Dr. Joe Martin: Connection, Family Traditions, and Reconnecting at Home

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 268 with Dr. Joe Martin.

Reconnecting With A Favorite Guest

Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. We're gonna connect. That's a keyword right now. We're gonna connect with one of my favorite guests that we've had. He's one of the first people, kind of happened on the spur of the moment. One of my friends told me that he just heard the best speaker he had ever heard, and I said, well, I gotta talk to this guy. And sure enough, he was gracious enough and nice enough, kind enough to give us some time, and I was not disappointed on the first podcast with Dr. Joe Martin of Real Men Connect. I wanted to touch base with him again. I've been thinking about him. Apparently, he's been thinking about me a little bit. He sent me a text message about a week ago, so it's perfect timing for us to get together and talk about connection at this time of social distancing. Everyone in the world right now is struggling with this a little bit, and I expect that this is gonna be a great conversation with my friend, Dr. Joe Martin.

Tom Rowland: Alright. With me, I have Joe Martin. Dr. Joe Martin, he was one of our first guests that we had on the podcast, and so many people have given me some feedback, emails, all kinds of stuff saying how much they enjoyed that. I wanted to connect with you today, Joe, and find out what you've been doing since the last podcast. It's been, what, over about a year and a half, I guess.

Dr. Joe Martin: Man, has it been that long?

Tom Rowland: I think so. At least a year.

Dr. Joe Martin: My goodness. Yeah. It's been a while. You know, what I'm doing is gonna sound kinda boring. I tell men that if something is not multiplying, it's dying. Right? They have to multiply. And so I try to stay away from addition of just adding new things, adding new things, but to multiply what is working. And so, I say it's gonna sound kinda boring. What we've been doing, we've been multiplying what we've been already currently doing, which is showing men how to connect through community and to grow and sharpen one another so they can be the husbands and fathers and spiritual leaders in their home that God has called and created them to be.

Tom Rowland: Man, that's a great mission. I know so many people got a lot out of what we talked about on the first podcast. Now one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about today is exactly that. And in this time of social isolation, there's a serious lack of connection, not just between men, but between the whole world. And I thought you would be the perfect person to discuss that with. Like, last night, I was watching the president on television, and he was saying, you know, prepare for another thirty days of this deal. And in fact, maybe even more of a lockdown than what we've currently seen yet. So what do you think about that? How do we deal with the lack of connection in our lives right now?

It's All About Perspective

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, one of the things, we have to change our perspective on all of this. It depends on who you're talking to because I was telling you that we have a group of men that we meet with once a month. Well, they're from all over the country. Not only the people within our organization, but men who we invite to come in where we talk and discuss man topics. Usually the topics that most men are not normally discussing around groups of other men or they're not talking about in the churches or everything else. And everything is about perspective. And I'll tell you this. Now the topic was about this particular area that you're talking about, how do we respond to COVID-19 and social distancing and everything. And I made a statement to the men, and this is what I'm sharing with your listeners, is that it's all about perspective. Do you realize this is an opportunity?

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Dr. Joe Martin: This is an opportunity for us to stand up and shine as men. This could be our finest hour. Now I gotta tell you, Tom, there's a lot of people around me who I see who are walking around in a panic. They're anxious and they have every right to be. But then you have men who are maybe crazy like me, they're thinking, wow, this is a great opportunity to draw closer, to appreciate life a lot more, to stand up and serve, to do something good, to make an impression, to make a difference. That when we look back on this time, that we'll remember as probably one of the scariest times in our history, but it could also be, I remember how great it was with my dad, my husband, my friend, of how people stepped up. Remember nine eleven? How it's one of the worst tragedies in our history, but also one of the finest hours for the people who were first responders, the people who gave their lives for us. And now we look at and we celebrate their heroism. And so to me, this is the perspective. This is also an opportunity for our finest hour, not just the panic.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, what a great perspective that is because there were a lot of finest hours around 9/11, and some of the listeners are too young to remember. Some of them remember it like it was yesterday. But there were a lot of finest hours there, not only in the immediate moments after where people are literally going into fires and saving people. But then you saw New York come together as a community like never before, and then you saw that spread across the entire United States to where there was this togetherness that no one had seen in a long time. And I see that kind of going on now, but then there's this fear of just being close to anyone at all. Like, if you go out to the grocery store or anywhere, somebody sees you coming, and they literally take two steps to the side and avoid you even if it's one of your good friends. There's just this real distance between people right now. But when you look at it as an opportunity, I love that because I try to see opportunity in everything. Even in the worst, there's some sort of opportunity. And I believe that good always comes out of bad. It may be bad on the surface, and it may be bad immediately, but somehow good comes out of it. So what are you telling the people that you're working with, your men, how do they make this their finest hour?

The Antidote To Social Distancing

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, it's just looking for the opportunities to connect. I heard one of the guys say last night, which I thought was wonderful, is that the antidote to social distancing is social connection. Now you're saying, like, walking in the stores, and then we see people and they pull away from us. Okay. Yeah. We see that because they have a fear. But that person, you probably didn't know anyway. Why not draw close to the people who know you the best and who you love the most? See, it's not gonna shatter my world because I see you in a store and you're afraid of me. Dude, I don't live with you. You know what I mean? You're just a stranger. The only reason why it makes us so anxious is because we're not used to seeing that happen. And so, again, it's all about our perspective, but I tell you deep down inside, at least I can only speak for me, is that my faith is what I stand on, what my hope is in. It's not in a cure for the virus. It's not in my lifestyle being cramped or inconvenienced. It's more in the hope that I have. I had this hope before the coronavirus.

