Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 817: Ryan Michler on Toxic Masculinity, What it Means to be a Man & Fatherhood
Episode Date: July 19, 2018In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Ryan Michler of the Order of Man podcast about the crisis of masculinity, toxic masculinity and what it means to be a man. You can find Ryan at orderofma...n.com and on social media @orderofman. Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Split, an expertly programmed and phased muscle building and sculpting program designed to get your body stage ready. This is an advanced program and is not recommended for beginners. Get it at www.mapssplit.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Also check out Thrive Market! Thrive Market makes purchasing organic, non-GMO affordable. With prices up to 50% off retail, Thrive Market blows away most conventional, non-organic foods. PLUS, they offer a NO RISK way to get started which includes: 1. One FREE month’s membership 2. $20 Off your first three purchases of $49 or more (That’s $60 off total!) 3. Free shipping on orders of $49 or more You insure your car but do you insure YOU? If you don’t, and you are the primary breadwinner, you will likely leave your loved ones facing hardship and struggle if you die (harsh reality). Perhaps you think life insurance is expensive, but if you are fit and healthy, you can qualify for approved rates that are truly inexpensive and affordable. To find out if you qualify for the best rates in the industry, go get a quote at www.HealthIQ.com/mindpump Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)
Transcript
Discussion (0)
If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
We did this interview with Ryan and before that, I did a two hour one his show.
Yeah, we had it at one point, I came over to the studio to see what was going on inside there.
So you guys were making out because two hour
of piloting.
That was a long time.
Yeah.
It was, I mean, just great conversation on topics
that are interesting.
Well, I feel like we've been holding you back a little bit
of the politics as of late just because we're trying
to give our audience a little bit of a break.
Well, on this episode, we talk about toxic masculinity.
The, is masculinity in crisis,
education, education, bullying,
oh good, bullying, I mean, we went,
some people may be triggered,
maybe a little bit,
and I hope so.
I hope to spark some great conversation.
Challenge some ideas.
Yeah, I think, you know,
I, I mean, Ryan does such a really good job
of articulating his points.
And I think, and I think he's been doing this long enough
that he knows like, okay,
and you'll hear it in the podcast like,
you know, he'll quote unquote something
or he'll warn you ahead of time,
you know, as far as something that he's gonna say
that he knows, there's probably triggered people in the past.
But, I mean, I don't know.
I think what it will do for sure
and I hope it does is create a really good conversation
in our forum.
You know, I definitely think we'll have some good dialogue
around this.
I think it's a topic that needs to be addressed.
I think his podcast, man, is not only is it incredible,
but I think his timing couldn't be better as far as the message
that he delivers at this time.
That's about how to be basically a strong,
responsible man in society.
And what that means in a time when...
Yeah, it wasn't even look like it anymore.
Yeah, just saying be a man is controversial, you know what I mean?
So like, what does that mean?
And that's, you know, he talks about that on his podcast.
He talks to people about fitness and health on his podcast.
He's very, very interesting individual, great podcaster, great podcaster.
Oh, Ryan's got a book, he's got a YouTube channel
that he does, all kinds of great stuff on there.
He's got courses that he does with the guys,
a lot of really good stuff.
You can find, you can find on a social media
order of man is the, his Instagram,
and then his podcast is also order of man
and then even easier, and his order of man.com
is his website, so pretty easy to find Ryan.
Now I do want to remind everybody that this month, maps and a ball like the foundational program, the one that started
at all is 50% off. So that's under $60 to get the best muscle strength building and metabolism
boosting program that we offer. We also have bundles where we combine multiple maps programs and
discount them like our super bundle, which is a year of exercise programming. All those programs
and maps in a ball can be found at mindpumpmedia.com.
Now, if you're somebody who's coming over from order of man and listening to the interview
too, we highly recommend before you even purchase anything from us. We have all kinds of free
information, free guides out there. You can go to myimpumpfree.com and you can download
a bunch of free information.
We also have an app that is free, that's Myimpump Media.
So if you're just coming over and you're finding the
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overwhelmed with 800 plus episodes that we've done,
you can actually just in the search bar,
put in a topic that you might want to hear about
or learn about, and more than likely if it's related to health and fitness, we've probably covered it. That's right. But without any further ado,
here we are talking to Ryan Mickler, the host of the awesome podcast Order of Man.
How many years now, Ryan, are you going? How many years?
Since we started. Yeah. Uh, three and a half. We started in March of 2015. That's right. So
we're pretty close to the same. Well, yeah,. I can't remember do you guys is a daily?
Five days a week that yeah, yeah, okay, so pretty much daily. Yeah, every other day. There's something going on. It's crazy
Yeah, but I mean when we have this three of us. It's really that's true. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's and the for as long as we've been doing this shit for there's so much
And there's a lot of things that the three of us are all into
that's different.
And so that it provides so much culture.
That's true, that makes sense.
Because everybody that we meet through podcasts is like,
how the fuck do you guys do five and manage to do
everything else that you're doing?
It's like, well, this part of it is really easy.
There's not a lot of preparation for us.
And I know a lot of other people when they podcast,
they do, they put a lot of time and effort in a prep.
We also don't really edit anything at all, really.
So just the way we record it, the way it comes out.
So it gives us the opportunity to put out
more and more information.
Now the downfall that is we sucked a lot at beginning.
Like I feel like we were pretty poor at the very beginning.
And we've gotten sharper as we've gotten.
Mm-hmm.
And I imagine too, I was listening to,
I can't remember who I was listening to.
I was listening to a show yesterday
and there was four of them and it's like,
I had to turn it off.
Cause they're tripping over each other
and talking over each other and then laughing,
and I'm like, guys, I can't hear one articulated thought,
like help each other out, like compliment each other,
don't be tripping over each other.
So I imagine there's an art to that too.
Yeah, I don't think there's too many podcasts
that have more than two hosts that flow really well.
Yeah, we just worked well together, man.
It was really weird.
I feel like in the past life, we were all dating
or something like that.
Yeah.
It was definitely a top.
I mean, in the last week, finishing each other
since his and stuff.
So stop. Stop.
Stop.
See, just like I said.
So, Ryan, you talk a lot about what it means to be a man
or what masculinity means today, right, on your podcast.
And I feel like that is, and I don't know,
it's crazy to me that that is a controversial topic.
Yeah, it shouldn't be.
It's not, I mean, it's not that difficult. controversial topic. Yeah, it shouldn't be. It's not that difficult.
I don't think, but apparently it is.
Well, why is it such a controversial,
what is, in your opinion, why is it so controversial
to say, you know, we're gonna talk about being masculine
or what it means to be men or the positives of being a man?
Like, why do you think that's so controversial today?
I think there's a lot of people that have a false perception of what a man. Why do you think that's so controversial today? I think there's a lot of people that have a false perception
of what that means.
You know, we hear the term toxic masculinity.
I think we're gonna talk about that.
Yeah.
And so people think that maybe men are inherently bad.
You know, and if you look at most of the atrocities
throughout history, they're perpetuated by men.
You know, you can't deny that.
And so what we do is we equate some of these
horrific experiences and historical events with masculinity itself. And that's a problem. One of
the things that you and I had talked about a little bit ago is quality of outcome as well. And if
you look at, again, throughout history, men make more money where the providers were bigger,
were stronger. You look at just about any metric, you look at business and you look at the amount of degrees
and physicians and you look at these types of metrics
that you're looking at, well, historically,
they're held by men.
And so we're not looked at as,
we're looked at maybe more of an enemy, I guess,
like a common enemy is a,
that's keeping people down as opposed to lifting people up.
And I think the exact opposite.
I think our job as men is to lift others up.
It's a man's job to serve primarily above anything else
is to serve and help other people.
And yet I think there's a little lot of people
who don't believe that's the case.
We'll have an experience that.
Maybe they've had personal experiences
where a woman
in an abusive relationship or a young boy or a girl who grew up with that a dad or an
abusive dad or dad wasn't ever around and so I can understand, I get it, I really do,
I understand it.
Yeah, I feel like when people talk about all the bad things that were perpetrated by men throughout history
and there definitely were a lot of them,
I think if you're going to place the blame on men
for the bad because they ran societies,
you also simultaneously then should give them
the credit for all the good things.
The inventions, the creations of society,
like all the good things that we may have had,
and that is the controversy is when we talk about.
Do you think it's that or do you think it's that people
feel like the movement of like empowering women
over the last decade or two?
Do you think that people just think that message conflicts
with male and masculine?
I think what I said earlier, you know, it's the enemy, right?
It's like there's this scarcity mindset
that if women are to be lifted up,
then men have to be put down.
It's like, well, why can't we all rise up together?
Right.
Like why can't men and women work together
in our own ways and based on the way
that we are created, based on the way
that evolutionary we've progressed
to highlight the things that we're good at
and help each other out,
lift each other up. Yeah, I agree. It's crazy because we're talking now in
collectivist terms like men and women. And you can generally look at men and women and see
differences, but when you break it down to the individual, we're far more similar than we are
different, right? Absolutely. Far, far more similar.
It's when you get to the ends that you see the differences.
It's when you go to the extremes that you see.
You know, like, for example, if we were,
I've used this example before,
but if we were to take the top 100 most violent people
on earth, they'd probably all be men.
Yeah.
But if you were to randomly pick,
you know, 100 people just randomly, men
and women, and you were to try to guess who would be more violent, if you picked a man,
you'd be right six out of 10 times, but women would be right four to 10 times. Not that
huge of a difference. But on the ends, it becomes a big difference, and that's I think where
we have the problem. But even bringing that up is controversial bringing up that there's there tends to be differences and this toxic masculinity movement
I think there's more of a masculinity crisis than there is a then there's you know the opposite I
I agree and I think that comes back to the backlash that men have experienced, you know when it comes to these things
Yeah, but you talk about the violence and we'll talk about the toxic
masculinity thing.
