Three Things Quietly Wrecking High Performing Christian Men

Machine transcribed from the episode audio, lightly cleaned. Timestamps are approximate.

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the year that I had my anxiety attack, it was the best year I'd ever had on paper, at least as it related to my career. It was April of 2019. I was 13 years into walking with Jesus. I had my own consulting and coaching practice. My biggest client, it was a five-figure-a-month contract, was on the verge of walking out the door. And I ended up, curled up in the corner of my office on the floor. I'm gonna walk you through that day, really minute by minute. And I'm gonna hand you this three-step process that I built out of it. It's the one that I still use

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every single time that drift starts pulling me back under. Now, here's the part though that nobody warns you about. That drift, it will never show up wearing a name tag. It's not as evident as we would hope it would be, which is why I wanna walk you through my journey to help you understand yours. So first up, we need to talk about acknowledging the hurt. I didn't call it a wound. I called this a random Tuesday. I'd lost out on a significant business opportunity that would have paid incredibly well over the course of the next year.

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I was walking a close friend through a marriage that was falling apart. And here was my biggest client, my biggest retainer client that was on the verge of walking. And that contract at that moment was literally carrying my family. And like I said, 13 years as a Christian, and yet I was still defaulting to so many of the same tactics I'd used before I knew Jesus. And I initially recognized that there were three things that were doing this damage to me. I didn't realize it then, but reflecting back, again, acknowledging the hurt, I was able to understand it. So three things that were really damaging me

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as I was on this journey in the season of life. The first one was this idea of working harder. So instead of dealing with what was actually hurting underneath, I just would put my head down and I would work harder. The second thing to that was I was always measuring how well I was doing based on a scoreboard, based on what other people could see, based upon what I could visually see. And that necessarily wasn't what was true. It was just what was evident. The third thing was self-medication. Look at whatever you reach for instead of God, alcohol, bravado,

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PRs in the gym, diving deeper into work. Any way in which you self-medicate before Christ will end up coming back to bite you in the long run. Some of those things are evident, alcohol and drugs. Other things, they aren't so much so. In the week before, leading up to this moment, this event, this anxiety attack, again, I'd lost business. I had this friend whose marriage was really starting to fall to pieces. And now my biggest client is on the ledge. But underneath all three, underneath all three of those issues, I was working the same old moves.

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Work harder, don't feel it, just outrun it. And we need to realize when we get into these situations that we need to stop calling these things busy seasons. We need to call them what they are. We need to be honest with ourselves. And you're like, I don't know how to do that. And I'm going to help you to understand that here in just a minute. But that is one of the things that I recognize as I was acknowledging the fact that I was hurt. You need to ask yourself what you've been working harder on instead of what you've actually been dealing with. Like, what are you avoiding by staying at work extra long, building a new project? What are you avoiding by going to the gym

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twice a day instead of once a day? You're like, no, that's a good thing. Not if you're using it to hide from something else. So before we go any further into this, I want you to just pause for a second. I want you to name one thing right now that you've been calling normal that may actually be a wound. It could be a past hurt in a relationship. It could be a tragedy that you went through. It could be some heartache. It could be a business loss. What is it? You know, men especially have been misled to believe that we can just grit our way through these things. But

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that's not the case. You see, this is the first lie of the drift. It tells you that this is just life. This is just normal. This is just the way things are. that it's just a wound with no bandage on it and it is what it is. My problem was was I didn't see any of that clearly until the morning that my body stopped working the way that it always had because my body was ready to stop letting me ignore what was really going on underneath it all. If you already know, if you've named the thing, you're like, I already know there's this thing.

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I can figure it out. I can feel it. I can see the trajectory that I want to help you to understand exactly where it's coming from. And if that's you, if that's the case, just go down below into the description and click on the gap check. It is a free tool. I think it's seven questions. It'll take you about ten minutes and you can work through that maybe even before you go on because the rest of this video is going to help you better understand what's been underneath it all this whole time and what to do about it. So, go take the gap check. Come back if you want. If not, you can always take it later. Okay, so, back to that morning. April 19th. So, I woke up as I did every single Tuesday and I knew

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what was coming. I knew I had a call with that client. I knew that I had to prepare for something. So, what happened? Doubt set in. Doubt set in about my calling, about my capabilities, about my worth. What was so crazy was it was a five-minute drive from my house to my office and all of that was overwhelming me in insane ways. I mean, I'd imagined sitting there, David Goggins looking at me and just saying, Ryan, quit being such a little bitch. But it didn't work. Normally, when I would hear that voice,

