DAVID WALDY ｜ How to Build Fierce Empathy
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Summary
In this episode, my guest David Walde joins me to make the case for men adding a level of fierce empathy into their lives. Empathy is likely a word that conjures up some unnecessary softness or even weakness for a lot of men, but there is nothing weak about being empathetic. And it certainly does not mean you need to allow others to wallow in their own self-pity or walk all over you. In fact, when utilized correctly, empathy can be a powerful tool for realizing your full potential and influencing others positively along their own path.
Transcript
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Empathy. It's likely a word that conjures up some unnecessary softness or even weakness for a lot
00:00:06.660
of men, but there's nothing weak about being empathetic. And it certainly does not mean you
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need to allow others to wallow in their own self-pity or walk all over you. In fact, when
00:00:17.840
utilized correctly, empathy can be a powerful tool for realizing your full potential and influencing
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others positively along their own path. My guest today, David Walde, joins me to make the case for
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men adding a level of what he calls fierce empathy into their lives. We talk about what
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empathy really means, why we lie to others and ourselves, how to stop lying, learning to heal
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yourself strategically and tactically, borrowing from other people's successes, and how to craft
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and utilize a brand new identity for who you are. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest,
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embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back
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up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient,
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strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,
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and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Michler. I'm your host and the founder.
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If you're joining us for the very first time today, welcome. This is a podcast for men. That's it.
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My goal is to help reclaim and restore masculinity in a society that is increasingly dismissive of it
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and, if not downright, attacking what it means to be a man, trying to reframe it, redefine it,
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undermine it, erode it, and rip it away from society. I'm going to fight against that. Millions of you
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who've already tuned into the podcast and joined our programs and courses in supporting us in some
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way are banding with a mission to reclaim and restore masculinity, and I want you here as well.
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Now, guys, I've got a great conversation for you lined up. I do want to just give a shout out to
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Okay. So before we get into the rest of the conversation, just want to let you know that
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do. Again, montananifecompany.com. Use the code ORDER OF MAN at checkout. Guys, let me introduce you to
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my guest today. His name is David Walde. He is a leading voice on empathy, emotional intelligence,
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and people-first business strategies. David is a speaker. He's a high-performance coach,
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an author, and he's also a consultant to individuals, businesses, and very, very successful
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executives across the globe. And he's identified and created a framework for maximizing potential
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and enlisting others in the journey called the Four Pillars of the Fierce Empathy Framework.
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He's worked with leaders and entrepreneurs in 40 different countries. He's shared the stage with
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powerhouses like Tony Robbins, Demi Tebow, and Russell Brunson, to name a few. Enjoy this one,
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guys. What do you mean by Fierce Empathy? I know that's a term that you throw around and you use,
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and so I'm very curious what that means because I think a lot of guys know it's important to be
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empathetic, but maybe have some negative or softer connotations when they think about being empathetic.
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Absolutely. Yeah, so it's a great question, Ryan. So if I go back through my history,
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when I first took, you know, we hear about personality tests and different things like
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that, right? Some people are familiar with CliftonStrengthsFinders, you've got MBTI,
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you've got Enneagram. There's a lot of different personality tests. When I was 15, I took my first
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test, and that was not something that the results, I was not very thrilled about because
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every single one of my top strengths, which was communicated to me, were hardwired, were all of
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these what we call soft skills. My number one was empathy. And for any guy that's listening,
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you can imagine being a 15-year-old kid who's hyper-competitive and loves to, you know,
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loves to get out there and make things happen. I was very athletic. I was an outdoors kid. I grew
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up in Kansas, so hunting, fishing, loving every day. You don't want to find out that your number one
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strength is this squishy word called empathy. And so for me, there was this tremendous resentment
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for many, many years. And I ended up taking that same test by CliftonStrengthsFinders over the course
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of 15 years, basically in five-year intervals. And what was interesting, Ryan, is that it never
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changed. My number one strength was always empathy. No matter how hard I tried to escape it, I was like,
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okay, God, what is going on here? Why is it that I have this gift that feels like I'm constantly
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taken advantage of? I'm constantly used. I'm constantly being all things to all people.
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And so my construct and understanding of what empathy was, I didn't realize was very skewed.
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It was very, very skewed because to me, empathy was this very soft, very genteel, very emotional,
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very huggy type of word, if you will. And so I didn't understand that for most of my life,
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the way that I understood empathy was actually a form of enablement, is that I wasn't actually
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being honest with people. I was saying all the right things. I was able to wear the masks. I was
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able to show up and be exactly who I needed to be because I convinced myself like that was the best
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way to love people, is to help people. And so fierce empathy didn't come until much later where
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I started to understand that my perspective on empathy needed some modification. And I realized
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that I had been lying to myself. I had been lying to other people. I didn't have any courage. I was
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terrified of what speaking the hard truth and love might actually look like because of the fear of
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rejection, because of wondering whether or not people are going to accept me or allow me to be a
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part of the crew anymore. And so it was this discovery process to where eventually I have a working
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definition now, Ryan, fierce empathy is being fiercely committed to what you believe, but simultaneously
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being willing to create an environment where others feel seen, heard, understood, known,
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and loved. And so what that looks like is that if you and I are in relationship, and that's the
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foundation, we have to have relationship. We live in a world where everyone thinks that you can hold
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each other accountable with no relationship. You can call people out on their shit. You can try.
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I mean, that's just unsolicited advice and nobody ever in the history of mankind has appreciated
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Because we don't understand that in the world we live in for some reason as a culture. And so
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in the context of relationship, if I truly love you, Ryan, you don't want someone who's always
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telling you what you want to hear, right? None of us need that as men. We need men around us who have
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the courage to say, bro, I love you. I see you. I hear you. But you need to be aware of this. And I need
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to speak some hard truth right now that you desperately need to hear because your perspective
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is skewed or because you're making some poor choices. You're not in alignment with the standards
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that you've set for yourself that you've communicated to me. And as your brother, I'm going to speak the
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hard truth and love. So that's where the fierceness comes is saying, I'm going to be fiercely committed
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to speak the hard truth and love and to cling to what I believe and enter a dialogue. But I'm also going
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to make sure that I'm creating this environment where there's safety, which a lot of times we as
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men, we don't really do that. It makes a lot of sense. And as you were talking about those things
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and how you define empathy versus fierce empathy, I can't help but think that you, at some point,
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maybe even you have called yourself this one of these recovering nice guys.
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Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I just, I heard some things that you had said in that definition. I thought
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to myself, oh, this is somebody who you got walked on, you got stepped on, you got pushed around.
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The interesting thing about the nice guy is there's a misconception. I believe that this is
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a passive, cowardly, timid weakling. And maybe there's some element of that, but more than anything,
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this is a manipulative person who is very, very selfish, but they don't display it in what we would
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generally consider a selfish, braggadocious, arrogant way. They're a lot more subtle about
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it. And it paints itself as kindness when in all reality, it's just selfishness.
