In this episode, we talk about the importance of men getting together in their areas, why it's important for men to get together, and why the Boy Scouts of America is changing its name to Scouting America. We also answer questions from the Foundry and answer some listener questions.
00:01:01.420I know we talked probably a little bit about that last week, but man, still thinking about that a lot and how incredible an event it was.
00:01:07.840And what it got me thinking is how important it is for men to get together, but how infrequently men actually do it.
00:01:16.760And I'm glad that we're providing a solution, but I want to encourage men to be able to get together in their areas because this is obviously much needed.
00:01:39.160Because most of the time when men get together, the only thing they're intentional about is their NBA or MLB or NFL draft team or what kind of beer they're going to consume and what kind of chips they should buy for the chip dip and all this kind of stuff.
00:01:55.380And so if you're intentional about that, then you'll get really good at doing that.
00:01:59.660If you're intentional about other things, then you'll get good at doing other more relevant things.
00:02:04.800But obviously life just has a way of just slowly coming to a stop if you're not vigilant about it.
00:02:15.560And I think we talked about this on a podcast a couple of weeks ago.
00:02:18.420It's not even a drift because it's more than that.
00:02:22.060There's forces that are actively working against guys.
00:02:28.000We're being dumbed down by media and entertainment and even knowledge and information.
00:02:32.920And then I heard an interesting commentary from Matt Walsh the other day talking about how more and more states are attempting to legalize marijuana.
00:02:41.100We can debate about the efficacy of that or the morality of that or whether it should or should not.
00:02:47.240But he brought up an interesting point.
00:02:49.500He says, why does the government all of a sudden want millions and millions of people to be consuming more and more marijuana?
00:02:57.620When we know it makes you lethargic, it makes you tired, it makes you unmotivated, it makes you undisciplined by its very nature.
00:03:05.560So why all of a sudden does the government have such a vested interest in dumbing us down and getting us drunk and high and sedated against what I think their motives and intentions are?
00:04:51.280I'm not sure if that's a boy or a girl.
00:04:52.800So in a move towards rebranding and embracing inclusivity, the Boy Scouts of America announced this week that it's changing its name to Scouting America.
00:05:01.800And as Ali Rogan tells us, the organization, which already includes thousands of girls in its program, is aiming to attract a more diverse membership.
00:05:12.120There's another quote I want to read here.
00:05:13.420The change comes as the organization continues to emerge from bankruptcy, which is something I called and everybody mocked it seven years ago.
00:05:21.780And this was interesting to me, paying out more than $2 billion to men who say they were sexually abused as Scouts.
00:05:46.860I'm going to be as succinct as possible.
00:05:48.260I listened to the CEO or whatever his title or position president, I don't know what his title is, of Boy Scouts kind of explain this change a little bit.
00:05:59.220And he said his job as the head of the Boy Scouts of America is to ensure that it's continuance and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:06:41.800Imagine for a second we had dwindling listenership on the Order of Man podcast.
00:06:47.700And instead of figuring out what I needed to do to be a better marketer, to bring different people on, to get exposure in new and interesting ways to other people who haven't heard us before, I decided, well, now we're going to speak to men and women.
00:07:34.800Instead of acquiescing to all of this and assuming that the best way to prop up numbers is to sacrifice your values, to let women in, to let homosexuals and transgender and all this other stuff in.
00:07:48.560And well, I'm not even debating on whether or not you agree with it or not.
00:07:51.440That's the chartered principles of the organization.
00:07:54.940Instead of doing that, you would be better off going harder on your principles, being more exclusive, not inclusive.
00:08:10.060And there's one other thing I want to make a point here is boys need a space to be with boys.
00:08:17.580And I know, I know girls and women who say, when we talk about these things, well, scouting is for everybody.
00:08:28.440Well, it should be who, who says, who says.
00:08:32.180An organization or a person is allowed to include or should be allowed to include or exclude whoever they want.
00:08:40.440And I think there needs to be an environment where boys can learn from other boys and boys can learn from men free of the influence of women.
00:08:50.560Now, some people who want to be offended will hear that and think I'm being sexist.
00:09:21.020Not only did you not make scouts available for girls because it's not meant for girls, you just ruined it for all the boys.
00:09:28.040You ruined it for millions and millions of boys who could have been in an environment exclusively with other boys and righteous men leading, teaching, educating, inspiring.
00:10:12.580And this is the reality when we try to be as inclusive as possible, we step away from our values and virtues, and then we try to make everybody feel good.
