 I'll even say it goes to your children, you know, those that have children. What's your brand identity as a father? That's your legacy. All right. The next aspect I'm going to talk about is the probably one of the most critical skills you're going to have as far as interpersonal relationships go. If I had one thing I want you to walk out with, this is going to be the next series of discussions, and it's literally on how to have a critical confrontation. And that means an argument. That means when the boundary has been violated, what do you do? And literally when we talk about critical confrontations, we're talking about the tools for resolving broken promises, failed expectations, and bad behavior. All right. Ultimately, it's not about any one of those things. It's not about the bad behavior. It's not about the broken expectations. It's not about the broken promise. It's about the relationship. How do you curb behavior? How do you rectify these elements and still maintain the relationship? That is going to be critical. One of the first things I would have to tell you, though, if you don't get anything, is stop keeping the peace at your expense. My father was great at it. Jesus Christ! You know, the problem with that is it was apparent. You knew it immediately when you got something wrong, but you're highly, highly defensive in the process. It didn't get you where you wanted to go. The behavior was recognized, but it didn't get him what he wanted. All right? I don't want you guys doing the same thing. But for a lot of people, and I was guilty of it as well, I didn't even do that. You know, that was part reaction to my upbring. And consequently, I had a series of ruptured and failed boundaries. And it was very difficult to renegotiate failed boundaries once they're established. So if you just do that, recognize it, take up emotional space, act when the boundaries broached. You're going to be a little bit better off. You're not going to keep the relationship, but you're going to be better off. Don't get me wrong there. One of the things we'll look at, for example, on critical confrontation is the event horizon. And in their common sense thing, the first time something happens, that's an event. It's an anomaly. It's a singularity. I would sit down and say you need to address it right then. They're going to happen spontaneously. They're not going to be convenient. It's going to be a difficult social challenge to deal with. And that's what makes it more challenging. But what happens is if you don't deal with it, they start to slip. It'll happen again. And then you're dealing with a pattern. When it happens twice, you have a pattern. Not only that, when you don't deal with it, you have time away from it. The value of that incident is lost because nobody's going to want to deal with it. So the value of it's been watered down is probably been meaningful to you. It's bothered you enough that you were disturbed by it. You don't want to live that way. The third time that happens is no longer an event. This is accepted case history. This is accepted behavior. You've allowed it. You've fostered it. You've enabled it. This problem is no longer a problem. This problem is now your reality. It's going to be vastly more difficult to combat it, to get to a course of action back on a reasonable tack. It's going to be vastly more difficult. When you identify a critical time for a critical confrontation, whether it's a broken promise, a failed expectation, or bad behavior, you're going to need to address it. What I recommend at that moment, and God knows this is where I get it wrong again and again and again, is take a breath and it's something that we call the hazardous half-minute. The first 30 seconds of the next verbal confrontation is going to be more critical than what you actually say. How you say something, the manner, the tone, the inflections are going to be vastly more important than what you actually say. My approach is to sit down and at least I talk to the individual name. It's usually kind of a simple one. Babe, stop starting. Don't yell. Don't make it shocking. But the idea is you want to ease into it, recognize it, interrupt whatever's going on, occupy emotional space, but interrupt that train to address that issue. But you need to do it in a very sensitive manner if you're going to preserve the relationship. The other aspect is just that. People need to feel safe when you have a critical confrontation. If they don't feel safe, they're going to get defensive. They're not going to be open. They're not going to be willing to listen. They're not going to be willing to empathize or understand. That doesn't help you with where you want to go. That's not fostering the connectivity between people. That's not helping your relationship out. All right? So people need to feel safe when you approach. So that first half minute, you need to express it. You need to identify the issue. You need to address them. But they need to feel safe in the manner in which you do this. All right? Ultimately, we're going to be talking. It's about maintaining the relationship, not the behavior. You can tolerate the behavior once or twice. But what you don't want to do is lose that element of trust and respect that is integral to a tight bond and connection with an individual. That's the core of a relationship. You lose that and you're losing everything. All right? Far better to let something slide and maintain the relationship temporarily than it is to jump on something and to destroy it by corrective action. All right? So it takes a delicate hand. And trust me, these are difficult skills I suggest you do it with friends, family, coworkers, pets, wherever you can. I'll even say this. Do it with your own self-talk. When you're doing something you know you probably shouldn't be slacking off, everything else, I should have worked out, I blew my diet, whatever it is. What's your self-talk like? Are you being abusive? Are you treating it with respect? How much kindness and consideration is being exhibited? What's the relationship while addressing the issue? You need to be doing these things. And again, these are transferable skills whether you're in a relationship or not. But ultimately, you're going to want to be in one and these are important aspects to have to be able to maintain the quality and the nature of the relationships you aim for and strive for. All right? The last element to all this, and it's going to be kind of an odd one, is that when you project the element of asking open-ended questions, for example, babe, why do you think this is acceptable? You know, not necessarily why are you doing this, but why do you feel this level of behavior is appropriate? You know, why do you feel that when you sit down and say, I'll be here at a certain time and you blow this off by an hour, that this is