Order of Man - JOHN LOVELL ｜ A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well

00:00:00.000 We're all familiar with the warrior archetype. Many listening to this podcast embody what it

00:00:04.740 means to be a warrior, but if we are exclusively warriors in our approach to life, we can easily

00:00:09.780 overcome the more gentle, meeker virtues that make us well-rounded men. My guest today is a man

00:00:15.580 intimately familiar with a balance between the lion and the lamb, the warrior, and the poet.

00:00:20.880 His name is John Lovell, and he is the author of The Warrior Poet Way, A Guide to Living Free

00:00:25.600 and Dying Well. Today, John and I talk about striking the balance between both,

00:00:30.360 how we're neither exclusively warrior or exclusively poet, how to become not just dangerous in the

00:00:35.820 physical realm, but also dangerous in our virtue, how humility heals everything, overcoming the

00:00:41.540 crisis of identity, and why if there's nothing to protect, there's no need for men, and also the

00:00:46.820 proper time and place for displaying vulnerability. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:51.920 fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back

00:00:57.360 up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:04.780 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:01:10.120 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:14.140 Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. Welcome here today. Glad you're tuning in. Glad you're joining us.

00:01:19.660 This is a mission that we're on to reclaim and restore masculinity. I think my guest,

00:01:25.000 John Lovell, would agree with me. We both started around the same time and recognized that there was

00:01:29.400 a need for information, tools, resources for men to step up in their communities, in their homes,

00:01:36.360 in their businesses, and we've been providing these solutions and tools and resources and

00:01:40.900 conversations for eight years now. I'm really excited about this conversation with my good friend,

00:01:45.200 John Lovell. But we've had other conversations with incredible men like Jocko and Tim Tebow and

00:01:50.480 Tim Kennedy and Grant Cardone and Andy Frisilla and David Goggins and Matthew McConaughey and Terry

00:01:55.920 Cruz. I mean, the lineup of guys that have joined us on this podcast is amazing. I'm so honored. I'm so

00:02:01.720 blessed. And it's my goal and my hope that these conversations inspire, drive, and motivate you to do

00:02:08.200 good work in your life. We're going to get into the conversation in a minute. Just want to let you know that

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00:03:06.180 stuff. It's another win for America because they're bringing back American manufacturing.

00:03:10.860 They win because of what they're doing and I win because I introduced you guys. So create the

00:03:15.540 win, win, win, win, if that makes sense. All right, guys, let's get into it today with my good friend

00:03:20.420 and former army ranger, author, and founder of Warrior Poet Society, Mr. John Lovell.

00:03:26.340 His message of reclaiming masculinity has garnered over 100 million views on various social media

00:03:32.240 platforms. But not only that, this is a man living his message from serving in the second ranger

00:03:37.480 battalion to living as a full-time Christian missionary in Central America to launching his

00:03:42.960 business and now global movement. He is a content creator. He's a public speaker. He's a great public

00:03:49.600 speaker, by the way. I've seen him live and he is the best. He's also a firearms instructor homesteader

00:03:55.260 and now you can add author to his already impressive resume with his latest book, The Warrior Poet

00:04:00.520 Way, A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well. John, what's up, man? Great to see you. It's been a long

00:04:07.860 time. Too long, but it's good to see you on the podcast. I agree. Too long indeed, man. Hope you've

00:04:12.980 been well. Hello to all you listeners. Yeah. How about you? How have you been doing? Have you officially

00:04:18.200 started the book tour yet or the podcast marathon that I know will take place? Bro, I got podcasts

00:04:25.440 lined up for days and I've been gone for over half the month. So, it's been pretty tedious, but

00:04:33.280 rock and roll, bro. I think there's a romantic element of writing a book and a lot of people

00:04:42.080 that I talk with say, you know, I have a book, I want to write a book. And then they actually write

00:04:47.240 a book and that romantic side of it tends to dissipate. I don't know if you feel the same way

00:04:51.980 it did for me anyways. Bro, it was a labor of love because I really was picking away at this

00:04:57.760 for a couple of years with a big sprint in the last six months. But yeah, it was quite a labor

00:05:04.800 of love. Sometimes I loved what I was writing and sometimes I hated it. And then I would come back

00:05:09.800 and eviscerate it, scrap sections and just, holy smokes of hammering this thing into shape. So,

00:05:17.800 it's one thing to just speak. The words are gone. They're out there. But when it's written,

00:05:21.560 it's like, man, you pine over there. You sweat over them. You bleed over them. So, there you go.

00:05:27.080 Well, and also, you know that that's going to be out there for people to, I mean, you've been in

00:05:31.120 the space long enough where you know what you're putting out there is basically saying, judge me,

00:05:35.600 right? Judge my thoughts, judge my words, judge the way I think about things. And you know,

00:05:40.400 when you put it in, at least I thought this is when I put it in written format, there's something

00:05:45.100 more concrete about that than there is just saying something on a podcast. At least that's how I felt.

00:05:50.280 I think so. I've been on the internet a long time. So, I'm kind of already got a big judge

00:05:55.060 me sign across my forehead. So, I'm like, ah, screw it. Bring it on. Yeah. Judge me. Whatever.

00:06:00.820 Everybody's upset. Everybody knows better. And so, yeah, whatever.

00:06:06.120 Why did you decide to write a book now? So, how long has Warrior Poets Society been going? Because

00:06:12.520 you guys have been going for a while. I'm just curious about your timing with writing a book now.

00:06:15.580 There's something about seven years, seven or eight years. And really, it's to be able to kind

00:06:23.540 of have our manifesto to be like, hey, look here, this is it. This is the bookends and the filler

00:06:30.980 in between. And so, the desire to do it was long, long coming. But it took a little while to be able

00:06:38.820 to really break the ice, get going, build some steam, and then you get so busy. And so, yeah,

00:06:46.360 I'd say it was far overdue. I've got a message. It's an important one. The world's better for it.

00:06:52.600 And so, it's a long time coming.

00:06:55.360 Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like your work now? Because we started then, if you've been going for about seven,

00:07:00.580 eight years, we started about the same time. So, it's interesting to me that I can go back and watch

00:07:06.960 the first couple of my videos, which are not great from a production standpoint. You guys are

00:07:11.880 really good at this, but from a production standpoint, not great. But the content is

00:07:16.400 still relevant and probably more relevant eight years later than it ever was.

00:07:22.900 Yeah. That's awesome, man. That's awesome to make timeless stuff that's principles-based.

00:07:27.940 That's pretty good. But yeah, it really underscores the fact that content is king. Message is king.

00:07:35.180 Fire in your bones is king. Production is good, and you want good audio and good video and stuff.

00:07:42.120 And if those things are trash in the days of 2023, where everything is so highly produced,

00:07:47.520 people will check out of your message because it's so visually or auditorily distracting. It's like,

00:07:53.320 man, this is trash. And they just, they hit the eject button. So, punch out. So, production won't make

00:07:59.440 it, but it will hurt you if it's bad. True. True. One of the things you talk a lot about is that the

00:08:06.560 world is in need of more warriors. And I think what I'd like you to do, if you don't mind, is explain

00:08:12.760 the concept of the warrior poet. Because we've all heard different euphemisms or different ways to

00:08:18.460 describe how a man should show up. And I like the way that your framework is because it describes a side

00:08:23.700 that I think we see too. I think we see these two different sides, warriors and poets, but we don't

00:08:29.040 always see easily how they integrate, even though I think even intuitively we know or feel that they

00:08:35.280 should be integrated in some way. But I think a lot of men struggle with that. I do personally. I tend

00:08:39.080 to be more towards the warrior side of things than the poet side of things. I am too. And the problem

00:08:43.720 is, is if we naturally just stay in our lane of warrior, we're going to destroy our lives. And

00:08:50.520 it's like, man, it's almost a cliche. Dudes that I served with in special operations and

00:08:55.800 Ranger Battalion, they were really good at war. And then they'd come back and they'd just lose all

00:09:01.300 the things they loved and cared for the most. They just make a mess as warriors in peacetime don't do

00:09:08.460 so hot. And so you have to be able to be a full-bodied man in this respect of a fully warrior and fully

00:09:16.960 poet. You got to be a lion and a lamb, not one of the other, recognizing that there are pieces

00:09:23.160 of masculinity that require you to be gentle and kind and loving and patient and romantic.

