Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
067: Take Ownership
The opposite of ownership is the victim mindset.
And even the best of us slip into it sometimes.
If our kids would friggen listen. If our employee would... If the city would... If our wife would...
It feels frustrating because we want to control something that's out of our control.
Listen to today's episode to learn how to spot when you've dropped into a victim mindset, and how to step out of it to take ownership in each area of your life.
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 67, the Durable Dad podcast. Hope you're doing well. Hope the summer's kicking off strong for you.
Speaker 1:I finished my Spartan race last weekend, which was a total blast, huge challenge. I talked about some of my training on a podcast earlier, just a couple episodes ago. I talked about practicing the spear throw, which is one of the obstacles, and a few of you have already asked how the spear throw went and I've told you I missed it and pretty disappointed about it. I've only missed the spear throw one other time in other races that I've ran. So I was bummed, a couple of swear words were thrown out, I had to run a penalty loop there weren't burpees at this obstacle and then moved on with the race. You know there'll be another one in the next time I'll nail the spear. But besides that man, it was over 13 miles, it was 3,300 feet in elevation and 32 obstacles in total. So when you sign up for these races, it's 30 obstacles, 13 miles, but they always throw some extra stuff in there and the vert was pretty killer. There was a lot of mud, there was a lot of water and we completed it. I did it with my buddy and I don't know. I felt like we did a really good job, pushing each other, staying upbeat the whole time and just the whole weekend of getting picked up early, driving down with a cup of coffee, racing going out to battle on the mountain, and then we camped overnight down there and just chilled by the fire before we came home to our families. So, back at it got a good episode for you.
Speaker 1:Today I'm going to talk about ownership, and I'm talking about ownership because I had a coaching session this week with a guy that just really inspired me to talk about it. He just grabbed kind of the bull by the horns, or whatever you want to say, to own his role in his relationship with his wife. So when I started to think about the concept of ownership, the first book that I thought of was Extreme Ownership, and it's written by Jocko Willings. I actually haven't read the book, but I've listened to his TED Talk, I've heard him interviewed on a bunch of different podcasts, and if you don't know who Jocko Willings is. You got to Google a picture of him because he's just a total beast and I did pull this quote from the book just to wrap your head around what ownership is. So he says, implementing extreme ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility.
Speaker 1:Admitting mistakes, taking ownership and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team. So his book is about extreme ownership in the business place. The team we're kind of talking about today is our family team, our wife, our kids, and it doesn't really matter what team we're talking about, because ownership is all about the individual owning up to their humility and checking their ego. And the opposite of ownership is the victim mindset. When we are just blaming our circumstances for the life that we have or we're just complaining about our situation without actually doing anything about it. And when we don't own our situation and we don't own our role in the circumstances we have, we're not really living life, kind of just cruising by pointing the finger at the world and not taking responsibility for our actions, for our mindset, for the roles that we're playing in the relationships that we're in, or our financial situation, or the role we're in at work or our kids' behavior. Ownership is calling yourself out for how you're impacting these different areas of life, and if you want more fulfillment and happiness and joy, it's totally there for you. You just have to own what you need to change in order to create that joy and happiness, right? Not just hope that the world changes around you.
Speaker 1:So back to this client. This is kind of where he started and more of that. I want my wife to change. Him and his wife haven't been getting along really well. They keep having the same argument and they blame each other. You need to change. No, you need to change. If you change, then everything will be better.
Speaker 1:And this was carrying over. They were fighting in front of their kids and this guy just was kind of bummed about it. He's feeling sad, frustrated, disappointed. Their anniversary was coming up and nothing was planned and he started to tell me how she's a total stress ball. She's always negative, she never wants to solve any problems, she's always complaining. So this is the victim mindset. This is what it sounds like. It kind of sounds complainy, it kind of sounds whiny. And when I am in the victim mindset I'm usually thinking that why is this so hard? This should be easier and it's a pity party that you throw for yourself for a little bit and the victim mindset gets a bad rap and you're like don't be a victim, get out of the victim mindset yes, that's the goal. But first we need to hear that part of our brain out, that mindset out, let it complain, let it blame. Then you look at those thoughts.
Speaker 1:So for this guy like he got it all out there and I asked him, I was like okay, so this is your side of the story. Some of it may be true, but what would your wife say? And we know what our wife would say. We've had the same discussions or arguments enough that we know what she would say. And he just was able to rattle it off. She would say that he's all or nothing. He's a black or white thinker. He's hurtful with his words, he's overly transparent and too blunt. He's highly reactive and he should figure out all of this stuff so we could have a better marriage.
Speaker 1:So he rattles that off and I ask him, like what's the truth in that? And this is where the ownership starts Are you willing to own up to your flaws? Are you going to have the humility to say, yeah, I screwed up. I could get better at that. So when I asked him, what part of that is true, can you see any truth in it? And he said, yes, like I could work on all of those things, sweet.
Speaker 1:Then we have a place to go, because what we've done is we've looked at our victim mindset, the blaming of her. She needs the change. If she changed, then the marriage would be better. We have that mindset and now we're also taking ownership of the role we play and our actions in the relationship. So the thing to see here is what do we have control over? We don't have any control over how our wife thinks or how our wife acts.
Speaker 1:So in this case, when I asked him, what do you want to control about yourself, what do you want to change? And he said that he wanted to be more relaxed, he wanted to be more patient and he wanted to not judge her so negatively. All right, so that's ownership working on his actions, being more patient, working on his mindset, not judging her so negatively. All right, so he knows how he wants to change, he knows what he wants to take ownership of. And then the next thing we talked about was the plan, how to attack it Because, back to that Jocko Willing quote, implementing extreme ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility, admitting mistakes, taking ownership.
Speaker 1:And then the last part, he said, was developing a plan to overcome challenges. So the plan became asking himself three questions a couple times a week, and the questions were what have I received from my wife, what have I given to my wife, and what troubles and difficulties have I caused? So those three questions are going to shift the victim mindset. What troubles and difficulties have I caused her? That's when we're going to start taking ownership. Oh, have I been hotheaded lately? Have I not been listening? Am I judging her too much? There's no shame or blame. But he asks himself these questions, he starts answering them and it shifts his mindset. And when you shift your mindset, your view on the other person, your emotions are going to change, your actions are going to change. And what happened when he started asking these questions was the conversations that they were having weren't as heated. Their conflicts were more of a discussion than these arguments, and she actually chilled out a little bit more as well.
Speaker 1:And we don't change ourself to change the other person. But when we bring a more calm and positive and truly compassionate mindset and emotion and energy to a relationship, the other person lets down their guard a little bit too. So, yes, it would be awesome if the world changed and fit the mold that we want it to be, but that's not reality. So the change starts with us. It's kind of like that saying be the change you want to see, be the change you want to see.
Speaker 1:And this moving from a victim mindset to ownership applies to every relationship that you have. As a father, we want to blame our kids for not listening and they should behave better. Our parents, we want them to not intrude so much. Whatever the relationship is, there's always this path of blaming, wanting other people to change, complaining about it, and then the other path of taking ownership. So, whatever relationship you're in, whatever part in your life right now you're kind of down about or wanting to work on, start by taking ownership and then making a plan of what that ownership looks like in the real world.
Speaker 1:You change yourself, take ownership of your life. The rest will work itself out. I promise you that. I have seen it with the men that I've coached and I see it in myself when I play the victim. Not much changes. I kind of just stay stuck where I'm at. But if I take ownership, identify the negative mindset, identify the steps I can take and the mindset I need to take to get there, then shit starts changing. That's what I got. Hope you have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time.