Dr. Joe Martin: And I said something last night because of the way we did it and how we brought these men together. I did a survey of hundreds of men across the country to find out what are they doing to socially connect better with the ones they love, their wives, their children, even their friends who they can't socially touch and connect with. And I wanted to find out what are some of their approaches, their best practices, so to speak, of how they're dealing and coping with this without this ripping their families apart, without them stressing out. And I received all this information. That's why I can share a lot of stuff with you, Tom, different strategies and do's and don'ts and everything. But check this out. This is something that I said and everybody got really quiet when I said it. They couldn't wait. Joe, what did you find out? Give us all these strategies and ideas of what fathers are doing and husbands are doing to connect better with their kids. And I said, before I share that with you, let me tell you what I really found out to be the real answer. I said, you know what we should be doing during this COVID-19 pandemic? And check this out, Tom. I said, everything we should have been doing before the virus but struggled to make time for and usually made excuses for not doing.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Dr. Joe Martin: Any questions? That's what we should be doing. Everything we should have been doing. Everything. Because everything I share with you, you're gonna say, well, Joe, shouldn't they be doing that already? Absolutely. But we usually make excuses. I'm too busy. Well, I got this project I'm working on. Oh, I gotta go here. You can't do that now, can you, Tom? So now everything you've been putting off that could have helped you grow the relationships in your life that matter the most, now you have the time to do it. The question is, will you? And so that set it up, and then we gave them the strategies because I wanted to let them know, as I'm looking through all this stuff, I'm thinking, oh, these are some great ideas. But shouldn't we have been doing this already? Why did it take a pandemic for us to get serious about this stuff? One example, Tom, would be eating meals together as a family. Hello? What a concept, Tom. We can actually sit at the table now with our family and eat. What were we doing before? Commuting, fast food, not sitting in front of each other, not communicating. That was just one thing. Now you have an opportunity. What's your excuse? Every night, you can sit down and have a meal with your family. No excuse.

Tom Rowland: Or three.

Dr. Joe Martin: Or three. Exactly. That's right. So to me, that's why I say, is it an obstacle or is it an opportunity? It's an opportunity. And so we can look at the difficulties, but we also gotta find the opportunities within those difficulties.

Strategies For Connecting At Home

Tom Rowland: I love it. So specifically, did you get some ideas about what people are doing when you got all this information? I think it'd be interesting to hear what people are doing.

Dr. Joe Martin: Oh, man. Well, we got a lot. Some of the things, and I'm just gonna touch on some of them. Oh, by the way, Tom, these men that we did, I did a cross section to find out, okay, what are they representing? We had men from 50 years old who was married, father of two, all the way to men, 20, father of three, who has a five to one year old. And we had a guy who's 30. This is advice we received from these men all over the country. A 30 year old who has three kids, two girls and a boy, ages six to seven months old. Could you imagine having a seven month old right now doing this? Because you're in the house with them all the time.

Tom Rowland: Seven month old plus a couple of, like, about a three and a six year old, that would be as much as you could take. I'm sure there's...

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, I'll share with you, Tom, some of the things that they shared with us. And I mentioned about eating meals together as a family. And I thought this was a fantastic idea that somebody came up with. They said, in order to build intimacy with your wife, because, you know, with the kids around all the time, that can be difficult.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm. Right?

Dr. Joe Martin: Because now you can't get rid of them. Somebody suggested have a dinner date with your wife once a week and let the kids pretend to run a restaurant as they serve you. Could you imagine that? Isn't that cool? And so, obviously, you're gonna prepare the meal. But they can be a waiter or a waitress. They can be a dishwasher. They can be a person who's cleaning up at the restaurant, and they can have fun pretending to serve mommy and daddy. Now we're talking about families with children in the house, with little kids or teenagers. But you're serving them. You're being there for them the entire week. Mommy and daddy, we can't go out like we used to. We can't go to restaurants. What we like to do, we like to put a meal, and if you were running a restaurant, how would you treat us? And because they're not gonna bother you, they're gonna give you time alone to be able to enjoy your date. So that was an idea that somebody came up with.

Dr. Joe Martin: Other ideas that I heard was reading and studying something together, which I thought was a great idea. I'm actually doing this myself, with my son. My son and I, we're reading a book, which is a great book, called Atomic Habits.

Tom Rowland: Oh, I do. I have read that. That's an excellent book. It's on our book list. Yes.

Dr. Joe Martin: So my son, he was struggling with self discipline. So I said, I read this great book called Atomic Habits. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna read that book and we're gonna discuss a chapter. And we're gonna do it once a week where we're gonna just study and look at that book. And today, matter of fact, today is the day that we're gonna discuss. He's out of the house, so he's coming over here and we're gonna discuss that book. And so you can do book studies. Not only eating together, you can prepare meals together. What a concept. What an idea. What if you got in the kitchen with your kids or with your wife and prepare meals? You can be baking together. That was some ideas that guys came up with. What a great opportunity now to be more intentional about having family prayer. You think our country can use some prayer right now with what's going on? Well, why not include the family? Typically, men are praying by themselves, in their quiet space or their quiet time. Why not include your families now intentionally? We're gonna pray in the mornings or we're gonna pray in the evenings or whatever it may be.

