David Waldy - Fierce Empathy: Healing, Identity, And Faith Without Excuses

A quiet Kansas childhood with a fishing pole and a love of books doesn’t usually share a sentence with corporate success, addiction, and a gun on the bathroom counter. Yet that contrast is exactly where our conversation with David Waldy lives—and where it begins to heal. David invites us into the gap between what people saw and what he carried: a volatile home, a cross-country move that couldn’t fix a marriage, a youth pastor who became an abuser, and the long shadow of labels that taught him men either leave or take. He learned to perform, hide, and achieve, until achievement itself broke.

We go deeper than biography and talk about the shift that changed everything: it may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. David calls his approach fierce empathy—holding truth with courage while creating spaces where people feel seen and safe. That started with himself. We talk about renewing the mind through Scripture, how identity precedes behavior, and why repeating better truth rewires our brains. If you’ve ever felt stuck in the “before” of your story, this is a practical blueprint for moving into an “after” you can stand on: daily declarations rooted in who God says you are, not who pain says you were.

For the men in our audience, David unpacks emotionally intelligent manhood: naming real emotions, refusing to let them drive, and building consent-based accountability with brothers who call you back up, not out. We explore the neuroscience of familiarity, why comfort keeps us trapped, and small actions that create a new normal—make the call, join the group, write the page, take the walk with God until new identity becomes your default setting.

Listen for hard-won wisdom, real tools, and a clear message: freedom doesn’t erase your past; it redeems it. If this resonates, share it with someone who needs hope today, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review—tell us what belief

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Chapters

• 0:58 Welcome And Listener Shoutouts
• 2:05 David’s Midwest Roots And Move To Florida
• 3:55 Childhood Volatility And Family Dynamics
• 10:44 Trauma, Hypocrisy, And The Mask We Wear
• 15:31 Responsibility Over Blame And Fierce Empathy
• 20:30 Suicidal Low Point And Identity In Scripture
• 25:25 Rewiring Beliefs With Neuroscience And Faith
• 29:35 Sacrificing Comfort And Building New Normals
• 32:35 Emotionally Intelligent Manhood And Accountability
• 36:50 Final Reflections, Resources, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

Of course, I am your host. Mr. U in studio with us, the founder, the audit man, brand consultant, and the fair empathy coach, David Waldy is in the house. David, how are you, brother?

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Mr. U, what's up, homie? I'm so good, man. I'm so glad to be here. It's gonna be a fun day.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Hey man, I'm excited about this conversation. All you guys that are watching and listening to us, thank you for doing that. Definitely appreciate it. If you want to reach out to me uh in regards to coaching or anything but like our podcast, excuse me, uh our QR codes in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Check it out. Be glad to hear from you guys. You check it out. QR code, upper right hand corner of your screen. Of course, if you want to shout out on our podcast, you know what you gotta do to text Mr. U, 904-867-4466. 904-867-4466. Shoot me a text, give you a shout out on the next episode. David Waters in the House, brother. So good to have you here, man. Customarily, we always ask our guests to come in and kind of share about their childhood. What would life like for young David? How'd you get from there to where you are right now? Share with us, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

