The Let Them Theory: Support, Don't Rescue

In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan dive into Chapters 16 and 17 of Mel Robbins’ The Let Them Theory: The More You Rescue, The More They Sink and How to Provide Support the Right Way.

They explore why stepping in to “rescue” often backfires, how shame and denial complicate real support, and why presence and patience are more powerful than quick fixes. Along the way, they share stories about hidden struggles, money boundaries, and what it means to be a calm, nonjudgmental presence in a crisis.

Listeners will also hear a candid discussion of “harmful help” versus healthy support, the psychology of ignoring warnings until consequences hit, and how frameworks from Gretchen Rubin and BJ Fogg can shape motivation and lasting change.

If you’ve ever felt torn between helping someone you love and protecting your own peace, this conversation will help you navigate the difference between rescuing and truly supporting.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Calm Presence in Crisis
• 5:33 Support vs. Fixing
• 13:35 Boundaries, Money, and Emotional Presence
• 17:28 Harmful Help, Healthy Support, and Tough Choices
• 27:26 Warnings, Motivation, and Change Models
• 33:42 Different Motivation Styles & Wrap-Up

Transcript

Charles: 0:00

Look for men that can offer a calm, nonjudgmental presence in the midst of a crisis. They are rare and worth their weight in gold. So you can turn yourself into a guy that can sit there while somebody you care about is going through something and be a calm, nonjudgmental presence. That is, I mean, number one. The women in your life will be shocked because their dad probably wasn't like that, their boss probably isn't like that, most of the people they deal with to just say, hey, listen, I know you're going through something really tough right now and, uh, I'm here for you to let's talk about it. Yeah, and let's you can tell me how you feel, you can tell me what's bothering you. You can tell me how I may have made it worse. Being able to sit there and hear that without losing your stack is really valuable and hard. And, man, I failed at it over and over and over again.

Charles: 0:59

Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. Masculine podcast. This is charles. In this episode, we dive into chapter 16 and 17 of the let them theory, where mel robbins tackles the hard truth about rescuing and supporting others. We'll explore why stepping in to save someone often makes things worse and how to shift into a healthier kind of support that actually helps. Check out our website, mindfullymasculinecom, where you can find all of our episodes, audio and video and anything else. Dan and I feel like sharing thanks and enjoy hey, charles, good morning that was quick.

Charles: 1:31

Hey dan how you doing I'm well well all right. So, uh, we're wearing the same clothes, but we got a purple background and that means we're recording another episode on the same day, because next week I'm gonna be in texas, yeehaw yeehaw dallas, austin, dallas, dallas yeah, dallas, for this one that said we're uh, we're not going to be recording next week.

Charles: 1:51

so we're going to talk about chapter 16 and 17 from the let them theory, and really these chapters are very similar to 14 and 15. It's just kind of discussing the more extreme examples of dealing with others, behavior and when you believe other people around you need to change for your good and their good. And so when it gets, when it's a, when the stakes are higher and it's more serious, how do you deal with it? Yep, so that's what we're going to talk about, which I don't think we'll have to talk about very long. We'll reiterate some of the reiterate some of the points that we covered from the last episode, which is she says you can't want someone's healing more than they do. It's like, well, you can, but you're going to be wasting your time and your energy. So if you're in a position where you want them to change more than they want to change, don't expect them to change. Expect yourself to spend a lot of time feeling badly, resentful, angry, but don't expect to get the result that you're looking for.

Dan: 2:47

Now I think a lot of our struggles come from when we aren't willing to sit in reality.

Charles: 2:53

And.

Dan: 2:54

I think a lot of us will look at somebody else and want them to change, and we live in that world of we want them to be here and they are here and we are focused on on this here and we're not comfortable being down here.

Dan: 3:07

And if there's a way that we can get from and and let them know that we are here with them, we accept what they are, the reality of it is, and we'll support them from underneath rather than pulling them from up top, I think that's going to be a lot more effective, because you're then not putting the pressure of them to change and and get it done, because maybe they don't exactly know how that path needs to happen, where they need to go, and so if you kind of support from underneath rather than pull from the top, I think it's going to be a lot more effective. There's a lot less pressure. I don't. I just kind of had that thought right now as you were talking about that right, where that's where reality is. You're meeting them where they are instead of telling them or making them feel bad for where they're not around her relationship is.