Dr. Joe Martin: Some guys we're talking about reading and studying together. One of our men recommended, which I thought was great. He has a 40 year old. He says, don't just read to your kids. Read to them outside. Go sit under a tree somewhere. Go sit on the swing somewhere. Go to a park and read to them. It doesn't necessarily have to be about the book, but about the environment that you're in with your kids. Now I'm just bouncing around with different ideas. Oh, I thought this was a great idea, Tom. You say that you walk in a grocery store and the people who know you, they're pulling away. Tom, we were supposed to meet together, weren't we? We're gonna get together physically before this. And we couldn't do it because we didn't know this was happening. There was all this quarantine stuff. So what do we do? Now we're doing it via technology. Now we're doing it on an app that we can't actually see each other, but couldn't we have easily set this up on Skype or on Zoom and say, you know what? Not only we're gonna meet for this podcast, but you know what, Joe? Let's have lunch. And I was telling you, when you called me and checked in, what did I tell you I was doing? Oh, I was in the middle of eating. Right? I was eating something. I said, well, Tom, hey, bring your sandwich. Let's look at each other and talk to each other. The only thing is that we can't physically touch. But, Tom, we can still be together. So they thought about setting up virtual lunches, which I thought was great.

Dr. Joe Martin: Why not now work on projects that you can work on with your family or your children about building and repairing something? Now that's not my strong suit, Tom. I'm not a builder. I'm a thinker. I don't work my hands a lot. But if you wanna build something, you can work on a car with your son. You could build models. You can do all kinds of stuff. Board games are great. I'm trying to think of some of the out of the box thinking. Oh, here's a great idea I heard from somebody last night, that a lot of times our kids as they're getting older, especially if you have young kids, but when they get into teenagers, there can be a lot of things. Oh, dad, I won't do that anymore. That's lame.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Dr. Joe Martin: You know, we used to do that when we were younger, but I don't wanna do that anymore. What a great time to talk about the old family traditions you used to have and see if you can bring one of them back. Because now, since they're like, wow, I haven't done that in years. What they thought was lame before may now be a bonding opportunity because it brings back great memories. So that's something that we can start doing together. Watching classic movies together. Right now, I'm really getting into biographies. Because I didn't have time to watch biographies. You know, I will read on a plane or something like that, but now I have time to watch television and watch biographies. So now I'm learning about people that I wasn't even interested in, but I'm saying, you know what? I'm curious about why that person's so famous. And so what a great time now to bring your family, include that. I just told my children, I just watched this great biography on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I didn't know a lot about her, but what a great documentary. So I'm trying to get my kids to watch it, especially my daughter, because some of the laws that have been passed are affecting her as a young lady. And so there's a lot of creative things that we can do. I think one of the best things we can do during this time is learn something together, not just cooking, maybe a foreign language.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Dr. Joe Martin: Dancing. It could be anything. How to box. It could be, what a great opportunity now to learn together. You don't have to be the master of it. You guys can kinda learn it together, especially a foreign language. So, and I don't wanna take up all the show. I can give you as many ideas as you want.

Tom Rowland: But I think you get the idea. Well, I do. I get the idea, but I like it because it's coming from so many different perspectives. Like, all these different men that you connect with, and they're all throwing out these different ideas. And, you know, it's pretty easy for a week to come up with something. You're like, well, these are the things I like to do. Let's have a family workout together. Let's play some board games. But two weeks in, now everybody's looking for these new ideas. That's why I like the different perspectives of people that tell us what you like to do and what you did that first week. And maybe somebody else can apply that in week three, and it's a brand new fresh idea that revitalizes the family time.

Building Structure And A Daily Schedule

Dr. Joe Martin: And, Tom, can I make this a little bit easier for the guys too? Because you're absolutely right on point with that. Because I can throw out all these ideas. And, like, well, Joe, you shared with me about 10 ideas just now. That's great for ten days. We're gonna be locked up together for more than ten days. What are you gonna do about ten days? This is something that I noticed when I started receiving the feedback from all these men. Now understand, none of these men knew each other. It was all anonymous. I asked, send me things that work. What's working for you that you believe can work? And give me your age, your status, your children's ages, that kind of thing. And what I noticed, one particular feedback came in. It was almost unanimous. They all said the same thing. And I'm like, wait a minute. Everybody's saying this? I said, I guess it must be important. This goes with not an activity, but it goes with a do, some advice. And this was the unanimous advice that I heard from pretty much every single guy. And here it is. You need to have a daily schedule and have structure for your day with your family. Everybody must have a schedule. The family, including you, need to have structure.

Dr. Joe Martin: Now when I saw that, it should have been obvious to me because I'm a former educator, Tom, so I should know this. Because I've taught elementary school kids. I've taught high school, and I've taught college. And we would never have a semester set up without a what? A syllabus, a schedule, a lesson plan. What are we going to do and have it planned out? Now I know that sounds monumental, like, wait a minute, I gotta plan a schedule. It is not that complicated. Now one of the guys sent me a picture of a schedule. He's a father of two, ages five and two years old. He sent us a copy of his schedule that he and his wife put together for their family. And he sent me a screenshot, and with permission, I said, can I share this with the group when they come together? And I put it up on the screen. Now, obviously, they can't see it because they're listening to this, but they saw how simple it was. And he had a schedule that was set up from eight in the morning to 4:15. Now what I'll do since they can't see it, Tom, I'll kinda run down their schedule. Now it's gonna sound like a lot, but I'll tell you why it's so much on here in a second.