Absolutely. Thank you again for having me, and I'm excited. I uh I'm a Kansas farm boy at heart, so I'm a Midwestern farm boy. My wife's mom was a teacher. And uh, if anyone's ever watched uh the Andy Griffith show, that was basically my childhood. Is that I I grew up and I was little uh um I was a little Obi Taylor. So I had a fishing pole on one shoulder, the BB gun on the other shoulder, and that was that was my childhood. Wow, okay. It was uh it was a lot of fun. I loved living in the Midwest, but right before um right before I turned uh 14, we moved uh to Tampa, Florida. And uh shock, Mr. U. It was it was uh definitely a complete and different experience. Um unfortunately it was it the move was because my parents were trying to save their marriage. Uh I wouldn't find out much later uh what actually went on and how everything went down, but uh we we moved to to Tampa, Florida, and uh then after I graduated high school, I moved here to South Carolina. Um through my own healing journey and through God's grace, I'd find out that I was I was I was just running away, man. I was running away from trying to get away from the pain and um I needed a lot of healing. And uh and so yeah, I've got a little sister. We grew up in a very um I I think it's interesting because every one of us, when we look back at our childhood, your childhood is your childhood, and it's not until you get older that you're like, maybe some of that stuff wasn't supposed to happen, you know. Uh some of those things that uh you think are just normal because it's your childhood, and then you you you grow up and you see parts of the world and realize that you know, um, I think my parents were doing the best that they could, but that that stuff should not have happened. And so, um, but fast forward, I live here in South Carolina now. I uh I'm I will fill in the gaps, I'm sure, wherever you want to go. But I am married to a best friend. We're coming up on 12 years. I got four beautiful kids.

SPEAKER_00: 3:41

Congratulations, man. That's good.

SPEAKER_01: 3:43

Thanks, man. I've been an entrepreneur for almost uh eight years now, and uh I left my corporate job and went all in on what I felt like God was calling me to do. And uh here we are today, man. I have uh three or four, I mean, basically four businesses. One is kind of uh more of a nonprofit mission uh ministry type thing, but um I love it. I'm I'm in the small business space. I work with entrepreneurs and small business owners every single day, and uh I love being able to help people to integrate uh the aspects of work and home life in a healthy way that is intentional and aligned with with who they are and the the values that they have, and so it's a lot of fun. I get to to play in a lot of different different sandboxes, if you will, and and I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:31

I love it, I love it, man. I love that story. What do you think? And I ask myself this question because I do talk to myself. Judge me if you want to. That's up to you. I do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 4:42

Who you talking about like me?

SPEAKER_00: 4:45

I do talk to myself, but growing up in Kansas, I I I I feel like I know the answer because we get to know each other so well. But what do you think is one of the qualities about you that you you know you wouldn't have gotten it had it not been for you growing up in the Midwest? What do you think was one of those values that's like, man, you know what? I'm so glad I grew up here and not someplace else.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

So I think the value of silence, um interesting. Okay, value of of quiet and peace. I mean, we know this, and uh we know that that in scripture there's multiple times where Jesus went off to be alone. And I don't think that we place a not uh place enough of a priority and an emphasis on getting into nature and literally just sitting and being with the Lord. And um so for me, one of the things that my when I was younger that was so useful is that when I was a kid, especially during the summertime, I loved video games. Like I wanted to play the Nintendo, I wanted to like watch TV, like that's what that's what I wanted to do, right? And uh, and so my parents basically instilled this thing into me. They said, for every for every hour that you spend reading or outside, we'll give you 15 minutes of video game time. So during the summer, I would go spend a whole day outside and reading and just adventures and and you know, it just I fell in love with reading, I fell in love with with the silence of being in nature and just and when I say silence, I mean um I'm not saying like complete silence, but just being the the value of aloneness. It's not something that um I think you know none of us want to feel alone, none of us want to feel lonely, we want to feel connected, but there is and there's something that happens with there's an intentional separation from the chaos and the busyness and all the stuff, and you're just by a pond or a lake or a stream or the mountains or the the whatever, right? You just get into nature and you're there. Uh there's something healing that that happens in that space. And so for me, I fell in love with reading, I fell in love with being in the outdoors, and it taught me uh another set of useful lessons, which is if you want something like to play video games and have fun, uh work for it, right? Make it happen. Do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00: 6:58

I love that, I love that. Uh, you share really candidly about your uh your childhood and the instability uh emotionally for you, and of course, with the challenges your parents were dealing with. Tell me how you uh even now I I I really feel like a lot of our listeners and our viewers they go through stuff like this and they kind of put it on the shelf and there's no I mean it's in the nicest possible way, so forgive me for just being funky with the word choice, but it just feels like there's they don't see the value in what they got out of that or or how they came through it. What they understand, how they're better for baby, perhaps in some ways, or not. How how you how are you envisioning uh what you dealt with in your childhood and with your parents being challenged and everything with their marriage? Yeah, as an adult with kids now, with a family now, how how are you how are you viewing that whole picture? If that makes sense, hopefully it does.

