Michael: (01:25)

I’d love to, so a lot of you have already gotten to experience the awesomeness of the master’s program through the Made for Greatness. My wife and her lovely partner are doing all sorts of great things. And you could say I was inspired by how many people are being, having their lives transformed and being help, and so starting this next Monday, right after Christmas, we’ll be launching a similar program for men. It will not have quite as many flowers or, you know, sunshines and rainbows, you know, a little more grittiness to it, but the idea is the same sort of thing, a way to use the power of your thoughts to transform how your life goes and you, you know, just really level up a bit and enjoy life a bit more.

Sterling: (02:06)

Yeah, we are so excited about this. And you know, when we launched Masters immediately, you guys started emailing us and you were like, where is this for men? And and we really wanted to live with it for a year to get to know, you know, women and how they experience it before we, we launched this and my husband is actually LCS certified too. So he also went to the life coach school. So he’s gonna teach some very similar tools like the model, but in a language that we think is more helpful for men. So can you explain maybe the difference Michael, between how you will talk about the mindset tools and how maybe we do here on the female side?

Michael: (02:50)

Absolutely. So I think it’s really important that we just start by emphasizing how different men’s and women’s brains work. I know this isn’t rocket science to anyone out there who’s married. You may have discovered this, but we really need to emphasize that as a man, when I go through the world, I have a very different experience. And even going through life coach school, which was an awesome experience, it was mostly other women. And there’s a different way to speak to a man. When I’m talking to a man I’m not going to use as much flower language and I’m gonna dig deeper. I think men really struggle with identity. We struggle with how we incorporate the events around us, through our thoughts, into who we are, what we’re supposed to be doing. And are we good enough? Are we performing enough? And so many of these things are very, very quiet, you know, as a spouse else, you might see a little bit of a face, you know, movement.

That means he’s had a deep, powerful thought, but to the much of the world, it is much quieter for a guy, but it’s still that pain can be very, very real. And a lot of times that pain comes from our thoughts comes from the identity that we assume because of the thoughts we have. And the idea when I talk to men is I talk more about slowing it down, allowing those feelings to be there. You know, whereas I sometimes wonder if maybe women don’t struggle as much as men to pull up the feelings we men have to spend a little time, just even identifying what is the feeling going on, what’s happening here. And then also I find with men is extremely helpful to brace the whole discussion within the scientific psychological framework. I, my background is in chemistry. I have my PhD. And so I really speak the scientific language and think scientifically well. And a lot of guys respond to that while I love the great work that life coach school is doing. A lot of times the language is more kind of flower and bouncy and men like to feel grounded that there’s something underneath there. Does that make sense?

Sterling: (04:47)

Absolutely! and I think the other thing that we both did was we both took those kind of psychology tools, the cognitive behavioral stuff from the life coach school. And we also blended it with our Catholic faith. So can you talk about how you do that with your clients?

Michael: (05:03)

Absolutely. I, I sometimes, you know, think to myself that those poor coaches who don’t have the Catholic faith are really kind of operating with one hand tied behind their back. Mm it’s very common. I will encounter a situation in a guy that he, he can kind of see the situation. He sees the thought he’s grappling with a thought, but his heart just can’t let go of that. And on his own, he doesn’t have enough to just let go of that. That’s become his identity. And so I send him to adoration first confession if needed. But then to adoration, I say, I want you to go to adoration with a blank piece of paper and a pen, no other agenda than just to sit there before our Lord and allow him to speak into your life if regarding this particular issue, this thought this identity, this belief, and it is almost without exception that the guys will come back after engaging sacramentally with our Lord and say, oh wow, you’ll never believe what he said to me, Michael he’s I, and I tell them, throw the worst you possibly have.

Like we men, we kind of have this litany. We build up and we just keep it internally. And I’m like, just give all of it to our Lord. And that is so powerful, you know, in a similar way, I, I breeze by this early, but I really have to emphasize confession. I think right now we live in what Pope Ben believe called the age where our greatest sin is the loss of the sense of sin and really diving into, if you’re struggling with something, take it to confession. It doesn’t have to be mortal. It doesn’t have to be grave. Get to confession, engage that grace in a state of grace consult our Lord, receive the Eucharist. These sort of things create real, tangible results for clients that help them to get unstuck with these, these thoughts and beliefs that would be so much harder without the presence of the sacraments. Yeah,

Sterling: (06:49)

Absolutely. And I know you pray with your clients too, at the beginning of all of your coaching calls, cuz I, I can’t hear your words, but I can say when you’re praying through our offices and I just, I wonder, have you had any pushback from your clients about digging deeper spiritually? Like they come to you and maybe they wanna work on improving their job or their marriage. Are the guys pretty on board with you kind of cracking them open in a spiritual way and, and asking them to do some of these hard things?