You talk about the violence and yeah, that's the, that's the negative side of
it, except for when it isn't, right?
Like there's times where men need to be violent.
There's times where men need to be aggressive.
There's times where we need to be more assertive.
There's times where we need to be more physical.
And so some of that is maybe taken out of context,
maybe it's pushed a little too far
in certain circumstances.
I mean, you can't have one without the other, right?
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, it's the way that we operate.
And so yes, we're naturally going to be more violent,
but there's a lot of other things good
that come from the same set of characteristics
that could potentially be perceived as negative.
Yeah, I know that we're definitely more dispensable.
A society can't survive with few women, but a society can survive with few men.
Well, it's funny because, and you're exactly right. And society thinks that, or a lot of society makes it believe,
or the narrative at least makes it believe like women
aren't valued.
I don't believe that's true.
I think generally, we value women way more than we value men,
which I think that makes sense, right?
We're bred for war and we're bred to be dispensable
so that we can protect the tribe and the village
and the way of life and that's the way it always has been.
And modern times has certainly changed that
and made things a lot easier,
but I still think the roles are there for a reason.
Yeah, so what does that mean for modern times, right?
Like we don't have, it's far more peaceful today.
We're not threatened like we use that.
Yeah, women don't have to, or men don't have to go out and hunt their food and put themselves
in danger. Women can get a job and earn just as much as men can. What does that mean today
for a man to have all those traits and whatever? Like what are the positives of those today?
Well, I think a lot of guys have lost purpose. And the way that we know this, and we can
see this, is just look at depression
and suicide rates among men.
I mean, there's studies that suggest
they're up to four and five times higher
than that of women.
Why?
Because we've lost our purpose.
I see men who are so completely lost,
they have no goal, no drive, no ambition,
no motivation or purpose in their life.
And then is it any wonder why they're upset, why they're depressed, why they're down?
Of course not.
And so I think first and foremost, we've got to understand that we do have a purpose.
And maybe that purpose has changed, but we can take drive and grit and toughness and
resolve and aggression and all those things that we've used
for hundreds of thousands of years as men
and apply those same characteristics towards the advancements
in our careers, the advancements with ourselves personally,
making sure that our families are thriving,
that we're serving in the communities in which we live,
we can use those same characteristics in much of the same way, although the way
that we channel might be a little bit different.
How do we teach our sons to do those things?
We talked earlier about rights of passage and stuff like that
I'd like you to go over, talk about that a little bit
because I thought that was fascinating.
Yeah, well, so there's, it's interesting
because I grew up without a permanent father figure
in my home.
You know, my dad was out of the picture
by the time I was three years old.
I had a couple of stepfathers coming to my life.
They weren't great examples looking back on and now
of what it meant to be a man.
And so I floundered, man.
Like, I didn't really know what it meant.
Like, how do guys show up?
What's our responsibility as husbands and fathers?
How do we do this?
I had no idea and it really didn't manifest itself
until I got married and started having kids
and I realized man, I'm in over my head, like I'm lost here.
And I think a lot of boys are like that.
If you look at the statistics of fatherless homes,
it's staggering, it's scary even to think
how many young boys and girls are growing up without a healthy male figure in the home.
And so...
I know in some minority communities it's like 70%.
Yeah, exactly. Like the majority.
Isn't that, I mean, think about that.
Well, we're also dealing with the generation coming up now too, just taking longer to grow up period.
So you have kids that are staying at home until they're in their 20s now, not getting their license until they're 20 years or older,
getting their first job. So it's not just men, but both sexes. So it's a combination of the two
things. But see, women have a natural right of passage in the sense that as a woman becomes older,
if she wants to have a family, she has a natural clock that tells her,
well, I better get serious about this
because I'm 30, I'm 32, I'm 33,
like I need to get serious if I wanna have kids
in a family because my body's not able to do this
for much longer.
We don't have a natural biological clock.
Men can theoretically father a child until they die.
So we don't have that alarm clock that says,
hey, wake up and get your shit together.
You gotta get serious and build a good foundation
because you're about to have a family.
And we don't have any rights of passage like we've had before.
So you've got the Peter Pan syndrome.
You got dudes in their mid-30s that are just making money,
banging chicks and just fucking whatever.
I don't care.
I think that's a consequence of that a little bit.
Well, you told me just recently that the Boy Scouts
is no longer Boy Scouts, right?
Right, it's just Scouts.
Scouts, which is dash BS.
Crazy to me.
Like, and they have a Girl Scout.
It's like we're trying to make this homogenous, like men and women have no differences anymore.
Well, and it's, you know, here's the argument I always get
because I've talked about this and I talk about it
and everybody gets upset when I bring it up.
And it's like, well, girls need to learn this stuff too.
I'm not denying that.
That's great.
I think girls can learn how to tie knots and...
That's why we have Girl Scouts.
Exactly.
Right, I mean, Girl Scouts say they mostly just sell cookies
or whatever you know.
No, he's right, they don't do that.
Well, they can play them up.
But they can do that, that's what I'm saying.
They can do that.
You don't need to change.
They can voice out.
They can program it better.
Right, you don't need to change boys' counts
in order to start teaching girls some of these things.
You can implement it into a club that already exists.
But what, but I think the problem is that we don't have
environments where boys can learn from other boys
exclusively.
Right, like if you think about any interaction
that our sons and daughters have,
it's usually co-ed, right?
In school, even some sports events,
and extracurricular activities, it's co-ed.
And there's a time and a place for that, of course.
But there's also a time that boys need to interact
with boys.
That's why I think military service is so valuable.
It's why I think competitive sports is so valuable
because you learn how to...
Probably more so now than ever, right?
Of course, because it's a commodity, right?
It's not as prevalent as it once was.
But I think to answer your question,
you really need to know about rights of passage.
You really need to understand, you know, what is it? What is a man? Like what makes a man a man?
Because a lot of guys will say, well, if you have a penis, you're a man. It's like, well, you're a male,
no doubt. But I think a man goes well beyond anatomy. It's about taking responsibility. It's about
taking accountability for your life. It's about being a protector. It's about providing. It's about taking responsibility. It's about taking accountability for your life. It's about being a protector.
It's about providing.
It's about leading and presiding over your family
in your community.
And that's not an age, that's not puberty, you know,
because you have 30-year-olds that are still
in mommy and daddy's basement playing video games
when they should be out working
and starting their own families
and pursuing and endeavor in a career.
And so they're males, but they're certainly not men.
And so a right of passage is designed to help a young boy.
I've got three boys and a little girl.
My oldest is 10.
A right of passage is designed to help him, my oldest, for example, because we've done
a couple of now, transition into manhood by helping him understand his role
and his responsibility in this life.
And people get upset when I say role,
because the bad word is traditional gender roles, right?
Gender roles are bad.
Well, why do you think they're gender roles?
Could it have anything to do with the fact
that maybe we've been programmed through thousands
of years of evolutionary history to behave and work and operate a certain way, it works.
I don't understand why we buck the system so much.
You know, it's funny when you, and this is, I don't know why this is controversial, because
this has been proven in decades of research that there definitely is a connection between what boys and girls, you know, tend to want to do and their, you know, their biological gender.
Again, at the individual level, it can definitely break down. You can have, and I think they should you should be free to do whatever you want.
Right, because here's one thing I hear is people will say all the time, all the time I get this.
Well, I know some women that are stronger than any man I've ever met.
Of course. It's like, yeah, of course you picked picked, you picked, you, you hand picked the strongest woman you know,
and, and put her up against the weakest man you know. Of course, you're going to find outliers
like that. But if you take the averages, it's just not the case. Yeah, there's nothing. I mean,
again, and we can do this in favor of women also. You take the most empathetic,
emotionally intelligent people on earth, and the most of them in favor of women also, you take the most empathetic, emotionally intelligent people
on earth, and most of them are gonna be women.
Sure.
And it's just, this is just kind of how it is.
This is not, it's not sexist.
It's just reality.
It's a bit of a...
And it's not even remotely sexist
because being empathetic is not an inferior quality
to being resolute, for example. They're different,
but one's not better than the other.
Right.
But I do think people should have the freedom to do whatever they want, but the funny thing
about that is when you do, they've done studies on societies that were prosperous and that
were egalitarian, or the most egalitarian societies. For example, some of the Nordic countries
that have policies that try to promote
and push equality of outcome
and let people choose in a very egalitarian,
you find more women choose more
of the stereotypical gender role jobs
and more men picking those jobs.
When you go to poorer countries,
you actually see more women choosing more male type jobs,
mainly because those are the ones that earn,
tend to earn more money and help them rise up.
But when you go to the, when there's prosperity
and open choices, we tend to, generally,
again, this isn't on the individual basis,
this is kind of a general thing.
We tend to choose these more stereotypical type roles
where, you know, most teachers tend to be women
and most- Isn't that the wage argument right there in itself?
Yeah, I mean most women just choose jobs like that
that get off in the summers and that are-
Or they value different things like they'll generally speaking,
for example, if you had a position that required 90 hours of work,
ridiculous dedication, and basically no work life balance,
like you're just fucking working, you're ass off
and that's how you're doing.
Men tend to pick those times of jobs over women
because we tend to have that singular type of focus,
and whereas women tend to value more work life balance,
which is better, which is worse.
I could argue that the balance one might be better,
but they both maybe need it.
Well, that's the side.
They're both, I don't think one's better,
or I think both are needed.
I think it's critical that we have,
we have both sides of that.
It is so, so important that we understand
that there are differences,
and it's okay that there's differences.
