In this episode, we talk about what it means to be a man and why it s so important to have a man in your life. We also talk about the importance of being a man of action and how important it is to take initiative.
00:07:56.140And I think it's just going to get, continue to get worse unless people are willing to speak up against it and say, hey, no, this is not okay.
00:08:02.820And where's the Hippocratic oath for doctors?
00:08:06.360I thought doctors aren't supposed to harm people.
00:08:58.780So we have to use words in the proper context.
00:09:01.340We have to use the right verbiage for what is actually happening because these are potentially medical decisions that are being made not only for grown adults who can make their own decisions, but this will obviously pour down into our children.
00:09:28.860I mean, no different, if I told you I was doing something to my body because of whatever mental issue I had, you would call me out and you should.
00:10:46.060But no one wants to have that conversation of what actually defines you as a human and what what what contributions you're making to the world is is is is one of your values.
00:11:28.460I'm not saying we need to just throw them to the wolves.
00:11:30.940Get these people the mental health stuff they need, like the access to therapists.
00:11:35.760And like I'm not saying we just abandon these individuals.
00:11:39.940But look, if you're a woman and you're think you legitimately think you're a man, not like you're masculine or you're manly or you like things guys like that's different.
00:11:49.300But if you legitimately think that you're a man, there's something misfiring in your brain that needs to be addressed, not with reaffirming health care, quote unquote.
00:12:41.500We need to speak out more against it so people are familiar with and comfortable with the idea that, hey, no, people are going to say something about it.
00:12:47.720But, look, I'm going to say something even a little controversial.
00:12:51.500Like, bullying, there's a big anti-bullying campaign.
00:12:56.360Kip, when you and I grew up, bullying was taking place.
00:12:59.600Now, look, there's a distinction between a little bit of peer pressure.
00:14:42.820You don't pander to them pretending to be an animal.
00:14:46.420You address the issue so they can show up powerfully in the world and be happy with who they are and realize their value is based upon how they show up in the world and not based upon pretending to be something that they're not.
00:15:02.100That they don't need to pretend to be something to be recognized and appreciated.
00:15:30.440And you're all excited because you, too, think he can fly.
00:15:33.780The kid jumps off the roof and does a faceplant into the ground and breaks his leg or his back or, heaven forbid, kills himself because you affirmed this stupid idea that a child had.
00:15:45.660I mean, how many of us thought we could fly or dreamed of flying when we were little?
00:16:54.320I don't know why anybody would, because any any slight highlights I get of that show, I get I'm like, did someone really say that on there?
00:18:13.600And obviously, there's many ways that we could talk about this, like the polarization, the ignorance to things.
00:18:22.900But most importantly, what what I felt, what gets me riled up is how if one of these women on this show, and I would even argue women in our lives, if they got caught saying, I need my husband.
00:18:41.240I need a man in my life, that it would be met with like a little bit of an attack.
00:20:05.920I mean, look, the only thing that crosses my mind is, surprise, surprise, despicable women can't find good men for them to be around.
00:20:14.660And, like, that's all I can think about is, like, why is it that the disgusting ones, like the gross ones, the vile ones, like, why is it that those are always the ones who are like, men are horrible?
00:20:27.280But then on the other hand, you take wholesome, attractive, smart, intelligent, nurturing, kind, caring, empathetic women, and they're like, I love men.
00:21:20.880Women are good at certain things that men aren't generally good at, and men are good at other things that women generally aren't as good at.
00:21:27.040So we're not equal, but in worth, yes, absolutely.
00:21:32.860But, yeah, I'm not impressed by a bunch of hideous, despicable women confused as to why they can't find men worth having around.
00:21:41.800Why would a man subject himself to that?
00:21:46.680So if there's a woman who's listening and she's buying into this feminine ideology, just know you're going to die alone and miserable because no man wants to spend any amount of time with you, and rightfully so.
00:22:00.380But beautiful, lovely women who are kind and empathetic and caring and smart and intelligent, that's the kind of person I want to partner with.
00:23:42.480With the amount of anxious, angry, and negative people in the world, it's impossible to avoid them.
00:23:47.000But you have to protect yourself and your mindset.
00:23:49.840How do you maintain a safe distance while still trying to influence positive change among the people in the communities you are surrounded by every day?
