The Quiet Changes in Men After 40: What No One Explains to Regular Guys - Episode 304

When a good man turns quiet, slower to recover, and oddly distant, most couples assume it’s attitude or boredom or maybe even an affair. What if the real story is hormones, sleep debt, vascular strain, and stress chemistry reshaping mood, identity, and connection? I take a clear-eyed look at men’s midlife health - why testosterone can decline earlier than you think, how visceral fat and alcohol accelerate the slide, and why erectile dysfunction often points to cardiovascular issues long before it’s “just a bedroom problem.”

I walk through the signals men tend to ignore: loss of morning erections, irritability, low motivation, social withdrawal, brain fog, and that nagging sense of not feeling like yourself. I break down the difference between being “in range” and being optimized in your bloodwork, and outline the lab panels that actually guide change.  

This conversation also moves into the heart of relationships. When physiology changes, partners often feel rejected or unseen; understanding the body’s role shifts the frame from blame to teamwork. We talk about men’s reluctance to seek help, the data on midlife suicide risk, and how therapy that gives tools can rebuild agency. On treatment paths, I cover the trade-offs of testosterone therapy, why some consider HCG, and the importance of retesting every quarter so decisions follow data, not hype.

If you’re aiming to age well together, start here: measure what matters, protect sleep, lift regularly, drink less, and choose friends who support your goals. Share this with someone you love, hit follow, and leave a quick review to help more couples find their reset. What’s the first change you’ll make this week?

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

Sandy Kruse 0:01

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse of Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For years now, I've been bringing to you conversations about wellness from incredible guests from all over the world. Discover a fresh take on healthy living for midlife and beyond. One that embraces balance and reason without letting only science dictate every aspect of our wellness. Join me and my guests as we explore ways that we can age gracefully with in-depth conversations about the thyroid, about hormones, and other alternative wellness options for you and your family. True Wellness nurtures a healthy body, mind, spirit, and soul. And we cover all of these essential aspects to help you live a balanced, joyful life. Be sure to follow my show, rate it, review it, and share it. Always remember, my friends, balanced living works. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. Today's episode, this one's for the boys. This might be my most important episode just for the guys, and I'll explain why it might be for the year. Because most of you know how trending women's health is now. Everyone's talking about it. Ever since that article, and I recorded with a doctor about it, it was something about why women were or have been misled. And I think it was in the New York Times, and it all related to, you know, everything relating to hormones and all of that. Ever since then, women's health has exploded. But the biggest conversation I have found after being in this podcasting space now for six years is men's health is missing. And a huge connect that I see is that with everyone talking about biohacking, longevity, women's health, there's such a massive focus on how to optimize our health as we age, how to optimize our hormonal health as a woman in menopause, but nobody really gets into the details on what happens with a guy when he hits midlife. Well, no matter what kind of a relationship you're in, whether you're married, whether you're common law, doesn't matter. I'm married to a guy for almost 26 years, and we've been together for over 28, and I want to ensure that he optimizes his wellness and ages better along with me. So it's never just about women's health if you're in a marriage or partnership, and it's important for you to be able to age gracefully with your partner. There's always going to be uncontrollables. You know me, I'm all about the body, the mind, the spirit, and the soul. And I always believe in blending science and soul. So that's what I'm gonna do today. And then I am also going to have another release later on where I'm gonna talk about why I don't believe in divorce. Now, don't you know come at me for saying that. There's always going to be caveats, and there's always going to be reasons why divorce is necessary. However, I believe that if you're in a generally healthy relationship and only you can know whether it's healthy or not, I don't think anybody can dictate that unless you know you're in an abusive relationship. However, if you're in a generally healthy relationship and then all of a sudden things shift at midlife in a weird kind of way, you have to start to dig a little deeper. And maybe one of the variables when things do shift and not for the better, is that we're taking care of ourselves, but the guys are not taking care of themselves, and they often grow more silent, more solemn, more distant, less communicative, less attentive. Maybe there's more going on under the hood that isn't explored enough. Men often are less likely to investigate this. And sure, even if you've got a guy who goes to the doctor and let's say he's a biohacker, let's say he's into longevity, let's say he works out every day. Is he really digging a little deeper under the hood to know how to optimize his wellness, just like women, you know, have all these different tools? So