Be the Guy Challenge: A 30-Day Identity Shift for Men Who Are Done Starting Over
“Confidence is built when you do what you said you would do—especially when no one is watching.” – Brent Dowlen
The Be the Guy Challenge isn’t about hype, motivation, or another failed reset. It’s about identity.
Every man has that guy in mind—the one who shows up consistently, keeps his word, leads well, and seems grounded in who he is. Most men don’t doubt what that guy does. They doubt whether they can ever actually become him.
In this episode of the Driven 2 Thrive Broadcast, Brent Dowlen breaks that illusion apart and replaces it with a simple, neuroscience-backed framework designed to help men stop admiring discipline—and start living it.
This episode isn’t about becoming perfect.
It’s about becoming consistent.
Why Most Men Never Become “That Guy”
New Year’s resolutions fail at an almost absurd rate. Not because men are lazy—but because they aim at outcomes instead of identity.
Most men say things like:
- “I’m trying to get better.”
- “I want to be more disciplined.”
- “I just need more motivation.”
But identity doesn’t respond to trying.
Identity responds to proof.
That’s where the Be the Guy Challenge flips the script. Instead of chasing big goals, it focuses on small promises kept daily, because every kept promise becomes evidence of who you are becoming.
Identity Comes Before Behavior
One of the core ideas in this episode is simple but disruptive:
You don’t change who you are by doing big things once.
You change who you are by doing small things consistently.
Drawing from Stoic wisdom and modern neuroscience, the episode explains how language shapes identity. When a man keeps saying “I’m not that guy yet,” his behavior follows that belief. But when he begins to say, “I am the kind of man who does what he says he will do,” everything starts to shift.
This isn’t imitation.
It’s ownership.
The Be the Guy Challenge: The 30-Day Framework
The Be the Guy Challenge is intentionally simple. Complexity kills follow-through. Instead of overhauling your entire life, this challenge focuses on four daily anchors designed to move habits from effort to automation.
1. Read Every Day
Choose one book that sharpens a skill or mindset. Read daily for 30 days—no pressure to finish, no marathon sessions required. Just show up.
2. Lock in Your Sleep Schedule
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day for 30 days. Yes, even weekends. Regulating sleep stabilizes energy, discipline, and emotional resilience.
3. Commit to Appropriate Exercise
This isn’t about punishment. It’s about consistency. Two to three days per week, at a level appropriate for your current health.
4. Choose One Growth Habit
Career, personal, or relational. One habit that moves your life forward. Track it daily.
Each habit is tracked on a calendar—not for guilt, but for visibility. You don’t need motivation when you have momentum.
Why This Works (The Neuroscience Behind It)
New habits begin in the prefrontal cortex, where effort and resistance live. That’s why habits feel hard at first. But with repetition, they migrate to the basal ganglia, where automation happens.
Once a habit becomes automated:
- Resistance drops
- Stress decreases
- Follow-through becomes natural
The episode makes this clear:
Habits don’t fail because men are weak. They fail because men quit before automation takes over.
Keeping Your Word Rewires Identity
One of the most powerful insights in the episode is this:
Identity is built every time you keep a promise to yourself.
When a man consistently does what he says he will do—especially when no one is watching—something fundamental changes. Confidence stops being performative. Discipline stops feeling forced. Integrity becomes internal.
Over time, men stop saying “I hope I can keep this up” and start saying “This is just who I am.”
That’s the real transformation.
From Admiration to Embodiment
The Be the Guy Challenge isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about becoming aligned.
Aligned with your values.
Aligned with your word.
Aligned with the man you already respect.
This episode serves as a starting line, not a finish line. It’s a reminder that you don’t need a new year, a perfect plan, or permission to begin.
You just need to start keeping small promises—today.