Dr. Joe Martin: It starts with breakfast from eight to 8:30. They read from 8:30 to 8:50. They play outside and exercise from 8:50 to 9:20. They do school time from 9:20 to 9:45. They do household chores from 9:45 to 10:15. They play with their Play-Doh from 10:15 to 10:30. They roll coins, don't ask me to explain that one, from 10:30 to eleven. They do a scavenger hunt outside or in the house from eleven to 11:30. They have lunch at 11:30 to twelve. They rest from twelve to one, that's I'm thinking that's nap time. One to 1:30, they either do art, Legos, or they do an outside challenge. I didn't ask the guy what the outside challenge was. From 1:30 to 2:00, they build a fort. From two to 2:20, they read for twenty minutes. From 2:20 to 2:40, they do music time. From 2:40 to three, they do school time, and they focus on math. From three to 3:45, they do cooking. And from 3:45 to 4:15 is art.

Dr. Joe Martin: Now I know the guys are thinking, man, that's a lot. That's really busy. But let me make this simple and plain, Tom. What I noticed, and I asked this last night, I said, guys, do you notice something? First of all, remember, he's a father of two. Two boys under the age of five. Oh my goodness, in the house. What I noticed, it seems as a lot because the time blocks are really short. Thirty minutes.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Dr. Joe Martin: Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. And then I asked the men on the call last night. I said, why do you think the time blocks are so short? Everybody started laughing. Because he's got little kids. Short attention span. I said, absolutely. Because these are little kids. You can't keep their attention for hours on end. But if your kids are older, guess what? You're not gonna have as many activities. Are you catching it, Tom?

Tom Rowland: Yep.

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, my son and I do our book study when he comes over today. Guess what? It's not gonna be from 12:10 to 12:25. It's gonna be for two hours. We're gonna be discussing it because what? He's 23 years old. So we're gonna have a man discussion. So your schedule would not be as tight as this, but even if it is, you can see it wasn't complicated. Now one of the things I noticed is that the time blocks were small. Another thing that I noticed is that they put time in there for breaks.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Dr. Joe Martin: And rest. You don't have to be doing something with your family twenty four hours a day. Matter of fact, I would advise against it, and the men advise against it, that they said that each family member should get at least an hour apart from each other. What a concept.

Tom Rowland: Alright.

Dr. Joe Martin: Because you have some kids who are introverts, some who are extroverts. And the extrovert wanna be around people all the time. But guess what? That introvert needs a break. I'm an introvert, so I need time alone. And so everybody goes to one part of the house where they're not gonna be disturbed for one hour. Now another way, here's another great idea that somebody came up with. Split your shifts with your wife. If both of you are working from home, split the shift. I'm gonna work during this time and you'll be with the kids. But you have to have some structure because if you don't have a plan for your time, it's gonna become the most stressful time in your life. So have some type of structure.

Dr. Joe Martin: Oh, let me add this too, Tom. And I'm glad the guy who actually shared the schedule, he was on the call. I didn't mention his name because I didn't know if he wanted to be known, but he stepped up and said something. I made the statement, I said, now you guys are looking at the schedule on the screen. But listen to what I'm telling you. I can almost guarantee you this guy is not keeping this schedule down to the letter. Because I was an educator. The schedule is not for you to keep. It's for you to have. You're not gonna be able to do everything on the schedule, but you're gonna know what you could or should be doing when you start hearing the kid says, I'm bored. Are you supposed to say, I don't know what to do? No, you know what you can do. And then he jumped in, and he said, Joe is absolutely right. He mentioned a good example. He said, you see on the screen from 10:15 to 10:30, this Play-Doh, that's fifteen minutes. He says, if our kids are having fun, guess what we do? We let them continue to play with the Play-Doh longer. So he said, it's not put in stone. It's just a guide to have. But it's important to have a guide and not to have none at all. Makes sense, Tom?

Tom Rowland: Oh, absolutely. I also like it that there's quite a variety of things there. So the little kids for sure are gonna get bored with the same thing. I mean, they're kinda doing the same thing, but there's a wide variety from art to outside to reading to music. Building things. Hunting.

Dr. Joe Martin: Yeah. Right.

Tom Rowland: But you know...

Dr. Joe Martin: You know what we call it, we call that in fitness muscle confusion. If you keep doing the same exercise over and over again, you're not gonna see growth or you can get bored with the workout. That's exactly what he's doing with his kids. They're doing the same thing, but they're mixing it up so well that it's all fun. And also, give your kids some input. Let them come up with activities that they wanna do that you can put into the schedule. So put the things you want in the schedule and then ask for your kids to give input to what they want in the schedule, and they'll be more inclined to wanna do it.

Reducing Stress By Pursuing Success

Tom Rowland: Did you talk with your men about stress reduction?

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, go ahead. I'm sorry, Tom.

