Life Back On Track

Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. Have you ever had this scenario? You've got something that's bothering you. It's been eating away at you for ages. It's been going around in your head again and again, and this could be something that someone said, or a situation that's come up, or a challenge that you've got or something that's upset you, that you need to communicate to someone.

You start explaining it to them, and as you're starting to explain it, if you like me, this is how your thought processes go is "I've got this thing that I need to say to you. The trouble is, I'm still exploring it and weighing it up and figuring it out and trying to understand it. So as I'm saying it, I'm just going to try and verbalise it to you" and you start verbalising it and then they get confused so they suddenly try and get you to explain or justify, and it scrambles your thoughts, and then suddenly it all just goes pear shaped, and you either get frustrated and you end up in an argument or you get annoyed and you walk away.

Now this definitely used to be me. Yet many years ago where I would get upset about something and I would start talking to my partner and explaining it, and then they would get frustrated or confused or angry or whatever, and then they would respond and my head would get scrambled, and suddenly I'd be like, I'd either get angry and retaliate, or I would walk away being even more frustrated and annoyed what I was at the start.

One thing I did for ages was to live my life like that, and I was in this constant state of wanting to explain things, to be able to get people to see my point of view, to get them to understand how I'm feeling and it always seemed to end the same way with me being frustrated and in a worse position.

So a number of years ago before I started on my journey of getting everything sorted out, I realised one thing I needed to do was get that processing in my mind to a point where I could actually start to get some results. Now for a lot of us, when we have anything that we're trying to learn or understand or articulate, it takes time because when we initially attempt it, we're not very good.

As time goes on, we develop the skills, we develop the confidence, we develop the natural ability to do these things. If you think about your job when you first started it, whatever it is that you do when you first did it, you would have had lots of confusion, and questions, and uncertainty, and hesitations, and fears, and it would have been a challenge for you to do your job.

Now you don't need to think about it. Same as driving a car. When you first do it, it's overwhelming, and then after a while you get the hang of it and it becomes easier and then you don't need to think about it. Being able to articulate how you feel is a challenge, and it's a challenge because of a number of things.

One, when we articulate our emotions, we have to go into a place of vulnerability. We have to open ourselves up to judgement and all of this sort of thing, so it takes a degree of courage, first of all, to get started because we're moving into an area of uncertainty. We're on a little bit of thin ice. We're a little unsure of where to put our feet as we go along.

The ice gets thicker, however, to get there first, we need to be able to understand what's going on in our heads so we can get that out and emotions are a tricky thing. The reason they're tricky is we don't get taught about them. I know that was certainly the case for myself. I'm assuming that it's the same for you. It seems to be for most people I talked to, so if you want to be in a situation where you're able to articulate, you're going to probably go through a lot of frustration first.

For myself, what I found was easier, was to do the work privately before I took it to a partner. So I have to start understanding how to to look at my emotions and see them for what they were to be able to understand them, to see how they fit into each other and how they impacted my life both in a good way and a not so good way.

I also have to understand there is no such thing as a good emotion or a bad emotion. It's just an emotion. Once I started to understand them, I then had to be able to articulate them. That's where I then brought it to another person, and that takes time.

They may get frustrated, and that's okay because they're trying to understand, whether it's a partner, a work colleague, a family member, a friend, it doesn't matter, everyone is trying to understand how well they do and understanding is part of their personal journey. You can't make their frustration be part of your problem.

You're probably dealing with enough as it is just trying to be able to articulate what it is that you're feeling. So if you're one of these people, like I used to be, where you have trouble articulating what it is that you feel, start off first of all, understanding your emotions. Once you start to understand your emotions, then you can start practising articulating them.

How I would recommend you start understanding your emotions is using the same tool I did many years ago. What I did at the end of every day was, I sat down with a list of emotions, and I asked myself, "Did I at any point today experience this particular emotion?" The list itself was made up of a mix of various so called negative and so called positive emotions, and all I did was ask myself, "Did I feel it for any moment during this particular day?"

So, for example, "Proud. Did I have a moment today when I felt proud?" and I might ask myself or remind myself I had that moment where I completed my job. I completed it efficiently on time. It looked good. It presented well. I was proud of that moment, and so as long as I could recognise it after the fact, it became easier to recognise it during the fact.

Now it took a number of months for me to achieve this because, like a lot of men, I was shut off from my emotions. So I had to really work at this. But I did it every evening for months on end until I got to the point like I am now, where in any given moment I could recognise multiple emotions that I'm feeling. Like even at the moment, as I'm standing here recording this for you, I'm experiencing a number of emotions, and I can identify each of those accurately because I've taken the time to learn them.

So if you start by learning your emotions, when it comes time to articulate them to other people, regardless of who they are, it will become easier because you can identify them first of all, then all you have to do is say, "I am feeling...", whatever emotion it is that you're feeling in that particular moment.

That is what I would recommend. Getting past this particular challenge is at first getting comfortable and used to identifying and understanding your emotions, which will lead you to naturally being able to better articulate them to another person. The moment you can articulate them better, then it becomes easier to find a solution with that person for that particular challenge that you're going through.

So it's just a simple process of starting at one point, moving on to the next point and then get into some level of mastery, the same as your job or driving a car, where it becomes more and more natural, and more and more possible that you'll get to a result that you're happy with.

So there you go. That was what I wanted to talk about today, something that was a massive part of my journey to get to a point of having a high quality relationship where I could articulate exactly what I needed to articulate with my partner.

So get out there, practise these things. If you need any help, send us a message and we're happy to help. That's what we're here for. I'll also include a link to download my little emotion list so you can see the exact same list. I used to get in touch with my emotions. I recommend doing it every evening just before you go to bed. It'll take you about 15 to 20 minutes, and it will be the best 15 to 20 minutes of your day that you could spend.

So click on the link, download your little emotion list, practise it, practise it, practise it, you'll get better, and the result will be worth it. Because you'll be able to articulate better, you'll feel better being able to articulate it, and you'll get a better result with the relationships with the people that you care about.

So there you go. That's it for today. Have a fantastic day. Look after yourself and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. If you are like anyone, you would have been in a relationship and there would have been good moments and not so good moments and that's the ups and downs of relationships.

The one thing that seems to baffle a lot of people is when they end the relationship or the other person ends the relationship and the phrase "I've fallen out of love" would get bandied around as a reason for the relationship ending.

