The Art of Self-Delusion with Brent Perkins

Josh (00:00:02) - Good day, fellas. Welcome to Uncensored advice for men. Josh here, your host fellow dude and I have a conversation just in the green screen, green screen room, whatever you call it. A few minutes ago with Brent, and I was like, What? You know, what kind of question can't I ask you? And he said, Josh, before we go any further, he said something like this. He goes, I don't give advice. So we have a guy who's not going to give advice coming on uncensored advice for men. But here's how he said it differently. But I'll let him say, Brent, welcome the show, man.

Brent (00:00:35) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for inviting me here, man. I'm happy to be here.

Josh (00:00:39) - So that's a unique setup. It's like you're coming on the show called Uncensored Advice for Men, but you're like, Josh, Listen, man, I don't give dudes advice, and here's why. So let's start with your reasoning, and then we're going to back into who you are.

Brent (00:00:52) - Okay? So. At the end of the day, we're men and we're going to do whatever the F we want. So someone gives us advice. We may shrug our shoulders, not our head, and go, okay, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, thanks, man. I'm gonna go do whatever I want. Sure. Versus I share my experience and you feel my pain or my triumph or my whatever the emotion and feeling is, and then you can relate it to your own story, whatever that is. You give yourself your own advice, then.

Josh (00:01:25) - Give yourself your own advice. How many times have I needed to eat my own advice? Like I was talking to a guy and I'm like, Man, you should do this. You should do that. And then I just stopped from it and I go, I should do that, right? So many times, man. Yeah. So, Brent, who are you, man?

Brent (00:01:43) - I'm a dude. You know, I really pull back the layers of who I am and strip that away in the last year of my journey.

Brent (00:01:52) - But I'm a dad. I've been a businessman. I've been a husband. I'm really just a man. And my name is Brent.

Josh (00:02:02) - That's cool. All right. So as you're going through this journey, you wrote a book, Talk. What's the title of the book? And talk to us about the the aspects of the book that you feel are important for for us guys to know, because as you wrote it, learned it about it yourself. You share it with the world.

Brent (00:02:22) - Yeah. So the book's called Papercuts The Art of Self Delusion. And it turned out to be the last. Puzzle piece in my journey. Didn't know I was going to ever write a book. I was actually I've sat in a CEO role for two different companies for the last 12 years, and I kind of got this divine tap to step out of what I was doing and to I thought, pay it forward. But it turned out to be give to myself. And as I gave it to myself, it's turning out to be pretty valuable for a lot of other people's journeys as well too.

Josh (00:03:01) - All right. So let's start with so I'm going to put pieces together because you said this was a missing puzzle piece in your world. Here you are. You're CEO of two companies. Like where you guys doing okay? Like, what kind of industry were you doing? Talk to us about Brent's life as CEO. Take us to that.

Brent (00:03:19) - Sure. I mean, I worked my I worked my way up, you know, busting my butt in sales and then VP of this and, you know, executive director of that. And it was about 12 years ago I landed my first role as president of a company and then within a year stepped in the CEO of the small biotech company. We grew it to eight figures. International group stayed there for seven years, jumped out into an Led company that was specifically selling into the cannabis space and ran That took it from 0 to 8 figures in five years, got on the Inc 5000 list and then stepped away from that. So that's.

Josh (00:03:57) - Stepped away is that when the divine tap came.

Brent (00:04:02) - Yeah. Yeah. I stepped away and was looking for the next venture. I'm typically a 5 to 7 year run on on gigs is my longevity and my daughter is like, Just chill out, dad. It's December. Take the month off, which was really hard for me to do. And I had started a meditation practice about a year before and I was just sitting there one morning and was like, I just got this feeling like, Hey, you should write a book. And I'm like, What? What in the heck is this advice? Like, I'm not a writer. I don't want to do this. Like, where do I have time to do this? And the next day was like, Here's your title. You're going to do this. It's like, okay, I guess, yeah, figure this out.

Josh (00:04:41) - So the title came to Paper Papercuts The Art of Self Delusion. Tie those two together for me. Because paper cut. I think about like, you know, I open the envelope, cut between the thumb and the index finger.

Josh (00:04:52) - Hurts like hell. It sucks.

Brent (00:04:54) - Yeah. And it's not the end of the world. And it goes away. And you do it again and it sucks again. And. But the whole reason for that is. And it was Einstein who said, this world is an illusion, albeit a persistent one. And the framework I kind of pulled together in here is that, you know, we each interpret our experiences of this world in our own way. You and I are sitting here looking through a zoom zoom video at each other, looking at each other, talking to the microphone, seeing each other's eyes, I'm assuming, and expecting certain things from you. And you're doing the same to me. And we're going to walk away and have a different experience of the same like real objects that are recording things and, and doing what they do in the world. And the same thing happens when we go to dinners when we were with our wives or our kids or or our friends, everybody walks away going, It's they have a different story.

