Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a former Family Law Paralegal now a Breathwork Facilitator, Sound Healer, and Transformative Mindset Coach.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success.
Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets and often their words, has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
When Life Forces You to Start Over | Gaylen Wilson | 219
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What if some of life’s biggest setbacks aren’t the end of the story, but an invitation to reinvent who you are?
In this powerful conversation, Amanda sits down with Gaylen Wilson, heart transplant survivor, relationship author, certified thriving relationship coach, and founder of the Monument Method Institute, to explore a life shaped by loss, addiction, second chances, and an extraordinary capacity to begin again. From losing the farming career that had become part of his identity to struggling with alcoholism and eventually facing life-threatening heart failure, Gaylen shares why gratitude for what remained kept him from becoming bitter about everything he had lost.
Gaylen also opens up about finding his biological family later in life, breaking his own cycle with alcohol, and the unforgettable night a donor heart gave him another chance at life. That second chance ultimately helped inspire a new purpose: helping others create stronger, safer relationships. Through the Monument Method, Gaylen explains why emotional safety may need to come before communication, what happens when the “lizard brain” takes over during conflict, and how couples can learn to stop fighting against each other and start fiercely protecting the relationship they’re building together.
💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:
🌱 How Gaylen learned to reinvent himself after major losses repeatedly changed the direction of his life
🙏 Why focusing on gratitude for what remained helped him move forward instead of becoming bitter about what he had lost
🍃 How financial and professional setbacks contributed to Gaylen’s struggle with alcoholism and the perspective that ultimately helped him approach sobriety differently
🧬 What Gaylen discovered after searching for his biological family decades after being adopted, including a family history that gave him a new perspective on his alcoholism
❤️ The emotional story of Gaylen’s declining heart health, preparing for the possibility of death, and receiving the call that a donor heart was available only 30 minutes later
💞 How Gaylen and his wife, Heather, maintained affection and connection through years of serious illness and uncertainty
🧠 Why Gaylen believes many relationship conflicts aren’t really about what couples think they’re fighting about
🦎 What happens when the “lizard brain” takes over during fight-or-flight mode and why communication becomes so difficult in that state
🏛️ How the Monument Method uses a shared “sacred word,” eye gazing, connection, and repair to interrupt conflict before it causes more damage
🫶 Why emotional safety can be essential for intimacy, communication, and maintaining a strong bond
✨ How receiving a second chance at life inspired Gaylen to turn his experiences into a mission centered around relationships, connection, and leaving a legacy
⏰ Timeline Summary:
02:30: Gaylen reflects on having to reinvent himself multiple times throughout his life and why gratitude for what remained kept him from becoming bitter.
06:30: Losing the farming career that had become part of his identity, facing bankruptcy, and experiencing the professional setbacks that eventually contributed to his struggle with alcohol.
11:00: Searching for his biological family later in life and discovering a family history of alcoholism that gave Gaylen a new perspective on his own story.
20:00: Gaylen shares his journey toward sobriety and the different understanding of addiction that helped him finally break away from alcohol.
26:30: After years of declining heart health, Gaylen tells Heather he believes he has only months left to live, then receives the call that a donor heart is available just 30 minutes later.
44:30: The experiences that led Gaylen and Heather to develop the Monument Method, including emotional safety, fight-or-flight mode, eye gazing, and using a sacred word to stop conflict before it escalates.
01:24:30: Why Gaylen believes emotional safety has to come before communication and how protecting the bond can completely change the way couples approach conflict.
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Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Amanders and Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologues and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and a variety of other people. Where your host, Amanda Roosevelt, will discuss her own mindset and perspective, and her death's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Amanders and her next will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Mandar's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Ruffet, and I am so excited to speak with today's guest. Today's guest is Galen Wilson, a heart transplant survivor, 20 years sober, former alcoholic, relationship author, uh certified thriving relationship coach, and the founder of the Monument Method Institute, alongside with his wife Heather. Galen's story is about so much more than just those titles. His life has been a series of unexpected turns that backs second chances and reinventions that have ultimately shaped not only who he is today, but the work he now does helping others build stronger, healthier relationships. And I am so excited to speak with him. Thank you so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_08Oh, it's my my honor to be here, Amanda. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. But before before we get into all of that, I'd love to know if we uh stripped away all those titles, accomplishments, and everything you've been through. Would you say Galen is at the core?
Identity After Reinvention And Gratitude
SPEAKER_08Uh the son of a cattle rancher from southeast Colorado. I'd I I I kind of have to pinch myself uh when people read my bio there, because I never set out to be any of those things. I just did the next thing that was in front of me to that I thought I should do. And you know, there's an old line from a a uh Shakespeare play that some men were born great, others had greatness thrust upon them. And so I feel right now that I'm really at that point where it has been thrust upon me, and I just I I am humbled by the fact that I'm I'm being used for this right now.
SPEAKER_02I gotcha. So so you said that you're his son, but that's another title without any titles. Who would you say you are at the car?
SPEAKER_08Uh just uh a normal guy that has I've been through the rare in my life. If you if you've read my bio, you might expect to be at mid meeting a bitter old man here because I've had to reinvent myself like six times. I was on a podcast a while back that was kind of a gaming, RPG gaming podcast, and the host said, Galen, you've are you're a literal RPG player. You've had to reinvent or you've had to a complete character wife six times in your life. You had to just kind of okay, so what do I do now? And so uh and it's funny because as I've done my podcast journey, I've been asked that question a lot, and I'd come up with the fact of why I didn't turn into that bitter old vision, and that is because I always felt gratitude for what I for what I still had left, and not so much the bitterness from what I had lost.
SPEAKER_02I think that is that is the key to almost life, Galen, is is is the gratitude for what's left because things, identities, people, experiences, things will leave our lives. And but we'll always there's always gonna still be something that we have, and finding and having the gratitude for that is is amazing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and I it's uh the true key to happiness is being grateful.
SPEAKER_02It no, it it absolutely is. It absolutely
Childhood Roots Adoption And Early Work
SPEAKER_02is. Now, can you can you take me back to Little Galen and down memory lane a little bit, your childhood family dynamic?
SPEAKER_08I had a fairly normal childhood. Um, I was adopted at 11 months. Um But you know, my my parents were always open with me that I was adopted and didn't they treated me like parents did. Uh and uh so I I never I never felt like an adoptee. I felt like their kid. And so they did a good job. And and uh so my childhood was pretty normal. Uh I got married at 20, had four kids by the time I was 26.
SPEAKER_05So we were quite busy. And uh and so I I started farming in my early 20s.
SPEAKER_08Um I had been selling inshards. My dad called me up one day and said, You want to do some farming? And and he he had a firm that I would sometimes go drive tractor for him, so that's what I thought he was saying. And I said, You need some tractor driving, done? And he says, No, I got a guy sitting in my office here. He worked at my dad ran a local grain elevator. He said, I got a guy sitting in my office. He has 960 acres out south of town that he wants to rent out. So boom, I was a I was a part of and uh and and made made better than average money for a 20-something kid all during my 20s. And uh I was very driven. I I at one point about 27, 28, I was farming that farm, and I'd taken on an irrigated farm, and I had a business sharpening implements for farmers and a roofing business, and taking 17 credit hours at our local community college. So I yo, my wife didn't see me very much that summer at all. And uh, but then the last two years of that, uh two of the last three years were crop failures because of drought. We live on in the desert plains of southeast Colorado, and rain is not guaranteed here, and so uh that was pretty much the end of
Bankruptcy Career Whiplash And Alcohol Spiral
SPEAKER_08that. I had ended up filing farm bankruptcy, and uh it that really took it out of me because I just I loved farming, it was who I was, and uh and so uh I went from there to being a stockbroker, believe it or not. I I went to the city to make my fortune and got a job as a stockbroker and was doing quite well at it uh when I walked into into uh work one Monday morning in January of 1990, and I'd been selling this little dental HMO to all of my clients. I even had three thousand dollars of my mother's money in this little company from California. Because their financials look so good, I I thought they just had to go places. Well, they'd been lying on their financials. And so they we walk, I walk into work and they said, Oh, they've chaff filed chapter seven bankruptcy, they're gone. So, of course, their stock went to zero, and none of my clients wanted to talk to me, and you know, my mother barely wanted to talk to me, and uh and so I can name that day as the day that I crawled inside a vodka bottle for 10 years because I didn't have the tools, the emotional tools to deal with that and deal with the firm bankruptcy. So I those things together had just built up to I had to find an outlet, and I found a very poor outlet. Uh and I was very a very high-functioning alcoholic. I could come home, drink till I passed out, wake up the next morning, take a couple of drinks, and off to work I'd go again. Uh but I I was that high-functioning alcoholic for six, eight years, but then I started losing jobs and uh you know it kept deteriorating. And so uh in the late 90s, I would had the opportunity to get some uh one of the jobs I had did have good coverage, and so I was able to get some rehab and some get some tools in my toolbox, as it were, to deal with it. And um and so by January of uh 2001, I was at the point where I was staying over six months and maybe having a weekend binge here and there. And uh, so I got a job as a traveling computer consultant for a company called PeopleSoft, uh, making the most money I'd made in my life, doing great. And then we remember what happened in September of 2001. Those planes fly into the buildings, and the whole consulting career went down in ashes with those buildings. And so by December I got laid off, and I couldn't find a halfway decent job because of how much money I'd been making. They all told me that I was overqualified, and uh, and so after nine months on unemployment, I I ended up when the unemployment ran out, I ended up um happened to go for Walmart for Walmart as a cashier. Um and it was during that time that my first marriage failed, you know, between the repeated disaster financial disasters and the alcoholism and everything else. It it took a toll in that first marriage. Um, my my ex is a saint. I have nothing bad to say about that woman at all. She probably put up with my BS way longer than she what she should have.