SPEAKER_01: 8:05

Absolutely, it makes sense, and I think it's one of the most important things that that we need to have more conversations about in society today, because there's a few concepts that I'm gonna share here that have have literally transformed my entire life as far as my my peace, my joy, my fulfillment, my healing. And uh so if we go back to when I was um when I was younger, my parents, it was a very uh volatile environment. Uh, I never saw my parents intimate. Uh they cohabitated, they lived in the same house, but they basically had two separate lives. And um, there was a lot of um let me let me start by saying this, uh, Mr. Yu. I want everyone to hear this very clearly as I go into this. What I'm gonna share here is not in any way, shape, or form meant to uh sound like I'm dishonoring my parents. I'm just gonna share the facts of what happened. They're aware of it, we've healed from it. There's some things that we've gone through in the last 25 years that have completely changed our dynamic. And I can look back now with gratitude and with empathy that I didn't have at the time. And so, what I'm gonna share here is um when I was younger, I would I didn't realize that both my parents were in in a lot of pain, a lot of pain. And um, and so my dad, his way of coping with that pain was escapism. He was a lot more passive. Um, my mom was very controlling with kind of some narcissistic tendencies, and so those two dynamics um they just didn't mix well. And so my dad, he uh he worked. He worked uh 24-7, 365. I didn't see him in the mornings, I'd see him late when he got home, he'd go to the basement. Uh my mom was very uh, you know, make our life look perfect to everybody on the outside. We go to church, we put on our Sunday best and we smile and we say all the right things, and we're good Christians, but at home it was just it was lonely and chaotic and and and it was it was not a place of peace. And so when we moved to Florida, it was their last-itch effort to kind of save their marriage. And unfortunately, um the years that that that followed that, there was about a two-year time period where uh my my dad uh my dad stepped out, and uh again, contextually, I didn't understand everything at the time, I just felt abandoned. Like I felt like my dad walked out of my life, and uh the man that stepped into my life was my youth pastor, and so he was kind of my father figure. But for about two years, um my youth pastor molested me as a teenage boy, and so my understanding of what it meant to be a man and a masculine figure was one of two things. Either men abandon their families and the people that they love, or they take advantage of them. Those are the two kind of binary ways I looked at masculinity. So growing up, there was a lot of just emotional uh instability. It caused me to go down paths where I, you know, of addiction and um, you know, that that devastated my life for years. I mean, even from pornography to drugs to uh alcohol and uh lesser things like cigarettes, which I shouldn't say lesser things, I'll still kill you. Um, but just going down this path of constantly trying to escape and and find some semblance of control. For me, what I realized was that I didn't feel like I had any control in my life, but I was in control of these things. I could do these things and I could do them secretly, and no one would know about them. And so for me, that marked my transition from childhood into adulthood as just learning how to hide, learning how to wear masks, learning how to put on a good front, learning how to adapt and become whatever I needed to be in order to get what I wanted. I learned how to manipulate, I learned how to control, and it was a very dangerous season and time. But about uh right when I graduated or getting ready to graduate from high school, I had a call with a guy, um, his name is uh Darren Heim. And uh he called me and he said, He said, I want you to come to this internship program in South Carolina. Like, who is this guy? I remember it was uh a night I got off working at Starbucks. I'm like chain smoking marble reds because I'm stressed and tense, and just like hanging out the window, right? And just he's talking to me, and there was something inside of me that felt like maybe this man won't abandon me or take advantage of me. Maybe there's something here. And so what happened through that process is I ended up moving to South Carolina, still dealing with a lot of things, not understanding. Uh now, mind you, Mr. You, during this whole time, I was your the prototype for good Christian kid. I was the chaplain at my school, I was leading worship at church, I was doing all the right things, I was going to Bible study, I was I was the good Christian kid who didn't get in trouble and everybody looked to as the model to follow Jesus. And so my life was pure hypocrisy. I was one way in front of everyone else in a completely different way behind closed doors, but nobody knew. And so what ended up happening over the really the next 10 years, I call it my dark ages, I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I wanted, I didn't know which way to go, I didn't know what it meant to be a man, I didn't know what it like I all I had was a handful of men that I felt like God had placed in my life and that that helped save me from myself, for lack of a better word. And it would come out through that time, through that season, and really over the last seven to eight years, where I would realize that a lot of the things that I grew up with, with my parents fighting and um you know, police coming and holes in walls, and the volatility and the pain and the abandonment and all of this stuff, right? I learned an incredible lesson. And there's two things here that I want everyone to walk away with. Number one is it might not have been your fault, but it is your responsibility.