Michael: (07:22)

Some of them, yes. Some of them fighted a bit more what’s interesting is almost without exception, every client I’ve had from like the most successful, huge income level client to much lower level client, whether they come with this issue or not, we always end up touching on lust and most commonly that in the form of pornography. So like that one they’re really resistant, opened up a two, but in terms of just being spiritual, most of these guys, I’m so blessed. I’m so lucky I get to work with, you know, generally good solid Catholics. And there’s been a few times, I’d say maybe that they’re a bit resistant. Like you see the resistant and men, not that they don’t do it or that they complain, but that they maybe have a little bit of an eye roll or a little slower to make the sign of the cross. And you’re like, you can tell you’re dragon a little bit, but even those guys, it’s pretty common, a few sessions in where they’ll be like, I can’t believe you just prayed that. That’s exactly what I wanted to bring up today. Yeah. And you just invited our Lord into it before I even had a chance to say that. Yeah, I was on, Hey, it’s not me. It’s the man upstairs. Yeah.

Sterling: (08:23)

That’s, that’s my favorite thing about being a Catholic coach is I feel like I’m just like a coworker to the holy spirit and I’m always listening for what he’s kind of moving my heart. And sometimes when I pray before a call I’m literally praying for what I need to hear in that moment. And, and oftentimes you’re right. It’ll just, they’ll say, oh my goodness. That was exactly what, what I needed to hear too. And, and it’s such a beautiful moment to just connect as humans. And it’s just hard being human in this world. And you know, I think that’s why having a coach is so valuable because they can just kind of hold your hand and walk you through that and, and help you feel like it’s normal to struggle. You know, I think so many of our clients think, oh, I’m the only one that has this problem.

But one of the gifts that coaches receive is we just see the same things, kind of played out over and over again. And it, it helps us to normalize things for our clients and, and for ourselves. So I really love that about coaching. Can you tell me what was it that opened your heart to life coaching? Cause you’re right. You’re a very kind of conservative intellectual guy. And when I first came to you and even said that term life coach how was that for you and what was it that made you open to trying it out?

Michael: (09:44)

Yeah. I wanna kinda address that in two different ways. First I’ll tell my own story, but I wanna expand it a little bit. Cause I think every guy is in a lot more pain than he looks like he is and this was certainly true for me. Like I go back to who before I was married and before I met my beautiful bride, I remember thinking to myself, don’t worry, Michael, the moment you get married, everything gets better. It’ll all be taken care of. Right. Then I’ll be on the path for kids. I’ll have found my purpose and meaning, you know, life will be done checks and boxes all over the place. Right. And then of course, marriage, I happens and surprise. Surprise is not quite the way that my younger self had visualized it. Yeah. And I pretty quickly realized that I wasn’t doing a great job and I struggled for years trying to find a toolbox to let me really change that.

Like I wanted to be a good husband. I wanted to be a good father. And, and I watched what I was doing. And like in my sober moments, when I wasn’t in the grips of anger or whatever, like, dude, why are you doing this, this isn’t right. And so my first exposure to the types of ideas from life coaching actually came when a really good friend of mine named Ben gave me a huge compilation of audio talks and audio content that was really, really helpful. But what’s interesting is that still kind of left the bulk of the workup to me. And so for many years, yet I slogged through all that. I’m a veracious reader. I read tons of books and I slowly by slowly started assembling sort of my toolbox for how I want to be better. Then my wife discovers life coaching.

Now you have to understand my, my gentle listeners that I have watched my wife ride the roller coaster of new ideas more than once. Yep. At one point in time, she was absolutely convinced she was going to be a photographer. It was a great idea. At another point in time, puppy re breeding came onto the table. You there’s there’s, there’s been a number of ideas that we’ve kind of gone up and down on. And at first I remember thinking to myself, oh, look, she has another fun pet project. I’ll I’ll, I’ll love her and support her. She goes through this way and we’ll see what happens. But to her credit, this one was a little bit different and she really did stick with it. And I, I’m kind of one of those more like I like to really observe and collect lots of data about something.

