Meet Pete J. Armstrong

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Pete J. Armstrong. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Pete J. below.

Pete J. , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I get resilience from never giving up. I find a way to overcome the next challenge. When you overcome, you grow, you learn, you transform. You build muscle, you become more fit. I may not always believe in myself but when I do I take action. I ask for help. I find a way forward. I have been through a lot, including never feeling like I belong, to struggling with addiction, and being a single father. For example, in grad school as a single father I was coping with stress with porn and casual sex. I had immense shame for these behaviors and lots of anxiety. I ended up getting several panic attacks over the course of a couple months that ultimately led me to therapy. In therapy, I found a way forward where I didn’t have use porn or sex to manage my ability to cope with my low self worth. And so, in 2014, I removed both porn and casual sex as a coping mechanism. Three months later I met a woman who would become my wife. We got married, I abstained from all things sexually that were holding me back. We had a child together but the blended family dynamic was tough on our marriage. We recieved counsel and marriage therapy and read several books but we agreed to divorce in 2020. The marriage was a gift, including recieving my daughter. That same year, I chose to remove alcohol out of my life. I chose to go on a “sobriety tour” and see where it would take my life. One year later, on September 1, 2021, with a better relationship with myself, including greater self confidence, I started my men’s mental fitness coaching practice with a core mission “To help men become better fathers.” I’ve been helping men for almost three years improve their relationships with their wives/partners and children as well as end unhealthy coping and/or addictions. I built greater resilience during this time by getting additional training to not only better manage by mental health but also help my clients do the same. I now help driven men uncover their blindspots so they can become the man they desire to be, including a better man at home!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I help men improve their relationships, stop unhealthy habits/addictions, and be happy.

My driving force is to help men become the man they desire to be so that they can experience more joy, have better relationships with the one’s they love the most, and choose healthy habits over sabotaging ones.

And so, I help men get to the root of WHY they do WHAT they do so that they can make positive changes in their lives.

I know firsthand the feelings of shame + low self confidence, coping with procrastination, alcohol, porn/sex, and not knowing how to be yourself.

I now help men learn about their pain, love and accept themselves, learn new tools to better handle life’s challenges, and ultimately heal.

Why?

Because deep inner work promotes understanding of yourself, including in why you do what you do, self acceptance including for your past mistakes, and healing your wounds.

This type of growth breaks down walls and allows you to access more happiness, believe in your goodness, and love deeper, including in your closest relationships (yes, even with your wife/partner and kids!).

With these transformations, men begin to experience growth over time meeting everything your heart desires including the self confidence you yearn for, the supporting relationships you desire, and the well-being your mind + body craves.

In all, men experience a significant improvement in their self confidence and happiness as well as a reduction in unhealthy coping and addictions.

With these changes, men’s relationships improve specifically with those they love the most.

It is the combination of healing, reducing/stopping unhealthy coping, and developing new skills + tools that helps men become the man their heart desires.

I love to help men because we all need someone to see what we don’t see, including our greatness.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

In my industry, in my opinion, speaking from my experience, you yourself have to do the deep inner work so that you can truly transform somebody’s else’s life. You can only give what you have and can only understand someone if you’ve been there. And so, developing self empathy, self compassion, and self acceptance is required to transform other’s lives. These skills/qualities are not easy to hone but they can be honed if you practice using them. However you have to work with somebody who is versed in the mind/body connection and/or who understands trauma. And so finding someone for example like Tommy Walker is very helpful in helping you heal your past and find ways to love yourself. So learn how to improve your self love, your self knowledge – what it is to be human – through reading books and working with mindset or mental health providers who desire to help you transform your life and who help you understand you.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

Tommy Walker – The Mind Engineer, peer coaches, mentors, family members, friends, and the likes of Gabor Mate, Andrew Huberman, Brene Brown, Robert Augustus Masters, Steven Pressfield, Connor Beatron, and Bessel van der Kolk.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peter.armstrong.754
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjamesarmstrong/

Image Credits

Sean Merewood