Charles: 3:55

You know, one exercise I would encourage you slash her to do uh in in our discussions as well. I said to her imagine how it's going to feel if you're in this exact same situation 10 years from now and you're, you know, 42 instead of 32. I don't remember how old she is, but like not only are you a 42 year old woman that's still dealing with these same problems, but it's been grinding on you for the last 10 years. So what does that life look like feel, right? One point she brought up in this chapter that I thought was very valuable is you might not even know somebody's experiencing a struggle with something like addiction, especially, you know, because they hide it so well. Yeah, so especially drinking drugs, gambling, something like that.

Charles: 4:47

It's like you're not by the time you know about it. It's like, okay, this is a five alarm fire, and so you may, you may be getting into something already when it's way, way on down the road where it's like, okay, there are some major consequences. And then, if you get surprised by it, your initial okay, there are some major consequences. And then, if you get surprised by it, your initial instinct to rescue them may be even stronger and you're like, oh no, you know this, this person has to. You know they need to come up with twenty thousand dollars to by tomorrow they're going to lose their house. It's like, okay, well, I better get twenty thousand dollars out of my ira so I can help them with this. When you know if, if this kind of an urgent thing comes to you, like right on the they're they're only asking for help because it's going to happen tomorrow, then you're going to be even more pressured, to feel like I've got to step in and save them.

Dan: 5:33

Yeah, and the the issue here with with all of that, I think they've been hiding it for so long from from the world that, yeah, as you said, it's going to be a really big emergency. At that point it's going to be probably beyond the scope of what you can do, even if in an ideal world, you were able to change them. It's important to also not just wipe your hands of it and back off, but just let them know that you're there to support them. And maybe it's just a phone call, it's not a I'm gonna dismiss this person and, and you know, kind of erase them out of my life. Maybe it's you just kind of keeping up with the phone call occasionally, just saying you're there for them. I think in one of these chapters she talked about how she had really bad postpartum depression with one of her kids where she couldn't even be alone with the infant for the first four months of its life. Like that is some serious, like just her and her baby, and I think it was in-laws. What did you take?

Charles: 6:28

away from that? Was that as in, she's going to hurt herself for the baby or she's just going to, like, lose her mind, and just you know?

Dan: 6:35

I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if it was like hurting the baby or completely being so spaced out that a baby would be suffering and not getting it what it needs in terms of nutrition or attention or whatever it is. So I'm not sure.

Dan: 6:48

When she says she's she couldn't be alone with the baby, um, I I'm I'm leaning more towards she wouldn't be able to properly take care of it, not that she's putting a pillow over its face, kind of thing right, yeah so, but in either case, what she said was her in-laws or her parents would come and basically go look, we're, you know we're going to take you, we're, we're, we're taking everybody out, we're going to a park, we're going to an activity. So it wasn't necessarily hey, you need to fix your depression. It was we're going to support this and we're going to provide activities. Yes, I feel like there's maybe a little bit of force there to like get her out of the house and things, but it wasn't a direct hey, you need to change this behavior. It was I'm going to provide the supports. We're going to give you a whole bunch of paper plates and bowls and dishes, and so you don't have to do dishes while you're learning how to take care of the baby and you're already overwhelmed with everything.

Charles: 7:42

That's how I support myself. Even though I don't have a baby, I always eat off of paper.

Dan: 7:46

Yeah, listen I'm this close to switching over myself because I'm like, how I'm one person in this house, dixie, how am I dixie ultra, that's the way to go am I? Generating so many dirty dishes. It's like, oh my god yeah, it's uh.

Charles: 8:00

What could argue?

Dan: 8:01

and I'm gonna dishwasher it's.

Charles: 8:02

It's a bit wasteful to make produce that much garbage. But man, yeah, I don't. I don't even own non paper. I buy Dixie Ultra solos. Make solo makes a pretty good product. But if you're using paper plates, I say get the premium, most expensive paper plates in in whatever that company's line is. Yeah, buy our best sticks. Yeah, most expensive Dixie, the most expensive dixie, the most expensive solo, and you'll you'll be, because when it comes to like I actually want to be able to cut a steak without cutting through my paper plate and leak all over the table, yeah, all the table for sure gash in my table so yeah, buy, buy expensive, but yeah I how did you take, what did you think when she said she wasn't able to be left along with the infant for oh, I went immediately to pillow over the facts.

