LES STROUD | Become a Survivorman
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 13 minutes
Words per Minute
200.69618
Summary
Les Stroud is a legend in the nature, wildlife and survival communities for good reason. He s dedicated his life to understanding nature and wildlife, and our relationship with them, and he s been featured on just about every imaginable channel from Discovery to Nat Geo, and appearances on Ellen and Jimmy Fallon and Larry King Live. He's a deep thinker, and an avid teacher of all things nature and how to survive anything life may have to throw your way. In this episode, we discuss everything from our disagreements on the Boy Scouts, allowing girls, why women sometimes tend to be better survivalists, and what gets in men s way of contributing to society in the three ways that we can, what the joy of completion means, and ultimately how to harness it in our lives.
Transcript
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Gentlemen, my guest today needs no introduction. Now, most of you might know him as survivor man.
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His name is less Stroud and he is a legend in the nature wildlife and survival communities for
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good reason. You're going to hear all about that. Now I thought we'd be talking all about survival
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strategies and techniques today, but we immediately took the conversation deeper
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and covered everything from our disagreements on the boy scouts, new ruling, allowing girls,
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why women sometimes tend to be better survivalists and what gets in men's way, our responsibility to
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contribute to society in the three ways that we can, what the quote unquote joy of completion means
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and how to harness it in our lives and ultimately how to become our own survivor man in every facet
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of life. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not
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easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.
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This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Men, it's good to be back with you again today. My name is Ryan
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Mickler. If you're new to the podcast, this is a show designed to give you the tools, techniques,
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strategies, conversations, and resources. You need to step up more fully as a man, whether you're a
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a husband, a business owner, a community leader, whatever facet of life you're showing up. I want
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to give you what you need. It's my job to empower you in this really strange and crazy and frankly,
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insane society that continues to undermine and dismiss masculinity, manliness, and what it means
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to be a man. We are celebrating it. We are honoring it. And most importantly, we are fostering it.
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So I've got a great conversation lined up with less Stroud today. Before I get into that,
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I just want to make a very quick mention that we've got our free battle ready program available
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to you. It's been available for a while and we've had tens of thousands of men go through it at this
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point and have tremendous success in improving their own lives. You're going to learn how to
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create a vision, identify four key objectives in your life, start to narrow it down to the tactics
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you can employ on a daily basis to move you towards your goals. And then my after action review
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process, uh, that's going to help you stay on target. So if you go to order of man.com slash
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battle ready, order of man.com slash battle ready, sign up with your name and email. You're going to
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get an email directly from me. You're going to get a series of other emails and tasks that you need to
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do to get you on the path of life and excelling as a man again, order of man.com slash battle ready.
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All right, guys, with that said, let me introduce you. If you need it to a gentleman by the name of
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Les Stroud, uh, he's very, very popular for his award-winning TV show survivor man.
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Uh, but he's dedicated his life to understanding nature and wildlife and the outdoors and frankly,
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our relationship with them. And he's been featured on just about every imaginable channel from
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discovery to Nat Geo and appearances on Ellen and Jimmy Fallon and Larry King live. He's been
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everywhere. He's incredibly capable in the great outdoors. Uh, he's a deep thinker as you're going
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to hear in our conversation and also an avid teacher of all things nature and how to survive
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anything life may have to throw it your way. So I enjoyed this conversation. I know you guys will as
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well. Les, what's going on, man. Great to see you today. Hey, thank you very much. Yeah. I've been
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looking forward to it. I've been following you for a while and admittedly I'm not in the survival
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outdoor space, although I see a huge need for it. And I'm constantly trying to improve my abilities
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as a man and being able to survive and being creative and all of these things that you do is
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a crucial component of this. Well, thank you. Uh, I think it's, um, I don't know how much
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manliness I like to ascribe to it. Uh, I think it definitely gets kind of lumped in if you will,
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with that sort of ambiance of thought, I suppose. Uh, but yeah, you know, it's still a, it's a good
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rugged outdoorsy thing to be involved in. That's for sure. What, what makes you say that you don't
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know how much manliness is associated with it? Cause when I, here's my perspective as I hear it.
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And I think our job as men is to protect and provide, and we run into natural disasters and
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violent encounters and situations like this and being capable of doing that to me is a very manly
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or masculine attribute. Wow. Well, you know, what you really have to do then is define manly and
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define masculine. Um, but I think as far as the attribute itself is, is not, uh, limited simply
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to those of us with, with lots of testosterone. In fact, in fact, as a survival instructor, I can tell
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you that, that, you know, taking people out in the wilderness, um, the majority of the
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time, any women that I would take out often did much better than the men.
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What do you, what do you ascribe that to? Because I've talked with, um, professional shooters,
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for example, those who train firearms, firearms instructors, and they will actually say similar
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things. So what do you attribute that comment to that women often do better in some of these
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situations? Well, it's tricky. I think if I look, if I look, think back on my examples that I might
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have, I think maybe there's a bit of an expectation on us as the guys in the scenario to be, you know,
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wildernessy and we're all little Jeremiah Johnson's kind of thing. Um, and whereas, uh, the women show
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up on a course like this, they don't, that, that, that burden is not laid on them. If anything,
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they're, they're, you know, they're outliers and what are you doing here kind of thing.
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And so they come with a, I think maybe a sense of calmness. And of course, when it comes to
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wilderness survival and perhaps sharpshooting as well, uh, a sense of calmness is really vital.
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Uh, I've heard some say, oh, maybe it's their ability to, you know, women can, you know,
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because of childbirth and so on, they understand suffering a little better than others. I don't
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know that I'd agree with that particular version of it. I think it's more that they just seem to be
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a little calmer about it all. And men have an ego that may at times be difficult for them to
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separate their own ego from the miserable, cold, rainy night in a shelter with bugs biting
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and realizing that if you're calm and cool and collected, you can, you can survive this
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with a capital S survive. Uh, but if you're going to be all caught up in your own self about it,
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then yeah, you're going to be freaking out about everything. And women don't seem to do that.
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Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with that. I think that's, uh, generally true. How would
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in a survival situation? Well, let me back up. Here's where I see ego getting involved with men.
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If there's other men involved, right? So you've got another man involved and somebody's vying for
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leadership or, or some sort of perceived authority and they're trying to, you know, beat their chest
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and do this thing at the expense of themselves and the group. But even in a, in a survival situation,
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when men are alone, how would the ego get in the way of their own ability to survive
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the situation they're dealing with? Well, yeah. And I'm just sort of thinking about what
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you're saying. Cause really what you're going to, there's two points there and I'm going to kind
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of relate there to one, which is, um, what you really just described was sort of the same thing
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as when women say, Oh, I, I, I don't dress up for the guys at the bar. I dress up for the other
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girls. Right. Same sort of thing. Right. Exactly. You were just saying, and I, I would counter that and
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say from my own experience, I don't know that my ego comes into play too much because of other men.
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If anything, I'm probably worse off if there's women around, because then my, that part of my
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machismo might cause me to over-rise to the occasion, if you will, uh, sort of thing. Um,
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yeah. So I, I forgot where I was going to go with the, with the final sort of answer to your
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question there, but, um, I just wanted to make that distinction that, that there is that comparison
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to women doing what they do for women, men doing what they do for men. I don't think I do. I think,
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you know, when I'm, I actually find myself saying any kind of, uh, situation with a lot of men,
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which by the way, I'll tangent for a second. And I say, which can be a lot easier in some situations
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for me personally, you know, to be around other men. Is that what you're saying? Or to be in a
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challenging situation solely with men. Now we could dig deep into this, right? So why does
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less feel like that? You know, is it because I feel a cliched stereotypical sense of my protectionism
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for the women that might be in that scenario? So I would say sometimes it's, I also have a sense
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of frustration because, well, if this was just a bunch of guys, we'd be fine. But because we have,
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you know, a woman along, we have to find the extra bathroom and we have to do it. Right. So
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there's also that too. I'm being really candid here. You know, I mean, I've been in many, many
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survival and search and rescue and wilderness situations, uh, challenging adventure situations
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with both men and women. And on some occasions, having the co-ed version is phenomenal,
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really phenomenal to have those mixed personalities for really achieving. And other times it's detrimental.
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It's detrimental. You know, I can think of a time, one time I was in the Papua New Guinea
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in the jungle, and there was only one woman on the crew and she was phenomenal, usually in all
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these situations. But, um, but her desire to make certain that we were all comfortable and that we
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take breaks and, and, and that sort of thing, given the situation was very frustrating because what I
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really wanted to do and really what everybody else really wanted to do too, was be a guy and bear
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down and suck it up for six hours. No, no lunch break. No, no drink break. We got it. Like, because
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this is the worst part is getting over this damn hill, this muddy steep mountain that we got to climb
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is the worst part. No, we're not going to break for lunch halfway. Right. So, so that was a, there's a,
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there's a true life example of a time when I found having a woman in an adventurous situation was
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detrimental, but I will say before any women listening to this, get mad at me that the majority
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of the time, absolutely. I would prefer to have women, uh, men and women in a co-ed situation.