that's what I'm gonna talk about today. And yes, I am gonna bring science in there, and I'm also gonna bring some soul because I always do that. I am gonna ask you just to pause for a second here. And if my podcast is meaningful for you, to you, in any way, shape, or form, or helps you, please subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. That just helps me to reach more people. And I will also say that my podcast is one of very few that puts passion over profit. Now I'm gonna say one more thing. It's very difficult after being in this six years of this space to be able to even trend when some of the people that you're competing against are celebrities that just naturally have an audience. I didn't come into this. I came by it honestly, and I came by it through a hero's journey. Most of you know my story. My daughter had cancer at age five. I was 40. I had cancer one year after her, almost exactly to the year we had our surgeries one year apart. Her second surgery, my first to remove my thyroid gland. And then my husband coded a year after that. That prompted me to go back to college. I'm actually an English literature graduate. I went back to college to get my diploma, not a certification. A lot of people call themselves nutritionists, but they have like a weekend-long course that they did. I did a two-year program with the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, and I have a diploma as a registered holistic nutritionist. Then I did multiple certifications afterwards, including peptides, anti-aging, endocrinology, and hormones, clinical nutrition, and more. So um, not for myself, for myself too, but I've actually done some training in mindset. I'm also a certified metabolic balance coach. So there you go. Now you've got all of my credentials. You know why I talk about this, you know that I really need you to hit that subscribe button. Another thing would that would help is to rate and review wherever you are listening. So Apple, Spotify, great places to add a few kind words and provide me with a rating. And then share this. Share this with a friend, share this with your spouse, your partners, or you might be that spouse that really kind of takes charge of the health and wellness in your home. So if you are and you have a husband like I do, who doesn't want to listen to a 30-minute podcast on health, you're gonna share this information with him. Okay. And the last thing I'm gonna say, I am not providing you with any medical advice here. I am not a doctor. However, I will give you some tips that you can take to your own practitioner. One thing that I constantly say in this space of wellness is we gotta stop giving power to people in social media or media channels that talk about health and wellness. Oh, well, she gave me advice to say this or do this. Nobody's giving you advice here, my friends. I don't know you. You don't know me. Unless you have a relationship with a practitioner, be really discerning about what you hear online and make sure that it's applicable to you. Okay, now that I got all that done, I'm gonna talk to you all about men's health. And I am gonna be looking at my notes because I do do a whole outline and research. It's really important that I do that so that I get it right. You know, a lot of times we hear midlife crisis as it relates to men. And maybe it is, in a sense, midlife crisis, but why don't we dig a little deeper? So this podcast is going to do that for you without any sort of bias, without any sort of sponsorships or anything. You know, I'm providing all the information that I have available to me. And so do you. I just happen to be a researcher as well. So I dig deep into the research as well as give a little bit of a soul take on everything. So this is a conversation about energy, identity, and the relationships in your life as a guy, midlife, and as you age. You've everybody's heard that term, grumpy old man, right? Grumpy old men. There's a reason for that, my friends, and we're gonna dig into that. So what I'm talking about are often much more quieter than a woman's symptoms. They're creeping, they're they kind of creep up, and then they can get louder and louder and louder, and everybody is bioindividual, and nobody is the same. Could be fatigue, could be irritability, could be low libido, brain fog, disconnection, slower recovery. Yes, that's a symptom. So let's say you're always able to work out and now you're just dying the next day. There's something going on there. And then there's that just that nagging sense that you're just not yourself anymore. You're not the guy who you used to be. Listen, we're never going to be what we were like when we were 30. But when you really have this, like, I'm a totally different person, that's when it's important to dig a little bit deeper. So these aren't personality flaws or moral failings, and they're not just aging. This is this is this is something you hear quite often from medical doctors. Yes, there are certain things that are more difficult to achieve as we age, but just aging to me is just an excuse. We can't be like we were when we were 30, but we also don't have to settle for things that we're just not comfortable settling with. There's often psychological warning signs, and when men ignore them, these consequences they have a ripple effect. And this is the other connection I want to make. Those symptoms that I just talked about have a ripple effect on your marriage, on your relationships, your family, your career, and your mental health. And these are very important for men to actually pay attention to. Number one, I'm gonna start with testosterone because everybody talks about testosterone. Guys, if