129： Men and Politics ｜ Sean Whalen
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Summary
Sean Whalen is running for Congress in the 3rd congressional district of Utah. He is a man of many talents, but most people don t know who he is in real life. In this episode, Sean shares his story of how he became a man and how he got to where he is today.
Transcript
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Politics. Just the mention of the word infuriates most people and has the ability to split up
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marriages and lifelong friendships alike. What a shame, since our political environment literally
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permeates every single element of our lives, from taxes to defense, infrastructure, education,
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economics, and so much more. Today, I am joined by my good friend and mentor, Sean Whalen.
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Sean is currently running for Congress in the 3rd Congressional District in Utah.
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You're going to love some of what this man has to say, and I'm sure a lot of you guys are going to
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hate what he has to say. But regardless, I encourage you to listen with an open mind so we can prove to
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the world that it is possible to hold a civil and intelligent political conversation.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your
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own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily
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deterred or defeated. Rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is
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who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself
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Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of this
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podcast, The Order of Men. I am glad that you're here with us today, regardless of how long you've
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been tuning in. Each and every week, it is my goal to find the best, most successful, talented,
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strongest, and interesting men on the planet, have powerful conversations with these guys,
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and share all that we can so you and I can work to duplicate their successes.
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I've got a great one lined up for you today, you heard in the intro, because this is a subject that
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a lot of people are scared to have. But if we are to be the men that we are meant to be,
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I don't think that any conversation should be off limits. But before I get into that,
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let me give you three, just three really fast resources for you to learn more about what we're
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up to within The Order. First, check out our show notes for this conversation at orderofman.com
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slash 129 as in episode 129. Second, join our closed Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups
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slash orderofman. I know a lot of you have joined that recently. I think we're up to 38,000 men
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inside of that Facebook group now. And third, and this is only for the seriously committed,
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take a look at our exclusive brotherhood, The Iron Council. I'm going to tell you why
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I call it a brotherhood during our break. But for now, please know that these guys,
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roughly 330 of them are seriously committed to big results in their lives. You can check it all out
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at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Now today, I have the honor of introducing you to one of my
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favorite repeat guests, Mr. Sean Whalen. Sean is a friend and a mentor of mine. And although I
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don't agree with him on everything, I have always admired his candor and his ability to hold true
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to his convictions. He's done everything from MMA fighting to real estate mogul to off-road truck
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driver. He's talked about it all from hitting rock bottom through a bankruptcy, a nasty divorce that he
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went through to what has become an incredible movement with Lions Not Sheep. And if that's not
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enough, he is now adding congressional candidate to the never-ending resume that can only be Sean
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Whalen's. Gentlemen, buckle up, listen up, and let's talk about men and politics.
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Well, I know you got a lot going on. You got politics going on right now in addition to everything
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else. Talk to me about why you would even consider getting into politics. Because, I mean, you look
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at you. I know you. We've been friends for a couple of years now. You're not the stereotypical
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Well, because I'm too handsome. I'm way better looking.
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But I don't know of a dude who's got a full-blown man beard in D.C.
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There's a thousand answers that I could give to that. But, you know, I've got written on my
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bathroom mirror, why not? And that's kind of my philosophy. That's my thought process. That's
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kind of my mantra nowadays is just like, why not? Why can't I go do anything and everything that I
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want? And so when the opportunity came to get involved with this congressional seat, I thought
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about it. It wasn't just some whimsical thing where I'm like, yeah, let's just fucking do it.
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Oh, yeah. I mean, dude, it's just like anything else. I mean, you just got to throw yourself into it.
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But I really felt it. Like, I really felt like I can keep talking and I can keep yapping
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and I can keep, you know, I'm big into politics. I talk about politics all the time. But what
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is that going to do? If I'm not part of the change, if I'm not leading, we talk about leadership
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all the time, standing out front, putting my name in the mix, putting my everything, my
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energy, not just my words and my voice, but putting an actual plan together, then I'm
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really no better than just a critic. Sure. And so I felt really strongly about it and
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I'm excited about this conversation because politics isn't something that you're traditionally
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like supposed to talk about, right? Politics, religion, that sort of thing. But I think
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there's room for it. And I definitely think there's a conversation that we need to have
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as men about politics. So I'd be really curious as, and I've heard you talk about this before,
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what role do politics play in a man's life? Like, is this something, because here's the deal.
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I think there's a lot of guys out there that are jaded with politics and that have completely
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thrown out their hands and say, I don't want anything to do with this. And I don't believe
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that's the correct route either. But at the same time, it kind of seems like there's not
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much we can do. So I'm really curious about where politics fits into a man's life.
