Prayer in Action: The Mighty Men Protocol's Blueprint for Lasting Change

00:01.36
kenfreire
Welcome back to another episode of the Damn Shame podcast. Today, I have Sidney Poirot with me. I just use my Spanish word there. Poirot with me.

00:10.84
Sydney Poeira
That's all good.

00:12.57
kenfreire
Hey, Sidney is an online entrepreneur with a background in marketing and e-commerce, and his current work focuses on helping men overcome addiction through a program called the Mighty Men Collective.

00:24.10
kenfreire
Sidney, glad to have you, man. How are you doing it today?

00:26.99
Sydney Poeira
Dude, it is such a pleasure to be on here. So happy. I'm i'm doing good. God is good. How about you?

00:31.25
kenfreire
ah Dude, it's the day of recording. It is one of the hotter days here in Nashville, Tennessee.

00:35.00
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

00:37.32
kenfreire
You live in Dallas, so you know hot you know the heat right now.

00:37.60
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. Yeah.

00:40.20
kenfreire
You're feeling it.

00:40.47
Sydney Poeira
Exactly.

00:41.40
kenfreire
ah so But I'm enjoying it, man. After this, I'm going to go play with my kids, and it's going to be a ton of fun. So I want to talk about our conversation today, because the title is Prayer in Action, The Mighty Men Protocol Blueprint for Lasting Change.

00:47.02
Sydney Poeira
Sounds like a good day.

00:57.67
kenfreire
okay That's what we're going to talk about.

00:59.54
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

01:00.70
kenfreire
But before we do that, man, just so people could get to know you a little bit, give me a random fun fact about Sydney.

01:08.83
Sydney Poeira
the last time i have The last time I ate eggs was when I was in second grade.

01:15.88
kenfreire
No.

01:17.13
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, I hate eggs. And it's funny because like me going to the gym and you know tracking macros and stuff, and my dad's a power lifter, so he puts me on these plans and he's like, say, do you have to eat eggs?

01:27.51
Sydney Poeira
And I want to eat eggs because of the protein and just how easy it is. But psychologically, I can't get myself to eat them.

01:34.62
kenfreire
Dude, what kind of trauma did you go through with eggs that you don't like eating eggs?

01:37.98
Sydney Poeira
It's not, so I clearly remember it was literally like 10 minutes before my parents dropped me off to school and they were like, Sid, try an egg. And I tried it in like this wrap and I hated it. And just ever since then, I've just always put in my head like eggs are bad. Every time my parents make them, like when I was still living with them and it would smell, I was like, bro, this is nasty. But it's good because my wife doesn't like eggs either. So we just don't cook eggs in the household.

02:04.22
kenfreire
oh That's hilarious dude because I like the things that we don't have in the house is like mustard or ah We never had pickles, but my daughter loves pickles So now we buy them but dude like I seriously would not touch the pickles with my hands I'll have like a fork.

02:09.22
Sydney Poeira
Hmm oh interesting That's

02:18.00
kenfreire
I have to like sanitize it. I'm like, I'm not touching them But I eat eggs every day eggs or oatmeal so that Have you tried egg whites

02:21.46
Sydney Poeira
crazy I'm kind of jealous. I'm kind of jealous for you to be fair.

02:30.97
Sydney Poeira
I Can't I can't I Cannot get myself to it now.

02:32.25
kenfreire
nothing so you're like anything with eggs oh dude that's hilarious people are be like these guys are we're gonna need to have an intervention for sydney and his eggs

02:36.51
Sydney Poeira
I'll like I'll eat things that I like are made with eggs. Like if there's a recipe that there's like eggs like blended in something, like I'll be fine with that, but like straight up eggs, scrambled egg, hard boiled, nothing like that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

02:56.78
kenfreire
Okay, well, we're not here to talk about your egg trauma. We're we're here to talk about ah the Mighty Men Collective and and the protocol you actually walk them through.

03:02.79
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

03:04.56
kenfreire
But ah before we jump into that, tell us a little bit, Cinny, your story of how you started to struggle with lust and pornography.

03:04.80
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

03:12.77
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. I remember even just taking it a little back a little farther back from when it actually started, I was someone that was bullied a lot in school, middle school, going into high school, um got into a bunch of relationships, just really trying to satiate the the lack of what I had in myself with self-esteem and all that stuff, trying to find it in other people in relationships and wasn't good. But in high school, freshman year of high school was when um I first watched porn for the first time. And one of my friends showed me, it and it was not a big deal at that point, but through series of events and experiences that i that I went through, through life, I realized that it easily became a coping mechanism for me and something that I would go back to quite often to the point where you know it just became a habit

04:02.93
Sydney Poeira
Which turned into a seven year battle with lust and porn ended a bunch of relationships friendships romantic relationships and then that one fateful day where i came into the fork in the road when i got together with my uh with my now wife she's my girlfriend at the time and realized that I didn't want what happened in my other relationships to happen here. Because I knew that this was something that God was genuinely leading me in. And I was like, well, if i need if I'm going to get the blessings that God has for me, it's important for me to be the person worthy of those blessings.

04:37.49
Sydney Poeira
So through that started going through this really long and difficult process trying to figure out my way on how to break this seven year you know cycle of addiction. um And through that, praise God, I was able to do it with his help. But through that, I developed this framework that I now help other people, other Christian men with to overcome their addiction.

04:58.27
kenfreire
That's awesome. So walk us through a little bit of that cycle where you felt like, man, I was probably doing good. Then you fell. And then like, even with your relationships where you felt like I had to end them, was it because of the lust or just kind of walk us through the cycle?