Now, for a lot of people, that seems like a get out of jail free card, and a lot of people play it free and easy, and there is very little understanding as to what that phrase actually means. The problem for a lot of people is, and I know myself, I struggled with this, is understanding what love is.

Now, I like a lot of people had relationships where after a period of time, I felt I was no longer in love with them, or they use that phrase that they no longer loved me, and I struggled with that, and I'm guessing you would have as well because if you're listening to this, part of the heading resonated with you and you felt maybe this is something I need to learn more of understand this love thing.

So what I've realised is that love is an incredibly complex emotion. It's not a singular emotion. A lot of people use it and throw it around as if it's a singular emotion. And also we have associated it with things that we shouldn't associate it with, like I love this food, or I love this book, or I love that movie.

Love is due to its complex nature, more attributed to human interactions rather than inanimate objects like food. You can enjoy food, you can enjoy a movie, you can be entertained by a movie. You can derive satisfaction from it. Love, though, is very much a human condition, and one I want to explain to you how people fall in and out of love.

When we first meet someone, there are a number of factors at play. There is the initial attraction, which is generally viewed as lust. It's a basic attraction to someone on a very physical level. We can like them, we can enjoy their company. We can enjoy being around them as we slowly develop all the different aspects of the relationship, we develop that thing called love.

Now love is made up of trust, respect, support, encouragement, accountability, growth, so many different things. Now, I don't know if you know anything about sound engineering, but they use a thing that's colloquially called a graphic equaliser. Now, what that means is, there are aspects of the sound that you can alter. According to these little scales. Each scale or slider, as they call them, will determine the strength or the weakness of a particular aspect of the sound.

So, for example, just to keep it nice and simple, if you have the bass of a sound, you can turn up the bass and make it very bass heavy. Or you can tone down the bass and you've also got things like the treble, which is the higher notes, which you can make it really light and sharp, or you can drop that down. It becomes a more muted sound.

 Now if you apply this analogy to a relationship, each of those little sliders is one of the aspects of love, so trust, respect, etc, etc, so as you learn to trust someone and respect someone and encourage them, get support from them and give support, and all of that, all the sliders go up, which means they become a higher and higher influence in the relationship, which means you develop love now.

I first started to realise this years ago when I was talking to a chap who lived next door to myself and he is an Indian or of Indian descent, I should say, and his parents had organised for him to get married to this young woman. Now he admitted to me that when he first met her, he did not like her at all. Now I think at the time, they had been married for like 15 or 16 years, and he said he couldn't imagine his life without her.

The thing is, as they developed in their relationship and had their challenges that they overcame, they developed that trust in one another, that knowing that the other was there to support them and all of the other aspects became stronger and stronger and stronger until he eventually developed this love of this woman, and that's where I first started thinking about love in that regard

The problem is, how people fall out of love is it's the exact opposite. So instead of the slide is moving up and the love developing and getting stronger, the sliders slowly gets moved downwards, so things like trust gets slowly eroded, respect, encouragement, drops off. Support drops off. All of these things start to reduce and as they reduce, the love diminishes.

The challenge for a lot of people is they don't realise that the love is diminishing until one day they suddenly notice it's gone. And that's because no attention was paid to the relationship as it was diminishing until it was too late. Now it doesn't mean it's too late, no it doesn't. Love can be redeveloped, it takes effort, it takes effort to build it in the first place, and it can be rebuilt. However, a lot of people they just go "I'm out of love with you now" and not fully understanding what love is, and then they walk away from it and start all over again and possibly recreating that scenario again because they haven't learned that it takes effort and attention to build love in a relationship.

So If you're in a relationship and you want it to succeed, you need to be looking at all the different aspects that make up love. Now I could rattle off a list of all different attributes and components of the emotion love, however, for each person they're a little bit different, and this depends on your relationship values and that sort of thing, so that what is important to you may not be quite as important to me and vice versa.

So if you want the best possible relationship, look at what's important to you in a relationship. What are the aspects and then work on each of those and love will develop. Love will become deeper, more meaningful and stronger due to this effort. If you don't put the effort in, its slowly diminishes because it's either increasing or it's decreasing.

 These things are determined by you, your efforts and your attention to them. If you want that strong relationship and you don't want to either be the person that uses the phrase "I've fallen out of love with you" or hearing it from your partner, you need to put the attention in.

Love is a wonderful thing, and for myself, I know that it gets deeper and deeper the more time I spend with my wife because we both actively put the effort in. I see it regularly with people, and conversely, I see it where it's being eroded, and that's not pleasant to watch, especially when you're aware of it.

So if you want a quality relationship, it takes effort. Is it worth it? Yes, absolutely. It should never be hard work, however, it does take work. If you want that quality relationship, put the effort in. If you want help in getting that relationship, that's what I'm here for. So feel free to send us a message or click one of the links in the show notes, and you can check out some of the things that I do and help people with love is worth it, so make sure that you work towards yours so that you can have what you deserve.

Okay, thanks for listening and look after yourself, and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi! This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

 Welcome to the latest episode. In this one, I want to talk to you about a subject that I came across in a series of books by Neale Donald Walsch. If you haven't heard of Neale Donald Walsch, he was struggling with his life, just to give you a little bit of back story for this. He, one night in a fit of rage, wrote on a pad, "Why is my life like this?" and he basically vented.

Then he had this voice that spoke to him. He gave it the title of God. Some people would call it your inner wisdom, your inner voice, your inner knowledge. Basically, it's the smarter part of you that spoke to him. In his series of books. As he unloaded all this information that was in him. He mentioned one that for me, resonated strongly, and it affected me pretty intensely. The big challenge, was though, was finally admitting it all to myself.

So what he spoke about was the five levels of truth telling. Real change in your life cannot happen until you start telling yourself the truth. He gave it five levels, and I've been working on that for a long time, and it takes courage to be able to look at those parts of yourself and the parts of others that could be challenging. The thing that I have found though is, the more you can admit to it, it's harder to love someone and love yourself when you see all of the unpleasant parts.

However, what I realised is, you love someone deeper when you can accept all of them and all of yourself. So the first five levels I'll go through them and then I'll talk a little bit about my journey a bit more.

The first level that he speaks about is telling yourself the truth about you. This one is challenging because admitting that we're scared, that we're struggling, all of these sorts of things have fear, guilt, shame tied into them. That's sad, because that tends to hold us back. This is where denial gets thrown out the window. You stop lying to yourself about how you're really feeling.