It truly is.
There's no problem with being different.
Yeah, I've seen some of the negative side effects of the current attitudes about men
and women affecting, negatively affecting both men and women.
I've seen women who choose to be stay at home moms get hammer ridiculed, ridiculed by other women. My wife stays at home moms, get hammered, ridiculed, ridiculed by other women.
Oh, yeah.
My wife stays at home and it pisses me off when people say, even women will do it to
themselves.
Like, oh, well, you shouldn't let him hold you back.
It's like, what do you mean?
Since the time she was little, she's wanted to be a mother, a wife, and a homemaker.
And there's nothing inferior to doing that
than the woman who goes out and advances her career.
Which is great too, both are great.
But one is not less significant than the other.
Yeah, because I've seen them get hammered for that
and ridiculed like, oh, you have a degree
and you're wasting it by raising the know, by raising the future generations.
You think that's a waste.
And then, and then, of course, you know, I think people should be totally free to do what we want.
And if that happens to be a stereotypical role, then so be it if it happens to be
one that isn't so stereotypical. So be it also, but this current attitude of
that we're kind of pushing and promoting,
I think is making people less happy because,
you know, you're hammering on a woman for doing these things
and you're hammering on a man for doing these things
that they may want to just do.
And there's not a problem with it.
Right, and it may not be politicized
or they may not be, I've thought much about it
other than I want to be a police officer
or I want to be a soldier and a much about it other than, I wanna be a police officer, or I wanna be a soldier,
and a woman, maybe she just loves children.
You know, and there's no other explanation beyond,
that's just sounds good to me.
Well, I've gotten the other end of it too,
because so I love kids.
I love children, and I'm the oldest of four.
He wants to be a homemaker.
I'm the oldest of four, you know what? I mean, I don't know. Not the wrong with that cell. I don't know if I would necessarily, but I'm the oldest of four. He wants to be a homemaker. And I'm the oldest of four. You know what?
I mean, I don't know.
Not the wrong with that cell.
I don't know if I would necessarily,
but I'll tell you what, like I've been the oldest of four kids.
I've also had lots of younger cousins.
I've always been around children.
I love children.
When I see them in public, I want to hug them and kiss them
and play with them.
I'm a guy.
I am looked at differently.
If I go up to a strange baby and go,
oh my god, let me hold your baby.
There's more reservations.
Oh no, they look at me like, oh hell no.
You're not gonna touch my kid because you're a guy.
So I've been on the other end of that and it sucks.
You know what I mean?
That we tend to do that.
But I understand that some of these stereotypes
exist for a reason, but at the same time,
it's weird.
It's like in our pursuit for opportunity,
we've actually, I think we've pigeoned a
whole people worse and we've held people back a little bit as a result of it. Like this,
let's talk about toxic masculinity first because that's like a big buzzword right now.
Yeah. What does that mean in popular culture and why is it a bad thing to do?
So somebody asked in our Facebook group, our definition, and I said, it's a term concocted by feminist,
third-wave feminist, and those that have been injured
or damaged by men to explain away anything
they don't like to agree with.
Now, that's not the real definition.
Like, if you look at what the real definition is,
it's exhibiting characteristics that are harmful,
or I don't know, I don't know, it's the exact definition.
But the fact of the matter is,
that words are only as powerful as the meaning
we give them, right?
And the meaning that we have given,
especially in pop culture, to toxic masculinity,
is that masculinity, in and of itself, is toxic.
That's the message that's being delivered,
and that's the message that's being received.
I don't agree with that.
I think there's masculinity, and I think there's being an asshole.
And I don't think that they necessarily go hand in hand, right?
Because I know plenty of women who I would categorize
as an asshole, right?
So it's not about toxic masculinity.
It's either it's masculinity, which is serving and helping
and lifting people up and using our characteristics
and our abilities to serve people well.
And then there's the just not being a good human being.
I got the definition up there from Wikipedia.
Okay, I might have messed up.
Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that restrict
the kinds of emotions allowable for boys and men to express, including social expectations that men seek to be dominant
and limit their emotional range,
primarily to expressions of anger.
I think-
So that's just a bad parent.
This brings me to a question that I was waiting to ask
right in any way, which is,
what do you think about this whole movement
with the cry closets and stuff?
Are you familiar with this?
No, I don't know that term. Oh shit, you're not. Well, you know, these colleges where they have
like safe spaces. Is that kind of what it is? Yeah, you called it cry, where people with like, is
it literally a cry closet or something? Well, we thought it was a project like a joke, right?
But it turns out that somebody actually built one and people like are adopting it. Yeah,
it's popping up and calling it. So here's the deal about emotions, all right.
Number one, emotions, they're not bad or good.
Even the emotions that we think of as quote unquote,
negative like anger, hate, hostility greed,
resentment, bitterness, hate, all that kind of stuff.
Those aren't even bad emotions
because emotions are simply indicators.
They're indicators that something's working or something's not quite working in our lives.
So we just need to use that emotion to be able to figure out how to progress moving forward.
If I'm angry, why am I angry? And how can I not be angry? How can I create a situation or environment in my life in which I won't be angry next time?
If I'm happy, great, what's making me happy?
How can I duplicate that so that I'll be happy moving forward?
So it's not negative, it's not that.
Incredible book on what you're talking about right now, how emotions are made.
And that's exactly what it is.
It's a neurological pathway that's been created in your life.
And so it is exactly what you said right now.
It's a nice little flag for you like, oh shit like, why do I get angry every time someone says that?
Right.
The dig deeper and that's an opportunity for growth for you as a person.
So you're right, it's not a bad.
It's not bad.
Now to come back to your cry room thing, I think this is, there's this really weird
trend of being vulnerable.
And I understand it.
I get it.
Like I, I, I think there's a time and a place
where we need to open up,
but I also believe that there's a time and a place
where you need to show some toughness.
That's what it is.
Man up.
Tough enough.
Oh, you can't say man up.
Why?
Sometimes you have to put your emotions away
so that you can accomplish the task at hand.
You know, I spent some time in the military and in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.
If I would have been vulnerable in some of those situations,
I could have got myself killed or other people killed.
So there's a time and a place for it,
but to say that we always need to be emotional
and like this toxic masculinity thing here
that we need to be able to express it
and vulnerable and open up, no, I'm not buying that.
So how do we teach that balance to our kids?
Like how do you tell your son like, you know, when it's okay to cry and when it's not or
when like how do you handle a moment like that?
I think helping them understand what their emotions are telling them.
So for example, last year my son came home from school and he was upset and I said,
what's wrong?
Well, he had a kid picking on him at school.
And so we talked about it. Hey, why are you upset? Why does that make you mad? He was teasing you. What, you know, what are you going to do about it?
And he's like, I don't know what should I do?
And I'm like, I don't know your feeling this and it's not my problem.
It's your problem. So how do you think you can handle this?
And he's like, well, I should stand up for myself.
Don't you think I'm like, do you think that's the right thing to do's like, well, I should stand up for myself. Don't you think?
I'm like, do you think that's the right thing to do?
Yeah.
So he did.
A couple of weeks later, he was picking on him,
stood up for himself.
They didn't get into a physical altercation,
but he verbally stood up for himself,
and the kid never picked on him again.
And I saw him come home from school that day
with his chest out and his head held high.
I'm like, dude, how did school go?
He told me what had happened, but you know what?
We used the emotion of anger and being upset
to produce an effective outcome,
which was him standing up for himself.
But as a father, and I think this is where
we have potentially got this wrong in the past,
as a father, it's my job to open up and communicate
in a way that will allow him to experience and feel that
and learn from it.
Versus, well, you just punch him in the face
and toughen up.
Or maybe the ultimate objective.
Right.
Which is.
But ultimately objective.
Yeah.
So these days, that's typically what I see anymore
as the answer is to back away, go get help
and get all these people involved.
You know, whereas now what we're doing is we're pulling away
from all the tools we're trying to provide our kids
to stand up for themselves and have confidence
and be able to stand their ground,
even if it means sometimes you're gonna take a beating.
Yeah, I mean, that got for bid, right?
Because when we were in school,
I was like, nobody likes a tattletail.
Right, and you would get your ass kicked
if you were the tattletail. Right. Right. And you would get your ass kicked if you were the tattletail.
Right.
Versus like standing up for yourself
is one ass beating, going and telling
on somebody's a bigger ass beating.
Absolutely.
Because it's a verbal and physical ass beating.
Or excuse me, an emotional and physical ass beating
when you do it that way.
Right.
So I think there's validity to the term manup.
Sometimes, yeah, that's exactly what's required.
We just need to help our boys understand when that is.
Now, because you have a very masculine presence
with your boys, is there other times
where you feel like you have to let them,
hey, it's okay to cry.
You don't have to be so tough in front of downtown.
Do you ever feel like they're trying to overcompensate
because they have a father like you,
or do you ever notice that?
Yeah, I could definitely see that
because I tend to be more of the,
hey, let's just toughen up and get the job done.
So I try to be aware of that certainly.
And I try to ask questions more than,
hey, it's okay.
You know, like, it's okay to cry.
I can't envision really saying that,
but I would ask, why are you crying?
You know, what's not like, why are you crying?
But like, legitimately, why are you crying?
What are you upset about?
Why does that make you upset?
What can you do about it?
What should we do to fix it?
So I try to be more result oriented
and just using the emotion of being upset
as a benchmark for changing something in our life.
I mean, I've had this conversation with my kids, and I explain,
well, you know, if someone's picking on you
or someone's dominating you or someone's,
whatever you want to call, oppressing you,
and you show them that you're crying and that you're fearful,
that will embolden them.
Of course.
And those moments don't show that,
and show that you're tough,
if you will, because you don't wanna display
your fear necessarily.