And I’m watching her transformation as she goes through this coaching. And, and you have to understand to be married to someone who goes through a life transformation. You see that transformation far more clearly than any anybody else ever can from the outside. Right. You know, when you’re married, you’re just so close. You see every detail, the good and the bad. I said, oh wow, that was something there. And so I started digging a little deeper first, starting by listening to podcast by Brooke. And it is hard for men to listen to a podcast by Brooke Castillo or Stacy or some of these ladies, wonderful ladies, but don’t speak the masculine language super well. Right. But nevertheless, I decided that given the results I saw in Sterling, it was worth something there. And as I dug in, what I discovered was a lot of the hard work I’d been doing was encoded in a much more efficient, much more direct technique through coaching now with coaching.

I mean, Hey, I’m still a hot mess. In some days, there’s some parts of me that are hot mess. If you look at me from the outside, you might not even see it, but I guarantee you it’s there. And what coaching, I think what enticed me to it was seeing the same transformative power of the journey I’d been on, but packaged into such a better package and such a more efficient delivery vehicle. And, and to be honest, I’ve always been the guy who sits there on the campfire and doesn’t wanna talk about sports, but wants to talk about the struggles that each of us men are having with our marriages, with our families, with whatever. And this just blew that open to a whole new level.

Sterling: (13:28)

Yeah. I think what you said, or at least what was true for me, that sounds similar is I had been reading all these self-help books and you’re right, like building this toolbox, but I didn’t understand why I wasn’t using them all the time. It’s like, I even knew what to do, but I wasn’t doing it. And I think that’s what life coaching showed me is it showed me that my thinking was creating these feelings that was driving in action is really mostly what it was. I was stuck in a overwhelm or stress or hopelessness. And then from those feelings I wasn’t using the tools. And so it was like the key that unlocked all the things that I had been learning previously. And then suddenly I was able to use them. And, you know, I think you’re right. Obviously there are moments that we don’t use them.

Right. And we still have those negative emotions or our, our mind is clouded. But now I just know how to get back to that place. I know how to get back to feeling willingness or conviction or focus or determination. And then I go use something I’ve learned to really improve my life. So what are some transformations that you’ve had for your clients? Cuz I’m, I’m always impressed at the like wide range of types of clients that you have just ages and jobs and everything. And so can you give us just a couple examples of, you know, a guy saying, Hey, I really want this result in my life and what work you did together.

Michael: (14:54)

I think the, I wanna start on a higher level, then I’ll zoom into some fun examples. I think one of the different things about men is we oftentimes really are unaware that we can have a whole series of models of thought feeling action and thought feeling actually that will all run in the background that we don’t even see happening. And we get stuck in this sort of average feeling of malaise of everything is not great. I’m just grumpy. I’m grumpy at my wife. I’m grabbing at my kids and I see this played out and the biggest discoveries I see again and again, and we slow that process down, open up and they see that this yucky experience they’re having isn’t mandatory. It can be different. I remember I’ll give you a few examples. There’s an elderly client of mine. He is in the autumn of his years and he was going through some rough stuff and he was just so angry.

Like I tell you the start of one particular session. I remember his face was just etched and angry lines. He was so upset about particular detail of his life. That was not going down in the way he thought was honorable and ethical. And we talked about, we opened it up and I remember the moment when he realized he had the power to choose how he wanted to feel and that he didn’t have to live in this darkness. And his face lit up like a four year old boy’s face on Christmas. We were coming up Christmas year soon. And it was just so magical. I just remember smiling and like starting to almost start laughing with him as he was like, I, I don’t have to be stuck here. I, I can choose to be a good and holy man who treats people honorably, even if I think they’re not treating me, like, of course you can.

