FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Taco Mike:

Life is designed to kill you. I’m being a bitch about it.

Mike Olsen:

Exactly. Yeah. When I say I’m struggling. Yeah.

Jimmy Durbin:

Self-pity.

Taco Mike:

A man trying to alpha up and level up.

Jimmy Durbin:

Let me go and ask for help. I don’t have to fight anymore.

Taco Mike:

In spite of the difficulty. In spite of the challenge, in spite of the fact to be this kind of person who is just flowing, love, flowing, joy and optimism and creativity and hope.

Jimmy Durbin:

Let me go to this tribe in my brain. Trust. I had a man in my life, and he brought me back to the day when I was 100% grateful. I can take an honest self-assessment based on where I want to be. And the man that I want to be and how I want to show up in the people’s lives that I love.

Jimmy Durbin:

Of course. Correct. Where I need to be grateful, where I am and just flow.

Mike Olsen:

That you recognize that there’s two opposing things within the same entity called yourself constantly fighting against each other. It’s the strength that you gain from the push.

Intro:

If you’re a man that controls his own destiny, a man that is always in the pursuit of being better, you are in the right place You are responsible. You are strong. You are a leader. You are a force for good gentlemen. You are the Alpha. And this is the Alpha Quorum.

Brad Singletary:

Welcome back to the Alpha Corp show, Brad Singletary here. You guys, this is going to be an exciting episode. We got the dream team up in here. These are some of my favorite guys on this planet. On my right, I have Taco Mike. Welcome back.

Taco Mike:

Brother. What’s up, everybody? Hello, Brad.

Brad Singletary:

We also have Jimmy Durbin, who’s the episode that he Mike and I did is the most downloaded episode ever. That one was a shit sandwich. That’s where we talk about our separate ones and how we brought back brought our marriages back to life. One of our best ever. And also Mike Olson. Welcome back, Mike.

Mike Olsen:

Thank you guys for allowing me to come in here. This has been fun.

Brad Singletary:

Mike’s the good looking one in the room, mostly because of his grooming. He’s got nice haircut and stuff. Everybody else, we’re all.

Taco Mike:

He’s the only one who tries yeah.

Jimmy Durbin:

We’re all a.

Brad Singletary:

Little scraggly over here. Our topic tonight is endurance. We’ve been doing this series on the Red Nine, and right now we’re on Endurance and this is about the Alpha who patiently pursues what he wants. He patiently perseveres with fortitude and grit. He seeks and accepts support, and he knows his limitations and quits only when he must. Great stuff, you guys.

Brad Singletary:

I’m really impressed with our conversation here so far. We’re going to break into the next part of this, which has to do with patiently pursuing the things that you want. Be persevering and continuing to push forward. You’ve made adjustments. You’ve had a written goal. You’ve got the mindset that you can do this thing or that you can accept difficulty Talk about patience and just the continuing chase of the thing that you believe is worthwhile.

Mike Olsen:

This is the hardest one for me. Even after I reach my goal, I still have the temptation of thinking, Oh, man, I am. I go in the right direction. And in it seems like my most recent, you know, what I would call my written down success has happened I’m thinking that it’s been a year and I have to go back to that written thing and I’m like, Oh, crap.

Mike Olsen:

It was like September 13th. That is four months ago that I accomplished accomplished that. And even at 54, I still have such a difficult time being patient, letting the process work. And, and I, it’s, it’s a struggle for me because I want, even if it’s the positive thing I want it to happen overnight. It’s just. And then not being nervous about what’s next, what’s next, what’s next.

Mike Olsen:

You know, in my own personal goal and just sitting and kind of enjoying the moment, I really struggle still you guys.

Brad Singletary:

Fortitude, grit, patience.

Taco Mike:

I watched just the other night this documentary about Indiana State Prison popped up on YouTube. It seemed weird. And I clicked it and it was.

Brad Singletary:

Like weird stuff.

Taco Mike:

I love the weird stuff. It was it was a documentary. A guy from England came to the Indiana State Penitentiary where I don’t know why, but he picked it. He picked Indiana, and they have it. There was like their death row. And he went and interviewed and talked to all these dudes on death row. And it was mind blowing.

Taco Mike:

And the most fascinating character out of this was this one dude who is not on death row but is serving life for something he did and totally admits and totally owns. And he lives. He is living the rest of his life. I oh, I do know he was 13 years old. He was 13 years old, and he murdered a guy.

Taco Mike:

It was this crazy situation not worth going into now, but that he went into prison at 15 and he’s now like 40 And so the reason that the guy interviewed him in the first place, he wasn’t there to interview that guy he was interviewed to do and the death row guys. But this guy calls attention because that dude was throwing off the love and the energy and the optimism of a dude who is living every frickin day the best he possibly can.

Taco Mike:

And so the the guy who was doing the documentary went and like I want to meet you and talk to you. And then part of the part of the documentary sort of turned and paid attention to this dude. And this dude occupied his mind. He engaged and like every single thing that was allowed like he served. He cared about people.

Taco Mike:

He loved people. He involved himself. He he wrote letters. He tried to advocate for people outside of the prison where maybe his experience could like a letter to a guy could, like, maybe help him. The guy was so outwardly focused and his mind was so expand passive that he talked about like, these aren’t walls. Yeah. This is all everything around these concrete.

Taco Mike:

But this is not my life. My life is here. And he touched his head and he said, my life is I. I live the life outside. I see the sun come up and down. I hear birds. He was so focused on the things that that were that had energy that could feed him rather than energy that could, like, make him angry.

Taco Mike:

And in everyone, you know, in the prison is like mad and angry and they’re full of hate, but not this guy. And it was amazing. So, hell, I don’t know if that even had anything to do what you were asking.