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I'd be like, you know what, you're right, grid it, get it together and go for it. But this time, that three-mile drive from my house to my office, it literally felt almost impossible. And yet, I did it and I got there and I got through one coaching call, barely through one coaching call. And then, I started to spiral. I was like, man, how are you going to pay your bills if this client goes away? I mean, how fast am I going to be back to 2013 when I lost everything, my house, our toys, most of the stuff that we had worked so hard to accumulate. We lost it all. I mean, if I take this

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huge loss, what am I going to tell my wife and my kids? What are other people going to think of me when they realize that I was on this great run and then all of a sudden it collapsed? I literally could not stomach another failure like that. So I got up out of my chair, I went back to the corner of the office I was in at the time, I sat down and I could feel my body just starting to shut down and I actually curled up into a ball. My mind, it could not hold a straight thought and spiritually I felt like I was crying out to God at the top of my lungs. I probably wasn't being vocal at all and I couldn't

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hear anything. The last lifeline I had in that moment was I grabbed my cell phone and I called my wife and I was like, Michelle, I don't know what's going on but I need you to pray for me right now like desperately because I can't function. Look, I had been telling myself I was fine for months but my body, it finally told me the truth. it spoke for me when I wasn't man enough to speak for myself. There was three signals that I ignored during the season that led up to this moment. The first one was definitely a physical one so I started to feel the energy

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draining out of me. I started to feel my body shutting down. I mean, obviously in that moment in April of 2019, I definitely felt my body shutting down but I had started to see tendencies of that especially as I reflected backwards. I could see moments where I just didn't have the energy to push in the gym. I was getting tired more often so my body was shutting down but it wasn't just physical, it was mental too. I would have thoughts like if you knew me then you would know that I was in such good control of my mind very controlled, very strategic, very thought out and during that season

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leading up to that day I I was having thoughts that I just couldn't hold on to and I started to feel little spirals which turned into this massive tornado on that Tuesday. I used to be able to reason my way out of those things and I just found myself in that moment I couldn't and the third one was spiritual for sure. My prayers and I don't think there's any wrong way to pray so hear me clearly when I say this but the prayers I was praying leading up to that moment and even in that moment it was like they were just faint whispers instead of full confidence

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that God was going to listen and God was going to answer. and so I think it's really important when we consider how we're going to realize the effect of the wounds that we've experienced and what we're dealing with right now in the moment I think it's really important that we learn our own early signs before they become an all-out attack and unfortunately for too many men we will grin it bear it grit it out puff up get back after it over and over and over again because as long as we don't hit the floor we're good and that's garbage the goal should be to never hit the floor it should be

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to recognize this descent sooner than later each and every time so eventually it never catches us off guard and the way I did this and to encourage you in this way if you're like Ryan I've been feeling this drift I've been feeling myself on this trajectory and I really don't know what it is I would consider that you ask yourself what your body has already been trying to tell you like what what is it that you've been feeling what is it that's been going on inside you in your head your heart spiritually physically like what is it that you've been too busy to address that you don't have time to deal with and you're just going to move on it's like the guy

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that's got the injured shoulder and he's like I don't got time to go to the doctors I'll just fight through it and then eventually they can't even use their arm anymore true story that just happened to a buddy of mine I ended up having full reconstructive surgery because he thought he could just grin and bear it for longer and longer and longer and finally his body just gave out this is the second lie in the drift this is one of the most notorious ones that men believe and it's that you can just continue to outwork what's hurting inside but the lie is or the truth of the matter is I should say you cannot outwork a wound and so what I realized in that moment as I was experiencing all that

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was what pulled me off the floor it wasn't willpower it was one phone call and that's where this all goes next and by the way if you're like dude you are preaching to the choir I'm in it right now I feel this right now well you do not have to wait to find yourself on the floor in the corner don't wait to find yourself on the floor in the corner curled up in a ball crying and not even be able to get up and do anything about it take seven minutes and run that gap check it will show you what is going on we've worked really really hard to build something that is extremely intuitive it asks you questions

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and gives you answers based upon those questions that will help to guide you into what's next I've worked with thousands of men over the last 15 years and taken all of that to better understand how we walk forward from these moments go do it before your body has to show you because it's going to show you again description down below click it you won't regret it seven to ten minutes it'll go pretty quick okay so I make this phone call and then here's what happens next and by the way this is where this is what I start talking when I start talking about unlocking greatness I write about this a lot in my book wounds by the way if