If you're happy about something
or you wanna show an emotion because you love something,
those are good times to show.
But in real life, there definitely are times
when you don't wanna show that weakness.
You don't wanna demonstrate that.
And here's the funny thing, by the way,
this is a study that they've demonstrated many, many times. Those show pictures of men
and a woman will consider a man more attractive if he's standing stoically with a straight face
versus if he's smiling. But you know what's funny about that? That shouldn't be a surprised
anybody. You start off this conversation, but like with controversial.
Like, why would that study even need to be?
Right.
You don't, like, obviously, because women are looking for men who are men who behave like
actors, and have a strong likelihood of being able to secure more provisions.
Like, that's what they're looking for.
That's not bad, that's just what it is.
Instinctually.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're a guy and you want to get like no attention
from women, just cry.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
I don't mean just cry, because you can show emotion,
but you cry, it struggles or fear someone yells at you
and you drive off and start crying.
Trust me, that girl's gonna drive up faster than the fucking...
Well, so I had a guy in our Facebook group.
He was asking about that, not necessarily crying or whatever, but something like, he needed
some support from his wife or something along those lines.
I'm like, look, your woman is not looking for another child to take care of.
So stop behaving like a child.
And you know what's sad about this is,
and I said something the effect of,
when you're in factuation with her,
the cuteness, that's what I said,
when the cuteness of your infatuation with her wears off,
she's gonna throw you to the curb.
And that's what a lot of guys do.
They play the nice guy, they play the child,
like, I need you, you're the center of my universe.
And that's cute to win it.
This is so wild.
It's so crazy, because I had a childhood best.
We call it the white nine.
Childhood best friend of mine.
And we've been friends for a very long time,
so I've seen him date many, many girls.
And I used to always tell him,
like, man, you have this MO.
Every chick loves you, because he just would worship the ground they walk on. They say, jump, you have this MO. Every chick loves you because he just would
worship the ground they walk on. They say jump. He says, how high? And they just would
talk how great it was. And it would be about six months or so. And it was like clockwork.
I could tell every time you meet a girl, and I just, I see where the relationship was
going. And I try and warn them. I came in, you know, sometimes when you're, when you're
such a nice guy all the time, what ends up happening? And I know they're worshiping you and telling you how amazing you are right now
But it never ends or never fails that within about six months to a year
They all then they start punking them and then and it starts with little subtle stuff little jabs
Kind of teasing them a little bit in front of the rest of us and with that
Then it becomes like kind of swearing at him talking down to him and then before you know it
If he's still with that girl a a year, year and a half in,
I mean, she's like literally like,
punking him in front of another-
But he ends up leaving him.
Yeah, and then she ends up leaving him.
And it's like, do-
Well, what I think what happens in a lot of those cases
is she, so we have these energies, right?
Masculine and feminine energy.
And we all possess varying degrees of that.
That's why you see some men who are feminine men.
They're not even necessarily gay.
They just might be feminine men.
So what happens in a relationship like that is you have this woman who's playing the
feminine role because she possesses the feminine energy.
And then you have this guy who comes in who's now playing the submissive feminine role,
the guy, like, I'll serve you and I'll nurture and I'll do all of this stuff.
And then, so what does she do?
She starts becoming more masculine and duped.
She takes the masculine energy.
And so now she's the man, he's the woman,
and roles are all confused and everybody's subset.
You know, it's funny, that's a controversial thing to say,
but when you look at the statistics,
when the rate of divorce in relationships,
skyrockets when the man is actually the guy that stays at home
and the wife works and is the provider.
So it's a higher rate of divorce in couples like that
than when it's the other way around.
Not just the relationship.
I just made it work and they'll say this works for us.
And look, if you can make it work, all the power to you.
That doesn't work for me.
I can't see how that would work. And I know
it does, but I've seen statistics like that. And I think that makes sense based on how
we're wired. And by the way, I'm not saying it's better or worse, whatever works works.
You should be able to do whatever you want, and couples should be able to organize that
together. It's just a real statistic that I've read a couple times.
Now, the question is because of modern times that we don't have to hunt and kill and do to be able to organize that together, it's just a real statistic that I've read a couple times.
Now, the question is, because of modern times
that we don't have to hunt and kill
and do the things that we use to have to,
is this the natural evolution
that we're supposed to become more like?
Homogenously, we're all the same.
And what are your thoughts on that?
I think that poses a very real problem
because what it does is allows the wolf to run rampant.
And what I mean by that is that it could be
wolves as in a potential threat of war,
for example, or a conflict, violent crime.
It could also just be a natural disaster.
These situations that just happen over time
and throughout the course of history,
if there's not any men to stand up against those threats,
we face some very serious issues.
Now, I agree with you,
but I'm playing devil's advocate right now
because then they would say someone would say,
well, we're in some of the safest times
that we've ever been in society.
Like, is it?
And a mom and a mama bear can be really protective to you.
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
And we might be in some of the safest times in history,
but that doesn't mean those things won't happen.
It doesn't mean they can't happen.
And when we let our guard down,
throughout history, what has happened?
Right.
And so I think it's imperative that we learn to be strong,
tough, resilient, gritty, physical men
so that we are able to handle those situations
when they are eyes.
So when we talk about masculinity
and we look at our society as a whole right now,
what do you think are some of the things currently right now
that are threatening it the most?
Hmm, man, that's a good question.
The things that are threatening society,
or excuse me, masculinity,
even most in our society right now.
Yeah, I think number one in South UNI talked about this,
but personal accountability and
responsibility.
Like, we have shifted the blame and the burden of responsibility on governments and institutions
and our jobs and our wives and everywhere else that we can, and we've shocked all of that
responsibility so we don't have to take it on ourselves.
Victim rule.
It is victim rule.
And what ends up happening when you play the victim is you subject yourself to outside
variables, whether that's a
Company that's going through layoffs or a natural disaster or your wife who
Is going through I mean there's so many situations that could happen when you can't learn to take care of yourself and stand on your own two feet
And do you think that that starts in at the home front as dad and mom, or do you think that's,
you know, our schools to blame right now, or do you think that's the message that we're
carrying on TV and YouTube and she like that?
I think it's a play for mediocrity that it's okay to be who you are and that everything's
okay and you're good just the way you are.
Well, that's bullshit.
I'm not good the way.
That's, that's, that's, to me, that's empowering. I know some people will hear that and think, well, Ryan, that, you're good just the way you are. Well, that's bullshit. I'm not good the way I am. That's, to me, that's empowering.
I know some people will hear that and think,
well, Ryan, you're kind of being harsh on yourself.
No, I expect in demand more of myself.
If I'm not better off in two years,
in five years, in 10 years, then I am today,
then I've done something horribly wrong.
That's growth, right?
Right.
Everybody's, the opposite is being fixed.
Like I'm in this fixed mindset that you know everything is going fine. Like let's all just like
maintain this status. There's no such thing. Yeah. It isn't happening. You're the growl
or your shrink. I think I think you don't there's the reason why there's sometimes a confusion is
because people think that that means I hate myself. That's the victim role.
I hate myself and I'm not going to do anything about it and I'm just going to sit here and
I'm going to pretend like I accept who I am or whatever.
I don't think that's the same thing.
I think what you're talking about is, hey, look, I care about myself enough to want to
be better tomorrow than I am today.
Well, and I think part of this comes from the fact that I've been able to do some things
in the past that I'm proud of, right?
Like I can look back in past history
and recognize that there's some things that I've overcome
and some challenges that I've been able to face on my feet
and that gives me hope that I can continue
to do that moving forward.
But what we've done in society is we've stripped away
any hardship, any challenge, any consequence
to failure, and so people aren't faced with certain tasks and tasks that they need to
overcome.
So they don't have any hope for growing in the future because they've never had to exhibit
any strength or toughness or resilience in the past.
Right.
We've also, I mean, we've also made fatherhood look like, I mean, it used to be a proud, a very proud thing
in a goal in purpose, like to be a father
and to be a good father.
And now it's almost like, oh man, you can have kids,
just go have fun, do whatever you want,
or you look at the media and the dad is an idiot.
In almost every TV show, every movie,
the dad is just like moron and you know,
just allundies.
I was just gonna ask, what do you think about role models today?
Like I feel like there's just not a lot of really strong male
role models in TV and YouTube and things like that for kids
to even look up to.
That's why I don't want my children to ever have to rely upon
looking to entertainment for a role model.
Right.
Because they're just not gonna get the role model that they need.
You know, they're gonna get the highlight real
and they're gonna get a false
sense of reality or a false sense, just a false sense of purpose and what,
what life actually looks like.
And so I try to be the role model.
Like that is my job as the, and I'm going to say another swear word,
as the patriarch of my family.
My job is to be the example and the role model for my boys.
So they know how to model my behavior,
and for my daughter, so they know what to look for
in a man when that day comes.
Yeah, and I wanna be clear too, when you say that,
like the word patriarchy and whatnot,
I think oppressing people and being violent towards people
and treating people like shit is bad.
Of course, that's all, I don't even know why I have to say that.
That's obvious, that's bad.
But I think everybody benefits from men
with strong character, responsibility,
and a sense of purpose.
I think everybody, including women, benefit from that.
I don't see why that's such a bad thing.
I think when people talk about toxic masculinity,
they're just talking about shitty people.
That's just the bottom line.
It's exactly right.
It's really interesting because people,
and I'm hesitant to have this conversation
because I know how it gets misconstrued,
but I look at my wife and I with our relationship.
We co-lead the family.
But at the end of the day, I make the ultimate decisions
because the ultimate responsibility falls upon my shoulders for the direction of the family.
And so some people hear that and they're like, oh, you're sexist and you're a misogynist.