The second level is telling yourself the truth about someone else. That means admit to yourself that sometimes they're not behaving in the nicest of ways, and this is where it becomes challenging is because you have to admit that there are these things about other people that you then have to learn to love and accept those parts? We are taught growing up that there's certain parts that are wrong, and so we have to learn to disown them or suppress them, and that's sad because it just is a part of who we are.

The third one is to tell someone else the truth about you. So admit to someone when you're struggling, admit to someone when you're scared, admit to someone when you're angry about something. That can also be challenging because we're taught, don't put yourself on other people. Don't impose on them. Don't bring them down. Don't speak to them about negative things because you'll upset them. So we're taught all of these things.

The next one is number four, is tell someone else the truth about themselves. If they're behaving in a way, that might go against a moral compass, for example, you call them on it. If they make a statement that could be inflammatory. You educate them and you do that first of all, by pointing it out to them.

The final one is number five. Tell everyone the truth about everything. I've been working on all of these for pretty much the last sort of 10 years, and it's been challenging, it's has been intimidating.

I've had a lot of fear around upsetting other people, offending other people, and what I've realised is a lot of the stuff we're taught isn't actually correct. People don't tend to get offended. People don't tend to get upset, and if they do, you can just get curious about it. There are so many different avenues and paths that are not pointed out to us when we tell the truth.

If you're with someone and you don't feel secure enough, comfortable enough, to be able to speak your truth, and hear theirs, your relationship will never develop any great depth. This can be applied to friendships, work relationships, family relationships. All of them are predicated upon by this ability, this opportunity to be able to tell the truth about how we feel, how we see the world, how we interact, how we react, and we should be allowed to bring all of us to the table, bring all of us to our reality, and we should be able to also accept other peoples.

So they're the five levels of truth telling, and I know I have struggled with them. Occasionally. I'll still have a little bit of struggle because that little voice that I was raised with, at the back of my head goes "Ooooh, you can't say that" or it says "Don't do that, you'll upset people" or "You'll cause offence" or "You can't do that. It's not the right thing to do".

Being able to monitor and silence that little voice that speaks a load of rubbish is a very empowering thing, and being able to say exactly how you feel with no fear of recrimination or negation or minimalisation, or having to argue or justify or explain, is a wonderful place to be in.

Does that mean you'll never have arguments? It doesn't. You're going to have arguments, you're going to run into people. The thing that I found though is, the more comfortable you get with the truth, the easier it is to hear, the easier it is to speak. It's like any skill, you have to practise it. You have to work at it. Truth can be challenging, in fact, one of the best signs I've ever heard, which I love saying, and for those of you that don't like a little bit of slang, a little bit of mild profanity, you may want to skip this next little bit. However, I love the impact of it, and that saying is "The truth shall set you free, but not before it pisses you off".

The reason is, the truth is uncomfortable. I've noticed in the world now more and more, the truth of past history is coming out, and this is where we get this dichotomy between where we want to learn from history, we want to get it out there, we want to have the truth out there. However, we want to also want to erase it, and that's the wrong attitude. History, and that's not just our collective history, it's our individual history, it's there for us to learn from.

We tend to go gloss over our mistakes, where we made errors in judgement. Sadly, though, these are our best learning experiences, we're taught that we should have fear and guilt and shame about them. We should try and hide them and then we forget the lessons and we tend to repeat them. Telling yourself the truth about things, and one thing that I've found, this just popped into my head, is listening to my gut. I was just talking to someone yesterday about this where I mentioned to them in the past, there are many times where I haven't listened to my gut, and afterwards I've realised my gut was right. My gut was telling me something that I needed to become aware of, a behaviour of someone who may have been going against my moral compass or a decision that I know on some level will take me down a path I don't really want to be down, and I don't need to go down.

The wonderful thing about lessons is you don't need to repeat them, if you got them the first time, you've got them. As long as you tell yourself the truth about them. If someone tries to use, say, a guilt trip on you to get you to do something, just admit to yourself "They're trying to manipulate me. That's not a very nice thing. I'm not going to buy into that. I still love them. I'm just not going to buy into that particular habit, that particular behaviour, therefore, I'm going to stop that here now, before it causes damage, causes damage to me and to my relationship with them."

So all you're doing is calling them on their rubbish so that it doesn't impact you in a negative way. Can you still love them? Yes, of course you can still love them. You don't have to stop loving someone just because they want to behave in a way that's negative. Remember, everyone's doing the best they can with the tools they have, So if that's the only tool they have, that's the only tool they're going to use.

So I've rambled a little bit, however, on hoping the examples I've given will give you enough insight that you can understand where I'm coming from. You can't make real progress in your life until you start telling yourself the truth. So work on those five levels of telling the truth. Tell yourself the truth about you. Tell yourself the truth about someone else. Tell someone else the truth about you. Tell someone else the truth about themselves and then tell everyone the truth about everything, all the time.

If you can work on those five, the further along you get, the better off you'll be. It could be a challenge. It could be scary. It can be confronting, however, ultimately, it's well worth it. So aim for the truth and keep working at it, keep working at it because you're worth it. And remember, we're all trying to get the best life that we can. So I'll end as I always do, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

In this one I want to talk to you about a mindset shift, a different way of looking at something and something that I see affects a lot of people. That is that I have a belief that their relationship failed, that their marriage failed, that they failed.

I know for myself I bought into this belief for a long time because obviously I had been through two marriages prior. It was only after the so called failure of my second marriage that I started to look at this mindset of seeing it as a failure. The problem is, we're taught from a very young age that a relationship, a marriage, you have to look for this happily ever after, this forever type thing.

What I realised, was, that sets us up for a failure because we tie longevity in with the quality or the effectiveness of a relationship. I know a chap, years ago, he said that his parents had 50 years of wedded misery. He actually encouraged him to make his mother to leave his father. That is how bad it was, he encouraged his mother to leave his father. She, of course, had taken wedding vows and said, "No I'm going to stick it out to the bitter end". She didn't use those words, but she may as well have.

That is where we get our challenges. That is where we get the mindset where we feel bad about a relationship ending. If you are in a damaging relationship. If you are in a demoralising relationship, sticking that out does not make you some sort of champion or martyr or anything like that. It makes you an idiot. The length of a relationship has nothing to do with the quality or the effectiveness of a relationship.