05:08.02
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

05:12.49
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. It's interesting cause sometimes like the cycle will always happen, but for different reasons. Sometimes it's one of those things where it could be self-inflicted and you're kind of sabotaging yourself, but other times it's like other people are not experiencing the consequences. Um, and the action that you're doing and the sin that you're living out is being manifested and people see that and they don't want anything to do with that. So it happened in both ways. Sometimes I would just sabotage myself out of a relationship and other times it's like, yeah, no, this is not something I really want to deal with. And so they would walk out. And so it's interesting because it plays

05:52.43
Sydney Poeira
manifest itself in many different ways and that's where people struggle because it's not just like you can figure out one way and it's like Okay, this is the one way that it will come in my life and then I can deal with that I'm good It comes in a bunch of different ways, which makes it really difficult to navigate Yeah,

06:09.44
kenfreire
Yeah. Can you walk us through a little bit of the ways that it manifested in your life where you're just like, ah, I kept falling into this and this is how I kept showing up?

06:18.75
Sydney Poeira
so One of the biggest ones was when I was in um college, aside from relationships, I'm more tangible. when When I was in college, um even you know really getting out of high school as well um was failing a lot of classes because I'd fall into this sin, I would indulge in porn, and then it would leave me like empty.

06:38.51
Sydney Poeira
no energy, nothing like that. And so you know I didn't have the drive to hang out with people. I didn't have the drive to you know study for tests or go to class and stuff. And so you know i would just my grades started slipping. And um before I dropped out of college to go into entrepreneurship full time. I actually was going to get on academic probation from the from the College of Business. And so I didn't tell my parents that. And so I just ended up dropping out and I actually told them for like one semester I was doing online school while I was like starting and helping other people in their businesses um with marketing. But I was just going full in on entrepreneurship at this time. But definitely seeing my grades slip and just overall everyday performance

07:26.38
Sydney Poeira
When you get out of it, it's it's so easy to recognize like how you were such a different person. And it's like, man, like the level that I was settling for in this was crazy, because now I can never imagine me being at that level.

07:42.06
kenfreire
Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting to me is the mental load it takes to keep the lie going. You're like, oh, I'm going to lie about this.

07:49.25
Sydney Poeira
Yep.

07:50.62
kenfreire
I'm going to lie to my parents. I'm going to probably lie to my girl the all the ex-girlfriends.

07:55.41
Sydney Poeira
yeah

07:55.45
kenfreire
And you're just hiding all that mental and that mental energy is exhausting that like takes away from your performance, right from anything that you were doing.

07:59.89
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

08:03.25
Sydney Poeira
100%. 100%. And that that's where like most of the struggle is. It's in making sure that, because you end up living a double life, and it's making sure that people don't see that side of you, because that's the side that stays in the dark, shove it in the closet, close the closet.

08:13.12
kenfreire
Yeah.

08:21.28
Sydney Poeira
So it's like, honestly, I remember periods where it's like, i was I was really just taking like mental stock, like inventory of like the the stories that I was making up or like the lies that you try and cover my tracks. And it's like you get so stressed and you know, feel so bogged down doing the same, but then after like even more just figuring out like, oh shoot, was this the person that I told this to? And like, am i is this going to be in line with who I told them before? And so it's it's very stressful and it takes a big mental toll on you.

08:50.41
kenfreire
Man, so how did it come up with your now wife? So you were dating her and then you were still struggling with this in and then you wanted to date her, but then you're like, how did it come up?

08:59.40
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

09:02.58
kenfreire
Did she confront you? Did you tell her you were, you're struggling with it? I know you had mentioned God and kind of was like, you got a guy on the fork in the road.

09:06.81
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

09:09.89
kenfreire
Walk us through that fork in the road a little bit more detail.

09:11.97
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. That is such a good question because I remember when we first got together. um

09:20.20
Sydney Poeira
um I'm not 100% sure if I would say it's like it was kind of like myself sabotage kind of coming out, but I was just kind of telling her like, listen, like, you know, kind of kind of telling her without telling her like, you know, I'm i'm not that great of a person, this, that and the other. And something that she told me that really stuck out to me, which I knew was what God was, you know, trying to tell me. And she was, she basically just told me, she's like, Sydney, I know you're going to mess up. I know you're going to make mistakes.

09:47.14
Sydney Poeira
And that's a part of it. I expect you to make mistakes. I don't expect you to be perfect because I'm not perfect either. So whatever happens, we're going to work through it. And mind you, I hadn't told her that I was struggling yet. I was kind of telling her without telling her, right?

10:01.93
Sydney Poeira
and so There got to a point a couple of weeks after that, a couple of weeks or a couple of months, I just felt this big conviction on my heart. And I felt the spirit really weighing down on me. And it's like the, it was, it was getting harder and harder and harder to really keep this in. And I felt the spirit telling me like, listen, like you need to tell her. And so I remember I was driving back home to drop her off at her house, coming back from the date. And I just started breaking down crying. She's like, what's wrong? Like she starts freaking out.

10:33.23
Sydney Poeira
So I pull over and I tell her, I was like, listen, like this has been a struggle of mine for a long time. And you know I didn't want to tell you because... everyone else I told, it didn't end the way I wanted it to. But she was like, Sid, like, I'm here for you. I struggled with it too when she was a kid. So I was like, so it made me feel like the the weight was just lifted off my chest. And at that point, that's where I was like, okay, I can either now tell her and try and perpetuate another lie by not really even bringing it up anymore. And if she asked him, and just brush it off, or it's like, no,

11:09.92
Sydney Poeira
let me take Let me put in the work to actually get rid of this. um Was it overnight that it happened? No, I still fell even after telling her and you know we were vulnerable and I was vulnerable and telling her about it and stuff. and It was a process that we worked through, but it was definitely a series of events and things that she said in the spirit that was just impressing on me. It was like, I need i need to tell her because now I'm putting myself out there forcing myself to be that leader for myself.

