Order of Man - Forging Noble Manhood

00:00:00.000 If you didn't believe in the inherent value in masculinity, I don't think you'd be listening

00:00:04.060 to this podcast, but you are. So I know that you believe in the message to reclaim and restore

00:00:09.360 masculinity in a world that has constantly been distorting what it means to be a man,

00:00:15.920 undermining the value that men bring to society and signing masculinity off as some

00:00:21.180 socially constructed and antiquated behavior of men. That's why the conversation I have with

00:00:27.660 repeat guest, Stephen Mansfield today is so crucial. He's been championing noble manhood

00:00:32.820 for years, and I could not be more honored to call him a friend. Today, we talk about the culture of

00:00:38.500 men, the critical importance of a man's legacy, the fire of heritage, rituals, a man's warrior spirit,

00:00:46.220 and why we must all fight to forge noble manhood. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:52.220 fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly charge your own path. When life knocks you down,

00:00:56.820 you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated,

00:01:02.540 rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become

00:01:09.160 at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:14.820 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am your host and the founder

00:01:18.940 of this podcast and the movement that is Order of Man. I want to welcome you here and welcome you back.

00:01:24.220 As I said in the intro, it's my job to restore and reclaim masculinity to its former glory.

00:01:32.640 And it is a mantle of masculinity. It's something that we need to earn. It's something we need to

00:01:38.000 fight for. It's something that I think much of society has been continually dismissive of.

00:01:43.660 That is, of course, until society needs what men offer. And it's my job to give you the tools

00:01:49.940 and resources and conversations like this one with Steven Mansfield today, that you need to thrive

00:01:54.900 and succeed as a father and a husband, a business owner, a community leader. And so we're doing that

00:02:00.300 via this podcast and courses and programs and events and everything else that we have going on.

00:02:05.440 Specifically with this podcast, we interview incredible men like Steven, like Jocko, David Goggins,

00:02:10.680 Grant Cardone, Andy Frisilla, Matt Fraser. The lineup of men that have joined us is phenomenal.

00:02:16.180 And a testament to the value and the belief that most men have that we want to step up and we want

00:02:22.460 to be capable and we want to provide for our families. And we want to be the type of men that

00:02:26.620 we're called to be. So I'm excited to be introducing you once again to my friend, Steven Mansfield.

00:02:32.520 Before I get into that, I do want to make a mention of our collaboration with Warrior Poet Society

00:02:38.440 Network. I know I've talked with you about this over the past several weeks. If you haven't signed up

00:02:43.260 yet, I would encourage you to go check it out. It's Warrior Poet Society Network. And if you go

00:02:48.120 to orderofman.com slash WPSN, you'll be able to check it out and you'll be able to use the code

00:02:54.740 orderofman, all one word for discount, but you're going to get access to Order of Man show,

00:03:00.380 which is exclusive content. It's not anything else that I put anywhere else. You're also going to get

00:03:05.180 access to other shows like War Poet with John Lovell, Tony Seminot's Real World Tactical,

00:03:11.540 and many others. So the network continues to become more robust and more offerings. I know,

00:03:18.080 I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, you guys are going to be interested and excited about what's

00:03:23.820 being offered over there. Again, check it out. Orderofman.com slash WPSN. Use the code orderofman.

00:03:31.240 All right, guys, let me introduce you to Steven. He's a good friend again and repeat guest. As I said

00:03:37.780 previously, he has been a champion of noble manhood for years, and he's been a huge support and advocate

00:03:43.700 for what we're doing here at Order of Man. In fact, he was gracious enough to write a very powerful

00:03:48.440 testimony from my book, Sovereignty, the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Men. Steven is a political

00:03:54.220 commentator. He's the founder of greatmen.tv, and he's also a New York Times bestselling author

00:03:59.740 and has written many incredible books. A lot of you guys have read, including Mansfield's Book of

00:04:03.960 Manly Men, Building Your Band of Brothers, and his latest book, which he is here to talk with

00:04:09.040 us about today, Men on Fire. Steven, it's great to see you again, my friend.

00:04:15.320 Good to see you, buddy. It's been too long.

00:04:17.260 I know. I meant to look and see when the last time we talked. Well, you know, actually,

00:04:20.500 I think the last time we officially talked was probably about the time my book came out because

00:04:25.000 you wrote and you were gracious enough to leave us a testimonial for that book. And that was two years

00:04:30.600 ago, a little over two years ago now. Wow. Wow. I mean, nothing's been happening in our world

00:04:35.940 since then, so I don't know why you and I didn't connect. Yeah. I mean, what is there to catch up

00:04:40.440 and connect about, right? Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'm glad you reached out to me, though, when you

00:04:45.440 wrote your new book, Men on Fire. You know, actually, when's the release date on this? I think

00:04:51.760 this is an advanced copy. It is an advanced copy. June 1 is the date. You should get a final copy

00:04:57.420 here pretty soon, but June 1 is the official release date. Great. Yeah. No, I've read through

00:05:02.040 it and really like what you have to say. I wasn't surprised that I would enjoy it, that it would

00:05:08.240 resonate with what I talk a lot about and what I believe about manhood and masculinity. We seem to

00:05:13.080 be so much aligned in a lot of the ways we view masculinity and what it means to be a man.

00:05:17.720 Yeah, there's no question. I mean, I wrote that book because I felt like there were some things I

00:05:21.340 hadn't said in the previous two books that needed to be brought home. And by the way, one of the things I

00:05:26.040 really love about it, thankful to my publisher, is that we decided not to do a hardbacker version.

00:05:31.160 We're just doing a paperback version, which makes it cheaper, more accessible. Almost any guy can

00:05:35.640 afford to buy another 10 for his friends, that kind of stuff. So I'm really looking at it as a movement

00:05:40.180 book and that excites me. Yeah. I also like that you wrote it in a way that encourages men to band

00:05:47.100 together and talk about it and discuss because in each one of the chapters, you talk about the battle

00:05:51.560 plan, which is a term that we actually use as well. So I was excited to see that. But yeah, you talk

00:05:57.060 about it in the context of how are you going to band with other men and address some of these issues,

00:06:00.800 which I don't think a whole lot of men are doing. Women tend to be pretty communal just by default, but

00:06:06.740 men don't seem to be that way, at least in modern times.

00:06:10.180 Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I'll tell you what, with what's happening recently in our world,

00:06:13.620 I was so grateful that this book had the themes that it did and is coming out when it does,

00:06:18.600 because I think if we're not careful, in addition to what was already the downward spiral of

00:06:23.520 manhood in the Western world, the coronavirus and all that's happening, the economic upheaval

00:06:29.920 could really douse the fires in men's souls. So I'm just grateful for the way it's all coming

00:06:35.520 together to impact men at this time. You had said that there was a couple of things specifically in

00:06:41.440 this book that you felt needed to be shared that weren't in your previous two books. I'm assuming

00:06:46.020 you're referring, because you've wrote more than two, you're referring to building your band of

00:06:49.640 brothers and Mansfield's book of manly men. Is that correct?

00:06:53.560 That's right. That's right. I'm grateful for those two books. They've had a lot of impact. I mean,

00:06:57.400 you and I have talked about them before, but still there was something missing. I could call

00:07:02.540 men to noble manhood. I could show them models of noble manhood. I could teach them the four maxims

00:07:07.580 I've talked about in Mansfield's book of manly men. I could teach them how to build bands of

00:07:11.320 brothers, but still there was something that needed to be ignited in their souls at a very

00:07:15.980 personal level. And that's, that's what this book does. Yeah. Well, it's, it's fascinating that you

00:07:22.000 came from it, from the, the approach of, of the seven fires, I think is what you termed it as.

00:07:27.660 Um, and, and as I was going through each of those quote unquote fires meant every single one of them

00:07:32.840 resonated with me. And I think most of them, if not all of them, that's probably why you identify

00:07:37.240 these is they are on the decline in modern culture, but these have been historically masculine practices

00:07:46.060 and virtues, but it seems like modern times have kind of stripped a little bit of it away from,

00:07:50.740 from us as men. Yeah. And you know that I don't like to spend a lot of time cursing the darkness,

00:07:56.380 but the fact is that if, if we all had perfect families and perfect fathers, uh, these virtues,

00:08:03.000 these fires would have been ignited in our souls by fathers and uncles and a band of brothers and

00:08:07.480 a tribe that we grew up in. Uh, but when they're not, someone's got to come along and say, but you

00:08:11.740 got to be intentional about this. You got to go after this yourself. Um, you know, my, for example,

00:08:16.620 one of the fires is heritage and I'm sure we'll talk about it, but you know, I tell men dig up

00:08:21.480 what, what, what's good and noble in your heritage, both ethnically and in terms of your family and let

00:08:26.740 it take a residence in your soul. Well, let me assure you that my children don't have to do any

00:08:31.460 digging. Uh, they got a father who's a PhD in history, a guy who keeps the family heritage

00:08:36.260 alive at Thanksgiving meal. They would hear about their family heritage on my, on my wall over my

00:08:40.600 shoulder. Let's see what I don't hear is a picture of my high ranking officer, U S army officer, father,

00:08:45.700 you know, my kids live in that environment. So sometimes it's just automatically there and just

00:08:50.220 embedded and passed on, but where it's not, man, you got to go after it because it's essential.

00:08:54.760 And so that's what this is going to do. Be a roadmap for that, that hunt.

00:08:57.680 Yeah. And, and I think that's increasingly, uh, common there. There's some great work that I'm

00:09:03.220 sure you're familiar with, uh, by Dr. Leonard Sachs. Why? And I think you actually mentioned him later

00:09:08.480 in the book and some of his work. Um, and then Dr. Warren Farrell with the boy crisis and both of

00:09:13.520 them refer heavily to the lack of masculine presence in young men's lives. It's funny because

00:09:19.520 occasionally more often than I should, I get messages from men who will say things like quote unquote,

00:09:25.920 real men don't need other men to tell them how to be men. And I'm like, that's the furthest thing

00:09:30.700 from the truth. That's actually the exact opposite of what you should think about this.