00:09:31.120 And the warrior is like, ah, trash. If I can't shoot something with it, I don't care about it.

00:09:36.820 Like that's awesome when the ninjas are pouring over the hills to attack, but it's not so good when,

00:09:43.220 you know, uh, all your relationships hang in limbo. You're trying to, um, climb a ladder and

00:09:49.360 get a job and leverage relationships. Everything's going to go really, really bad for you. And so

00:09:54.460 we really need to be lovers and fighters, not one of the two.

00:10:00.420 How do you, how do you propose? And I know this is a really broad question and obviously it's nuanced,

00:10:05.080 but how do you propose that somebody who is more of the warrior archetype begin to move into this

00:10:11.580 poet archetype because it's uncomfortable. That's what keeps them from doing it. Right. It's, it's,

00:10:16.640 we know, especially in certain circumstances that we should be operating a little different than our

00:10:21.600 status quo, but it's really uncomfortable to do, which is why I think most men aren't really willing

00:10:26.540 to move into it very easily. I think it's easy to judge people that, uh, have different strengths

00:10:33.320 and weakness combinations than you, because you can quite rightly look at somebody that's built

00:10:37.880 different than you and be like, look at those weaknesses. You're pathetic, bro. Uh, and you

00:10:42.280 don't recognize some of those strengths. And so I'd recognize some folks of like, all right, Heyman,

00:10:46.600 they seem to be flourishing in a way that I'm not, you know, every, you know, uh, their relationships

00:10:52.780 are held really well. How do they do that? Why does everyone like them? And everyone's always a

00:10:58.540 little pissed at me. What can I learn from this guy and be able to listen, lean in and be able to

00:11:05.740 understand what in the world you're doing wrong in those respects and recognize, man, uh, you've

00:11:11.980 certainly got some strengths in, uh, some respects, uh, but you've got real big weaknesses in others

00:11:17.520 here. I'll, I'll, I'll, and, and actually I think the poet has something that even more important than

00:11:24.540 the warrior here. I like to craft this argument, the first and second amendment, which is more

00:11:30.780 important. You want to give it a go or you want me to just answer? Uh, just answer. Cause I think

00:11:35.840 this is a trick question here. So you just answer. It's not a trick question because it's not like I

00:11:41.360 can prove it's right. But I do say that the founders put the first one first for a reason.

00:11:46.760 The first amendment is filled with freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom of

00:11:52.040 religion and ability to assemble all the good stuff, you know? Uh, and the second amendment is there to

00:11:59.100 make sure you can keep all the first freedoms, right? And so the bodyguard protects the person

00:12:05.720 that they're supposed to lay down their lives for the principle in that respect is more important

00:12:10.620 than the bodyguard. Uh, meaning one is saying, Hey, I'll, I'll trade my life for you. And the

00:12:17.120 principle says, okay, thank you. I will pay you for this. You know, so the second amendment safeguards

00:12:22.820 the freedom, but what's more important, the guarding of the freedom or the actual freedom itself.

00:12:27.400 The poet is on to all those deep enjoyments of freedom, drinking from the well of life and

00:12:36.440 relationships of marriage and fatherhood and, uh, business and, uh, religion and, uh, all the,

00:12:45.280 all the philosophy, all the things where we can find meaning and purpose and hope. The soldier has a

00:12:51.500 sacred role as well, but it's one of a protector. And though they can absolutely have theologies and

00:12:56.880 philosophies and, and relationships, uh, it's the poet that really leans in and discerns and grows

00:13:05.540 more in those respects than the warrior can. Each camp has a, in, in massive amount to teach the

00:13:12.480 other one. Uh, you can have also, yeah, I'll go ahead and cut it off there because I can just keep

00:13:16.300 riffing. Yeah. I mean, riff as long as you want, but as you were saying that, it got me thinking that

00:13:22.000 if, if there's nothing to protect, then the warrior is obsolete, right? The warrior is not, uh, intrinsically

00:13:30.720 valuable if there's nothing to protect. Right. Now you're a marauder. Now you're a mercenary. Now

00:13:37.420 you're just a hired gun looking for a fight. And, uh, yeah, you may be good at fighting. You may be

00:13:44.320 able to go all Viking on somebody and pillage and plunder for a little while. And, uh, but there's no

00:13:50.000 meaning in that life. There's, there's no value in that life. Uh, you know, and so living for a

00:13:56.220 fight, well, what do you do when there isn't a fight anymore? I see what happens when guys are

00:14:00.920 just wired to fight and they've been fighting for a long time. And all of a sudden they stop. They

00:14:04.200 have a crisis of identity. They don't know who they are anymore. In the absence of a fight, they

00:14:07.980 create fights everywhere. And those are usually with the people that they're supposed to be loving

00:14:12.400 and protecting in a sense, they implode and then they explode. It's a toxic, toxic thing.

00:14:18.600 Um, do you feel like there's, because I mean, the, the title of the book is the warrior poet way,

00:14:24.420 a guide to living free and dying. Well, and you know, if you were to go even just through the sub

00:14:28.380 the chapter titles, it's the world needs warriors, you know, being dangerous, uh, defeating the inner

00:14:33.980 tower, facing death. Like these are all very warrior oriented topics. Do you feel like,

00:14:40.420 and maybe as I'm saying this, I'm answering my own question, but do you feel like the greater

00:14:44.840 threat to society is that we don't have enough poets or that we don't have enough warriors?

00:14:48.600 You know, I think, uh, the pendulum swings throughout history are just that. And especially

00:14:55.320 in our time, we vacillate far more toward, uh, poets, but really even us as poets, we aren't

00:15:02.580 the strong poets that we should be living for purpose and deeply drinking from a well of truth

00:15:10.360 and living by those things and, and finding beauty where instead we are hopelessly depraved and

00:15:17.320 we're not finding a beautiful way to expound truth. We're fighting against truth. So it's not

00:15:23.080 that we are more poet than warrior. It's that we're neither in society today. And that is awful.

00:15:28.040 And so, um, I, I would say, uh, really men, uh, tend to trend one of two ways. One is,

00:15:36.300 you know, kind of more of that red pilled alpha and, uh, you know, their strengths are obvious,

00:15:42.000 but their weaknesses are terribly obvious to everyone except them. Uh, the poets as well need

00:15:47.760 to man up, grow a spine, speak the truth, refuse to self-censor everywhere. I look, there's a fight,

00:15:54.120 whether it has to do with protecting our kids or just woke crap, challenging every single facet of

00:16:01.300 life. Uh, there is a fight everywhere. I look at, and men are just so terrified to even say the truth,

00:16:08.180 uh, to be able to lead. And so I find our current state of affairs to be a dismal one, both from a

00:16:16.720 poet and a warrior aspect. I would point out in the book though, of like the first few chapters

00:16:22.540 really center a little bit more on warrior, but it, uh, you know, the latter ones, it's like, Hey,

00:16:27.760 how to stay free and raising little poets and goodness, not greatness and learn how to dance.

00:16:32.700 And every, uh, every warrior needs a muse. And then the fifth one, chapter five, it's a war of

00:16:38.700 ideas. So it's kind of a philosophical bridge where you have, uh, poet chapters after and warrior

00:16:45.240 chapters before is kind of the organization. But what I didn't want to do is, uh, lay out such a

00:16:51.500 dichotomy. It's like, okay, you need to be 50% one and 50% the other. I'm like, no, no, really.

00:16:57.400 And it should be a hundred percent one and a hundred percent the other. Uh, so that simultaneously

00:17:02.800 John level is a certain man. And the man that I am happens to be someone Taliban will fear,

00:17:10.280 but my children do not. And I'm the same dude. So there's two different ways that different people

00:17:17.480 would look at me, but I'm fully warrior and fully poet because like, for instance,

00:17:22.600 when a soldier goes to war, he doesn't take part of himself. He takes the whole man, all of his

00:17:28.520 beliefs, all of his past experiences, his mind, his hands, his heart, the whole deal. The poet packs up

00:17:36.040 and marches to war with the warrior. And the warrior comes with the poet, uh, to, uh, pursue his bride

00:17:44.380 forever, uh, is the idea and, and to be able, uh, to strongly nurture his kids. And so there you go.

