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The Truth Will Set You Free; The Mental, Emotional, and Physical Consequences of Lying

• Joshua Fields & Jeremy Rubin • Episode 51

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Embark on a quest for truth as Joshua and Jeremy dissect the fascinating ties between honesty and personal well-being. This episode isn't just about the chuckles we share over the innocent white lies we tell; it digs deeper into the transformative effects of truth on our mental and physical health, relationships, and self-perception. Discover how participants in a groundbreaking study found that embracing honesty led to fewer health complaints and richer social interactions, and consider how your own life might be enhanced by a little more truth-telling.

Venture through the complexities of vulnerability, as we navigate the treacherous terrain of authenticity in our relationships. Our candid conversations reveal the psychological liberation in ditching the façade for personal truth, and the empowerment found in trusted spaces where honesty is cherished. As we share tales of our own struggles and triumphs, we illuminate the path to personal fulfillment and the growth that comes from living unapologetically as ourselves.

Finally, we tackle the nuances of authenticity in the professional sphere and intimate connections, challenging the balance of sincerity against societal pressures. With personal anecdotes at the ready, we expose the empowering act of confronting one's truth and the incremental practice of truth-telling in the quest for a life unburdened by pretense. So, tune in and join us on this enlightening expedition, and you might just find the keys to a more genuine, healthy, and connected existence.

Articles Referenced: https://healthland.time.com/2012/08/06/can-telling-the-truth-make-you-healthier/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20improving%20their,and%20even%20depression%2C%E2%80%9D%20Dr

https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/consequences-dishonesty#:~:text=At%20the%20same%20time%2C%20lying,generally%20erode%20trust%20in%20society 



Find us on our online platforms:
Co-Host: Joshua Fields ACC, CPC, & Master ELI Practitioner
Website: https://joshuafields.coach/    
Instagram: @joshuaafields
Email List: https://archive.aweber.com/newsletter/awlist6189433  

Co-Host: Jeremy Rubin, Keynote Speaker, Author, Consultant, Sales Leader
Website: http://faceconsultinggroup.com/ 
Instagram: @ajeremyrubinstory

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Take it Off podcast, where we see love grow. I am your co-host, jeremy Rubin, and I am here with my guy, joshua A Fields.

Speaker 2:

Joshua, say hello to the people Tell me what you want.

Speaker 1:

I think you've sung that already.

Speaker 2:

Tell me what you need. Tell me. If ain't good enough for you, babe Tell me.

Speaker 3:

Oh, tell me what you want. Hey, tell me what you need.

Speaker 2:

Everyone tell me ain't good enough for you, babe.

Speaker 1:

So the problem is, one person tells you that you can sing because they don't really have anything in that area. What's that you? What happens like we'll just be out and say oh I love it when you sing. Yeah, and they really don't. They just stroke in your ego you think, or they just? Don't huh. You think they're lying to me? I think they are, but it's a compassion. Lie, it's a compassion.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we should like maybe do a show on the type of lies and the health benefits and the consequences and all that well, we're getting to that.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, get into what happens when you lie your ass.

Speaker 3:

That's what we're about to get into. People are making me feel a certain way, but they're just really lying to me about my vocal quality.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because they want you to feel a certain way. Absolutely, we lie to the people we love for sure. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Today's episode is entitled the Truth Shall Set you Free the mental, emotional and physical consequences of lying, and we will be gleaning from two study-based articles One, an article from Time Magazine called Can Telling the Truth Make you Healthier and secondly, an article by SPSP called the Consequences of Dishonesty. Let's start with the Time article and we're just going to go high level on this, but I feel like a lot of this is poignant.

Speaker 1:

It says telling a white lie may seem harmless, but a new study suggests that you might improve your mental and physical health if you cut down on the fibs you tell. We found that the participants could purposefully and dramatically reduce their everyday lies and that, in turn, was associated with significantly improved health, said Anita Kelly, study author and professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, in this statement. For her study, kelly recruited 110 adults and asked half of them to stop lying for 10 weeks. Lies included big ones and tiny ones, any false statements, but participants were still allowed to do things like admit the truth, keep secrets and dodge questions they didn't want to answer. The other half of the participants weren't given any special instructions about lying, except that they had to report the number of lies they told each week. Except that they had to report the number of lies they told each week. The participants aged 18 to 71 took a weekly lie detector test and filled out questionnaires about their physical and mental health, as well as the quality of their relationships. It turns out that both groups reduced their lying, but those who were specifically told to tell the truth fibbed less and improved their health more. For example, when participants in the no lie group told three fewer minor lies a week, they reported four fewer mental health complaints, such as feeling sad or stressed, and three fewer physical complaints, such as headaches or sore throats, and three fewer physical complaints such as headaches or sore throats. Those in the control group, who independently told fewer lies, logged fewer health complaints as well, but only by two or three complaints. This is interesting to me. On average, americans tell about 11 lies a week, the author reports. By the end of their 10-week study period, the participants in the no-lie group were down to one lie a week. The comparison group was telling more than three lies a week, down from an average of six at the start of the study. In addition to improving their mental and physical health, the truth-tellers said that their close personal relationships had also improved and that their other social interactions have been easier.

Speaker 1:

I think lying can cause a lot of stress for people, contributing to anxiety and even depression. Dr Brian Bruno, acting chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told Health Day "'Less lying, or lying less, is not only good "'for your relationships, but for yourself as an individual. People might recognize more devastating impacts lying can have on a relationship, but probably don't recognize the extent of what it's causing to them, as it pertains to a lot of internal stress. Joshua, I know that was a lot, but what say you?

Speaker 3:

I think that that's powerful. We don't really think about how lying affects our mental health and the type of lies that we tell each other or to ourselves. This is very fascinating fascinating, um. I know that, like the and even reading parts of the article alluded to, like, specifically, health benefits for truth-telling. For those that told the truth more, they had fewer mental health complaints like sadness and stress and anxiety, and fewer physical complaints like headaches and sore throats. So you might be thinking you got a headache just because you're not drinking enough water. Had a rough day? Oh my God, this motherfucker gave me a headache, honey you ready to go tonight?

Speaker 1:

No, I got a headache. I wonder why you have a headache. I wonder why. I wonder why. So you don't?

Speaker 3:

want to rule that out. Oh, that's right, you keep getting. Why? I wonder why? So you don't want to rule that out? Oh, that's right, you keep getting. It's not strapped. It's not because you got a cold. It's not because we're changing seasons, right? I mean that's powerful insight, yeah for me how often do you? How do you stop getting sore throats?

