Order of Man - GREG ELLIS ｜ Fatherhood in the Crosshairs, Part I

00:00:00.000 Frankly, gents, I don't even really know what to say about this conversation was such a powerful

00:00:04.600 discussion from a man who has been through hell and back to fight for not only who he is as a

00:00:10.920 man, but as a father of his children, his name is Greg Ellis. And although you may not recognize

00:00:16.200 his name, you have definitely seen him on the silver screen. Today, we talk about the true

00:00:21.800 purpose of vulnerability, why social media should be called anti-social media, the crisis of meaning

00:00:28.980 that modern society is facing, and also why fatherhood is in the crosshairs.

00:00:34.780 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your

00:00:39.800 own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily

00:00:45.760 deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is

00:00:53.040 who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself

00:00:58.380 a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder

00:01:03.720 of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here. Welcome back. Glad you're with us. This is

00:01:10.020 a powerful, powerful platform for having conversations with highly successful, incredible men in the field

00:01:16.760 of academia and athletics and scholars and New York times, bestselling authors and warriors and

00:01:25.340 experts in every field, including my guest today. His name is Greg Ellis, who is a, an Emmy award

00:01:34.560 nominated actor who I'm sure you've seen in some of his acting roles and career, which is 24 and pirates

00:01:44.040 of the Caribbean and so many others. So we're glad you're here. I'm glad you're tuning in. Make sure

00:01:48.760 if you would, please leave that rating and review goes a very long way and promoting the visibility

00:01:52.680 of what we're doing here and getting this information into the heads and hands of those men who need it.

00:01:58.360 Just take a couple minutes, leave that rating and review. Again, it goes a very long way.

00:02:03.600 Before I get into my introduction of Greg today, just want to make a quick mention. We're starting to

00:02:09.060 cool off here a little bit in Maine, and maybe it's starting to cool off for you too. If not,

00:02:12.440 I hope it does soon. And if you're looking for a new denim, new boots, then I would definitely check

00:02:19.820 out origin Maine. Now these guys are my neighbors. They're my friends. They're obviously the podcast

00:02:25.500 sponsors and everything they do is 100% sourced and made in America. So if you're looking for

00:02:31.800 American made denim, American made boots, I would highly recommend the bison boot and then check it

00:02:37.560 out at origin, Maine, the state, Maine origin, Maine.com and use the code order again, origin,

00:02:43.140 Maine.com use the code order. All right, guys, let me introduce you to Greg. We only met recently,

00:02:50.740 but we've had some incredibly powerful conversations about life and what it means to be a man and how the

00:02:56.800 odds and pop culture are stacked, stacked. A lot of you guys know this and unfortunately are intimately

00:03:02.880 familiar with this are stacked against fathers, but Greg is, uh, an incredibly talented Emmy award

00:03:11.520 nominated actor. He's a filmmaker. He's a coach. He's also the author of his latest book, the

00:03:16.220 respondent exposing the cartel of family law. Uh, he's also become an incredibly powerful advocate

00:03:23.340 for men who are desperately fighting to maintain their rights, uh, for their children. And although

00:03:30.740 we didn't get into it as deep as on that subject, as I would have liked the conversation we did have

00:03:37.060 is extremely, extremely powerful and great news guys. We're also going to be recording a part two

00:03:42.580 soon. Uh, that's going to finish up the conversation. So I hope you enjoy this one

00:03:46.800 and walk away with some new perspectives that perhaps you haven't considered before.

00:03:52.820 Mr. Greg Ellis. So excited to have you join me, man. I know you and I had a conversation,

00:03:57.020 what a couple of weeks ago. And, uh, we talked about doing this a couple of months down the road,

00:04:01.420 but I had some open space and I'm like, let's get Greg on the podcast. I'm so excited to have

00:04:05.840 this conversation today. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Yeah. We, so before we hit

00:04:11.260 record, uh, we were talking about Maine and it sounds like you might be contemplating, uh, getting up here

00:04:18.200 to the, uh, to the Northeast. Do you know where you at with that? Well, where am I at? You see a couple

00:04:23.540 of months ago, I hadn't even really, I mean, I'd heard the word Maine, but I didn't know anything

00:04:27.260 about it. And then I visited, I had some friends out there. I visited, then, uh, took a couple of

00:04:32.020 friends out there and, uh, gosh, it's beautiful up there. It's almost like the hidden secret

00:04:35.820 state, you know? Um, and it reminds me. Maybe we shouldn't talk about this.

00:04:40.540 Let's not talk about Maine. In fact, let's, uh, rerecord, start again. Take two. Welcome to the,

00:04:46.060 oh, hang on. This is your show. Go on. That's right. Just move to Hollywood, move to California

00:04:50.260 and, uh, you know, your wildest dreams will come true. Stay away from Maine, stay away

00:04:54.420 from Montana, stay away from the Northeast and, uh, just leave us alone. That's kind

00:04:58.140 of how I am right now. Yeah, enter the entertainment industry. It's really easy. Uh, offers of work

00:05:01.980 will come your way. You'll be a movie star in months. Um, and, uh, you know, click on this

00:05:06.740 link now. Call to action. All you have to do is become a, uh, a server at, you know, some,

00:05:12.420 some bar or restaurant there and, and, you know, the talent will find you and then, uh, your,

00:05:16.660 your dreams will be unlocked before you. That's right. Just as long as your dreams

00:05:21.220 include constant and consistent rejection, um, and an ever and ongoing search on the quest

00:05:28.100 for value of oneself, which is not found through the job and the work and the celebration of

00:05:33.540 the artist. It's found itself capital S. You know, one thing, uh, as I was thinking about

00:05:39.380 and contemplating and, and, uh, researching what you've done is I think that's the, uh,

00:05:46.980 that's the fairy tale is that, you know, if you just moved to Hollywood and you just,

00:05:51.140 you go be a server somewhere or you connect with the right person just by happenstance,

00:05:55.600 that things will work out. But I mean, you've been in this game for,

00:05:58.260 for your entire life. I mean, since you were a child. And so it's, uh, I think that's a more

00:06:04.680 realistic picture. And most people don't seem to understand that because we live in this

00:06:09.240 immediate gratification society.

00:06:12.360 Yeah. And I think that the entertainment, but you make a good point, the entertainment

00:06:15.160 business has changed as well. It's kind of morphed away from the traditional, um,

00:06:20.440 mainstream media and, uh, studio environment. There used to be pilot season in TV. There's

00:06:26.280 no pilot season anymore effectively, uh, with the advent of new media and streaming services,

00:06:32.440 social media or anti-social media as I call it sometimes. And, um, everyone wants to be that

00:06:37.640 instant gratification. Everyone's presenting the best version they can invent of themselves

00:06:42.520 on apps like IG and Facebook and, and, um, and, and Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. And I think,

00:06:48.840 you know, this, this constant need for the dopamine hits, um, uh, becomes an addiction. And I've

00:06:55.720 talked about this before, you know, the, that addiction is like, it's like the reverse psychology

00:07:00.520 of device dependency that's embedded in the algorithm of these social media platforms. So

00:07:05.240 the more I think we can put down the device, not exercise from the eyes down and exercise

00:07:09.800 from the neck up, as well as physical exercise, get outside and get into nature. I think that's the,

00:07:15.640 that's the real reliever, you know, the natural world.

00:07:18.120 Yeah, that's a powerful perspective. Uh, I use social media, you use social media,

00:07:24.440 uh, and, and I use it very deliberately and intentionally. I won't pretend to say that it

00:07:31.400 doesn't get the best of me from time to time. It certainly does, but ultimately it's a tool

00:07:36.360 like a hammer would be a tool. And, uh, I try to use it as effectively as I possibly can to grow my

00:07:42.760 business. But sometimes, you know, it's nice to put the hammer down and just be around your family

00:07:47.560 and be around the activities and interest and people that you like. And I think there's a lost,

00:07:53.080 uh, a lost art in today's society.

00:07:55.640 I think so too. I mean, you talk about putting the virtual hammer down. Maybe that's the virtual

00:07:59.400 hammer. It's like you put the virtual hammer down and pick up a real hammer, you know,

00:08:03.160 see how you actually use that. I mean, I'm not really, I wouldn't call myself a skilled manual

00:08:07.400 laborer, but there is an interest and a curiosity there of me to, to kind of within me to know more

00:08:13.400 about, you know, how things work, uh, how you put things together. Um, you know,

00:08:18.200 whether it be machines or whether it be houses or construction or, I mean, that's kind of

00:08:23.480 interesting. And, um, yeah, I think this, this, what I've seen recently is, you know, I mentioned

00:08:30.440 this at the start of the pandemic, you know, the, what I was more afraid of was the panic-demic

00:08:35.320 as in the mental health, the social isolation, the bad messages of social distancing when it should

00:08:40.360 be physical distancing and social connectedness. You know, we're human beings, we need to be

00:08:44.840 with each other. And, um, I think the more that we can actually experience that in-person, um,

00:08:50.440 experience that the better off we're going to be in a whole host of metrics, not, not least of which

00:08:55.000 mental health. So you're talking about the physical hammer. And I think most of the men listening

00:09:01.080 probably relate to that just because of what I built over the past six years that we, we tend to

00:09:05.480 pride ourselves on being physical in nature and being capable of, of using our hands and wielding

00:09:11.880 tools to accomplish what we want to accomplish. I'm actually really curious on that subject about

00:09:17.400 the art behind you. Is that your art or is that like, tell me about the art behind you. Cause it's

00:09:24.840 very, very interesting. Well, this piece over my left shoulder, uh, is called, uh, the crow. Uh,

00:09:31.640 the crow has a lot of magical mercurial meaning to me. Um, and a friend of mine was kind enough,

00:09:37.240 an artist friend of mine was kind enough to paint that an artist known as baby girl Barrett. Um,

00:09:43.560 and the pieces of my right show, the statues, they're a part of the collection by a French, uh, sculptor

00:09:49.240 and artist called Marc Vinci Guerra. And they were part of a collection that he did. He really focuses on,

00:09:54.760 on men and the male form and the embodiment of the male and what that means. Uh, I think one of the

00:10:00.760 pieces behind is called the fall, uh, the fall of man, uh, another piece is homo crucifixes.

00:10:06.360 Actually, that's a piece that's off camera. Um, so it's really just studying, um, the fall and rise

00:10:12.280 of, of man through the artistic, uh, sculpting, I guess, of the bronze. Um, and the other piece

00:10:19.240 over my right is, uh, it's actually by an artist called Marc, uh, Marc Asatelli. And I was at his

00:10:25.400 gallery. Um, I had a couple of his pieces of art and I was at his gallery and I looked around and

00:10:30.040 everything, nothing inspired me on that day. And as I was walking out, I saw this piece kind of,

00:10:34.840 you know, down the side of the gallery and I said, what's that? And, um, like, like a lot of art,

00:10:40.200 I think you look at a piece of art and as long as you're not around the tofts and the, oh, isn't

00:10:45.400 it just beautiful. The brushwork of the, you know, the eloquence of the, which is fine. Everyone can

00:10:50.600 interpret something from a piece of art. And I saw that piece and it's called last man standing still.