you're listening to Sport Talk Radio, every second commercial is about how to boost your test, right? Like I'm gonna say something that those commercials don't say. The decline in testosterone starts a lot earlier than you actually think it does. And the research shows that testosterone starts declining in your late 20s to early 30s, and it shows one to two percent per year. By the time you reach your mid 40s, the symptoms really start to get louder and louder, especially if there are lifestyle accelerants. And unless you're like this massive health enthusiast, I'm gonna say every single guy out there has some lifestyle accelerants that are gonna contribute to the testosterone lowering even more. Number one, visceral fat and obesity. You know, everyone talks about dad bod. That's one. No, and then I and then I'm seeing these things on social media about how dad bod is sexy. Oh no, I think I saw it. I think it was no, it was I saw the movie with Will Arnett. Is this thing on? It was in that movie. So by the way, I'm gonna say, go watch that movie. Will not Will Arnett is a fellow Canadian and it's with Bradley Cooper, Laura Dern, um, Will Arnett. It was so good. And yes, there's a lot of dialogue. I don't know if you guys are gonna be into that, but go see it because it's a lot about relationships at midlife. So the other thing that can that is an accelerant will be the inevitable sleep. And the one thing I will say, I've done a couple of podcast episodes on sleep, and there's a lot of advice out there. You have to get seven to nine hours, et cetera, et cetera, and get a tracker, you know, all these things. So, first of all, make sure that you don't have sleep apnea. There's enough out there that you can see if maybe you do, you can actually probably check by your symptoms, and I'm sure your spouse can tell you if you stop breathing. Anyway, that's a whole other topic. Sleep apnea is something you really need to check into because it can contribute to heart disease and a lot of other nasty things. So check that. But in general, how do you feel during the day? I want all you guys out there or your wives who are listening to actually tap into how you feel during the day. Are you exhausted? What's going on with your brain? Are you able to stay sharp? Then if you really, really want a tracker, you can check out a Fitbit. Ultrahuman ring is something I'm actually a big fan of. And that's really gonna tell you a little bit more. That's gonna tell you your sleep stages, which is also really important. How much time are you spending in deep sleep? And then I'm gonna give you another accelerant. If you drink a lot, if you drink every night before you go to bed, if you drink all the time on the weekends, that's gonna affect your sleep. It's all interconnected. Just like I always say, you can't do science without soul if you're optimizing your wellness. So think about that because drinking is another accelerant. Now, a sedentary lifestyle. Some of you guys, you know, might be a big gym rat still. But I will say, if you are doing some of these other accelerants, including smoking, by the way, and poor diet, it might be harder for you to even build that muscle. And then there's the lowering of testosterone. So these are all factors because, and they all are interconnected. So if you're not sleeping enough, guess what that does? That lowers your testosterone and your growth hormone. Bet you never thought of it that way. If you have more fat, that will actually convert that testosterone that you do have to estrogen. So then you're gonna have even more of that dad body bod. Okay. If you have a sedentary lifestyle, obviously you're gonna have loss of muscle and that's gonna lower your testosterone. If you smoke, if you drink too much, if you have a poor diet, you're gonna have inflammation and metabolic dysfunction. Okay. So I'm not telling you all of this to scare you. I'm just saying if every once in a while you check in with yourself and go, hmm, I've got too many of these accelerants that are contributing to the decline of my testosterone. I'm going to talk about erectile dysfunction. This is a big thing. It's not just a sexual issue. And if you do have this issue, which many of you men do, and many of you men have it, even though you don't participate in many of those accelerants. So what I want you to do, and this is this is the thing that does drive me a little crazy about the medical world, is that if a man has ED, he really should have his cardiovascular system analyzed by his doctor. So in Canada, we have a lot of these cardiac um centers now, which is great. They do a full checkup, although not sure if they do blood work, but I'll talk about that. Checking your cardiovascular health is extremely important if you have ED. And then if you already know that you have cardiovascular issues and still need to take that little blue pill, at least you have the answers, right? So another thing that most men don't realize is that just because you Get an erection, that doesn't mean that your testosterone is optimized. And lab values, there's a difference between in the range for your age and optimized. And if you work with the right practitioner, and this is a doctor who is actually very knowledgeable about hormones. If you work with a doctor or a nurse practitioner who is trained in hormones, they're going to know the difference between within range and optimized. And there is a sweet spot for men as they age. And it ain't low, like the ranges show. I like how I rhyme that. I am going to say that erections are primarily a blood flow and nerve signaling event. And testosterone supports sexual function, but is not the on-off