Accordingly · Issue 05

It's hard for men to set down the dream of society.

Hey everyone, John here.

I had a moment this week where I sat down, looked at everything I’ve been building, and my first thought was: what am I missing?

And not in a reflective way either. In a nagging almost border lined panicked way.

Like I’d done all this work and it still wasn’t going to be enough. Like there had to be one more thing I hadn’t thought of yet, one more lane I hadn’t built, one more system I hadn’t set up.

So I actually went through everything. Who and what I’ve enabled. The coaching. The awareness content. Clear Start Mondays. This newsletter. The music. The website. The outreach. All of it.

And the answer was: nothing is missing. The system is built. The work is there. The only things standing in the way was “my visibility” because unfortunately, you have to pay for views if people don’t share your material. And the biggest hurdle, my own voice telling me it wasn’t enough yet.

That voice has a name in the support I provide. I call it the Judge. And what it does best is convince you that you’re almost ready but not quite. That there’s one more thing to figure out before you can trust what you’ve already done.

This same week, I had my first real high ticket cold call coaching conversation. A business owner found my website, booked a call, and showed up ready to work. I didn’t have a rehearsed pitch. I just listened, asked questions, and told him the truth when I didn’t have an answer yet. I told him I wanted to talk to a couple other coaches before I gave him a number, because I wanted to get it right and make sure he felt valued. And then I did that homework and came back with something I could stand behind.

That call didn’t happen because I built one more thing. It happened because everything I’d already built was good enough for someone to find me and trust me. And trust is where safety can blossom.

It’s also Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. Someone posted on Threads about how disgusting the response is whenever men’s mental health comes up, and I replied without thinking about it. I wrote: “It’s hard for men to set down the dream of society. A society that tells them to show no emotions other than anger and greed, both of which are celebrated. It takes true effort to look in the mirror and say ‘if I wasn’t trying to please other people’s ideas of who I am, what do I actually need to feel loved, safe and secure?’”

You want to know something exciting? That’s the work. That’s all of it, in one question. How far can you take it?

Also last week, we debuted something new on Clear Start Mondays. I wrote and recorded an original guided meditation built on music I composed from scratch at 432Hz in my studio. It uses a breathing pattern and a simple metaphor for watching your thoughts without chasing them. It replaced the old opening we’d been using, and it’s now how we’ll open every single week going forward. I made every piece of it. The music, the words, the production. And it felt like the most natural thing I’ve done in this entire process.

I didn’t need to build something new that week. But I did anyway, because this one came from a real place. I was pulled. And that’s the difference I keep learning. The things I build to appease others never lands. The things I build because they pull me, as if they’re just ready to exist, always land with who they need to.

This Monday on Clear Start Mondays:

Week 26. The Difference Between Judgment and Discernment.

Last week we went looking for the version of ourselves underneath the noise. This week we’re looking at one of the biggest things that keeps us from living as that person. Judgment. Not the useful kind. The automatic kind. The kind that fires before you’ve even looked at what’s actually happening. Toward yourself. Toward other people. There’s another way to see clearly, and it doesn’t require the harshness. Be curious. Monday we learn the difference.

Monday · 6pm CST · rvscoaching.com/clearstart

One thing to notice before you show up:

This week, notice how many times your first reaction to something is a judgment. How fast it’s automatic. About yourself. About someone else. About a situation you haven’t fully looked at yet. Don’t try to stop it. Just notice it. See what’s underneath it when you do.

This week’s quote:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our freedom and our power to choose our response.” — Viktor Frankl

What I’m listening to:

Restful Sleep I (Extended) by John Hehman. I just released the five hour version. Same track, loopable, built for full nights. I’ve been falling asleep to my own music and honestly there’s something strange and kind of wonderful about that. I’m excited to see so many others find rest in what I created. It’s so flattering and so valuable.
It’s out everywhere now.

See you Monday.

John