00:10:55.640 And I see so much in that piece about the singularity of man and, um, being able to reside,

00:11:03.160 uh, in aloneness, um, that knowingness of aloneness. Uh, you talked about the physical realm.

00:11:09.000 I think it's important as well. You know, we, we men are supposed to be stoic and the psychological,

00:11:13.240 like how strong we can be psychologically and physically. So I think it's that combination. So

00:11:18.360 yeah, that kind of rounds up the artwork of what's, what's behind me. Thank you for pointing that out.

00:11:22.520 Um, I'm always really interested cause I have a lot of artwork that surrounds me. I'm going to

00:11:26.920 just turn my camera right here. So I've got a very interesting piece right here. Uh, and I've

00:11:34.680 got, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got poems and I've got pictures and I've got this crazy, uh, picture that

00:11:41.640 I found here when I moved to Maine, you're going to see my studio here. I don't know if I can turn this

00:11:46.440 around. Ah, you can't really see it. Oh, maybe you can, this one right here. Uh, it, it says swing

00:11:55.320 with a girl from Farmington, which is the area I'm from. And so my kids come in and they're like,

00:12:02.040 what are they doing, dad? And I'm like, they're dancing. They're dancing. Don't worry about it.

00:12:06.600 They're dancing. It's like art. You can interpret so many different things. The picture was far away,

00:12:11.480 but everyone thinks swing as in like, take a swing, have a go at swing as in swing dance or swing as

00:12:16.920 in get a couple of partners and, you know, have a little exchange. I mean, there's so many different,

00:12:20.920 you know, I love the poetry as well. And the, and the, um, the philosophical as well. I mean,

00:12:26.520 I love writing quotes that are a philosophical quote book and a poetry book. I think I've,

00:12:30.600 I'm going to bring out a couple more of those cause I enjoy that kind of writing and surrounding

00:12:34.680 myself with that kind of art. I think that's important. I'm just off camera as well as a library of books.

00:12:40.040 I didn't read till I was about 48. I'm only talking books and there's a great corpus of

00:12:44.280 literature out there, particularly, I think, um, you know, there's some hidden gems and some

00:12:49.560 obvious ones. And I love getting new ideas for books and exchanging ideas for books and reading.

00:12:54.520 I think you, we learned so much from reading.

00:12:57.640 Yeah. Reading, but also conversations like this. I'm, I don't know that, uh, I think you and I have

00:13:03.800 some very similar perspectives about life in general. We're going to get into that, but

00:13:07.800 I also think there's a lot of differences. Like I don't consider myself, uh, necessarily

00:13:12.680 an artistic person. I think if I were to consider myself on this spectrum, I would say I'm more

00:13:19.880 pragmatic than artistic. Uh, and so I'm always very interested in getting other ideas and other

00:13:27.320 concepts and other perspectives. And then what I've found over the past six years is that I put myself

00:13:31.960 in this box of being a man, I'm very pragmatic. I can swing a hammer. I can build things. Uh,

00:13:39.000 and then I talk with gentlemen like yourself and I think, okay, yeah, look, I'll be really frank with

00:13:44.120 you, Greg. I, I used to make fun of the guys who did, you know, drama class in high school.

00:13:50.920 And now that I look back on it, I'm like,

00:13:52.680 What words did you call them? You may get in big trouble if you use them.

00:13:55.880 All right. I'm going to get in trouble, but I'm going to say it because this is important. I called

00:13:59.400 them drama fags. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, but now I look at it and think maybe I actually would have

00:14:06.360 enjoyed drama when I was in high school. If I was told, you know, I could have done that instead of

00:14:11.400 being on the football team and being wrestling and, and, and being in the baseball team and priding

00:14:15.560 myself on being this very athletic person, which there's value to, of course, but there's value to

00:14:20.520 being well-rounded. I agree. And look, you know, it's commendable that you can, you know,

00:14:25.320 and how refreshing we can actually talk about, um, you know, what, what words we used to use and how

00:14:30.360 we used to behave at school. And when we were younger, I was, I was chatting with, I had an

00:14:33.960 event with a guy yesterday who'd be canceled by Google. Cause he, he actually from Turkey and he

00:14:38.040 talked about how, when, when he was younger, he, he really, he was antisemitic and he had those

00:14:44.520 thoughts and he wrote a short story about that. It was almost a redemptive story. And then he lost

00:14:49.480 his job and got canceled by Google just for telling his redemptive story of how we used to be.

00:14:53.880 So, you know, my, my story is kind of, um, interesting in the, um, you know, I, I ended up

00:14:58.920 going onto the stage, but at school I was that jock. I mean, we don't use the word jock in England,

00:15:03.160 but I was the, I was the captain of all the sports teams and, uh, you know, won the trophies and it

00:15:08.600 was all about that. The field of sports saved me. I won't say that lightly. If it, if it weren't for

00:15:15.240 the grass and the sporting arena, if you will, I, I don't know what would have happened to me and my

00:15:22.120 two physical education teachers, Mr. Christian and Mr. Williams, who were amazing, um, taught us so

00:15:29.080 much, not just about the, the tactics and the strategy and how to play games and how to be a team

00:15:35.400 player, but really, really about discipline, you know, postponement gratification. Um, you know,

00:15:42.440 the, the, the, the importance of, um, taking care and handling your business before you get to play.

00:15:49.720 Right. Cause we are getting to play a game. And I think there's, there's allegories and metaphor,

00:15:54.120 you know, the, the, there's comparisons with, with our children, particularly we have boys

00:15:58.280 and that which we, you know, we, we have to learn that postponement gratification to take care,

00:16:03.320 handle our business, do our work, and then have a bit of play time, you know, take a bit of time off,

00:16:08.200 have a drink, have a cigar, whatever it may be that one does in one's recreation time. But sport was my

00:16:13.160 lifesaver. I loved it. Still do. Uh, I don't, I don't have the time to watch too much of it anymore,

00:16:18.200 but I'm more of a player. I love, love, love playing sports.

00:16:22.360 Yeah. I, I, I am very much in alignment with you with regards to sports. I played

00:16:29.480 high school basketball and, and football and I wrestled and baseball and I had coaches and mentors

00:16:37.040 coming to my life through the, the, the games that taught me about what it means to be a man.

00:16:41.720 And I never really explored what I would say is more of the artistic side of things. Uh, so I didn't

00:16:49.820 know that about you. I, I just assumed it was always more of that artistic side. When did that

00:16:55.500 change? When did you evolve for lack of a better term into expressing yourself through stage and

00:17:03.420 performance, et cetera, et cetera? Well, yeah, I started at an early age. My interest was in,

00:17:08.940 my mother was, was part of an amateur dramatic group and they started a group for kids in my hometown,

00:17:14.220 my little village. So I joined that. So it was really outside of school. Um, not, not, not many

00:17:19.900 people knew that I was doing it. There was a school drama group. It was also connected with the, um, I

00:17:24.700 think it was a very, very religious based, like the teacher who ran it was he, he ran the Christian

00:17:30.140 education group and, and that didn't really appeal to me. I didn't want to do drama and learn about

00:17:34.700 religion. Um, uh, and an article I think was choices. We had to choose one or the other. And

00:17:41.260 I think the choice was you either do drama or you do sport and sport was my love. So

00:17:45.660 it's a very polarizing thing. Like you're either a jock or you're into drama and art and all that kind

00:17:52.460 of stuff. Like there's no crossover. I will tell you, I don't want to interject in what you're saying

00:17:57.980 here, but we had one, one guy, one guy who he was a football player. He was an incredible football

00:18:05.980 player, very good friend, close personal friend of mine. And he tried out for the school play and he

00:18:11.580 got the part and everybody on the team made fun of him. Everybody on the football team made fun of

00:18:18.460 him. And I made fun of him too, because you know, that was cool, but deep down inside,

00:18:24.780 I was actually pretty inspired by that, that he was willing to step out and put himself on stage

00:18:29.980 and be uncomfortable and try new things and put himself out there. And interesting. The

00:18:35.340 unadmissable tree that laid dormant. And you wonder if you felt that however many other of the team and

00:18:40.780 the members of the lads on your team felt that. And the tremendous amount of courage, I think, you know,

00:18:45.500 um, Brene Brown talks about this, you know, um, vulnerability, you know, his courage personified

00:18:51.100 and the tremendous amount of courage it probably took for him to knowing, I'm sure he knew that

00:18:56.300 he was going to get a little bit jib or a ribbing as it's called, uh, about, about doing that. And

00:19:02.540 yet he still did. It reminds me of a great movie, Dead Poets Society. There's just so many wonderful

00:19:07.020 lessons in that carpe diem, you know, steal the day. And I think you, you seize the day. You, you,

00:19:12.620 you, you hit on something here, which I think is, you know, it's about masculinity. What is as,

00:19:18.540 as boys, as we move through the systems, particularly our educational systems, you

00:19:22.540 in the American system and me in the English educational system? Um, what are the expectations

00:19:27.660 that are put on us and placed on us by society, by our parents, our family of origin? Um, what do

00:19:34.220 we carry with us in terms of addictive behavior patterns, maybe inherited through our intergenerational

00:19:39.580 DNA, which I don't think we can change. I think we can just become aware of. We can, we can maybe

00:19:44.460 influence the patterns of behavior and how we carry those through and how our, uh, those early years

00:19:50.780 affect what we do in the rest of our lives and how well we do it. And that's self, that's self

00:19:57.180 critiquing that message that we can, we can, we can say, I can do this. I can do anything. I talk to

00:20:03.900 people who can't sing and I, and they say, oh, when I say people say, they say they can't sing or they

00:20:08.940 say they can't do something. Oh, I can't write poetry. Everyone can. Now you may not be able to

00:20:13.580 do it to up to a level where if you're comparing it to someone who's a professional, um, you know,

00:20:19.100 but you can do it. Anyone can do anything they put their mind to. Uh, it's just a question of to what

00:20:24.220 degree, what level, what we're comparing with. And it's, everything's relative, isn't it?

00:20:29.660 I like that word relative. You know, we, we, we often compare ourselves to other people and

00:20:35.020 I've fallen into this trap, especially in the podcasting arena. I've been doing this for six

00:20:39.500 years. And I thought to myself, you know, I want to be Joe Rogan, or I want to be this guy,

00:20:42.940 or I want to be that guy. And these guys, you know, the, the more I get into it, the more I

00:20:48.300 realize these like Joe Rogan, for example, you know, he spent 50 plus years in the public eye.