Brent (00:05:51) - They told themselves about what happened during that interaction. Right? Sure. So what I argue is, is that. That's our truth. But our truths are only ours. Because a truth is a fact layered with belief on top. Right? So that's why we each have our own truths. And if that's true, that means that our truths are really delusions. Because I can hold a perfect example. I bet you vote differently today than you did when you were 18.

Josh (00:06:21) - I didn't vote when I was 18, but yes, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, I vote. That's the difference is. That's the difference. That's the difference.

Brent (00:06:29) - 18 But does that mean that what you believed, what was your truth at that age was false? Or does it mean what your truth is today is false? Or are they both true in that moment? Or were they both delusions? And it's always your choice. And you choose however you want, and you can choose in reverse. You can go back in time in your stories and your history, because they're just stories at this point, and you can choose to see them differently.

Brent (00:06:55) - You can choose to see where your mom you felt like hurt you growing up. And you can see, oh, I understand the pain she went through because of this experience. And I see it differently now. My truth is different Doesn't make it any less true.

Josh (00:07:08) - It's the vantage point view of the situation so. Situation really bad going through it sucks. On the other end of it you go. That was the biggest blessing that ever happened to me.

Brent (00:07:20) - Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that's why I say where the where the artists of our own delusions because we can choose. Do we pick up the red paintbrush or the blue one? They both paint and they're both going to draw a circle. But how do we choose to interpret those life experiences? And this is where ultimately we can step out of victimhood because we're the ones who are setting our own truths, painting our own delusions for what that experience of life really is.

Josh (00:07:50) - Yeah. Hold on a second. Let me write this down. This is pretty good.

Josh (00:07:53) - I might. I might go back and subscribe and listen to my own, you know, podcast interview. You're. You're dropping some nuggets on me, man. So step out of victimhood. Victim victim mentality. All right. So here I am, 41 years old. How may I be walking in victimhood or maybe some of the listeners, right? Like, let's let's let's peel back the onion and let's maybe give some paper cuts out there, right?

Brent (00:08:22) - Yeah. Yeah. Mean and paper cuts are the negative delusions we choose to believe as our reality. Yeah. And we just heard ourselves little by little. It's like that Jenga stack, right? We keep pulling blocks out, and one day you're like, Holy shit, this thing. How is this even standing up straight? Yeah, You know, those paper cuts turn into big wounds and we don't know how we got them. I believe people are doing plant medicine. They're going to a lot of different a lot of different ways. Even talk therapy to figure out what is it.

Brent (00:08:55) - And I don't believe it. There isn't it? It's been paper cuts over thousands of choices we either did or didn't make. And that's where the that's where the title of the book comes from. But how can we go through life and have this happen? It's the life's happening to me mentality and the choosing and or not choosing to believe that we actually had a choice every single moment.

Josh (00:09:22) - Let's talk about choice. We'll go. We'll just go with the choice that you said you had or didn't have. But then let's go to the six year old or seven year old who maybe didn't have a choice when they got their ass whipped or something bad happened to them. But let's start with an easy softball pitch. You're sitting there meditating. Your daughter's like, Hey, let's take a month off. And you're like, This is weird. I'm used to working and crank and build an eight figure businesses, right? So you're sitting there meditating, you got this divine tap. You're going to write a book. It didn't say, Hey, you should write a book, or maybe you should write a book.

Josh (00:09:52) - It's like you're going to write a book and here's the title. Yeah. Did that feel like a choice to you? Did it feel like a strong suggestion? Could you have not done it?

Brent (00:10:01) - Of course I could have not done it. Yeah, there's always choice.

Josh (00:10:03) - What would have happened if you didn't?

Brent (00:10:06) - Hell if I know. Actually, I have some idea. And that is, I would not have learned all the. I mean, my journey fast forwarded it in the three months it took me to write it at an insane clip. And where I sit today, people who know me like, who are you? Like, I'm a very different person and how I show up to life today. I would not be that person if I had not said, okay, I'm leaning in, I'm surrendering, Let's go.

Josh (00:10:40) - So you're writing this book. What were some of the self truths that that came in your own world? You're looking in a mirror. What I hate about writing, I just wrote my first book last year.

Josh (00:10:50) - What I hated about it is it became a mirror and it was so tough. To get the words out of my head because I'm like, I want it to sound good. Know it. I've got to get it to be true. Oh, my gosh, this is really revealing. I'm not showing up the way I'm saying that we should in life. And it was brutal. As you were writing this book. Three months. That's really, really fast. Good job. You're writing this book. What kind of self truths did it really reveal in you? That you're like, I need to make some changes.

