men, and people say, John, you you had such a small pool. I know I did. But I would like to believe that the messaging we've seen is just a trap. Men go on dates because they're looking to score. That is it. You know, some men may not say it, but in the back of their mind, the best part of the night is if they could score. However that looks, in their mind they want it to be like the movies, you know. Whatever, just to get to that, it's unfair to the woman that's going. Because I've met a lot of women that were very naive to think that a man wouldn't think like that. And I'm thinking, look at all this messaging. And then there are men that that's the goal. Not knowing, and that's the trap. I know men that is the goal. So many bad things can develop from that goal. And single men, if you really want to enjoy life, take the walk that's difficult. Because as you get older, you're gonna look back and say, I could have done it. And I don't want you to feel that way. I promise. The most difficult journey in life is doing it with somebody, but just imagine you create the team and you become compatible, and each day is fun. You look forward to each other, I'm telling you. I've spoken to friends who know who I used to be and where I came from, and they're in awe when it went like cold turkey, but this is the thing I want everybody to know. When you understand, it's hard to make that mistake again. And what I understood was if I kept playing that game, how was I gonna get this story? The story that I'm trying to show men that the sweetest gift in the world is the relationship with your wife. And we have so many messages about how women nag men and women are like, you know, the the the some of the things how men describe women, and and you know, I've been called a feminist a lot. It's crazy how I've been called a feminist. But that just shows you the perspective of men. And I'm not saying all men because I've met some very aware men, way more aware than me. I'm still learning, but I do know this. My wife's voice is important to me. And the conversations we've had, I realized that I'm working on communication so we can build together. Me and my wife have literally created a relationship that I want all my friends to have. I don't know if anybody's ever said that to anybody. But men and women are playing different games. I think in order to reduce, how about this? I was just thinking, as I go along,
I'm going to say things that I realized that if we could reduce certain, like some rules. Like this is a rule. All women, do not ever go anywhere outside of a public place with a guy you don't know, with a guy you just met a few times. You shouldn't be going to no bedroom. Because when you do that, you give this guy the idea that it's going down. And you might just want to sit on a bed, but you know, and I've learned that women already know that's the case, but things go too far. And I feel like since we're already poor, we're already poor communicators, given certain body language, some things we just don't understand. And I promise, and I'm not insinuating anything. I am just trying to keep women safe, safer. Because I definitely know, again, there are men that just look for that goal. And you know one thing I learned? My wife told me that some women will just do it just so that they can get away. And the men think that they've, you know, did something and then they don't call back. The girl was never calling back. You know, that's and just imagine that. The woman didn't feel safe with somebody. And some men believe that if if they're coming over, they'll be smooth enough to be able to do that. And they don't understand that it's a trap. And and I'm not saying from the woman, I'm just saying it's so many bad things that can happen from making that the goal. So, and I hate for women have to be responsible for us because I just don't feel like any man under 25 should be inviting anybody to his house or he should be going to anybody's house because I don't believe they're mature enough to know how important they are. And again, how about this? I don't know what the statistics are gonna be. But there are a high percentage of men that are that would lose it all for one opportunity of a story. If they could, let's say hypothetically, the most beautiful woman ever thought, and then it was all her friends and they just wanted that man, there's a high percentage of men that will risk it all just to see what that would feel like. Risk it all. It's a trap. So I'm not saying it all happens, but the messaging says that I want to see what that's like. And the the feeling, whatever the feeling they think they could get, it's it's not worth losing what you think is important to you in your day-to-day. And until men realize how important they are, they'll continue to risk it all and pass on poor messages. And that's the reason why I'm working on communication, because I understand if you believe this is the game you're supposed to play, you'll keep doing it until you lose. And I'm
just seeing the effects from poor messaging in marriage. And if we don't become better examples, how are our kids supposed to grow? So women, and you know, I hate a lot of times when I speak, I kind of group people in categories and I kind of generalize things. But I do believe that all women before they were compromised would have loved the idea to say, I want a beautiful marriage for kids, and I want to do a job that I'm doing, and like this perfect utopia of a life before they were compromised, where life got around the environment and says, Oh, I wouldn't do that because of this. Like a lot of times we don't realize, imagine if you had the parents that knew what they were doing when they had you. You would be a totally different person. I'm not saying that you're not a great person now, but I'm just saying there was a version of you that if your parents knew what they were doing, that you could have been super cold at an early age and doing whatever you wanted. So wherever you are now, we have to change the messaging so that people have the potential to actually raise babies at the age where they're mature enough to see what it would look like if a kid had some solid parents. And when I say solid, it's levels to it. When I think about me being raised, I wish my parents loved each other to the point where they didn't have a divorce. That's a