Introduction: Why a Midlife Men’s Guide Is Speaking to Women Over 50
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Namaste.
My guest today has spent more than two decades doing everything right and feeling increasingly wrong inside. Brian Dixon, who goes by the professional name of Dixon, is a Colorado based adventurer, author, and speaker who helps men wake up from the quiet misalignment that so many carry silently into midlife. And I know, ladies, we’re, you know, my audience is women, but just stick with me here for a second. So after a brutal divorce and a life-threatening wake up call, he found his way back to what he calls his true north. And now he helps other men do the same.
But here’s why I wanted him on the show. Women almost always know once something is off long before the men in their lives will say it out loud. And that gap between what she senses and what he’ll admit can be one of the loneliest places along woman inhabits. So today, Dixon is here to validate what you’ve been feeling, explain what’s actually happening beneath the surface, and offer some real hope. Not the forced fix it kind, but the kind that comes when someone finally tells the truth.
So with that out of the way, I want to welcome you, Dixon, to design your life your way.
DIXON: Well, good morning from Colorado, Grace. How are you?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: I am doing well here in Florida in, in the, in the humidity I had.
DIXON: Yeah, I bet it’s getting hot there right now.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah. Yep. Yes, I was. We are recording this. It is not quite officially summer yet, but it has been summer for a few weeks here.
DIXON: Yeah. Temperature wise.
Midlife Disengagement Affects Women and Men Alike
GLORIA GRACE RAND: So I, I want to, I want to dive right in to this today because I know, I’m sure our audience is kind of wondering. So your work is primarily with men, but you’re here today speaking to my audience, which is primarily women. Although I think we do have some men that.
Listen, what made you want to have this conversation with, with a female audience?
DIXON: Yeah, actually, thank you for having me, by the way. And, And I’m. The book that’s coming out in the fall is aimed at midlife men, but the overall problem of what I call disengagement in life, where people kind of check out, you know, midlife men are famous for that, but it’s a problem that affects everyone. And I bet your audience knows a lot about, you know, not speaking their truth or keeping quiet for a long time in a, in a marriage or, or maybe in a career.
And so I’m really addressing, as I move forward, fighting this specter of what I call disengagement in the world. And it, it’s men, it’s women, it’s teenagers, it’s kids that are talking to AI on their phones and not outside and, and having relationships. So I can only tell my story. But I certainly recognize at the beginning, I actually struggle with this recently of writing a page up front that says, look, this is a problem for everyone and I’m not going to pretend to give the women’s side of it, but I certainly acknowledge it and want to talk about it because we all live together and it affects whoever has the problem, right?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Absolutely.
Well, yeah. And you, because you’re, you know, I’m sure you have women in your life and you had, you had a mother at one point as well, you know, you know, hopefully she may be still with you. So, you know, it’s, you’re, you know, we’re around the opposite sex all the time in our lives and so we can also be observers and, and of what they’re going through and maybe we don’t always know, as you say, you know, what’s hiding behind the surface. And boy, when you were talking about, yeah. Not speaking your truth, that that was definitely my story for a long time.
I, I, yeah, wound up getting back into a habit that I picked up in childhood that was a defense mechanism because I didn’t want to get yelled at. So I would be, you know, I would try to be the good girl because I saw my older siblings not getting along well with parents.
DIXON: Stuff a sock in it, right?
What Midlife Drift Feels Like from the Inside
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you described your, your two decades, I guess, before your wake up call as drift.
So someone listening or watching this today doesn’t quite know what you mean by that because I, you know, what, what context. How would you describe what midlife drift actually feels like from the inside?
DIXON: Yeah, drift. I mean, just to give some context. I mean, I was a person who had a lot of dreams coming out of college to be a writer and an adventurer and I was very kind of hot to trot for, for life, you know, a lot of vibrancy.
And instead of going down the road of becoming a journalism major and well, I did become a journalism major, but writing a book I wanted to write for like, oh, if you remember Sebastian Juner and the guy who wrote Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer. I wanted to write adventure books like that. And anyway, instead of doing all that, life gave me the opportunities to, to get into writing and to kind of find my person in life. And I ended up going down the wrong roads. I mean, I chose, I wasn’t strong enough out of school and I ended up in the wrong career.
I was a Blackjack dealer instead of a writer. Because I had a relationship that had just started, a family, and the person I was with, I got into the relationship with for the wrong reasons. And we ended up having a 12 year marriage and with three kids, which was great. I have three boys. But when you go down the wrong roads from the beginning, you become what I call misaligned.
And for me, it happened off the bat. But for midlife men and for women too, if inside of those provider years, we don’t kind of protect our own dreams besides being a provider and a dad or a mom, then we drift away from our true north of who we are as people. And, you know, those roles are very admirable. You know, being a dad, being a provider, being a mom, going to work, bringing home the bacon, that’s all great. But for me personally, I got lost inside of that and didn’t protect my own dreams of writing or adventuring or travel.