Brent (00:11:23) - I knew I struggled with self love, but I had no idea the depths of it. I really didn't like myself in some areas and the lengths I had gone to in my life to numb, to cover it up, to shove it down where it exposed all those, that was really painful.

Josh (00:11:42) - Yeah. Where did that come from? So. And maybe this goes back to the six year old who didn't have a choice, Right? Like, you know, getting beat up or molested or something.

Josh (00:11:52) - As you know, like we say, we have a choice in this world and there's paper cups, but sometimes there's a sword cut that that came from someone we loved or someone that we trusted. Right. So where did this where did this come from you? And how do you kind of tie that together with maybe some guys out there who came up from a really rough spot? Like, tell us your story, man.

Brent (00:12:13) - Yeah, I mean, the hard part in this and you're not the first person to ask this question in this way because it's it's something I think we all feel as real. You know, a friend of mine, um, lost his son a couple of months after birth. You know, somebody else lost their, their, their husband, you know, three months after they had kids, you know. Are these things fair to do they have choice in it? No, they did not. And as I've spoken to both of those people, and I'm not going to presume that this is the answer for everybody, but who these people choose to become the lessons they learn, how they pay it forward, how they teach it to everybody else in their lives, how they might model it, how they shift, how they behave.

Brent (00:13:02) - They may not have ever gotten there without whatever life brings their way and how they choose to incorporate it, learn from it, integrate it. I know for myself, I blew up a marriage after 20 years. It wasn't just me, but I was a huge part of it. And it's funny, my my ex-wife doesn't necessarily agree with what I'm about to say, but she she doesn't understand why I can still say I don't have any regrets. And I don't. And it's not because I'm not sorrow or sorrowful for some of the actions I did. Am I've apologized, but I don't ever regret this, meaning there's no shame or guilt around it because. Apparently in my life. It took me going through what I went through to show up, how I how I am today. And I love how I am today. I like how I am for myself. My kids like who I am today. I'm able to support myself and other people in a way I've never been able to do in my entire life.

Brent (00:14:09) - And do I regret what I had to go through to get here? Absolutely not. Frigging love the place it's gotten me to. Am I going to repeat those things?

Josh (00:14:17) - No way. Yeah. Like, no way. Yeah. Life has a way of teaching us a lesson, right? If we allow it to teach us. If we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it in the future. Um. There's an ancient script that says, consider it joy when you face trials of any sort, right? And what it's saying is like, trials are going to come in your world whether you like it or not. Consider it. Joy Right. It's such an interesting thing to approach the same situation, but I'm going to approach it with. This the red brush or the. What was it? The blue pill? Which pill was the the one that woke him up in Matrix? I can.

Brent (00:14:59) - Never keep it.

Josh (00:14:59) - Straight. No, I don't know. Anyways, it doesn't matter.

Josh (00:15:02) - Someone's going to say You should watch the Matrix, right? Like, I'm sorry, guys, I forget. So. All right, so situation happens, you get to choose how you show up to the situation, right? You get to choose your vantage point to the thing. Life happens for you. We are the artist of our own delusion. Same situation happens. How we view it will change the outcome. Right? Like, that's the that's the premise of your book, right?

Brent (00:15:29) - Correct. Yeah.

Josh (00:15:30) - So what other what are the things? All right. So we're like, okay, maybe something's happening or something happened, you know, like, okay, maybe this is the the first step is going. Perhaps there's another way to look at this. Is that the kind of the first baby step into this process?

Brent (00:15:49) - It is the for me, the first step in all of this. And I teach I teach this this kind of fun acronym called To Be Bold Men. We have to learn how to shag.

Brent (00:16:03) - And there, of course, there's the, you know, sexual side to this. But we should be you know, we should embrace our sexuality. But the S in shag means, show up and surrender. And it's arguably the hardest lesson. And it's how do you become present? And this is. Eckhart Totally. This is all the philosophers. How do you show up to life in the present? Not in the future, not reminiscing on the past, but you have to also do it in surrender, which means you let go. You took your grip of control and you slowly released it. No expectations, no assumptions. You let life happen. You know, it goes back to this Chinese parable where one day a horse trots over and he opens his gate and it's in his it's in his field. And he's like, the neighbors are like, Huh? This is amazing. You got a horse. He's like, Yeah, it could be good. Could be bad. Who knows? The next day, his son leaves the gate open, it runs away.

