When Your Ego Drives: How to Take Back the Wheel with Chris Gray

[00:00:00] Hector: Fellas, what's going on? I hope this episode finds you well, and as always, I hope this episode leaves you better than when it found you. Uh, today's episode is with Chris Gray, and he's a long time friend. Someone we met in, someone I met in a dad's group and someone who has continued to be in and around the worlds that I've been and, and someone who I've really looked to and admired for not only the things that he's doing, the business he's running, the family he's building, really the individual that he is.

[00:01:00] Hector: And, , we talk about all sorts of things like juujitsu. Family. And so it is a, a fantastic conversation that I think you're gonna enjoy and, uh, one of our first that we're doing, uh, in person. So enjoy today's conversation with Chris Gray.

[00:01:17] Chris: Welcome to Modern Masculinity, man. Thank for being here. I'm happy to be here with my man. this is gonna be dope.

[00:01:24] Hector: One of the things we always do with our guests is ask the guys to share what they're going through, you know. the load they're carrying. Right.

[00:01:32] Hector: Sometimes that might sound weird, some religious people might say the cross, they're bearing. But as men we are, you know, we have a lot of weight that we carry responsibilities. And you, you're a father, , a partner, a business owner, you know, all these different roles. what are you still working through or.

[00:01:50] Chris: Bro, you're coming out heavy, right? Coming out hot. I like this. I like this. what comes to mind, Hector, is, , I've been on this path of awareness. I've meditated for years now, but like really getting into mindfulness and awareness this last, I don't know, eight months or so, as, we record. And here's something that I realized at first. I was like, oh man, my ego is an asshole.

[00:02:20] Chris: It's the enemy. when this bad boy is in control, nothing good happens. and so I've villainized my ego, right? is part of my growth here. I've kind of villainized my ego. Well, if I villainize my ego, that ego's still a part of me. So if I'm villainizing it, then I'm not liking or I'm villainizing a part of myself.

[00:02:40] Chris: And I want to love all of me, even the bad parts. I don't have to act on 'em, but I wanna love them. my homeboy, , , made me aware, shout out to Tucker Max, you know him, , from, from road ads. , He pointed this out to me and I really chewed on it, like really chewed on it.

[00:02:55] Chris: And I was like, yo, If I wanna love all of me, I have to love my ego. And here's where I landed with this, and this is what I'm working on right now as we speak. I've learned that, , my ego is like a, well-meaning but overbearing parent where like they're telling you all this stuff 'cause they really want what's best for you, but like, you can't listen to most of that because they're overbearing or whatever.

[00:03:19] Chris: Or my ego is. Like a GPS where it's important, the ego, you have to have an ego. It's important, it serves an important role like the GPS, it guides you, but the GPS is not meant to actually drive. The ego for me is here to guide me. It is not meant to drive. So what that looks like for me now is when something pops up and I know it's ego driven.

[00:03:41] Chris: Like for me, for example, I found out that I really, I crave external validation way more than I thought I did. I really crave it and my ego, I could see it happening in my ego. It's like, it's just trying to help me find that in ways that are not healthy. So when that pops up back in the day, I'd be like, no.

[00:03:56] Chris: There was a resistance to that. Thought there was a Hmm. Like, I don't like that, or whatever. Now when that pops up, it's like, oh, I see what you're doing homie, and I appreciate it. Like, this is what we're gonna do now. Well, I see what you're doing. You're trying to protect us and thanks, but this is what we're gonna do.

[00:04:09] Chris: it's popping up and it'll gimme some things and I'll just say I acknowledge it and I appreciate it. Like truly appreciate, I really appreciate what you're trying to do, but that's not gonna serve us right now. We're gonna go this way. In doing that, that voice starts to get a little quieter It still pops up, but it's not popping up as much as it was maybe four weeks ago. And I'm not doing anything. I'm just Oh, I'm acknowledging. I appreciate you.

[00:04:32] Hector: I think one of the parts that men, don't like to use the word need to, but I think one of the, skills that a modern man might develop, they wanna succeed or thrive in this world, is the ability to sort of go inward and figure out what the fuck is going on inside.

