Why Doing Everything Alone Is Holding You Back
[Listen to the full podcast here.]
Most men don’t fall apart in one blow.
They erode—quietly, completely—inside the life they were told to want.
Chris Goguen had a stable government job. A pensioned path. A marriage. A community.
On paper, he was set.
But inside? He was deadening.
The kind of slow, soul-numbing decay that doesn’t show up on a résumé—but eats you alive.
And so he did the unthinkable. He walked away from all of it.
Not because he had a new plan.
Because he could no longer lie.
This is the story of how one man traded performance for purpose—and what it takes to build emotional resilience when the mask finally cracks.
The Identity Death No One Talks About
Ten years in corrections taught Chris how to shut off emotion.
Not manage it. Not navigate it.
Suppress. Bury. Disappear.
In a job like that, feelings are a liability.
So he did what most men do: armored up, smiled wide, and kept pushing forward.
But over time, the armor started rusting from the inside out.
“I had to shed an identity to rebuild a whole new one—and that took years.”
It wasn’t just the job he left.
It was the marriage.
The social circle.
The version of himself that had been living someone else’s idea of success.
Fatherhood, Faith, and Fitness: His Three Anchors
When everything familiar burned down, Chris found three things worth building on:
A Belief in Something Greater
Not dogma. Not doctrine.
Just a rooted knowing that he wasn’t walking this path alone.Fatherhood as a Sacred Mirror
When his daughter was born, everything changed.
“If it weren’t for her,” he admits, “I’m not sure I’d still be here.”Fitness as Emotional Weightlifting
The barbell became his therapist.
The gym, his sanctuary.
Every rep a reminder: “I can do hard things—and stay.”
He didn’t need more motivation.
He needed movement.
Intentional struggle. A discipline that cut through the numbness and called him back into his body.
Why Most Men Fail at Growth: They Overshoot the Edge
“Everyone talks about leaving your comfort zone. But go too far, and you’ll recoil like a spring.”
This might be the most overlooked truth in men’s development.
Most guys try to “crack open” overnight.
New routine. Cold plunges. Hard convos. Sobriety. Meditation. All at once.
Then they burn out and retreat harder than before.
Chris offered a better way:
Inch forward. 3–5%. Every day.
Growth doesn’t come from blowing past your edge.
It comes from pressing against it—until it stretches.
That’s how emotional resilience is built.
Not by force. By repetition.
“I Didn’t Know I Had Feelings—Until the Panic Attack Hit”
You can’t rewire your nervous system by reading about it.
You have to feel it.
And for Chris, it took a panic attack in the middle of his corrections career to finally realize:
“Oh… I have a body. And it’s screaming.”
That moment cracked open decades of disconnection.
Since then, he’s been on a mission to reclaim emotional mastery, one breath at a time.
Whether it’s journaling, nervous system resets, or naming what’s alive in the body—Chris learned to sit in the storm without shutting down.
He calls it his seven-minute reset.
Sit. Breathe. Write. Witness.
Let the storm pass.
What Real Masculinity Looks Like: Stoic and Sensitive
In the conversation, I called out a truth most men feel but rarely name:
“It’s not masculinity that’s toxic—it’s the immature expressions of it.”
Chris didn’t disagree.
He’s lived the full spectrum:
The shutdown, emotionally armored provider who doesn’t feel a thing.
The overexposed, hyper-emotional nice guy who spills everything—but can’t hold anything.
Neither one worked.
What he’s found is this:
Real masculinity isn’t about being the toughest guy in the room.
It’s about being the most grounded.
Men who can:
Feel without flailing.
Contain without controlling.
Express without over-explaining.
Men who don’t need to puff their chest or collapse into confession to be seen.
Just honest, embodied presence—edge intact, heart online.
You Don’t Need Another Win—You Need a Reason to Care Again
This isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about unlearning the lie that you were broken.
Chris didn’t find freedom through achievement.
He found it in radical ownership.
Owning the fear.
The conditioning.
The shame.
The ways he hid behind “being a good man” while dying inside.
He stopped asking for someone else’s permission.
He stopped outsourcing his self-worth to results.
And he started showing up as the father, friend, and man he actually respected.
Your Turn: What Are You Still Tolerating?
Chris’s story is rare not because he changed.
But because he chose to.
Not all at once. Not perfectly.
Just consistently.
Day by day. Inch by inch.
So if you’ve been waiting for a sign...
This is it.
What’s one thing you’re still tolerating that’s slowly killing you?
Write it down.
Then ask yourself:
If I were a man on purpose, what would I do next?
You already know the answer.
Now move.