Attendees
Doug Holt, Joshua Boswell, Margie Boswell
Transcript
Joshua Boswell: Hey everybody, welcome to the Happy Family Club podcast. We're so excited to have you here and we have an incredible treat for you today. We've got Doug Holt here from The Powerful Man and Doug's just a tremendous individual. He has graciously agreed to spend some time with us and we're gonna talk a lot about how men play an essential role in the family and how that brings greater happiness. But we’ll let Doug talk a lot more about that.
Do you want to tell them about Doug for a second?
Margie Boswell: Yeah, I've been learning a lot about Doug lately. He's the owner of several companies all centered around helping business owners grow their businesses and lead the great greatest life they can lead.
And his passion lately has been The Powerful Man, which is so awesome in our circles, because the man in the family affects so many aspects of how happy your family is.
And I love that his passion is The Powerful Man. It's a company centered around helping businessmen become better husbands, fathers and basically leaders in their community and in their careers and in their life without sacrificing their businesses.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah… Which we see a lot.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: They gain the world but lose everything that's most important..
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, don’t do that! But another thing about Doug… He's a father, he's a husband, he's a trusted friend and advisor, he's an entrepreneur which we love, we have that in common. And he's an investor, he's an adventurer. He's just a regular guy who really likes learning new things and his clients most love about him that he's a trusted advisor and a friend.
Joshua Boswell: And obviously approachable. I mean, we see this here, very cool.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, you'll enjoy getting to know him as he shares his dream and his passion with us.
Joshua Boswell: Awesome. So Doug, we're gonna dive in some more into your back story in just a minute, but I just thought we could start off with a very simple question. And the question is what's one key principle that you have seen that makes a dramatic impact or a big difference in the happiness and the success of a family? And maybe before… I'm gonna cut you off already… but even before you answer that, tell us a little bit about how you got to where you're at right now. I mean, I would love to hear your backstory. Just tell us about your family and about these businesses you run and dig a little deeper there for us.
Doug Holt: Yeah, so I'll start with the present, I'll work backwards or towards the beginning I should say.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: I'm a father, as you said earlier. Thank you for that gracious introduction. And thank you for allowing me to be here with you guys.
Joshua Boswell: Of course.
Doug Holt: So I have a daughter who's three and a son who's six. I've been married for 10 years and with my wife for longer, and we're very fortunate. We’re literally…. e were talking about this the other day, we live the life of our dreams, right?
Joshua Boswell: Awesome.
Doug Holt: And that was very manifestation, but it was very deliberate in how we did it. And like a lot of people, when we got married we thought, This is gonna be easy. Well…
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
Doug Holt: Yeah… not quite the case for us and my life kind of follows that typical hero's journey in the sense that my wife and I ran into problems and we couldn't figure it out… how can two people that love each other so much not seem to be able to connect? We tried marital counseling. That didn't work. It seemed to make the problems worse, not better.
Joshua Boswell: Yep.
Doug Holt: It was like… I always use that analogy… My wife and I talk about. It was like we were driving this high performance vehicle, but we were looking in the rear view mirror to figure out how to go forward.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And it just didn't work for us and I'm an entrepreneur, I had six companies at one time. So a little bit crazy. Like… whoever has six businesses?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And we couldn't figure out exactly how to get on the road. And then there wasn't The Powerful Man. And their didn't seem to be anything out there that fit for men like me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Business owners, who are heart centered, wanted to do the right thing, wanted to invest in my family without sacrificing the business.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: The message out there, which you guys, I'm sure you’re familiar with was you have to hustle harder, you have to work more, you have to do all these things…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And then when you get in your 60s and 70s, you can enjoy your family and… that just didn't resonate with me.
Joshua Boswell: Right, that whole idea of do whatever it takes, including cut your family, cut your health cut you're everything…
Margie Boswell: Not worth it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. It just doesn't work.
Doug Holt: No, it really doesn't. And luckily for me I lived in Santa Barbara California at the time and one of my businesses was a very elite, private training studio. So we tortured people for a living basically,…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Yeah, it got them in shape, and I got to see these people who were twice my age twice, very successful, and I got to see two roads. One road led to true happiness, and the other road had a lot of wealth and success as well, but not happiness. Disconnect from the family, disconnect from self.
So I had those warning signs as well as a pathway of ways that you could be better. And that was really helpful for me as we came into this.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So fast forward a little bit further to the present, I had been coaching, business coaching, men and women. So CEOs, owners of Fortune 200 companies for a number of years, and that's when I linked up with the founder of the Power of Man, Tim Matthews. And he and I started coaching each other and working with him and I loved what he was doing and his business model. He was helping business owners.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Right.
Doug Holt: And again, it was more business coaching, but we realized the same thing that you just mentioned. So many businessmen are sold this dream, and I was too. This idea that if I put my head down and I work really hard, then I provide for my family, then everybody's gonna love me and take care of me and everything's gonna be great, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And like a lot of businessmen, I found myself as well looking up at the guys we were working with, and they just felt stressed, they felt burnt out. Things weren't working as well and they woke up feeling disconnected.
And we often say to guys, and maybe you can relate to this in the past, or people you know, that they'd be like hey I’m laying six inches from my wife, but we feel six miles apart.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And that distance in disconnect is just there. So we evolved our business coaching business to help businessmen. First we said, Hey, look, what's the most important thing to you? Well, everybody says the same thing: It's my family.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Great. Where's your family and your calendar? “Uhhh….”
Margie Boswell: It’s missing!
Doug Holt: So, we started focusing on the marriage first, and realizing that the husband and wife were really the key cornerstone of the marriage, right? That's who the kids are gonna be looking up to, whether it be adult children or younger children.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And once we did that we started noticing… we also still do business coaching with these guys. We started noticing a trend where everything started to fall into alignment.
Joshua Boswell: Amazing.
Doug Holt: When you get a couple to reconnect it all got better.
Margie Boswell: So great.
Joshua Boswell: That's amazing. And I have seen that… we've seen that together, I mean the times when we are totally in harmony and totally in unity, business just fires like crazy.