00:20:55.180 What right do I have to think that just because I show up in the past five years, half decade,

00:21:00.060 that, uh, I'm entitled to the, to the same sort of, uh, results that he's been able to produce over

00:21:09.100 decades and decades and decades of being in the public eye. It's very arrogant to believe that

00:21:14.140 I'm entitled to something, uh, just because I want it. Yeah. I think the entitlement part of that

00:21:19.820 is, is an interesting word. I think we can, we can strive for success and we can use those,

00:21:24.460 you know, yardsticks of people who inspire us or we aspire to. And, um, and I think a

00:21:31.260 certain level of confidence or self-confidence, you know, that, that kind of brash internal monologue

00:21:36.620 that says, yeah, I'm going to do this. I mean, I, I remember growing up, there was a couple of,

00:21:41.180 couple of teachers, uh, that I had. I didn't really have, I had one, you know, who I would

00:21:46.140 probably say was a mentor, but a couple of teachers who there's a Japanese world called Koyashi.

00:21:51.020 And Koyashi is, you know, someone who inspires you through negative, um, negative commentary,

00:21:57.740 or, you know, and these two teachers, they just came at me and they pounded me.

00:22:02.780 Now, what happened was it wasn't like, you know, perhaps in, um, you know, in the military

00:22:07.900 where it's like grounding discipline into you through, through really tough, hard love, quote,

00:22:14.380 unquote. Um, it inspired me when I heard them both say, you know, you can't do this. You're not good

00:22:20.380 enough. And I was just, I just remember always saying to myself, you watch me. Yeah. You think,

00:22:25.980 you bet. I mean, I didn't say it out loud, but it was internally. I was like, that was my internal

00:22:31.340 kind of drive system that motivated, amplified me to a degree in internal self-confidence to go,

00:22:38.540 oh, I'm doing this. And then it became about, not about I'm doing this to show them. It was like,

00:22:44.460 I'm doing this because I, I'm going to prove to me that I can achieve this goal and this purpose.

00:22:50.460 And, and I think it's really important to have those goals and those, those, uh,

00:22:58.300 sense of purpose and a mission and, you know, circling back to what you said, Ryan, about,

00:23:02.860 you know, the differences between the artists, perhaps, you know, I'm, I'm an autodidact,

00:23:08.140 so I'm self-taught really through experience. So I've learned my own kind of routines and schedules

00:23:14.060 and habits and practices. Um, you know, I talk about, uh, the craft in process, which, you know,

00:23:20.300 if you, if it's a military endeavor, then there is going to be a strategy, there is going to be a

00:23:24.860 plan and you have to train and rehearse. The same is true if you're doing a musical or a show or a play,

00:23:30.860 you know, there is a craft in process. It's probably more of an individual or starts from an individual

00:23:36.460 place in terms of line learning and character breakdown and, and how you then immerse yourself

00:23:41.820 in the rehearsal experience. And then there is the performance and one doesn't know, uh, one can

00:23:47.420 believe one's going to be successful, whatever we're using as a metric for success. But, you know,

00:23:52.380 I think, um, that's where I go to in art is the art in flow. Really. It's that it's practicing,

00:23:57.980 activating creative flow states, how to let go. So the imagination can effortlessly take over.

00:24:05.820 And that's a trust in self that's to the degree where everything else dissipates. Um, you become

00:24:12.380 one almost, um, like creator and universe, you know, it's that omniscience or oneness

00:24:18.140 of being actively in the zone, you know, like, uh, like Michael Jordan or a sport, you know,

00:24:23.340 a sports star who just in the zone isn't thinking it's all reactive activity and trust.

00:24:31.580 I love it. I love it. I mean, it's powerful. I think about the, the word that I choose to use

00:24:38.140 to describe what I think you just said there is presence. You know, you're fully present. Um,

00:24:43.420 I'm, I'm fully present in this conversation. I'm not thinking about what my kids are doing. I'm not

00:24:47.820 thinking about what bills I need to pay. I'm not thinking about what exercise I did or didn't do.

00:24:52.220 I'm, I'm, I'm here. I'm with you. I'm present. I'm fully available. You know, one of the things

00:24:56.620 though, that I liked what you said is this, did you say Koyashi or Kayashi? How did you answer that?

00:25:01.340 Yeah. I think it's K U, uh, Y a S H I, and it may be I I. Yeah. I'm going to look at that. I'm

00:25:09.740 going to look at that. But you know, as I was going through that and I don't like to swear on

00:25:13.340 this podcast, I really don't. I try to keep my, my language on the up and up, but I think there's

00:25:19.340 a mentality in men that if they embraced more, uh, they'd be more successful. And at the risk of

00:25:25.980 squaring here and offending some people, the, the mentality is fuck off. And what I mean by that is

00:25:33.180 like, you don't think I can do it. F off. Let me show you that I can do it. And I don't think

00:25:37.500 generally women have that same mentality. I think they're more relational. I think they're more

00:25:41.980 community based, but men are, are inspired by challenge. Greg, you don't, you don't think I can

00:25:48.380 do that. Let me show you. I can do that. And don't we even do that as friends? Like, Hey, I bet I can

00:25:53.820 do two flips and you can only do one. I bet I can jump 10 feet and you could only jump eight. And

00:25:58.860 that F off mentality is popular culture and society would tell us that's not civil. And yet I think

00:26:07.500 men thrive under that situation. I think like thriving. I mean, that's striving to, to be con,

00:26:13.500 you know, to beat, to be competitive, to do better. Um, and yeah, I mean, I, I hear a lot that the F,

00:26:21.500 F off or F you, which I think is really in, in that regard, in that context, F you, I'm gonna,

00:26:28.460 I'm gonna jump higher than you. I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat you. And that physical competitive spirit

00:26:35.340 that is, you know, it's there with women too, but I think it is more, um, I remember I read a, uh,

00:26:40.940 I read about this, um, this study that was done by Nikki Crick, who I think was a Minnesota

00:26:46.140 psychology professor. And she talked about, it was actually about, um, violence and behavior

00:26:51.580 and the differences between men and women and how men move to physical violence a lot faster.

00:26:56.620 A bit that violence gets done faster too. So, so you want to go, I'll go, I'll go boof, boof, boof,

00:27:02.700 boof. And then like, and then three minutes later, you could be in the bar having a drink,

00:27:06.860 you know, best of friends. Um, whereas women move to a form of relational, um, behavioral,

00:27:13.900 uh, intimidation or conflict, if you will, that she calls reputation savaging. So it's word of mouth.

00:27:19.740 It's subtle. It's more of the, it's the gossip. It's the talking about the other person. And when

00:27:25.260 I think about the groups at school, you know, for me, the boys, you know, there'd always be the flare

00:27:29.980 ups and every day after school at the end of our street, which was a cul-de-sac, there was,

00:27:33.740 there was always a fight. It was like, literally who was going to fight today? Uh, is it Togsy

00:27:38.700 against Katesy? Is it, you know, Bulger against, um, Covesy? And there was always, it was a brick

00:27:44.140 wall and we'd always sit there and it was like the gladiator, the small gladiatorial arena for kids.

00:27:48.300 And it was brutal sometimes. Whereas I think the groups of girls, maybe, you know, if we,

00:27:52.940 if we go by Nikki Crick study, they were, you know, in their cliques and talking about each other in a

00:27:58.380 fair, which can be just as painful and harmful. Um, and maybe that's why men, you know, I don't

00:28:04.380 know, we, we, we, we tend not to talk about, I mean, this is talked about a lot these days,

00:28:08.220 talk about our feelings. I think we fall victim to the canard that we can't, we have to be stoic.

00:28:13.020 We have to man up, we have to be tough and tough it out. And I think there's real value to that.

00:28:18.700 I do think we've lost a sense of the shilvaric, uh, the gallantry of, of being a gentleman, uh,

00:28:24.940 remembering the word gentle in the word man, particularly when we're with women and dealing

00:28:28.140 with children and girls and, and, and, uh, mothers and grandmothers and whatnot, but that

00:28:33.260 sense that we can pair that with speaking, uh, with other men in particular about what we're feeling,

00:28:40.300 what we're going through in a way that doesn't demean shame, um, where men can be vulnerable,

00:28:48.300 I think together and say, you know, God, man, I'm, I'm, I'm having a hard time today.

00:28:53.980 I'm really sad that it's, you know, it's, it's getting to me. I don't know what to do.

00:28:58.780 Um, and seek out a bit of mentorship. I think we've lost a lot of, um, I talk about the ships

00:29:04.060 with my charity, Children Parents United, eliships, friendships, relationships, and mentorships.

00:29:10.780 Um, I think we need more of that mythopoetic, uh, in our society, particularly with the breakdown,

00:29:17.500 as I see it as the traditional family unit, um, and, and the encouragement of vilifying or

00:29:23.420 devaluing the male in the conversation in society, particularly the last few years,

00:29:28.700 you know, toxic masculinity, all men, bad, um, you know, believable with all of that.

00:29:34.620 I think we need to have a me too dialogue, not just a me too monologue.

00:29:39.900 Good point. I want to shift gears into that in a minute, but I want to share an insight

00:29:44.460 that I had last night because it's, it's in alignment with what you're talking about here.

00:29:48.620 I was, I was training jujitsu with, uh, with somebody, uh, his name is Keegan and he's young.

00:29:56.700 He's 18 years old, about ready to go to college and play lacrosse down in Massachusetts. And, um,

00:30:03.500 you know, so we were training and, uh, he's younger than me and he's actually, frankly,

00:30:07.820 less experienced than me and in the world of jujitsu. And last night he got the better of me.

00:30:13.740 And at first I was like, damn, I shouldn't have let him get the better of me. And I still believe

00:30:17.980 that. Uh, but also I was proud of him too. You know, now I, I, so we were training and he got

00:30:27.340 the better of me and I had a tap cause he submitted me and, uh, you know, there's just something about

00:30:33.020 it where I just think, I just think more highly of them. Cause he did that, you know, we did it in a

00:30:39.420 controlled environment. We had rules, some spoken, some unspoken rules about how we train together.