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It's massive because everything that we do, I mean, we work and we're taxed. Like, let's
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strip away all of the rhetoric and go down to the basic human nature of who we are. We want
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to be able to shoot something and then eat it. We want to be able to build something
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and then own it. You can't do that in America. Like, think about this for a second. You literally
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could work your entire life, pay off your home and you'll never own your home, right?
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Because the government does, right? You could buy a car with cash. You will never own that
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car. Every single thing from your coffee to your cell phone, to your pipe, to your tobacco,
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to your whiteboards, to your, everything is taxed. So how does politics play into a man's
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world? A hundred percent. Because if you stop and think about it, you're out there earning
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a dollar and there's some arbitrary group of people that are saying, give us half, give
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us 40% of it. And then we're going to do for you. Well, at the end of the day, we're getting
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dumber as a society. We're getting fatter as a society. We're getting sicker as a society.
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We're more indebted than we've ever been in the history of this nation. So my 40 cents is going
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where? Doing what? Is it helping me? No. Is it making my kids smarter? No. Is it making
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my life easier? No. So how are we involved? How is politics involved in, in a man's life?
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So where does a guy like me who, who understands what you're saying and adheres to what you're
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saying and recognizes that, yeah, I've got to have a voice and I've got to have a say.
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Where, where do we get into this thing? Like what's our level of involvement?
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It. Here's a really simple way to look at it. And I explained this last night. We had
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a, we had a cottage meeting, whatever the hell a cottage meeting really is. I just like to
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say that we went to somebody's house. We hung out with a bunch of bad-ass people, but driving
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Harleys, driving Harleys and the whole thing. Think about it this way. We talk about the government
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being the machine. We keep hearing that it's this big, huge machine and it's just going and
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going and going. I'm not an industrial man. I haven't built massive machines. I haven't created
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these big, huge giant anything really from an industrial standpoint. But one thing I
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do know is that every single machine can break. And this is my reality is if you do something
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to an engine in a car, you'll break it. There's a big, huge, massive compressor on the roof of
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this building that's pumping cold air down. And if I go fuck with it, I can break it.
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Sure. And I realized that, that DC, the government is a machine. It is absolutely 150% a machine.
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And so I'm looking at it saying, why don't we just throw a big brick in it and break it?
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Let me give you the, the alternative of that just because I'm curious about your thoughts
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with this, because you could also go to that machine on the roof and you can tweak it and
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enhance it. So why not take that perspective rather than let me wreck the whole thing?
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Because many, many, many, many, many people have tried to, you can look at it from a perspective
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of, well, let's just try and fix it. But we've tried to fix it. It's, it's kind of like having
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your, your arm dangling off. You've had it like severed. It's, it's dangling there and
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we're trying to put it back on with a bunch of band-aids. And what you really might need
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to do is cut the whole fucking thing off and then go to a surgeon and say, a whole team
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of surgeons and say, reinstall this arm, put it on so that it actually works. And that's
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kind of how I look at it is the machine's so broken. There's so many pieces that are
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rusted out, busted out this and the other that we keep trying to replace these little
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teeny parts. And then this will break and then this will break and nothing is flowing
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fluidly. And so you just need to take the entire thing and throw it off the roof and
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So what does this look like from a tactical level? Cause I think there's a lot of guys
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and I've had this before where I'm like, well, that sounds really good. And yet, you
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know, it's more of the same. So what does this actually look like from a tactical
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So for me personally, I've thought a lot about this, you know, taxes and this and
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that and the other, and how do we really break the machine? Cause I'm told the same
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thing. It's too big. You can't do it. The whole thing. When you're trying to like
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play in the same sandbox as everybody else, it's, it's different to get the clarity of
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how to be able to create something different. Right. And so what I look at and, and, and
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after years of looking at this system, if you will, and trying to decide what's really
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wrong, what's really broken, is there anything even broken? Right. What I realize is that
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the game of politics was never meant to be a career. When you look at the founding fathers,
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they didn't come in and say, Hey, I'm going to be, I'm going to, they set up this nation.
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They created their declaration of independence as a bunch of regular dudes who came in and
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said, look, somebody's got to freaking help create this independence. It's almost a temporary
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obligation. It's like, look, let's come in, let's be the ones that'll do this. And then
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let's turn it over to somebody else who actually wants to run it. Right. And they got out of
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the way. And what I realized now is if you think about everything wrong, if you will,
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with DC, if you think about the corruption, if you think about the fact that the number one
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and number two campaign contributors are big farms, so pharmaceutical companies, which are
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multi, multi, multi, multi, multi billion dollar companies for a reason. And then the energy
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industry, when you stop and look at it, there are men who have made politics a career. Yes.