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And when it’s not, the emotional distraction is overwhelming and it totally depletes your business ability and we've seen that. It's crazy.
Doug Holt: Well it consumes you when you're fighting with this person that you care about and you love so much and at times you love them but don't like them, ya know? We’ve all done this… At least I’ve done this, I'll speak for myself, but it consumes you while you're at the office. It consumes you when you're in negotiations. And to have… instead of that, you have this passion within your marriage the passion in harmony within the home, that gives you a foundation from which you can jump off from and really make a difference in the world and an impact through your business
Joshua Boswell: Totally. It makes me think of that number of years ago, I did consulting for a large financial firm And they were trying to automate a lot of their systems in marketing, which is my background. And I was trying to drill down… there was something missing in the conversation and I was trying to drill down as to what's going on here. And finally, the business partner leaned to the original founder and said, Why don't you just tell him? He says, Okay, here's really why we're doing all this. He says, I got to spend more time at home or my wife's gonna leave me.
Doug Holt: Mmm-Hmm.
Joshua Boswell: And it was all consuming. It was driving all of his business. It was distracting over everything. And I realized that was the first time. That's probably 15 years ago and a major light bulb went off in my head. I was like, holy cow, this guy’s sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, and the thing that's eating his lunch is a bad marriage. He's got to figure out something better. He really needed you. But you weren’t around 15 years ago, Doug.
Doug Holt: No, I hear that often. No we weren't and we weren’t around for me, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: And that's why eventually I started selling off my companies, coming into this full time. Because as you guys know it's so rewarding helping other people.
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Doug Holt: When you can help somebody else achieve their dreams, it just makes life so worth it and I fell in love with this. My wife was on board, she got to meet some of the other families we've affected and… today we have a couple thousand men that are active within what we call The Movement of The Powerful Man.
Joshua Boswell: So awesome. Wow.
Margie Boswell: So great.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, it's just an incredible story. So let's dive into some of the… Let's look at that key principle and what would your answer be to that idea? What's one key principle that really makes a difference in terms of family happiness and success?
Doug Holt: Yeah, that's a hard one because there's so many that come to mind right away. However, when I think about it, because I just got off a call with a client I'm working with one-on-one, and he's going through this, and it's a concept we call the Lighthouse. And the way that we look at this is through the lens of polarity, like a feminine and masculine.
Joshua Boswell: Okay. Right.
Doug Holt: Doesn't mean one's better than the other. Just want to make that compltely clear, but bell-shaped curve. We all have feminine and masculine energies. So we call it the Lighthouse and the difference is, oftentimes there can be a storm brewing within the marriage, a storm within the relationship. And if you can imagine a ship out at sea, and the storm is coming in, it's just pounding the ship. The ship is out there and it's looking for safe harbor, and it sees a Lighthouse come on.
Now the Lighthouse comes in and the captain of the ship goes, Oh great, now I can miss the rocks and actually get to safe harbor and feel safe so I can relax. And as that captain steers that boat towards this Lighthouse, the Lighthouse goes off.
Joshua Boswell: Oh…
Doug Holt: And the captain, of course, has to go back out to the treacherous sea, where the storm is, where imminent danger can be… but it's better than the rocks. And then the Lighthouse may come back on, Captain goes Great, now it's working, he goes back in, it goes off… Eventually the captain has to say, Look, I need to find a place that's reliable, a place that's consistent. And has to go down to another harbor. Right? To find that safety.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And in this analogy, for us in what I've seen working with tens of thousands of people at this point the Lighthouse is the man in the relationship. And all too often, men, high performance men even, they become almost like a beta if you will, when they come into their home.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And a lot of guys will talk about it. They disconnect, they sedate. So some guys come home, that classic scene in TV where the guy pours himself a Scotch, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: And he checks out from the family. He’s leaving his wife now to make all the decisions, he's leaving his wife to do all the things. And now she can't trust who he’s gonna show up as.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Is he going to show up as the masculine leader of our home? Is he going to show up as someone's gonna take a back seat? Is he not paying attention to the kids? So she needs to go find safe harbor somewhere else. And that could be with a girlfriend. It could be with her parents.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: It could be with another man. But there needs to be that stability for which to raise her kids. She's got so much on her plate. And all too often in our society, we see the men become that Lighthouse who turn off and on without that reassurance, you know?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And so the idea is just being the Lighthouse and being as consistent as possible, but also stable, so you can weather the storm and call in rather than go out and try to save. But call in that boat at sea.
Joshua Boswell: Call in the boat. Okay, we dig a little bit deeper into that concept?
Doug Holt: Oh yeah.
Margie Boswell: Love that. That’s great.
Joshua Boswell: Really cool. And I want to talk about some applications in a minute, but what have you seen leads to…? So, we'll talk about maybe some negative sides of this, just to identify. But what have you seen leads to that disconnect? Because it's mind-blowing to me that we have these men, that are these powerful alphas in the business environment, they show up, they're consistent. And then they come home and they plop down on the couch. Or they revert to, as I've heard a lot of men say, to their man cave and they just disappear.
Margie Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: So what’s some causality that you've seen affects that? And what leads to that?
Doug Holt: Yeah, the number one thing that happens is these are great men, right?
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Doug Holt: They're people that would give you the shirt off their back. They come home, and for whatever reason, they're probably depleted. They've given everybody their best. And they're coming back and giving their family the rest, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: Whatever's left over. And there can be some disconnect within the marriage, and the men try to over-please. Okay… My wife seems unhappy. I'm gonna make her happier. I'm gonna clean the house.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Wait… that didn't work. Okay, I'm gonna mow the yard when. That didn't work. She's still upset. And so men try to be too nice of a guy and that's not what their woman is typically needing. She wants maybe his attention, she wants his leadership.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: There's a lot of things… better communication, we hear all the time from the wives, and it's not just talking, guys. It's actually listening, receiving without giving advice. So the men become the “Nice Guy,” right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And it almost becomes like it forces the woman to become more in her masculine to take that role, which for a lot of women isn't their natural state. Not saying they can't do it, they can. They can do everything.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: It's just not the natural state for them. And so then the guys just retreat. And they go into what the Gottman Institute typically called stonewalling or they just completely shut down because they feel like, Heck, I can't win here.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah. Right.