Brad Singletary:

But yeah, it does.

Taco Mike:

But the the I remember what your question was, was like, how do you just endure the daily grind where here’s a dude. Oh, you could take Viktor Frankl to the his story as a concentration camp survivor. And then living in a concentration camp, the life is designed to kill you. And and and so there is misery at every turn.

Taco Mike:

At every moment there is misery. And it is a court like this. This dude in prison and Viktor Frenkel. And anyone else who’s choosing to live with hope and optimism and looking for the next sunrise, that is like a conscious decision that. That has to be made. And it could be written down. A guy, a man trying to alpha up and level up could write down words in his own voice that say something.

Taco Mike:

The effect of in spite of the difficulty, in spite of the challenge, in spite of the facts, the facts are often super shitty. The dude is in prison for life on paper. That is shitty. And yet he chooses, in spite of that, to be this kind of person who is just flowing, love, flowing, joy and optimism. And creativity and hope.

Taco Mike:

And that is that dude is making that choice. That is his every day. His decision to be that guy.

Mike Olsen:

Was there a in this penitentiary story? Was there a particular moment or was there a catalyst moment that they described or did it just somehow he just made this decision? Did it describe that?

Taco Mike:

Yeah, he talked about that, and I think it I probably am a little off here, but I think he just sort of he was the angry guy for a couple of years. He was the resentful guy punched in the wall, you know, like he was that guy. And then I think he just sort of realized, like, that’s death.

Taco Mike:

If I if I continue to be that guy, I’ll probably get murdered in here and maybe God and he brings God into this. He says, maybe, maybe I’m here for a purpose. Maybe I’m here for a reason. Like my life was was going in one way. And then I did a thing, and now it’s this way. But how come I can’t choose to have God influence through me here?

Taco Mike:

Like, here’s where I am I could waste. I already wasted one life. I it landed me in prison. Now, like, I’m going to waste a sec the second life. No, I’m going to stop that. And I’m going to I’m going to change my attitude and change my thinking. So, yeah, it was a evolutionary process for him.

Mike Olsen:

Okay.

Brad Singletary:

It seems like he really found some meaning in that experience. That’s one of the things that Victor Frankl talked about, that despair does not come because of suffering. Despair comes from suffering without meaning. And so if you are suffering, if there’s some difficulty, something you have to endure, but just be patient with, find some meaning in it. And I love how you talk about to be externally focused Mike, that he has this life in his head, but he’s looking at other people that he can serve and help and he’s finding connections and he’s writing to people.

Brad Singletary:

And here let me tell you something of my experience that’s pretty cool. Fortitude, grit, patience, Jimmy.

Jimmy Durbin:

So what I hear is gratitude. And being aware of resentment. Um, I often think I had an experience where I came back from where I got sober got back into the hotel business, was working at the Monte Carlo and was 100% grateful to be employed to have a job, to be back in Vegas closer to my boys. And I slowly watched myself over a year slip off of 100% gratitude.

Jimmy Durbin:

And I thought that I should be I should have this title. I thought that I should be making this amount of money. I should have this promotion or that accolade, and I was becoming resentful and I had a man in my life who sat me down and I was willing to listen and he brought me back to the day when I was 100% grateful for that job.

Jimmy Durbin:

And we walked through I walked through a process of of learning how to walk myself back into gratitude. And I think that process is a golden ticket because if I can take myself in any situation and remember a time where I was 100% grateful for whatever that was it’s it’s Jim. It’s my natural man. It’s my ego, it’s my psyche that slowly suck me away from that because of those things I just mentioned.

Jimmy Durbin:

So to realize that and then to be able to walk myself back into then then there is no then there is meaning in suffering, then there is no suffering. Then my perspective changes. There is no resentment. I’m back in gratitude and back in the flow. Right. Just about the story that Mike shared that he wasn’t fighting anymore. I don’t have to fight anymore.

Jimmy Durbin:

I can take an honest self-assessment based on these goals, based on where I want to be and the man that I want to be and how I want to show up in the people’s lives that I love. Of course, correct. Where I need to be grateful where I am and just flow, you know, I I may I think I make it too.

Jimmy Durbin:

I know I make it too hard, like I get in my own way, right? And then I start to have these expectations and I should have this or I should have that. And I’ve I’ve learned it’s the world will never deliver on its promise. Just won’t, you know?

Mike Olsen:

Not the gym world.

Jimmy Durbin:

Yeah. Amen. The Jimmy.

Mike Olsen:

World will. Yeah, but not the gym.

Jimmy Durbin:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think if if you can know yourself well enough to know your limitations, to know where you need help to course. Correct. To be able to walk yourself back into gratitude, you know? So I’m here with Mike when he’s talking about, you know, reminding myself that it’s only four months. Like that’s a form of like stopping let me walk myself back into this place of gratitude that I wanted to create this and I wanted to have this in my life.

Jimmy Durbin:

And I envisioned it and I received it. And I 100% grateful. And now four months later, I’m not a little bit maybe I’m 90% grateful. And then I got.

Taco Mike:

To stop being a bitch about.

Jimmy Durbin:

It. Yeah.

Mike Olsen:

Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly right. Yeah. Because that’s when I say I’m struggling and then I’m like.

Taco Mike:

Yeah, no, you’re being a bitch about it because you’re.

Mike Olsen:

Not thankful for it. I’m not thankful for I’m just being I’m being a mike Wait a minute. Is Mike or Michael Goodwin? Are you sure there is. I got it. I’ve got to define that because I really like the fact that you recognize not only is Jim there and you constantly have to struggle against it. But it’s meant to be there because of that struggle and the value that you gain from enduring that struggle.