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S07E04 of the Driven 2 Thrive Broadcast
Time Stamps | Be the Guy Challenge: A 30-Day Identity Shift for Men Who Are Done Starting Over
- 00:00:00 – You Know “That Guy”
00:01:15 – Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail Men
00:03:05 – Identity Comes Before Behavior
00:04:40 – The 4-Week “Be the Guy” Challenge
00:07:10 – How Habits Rewire the Brain
00:09:05 – Keeping Your Word Builds Identity
00:10:30 – Start Today, Not January
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Listen to the Show
Show Transcript
Be the Guy: The 30-Day Identity Shift That Changes Everything
Speaker: [00:00:00] Gentlemen, will you gimme 10 minutes? 10 minutes for the rest of your life? You all have that guy who sticks out in your mind. The one when you’re like, man, that’s the dude, that’s the man. That’s the right. And even if I said that, that’s just jumping into your head. Like that picture jumped into your brain.
If you gimme 10 minutes, I will give you the tools, help you become that guy instead of going, yeah, he’s the guy. What do you think? Do you have 10 minutes to take a bet on? We’ll start the time right now, guys. Gimme 10 minutes. We’ll start changing your life today. Starting now. Gentlemen, where are MyPillow household?
I have dozens of MyPillow products I use every single day. We’re proud to have an American company like MyPillow and Mike Lindell as sponsors of our show. You can go to mypillow.com and use promo code Thrive for up to 80% off your order for free shipping. Over on orders over [00:01:00] $75. For our listeners, we have sheets, pillows, bath towels, kitchen towels, slippers.
I got MyPillow products everywhere, guys, and I absolutely love them, and I think you will too. So check it out, mypillow.com promo code. Thrive. The Driven 2 Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving purpose-filled intentional lives. Welcome to the Driven 2 Thrive broadcast where men learn to lead themselves, their families, and their world with purpose, growth, and lasting impact.
I’m your host, Brent, Dowlen, and let get into it. Now. I know that if you bother to make a New Year’s resolution, 96% chance you already quit. Let’s face it, the majority of us don’t bother to make New Year’s resolutions anymore because they’re kind of stupid. And if you do like them, like I said, it’s, it’s a 96% failure rate.
That’s pretty incredible. If you are one of the 4% that’s gonna keep your New Year’s resolution, you actually probably already [00:02:00] started those habits as it was and didn’t bother to make a New Year’s resolution. That’s just how it works. The majority of people don’t do it, so don’t kick yourself too hard if you didn’t make it.
But here we are, almost in February, and you let that go. Maybe you started out with good intentions, but the truth is you probably picked too lofty of a goal and went about it the wrong way because most people tank on the New Year’s resolutions because they don’t actually understand the enormity of what they’re trying to do because they aren’t thinking about all the little things.
They aren’t thinking about all the little things involved with whatever resolution they went after. But that shouldn’t keep you from becoming who you wanna be. You don’t need New Years to do that. In fact, the world needs you to become who you wanna be. So I’m begging you desperately, please continue listening to this show because we’re gonna change your life today, because becoming that guy, that’s actually way easier than you realize.
Now, when I talk about that guy, [00:03:00] someone’s popping in your mind. You already know, right? I can say. Oh, that’s the man, right? That’s the guy. And someone just jumped into your mind. But you can be that guy. You absolutely can be that guy. And the world needs you to become that guy, and we’re gonna make it really easy.
The first thing we have to do is we have to change that language and we have to listen to the stoics. The pick has taught us. First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. So you need to change the way you’re talking to yourself. Because really it’s just about the fact that you’re under construction right now, right?
So that’s okay. You need to be under construction. And it starts with you saying, I’m gonna be that guy. No, I don’t want you to take on their personality. I don’t want you to have to imitate them and everything they do, because that’s not what you’re thinking when you go, oh my God, he’s that guy. Right?
What you’re thinking about is all the positive things. [00:04:00] Maybe that’s their success. Maybe that’s their relationship. You know, they have a great marriage, they have a great relationship with their kids. They’re really healthy, they’re in good shape. They’re great when it comes to business. That’s okay. That’s why you go, man, that guy, right?
So say to yourself, I am that guy. We have to change the language first and foremost, because that is actually the first thing that is preventing you. From becoming that guy is you aren’t telling yourself, you aren’t believing or describing yourself as that guy. So start telling yourself, I am that guy and this is what we’re gonna do.