00:09:34.980 That is exactly right. It's exactly right. It's our absence of a tribe of men around us. You know,

00:09:40.920 I'm going to say something that's a little bit radical. Obviously I believe in the traditional

00:09:44.980 family. Obviously I believe in fathering, but the, but the studies show that where there wasn't a

00:09:50.700 father in the home, uh, that if, that if a band of men will come around a young man,

00:09:55.160 they can make as much as 80 to 85% of the difference of a father. That's exciting to me

00:09:59.820 because that means that if I, that if I'm born into a family where the father's abandoned the

00:10:03.740 home or he dies early or whatever the circumstances might be of divorce, it doesn't mean that I'm just

00:10:08.700 ruined. It means that other men, men and men in my church, men in my community, men in my tribe,

00:10:13.740 whatever it is, can pull around and make a difference. Well, that's the way it's always been

00:10:17.700 in history. You know, fathers got killed by natives on the front, then the frontiers and,

00:10:21.440 you know, died on the ships coming over. People died far more freely at midlife, uh, previously,

00:10:27.900 but the other men of the community pulled around and made a difference. So yeah, that, that,

00:10:31.960 what you've just quoted, of course, is we, you and I both know it's complete bunk. Um, a man,

00:10:36.480 it's the problem we have in our generation is men walking alone. Uh, I, I have a group of guys who

00:10:41.940 say it differently. A man who is self-defined is defined by a fool. And, uh, that's, you got to have

00:10:48.580 other eyes on you. You got to have other men. You got to have other coaches. I didn't get better

00:10:51.740 at football, better at baseball, uh, whatever else I was, I got better at it by myself. I had

00:10:56.380 other guys around who said, what the heck are you doing? And, you know, coached me through it. So

00:11:00.160 that's, that's the way it's got to be in this life. Yeah. I think, I think it is really important

00:11:04.980 that, that you make that, that statement about, you know, men stepping up. And I also think it leads

00:11:10.140 us to believe that we, as men who have the capacity to do so have an obligation to step up in

00:11:15.460 community leadership. You know, that might be boys in the neighborhood, your, your, your sons

00:11:20.360 and daughters, friends. Uh, I think of competitive sports, if you can coach, uh, or step up in, uh,

00:11:27.040 a youth organization through your church or through some other community organization. Like we have an

00:11:31.460 obligation and responsibility to step up. I know there were men in my life in the absence of a

00:11:35.440 permanent father figure who stepped up for me and made a huge, huge difference in the way that I

00:11:40.880 turned out as a man. Yeah. And I was very fortunate to grow up in a military environment.

00:11:45.460 Uh, so my father was a very, very busy offer army officer, but there were other men on the post

00:11:50.900 who were coaching me in football, who were keeping an eye on me and my behavior, who were,

00:11:55.460 you know, men in the school, et cetera, all those kinds of things. And so, uh, you gotta have,

00:12:00.100 you gotta have that broader tribe. And I'll tell you, you put your finger on something very,

00:12:03.740 very important. Um, I use a kind of a humorous illustration from the Andy Griffith show.

00:12:08.540 Uh, you know, there's, there's this episode where Andy's out of town, the sheriff. And so Barney and

00:12:13.600 Gomer are the two deputies and they're walking around and they finally see some guys who are

00:12:17.640 ready to rob the bank and all that. And Gomer says to Barney, we got to call the police.

00:12:23.780 And, uh, you know, Barney says, we are the police. And that's the, that's the big laugh line,

00:12:28.200 you know? But the fact is, you know, quite frankly, a lot of guys listening to this podcast,

00:12:32.620 they may not feel like they're meant to be mentors or that their fathers or that their father figures in

00:12:36.480 the life of a young man who's not in their home. But I'll tell you what, it's almost like,

00:12:39.940 if you know, five truths of noble manhood, baby, you're better off than most men get to it,

00:12:44.100 you know, uh, get on with, with, with, with mentoring other people and bringing them in your

00:12:47.840 life. So we have a kind of a, what they call in theology of perfectionism. Everything has to be

00:12:52.480 perfect before we get started. And, um, I don't believe that. I think if you're in it, in the

00:12:57.000 pursuit, you know, some stuff, turn and teach those who don't know what you know, and we'll all teach

00:13:01.180 each other, but, uh, we are the police, so to speak. And if this thing's going to get fixed,

00:13:04.840 it's going to have to get fixed by us taking, in my opinion, with one hand on God, the other hand

00:13:09.640 on each other. Yeah, I can appreciate that. You know, it's, um, I I've often said that we don't,

00:13:15.900 we don't get to decide if, if we're influential, you know, what, what, what, whether we want to or

00:13:20.520 not, and however we're showing up, we are influencing other people. And it seems to me,

00:13:24.220 most of us aren't very intentional about that. It just happens to be that the way we act and the

00:13:29.440 way we behave is what rubs off on other people. We don't give it much of a second thought, but

00:13:34.240 man, how powerful would it be if more and more men, millions of men across the planet decided

00:13:38.780 that if I'm going to be influential, why don't I be a little bit more intentional about it and

00:13:43.060 think about the way I want to lead my life and then lead others' lives as well, which ties into

00:13:47.620 one of the fires you talk about, which is a legacy as well. Yes. Yes. And I'll, and I'll tell you,

00:13:53.440 buddy, you know, one of the things that really hinders guys from being the mentors they're called to be

00:13:58.580 is that we have this overly formal view of what it means to be a mentor. You say the word mentor to

00:14:05.140 most guys, they get some kind of ancient Greek image, you know, guys in togas sitting under a

00:14:10.620 tree contemplating the apple or something, you know, some kind of strange, you know, Roman-esque,

00:14:15.740 Greek-esque kind of thing. But the fact is that most coaching, most mentoring, most nurturing of men

00:14:22.480 happens just informally, you know? Yeah. You know, I never, I never in my life went to a

00:14:28.480 baseball clinic or had a formal coaching arrangement where a guy was privately paid.

00:14:33.920 One of my buddies just turned to me and say, choke up on the bat. What's wrong with you? You know,

00:14:38.260 like this, like, what are you doing, man? Don't do that. No, you got to go to second. Every time that

00:14:42.900 happens, it's a forced play. You know, it wasn't like it was gentle. It's just the way guys talk to

00:14:47.340 each other. So the mentoring doesn't happen in Greece under a tree with a toga. The mentoring

00:14:52.860 happens over a burger. The mentoring happens while you're mowing the yard of the widow. The

00:14:57.620 mentoring happens in fun ways. You know, you know how this goes. You get two teams playing four-on-four

00:15:04.540 pickup basketball. They don't even know each other's names and they're coaching each other.

00:15:08.740 Look for me down under. I'm open. You know, that kind of stuff. They just start coaching each other

00:15:12.440 and making each other better. That's just the culture of men. So part of what's going on is guys

00:15:17.320 think it's got to be a formal. You got to have a license. You got to have a certificate. You got

00:15:20.900 to have a PhD. The fact is we mentor each other from all through our lives and it starts as soon

00:15:26.040 as we can speak English. You know, the three-year-old coaches the two-year-old. That's just

00:15:29.680 how it goes. So we got to, we got to pull down the formalities about this and get busy.

00:15:34.720 It's funny. Cause I was, I, every night, every other night or so we've got little wrestling and

00:15:39.840 jujitsu mats here in the house and I've got three boys and a little girl and all of them love to,

00:15:43.400 to wrestle and roll around with me. And, uh, I was, I was watching my oldest son who's 12 now.

00:15:48.980 Uh, and he was rolling with, with his, his younger brother who's nine and there's a significant size

00:15:55.860 difference. And it was funny because the older brother was pretty harsh on, on him. And I was

00:16:01.160 like, gosh, should I step in? I'm like, no, you know, actually this is kind of how it's supposed to

00:16:05.120 be for men. We, we live in this really interesting society where it's over feminized. And if anything

00:16:11.700 comes out harshly, then, you know, you're doing it wrong or it's toxic. And yeah, maybe some of that

00:16:17.880 to a degree, and it can certainly get taken out of hand, but for the most part, like let, let the

00:16:22.880 boys be boys and let them self-regulate in a way, uh, not to the point where they're destructive or

00:16:28.160 dangerous, but to the point where they can check each other the way that we've done for thousands

00:16:32.100 and thousands of years. Exactly. Exactly. You know, you know, because we, we, you and I both pay

00:16:38.120 attention to the culture of boys and the crisis of boys in our generation, but we, we know for,

00:16:43.300 here's, here's the classic example. Uh, a guy walks in the school, he sees one of his friends,

00:16:48.940 his friends at a locker. And so what does, what does the guy walking in do? He'll just push him

00:16:53.120 into the locker. Right. And, and, and, and the female public school teacher freaks out and thinks

00:16:57.980 she's got a riot on her hands. Yeah. You and I both know that it's just nurture. It's, it's a way of

00:17:02.840 saying hello. Um, you know, my, when I, when I played football in high school, uh, I was, I got

00:17:09.920 transferred in the middle of my high school career to a gigantic high school in Iowa. When those guys

00:17:14.800 walked in and said, hello, man, that hurts. Yeah. You know, they just, they didn't mean to hurt me,

00:17:20.540 but they just walk in, I'd have my arms raised up, like, let's say putting something in my locker

00:17:24.440 and they just smack me in the ribs while they walk by and say, morning Mansfield or Hey, Hey dude,

00:17:28.780 or Hey idiot or whatever. Right. And I'm not saying it's, God knows they don't want to treat

00:17:34.080 their wives that way later in life. But at that point it was just nurture and you've got to,

00:17:39.140 you've got to let it happen. Now, if it gets abusive or harsh or draws blood, or like in the

00:17:42.840 case of your sons, you know, it's just, it's not productive. You can always whisper into the older

00:17:46.940 child ears and say, don't you think if you would gentle up a little bit, that might work better.

00:17:50.860 But, but for the most part, I don't want to turn off the rough nurturing I've had in my life.

