Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, cybersecurity thought leader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and thrive in a digital world. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm very pleased to have Josh with me today. Josh is a men's coach. He's transforming people's lives, specifically men that have gone through divorce. Josh has many talents and gifts to share and I'm very, very excited to have have him here, not only to being a coach, though, I want to do a shout out to the fact that he's also a podcast host, and he hosts the excellent Derelict podcast. So welcome. Welcome, Josh.

Brett Gallant

Thanks, Brett. Thanks for having me.

Josh Tomeoni

Yeah. So Josh, I'm very happy that you signed up to come in and join the Adaptive Mindset. And I want to dig into a little bit with you on where you've had some mindset shifts along the way, where you've adapted and found that best 10x version of you. And perhaps you can share some of your history and the why and how you make a difference. on people's lives, which I know you're doing every day.

Brett Gallant

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Let's see, where do I start? It's such a big question. So I would say maybe a good place to start is in my mid-30s, I went through a pretty contentious divorce. And that was after being married to that person for a very long time. We got together when we were, when I was 19 years old, I met her when I was 18. Yeah. Got married when I was 22 and then divorced in mid thirties. And I came from a very religious Christian conservative household where you get married and you don't ever get divorced. It wasn't an option.

Yeah.

So not a lot of people in the family have been divorced, even though a few have. And so I honestly thought my life was over. I had kids, which I think saved me. I'm not sure what I would have done, nor do I necessarily want to know what I would have done if I didn't have kids, to be honest. They're the ones that really pulled me through the whole thing. Because I really thought I was a very codependent person at the time. And I thought that now that the marriage was over, basically my life was over.

Yeah.

So that basically kicked me into high gear for the things that I had never done before in my life, therapy, coaching mentors. I did some of, you know, I had some mentors off and on throughout my life, but I never really had a coach. I never really had anyone that really guided me through processes. And so I got into therapy. Um, I got into 12 step for a long time for some of my addictions and other issues that I was dealing with. And I basically went on a journey for several years just trying to figure out who I was. Who am I after this divorce? Who am I outside of my marriage? And I'm wondering, but I think a lot of middle-aged guys especially could probably understand this and could probably understand you know, just that idea of identity being all wrapped up in the family, all wrapped up in your spouse and your kids and just your work and everything that you're doing. Right. And that's really where my identity was. So when all of that got ripped away from me, uh, not only, you know, my, my wife and my kids for a while, and now I spend a lot of time with them, but for a while I did it. and friends and church and everything just kind of went away.

So I'm taken away from you.

Yeah. So I had to figure out who am I? Who am I without all of this? Who is actually Josh, right? Not just the businessman Josh. I've owned companies most of my life, not businessman Josh, not married Josh, not dad Josh, just Josh. Who is Josh? And it took several years. And honestly, even though I ended up getting some coaches eventually, I didn't have any when I was going through my divorce. And it's part of the reason I coach men going through divorce right now is because I'm really trying to be there for them when I didn't have that person. I try to be there for guys in their darkest of days when I didn't have somebody like that. A lot of people, you know, they'll have lawyers and even therapists and other people, but they don't have a coach helping them through that. And honestly, I would have saved years if I would have. I wish that I would have because I would have saved years of trial and error and difficult things. So I'll fast forward that a little bit. So then I'm about to turn 40 a couple years ago and thinking to myself, okay, now I think I have a much better understanding of who I am. I'm still figuring it out every single day. as maybe we all are. But I have a much better understanding of who I am now. What really is my mission in life? And I had to take a really long, hard look at my life and just say, is this what I'm doing? Not just work, but everything else. Is this really the mission of my life? And I asked myself a very simple question, Brad. I was about to turn 40. And my simple question was, what is your mission in life? And what are you doing with your life when you're 50? So I don't want to give myself, you know, a month or a year, but I wanted to give myself a decade to try to figure that out. A wise man once said that most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10. So I take that to heart and I thought, okay, what am I doing for the next 10 years? And the thing that just kept coming back and back and back and back was the fact that I'd mentored and coached men my entire life without even really knowing it. And I realized, well, I went through something really brutal for me. That divorce was really difficult. It really rocked my world. And a lot of men go through it and don't know where to turn. Yes. We also live in a society where it seems like it's okay for a woman to go get help. whether it's a therapy group or a victim support group or whatever else. But if a man does it, from my experience at least, usually the response is, what is wrong with you? What did you do?

Exactly. And it's okay to get help.