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Yeah. I mean, this obviously requires a bit of discernment and it seems to me that discernment
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and critical thinking are increasingly lacking in society today that you make a statement and
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everybody just applies it broadly and says, well, less, you know, he's a sexist or he, you know,
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because he, uh, he said, you know, in this one situation, it would have been better, but based on
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the situation, it's going to call for different things. And your ability to lead is ultimately
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what's going to, I think, move the needle the most and get people out of this encounter.
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Perspective. Right. You know, yeah, you're right. And this is, we could probably go on forever on this,
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but I mean, this is a strange era and it's an era where, you know, an innocent,
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uh, slip of the tongue. Now one might argue, is it ever innocent? So let's just for the sake of
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the argument, say an innocent slip of the tongue and you're damned, you're damned for life sort of
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thing. And then there are situations where you're damned if you do damned, if you don't, right.
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Which I find myself in most of the time. Right. Or if it's a misinterpreted incorrectly,
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you meant it one way and somebody takes it out of context and it gets spun and then people go
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on complete tangents. Yeah. And thank you social media for that. You know, now, now it's, it's,
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it's a whole world full of misunderstandings and misquotes. Yeah. Well, you know, I am glad we're
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talking about this because one thing I saw in preparation for this, and I know a bit about you
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is that you're a big proponent of Boy Scouts. And over the past several years, I've actually been
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openly critical about some of the decisions they've made. Uh, and one of the things that you talk about
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is, uh, the value of women being included. And I actually think that is not a good thing in the
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aspect of Boy Scouts. Co-ed, sure. Opportunities where, where young boys and young girls work
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together. But I also think there's a huge need for boys to learn exclusively from men and be surrounded
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by exclusively boys. I'd love to hear your take on it. I agree with you to a limit and here I've been
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thinking about this, you can tell I, and, and, and I, because I, I, I work with Scouts and I'm very
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honored to work with Scouts, uh, in many, many occasions. And so I'll state right out that first
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of all, I fully support the integration. I think the co-ed situation, uh, just as I've taught co-ed.
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So when, when I go out and do my wilderness survival, it's always been co-ed, you know, sometimes it's,
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maybe there is just all men, sometimes it's mostly women, but lots of times it's co-ed and the value in
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that is, is far exceeds locking it down to men and women. Uh, so what are we talking about here?
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Uh, if we're talking about the mentorship of young boys, where I think the lacking is, is not in this
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big group situation, but the father, son, the uncle, son, the mentor boy, the older man, younger boy.
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This, this is coming from a guy who had zero mentorship growing up. And so when I look at
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the, that the, you know, uh, not, not a controversial dilemma, but certainly a topic of
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conversation here, the changing of the Scouts, uh, I think, you know, what are we losing there?
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Because part of me in the beginning, absolutely. I'm like, wait a minute, but, but I, I want to be
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with the boys at some point and make fart jokes all night long and, and, and, and, you know, be,
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be goofy and, and, and, and go skinny dipping, you know, at 14 years of age, not worried that
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there's girls there sort of thing, like those kinds of things, because we have to be appropriate.
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Right. So, so are we saying, well, were you inappropriate when it was a bunch of boys?
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We weren't inappropriate given that it was only boys, right? It's different. For example,
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going skinny dipping. Let's just say that. Let's say as a 14 year old boy, I want to go skinny
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dipping. Well, I'm not going to do that at high school, right? That would be incredibly inappropriate,
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but would it be appropriate with my family or with my dad or my buddies at the cottage? That would be
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appropriate. And as soon as there's a girl, it's, it's now inappropriate. Now, maybe it's also
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inappropriate with just the boys, but you, you, you develop this understanding. I guess you have
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to go in knowing you have to go in understanding that our group of guys, uh, me and my six buddies,
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uh, yeah, we're going up to the cottage and we're going to hang out and we're probably going to skinny
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dip, you know, and if you're a man or a boy in that situation and you find that uncomfortable,
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then you can bow out and say, that doesn't make me comfortable. And I don't, I don't want to do that.
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Right. So back to the boy scouts and the scouts situation. Uh, I, again, I think that the
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real lacking and the real thing that we're missing out in the argument for only having boys is, but
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why it's this mentorship thing now, well, boys mentor boys. Well, you were a boy once, do we
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really? No, we rip on each other and it's not always fun and it can be very hurtful. And, and so
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boys, but it can also be productive though. Right. I mean, I think about boys, the way that we
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communicate with each other and even as grown men, you know, if you and I are friends, I'm going to be
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poking on you and picking on you a little bit and making fun of you. And they're probably an element
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of truth to that. But if we take it with the way it's intended, I think men push harder on each other
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as a form of accountability, which is positive. I would, I would say.
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Yes. The way you just said it. Yeah. The way it really plays out in life. I don't, I don't agree
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with you because, uh, you know, the way we poke on each other in high school is always painful.
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Uh, I, I was, you know, I was with the in crowd and I was with the picked on crowd. I've been in
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both, both. And I can tell you, it really hurts. Now people might push back at you. I'm not pushing
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back at you, but, but the, the, uh, what's the phrase for the sake of debate kind of thing.
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Someone might say, well, Hey, that's great. If you're all a bunch of Neanderthals, but that's
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old school. You know what? We don't do that anymore. Right. And I, and I would probably side more on you
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with you and say, well, uh, I, uh, first of all, I agree. There is definitely a need for
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stronger sensitivity. I think there's definitely a more sensitive culture that's coming up right now
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than the culture I grew up in. On the other hand, you know, there's a lot of things that I teach
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where at some point I, my, my line is look, I'm really sorry, but at this point, you just got to
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suck it up. Okay. You got to suck it up. Like, I think I get it. This, we can all be really
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sensitive in this moment, but what we really need to do is suck it up and get the damn job done now.
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So as boys, so I think I see what you're saying. I think as men, we have that opportunity to be
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men around each other and we can, as men, we tell fart jokes. It's ridiculous. But, uh, the boys,
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uh, I I'm not, I think, I think, I guess what I'm saying is, and I'm not trying to ride the fence
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here, by the way, I'm trying to think it through myself. So am I. That's why I enjoy conversations like
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this? Cause I can see it from both sides. It's an important one. And I think that really,
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honestly, there's room for all three. Uh, what are the biggest complaint we hear from the girls
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about why they wanted to join the scouts? Because the girl scout sucks. Right. Because all they're
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doing is knitting and needlepoint and baking cookies. So that's what I hear over and over again. And then
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you hear a counterpoint to that, which is, well, then why don't they just up the girl scouts?
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That one is actually something I get. I'm like, yeah, why didn't they,
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why didn't they, you know, up the girl scouts to it? Why didn't they, why don't they hear those
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complaints and get the girls out there surviving and building shelters and make everything like
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identical to what the boys do, but all girls and then all boys. And then in the middle,
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we have like venturers, for example, but I think in the middle, there's room in the middle for simply
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co-ed scouts. I think there's room for all three, to be honest with you. One that we understand
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this is about boys. And so we're going to be all boys here. This is about girls. And for the sake
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of the girls, we're going to be all girls here. And this is in the middle. This is about co-ed and
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it's about learning from each other as boys, as girls. But so all of this is spinning off of the
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original question. And my original point, which is what do we miss? What were we afraid of losing
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with the boy scouts with having them in? I don't think really much of anything. I think
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just the boys camaraderie, which you're saying is beneficial. I'm suggesting if it's only the boys,
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it's like, what's that, that movie where they're on the Island and it's all the boys, the famous
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movie. Anyway, it, it can be, it can get pretty painful pretty quickly.
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Yeah. And I think, you know, well, I think you're right. So, so you have a like Lord of
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the Flies is one that comes to mind. That's the one. And let me just finish by the way,
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but I just want to say that, so that my point was the thing that's missing is the adult male
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to young male mentorship. That's what I don't want to see go by the wayside.
00:19:15.320
Yeah. I'm really glad you say that because I see that as being an issue too. And that's a large part
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of the work that we're doing is ensuring that we, as men, whether you were a biological father or in
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a father hood type role, you said uncle earlier or a big brother or some sort of a community leader
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or a member of church clergy, we have an obligation to take our knowledge and information and turn
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around and impart that wisdom on our, on our boys who we are going to expect to step up and lead and be
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productive members of society. But if they don't learn it, they're going to be like the Lord of the
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Flies. You're absolutely right. Where it's very destructive and damaging because they don't know
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how to use their masculine virtues correctly. And, and we should, I have not, I'll tell you,
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you know, I mean, I train and do all the rest of it because I like my masculine virtues. You know,
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I'm pretty sure my wife likes my chest, you know, and, and snuggling up to it as I, as I hold her
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close, you know and, and, you know, you, you, you touched on something you said, you know,
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responsibility. And so, as I said earlier, I grew up with absolutely zero mentorship,
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zero guidance, nothing. And so one of the downsides of that is that not necessarily that I got involved
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in a lot of nefarious things, though I did. The downside is time. You lose an incredible amount
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of time in your life if you have to figure it out on your own. But if someone is going,
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can I talk to you about this? And someone is guiding you. You just shaved a year off of
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what you want to try to accomplish. You just shaved a month off. You just shaved five years off.