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And to me, that's a problem. To me, that's the problem because as someone who's in a job,
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your natural reaction, your natural tendency as a man is you don't want to lose your job. And so you
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will do anything, say anything, be anything in order to keep your job, which makes sense because
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you know, you and I have talked about this. Well, and our job is to be a provider, right? I mean,
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that's our job. And so if we can provide or create some stability in that ability to provide for a
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family and our loved ones, I can see why that's important. But I think a lot of the times within
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politics specifically, it comes at the expense of other people. Exactly. And that's where I look at
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it and say, okay, cool. Let's just look at it as a company. Okay. Like let's strip away the
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government aspect. If you're the CEO of the company or you're technically this congressman
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or whatever, and what you're doing is you're indebting your company, you're enslaving your
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company to debt that you cannot service. Like you literally can't pay your bills because you're
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so recklessly spending. If you're then going to your employees saying, we want you to work more and
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earn less. Oh, and by the way, we want you to give half of the money that we give you, give it back to
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us. And we're still going to continue to spend it. We're still going to continue to do that.
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That business fails. Right. Period. It just fails. I mean, it's not family income. Exactly. It's not
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economically sociable or reasonable. And I don't care who you are. I don't care if it's a Republican,
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a Democrat, it doesn't matter. It's the simple law of economics is that if you run a business that way,
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it will fail. You will have no employees. You will go bankrupt. We're running the nation the exact same
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way. So these quote unquote CEOs, these leaders, if you will, these smart, educated, sophisticated men
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that are in these positions of quote leadership are literally enslaving us to a debt that's not
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serviceable. We're literally unable to balance a checkbook. Think that through for a second. If you
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don't balance a checkbook, you go broke. If I don't balance a checkbook, I go broke. There's
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ramifications to that. There are no ramifications in DC. And the reason is, is these guys know that
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as long as they continue to support the people that will get them in office, which is, are the
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delegates, which are the, you know, the, the, not your constituency, but the people that will pay to
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get you there, that will pay to in essence, by your vote, by your candidacy, all you need to do is
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service those people. And as long as they're taken care of, you're continuing to have your job.
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And the problem is, is we, we, the people believe that the system is too big. The machine is too big
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to be broken. And I'm a firm believer that we live on a rock. This earth is a rock. There, there's no
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shortage of rocks big enough to drop into the machine. The question is who's going to pick it up
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and who's going to toss it into the machine. Yeah. I mean this, this, you know, it's really
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interesting in hearing you talk. And of course I've, I've been to some degree, not involved, but just
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aware of politics, local and national politics. And a lot of what I hear you saying is very common
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sense from my perspective. Is this willful ignorance or is this wishful thinking when a constituency
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hopes and prays that they'll be taken care of? Or like what, why does this not seem to be as common
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as I think it should be? I'll answer your question with a question. Is your life happier, healthier,
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and wealthier when it's created around simplicity or complexity?
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And I think 321 or 27 million Americans would agree with the same thing.
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When I have a simple schedule and simple earnings and a simple job and a simple task,
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when I have simple conversations with my lover, simple conversations with my children,
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when I allow simplicity to be the name of the game, things work. But when you create complexity,
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now you have anger, you have frustration, you have anxiety, you have resentment, you have all
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of these different things. And that's the system that we have right now is it is common sense. I
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mean, think this, think about the taxes for a second. Like we literally 240 something years ago,
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We now pay upwards of the average American, as an entrepreneur, my business tax, my personal tax,
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the entire thing, 35% or more in taxes. We're born and we're taxed. We die and we're taxed.
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When you stop and think about this for a second, why are we not literally creating a simple one-page
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tax code and eliminating an 80-something thousand page tax code and a multi-billion dollar corporation,
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if you will, called the IRS, part of the government, which is completely freaking useless? Why don't
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I mean, that's a really good question. Why don't we? Because I think, again...
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Because the complexity works for the system, which is why if you go back to the thing on the roof,
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all of these pipes and things and this and this and this, and it's like, well, how do we fix this
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and what do we do? Well, let's just hire the specialist. Well, the specialist is the guy who
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built the whole damn thing and he gets a lot of money to create the complexity.
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Is it that malicious? Do you think, is it, hey, we are going to willfully create complexity
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and confusion in order to maintain job security or is it just built and compounded over time?
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If you haven't awakened people, what happens? I mean, if you think through all of the revolutions
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of history, how did Rome fall? What happened to all of these, quote, dynasties? It's when the
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people became so sick, so enslaved, so indebted that they finally said, you know what? Fuck
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it. I would rather die by the sword than continue to live this impoverished life. Now, we're
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blessed because we live in the freest, greatest nation on the planet. We're not dealing with
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starvation on every corner. But what we're dealing with is an enslaved people. And that's
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not rubbish. That's not some way out there thought. You literally don't own anything in
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America. You are literally taxed beyond what is even fathomably reasonable. There's no politician.
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There's no human being on this planet that can explain to me why it is that we spend 30,
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35, 40% of our hard earned money and we give it to the government. It's taken from us. It's
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taken from us. Corporations are forced to take it from your check. You never even see that dollar
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you've put in the work. You never even see the dollar. It's automatically given to this machine.