00:17:53.160 Yeah. I mean, that, that makes sense is you're, I think this probably embodies what you were saying

00:17:57.380 when you said, uh, the full bodied man is that you're, you're integrated and you're familiar with

00:18:01.860 it and you can be dangerous, but you don't have to, but you can be firm. You know, I think about from

00:18:06.500 a poet perspective, I think typically we might just assume that a poet is the coward, the timid,

00:18:11.600 the weakling, the artistic that doesn't have this, the backbone or the spine to do anything to back

00:18:15.920 up his words. But if you look at like interesting people, even now you have, well, I mean, there was

00:18:22.340 Jesus Christ who I would say was more poet, but the warrior aspect of, of poet to very firm in his

00:18:29.460 beliefs and willing to stand firm on them. Uh, guys like Martin Luther King jr. Poet, right. But also

00:18:35.520 willing to stand by those convictions. And even somebody like Jordan Peterson, who clearly is

00:18:40.600 confrontational in his messaging, but knows how to use words so effectively. So we don't consider him

00:18:48.000 a poet as much as we would, I think a fighter. Yeah. It, it's tough to be able to figure out of

00:18:55.140 like, all right, who's in which camp. Right. And I think it's a fun exercise. Cause I'm like,

00:19:00.060 I'm, I'm with you there. And immediately I'm like, well, I'm not sure where the litmus is,

00:19:03.600 but you're right. Guys do kind of go from one to the other. And some people, because they love

00:19:09.300 deep truths, they end up accessing this warrior in it to fight on the other. And so one, it bleeds

00:19:15.860 constantly into the other. And so I think that's pretty cool. The Jesus one's tough because where

00:19:22.080 we see Jesus on earth, he is operating a little bit more in that poet respect, but for all eternity

00:19:30.000 passed, he's the commander of the Lord's army of revelation 19. So he's got a sharp double-edged

00:19:35.000 sword to strike down the nations and he rules heaven and he rules earth. And so he put that aside

00:19:40.840 on a death mission to be able to come to earth, to rescue mankind in a hostage, you know, rescue

00:19:49.520 operation kind of scenario. And so he put sword aside, but heaven sees him as eternal warrior and poet.

00:19:57.220 If I have the audacity to put my moniker on him, I'm seeing, uh, uh, the lion of the tribe of Judah

00:20:04.340 in revelation chapter five in heaven sees the great lion, the ancient of days, Jesus Christ.

00:20:11.620 And then, uh, the apostle John, who is having this kind of holy visitation sees Jesus in heaven,

00:20:18.020 revelation five. But when heaven saw a lion, John saw a lamb. And so you see warrior and you see poet

00:20:24.280 embodied in the same, uh, person, the God, man, Jesus. And so, um, we definitely see in the new

00:20:32.620 Testament when God became flesh and made his dwelling among us, he was certainly playing more

00:20:37.840 of the poet role, but he's full warrior before. And next time you see him, it's not as a lamb,

00:20:43.800 it's as a lion. And that's Armageddon that, that that's the end. That's when he, uh, yeah,

00:20:49.520 conquers and ushers in judgment of the earth. Yeah. Interesting. When you talk about the concept

00:20:55.660 of being dangerous and I, and I know Jordan Peterson, uh, has this, you know, viral and

00:21:00.060 famous quote now about a harmless man and being a dangerous man. What, what specifically are you

00:21:06.120 talking about? Because the likelihood of us having to defend ourselves in a violent encounter or a life

00:21:13.000 and death scenario is significantly reduced relative to what it was maybe a hundred or, you know,

00:21:17.980 a thousand years ago. So what does it mean for a modern man to be dangerous?

00:21:23.580 Well, I would say, uh, the Biden administration is highly dangerous. Uh, I believe, uh, some things

00:21:30.300 that, uh, you know, some of the globalists would push on us are extremely dangerous. I think sexual

00:21:35.360 predation is very dangerous and none of those people are carrying swords. Ideas are ever so dangerous.

00:21:42.580 And so you could be a very dangerous man in the battlefield of ideas. So for instance,

00:21:48.040 I have no idea whether Jordan Peterson has a good, uh, right hook. I have no idea. I hope he does in

00:21:55.340 my heart. I think Peterson has a good right cross. I don't know, but I know he's a dangerous man in the

00:22:01.340 battlefield of ideas. And so that's one area where a man is strong and dangerous, right? Uh, physical,

00:22:07.280 that's another place where man can be able to be strong in that ideas. I think guys are supposed

00:22:12.760 to be protectors. We've been given strength to be able to bear our burdens and the burdens of others.

00:22:17.480 And we'd be able to protect the innocent. That's part of what dudes do. So let's not just be dangerous

00:22:22.740 intellectually. Let's be dangerous in the respect of physical strength. Let's also be dangerous

00:22:28.760 in our virtue, meaning we will not stand by passively and let evil triumph and destroy the good

00:22:36.900 and victimize people. And so a dangerous man is somebody who lives for convictions and refuses to

00:22:42.900 budge in the face of bullying and evil. And so all of that stems from the heart of who a man is,

00:22:49.180 right? And so he is dangerous in that respect that he is strong and in a multifaceted way,

00:22:55.400 not just, he's got a really good deadlift. He's multifaceted in his strength. Cause I've found a lot of guys

00:23:02.460 who had traps growing out of their ears, running their show, just mammoth, strong dudes. And you

00:23:08.280 cut them off in traffic and they lose their mind. That's a weak man. He may be dangerous, but, but not

00:23:13.520 as like a hero would be dangerous, but more like a villain or an anti hero. That's a guy that doesn't

00:23:18.860 even have the strength to control his own rage. That's a pathetically weak man and he's dangerous,

00:23:23.960 but he's not good and dangerous. And so we want to be good and dangerous and recognizing our strength

00:23:29.780 flows from our virtue. And that makes us a different kind of animal that makes us the type

00:23:34.740 of person that stories were written about in their tales of heroes, which we used to actually

00:23:40.540 like now it's all victim tales. We used to honor heroes. Why do you, why that shift? I mean, I know

00:23:46.760 it's, it seems like we're going to earn points, even if it's just social cloud, if we play the victim

00:23:50.800 card, but why do you think there's that general shift? I agree with you. Why is that happening?

00:23:55.980 And how do we reverse that trend? I think our ruling betters would like us men defanged,

00:24:04.060 declawed, neutered. You just had a podcast recently of what was it? The neutering or emasculation.

00:24:09.960 What was your latest one? I saw the title and I thought it was really good.

00:24:13.540 Uh, I can't, I might've said emasculation, a modern man, or, or I can't remember.

00:24:18.840 Maybe it was neutering or emasculation, something to that effect. But I think, uh, tyrants

00:24:24.620 cannot rule as long as strong moral, uh, men are guarding society. That's what's always kept

00:24:32.100 tyrants at bay is strong men that says no, and they're willing to stand up and protect.

00:24:37.520 So if you can make everyone weak or really easy to control, then that's the point. Anybody in power

00:24:44.180 wants one simple thing. They want more power and they want it for longer. That's it. It's the universal

00:24:50.240 rule of power. And so if you ever get power, you're like, Ooh, I like this. What would it be like

00:24:54.440 to get a little bit more money is the exact same way you think of like, Oh, I've had $5 billion.

00:24:59.740 That'd be enough. It's never enough for the billionaires. It's never enough for the millionaires.

00:25:04.040 People always want more and more and more. And so it is, uh, with power, I'm speaking in

00:25:08.300 generalities. Not every single person is, uh, is operating in that, uh, respect, but I think if

00:25:15.820 men are weak, we are easy to rule. And so I think there's propaganda to have us compete in our

00:25:23.340 victimhood in a race to the bottom. Uh, and what you see is just the general degradation and unraveling

00:25:29.640 of society. I don't have to work hard to press that point. Everyone really feels it inherently as

00:25:36.060 we are becoming so pathetically weak. Uh, it is mind bottling. Is it mind boggling or bottling?

