So I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. Turns out
it's not. What's worse is to be stuck with people that make you feel that way.
Gents, I'm gonna be straight here. Growing up, I felt like an outcast. Now,
I'm sure a lot of you guys can relate to this, but my family wasn't with the in crowd.
I grew up in a small town in West Texas, and there was a Baptist church right next to the
school that let's just say if you didn't go to that church, you weren't part of the group.
Not only that wasn't white, I didn't have the darkest skin or the strongest Hispanic features,
but if you looked at my name, Antonio Centenno, it was a dead giveaway that I wasn't from the area.
And the worst part about this is I technically wasn't Mexican either, because my mom was white.
That's who I lived with, and I didn't speak a lick of Spanish. Now, Gents,
I'm sharing this information with you not because I want you to feel sorry for me,
but because I want you to know I understand what it's like to be lonely. In fact,
still today, I struggle with the issues of loneliness.
That being said, Gents, you can be surrounded by people and still be
lonely. Anyone that's ever lived in New York City, anyone that's ever been to Tokyo, yeah,
you can be in a sea of people and feel that you are all alone. And that takes us to the
first step to dealing with loneliness becoming comfortable with yourself.
Now, I have to admit that I came to this realization by accident. See, I lived out in the
middle of nowhere. There really weren't any other kids around us, so I had to entertain myself.
I did that through two means. First up, I loved action figures and GI. Joe Transformers.
I had quite a few of them, He Man, even before that. But I would set these guys up,
and I would have intricate battles. Up to a point, I was probably, like,
13 or 14, well beyond when I know a lot of my other friends at school who
had other kids to play with were given up on those type of toys.
But in secret, I still had I was setting up these bases and these forts. I actually really enjoyed
my Saturday mornings, just setting up these amazing bases and having these make believe
battles in my head. And I'd have to say, that coping mechanism of using my imagination and
in a sense, creating my own entertainment, that right there helped me deal with the loneliness.
Because I realized, you know what? It's not too bad to actually be by
yourself. No one's messing up your stuff. You're able to have a little brother,
and he'd come and mess stuff up, but I try to keep him away.
Point being is I learned it's just simply, sometimes enjoyable to be on your own and to
do things by yourself. And that takes me to the second way I dealt with my
loneliness is I became a voracious reader. Everyone's got their thing.
But for me, just going through those books and living through the stories,
I learned to love sitting and just simply making and plowing my way through a 300,
500 word novel. And you can probably tell I've still got the love of books.
I don't have as much time, it seems, to read and get into them as much,
but I love the fact that I could just be on my own in my own company and really get into this.
It was actually in the United States Marine Corps when I became an officer of Marines that it was
impressed upon me that you have to be comfortable with yourself, because one of the things they
talked about is that leadership is a lonely post. Anyone that has ever been at the top of a company,
at the top of an organization, or led others, you realize it's very difficult. And the
hardest part is you oftentimes don't have anyone else you can confide into.
That being said, there are certain mechanisms built into the military
historically to help deal with this. One of them on Navy ships, which I'll talk about a
little bit later in today's video. But next up, I want to talk about today's sponsor.
Gents I want to stress, you are never alone. There are people out
there that care about you, and if you need professional assistance,
you need to talk to a therapist. You need to check out BetterHelp now.
Gents I signed up for BetterHelp. I went through the process,
and what I love about it is they've got over 25,000 licensed therapists that basically are
right there at your fingertips. Now, the process starts off with them asking you a
few questions, and they do this because they want to be able to match you with the right therapist.
Once you've been matched, you can talk to your therapist however you want text,
chat, phone, video, call. You can message your therapist at any time and set up a
session that's convenient for you. And if for some reason there's not a great fit,
you can switch therapists at any point for no additional charge.
What I love about BetterHelp is you get the same level of
quality and professionalism as you would expect going in person to actually see a
therapist. But you can do this off in the convenience of your home. Guys,
BetterHelp is the world's largest therapy service, and it's 100% online.
Gents dealing with loneliness is tough. And again, if you want to talk to somebody,
if you need professional help, you need to check out BetterHelp. That's BetterHelp.
BetterHelp.com Realmenrealstyle. Use that link to get the best deal on the web.
Oftentimes we're being distracted with our phones. We're being distracted with music
because we're not wanting to think about or even talk to ourselves. Some of us are
scared of the voices in our heads and what those voices are saying.
Here's the thing, though. That voice may be saying a lot of negative stuff,
but treat it like you would treat some other crazy person that would be saying this stuff
to you. And would you take it if somebody else said, hey, you should go jump off
a cliff? You're going to go jump off a cliff? No going to be like, Get the heck out of here.