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And the real question is, then what? Then what happens? You and I have no control over this.
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And so is it malicious? I absolutely think it's malicious. I absolutely think it's negligence. I
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think that there's, you have really, really smart people, quote unquote, smart people that are in DC.
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Some of these people have college degrees. Some of these people have extensive business
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knowledge, so on and so forth. And literally every single year, our national debt goes up
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every single year. I mean, taxes, have your taxes gone down? No, they haven't gone down.
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Has your healthcare premium gone down through Obamacare? Nope. Is your car insurance,
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is your health insurance, is your, are your taxes on your vehicles, on your home going down? No,
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there's nothing moving in the direction of benefit for the American people, the people paying for
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everything. In fact, it's going the opposite way. And we're letting the people, we're allowing the
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people, we're electing these people who continue to indebt us and impoverish us. And, and I think
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what you're seeing now is people are starting to wake up. And what's really interesting, what's
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really dangerous for the political system as it is, is this little thing called social media.
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Because five years ago, we didn't have it, we didn't have it to the level that we have it now.
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And so the guy who steps up, and this is the reason that I'm getting involved. This is the
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reason that, that, you know, we've talked about leading from the front and the revolution, but
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fathom for a second, somebody throwing a boulder into that machine and then being able to, to talk
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about it openly with a population of the entire country, right? Imagine being able to share
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like what's really going on from the inside to the people. You'll literally have a complete
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revolution. You'll have people that will say, you know what, until we actually have a budget
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that works, I'm not paying my fucking taxes. Now that's considered treason. Yeah. Well, guess
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what happened 241 years ago when a bunch of dudes said, you know what, we're literally declaring
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our independence from the King. They were committing treason. Is there a place in society for just on
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the point of taxation for taxation? And what is, if that's the case, what is then even reasonable?
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Like how do you come to that conclusion? We absolutely need, I truly believe that we as a
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nation should be paying a tax. And here's why I say that is I want to ensure that the federal
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government does what the federal government should be doing. And that is simply protecting
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the national security and our security interests globally, not running business, not being involved
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in the private sector. There's nothing that the government is doing, running, operating from
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banking, from anything that they're doing better, more profitably than the private sector,
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the federal reserve. I mean, people think that's a government thing. It's a private freaking bank.
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I mean, the IRS has, and the federal reserve have done nothing but devalue our dollar and create
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ridiculous amounts of inflation. And call it something fancy, like quantitative easing.
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Dude, we can go down, we can go down a road that's really, really, really interesting for people
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to understand. But you know, at the end of the day, the government should not be doing anything other
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than protecting the citizens. And so when you look at that from a tax perspective, we don't need to
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pay 30%. When you create an opportunity for healthcare to be a multi-state, a cross-state
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line competition, that's how shit gets done, is when you have business competing. You know,
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It's capitalism, man. But we now live in a day and age where capitalism is a bad word.
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What's your thoughts about, and I know we can go down a complete rabbit hole on this and spend
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days talking about this, but education and government's involvement in education.
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The idea that Common Core, I have three kids. I have a 14-year-old, an 11-year-old, and an 8-year-old.
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The idea that a guy in a suit or a board in suits, 2,000 miles away, know what's best for my child
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or your child or children in Chicago or LA or Boston or Miami or Dallas is insane. It's literal,
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it's lunacy. It's insane. There's no common sense whatsoever. We're literally, we, the people,
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through our public education system, are saying, let's let someone 2,000 miles away dictate what
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the benchmark is and what it is that we should be teaching our children. It's absolutely insane.
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I mean, just look at what's happening across the board. Are our kids healthier? No. Are our kids
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graduating and our college opportunities being provided more readily or is it more difficult?