SPEAKER_00: 14:09

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

What happened to you and your life and circumstances and situation might not have been your fault, but your responsibility is it only exists in this moment today, and you get to decide what you're gonna do with it. Because you can live as the victim and you can blame and you can shirk responsibility and you can say, I am the way that I am because of this, or you can you can trust in what scripture teaches us and be transformed by the renewing of your mind and transform that pain into incredible power, and you can take your trauma and you can turn it into a testimony. You can use these things. We've heard this in church, but we don't we sometimes we don't stop and really think, yes, it might be their fault, but it's my responsibility from here moving forward how I'm going to define that story in my life. And through that process, this this theme emerged that I call fierce empathy. It's being fiercely committed to working on yourself, to growing, to learning, it's being fiercely committed to what you believe, but simultaneously creating an environment where others feel seen, heard, understood, known, and loved. And what happened in that process, the first thing I had to do, Mr. U was I had to, I had to have some empathy for myself. I had to step back and realize that I had been carrying all of this stuff and so mired in guilt and shame and anger and frustration to where I got to the point on a Sunday afternoon, I walked in my bathroom with a Glock in my hand and I pointed at my head and I said, I'm done. Because I had all the trappings of external success. I had the six-figure salary and the glass corner office and the company car, and I was married and I had a kid, and I was winning by all of the world's measures. And I was suicidal. I was having anxiety and panic attacks every single day. I was about 60 pounds heavier than I am right now, and I started realizing that there was something inside of me that I needed to learn how to love myself because I was so inundated with this victim mindset, like that everything that's happened to me is not fair, it's wrong, it was it shouldn't have happened, and I am the way that I am today. And so I was looking for who to blame. I was looking for who to blame. And through that process of healing that was was several years in the making, of uh there was a lot, and we can go into that. But what it taught me too is that I needed to have fierce empathy for people like my parents, of realizing that they were doing the very best they could with their own pain and they didn't have support or they didn't look for support, and they had their own issues and they had their own challenges that I wasn't aware of as a kid, and it doesn't excuse what happened. That's what I want everyone to understand. It doesn't excuse the things that happened, but it does create this environment where there's some compassion, where you can restore relationships and you can reconnect. And I've had conversations with both my parents where I have broken down cryings like saying, You hurt me. This destroyed me in this way, but I'm not going to hold on to that because that my past does not define the man that God says that I am and the man that I want to be. And I want to heal. And if you want to work with me through this and we can navigate this together, I believe that there can be beauty that comes from ashes. I believe that what the enemy may be intended for evil, God can use for good. And so that has kind of worked its way into my life, into my work, into everything that I do, because I believe that at the core of who we are, we want to be free, we want to have joy, we want to have peace, we want to be connected. But if we don't get away from these things that keep us held back by who to blame and why we are the way that we are, that's why the coaching modality is so incredible. It's very different than therapy, is that it's who do you want to be? What do you want, and why do you want it, and who do you need to become to get it?