00:25:42.580 I've never known. What is it, Ryan? Boggling. It boggles the mind. It boggles the mind. It

00:25:48.780 doesn't bottle it. It boggles it. Yeah. I think I saw some stupid Will Ferrell movie where he said

00:25:53.960 bottling and he's like, yeah, like it's your mind all crushed up in a bottle. And then I'm like,

00:25:59.520 you totally threw me for a loop. Uh, I used to take this position of, and, and I think it was

00:26:06.860 naiveness and, and, um, that the, these, these powers that be, for example, are just ignorant

00:26:14.160 about let's, let's take economics, for example, and that their bleeding hearts are getting in the

00:26:19.880 way of practical application of sound economic principles. It's hard for me to think that way

00:26:26.960 anymore. I mean, I, I think at this point we have so many examples of why, for example,

00:26:32.260 this euphemism of Bidenomics, uh, just does not work. There's so many examples throughout history

00:26:39.200 that it's clear. It's no longer ignorance. It's a deliberate attempt to weaken our economic

00:26:46.220 position, which keeps us wanting and needing those in power. Right. And a lot of folks will look to our

00:26:52.120 political leaders and think those are the guys running the show. If they look like morons,

00:26:56.500 uh, understand of like, well, those are the puppets that that's all you see is just hard to see the

00:27:01.860 strings unless you're paying attention. And so the folks that are truly running the world, they are

00:27:06.820 brilliant. They have a plan. It is a solid one. It's just a maniacal one. So who are those individuals

00:27:13.960 are the, and where do those individuals reside? Are they in the, you know, are these the, the,

00:27:20.140 the ultra mega wealthy that we hear about, like, who are these individuals that are pulling on the,

00:27:24.140 on the strings, if you will? I think, uh, individuals, I think families, I think, uh,

00:27:30.820 governments, uh, absolutely. Uh, and then there's the government you see, and then the government

00:27:36.020 that you don't see that is unelected and that, uh, will last through multiple presidencies.

00:27:43.260 They're unaffected by them. They flow, fly over the radar, uh, controlling and manipulating and,

00:27:50.740 and whatnot. And you don't see those guys very cloak and dagger.

00:27:54.500 How does that, how does that take place, um, on a generational level? Like I could definitely see

00:28:00.580 the man behind the curtain in certain aspects of life for a certain period of time, but you're

00:28:05.840 talking about lasting longer than election cycles, lasting longer than, you know, decades even like,

00:28:13.500 how does that transition take place if it's all behind the scenes?

00:28:18.640 I, I, I'm not saying that dudes are like Methuselah living forever or anything like that.

00:28:23.840 I think a certain, uh, ideology that wants to, uh, rule, uh, is fostering that kind of culture

00:28:31.880 and perpetuating it. Um, but I know there's folks in certain government agencies that have seen

00:28:38.580 multiple presidents pass through under their tenure and they're not really affected by the, uh,

00:28:46.180 the political races or anything else like that. And so they've got their job and they're doing their

00:28:52.300 thing. And so, yeah, yeah, that's what I think. But, uh, now we're, we're getting into something

00:28:58.100 highly speculative of this is what I think because, uh, other worldviews, which like you, I had naively

00:29:05.660 for a while, I'm kind of like, man, if we could just get so-and-so enough, they'd fix it. And I've

00:29:10.060 heard too many empty platitudes from politicians that come and go and nothing changes except for the

00:29:15.120 worst as bureaucrat bureaucracy mounts more and more. And you're like, why isn't anything changing?

00:29:20.460 And the one thing that does change is the government gets bigger and they get more power and more control.

00:29:25.940 That's what's happening. And so, uh, uh, I just don't believe, uh, almost any politician anymore.

00:29:34.280 Uh, and I really want my country back and I'd like to be left alone, uh, to live as I see fit.

00:29:39.760 Uh, and that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon because tyrants never live and let

00:29:44.460 live. They'll never just say, oh, you let them go. No, no, no. You have to rise up. You can't, you can't

00:29:48.840 actually just say, oh, well, I'll, I'll, I'll retreat back and just whatever. God, no, tyrants always come for you.

00:29:54.880 They want to rule. That's what they're going to do. They're not good for you to just hole up and be

00:29:59.560 left alone. They'll never let you do it. They never have. Yeah. That's why I think, you know,

00:30:03.960 I get comments. I'm sure you do too, about getting political. I'm like, you know, it's like, why,

00:30:08.100 why would I do that? To your point, like getting political, what, what, what could I do in the

00:30:12.380 political realm that I wouldn't have more ability and power to do in the cultural side of things?

00:30:18.120 And I think that's what you're doing. It is, I think for the, the person who would

00:30:23.900 lay into you and I and say, don't get political really is in the stupidest way possible. Not even

00:30:31.740 reading the terrain in a cursory way in 2023. Oh, okay. Won't get political real quick. Tell me the

00:30:39.760 subjects I can talk about that aren't political. Right. Of course you can. Give me one of like

00:30:45.000 masculinity of like, no, whoa, whoa, whoa. LGBTQ of I, how many gender if like, can't talk about

00:30:50.880 masculinity or femininity. We don't even know what a woman is. And that's a political subject. Now

00:30:55.940 can't talk about abortion because somehow that's a political issue. I don't know how that's a

00:31:01.340 political issue. It should be a biological or a theological in no way should that be a political

00:31:06.720 issue yet. It is. We could talk about, Oh, let's safe. Let's talk about the weather. Whoa,

00:31:12.480 whoa. Climate change. Can't talk about the weather. There is no subject under God's great heaven that

00:31:19.240 you can talk about that is not been eaten by politics. So for you to say, I will not talk

00:31:25.000 about politics in 2023 is the same as saying, I will not talk. I mean, I agree with what you're

00:31:32.240 saying. I meant more of getting running for political office is what I'm referring to. So,

00:31:37.800 with what you're saying, agreed. There's things that you have to make a stance about and some

00:31:42.860 people are going to say that's being political and you know, so be it. Fine. Then that's what

00:31:46.760 we're going to talk about. I was mostly referring to running for political office and trying to

00:31:51.440 affect change that way versus doing it as a civilian in the cultural battle that we see.

00:31:57.580 Got it. Well, Ryan, if you want to run for office, I'll vote for you.

00:31:59.880 I'll vote for you. I mean, we can just vote for each other.

00:32:03.200 I caught it. I caught it first. Not it. You're in.

00:32:06.320 No, I said it before. I told you, I said, I'm not doing that before I even asked you the question.

00:32:10.780 So I called it. I mean, I called it.

00:32:12.940 Let's agree to both not run because man, I would, God would have to call it from the heaven and say,

00:32:20.020 you must run for office for me to follow that. That is absolutely a dumpster fire. I do not believe

00:32:26.280 I'd be effective because I don't think I'd take, or I know I would not take the suitcase full of

00:32:30.440 money. And then that would be, I'd be a person, a persona non grata. And so I wouldn't get anything

00:32:39.060 done because I would refuse to compromise. And that's not how politics work. You just can't make

00:32:43.400 any progress without compromise. I'm like, no, I'm not going to compromise. I'm like, all right,

00:32:46.620 well then I'm just going to get up and preach it. Everything is evil and everyone is terrible.

00:32:51.800 Stop sucking at everything. And then nothing would change. So, and then they would attack me

00:32:57.500 and denigrate me in every conceivable way. So yeah, let's save everybody the upset and I'll just

00:33:04.300 keep doing what I'm doing. All right, man, I'm going to step away from the conversation. I know

00:33:09.000 you're enthralled with the conversation that John and I are having, but I got to step away real quick

00:33:12.820 because I have something to share with you. And I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a desire

00:33:17.880 to do and be more in life? Now, I know that's a bit rhetorical because chances are high that if

00:33:23.780 you're listening to this podcast, you have, but with all the self-development nonsense out there,

00:33:29.100 it's, it's hard at times to know what exactly you should be doing, considering that everyone out

00:33:34.280 there is telling you something different. And you actually might believe that we fall into that camp

00:33:37.980 as well, but here's where I think we're different. Our life planning tool, it doesn't tell you what to

00:33:43.460 do because I don't know what you should do. All it does is encourages you to identify for yourself

00:33:48.860 what you think you should do based on your own goals and desires, not mine, not anybody else's.