Tom Rowland: Well, I'm just curious because, I mean, like, if you have that schedule and everything's going great, you probably don't have as much stress as others, but that's all great for the home life. But then at some point, there is the real world out there. People are losing jobs or there's just big uncertainty of what is going to happen. At the minimum, there's uncertainty of what's gonna happen, and a lot of people are incurring a tremendous amount of stress right now, maybe more than ever before. And what we just talked about is one way of dealing with it. Make sure you have a good home life and everything is going well, and this is an opportunity for you to spend more time with your kids. But a lot of people might get sidetracked by just the overwhelm of the whole situation. And I just wonder if you kinda discussed that or different strategies that people are doing to alleviate some stress.

Dr. Joe Martin: Now we don't call it, I didn't call it stress or focusing on stress. Let me tell you about perspective. I tell people we get what we focus on. So if I'm getting them to try to avoid stress, that's exactly what they're gonna experience is stress. And so instead of having them focus on how to avoid stress, I have to have them focus on how to pursue success. And what I mean by success is in their whole being. So that's include stress reduction for your health, your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit. And there's a lot of different things, but let's start with the basics. And we mentioned it even in doing this with your family. Remember that I told you this guy, even with his two boys who are five and two years old, that they schedule break times and rest time. Remember, there was an hour from twelve to one that they rest. You know, they could sleep. We need to do the same for us. We need to schedule break time for us. Now mine is early in the morning for me. And so I'm not a stressed out person because soon as I get up in the morning, I spend time with God. It's uninterrupted, and it's typically from 5:30 to about eight in the morning. And no one bothers you. My family knows that's my time because it's also put on my schedule. This is even before the coronavirus. And it's on Google Calendar. And on my Google Calendar, everyone in my family knows, oh, from 5:30 to eight, daddy's in quiet time. And so they give me that time because after that, we can do whatever. But I need that time alone with God. That is helping me grow and get strengthened. So you gotta set aside time for you. I don't know what you're gonna do with the time you set aside, but it has to be something that feeds your soul, that feeds your spirit, that renews your mind to help you get stronger in your walk, as a man, as a husband, and all these different roles that you have. So I will start with that. Just set aside time.

Dr. Joe Martin: But this is huge what I'm about to say, Tom. And this should be obvious because that's why I'm on this show. We need to also, if you wanna reduce, quote, reduce stress, but no, if you want to be a successful man, you're only as strong as the amount of support you have around you. So you need to be around other men. Now I know what they're thinking. But, Joe, we can't be around other men because of the quarantines and the coronavirus. There's creative ways. What did I just tell you, we met last night as a group, and it was for men only. No woman was in that group. And we got to express and share the stress that we're dealing with based on the questions that they have, and men are feeding each other. So even in that, we are being connected. Also, we have weekly meetings with smaller groups online where we get to see each other's face. The only thing that's changed, Tom, is that we can't touch each other. But I'm still getting that time to get my spirit rejuvenated. Let's say, for instance, I had a blow up with my wife or with my kid, and now I'm meeting my small group. I tell them and I share this with them, and then they say, Joe, here's what you need to do to fix it. Joe, you know that wasn't right, man. You need to go back and apologize. They're getting me equipped to go back to have a less stressful life. Are you catching that, Tom?

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Dr. Joe Martin: Then I'm getting equipped because my wife may not understand the pressure that I feel now being a provider for the home, and now this thing has hit. She may not understand it because, oh, baby, I don't care. We could be homeless and it's just our love. Oh, that sounds great to you, but from a man's point of view, what kind of man am I if I can't take care of my family? And she may not understand the stress and the pressure that I'm under, but guess what? Another man can. I can talk to you, Tom, and connect with you and say, Tom, man, I'm trying to be strong for my family, but this thing is stressing me out financially, man. How am I gonna provide for my family if I can't get on the road? I can't produce income. I can't generate revenue, man. What am I gonna do? You can understand that from a male's perspective and point of view. My wife can't. She loves me, but her thing is love will cover all things. But the thing is if we're homeless and we're holding up signs, they're gonna say, oh, that poor family. But if they see me, they're like, what is that man doing out there? How come he's not working? Why is he not producing? That's not fair because we're both in it together, but they're gonna look at the man differently. So how do we reduce stress? One, take time for yourself. Block out some time. It could be an hour. I don't care if you have to go to a bathroom to do it. Do it in the bathroom, but take some time for yourself to rejuvenate yourself. Put on your oxygen mask first before you help other people. And then two, I would say, get in community with other men who can sharpen you, support you, and strengthen you.

Keep Your Eyes On The Road

Tom Rowland: That's awesome. I love that. One of the things that I really keyed on when you were talking there was the reduction of stress, and you're like, well, I don't look at it like that. I look at it as the pursuit of success or, in this case, the pursuit of relaxation or the pursuit of peace or the pursuit of whatever, like moving towards values rather than moving away from. I just kinda wonder, that is obviously a core tenet in what you're teaching, and that's part of your philosophy. And to me, that's like, I came across that when I was about maybe 25 or 26, and I started to read a lot of different books. And I started to understand what the difference between positive and negative was. And that's kinda like this right here, understanding the difference between I'm moving towards value, like I'm moving towards success, or I'm running from stress. And that's something that, for me, was world changing, and it changed everything about the way that I do everything is, like, trying to choose the positive rather than choose the negative. And at first, it doesn't seem like any different. Like, somebody that is just discovering this is like, stress reduction, how is that any different than pursuing relaxation? It's all the same, but it's not. Like, what are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Joe Martin: No. You're absolutely right, Tom. It's not the same. The best way I can describe it, and I'll tell you when I got the revelation or the epiphany, I was in my twenties. And I was teaching, I was a college professor, and I was teaching a communication class. And I was doing some research, and I came across this story about Mario Andretti. Remember Mario Andretti?