It doesn't mean that you're weak. I think a lot of men think like, hey, I'm weak and I can't do this myself. No, no, that has nothing to do with it. It's about being efficient. I think of it like business, right? Why go out and try to recreate the wheel? If somebody else successful has already done what you're trying to do, just watch them and copy them and learn from them. It's the same way. I think it's insane. that there isn't a bigger model for divorce coaching. I think it's crazy. Like, this is one of the most traumatic events.

It's almost like it's a taboo, but there's nothing more normal than helping somebody.

Right.

Like when somebody's in their, probably in some of the darkest times, that's when people need help, guidance, and it's shown there's another pathway. There's a way through this and being that 10X version of you. Like there's hope. There's hope. Even when it's hard.

There's hope. You know, a lot of people think like, well, I have an attorney and I have the courts and I have a mediator and I have all these people. That's great. None of those people are trying to help you become the best 2.0 version of yourself. Including your therapist, by the way. A lot of people think, well, I have a therapist. That's great. A therapist's job is to look in reverse, to look at your past trauma and the trauma that's still affecting you in order to get you to the present day. Their job is not to move you to the future. Now, some therapists disagree with me on this and the only reason they do is because they like pitching it or selling it like they're trying to help you in the future. But the only way a therapist gets paid is if you continue to have stuff from your past that they have to help you deal with. to the present. So I'm not against therapy. I went to therapy for years and it was very helpful for me because I had a lot of stuff from my past that had to get repaired. So I'm a full fan of therapy, but I'm not a fan of therapy to try to coach somebody into the future because it doesn't work.

They're two different, two different things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Two different things. And you're not going to go to your lawyer when you're going through a divorce in order to help become the next best version of yourself. That's not their job. Their job is to help you get through the legal process of going through a divorce. And trust me, lawyers absolutely hate anything that even smells like that. Like they just want to build their clients as much as they can in order to help them get through the process and then move on to the next one. Yeah.

I think this is a really unique coaching area that you do because I know with what you're doing, It's like men are naturally, we don't talk about our feelings or emotions or where we want to go. And like you said earlier, it's taboo. And so you have an unlimited reach of people that you can help. But at the same time, the challenge is to show up and inspire people to recognize, hey, it's okay to talk to someone like Josh. to have that mentor, that coach, to be that 2x or 10x version of you. And that's the challenge. And also, as a man, sometimes we feel like, I don't want to show my emotions or I don't want to, you know, like we wear things so much right deep down and it's hard to share.

Yeah, absolutely. And we have something in society right now, but I don't think it's new in the sense that you find people on extremes like you usually do anyway. Right. And on this side of the extreme is kind of the stoic, like we don't feel any emotions. We just do our thing. We do our duty. We do our work. We do our job. Yeah, we just get stuff done. And a lot of that shows up on social media because it's like, just hit the gym, get the abs, build the business, everything else will work out. But it really has nothing to do with your emotion, emotional intelligence, or what you're dealing with, or how you becoming a better person mentally, spiritually. right? Yeah. And then the other side is kind of this open ended therapeutic experience of just feeling all of my emotions and being triggered and just being open to whatever's happening, which is also very, very not helpful, right? Because this is not actually helping you move forward. Neither is this. So this helps you move forward a little bit. This helps you move forward with business or if you want to get six pack abs or whatever it else. And trust me, I'm very much a driver type A type person. So I can very much get in this mode and be like, forget all the emotions. None of those matter. Let's just get stuff done. And then I can also be the guy that just like gets stuck over here every once in a while and like gets stuck in my thoughts and my fears and my depression and my anxiety and whatever else it is. But there's something in the middle here where You're feeling, you're experiencing these emotions, you're being open to them, you realize that they're happening, you deal with them in order to move on. And that's what I don't see a lot of in society right now. Because most of social media and most of the influencers out there, it's really how many male influencers do you see that aren't either talking about you getting a better body or getting a better business? It's the majority of them. Here's how to get a better body. Here's how to get a better business. What about everything else? What about your soul? What about your mind? What about dealing with the stuff that you're not really dealing with?

And I think that's where the brilliance of your podcast and what I'm trying to do with the mindset, you know, mindset is a muscle and we have this incredible gift between in our heads and our brains and we have to exercise that. and just keep being the best versions of us, but also recognizing the same time, sometimes we're on an island and it's okay to get help. It's okay to give Josh a call.

And you know, I'll add something to that too, Brett. It's not like just for the guys listening. Yeah. Getting help is not weakness. Getting help is strength.

Absolutely.