Doug Holt: So, I don't want to rock the boat so to speak to keep using boat analogies. But I don’t want want to rock the boat, I'll just sweep it under the rug, and I'll go into my man cave and just sit there and hope it gets better.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Holt: And that's the worst signal to a partner, right? They mean now the woman, if they have kids, especially, she's like, Wait, I'm running the house. Maybe she's working too. Maybe she's taking it and… now she's got an additional adult male kid that she's married to.
Margie Boswell: Oh no… Yep, that’s true.
Joshua Boswell: So the depletion thing comes to my mind initially. You come home from work, you've done everything… And it's always fascinating to me. It's like… women do this all the time.. Especially single moms. I grew up… by the time I was nine years old, my mom was a single mom raising six kids.
Doug Holt: Yeah. Wow.
Joshua Boswell: And so she was working. And she was managing the house. And she was being the mom. And she's being the dad, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And she did it all and… that doesn't mean that she didn't check out sometimes. She used go to the dollar theater and sit there in the middle of the afternoon by herself and cry and eat popcorn. Right?
Doug Holt: Yeah, so it was her therapy. She needed a release.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah it was her therapy. But I get it, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So, I’m interested in the depletion thing. And I think a lot of men, they look to their wives to like… I want to show up and I want you to fill me up, right?
Doug Holt: 100%.
Joshua Boswell: And then the wife's like, Hey, but I’m busy too. I've been doing the kids and I'm working… And so it seems like a vicious cycle and I just wonder what your insights on that are and stopping that vicious cycle, because it seemed really powerful on the negative side.
Doug Holt: So we teach a whole segment on this and most men focus on business first, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And then they'll focus on… So we teach five, we call territories. I'll go over them real quickly.
Joshua Boswell: yeah.
Doug Holt: Self, health, wealth… and wealth can be spirituality, abundance, money, relationships and business, right? We teach them in that order and the reason is most people put business first, then wealth. Then maybe relationships, health, and self last.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And most of these men have the story that I will do anything for my family. I’ll give them the shirt off my back and all of these things, I'll provide for them. But then, they come in with an empty cup so to speak to your point.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Right.
Doug Holt: And they're looking for their wife to fill them up, which then puts them in this needy energy.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Holt: And correct me if I'm wrong, but I have asked literally thousands of women this, but is a needy man sexy?
Margie Boswell: Well…
Joshua Boswell: No.
Doug Holt: And that’s typically the response I get. It's like now she's got, Great. Now I have an adult child that I have to take care of and fill up and she's like, Look, I got stuff too.
Joshua Boswell: Of course.
Doug Holt: And it's okay to have that. What we teach the men is, how do you fill yourself up? Outside of work?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Because most of these guys have an identity of working. You're a world-class copywriter and teacher of copywriters. And you’re a father, a husband, and all of these things that come with it. And most men have just this identity of what they are at work.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: And what's the question, most people ask? It’s, Hey what do you do? And that becomes their identity. And they'll stick to that, and come back to it when they get home, that identity is no longer there.
And so unless they fill their own cup so to speak by taking care of themselves, they can't show up to the family and take care of their family as well.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. So glad you say that because without your training, not to toot my own horn, but when I was deep into the Copywriting world, my introduction would always say Husband, Father, Copywriter on the side.
Doug Holt: Mmm-hmm. Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: That's… how I saw myself that way. And I think that over the years, that's had a powerful effect on me being able to fill my own cup and not be…
Margie Boswell: Not be super needy. Right.
Joshua Boswell: I don't know, am I super needy? Right, she said not super needy. I like that just to clarify that. Thanks babe.
Margie Boswell: I just want to speak the truth, you know?
Doug Holt: Again, that's a big thing. You're basically rewriting your identity. You're setting yourself up for success on what your priorities are. And I'm sure you guys have heard of the rocking chair test. And for those people watching maybe not. It’s when you're sitting in a rocking chair in your 70s on your porch. What are the things when you look back that are the most important to you?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: For most of us it's gonna be our family, our loved ones, the cherished memories spending with those people. And business may be fourth? For some people? Probably not though.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Yet I always say, Show me your calendar and I'll show you your priorities. And so I'll ask the men all the time… They’ll say, My wife and I are disconnected. But, When's last time you guys went on a date? When’s the lat time you took her out?
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Look, pull up your calendar. I'll be on a call with a guy and… a lot of the men that we work with, we do group coaching and what I do mostly with the company, we have eight coaches or so, is I'll come through and do one-on-ones. And in this situation I’ll say, Hey screen share. Ahow me your calendar right now.
And I'll literally say, Okay cool, where's your wife on there? You said she's your number one priority. Where are your kids? Where's your self care? Where's your health? Where's it on your calendar? They’re like oh… It's a meeting with Bruce and… a meeting with finance.
Joshua Boswell: Look, meeting with Bruce is not self-care dude! Bruce is not your wife.
Doug Holt: No, it's not. And so those guys are really putting what they say they want on the back burner. And they're really putting out fires because that gives them significance, they feel like the man because people are coming to them, they're answering questions, they're needed in that moment.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And as that disconnect happens, back to the Lighthouse analogy, when their partner, their wife in this case, can't trust them to always be there, or at least be consistent and stable, right? She has to rely on not needing him, if that makes sense.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yes.
Doug Holt: She can't trust that he's gonna be there. So he's no longer needed at the house even though he really is. And so, that's going back to your other point, that's when he retreats to his cave.
Margie Boswell: So you're saying it's important for men to identify who they are. Not only in their work in their career, but at home with their family.
Doug Holt: I think it's more important. I think it’s more important for them to identify who… Well, when someone first comes into our flagship program is called the Activation method. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because men become what we called deactivated, right? And that's why you made a great point, these guys are all ex-alphas, some of them are ex-athletes, they're crushing the world outside of the home.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And it's almost like as soon as they touch that doorknob. It's like they're kryptonite. And they shrink in their nature, and they become deactivated. A lot of guys will talk about it being like a former version of themselves.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Like, I remember when, in my 20s, I had all this energy and gusto about life and passion, my wife and I would dance in the kitchen or whatever the story may be. And they've lost that.
