Are You Lying to Yourself? Why Your Self-Image Might Be All Wrong

0:00 This is the Classic Man Podcast. I'm Coach Carter. And I'm Alex Martinez. So glad to be with you guys today, talking about things that allow us as men to be healthier versions of ourselves, which in turn makes the world a better place. Yes, sir, it certainly does. Certainly does. Excuse me. We need better men. I feel like we are not raising our children to a standard that we were held to as kids. Yeah. Now, you know what I'm saying?

1:01 economy has changed, or social economics, if you will. Because when you have a two-parent household and one parent is at home, you at least have accountability of what's going on with your kids. But nowadays the need for both parents to work really throws off the balance of the home. It really does, man. I can't even imagine when, when my late wife passed away, before that, I, you know, I was toxic. And so I would think, man, if I ever had to do this on my own, I don't know if I'd be able to do it, because I knew myself, right? You know? And, and that's a tough thing to do, you know, when you're in that position of not knowing, hey, can this fully work, and can I do this on my own in the toxic state I'm in, you know?

2:07 you the same way that you described yourself?

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4:10 "Hey, that was a year or two ago." No, that was six years ago. That was, certain things happen, you know, COVID's five. So if something happened right before COVID, yeah, in my brain, you know, 2021, 2022, I'm like, "No, that was like a few months ago, that was five, six months ago," because I don't have those experiences or memories in the middle. All we have is, yeah, just stuck in the house. Thanks.

5:14 so she was talking about how she felt bad, like she didn't do enough at the time, and I had to elaborate to her, you know, with what you were going through and what you had and what you knew at the time, you did the best of what you could. Yeah. And that's hard for people to understand, that sometimes, that, hey, with where I was at in life, with the coping skills I had and the mental health I had, yeah, this was the best I could do. I'm realizing now they realize they could do better, but at the time, they get that, you know, guilty conscience now, right? Like, "Hey, man, I don't know if I did everything right then." But they're not giving themselves the credit that, hey, you've grown from then.

6:18 about the way this person makes me feel. Like something in this, something's throwing me off. Maybe I should, you know, maybe I shouldn't text that guy. Maybe, I know this guy is bad for me," right? Women, and yeah, you follow through and talking to him anyways, knowing good and well something's off or something's wrong. Yeah. Or you pass up on somebody who was good for you because they're not in the same toxic cycles that you're used to, and your body's so used to that toxicity. Yeah. Change that you don't know how to handle a healthy relationship.

7:18 you know, the hard part, too, I think for me sometimes is understanding, is that discernment, you know? Yeah. Or am I just picking up vibes, or what is that? Because, you know, sometimes we all, we all have a, that spirit of discernment, but how connected are we to that discernment? Yeah, that's for sure. And that's a big thing in life, you know, because there's a lot of times where I knew my gut, I had this discernment, yeah, and I went against it, in fact. And I'm like, "Oh man, this was not good. I should have listened to myself," right? And the farther you get from God, the farther off that's going to be, or the moral compass was going against that, you're going to be. Yeah, because you don't have that center, that grounding, pulling you back in, drawing you to do the right thing.

8:27 deal with the repercussions of whatever decisions you make in life. So you can't make terrible decisions and then be salty when your life is messed up. Well, sure. I mean, we all learned, and was it fifth grade, Newton's law, you know? Right. And I don't know if it's the first, second, or third one, but I know I still remember that he, uh, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That's right. You know? Exactly. So you think you can do all of these negative things, or you think you can talk to people any type of way, or, or some people don't realize how selfish they are. Yeah, I think that's a really big one. And then some people also don't realize how prideful they are. Oh, pride will kill man, kill a man quick. It will.

9:28 if 80% of us, that's impossible to be above average, because that's just not how the statistic works, right? So he went through and he said, "Okay, the average man in America is this tall. The average man in America weighs this much. The average man in America has this IQ score, well, scores this on his test." You know, that's kind of, that's kind of odd, because you can't really, I don't know if you can really average America, because we're the unhealthiest country in the world. So the average American is obese. For sure. You know, that was part of the numbers. You saw that in the numbers.