Yeah. If you have a business that's doing a million a year in revenue and you want to grow it to a hundred million of revenue, what are you going to do? Is it weak for you to go to a man that built a business to a hundred million of revenue to ask him how he did it and have him coach you? Absolutely not. Most men will be like, yes, that makes sense. then why wouldn't you do it with a divorce process where you're going through the worst possible moment of your life? Hopefully you're only going to go through this once, even though it happens two, three, four times with a lot of people, but hopefully you're only going to go through this once. Why not do it right? So one of the things too, Brett, and I'll offer this to your crew as well. If anyone listening or watching wants If you want to reach out to me on Instagram is the best way to do it. I'm Josh, the derelict. You can add it to the show notes later if you want. Absolutely. Well, just go to Josh, the derelict. Send me a message that says divorce. I'm happy to send you my ebook that I wrote last year. So I wrote the five traps that men face when going through divorce and how to triumph over them. It's a very short book. It's like 30 pages and each page doesn't have a whole lot of words on it. It's very easy read. Happy to send it for free. It's on Amazon right now if you want to go buy it. But here's the reason I'm bringing up that point. When I wrote that book, I already knew what the traps were, because I've worked with enough men going through this process. But what I also did is I also decided to go out and just interview a couple dozen people, friends, business partners, people that I've coached, et cetera. And I asked them, what are the biggest mistakes that you made going through your divorce, men and women alike? I also interviewed people like attorneys, therapists, and asked them what their experience of their clients was. So I did it with a couple dozen people. And it's amazing, every single one of them had a top number one, and it's trap number five. And the top number one piece was getting into a relationship too soon. And it doesn't matter if anybody was a day out of their marriage, or there are two years out of their marriage, or anything in between, there's still the same answer. Which I thought was really interesting. I was like, how could that possibly be true a year later, two years later, however many years later? And then I realized something. The reason why is because either men are on the stoic side, just ignoring everything, ignoring the emotions and just moving forward and just getting into another relationship and figuring stuff out. without actually dealing with what's going on. Or they're in this therapeutic, like, I'm just going to be in this emotional la-la land for the rest of my life thing. So I need to go get into another relationship because that person needs to complete me because I'm not complete by myself. So what I realized with the answer was the answer that I've already seen in all the guys that I coach. And that is people just don't spend enough time or have enough coaching figuring out what does the next level of my relationship with myself look like? And the only way you can build that relationship, there's only two ways. I firmly believe this. If you want to get to the next level of yourself, you have to build the best relationship, the most loving, kind, authentic, et cetera, relationship with yourself and your higher power. Whatever you call that higher power, it doesn't matter if it's God, I'm not talking religion here, it could be God, universe, higher power, whatever it is, just something that's bigger than you. If you say, Josh, there's nothing that's bigger than me, then you're an egotistical narcissist and I never want to talk to you. There is something bigger than you. And the only way to move to the next best level of yourself is to authentically have a loving relationship with yourself and your higher power. That's it. And what most people do is they go to something else. So this stoic guy will often go to work. Like, I'm just going to work harder. I'm just going to build a bigger business. I'm just going to have better abs. I'm going to do, which is why it works on social media. Every time I want to just test something on social media, I will throw out a video every once in a while about building business or building your body. It always outperforms all the other videos I do every single time. Because it's just this easy, like, oh, just do this, just do it. And you're not actually dealing with anything. Or they go the other way and they're like, yeah, I don't want to spend time trying to figure all this stuff out. That seems way too difficult. So I'm going to get into another relationship to Medicaid. I'm going to, you know, medicate another way, whether it's shopping or travel or drugs or alcohol or whatever. It's very few people. And trust me, I've definitely made this mistake and failed at this more times than I can count. Very few people actually go in the middle and they're like, okay, no, I'm actually just going to deal with the hard stuff. deal with the hard stuff of how I am becoming the next best version of myself. And frankly, here's the thing, and you know this, Brett, if you don't do it, it is so much harder the next time the universe tells you to do it.