11:36.21
kenfreire
Yeah, dude, that's so good. I remember the i had it this happened on several occasions, but I remember what I told one of my ex-girlfriends that I struggled with pornography years ago.

11:47.04
kenfreire
you know At this point, i had been I had overcome it and I was like, you know

11:50.19
Sydney Poeira
hey Yeah.

11:51.75
kenfreire
I wanted to share it because I didn't want her to know or have any, I didn't want to have any secrets from her. So I was like, Hey, I used to have this massive struggle. The Lord freed me from it. And I remember her probably similar much to your ex-girlfriends was like, I don't want to be a part of this.

12:06.15
kenfreire
I thought I was going to be with a godly man. Like I remember her telling me that that crushed me. Like I thought I was going to be with a godly man, a pure man.

12:10.97
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:12.63
kenfreire
And I'm like,

12:13.84
Sydney Poeira
Yup.

12:14.05
kenfreire
Oh my gosh, like yeah all all my insecurities and the enemy coming in with the lies saying, I told you you weren't a clean man. I told you you weren't a pure man.

12:21.51
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:22.49
kenfreire
And I was like, dang.

12:22.68
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:24.38
kenfreire
And that relationship ended up not working out. But fast forward with my wife, right I remember having that same feeling like, oh gosh, I'm going to have to tell her.

12:28.50
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:33.58
kenfreire
And the last time I told someone this, it didn't go well.

12:36.56
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:36.83
kenfreire
So I remember rustling through it. And finally, you know the Lord convicted me. He's like, you got to share it. And I told my wife, and I kid you not. She was very similar to to your wife at that time.

12:48.24
kenfreire
She's like, Ken, that's stuff that's happened in the past. like I don't see that in you.

12:51.84
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:52.90
kenfreire
And by the grace of God, you've been transformed and changed. And you're totally a new man.

12:58.30
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

12:58.86
kenfreire
And I was like, this woman is so gracious. two to me when all I saw myself was my sin.

13:02.43
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

13:06.38
kenfreire
My identity was I was this lustful man.

13:06.62
Sydney Poeira
yeah

13:08.96
kenfreire
And she was like, that's not even who I see every day. She's like, the way we've operated our whole relationship, you haven't done that.

13:11.81
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

13:15.83
kenfreire
So it was a beautiful way to say, I'm going to keep fighting for purity. And the same thing for you where you're like, I'm going to now fight for purity. So walk us through then a little bit of like,

13:23.58
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

13:27.53
kenfreire
your your process of how did you start to walk through purity and fight for it and ultimately come up with like the mighty man protocol.

13:38.15
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. the The biggest thing um that I realized, and even after you know talking to friends and that have experienced things as well and have struggled with this, what I realized is um the one thing that I did learn in school that actually stuck out to me was this thing called the Pavlov's dog theory. Have you ever heard of that before?

13:59.12
kenfreire
Oh yeah, I'm familiar.

14:00.18
Sydney Poeira
yeah so Yeah, so basically for anyone who doesn't know, it's basically you know Pavlov has a dog, feeds the dog, puts food on the ground and rings a bell. And so what he was trying to do was form a connection between two unrelated stimuli. After a while of doing that, he stopped putting food on the floor and ringing the bell and the dog made the same reaction. So what I actually realized was that our brains can actually connect three unrelated stimuli. Just psychoanalysis on everything that I went through, I came to that conclusion And the three things are experiences, emotions, and actions.

14:32.19
Sydney Poeira
And so what I mean by that is if we take half of that equation real quick and we can say that experiences that we experience give us a certain emotion.

14:43.58
Sydney Poeira
Now the the emotion is greatly dependent on the perception of the experience, but the reality is experiences produce emotions.

14:48.70
kenfreire
Now.

14:52.95
Sydney Poeira
And then after, if we take the other side of it, actions that we take are deeply rooted in emotions that we feel. So now when you put all these three things together, we see that people can do things and take action based off of experiences that they have.

15:08.08
Sydney Poeira
And so what I had to realize was i had to I had to look at that and be like, okay, well, I can't just strong arm the action because I can only do that for so long before I fall back into it. But what I also can't do is I can't just suppress my emotions because that develops other bad thought patterns, right? So what I had to do is I had to look at the asterisk, which is perception.

15:31.83
Sydney Poeira
Because if I could change the perception that I had on experiences that I went through that led me to feel an emotion, that led me to take an action, if I changed the perception, I no longer feel that emotion in those experiences that now cause me to do that.

15:48.29
Sydney Poeira
And so people are like, well, how can you go about you know actually not looking at porn anymore and stuff? It's like easy. All of the things, all the experiences that I went through that invoked a certain emotion that led me back to it, I just have to rewire how I think about those. Because what I've realized is,

16:06.32
Sydney Poeira
as we go through experiences and like you said in in your story where it's like you were looking at yourself like this lustful person and your wife's like, no, you're not, right? Because what happens is when we go through experiences, we formulate three different identities. We formulate the identity that we have on ourself, which is what you came to as like, I'm a lustful person because of experiences that you have. We also formulate our identity of how we view God and then how we view the world around us.

16:35.33
Sydney Poeira
And those three identities actually operate you know in in unison together because how we view God is ultimately gonna be how we treat other people. It's gonna be how we view ourselves too. So changing the perception of the experiences that you've had will change those three identities as well. That now leads you to being that person that's now elevated instead of being low. You now elevate yourself because you're changing how you do yourself. And when you have that standard for yourself, it's now something that you don't fall into sin with because you now don't align with it anymore.