10:29 be. So that shows me that the data was pulled from somewhere that was legit, versus self-reporting, where those numbers would be off, because you're gonna inflate. You have so many people, especially in college, man. You got people who, "Man, I used to lift this in high school, I used to, man, I'm strong, I can still, I can bench 225." That was nothing. "I used to bench 225, you know, in sets of eight, man." That was a decade ago. That was a decade ago, and I realized that real fast, retiring and after my injuries. Man, I'm like, "Oh, you know, '09 on my tours, I was hitting 305," right? You know, not today. I go to the gym, it's a different world.

11:34 way it felt like when I fractured it. Oh, that's awful. And then I still got to get through mile eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. But about somewhere between 12 and 13, I don't feel it anymore, it goes away. But from about six, seven-ish to 12, 13-ish, my back feels the way it felt when I originally fractured it, that burning sensation. Yeah, it's like on fire, and it, like, locks up, and I'm sitting here, my pace is like, ah. And I'm sitting here, I gotta keep up, I'm not dropping out, I'm already short, you know what I mean? So I'm not dropping out. Right. We got to start at the beginning of the formation, right?

12:37 trying to average out the pace, slow down, spread aside a little bit more. I got good vision, so I can tell where my people are. But man, you know, they did everything they could to get me through it, because they knew something was wrong with me, because I was always at the front every other time. Yeah. So there's a difference between, in life, right, when people know who you are and they know that you're going to show up and they have certain expectations for you, when you don't hit those expectations, they're not looking down on you, they're understanding that something is wrong. If you're always honest with people and then for some reason they catch you in a lie, they know that there's a reason why you're lying, whether you're protecting somebody, whether you're afraid of something happening. Like, they, they understand that there's a different consequence at play or at work here.

13:41 consistently lying. Exactly. And now, the one time I'm gonna have to dig deeper, because you're crying that you told the truth, but it's hard for us to tell that because we're at this point now. Yeah. Especially working with students, I feel like we see that a lot, where if you're constantly the one causing problems and then all of a sudden you want to claim that somebody else is causing problems towards you, it's kind of hard to see that. It's kind of hard to take that at face value, because all you've done is cause problems. And that doesn't mean that nobody else will ever cause a problem for you either, right? You know? But we're also not going to give you the same sensitivity sometimes, because it's like, you can't, you can't dish something you can't take, right? You know?

14:42 or are we going to recycle him? Yeah. You know, because that's the things that we look at, as far as, hey, you know, everybody else is putting in their work and they're trying to pull you up, right? But what are you, what are you doing? Yeah. You know? And that's tough. It is tough, because we don't want to give up on a soldier, we don't want to give up on somebody, but at the same time, if I take one guy away, I'm not just taking one guy away, right? I'm going to take two guys away now. Yeah.

15:45 and I'm like, "Man, like, you, there's so much more to you than what you're presenting right now." Like, your resume and your interview is your opportunity to show yourself in the best light. It's your first date. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever, if you've ever seen the statistics on resumes, but there's a high percentage of resumes that are just, they're, uh, falsified. Wow. Yeah, I actually didn't know that study. And there's a lot of people that never update their resume for a while, and so on the younger times, they may be like, "Oh well, it's been a long time, but when I was there, I did this, this is," and they might have been not involved in a training, right, but remember the training, and was like, "Oh yeah, we had that training," and then they list it on their resume, and it's false, right? But there's a high percentage of Americans that, that it came out that they do that. That's crazy. Unknowingly. Yeah.

16:49 my CPR, I can, and you saw that I had the ability to get it or had it before, but I don't lie and say that it's current. Right. Right. If it's not current, you know what I mean? So those are avenues and aspects of where, as we get better with understanding our value, then we can present that value better for other people.

