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Writer's pictureD Brent Dowlen

Becoming Unbreakable: 7 Skills for Developing Resilience


S02E38

[00:00:00] David Dowlen: Has life got you down guys. Cause no one would blame you if it does. Right. We've had a hell of a year, year and a half, whatever it's been now since 2020 as we're halfway through 2021 or more. And guys it's been rough on everybody and I get it and you can do something about it because you've already made it this far guys because you're resilient.

[00:00:24] Human beings are resilient, but. Let me help you become unbreakable. Let me help you develop seven skills. You need to be resilient no matter what you're facing, let's get into it.


[00:00:43] Dave McCarter: This is the fallible man podcast, your home for everything, man, husband and father. Here's your host, the fallible man, Brent Dowlen.


[00:00:56] Guys welcome to the fallible man podcast. My name is Brent and I am your host. This is a place for everything, man, husband and father, guys. We provide content, help men become them and they want to be to help them reach their fullest potential because everybody should grow to become what they were meant to be.

[00:01:16] You have so much potential and possibility guys, and we just want to see you get there. And guys, it is harder than ever. To do so right now, right last year and a half has been rough. We can be honest here. Totally rough. I get it, man. I don't know your individual situation, but I have no doubt that it has been a rough year and a half for you with that this shall not be named because, you know, I don't want him to scissor my podcast, but guy.

[00:01:48] I did this as a live stream a while back, and I wanted to do it on the podcast. In case you missed the live stream, that, and the audio on the live stream was so bad. I just felt like I needed to do it again. But guys, I want you to become unbreakable. I want you to become resilient. To the point where no matter what comes your way, you can just keep ongoing.

[00:02:12] And so that is what we're going to work on. We're going to stop waste of time. We're going to get right into it with point number one, you have to understand what resilience is. Resilience doesn't mean that things don't hurt. Resilience is not being immune from things. It is not being detached and emotionally.

[00:02:33] It is not being stoic. Okay. Resilience is the ability to move forward are to grow forward through every part of life's process. They're struggling. Life resilience is about how you react to struggle and grow forward through it guys. Think of it like this, a river doesn't get mad at something in his path.

[00:02:58] It just slowly adapts and he keeps flowing and he keeps going and sometimes it takes the time to build up an overflow, whatever the obstacle is. Other times it goes around, it, it reroutes and just finds a new direction to go, to get the same place. Sometimes you got to take a detour, right? Sometimes it goes under sometimes over centuries.

[00:03:20] It just wears down as opposition. That is resilience at his finest guys. You need to understand that resilience, adapts and grows through the situation. So you have to understand resilience to understand how to be resilient. Number two, you need to develop your emotional regulation skills. Now. I'm not talking about stoicism directly.

[00:03:48] Okay. I think stoicism has some fine points to it. If you've been on the podcast before you probably heard me mention it before, there are some, I think valuable teachings in stoicism. Is it the, in Jose? All probably not. But one of the things that does focus on is emotional regulation. Maybe you're an emotional person.

[00:04:17] I'm not. So it's always been a difficult point for me to understand other people who are, but I've tried really hard. And so let me give you some tips to help you, if you are an emotional person and there's nothing wrong with it. If you are guys, I'm not saying I'm better than you, or as bad to be emotional.

[00:04:36] I'm just saying I'm not an overly emotional person, but I know a lot of people who have. Let me help you in regulating those emotions. I don't want you to stop having emotion. I want you to regulate them. So you have control. That's all. So the first thing you need to do is reframe the situation. Now, quite a while back, I had a John on the show and John, the corporate action hero.

[00:05:07] Share with us the first trick to fighting that fight or flight response. Okay. He's a stunt man. Or I used to be a stunt man. Now he trains them and that fight or flight response is natural guys. And so when you're standing on top of the building, no matter how many times you've done it about to jump off a multi-story building onto an airbag, there is a moment where you just go, what am I doing here?

[00:05:38] That's your emotional brain telling you

[00:05:45] this is probably not a good idea and your reasonable brain telling you this is a really stupid idea. The first thing you need to do is reframe the situation. And this is what John shared with me, stopping and taking a couple deep breaths. I'm talking in through the nose. Alfa mouth, not like short, shallow, crappy breasts, like deep, deep breaths.