different kind of kid. You know what I'm saying? So all these kids, how about kids that, you know, they never met their father or it was that it was the trap. Why are we having, why are we playing that game? Because we actually believed certain messages. And I did too. I did. I mean, I don't want anybody to think that I'm excluded. I'm just blessed enough to be able to say they're traps. I know now. I've learned it maybe I don't know how long ago, but when I when I found it, I need to like learn how to communicate so that I can help men understand that's a story you don't want. I think if we're really gonna get over this, huh? The messaging should be is the consequence better than a reward? Or is the reward better than the consequence? However you want to look at it, what's the worst that can happen, and what's the best that can happen? The best that can happen is that you get to tell a story to your friends that probably no other man has ever done. What's the worst that can happen? There's so many worst that can happen. She gets pregnant, you get the disease, you pass on the disease, um, you fall in love with her because you feel like this is a great thing, you guys are gonna be great, and then she was just having fun. Your feelings are involved. It's it's so many bad things that could come from this. And I think in order for our communities to improve, we have to take away the value of intercourse. Sex. Sex is not that serious. Sex is it should be used for procreation and intimate moments. Intimate moments. Like you can say, you know, it's great for the body and getting exercise release of hormones and all of this, but I tell you this, none of that matters if you have something that was not supposed to be in your story. Anything that could change your genetic makeup, nobody's that important. Not unless you're mature enough to go through the relationship, but nobody, nobody in this world can tell me why playing that game is better than getting to know who you are and maturing into your, I said 25 is what I've been saying, but it could be earlier. But if you find your person and you guys can build, what other story did you want? All those other stories could lead into tragedy. And I think this is the time where we have to really start changing messages for young men to start playing that game.
And you know what? I want to talk about this too. I think age plays a significant role. Uh my son said, if you can't be in high school with the person, you shouldn't be in a relationship with the person. And I thought about it and broke it down in my head, like, why would that play a role? Because in high school, you guys are in a certain period of time where you may be familiar with what they're talking about because you remember it from high school. If you are in middle school versus high school, that is a total different universe in language, in the way people look at you, self-esteem, like the music, television, everything is so different. That's the reason why relationships are for mature people, because if you're mature, truly mature, and you discuss things with people, you talk to them, you can learn immediately what they like and what they don't like. You're like, oh, how old are you? It's different time periods. You mess around, find somebody that likes the same music as you, you like the way they dress. Y'all, okay, so you're in your mind, you like they like sports, oh, okay, so you got some things in common, right? But when it comes down to it, that's not gonna keep it together. You guys have to communicate and really discuss what's important to you to see if this person is compatible. I don't think we really know what's important because we found so many ways to get out of the relationship because we didn't know how to date, that we think that we're supposed to find our soulmates or love at first sight. Something ridiculous. It's gonna take work. I think everything that man has created is shortcuts to get into what you really want. You're gonna have to put the work in if you want a great relationship, period. And to increase those chances, you can't play those games that men have been playing. I hear like men has this animal instinct and they're supposed to spread their seed and all of this. It's terrible if you're not a good father. Think about it. There's so many fatherless kids that are trying to figure it out. And I don't think that's fair. No kid wanted to come in like that. So if we're going to change the message, we have to tell these young people they're way too important to be playing this game. We can we can really build if people believe they were more important. At the end of the day, if we can remove the idea of sex, I think that would start a good dating thing. If you're truly mature, sex shouldn't even come up. Because it's too much, you know, as much as I hear of how like women are emotional, uh they're, you know, you're going inside them and it's it's like a different, I don't know, feeling for them. Why would you let anybody do that? How how did he trick you? You know, I think you should be in a relationship for some time before you even think about having those moments. I think because people have this idea of what it's supposed to look like and it make sex more important than it is. You you talk to any man and they'll tell you not one of those moments was worth losing at all. Not one of them. And if it was, shame on that man. Because, I mean, especially if kids were involved, we have to take accountability. We've been following the wrong message. We have to make better decisions, but in order for us to make better decisions, we have to learn how to mature. And I got into a conversation on social media the other day, and I felt bad because you know, it's just sometimes I feel like I don't get to explain. He was asking me why did I think that men were immature. Men are constantly compromising their wives or their partners' feelings for a missed message. That's it. And that's the that's when a lot of women truly get compromised because they didn't think that could happen. Just imagine there's women that were compromised at a young age and they've become a different being. And now they encounter somebody and they don't have the heart like most women because they were compromised so early. They've been a different person longer than everybody. So they know they move differently.