00:33:56.280 All we're here to do is give you a framework for helping you identify your goals and work as

00:34:01.220 efficiently as possible in achieving them. And the good news is, is that I want to share this tool with

00:34:05.640 you for free. All you have to do is go to order a man.com slash battle ready again, order a man.com

00:34:12.660 slash battle ready, sign up for our free email series and start working through the emails.

00:34:17.960 That's it. We're going to guide you, but it's up to you to identify where you want to go and then

00:34:23.220 to do the work required. And we'll show you how to do that again, sign up at order a man.com slash

00:34:28.580 battle ready, order a man.com slash battle ready. Do that right after the conversation for now,

00:34:34.080 let's get back to it with John. Well, I think that's, I think there's a lot of power in what you're

00:34:40.620 doing organizations like yours, where, where we can quite literally impact millions of people to

00:34:47.720 start thinking and behaving in a more powerful way. I don't, I don't know that it's always been

00:34:53.140 like this. It probably hasn't with the rise of digital technology and the internet. Like it's

00:34:58.580 pretty incredible how many people this podcast, for example, is going to reach and why do I need

00:35:03.580 to be political? Or why do I need to go through the traditional media outlets when I could use these

00:35:07.920 mediums to reach the same, if not more people than I could these traditional routes?

00:35:13.500 And it is so exciting to see traditional media just go down in utter flames. They deserve to die

00:35:20.760 a painful, fast death. And that's what's happening. And it's thrilling to watch because they have

00:35:27.040 absolutely abdicated their sacred responsibility to report the news and have instead become propaganda

00:35:33.240 machines to screw them, die legacy media. And anyone at least think of like, Oh, John's saying

00:35:39.580 everybody should know that I, the institution, let's keep all the people alive. Yay for nonviolence.

00:35:45.340 And I want the institution to go to zero bankruptcy is what I mean. And so that's awesome. And now we're

00:35:52.380 witnessing the rise of the citizen journalist instead. And I think that has some really good aspects to it

00:35:59.280 and some bad aspects. So this will be a very interesting next five to 10 years to figure out

00:36:04.620 in the world, how do we engage in reliable citizen journalism? Because we're going to have to struggle

00:36:11.880 for a certain amount of sophistication. And then you rush to a story and it has lots of conjecture and

00:36:17.740 then you're following personalities that you trust. And then it becomes a narrative kind of thing to

00:36:21.580 itself. And when can we just get non-biased stuff? And, you know, it's the same problem as before,

00:36:27.960 but without all the globalist corporate sponsorship. So overall, I think it's the only

00:36:33.080 way that we can, you know, go forward. And so I'm excited about that. But there's a lot of folks

00:36:41.080 that are still lulled to sleep by the propagandist arm of the government, the media.

00:36:47.140 Well, and I think there's just a lot of laziness and ignorance as well. I mean, one concern I have is

00:36:51.440 the rise of AI technology. You talk about citizen journalism, but, you know, I saw a post on Facebook

00:36:58.720 the other day. It was a, it was an image, I'll call it an image. And the caption said, this is a,

00:37:04.020 you know, a beautiful photograph. And everybody's like, it is a beautiful, I'm like, that's not a

00:37:08.100 photograph. That's an image that's been generated. That's not a picture that was taken of an actual

00:37:13.380 place or event. And I think there's going to be a big problem is we are going to have to learn to

00:37:20.360 decipher between what is actual and what is just fabricated.

00:37:26.460 Yeah. I wonder, you know, and this is a new thought and it has nothing to do with my book

00:37:30.840 or anything else like that, but, uh, let's rip.

00:37:32.980 We've got off, we've gone off tangent a little bit, but it's okay. We'll bring it back.

00:37:35.680 I think AI has been in full swing, uh, changing people's thoughts and opinions for quite a while

00:37:42.660 now. Um, I don't know what quite a while is, but longer than we think. And I say that because

00:37:49.560 10 years ago, every person I knew under the sun believed there were only two genders,

00:37:54.720 everyone. And now it seems like a, a large chunk of the country has no idea which bathroom to use

00:38:02.960 anymore. Uh, and, uh, then there's all this weird sexuality stuff as well. And it's fat,

00:38:09.020 it's happening so wildly fast, uh, that I'm like, how can you so uniformly change such a massive

00:38:19.680 percentage of the population's, uh, minds on something that was so concretely nailed down for

00:38:27.360 all of human history up until recently of like infinite amount of genders, you know, like, well,

00:38:32.640 whatever of like all of human history we've known. Uh, and so here we are. Uh, and I'm like,

00:38:39.520 how could that possibly happen without a really, really sophisticated, um, uh, machine mechanism

00:38:50.440 to be able to change a large amount of people's minds in a short time? Uh, AI explains it. Uh, but

00:38:58.760 this is some scary stuff going in. I'm scared because the smartest people that actually understand

00:39:03.820 the technology, they're afraid. And so it's kind of like, if, uh, you don't have to know a lot about

00:39:09.700 bombs, but if you see a bomb technician running, you should run too. And so I see the AI technicians

00:39:17.320 running and I'm like, Oh crap, it's going to kill us all. Right. I'm like, Oh, probably. I'm like,

00:39:21.780 great. Awesome.

00:39:22.580 Um, I just want to know how long do I have, you know, like, what do I need to do in the meantime

00:39:27.440 to be, you know, to enjoy the rest of the time that we have on this, uh, on this world?

00:39:31.660 It is looking like we'll finish this podcast. So there's a, there's a silver lining. We'll make

00:39:35.860 it through this. This is exponentially getting worse. That's right. Hey, to bring it back to the

00:39:41.460 topic, I am curious about one word and one concept in, in, uh, specifically, and that is the idea of

00:39:47.860 vulnerability. You know, I've, I've wrestled with that. I've toyed around with that a little bit. I think

00:39:51.720 the way that a lot of people use it in pop culture, I don't really like. Um, and that is

00:39:56.380 just bear your soul, bear all your problems. And it starts to tiptoe into this victim mentality,

00:40:02.720 uh, because I don't think people are using being aware of their inadequacies to grow. I think they're

00:40:09.980 trying to, or attempting to find virtue and being deficient, but what is your thought of the concept

00:40:15.300 of vulnerability? I like vulnerability, but vulnerability is kind of like trust. I choose who

00:40:21.660 I'm going to be vulnerable around. I think a better thing that would be a good presentation

00:40:26.320 to all the world isn't, Hey, here's all, here's my bleeding heart. Random people. I don't know.

00:40:32.320 I hope you don't violate that and use it as a weapon against me. I'm like, man, the world's

00:40:36.240 twisted and evil. Don't be vulnerable to, to enemies and friends or people that are close to you

00:40:42.860 that are secretly enemies. They're going to destroy you with it. Uh, and so it being emotionally

00:40:49.140 available and vulnerable seems to be, uh, exalted as a virtue, but that's something like trust. It

00:40:55.500 should be slowly earned and quickly lost. I, I would, instead of running to vulnerability,

00:41:02.060 I would go to humility. I think humility is something that's safe to project to the rest

00:41:07.400 of the world. And so, uh, humility can be a great strength. So for instance, I think the

00:41:12.840 very center of, uh, of depravity is pride. It's the ultimate anti-God thought, not God,

00:41:20.040 but me. Uh, humility is the very center of Christian morality. It's not me, but God. Uh,

00:41:27.280 and it recognizes there's something more important than me and greater than me. And from that,

00:41:33.120 that's a root that grows out into every single characteristic you have. Pride poisons everything

00:41:39.840 and humility heals everything. And so I think humility is the better thing. It's interesting.

00:41:46.180 Even as we tie this in to the warrior stuff, it you've probably experienced this too. Uh,

00:41:52.420 you're a jujitsu guy, the baddest jujitsu guys, you know, what are their temperaments like Ryan?

00:41:59.040 Yeah. Patient, calm, unassuming. Like these are guys that are killers. You know that cause you've seen

00:42:04.080 them and yet you would never assume that in their everyday life.

