166 – Seizing The Opportunity - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITY…
You know I’m always talking about looking for opportunities to be a better man in your daily life.  I realize that just saying that might seem kind of nebulous…like what does it mean exactly?Today I’m going to give you a practical example of what I mean by seizing opportunities to be a better man, from my own life.
I’m going to be alone for the next week, because my wife is visiting family out of state.  This situation provides me with a huge opportunity to be a better man.  I’ll explain what I mean.There is a part of me that wants to revert to my caveman persona, simply because there isn’t anyone here to tell me otherwise.  I don’t have to do anything in particular, because I’m the only one here at the moment.  I can leave dishes piled up, I can leave my shoes wherever I want, I can leave my clothes laying around wherever I take them off. 
I can act like a teenager whose parents are gone for the weekend and do stuff…just because I can, or, I can be a better man.I can honor my wife, our home, and myself, by doing the things that I should do.  By ignoring my base tendencies and instead being focused on being a better man. That means instead of goofing off I will tend to the household.  I’ll wash the dishes and I will maintain the household in the manner that my wife and I have agreed to.  I’ll do these things because I have decided thats the right thing to do, and for no other reason.  In so doing, I am making a choice to be a better man.
It’s a fairly simple choice to make, a reasonable, responsible choice, an adult choice.  However…if I was not in a frame of mind to be looking for opportunities to be a better man…I might have missed it. I might have just went “woo hoo…I’m on my own for a week and I can do whatever I want.” 
Instead, because I am focused on being a better man and looking for opportunities to be so, the first thing I recognized was the opportunity to be better.Thats why this podcast exist, and that is how it works.  I’ve heard from a lot of guys that said after listening to a few episodes this philosophy kind of gets under their skin. 
When you become aware that a choice to be better exist, its difficult to ignore it without consciously making a choice NOT to be a better man.  If you are a regular listener and have experienced this sort of change in the way you think I would love to hear from you. So when you hear me talking about going through life looking for opportunities to be a better man…this is the sort of thing I’m talking about.  In almost every situation that occurs in normal life we have this choice.  We can choose to be a better man than we were yesterday, or we can choose to not be a better man.  It’s really as simple as that.
Some people may question the benefits of choosing to be better, they are subconsciously fighting for the right not to be better.  Who knows why.  It could be for a variety of reasons.  Maybe their self esteem is so low they don’t think they can pull it off, so why try.  Maybe their history and experience is so dark they don’t think they are capable of being a better man.That’s exactly why I tell people to be a better man…as opposed to telling people to be a good man or a great man.  You might have a long ways to go before you enter the “good man” category, but anyone, regardless of who you are or what your life has been like, can be a better man, than you were yesterday.
It is an incremental improvement.  A tiny, maybe even imperceptible action, that makes you better than you were the day before.  But gradually, if we continue to make that choice day after day, the incremental improvements add up.  Making the choice to be a better man becomes a habit.The opposite of better, is worse.  I think it would be difficult for anyone who was being intellectually honest with themselves to make a choice to be a worse man…right? 
Even if you are already regarded...

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