17:50 nowhere to lay your head that night, it doesn't matter who's around. Like, you're gonna deal with the absence and the void of everything else being missing. But just because, okay, I don't have a person to make sure I'm eating, you know, I don't have a partner to share my financial issues with, stuff like that, so those things kind of compound. But yeah, without food, without water, without shelter, and those physiological needs, it doesn't matter what else you do or don't have, because y'all are just struggling about to die together. Exactly. You really are. You know, that's some of the main things. You got, what, three days? You got three days for water. You maybe can get a week with food, maybe, in America. What you got on you already, see, and that's the thing, right? What your body holds on to, that's fat, right? When that fat is energy to be used. So I'm not sure that that original study still stands for Americans right now, man. I'm serious. You ever seen that, that little side note on that, but there's a real, from that doctor that, like, treats overweight patients? No, I haven't seen that. I had to laugh. And I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody, but

18:53 she was like, "Well, I gotta go to the fridge," and he's like, "You don't have to go to the fridge for nothing. Like, you, you, you're not hungry, I promise you. You're not gonna melt away, guarantee you that you're not." And no, like, and we're not trying to pick on anybody, but the truth of the matter is, right, that's a part of knowing yourself. If you know that you can't, I talk to my mother all the time, and my mother will tell you, okay, she says, "I know what to do. I have the information in my brain." She's a nurse, right? She, yeah, I understand what I have to do, right? I don't have the discipline to do it. Discipline's hard if you ain't got it. So I pay a trainer to put a foot in my butt. Yeah. And then I lose weight, and then I stop paying for training, and I go back to the cookies and the chips, and it's cookies and chips every time, right?

19:58 that protein you putting in? You, exactly, because protein ain't doing you nothing if you're not working out, right? You know, it's just, yeah, it's just more calories, and calories are, at the end of the day, gonna stick to your body. But yeah, so on the flip side, I can't go four or five days without food. Like, once I hit the 24 hours mark without food, because I don't have a lot of fat on my body, I have no storages, I have no, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. So I, I turn into a different person so quick in terms of mood, disposition, how I respond to people. Yeah. Like, now, if I have a mission, if I have a goal, I can hyper focus on that. But in terms of everyday life, like, I know that honestly, even at 12 hours without food, I'm snapping at people, I'm rude, I'm mean, I'm harsh, and it's beyond, it's where, like, my body starts to literally eat itself, because I don't have anything to pull from.

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22:05 shelter, and water. So in that, we have, you know, when you're, when you're feeling that way, you know, war, uh, you know, you're not in a, in a criminal area, that's how I got high crime. Right, right, right. You got financial stability, which makes people feel safe, and then, thing, them things in conjunction, you know, that's what's going to provide that safety that a person really needs to feel. Yeah. You know, if we don't have our finances, of course you're going to be stressed out. That's a big one. And the worst thing about America right now is that, I don't know if the statistics, statistics are still the same, but 50% of marriages are going down the drain because of finances, you know? And that's a lot. That is. That's such a huge one.

23:08 stuff like that. And here's what I had to understand, right, and this is on that topic of feeling like you're better than average, right? I feel like I am on the above average side on discipline. Now, I feel like as a soldier, you kind of have to feel that way. I mean, I think we're awful, we're awful blessed and lucky, and I, I think we do have a lot of discipline from the, you know, going through basic training and AIT. It's, it's forced. It really is. Like, when you sit there and stand at attention for an hour and don't move, you tell yourself what you can do. Yeah. And same with running. Like, I had to get to that point with running. There is a psychological effect of going running, and what happens is you create mental toughness, because you're overcoming barriers that you had in your brain for yourself.

24:08 missions. Yeah. That's not to knock on anybody, but at the end of the day, when you have tasks and objectives that have to be completed, and, or the option is for your livelihood. Yeah, right. Big one there. Go down the drain, or whether it's even stateside, getting smoked, uh, extra duty, extra duty, no pay, reduction in rank. Oh man, all of those things, right? Awful. Who wants to lose their pay? Exactly, right. And that's the thing about it, you are on contract.

25:09 This is what I've never noticed about myself. I have never had to wonder where my next paycheck was coming from." Yeah. I know I'm getting paid two days out of the month no matter what happened, right? You got people currently, right now, sitting waiting to be kicked out of the Army, stop loss, sitting in a room, right? Yeah. Doing area beautification from day to day, getting paid, getting paid. Now, clarify this real quick, right? Right, right. When you go on stop loss, all right, you're gonna go without a paycheck for a little bit, but you're gonna get, you're gonna get that back pay. Yeah.