And so I might. My identity got watered down to the point where I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: You know, this. This I think really is a universal thing that happens because I can. I can relate to your story so much.
I mean, I was. When I moved into an apartment, I was going through a lot of paperwork and whatnot, and I came across my old SAT scores. And I thought. But what was interesting is that I saw on there that I wanted to major in music.
And I was like, I didn’t remember that at all because when I was in high school, my parents were having a rocky relationship. Well, their, their marriage had been rocky for a long time, but eventually my dad wound up moving out of the house. I don’t remember exactly. I think it was before I graduated from high school or shortly thereafter. And so I wound up registering late for college and just decided to.
To major in business administration because I thought it would help me get a job.
The “Lifeboat Guy” and the Careers We Fall Into
DIXON: Yeah, no, it was like, isn’t that funny how I’m fascinated more and more as I write this book and go through this work of how. And I even have a name for one of the archetypes of the four types of men in midlife, but it’s called the Lifeboat Guy. And it’s just like what you just said. It’s like I just need something to pay the bills.
And instead of like looking at the 10,000 foot view of what I really want in life, it’s like, well, you know, my dad runs a restaurant, so I guess I’m just gonna be a manager of a restaurant, like, with no thought at all. That turns into a 20 year career.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Exactly. Exactly. Well, fortunately for me, I started failing badly in, in the courses that I was taking.
Of course, I was also going through some personal stuff with my brother had passed away suddenly too, which threw us all for a loop. So I wound up almost flunking out of college and so wound up getting in touch with a counselor who gave me an aptitude test. And I am so grateful for that because it found out that I would be much happier by majoring in mass communications. So I wound up doing that in television production and the course of my life changed. But I do think that the universe also has, you know, know, source has a sense of humor because I wound up working for the nightly business report, so, and then starting my own business years later.
So even though, you know, it was like I didn’t do well in majoring in business administration, I still wound up having that.
Living Out of Alignment: The “Man Zombie” Years
DIXON: What I love about what you just said is that that test helped you align yourself. You could have gone down the road of continuing in school in the, in the other way.
Right. And yeah, and then the test helped you say, wow, I’m aligned with, you know, these personality traits and I’m going to go down this road.
And it made your life so much easier for me. I kept thinking, man, I really want to write. I, I, I, I, I worked in newspapers, I did some magazine stuff and I really wanted to write the great American, you know, kind of non fiction novel. And instead I ended up dealing blackjack every day, sucking down secondhand smoke so I could support my family. And I hated it.
I literally hated it. But I didn’t get home at night and work on my writing. And that was on me. Right? So I’m all about taking 100 percent responsibility.
But I’ll tell you, when you’re either in alignment on the career side or in alignment on the relationship side, doesn’t life get so much easier? And for me it was double whammy right off the bat. Wrong kind of career, wrong relationship. And that set me down those two debt. Twenty years of, of just being what I call a man zombie.
The Wake-Up Call: A Crash, a Divorce and a Pulmonary Embolism
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Well, well, let’s, you know, I want to talk some more about, about how, what the point of it. But I would like to talk about what, what wound up being that wake up call for you and how did you wind up getting to be much more in alignment now since you’re obviously not dealing blackjack anymore.
DIXON: Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll tell you that the I was after, after 10 years of dealing blackjack, I literally couldn’t stand it. Anymore.
And I was. Would do anything in the world except that. And I just wrote an article about this on Substack where we’re like, what can I do that’s just better than what I have? Which is a lateral move and not the way to go. But I ended up getting into mortgages and real estate right around 2004, originating mortgages during that subprime mortgage debacle.
And I went from making not a lot of money to. To a healthy living, and the family was happy and we had, you know, all the things that come with, quote, success. And then 2008 rolled around and the. The whole thing fell apart. The.
The house of cards, which is the relationship wasn’t good. The money came to a stop. So that was the first thing where I ended up kind of rags to riches. I live living on a. My buddy’s floor on a mattress for four years and having one of the worst divorces in Colorado.
And I don’t say that lightly because we ended up having my name and my ex wife’s name on the books here in the Colorado Supreme Court, marital history. So we. We not only got a divorce, but then fought about it for years and years for no real reason. And it was very toxic and bad. But those years of coming out of the ’08 crash, I tried to rebuild and I, you know, I ended up getting into real estate because that was better than mortgages.
And then around 2014, I’m a big outdoor guy. I’m a mountain biker and a paraglider and a snowboarder. But I had a mountain bike crash in March and it kind of tore open my leg. And I went to the ER and they gave me some sutures and I had a big contusion. Whatever.
I’ve done that kind of my whole life. I just got out of the ER last week. You see the scar? And it’s all mountain bike related. But what was crazy about that was three months after the incident, I’d forgotten all about it.