Charles: 8:45

Yeah and I yeah that that might say more about me than it does about her. That's where I went. One of the things that, uh, is interesting and I've had some experience with this shame and denial can block acceptance of health, so I of help. I've had people come to me before and ask to borrow money to get out of a financial crunch.

Dan: 9:07

Okay.

Charles: 9:07

And this is some advice, modified advice from Dave Ramsey, which is interesting because now I kind of look at I don't look at Dave Ramsey in as positive a way as I used to, because when I hear him talk about personal finance, he's very boomerish when he talks about it. Like you know well, just say no to yourself and just you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and it's like okay, can we just don't do it. Can we have some? Can we have some acknowledgement of the fact that, you know, wages and inflation have not kept in pace with each other? And so the idea of I'm just going to sock away money for a year and then I can buy a house, that's not true now in the way that it was true, you know, in the 60s. It simply is not, and he doesn't talk in a way that really acknowledges that.

Charles: 9:53

But anyway, one of the things was somebody came to me and they're like hey, can I borrow some money? I'm experiencing an issue, I could really use your help. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, number one, no, I'm not going to loan you money, I will just give it to you and you won't have to pay it back.

Charles: 10:07

But if you want that to happen, we're going to sit down and look at your monthly budget, look at your income, look at your expenses and figure out how we can make this work. So I will give you the money instead of loaning it to you. But we're going to sit down for a couple hours and go through this and their take the loan or take the charity, but they're not going to open up and say and you know, I will accept your help in solving the problem. And I think and I'm I'm not going to give unless you're willing to let me help you solve the, the bigger problem. I'm not just going to loan or hand you the money. It's, it's not going to happen here's. You're going to, essentially, lee, I'm going to buy two hours of your time to go over your budget with you and that's the transaction that's going to happen here. And they're like thanks but no thanks.

Dan: 11:00

Right and okay. To me that's a perfect example of the differences in human beings where for somebody, for one person, asking for money is a really big deal, it is, uh, maybe a blow to their ego. It is very difficult to do versus, you know, and and and maybe they're great at keeping a budget and that's their experience and they've got no problems open kimono here, here's all, here's my spending, everything else like that whereas other people it's very easy for them to ask for money and impossible for them to open that kimono and go, okay, this is my and it's it's. I think I've run into that problem where just assuming that it's just as easy on for both of those things, or just as difficult for both of those things, as it for me, as it is for somebody else, and that's where I've run into problems in the past too, and then the outcomes are different and also the the level of severity then is is misinterpreted in my mind.

Dan: 12:04

So I feel like if somebody has, you know, really needs, you know is going to ask me for, for help, for money, they really need it, because that's how I would go about it, like I would, would absolutely have to have it if I'm going to ask for it. But that might not have been the case and this may not have even been their rock bottom. And so you need to get comfortable with that, realizing that, hey, they're not at that rock bottom, they're complaining a lot and that's making you feel uncomfortable because you don't know how to manage that. Or maybe you don't know how to manage that relationship because most of the conversations that you have with that person are centered around them complaining about just the finances.

Dan: 12:42

And I've had in my past, I've had, conversations with family members where I've said, in not so nice ways and I wish I could go back and do that where I've said, listen, I don't want to have conversations like this because I feel like this is all we're talking about and I don't enjoy that. I don't want to be. You know, I don't. I want to have better conversations. And initially it was not a good reaction and it was kind of like a fine, we're not going to talk at all kind of thing. That was fortunately, thank God, short-lived and now I've got a much better relationship and a much healthier relationship. But I needed to be okay dealing with those feelings of oh my God, I really upset this person and I didn't want me to do that.

Dan: 13:23

So again, I think it really, you know, like you said, it comes back down to us managing our own emotions. Once we figure out how to do that, we can make much better decisions for us and for our relationships moving forward.

Charles: 13:35

Yeah and yeah the. The ability to just sit with people in their discomfort and just, you know, be there for them and say you know, listen, I know you're struggling with this and, like we said in the last episode, I mean just offering somebody, you know, I will give you unlimited hugs and unlimited conversations while you work, while you solve this problem is, in many ways, the most valuable thing you can give them, instead of just you know it's. It's sometimes for some of us it's easy to just write a check and solve somebody's problem for them. What's really hard is to say I'm going to sit here with you while you tell me how dissatisfied you are with your life and I'm not going to tell you how to fix it.