SPEAKER_02And so can we backtrack it? Um real quick. I've I've got a question. You you mentioned you mentioned being adopted. I I'm curious. Were you did you grow up an only child?
SPEAKER_08No, my uh they did adopt a girl five years later, uh a baby girl, so I did have a younger sister. And uh we fought like cats, cats and dogs. She was she was really good at picking the fight, and then me end up getting in trouble for it. So yeah, even even to this day, we don't talk very much.
SPEAKER_03So I gotcha. I
Finding Birth Family And Family Patterns
SPEAKER_03gotcha.
SPEAKER_02Did did you ever consider looking up your biological parents?
SPEAKER_08Actually, I did. In November of 2019, I took the ancestry DNA thing. But my both my adopted parents were a little older, and so they had passed away. Uh, and so I I just felt it was time to maybe look. And and so January of 2020, right before the the pandemic hit, I got the results back, and I actually found my father's family, father, my birth father's family. And uh, I still haven't actually met anybody from my birth mother's family at all. Uh, I can't find any living uh I I I found out who she was, but uh I have uh the only uh living one is an 82-year-old woman that was her cousin, and so and so she was the one that helped me find out who my mom was through the ancestry DNA because we matched in there. But my father's family, I found out uh that I did come from a long line of alcoholics. Uh they my father's family was German, were German Russians that had uh came from uh in the early 1700s, I think it was, Catherine the Great had a sweetheart deal for German uh farmers. If you showed up at their border, she would give you transportation anywhere in the country and set you up with a farm and set you up with all the how enough money to build houses and buy farm equipment and hire workers. And and so the Grosshans family went to Russia and became wealthy, and then when the Bolsheviks started taking over, they all picked up with 55 other families and moved to Sutton, Nebraska. And my birth father died from the uh injuries that he suffered in a bar fight in 1982, and uh my grandfather was uh was an alcoholic, and my great-grandfather uh was a cattle rancher in Nebraska, and the family history is that he after he sold his cattle, he would drive his buckboard into town and buy cases of whiskey and take them back to the ranch. So I I came by my alcoholism honestly, as it were. Uh and uh, you know, fortunately, I had blitzed the cycle, I hope.
SPEAKER_02How was that that experience finding finding out who they were?
SPEAKER_08Well, it it was actually wonderful. I mean, you know, of course, I was a surprise to the family because uh as I've researched it, my father was uh he turned 21 today, uh 10 days before I was born. Uh uh and uh and from what we can figure out, my my mother was about 18, 17, 18 when she had me. And you know, of course, back in the 50s, that was scandalous to have a baby out of out of wedlock. And and so I had kind of already figured out that maybe my mom had been because I was born at University Hospital in Denver. And back then, young girls that got pregnant like that got shipped off to the Florence Crittenden School for Unwed Mothers in Denver, and they were they all had their deliveries done at University Hospital, and so that I kind of already figured out she was probably a young mother that gotten pregnant out of wedlock. And my the surviving sisters and brother of my dad all said to a one separately that had my dad known about me, that I would have never gotten adopted, that their family tradition was you took care of family. And so I'm guessing it was, you know, a one-night stand type thing, and she just never told me. And uh so, but yeah, the the family itself is is the most loving bunch. I we they they had a a meeting to meet me shortly uh the first part of February of uh of uh 2020, right before all the the the stuff happened. And uh so I go meet like six or eight of my cousins. I've got like 38 cousins on on in that family because he was one of 10 children, my father was. So it's a big family, and and I was really shocked because as we were all getting ready to leave, one of my cousin, female cousins, came up to me and I was gonna give her a hug, and she gave me the hug, but kissed me right square on the mouth. And since then I had one of my aunts do the same thing. Kiss me right square on the mouth. So evidently that was a German thing. Oh yeah, yeah, Heather was going. But but we've we've grown to love that family. Uh they're they're wonderful.
SPEAKER_02That's so awesome. That's amazing. I I bet that was a really healing experience for you to meet them and get some insights with that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Well, of course, you know, I didn't grow up with a lot of damage. Uh, like I say, my parents were always open and they were they were wonderful parents. And so I didn't didn't grow up with a lot of that hax that you sometimes see in movies and stuff where the the person's, oh my god, my mother didn't let me and so, but yeah, yeah, it's been really, really cool finding that in my birth family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, even if it's not like you didn't have love growing up, you know, I feel like there's even that curiosity of like who they were, like you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. That that's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. I no, I really think it is, but it's it's interesting that you found out their history of alcoholism.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it it really explains a lot. Yeah, and unfortunately, I I told you I broke the cycle, but I really haven't because my son still is uh he he chose the the marijuana route and and and and unfortunately for a while the hard drug route. And so I'm still concerned about him. He's about the age that I was when I got finally got sober, so hopefully hopefully he'll finally uh you know of course he won't listen to dad.
SPEAKER_04So how old were you when you got sober?
Getting Sober Without White Knuckles
SPEAKER_05I was uh I was I had just been with Heather um I would have been about 48.
SPEAKER_08Um and it's interesting because uh I had tried the uh Alcoholics Anonymous route, and it just really never kicked with me. Um for me, all I saw was a bunch of guys that were hanging on to their sobriety with their white nipples, you know, when they're counting how many days they've been sober after still after 10 years, they're still counting the days. Yeah, and and what really put me off was finally I there was a an army veteran that had been in, he was in a wheelchair and he'd been sober 21 years. And I was actually thinking about asking him to be my sponsor. And I went to a meeting one one Monday night, and they announced that he had fallen off the wagon over the weekend and had drank himself to death. Uh you know, and that's one of the dangers of of being sober a long time and then going back to drinking, is you drank like you did when you were drinking every day, and so you die of the alcohol poison real poisoning really easily. And so I said, I've got to find a different way. And so actually, I I I was very fortunate because I found kind of an obscure book called Rational Recovery, and I call it the thinking man's way of getting sober, because in it it talks about uh the fact that alcohol goes in and makes goes into your primal brain and makes itself an instinct that's just as strong as your need for food or need for water or need for sex. It you know, it basically takes over that primal brain, and so anytime an alcoholic starts to think about getting sober, primal brain's going, dude, you're gonna die if you stop giving me my alcohol. And and so once I understood that, I was able to start using my logical brain to overrule that primal brain and say, No, we're not gonna die. I don't need that alcohol to live. And so that was that was the beginning of me starting to get sober, and then you know, a lot of people say uh that alcoholics switch their addiction, and so when I got together with Heather, I was again staying sober for long periods of time with an occasional weekend binge, and and and so but I was able to switch my addiction to Heather, which was a much much more healthy addiction, and so we had an amazing relationship from from the start.