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You know, are kids thriving in school? Are they going towards a specialty opportunity that they're
00:22:00.440
good at? No. I mean, my three kids are radically different in the way that they learn and what
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they're good at. But we test them all the same. We educate them all the same. And so my proposal,
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without question, is to eliminate, uh, the federal board of education. We don't need it. It does not
00:22:16.760
help us. The states should absolutely be in charge of the education. I'll bring it all the way down to
00:22:22.660
the parents, the teachers, the teachers spending eight hours with your child a fucking day. Think that
00:22:28.620
through for a second. Who knows your child better? The teacher or some asshole in DC? It's common
00:22:33.860
fucking sense, right? This is a teacher that wants to talk to the parents that want. They have parent
00:22:39.600
teacher conference for Christ's sake. They don't have parent teacher conference in DC for all the
00:22:44.260
freaking politicians. You literally can sit down with your teacher and discuss your child's education,
00:22:49.680
where they are, what they're doing, how they're learning, what they're thriving in, what they're
00:22:53.800
not doing well in. Think that through. The teachers are freaking powerful, man. The, the, the, the,
00:22:59.500
boards of education, the state level should absolutely be where we run education. We can control
00:23:07.020
that. Now people say, well, you know, how do you do that financially? We're taxed, right? We send all
00:23:12.220
of our money to DC and then DC politicians decide how to divvy that up. It doesn't make any logical
00:23:20.160
sense whatsoever. My proposal is eliminate the federal board of education. Keep all of the tax revenue in
00:23:26.320
the States. Let the States govern that. Let the teachers get involved with the parents on how to
00:23:31.980
educate these kids. They're already doing it, man. Like this is the thing that just, I get really
00:23:37.440
passionate about this because it's so common sense. And what we're doing, just like the compressor,
00:23:42.860
the machine up on the roof, we're putting band-aids on gushing wounds. We're medicating and trying to
00:23:47.200
fix this adult culture of ours and really the root of it. We're just raising more and more and more
00:23:52.360
sheep, more and more and more idiots. We're telling people, these kids sit down, quiet down, slow down,
00:23:57.180
shut the hell up. That's what we were told, right? That's what you and I were told. And how did it work
00:24:01.540
out? We're 25, 30, 35, 40 years old going, really dude? Like, is this it? Like, why am I not happy?
00:24:07.040
Why am I not thriving? And so what do we do? We go to a doctor, say I'm depressed and they pump us
00:24:10.960
full of freaking medicine. Instead of telling these kids, yeah, you're good at this little Johnny.
00:24:15.000
Let's help you thrive in this area. Or Sally, you're really artistic. Let's teach you the
00:24:19.140
fundamental basics and let you thrive in what you want to thrive in. A teacher can do that. A school can do
00:24:24.560
that. Some dude in a suit with an American flag lapel pin who says he represents your child.
00:24:32.880
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Now let's get back to the conversation with Sean.
00:26:58.380
This is a really fascinating time that we live in. And I know you talked about this in the revolution
00:27:02.660
and Donald Trump, whether you like him or not being the tip of the spear as this goes,
00:27:07.360
you have you who's this bearded dude who rides a Harley, who shoots guns and hunts and does all the
00:27:13.880
things. Then you have like kid rock who just announced his candidacy in Michigan, I believe
00:27:19.000
2018. And then you've got the rock who has talked about a campaign as well. Why, why are we seeing
00:27:25.060
this as opposed to your career type politicians? Is it just that people are sick of this?
00:27:29.400
Well, they are. And, and, and what I see happening, the very first thing that I plan on doing,
00:27:34.300
and you know, I hope politicians listen to this. I hope every Congress in America knows what's coming
00:27:38.720
for them because I'm coming for them. Like I have zero fear. Like I've got zero fear going to
00:27:43.860
DC with this deal. I want to absolutely eliminate career politicians. I want term limits period out
00:27:50.420
of the gates. Number one, the way to affect 90% of the change in this country is to get career
00:27:56.020
politicians the hell out. They don't belong there. They don't, that's not how this country was set
00:28:01.280
up. Let's get back to the day where you get an entrepreneur like you, an entrepreneur like me.
00:28:05.480
It's like, you know what? I made some good money. I'm going to take a year and I'm going to go serve
00:28:08.740
my country. If you will, I'm going to go to DC. I'm going to put in my civic duty and then I'm
00:28:13.980
going to come to hell home and get back to work and do my thing. You're seeing guys like the rocks
00:28:18.460
not getting involved. The kid rocks, not getting involved in politics for the money. I sure as hell
00:28:22.960
I'm not getting involved in it for the money. I don't need the fame or the accolades. He doesn't
00:28:26.640
need the fame or the accolades. What you're seeing is a revolution of people saying, dude,
00:28:30.400
this system is fucked. This machine is not helping anyone. And at the end of, of the conversation,
00:28:37.080
if we keep putting the same guys with the same political signs, with the same message,
00:28:42.740
with the same bullshit, I'm going to fight for the people. Cool. What exactly are you going to do,
00:28:47.300
bro? I'm going to go to DC and I'm going to represent my district. Yeah, we already heard that.
