Power Seeks Fear; Leadership Creates Safety

We explore how non-threatening behavior turns homes from tense to safe, and why real strength shows in calm, controlled reactions. We share practical tools for regulation, repair, and leading without dominating so trust can replace fear.

• redefining strength as self-control
• presence versus intimidation in daily life
• fear versus respect in relationships
• emotional dysregulation and fight mode
• practical regulation tools including 4-4-6 breathing
• leading without dominating at home
• repair after yelling and setting standards
• predictable fathers and breaking generational cycles
• weekly reflection prompts and one habit to practice

Choose one non-threatening behavior to practice this week. Then share this episode with a man who needs to hear it

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
For daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Excellence Above Talent
Remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Presence Matters More Than Words
• 2:35 Redefining Strength As Self-Control
• 4:30 Fear vs Respect At Home
• 7:05 Subtle Ways Men Intimidate
• 9:30 Emotional Dysregulation And Fight Mode
• 12:20 Leading Without Dominating
• 14:20 Regulate Before You Respond

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

What's up, my beautiful people? Aaron Thomas with Excellence Above Talent. I am recording this podcast in the morning time. Usually when I record my podcast, it's on the weekend or at night when it is a lot quieter. So if you hear a bunch of sounds and stuff like that, just know I'm recording in the daytime. And I wanted to have this conversation because there was just a lot of things I was seeing from, you know, my eyes, my perspective, going to work at the middle school, seeing how these young boys are treating and talking to the women at the school, and understanding and realizing that a lot of their thought processes and behavior starts there. Men don't just wake up one day and want to hurt someone they say they love or destroy the lives of their kids. It's a uh slow process. And there's not enough people talking about it. And this series is something that maybe one person can understand, listen, and get to become a better person, to become a better man, to become a better husband and father. And that's the whole aim of why I'm doing this series. I think it's important that men talk about these issues, men talk about these things that society doesn't want you talking about because what society thinks makes a man weak is really what makes a man strong. And society says what makes a man strong is really oftentimes what makes men weak. So this week we're going to be talking about non-threatening behaviors and rewind your reaction. Because your reaction is everything. You have a choice and a decision to make before you react. And a lot of times guys try to say they blacked out or they didn't know, but you have to send signals to your brain to open your mouth and say vow and vicious things. You have to send a signal to your brain to pick up your hand and to slap someone or to punch someone or to punch a wall or to throw things. There are signals that you have to tell yourself to do before you do it. So saying you didn't know or you blacked out or you didn't have a choice is a coward way of not handling your business as a man and processing your feelings and emotions. You cannot call yourself a good man if the people closest to you feel afraid of your reaction. Today's episode is about non-threatening behavior, not just avoiding violence, but becoming emotionally and physically safe. Because real strength isn't loud, it is controlled. And I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you can't control yourself as a man, start questioning if you're really a man. Because you're not. You're a little boy in a man's body who can't control himself. A lot of men will say, I'm not abusive. I've never hit anyone. But abuse isn't just about what you do with your hands, it's about what you do with your presence. And as a Christian, I think a lot of people forget that your presence is something that matters. When you walk into a room as a man, what presence do you bring? As a Christian man, reading his Bible, knowing that when God walked into a room, when Jesus walked into a room, there was a presence that he brought. Love and kindness and mercy and goodness. But it was also a don't play with me because I'm not here to be played with. And a lot of times your presence, good or bad, affects the atmosphere that you're in. You can have a good presence when you walk into a room. People feel safe and they will feel heard and understood. Or you can walk into a room and people shrink. People start to walk on eggshells, they tiptoe around because they know at any given time at any given point you could blow up and be aggressive. So your presence matters. If people tense up when you walk into a room, if someone lowers their voice around you, if conversations shut down because of how you react, that is not respect, that is fear. And fear has no place in healthy relationships. If your woman can't talk to you because you're gonna blow up, it's unhealthy. If your kids are afraid to tell you that they messed up or they got third in something, it's unhealthy. You you've created a level of or atmosphere of fear and not respect. Non-threatening behavior means your presence does not create anxiety, intimidation, or fear, even when you're upset. This isn't about being passive. This isn't about letting people walk all over you. This is about self-control. A man who can't control his reactions will always try to control people. And if you've ever tried to control yourself and you know how hard that is to control you, for what reason do you think you can control someone else? What power do you have over another person to try to control when you can't even control yourself? Here's what most men don't realize. You don't have to yell to be threatening. You don't have to hit to intimidate. Threat shows up through your tone of voice versus tone of voice, your posture. If you're sitting with your hands crossed or your foot your foot's tapping, that could bring a level of intimidation. Size, facial expression, pacing, standing too close, slamming objects, silence used as punishment, staring someone down. You may not intend to do it, but impact matters more than intention. If someone feels unsafe around you, something needs to change. And a lot of times there's this excuse of like, this that has nothing to do with me as a man if someone doesn't feel safe around you. But if you have a family and you walk into that door and