00:24:00.400You'd show up within the controllables.
00:24:26.140And I think we ought to be familiar with the future, at least aware of what could potentially happen.
00:24:30.740But the antidote to anxiety is action.
00:24:33.240So if you have a lot of anxiety towards the opposite sex, then you need to put yourself in environments where you're spending more time with the opposite sex.
00:24:44.380That could be talking to the woman at the grocery store who's checking you out for your groceries.
00:24:50.860It could be the woman at the office who works in the office next to you or the cubicle next to you.
00:25:00.000You might not have any interest, but you're just familiarizing yourself with talking with women.
00:25:04.320If you're worried about the economy, then the best thing that you can do is to get your financial house in order.
00:25:09.760You know, pay off your debt, learn marketable skills, ask for promotion, start a new business, save some money, learn how to invest.
00:25:17.400If you're worried about natural disasters, then the antidote to that is having food storage, having supplies, having skills that you could use and utilize should you need to.
00:25:29.860So the antidote, again, to anxiety is always action.
00:26:02.460That's no longer what I would say healthy action that's being obsessed, and that needs to be addressed mentally.
00:26:11.080There's something going on, and that needs to be addressed probably with a professional in that case.
00:26:16.640Now, to your question, what do you do?
00:26:19.880Well, you just focus on the controllables.
00:26:21.460So if you're worried about how our young children are being raised and growing up, then the antidote to that is get involved in a young men's program.
00:26:30.900Get involved in sports in your community and coach sports teams.
00:26:35.480Maybe there's some extracurricular activities through the school district that you can be involved in.
00:26:40.200Maybe you want to be a part-time substitute teacher, or you want to coach one of the teams at the high school,
00:26:45.840or you want to do some mentoring through YMCA or Big Brothers, Big Sisters type programs.
00:26:51.340There are so many options available that allow you to be immersed in the solution to the problem that you see without having to be – it rub off on you.
00:33:21.580Imagine if instead of attributing it to being solo, you started to acknowledge the partners that you have in life, both personally and professionally.
00:33:28.780And instead of thinking that you're better off alone, you started magnifying the relationships and became more intentional about who exactly you wanted to partner with.
00:33:38.760Now, all of a sudden, how much better is your marriage because you're not just operating by default, but you're very deliberate and intentional about understanding what makes her tick and what are her strengths?
00:33:56.540How can you help her get what she wants?
00:33:58.580How can she help you get what you want?
00:34:00.360Imagine in your business, instead of just worrying about, oh, I picked up a new client today, you started getting intentional about what kind of clients, what exact problems are they dealing with?
00:34:14.840What kind of language should you use to be attractive to those people so you can solve their problems with your product?
00:34:22.500Imagine at work, maybe you're an employee or even the boss or the owner and you start looking at your colleagues and your coworkers
00:34:29.520and you think, man, that guy's really good at X, Y, and Z.
00:34:32.980I think I need to shift him to a different position.
00:34:36.840And that person's really good at this, but they're falling behind on this and I really needed to do that.
00:34:40.820So I'm going to pour a little bit more time and energy into helping them figure that element out.
00:34:46.480And then you start putting everything on hyperdrive because right now it's happening, but you're not even acknowledging that it's happening.
00:34:53.160Imagine what it would be like if you did acknowledge it and then you can figure out what partners you need professionally and personally.
00:35:34.220You know, like I want a partner who's capable of providing what I need and I want to be a kind of partner that is capable of providing what she needs.
00:35:41.600But then professionally, you know, is this somebody who has the skill set required to achieve in what I'm doing?
00:35:53.120Is this, and I'm not asking for blind allegiance forever, but I'm asking for some loyalty.
00:35:58.780I'm asking for somebody who believes enough in me and what I'm doing that they're going to stick around.
00:36:02.700If things aren't always perfect, if things aren't always right, that they're willing to afford me some grace because they're loyal to me and or the mission.
00:36:11.660I think I'm always interested in somebody who's a team player, who doesn't operate on an island, who doesn't think that they're better, who really values the contributing elements from other people.
00:36:23.960And then I think probably being a solid communicator is becoming more and more important to me.
00:36:37.140And it's not even just communicate all the good.
00:36:40.060But I actually need people in my life, again, personally and professionally, who are willing to tell me the truth about what they're feeling, what they want, what their hopes and dreams are, what I might be doing that they don't like.