00:30:45.740 And I just think more highly of him because he, because he got the better of me. And not only do

00:30:51.180 I think more highly of them, I also think more highly of myself because I was willing to put

00:30:56.540 myself in the arena, but then I realized, okay, well, you know, like he got me. So what do I need

00:31:01.940 to do to learn, to get better, to improve? And I think, again, generally speaking, women don't

00:31:07.200 operate like this, but men do. And yet we don't create these environments. You use the word

00:31:14.160 vulnerability. I've always been very hesitant to use that word because I think what popular culture,

00:31:18.780 um, interprets that as is just, you know, exposing all your weaknesses for the sake of exposing your

00:31:25.960 weaknesses. I don't, I don't think that's the case. Same thing with safe spaces. No, what we want to do

00:31:31.680 is we want to create environments where we can be real and truthful and, and, and work hard and push

00:31:36.700 and challenge each other, but that's not what popular culture says. And I think it's a real

00:31:40.700 detriment to society. Yeah. Vulnerability is not, and safe spaces, safe spaces isn't a space to be

00:31:46.640 vulnerable. Vulnerability is terrifying. It's particularly for men. It's terrifying. And to

00:31:51.840 your point about, you know, your, um, uh, the jujitsu, I think, you know, you, you thought he,

00:31:57.740 you thought more highly of him because he thought more highly of himself because he'd beaten his mentor

00:32:02.640 in that moment, which he knew that you appreciated. He couldn't, he knew it was real as well. You

00:32:07.360 didn't just give him the victory. No, I never would. You know, it was authentic. So that with

00:32:11.360 that shared communal appreciation that lifted his spirits and he, he now believes that he can beat

00:32:18.000 you the next time. Now the next time it's probably likely on percentages, he's not going to take you

00:32:22.580 down. He's going to be the one that submits, but that lingering memory that he can do it because

00:32:28.320 he's done it. He's experienced it is really vital and really important. And, and I think that, uh,

00:32:34.800 there's a lot of merit to that. And we're losing a lot of the meritocracy, particularly right now in

00:32:39.340 our society with, in general, with helicopter parenting, with academia going all about, you

00:32:45.280 know, I just saw a report the other day about English grades, you know, um, in higher education

00:32:50.460 and how everyone's getting A's, like literally everyone is getting A's. So they're now looking at

00:32:56.480 the tests finally, because after years they've made them so easy that everyone's getting A's

00:33:01.600 to make them harder and to reset them. So why did you reset them in the first place?

00:33:07.280 Um, you know, we have to have an earned system of merit. Uh, you don't get the stripes on your,

00:33:12.880 on your, on your, on your chest or on your badge on your shoulder. They're earned, they're not given.

00:33:18.320 Um, and then you have a real sense of appreciation and accomplishment, I think, and accomplishing something

00:33:24.640 is, you know, particularly in that world of jujitsu, which is, um, you know, it's the,

00:33:30.480 it reminds me of that transmogrification that Jordan Hall talks about that kind of

00:33:34.720 you, you, you actually become one with the other in terms of flow. So you're not fighting an opponent.

00:33:41.440 Um, you're kind of, you're having to work with the energy in the space of their moves, activity,

00:33:48.640 reactivity. It's almost like a dance and a lot of choreography. I would imagine,

00:33:52.560 he says not knowing anything about jujitsu.

00:33:56.480 I don't, I'm not familiar. Did you say Jordan Hall?

00:33:59.040 Yeah. It's, he talks about anti-fragility and transmogrification. So it's, if you consider

00:34:04.160 robustness, so that's the, like the ability to, um, resist, uh, a force while being what and where

00:34:13.120 and, and, and how one is. So if I'm standing in front of you and you shove me really hard, I'm robust.

00:34:19.440 So I remain unmoved. I mean, I may just falter a bit. So that's energy versus energy.

00:34:24.640 Um, and then resilience, if you consider resilience, the ability to, to respond to some force,

00:34:31.760 your force, if you shoved me to, to what and how and where, um, before the force was applied. So if

00:34:38.720 you're standing in front of me and you shoved me, um, if I'm resilient, I can return and I buckle a bit,

00:34:43.360 I can return to the original position and disposition, right? Energy versus energy because

00:34:48.240 energy is, uh, you know, that, um, emotional energy, if you will. So I'm back to my original

00:34:53.120 disposition. Now consider anti-fragility this time. When you shoved me, I invent Aikido or jujitsu.

00:35:01.600 That's transmogrification is what I'm getting at.

00:35:04.800 Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean, I think about it, even when I go to class on just this

00:35:09.280 micro scale of like, I'm not going to allow another man to exert his will upon me. And

00:35:14.160 sometimes that means I need to resist. Sometimes that needs to, that means I need to flow or,

00:35:19.680 you know, transfer the energy. But one of the things that you said, as you talked about this,

00:35:24.240 this concept of competition, and I've thought of a lot about this lately, you know, if you look at a

00:35:28.640 football game, for example, or soccer or baseball or pick your sport, you know, we, we, we tend to

00:35:34.560 think of it in terms of competition. I'm competing against you, but really, if you scale back, it's

00:35:39.120 actually, it's not really competition. It's more cooperation, right? Because Greg, if you and I are

00:35:45.120 going to compete against each other in whatever arena, well, we believe so much in the concept of

00:35:52.400 cooperation that we'll actually bring a third party in and ensure that we abide by the rules.

00:35:57.520 Right. So it's not just like a referee or referee or an umpire or whatever. Right. So we brings,

00:36:05.040 we believe so much in cooperation and adherence to the rules that we agree upon that we're going to

00:36:11.680 bring a third party in and we're going to allow him to administer and make sure that we're following

00:36:19.200 the rules. Like I've agreed to that. You've agreed to that. And so it's not so much competition

00:36:25.360 as much as it is cooperation. We're going to work together to improve ourselves. And today, you know,

00:36:31.920 you might get the better of me tomorrow. I might get the better of you, but it's within a certain

00:36:37.920 confine. It's within certain constraints that we've mutually agreed upon so that we can improve

00:36:44.240 ourselves, not just compete against each other and prove who's the best, but how can I get better?

00:36:49.040 Because Greg bested me or I bested you, et cetera, et cetera.

00:36:52.560 Yeah. That makes me think of, you know, that cooperation or the rule setting,

00:36:56.080 the standards and practices before you enter the pitch, that reminds me again,

00:36:59.440 the parallel with the crafting process, the strategy, the planning, well, it has to be

00:37:03.520 done in an orderly fashion that has to be maintenance of the rules. If they're evolving,

00:37:08.320 if they're found to not work, or if it's a particular game in sport, like you mentioned soccer,

00:37:12.480 the rules of offside are always evolving and always being questioned. But once you're on the pitch,

00:37:19.440 once you're on the field of play, there is an inherent understanding, I guess is where you're

00:37:25.040 getting to of cooperation in that we trust that each of us are going to abide by the rules and people

00:37:30.880 will push the rules. They will break the rules. If it's a boxing match, someone might bite an ear,

00:37:35.760 someone might break someone's leg in a tackle or, but there has to be that cooperation.

00:37:41.360 And I think about the pickup games that I played at soccer and when we don't have a referee,

00:37:47.120 we have to abide by a kind of cooperation in flux, if you will, because there isn't a linesman

00:37:54.720 or referee's assistant or a referee to provide us with a whistle or, you know, to let us know that

00:38:04.400 the rules have been transgressed. But don't we even check ourselves in that situation? Let's just

00:38:10.000 take a pickup game of basketball or soccer or whatever it is. Like even just, you know,

00:38:15.840 a no holds barred pickup game, like street rules, there's still a line. And it's oftentimes it's

00:38:24.320 unspoken, but there's still a line. And if somebody crosses it, everybody else says, bro,

00:38:29.760 like you crossed the line, like that's too much. And so we all hold each other accountable and hold

00:38:34.480 each other and check, even if there's not some third party referee.

00:38:37.440 Yeah. And what's interesting about that is personalities and character. Who does the checking

00:38:43.280 in the game? You know, is it the best player? Is it the most vocal? Is it the most liked person?

00:38:47.200 The most generally the guy who gets along with everyone? And what if there's someone who just

00:38:52.640 does not agree? You know, the individual playing is like, you know, no, no. And it's combative.

00:38:58.320 That can take the game to a whole new level. But yeah, there is, there is something to the

00:39:02.160 cooperation of competition, and the strategy and the tactics and the rules and the playbook,

00:39:07.200 and if you'll abide by the rules. You know, it reminds me of Augustine of Hipponensis,

00:39:12.880 who was an old philosopher, and he talked about war theory, just war theory is what it was called.

00:39:18.000 And it was it was there was two concepts to it. It was the right to go to war, and the right conduct

00:39:24.640 in war, like moral responsibility. And I think that's what we're referring to,

00:39:29.680 when we talk about behavior on the field of play, particularly if there isn't a referee or an

00:39:35.840 umpire, and we're trusting ourselves in a pickup game, if you will, that has to be the right conduct.

00:39:40.400 And that's a shared responsibility, I think. So to go back to who gets to determine the rules,

00:39:46.800 or who gets to enforce the rules, I, you said, is it the most likable person,

00:39:51.280 the most popular person, etc, etc. I think it's the most influential person.

00:39:55.280 Mm hmm. It's it's it might be the most assertive person.

00:39:59.440 And that is an element of influence, right? Somebody who's assertive, for example,

00:40:04.720 might be more influential. Somebody who's likable might be more influential. Somebody who's stronger

00:40:09.680 physically might be more influential. But I think if we are to scale back and say, what is it really

00:40:16.720 that that that men are looking to and who gets to enforce the rules, that's the most influential

00:40:21.760 individual. And there's a lot of factors that go into that level of influence.

00:40:25.680 Yeah, I think as well as you know, that the side, you know, is it the most quiet and silent person

00:40:30.080 who's pragmatic and is more of a diplomat, a peacekeeper? Because different situations call

00:40:35.520 for different character traits, right? Sure.

00:40:38.960 Certain people are going to have that more. I mean, the team analogy, you know, with with the,

00:40:43.520 you know, I automatically go to soccer, and I think of the guy dribbles the ball. Well,

00:40:47.120 that takes a tremendous amount of skill of the ball being. Then there's the big tall center forward

00:40:51.440 who can head the ball, who can shoot from 40 yards and score. There's the free kick playmaker.

00:40:56.720 There's there's so many different aspects that go up to making the team. But yeah,

00:41:01.440 it's a really interesting point you made about the different character traits that will that will bring

00:41:07.120 people together and at least find a commonality so that the game can keep going and progressing and

00:41:11.360 moving forward in a positive way because sports is extremely enjoyable, very positive, sometimes

00:41:17.680 challenging, sometimes extremely disappointing if we lose or our team loses. But wow, we feel the

00:41:23.200 disappointment because there is such reward at winning the trophy and winning the game. It's the,

00:41:29.200 you know, the yin and yang, the push and pull, the we need that other to appreciate self.

00:41:34.960 I'd look, I will say as a genuine American that I don't know that I relate to your, your soccer

00:41:41.120 analogies as well as maybe I could, or football analogies, as you would call them. But I think

00:41:47.360 we're in agreement with that for sure.

00:41:48.800 As an ingenuine American, we can talk, we can talk American football and basketball to a lesser

00:41:55.040 degree, or hockey, or I mean, look, American sports, when I first, I mean, I first started watching

00:42:00.320 American football years ago, and the first thing I noticed was, wow, there's three teams playing

00:42:04.400 on one team. And then there's all these specialists and, you know, they all have like a long snapper.

00:42:10.560 I'm like, is there a short snapper? I'm like, wow, you can do so many different things. Special

00:42:15.600 teams are like, special, what makes them special? A special team within the team. And then you can

00:42:20.800 be on one particular team and play on another team. So you're versatile, you can be a triple threat,

00:42:26.720 if you will. So yeah, American sports is fascinating. I love, I love American sports. I'll talk sports for hours.

00:42:32.080 And vice versa, man, vice versa. If we just let go of our ego and pride, just a little bit,

00:42:37.200 not too much, not too much, maintain some of that, but just a little bit, then we might be able to

00:42:41.920 learn from some different cultures that are available to us.