00:10:22.880Well, and it's unfortunate because we have a problem on our hands where these boys, you know, are, if we look at single parent homes, fatherless homes, you know, you had organizations like the Boy Scouts that was kind of stepping in to some extent, right?
00:10:41.280Creating a framework for these boys to be around, you know, godly men that might be great examples and lead and show them what it looks like to be a man.
00:12:15.880So two days later, one of the gentlemen in attendance of the event, Greg posts on the Facebook group, how just a couple of days later, he went to Zion's up on angels landing.
00:13:20.260And Anthony's wife, she said this when they did the training, she says one in three of you will need to perform these life-saving procedures in your lifetime.
00:13:30.960And I was like, one in three, are you joking?
00:13:48.280It's unfortunate this gentleman lost his life, but he was going to lose his life anyways.
00:13:53.440So, I mean, and I'm not trying, I'm not trying to dismiss or, or make light of, like you said, and he, he was going to die anyways.
00:14:00.460At least Greg and, and there was other people too that jumped in.
00:14:04.380I think they were doing rotations if I understand correctly, because I called Greg up and they were doing rotations.
00:14:09.260And at least they were there to give the man a fighting chance.
00:14:14.000I mean, how incredible if Kip, if you don't think, and I know you believe this, but if anybody's listening and they don't think that the work that we're doing here is literally life-changing, life-saving work.
00:14:28.560Now that's a great physical example, but there's how many thousands of men have, have taken the gun literally out of their mouth because they listened to something that we shared or one of our guests shared, or they came to one of our programs.
00:14:42.820John, while we were there at Uprising, talked about a week before the first, the very first Uprising we ever did, he came to, a week before he had a gun in his mouth.
00:14:52.440He said the first Uprising, I remember this, saved his life.
00:15:01.820They spent a little time with us here after.
00:15:04.320He's got a, a, a multi, a seven figure business.
00:15:08.560I mean, the guy is killing it right now.
00:15:10.840And I'm not going to take all the credit for that, but man, we can't help but acknowledge that there's some tools and resources here that if implemented and used correctly, can drastically change your life, if not save it.
00:15:24.260And, and the men of the iron council know this because we're, we're in the trenches with our teams, uh, and having the difficult conversations and supporting each other.
00:15:34.140And, um, and, um, and, well, you know, sometimes it's easy to, taking what you just said, it's easy to understand why I'm, why I'm around, you know, being part of the iron council and, and supporting you is like, dude, I mean, it's, it's my feel good.
00:15:54.040You know, it's like, man, like it's not very many chances that you have in life to create that big of an impact, um, and to support other men that are like-minded and, and, uh, you know, the framework that you put in place certainly has done that.
00:17:02.560I've heard you mentioned in the past that you've had some lessons learned related to publishing between your first book sovereignty and your second, the masculinity manifesto.
00:17:12.000Can you share tips on publishing your book as well as your thoughts on self-publishing?
00:17:40.280They do the marketing, the branding, and the distribution model behind it.
00:17:43.960And that was pretty timely for me because at the time I was about ready to release it on Amazon and I was having a hard time figuring it out.
00:17:51.500So, the fact that they came in for distribution on Amazon, paperback, hardcover, uh, but then also the Barnes and Nobles and the mom and pop stores and the brick and mortar stores and all the other online retailers was huge for me.
00:18:05.680Unfortunately, what ended up happening years later is they went out of business, made a couple of bad decisions business-wise.
00:18:14.200Uh, never, I don't, I don't think was never, never shady, but made a couple of bad decisions financially, got a little overextended, didn't receive payments for work they had done and they ended up going under.
00:18:26.720So, I called the gentleman up, I said, what, my book's no longer available, what's going on?
00:18:31.300He says, yeah, we, we're, we're out of business.
00:18:33.980It was devastating because I lost three quarters.
00:18:38.700So, do you have to find a new publisher then to keep?
00:18:52.800It didn't break the bank, but that was money that was owed to me and I never got that.
00:18:56.720Uh, but the silver lining was that I ended up recapturing and retaining the rights to my book, which the rights, I should say the rights to distributing my book.
00:19:09.480It was my property, but I didn't have the rights to distribute it.
00:19:12.880So, when they went under, talked with a gentleman, uh, and I ended up to your point, having the option to distribute it myself.
00:19:19.720So, I could go self-published or then I could sell the rights to another publisher if I would like to do that.