switch. You see what I'm saying? So, for example, it's again, everything I say is all intertwined and connected. So a man in his 50s can get erections, have sex, maintain a sex drive, and still have suboptimal testosterone. So testosterone, it affects so much more than sex. It affects your energy. Mood is massive. When a guy has suboptimal testosterone, another thing that um testosterone affects, other than sex, is motivation, confidence, stress tolerance. That's massive. If you're a guy who's always been able to handle stress and now you can't, even though you can get an erection, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't check out your testosterone. Muscle and fat distribution, cognitive function, how well you're actually thinking, and then your emotional resilience. So this is why men can still feel off while sexual performance seems normal. Other overlooked symptoms would be loss of morning erections, slower recovery from workouts, which I already mentioned, irritability, low motivation, social withdrawal, fatigue, stress, and strength, um, sorry, strength loss as well, and brain fog. So these are kind of earlier metabolic and hormonal flags. So low testosterone and other endocrine shifts show up in identity, nervous system regulation, and mood first, not always sexual function. So I'm not saying that testosterone doesn't connect to sexual function, but I'm just giving you the research to say that one doesn't necessarily mean the other, meaning just because you can get erections does not mean that your testosterone is optimal. So, next part three, we're going to talk about testosterone, mood, and suicide risk for men. Low testosterone is pretty critical in in men only because there is a significantly higher likelihood that you will experience depression. So symptoms can include persistent fatigue, irritability, loss of interest. So I released a reel this week. Some, you know, you see, there's this big marriage guy, talks about marriage and divorce. What's his name? James Sexton. I think that's his name. And he comes at it, of course, from a lawyer legal standpoint, like pay attention to her and you won't get married, you won't get divorced, and whatever. But what he doesn't touch on is sometimes there's a physiological reason why, if you're a wife listening, why your guy no longer looks at you and says, You're beautiful, or I love you, even though he feels it inside. This is a really important point that I want to make, and I'm gonna pause because I really want you to think about this. Sure, sometimes there are other reasons that come into play, of course. But what if it is something that can be fixed and optimized? And then that attention comes back in your marriage. This is probably going to be the most important stat I'm gonna read in this podcast. In Canada, men die by suicide three times more often than women. In the UK, men in their 40s and 50s have the highest suicide rates. So, in general, men 45 to 64 have some of the highest suicide rates. And declining testosterone, low energy, low motivation, depression can equal an increased suicide risk. If your partner all of a sudden is really withdrawn, there might be a deeper meaning to this than just chalking it up to, oh yeah, just you know, he's down, or yeah, he has uh depression in his family. Well, maybe you can dig a little deeper and find out the reason why, if it's not normal for you. So the research, this is part four. The research shows that men are far less likely to seek help, which I already touched on. And that's even when they're struggling. Men are less likely to see a doctor, less likely to seek therapy, less likely to invest in friendships, more likely to wait until symptoms are severe, and combine that with declining testosterone, rising irritability or withdrawal, untreated depression, reluctance to seek help, and you have a perfect storm that's not just affecting the man, but his partner, his children, his friendships, and his entire support system. And men have been conditioned to endure and not express, and it's costing their health and their relationships. Sometimes, I'm not saying all the time, but sometimes there is something that can be fixed at the root cause of all these issues. And I will say, men very rarely have these deep talks with their buddies over a beer. I mean, not the men I know. Now, here's where I'm gonna kind of circle back to the hidden relationship cost. So low testosterone, fatigue, irritability, low libido could spill into emotional availability, patience, communication, sexual connection, conflict patterns, parenting dynamics, and partners. So if your wife and you're listening to this, they can often interpret these symptoms as disinterest, rejection, emotional withdrawal, a change in attraction, a change in personality. But often it is physiology, not intention. And if you're a woman and you're listening to this, I'm gonna say this. This is such an important piece. If you're the spouse listening to this, if you are not strong in your own wellness, you will take everything personally. And by wellness, I'm not just talking about optimizing your hormones as a woman, I'm talking about doing more of the spiritual, deeper work. And I've recorded podcasts about this, and I've done a lot of this myself. I do not lead a simple, perfect life, and I've had to look deep within to see what am I almost manifesting in my life that's not my shit to manifest. You see where I'm going with this? What is mine and what is his? And you need to understand the difference, but the only way you're gonna do that is to be confident in yourself and where you're going. And this right here is often the big, you know, the