00:42:44.240 Yeah. And you just took me back to when I was 11 years old, playing on my soccer team or football

00:42:49.680 team. And we were the best team in the league. And we got to the cup final, which everyone plays in

00:42:54.320 the knockout stage. And then you get to the final. And we were playing a team we'd beaten in the regular

00:42:58.800 season, as you would call it in America, I think 11-0. And we became complacent and arrogant. I'd

00:43:04.240 already picked up the trophy in my mind. And we lost 1-0. We lost the league final. And that stayed

00:43:11.280 with me for the rest of my life. That team was called Southport Amateurs, ironically. And that

00:43:17.680 experience stayed with me. And then a friend of mine played professional tennis. His first Wimbledon

00:43:23.440 tournament, he was playing a legendary player called Ivan Lendl. And I think it was the quarterfinals.

00:43:28.560 And he had three match points. And he lost all three match points. And I remember asking,

00:43:33.120 after he did the press conference, I said, what happened? In three match points, he said,

00:43:38.800 in my mind, I'd already won. As I was waiting to receive the ball. I was thinking about what I'd

00:43:44.320 say at the press conference. I was thinking about who I might play in the next round in the semifinals.

00:43:48.640 And I got ahead of myself. So I think that's a reminder as well to not get ahead of yourself.

00:43:53.040 Keep a little bit of humility. Get beaten once in a while, even though you don't plan on it by

00:43:57.040 your 18-year-old that you're mentoring in jiu-jitsu. And, you know, tap yourself out. Oh,

00:44:01.680 hang on a second. Let's have a word here. Look in the mirror. I'm not as great as I thought I was.

00:44:05.200 I'm still great, but I can still be greater. But I'm not as great as I was yesterday and I'm not

00:44:09.440 getting any younger. Well, there's a weird thing in society today that says that you ought to feel good

00:44:14.880 about your performance, regardless of how you performed, right? Like, oh, you should just

00:44:19.440 in the body positive movement, you should just be happy. You should be, you should embrace who

00:44:23.760 you are. And it's like, you know, I hear that. And I think to be happy with you, who you are,

00:44:29.920 doesn't mean be satisfied with less than you're capable of. And I think that's how a lot of people

00:44:37.120 in modern society haven't interpreted it. I'm not as good as I could be. I could be,

00:44:42.000 I could do these things and I could be this, but I'm not going to do those things. So why don't I

00:44:47.200 just embrace and be satisfied with where I currently am? Yeah. I think, um, look,

00:44:54.720 maybe we replace happy with fulfilled. Um, I like that word that, that is actually,

00:44:59.600 I'm glad you said that. That is my word of, I don't like happy because I don't want to be happy.

00:45:03.920 I want to be fulfilled. Happiness is the absence of conflict and strife and challenge.

00:45:09.600 Fulfillment is the ability to deal with it effectively.

00:45:14.560 Exactly. And I think it takes, um, it takes a little for psychological or philosophical work

00:45:20.880 in terms of stoicism, um, to, to work through those moments. So if someone says, oh, just be

00:45:27.040 happy with the way that you are. Well, you can't tell someone or instruct someone to be happy.

00:45:32.240 Um, happiness is fleeting. Um, and what does one know anyway? I mean, not getting too philosophical,

00:45:40.480 but wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Uh, love is, is, is knowing I am everything. And in between the two,

00:45:46.720 my life moves and it moves on a scale of which sometimes I can influence and other times I just

00:45:52.240 have to surrender to and let go. And that sense of fulfillment, uh, how do I feel fulfilled? Um,

00:45:59.920 can I find meaning? You know, I define meaning as everything happens for a reason we make up

00:46:04.160 afterwards and it's the week we make up afterwards part that's important. Um, purpose. Um, I, I think

00:46:11.200 there's a crisis of meaning right now, particularly with, with, um, younger generations, particularly

00:46:16.160 younger generations of boys, um, because of the messaging that's being, that's being put out there

00:46:22.480 because of our educational system that doesn't have, um, boy centric books. Uh, boys need their

00:46:28.560 imaginations to be sparked. That's reduced recess time. Um, boys need to be, oh, go out and play. I

00:46:34.480 mean, good grief. I think back to my school is if I wasn't able to go out and play, I, I'd have been

00:46:39.360 in a terrible state. You know, we're supposed to sit there. We'd have frenetic, kinetic, frenetic energy

00:46:43.120 of boys. It's just bubbling over. So sit still. We're still telling someone to calm down. That's the last

00:46:48.160 thing we should tell someone who's feeling anxious or upset. And this notion that everyone gets a

00:46:53.200 trophy. Everyone's a winner. I'm reminded of when I first, um, coached, uh, my, my eldest boy was five

00:47:00.240 at the time, AOSO soccer and, um, Romeo Beckham, David Beckham's son was on the team as well. And at

00:47:06.400 the time David was the captain of England and Romeo went down in a tackle and they're five years old. And it

00:47:12.560 was this very, very bizarre coaching, uh, soccer or footy in America, I have to tell you, because there's a

00:47:17.920 lot of, you know, random, pointless yelling things from the sidelines from parents.

00:47:23.520 Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And I, the speech. That was me, by the way, if you heard,

00:47:29.520 it was me yelling from the sidelines, I guarantee it was me. Anyways, proceed.

00:47:34.080 Well, I get it. I get, I get the enthusiasm, but what I, you know, when I spoke to my parents,

00:47:38.320 the parents that were, of the kids that I was coaching at the start of the season,

00:47:41.920 every season was, look, your kids are just going to hear mindless screaming.

00:47:46.560 So, you know, just simmer it down. Maybe, maybe if there's a goal or something to cheer or applaud,

00:47:53.120 that it'd be great to hear that rush of excitement or vocal excitement then. And, you know, it's okay

00:47:58.960 to clap at the other team or another player on the other team or anyone has a, does a great move or

00:48:04.240 scores a great goal, but just one droning monotonous,

00:48:08.240 it's kind of pointless. I forget that. Oh yes. To Romeo Beckham. So he goes down and,

00:48:18.400 you know, most of the parents were like, oh gosh, there was that usual. And I think mums have that

00:48:25.120 more than dads as well. It's the nurturing of the mother and the matriarch compared to the risk

00:48:30.400 reward of the patriarch. If you, if I'm allowed to even use the word patriarch these days.

00:48:34.800 You're allowed here. You're allowed here.

00:48:37.360 Daniel. Um, and, uh, and, and I, you know, I looked at David, who was his dad and David

00:48:43.120 just turned to me when he's all right, he'll run it off. I like, all right. And the game continued.

00:48:48.720 And sure enough, Romeo was on the floor. It was his knee kind of stroke. And then he got,

00:48:53.840 looked to the sidelines, that gave him a nod, like, you're all right, son, kind of look.

00:48:58.400 And on with the game, he went, and that's the school of hard knocks. And we don't, we don't seem

00:49:01.920 to be nurturing that, um, these days, particularly in, uh, in schools and our educational system.

00:49:07.840 And, um, and I worry about our younger generations of boys because of that.

00:49:12.320 Um, that's not to say that, you know, I, I want everyone to experience what I had at school,

00:49:16.240 which was, you know, I got, I got three, attacked three times on my first day of high school.

00:49:21.600 One was a sucker punch from behind as well. So it was a real kind of, you know, uh, baptism of fire

00:49:27.760 of survival, um, in a very physical way, but, um, in a way that kind of taught me, you know,

00:49:34.160 I had to learn quick, uh, the school of hard knocks. And when you get out there in the big,

00:49:38.800 bad world, it's, it's not all safe spaces and feeling realms and, um, um, you know,

00:49:48.000 everyone wins a trophy. You gotta learn it. And there'll be disappointments and suffering

00:49:52.800 and hard knocks, many of them. And how you respond to that, I think is final.

00:50:01.040 Man, let me hit the pause button, the timeout button on the conversation with Greg and I real

00:50:04.640 quick. Each month, uh, we cover a different topic inside of our exclusive brotherhood,

00:50:09.200 the iron council. And for the month of September, we're going to be covering the concept of creating

00:50:15.920 your new reality. And we're going to be using the book, the four agreements as our book of the month.

00:50:21.760 So when you join the iron council, not only will you have access to the tools and resources and

00:50:26.320 information that we make available, but you're also going to have access to the camaraderie and

00:50:30.560 accountability and brotherhood that only comes. It only comes from men who are banded together in

00:50:36.080 the same mission. And that's all what we're doing here inside the iron council. So if you're ready to

00:50:41.200 stop doing life alone and want to connect with over 900 now, other high achieving, motivated,

00:50:47.040 ambitious men, then join us inside the iron council and immediately unlock access to everything you

00:50:53.520 need to take your life to the next level. You can do that at order of man.com slash iron council.

00:51:00.240 Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council. Do that right after the conversation for now,

00:51:06.320 I'll get back to it with Greg. You know, it's interesting. You bring this up because there's

00:51:11.360 this, uh, there's this fascinating dichotomy between the masculine and the feminine, right?

00:51:16.320 So when my child, for example, and I've got four kids, uh, will fall off their bike. I've got my

00:51:24.320 five-year-old who is the last to learn how to ride a bike and he crashes. My wife will run to him

00:51:30.880 and pick him up and quite literally kiss his knee and make sure he's okay. And I will not do that.

00:51:39.920 In fact, I'm repulsed by that. And I will say, get your ass up. You're okay. Both of us, by the way,

00:51:47.700 here's the interesting thing. Both of us are exhibiting love. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like there's,

00:51:54.120 there's love in both responses. I say, get back up, get on, wipe off the pebbles and the dirt in your

00:52:01.560 knee and get back on. And my wife says, let me kiss your boo-boo. Both are love. This is why it's

00:52:07.540 so important that we have the feminine and the masculine working together to help raise our

00:52:12.000 children the way they need to be raised. I completely agree. I mean, if you look at all

00:52:16.800 the data and all the statistics and all the evidence out there, uh, children who are raised with

00:52:21.360 biological mother and biological father, uh, have a better chance in nearly every metric. Well,

00:52:27.660 every metric in life. And, um, you know, when you, the difference, I think, when you talk about the

00:52:33.960 differences between mothering and fathering. Okay. So fatherhood, I think is vital for boys in many

00:52:39.160 regards, not least of which, uh, what I mentioned earlier, postponement gratification. So, so that boys

00:52:44.780 can become self-competent at being able to discern between the, the, the tasks they need

00:52:51.360 to complete, whether it be homework or whatever else or chores before doing the things they want

00:52:56.780 to do. And if you think of that as an internal risk reward value system, if you will, that you're

00:53:01.700 instilling in, in your, in your children or your child or your, your boy or whatever, um, as they're

00:53:08.180 growing, that, that's kind of like the, the, the, the, the rite of passage, if you will, of some of the,

00:53:13.920 that, that internal financial belief system or principles. And I think when fathers are engaged with,

00:53:19.980 with their sons, there is that, that, that is the major difference for me is that mom will nurture,

00:53:25.920 uh, in terms of bringing in close to breast and tending to, are you okay? And tend to the wound

00:53:33.440 and make sure that tears are dried. And whereas dad, and I think this is necessary, we'll, we'll kind of

00:53:39.220 nature be that the nature of the patriarch and the father is to push more of that risk reward. Like,

00:53:45.700 yeah, get up in the trees, let's climb the ground and do it together. And, uh, if you fall, you know,

00:53:51.260 you might break an arm, you might break a leg, but it'll mend. Um, you know, we, we have to have

00:53:56.440 that risk reward. And, and I think that I've seen waning in recent years. Um, and when boundaries are

00:54:04.060 important too, I mean, you know, when boys, girls and boys, you know, we all need, you know,

00:54:08.500 we talked about vulnerability earlier on, it's no good just spilling all of your vulnerable self out.

