Don't Rescue People, What is "Wokeism," and Imperfection is Relateable.
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the growing problem of squatters in our housing crisis and how we need to do more to stop them. We also talk about the government trying to keep us out of our homes.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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Kip, what's up, brother? I'm a little flustered, so I'm glad to be doing this. It's going to take
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me a minute or two to settle into this thing, but it's been one of those mornings. Every once in a
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while, you get a Monday morning, and it's just... Feels like a Monday morning. Fire after fire.
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Yeah, it's like Monday morning. Typical Monday morning. We're getting it done, though. We're
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getting it taken care of. How are you doing? Good. Complete opposite. I had an hour of
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downtime leading up to this call. I was able to go through my document, look at questions,
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take my time. It's kind of been a nice morning. Are you being serious? That just doesn't sound
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right. I know. It never happens. I was like, slept in a little bit, came into the office at 8.30.
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It's been pretty chill. Chill Monday. Nice. You got to love those. Well, good, man. Well,
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I'm excited to get into it. Like I said, a little bit of craziness here today. Nothing big,
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just little minor things here and there, and thinking about what needs to get done throughout
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the week, just like a lot of guys listening deal with. But this is a good, not only reprieve,
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but it helps me get some clarity and focus on getting back into alignment with what I'm trying
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to accomplish. So always look forward to these conversations. Should we do headlines first?
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Yeah, let's do it. I think you started last week, if I remember correctly.
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Yes, sir. I did. I'll start this week. I saw a headline over the weekend that there is a woman
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in New York who was arrested for confronting squatters in the house that her, if I remember
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correctly, her mother or her grandmother had left her when she died. And there's this big ordeal,
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not only in New York, but across the country, there's this squatting epidemic that I've actually
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looked into since I saw this article where people will just move into abandoned houses or not even
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abandoned, just vacant. I personally, I own a vacant home. It's not abandoned, but it's vacant.
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And, and these people will move in and there's such a thing as squatters rights. If you didn't know
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that squatters rights and these, these cities, counties, states, municipalities make it damn near
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impossible for a person who owns a home to evict or not even evict, evict would evict would
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make it sound as if that person had some sort of an arrangement for making payment. I'm not talking
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about it evict. I'm talking about flat out removed trespassers, which is because we use these terms and
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this is what frustrates me like squatting or, you know, like tenant. No, that's a euphemism for
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trespasser, for criminal, for crook, for theft. Yeah. I, it just infuriates me and I'm so sick and tired
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of the government, right? And I'm talking about city, county, state, federal governments giving
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quote unquote rights to individuals who don't deserve them. People who break the law,
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they're relinquishing rights. And by the way, there's no right to say that you get to live in
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somebody's house. That's not a right that we have identified as, as being part of this country. And
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that goes back to what we were talking about. I think a couple of weeks ago, illegal immigrants,
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they don't have rights because they're not American citizens. So they don't have the same rights that
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American citizens do. And I'm so frustrated with it. I'm so sick and tired of it. And you know, look,
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what I'm tired of is I'm tired of people having the same opinion and then continuing to vote Democrat.
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I'm tired of letting bleeding hearts who feel everything with their heart and nothing with their
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brain dictate the tone of the conversation. Like sure, we can be empathetic. We can try to figure
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out how these individuals without housing situations can actually get housing. We can, we can talk about
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that, but we're not going to let them steal from people who have houses or houses have been passed
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down. We cannot let that happen. And it is infuriating to me that we have become a lawless country
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full of crooks, criminals, thugs who hate the police, who hate law and order, who hate this way
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of life and who jeopardize everything else that this country and these citizens of our country stand
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for. Hmm. There's my rant. Crazy. It's a good rant. So the question is, what do you do about that?
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That's the question. What do you do about it? Stop electing democratic officials. You idiots.
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Like do I had a, I saw on a post, there's a St. George, um, I live in St. George, near St. George,
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Utah. There's a Facebook group that I belong to. And it's funny. It's mostly comical for me because
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there's so many people who cry and complain and bitch about dumb things. And it's funny to me,
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actually. Yeah. And somebody was like, Oh, I hate prices in St. George. I'm like, well, first,
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it's not exclusive to St. George. And second, you're misattributing because there's a lot of
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people were like, Oh yeah, greedy landlords. You retard. It's not greedy landlords. It's the
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economic policies that our governments enact. So it's, for example, part of the reason the home
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values in St. George are so high is because people leave bad economic policies in California and they
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come here and they sell their homes in California for millions of dollars. And then they come here
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and infuse a bunch of cash into the, into the County. I don't have any problem with people
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spending their money, how they want to spend it. In fact, as a homeowner, I appreciate them coming
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and paying over the market value for home prices. I don't mind that, but I don't like that. They're
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fleeing bad economic policy and bringing that nonsense here. The other problem is that you have federal
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policy in the way of infusing billions and billions, if not trillions of dollars, the federal
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government just passed a $1.2 trillion could be off a billion dollars or so, give or take,
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because it doesn't seem to matter. $1.2 trillion spending package to avoid a government shutdown.
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I would love if the government shut down, I would love it. Yeah. There's elements of the government
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that do need to be shut down. And when you infuse billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars
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into a market that we're dealing with a very volatile marketplace, like we are now, you're
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going to inflate prices. It's, it's, it's inevitable. These people are so moronic. They're
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either idiots, ignorant or, or evil, frankly, because they're doing it on purpose. So guys,
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let's enough with Democrats, enough with liberals, enough with leftists. We cannot do this anymore.
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It is not sustainable. All right. Love it. That's what I had to share this morning.
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My headline is, is more of a, like a public announcement benefit. So Instagram,
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here's the headline. Instagram use, uh, users were blindsided by the platform, sneaky rollout of a new
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content filtering tool limit of political content, a setting that the social media giant may default
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for many accounts without ever directly informing users. Saw this checked. And my account was limited
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for political, political content from users. Oh, there's like a feature, something that you,
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okay. Official setting in Instagram that everyone's default setting is to limit political content.
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And that's the default setting. So, and I bet it's not just political content. I bet it's certain
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political content. Yeah. I mean, the setting is political content, right? But why would you do that
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now? That's what it says. Right. And, and, and, and, and it looks suspicious, of course. Right. And so
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anyone that wants to see the setting, just literally on the gram, go to your settings, content preferences.
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And now there's a section called political content underneath content preferences,
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and you can change it. So don't limit political content, uh, from people that, that you don't
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follow. So it's, it's a really a setting of, I don't want to see political content unless I follow
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them or vice versa. So settings, content preferences, political content. I don't even know how to,
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okay, let's see. I'm going to look in real time. Go to your profile. Yeah. So it's from your profile,
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go to that hamburger menu. Yep. And then content preferences, content prep. Okay. Content
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preferences. Yeah. And then political content. Yep. Limit political content from people you don't
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follow. Yeah. I mean, on the surface, it doesn't sound horrible. Yeah. Cause it's people you don't
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follow. Right. Yeah. And I don't, I don't want to hear a bunch of political content. Like, why would
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I be getting any content from people I don't follow? How about that? Totally. Like I, I realized
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Instagram, I was looking at it this morning. It's just become a filter of nonsense and ads. I'm like,
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I don't want ads on here. I mean, I know you got to make bit, make money. This is becoming,
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funny. Facebook has done it too. Yeah. We need alternative email systems. Yeah. You get that
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a fake email, you know, that it's like, you're like, Oh, I didn't subscribe to that. And you're
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like, Oh, it's an ad showing up as an email in my inbox. I can't stand that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with
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you. So anyhow. All right. Well, there you go. There's your headlines guys. Be aware, be awake,
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know what's going on. And you know, the other thing I would say too, on this is I'm, I was
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trying really hard to avoid political conversation on this week's headlines and I just can't avoid
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it. Um, I I'm trying to think about how to tie this back into manliness and masculinity guys, get
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involved in pop politics. Don't be passive. I mean, so I know so many of us are like, well, I don't,
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I don't want to deal with politics. I don't like Paul. I don't deal with it deals with you.