Mike Olsen:

And that Jim and Jimmy, I’ve never even heard that that, you know, we have these call it yin and yang, call it a natural man, call it whatever, you know, however you want to identify it. But you recognize that there’s two opposing things within the same entity called yourself constantly fighting against each other. And they’re pushing against that rock.

Mike Olsen:

The movement of the rock you know, as the story goes, isn’t the issue. It’s the strength that you gained from the push.

Taco Mike:

Brad talked about that in the story of the two wolves. You guys, everybody knows that. Right? Really quick in a nutshell, there’s this little boy who goes to his Navajo grandfather and he says, grandfather inside of me, there are two wolves that rage against each other. One wolf wants to tear and destroy and devour and the other one wants to build in love and nurture.

Taco Mike:

Grandpa, sometimes I worry which wolf will win. And Grandpa says, the one you feed So all of us have those two wolves, Jim and Jimmy. Jim, Jimmy has decided that he’s just going to confront that other the dark wolf and just give it a name like, that’s genius. That is it. Power, man. And so, yeah, Mike, you’re just right now coming to this, like, epiphany of, like, shit.

Taco Mike:

I should probably give it a name to and give some power then I believe that. And Valerie also taught me this. If if I name a thing, like, if I take or I can take away the power of a mystery and this is what writing does for me, too. If it’s a mystery, then it’s scary and I don’t understand it.

Taco Mike:

I’m confused by it. But if I can, like, seize it out of the ether.

Mike Olsen:

Give it an identity, look.

Taco Mike:

At it and have a conversation with and give it a name and identity and say, I know who you are, you piece of garbage you’re Jim, you’re no longer and it’s no longer a mystery. Right? And when life isn’t scary and you don’t have boogeyman in the closet and there’s no there’s no troll under the bed, you’ve demystified.

Taco Mike:

You’ve taken away all of that. Then life is this very I hold this to be true, that life is this very straightforward thing. Yeah. Life is just this. I don’t want to say simple. I almost, almost that would have been an accident. But life is this very straightforward thing that you can just I can just apply a set of formulas and and stand you know, I can just apply some sound Decision-Making to it and just move through it.

Taco Mike:

It’s just an exercise. I have a.

Mike Olsen:

Question for you, Jim. Jimmy, I have a question for Jimmy.

Jimmy Durbin:

One of us will answer.

Mike Olsen:

Jim isn’t meant to be killed. Jim isn’t meant to be done away with he’s just meant to be dealt with appropriately. Is that how.

Jimmy Durbin:

That’s that’s been my experience so far. I often think of the movie Beautiful Mind, yet right. His. Yeah, his that, you know, the professor, his college friend and the little girl, they don’t leave him. I you know, Jim has his own voice. And and so what that meant for me, like in 2012 was just getting connected with the hearing voices movement.

Jimmy Durbin:

Hearing voices network USA and inner voice because he has a voice and so that helped me separate him out. And then when I was going through this 12 step process, it was just this realization of okay, that what I’m doing is attaching that voice to my ego, to my natural man and then creating context around that. And that helped like Mike was saying, made it so it wasn’t so scary I mean the research in instead is that 15 to 20% of the general population of people hear voices so and of that 15 to 20, only like one or 2% come in contact with psychiatric intervention.

Jimmy Durbin:

That is means to say that most people live in harmonious with their voice or voices, whether you call it conscious voice of whoever.

Mike Olsen:

You want to tag it, however you.

Jimmy Durbin:

Want to tag it. Right. It would all fall under the umbrella of hearing voices. Okay. And there’s been lots of people in our history that have heard voices, but that was just a way contextually for me to go, Okay, this is what’s going on, and this is what he’s doing and why is he here and what is his purpose and what the hell and.

Jimmy Durbin:

And then as I learn more about him and confronted that which was meant, I was also confronting me, you know, who I was and how I showed up. It it just kind of all did this beautiful dance to realize it is the yin and yang. It is that path of enlightenment to be present and to be aware and to be mindful.

Jimmy Durbin:

And I think were, you know, men of truth and we can get really curious. And that to me is also I think the those qualities of that alpha male.

Mike Olsen:

Is in life is interesting and more fulfilling. When you are curious.

Brad Singletary:

A lot of what we’re talking about here with persevering and just having fortitude and grit and patience when things are tough is about acceptance. I think it’s acceptance. We’ve talked about humility, gratitude, being outward focused. What else what other concepts have we talked about here on this one before?

Mike Olsen:

We self-aware. I think the self-aware when is mindful.

Brad Singletary:

Mindfulness we find meaning in the suffering. Beautiful stuff. All right. We’ve got two other topics here. One is that the Alpha seeks and accepts help. What does that mean? What does that look like if we’re talking about endurance? You know, I’ve made the most bonehead decisions in my life when I was doing it alone. And I probably would have prevented so many difficult things in my life if I just asked someone, hey, man, this is going on.

Brad Singletary:

I’m thinking about doing this. What do you think? I think one place where this shows up is in, like, mentorship. I saw recently a colleague of mine, we belong to this Facebook group for therapists and she’s a young professional who is new to the area. She’s a single mom, and she said she posted on there, Hey, I’m looking for a mentor, and here are the things that I’m interested in.

Brad Singletary:

Here’s where I’d like to go. Here are the things that I need help with. And it was the coolest thing I’d seen in six months. Someone going to go on out there to this group of, you know, 1500 therapists in the area and saying Here are my objectives. I need a mentor. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Brad Singletary:

And so few people, I think, do that or ever kind of formalize the thing, Hey, I’m looking for this strength in my life. I don’t have that. I recognize something. And you could I could I lean on you a little bit? Can we develop a mentor mentee relationship where I contact you on specific topics? Or maybe we have arranged meetings or so forth.