Absolutely. There's that quiet voice that's calling out to you. And I think it's a whisper. It's whispering. There's more for you. There's more. But a lot of times we look for the easy way. And what we have to recognize in all this time, the truth is you have to do the hard things. And when you do the hard things, everything becomes easier. So it's that recognition that when you face that truth, you can come and be that 10X version of you.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

But at the same time, it's that whole paradigm paradox that we don't take that time to recognize that we need to put our oxygen mask on. And my longtime business coach said, Brett, you need to put your oxygen mask on. And I looked at him. Well, actually we were talking on the phone. I said, Dave, what do you mean? It's like the airplane, Brett. What do they say when you first get in, when they do the presentation? In case of an emergency, before you help somebody else, put the oxygen mask on. So you put that oxygen mask on first as a man or even a woman, but here particularly we're talking about men. We have to put our mask on so we can help and serve. And we forget that. And we bury ourselves, like you were saying, sometimes a stoic man in work or whatever vice, but we forget to do the hard things.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, a lot of guys know this, and a lot of guys have heard this analogy, obviously, of the oxygen mask as well, right? But what I think a lot of guys get stuck on is, well, I am putting on the oxygen mask. I'm going to work. I'm building my business. I'm making it an empire. I'm doing whatever. Okay. That might be part of it. But if you're doing that without actually working on the most often becoming the most authentic version of yourself, you're destroying every relationship that you have in every person in your life in the process. So if you're a father, that is a terrible way to be a father.

Yeah.

It just is.

Yeah.

I just did a post. It might've even been this morning, encouraging dads to take their daughters on dates while they still can. So my daughters are getting to the age where in a few years they're, they're not going to want to. And then a few years after that, they're going to be adults. Right. And one of the reasons why is because advice, man, they can listen to this. Yeah. The, the, the deal is where do you want your daughter to learn what a man is? Who do you want them to learn that from? Because they're either going to learn it from you and the time that you spend with them and the amount of time that you are with them, being present with them, treating them the way that you want other men to treat them, or they're going to learn it from that first guy. Who do you think is going to do a better job? And most guys, so many guys get so stuck. And that's not just true of daughters. Obviously show your son how to be a man as well. I have daughters and a son, but so many guys get so stuck on just building this empire. And it might not even be for egotistical reasons. Maybe they just want to build it. That's fine. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but they get so stuck on building this empire that they miss everything around the way.

I came back from a hockey tournament yesterday. And my wife took my daughter, my youngest daughter, I have two beautiful daughters, to a hockey tournament in another city. I took my son to another tournament. I came back and I said, Grace, my nine-year-old, do you want to go for a walk? She said, yes, daddy. And we went for a 30-minute walk and we talked and we had such a beautiful, moments together. She went to the park, she wanted to go up to the very top of the hill, came to the park, and she showed me how to do her Spider-Man finishing move going off the swing. We've got to make time for our kids. That's the most important.

You do. And, and, you know, let's just speak to, I'm going to speak to divorced dads here for a second as well, because obviously I coach men past just going through the divorce process. So if you're divorced, feel free to reach out. Honestly, even this ebook, if you're divorced at all, reach out to me anyway and get it because you're going to find stuff in this ebook that you're still not doing, even if you've been divorced for 10 years. So I'm happy to give it to you. So here's, You know, when I first went through my divorce, it was really difficult not to be the Disneyland dad is what they call it. Right. Where every time the kids come to my house, it just becomes like Disneyland. Like, let's just have fun and let's just be adventurous and like no rules and no, you know, whatever, because I want to make sure that they like me. And a lot of that is born out of insecurity because I'm insecure that my kids are going to like me and that they're going to have fun with me and all these sort of things. So I feel like I have to put on the spectacle. when they're with me. And to your point, Brett, that's not what they want. It's not ever what they want. All they want, they want you and they just want a little time with you. And it doesn't even have to be, it obviously doesn't have to be Disneyland because you just gave a great example of a half an hour walk. And I would say it could be even less than that as well. It could just be a five minute intentional conversation where I'm just having a conversation with my daughter. Now, of course, there's varying degrees of this. Now, here's the thing with divorced dads, especially if you're not in a relationship. So me, myself, I'm not in a relationship right now and I'm divorced and I have my kids almost half time. So what does that mean? That means that there's a lot of things going on with three children ranging from eight to 12 when they're at my house, Just me. Just trying to be a taxi cab driver after school is difficult, right? Just for hours.

Yeah.

Because they're all in activities and they all do their things and everything else, which makes it just time-wise much more difficult to go on dates. So when I tell people to go on dates, I'm really telling myself, I'm reminding myself as well, how extremely important this is. And, you know, my, I remember a guy told me this years ago, that one of the things he did was exactly what you just said, Brett. He has three kids as well. And he said, what he would do is he would just pick one of them and just say, Hey, do you want to go for a walk around the block? and let the other two kids stay there. Now that may or may not work for you, depending on how old your kids are. It works for me though. So I can leave the phone with my 12 year old. If he has any problems, you know, the 12 and the eight year old can stay home. I can take the 10 year old, right. Or, or vice versa. But you can just walk around the block.