And he loved it. I’ve seen stories from like a, a younger gentleman who isn’t married and is struggling with his identity. Why don’t I have a wife what’s wrong with me? And starting to dig down into some of the deeper identities he’s holding that maybe he’s bad with money. Maybe he thinks he’s not good enough. Maybe he thinks there’s that he’s unlovable. And then connect, pulling those thoughts up, pulling those feelings up, exposed in them both to the light of day to the Lord in the sacrament. And then also using them to understand more of his past is incredibly transformational. Like I, I see these guys who at the start, they’re just shut down and they’re like, Ugh, nothing good could ever come of this. But at, by, you know, maybe eight, nine to 10 weeks later on, they’re like, I’m going out to go do this thing cuz I can do it. And the transformation is so awesome. It’s it’s like setting prisoners free. You see guys that have these changes, they don’t even see that they’re there. And then they get set free from them and their faces are just transformed. It really is like the best job.

Sterling: (17:30)

It, it is. I, I say that all the time here and I just say it’s, it’s just so neat to get, to watch somebody experience like opening the door of a prison that they’re in and just getting to walk out and just being so free and so happy. So you are basically starting the men’s side of masters. What content are you starting with? And we, we only started, I think with three or three programs. So we have a ton of programs and masters now, but what did you decide was kind of the most important thing that you wanted to tackle first with these guys?

Michael: (18:03)

Absolutely. A and so I think I’ve kind of on a similar path and going down the same kind of model as you did, pun intended and so I start with an intro to the model for men and I think this is so important because right now, even life coach school, well it’s awesome. Teaches the model using feminine language. And so my goal is to go through and really hammer into all of us. Men’s Blockheads that yes, feelings are real. We have them, they matter and are worth the time to drag it up and put it on that F line because when you do your life changes, but I also have the other two big problems I’ve put up there and these ones are almost ubiquitous. As I said earlier, almost every client I’ve ever worked with has struggled with lust in one way or another.

Yeah. This is like the male sin of our age. And so I had to put a module out there, a class about conquering lust and the backup male stand of our age, I think is anger and anger for men that comes in a lot of different flavors. Like some of us like myself are type a personalities that get loud and flashy and like boil over and explode and then done move on. But some aren’t, but nevertheless, that anger is such poison and then there are marriages and our families that the class dealing with that I think is essential.

Sterling: (19:14)

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So teaching them that, the model, like the idea that our thoughts create results and then of course on lust and then anger. So I mean, I know how powerful that is and I know that you’ve had so much success with your clients. What should we tell a woman who’s listening and she’s thinking, oh my goodness, this sounds amazing. I would love it if my husband was willing to, to do that program, but he’s gonna be resistant. How could she talk to him about this? Cause I know for me, if I thought, if I thought I could buy a program that would fit you, okay, I’d be like, you have to do this. Right. But we both know now that having a manual for someone saying like, Hey, I want you to stop drinking so that I can be happy or Hey, I want you to not be angry. And if you weren’t angry, then I could be happy. Right? We’ve talked about that. You guys on the podcast, that’s just a manual. So how could we instead I drop the manual, say, I love you just the way that you are there, isn’t a problem, but there’s this thing. And I think it might be helpful for you. How could she approach him calmly? And what could she say that might, that he might listen to? And obviously don’t know everyone’s husband, but you know yourself and how I could have sold something to you like that

Michael: (20:35)

Two things come to mind quickly first is that this is a long term battle. Like husbands tend to be a little slower, not all of course, but tend to be a little more slow to dive into things. And as I said earlier in the story about me watching you, it was months that I watched you observed was paying attention before I even really started digging myself. But second off on a deeper level, I think what men want right now is hope. I think right now hope is almost unknown. We, we look around and it’s, here’s how the litany set of a man’s head goes. It goes something like this. I’ve got a great job. I’m married to a beautiful woman. I’m blessed with these wonderful children. I have this amazing house. I have more money, food and security than 99.9, 9% of all people of all time.

So why the heck am I upset? And like you get this trap where you’re like, I shouldn’t be upset, but I am. And I have no idea why. And so we’ve her heard a million different solve problem now by three easy payments of 9 99, buy these white pills. And so there’s this general lack of hope that there’s a real thing, cuz we don’t know what the problem is. Right. And I think just if nothing else helping to paint a picture for husband saying, you know, I, I see this in you and you yet be all you have to, you can’t make the stuff up. But like I seen you sometimes you get frustrated with this part of your life and I really do believe it can be better. And if you’re interested, I have someone love you to check out. That’s simple. It’s an invitation to hope.