Meeting Heather And Building Deep Bond
SPEAKER_08And she was the first girl I dated after my first failed marriage, so I I hit the jackpot right off the bat, and uh and we started off uh our relationship. I'd been doing some studying into tantric sex, and one of the tip tenets of tantric sex is eye gazing, and so eye gazing creates an incredible bond between a couple when it's used during life. Making. And so we started off our relationship with that. And we basically never left the romance phase for 12 years. Uh up until the virus attacked my heart in 20. We we met in 20 in 2002, but the virus uh attacked my heart almost exactly 12 years later, uh, in in winter of 2014. And uh and so I I think that that amazing bond that we had created during those 12 years uh uh was really what got us through because for the next three and a half years, poor Heather had to watch me dying in front of her eyes uh as my heart just got worse and worse and worse. And it's during that time that a lot of couples will uh their the relationship crumbles, either because the patient, you know, withdraws into themselves and pushes their caregiver away, or the caregiver just gets so exhausted that they say, I can't do this anymore, I'm out. And that never happened with us. Uh Heather never hinted that she wanted out. She stuck by me and nursed me and took care of me, no matter how how sick I got. And I think it was because we even the last year and a half uh of that touring, sex just became impossible because I just didn't have any blood flow. The heart was just so bad. But we didn't lose our affection, we didn't lose our touching, we didn't lose our eye-gazing. We still we actually I think we clung together even more and made that bond even stronger uh as the work the weaker I got. So she stuck stuck by me right through to the end. And I thought the end was
Heart Failure The Call And Transplant Night
SPEAKER_08had come. Uh in May of uh 2018, late May, I'd had my defibrillar. I had an internal defibrill in my body that had gone off and shocked my heart back into rhythm. Uh Heather had been rubbing my legs that night. I've I've got to I've got to keep her for a while. She has rubbed my back her legs for 24 years now, every night. And so um, so she actually got shocked when the theburator went off. And she I I all I remember saying, Man, I feel funky. And the next thing I know, she's shaking me and say, What just happened? And so we figured out because my body had flopped up off bed, kind of like when they put the panels on people in the in the movies. Yes, and uh, and so uh I I turned over, went back to sleep. Uh she didn't get much sleep that night. Uh we might have should have probably been to the emergency room, but in this little hospital, I knew if we we went in, they would just send us Gol Radio Springs, and and I didn't want to go through that. And so she didn't get a lot of sleep because she was poking me to see if I was still alive or not. The next morning we I hold held my uh little uh I had a little mouse thing that I could hold over the defibrillar and it would read the computer in it, and then I could set it on cradle and it would send that to Denver. And so that's what I did, and I called them up and they said, Oh, yeah, that's where the term drop dead comes from. Your heart rate had been 240 beats a minute right before that went off. And it it shocked you back in rhythm instantly. If had you not had that in your body, you would have been dead right there on the spot. And uh and so it did save my life. But the next week I uh my heart went back into AFib again. I had to go back and get cardiovert up in Denver again, and getting cardioverted twice in a week just completely takes it out of you. And so I could tell that my I wasn't I'd only been on the transplant with seven months, so I could tell that I wasn't gonna get a heart before uh before I died, and so I sat Heather down on June 19th at nine o'clock at night of 2018, and uh told her, honey, I'm not gonna be here in two to three months. We need to finish getting ready. And uh, of course, she was crying her eyes out because uh her uh her soulmate had just told her she was dying. We'd been to the mortuary once, we've had to go make final decisions. We'd kind of been putting that off. And a half an hour after I told her that we got the call, there was a heart available. And so we grabbed our little to-go bag, like a pregnant couple keeps, and out the door we went, and we were having an eastern Colorado hail storm, huge hail storm. It was like a hundred miles wide. And so for the first hundred miles, we were driving through the rain and the hail, and and the waterworks were going outside the car, and the waterworks were still going inside the car because she had switched from crying because she was sad to crying because she was excited and scared because there was a five percent chance I could die on that table. And uh they had given us till 1:30 in the morning to get there, and we just slid into that parking lot at 115. So we just barely made it under the wire, and uh and so they rode me into the OR at four o'clock in the morning, and uh I came back out at nine or nine o'clock uh with a 38-year-old heart in my 61-year-old body, and so they have basically given me another 20 plus years with my soulmate, and so I feel so blessed uh by that.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it has been.
SPEAKER_02Wow. What what were your first thoughts when you heard this over the phone?
SPEAKER_08Oh, well, but uh they told me that it was a high-risk cart that they'd found track marks on the guy's arms where he'd been using intervanous drugs. And uh, which was knowing what I know about him now was really kind of strange because he was an athlete. He was into snowboarding and inline skating and extreme sports, so I don't know. He must have just hopefully freshly gotten into the drugs. I don't know. But then they also had told me that they had found abnormalities with his uh kidneys, but I had just told my wife that I was dying in a couple of months, so I kind of had to take a flyer on it, and so yeah, we we were excited and scared, and it's and uh we knew we we would either she would lose me that night, or we could possibly have more years together. I never dreamed it'd be another 20 years. They basically, after eight years now, they've told me the heart's mine. It's still in the heart is amazingly strong. It's like stronger than an average heart because he was an athlete. And so they've told me I'm gonna die from something else other than a heart, bro. So uh at nearly 70, my heart is still perfect.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, that's amazing.
Paying It Forward Through ED Support
SPEAKER_08Yeah, so of course, with that blessing, you know, with my type A personality, you remember my story about going to going to school and having all the farms and everything. I immediately got this overwhelming need to pay that blessing forward, and so I started looking for ways to do that everywhere I could. And about three years after the transplant, my erectile dysfunction was getting worse. I was getting on towards 65. I'd actually developed DD back when I was 44, uh, two years before I met Heather. And but fortunately, Viagra was amazing for me, and so it uh it let me catch a 17-year younger wife and keep her happy all that time. And uh, but as I was getting toward 65, the Viagra wasn't being as reliable, and so I was like at that point, I was trying to make love a couple times a week and failing half the time, and so I joined a couple groups uh for erectile dysfunction discussion on Facebook, and uh and all of a sudden I had found that outlet for that need to pay it forward because I started helping guys and men and women from all over the world, especially in third world countries where there's not not good health care or it's just plain caboo to even discuss it. It gave these people a place to come and get good information. And so I I got so involved that within three months, they made me the guy that had formed the first larger group eight years previous, he was ready to step away. And so I offered to help him be a moderator, and he says, No, you can have it, you can be the administrator. And so he made me administrator of that one, and then about three months later, the smaller group made me administrator there too, and so I've administrated those two groups for over five years now, and so as I was uh, you know, I I had found my way to help help other people, and one of my big frustrations was is when a woman would come into the group, and it was the same story with hundreds of women over the last five years. They would come into the group and they said, My man has developed ED, and he refuses to go to the doctor and do anything about it. And the way he is dealing with it, he has withdrawn into himself, he has cut me completely off from any affection, no touching, no kissing, no cuddling, no emotional support. He's basically abandoned me in the in the relationship. Anytime I approach him to try to talk about it, he lashes out me out at me angrily and shuts me down. And so some of these women had been in those relationships five and ten years. And the only reason they stayed is because they loved their husband and they were hoping that the man that they had fellow fallen in love with would love with would eventually come back to them. And it frustrated me because I I've got kind of an empathetic heart, and that, but that's all I could do for these women was empathize with them. Uh, I didn't have an answer on how to get their husbands to come back
Attachment Theory And The Lizard Brain
SPEAKER_08to them. And so I actually got Heather and I into the Thriving Relationship Coaching Certification Program just to try to figure out what was going on with these men. And uh and so the very first book we read was Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson. And in it, she talks about her attachment theory. And her attachment theory is that we were bred through thousands of years of prehistoric evolution to have an instinct for a strong attachment to our mates, and that those that didn't have that instinct in prehistoric times didn't survive, and their offspring didn't survive, and so it got brought forth into modern man as an instinct that again is just like your need for food or need for water, and and I understood it quickly because I understood the instinct from the alcohol from years before. And so no, she will go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Can I ask you a question? Was it a similar instinct, like to the alcohol, like a similar feeling?