SPEAKER_00: 19:13

That's good. For those that are watching and listening, first off, thanks for doing so. Appreciate it. If you want to find out with it, find David's work and all the things he's been sharing about so far. www.fierceempathyframework.com, fierce empathy framework, no spaces.com. Uh of course the uh link is also in the show notes and in the live chat if you need to find it quickly. You've been through so many things, I just I really feel like it's like I don't want to I don't want to understand that. I love that we uh want to emphasize the after, what you've done you know, since then. But uh so many folks who I know are watching and listening personally, they're still stuck in the before. They haven't gotten to the after parts yet. And I feel like guests like yourself, people who are so insightful like you, who are hard charges, and you recognize, you know what, there's more for my life than what I've been through. You have a key in your hand that you can help them with. You have so many things. I mean, you turn down a full-ride academic scholarship. People that are watching this and they're like, I would never do that because that's everything. It's like my it's like oh represents a way out for me, perhaps, or I would have to pay anything. You know what I'm saying? You had an issue with your fiance two weeks before your wedding. I mean, the thing that you've gone through, it's like people are like, how do you how did you recover? How did you get to the place where you can talk about this? Having you know, so much money coming in from your job and what and like you said, having the company car and the and the and the corner office and uh all those things with the glass ceiling would like would have been a problem for you. You you were already in it, you know? And to get to the place where you felt like, you know what, I'm putting a lot to my head. I want you to kind of just speak to uh not to be in those things uh specifically to be general, but uh how do you get to the place where you felt like you were able to push past that stuff and not drag drag it around with you? And a lot of people who are uh taking the luggage from 20 years ago and they're still carrying it around. My wife and I, we're at very active, I think we discussed it, very active in deliverance ministry. And we have people who are in 30, 40, 50, 18 years ago, and they got the luggage in 2025, they got luggage from 1960. I'm like, you gotta let that stuff go. It still has no value, except as a reminder of what you've been through. How did you push past all of those things to get to where you are right now? Is there any keys that you can share? What is that?

SPEAKER_01: 21:50

Absolutely. So my search sent me down a path where uh for about four or five years I became obsessed with a few things. One is neuroscience and then behavioral psychology, and then the overall, the overall understanding of why we believe what we believe and how what we believe creates the results we create in our lives. And so, and you know this, uh Mr. Yu, is that when when you're working with an individual, when I start working with a client, the first thing that I'm trying to identify are what are the limitations that they've placed on themselves? Right? What are the limiting beliefs, the things that they believe about themselves and about the world that are limiting them in their lives? And very often it is tied to past, it's tied to trauma, it's tied to a lot of different things that have happened to us. And so people say things like, Well, and I'll actually use a story. There was two young men that grew up, and one became extremely successful, extremely successful, beautiful family, beautiful life, like he was active in the church, give, philanthropic, like his businesses were thriving, his health was dialed in. And there was another man that ended up going to prison for life and very violent, a lot of things. And these two sons, they were interviewed about 20 years later, and they came together, and both of them, interestingly enough, said the same thing. Both of them said, Well, if you knew who my father was, you'd understand why I turned out the way that I did.