00:42:07.880 They're humble guys. And I've experienced the same thing with pipe hitters and, and,

00:42:11.680 and rangers and, you know, whatnot, and some Delta guys and Holy smoke. Some of the most

00:42:17.620 savage, most dangerous dudes are also incredibly humble. And, uh, what people don't realize

00:42:25.400 is humility is a massive source of strength that allows you to be teachable. Humble people are

00:42:32.340 teachable. Arrogant people aren't teachable. You can barely teach them anything. And so when you try

00:42:36.200 to do something truly, truly difficult, uh, like ranger battalion, for instance, I noticed the PT

00:42:42.340 studs would get there, but they couldn't stay there. They didn't have the teach ability. They

00:42:47.100 arrived better than everyone else, but they never grew past it. And so the humble guys that were worse

00:42:52.160 would end up passing them and going on. And the common denominator was humility. And I thought that

00:42:57.140 was so interesting. Humility is what allows your character, uh, to, uh, be able to grow. And it's

00:43:03.200 actually not humility is growing your character. Humility is the revealing that your character is

00:43:08.120 good. Uh, so that's interesting as well, that the pride movement, uh, you know, it's, it's literally

00:43:15.420 just the most anti-God movement. It's the, uh, it's the center of immorality that, you know, pride,

00:43:24.020 pride goes before a fall. We've always known pride was a bad thing of like me and myself pride.

00:43:31.360 Uh, and so, yeah, we won't survive this. It's not the, it's not just the anti-God. I mean,

00:43:37.760 it's the anti-everything movement, you know, it's the anti-family movement. It's the anti,

00:43:41.620 you know, goodness or virtue movement, because that all stems from, like you said, humility,

00:43:49.200 but also in service to something greater than ourselves. And if it's all about ourselves,

00:43:53.640 that level of narcissism destroys families. It destroys cultures. It destroys community.

00:44:01.120 It destroys goodwill. It destroys trust because all I know is that you care about yourself

00:44:07.080 so much so that you're willing to sacrifice everything else on the altar of you feeling

00:44:11.460 comfortable about it. Yep. There's no happily ever after for supremely prideful individuals.

00:44:16.840 Those are miserable. There's no happily ever after for narcissists. Same thing, pride,

00:44:21.820 enough pride and you become a narcissist. And so that's all that you see is parades of pure

00:44:26.560 abject narcissism. And they're, they're in their quiet moments. These are miserable people. You can

00:44:31.380 see it because they're very, very mentally unhealthy and unstable. All right. And so, um, that, that's,

00:44:38.600 that's what I see in these flamboyant displays. Interesting enough, there's a lot of gays out there

00:44:45.000 that really hate what's happening there of a guy I have a lot of respect for Dave Rubin. He's a,

00:44:50.060 he's, he's a gay dude. Uh, but, but, uh, anyway, I'm like, I bet, I bet David be a cool dude to hang

00:44:56.600 out with. And I bet he despises a lot of these huge pride events. You know, I don't see him,

00:45:02.580 you know, pridefully doing all the weird stuff. He's just like a dude and he happens to like other

00:45:09.080 dudes. And I'm own convictions about that, obviously, but I'm like, he's not doing the

00:45:14.640 flamboyant, toxic, mentally unhealthy pride thing. So before someone sets up a straw man of what I am

00:45:21.460 not saying there, let me rebuff that immediately. And I'm talking about something that's more

00:45:26.360 obviously, uh, mentally unhealthy. These, uh, pride, uh, is, yeah, is a terrible, terrible thing

00:45:37.500 that destroys you from the inside out and everyone attached to you. Well, it's not attention seeking.

00:45:43.060 Dave, I've had Dave on the podcast a couple of times. And the last one we did, I sat down with

00:45:47.260 him in person and no, not once did he mentioned his sexuality is some way to gain favor or some,

00:45:54.880 some points with me or my audience or, or anything else. It's the same way that I don't use my sexuality

00:46:01.400 to gain favor. It just, it is what it is. And I don't wrap up my identity in that it's just a part

00:46:07.320 of who I am. And I try to do right and do good. And hopefully my identity is wrapped up in trying

00:46:14.360 to live, attempting to live a virtuous life. Yeah. Cool. I want to see your episode with Dave.

00:46:19.640 I'll go back and see that. Did y'all hit it off? Was he a cool dude?

00:46:22.380 Great guy. Yeah. Solid guy.

00:46:24.100 Seems cool, man. I like him. So very good.

00:46:26.520 Cool. Very knowledgeable, very professional. Um, obviously knows his stuff. I like the, the,

00:46:30.980 one of the things I like most about Dave is that he's willing to, he, he has some controversial

00:46:35.520 ideas and he's willing to share them. That goes back to what we were talking about earlier.

00:46:39.680 He's willing to stay, even if you think he's wrong, at least he's willing to do it thoughtfully

00:46:44.400 and intelligently with his approach to, to what he believes.

00:46:48.540 Ah, humbly. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's pivot a little bit. We talked

00:46:53.980 a little bit about a warrior, maybe trying to embrace some of this more poet side of it. But one

00:46:58.260 question I get a lot or comment is from a lot of guys who, well, here's the statement, Ryan, I'm,

00:47:04.340 you know, 35, 40 years old, uh, grew up without a father. And I don't really know what it means to

00:47:09.560 be a man. I don't know how to be a man. And so these are the guys who I think tiptoe more heavily

00:47:13.980 on the feminine side because that's how they grew up, uh, or a softer side of who they otherwise could

00:47:20.780 be. And they want to become dangerous. They want to harden themselves. They want to be more manly.

00:47:27.020 So how does that individual begin to embrace that side of who he is?

00:47:32.240 And, uh, I, I definitely, it, it takes some chapters in the book to teach warriors, how

00:47:38.660 to become more poet. I tried to answer it real quick off the cuff and you just need longer to

00:47:44.460 do that. And similarly, it's going to take longer than I can just say off the cuff to be able to say

00:47:49.780 like, all right, you're naturally more this dude right here. And, uh, you, you know, that you should

00:47:55.700 be stronger in other areas and even more traditional masculine ways. That's awesome.

00:48:01.060 Knowing this kind of half the battle and that's fantastic. But I would say just, uh, to be able

00:48:06.060 to serve and say something other than read my book, it'll help. Uh, Hey, I answered in the book.

00:48:11.800 What, what get the book, read the book, find out yourself. Uh, I'd say, man, you got to do

00:48:16.200 hard things. The only way to build certain types of strength is suffering. You gotta, you gotta get

00:48:23.020 hurt. Uh, and so you gotta do hard things. Uh, you're going to have to go through the refiner's

00:48:29.320 fire and it's going to hurt, but you're going to come out stronger and you don't just do it because

00:48:35.440 it's a good thing for you to do. A man should be so strong that he can carry all of his own

00:48:40.600 burdens. You should have your life so well, uh, handled all your own junk. So well established

00:48:48.720 that you have strong enough shoulders to take all the problems of a family and put them on your

00:48:54.700 shoulders. And then other people, friends and coworkers and whatnot, and then even societal

00:49:01.260 problems. And you're able to be able to carry all kinds of burdens because you have been able to carry

00:49:09.040 yours. And so a lot of dudes are walking around and they can't even handle their own junk. I'm like,

00:49:14.200 well, there's, there's something that you need to do right off the bat is figure out how to stand up

00:49:20.000 under the weight of the world around you and be successful, uh, and to be able to be disciplined

00:49:25.160 and to be able to control your anger and be able, uh, to go out and be smart in how you, uh, grind out

00:49:33.000 a living, uh, and to be able to be emotionally, uh, available so that you have something to offer

00:49:39.420 a woman other than opening pickle jars. Uh, so there's all kinds of aspects that we need to be

00:49:45.680 able to grow into, uh, as dudes. And if we get stronger and stronger, maybe you're gonna be able

00:49:50.920 to handle a family and then you'd be able to handle other responsibilities as well. So, uh, doing

00:49:55.800 hard things strengthens character and character, uh, when, uh, increases your perseverance and your

00:50:03.400 endurance. And so there's really just no shortcut. You're going to have to suffer. It's gonna hurt

00:50:08.820 and you got to run toward it. That's the short answer. There's a lot to unpack there, but that'll

00:50:15.000 be the, uh, teaser into the book. Yeah, no, I think that's great advice. It's hard because we do,

00:50:20.880 we do talk about that a lot, you know, both of us and other people as well about the concept of

00:50:25.640 suffering and doing hard things. It's like, we'll just go do hard things. And it's, it's,

00:50:30.140 it's not dismissive, but I think a lot of men could interpret that as being dismissive.