If a relationship lifts you up, it is worth pursuing. It is worth sticking at. If it is dragging you down, you need to be walking away. So for myself, I know I've been married twice before, and I'm now married a third time. As far as I'm aware, this one will be it. If, however, for whatever reason it ended, I would still view it as the best thing that ever happened to me, and neither of us have failed because within this relationship, we have both grown immensely, and that is what dictates the effectiveness of a relationship. It is not the length of time, it is the quality.

I dare say, most people would prefer to have 10 years of really high quality than 50 years of just blehh. So what we need to do is have a mindset shift. We need to be looking at relationships effectiveness instead of their longevity. So if you have a relationship, a marriage that has ended, if you want to view it as a failure, that is your choice. That is your prerogative.

What I would recommend though, is to look at what you can get from the relationship. So I'm not talking about bad memories and all of this sort of stuff and with the pain. What I'm referring to is, what lessons can you get from it? What can you get from that, that will make you a better person? If you can receive from a relationship or a marriage that has ended, if you can receive lessons, if you can receive insight, if you can receive some sort of information that makes you a better person, then that relationship has succeeded.

The lessons that I received, especially from my second marriage, was so immense that relationship, that marriage succeeded. As far as I'm concerned now it's succeeded. It worked, I got from what I wanted, I got from what I needed. It guided me to becoming a better person. Therefore it succeeded. It didn't have longevity. It did, however, have effectiveness. It did what it set out to do. It assisted me. It guided me. It encouraged me and challenged me to be a better person.

Without that relationship, without that woman who at the time I thought or felt was extremely negative, she turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to me. Without that, I would not be where I am today, more than likely. What I would recommend to you is that little mindset shift of, it may not have worked longevity-wise. How did it work quality-wise? What did it give me that allowed me to become a better person?

If you make that small mindset shift, you will find that all your relationships suddenly become successful. If you look deep enough and you were brave enough and you are curious enough and admit the truth to yourself. You can get some wonderful insights that can make all your relationships successful, and I mean all of them. I look at all of my relationships now as successful. They all guided me to where I am now. None of them failed.

They all did their job, and that is what we are ultimately after. Is a relationship moving us forward or is dragging us backwards? If it's dragging you backwards, you need to walk away. If it's pushing you forward, be grateful for it. Be grateful that that person came into your life. So no marriage, no relationship ever actually fails.

That was a little mindset shift I want to give you. It's a big one. It's an important one because otherwise we drag them around and beat ourselves with it, and we feel bad. We can't. We shouldn't do that because it does not help us at all. Having fear, guilt, shame about relationships that have not had longevity, is a poor thing to do that serves us no good.

So there you go. A little mindset shift for you. That should help you make a lot of sense of your relationships and feel better about them. Get curious. Be brave. Look for some answers and become a better version of you because of these so called failed relationships and marriages.

So look after yourselves, put in the hard work because you're worth it. You deserve a good life. And that's the thought I want to leave you with today.

You deserve a good life. So here's to a good life. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, This is Wayne from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. Today I want to talk about something that's a little bit of a challenging, complex and very deep subject, and that's one of motivation.

I have people who do ask me, How do I get motivated? There's been many books written on motivation. How to get motivated, how to stay motivated and all of this sort of thing. Ultimately, motivation comes down to one of two things, and sadly, there's no guarantee that either of these are going to work. The two reasons we get motivated, one is to move away from pain and the other one is to move towards pleasure.

Most people are more motivated by moving away from pain than they are from moving towards pleasure. Basically, that means when you're in enough pain, then you may do something about it. The problem is, sometimes the drivers that are causing us to not be motivated, to be distracted, to procrastinate, do all of these things and not achieve what we say we want to achieve.

Because those drivers can sometimes be so deep, they will override any desire for motivation. One of the most extreme examples I've ever heard of, is I worked with his chap years ago and we were in a very masculine environment. So it was all men. It was very blokey, you know, we all sat down to a mans meal at lunchtime and all that sort of rubbish. This chap sat down and he had a container full of just salad, and I think he might have had a bit of tuna, bit of chicken or something, but it was a very light meal in comparison to a lot of what a lot of the men were eating.

I was curious, and I said "What's the deal with the salad?" He said, "Well, a few years ago, I was told by my doctor, you know, that I was very overweight and my blood pressure was very high and my cholesterol was very high, and if I did nothing, I'll be dead within 12 months." He said "So I started walking and I started watching what I ate, minimise my drinking, all of this sort of thing, cut out the bad foods."

He said "I lost all the weight, my cholesterol came down, my blood pressure came down and I'm all good. You know, I've dropped nearly 20 kg" and all this sort of stuff. Then he said something which I found quite astounding is his mate was in exactly the same situation, where his doctor had said to him, "You need to do something about your weight, your cholesterol and your blood pressure or you'll be dead within 12 months".

This chap kept eating chip butties, which, if you've never heard of them before, it's where you get hot chips and you put them between two pieces of bread and you make a sandwich out of them. He kept eating these and the chap, I just remembered his name, forgotten for ages, but it's Ian, Ian said to his mate, "How come you still eating these chip butties?" His mate says to him "It'll be fine. It'll be fine", and about seven, eight months later, he dropped dead.

The sad thing is, of course, he had a wife and he had two young sons and the drive to keep eating poorly was greater than the threat of his death. So that's one of the most extreme examples I've heard off where you're actually faced with that possibility of you're going to die, but your driver's still push you to go down that path.

Now. I've put some thought into this because I've myself, like a lot of people have struggled sometimes with motivation. You know, you get distracted, you procrastinate and what I found is, sometimes people get overwhelmed with getting a result.

They want to get fit. They want to get healthy. They want to have more money. They want to have better relationships, and they look at the big, overarching journey and they get overwhelmed with it. They think "I'll never be able to achieve that". "It's going to be too difficult". So one way to get motivated is to break things down, make them doable. Then what you do is those little steps, once you've made them doable, get someone to hold you accountable. That's what I've heard called "Holding your feet to the fire".

If you have someone who cares enough about you, they will say to you, "You said you were going to do it, why haven't you done it?" And they will push you to look for the reason the motivation that has held you back from achieving your result, because sometimes that motivation to not achieve is stronger. That could be one way to get motivation.

Another one is to make that pain so uncomfortable, not death, but so uncomfortable that you achieve it. So the one that I heard, ages ago, which I think was brilliant, and I might have mentioned this in other podcasts was these two women who wanted to lose weight and they had both tried all the diets and they'd struggled, and they realised the only way they were going to achieve this was to make it so uncomfortable that they had to do it.