And how could you keep her down like that? Has nothing to do with that? She voluntarily
as part of this arrangement, if you will, because she recognizes based on past behavior that I can lead my family
where we want to go together.
So we make decisions together, but ultimately,
the responsibility lies on my shoulders.
I've got to be able to perform in situations
where she and my children are lying upon me.
Now, right now, are your kids too young
for you to have conversations around social media yet?
Or are you starting to have those conversations?
My, my oldest, he's 10 is.
And even my, my second, he's almost eight.
We've, we've talked about some of that stuff as well.
Yeah.
What do you, what do you see with that?
And like, do you have plans for how to monitor that or regulate that?
Or, you know, what do you, what do you, what do you see when you look at Instagram?
And you do, I think the problem with social media, which is ironic, because I use social media,
as well as you guys do so much, right?
To grow up, is that we begin to seek outside validation
for our lives.
And so if my kids don't have a sense of validation
that they've done it for themselves,
I think social media can become a real problem.
I mean, it's challenging enough, even if you are a confident person to be on social media.
Like I am, I'm confident, and yet I see what you guys are doing, what this person doing,
what that person's doing, I'm like, well, how come I'm not doing that stuff?
You know?
So for me, it's really about creating situations and environments where my kids can foster and
develop their own sense of confidence and be able to turn inwards for their validation rather than having
to seek mine or anybody else's.
So do you think that you will allow them to have
their own Instagram page, do whatever they want?
Are they already currently doing something?
They're not, but I think it would be a mistake
not to allow them to do that.
Right, and I have the same argument or a conversation
about video games.
Some guys are like, video games are the devil
and no kids should ever play video games.
I'm like, well, I mean, video games are great.
You know, you learn technology
and you get, there's some social elements to it.
I mean, there's a lot to it.
It can be taken to the extreme.
Just like going to the gym can be taken to the extreme, right?
When it becomes an escape from your real life.
Right, right.
So I don't see any problem with having my kids
engage in social media as long as I'm there
and I'm monitoring and helping them understand
how to use it in a healthy way.
Any thoughts on like advice for parents
on how to teach kind of like that balance?
Like Justin, I love when Justin and Sal share,
I don't have kids.
So it's really neat to hear how they father
around these situations.
Like, how do I teach my kids?
Like, how much time they should be playing video games
and how much time they should be spending on social media?
Like, do you have advice for people
like what you think or that you implement here?
Yeah, so I think there's this aniquated way of thinking,
which is the one that I always come to for an example,
is like, we don't talk about money.
Like, my mom, she didn't talk to me about money.
Like, that was taboo, you don't talk about that stuff.
But for me, I'm like, no, I'm gonna talk about it.
I'm gonna tell my kids how much I make,
I'm gonna tell them what taxes are,
I'm gonna tell them what debt is,
I'm gonna tell them, if we have debt,
I'm gonna tell them how much money we make.
It's so important, I don't know why people didn't do that.
It's a crazy, it's something you need to know as an adult. Yeah, absolutely
And it's the same thing with social media because I'm on my phone quite a bit and it would be easy for my kids to think
I'm neglecting them or just on this little device and not giving them attention
But I help them see it through communicating with them and that is the biggest
Problem I think but it's also the greatest solution
to just about any problem that we might face
is just open your mouth and share what's going on.
So I show my, specifically my oldest,
what I'm doing on social media and how I'm using it
and how it's impacting other people
and how it's impacting us.
I also teach him about boundaries.
Hey, I'm putting the phone away, not just because I said so,
but because this is a boundary,
this is a space where every night we get together,
for example, and have dinner together.
No distractions, no devices, no electronics.
This is what we've agreed to do because X, Y, and Z.
So the more that we can have these conversations
about the way I operate, not just because dad said so
or because I'm the parent, but because
of these specific reasons, they're like, oh, I kind of understand that.
I kind of get that.
Kids are a lot smarter than you think they are.
That's for sure.
Now, Adam, all your kids, do you see any of them push, like, does one push back more on
some of the things or the values that you're trying to implement?
Or they all kind of follow suit?
How do you feel?
Well, my youngest is two, and he's going to give us the hardest problem.
Oh, you can tell. Now, he doesn't push back on my values
because he doesn't know what they are.
Right.
This is two, but he will.
You can just tell.
I know he will.
This tells stubbornly as her man.
He's, it's not that he's stubborn,
it's that he's just wild.
Like, you could tell him, no, don't do that.
And he'll, like, don't touch that vase or whatever,
you know, and he'll look at you
and he'll like, as he's looking at you,
that's the way.
So you little, you know,
so I know, yeah, so I know he's gonna give us
the biggest challenge for sure.
Oh wow.
What do you think about the education system?
You know, we have boys are medicated at much higher rates
than girls are, especially with 80D and 80HD medication.
Yeah.
Boys graduate at lower rates than girls do.
All the way up through college and they tend to perform
worse in test scores and stuff like that.
What do you think about the current education system?
I think there's a real problem that's stacked against
boys, quite honestly.
Dr. Leonard Sachs has some great work on this
and Dr. Warren Farrell has some great work on this as well. Leonard
Sachs is, um, boys adrift is the book that he wrote on this particular subject and why
gender matters and then Warren Farrell wrote a book called the Boy Crisis. And there is,
there's some real problems. Um, I think primarily the biggest problem in the way that we can
address this within the school system specifically for boys is experiential learning, right?
Because what we do is we put these boys into classrooms, we tell them to sit down,
to shut up, to color within the lines, to don't talk, to don't ask questions,
do it the way you're told, and this is the way you do it.
Except the problem is, is boys don't learn that way, right?
Like I take my boys and they're outside and they're throwing mud at each
other and squishing bugs and burning ants with magnifying glasses and and just basically being
boys rough housing and all of that. Well, what ends up happening is these boys get into these
classrooms and they don't want to sit down and shut up. Would you? I don't want to do that.
And so they bounce around. They they get a little right south 37
I still can't get him to sit still in one of our fucking meetings for long and 30
But does that mean you have 80d or 80 HD? I mean, I would I definitely would get the dare diagnosis
You would you would be diagnosed, but maybe it's just maybe you just need to focus your attention on something that's more engaging
Maybe you're boring
something that's more engaging. Right, right.
Maybe you're boring, right?
So maybe at your fault, not his.
Absolutely enough.
But yeah, I think for the school system,
I really see a future where apprenticeship programs
actually become a little bit more prevalent
than they have in the past.
I think there's value in learning as you experience
the process of, like how would you, what do you, how do you mean?
Well, I could definitely see when it comes to trades.
For example, that's gonna become a significantly more
prevalent than it has in the past.
I've said this like multiple times on this show
because like right now you see developers
and you see this whole push for like, you know, software
and you know, that's such a flooded market.
It doesn't make any sense for me
to push my boys in that direction.
That market is so saturated.
And what's left, dude, skills and trades,
that is a dying thing.
It's so important, I mean, it's much needed, it really is.
So I think I can see companies,
and I don't know, I haven't articulated this very well
or thought about it too much in depth
and flush this out,
but I can see companies sponsoring
and providing scholarships for,
or an example of this is.
An example that I think would be what I think
we're seeing right now, which is like big companies like Apple
Getting into like education. I mean I for sure
I foresee the future of like an Apple university and you get you start off there
And then you pick you know, they have so many positions available in the in the company and they're constantly growing
I could see those types of trades that's the experiential thing that you's talking about
It doesn't even have to be the trades.
It can be software like Justin was saying,
it's a demand for it,
rather than putting in these classrooms
in these environments that seem to be difficult
for boys or for men,
like here, come work for us for a year.
We're gonna pay you this little bit
so you can learn, you get the certificate at the end,
which then qualifies you to work for.
I could see that being a much better alternative for a lot of people who may not fit in the
whole school model.
Yeah, 100%.
When I started in my financial planning practice, one of my friends who started at the same
time as me, his whole family, they're dentist, his dad, he's got two brothers, he's got two
brother-in-law, he's got two uncles. They're all dentist and
He he didn't go to dental school. He was going to but ended up not and he went into the financial planning practice and I remember something
He said he said and I'm paraphrasing here
But he said you know, I'm gonna take four years in this business and this is my tuition
I'm gonna make a little money. I'm not gonna make a lot of money
But I'm gonna invest and pour everything I can into this for the next four years,
and I know I'll be better off.
Well, the guy does amazingly,
amazingly well in his financial planning practice,
just as well if not better than his family
who's in the medical practice,
because he didn't have to go in and pay that tuition,
he's not coming out of school with $3,500,000 worth of debt.
Some of these guys come out with that much.
It's insane.
Yeah, I mean, if you take like an oral surgeon, for example,
I've seen $400,000 plus dollars of debt
before they get into the office
to start making money.
You don't even own a house.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I mean, you've got the education, which is great.
But cool.
And when you look at the statistics on what it takes
to even save that kind of money,
how long it takes the average
I mean we were just rattling off a stat to these guys. Do you know that less than six percent of
America make over a hundred thousand dollars a year. Is that right five point eight? Wow make let make so five point eight
That makes you inflated out that makes you poverty in San Jose. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure
I mean if
If 90 94% of the country
is making less than $100,000 a year,
but then 60% of those people that go to college
are coming out of school with $30,000 to $80,000 in debt.
Like how long it takes someone
who makes 80 grand a year to save $100,000?
But it's not even that they're coming at that,
and that's a problem, yes. But that's not the real problem. The problem is they're coming out with $30,000 to $80,000. But it's not even that they're coming, and that's a problem, yes.
But that's not the real problem.
The problem is they're coming out
with $30,000 to $80,000 worth of debt
with no job prospects.
