MICHAEL MILLIN ｜ Break the Cycle of Trauma and Addiction
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 9 minutes
Harmful content
Toxicity
21
sentences flagged
Hate speech
14
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of The Order of Man Podcast, host Ryan Higa speaks with Michael Millen, a professional surfer, author, and advocate for men battling addiction and the generational trauma that potentially fuels it. Michael shares how he went from mocking Christianity to wrestling honestly with God, how a single sober friend changed the trajectory of his life, and why enablers do more damage than they'll possibly admit.
Transcript
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Every man carries forces that pull against each other. For you, maybe it's the urge to numb out versus the call to actually face it. Maybe it's inheriting your father's failures, but also the responsibility to break that chain for yourself and your children.
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For my guest today, Michael Millen, those opposing forces weren't just a metaphor.
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They were the difference between his life lost in addiction versus the 17 years of sobriety
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that he's built since hitting rock bottom with his back against the wall.
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Today, Michael and I talk about generational trauma, the instability of growing up with
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a father who came in and out of his life, and what it actually takes to stop running
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from the pain that you've spent potentially your whole life numbing from. This is a very raw
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conversation about alcoholism, faith, and the lie that we have to wrap up our identity in being
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broken. Michael shares how he went from mocking Christianity to wrestling honestly with God.
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We talk about that today. How a single sober friend changed the trajectory of his life
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and why enablers end up doing more damage than they'll possibly admit.
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So if you've ever told yourself you weren't okay and didn't know what to do about it,
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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This is who you will become at the end of the day.
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And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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I am the founder and host of the Order of Man podcast.
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And I want to be the first to welcome you here.
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Whether you've listened to a thousand episodes or this is your very first episode,
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it's my job to give you all the tools and resources and conversation
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that you need to become a better man in your life.
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I've got a great one lined up with Michael Millen today.
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Before I do that, I want to talk about something else that's great.
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they are coming out with another batch very soon. So if you're looking for the folding knife called
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and you're going to save some money when you do. All right, guys, let me introduce you to Michael.
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He is a professional surfer. He's an author. He's also an advocate for men battling addiction
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and the generational trauma that potentially fuels it.
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He grew up watching legends like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado.
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And his early life was marked by an unstable family
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and a father who drifted in and out of his life,
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And that instability is what set the stage for his own descent into alcoholism,
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a battle that he fought until he had no choice but to change.
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now he's 17 years sober michael is also the author of a book called a life of opposing forces
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and it confronts the internal war between self-destruction and one of redemption he's
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the founder of further active and a voice for men who feel trapped by some of the same cycles that
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he's managed to escape through his work through his serve community and through his newfound faith
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Michael challenges atheism he once hid behind and offers man a very hard one hard earned truth
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that you don't have to stay the person that the pain you've experienced made you
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Mike what's up man thanks for joining me on the order man podcast today good to meet you
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officially yeah great to meet you Ryan you know as I mentioned a little while ago just
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I'm surprised I haven't come across your work because I mean I was digging into a little bit
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of like what you do and what you're about you know just we have a lot in common like the stuff
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you know the father figure stuff alcoholism separation faith so yeah looking forward to
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talking to you man it's nice to meet you yeah likewise I you know when you say you and I have
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a lot in common I've been doing this work for 10 years and it's it's amazing and quite honestly a
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little disheartening. Um, how many men actually have gone through the same thing, overcoming
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addiction, dealing with fatherless homes? Um, man, it's, it's at this point, I just think it's
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an epidemic that we need to make sure that we address and, and correctly try to remedy.
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Yeah. I'm just curious. Uh, so did you not have a dad at all growing up or he was in and out or?