SPEAKER_02: 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:14

And what's really challenging and beautiful about that story is that we have these this opportunity to choose, but the choice oftentimes is extremely difficult because we, our behavior and the things that we do, they always follow our identity. So here's what I mean. If you identify as a runner and you stand on a stage and you raise your hand and say, I'm a runner, everyone listening right now would say, Well, it's probably really weird if that person doesn't go run. If they identify as a runner, they probably run, right? But if someone stands on the stage and raises their hand and says, like, I do not identify as a runner, I am not a runner, it would be equally as strange if that person went to go run because they say that they don't, right? And so our behaviors and the things that we do and why we see the world the way that we do is because we have attached to these labels and these identities. And we see this across culture right now. It's like, and I know this might be somewhat controversial, but we live in a culture where someone can identify as a uh a fairy, penguin, binary, pansexual, whatever the heck they want to call themselves, and then they act a certain way, right? They act a certain way. Well, why? Because they're they're literally using something that all of us have access to. When you tell yourself something over and over and over and over and over again, you will adopt it as a part of your belief system. And if you believe it, there is no one that can come around you and say you're wrong, because you say, No, this is what I believe. This is my truth. And what's really challenging here is that there has to be this degree of compassion and understanding, but simultaneously we have to ask ourselves, how are we defining truth? For me and for you, Mr. U, I know that we go to scripture, we believe that scripture is truth. And so what I tell people is this the most effective key that you can use is to stop idolizing your opinion of yourself over what God says in his word. If you have a crappy opinion of yourself, and if you think that you're mired with guilt and shame, if you think that you're used goods, if you think that you're a victim, if you think whatever it is, you are idolizing. You're creating an idol in your life of your opinion of yourself over what his word says, that you were bought with a price, that you're no longer a slave to sin. You are a new creation, you have been adopted, you have been grafted in, you are free, right? And so for me, the shift happened when I started saying, God, I don't, I don't know that I believe these things about myself. I don't feel like I do, but I'm going to use your word and start speaking these things over my life as if they were true. And what I found is exactly what we all experience. If you say something over and over and over and over again to yourself and you really, really hold on to it, eventually you come to believe it. Scripture talks about this as being transformed by the renewing of your mind. And if you can renew your mind every single day, it's not just going in the word and being like, I'm going to read my scripture and I'm going to go to Bible study and I'm going to go to church. No, you sit with the Father and you let him speak to you about your identity, your behavior will start to change. You'll start to let go of these things, you'll start to have compassion. Your paradigm, your perspective of life will shift, and you'll no longer look back at those things and those people with rage and anger and resentment. You might actually find that you can look back on those people and say, Man, if they knew who they were, if they knew who they were as a child of God, they would have never done what they did. And they would have never said what they said because hurt people hurt them, right? And it's not accusing, it's not justifying, it's not saying that it wasn't their fault. It's back to what we were talking about earlier. It's like, I am responsible for me and my life and my alignment with Him. And then from that place, I'm gonna operate. Like, is this my business? Is it their business, or is it God's business? Because if it's their business or God's business, it ain't my business. I'm gonna take care of my business, right? I'm gonna be responsible for the things that I can control today. And one of those things, the key, is the story you tell yourself about who you are.

SPEAKER_00: 27:53

All right, we got we're almost up against it here. So I'm gonna run through a few questions that I feel like you had unique insight into, so I don't want to leave them on the table if it can possibly get that in. But tell me, uh, well, firstly, if you guys are watching our show for the first time or listening for the first time, and you want to see where um you can find the rest of the episodes previously done, all the seasons that we've been doing this, links in the show notes and on the screen right now. Uh David, what have you personally sacrificed to walk this journey out?

SPEAKER_01: 28:30

A couple things. Number one, I've sacrificed my poor opinion of David Walde. An opinion that thought that he was worthless and trash and who hated himself, uh, which is what led me to wanting to end my life. Um that's number one. I had to sacrifice that because I was holding on to that so tightly, because it was my only sense of control. It was my only sense of like what I what I could control. Um I had to sacrifice uh comfort. And people get very confused when you say this because people say all the time, like, get outside your comfort zone. I don't like when people say that because it's very confusing to a lot of people. What I like to say is get outside outside your zone of familiarity, because your subconscious mind is wired for familiarity or comfort, meaning that if it's anything outside of your normal, it perceives as a threat and it says no danger warning, warning, warning. And so you're very resistant to it. If you wake up every single day and you were to tell yourself, like, hey, I am a child of God and he says that I'm awesome, you might do that and be like, that's a load of crap. I'm not awesome. Like, I don't believe that. But you do that with consent. Why? Because your subconscious mind is unfamiliar with that concept of yourself and it's resistant to it. And so, what you can do, I'll be very brief here. I know you said we're we're coming up on time, is that what you can do is recognize that if you're going to create a new reality, a new experience of life, you have to be willing to sacrifice the comfort and your zone of familiarity, which means that you walk across the aisle, you go down and have those conversations, you interact with those people, you go to the places, you try the things, you test, you learn, you grow, you write the book, right? You start the podcast, you start the ministry, you make the phone call. It's it is required that we take action to get outside of our zone of familiarity. But when you do that with consistency, suddenly these things become your new normal and you're no longer resistant to them. So it's sacrificing that comfort of saying, like, this is my little world and this is where I live, and I'm just gonna live and I'm gonna survive and I'm gonna wait until Jesus comes back, you know, right? That's I think the enemy uses that to keep people trapped for the majority of their lives because they don't understand who they are and they don't understand who the father says.