00:17:55.860 It's what's made me who I am. And, uh, by the way, I grew up around drill sergeants and those guys,

00:18:01.880 those guys aren't jacking around, man. Those guys will, they, they don't say, please. They just

00:18:06.520 grow it up in your face. And what is wrong with you, man? I taught you how to do this yesterday.

00:18:09.600 I expect you to do it today. You know, that's kind of the attitude.

00:18:12.560 So even if they didn't teach you, they still expect you to do it.

00:18:15.380 They expect you to pull it out of the air.

00:18:17.480 That's right.

00:18:18.080 So I'm not, I'm not licensing rudeness. I'm not licensing harshness. Um, but there is that culture of men,

00:18:25.200 which by the way, if I can jump in and make a point real quick that we need to remember,

00:18:30.260 that's why a lot of the culture of men needs to happen away from women. I'm crazy about the women

00:18:36.020 in my life and love them dearly. But now when I go shoot with my buddies or we go mess around or we

00:18:41.200 do a pickup game or whatever, you know, when women show up, they're like, Oh my gosh, you guys are so

00:18:46.500 mean to each other. What are you doing? Stop that. You know, that kind of stuff. And we all know it's

00:18:50.760 just, it's just the stuff that goes on. It's really not meant for their eyes. They need to

00:18:54.380 go on and go do that what they're going to do and let us have time with each other. So this is,

00:18:57.940 this is part of what you and I were talking about right now is part of the lore of manhood that

00:19:02.340 we've got to keep alive and teach the next generation. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm just so glad

00:19:07.040 you're talking about that because it isn't, it isn't popular doctrine, right? It is, is,

00:19:11.640 is to hear about, you know, I think about to talk about, you know, football stories when I was a

00:19:16.100 freshman before practice, everybody would line up on the field before practice or kind of sit

00:19:20.460 around, around the pads or whatever. And the seniors would just torment us. I mean, torment us

00:19:26.880 with the, not hurt us, but just torment us with the bags and they'd throw them at us and throw our

00:19:31.820 helmets. So we'd have to go chase them and push us through the bags and everything else. And, you

00:19:35.720 know, it was miserable, but at the same time, like I never thought it was bullying or anything like

00:19:38.900 that. And then when I was a senior, I did it to the freshmen and it was a, it was a little bit of a,

00:19:44.880 a rite of passage in a way. And you know, it's funny cause I'm reading, um, gates of fire by

00:19:50.400 Steven Pressfield now. Oh yeah. Great book. He's going to be joining us on the podcast as well. But,

00:19:56.400 uh, it's so interesting to, to hear stories of the Spartans and how they trained during the

00:20:03.980 Agogi and how they pushed on each other. And the reason they did it is because they needed to make

00:20:09.400 sure that they were hardening each other because when it counted in battle, they needed to ensure

00:20:15.820 that the man to their left and their right was worthy and capable of standing next to them and

00:20:21.220 defending and protecting like they would themselves. And we just don't have those opportunities in,

00:20:26.740 in modern times, which I think eliminates some perceived idea of like having somebody who's

00:20:34.000 battle tested next to you. Well, you're absolutely right. And I'll tell you it, part of what we need

00:20:40.020 to do is teach each other how to nurture other guys in this kind of rough way. It doesn't need

00:20:45.040 to get sexual. It doesn't need to get brutal. Uh, quite frankly, I'll tell you that a lot of the

00:20:49.440 bullying that goes on in fraternities and things like that, a lot of the bullying that happens that

00:20:53.900 we hear about on, you know, college sport teams, sports teams, in my opinion, that's happening

00:20:58.720 because we didn't have, uh, men passing on the lore of initiation rights and the lore of positive,

00:21:07.120 uh, I call it nurturing, um, that happens that way. Um, I, I remember a game we used to play on the

00:21:13.240 football field. Um, I'd get in the middle of a circle and they called it, you can't believe how

00:21:17.580 politically correct and incorrect it is today, but smear the queer, smear the queer. Of course.

00:21:21.560 Yeah. You remember that we all played it. I got to tell you that, that drill made me a better

00:21:25.680 football player, uh, because I was big and strong, but I was a little slow. So to get hit from a blind

00:21:30.980 side and then have to jump up and get ready for the next guy to hit me where I didn't, when I didn't

00:21:34.500 know where he was coming from and move my feet quickly around in the circle of what to look for

00:21:37.760 him, that, that drill, I used to jump into it every time I could, because I knew it was making me

00:21:41.740 better, but now you get arrested for doing that. Oh, for sure. Or you even say it, you can't even say

00:21:47.520 the word anymore. I know. I know. I don't care what you call it and call it an apple pie for all I care,

00:21:53.080 but you seem to be a better football player. I mean, um, and, uh, and I remember the first time

00:21:58.320 a guy taught me how to shoot. Uh, he said, stop, stop, stop, stop. You're, you're not even using

00:22:02.980 the right eye. So you say, he said, this, this guy was a drill sergeant and he was working with

00:22:08.020 young men on a military post, uh, off time. And he said, you're so stupid. You're not even

00:22:12.500 using the right eye. Well, you know, it just so happens that I'm opposite hand, my eye and my hand

00:22:17.480 are opposite. You, you know, that situation is shooting. And so I have to close it where I would normally

00:22:21.560 I would close my left eye to shoot with my right hand. I should, I have to close my right. Well,

00:22:26.000 yeah. Thank God he told me, I don't care if he drew it in blood on my chest. My point is that he taught

00:22:30.640 me. And, uh, and I've been a pretty decent shot ever since and had a lot of fun hunting and a lot

00:22:35.600 of man time. Anyway, all this to say, um, men talk to each other. You know, the other night I was with

00:22:41.580 a bunch of guys for a stogie fest and a guy walked in and said, ladies, it's so good to be with you.

00:22:46.700 Well, now if a woman had been sitting there, she just said, what an insulting SOB this guy is. Why

00:22:53.200 do you let him attend the meeting? You know? Right. Well, we, we know what's going on. You

00:22:57.660 know what's going on. Every man listening to this knows what's going on. He's having fun. He's

00:23:01.340 picking on us. He's saying hello. He doesn't really think we're ladies. And by the way, most

00:23:05.320 of the guys in that room could have looked his backside. He's it's just a way men nurture each

00:23:09.880 other. But, uh, my point is that it's part of the lore of this. And I remember my father

00:23:15.580 saying, well, put up with this cause that's nurtured. That's guys hanging and smacking

00:23:19.480 each other. But when it crosses that line right there, I don't put up with it. And if it goes

00:23:24.020 further, come tell me, well, I feel so secure. I felt, I felt like I had a roadmap for man culture

00:23:28.800 and that's, that's what we have to start handing the next generation.

00:23:32.340 Yeah. Agreed. You know, I, I take, I take that comment. You're talking ladies, how's it going on?

00:23:36.740 You know, obviously he doesn't think you guys are ladies and also he is not demeaning ladies.

00:23:41.840 And that's one of the things that I think we get into, into this thing is like, Oh,

00:23:45.200 I'm offended. And you're insulting me. Not everything needs to be taken so personally.

00:23:49.680 And it's just funny to see that it's unfortunate actually.

00:23:52.820 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh, you use a word, Steven, you use the word, uh, nurturing,

00:23:57.480 which is very interesting because when I think of that word, just kind of on the surface,

00:24:02.320 my knee jerk reaction is soft, effeminate, uh, that's what comes to mind, but you're using

00:24:09.360 it in a different context. And it's really interesting to think about it that way.

00:24:14.020 Yeah, we can, we can use a whole lot of other terms for it. I'm growing you. I'm teaching you.

00:24:19.440 I'm training you. I I'm bringing you up, you know? Uh, and, and, and so I like the word

00:24:26.300 nurture just cause it's the way the psychological community speaks. And a lot of people will

00:24:29.540 understand it, but I, but I know it can evoke statues with women with bare breasts from the

00:24:34.000 Greek area, you know, nurturing the world and nipples to the wind and all that kind of thing.

00:24:38.280 And I'm not trying to be crass or nasty. I'm saying, uh, that's what's going on.

00:24:42.320 Guys are helping each other. Guys are growing each other. Um, I mean, I remember in high school,

00:24:46.300 I lived in Germany in high school and there was something I was doing that, that would be a

00:24:50.120 danger. And some of my friends came and said, Mansfield, what? These were guys, by the way,

00:24:54.460 I'd only known three months cause I had just moved there. You keep doing this. You're going to get

00:24:58.140 your butt whooped. What is wrong with you? And I said, what are you talking about? Yes. They said,

00:25:02.560 you cannot go over to this section of the city and do such an, I wasn't doing anything immoral,

00:25:06.800 by the way. I was just, I was actually walking there with a bunch of girls is what they were

00:25:09.960 trying to tell me. You're going to take four or five of us with you, man. And you got to be,

00:25:13.600 you got to man up because they will absolutely come for you. Well, it was so good for me. It

00:25:17.800 made me situation aware, as they say in the military, it made me on time. It helped me understand the

00:25:22.840 threat that was there and helped me understand my role in safeguarding women, which I can't do if

00:25:27.160 there's one of me and five girls, you know, that kind of thing. And so anyway, it was so good

00:25:31.500 for me, but it wasn't said gently. It wasn't on an engraved invitation. It wasn't said, you know,

00:25:37.940 now my friend, let me talk to you for me. No, they just smacked into me because they didn't want me

00:25:42.560 to get whooped. And so that's how men talk to each other. And it's also, by the way,

00:25:47.840 why we pick up nurturing, not in systematic lectures, like in college or university,

00:25:52.220 but we pick it up in bits and pieces. I picked up, I remember my father at a halftime of a football game

00:25:57.960 on New Year's Day said, I love it when a man improves on himself. And my dad was not the

00:26:02.680 kind of guy who sat around spouting Shakespeare or spouting maxims of manhood, but you just listened

00:26:07.420 long enough. You'd catch a lot of manhood. He was a real man's man. And so you just had to listen.