17:10.30
kenfreire
Dude, that's so great, man. you know I've always used the the philosophy of like thinking, feeling, and acting, but I like how you you use the experiences versus emotions, because that's probably what a lot of people perceive.

17:16.67
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. Yeah.

17:21.92
kenfreire
right It's like, this is the experience that I've struggled with, or whatever it is. right It could be a stressful experience. It could be a lonely experience. It could be a heartache experience.

17:29.76
Sydney Poeira
yeah

17:31.92
kenfreire
That triggers them a certain emotion. And because of that emotion, they want to now cope

17:37.33
Sydney Poeira
Yep.

17:37.41
kenfreire
brilliant And their coping mechanism tends to be, I'm going to go you know watch pornography, and I'm going to go masturbate.

17:40.97
Sydney Poeira
Yep.

17:45.46
kenfreire
And then all of a sudden, they're like, what the heck happened? And they're I love how you said, like you can't strong arm the action, where I feel like you and I have both met those kind of guys where they're like, I'm just going to grit my teeth and figure this out and not do it again.

17:48.55
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

17:52.52
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

17:58.38
kenfreire
And you've made promises to God 1,000 times.

17:58.70
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

18:00.93
kenfreire
Like, I will never do this again.

18:01.69
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, exactly.

18:02.81
kenfreire
right um

18:03.92
Sydney Poeira
ah Exactly. And the reason too, why we can't strong arm the emotion or the action, I'm sorry, is because the temp, the temptation that you have is the same temptation, but it manifests itself and it comes from two different areas and we have to know which place it's actually coming from.

18:21.08
Sydney Poeira
So like for me struggling for seven years, it became a habit. And so like there were some times where I feel a temptation to go watch porn strictly out of a habitual nature that I've created.

18:32.13
Sydney Poeira
So in that aspect, that is purely just strong arming the action, denying the flesh to break a habit, just like any other habit. But the other side of it is that other times that I was being tempted, it was coming from a deep rooted place from experiences. You can't strong arm that one. You have to work it out.

18:53.64
kenfreire
Yeah.

18:54.11
Sydney Poeira
And so like a lot of people, they just try and focus on that one path where it's like, I'm gonna just strong arm it, which will it'll only work 50% of the time.

19:02.74
kenfreire
Yeah, dude, that's so great. So, so walk us through a little bit more of the protocol, right? So it sounds like the first part is handling the experiences, right? Or changing the perception of that experience.

19:14.01
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

19:14.74
kenfreire
ah What's the next kind of couple steps?

19:16.99
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, so it really gets broken down in into two big aspects. There's identifying the triggers, Right now, like in life there's a bunch of people have like a bunch of dots on their on like a page in their life, and it's really hard to connect those dots.

19:31.57
Sydney Poeira
So identifying the triggers really helps you view that.

19:34.03
kenfreire
Yep.

19:34.33
Sydney Poeira
Get the get the problem by the root. So if you uproot the weed, it's now there's no life source to it, so it's now gone. um But the other part of it is actually denying the flesh.

19:45.22
Sydney Poeira
This is where like we actually teach the strong-arming part of it for the habitual nature. And so for that, what we've developed is called the Mighty Men Collective Rewiring Protocol. And so it's a three-part process that we go through um over the course of 18 weeks that challenges you to deny your flesh in three different areas of your life. So there's a dopamine detox, there's a fast, and there's a body re-composition.

20:11.37
Sydney Poeira
And so those are three very different areas that your body and your mind will try and tell you to indulge in that you have to deny yourself from. So one of them being screens and technology and social media. The other one being, you know, complacency and comfort, which is like, I don't want to go to the gym, but it's like, no, I'm going to deny that comfort feeling and go.

20:31.13
Sydney Poeira
And then with a fast, it's like when you want to eat, because you feel weak, tapping into something deeper than you to actually go through that fast. So in the rewiring protocol, um it's a three-part series that we go through first, starting with a dopamine detox, because that's the biggest thing Because quite frankly, like when we watch a porn, it's not like we're listening to an audio book or you know we're reading a book. It's on a screen. So detoxing your brain from all screen activity is the first thing that we deal with. So it's a three-part process that really helps you navigate life in denying your flesh in three of the very big ways that you know comfort and temptation comes in.

21:09.33
kenfreire
Yeah. and And I like how you referenced earlier, these three phases, right? ah Do you call them phases or three parts of the protocol um really are emphasizing the habitual nature of your life, right?

21:16.24
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. Yeah.

21:22.53
kenfreire
Because I know so many guys, they're like, so I was just bored. So they went and did it, right? And they're like, well, why don't you go do something else?

21:28.91
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

21:30.80
kenfreire
Well, it's because you created this habit, right?

21:33.01
Sydney Poeira
Exactly.

21:33.11
kenfreire
So you're not necessarily saying that these three things are going to help with all the heart uprooting perception of these things. But this is like the first big phase is let's get you into place.

21:43.59
kenfreire
And I like to think about, I believe it's Matthew chapter six, right? Where he's like, if your right hand causes you to sin, right? Cut it off, right? Like, sort of way like right now, the thing that most men, and I've told men this countless of times, like, dude, if your phone is causing you to stumble and sin, get rid of it.

21:51.76
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

22:01.41
kenfreire
And we're not saying get rid of it forever, just get rid of it for a time.

22:01.62
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

22:04.50
kenfreire
So I love how you said like, you're just detoxing from this thing.