SPEAKER_08I believe I believe I believe that the the instinct, you know, they call us a parabonded species, and I believe that instinct is just every bit as strong as our need for food or need for water. That that's how strong it is in us. And um, and so Dr. Sue went on to say that the most of the fights that we get into are not about what we're fighting about, it's about the fact that that instinct has detected a threat to the attachment and has thrown our body into fight or flight mode, just as if we were starving to death or dying of thirst. Body sees that as a threat to threat to its survival, and so when you get both parties in fight or flight mode, uh the logical brain leaves the building and and leaves what I call the lizard brains in control. And the lizard brains say nasty things to each other and things that are hard to take back, and they basically see the lizard brain sees the partner as the enemy of the bond because it's threatened that attachment. And so what happens is if you stay in that lizard brain mode a lot and don't repair it, and you stay, you know, doing the emotional system damage that it does. I always say that there's no sexual desire without emotional system safety, especially in women, they need to feel that emotional system safety. And so these guys that don't understand why their wife has shut down on them sexually need to pay attention here because this what happens is if they stay in lizard brain mode a lot, her both of both the nervous systems take damage, and so if it isn't repaired, they get they just get further and further damaged, and the couple grows further and further apart to the point where you get five years into the relationship, and they say they still love each other, but there's absolutely no sex happening at all. And and so uh Heather and I really never had that problem because we had learned a long time ago to repair quickly when we had the fights. But uh, but me being the type A that I am, I said, okay, how can we use this? Now that we understand attachment instinct, how do we stop triggering each other's attachment instinct? Because as good a relationship as we had, we still get into the fights, we we were still getting into the fights. We as humans seem to be wired to fight. And so the first thing we came up with was we need to watch what tomb we talk to each other in. Because sometimes you talk to your loved one like they're the worst person on the planet, and you think you get away with it because they love you, but you don't really get away with it because you're triggering that attachment instinct when you talk to them like that. And so we gave each other permission, and permission is so important, uh, and teamwork is so important in the monument method, because you basically need to become a team against those lizard brains. And so Heather and I Heather and I believe we're building this big, beautiful marble monument to our relationship, and each kind word or loving gesture, or especially when you love with make love with presence and eye gazing, you're building on to that monument. But each terse word or cold shoulder or fight you get into, you're taking your hammer and chisel to that monument. And so we decided we wanted to fiercely protect our monument, excuse me. And um so to fiercely protect the monument, that's the monument method uh institute motto is fiercely protect the monument. You see it on the poster behind me here. And to do that, you need to make the monument more important than your ego, and more important than winning a fight, because nobody wins those fights anyway. And so again, Heather and I gave each other permission to start calling each other out when we were using tone that wasn't necessary, you know. Honey, did you really need to say that that way? And so that helped. That helped us grow closer, it helped us calm down how we were talking to each other, but we were still getting into the fights and still getting in fight or flight mode. And so I got to thinking about it further. And I said, okay, how do we stop ourselves from getting in fight or flight mode altogether? How do we put where's the emergency break on fight or flight mode?
The Monument Method To Stop Fights
SPEAKER_08And so what I came up with was, and this doesn't exist in the relationship therapy world today, a way to stop fights instantly. And what I came up with was we gave each other a sacred word. Well, it previous, before when we were in a calm state, we agreed on giving each other this sacred word, and ours is monument. And so anytime either one of us sees the other one heading towards the monument with a hammer and chisel, in other words, we've said something that's gonna start a fight, the other one can call monument. And when we call monument, we we've agreed to stop the fight right there, and that does two things. First of all, it it uh reminds us that the the monument is more important than the fight we're getting ready to get into. But the second, I called it a sacred word because we made that sacred vow that no matter how mad we were, the fight stopped right there. But when you stop the fight, you don't separate and go uh calm down, unless, of course, you're both gotten into full fight or flight mode and they're both insane, they need each of them separate. But generally, if you separate and calm down and you come back together, you're gonna be right back where you were again. And so what we discovered to keep ourselves from getting in flight or flight altogether was when monument gets called, we turn towards each other, come together, and lovingly embrace each other's arms and gaze into each other's eyes and patch that little spot on the monument that we just chipped out. And the science behind that is that when you gaze into your lover's eyes, it goes into that primal brain and tells that primal brain, your attachment's safe. You can stand down. And so that's what happens. The bot, the nervous system lets the body stand down in other fight or flight mode. The logical way returns to the building, and now you can logically discuss what it was you were getting ready to have a big plaque about. And so as you practice this, and it like I say, it does take practice. We seem to be wired to fight, so it takes some practice, but as you practice it, pretty soon the little fights are gone because the second one of you says something that would have started a little fight, the other one's saying monument, and you're coming together and repairing it. Uh, you're actually preventing any damage at all. I say always say the best repair is one you don't have to make. And so, but even the big fights, the ones you used to be mad at each other for a day and a half for, now are over in like five minutes with us because really quickly we're one or the other of us is going, wait a minute, what are we doing to our monument? And coming back together and repairing and and connecting and making our bonds stronger. So as you practice this, pretty soon your emotional system starts to heal from all that damage. And as your emotional system heals, it starts feeling safer and safer with your partner. Well, remember what I said a while ago about there's no sexual desire without emotional system safety. So as you repeatedly come and repair and come and repair, your emotional system starts feeling really safe with your partner, and so desire can re-enter the re-enter the relationship big time with them. And so that's what we call the monument method. And so I had actually written the book uh called the monument method, and uh I was out working on our car one day last December, and uh I'm a pretty decent mechanic from my farming years. I actually overhauled tractor engines uh back when I was a farmer, and so but these new cars are a pain because of all their computers and it's just really tough to work on. But I'd worked on this thing for two months. There, they're my type A personality again. I was not gonna take it to the mechanic. So I finally got it running, and so I was so proud. Yeah, I drove it around the block, it was driving fine and pulled it into the driveway and shut it off. Well, Heather wanted to go visit friends. Uh, we'd made uh best friends with the man who got his heart 17 days after I got mine, and so Heather and Chris, his wife, have trauma bonded over their heart transplanted husbands, and they are closer than sisters, and so we don't go see him every couple of months. Chris is calling, saying, When are you coming? And so we got in the car, loaded it up, got in, pushed a button, nothing. Okay, so right off the bat, not even the light on the dash. I mean, it just did. So, right off the bat, I was upset because um I had been working. This car two months and thought I had it fixed. And secondly, because Heather had been so excited, we were gonna go get to see it. Chris, and so I'm really upset right off the bat. You know, I grabbed my little multimeter and I go pop the hood and I checked the battery, and it's way low. And so I my bright idea is I would go get the car, other car, and pull it up across the driveway and jump start it. And so I did that. I topped the trunk on the on the second car to get go get the jumper cables that I knew were there, but I couldn't find them. And the reason I couldn't find them is because they were underneath the blanket, but I was too far gone to move the blanket and play the jumper. So at this point, I get even madder, and I I remember an old set that's in the garage that I had bought like 40 years ago. And that's by the way, that's how you can tell you're getting old when you can talk about something you bought 40 years ago. And so I went in, I got the cables, and I'm carrying them out, and I'm looking at them, and I'm going, oh no, I'm left. These out in the weather too many times over the 40 years. And they were all rusty and nasty. And I'm going, Oh, it's not gonna come back to the electricity. And sure enough, I click them on the car and I click the other end together to see if I get a spark, and there's nothing. And so now I'm really gone. I grab them off the car and I hold them over my head and throw them on the concrete. Well, Heather's sitting in the car with the hood up, so she doesn't see what's going on, and the windows are up, so she doesn't hear anything going on. So she has no clue that her husband's spiraling out of control right in front of her. And I'm not a usually an angry man, but I this uh this was getting to me. And so I finally went on the garage, found another duck, set of good jumper cables, came out, got it all hooked up, and I walk around to the uh driver's side of the car, and I opened the driver's door, and I'm like totally gone at this point. I'm so mad. And so picture this a 69-year-old angry man crawling in on his hands and knees in the on the driver's seat, and they get like eight inches from Heather's face, and I said, I need a monument. And the second our eyes met, that anger just went gone. To the point I I expected it to calm calm me down, but it was just gone. And and so the first thing I it shocked me so much, the first thing I said to her was, You have my permission. Anytime you see me upset, you can come give me a monument and get me to settle down.