I woke up with chest pains one day and my, My. My partner at the time, my girlfriend, said, you need to go to your primary physician. I felt like I had a rib out. You know, if you ever, you know, kind of a broken rib. And I got to the doctor’s office and they called my name.
They’re like, follow me down the hall, Mr. Dixon, the nurse. And as I’m doing that, the world is getting darker and darker and darker.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Oh, no.
DIXON: Totally collapsed. And it turned out that it was a pulmonary embolism.
Oh, a massive one. That had grown from a blood clot size three months before into my pelvis. And I guess the pelvis allows a lot of space for blood clots to grow. And then as the spring biking season got into play, it had moved up and taken over. And it could have easily been, you know, deadly.
But that was kind of the ’08 crash and then this pulmonary embolism where I was like, man, I’ve really been living the life of someone else. Where I was a people pleaser. I kind of had decided early on with that relationship to give my ex wife kind of the life that she wanted. She was a stay at home mom who wanted to have kids and all these things. And her dream just happened to be burning bright, brighter than mine.
And so by giving all this over, I kind of describe it as letting her, giving her the keys to the bus of our lives. And I just took a seat in the back and let her drive. So after the crash of 08 and the divorce and then the pulmonary embolism, I’m like, it’d be pretty sad If I lived 40 years and. And didn’t even get to live my own life. So I started asking questions, you know, just shallow questions like, who am I?
Why am I here? Where am I going? And that all led to meeting Tim, who is, I call him my Yoda in life.
Reclaiming a Long-Held Dream: Launching Lookout Mountain at 52
DIXON: But what no one kind of knows about the story is before I got involved in the wrong career and the wrong kind of relationship, I was learning to fly a paraglider off of Lookout Mountain in Colorado as a 27 year old. And that looks like a big parachute to most people.
But if you come to Golden, Colorado, where I. Where I was living up until recently, you’ll see the paragliders up over Buffalo Bill’s grave there. They just kind of stay in the air.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Oh, wow.
DIXON: And so after college, I. I moved to the base of Lookout Mountain.
And it just so happened to be the landing zone for paragliders back in early 90s. So I became fascinated by this to the point where I kind of got obsessed with learning to launch off this mountain. And so it kind of became my big thing. If you’ve ever had something in your life where you’re like, I’m gonna do this thing right, So I started training to do that. It took a year back in the 90s, and I had to give it up because my first son was being born and it was time to become a provider.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yep.
DIXON: And so along that personal dream of mine, which was years in the making, I was very close to Making it happen. And then I had to shut it down and sell my gear and go off to be a dad.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Right.
DIXON: And that was great.
I mean, I, I, it was for the right reasons, but I went to sleep in my life. That dream went to sleep along with being in the wrong career and stuff. So you can see how 20, 18 years later, I meet this guy Tim at a real estate con, kind of a class for graphics. And it was just a random class that I took for real estate. It was about how to optimize YouTube.
And I walked into the class and this guy is teaching and in the background, all of the graphics he’s got are paragliders. And I was like, whoa. And this is, this is 25 years after the fact, right? And I walked up to him after class and I said, man, I used to be so hot to trot to launch Lookout Mountain in, right here in, in Colorado. And what do you know?
This is like a movie script. He’s like, well, I’m a master paraglider instructor and I think you should try again. And I thought about it for a while. It actually took another almost year or so. And I’m like, you know what would really make me feel like me?
Because I don’t recognize myself anymore. I think picking up where I left off in 1997 and actually launching that mountain. Yeah. Would make me feel like a man again. And so that was the beginning of a two year journey to launch the mountain.
And I finally did it at 52 years old in 2022. I launched it. And so that flight kind of changed everything and is the basis for my book. Here, hold my beer. I’m going back in the game.
And it’s all about, you know, waking up, realigning and moving forward in life.
You Don’t Need a Crisis to Rediscover Your Purpose After 50
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, absolutely. And that’s, that’s what this whole show is about. You know, it’s, it’s so important because.
Yeah, you know, I think this is what happens to, to all of us. You know, we do, we get into where we, we. You know, you start off in your 20s and you’ve got all these big dreams and then, you know, possibly you meet, then you connect and then you maybe start a family and then that becomes your priority. And when you’re growing your career and what have you, and then eventually either something happens major, like with you, a life threatening illness, or maybe you lose someone that you love or simply that your kids grow up and move out of the house. And now you’ve got to figure out what else you want to do with your life again.
And that’s when you might start thinking about, well, what was that dream I had that was on the shelf or, or the universe put someone in your path, like Tim for you. And it’s like, that’s right, Paragliding. That was something that I love to do.
DIXON: Yeah. And I’ll tell you, I’m learning more and more that the, the basis of this book is to prove to people, not just men, but you, we don’t, we shouldn’t have to have a major, you know, health care or someone die or, or a major breakup for us to go, what am I doing?