SPEAKER_00: 31:07

I love that. All right. So we're going to compile a few questions that I have and try to try to get you to share those, and then we'll end the show with our final question for today. So you coined the phrase emotionally intelligent manhood. And you've also talked to me about a men's group that you have and kind of why you started it. I'd love for you to share on both of those points. And then when you're done doing that, take a couple of minutes to speak to the men who are watching today, potentially that struggle with connection, that don't even know where to start with that.

unknown: 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:42

So go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 31:42

Well, I appreciate you saying I coined the phrase. I can't claim it that I coined it. Um, but emotionally intelligent manhood or masculinity, I think, is is something that um not just women are hoping for and longing for, the world is hoping for and longing for, but what we as men need. And emotional intelligence is simply a degree of awareness. It's when you can look at your life and stop being judge, jury, and executioner. It's where you can look at your reactions to life, how you emotionally respond. Is it anger? Is it rage? Is it apathy? When you can look at yourself and take a step back and become aware of your default emotional state when you get tense, when you get stressed, when you get frustrated, when she pushes your buttons, when the boss calls. What are those emotions that are rising up inside of you? Because most of us as men weren't taught how to how to recognize what it is. We say things like, Well, I'm upset. Well, what the heck does that mean? I'm mad. What does that mean? Like, what does that really mean, right? Because sometimes you can say you're mad, and what you're feeling is betrayal in that moment, or you're feeling disappointment, or you are feeling rage, right? But if you can learn to reflect, when you mess up and you can give yourself a little empathy, if you can give yourself a little grace, a little compassion, and say, Why did I respond that way? Why is that my default reaction? Why is it that every single time the kids come in here and do this immediately my blood pressure spikes, right? Because if you don't develop emotional intelligence, which is just like any other intelligence, right? If we go to school and we're developing intelligence, what do you have to do? You have to have tests, you have to practice, you have to fail. It's not about arriving, like turning a key and being like, oh, sweet, now I'm fully emotionally aware. No, your emotional awareness comes through the process of looking at where you feel like you are falling short, where you're missing the mark. And instead of having judgment and guilt and shame and anger, like I'm sure there's guys listening, it's like you ever get angry and then you get pissed off that you're angry, like you're angry about being angry, or or you're you're you're frustrated about being frustrated. I don't know, maybe it's just me. But if you can start to recognize those areas where you're not in control anymore, your emotions are, because we all say things, I can't believe I said that, I can't believe I did that, I can't believe I did whatever, right? When you can start assessing and reviewing and looking at those things and say, okay, why did that happen that way? You will become more emotionally aware, and it's in that place that you can start to control your emotions and put them into the passenger seat rather than them being in the driver's seat. That's what happens to most of us men. And that, or we just shove our emotion down because we think it's it's strong. And my argument is that men who shove their emotions down are actually operating in a degree of weakness because he's not strong enough to confront those emotions. The easy path is to shove them down. It's hard to do that, but that's the easy path relative to sitting with those emotions. And what I tell men is this is that our lives and the women in our lives, they are beautiful gifts that God has given us. But what you need is another man who can look you in the eyes with love and understanding and strength and hold you to a higher standard because you've invited that in your life. It's not guilt, it's not shame, it's not beating, it's not talking down. It's that people are so confused about accountability. Mr. U, if I say, like, this is my standard, brother, and you have you have my permission to hold me to this standard. If I fall below this standard, you call me back up. It's not calling people out, and that's what our society is today is calling people out and hold them accountable, hold them accountable. No, no, no. You need safety and trust in relationship with other men that you respect, admire, and have shared values that you can come together and say, these are the husbands we're gonna be, these are the fathers we're gonna be, these are the leaders we're gonna be, these are the men that we choose to be, regardless of what culture and society say. And when you can lock arms with other men, you start to realize that you have the ability to process emotions and to handle these things in a place of safety rather than what most of us have dealt with is that when we in our past have talked about how we feel, it's weaponized against us.

