The Marriage Transformation Podcast
The Marriage Transformation Podcast
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Ever wonder why some people navigate life's storms with remarkable resilience while others remain perpetually adrift? The answer might be simpler than you think: a working philosophy that guides your decisions and responses.
Picture the world's oceans filled with thousands of container ships. Every vessel that safely reaches its destination has something in common—a captain with both a clear destination and the ability to recalibrate when blown off course. Without this guidance system, no ship randomly drifts to safety. Your life operates by the same principle. Without a coherent philosophy to navigate by, you'll struggle to reach your desired harbor regardless of how hard you work or how talented you are.
The philosophy we adopt fundamentally shapes our experience. Consider the profound difference between believing "life is friendly" versus "life is out to get you." The latter creates a perpetual state of anxiety and defensiveness, while the former opens us to possibilities and connection. These core beliefs function like operating systems, determining how we process every experience and opportunity. Perhaps the most powerful metaphor shared in this discussion is the circus elephant trained to believe it cannot break its chain. Even as the elephant grows into a magnificent beast capable of snapping that chain with ease, it remains captive to a limitation that exists only in its mind. How many of us live this way—constrained not by actual limitations but by beliefs formed when we weren't strong enough to overcome them?
What would you do if failure was impossible? This question reveals the gap between your current life and your potential—showing how much your self-imposed limitations constrain you. Break free from the chains placed on you when you were too small to overcome them. You've grown stronger. It's time your beliefs caught up with your capabilities.
One of the things that you've got to have for a successful life is a working philosophy, and again, it doesn't matter where you get it from. Like for me, I get my working philosophy from Christianity. That's where it comes from for me, and I kind of take it and work it into a philosophy, a practical philosophy that works for me. But it doesn't matter where it comes from, right, you've got to have some kind of guidance guiding your life. So a good example of that is like you go out on the ocean right now. How many ships are on the ocean? How many container ships, how many oil tankers are on the ocean right now? Thousands, tens of thousands, shipping goods across the world, whatever, how many of those will arrive at their destination? All of them that? How many of those ships have a captain that has a specific destination in mind? All of them. How many ships set out for sale without a captain that has a specific destination in mind and just goes? Well, how many of those ships actually arrive at a safe harbour? How many ships set out with no specific destination just go? I'm just going to arrive at a place that they're safe. I'm just going to arrive at a positive destination? None of them do. But but all of those ships, those big murse container ships and stuff like that, it's like they get blown off course. Do you think they get blown off course with storms and stuff like that? Do you think they have to take detours? You know, they set their course and all of a sudden there's a storm or something and they have to go around it, or maybe they get caught in a storm and it blows them off course. Of course. Of course, seeing as the captain has a very specific destination in my mind, he's able to recalibrate and then go back to the harbor that he's heading to and that and that that that comes from the captain has. Captain has a working philosophy, right? The captain's philosophy is no matter what happens on this journey, I'm going to steer this ship to safety. That's a working philosophy. The captain also believes that, no matter what happens during this journey, I have the skill to navigate. That that's another philosophy. How could you possibly set sail across contact, to different continents, across the pacific or the atlantic, knowing that you're going to encounter hardship, without the philosophy, whatever happens, I have the skill to handle that. I have the skill to handle that. I have the skill to overcome that. That's the philosophy. That's what we've all got to have and it's like that's what it is for me. That's what Christianity. It gives me work in philosophy and we can take things like all things work to the good of those who believe. I don't care where you get that from, I don't care what you believe is the force behind that, I don't care. I just don't want to be a plagiarist, right? It's like I tell you that, not because I'm trying to evangelize anybody, but because I'm citing the source. In the same way, I cite other sources as well. Like you know, all men live a life of quiet desperation. I'm not that's Henry Thoreau, like, I'm just giving the source. But this is where it doesn't matter what happens to me, I'm going to use this to make me stronger. That's a philosophy. It doesn't matter what happens to me, it's working to my good. That's a philosophy.
Speaker 1:Without having a working philosophy, you're just a ship without a captain. How many ships set sail without a specific desperate destination or a captain without a working philosophy and get to their destination? None of them do Not. One in 10,000 by chance leave africa and arrive at new york without the captain specifically set in sail for that not one, not one in 10 000 gets blown there without a rudder, you know, and? And most of us don't even have a destination. It's like this, is like this, this is like. It's what I'm trying to give you with the, with the attitudes like unconditional positive regard. That's a philosophy like I'm trying to give you, with the attitudes like unconditional positive regard. That's a philosophy Like I'm going to have unconditional positive regard. I'm going to have an attitude of gratitude. Those are philosophies. So, when you go, well, my destination is a safe harbor. I'm the captain of this ship and my destination is to get this ship to a safe harbor. Well, you've got to have a philosophy to do that or you won't get.
Speaker 1:We look at the four habits, right, four toxic habits which I encourage everybody to go back and look at again this week. Negative interpretation is a destructive habit. Escalation, invalidation and withdrawal these, these are the. These are the toxic habits. Well, all things work to the good of those who believe life's a friendly place. It doesn't matter what happens. I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. If I'm good, I'm good, I'm bad, I'm good, I'm good. It's like well, that takes care of negative interpretation. Right, that philosophy. That is an all-encompassing philosophy that covers so much. If you go, I'm going to adopt the philosophy of all things work to my good at all times. When I'm good, I'm good. When I'm bad, I'm good, I'm good. Like well. It's really hard to have negative interpretation if you have that philosophy. It's really hard to escalate situations if you have that philosophy.