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Yeah. It's, it's literally transforming your life before your eyes in some very obvious and
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not so obvious ways. So yeah, I mean, if you don't want to get involved, I get that. I understand
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that. But the reality of it is that the politics are impacting your life and they will impact your
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children's lives. And so you better get involved in one degree or the not or another. All right,
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let's get to some questions. All right. So we're going to field questions from the Instagram
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to follow Mr. Mickler there. It's at Ryan Mickler. First question, cop van tarney. This
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is the great part about Instagram usernames. Who knows? Totally. All right. A leadership trait
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you admire in someone, you know, a leadership trait you admire in someone, you know, um,
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man, that's a leadership trait. And maybe just a leadership trait you admire. Maybe.
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Yeah. There's a lot of, well, I mean, even with you, Kip, there's, there's things I admire about
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the way that you lead. You, you leave from a very, I don't know if I would say empathetic as much as I
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would use the word understanding. It seems to me like you strive to understand where people are coming
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from before you start rushing into solving problems or coming to conclusions or even drawing conclusions
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about why a person does a thing. To me, that's admirable. I don't, I don't, I don't naturally have
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that trait and it's not something I've cultivated personally, but when I see you interact with those
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people, it helps me take a pause because I tend to be more reactive and black and white. Uh, so,
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so I really value that in you, but then you have, you have other people like, um, Jocko, I mean,
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with discipline, right? Just a very nonsensical approach to the way that, that he looks at life.
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And I, and I appreciate that. Uh, guys like Jordan Peterson with their, their vocabulary,
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their abstract, interesting vocabulary. And, and I'm not even sure with Jordan Peterson,
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it's the ability to explain. Cause sometimes I feel like I'm just kind of bouncing
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around in his brain and it's a little confusing for me cause I'm a dumb guy, but I also appreciate
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just his vocabulary and his, his constant quest to like seek and understand and curiosity. Uh,
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and I, and I'm deliberately picking him cause I know I've been somewhat critical and, and another
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person I've been a little bit critical of in the past is Andrew Huberman. You know, I don't,
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I'm not going to listen to his podcast. I'm really not like, I can't, I don't have 17 hours
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to listen about why the retina does what it does. I don't care. And why I need more sunlight. I already
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know that, but I also appreciate his ability to go deep and to really like, really fit. We need
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people like that. It ain't me, but we need people like that. Um, man, I think there's, there's other
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guys who are animated, you know, one person that comes to mind is Tim Tebow. I love his passion.
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You know, he's just so passionate. Um, Terry Cruz has got so much energy, just full of life and
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energetic and excited about life. Matthew McConaughey, uh, is somebody who's just fascinating
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and interesting and entertaining. Ben Shapiro's mind is, is interesting to me and how he's a great
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debater. Like he can take a subject and just debate it so logically that even like no emotion stands a
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chance against Ben Shapiro. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I try to learn from everybody. I see what
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everybody is doing. I was up in Zion national park. I live basically the base of Zion national park.
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It takes me about 25, 30 minutes to get up there. And I was sitting at breakfast and, uh, we were
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watching this family and I really admired just the family, the parents, like all, like it was,
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it was a man and his, his wife, I assume, and two kids, two young kids, probably, I don't know,
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one, one and a half and maybe three or four. And they were all dressed really well. They were all
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interacting. The mom was playing with the kids. The dad was engaged. Like I watched them and I
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that's leadership, you know, and I saw what they were doing and how it impacted their family and
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just the way that I perceive that to be on the, now you don't know the full story, but it looked
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pretty amazing. So I really try to learn something from everybody. And so there's a few examples for me.
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Yeah. I love that. Have you seen that meme video with the, the girl with purple hair? She's like,
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I'm going to read Jordan Peterson's 12 rules book. I want him to exploit this guy. Have you seen that?
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Oh no, maybe, I don't know. So she's holding this book. She's like, I'm going to read Jordan
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Peterson's book. I'm going to destroy this book. I'm going to expose him for the person that he is.
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And then it cuts to the next scene and their hair's normal. And she's no longer like a highly
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It's super funny. I was like, and then she talks about how good the book is. I'm like, that's,
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that's so funny. That is funny. People are hilarious.
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Wokeism, wokeism is a problem for sure. And, and I think if we're going to say wokeism,
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we need to explain what that is. To me, wokeism is synonymous with, uh, victimhood.
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Yeah. It's a victim that, that every, everybody out there is a victim. It's power higher hierarchies
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that the only reason that somebody gets ahead is because they took advantage of somebody else.
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And the only thing people are interested in is power. And it comes at the expense of other people.
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And there are certain people that are the oppressors and some, some people who are the
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oppressed. That's what wokeism is. And there is that, that is, there is an element of that in society,
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but broadly speaking, it isn't like that. It really, and even capitalism, you, I, there's men
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who would consider themselves conservative, who say they hate capitalism. Like you don't hate capitalism.
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You hate crony capitalism. You hate government subsidized capitalism. You hate exploitation,
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uh, greed, theft. I hate those things too, but that's not synonymous with capitalism.
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So it's people have miscategorized certain things and it's, it's, uh, it's a danger because it's not
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an accurate representation. Then when we make decisions based on misrepresentations of the
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reality. Totally. When you brought up something that, that I get pretty excited about talking about
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when we talk about victimhood and you, you, you pointed out, you have the oppressor and the oppressed,
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right? But then you also have the rescuer and, and that does the same thing. And that's the part
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where government and sometimes parents, where we fail as leaders, because we might stay away from the
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persecution, right? Well, I'm not going to persecute my people and oppress them, but I'll save them.
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I'll save them from their woes and that in itself will perpetuate victim mindset as well. And those
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are the parts that you have to be really careful about. And also if you want to be a hero, then
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everybody looks like a victim. Yeah. Yeah. So you're actually looking for problems that don't exist.
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Yeah. Yeah. If it's like the old adage, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
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If you're a hero, everything, everybody looks like a victim. Maybe they're not. And I think we also need
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to evaluate why we want to rescue people. Yeah. If I see somebody who's oppressed. Yes, exactly.
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That's like, we hear this a lot, white knighting, right? You come in as the white knight to rescue
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the person or the damsel in distress. Well, maybe that person didn't need rescuing. Maybe the best
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thing you could have done for them is just kind of let them struggle for a minute and make sure
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they're not going to die, of course, but let them struggle for a minute and, you know, work through
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their issues. Yeah. There's a, there's an interesting line in what movie is it? Oh, it's catch me if you
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can. Have you seen that movie? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great movie. I love that movie. Tom Hanks, Leo
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DiCaprio, Christopher Walker. And Christopher Walker has this line that he uses in his speeches where
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the, the mouse falls into a vat of milk and he struggles and struggles so hard and struggles
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and struggles. And eventually he turns that milk into butter. And as it solidifies, he rescues himself.
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He saves himself because he struggled so hard that he turned the milk into butter and was able to walk
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out of that bucket that he found that he fell in. Like I, that's always stuck with me. Struggle breeds
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strength and innovation and creativity and resilience and fortitude, all the things that we need to be
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successful in life. Yeah. And as rescuing, we rob people from that growth opportunity, from the
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confidence building, all those other things. Yeah, absolutely. Super tough. You know, one leadership
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trait I just want to call out since, since you're being so kind to me, I'm just joking, but, but I do
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full honesty. You, you are really great at relinquishing and letting people operate with
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autonomy. It's always shocked me how often in the iron council I see you, like someone has an idea
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and you're like, yeah, sure. And you don't try to control it all. And you see the value in people
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having an autonomy with, with what they're doing. And that's always been very impressive. And I think
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even a lot of times you're abundance as well. I think that's a trait that is pretty profound for
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you. Often you will support men in similar movements that, that at first glance, a lot of
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people would be like, oh my gosh, right? Like don't help them. That's a competition. And you don't,
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I've never seen you act like that whatsoever, ever, ever. And, and it's impressive. So I think having
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that abundant mentality and your ability to check your ego when, when it comes to control and
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understanding that people want autonomy and some, and some flex, right? In what they're doing and
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you being okay with it. Those are great. I appreciate that, man. Yeah. I mean, maybe, I don't know,
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maybe I'm just lazy and I'm like, yeah, sure. If you want to do it, do it. Cause I'm not going to.