00:54:14.080 Um, you have to have boundaries and know the difference between privacy and secrets and

00:54:17.600 emotional boundaries, intellectual boundaries, physical boundaries, um, all of the different

00:54:22.380 forms of boundaries. Um, and, and why do boys need to learn boundaries? Well, because they experience

00:54:29.860 that they can't manipulate a better deal with dad. I think they, they, kids love to play mom and dad

00:54:37.420 off against each other and mom, because of the nurturing aspect will, and I'm speaking generally

00:54:44.020 here, will, may give in. Whereas dad, you know, it's harder dad, you know, dad's, I think,

00:54:49.700 you know, coming together, uh, with, with mom to, to instill some form of discipline and, um,

00:54:56.780 parental influence in a very masculine way. Um, and I do think that boys who, who are raised either

00:55:03.000 predominantly by dads or at least equally with, with moms become more purpose driven, more

00:55:09.640 goal oriented. Um, they're able to discern the needs from their wants and are less likely

00:55:17.000 to have challenges, um, on focus because purpose and goals and missions need focus, uh, and refocusing.

00:55:25.720 Um, and yeah, rough housing as well. I mean, I think about rough housing and the, the, that physical

00:55:32.120 nature. Uh, I think that's a vital experience for boys, um, to learn about healthy boundaries.

00:55:38.200 So it engenders that sense of empathy of self and other for, you know, if you're rough housing as a

00:55:43.640 little boy with another lad and you go too far, you overstep the boundary, do you experience the tears

00:55:50.440 or the upset or the anger or the retribution from the other boy? Um, and I think, I think children,

00:55:56.520 particularly boys who learn more of that at a young age, or at least go through that with,

00:56:00.360 with dads present, uh, much more likely as they get older to have friends and less like likely to

00:56:06.040 become depressed and withdrawn. And that requires competitiveness. It requires the assertiveness.

00:56:12.440 It requires physical aggression. It requires, because it's fun and that's dad style parenting,

00:56:18.520 I think, and guiding boys through that disciplined experience, I think is a necessary component in

00:56:23.880 balancing the psyche of the young male, uh, instills a sense of agency and sovereignty. Um,

00:56:31.080 and, and, and helps create that, that value system that's healthy and more balanced, well balanced with,

00:56:37.480 with the nurturing aspects that I think we men have to have too, that, that maybe perhaps come more

00:56:43.320 from mothers and the matriarch and that more assertive, I'm a leader. I'm going to take

00:56:48.360 risks, um, and, uh, and be successful quote unquote that comes from, um, the, the patriarch.

00:56:56.600 I I'm really glad that you're talking about this concept of, of balance here, because I think that

00:57:03.160 there is this interesting phenomenon and I've experienced over the past six years because of

00:57:09.480 the work I do. And I have a lot of women who listen to this podcast who will message me and say,

00:57:13.240 well, you know, women can be strong too. And they can, and they can, and exactly. And, and what I

00:57:21.880 share and what you share and what we talk about as men and fathers and, and, and, and males who want

00:57:27.880 to lift up our future generations isn't at odds with what femininity is. It isn't at odds with like,

00:57:35.400 this is not a competition. I think women, my wife is one of the strongest women I know that said,

00:57:41.960 she doesn't raise our kids the way that I raise my kids. And it's important that our children have

00:57:48.360 strength from both the feminine and masculine, and they're not going to get a whole lot of empathy

00:57:53.880 and kindness and compassion necessarily for me relative to what they're going to get from their

00:57:57.740 mother. But neither one of them means that one of us is less weak or excuse me, less strong and more

00:58:03.280 weak. It just means that we're coming at it from a different angle. And I'm really discouraged about

00:58:09.360 general society in that women have generally been conditioned to believe through this feminist

00:58:17.120 movement over the past 40 years, that you need to behave like men in order to be equal. No, you don't

00:58:23.840 at all. You need to be women. You need to be strong and, and, and assertive and nurturing and supportive

00:58:30.640 and motherly and, and ladylike. And there's a level of strength that comes with that too.

00:58:38.560 You don't need to be a man to be strong. I absolutely agree with you. I think the,

00:58:42.880 the conversation about feminism, I've mentioned this before, feminism, we don't talk about the

00:58:47.360 balance of masculism a lot, you know, and when we do, when men do, we may be charged like you've

00:58:53.760 experienced with a group. Well, women can be too, well, okay, no one's saying that right now.

00:58:58.080 Right. We're talking about men. Okay. Um, as women, we'll talk about women and women will talk about

00:59:04.160 being women with other women. So we can have those, those singular conversations with, with, you know,

00:59:09.760 with men and women, and we can come together in a co-ed conversation, just like sports.

00:59:14.960 That's not a problem. And talking about these issues, um, it doesn't need to be done in a silo

00:59:20.720 and it doesn't need to be done without, uh, without nuance, right? So feminism, you know,

00:59:26.240 you talked about feminism in the last 40 years. I, I, I believe it's important to talk about, um,

00:59:31.120 you know, the different forms or schools of feminism. So I, there's equality feminism or

00:59:37.520 factual feminism or what Helen Pluckrose likes to call, um, empowerment feminism. And that is noble.

00:59:44.000 I agree with that. That's the, that's a really strong brand or form or ideology of feminism that

00:59:50.720 I get behind. I stand behind. I'm, I'm championing women in all its different forms. It's the other

00:59:58.480 side, the other breakoff branch of third and fourth wave feminism, where it is the extreme side of

01:00:04.880 things. That's right. The postmodern progressive extreme feminism that wants to diminish the father

01:00:11.920 and the male that wants to say, um, that everything is extreme, believe all women, not, not listen to

01:00:18.880 women, uh, that, that, that, that says, you know, um, we, that doesn't believe in the value of the

01:00:25.120 father, that doesn't believe that women should stay home, have agency if they want to, and be a homemaker

01:00:31.840 or a housewife, as it used to be called in England. Um, and doesn't believe it's an individual choice

01:00:36.880 for a woman because we've fought so hard over the years to get the vote and get this and get that.

01:00:40.080 Well, that's great. But ultimately it's an individual choice, just like it is for individual

01:00:45.760 men and individual women. And, um, you know, that's, that's the partnership and the union of a

01:00:51.600 marriage or, or a partnership in making those determinations, decisions together and finding

01:00:56.880 out a plan, a strategy that works for you and actually illuminates and, and, and, uh, and really

01:01:04.800 challenges and inspires and brings out the best of both because that's really what we want,

01:01:10.960 isn't it? We don't want to be discouraging, man. What a discouraging message. I mean,

01:01:14.560 you know, we, we, well, women can be that too. Okay. Yeah. Okay. They can, but right.

01:01:19.280 They can, but should they have a conversation? Should they, well, you know, maybe that's a conversation for,

01:01:24.320 um, you know, I'm not a woman, so I can comment on what I think about individual women, but I'm a man,

01:01:31.440 you know, and I have two boys, two sons. So that's, that's, you know, really my,

01:01:35.440 my experience and what I can really genuinely speak to. And I can, I can explore and try and get

01:01:40.640 some data and some research, you know, like particularly with, you know, when we hear all

01:01:45.360 this messaging of, of, um, you know, toxic masculinity and smash the patriarchy and et cetera, et cetera.

01:01:52.480 Um, and all this signaling to boys and we're doing away with the meritocracy and it's about

01:01:57.360 equity of, um, outcomes rather than equity or equality of opportunity. And I think masculinity

01:02:03.680 to a degree is, and has been targeted recently and fatherhood, I think lies in the bullseye.

01:02:09.600 Um, I think, you know, as a society, we've rightly opened up, uh, the institution of family,

01:02:16.080 um, and what that means to be more inclusive. Uh, you know, but I think there's the traditional

01:02:21.840 role of a family patriarch has been severely denigrated, uh, you know, for, for 30 years,

01:02:27.280 the, the virtuous, uh, and binding thread that fathers have served as in our healthy, um,

01:02:34.880 Western society has increasingly been pulled out of the modern tapestry. Thanks to this consistent

01:02:43.200 drumbeat of these third and fourth wave, quote unquote, modern feminists, um, pop culture,

01:02:50.240 stereotypes, and, and, and probably the biggest, uh, culprit, um, is, is our family law system.

01:02:58.720 So yeah, having a nuanced conversation that, that talks about the differences between, uh, feminism

01:03:05.040 and masculinism. And then if we're focusing on feminism, the different kinds of feminism,

01:03:09.120 historically, how it evolved, what an individual thinks about that. So much these days, I hear,

01:03:14.320 you know, quite frankly, sexist language on one side, always mansplaining. Well, okay. All right.

01:03:20.240 So that's a man who's explaining something in a, in a male way. That's very stereotypical,

01:03:24.240 very general, and also quite, um, negative. Uh, you know, should we have omensplaining? You know,

01:03:29.920 we have toxic masculinity. Should we have toxic? I mean, equality should mean we talk about both,

01:03:35.120 but I don't think, you know, demonizing men is not the solution. That's the problem.

01:03:42.320 Ah, period. Like what, what more can I say to that? I, I, I think you're completely right. You know,

01:03:52.560 if we were to think about our conversation that we had earlier with, with sports, you know, let's take

01:03:58.000 American football, for example, a football player might think is a tight end that, well, you know, like,

01:04:04.080 I can block, I can snap a football. Yeah, sure. Nobody's, nobody's saying you can't.

01:04:10.800 We're just, we're just questioning whether or not you should, whether or not maybe your attributes and

01:04:16.880 your skillset and your, your qualities might be better served as a tight end or a wide receiver

01:04:24.480 or running back or a linebacker or a cornerback. It's not about whether or not you can, it's about

01:04:30.400 whether or not your attributes and some of those that are inherent and some of those are developed,

01:04:35.600 but whether or not your attributes could be used in better situations. And so I look at my wife and I

01:04:40.880 think my wife is lovely. She's beautiful. And that's not just her physical presence. It's her emotional

01:04:46.720 and spiritual presence. She's beautiful. And so should she be the one to tell my son,

01:04:51.680 Hey, suck it up. Be a man. No, she could say that, but she shouldn't be the one who says that

01:04:59.840 I should be the one who says that. And, and there's some situations like we hear these things about

01:05:05.380 traditional gender roles of like, well, you know, traditional they're outdated. Well, no,

01:05:09.360 they're actually not outdated. They're, they're biological constructs and they're supported

01:05:16.160 societally because they work. And only until the relative ease of modernity, have we even been

01:05:21.760 able to have the luxury of calling into question what quote unquote, traditional gender roles are.