Sterling: (22:03)

So when you just said that, by the way, I was kind of surprised because when you did your litany, I was expecting you to say all negative things and your things were pretty positive. So is that really what you were thinking before life coaching? Cause if I had to guess what you were thinking, I would’ve thought you would’ve said I’m like overrun with all these little children. I’m not feeling fulfilled in my job. My marriage isn’t really great. Like I thought you were gonna do that. Litaney so I was surprised that you went the other way. So is that because before? Yeah, tell

Michael: (22:32)

Me before like coaching that litany is under the surface. So before life coaching, that litany lives down there and you’re like, it becomes more of an identity. My wife doesn’t want to go to the bedroom with me. Oh, I’m a bad person. Like that’s not even a thought. That’s just an assumed reality. Like a man will put that into the sea line. That I’m a bad person because my wife doesn’t wanna go to the bedroom with me or you know, he’ll put into the sea line life with little babies, screaming and pooping and diarrhea all over the place is intrinsically horrible and will always be awful. And so like, those aren’t even regarded as conscious thoughts, at least not for me. I kind of knew like the training like you look at right now, I’m 40 years old. My understanding from talking to younger guys is this sort of mentality.

Still pervades. You go to college, you’re surrounded by pornography. You’re pumped with this message as a guy that your value comes from your sexual accomplishments. And like all this stuff just gets pumped in there. Not as you could control or choose this, but that this is like a prioritized science fact. This is how it works. And so you’ve got to be willing to slow down and actually pull some of these up to even be like, oh, maybe that’s not true. Maybe I can be a good husband. Even if my wife doesn’t want to do that with me, maybe I can be a good father if I don’t enjoy this part of childhood. And, and that’s, I think where the confusion comes in, a lot of men’s brains is they can in the abstract, like up in their head, they’re saying all the good, litany me and in their heart, they’re saying the bad, litany and the two don’t talk.

Sterling: (24:05)

Yeah, that, that sounds, that sounds spot on me. Right? That it’s, they’re just not even aware of the, that underlying ticker tape of negative thoughts. And they just think it’s facts.

Michael: (24:16)

Most men with a few blessed exceptions have had hammered into them. It is not appropriate for a men to even have feelings, let alone show them or discuss them or tell them to other people. It’s, it’s not until, you know, we start to get older and start to encounter with assume mayor’s therapy through coaching, through whatever that we suddenly gain this perspective that gosh, maybe, maybe it is okay to have feelings and then a deeper levels. It doesn’t matter if it’s okay or not. Cuz I do. But like that sort of discovery pro is extremely transformational, but also very scary for a guy. Very, very scary.

Sterling: (24:51)

Yeah. Okay. So listen ladies, we can’t promise that your husband’s gonna wanna give it a try. We don’t know. We’re kind of putting this out there. We’re gonna see you know, I know that Michael has had a lot of success with his clients and you know, we’re excited to put this content out as a, a course format and then to do group coaching. So it will be very similar to the way that we run masters, although it will have its own site. So the two won’t mix at all and what it’s gonna look like is, you know, you can sign up for masters for $49 a month. And then if you wanna add your spouse else to the account, we’re gonna offer it for $79. So instead of it being a hundred dollars for both of you, it’ll be $79 for both of you.

And then you both can be kind of going through this journey, you know, with a coach that is leading you through paying attention to your thoughts and examining what’s really going on in, in helping kind of challenge you and take things deeper. And for men, it sounds like they’re gonna start with the two most common struggles that there are. And then for those of you who haven’t joined the women’s side of masters, you know, we have courses in there on weight loss and minimalism and processing pain, which is, are a lot of women. They also don’t know how to feel their feelings. It’s interesting how many of our clients say that? And I think they just kind of cut it off. They just say, oh, I’m not gonna go there. And so we talk about processing pain as a way of moving forward in our lives. And then we have, oh goodness, what else? Raising saints is in there for parenting. And we are gearing up to do something very fun in January, Lorrisa and I are gonna announce that in next week’s podcast. So I’ll save it for her and I, but anything else you want the guys to know about your program? I kind of just wanna tell ’em try it. Like I just don’t think they could possibly know what it’s gonna be like without just trying it.