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One thing I did think about with the abundance thing, and this is a mentality I've had, and I've
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actually had this thought and I've worked through that because there are times in my life where I
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feel intimidated or have the scarcity mindset like we all do. Of course we, we realize things as a
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threat. And I think biologically we're hardwired to hoard resources. And we don't, we can't really,
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I don't believe differentiate between, you know, the berries that are going to produce, which are
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finite and the, the economic abundance that we've created in modern times. Like my success
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no longer has to come at your expense, which is a pretty cool, pretty cool development in human
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history. Cause typically it would, right? Like if I want more lands, I have to take yours. If I want
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to kill more bison, then there's going to be less bison for you to kill. Traditionally throughout
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human history, it's finite, but we've created a different type of society. But here's what I
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thought. I'm 40. I'll be turning. How old am I? I'll be turning 43. That's now I'm getting
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I'll be turning 43 in, in a couple of weeks. And if I'm to live to life expectancy, I have less
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than 40 years left on this planet, which means that I'm not playing for five years. I'm playing
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for 40. And if I die sooner, then it doesn't really matter anyways. Right? That's what people,
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people think that all the time. Like I have to get mine now, bro. If you die sooner, it doesn't
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matter what you got. You're dead. I'm going to be here for 40 years, maybe. And I want to make sure
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that order of man is going for 40 years. I want to make sure my kids and their, their kids,
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my grandkids, maybe even great grandkids have learned what they need to learn. I want to,
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I just want to add value. I read a, I read a thing today on Insta on Facebook and I, and I think it
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was a Scandinavian country in the 1800s. They planted over 300,000 oak trees and they planted
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these oak trees in a certain way in a certain forest, because they knew if they did it this way,
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these oak trees would grow to be big and strong and straight and true. And they built it to develop
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and build boats for their Navy. And they weren't able to harvest these oak trees until 150 years
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later. Now, 150 years later, we were using steel, so it didn't really matter, but that's beside the
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point. The point is they were thinking 150 years into the future. We're going to plant these 300,000
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oak trees right now. And our great, great grandchildren will reap the benefit of what
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we've created or what we've done. That was a really cool lesson I picked up this morning.
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That is cool. That is cool. All right. Like-minded servants, what do each of your children say about
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you when you're not in the room? That'll show us. Go ahead. That'll show us the men we, how we really
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line up. What would your kids say? I don't know. I don't know what they say. All I can tell you is
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what I hope they say. Yeah. Yeah. I thought about this. Well, go ahead. No, let's hear what you have
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to say. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. How's this? And I think it varies. I think it
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varies every day. I think what they may not, what they'll say today is a little bit different than
00:25:12.760
they'll probably say tomorrow and next week. But I wanted to take advantage of the question and say
00:25:20.980
the importance of us evaluating this, though, is critical. Right? It's really critical. And
00:25:30.260
I had this note my daughter wrote me. My birthday was about a month ago. And she wrote this birthday.
00:25:39.180
And my dad passed away on my birthday. But I thought this was profound in regards to getting
00:25:44.620
her insight into how she sees me. She says, Dear Dad, I'm sorry that your dad died. And I know you
00:25:51.940
are really mad and sad. And you feel like you don't want to celebrate your birthday. But I don't want
00:25:58.120
this to happen every birthday. So at least try to let go. And I love you so much. I hope you have an
00:26:05.660
amazing day. Hmm. So cool. Her realizing how I show up or how she sees me. She's literally saying
00:26:15.660
translation, get over it. Because I don't want you being grumpy and mad. And you know what I mean? All
00:26:23.880
these other things. And thus, your kids care. And not just care, but how you show up affects them.
00:26:32.060
And I would probably argue she wrote that. Why? Because she's like, you're miserable
00:26:36.360
on this great day. Come on, Dad. Let it go. Right? And show up a little bit more powerfully.
00:26:43.200
And be happy and be fun. And not be this way. And thus, dad's always mad. Or dad's grumpy. Or dad's
00:26:53.920
mean. Man, I think it highly matters. And so, great question, like-minded servants. Even though
00:27:05.420
I think it is. It's a thoughtful question. It's something that really makes you ponder and think.
00:27:09.500
I don't know what they say. I know what they've said in the past. It hasn't always been great.
00:27:17.960
I mean, I hope from an interpersonal relationship level, I hope they would say that, hey, Dad really
00:27:28.320
cared about us. He was active with us. It wasn't always easy. And he couldn't make everything. But
00:27:33.620
he always tried to be there. And I do. I try to coach my kids' teams. And I try to go to their
00:27:38.700
things. I can't make it to all of them. I've got four kids. I've got my own stuff. And
00:27:42.120
of course, with the custody schedule, that changes the dynamic. I've got one of my son's
00:27:49.100
birthday's coming up. Well, he won't be with me this birthday. So, I called him up and I said,
00:27:53.860
hey, man, can I take you to breakfast or lunch? Because you won't be with me Tuesday night.
00:27:58.760
And he's like, in typical teenager fashion, he's like, no, I can't because I'm going to lunch
00:28:02.500
with my girlfriend. I'm like, okay, that's fair. But I put those reps in. And whether it works out
00:28:11.360
or not, for whatever reason or not, it's okay. I want them to know that they're important to me.
00:28:16.220
And I try to reach out to them every day. From another perspective, I just want them to see me
00:28:21.160
chasing things that are important to me and significant to me. Goals and dreams and desires
00:28:26.400
and ambitions and having fun and trying new things and experimenting and enjoying life.
00:28:30.480
And that isn't something that I've always done, but it is something that I focused on over the past
00:28:34.360
year and a half or so. I actually made this post on the Iron Council. I'm not sure if you saw it or
00:28:38.600
not. But I said, when is the last time you did something fun, something different, something
00:28:44.080
you've never done before? The thing that I'm doing right now, a couple of things, actually, I've got
00:28:48.500
some meat actually smoking on the Traeger right now. It's not something I really have ever done in
00:28:53.560
the past. And another thing is my oldest son that's talking about his birthday. He asked me about a
00:28:59.780
month and a half, two months ago, if I would be his lacrosse team photographer. I don't know.
00:29:04.660
I don't know anything about photography. I had a little Canon camera, did a little research,
00:29:10.160
spent about a grand in lenses and a bag and tripod and things like that. And I'm learning. It's fun.
00:29:16.200
It's enjoyable. And not only is it enjoyable for me, I would like them to see that I'm pursuing
00:29:22.120
things that I don't have any business pursuing. And I think that's what I would want them to learn
00:29:28.720
from me is, hey, you know what? Dad didn't know what he was doing all the time, but man,
00:29:32.320
he was willing to try. He was willing to put it out there and experiment and play and screw up and
00:29:38.280
admit his faults and then do new things. I would love for them to say that about me.
00:29:42.400
Yeah. That being fun is resonating with me. I downloaded the Alexa app on my phone.
00:29:51.040
So it allows me to broadcast messages on every Alexa device in the house for the last two days.
00:29:56.600
Every single time we take a dump, I have an Alexa message and I tell everybody.