Brent (00:17:00) - The neighbor is like, Oh, man, you just lost your horse. Aren't you mad? He's like, Could be good, could be bad. I don't know. Two days later, he brings another horse with him. Now they got to the neighbor's like, Wow, look at your luck. He was like, Yeah, could be good, Could be bad. Who knows? His son's out riding it the next day, falls off, breaks his leg. Neighbor again is like, Man, look at your bad luck. And you know, what is the Chinese farmer? Say again? Yeah. The next day the army comes around and they're recruiting all the young, young kids, and his son can't go to the army or can't go to the war. Right? So the neighbor is like, Oh, you got blessed, Your son got skipped from the draft, and this keeps going on. But it's like, this is these are the choices we have in life. Who are we? Especially as as one of a 8 billion humans to pretend like we understand what any of this really means, what's going to happen, how it's going to play out.

Brent (00:17:55) - And that's what's showing up to life and surrender is, which is I see it. I'm aware I'm here. We'll see how it plays out.

Speaker 3 (00:18:03) - You know.

Josh (00:18:05) - Did you read before you go into The Hague, the hang of it? Did you read like the surrender experiment?

Brent (00:18:12) - I have.

Josh (00:18:13) - Okay. It's pretty interesting. All right. So kind of go go to the next H. What does h stand for?

Brent (00:18:20) - Yeah. So these are they're just as important. But they this first lesson in the show, Up and surrender is so important to get right. Like spend years doing that piece before you can build the other pieces in because they really are in succession. So H is hold space and boundaries and you can't do that if you don't if you're not showing up in surrender. Right. So holding space, being allowing other people to have their own experiences and you're not trying to fix it for them, solve their problem, give them advice. Yeah, right. You're holding space for them. And then also hole boundaries.

Brent (00:18:58) - And that's something you can't do if you don't love yourself. And I didn't do that in my marriage or anywhere in my life.

Josh (00:19:04) - Man Boundaries. One of my coaches had me read the book boundaries, right? So it's like you're, you're shagging has like some really, you know, interesting books behind the each of the, the acronyms. A holding space for others to be them is important because a lot of people will go around you should do this you should do that. Oh I don't like this. And they're just walking around in a lot of judgment. Or they allow people on the flip side of it. To to walk all over them with no boundaries. So holding space and holding boundaries. Hey, man, here's our little circle. You can hang out here. Be who you are. Oh, you're getting a little close. Back up a little bit. Right. The boundaries. It's. It's. It's. It's good. It's a dance. All right, so, a, what's the A?

Brent (00:19:50) - The A is ask and receive.

Brent (00:19:54) - I think asking. Asking is hard enough sometimes, knowing that we don't have all the answers. We're not the best at everything. We don't have to prove ourselves. Yeah. And as men especially, um, we suck at.

Josh (00:20:07) - Receiving. We suck at receiving. Yeah. The sexual favors.

Brent (00:20:14) - Were. That's that's a different story. But in terms of actual like other people giving to us. Yeah, we're that bro.

Josh (00:20:21) - This is your shag principal. Us guys are only going sexual in our brain. They're like, Oh, I'm going to ask. I'm going to go for it. That reminds me of the book, The Millionaire Mindset or something like that. And he talks about receiving. Yeah, Hey, I like your style, man. This is some good stuff. First of all, guys are going to have a hard time asking for help. Hey, I need help. Right? Or asking for something. I'll just do it my freaking self. But then receiving it just ran into this the other day.

Josh (00:20:46) - I have a buddy who's going through a tough time. I pulled out some money. I go, Hey man, let me help you out. Right? Like I got a little extra, you know, this year, today it might not be there tomorrow. Let me help you out. Yeah. He goes, Oh, man, I can't do that. And I go, You just robbed me of my blessing. You robbed you of that man. You missed out. We missed out together because you couldn't receive something. There was no strings attached. No, nothing is. Just let me give you some anyways, So sha g real quick.

Brent (00:21:16) - What really landed for me on the receiving piece is a friend of mine said, You know what that feels like when you like, find the perfect gift for your, you know, your partner for a friend and you're so excited to give it to him. And, you know, it's it's not just some, like, frilly thing at like a tchotchke shop.

Brent (00:21:32) - Right. But it's something that they're going to be meaningful and change their life in a way. It's going to test them and you give it to them and their eyes get all big and you know, you can just see like goosebumps all over them and you're like, Yes, I nailed it, right? Yeah. And when you don't receive, you're stealing that from the other person.

Josh (00:21:49) - Where does that come from? A position of unworthiness or position of pride? Maybe a little bit of both.

Brent (00:21:56) - It comes from, yeah, a lack of self-worth, for sure.

Josh (00:21:59) - Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:22:03) - Huh?