What they did then was they went into the shops and their bought a can of dog food, and they're made sure they picked a can that mentioned that it contained horse meat. So they had these cans of dog food that contained horse meat, and they knew that it contained horse meat and the deal was if one of them had skipped on their exercise, or didn't want to work out, the other person had to force them to eat this can of dog food. What they found was, every time they felt the need to or the desire to skip their exercise they would look at this can of dog food and say, "I would rather put up with, you know, 20 minutes of exercise rather than eating that can of dog food. Ultimately, though, they achieved their result, which is what you want.

There's a number of different ways you can do this. It's up to you. You can get creative. I've heard of websites where you put a donation into their account and they have a list of charities that you would never support. What you do is you pick one of these, and if you don't achieve your goal, they donate money to this charity that you would never support. I've heard of those websites, and that's a good idea.

However, if you do make it a bit closer to home, it tends to get you more motivated. So there's a couple of ways you can get past your motivation slump, is you may feel that its too big or you may not have enough discomfort. There was a saying I came across years ago, which is a beautiful summarisation of this situation, and that is, "People only change when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same".

Sometimes our pain of change is difficult. We see the exercise every day to get fit as too much, so we don't try. We find the discomfort of putting aside money for investing too discomforting when we just want to buy something and feel good for the moment. So it's balancing out the two and getting the pain of not achieving it high enough that it pushes you, and then making the steps small enough and do-able enough that you'll actually go out and do it.

One I've heard is, if you want to exercise, say to yourself, I'll just put my shoes on or I'll just do one push up because then once you're in that situation where you've done one push up, you say well I'm down here, I've already done one so I may as wall do another nine or ten or twenty or whatever it is so breaking it down, making it do-able and having accountability.

I've always found accountability a good one because if someone cares about you enough, they will hold you accountable. They will say, "Why didn't you do what you said you were going to do? Do it. I care about you. I want you to get your results. Let's get them."

So I hope that gives you some insight into motivation. I hope that gives you some ideas for motivation. What I found is from talking to a lot of people is motivation doesn't always work. It is such a personal and internal challenge that we have. There are a couple of tips that I find that have worked for me and for others. Not all the time. You can find that they will assist, but ultimately it comes down to you and how badly you want it.

If you want something badly enough, you achieve it. So there you go, a quick one. I could have made this hours and hours long. I just like to keep these short, simple, give you some usable information, do-able tips, processes that make sense. So go and use them. Have fun. Achieve what you want to achieve. Let me know how you go. I love getting feedback and keep up the good work.

Thank you for listening. We're getting more and more listeners, which is fantastic. Take care of yourselves. Enjoy your day. Remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.

 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening. You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome back to the latest episode. In this one, I want to talk about something that a lot of people talk about but don't thoroughly understand. When I was looking for my partner, I created a concept called a "Dating Template", which means I would go through and work out not only who I wanted as a partner, but who I needed as a partner.

 So that person who could help me create an environment where I could become the best version of myself. One of the things you have to do is, you have to list the attributes, the beliefs, the attitudes, the behaviours, that you're potential partner has so that they could be someone with whom you enjoy spending a lot of time.

When I started doing this with people and taking them through the exercise, one of the things that they say they wanted is a partner is a sense of humour. Now the problem is, a lot of people say they want a partner with a sense of humour, but they don't define what a sense of humour is. Now, humour is a very peculiar thing because what one person finds funny, another one won't. There are many different types of humour. There's slapstick. There's black humour. There's wordplay. There's all sorts of different types of humour. So if you're going to have a partner who has a sense of humour. You need to define what type of humour that  you're talking about, and also, why?

Why do you want them to have a sense of humour? Why does that have to be high on your list? I'll give you an example to explain this. So with myself, I like a particular sense of humour. I'm really into things like The Two Ronnie's, Monty Python, a lot of the older British style humour but also wordplay, I enjoy wordplay, also cultural references is something that I enjoy.

When I first met my wife, she mentioned that she wanted to go to a Fawlty Towers Interactive Dinner Theatre. Straight away I thought, if she's into Fawlty Towers, she's got my sense of humour. I took her out on a date and yes, sure enough, she had a very good sense of humour. Of course, the problem is she's got a very good sense of humour and very quick and enjoys teasing me. Never in a malicious way, which is a good thing. However, she is very good at taking the mickey out of me. That's okay. I'm okay with it. It's good fun. She enjoys that. Like I said, it's not malicious, which is the key.

The other thing as well, is the why. The reason I wanted her to have a sense of humour or my potential partner to have a sense of humour is, they have a propensity to not take life overly seriously. So there's aspects of life that, yes, are serious and have to think about and plan and work through. However, a good chunk of it is frivolous, fun, lighthearted.

They've got that ability to step back, and also they can take the mickey out of themselves. That is one of the things I look for because of those things. I defined what the sense of humour was, so she had to be similar to me. She doesn't do the cultural reference thing as much, however, we do still enjoy particular humour together, because of that similarity with Fawlty Towers and that sort of thing.

Being able to hone in on it and also define why, is absolutely critical. Because if you can do the definition of their type of humour and the justification for the why, then you can also ask yourself that about other things. Like you have people, they say, I want a partner I can trust. Okay, well, what part of trust? Because trust has many different aspects and why trust? Why respect? Why anything, If you can explain it, then it becomes easier to spot it in a person and also utilise it.

A lot of people they're very vague when it comes to listing what they wanted in a partner. Being able to hone in on it and to define why these are the things that are going to make a big difference when you're out there looking for your partner. If you can be absolutely crystal clear on what it is and why? Because if you can't explain why it should be on your list, then it just becomes a wish, it's a vague dream.

You need to be able to put it into concrete terms and how it will benefit you as an individual and the two of you as a couple. Because if you're aware of where the strength is because of that, then you can maximise it to make the relationship you've always wanted. So it's a nice quick one for today.

Hone in on what you want and have a reason why. All right, Have a good one. Look after yourselves. Thanks for listening. And remember, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.

 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

I'm not normally a fan of life hacks per se, however, for this episode, I want to talk to you about one that has helped me, and it's how it's not only impacted one particular area of my life, it's impacted numerous areas, and this hack is having a good vocabulary.

I've always had an interest in words. I've liked the way that they have power, that they have range. They managed to encapsulate so many different aspects of our life. And I've always had this fascination, especially when it came to a magazine that used to come out monthly when I was a young fella and it still comes out now. It's been going for decades now, and this one called Reader's Digest.