01:05:28.080 It's a good, it's a nice luxury, but it's going to create its own set of problems.

01:05:33.360 Well, I think that's what we're seeing. You know, it's, it's not that it's outdated. These

01:05:36.400 traditional roles aren't outdated. They evolve. You know, it's like science. It's emergent truths

01:05:41.120 that evolve over time. When we test, push back, we have dialectic, we have a thesis,

01:05:45.520 an antithesis, and then we, we get to the synthesis, but we don't stop at the synthesis

01:05:49.440 of where we arrive at with the emergent truth. We keep asking, we keep questioning and questing for

01:05:55.040 better questions. I mean, that's really where it's at for me, I think is asking the meaningful

01:05:59.040 questions of the answers that we receive and how we can be fulfilled, how we can be more.

01:06:05.440 And that's, I think it's the fulfillment of wisdom, right? So it's, it's a bit of an abstract term,

01:06:11.120 but the concept of wisdom, you know, isn't that mysterious. Being wise, you know, attempting to

01:06:17.600 live and die well, is as good as, is leading, I guess. When I say leading, I don't mean you're

01:06:23.840 leading other people, but you're leading as good a life as possible within the troubled conditions

01:06:28.080 of existence. And they are troubled. And the goal of wisdom, I think, is fulfillment, and how we can get

01:06:33.200 there. And it's not that she, your wife shouldn't be saying this, or you shouldn't be saying this,

01:06:37.600 you typically find that naturally, she's not going to, and you are. That's just the differences.

01:06:43.760 There are, there are innate, inherent differences biologically. And it's become a little confused

01:06:52.320 and confusing. As we've, and in a lot of respects, rightfully and positively evolved the, the, the,

01:07:02.240 the gender roles. But I think we have to keep having that conversation and, and, and participation

01:07:10.080 within that, that doesn't say all X is bad, and all Y is bad. And, you know, agree to be disagreeable

01:07:20.800 at times. Um, and, and really look at what the, what the data is telling us, what the research is

01:07:27.200 telling us, what our personal experiences inform us of, um, and, you know, talking about boys in,

01:07:33.520 in school and college. I mean, you just have to look at the data. 60% of college undergraduate

01:07:39.120 degrees are earned by women. Brilliant. Like you, we can champion the women who, great.

01:07:45.440 Of course, of course.

01:07:46.640 Then we can still go, okay, so boys, boys are lagging behind in education. 37%

01:07:52.960 more women go to graduate school. 52% of doctorates are earned by women.

01:07:57.680 Um, and on top of those numbers like that, we, we, you know, boys are hearing these messages that

01:08:03.200 they're toxic day in, day out. And, and, and we really have to, you know, if women and mothers

01:08:11.040 can champion girls and daughters, then we can champion boys, fathers, mentors, right? I mean,

01:08:18.400 that's okay to have that conversation. In fact, it's not okay. It's necessary.

01:08:22.400 It's necessary.

01:08:23.360 It's really necessary.

01:08:26.080 You know, you, you use the word confusing. It's confusing, but I, like, I don't know if it is.

01:08:30.960 It is. I really don't think it is. I don't, I don't think it's confusing for, for a man who's

01:08:37.760 listening to this podcast or even a man who doesn't listen to this podcast to know inherently

01:08:44.160 what an instinctively, what, what he should be doing. I don't, I don't think it's inherently

01:08:49.440 confusing for a woman who, who wants to be a great mother, who wants to be a great woman,

01:08:55.360 who wants to be strong, who wants to raise her kids in righteousness. I don't think it's that confusing.

01:08:59.920 And yet we're bombarded with these messages from social media and from pop culture who say,

01:09:04.400 you're not good enough. You're not doing it. Right. You're not doing this. You're not doing

01:09:07.200 that. You're not as good as a woman. You're not as good as a man. We have to reject these ideas

01:09:12.720 because that's what confuses and conflates the situation. Yeah. I think we have to amplify the

01:09:18.320 voices of the quote unquote, good man, the good fathers, the strong mentors, the, the leaders,

01:09:25.440 the, the quiet ones, the local heroes, all, all of the builders, the laborers, the, you know,

01:09:31.360 all of that. But we also as well have to, have to empower, um, and champion the voices,

01:09:38.080 those noble equality feminists, factual feminists, empowerment feminists who want the best for women,

01:09:44.240 but not at the expense of men. I like it boys. Right. So really championing those sets of people

01:09:53.200 and calling out sometimes, you know, I was reticent to do this for quite a while.

01:09:57.520 You know, I kept hearing toxic masculinity. Well, the answer isn't to just fight fire with fire and

01:10:02.880 talk. Why aren't we talking about toxic femininity and calling people once in a while, we do need to

01:10:06.800 push back. We do need to push back on this, this narrative and the misinterpretation of individual

01:10:13.520 stories, whether it be in mainstream media, or as I call it anti-social media and stand up, speak out,

01:10:19.040 particularly in this cancel culture that, that has this public opinion of guilty to proven more guilty

01:10:24.480 and say, no, you know, and, and speak up for people, strangers and, and people in academia and

01:10:30.400 sports people in many different walks of life, because eventually it's common for you.

01:10:35.200 You know, identity politics eventually devours itself, but it's gonna, you know, it's gonna,

01:10:40.320 and has been, you know, grabbing a lot of people on the way. Um, and, and having a little bit of,

01:10:46.400 you know, moral fiber, I think, to challenge the moral hypocrisy of our times. There's so much

01:10:52.640 moral hypocrisy out there. And who's leading the conversation? Why are we talking about this again,

01:10:59.280 day after day after day? Why are you forcing me to see things through a lens,

01:11:04.000 your prism, which is negatively, uh, negative kaleidoscope, if you will,

01:11:09.760 of darkness and the worst in humanity and people saying what they hate and what they stand against.

01:11:15.200 And rather than, what do you love? What do you stand for? And, um, you know, at times I will call

01:11:23.280 out, particularly people who make false allegations. I think we have, I think victimhood has become the

01:11:27.920 new social currency, economy is booming. And I think we need to get back to a little bit more

01:11:32.240 of self-reliance and, uh, personal responsibility. And, um, the more we can take on, the more we,

01:11:38.720 the more we can lean into that portal of responsibility, um, better. And I think it's

01:11:43.440 an early age learned experience, uh, particularly again with boys in med who we, we need the

01:11:49.200 assertiveness and that aggressiveness and that physicality, fighting wars, going into burning

01:11:54.480 buildings. I don't care who it is in terms of quote unquote equality. If I'm, you know, if I'm lying in

01:12:02.560 a burning building, I just want them the strongest, most courageous person to come and get me. And my

01:12:09.120 God, I mean, don't we all, when it comes to it, nice to see. Right. I mean, I watched this video

01:12:15.200 the other day and it was, you know, a little meme or whatever video on in some, some female trainer

01:12:20.400 had, had her, she was an alligator trainer, the way I understood it. And she got her arm bitten by an

01:12:27.120 alligator and it was doing that alligator death rolled or whatever. I can't imagine what was going

01:12:32.320 through her mind is like, Oh no, no, no. I don't want to be rescued by a man. Like, I just want to be

01:12:38.160 rescued. I don't care who it is. I mean, not, not quite as dangerous or rescuing, but you know,

01:12:43.360 I've got on a plane a couple of times and, um, I'm always wanting to be looking at this, you know,

01:12:48.880 someone who's, who's not as physically strong to get those bags in the overhead compartments

01:12:52.880 could be pretty heavy. And so I'm always, you know, on the lookout to offer and help out. And I,

01:12:57.120 you know, I think that's being a gentleman. Uh, but this one first time it happened, obviously,

01:13:02.080 can I, can I help you with that? Um, excuse me, do you need a hand with that? I don't need help

01:13:07.200 from a man. Well, hang on. Are there any, I want to call out to the, you know, get on the intercom.

01:13:12.960 If there are any ladies, 175 pounds, uh, regularly work out and in good physical condition, please

01:13:19.200 come to the front and help with this. Because that's what has come down to the sector. I'm

01:13:23.760 probably a misogynist for, for offering to help, you know, um, you are, I can't believe you. I can't

01:13:30.080 believe it's the same thing with the door is like, I don't open a door because I think a woman is

01:13:34.080 uncapable. I just open a door because I think it's a risk. I, I, by the way, I also open doors

01:13:39.040 for men. I don't exclusively open the door for women. Like. Right. Standing at the dinner table.

01:13:46.480 When I'm at, you know, I'm at the dinner table. I stand when, when a woman stands or comes back to

01:13:50.720 sit and that's, that's learned behavior. I didn't learn all that growing up. That's something that

01:13:54.960 I chose to reinstall or instill in myself. And, you know, I've been laughed at. I mean, I stood at the

01:14:00.160 table and I've had to say, you know, a guy, there's been a lot of couples and a guy, what are you doing?

01:14:04.720 I'm like, I'm just standing as a mark of respect for the lake. Just really making us all look,

01:14:09.040 look bad. I'm like, I'm not, no, there's no judgment on you whatsoever. This is just a personal

01:14:14.000 choice. And, um, and there really wasn't, you know, it's not, I'm not going to apologize for your

01:14:21.040 uncomfortability as you tried to slay me with a whip covered put down in front of everyone at the table.

01:14:25.760 I'm just going to stay my course, do what I do walking on the, you know, on the traffic side of

01:14:29.920 the street when, with, with a lady on the inside. I mean, these are, these are things to me that are

01:14:35.640 like, you know, obvious, but they're not, they weren't obvious to me growing up because I didn't

01:14:40.140 know about them. Yeah. Well, and also they shouldn't be, you know, I was walking with my daughter and

01:14:44.540 she was, we were in the parking lot of Walmart and my daughter's, uh, she's, she's going to be eight

01:14:50.060 years old. And I said, Hey, hang on, just come over here on this other side. And she says, that's right,

01:14:54.540 dad. Cause it, cause a man always walks on the outside and she wouldn't inherently know that.

01:15:01.560 How would she know that? Right. Other than what I taught her. Right. And she doesn't think that

01:15:07.000 she's incapable of it. She doesn't think, I think less of her. She just thinks, Oh, here's, here's a

01:15:11.820 man who happens to be my father who respects me, who honors me, who cares about me, period. End of

01:15:19.800 story. Nothing else other than that. And if, and if she grows up and she's with a man who doesn't

01:15:25.420 walk on the outside, if you will, she, she might question it. She might ask him and that's okay too.