Speaker 1:That one solitary philosophy is enough to get you through most things. Life is friendly. Life is friendly to me. I watch alone I don't know if anybody watches alone with my kids. It's like a survival show. They dump them on an island or some horrific place and they have to survive for however long, by themselves or whatever. And I was watching it the other day and the guy goes.
Speaker 1:My parents taught me from a very young age life's out to get you. You're either going to kick life's ass or life's going to kick your ass. And I'm like what a horrible philosophy, man. What a horrible philosophy. You spend your whole life going through life, going life's out to get me. No wonder you're depressed, no wonder you're anxious, no wonder everything's negative, no wonder you're in this state of funk all the time. What else could you be when it's like life's out to get you, everyone's out to get you. It's like that's BS, man, like there's no evidence. There's no more evidence to support life's out to get you than life's friendly towards you. It's another aspect of my working philosophy.
Speaker 1:Life is friendly.
Speaker 1:Life's a friendly place. The world is friendly. It's friendly place. The world is friendly. It's friendly towards me. The world is safe because if you don't have that view, like if you're of the opinion that life is hostile, life's out to get you, will you? How can you feel safe, man? How can you ever feel safe? You're gonna say you're gonna spend your whole life precariously balanced on the type right life shooting darts at you, trying to knock you off. It's like it's no way to live and it's like I'd rather, if I'm wrong, I'd rather. I'd rather die in ignorance, man, I'd rather die out of stupidity. Like life is a friendly place. The world is friendly. People for the most part, want to help you. People, for the most part, are friendly towards you. People for the most part like a good. You know the only the most part are friendly towards you. People for the most part like a good. You know. The only reason they're not friendly towards you is they're not good is because they've got damn horrible mentality that everybody's out to get them and they got to protect themselves. So you're the enemy.
Speaker 1:When you're able to transition from that just simple philosophy, man, like life is friendly towards me, the world's a friendly place. Again, it changes your thoughts. Thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, actions create results, and then you use those results to reinforce your confirmation place and before you know it, you're in a downward spiral and it's like there's no hope. There's no hope, and your wives are there, my view are there. You've got to change. If you just change that one aspect of your philosophy and go well, life is friendly. I don't know how, but these, these are, you know, the parables that I'm telling you, right, that I'm sharing with you, put them in your toolbox the donkey, the farmer and the donkey. You know, it's like that helps you. When, when, when, things are coming at you telling you life isn't friendly, life is hostile, it helps you. That philosophy helps you. When life throws you some lemons, man, and it doesn't seem friendly, those philosophies help you. It's like I give you another one. This is what set me free man Massive philosophy, how they train elephants in circus.
Speaker 1:In the circus, when an elephant is trained in the circus they put a chain, a big chain, around the baby elephant's leg and they chain the elephant to a stump and that baby elephant, who doesn't have the strength to break the chain, tries and tries and tries and tries and tries and tries to break that chain God knows for how long, until finally it just loses the will and says that chain is too strong for me. I will never break that chain. But the elephant doesn't. It's a baby elephant. But then that elephant grows into a full chain beast and that chain does not have any power to hold that elephant any longer. When you yank that elephant's leg and it'll snap that chain in a heartbeat, but that elephant never tries to pull that chain again because that elephant has been told over and over and over and, over and over and, over and over again you will never break that chain. You will never break that chain. You will never break that chain. And the elephant believes that it will never break the chain, even though that chain has no ability to hold that elephant any longer.
Speaker 1:And that that's where each and every one of us are like why? Why did that book sit on my hard drive for 10 years? Because the chain held me. I believed that it was a chain that was too strong for me to break. That chain had no ability to hold me. I just got it put on my leg when I was a baby and I couldn't break it and after a while I just stopped trying and accepted that that chain was going to be there forever.
Speaker 1:And that's each and every one of you, man, and this is not just marriage counseling. So this is like your money, this is your health, this is your business, this is your job. This is every aspect of your life. It's like the ceiling that you're experiencing right now is just a chain that somebody put on your leg as a baby and you tried to break it so many times. You just don't bother trying anymore. And that, marco, is what your wife is telling you. I've never seen anybody break the chain. I've never seen it, but the truth is each and every one of you. It's a fine line between encouraging you to be better or reinforcing the belief that you're not good enough. It's like each and every one of you is a fraction of the man you could be a fraction because you're held down with the chain that you believe is too strong and you just don't try anymore.
Speaker 1:I mean, what would you do? The way to really sort of bring this into your consciousness is what would you do if failure was impossible, if you knew you could not fail? What would you do if failure was impossible? If you knew you could not fail, what would you do? Would you start a business? Would you expand into a new market? Would you? What would you do? Would you buy a house? Would you buy a bigger house? What would you do if you knew failure was impossible to you? What would you do?
Speaker 1:Even straight away, even even when we're still in our very limited experience, like we're in the infancy of like really liberating our thinking and really developing a philosophy that really can move us forward? Our lives are a compromise of what we think is possible to what we think is possible. It's not going at it like we're limitless and we could do anything. It's like the reason you don't start the business is because you've got that chain on your leg. Truth is, like anybody could. All of us are limited by our you know you go. What would you do if you, if you knew you couldn't fail? What would you do? That gives you some idea.