00:30:04.480
I don't know why I think it's so funny. And it's like Alexa's voice and everyone's like,
00:30:09.080
oh my gosh. And I'm like, what does it say? Like Kip is going to the, your dad is taking a dump right
00:30:14.340
now. No, I'll say having a really good poop, you know, or I don't know, just to be funny.
00:30:23.780
And Asia's just like, oh my gosh. Yeah. And I'll, I'll even do it more often if someone else is in
00:30:29.940
the house, just to be extra enjoyable. It's okay. Like it really, I think we need to let loose
00:30:36.660
the thing that I've been doing, uh, and I've done this with my kids, but specifically for
00:30:41.780
whatever reason, my girlfriend's daughter loves diarrhea jokes. Like, you know, like
00:30:47.420
when your stomach starts to hurt and you feel a little squirt diarrhea, you know, those types of
00:30:51.680
things. Yeah. Totally. Sliding your first. Yeah. Oh yeah. And you feel something burst. Yeah,
00:30:56.600
exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So she's probably listening to this and she doesn't, I don't think that she
00:31:03.400
appreciates it as much as I do, but her and I love doing that. It's just fun. Like we're
00:31:07.680
just having fun and it's okay to have fun. And that's something I'm learning as well.
00:31:12.560
Absolutely. All right. Colin Cottrell and Jimbo, they had two questions. They're similar. So
00:31:18.020
I'm, I'm packaging these two up. Colin asks, best piece of advice for someone going through
00:31:23.440
a divorce. And then Jimbo's question is really the hardest part of a divorce.
00:31:27.860
Um, I saw these questions. I think the answer is the same. The best thing that you can do
00:31:39.400
when you're going through a divorce is if you know, this is happening and it's like done
00:31:42.880
or it's, it is happening is knowing when to let go. That's hard. What's the song? No
00:31:50.240
one to hold them. No one to fold them. Yeah. I think hold them as long as you can, because
00:31:55.860
you made a vow, you made a commitment, you know, hold them as long as you can, but there's
00:31:59.660
another party at play here. And so you got to know when to fold them. And I, I think I
00:32:04.200
did it right personally through my own divorce. I held them as long as I could. And then I
00:32:07.900
realized then there was a very cathartic moment for me and I won't get into the details of
00:32:11.720
it, but there was something that she had said that I realized this is done. Yeah. And it
00:32:18.160
was hard, man. I, and I'm, it was emotionally filled and there was tears on my part and it was
00:32:23.360
hard. Uh, and I'm sure it was hard for her to say too, if I'm, if I'm being honest about it.
00:32:30.240
Uh, but it was also super liberating, super liberating. It's like, okay, finally I can let
00:32:37.140
go and I can move on with my life and I can continue to work on myself and figure out what
00:32:42.080
we're going to do with the financial arrangements and custody arrangements and all these other things.
00:32:46.100
Um, so what would I say to somebody going through a divorce? No one to let go. What was the hardest
00:32:54.420
part? Letting go. Yeah. It's hard, man. Like you've been in a marriage, you've been committed to
00:32:59.860
somebody, you, you gave yourself to somebody, you've been with them for, uh, you know, in my situation,
00:33:04.780
I was with my ex for 20 years. We were married, married for 18. That's a long time. So letting go
00:33:11.120
of that, I really grappled and wrestled with that. But when I did let go, it allowed me to move on
00:33:16.420
and drive on with my life. And also letting go, I think it is a little bit of forgiveness for
00:33:22.100
yourself, a little, maybe not even forgiveness. I don't, I don't, I don't really know how to look
00:33:26.180
at this, but a little bit of grace. Yeah. You know, I, I could have done better,
00:33:32.780
but I didn't. And so now I'm learning the lessons and now I'm learning what I should have done and could
00:33:40.720
have done and what I will do in future of my, my future relationship and, and just being not okay
00:33:48.060
with it, but just coming to terms with it. Yeah. I really, when I hear letting go, I think it's
00:33:54.360
letting go of the expectations of, of what you thought it should have been, or it shouldn't be.
00:34:00.860
And just dealing with what is so reality. Yeah. Reality. And, and I think where that allows grace
00:34:10.320
to come in is being okay with wherever they are. And I think that's kind of the hardest part of it,
00:34:17.880
right? Of letting go. If we really let go, then you're not, you don't have a heart at war towards
00:34:23.760
her when you see her, when she's with another guy, like you, you start being okay with her moving on.
00:34:30.480
Um, and, and, and seeing her for who she is and being, you know, with, with no expectation of way,
00:34:39.760
way it should or should not be, if, if that makes sense. And I, I struggle with, I struggle with the
00:34:44.840
same thing. I mean, I did be honest with you. I, I dated, I dated on and off after my divorce and
00:34:52.220
multiple times, you know, if she came knocking on the door and said, I want to put our family back
00:34:57.820
together again, I was like, absolutely. Let's go. So divorce is over, over, but I didn't let go for,
00:35:05.980
like I, in my heart, I really didn't let go until about four years. But, but I remember it like it
00:35:13.420
was yesterday and it was kind of a surreal moment where I was like, Oh yeah, this isn't like this will
00:35:21.220
not ever work. And, and, and coming to terms with it and letting go was, was profound, but it took me a long
00:35:28.420
time. Uh, and, and I kind of hurt myself a lot mentally, right. In that time of not letting go. Um, but it
00:35:38.100
was what I needed, right. For me to have that confidence in, in, in moving on.
00:35:43.380
Yeah. Well, I guess Kip, since both of us say learning to let go, then the follow-up question
00:35:51.040
is how do you let go? Yeah. What do you think? For me, I think learning to let go is, is dealing
00:35:58.060
with reality. I, I think this is our biggest issue in a lot of cases in life. We have these
00:36:04.020
expectations of the way that things should be or not, you know, upset at work is like, Oh, well,
00:36:10.520
it shouldn't be this way. Well, guess what? But it's, but it's not that way. So deal in reality,
00:36:15.760
deal in, in what is so, as well as giving grace to other people and realizing there's agency and we
00:36:23.440
can't control people. And so that was my biggest thing is I felt I held on because it shouldn't be
00:36:30.360
this way. My, I shouldn't have my family separated. I shouldn't have to be a part, part-time parent,
00:36:37.360
which might be true. Which might be true. All of that. Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't matter whether
00:36:42.560
I think that or not. The reality is it is what it is. Yeah. And I can't control her and I need to
00:36:50.480
be okay with wherever she chooses in life. And, and that was it. So it was really just coming to terms
00:36:57.160
with, it was something outside of my realm of control. Um, and, and letting go of the past and
00:37:03.000
dragging that into my present and future and dealing in the present and the present was,
00:37:08.340
she's moved on and you're not going to get her back and you're not going to have your family
00:37:14.420
together full time. And, and this is your new lot. So now what are you going to do with it?
00:37:20.400
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, those two, I didn't think about those two things. So I wrote,
00:37:24.360
as you were talking, dealing with reality is something you said. And then another thing you
00:37:28.440
said is having grace for others. I think those were two good things. The only other thing that
00:37:32.720
I wrote down here that, that I think would add to that is just allowing yourself to explore a new
00:37:37.560
reality. Like what an exciting time. It's possible. Possibilities now. It's exciting. Yeah. And I know
00:37:44.280
that sounds weird, especially if you're in the throes of it right now, it sounds weird to think that
00:37:49.060
you have an exciting life ahead of you, but you actually do. Yeah. You have adventures and things that
00:37:55.440
you can go on and other, other, another woman that you can find and cultivate a new, maybe even better
00:38:02.200
relationship with. You can try new things. You can take risks. Like it's actually pretty exciting when
00:38:08.840
you choose to look at it like this. And I know there's going to be naysayers who listen to this
00:38:12.460
podcast and they'll say things like to me personally, like, well, you filled your family.