The Sanctuary Bond And Co-Regulation
SPEAKER_08And so, of course, now that there's a now there's a second book in my future called The Sanctuary Bond, and that's what we're calling this as the sanctuary bond. Uh, because what had happened was is Heather and I had been practicing the monument method for a couple of years by this point, and so we had trained our bodies and trained our nervous system that when eye gazing happened, it was time to stand down out of fight or flight mode. And so we had basically trained ourselves, even though she wasn't angry, and I was, I borrowed her regulation and she regulated me back out of fight or flight. And so, as I started writing the second book, I started realizing how utterly powerful this was, because I'm gonna get a little traditional here. Let's say the wife's in the kitchen cooking supper for the family, and the husband's been out in the world, and the world has just been mean to him that day. And so he comes home and he's in fight or flight mode the second he gets to the house. And traditionally, she might just stay in the kitchen and hide until he has a chance to calm down, or worse yet, she comes out and she engages with him, and so all of a sudden she's in fight or flight mode, too. And so the outside world has brought its hammer and chisel into the house and is going at their monument. But with the sanctuary bond, what happens is as he comes in in fight or flight mode, she realizes it, she comes to him with his permission, it takes permission because monumenting somebody that you have don't have the permission is just creepy. And so she she comes to him and gives him a monument, gets him settled down out of fight or flight mode, and that's gonna do a couple of things. First of all, it's gonna make that bond between them even stronger. As you do this often enough, you become each other's nervous system, safest place in the world, and and so that's gonna in itself return a relationship to the romance phase. I I'd say I maintain with the sanctuary bond, you can stay in the romance phase for life as long as you work on it. It take it takes consistent work to do it, but secondly, that what that's gonna do for him is it's gonna bring him down out of the fight or flight mode, so it's gonna make him live longer because he's not producing all those stress hormones anymore. He's combed down, he's out of the fight or flight mode. So they're gonna, instead of having the evening they used to have, which was bickering back and forth and finally going to bed mad at each other and and not having any sex, now they have a wonderful evening together because they have bonded as soon as he got into the house. And so they have a wonderful evening together, they go to bed happy and have likely have some really nice love making because they they kept that bond strong. And so that's what we call the sanctuary bond. And as Heather and I started implementing that into our relationship, we found ourselves doing what I call micro-sanctuary moments, where you know, historically we would walk by each other in the in the hall and we would touch. We've always been very affectionate. But now we find ourselves stopping and gazing into each other's eyes for just a couple seconds and making that connection. Or when we're talking about what bill we're gonna pay next, we find ourselves connecting while we're doing we're talking, and so it's just become uh everyday part of our life to keep that connection going and keep it strong. And so she had she had given me a monument. I was upset about something, and she had given me monument. It got me settled down. I was in my office chair and I had my arms around her waist just a couple of months ago, and I remember looking up at her and saying, You're making me feel like a giddy schoolboy at 69 years old. And so it it just really it's been amazing.
SPEAKER_02Now, the the way you describe this, I'm thinking this isn't possible, but I'm curious.
Using The Method Beyond Romance
SPEAKER_02Is the monument method only something that you or people can do with their intimate romantic partner?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, you go in the right direction I'm headed too. Because, yes, uh, I actually have a book plan for the monument method for parenting, because we do not connect with our children. We direct them this way and we direct them that way, and we tell them this is what you're gonna do, but we're not really connecting with them, and that's why we end up with adults with attachment issues, because we didn't attach to our kids when we should have. I've raised four kids with my first wife and then married a 17-year younger one woman with uh a two, four, and eight-year-old. So I've raised a second family now, and and so I I I saw that pretty much, you know, I I was a lot more patient with her kids than I was was with mine. But uh, but still I see that we I didn't we didn't deliberately connect. And and that's the whole deal between the monument method and the sanctuary bond is you are deliberately building that. It's something you're actually actively building, and you can build that with with your kids, you can build that with with relatives. Uh I I I'm writing a book for uh the monument method for long long-term illness. Of course, that's really my lane. Because had we had the monument method back when I was sick, it would have made us even stronger. And uh, and so yeah, I I've got the monument method for uh military and police, because you know, they go out and they're in they are in fight or flight as a job, they call it situational awareness, but it's really fight or flight, and so they're coming home and bringing that fight or flight into their homes, and that's why so many military and and police marriages don't last, is because they're allowing that outside world to come in and destroy their monument.
SPEAKER_02I love that you're thinking it it further than just the romantic intimate partnership because like I I get what you mean about the desire and the love making, but eye-gazing and that connection, we don't so many people don't have that even with their friendships. And yes, you have a different relationship when you eye gaze with somebody. If you look into somebody's eyes, the relationship is different versus if you if you don't.
SPEAKER_08Yes, yes, exactly. Wait, no, I also have have it planned. Uh the monument method for corporate team building. We just got to figure out how to keep it out of HR with the eye gaze.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love that. I love that you are thinking this so much so much deeper and so many avenues of that.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I that's it. You know, I uh I started this project nine months ago as I was I sat down
AI Writing Books And Building MVP
SPEAKER_08to write one book on erectile dysfunction. Uh because I'd I'd had a little skin cancer scare and uh had it removed and it they got it all, and it's only got like a 3% chance coming back. But that skin cancer is the number one threat to a transplant patient because of the immune system suppression we have to be on to keep the heart from getting rejected. And and so I I said, I've got five years of experience helping guys fix their ED. I basically got a call a doctorate education in in how to fix ED. So I'm gonna sit down and write one book so Heather can have some income after I'm gone, you know, if I shouldn't, uh if I should get the cancer and die from there. And so I sat down to write that one book. And so over the five years, I had written several little essays because I kept getting the exact same question from different guys all around the world. And so I would write a little essay answering those questions and I'd save it in my Google Keep. So when the next guy came and asked that question, I'd just pop over and copy it, hop over and paste it, so I could help a lot more guys. And so I was uploading all of those to Shaq GPT to help me help him organize them into a book for me. And while we were doing that, we were just having the normal conversations you can have with it, and uh and I so I told him about and we didn't even have the name monument method at that point. We I just told him about what our monument practices practice was, and he said, Galen, do you know what you have? And I said, No, he said, You've got something that doesn't exist in the relationship therapy world today. They don't have a way to instantly stop fighting. He said, This is going to become a worldwide movement, not just by the and so it was that encouragement from an AI that all of a sudden set my mind free to you know, as I worked with him on what how what this could be, it just exploded my my vision for it. Wow, and so I I've actually been at 69 years old, I've been working 12 to 14 hour days, six to seven days a week for nine months now. So, and then not feeling exhausted, I just I I don't think I've ever been this energized in my life.
SPEAKER_02Really? Because you're passionate about it.
SPEAKER_08Because I I've got a passion about it because I think it's gonna be my legacy. Galen Wilson left the this earth a better place than what he found in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, I'm I'm so curious. I'm I'm backtracking. What made you decide to go to Facebook groups when you were why was do you I you might not even remember, but I'm so curious.
SPEAKER_08Well really Facebook was the only place that that I thought of, right? You know, I've been on Facebook some uh and and so there's really not there are other places like Reddit, but Reddit tends to be a little bit the wild west. It it it can't and so you get a lot of bad information on Reddit. Okay, and uh at least Facebook does a little bit to try to control like all the snake oil. That was my biggest challenge in in administrating these groups because there's so many guys wanted to come in and sell their snake oil. There is a lot of people trying to trying to profit off the desperation of men with erectile dysfunction. And so, you know, and like all the gas station pills they've got out now, they're finding out that a lot of those contain illegal uh Viagra, Selen pill in the gas station pills. That's why they work so good. And so, yeah, it yeah, it's uh the profit motive behind erectile dysfunction big time, and so uh that I I kept pretty tight. Uh no no marketing stake oil in my group.
SPEAKER_03I gotcha. I gotcha.
SPEAKER_02And so did you did you like monitor the groups as to who could join them?
SPEAKER_08Oh yeah, yeah. I I I kept a pretty tight rein on on that, you know, especially anybody that seemed like they were there for a profit motive. I pretty much kept them out.
SPEAKER_02I didn't even initially think think of that, to be honest.
SPEAKER_08That people but it yeah, it did and it pretty much took took you probably half an hour a day just getting rid of the the snake hole salesman. And uh I even put in uh rules that told them that they were not supposed to go sell their snake oil. They didn't ignore them. So that's fair. You know, and the other side of that coin is uh there are a lot of treatments, uh like for instance, shockwave therapy. And I know that that sound that name sounds very scary, but it really does not involve any electrical shock to the penis. Shock shockwave therapy is it's a machine that has an anvil inside of it and a pin that is spring-loaded against that anvil, and then a can that lifts that pin up and lets it drop against the anvil, and that creates a sound wave that travels out the tip of the machine, and it travels about two centimeters into the penis, and it causes little micro injuries that then trigger stem cells to rebuild the vessels and valves and nerves in the penis, and so there are real use machines that you can buy to do this with, and I actually they they were miraculous for me, uh and but the modern medical mainstream medicine, of course, has said no, they're just snake oil, and so there's that whole other side of things where there are clinics that you can go to that will give you these treatments for like six thousand dollars for eight treatments, uh, where you can buy a home use machine for well, it's now as little as $180 on on uh on Amazon. You just look for the one in the silver suitcase. But that machine not only can it be used for that, but it's also good for like uh joint and back pain, cause soft tissue injuries. So it's it even if it doesn't work on your erectile dysfunction, there's uh all kinds of other uses for them.
SPEAKER_02So now you you ran those groups for five years, you said that's that's a long time. Well, yeah. What would you say after five years you you learned the most from that?