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It is a hundred percent. It's a false humility. It's, it's, it is the nice guy syndrome. And there's
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a great book on that. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I'm sure you're familiar with is a great one, but
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we don't realize that we live in a culture and a society and I love, you know, our missions are very
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similar, Ryan, in that our goal is to help reclaim so much of what has been lost through passivity and
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through fake and through manipulation. And I was that guy. I was that guy who I thought I was the
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nice guy. I thought I was, uh, I grew up in a religious household. So I believed that, you know,
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I was supposed to be a good Christian boy and I was a good Christian boy, except I was lying to
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everyone, including myself. How did that, how did that, and I want to talk about both to others and to
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yourself? We'll get to both of them. But when you say lying, let's just take two others, for example,
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how did that actually look like what, what is it that you were saying? What is it you were doing?
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What were you lying about? Because I think that's kind of a catchphrase that I hear a lot. I was lying
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to people, but nobody ever explains. Yeah. What exactly do you mean? And how did you catch yourself
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doing it? Absolutely. So you can't, one of the hard things about this is that when you're
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consistently lying to other people, uh, most often you don't realize it like it's your subjective
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truth. And so you're not actually aware or consciously aware that you're lying to people.
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And in my opinion, you can't actually become aware of that until you have someone who literally like
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decks you right in the face with the truth, objective truth, or until you realize that you
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have been lying to yourself all along. And so here's what this looks like is that, uh, a very simple
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example. I'm sure we've all experienced this is when we're going out to eat with, you know,
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your wife or your girlfriend. And, uh, she leans over and is like, Hey, where do you want to go get
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food? You're like, well, I don't care. Right. And then you can get into this little tussle back and
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forth. It's like, I don't care. Where do you want food? Well, I don't care. What do you want food?
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And then a guy starts listing off. You want to go to Carrabba's? You want to go to Olive Garden? You
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want to go to Ruby Tuesday? She's like, no, no, no, no, no. That is something so simple
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that as a man, we don't even realize that we are literally lying. You may not think that it's that
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big of a deal. You do care. You do have an opinion. And for me, I got convinced that I was
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trying to love people well by being accommodating, never sharing my opinion, never sharing my thoughts
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because I thought I was fully convinced Ryan that it was my job to elevate everyone else around me and
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invalidate myself because that was some form of asceticism, some form of altruistic, religious,
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good Christian boy, what I'm supposed to do. And what I didn't realize that because I was
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so deceived around my relationship with myself, everything I was saying was really just lying.
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I was just literally telling people what I knew they wanted to hear so I could look better in their
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eyes, but I didn't realize how much that would destroy my soul. And it led me to the point where I
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ended up in the bathroom, ready to end my life with a Glock in my hand.
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It's, I definitely want to get to that. Um, and so I don't mean to move away from that,
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but you said something else, which is kind of ironic that we talk to people based on what we
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think they want to hear. But the ironic part is that when you actually communicate your true
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intentions, your desires, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, that's actually what people want.
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Yes. They don't, they don't want. So for example, to use your example about going out,
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your girlfriend says, where would you like to eat? And you say, you know, I really just want to do
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something quick and easy tonight. Can we go get Jimmy John's? She always has the opportunity and the
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option to say, yeah, you know, yeah, we can do that. I was really hoping for sushi tonight.
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Yep. And you can still say, Hey, you know what? Sushi's good. I'm good with that. Yeah. You
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shared what you wanted. You were willing to accommodate. You had an opinion about something.
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And I'm telling you what, the first time you do it, if it's in a very non-confrontational way or
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something maybe seemingly insignificant, like where to eat, this is just a pleasant surprise for women
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who are with guys who don't communicate what they want because she doesn't want to decide either.
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Like make a decision. It's leadership. Right. And if she feels like, Hey, I'd rather do something
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else. She's a big girl. She can open her mouth and she can say that. And then I can make a decision
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as to whether or not I'm set on Jimmy John's or if I'm good compromising on this dinner and going to
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out for sushi. Right. And it translates to so much more than just our everyday occurrences. It shows up
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with, you know, you mentioned relationship with self, like the constant lies, the simple lies,
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like I'm not going to snooze tomorrow. I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm going to stop
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drinking. I'm going to take some time to, you know, get away from myself. I'm going to do like,
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guys, we're notorious for this. We say it all the time, what we're going to do and we don't do it.
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And in any relationship that we have with other human beings, if you're consistently lying in that
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relationship, you're going to fracture trust. And then eventually it's going to destroy all
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respect until it gets to the point where there's literally no confidence. You have no confidence in
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the relationship anymore. But guys, we forget it's the exact same thing for ourselves. This is why so
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many men are struggling. I saw you recently had an episode on there was some anxiety stuff,
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depression, all these types of things. I am fully convinced now, Ryan, that, that the primary
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underlying cause for so much of the turmoil that men are dealing with today is because they're just
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lying to themselves because that's what happened to me is that I was saying I was going to do all
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these things. But when you are constantly telling yourself, you're going to do something and you
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don't do it, you're going to fracture trust. So guess what? When you fracture trust, it means you
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don't have self-trust. You don't know what voice to listen to. You don't know if it's your feelings.
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You don't know if it's your emotions. You don't know if it's God. You don't know if it's the enemy.
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You don't know what voice to trust internally because you're fracturing it. Eventually that
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destroys your self-respect until you have zero confidence and you can't even show up and you're just
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literally tossing and turning in life. And that's what happened because I didn't realize that I was
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just, I was lying. And Jordan Peterson talks about this. He says, tell the truth or at the very least
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don't lie. It's one of his 12 rules for life. And I absolutely love that because it may be hard to
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tell the truth. It's uncomfortable to tell the truth and it is very confrontational to tell the
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truth. But until you start doing that or at the least, at the very least, stop lying, you are going
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to live in what I think is, is Thoreau talks about life, a life of quiet desperation.
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Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've often said that, you know, when you don't keep the commitments to yourself,
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whether it's something that you see sound sounds unimportant, like, oh, you know what? I hit snooze
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today. Or you flat out lie or maybe deceive somebody or take advantage of somebody or manipulate
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them in some way. Uh, a little bit of your soul dies. Yeah. And, and maybe, maybe dies is, is too
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harsh, but a little bit of it flees. And I, and I use the word flee instead of dies because you can
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get it back and you get it back by honoring your commitments to yourself and making yourself more
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capable than you were before. It's not like it's dead and gone forever. It's just not available to
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you. If you keep loading those little deceits and lies up to yourself and other people. Uh,
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well, real quick, right on that. I would contend to that. It does have to do with dying is that if
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we look at natural life, like just anything in nature, you're either, it's either growing or it's
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dying. Right. And I think that there's something to be said about what you just mentioned about,
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you know, it's not fully putting to death, but if you are dying, right, you are diseased,
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you are headed towards death. The eventual outcome of a man, not keeping his commitments
00:16:53.940
and word to himself, which is exactly, I'm sure we'll get into this where I ended up.
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The, the next logical step that was actual death because I had been killing myself dying a little
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bit every single day, because I was just trying to live according to what everyone else said I was
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supposed to do and keep up all those appearances. And so it is a slow, gradual death until yeah,
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you do die. And I think it's one of the fastest ways that men end up,
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end up where we have a society today where 84, 85 men every single day take their own life here in
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the U S because of this. And you know, the statistics, I've heard you talk about them all
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the time. The statistics don't lie. And I think it's, it's, it's because of this one thing is that
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we don't know how to tell the truth or we don't know how to handle the truth.