Tom Rowland: Absolutely.

Dr. Joe Martin: The biggest IndyCar driver. And the guy had won so many Indianapolis 500 races and all this other stuff. Oh, I remember why I was studying, because I taught public relations and communication, and everything is about media of how to ask the right questions and to get the answers you're looking for. So I was teaching a journalism class on the art of asking questions. Well, I was giving them the example of how not to ask questions because a reporter after the Indianapolis 500 race had interviewed Mario Andretti and asked what I call a stupid question. You've seen that happen in media when they're interviewing people. Person's house burned down. The family stands on the side of the street. How does it make you feel to see your house burned down like that? Really? That's what you're gonna ask me right now at this moment in time? How do I feel right now? You know, I wanna throw you into that house. That's what I wanted to do right now.

Dr. Joe Martin: Well, this reporter was interviewing Mario Andretti, and it just hit me. He had just won another Indianapolis 500 race. And she was saying, wow. There were, like, I think three or four fatalities, or, when I say that, nobody died, but they couldn't finish the race. And so it was, like, three or four of them. But he managed to win the race when there was so much danger and all that other stuff. And so she goes to Mario Andretti. She says, so, Mario, they said the average speed on the track was, and there were about three or four accidents that they couldn't even finish the race. So when you're driving the car that fast, aren't you afraid, check this out, Tom, aren't you afraid of running into the wall and crashing? You know, aren't you afraid of that? And Mario Andretti had this crazy look, it was like, what is it? Aren't you afraid that you could hit the wall and you couldn't finish your race or worse, you could die, aren't you afraid of crashing into the wall when you're running? That usually sounds like a crazy question. Wait till you hear Mario Andretti's answer. He says, no. I'm not afraid of crashing into a wall. He says, because when I'm driving in that car, I'm not looking at the wall. I'm looking at the road. Hello?

Tom Rowland: Yep.

Dr. Joe Martin: See, because, and it hit me, Tom, have you ever driven on a highway and you start looking at the guardrails or the billboard signs or the side, what happens to your car when you look to the side? Your car drifts toward where you're looking. And do you remember that sound, flip flip flip flip, when you're driving?

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Dr. Joe Martin: And then you redirect the car back on the road. What happened? You were drifting. And Mario Andretti looked at her with this perplexed look on his face, like that's a crazy question. If I drove around this track going over 175 miles per hour, if I'm looking at the wall, I'm gonna die. Because he's gonna run right into the wall. He says, I don't look at the wall when I'm driving. I look at the road. So when they're trying to find that distinction between, okay, isn't it the same? Distress is the guardrail. Peace and relaxation is the road. Are you trying to avoid something, or do you wanna pursue something? So keep your eyes on the road. That's when I got it, and I started looking at it and said, you know what? Stop focusing on what I don't want. Focus on what I do want.

Tom Rowland: That's so powerful.

Dr. Joe Martin: You'll get a lot more.

Tom Rowland: It's so powerful. It's so powerful in every way. I mean, I've seen that with, you know, in athletics or anything to where you wanna win or you wanna beat people. And it's like, isn't that the same? You beat the other team? Well, no. It's not. In one, you're beating someone down. You are vanquishing them. In another, you're taking your team and you're rising up. And it's not about the other team. It's about you doing your best, and the other team was just the competition. You don't even think about that. It's like we're trying to do our best. We're trying to all move forward. We're trying to all be the best. That's a lot different than beating people.

Tom Rowland: You know, there's other situations. Like, one thing, you're talking about hearing Mario Andretti say that and that stupid question from the reporter. I remember in one of the Olympics, there was a reporter said something to Michael Phelps like that. Kinda like, could you ever have dreamed that you would be here? And he said, yeah, I saw it every day of my life. Right? Like, or it was something about the race. I mean, he gets lots of questions like that, or any kind of champion does, but the response is almost always universally the same. Could I imagine it? Yeah. I've been imagining this since I was eight years old. Like, this is a visualization exercise that has come to life. I've imagined it. If I didn't imagine it, I wouldn't be here. Like, this is the driving force for me to get here is that I have already created this in my mind, and I've rehearsed it over and over and over again. It's no surprise that I'm here.

Dr. Joe Martin: I'll give you a practical example, Tom, that will hit closer to home even with us as men. I know you have probably women listening too, but how many times have you seen men struggle in their marriages and said, man, what can I, I don't want us to get a divorce? I don't want us to get a divorce. Why are you focusing on trying to avoid getting divorced as opposed to strengthening your marriage? What can I do to strengthen my marriage? Not avoid a divorce. You get what you focus on.

Tom Rowland: I love it.

Dr. Joe Martin: See, that's what I hope that they remember, listening to you, listening to me as we discussed this, we get what we focus on. So let's put it back in the realm of this pandemic. This is how we started this. We said this could be an opportunity.

Tom Rowland: That's right.