[00:06:13] I just had a trainer on the other day. Ari told us all about the fact that most people breathe shallow and the most healthy thing they can do is start taking deep breaths. Well guess what? Taking that deep, full breath, take three or four. That's why anger management, coaches and psychiatrists tell you to take a couple of deep breaths, that arrests your emotional response that gives your brain a chance to reframe it and take the emotion out of it because emotion is a burst of chemicals.

[00:06:48] So take a few deep breaths before you react to something. Develop that emotional regulation, it will help. Now another part of that is you have to allow for negative emotions. Anger happens, guys. Uh, you know, you're not on camera with me, so I can't say raise your hand if you've never been angry, but you know who you are.

[00:07:12] So listen to me, play my little game. Raise your hand. If you've never been angry, congratulations to the majority of. You tell the truth and all the rest of you, liars need to work on it. Just kidding. I'm just messing with you guys. Everybody gets angry, guys. That's a negative emotion. It's not wrong. It's just a negative emotion.

[00:07:35] It impacts you negatively. If you've been sad, that's a negative emotion. It's not bad. There's a time to be sad. That, that sounds horrible. Say that multiply fast. Right. And teach my kids that. Not that bad to be sad. It's not that. Oh yeah, that's horrible. Sorry, I'll do that to you tomorrow, guys. Negative emotions are gonna happen.

[00:07:59] They're part of life. And so, except that they're going to happen. Take that deep breath,

[00:08:09] give yourself a chance to reframe that emotion and reframe the situation. And it will be amazing what you can do also. You know what? Give yourself some space to do something you enjoy in times of trouble, increase your positive emotions by giving yourself a chance to do something good and a difficult time to do something you enjoy in difficult time.

[00:08:36] You increase positive emotions to not let those negative emotions overwhelming you. My friend and I, Dave Common Man, OCR Dave. Right. We get our motorcycles a ride. That's one of the positive things we do that we enjoy, even when we're busy, sometimes getting on a motorcycle for five minutes, 10 minutes helps us gain perspective because we enjoy that.

[00:09:04] It brings up the positive emotions, which lets us get a hold of and understand the negative emotions we're experiencing as well. Guys. So number two is develop your emotional regulation skills. You understand what resilience is now. Now we need to develop those emotional regulation skills. Number three is important.

[00:09:26] You need to take responsibility. If you've ever been on this podcast, you more than likely heard about me. Heard me talk about Jocko Willink's book, Extreme Ownership. I'll have a link for it. It is probably one of the most important books you will ever read. I swear to God, I shouldn't swear to God this bad, but I swear guys Scout's honor or whatever you, whatever you guys do.

[00:09:57] I don't know. I wasn't a boy scout. It is one of the most important books you can read. As far as I'm concerned. There's a link for it on my website. There'll be a link for it in the show notes and the description guide. Seriously. It is one of the most important books you could ever possibly read. We are at a time where personal responsibility is out the door.

[00:10:19] We blame everybody and I'm telling you, take responsibility, own your situation, regardless of whether it's your fault. I don't care if your boss jumped down your throat. I don't care if your coworker screwed you over. I don't care if your spouse did you dirty or your friend betrayed you.

[00:10:41] Own the situation, regardless of whether it's your fault. The first thing you do need to do to own that situation is to look at the situation, look at your role in it and look at for what you could have done differently to affect that situation. There's a possibility, there's nothing you could have done.

[00:11:06] To change it. And there's also a real possibility. There's something you could've done to change it guys, own it, period, your fault or not own it, own it own. It's yours. Owning the situation gives you power. It does nothing, but give you power over the situation. So own it like hardcore guys. And taking responsibility, give yourself some forgiveness and grace, if it is your issue, if you screwed up, if you blew it, if you made a bad choice, if you could have handled the situation better, if you could've worked with that boss better, if you could've worked with a coworker better, if you could have done right by your spouse, give yourself some forgiveness and some great.

[00:12:01] You are not perfect. You make mistakes. The only way this is a failure is if you fail to learn from the situation, which I know I can do, because, Hey, you're on the fallible man. We're all about owning our situation and owning our shit. So give yourself some forgiveness and grace, and here's the hard part.

[00:12:26] If it is somebody else entirely. Cause that's possible. Practice them for some forgiveness and grace for them as well. Don't just forgive yourself if somebody else totally did you dirty guys practice some forgiveness and some grace because you were doing nothing but poisoning yourself. You're hurting yourself, being angry and pissed off at them being angry and pissed off at somebody else has never, ever, ever.