We’re gonna change it Your life with a four week challenge. It’s the be the Guy challenge. At least that’s a really lame title I’m gonna come up with, and it works like this for the next four weeks to become that guy. This is what you need to do. Find one book. Is based on personal development [00:05:00] or, uh, something that increases a skill.
I don’t even care about personal development. Pick a book that is sharpening one of your skills, is making you smarter. It’s making you better at something, is teaching you a skill that you want to aspire to. That’s step number one. Pick that book, start that book. Read it every day for the next four weeks.
You don’t have to read it unstop. Just read it every day for the next four weeks. Number two, fix your sleep habit. Pick. I go to bed at this time, I’m that guy, and I get up at this time and keep it the same seven days a week for the next 30 days. I know February is only 28 days, but keep it the same every day For the next 30 days.
Yes. Even weekends. Okay. I am the guy who goes to bed at nine 30 and I get up at 4:00 AM or you don’t have to do that. I do that on a regular basis, but starting in your sleep cycle regularly, same routine every single day. Number three, pick an exercise habit that’s appropriate. That might be depending [00:06:00] on your health level.
I go to the gym four times a week instead of three times a week. That might be I go for a walk three days a week because I’m not ready for the gym yet. Pick an appropriate exercise habit. Commit to it two to three days a week, depending on where you’re at. And do that two to three days a week. Commit to it.
And number four, pick a growth habit. Maybe volunteer more. I wanna volunteer more. I want to apply to X amount of jobs because I wanna change where I’m at professionally. Maybe that’s building resume and learning what you need to do to make your resume actually work. I want you to track these habits on a calendar for the next month.
Four, really simple, right? Four. Start a book. Set your sleep schedule. Start an exercise habit, and pick one growth habit that makes you better. Professionally, personally, whatever it takes relationally, track it on your calendar. [00:07:00] Now, the reason most people fail is new habits are hard because our brain hasn’t put them on autopilot yet, right?
We have to move from prefrontal cortex where new habits start to the basal ganglia, which is where habit automation happens. The way we do that is through repetition. New habits only feel hard because your brain just hasn’t put you on automation yet. Once your brain gets to automation. They’re super simple.
The way you get to automation is consistency. Do these four things every day like clockwork for 30 days. When you get to the end of 30 days, add two to three more habits and go for another 30 days with the four habits you’ve already started, and two to three other positive habits. This is the recipe to become that guy.
What happens in your brain when you keep your word to yourself is it becomes identity. You stop going from that guy or [00:08:00] looking at that guy and you start saying, this guy is the guy who keeps his word to himself. This is the guy is the guy who reads a book every day. This guy is the guy who keeps his sleep schedule.
This guy is the guy who shows up and does my exercise program three days a week, four days a week, whatever’s appropriate. When you start to identify as the guy who keeps promises to himself, it becomes part of your identity. Follow through becomes really easy because the internal resistance absolutely drops, stress decreases and cognitive dissonance phase.
Guys, the more you keep your promises to yourself, the more you do what you say. Easier it becomes and keeping your word re rewires your identity, not just your behavior. Spro, small promises kept build more momentum than big habits broken. See, that’s the problem. Everybody tries to go big. Four simple things.
Four simple things if you keep your word to yourself, okay? [00:09:00] You will change who you are because every time you keep a promise is proof of virtue, is proof of integrity’s, proof of identity, broken promises, weaken that, but kept promises. Absolutely turn you into a new person and a new monster. Like you’ll be amazed what you can do.
When you keep doing what you said you were gonna do, even when nobody is watching, you’ll become stronger, you’ll become better, and you will start your journey to become that guy. I promise you. Now guys, I promise you I would do this in 10 minutes or less. I still have a minute to go, but that’s the end of the show.
Guys, if this helped you out, if this is the start of your journey, ’cause I know it is, this is a simple plan to get you where you want to be. I promise it works. I work with men all the time. I talk to men all the time. Simple habits start you. That’s why Jordan Peterson talks about making your bed. [00:10:00] This is the game changer you need.
Screw New Year’s resolutions. Your journey starts today. Be better tomorrow because what you do today, we’ll see you on the next one. The Driven 2 Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose-filled intentional lives.
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