[00:04:48] Hector: Yes. And pick out what are those voices and who are those voices, you know, voices. My parents or the teachers or society or I sat with them and it was like, that's not your voice. that's coming through. That's not you. That's talking. one thing I've talked about on the show is I remember early on it was like one of the first days I had without my kids, you know, or my ex and I were going through.

[00:05:13] Hector: It was like one of the first days where it was then with her. I remember not knowing what the fuck to do with myself, and I just started washing dishes and I was like, what whatcha doing? and I was like, oh, there's this, program, you know, like someone else, you're living someone else's life.

[00:05:30] Hector: All these sorts of things. And I had to, be willing to put those, down, right, and figure out what it was Going back to my younger self and making peace with, you know, the different parts and pieces of me , one of them was like my middle school, seventh grade self that, , got broken up with. Right. My girlfriend, you know, she ran off be with this big black dude.

[00:05:53] Hector: I remember you.

[00:05:57] Hector: There was real judgment against myself in that point, right? Of me being less than, and it comes up again, after my divorce, when my ex-wife, now she's got a new guy and it's like all these similar stories starting to bubble up and it's like, it was when I went back and made peace with my, seventh grade sort of self that all of a sudden things in my current situation started.

[00:06:19] Hector: Those voices started to quiet down Seventh Self. He was cool. Now he was shown the love that he needed, so now he could quiet down. Now he didn't have to be, you know, piping up when all this other shit was happening. You 20

[00:06:33] Chris: I love the fact that you were able to recognize that and then love those individual pieces of yourself and, , that's something else that I've realized as I've gotten older is there's these different versions of myself that things happen to like that.

[00:06:48] Chris: Like it's still looking for something and still craving something. So even though I'm 44, certain behaviors I do are really my 10 to 12-year-old self.

[00:06:56] Hector: Yeah. for the listeners, we're at an event here and that's what some of the background and chattering is that you mentioned that this week you started reading the.

[00:07:07] Hector: you've gone inward, you know, quite a bit. I'm curious, , that journey, when did it start? When did this iteration of this journey start? And then we can kind of catch up to now how

[00:07:18] Chris: Yeah. Hector is coming with the bombs. This is, cool because , this is something I haven't shared publicly.

[00:07:24] Chris: Not to this magnitude. And I'm glad that you asked this because this is something that I normally wouldn't talk about and I appreciate it. when I was 21, I got into a church. Long story short, the church was so legalistic that it was almost cult-like. So I was a Christian, but I was like,

[00:07:37] Chris: long story short, some stuff happened where I was like, you know what? this cannot be God's way.

[00:07:41] Chris: And so I did what I do the exact opposite. Like, this is all bullshit, blah, blah, blah. Fast forward to now, , I find myself Hector surrounded by. Christians and not like, you know, I'm in Texas, man, so everybody says they're Christian. They all say it, but like when you look at their life, it's like, yo, like I don't see anything, anything besides that cross on your chest or on your trailer that represents Christianity or something like, I don't see anything.

[00:08:07] Chris: I'm around some Christians that really walk it, like they talk it. And so, , another long story short, this.

[00:08:16] Chris: Many different ways the Bible can be interpreted. and that happens with people like, you know, you grew up Catholic. Like, so the way, if you read a verse today and you'll get something from it, and then five years from now you read that exact same verse, you'll get something totally different from, it just depends on where you're at in life.

[00:08:30] Chris: So the Bible can be interpreted in several different ways. one of the ways I interpret it is through the lens of awareness. , And through that lens. , I think some of those lessons are powerful.

[00:08:42] Chris: Like some of the stuff that Jesus is dropping or whoever, like for me as an allegory, when I view it through those lens, man, those things really, really stand out to me. and that's what's landed for me. Like that's what's been. , I don't know what the word I wanna look for, but it lands for me.

[00:09:01] Chris: I can by no means go and say, Hey, you know, start, what's the word? What's the word? Evangelizing and dah, dah, dah. Tell everybody they need to do this. I'm saying, for me, and the way I interpret it right now, it just feels right. So I'm gonna stick with it. I mean, anybody who

[00:09:17] Hector: who thinks that like Jesus is like a bad dude?