Dan: 14:22

I'm just going to sit here and let you vent to me. Yeah, I think it sounds. I know sometimes I can feel like, oh, just offering hugs and and conversations isn't as valuable. So I feel like you're almost slapping them in the face. But well, I'm not going to really help you out, I'm just going to offer hugs and and and. You know conversations as I get older, the offer hugs and and and you know conversations as I get older. The.

Dan: 14:36

I realized and people have done that for me it's priceless. You know they may not react positively to that initially, but if they, if you're telling them that you're going to be offering this when they are struggling, they're going to know you're a safe space to come back to and be able to share things with, and I think it's going to pay off in the long term. You just need to believe it first yourself that that is something valuable and it is something that you are actually offering in lieu of the money. Because a lot of times I was like well then, what am I offering them? How am I supporting them if I'm not giving them X, y or Z or this money? Knowing what you just said, that's great. I'm going to take that away and use that for the future is like, yeah, my presence and me being here for you is still something I am offering and and and it's very valuable as well, and that's to me that makes it easier for me to accept making that choice, making the hard decision.

Charles: 15:26

Oh man, I would say so.

Charles: 15:27

Thank you for that, by the way. I mean, just just look around at you know people who are famous, either in you know. Just look around at you know people who are famous, either in you know celebrities, politicians, whatever. Look for men that can offer a calm, nonjudgmental presence in the midst of a crisis. They are rare and worth their weight in gold so you can turn yourself into a guy that can sit there while somebody you care about is going through something and be a calm, nonjudgmental presence. That is, I mean, number one.

Charles: 15:58

The women in your life will be shocked, because their dad probably wasn't like that, their boss probably isn't like that. Most of the people they deal with to just say, hey, listen, I know you're going through something really tough right now and, uh, I'm here for you to let's talk about it. Yeah, and let's you can tell me how you feel, you can tell me what's bothering you. You can tell me, you can tell me how I may have made it worse. Be able to sit there and do that without losing your stack is is really valuable and hard and, man, I, I failed at it over and over and over again and it's, it's difficult, but again you know it's going to improve your relationship, though In the long run, they're going to feel so much closer to you knowing that you are operating in that way and able to handle that.

Dan: 16:42

So when things get tough and you feel like, oh my God, here it comes, I just opened up the door by saying what have I done to make this more difficult?

Charles: 16:49

Know that in the end, it's going to make things better for both of you, so be willing to say that, Just being able to, to be that kind of guy where, yeah, when, when the crap's hitting the fan, you know you can maintain your composure and you can be supportive without lecturing, without judging, without getting upset and anxious. And you gotta, most of us don't get those skills from our mommy and our daddy when we're, when we're little, we have. We have to find other sources.

Dan: 17:16

And we don't get it from high school, we don't get it from college.

Charles: 17:19

We don't get it. You need to seek that, you have to go look for it and you have to spend a lot of time.

Dan: 17:26

Listening to the Mindfully Mascot podcast.

Charles: 17:28

We won't make it worse. So there's that. But yeah, you have to spend a lot of time in some uncomfortable rooms having uncomfortable conversations about things you didn't get and things you don't understand. To turn yourself into that, because it does not come naturally. All right, let's talk a little bit about harmful help. When you're bailing someone out of trouble, when you're over-functioning, when you're attempting to remove sources of struggle from someone else's life, that is not the kind of help that will help them. It's the kind of help that will harm them. Neutral tolerance is waiting, without connection or encouragement, Just kind of you know. Oh, they're going through something difficult. I don't have the capacity to fix it for them, so I'm just going to back out of their life and hope that they can figure it out when healthy support is. Presence without control and encouragement, without rescuing Again those hugs and those conversations is the most valuable thing you could give somebody when they're having a hard time.

Dan: 18:26

Yeah, for me, it's important to remember that you still are doing something. Absolutely the encouragement that support it is still something that you are investing your time and energy and love into and is ultimately, I think, the best of all of the options.

Charles: 18:50

The rescuing is the quick fix that's going to make everybody feel, you know they're. They're experiencing some chaos and some drama and I'm going to protect myself by just disengaging from this person until they get their shit together. And you know, there's there's some temptation on my part, with some of my relationships, to do that. It's like okay, they're, they're really. They're really going through it right now and I, I would never find myself in their circumstances because I don't have that particular mental health challenge that they have. So I would rather just, instead of being uncomfortable or trying to fix it for them, I'm just gonna say good luck with that and then I'll I'll poke in on their other social media in a couple months and see if they figured it out yet, because that's that's not a particularly loving or kind thing to do, but it is one way that we might try to save ourselves from the negative consequences that they're bringing onto themselves and the people that are close to them.