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Hmm. So when you were at your lowest point and obviously sitting with a pistol in your hand,
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ready to pull the trigger, uh, all of this had been culminating and adding up, I imagine over
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years and years of not honoring your commitments, feeling horrible about yourself, losing self-respect,
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maybe losing the respect of other people. Was there some external circumstance that pushed you over
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the edge or was it all just internal dialogue? What, what was that? Like what actually happened
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where you thought, you know, today's the day or tonight's the night? You know, I've been asked that
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question dozens on dozens of times on shows where it's like, Hey, was there a moment? Was it this,
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you know, wake up call? And I've taken years now reflecting back on this story and how it got to
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that point. And we all do that. It's like, how did it get to that point? Like Ryan, I know you've,
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you've been very vulnerable about, about your journey. I'm sure there's, there's been times
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of the last year or so where you've seen it like, how did it get to this point? What did I miss?
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How did I, how did I go? Like, and so you're oblivious to it oftentimes in the middle of it,
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but I love that we can look back. And what I traced it back to is that, uh, when I was,
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there was, there was a series of events that happened in my early teenage years that I didn't realize
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how significantly they affected my life right before I turned 14. I'm a Kansas farm boy at
00:19:03.160
heart. I grew up out in the fields. I, you know, cows, horses, I was Opie Taylor,
00:19:07.840
give me a BB gun and a fishing pole. And, uh, so for me, my childhood, I thought was beautiful,
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but we moved to Florida suburbia right before I turned 14. And over the course of two years,
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there was a series of events where one, my dad walked out or so I thought is what it felt like he,
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he, he, he did leave, but to me it was interpreted as like, my dad doesn't want to be a part of my life
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anymore. So the, the masculine father figure that I had, I felt abandoned. And immediately the man
00:19:37.700
who stepped into my life was a youth pastor at church. And I wouldn't find out till much later
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that there's this term called grooming. He molested me for years. And so I had not only a father figure
00:19:48.100
who I felt like abandoned me, I had a new father figure who stepped in, who took advantage of me.
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And so my entire construct of what masculinity was, was jacked. And, and, and I know we don't
00:20:00.920
have enough time to go into too much of the story, but suffice it to say, like my first thoughts of
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suicidal ideation were when I was 16 years old, there's a place called the sunshine skyway down
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South of Tampa, Florida connects to St. Petersburg. And I was on the road, literally on the way I was
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going to drive off this bridge at 16 years old, because I, I had been, there was too much pain
00:20:22.960
from a very young age. And now I've got a great relationship with my parents. Now I know that
00:20:28.260
they would be okay listening to this, but I grew up with a very, very passive father and a very,
00:20:33.120
very narcissistic mother. So the empathy part of me, I started to understand and learn as I grew up.
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And as I went on was because of the environment, I started to learn how to read people, which now
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serves me really well in my career. I literally get paid to read people. So it's a really powerful
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tool. And I found that this pain and this difficulty, it informs so much of my paradigm and so much of how
00:21:02.880
I saw the world. And so I had probably a 10 to 15 year period, what I call the dark ages. I didn't know
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who I was. I didn't know what I wanted. So what did I do? I did exactly what everyone says you're
00:21:12.600
supposed to do. I went into the workforce, I built the six figure job, I got the glass corner office,
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I got the company car, I did the whole thing. And by the time I was 25 years old, I had achieved what
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everyone said you're supposed to do to win in life, at least as far as the corporatized American dream.
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And it was then that I started dealing with the suicidal ideation. Again, I was having anxiety
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all the time, panic attacks, I was depressed, I was about 60 pounds heavier than I am right now.
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I was married, had a kid, I all of it. And I found myself it was a Sunday afternoon. And all I could
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think was that the pain was too unbearable. And my wife and my daughter would be better off with the
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life insurance money. And so I walked in my bathroom, and I held it. It was a Glock 43. For those
00:22:00.420
are interested in the details, very small little, little concealed carry, I used to wear it on my
00:22:04.380
ankle. And I stood there. And I will say that it was a divine intervention, because I heard a couple
00:22:13.380
things very distinctly in that moment. I heard God say to me, and I believe it was God, said,
00:22:20.660
buddy, I love you. But I can't fix this for you. And Ryan, to hear that, when I had been told my entire
00:22:31.780
life to just pray, Jesus, fix it. God, fix it. I had lived so much of my life active in ministry. I'm
00:22:45.660
actually technically a pastor, which is kind of funny. I went to Bible college, I did the whole
00:22:50.920
like, you know, my life came to a standstill in that moment, because when he said, I can't fix this
00:22:59.540
for you, it destroyed my entire paradigm. Because that's how I've been conditioned to believe is that
00:23:06.340
just give it to God, right? And what followed, though, is what changed everything. He said, you get
00:23:14.640
to decide. You get to commit. You get to become. I am with you, and I am for you. But I can't fix this
00:23:26.340
for you. And it was in that moment, through a series of events, and again, I'm trying to minimize too
00:23:34.560
many unnecessary details, is that I realized that I had pawned all of the responsibility for my life,
00:23:41.280
for my success, and my failure, and everything that had happened. I had, I had believed a lie
00:23:47.540
that said, I'm exactly where I am right now, because this is exactly where God wants me.
00:23:55.100
And my weight, and my mental health, and my relationships, and my financial situation,
00:24:01.040
everything was exactly how it was supposed to be. This is what God's will was for my life.
00:24:07.680
This was what life was supposed to look like. And I didn't know why I was suffering, but that was
00:24:11.960
my lot to bear. And so, I know this is a long-winded answer, Ryan, but it was a combination of things
00:24:19.520
that happened from my childhood, series of events, stuff that happened at my work, panic attack,
00:24:25.200
driving down the interstate, going 80 miles an hour, like all sorts of things that led me to this
00:24:29.680
moment. And the one thing that I can say is between that, and somehow, somehow, I still don't know how,
00:24:37.140
and this, I can only give glory to God for it. I had enough awareness to know, I need to get a
00:24:42.980
mentor. I need to surround myself with people that are smarter than me, more capable than me,
00:24:48.080
more successful than me, healthier than me. And that's when I finally committed to the process of
00:24:52.760
saying, I'm going to invest in getting in rooms, and around people that have, and are living,
00:24:59.660
at least to some degree, the way that I want to live. And that's where it started a process of
00:25:05.600
turning right back around, headed straight back through hell, and had to clean up a whole lot of
00:25:10.780
shit. Yeah, I bet. A lot of reconciliation, is that what it was? When you say clean up a whole
00:25:16.840
lot of stuff, is that what you're talking about? Or what was it actually that you needed to clean up?
00:25:22.040
It was reconciliation. It was healing my relationship with myself, Ryan. The entire foundation,
00:25:28.400
like, I hated this man. I could not look myself in the mirror. Like, and I'm sure there are guys
00:25:35.560
listening. Like, it's not even delicate language. You get really, really artistic with the types of
00:25:40.820
profanity you can use when you hate yourself, and you're talking to yourself.