And that's how it is sometimes. For me, I'm a father of five children, so life is busy. But sometimes for my oldest boy, it's just a matter of, hey buddy, do you want to go out for a hot chocolate? or, hey, do you want to go for a drive? Let's go for a drive. And he's 17, so what we used to do, I'd take him for a hike, but he's getting older and independent, so we could still get him on a trip for hot chocolate sometimes. Yeah.

It can be simple. That's the point. The point is it can be simple, but it has to be done. That's the thing. So, you know, if you're out there building your empire, that's great, but take a little time for the kids. It doesn't have to be a lot. It just has to be very intentional. So I, I made the choice a long time ago when I went through my divorce, that when my kids were with me, I was going to spend as much time with them as humanly possible. Now that's probably cost me millions in business for that decision, but I don't care because my main job. Yeah. it's the best investment I've ever made. And I don't, I don't care about dividends for myself. I really just want to be able to be the best dad for my kids so they can have the best chance in life. That's important to me. And I know a lot of guys, especially guys that are big, you know, like really busy and they have a lot of businesses and they're influencers and all this will disagree with this statement because a lot of them will just talk about how they just need to spend a little teeny time with their kids. And it's not that important. And I just couldn't disagree more. I just couldn't because what, uh, what else is my job? Yes, of course. I want to help more men, but if I help a little bit less men, but then also able to bring my kids the way that I want them to be raised. And the other thing too, with a divorced dad that people need to let people know is that you're not going to be in tune with your ex spouse on every single thing that you do. No. And if it's worse and you have a contentious relationship like I do with mine, then you only get the time that you have with them. Here's the thing that a lot of married guys I don't think realize. Most guys that go through divorce either become worse fathers or better fathers. And from my experience, most of them become better fathers. And I think the reason why is probably the reason I became a better father. And that was when you have less time with someone, it's more precious. And you realize, oh, wow, I only have this amount of time. I've been thinking about this a lot with my parents, specifically my dad, because he's 10 years older than my mom. And my dad is 85 years old. Yeah. Now he's generally healthy and doing well and everything else, but he's still 85 years old, which means I don't know how much longer he's going to be around. So that builds a sense of urgency for me to spend time with him, for me to get my kids to spend time with him. And the same thing, as I think about my kids, my oldest is now 12, my son. So he's going to be out of the house in just a couple of years. And I already don't get 24 seven with them. And when you do, you just kind of take advantage of it. I found the same thing with relationships. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever be in a relationship ever again where I'm with somebody 24-7. Never. I will never do it. Not even seven days a week. And that's probably a controversial opinion. I just don't wanna be in a relationship with somebody seven days a week ever again. And the reason why is because I find that space, that time, that break for me to be myself and recharge and put on my oxygen mask and make sure that I'm the most authentic version of myself makes me a better person when I'm with those people. That's how my best relationships have now worked post-divorce. That's how my best relationship with my kids work. So your kids are gonna be gone before you know it.

Yep. And I connect with that a lot. I've gone through a personal transformation since October 2023. I've released 120 pounds. Oh, wow. Forever. Wow. Okay. Wow. learned that the best gift I can do for my family and for the greater community is to make sure I put myself first so I can serve. So I intentionally will go out for two hours and go for a hike, go for an hour and a half. I'll get up at five in the morning and go grind at the gym. And every time I do that, I've transformed my life. I transform how I show up. I have even more energy. to serve and connect with my daughter and my children. And so I know that we sometimes as fathers and men, we get lost in ourselves and say, we gotta do this, we gotta be this for everybody, but we gotta hold on, gotta hold on that I gotta be this for me.

Well, and I think that there's this idea too, which, which I also understand, cause that can be taken too far, right? This could be taken into a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic thing to where the whole world revolves around me. And that's, that's not what we're talking about at all here. So what we're talking, I think here's the key distinction to make sure that people understand in their minds, at least this is helpful for me. And that is when I'm trying to be most authentically myself, heal myself, heal myself, my relationship with myself, my relationship, my higher power, making sure that I'm becoming the best version of me. That's an order for me to be a better version for everybody else. It's not just for me. And I think that's the, the difference is the intent.

Exactly. Yes. The intent, you said it brilliantly right there. The intention, why are you doing it? Yes. You're doing it for you. but you're doing it for the greater benefit for everybody around you at the same time. Cause when you give that oxygen to you, you show up.