22:04.66
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

22:07.63
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

22:08.15
kenfreire
And then fasting, right? Like fasting ultimately is that you're denying something so that you could put your energy towards God. And seeing how like, I like how you said earlier, ah seeing who God is, seeing how God has made us and who he's made us to be, right?

22:14.63
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

22:22.02
Sydney Poeira
yeah Yeah.

22:22.03
kenfreire
And then how we should view the world because of that. All right, so that's part of the the fasting section. Is there anything else that you kind of emphasize as you go through this protocol with these guys?

22:35.23
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, so when you when you start doing those two things, identifying the triggers, which handles one manifestation of the temptation, and then when you deny the flesh, which handles the other manifestation, when you start doing those two things, you now you now can cope with it in a healthy way.

22:52.38
Sydney Poeira
And what I tell people is like, picturing it like the gym. Like if you were to go to the gym and put 200 pounds on the bench press, and it was your first time ever benching 200 pounds, like it's gonna be really heavy.

23:03.56
Sydney Poeira
The only thing that you can do to actually bench the 200 and go above that is putting in the reps and learning the right technique. Because if you know the right technique, we don't put in the reps. You're not doing anything. You're not growing and stimulating the muscle. But if you're putting in the reps with wrong technique, me you can actually injure yourself.

23:22.90
Sydney Poeira
And so when you do these two things, you now start building that muscle to now lift the weight until that weight is no longer an issue. And when you get to that point, we start helping people turn their test into a testimony.

23:37.95
Sydney Poeira
So many people that I work with want to help other people with this, but I tell them you can't be a leader to others when you can't lead yourself. So let's fix this first and then go ahead and lead others because what that does is now you're using your your challenges and your and your trials and they're not in vain. You're actually using it to advance God's kingdom. But what it does is it forces you to escape the goal mentality and it forces you to put on a standard mentality.

24:05.45
Sydney Poeira
because I can't wake up every day and show up for these guys if this was just a goal that I had five years ago. Like it has to be a standard that I hold myself to every day because like I said, we can't lead others until we lead ourselves. So if we now set the standard for ourselves because now other people are watching us,

24:24.52
Sydney Poeira
we now have to force ourselves to hit that mark every day so that we can lead the people around us that want to learn from us. So using their tests, turning it into the testimony and really plugging them into different avenues and channels that they can share their story, that they can be that voice of inspiration and hope for others. Because when you do that, it's also going to affect you positively as well because now you have a standard to hit. So we also teach people how to do that as well.

24:54.29
kenfreire
Sweet. I love it, man. How do you, you know during this process, ah one of the things that I always emphasize is you know how the gospel changes everything in our lives, or it changes our past, present, and future.

24:56.45
Sydney Poeira

25:07.59
kenfreire
And you know some people could listen to this, and they're like, well, I'm just going to grit my teeth, and I'm just going to follow this system and this protocol. But how do you incorporate the gospel and God who does the work in their lives to actually transform them, and they get to participate in it?

25:24.80
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, that's a good question. because like So start the answer like this. with me, I never want to do anything in life where if someone asks, how did you do that? I say, oh, it's because of my own strength. Like I always want my life to be, if you were to ask me, how did I do that? First and foremost, it was because of God got me there, right? and And a lot of people that try and overcome this in their own strength and in their own perception of things and in their own worldviews,

25:57.46
Sydney Poeira
It's very much a, I did this, right? But when we go through identifying the triggers, it is very much a a thing of rewiring how we view ourselves through God. It's not just how we view ourselves because, I mean, the Bible says we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one's really for it. That's why it's a gift, right? And so it's not how how am I going to try and rework how I view myself, but it's more so how does God see me? What is what what was God's perfect design for me that I'm not living in right now?

26:33.97
Sydney Poeira
And so when we when we change the perception of the experiences that we've been through, it's not just ah if you broke up with your girlfriend, oh, that that girl wasn't good for you anyway. It's like, no, what was what was God trying to teach us? What was God saving us from? And why did that happen to make us become the person that God wants us to be? right And so as we go through these,

27:00.24
Sydney Poeira
and people train themselves to view life in that way. And it's like, okay, what was the lesson that I'm trying to that i'm supposed to extract that God's trying to teach me? Or what is God trying to show me about myself in this? we start naturally start We start naturally thinking better about ourselves because God thinks the world of us. And if we start adopting that mindset, now it becomes something where it's like, you're not just overcoming porn, but you're actually painting an accurate picture of who God actually is.

27:30.89
kenfreire
Dude, I love it, man. And I think that I want to go back to one of the things that you guys said, like for all that sin and fall short of the glory of God. And one of the things that I would want to emphasize to people listening to this is that, especially if you're not a believer, right?

27:44.44
kenfreire
You may listen to this and and you may be hearing Sydney say, oh, yeah, well, God sees you this way. And God sees you as great and clean was like, but if you haven't repented and put your trust and faith in Jesus,

27:51.69
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

27:54.91
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

27:56.85
kenfreire
Like, this doesn't apply to you, right? And even if you are ah or you think you're a believer and you're like, oh, I'm good, but like you've never had a continual heart of repentance to say, you know what, God, like, forgive me for my sins. I have wrong. I confess that they're wrong. But I know that you're the only one who could save me from this. You're the only one who could change my heart and my life from this.

28:16.66
kenfreire
Then, all of a sudden, he's like, you know what? I'm going to give you all these promises. like One of my biggest promises that I stand on is Philippians 1.6.

28:21.65
Sydney Poeira
Yep Mm

28:24.19
kenfreire
He who began a good work will complete it in the day of Christ Jesus.