Speaker 1:

well, yeah, you know, I don't think, I don't think that that would be my thing. Right, the sore throats, I get that. You know what. I'm not doing this with you. But the two things that come up for me is that one they everybody's lying, like when you say 11 lies a week, because I know some habitual more I thought it could be more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also the thing that comes up for me is and we'll get to it in the other article is how, just the scope of lying and what it is, you know, not just a blatant hey, I see this black and it's white but the exaggeration of the truth. You know ambition. You know ambition. What we feel are benefits short term for not expressing the truth, and then how those seeds impact us over time. I think that that's so powerful and that's why, if you can get to a space now I should phrase that differently if you will or choose to get to a space where you tell the truth, um, and surround yourself with people where you feel like you can do that, then obviously it's better for you 100.

Speaker 3:

I mean this, this, this really is an alignment with you know all of our subject matter around truth telling and, again, I am not perfect at this particular topic at all Me, neither, don't even put me on.

Speaker 1:

Oh, he's a truth teller.

Speaker 3:

Nope, yeah, I've lied to a few people to their face. I'm going to, I'm going to do some more lying after this episode. So this is great awareness. Thank you, we'll bring this to the board's attention. And I have suffered greatly for lying. I have taken my mental toll around secret keeping, secrets from myself, secrets from others and, depending on the situation, my skill set around lying will return today and for the future. So that's the truth is that my lying and how it's done and depending on what's going on, it will happen again.

Speaker 3:

Now, what's powerful about this article, even in our we're not here to you know, to obviously to judge anybody, but there's benefits for telling the truth and I've experienced great benefits from telling hard truths. Absolutely right. And I think what's really the win here, as we think about how we go through this article, is the reduction in lying right, giving yourself the grace to improve truth-telling, especially with the relationships that you deem really important for you to be fully expressed in like. Go there to those relationships and practice telling the truth. Those people have a lot of capacity to be able to hold you and not hold on to you because of a truth or a lie that they believe is true for the sake of some, some benefit or gain, and it's really a way to help pressure test your relationships by being as honest as you can within those relationships.

Speaker 3:

And, like you mentioned even earlier, we we lie to the people we love, right, and why that? Why we do that is because the people we love, we want them. At least, on my end, I want them to maintain a certain image of me that I'm trying to control, and there's a lot of effort and anxiety and stress holding up that image, and so that's it. But you know, I, I'll give my, I'm gonna celebrate myself. I have, I have been on this authentic journey around transparency and vulnerability and, um, I have made some real, some real strides in that space around reducing my anxiety and my stress, because I'm just, I'm just keeping it above.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I've watched it. I've watched, I've watched you morph and I've and I've always given you your flowers around this, in public and in private, depending on what we're talking about Because I've seen you deal with difficult situations and difficult information stuff that people would just either keep to themselves or wait until everything comes out. And you've got out in front of it and you've done the healthy thing and I have the utmost respect for you. This without putting all of our business out there. What? The first thing that came up for me when we started doing some research around this topic was when we had that first night where we were talking at the nines, where we were talking about actually doing a podcast, and I said to you. I said, hey, like I really, really, really, you know, want to do a podcast and I've been talking about this for a while. And I said I want to do a podcast with you.

Speaker 1:

And your thing was, hey, before we do a podcast, there's some things you need to know, and it was this weight, right.

Speaker 1:

And then, when you told it to me, you were even surprised, like, okay, and move on, right, it's very interesting, and I've watched this dynamic with myself talking to you about things and even other people talking to me about things, about this weight that we're holding on to, that we think if someone knows, it's going to radically shatter how they see us or want to roll with us or connect with us, and to that what I'm growing to realize is that if I give you a shred of information and that information says to you, oh no, I'm not messing with him, well then we weren't supposed to be connected in the first place.

Speaker 1:

And you have your information too. I just don't know about it. I don't have the privilege of knowing about it, I don't have the privilege of weaponizing it. You put anybody's worst moments on the jumbotron and they're leaving the room crying, and that goes for everybody. And so it's interesting how your life will change when you have the courage to let go of the weight and just tell the truth, tell your truth. And if you're in a space where you can't or it's weaponized, to change the space, because you have the power to do that too.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, that's a that's powerful and you know I speaking in energy and energetic levels, in which you know I practice in terms of how I show people themselves this has a lot of three energy behind energy behind it, right, it's very performative. Um, hey, hey, johnny, how you doing now? Johnny's not doing well at all, but for the sake of this zoom meeting and the work that's in front of them to do, oh, I'm fine, I'm good, we do it all the time. But for the sake of getting through a situation with minimal blowback or trying to navigate without a lot of overwhelm and anger and resentment, we'll lie, that's a lie. If you're not doing well, you're just not doing well. But the person that's asking it's easier just to give them a lie and we've justified it well. They don't deserve to know my truth right now and that's fine, right? So we're participating in a transaction to get through, um, to a certain outcome that involves keeping this protective space, so nobody knowing what's really going on with me, and that's not going to change no time soon.

Speaker 3:

The point here is who can you be vulnerable with on a consistent basis? So you're not holding all these untruths about your experience, because you can tell yourself a number of things that's going to keep you right where you are. We said this yesterday on our phone call You're not living the life you want to live because there's not enough truth that you're telling yourself about what you want. Yep, right, your truth is your freedom. At some point while I was at AT&T.

Speaker 3:

This isn't working for me anymore. I don't care what golden handcuffs are here, this is just not working for me anymore. I need to leave now. But what about all this other this and that and justification for why you need to stay in a situation that's not serving you? Well, that story that you tell yourself is very important because, if that story is heavily on the lie side, well there's a lot of egregious impacts to your health, your mental well-being, your anxiety, your stress. And we stay because I'm getting something out of it. There's a material gain here and that has a lot of impact on what you're doing. Why are you doing what you're doing?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I, I did this throughout the entire, through. I'll call it 95 percent of and I still do it today 95 percent of my relationship with the kids as mom. Where, where I was like, I'm staying for the kids, right, even though, like, the shit was super toxic, I'm staying for the kids because that sounded honorable. Right, I'm staying to make sure my kids are okay. Right, that puts me in a protector, you know, um um mode view. That puts me in a. You know that I'm the hero and the victim at the same time. Right, and and and and. I can tell that story.

Speaker 1:

But the real truth of the matter was was I didn't love myself enough to go. I didn't have the confidence that I could just leave and be okay. And then you ask yourself well, how did you get to that space? And you don't even want to go there, right, how did you get to a space where you can't stand on your own two feet, really, and that, somehow, that this toxic situation is the devil that you know and the devil that you don't is so scary that you just, you just sit in this thing. That's a hell.

Speaker 1:

But let me go ahead and make up another story because it needs to sound better. You know this also comes out when people would be asking me well, what do you do for a living? This also comes out when people would be asking me well, what do you do for a living, fam? When I first started selling cars you know I'm a sales manager now, still going after my dreams podcasts even what I'm doing right there.