Brent (00:22:04) - And we're trying to fill a void by making sure that we're able to give something to somebody else to fill that like, happiness void because we didn't have it ourselves. Right.

Josh (00:22:17) - Explain.

Brent (00:22:18) - So. There's nothing wrong with giving gifts and enjoying the appreciation of somebody else gets from it. But when you do it for that reaction, same thing as a dopamine hit you get from putting a post out there on Instagram doing anything else, you're doing it to get something back in return because you didn't actually have that field.

Brent (00:22:37) - Like, if I give you something, I don't give a shit how you respond. I hope you respond. And I did put some time into it and that would be great. But if you're like, Hey man, this didn't land, I'd be like, Cool, I thought you'd like it and it'd be okay. I'd be fine. But we don't often show up that way. It's like, Oh shit, I tried so hard. What's his problem? You know? Yeah.

Josh (00:22:57) - So then it's really not a gift.

Brent (00:22:58) - It's not.

Josh (00:22:59) - Really? Yeah, really. That's not a fair G.

Brent (00:23:04) - So the G is give gratuitously. And the reason it's last is because you can't give what you don't have. And I know I have in my life tried to give love. Tried to give money. Tried to give time. Tried to give all these things. And I never really had any of them. And until I created that in my life through the first three letters of this acronym. Now I can give it.

Brent (00:23:28) - I can sit here with you and give what I'm giving into even this podcast because I've built it in my own life. I've put me first. As selfish as that sounds, it's the most unselfish thing I've ever done in my life.

Josh (00:23:41) - All right. So as you're going through this journey, how long ago were were you building this eight figure led thing and you walk in away? How long ago was that?

Brent (00:23:52) - Uh, it was December of this last year. 2022. Oh, wow.

Josh (00:23:56) - Recent. Yeah. And you took a month off, and that's where the book started coming up.

Brent (00:24:01) - January 7th, I started writing the book, and. Yeah.

Josh (00:24:06) - So your friends would say totally different. Dude, are we talking about as of December till now?

Brent (00:24:13) - Oh yeah. Now, I had been on a journey for the last eight years and got divorced two years ago and I've been working on things since then. But the actual dramatic shift about the self love I've found for myself and how I show up in a much more calm and peaceful way.

Brent (00:24:30) - Is night and day different? Yeah, just in the last eight, nine months. Yes.

Josh (00:24:36) - All right. So we're hanging out. Me and you. You do a lot of outdoor stuff, right? Outdoor and being bold. And we're hanging out with a bunch of dudes, and. And I bring some of my buddies, right? Either police, fire, military. We're sitting around here going, All right, guys, we got a shag. And they're like, Hell no, right? Or you go, Hey, we got to focus on self love. They're going to be like, Come on, man. Like, really? What? What's going on? And you're like, No, no, no, no. Hear me out. Right? And he say, Here's the thing about self love. What happens next. We, you know, we put down our scotch and we're going. All right, We're listening, buddy. Let's hear it.

Brent (00:25:23) - This is. Yeah, this is.

Brent (00:25:25) - This is really hard because. If you're not If you have no awareness. That this is something that you need in your life. I can't help you. I can't support you because this journey is nothing that anybody else can do for you. It's the same reason we started this podcast with I don't give advice, we share experiences. You have to know deep down that what you've been doing doesn't work, it isn't working and you're not happy with it. And when you know that and you realize it and you see somebody else who doesn't have to tell you what to do, all they have to see is that, hey, you stop drinking, but you're able to still step back in and have a beer or a margarita or, Hey, you choose to do this in your life. And they see they know because you're not making fun of other people. You're not constantly talking about, you know, women in a derogatory way. You're not doing these things. They go, What's different about you? What's changed? So they ask you, You even have to because otherwise you're stepping into judgment or you're forcing something they're not ready for.

Josh (00:26:34) - Yeah, I think if I interviewed a Navy Seal once, and the reason I brought this up is because I interviewed this guy, um, I think his name was JP. It was a year ago. And this guy is badass, right? Navy Seal, Elite Warrior. And he goes, Really? I just wanted to be a part of a community where I feel loved and appreciated. That comes from a place of wanting to be loved, right? Needing needing love and such, and will do things, you know, become a Navy Seal to to reach those high levels of love and acceptance and approval. But if we don't get that from ourself, then we will constantly spend our life chasing paying for it or like drowning it out with, you know, too much smoke. Too much drink. Fill in the blank. So this place of self love, if we don't have it, we cannot give what we do not have. This guy named Jesus, he said, I want you to love your neighbor as yourself.

Josh (00:27:37) - If you don't love yourself, how could you love your neighbor? Right. So what does it look like when a dude doesn't have a good self worth or self a healthy self love? Because we've seen guys on the other end of it who love themselves way too much and any type of mirror, you know, they walk by a mirror and it's, you know, it's game over for them.