00:50:35.220 Yeah. Until you actually go do something difficult, you sign up for a race, or maybe it's that you

00:50:39.620 decide I'm going to work out every day this week. Like, I'm not going to miss a workout. I'm going

00:50:42.820 to do it. You know, things are going to come up, you know, you're not going to feel like doing it.

00:50:46.400 And so go do it anyways. And you're going to be a little bit more manly than you were yesterday

00:50:49.580 because you did that today. I think that's great. There's other aspects because the more we

00:50:54.340 talk about this, the more comes to mind of like, I devoted a whole chapter to conquering

00:50:58.640 fear. Cause fear is just something that can so utterly hamstring your life. You're afraid

00:51:04.420 of all kinds of things that you're not even really aware of. And it's that fear that has you stunted

00:51:10.940 and you're never going to grow until you figure out what in the world that is and how to conquer that

00:51:15.840 junk. And so, you know, refining character through suffering and be able to greet fear. And then

00:51:22.060 to ultimately feel your way, find your higher purpose. I've been extremely vocal about what I

00:51:29.740 think the only name given under heaven, which men can be saved by Jesus. That's my higher purpose.

00:51:34.600 Absolutely. And I think everything is ridiculous and purposeless aside from that great name. And so

00:51:40.900 there's my higher purpose. That's what I, I believe, but not everyone in the society believes

00:51:45.620 as I do. I wish they did, but they don't. And so I really wrote a book that was appealing to a much

00:51:50.320 larger audience recognize. There's a lot of people in warrior poet society that,

00:51:53.900 I mean, they're Islamic or they are, uh, atheistic, uh, you know, I've got some Buddhists and I'm like,

00:52:02.340 Hey, rock on, party on. I don't see you like you. I'm going to have all kinds of stuff in this book

00:52:07.520 that you'll be able to do that. You'll see some personal biographical stuff on my eyes. John sees

00:52:11.700 that way. All right. Uh, you get through it and then, all right, John's kind of done preaching

00:52:15.900 after those two pages. And then there's all kinds of stuff for everyone out there. So I tried to write

00:52:21.500 something that was more wide as our warrior poet society is, and not as narrow as John Lovell is.

00:52:29.860 By the way, somebody would be like narrow. Don't be narrow. I'm like, no freaking be narrow. Truth

00:52:33.980 is narrow and exclusive. That is the definition of truth. Two plus two, it equals four. And it doesn't

00:52:41.820 matter that you think that that's bigoted and unfair that in light of an infinite amount of

00:52:46.840 other numbers, only number four is correct. And so don't be afraid to be narrow as GK Chesterton,

00:52:53.180 the great 20th century philosopher would say the point, uh, of an open mind is like the point of an

00:53:01.840 open mouth. It's meant to close on something solid. And so as we learn and educate, uh, our mind closes

00:53:10.260 to certain ideas. May I think child, uh, slavery is a horrible, awful, evil thing, and it should never

00:53:17.540 be engaged in. My mind is closed to that idea. You think slavery is okay. I think it's evil and wrong

00:53:25.840 always. Therefore I am close minded toward that idea. Right. And so it's not always a bad thing to

00:53:34.460 close your mind to certain ideas. That's an interesting way to put it. I also think being

00:53:39.460 narrow in that approach is potent, right? So if you take a shotgun, for example, and you have a

00:53:45.440 shotgun blast, it's not going to be as powerful at larger distances versus a rifle that can travel,

00:53:51.180 you know, thousands of yards or a rifle around that can travel thousands of yards being narrow

00:53:55.240 is more potent. And I wish we had more people like that. One thing I hear a lot is, you know,

00:53:59.460 Ryan, you should address this and you should address that. I'm like, no, you should address that

00:54:03.440 because I'm addressing this and we need everybody engaged in their own battle. And you'd be more

00:54:09.060 powerful to address that and leave me to focus on the things that I want to focus on.

00:54:13.500 That's so good here, Ryan. When you said that, I just thought of this. If you live for 10 years,

00:54:18.960 maybe your philosophy and theology of life, it could be pretty wrong. It could be a shotgun blast,

00:54:25.800 you know, if like, you don't have to nail it all down very well, because it's not a long distance

00:54:30.720 you're on. But if you're going to live 80 years, you better be a better shot because over time,

00:54:35.040 your philosophy or theology of life is going to start to break down. And it's just not going to

00:54:39.740 work as suffering and pain enter in. You need a more robust theology philosophy of life, something

00:54:46.740 that will keep your relationships, your life from, from basically capsizing when you're 55,

00:54:54.560 you know, now, if you live eternally, you better have a sniper gun, a sniper rifle, because that shot

00:55:01.640 needs to be extremely precise. As our philosophy and theology, given a test of time, ad infinitum,

00:55:10.920 you need to be exact. And recognizing that in our youth, we can lazily just say, oh, everybody says

00:55:18.380 something different and everyone's right. Truth is narrow and exclusive by definition. And so we need

00:55:25.060 to be extremely accurate in how we work out our theology and philosophy. It must be that way

00:55:31.940 logically. And so what's going to be upsetting to all postmodern idea ears is, is that some answers

00:55:41.520 are correct and all the others are wrong. Two plus two is four. All the others are wrong. All of them,

00:55:47.480 every single one of them, there is a God or there is not a God. It, one of those things is true.

00:55:52.960 You know, not both. One of them is true. Uh, if there is a God, then God is some way and not all

00:56:01.200 the other ways, you know, God is loving or God is not. And so you can drill that down into what truly

00:56:08.800 is. Uh, and it, uh, I know it's hard for postmodern ears, but, but, um, truth is narrow and exclusive.

00:56:19.840 It is one way and not another way. Hmm. Well, that you talk, that you talk about the exclusivity

00:56:26.180 or, or, or the counter that is inclusivity, right? We always hear that you've got to be inclusive,

00:56:31.160 but what's interesting about truth is it's, it's the foundation, right? And you can decide to include

00:56:36.820 yourself in it or not. It's not excluding you. You're the one excluding yourself from truth.

00:56:42.500 You've decided to exclude yourself, not the other way around. Yeah. And truth has this very awful,

00:56:50.240 awful way of being non-politically correct of like, we're just talking about pride and, and, uh,

00:56:56.920 regardless of how we would have it, nature has decided that two gay men cannot reproduce.

00:57:02.960 You just can't. And nature doesn't really care what we have to say about it. You cannot do that.

00:57:08.720 Men cannot have babies just can't happen. And so, uh, here, here we are. I'm like, that's so narrow.

00:57:15.640 I'm like, Oh, that's, that's just the universe we live in. You can cook up whatever you want in

00:57:20.280 your own head, but the universe around you is not budging. Right. Right. Are you just thinking,

00:57:26.040 dang it? I can't air this. I'm never having John on. He just says whatever he wants.

00:57:30.800 No, these are, these are the conversations that I want to have. These are the conversations we should be

00:57:35.420 have, but you, I think we know each other well enough that we're okay with putting this information

00:57:40.100 out of the world. And if people like it, great. And if they don't, well, you know, it is what it

00:57:44.200 is. These are what, these are the, the comments that we're sharing. And this goes back to the way

00:57:48.820 that we started this podcast, that if you have something to share, then you want to share it.

00:57:53.320 And people can decide for themselves whether or not they want to embrace what it is you're talking

00:57:56.880 about. Yeah, that's right. And I'm going to say stuff that people either disagree with a lot or some,

00:58:03.400 and I hope they don't have such ridiculously delicate constitutions that they, upon hearing

00:58:10.780 something that they don't like, they can still be able to entertain some certain ideas. I'm like,

00:58:19.120 oh, it's a buffet. Here we go. I like that. I hate that. And I'm like, all right, rock on, man.