Speaker 1:

When I first started selling cars and was making, you know, when I finally decided I had to put the dreams away and take care of this family, it was making great money six figures plus just doing my thing, excellent at it, all kinds of awards and accolades. I remember a young lady who went to high school with me that came into the dealership and she was in the IB international baccalaureate program with me and I hid for three hours while she was there at the dealership. I could have went up, introduced myself. It would have been in cell. I can't have you knowing that this is my actual reality, based on what I built myself up to be and do. And so when someone asks you a simple question like, well, what are you doing these days, you want to talk about a scary ass question, depending on if you're at the high school union.

Speaker 1:

If you're at it hey, what are you up to these days? Who wants to say, yeah, I'm actually really unhappy and I'm trying to still figure it out at 40 or 35 or 37. Like I'm actually, I'm doing something I don't like to do, but don't have the courage to necessarily move towards what I really want, because that takes a lot more energy. So I'm just going to perform for you in this moment because I got to save face, and in saving face, I'm denying who I am, and in denying who I am, I'm really saying you know, I don't love me enough, right where I'm at, to even tell you who I am. The lie is better than the truth and we do that with things all day, every day. And I watch people, do I watch people squirm and that's why I get so I'm, you know my personality like hey, no, it's so, you know it's okay, it's great. Be positive, because you never know what hell somebody's in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and just asking them a simple question how that gets them to revisit that hill, and the thing is is we lie to ourselves that we're not lying?

Speaker 1:

For sure, that's where it starts.

Speaker 3:

And so we'll have so much judgment for liars and cheaters and non-truth tellers and uh, performers. We have so much. Why don't you just keep it real, like that's simple. So why don't you just keep it real? And we're addicted to filtering our faces online. We're addicted all these subtle ways to keep to enhance that's a nice word. Enhance, this is an enhancement.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, enhancement yeah, that's the whole, yeah, the whole. Bbl nip tuck and all this is, and it's an enhancement yeah, this is an enhancement.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, this will amplify xyz. Yeah, it's. You know there's consequences for dishonesty, you know, and I think I'll do a quick overview, but there is a mixed bag of why people lie and the consequences of dishonesty, one set of lies, and I'm curious what your insight here is. We break this down, um uh, theme by theme. In this particular article by S, what is it by S? S, p, s, p, s, p. The consequences of lies motivated by compassion, right when people lie at a building connection to make them seem more trustworthy. So sometimes it looks like these, like the downsides of that, is this overly positive feedback that can lead to unrealistic expectations and ill-advised ventures. Expectations and ill-advised ventures Because I've lied to you so much that I told you that your sweet potato pie is really good and you should probably go into business for yourself and you quit your job and you open up this nasty-ass sweet potato pie restaurant and you're one of the ones that want to come eat your sweet potato pie.

Speaker 3:

You didn't, I didn't sold you a dream yeah it also looks like you're at a job and someone recruited you to be on their team and I didn't sold you a whole field of dreams about your potential here, where you could go and what you could do, but really what they wanted was for you just to be on their team to serve a particular role and knew that you didn't have necessarily the range in that particular corporate organizational space to blossom and grow without furthering your education. Oh, you don't need to go study, you don't need to do that. See, I did it this way, you can do it that way too. But deep down you know this, this whole role doesn't align with you.

Speaker 3:

But you've gotten connected and emotionally attached to this soothsayer. Yeah, that has sold you a dream, because they make more money than you, they have a title you desire, they might have resources you want, and so we suspend our judgment for the sake of being accepted by something that we want or we want to experience. So then the lies become internalized and now you've wasted time being connected to something that doesn't even serve you nor do you desire to do. Do you desire to do the man? We know how to pull out our level three energy to justify, compromise, massage and manipulate and cope with situations that are not in our best interest.

Speaker 1:

And train to do so. Oh, honey, honey, how does this look on me honey?

Speaker 3:

Oh stop.

Speaker 1:

You can stop it. How does this look on me? Now go ahead, go ahead and say anything other than outstanding. Hey, um, I just I know you went to your mom's and you had her mac and cheese and I just have. Just how does it compare to mine?

Speaker 2:

how does it?

Speaker 1:

like. I mean because I saw you. You, you know you usually struggle a little. It usually takes you about five, ten minutes to finish my plate, but you, you were. You down that in 90 seconds and I just want to know like, are we on par? Like? And every man knows. Every man in a heterosexual relationship. Knows you better lie, otherwise you're going to be punished. In a heterosexual relationship, knows you better lie, otherwise you're going to be punished in the myriad of different ways. Right, but here's what's so crazy that I finally realized there is no growth for either party. Talk to us when we lie. Talk to us. Cause, guess what? Yeah, she's been she. This is what mom does. She's in the kitchen doing her thing.

Speaker 1:

If you really want to be that, you may need a few more reps and I should be able to say that, cause, I'm not, I'm not rejecting you, I'm talking about this thing and it's not on me because you're connecting this thing to you or you know, like the whole, like a lot of people, if you just go where you want it, right, like, there's. No, I'm Chunky Couture, we've talked about this, I'm on my way to being so sexy. Then when I walk into a room, I'm going to change the temperature. Literally, the AC is going to kick on. I get it.

Speaker 1:

But it's one of those things where if, if, like, like. If someone's telling me I am something that it's not, I'm getting comfortable with it. It's one thing to love yourself, but it's another thing to be like yeah, you should probably lose weight. For your health, you probably should lose weight. There's a myriad of things that we could talk about why spending time in this area matters, and it gets so touchy that we can't even tell the truth without experiencing consequences. So my thing is if you don't want me to lie to you, then don't punish me for telling the truth.

Speaker 1:

You're reinforcing bad behavior. Love know what I mean and I know you just keep, just keep on this no, you, you're, you're, you're, you're hitting on it. I'm saying we're all a part of this it's not like oh, you're a liar and that's just in you. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I went to the best school, the school of us. Yeah, yeah, because there's benefits to me keeping my mouth shut.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and there, and those benefits get you through again. We've made a short term justification to get through a difficult situation, and so we'll use lying to maintain an outcome that we have told ourselves this is the only way for us to maintain it is by being dishonest, and I have learned I think especially with this, even this last year, man, the power of sitting in uncomfortable truths that are being exchanged and told for the sake of growth and intimacy. Right, exchanged and told for the sake of growth and intimacy. Right Connections where you can go and be fully expressed and unhinged, and that that means that I'm going to learn things about you that may make me uncomfortable, but the deeper our love and connection is, I should expect to get hurt by the truth. I should expect to hear things that I don't want to hear for the sake of depth and connection and being transparent so we can remain connected.

Speaker 3:

It is the small white lies, the small things, the things that we're trying to manage, that allows us to bear a weight that, over a period of time, has clearly impacts to our health. Oh, what are we going to do about our health, though? Well, I'm going to cope. Oh, what are we going to do about our health, though, oh well, I'm going to cope. So it looks like a well-stocked alcohol cap Absolutely it looks like, and I'm raising both hands here three or four edibles just to go to sleep, to shut my brain off from overthinking about all the things that I did that I rejected. That I still haven't quite mastered yet, but I need to maintain like everything is going okay, because it's me people assume everything is going okay.