straw that breaks the camel's back. You take everything personally as the wife, as the spouse, and the marriage crumbles. So, as you know, you know, when both partners are struggling physiologically, the relationship vulnerability will spike. And all this talk about women's health, while important, God, we are important. We need to marry this with men's health as well. If we are in a heterosexual relationship, because what's the point? We're doing all this work for ourselves, and then our partner, we see them fading away, they don't get enough help. There's enough research out there to talk about midlife divorce. You know, you hear about it all the time, empty nesters, and they look, you look at each other and you go, I hate your guts. Or we have nothing in common. Well, a lot of this falls on you to fix, not just going, oh, he's not paying attention to me. I'm gonna divorce him. Sorry, ladies, I don't take that. I I think a lot of that is bullshit because you're just putting your shit on him. You can help him, you can guide him, he has to do the work himself, but you also have to do the work and realize that a lot of this might not be you. It also might be your story that you can't. That's a whole other topic. Anyway, I'm not gonna get into that. But the other thing is that both people in the relationship don't feel well, they don't connect well, and optimizing health is a relational protection, it's protecting the relationship. Now, I'm gonna get into a little bit testing, tracking. So hormonal testing, guys, you want to check your total and your free testosterone. You want to check your SHBG, sex hormone binding globulin. You want to check your LH, luteinizing hormones. You want to check your FSH, follicle stimulating hormones. You want to check your estradyl because guess what? If you're drinking a lot, that beer is raising your estrogen. It's not gonna help you. And then also, if you're exhausted and your mood is flat, you also need to do a full thyroid panel. TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, free T3, free T4, antibodies, all of that. I wrote it all in my essential thyroid guide. It released that in 2024, self-published on Amazon. Got to do a little plug there. Then you want to do some metabolic and vascular testing, fasting glucose, HBA1C. So HBA1C is so important. I'm gonna pause there. By the way, I am also certified in functional lab testing. That's why I can talk about this very easily. So HBA1C is so much more important than fasting glucose, just because it tells you how much sugar is actually stuck to your blood cells over a three-month period of time. This is really important to check. Your lipid panel, lipid panel, you know, people are always so worried about their LDL, their bad cholesterol. I've I've recorded a podcast with Dr. William Davis. He's a cardiologist about this. And they say you really got to dig a little deeper. We know this in Canada. The problem is nobody does it. Doctors don't do it. But a clue for you is if your triglycerides are high, that's when you got to dig a little deeper, my friends. You got to check your blood pressure. I have a blood pressure monitor at home. Go grab one at Costco because sometimes it sneaks up on you and you don't even realize that you've got an issue. Now, cardiovascular screening is great. There are a couple of tests in Canada. You can get this uh, I think it's a vascular, it's a whole body vascular test that measures the plaque within all of your major arteries. It's a great test. It's free in Canada, goes with your healthcare. You probably have to see a cardiologist to have it done. And then there's the CAC, it's the coronary artery, I forget what it stands for. It's the CT scan. That's done a little less often in Canada. It also measures plaque. I think it's important to know if you've got plaque because there's all these people on social media that are like statins are gener dangerous. You can't take a statin, blah, blah, blah. Don't take advice from them. Take advice from someone you trust. Now, what I don't agree with at all is a statin for you and a statin for you, and a statin for you, and a statin for you. That, in my opinion, can be dangerous because not everyone would need one. So you need to investigate this with your practitioner who you know is not gonna just throw any pill at you because it's what they do. So look into that. Now, I highly doubt you guys listening are gonna do symptom tracking, but symptom tracking can be very valuable. Like, for example, just remembering, oh yeah, you know, my libido for this last week has been really, really low. Or and then, oh, but I've also been under a ton of stress. And then you can kind of put these connections together, just throwing that out there. Of course, practical interventions include resistance training at least three days, three days a week, three times a week, hit because hit, so um, high interval training is really good for nitric oxide and vascular health. But again, I'm gonna say you have to see what works for you. If you're running on empty and you're doing heavy, heavy, intense workouts, it may not be the right time to do those types of workouts. So think I want you to think about that logically. Now, nutrition and supplements, clearly, that's my wheelhouse. Everyone's saying take creatine. Maybe it's for you, maybe not. Obviously, you're gonna want to optimize your vitamin D, D3, K2, always take K with D, um, magnesium, bisglycinate, L-3-inate is really, really expensive. Bisglycinate is a great form. Um, look into that. Zinc is big as well. If you're taking a lot of zinc, always make sure you um you balance it with copper because zinc can deplete