Dan: 19:43

I mean it is loving and kind in terms of you creating the situation of where you're not going to resent them. Not going to resent them because if you were continuing to force yourself to hang out with that person and the capacity and they are not bringing, they're bringing, you know, negative energy or or the negative things that they're doing, the things that they're struggling with to you, and you don't have the capacity because you've got other things and you're living your own life and you have the capacity to deal with it, you're going to end up becoming resentful and then that's going to not make things get any better for the current situation. So I think it is the loving thing to do you're not forgetting about them, I mean I would say it's more.

Charles: 20:26

I mean, cutting ties with someone gracefully and and being honest and direct is better than you know. Trying to rescue them from their own problems, certainly. But the third option of healthy support, where you offer your presence without trying to solve their problem for them and you offer encouragement without trying to rescue them from their own choices, I mean that's the pinnacle. But sometimes that's not a possibility. Sometimes the only thing you can do is say hey, listen, you're getting yourself into the kind of trouble that is going to have negative consequences for me that I'm not willing to accept. So I wish you the best, but I can't.

Dan: 21:06

Most important pieces here is making the person feel like they've got choices in terms of how they want to address the issue and whether they want to address the issue. That's one of the core tenants, I think, of any type of change is, and life happiness in general is feeling like we have control over our own decisions and we have the ability and the freedom to make those choices. When you come in from the outside and you're basically saying, nope, you need to do this or you need to change that or whatever, you're then taking away that independence. I would love to see the stats of people who have been sent to rehab against their will, for whatever it is, versus people who voluntarily gone to rehab on their own in terms of the recovery rates or the, the, the rates of rebounding back into yeah the addiction.

Dan: 22:06

I'm just curious yeah, one.

Charles: 22:08

One would think that the people who choose it for themselves probably have a higher success rate. I mean, I believe across the board, most people take like five rehabs before they can get sober.

Dan: 22:19

Right, and so that's the question too is that last one? What's the average? Is the last one on? You know how many of those five were of their own volition versus not?

Charles: 22:29

Yeah, and look, a lot of people talk about rock bottom. A lot of people find sobriety in prison because things have just gotten so bad, where they go to jail or prison, and that's where they're able to look around and say, okay, now nobody was able to bail me out of this, so now I got to solve it on my own.

Charles: 22:45

Yeah yeah, so, yeah, I think it's. It's tough to watch people you care about go through difficult things, and it won't stop being tough. You know when, when you're providing that safety net for them and basically robbing them of the dignity of solving their own problems, and that's that's really once you once you're able to see it that way, as you're you're stealing something from them that's more valuable than the check you're willing to write to get them out of trouble.

Dan: 23:13

And I think another piece of this could be is if this is a loved one, for example, if it's a child, I feel like you know, maybe you bailing them out is a way of fixing your own bad feelings about yourself and your judgment about yourself, like I'm a bad parent because, or I'm a bad sibling because I, you know this person has this problem and taking too much responsibility because maybe you neglected them, or you feel like you neglected them or you did something wrong in the past and that's got to be.

Dan: 23:44

it's a whole nother level of yeah, that's got to be tough of of something that you know to deal with when it comes to making the tough decision and letting them feel and letting them hit rock bottom or, you know, just providing that support. We feel like anxious because, oh, it's not enough, because I want to make up for the things I screwed up in the past, or I think I screwed up in the past or I mean you, could, I mean you legitimately could.

Charles: 24:07

I mean it could be a situation that is as cut and dry as you know, I abused my son or daughter and now they're an alcoholic or a drug addict. So now it feels like to make up for what I did that contributed to this or, flat out, caused it. Yeah, now I've got to continually, you know, bail them out of, you know, save them from their addiction that I caused for the rest of their lives. Or it's's like, oh, no, you've, you've just traded one form of abuse for another. And, uh, you know, I, I, I love that A&E show intervention which, um, you know, I consider it more of a documentary than a reality show of just documenting people's struggles with addiction.

Charles: 24:46

Then they're, uh, you know what what addiction has done to their life, and then the family gets together and has the, you know, reads the letters of how their addiction is affecting them and then gives them the choice of it's either, you know, you, you accept the gift of treatment, or here's what's going to happen.