Brent (00:27:59) - Yeah that's but that's not that's actually self-hatred and explain. Yeah. I mean this is where on the surface we think of narcissists as those people who are selfish and love themselves and put themselves first. And it's actually the opposite. Because if somebody really loves themselves and put themselves first. In my experience. They don't ever talk about themselves because there's no need to. They don't look in the mirror because they don't care. Not that they don't care about themselves, but they know that they've been taking care of themselves. And what's looking back in the mirror isn't something they have to check on. It's actually the exact opposite.

Brent (00:28:40) - It's like, what's the I mean, I grew up with this kind of saying, which is, hey, my mom told me, you know, if you talk about money, you don't have it. Right? Yeah. If you don't talk about it, you have it. It's kind of that way with narcissists. And this, this, this. On the surface, you think they love themselves, but they're the ones who are showing it and talking about it, which means they actually have zero self-love.

Josh (00:29:04) - I have never considered that because I. I know someone. It's all about them.

Brent (00:29:12) - They hate themselves.

Josh (00:29:13) - They hate themselves. I never saw that. And instead of having you know, I felt bad because I'm like, man, it's hard to get in a word around this person. And, you know, like you'll start talking and it's all about them. And, you know, there's some empathy there. And I love this person. I want to help, but I never considered it as they do that because they hate themselves.

Josh (00:29:38) - Wow. So. And for them it's impossible for them to give to others or love others because they hate themselves.

Brent (00:29:49) - That's right.

Speaker 3 (00:29:50) - Oh, man. Interesting.

Josh (00:29:53) - So you've been on this journey over the past few years. And then you wrote a book.

Speaker 3 (00:30:01) - And.

Josh (00:30:02) - You know, starting in December, you rolled it out. Your friends are gone, dude. You're a different person and you're showing up and you go. I love myself in a healthy way.

Speaker 3 (00:30:12) - He built the.

Josh (00:30:13) - The shag model. You're all about being bold, right? So what's what's next for Brent? Where. Where are you heading? What are you.

Speaker 3 (00:30:21) - Doing?

Brent (00:30:22) - Yeah, this bold piece is new, and it's. It's. This whole thing's been my lesson, right? You know, somebody. Somebody asked me, they said, So when you wrote the book, did you actually go back and reread it, or did you just let it be that you were too scared to reread it? I'm like, I've read it like 17 times because honestly, like the dedication of my book was this book is dedicated to Brent Perkins.

Brent (00:30:46) - Yes. Myself. And then it goes on to say, you know, if I can do the things that only I'm capable of doing, and it somehow models the way for other people to be able to do the things that only they can do. Yeah, then I've accomplished everything I set out to achieve and. As I realize that this book has been my Bible in terms of what the lessons I need to keep coming back to and learning in my journey. The next step is when you when you own your agency, when you step into choice, right? So you're getting rid of those paper cuts. You're becoming the master of your own, the master artist of your own delusions. It's really about owning choice when you can show up to life and every every day you show up and you're like, Hey, I can choose this direction or this direction that can both be my truth. You show up to life in a bold way. And I described that as being courageous, authentic and wild. Right.

Brent (00:31:42) - Because you don't care what you're not going to make a decision because somebody is going to think about you in a certain way. You're just worried about are you staying in integrity with yourself? And that makes you show up to life in a whole different way, right? Yeah.

Josh (00:31:59) - Man I can feel when I'm out of integrity with myself. I was just having a conversation with a guy yesterday and we talked about the promises we make to each other or to ourselves. So I'm on this thing and I wrote down my goals on the board. You know, I want to weigh this much and be able to do this or that, right? Like some stuff around, you know, physical fitness. And then I ate a whole row of Oreos, double stuffed Oreos with milk last night.

Speaker 3 (00:32:24) - Yeah.

Brent (00:32:25) - Yeah, but they're good, though.

Josh (00:32:27) - Oh, man, They were good for that moment. They did not feel good at four in the morning. Yeah, So. But this whole thing is like I felt out of integrity because I was like, that doesn't line up with who I'm trying to become.

Josh (00:32:40) - It doesn't line up with the goals that I have, and I could feel this misalignment in it and it caused me belly pain, but it also caused me like. There was something off. I was not in integrity with myself. So how do we know? Like one of your things is we got to do some self exploration. How do you do that?

Speaker 3 (00:33:04) - Yeah.

