067: Take Ownership

I finished my Spartan race last weekend , which was a total blast , huge challenge . I talked about some of my training on a podcast earlier , just a couple episodes ago .

I talked about practicing the spear throw , which is one of the obstacles , and a few of you have already asked how the spear throw went and I've told you I missed it and pretty disappointed about it . I've only missed the spear throw one other time in other races that I've ran .

So I was bummed , a couple of swear words were thrown out , I had to run a penalty loop there weren't burpees at this obstacle and then moved on with the race . You know there'll be another one in the next time I'll nail the spear . But besides that man , it was over 13 miles , it was 3,300 feet in elevation and 32 obstacles in total .

So when you sign up for these races , it's 30 obstacles , 13 miles , but they always throw some extra stuff in there and the vert was pretty killer . There was a lot of mud , there was a lot of water and we completed it . I did it with my buddy and I don't know .

I felt like we did a really good job , pushing each other , staying upbeat the whole time and just the whole weekend of getting picked up early , driving down with a cup of coffee , racing going out to battle on the mountain , and then we camped overnight down there and just chilled by the fire before we came home to our families .

So , back at it got a good episode for you . Today I'm going to talk about ownership , and I'm talking about ownership because I had a coaching session this week with a guy that just really inspired me to talk about it . He just grabbed kind of the bull by the horns , or whatever you want to say , to own his role in his relationship with his wife .

So when I started to think about the concept of ownership , the first book that I thought of was Extreme Ownership , and it's written by Jocko Willings . I actually haven't read the book , but I've listened to his TED Talk , I've heard him interviewed on a bunch of different podcasts , and if you don't know who Jocko Willings is .

You got to Google a picture of him because he's just a total beast and I did pull this quote from the book just to wrap your head around what ownership is . So he says , implementing extreme ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility .

Admitting mistakes , taking ownership and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team . So his book is about extreme ownership in the business place .

The team we're kind of talking about today is our family team , our wife , our kids , and it doesn't really matter what team we're talking about , because ownership is all about the individual owning up to their humility and checking their ego . And the opposite of ownership is the victim mindset .

When we are just blaming our circumstances for the life that we have or we're just complaining about our situation without actually doing anything about it .

And when we don't own our situation and we don't own our role in the circumstances we have , we're not really living life , kind of just cruising by pointing the finger at the world and not taking responsibility for our actions , for our mindset , for the roles that we're playing in the relationships that we're in , or our financial situation , or the role we're in at

work or our kids' behavior . Ownership is calling yourself out for how you're impacting these different areas of life , and if you want more fulfillment and happiness and joy , it's totally there for you . You just have to own what you need to change in order to create that joy and happiness , right ? Not just hope that the world changes around you .

So back to this client . This is kind of where he started and more of that . I want my wife to change . Him and his wife haven't been getting along really well . They keep having the same argument and they blame each other . You need to change . No , you need to change . If you change , then everything will be better . And this was carrying over .

They were fighting in front of their kids and this guy just was kind of bummed about it . He's feeling sad , frustrated , disappointed . Their anniversary was coming up and nothing was planned and he started to tell me how she's a total stress ball . She's always negative , she never wants to solve any problems , she's always complaining . So this is the victim mindset .

This is what it sounds like . It kind of sounds complainy , it kind of sounds whiny . And when I am in the victim mindset I'm usually thinking that why is this so hard ?

This should be easier and it's a pity party that you throw for yourself for a little bit and the victim mindset gets a bad rap and you're like don't be a victim , get out of the victim mindset yes , that's the goal . But first we need to hear that part of our brain out , that mindset out , let it complain , let it blame . Then you look at those thoughts .

So for this guy like he got it all out there and I asked him , I was like okay , so this is your side of the story . Some of it may be true , but what would your wife say ? And we know what our wife would say . We've had the same discussions or arguments enough that we know what she would say . And he just was able to rattle it off .

She would say that he's all or nothing . He's a black or white thinker . He's hurtful with his words , he's overly transparent and too blunt . He's highly reactive and he should figure out all of this stuff so we could have a better marriage . So he rattles that off and I ask him , like what's the truth in that ?

And this is where the ownership starts Are you willing to own up to your flaws ? Are you going to have the humility to say , yeah , I screwed up . I could get better at that . So when I asked him , what part of that is true , can you see any truth in it ? And he said , yes , like I could work on all of those things , sweet .

Then we have a place to go , because what we've done is we've looked at our victim mindset , the blaming of her . She needs the change . If she changed , then the marriage would be better . We have that mindset and now we're also taking ownership of the role we play and our actions in the relationship .

So the thing to see here is what do we have control over ? We don't have any control over how our wife thinks or how our wife acts . So in this case , when I asked him , what do you want to control about yourself , what do you want to change ?

And he said that he wanted to be more relaxed , he wanted to be more patient and he wanted to not judge her so negatively . All right , so that's ownership working on his actions , being more patient , working on his mindset , not judging her so negatively . All right , so he knows how he wants to change , he knows what he wants to take ownership of .

And then the next thing we talked about was the plan , how to attack it Because , back to that Jocko Willing quote , implementing extreme ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility , admitting mistakes , taking ownership . And then the last part , he said , was developing a plan to overcome challenges .

So the plan became asking himself three questions a couple times a week , and the questions were what have I received from my wife , what have I given to my wife , and what troubles and difficulties have I caused ? So those three questions are going to shift the victim mindset . What troubles and difficulties have I caused her ?

That's when we're going to start taking ownership . Oh , have I been hotheaded lately ? Have I not been listening ? Am I judging her too much ? There's no shame or blame . But he asks himself these questions , he starts answering them and it shifts his mindset .

And when you shift your mindset , your view on the other person , your emotions are going to change , your actions are going to change . And what happened when he started asking these questions was the conversations that they were having weren't as heated .

Their conflicts were more of a discussion than these arguments , and she actually chilled out a little bit more as well . And we don't change ourself to change the other person . But when we bring a more calm and positive and truly compassionate mindset and emotion and energy to a relationship , the other person lets down their guard a little bit too .

So , yes , it would be awesome if the world changed and fit the mold that we want it to be , but that's not reality . So the change starts with us . It's kind of like that saying be the change you want to see , be the change

you want to see . And this moving from a victim mindset to ownership applies to every relationship that you have . As a father , we want to blame our kids for not listening and they should behave better . Our parents , we want them to not intrude so much .

Whatever the relationship is , there's always this path of blaming , wanting other people to change , complaining about it , and then the other path of taking ownership .

So , whatever relationship you're in , whatever part in your life right now you're kind of down about or wanting to work on , start by taking ownership and then making a plan of what that ownership looks like in the real world . You change yourself , take ownership of your life . The rest will work itself out . I promise you that .

I have seen it with the men that I've coached and I see it in myself when I play the victim . Not much changes . I kind of just stay stuck where I'm at . But if I take ownership , identify the negative mindset , identify the steps I can take and the mindset I need to take to get there , then shit starts changing . That's what I got .

Hope you have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time .