00:25:44.820
Well, and you know exactly how to hurt yourself, too.
00:25:49.080
The right things that are going to sting. I was talking with a friend of mine. He would say stuff
00:25:54.140
to himself internally as a punishment. Like, nobody else was trying to punish him. The world
00:26:00.360
wasn't trying to punish him. God wasn't trying to punish him. But he felt so horrible about himself
00:26:05.160
that he felt like he deserved to be punished. So he did it to himself, verbally and emotionally.
00:26:10.940
Absolutely. And I think that that's where most men are. And that's why guys get to the point where,
00:26:16.960
you know, things get really, really dark. And they, like, even, you know, which is why I have
00:26:22.160
such tremendous respect for order of man. And what you do, Ryan, is that we live in a day and an age
00:26:27.340
where most men, they don't have a safe place to go to where they can talk about this stuff. They're
00:26:32.240
not allowed to talk about it at church, because guess what they'll get? Guilt and shame. How dare you?
00:26:37.280
I can't believe you're dealing with it. You have so much to be grateful for. Look at your wife. Look
00:26:42.360
at your job. Look at your car. What are you complaining about, right? All of this stuff that
00:26:48.560
men end up carrying. And for me, I didn't realize that what I had to do is I had to go all the way
00:26:54.940
back through, back to when I was a boy. And I had to heal the things that I had basically, when I,
00:27:02.140
again, when I was 13, that's where everything shifted for me. My childhood disappeared.
00:27:06.060
My childhood ended. I moved a couple thousand miles away from my entire upbringing and then
00:27:13.740
went through a series of events that, frankly, I don't wish on any young man would have to go.
00:27:20.240
I know you've been through stuff, Ryan, from your childhood where it's part of why your mission
00:27:24.820
is what it is. Man, I'm going to step away from the conversation just for a minute. I want to tell
00:27:30.720
you about a frustration I have. It's when I hear from other men, this level of mockery and disdain
00:27:37.080
and scorn, they put on others who invest in their own personal development journey. These jokers will
00:27:42.680
mock a man for not knowing the things he needs to know to be a man and simultaneously mock him if he
00:27:48.960
has the balls to go out and invest in the help he needs. Now, I know this is often nothing more than
00:27:54.780
hurt guys projecting their own insecurities, but what's frustrating is that they'll actually siphon
00:28:00.140
off a few men who would have otherwise invested in courses and programs to help them get on the
00:28:06.860
path. And that's exactly what we're doing inside the Iron Council. It's our brotherhood and it's
00:28:11.700
designed to get you on the path and stop going at it alone. Stop pretending that you should already
00:28:16.780
have it all figured out and stop pretending that you're supposed to or you're meant to live a life
00:28:22.820
of mediocrity. You're not. That's what these guys will tell you, but you're not. You're meant to do
00:28:27.300
great things, but all of us need the help and all of us need men in our corner to push and pull and
00:28:33.840
lean into and on us at times as we make a new way for ourselves. So I'd encourage you to go check out
00:28:39.840
what we're doing in the brotherhood at order of man.com slash iron council. That's order of man.com
00:28:45.400
slash iron council. Do that right after the show for now. Let's get back to it with David.
00:28:50.140
You know, I mean, not to the extent of what you're talking about. Like I would never put
00:28:54.980
what I went through on the same and I'm look, we don't need to compare woes. And I, and I don't
00:28:59.700
recommend that anybody does that. But also I know that the things that I've gone through are pale in
00:29:04.780
comparison to being, you know, molested as a child by somebody who you're supposed to be able to
00:29:09.520
respect. So yeah, different, different level of, of a struggle for sure.
00:29:14.340
But I think what happens, and this is even a great example is that we have, we live like even
00:29:19.320
with the men that we connect with is that we're spending so much time like licking wounds and
00:29:24.980
comparing scars and no one's healing. No one's actually healing. And I know that this is something
00:29:31.480
that you stand against too in the, in the men's movement is that there's so many people that are
00:29:35.360
just positioning and posturing and projecting and it's disgusting and it's frustrating. And one of the
00:29:43.320
things that I've always respected about you and that I really admire about you is just your,
00:29:47.340
your constant vulnerability. And you're like, guys, I don't have this all figured out. I've
00:29:50.840
learned a few things and I'm happy to share with you what I've learned along the way. And I'm happy
00:29:54.860
to guide you through the terrain that I've navigated, but I don't have all the right answers. And that
00:29:59.940
humility in the midst of the leadership is what is, is so powerful. And so for me, what I had to do,
00:30:06.680
Ryan, is I had to go back through and I had to reassess and redefine, okay, what does it even mean to be a
00:30:12.280
man? What is masculinity? What is manhood? How can I understand who I was created to be? And it was a
00:30:20.300
very systematic process over about three or four years where I, I took my health back. I took back
00:30:25.780
my relationships. I took back my financial situation all through the help of coaches and mentors and
00:30:31.780
community. And it was something that I had to, I had to reconcile this part in my mind.
00:30:41.120
And this part in my mind was this, this, this little part that I think, and not just in our
00:30:46.300
mind, we all have it as men. We keep it locked and anchored in and no one is allowed there.
00:30:53.040
And it's the part of us that at our core is who we really, really believe we are.
00:31:02.220
No one else gets to see that. Just like you talked about your buddy, your friend and how he talks to
00:31:07.280
himself, I had to start healing my relationship with myself and give myself permission. This is
00:31:12.040
where fierce empathy really was birthed is I had to give it to myself first. I had to be willing to
00:31:17.720
look myself in the mirror and say, I'm going to speak the hard truth and love to this man that I'm
00:31:22.240
staring into his eyeballs, but I simultaneously need to stop doing what I've been doing, which is layering
00:31:29.100
on the guilt and the shame and the condemnation and beating him up because that's not working.
00:31:33.880
And what's interesting is I don't treat anybody else that way. Why do, why do I give myself
00:31:37.960
permission to do that? Right? That healing allowed me to completely change my identity and it allowed
00:31:44.480
me to, I love the Bible talks about this is love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't love yourself,
00:31:50.200
every attempt at love for your neighbor is a perversion of what it could be or what it should be.
00:31:54.700
And so we've mastered as men being able to love our kids and love our wives and love community and
00:32:02.180
show up for everybody. And everybody's freaking wearing masks, man, because they don't, they can't
00:32:08.120
look themselves in the mirror and say, you know what? No pretense, no arrogance. I truly believe
00:32:13.340
that I'm becoming a better dad every day. I truly believe I'm becoming a better husband every day.