Brad Singletary:

So mentorship is, to me, one of the ways that people can seek and accept support. What about you guys? What does that look like? What was support?

Jimmy Durbin:

Vulnerability.

Brad Singletary:

Okay.

Jimmy Durbin:

I, I mean, some of this for me is generational learning from my father, who learned from his father and his father of how a man is defined. And that meant a man doesn’t ask for help or if he does, he’s weak. Right. There’s this framework that I don’t think supports General, if I’m speaking generally, you know, that group my demographic you know, 50 plus white And so I, I got myself into a construct where if I asked for help that I had a problem with my mental health, with drugs, with alcohol was pornography and eating disorder.

Jimmy Durbin:

Then that also meant I had to admit I was wrong, bad, broken, I lacked moral fortitude and I was weak.

Jimmy Durbin:

Because that’s what I learned generationally. So if that’s my options, I’m not. I couldn’t I didn’t you know, they had to do an intervention.

Brad Singletary:

Zip it and pretend like you’re all suffering side.

Jimmy Durbin:

Suffering side. And that to me, that mindset that construct, I think, is why 70% of suicides are happening to white males because we suffer in silence I had to learn to unwind that, that asking for help didn’t mean I was judging you or me, and that a man who can ask for help is a man who’s done some work who knows this limitations and when he can actually ask for help, that’s a man who’s done a lot of work.

Brad Singletary:

You take in your you talk about being naked, you know, kind of show up naked. Expose yourself vulnerability, like, I want you to see this thing. Come look at my mess. Help me out with my mess. I’m in a mess. Can you come can you can you show me something? Tell me something to help me with it.

Mike Olsen:

It sounds like a more healthy way because sometimes there can be that border of that person who’s always in a mess. They’re never out of a mess. And they’re always looking to someone else front to to get that to do the work for them. Whereas it’s different than what you’re talking about. Jimi, as from what I see in it also when you say that, I think how much power and I’m going to describe love that that gives to another person that you ask or if you ask of a, you know, a small group, hey, can someone and and if you’re sincerely looking for some help with the very felt intention of and if I can find

Mike Olsen:

what I need, I’m definitely willing to put in the work I’m just being willing to be admitting the fact I have some blinders. I know it’s there. I can’t quite tell what it is. Can somebody help me out with it? I get the feeling that other person who if you ask them specifically, it’s a certain amount of love and respect that says, I respect you enough that I’m asking you for help and I trust you to give me some, you know, to give me some advice, not that I’m expecting you to save me, but that clarity, that help, whatever it might my.

Jimmy Durbin:

Can you ask someone for help?

Mike Olsen:

I struggle with it.

Jimmy Durbin:

I because it means what.

Mike Olsen:

If I struggle with it, I might not trust that that person is capable of helping me. I’m kind of thinking through this because I don’t know if I ever, really ever addressed it.

Jimmy Durbin:

Shit’s getting real.

Mike Olsen:

I. Are you good enough to help me? Do you possibly understand Do I have the capability of explaining it to you? Do we connect well enough that you’ll get me if I ask for help? Or is it that you get the deer in the headlights? Look, if I ask you for help, you’re like, Oh, shit, what do I see?

Mike Olsen:

Or What the hell is he talking about?

Brad Singletary:

Weird. Yeah.

Mike Olsen:

So I think that I would have to and that’s why these kind of groups are fun. And that’s why you guys specifically are, for me, enjoyable and helpful to listen to, to bounce things off. Because I would have faith and trust in any three of you in this. This goes way back. I mean, I remember listening to to you, Jim, Jimmy, and your whole crew inside your head when there were this was at single conferences that I was kind of in charge of and you would you know, you would speak and I remember you from that because you have knowledge and experience in something that I might be feeling or going through.

Mike Olsen:

And that I and not only that, but you could tactfully tell me where you get your shit wrong here or no, you’re not as bad as you as you might think you are. You have the ability to help me kind of clarify where I might be off my rocker or help me clarify. Yeah. You just need to be patient.

Jimmy Durbin:

If someone asks you for help. Yeah. Problem with that.

Mike Olsen:

I do not. In fact, I, I actually really enjoy that. Yes. And I would want to establish a the right time and place to where that help can be given. There’s, you know. Hey, how are you doing today? Oh, yeah, great. And do those are just kind of like, I acknowledge you there. I’m asking you how you’re doing, but I’m not really concerned.

Mike Olsen:

Or do I have the time to hear how you’re doing badly. But if someone were to say I’m I’m really struggling in something I definitely have many times said, yeah, you know what? Let’s kind of let you get can you get some time at this particular place? Where I’m trying to set up the best environment for them to share with me and for me to be able to explain properly what it is that they’re needing from me that I might be able to help with.

Brad Singletary:

Good questions. Jimmy, where are you going with that? What are you.

Jimmy Durbin:

I mean, Bernie Brown talks about if I have a problem asking for help and on a level I’m always willing to be of service then consciously, subconsciously, not only do I judge you, but I judge myself when asked for help. And I mean, I think of all everything that you just said, right. The the mind and where you went and the qualifications.

Jimmy Durbin:

That’s heavy. That’s a lot of work. And I think in a healthy, dynamic relationship, I can ask you for help. And if you can, I know you will. And if you can’t, I’m okay that you can’t. And if you ask me for help, you know that I can. I will. And if I can’t, like, that’s okay, too. So it’s just this simple exchange.

Jimmy Durbin:

Hey, Mike, can you help me? And if you say no, like, that’s okay. Like, I know. I know you like. I know, and and that’s okay. And then it’s.