00:19:25.300And so, I've ended up working with a distributor to help me, although I retain rights to, to the material itself and also retain rights to distribution.
00:19:34.200They are helping me as a revenue share for distribution.
00:19:37.120So, it actually works out pretty well.
00:19:38.940Uh, my second book, I went the traditional publishing route.
00:20:23.680If I were to do it again, unless it was a massive, a massive publishing company that could actually help me with the distribution that I couldn't get myself, I would probably do another, another one of my own books.
00:20:40.400Because I would rather have the control of it.
00:20:42.980Look, if you want to hit New York Times and some of these other lists and things like this, having a traditional publisher is probably going to be more advantageous unless you're a guy like Goggins.
00:20:52.060I think he self-published his book, but still hit New York Times.
00:20:58.000So, I think the biggest thing is you just, you just have to decide, do you want to have control over it?
00:21:06.840Knowing that you're probably going to sell fewer books?
00:21:09.580Or are you willing to let go of some of that control and autonomy in order to reach a wider audience that you would never receive or get in front of otherwise?
00:21:17.420I already had a built-in audience, too, which is a nice thing.
00:27:14.500Let's say that you are each of you or you're 100 yards apart from the other person and you're trying to draw closer to that person, whether it's a romantic relationship or a platonic relationship or a friend that's really struggling and you're trying to draw the relationship closer.
00:27:29.160If you're 100 yards apart, you, as the person trying to establish that relationship, has to take the first step.
00:29:37.880He owns a landscape company, and he was telling me he needs some help for the summer.
00:29:44.220If you can commit to me, because this is my referral, so this is a friend of mine, so don't fuck it up.
00:29:52.620But if you can commit to me that you're going to show up and work hard and do good work, I would be happy to make that introduction for you.
00:30:01.600And if the friend says, no, dude, I don't like landscaping.
00:31:48.500I was doing some stuff on BetterHelp, which is an online like therapy thing.
00:31:54.000And I was going through the motions, frankly.
00:31:55.880Like I really wasn't doing it, but I was doing it, and I could check it off the box.
00:32:00.460But I really wasn't opening myself up.
00:32:02.300I really wasn't thinking about or being intentional about the conversations I wanted to have or the issues or the insecurities I wanted to address.
00:32:09.320So finally through these couple of experiences I had over the past couple of weeks, I decided, okay, well, I'm going to finally reach out to this guy, and I did.
00:32:17.560We had a good conversation last week, and he gave me some assignments, and I appreciate that.
00:32:22.920I don't want to just sit there and spill my guts and not have any actionable steps moving forward.
00:32:27.520But he gave me some assignments, which I had completed, which were way harder than they should have been or that I thought they would be.
00:32:46.980The difference is that as I think about things that come up for me throughout the week that either get my blood boiling or that I find myself emotionally reactive to,
00:32:57.520versus responding with logic and intelligence and rational, clear-headed thinking, I write that down in a folder on my notepad on the phone.
00:33:22.520I know when somebody says something or does something or I have an experience where I feel my blood boiling a little bit or I freak out or insecurities come to the surface,
00:33:32.640that for me is a little trigger, a little indicator.
00:33:38.820You can talk with him about this and you guys can work that out.
00:33:43.360He can help you see where that comes from and give you an assignment or some work that you can do outside of our conversations that will help you move forward.
00:33:53.520I've kind of been torn on the therapy stuff because I've done it, but – and I've even said there shouldn't be a stigma around mental health for men, but there is.
00:34:04.700And I even have that stigma for myself.
00:40:54.740Anyways, I was thinking about like if I had a limb that was amputated.
00:41:00.820Like if, if I lost a leg in a car accident or lost an arm, I watched a video of this guy, like went to grab a shark out of the water that he had caught or something.
00:41:11.700And the shark lashed onto his pinky and ripped his pinky off.
00:41:14.480He's like, damn, I just lost my pinky.
00:41:16.040He was surprisingly calm for having his pinky ripped off by a shark.
00:41:19.240Like, but I was thinking about it over the weekend.
00:41:22.220Like what, how would I respond to that?
00:41:24.200Would I, would I wallow in my own self pity?
00:41:27.460Would I, would I cry and throw in the towel?
00:41:30.080Would I, would I think that life was over and just kind of amount to a pile of shit?
00:41:35.360And then I got thinking about a friend of mine, his name is Sidney Smith and he is a double amputee, both legs.