Yep.
Right, like if you had a $100,000 job lined up
and you came out with $30,000 debt,
okay, take three, four, five years, pay the debt off,
you know, that's manageable.
But when you come out with that kind of debt
and you don't have a job, and you can't get a job,
that's a problem, right?
It's a racket, it's a 100% a racket.
Look, if everybody could get a car loan
for whatever car they wanted,
and it was guaranteed, and there were policies that said,
no, we need to give car loans to people,
because it's good for people.
Nobody would be driving a Hyundai.
Everybody would be buying a $100,000 cars.
This is why you have universities
with fucking million dollar libraries
and this then, the other,
and your book costs $300,
and you have $100,000 graduate with a liberal art degree,
which is gonna give you nothing.
That's insane.
The whole market's fucking skewed.
It is ridiculous.
But it's funny because you hear people defend it.
And obviously, when we talked about this,
if you're a physician or an attorney,
you have to have a degree, okay?
I get that, we understand that.
But people will defend and say,
well, I built this incredible network
of other broke people.
Like, tell me about your network.
It's crazy.
Yeah, the market's responding to it though.
You're starting to see, I can,
I mean, I can watch YouTube lectures,
you can call a just whenever I want.
I can buy books online now for much, much less.
It's starting to change and you're starting to see people
go in that direction because they've priced themselves out.
They've made it so expensive and so insane
that you're seeing now these other markets
start to open up and allow people the opportunity
to educate themselves.
And I mean, I don't have any formal education.
All my education in fitness and health
is all through certifications and courses I've taken
and things that I've read.
And I could sit and talk with the smartest, you know,
scientists and doctor in my field,
and we can have a pretty good conversation on it.
And I have the experience behind me
because I've been training people
and working with people for 20 years.
I mean, I've seen this in my financial planning practice,
which I just sold about a month ago,
but these financial planners have been in the business
for 20, 30, 40 years.
They're oblivious to what's happening.
I'm like, you used to be a gatekeeper,
but the problem is now is that everybody has access
to the same information you have.
And so there's no need for a gatekeeper.
And so I would tell these advisors, I'm like,
look, we're dying here.
Like, it's just a matter of time before we're out of business.
And I'm gonna start doing this.
And so I started a podcast for my financial planning
practice.
And everybody's like, oh, it's Dewey O'Neil.
And I started to pick up clients that way.
And now financial advisory practices pay me to come in
and teach them how to do.
I didn't know you'd do that too, so you have a...
I sold the business.
Oh shit, and the podcast, everything all together.
I didn't, so the podcast, what I did is in 2014 is when I launched Wellth anatomy. So it
was a podcast geared towards helping healthcare professionals with their financial services.
Oh no shit.
So I did about 20 episodes and I started to pick up clients and then I realized really
quickly I enjoyed the medium of podcasting but I'm like, I don't want to have that conversation
and that's when I pivoted and switched gears over.
I did remember you telling me that.
So that's how it all started then.
I was going to ask you to kind of,
I know we've been already talking for quite some time now,
but we should kind of revisit
for those that didn't hear the original episode
that we did with you.
You know, how did you turn this feeling and passion
that you had for this, you know,
dying masculinity that we see in our country right now
into a business and a podcast.
Like, how did that happen?
Well, the podcast part was easy.
I mean, I just, I started it.
You know, and people always say,
how do you start a podcast?
You answered the question.
You started.
Like, everybody knows how to buy a microphone and stuff.
Press record.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
So that's what I did.
And again, that was in 2015.
And I got about six or seven months into doing it.
And we had picked up a ton of traction with Facebook group and with a podcast that goes
to doing really, really well.
And my wife and I were having a discussion and she said, you know, I really appreciate
what you're doing.
I appreciate the conversations you're having.
You seem engaged and excited about what you're doing. I appreciate the conversations you're having. You seem engaged and excited about what you're doing.
It's really cool to see,
except for you're not spending so much time
in the financial planning practice,
which is affecting family house, Oliko.
Yeah, it's just what makes our money, honey.
Yeah, and that's exactly what it was.
It's like, so you either probably out of like,
scale back or figure out a way to make money.
I'm like, well, I'm not scaling back.
If anything, I'm doubling down on this thing.
Oh, wow.
And so now when you, was that because you were just
loving it so much or did you have the foresight
to see you kind of were this space?
I didn't see it.
Oh, okay.
I didn't see it.
I just enjoyed it.
I had faith that I could probably make a little money
and offset at least the time of,
and the investment of running the hobby at that point.
Yeah. So I had that faith that I could make something work. and the investment of running the hobby at that point.
So I had that faith that I could make something work.
And so I was listening to a podcast,
I can't remember the podcast,
it's probably like a Pat Flynn podcast or John Lee Dooms,
or something.
Anyways, they were talking about running courses.
And I'm like, well, I can do that.
I'll do a 12-week course.
I'll open it up to 12 guys and and we'll just like see how it does.
And I sold those 12 spots overnight, just boom, sold them.
And it's a 12 week course, and we get about,
um, like eight weeks into it, and the guys are like,
hey, what do we do when this is over?
What's the next one?
Then what do we do?
I'm like, I don't know, should we just keep going?
They're like, yeah.
So I'm like, all right, well then I opened it up.
Just for everybody.
And I mean, that's the iron council,
that's our brotherhood now, we've got 400
and just under 450 members of that.
So explain how the course works and like what you,
I mean, obviously you were just kinda tested it out
at first and it ended up taking off.
Yeah.
What did the curriculum look like?
I mean, and how did you do it?
Was it like a virtual thing?
That's what it was, it was a virtual thing.
We met, let me just think about this here for a second.
We had six topics.
That's what it was.
We had six topics we were gonna cover,
one topic for every two weeks.
And what they would get at the first
is they would get an assignment for that topic
every two weeks.
And then we had a Facebook group
where we'd have discussions about the topics
and the assignment and all that. And then on the second, on the second week Friday, we'd
have a virtual call. And we would just discuss and talk about what we learned and the challenges
and whatnot. That's essentially what we did.
Very cool.
It was cool, man. And we've done a lot since, you know, since we opened it up, we do it
every week now. With 450 guys, it's lost a lot of it.
It's intimacy when we got to like 120 or 30 members.
I'm like, well, how can we maintain
this level of involvement in intimacy?
And so we created battle teams.
So now these guys operate in 15 man teams.
We do challenges.
We just got done with a 30 day wellness challenge.
These guys all competed against each other. Like, it's cool. We do some cool stuff just got done with a 30 day wellness challenge. These guys all competed against each other
Like it's it's cool. We do some cool stuff. Oh, that is cool
Yeah, is it like a one-time fees at a monthly monthly monthly subscription? Is that how it originally did when you first of the 12 week
Or did you do like the first time like let's just no? I did it
Well, I'm almost embarrassed to say what I offered it for but it was a hundred bucks
Well, I mean that's you had it tested out. I didn't know man. I had no embarrassed to say what I offered it for, but it was a hundred bucks.
300 bucks.
I mean, that's you had to test it out.
I didn't know, man.
I had no idea.
So I made a thousand bucks that first month,
which again comes back to what I said earlier.
I just, I didn't make a lot of money,
but I had proved that this is viable.
To myself and showed my wife too.
Hey, look, this is viable.
And she wasn't being not supportive,
but she's like, I don't know, I was gonna worry.
She was skeptical.
It wasn't that she wasn't supportive.
She was just skeptical about it.
And I showed her, she's like, oh, that's kind of cool.
So I try to keep her involved as much.
If guys knew how much a woman had in the state
of order of man,
I don't know how much longer they'd stick her in.
That's funny.
Well, you are a team, you know?
That's 100% right, man.
I mean, we make decisions together.
I don't make decisions without her
because the decisions I make are gonna impact her.
And so she is right to know those things.
We get asked a lot about building a business, right?
Everyone always asks like, you know, what's the most important thing, you know, when you're, you guys are trying
to build this online social media business or podcast, podcast business. And I think what
you did speaks to what I'm always talking about, which I think a lot of people put the
cart before the horse where they're trying to figure out, how am I going to make money?
And what am I, you know, how, and they're always thinking about how they're going to monetize
everything versus do I even have something that provides enough value for people that they
would even consider paying? Yeah. You know, do you get people asking you a lot like that are
trying now to fall in your footsteps and create a podcast also and create a business around it?
Yeah. So like what do you tell these people? I mean, I think you're right. As far as the money thing,
like they're so worried about money. I'm like, look, people are selling the dumbest shit out there
and they're making millions and millions of dollars.
Like, have a little faith that you'll be able to monetize this
at some point and in some way.
The first thing you need to do is you need to start having
the dialogue.
You need to start having the conversation.
Where?
I don't know.
Where do you spend your time on social media?
Start there.
If it's Facebook, if it it's Instagram if it's Twitter
If you enjoy podcasting you for whatever whatever it looks like just start that's number one
Number two is just be like ruthlessly
Consistent with what you're doing because I see a lot of people who will start something and they'll start having some of these conversations and then they're like
I don't get, get an interaction.
People know, I'm like,
dude, you've been doing it for two weeks, right?
What makes you think people are gonna find you?
Like, just go out, keep doing it for years and years and years.
I mean, we've been doing it.
You guys, what, like four years you said, roughly?
Yeah, almost.
Almost here, sitting.
We did it for a year and didn't even monetize
for the full year.
That full year, we're just trying to build a 40
and provide value. That's exactly, and same just trying to build a 40 and provide value.
That's exactly, and same on my side,
it was about six, seven months before I opened that course up.
So just have some faith that'll work,
understand what your messaging is,
and people say,
nobody's listening, nobody's tuning in,
that's good, you don't really have your message
articulated yet.
