A man who can't or won't or is incapable of providing for his family is abdicating a core responsibility. A man who keeps the lights on and food on the table, but has no vision for the people inside the house, is not providing.
00:05:25.920Are you using work busyness as an excuse to avoid hard conversations at home?
00:05:33.560Are you buying things for your kids instead of spending time with them?
00:05:39.540And if that's the case, then call it what it is.
00:05:42.320If you're working nonstop, even though you might have enough family household income
00:05:46.980and you're not catching little Timmy's baseball game and little Susie's dance recital,
00:05:51.960are you really stepping into the full measure of what it means to be a man? I would argue no.
00:05:58.380So number one is financial provision. Number two, physical provision. The protector, we're
00:06:02.800going to overlap into the protection category a little bit and also the builder. A man who
00:06:07.420provides physically should do it in two directions, outward and inward. Outward means protection. So
00:06:14.400I'm not going to get too much into that because that falls into a different realm, but it's safety.
00:06:18.420It's that raw, primal, ancient role that we as men have had.
00:06:26.240It's the one who stands between his family and danger.
00:06:29.500There's a great quote, and I can't remember where I heard it, and I'll probably butcher it, but let me see if I can remember it.
00:06:34.340The real man gains renown by standing between his family and fate, absorbing the blows of fate with equanimity.
00:06:44.400I think I got that a little wrong. Let me try that again. The real man gains renown by standing
00:06:49.520between his family and destruction, absorbing the blows of fate with equanimity. I did get that one
00:06:57.180right. That's a great quote. And that is our role as provider. In 2026, that doesn't always mean
00:07:04.780that he's going to be fighting off the wolves at the gate necessarily, but it means knowing what's
00:07:09.480happening in your neighborhood. It means being situationally aware when you're out with your
00:07:14.200family, sitting in the right place at the restaurant that you're out at, having a plan
00:07:19.900when things go wrong, when there's a fire or natural disaster or emergency, because they will
00:07:25.160go wrong. But it also means that your body is a tool of provision. A man who neglects his health
00:07:33.200and his physical well-being who lets himself go he's put too many pounds on who doesn't train
00:07:41.240who doesn't sleep uh who runs himself into the ground is slowly removing himself from the
00:07:48.720equation and when you create that vacuum you're allowing other dangerous circumstances and
00:07:54.520situations to take place all right you cannot pour from an empty cup if if your body is failing
00:08:03.640then so is your capacity to show up for everybody who depends on you that's the outward side of
00:08:10.020things the inward side means the home itself it's the environment it's taking pride in your space
00:08:16.820it's being able to fix the things that are broken you can build and you can maintain and you can
00:08:22.500improve your home, your fortress. It's providing something real for your family, something tangible,
00:08:29.620something they use, something that is important to them. And there's dignity. I think there's
00:08:35.280respect in a well-kept home. You know, that might be taking care of the yard or taking care of the
00:08:42.820vehicles or, you know, fixing that leaky faucet. And I'm not saying you have to do everything.
00:08:48.380some of the financial provision comes into play but you should be capable of doing some of the
00:08:52.700things or at least paying for it to get done there there's a message i think that gets sent
00:08:59.160out to your family and the rest of your community when you are a dad who knows how to handle things
00:09:05.120so here's your note for this one here's your task what in your home physical or otherwise have you
00:09:12.460left broken and just fix one thing this weekend, one small, simple thing, not because it's glamorous,
00:09:18.680but because that's what provision actually looks like. All right, let's get to number three. This
00:09:24.280one's the hard one for a lot of guys. It's, it's challenging. It's emotional provision.
00:09:29.600This is the one that trips most men up emotional provision, being present, being safe to come to
00:09:35.860how many women do you know who want a safe man, not a weak man, not a cowardly man, not even a
00:09:42.140nice man but a safe man and notice a safe man doesn't mean that you're weak or cowardly or
00:09:47.820overly nice it means that you're capable it also means being a man whose wife and children actually
00:09:57.240feel seen and here's a hard truth about this your family can feel and you've probably felt this too
00:10:04.480feel completely alone in a house full of people how many of you have felt this where you've had
00:10:10.500so many people around you but you're still lonely if you're physically in the room but
00:10:17.280emotionally checked out you know staring at your phone half watching tv always somewhere else in
00:10:24.840your head i was like that you know i'd sit at the dinner table and be there physically but i'm
00:10:29.620tapped out i'm thinking about business and other things you know it also might be engaging in the
00:10:36.720vices that tempt you pornography alcohol drug abuse alcohol abuse was a thing that got me
00:10:42.180and it really drove a wedge between my family and their emotional safety and provision
00:10:49.180if that's you you're not providing for them emotionally this is what it looks like it's
00:10:55.100your wife being able to bring you a concern or a hard conversation without you shutting it down
00:11:02.160or dismissing her or blowing up it's your kids knowing that when something freaks them out or
00:11:09.820scares them or confuses them that you are the person they come to not their friends not the
00:11:17.000internet not some other teacher or something that you don't know if it's going to lead them astray
00:11:22.520but you it's being able to sit with someone in pain without immediately trying to fix it
00:11:31.320sometimes provision is just sitting there and being there now and and this is this is a really
00:11:37.940important part here emotional provision requires that you actually deal with your own shit guys
00:11:45.380this is this is a struggle for me like i just want to bury bury all that stuff that i'm dealing
00:11:51.820with personally and i'm good with showing up and i want to show up for people but a man even myself
00:11:57.060And many of you who have never processed our own wounds, our own fears, our failures, our shortcomings, our inadequacies, those men, and I've done this before, some speaking from experience, we're going to flinch every time someone else near us is in pain.