00:38:17.260
Like, why don't you focus on that again? What's done is done. And I'm, I'm, of course I'm,
00:38:22.680
I'm intimately aware of that and familiar with that, but that doesn't mean that I can't go out
00:38:28.800
and create something new. And in fact, if I want to be the best father that I could be for my
00:38:32.360
children, then I'm actually obligated to go do that because I need to make myself into something
00:38:37.020
that I wasn't previously. And I need new experiences. I need new information. I need new
00:38:43.540
relationships that I can grow from in order to become somebody new. So man, if you're going through
00:38:49.380
a divorce right now and you're at the pit of despair and trust me, I know what it is. Kip,
00:38:52.920
I'll speak for you on this one. I know, you know what it is. Absolutely. Have a little bit of hope
00:38:57.540
and optimism if you can find it and know that life gets better. I was talking with my girlfriend the
00:39:02.220
other day and I, and I, I can't remember exactly what we were talking about, but we, we were talking
00:39:06.500
about, and she's of course gone through hardships as well. How, you know, in those moments,
00:39:11.580
it feels like it's catastrophic. It feels like you're just in the pit of despair and life is
00:39:18.820
literally over and maybe even consider taking your own life. I have those thoughts. I never acted on
00:39:24.280
that. I never seriously gave that any consideration, but I, I would be lying if I said I didn't have
00:39:30.700
some of those thoughts. I did, of course. And it was horrible. And I remember how horrible it was,
00:39:35.220
but it's weird not to feel that way today. Cause I don't, I'm happy. I'm probably the happiest I've
00:39:41.540
been in a really long time. I'm, I'm excited about the relationship I have with her. I'm excited about
00:39:47.140
the relationship I have with my kids. I'm excited about this business. I'm recommitted to, to this
00:39:53.020
movement. Like it's exciting. It's one of the best times of my life. And also I have this thing over
00:39:59.820
here that isn't really that exciting or great about my history. Yeah. But it's okay. Like it's okay.
00:40:08.800
It's so weird that we as human beings can just almost, I, I remember being a lot of pain. It's,
00:40:16.360
I can't even explain it. I remember being a lot in a lot of pain, but I don't, I can't feel it the way
00:40:23.560
that I did then. And it seems like a past life almost. And it hasn't even been that long. Human beings
00:40:31.020
It's a transformation, a paradigm shift of how you saw the world. So it's unrelatable to some extent.
00:40:39.900
There's one thing I want to call out and it came up in another question. So I'll take advantage of it.
00:40:46.980
And Ryan, I don't want to speak for you here. So maybe you clarify. For me, I was able to let go,
00:40:53.440
not through anger and hate. I think some guys, they get sideways. There's a lot of anger and hate that
00:41:02.000
is present. My ability to let go allowed me to love her genuinely without judgment.
00:41:11.280
So for me to do that, it was empathy increased. And I see her with less judgment than I did before.
00:41:20.320
Not more hate. And you know what I mean? I've moved on because I don't give a shit. You know what I mean?
00:41:24.660
It's like, no, that's not what I'm talking about when I say letting go. And I want to call that out
00:41:30.880
because I think guys might get that wrong. That letting go is actually like, I'm letting go of them
00:41:36.800
because I have all this heart at war towards them. You're not letting go of the shit if you
00:41:41.540
still have a heart at war towards something. Well, and a lot of guys will say, well, but it is.
00:41:46.220
It's like, she is. She is this way. She did do this thing. It's like, that's true. That might be true.
00:41:51.000
Like she might be the most conniving bitch of all time. Oh, and how does that serve you now?
00:41:57.860
It doesn't. So in my personal situation, I made a commitment. I don't talk about her ill. I don't
00:42:03.300
actually have anything ill to say about her, but I'm not mad. I will. There was, I'm not mad. I
00:42:08.880
think there was an injustice done, but I'm not mad. But you know, what's interesting is she would
00:42:14.340
probably also say there was an injustice done. Totally. And so I'm not mad. I've made the best
00:42:21.980
decisions I could. I think she made the best decisions she could. She thinks I'm wrong.
00:42:27.400
Probably. I think she's wrong. And, but again, it's reality. And so I'm not going to, I'm just going to
00:42:32.860
choose not to be mad. It's kind of like love. You know, we, we, when we're young, I think we
00:42:38.280
believe that love is just a feeling like, Oh, I love this person. And as you get older, you realize
00:42:43.600
that love's a decision. You know, yes, it's a feeling too. Don't get me wrong. But also like,
00:42:49.380
there's a lot of things that come up where you decide, no, I am going to love this person
00:42:52.580
because I committed to this person. And, and being mad is the same way you, you choose, you're
00:42:59.360
choosing to be mad and you might have things to be mad about. But the great thing about being a
00:43:04.980
human being is you can wake up today and you can decide, you know what? I don't think I'm going
00:43:07.740
to be mad today. It's a choice. And then you're not like that is an incredible superpower that we
00:43:15.660
as human beings have that other animals just don't have. So we ought to utilize it. Michael Merrill,
00:43:22.960
Ryan, most impactful, memorable discussion or topic with the guests so far and why?
00:43:28.700
Oh, I hate these. I mean, I appreciate the question, but I hate these questions.
00:43:34.720
I know. Man, there's so many. One that stands out was my interview with John Eldridge
00:43:41.620
because his book Wild at Heart changed my life.
00:43:45.220
One of the most frustrating things about when I was reading that book is I remember I was reading
00:43:50.160
it on a plane somewhere. I don't know where I was going. And I got off the plane and I got to
00:43:54.140
wherever I was going and I looked at my bag and I didn't have the book. I left it in the backseat
00:43:59.960
of the person in front of me. It's like, dang it. But I remember just being so enthralled with that
00:44:07.060
book and like scooping up every word and trying to internalize all of it. So that was really good
00:44:12.260
when I was able to have a conversation with him. My first interview with Jocko was totally weird and
00:44:19.520
awkward and uncomfortable for me. It was kind of when he was getting started and he wasn't as
00:44:24.260
polished as he is now. And I wasn't as good as I am now. And so it was a really weird, I'd ask him
00:44:30.640
like, how do you, how do you become more disciplined? He's like, I'll do it. You just do it.
00:44:35.660
Yeah. I was going to say one word responses. Good. Do it. Good. I'm like, do you care to elaborate?
00:44:42.400
No, there's nothing to elaborate on. You're weak. Next question. I was like, okay, thanks for the
00:44:51.500
assist on that one. But it was still pretty exciting for me. I remember how excited I was
00:44:58.700
doing that interview. Tim Tebow was a great interview. I talked about him earlier. The
00:45:04.320
guy's passion and enthusiasm for his work is incredible to me. I don't think I've ever met
00:45:09.220
a person like that. Goggins was an interesting one. You know, I, I, I don't want to be like
00:45:16.320
David Goggins. I don't want to live my life like he does. I'm not interested in that. But
00:45:20.820
also, again, we have to have those kinds of people. Yeah. Who just are so vested in their
00:45:26.460
thing. Yeah. And they show you what's possible in certain realms of life. When I walked into
00:45:31.940
the room, I, I, I got a hotel room, a nice, like, you know, suite in, in a, I can't even
00:45:37.620
remember where we were, maybe like Belasio or something in Vegas. And I got this nice suite
00:45:42.840
for us. And I said, Hey, I'm going to be here. Or maybe he was there and I got a room there,
00:45:46.340
something. I can't remember exactly. And, um, had a, had a film crew come down. And, uh, when
00:45:51.400
he walked in the room, he was, I mean, it was palpable. It was palpable. Like you could,
00:45:56.920
I'm like, this is the David Goggins. This is Goggins. Yeah. And he was in his workout
00:46:03.040
gear. He's like, Oh man, sorry. I'm running a little bit late. I just got done with a
00:46:05.640
workout. And I said, no problem. Like I got everything set up. We're ready to go. So we
00:46:09.120
sat down, we had a really good, a really good interview. You guys should go listen to that
00:46:13.240
one. That was one of my favorite. It was so wild, so wild. And then at the end of the
00:46:17.860
interview, we kind of got wrapped up and I was like, Hey, we're all done. And we're kind of
00:46:20.980
closing things down. I thought we were going to shoot the shit a little bit. And he's like, Hey,
00:46:23.620
I gotta go. I gotta go work out. And I was like, didn't you just go work out? He's like,
00:46:28.280
yeah. Like I looked at him, like he was the weird one. And he looked at me like I was the
00:46:32.920
weird one. I'm like, and he could tell I didn't connect. He's like, this is my second workout.