SPEAKER_00: 36:21

Thank you for jumping in here and sharing so much of your incredible life and your stories of resilience and courage, man. You've been through a lot and you you kept on going through, man, and you have a beautiful family. You got you know, married 12 almost 12 years to your best friend, I guess about 12 years now, and you got four extraordinary kids, man. You're doing things on the speaking circuit, man. You're building businesses, man. You are definitely a success story, brother. It's been an honor to meet you and get to know you a little bit, man. Look forward to more times than sometimes it rushes, too. We're gonna make it happen. We're gonna make it happen. Final question for the episode today, man. Uh, it's just a theoretical exercise, not to diminish your abilities or your talents or all you've done throughout your history, but we're gonna theoretically erase it for a moment. Everything you've done career-wise, mission-wise, vocation-wise. What do you think David Waldy is doing today outside of what this is something you've probably never done before? Maybe you just thought about it, maybe it was a dream you put on the shelf. What are you doing today, you think?

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

It's a great question. And I would honestly have to say, I take everything away. I take it all. My my number one sole focus and priority would be being his son. That's what I'd be doing. And the activities and the things that I'm doing vocationally and career-wise, would just be an overflow of being his son. Uh, for anyone listening, if you got kids, one of our greatest joys is just watching our kids learn and grow. We just want to do stuff with them. And so whether it is um an alternate life, uh, I I I have I would have one priority, and it's being his son, and just letting everything go from there.

SPEAKER_00: 38:09

I always I always feel like you'd be a teacher. That's what I oh, that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01: 38:13

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 38:15

Yeah, I love you. Man, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for jumping in here and sharing so much profound wisdom and insights to the people watching and listening. For all those that are watching and listening for the first time. Now you know what one-on-one with Mr. You is all about. We talk to folks from all around the country and the world now. So we're definitely a global podcast. Uh, we're definitely excited about being in the top five percent, which is cool. It's just a cool little thing. Uh, but if you're watching and listening for the first time, this episode will be on all listening platforms within about an hour from now. And of course, you can find us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook currently, and the other ones will be dropping in a little later on today. But thank you for your time, David. Any final thoughts before we get out of here, brother? Lord George. 60 seconds, you got it, brother.

SPEAKER_01: 39:01

I so appreciate you. And for everyone that's listening here, if you've been a part of Mr. Yu's journey for any period of time, you've been listening to the podcast, um, you know his heart, right? This man pours his blood, sweat, and tears in the community and the people that he serves. And if you've been on the fence about taking the next step, you want coaching, you want to take your life to the next level, you know God's calling you to more. Call this man, text him, just have a conversation. His heart is to serve you, he's been serving you. His heart is to love you, empower you, inspire you, and encourage you. So get out of your own way, text Mr. U and say, Mr. U, we need to talk. That's what I have to say.

SPEAKER_00: 39:40

Brother, I thank you, brother. You become a really strong friend, man. I appreciate you so much, man. And for all you guys watching and listening, thank you for doing that. The last place you can go for your podcast listening, but just stop here to check us out, man. We definitely appreciate it. That's David. I'm Mr. U. We're out. Have a great day. Thanks again for watching and listening to one on one with Mr. U.S.