28:26.64
Sydney Poeira
-Hmm Yeah

28:27.95
kenfreire
And I'm like, oh, well, because I'm in Christ, because I'm saved, he says, like everything that you just talked about, he's going to do for me. And that's the beauty of this whole conversation that we're having is that you are not saying, hey, let's do this without the power of God.

28:42.64
kenfreire
It's like, no, no, no we have to do it with the power of God. right But that's the only way we can do it. But on the flip side, Sidi, I want to bring this to something that you and I had talked about earlier, is that sometimes when people are struggling, and we talk about God a lot, right so you're talking about a lot of the action that we need to take, some people get too spiritual.

28:59.66
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

29:02.02
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

29:04.93
kenfreire
right And they're like, well, I'm just struggling.

29:05.16
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

29:06.97
kenfreire
I need to just keep praying more to overcome the sin.

29:11.86
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

29:12.03
kenfreire
Right. ah So you you had told me some stuff about this that you're like, I think this is a bad play.

29:13.14
Sydney Poeira
yeah

29:18.25
kenfreire
But like, walk me through why does that actually not work for people?

29:24.23
Sydney Poeira
yeah I'll start off by saying when you go to 2 Kings chapter five, when you go to the story of Naaman, and for those of you who don't know ah who Naaman is, Naaman is a guy that had leprosy and very prestigious dude. And there was an Israelite slave girl that that lived in his wife's house and she was like, oh, I i know someone that can heal Naaman. And so Naaman gets up, goes to Elijah's house and when he gets there, Elijah sends his servant out. And when the servant comes out and tells David what he has to do, he gets very upset. And he's like, i I would have thought that Elijah was going to come out. The prophet was going to come out to me. He was going to wave his hand over me and I was going to be healed and all this stuff.

30:13.84
Sydney Poeira
But what God was actually trying to tell Naaman was you have to do things that you're not comfortable with doing that you wouldn't usually do. Because if you're not doing anything that's pushing you outside of your comfort for zone, how can I know that you actually have faith in in me that I can actually do the thing? The reason I say that is because So many people that I talk to and it really hurts my heart because when people are in a pray about it mentality, I physically cannot help them. Just because there's a certain entitlement that comes with I'm going to pray about it and I expect God to do something for me without me doing anything. There's the caveat.

30:57.36
Sydney Poeira
Because a lot of people think that they're just gonna pray and they just sit on there on their chair and everything's gonna be better. But that's not how God operates. Because that's not a real relationship building experience with God. Because we pray to God, hey, I want these things and don't get me wrong, I pray all the time. And I pray in expectance that God is gonna do things for me. But the reason why I can do that And the reason why those things actually happen for me based off my faith is because faith is not a belief system. Faith is an action that you take off of a belief system.

31:36.53
Sydney Poeira
If I was to tell you, Hey Ken, come sit on this chair and have faith that it's going to keep you up. The faith is actually going and sitting on the chair. But if you look at it and you're like, Oh yeah, like, yeah, I have faith that that will keep me up, but never actually see if it will. Like there's no faith there. You're actually showing a lack of faith because you're not doing the thing that you claim is going to happen. And so when people have a pray about it mentality,

32:02.22
Sydney Poeira
that follows with not doing anything about their situation. Putting too much pressure on God to actually do something. And then after when it doesn't happen, I've seen so many people just stop believing in God. He's like, well, God didn't do anything for me. Or I didn't pray hard enough.

32:20.80
Sydney Poeira
And it's like, do you really think you have to pray? Like there's a certain level of praying until God can help you? Or do you think like he's just telling you to do something and show that you actually have faith that he will do what he can do? And so that's why I feel like the pray about it mentality is super, it does a disservice to a lot of people having that mindset.

32:42.26
kenfreire
yeah i you know When you and I first talked about this, when we were getting ready for for this ah conversation, I remember you were like, man, I hate this thing so much because we see it, right?

32:46.03
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

32:52.95
kenfreire
Where guys are like, well, I'm just going to keep praying and hoping it goes away. And what you're saying is like, no, no, no.

32:57.44
Sydney Poeira
Yeah 100

32:58.90
kenfreire
like Yes, prayer is important. We're not saying don't pray. But what you're saying is,

33:04.01
Sydney Poeira
% Yeah

33:05.82
kenfreire
What ends up happening for most men is that God has given us the common graces, certain things that we should do. Because he's empowered us with the Holy Spirit, he says like, okay, go deny the flesh, right? Or go live by the fruit of the Spirit. Like he he commands us to do certain things based off of the truth and promises that he's given us to be able to pull off.

33:27.14
kenfreire
Right? But we don't access any of that. Here's, I remember this ah sermon I learned learned a long time ago or I listened to a long time ago.

33:35.27
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

33:36.13
kenfreire
He said, many times we don't access the power of God or we don't see the power of God move in our lives because we're not acting and we're waiting for him to move.

33:45.23
Sydney Poeira
yeah

33:45.96
kenfreire
And he's just like, no, the power of God to fight this sin happens when you are acting according to what the word of God says.

33:46.30
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

33:54.52
kenfreire
ah So I love that's why we talk about like prayer and action. We're like, we should pray. And we should say, Lord, like how do you want me to fight this? like What do you want me to do? Sometimes we do need to sit still. but Be patient. Sometimes we need to move forward and fight and do the things that need to happen.

34:09.34
kenfreire
But for those who are being, for lack of a better word, apathetic, I think that's ultimately what you're trying to get at is like those guys who just are like, I'm not really going to do anything. I'm just going to hope that God just takes this away.

34:21.36
kenfreire
That's not how it works.

34:21.63
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. And I want to touch on something that you just said, Chris, because you just said sometimes it does require being still. But being still is still doing something.

34:32.55
kenfreire
Yeah.