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You can shave off so much time with good mentorship in getting to live an effective life as an adult
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with that mentorship there. But without it, like in my case, I'm a late bloomer in absolutely
00:21:02.500
everything I've ever done because I've had to figure everything. My first bit of advice I ever got,
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I was 23 years old. And not being facetious, I'm not exaggerating my life. The first adult-oriented,
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calm, concise, good advice I got, I was 23. That's too long. That's way too long. I should
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have gotten it when I was 10 and I was 23. And that was one bit of advice. And after that,
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I became a kind of a junkie on self-help books and, you know, motivational listening and all of that,
00:21:36.460
you know, just to, I had to teach myself. Do you feel like your lack of that early mentorship from
00:21:42.520
other men in a way drove you to what you're currently doing with, because I don't think
00:21:48.240
anybody would doubt that you're a manly man or a masculine man now, right? Because you're in this
00:21:53.760
arena, you're in this world, you're doing these things and you're surviving and you're teaching others
00:21:58.380
about this. Is it that lack of that, that drove you to this direction or not at all? I'm really
00:22:04.760
curious about your perspective on that. You know what? It's a far more complicated answer,
00:22:09.120
but the short answer is yes. Yes. I, you know, as you say that, because I'm thinking of pudgy,
00:22:16.220
non-athletic me in grade 10, smoking, drinking, you know, all that. And I reversed all that around
00:22:27.240
and I mean, to this day, at this point, I, well, being a little facetious right now,
00:22:34.740
I didn't peak in high school, you know, and now I can look at all those guys who did peak in high
00:22:38.760
school who might've picked on me and who were the stars of the football team and the stars of the
00:22:42.180
hockey team. And they all got beer guts out to here and, you know, many, you know, failed marriages
00:22:47.380
and problems in some cases, failed fatherhoods and, and they just don't seem very happy. And so,
00:22:53.300
yes, again, the short answer being, yeah, I, I think being pudgy me and non-athletic me,
00:22:59.940
when I hit my twenties, I'm like, no more, no more. I want to be a, I want to be a man.
00:23:07.840
So what turned that for you? Was it a moment or a series of, of events? Because I know there's a lot
00:23:12.340
of guys who are listening to this right now who are feeling like the 20 year old version of you.
00:23:16.180
They may be 40 years old, but they feel like that guy. What is it that changed for you where you said,
00:23:22.440
no more of this, here's where I'm going. And then we can talk more about that.
00:23:27.040
So what is it that changed? It's an interesting way of asking the questions question.
00:23:34.440
I guess my internal drive earlier than that coming out of high school,
00:23:43.240
I just looked around at the neighborhood I grew up in, which was very, we had gangs and we had lots
00:23:49.920
of drugs in the neighborhood. And I mean, look, the bottom line is I should be, you know, basically
00:23:56.900
a little bit of a weekend alcoholic watching the game on TV and working at shipping and receiving.
00:24:00.960
That's what I should be doing. That's what I was meant for coming out of Mimico, Ontario.
00:24:04.980
But I looked around and no offense to that scenario. Many of my good friends are in that scenario and
00:24:09.840
I still love them to death, but I looked around and whatever it was, whatever it was in me,
00:24:15.280
and you can call it ego if you like. I just thought, no, no, there's something more. There's
00:24:23.460
got to be something more than this. I know there is. I know I can be more than this. And I don't care
00:24:28.880
what all my teachers has told me. And I don't care what my guidance counselor, how they humiliated me
00:24:34.580
and told, I was one of those kids that was told by the principal and the teachers and the guidance
00:24:39.940
counselors, you know, you just get a job less. You're not going anywhere. You know? And I just
00:24:44.000
thought something inside me said, you're wrong. You're wrong. And I'll show you. I don't know what
00:24:52.400
that is. To this day, I don't know what that is, but I do know that I didn't know how to manifest it
00:24:58.320
because I didn't have the mentorship. If I had the mentorship, I could have manifested that sooner
00:25:02.740
instead of having to read self-help books for 10 years. Yeah. That's an interesting point. It's,
00:25:08.340
it's interesting. As you say that you talk about, I do know that they're wrong and I'm going to prove
00:25:12.100
it to you. I've talked with about 350, very, very successful men in all realms of life.
00:25:18.600
And there's one thread that seems to under underpin a lot of these guys. And that is a bit,
00:25:23.880
and maybe this isn't the right way to say it. So you can correct me if I'm phrasing this wrong for you,
00:25:27.200
but a bit of a chip on the shoulder, like I'm going to show you, I'll prove it to you. And let me go
00:25:32.500
out and do this and, uh, prove others wrong. Do you feel that way? Or, or am I mischaracterizing
00:25:39.120
that? I think the only slight mischaracterization is that a chip on my shoulder seems like it's,
00:25:45.120
it's out of bitterness. There's some bitterness there. Vindication. Um, no, an edge. I don't know.
00:25:52.800
It, it, no, you know, it was, uh, it, it, it was a belief, my friend. It was just a belief in myself
00:26:02.600
that I shouldn't have had given my background. I should not have a belief in myself, but somehow
00:26:08.380
I just kept thinking something in this beings got something to give. And I don't know what it is yet,
00:26:16.340
but I, I, I know I'll find a way. And it was like, and that's my whole life's been, been like,
00:26:23.120
okay. And I used to say like, there's, there's no roadblocks for me. They're always just speed
00:26:27.340
bumps or hurdles. I'll, if I have to crawl under them, I'll crawl under them, you know,
00:26:30.720
but one way or another, I'm getting around these, these, you know? So I, I think the chip on the
00:26:35.660
shoulder, again, that, that sort of intimates a little bit of, of, of, um, bitterness and I'm not,
00:26:41.820
am I bitter? Um, I'm disappointed in my parents, you know, I'm disappointed in my, my adults,
00:26:50.080
the adults in my world when I was a teenager or younger, uh, but bitter, well, maybe I'm just
00:26:56.500
old enough not to be bitter. I probably was bitter at times. I'm sure I was, but I'm not,
00:27:00.680
not in, in, at the moment of this conversation, I'm not, I'm not bitter. I'm just more remembering,
00:27:05.480
you know? Right. So I know that your, your transformation into this realm, if I understand
00:27:12.940
correctly, started with, uh, canoe excursions. Is that right? You were, you were, you were in,
00:27:18.280
in music and you were pursuing that. And then you started, uh, taking excursions in the canoe. Is
00:27:24.340
that right? Is that how this kind of transpired and transformed a little bit? Is that the start
00:27:27.880
of what we're talking about now? Yes. Yes. Uh, and so why, you know, it, it, it, it gave me
00:27:38.160
something that I could do well. I could do nothing well in high school. Sure. I tried out for the
00:27:46.760
hockey team, didn't make it, tried out for the football team, didn't make it played hockey, you
00:27:50.700
know, house league and all the rest of it. Uh, but it sucked. Actually I was pretty good when I was 21
00:27:55.380
for about a year and a half. I was really good. You know, you have those moments. It's really weird.
00:27:59.960
It's like, especially with men out of high school, they start to sprout and get stronger
00:28:02.840
in it right out of high school. I'm like, man, if I could only had that three, four years earlier,
00:28:05.940
I would have been golden. Exactly. And that's, I certainly sprouted after high school in many,
00:28:10.840
many ways. Uh, but I think, uh, so the canoeing thing, it was, yeah, it was, I think it was just,
00:28:16.940
it was like a church group. It was a church group trip. And, uh, we went to Tamargame, Ontario,
00:28:21.920
place up in Canada and it's a beautiful pristine canoeing country. And, you know, it was just this
00:28:27.440
little one, one week or two week canoe trip, but in my head, it could have been the greatest
00:28:33.960
adventure ever. Like I might as well have been in the Amazon jungle, which I eventually went to,
00:28:38.580
obviously. Um, it just, it was such a break free from what I associated with my neighborhood.
00:28:45.920
And so some of the stuff that I hear you asking and that we're talking about, and I know that we are
00:28:49.720
speaking to a lot of other men, uh, right now that, that, um, maybe want to break out of where
00:28:57.060
they're in sort of thing. And a big thing for me with the canoeing, which was new friends, right?
00:29:04.800
Because my friends in high school, that, that was not a thing, but through church and these people,
00:29:09.960
I found this thing and off we go canoeing and I'm good at it. And I, I'm like quickly, what it did was
00:29:17.700
it, it told me with this new opportunity that I did not have to go back to my toxic friends.
00:29:26.040
I did not have to, there were not just the six or seven guys I could call who some of them I love
00:29:33.020
to this day, but you know, let's face it at the time, their attitudes were more toxic. And I mean,
00:29:38.400
toxic with a small T I don't mean that as negative as dark as it sounds. It's something that's something
00:29:42.720
that we, I think overuse a lot of times. You say, Oh, you got to get away from your toxic people.
00:29:46.700
And it's the right word, I think, to get the point across, but it's not necessarily as dark.
00:29:51.260
Sometimes it's, it's not very dark at all, but it's still withholds you. You know, I remember
00:29:56.480
through the canoeing, you know, and I had quit smoking and I was becoming more healthy.