copper, these are things not often talked about. Omega-3s. Um, and clearly, you want to eat as often as you can. You want to eat a whole real foods diet. And everyone's pushing protein. And what I'm gonna say about protein is you eat as much protein as your body needs. Don't listen to all these influencers telling you to eat 300 grams of protein, especially if you're not working out. Eat what your body needs. Okay, so sleep and recovery, we talked about that. Medical interventions talked about that. Now, I think I have said this before on numerous podcasts, that sometimes talk therapy can almost create a victim consciousness where you just go and complain and pour me. And so there are therapists that are really good that give you tools and really guide you. And I think men's specific therapy that specialize in mental health issues common for men is maybe a good option and even a better option than for women, because women often have more of a circle. Your mom, your sister, your friends, you know, you talk about things that are deeper, more intimate discussions, whereas guys don't often have that. And so this is where I think men's therapy and women's therapy might differ. You need to really assess who you're hanging out with. Remember when when you were a little kid and you're, you know, you'd hear the saying, listen, I'm a 1970 baby. You'd hear you are who your friends are. There's actual research on this. If you have friends who booze a lot, chances are you're gonna be a big boozer too. And I've already explained to you how that can really negate optimizing your health. I'm not saying don't ever have a drink, but what I'm saying is if you're a big boozer, a big binge drinker, drink every night, drink hard alcohol, maybe that's something to consider. Your friend's choices influence yours. So if you want to improve your life, improve your health, go and be something. Then maybe you need to change the people around you who are doing the same. Because they will they're only gonna elevate you unless you've got serious insecurities. Then they may it might work the opposite way. So here's my conclusion. And I'm gonna add and summarize all of this. And I am also gonna note in Canada, we have science and humans. It is a hormone midlife, it's only virtual. I think there's a few more coming out in Canada that are virtual clinics, and you have to look at the ones that specialize in hormones and they make it easy and it's covered. Except there's a $200 fee every quarter, and you do full blood work. That's the other thing. When you're kind of in that midst of not quite sure if you're optimized, you need to check your blood work about every three months to see if you're going in the direction that you want to go. And I will also say maybe testosterone therapy is not where you want to be yet, because often when you start testosterone therapy, after about a year of this therapy, that signal to make more testosterone goes away. So you're gonna have to be on it forever. So um I did want to note that. The other option for a lot of men is HCG injections, but then you also have to take an estrogen blocker because the HCG can increase estrogen. But what it does is it allows your body to make its own testosterone. And if you stop, it doesn't affect that signaling process like testosterone therapy does. Okay. Just throwing that out there. And if you're in the UK, if you're in the US, I'm sure you have very specific hormone doctors and doctors that do full panel blood work so that they can kind of map where you're going. And then there's those cardiac centers. So remember, testosterone often declines earlier than you think, and lifestyle accelerates it. Fatigue, low libido, erectile dysfunction, brain fog, irritability are all warning signs. And you can have one without the other. We are all bioindividual. So low testosterone can also contribute to depression and suicide risk. Men are less likely to seek help, making the early symptoms more dangerous. Optimizing health strengthens marriages, friendships, decision making. Like you might decide to surround yourself with other men who are going somewhere in life that you want to be. Midlife isn't a rec uh any kind of crisis. So I'm gonna end that there because it's actually a recalibration. If you choose to see it that way, I'm gonna leave you with a couple of questions. Number one, which subtle warning signs have you been ignoring? Write them down. And number two, who can hold you accountable for your health, performance, and mental well-being goal goals? You can have your spouse help you. You can have, you know, if you have a buddy that you're also like you're both kind of aligned, you're like, yeah, I feel like shit all the time. I need to improve my life. Well, hold each other accountable. But the number one person to hold accountable is you. And I'm gonna end with this. My girlfriend and I, we were having this chat a while ago, and we were talking about all these different, you know, like these different older ways of thinking, like my knight in shining armor and somebody to save me. And here's the thing: we we need to realize that only you can save yourself while you can have people who hold the light for you. And as my friend Brenda says, who are a beacon, um, you gotta do the work, gotta do the work, guys. Anyway, if you love this podcast, please share it with a friend. And I thank you, thank you for being here every week. Have a good one. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit. And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me keep going and bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new exciting conversations to help you live your best life.