Speaker 3:

I can't disappoint my audience. The show must go on. It must go on don't forget about pornography. Yeah, here's a reel of me having a time of my motherfucking life absolutely absolutely edit it down to the, to the moments that look like damn, yeah, he's still doing it. He's the guy we want to hang with. That's that's who I want to hang with. Right, right, right right absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I was gonna say that, yeah, we pornography don't want to go and do the work to get this. You know this girl or that girl, so I'm gonna have every girl at my fingertips, right, there's always something to cope with you mean, you're on? Page 60 of pornhub still page 89, right, yeah, page 89, right, so it, but it's, and like I mean, even people will see our relationship, josh and I. You know, sharing the moments, that's the highlight reels. Me and Josh had a great conversation that started with some conflict yesterday.

Speaker 3:

And we both say you just everything is just radical honesty today, huh.

Speaker 1:

It is. It's radical honesty day because, yeah, he is the guy that's on the treadmill next to me. He is the guy that I can share any and everything with. But yesterday we realized that there were some things that we hadn't shared with each other, that were bothering us. And what was great was that we got to it so quick, we didn't let it fester. And what was awesome was we were both willing to adjust because we have enough love for the other party. Hey, you don't want me to do that Easy. Nope, not doing it again. And if I do, let me know in real time, because maybe it's a habit at this point. Right, and people need to see more of that, that messy, and in cleaning up our mess together, it brings us closer together, right. The other stuff is even can be performative, right, hey, make sure, when you have that right camera angle, what's the right music, what's the right?

Speaker 3:

this. What's the right that we are editing your life? We're at a cigar lounge and we want to make it look cool yeah, that music isn't gonna work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah oh no, church in the wild, yeah, absolutely right.

Speaker 1:

so we curate these things so they're perfect, not for us before we what we want to project, because, at the end of the day, we want you to like us absolutely right, and it's being more real about those things, yeah. But guess what? Like brothers, we be having some issues too. I tell Josh all the time I'm not a coach, I'm going to get right to it. This is how I feel you know. So there's you guys can see the empathetic Jeremy. But there's another Jeremy that can steamroll Josh too. Josh is no joke. When he wants his way, he's a whole force.

Speaker 1:

Don't let the vocabulary and the singing fool you. This dude right here is a force, and then you got to get on his level. You got to be to match his energy. Sometimes he's going to leave some things out so he can rally the troops, and then I'm going to come in and be like, let me give you some more information. So you guys, could.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely I'm gonna leave some shit out, especially if I really want it. Yeah, if you really want it. Yeah, I'm like hey, let me curate my truth here this sounds like 47 of the story.

Speaker 1:

Sir, I can't really, I can't really help you now hold on now.

Speaker 3:

They gave us some strategies here to get through this. They said that you could.

Speaker 1:

You could, uh, oh, to avoid lying, respond with tough questions or another question, um when I saw that, I almost threw my computer because that's what you do and you don't want to tell me something like I'm gonna tell you. Josh ain't gonna lie to me, but what he is gonna do, is he gonna play this misdirection game, wildcat I'm talking about we don't know where the football's at like, bro and I, sometimes I just start off. I'm not doing this with you. I'm not with this.

Speaker 1:

You definitely do that oh my god, that's real. Uh, let's, let's move along the article they talk about.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, and I was gonna say this these lies motivated by desire for material gain, which I think is how we, how we maintain these toxic situations that we're living in, but we didn't tell ourself a whole other story to maintain what it is, that we're getting out of the situation, and typically it's financial, it's, it's something to keep us safe or that we perceive as safe. When we really boil it down, it's maintaining connection to a community or a family or some type of group of people. For the sake of how do I still get my connection to this power source so I can move on and live to fight another day, and this, ultimately within groups, can be very contagious. So the norm in certain environments is to not tell the truth. Oh, big boss is coming in for a visit. We have overly cleaned the store we have. The back room is spotless now spotless. We have rehearsed a few bullet points from our company website or our results or whatever it is everybody knows.

Speaker 3:

For the sake, of creating an illusion that this is just how we function. So, for those brief moments when the president comes on the scene or whatever it is, uh, they're getting a whole show, but the customers are experiencing something completely different trash right. And so we do this because I want to stay connected to this job, but I don't really want I don't really want to be here. I'd rather, if I really got to it, I could be doing something else that fed me, but that takes too much work. It's easier to be somewhere and maintain a performative culture that I'm not totally bought into for the sake of being received, because I don't want to do the work to find out what I'm really motivated by.

Speaker 3:

Oh, and that looks like you being a president of some company too. That's just not our frontline employees. That looks like you being somewhere and not wanting to be there, but you're there because you're in survival mode. You've justified why it's okay for you to continue to show up at a job and we're not doing anything about how to get to what really feeds you Right? And I'm not saying that because I'm on some. I'm on some high horse about that. I just talk to these people every day. Yep, I just help support these people every single day and the story is the same. I'm doing something inauthentic and I'm too afraid to leave it because I don't know what's out there if I really go, follow my heart and my dreams I don't know what they're gonna think, what they're gonna say.

Speaker 1:

Look at my finances. I mean, what came up for me with this when I looked at this, lies motivated by desire for material gain was and when you say gain, think even just keeping my shit consistent Like I just want, can I just be comfortable? So when I was, you know, rolling with face, consulting and I mean I mean all kinds of people and work with organizations, didn't do it as great as Joshua feels. But you know I have my little time in the light and we don't need to do that, King.

Speaker 3:

we don't need to self-deprecate.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no. I just want. I just want people to know that you're him. Ok, so I have a burden to wear King.

Speaker 3:

I don't want that. That's a lie. I'm not him, I'm me.

Speaker 1:

You are, you are. He said we're going to do this.

Speaker 3:

Okay, we're going to do this right.

Speaker 1:

We're just going to keep it real. Man, just tell the truth in love. So there was in coaching. What I found is, as far as women to men at least in my practice, I had way more women who were. It was probably out of 10, seven were women, three were men, and there was this common theme around I can't leave because if I do, I will not be able to afford my life Right. Like I'm not, I can't leave, and that's not the truth. Like it's scary on the other side and it may take an adjustment.

Speaker 1:

When I left my situation I went from having my own house, two cars you know, just financially at least we'll call it comfortable to sleep and I'm a brothers and having a car repoed, two cars repoed and having to drive for a season. I remember, like it was yesterday I bought a 99 four door Civic and it had a. It was hit in the back, so there was like a chunk of it missing. And I remember my kids getting out of their mom's car and looking at the car and they're like dad, whoa, wait, whoa, and they were young, little silver Civic and a lot of people and I'm not even sitting here saying, oh, look at me for making that adjustment. But a lot of people here saying, oh, look at me for making that adjustment.