26:12 re-figured out. Yep. But for these few weeks, there's no pay, man, and there ain't nothing you can do. Yeah. But it'll get fixed eventually. That's for sure. So there is time that, you know, although we are still getting paid, we are working and not getting paid, and it's really frustrating for a soldier, you know? And a lot of people in America, they don't even know that happens, right? So the thing is, there's, you have so many people in the Army, in all of the armed forces, that there are going to be issues and mistakes that happen, right? So there's times where things are going to be screwed up, but with good leadership, they're always going to try to take care of those situations and what's going on. Yeah.

27:16 you know, back there with the kid and stuff like that. So it took them maybe three months to figure it out, but he went down to, I forgot the office, for if you're having financial issues, should be like S2? Um, no, there's actually, there's a program, a separate program. Okay. That they will send you down to, at least at Fort Leonard Wood there is. Okay. And so once you go down there, they'll give you, like, grants or loans or different things and situations to help prop you up financially until the Army itself is able to figure out whatever the issue is. And then if it's a grant, you keep it, if it was a loan, you pay it back with that back pay that they give you, right? So they were able to take care of him, and they made sure him and his family were good. But that was the extent that they were willing to go to, like, "Hey, go ahead, go down to this office," and then a whole separate organization made sure he was good. Yeah.

28:17 was no playing around on it. Facts. And even if you have people that you don't get along with, you have people in your real life that you don't get along with in your family, right? So they're always going to be those people, but at the end of the day, the vast majority want to make sure you get taken care of. Yeah. They're going to square you away. Yeah. But that is a luxury that we have, and that was one thing that she had to point out in that conversation. Hey, like, my point of view and my point of reference is always going to be a little bit different, because I actually don't have, it's crazy to say real world experience, because that's probably some of the most real world experience you're going to get, but she doesn't have civilian day-to-day life experience, because there's just aspects of life that she's never had to deal with in almost a decade in the service, but that's all she's ever done.

29:21 experiences, and they're like, "Okay, what things are you able to bring in to help our soldiers?" Whether it's mentally, like, I work with the chaplains a lot. Okay. And they're like, "Okay, yes, technically not within Army doctrine for you to be able to, um, whether it's interact as much or kind of be, like, as given as much input or influence as you do. However, this is what you've done for 12 years." Yeah. So, right, we can't tell you it's, you know, you're wrong. Exactly. So in those types of instances, yeah, I maybe do get a little bit more respect.

30:21 dude. Yeah, because, you know, God, talking about the Bible, I could look at myself and be like, "Man, there's several characters," and I have characters, several people in there that I can align myself with, you know, and that's, that's kind of a big thing sometimes, especially in America these days, you know? Yeah. And, and the one thing that really happens in men nowadays is when they, when they are at fault for something, it's hard for them not to feel the shame. And, you know, that's one thing that I've, I've really had to learn, is the guilt and the shame. And I've had to look up to, like, you know, guys like David, you know, who's done awful things, you know, in their lives, but God still used them, to where they didn't feel that shame, although they're, at one point they were feeling shame, right?

31:23 especially for men. It really, you know, we need to empower other men instead of leaving them in the toxicity world. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing about it, so I might as well go down this road since we're here, right? You take a person who is described as being a man after God's own heart. Mm-hmm. And he has tons of sin issues, he has tons of things, right, that we would look at and say, religious or not, these were not good decisions. Yeah. Right. You screwed over some of the people who were closest to you, man, down to plotting a murder for a woman over again, man.

32:26 uh, the wisest man to ever live, Solomon. And with Solomon, at the end of the day, he still had his heart turned away from God. I mean, you had somebody who literally was the first and only to walk and, and see face to face with God, and Moses, and he wasn't even allowed to enter the Promised Land, like. So he, he lived his life in servitude and, and attempted to do the things the right way, but he still had issue after issue and mistake after mistake. He even murdered somebody himself. So we look at these people and it's like, okay, somebody who talked to God, somebody who was after God's own heart, was a king, could do whatever he wanted, somebody else who was the wisest person to ever live, if they all made mistakes and had problems, then how in the world are we supposed to get through and not have problems? Yeah.