00:46:37.560
I'm like, Oh, okay. Got it. Which was an hour later, you know? So hour and a half. Yeah. But,
00:46:42.740
uh, yeah, I got a lot of good memories, man. It's been a, it's been a hell of a ride. It's been a lot
00:46:47.460
of fun. Okay. John, uh, geez, these names, John Gal Chabar hair. Good morning. My dad passed away
00:46:59.920
after a long battle with cancer a month ago. Any suggestions on how to deal with the loss?
00:47:05.540
I'm struggling a bit as I was at work when he passed and I didn't get to the hospital in time.
00:47:11.360
Hmm. There's things I wanted to say and ask. Thank you. Yeah. I didn't get to the hospital
00:47:17.740
on time when my dad died either. He died a half an hour before I got there and you flew. Like,
00:47:22.620
I think you flew, huh? You're trying to get your plane. You drove. I should have flown. I drove.
00:47:28.420
Hmm. Hmm. How do you deal with it? I think, I think we have a really unhealthy relationship with
00:47:35.960
death. You know, like we don't, we, we postpone it. We don't want it to happen. There's people
00:47:40.800
talking about talking seriously about living forever. And, um, you know, we, we don't really
00:47:47.880
have any sort of connection with the afterlife or, or believe even necessarily that there is one.
00:47:52.660
And my thought is this is like, I believe in an afterlife. I don't know exactly what it looks
00:47:56.080
like, but even if it doesn't, well, it doesn't really matter. That doesn't, you know, if, if,
00:48:01.340
if I die and it goes black, I'm not going to be there to experience that. So I'm going to choose
00:48:05.880
to have some hope and optimism of what's going on in the future and what's going on in that
00:48:09.960
afterlife for me. You know, that's faith. Right. Yeah. Um, I think a lot of this is,
00:48:18.100
well, one thing he said, or our guy said, is he said he had things he wanted to ask him
00:48:23.680
and questions and unsaid things. Go ahead and write those things down and, and write that
00:48:29.340
letter to your dad. Yeah. Just go ahead and write those things down. Hey dad. Like for me,
00:48:34.020
it was like, why weren't you there all the time? Like, did you love me? Cause there was moments
00:48:38.880
where I'm like, he doesn't love me. He doesn't care about me. Yeah. And so I really, I didn't
00:48:42.600
write them down. Like I'm encouraging you to do, but I, I, I should probably do that. But I did
00:48:47.020
spend a lot of time thinking about that. And I think you can still ask the question because when
00:48:52.300
you do everything that you can do, you're able to let go of the rest. You haven't done everything
00:48:56.580
that you can do yet because you think there's no time to do it. Well, just because you ask a
00:49:01.120
question doesn't mean you're going to get the answer from the person who's responding or you would
00:49:04.960
like to respond. Yeah. And in this case, he's not even available to do that. So ask the question,
00:49:12.260
go to his grave, sit at his grave, just ask him questions. I think he'd be pretty amazed as I've
00:49:19.140
done that. I've, I've, I've developed a lot of grace and forgiveness for my dad after he passed away
00:49:26.700
because I'm willing to ask those questions. When I say, Hey dad, why don't you love me?
00:49:31.520
He, he did love me. Of course he did. Yeah. In my mind, I didn't as a kid, but now when I asked
00:49:39.120
that question, what comes to mind for me is he didn't know how to love me the way that I wanted
00:49:44.100
to be loved. Maybe there was some, uh, barriers to being able to do that. Cause we weren't together.
00:49:52.340
We lived in different States for a lot of my childhood as well, but he, it's not that he didn't
00:49:57.820
love me. It's other things that I couldn't see when I was a child. You know, if I said,
00:50:04.420
why weren't you there on these things? He might say, no, I was there. Like, maybe I didn't call you,
00:50:11.000
but I was thinking about you. You know, for example, I can't be at all my kids games. My son,
00:50:17.420
my oldest son had games in Vegas this weekend. I couldn't be there cause I was coaching my youngest
00:50:21.900
son's soccer team. And he could say, well, why weren't you there? I'm like, bro, I was there.
00:50:28.660
Like I thought about you. I texted you before I said, Hey, good luck today after the game,
00:50:35.040
how'd the game go? Like I'm vested in it. I can't physically be at everything, but I'm vested in it.
00:50:40.720
And you're, and with your father, it might be the same thing, but I say, go ahead and ask those
00:50:45.600
questions and just let yourself sit in them a little while and see. And you might, you might give
00:50:51.840
him a little grace that he maybe deserves, and you might afford yourself some grace that you deserve.
00:50:57.420
Totally. When my, when my dad passed away, it was funny because I had a lot of people like,
00:51:04.820
you know, reach out. Hey, Kip, I'm sure he was a great guy. You know, it's evident of how you show
00:51:12.520
up in the world. You know what I mean? And it was kind of funny because he wasn't that great.
00:51:21.840
Not at all. In fact, I, I would probably even argue that, uh, most of my siblings had major
00:51:31.340
relationship issues with this guy. And, and so a lot of people assume that I just had this amazing
00:51:38.800
relationship with my father. Um, but like you, I was actually afforded a lot of grace because I chose
00:51:49.160
to see him who he was and forgive him for, for who he wasn't. That's it.
00:52:00.360
And, and you, you want to get complete with your dad. You know what getting complete with someone is
00:52:05.440
it's, it's forgiving them and having some empathy and understanding that they are who they were.
00:52:12.940
And guess what? They did the best they could do because that's what they did. And who are we to
00:52:20.040
say that we understood someone's upbringing and their shortcomings? What things did he shield me
00:52:26.580
from that? I have no idea, right? What, what things did he do? What heart, um, hurt and frustration
00:52:34.400
and sorrow and sadness did he have in his heart as my father that I never knew about?
00:52:39.860
Now, the more I think about those kinds of things, the more I realized that we are arrogant
00:52:44.700
to ever assume that we should, we know how someone should or should not show up in the world.
00:52:51.280
We don't know. We really don't. And we should be a lot more empathetic and forgiving for, for,
00:52:58.180
for the interactions that people have in their lives, especially our parents. And you know,
00:53:02.180
this, we're both fathers. Do your dad love you? Absolutely. He did. Why? Cause you're a father.
00:53:08.040
Now, did he screw up in regards to showing it? Did he not do the things that we thought they
00:53:15.080
should have or should not have done? Absolutely. But to, to say that they didn't care, I think would
00:53:21.760
be folly. Yeah, I agree. No, that's well said. And, and look, if you're, if you had a great,
00:53:29.100
we don't know, maybe you had a great relationship with your father. Yeah. Even this year.
00:53:33.540
And here's, here's what I would say. Go watch Lion King. I know that sounds like a silly answer,
00:53:40.200
but go watch when Simba is confronted by the, by the baboon. I can't remember his, his name,
00:53:48.900
the baboon's name. Yeah. And he introduces him to his father who's already died. And his father
00:53:55.420
comes in the form of clouds and says, remember me, like you've forgotten who you are. Therefore,
00:54:02.140
you've forgotten me. And I think a lot of people, a lot of men fall into that trap when their fathers
00:54:09.760
die, especially if they have close relationships. I think in a lot of ways, it could be harder for
00:54:14.160
somebody who has a close relationship, right? Than somebody who doesn't, obviously. And then they,
00:54:21.540
they self-destruct. They're like, I love my father. He meant everything to me. He meant the world to me.