00:30:01.180
One of my best buddies from high school said, what do you mean? I can't smoke in your house. I said,
00:30:04.980
come on, Ronnie. I was like, I just don't want anybody smoking in my house anymore.
00:30:08.180
Well, I'm not coming over that. Right. And so, but you know, and, and God love them, but
00:30:14.160
okay, then don't come over. Cause you know what? Like we're past that, like sort of thing. And so,
00:30:20.220
yeah, the canoe trip, the canoe trip taught me that there was another world out there.
00:30:25.160
And when I finally discovered it, it was much bigger than I ever could have dreamed.
00:30:29.420
And so when you, when you started to see in that other world started to unfold,
00:30:33.200
you know, before you, and you started to move closer towards it,
00:30:35.920
did you have some sort of an idea that you were going to turn this into a career that you were
00:30:42.260
going to turn this into a money-making venture, that it was going to support your lifestyle or was
00:30:46.380
it, this is a hobby. I enjoy doing it. And you know, that's what it is. And period, end of discussion.
00:30:51.780
Never a hobby and never about the money. I finally found my first goal in life. So for example,
00:30:59.680
one of the things that I learned later in life was what I call the joy of completion, which is
00:31:05.040
actually finishing something you started. And I didn't know that. I was a long time, but
00:31:11.060
I found even before that, I found my first goal. My goal, I love this so much. I want to become the
00:31:22.260
best guide in Canada. I want to be like a outdoor guide that people know about. Cause I saw some guys
00:31:29.060
that were like that, right? Like, Oh, have you ever tripped with him? Oh yeah. He's a canoe guide.
00:31:32.800
You got to go learn from him. I wanted to be that guy. And so that's what I did. I had a goal. And
00:31:38.180
how do I get to that goal? Easy peasy. Take some courses, get a bunch of certificates, be a, be a,
00:31:46.620
an intern, you know, be an assistant guide. I did all that. That's what I did. I just, I want to be one
00:31:52.880
of the best guides that Canada has to offer. And, and I don't know if I can, I can ever boast that. I do know
00:31:57.660
that I became an excellent guide. Yeah, that's it. I, I wrote that down. I've been taking notes.
00:32:03.500
Then you probably see me taking notes here. I'm not checking my texts or anything, but I wrote down
00:32:06.820
that concept of the joy of completion. I've never heard it put that way, but that is a really,
00:32:12.200
really powerful way of looking at it because I think so many of us, myself included fall into the
00:32:16.840
trap of getting excited about something. You know, we see that bright and shiny object or something we
00:32:21.140
want to pursue. And we're so fickle in general that we do it and we get started. And then at the first
00:32:28.560
little slight of, of challenge or hardship, we're like, oh yeah, see, this wasn't meant to be. And
00:32:33.060
we use it as an excuse to throw in the towel when we could have built all that confidence and
00:32:36.900
credibility, if we would have just stuck through and completed the dang thing.
00:32:40.440
And, you know, I was quite older in my, in my night twenties. No, older than that. When I first
00:32:47.040
finished something creatively. So I did accomplish my goal of becoming a guide and, and, and a strong
00:32:52.880
guide. So, but I never, I didn't see it as such. I didn't see it really as a completion. The joy of
00:32:58.600
completion I discovered, which was based on my original desires in life, which was to be a rock
00:33:03.500
star. I wanted to be Neil Young. I wanted to be Jimmy Page, right? I wanted to be that. Well, that
00:33:08.100
didn't work out. And, and it was the canoe trip that showed me that, you know what? And I was actually
00:33:14.160
doing pretty good at it. I was producing for much music up in Canada. I was, you know, I had music
00:33:18.300
being shopped to Bruce Springsteen. Like I was in a good place. So let me dance around this a little
00:33:23.040
bit here, just to catch this up. It was in a good place musically. So what was wrong? I still had no
00:33:29.420
guidance, no mentorship. Nobody said, Les, you're, you're sitting there right now with this in your
00:33:36.080
hands. Okay. You need to bust a move and make this happen. Instead, I went and played hockey.
00:33:42.840
I went and played tennis. I went jogging. And I just sort of, yeah, yeah. Oh, I should write
00:33:48.940
another song. Well, tomorrow. Right. So the music came up against that. And then I found the canoe
00:33:55.280
trip and then I became a guide. So after a few years of being that guide, and now I'm going to get
00:34:03.940
to the joy of completion here and why, why for every man listening, understand that the joy of
00:34:07.980
completion is vital to achieve. And well, here, I'll just use the word. Here's what I want to say
00:34:15.740
what it is. It's euphoric from a guy who'd never completed anything. He really started. Okay. I
00:34:23.800
then endeavored to get back into music. Oh, and I write a bit of acoustic songs, singing about nature,
00:34:29.280
stuff like that. I produced and I went and I lived out in the woods with my then wife for the film
00:34:35.100
called Snowshoes and Salted. All right. So I lived in the woods for a year and I filmed it on camera
00:34:39.640
and I was writing some songs, but there's no completion there. Right. That's just, I'm just
00:34:45.440
doing. So any hard knock that could come my way, I could just have stopped that and knock that off
00:34:50.180
and said, okay, well, you don't need to finish the film. You did the year in the bush. You're fine.
00:34:53.920
You know, you don't need to record the songs you've written them. They're fine. You know,
00:34:57.320
no, I knew that there needed to be an end goal with this music I was doing and, and this film
00:35:04.840
that I had made about my adventure in the woods with Sue. So I finally, it took me five years.
00:35:11.900
Somehow I bared down, got the CD done and the DVD. Now that was the day that I stood there with a CD
00:35:18.200
in my hands and a DVD in my hands, almost virtually the same day that I had done. And that's when the
00:35:24.360
euphoria of the joy of completion hit me. And I thought, oh my God, why have I not been doing
00:35:31.600
this my whole life? No one told me how good it feels to finish. That's an important line. No one
00:35:39.740
ever told me how good it feels to finish. And when I discovered how good it felt to finish, dude,
00:35:45.180
my whole life since then has been about finishing what I started, which on a tangent note, doesn't mean
00:35:50.480
you don't, you shouldn't quit certain things that you do start when they turn out to be wrong. But
00:35:53.980
that messiness aside, I finished what I start, even if it, if it hurts, I finished what I start
00:35:59.680
because that's my word. I've got a film I need to finish right now. I don't really want to,
00:36:04.900
but I'm going to, because I gave my word that I would finish this particular film that I was in.
00:36:09.640
And that's, that's something I think men need to, to learn and understand. And if you're 45 and you
00:36:14.320
still don't know this, okay, finish that thing. Actually, you know, there are, sorry, I'll just ramble on a
00:36:19.560
little bit more. There are at least men that are that age, my age, younger than me. I meet them all
00:36:25.140
the time. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about this and I was thinking about that. And sometimes
00:36:29.660
you're 47. You're just going to keep thinking about it. Yeah. And I have a point to make on that,
00:36:36.220
but I'll, I'll shut up for a second. No, I'm, I'm just listening. I'm taking notes. I'm just
00:36:40.440
listening. You said something interesting. You said finishes my word. What did you mean by that? Is
00:36:44.200
that something that you, that like, it's a mantra or something that runs in your head, like finish,
00:36:48.020
finish, finish. What did, what did you exactly mean by that? No, it's, it's, it's just an obvious,
00:36:54.140
you know, that description to finish something is obvious and, but we take it for granted.
00:37:01.200
All right, man, let me just hit the pause button very, very quickly on my conversation with less.
00:37:05.420
You know, I often receive compliments on my ability to converse with some of the most incredible men
00:37:10.640
on the planet, like less. And as weird and strange as this is for me to say, I am damn good at it,
00:37:17.720
but I tell you this not to toot my own horn, but to let you know that my ability to communicate
00:37:22.320
effectively has been a very, very long time in the works. And I also know that it's something a lot
00:37:29.480
of men struggle with. And because of this, we've decided to cover effective communication and more
00:37:34.260
specifically how to communicate like a leader inside of our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council.
00:37:39.620
So if you want to learn how to better communicate with your peers, your wife, kids, friends,
00:37:45.780
neighbors, strangers, whoever join us inside the iron council this month, where you'll get access
00:37:50.920
to the exact tools and information and strategies that I personally use to speak to others powerfully.
00:37:57.840
You're going to also unlock access to other extremely successful men who will teach you,
00:38:02.900
who will guide you, who will mentor you, and also hold you accountable to progress in your life.
00:38:07.880
You can check that out at order of man.com slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com
00:38:13.720
slash iron council. Do that after the show for now, we're going to get back to the conversation with
00:38:18.100
less. Do you think that this concept of finishing and there's a, there's a theme here that I keep
00:38:25.020
hearing you say, which is I didn't have that mentorship. Nobody showed me. Do you feel like
00:38:29.760
you are, I don't know if called is the right word, but called to do that for other people? Does that
00:38:36.360
where a lot of the, the teaching and the instruction and the desire to help improve other people comes
00:38:42.560
from, does it come from that? I don't allow myself to think that, uh, I, I want, what I want to do is
00:38:53.000
to contribute. So there's a lot of tangents we can go on here. I think there are three ways in which we
00:38:58.800
can contribute. And I will say, you talked earlier about the responsibility of an adult to be that
00:39:05.960
mentor to a young person. That's a responsibility we have. I think as human beings, we have a
00:39:09.800
responsibility to contribute in some way, uh, especially those of us here in North America. I mean, I mean, you
00:39:17.040
know, looking at you and looking at me, you know, we're not hard done by, you know, we're, we're, and,
00:39:22.220
and, uh, hopefully we're decent men. Um, but we, we, we, I'm not disadvantaged in my, in my scenario. I was
00:39:28.060
disadvantaged as a youth. I'm not now. Uh, so the three ways that we can live are the three ways that
00:39:33.100
we contribute are, uh, or the three ways to live us. You either contribute globally, you contribute to
00:39:39.480
your community or you live selfishly. Usually what I say is the three ways to live selfishly for the
00:39:45.480
community or globally. All right. Now selfishly selfishness has to happen. That's why we go to
00:39:50.460
university. That's why you train in the morning. That's what, whatever you do for yourself to
00:39:54.520
improve is that's called, you, you gotta be selfish about it. My daughter is a triathlete. She needs,
00:39:58.820
she's in a selfish mode to be a triathlete. And I fully applaud that. It's like, you got to focus
00:40:03.320
on you right now. You know, you can be altruistic later right now, be selfish, right? Learn what you
00:40:08.940
need to learn. So that's one mode. But the problem is some people, if I'm being a little critical,
00:40:14.320
get stuck in that mode forever. That's the only mode they live in. And selfishness is their life,
00:40:19.020
right? And then, you know, come what may the world and I'll just sit here on the dock with my beer and
00:40:23.300
not worry about anything. It's like, to me, that's, you know, why wouldn't you want to try to
00:40:27.400
contribute now? So now we have globally or community and Godspeed to the, the soccer moms and the soccer
00:40:33.800
dads and those people that have the, the community center things and the programs and all that stuff.
00:40:39.180
They're fantastic. I can't do that. It's, it's not me. It's never been me to do that.
00:40:46.220
When John Lennon said, I don't want to reach 10 people. I want to reach 10 million. I understood
00:40:50.020
what he meant. I'm like, yeah, I know what he means. I know exactly what he means. So I went
00:40:54.000
globally. So I see the work that I do as a creator, right? As a filmmaker, and mostly as a storyteller,
00:41:00.460
more than anything, I see it. I like, I like to get it out there in a global way and just release
00:41:06.860
it to the wind, if you will. And I like that because it could be helping people I'll never,
00:41:13.000
ever meet. I know that's the case. We're never here from nowadays with social media, I get posts
00:41:18.180
and I, and I see the thank yous and things like that. Okay. That's great. But that's not, I just
00:41:22.460
like to put it all out there. And it's kind of awesome to wonder what it might, what you write a song
00:41:26.820
and put it out. I wonder what it's going to do. Well, you know, and then I'll see a post from some
00:41:30.080
guy who says, you know, that song of yours, Dark Side? Well, I'm, I'm bipolar and I, and I, and I
00:41:34.380
suffer from suicidal thoughts every now and again. And when I go down that road, I listen to your song,
00:41:38.520
Dark Side, and it brings me out of it. So I was in tears reading that, you know, there's, that's one
00:41:42.400
thing, right? Or because of you, I, I, I wanted to get back out in nature. Obviously Survivorman was a big
00:41:48.540
thing for stuff like that. So there's our three ways to live. And if not globally, then community-wise,
00:41:53.560
doing things for the community. And then there's hybrids too, you know,
00:41:56.360
sort of mixing and doing a little bit of both, but selfish is good, but not forever. So I'm not sure
00:42:02.380
I didn't answer a question, but anyway, there you go. Yeah, no, it was great. So you, you, you define
00:42:08.860
yourself just barely as a, as a storyteller, but why is, why are the stories you telling are, do they
00:42:14.300
revolve around survivalship and the outdoors? I mean, obviously that's a big part of your life,
00:42:19.860
but you could tell any story. You could have any conversation. There's all kinds of experiences you
00:42:23.720
could have. Why does this speak to you? And why do you feel like you want to share this in particular?
00:42:28.400
It's the thing that, that, that keeps me most alive, that drives me the most, but I don't know why.
00:42:33.800
Why does someone obsess over playing piano? Why does an engineer obsess over coming up with a new way to
00:42:41.700
determine angles and build a building? I just can't not be in love with nature. I can't not be passionate
00:42:51.360
about nature. It's just so easy for me to just to dream and think about nature 24 seven. And so
00:42:57.340
that's what comes out in the work that I do pretty obviously. Now I'm not a one trick pony. I have
00:43:03.240
other interests in other things and they slip out as well. So I don't know the why,
00:43:08.220
but I do, but, but, but, but the, but the end goal of it is to take someone like you and say like,
00:43:17.280
okay, maybe you're a gamer. Maybe you like living in the middle of Chicago. Maybe, you know, you're
00:43:23.040
afraid of bugs and that's fine. But if I could just get you to walk in a forest, just, just for a day
00:43:29.420
on a manicured trail where maybe they've even God forbid, but maybe they've even sprayed it with
00:43:35.780
paramecium. So there's no mosquitoes biting you, whatever. If I could just get you on that trail
00:43:40.220
under a bunch of trees in the park at the end of your road, maybe that's like the minimalist part
00:43:46.840
of my goal is just to get people to, to reconnect with a tree, if you will.
00:43:53.680
Yeah. And I wish more of us would do that more often. I know that every time I'm out in nature,
00:43:58.160
whether like you said, a walk around our field, uh, looking at the trees and the wildlife or being on a
00:44:04.820
hunt or a camp out, it just grounds us. And it's just, it's becoming increasingly rare. We live in
00:44:11.620
these concrete jungles and we're always in cubicles and we don't talk to each other and we don't connect
00:44:16.080
and we aren't where we we've, we've evolved to be. I wish more people would do this and take
00:44:21.280
advantage of it. It wouldn't make it, first of all, science is behind it now. You know, I mean,
00:44:25.820
science, science has been going over that for quite a while. A human being in the hospital
00:44:31.880
suffering requires less painkillers and heals faster. If all they could do is see a tree
00:44:40.600
outside their window. Hmm. Interesting. Now let's, you know, expand that into if they could be in
00:44:49.520
nature, you know, with, I mean, when you go, you forget aromatherapy, you walk in the woods,
00:44:53.580
there's a billion chemical combinations that are bombarding you. And what I love about nature is
00:44:58.600
whether you like it or not, it's working on you. Whether you like, you could go in there with a
00:45:03.300
worst mood of all, you know, vindictive and angry, you know, because like I have to take down my tent
00:45:09.240
platform because the building inspector says it's too big right now. So I'm mad about that. If I go
00:45:15.040
walking in the woods, just 20 feet to the right of my tent platform, I feel better all of a sudden.
00:45:19.520
So, you know, it works on you, whether you want it to or not. And I want to just hop back on one
00:45:25.480
point we made about, about this idea of finishing and accomplishing goals. So a point that I like to
00:45:31.120
make a lot, and it's for all the men and women out there listening, and whether you're 65 or 25 or
00:45:38.200
everything in between, just remember this about your big idea, your concept, the goal you want to achieve,
00:45:47.340
the thing you want to do, it's yours and yours alone to complete. You can walk in a boardroom
00:45:56.680
and say, here's my idea, everybody. Let's all work on this. But if you walk out of that boardroom,
00:46:04.120
it's going to, most of the time, those things just die right on the vine. I mean, I'm not saying if
00:46:08.660
you're a boss and you're giving directors, directives and orders. I mean, if it's your idea,
00:46:11.620
you're the one who has to complete it because you could, you could sit in a room with some people
00:46:19.860
that are really good at the thing that you want to do. It's still up to you to do it. And this is
00:46:25.340
the thing we forget. We think, oh, you know, oh my, and here's what I want to say. Here's how I want
00:46:33.140
to put this on. And I won't be vulgar, but I do want to put it this way so that we, so that I make my
00:46:39.220
point. Your mom, your wife, your brother, your sister, your kids, your friends, your mentors,
00:46:49.640
they're going to support you, might even lend you a hand. They're going to encourage you,
00:46:54.520
but they don't really give a crap whether you finish it or not. They really don't. They have
00:47:00.380
their own lives to worry about. They have their own goals, their own things to do. They're working
00:47:05.060
on this, on that. Oh, you still, yeah, no, you should do that less. Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. Let
00:47:09.480
me know if you need a hand, you know, but they truly in the end, yes, even your mom and your dad,
00:47:14.600
they really don't give a, well, I just want you to be happy, dear. Right. It's, it's, it's, it's that,
00:47:20.140
but that thing that's burning in you that you want to accomplish, it's just you, it's just yours.