Well, like you, so like you said, obviously releasing 120 pounds is a huge health benefit. Congratulations. That's amazing. That's a huge health benefit. That's really going to help you. Yep. And it's also really going to help your family. You're going to be around longer. You're going to have less issues. It's even the simple things like, I'm sure you've noticed just how much more focused and present you can be with your family.

Oh, well, case in point. Remember that example of me going for the walk? I would avoid going for a walk and taking the kids would ask me, daddy, let's go to the park. And I'd say, I can't, I'm busy, but I didn't want to go because I was out of breath. Couldn't go. I was 349 pounds. Didn't want to go. And now it's like, let's go. And I push and I get out there and we go and push them on the swings. And I just relish those times to go. And, and it's, it's so fun. It's amazing being there and having that, that conversation when I'm walking with them.

Absolutely.

Only things that come out of their, their mouths, like my youngest, my youngest children are six and nine. So you, you know, you know what that's like. It's just amazing when it comes out of their mouths. Yeah. So yeah.

It's true. And, and the, the thing that, so. You know, I, I talk about on my podcast a lot and I'm very vulnerable about failures and struggles and everything else that I go through because I think that men kind of suck at it. So I'm trying to just help other men be okay with it. And it's not to like, you know, be depressive or anything else. It's just that the best times that I've ever grown into the best version of myself is when I failed and when I've struggled and when I've messed something up every single time. And on that note, for the last, I don't know, eight months or so, it's been an extremely busy time for me in business. And we were actually just talking about this before the podcast, running two companies and just having a lot of things going on. And one of the things that's been very challenging for me is to be as present with my children when they're with me. Because again, it's not timing, it's about how present am I? And if I'm thinking about 8 million other things, or like to your point, even having that barrier of I'm out of breath and I can't even go for this walk, is already putting up blinders to even be able to be present with your kids. Yeah. And it's the same for me. Like if, if I'm so caught up in whatever I need to be doing work wise, which is where a lot of this has come from, then I just don't even like see or hear what my kids are saying. And it's those little, it's not perfect.

Your mind is with that, that it is, it is.

And I don't know about you, you have more kids than I do, but I've noticed with my kids for the most part, If I ask them questions, I don't get a whole lot out of it. Yeah. Especially the, some of the age difference, especially with some of the ages. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But what I get more out of is kind of just random. Like we're present, we're staying together. And then all of a sudden daddy, just out of nowhere. And if, if I am, my ADHD entrepreneurial self and I'm like, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. And I can't, and I'm not even there with them. Then I miss it. I miss the question. I miss the opportunity to have a conversation about it. I miss whatever it is that they want to learn about. You miss those special moments.

I, uh, my wife, purchased a sticker for my car when she was in Vermont a year ago. It says, I like pooping in the woods. And she put it on my vehicle for, it was there for two weeks and I didn't know about it. So I was trying to figure it out. And then my, he was five at the time. He said, he knew what the sticker said, and he said, mommy, I don't like pooping in the woods, but I like peeing in the park. And that just came out of the blue randomly. And you know, when that happened, I took the two of the youngest up to the park, 10 minute walk from our house, and he really had to go. And I said, David, just go pee on the tree. And that was four or five months later. And he told my wife that it just comes out of these random moments that are so special and funny.

Yeah, it's hilarious too. And you know, a lot of those random funny moments I found turn into deeper life lesson moments. that if I'm so distracted on whatever it is I'm doing, whether I'm trying to get a six pack or I'm trying to build my empire or whatever, just distracted, you miss them.

Well, yeah. And like the beauty of what you're doing when you're helping these men, we forget, you know, we're circling around children, but right now our children are our legacy. And if we, like in your case, you have three beautiful children, If you're inspiring them and setting the vision, who's to say from what you're teaching, what if they go out and help millions of people, or because you raised them the way that you are, that they help just one person because of what you taught them?

And what's the domino effect of that to your point? What if they help just that one person and that that one person goes and helps millions of people, right?

Isn't that incredible?

You know, it is, it is incredible. This is, so again, I wrote the book, five traps going through the divorce. Number four is turning a blind eye to your kids. It's, it's all about being present with your kids. It's all about how easy it is and distracting it can be when you're going through this insanely difficult process to not be present with where they're at. and how difficult this is for them. And this isn't just divorce, this is in general with your kid.

Yeah, and I can say that with all... And our society is so focused on having women do this.