00:12:16.920Right? You'll go cold or you'll go hot. That's what I did. You know, you blow up, go cold or hot, or you'll disappear.
00:12:22.580and it's not because you're a bad man it's because he's not taking care of himself
00:12:31.160he hasn't addressed what he needs to address and you can't give like i said earlier what you don't
00:12:37.400have emotional provision starts with emotionally investing in yourself so having a good band of
00:12:46.740brothers joining our group the iron council uh spending time with other men reflecting pondering
00:12:54.100thinking reading scripture uh addressing the the childhood wounds that you've been dealing with
00:13:00.280so this week what i want you to do or even over the weekend is ask one person that you love
00:13:05.400a real question not like hey how are you or hey how was school like a real question
00:13:11.720what's one thing that you're afraid of what's one thing that you're excited about if the rest of the
00:13:18.940year went perfectly what would that look like for you and then just listen don't fix it don't
00:13:25.540redirect don't dismiss them don't make it about you just be present for their answer and if you
00:13:32.500do that every day with everybody under your roof your family dynamic will change it has for me as
00:13:38.540i've done that with my kids over the past well really three years really heavy now all right
00:13:44.040number four guys intellectual provision this one gets overlooked entirely but this is a man who's
00:13:51.460intellectually alive who reads who thinks who ponders who studies who wrestles with ideas who
00:13:57.960debates who's developed his own convictions he provides something that can't be bought and that's
00:14:06.040being a mind worth following you know and when you think about the great thinkers of our time
00:14:12.100Jordan Peterson Arthur Brooks some of these individuals and you think about Marcus Aurelius
00:14:18.100and Aristotle and Socrates and Epictetus these are men who are worth following now they weren't
00:14:25.020in the warrior class necessarily even with Jordan Peterson and Arthur I don't look at those men as
00:14:29.780the warrior archetype, but they are men worth following to some degree. And we should strive
00:14:36.660to be like that. And I even take somebody like Jocko Willink, who obviously is part of the
00:14:42.800warrior class, the warrior archetype, but he's also extremely intelligent, very well read,
00:14:49.960researches, thoughtful. He's the guy who gets it. You can be part of the warrior class,
00:14:55.840that protector class and still be a mind worth following and your children are watching how you
00:15:02.820engage with the world do you think critically do you have opinions that you can defend
00:15:08.020respectfully do you read do you learn are you curious are you asking questions intellectual
00:15:15.080provision means that you're prepared so that when your kids come home with a question about the
00:15:20.340world or about history or about right and wrong or what to believe or what not to believe and
00:15:25.540why you can actually engage them. I mean, how many times did you grow up and you're like, Hey mom,
00:15:30.900Hey dad, why is this? And they're like, I don't know. It just is. Or Hey, why do we do it this
00:15:35.700way? I don't know. We've always done it that way. Those answers don't count for you. Now, look,
00:15:41.520you don't have to have all the answers. The other day I was driving down the road with my youngest
00:15:44.940son and he was asking about how earthquakes happen. And I know generally the tectonic plates
00:15:51.280are shaking, but I didn't have very specific answers. And so we pulled up a chat GPT. We were
00:15:56.640driving down the road, pulled it up and asked how do earthquakes form or start. And it gave us the
00:16:01.620answer. And then he's like, what about black holes? And I asked chat GPT, what about black
00:16:05.240holes? And it gave us the answer. And he said, what about quicksand? And I asked chat GPT about
00:16:09.060quicksand and it gave us the answer. And that was an actually really fun way to spend a 30 minute
00:16:15.380drive. He was thinking about things. He was learning, he was listening, but he was seeing
00:16:19.600me do it to learning and asking him questions and coming up with new topics. We need to be men who
00:16:27.060think about things. How many guys do you know who don't think about things? They just live their
00:16:34.700life by default, not really contemplating politics or culture or entertainment or media or the cosmos
00:16:42.880or spirituality and their relationship with god just the the extent of their their thinking is
00:16:52.400should i watch this netflix documentary or that netflix show should even a documentary might be
00:16:57.000even a little better or should i follow that account on instagram or follow this account or
00:17:00.880should i be entertained by this guy on a podcast or that guy on a podcast be a guy who thinks
00:17:05.560you know there's a version of a man who provides financially he protects maybe even physically he
00:17:11.660he might even show up emotionally but he's never developed rich deep meaningful ideas
00:17:20.980no philosophy no framework no like deeply rooted convictions that he can actually articulate to
00:17:29.140people and that guy's family doesn't have a leader they have a manager potentially hey i'll manage
00:17:34.760your schedule i'll manage the income coming in and going out i'll manage what you can and can't
00:17:39.200do I'll manage the discipline side of things but that's not leading so what I want you to do this
00:17:43.840weekend or this week moving forward is to pick one book one topic one idea that you've been meaning
00:17:50.780to learn about and engage with and maybe even include your children in it 15 minutes a day
00:17:56.800that's all it takes and that compounds into something real over a month over a year over
00:18:02.660five years over a decade all right next we've got three more three more yeah three more spiritual
00:18:09.180provision. This is the, the, the dad and the, and the husband who is the anchor in the storm
00:18:14.300and there will be storms and you need to be anchored to something real. So whether you're
00:18:19.240a religious man or not, this applies to you because spiritual provision is about meaning
00:18:25.500and purpose and transcendence to something higher and more important than just yourself.