The truth is, it's still inside of them. And they just need to be reactivated to that. And part of that is rewriting, the story of one, who they are, and who they're showing up as not who they are, excuse me, who they're showing up as and two is who they want to be showing up as. And then we look at the gap. Where's the gap between those two things?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And how do we… what's the bridge there?
Joshua Boswell: I remember again a couple years ago, I did an interview with the guy. Very successful, worth just shy of a billion dollars in personal net wealth and… lots of companies, lots of stuff and we got done with the interview and he sat back and he was like, Man, I feel like I've just gone through a therapy session.
I said, Mark. What do you mean? He said, I feel like I need to pay you. He says, everywhere I go, I'm the guy with the answers. He says, I have to be the Teflon man.
Doug Holt: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: Everywhere I go I’ve got to be on. And he says, But I got to sit down with you. And he says, I just got to relax. You aren't digging me for any answers and we were just talking and interviewing. And I said well, being the teflon guy, is there any one thing that you have seriously regretted? And he said, and this won’t surprise you, he said, All those years… I was with my wife in Italy a number of years ago, we were standing on this beautiful bridge and I realized my family was all grown up, because he was now in his 70s...
Doug Holt: Mm-hmm
Joshua Boswell: My family all grown up, my wife had her whole other life. She had unlimited funds to do whatever she wanted with, and she did. And he said, I realized I had no connection with my family. And he’s like, Okay, I'm gonna change this and so we started doing stuff. But you know, now he's in his 70s And not that that's too late at all. But he started that reactivation, what you're talking about, and it was powerful for him not to always have to be the Teflon guy.
Doug Holt: It is.
Joshua Boswell: He could identify where he was coming from. So…
Doug Holt: Well they always say it's lonely at the top and it is, unless you're surrounding yourself with other people at the top, right?
Joshua Boswell: Exactly, right.
Doug Holt: And we call a lot of what we do… So we have a physical location. We bought a ranch. It's 106 acres that the men can come to and we host events all over the world. We kind of described it as a unicorn watering hole, right? A lot of the men we work with are unicorns.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: They're elite at so many levels and now we have the watering hole, where none of them are at the top.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: They're all on equal footing, they can discuss business without an issue. They can discuss their relationships with their kids, addiction… whatever comes up for them.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And in an environment where there's no judgment, and there's no one trying to get one up on you or do business with you. It's not about that. Some guys do business together, but no one's pitching. There's no pitching. It's really about how do each of us become better men? For our families, for ourselves, for our communities?
Joshua Boswell: So let's go back… by the way, that's awesome. And Margie and I definitely… Well, Margie, you're probably not invited, but those 106 acres would be fun to see.
Doug Holt: Yeah, we’d love to have you guys out.
Joshua Boswell: So I want to go back to the Lighthouse and that idea about being that consistent, reliable source and drawing family.
Doug Holt: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: And… maybe we can dig a little bit deeper in terms of application on that. So if you were to identify, one or two or three very actionable, applicable things that you could do to be more reliable and to show up with family, to draw them to you, to that safe harbor…
I guess two thoughts come to mind. One is how to show up as that Lighthouse, how to draw your family and then how to be that safe harbor, and to create that safe harbor. So that's a lot of questions that throw some ideas at us.
Doug Holt: Yeah, yeah. There's so much, I mean, we have multiple one-year programs that just cover this and these kinds of topics.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Because it's a lot of unlearning and people aren't taught this. One, first and foremost is you've got to have a way of communication. And men and women communicate differently. They just do.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Women… We say women want to be seen, heard and desired, right? And I'll oftentimes, the couples talk about logistics. It's just about logistics. It's not really like what's going on? And the men lack the empathy, or the skill set yet to get into the empathy, to really understand what is going on for their partner. What is it really…? And what's it like experiencing it?
She says, Ah… I'm exhausted today. And the guy says, You're exhausted? I had six meetings, I did this, I did that… that's not someone understanding. That's like almost trying one-upmanship.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: The first thing to do is we teach the guys how to create a space where safe communication can land, right? How exactly to do that. And it starts off formulaic because the guys have never done it, right?
There's a great story that I've heard where if you look at men and women through anthropological times, back in the day, the guys would go out hunting. So Joshua, if you and I were going out hunting. We don't talk right? Because we don't want to scare the game.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: So we grunt. We just grunt and point and go through, whereas women might be going out and they'll go out… Men tend to be just stronger because of the testosterone and in the way our biology is formed. Women will go out and let's say they're collecting berries.
Margie might say, Hey, gotta go collect berries by the side of the river. But not the river that’s closest to us, the second river because the berries that are closest to us, those berries, right there, they're poisonous. The ones that are further away, they're fresh, but watch out for the snake, there's a snake usually there on the left, so don’t leave the babies down because you leave the babies down, that becomes a problem. There's also a saber tooth tiger down the way… and so they're gonna go into detail with everything because that's a survival of the whole family there,…
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: You get the wrong berries, that's an issue.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So we teach men how to empty the berry baskets of their woman so that she can feel fresh and just let it go. And guys, especially the guys we work with, and I don't know about you, but I was way guilty of this. All day, I would spend my whole professional day solving problems. When I came home, I wanted to solve all my wife's problems because I loved her.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And, I know exactly what you need to do. And she wasn't feeling heard.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: I didn't know that, or sometimes she'd say I'm not feeling heard. Like, I can repeat exactly what you said word by word.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah exactly, I'll say it back to you. I heard it. She's like no no…
Margie Boswell: I’m not feeling heard.