Reader's Digest is made up of various articles on a wide range of subjects. It's got a jokes page. It's got anecdotes from readers, humorous stories. The one part that always had me and it was the first thing I always did, was written by a chap by the name of Wilfred Funk, and it was "Improve your word power". What he would do is in this column. It was just two or three pages. He would have 20 words, and it would be obviously a word that's not in the common vernacular, it's not a common usage word, and he would give you four options as to what that word could mean.

Then at the end of it, you'd be given the answers, and he would give you a rating, so you could work out how you were doing in comparison to the average person. I really enjoyed those and spent many, many years doing these. The way this became a life hack is I have found over the years that having a broader vocabulary, a more powerful vocabulary enables you to be able to communicate with everyone, regardless of their status, where they sit in a company's hierarchy. So you could talk to everyone from the cleaner all the way up to the CEO. Because of that power of vocabulary, you just adjusted according to the person that you're talking with.

The other thing as well, is it tends to give you confidence because you know that you can communicate with them on their level. There are a number of different advantages as well to being able to communicate with various people. What I found is this, especially nowadays, as I've got my mindset sorted, is it gives me the opportunity that when I'm going through a particular challenge or I'm trying to make sense of my emotions, I'm able to hone in better using a wider range of words.

Instead of just being happy, I can be ecstatic. That carries a little more weight than just happy. Being able to hone in like this means I'm better able to identify my emotions, I'm better able to utilise them. Which also means I can then communicate to my partner more effectively what it is that I'm feeling, what I'm going through or what I'm trying to inform her about.

So, this particular life hack, I'm heartily encouraging you, there's numerous apps, I've got a few on my phone that do a word of the day. That means that every day you get a word to use. Here's a couple of stories regarding vocabulary. I worked with this chap years ago, and he had mentioned to me that he was writing a novel, and I asked him, "I love reading books. Do you mind if I have a read of it and say, you know how it stacks up?"

He brought in the book and I read it, and it was a pretty good book. He had a good premise to it, and he had a good flow to it. The problem was that there were places where he used words that just didn't have any oomph, any power. So I said to him, "You might want to expand your vocabulary". I bought two little note pads, you know, the ones that are about the size of your hand, and each day, I mean, each week, I wrote at the start of the week, he would come in and I would have written five words and their meaning on the page.

During the course of the day, he had to come to me four times and use that word of the day and put it in a sentence or context that made sense. So we do this for a number of months, and then I quit that job and I didn't see him for a number of years, and he didn't keep up that building of his vocabulary, which is a bit of a shame. However, he still remembered all the words that I taught him.

You could see when he was telling me this fact that he hadn't lost any of the recall of these words. That he was proud of himself for expanding his vocabulary and be able to have a more broad range of words to be able to use to fully describe exactly what it is he's trying to describe. That was a really cool one

Then my two boys, as they were growing up, I used to say to them regularly, make sure you've got a good vocabulary. My oldest boy would have been about the 15 year mark, and I said to him, well, it was to both of them. "The really good thing about having a broad vocabulary is a lot of the times you're using words that are either not in the common usage or they're archaic, they're words that people just don't use anymore. Listen, the good thing about knowing those words, especially if they were words that could be viewed as derogatory, is you can insult people, do it with a smile, and they feel like you've complimented them. But you've had some fun just stirring them."

My oldest basically went out that day and bought a book on all these archaic words. The book was probably about as thick as your thumb, and he learned them all. I saw him a little while later and he said to me "You know what? You're right. It's good fun. I was walking around the saying these things to all these people and they were all excited because they thought I was giving them a compliment, but I wasn't".

So instead, of ripping into people, he was able to express that frustration that he had with them or whatever it was, but in a way that wasn't actually damaging to them. So he felt he could get it out and it wasn't causing any harm. So again, that's another advantage. Having a good vocabulary.

Also, it's good fun because you can do crosswords and all of this sort of thing, and I know that I used to have a lot of people. For some reason, they would figure out that I had a good vocabulary and they'd be doing a crossword or a word puzzle of some sort. They would just say to me "Hey Wayne, what's this word? Blah, blah, blah?" Or "What's the word for, you know, whatever." And then I'd go "Oh, it's this" or "It's this" and what I used to be astounded by, was how often I actually knew the word, which was a sense of pride for me. Of being able to tell them what the proper word was and actually be correct.

So there's lots of different advantages to this, However, like I said, the big ones are being up to better communicate your thoughts, your ideas, your goals, your dreams and frustrations, your problems to your partner, or to your friends, to your family, to your children, so the better you can convey that meaning, the more accurately you can present yourself to those people, and you can also communicate with people regardless of their status in life so it's really important.

Also it does make it easier to understand a lot of legal jargon and things like that because you can tend to put things into context a lot easier. So anyway, that was my life hack. Nothing more complex than that. I do encourage you to get like a vocabulary building app. It's one that I enjoy. I still learn new words. I still get reminded of words that I might not have used for a lot of years, and so that's a little bit exciting.

I do encourage you to do that and practice. That's the key. Start up a game with someone with a friend or a family member or your partner. Have a word and see if you can just casually drop it in the conversations and make it fit and sound good. Now that doesn't mean you have to try and drop them into all conversations and trying impress people.

It just means you have them there if you need them for that particular situation. So anyway, that's my life hack. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope to put it into practise, so get out there, have fun with it and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.
 
You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

Okay, in this one, I want to tell you a bit of a story, and this originates from having now learnt a lot of things. When I look around, I see people creating obstacles and problems for themselves. And it saddens me because, sometimes these tiny little aspects of the way they look at life cause massive problems for themselves. They seem to struggle and think it's everyone else's problem, not realising that it's actually them.

What I want to talk to you about is, I have social groups that I also run, and I was at one of these social groups and we're having a discussion about challenges and obstacles that we have with dating. Well, I don't, but they do. The group was probably about 60% women and 40% men. So it's mostly women, probably a little more actually. One of the guys, he would have been in his late thirties, early forties said "The thing that annoys me is when I'll take a woman out for dinner and I've paid for the meal, and at the end of the night she won't...", and I put my hand up and said, "You might want to stop right there," because I knew exactly what he was going to say.

I said, "You might want to re-think what you're about to say, because if you say that, with all these women here, they're gonna tear you into pieces" and they had every right because that is a shitty attitude. Sadly, there are a lot of blokes that have this attitude and they'll try to defend it and all of this sort of thing and explain it. Regardless of how you try and explain it, it's a crap attitude.