Charles: 25:03

And it's like, yeah, you, you've got to realize that, handing them over to the consequences of their choices, like the threat of actually meaning that you will do that and sincerely being willing to say if you don't go to rehab, then here's all the ways your life is going to get worse instantly. Yeah, it's. I'm glad I've never been in that position, but I understand why it works the way that it works. You have to be willing to say like either get better today or my insulating you from the consequences of your action stops today. So your life is going to change today one way or another, and sometimes that that's what it takes for for these people to to turn their lives around. But if it's, you know, go ahead and keep living under that bridge and I'll, you know, I'll give you money for food and drugs whenever you need it, because I don't want the responsibility of you dying from an overdose or DTs or whatever.

Dan: 25:57

Yeah, you know, in one of these chapters too, she was talking about how one of the reasons we could get into problems and she interviewed somebody who's much smarter than all of us was that, as human beings, we don't think warnings apply to us every time we read. And that, I think, goes back to that is oh, I don't really think I'm going to die of an overdose, right, that doesn't happen to me?

Charles: 26:15

That doesn't happen to me. Right, I'm not going to die of a heart attack because I'm carrying an extra hundred pounds around. That doesn't happen to me.

Dan: 26:44

That's happened to other people. Right, and yeah, that bridge to cross is how do we get other side of it? But how do you do like, when you're on the other side of the bypass, that you, you know, not, not for people who are over 200 pounds, and you know I'm at 230. So it's like, all right, you know, how do you, how do you really believe something that hasn't happened yet?

Charles: 27:02

Right, like that's, yeah. I mean, how do you?

Dan: 27:05

you can't, you can't, you can't convince anybody I mean unless you see somebody who's else is in your situation or who was in your situation has gone through it and and those consequences happened and you feel like this is person's close to me, it's relevant to me the message I took from these two chapters is you can't make people change, even when the stakes are super high.

Charles: 27:26

You don't get to just impose your will on them and expect it to work. All you can do is give people the space to make their own choices and give them an environment where the right choice is appreciated and admired and modeled and modeled and modeled, so the wrong choice is not judged or punished or nagged because it's not going to help. I mean, I've never been talked into the right choice for myself or others by being nagged or judged or bullied into it. I mean, you know, I'm more of a what do we call it in that other book, a high conflict personality than most others. And as soon as I start feeling pressure like somebody's pushing me into something, yeah, it's like oh okay, we're playing the pushback game. I usually win this game.

Dan: 28:14

Well, it goes to Gutch and rubin's four tendencies.

Charles: 28:17

You're a little bit of a rebel, right I need to write her, I need to go ahead and just buy that book today, because I think a couple days ago I was driving, I was doing a long drive and I was like man, I wish I could remember the name of that lady or that book.

Charles: 28:27

I'd go ahead and buy it on audible right now yeah it was good, so I need to just go ahead and buy it so I can listen to it and then maybe, maybe we'll talk about it on the podcast. Next Sounds good. Is there a free version of that test that you can take? I think there is.

Dan: 28:39

I think so. Yeah, yeah, I think on her. I thought it was on her website. There might be. If not, then there definitely is.

Charles: 28:46

One of the things that we'll probably cover on the her philosophy about figuring out what way you are so that when you want to change something about yourself, you can use the right tools instead of the wrong tools. One thing I didn't want to ask you before we break is when it comes to getting other people to make these changes. I did not go back and revisit tiny habits, but I know you're walking around with most of that knowledge in your head. Have any important ways that you think she's got a different than bj fogg does? No, okay, okay. So she's pretty much on the same page with how you inspire those changes in other people.

Dan: 29:19

Meaning yeah, one of his tenants is you change when you feel you feel good and not when you feel bad. So, yeah, you don't want to make that person feel bad. Right, you want to celebrate, you know, you want to celebrate those small wins, you want to encourage that. So she talks about you know celebrating a little bit about that. And I think BJ also has a chapter on how do you influence somebody in a way where you are not like, hey, we're going to change something about you, like basically just right, yeah, and it's very similar in terms of you're providing a supportive environment and you're also modeling that change Right?

Charles: 29:53

So I think yeah, they all kind of sync up together in the country. There's probably a lot of this.

Dan: 29:58

It's a little bit more analytical step-by-step to get to that point. I gotcha.

Charles: 30:01

Yeah, I imagine they're probably leveraging the same core science behavioral science, behavioral economics. They're probably looking at the same experts when they put their methods together.