Yeah. And so not focused on men do. Even the men that I respect, appreciate, I watch their videos online. Yeah. I can't tell you like, if, if I, I think I'm thinking about like the top 10 really well-known people, even some of my coaches, et cetera, the amount of conversations, even did my video just turn off again. Sorry about that, Brett. I don't know what's going on. Hey, if I look at all of the people that are even well-known influencers, even some of my coaches, I'm in a business coaching program with a very well-known influencer online, and he's fantastic and amazing. And I respect them and they're wise, respectful, amazing men, men that I want to be like. Yeah. But if I took all of those men, let's say the top 10 men in that category for me, if I took all of those men and counted the amount of times that they talked about what they're doing as a dad, I could probably do that in one hand. Cause they're just not like, usually the only posts are like a post of me and the kids. Hey, here we are having fun, but not like, what are you teaching your kids? What are you talking to your kids about? How are you being that? It's always about business, working out, right? Those things.

Yeah. There's that other side that we neglect to talk about, which is because we're men and we're not supposed to talk about it.

Apparently we're only, we're only supposed to talk about it. The women are supposed to nurture the kids. It's why the court system still favors women. As far as kids go, as far as the amount of time that they get with kids, amount of custody, you can disagree with me on all you want. Just look at the statistics. It's still gears towards women. Why? Why is it the woman's job to do that now? Do women have special gifts that they can help? Are they more nurturing generally? Of course they are. Yes, generally speaking, then men, that's a feminine trait, right? So I get that aspect. But why is there not more focus on how men are raising their children, especially men that are trying to help other men? I mean, if I never went online and talked about things like taking my daughters on dates and talking about how to be a good father, how could I possibly help men that are going through divorce that have children? But it's this idea of, oh no, if it's not about business, if it's not about my body, forget it. Really?

Yeah, there's a whole other side that we need. It's so important to nurture and not lose sight of that. And it's that stereotypical taboo that we're not, it's not okay to show that other side, vulnerable. I don't know if it's vulnerable, but that other nurturing side, that mentor side, you know, being this heroic dad that also is more.

I think it's, I think it's the vulnerability piece. So I started my podcast as a failure podcast. The idea behind the podcast was I'm tired of seeing all these business guys that are going up there talking about all their success and talk about how they had a failure 20 years ago. Why are people not talking about their failures and their struggles real time as they're going through them? Those are the people I want to hear from. What are you struggling with right now? How are you dealing with it? And how are you becoming the best version 2.0 of yourself right now? Not how you did it 20 years ago, because you don't remember how you did it 20 years ago. You created a story in your mind about how you did it 20 years ago. And that story is not even accurate anymore because it was 20 years ago. I want to know, how are we not dealing with it right now? But men don't want to do that.

Yeah. No, we don't. And even for me, Josh, I have this story. that's really close to my heart, and it's connected with my oldest daughter. And I don't know if I have the courage yet to share it, and I will at some point. I have another daughter through another relationship, and she's such a wonderful gift, but there's a story behind that. And I'm going to tell it one day when I have the right words to share with people that I know that I can help people, inspire people. and help, because I have this story that I know deep down I'm going to help somebody. I've grown so much through therapy, through this pain, this growth. To tell you that it's been easy, that would be a lie. It's been hard, hard, So.

Well, I'll make, I'll make this, this is, you know, do not feel any sort of pressure from this whatsoever, but this is an offer. If you feel like you get to that point, I would love to have you on the podcast and have you share it. I actually just had, I've had several people in that category come on the podcast. I've had a couple of guys that have gone to prison and were there for 20 years that had never shared their story that wanted to come on and share. I just recently had a woman come on and talk about her experience as a sex worker. that she's never shared before. And she's an entrepreneur, a seven figure entrepreneur, and just didn't want the story to be out there because she thought everyone would leave her and she would never have any clients again, et cetera. I, we just came out with that episode. So, you know, that's an offer if you want to accept it later on. Yeah.

I'm finding the right way to say it, but I, I believe, you know, what, what you're doing, helping men, you're being the person you need it most.

The man that I needed the most in my darkest of days. That's who I want to be for other people. Yeah. Cause I didn't have that guy. I didn't have that guy. No. And I had, this is, this is not, this is not a victim speech. I had friends. I had family. I had a therapist. I had attorneys. I had good people around me. This is not a victim thing. This is, I wish that I had that coach that was just helping me into the future. You want to call it a mentor coach, whatever, just helping me see how am I not only going to survive this terrible tragedy that I'm going through, but how am I going to thrive in my next life? I can't even, I don't even know how to think about that because you're so over, and this is true. I'm sure you've experienced this in other areas. This isn't just divorce. When you're going through something like that, your body shuts down. Cause there's only so much capacity in your mind. There's only so much capacity in your heart. There's only so much capacity in your body to where at a certain point you're like, I just can't, I can't even handle anything anymore. Right. Is that freeze or flight, right?