33:30 to be that personal, you know, relationship. You know, God wants that intimate relationship with us. Exactly. On our heart. Yeah. And when we can't do that, you know, that's, that we'll end up where David was, where he tells Bathsheba, like, you know, "I don't, I don't need to go worship God today," you know? What does that even mean? Yeah. Well, that's what I was talking to one of our soldiers about this week, right after, uh, chapel. He started asking me a few questions. He's, he's not Christian, right? So he practices, uh, the Islam faith, and he's like, "Yeah, so in ours," he's like, "I like that with Christianities, there's so much forgiveness, there's so much good. You talk about God and everything he wants to do for you, but then there's so much, like, punishment, and this is bad, and you're doing the wrong things." And I'm like, "I hear you. There has to be a happy medium." Yeah.

34:30 that standard that we have to hold each other to, yes, sir, is essential. It's, it's very essential, because, you know, and, and I've had times where I've heard, uh, the word, someone's given the word, and they are beginning to speak on someone's personal life in a negative manner and share their gossip or their, what's going on in the personal lives with the whole congregation. That's wild. And, you know, I, it, it stepped me back for a second, and I was like, "Man, where's the accountability in this church?" Right? You know, I understand, you know, you're a man of God, and I understand, you know, you're in the position to run this church. Yeah. But at the same time, just like we've learned in the military, you know, you got to lead by example, because that's right, how we lead is how our, you know, our squad, our group, our church is gonna, is gonna do too. Yeah. And, and that was, that was hard for me to hear

35:31 because I'm like, "Man, where's the accountability at?" Right? You know, that's not healthy, that's not a good moral thing to do to one of your sheep, especially if you have relationship with them. Yes. Right. So you don't do that to people that you care about, or counseling in that matter. Yeah, exactly. Counsel them, right? Those are supposed to be confidential. Uh-huh. First and foremost. So anything you bring in confidence to any person within the faith, you're supposed to maintain that confidentiality. That's number one.

36:34 parents. Now if your dad was missing from your life, do you know your dad? Yeah. Right. So, you know, a question I've had on that, I've, I've had to explain to the kids, is, like, having faith, right? Because if I tell my son, "Hey, you know, I'm gonna pick you up at 3:30, you need a ride?" Yeah. He knows I'm gonna be there at 3:30, right? You know, God tells us, you know, "Hey, you're gonna get here right now," and we're like, "Okay." Yeah, you know, but that's faith. Just like, just like our kids have faith in us that we're gonna do something, we need to have that same faith in our heavenly Father, right, that what he said he was gonna do, he's gonna do. Yeah, you know?

37:36 the, I think the biggest thing is, and that is that people don't realize when they're offended, they let it slip into bitterness, and then that bitterness hardens our heart. Yeah. And that's where we begin to turn, and now, "Well, God didn't, you know," yeah, "I thought it was going to go this way," right? But you're not seeing is that God takes a bad thing and he's going to turn it into a positive thing. That's right. You just haven't had that faith to wait, because our timing, of course, is not God's timing. Yeah. As humans, I want everything now. Yeah. I want a million dollar business, I wanted it last week. Yeah. People don't realize that most businesses don't last five years, and the ones that do are still not doing the greatest financially, you know?

38:39 they had an issue or misunderstanding, or a human misrepresented God and now distorted your whole view of him, and neither one of those things are on God. Like, exactly, those are both on you, you know? And even still, you're not going to know him if you never talk to him, right? You know? So I think that would be the scariest thing, you know, you get up to heaven, he's like, "Depart from me, for I never, never knew you. Never knew you." Exactly. Yeah.

39:41 shelter. Takes away their financial safety. You just took away the bottom two, honestly. Third step, we didn't even get there yet. I know. But then you took away the, the three most essential ladders to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Take care of people who can't take care of themselves is what that's saying. So it's not a literal orphan or literal widow every single time. Yeah. It could be any of the people around you who are unable to take care of themselves. That includes special needs, or people with different mental health diagnoses, those are included, no matter who is present, even if they have a father present. I'm just clarifying that point. It doesn't matter. That's not specifically what it's saying, it's encompassing: take care of people who can't take care of themselves.