00:54:27.120
I love, we had a great relationship. Then why are you acting like you are? Because you're dishonoring
00:54:32.660
your father. You loved your father. You admired him. You respected him. You appreciated him. He poured
00:54:39.760
everything into you. You had this great relationship. He sacrificed for you and you're acting like an
00:54:44.740
asshole. Wrong answer. Remember who you are, a son of him and honor his life by acting the way that he
00:54:57.640
taught you to act. And I promise you, he wouldn't have you wallow in your own self-pity. He wouldn't
00:55:05.640
have you crying over his grave. He would have you go out there and lead your own family, start your own
00:55:12.740
business, get in shape, fix your mind, fix your heart, fix your soul, but go out there and pursue
00:55:19.000
interesting things to you. That's what he would have you do. So as maybe not as delicately as I can
00:55:27.220
say it, but as plainly as I can say it, shame on you a little bit. If you've used this death
00:55:34.840
to become less than what he would have you be and what he taught you to be, go be that guy.
00:55:43.300
Yeah. He would appreciate that. Yeah. And then you'll reunite. Yeah. You want to honor and make your
00:55:51.020
parents happy, live a great life. That's all that we want for our kids. Yeah. No, no different.
00:55:59.220
David Osburnson. He had a similar question and I think we could just tag onto it just really quickly.
00:56:05.440
He said that his dad passed away in August and he keeps having dreams about him being alive and he
00:56:10.320
wakes up and realizes that he's not. And his question is, is why do I still have these dreams
00:56:15.260
and why shouldn't I just feel I should move on emotionally? I don't think you have to move on.
00:56:22.580
Yeah. I agree. Like you, I mean, I hear what you're saying. Like you don't want to feel this
00:56:29.900
way. I get it. Like, but you don't need to move on from who he was or his legacy. Like when I look
00:56:36.540
at myself, I look like my dad. Now I didn't know him real well. I didn't have a lot of interactions.
00:56:42.520
I loved him. He loved me. I know that. But when I see pictures of myself or look in the mirror,
00:56:47.020
I'm like, holy shit. Like, and especially as I get a little gray, I look more and more like my dad.
00:56:53.340
Like you don't have to move on from that. And it's okay. Also, you need to know this. It's okay
00:57:00.880
to be sad. Like it's okay to cry. Yeah. It's okay to be heartbroken or to feel sorrow or to miss
00:57:09.460
somebody. I almost feel like in your question, like you shouldn't feel that way. Why shouldn't
00:57:15.300
you? He was so important in your life. You loved him. You honored him. Like he loved you. You guys had
00:57:20.440
a great relationship. Of course you should feel it. Maybe allow yourself to experience
00:57:24.660
and feel it more than you are right now, but then also take action. Also do. And so when
00:57:32.280
he visits you in your dreams, like be grateful. Yeah. Totally. He's visiting you in his dreams
00:57:39.980
and you guys are having conversations and he's alive. That's awesome. What is he telling
00:57:47.280
you? Do that. What lessons is he teaching you beyond the grave? Do that. I think that's
00:57:53.700
a blessing. Me too. Yeah. When I read that question, I was like, no, don't, don't move
00:58:01.220
on from that. Embrace it. No way. Enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. Use it to use it to help to show
00:58:08.580
up powerfully in the world. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Take a couple more. Yes, sir. Jersey, Tony,
00:58:16.380
what was the most important lesson learned during the order of man journey? The order
00:58:22.240
of man journey. This question is for both Ryan and Kip. Thanks Jersey for giving me that
00:58:27.680
option to respond. I was going to respond anyway. Thank you so much for when he started talking.
00:58:33.420
I know. Thank you so much for all that you guys do. Most important lesson. Well, I think
00:58:38.300
for me, it's been the lesson I learned over the past year and a half now, almost two years.
00:58:42.120
Well, closer to two years is like, you don't have to be perfect to do this. I thought I had
00:58:47.380
to be perfect. There was a time when I was going through the throes of my alcohol abuse and, and
00:58:52.600
the demise of my marriage where I thought, Oh, I'm going to have to throw in the towel. Like
00:58:56.700
I seriously considered that. Yeah. Never looked any further than just considering it in my own
00:59:01.240
mind, but there was a time where I really thought that. And then what I realized through my own
00:59:05.520
actions and then starting to share some of what was going on, I realized that I don't have to be
00:59:10.540
perfect to do this. In fact, I'm maybe more qualified now than I was before because I have
00:59:16.200
a greater level of understanding and empathy for somebody who's going through what might drive them
00:59:20.720
to belong to this movement, which is substance abuse or a divorce or any number of things that
00:59:26.460
people deal with. And I'm more empathetic and understanding to what they're dealing with
00:59:29.780
because I've dealt with some of it myself now. So a lot of our inability or, or unwillingness to
00:59:37.820
take action stems from our desire to be perfect in order to do it. And you just don't, you just need
00:59:43.140
to be honest. And I wasn't always honest, but now that I am being honest, even about my shortcomings
00:59:50.240
and indiscretions and screw-ups and failures and setbacks, not only does it empower me, but it
00:59:57.200
connects me at a deeper level to the people who want to be connected to this movement. Unlike I ever
01:00:02.180
was connected with those people before. Yeah. You know, I think one of my biggest lessons
01:00:07.600
while being with you over the last, geez, what, eight years or seven years or so,
01:00:13.160
has been the natural order of men coming into the Iron Council. And the IC is open right now. You guys
01:00:21.420
have pretty much this week to sign up to join us in that brotherhood. But most men join the Iron
01:00:29.800
Council to focus on themselves and they think they are the focus, right? It's like, okay, I'm going to
01:00:36.220
join here and I'm going to get my fitness dialed in. I'm going to, I'm going to get these things and
01:00:41.080
I'm bettering myself. And that's not bad. I'm not saying that's bad, but guys that get it move past
01:00:49.660
that. And then they realize that they're in the Iron Council for the other men on their team.
01:00:58.740
They're in the Iron Council so they can show up more powerfully with their family, with their kids,
01:01:06.340
with their spouse. And it no longer becomes about them as much as fine tuning the tool to serve other
01:01:14.620
individuals. And man, that is so powerful. And don't get me wrong. Sometimes that's hard to
01:01:23.620
imagine putting others first when we're broken and we need to work on ourselves. But there's the
01:01:30.260
natural order of progression I've seen over and over again in the Iron Council. And the guys that
01:01:36.500
continue to move on to the next stage, they step into the stage of service. And it's the service of
01:01:44.420
their teams and the service of their communities. And they start playing a bigger game. Not the game
01:01:49.700
of, I just want some financial stability and I want to be in shape. They've taken on something bigger
01:01:55.500
than that. And that is really what the movement's about more than anything else.
01:02:02.640
Imagine, I agree with everything you said, imagine if they came into it with that mentality,
01:02:08.160
Yeah. I had this buddy who I got in the financial planning business over a decade ago. Yeah. Like
01:02:19.140
Uh, yeah. And we got into the business together and then we, we ended up being business partners.
01:02:24.900
I eventually sold my business to him when I stepped away from the financial planning practice
01:02:28.720
and he would, whenever I had to complain about something, he'd say, therefore what?
01:02:32.820
And it was so annoying. I'd complain or drive about something. He's like, therefore what?
01:02:39.340
And I'd get so bothered. And I look back at it now. I'm like, that's actually pretty good.
01:02:43.980
Like, therefore what? Okay. And, and I think about that a lot with our goals. You know,
01:02:52.080
a guy will say, I'd like to make a lot of money. Therefore what? Well, why? Well, so I can serve
01:02:57.520
my family. There you go. That's a better motive where I want to, I want to, I want to be fit.