[00:12:59] In history, done anything positive for anybody only ever ends and making the situation worse and only makes the situation worse for you. They don't care if you're pissed off at them. You're only hurting yourself by holding that anger and holding that grudge. Forgive them, give them grace. Move on. Telling you, it will change your life because now you own that situation.

[00:13:27] You are in control. You have power to do something about it and you don't, if you don't own it. So own the situation, take responsibility, whether it's your fault or not.



Don't miss our new Live Show on YouTube every Monday!







Number four guys, build community. Okay. The old lone Wolf adage is a bunch of crap. It's a cool movie idea, but it is a bunch of crap.

[00:14:00] Build a community. I'm a game of Thrones fan. Sorry if that bothers you. But one of the lines they said at one point about the Starks, who's how sigil is a Wolf is when winter comes. The Wolf is alone dies, but the pack survives guys. It's true. It is absolutely true. You cannot go this world alone. You need friends, you need family, you need community.

[00:14:37] And I get it. Not everybody has family. Not everybody has good friends. Not everybody has a community, but generally you have one of those. If you don't build a community, build your own, join somebody else's. There are 1,001 Facebook groups. It is unreal. How many there are

[00:15:05] join a Facebook group, guys, join a church. I know like old school, right? Pre, pre. Modern era. pre-Facebook pre my space joining community group, man, whether it's the boy Scouts, if you're younger or the girl Scouts are all that craziness. Now, whether it's a church, whether it's the lion's club or what other, the moose or gosh, there's a lot of them.

[00:15:35] Now, if you're a vet, the VFW guys find a community to be a part of you that join one, our building. There's a community there's order of man. They have a Facebook group go on my website, the foul man.com www dot fallible, man.com. Join our community as a man, we have a forum and we are growing the community section.

[00:15:59] We're working on trying to build up more and more for you guys. There is no cost to you. I don't charge for any of that. Join the community. Join the discussion. Hey, reach out to me on social media because I'm everywhere. And talk to me and tell me what you're looking for your community. Let's build something together.

[00:16:19] Let's build a community because you can't go on your own it is not possible. We're talking about being resilient. How did we come? Unbreaking. We've talked about becoming understanding what resilience is developing emotional regulation.

[00:19:19] We've talked about taking responsibility and building community. And if you miss that part of the episode, go back and listen from the beginning. It's really important. Now we're to talk about point number five, and that is strengthening your relationship with yourself. Guys, if you listen to the podcast two weeks ago, before this episode, I have Michael on broken on last week.

[00:19:41] And the week before that we talked about being selfish. We weren't really talking about being selfish. Guys. We're talking about taking the time to become, to Tinder your self care, to take care of yourself, to build yourself up and guys, this first part of strengthening your relationship with yourself.


[00:20:01] You have to take time to take care of yourself. You have to take time to build yourself up. You cannot your battery. Okay. You cannot giving, giving, giving, giving, give, and never run out of juice. It doesn't work like that. Take time to build yourself up with some self-care stop talking negatively about yourself, guys.

[00:20:32] It starts in your head. What happens in your head, goes to your mouth and then it comes out of your, in your heart guys. I'm not a big person in manifestation or journaling. I think those are fine thing. Well, generally is a vine thing. I don't believe in manifestation, but how you think about yourself? How you talk to yourself in your head.

[00:21:00] Guys, if somebody else talked about you like that, you punch them in the face. Seriously, stop that crap. Stop talking to yourself in a way that you would punch somebody else for there's no call for it. If you think about it, it sits on your heart. Eventually comes out of your mouth. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

[00:21:22] Stop the negative conversation about yourself. Feed yourself. Good things. Books, conversation, podcasts. You know, there are actually educational YouTube videos. If you're watching this on YouTube, YouTube, this is one of them spend time thinking if you're watching crap, watch things like national geographic that builds your knowledge guide.

[00:21:49] Do things that feed yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically strengthen that relationship with yourself. If you want to be resilient, because if you don't got you, nobody's got you. It's just a fact guys. If you're getting something out of this so far, are you still with me at this point? Be sure and hit that like button, leave us a review on apple podcasts, good beats or anywhere else.

[00:22:13] You're listening to. Sheriff's with your friends hit the subscribe button really helps us out. Let's keep rolling guys. This is an easy one. Exercise. Get exercise, get exercise, get exercise. Feed yourself. Nutritional food. Oh my goodness. I can hammer this one into the ground all day. Guys,

[00:22:42] science has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. The exercise has no end to the emotional mental wellbeing besides the physical wellbeing that comes with it. Science has proven that exercise has no end to how it helps you mentally and emotionally, besides the physical we're talking about self care just a second ago, self care.