Mike Olsen:

Do you mean. No, I can’t help. You know, I’m not willing to or. No, I don’t think. Oh, okay. Yeah. I don’t know that I would be unwilling to unless I see that I engage in that, and it becomes very clear you’re asking for help, but you really don’t want to. Not that you have to listen, but not only do you not listen you keep coming back to me with the same question, the same desire for help, for the same issue over and over and over.

Mike Olsen:

Then I’m like, Okay, you really don’t want help. You just you just want someone to suffer with you. And and still not do anything about it. You have no intention versus, you know, Brad and I have been through the things that he’s been through for the last 30 years, and he he could still, you know, ask me today, hey, do you, do you know, can you help me here and.

Brad Singletary:

See you would help me, but I don’t know that you would ever come to me and say, man, things are such a mess. I have no idea what I’m going to do. It’s kind of. And I’m not picking on you. I think this is a it’s funny that we’re this is come out here today, but hyper independence is probably, you know, that may come out of trauma.

Brad Singletary:

Hyper independence is a killer. And you know this term about toxic masculinity and stuff like that. I kind of hate the term and there’s all these feelings about it. I believe it exists. But I think that may be one of those things is hyper independence. No, I got it, man. I can I’m okay. I don’t want to say anything.

Brad Singletary:

I need to tell you because I’ve known you for this long and I’ve known you’ve gone through something like divorces and so forth, but I don’t really know what your day to day struggles are or you’re in it’s it’s it’s you know, it’s privacy. And I don’t want to I don’t want to invade any of that stuff, but I think a lot of men are like that where they just.

Mike Olsen:

You know, I’ll tell you what it is on the personal level on this when I because when I kind of got reacquainted with you, you know, when we we got together and I knew you and and your wife and your two new little ones, I do kind of want to come to you, but I’m like, holy shit. He’s got his hands.

Mike Olsen:

You get your hands, man.

Brad Singletary:

What do you mean? I would I would give you any any time.

Mike Olsen:

And I think that I need to change that because I’m like, I’m looking at your life going, hell, the last thing he needs is one more person ask.

Jimmy Durbin:

Is that because you don’t think you’re worth it?

Mike Olsen:

No, I think it’s because I don’t want to inconvenience him and.

Jimmy Durbin:

Inconvenience.

Mike Olsen:

That. My particular issue, he’s got his hands full enough. No, no, that’s I totally I’m recognizing.

Jimmy Durbin:

Self judgment in that. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

Mike Olsen:

Yes. And I can say that knowing that’s my actual thought, but knowing that he probably, you know, you you probably would. I know you’re.

Brad Singletary:

You’re robbing me, man. You’re robbing.

Mike Olsen:

Me. Exactly. And I’m recognizing that right now I’m I’m taking away from you an opportunity to have some joy.

Brad Singletary:

Yeah. That brings what is it? Is it oxytocin, kind of the love hormone.

Jimmy Durbin:

And all that. Yeah. The attachment sounding.

Brad Singletary:

So when I when I when I give something to you the same way when you serve, that reduces all the cortisol and all that stuff that brings you stress and kills all your organs and all that stuff. And so if I’m helping you, it’s actually healing me. So, yeah, man, I’m going to now I’m going to bug you about it now.

Brad Singletary:

What’s going on? Do tell me. I got nothing but time. Yeah.

Mike Olsen:

And I and I and I need to and there are times when I will reach out to people because I want to be of a help to them. But I do need to and I have kind of to make, you know, this on a Saturday morning, six 30 7:00, I’m thinking, oh shit, I want to talk to Mike.

Mike Olsen:

And I text him and I’m like, I’m on my way to California to collect a dead mother’s furniture and clothing like it should be. What I want to do is like the last thing on earth I want to do. Like, I’m going to go get some stinky furniture and some stuff. And I love my mother in law. She was a great lady, but like, I need to talk to Mike, but I didn’t exactly say that.

Mike Olsen:

And I should I probably should have because I know Brad’s not awake at 7:00 in the morning.

Brad Singletary:

Come on. What are you trying to say, Mike?

Mike Olsen:

Might be because you’re working. You’re on a different.

Brad Singletary:

Team at 1 a.m., Amy, and I’m the guy. I’ll be here.

Mike Olsen:

Exactly. I know what I know. I’m awake. Who else is awake? Ready, Mike?

Brad Singletary:

Maybe see this right here, you guys? I mean, we kind of know each other in some closer in some looser relationships, but this right? What just happened is an example of why you need the tribe that Jimmy talked about, why you need friends and mentors. And people that can be there for you. Because we just kind of worked out a little.

Brad Singletary:

Little problem for the good man. Mike Olson here.

Taco Mike:

A little role-play situation right here live.

Mike Olsen:

Mike Mikey and Michael. Now, I just need to read. I need to understand which one’s the.

Taco Mike:

Reason I’m there.

Mike Olsen:

Oh, I’m sure that I’m sure there’s a I know there’s also Richie. There’s a megalitre.

Brad Singletary:

McGinn.

Mike Olsen:

That’s a little Spanish Mike, that one. I’ve been already told, and I understand that’s not exactly a compliment. I thought it was kind of cute when when some of my employees make a little that’s kind of like you little piece of white guy. And so there’s Mike, Mikey, Miguelito. There’s probably I’m sure there’s two more there’s way too much going on at 3:00 in the morning.

Mike Olsen:

That makes me think of those strange YouTube videos of Indiana prison weirdos that I’m like, tapping into going, I wonder. And now it’s it’s more like work stuff like, okay, I need to get a conveyor belt to move this kind of material at this rate. And 200,000 packages that need to go out this month and, you know, all that kind of stuff that I just need to slow down.