01:03:03.680
Why? So I don't know. So I can be more connected with my wife or we can be more intimate together,
01:03:09.980
or I can have energy to go play with my kids or I can coach their teams. Yep. Exactly. Yeah.
01:03:16.460
Having a better body is means to an end. Having more money is means to an end. Having more knowledge
01:03:21.520
or expertise or a daily plan or whatever all these guys talk about online is a means to use,
01:03:27.240
serving other people more effectively. And the, the better we can keep that at the forefront of
01:03:32.720
our mind, our job is to serve as men. Like you're built to serve physically, mentally, emotionally,
01:03:39.580
you're built to serve. And if you're not serving, you know, even, even subconsciously and you feel
01:03:47.460
inadequate because you are, you're not doing what you're meant to do. Make a bunch of money,
01:03:54.100
get in shape, develop your mind, develop your heart, develop your soul. Therefore you can serve
01:04:01.860
other people. That's the ultimate objective. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Ryan Clark, 1980. Last question.
01:04:09.580
Last one today. Your kids turn against you because their mother told them lies about you.
01:04:15.300
You haven't seen them for about a year. Do you let them come to you or do you chalk it up as a loss?
01:04:25.060
No, no, dude. Don't even, don't even the number one, that's a false dichotomy. Okay. But those are
01:04:33.640
your fucking kids, man. Don't you ever for a second, chalk that up to a loss. Like I, I will get
01:04:41.960
passionate about that. And I don't even think you want to, I think you're frustrated right now and
01:04:45.900
rightfully so, but you don't want to do that. You know, you don't want to do that. Don't you dare
01:04:50.760
do that. Okay. Now I don't know what it looks like. I don't know if it ever is repaired. I don't know if
01:05:00.440
you are ever satisfied with the resolution. I don't know. I don't know the future, but don't you dare
01:05:05.480
chalk any of that up to a loss because those are your kids. There's a lot of things I'll chalk up to a
01:05:10.900
loss, but my kids are not one of them. So, and also don't just let them come to you. That's too
01:05:18.980
passive. That's weak. That's pathetic. That's cowardly. So then that's the false dichotomy
01:05:25.020
you're playing with here. Here's what I suggest. Number one, know all of your rights as a father
01:05:31.100
and obtain great legal counsel. Cause there might be some fatherhood rights being infringed upon right
01:05:37.800
here. I don't know, but that's an Avenue we need to explore and you need to protect your rights as a
01:05:43.620
father because those kids need you in their life. And so fight like a man would fight, figure out all
01:05:52.200
the legal ramifications and all the legal ways to make sure that you get access to your children.
01:05:57.620
That's one of the things I would do. The other thing that I would do is I would go to work on myself
01:06:03.260
becoming the best possible person that I could be. That means daily reading, soul searching,
01:06:10.520
journaling, scriptures, prayer, meditation, physical fitness, developing new skills to make a bunch of
01:06:18.180
money. And I'm going to get myself into the best possible position that I possibly can, regardless
01:06:23.720
of whether or not I have my kids in contact with me or not, because that's going to make you more
01:06:28.780
attractive and that's going to get your mind right for what's to come. Cause it's going to be a battle.
01:06:33.720
There's no doubt about it. And it's also going to help you be more attractive when and if your kids
01:06:39.040
do come around. Okay. This is the hardest thing I'm going to tell you to do. Learn to be, let me say it
01:06:46.040
this way. Start playing the game with her. You've got to play the game. I know you don't like it. I know
01:06:52.760
you have hostility potentially towards her. I know you, you, maybe she didn't take your kids away from you.
01:06:58.220
I know all of that. I get it. I know it. You got to play the game. And the game is how can I be
01:07:05.540
amicable? How can I be respectful? How can I communicate with my kids without going around
01:07:12.640
her necessarily and undermining what she's trying to do? And I know it's not right. I know it. It's
01:07:18.400
not right that you should have to do that. It's not. That's why I say get legal counsel, but the better
01:07:23.000
you get at the game, the more likely it is you get to see your kids. And isn't that the end
01:07:27.960
result? So there might be some things that you need to do that you have to swallow your pride
01:07:33.060
that you're not totally comfortable with that don't feel right to you, but you know what is
01:07:37.940
right? Figuring out a way to get access to your kids again. Absolutely. And here's the other thing,
01:07:45.140
Ryan, that you might have to deal with. They may not like you. Yeah, true. And guess what?
01:07:52.180
It's not about you. Welcome to parenthood. Good parents, it's not about you. It's not about you
01:07:58.140
being liked. It's not about whether they want to be around you. Absolutely. It has nothing to do with
01:08:04.000
you. And you need to get present is what you need to do as a father for them. And that has to take a
01:08:10.660
higher priority than your ego around whether your kids want to be around you or not. That's not your
01:08:17.420
job. Your job is not to have them like you. Your job is to do your part as a father and let them know
01:08:24.360
that they're loved whether they love you or not. And so you might have to chalk that up and you might
01:08:29.200
have to, it's going to be hard. And you're going to want to have to force your hand and show up in
01:08:35.900
a really powerful way. And you may be thinking they don't want to be here. They don't want to hang
01:08:40.120
out with you. All these horrible thoughts are going to cross your mind, but you got to show up
01:08:43.800
powerfully anyway. Why? Because it's your job. You're a parent, you're a father, show up as a
01:08:48.400
powerful father, regardless of all other parties. And what will more likely happen is eventually over
01:08:55.240
a long period of time. And trust me, it'll, it'll probably be a long time before you get this
01:09:00.480
benefit. Then your son will, son or daughter someday will say, dad, man, thank you. Thank you for not
01:09:07.160
quitting on us. Thank you for being an amazing father, despite all those hardships from years and years
01:09:12.540
ago. And you might get that benefit, but the reality of it is you got to stay strong and you're
01:09:17.620
not going to see the results of this for a really long time, but it's not about you.
01:09:22.000
Yeah. It's tough. That's a tough one. Good one to end on. Cause I know a lot of guys are in that
01:09:26.840
similar situation. A lot of questions about divorce, childhood or fathers, children, being a son. A lot
01:09:34.020
of good questions. Powerful stuff today. Yeah, absolutely. Call to action earlier. Iron Council's
01:09:39.460
open. This is our exclusive brotherhood where you would come in, get assigned to a battle team
01:09:45.020
and pretty much get on the court of life. I love that analogy. I think most people are victims
01:09:50.460
of the game. They're sitting up in the stands, watching things happen, being passive, their
01:09:56.060
emotions being driven, whether their team wins or loses. Iron Council is putting the jersey on,
01:10:02.040
getting on the court and taking control of, of how you show up in the world, in this world.
01:10:07.400
And we have systems and teams in place to, to assist in that process, but you got to be fully
01:10:14.440
committed and engaged to get the value of it. If you're ready to be fully committed and engaged
01:10:20.720
with us, go to order of man.com slash iron council and sign up that open enrollment is going to close
01:10:26.080
within the next week. So you need to act before the 1st of April to, to join us there. Once again,
01:10:32.740
order of man.com slash iron council new or not new, but a inventory stocked, resupplied some hats and
01:10:42.160
whatnot over at the order of man store. Flags are back in there. So we got some stuff coming back,
01:10:48.640
which is good. It's exciting to see. Yeah. So that's store.orderofman.com. And of course,
01:10:54.340
as always, you can connect with Mr. Mickler on the socials X and the gram at Ryan Mickler.
01:11:01.960
Awesome guys. Great questions today. Hopefully as always, we gave you something to consider and
01:11:06.260
think about. Uh, we'll be back on Friday for our Friday field notes until then go out there,
01:11:10.740
take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man
01:11:15.560
podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
01:11:20.320
We invite you to join the order at quarter of man.com.