00:26:12.280 You just had to be around to catch occasionally. He would talk about how he handled a situation or

00:26:16.640 what he liked to see in a certain football player or how he disciplined a soldier because he did

00:26:21.440 something wrong. And you'd learn lessons of manhood. So we live in a very academic kind of world.

00:26:26.740 A lot of professors, a lot of university life, it shapes us. But the fact is that most of man lore

00:26:32.380 is dropped in crumbs. It's dropped in little bits and pieces and in informal times. And you just have

00:26:38.620 to pay attention. And, you know, I think it's not only dropped there, but it's also dropped just in

00:26:43.400 the moment in action. I think this is one of the biggest pieces missing in the educational system.

00:26:48.120 And I also happen to think it's a big reason for the decline in organized religion.

00:26:51.960 You know, I, I really don't think that men want to be sat down and preach to from some pulpit

00:26:59.780 without experiencing some sort of action that accompanies it. I think there's times where

00:27:04.180 it's valuable. You know, we've been sitting around, for example, the campfire for millions of years,

00:27:09.940 right? Uh, and, and so that's, that's valuable, but also it's found in applying the lessons and

00:27:17.540 getting the feedback of moving your back and your hands and working and laboring and toiling.

00:27:23.020 And we don't get that in a classroom. And for the most part, we don't get that in, in, in the,

00:27:28.220 uh, religious organization either. You know? So I think that's part of the decline. I don't know

00:27:32.260 what you have to say about that. No, I couldn't agree with you more. And I'll tell you what,

00:27:35.320 one of the chapters in my book, Men on Fire, uh, is about God and about the fire of God in our souls.

00:27:41.740 And I treat it in a very non-religious way. And one of the, one of the things I do is I say that

00:27:46.060 we have drained the manly content out of religion. Uh, we have forced churches and religious

00:27:51.500 institutions to lean feminine, which is great when you're feminine, but it's not great when you're a

00:27:55.640 man. You know, I mean, my wife was sitting right here. She'd say, absolutely. What's great for women

00:28:00.220 is not great for men in every case. And, uh, as, as a result, uh, men who are obviously creating the

00:28:06.080 image of God meant to be connected to God and perfect noble manhood without God need to, need to,

00:28:11.180 need to be brought back, not into a feminized church, but brought back to the power and the

00:28:15.440 manhood of religion. And I, one of the things I do, because I've got a background in religious

00:28:20.320 studies and history, um, is I take time to talk through the life of Jesus real quick. Well,

00:28:24.560 that sounds real preachy because that's about the only time you hear about the life of Jesus,

00:28:27.400 but I do a manhood riff on the life of Jesus. What he went through, what he did, his father died

00:28:33.080 early, his brothers resented him, you know, he was hunted every day of his life, et cetera,

00:28:37.040 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And before long, you got a, you got a manly image of it.

00:28:41.180 It's only a couple of pages, but you got a manly image of Jesus that is not denoted by

00:28:44.980 the Jesus in a back bathrobe with a sheep under his arm image that we see in a lot of churches,

00:28:50.100 even in our heart. So I couldn't agree with you more. I think that we absolutely have

00:28:54.960 feminized, uh, religious institutions and the church in particular. Um, and I don't want to

00:28:59.400 revolt. I don't want the, you know, women being diminished or anything like that, but I'll tell

00:29:03.480 you one of my favorite churches in this country, there's a church called manna church. It's just

00:29:07.640 outside of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And the pastor years ago said, I want to build a church

00:29:13.120 that really reaches to men. And I think if I do that, that we'll bring in more people and serve

00:29:16.920 women even better. So rather than, you know, you know, the old saw is that 80% of church jobs go

00:29:22.220 to women. He reversed it and did 80% of the church jobs for men. Um, and, and then had women come on

00:29:28.840 board. Well, first of all, the church has grown far beyond what it ever would have otherwise. And so

00:29:32.780 many, many thousands of women are served who had never been served otherwise. And also, um, he

00:29:38.340 builds a culture of noble manhood, but that serves those women so well that they are delighted. They

00:29:43.220 consider it a privilege to even go there. And by the way, from Fort Bragg, you got a lot of special

00:29:47.680 forces and military and stuff. So these guys know what they're doing. It's unbelievable, but it's

00:29:51.940 because he decided to lean towards men in the building of the church, so to speak. And it made a

00:29:57.060 massive difference. So that's, that's, that's what we're going to have to do. Not like you say to the

00:30:00.580 diminishment of women, but because we want to serve both well. Guys, let me hit the pause button

00:30:06.700 on the conversation with Steven real quick. Uh, this one is specifically for fathers. This message

00:30:11.600 on September 3rd through the 6th of this year, 2020, uh, we're going to be hosting our first ever

00:30:17.400 legacy experience in Maine. This is our third legacy experience, the first one in Maine and you and your

00:30:24.780 son between the ages of eight to 15, uh, are going to come to my property to be pushed to the max

00:30:31.300 physically, mentally, emotionally. And all of this is designed to equip you and your boy with the tools

00:30:36.960 needed to thrive in the crazy world that we live. Uh, if you're anything like me, ensuring that your son

00:30:44.440 becomes the man he's capable of becoming is something that keeps you up at night, probably more so than

00:30:49.940 anything else. And when you come to the legacy experience again on September 3rd through the 6th,

00:30:55.180 uh, you're going to be working alongside me and my boys and 19 other fathers and sons to ensure that

00:31:00.860 you have everything that you need to help your boy become a man. Uh, if you want to learn more and lock

00:31:07.380 in one of these last remaining spots, then head to order of man.com slash legacy. Again, order of man.com

00:31:14.460 slash legacy. Uh, you can learn what is included in the experience. Uh, you can watch a quick video,

00:31:20.880 uh, from our past legacy experience. And this one is going to be like, uh, unlike I should say any event,

00:31:27.380 uh, that you have ever seen or experienced again, check it out. Order of man.com slash legacy. I really do

00:31:34.480 hope to see you there. All right, guys, back to it with Steven. Yeah. And you touch on a point in the book

00:31:41.820 as well, which is definitely not politically correct. And you talk about male authority

00:31:46.660 through, through this fire of God, which was a fascinating discussion point, something that I

00:31:52.140 happen to agree with, but something that, uh, you, you're not quote unquote supposed to talk about,

00:31:57.760 right? Because somehow people believe that that does diminish the role of women and how they show up

00:32:02.680 and what they mean to us and how we can serve, uh, our, our women best. Absolutely. You know,

00:32:07.920 I'm not going to just take off and preach here, but Paul said twice in his letters to the Corinthians,

00:32:12.380 I have authority for building you up, not for tearing you down. That was the nature of authority

00:32:17.220 he had. Well, I think we should take a, you know, just sort of light a fire from that, that we keep

00:32:22.720 with us. And that is, you know, my wife is a very strong personality, very gifted. She's, I think,

00:32:30.660 you know, that she's a producer. She, you know, handles those big old tours, rock and roll tours,

00:32:35.660 16 semis going down the highway. She's a, she's, she produces all that stuff. So she's tough. She's

00:32:41.740 strong. She's good. She's delighted to have a husband who has authority and insight for building

00:32:47.540 her up, protecting her, caring for her, nurturing her and not tearing her down. It's not a competition.

00:32:53.640 It's not me ruling the roost. It's not saying, get me my beer woman or, you know, that kind of

00:32:57.200 snappy border returning into, turning her barefoot foot and pregnant in the kitchen. It's authority for

00:33:02.100 helping her. It's authority for coaching her, just like she has in my life to a large extent.

00:33:06.780 And so she's delighted because she's in charge of things everywhere. Well, who's watching out for

00:33:11.220 her, her husband. And so that's, that I think we've got to have a little bit of a rewriting

00:33:16.400 of the understanding of authority, especially when, when that sense of authority comes from

00:33:20.800 scripture, because so often it's been misunderstood. It's not domination. It's an authority to build you

00:33:27.620 up. And, uh, my wife revels in that she's, she's, she, she will tell you that she is a better woman

00:33:32.980 because Steven has an authority in her life. Um, then she would be otherwise in the same way that

00:33:37.400 I'm a better man because she speaks into my life and that's how we're going to have to start thinking

00:33:40.760 of it. Yeah. I think that's why podcasting and, and writing books and, and giving context to some

00:33:46.900 of these discussion points is so important because yeah, that could be taken out of context and be

00:33:51.560 taken negatively and create some criticism for men who believe that they are, for example,

00:33:56.360 the patriarch of their family, which I believe I am, but heaven forbid, I say the word patriarch,

00:34:01.180 right? Because of the negative connotation that it's, that it's, that espouses or that it's been

00:34:05.500 given. Um, but I take honor in that. Like I take honor in knowing that I'm the leader of my family,

00:34:11.180 that I have authority to lead my family. And I want to do that in a way that doesn't prop me up,

00:34:19.500 but in a way that helps me lift up my wife and my children. Like I think most men are on board with that.

00:34:26.360 Well, and I'll, and I'll tell you, I've seen this happen time and time again, when a man starts

00:34:31.740 being what he's supposed to be, when a man starts, I don't mean just stepping out and leading about,

00:34:36.660 although that's important, but just on his own terms and his own life, being what he's meant to

00:34:40.440 be, uh, being together, having a band of brothers, improving, growing, investing in the lives in his

00:34:45.860 family. And so on, I'll tell you what submission, if that's what we want to call it is no problem.

00:34:49.840 My wife has no problem, uh, coming under, so to speak, uh, my authority to speak into her life,

00:34:56.260 my authority to coach her, my authority to guide her. And while we make most decisions as a team,

00:35:01.200 final authority always rests with me. Now that sounds real bigoted, then people just need to

00:35:05.880 change their understanding because I'm telling you, this is the, this is the greatest safeguard

00:35:11.200 for both of us. It's powerful, but that's, I think this is one of the things that's got to be

00:35:15.880 restored. I, I did not go to my wife and say, I want you to submit to me. I want you to do what

00:35:20.820 I tell you. That's our arrangement. No, I was just a man that she could respect and who cared for her

00:35:26.600 and invested in her. And she was happy to open her life and lay out before me and trust me to speak

00:35:34.140 into any area of her life from weight to work to, you know, uh, whatever, uh, not because I'm,

00:35:39.880 you know, smarter than she is. I'm not, not because I'm a better human being, but because I have

00:35:44.760 authority for her life. She, she, in other words, you went, you draw people into, uh, that coaching

00:35:49.880 leadership relationship you're meant to have when you are who you're meant to be.

00:35:53.820 Yeah. I think where people get hung up is they start to conflate the idea of what we're using

00:35:58.980 the word submission. Maybe there's a different word we'd use, but they conflate it with a lesser

00:36:04.600 worth, right? That if somebody submits like a wife submits to the authority of her husband,

00:36:08.680 for example, then somehow she's of less worth or less importance, which certainly is not true.

00:36:15.060 But I think that's what a lot of people believe that it means. Yeah. And that's that, you know,

00:36:20.060 we probably need to look at professional sports. I mean, the, the guy coaching the team is not the

00:36:24.040 best player in almost every case, you know, Phil Jackson is not a better player than Kobe Bryant was,

00:36:30.700 or, you know, all the, all the great stars that he coached. He's not a better player. He wasn't even a

00:36:34.260 better player when he was young and playing in the, in the, in the NBA. He did not, but he is a better

00:36:38.640 coach. And so the idea that the coach is someone who's better, best on top, perfect exemplary. No,

00:36:45.380 not at all. Um, in fact, I, I have older men around me who are smaller, weaker than I am.

00:36:52.820 Maybe they don't earn as much money. I don't know. Uh, but they have wisdom for life that I want to hear.

00:36:57.640 And so I set myself at their knee. I come under them, so to speak. I listen to what they have to say

00:37:02.900 and not because they're better than I am. And in any area, I mean, they might be, but that's not the

00:37:07.780 criteria I'm using, but they have wisdom. I don't have, they can mentor me. They can coach me. They can

00:37:13.600 nurture me. They can lead me into the next level. And so this idea that you're in competition with

00:37:19.120 your coach, this idea that the only people who can coach you are people who are better than you are,

00:37:23.700 uh, at what you do, that's, that's going to cause you to miss a lot of the input you need to have in

00:37:29.260 your life to be a success in every area of life. Definitely. Definitely. That's why I think humility

00:37:34.420 is so, so important because if we run around and we all want to be the alpha, um, well, while I can

00:37:42.160 appreciate your desire to lead and be out front and get things done, it leaves a lot on the table that

00:37:48.920 you could otherwise learn from and grow from and produce better results in your relationship and

00:37:54.700 with your career aspirations and financial situation, if you would just stop trying to be

00:37:59.180 that quote unquote alpha all the time and just humble yourself before men who might know a little

00:38:04.720 more than you about some things. That's very, very well said, bud. And I'll tell you something else.

00:38:09.440 One of the things that's really helped me is what would this is what the experts call modular

00:38:13.500 mentoring. And what that means is I don't just put on a toga, move into your backyard and tell,

00:38:18.200 please, please mentor me and leave me in all things. I just, I turned to a friend who's better at

00:38:22.840 one thing than I am. Um, I, for example, I don't mind saying this right on the air. I'm,

00:38:28.560 I'm very good with languages, philosophy, ideas, history, literary things. I'm not very good with

00:38:33.520 numbers. Thank God my wife has a master's in higher math. Numbers are not my primary language.

00:38:38.280 I can do all the basics that everybody can do, but if you're wanting me to compute board foot for a

00:38:42.520 re for a modeling project, or if you're wanting me to figure out compound interest over a period of

00:38:46.780 time, stuff like that, I'm going to have to have that checked. Somebody's going to have to check

00:38:49.680 them. So years ago, uh, when I was just a young guy just starting to step out in the world, um,

00:38:55.700 I went to an older friend who was a financial genius. And I said, look, I'm going to buy the

00:39:00.140 lunch. Would you mind sitting with me and just talking to me through some things that would help

00:39:03.260 me? Um, as I try to, you know, prosper and take good care of my money and be wise. So how do you

00:39:08.140 save? How do you do this stuff? What about credit cards? Will you just talk me through some things?

00:39:12.400 And so I bought it up. I bought three lunches. Um, and he talked to me very graciously and very

00:39:17.560 gently turned out the guy was a PhD in higher finance. So what was he doing sitting with me?

00:39:21.180 Well, he was happy to mentor a younger guy. Um, but my point is that I didn't, I never asked myself,

00:39:26.340 am I better than him in every area? You know what I'm saying? I don't have any clue. I mean,

00:39:31.080 maybe he's not that good of a father to his daughter, or maybe he's not any good at rack and

00:39:34.620 I don't know. Frankly, at the time I didn't care. There was a guy I liked. He had wisdom for my life.

00:39:39.120 I wanted him to speak in one portion of my life. So part of what you do when you're all Mr.

00:39:44.340 Macho male and don't want to take any coaching is you not only miss the big life coaching,

00:39:49.160 the big broad coaching that you need in your life. You also miss the opportunities to improve

00:39:53.440 in certain areas. How can I play better? Whatever. Racquetball golf. How can I, uh, you know,

00:39:58.820 you seem to have a great relationship with your daughter and she's got special needs. Talk to me

00:40:02.400 about that, you know, or whatever it is that you need. You know, um, I've, I know, I don't know guys

00:40:07.200 who have been to the, just absolutely messed up and yet won their wives back. I stand around

00:40:13.300 scratching my head shocked. Now I didn't lose a wife or any misdeeds on my part, but some of these

00:40:17.840 guys were just dogs, but they got, they, they kept their marriage together and they, they won their

00:40:22.440 families back and they're exemplary today. Well, don't you want to learn from that? So my point is

00:40:27.060 I'm willing to buy a dude to stake if he'll teach me, but I've got to submit to him for lack of a better

00:40:31.980 term, come under it, be willing to be coached, shut up for a minute, whatever you want to say for a

00:40:36.540 little while. And I urge men to master that art. I mean, a lot of the mentoring you need, like I say,

00:40:41.560 it's not sitting in a toga under a tree. A lot of it is just talking to a guy in the steam room

00:40:46.440 or talking to a guy over a burger at lunch or going, you know, going for a jog and saying,

00:40:50.760 how do you, how do you do that so well? That's the mentoring we need. And we're going to have

00:40:54.540 to be intentional about it. Yeah. I found that the virtue of curiosity has really helped me in

00:41:01.340 this department. You know, when I started podcasting early five, five years ago, in fact,

00:41:05.220 you're, you're one of my early guests. I just, I wasn't, obviously I wasn't as effective as I am

00:41:11.040 now with, with, with the medium and the skill of, of podcasting and interviewing and conversing.

00:41:15.580 Part of that just comes through time. But I think a big shift for me was just being curious. Like I'm

00:41:21.140 always amazed at the people that I have opportunities to have conversations with, whether it's something

00:41:26.020 like this or on the plane or at a conference, like you never know who you're talking with or who,

00:41:31.940 or what they know about life. If you just were a little bit more curious about who that person is,

00:41:37.400 what they know, what might translate into something that you may be dealing with. I think

00:41:41.580 we all just be in a, such a better spot. Yeah. I don't think there's any question. I'll tell you

00:41:46.860 another thing that made a big difference with me that fits into what you're saying. Early in my life,

00:41:51.360 an older guy said to me, I had, I had a good father, but he was very busy with, with war. He was

00:41:57.280 very busy in the military and he didn't teach me a lot of practical stuff. And that actually

00:42:01.880 caused me to go out into the world when I turned 18 and went off to college a bit insecure. But

00:42:06.620 in college, you guys said, look, don't let what you don't know drive you to insecurity. Let it

00:42:11.200 drive you to answers. And so rather than sitting there, you know, huddled up in my dorm room going,

00:42:16.980 shoot, I don't know how to do that. I mean, I literally didn't know how to shave when I went

00:42:20.880 to college. I had used an electric razor and had never used a straight razor. When my electric razor

00:42:26.060 broke, I didn't, I didn't know how to shave. I had to ask a guy in college to teach me how to

00:42:29.720 shave. Well, how much more for changing the oil? How much more for the best way to date?

00:42:33.800 How much more for, you know, 50 other 50,000 other things we need to know. But the best advice I got

00:42:39.600 was don't let what you don't know, make you insecure. Let it drive you to answers. And that

00:42:46.520 made a huge, huge difference to me. Cause my, while my father was a good man, he did not teach me basic

00:42:51.980 stuff. He ought, he should have taught me frankly. And I mean, I talked about that later. He should have,

00:42:55.600 he assumed my mother was teaching it or my coaches were teaching me, but you know, uh, so you, so you

00:43:01.460 have to be careful not to let it drive you to insecurity. If you put 10 guys in a room in this

00:43:05.580 generation, there's a lot of stuff. Each of them does not know that other guys in that room will

00:43:09.700 teach them if they could just, if they just be bold to ask. And that's one of the arts of manhood.

00:43:14.820 Yeah. I like that. I think the problem that a lot of guys have in this department, and I've

00:43:19.600 certainly been here is this, this fear of, of mockery or ridicule being embarrassed because

00:43:25.940 we don't, you know, you were talking about shooting, for example, I learned to shoot younger,

00:43:31.200 but, but older than probably I should have been. And it was funny. My, uh, my father-in-law was,

00:43:35.800 was taking me out with, with my hunting rifle. I'd shot ARs and stuff. I was in the military and,

00:43:41.460 uh, he took me out with a hunting rifle and I scoped myself, you know, like got the bite,

00:43:46.600 right. Uh, because I was too, too close to the scope. And it was funny cause I was walking around

00:43:51.220 the neighborhood and all the guys were like, Oh, I know what you did there. They were just giving me

00:43:55.260 like a really hard time. And I, and at first I was embarrassed and I'm like, wait, they knew

00:44:00.340 what happened before I even said anything about it, which means that at some point it probably

00:44:06.280 happened to them. And now it's like, welcome to the club. It's not mockery. It's like, Hey,

00:44:11.860 welcome. We've all been there. Congratulations. You're part of the club now.

00:44:15.120 Well, and aren't you, aren't you glad that you will, you allowed, um, a situation of embarrassment

00:44:20.600 so you could learn. How else do we learn? So if I'm so proud that I never want to show

00:44:26.460 any weakness and that's the kind of insecurity I had when I first went off to college, uh, you know,

00:44:30.700 I wouldn't let anybody know what I didn't know. Cause I didn't want to come under ridicule.

00:44:33.780 Well, after a while I started to enjoy the ridicule because in the process I was getting better.

00:44:38.500 And, um, I won't, I won't get, I'm not trying to compliment myself, but in a number of really,

00:44:42.680 really important situations I was awarded most improved. Well, most improved sometimes,

00:44:47.160 sometimes sounds like a, you know, booby prize or something. It's like the joke prize, but not for

00:44:51.760 me. I went from zero to a hundred and less time than anybody else did because I was willing to be

00:44:56.340 ridiculed. I was willing to learn. I was willing to be hassled. I was willing to be teased. I was

00:45:00.340 willing to walk around with a black eye from a scope, uh, or a burn mark, or, you know, I can't tell

00:45:05.160 you how many times somebody's come at me who knew the, knew what was going on and said, I know what you did.

00:45:08.940 Exactly. I sure know what you did. You held that thing the wrong way. That's that's, you know,

00:45:14.840 you can't believe it. And so, but the issue is that I learned now. I, yeah, ideally we all learn

00:45:20.540 everything we need to know before we're 18 in terms of manhood lore and we go out in the world. It

00:45:24.880 never works that way. It doesn't matter how great your parents were. No, it doesn't matter what kind

00:45:28.620 of home you came from. So the issue is, are you willing to grow? And I now, I now know a lot of

00:45:34.640 people in the military and stay close to military culture. So I've talked to a lot of drill sergeants

00:45:40.920 and trainers behind the scenes, and they'll say what they're often looking for is a guy who can

00:45:46.000 grow through his mistakes, not a guy who doesn't make mistakes. Well, the young recruit, of course,

00:45:50.860 is trying not to make mistakes, but the sergeant, the drill sergeant knows he, everybody's going to

00:45:55.800 make mistakes. It's how you deal with your mistakes. And I just learned early, thank God that I could

00:46:02.600 endure any kind of ridicule. I just want to learn how to do this thing on the other side.

00:46:05.840 I mean, I ruined cars engines because I didn't change the oil. I mean, I did stupid stuff,

00:46:10.280 but I, but I learned, I learned and I grew and then I had stuff to teach other people. So

00:46:15.360 you've got to get over yourself and be willing to take on the ridicule because everybody grows

00:46:19.560 and everybody grows with an element of ridicule involved. You just have to do it. Tom Brady's out

00:46:23.820 there somewhere learning new stuff and being hassled by his teammates. And, and by the way,

00:46:28.960 he wasn't always Tom Brady. He's at the bench. He got ridiculed. He got this, he got that. I mean,

00:46:35.360 that's just how it goes. Well, I like that you're talking about not only being willing to put

00:46:41.140 yourself in that situation, but then doing it over and over and over again, because even if you're

00:46:46.240 willing to do it once and you get burned literally or figuratively, a lot of guys would be like, Oh,

00:46:50.940 yep. Not for me. I'm not doing that again. Right. You need to get yourself picked up,

00:46:55.380 dust it off, and then re-engage in the fight, re-engage in the battle with the new found

00:47:00.680 information and lesson that, that you have. And that, that is now available to you. That feedback

00:47:05.400 is crucial, but you got to get back in the fight. Otherwise it doesn't matter. Yeah. And let's just

00:47:09.540 consider for a moment, the alternative, the alternative is that you, you don't want to look

00:47:14.720 stupid. You don't want to look clumsy. You don't want to be criticized in public. Well,

00:47:17.780 what are you going to do? You're only going to choose to go into situations where that you can

00:47:22.360 handle and look good. Well, that's going to keep you shallow. That's going to keep you not growing.

00:47:27.820 I want to throw myself into the deep end of the pool. I want to, I want to throw myself, you know,

00:47:32.740 I've, there are times I've, I've decided to join something or be part of something. And people just

00:47:37.020 looked at me and said, what are you thinking? You know, nothing about that, but I learned,

00:47:41.420 see, I want to grow. I want to learn. So, uh, it's amazing. The number of things that I've done for

00:47:46.580 the first time by myself, you know? Uh, but my point is that, that, that if we're preoccupied

00:47:52.120 with cool and looks and not being quote unquote awkward, which is the big word that my kids use

00:47:57.140 to express anything that is terrible is awkward. Well, I understand. I don't want to look stupid

00:48:02.640 24 seven, but I'm willing to be awkward to grow even yet. I'm willing to be awkward to grow. Um,

00:48:08.840 and so that's, that's, that's something I really want your listeners to think about because

00:48:13.680 this is if some guys are sitting back, never wanting their hair must never wanting to look

00:48:17.760 bad. I never wanted to be criticized. Then you'll just stay at the shallow end of the pool all the

00:48:22.760 time as it takes no skill to stay there. And we want you to get into the deep water of what you're

00:48:27.140 made to be. Well, I think this hits on something that you go in depth as well with, with one of

00:48:32.080 the fires, which is, uh, the fire of battle, right. And, and being, being a warrior, being willing to

00:48:37.380 get in there and get dirty and messy and bloody. And, but I, I wonder about the word warrior

00:48:43.200 because it's one of those words that's been picked up by marketers. And so like every,

00:48:48.220 everything's you're now a warrior, right? Just because you showed up, it's like, nah,

00:48:52.280 it doesn't really make you a warrior. So help me understand when you say warrior, like what are

00:48:57.220 the virtues that a warrior espouses that would make somebody actually step into this role rather

00:49:02.240 than just it being a buzzword? Yeah. I appreciate that. Uh, first of all, war happens at all kinds

00:49:08.480 of levels that can happen. Sure. Physically. Uh, but it can also just happen, uh, when you're

00:49:13.840 battling for a friend, when you're battling for the sanctity of your home, when you're battling for

00:49:17.900 your own psychological health. So for me, the, the, the actual form of war will be decided by the

00:49:24.480 battles that are forced on you. It's that you have the skills of personal battle, both internal and

00:49:29.280 external. That's important to me. So, uh, what I want a man to do is have the heart of a warrior,

00:49:35.060 a man who will step up in battle. This kind of whatever doesn't matter. I won't really rise up

00:49:41.300 and fight about anything, uh, kind of attitude that pervades our generation, uh, is unmanly.

00:49:47.140 And it also is going to let a lot of, a lot of evil arise. Now I'm not talking about evil, like,

00:49:52.100 you know, I'm going to go shoot somebody for them doing something politically. I don't agree with

00:49:55.980 I'm talking about evil in my own soul. I'm talking about evil in my own house. I'm talking about the

00:50:01.080 darkness that comes to take my kids at night. I'm talking about helping my son battle through

00:50:04.660 depression or I'm talking about, you know, uh, all those things. So, so for me, uh, are, are you

00:50:10.480 willing, first of all, to mount up and do what's necessary to go to the war? Then second of all,

00:50:15.740 uh, you've got to develop the skills of war. And that for me is everything from, yes, knowing how

00:50:21.920 to defend myself physically and defend my family and shoot a gun and make sure my perimeter is solid

00:50:26.880 at the most physical level. I'm speaking actually in terms of my home. Um, but at the same time,

00:50:31.500 how do you encourage a man? How do you help him overcome the darkness? How do you help him battle

00:50:35.420 back? If one of your friends is being sued and it's just threatening to absolutely bankrupt him,

00:50:40.500 how do you stand with him? How do you encourage him? How do you help battle back? How do you help

00:50:44.320 maybe, uh, pull in other people who can stand with him and help him? How do you fight? And, um,

00:50:50.220 having been around the military a lot, one of the things that I am aware of, uh, is that you tend to

00:50:55.000 fight with people who are cross disciplined. So I have certain skills in the fight, but I'm not going to

00:50:59.540 have all the, all the, all the abilities. My father was green beret and they worked of course in these

00:51:04.700 teams where one guy might be the medical officer and handle communications. And the other guy was

00:51:09.780 demolition, but the other guy was, you know, the linguistics and intelligence of the region. And

00:51:14.920 the other guy who knows what was small arms and you know, uh, they all were cross trained. They all

00:51:19.600 had three or four different kinds of training. And when they parachuted behind enemy lines, they could

00:51:23.580 get the job done. So I've got my certain skills in a battle of any kind, but I know how to pull

00:51:28.680 other people in. I know how to call in reinforcements. So I'm speaking to it quickly, but for me,

00:51:33.900 the core issue is that I recognize that part of my role as a man is to fight. And that doesn't

00:51:39.660 mean be contentious and be a brawler and be picking fights at a bar. That's, that's a cheap version of

00:51:45.080 the greater fights we're meant to fight. I'm talking about, I battle for my wife spiritually, physically,

00:51:50.240 in every way I battle for my children. I'm talking about everything from prayer to actually financial

00:51:55.040 investment, the actual encouragement, actually teaching them. Um, you know, yeah. Well, I show

00:52:00.320 up physically if I have to, to protect them. Absolutely. But that's not the majority of it

00:52:04.160 in our generation. Fortunately, in our American society, I don't have to go pushing people around

00:52:08.220 all the time to protect my daughter. She can, she lives in New York. She can walk the streets

00:52:11.840 of New York unmolested for the most part, no problem. So that's not where the fight is.

00:52:17.260 The fight instead is to encourage her. The fight instead is to help her get through coronavirus.

00:52:20.960 The fight instead is to help her financially. The fight instead is to help her to be a virtuous

00:52:25.100 woman in the midst of a generation that tells her not to be, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:52:29.180 So there are fights at every single level. And the main thing I go for is that men are willing

00:52:33.060 to battle for each other. Uh, right now I pick up the phone, call a couple of guys and tell them

00:52:37.800 I'm in a real fight. I'm really fighting some, whatever. Let's just say I don't have a problem

00:52:41.200 with depression, but I'm happy to use it as an illustration. Um, I'm fighting some depression.

00:52:45.640 I'm afraid I might hurt myself. I'll tell you what, it's going to be four or five huge guys

00:52:48.920 come into my house, come right into my house. They're not going to knock either, by the way,

00:52:52.160 you're going to find me. They're going to help me. They're going to stand with me. They're

00:52:54.960 going to walk with me. They're going to get me help. They're going to take every weapon out of

00:52:58.200 my home. They're going to talk to my wife. That's, that's the kind of band of brothers I have.

00:53:02.880 And that's, that's calling in reinforcements. Uh, that's, that's getting the help that you need.

00:53:07.680 So it's a, it's more of a general attitude than it is, you know, putting on camo,

00:53:13.900 strapping on a bowie knife or something. That's not the main issue these days. Although may we

00:53:20.240 all know how to handle ourselves physically. Yeah. And if you're doing that, you may, you may

00:53:25.180 be looking at it inappropriately and doing things that, that aren't really relevant or helpful to

00:53:30.160 you. Uh, you know, you use a quote in the book, uh, from John Eldridge, who is one of my favorite

00:53:35.680 authors. And I can't remember exactly the quote you use, but the one that really stands out to me is,

00:53:39.820 uh, deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to

00:53:44.940 rescue. And, uh, like, if that doesn't espouse, I think what you're talking about here, the, the

00:53:50.040 willingness to, to, to battle for your, your romantic relationship, uh, an adventure taking

00:53:56.700 risk and just being capable of handling everything that comes your way. I don't know what does.

00:54:01.940 Well, and I, and I think that's the core issue. You know, I do a lot on college campuses. And so I

00:54:06.540 sometimes have fun messing with young guys when I'm trying to help him. So I was at an event once

00:54:11.340 and a young guy brought his date and he basically, when I started talking about the need of a man to

00:54:16.200 be able to battle and have it in his soul and have that fire of battle going in his soul. And,

00:54:20.080 and then yeah, bringing the skills along later, he was like, he was, he was being cool and showing

00:54:24.680 off a little bit. And he was anti, uh, I don't know. I can't think of anything I'd really fight for

00:54:28.260 really. So I reached over, took the hand of his girlfriend and pulled her over next to me and

00:54:33.700 pushed him back in his chair and I put my armor. I wouldn't be inappropriate. I put my armor on this

00:54:38.700 girl and say, she's mine now. He got up. I pushed him back in his chair. Now everybody was giggling,

00:54:44.840 but this guy was starting to get frustrated and worse. He got some real fire in his eyes. And I

00:54:49.580 thought he's just at the brink. And that's when I stopped doing the illustration. I said, you see that

00:54:53.720 if you and I had been alone, you probably would have pushed me. You probably would have come at me

00:54:57.760 because I was taking something that's rightfully yours. And, and for all, you know, it was going to do harm.

00:55:03.120 I said, are you telling me that that's that what you felt was inappropriate, that you should never

00:55:07.160 feel it, that you should just sit back in some kind of Zen mode and let me take your girl, your

00:55:11.500 wallet, your car, who knows what else. And it really was interesting because even though he was trying

00:55:16.920 to be culturally cool and anti all violent and, uh, you know, uh, masculine fire. Um, the fact is he

00:55:25.220 wasn't, he was living in conflict with that. And all it took me was he knew full well, I wasn't going to

00:55:29.500 take his girlfriend and take her home. I mean, I'm a full grown man with my wife sitting on the

00:55:33.020 other side of the room, but it got him lit, it got him lit up enough, uh, to start to come at me a

00:55:37.940 little bit. And that's, that's, that's a lot of, this is the, I'll just call it the duplicity,

00:55:43.160 the tension that a lot of guys are living in. The fact is they know they've got to have the fire of

00:55:47.880 fight. Um, but they, they don't know what to do. So rather than admit that they just talk like they

00:55:54.020 don't need to have it or like it's somehow culturally inappropriate. Well, every man needs to know how to

00:55:58.060 fight at every level. I, and I got to tell you, there's a lot of the best in men comes out when

00:56:03.880 they're preparing for a battle. And again, I'm not talking about physically primarily because most of

00:56:08.320 us will not fight major physical battles in our lives. We just won't. Um, but the, but, but the

00:56:14.180 principles of physical battle battle need to be alive in our, in our souls and need to be, need to be

00:56:19.300 able to move us towards the fight that we need to have. And a lot, a lot of guys in our generation

00:56:23.980 have just sort of shut that down because they don't know what to do, but there are guys around

00:56:28.160 who can teach them. You can fight financially. You can fight for the psychological health of your

00:56:31.860 family. You can fight spiritual battles. You can fight against cultural forces. A lot. I tell guys

00:56:37.380 to be the culture keepers in their home. Imagine what some men have had to fight during this coronavirus

00:56:41.660 quarantine season where they, they sense depression or disillusionment or despair arising in the lives of

00:56:48.340 those in their home. You got to fight against it. You got to know how to fight. So it's one of the

00:56:52.440 great arts of manhood. Yeah. I just think that, that culture tells, tells men not to fight that

00:56:58.620 if they feel this, this fire or that, that testosterone, that energy coursing through their

00:57:03.460 veins, then they're wrong. And, and we've been conditioned that way through, through the educational

00:57:09.940 system. Uh, like we were talking about earlier, boys without father figures in, in the home or in

00:57:15.060 their community. And so primarily a lot of these young men who are, who are becoming the age of men

00:57:21.040 have not really learned how to harness the fire. And they think because they feel rage or aggression

00:57:28.280 or potential violence in appropriate situations that somehow they're wrong or they're toxic or

00:57:34.580 they're displaying characteristics that are, that, that they shouldn't be. And so rather than learning

00:57:41.560 to harness the fire, they completely turn it off. They're like, Oh, I got to turn that off. And they

00:57:45.280 subdue it, which I think poses its own set of problems when you completely subdue it.

00:57:51.220 No, there's no question about it. And I'll tell you something else as, as, as men try to diminish

00:57:56.520 the role of fight in their lives, fight, uh, may, may leave their personal lives, but it increasingly

00:58:02.360 becomes a matter of popular entertainment. And it isn't it interesting that while the average guy on the

00:58:07.100 street is turning down the fire of fight in his soul, he's also watching, you know, MMA. I mean,

00:58:13.200 he's also, he's also watching pro sports. He's also, uh, you know, admiring, uh, violence. Look

00:58:20.000 back at the Roman era and era study a lot. Um, you know, it was, it became an increasingly effeminate

00:58:25.680 culture when it came to the, to the men. Um, but, but at the same time you had guys fighting for the,

00:58:30.820 to the death in the arena and all these effeminate men sitting around cheering, cheering them on.

00:58:34.940 My point is that what happens is we keep, we keep an element of fight in our lives as a matter of

00:58:39.920 entertainment, but we have no skills of our own. And, and correspondingly, when a culture has a

00:58:45.260 good manly martial culture in it, where guys are carrying weapons, where guys know how to fight

00:58:51.140 when they know how to be, um, to fight for noble and righteous causes and protect one another,

00:58:56.480 you don't find fighting very much as entertainment because it's woven into life in a healthy way.

00:59:01.600 Um, in fact, there's the episode of the American West where a promoter tried to bring some boxing to

00:59:06.900 that to a town. And the men said, we don't want that. We don't need that around. And fighting is

00:59:11.680 an entertainment fighting is what you do to stay alive. Uh, we don't want, we don't, we don't want

00:59:15.300 that to be reduced to entertainment. And if every man carried a gun, every man had fought on the

00:59:19.720 frontier, every man had fought against evil guys, every man had fought against bandits. They'd carved

00:59:24.360 out a community in the wilderness. And what they didn't want, what they found repulsive was suddenly

00:59:28.540 turning, uh, you know, the fighting they had to know how to do day to day into some kind of

00:59:33.480 entertainment. And so they asked the guy, they, they, they wouldn't let the, this, this fight

00:59:37.320 promoter bring his stuff into the city. And I've always thought that was very, very interesting

00:59:40.860 guys who had actually shot weapons, guys who had actually been in fist fights, guys who had

00:59:44.900 actually been in knife fights, guys who had actually had to, you know, carve a home out of

00:59:48.420 the frontier, didn't want that same form of violence to the entertainment because it was a

00:59:53.140 respected and noble lore that was woven into life. And that's, that's what we're going to see

00:59:57.240 as we turn this ship. Yeah, that's interesting. I never considered that. I can see where you're

01:00:01.980 coming from. I, you know, I do watch MMA and I, and I enjoy it. And I think part of the reason is

01:00:06.360 obviously men, men enjoy violence and have a propensity for it. But I think the other element

01:00:11.380 of it that, that is valuable is being inspired by somebody's dedication to a craft by facing

01:00:21.300 their own fears by having an adversary that they're quite literally fighting against. And then using that.

01:00:28.600 I mean, that's the key is use that as fuel to improve your own life. If you're using it to

01:00:34.340 detach or escape from your own reality, I think that could be a problem. But if you're using it

01:00:41.620 as fuel to move you in the right direction, to become more of a fighter, literally and figuratively,

01:00:47.380 then I think it could be a very positive thing.

01:00:49.260 Yeah. I mean, I, I, I'm not down on that at all. I study, I tend to study war. Um, I like more

01:00:56.760 realistic historical war movies. I studied the theory of war, read the great war manuals and so

01:01:01.560 on. Uh, and I do that a lot, not just cause I'm a historian, uh, but also, but because I, I like,

01:01:06.920 uh, to apply those principles to my own life and what I'm fighting for in my own soul.