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My, my dad, my biological father, my dad was, uh, out of the picture for the most part by the
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time I was about three years old. And we always had a pretty decent relationship. I'd go visit
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him and spend time with him. Always loved him. Good human being. There was just some disconnects,
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you know? Um, I don't think he knew how to raise me and my sister. And, you know, I, I held that
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against him for a while, uh, for a long time actually. And it wasn't until his passing where
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I really started to let go of some of that and, and afford some grace and forgiveness that has
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helped me. And hopefully at some point we'll in the afterlife, be able to reconnect and have some
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of these discussions that we probably should have had when we had the opportunity in life.
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Yeah. I mean, my pops is still here. I don't know. I mean, at this point he just refuses to die,
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you know? And, uh, I mean, I even, I joke with him about that and he's like, I know son,
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I'm like a cockroach you know but you know we have this back and forth that's pretty that's
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pretty amazing um but uh yeah I mean yeah I don't know where I was going with that but I I yeah I
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relate to that a lot like you said it's pretty common it seems like you know with men walking
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through these things uh and it is disheartening but it's also uh it's crazy how walking through
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this stuff is it's what kind of like reveals who you truly are and helps you you know get to a
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much better place in the end. Right. But it's not easy. Yeah. I, you know, I don't think anybody has
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it easy. I think it's really a matter of how we choose to look at it, right? Like some people
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choose to look at whatever hand they've been dealt and think they've been slighted or taken
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advantage of in some way. And maybe they have, but there's those who would take the same hand
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and think, okay, this is my lot in life. And so what can I do with it? It's really a matter of how
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we look at the hand how we approach it the hand that we play and the moves that we make that
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determine whether or not that's going to define us or it's just a part of our story yeah yeah
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absolutely what what when you were dealing with your own so let me let me back up a little bit
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when you talk about your father being in your life now was he always in your life or was it
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come and go? Was it distant? Like, what did that actually look like for you? So he was in and out
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a lot. I mean, and so, you know, there was lots of, there's alcoholism going on. There was drug
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addiction. And I mean, my parents probably like broke up and got back together over 30 times when
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I was a kid. So we were always on the run, you know, it was like, we were, we were poor, we were
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on welfare um you know taking the greyhound bus all over the u.s um hawaii my mom's the youngest
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of seven she's like her uh family's like they're native they're uh from north dakota um and they
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just have a big family man and so like she was the youngest and we were always going to live with her
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older siblings so montana florida you know all over california like i said hawaii so you know
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like I've mentioned in the past in a few clips, like, you know,
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whenever my dad disappeared, I was always going with my mom,
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but it was more like, you know, it was, it takes two to tangle. Right.
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So my mom would be on the run and my dad would be on a huge bender that would
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last four years or so. Yeah. He was in and out, um, when I was a kid,
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but he came back in my life more like full time when I was about nine because
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Like he's been sober since the time you were nine. I mean,
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that's a feat. I know a lot of guys who have gone through it and really, including myself,
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I've, I've had my own bouts with alcohol abuse and it can be a real challenge, man.
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Yeah. Um, well, I was going to ask, did you get sober, like through the program,
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12 steps or you do your own thing or a bit of both, you know, like, uh,
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the hardest thing for me, if I'm being really honest and, and I'm, I'm actually careful of
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saying this because I know there's a lot of guys who listen, who are in AA or considering it. And
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I think it's a really great thing for a lot of guys. The hardest part for me is that I never
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really felt like I belonged. I never really felt like I saw myself and the people in that room.