Dr. Joe Martin: Not this obstacle we have to overcome. Look for the opportunity in it. Now I'm not ignoring the guardrail. No. I'm not ignoring the bad stuff, but that's not what I'm gonna focus on because I don't want that. I want this. So we're talking about keep your eyes on the road and the opportunity. How can I grow closer with my family, with my wife, in the relationships that matter most? What were the relationships before this coronavirus that I was neglecting, that I wasn't appreciating, that now I can appreciate more? This is an opportunity. This is our time to shine, and I'm hoping, I think this is just a lot of positive speak. This is not positive speak. This is life speak.

Get Busy Living

Dr. Joe Martin: You can focus on living. Oh, that takes you back. You remember the movie The Shawshank Redemption?

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Dr. Joe Martin: Remember that movie? And when Morgan Freeman was talking to, what's the guy, Tom, what's his name? Robbins. Tim Robbins.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Joe Martin: And Tim Robbins is doing exactly what you said, Tom, visualizing what he's gonna do when he gets out of prison. Remember that? Oh, I'm gonna get some land over here, and I'm gonna work on my boat. I'm gonna clean the boat. And remember how Morgan Freeman looked at him and said, you need to stop that right now. Stop it. He said, stop what? Because remember, Morgan Freeman has been in prison longer than he has. He says that hope, you gotta stop talking like that. There's no room in these four walls, in a prison, behind these bars for hope. We don't need that here. That hope will kill you, man. And Tim Robbins' famous line from that movie was, so basically, you're telling me I got a choice. I can get busy living, or I can get busy dying. Oh, I wish I would have remembered to tell the guys that last night. That's our statement today in this pandemic. Now this hideous disease, uncontrollable disease, no cure for this disease, these things are taking people's lives. Now I got a choice. I can't speak for the people listening, but I'm telling you, Tom, I got a choice. I can start living or I can get busy dying. Which one am I gonna focus on? Living or dying? And, Tom, I'm choosing life. As long as I can live. Choose life. So it's not positive speak. It's what you focus on. And right now, this is the time for us to get more focused because this can potentially be our finest hour when they look back on it.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I love that. And looking back on it too, it's all gonna pass. There'll be a vaccine sometime, and everything's gonna pass. And right now, it seems like it never will. But it also seemed like 9/11, we would never recover from that either. And all of a sudden, the next thing you know, you're like, what? It's been fifteen years. It's been seventeen years. It's been, what? Like, what? Yeah. I mean, it seems like yesterday. And then you think back, wow, what happened on that day? Where were you? And most people can remember exactly where they were.

Dr. Joe Martin: Where I was. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And this kind of thing snuck up on us a little bit. I think it's like all of a sudden it's like, oh, they're closing some things in Washington. Now they're closing a few things in California. That's weird. It must be really bad out there. And then the next thing you know, I don't know what your cue to kinda open your eyes was, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has a fitness expo called the Arnold, and it's in a small town in Ohio. And he has it there every year, and there's probably two or 300,000 people that go to that thing. He has every type of competition associated with fitness that there is, everything from strongman competition to bodybuilding physique competitions to CrossFit competitions, every kind of competition there. There are 22,000 athletes that were gonna compete at this thing. And so this is a really big expo, not just a convention. Everything that is associated with the human body for the most part, every type of fitness, every type of weightlifting, everything is there. And so all of a sudden, it's like the Arnold was canceled, and that was what opened my eyes. I was like, he's canceling that? Like, that seems like really jumping the gun here. But then it was just a couple days later that the NBA cancels, and then I was like, well, when Disney World shuts down, let's see if that happens. And then that happened, and I was like, whoa. This is real. Like, this is real. But it kinda snuck up on us a little bit. Not like 9/11, all of a sudden, boom, the world changed in an instant. This was more like over about a week that a lot of things changed, and now there's a new reality. This is the new reality, at least for a time.

Tom Rowland: But the purpose of saying that is because I look back at 9/11, and that was a time when I had a young family, doing my best to support them, and I just remember that day like it was yesterday. And you don't have to be a very smart man to realize the world just changed. Don't know exactly what it's gonna look like after this, but I know that we'll never have what we had five minutes ago. That's over. It's done. And there's a new reality here, and we're all living in it. But it just seems like it was yesterday, but it wasn't. It was a while. It was a long time ago, and we all made it through it, and we're all gonna make it through this. And it's a difficult time for everybody, and there's a tremendous amount of loss, and there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty. But, man, I love what you're saying about get busy living and see the opportunity in everything. And that's an incredible message. It really is.

A Personal Loss And Treating Each Day As Your Last

Dr. Joe Martin: But you know, Tom, I wanna share something. It just pressed on my heart. I guess God has put this on my heart. Because you say it's been a year and a half since we talked. I can't believe it's been that long. But you're absolutely right. Because as you're sharing that about 9/11, it kinda was a one time bam. It hit us and it shocked us, and then we had to now survive it and live past it. And how we're gonna heal from that? Where this one, it kinda creeped up on us, and now it's overtaking us. I'm gonna share something with you. What you don't know, Tom, is, in the time since we last talked, my mom passed. My mom passed on Thanksgiving day of last year. Thanksgiving. Now the reason I'm bringing it up for this time, because I'm hoping, everything is about perspective. Everything is about perspective.

Tom Rowland: I'm sorry.