Doug Holt: Exactly. And I had no idea what that meant. And here I'm an adult male, I just didn't know and I felt incompetent, quite honestly, and I couldn't find any... There wasn't a really good resource for me to figure out how to do it. And I had to fumble through it. The Powerful Man wasn't around. So we teach them how to do that.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: So how can you make your partner really feel seen and heard? And thus what ends up happening is the men also start going, Oh wow, she gets me. When the two couples… now they can come together and start forming a bridge. The second thing we teach the guys to do is not to react. You know there’s been a lot of books written about morning routines, tons of them. We have a very specific one that works for our guys.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And that's starting off in the morning, we call it the Alpha rise and shine, where you're gonna be in tune, you're gonna learn a little bit, you're gonna meditate, you're gonna get your body and stay, you’re going to do something physical.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And then you're gonna plan your day so that you're not being reactive to the day, you're planning your day.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: You're setting yourself up for success. When guys do that consistently, they're able to recharge the batteries so to speak, the Lighthouse. And stay on.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Doug Holt: They're taking care of their health, they're making that a priority because that's first thing in the morning. They're either meditating, breathing, reading Scripture,…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: All guys have different ways of getting this set up to do it.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Same thing with the Learn. They're learning something new. And again, that could be Scripture, that could be a nonfiction book. It could be a video, but something to feed their brain, and then they're planning their day based on what their highest goals are.
So when they go into the day, they're knocking off the things that really matter rather than just reacting to fires, which produces anxiety. I mean, let's face it. We all do it. We just want to reduce it.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And the third thing I'll say is the guys do decompression.
Doug Holt: So this would be the evening routine. So of course we call it the Alpha Decompression. And all these things have nicknames to them.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And this is akin to… I don't know, have either of you ever taken martial arts before or done any martial arts?
Joshua Boswell: I can do dishes really fast.
Doug Holt: Okay, there you go, close enough. Well if you've seen a movie in a dojo, you bow when you leave, and the reason you do that is to show respect.
But it's also to tell your body, essentially, I'm leaving the fighting arts. So I'm not gonna do a roundhouse kick to someone's head walking down the street. I’m out of that. I'm changing my mental state.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: So we have the guys go through a routine of decompression before they end their work day.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So they're able to come in as a father or as a husband not as the CEO, CTO, CMO or whatever else they're doing at their business. Because then guys just come in and they take their work and their work energy, which is what most women complain about, into the home.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: So they'll do that. In fact, when I leave my office, I have a metal sign that I got custom made that says Change Of Priorities Ahead and I hit that sign to signify that my priorities are changing from coaching and running a multinational business to going in and being a father of a three, and six year old and a husband of the woman I love. And that changes my mental state.
Joshua Boswell: I love that.
Margie Boswell: Wonderful. Great advice.
Joshua Boswell: That's awesome. Yeah, the calendar stuff's good because then when you ask, Hey, show me your calendar, they’re not embarrassed. They can say, look, there's actually family stuff on there.
Doug Holt: Yeah, and there should be, right? I mean, we look at it… I mean yourselves as business owners and entrepreneurs the work never ends. And for all of us, the to-do list never ends. I mean, you could go all day and attack that to-do list and magically it self-populates. And you have a beautiful property behind you and you're like, Okay dude, you got to mow the lawn. Okay. We got to do all these things to maintain it so that never ends.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So you got to prioritize taking care of yourself first so that you can show a bigger. Just like the airplane right? In the case of an emergency, put your oxygen mask on yourself first so that you may help other people. Because you're no good if you're passed out. You can't help anybody else.
Joshua Boswell: So let's roll back just for a second to the empathy thing. Because I think that this is a really powerful point. And there's something that comes up sometimes in our relationship which I'd love to hear your insights on.
So Margie and I have done a lot of studying of different personality types. You know you get your A's, and your dots, and your animals and all these different kinds of things, right? And Margie’s… Margie is very A type. Very like, Get things done, move forward, action, sort of person, right? And I tend to be more social, and distracted and visionary, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So it's interesting to me the empathy question because early on in our marriage, I saw that Margie liked to just, nuts and bolts and get things done, and I like to kind of talk about stuff. It was a weird sort of role reversal. As we've gotten older, I find that actually I need to learn more empathy for her because she really deep down likes it.
And so it'd be interesting for me to hear your perspective on how personalities affect this, varying different, core personality traits. And I'd be interested to hear how you develop that, some key tips for developing that empathy as a guy.
Doug Holt: Yeah, so we call one thing that we do we teach is called the Hidden Motives Technique. And… it’s more than just empathy, it’s validation.
Joshua Boswell: Validation. Okay.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Margie may come to you and say… And Margie, feel free to jump in with a real complaint. But she may come in and say, I've been at home all day and I don't feel like I've gotten one thing done, right? Because you’re type A… we type A’s, I am one as well. We like to get stuff done. And we're proud of ourselves when we do it. So she may say that. And so you might want to reply something like, Okay… Like, go into yourself and imagine what it would feel like if you felt like you weren't getting things done that you should be.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So you might just go. Oh wow. I'd imagine that would feel really disheartening if you had this plan that you're gonna get things done and nothing actually got done.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: When that happens to me, I feel as if the day was wasted and I was a failure.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: What I want you to do is I want you to know just how awesome I think you are for all the things you do.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Love that.
Doug Holt: So then… all you're doing is getting into her world and imagining. I'm going, wait a minute… so if I was Margie and I was sitting there trying to get stuff done, what would that feel like for me?
And so now we can have a conversation, she might say No that's not how I feel at all. Cool. We can still have a dialogue.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: But at least she knows I'm doing more than just listening to the words that she's saying, I'm getting to what she's trying to convey in the message.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, I love that.
Margie Boswell: The emotional part of it.
Joshua Boswell: Too often what I do is… because I don't know that Margie's ever had a day in her life that she hasn't gotten stuff done. I mean… the mother of 11 children, like… she does stuff.
Doug Holt: Yeeaahh. Motherwhelmed, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, right? She gets stuff done.
Doug Holt: right? Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: But she has said that exact complaint to me. It’s like, Ahh… this day, I just didn't get anything done. And my response has been like, Wait a minute. Look, you did this, this, and this…
Margie Boswell: Names it off…
Joshua Boswell: And she's like, Yeah, but that wasn’t… but I didn't get this point about getting in her mode, in the sense and the feeling and validating that. I just retort and try to solve the problem of, No, actually honey, you are amazing and you did all this stuff.