They didn't want to grow up like that. We have to learn how to date for real. But though in order to do the dating, we have to learn how to immature, fill in blind spots, filling in blind spots, going to therapy on purpose and letting them help you. They went to school to get a degree just to help you. And some of you guys don't understand. You get to mature earlier. Some of you can't make good decisions, right? But if you go to therapy, they'll help you learn why you can't make good decisions. And when you understand, that's when you start making better decisions. But you have to get the help that is available. Journaling, I told everybody, if you don't know, you have to look for more information. But if you don't know, that means you think or you are practicing like you know everything. You have to do this on purpose. So once you mature, you date, conversation is very important. Conversation is so important because when you get older after the kids are gone, or even the kids are they're old enough to like not be in your face, you're gonna be with your person. And if you can't converse with them and enjoy it, you're gonna look for ways to just coexist. And you deserve a different happiness. Both of you. I do know this. If men worked on communication on purpose and made their wife the happiest woman in the world, he would become a different man. Men feel like women take advantage of us. You picked her. How is she taking advantage of you? You're supposed to make her feel the greatest in the world. Well, at least that's the way I feel. I I felt like once I really invested in my wife, like I did pick her. So I was like, I'm gonna make her the happiest woman in the world. I want her to have ultimate moments of thought to me. Like it was a long process, but now I feel like she enjoys my company. She thinks about me when I'm not around, and sometimes that can be unhealthy, but she seems happier. And when I see that, it's like I created this energy between us because I intentionally tried to become a better husband that she deserved. And it's made me better in other areas, like just going to work. I I enjoy going to work so much. I want to become a better assistant principal. I want to inspire adults to want to do more so that they could help some of these kids that their parents only know what they know. Like, you as a parent in an environment where education wasn't taken as seriously, you hope to plant a seed in one of these kids so that they could change the trajectory for that entire family. But you gotta go to therapy. Because if you don't go to therapy, you may not learn that you're that important yet. Unless you listen to this video. Because I'm telling you, you are the most important person in the world. You can truly mature, but you have to do it on purpose. If you don't do it on purpose, then you're hoping for an accident is gonna happen to you, and then you're gonna be like, I can make better decisions. Because right now you can only make the decisions that you believe are correct. And if you learned them from your parents, come on. We know that our parents only knew what they knew. Some of us had better parents than others, but a lot of our parents didn't know what they were doing. There was no playbook. Now we're in a time and age where we can intentionally try to get better. So working on this relationship with my wife made me want to explain, can really create relationships that's
never been written about. And I mean, I just lost my friend. 45 years. Left two beautiful, healthy kids, a beautiful wife. She's so creative and filled with energy. I'm just really excited to see what direction she's going in. But 45. So I feel like him being as close to me, he was too young to even understand the energy I was trying to give him. So I'm going to continue to work on communication, paying homage to him because I didn't move fast enough for him to be able to see it come true. Kyle Jackson, rest in heaven, my baby. 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 the action will get after you. Be great on purpose.