Michael: (26:52)

I think what I would actually first say is to the wives that if your husband agrees to try it, like that should be something you celebrate. Cuz here’s how it’s gonna go down. He’ll go watch videos; he’ll do so thinking he’ll come back and he’s gonna sit down. He’s gonna present this like face that says I’m about to say something very profound to you. He’s gonna say, I think I had a feeling today and your brain’s gonna be like, what the, what of course you did. This is old. Come on, get out there. But that’s like exactly the opposite response. I would recommend responses. You say mostly quietly and say, tell me more. And because as a guy goes through this, like he is hypersensitive to anything that sounds like judgment or condemnation as he’s starting to explore these feelings. And so as a wife, I just couldn’t encourage you.

Like I remember I’m gonna throw story on the bus here. Just a little tiny bit. some of the early work I was doing. I tried a couple times to say something like this. In fact, I think some of our marriage counseling sessions, this might come up and she’d be like, that’s it, that’s solid. It’s that’s your big profundity. And I’m like, I was like, ah, and this idea that for a guy, like it’s a totally different battle. It’s a battle in a different direction. And if he comes up and he even makes the littlest step, I’m not saying you gotta throw him apart, but just to sit there with them, be there with them and be very aware of what could appear as condemnation or judgment about it. But then what do you say to the guys? You’re like, dude, what if there’s even a chance? What if there’s a chance you really could feel better and understands better? Some of what’s going on because we all want that. But it’s so scary to even to admit the hope, but what if it is?

Sterling: (28:28)

Yeah. Yeah. And I think maybe just believing in them too. I really I think I’ve announced on the podcast that my goal for 2022 is to significantly improve our marriage. Right. That that’s gonna be one of my focuses. And one of the things that has already helped me so much in the last, I don’t know, two, three weeks as I’ve decided, that is to just love you the way that you are. Like I just really, cuz it’s so hard to do that. I, I wanna say like, but could you be better about these five things and that it would be easier. And instead of really just been looking at you and thinking like, I just love this guy so much the way he is, even if nothing changes, he’s the guy for me and, and God picked him for me and the kids and all of it.

And when you are sitting in that place and it is hard to get there. So I’m not saying that that’s an easy thing, but when you sit in that place and then you say, Hey, I found this thing, I think it might help you. Or you might like it. You’re not pinning your hopes on, I hope this program changes you and then we can be happy. Right? You’re gonna feel a, like a desperation if you’re coming from that place. Instead of just like, I love this guy and here’s this thing I think he might like, or it’s hard to say like it, because now we all kind of know that life coaching is it’s a little uncomfortable to go through it. But man, I love how empowered I feel after having learned those tools. Would you say that that’s the language that men might use? Do you think that you feel empowered in? It seems like in my mind, that’s not the word you’d

Michael: (30:02)

Use. Yeah. The word that oftentimes comes up with clients is control. And I think men are so desperate to because cuz here’s how I just tell the guys, they say, God made us to control ourselves. And then we screw that up. And when we screw that up, we try to control the world around us. Then get very frustrated when that doesn’t work. And so what they oftentimes find is that they can control one of my clients, I, I just met with him a few days ago. He was going through a situation that had happened before that we had coached on. He said this time when the kids and the wife did what the kids and the wife do, he was able to step outside of his normal response. Cause I said, whoa, I get to choose. I don’t have to go become the Hulk and you know, start smashing everything.

But I get to be like, oh I do have that control. And it was so powerful for him in that moment to realize, but I, I also wanted to throw out there one time just to set some good expectations. You don’t have to tell them this up front, but there are very few guys who I’ve worked with who somewhere around week seven to week nine, do not say, I can’t believe I’m paying you to do this. Michael, this is so painful. And this is so difficult to look into this part of, to myself. And I say, well, do you wanna stop? No, we’re not gonna stop. Yeah. So it is very painful, especially for guys to stare into these feelings that we’ve beaten down for so long, but it’s worth it

Sterling: (31:12)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s how I feel about our program and our one-on-one coaching is, it’s just, it’s so worth it. And that’s the biggest thing I wish I, I could tell men and women is having a better life is possible. And I think me two years ago was just so resigned. I was so resigned that this was it. This was it for me. This was it for us and the kids and all of it. And I just didn’t have a lot of hope that things could get better. And, and that’s what I would love to give to all of you. It’s just the hope that you can learn how to manage your thinking and enjoy your life. Really just the way that it is so much more than you do. And one more thing I wanna mention to the wives whose husbands just say, no, all right, like you go, maybe you’re in masters.