[00:09:19] Hector: I don't know. Maybe there are those people who think that he's like a bad dude. I think. But I think that that's sort of the thing that was lost for me was, I turned away from the Capitol, you know, because of all the rules and the regulations and like, I got caught up because it was like. they have a rule, a commandment or whatever it was like, you have to go to, to reconciliate, you have to go tell all your sins of confession on, on Saturday you don't do that, you can't, you know, participate on Sunday.

[00:09:45] Hector: And I was like, this is fucking bullshit. my 10-year-old self is trying to do the math and I'm like, wait a minute. If I sit on Wednesday and I died before Saturday, I'm not going to. All these rules and in that you lose the meaning. you take all that away.

[00:10:01] Hector: Jesus is, creating this model for how to approach life. This model for how to be a father, how to be a man, the whole husband thing is all weird, but he just, he's this model of I think, masculinity in its most integrated form. Right. The ability, you, you can go into all of it, but like him as a man, strip away all of the, crazy things that people say he's done.

[00:10:24] Hector: Like, just him as a has demonstrated an amazing system for someone to live there,

[00:10:29] Chris: the examples and metaphors. So powerful and. I know some Christians who say, this is the way, this is the only way. I know some Mormons who say, this is the way a, some latter day Saints say, this is the way, that's the only way I know some Muslims.

[00:10:45] Chris: This is the way, that's the only way. And so the question becomes, who's right? One of y'all gotta be wrong, but all of y'all are equally convicted. So for me it's almost like, you know, you and I are Juujitsu guys, right? Juujitsu works like we know that Juujitsu works. But you have a style. It's gonna be very different from my style.

[00:11:04] Chris: It's very different from this other person's style. We all have different ways of getting there, but it works. And that's kind of how I view at this stage. Like whatever your way, your path, , as long as there is true love behind it. Peace, like true love behind that path. Who am I to say that's wrong or don't do that?

[00:11:23] Chris: Like, and I find that principle in life. and in businesses, right? Like you can have a, one person has a business approach, the other person has another business approach. They're both wily successful, they just have different styles like. You find this concept as a general principle.

[00:11:37] Chris: And then one more thing that you said that stood out to me. And, is that like the rules, like the legalism, that, which is what got me, like, how can I know about it? It's impossible. My, my little peanut brain can't wrap. I don't see how we could just rap our Right.

[00:11:50] Chris: Our like we know God. Like how your brain can't, it would pop. . So a God that big that we can't even fathom is set to these specific rules that if you don't do a, then you won't get B. Like I don't know. It's gotta be more than that. It's just gotta B.

[00:12:05] Hector: I think we're both very practical and I came up.

[00:12:08] Hector: In the entrepreneurship personal development world, like, gimme all the answers, like, tell me what to do. it took me a long time to realize that not all advice is right for everybody. in that that same vein of everybody has their own style of doing. Yeah. And there's gonna be certain things that work for some people and some people, things that work for people.

[00:12:26] Hector: And so concept masculinity.

[00:12:29] Hector: I got thrown into and I wanted to figure out my own life. But it's becoming more of a, like a hot topic because it seems like whether it's politics or all these sorts of things, you know, are asking what is masculinity? How should it be? Or how should it, and as after I've done, you know, I think we're on episode a hundred and something, it's just like.

[00:12:49] Hector: The only thing I've gathered is that it's your own. you get to decide, right? Yes. You get to decide and it's like, oh, I fucked up. Then like that's the answer I've come to. There is no, no one answer, but in today's world that's sort of where we're at, where you get to define, you know, there are some.

[00:13:06] Hector: don't hurt anybody, but like outside of that, there is, you have some, , ability to define what that means for you.

[00:13:12] Chris: and again, another principle that I find to hold true in many different ways is, , I used to say back in the dating world, like when I was dating whatever, like, I know women because I know I'll never understand women.

[00:13:25] Chris: Back to Juujitsu, high level Jiujitsu guys, like they've been doing it since they were four. They know Juujitsu because they know they will never fully know Juujitsu. It's always evolving. Same thing with marketing. so then why not here? Like I know it because I know that I don't fully know it.