00:58:23.300 I don't agree with me a hundred percent of the time either. So you're in good company. I'm like,

00:58:27.960 I don't a hundred percent of the time. I'm batting like 98% agreement with what I say.

00:58:34.340 The one that's always funny to me is when people say, well, you know, Ryan, you're saying this, but

00:58:38.660 you know, two years ago on podcast 367, you said something counter to what you're saying today.

00:58:44.320 I'm like, that was two years ago. I hope I'm saying something different today than what I said two

00:58:48.960 years ago. Yeah. And what's more likely is they misunderstood and didn't actually drop that

00:58:55.180 blurb in a context. But yeah, to your point, I'm growing. I have not arrived. I have not figured it all

00:59:02.460 out. Yeah. I am. I am growing, bro. So back up off of me, man. Yeah. That's a good point, Ryan.

00:59:08.980 Yeah. I like that. Hey, one thing you said is you said that we are so afraid of things. Some were not

00:59:15.260 even aware of the things that we're afraid about. Do you have any personal ideas, strategies, ways that

00:59:21.440 you could become familiar with your fear and how that fear may drive some of the decisions that you

00:59:26.920 make in life? Yeah. And so, uh, there's fears that some people, when I'm like, what are you afraid

00:59:32.820 of? They'll immediately know some of their more conscious fears. Sure. Other things are unconscious

00:59:39.220 fears and you haven't really, uh, come to grips with, oh, wow, that, that is something that I'm

00:59:47.060 afraid of, or, or even why you're actually afraid of that. And you'll find tension in that area. You'll

00:59:53.120 find that it's easy to procrastinate in a certain area of your life. And you, it's not like, oh,

00:59:59.040 I'm, I'm afraid of that. Uh, instead you just get busy and you never really get around to doing that

01:00:04.000 one hard thing, uh, or the thing that, you know, you should do. And so you can insert that in of

01:00:08.580 everyone's going to, uh, I think, as I say that people are going to be able to fill in that blank of

01:00:13.500 what have you been putting off for far too long? And you know, you should be doing,

01:00:18.220 there's some kind of fear attached to that. Uh, and so your pain point, uh, can be this wonderful,

01:00:24.860 uh, compass, which will point toward what your, uh, fear is. And all you have to do is grab a

01:00:30.580 shovel, start digging and you'll figure it out real quick. And then the next thing is,

01:00:34.300 is you got to run at it. That's the only way to do it. You know?

01:00:37.780 Yeah. Yeah. That's a good, I like that of, if you're procrastinating, I never really considered

01:00:42.000 that if you're procrastinating and doing something, then there's usually an underlying fear

01:00:46.160 associated with it. I'm just trying to think in my own personal life and it might be making

01:00:49.540 a phone call. I'm like, I don't want to make this phone call. Well, why? Because it's going

01:00:54.440 to be uncomfortable and I don't want, you know, people to feel bad or I don't want to feel bad.

01:00:58.560 And so therefore I'm putting off the call. So I don't have the fear of making somebody else feel

01:01:03.240 bad. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I experienced the same. It's not always fear. Uh, but, uh, I think

01:01:10.980 more often than not people are surprised. I've been surprised as well of the, some of the things

01:01:16.600 I've been afraid of and to even dig down and be like, Oh, I really actually care what they think

01:01:23.820 of me a lot more than, than I realized, or I didn't want them to tell, you know, so-and-so that

01:01:30.560 I'm an idiot of like something so silly and trivial. And once I say it out loud, I'm kind of like, wait,

01:01:35.620 I'm afraid of that. I'm like, yeah, I think I am afraid of that. I'm like, son of a gun. Don't be

01:01:40.920 afraid. And then you get to self-speak and kind of talk sense into your, uh, inner self and you can

01:01:47.620 coach yourself through it a little bit. Uh, but you'll find all these barriers of resistance,

01:01:52.900 all these little walls that you didn't know were there and you could clear them out if you would

01:01:58.320 just face them and realize what in the world's going on. Yeah. Excellent. Well, John, I know we bounced

01:02:05.160 around quite a bit in this conversation, but that's how our conversations go. We always talk

01:02:08.680 about great subjects and things we plan for and things that are unexpected, but I like how that

01:02:12.680 goes. Um, tell the guys where to connect with you. Obviously you've got the book, the warrior poet way,

01:02:17.260 but tell the guys where to connect with you. Uh, if you have a specific place, you'd like them to pick

01:02:21.920 up a copy of the book, let them know, and, uh, we'll get them all synced up. Appreciate all you guys

01:02:26.580 listening. I would really appreciate it. If you, uh, yeah, uh, checked it out. It's the warrior poet way. You can

01:02:32.420 buy it at warrior poet way.com the warrior, uh, poet way.com. Uh, and, uh, yeah, pick up a few

01:02:39.520 really appreciate it. And, uh, the warrior poet way.com it's a redirect. It'll land on our website

01:02:46.180 where you can, uh, get the book, but all of our website stuff's there. And that's kind of like a

01:02:50.960 map that'll send you to our, our YouTube channel or podcast, or you sign up for our newsletter. So

01:02:56.680 you're always getting our stuff and big tech can't censor us, uh, censor you and keep us away from you.

01:03:02.060 So, uh, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all those things there that are never going to let you find

01:03:07.280 me. Um, we'll do our best. It censored us so wildly bad. It's almost just a joke now. Holy cow. They

01:03:19.280 hate us. So, uh, there you go, man. Yeah. Appreciate all the support guys. You guys are all right. If

01:03:23.740 you're following Ryan, I like you. It's always funny to see your accounts, you know, you put great content

01:03:29.340 out there and it gets engaged and people are saying, Hey, I love this. I love that. And you're

01:03:32.360 like, you look at your account, your, your accounts in there, you know, they stay the same forever

01:03:36.860 for the, for a year, like no growth whatsoever. You're like, this isn't even possible. It's not

01:03:41.600 even statistically possible anymore. It's not. It's like 0.05% of our followers actually see our posts.

01:03:47.940 I'm like, awesome way to go. Thanks. Thanks. Well, I think that's an indicator, at least one

01:03:55.240 indicator that you're doing great work. I've always believed that I'm always been, uh, been a fan and a

01:03:59.780 supporter. So guys, if you're not familiar with John and what these guys are doing, make sure you

01:04:03.060 check it out. Appreciate you brother. Thanks homie. Appreciate what you do, man. There you go.

01:04:09.380 The conversation with the one and only John level newly minted author of his latest book,

01:04:14.200 the warrior poet way, a guide to living free and dying. Well, I think you're going to enjoy it guys.

01:04:19.840 I know that if you listen to this podcast and you're in the iron council or you're following

01:04:25.320 us on social media, that you're going to be very, very interested in what John has to share. So make

01:04:32.340 sure to connect with him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you're doing the social stuff.

01:04:36.080 Threads is the new one by meta and meta, I guess is the thing that owns Facebook and,

01:04:42.220 or maybe it is Facebook now. I don't know, whatever, but threads, Facebook, Instagram,

01:04:47.640 Twitter, wherever you are, we're there too. Also John's over there. So make sure you connect with

01:04:52.600 him, pick up a copy of his latest book, the warrior poet way, a guide to living free and dying. Well,

01:04:57.440 take a screenshot right now, before I finish this sentence, take a screenshot, tag John, tag myself,

01:05:03.360 tag order, man, tag warrior poet society, post it up on the socials. Let people know what you're

01:05:07.640 listening to. And the last ask I have for you is to do the work of identifying your own goals and

01:05:13.780 working towards your own goals and ambitions, which you can do at order a man.com slash battle

01:05:17.700 ready. Holy cow. That's a lot. I gave you a lot. Connect with us on social by the book,

01:05:24.140 the warrior poet way and check out our battle ready program. All right, guys, you've got your

01:05:30.580 marching orders. We'll be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go out there,

01:05:35.240 take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

01:05:39.840 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:05:44.760 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - July 11, 2023

JOHN LOVELL ｜ A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well

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