00:52:48.180Oh, I've known him for, oh, he's like a brother to me.
00:52:51.440That brother would fuck you in a heartbeat if he got the opportunity.
00:52:55.660So when I hear a guy say what you're saying, this is common, but then the thing that really stood out to me is you make it sound like you set all the boundaries and she understood your directive.
00:53:13.640Yeah, that's a problem because those satellite bulls are out there and they're working hard and there's more of them than there are of you.
00:53:24.820So why is it 100% your responsibility to establish, set, and communicate the boundaries?
00:53:35.940Now, you might have your own things going on.
00:53:39.300She got drunk and started having an inappropriate conversation she wasn't willing to shut down with one of these satellites.
00:53:46.400Instead of you setting the boundaries, I think I would ask, what are you going to do to invest in this relationship?
00:53:56.500What are you going to do to ensure that this nonsense doesn't happen?
00:54:01.540Because there has to be a level of trust.
00:54:06.800You might be a trustworthy individual, but if you can't trust her, there's no way that this relationship is going to thrive, and I want it to.
00:54:13.820It sounds like it didn't go any further.
00:54:16.300It sounds like she should have shut it down, but didn't.
00:54:19.040Now it's her responsibility to communicate to you what she's going to do and how she's going to ensure that she's a trustworthy person.
00:54:29.340What she's going to do to make sure that you know she continues to value this relationship.
00:54:34.560And I know it takes two to tango, and I think you having boundaries in place too is healthy.
00:54:38.840I'm not saying it isn't, but she's got to come up with some of these on her own.
00:54:42.840And if she's not willing to get involved in that discussion that way, whether it's because you're too controlling, that you don't give her the opportunity to, or she's unsure enough about herself, then this is going to happen again.
00:54:55.280She's going to go get shit-faced again.
00:54:57.340Another satellite's going to come in, recognize the opportunity, try to get laid.
00:55:02.280And unless she has a plan that she's bought into, she might actually just succumb to that in a moment of weakness or drunkenness.
00:55:37.260Like, but if she's still hanging out and you're just the only one progressing with all the boundaries and expectations and everything, and she's just saying, okay, yeah, okay.
00:56:30.320So as a woman, an empowered woman, who wants her autonomy and her individualism, and I think those are worthy good things, then you have to exercise some vigilance.
00:56:44.680You have to be able to shut down inappropriate conversations with courage and confidence.
00:56:51.740You have to not get sucked into the game.
00:56:54.500You have to know what a friend's, a male friend's intentions are.
00:57:00.160And maybe his intentions aren't bad now.
00:57:03.600But trust me, if that window opens up, he will step into that.
00:58:45.760I've not held on to the anger from being let go, but there are times when I'm busting my ass in, in the wee hours and just thinking about the entire situation.
00:58:55.500How do I truly move past this and focus on just taking care of my family and getting out of this financial mess and breathe again?
01:00:33.340Look at all this money that I've been able to make.
01:00:36.180Now, whether or not I was prudent with it, that's another discussion.
01:00:38.700But look at all this money that I made from doing this work.
01:00:42.240They believed in me enough to do this.
01:00:44.600Look at the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.
01:00:47.140And what can I extract from my experience there that I can now go apply?
01:00:53.040So a good example of this is, it's a little different because I wasn't let go, but I was
01:00:57.700working with another financial planning firm before I started my own.
01:01:01.060And there were moments where I was frustrated and I looked at my, I finally looked at my pay and I realized, man, I'm splitting all of my revenue, 50% of my revenue in exchange for a part-time secretary and a $1,000 a month office space.
01:01:46.060I was in the business with that company for about four or five years, five years of experience, incredible connections, income to me that I didn't earn in those early years to help float me, to get me on my feet.
01:02:02.160Powerful networks with other people, the experience, the education, the knowledge.
01:02:06.060And then I went out on my own and I started my own financial planning practice and it was like off to the races from day one.
01:02:11.660That would not have happened without five years with that other financial planning firm.
01:03:04.440I'm grateful for the learning opportunities.
01:03:06.280And I'm even grateful now that I went through that divorce because I think I'd probably end up being dead or killing somebody or driving to this business into the ground or completely just demolishing the relationships I have with my kids.
01:03:24.060But I got caught soon enough in not a real pleasant way.
01:03:30.020But, man, if that hadn't have happened, life would be completely different for the worse today.
01:03:37.420So I'm actually grateful for that in some ways.