And you’re like, this is girl and it’s helped me. Will you do it? Maybe you’re not in masters, but now you think, Hey, this sounds great. I, I would love for him to be part of it. And he just says, no, you get to decide what you want to make that mean. Right. You get to decide what you want to think about him saying no, because you could decide that’s evidence that he doesn’t love me, He doesn’t want to improve that, He doesn’t care about our marriage. All of those are just thoughts. Right? We often ask our clients, what are you making that mean? And you could just simply listen to him, say no. And just think now isn’t the time. Or maybe this isn’t the thing for him. Right. And I would then just give it to the Lord and say, Lord, you just move his heart either to this program or something else that he needs. I love him. I know there’s a work you wanna do with him. And I just trust you to bring the right thing at the right time and just know that the Lord and your husband, they have their own relationship and they’re working things out. It doesn’t mean any of those things that we often make something mean. Do you have anything to add to that, Michael?

Michael: (33:11)

No. I think you’re spot on. I think men suffer from that just as much where we’ll take the slightest three words, our wife says and assume that it means that she’ll hate us for all time and it’s so hard to be patient, you know, as a spouse, you’re so close and you see the flaws of your spouse so clear then you’re like, if you would just do this, even you would be happier. And I can say that in our marriage I’ll volunteer there are plenty of examples and times when each of us has been patient and then later on chosen to be patient and almost without exception being patient, letting God work in his time, giving them time to kind of arrive to that point at their own pace, pays out so much better. And it’s brought us closer together than the reverse.

Sterling: (33:55)

Yeah, absolutely. Can I I just wanna ask you, because I think that they would want to know what is one of the biggest changes you’ve seen in me since I’ve found life coaching?

Michael: (34:06)

I think one of the biggest changes I’ve seen in Sterling. Sterling used to use victim language a lot. Mm. She would oftentimes, without even realizing it, describe a situation as if she were utterly helpless and couldn’t do anything about it. And it frustrated me at deal because I’d be like, well, clearly there are some things you can do about it. But the side effect of pulling out of that victim language kind of mentality is that she’s happier. Like nobody wants to be a victim. I mean maybe like on some subtle psychological way, we have some there, but on, on a deeper level, we don’t want that. And so as I watch this transformation and she has take, can more control over different parts of her lives, then all of a sudden bad news, doesn’t put her down as hard. Like, you know, I love my wife dearly.

Michael: (34:49)

Sometimes she’s up and down, you know, the emotional swings are there. And I remember years ago that something bad happening would crush her and now it’s still something bad, but it doesn’t have that same kind of crush because she know she can control how she responds to it. And that’s been very transformational. And also, I’ll be honest, just speaking as a husband makes me want to be near her a lot more like, you know, as a husband, you wanna come up and snuggle with a smiling wife, much more so than an angry face wife. So that’s pretty awesome too.

Sterling: (35:17)

Yeah. Yeah. I just figured they’d want to know that. Sorry, you guys there’s like sawing happening in the background. I don’t know if you can hear that. But I just really appreciate you coming on here. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else they’d love to know about you, cuz they’ve been like, hearing me talk about you for seven years and I’m just trying to think like what do they, what do they wonder about what Michael thinks? Maybe I will have you describe, I don’t know something about those back to back pregnancies or like your experience of it or how you reflect on it now just cuz you know, they kind of lived with me through all of that and, and saw how hard it was and you know, you were such a hero during that time kind of single parenting, all of the kids for almost three straight years. Is there anything you wanna share about that?

Michael: (36:08)

Yeah. I, I think I could throw something out there. My experience and my personality or not necessarily the typical dad role. Like, you know, my experience has always been prior to pregnancy’s death that if I want to take the kids and go do something, I just do it. Like I’ve always been very empowered that way, but what really happened, I think with The back to back pregnancies and, and what was, you know, a year and a half, almost a bedrest time was that God kind of took me up and said, no, you can’t do it all. And of course I didn’t like that message. And so I fought against that message and I said, I don’t want that message. And so what happens whenever we fight against something that’s really yuckies. I actually think that I developed a fair bit of actual trauma from that. Yeah. And so I’ll, I’m, I’m perfectly willing to talk about, I went to therapy because of what happened during those pregnancies, like trying to run a contracting business by myself while taking care of first three, then four, then five small all children all at the same time as taking care of my wife, cleaning the house, doing all, like I went a little crazy.