00:32:19.680
I'm becoming healthier. I'm becoming wiser. I'm becoming stronger. I'm becoming the man that I
00:32:25.400
want to be, that I said that I would be. And that was, that's the process I'm still into this day,
00:32:31.860
my man. Yeah. I mean, it's a never ending process, right? It's not like you get there and then one day
00:32:37.200
you're there and you check it off the box and then you can go on about something, you know, a lot more
00:32:40.800
fun than doing internal work. When you talk about knowing who you really, really are, and that was
00:32:47.700
something that you, that you hit on pretty deeply. Yeah. Well, I guess I could ask who, who are you
00:32:53.480
and how do you define who you really are? And also secondary to that is how does a man begin to
00:32:59.200
uncover who he really is? Cause a lot of times when you hear that, it's like, okay, you know,
00:33:03.800
you see the, you see the video going around, like say the weird thing, right. Or, or engage in that
00:33:10.000
weird hobby or do those quirky behaviors that all of us have. Yeah. Like, sure. Okay. Yes. But that's not
00:33:16.960
really who we are. So how do you define and then work towards uncovering, unpacking who you are at
00:33:23.620
your core? It's a great question. Sorry. That's my beagle in case anybody heard that. That's okay.
00:33:29.660
It's a great question. And so what, what I'd start as this is you, you walk down the street and you ask
00:33:33.840
a hundred guys, what do they want? And they can't tell you now you might get some answers like, well,
00:33:39.020
I want a million bucks or I want more sex or whatever it is. But what's interesting to me is that
00:33:42.780
most men can tell you everything they don't want. They have a very, very, very long list of what
00:33:48.420
they don't want in life. And I was that way too. And it was, um, one of my first coaches actually
00:33:53.800
sat me down. We were at this little Mediterranean restaurant, eating shawarma and a bunch of food
00:33:57.760
that I can't pronounce. It was one of those beautiful, like main street with the big glass windows,
00:34:01.500
you know, like the cars are driving by. And it was this, it was just this interesting moment where
00:34:07.160
I'm sitting across the table and this question is posed that catches me off guard.
00:34:16.800
Looks at me and says, David, who do you want to become?
00:34:23.700
And Ryan, in the moment, I, it was not even, I didn't even have time to mentally process the
00:34:28.980
question. This came straight out of me involuntarily. I said, I'm not allowed to answer that.
00:34:37.160
I'm not allowed to answer that. And it was really interesting because this, my first coach
00:34:44.300
was a woman. She, she looked at me and she said, um, she said, that's really interesting.
00:34:49.840
Why can't you answer that? Why aren't you allowed to define that? And I didn't have an answer for her
00:34:55.620
at the time. She said, well, let's, let's simplify this. When you look at the men that you, you know,
00:34:59.800
you look at the people around in your life, like who inspires you? Who would you say? Like,
00:35:03.440
I would like to create a life like theirs. And I just kind of tongue in cheek. I said, well,
00:35:08.160
Jesus. And she said, no, wrong answer. You can't say, you can't say that. Cause I was, again,
00:35:13.580
my entire life, very, very traditional conservative upbringing. And that's what you're supposed to say.
00:35:19.780
I mean, that's the answer you're supposed to give, right? Sure. Yeah. And I said, well,
00:35:24.680
and she said, no, no, no, pick somebody else. And I said, well, honestly,
00:35:27.500
I feel like I'd really like to be like Tony Robbins with a few less F words. And I don't want
00:35:33.900
to travel as much as him. She said, okay, great. Awesome. Why? And I said, I don't really know.
00:35:41.700
And so that was one of my first exercises is that I had to start, I had to start formulating an
00:35:47.100
understanding of like looking at when we look as men, what we do is we can look into society. And I
00:35:51.860
know there's a lot of men that follow you, Ryan, that look at you, that find you inspirational.
00:35:55.640
Now, the hard part about comparison, as we know, is everyone says comparison is the thief of joy.
00:36:00.460
It can be, but that's where people stop. People like comparison is the thief of joy. Don't ever
00:36:07.980
compare. I'm like, no, that's wrong. Stop saying that. Stop saying it's the same thing with,
00:36:13.220
you know, you talk about Jesus, like all Christians will say, I want to be like Jesus. Well,
00:36:17.060
is that comparison? Exactly. Is that the thief of joy or is Jesus the source of joy? Like,
00:36:21.480
which one is it? Exactly. And so it's looking at that at men for,
00:36:25.640
guys that those of you that are listening right now, you might look at Ryan or you might look at
00:36:30.180
me and say, man, I admire something about him. Awesome. That's great. We love that. What you
00:36:36.380
have to do is answer the question why, and what are you willing to sacrifice to get it? And making
00:36:41.560
sure you understand that even though we might have something that you don't have, our hope,
00:36:46.240
I know the reason that we live, Ryan, is because we do want to inspire other people. But the only way
00:36:50.700
that I can be inspired by you or any other man is I have to compare myself. I have to compare myself
00:36:56.940
when I look at his marriage, when I look at his body, when I look at his finances, when I look at
00:37:01.600
his situation, I have to have a healthy comparison. And this is where guys really jack it up. And this
00:37:06.780
is where we miss it is that we're looking at, and we, we take this very defeatist mindset and be like,
00:37:11.860
well, I'm never going to be like him. I'm never going to have that stuff. And he's lucky. And look at
00:37:15.800
his opportunities and look at all this stuff. And that's where, yeah, comparison can be the thief
00:37:21.040
of joy. But if we instead shifted and say, no, who inspires me? Fine. Guys, for those of you
00:37:27.060
listening, who in your, in your, in your network at your church or your community, who do you know
00:37:32.200
that's been married for 60 years? Who do you know that is 80 years old and still out mowing his lawn?
00:37:38.620
Who do you know that still has a great relationship with his kids and he's well into his fifties and
00:37:43.400
sixties? Like, look for those men and find out they are doing something right. Tony Robbins, he,
00:37:49.400
this was part of our training. I did some speaking and I was a head trainer for Tony for a season of
00:37:53.560
life. And one of the things that he always says across the board, success leaves clues.
00:38:01.060
You're never going to find a man who's ticking every single box and say like, he's successful in
00:38:06.000
every area. If he does, he's trying to sell you some shit you don't need. And he's lying to you
00:38:10.420
because we all have our blind spots. This is why community is so important. Why accountability is
00:38:15.600
so important. So for a man like, like brother, if you're listening, anyone's listening and you're
00:38:20.020
like, I don't know how to make the changes. I don't know who I am. You have to take the time to
00:38:26.700
really take a step back and define what you want in life. Because in order for you to get clarity on
00:38:32.480
what your character really is and who you really are, you have to be willing to look in the mirror,
00:38:37.540
looking at psycho cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz teaches this, you have to be willing to become
00:38:43.500
aware of your default reactions to life. If you have the ability to step back and say, wow, I reacted
00:38:49.860
in anger there. My reaction was to get pissed off over here. My reaction was to say something this
00:38:55.000
way. My reaction was to do whatever. When you can start becoming aware of your reactions to life,
00:39:00.000
that will show you who you currently are. But then you have to formulate a vision for the man that
00:39:05.640
you want to become. And the only way that you can formulate a vision for the man that you want to
00:39:08.900
become is you have to look at the men that are out there and say, okay, I want to take that. And I
00:39:13.480
want to take that. And I want to take that. And I take that. And you formulate a vision for the man
00:39:19.340
that you want to be. When you start formulating that vision, Proverbs talks about this, where
00:39:23.900
there's no vision, the people perish. I think that's how men are. If we don't have a vision for our
00:39:27.280
life, you're just going to wither. You're going to perish. But if you capture that vision,
00:39:31.120
this is who I want to be as a husband. This is who I want to be as a father. This is who I want
00:39:35.020
to be as a leader. This is what I want my health to be like. This is what I want my business to be
00:39:39.680
like. Now we actually have something that we can align with every single day and we stop setting
00:39:44.880
stupid arbitrary goals and we create daily standards, which I know you appreciate and
00:39:49.340
respect as well, Ryan. It's daily standards. If it's not aligned with the man that I said that
00:39:54.360
I would be, it goes. It's out. It's gone. That's where you start to maintain this discipline,
00:39:59.780
this consistency, which will help reveal to you part of who you are. But the most important thing
00:40:04.280
that I would say is this, you need to sit with your father, not your dad, not your human father.