Mike Olsen:

And if I focus on someone else, I can probably figure out my own stuff easier.

Brad Singletary:

You know, I belong to a group that really preaches self-reliance. And I think men take that so far. And I think we should be self-reliant when it comes to our food and shelter and our, you know, the things that we need to survive live in that kind of thing. But, man, when it comes to emotional health and so many other things, bigger things to be self-reliant means to rely on others I think that’s one of our messages in this whole alpha form thing.

Brad Singletary:

If you want to be strong, you got to do it with other people. So thoughts, Taco Mike on the need to seek and and accept support.

Taco Mike:

Yes. So my narcissism keeps me so I’m a people pleaser. I’m a narcissistic people pleaser and I’m super willing to help because I’ll get a cookie, I’ll get a pat on the back. I will have people. So I belong to a church that is that that is very counter-productive to my own narcissism and my own people pleasing. It’s just sit up systematically.

Taco Mike:

It’s just set up and structure in such a way. And this is not just my church. I believe that.

Mike Olsen:

The culture.

Taco Mike:

Part, I believe that we are such I believe that I am saturated in unhealthy institutions on every level. I’m in an unhealthy family. I go to an unhealthy church. I believe I am a I pay taxes to an unhealthy government. Everything that humans touch, rule and control is polluted and corrupted and full of just nonsense that that I will use.

Taco Mike:

I will tap in and I will I still have these Heat-Seeking missiles like I will go and find the broken DNA in a system. And I will extract from it ways that I can like manipulate it to my own self-interest and I belong to it to a church that’s no better or worse than any other. They’re all they’re all effed up.

Taco Mike:

Mine is left up in its own particular ways. And I extract from it things that serve me. And one of the ways that that one of the things that I do that’s super, super like feeds into my people pleasing is like, you know, you do something nice and then you hear your name repeated in circles. We’re like, Oh, did you hear that?

Taco Mike:

So this guy did the thing I have. I feed off that and nobody ever says nobody ever gives a cookie to like, Oh, did you hear my key? He needed a thing. Like he needed somebody to go to go help him do a thing like that. Doesn’t get talked about. And it doesn’t feed my ego in the same way that when I pump self-serving energy into it, into a system, I get the cookie.

Taco Mike:

I get a gold star. But like if I go to the system and say, like, I need help here, like that, there’s no I don’t get a reward ever.

Mike Olsen:

It’s not down upon.

Taco Mike:

Yes. And in fact, it can be looked down upon. Well, Mike’s kind of weak. Like, I didn’t know he was this guy, this broken guy. And so it doesn’t so I I’m in institutions I’m in family institutions. All of the ways that I like him are surrounded by other people. There is there is disease, disease, there is brokenness.

Taco Mike:

And the my problem is, is that I try that I, I game every system I’m a part of and and I, and I use it to feed my ego. And and so, Brad, one of the ways that, that I don’t ask one of the reasons why I don’t ask for help is because it doesn’t serve me in the, in these ways.

Taco Mike:

I’m talking about like so it takes a lot of effort on my part to probably for me, the closest relationships that I have with people that that know how after I am in my 12 step group and I go to lunch quite often it should be more often, but, but on occasion with dudes who we have sort of a under it is an understanding that we’re going to go have tacos and you’re going to tell me something that is super jacked up in your life.

Taco Mike:

Like you’re going like the part of the contract of like going to have tacos is like you’re going to spill some beans and I’m going to spill some beans and we’re going to like, you know, lay some shit out. And that’s a and, and I often don’t like it. I don’t like doing that. It’s not fun.

Mike Olsen:

But you do it on a regular basis. I have.

Jimmy Durbin:

To have to.

Taco Mike:

I have to like I have to I for I know it’s not only use or force, but I do it. I put myself in that discomfort intentionally because my ego is pulling me away from fellowship. My ego is whispering at me, my, my dark, my shadow self, my, my wolf’s the shadow wolf is telling me hide, run, pretend it’s strobe smokescreens, you know, shazam, I’m awesome just now like you know, smoke.

Taco Mike:

Look at me. I’m cool. Like I do cool things. Everybody look at me. That’s who I want to be. But I have to I have to intentionally force myself through that and out of that and then go sit with dude, like, tell him what f up I am. And in going to 12 step meetings, this is essential for my mental health because I just sit in a room of anonymous people and I say I’m a piece of shit.

Taco Mike:

And these are some of the ways I am. And and there’s this beauty and like no one in fact, most of the time heads nod and it’s not like, yeah, you are a piece of shit. It’s like, oh, I.

Brad Singletary:

Understand why.

Taco Mike:

You like me to bro. Like I got you. In fact, yeah, I just we don’t trust you wouldn’t this wouldn’t happen, but so be like, yeah, I’m going to one. Like, that’s a shitty story. You’re a real piece of garbage. Let me one up you on that one. Like, I’m double the piece of garbage you are.

Mike Olsen:

That’s interesting.

Taco Mike:

That doesn’t happen in sitting in a in a in a religious costume. You know, like I go to church, I put on my costume that projects a self-image of I’m put together, my shoes are shined. And I, you know, I, I’m everything about not everything there’s nothing absolute there’s a lot that’s inherent to religion and the practice of religion that is smoke screening.

Taco Mike:

It is there are many aspects of the whole religious experience that is designed in such a way as to smokescreen yourself away from reality. The reality of interaction between people and.

Jimmy Durbin:

Also known as shame.