Why am I, where do I want to go in life? You know, and midlife’s that time where even if we did it correctly, we, we went into a job that we loved from the beginning and we had a traditional 20 year career and maybe we buried the love of our lives and, and, and that’s great, that’s. But a lot of those people also end up in the same place I did in midlife, which is kind of like, well, what now? Kids are older, career’s over. There’s.
If we’re taking care of ourselves in this healthy and being more healthy in, in the 50s and 60s and 70s, we got a lot of life left, don’t we?
What the Younger Generation Gets Right About Living Now
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And, and I gotta say, it’s one of the things I’m so, I, I’m not sure where my kids got this, but I’m very grateful that they did something that I didn’t do when I was younger. It was that they have both traveled, done a lot of Traveling in their 20s and their early 30s now and traveling to, you know, across Europe.
And even my son and his wife went to New Zealand. They got married. That was where they went on their honeymoon. So they’ve been doing lots of exploring and I so proud of that. In fact, my daughter actually lives in Europe now because that’s what she wanted to do.
She wanted to be able to travel and, you know, whenever she could. And so she’s a web designer and so all she needs is, you know, Wi Fi and she can be wherever, she can work from, wherever. Another digital nomad. So for me though, I didn’t go to Europe until I was in my 50s. Right.
My daughter wanted to go and I was like, well, you’re not going without me, I’m going with you because I’ve never been.
DIXON: Yeah. I think the younger generation like kind of keyed into the, the old template that we were taught, which is working A corporation. And your, your postponed life will come at 65. And this younger generation is like, I don’t think so, man.
We got the Internet and why don’t we go live life now? So I give a lot of thumbs up to the younger gen for doing that. You know, they, they make it a priority, right?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: I think so. And, you know, probably that I’m thinking about, probably one reason maybe is that they’ve sort of been forced upon it, is that there isn’t this longevity of career really anymore, you know, where you could, you know, work for one company for 40 years or something and then retire.
It’s, it’s, Things are a little more,
DIXON: it’s more like four years or.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah.
And I know my son himself has already changed jobs about three or four times just because he’s in cybersecurity. And so he’s moving around from, from company to company. And so I think that’s why they’re doing stuff.
Why Women Sense Something Is Off Before Men Say It
GLORIA GRACE RAND: But I want to go back to, I want to get back to what we were talking about right at in my introduction, you know, talking about that, you know, that women sometimes knew things are off before the men in their lives will say it out loud. Why, why do you, or what’s your take on this?
Why do you think that women, you know, are aware of these things? I know I have my theory, but I’d love to know what yours.
DIXON: Women are smart. Women, Women have, like, insight. Women aren’t zombies.
And women are so great at, at sensing things. Right. And I, I, I bet a lot of your audience, if they’re with a longtime partner, you know, it gets a little old when they’re, they, they know something deep down is like, man, he’s just, Is this not as vibrant as he was? Or he’s, there’s something he’s not telling me. Well, of course there is.
We’re guys. We were, we were taught to be the guys on the white horse. And just like women were, you know, originally said, hey, you know, stay at home, stay at the kids, go out and do a career, but also take care of the kid, but also be feminine. Right. The guys were taught this whole, you’re the, the guy on the white horse, you bring home the bacon and you stuff a sock in it.
And your problems are at the lowest part of the totem pole when it comes to the family. Right? Kids first, family first, all that stuff, which is great, but it’s taught us as men to not share, not be vulnerable, and not talk about things that are wrong. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’ll, it’ll, it’s actually will kill a guy if, if, if, if, if he’s got a health problem and he’s like the type that’s like, I don’t need to go to the doctor, right? It’s, it’s the same thing if you have a mental problem and you’re just not happy and you’re, you’re depressed or you’re misaligned at work, you, you don’t like what you’re doing, but you got to do this anyway.
And you don’t want to take the time to, to have introspection, right?
Vulnerability and “Hold My Beer Energy” in Midlife Relationships
DIXON: So I think the way we were taught was to never be vulnerable. And I actually think the key to being aligned in life is to be very vulnerable. And I’ve, I’ve found that the more vulnerable I am in life with everyone, including my new wife. I met the woman of my dreams, Mina, and we, we’ve been together five years and we got married last year in September.
But the way I used to operate after doing a lot of work on myself and kind of having my, you know, rebirth here in the last five, six years, it’s, it’s amazing. The difference between when you’re, when you, you’re all in on a relationship and in my book, I call this whole thing launching a mountain or losing weight or going on the trip or starting the business. I call it hold my beer energy. And what that is, is we know when we were in college, maybe you remember, it’s like 10 o’ clock on a Saturday at a big party and somebody says, hold my beer, I’m gonna go do a flip off this roof into the pool. Well, everyone knows what’s about to happen.