You start with five minutes again going on maybe a ten minute walk,
just thinking to yourself, and then you start looking forward to my friends are
always surprised when I'm cool with driving down to Florida or driving across country.
Why? Because I love being with myself and having that time alone. Actually, I look forward to it.
It's the gift I give myself on my birthday. My wife thinks this is funny,
but usually I ask for two nights at a hotel just simply to be with myself,
for things to be quiet, get away at the chaos of the home,
and just to focus in on where do I want to get out of my life? Where do I want to go now?
All that being said. Human beings are social animals.
And you do want if you enjoy being around others, then simply embrace that,
especially if you can surround yourself with the right people. Now, I think when we're younger,
it's a lot easier because our expectations are pretty low. We're stuck in a school,
prison, whatever you want to call it, with this other group of people, and we get to know them.
We don't have much in common, but we also don't have much of a history. So we're developing that
history as we're going through school. The same thing in college, we all show up there.
We don't really have much in common, but oh, you're from Iowa,
I have a cousin from Iowa. Let's start talking. All of a sudden you're young.
We all start to gel together. The military,
same thing. But something funny happens, especially to guys in our mid 20s.
All of a sudden we're out there working. We have to become a bit more guarded because our friends
at work well, they're not really friends, they're work friends. Yes, some people develop great
friendships at work, but for a lot of people, there's a bit of competition, there's a reserve.
This all of a sudden you go at the end of your day, your way,
I go my way. And if you were to leave that job, you oftentimes don't stay in touch with
the people that you had connected and got to know there. In addition,
a lot of the friends that you had in the past, you guys are going down separate paths.
One of you guys went into nonprofits. The other college friend, he went down the
finance path. Another guy went off to be an actor.
They find that when they're getting together,
which becomes less and less often, they have less and less to talk about. Now, in a sense,
this is natural. We have great conversations with people that we have a lot in common.
But as you get older, this becomes a bit more work. And a lot of guys, let's just say that
they don't feel the investment is worth it. And that's a big mistake because here's the thing.
As many of you guys know, your earliest friends can be some of your best friends
because you've got these shared memories. They're not after anything, especially for
a lot of guys to go out there and achieve great success. Maybe you get a bit of fame,
you may get a bit of wealth, you may feel that other people trying to get something from you.
But for the most part, a lot of the people that you knew early on in life, well,
they're not interested in that. They're interested more reliving the old memories, talking about,
yeah, remember, we did that as kids, and it's nice to be able to go back and visit. It's not
maybe something you want to do all the time, but it is something that I think maintaining those old
relationships is key to just maintaining the memories of that part of your life.
But let's say you don't want to maintain those memories. You didn't really enjoy that time,
and you didn't really have any close friends back when you were a kid. Well, guess what?
You can develop them at any point in life, but the key is you've got to make the time for it.
And as life goes on, as many of you guys know, we become so busy. You look at our calendars,
they're just filled. But how much time is actually set there to build new relationships
and to connect with others? Now, some of you guys may be saying,
well, I've got a family, I've got a partner, I've got kids.
That's going to satisfy my issue with loneliness, right? Well,
to a degree. Because I know with my wife, we can talk about the kids and we've got our life,
but there are certain things I can't talk to her about. I mean, we talk about a lot of things.
Maybe it's better said that I feel more comfortable talking about certain things
with other people, especially when it comes to building businesses, when it comes to maybe male
health issues. These are things that I want to be able to engage with other guys that are
very similar to me. And this takes me to the next point about building new friendships,
not relying on your laurels, the fact that, yes, you had a lot of friends in college.
Well, things change. People age. I highly recommend that
you're out there and you can do this in so many different ways.
I find that going to business conferences,
doing business with other people and actually learning more about them. Yes,
initially it's not very deep and business is what brings you together. Hey, you start
going to the gym with one of the guys that you're talking with, you find you have a lot in common.
Your families start getting together. Some of the best friends I have now are
from started off as business acquaintances and then they moved on to become true real
friends that I know have my back. Or maybe you're into the outdoors,
you like going camping, you like going rafting, canoeing, whatever it may be.
Find other people that are like minded. Going through a rafting
experience with somebody else is all of a sudden you're going to be closer to them,
you're going to have trusted them. You're on the same boat, you had to take care of each other.
And again, this helps to overcome the issues of loneliness. And if you're in your 40s, you're
in your 50s, you're in your 60s, what are you doing to build relationships with younger people,
not just younger women? I know a lot of you guys want to be dating that she's 20 years your junior,
but what about guys 20 years your junior that you could be be working with,
you could be mentoring with, you could be partnering with on a business because
you've got a bit more capital, maybe you've got a bit more time. This person has tons of energy.