Mike Olsen:

I was just going to say, because most people don’t understand how how different the doctrine is and how much power that the culture has, the inappropriate power. And sometimes the unintentional power. But because like you’re saying, it’s a smokescreen, it’s the it’s what Jim just said.

Brad Singletary:

So the antidote to some of that is a weekly how often are you getting together with your taco night?

Taco Mike:

I wish it was weekly, but it’s it’s a few times a month. It’s probably one to three times a month.

Brad Singletary:

Okay. And also 12 step. What are the things you have a similar process there, Jimmy. You’re still doing meetings or you have guys that you get together with.

Jimmy Durbin:

So yeah, doing my shame work and Mike’s right. Like, shame is baked into every system, every relationship, every community. So it’s for me, it’s really understanding how I hear shame, where it resonates and manifests in my body, how I speak it. Right. Um, and that takes, I need a place in my life where I can be completely trans parent and tattle on myself.

Jimmy Durbin:

Yeah. And so like Mike, I have my home group, my 12 step and that’s a fucking I let it rip, you know, I let it rip because I don’t want to carry it around. I don’t want to give gym fodder. I need it and it it, it helps me be vulnerable, right? The vulnerability what what underpins courage is vulnerability.

Jimmy Durbin:

So if you’ve ever seen or watched someone and said yourself, that’s very courageous what that man just shared or what that person just shared. Wow. That that’s, that took a lot of guts. What you’re what’s underneath that is the vulnerability. And I learned that that’s what I wanted. I wanted to be vulnerable. I want it because I it was in me.

Jimmy Durbin:

I’ve got my mother’s heart and her caring spirit. And I wanted to feed that. I wanted to open it up and I let it rip and I put it on Facebook and I just I said, here’s what I am. Here’s what I’ve done, you know? And it was intoxicating. And when I sit with people, another human being and I have honest, vulnerable, connected intimate communication it it’s intoxicating.

Jimmy Durbin:

I’m connected to God. I’m connected to love. And if I could choose that versus the other, of course, like send me up.

Brad Singletary:

I don’t know if it’s still there because I haven’t visited in a while, but Jimmy had on his LinkedIn. I still do almost like his job description was like alcoholics, ex drug addicts and recovery for this and this and this. It was the most badass ass thing I’ve ever seen because of course you got people need to know that and that to me.

Jimmy Durbin:

And there’s no shame.

Brad Singletary:

That made me like you a whole lot more just because even if I wasn’t dealing with that, just like, this dude is so real, he will tell he will tell on himself in a minute.

Mike Olsen:

Relatable.

Brad Singletary:

Yeah, I find that. Thank you. But for myself, you know, I’ve had shameful things that I’ve done and been through and the more I tell about it, it’s just the funniest thing. The more I tell about it, the further I get from those things and the more respect it’s it’s the most paradoxical thing.

Taco Mike:

It’s backwards, isn’t it?

Brad Singletary:

Is so weird that you.

Jimmy Durbin:

Counterintuitively.

Brad Singletary:

Believe that you’re going to be abandoned and looked down on and you have this sense of isolation when really the isolation comes from the concealment. And anyway, so I wanted to continue and finish off our conversation here with a very ironic part of a discussion on endurance, which has to do with quitting. Sometimes you have to quit sometimes you have to end the end, you know, in the exploration, sometimes you have to end the thing that you’re pursuing you have to end the relationship, the job.

Brad Singletary:

Let’s talk about that because sometimes we can go too far. We can take it too far, sometimes we can put ourselves in a difficult, dangerous situation because of this hard headedness maybe. And sometimes we got to hang it up and say, not for me, not anymore. This is enough. We have to recognize the limitation and quit sometimes when we must.

Brad Singletary:

What does that mean for you guys? And how’s that looked in your lives?

Taco Mike:

Can I I’ll jump in here. So Ernest Shackleton is a is a massive hero of mine. Ernest Shackleton, please look him up. Watch I would recommend if you’ve ever heard of Shackleton, we Google are not Google, but go to YouTube and just like type in the leadership lessons Ernest Shackleton. There’s really, really good short videos where a lot of really good instruction is given about like who this guy is and some of some of the lessons you can glean from him.

Taco Mike:

But if you know about Ernest Shackleton, you know that most he is a failure. He failed to achieve everything he set out to do. And so he had three expeditions to the South Pole. He had a goal. He had set a personal goal when he was young. He was in the Navy and he, he, he he decided that he wanted to be famous.

Taco Mike:

He wanted to tag the South Pole. He wanted to be world renown as an explorer and as an adventurist. And back in the day, like in the 1800s era of exploration, in the early 1900s, you could become the most famous person in the world if you did this like really cool thing of discovery. And he just was captivated by people that were doing that.

Taco Mike:

And he decided like, I want to be one of those guys. And my claim is going to be the South Pole. And he three times he tried to take the South Pole and failed three times. He’s most known for his third attempt where he is ship sank and 28 to him and 27 other sailors. They spent, oh, like 21 months on the ice in these horrible they should have died thousands of times.

Taco Mike:

He had to sail like a thousand miles from Elephant Island to to the tip of South America to get help they landed on the wrong side of where they needed to be. They hiked 21 miles like it is just mind blowing what this guy had to endure here’s what I was going to say that that is the most amazing thing about him and his story and his history is he on his expedition?

Taco Mike:

No. To trying to be the first guy to tag the South Pole. He gave up. He called it quits. He turned around and in defeat abandon the mission because it became apparent to him that because of weather and dwindling resources and that his men failing and like frostbite and all these things, he decided that he would call it quits and turn around.

Taco Mike:

And he was only like 18 miles. The number was like super small. He and he knew where he was and he knew how close he was. But he also knew that if he kept going, everybody would die. And even though his ego and his goal and his desire, like everything in him, was screaming like, fuck it, just go like, you’re so close.