Brent (00:33:05) - So one of I really don't know any better way than to have a daily ritual. Okay. I want to be by. That is everybody's different. Everybody needs something different here. So I'll tell you what works for me. What works for me is doing 10 to 15 minutes of. Usually breathwork that leads into a little bit of mindfulness that leads into meditation. So for me, the breathwork is what kind of calms and centers me. The mindfulness gets me out of my brain and really into connection with my body. And then the meditation is the letting go of the surrendering and just allowing, allowing whatever to come through or not to come through.

Brent (00:33:50) - But for me to sit in silence and have that kind of inner peace, that's my ritual. And then what what I find throughout the day, because it's really hard for me to find a second set of that which I would like to do. So I practice what basketball teams do, right? So somewhere between 5 and 7 time outs a game, depending on whether you're high school or NBA. But take five timeouts 60s each like everybody has 60s do three rounds of breathing, do haven, which is where you kind of like hug yourself, touch your face and rub your hands together. There's there's different I know I'll come back to. Yeah, but there's some different things you can do and all you're really doing is you're hitting the pause button on life. And it allows you just to take that break you need because most most emotions. Emotions happen to us. Feelings are our choice on how to respond to that emotion. Which are really difficult to. I know I'm opening up another can of worms here, but the emotions, they say scientifically, they only last 60 to 90s if we can pause.

Brent (00:34:57) - Let them happen. Let them flush through us and breathe.

Speaker 3 (00:35:04) - They go away.

Brent (00:35:05) - So whether you're doing it to to an emotion and you're like, I'm just overwhelmed or I, I need a break. We don't give ourselves timeouts like that ritual alone. It was a game changer in my life. Mm.

Speaker 3 (00:35:21) - So.

Brent (00:35:23) - The other reason meditation became so important for my practice is that I drank alcohol every day for 20 years. That's how I came home from work. It was my attitude adjuster. It was my relaxants. It was how I checked out. Listen, a lot of times it was no more than two drinks, you know? Often it was two bottles of wine, you know. It was somewhere in between there. But it was always. It was always a couple fingered whiskey, right? Always. And I found I wasn't doing it to go have fun. Like today. I can go drink a beer or you and I can go have a margarita. It would be because we're socializing and we're having fun.

Brent (00:36:02) - I did it because I needed it to check out. To turn down. To not show up any more. And every time I do that, even having two two beverages, I can't wake up in the morning and sit in meditation. I'm fuzzy.

Josh (00:36:22) - So did you have to give up alcohol?

Brent (00:36:26) - Um, I gave up alcohol for nine months. Kind of tinkered with it for a little while. Pretty much stayed away for the next six months, and I'm back to probably having two drinks a week. But usually no more than one two maximum. And it's for the right reasons. It's not to come home from work and check out. It's not to numb. Yeah. It's, you know.

Speaker 3 (00:36:50) - Interesting.

Josh (00:36:51) - Yeah, I can. I could tell, like when I wake up and I'm on fire and I go into my man cave and I work out and I'm watching a video or something on YouTube, and I'm. I'm exercising my body, my mind, like my days starts out boom ball. Or when I eat a bag of cookies or a whole row of Oreos or if I drink too much, it ain't happening and it cascades.

Josh (00:37:16) - And then by the end of the day, I'm eating Taco Bell and I'm sitting on the couch watching, you know.

Brent (00:37:20) - 404.

Josh (00:37:21) - Episodes of Peaky Blinders or something like that. Right. A lot. Um, and interesting. Brent So you're going on this journey, you write this book, you're, you're, are you offering this as, as help for other people? Like, is it, is this a practice here?

Speaker 3 (00:37:36) - Yeah.

Brent (00:37:37) - So that's where I was leading to is where and I'm honestly figuring this out right now but where I'm where I'm landing is that I've started a a company called three X Bold.

Speaker 3 (00:37:48) - Okay?

Brent (00:37:49) - And I'm building out a men's cohort right now called the Bold Men Fellowship. And it will be a group of 8 to 10 men that'll run through probably a 90 to 180 day course on. And I'm going to teach the principles of how to shag. Um, and these, these men will walk away from not only having some one on one time with me, but a small cohort, this group of trusted men to support each other through this process of how do you show up to life in a bold way, a way where, you know, I don't care what religion you end up being, I don't care what business you're in, I don't care whether you're married, you're straight or gay.

Brent (00:38:27) - Like, I don't care about any of these things, but show up in a way where you get to actually choose in a way that you're comfortable. And you can now give everything you'd never had before. That's the goal. How do you you know, it's really I guess it leads to freedom. Is this transformation into being free? Like real free, real freedom.

Josh (00:38:49) - Where does that three X come from? Because I get the bold where you talk about showing up with full integrity, with wildness, with authenticity. What does X?