Dan: 30:12

Yeah, with BJ it was b equals map. So a behavior happens when motivation and your ability, the ease of doing that thing, happen together from a prompt, when you were basically prompted to do that. It's easy enough and you have enough motivation. Sometimes it takes a little bit, sometimes it's a lot, in order for a behavior to happen. So that's, that's yeah, I remember, the motivation or the ability are like inversely right they need to both be there enough in order for that to happen.

Charles: 30:47

If the ability is, if it's too difficult to do, and motivation exactly in order for that to happen yeah, and if it's really easy to do, then the motivation like we were talking about, motivation is great for taking out the garbage or brushing your teeth that's why his whole philosophy he focuses on making things as easy as possible.

Dan: 31:03

Right, because motivation isn't, is it difficult to to keep going and that's and that's tougher.

Charles: 31:08

You know when you, when you want to do something that is objectively really difficult. It's like you could only make it so easy.

Dan: 31:16

But I guess with tiny habits you can make the little individual steps that get you there, as you first engineer it, yeah, so you gotta look back and go okay, how do I right, how do I make these steps as easy as possible in order to get to this big?

Charles: 31:29

like I want to do my first iron man triathlon.

Dan: 31:31

It's like, okay, you don't start out doing a regular marathon and then, and you know, 50 mile bike race, race individually. You're breaking that down. You're, you know, doing small runs everything else like that. But that's not. But what? Then we go back to gretchen rubin who talked about remember, sometimes that's not enough motivation, right? Yes, you get people because that's not a big, you're not seeing enough bang for the buck, initially exactly in order to keep that going and get excited about that. So that's.

Charles: 31:58

I think bj tries to compensate with that, with the celebrating that but if it's not all, then his celebrations never really felt like right, then this is nothing. So this isn't actually boosting my dopamine, this isn't making me feel better. It's like I'll do it because he says to do it, but like I don't. Yeah, so I don't get value out of the kinds of stuff. Like if you look at his list of all the celebrations, I like none of these mean anything to me. What means something to me is when I feel like doing something and going hard, I go hard and then I feel good about it yeah, yeah, and so, if so, for for him.

Dan: 32:30

I think for most of the most people, the key is the consistency part. But how you stay consistent and the things that motivate you to stay consistent is different, and I think that goes back to the Gretchen Rubin tendencies, where some people need, you know, a big external. You know they need a show or that if they, you know, step on stage or a marathon or a race or whatever that is, or maybe it's a bunch of smaller races along the way. So maybe for that marathon you are training for a 5k and then maybe it's a 10k or whatever that is, and not just I'm just going to do five miles, you know, and keep increasing until that marathon. That's not going to do enough for me. I need a little bit more of a, an immediate kind of reward. So that's where it's good to know your tendency.

Charles: 33:15

What, and and that's where she gets into is what motivates you yeah, I think the yeah, the people like me who were very seduced by the go big or go home thing, it's, I mean, number one. I got some adhd going on that I struggle with. I've got low conscientiousness where just grinding away at a boring task feels impossible for me. It it drives me crazy. And so, yeah, like looking at it, I mean in life there's very few one size fits all approaches, right, I mean because people are so different.

Charles: 33:42

But you know, with things like Enneagram or the big five or like, there are ways that you can, or her, her book and her and her tests that she has, it does feel better when, the more you can understand about yourself, to know what bucket you fall in, the easier it is to go out there shopping for methods and systems that will work, that have a higher chance of working for you. So, right, when somebody speaks to me and they're like, if you're a person that feels this way or likes these things, then here's an approach that's probably going to work for you. Yes, that means a lot more to me than just here, atomic habits, here, tiny habits. It's like, no, it's like I worked with people who are like you and here's what works for them. That is way more valuable to me.

Dan: 34:23

Yeah, yeah, I think I think you can take aspects of atomic habits and tiny habits and apply them. So I think there's some principles there, right, and you just need more than just the principles. You need to know how to translate and use those principles for your tendencies, right?

Charles: 34:40

that's the way I I. That's which of his uh, which of the the tiny habits celebrations do you work for you? Any of them? I'll be honest with I've tried.