A guy just made a non negotiable decision to not overthink and execute. And that energy, although it’s associated with a little bit of dangerousness, I think is, is very apropos for men and women in midlife because we all got watered down a little bit. And so the reason I say that is when it comes to relationships and being vulnerable as a man, it is so important. And I found I’m getting rewarded for this so much with, with my wife Mina, is that I’m there to say instead of I don’t want to talk about it or I’m fine. I’m like, you know what?
This is bothering me today and I’d love your opinion on it. And by doing that, it opens up this. Well, how can I help you? Well, what do you need from me? I’m like, well, actually I could use this.
And, and by the way, tell me about your day. How can I help you? And it goes into this positive spiral of, you know, how we can help each other get through life in a positive way. And, and so she never has to wonder if why I’m quiet or why I’m not, I’m not myself and something’s off, right? So I’ve completely done a 180 from the traditional man zombie way of, of, I call it the old playbook we inherited from the 50s, you know, the, the quiet dad, the, the strong dad.
The Kettle That Boils Over: Reactive vs. Proactive Midlife Change
DIXON: And that’s all great, but I’ll tell you, being a man in that position and, and, and inheriting all that, it’s kind of like a kettle that’s just on the stove for years and when things are misaligned and it just keeps going on and on, of course, at midlife is about the time you’re going to say, I can’t stand this anymore. And since guys don’t know how to talk or work through their feelings, they go do stupid stuff, they go buy a Corvette, they go, they go leave their wives and run off with a secretary or they go do drugs or drink or whatever. It’s a reactive decision instead of a proactive. And that’s what I want to get across to men and you know, women too, to understand the process is guys, you got to bring, got to bring them out to where they start talking or else it’s a kettle that boils over in a non constructive way. Right.
How to Encourage Your Partner to Open Up
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Well, and that, that brings me to it because as you were talking, that’s what I’m thinking. It’s like, you know, what advice do you have for a woman out there who is married to a man who is not as enlightened as you have as you are now and who is still stuck in that old paradigm of being the strong silent type instead and just holding everything in. So how would you encourage her to encourage him to be able to open up a little bit more?
DIXON: I’m wondering if most of the people that buy this book might be women to give to their husbands and say, read this, please read this. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s not easy.
I’m not, I’m not a PhD. I’m just a guy who was in the trenches that like learned this, right? I mean, I don’t, I’m not a psychologist, but I’ll tell you, Carl Rogers is the famous psychologist from the 50s and 60s and he put a term on this called incongruence. And when you live in incongruence with your values for long enough, he calls it chronic incongruence. Then the, the kettle boils over.
So how would a woman, you know, get her man to take action? Well, it’s very tough when A, we’re stubborn, B, we don’t talk about our feelings and see, we’ve never learned to be vulnerable. And so I, I’ve, I’ve tried to design the book so that it’s not a self help. You know, here’s the five things you need to do to wake up. It’s more of a recognition.
I call the three arcs of the book Wake Up. Number one, Realign Number two and move forward. And so I think a, I think a wife or a partner could help a man wake up by really encouraging them to, to get the help to, to, to have some brotherhood. Number one, if they’re stuck at home and stuck at work and don’t have any brotherhood in their life, that’s a big one. You know, outside of the home, relationships are big.
As men and providers, we get smaller and smaller and smaller in our roles. And so a guy that’s, that’s, you know, zoning out on the TV and doing the same, drinking beer and watching football and not going anywhere. I mean, it’s tough for me to say because when you’re asleep, how do you know you’re asleep? Right? The guy.
Finding the Biggest Misalignment and Your “Lookout Dream”
DIXON: This is kind of why I’m writing the book. Like, wait, let’s talk about how we can wake up. The one thing I will tell a man to do, and a woman could help do this too is identify the number. The biggest piece of misalignment in the man’s life and, and, and men and women will know what this is. Maybe it’s I hate my career and I got five more years to go and I can’t stand my boss.
Maybe it’s, I’m 35 pounds overweight and I, and I don’t feel like getting up in the morning and I don’t feel good. Or maybe it’s, I, I don’t have a good relationship with my kids. Whatever that biggest. And, and, and the other time, the other way I say this is in the positive direction, like what have you always wanted to do? For me it was look out, 25 year dream of like, that’s what helped me feel like a man again.
But I use that energy to point it towards other parts of my life, my fitness and my relationships. But if you, if A man were look at the biggest misalignment parts he could also look at. Well, what have I always wanted to do? I know I don’t like this stuff, but I’ve always wanted to travel. Or what if the man’s been Talking about for 10 years starting a fishing business?
Maybe he loves to fish. Maybe he loves to play guitar. Following your dreams is this kind of positive flywheel when you start going down the road that it cleans up a lot of those other things like, wow, I have, I have light again. I am interested in life again because I am actually moving towards my dreams of starting a fishing business or traveling to Vietnam or taking the cooking class. I’ve always wanted to be a chef.