34:32.94
Sydney Poeira
Because when you because when you do something, there's intention behind it. And so like something that I was going to say also that can actually go very well with this, when we were talking about people that might not be believers and how it doesn't apply to them, I would even argue it doesn't apply to people that aren't ready to repent.

34:54.13
Sydney Poeira
And the reason why I say that is because repentance is actually like, it's made up of two things. There's intention and then there's direction, right? So right now I'm in Dallas. If I wanted to go to Washington and I have the biggest intention on going to Washington, but I'm traveling in the wrong direction, I'm not getting to Washington. And so a bunch of people in this cycle They like the idea of overcoming this. They like the idea of forgiveness, but they don't actually, and they're not ready to actually do that. And so like, they're just on an, I'm sorry, though, but they're not on a repentance train where it's like, no, I'm at a point where it's like, my intention is to get better, but I'm going to also position myself to travel in the direction to do so.

35:50.57
kenfreire
Man, dude, I was just thinking about, as you were saying that, I'm i'm Googling it because I couldn't remember the verse. It's 2 Corinthians 7, 10 through 11.

35:58.76
Sydney Poeira
here Yeah.

35:59.73
kenfreire
And I just wanted to read it. So it's going to take me a second to ah find it. um Please hold all these people while they're listening to something.

36:04.66
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, you're good.

36:10.28
kenfreire
ah Second Corinthians said, this is why I should have my Bible on hand. This would be a lot faster than me just trying to Google it. um Okay, it says this. It goes right where you're talking about like, people aren't ready to repent. It says, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. And then now Paul is doing a comparison where he says, see what this Godly sorrow has produced in you.

36:41.23
kenfreire
what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done, at every point you have proved yourself to be innocent in this manner.

36:57.30
kenfreire
Right. And that whole intention of like, man, if you really want this, it's not just being in the sorry boat. It's like, all right, what are you going to do? Like, how much are you really going to sacrifice?

37:04.78
Sydney Poeira
yeah

37:06.40
kenfreire
Like, I always tell people when I counsel them through this, I say, they come to me and they're like, man, I really want to overcome the struggle. I'm like, how bad do you really want to change?

37:16.08
Sydney Poeira
Yep.

37:16.11
kenfreire
Right. And they're like, well, I don't know.

37:17.45
Sydney Poeira
Yep.

37:17.78
kenfreire
I'm like, scale one to 10. 10 being like, um I'm ready to sacrifice and do whatever it takes. I'm like, OK, are you sure? I might ask you to do some pretty extreme stuff. Like, I'm not gonna not going to board them or anything, right?

37:25.96
Sydney Poeira
Exactly.

37:28.76
kenfreire
But take imagine like you're talking about detoxing.

37:28.96
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

37:32.15
kenfreire
For some people taking away their phone for like two months, they're like, oh my gosh, I'd rather get rid of my leg, right?

37:36.69
Sydney Poeira
wild Yeah, exactly.

37:38.61
kenfreire
Like, they're like, no way. But it's like, no, like, do you care about your relationship with God enough that you would do whatever it takes to restore your relationship with God because the sin is holding you back from a beautiful, wonderful, amazing relationship with God.

37:51.17
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

37:54.51
kenfreire
And it's breaking fellowship with people around you because you are hiding like you talked about earlier.

37:58.62
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

38:00.07
kenfreire
You're hiding in the sin all day long. out So man, I loved it.

38:02.53
Sydney Poeira
Yeah. Yeah.

38:04.82
kenfreire
I love how you just brought that back together because that that is true. We need to have a heart of repentance. And repentance is kind of like praying, right? It was not kind of like you're praying to God to say, like, Father, forgive me for what I've done.

38:15.38
Sydney Poeira
yeah

38:15.69
kenfreire
All those things go hand in hand. Sydney, dude, I think you and I can go for a long time and like just reaching off of you one another on this topic.

38:22.42
Sydney Poeira
for sure

38:25.05
Sydney Poeira
yeah

38:25.80
kenfreire
ah As we kind of turn the corner and wrap things up, if people are struggling right now and they're like, dude, I'm right there with you. I have these experiences that I'm struggling with and I have these habits that I'm super stuck in.

38:40.53
kenfreire
And man, I've tried so many things, but I don't know what to do. I'm exhausted and I really want to serve God. Like they were like truly want to serve God, but they're just tired, right?

38:48.54
Sydney Poeira
For sure.

38:50.42
kenfreire
Like they're just sick and tired of being tired and falling into the same sin. What's a good next practical step that they can take to start overcoming this?

39:02.98
Sydney Poeira
I'm going to say a practical, but then I'm going to say the one that's even more, I would say even more important. Um, a practical one is get help.

39:12.16
kenfreire
Yeah. Yeah.

39:12.38
Sydney Poeira
You can't do it on your own because this, this sin is a very isolating sin and isolation is actually what keeps you in sin.

39:24.06
Sydney Poeira
So the very fact that like this is something that isolates you, that means the isolation is going to just keep you there. But something even more important than that is to be a person that whose actions match what you say you want.

39:44.71
Sydney Poeira
because something like something that you just said that really just resonated with me because this is something that everyone needs is making sure that like when you said like on a scale of one to 10 how bad you want and they're like 10 I'll do anything and you're like will you do anything though? I've had so many calls and talked with so many people that said they want all this out of life, but weren't actually ready to give it because everyone likes the idea of getting to the top of the mountain, but not everyone actually gets there. And it's just a sad reality of it. Everyone can get there, but not everyone does because not everyone does what needs to be done. And so what I would say is like, there's one thing that I can say that can get to people and can touch the heart of someone.