They understand the tech sector better than you do. All of a sudden you're able to come in and
develop a friendship. One thing I read about a guy, he was probably in his 70s or eighty s,
and he realized that he was just going to all these funerals, all of his friends were dying.
And he made a point to actually build friendships with tons of young guys
in their twenty s and thirty s because he wanted to make sure at his funeral,
whenever that may happen, which he assumed was going to happen before these guys,
that he would actually have people showing up. And the story goes that
apparently at his funeral there were just all of these people. There loneliness.
A lot of us fall into it because we forget to put an emphasis and make it a priority to build and to
nurture relationships. If you want to be able to be surrounded by good people, you need to work to
develop relationships with good people. And that takes us to the topic of toxic relationships.
We all know those people that are leeches,
those people that bring in tons of drama. I would say you got to be careful here
because those people are actually costing you the time and energy if you want to
be out there building new relationships. Now, I'm all about sticking with friends.
And in a relationship that maybe they're going through a really tough time. But if
this is a case or this person has always been like that this is in their nature,
then you really need to look to move on. I'm not saying to cut that person completely off,
but I am saying that that should be an option.
If this person is doing nothing but bringing you down consistently and there is no relief
in sight because it's like trying to save someone that wants to drown themselves, they're going to
pull you under, and both of you guys are going to end up not making it. Now, we talked a lot
about building new relationships, but here's the deal, is that you can rekindle old relationships
that kind of like, seem to have petered out. You haven't talked to your buddy for ten years.
Here's the thing. Just simply reach out. What's the worst
that's going to happen? He's not going to respond.
Reach out to him multiple times. Just letting them know, hey, it's not an emergency. Nobody died.
I just simply wanted to catch up with you. I had two friends, and again,
my wife, she's always like, you want to drive like 2 hours to go get I had
to get some point shoes for one of my daughters. She's an amazing ballerina.
But I don't mind doing that drive because I'm like, hey,
that gives me an hour cut up. With my buddy Casey, he had gone through a
number of health issues. He'd recently gone from zero kids to three kids.
They adopted two boys from Haiti, and about the same time, his wife ends up being pregnant. All of
a sudden his life is turned upside down. But then he had heart surgery just like in the last year.
And I'm catching up with him and it was just an amazing call. I had no
idea that because he had gone through this adoption, he actually wants to and he's a
screenwriter before he started a whole webinar company. But he wants to get back to actually,
he's been writing an idea for a script for a show.
Maybe Netflix or Amazon will pick it up
about adoption and everything that you go through adopting. Because let's just face it,
if you know anything about the process, it is crazy. It's funny.
I used to work when I was in Ukraine with an agency that one part was adoption,
the other part was actually getting medicine and food to kids and orphanages. And so I had
that in common. And we were just talking about just the issues and the kind of
the graft and the bribery and the stuff that goes on to make things go faster.
And is it all bad when a lot of these kids are still getting to good homes? But yeah,
it was just such an interesting conversation, and it got me excited about what he's doing.
It just helps you overcome the loneliness again that we all feel,
and I know my buddy was feeling it as well. And I'd like to think that that conversation
that day just really brightened up at least that particular moment.
All right, so let me wrap up that story I was talking about earlier about how the
military and this is more, I think, on ships. I'm not sure how far back this tradition goes,
but does anyone know why doctors are on boats? And yes, it seems obvious that they're there to
deal with illness and issues and be able to help the crew. But more importantly,
they were there to actually be a friend with the captain.
See, doctors didn't have ranks, and they were technically, I think, exempt from a
lot of the issues going on in the boat. They didn't fall in the whole chain of command.
And that's important because the thing is, if you're the captain on a ship, you have no one.
You're second in command. He can't ever see you weak. And this guy is executing your orders.
You have to be thinking, you've got to be always on point, except when you're not.
And it has happens to anyone at a leadership. I've seen leaders just simply fail to operate,
lack of sleep, just simply have to be relieved in combat.
It's not a pretty sight. I mean, imagine on a boat what happens if you lose your captain,
you can lose all morale. So he's got to have somebody that he can talk to.
If you haven't seen Master and Commander, an amazing movie that actually shows and
illustrates the burden of command. And by the way, if there are any other great movies, you know,
about loneliness or dealing with the issues of command, I would love to hear about them down
in the comments. I'm always looking for a great movie, and you guys know I love hearing from you.
Hi, gents. If you want to watch another great video,
boom, I got one for you right here. Yes, this video right here.
Click it. It is great. You're going to enjoy it.
Boom, right there.