01:15:34.220 But rather than the strident nature of, you know, growing into a, a, a kind of the fourth wave

01:15:40.380 feminist who's like, I don't want to even be walking with a man. And if I am walking a man,

01:15:44.640 I don't need you to walk on the outside. And then she was raining and there's a splash in a puddle and

01:15:48.420 she gets soaking wet. Well, you know, I, I'd rather be soaking wet than the man. I'm like,

01:15:53.040 just stop with the nonsense. Yeah. Chill. Take it easy. You know, you don't have to be on a social

01:16:00.400 justice campaign for equality every single day. And if you are, you need to look at yourself in the

01:16:04.740 mirror and see, you know, some of the hypocrisy, um, that, you know, the equality movement quote,

01:16:11.980 unquote comes out with, cause it is a bit, it's laughable sometimes.

01:16:15.340 I, you know, Greg, I have so many questions. Um, and I've only done this once or twice,

01:16:20.280 but I just think we need to have a part two, cause you got a book over your right shoulder

01:16:23.700 called the respondent. We need to talk about that. We need to talk about family court, uh,

01:16:29.160 and family law. Um, we need to talk about all this. And so we need to do a part two. We're going to

01:16:36.440 release this. We're going to get to this guy, this out to the guys. They're going to love what we're

01:16:39.780 talking about. And we just need to do a part two. If you're open for that.

01:16:43.100 Absolutely. I'd be happy to. Yeah. I mean, I thought, honestly, I thought we'd get to it

01:16:46.820 quicker than, than we did, but like, we've been talking us about so much good stuff here.

01:16:51.960 I'm like, well, I'm not going to detract from what we're talking about to get to that. Like,

01:16:55.300 this is good stuff too. So we definitely need to do a part two.

01:16:58.840 I'd be happy to. It's actually really enjoyable. Cause it's not, you know, like you mentioned early on

01:17:03.220 being in the present, being in the now moment, you know, not worrying about the time. That's when

01:17:07.580 time flies and you, I know it's like when you're hosting a podcast, you look at the clock and you

01:17:11.540 go, hang on a second. We've gone, we've gone longer than perfectly fine. I've really enjoyed

01:17:18.000 our conversation. I'd be happy to come back for a part two and talk about the respondent and my book

01:17:22.980 and anything else you'd like to talk about. Do you want to share with us really quickly,

01:17:27.700 just how to connect with you so the guys can get primed for the conversation I think we'll have

01:17:32.020 in the next two to three weeks, uh, part two to this discussion here. Yeah, sure. My, um, the,

01:17:37.400 the, uh, real gregellis.com is kind of the hub and home for information about me, but my main focus

01:17:43.600 right now is the respondent.com that will have information about, uh, my book, uh, the respondent

01:17:50.380 exposing the cartel of family law, uh, introduction by Johnny Depp forward by Alec Baldwin.

01:17:56.240 And, uh, we can talk more about that. Um, and it's got information about my nonprofit,

01:18:02.440 the charitable extension of the respondent CPU, uh, which stands for children and parents united.

01:18:08.420 And, um, yeah, that's really the, you know, the usual social media channels, uh, you know,

01:18:13.440 Twitter and Facebook and blah, blah, blah, get your dopamine hits, but don't do it too long for you

01:18:17.840 to put the phone down. Uh, thank you. Tend to that device dependency. Um, but yeah,

01:18:22.780 the respondent.com, uh, real gregellis.com. They're the two websites I would suggest.

01:18:26.860 And then everything kind of flows out from there. Excellent. We're going to sync it all up for the

01:18:30.780 guys. And of course you and I are going to stay in touch. So guys, if you're listening to this right

01:18:34.140 now and you want more of the conversation we're having, uh, know that part two is going to be

01:18:38.300 coming out in, in a week or two or three weeks. And, uh, I've got a list of questions. I never make

01:18:45.540 questions ahead of time, but based on our conversation, I've got, I, you, you may have noticed me

01:18:50.900 putting my head down. I'm not checking my phone. I'm writing notes. So I've got a bunch of other

01:18:56.000 questions that I need to ask you. And I'm looking forward to part two, Greg. Thanks for joining us

01:18:59.780 today, man. I really appreciate your insight. I'll end with one question for you that might tee up

01:19:04.900 something in the book or some of what I talk about in the book. Which country do you think is the world

01:19:10.080 leader in children growing up in single parent households? Single parent households.

01:19:16.040 I mean, I would say, I would say the U S I would say our country.

01:19:21.620 Correct. And the next question will be why, but we can talk about that the next time

01:19:25.860 that we get together.

01:19:26.700 I like that, man, your T, your, your, your Tina little, little teaser there.

01:19:30.580 It's like, you've been in Hollywood. You know how to put those teasers out there.

01:19:33.320 Well, it's good. It's important because, you know, every day in our family law system and

01:19:37.620 divorce courts, 4,000 children lose a parent. That's every single day, 4,000 children lose

01:19:43.840 a parent. And, um, I've explored some of the reasons why, and we can, we can, we can talk

01:19:49.980 about it. It's not, not necessarily all just about that because my harrowing dystopian story

01:19:54.380 is part of the respondent and many other men and many other fathers have been through, you

01:19:59.080 know, tens of thousands have been through similar and, uh, families and children. And, uh, so I'm

01:20:04.620 trying to, I'm trying to be of service. I'm trying to put something good back into the world.

01:20:08.220 Um, but yeah, we will, we'll do a part two. I'm rambling. Yeah. I, I feel like, I mean,

01:20:15.120 this is a great discussion, so don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like I may have

01:20:18.260 failed the guys because quite honestly, we've never had a discussion about family courts and

01:20:24.480 family law. And I know that there are thousands, literally you're, you're talking about 4,000

01:20:30.060 children a day. There are thousands of men who are losing their sons and daughters.

01:20:37.140 That's right. There is, this isn't a conversation we've had. We need to have this come. So like

01:20:42.280 it's imperative that we do the followup conversation. I think so too. There are so many, so, so many

01:20:48.120 harrowing stuff. I mean, I get emails now after the book came out, I get so many emails a day

01:20:52.700 with people sharing their stories. I mean, you know, harrowing stories, you know, people

01:20:57.260 who've been serving in the military who come back, you know, men who come back and they, we'll

01:21:04.040 talk about the details of stories like this, but they are suddenly homeless and unable to

01:21:09.580 see their families and personal examples of that.

01:21:13.180 Right. And, and there are reasons for this. And I think it's the conversation that we haven't

01:21:18.360 been having. I think many people in organizations and movements have been talking about this,

01:21:22.040 as I've found out recently after my book came out for decades, that there hasn't been the

01:21:27.600 multimedia conversation and, and voices amplified to actually discuss why it's happening. Who's

01:21:35.360 incentivized, you know, the family law cartel that I talk about in the book is a $60 billion

01:21:40.400 a year industry. And there is legalized child trafficking going on, uh, kidnapping of children.

01:21:47.120 I mean, it's, it's harrowing when you get into it, but I do think it's a national, um, health

01:21:52.560 emergency, maybe even a mental health or physical health emergency that nobody seems to be talking

01:21:58.320 about and caring about unless you're actually, you find yourself in the system. So what I'm

01:22:02.800 trying to do is get this, this conversation going, um, and really talk about these, because

01:22:08.560 I think it affects all of us. If we actually stop for a moment, we all know someone who's

01:22:12.960 had a relationship breakdown or, um, divorced parents, or we're divorced, or we know someone

01:22:19.760 who's divorced or being through the divorce trap and the zero sum game of divorce court.

01:22:25.440 And, and it's all really, when I looked, the reason, one of the reasons I wrote the book,

01:22:28.720 and I'm going to stop in a moment because I know there's part two coming up, was I needed to,

01:22:32.560 I didn't want to, I needed to, there aren't, there weren't any books to help me as a man and a father

01:22:38.480 get through when my personal crisis suddenly hit in a moment, literally in a moment, I went from

01:22:46.880 beautiful life, kids in a private school country club, like the life I had earned,

01:22:52.080 the privileged life that I'd earned to within eight hours, I was homeless, almost destitute

01:22:58.480 and being used as a human toilet while I was incarcerated. So we can talk about that the next

01:23:03.200 time. We're going to hit on all of it. It's so, so important. And I know the guys are going to

01:23:08.160 resonate. Greg, I appreciate you. I appreciate your work. I, this is going to sound stupid,

01:23:13.040 but take it for what it's worth. My kids and I are going to watch pirates tonight.

01:23:17.520 And I'm going to say, I got to talk with Greg today and they're going to be so excited about it.

01:23:22.240 So thank you. Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate what you do on this, on this show and everything

01:23:27.360 that you've been doing. I appreciate your wife because without her, you'd have a harder time

01:23:31.760 being here and probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. I just had to say that. And yeah, thank you. And in

01:23:37.520 terms of pirates, you know, you've, you've got to be the best podcaster I've ever seen. How's that

01:23:43.120 for you? A line from the, a line from the pirates? Dang. I'm going to save that. I'm going to save

01:23:47.360 that and show that to my kids. Ryan's got to be the best podcaster I've ever seen.

01:23:53.760 Perfect. I love it. I love it. All right, brother. I appreciate you. You and I are going to stay in

01:24:00.720 touch. We're going to do this follow up in a week or two and we'll go from there. So thank you very much.

01:24:04.720 Sounds great. Thanks, Ryan. Be well. All right, guys, there you go. My conversation

01:24:11.760 with the one and only Greg Ellis. I was so glad that I was introduced to Greg and so

01:24:16.960 fortunate that we were able to have this conversation. As I said, to kick this thing

01:24:20.960 off, we are going to be doing a part two. So I want you to stay tuned. I want you to subscribe,

01:24:25.920 leave the ratings and reviews because when part two comes out in the next several weeks,

01:24:30.480 which is going to be more geared towards the other part of this conversation, which is father's

01:24:36.480 rights and the family court system and how it might be stacked against men. This is something

01:24:41.920 you're going to want to tune into, whether it's personally impacting you or somebody, you know,

01:24:46.000 or maybe you aren't in this position, but you need to be equipped and armed with the right

01:24:51.520 information to make sure that you protect your rights. So we're definitely going to get into that as

01:24:55.280 well. Connect with Greg on the socials, connect with me on the socials, take a screenshot,

01:25:00.880 let people know, shoot them a text screenshot and tag me and Greg on Instagram, Facebook,

01:25:05.440 Twitter, wherever you're doing your social media thing, and let people know what you're listening

01:25:09.440 to. Tell me what you liked about the show, what you didn't like, what you would like to hear more

01:25:14.080 about. And we're going to cater these conversations we're having towards you. It's always been my goal

01:25:19.040 to serve you as best I can. And hopefully this one did. I know it did for me. So guys, with that said,

01:25:25.120 get after it, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:25:30.000 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:25:34.560 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - August 24, 2021

GREG ELLIS ｜ Fatherhood in the Crosshairs, Part I

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