Taco Mike:

Just do the thing. Like This is what you’ve prepared you’ve been thinking about this your whole life. Carry on, endure. And he came to his senses and realized like it is. I need to call this off and at the I need to save the lives of me and everyone here. And he he returned and he and that’s something he’s lesser known for that that expedition where he called it off.

Taco Mike:

And I have one other thing and this is I’ll finish with this. When my life blew up and I was in the midst of some massively excruciating therapy with my shrink at the time and was facing these like these realities were like I knew that I had destroyed my life. But then the depths of that was sort of becoming more and as I was like passing through the truth to save that, it just was such a huge my brain would sometimes it just felt like my brain was exploding, like brain cells were popping inside of my head.

Taco Mike:

And I was leaving one session where like, I could barely see. I couldn’t even focus. Like, my vision was, was I was experiencing this physical pain that was happening through my brain, through because of the difficult like work we were doing. So much so that like around the corner and a couple streets over, like, I had to pull the car that night.

Taco Mike:

I had to pull I saw this little side street and I had to pull into this side street and stop because I could not focus on driving. I was worried like, I’m going to hit something. So I pull in, I stop and I put the car in park and I’m just sitting there and I my head’s on the steering wheel and I’m just my I can feel brain cells popping.

Taco Mike:

I don’t know. That’s not what it was, but it felt like that, like Rice Krispies popping in my brain. And I had lights are on. I’m just sitting there and I probably needed I perhaps sitting there for, I don’t know, minutes, minutes and minutes and minutes. And I sort of him gathering myself and I’m sort of like deep and breathing deep.

Taco Mike:

She had actually taught me like, okay, when if this happens, you need to breathe deep. And I’m doing that and I’m starting to kind of like pass through this a little bit. And then I, I kind of get my wits about me, and I sort of I’m going to sit up, like, I’m not going to be slouched over.

Taco Mike:

I’m going to sit up, and I, and I do and, and I realize I pull on to a street that is blocked. It’s under construction, it’s all torn up. And I am parked. Did not five feet away from this big construction sign and it said something to the effect of road closed seek alternate route and and it just became apparent to me that that is a that’s my life.

Taco Mike:

The old life that I was on is closed. It is torn up for renovation and seek alternate seek an alternate route. And that was what I was doing. I was closing off a road tearing it up, and I was actively and in the journey of seeking an alternate route. And that sign was everything I needed to know because I had probably had moments of like this, this is too hard.

Taco Mike:

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to change my life. I don’t want to face these things. I don’t want to like I, I can’t endure any more of what I was doing. I need to change course, change direction. And that sign just was this like piece of aluminum validation of like you were you were doing exactly what you should be doing.

Taco Mike:

Close that road, tear that shit up, bulldoze it, dynamite it, and then seek an alternate route and so, yes, we’re talking about endurance and like staying the course and, you know, buckle down and hammer down and do the thing. And that is absolutely a part of of the concept of endurance. But what is equally important is sometimes you have to raise the White flag, you have to turn your expedition around.

Taco Mike:

You’re not going to make your goal. You have to at that to save your life, to save the lives of others. You have to like seek an alternate route or or cancel it. And that, I think, happens with with a lot of deliberation. And it should be a decision that maybe you make with other people. I know that at the time when I was rebuilding my life, I had other people looking at me saying, yes, right?

Taco Mike:

Like you should shut your shit down, like what you were doing and how you’re doing. It, like, close that down. And so it wasn’t just a unilateral decision. It wasn’t just me quitting a thing or changing a thing. Other people were helping me to make that decision. So I think the punch line is man up, nut up, face it.

Taco Mike:

Sometimes you’re like, I was just I was on the wrong road. I was on the wrong course, and I just needed to, like, call it quits and do something different. So to me, that’s as much of a part of endurance is staying the course. It’s this weird balance. It’s it’s you can’t come to that decision lightly, but sometimes you have to come the decision to call it off.

Brad Singletary:

And that story of Shackleton was Endurance, the name of his ship, the name of ship.

Taco Mike:

He name the ship the endurance.

Mike Olsen:

Wow.

Brad Singletary:

That’s kind of cool. How about you to.

Taco Mike:

And it cracked up and sank.

Mike Olsen:

After they all made it and stayed.

Taco Mike:

Alive during the experience, the ship endurance broke up and sink to the bottom of the water sea.

Brad Singletary:

Wow. How about you? Two stories of quitting when you needed to quit. You knew your limitation. You knew that this endeavor, this pursuit was no longer worth it and you had to hang it up.

Mike Olsen:

I can think of three really quick ones that are kind of all associated with family members. I can. My first marriage was 15 years and we and I had four sons I would say when I knew it was over but really didn’t know what to do. It was, it was 2000 we were divorced in 2000 uh 2007. And I tried everything that I could to hold it together.

Mike Olsen:

It, it’s it wasn’t by the ultimate divorce wasn’t my choice. However, I, I don’t want to say that and make it sound like it was all, you know, my ex-wife’s fault. Because I certainly brought, you know, 52% of the problems. But I can remember that when that choice was made and holding on, holding on, holding on, and then when, when I knew that not only was the divorce final, but there was no chance of of reconciliation or smiling and ever getting it back together.

Mike Olsen:

When I realized, okay, I do feel that I’ve done everything I possibly can, just let that go. I had some spiritual experiences that told me literally this is over. It’s done with she’s gone. I’ll take it from here. And meaning she she’s been in a very difficult situation. For the last ten years. She’s been in and out of rehab and can’t you know, can’t really seem to to kick that And my entire time since then.

 

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