The Biggest Obstacle Holding Good Men Back Is One They Never Think to Check

I read a book by Deborah Tannen back in the 90s about how men and women communicate, You Just Don't Understand.​

Most of it was extremely useful for me.

But one observation never left me.

Men tend to be hierarchical.

They hate being "one down" and prefer being "one up."

I felt that sentence land.

I recognized it immediately.

I was the guy who loved coming in as the firefighter, putting out the blaze, saving the day.

Give me a problem to solve and a way to be useful and I was in. I would show up early, stay late, do the thing nobody else wanted to do, carry the weight.

That version of me felt strong. Capable. Needed.

What I could not do was ask for help.

What I could not do was let someone else be the one who showed up for me.

What I could not do was receive.

Being one down felt like failure.

Being one up felt like safety.

So I spent decades positioning myself as the giver, the solver, the guy who had it handled, and I never once asked myself what that was costing me.

The Half Loop

Everything in life is an exchange of energy.

The infinity symbol, the figure eight on its side, is not just a logo. It is a map of how healthy relationships work.

Energy flows out, energy flows back.

The loop is continuous. It regenerates. It sustains itself.

If you only do one half of that loop, you do not have a loop. You have a line.

A line goes somewhere and then it stops. It does not come back. It does not regenerate. Eventually the line runs out of places to go.

That is what happens when you are always the giver and never the receiver.

You pour out energy, support, time, resources, attention, and you never let any of it flow back.

At first it feels noble. Generous. Selfless.

You are the strong one. You are the one people count on.

But a line is not sustainable. A line burns through its fuel and collapses. A loop keeps going.

The loop is only a loop if you let the energy come back.

This was one big reason I would not work too much overtime on jobs and caution the other guys who did to be careful, less they lose what really mattered, their marriages and family.

I love the Infinity car brand logo, those were some ingenious marketing guys.

They took the infinity symbol and modified it slightly, adding what looks like train tracks running off into the distance.

The loop is the engine, but the tracks suggest forward motion, destination, a journey that does not end.

You can only move forward if the loop is running. The loop can only run if both sides of the exchange are working.

The Gift You Are Taking Away

Here is something I had to learn.

It took me years, and it arrived as a quiet realization rather than a lightning bolt.

You know the good feeling you get when you do something for somebody you really care about.

The warmth.

The satisfaction.

The sense that you contributed to someone else's life in a way that mattered.

What happens when you never let that person do something for you in return?

You deny them that good feeling.

The thing you feel when you give, the reason you love being the giver, is the exact same thing you are taking away from the people who want to give to you.

• Every time you refuse help.
• Every time you deflect an offer.
• Every time you say "I've got it" when you do not.
• Every time you position yourself as the one who gives and never the one who receives.

You are not protecting them.

You are not being strong.

You are stealing their turn.

The generosity you pride yourself on becomes a one-way street that leaves everyone else standing on the curb.

The Scoreboard Problem

As guys, we love to keep score.

We grew up with it.

Every sport we played had a scoreboard.

Every video game had points, levels, stats.

Baseball fans can recite batting averages from forty years ago.

We are wired to track, measure, and compare.

That wiring serves us in competition.

It destroys us in relationship.

If you are keeping score in a friendship, a marriage, a family, a community, you are playing the wrong game.

The scoreboard makes you ask "am I ahead or behind?"

And a man who hates being one down will make damn sure he is ahead.

He will give more than he receives, not because it is the right thing to do, but because being in debt feels unsafe.

So he gives and gives and gives, and he refuses to receive, and he tells himself he is being generous, and what he is actually being is unavailable.

The people around him stop offering.

They learn that their offers will be refused, their help will be declined, their gifts will be awkwardly deflected.

They stop trying.

And the man who prided himself on being the giver wakes up one day surrounded by people who do not bother reaching out anymore, and he cannot figure out why.

He was so busy keeping score that he forgot the whole point was connection.

Different Currencies

There is a way out of this that does not require you to become someone who takes more than he gives.

You can still be a giver.

You should still be a giver.

The world needs more men who show up and contribute.

But you have to learn how to receive without keeping a ledger.

​Donald Miller talks about value-driven people, the kind of people you actually want in your life.

If you want to be around value-driven people, you have to bring value to the table.

But value does not have to be exchanged in the same currency.

You might receive someone's strength in an area where you are weak, and give back from your strength in an area where they are weak.

The exchange does not have to be dollar for dollar, hour for hour, favor for favor.

It just has to be real.

One of my training partners might be better at a particular technique than I am.

I receive that knowledge from him. He gives it freely because he loves the art and he wants his training partners to improve.

In exchange, I might help him think through a business problem, or introduce him to someone who can, or just be the guy who consistently shows up so he has someone to drill with.

That was one reason that even as a white belt, a brown belt and I would get together on Mondays and Wednesdays before the noon class to work on drills.

I provided a body for him.

He provided insight and experience to me.

Those are different currencies.

They do not balance on a spreadsheet.

But they keep the loop spinning.

The point is that there is an exchange.

Energy flows out, energy flows back.

Nobody is keeping score.

Everybody is getting better.

The Strength You Have Not Built Yet

Being a good receiver is a skill.

It is not passive.

It is not weak.

It requires awareness, humility, and the willingness to be in a position that feels unfamiliar.

When someone offers you help, your default instinct is to refuse.

To protect them from the burden.

To protect yourself from the debt.

To maintain the one-up position that feels safe.

The strong move is the opposite of your instinct. The strong move is to say thank you and let them give.

You are not just accepting their help.

You are accepting their desire to be useful.

You are acknowledging that they have something to offer.

You are confirming that the relationship is two-way.

You are completing the loop.

That takes more strength than refusing ever did.

Refusing is easy.

It protects your ego.

Receiving requires you to set the ego down and let someone else hold it for a minute.

Put It On the Mat

This week, watch yourself.

• When someone offers to help, what is your first move?
• When someone tries to give you something, do you deflect or receive?
• When you are in a conversation, are you always the one asking questions, or do you let people ask questions of you?

Count how many times you refuse an offer without even thinking about it.

The automatic "no, I've got it."

The reflexive deflection.

The uncomfortable shrug.

Now, once, just once, say yes.

Let someone do something for you.

Let them feel the good feeling you get when you give.

Do not keep score. Do not rush to even it out. Just receive it.

See what happens.

To them.

To you.

To the space between you.

That is the loop closing. That is the infinity symbol doing what it was designed to do.

Being the giver is great.

Being the guy who saves the day feels good for a reason.

But being the guy who can receive with grace is a different kind of strength, and most men never build it.

The ones who do are the ones people want to stay connected to for a lifetime.

Because they are not just a line going one direction until it runs out.

They are a loop that keeps going.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Opportunity Audit

Ask yourself:

Write three.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle​

Why?

Because even a science fiction book can teach important lessons, such as appearances can be deceiving and that some battles there will never have a winner so they are not worth fighting in the first place.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck