Order of Man - Fixing America Through Uncomfortable Conversations

00:00:00.000 Civil discourse is a skillset that seems to be in increasingly rare supply, but if we have any hope

00:00:06.600 guys of solving our toughest challenges, it's going to require men of all races and religious

00:00:12.000 beliefs and sides of the political aisle to come together and to actually have these uncomfortable

00:00:18.300 and challenging discussions. And that's why I've really been looking forward to getting my

00:00:22.560 conversation with Byron Davis to you guys. I knew that we probably wouldn't agree on everything

00:00:28.040 that we discussed, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out how much closer we were than those who

00:00:36.860 prey on the outraged would have the population believe. Today, we talk about the importance of

00:00:42.220 these types of crucial conversations, why and how our egos get in the way, what quote unquote

00:00:47.740 dismantling the system means, the bait and switch of the BLM organization's messaging, cancel culture,

00:00:53.940 the proper role of government in our lives and just about every uncomfortable conversation we

00:01:00.320 seem to hit on, at least these conversations that seem to be so relevant in today's culture. I hope

00:01:06.280 you enjoy. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:01:11.580 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily

00:01:17.720 deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you

00:01:25.280 will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:31.680 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of the

00:01:35.940 Order of Man podcast and movement. And I'm telling you what, guys, if you have not tuned into this podcast

00:01:41.520 before, I think this conversation, particularly today, is going to sum up nicely what not only we

00:01:51.180 believe and what these types of conversations are about, but I believe also that it represents

00:01:56.440 part of the answer to the solution to what ails us in culture. It's having these types of conversations.

00:02:04.200 And again, as I said earlier, although Byron and I don't agree 100% on everything, that's the point.

00:02:10.480 Is that two men who come from different backgrounds, different races, different

00:02:14.920 beliefs, and different experiences can come together and actually start hashing some of this

00:02:19.660 stuff out. So we're going to get to that in here just, just a minute. If you are visiting, like I

00:02:24.420 said, for the first time, this is a podcast geared towards helping you become a better man. I want to

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00:03:27.780 relevant for them to join us. It is relevant. We want them to know it's relevant so we can prove

00:03:33.200 it by having these conversations and introducing their ideas and thoughts and programs to you.

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00:04:25.200 because you don't want to miss out on your discount. Again, origin, main.com use the code

00:04:29.800 order. All right, guys, we're going to get to my conversation with Byron today. Again, I'm honored

00:04:34.680 to introduce you to him. He is working through his ministry, which is legacy men really with a goal

00:04:41.940 to equip and empower men of all walks of life to be the difference within the world around them.

00:04:46.040 Very similar missions to what we're doing here. We actually hadn't had a conversation before this

00:04:51.300 one. So I don't know a whole lot about Byron prior to our conversation about his work, but man,

00:04:58.120 I was so impressed with his knowledge and his ability to articulate his thoughts on some of the

00:05:04.240 most difficult topics that we can discuss. And frankly, just his genuine desire to lead from the

00:05:09.620 front. He's a former USA national swim team member. He's an American record holder. And now he's a

00:05:15.200 speaker, author, and the founder of Authority Labs, which helps leaders master their message,

00:05:20.580 increase their influence, that sort of thing. So I know you're going to enjoy this one.

00:05:24.520 Please give us some feedback. Let us know. But without further ado, we'll get to my conversation

00:05:28.320 with Byron. Byron, what's up, man? Thanks for joining me on the podcast.

00:05:32.960 Ryan, thanks a lot, brother. I've been looking forward to this and this has been awesome. I love

00:05:37.840 what you're doing. I love how you're challenging men. So this is awesome.

00:05:41.200 Yeah. Well, you reached out a couple of weeks ago and I think the timing was perfect, obviously,

00:05:45.800 with what's going on in society and the contention and the frustration and animosity. And then we have

00:05:52.380 the race conversation and COVID and there's just so much uncertainty. And like I said a second ago,

00:05:58.820 contention in the world right now that I thought, man, it would make sense for two mature men to have

00:06:04.060 a conversation. I'm sure a lot of the things we'll agree on. Maybe there's some points where we don't

00:06:08.940 necessarily agree. And I thought, you know, let's, let's hash this out. Like let's, let's talk about

00:06:13.920 these things in a mature way and model what a mature conversation can be and what it should look

00:06:19.880 like. Amen. I agree. I agree. I don't know why it's so difficult these days for people to have

00:06:27.360 mature conversations. I mean, that's what it comes down to that. The, the, the lack of maturity is,

00:06:33.440 is staggering. It's frustrating. And it's destructive generally because nothing gets done.

00:06:38.400 Nothing gets accomplished. Yeah, I totally agree. It's, it's amazing when, uh, you know, when smart

00:06:45.460 people act in, in stupid ways, uh, I think a lot of it revolves around one. Well, let me just give

00:06:52.160 you, but you know, kind of my background and my wife's background. Um, we, we, we home, we decided to

00:06:57.560 homeschool our kids. Uh, and, uh, you know, we followed, um, a program called the well-trained mind.

00:07:03.600 And in it, uh, it was very heavy on rhetoric, logic and, um, and ability to, and the ability

00:07:11.140 to communicate your ideas and in very critical ways, how to have critical conversations. That's

00:07:16.900 what the whole program revolved around. And one thing that I noticed as my wife and I were taking

00:07:21.900 our kids through, uh, this program for years is I started to realize even in my own life and in the

00:07:28.780 life of people in society, I really believe we've lost the, the art and the capacity as, as a culture

00:07:36.720 to, to have substantive conversations that can run deep and address very, uh, emotionally, uh,

00:07:46.120 charged issues, but in a very same way, we've lost the art of communication. So one of the things that

00:07:51.740 I'm hoping in this time that we can do, uh, not just you and I, but people in general is rekindle

00:07:58.320 the art of conversation, really learn how to, uh, speak and listen in such a way where even if and

00:08:06.800 when your ideas are challenged, your whole worldview is challenged, your knee jerk reaction isn't

00:08:12.900 defensiveness, but instead it's evaluation and it's seeking out, okay, what's proof, what's evidence

00:08:20.400 to separate the, you know, the wheat from the shaft and then hopefully come walk away being better

00:08:27.580 off than we were at the beginning. I think that's a lost art and hopefully we can continue to encourage

00:08:32.720 and bring that back. Sure. Yeah. You know, I'm, as I'm listening to you say this, I think the root

00:08:38.260 of it is an ego issue. Oh yeah. You know, when, when you're, like you said, the worldview is challenged.

00:08:44.580 It seems to me that if, if you aren't willing to at least entertain the idea, I'm not saying that

00:08:49.760 you have to accept a conflicting view, but at least entertain the idea that it's your ego getting in

00:08:55.960 the way. And I'm not pointing fingers. I'm guilty of this too. When people challenge what I say,

00:09:00.460 whether it's on the podcast or on social media, I'm like, Whoa, yeah. And you know, you're quick to

00:09:04.700 come back and try to get at them. But I've just found that the, the more often I attempt to not be so

00:09:14.780 prideful, so arrogant, have that ego in place, though more well-rounded I am. And, and frankly,

00:09:23.120 the better off I am too, because I gain a perspective that I'd never considered before

00:09:27.780 that shouldn't be posed as a threat, right? Like having another angle, why would anybody consider

00:09:33.900 that a threat that just rounds you out and gives you more information to make better decisions with?

00:09:39.340 Yeah, I completely agree with that. Um, Ryan holiday came out with a book not too long ago

00:09:44.220 called ego is the enemy. Right. And he really started to look at, uh, stoic teachings and,

00:09:49.440 you know, great philosophers, um, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates and all these guys. And the common theme was

00:09:55.920 what is the common denominator among great men who fall? It's ego. Ego is huge. And we all, uh,

00:10:03.560 again, are subject to that. And that's why I think, you know, creating a personal foundation,

00:10:09.640 a constitution that's built around self-efficacy and, uh, and, and building one's self-esteem,

00:10:17.720 not on status or looking good in front of our peers or our political party, but instead building a

00:10:25.100 foundation on having that growth mindset, right? If everyone decides to embrace the growth mindset,

00:10:30.840 ultimately we, we, we can both look at the same problem from different angles, as you said,

00:10:37.400 but be hard on the problem and, and compassionate and, uh, and respectful of the person. I think that

00:10:44.700 that's, that's how we can, we can handle it. It's not about being on opposite sides of the table all

00:10:48.700 the time. In fact, if you look at the beauty of this American experiment, um, our founding fathers

00:10:54.440 were brilliant and the, the idea, the concept of how do we want this nation to scale and grow.

00:11:01.800 And it came this up with this idea of a multi-partied system before, before that, that, that didn't

00:11:08.180 exist. But the reason, the genesis for why that even existed, why we, we started to entertain the

00:11:14.280 thought of that versus a monarchy was because we recognized inherent in everyone's vision are blind spots.

00:11:20.840 And if we wanted to navigate this country and grow and scale, we would have to aggressively and soberly

00:11:27.740 look at the problems that are coming at us continuously, but do it in a setup where we're

00:11:33.380 flanking, where we're, we're, we're attacking the problem from both sides, right? And it's, it's a,

00:11:38.160 it's a military concept. And the reason why we flank is so that each of us can always point out

00:11:44.760 and account for the other side's blind spots. That's the way in theory, it's supposed to run.

00:11:50.900 Okay. And unfortunately it's run amok, especially, you know, in our day and age, but, but I'm hopeful

00:11:57.020 that we can get back to that sort of rigorous discipline. And, uh, as we address the real issues

00:12:03.980 that we as a society faces. I guess that's one of the challenges that I see when, when you have this

00:12:10.660 new trend of, of, of dismissing or downplaying the importance of independence day, which we just

00:12:17.980 celebrated, you know, and, and, and you think about what, what that moment in time stood for.

00:12:23.960 And although we as a country have fallen short of treating all men the same, right? It's clearly

00:12:30.720 in our history, we've fallen short of that promise, but that doesn't mean that that wasn't a great moment

00:12:37.760 in time. That doesn't mean that that didn't put us in the right direction. It doesn't mean that

00:12:43.240 we still aren't the greatest country and the, and I think the country most free of racism, most free

00:12:52.400 of real oppression. That's not to undermine or dismiss that. We don't have those issues still,

00:12:58.500 but, but our founding fathers created the framework or the foundation for us to continue to evolve and

00:13:05.140 continue to improve and continue to attempt to meet those commitments. We made 250 some odd years

00:13:12.420 ago. Yeah. I think a strong measure of the health of a, of a nation and especially a powerhouse like

00:13:21.100 the United States has been over the last, um, you know, uh, five decades. Um, if we can, we can go back

00:13:29.260 that far. Um, I think our strength is measured by our ability to meet the demands of our current

00:13:36.140 reality. And, and what I mean by that is, uh, no matter in, we, we can understand this and, and let

00:13:42.880 me use the, the example of sports, uh, just come coming from a sports background. I recognize that

00:13:49.420 at all times I am up against two enemies, if you will, simultaneously. And one enemy is always greater

00:13:57.600 than the other. I'm up against my opponent, my competition. All right. That's the external force

00:14:02.540 that pushes against me by the nature of the game. But more importantly, there's a more insidious

00:14:07.480 enemy or competitor that I have to always account for. And that is the enemy within. And, um, if we

00:14:15.480 don't constantly measure up to an account for the enemy within, you know, success, affluence, um,

00:14:24.720 you know, succeeding can ultimately become our demise. And so what I mean by that with America,

00:14:31.900 we've been privileged enough, generally speaking over the last 150 years, or let's just go back

00:14:37.020 100 years right before the industrial revolution. If you can recall back into on, um, the 1920s and

00:14:42.100 even up to 1933, um, uh, you know, coming up to the great depression, we were experiencing a lot of

00:14:49.880 growth, accelerated growth as a nation. Industrial revolution came into play and we started to scale

00:14:55.520 and grow. Well, great depression in the 1930s hit America really hard. And it hit us hard because

00:15:01.520 we were forced to recognize the economic model that we were operating under. Okay. The, the,

00:15:07.320 the force of, of capitalism and growth exposed the weakness and that weakness, uh, caused the downturn.

00:15:13.560 Now, whenever I don't want to get too geeky around this, but, but I have a point, uh, when we fast

00:15:18.760 forward to right now, um, whenever a, an entity or a team or a person goes from one level to the next,

00:15:26.440 we level up our game, right? What has to take place is our performance or our position always outpaces

00:15:35.320 our capacity. All right. So you can be good at one level and that's going to get you to the next level,

00:15:40.560 right? But, um, that next level now requires different demands that require you to grow

00:15:46.200 into, in order to excel at that level. Well, when our ego gets involved, we stop looking at the enemy

00:15:52.780 within, we stop looking at all of the factors that has gotten us to that next level and building on it.

00:15:59.460 We stop evaluating, we stop, uh, pointing out what's wrong and what's dysfunctional. And we become

00:16:06.560 more afraid of making the right pivots and corrections within our infrastructure that's

00:16:12.260 necessary to sustain that growth. Um, so, so I, I, I, I think it's important for us to do what measures

00:16:19.880 greatness is not how much we can win, but how much we're willing to improve and grow the system that

00:16:29.220 we're operating in. That's what makes great athletes better than the rest. They are their own motivation.

00:16:34.080 You know, when you look at Michael Jordan, um, you know, for instance, uh, I just watched, um, uh,

00:16:39.680 the last dance on Netflix and, you know, it was just a story. One of the biggest things that came out

00:16:45.820 of that for me, and I was showing my son pointing this out was Michael Jordan, whether you liked him

00:16:51.380 or not. I mean, a lot of times he was very hard to get along with teammates will testify to that.

00:16:56.160 One thing that he did consistently was that he demanded more of himself from himself than he did

00:17:03.120 everyone else on the team. He didn't just point fingers. And anytime he pointed a finger at someone

00:17:07.180 else, he was also pointing the finger back at himself. And I think that's the type of attitude

00:17:13.060 all of us, especially us men have to embrace as much as we want to point out the flaws and the chinks

00:17:18.980 in someone else's armor. We've got to be even more vigilant in doing that for ourselves.

00:17:24.620 You know, in addition to the challenges of us not being willing to look at ourselves, you're the

00:17:30.420 problem. You're the problem. The president's the problem. The economy is the problem and not

00:17:33.520 turning it around on ourselves. I also believe that when we look at what 300 plus million people

00:17:41.760 in the country, we all have different ideas of what progress looks like and what progress may look

00:17:50.240 to somebody else might actually look like regression to somebody else. And so I think there's a lot of

00:17:56.900 contention. So I really wanted to get granular and talk about from your perspective, what are some of

00:18:01.140 the problems that you see us facing that we're now dealing with? And then we can talk about how to deal

00:18:06.580 with them effectively or maybe even discuss and even debate maybe to a degree what those problems are

00:18:11.520 and then talk about some effective solutions in a mature manly way.

00:18:16.740 Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Good question. And good setup. One of the things that I think is,

00:18:21.660 is an issue, a huge issue that we have to deal with, you know, is this idea of what is the relationship

00:18:30.860 between law enforcement and our inner city or underdeveloped aspects of our community, our

00:18:38.940 socioeconomically depressed communities? Because when we look at all of the statistics,

00:18:45.720 you look at the statistics and, and, you know, one side will point out, you know, the rate of black

00:18:50.660 on black crimes, you know, it's black African Americans make up what three to 6% of the population,

00:18:57.220 depending on what stats you're looking at. And if you're looking specifically to African American

00:19:00.760 males and the rate of crime, you know, almost 50% of the crime is done. So that's, that's very

00:19:06.660 disproportionate. So someone can argue that all, all day long. And then at the same time,

00:19:11.760 you have to look at, okay, when we look at the aggregate of that, and we, we kind of,

00:19:16.140 you know, narrow down, where is the, where does the 80-20 rule apply? What, what, what is the actual

00:19:23.480 agent within that group that's actually causing it? We can see that systemically, there's a

00:19:30.460 correlation between high crime and, and, and depressed socioeconomic areas. All, a lot of the,

00:19:37.180 that the factors factors around the urban system. Well, here's the issue. Back in what the 1960s,

00:19:44.620 the Supreme Court allowed for their, they recognize there was a problem with crime in the

00:19:49.640 inner city. And the intent was good. The intent was, Hey, there are good people, African American,

00:19:55.380 Latino people, whoever in the inner cities that need our protection and all. And then what the Supreme

00:20:01.540 Court allowed in the way they empowered the police department was, Hey, you could do something that's

00:20:07.800 now known as stop and frisk. All right. That was a tactic that the police departments across the

00:20:13.600 nation and are at risk zones were allowed to exercise. And here you have a case of good idea,

00:20:21.740 but over time, poorly executed because what stop and frisk started to do is create a, a, a culture of

00:20:30.860 mistrust between the police department and the community and the community and the, in the, in the,

00:20:36.540 in the police and police department. So here you have well-meaning people on both sides, right?

00:20:43.300 Um, police officers doing their job, um, wanting to serve the community, but doing it in such a way where

00:20:50.760 a lot of times, basically some of the, um, the, the, the statistics, the statistics, especially in

00:20:55.760 the eighties and the nineties, when this divide became very prevalent, um, you had about, uh, you

00:21:02.480 know, 80 or I'm sorry, 93% of people that were stopped and frisked were innocent. All right. So you

00:21:08.900 had 7%, um, that actually, and actually three, 7% charged 3% actually convicted. So you had the vast

00:21:18.240 majority of people experiencing in their quality of life day to day. Um, the encounters that they

00:21:24.700 had with police were confrontational and right. And they, and they, and they interpret that as,

00:21:30.400 as well, frankly, harassment, you know, I, I even look at it this way and then I'll let you get back

00:21:34.860 onto this point of, uh, checkpoints on the road for drunk drivers, right? You know, it's like,

00:21:40.180 I mean, I get what you're trying to do here, but how, how bad of a situation does it need to be

00:21:46.940 where you're going to assume that everyone's bad before you assume that everybody's good.

00:21:51.200 So it turns into, like you said, a confrontational situation as opposed, as opposed to, Hey,

00:21:59.060 we're going to enforce the laws that we know have been broken versus, Hey, we're going to go out

00:22:03.380 actively looking for this stuff and, and target 97%. And I don't, I don't, I can't speak to the

00:22:10.980 validity of that statistic, but let's just assume it's true. Yeah. Target 97% of the people

00:22:16.420 inaccurately. That of course is a problem. Yeah. And here's the thing. Um, I, I'm not

00:22:21.680 even saying that, Hey, you know, bad police department. Okay. I'm not, I'm not even saying

00:22:26.220 that because let's look at, again, when we were looking granular and looking at, looking at the

00:22:31.460 nuance of what, what are the drivers, um, and incentives that police departments are have to,

00:22:38.840 are forced to operate under. Okay. Um, when you look at the police department, their measures,

00:22:44.120 um, a lot of the times, and when we're talking, um, uh, again, uh, Chicago, inner cities, New York,

00:22:50.380 um, there's a lot of data on New York, a lot of data on Miami. Um, a lot of the, the high crime

00:22:56.420 areas, a lot of these initiatives were aggressively put into place and put into place, mind you,

00:23:02.240 by not only Republican, but Democrat, Democratic initiatives. Okay. Um, you had Reagan

00:23:08.120 Clinton and his team, and then you had Clinton's, their team really having this war on crime effort,

00:23:12.960 but that war on crime was geared toward the inner city. So what am I, what am I meaning?

00:23:17.440 I'm saying that, that a lot of this, the police officers, good police officers, good police systems

00:23:24.240 were also, you know, figuratively speaking, handcuffed because in their mandates on what their grants

00:23:31.980 and what their funding was going to be tied to and rewarded was on performance. Okay. It's a performance

00:23:39.140 driven model that started to really, really drive, um, how policing was administered. Okay. Which by

00:23:46.420 nature began and, and, and what was the performance? What was the measure? Um, rate of convictions, rate

00:23:53.180 of, uh, and we, we see this in traffic all the time, um, higher traffic, you know, enforcement law stops,

00:23:58.760 um, uh, and, and, and, and, and specifically within the inner city or high crimed areas. Um, we wanted

00:24:05.680 to see more arrests because those were numbers that we could look to. They, they were numbers that,

00:24:11.660 that, you know, proved the case. The police department was doing their job. We're doing what

00:24:16.240 they're supposed to be doing, right? Doing what they're supposed to do. Well, that invites a lot of,

00:24:21.040 um, dysfunction within a system, especially when you're dealing with human beings,

00:24:25.620 guys and gals who every single day have to enter into run toward the fire, right? They go into

00:24:32.760 situations that are, are high stakes, very intense and have to, to do their job. So you're creating

00:24:41.220 this, this, this situation where unfortunately bad things can potentially really happen more often.

00:24:49.560 Now you contrast that with police departments that have been doing it right. Um, I grew up in the

00:24:54.560 inner city of East Cleveland and I remember a program that was initiated by the police department

00:24:59.800 called PAL, P-A-L, and that stood for police athletic lead. The police department in inner city East

00:25:08.300 Cleveland, um, were funded to not only police, uh, you know, uh, you know, their, their, their beat,

00:25:15.380 but actually they have money to become like the police officers were the coaches on all of these,

00:25:22.540 on the basketball, football, baseball teams in the inner city. They were, they were incentivized

00:25:27.720 to spend a part portion of their time cultivating and connecting with the community. All right.

00:25:34.660 Well, when that, I would even say Byron on that to go even a little further based on what I'm hearing

00:25:38.680 you say, not only just cultivating within the community, but fathering within the community.

00:25:42.660 Yes. Big time. I mean, you hit the nail right on the head. Um, if we look at another statistic,

00:25:48.340 man, um, you look, there's a huge correlation with, with the demise of our, of our nation,

00:25:54.080 the downtrend of our nation and the uptrend of father, fatherlessness across the board.

00:26:00.640 I don't care what place you are, right?

00:26:02.020 It does not matter. Yes.

00:26:03.180 It doesn't matter. It is huge. And, and you're, you're definitely right. Guys and, and, uh,

00:26:08.240 you know, young men, you know, lessons are caught more than they're taught. And if you don't have

00:26:13.720 other men modeling the good thing to do, modeling, good thinking, modeling, good behavior,

00:26:19.740 right choices, modeling, the work ethic necessary to make something out of nothing. When you don't

00:26:25.680 have those things, and then you replace those models with, uh, models that are fabricated because

00:26:31.620 of media and social media. Um, again, when there is a still a great correlation in the fifties and

00:26:37.800 the sixties and the seventies, and it really shot up in the eighties where gang and thug culture

00:26:44.580 became cool. You see that in our music. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not, I love, you know,

00:26:50.460 rap music. I'm not, I'm not trying to belittle this. What I'm saying is the celebration of the,

00:26:56.340 the, the culture that the art platformed, um, was very detrimental because when in absence of

00:27:05.040 frontline boots on the ground, you know, models, real men showing you what to do, you have,

00:27:13.440 you know, how you're supposed to live modeled by our, our, our media. And, uh, and that I think,

00:27:20.120 um, perpetuates and accelerates the problem.

00:27:23.400 I think what we run into is when we're so outcome driven, you get into a situation where

00:27:30.580 the means justify the outcome and the means of stop and frisk. And some of these,

00:27:36.360 we'll call them questionable tactics, justify the outcome because you're so driven by the final

00:27:42.420 result that it doesn't matter how you get there. And what I think we need to do is instead of being

00:27:47.560 so outcome oriented, we need to be more, uh, what'd be the best way to say it process oriented

00:27:55.020 and think more about, okay, what are the inputs? So if you look at the inputs and I've seen studies

00:28:00.920 on this and there's three determinate factors, primarily there's a lot of course, but there's

00:28:05.460 three primary determinate factors that go into success, whether that's economic success, relational

00:28:11.040 success, uh, just, just a betterment of your life, staying out of criminal activity and living a

00:28:16.020 richer, more fuller life. And the three metrics are having a mother and father in the home,

00:28:21.460 having a minimum of a high school education or equivalent and getting a job going to work.

00:28:28.020 Yeah. And it seems to me that if, and I'm not talking about just the black community,

00:28:32.540 I'm talking about the white community. I'm talking about just communities in general.

00:28:35.860 If we can ensure and even consider investing our financial resources into the two that I see

00:28:44.720 primarily are education and ensuring there's opportunities for fathers or father figures to

00:28:51.800 be involved with young men. I believe that a lot of these problems in these situations begin to work

00:28:58.560 themselves out because we worried about the front end as opposed to having to worry so heavily on the

00:29:03.380 back end. Yeah. Um, I think you're spot on with that. Uh, I, I, I'm a systems guy and, um, I, I always

00:29:11.000 challenge myself and my son and everything, make the process, the goal, you know, don't get so goal

00:29:16.700 fixed, um, that, uh, you know, you get distracted by, by the outcome and, and, and, and also discouraged

00:29:26.000 by the outcome, right? Sometimes the goal can be so large or so far that, that we think it's, it's not

00:29:31.400 possible. Well, that's actually, that's actually part of the problem too, is you think about, okay,

00:29:36.900 so we elect these politicians and they want to get reelected in two years or four years.

00:29:43.160 So they need to produce immediate results. So when your outcome fixed, you can skew or manipulate or

00:29:50.900 put in some, again, like I said, questionable strategies and tactics to manipulate those outcomes

00:29:56.220 in the short term, even the longterm, they may not serve you well, but educating our youth and

00:30:01.340 ensuring there's not only father figures, but father like figures in the communities in which

00:30:06.020 we live is not a simple overnight thing. This is going to take 20 years because you've been talking

00:30:12.240 about it since the sixties, 40, 50 years of people being conditioned to behave this way.

00:30:18.720 This isn't going to happen overnight. Right. And then you like, okay, if this is true,

00:30:23.240 where do we get the fathers from the dads from? Well, that means currently men who have had, who've,

00:30:29.260 who've run their lives with a dysfunctional internal operating system are now having to reform

00:30:36.320 themselves from the inside out, right? Learn how to lead from the inside out. So now you got

00:30:41.800 guys who are broken, who have to, before they can lead, before we can trust them to lead,

00:30:48.360 have to reform themselves. And this is what I appreciate about, about what you're doing,

00:30:52.920 the movement with the, um, iron council and just into what you're doing with your platform is like,

00:30:57.880 Hey, look, we've got to, as men, one step one, take ownership, uh, of saying, look, we may not,

00:31:04.440 may not have been dealt the best hand in life, but we have agency, right? We can't, we can't assume

00:31:12.640 a victim mentality or posture. We've got to take ownership that allows us to now equip and become

00:31:19.880 empowered so that we can be the men that then becomes the fathers or the extended fathers

00:31:26.220 in other, in other guys' lives. I mean, I'll tell you my own personal story. I mean, very quickly,

00:31:32.020 I grew up again in the inner city raised by a single mom. Unfortunately, my dad, um, he decided

00:31:38.220 that he would sell drugs for a living. And ultimately they found them tied to his bedpost shot six times in

00:31:43.680 head. I was six years old. All right. I was six years old. And, um, and so I grew up without a,

00:31:50.940 a paternal father figure. And even then, um, you know, hindsight's always 2020 only God knows,

00:31:57.720 but in, I trust in, in, in his sovereignty, it was a good thing because my dad was also abusive to my

00:32:04.600 mom. You know, he knocked her down the stairs. My grandmother told me this, he knocked her down the

00:32:09.280 stairs when she was pregnant with me. And that's what induced her label, uh, labor. And I was two

00:32:14.420 months a premium. Uh, you know, I came out, right. So it was crazy. So still dysfunctional dad,

00:32:21.420 dysfunctional father figure, but, but it was, if it were not for strategically men, uh, different men

00:32:29.740 coming into my life over time, I can point to them. And, and, you know, a couple of uncles at strategic

00:32:37.280 points in my life where I was at a crossroads guys at, from my church would, um, when my mom was

00:32:43.400 off working, they would pick me up and they would take me to swim practice. Right. They, um, you know,

00:32:48.740 my swim coach, there was a time Ryan, where, um, my mom was like, this is too much. She was going to

00:32:54.840 say, we can't, you know, that I could no longer swim. I was, I was 12 years old. I, this was it the

00:32:59.840 time commitment or cost or what was the issue? It was a time commitment again. Yeah. She worked. Um,

00:33:05.080 she, she went back to school, became a registered nurse. She was working at the Cleveland clinic.

00:33:09.160 Um, you know, she just one person couldn't be in two places at the same time. Well, my, my white

00:33:15.660 coach, um, Jeff Armstrong, you know, talk to my mom and he's like, you know what, this is, this is

00:33:21.760 great, but Byron has a talent for this. How about I pick him up from school and I take him to practice

00:33:27.600 and the time that you can't pick them up, I'll drop them off. He did that. It was only supposed to be

00:33:32.360 for one season. He did that for three seasons and that guy in my life. And look, he just had a high

00:33:38.780 school education. He didn't have a college education. All right. And here you had this,

00:33:42.580 this guy, white guy, Fu Manchu mustache, mullet driving in and out, you know, picking up this black

00:33:50.200 kid, you know, because he recognized that this kid has an opportunity. Swimming opened the world to me.

00:33:56.040 Every Saturday I had an excuse to get out of the hood and I saw more of what was available to me

00:34:02.180 in life. If anything, it just broadened my perspective. It gave me a bigger picture of

00:34:07.380 what was possible, which then allowed me to orient myself that I could achieve more. Right. And so it

00:34:14.520 was because of strategic men over and over again in my life that that happened. So I, even if a person

00:34:20.080 isn't blessed with having a dad in the home, um, you know, there are men that they can align

00:34:26.060 themselves, uh, that, that can, that can help them along the way and their platforms and programs

00:34:31.160 at the very least. If you have a smartphone or access to the internet, you can create virtual fathers,

00:34:38.260 um, that can show and model, you know, anything you want to accomplish.

00:34:42.500 And, you know, I think there's another part of that story. That's really powerful. And

00:34:47.820 your, your swim coach, that's a seemingly insignificant gesture, right? Like I'm just

00:34:53.540 going to go pick up this kid. I'm going to take him to practice. He's going to practice. I'm going

00:34:56.180 to drop him off. I'm going to do that two, three, four times a week. It doesn't seem like a big deal,

00:35:00.920 but I think what we need to realize and understand is that we don't need to save the world, right?

00:35:06.760 We need to do small little tasks on a daily basis that most people would overlook and not consider.

00:35:11.780 Maybe you're not going to be thanked for them, but man, you never know. And then you look at you

00:35:16.240 and who you've become. And not only that, now you look at how many men you're personally influencing.

00:35:23.320 And, and a lot of that goes credit to that coach who took an extra hour out of his day

00:35:29.260 to pick you up and to drop you off. That's very, very powerful.

00:35:32.940 Yeah, that's powerful. Like the same, the small things are the big things when it comes to

00:35:36.900 relationships and, and, and, and guys, uh, again, our culture thinks if it's not big, it's not,

00:35:43.580 it's not great. No. Um, you know, it's the small things we do in the trenches that make all the

00:35:49.900 difference in the world. And, and so we've got to look at how do we impact the world around us?

00:35:54.600 The, the, the more faithful we are at our ground game, um, the more ground we actually gain,

00:36:00.700 right? It's, it's like, that's, that's the thing is as if you, if you can pound and ground and you

00:36:06.380 can move the needle incrementally and do it consistently, it's just a matter of time before

00:36:11.180 you cross the finish line. Um, and that's the kind of attitude that we as men need to have is,

00:36:16.420 Hey, let's, let's master in our mindset and our skillset acquisition, the little stuff that allows

00:36:22.400 us to move the needle in spite of the situations we're in. Yeah. And then you compound those actions

00:36:28.360 over time and they produce big results. I'm actually really curious because I knew we were

00:36:32.480 having this conversation and I'm glad you brought this up about your, your white coach. And from my

00:36:37.300 perspective, I think that's probably more common than what is being led to us led to believe that,

00:36:46.260 that there isn't so much tension between races. And, and I, and I thought about it, I'm like, well,

00:36:50.480 yeah, that would be easy for me to say because of my perspective. Right. But I'm really curious,

00:36:54.840 you as a black man, are you, do you agree with that? Do you think that that's more common?

00:37:00.680 Do you think that the narrative is more, there's, there's less tension than we're being led to

00:37:06.440 believe? Like what's your perspective on this? Yeah. Uh, good question. You know, I, I can see

00:37:11.760 because I've experienced, I can see it both ways because I've experienced both sides. Um, you know,

00:37:17.300 I had a Jeff Armstrong in my life who poured into me and again, just did the little things,

00:37:22.060 right. He did the little things and it made all the difference in my life. At the same time,

00:37:26.580 I can give you another story where three times in my life, I was racially profiled. I was actually

00:37:31.680 in high school coming from swim practice. Okay. I, um, my, my, the pool was in a, um, upper class,

00:37:38.880 uh, rich part of the neighborhood of Cleveland called Shaker Heights. And, um, and my mom had scraped

00:37:45.000 up enough money that that summer, I was a summer between my ninth and 10th grade year, um, to get me a

00:37:50.460 moped. Right. So I had a moped and I would, I would go to practice and come back. Well, on the way back

00:37:56.360 from practice, one of these days, uh, I was driving down and there's a street called Euclid and it was

00:38:02.020 the last street that you could be on before there was this hill that you dropped. So you went from the

00:38:07.640 good, nice neighborhood, right. A part of Cleveland down into the hood, literally.

00:38:12.020 Right. Cause it goes from high to low, right. Economic status. Right.

00:38:15.120 Right. Right. And there was a street that actually epitomized, um, that, that type of transition.

00:38:20.740 Yeah. Interesting enough. Well, I was going across Euclid intersection and the police officer

00:38:26.140 who was on the intersecting street. All right. Saw me cross the street. Now I didn't have a helmet

00:38:31.640 on at the helmet was in the, on the back of my, my thing. So I'm being a knucklehead kid,

00:38:36.160 not thinking about it and all, and I'm riding my bike without a helmet. So I, I see the cop do a U-turn

00:38:42.460 and come to pull me over. I'm thinking, okay, I'm busted. I'm about, my mom's going to kill me

00:38:48.820 because I got this ticket for not wearing a helmet. Not wearing your helmet. Right.

00:38:52.160 Yeah. That's, that's all I'm thinking. Right. That's all. That's about extending. Long story

00:38:56.020 short, this guy just automatically assumed this police officer assumed that I stole the

00:39:01.620 moped. And because we couldn't get in touch with my mom, she was at work. And at that time,

00:39:06.400 back in the day, you didn't have cell phones. Right. And all, um, he handcuffed me, got the,

00:39:11.920 the, the, the bike impounded and I spent the whole entire day in jail. Are you serious?

00:39:18.560 Yeah. Until my mom got off work and could come down to the precinct, prove my identity and prove

00:39:25.320 that the bike belonged to me. Okay. And guess what? We, she still, at the end of the day,

00:39:30.040 had to pay for the impound. Right. So, so, so, you know, I, I have that example and I have two other

00:39:37.180 examples I won't get into in college while I was at UCLA. So, so I can see it from both sides. You,

00:39:43.180 and this is why to your point, Ryan, I think it's even more important now than ever before that we

00:39:49.620 have great men showing up in droves because we have to counteract the dysfunctions, the bad apples.

00:39:57.960 We have to, because in, in our society, and again, with social media, bad, I mean, in the news,

00:40:04.660 there is, there's a saying in media, what bleeds leads. Okay. That's what, that's what mandates the

00:40:11.460 news that goes on our, all of our channels. Okay. It has to be sensationalized because eyeballs and

00:40:17.380 you know, this, we need those eyeballs. Yep. We need the eyeballs because that's tied to our,

00:40:21.640 our, our sponsorship and to our, our audience and our, our, our, our growth, our money. So because we

00:40:28.340 know that that's part of the system, that's, that's the business model that we operate under.

00:40:32.940 We've got to be smarter as men and we have to actually execute our game, our impact even more

00:40:40.180 vigilantly. So, so yes, you, behind the scenes, I do see a lot of guys, black, white, Latino,

00:40:46.980 all shapes and sizes, all colors, all walks of life doing their job, doing their work, but we're not

00:40:53.760 done. It's not over. Right. And, and again, we can't get distracted by pointing the finger and looking at

00:41:00.180 what the other side is doing wrong because here's, here's the getting into, hopefully we can get into

00:41:05.300 this conversation as well. The idea of black lives matter. The narrative has become law enforcement

00:41:14.580 and black lives matter. It should never, ever be this opposition where if you, if you believe in

00:41:23.560 support one, that means you're an enemy of the other. Right. It, it, it just doesn't make sense

00:41:28.740 to me because it's an and, and both situation. The problems that we face in our society are

00:41:34.780 multifaceted and complex. They're not binary. And so it requires, um, people on all sides to work

00:41:44.420 together. And, and what I, what I, what not for lack of a better term fear, what I, what concerns me

00:41:50.700 with, and this speaks to your earlier point, what concerns me with what's happening right now in media

00:41:55.920 is that people are weaponizing this, these issues and, uh, and they're using the issues to drive home

00:42:04.780 a political position. And, uh, and as a result, we're spending more time distracted on our argument

00:42:12.600 and we spend less time on aggressively actually solving the problem.

00:42:18.700 Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the part where I take issue is when you start talking about,

00:42:24.560 we're going to tear down and dismantle the entire system because of this systematic racism or

00:42:31.720 injustice. I'm like, look, I'm not downplaying your personal experiences because like, why would

00:42:37.260 I question those? I've never had those. I don't know what that, what that feels like. So I'm not

00:42:40.360 downplaying that, but I'm also not willing to say that that is representation of America at its core

00:42:49.720 foundational level being built as a racist country and everything about this country is evil.

00:42:55.580 It means that we've got one guy that is ignorant, frankly, or, or something else, right? An asshole,

00:43:02.920 power hungry, ignorant, a combination of all, all of those things. And that individual needs either

00:43:09.280 training or needs to be removed from the police department. But that to me is not indicative of

00:43:15.340 let's tear down the entire system. Right. That's what I take issue with. Right. And that's, and that's

00:43:20.540 where, again, I think you have just like on the side of the example I used earlier with the police

00:43:26.140 department wanting to get, um, crime under control. Great idea, bad implementation, right? Likewise,

00:43:34.880 I see this, what the pendulum swing on this other side of, Hey, let's now point out what is systemically

00:43:44.500 dysfunctional and it's now, okay, good idea, but bad implementation. Um, you, you mentioned something

00:43:52.740 earlier where, you know, it's like this instant gratification. You've got to have the solution

00:43:58.220 quickly. Well, in our day and age, what that is starting to look like when the pendulum has been

00:44:03.800 swinging to the extreme is, you know, cancel culture and tearing down the whole infrastructure,

00:44:10.280 defunding the police, all of these sweeping things that could have quick, you know, it, you know, vanity

00:44:17.660 matrix, right? It looks really, really good. Sure. But they, they're, they're really not in any

00:44:24.440 substance, uh, substantive, um, way beneficial for the longterm. So, so my concern is, Hey,

00:44:31.520 let's stop the pendulum from swinging to one extreme to the next. And let's start looking at

00:44:37.700 and taking a critical eye to what's working in them, what's not working in the system. And then

00:44:45.040 let's double down on what works. Let's correct. What doesn't, I think if we look at, we approach

00:44:50.600 everything else in our lives that way in a sane way, when we look at our personal finances,

00:44:55.880 right? We can, at least we should be doing that. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. We should be looking,

00:45:01.820 but look at our health. I mean, you look at your health, your finances, um, you know, our relationships,

00:45:05.640 all of these different areas of our lives, we can, we can say, okay, here's what's working

00:45:11.220 where we should be saying, here's what's not, here's the good, bad, and the ugly.

00:45:15.360 Let me address it. Let me now use my agency to make this thing better. That's the same collectively

00:45:23.780 we should idea and perspective we should have on it. You know, are there great cops? Yes. Um, I,

00:45:31.320 I argue that there are more, um, good people in, in our, our, our police force than not, but are there

00:45:38.720 bad cops? Yeah. Yeah. Are there, are, are there, are there, um, you know, incentives built within the,

00:45:46.820 the, the, the, the, the culture of the, the, the, the, the police department that, that allows for bad

00:45:53.540 cops to exist longer than, than the necessary in that system? Yes. Let's be bold enough and be man

00:46:01.380 enough, you know, to go in and correct what's not working. Let's make it in the police department.

00:46:07.900 Let's create a culture where, where good cops feel safe enough to call out bad cops, right?

00:46:15.100 Let's incentivize how much money each, each department gets not by matrix that aren't going,

00:46:22.820 that are going to be instant, but yet matrix that are tied to the longevity and health of the outcome,

00:46:29.260 right? Vice versa. And, and, and, and I, and I'll shut up and give you time to ask another question.

00:46:34.900 It's good. I like listening to this stuff. I point, I, I point the same spotlight on the community,

00:46:40.980 on, on the inner city. Okay. Where, where I grew up, we have to, as men, um, show up in our communities.

00:46:52.180 Okay. The, we can't depend on the government and the police department to do every single thing for us.

00:46:59.180 We have to find out where we align and we have to take full ownership of the stuff we need to do

00:47:04.420 to right the ship. Okay. So, so the onus isn't just on the government. It isn't just on, um, the

00:47:12.160 police department. The onus is on the people in the community as well to do these things. And it has to

00:47:18.160 be an and vote because citizens need the police. All right. And the police need to be better equipped

00:47:24.840 and better trained in order to handle situations. I was talking to two police officers. I sit on a,

00:47:31.820 on a task force right now in LA, um, behind closed doors and, and we're getting police officers and

00:47:38.080 community leaders and people together and having candid, vulnerable conversations. And these will

00:47:43.160 never go online because, you know, it's, it's just for, by the nature of it, you know,

00:47:48.760 it can't, it's better. It's in certain circumstances, it's better because otherwise it will become

00:47:53.160 corrupted. Exactly. Exactly. And, uh, but one thing that that's coming out of the conversation

00:47:58.180 are our ways to, to actually, Hey, here's what we need from you. Here's how our hands are tied

00:48:04.560 and each side can be vulnerable and say, here's how our hands are tied. Um, let's brainstorm on how

00:48:11.240 we can, we can overcome this. And when you, you create those spaces, then, then, you know,

00:48:16.840 I'm encouraged because I'm seeing the needle move in the trenches and, and the beautiful thing,

00:48:22.120 and you've seen the, um, the, the, um, the picture of the, of the iceberg, right? Yeah.

00:48:28.280 You notice the iceberg at the top and then you scale out. There's a lot going on underneath the

00:48:34.280 surface for, for, for that little part to be showing through. Likewise, I think we are working

00:48:39.440 underneath the surface. Um, so that ultimately, you know, good things pop through.

00:48:46.840 Man, I'm going to hit the pause button on the conversation. I know you're into it,

00:48:49.880 but I got to pause it real quick because, uh, I know there's a lot of you who are listening

00:48:53.520 thousands, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands at this point, listening, uh, that,

00:48:58.080 that, that want to improve in some area of your life. And generally most of you know what it is

00:49:02.500 you need to do. All right, let's be frank about that. But if we're also being honest,

00:49:06.100 knowing what to do and actually doing it, those are two separate issues. And I know if you're

00:49:12.100 anything like me that developing the discipline to do the work required is extremely challenging.

00:49:17.620 And that's why I created the 30 days to battle ready program. It's a free program. It's designed

00:49:23.840 to give you a 30 day track to run on. It's going to give you, uh, the tools that you need to develop

00:49:29.320 discipline, maintain consistency, and finally achieve your goals, whatever they are. And if you

00:49:35.380 don't know what they are, it's okay. Cause we're going to help you identify what those are as well.

00:49:39.200 So if you want to tee the rest of your year up for success, uh, on the professional front,

00:49:45.280 on the personal front, wherever it may be, then sign up for the free battle ready program

00:49:49.720 at order, a man.com slash battle ready again, order, a man.com slash battle ready, get signed up.

00:49:55.380 It's going to take you through a series of emails. You're going to be better off for it.

00:49:58.580 Order, a man.com slash battle ready. Uh, you can do that after the show for now,

00:50:02.040 we'll finish things up with Byron. Well, and that's good. And it's good. We're having conversations

00:50:07.020 like that because that's actually very hopeful for me because I see things like the defund the

00:50:12.020 police movement. And you're talking about setting up incentives to route out the bad and promote the

00:50:18.960 good. And you're talking about not you personally, but now as a society, we're talking about defunding

00:50:23.780 the police that that's an incentive for losers to join the police department. And why would any rational

00:50:34.060 human being who wants to do good, who wants to be able to uphold the law to serve his community?

00:50:39.900 Why would any rational, intelligent, like the people we need individuals join to that sort of

00:50:46.320 scrutiny and potential charges that they'll lose their life to? Right. Yeah. You're de-incentivizing

00:50:54.000 what it is you're talking about by even having this defund the police conversation. The other problem

00:51:00.160 with it. And here's where I take a lot of issue, not only with defund the police, the term, but also

00:51:05.460 the term, or, or I should say the organization black lives matter. These are bait and switch tactics

00:51:11.560 because what the words mean are different than what's actually being presented. Defund the police

00:51:19.320 doesn't mean kind of fund the police, reorganize the police, restructure the police. It means defund the

00:51:26.780 police. And people will say, Oh no, no, it doesn't really mean that. Well, those words are being used

00:51:30.660 deliberately. Same thing with black lives matter. Do does the phrase, the term, the words black lives

00:51:37.060 matter resonate? And is it true? Of course. I think, I think everybody listening to this podcast would

00:51:43.800 say, yes, black lives matter. And that was a, that was a genius, albeit deceitful strategy by the black

00:51:51.900 lives matter movement to say, okay, here's what, here's the words we're using. Oh, and it also

00:51:56.860 represents being at odds with the nuclear family. Oh, the organizers are also trained Marxists by their

00:52:03.200 own confessions. This is where I take issue where there's this bait and switch tactic and strategy at

00:52:08.360 play here. Yeah. And here's the thing. I think you're giving the organization more credit than they

00:52:13.580 deserve. Uh, because the, the genesis or the impetus of, of that hashtag black lives matter, um, came out

00:52:22.740 of, out of good things. It was, uh, solely to identify the spotlight of the dysfunction and the broken

00:52:31.060 relationship between police officers and the community happening over the last 40 years. Um, again,

00:52:38.660 when we look at Chicago, I just, um, about a, uh, a year and a half, no, actually about a year ago, not a year

00:52:44.860 and a half ago, I was just in Chicago and you know, the nickname for, uh, for the city of the inner city of

00:52:50.500 Chicago. Do you know what the nickname is? I don't know it. Chirac. Okay. I didn't know that. Yes. And the reason

00:52:57.580 why is because there, there is a, an area of Chicago that literally Ryan looks like an, an, an acts like a war zone.

00:53:08.660 All right. Even this past 4th of July, startling statistics have come out. There've been more

00:53:14.100 shootings coming out in Chicago during the 4th of July than, um, than what's happened in the, like,

00:53:20.680 I think the past decade startling. So this is systematic of a system that is broken. You know,

00:53:30.100 uh, the, the inner city, it's not just the people within the inner city, which is what we like to

00:53:34.700 believe. Okay. These people are just not disciplined. They, they just don't want to work.

00:53:39.000 We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're throwing and we're, we're, we're, we're, we're casting the

00:53:45.700 players of the community as the bad guys, as the villains. And they brought it on themselves.

00:53:49.760 When in fact, when you, you look at, uh, systematically what causes a society, a nation, a, a, a, a, a state,

00:54:00.320 a city, a community to thrive. Um, you have two acts of capitalism. Okay. You have growth economy

00:54:08.500 and you have deep economy really quick. We know growth economy is the, the, the faster I can grow

00:54:15.060 my company, the more reach I have, the more reach I have, the more market share I can own. Okay.

00:54:21.240 That's growth economy that in our country has played out into why we've globalized our efforts

00:54:28.260 economically. Okay. Because there's advantage there, there's opportunity there. Well,

00:54:33.240 we also try to operate in America, something called a deep economy. Okay. Deep capitalism.

00:54:39.620 What that means is at the local level, we are saying we want communities to, to, to, to thrive

00:54:46.320 and fund themselves. Meaning the dollar will exchange hands in the community five to seven

00:54:52.420 times before it leaves the community. When, when a community can do that, the community can sustain

00:54:58.340 itself. And that means property values will go up. Crime goes down. Schooling goes up because our,

00:55:05.000 our funding to schools is tied to our property values and the whole community is lifted. The, the,

00:55:11.440 the, the, the, the municipal, um, responsibilities of the community, just taking the trash out.

00:55:17.740 I mean, just think about where, where you live. I don't know where you live, Brian, but you don't

00:55:21.980 have to think about the trash guy, you know, uh, missing a week. Right. Right. He's coming. He'll be

00:55:28.420 here. He'll be here. You'll, you'll put the trash out on Monday or Friday or whenever you do. And you

00:55:32.720 don't even think about the trash guy picks it up. Well, that's being funded by a communal, a community

00:55:38.520 effort, um, that, that, that's tied into how a, a city or, um, a community operates. And so,

00:55:47.660 so you've got all these factors when those things are up, just imagine what your, what your street

00:55:51.660 will look like. If, um, if garbage is only picked up once a month, just that alone undermines what

00:55:59.880 the city actually looks like. And you know what I mean? So I say all that, and then we can extrapolate

00:56:04.120 that. When we look at housing, we, we look at, um, you know, basic maintenance of the city,

00:56:08.240 all those things go down. Let me ask you on this because, you know, you talk about it being a

00:56:12.620 systematic issue that's broken. And yet, if you were to take two cities, Chicago and, uh, I don't

00:56:18.980 know, just LA, right. You're in LA. Yes. Are you, so it can't be systematic, like federally systematic,

00:56:26.300 like it can't be across the country because we're seeing different results in different cities,

00:56:30.320 right? Yeah. I mean, it is across the country. That's where, that's why it's systemic and that's

00:56:35.640 where, but the question though is why, okay. So why then do we see cities that thrive and why do we

00:56:42.540 see, see cities that fall behind? If the system's the same, if it's applied, uh, throughout the

00:56:48.860 country, where's the discrepancy here? Every city, um, on within our country, um, you know,

00:56:56.820 has an inner city, has a depressed portion of their lands. I mean, you can even go back

00:57:03.040 out to like the Appalachians and, and look at the, the at risk communities there. And it has nothing

00:57:08.520 to do with the color of your skin. Now, who's, who, who populates those, those socioeconomic

00:57:14.600 depressed areas of our cities? You know, um, in some areas it's more Latino in some areas is more

00:57:20.900 black, but in other areas it's white. So, so we can, we can take race out of the equation at this

00:57:25.720 point. Now, the popular cities that we see, New York, Chicago, Miami, even Los Angeles, you know,

00:57:31.940 when you talk about Watts and Compton and back in the eighties and nineties, the Crips and Bloods,

00:57:36.920 um, it was, it was huge. It was Latino and black. So to answer your question, even within the cities,

00:57:42.720 the pockets of themselves, you have city or areas that are depressed and you have areas that thrive.

00:57:50.080 Well, why does one area thrive and the others don't? That's when you have to look at

00:57:55.060 the cashflow and economic, um, drivers that exist within the city. Okay. And it's, it's,

00:58:01.600 it works in combination. All of these, these moving parts compound on each other. Okay. What I mean is

00:58:08.180 when you have an area that is, that is typically, you know, high in crime, let's say, right? Well,

00:58:15.840 businesses that want to, to grow there, because we know wealth is contingent upon two things,

00:58:22.500 value creation, asset accumulation. All right. You've got to be able to manipulate these two

00:58:28.040 parts in order to, to build wealth. Um, and, and, and, and for yourself, for your family,

00:58:33.580 for your legacy. Well, if you get a black guy or a Latino guy who wants to launch a business in the

00:58:40.120 inner city, doing everything, right. That's the I's cross the T's goes to college, you name it,

00:58:46.580 has a great business, wants to do a dry cleaners in the hood. Well, they go to a bank. That bank is

00:58:53.220 less likely to, to back that business, not because the owner isn't capable, but because of the, of the

00:59:00.060 environment they want to launch. Sure. Of course. And then you couple that with, okay, if businesses

00:59:06.740 can't grow there and thrive, then commerce within the community suffers. Then let's look at food,

00:59:12.440 you know, inner cities are our greatest food deserts. Okay. You and I, we can literally, I can

00:59:18.620 walk two blocks and I can, you know, within, within a half mile radius of my home, I can, I can show you

00:59:25.160 five supermarkets. Of course. Okay. Right. You go to the inner city. Um, there's not a supermarket

00:59:32.700 within a two to three mile radius of a given home. They get most of their food from the liquor store.

00:59:39.260 That's the supermarket. Okay. So, so you talk about health and then, then we say the same thing

00:59:44.840 systematically when property values go down, funding in schools go down. And so all of these

00:59:49.820 things compound on each other. And then you extrapolate that over decades, then you get what

00:59:55.300 we're currently getting. So you, then the flip side is true for thriving neighborhoods. Um, everything

01:00:02.040 that I mentioned in one side, just flip the coin and you have a thriving community that's, uh, that,

01:00:08.260 that's growing. Um, because not because of the people. Okay. But because of the, the community

01:00:14.800 and the, the, the, the infrastructure that people are allowed to live.

01:00:19.160 I, I challenge that it's not the people. I would, I would say that it's not only the people.

01:00:25.920 Exactly. Because point taken. Yeah. I think there has to be some level because I've seen areas that,

01:00:34.320 that have thrived at some point and completely fallen apart. Yeah. And I've seen other areas

01:00:40.660 that, you know, you, you used to be like that used to be the poor area. Like you didn't want to go

01:00:45.060 there and now it's thriving. Yeah. Right. So you see those stories where they flip too. And that has

01:00:50.000 to do with certainly some infrastructure, certainly some investment, and certainly people changing their

01:00:56.940 attitudes, changing their habits to produce and create these cycles of growth or decline.

01:01:01.720 Right. And, and that's why I say, you know, it's not an either or it is an and both. That's why,

01:01:06.620 again, you're right. I think that the, the, the ground game in the inner city, when I, when I use

01:01:11.700 that, those terms, I'm talking about the people. So, so you're right. It isn't, it isn't the,

01:01:16.980 the people can't be absent of it because again, I can go and I can, if I have a lawn service,

01:01:23.040 a landscaping thing, I could put the most beautiful landscaping, you know, um, you know,

01:01:27.900 I could, I could just bling out your backyard. Right. And, uh, and, and walk away and you have

01:01:33.200 a beautiful pool, beautiful grass, beautiful trees, nice little grass, you know, everything.

01:01:38.580 If you don't take care of it, right. If you don't, if you don't, um, you know, deal with the patches

01:01:44.500 that come just because of the nature of land, if you don't correct the sprinkler system over time,

01:01:48.640 because the heads are broken, you know, if you don't take care of it, then yes, is it going to

01:01:53.220 exist? Is it going to survive? No, it's going to be run down. Right. This is, this is why I always

01:01:58.680 fall back on education, even, even within prison systems. You know, we talk about prison reform.

01:02:05.940 I'm like, look, prison reform has to include some element of education and, and people will say,

01:02:13.640 well, you know, you're going to pay for these criminals to get college degrees. I'm like,

01:02:16.840 you know, we're paying for them anyways. Right. Like we're paying for them to be there for,

01:02:21.360 for 10 years, 20 years, potentially their entire lives. And, and the, the just insane amount of

01:02:26.820 cost that's going into that. Let's educate these individuals, get them the information they need

01:02:33.660 so they can start making better choices and better decisions and go back to wherever it is

01:02:40.000 that they're from and start helping the communities that they're involved in because

01:02:44.480 they have the information at hand. Right. And here's where, uh, Ryan, I think the narrative

01:02:50.080 of individual freedoms and the, the narrative of our nation as a nation, as a free nation

01:02:59.680 get confused. You know, I, I, I see a lot of my, my, my brothers on, especially, um, you know, my,

01:03:08.000 my, uh, stereotypically, uh, right-wing conservative Christian brothers. Um, you know, I, I, I,

01:03:15.080 I prescribe to Christianity. I'm a, I believe in the life and teachings of Jesus. And a lot of my

01:03:19.620 friends, you know, are very conservative Christian men. I see this, this idea of, uh, co-opting and

01:03:28.900 confusing personal liberty with collective unity that actually is founded in our country.

01:03:36.000 The great part of the great American experiment is this experiment of, Hey, can we create an

01:03:42.540 environment where through our independent efforts, uh, a, a, a, a collective wealth in our, in our

01:03:55.400 nation? Right now, in order for that to happen, we have to be willing to give up certain levels of

01:04:01.920 our liberty. Okay. The way that that plays out, simply speaking, as an example is our traffic,

01:04:07.820 traffic laws. You and I have given up a certain amount of our freedom to how we drive our car

01:04:15.020 for the sake of more and more people being able to safely drive their car.

01:04:21.420 And it's efficient. And sure. Of course.

01:04:23.160 Exactly. And it's efficient. And it helps me safe.

01:04:26.140 Right.

01:04:26.440 You say I get to go wherever I want. I get to go to my job. I get to use the roads to make money.

01:04:32.340 So it's a win-win overall, but there is a socialist or not socialist, but there is a social

01:04:38.460 communal responsibility where we abdicate certain levels of our freedom for the greater good. Um,

01:04:47.520 you know,

01:04:47.780 We do it with, with our first responders. We do a police departments. We do it with a trash

01:04:51.580 collector. Like we were talking about earlier. We do it with some of these things.

01:04:54.900 Exactly. And so, you know, when we're charged and we're looking at what's wrong in our,

01:04:59.880 in our nation, if we can do it soberly and do it courageously, then we, we, we, we say, well,

01:05:05.500 you know what, if I, if I have the means, um, you know, to then give up a certain percentage

01:05:11.200 to help the, the, the penal system get corrected, you know, then all right, selfishly, my, my self

01:05:19.160 interest will ultimately be served because now I'm helping equip a guy that's not going to be a part

01:05:24.320 of the problem, but he may become part of the solution. Right. So I'm willing to front load

01:05:28.820 the investment in making that happen. Does it take a little bit more out of my pocket? Sure.

01:05:33.680 But, but I, I can brunt that when, when we get so caught up in, in thinking that what's mine is

01:05:40.060 mine because of the freedom that I have in this country. And we forget about the responsibility

01:05:45.020 that with freedom comes responsibility. Then I think that's when we open ourselves up to,

01:05:51.120 to again, just kind of messing things up.

01:05:53.980 Well, I think part of the problem and I'm on board with that. You know, we, we talk about these

01:05:58.280 things like I'm a libertarian and yet, you know, if somebody breaks into your house,

01:06:01.700 I bet you'd be willing to call the police. Right. So it's like, are you truly, are you just

01:06:06.740 paying a lip service? Right. Okay. So I realized there's elements of that. The problem that I think

01:06:12.420 a lot of individuals have myself included with some of these programs is I don't trust the government

01:06:17.140 to do a good job. Yeah. So I don't trust them to do a good job with the school system. We homeschool

01:06:23.200 our children too, by the way, just like you guys do. Um, because part, partly because of that,

01:06:27.720 I don't trust the government to do what I can do and should take some responsibility for, for myself.

01:06:33.720 That's where I take issue is that if I was assured that the, the resources and the money was going to

01:06:40.560 be used to produce what we've talked about, then by all means, same thing with social security,

01:06:45.700 social security is broke. It wasn't supposed to be touched and now it's broke because the government

01:06:53.580 got its greedy hands in this collective system that was supposed to help and serve our elderly

01:06:59.880 population. Yeah. And, and I, and here's the thing when we're talking about, you know, the government

01:07:06.460 and the penal system, you know, our jails. Well, one of the mistakes the government has made is

01:07:12.420 privatizing jails, giving, giving jails, um, the, the management of, of our judicial system over to

01:07:20.420 the private sector in a way where again, the incentives to populate the prisons, right? To

01:07:27.660 people more in jail because it pads their pocket. So, so I, I think again, I always go back to that

01:07:34.440 phrase, the great American experiment. It's a beautiful idea and ideology that we're trying to

01:07:41.800 figure out, but it's, it's very complicated in its implementation because while we do need

01:07:48.000 government, we don't need a corrupt or a government that is so fat that it becomes dysfunctional. And

01:07:56.160 I think that's where we are. And that's where the balance comes in. We need government to, to help us,

01:08:00.700 you know, be fair to one another, right? Because in our own human nature, left to our own devices,

01:08:06.320 fear and greed drive us primally. Okay. And so we need referees in order to, to, to, to, you know,

01:08:12.820 guard up against that. Now, hopefully that can be mitigated a lot when, of course, going back to

01:08:17.520 you and I saying it earlier, men, when we take more ownership in our self-activacy, right? And then

01:08:23.960 in our own identity, then we don't need to be policed as much, right? Because the problem is,

01:08:28.200 if the referee has been bought off, we've got an issue here. Somebody is going to be better served

01:08:33.580 than the, at the expense of the other party. Right, right. Exactly. There's something in,

01:08:37.740 in sports. Um, we, we see this, uh, growing up. I don't know. Do you, do you play tennis or do you

01:08:43.240 play like volleyball or anything like that? Or in high school, I played football, baseball,

01:08:48.400 I wrestled, played a little basketball. So, you know, um, even you take the example of,

01:08:52.760 of wrestling, a lot of times in practice where a lot of, when you guys are off and you're working

01:08:56.880 on technique and you're, you're doing sparring matches, um, you, you police yourselves,

01:09:01.840 right? Right. You don't have a referee there. You know, what's out of bounds, you know, what's

01:09:06.520 off limits and, um, you respect your opponent enough to, Hey, if I stepped out of the bounce,

01:09:12.040 you go, my bad. Or if he points it out that, Hey, you're like, okay. And then it's dealt with

01:09:18.600 in the moment. And then you continue, right? That's, that's the way, you know, altruistically,

01:09:24.760 that's the way we're supposed to be operating in America. And that's what will make America great

01:09:29.740 is if we, if we all take that type of ownership and that collective commitment, um, as, as I make

01:09:37.640 myself better, I'm going to make you better. Iron sharpens iron. Likewise, if you make yourself

01:09:43.260 better, my hope is that part of your incentive as well is to make me better. And that's how it's

01:09:50.000 going to continue to, to, to grow. And then that begins to compound. And then we, we, we start to see

01:09:56.020 exponential benefits in every area of our life. Yeah. I think what, I think what we understand

01:10:03.420 and you understand this because you're swimming, you were swimming at the highest levels and anybody

01:10:07.640 who's participated in competitive sports knows this instinctively that it's, yes, it's a competition.

01:10:14.660 You're trying to win, but also it's a cooperation. Yep. Right. Because look, you go into compete,

01:10:21.760 like I go into compete against you and you would literally swim laps around me. Right. But you,

01:10:26.020 you and I go and we compete and we say, Hey, I'm going to try to beat you and you're going to try

01:10:29.720 to beat me, but we're going to agree to these set rules. And if we don't adhere to these rules,

01:10:35.880 there's going to be penalties. Like if you're on the football field and you cross the line of

01:10:39.360 scrimmage before you're supposed to, there's a 10 yard penalty. Right. So, and we hold, and we,

01:10:45.180 we are so committed to the cooperation that we are both willing to even bring in a third party to do it.

01:10:52.160 Yep. Yep. And I think that's what we need to understand as a country as well,

01:10:56.040 is that we're not competing with each other. Right. Let's cooperate. Like let's work together

01:11:01.480 so everybody can be better served. It's, it's a coopetition, right? Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah.

01:11:06.960 Good point. You know, even, I mean, when you look at, um, what the wealth of nations by, um,

01:11:11.320 Adam Smith, when he talks about the, the invisible hand of competition, competition is a good thing.

01:11:16.860 That's great. But when we look at sports, we look at football. All right. A football game that's well

01:11:23.300 refereed, the referees are invisible. We don't even notice on the field, right? A good game or a bad

01:11:30.040 game that's poorly refereed. You know, we see them all day. Yeah. Likewise with our government,

01:11:36.460 you know, when our government's running well, it should be running behind the scenes and we should

01:11:41.660 never really see it. We should be beneficiaries of it being run well. Um, if we're seeing too much of

01:11:47.660 it, that's just an indication that it, that it's not running well. And then we've got to corrupt,

01:11:53.120 we've got to correct it. Well, let's, let's, let's riff on this, this analogy, even a little bit more.

01:11:58.140 We need to understand the role of government. And from my perspective, the role of government is to

01:12:02.540 play the referee, but guess what the referee doesn't do? The referee doesn't make the rules,

01:12:07.060 right? The players decide, these are the rules we're going to follow. The referee

01:12:10.800 is there to make sure both sides honor the rules and there's a level playing field.

01:12:16.120 That's it. Yep. And I think that's where our government has gone wrong is that they believe

01:12:21.160 that they're supposed to dictate and make all these rules and dictate how we're supposed to live

01:12:24.960 our lives. No, actually you're supposed to get the hell out of the way and only interject when there's

01:12:31.540 some sort of, uh, uh, crossing of the line or breaking of a rule. And then just so you can level

01:12:37.620 the playing field again and then get out of the way. Exactly. And I mean, that's, that's how it's

01:12:42.780 supposed to run. And it's why our founding fathers, when creating the infrastructure of government

01:12:49.000 initially built into it, that the criteria of the man that was supposed to take the helm for a period

01:12:56.760 of time, they had to be, you know, good, upstanding citizens within their community, great reputation.

01:13:02.360 They had to be, you know, successful in business. They had to have a, a, a, have stewarded their

01:13:08.220 family. Well, these were all of the prerequisites to then at, for a certain period, you would go and

01:13:15.060 serve the best interest of your, of your community and of your nation. And then after that time,

01:13:20.880 you would then return back to your, your, your vocation. That's what, you know, civic duty,

01:13:27.340 not an opportunity to build insane levels of wealth and stay there forever. It's not,

01:13:31.880 they're not career politicians, right? That's not my business because now what you have is when my

01:13:37.700 livelihood and my money, my bank account is tied to how I posture and peacock as a politician,

01:13:45.080 then I'm going to get really good at posturing and peacocking because I'm going to get paid,

01:13:51.860 you know, no, no P's pun intended, right? But, you know, and that's where we're dysfunctional.

01:13:58.380 That's where I think we've run amok. And, and yeah, yeah. Is this my armchair quarterback

01:14:02.780 assessment? Yeah. I mean, that, that's what I'm looking at and that's what I'm seeing.

01:14:05.920 And so where I have hope in all of this though, Ryan is that I think now more than ever before,

01:14:13.860 um, more people, uh, have an opportunity to go back to what I mentioned earlier about how do we

01:14:21.020 accumulate wealth? You know, it's, it's, it's value creation and asset accumulation back in the,

01:14:27.880 in the industrial revolution. Most of that came in form of the, of land. If you had an opportunity

01:14:35.040 to, to get land, um, then, then you were able to set your family on a trajectory that could build

01:14:42.400 wealth. Okay. And we know, um, that up until now, up until the turn of the century, that most of the

01:14:48.460 vast majority of our millionaires, you know, made their money in real estate and then funneled that

01:14:52.820 into different businesses and all. Well, I think the tide is changing now with, with this platform

01:14:59.140 of the internet where now we have new modes of value creation and asset accumulation that can come

01:15:06.920 from online based endeavors and, uh, and app development and all. So, so the new real estate,

01:15:12.940 you know, there's a new real estate being created for us. And my hope is that we don't as a, as a nation

01:15:19.540 and specifically I'll speak to my African-American brothers and sisters, we don't get so distracted

01:15:25.180 by the injustices that do happen, that we forfeit our own agency so much that we don't capitalize

01:15:34.540 on the opportunities that are actually right in front of us. Right. That, that's my, that's my hope

01:15:40.820 is that, that, that we can, Hey, yeah, let's call out and let's right the wrongs that we can,

01:15:46.400 but let, let it not take us off our own personal game. I'm glad you said that. And I wanted to say

01:15:52.060 something at the risk of, of maybe being offensive. And I certainly don't intend it this way, but

01:15:56.000 from my perspective, it seems like the powers that be the government and those that would be in control

01:16:01.280 and authority are playing the black community against itself. That's what I see. And so when I

01:16:06.680 hear you say, Hey, we can't be distracted. Like, yes, there's things that happen and those things need

01:16:10.940 to be addressed. And, and individuals that do injustices should be brought to justice. I'm not saying

01:16:15.500 that. Yeah. But also let's focus on the things that can help us be in a better position, be in a

01:16:22.100 better spot collectively. Yeah. And, and I would agree with you there because this is where it's

01:16:27.280 touchy. And this is where, when I, when I'm talking to my, my African-American brothers and sisters,

01:16:31.620 um, and I'll, you know, I go back to, it's an, and both. Uh, now what, what is destructive and

01:16:39.160 doesn't aid the conversation or add value to the conversation is when, um, that becomes your primary,

01:16:45.680 uh, um, mega horn when, when you hear and, and, and bless her heart. I think that Candace Owens

01:16:53.580 is a, is a great person. I'm not trying to put her on blast right now, but she's just the first

01:16:57.980 person that comes to mind. I'd look at, um, um, uh, uh, elder. Um, I forgot his name too. There,

01:17:03.820 there are a lot of conservative African-American right wing Republican African-Americans who find

01:17:10.480 their job, it seems at holding a mega horn up, pointing out all of the wrong of the black community.

01:17:19.120 And, uh, and then that becomes a voice where you get, um, uh, you know, other white Anglo-Saxon people

01:17:24.880 saying, well, well, look, that's, you know, yes, those are the problems. You know, those are the

01:17:30.100 problems. Yeah, they are the problems. I don't disagree with you on that at all. My, my issue is

01:17:36.980 when you use a political party and not even Democrat, I personally, I I'm independent just

01:17:43.260 for the record and all, um, I don't prescribe to the Democrat or Republican, um, uh, ideologies

01:17:49.760 independently. I think both are two sides of the same coin and there's good in both. And then they

01:17:55.400 were designed to be that way. Um, but that being said, you have career politicians who are weaponizing

01:18:02.540 the different movements on, on, on, if we use both sides, right. And, uh, and again, I think it's a

01:18:10.420 tactic when you, when you have someone like Donald Trump, I grew up, I loved, I read the art of the

01:18:16.200 deal. I respected him a lot as a, I think his superpower is his ability to promote and market.

01:18:21.620 I think that's what allowed him to really grow in, um, and be successful in business is he has

01:18:26.720 that ability. And the 80, 20 rule applies. If I, from surely a business mind assess where his strengths

01:18:33.920 and weaknesses, I was like, okay, he doubled down on what his strengths are. And, uh, you know, he,

01:18:39.860 he, he's been a very accomplished. I think he's great at promoting and marketing and, and

01:18:45.560 commanding the, the, the narrative. Well, when you get a guy like that who didn't grow up poor

01:18:51.460 can market himself as the blue collar billionaire and speak to the, the, um, the woes and the pain

01:19:00.700 of a marginalized socioeconomically low white community. Right. Okay. Because, because that's,

01:19:07.440 that's who, that's whose voice wasn't being heard during the previous administration. So their issues

01:19:14.860 and problems on the ground level were not being addressed much like the inner city. Okay. So it's

01:19:22.060 the same thing. Let's take race out of it. It's, it's the same socioeconomic issues that are burdened

01:19:27.600 by that people are burdened with that cause us to act out. And I say us collectively as a human race

01:19:33.680 cause us to act out. So when you can have a guy like that strategically do that, um,

01:19:40.880 now I'll, I'll tell you my, my personal stance is, um, because of this is what I'm taught in through

01:19:47.380 my biblical worldview that whoever is in leadership, we are to honor and respect those that are in

01:19:52.480 leadership. But at the same time, we also have to continue to speak truth to power. I said this when

01:19:57.640 Obama was in office and I say this with Trump being in office. So I want to also make that very clear.

01:20:02.420 The scrutiny that I have on our leaders whose voice can travel the farthest. Um, I think that

01:20:08.700 there is a higher call and responsibility, just like I would expect my son and, uh, and, and his

01:20:15.540 friends to hold me more accountable to the influence that I have in their lives. Then there,

01:20:21.480 then his, my son should, should, should hold me up to a higher standard than he holds his buddies.

01:20:26.240 Right. Sure. Of course. Of my position. And, and, and I should be able to embrace that and accept

01:20:32.040 that reality and then respond to it, show up to it in that way in, in, in, in an empowered way.

01:20:38.120 Well, and I think when you have like yourself, an intelligent man, who's willing to discuss that,

01:20:42.900 who's willing to criticize, but not just criticize to one side, that's right. That's where, and, and,

01:20:48.280 and you said you don't, that's where, that's where issue gets taken is like, okay, you're very

01:20:52.560 critical of this, but what happened when this president was saying the same thing? I didn't hear

01:20:58.800 you're criticizing it then. Yeah. Right. And you hate to get into the, like, what about ism type

01:21:03.200 game, but it is interesting. And I'm not going to say that I'm, that I'm unbiased. We all have biases,

01:21:08.740 right? Right. But I think that if we want to be taken seriously as men, then our criticism and our

01:21:15.780 praise in every other way that we conduct ourselves ought to be even keel across the board, regardless of

01:21:21.420 political affiliation, regardless of color of skin, regardless of whatever. And just look at the

01:21:26.360 merits of what this individual is doing, who he is be damned, right? It's like, what are the merits

01:21:32.640 of what this individual is doing? Right. And again, you can have on, on either side, and this goes back

01:21:38.080 to, again, our, and I think we're saying the same thing. When you, you can get an individual

01:21:43.620 operating within a dysfunctional system, the government, then no matter how good or well

01:21:50.180 intentioned that person is, if the quote unquote other side, if they're held bent on digging in

01:21:57.440 their heels because of, um, political posturing, then it doesn't, it doesn't work. Whether you're

01:22:04.440 Democrat or Republican, if Republican is in office, if the Democratic side digs in their heels and tries

01:22:11.620 to, you know, cut the nose, despite the face, it's not going to work. Likewise, if there is a Democrat

01:22:18.260 in office and the Republicans want to just dig in their heels, um, it's not going to work. And then

01:22:23.940 ultimately who suffers? The American people and a nation divided amongst itself, scripture says will

01:22:30.900 fall. And so that's what, again, I think the caution that, that we all have is, Hey, if we don't,

01:22:38.760 and sorry for all of my analogies, I hope they make sense, but if you, you and I are in the same boat

01:22:44.260 and if our mission is to get our boat across the water, okay. Um, we're, we're both responsible

01:22:51.080 for two things. All right. Number one, we're both responsible to do our part in rowing the boat.

01:22:56.280 And secondly, we're both responsible for identifying and checking out, um, that the boat, the hull of the

01:23:02.520 boat remains healthy. If there are holes in the boat and all then, uh, and we don't fix the holes in

01:23:07.900 the boat, no matter how good we are at rowing the boat, it's just a matter of time before that thing

01:23:12.960 sinks. So we have to both be working on the system as well as working in the system. We're both in the

01:23:21.840 boat, working on the boat while we're trying to get this thing across the water that that's, I think

01:23:26.300 the mindset and that that's kind of the voice that I'm trying to, that's my, that's what I want to

01:23:30.400 bring to the table. So when I talk to people, in fact, I'm going to jump off of our, our call and

01:23:34.760 I'm going to jump on, uh, um, another, another call with an organization, um, uh, that that's trying

01:23:41.520 to figure out what does this look like, you know, within our company. You know, I think if we get

01:23:45.740 enough people wanting to recognize where they're seated, seated in the boat and then agree that

01:23:52.320 we're all in the same boat. Um, then now the issue is let's figure out how do we keep the boat healthy

01:23:58.220 and then how do we make it so that you can operate at your best while at the same time I can operate

01:24:03.860 at my best. Yeah. And I think, I think also important to that is ensuring that we're both

01:24:10.560 in agreement that we're rowing to the same shore. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because if I'm rowing one way

01:24:16.560 and you're rowing the other, that's going to create a lot of contention amongst you and I.

01:24:21.440 Right. Right. Which, which, uh, and again, I probably your listeners are like, man, they use a lot

01:24:25.580 of analogies and beat these things to death, but. Well, analogies are important for me. It has to be

01:24:29.540 dumbed down so I can understand some of these concepts. So I'm all about analogies, man.

01:24:33.200 Yeah. I'm a framework guy, uh, as well. And again, yeah, that's why it's so important for

01:24:39.680 there to always be checks, checkpoints, milestones, and, and assessments. I mean, again, when, when,

01:24:47.340 when you look at, um, what you're, what you're building, the community that you're building with,

01:24:52.120 um, uh, um, I just forgot the name. Order man. Yeah. No, it's okay. Yeah. Order man,

01:24:58.780 but, but the, the iron council, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So, so with the iron council,

01:25:02.820 you know, you're, you as, as the, as the founding member of this and, and, and facilitator and, and,

01:25:09.180 and growing enough, you, you wear multiple hats, you know, you wear the hat of, of a practitioner,

01:25:14.920 you know, you're not like, I'm the King and I'm just going to dictate this stuff, right? No,

01:25:19.740 you're like, I'm, I'm a player coach in this. I'm in the, I'm in it with you. So you're tasked with

01:25:25.060 the responsibility of doing what you can to uphold the tenants of the iron council. At the same time,

01:25:31.920 you hold the responsibility and the, and the, the platform of creating and facilitating and

01:25:37.880 nurturing an environment so that every other man is free to explore and do the same, right? They all

01:25:45.480 have to feel safe enough within the community to allow their ugly side to come out so that it can be

01:25:51.100 healed, right? Right. So you can fix it. Right. So, so you, you, you're, you're charged with,

01:25:56.680 with, again, being in the boat, working on the boat, working, um, to, to make the boat move forward

01:26:03.440 and all, but everybody has to have the same and shared outcome for themselves. Right. And then I

01:26:09.160 think what, what, what works is, is something that you've inherently built in, into your, uh, into

01:26:15.180 your, your tribe, which is, which I think is beautiful. And I'm not trying to, people are like,

01:26:19.320 he's just trying to plug iron council. No, I think it's a great thing. I'm not a member. He's not

01:26:23.280 paying me to say this, but, but what I think dynamically you've learned intuitively is that

01:26:28.620 it's both an art and a science. Sure. Okay. Yeah. There's, there's curriculum and there's

01:26:34.460 scaffolding and there's structure, um, to allow people to operate so that no one gets lost and

01:26:40.760 everyone keeps the main thing, the main thing, but there's also within that structure, enough freedom

01:26:46.420 and autonomy for people to interpret and metabolize that stuff for themselves. Right. And they've got

01:26:55.400 to write for them. Yeah, exactly. They've got to make it meaningful for them. And so it's a balancing

01:27:00.480 act for you. Likewise, that's what it is for our leaders in government. That's what it is for us as

01:27:06.480 men leading a nation. We've got to understand that. Yeah. We may cross, um, you know, hairs on

01:27:14.280 objectives because at any given season, I could be going in this direction while you're going in

01:27:19.260 this direction. Why? Because we're on our own path, but what we've got to do is we've got to make

01:27:24.140 sure that when we do cross paths, it's not a collision. Right. And, and, and that's, and that's,

01:27:31.220 that's how you have to work. And, and the best way to do that, Byron, I think in my experience is

01:27:35.920 communicate. Yeah. Here I am. Here's where I'm going. Here I am. Here's where I'm going. All right,

01:27:41.300 let's work together so we don't crash into each other or whatever here. And I, and I think that's,

01:27:45.920 that's what's missing. That's a big part of what's missing in society. Everybody's button heads and

01:27:49.560 crash. And it's like, just talk, just talk, which is why I think this conversation and these podcasts

01:27:54.040 are so powerful because we're talking, we're hashing this stuff out. And you know, maybe an

01:27:58.380 hour and a half later, you know, maybe we're not any closer to a solution, but we're on the right path.

01:28:04.880 Now we open the framework for other people to start thinking you and I have a better relationship.

01:28:09.900 It's a movement in the right direction. And that's why a conversation is so important.

01:28:15.360 I'm with you. I'm with you, man. And I, I, my, my hope is that we can get more courageous men

01:28:22.000 to be willing. And here's the last thing. And then I'll shut up. I know you're trying to land

01:28:26.460 in the plane and I keep trying to make it take off again, but, but here's, here's my hope for,

01:28:33.940 for men is that in addition to making sure, sure that we hold ourselves accountable and ourselves

01:28:40.720 in check at the individual level, that we will also demonstrate the courage to hold our counterparts

01:28:48.540 in check. The men in our own camp, as opposed to be afraid to speak up when that guy is actually out

01:28:57.280 of line. So when, when I see another guy in my camp, um, weaponizing an issue and, and, and, and turning

01:29:05.960 it into an agenda or turning it into a means to drive their own agenda, I've got to have the confidence

01:29:14.900 and I have to have the willingness to now speak into that, call that brother out. Right. Um,

01:29:21.960 I don't see enough of that. You know, I don't see enough of that in the trenches and I I'm in the

01:29:27.720 trenches in, in, in, in, in these unique situations, uh, enough to recognize and point out that that's

01:29:33.980 a commonality among these different groups. And we, we, we're, we're, we're getting caught up in our

01:29:39.600 own silos. And then within these silos, um, we become so, we become more concerned with the status

01:29:47.500 that we hold in our silos than we are upholding the truth in our silos. And, and, and my, my hope

01:29:54.480 is that we, we have men who want to speak truth to power within our own silos and then hold ourselves

01:30:00.960 to that same standard. I like it, man. I like it. Well, I know you've got another meeting. It sounds

01:30:05.680 like, where do we connect with you? Learn more about what you're all about and what you're doing.

01:30:09.360 Um, let the guys know. Yeah. Well, thanks. Um, uh, anything that I'm doing can be found out by

01:30:14.640 on Byron.cc, B-Y-R-O-N.cc. That's kind of the central hub, uh, to the stuff that, that I'm

01:30:20.840 going and that I'm doing. Um, that's about it. Right on. We'll sync it up for the guys. Byron,

01:30:25.880 I appreciate you and how you show up. I appreciate this conversation, man, really,

01:30:29.840 really powerful stuff. I know the guys are gonna get a lot of value from it and, uh, we'll have to

01:30:34.080 do another round at some point. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate you, brother, and what you're

01:30:38.260 doing. Um, yeah, let's keep driving this ball forward. All right. Thanks, man. There you go,

01:30:43.900 gents, my conversation with Byron Davis. I hope that you enjoyed it, man. When he reached out to

01:30:48.300 me, I was, I was anxious from the minute I received an email from him to, to have him on

01:30:52.940 the podcast, to have this conversation, because over the past, I would say month, maybe six weeks

01:30:59.600 or so, uh, we've brought some guests on and we've been having more important conversations,

01:31:06.240 the conversations that are relevant to you, the conversations that are impacting not only you,

01:31:10.560 but your family, your community, obviously this country, and this one was no exception.

01:31:15.180 So I was so honored to bring them on. I was looking forward to the conversation for weeks,

01:31:19.280 if not a month before we were able to make it happen. And I think it paid off. I think you can

01:31:23.340 see how powerful, uh, these types of conversations are. I can see, think and hope that you see when,

01:31:30.480 when we have this dialogue, even though we may not be a hundred percent agreement on everything,

01:31:34.040 uh, that, that it's still powerful and we can actually get closer to each other's thoughts.

01:31:40.380 Then, you know, maybe we are led to believe. And, and I think the media mainstream media primarily

01:31:47.380 does a wonderful job at getting us pitted against each other. And I just don't feel like in my own

01:31:53.980 experience, and probably for many of you that we're all that different, regardless of race,

01:31:58.960 regardless of political affiliation or religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds, I just don't see

01:32:07.320 us being that far apart. And it's going to take more men like you, like Byron, like me, all of us

01:32:12.440 coming together, discussing, figuring out where we're in agreement, figuring out where we're in

01:32:17.440 disagreement, and then coming up with a path and some solutions moving forward. And I hope this is

01:32:22.660 part of that. That's the whole goal of the podcast. So connect with Byron, connect with me on the

01:32:27.460 socials. Let us know what you thought. Let us know what you're taking away. Share it. I mean,

01:32:32.500 there's people that need to hear this podcast. All right. And, and all I ask is because you're

01:32:36.860 getting this for free, right? Like I've been putting this stuff out for five and a half years.

01:32:39.760 You're getting it for free and I'm going to keep providing because I enjoy it and I know it's

01:32:43.840 valuable. It's important, but please, if you would share it, text somebody, Hey, I just listened to

01:32:48.940 this podcast. It was powerful. Listen to minute 20 or whatever, uh, or, or share it, you know,

01:32:54.480 Instagram's a great place to share it. Just take a screenshot of what you're listening to,

01:32:58.940 put it up on stories, put it in your feed, let people know, tag me, and I'll get back with you

01:33:03.900 with an appreciation. You'll share it with people that need to hear it. And we're all going to be

01:33:07.680 better off for it. Okay. That's, that's your part. Uh, guys, we'll be back. Let's see tomorrow

01:33:12.020 for our ask me anything with my co-host and good friend Kip Sorensen. So make sure you're subscribed

01:33:16.280 for that. And then of course our Friday field notes, if you guys have any other topics or people

01:33:20.620 that you want me to have conversations with on this podcast, let me know, drop me an email,

01:33:25.520 hit me up in the DMS on Instagram or on Twitter, Facebook, wherever you are. And, uh, we'll stay

01:33:29.760 connected. All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow until then go out there, take action, become the

01:33:34.180 man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

01:33:39.080 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

01:33:43.740 at order of man.com.

Order of Man - July 28, 2020

Fixing America Through Uncomfortable Conversations ｜ BYRON DAVIS

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