Dan: 34:48

I've tried to do those like celebrations, but for me it's kind of like uh, I've, I've. Actually the celebrations that work for me is I'll talk to myself and say hey man, nice work. Like I put my ass and like got all the dishes done and cleaned up last night and I was like nice work, man. And I just said that to myself. It's different, it's not really a celebration in the way he's trying to get people to celebrate, because what he wants people to do is feel that dopamine rush from that celebration. So he's saying things like you should be visualizing, like what it looks like. You know how you feel when you come home and your kids greet you at your door or one of your pets greet you at the door. Like generate those that feeling of warmth and excitement when you're doing like these mundane little things. And that's where I have a problem I disconnect, I can't. I can't do that. So I need something else and that might work for some people. It doesn't work for me.

Charles: 35:37

I mean that, and you know, speaking of the last episode of trying to be less judgmental than I was when I was younger, it's like if somebody is telling me that you know, after they, after they put their gym shoes on or their you know, they gave themselves one of these. And it's like if that's all it takes for you, what is wrong with you like like you've got a life where doing this for yourself like that makes you feel something. Like that makes me feel like nothing. What?

Dan: 36:07

is yeah. So I think I think I think where the gap needs to be then is you need to really kind of figure out okay, do some real planning in advance and go all right, look, get some of those smaller milestones in place that actually mean something to you.

Charles: 36:20

Well, that's, yeah, that's the thing, and know that you are getting there and it's not going to be a very long distance, being able to write out a list of what actually makes me freaking feel good, like what does it take for me to like feel like something good has just happened in my life or I've accomplished something, and taking a list from somebody else of very, you know, minor things. It's like, yeah, I, I wish that. And look, maybe that's because my dopaminergic system is completely blown out from scrolling instagram all day.

Dan: 36:49

Or what you're not the only one.

Charles: 36:50

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's hard for me to relate to somebody who could literally say you know, I didn't feel like going to the gym today. But I went to the gym and then, after I was done with the gym, when I got to my car, I literally patted myself on the back and that moved the needle. I was like yeah what?

Charles: 37:09

how that moved, what Like? The only needle that moves for me is the I feel stupid needle. Yeah, yeah, but I'm willing to accept that there could be people out there that that actually does something for them, but for whatever reason, I'm not one of them.

Dan: 37:22

You've actually given me some good ideas for for, for helping people with this and coaching myself as well, just as this conversation thinking about this now, so kind of combining a little bit of both of those approaches where, instead of going to the celebration piece, it's how do we take that bigger goal and what are similar goals along the way that aren't necessarily immediate, but closer than yeah, it's not going to happen tomorrow, it's not going to happen next week, but maybe next month. This big thing is going to happen. I'm going to. That's enough for me to go. I'm going to keep going to the gym because this thing's getting closer and it's like I see, I taste it, whereas a marathon could be a year away, and it's like on a day-to-day basis.

Charles: 38:09

That's going to wear off and from the little bit For most people yeah, that what's her name again the chick with the Gretchen Rubin A little bit. From what I've seen of her on YouTube, I believe that there are some people that setting that a year from now, I'm going to be in a bodybuilding competition or I'm going to run a marathon, like there are some people that just paying the registration fee and getting it on their calendar is for them and it was like God that feels like a different species for me, Like I could not imagine being the kind of person that all I have to do is put it on my pay, the registration fee, get it on my calendar and that's enough to change the way that I behave.

Charles: 38:44

When I wake up 26 days from now what are you kidding me? It's like uh, yeah, I, I wish, I wish it was that easy for me, but I've got to accept that I'm not one of those people. That means that there are probably some things that I'm good at that those kinds of people are not good at. Yeah, I don't know what they are, but they've got to exist.

Dan: 39:01

And you'll never know. You'll never know, right, but for me, I think my takeaway from this conversation is I'm going to look at some of these slightly longer term goals and I'm going to start, you know, reverse engineering them into fun milestones, exciting milestones. For me, that maybe isn't that's going to lead me to being able to achieve that bigger goal.

Dan: 39:18

Right, one of the one, one of the things and focus more on on how I can derive joy and pleasure from those little milestones, and it's going to take a little brainstorming to do that, but I think. I think it's going to be effective for me. So I don't know All right Again.

Charles: 39:31

don't know how much of this stays in the podcast, but at least you and I had some good conversations. See, we'll see how much stupid shit we're talking about. Talk to you later, dan. All right, bye-bye. Thanks for listening all the way through this episode of Mindfully Masculine. It really matters and we're grateful you're here with us. Be sure to check out mindfullymasculinecom, where you can find.