You don't sound all that great.
Like you guys are talking about your first podcast,
but nobody listens, so it's okay.
Yeah, right.
And I was thinking about that with my first YouTube video,
which I kept on there.
And I looked at it a couple of weeks ago, I'm like,
what was I doing?
I was in my garage and it was like,
I had the camera set up on one angle of the garage.
I was all the way away and like, it was bad.
It was bad, but I leave it there
because I'm like, you have to start somewhere.
Now, have you, I mean, to where you've grown this thing now,
are you still pretty much just you and the wife
that run everything or do you have people in the audience?
Oh, you're still running everything wild.
It's just me.
I mean, I have some contractors.
We have somebody that helps me with podcast production.
I have guys that help me run our brotherhood,
the Iron Council. But yeah, yeah, guys that help me run our brotherhood, the Iron Council.
But yeah, yeah, it's just me.
And then as far as like the different ways that you monetize, obviously you have the
brotherhood, the monthly that you're doing there.
You got a book that you did right?
The book, yeah.
Anything else that you do to monetize right now?
We do some apparel, we've got some shirts hats, that kind of thing.
That's right.
That's a little bit.
And then we do our experiences.
So we do three and a half day retreats.
So I have guys come in to Southern Utah and all of our events are designed to push guys.
Mentally, physically, emotionally, challenge them, test them, give them some new skills
and new conversations and new friends to be able to charge forward with the rest of their life.
Oh, also, tell me what we can like that looks like.
That's really interesting.
Yeah, so I have these guys, they fly in.
They fly into Vegas, I'm about two hours north of Vegas.
So we then we drive them up to a cabin that we've got in
in Southern Utah and from the get-go, it's physically demanding.
I mean, we're pushing these guys almost like you would think
of basic training a little bit,
maybe not quite so intense.
And then we put these guys in teams,
and then we let them compete against each other
the entire weekend.
So there's banter and they're trying to compete
and trying to sabotage each other.
And so it's cool, you know,
those things that guys wouldn't normally do,
but they have a craving to do, a desire to do.
You know, it's funny you just went there
because we were talking off every other day
about what is it about men that we have this natural,
like, we pick on each other.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
You know what I'm saying?
You're saying it's other nicknames that are horrible.
Yeah, better fucked up, man.
Yeah, screwed up, right?
Yeah.
What is that about us?
It seems like it's human nature almost.
I do, I think it's a way to connect and bond, right? Like, I think women maybe have a hard
time seeing this when we, when we give each other a hard time and we give each other screwed
up nicknames and razz each other, but I do believe like for the most part, it comes
from a position of love. Like, like, if you give somebody a nickname, it's because you
care about that person, right? And so it might be a little dark maybe,
or what's it but in a way,
it's just our ways, guys of expressing,
hey, I care about you.
We don't have any say I care about you.
So I've heard theories on this,
and one of the theories is that,
because women don't necessarily do this with each other.
In fact, on our forum, I put, I think I did a post and I said,
hey, we did an episode on this.
And I talked about my buddy who owns a restaurant,
and I'll tell you the story because it's hilarious.
He's touring me around the restaurant.
He's introducing me to his staff.
This is John, this is Susan, this is whatever.
This is Nine.
He's walking through and I'm like, nine.
And I'm like, you don't look German.
Nine, what do you know?
And he goes, hey, Nine, show him why we call you nine.
He raises his hand, he's missing a finger.
Yeah.
And it's like shit like, like if you have an ugly friend,
his nickname is gonna be ugly.
Right.
Like it's real mean shit.
And so I did a post in our forum, like tell us your nicknames
and the women were telling their nicknames and guys were like,
they're cute.
Oh, the girls like, oh, Susie is my nickname.
And the guys are like, yeah, and the guys are like, shorty, you know,
because I'm short, you know, fat head,
because I have a big head or whatever.
And I read theories on this and one of them is that
men test each other with that,
because if you can hold it together
when someone's digging at you,
then we know that you could probably hold it together
when you really need to.
Well, yeah, if I'm outhuntered,
and we're in battle, or something.
You gotta know this guy's,
I hope if I call you a day,
you're gonna start crying and crumble, right?
But I also think there's an element of trust too.
Like, hey, I'm gonna build trust and credibility
because if I'm bustin' your balls about somethin'
and like you said, you can handle it,
then I know, okay, we're cool, right?
So like, I went and did,
are you guys familiar with Total Archery Challenge?
No.
So I got into archery the end of last year and I've been on a couple bohunts, which is awesome.
So they do these Total Archery challenges and they took us up into Snowbird, which is
the mountains in northern Utah, and they take you up on this tram and then you kind of
work your way down the mountain as you're shooting 25 different targets, deer, pigs, that kind
of stuff.
And I was fortunate enough to get paired up
with a really good group of guys,
with some friends of business that I work with,
Mountain Ops, and there was a guy by the name of Sydney
that joined us, and I've been following him
on social media for a while.
He's a triathlete, he's just an incredible guy,
but he's a double amputee.
So he's hiking down this mountain with us,
shooting his bow with us, shooting his bow with us,
like doing everything with us.
I mean, the guy's absolutely incredible.
Does he have like prosthetics?
He has prosthetics at the knee.
And so he's got, he had those little like flexible ones.
You know what's one I'm talking about?
And so he said, he's trying to shoot standing up.
He's like, guys, I gotta kneel when I shoot
because the way that those prosthetics work
is like, it requires a lot of balance.
So he can't shoot a bow while he's trying to balance his body.
I'm just so blown away by this guy.
I mean, I was struggling going down the thing
and I've got healthy legs and feet.
He's got no, he's missing both of his legs.
So we get down to the bottom and we get like,
on target number 25, that was the last target.
And he gets down on his knees and he's going to shoot his bow and he says,
hey guys, I just I want you to know I really appreciate you guys.
He's like most people would have left me at target number two.
And he's like, but I just need to ask you guys don't like, you guys don't judge me, right?
And everybody's like, oh no, no, no, we don't judge you.
You know, you're awesome. We like what you do.
I'm like, yeah, I judge you a little bit.
You know, and he just busted up.
Like he just laughing, you know?
Cause you know what?
Nobody tells him the truth.
Right, yeah.
Like nobody can give him a hard time.
They're so delicate and walking on eggshells.
I bet he appreciated it.
He appreciated it.
Yeah.
Because I was willing to say something and joke with him
because he's a dude just like I'm a dude and we just want to have a good and now
We're closer because there's just a level of trust and credibility
Like if I didn't trust that he could handle that I wouldn't have said that right if he didn't trust me that it was coming from a good place
He would have taken offense. So I think it forges a tighter bond. Yeah
I think it's a hundred percent true and it's it's funny because we know this as guys and it's an
experience, it's kind of a male experience.
If you're in a group of guys and one of them makes a joke or pokes fun at you and you act
like your feelings were hurt and you, you know, whatever, you're fucked.
Yeah.
You are screwed.
They are going to now ramp it up.
Yeah.
And really, two reasons.
One, you showed weakness, but two really,
it's because it's kind of a bonding thing.
And I don't know, I appreciate,
like we talk shit to each other relentlessly here.
Every day.
Oh, and we're bad about it.
Like we'll talk shit about shit that's personal.
Like real stuff, you know, I'm not saying stuff
to Adam or Justin about things that are made up.
Like I'm literally poking at shit that I know is true.
And they fucking laugh and appreciate it.
And they hit me back with the same stuff.
And it's a great time.
It's definitely a great time.
I like the theory that you said about,
it's a test, right?
Because if you're not talking about real stuff,
it's not testing.
But if you're talking about real stuff
that you could potentially be upset about,
you're like, let me see how this guy's gonna respond.
Okay, he can respond.
Cool, I'll hang with him. Well, you're in the military.
I can only assume that you guys would rip each other,
especially out all the time.
All the time.
But I know that there was guys who took it hard.
And you know what?
They had a hard time making friends.
Because they weren't...
And you know what?
And hearing what you're saying maybe maybe it's subconsciously
We just thought this guy's not emotionally tough enough to have to be somebody I want to I want to maybe spend more time with
On that note
What do we what do we think about like what's going on with the anti-bullying campaigns and I feel like you know
That's become a huge thing now is yeah
And work all these words that can hurt you. Have you dealt with anything at school
with your kids with that yet?
Just the one I told you about earlier.
The bullying thing is like,
number one, not everything is bullying.
We need to understand that.
Not everything is bullying.
Teasing is just kind of the natural progression of life.
It's just the way it is.
So, not everything's bullying,
not everything needs to be taken the extreme.
You don't need to ruin a kid's life
because he called your daughter four eyes or whatever.
That's not bullying.
It is what it is.
But the other side of it too is we need to be able to teach our kids some emotional resiliency.
If we can't allow a kid to call a kid brace face or something without saying, well, he bullied. Right.
But not equip our daughter or son with the resiliency to say,
dude, shake it off.
And why do you think that's so important?
What do you think so important to teaching that lesson?
If, because if that is,
Is that life?
Not only is that life, that's like a sliver of life, right?
Like if you can't handle somebody teasing you or mocking you or making fun of
your shoes or whatever, how are you ever going to deal with everything that life has to
throw at you? It's true. I think we should definitely, and we all, and we have, but I think
it's important, I don't even need to argue this, to teach kids to treat each other well
and with respect. Of course. Of course. But the best anti-bullying campaign ever really is to teach kids to stand up for themselves.
Yeah, because you know who doesn't get picked on?
The kid who's confident, assertive, it knows what he's doing can defend himself verbally physically if needs be.
That kid doesn't get bullied.