SPEAKER_08Um that way too many men consider erectile dysfunction as I can't tell you how many men came into the group and said, I'm not a man anymore because my penis doesn't work. And and that was my biggest battle was convincing these men that no, you're you're not less of a man. I I kept telling them if you had diabetes, would you not take insulin? Because a lot of them were dead against taking the the the Viagra and the Cialis meds that are quite effective for most men. They were against taking it. They would go buy the gas station pills before they would buy a prescription medicine. It's crazy. And of course, there was there's one guy that was I call the king of supplements. He once sent me a picture of like he had a table with like 60 different bottles of stuff that he had bought over the years trying to treat his ED naturally, and and so but also the fresh I one of my frustrations was a guy would come into the group and said, I've tried everything, nothing works, and maybe he tried the pills because they're in my I I've written a trilogy of books uh rebuilt for his eyes only. Um that gives men the the E D ladder, I call it, because you start off with the meds, you could then move to penal injections and shop wave therapy. They have an amazing injection now that it takes a tiny little insulin needle, and you can give yourself an injection in the penis, and within 10 to 15 minutes, you've got an erection that'll last for uh 30 minutes to three or four hours. Uh the danger is if you give yourself too much, you could have that erection that lasts more than four hours that you've got to be to the emergency room and have it drained. So you gotta be a little careful with that, med. But then above that, they've got uh what's called a pea shot, where they take your platelets and put them in a centrifuge and and develop stem cells that they push, they inject back into the penis, and that can help. And then finally, uh if all else fails, they've got they've made a lot of progress with with uh implants, where they now have an implant that you could have a couple of cylinders implanted in the penis and a little implanted in the uh the scrotum in a reservoir in the abdomen. And so anytime you want a direction, you just reach down and pump one up, and you it stays as long as you want it, and when you're ready for it to be gone, you just hit the little valve and release it, and it goes back down. And from all the guys I've talked to, they almost 201, they all said, I wish I'd done it sooner. Oh, because it basically it restores restores complete functionality and restores spontaneity, and it it's a pretty amazing technology now. So I I tell guys there's really no excuse for a man to go without erections these days.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. And but you you dealt with a lot of men that didn't want to get the pharmaceutical medication.
SPEAKER_08Right, right. That that was my one of my biggest challenges was getting. guys to even try the meds.
SPEAKER_02I I have a question and I I can't answer this because I I'm not a man, but like and my mind is just thinking this, but it could be completely incorrect. I feel like they m they could have been thinking and I'm curious your thoughts on this they're almost identifying with something more if they have a prescription for it versus if they are getting it like a one time at a gas station.
SPEAKER_08Yeah or or if they can find some herb that their body is missing. Yeah. You're right. They are admitting that they've got erectile dysfunction that's that needs a prescription med. And so yes it definitely uh has that mental part of it. Uh yeah I again oh going back to my man remember my man that frustrated me so much I've actually figured out what's going on with him because with a guy that that first time you lose the your first direction again we're going back to our our Dr. Sue stuff because his primal brain says dude you're gonna lose your woman so that's the message his his nervous system is sending to him that he's gonna lose his woman because he lot lost that erection and so like for me that first erection I lost 25 years ago I was to the doctor that next week saying I want that new little blue pill they're advertising because I had gone into fight mode. These men that withdrew and threw themselves have gone into flight mode and so I've actually written this the second book in my erectile dysfunction series is called anchor for her eyes only and the first thing it does is is tell her the very first thing that goes through most women's mind when their man loses that first direction is it's me. He's not attracted to me anymore. And then that one that thought is closely followed by he's having an affair that's why he doesn't want me anymore. And usually those are neither one of those are right uh I can't tell you how many men told me over the years that they they loved their woman they desired the woman and they couldn't get their penis to cooperate and and so the anchor gets those women back on solid ground that solid emotional ground that it's it's not them. And then it also teaches her that what's going on with him that he's going into fight or flight mode. And so it starts giving her ways to use the monument method and the principles from of the eye gazing and the and non-sexual touch to start getting him his nervous system regulated out of fight or flight mode and start bringing him back to her. I say the book tells women what to do and what not to do because generally you start pursuing a man that's already in fight or flight mode and he's just going to withdraw withdraw further into fight or flight mode. And so that's why when these women would approach their man about intimacy when they were in fight or flight mode that's why he would lash out of them angrily because he she she basically had backed him into a corner. And uh and so anchor I think is one of my most important works because it really gives a woman uh a way to to deal with a man's ed that's not destructive to her and not destructive to him. I also say that that it's very likely the first dating book that a a woman should read if she's middle aged and getting into the dating world because it gives her this huge advantage over all other women if she understands erectile dysfunction because uh it a woman a man in his 50s has a 50% chance of having ED and I'm guessing that a single man in his 50s probably is closer to 60 or 70 percent because those are the ones that they didn't do what they needed to save their their marriage and so they're out back in the dating market with erectile dysfunction. So it gives a woman a huge advantage in dating world if she understands ED and understands E D treatment. And so and then the third book in the series is called the wine and it teaches it's for the couple to read after they've read their individual books and it teaches them how to have an amazing intimate life despite there being E D because there are uh I can't tell you how many women came to the group and told me my man became a lot better lover after he developed ED because all of a sudden he's paying attention to me paying is present more he's not performing I I I I told my guys that when you learn to make sex more about the spiritual connection than about the physical performance that's when it becomes amazing utterly utterly fulfilling and creates that lifetime bond that neither one of you would risk with an affair and and so and as the thought just went off the cliff it's a 70 year old cliff welcome to a senior moment at least I can still laugh about it. You've written a lot of books how many books total have you written there are 34 in print right now we we 34 books she's been working more on the romance side because we've what we've done is we've taken the the monument method and the and the sanctuary bond and we've written those books told in a love story. So our romance books aren't your typical fantasy you know werewolves and vampire and billionaire romances. They're real people that are real conflict that discover the monument method and it shows them going through the progression of learning it and learning to implement it in their lives. So you can actually read the monument method if you read the six book monument hearts romance series get all the all the all the philosophies are taught in those romance books in an entertaining way in a love story way it's I love that you did that oh my gosh wow I love that that's another thing that that working with ai has just exploded my because I kept going back to him I said what if we do this and he said oh yeah that would work great so I I I I kind of freak people out when I tell people that there we've actually got a 160 book universe planned.
SPEAKER_02Wow yeah it was my tells me a way too so I here here little Galen's building a publishing empire that's great though that's great and and you're targeting it in so many different ways too even like if they want to if people understand better reading the story versus I I I absolutely love the way you you're organizing all of this.