00:47:25.320
So if you're not going to do it, it'll die on the vine. Forget about it. You might as well just throw
00:47:28.880
it away because with all the good talk around you and everything, that's all lovely, but it's still up to
00:47:33.900
you to get up in the morning, to bust a move and to make, and to complete it, to finish what you
00:47:37.380
started. Most people, nobody else out there cares whether or not you finish what you start. I have
00:47:41.600
an amazing wife who, who I adore and who is the most supportive human being I've ever been with,
00:47:49.440
but she's not going to browbeat me into finishing what I started. She's going to just be disappointed
00:47:56.780
when I don't. Right. Right. That's true. It's interesting. You say this. I just had a, an exchange,
00:48:03.500
an amicable exchange on social media from a gentleman who seemed to be the way he worded
00:48:08.040
his, his comments that he was, you know, complaining that nobody was in his corner and nobody was happy
00:48:14.840
for him or supported him. And my thought and response was why is your action contingent upon
00:48:22.800
whether or not somebody's happy for you? What does that have to do with anything? Try to satisfy
00:48:27.880
yourself. That goes back to the selfish contribution that you were talking about earlier. At first,
00:48:33.180
I think it needs to be that. I want to feel happy with myself. I want to be fulfilled. I want to feel
00:48:37.800
good about being a man of my word, which you alluded to as well. Absolutely. I would say the same thing.
00:48:44.200
I'd say, dude, it's again, it's not about them and, and they don't really care. Yeah. That's that. So
00:48:52.640
that's, this is okay. So here's my insensitive moment where I say, yeah, suck it up. They don't really
00:48:58.320
care. Right. So do you want this thing or don't you, you do really want it. Okay. Are there mentors
00:49:05.080
you can talk to that know how to get this thing? Is there a book you can read? Go listen to Tim
00:49:11.160
Ferris. I don't know. You know, uh, uh, uh, but, but, but suck it up, you know? And again, I can be
00:49:17.440
accused. I don't mean that so harshly. I can, I can be accused of being insensitive that way, but, um,
00:49:22.640
I just think there's a time and a place to say, yeah, no, nobody else cares about this, but I do.
00:49:26.360
And that's how my life was. That's how I was going back to our high school talk
00:49:29.820
and nobody gave a crap about me and nobody gave a crap about my ideas, but I somehow had enough
00:49:37.140
depth of ego, if you will, to care to say, but I do, I do, you know, I'll find a way. And it took
00:49:43.960
me 30 bloody years, but I found a way. Well, you know, you say, you say that might be the insensitive
00:49:49.400
side of me speaking, but you know, I, I'd counter that and say that somebody who's going to tell you
00:49:53.900
the truth or frame an idea or concept in a way that you need to hear it at just the right moment,
00:49:59.820
might actually be the best thing that you can do for an individual. Like, I don't necessarily
00:50:03.880
believe that you're being sensitive because you're being soft on somebody or you're sparing them of
00:50:09.060
their feelings. That to me might not be that you're sensitive to what they need at all.
00:50:13.660
That's a very, very good point. And thank you for that actually, because, um, that's one of my
00:50:18.780
things in life is, is I'm, I'm, I love if somebody is blunt with me, I love if somebody is candid and
00:50:24.960
straight with me, I hate beating around the bush. And so by virtue of that, I am that
00:50:29.800
way. But sometimes I fail to recognize that this person would rather beat around the bush. They
00:50:34.300
need some beating around the bush. And I'm like, well, just do that. Right. Yeah. True. You got to
00:50:39.540
read the room a little bit. I was just discussing this, uh, this morning actually about being
00:50:43.760
situationally aware, you know, and this would be on an interpersonal level being situationally aware.
00:50:50.100
It's like, yeah, this guy needs to hear something straight right now. Cause he's, you know,
00:50:54.420
he's whining. So he's whining. So he's going to have to hear it. Like he's a whiner and here you
00:51:01.880
go, here it is. Or this person is really seeking and they're a little fragile. Okay. Let's, let's move
00:51:07.920
a little slowly on this one. That's, that's, as I said, be a little more, be a different version of
00:51:12.660
sensitive. I suppose you, I like your point. I like your point a lot. One of the things that we talked
00:51:17.900
about before we hit record is you were talking about the, uh, the children's book that you're writing.
00:51:22.300
And I'm really curious about where this pivot comes from, because this is a new angle for you.
00:51:26.620
Uh, is it, was this a goal of yours? Did this pop up? Have you always had an interest in teaching
00:51:31.520
kids and introducing them to the outdoors and survival and all this kind of stuff? Like where
00:51:35.520
does that transition or pivot come from? Uh, it's not a pivot at all, not a transition at all.
00:51:41.700
First of all, as a guide for the aforementioned guiding work, I mean, hundreds and thousands of kids
00:51:47.440
I guided out in the wilderness and taught skills and taught canoeing and everything else.
00:51:51.680
So I always had that. I always get along with kids. Uh, I, I adore most ages of kids actually.
00:52:01.020
Which ones don't you adore? That's actually what I'm very curious about.
00:52:03.820
I think that's sort of 11 to 15, 16. I could do without that era.
00:52:09.160
Like two to 10 is my, like those little bare feet in their pajamas and they're curled up and they just
00:52:14.200
want to snuggle and you read. Oh, I love that. And, and, um, and then as they become older and
00:52:19.940
they're starting to spread their adult, young adult wings, they become, you know, so, so, so that,
00:52:25.700
and then, but with survivor man, uh, you know, I had kids sending me Facebook pictures
00:52:31.580
of them dressed up as me for Halloween. So if that isn't an endorsement, I don't know what is.
00:52:36.820
Right. So I knew all along that my, my manual called survive still available, still out in the
00:52:41.700
bookstores now. Pound for pound. I will put it up against any survival book out there,
00:52:46.140
including the SAS survival book. We can, we get into that on another conversation, but, uh, I did
00:52:52.200
that book and I, and it's owned by thousands and thousands of kids. So I knew that, that, that, you
00:52:57.460
know, kids, kids just adore nature. They, they, they, they love nature inherently as we all did at one
00:53:02.800
point. And they're much less afraid of it, especially when they're young. So, uh, this book gave me the
00:53:09.000
opportunity to speak directly to them, to tell them my stories, to teach lessons through the stories,
00:53:14.780
to give them some things they can do at home, all in the form that I'm not talking to your
00:53:19.580
teacher or your, your mom, your dad, I'm talking to you. And, and so it was a, it was an opportunity
00:53:24.620
for, to do something that I've always been doing, but just direct to them.
00:53:28.520
Right. And it, and it probably goes into that. I don't want to reach 10 people. I want to reach
00:53:31.980
10, 10 million people, or in this case, 10 million kids. And I can do it this way through this medium
00:53:36.080
and this outlet and technology that we have access to.
00:53:38.660
Absolutely. And, you know, um, Anik Press out of Toronto, um, originally I approached them because I wanted
00:53:44.040
to write a fiction. I wanted to write fiction adventure stories, but you know, that my, my, um,
00:53:50.180
I guess, uh, the stigma, if you will, of survivor man is that, well, but you're, you've written all
00:53:54.240
these documents, you know, these, uh, nonfiction books and your documentary. How about a nonfiction
00:53:58.480
book? Stay in your lane. Right. Sure. I will. And then one day I will write my, my novel and I will
00:54:05.140
write my nonfiction, my, my fiction books and, and I'll prove them wrong.
00:54:09.240
Yes. I like it. I'm anxious to see, you know, it is, it is interesting with kids too. I've noticed this
00:54:13.740
specifically in my oldest son, cause he's very enamored with, with nature and wildlife. And,
00:54:17.720
uh, you know, their children are not so busy. Uh, they don't, they don't come up with excuses.
00:54:23.720
Uh, they don't get as bored. They can, they're creative and they're thoughtful and they see
00:54:27.820
things differently than we do. My, my oldest son, uh, yesterday said, dad, there's a turkey in our
00:54:32.980
field, which isn't uncommon. And I said, okay, you know, that's yes. And, and he said, well, he's
00:54:37.640
injured. I'm like, well, how do you know? He's like, I walked down there and I saw him hobbling
00:54:40.940
around. And so this morning, even before I got home and I get home early from jujitsu,
00:54:45.660
about seven o'clock in the morning, I got home and he wasn't in the house. I'm like, where's,
00:54:49.580
where's my son? Where's Brecken? And he was out in the field trying to find this turkey,
00:54:55.160
you know, cause he's injured and he actually saw him and he saw him hobble off. And he just spent an
00:54:59.980
hour out there wandering around chasing this turkey. And I think you're hitting on it right now is that
00:55:06.060
they, they just love it. And if we could just hone it and refine it and guide it and instruct it and
00:55:11.220
foster it, man, the world would be a different place. Well, I would go heavy on the last word,
00:55:17.260
foster it, you know, um, because true, true to form, you don't want them doing things that are
00:55:23.040
destructive out there inadvertently. So you want to teach them that way. Absolutely. But fostering it.