Brent (00:38:57) - Everything I tend to play with has a double entendre. So three x bold comes from two things. It's being bold in body, mind and spirit, but it's also.

Speaker 3 (00:39:09) - Mm.

Brent (00:39:11) - Being showing up to life in a bold way, which again, is being courageous, being authentic and being wild.

Josh (00:39:20) - What aspect of your life. Give me an example of wild.

Brent (00:39:26) - Wild. Um. I mean, stepping out of a tenured career as a CEO when you have kids and spending.

Brent (00:39:37) - You know, I really it was almost six months to write and publish it. A book. That's pretty wild. You know, deciding that you've been out of shape most of your life and you're going to go hike the Grand Canyon for five days and put 50 miles in. I mean, doing things that push your limits, that are things that other people are like, You're crazy great. If you're telling me I'm crazy, that means I should do it, you know, not like jumping off a 200 foot waterfall because you're going to die type of crazy. But things that push the human capacity push, you know, so many so many people are like, gosh, I'm I can't I really want to find my purpose. And I think. Pablo Picasso has the best quote on this. And he says, the meaning of life is to find your gift. And the purpose of life is to give it away. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:40:35) - It's interesting.

Brent (00:40:39) - And being wild is is finding your gift and leaning in to whatever that looks like.

Speaker 3 (00:40:47) - Mm.

Josh (00:40:49) - What is yours?

Speaker 3 (00:40:51) - Uh.

Brent (00:40:53) - It is this ability to. Really quickly see and hear people. Pull their stories apart and weave it into sharing it with everybody else so we can all understand through those experiences. That we're not unicorns, we're not snowflakes. We're all dealing with the same shit. It's just it looks different because you live a different life, but it's the same core things and being able to to share that in a really vulnerable way. That's my gift.

Josh (00:41:30) - Super cool. Where could guys find your book?

Brent (00:41:34) - You can find it all over Amazon. Actually just did the audible. I recorded it myself. That did you really? That was me being wild again. I mean, just like one day going, You know what I should do? Audible shoot. I should record it myself. Let me go buy a mic and figure this out. Yeah, I did it in two days. It was crazy.

Josh (00:41:49) - Holy moly. I tried to read mine and I couldn't do that. Wow.

Josh (00:41:53) - Good for you. Good on you, man. So. All right, so on Amazon, they can find it. What's your website? How can guys connect.

Brent (00:42:00) - With It's bold. So the number three, the letter X bold three x bold.

Josh (00:42:07) - So that's a good way for guys to connect with you. I always like to say, guys, you know, like if our guests say something that resonates with you or that you need help, reach out. Ask for help, reach out. Say thanks for being on the show and connect with them. That's the mission and purpose of the show is to connect guys with other dudes or other people who have resources or advice or experiences that can help them on their journey. Brent What's one question that I should have asked you that I screwed up and did not ask you?

Speaker 3 (00:42:35) - Hmm.

Brent (00:42:48) - Um. I think a question a lot of people would want to know is through this all as my life magically, you know, these choices is my life. Am I.

Brent (00:43:06) - Am I some, you know, super rich person that just made it and landed now. And I made so much money that was easy to step out and do what I did. And and the answer is no. I mean, besides what I lost in my divorce when I stepped away from my last job, we had a transition in investors of, you know, this almost $10 Million investment. I lost my equity. I walked away with almost nothing. And it's been really, really difficult to be in a place where almost 12 months without revenue. And now I'm shifting completely the way I earn revenue in my life and trying to do it in a way to pay it forward. So it's it I just want to share that experience to make it real for everybody that this isn't some like rich dude who like had it didn't give a shit about money anymore and just wants to go give advice like that's not my story and it doesn't have to be yours either. And you don't have to wait till that point in time to step into who you can and would will be and what your gift is that again, your purpose is to share with the world.

Josh (00:44:10) - That was super damn real. And I appreciate you sharing that. Guys, reach out to our guests. Say thanks for being on the show three times where you can find his book. You can find his coaching program that is figuring out. So if you have any input for him and you can say, hey, man, you know, this is how I need some help. He's building a cohort for guys. So if you're one of those guys who could use a group of guys to walk through life together, reach out to Brent and say, Hey, heard you on the show, and I want to find a way to connect. Guys, I love you. And if you're running through any issues in your world, you need someone to listen to. My phone numbers (352) 274-4500. Guys, we'll just shoot me a text or a call and just say, hey, man, I need to I need to vent on someone, beat up on me for a little bit. I don't mind. Don't bring that shit home.

Josh (00:44:56) - All right. So once again, love you guys. If you have some advice that you'd like to give to other men, uncensored advice for men. Fill out a quick form, maybe get you on the show next. Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Bye, guys.