00:40:11.400
What I had to do is I had to curl up in my father's lap, God's lap and say, God, who do you say that I
00:40:16.620
am? And I spent 30 days bawling my eyes out saying and writing out on a journal saying, God, who do you
00:40:24.160
say that I am? And listening and writing it out. And every time I'd write something down, Ryan, I'd say
00:40:29.120
that's bullshit. That's not who I am. I'm this, I'm this, I'm this. You don't even, who are we to
00:40:34.860
argue with God? Number one. He's saying you're loved, you're chosen, you're worthy. I've made you
00:40:41.560
approved, right? You're a son, you're an heir, you are a king. Like these are things that I always
00:40:47.200
wanted to believe to be true about myself, but I would call bullshit on. I was like, there's no way
00:40:52.480
that that's who I really am. And it wasn't until I started to allow that to become a part of my
00:40:58.420
identity that it shifted my behavior. And we know that. Runners run. Why? Because that's their
00:41:05.560
identity. If you identify as a failure, if you identify as an addict, if you identify as whatever
00:41:13.680
it is, guess what your behavior is going to flow from? Your identity. So I had to do all of this work
00:41:19.620
to reconstruct my identity and create alignment with what was useful for the life that I wanted to
00:41:26.280
create. And the way that I figured that out was by looking at the lives of other men that inspired me.
00:41:31.000
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's such a great way to say it, you know, and I also consider just
00:41:36.240
borrowing from other people. A lot of guys will listen to this podcast or be in your community,
00:41:40.880
be in my community, listen to other people, and they don't feel like they're where they want to be.
00:41:45.080
And the solution is just borrow from that guy who has what you want.
00:41:48.340
Exactly. Like if, if, if he doesn't drink, then you shouldn't drink.
00:41:52.860
Yeah. If he gets up at 5am, then you get up at 5am. Yeah. If he makes us, and I did this early
00:41:59.360
on in my financial planning practice, I was about to fail out of it. And I was about to leave the,
00:42:04.540
the, the business. And I thought I'm too stubborn to do that. So I thought to myself, well, what else
00:42:09.180
can I do? And so I reached out to this guy who was just perpetually successful in our, in our office.
00:42:15.920
And I said, look, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure this out. I have no idea.
00:42:20.560
And eventually we ended up partnering and I would split business with him. At first I was a little
00:42:25.240
hesitant because I wasn't making enough money as it was. And now all of a sudden I'm bringing
00:42:29.580
somebody else in. And he said something very poignant. I'll always remember. He said,
00:42:33.640
a hundred percent of zero is zero. I'm like, that's a good point. Like I can make,
00:42:41.260
I can keep all the commission to myself, but I'm not making any commission. So it doesn't matter.
00:42:45.920
And I started making a lot of money, but really it was interesting. Cause I had a few people
00:42:50.080
suggest at the time, man, you really sound like this guy, or you're starting to talk like him,
00:42:58.080
or you're starting to present like him or you're whatever. And they would say it tongue in cheek,
00:43:02.820
almost mockingly. But of course, like, how could I not end up being like that person? That's who I'm
00:43:10.020
borrowing from. And then eventually you create your own identity and it becomes your own. And
00:43:13.840
you start to mix and meld from different personalities and different traits and skills
00:43:19.020
and you become your own person. But if you don't know where to start, just copy somebody who has
00:43:22.700
what you want. That's it. That is it. And it's the premise. Like if we go back, we've been doing
00:43:27.840
this for thousands of years, but for some reason, the last 100 years, we forgot it. It's, it's the,
00:43:33.280
it's the principle of apprenticing with a master. You find someone who has a degree of mastery in
00:43:40.780
something in their life and you become their apprentice, which means that your feelings don't
00:43:45.100
freaking matter anymore. In that context, your feelings, they don't matter in that context. If,
00:43:52.880
if you want to create a healthy lifestyle, then find someone with a healthy lifestyle and start
00:43:58.600
modeling their behavior. That's what apprenticeship is. It doesn't matter that you don't feel like
00:44:03.780
waking up at 5am. That's what you have to do if you want the result, right? Same thing with
00:44:08.820
business, same thing in every area of our life. And I love that you mentioned, because Todd Herman has
00:44:14.320
a book called the alter ego effect, which I love recommending to guys that are kind of in this early
00:44:18.580
stage of trying to figure out who am I, is that he talks about how, when we are trying to create this
00:44:27.040
identity, we forget sometimes that we show up differently in different environments. And it's
00:44:31.980
not always wearing masks. Sometimes it's wearing hats, right? The Ryan Mickler that shows up here for the
00:44:36.640
podcast is no, it's not that you're a different person when you're around the campfire with your
00:44:40.580
closest homies, but there's a different version of you that shows up for that because of the context,
00:44:46.360
right? There's a different version of you when you take, when you take the stage, there's a different
00:44:50.060
version of you when you're showing up for your boys, when you're coaching them. And so the alter ego
00:44:54.700
effect, what I love about it is that it allows us to create and take things from people. Like you're
00:44:59.900
saying, borrow from people. And I remember when I first started speaking, that's exactly what I did.
00:45:04.480
I wanted to channel my inner Tony Robbins, but you know what I found out within about four months of
00:45:08.900
doing that? I didn't like it. There were certain things I liked, but I was like, this isn't me,
00:45:13.840
man. I don't show up and like this, you know, his deep voice thing. I'm like, that's not who I am,
00:45:20.260
man. Like I laugh and I have fun and I'm a goober. And I realized that the discovery process came
00:45:27.300
because I started modeling and then I started making my own way, which I think is all artistry,
00:45:32.000
is that you learn from a master and then you start to make it your own. And the only way that
00:45:36.880
you can start to do that is you have to start, you have to wrestle with discomfort. You have to be
00:45:41.500
like, I don't really like that. That's not who I want to be. I don't want to be, you know, drinking
00:45:46.920
every single night before I go to bed. I don't want to be looking at that stuff on the internet. I
00:45:51.400
shouldn't be looking at, right? It's not useful. I don't want to be the guy who's sitting on the
00:45:57.320
couch while his kids are playing out back, throwing the ball around. I don't want to be
00:46:01.580
the guy that is struggling in business for 15 years. I don't want to be. And so we have to be
00:46:06.840
willing to look at those things, detach emotionally from them, and then step into fierce empathy and
00:46:11.260
say, okay, what's the hard truth? Speak the hard truth in love while simultaneously creating an
00:46:16.960
environment for yourself where you say, Hey, I see you, David. I love you, man. You're okay.