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And I'm not trying to be arrogant by any means, but it was really, really difficult for me to
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relate. And because I didn't have that relatability, it, it undermined some of the trust in the
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program that I had. But I will say, I know it's worked for probably at this point, millions of
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people. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of it depends on the area you're in too. Sometimes
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like, I mean, the message is always the same wherever you go. Like I've been to meetings
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all over the world, but, um, it kind of, you know, it, it changes a bit different parts of
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the world. Just the, the, the culture, the attitude and the meanings. But what I was going
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to mention was why, and it's why AA is still such a big part of my life. You know, the 12 step
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program is because my dad got sober when I was nine years old and he stayed sober for 15 years,
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but he didn't really work the program. He, you know, he went through this, he didn't finish
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the steps. He started them and he had a major relapse at 15 years sober and things got like
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really ugly when i you know so i was in my late teens early 20s at that point he lost everything
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again the family the the small business um he ended up homeless for 10 years after that and
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that really like scared the shit out of me watching that firsthand and i was actually
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just starting to become like an alcoholic myself like i you know the first time i drank i was 15
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at a high school party and i was challenging the seniors and i i blacked out and knocked
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my front tooth out like just you know got in a fight with the with the ground with the concrete
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so that was my first experience you didn't win that one huh um so i was already like wow that
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didn't turn out too well you know and and um i was having some issues with it but then watching
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my dad relapse and watching the monster that he turned into it was like looking into the mirror
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like it really i was like oh my god that's me that's what and people were telling me you know
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Mike, you're an alcoholic. And so, so yeah, that, that as hard as that was to walk through that,
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that was a godsend in a way too, you know, it's because I wouldn't have got sober if it wasn't
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for that being able to look in the mirror and go, Holy crap, there I am. I do not want anything to
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do with that. What do you think though, made it a differentiating factor? Because, you know, I,
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I look just like my dad from my beard to my eyes, to my mannerisms. I, I am basically a clone of
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my, my dad. Um, and I always told myself growing up that there were parts of him that I really
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admired and there are, there, there's some really redeeming qualities about him. And there's some
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parts of him that I just did not want to be like. And yet by default, it seemed like I slipped back
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into those patterns. I don't want to downplay it and say that I wasn't making my own choices
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because a lot of guys will do that. They'll be like, well, it was just because of my upbringing.
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It's like, well, okay. Yeah, but you're a grown ass man. And so you make your own decisions,
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but what do you think separated you from the millions of men who might just slip into patterns
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without even thinking about it? Well, I honestly had no other choice because
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we were, um, you know, I mentioned my dad had a small business, um, but he was still in a
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comeback phase like when he was younger he he was an entrepreneur he owned like furniture stores and
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he was wealthy but burnt that all to the ground and then built it up i've seen him go through that
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cycle at least three times in my life but i mean this cycle he was rebuilding and then everything
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so we were poor we were basically living in poverty you know we were like we yeah we like
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we were living in the back of my dad's mattress store like you know look like four of us in a
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little studio right near the beach so luckily I could surf and stuff but um it was you know we
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were in poverty and growing up in a really wealthy area too in San Diego which so it was like it was
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really like embarrassing and I wish I was you know I was just a kid I didn't know any better right
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but uh so I basically I was living in a container when my this happened to my dad and my mom you
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know they were going through the this together like they were homeless together for about 10
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years but I really had nowhere to go I was in a container almost on the street and I had a friend
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come into my life who was sober at the time he had 90 days sober and he invited me to a 12-step
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meeting and I just man I just held on to it with everything I had like I just I was like oh my god
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this is the only chance I have to stay sober and you know get to work keep a roof over my head and
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it was man like i hated it but looking back now it's crazy how something like that is a blessing
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because i've like i've worked in recovery now for over 10 years addiction treatment like
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starting at the bottom working as a tech doing everything to like managing rehabs and sober
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livings and working one-on-one with people as a sober coach like sometimes that involves travel
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you know all over the world whatever it is but i what i've seen with people who who have
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the means most of these people that i work with it's a wide range there's poor but there's also
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like the wealthiest you can imagine no doubt yeah and and these people they it's man the way the
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families enable them with money it's like they actually the families actually kill the person
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sometimes because they never hit a true bottom so yeah i don't know if that makes sense yeah no it
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does and when you i was taking notes there but when you were talking about enabling i think
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that's the behavior i see in in a lot of people like i like personally i had friends who i wouldn't
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say they enabled me because they didn't know i was a closet drinker so they didn't know but well
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let me back up some of them did know and didn't say anything and my ex-wife obviously knew and
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she didn't press that hard. Again, I'm not putting it on them. I'm a grown man. I should
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make those choices. But I really wish that there would have been somebody in my life who said,
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hey, and got a little rough with me and said, hey, we're not going down this path. You're not
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doing this. I see where you're going. I see your behavior. I see what you're engaged in,
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and we're not doing this. That's not their inherent responsibility. But as a friend and
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a family member, I try to be that moving forward because I know what it's like when you don't have
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somebody who's willing to tell you the hard truth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've honestly seen
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quite a few people die over the years because they just, they've got a million in the bank or
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hundreds of thousands or whatever. It's like the family's sending them 10 grand a month.