Margie Boswell: Contradicting instead of… Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Right contradicting.
Doug Holt: Yeah that's what it is…
Joshua Boswell: And my wife doesn’t like being contradicted. That’s… yeah, in case you didn't know that.
Doug Holt: That’s exactly what it is. It's… your contradicting or arguing, essentially.
Joshua Boswell: yeah. Exactly.
Doug Holt: Now you're starting an argument with her. And something my wife and I do now… And I'm still a work in progress to the nth degree, but what we'll do now is, I’ll look at our go, Is this one of those times you want me just to listen? Or do you want me to actually give you…
Now if she's complaining about something that's bothering her that sounds like she's looking for advice, and she'll say, No I just want you to listen. Cool.
00:40:00
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Holt: Bring it. And we call that collecting berries. We teach the men to empty their wives' berries every day. Right? Let her just dump everything out, so that she has the emotional freedom to surrender into her natural beauty and femininity, which is what the men want anyway, right.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Right.
Doug Holt: And that creates the space for them to do that. And if then they feel safe, as long as the guy’s not judgmental about it, not giving advice, going back to the Lighthouse. They now feel safe to come to that environment. They feel like, Hey, this is a trusted place that I could go and share.
Joshua Boswell: I love it.
Doug Holt: Where I'm not going to be judged.
Joshua Boswell: I love that. And so another example that comes to my mind. One day… we moved to a very humid climate, and my wife was like, My hair is driving me crazy. And I’m like, Okay. So I sat down, I researched my stuff. I found top of the line, Dyson, hair care stuff…
Doug Holt: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: The best shampoo… and I ordered all this stuff and it all shows up and I'm like, Okay, I solved your problem. I'm here to fix you. You wanted not-frizzy hair? I'm on it babe.
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And then I started telling her how to fix your hair. That didn't go well.
Doug Holt: Yeah. I’d imagine not. And I mean, I'm sure she thought, this is great that you did it for her… And that wasn't the point, right?
Margie Boswell: It’s ok… it was very very sweet. Very kind.
Doug Holt: It is.
Doug Holt: I was… I always joke, because I've been coaching this for so long, and I just tell the guys, Look, I get it because I've made all the mistakes 50 times, I'm a slow learner.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: I keep trying new things until I find what works, and eventually we're able to put this into a methodology that we've been able to use successfully time and time again, as any business is trying to do.
But what we're doing, as a business, or a movement is, we're helping people in their marriages and we just start with the guy. And almost all the men come in with this idea that their wife needs to do this or their wife needs to do that… just slow down. Let's start with a couple key things for yourself…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And then miraculously what seems to happen is, the whole family changes.
Margie Boswell: Changes. Yeah. So awesome.
Joshua Boswell: Yah. So… go back to… you talked about the way to pull the family in, to be that Lighthouse consistently was having those routines, filling yourself up, being more consistent yourself. And then having that empathy, validating and listening. Other things that you have seen that have been really effective at being that Lighthouse, that beacon to pull the family in?
Doug Holt: I mean there’s so many. Literally we have a private community where we have a couple thousand men that are sharing things every single day. It's extremely active. So I get to see this real-time data come in from things that we test. And myself and the other coaches, we always do it for ourselves first, because all of our coaches are fathers and husbands, or have long-term partnerships.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Some of them came into this work because they weren't able to save their marriage for whatever reason.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: So we see it all the time. It really starts with this idea of self. Where does self start for you. And sometimes, it's creating boundaries too.
Joshua Boswell: Okay.
Doug Holt: Taking boundaries. A lot of the men are scared to be selfish.
Doug Holt: And when I say that, we have this negative connotation of selfish. Someone says, you might say Doug, you're selfish if you're gonna go work out after this, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And really when someone's saying that to you… they're really saying you're not doing what I want you to do. Which is truly selfish.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: That's like this… It's a manipulation technique. And so we want our guys to be selfish not selfless and so that they can again, using that airplane analogy, they're putting an oxygen mask on themselves first.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: A lot of times the guys will do anything. They'll say yes. And sacrifice for their families. In their view, they become a martyr. Which also makes them a victim.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Holt: Right and they don't do it consciously, they think they're doing the right thing. Kind of like ordering the hair products. We think, Hey we're doing the right thing here because we're trying to be good men… and they become almost much more like a sheep dog. Not a sheep dog, but more like a lap dog and just doing what they think is gonna get the result. And when you think about it, if I'm doing something for my wife so that she'll be happy and love me, that's a transaction. Right?
Joshua Boswell: That's right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: It's horse trading, I'm doing something so that I'll get something in return. That's not true love.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And we fall into this in our society. You see this everywhere. It's like, Hey… I'll talk to a guy and these guys are very intelligent men that we work with, they’re the top of the food chain. And I'll talk to them and they’re like, Hey, I bought the lake house that she wanted and she's still nagging me or upset or intimacy is lacking or whatever it might be.
Joshua Boswell: Hmmm.
Doug Holt: And I’m like, You just did a business transaction. Was there an agreement? Do you have a contract? Good.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And so a lot of times we'll have these covert contracts that also occur.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And covert contracts are where you won't have an agreement. But in your head there is.
Joshua Boswell: There is one in your head.
Margie Boswell: You’re keeping score with each other.
Doug Holt: Yeah you're keeping score and a covert contract might be… While I'm at work, Margie’s raising the kids. And so that means she's also gonna take care of the house and do all these things. When maybe she's got a different… that's never been talked about.
Joshua Boswell: Never been discussed, right.
Doug Holt: Yeah. And then you, Joshua, start getting resentment, that comes out in ways that aren't sexy aren’t nice. It could be all kinds of things. Could be avoidance… whatever you probably modeled as a child.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Then there becomes more distance, and that's a covert contract, which is just not fair to Margie in this example at all, because it's never been agreed upon.