00:55:27.920
Yeah. And that's that whole, just get, so I have, um, uh, two, how old is your oldest son? If I may ask
00:55:32.740
13, he's 13. Oh, wonderful age. Okay. We're going to get that horrible age. You hate that horrible
00:55:37.080
age. You said wonderful, but you already told me earlier, you hate that age. Well, you're in for
00:55:42.180
it for the next few years. Although I do hear, and I would agree in my case, that boys are easier
00:55:47.440
than girls. And when you're the guy, when you're the dad, so you can, cause you can be the buddy,
00:55:51.300
right. And I'm, I'm best friends with my son. My son is 23 now and he's a wildfire fighter
00:55:55.320
and a paramedic. And, uh, he and I are as close as two high school friends, which I, which I
00:56:00.780
absolutely adore. And I got him out in nature a lot. So, but fostering it, you're getting
00:56:04.540
them out there, um, and allowing them to experience it, experience, experience it on, uh, on their
00:56:10.600
terms, you know, you know, empowering our kids to do things on their terms is a really
00:56:15.500
big thing for me as a father. It always has been. It's like, well, okay, you want to do
00:56:19.200
it that way? And it's like, I can see no harm's going to come of it. It's the wrong way to do
00:56:24.000
it, but it's the way he wants to do it. So I've already suggested another way, but he
00:56:30.940
wants to do it this way. Okay. Go for it. You know, and obviously we're being, we're being
00:56:35.280
the protectors. We're making sure that there's no danger involved and stuff like that, but
00:56:38.020
I think that's wonderful that, uh, that you've said that, uh, we'll have to make sure we get
00:56:42.520
you a copy of what outside form. Oh yeah. He, he'd be all about it. Well, you're, you're
00:56:46.840
also touching on something I wrote down here that I want to do address with you. One thing
00:56:49.960
that I think you do a great job with is making sure that you don't show only and exclusively
00:56:56.080
you doing everything right and correct and accurate. You seem to be so well-rounded and
00:57:04.440
confident enough that you're willing to show some of the things that don't work out or the
00:57:09.240
things where you maybe made a mistake or stepped in the wrong place. And I really respect somebody
00:57:14.480
who can show that well-rounded picture as opposed to just the, um, just the highlight reel.
00:57:19.960
Just the hero moments. Right. Exactly. Well, thank you for the, for the wonderful comment,
00:57:24.940
uh, compliment of, of well-rounded, uh, Ness. And, um, I think, uh, and confidence. Yes,
00:57:32.980
they're there. That is there in my skills as a wilderness individual, adventurer, if you will,
00:57:38.800
or survival guy. However, um, the motivation behind it, because if you watch the Survivorman episodes,
00:57:48.500
all I'm really doing in every single episode is teaching, I'm just teaching. And so, so we had
00:57:55.480
to leave it, you know, without Survivorman, you don't have the rest of the industry. And it comes
00:58:00.600
to survival TV. You don't have alone, naked and afraid, man versus wild, dual survival. You don't
00:58:04.280
edit without Survivorman. When they happened, because they saw how successful mine had become,
00:58:10.040
they didn't endeavor to teach anything. Not really. They were looking for sensationalistic
00:58:15.240
things in the different survival books and say, you guys do this one now, entertain us. Right.
00:58:19.800
So their goal was not to teach. My goal was to be from the beginning to the end. It still is to teach.
00:58:26.860
And we all know that failure is a great teacher. And so if I had something like, if you said to me,
00:58:33.580
Hey, Les, have you ever heard about, uh, starting a fire with, uh, you know, a pop can and, um,
00:58:39.860
piece of chocolate. Uh, you know, I've heard that you can polish it and do the, get start a fire,
00:58:44.380
you know? So I did that on one of the episodes, for example, I did not practice that ahead of time.
00:58:49.720
Anything that I could do that I only just heard about, I'm like, I'm not going to practice it.
00:58:53.760
Cause if I practice it, who am I? I'm guru guy. Look at me. I'm good at everything I do.
00:58:59.040
If I don't practice it and I fail, you see it basically live sort of thing. You see it live
00:59:05.780
right there. And then it's like, yeah, okay. I blew it. And I have my shelter burned down. I've
00:59:10.320
made some crappy shelters, things like that, uh, to show that, that, you know, that's what
00:59:14.920
you're going to do. You're not going to get a fire going every time with a little twig and some thread
00:59:18.780
you're going to fail. So you might as well see me fail because if I fail, now you can see me get
00:59:25.000
out of the mess I'm in. Okay. I failed. I don't have a fire tonight and I've spent all my time on
00:59:30.680
the fire. I didn't make a shelter. What am I going to do now? Right. And that, and, and, and now we
00:59:37.120
have what is real drama, what's really going on. And that's, that's why I love, I love showing failure
00:59:42.180
that way, you know, and, and quickly, I'll just say that with the father son conversation and father
00:59:46.440
daughter conversation, um, when my kids ask me any question, I always answer honestly, even if it's
00:59:54.220
painful, obviously there was a time when I filtered it for age a little bit. Sure. Right. But for the
00:59:59.420
most part, if they asked me, dad, did you ever do this? Or did you ever do that? And I knew the
01:00:04.440
answer was yes. I'd say yes. And then that would become a two hour conversation, right? Because
01:00:08.260
then I could explain myself and why, and this and that. And, and, and, um, and so, uh, yeah, I think
01:00:14.460
it's the same sort of philosophy. It's like as a father showing my kids that, yeah, I'm a fail. I'm a failure
01:00:18.960
too. I have lots of failures in my life, but I'm still going, you know?
01:00:22.400
Yeah. Well, and you know, one of the other powerful points of sharing the truth and sharing
01:00:28.240
the failures and the setbacks, as well as the victories is you're setting up realistic
01:00:32.140
expectations for those you're trying to lead. So the people who are following you and watching,
01:00:36.760
uh, who may want to get more closely connected with nature or get into survival, uh, scenarios,
01:00:43.060
they're going to see that and have a realistic expectation versus just assuming that everything
01:00:48.080
goes right. And then when they find themselves in a dangerous situation, they either don't,
01:00:52.200
they don't keep themselves protected or they think shitty of themselves because, well, you know,
01:00:58.740
like everybody else I follow along with is just perfect. So what's wrong with me? And it creates,
01:01:03.440
I think, a confidence issue that doesn't need to be there.
01:01:06.560
Unrealistic expectations. Absolutely. And I think that goes all the way back to one of your very first
01:01:11.000
questions, which is why women versus men in a wilderness situation. I don't think women have
01:01:16.000
those big expectations, but as men, right. I'm going to have the best fire, the best shelter.
01:01:21.760
I'll probably even catch a grouse. Well, that were all these students on this weekend of survival.
01:01:26.680
They're going to see, they're going to see how I do, you know, and I don't think women go into it like
01:01:31.840
that. Do you find that along the same lines that women are more willing to ask questions than men are
01:01:39.280
because of the reason you're explaining right now?
01:01:45.040
The reason why I'm pausing is because the short answer is yes, but my hesitancy is because I'm not
01:01:52.860
that guy. I ask everybody everything. I have no ego saying, Hey, I really, I'm not getting this.
01:01:58.780
How do I do it? Like, I have no problem asking. You know, I roll as well. I do jujitsu.
01:02:06.120
Oh, do you? Oh, good. I didn't know that. Yeah. I'll have to roll sometime and you can pin me in
01:02:10.860
four seconds. Or I'll tap out in four seconds. And same thing there, you know, a good case in
01:02:17.840
point, for example, my personality is such that, so I'm there and let's face it, they all know who
01:02:22.640
I am. They all know that survival man's in our club. Now, of course, the bad part is I've got like
01:02:28.000
a lot of 30 year olds who are ripped and, and, you know, our blue belt and they want to, you know,
01:02:33.520
they want to make survival man taps like nothing. Yes. You have a target at this point.
01:02:37.680
I have a target on my back, but I'm never afraid in those classes to go. Can you show me that again?
01:02:42.000
Cause I just, I'm not getting where my arm's supposed to go. I keep, why, you know? And so
01:02:46.420
I have, I've just never. So anyway, I'm being meandering with bottom line is I'm not that guy.
01:02:51.400
I have no problem asking questions. I'll ask for directions. Here's, here's my, my, this is not
01:02:57.600
going to endear me to any women who might be listening, but my, my, my one, I think I only
01:03:03.660
have two moments in my life where I'm just blatantly sexist and I kind of, I'm very sorry,
01:03:07.940
but I don't apologize at the same time. And one of them is, is, is asking directions. I just like,
01:03:13.340
I've done it a thousand times and I will, I will actually not pull over to ask a woman directions
01:03:18.780
anymore. Every woman out there is just so mad at me right now. I know, but I'm sorry, but I've tried
01:03:23.800
so hard and just like, of course I will have men be pretty bad at too, but if I'm gambling,
01:03:30.880
I'll look for a guy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I, yeah, I think we all have those moments and those
01:03:36.420
things that, that, that, that we're we're dealing with. So again, I appreciate the transparency and
01:03:43.060
you sharing all of it for sure. Yeah. Transparency is, is, you know, the thing about the transparency
01:03:48.180
and myself and the candidness is it enables me to be me. It means that I never have to come back at
01:03:53.040
you and say, Oh, did I say that before? Oops. I never, I don't ever want to be in that position.