Dr. Joe Martin: Now the year before my mom passed, she was up here for Thanksgiving. I brought her up here for Thanksgiving. Tom, we had the most wonderful time. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. She didn't wanna leave. I didn't want her to go. And, you know, if they've listened to my interview with you before, you know, I had a very traumatic childhood. Very, very traumatic. And there was a lot of pain throughout my childhood, and a lot was caused by my mother. And we've gotten a lot of healing. We got past that and forgiveness and everything, and we have had a relationship. But so she was up here a year before that. Wonderful time. And after my mom passed on Thanksgiving that night, I was in the bathroom and I couldn't sleep. I got up, like, in the middle of the night, like, midnight. And I'm looking at my phone, and I look back, you know how your phone saves text messages. So I've gone back and I'm looking at all the text messages my mom and I had, since that last Thanksgiving. And we're communicating back and forth and everything. She's sharing stuff with me. I'm sharing stuff with her. She's checking how I'm doing, and she's telling me what she's doing. And then all of a sudden, it hit me. We're talking about perspective. I'm like, wait a minute. Nine months from now, my mom doesn't know. She's not gonna be here. And I'm reading these text messages. Are you getting this, Tom?

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Dr. Joe Martin: And then I'm looking six months from now. She doesn't know. Three months. One month. One week. My last message to my mom was I was reminding her of my grandfather's birthday, who she loved dearly. And she was so excited that she didn't even think anybody remembered it was my grandfather's birthday. And she said, Joseph, you just made my day. I thought everybody forgot about my grandfather. He's been gone for over four decades. But I remembered his birthday because I was really close to him as a child. And she said, that made my day. Thank you so much. And I'm thinking, my mom doesn't know in just one week, she's gonna see him. In one week. See, one reason why my perspective can be positive during a time like this because, Tom, losing my mom and reading those text messages made me realize I could have gone before this coronavirus, and I can go after this coronavirus. So I gotta treat each day as if it is my last. And I'm not gonna live it worrying, panicking, stressing, doing crazy stuff. I'm gonna seize the moment and start living and preparing for eternity, not just my death. But it took me losing my mom and reading those text messages to realize that. How many people could say that about us if something happened to us? Man, but I just talked to Tom yesterday. I was just on his show last week, last month, last year. We don't know. And so since we don't know the end, why not focus on the present right now and do what matters most, majoring in majors, not in minors?

Closing And How To Connect

Tom Rowland: Man. Joe, that's awesome. I mean, it really is, and that's such an important message right now. I don't know if we could do any better than that, Joe. I really don't. I think we should wrap it up right now. Man, I love you, man. Love your message. Love your positivity. Love your leadership, and just wanna honor you for bringing men together and teaching these lessons to people, men all over the place. It is an incredibly powerful message, incredibly powerful coming from you in the way that you deliver it. So just wanna honor you, my friend, and thank you so much for doing this and coming on the show again.

Dr. Joe Martin: Thank you, Tom. You know, it's a pleasure always talking to you. I wish, I can't wait for this thing to be over with so we can physically connect again. But it was great. You know, you were on my heart. I think I sent you a text message because you were on my heart. And I reached out to you, but, always a pleasure. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to share my heart and my passion for seeing men get connected. And thank you for the work that you're doing on your platform and all the people that you're reaching. I see that, man, your audience is growing, man. I love it.

Tom Rowland: We have a good family of people out there, and a big part of it is because I continue to reach out to people like you that have great wisdom for us all. Tell everybody how they can find you, how they can connect.

Dr. Joe Martin: Oh, very easy. And you already put the keyword in there, connect. Just go to our website at realmenconnect.com. That's real, men, connect, dot com. And that will give you a gateway into a lot of things that we offer as far as free resources, how to get in contact with me, how to get connected to our communities, everything. Just go to realmenconnect.com.

Tom Rowland: Alright, Joe. Thank you so much, man, and good luck to you. I'm gonna implement some of the strategies tonight. We're all gonna cook together. That's what we're gonna do at my house. My boys are in from college. I've got my daughter here, my wife. We're gonna cook some food all together, and then we're gonna take it over to my parents' house who are 82 years old. So we have to be super careful, and they want us to just deliver it on the porch, say hi, and move on, unfortunately, but maybe I'll implement another strategy. We'll show them how to do FaceTime, and we'll all eat together while we're doing FaceTime. I love it. I'm gonna implement both of those strategies tonight. Alright. So I hope everybody out there got a couple of strategies and really got as much out of this message as I did. Alright. Thanks, Joe. We'll talk to you soon. See you.

Dr. Joe Martin: Oh, my pleasure. Take care.

Tom Rowland: Man, Joe, thank you so much. I was not disappointed. I knew I wouldn't be. Dr. Joe Martin of Real Men Connect has such incredible messages. We heard just a portion of his messages, but it applied so well to what we're all dealing with with the coronavirus, COVID-19, the lockdown, social distancing, not touching one another, not giving high fives anymore. Gyms are closed. Churches are closed. There's a serious lack of connection right now in the world, but just like Joe says, look at this as an opportunity, not an obstacle. And that's a great message. So if you're so inclined, look Joe up, join his organization, see what he has to offer. I think you'll find, if you're interested in it, you're not gonna find anybody that's more passionate about what he is doing. That's Dr. Joe Martin of Real Men Connect, and that's it for today. Until next time, stay positive and stay on the path. See you.