[00:13:39] Chris: And I think there's wisdom. I'm not saying I'm wise. I'm saying there's wisdom within that concept.

[00:13:43] Hector: I think.

[00:13:50] Hector: Outside of themselves. I tried to grow into this person, right. Let me be more masculine for you. Let me be somebody else. Let me, you know, for me it was like, lemme go fucking pretend I like to play golf. I did that for God knows how long. And, , even my parents still, they're like, you should we buy you a, I don't fucking golf shit.

[00:14:10] Hector: I went to go play golf because she wanted to play golf. Because when I think about what would I rather spend my time doing? It's like, oh yeah. when I do what other people want me to do, I pretend that I wanna do those things. it's a drag, it's a labor, it's draining, it's burnout.

[00:14:26] Hector: It's fucking, it's.

[00:14:29] Hector: I take time to reflect on like what do I, actually wanna do what feeds me and I take the time to give myself that training. Jujitsu gonna, the gym you know, recently it's been walking down to the lake by my house and just sitting by the lake. But just like giving myself the space. Two years ago, if I were to tell other people, or I even tell myself, I would've been like, dude, you're fucking, why are you doing that? It's a waste of time. you're weird or you're whatever. Insert words When it's like, no, this is actually what I wanna do.

[00:14:57] Hector: and when I've given myself that permission, it's been like, oh man, the success, that energy, the health, like everything seems to fall in place. once I was willing to be like courageous enough, right? To just do what I.

[00:15:12] Chris: When you say that, it makes me think of, , there was a period where I think Zita probably is my second or third most read book. The Bag Gita and the in there was, , chapter two verse 47. You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. So it's. Do the action for the love of the action, not for the result.

[00:15:31] Chris: And so going to what you're talking about, like, you know, when you talk about golfing, you weren't going for because you wanted to golf. You're going because it made old girl happy. And that was, that was the result for me is, oh, I had this project that seems cool, but I wanna do it because I'm afraid of not having enough money.

[00:15:46] Chris: Something you talked about earlier in our, thing, and it's born, like you said, it's born out. That fear, it's born out. Something that is not true to. And so what you're saying is timely for me, part of one of my journals, , my journaling is what did I do yesterday for the sake of doing it? Just for the love of doing it.

[00:16:05] Chris: and that me, I don't know how many days I'm along with it, but it's a reminder to do things for the fun of doing it. Like this is what I wanted to do and we could make a bunch of money. It completely shut the bed. You don't care. I did it because it's what I wanted to do and I had fun doing that.

[00:16:24] Chris: when you say that, that's what comes to my mind.

[00:16:26] Hector: you seem, I think we we're both very practical guys, but we also are very

[00:16:32] Chris: open to two things in the sense.

[00:16:35] Hector: I was at a point where I'll, I'll fucking try anything. You want me to breathe like a maniac for a half hour with full of dudes, whatever.

[00:16:42] Hector: If it, you say it works, I'll try it. you say just fucking staring into another man's eyes for minutes on end. Whatever.

[00:16:48] Chris: we've done that.

[00:16:49] Hector: I will try it and because I'm looking for the result, Are there other things that you have crossed that flesh along in the sense of like, you know, you find yourself doing it, practices, habits, mindsets even, a previous Chris would've thought it was different, weird, abnormal, not for you.

[00:17:14] Chris: Absolutely. this is not as crazy as what you're talking about where, like, you know, me and Hector have been in rooms where like you're staring at some dude's eyes.

[00:17:22] Chris: You're just hugging a dude for like, five 10. Like you're just sitting there and you're hugging and then you just start crying. And like me, 10 years ago, I've been like, what is that weak ass shit that you were doing? Like what? So as of late, yes, I'm like you or, okay. And our boy, John Roman, shout out again.

[00:17:41] Chris: Shout out to front row dads. He said something that stuck with me is like when he participates in these activities. He's all in open-minded and like to your, like what you just said, there's no judgment. I'm gonna do this thing weird. But I'm all in. Whether he is at church singing a hymn or he is in Indonesia with some tribe or something, and try like, just be open and be all in and see what comes from it.