00:46:23.780
Everything's all right. You've done some stupid stuff, but this isn't aligned with the identity
00:46:27.900
you said you want to create. So we need to make some adjustments and here's where we need to fix
00:46:31.700
and tweak and so on and so forth. And here's where we need to change our environment. And you start to
00:46:35.980
do that. And it's just like nature. You plant the seeds and you, you will harvest what you plant as
00:46:42.400
long as you're patient and consistent. It's not going to happen overnight. And that's what we all hate.
00:46:46.480
We all wish it would happen. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Everybody's like, just tell me the three things.
00:46:50.520
I wish David would just get to like the three-step formula. And then in 30 days, I'll have exactly
00:46:55.140
what I want. If that were the case, I'd be out of a job because I would give it to you and you would
00:47:00.340
never need anything ever again. And I wouldn't need to do it because I'd be successful doing something
00:47:05.280
else or, you know, whatever it looks like. Um, I can't do it. Let me interject one other thing.
00:47:11.680
We can't do 30 days, but I can tell you that there is a 66 day and this is the average. Okay. It's
00:47:17.900
between 21 and 90 days. But what people misunderstand is that you can only pick one thing.
00:47:22.840
You can only pick one thing. You cannot transform at all, but you can pick one thing. And this is
00:47:28.040
scientific research. You can read the power of habit by Charles Duhigg. You can read atomic
00:47:32.420
habits by James clear, like anything to do with actual habits is on average, it takes 66 days.
00:47:37.820
And if you pick one thing and you commit to do it, regardless of how you feel for between 21 and
00:47:44.240
90 days is different for everyone. The average is 66. Yeah. You can have what you want, but it's only
00:47:49.200
you only get to pick one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that is, I mean, that is interesting. Cause you look
00:47:54.440
at, you know, like our 90 day plan or, um, Andy Frisilla's 75 hard, right. It all ties into the
00:48:03.240
numbers that we're talking about right now, you know, and, and just building those habits. Uh,
00:48:08.520
I was going to ask you about go back, going back to empathy. I think it's clear why having empathy
00:48:13.020
for yourself is important. And I would suggest, uh, that it allows you to move on in light of past
00:48:20.200
mistakes and things that you've done wrong and offering yourself some grace and forgiveness for
00:48:24.660
what you've done or what you perceive yourself to have done. Uh, where does, maybe it's more,
00:48:29.640
so feel free to interject and also where does empathy for others come into play? And is that
00:48:37.220
something of value that more men should learn to develop in themselves? Yeah, absolutely. So if I'm
00:48:43.380
understanding, just to repeat back your question, you're asking, so the importance of it for ourselves,
00:48:48.020
but then how it's developed for other people. Correct. And yes. And why, why, or, or why not?
00:48:54.800
Is, is it important that we would develop empathy for other people, not just for ourselves?
00:49:00.820
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that one of the things that I learned early on when I was a kid, my,
00:49:06.300
my dad had a vet clinic and he's a veterinarian, not a veteran, but by the way, thank you for your
00:49:11.400
service, brother. Um, but my dad was a veterinarian, so he worked with animals. And, and so one of the
00:49:16.200
things that I learned from a very young age is that, uh, when you're dealing with an animal,
00:49:22.740
you have to create an environment of trust before they will ever do what you want them to do.
00:49:30.060
We live in a culture, in a society where everyone wants everyone else to do whatever we want them to
00:49:35.960
do. You look politically, you look at in marriage, you look at your kids, right? The number one cause of
00:49:42.160
anger, frustration, offense, like all this stuff is because they're doing something that I don't
00:49:46.740
think they should be doing. Right? So we want control and it triggers us, right? Or somebody
00:49:52.120
says something or does something or takes a, takes a stance against something. But the only way that
00:49:57.540
we're going to create the transformational change, and we know this politics is probably a great example
00:50:02.840
right now. We no longer have an environment where politically we can have civil discord,
00:50:08.580
where you can argue and fight over ideologies and beliefs and opinions because everything has
00:50:14.600
been minimized and resorted to character assassination. If I believe something and have
00:50:19.760
an opinion on something, then, um, I'm not allowed to share that. Especially we know this. We're both
00:50:25.700
white guys living in the United States of America. There's certain things we're according to culture
00:50:29.460
and society. We're not allowed to have opinions on now. I disagree with that. I think you do.
00:50:34.560
I was going to say, I don't, I don't really buy into that. Anybody who spends any time on my
00:50:38.800
Instagram account knows that I almost might seem like I wake up trying to piss off people. I don't,
00:50:44.620
but it doesn't seem to be a problem for me. It doesn't. And that's, what's beautiful about the
00:50:49.720
work that we're doing. But if you look at the macro, that's not supposed to be something that's
00:50:55.180
happening because of the status of our nation. Right. And so, um, when the reason that that's so
00:51:00.760
critically important is that unless you create an environment where someone feels safe,
00:51:05.160
where someone feels understood, where someone feels heard, we cannot hope to be able to change
00:51:14.420
their mind. This is why, like, I love Charlie Kirk and I love the stuff that like, you see a lot of
00:51:18.980
these people that are going out and they're standing for, and you know, they're saying all
00:51:21.820
these things and they're getting in debates and arguments. The problem with that is, is that it
00:51:25.360
doesn't actually cause the other person to change their mind. It doesn't dig in. They just want to
00:51:30.800
dig in. Right. And so for ourselves, if you don't have empathy for yourself and you're willing to
00:51:37.480
create that environment where you, you allow yourself to feel pain, you allow yourself to go
00:51:42.120
back through and to process and to, to forgive yourself, you're going to dig yourself in more and
00:51:48.420
more and more and more and more instead of creating this environment, just like with animals,
00:51:53.100
whereas, Hey, you know, I've worked with horses before. I've worked with dogs. I've worked with
00:51:57.280
lots of, my dad being a veterinarian, I got, I've gotten to touch all of them. Right. You have to
00:52:02.880
create an environment of trust if you're going to get them to do. Otherwise, what do we do? Use force
00:52:07.800
and force is where most men make the majority of our mistakes is that we're using force on our
00:52:15.560
children or force on our wives or force on society or force on culture. And what ends up happening is
00:52:21.580
we, we don't understand that our power, not only is our power to heal, but it's crushing. We are
00:52:28.060
crushing so many people and we don't realize the collateral damage or you have the opposite kind
00:52:33.200
of guy who's just a pushover. He doesn't use any of his power. He doesn't use any of, any of what
00:52:38.240
God has placed inside of him. And so this is a long winded answer, but to, to, to kind of summarize
00:52:44.360
here, if you are not willing to create an environment where other people feel seen,
00:52:49.320
heard, understood, known, and loved, don't expect them to give a crap about your opinion because
00:52:54.260
they won't because their subjective reality, which is not objectively true, their subjective reality
00:53:02.060
is their truth. And you are bringing something that's in direct confrontation. And unless they feel
00:53:07.180
safe, it cannot be received by them. And so what's interesting and why this translates to your,
00:53:13.280
your secondary question of empathy for other people is that I now exist in a world where I can
00:53:19.900
literally love human beings who I vehemently disagree with and can create an environment where
00:53:26.960
we can have a conversation and they actually can hear what I'm trying to say. And it causes them to
00:53:33.820
take a step back and be like, I've never really thought about it that way. Now, this doesn't exist on
00:53:39.160
social media, as I'm sure, you know, because everybody's keyboard warriors and it's very hard
00:53:43.540
because it really only works in the context of intimate, close relationship. So this is why I tell
00:53:50.880
people, stop trying to solve all the freaking world problems and have a conversation with your neighbor,
00:53:56.220
invite your dudes over for the fire pit, have coffee with a friend. That is where you're going to
00:54:02.560
create the most transformational change. And I know that you agree with us too, is that for most of us,
00:54:07.840
it's around the dining room table. It's not out here on the computers. It's not here on social
00:54:14.060
media. You're not going to affect change. You're just going to cause people to get more and more
00:54:18.260
entrenched. And so this is one of the reasons I've always had problems with like social justice
00:54:21.960
warriors and the keyboard warriors is like people think that they're affecting change and they're not
00:54:28.160
because the only way that I change my opinion and the only way that you change your opinion, Ryan,
00:54:32.320
is if you feel, and I feel like, Hey, I was actually heard. Someone actually took the time
00:54:38.120
to understand where I was coming from. This is true in marriage. This is true with our kids. We
00:54:43.040
have to create those environments. And that is where I believe the importance. Yes, the importance of
00:54:48.120
it. That's the only way that transformation happens. In my opinion, it's the only way that we can change.