Joshua Boswell: Fascinating. Wow. Covert contract. I mean, I think the people… I know I certainly have gotten in my head about all kinds of things about intimacy, about money, about how to raise the children, about house management and cleanliness, about vacations, about… you know, all these things. The list goes on and on. And before we got married, I had a really specific idea… because I came from a broken family and I wanted to break the chains of that broken family, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So I was like, Okay, this is what a great family looks like. And I had really a guidebook or a manual for all these different categories.
Margie Boswell: In your head, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell:
Margie Boswell: That nobody can see or read!
Doug Holt: Yeah. Exactly… it’s… it's a shame. The two biggest things that cause problems in any humans life are money and relationships.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And they’re the two subjects that are almost like, taboo to talk about and they're not taught in schools. Yet it causes the most heartache to people and individuals. Depression for men, age 14, I think it's to 45 or 46. Suicide’s the number two cause of death if you look at the CDC website.
Joshua Boswell: Crazy.
Doug Holt: But that's not talked about, right? There are men that have decided Hey, my family will be better off without me is typically the story. And I've luckily got to sit down and talk to men who are on the other side of that situation.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Where they've, for whatever reason… it's changed. And oftentimes, they come to this conclusion that, They'll be better off without me. I don't know my family, or what have you. And it's unfortunate. It's a very dark period for them.
And that's where we get it back to men filling their cups, men figuring out how to take the leadership role. Be the guy that was fun and loving, not just sitting down to have a board meeting about finances and expectations.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: You know, like how you were when you first dated, and be that person again. And what happens when we get the men to become activated is one, the men feel amazing. They feel vibrant, youthful, like their old selves.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Right.
Doug Holt: Two is the women are happy because they’re like, Great, the guy that I married, that I saw when I said I do, she saw his potential.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: You tell me if I'm wrong, but typically, what I hear from the woman is they can look at their men, at what pisses them off, frankly, the most is they'll look at the man that they're married to and see his potential that he's not living into.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah, yeah.
Margie Boswell: Mmm-Hmm.
Doug Holt: And that is frustrating for them. And I mean I'm sure it is for my wife. But it's frustrating for them to see that. And if the guys are striving for it, great. Most women are there. Women are very, very patient with us… which is amazing.
Joshua Boswell: Thanks babe.
Margie Boswell: Yeah. We’ve actually talked about that specifically - living into your potential and striving for that. Yeah, it's a great point.
Doug Holt: Yeah, as long as you're doing something for it… What happens is guys become this maid and they think, Okay, I need to do something about business or whatever. Or they get… worst case they give up.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And the way I look at that, the analogy I use is I always say is, When your wife married you she saw she was marrying into a stock that she was betting was gonna rise.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yeah.
Doug Holt: It's gonna get… This is great now, and it's gonna get better. And when that stock starts to decline year over year and the man's not getting off the couch to do anything about it… It doesn't look good, right? It doesn’t bring a lot of hope to the relationship or hope for her.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Or security, right? What if things are to go wrong?
Joshua Boswell: And that absolutely turns the Lighthouse off. I mean that…
Doug Holt: A hundred percent.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, absolutely. So, an interesting question… You teach these men to do great stuff. Have you seen situations where the men really start making progress, and the women are just not receptive to those changes or don't respond? And in those situations, if you've seen that, what do you tell the men to do and how to react to that? Or how to be proactive about managing it?
Doug Holt: Yeah, so I'll answer this in two different parts. First one is, there are times when the man waits too long. So if you Google it, statistically 70% of divorces are initiated by a woman. That stat goes up to 90% if she's got a college degree or better.
Joshua Boswell: Oooh… Yeah.
Doug Holt: So think about that for a second. Already we have a 50% divorce rate. So nobody thinks they're gonna be on that side of the coin, right?
Joshua Boswell: Right. Right.
Doug Holt: Nobody does. Of those people that do get divorced, if they have a college degree, nine out of ten of those are initiated by the woman. So I've been doing this for years now, seven years.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
Doug Holt: And when we talk to the women, typically what we find out is she's been waiting and waiting and waiting. This is not a… unless there's an acute issue that happened.
Joshua Boswell: Sure.
Doug Holt: You know, an affair she finds out about or something along those lines. Typically she's been just hoping and giving sit signs to the guy and she… women really usually need a safe landing place. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: So there'd be a two year plan before she exits, oftentimes.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So I'm sharing that all with you because sometimes it takes the guy to get the divorce papers in his hands and everything else before he calls us.
Joshua Boswell: Before you hear about it. Yeah.
Doug Holt: Yeah, and then we’re like… this is maybe too late.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah...
Doug Holt: And so that's when, when he shows up… now, I have countless posts that I could show you where men have just said, their wives basically said, This is amazing. I'm so happy for you. This is what I've always wanted for you. However, for me, it's too late, right? I've moved on.
Joshua Boswell: Ohh! Yeah. That’s brutal.
Doug Holt: And we get the other end, where people actually physically show up to our program and have been divorced, and didn't want to for a lot of reasons. Or they're still married, but for religious reasons, but they're not really together at all.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, right.
Doug Holt: And then they'll turn it around. So what we tell the guys is to be consistent. What we see more often happen is one of three scenarios. The man starts to rise, right? And then the woman is spiteful that he's doing better.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, right.
Doug Holt: And will try to pull him down.
Margie Boswell: Ohh… That’s…
Doug Holt: Grabbing the bucket theory, yeah I'm gonna pull them down. So we do see that. And then we also see that the man starts to rise and then he will look, this is rare, but he'll look and go, Why have I been putting up with all of this for so long? All the humiliation, sometimes there's more physical abuse because men don't talk about the fact that their wives might be hitting them or other things. I get to hear the stories. And these are powerful men. Some big guys will show up to a call with a black eye and we’ll go, Wow, you're six three, you're a big guy. What happened?
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: Well, I was sleeping, and my wife just rolled over and elbowed me in the eye. As hard as she could. So again, very rare.