When guys start looking at what we call their lookout dream is what I say in the book, it changes how you wake up in the morning. And that is a big way to, for, for maybe a partner to push their man and to be. You know what? I’m so tired of you talking about this Airbnb business on the beach. Go do it.
Men Don’t Need Motivation; They Need Permission
DIXON: I support you. Right? So you’ll get those clues from men along the ways, but they won’t take action. I think it’s a lot of giving them permission. I, I really think that is like, we don’t need motivation as guys.
We, we just need permission because we’ve been locked in that provider role for so long that we’re. I need to give, I need to go to work, I need to pay the bills, care of the kids, I need to take care of my wife. I’m like, at some point you also need to take care of yourself as women are good at that, aren’t you? You guys do a lot of more self care than we do, at least.
Self-Care, Asking for Help and the Power of Friendship
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, it’s, it’s generally, although sometimes we have to be reminded to do it because we’re also very good at nurturer and taking care of others.
And so sometimes then we don’t do enough of the self care because we’re too busy taking care of everybody else. But in midlife, I think as we start getting older, I think we do start spending some more time and realizing that, yeah, if we don’t start taking care of ourselves, you know, somebody is going to have to take care of us. And, and I know a lot of women, I think don’t necessarily want that. You don’t want to be forced into that because that’s no fun. I, I still remember when my sister was was diagnosed with cancer and, and she was like having to rely on other people and she was like, God, did you have to give me cancer to have me ask for help?
You know, and that’s, that’s a tough pill to swallow, and I don’t want any of you listening out there to, to find yourself in that thing. So ask for help now and
DIXON: Be vulnerable. I think women are so much better at being vulnerable than they’re better at having the relationships with other women where they can talk through things. Where a lot of times, guys, if we’re not out. I mean, I always love it when a guy has, like a side hustle.
Like, I like to go fishing on. On every Saturday. Okay, that’s great, because not only are you doing something you like to do, but you’re with a buddy. Yeah. It’s a double win.
And women seem to do that so much more often than guys, in my opinion.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Well, I want to ask you one other thing here, though, because I, you know, I. I love this advice because I think it is really useful, and I hope anyone listening here who finds themselves in this situation will. Will take it upon themselves to encourage their other other half to, you know, to revisit some of those dreams or, or talk or at least start talking. Starting to talk. And, and if you, you know, if you can’t get them to talk, then maybe it is, you know, going to a marriage counselor.
Go to someone. Because that was what I did with my husband, was we did finally go to someone together and, and to have him start to open up a little bit more.
DIXON: that is one way to get guys to open up, if you can. If you can get them to a therapist. Right?
When to Stop Trying to Wake Someone Else Up
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, but what I wanted to get to, though, and I know, because I know this happened for me. At what point, though, does a woman stop trying to wake someone else up? Because maybe they’re, you know, they’re doing all these things, but it’s still not working.
DIXON: I know the answer.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: And start focusing on her own alignment.
DIXON: Yeah. I will tell you that the wake up call for a guy, a lot of times, if it’s not a medical scare or someone dying, it’s their partner saying, I’m done, I’m done. Yeah, you need to make a change now.
And a lot of times that will wake up a guy. So if, if, if the wife has been silently putting up with this BS for so long and the guy’s just not moving, isn’t it always the same story? The woman finally comes to her last straw and says, I’m sorry, I’m leaving you. And then what does the guy do? He’s like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It’s almost like the very first time he’s heard these 10 years worth of problems and he’s like, whoa, you know, I, oh, I’ll go to, I’ll go to counseling. Oh, oh, I’ll stop drinking. You know, it’s, it’s ridiculous. And so I’ll say a lot of times you want to get a guy off is, you know, get them to, to move, then it is laying down the law and saying, I’m tired of living this way anymore. And if you can’t, you got to tell them what you need and then they can make the decision.
And how, how many of us know Grace from our, our divorces that we go and become the people that we should have been. And we also look back and go, man, why didn’t I do this five, six, eight years ago? Yeah. It’s because there wasn’t that defining moment and no one took massive action. So hold my beer Energy is all about right now.
Intention vs. Commitment: The “Committed Launch”
DIXON: Yep. Non negotiable. And when I say non negotiable, that’s the difference between saying, hey, I intention and commitment. Right. So I intend to go to the gym today to work out, or I am committed to go to the gym today to work out.
One gets the job done and one doesn’t. And in paragliding, you know, we call launching off a mountain a committed launch. And what that means is you are running off a mountain, bringing a big parachute over your head, and by the time you reach the cliff that you’re going to drop off of, you are committed, you are moving forward very forcefully and very intentionally so that you can, you know, not die. You know, and I tell people that this is the type of energy you need to change your life. And that’s why it always seems to be the medical scare or the person dying or someone gets, you know, like, you’re talking about your sister.