40:46 have to do that daily, right? That means you have to talk to God daily and allow him to kind of reshape. And here's what I realize, as humans, we want to do the opposite of what God wants us to do. Well, because it's, it's comfortable, you know? When, yeah, when, when we were, when I was toxic and I begin to change, I would want to go back to my old ways. Yeah. I would want to revert when I begin the change. Yeah. Because it was hard. It's hard to accept that change. Yeah. Because I'm not used to it, and my toxicity at that point was comfortable because I was so used to it. Yeah, you know?

41:47 When, when we transform and we're cleaning out our heart, we're coming to that new home, but it's uncomfortable. We got to settle in that new home first. You talking right there, and we're going to do a whole episode on that, because there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score, and that is a phenomenal book, and we're going to do a whole episode on that. We're going to talk about what your body does when it goes through trauma, the complications and problems it has trying to reset from trauma, and the fact that you will live in that state of being traumatized if you don't go through the healing process. And that's hard. Yeah. You know, that's hard for me. For me, it took me, I felt a decade to get through a lot of my trauma. Yeah. From my tour. I believe that. And, um, that was hard, you know, there was a lot of changes that I didn't realize that I needed to make. Yeah. And because I didn't listen to God, the many opportunities, you know, that God gave me and put right in front of my face,

42:47 I denied, and I got on that boat, you know, I was going to go opposite way of Nineveh. Yeah. And, and when I begin to get on that boat, God cut everything off and put me in an isolation point to where I was by myself, and he's like, "Man, you know, if Jonah would enough, if he didn't remind you that I put him in the belly of a whale because he didn't listen, let me show you." Yeah. And he will to us, you know, if God's calling you and you're not listening, let me tell you, what he's gonna make you listen. And if you didn't believe Jonah, that that happened, if that story was real, yeah, I will attest that he cut me off and he put me in the belly of a whale for a little bit until I got myself together. Yeah. Crazy. It was a crazy story, sometime I'll go through with you. Yeah, you definitely should.

43:51 it. You're not stuck in certain cycles, no matter what your parents went through, no matter what your parents did to you, no matter what you've gone through, no matter what you've done to other people. Once you reach a point where you want to be healed, and you're willing to go through that process, and you're willing to take those steps, and not allow comfortability, not allow habits, not allow the people who are around you, not allow the situations that you've been in and that you're going through to hold you back and keep your mind captive, you can actually be set free. They're chains, right? Like, you're literally stuck inside of repeating behaviors and cycles that you haven't unlearned or forced yourself to walk away from.

44:56 you know, you need to ask for forgiveness, you know, ask God to, for you, you know, yeah, forgive them, and you forgive them, because that bitterness that you're allowing to stay on your heart, that somebody else's trauma, yeah, is gonna ruin your life. It really will, you know? And a lot of Americans go through that. They're mad at someone who hurt their mom or their dad, yeah, and allow toxicity in their life from somebody else's trauma. Yeah. And that's crazy, and it just seeps in and it starts to eat at you and destroy you. Yeah.

46:00 that you are along for that ride with us. This episode didn't challenge your thinking and resonate with you, you just weren't really listening. I'm Justin Kazmierczak, founder of the EGT Universe, and it's been a pleasure being here with you on this journey. If you know someone who's starting a business, rebuilding their brand, or just needs a serious digital upgrade, hit me up. I'm at JumpCutKing on Instagram, or head over to EGTUniverse.com. That's EGTUniverse.com, and drop me a line. Also, show some love to Carter and the crew behind Classic Man. Head over to ClassicManPodcast.com for all the guest info, all the official links, and bonus content. Also, chip in. I'm a cup of coffee. Let's be real, if we as men don't show up together, don't band together, we can't grow together. So check back here every week, same time, on your favorite podcast platform for the most up-to-date content. Don't get caught slipping. Stay connected. We'll see you right here, Classic Man Podcast, next time.