00:28:51.200
What exactly are you going to do? And that's the thing. It's just this theoretical fluffy,
00:28:56.920
puffy. Look at me. I looked the part. I fit the part where a guy like kid rocks, like I don't
00:29:01.180
fucking need this man. I'm going to go to DC and I'm going to shake the freaking tree because I can,
00:29:07.560
because I have children in the game. I have three kids in the game. I want to see the federal board
00:29:12.060
of education eliminated. I want to see my children's teachers paid more and have more opportunity to
00:29:19.280
literally affect the future of my child because they will be in school. I'm the parent. I'm going to
00:29:23.780
teach them. You're the parent. You're going to teach your kids. But if we're going to send them
00:29:26.540
to school, why not give them the greatest freaking education, the greatest opportunity
00:29:30.920
possible? The politicians aren't talking about this. The parents are. You and I are. The bearded,
00:29:36.380
tattooed asshole riding his Harley is. That's what I want to see happen. That's the reason Kid Rock,
00:29:41.240
again, dude, he doesn't need the money. He doesn't need the fame or the accolades. People say,
00:29:44.760
oh, he's doing it to boost his ego. What are you talking about? The dude sells out 50,000 person
00:29:49.300
stadium. His ego is fine, man. Trust me. He's not doing this for ego. He's doing it because
00:29:55.400
he's like me and he's like, at some point in time, someone's going to have to drop a freaking
00:29:59.780
rock into this machine and break it. I think you bring up a really fascinating point because I think
00:30:04.780
that there are good men and women who enter the political space and sphere and genuinely do have
00:30:10.940
good intentions. And yet we see over and over and over again, these politicians entering politics,
00:30:17.820
being elected and representing us. And yet we continue to see much of the same. So this makes a lot
00:30:23.680
of sense. Talk to me about something I know you are adamantly against, and I believe we're seeing
00:30:30.560
a change in the political climate, which is the idea of a two-party system. We've seen this with
00:30:36.720
Donald Trump, who, yes, ran as a Republican, but essentially spat in the face of the Republican Party
00:30:41.920
the entire time. And I think generally speaking, Americans are sick of the two-party system.
00:30:48.760
We don't identify with it anymore. I mean, everybody wants to belong, right? Everybody wants
00:30:53.920
to be part of the club or the thing or the people that think the same way they think or do the same
00:30:58.760
things they do. That's natural. It's what we all do. We all gravitate towards those experiences.
00:31:04.160
But what you're seeing with the, quote, two-party system is it's not about the country anymore. It's
00:31:11.320
about the two parties. And you're seeing people that come in that literally will pledge allegiance
00:31:17.440
to a party when they've been elected to pledge allegiance to their constituency.
00:31:23.320
And that's the problem, is when you put an R or a D next to your name, you're automatically
00:31:28.680
jumping on that train, which means, hey, if you're part of the Republican Party, you will do this,
00:31:33.520
this, this, this, and this. You will say this, this, this, this, this. Well, what if those things
00:31:38.640
are not helping? What if those things are not beneficial to my constituency, to my district,
00:31:44.120
to my people? It doesn't, it doesn't matter. You're a Republican and this is how it's going
00:31:48.880
to be done. And I think what you're seeing is a lot of people like me. I mean, I'm, I'm very,
00:31:53.560
very, very conservative in a lot of my views. There's some things that I'm, I'm, you would
00:31:57.820
probably look at me or consider me a Democrat on. It's just simply because I don't believe the
00:32:02.880
way that a Republican does on certain things. And I think that's good. And I think what you're
00:32:07.700
seeing is, you know, a lot of people that are not identifying with the party anymore. I mean,
00:32:11.360
my case right now is we're in Utah, very conservative. The third congressional district
00:32:16.140
is an ultra conservative. There's only 7% that are registered Republicans. So you have 93% or,
00:32:21.600
you know, undecided or, or, you know, libertarian or whatever, whatever. You essentially have 90%
00:32:25.480
of this district is, is Republican, is conservative. But right now today, the polls are that 49% of the
00:32:32.100
third congressional district is undecided on their candidate, which is fascinating to me. I love that.
00:32:37.040
That freaks the shit out of the institution and Republicans. I'm laughing. I'm smiling ear
00:32:41.940
to ear because I realized that there's now an opportunity. There's a platform for somebody
00:32:45.220
with common sense who shares a message. That's not Republican or Democrat, this side of the aisle,
00:32:50.560
that side of the aisle. There is no aisle. We're all trying to get shit done. There's a Republican
00:32:55.540
and a Democratic side that should be working for our children, not for their ideology. There should be
00:33:01.500
one group of people in D.C. helping run, if you will, steer, if you will, the security of this
00:33:07.520
country. And yet we want to arm and then disarm and arm and disarm and this and this and this.
00:33:11.720
This is why I truly believe eliminating 70% of the government and its function and turning it over
00:33:17.000
to the states allows us a much more intimate relationship with, quote, politics. And it allows
00:33:23.900
the average guy, you and me, to get involved and to help steer that in a way that represents us,
00:33:33.840
Which is really funny because, I mean, even if you go into the poll booths, you can see,
00:33:37.740
you can, you don't even have to vote for an individual. You can just press a button.