Speaker 1:

But a lot of people are just like what is your freedom worth? Right? What's the lie that you're telling yourself? You have to, you don't have to do anything.

Speaker 1:

I met somebody that we talked to that said the podcast helped them get through a divorce and they went from a really, really nice house to a 900 square foot apartment. Because how do we put a price on our freedom? And so the lie is that you can't. And as long as you tell that lie, that you can't, you're not going to be able to access the energy that it takes to grow Because you don't have access to the truth. Right, it's not that you can't, it's that your ego may be hurt. It's that you may not want to explain to people why it didn't work out. At least, if we start with the truth, we can work from there.

Speaker 1:

But let's not hear I can't. It's not that I can't, I care too much about what my mom is going to say, or I care too much that my spouse is more concerned with the security of what we have than my happiness, mental and emotional well-being Right, but you can't even get to that truth if you're around these convenient lies that people are used to hearing and can understand and process. Yeah, especially around material gain. I got to stay here. I can't not have the freshest jays, I can't not like my lifestyle. People are used to seeing a certain elk out of me. Well, what happens when all that shit fades away? Yeah, because eventually you're going to be out of style. Eventually you're not going to be it and all you're going to be left with is your decisions, your choices. And are you going to be okay on the other side of this thing? So, this material thing, it's so. There's so many layers to it because a lot of us are staying lying to ourselves and others so that we can keep this whole thing, this material game. It's huge, right.

Speaker 3:

Right, no, this material game, it's huge, right, right, no, I was funny. What really popped up for me is like watching when Diddy go through what he's going through in the, in the, in the glimpses that we get from it. Um right, I was like. I was like I was like I was like I was like I was like allegations, and then saying there's no way, this is true from Diddy's side, right, and then we see the settlement and then we get this video that's released and then now we're back in front of the camera talking about how, yeah, I'm my bad, this is egregious and Diddy really isn't any different from us.

Speaker 3:

Now, I'm not excusing that video at all. Right, that was horrific and much like the humans that we are, we'll find a way to suppress, repress, oppress, to keep the truth of what it may mean, for how that will impact how people see me out of the spotlight. Now you need these comment sections like oh my god, see, I knew he was lying the whole time. No, duh, sherlock, but we won't do. We won't do that other part around understanding why people lie, and it's calling that out, that why we lie, because their lies are motivated by compassion. Lies are motivated by material gain. Lies are maintained to keep a positive self-image. Right Lying drives a deep complexity to our relationships, and we know this intuitively. Right Lying drives a deep complexity to our relationships, and we know this intuitively. We're so about it. It's like yeah, I only deal with honest and people that communicate directly. You don't even do that. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it just takes the right person. It just takes the right person or the wrong person.

Speaker 3:

However you want to frame it, you go how are you what you got going on how you doing?

Speaker 1:

yeah, because you're busy depending on who call you. You're busy and free at the same time. Depending on who calls you, you're busy and you're free yeah, at the same, exactly, exactly. Sometimes you're like oh, hey, hey, fam, what's going on? So they might hey you saturday. Uh well, I got a couple things, but what's up?

Speaker 3:

you ain't got a couple things you either you're gonna either give us victim energy I can't, or I have to or you're gonna be on your level five, which means that I'm looking for my win-win here. I absolutely can be available, right? Because?

Speaker 1:

for the right person benefits you too for the right person. I'm moving at all, that's right.

Speaker 3:

I'm moving at all, and so it, just it just, oh, that is exactly right. 100. And it just really boils down to these relationships in your life. Less is is more. Like we talked about this, this 80-year study at Harvard the secret to happiness. It's not a football team of friendships, it's not all these performative relationships that you try to maintain so you can be accepted, so you can make sure you're on the yacht this summer, or you have told yourself a litany of untruths just to attract a certain type of person to hang out with you more often, so it can be more convenient, so you don't feel alone, so we put on a show.

Speaker 3:

I'm actually so proud of myself. I got to give myself some love here, let's hear it when I ventured off to do my thing in this, on this entrepreneurial journey. When it comes to coaching man, I'm the. The real is. I'm listening to myself coach people and I'm like, damn bro, that was something that you need to do, like tomorrow, or yet you should have did, you should have been on this yesterday, and I can see it so clearly for everybody else. And so the power that's in you when you just start telling the truth. And I'm not talking about reframing pain, I'm talking about telling yourself why the pain even exists and what your role is in your own demise. Your role is in your own demise, being self-accountable to what you did that hindered you from being as dope and as awesome as you project yourself to be don't, nobody want to hear that don't nobody want to hear that.

Speaker 1:

What are you talking about? It wasn't me, it was them, it was I listen to this every single day.

Speaker 3:

people don't realize how powerful they are to solve the issues in their life around anxiety, depression, and again, I'm not talking about where you reach dysfunction.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

But there's enough around you. If you told the truth more I'm not telling you to be a saint out here, this is real you will lie again after this episode and you will lie when it's convenient after this episode. I will lie when it's convenient after this episode. However, being human, we can sit here and talk about what is the importance of telling just one more truth during your week. What would you get out of that? Maybe you up that to two more truths, but as you get comfortable telling the truth because I've been on this journey of just getting comfortable telling truth hey, sweetie, I disagree. Hey, sweetie, I deserve this, or I'm thinking about things this way and I know we're not aligned on that and you know what that's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Because us holding space for the truth and allowing that to breathe and get oxygen will allow us to breathe and have oxygen. I don't need to be walking around here holding these deep, dark secrets that are destroying me internally. I have to love me internally. I have to love me. I have to now. What does that look like? It looks like telling yourself the truth is more, as often as you possibly can. Yeah, so you deal with what's real versus this show that has its complexities around it. Yeah, I might be getting something out of it in the short term, but what I'm not getting out of it is peace Is a foundational truth that I can build on. So I can literally be more honest and trustworthy with the people in my network. So we have deeper relationships and we're connected. The worst thing somebody wants to hear is oh, I didn't know you were dealing with that.

Speaker 1:

You, of all people you struggle with that come on, man right yeah, I use pornography.

Speaker 3:

So I didn't have to talk to women because I was afraid to talk to women, because I was afraid of being rejected, right, so it was easier to go find a curated version of something that I desire and spend my time overly being connected to something that had a temporary win for me. Oh, okay, cool, I got that off me. Yeah, but we're not building the skill set to speak truth to power, and sometimes power looks like an uncomfortable conversation with somebody that you like or someone that you want to like you. So I perform, I I don't tell the truth, I may, I exaggerate, I make what I really got going on a little bit bigger than it really is. And the next thing I know you've attracted somebody that's not even attracted to you. They're attracted to some fictitious idea of you that you can't even maintain.

Speaker 1:

No, question and let me add to the people who are going to judge the whole pornography thing yeah, to me there's no difference between you getting attention from that guy at work or or posting a video that you know is going to get a thousand comments and likes, because what you really want is authentic relationship, but you don't want to do the work it takes to get that, so we're going to take the shortcut.