okay? Is this you respecting the relationship? Is this you respecting me? Is this you respecting us? Is this the relationship you want? Ask open-ended questions. Get through together. Any decision made jointly is going to have a vastly better chance of succeeding than one that you dictate. That's just human nature. And when you resolve that issue, you've analyzed it, there's a phrase called pop in the question. It's called verifying acceptance. Let's say she's late and she said she won't do it again. You talk through it's inappropriate, it's disrespectful, any number. It's not necessarily that serious, but you sit down and recognize the issue. Ask the question, are you going to do it again? Are you okay with this? Get them to commit to the solution they've just laid out. It sounds stupid, but you will know immediately whether or not you'll have likelihood of achieving it. I've had women flat say this is altercation. I'm good enough the way I am. Don't expect this. After working through the whole thing, guess what? You've got a real problem which brings us to the next aspect. And that is actually making a cut. How many times in men's community do you hear when is it appropriate to end a relationship? How do you know when it is to end a relationship with a friend? Or when to cut a parent out of your life because it's a toxic or unhealthy event? We don't focus in on relationships to begin with. We kind of have a general idea of when a toxic relationship exists but when you're in one, you're really invested in ways you don't anticipate and making the decisions often very, very difficult. It's not pretty. You don't necessarily have all the facts. You don't necessarily have all the answers. You don't know how this is going to resolve but it's not working. And there's several indicators that you can sit down and spot kind of a dead horse coming. You know, literally when you don't have trust and respect in a relationship you don't have squat. What you do have is codependency. And if you don't know what codependency is, go look it up. Read. I know I was guilty of that or did I say guilty? I was subject to that. And it's so easy to do. It's so easy to become. A lot of male culture teaches you to become codependent. Step up. Be the man. Rescue the girl. It doesn't matter what her behavior is. Culture will reframe it. She's good enough the way it is. How often do you hear about the fact that, is the guy the good enough the way he is? No, he's subject to change. Be the man. Step it up. All right? You want it to be an amicable relationship. You want it to be a relationship of integrity. All right? And when you don't have fundamentals of respect and trust, you don't have a relationship. Time to cut it. That's an easy one. Another one is when you have a lack of exchange value when you're constantly putting in the effort and it's not coming back. All right? Doesn't have to be a hundred percent equal. You don't have to track it. But you know when you're putting in the lion's share, you're doing the heavy lifting and someone's going along for the ride. It's time to renegotiate that relationship. Well, often it's going to be time to get out. Another one is when you have a lack of consideration. When they just don't consider you. It's all about them. It's an unhealthy relationship. Probably another time to look at it. Probably time to get out. A more difficult aspect and it's going to be kind of an interesting one. There are times and I faced this recently when your values don't align. It may not be major things. It may be kind of subtle things. And often when you're in a relationship these will actually worm their way to the surface that you would never recognize in a normal relationship. And much like having roommates, you don't know what people are like until you live with them. Ultimately with relationships, you don't know what people are like until you're actually in a relationship with them. You're not dealing with the representative anymore. You're really dealing with them. And often someone's values comes up. It may be minor. It may be more significant. But the more significant they are, you need to take that into account. And again, it's not either a cut or dry issue. These are all kind of judgment based decisions. But these are elements that you need to look at, identify, be comfortable with, and be willing to make a decision based on some of these. And again, your decisions are never going to be made perfect. You're not going to have all the facts lined up. But again, you want the majority and the weight of the evidence in your favor on making a positive decision. Ultimately what does this say about where I'm heading in the quality of life I can expect. We can talk about when relationships are more of a struggle than they are fulfilling. For example, I'm 43 at this point. I like old girls. They're great. They're pretty. They're dynamic, a lot of energy. Not worth my time because they're too much of a pain in the ass. I just don't have a tolerance for them. Nothing against 20-year-old girls. They're great. They're being 20-year-old girls. But that's too much of a time struggle, too much of frustration for me to deal with it. Therefore, don't involve yourself with these women. Same thing with much older women that are bias-jaded any number of things. You don't necessarily need that. Judgment systems. How much struggle are you having to do? How like each other? Are you feeling energized by the relationship? A good relationship is actually going to lift you up. A good relationship and a healthy one is going to motivate you to do things to be a better man than you are. We kind of forget that when we're involved with somebody. We get attached. We're used to the comfort. We're used to the familiarity. There's a lot of value in there. We have an aversion to financial investment, history, the embarrassment. I got to tell family, friends, whatever it is. These are all aversions. These are real things. It's kind of funny to talk to them in hindsight, but when you're living it, they're not funny. And you end up making poor decisions. Not bad decisions. Poor decisions. In a series of poor decisions, one upon another, not healthy. It's not where you want to be. Part of knowing when to make the cut is actually knowing how to do it. How many people have fired somebody in their life? Not pretty. Even when it's coming, it's not pretty. Knowing how to actually make a cut to be able to look at somebody and say, I've spent time with you and I don't want to do it anymore. You can be rude. You can be brutal. Friends and I used to joke. You just walk up to her, shoot her in the head and walk away. It's quick. It gets the job done. Not a lot of integrity. It's not caring for the individual. Again, it also doesn't sit down and say, she's still alive. And guess what? In this case, the dead do talk.