01:03:58.400
You know, we were early on. I was asked to cheat survivor, man. That's how these other shows were
01:04:02.420
created because I refused to cheat my show. What do you mean by cheat? Have a crew build the stuff,
01:04:08.900
sleep in a hotel every night, fake the whole thing. Got it. Make a show. Right. And I remember
01:04:15.340
the first time I was asked and I looked at the guy, the producer guy and I said, listen,
01:04:19.820
the way this show's going, I may very, very well end up finding myself sitting across from Jimmy
01:04:27.080
Fallon, you know, which I did by the way. Yeah. Or Ellen or somebody like that, which I did.
01:04:33.680
I don't want to be sitting there and have them say to me, so what was it like that, that night when
01:04:38.560
the tiger came in and the, you know, and I'm going, well, it was all a bunch of crap. We made it up.
01:04:43.920
I said, I'm not going to be that guy. No way. I don't want to ever have to be because you guys
01:04:50.180
can all walk away. I'm the guy on a television screen, sitting, talking to somebody supposedly
01:04:55.720
being an honest man. I won't do it. You know? So that's where the transparency comes in. I think
01:05:00.700
it's easier to be transparent as far as I'm concerned.
01:05:04.640
Definitely over the long haul, because you're not having to trip all over yourself and stumble all
01:05:07.620
over yourself or get caught and all these other things. And then not to mention the real motive,
01:05:12.180
which is just being truthful to yourself and being able to look the man in the mirror
01:05:15.520
right in the eye and be okay with that. Yeah. And, and listen, none of us are saints.
01:05:20.960
Every single one of us has, you know, regret and regretful things we've said, regretful things
01:05:25.940
we've done. And I remind myself of this fact all the time. If I were to be critical to someone else
01:05:32.980
is to remind myself, yeah, don't forget about you less. Don't forget some of the crap you've done,
01:05:37.800
you know? And yeah, and I, and honestly, I don't think that'll ever change. I think, I think to,
01:05:44.560
to my grave, I'll be someone tiptoeing around the, the temptation to even just fib, you know,
01:05:54.400
the temptation. And I, and I will again, I will fib again. I don't think I'll lie again outright. Now
01:06:01.780
we're, now we're getting nuanced, aren't we? We're really slicing it down. But, but you know what I
01:06:05.940
mean? Like I, you know, I, and, and I just, I think everyone should understand that is where none
01:06:10.800
of us. Okay. I'm a fan of the Avengers movies. And so one of the great lines I just, I just heard
01:06:16.180
from Loki was, well, if there's one thing that I've learned in all of this is that nobody that is bad
01:06:21.980
is truly bad. And nobody that is good is truly good. And I thought, damn, I wish I'd said that.
01:06:29.680
Yeah. Maybe you can rephrase it or something like that, but the point is well taken. Well,
01:06:35.500
Les, I, I really respect you. I appreciate you coming on. I know you've got some projects. You've
01:06:39.980
got Wild Outside, which is the children's book coming out. You've got the Surviving Disasters,
01:06:46.580
which is the, that's a PBS. Is that a, is that a documentary or a series? What exactly is that?
01:06:51.660
So it's actually a pledge special. So, you know, on, on American public television,
01:06:55.760
they do the pledge specials. You can phone in and you can, so they highlighted it for that. It'll be
01:07:00.600
back on in August for a couple of weeks. And then they, they keep putting it on every few months as
01:07:04.800
a pledge special. It's called Surviving Disasters with Les Stroud. And this is a, a documented
01:07:10.300
instructional piece, if you will, on how your aunt and uncle who live in Florida can handle the next
01:07:17.360
hurricane. It's, it's, it's not about preppers. It's not about having your bug out bag. And it is,
01:07:22.860
of course, that's in there, but it's about what all the regular people need to know to prepare for
01:07:28.920
earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, flooding, blackouts, freeze outs, all of that.
01:07:34.580
And really proud of that. So that's a 90 minute documentary that's on PBS and it's a pledge
01:07:39.820
special. And then I also have on the PBS stations, it's all, this is all presented by American public
01:07:46.000
television. It goes on the PBS stations. Les Stroud's Wild Harvest. And this is a bit of an
01:07:54.660
extension of Survive Man in a way. It's focused entirely on, I take you out and I show you all
01:07:59.820
the local wild edibles, stuff that's on your lawn, right outside the room you're in right now, or
01:08:03.960
wherever there's a closest bit of anything growing. I'll take you right out there. Plus we go further
01:08:09.360
afield, show you all the local wild ingredients that you can harvest. And then I'll bring one or two or
01:08:14.860
three home. And then I give them to chef Paul Rogalski from Calgary, Alberta, and he turns
01:08:19.700
them into a five-star meal. And so you really, it's nothing, it's not about survival. That's one
01:08:26.300
of my points is I, it's a lot of these plants, all I know them for is surviving. Now Paul turns them
01:08:32.300
into this amazing dish, you know, whether it's dandelion or fireweed, or sometimes we go, we've had
01:08:39.160
some, some meat in the show as well here and there. We even did roadkill.
01:08:44.120
Oh, you did. Interesting. What did you, what was it?
01:08:47.880
Well, the, the, the longer story is simply, we went out to go harvest mushrooms, pine mushrooms,
01:08:54.560
Matsutakis. And we did that day, a huge amount. It was amazing. We just pulled out of my driveway
01:08:59.640
in the middle of the road, laying there, unbloodied, unbroken, just obviously been, been clipped
01:09:06.220
on the head, wild turkey. And so I brought it home, still warm, brought it home and we show,
01:09:13.040
and I, and I said, look, I, I know what roadkill sound, it sounds repugnant, but look what we made.
01:09:18.600
Honestly, it was the best turkey I ever had in my life. So, right. So anyway, that's, uh,
01:09:22.800
Les Stroud's Wild Harvest on public television, uh, surviving disasters with Les Stroud on public
01:09:27.560
television. My new book, Wild Outside for children, uh, ages anywhere from seven to 15.
01:09:34.880
And then, uh, and lastly, for anybody who actually doesn't mind my music at all, I, I, my, my big,
01:09:40.980
uh, sort of rock progressive rock album that features slash and Steve Vai called mother earth.
01:09:45.860
Uh, I'm putting it out on, um, double, it's a double vinyl album coming out very soon.
01:09:52.560
Always. Well, you know, I, I, I, and, and all fairness here in truth is that, uh, I thought this
01:09:57.400
conversation would go completely different than it did. We didn't talk hardly anything about
01:10:01.280
tactics and strategies and survival and all that stuff. Uh, but this was an important
01:10:06.020
conversation. We went way deeper into some things. Yeah. Next time. But the conversation we had was
01:10:10.600
great. Suffice it to say, guys, if you really want to know about survival and the tactics and
01:10:15.100
the strategies, Les is your guy. So there's plenty of information out there and now you get to see a
01:10:19.680
different side of him and some deeper conversations and thoughtfulness that we had today, which was good.
01:10:24.100
I think. Well, my friend, I mean, you led the questions and, and, uh, you can see if you leave
01:10:27.880
me down those, I there's things that I love to talk about and you brought a lot of them up today.
01:10:32.140
All right, man, there you go. My conversation with the one and only Les Stroud. I hope you enjoyed
01:10:36.440
that podcast and that conversation as much as I did. I'm really trying to be better at this
01:10:41.020
conversationalist thing and almost in a way, allow you to be a bit of a fly on the wall or even feel
01:10:47.160
like you're participating in these discussions. Cause I've got access to incredible men like Les and others.
01:10:52.120
Uh, and I want to make sure that I'm empowering you with what you need. So please let me know what
01:10:57.380
you think about the show. Good, bad, and different. Uh, also reach out to Les, shoot him a message on
01:11:01.320
Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, wherever he's doing the social media thing and wherever you are
01:11:05.220
and let him know that you heard him on the order of man podcast. Cause you know, I like to get the
01:11:10.060
credit for that, but more importantly than that, I want these guys to know that you listening value
01:11:16.460
what it is they have to share and say. So connect with less, check out his YouTube channel where a
01:11:21.820
lot of his videos and information is and resides. And I think you're going to learn a lot, not only
01:11:27.300
from him regarding the subjects we touched on today, but also deeper into the survival world,
01:11:33.400
the tactics and strategies, which is something all of us should be working on to some degree or
01:11:37.620
another. All right, guys, with that said, please leave the rating and reviews goes a long way. I don't
01:11:42.320
care where you're listening. If you're doing an iTunes stitcher, Pandora, I heart radio podcaster
01:11:48.120
app. Well, I don't know, whatever, wherever you're listening to this thing, just leave the ratings
01:11:52.160
reviews, YouTube, uh, make sure you're sharing this, take a screenshot, blast it out, send a text
01:11:57.960
to somebody blast it out on the socials. Let's keep growing this grassroots movement, reclaiming
01:12:02.540
and restoring masculinity. I'm going to keep bringing the goods. I ask that you return the favor if you
01:12:07.540
would, by leaving those ratings and reviews. And then also for you, we've got that free battle ready
01:12:11.460
program, which you can check out at order of man.com slash battle ready order of man.com slash battle
01:12:17.740
ready. All right, guys, we're going to be back tomorrow for the ask me anything, but until then
01:12:21.980
go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the
01:12:26.940
order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant
01:12:31.940
to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.