Speaker 1:

There's no difference between the two. Whether someone's looking at pornography or someone is engaging in a conversation and a level of intimacy with somebody they ain't got no damn business doing it with, we're all doing the same thing, absolutely. Whether I didn't tell you about the chick I had over here and you didn't tell me about the dude you had over there, he's telling you how pretty you are, she's allowing me to come out over at 1 am. We're both doing the same thing. We're itching a scratch, that the that because we're not having a conversation, or we don't feel safe enough having the conversation, or we don't respect that. The fact that the other person has needs and we're getting our needs met outside of this relationship, it's the same damn thing I wish you would just lie to me, joshua come on man.

Speaker 1:

Just lie to me so I can participate.

Speaker 3:

Come on man why are you telling me the truth? Yeah you, you want like actual connection here. Yeah you, you want to protect the inevitable. You just just lie to me. There's a clip out there of, uh, giovanni davis and, um, um, james baldwin you know the one talking about he, she, she's telling him. He's like why, why would I lie to you? And she's like lie to me, just like you lie to your super oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like you lie to that boss, just like you lie to your boss at work, we're gonna do it anyway.

Speaker 3:

So let's, let's be conscious about the lies we tell. I think it's so powerful because it's so real. Right, you can muster up all this energy to lie to that boss at work that you perform for, yet when I, when you come home to me, I get the worst of you. I get the part of you that has spent so much energy lying at work that it's difficult to keep that mask on when you walk into this house. No, no, no, no, no. You get. You're going to do it here too.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, right right. Getting character, getting character, getting character If he's worth it, I'm worth it, and that's the rub. Yeah, is that eventually you have to get off stage, absolutely. And so the question becomes why are we even getting on stage? I mean, I was dealing with this with my social media. I was like, you know, I'm going to just be me, I'm like I'm being on this, but I'm done, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

No, you've been on it, brother, church boy, choir boy mama's boy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all that is true and and yeah, put that and on it and he's a whole demon. Yeah, there's a whole another side, he's a whole demon that I enjoy and that other people enjoy. I'm a life of the party, just what you know absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you speak nothing but truth here, my brother and then scared to show that part because that isn't quote unquote acceptable. That isn't quote unquote nice. You know what I mean. And so now we're performing for the audience, and then you wonder why people are so let down when they finally get around and meet their hero. Right, I don't, I wasn't supposed to be on that pedestal. For those reasons anyway, there's actually far more doper reasons why you should want to, you know, hang with somebody like me that have absolutely nothing to do with the image I project. I am a Swiss army knife. Okay, I'm that guy, especially when it comes to my people. You know like, and I just, but that's on me. Like you said, the power is understanding what, what our part is right. So now I'm just done. If I want to post something, I'm posting it. I'm going to be me, and if you like it, great. And if you don't, there's a block button, there's unfollow, get the hell out of my page.

Speaker 1:

Don't have an opinion, because I'm going to meet you with the smoke. I'm going to meet you with the same energy, because I got that in me too. You know my breath. Don't let my brother start talking about me, you know. So it's just. It's because he'll tell you the truth about what it really is. And I've been so busy putting that mask on, been so busy trying to curate this perfect image, that I don't even know where I start and end. And we've undone that. And a big part of that is you know, my relationship with you is like my friends know who I am, but then it's like the courage to just live that out Absolutely With whoever pastors by this is me right, like not, oh, you don't really know him. You know that's his public. No, no, no, this is me moving forward. I'm done performing. Yeah, that way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah yeah, no way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, no, that's a that's the way I perform, but I'm not performing in that way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, no, and I think the truth is expect a performance, right, expect, expect. All the things that make our human condition is complex and complicated and and contradictory. This all comes with being alive. Whoever that person is that you have in such high regard and have put on the pedestal, you just don't know well enough. You just don't know well enough. You just don't know where their bodies are buried, because they're buried, and for those that have done an excellent job keeping their closet clean well, I know you're living a lie.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, I coach these people every day too. Yep, the rule followers. This shows up in my kids I have. They all perform, they all. None of them want to disappoint mommy and daddy, all of them. Right, welcome to this. Is this is normal.

Speaker 3:

And I got some charlie that's a little bit more courageous in her ability to live authentically hope, yeah, yeah, skylar, who doesn't want complaints, will, um, will, will do her people-pleasing thing to maintain, um, that you like her daddy. I just don't want to tell you because I don't want you to be mad at me. Right, we all do this and it starts young. Really, no one taught them how to do this, but because they love that love looks like. Let me do my best, because I think that love is so conditional you won't even want me if you know what I was really thinking or how I was really showing up. And it is even in our kids.

Speaker 3:

Oh, you think your kids are keeping a buck with you because you got a great so-called relationship, all that could be there, and they're still going to protect this image that they want you to have of them and go run and tell their friend or someone else the truth. That's why we need a community around our people we love. Because I can't always tell everything I want to tell to my spouse. I gotta go processes with my guys. Yeah, I gotta go talk to my therapist about this. I gotta go somewhere and just unfold to get myself together, to come back and tell the truth. That is clear, because that's the kindest thing we can do for the people we love is be clear and direct about what it is we want. And if we're unclear and direct about what we want, we need to go do that work, because that actually benefits us first and then align our relationships with the truth yeah with the truth.

Speaker 3:

The truth, even when it's unpleasant to communicate. It deepens intimacy. It keeps relationships functioning and less performative, because that is a show that is for others to see. But what about what's going on on the inside? What long-term ailments are you adding to your health by just not keeping it real? That's really for you to decide. The quality of who you are is based on what you're able to communicate freely and without fear that you're going to be rejected, and without fear that you're going to be rejected. Speak your truth, live authentically, say what you mean. There is life-saving benefits in that.

Speaker 3:

I walked into this exhibit. I'm going to read this quote from this exhibit that I saw, and it talked about the psychological, um, the psychology of secrets. And I'm not again. I got some secrets that ain't no one's gonna know about, but I'm gonna tell you about the impact it can have on y'all. Yeah, I'm still working on it too, yeah, yeah, but we're just going to humanize this experience.

Speaker 3:

Holding a secret can feel like holding your breath underwater. It's not until we exhale and let go that we realize the weight of what we've been carrying. Research has been linked that secrecy increases anxiety, depression, symptoms of poor health and even the more rapid progression of disease. The simple yet powerful act of sharing a secret can relieve the feelings of isolation that that secret keeps creating. So the beautiful thing is, and the most cathartic thing you can do for yourself is find somebody or some people or a professional to keep it real with. I'm telling you, I do this every day. People will tell me things and they they preface it with man. I haven't told anybody about this. It is my job to create safety for people to unfold, because it literally saves your life.