00:33:45.120
Which is unfortunate because a lot of people will ask me, Ryan, are you Republican, Democrat? I'm like,
00:33:49.040
I'm neither. I'm an American. Sometimes I lean conservative and other times I lean maybe a
00:33:53.540
little bit more liberal. I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong or always just a
00:33:57.820
straight answer. Why hasn't third party worked in the past?
00:34:02.880
Because they've tried to play in the same sandbox as everybody else. If you look at like Rand Paul
00:34:07.380
or anybody else, I mean, he's got a halfway decent message. You know, look at any single candidate
00:34:12.820
who has gone down that path, has tried to play by the same set of rules. And you can't play
00:34:19.000
by the same set of rules. You have to create a completely different set of rules. You know
00:34:23.060
what I mean? Like if you really want to create a revolution, you can't do it the same way
00:34:28.100
that everybody else has done it. And that's what a lot of these politicians have been afraid
00:34:32.520
to do is they've tried to get the same media sources. They've tried to compete for the same
00:34:38.220
airtime as Fox and ABC and CNN and all of these channels where at the end of the day,
00:34:43.460
who's pumping the dollars behind those? It's Republican based or it's Democratic based.
00:34:48.080
And so it's neutral third party doesn't serve any of these outlets. And what's really amazing
00:34:53.840
and fascinating now is the introduction of social media, of the internet, which, you know,
00:35:00.580
thank you, Al Gore, for creating the internet. But, you know, you now have a platform which is
00:35:05.720
neutral. And if you use it properly, if you educate people properly, if you build a tribe like you and
00:35:11.600
I've been talking about for years, you can create real revolution. I mean, I'm on the November
00:35:16.620
ballot. I'm an independent conservative. I'm a registered Republican. So I don't vote straight
00:35:23.820
ticket, but I register with the Republican Party. No big deal. But I'm running as an independent.
00:35:27.920
And I did that simply because I knew that a tattooed bearded guy in the state of Utah trying
00:35:33.160
to go down the delegate route and go to a primary and win over all these delegates would
00:35:38.340
never happen. Right. Because I'm not the good old boy because I haven't been in the system
00:35:42.240
for years and years and years, which all of these other candidates have. So I looked at it and said,
00:35:46.680
what's going to give me the greatest chance to win? And it was, I'm going to create my own sandbox.
00:35:51.780
I'm going to do it my way with my rules. And then I don't even need to worry about these guys.
00:35:57.280
It almost in a way, I would use the analogy of, you know, rocking the boat, for example.
00:36:02.380
And I think the reason in politics that you are not allowed to rock the boat is because
00:36:08.560
everybody's in the boat. And here you are in this outside perspective, you're not in the same boat.
00:36:14.580
And so your ability to rock that boat now becomes more feasible. But what do you say to the person
00:36:18.800
who might look at what you're saying and say, not only is this disruptive, it's damaging.
00:36:26.580
That's my answer to them is if you think about it, one of the primary foundational principles
00:36:32.520
of my company and what I've educated literally hundreds of people around the world on that I
00:36:38.020
coach corporations and men and women on is simply this principle that radical change requires radical
00:36:43.440
change. And you've heard me say this a thousand times. I'll say it another thousand times. If you're
00:36:48.560
morbidly obese, going to the gym and doing four sit-ups and walking on the treadmill for 90 seconds is
00:36:53.720
not going to solve your problem. You're going to have to radically alter your entire life, who you
00:36:58.440
hang out with, what you eat, how you eat, when you eat, what your kitchen setup is, where you have
00:37:04.880
access to food, when you shop, how you work out, where you work out, the type of shoes that you wear
00:37:10.580
to work out, the entire freaking space of your life changes in order to go from obese to not obese.
00:37:17.120
And what we're doing as a system is putting a bandaid on a gushing wound. So I envision politics
00:37:22.980
literally being, I mean, the political system in DC is you've got these 500 plus congressmen and
00:37:29.100
senators that are on this bike. It's not a tandem bike. It's a multi-tandem bike with, I don't know
00:37:33.460
how many tandems there are, but there's a lot of freaking seats on the bike. And all they're doing
00:37:37.340
is just riding around the block over and over and over and over and over again. And this guy will
00:37:41.920
jump off and a new guy will jump on and this guy will jump off and a new guy will jump on. And it's
00:37:45.560
really the system driving the bike. It's leading the bike, but it's going around and doing the same
00:37:50.480
things, seeing the same things, talking to the same neighbors, taking money from the same people,
00:37:55.100
doing the same deal. And, and, and my whole concept is in order to get it, to go down a different
00:37:59.840
street, somebody is going to have to throw a pipe in the front wheel and flip that bitch over because
00:38:05.160
that's the only way it's going to stop going around. Because if you send somebody else to DC in our,
00:38:10.020
in our particular case, the third congressional district who will sit here and say, I'm going to
00:38:13.680
fight for the people and not give you any logical or practical ways that they will alter or disrupt
00:38:20.600
the system. You're going to get the same thing. And all they're going to do is sit their ass on the
00:38:23.940
bike. It's really comfy. It's really nice. There's perks, there's benefits. It's comfortable. They have
00:38:27.700
people fanning you and feeding you while you're riding the bike. And it's just amazing. It's glorious,
00:38:31.280
right? And the weather is sunny and it's just, it's fantastic. That's our problem, man. And so somebody
00:38:37.100
who says not only is, is it disruptive, they're a hundred percent right, but it's damaging. Our
00:38:42.600
country is damaged. We're literally an enslaved people. Don't, don't mistake that. That's not an
00:38:48.800
extreme word. We are an enslaved people. If you stop playing ball, the way the country tells you,
00:38:55.340
demands you play ball, forces you to play ball, they'll put you in jail. How many people get a
00:39:02.720
letter from the IRS and they're like, Oh, awesome. Awesome. Great. You got a fucking panic attack.