[00:18:08] Chris: But I think the, one of the bottom, for me, one of the, foundations of that, of being, open and being all in is being aware and being present. I'm here and I'm fully here. I'm talking to Hector on this couch here in la. This is where I'm at. Like, this is what's going down right now. And in that man, there's peace, there's freedom, it's fun.

[00:18:26] Chris: And it goes back to that doing it for the sake of doing it. This is what, this is all that matters right now.

[00:18:31] Hector: I think it's hard to, do what we talked about when guys haven't really done the work to, yeah, quiet the voices I forget sometimes

[00:18:40] Chris: how peaceful.

[00:18:43] Hector: I was especially reminded how, how peaceful I have it right, because there was someone who's like trying to meditate and they can't turn off their brain and all these sorts of things. And I forget that on the other side of that, like you can sink into a moment and you can be present and you don't have to be worrying about, but, Until you do all that work, your head is gonna be filled with all this bullshit and there's all these things going on in your head, and there's all these voices and programming and all this shit that comes up. And so I think for a lot of guys, they just go, well, well, it must be nice. It's like, well, we have go through these sorts of things.

[00:19:17] Hector: Clean out the muck and then you can enjoy some of those fruits and unfortunately that, muck is like, it's painful. , it's weird Sometimes you've gotta sit with uncomfortable things. and most guys. Don't that way. Right. They only know the macho, the hard, the super masculine agro sort of way to be a man and they don't see that there's this, other side, this other possibility and i's detrimental.

[00:19:47] Chris: you hitting on another principle I'm podcast on near. I, I think that, or I know, at least in my experience, there is a, for anything that is worth getting anything worth it, and it's usually something hard, anything worth getting that's hard. There is most always this necessary period of suck. You have to go through the suck to get on the other side of it.

[00:20:15] Chris: you're counting your macros and you're, you're watching your health. Is that always fun? People were yesterday eating the Inn Out Burger. Delicious. If you want to hit your goals, you can't just pound that burger. You know what I mean? Like you can't, so if you wanna lose weight, there's this necessary period of suck up.

[00:20:31] Chris: Changing your diet and saying no to foods that you typically would just say yes to, that's not fun. And then eventually you go on the other side of it and that discomfort becomes more comfortable business. You got a business. you don't just say, oh, I'm gonna start a business the next day.

[00:20:44] Chris: You're just swimming in money. It's like, no, you wanna start this business. And then there's a necessary period of suck where things just suck. You're up late or you're not getting any business, or you're stressed out. And then you get on the other side of that and business is a little bit better.

[00:20:57] Chris: Jiujitsu, same thing. 10 years of necessary suck to get a black belt. Like there's always that period. And so to your point, I know guys who are like, oh, I can't meditate because, , my mind, I just can't, that's the of meditating. That's why you should continue to meditate because you can't turn your brain on, and that's hard.

[00:21:13] Chris: That's hard to do. But then once you get on the other side of that, however long it might be, and then you just start quieting down by 10%, then 10 more percent, and then next thing you know like, oh, okay, My brain's still going, but it's not going at.

[00:21:29] Chris: Not attached with it. I've stepped out and I could watch it now, but that's after years of going through the necessary period of suck to get there.

[00:21:36] Hector: But I think we were both talking to Eric, , Colette at this event and, , we were talking about how necessary it.

[00:21:45] Hector: People literally at the cellular and the biological level for them to do hard things. Otherwise, you know, like literally their energy factories in their body will start to reduce itself. Right? and so if we are not actively putting ourselves into things that suck, we're essentially shortening our lifespan.

[00:22:04] Hector: I tried to lean into recently is that the suck doesn't have to come with suffering. things can suck. Good. That's good. Without me being miserable. It, it's really good. And, and it's usually just from simply doing what we talked about and that's reframing it. If I can just reframe it and instead of like, oh geez, like another hard juujitsu where I'm like, you know, I think about for me, like there's this moment, , in, Jujitsu session between you're doing drilling and then live rounds are about to start, and it's like, all right, everybody go get their mouthpiece and everybody go get their water. And it's like, I've heard that voice in my head. Go, all right, just take off your shirt. Like, time to go.