00:54:54.260
When you're talking about this, especially with regards to social media, one of the things I was
00:54:58.540
thinking as you started to answer that question was it doesn't exactly create viral content.
00:55:04.400
Like you, you look at somebody like David Goggins, who's just so confrontational and just angry all
00:55:10.520
the time. Now I've sat down with David and we've actually had a really good conversation. And I saw
00:55:16.280
a side of him that he doesn't portray all the time. And a lot of people don't see, but you look at
00:55:21.460
somebody like David Goggins or Donald Trump, or, you know, even Tony Robbins to a degree, they take
00:55:28.100
these, and I think Tony Robbins probably has a lot more empathy than the prior two examples I gave,
00:55:34.740
but they take these very non-apologetic hardline stances. And that's what creates these viral
00:55:41.380
moments. It happens in social justice, like you're talking about, whether it's Antifa or BLM,
00:55:48.260
it's all confrontational. It's all hardline stance. It's all us versus them. And I think this is where
00:55:55.680
a lot of guys have a hard time because there's people who don't see eye to eye with you. And
00:56:02.980
then there's your enemy. Yeah. And those are two different things. There are people who are truly
00:56:08.740
your enemy. Like they want you dead. They want to see you destroyed. They want to perpetuate evil
00:56:14.780
across the globe. Those are, those are our, that's our enemy. And then there's people who are
00:56:21.720
homosexuals or transgender and, you know, these other things that maybe I don't necessarily agree
00:56:29.240
with. Is that my enemy? I don't think it's my enemy. There's things I don't agree with. Those
00:56:34.400
things I'll fight against, but it's a hard thing to do, especially when you're on social media
00:56:38.320
to delineate the line between people you disagree with and people who are the actual enemy.
00:56:44.420
It's hard because there's no established relationship. And when you don't have established
00:56:48.340
relationship, you can't actually have dialogue. There's no trust. And without trust, like we think
00:56:54.220
of any relationship, anyone that we have ever had tremendous respect for that has changed our paradigm
00:56:59.520
or our perspective on life. It has only been in an environment where we felt like we could trust that
00:57:04.980
other person. And so if you don't have the ability to create that depth of relationship with another
00:57:10.660
person, you're literally wasting your breath trying to convince them. Use your energy for other things
00:57:17.240
is what I tell people. And that's what I have to be careful of that too, which is why a lot of times
00:57:21.560
like if people look at my socials, I'm not hyper controversial, right? It's not because I don't have
00:57:26.320
very strong beliefs about things. I'm just like, this isn't useful. I'd much rather take my time and energy
00:57:30.980
and go somewhere else where it's going to be useful. And namely, you know, the people that I
00:57:35.840
actually serve. Yeah. So that's my, that might be where our personalities differ. Cause I like to
00:57:42.340
poke the bear a little bit and I don't mind doing that. Not because I think it's productive just
00:57:47.220
because, uh, I think it's kind of funny sometimes and enjoyable, but maybe that's the more immature
00:57:53.480
side of me coming out. We all got to find a way to have fun though. So it's for sure. Well, David,
00:58:00.440
I want to be respectful of your time. I know you've got a hard stop here in the next few minutes.
00:58:03.840
Will you let the guys know where to connect with you and learn a little bit more about the work
00:58:06.600
you're doing? Absolutely. Yeah. Anyone can, uh, check out davidwaldy.com. Uh, you can find me on
00:58:11.960
social media and, uh, would love to connect. If you, if you mentioned the podcast to shoot me a
00:58:17.160
message, I've got, you know, love to give you some, some free resources, things like that. Let me know
00:58:21.060
that you found me through Ryan and Ryan, thank you brother for honoring me with your time and give me
00:58:25.180
opportunity to be here. It's been a blessing and I appreciate you, bro. Likewise, man. I love these conversations.
00:58:30.080
They're powerful. And you know, I remember when we started doing this almost 10 years ago now to be
00:58:34.320
able to have conversations like this. And 10 years later, over 500 men, Mr. David Waldy. I hope you
00:58:40.420
enjoyed that one. I really did. This is, uh, certainly an element of my life that I can prove
00:58:44.920
upon and focus on and get better at. And I'm working to do that. Uh, if you followed me for any
00:58:50.180
amount of time, you know that I can be harsh and I can be critical and judgmental towards myself and
00:58:55.200
others. And, uh, I'm working on this myself. So this one may have been just for me as much as it
00:59:01.600
was for anybody else, but guys, I didn't highly encourage you to go check out David's work.
00:59:05.860
Uh, connect with him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, X, wherever you're doing this social
00:59:09.980
media thing and make sure if you would just a quick tag, uh, take a screenshot right now or grab
00:59:15.860
the link, copy the link, text it to a friend or a brother, a colleague, coworker, cousin, et cetera.
00:59:20.080
Take a screenshot, post it up on Instagram stories, tag me, tag David, and let other men
00:59:26.260
who, you know, who you love, who you care about and who you want to see when, uh, know what you're
00:59:31.160
listening to and know what resources you have available. So that would mean a lot. Grassroots
00:59:35.560
movement. We don't do a whole lot of advertising. We're building this from the ground up. And that
00:59:39.360
would mean a lot to me and to the people that you're going to send this message to, uh, outside of
00:59:43.740
that, check out the iron council at order man.com slash iron council and check out our good
00:59:48.340
friends and show sponsors over at Montana knife company.com and use the code order of man. All
00:59:55.300
right, guys, that is your marching order for today. And we will be back tomorrow for our ask
01:00:01.760
me anything, but until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
01:00:07.380
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:00:12.000
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.