If a guy buys a woman a meal, that doesn't mean she is obligated to do anything other than say, "Thank you for the meal. It was enjoyable". That's the only thing she's obligated to say. Is to be a little grateful, a little appreciative. If she doesn't want to do that, well, she's obviously someone you shouldn't date. But that attitude is not good, and sadly, I see a lot of people doing lots of these tiny little things that make a massive barrier for themselves, and they can't see it.

Now, the sad thing is, is that undercurrent that this young man had, I say young, because he's younger than me. This young man had is that, he won't value a woman. So even if he finds someone who's right for him and he's right for her, that relationship will struggle because he won't value her, the way he should value her. That's sad, because then they both get short changed and they miss out on so much.

These little attitudes, ones that we given by media, culture, other people. They're very subtle in the way that they shift our mindset and get us to think. That story I just told is just one example of the many things that people do. That's a really big one, because it's a very strong contrast as to how you should be thinking about people. Now, if he was coaching with me, the first thing, I would have said to him, "You don't take a woman out on a dinner date in the first few dates. It's just not a done thing, because if the date doesn't go well, you're suddenly stuck with someone, and it's very awkward to extricate yourself from that situation". It becomes very awkward.

Now, it's OK if you've got the skills to, but most people don't have the skills to or the courage probably far more courage than skills, to be able to be honest with someone, and say "Look, this isn't working. How about we just call it a night? I thank you for your time". Most people don't have that courage, they'll excuse themselves and go to the toilet and do a runner or they'll say "I had a lovely time" and sit through the whole night and then at the end, awkwardly text him and say, "I think it's gonna work out". However, if it starts off with the man thinking, "Here's this woman, she's good looking. I'll buy her a meal and at the end of the night, I'll get a bit of...", you know, whatever.

 Starting off with that attitude is not healthy. It's not healthy for them. That's not healthy for the relationship. And the bad thing is, and this is one that I say to people when you're out walking up to people, if you have a crappy attitude and the next, there's someone who sees you have that crappy attitude talking to someone, and that's whether it's a man or a woman or man approaching, woman approaching or vice versa. If you have that crappy attitude, when you then walk up to them, they are going to go. "Not interested". The sad thing is, they could have been the right one for you. They could have been someone with whom you could have built a really good relationship.

That's sad, because that opportunity is now gone. So this young guy, he could be meeting lots of women who were right for him. With this attitude, though, he goes out on a meal. He has his crappy attitude that sabotages the situation, and he loses that opportunity with someone, with whom he could have had a fantastic relationship. So that one little attitude destroys all of these opportunities.

If you're dating and I don't know if you are, because obviously you can only hear me, I can't hear you. But if you're dating, I want you to really think about, are there little attitudes, little habits, behaviours that could be sabotaging your dating efforts?", and this also actually applies to relationships.

You know, there could be little things like, they've done studies about things that people do that contribute to a happy relationship. And it's amazing how simple these things could be but repeated regularly make a massive difference. And it's the same thing with dating or anything. Are there little habits and behaviours that are sabotaging your efforts, your results that you may not even be aware of. You know, feel free to ask friends, family, people that you know, who will give you honest feedback.

Ask them, "With my dating, is there anything that I do you think could be wrong?" You know, when you hear me talking about it, if you've watched me talk to people, is there anything that you think I might need help with? And if you've got people that really care, they'll give you the honest truth. Anyway, that was, a memory that popped up talking to this friend the other day, and it was interesting. It was interesting to revisit it, and my wife and I, when we're out, we do a date night every Friday, and when we're out I see people and I watch people, we both do.

We both, like to people-watch sometimes, and we guess, whether if that's a first date that they're on or whether that's a third date and it's good fun. We don't know what the actual correct answer is, but it's fun to look at them. I don't like seeing it, because I feel sad that these people could be missing out on something that's great for them. And I wouldn't like to think that you're missing out on great things for you.

There you go, a thought for the day. Look after yourselves. Keep up the good work. Thanks for listening. It's great having you as my audience grows and remember, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.

 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening. You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. I was talking with a friend the other day and we were discussing life skills and there was something that I suddenly realised. My two sons have grown up. They have been through the educational system, and they obviously, you know, learned how to count and add and all of those things that, you know, you learn at school.

But I realised that there was something that they weren't teaching anymore. And it's something I felt was extremely beneficial when I was at school and was also something that has served me exceptionally well. That is, that at school for one year, they swapped boys and girls over for the extra classes that they learned so, as boys we were learning traditional male skills, metal working, woodworking, car mechanics, this sort of thing, concreting and the girls were doing cooking, and sewing and all of this sort of things.

What they did is, they swapped us over. Now I know for myself, I learned how to sew. I learned how to make and did make, cushions these are just ones I can remember. I made a cushion. I made a dressing gown. I made a few other bits and pieces as well. The dressing gown was most complex. But the good thing is, I also learned to cook and do all of these other so called female jobs and what that meant, was, that I was one of these men who could actually do stuff.

One thing that I taught my boys from a very young age is you should learn how to do all of this stuff, and it doesn't mean you have to do it, but you should be capable, and it's the same with women. I know there's a lot of women who can't even change a light bulb, and that's appalling. It's disappointing that they've been let down that they had this huge mystery, that changing a light bulb is a complex thing and they have to call out an electrician and pay $40 to change a light bulb.

It's the same with cars, even with boys, nowadays, they don't tend to teach them basic mechanics, and I'm not mechanical by any stretch of the imagination. I can't service a car, but I understand how it works. I could do minor repairs. And, you know, I understand when the mechanic is talking about things. I know what he's referring to.

I remember years ago I had a female friend. She asked a male friend of hers to check all the fluids in her car, so he was going through. And he's checking. Oil's good. The water's is good. That's all looking good, and he gets to the brake fluid and he opens it up. The reservoir, the little container that holds the brake fluid is empty, like bone dry and, he says, to her. "When did you last check the brake fluid? And she's like, "What's brake fluid?"

She didn't understand that when you apply your brakes, there is, a hydraulic fluid, which is a specific type of like an oil based product, that gets pushed into your brake callipers and activates them. So, in other words, she had been driving around, basically without any brakes. These are the sorts of things that, you know that could have endangered her life. Just not knowing that one simple little thing. That's the sort of thing that people don't get taught nowadays. That's not just the kids that aren't getting taught it. There are lots of adults that don't know how to check tyre pressure and oil pressure, and they can't do basic repairs around the house.