00:18:32.400The world does not revolve around you. And if you can lead that way and show your kids and your
00:18:36.960wife that, they will know that too. It's about being the man in your home who holds the bigger
00:18:43.420picture, who doesn't completely fall apart when circumstances fall apart because he can see the
00:18:49.960long-term vision. He can see the grand scheme of things. There's been so many times in my life
00:18:55.340where, you know, I thought it was the end of the world. An argument with my wife, frustrations with
00:19:00.720my kids maybe one of my kids does something dumb at school you know maybe we have some financial
00:19:06.720issues maybe there's some animosity and contention in the larger extended family and so we we crumble
00:19:16.580sometimes and we fall apart and we expect our wives to do it or our kids to step up or whatever
00:19:21.400and it's like it's it doesn't work you have to be able to provide the anchor when the storm
00:19:28.560rolls in and for many men myself included this is deeply tied to faith to god to prayer to
00:19:38.000scripture even to a community of belief which is what i would call religion and if that's you then
00:19:44.960you're leading your family in that or are you just taking it easy and coasting and hoping that
00:19:49.100somebody else like you're outsourcing the spiritual provision to a pastor or to a clergy or even the
00:19:54.380bible i'm not saying that's bad that we get those other people and resources involved obviously
00:20:00.420reading the bible is important but you have to lead it's not just attending church but it's
00:20:05.340leading it's praying with your kids over food or at the beginning of the day or the end of the day
00:20:10.200or even going on a trip it's modeling what it what it looks like to live by something bigger than
00:20:15.760yourself and for other guys spiritual provision is more philosophical it's about having a code
00:20:23.140boundaries a set of non-negotiables a clear sense of what your family stands for and what it what it
00:20:31.740won't tolerate but either way the question is the same is there an anchor in your home and are you
00:20:38.620the anchor so when your kid comes home from school and is dealing with you know maybe a classmate
00:20:46.000dies i've had that happen or or or there's a failure at school or a fear something they're
00:20:52.320afraid of or concerned about or confused about? Is there a framework in your home that helps
00:20:57.940them make sense of the suffering that they're going to deal with? When your wife is discouraged
00:21:03.100and frustrated and had a long day, whether she's out in the workforce or working at home, do you
00:21:08.440have a source of something deeper to draw from? Not just your own ideas, but something
00:21:16.620objective something just absolute that you can lean into so i want you to write down three core
00:21:26.700beliefs these could be faith-based they could be philosophical based but three core beliefs
00:21:31.720or values that you want to define in your family you can't see it but there's a code of conduct
00:21:36.760over my shoulder on this wall it's just out of frame and that's a code of conduct that me and
00:21:41.580my two oldest boys put together at one of our events. I need to update that with my two other
00:21:46.920kids as well. But I don't want you to write down beliefs or values that you just inherited
00:21:52.180without thinking about it. You know, ones that you saw on TV or that I had or somebody else had,
00:21:58.560but ones that you and your family have chosen and can defend. And then ask yourself,
00:22:04.880do my daily actions reflect these beliefs and values all right number six time provision
00:22:13.000and this is the the one thing right that money cannot replace it's time it's the ultimate
00:22:19.040non-renewable resource it's finite you will run out of it now we can leverage it we can use it
00:22:26.340more effectively but you will run out of time and here's the sobering math okay if your kid is eight
00:22:32.160years old you have roughly 10 years before they leave your home so my oldest just turned 18 he's
00:22:41.080going to be gone before long my youngest just turned 10 so i have less than eight years at
00:22:46.060this point with him but even even more visceral i think is you don't have just 10 years you have 10
00:22:54.780summers because you don't really see your kids as much as you do in the sun and in the school year
00:22:59.960as you do in the summer you have 10 summers you have 10 christmases
00:23:07.560you have 10 birthday candles or times to light the cake and and the candle that's not