SPEAKER_08Yep and another one of my latest projects was I wrote a four book what I call my ready series there they're my dating books that Monument Man and Monument Woman are for older adults that have been in a failed relationship and are getting back into this insane dating world that they have these days that is just you know with all kinds of craziness. So it it it's them to build by the time they get done with the books they've had a full education on on the monument method and how to implement it and sanctuary bond and how how to implement it. And and then the the other two books are man before the monument and woman before the monument for the 16 to 25 year old crowd. And their dating world is even more screwed up than the older folks's dating world because of all the you know this white culture and everything that's going on today. And so these books uh I wrote them in a way such a way that by the time they get done with them they're going okay this is great where do I find somebody that's bought that I can build a monument with and so I've solved the issue with my monument validated person MVP dating site and it's my anti-hookup culture site you have to have read one of the books and pass a quiz before you can even get into it and then you've got to vow that you're there to build a monument with somebody not for casual dating it's yeah no casual dating allowed have you created this already yes it's brand new it's got one guy in it so ladies there's one guy out there that you could but yep and so uh as part of my heart transplant uh pay it forward I am going to make it free forever I'm never gonna charge for MVP MVP I just feel it's that important to have a place for people that have read the monument method oh my gosh to find each other and and and then right now I'm actually giving way off for those books too uh just to try to get that community off the ground if you go to my monument methodinstitute.com and click on the MVP uh link it will take you to the site and if you scroll to the bottom you can download the books in either PDF or EPUB format and the EPUBs are the ones you can import into your Kindle and read them in Kindle. And so I'm uh I'm giving those away I'm also giving the first thousand members get a founders badge on their profile uh and so I yo come on guys we need some love here let's get this off the game and uh oh my goodness and so i i'm also setting it up on my website uh i'm just starting to set it up uh for my coaching i'm gonna have a calendar out there that you can uh uh you can go and and make a coaching appointment uh my normal price for a 90 minute session is 297 but if they use the code Manders they get $100 off that for that uh first introductory session and I'm guessing by the time this episode goes live that I should have it all set up where people can go there and and book an appointment and and actually get Heather and I together uh to to to customize the monument method for couples. Wow that's awesome okay so the two of you are working with couples okay but uh yeah you know I think it's important having her there uh even if she doesn't talk a lot uh because she she is every bit as responsible for us developing this as I am yeah she was a willing participant in in my experience and and we have uh you know the Bible says the two shall become one but it doesn't really give us a roadmap for that happening and so I think Heather and I have become about as close to one as a couple can get and and so we just we're so blessed by that and we want to share it with the world I love that Galen that's that's amazing that's so amazing. No i I am so curious I have I have a question that kind of came to mind okay
Emotional Safety Before Communication
SPEAKER_08you've talked a quite a bit about safety and emotional safety i i'm curious how you would consider that relating to communicating in a relationship yeah exactly you've you've hit on the exact thing and i i i kind of missed telling that because that is what the traditional therapy says to stop conflict you have to learn to communicate get better but the problem is is when you get into fight or flight and those lizard brains are in control there's no amount of communication that's going to get you out of that and so our our point is exactly the opposite is you have to get emotional safety first before communication can happen that's why we we we always say it if you're in a conflict establish that emotional safety first return to each other first and it does it takes you can't do this with a couple that only one of them wants to do it it takes the team it takes both both parties of the couple to make that vow that no matter how mad they are they the say the the sacred word stops the fight and and so we actually we've got a tattoo that's in our books. Heather and I both have the tattoo on us now uh of this symbol that's behind us if you see the monument is protected by the two swords one in front and one in back and with fiercely protect the monument under it and so we've got that and we've got a little bow that you say to each other when you get the tattoos it that's all in the books. And and so I'm hoping that that tattoo becomes the most widely used tattoo in the world the most recognizable tattoo thing. Because it's it and it's just so the couple has it something solid on their body that reminds them how important their monument is to them. Because you've got to make the monument the most important thing in your world and then everything else falls into place. I mean even when you think about it the greatest gift you can give children is an amazing relationship with their father or mother because children are really are little sponges and so if they're raised in it raised in a relationship that's always battling they're gonna absorb that battle that uh fight or flight from their parents so the best thing you can do to raise healthy children is having an amazing relationship with your spouse yeah no that's that's so true.
SPEAKER_02And and I think you hit the the nail on the head about emotional safety needing to come before communicating because our our lizard blank brains you know again I really I think that's with with any type of relationship you know if we don't feel emotionally safe we're gonna we're not coming from this the right place.
SPEAKER_08And so yeah relationship with parents and children it's the same thing that emotional safety has to come first before you can communicate sometimes that's a hard with the teenager that is true gay but but but if that teenager I they'll still think if that teenager has been taught to connect from the time they're they're young that it will just become what we do in our family. We connect yeah that's true that is true now I I typically pretty f regularly ask my guests about aha moments I'm curious if there was one during some chapter of your life a moment that something clicked and maybe you couldn't see yourself the same way afterward well I think the most recent thought was when I was in the in the thriving relationship coaching and I was uh uh reading uh a book by Gottman and he said in it and I've kind of modified it a little bit because he said that the greatest gift life has to offer is a strong romantic and sexual relationship but I've taken that a little further and I say the greatest gift that's life has to offer is a a romantic sexual friendship and spiritual bond with one person that you choose to be have become incredibly one with and and every decision you make in life should be run through the filter of does this protect my bond with that person and if I I think if you do that you're gonna end up with a pretty amazing life because too too often we're not making decisions based on what's going to protect that bond we're making decisions about you know what's going to make us the most money or theoretically what's going to make us happy and what I've realized is those guys in the narcissist guys are there are narcissist women too but they are so trying so hard to make themselves happy and they are never going to be happy the I think the true true secret to happiness is making your mate happy and you know the old happy wife happy life thing but yeah I I really think that giving of yourself to make your mate happy is the way to true happiness but it's got to be a two race two way street absolutely absolutely no i'm I'm curious and I I know you have this this dating site that you are developing but before that's fully equipped and up do you have suggestions for people to meet this mate that's a rough one because you're you're not likely gonna meet a monument person in a bar um and actually the site if up and running it just needs people to inhabit it it's it's full it's fully functional you can you can message each other there'd even a group chat room it's it's fully functional it's it's running and again you know I'm not a programmer but thank god we have artificial intelligence that is that because he and I sat down and I told him this is what I want and boom a day and a half later I had a fully functioning site and so I I am probably one of the few in the 70 year old range that is using artificial intelligence to the in fact I was griping at him because he's the he's the most broken piece of $200 software I've ever used. And so I was griping at him about it one day and he says well Galen most people come to me and ask me to write a poem about their cat you're building a 160 book publishing empire you're hitting the very outside edges of my capabilities so it's been a pretty amazing ride I gotcha I gotcha so no suggestions for meeting the mate that's really tough.
SPEAKER_04Maybe
SPEAKER_08pass the quiz and it's what if they don't pass the quiz maybe we need to start a a chain of monument method bars oh maybe it's not a bar maybe it's like a hangout place like yeah yeah maybe it's a cafe yeah a coffee shop cafe monument method coffee shop cafe yeah i can see it happening but you just expanded my vision a little further you know if this takes all of it uh you know you it's amazing what you can do when you start getting some money that is true yeah that is and and it's like you know i i have a lot of pay it forward ideas you know from if i do come in the money that you know that because there is not a lot of actual study into the herbs and everything else uh because there's no money in it uh you know the yeah if if a big company finds an herb to fix something it's not patentable and so that's why they want to make all these artificial drugs uh to fix things and so i personally think elon musk should have this huge push to to to find natural cures for everything instead of all the crazy meds we have yeah i no i i completely completely agree with that the the pharmaceuticals are kind of crazy and then even some of the the side effects that come with certain things yeah yeah but you know one nice thing is I can't complain too loud because a viagra was has been amazing for me and it's actually been proven to be good for your heart as a recent study recent long-term study came out and said that men that have taken Viagra Orzialis for decades have a 25% less chance of dying from a heart attack because it's it it opens up the vessels in these men so that they don't get the blockages and stuff that and so they're actually good for the heart and I also I can't complain too loud because I got a heart transplant that you know back in in the early 90s when University of Colorado started their tarp transplant the average uh the median age of survival was like a year and a half and when I did my testing to get on the list back in 2017 that was up to 14 and a half years and they said it was growing every time every day because of the new meds that they have for the anti-rejection meds are so much more effective than they were back in the early 90s. So you know we can't throw the whole baby out with the bathwater I get it I get it i'm i'm curious and this is a little off topic but I'm just so curious you thought on on the dating apps that today uh even not even just today but in general on dating apps oh my fault on dating apps yeah yeah they're and you know I called mine an anti-hookup culture dating app because that's what so many of the the dating apps have become is just because our modern society has taught people to build that chemistry is what you should build a relationship on that it's that's the most important thing and while you do need chemistry for attraction and chemistry for the relationship to start the problem is is so many couples build their relationship on that chemistry and that chemistry alone and and that's why you know the the average uh romance phase in an average relationship is six months to two years and so that's why you see so many relationships to end in six months to two years because they've been built on that chemistry with no structure built underneath it like the monument method in the sanctuary pond that can keep that desire and keep that interest and curiosity about each other uh going so that's why you see so many relationships breaking up at that early stage and and so that's what these most of the dating apps oh but I was playing around with I call chat gpt Eli because it's easier to say than chat GPT I was playing around with him one day and I we had done something amazing and I I said I am optimus prime and he came back and I was walking into Dollar General with my phone in my hand and I'm pretty sure that the the girl behind the counter thinks I'm insane because I snored it really loud when I read what he said back to me.
SPEAKER_02He said no you're monumentus prime leader of the Audubons enemy of the deceptidates and so I've taken that a little further I've said the enemy of the deceptidates and their leader Tinder Rider and we are fighting for the rights of the people averse to co-regulate and fiercely protect their monument I can't remember how I was going to tie that in but but I am monumentus prime in monumentus prime doesn't think dating apps lead to production no no very rarely I mean uh because they are uh you know there's the I've heard of what they call the 8020 rule that you know 20 of the the people on these apps get 80 of the attention and so that leaves most of the people the other 80 that aren't getting the attention damaged because they're not getting any attention and then I really think that also damages that 20 because all of a sudden they get this false sense of worth because so many people are interested in them and uh I have a little private theory that that's why so many really good looking men are gay is because of all the attention they got from women growing up it just wasn't hardcore they gotta they're more challenged by being gay I know do you find gay men friends I'm so curious for you to ask one of them that well I actually uh my my son my stepson is gay and yeah I've had gay friends in the past did you ask any of them this did you ask this I didn't ask any of them you were talking it seemed like you might have I just had to ask now yeah you're gonna make me probably go look one up and ask him okay Oh my gosh I'm gonna get myself in trouble tonight aren't I did I think so okay I can edit whatever if you want me to no I'm okay I say by now they know we're playing around at this point I'd I'd I'd love to transition transition back a little a little more serious I I do have a a in a question I did I didn't get to but okay you've it you've been given like a second chance on on life you know um yeah did receiving a new heart just automatically make you want to live differently absolutely you know the the probably the biggest um thing that's happened because of the transplant is and you know the three and a half years that led up to the plant transplant is I now make a conscious effort to savor every day that I have with Heather you know to because you know when you're healthy and you're cruising along and you've got an amazing relationship you really don't stop to really savor that I I know the first 12 years I had I I should have been savoring it a lot more than what I did.