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Even a grand a month is too much sometimes. Like you got to be able to hit a true bottom and have
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nowhere to go which is so crazy because that was my situation and man I can't tell you how much
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I hated that when I was going through it like I was I the victimhood and the self-pity and
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and I mean just to look back now I've been sober 17 years it was like wow that was a crazy blessing
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as hard as that was what did what did rock bottom look like for you it looks different for a lot of
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people, you know, for me, it was losing my 18 year marriage and being separated from my children
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half the time. And, you know, the business suffering and my own identity and sense of
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self-worth suffering, that was rock bottom for me. And I know it's different to varying degrees
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for other people, but what did it look like for you? Well, luckily, you know, I was able to kind
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of fast track myself. I was 24 when I got sober because of my situation with, you know, my family
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and my living situation, my money, all of it. And, um, it, but, but right up until that point,
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I was, uh, what was I, I was, I was a blackout drinker. So I would go on, on vendors, you know,
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sometimes it would last three days. Sometimes I, I would, it would last seven months just like,
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I like I could drink it's in it runs in my blood we can drink man on the Irish side and on the
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Native American side that's what we do and I mean I'd wake up in different towns I didn't know how
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I got there really bad stuff happening injuries that I'm still carrying to this day ankles broke
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you know that busted ankles like hurting people really selfish self-absorbed living um but it
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would have gotten way worse if i didn't cut it off if my dad didn't relapse at that time and
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because i i was like that's it boom i got into the meeting and i saw myself looking at my dad and
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um so i'll mention real quick that things got a lot better when i got sober but i've also hit
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multiple multiple bottoms in sobriety in the last 17 years like i've i've had to grow up in the in
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the program the 12-step program it really like because i love my family but they weren't really
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there. So AA kind of like became my family and raised, raised me, you know, I had a sponsor that
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became like a father figure, solid guy, his family. He even moved me into his house for a while with
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his family when I had nowhere to go. You know, that was the first time I ever like got to see
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what a normal family looks like that's operating well. Um, so I, uh, yeah, sorry. What was the
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question again I lost well I was asking you know I'll get I was asking what rock bottom looked like
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for you oh yeah and then just I was mentioning the multiple bottoms in sobriety as well because
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I've had to like when I was about a year or two sober I I hit the road like I grew up surfing and
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competing but then I I lived in Indonesia for like 10 years chasing the surf I don't know if you ever
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been out there to bali or indonesia or any of that i haven't yeah just uh so i was and i was
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still really connected with aa out there and working in a rehab and um but you know i went
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through like the whole new age phase getting into meditation and and um seeing healers in in bali and
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and and that led me down like and it seemed like it was working great at the time but it led me
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down some really dark paths you know i saw some really scary stuff in spirituality um that you
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know fast forward to two or three years ago i ended up becoming a christian and and that's just
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been the most that's been the biggest most positive shift i've had in my life to this point
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i had a a wonderful woman come into my life i got i got married earlier this year she's been with me
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we've been together three years like there even the fact that i'm talking to you right now and i
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have a book that it's all because of Christ. I really believe that. I mean, congratulations on
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the marriage and also, you know, your conversion and that's amazing. Yeah. It's interesting because
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I, so I never really got into surfing. I actually grew up until I was about 13, 14 years old
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in Southern California, Anaheim. I'd go down to Huntington or, you know, trestles and I'd watch
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Kelly Slater and Rob Machado, um, in surf competitions. And I went surfing once in
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trestles. I had a good friend who, uh, was a great surfer and he took me out and I got my ass kicked
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and I'm like, this is stupid. I'm not doing that again. And I think I've been on a board once
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since, but I never got into it, but I can see how having a couple of things, a good outlet,
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like you're talking about surfing, um, a great woman, like you're talking about and a Christ
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centered life. Like that's kind of the trifecta of living a good life, quite honestly.