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you have not checked it out I'll put a link down as well you can read it wounds how hurt heartache and tragedy become the keys to unlocking greatness and that journey and then writing that book is what really launched into everything I coach on today so I tell Michelle I'm like look at this is exactly what's happening like it this is where I'm at this is what I'm feeling this is what I'm afraid of and my wife man she is a rock star especially when it comes to prayer and wisdom and she's like well we're gonna pray right now and so she prayed and I have no idea I could not tell you of a single word because I was still in just like this catastrophic mode in the

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moment but she prayed and I felt it and she continued to pray for me throughout the day and by God's grace I made it through that entire day I made it through the whole day and when I finally got to that client call in the afternoon it was only to talk through how to better execute on the work that we were doing it wasn't to cancel and it wasn't even to cut my feet that anxiety attack it wasn't my last one and that's not the part of the story failed that's actually

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the whole point you see as I started to understand what happened in that moment as I reflected back on it to acknowledge the hurt all the things that built up to that moment to realize the effects what it was doing to me physically spiritually mentally I was able to create a process for myself that I've then shared through my book and I'm sharing with you now and it's called the wound analysis framework and it's first to acknowledge the hurt we have to name our hurtful painful

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tragic experiences honestly we can no longer call them a Tuesday we can no longer as I say in my book fall down hit be injured get up dust ourselves off and just try again I mean you can do that but you cannot ignore the fact that you hurt this is not just another normal day of the week just because you're a guy doesn't mean that you were created to just deal with this stuff and move on we've got to acknowledge the fact that it happened because if we do that then step two in the process is realizing the effects we have to accept what's been done to us or by us physically

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mentally emotionally spiritually it's it's hurt us it's changed the way we think it's changed the way we believe it's changed the way we relate it's changed the way we communicate it's changed the way that we act it's changed the way that we pray we have to realize the effects of our wounds because when we do we're able to number three unlock the greatness that God has created us for in the first place when we acknowledge the wound realize the effects we are able to mine that experience for what God wants to build inside of us and

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through us and that's what we're all after that's what you're here for you're looking to continue to grow you're looking to continue to get better to build that business to incredible heights to have a an example marriage for everybody else to look at to be a phenomenal father to be a great friend to be a contributor in the community to be a staple at church you want all of those things but you've got to be willing to walk through this process because if you just try to grin and bear or bandage the wounds they are going to continue to bleed out and eventually you'll be on the floor too you've got to come to a place where you're willing to apply these three steps

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acknowledge realize unlock to whatever is happening in your life right now you cannot I forbid you to wait until you are on the floor or in a stranger's bed unacceptable you see we often believe that wounds acknowledging them as some disqualifier that we lose our man card I would say that your wound is the raw material that builds the man and I believe the bible is chock full of examples to back me up so if you're feeling this if you're like man Ryan this is me

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you've nailed me I may not know your specific situation but I think I've honed in on most of you and so what I want to encourage you to do is I want you to pick one wound that you've never actually walked through one wound that you've never acknowledged that you've never realized and that you've never attempted to one wound that all you've done is try to cover it up or run from it to pretend like it never happened and start today look you guys I did not get off that floor because I was strong enough I got off that floor because I stopped trying to be and this

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is exactly where a room full of other men doing the same work changes everything you see the tool that I built out of that floor is the same starting point that we walk through in our Align Man coaching cohorts 12 men 12 weeks before we ever touch marriage before we ever touch calling before we ever touch money we start there at the foundation you see you cannot build either one of the marriage or the calling on a foundation you've never been honest about and yet that's what most men do

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but in the Align Man when we go through this together this is 12 men 12 weeks these are brothers who keep you there after the cameras are off they are there for you with you on the same trajectory as you if you're like Ryan I need a room I want something virtually I want something in person I need to be with other men that are that are doing the same things I'm doing that believe in the same things that I do that are reaching for the highest of heights like I am then check it out below it's an incredible opportunity for the right guys we only take 12 men per launch we've got another one

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coming up really soon we're about to open up a registration for that but you can get in on that wait list and so click that link below for the Align Man you can read through everything that's involved in that and then you can hit me up if that's something that you want to talk more about look I got off that floor because I finally stopped pretending that I didn't need help the drift that you're feeling right now it doesn't need to be the end of your story it's the invitation to finally deal with what's underneath it all acknowledge it realize it unlock

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it along