01:01:10.760 Um, and so, you know, I'll sit with my band of brothers and we'll talk about a certain strategy

01:01:15.500 in Clausewitz or whatever, you know, just for fun and show them to go, dang, or Sun Tzu and so on

01:01:20.480 and, uh, and so, and we'll say, well, man, we need to be using that kind of tactic in our battles

01:01:25.640 here. You know, we need to, that helps us, you know, so we, in a sense, we study war, um, so that

01:01:31.460 we can be more effective in war of every kind. So it's, it's, you know, every guy's got his own level

01:01:36.040 of familiarity with, with battle, but all of us need to up that game. And I'll just say at a

01:01:41.460 minimum, a guy at least needs to know how to fight for his own internal health. He needs to know how

01:01:45.720 to protect himself physically and those who are with him physically, and he needs to know how to

01:01:49.820 battle for the wellbeing of a friend at that level at a minimum, it's got to happen. I don't mean you

01:01:54.340 got to have a great big locker of guns. I don't care whether you like guns or not. That's not my,

01:01:57.900 that's not my agenda, but my agenda is that a man has basic fight in his soul and knows what he would

01:02:04.580 do if someone comes up and grabs his wife's girlfriend's purse and, you know, taunts him

01:02:08.980 and all that kind of stuff. And you just, I'm just telling you, that's just how it goes in our

01:02:12.180 generation. Also in our generation, you pretty much, at least in your head, need to know what

01:02:16.300 you would do if there was suddenly a shooter on a campus or in a store or in a mall where you were,

01:02:20.740 that's happening a lot in our society. So what would you do? You have a basic plan. So my kids grew up

01:02:26.580 with that basic understanding, not terror, not fear, not nervousness about everybody, but here's what

01:02:31.840 would happen. It was part of life that bad things might occur because we live in a fallen world.

01:02:36.420 That was my understanding, my kids' understanding, but they're happy and secure and fine. But I don't

01:02:41.860 think you want to go and grab my son's wallet, you know, because he knows what to do.

01:02:47.220 Right. He knows how to handle himself. He knows how to handle himself, but it didn't turn our home

01:02:51.320 into some kind of skinhead camp. You know what I'm saying? We weren't crazies. We weren't survivalists.

01:02:55.360 We weren't nuts. But he can handle a gun, handle himself physically, take care of his family,

01:02:59.800 and also knows how to show up with the lives of his friends. That's all I'm looking for.

01:03:04.040 Yeah. It makes sense. You know, I think there's a battle that a lot of people don't

01:03:06.580 really address all too often. And the way that I've chosen to look at it is, is the battle with

01:03:11.880 my weaker self. I call him the natural man, right? He's lazy, immediate gratification. He wants the

01:03:17.820 result without the effort. He's always looking for the path of least resistance. I experienced him

01:03:22.720 yesterday when I didn't want to go and do my, my training session. And, and I choose to look at that

01:03:28.640 as a battle. Like that is a battle between him and the potential that I have not yet unlocked in

01:03:34.860 myself. And yesterday I won. And some days, as much as I hate to admit, I don't always win. But,

01:03:40.900 but having that fighting spirit between who I am and who I could default to versus who I have the

01:03:47.640 potential to become has been very powerful in, in me doing the right things, the things that I've

01:03:52.720 committed to doing for myself. Well, and that's why we need a band of brothers. You know,

01:03:57.220 the assumption of a band of brothers is that I don't have all the resources I need in my own

01:04:01.920 soul. So I don't know what situation you live in up there, Ryan, but I, but, but, you know,

01:04:06.220 I'd like to, you know, I've, I've got guys who are going to write me today and say, do you work out?

01:04:10.680 Hmm. Uh, and that's because they, I'm not inherently lazy. Uh, but I have a very busy,

01:04:16.080 very busy days these days. And what tends to get squeezed out is the workout. Well, you've met me,

01:04:21.240 I'm six, four, 270, 280 pounds. Wouldn't take much to put me in that 300 pound mark if I'm

01:04:26.800 lazy. And now I've got all kinds of biological problems. Plus, you know, not only do I want

01:04:30.960 to look decent in front of crowds, um, but I actually want to be healthy. I'm 62. So, you know,

01:04:36.000 it's, it's an important time for me to not let that go. So these guys are on it. Why? Because

01:04:40.220 I'm uniquely lazy now because they just know my tendencies. You know, I'm more likely to, you know,

01:04:44.900 come five o'clock, have a Manhattan, you know, then, then get up and go for that job,

01:04:48.180 you know, and they know that. And so, so on another guy, we got to bug him about,

01:04:51.900 I don't know what, laying aside enough money and savings or finishing the projects. He doesn't

01:04:55.660 start, he starts and doesn't finish or whatever. But that's why you need other men, um, around you,

01:05:01.200 keeping their eyes on you, coaching you, helping you because, you know, ideally we don't want you

01:05:06.520 to be motivated to have the only motivation coming out of your own soul. We want you to have other

01:05:11.980 guys motivating you as well and threaten to whoop you if you don't work out today kind of thing,

01:05:15.820 you know, just right. And that's, that's what makes a difference in my life that I've got other

01:05:19.440 eyes on me, not spying on me, not nagging me, not picking on me, but aware of my tendencies and

01:05:25.500 wanting me to be the best man I can be. Yeah. That's very powerful. I mean, you go into length

01:05:30.140 about the, uh, the concept of a brotherhood in, in building your band of brothers, which is another

01:05:34.820 great read. Well, Steven, I want to be respectful of your time. We've covered a lot. Uh, I have more

01:05:39.440 notes that we could talk about and maybe we need, we need to do that at a later point, or maybe I just

01:05:43.060 need to encourage the guys to go pick up a copy of the book. That's probably the best thing.

01:05:45.820 Just go pick up a copy of the book and read it for yourself and apply this stuff with you and your

01:05:50.100 band of brothers as well. Um, I want to ask you a couple of questions, Steven, as we wind down the

01:05:54.500 first one I've asked you a couple of times now, since this is, I believe a three Pete for the

01:05:58.420 podcast. Uh, and that question is, what does it mean to be a man? Be a man is to own your God given

01:06:06.100 design and step into the full power of manhood, masculinity, what it means for the, for the,

01:06:14.160 for the glory of God and the sake of those around you, uh, to understand how to nurture

01:06:18.940 yourself as a man, uh, in private, so to speak, so that you step up onto the stage of your,

01:06:24.840 your role in your family, your role in society. And you are the walking in the full power of

01:06:30.520 God, what God has made you to be.

01:06:32.820 It's powerful. It's powerful. I like that. Well, how do we connect with you and learn more

01:06:36.960 about what you're doing? And then of course, pick up a copy of the book.

01:06:39.020 Well, thanks for asking my website, Steven Mansfield dot TV. Uh, all of my social media

01:06:44.840 is Mansfield rights. So Twitter is at Mansfield rights, you know, et cetera. Uh, just Mansfield,

01:06:49.760 my last name and rights, W R I T E S. And also I have, I have a podcast and a website for men,

01:06:55.640 great man dot TV, the great man podcast. And, uh, I'm real excited about this new book men on fire.

01:07:01.880 I want you guys to get it and get extra copies, pass it around. Let's make a difference in some lives.

01:07:06.060 Right on. Well, I, I, uh, have a test, a testament for this book. I've read it myself. It's a good

01:07:12.140 book and also your podcast, which I listened to every single week. So, uh, it's, uh, so both are

01:07:17.900 great resources. Steven, I just want to tell you, I really appreciate you. I appreciate your,

01:07:22.100 your mentorship, direct and indirect, you know, mentorship council guidance. Um, you've, you've

01:07:27.740 been a, you've been a good friend. You've been a good ally. And I really appreciate our friendship

01:07:30.940 and everything that, uh, that you bring to the table. It means a lot to me.

01:07:33.800 Well, I appreciate that. Let's continue to deepen it, my friend. It means a lot to me too.

01:07:38.360 Thank you for joining us, Steven. You betcha, buddy.

01:07:41.640 All right, gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Steven Mansfield. I hope you

01:07:45.700 enjoyed it. Um, I hope you're fired up. That's his book men on fire. So I hope you are fired up. I

01:07:53.500 hope you're ready to go out into the world and become more of the man that you're meant to be.

01:07:57.620 Uh, I hope you see the value of restoring manhood and how you might be able to do it and why it's so

01:08:02.080 important that we step into the role of men, uh, and why society needs that of us, why we need that

01:08:07.700 for ourselves, why our families need that. Uh, and I hope that you're walking away just a little bit

01:08:12.680 more equipped to be able to do it. Uh, make sure you connect with Steven on the interwebs. I believe

01:08:18.040 all of his social media handles are at Mansfield rights, Mansfield rights. So check it out. Also

01:08:23.540 connect with me on Instagram. It's really been growing over there. So connect with me on Instagram.

01:08:28.860 I'm very active over there. I try to hit back all the DMS that I can. I try to comment as best I can.

01:08:33.960 It continues to grow, which makes it increasingly difficult to communicate with you guys, but that's

01:08:38.320 where I'm most active and where it's likely that you'll be able to connect with me. So you can do

01:08:42.980 that at Ryan Mickler. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. Uh, we will be back tomorrow.

01:08:50.120 I've got a very, uh, a very interesting one, something unlike we've ever done on the podcast before.

01:08:56.660 So you're going to want to subscribe. If you haven't yet subscribe, leave a rating review.

01:09:01.140 We'll be back tomorrow for an ask me anything. And again, it's going to be

01:09:04.300 a lot different than what you've seen in the past, but you are going to enjoy it. It'll be a good,

01:09:09.080 a good time and a lot of fun. All right, guys, go out there, take action and become the man you

01:09:13.840 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of

01:09:19.000 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

01:09:26.660 We'll be right back.

Order of Man - June 30, 2020

Forging Noble Manhood ｜ STEPHEN MANSFIELD

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