Now I know there are people that are exceptionally good at these things, and I've met women that renovate houses, and that's fine, that's fantastic. That's what I'm talking about, is we should all get taught all of it, especially at school, because these translate to life skills. Also and this is what I have found. It gives you confidence to be able to give things a go. So the fact that I understood how to sew, my boys would, if they have a button come off, they came to see me.

 They didn't go to see their mother because their mother can't sew. So it was a case of, go to the person that's most capable and because even if it was something I hadn't done, I would have gone and I still do, I go, I'll give it a go because I have this mentality of,  "Well, I can do all these other things, and if I can do them, I must be able to do these things. So, therefore I'm going to give them a go". I find that has helped me a lot in my life, I've been willing to go and do jobs, that I have no qualifications for whatsoever. Because I've got that confidence in my abilities, I give it a go, and generally I do pretty good at it.

So look at what it is you don't know how to do. The good thing is, nowadays you can go watch YouTube videos and all sorts of things and learn how to do it. And that's good. As long as, you know, you get a good teacher, someone who's, you know, willing to talk and listen and talk to you and listen to what you've got. To ask questions you've got, and that's probably my best advice is go out, learn stuff and be capable.

For women, there's nothing they like more than a man who can cook and clean and do all of these things, because then they know they've got someone that can look after them. I've had women say to my wife "You've got him so well trained" and I'm like "That's bullshit. I've been well trained my whole life only because I was willing to learn". You know, I enjoy cooking. I enjoy catering for a party. I enjoy doing all of these things. Now, does that mean I have to do them? No, but it means I can, if I need to or if I want to. And there is a big difference between the two.

So go out. Learn some skills. If you've got kids, get them involved, get them helping you learn. Don't be afraid to say to your kids, "I've got no idea how to build a pergola, should we design a pergola and build it together?" There's heaps of books and online resources you can use to learn everything. So get out there, learn, explore and be able to stand back and go. I did that. I made that. I fixed that. I created that.

There is nothing better than being able to say that and be as proud as punch that you did it. That you contributed. That you did all of that. And those things translate into everything in life. You become more capable with dealing with your partner, with your children, with work colleagues with everything. Confidence in one area slowly spills over into other areas, especially if you concentrate on becoming capable and confident and capable of doing things.

All right, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed it. And I hope you take me up on my challenge of getting out there and learning things. You're awesome. I'd love to hear what you do. Like to see photos. It'll be fantastic. All right, look after yourselves. And remember, heres to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting 

our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.
 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own 

podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE Thanks for listening.You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. In this one, I want to talk to you about something I find is a challenge for a lot of people. I know for myself and my journey, this was something that I battled with early and occasionally pops up in my life still.

The good thing is, I'm now aware of it and that is the difference between masculine and feminine. Now, as a young boy growing up, I like a lot of men was taught, you don't show emotions, you suck it up, you're stoic, you get on with it, you build a bridge. We're also taught not to show any sort of softness. The problem is is that that cuts off a part of you.

I found that as I grew older, it was harder to empathise with people's situation. It was harder to sympathise, It was harder to understand, to see their point of view. The other thing that I realised and this is what started this particular part of my journey, was when a partner was going through a challenge of some sort, like a parent dying or particularly bad day at work, something where they were really emotionally raw. I felt disempowered. I didn't know what to do. I felt useless. I felt that I didn't have any ability that I could be for them, who they needed me to be at that time.

I realised that not only was I selling myself short, I was also selling them short because they weren't getting all of me. And that meant we both lost out. So for me, part of my journey of becoming whole and complete was not only exploring my emotions, but also looking at this masculinity / femininity thing. The challenge is that we often tie masculine and feminine into gender. So masculine is man and feminine is female.

This isn't true because masculine and feminine or masculinity and femininity are energies, they're attitudes, they're aspects. Now that I've become healthier in my completeness, if you want to use that as a phrase because I've done that, I find that if my wife is in a situation where she's struggling with something, it's a lot easier for me to step into my feminine energy and to be able to nurture her, and comfort her, and empathise, and to be able to listen and be there and be present.

I feel that gives her a better version of me and allows me to feel like I have some use in those situations. One of the big challenges I see today and it's been like this for decades, this isn't anything new. However, at least these days we're becoming a little more aware of it is this, you know, men are able to step into their feminine. Women are allowed to step into their masculine and that means that we become more whole, more complete, and we don't need to find someone who completes us or makes us whole because we're doing that for ourselves.

It's a healthier way to do it. So what I would encourage you to do, is a little exercise for you just made this up on the spot, is do a list of aspects of our humanity that you feel are masculine and that you feel are feminine and just write down these two lists.

So, like masculine could be things like confident, aggressive, strong, powerful, and feminine could be nurturing, soft, enveloping, so things like that. Then ask your self at the end, obviously, where do you spend most of your time? We usually go with our genders, we tend to sit men in the masculine and women in the feminine. That's okay.

The part where we do ourselves a dis-service, where we do our partners a dis-service. Our family a dis-service is when we're not capable of stepping into the other side of the list. So ask yourself, where are you letting yourself not be complete, not be whole, where you're not allowing yourself to sit?

We usually don't sit there because there's a fear involved. I don't know, for me it was a, you don't want to be seen as girly or weak or soft, but that was just my upbringing. That was my conditioning talking to me. So now I'm more comfortable letting people see me cry. I am more comfortable talking to people about my fears, my doubts, my concerns. I'm more comfortable being that soft shoulder for someone.

That allows me to feel more comfortable within myself, but I hadn't moved past that fear of judgment and I want to  get you to look at yourself and when you look at the parts that you're fearing and staying away from, what is it that's causing that? What is it that's contributing to you, not allowing yourself to be whole?

So that's basically today's podcast. It was just a nice quick one. It was a, get you to look at something, so that you can become happier, more complete, more capable. That's what this is about. As you become more whole, more complete, you become more capable, you've got more things that you can bring to the table as a partner, as a human being, as a parent, as a friend, as a confidant, as so many different aspects that you can be more of just by allowing yourself to feel the other side of the list.

Anyway, you have a fantastic day. Look after yourselves, Thank you for listening, I'm slowly building up listeners around the world. I've got quite a number of countries now, which is fantastic. I like to think that there's people out there listening to me each day and learning something about life so that they can be happier. So I end with this as I often do, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.

 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening. 

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

You can also check out our website by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.