The kid that gets bullied is the weak, passive kid who maybe mom and dad never taught him any tough
I remember when when I was in I
Must have been in fifth or sixth grade. I think I was I got into a I quote-unquote fight with another kid
And I say quote-unquote fight because it was like a pushing match, you know in school and
We got both of us got sent to the principal's office and we got scolding and I think we got sent home
for that day or whatever it was.
And I thought my mom was gonna be pissed
or she was gonna call us school
and she was gonna get upset with that kid's parents,
but she enrolled me in karate.
Oh wow.
Like that was her response.
It's like you're gonna get bullied or picked on
or you're gonna get in fights.
Well, okay, you need to know how to defend yourself
and handle yourself.
So she enrolled me in karate.
Like that to me was the appropriate response.
I went to a junior high that was just lots of gangs.
It wasn't the greatest school at all.
And these guys would walk around and they would, you know,
they'd bully and punk people and people would be afraid.
And they did it to me.
I had this, you know, I was in the line
and the water fountain, the kid cuts in front of me.
And I had about 30 seconds to think about
what was going on.
Like this kid's cutting in front of me.
He's got all his buddies over there,
they're in their little gang or whatever.
Am I gonna let him just do that?
And so I stood up for myself and I got in a fight.
I got jumped twice by these kids.
And then they left me alone.
And I think
it's because they were like this way too much trouble, right? I'm not gonna fuck with, he's gonna
stand up for himself every time. Right. We're gonna kind of leave him alone. Now of course there's very
dangerous situation. Well, nine times at a 10, those people that are picking those fights don't really
want to fight. Most of those kids that are trying to bully and start, they don't really want to fight.
They just want to assert themselves and impress you.
It's not really like, and so when you actually fight back,
they're like, oh shit, I didn't want to do a fight.
I didn't really want to get hit.
Well, and it's human nature too,
is the path of least resistance.
So, so bullies, what do they want?
There's a thousand things they could want,
but they're after something,
and they want to get to it the quickest
and most effectively and efficiently as possible.
And you represent an obstacle, right?
But little Johnny, next to you, we can pull him over,
which can't take you, right?
So we're just gonna take the path of these resistance.
We're gonna go that way and see that way.
Yeah, you just gotta teach him,
teach him to stand up for themselves, be assertive.
And, you know, stand your ground.
It doesn't mean you have to be violent,
but if definitely, here's a deal.
There needs to be a threat of,
there needs to be that threat there
for people to respect you.
Otherwise words mean nothing.
If you don't have teeth, it doesn't mean shit.
This is the reason why, fuck man,
this is the reason why we have a second amendment.
It's like that second amendment
gives all the other bill of rights teeth.
Without that, they don't really need,
what's free to miss speech if you can't, there's no threat behind, oh, if we take it, what's gonna happen? Right. Without that, they don't really need, what's free to misspeach if you can't,
there's no threat behind,
oh, if we take it, what's gonna happen?
Right.
You know, and that's just life.
And if you, you don't learn that skill,
you're gonna get bullied at work.
When it's an adult, you get bullied in life
by people all the time.
And yes, I understand shit happens.
And I understand things can be very violent.
You can be smart about it.
And we definitely should teach kids to not be assholes.
But one of the best antidotes to that
is just stand up for yourself.
Yeah.
There's a Jordan Peterson quote,
and I'll probably butcher it.
So I'll just paraphrase it here.
He says, you know, something along the lines of,
a nice man is not a good man.
A good man is a violent man who knows how to control it.
And that to me makes a better man.
Is somebody who, a man who's capable
of displaying violence and aggression and dominance and all those things that he may need
to, but knows how to control it and how to use it.
Well, the baddest dudes I ever met were like that. The baddest dudes.
That's confident. Yeah. We're the ones that calm, relax, don't freak out, don't act all
emotional, don't get all angry, don't bully,
don't do that stuff like that
because deep down they're a bad ass, they know you.
I examined that quote quite a bit
because when I first heard it was confusing to me
and I understand now what it means,
what it really means is,
and here's another way of explaining it,
when you have a choice between two decisions
and one's the right decision and one's the wrong decision
and you choose the right decision
because you're afraid of the punishment you may get
for making the wrong decision that doesn't make you righteous.
It makes you a coward.
Hmm.
The truly righteous individual is the one that makes that knows that they can choose
the wrong decision and still decides to choose the right way.
It's the same thing with it's the same thing when you see men who are respected in high positions who have access to
All these women for example, but they choose to not be with them
They could if they wanted to but they choose to be with just one and those are the guys that other men tend to respect
Sure, he's got the choice, but he chooses not to
Yes, if you're a guy that isn't with a lot of women and is you know very
You know what's the word promiscuous? You know you're very faithful to your girl
But it's because you can't get other women. Yeah, that doesn't make you a good person and is, you know, very, you know, what's the word promiscuous. You're very faithful to your girl,
but it's because you can't get other women.
Yeah.
That doesn't make you a good person.
It's just because you can not available.
Now you're, yeah, no other options.
But I think, and that's what it means.
It means literally like, you know, you have the,
you can defend yourself violently.
You can be tough if you need to be,
but you choose not to.
Not because you're afraid or anything else,
but because you choose the right, do the right thing. And that's a good person not to. Not because you're afraid or anything else, but because you just use the right,
do the right thing.
And that's a good person.
Yeah, not exactly.
And I think too, this is really to come back
to what we were talking about earlier.
Why fatherhood is so, so important,
because as I was growing up without a father,
I was weak, I was passive, I was scared a lot,
I avoided altercation and confrontation,
and I think a lot of that stems from the fact that I was raised primarily by my mother.
You know, she did a wonderful job on her own.
She was working two, three jobs at a time to make sure ends were being met.
But she even recognized that she could not help me be fully a man without getting another
man involved.
So she got me involved in sports.
I joined the military,
because I needed that.
If I would have had, I think, more of a follow-the-ly type figure in my life,
I would have been more confident, I would have been more assertive,
because it wasn't always about nurturing in,
are you okay, and how could make this good for you,
which is what my mom provided?
And you need to have that.
You need to have it.
Yes.
But you also need the side, which is like,
you are okay, stand back up and let's get the job done.
And I didn't really have that growing up.
And I think it manifested itself in a lot of weakness
in my early years.
So, I know you've talked a couple times
about serving in the military.
And I did wanna talk about another alarming statistic
that has to do with men, but in particular, in men
that serve.
I read a statistic, and I'm not sure if it's true, that more men die, more men who've served
in the military die of suicide than they do in combat.
I would not doubt that at all.
Wow.
Yeah, so why do you think the suicide rate is so high especially among men and especially
among men who've served in times of war?
I think it comes back to conversation.
We've talked so much today.
I can't remember when we said this, but it comes back to purpose.
So when you're in the military, you have purpose.
You have clarity of purpose.
You know what the objective is.
In a lot of ways, you're told what to do, why to do it, how to do it, when to do it. And so it's very clear. It's very
focused. A lot of soldiers and Marines and just our veterans in general define themselves by them being a
warrior. And that's how they know themselves to be. Then they get out of the military
and what happens. They're no longer a warrior, right? They no longer have anybody telling
them what to do and when to do it and why to do it and how to do it. They feel lost.
And they're lost. So I work closely with a company called a not a company, an organization
that's a it's a nonprofit. It's called American Dream You.
And their mission is to help integrate and transition our nation's warriors into civilian
life using the tools and the skill sets and the characteristics and virtues that they
have developed and honed in their time in the military service and then helping them find
their quote unquote next mission.
And I think that a lot of military members have a hard time finding unquote next mission. And I think that a lot of military members
have a hard time finding that next mission. And we talked about it. Every man longs for
a battle to fight an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue. And without some of those
elements, it's very, very easy to get lost and become helpless and depressed and ultimately
suicidal. It's unfortunate.
I think the answer to that is helping
more military members find their next mission.
Do you think it's similar to what we see
with even like celebrities, right?
They're especially ones that become a celebrity
at an early age and their whole life.
They identify as this famous person
and then that kind of goes away, fades away
and then they no longer know who they are,
what they do is it seems. Is that like a purpose? Well, and again, it fades away and then they no longer know who they are, what they do is it's a lack of purpose.
Well, and it's, and again, it comes back to the validation thing.
Like if you're, if you're defining yourself by some outside validation or outside circumstances,
all of that can be stripped away from you.
Like you guys, if you guys read Man Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel.
Oh, no, no, it's a book.
It's on my list.
Oh, read that book.
I mean, he's a Holocaust survivor and he's a book, it's on my list. Oh, read that book. I mean, he's a Holocaust survivor
and he's a psychologist, I believe.
And he talks about the fact that everything
can be stripped away from you, right?
Like your freedom and your dignity in a lot of ways.
I mean, there's so much that can be taken from you
and your titles and your money and your wealth
and all of
the, your family, all these outside circumstances that you say you value.
But there's, there's got to be something that can never be taken away from you.
It's your purpose, it's your meaning, it's how you show up.
And, and it, it's the same regardless of what environment that you're in, even in the
one of the most horrific environments that you could possibly imagine.
And it's a fascinating, fascinating book.
Y'all are, you guys ought to read it.
It's really good.
I'm gonna check that out.
I've heard of it.
Yeah.
Well, shit, man, you're probably one of my favorite people
to talk to.
Right on.
Yeah.
You see that, you're against it.
I don't, I actually don't.
I've said it to a couple, but yeah,
it's great talking to you, man.
I feel like we should do this again.
Let's do it.
I'm open.
I appreciate you coming on the show and thanks for having us.
I'll be working on this beard.
Yeah, you have a very healthy beard.
It's coming in.
Yeah, excellent.
Well, thanks for coming on.
All right.
Thanks, guys.
Appreciate you.
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