Is it your sister?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DIXON: And that’s, it’s these tragic things that happen that, that we’re all in zombie autopilot mode until the big wake up call. And I think it’s ridiculous. And that’s why I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m reading the, I’m writing the book because I think women have a lot of power with their men, even though they don’t feel heard.
Why So Many Women Grieve a Marriage Before They Leave
DIXON: But when they finally come to the guy and the guy knows they’re serious, I’m done. Unless this changes. Or I’m just done because my Ex. My, my wife now will tell you she was in a marriage for 26 years. And I’ve heard this so many times where I’m like, at what point did you think your relationship was done with your, with your husband?
And I hear not just from her, but I was in the dating world for a long time. Oh, I really was very unhappy at year six. Oh, so then what did you do about that? Well, we tried to get counseling, but he didn’t want to do it. And then 26 years later, 20 years later, she puts her foot down and says, I’m leaving.
And by that time, the woman’s already grieved through the process that there’s no emotion left. Right. So when, when, when the guy doesn’t move for so long and the woman finally says she’s done, a lot of times there’s, there’s no going back. Sometimes, you know, the women just leave and then the guys are like, what just happened? You know, it’s ridiculous.
Yeah. And that’s why if a guy can be vulnerable and just start talking to his partner, then you avoid all of that. Like, whoa, heart attack is what made me change my life. Cancer is what me. My wife leaving me is what made me change.
And this book is all about before. The old title was before it’s Too late. The midlife wake up call every man needs. I’m like, exactly. Before it’s too late.
We’re 50 years old, 60 years old, we don’t have any time left, guys, to waste another 10 years in a non optimized relationship. Yeah. I mean, you feel that, right?
Gloria’s Story: Fear, Grief and Choosing Her Own Alignment
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, and that’s, that’s my story too.
I mean, I, I was definitely unhappy for a long time, but for a variety of reasons. Didn’t, didn’t do anything about it because of, you know, fear or just comfort. Yeah, My, actually fear, I think was the biggest one. You know, afraid of confrontation, afraid of what, what would be the result. But, but I was working with a coach and you know, and telling her about this.
And, and again, it was after my sister passed, it was like, okay, you know, when am I going to live my life? Because she only made it to 64 and it’s like, you know, so she, my coach said, you’ll know, you’ll know when it’s the time. And that’s kind of what you were describing. Because there did come a point where I realized that our values were just not in alignment anymore. And even though he’s a good guy and, you know, he was good.
He’s a good dad. And, you know, and I still love him, but I just can’t live with him anymore. Right. And so, you know, and so that’s. I had to finally say, okay, you know what?
I have to have the talk. I can’t put it off any longer.
DIXON: And you were telling me in our talk before that you’re still married, but you guys are.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
We’ve been separated for four years now. And I. I do think. I know it’s definitely been better for me, and I really do think it’s been better for him, too, because he has gotten, you know, he wound up being. Well, yeah. Being laid off during COVID and then wound up just basically retiring because he was pretty much at that age to retire anyway.
And. And so he has. He. He actually joined our HOA board, which I had done years ago. So I put my time in.
Now it’s his time.
DIXON: You guys see each other at the HOA meeting?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: No, no, because I don’. Go there anymore. But.
But it. But, you know, I did, like, a few years there years ago, and so now he’s on it and dealing all the. All the stuff that I would come home and complain about. And so. But.
But he’s also gotten to. He, like, has like a sort of a. I don’t. Wouldn’t call it a lunch break necessarily. Exactly. But he and his.
Our next door neighbor, he. They go out, and so he’s at least, you know, made friends. Even though we’ve been neighbors with these people for years and years, he’s finally actually gotten to know.
DIXON: Yeah. He stepped out of his old patterns into some new ways of being.
Right.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so it’s, you know, I’m taking better responsibility for. For his health.
DIXON: And so it’s. That’s a big one.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah. So it’s a good. It’s a good thing.
And. And it works out. And I do know that I still made the right choice because we drove together to my son’s wedding, and I was like, okay, okay, yeah, no, I don’t want to do this again.
DIXON: Good. In small doses, you know.
Living Someone Else’s Life, and What Past Generations Teach Us
DIXON: Right. I’m very fascinated in that whole, you know, that whole idea of getting to the point where us men and women go, I can’t live like this anymore. And I’m equally fascinated about the amount of time that that goes by to get to that point. Yeah. And then when I look at how short life is, I’m like, man, I just lived someone else’s life for 20 years.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Oh, I know.
DIXON: It’s, it’s, it’s crazy. I didn’t want to be with this person. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to do these careers. And now I’m like, what if I just Babe Ruth and go, hey, I want to go this way?