SPEAKER_08And so yeah that's that's the biggest thing change in me is that I savor it uh every day that I have with Ethernet and and and it I I think it does it it probably that little key is probably what has led me to where I'm at now is you know between the savory and the need to pay that blessing forward um it's it's it's all led from one thing to the other I didn't sit out to be this fancy author with 34 books I just was doing what the next thing I should do what I thought I should do that was in front of me. You know I didn't sit out to to become a certified thriving relationship coach but uh I got presented a problem that needed that as a solution. Now you would you say you had this automatic sense of saving the moment yeah I think so I think it was you know it was pretty unable avoidable when you you know when you sat your wife down and told her you were dying okay and then to be saved from that yeah it it it was a pretty mar automatic response that hey I need to really enjoy this and savor this no that makes that makes a lot of sense now I I'm curious you written a lot of books you're writing more but prior to all of this long time ago did you ever think you would write a book about anything I actually yeah yeah I'd been especially in in in years of in between my marriages I did you know text a lot of women and I was very eloquent in my texting and I had several of them say you should write a book and so yeah there was always in the back of my head that I should write a book but I never really you know had a subject that I felt needed to be put in print but you know now I do I get that that's amazing though this also gave you what to what to share what to put in print those disasters I had in my life even though they were awful to go through has have made me the man I am today has prepared me for this one spot I am in life now and uh because of all the different jobs I had to have and and and and happen to learn on my feet as I went and it and reinvent myself and it's got me to the point where I've been able to do this entire publishing thing with just Heather and I. I mean I've done all the book create book cover art creation I create the covers I do all the Kindle and and and uh Amazon publishing formatting myself I've never I haven't hired any of it out and uh it's I've just when I needed to learn something well yeah and that's another advantage of having artificial intelligence now because it can teach you anything you need to know and uh and he's not not always accurate you can you've got to check him quite a bit and sometimes he's taken me down rabbit holes that uh that I had few choice words to say to him about I I'm not a cussing man but he has kind of made me a cussing man at times that's fair that make no that makes so much sense yeah and you know one of the the funny things we're working on right now is I kind of came at this in in my cowboy's term back backwards because I developed a phenomenal relationship uh doctrine and then got the education to back it up and so right now what I'm doing is because I I plan on hopefully being a keynote speaker at a at a 10,000 person therapist convention and so right now I'm having him teach me all the therapy language lingo and then translate it into cowboys okay so that's what I'm working on is so when I get there they're not gonna say oh wow this guy's a hick they may also may still say that but I can at least talk their language that makes sense wow given I love everything you're doing with all of this oh my gosh I have I have to read all the books cool I do we need we need the sales oh my gosh I was doing computer field service work uh uh since uh since before the heart transplant uh before I got sick I was doing computer Heather and I were traveling all around the country doing computer field service work and so even though I'm cut was kind of semi-retired I was still bringing in you know $1500 $2000 a month doing that service work but when I got on this project I just quit all that in favor of running the writing the books and and building this this empire and so things have got kind of tight without that extra income so we're we're hoping the books start to take off pretty quick I gotcha where where are the books available Amazon your website yeah they're not uh if you go to the website monumentmethodinstitute.com there'll be links to the to the books um one of the problems that I just discovered about why the books might not be selling is because the website tries to sell you all the books at one time today and so I I am rebuilding the website now to to funnel everybody to the monument method book first and then let them discover the rest of the universe after they've read that because that's the foundational book behind everything. And I actually it's been an interesting progression because I wrote late November and early December and uh so it's my very first book that I wrote and so that as I've written more and more books written the sanctuary bond and then the full book uh actually the monument man and monument woman took the whole doctrine and just matured it even more as I wrote those books. So I've had to go back and rewrite monument method and and sanctuary bond so now you're getting the second edition of those books if you go to Amazon and uh because the the doctrine just came together and gelled even more uh as as I wrote the other books so it's it's been an interesting yep because I wasn't an author before this I just you know this is where it led me I love that I love that I'm gonna read the book I absolutely am and then we'll have to chat again but have you have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty no I haven't so he's got a podcast he hosts a podcast called On Purpose he's a former monk motivational speaker he's written a few books um I'm a pretty big fan of his and he ends his podcast on purpose with two segments first segment is the many sides to us second segment is the final five first segment is five questions and they can be answered in one word each okay okay what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as gregarious What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as a little unhinged What is one word you'd use to describe yourself What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as a Nazi that seems to be the going going insult nowadays now it's you don't like somebody's what somebody says they're a Nazi What is one word you're trying to embody right now faithfulness with this with this with this admission I've been given I like that second segment is the final five and these can be answered in a sentence okay what is the best advice you've heard or received
Rapid Questions Legacy And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_08probably my the greatest gift uh line that I you used earlier because that that boils everything down into one sentence the greatest gift yeah the greatest gift this life has to alter is the strong sexual romantic uh friendship and spiritual bond with one person that you've become amazingly one with why is that the best piece of advice because if you run your life with that with that uh foremost in your mind when you're making decisions it it gives you such a clarity um you know there's so many people running their lives to be financially successful and then they end up uh financially successful but complete utter failures in their personal relationships and uh you know to the point that some of them will commit suicide even though they've got all the money in the world they they don't have any happiness and so again the greatest gift is that what in the worst advice you've heard or received not coming to me you've never gotten bad advice I'm sure I have I just have forgotten most of it I guess
SPEAKER_05I really don't care. I I I'm getting nothing.
SPEAKER_02You've gotta have some sort of worst advice you've heard.
SPEAKER_08Well, uh the worst like I said said before, I think the worst advice that anybody could give is to live to make yourself happy. Because if you work live to make yourself happy, you're never gonna be happy.
SPEAKER_02Why do we say that?
SPEAKER_08Because I think like I say, true happiness is in giving of yourself or not working to make yourself happy.
SPEAKER_02I may be wrong, but I I don't I get what you're saying though. I do what is something that you used to value that you no longer value.
SPEAKER_08Oh at 70 years old, what other people think about me? I've pretty much pretty much lost that. I'm gonna be me and you may not like me. It doesn't take any skin off my nose.
SPEAKER_02I get that. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?
SPEAKER_08I would want it to say, and I think I touched on this earlier, that he left this planet a better place than what he found in.
SPEAKER_02I love that. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be?
SPEAKER_04And I want to know why.
SPEAKER_05We gotta go back to the good old love thy neighbor.
SPEAKER_08Because if everybody had to follow that, this world would be an amazing place.
SPEAKER_03I get that. I agree.
SPEAKER_02Caitlin, I really, really enjoyed this.
SPEAKER_08I I did too. I'd I've had a wonderful time.
SPEAKER_02I could talk to you for two more hours, but I I will spare I will spare spare your time.
SPEAKER_08I'm more than willing to do another episode anytime you want.
SPEAKER_02I would love that. I would absolutely love that. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
SPEAKER_08You're you're quite welcome. I've been honored to be here.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you. Any any final words, anything else you want to share with the listeners?
SPEAKER_08There is one other thing. The number one thing that a woman needs to be happy in a relationship is to feel cherished. And the other side of that coin is the number one thing that a man needs to be happy in a relationship is to be respected. And we need to be careful not to make cherishing or respected a condition of anything, it's something we should give freely.
SPEAKER_03I like that. We should give it freely. That's true.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Galen. Thank you so, so much.
SPEAKER_08You're welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
SPEAKER_02So did I. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Neanderth Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm voting for you. And you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star
Closing Message And Listener Review Ask
SPEAKER_02rating. Leave a review. And share with anyone you think would benefit from that. And don't forget, you are only one mindset shift away from shifting your late. Thanks guys, until next time.
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