00:36:57.440And it's not always comfortable, but I really, really value a person's ability to communicate everything they may need to communicate, not just the rainbows and the sunshine, but the clouds and the darkness as well.
00:41:30.680All right, this might need some context from you.
00:41:34.280So, Michael Graham, thoughts on the T-shirt selling talking heads?
00:41:39.500Do you believe they care or are they just after a quick buck?
00:41:46.380I don't really know, like, what you mean, who, like, who, am I one of, I sell T-shirts, so am I one of those people?
00:41:53.700Like, I don't really know where the line is on that.
00:41:56.400Who exactly he's implying, but I'm assuming just maybe just influencers, right, that are maybe not giving the best advice and maybe their focus is really just making money.
00:42:46.300What a lot of people fail to realize, I'm going to pull back the curtain here a little bit.
00:42:50.420Believe it or not, even though this is a movement I believe in, it's also a business.
00:42:54.200And it costs money to invest in camera equipment and lights and reoccurring technology charges like email lists and updating websites and running events and the maintenance behind our brotherhood, the Iron Council.
00:43:13.740I had a guy email me the other day and he was like, hey, so I'm thinking about joining the Iron Council, but I just want to know what my money would go to.
00:43:30.560Where does the money go when people pay for your products and services?
00:43:34.600Nobody asks that in other businesses, but in these kind of businesses, they do.
00:43:39.000Because a lot of the times people believe that, oh, if it's a mission, it's a movement, then you ought to just be doing it out of the goodness of your heart.
00:45:27.680But when the thing that they're offering is aligned with their service, then I think that gives you a little bit of a litmus.
00:45:35.860One more example and then we'll move on because I don't want to beat a dead horse on this.
00:45:38.760When I started the podcast, I had random podcast sponsors and there were two or three things that I was selling through sponsorships, advertising mostly.
00:45:50.300Sponsorships is a little different, but advertising.
01:07:43.440Well, and we've talked about this probably a number of times over the years, but you may have to change your expectation of what working out is.
01:08:14.560So there's ways you might just have to compromise a little bit too and let go of the ideal way you want to work out and make some pivots.
01:08:25.620You know, one thing that – I can't believe these words are about to come out of my mouth, but it's true.
01:08:30.000One thing I wish I would have learned and done when my kids were early in those early years like you're talking about, I should have cooked more for my ex-wife.
01:08:59.780And so there are things around the house, whether it's things like loading the dishes or deciding to vacuum or straighten some things or do the laundry or cooking.
01:09:09.920And again, I don't know your dynamic, but if those are things she normally does, go ahead and take those on.
01:09:15.400You can do those and you should do those.
01:09:33.760Look, it's important to have a website and have your products and services and offering and things like that.
01:09:38.080But if you open up your website and you're not really figuring out how to drive people to the website, it really doesn't matter how great or wonderful the website is or your product or service or offering is.
01:09:49.720So what I always suggest is you have to first go where people are and then you invite them to the things that you have going on.
01:09:58.680You can't invite people you don't know.
01:10:26.840Then you start inviting them to your space, which is your website or your podcast.
01:10:31.380And you really want to capture their emails because now you can start going into their homes because they've invited you into their home and you can say, hey, look, here's something to think about.
01:10:41.940Here's something you could learn or here's something you can laugh at today.
01:10:45.820And then what I do is I what I call cross pollinate my social media accounts.
01:10:50.320So it's really, really important that you get everybody on Facebook over to Instagram and everybody on Instagram over to TikTok and everybody on TikTok over to Twitter and everybody on Twitter over to YouTube and everybody on YouTube over to your podcasting platform.
01:11:04.360The more that you can cross pollinate these things, the more people are going to see you in different contexts and different mediums and have a greater affinity and connection with you.
01:11:13.340But yeah, social media is where it starts because that's where everybody is.
01:11:56.760But there's also something to be said for vetting what you're selling.
01:12:03.660If you can't have success from a minimal perspective, then the probability of you just opening up a website and generating tons of sales is going to be really low.
01:12:19.540So vet it, vet it somehow without just like dumping tons of money into ads and SEO.
01:12:27.820You need to confirm that there's a market for what you're trying to sell.