00:39:07.360
Think that through for a second. It's not the way it's supposed to be. And so to me,
00:39:11.440
radical change requires radical change. And this is the reason that the very first thing that I want
00:39:15.420
to do. And if this is the only thing that I champion as a Congressman, federal position into
00:39:20.340
the United States of America, the only thing that I do is pass legislation that establishes term limits.
00:39:25.700
I win. We win as a people because that will alter radically. That's the radical change that America
00:39:32.360
needs because that means everybody's getting off the bike. That means it's a completely
00:39:36.740
new system. That means all of these corporate donors and the big money, the big farm who buying
00:39:42.160
these politicians at a state and a federal level, you know, your guy's gone in two years. And so now
00:39:48.500
you're going to have to do it all over again. And what we're seeing is Kid Rock showing up,
00:39:52.280
Sean Whalen showing up, Ryan Mickler showing up, your wife going, Hey, but it's your turn to get in
00:39:57.100
there. You know what I'm saying? That's revolution. That's how you completely alter the entire game.
00:40:02.280
And you do it peacefully. Right on, man. Well, Hey, I know we're snugging up against time. I want
00:40:06.800
to ask you a question. I asked you this. I think I asked you this a year or so ago when you were
00:40:10.560
first on the show. I didn't even prep you for this one, but if anybody can answer, you can. And that
00:40:14.200
is a, what does it mean to be a man doing you literally living the things that you feel
00:40:19.920
like the shit that's burning in your soul, the stuff pounding in your brain, the excitement,
00:40:25.280
the ferocity, the tenacity that's inside of you right now, living every single ounce of it
00:40:30.700
every single day. Right on, man. I love it. Well, all right. So tell us how we can connect
00:40:35.740
with you, learn a little bit more about what you're doing. I call you Sean now. Hopefully
00:40:38.640
we'll be calling you Congressman Whalen before too long. That's going to be fantastic. Sean
00:40:43.000
Whalen.com. You can find me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, go to Sean Whalen.com.
00:40:47.340
Follow the insanity that will be my congressional campaign. It's going to be an interesting couple
00:40:51.520
of months. Right on, man. Well, we'll make sure we link all that up so the guys can have
00:40:54.860
that information. Sean, I appreciate you. Thanks, bro. We've been friends for a couple of years
00:40:58.800
now. I look at you as a mentor. And one thing that I always appreciate about you, and I think
00:41:02.700
people should appreciate as well as whether they agree with you or not, you're always like you say,
00:41:06.480
leading from the front and willing to share what's true in your mind and willing to put yourself out
00:41:11.140
there. So we always know where you stand and there's something to be said for that. So appreciate
00:41:14.040
you doing that. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you. There it is guys. My conversation with Mr. And soon to be
00:41:20.240
Congressman Whalen. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope it caused you to think about and to look at
00:41:25.260
things just a little differently. I know that you're not going to agree with everything that
00:41:28.740
Sean and I talked about, but that's not really the point of the show. The point is that we start
00:41:32.740
thinking about and having some more conversations about the things that are impacting every single
00:41:38.280
element of our lives, and that's politics. If you need the links and the notes for this show,
00:41:42.660
head to orderofman.com slash 129 and make sure that while you're there checking out those notes
00:41:48.340
that you also take a look at our exclusive brotherhood I told you about during the break. This just may be
00:41:53.900
the resource of brothers that you have been on the lookout for. I know that for me, finding other
00:41:59.600
men who are interested in succeeding on their own and also interested in helping me succeed has been
00:42:05.660
a challenge over the past three years for me. So if that's been a challenge for you, this might be
00:42:10.740
exactly what you're looking for. Head to orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Guys, I will look forward to
00:42:15.960
talking with you on Friday for our Friday Field Notes, but until then, take action and become the man you
00:42:21.040
are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of
00:42:27.160
your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.