[00:23:10] Eat nutritious food. You're not a child anymore. You know, not to eat McDonald's, you know, to stop eating out of the gas station. All my brothers working construction, guys. I know I took my daughter fishing yesterday. I stopped at the gas station. I got two crispito's and canned coffee. Yup. I still do it.

[00:23:27] I've been out of construction for a decade now I still do it and I know better. I know better. I can tell you some of the best diet and nutrition tips you can find. But I know better and I still do it guys. So stop eating the crap. You're not a child anymore. Drink water, eat healthy. Get some exercise.

[00:23:49] Three 10 minute walks. Seven days a week will change your life. I swear to you. It is that simple. Number seven guys. Challenge yourself, set goals, set goals, both mentally and physically. If you watch the channel much, you know, I like to do obstacle course racing, racing. My good friend, Dave Common Man OCR@commonmanocr.

[00:24:16] OCR is a guest on the show and a regular guys. We love officer course racing, and I'm not saying you got to do it, but I can tell you we started doing it because we're too desk jockeys who sit behind a computer screen all day. We knew we were missing the physical challenge in our life. And a lot of empty emotionally, mentally, and physically.

[00:24:44] So we set out a physical challenge for ourselves and we've been addicted to it ever since. Not like addicted. I can't quit bad addiction, but like, we love it. We love doing the events. We love going to them. We love being a part of them set physical challenges. You don't have to do OCR, maybe your physical challenge.

[00:25:02] I just did a. Pushup challenge earlier this year on Facebook, 2200 foot pushups in a month. Right? For some of you guys, that's nothing for some of us. That's huge. Oh my goodness. It was horrible. My shoulders hated me. Set a physical challenge, set a mental challenge, challenge yourself, set those goals, physical, mental, emotional live.

[00:25:29] According to the values you believe in. Do hard things. I seriously mean it. Hard things. Guys do really hard things. You grow, you get stronger, you get tougher. It's an entire chapter in Congressman Dan Crenshaw, his book fortitude. I'll put a link in the description guys. It was a great book. Do hard things.

[00:25:58] Join hard things build you up mentally, physically, emotionally. It strengthens your resilience guys. As we land this plane, I want you to collectively commit to growing your resilience. Becoming more resilient will improve every aspect of your life. It will make your life easier or make you stronger. It will make you more capable.

[00:26:20] It's a skill. It's a learnable skill. You better get the practice in. If you want to become resilient.


Guys, I care so much about this one that I want you to go to https://thefallibleman.ck.page. Yes. It's a landing page. I know it's got a weird suffix.


[00:26:49] I swear to you guys. I'm not trying to poison your computer. I would never do that. I'm an it guy. I know exactly how bad that is. I would never do that to you. If you're watching on YouTube, it's on the screen guys. It's in the show notes below. If you're listening to the podcast, https://thefallibleman.ck.page

[00:27:10] putting your email. You'll get a free copy of my email of my ebook. When you confirm it, you put it in an email. I don't care if it's your real email. I don't care. If it's your main email, put an email, it's going to send you an email. You're going to click confirm, and immediately is going to give you a downloadable PDF.

[00:27:30] Guys. It's 70 pages. Put a little work in on this one 70 pages. You confirm your email, you get it. It's in PDF format instead of like EPUB or something like that, because I wanted you to be able to read it on your phone and your computer, wherever you read, things like that, not just on your Kindle.




[00:28:17] If you want to unsubscribe, as soon as you download it, you can and you're off my mailing list. I don't care. Download "Become Unbreakable Seven Skills for Developing Resilience and an Ever Changing World" is taking this topic that we talked about and just barely touched on in this podcast. To a whole nother level guys, it's yours free.

[00:28:39] I don't want anything for it. Seriously. You can unsubscribe. As soon as you get the email and the. Confirm the email download the PDF unsubscribe. I will never bother you again. I just want you guys to have it because I care about you and I want you to be more resilient because I know that life has been difficult for the last year and a half.

[00:29:00] Maybe for some of you longer than that, guys. I just want to give you something because I care. I know it's it seems, sounds weird. I swear. There's no catch, I wouldn't do that to you because I want you to come back and listen to. Thanks for hanging out with me. Thanks for taking the time to be a part of this.

[00:29:17] I am the Fallible Man, and until next time, be better tomorrow because of what you do today. We'll see you in the future.

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