40:36.13
Sydney Poeira
is become the person that does the thing that is required of you to have the life that you want. Have your actions back up what you say you want in life. There was so many times you know in this journey and even in business and all these things, I had to put myself in situations or I was put in situations where it's like, okay, said like you've said you said like this is what you want. Are you gonna do everything it takes to actually get there?

41:04.91
Sydney Poeira
And the reason why I can hold that standard for other people is because I was able to hold it for myself. And so like there's there's a lot of things that through this journey of healing, you're gonna have to do that aren't gonna be easy. And if you don't have a why, and if you don't have a reason to do these things, and if you don't have a life,

41:27.29
Sydney Poeira
plan built out for yourself and a picture of who you want to be, you're not going to be able to do it because you're not going to have a reason to. But even if you have that reason, you have to make sure that the patterns that you set out align with the picture that you set for yourself. And so I would say that that's the first step because when you when you put yourself in that place, you've now positioned yourself to actually get the feeling that you want. That's the biggest thing.

41:55.59
kenfreire
Dude, so good, man. So good. I think that that's where having a vision for who you want to be is so vital. And for some of you who are listening to this, you may be wondering, what is that vision?

42:04.67
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

42:09.67
kenfreire
Who should I be? um And I think God has called all of us men to be righteous men. But we can't be righteous on our own effort.

42:15.20
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

42:17.11
kenfreire
like that's We have the righteousness of Christ Jesus.

42:17.94
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

42:20.19
kenfreire
but That's the important part.

42:20.42
Sydney Poeira
yeah

42:22.38
kenfreire
But I want to leave us with this last um passage that I think is going to be really encouraging to all of you because many of you who are listening might be like, I want to take action.

42:32.61
kenfreire
I want to be a man of action, but you know you stumble. And I want to make sure you guys heard what Sidney said earlier where he's like, he wasn't perfect.

42:35.77
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

42:40.63
kenfreire
He told his wife and he still stumbled. He still made things happen. But going back to vision, I think Proverbs 24 16 says it really well. He says, for the righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up again.

42:49.96
Sydney Poeira
Mm

42:53.98
kenfreire
But the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

42:54.84
Sydney Poeira
-hmm.

42:56.78
kenfreire
and Here, I just want to encourage all of you that like if you are in Christ, you've put your faith in Jesus Christ You are a righteous man, and though you fall seven times he gets back up Right and that eighth time he's up and he's going again and again and he's gonna fight and you're gonna prosper and you're gonna be victorious Why because the vision you have in your life is not that you are an unclean unworthy

43:08.37
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

43:20.82
kenfreire
Lustful man like I used to be or used to think of myself. It's no no I have a vision for my life that I am a righteous man in Christ And I'm pursuing the things that God has called me to do and because of that I'm gonna do that with all of my heart all of my strength and all of my power But that's what we're called to do um With that man Sydney any last words that you have to encourage these men.

43:37.17
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

43:44.50
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, 100%. I was actually thinking about it when you were saying that. so another Another thing, a really good mindset shift to have when you go through this journey is think about it in daily increments, not as like a big accumulation and a sum, because there's some people that are like, let's say, yeah I want to be porn free for a year.

43:49.32
kenfreire
I

43:56.57
kenfreire
yeah

44:04.49
Sydney Poeira
and then you're on day 364. And on day 364, you fall, like that whole year is taken away. And what we do is we now are measuring ourselves by where we fell short.

44:17.51
kenfreire
Yeah. Yeah.

44:18.50
Sydney Poeira
But instead of doing that, if you just focus on being victorious over the day, and you go 365 days, and one day you stumbled,

44:29.94
Sydney Poeira
this is The evidence that you stack for yourself that you can do it severely outweighs the evidence that you can't.

44:34.88
kenfreire
Yeah.

44:35.95
Sydney Poeira
And it's the same thing that happened. It's just a different perception on it. Again, changing the way we perceive things.

44:40.88
kenfreire
Yeah, I like it, man. Sydney, if people want to get know get to know you more and what you do, what is the best way to follow you?

44:50.47
Sydney Poeira
Yeah, go ahead and follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is gladiator Sid, Sydney, sorry, gladiator Sydney. um So you could just follow me on Instagram. um You can hit me up and be able to, I'd love to talk with you guys.

45:03.84
kenfreire
Yeah, absolutely. Sydney, thank you so much again ah for just inspiring men, for helping them kick this habit, kick the sinful habit, right? To pursue the things of God and to pursue, you know, greater things for to be on mission.

45:12.14
Sydney Poeira
Yeah.

45:17.11
kenfreire
So again, for those of you who are listening, are listening reach out to Sydney on Instagram, gladiator Sydney.

45:17.45
Sydney Poeira
yeah

45:24.61
kenfreire
I'll make sure it's in the show notes as well so that people have that and they can find you. And I'll tag you when when this goes live ah live as well.

45:28.78
Sydney Poeira
Awesome.

45:31.73
kenfreire
But Ben, Sydney, thank you again for everything you're doing. Appreciate it. And then for all of you who are listening, I would encourage you, take this episode. okay If you got encouragement, can you just think of one guy?

45:45.53
kenfreire
that could really use this, right? And he might not be, like you you may not know that he's struggling with sexual sin, but you know what? You may know he's isolated or you may know that he's in that pray about it kind of season. Whatever it is that we've talked about that you think this would be really helpful for one of your guys for encouragement. Can you send this to them so that they could be encouraged to know that like there is a path and there is a way out?

46:10.98
kenfreire
With that, keep doing what we talk about on this episode and the rest of this podcast. Kill shame, stand strong in Christ, and be on mission. Hope you guys have a great day, and God bless.