everyone starts to walk on eggshells and starts to feel unsafe, it has everything to do with you, and you have to fix it. Threatening behavior usually comes from one place emotional dysregulation. When a man feels overwhelmed, disrespected, embarrassed, insecure, or out of control, his nervous system goes into fight mode. And if he hasn't learned how to regulate himself, his body becomes a weapon. Not consciously, instinctively. That's not strength, that's a lack of discipline. Here's the hard truth. Power demands fear. Safety creates trust. Abusive men chase power because it feels immediate. Healthy men build safety because it lasts. If your partner, your kids, or the people around you don't feel safe bringing you hard conversations, you are not leading, you're dominating. And also sitting in those hard conversations and not trying to take over, listening, trying to understand where they're coming from. Domination always destroys connection. So if you feel disconnected from your family, ask yourself, are you trying to lead your family in the right directions? Or are you trying to dominate your family to go into the direction that you think they should go into? Leading and dominating are two totally different things. Non-threatening behavior means you learn to regulate before you respond. What does that look like? Lowering your voice when you're angry, stepping back instead of stepping forward, relaxing your shoulders and hands, unclinching your jaw, slowing your speech, processing your words, making sure you're not saying anything hurtful, asking for a pause instead of forcing a conversation. And that's a hard one because you you once you're in it, you want to be in it. But if you know you're getting upset, and you know if you get to a point beyond processing, then walking away and saying, hey, let me get give me a few seconds to process what I'm trying to say to you. I'm not trying to be loud or hurtful. I don't want to be angry. I don't want to yell. So give me like 10 minutes to relax, calm down. What I do sometimes is the 446 rule. So I breathe in for four seconds, I hold it for four seconds, and I breathe out for six seconds. I do that for a couple of minutes, then I process myself to to calm down and relax, to tell myself I'm not in a war or a battle, that I am just trying to have a conversation. I'm trying to be heard while also hearing what she has to say. And this is only going to make our marriage stronger. Strength is staying grounded when everything in you wants to explode. And it's not like all sunshine and rainbows. There will be times where you want to explode. There will be times where you want to yell and not want to hear what it is that she has to say. But true strength is finding a way to regulate yourself. Because once you go to that level, then the whole atmosphere is messed up. And it's hard to get back to it because there will be a fear of this conversation can't be had because he'll explode. Children don't need perfect fathers, they need predictable ones. If a child doesn't know which version of you they are getting, they live in constant alert. That teaches fear, not respect. Kids raised around threatening behavior grow up anxious, aggressive, or emotionally shut down. Breaking the cycle starts with how you control your reaction today. And I'm not a father, but in doing this research, I I have realized that as a coach, screaming at kids probably isn't the best version of how to get to these kids. But you also have to understand I kind of old school, my coaches screamed at me. Mom and dad sometimes screamed at me. The military for sure screamed at me. But figuring out when to and when not to. Because there were some times where when a person screamed, it brought fear. And then when a person screamed, I knew they that they expected more of me. But I guess having that conversation, like if you do yell or scream or blow up, sitting down and saying, hey, one, I wasn't right in screaming at you. And two, this is why I felt the need. Or this is why I screamed. And having that conversation, which still isn't the best, but at least kids know, okay, he wasn't screaming at me because he was angry. He's screaming at me because the expectation is set and I didn't meet that standard. And so he yelled. But that doesn't give the man full autonomy to always yell. Because again, he has to regulate his emotions and feelings. And because a kid isn't meeting a standard doesn't mean you scream at the kid, sit the kid down and and reiter reiterate what the standard is. This is where real change becomes visible. When you say all the right things, you can apologize, you can promise change, but non-threatening behavior is where people see if the work is real. Anyone can talk about growth. Only disciplined men show it under pressure. The hard truth is if your presence makes people feel unsafe, you don't need better excuses, you need better regulation. You don't become a safe man by intention, you become a safe man by practice. And practice requires humility, awareness, and daily effort. So wrapping up, the goal isn't to shrink yourself. The goal is to become so grounded, so disciplined, so emotionally regulated that your presence brings calm, not chaos. That's real strength. The reflection questions for this week. Number one, how do people react when you're frustrated or angry? Two, what physical behavior of yours could come across as intimidating? Three, what is one non-threatening behavior I can practice starting today? And your call of action for this week is choose one non-threatening behavior to practice this week. Then share this episode with a man who needs to hear it. And that non-threatening behavior could be not yelling. It could be not giving your wife or kids like that debt stare. It could be your tone and paying attention to whenever your voice is starting to rise, giving yourself a timeout, walking away, but have the conversation of let's reconvene and talk about this in 10 minutes. Because if you don't, then issues linger and they will eventually come out again in arguments or trying to have hard conversations. So super important to finish what you started if you're having a tough conversation. If anyone hasn't told you today that they love you, let me be the first to say I love you. You're awesome, you're amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not quit, do not give up. The world does not get easier, but you will get stronger. Y'all have a blessed week. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00: 15:18

Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Excellence Above Talent. And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.