Yeah. And so I think when I look back on it, some of that was God humbling me. Most of my life, I’ve been like, you know, super power, kind of like achiever, get everything done. And God eventually said, really, you think it’s all about you? Do you? And that, that obviously was no longer all about me. I fell short and remember that last pregnancy, when I finally broke down and said, fine, let’s start paying for help. We had a couple of younger gals come over to help watch the kids. So I’d have some time to go out and do the actual business. We finally started now and keep it come deliver meals. You know, there’s a humbling process that comes there and I realized Sterling and I have a role revers on this. We have so many marriages where a wife really has to get so much more of it done, but whatever the situation is, you know, you gotta love your spouse where they are. And I thought I was loving Sterling by doing all this stuff. And what happened was I kind of lost it and I’m not really was loving her in that moment. Like in that or those moment. I wish it was one moment in that time period. And instead of the stuff, I think if I just tried harder to be with her and been let more of the stuff go, that might have been pretty helpful.

Sterling: (38:14)

Yeah. Well, that’s so interesting. And I think, you know, obviously I’ve had some parallel to that too. I think that time really God showed us that we just needed him so much. I mean, I know that my prayer life grew so much in that time because I just, I needed it to, I needed to rely on that and I didn’t know how we were gonna do it and how we were gonna make it through. And you know, you’re just kind of living day to day at that point. And you know, I’m really proud of us for what we’ve done and how much we’ve talked about it and how much we’ve kind of drawn a line and said, okay, that happened, but who do we want to be now? And so I just wanna give some of you who are going through a really dark time either personally or in your marriage or with your family.

And it just feels like it’s never gonna get better. You know, here we are, we’re two years out. Peter’s two in a, a couple months. So, you know, we’re two years out and I think you’re right, Michael, we’re still repairing a lot of things, but man, things are so much better. And you know, once you get your head above water, you can really begin connecting again and planning again and finding hope again. And I feel like I have more hope than I’ve ever had before. And particularly just for you and I, and so that does come. It does come. I don’t know if you wanna add to that. Oh,

Michael: (39:41)

One of those great spouse moments where you’re like, oh, that was my moment. Yeah. That happens a lot. Especially as guys, you know, you’ll sit down at the couch with your husband, you’ll be like, I’m sharing this beautiful part of myself and the husband just sit there, nods. Yep. I guarantee you, there’s something going through his head. He’s probably afraid to, because that’s exactly what just happened right here. Mm that’s funny. And I think what I would add to that is we have indeed come so far. Marriage is always difficult. And I think one mistake not mistake. One aspect of being a guy is we tend not to show when we’re in pain. That tends to be much more hidden. And just Sterling said, try to be there, try to love him. I can almost guarantee whatever’s going through his head in his experience is different than what it looks like on the outside.

Sterling: (40:29)

Yeah. Yeah. There’s some hope too. You guys just, I just think husbands care so much more than we think that they do, and there’s so much more going on with them. And hopefully this we’re work that Michael’s doing will help them uncover that and create, you know, opportunities for you guys to communicate and understand each other so much more. So if you wanna sign up for Masters, you know, go to Made for Greatness.co, you guys can see that and you can sign up for you and then you can sign up for your husband as well. I think it’s important to ask him, don’t just do it and then give it to him. I think he has to have a little bit of buy-in on that. And then in the show notes, we will also link up Michael’s website and his podcast. He has a podcast called Catholic life coach for men. So if your husband is not listening to that, grab his phone, put it on there. I think it’s so fantastic. You have such great reviews and and I know that it is such a gift to Catholic men. Is there anything else you wanna say before we

Michael: (41:25)

Go, I’ll end with the best words of all. I love you, honey.

Sterling: (41:29)

I love you. This was fun. And we just can’t wait to see the fruit that comes out of this. You know, our, our dream Lorissa, me and Michael is really to just help Catholic families to be more of who God is calling them to be. And we think, you know, thought work is really one of the key components to doing that. So I love you too. Thank you for joining us and ladies remember that you were made for greatness.