Speaker 3:

Be a truth teller to sell. I'm not talking. You can go put your mask back on for everybody else, but keep it real with you. It is in keeping it real with you that you attract others that will keep it real with you. We want so many, so much for other people. I want everybody to tell me the truth. I want everybody to be honest. I don't want nobody to lie to me. I can't deal with a cheater. I can't deal with this person. I can't deal with that person. And yet you're not doing any of that for you.

Speaker 3:

You lie to yourself every day about why you haven't been successful in your job. You lie to yourself every day about why you're single, why you're still married, lies. You don't know what's waiting for you on the other side of telling the truth and we're going to read more and more articles that point right back to this Just be you. That's simple truth. Just be you. Do that work. Break free from anything else that's not aligned with you. Or, if you find something that's not aligned, tell yourself.

Speaker 3:

The truth about this is the pain that I'm going to accept from dealing with a situation that's not totally aligned with me, and I'm okay with that. That's the truth. That's the truth. That's the truth. So build on that, so you're not expecting outcomes that are not aligned with what you really want. But you've accepted a temporary prize for someone to say attaboy, here's another gold star, here's something in it for you just to continue to lie to yourself. And the whole time you're paying the price. You're creating an internal war within yourself by suppressing what's true to you. I'm gonna get off my soapbox, is that no?

Speaker 1:

because, because your vessel is designed for what's inside. Tell me more about that. Your vessel, whatever your vessel, the body is designed for what's inside. It's designed to hold something specific. And so when, whether you want to call it, your spirit, your soul, your life force, your energy is contorting Right, well, this vessel wasn't designed to hold that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And now the vessel's breaking down because it wasn't designed to hold that. Yeah, I don't even recognize that we were here for a specific assignment. What is that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so the vessel starts breaking down. Anxiety, these are all symptoms, right? High blood pressure, hypertension, right? Everything from a headache to a sore throat, sadness, depression. Because the vessel is breaking down, because it wasn't designed to hold this version of you. So do your vessel a favor and be all that you can be. And let's talk about the next thing the desire.

Speaker 1:

The why we lie is desire to maintain a positive self concept. Here's what's very interesting who gets to decide what's positive? Who gets to decide? See, you're letting them decide what is positive, yeah, and you're trying to fit that, and your vessel wasn't designed to hold that for you. What it's really saying is hey, we got to get up out of here. These are not our people. This is not the plan, this ain't it, and I can only tell you so many times before I just fall apart. So we got some decisions to make. I cannot hold you in this form. Right?

Speaker 1:

It reminds me of the quote from shawshank redemption get busy living or get busy dying. Like, what are we doing? Yeah, and a lot of us are just busy dying, trying to keep this positive image lying to ourselves. Our life has become a concession. It is a great concession. It is not what we intended it to be. And instead of telling that truth and then saying what are the things that are keeping me here and are they more important to me than my peace, my mentality, my confidence? Are they more important to me than my peace, my mentality, my confidence? Are they more important to me, to the actual legacy that I know I'm here to leave?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I want to clarify something your peace isn't in your avoiding a difficult conversation where you tell someone the truth.

Speaker 1:

Not at all.

Speaker 3:

Your peace is not littered in. Let me escape for another week of vacation and post about it to create an illusion like everything is going well, totally do that. I'm not judging that behavior at all. I'm going to do it in a couple weeks and go have the difficult conversation. You will not find peace, fulfillment, joy, wisdom by not engaging in your pain.

Speaker 3:

So the next time you hear someone talk about their anxiety, their bouts with depression, their anxiousness, their unrest, spend some time just wondering how often they're telling the truth to themselves and to others, get curious about why they are constantly and chronically held by these symptoms of their lifestyle. And it looks like let's go drink away this weekend. Let's go fuck it away this weekend. Let's go fuck it away this weekend. Let's go get high. Let me go do some, uh some, uh, some some herbs or some some medicinal, uh psych, uh psychedelics or something like that. Yeah, no, the the.

Speaker 3:

The shortcut here is to go address who needs to hear you tell them the truth and let the pieces fall where they may, even risking the disconnect of that relationship that you benefit from. And I'm telling you that's probably the kindest thing you can do to your mental health is by telling the truth, and I know we're going to get off this episode and we're going to struggle with that same exact thing. We're going to try to cope our way from dealing with what's real. You're overthinking, you're not making decisions when you don't know what to do, that weight that you feel, all these level one victim experiences because you're in survival mode. Just get curious. What? What's your? What's your? What's your person, your friend that suffers from these symptoms? Yeah, yeah, and ask them simply what, what are you going to?

Speaker 1:

punish you for it, oh come on brother.

Speaker 1:

You can tell me the truth. Come on, man, it is better for you to tell me the truth because it's actually impacting both of us Absolutely, and I'm not going to punish you for it. This is a free-for-all. Let's have an exchange of information. You know, we're going to decide at the end. We're going to decide if we can work through this together or we have to work through this apart, or a combination of both. But what I'm not going to do I'm not going to punish you for telling me the truth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because I love you, I love what we've created together, I love me, and the greatest act of love is the freedom of choice, which means that you have to be able to communicate what is on your heart, especially the tough stuff, and I'm going to hold you in that moment. I can see people breaking down right then. I'm going to hold you in that moment. I'm not going to punish you. Let's free ourselves. What's the truth? And if you have the courage to take that stance, good God, what are your relationships going to look like?

Speaker 2:

The actual relationships that are standing.

Speaker 1:

What is it going to look like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yep, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3:

You know I would just encourage anybody listening out here that when you're wrestling with your own what it means for your ability to you have with telling the truth, not telling the truth, the short-term impacts that you got that still have long-term consequences that are not in alignment with the life you want to live. You're suffering and you have the ability to save yourself by telling yourself the truth about your situation. You're not difficult to love Not at all. Now it might be difficult for you to allow yourself to be vulnerable, for people to love the you underneath the pain, because you do a good job of keeping people out. You do a great job of avoiding difficult conversations. I talk to these people every day. By the way, many of them are leading your teams. Many of them we have put on a pedestal and they've participated in the pedestal. They helped build the pedestal, for sure, because we do a great job of keeping out what we don't want people to know about us and then get overwhelmed.

Speaker 3:

I think about our episode about check on your strong friend. Well, the strong friend gets a dopamine hit from being seen as the strong friend, so that looks like I don't always talk about my problems. I listen more than I share. I know everybody else's business, but not a lot of people know about mine. Oh, I love when people come to me to help solve problems. That means I keep them out of my problems. I don't. I love being somebody else's hero. That means they don't get to know about my story, and I actually prefer that because it allows me to maintain this egotistical power dynamic. Oh, but it looks honorable. It looks like I give so much of my time to help other people. Yeah, who's coming to help you? Because no one is coming to save you. That's honest, that's real.

