Men I want to talk with you today about something that makes us look
completely wimpy and makes us totally superficial and completely irrational
and those are all attributes that are not becoming of a true man now the
problem is before I get into the solution is that everybody has social
media everybody has an outlet everybody has a platform and access to somewhere
where they can actually voice their opinions in addition to that political
correctness is all the rage and so I want to talk with you today about
something that I think every single man needs to hear are you ready
stop being so damn offended
alright guys so let me talk about three different things today the very first
thing I want to address is why you need to stop taking offense in the first
place the next thing that we're going to cover is three reasons that we as men do
take offense to certain things and the very last thing that we're going to
cover is three ways that you can overcome getting offended in your life
now the very first reason that you should not take offense in your life is
because you might actually learn something if you focused more on
criticism that was received and you focused on how to turn that information
into knowledge and how to become better can you imagine how far ahead you'd be
but instead of focusing on what we can learn we'd naturally jump to being
defensive we naturally jump to why that person is wrong and trying to prove that
person wrong and we're focusing on the negative rather than focusing on the
positive which is that there might be a learning opportunity and you just might
advance yourself in some specific area that you're covering now the second
reason that you should not take offense is because it automatically puts us on
the defensive and when we're on the defensive we're just not as productive
we look like wimps we complain we wine we gripe Ramon rather than being on the
defensive we always want to be on the offensive in life but we want to be
moving ahead and moving forward but when we're defending ourselves were so
focused on what we can do to make ourselves look better and we come from
this place of arrogance that we can no longer move forward in our life and that
becomes a challenge for us so it puts us on the defensive now the third reason
that we do not want to get defended our life is because we will begin to make
irrational decisions now the problem is when people make comments to us or give
us feedback if we take that information to heart and we become defensive about
it and we become negative about it then we start making decisions based on that
but the problem is you have your own direction or at least you should have
your own direction of how you want your life to be but if you start looking at
things and you start seeing how people are responding to what you're doing
you're going to make your life decisions based on what they say and what they
feel rather than way you feel and rather than the way that you want your life to
go and move forward all right so the next thing I want to talk about is the
reasons that we actually take offense in the first place the very first reason
that I can think of is why we take offense is that we're insecure human
beings are insecure we're rational we're emotional we're insecure and we want to
make sure that what we're doing is right not only for us but in the eyes of those
we care about but more importantly when it comes to taking offense we actually
want to do what's right in the eyes of those
don't care about and I fall into this trap as well and so it's all a matter of
being insecure what we've got to do is figure out and get clear about what we
want in our life so that when we make decisions it doesn't matter what other
people say it doesn't matter the way other people react because we're so
confident in what we're doing that it doesn't even affect or impact our
ability to move forward now the second reason that we as men that you and I
take offense is because we're not doing what we should be doing maybe we feel
guilty about what it is our conduct is doing or our behavior
maybe it's because what you're doing in life whether it's a career or with
family is not what you should be doing and so we've got to get very clear about
what it is that we want what is it what we should be doing because when somebody
naturally and inevitably comes out of the Woodworks to tell us how we're doing
it wrong or how we should be doing it better it's not really going to matter
if we're doing the right things but if we're doing the wrong things those have
the ability to stop our progress and our momentum dead in their tracks because we
feel like we've been caught with our pants down and that's the problem is
that you're not doing the right things now the third reason that you might take
offence is because you're an idiot now if that offends you refer back to
number one and number two about why we take offense I'm not saying that you're
not intellectually smart but sometimes when we take offense we are letting
other people dictate our lives and if those people are dumb and we're basing
our decisions off what those people are saying what does that make us it makes
us just as guilty just as bad just as idiotic or just as crazy as the people
that are actually giving us that criticism in the first place so be smart
be very clear about what you want and be intelligent about the way that you
handle and approach criticism so as not to get offended alright guys so now that
we've talked a little bit about why you shouldn't get offended and we've talked
a little bit about why we do get offended let's talk about the reasons or
the ways that we can overcome being offended the very first way that we can
overcome being offended is number one to consider the source is the source
credible is the source reputable because if the source is credible and reputable
then I want to refer back to where I said take that information and learn
from it use that knowledge use that information it may have been delivered
poorly but nonetheless it can be used as a tool in a measurement of your success
if you only take that information and you implement it in your life now on the
other hand if that source is not credible if it's not reputable or if
it's just not good advice then no big deal don't take it but
consider the source if it's good implement it if it's bad ignore it the
second way that we can overcome being defended is to put down your devices put
down your phone put down the iPad put away the TV turn the TV off do whatever
you have to do to get out of the sources or out of the places where you're
actually receiving criticism and feedback I know that's where I get hung
up is when I'm on my Facebook page and I'm looking and I'm seeing how people
are responding to a podcast or even this video
sometimes it's negative sometimes it's positive and sometimes I just have to
tune it out so if you can learn to ignore some of those criticisms
especially if they're not reputable criticisms then that's going to be a
little bit more advantageous in your life and you'll be able to overcome and
not be so easily offended when it comes to the criticism that you're receiving
now the third way to overcome criticism is to get grounded in who you are and
what you want to be doing that is the number one reason I think people get
offended is because they feel guilty about where they are in their life and
the only reason that they feel guilty about where they are in their life is
because they're not where they're want to be and the reason they're not where
they want to be is because they have no idea where it is they want to go they
have a challenge when it comes to getting clear crystal clear about their
goals in their priorities what is it that you want to be doing as a way of
business how do you want to behave around your family what do you want to
be doing in the community and if you don't have a clear answer to all those
things then people are going to start coming out of the woodworks picking you
apart and because you're not clear about what you want they're going to distract
you they're going to keep you from being focused on those priorities and they're
going to make you second-guess yourself and that's a huge huge problem when it
comes to being offended all right guys so there you have it we talked about
three reasons that you should not be offended we talked about three reasons
that you and I do get offended and then the last thing we talked about is three
ways to overcome offense I hope that helps I'd go a hoping that gives you
some clarity I hope that next time somebody posts something dumb on
Facebook or wherever it may be you look at it and you look at it critically is
this something that can help me or is this something I should ignore because
if we can remove this plague of being offended all the time and focus on what
we know is important and take criticism as it's meant most of the time I think
it's there to be helpful but if we can take that information and we can use it
as a tool to enhance our lives we will become the men
were meant to be