I’m gonna write my book, I’m gonna get really fit. I’m gonna become a speaker. I feel like I’ve figured out my message in life is to share my story so that I can help people. Go, don’t screw up like this guy did.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
DIXON: And that, that gives me this, this vitality to wake up in the morning, whereas before I was just a zombie. Yeah, must, must pay bills. Must, you know.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, I know. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it is, it is tough. And, and you know, and I do think that we were talking a little bit too about, you know, the, I think the younger generations are, are learning from us older, older folks, and I’m even older than you from our mistakes because I know like, again, my mother was married, my dad was an alcoholic, and she, I think at one point was going to divorce him when I was little and then wound up not going through with it. I think my grandmother, you know, was kind of like, oh, no, you can’t do that. You know, you, you know, and, and, and so she stayed married to him way, way too long. You know, really it would have been better for her health wise and everything because then, you know, she, she died too young, I think as well, so.
DIXON: Together?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: No, no, they weren’t still together, but then she married somebody else who was. Yeah, yeah. Not good either.
DIXON: Y.
In our lives, man. They fascinate me. Really.
Final Advice: Lay Down the Gauntlet on What You Want
GLORIA GRACE RAND: I know. Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting and gosh, we, we could go on and on and talking here, but I want, I want to ask you one, one last thing and then I’m going to ask you to share how people can get in touch with you.
If someone’s listening to this right now, you know, woman is listening. And what would be your one last point? If there’s, or that you want to share with her? If she takes nothing else from this conversation today, what would you want her to know?
DIXON: Yeah, I, I would almost internalize it and say, I, I want you as a woman to lay down the gauntlet on what you want in life.
And I want that parameters to be shared with your husband or your partner. And by doing so, I would hope that that would help the. Wake the partner up because not just sharing, but Saying, look, I’ve decided to live non negotiably and go in the direction that I now want to go. And I still love you and I want you to be with, go with me. And in that vein, here is, is it.
Are the things that are very important to me moving forward. And I’m committed to doing that and maybe sharing, having the man share his idea of that with the wife or the partner, because that way you’re actually putting it out on the table and go, whatever we’ve been doing, we got a little bit of time left to actually maximize this thing called life. And here’s the things I want to accomplish. And if you can, if, if it’s aligned with what you’ve always wanted to do, I think that is the true north that gets both of both parties out of, out of bed. And if one doesn’t want to go along, then that’s the conversation that should happen now, not six years from now when.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah.
DIXON: Has a pulmonary embolism or something, right?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, absolutely.
DIXON: Yeah. I, I sharing those, those, I call it your big thing.
You know, what is the big thing that is still undone that you want to do before, before you exit the planet. Yeah. And start working towards that with non negotiable energy. So share that with each other as a partner and see how that conversation goes. That’s a good night at home, away from the tv, have a glass of wine and be like, hey, you know, what dreams do we have here that we want to make happen?
Where to Find Dixon and His Upcoming Book
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love that. That’s perfect. If someone wants to know more about you and, and you know, and then eventually find out about your book and all that good stuff. Where, where’s the best place for people?
DIXON: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the book isn’t out to the fall, but I just announced myself to the world as an author on Substack. And since I wanted to be a writer so long ago and I haven’t followed through, I now understand that substack is the way you talk to the world. And so as an author, you can release bits and pieces and talk about chapters and this and that.
So if people wanted to check out Go with Dixon at Go with Dixon on Substack, you’d be able to, I would hope that they could subscribe. And every two weeks I release new content. And that’s all leading up to hopefully a fall book launch here. And then the website’s the same. Gowithdixon.com you can find out more.
But I’m on this journey of. I told myself I was going to write a book 35 years ago, and I’m finally doing it, so. All right. I’m. Hold my beer.
I’m writing my book. Right?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Very good. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, it’s. It’s amazing. I. I never actually envisioned myself writing a book until I was meditating one day and an idea said, you need to write about a book about love. And I’m like, okay, sure.
But I did.
DIXON: Oh, you followed through on it.
GLORIA GRACE RAND: I did. Yep. Yeah.
DIXON: Does that feel good?
GLORIA GRACE RAND: It does. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it does.
So this has been amazing. You are amazing. I am so glad that we got a chance to chat today, and I really appreciate you so much for being here with us today.
DIXON: Well, thank you so much. It was my pleasure.
And hopefully we get people out of the. Out of their chairs and out there living some life here.
Closing Thoughts: Don’t Wait to Live Boldly and On Purpose
GLORIA GRACE RAND: Absolutely. And I do want to thank all of you for listening and for watching today. I hope you got some wonderful value out of it.
And I encourage you to really think about what. What Dixon was talking about, you know, having those conversations. Don’t wait like I did. It’s. It’s, you know, now life.
Life is short, so take advantage of it now. And with that in mind, I encourage you to go out today and live boldly and on purpose.