The third option that we see is the most common… I'm gonna make up the stat of like 90% of the time, is the man rises, and the woman rises at the same time. Or sometimes the woman's already there, and he catches up to her. But they come to this equilibrium where they both continue to work on themselves or sometimes formally not. And they continue to rise together.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And that's what I do this. That’s why I do what I do. I got countless cards, I'm going to point to a wall that you guys can't see, hanging up from wives, from kids, right? And the children just like… they see it and they're so thankful and grateful for their dad in this case, doing the work.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. I love it. And I was hoping you're going to go that direction with that question. Because I think that from what I've experienced, what margin I've experienced, couples that we have dealt with… I also served in a religious, ecclesiastical position for a while and got to interview thousands of people. I didn't have the tools and training that you do, but I heard a lot of stuff.
And the thing that I found was, and I think what you're saying is, most couples, they want to figure it out. They want to be on the same team, they want to grow together. They just don’t have the tools and resources to do it.
Doug Holt: A hundred percent.
Joshua Boswell: And the crazy part is like… We don't learn this in school. It's not taught in elementary school or junior high school or college… It's really like this lost art. And I’m so grateful you guys are bringing it back to the world. It's really cool.
Doug Holt: Yeah, thank you. And like I said, this is my passion. This is my legacy. This is what I love to do and my wife supports me traveling around the world doing this for men everywhere. I love it.
Joshua Boswell: Super awesome. So, is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn’t? That Margie and I didn't get to that you really want to share and you think would be really useful for our listeners today?
Doug Holt: I mean, as you can tell, I'm passionate about this, I could talk for days. I love this subject matter because I get to see the results. So, nothing in terms of this conversation comes to mind.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: I guess I would just say to anybody is, if you're on the fence, get off. Whatever you do, one where the other, just get off and move forward. Do something to better yourself and your relationships, regardless of what it is. Just do something.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, right.
Joshua Boswell: I love it. And I think that in taking action and moving forward, a lot of times, and maybe I'll just follow up with one other quick question. I see a lot of men who lose a lot of self-confidence. It’s like, they've tried stuff, and maybe their businesses failed. Maybe they've gone through multiple divorces or a divorce before. Maybe they've got children that hate their guts and they don't know why, right? So, they've got these multiple touch points where, in their perspective, they feel like they’ve failed and have lost their moxie, right?
Doug Holt: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And I'd be interested to hear your message to those guys… because we say, Hey, get off the fence and do something, and a lot of them I think are on the fence because they're afraid to do something, right.
Doug Holt: Yeah, and most of them are. And, if you're not growing, you're dying. Just a plant in life. And I have a poster above my left shoulder and it's a ticket, and you may have seen it before. It's one of those motivational things. It says One Life. Guaranteed One Life.
Now you may have more… I don't know what… but I know it's not Super Mario Brothers. I got one shot at this game, so you want to keep moving forward. And if what you're doing isn't working…? You deserve more than just average. Life is meant to lived more than just average, right? So, take action now and move forward. I was that guy that… because before The Powerful Man, there wasn't a methodology, there are a lot of theories that are out there from books and courses I was taking,…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Holt: I went all in when my marriage wasn't working. I love this woman but, Why can't we connect? Why can’t I figure this out? She’s smart, I’m smartish. Ya know, why can't we at least figure out this answer here? And I went through everything, and it was disheartening at times, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: And I would try something that somebody would say and I would fall down. Because I was missing parts of the steps. That no one was connecting the dots.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Doug Holt: And you know, what I'll tell these guys, and I've seen this with hundreds of other men… you know, just had a guy in his late 60s, reunited with his 40-some year old daughter that were connected. And there were just tears flowing down his face because they were connected because he started showing up.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: So it's never too late. You got to do something. And if you're stuck… being stuck is the worst, so, when you're in the Valley of Darkness, you just got to keep on moving.
Joshua Boswell: That's right. That’s right. That reminds me of Dr. Seuss's book, Oh, The Places You’ll Go. They get stuck in the waiting place, right?
Doug Holt: Yep.
Margie Boswell: And they’re waiting for everything.
Joshua Boswell: Waiting for the phone to ring, the bus to come, it’s like… being stuck, it’s horrible. Even Dr. Seuss knows this!
Doug Holt: Yeah, Dr. Seuss knows everything. Those books are amazing, aren't they?
Joshua Boswell: He knows everything. Yes.
Well Doug, this has been an incredible time with you and your wisdom is just off the charts. We're so grateful. I would love, and I'm sure that some of our listeners would love to know how to dive deeper into your world and connect with you guys. And so, maybe you can tell us a little bit about an entry point or what's the best way for them to find out more about you, or to join programs or show up at the 106 acre ranch, or whatever.
Doug Holt: Yeah, I mean, really, like I said, it's my passion and you don't have to go through our programs but we put out over 700 podcasts. We give away all our material, literally for free out there. Just as we're sharing what our techniques are and things of that nature. We have an eight week program called The Activation Method, but start at the free stuff, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: You don't need to invest a lot of money unless you've got the divorce papers, or you want to move forward fast.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Right.
Doug Holt: Start with it… make sure it resonates with you, that's the key. And read the testimonials. So if you go to www.ThePowerfulMan.com, you can look at real guys like us, and some wives who don't want to be on camera, don't necessarily… you know.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Doug Holt: But they feel the need to because it's changed their family's lives, to spread the message and… find somebody that resonates with you and see if it's a good fit.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Love it. So www.ThePowerfulMan.com. Good place to start.
Doug Holt: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, and the free podcast. I love your generosity. It's really cool.
Doug Holt: Likewise you guys are doing the same.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, absolutely. And the activation course sounds incredible. So look for me in a theater near you soon, I loved it. Yeah, that’d be cool.
Doug Holt: It’d be great.
Joshua Boswell: So again, thank you very much for your time, we deeply appreciate it, and wish you the very best of success. And from Margie and I personally, and from our listeners and from so many other men around the world, we just express our gratitude for who you are and what you're doing and how you're helping to change families. Strengthen them and help them to be happier. It's a beautiful thing.
Margie Boswell: It is beautiful. Thank you so much.
01:00:00
Doug Holt: Thank you for having me. It's been great.
Margie Boswell: All right…
Joshua Boswell: Have a great day, bye.