Yeah. You just, you just shut down. You just, you go on autopilot. I was on autopilot at one point about two years ago. So I know.

Is it safe to say that at a certain point you're on autopilot, which is why you got to the weight that you did?

Um, no, it's part of that. Um, the, the, the journey on the weight came to, uh, a question. There was a part of that, but in October, my coach, uh, I was saying, Dave, I don't have time to get to the gym. And he said, Brett, you mean to tell me you don't have time to get to the gym and you own your own business? I told him to fuck off. I can swear on my podcast. I did. And from that day, instead of yo-yoing, I call it decision day. That's when I went all in, and I built incredible accountability. I had my mastermind. I started posting on social. I had an accountability partner that I meet with every Friday, and I said, I'm going to share what I did every day. And I hired a coach to help me on the journey. But yes, a factor of that was that pain that drove me even further because I said, I got to just keep working on me so I can handle everything even better.

Absolutely. That's awesome.

Yeah. Like it's just been an incredible journey.

Yeah. I do. Absolutely. No, I had that. We all have, I call them spiritual awakenings and we all have these spiritual awakenings where we realize like I've had enough of whatever, of whatever, and I'm ready to move on. Right. And the biggest one of my life is the one that I told you about in my mid thirties, which was seven years ago and nine days ago.

Yeah.

I just celebrated that as well. And I got to a point where I realized my life is out of control.

Yeah.

Something's got to shift.

Yes.

And then it did. And it took years for that shift, but I just, I hope that I can be the guy that helps those shifts move faster and just help guys get to where they want to go.

Isn't that incredible. And, and, and I know you have been doing that and you're going to continue to do that. And for anybody that's going through that journey, and people that may not be, the biggest gift you could give to Josh, even myself, is to share this episode. So that maybe somebody needs to hear the words that we talked about today. to help them in their darkest hour right now. So you share this episode, there might be somebody, you know, that's having a puzzle, a challenge, trouble. The words in this podcast, cause I know we've shared quite a bit. You can help somebody by sending this to a friend or a loved one and it'll just let them know that it's okay. It's okay to get help. It's okay to have a coach. and be inspired and have Josh be able to fulfill his mission to be who he needed most so he can help you.

It's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength.

Yeah, yeah. Josh, I want to thank you so much for being here today. This was incredible. This is a conversation I needed today in so many different ways. And in this moment in my life, some things that are happening in my own personal life with my mom, and a lot of things that unpacked here. And what a pleasure to have you, and thank you. Is there anything you'd like to say before we go?

I think just to the men out there that reaching out to someone in order to guide you, don't think of it like help or there's something wrong with you. Think of the best movie you've ever seen and the best movie you've ever seen as a hero and they have a guide. I'm not the hero of the story. I'm the guide. You're the hero. You're the one that's going to do everything. You are the one that has it within you to do this. It's not me. I'm not going to do it for you. I'm just here to guide you just like a good coach. We're in the, as of the time of this recording, it's near the end of March madness, college basketball. And a good coach, the players, they could be the best players in the world without a good coach. They're not going to win. It's just not going to happen. because they need a great coach. Also the greatest coach in the world without players that don't show up to do the work is never going to win either.

No, you have to do the work. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a symbiotic relationship.

And so many, there's so many guys out there and especially in my space and the coaching space that are out there trying to make themselves the hero. I'm not the hero, man. I'm not the hero. I'm a guide. I'm here to try to help you become the best hero that you can be. That's it. So reach out, reach out to me. And even if you don't reach out to me, reach out to somebody, reach out to somebody that can help you be that guide that can mentor you, that can coach you to become the best version. And don't wait. Cause what a lot of guys do, which is the same thing I did is you just get so overwhelmed with life and everything that's going on is that just wait. And I'm like, ah, eventually we'll figure it out. No, no, do it now.

Why wait? Yeah. The biggest thing, we wait for a plan. Take action. Execute. Take action and just, there's strength in taking action and picking up the phone or DMing Josh the Derelict. That's his Instagram handle, folks. Okay? Josh the Derelict. Send a DM or follow. Follow him and be inspired. Please, I know you'll be glad you've done that. Josh, thanks again. Such a pleasure.

Thank you so much, Brett. Appreciate it.

Thanks for tuning into the Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in the digital age. Stay secure, stay adaptable, and I'll see you next time.