[00:22:40] Hector: could be an easy excuse for you to, to leave. Nobody would say anything. And it's like, It's leaning into that and going, well, okay, here's where I get my extra cardio. Here's where I like, like finding the reasons to go through that suck. , and then oftentimes, like on the other side of it, there's the rewards tend to be, much greater.

[00:22:57] Hector: and I think that a lot of guys lean into those things more and put themselves in those position.

[00:23:06] Chris: , different religions, different cultures back in the day and even to this day, have had some sort of, for a man, like a rite of passage. Like you go out in the jungle, you need to go kill this thing, and you come back and then you're a man or you need to go through whatever that ritual was from culture to culture, there's a rite of passage.

[00:23:23] Chris: I think it's in our DNA to go do some hard stuff and that is for a reason, what I don't know, but in us.

[00:23:33] Chris: Go towards things that make me uncomfortable. Do I always do that? No, but I, I'm doing it more than I have in the past.

[00:23:42] Hector: You know, I think it's important for guys especially to go through those things so that they know when shit goes down that there's something to lean.

[00:23:49] Hector: And I think that guys sort of can stand to walk themselves through those situations or put themselves in positions where their nervous system is sort of tested so that heaven forbid something happened. You know, we're talking about, you know, at this event sort of. Cataclysmic or apocalyptic or then, you know, heaven forbid guys are, put in that position.

[00:24:09] Hector: can they deal with something like, did they have, you know, the balls to be able to, step up into that situation? I would hope so, but I dunno,

[00:24:15] Chris: , there's a lot of wisdom to that man. It's like, you gotta, at least for me and lemme speak to me, is I've had to get the reps in.

[00:24:22] Chris: So let's take this event for example. We are an event. There are no slouches in this room, no slouches in this room. I feel like I probably had the lowest IQ in the room. Might be one of the least successful. When I first got into a room like this, three years ago, I was like.

[00:24:36] Chris: so intimidated and all the imposter syndrome and all the stuff that goes in your mind. Mentally it was happening. , And I've seen that happen to other people. That was their first and last event. 'cause of that feeling. , I've had to then put myself in another room, in another room, in another room until being in those types of rooms and those types of atmospheres became normal.

[00:24:58] Chris: And for me, the whole goal of that is, hey, like if I want to be a high performing man in, in all the areas of my life and in the areas of health, wealth, and love, but I only got friends around me who just maybe are great at, you know, in the area of love or great in area of health or whatever, like, I'm not around other people doing what I want to do.

[00:25:15] Chris: How am I gonna do it if I want to be? Super wealthy. Who do I know that's super wealthy? Like you gotta get in those rooms. My point of all that is I had to put the reps in to then be comfortable enough to be in this room. I had to put the reps in to be comfortable enough to be in this room and then be on a podcast in this room.

[00:25:31] Chris: You put some people on a podcast right now, they'd be like, ' cause I was that way in my very first podcast. I was nervous as hell. But again, reps, reps, reps doing something that's very uncomfortable until it becomes. Uncomfortable.

[00:25:44] Hector: And I think that that is essentially, you know, I'm gonna ask you in a little bit, I'll put, give you a heads up of what the definition of modern masculinity is. 'cause I asked all my guess. But I think that that is essentially what guys have to define folks. Yep. who are they? and then be willing enough to, bring that flavor of masculinity to, The fucking rainbow of, colors and, whatever that, we have. , Chris, if you wanna get more connected with you in your world, , where's the best place for?

[00:26:12] Chris: , Appreciate you asking man. You can reach me at Yo Chris Gray, almost all social platforms.

[00:26:17] Chris: , You know, yo yo. Chris Gray, C-H-R-S-G-R-A-Y. I post everywhere, but like if you want a response from me, like not somebody else or whatever, you want a response from me, I'm typically on Facebook with Messenger. I'll respond there. , But yeah, that's the best way

[00:26:33] Hector: And in your opinion, Chris, what is the definition of modern men?

[00:26:38] Chris: it's like the yin and yang of masculine and feminine energy. So feminine energy holds space. Masculine energy takes up space. So the modern man to me can do both when appropriate.