Speaker 3:

And again, I'm not telling you to go on some soapbox and get a blow horn and expose everything that you don't talk about, but I am telling you that relationships that are real, that feed you, that are win-win relationships. They come from a space of truth-telling, even when it's difficult to share, and I know my brother Jeremy's experiences. I know there's some women out there that won't even tell him that they love him. They're afraid of what that truth may mean. So I have to maintain that I'm unbothered. I really, really am fond of you, but that would make me vulnerable and you can't know that. You make me feel a certain way so I just won't share. Oh, I know who you are, but I can't tell you that because you're going to probably weaponize that and treat me like everybody else that I've opened myself up to.

Speaker 3:

Guess what being in relationships means that you will be impacted. The closer you are to somebody, the more likely you're able to get hurt by design. Because I know I've heard this brother I'm looking at on this virtual screen, this brother I'm looking at on this virtual screen. I know I said some things that have been troublesome, that I have bled on him because I'm hurting. So he gets to bleed because he's close to me and the responsibility here is for him to speak his truth about. Hey, you know you're still bleeding a little bit. I know I didn't cause the wound, I know that, but you're leaking. Damn, I don't fuck. I didn't know I was leaking on you, my guy right maybe I did.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for telling me, though, so I can go do something about it, or maybe what I thought I was doing about it, I'm not really doing that great of a job. So thank you for telling me the truth, because deeply my desire is not to hurt anyone that is close to me and knowing that I will. That's the truth. So don't throw me away, because you had a short term interaction with me that was not in my best light, and if you do throw me away, thank you, I appreciate that. So I won't hold on to irresponsible hope pulling and performing, hiding, tucking, shrinking to maintain a connection that I'm not getting any power from. What you got for us, king.

Speaker 1:

Man, I think that that's a great place to stop. Yeah, you know, I think that when I look at what we're talking about, we're not going to be perfect. What I appreciate about our relationship is there's so much grace and there's so much awareness and there's so much awareness, right. So if you know how something's going to impact you, like you know, today they say with great power comes great responsibility, which means the inverse is true too.

Speaker 1:

If you take great responsibility, you're powerful. So it's not that you're going to be perfect, but you just know now the impact of what you're doing. Yeah, and if you know the impact of what you're doing, then you know that you welcome the consequences, absolutely, embrace the consequences, say you know what, I know I'm lying and I know it's going to impact me and I do it again.

Speaker 2:

Right, but it's not true, because that's the truth, that's the truth.

Speaker 1:

But it's not going to be. Oh, this happened to me. I was so unaware. Like, reframe this. Yeah, there was something I wanted to get out of the situation and in doing that I made a mistake and in making that mistake I got my ass torn out the frame. Yeah, and this is what I've learned. So now I'm going to adjust, I'm not going to hold onto it, I'm not going to have a ton of shame around it, I'm not like. I'm going to process it with my people and I'm a move forward. How much time I've spent on being sad about past mistakes and past conflict, you know a stolen time. Let's not do that, you know, or let's do that less of the time. So I think that was a great place to end. You know it's another powerful episode. Episode 51, area 51. You know?

Speaker 1:

area 51 51 yeah, yeah, this area, we ain't lying over here. You want to come over here. You're going to hear all the truth.

Speaker 3:

And is Area 51 real? I don't know. It's tucked away. It's a secret society of all kind of special things. We all got Area 51 in our lives.

Speaker 1:

We all have Area 51.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, you know. Thank you all for tuning in. If you have found this episode insightful as you should have, because that's the truth do not forget to subscribe to us, share our message with those that you love and are connected to. What we do here on the Take it Off podcast, see Love, grow. Grow is allow for us to be human unapologetically. We don't get on here. There's no high horse for us to be on. We're humanizing what it means to be us, so you can make space to connect deeply with those that are just like you, human, human.

Speaker 3:

We're all afraid. We all project something that we're not. We engage in avoidant relationships. We have people that we want to smoke with. We have people that we engage in transactions with. We have people that we overly serve. We have people that we're inspired by. We have relationships that we want to be more inclusive with. And then, ultimately, who are you just being authentic with right? Those relationships matter and we find ourselves on that whole scale, that continuum of relationships. But take these points, the benefits of telling the truth just a little bit more. You're not telling you to be perfect. We're not the average. We're not telling you to go from the average of telling 11 lies a week down to zero right, right, you gotta work your way there yeah, and that's the average.

Speaker 3:

Some of you out there telling 20 lies a week yeah yeah, don't like.

Speaker 1:

If you the next time your wife asks you hey, does this look great? Don't just be like nah, that looks trash.

Speaker 3:

Change don't go there don't go there like it's still tacked. Yeah, put some some tack and some love on it. Yeah, baby girl, I would do this.

Speaker 1:

I would just massage it.

Speaker 2:

You can still tell the truth and massage it Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

We didn't say you got to be blunt with the truth. We just said just tell more of the truth, tell more of the truth.

Speaker 3:

However you do it, whatever your recipe for the truth is great.

Speaker 1:

That's where the creativity comes in. Absolutely Right. Don't be out here, Don't, don't break up a happy home, man Unless that is your truth and you're going to get to you.

Speaker 3:

And guess what? Yeah, you told the first lie that it was a happy home.

Speaker 1:

It's not a happy home, it's a prison. Just tell the truth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Let's start there. Let's start there. Well, my truth to you is my brother. I love you. Thank you for holding me accountable. Thank you for being my mirror. Thank you for telling me difficult things to my face in real time. This brother prefaced the conversation not too long ago. I'm practicing telling the truth in real time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I do not like what just happened and this is your role in the pain that I experienced. Let's get to it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, my truth is, I love you to death. I ain't going nowhere. This is a great. This has been a great relationship for me to help me grow as a person, as a father, and in the places that people don't see yeah, the places that people don't see intentionally, that I don't allow them to see yeah Right, that's real, it's it's. It's from the inside out. So I love you and I'm excited. I'm excited for what's next for us. That's the truth.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm excited for what's next for us.

Speaker 1:

That's the truth, yeah that's what's up.

Speaker 3:

That's what's up. Hey, community, we love you. Thank you for just the DMs, the text messages, the emails, when you catch us in the wild and you tell us about this time that we carve out, whether it's a weekly basis, bi-monthly, or just when we fit it into our busy schedules, that you all appreciate this, these episodes you look forward to. That's the truth that keeps us moving on and we want the listeners that are listening. I don't need a bunch of numbers that tell me and give me an inflated version of how successful this content and the subject matter really is. Thank you for just keeping it real for the people that it's meant to serve. That keeps us showing up, even when there are weeks where we're like man ain't nobody listening to us anymore. This doesn't have a place, this isn't relevant. Those are real conversations that swirl around in my head at least Mine too, right, and there's still value here and that is special. So anyway, I mean, let's let people get on with their week.

Speaker 1:

All right, have a great week. Happy Memorial Day, all right.

Speaker 3:

Don't.

People on this episode

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Jeremy Rubin

Co-host
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Joshua Fields

Co-host