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yeah yeah yeah it's uh i never thought it would be like i honestly i can't even believe i'm saying
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this to you because i used to mock christianity and all this like i i was like this so it's just
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crazy how like we really i'll speak for myself i don't know what i don't know anything really
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like i know very little right until god puts things in my life and and but yeah surfing is uh
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They say it has the slowest learning curve of any sport.
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Maybe when you're back over here in California, I'll get you out on the water again.
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But, uh, I mean, I went to Dana point with my oldest son and with, with a friend who
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And I looked, I'm like struggling to get on a board and I, and I got, I'm fairly athletic.
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And I'm looking over at my sons on the board, standing, riding waves on his first time.
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i don't know if it's not my thing or i don't know what it is but man i've struggled with it for sure
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it's wild how easy surfers make it look right i mean i grew up crazy i grew up watching rob
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machado firsthand every day and yeah for sure he was like a god to us because he just the connection
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he had with the ocean it was it's like spiritual it's weird it's like waves come to him out of
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nowhere like out way out the back and it's it's wild when you see someone have that connection
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with the ocean, you know, and then you throw in all the elements of like the sharks, the great
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whites or the tigers, if you're in Hawaii or, you know, it's that could, I mean, it's, it's on your
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mind, you know, it's, it's a, it's a wild sport, but I love it, man. I can't, I don't do well when
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I'm not near the ocean. I got to get in the water almost daily. Like I just, I'm just just in my
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veins. Guys, let me just step back from this conversation and it's, I know it's a really
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powerful one, but I want to explain something to you because every man listening to this
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probably realizes that there's a gap between who he is and who he is supposed to be or who he wants
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to become. And the problem is that most men try to close that gap alone and then they end up failing
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alone. And that's exactly why our Brotherhood, the Iron Council exists tonight. So Tuesday, June 9th
00:24:03.720
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00:24:55.480
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00:25:00.680
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00:25:05.820
Now let's get back to it with Michael. It's, it's wild to me. Cause I often joke
00:25:11.600
cause I'm not a huge fan of the water. So maybe that's part of it. You talk about sharks,
00:25:15.900
like there's it's black down there. There's things that could eat me alive without questioning,
00:25:20.660
without a moment's notice. Um, and, and I often say, you know, if God wanted me to be in the
00:25:26.600
water, he would have given me gills. And if he wanted me to be in the air, he would have given
00:25:29.780
me wings. He didn't give me either. So I'll stay on the ground and be up in the mountains somewhere.
00:25:34.460
Yeah. Me and my friends joke a lot that, Oh, I got to get the gills wet. You know,
00:25:39.640
I got to get in the ocean. Like I'll talk to you later.
00:25:44.740
No, I think part of it is upbringing too, right? Like what you're surrounded by and what you're
00:25:48.940
comfortable with and what you're familiar with. But I think the lesson here is not surfing
00:25:54.020
necessarily. You might say it is, but I think the lesson is have an outlet, like have something that
00:26:00.060
just calls to you, that speaks to you, that you can go out and find God or find harmony with,
00:26:05.860
with earth and, and just be present in that thing. And, and also work to improve yourself,
00:26:11.880
work to develop something in yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, all of it.
00:26:16.060
yeah yeah man i uh you just made me think of something there because i've seen
00:26:22.640
i mean i've worked with so many people in recovery now going through addiction and
00:26:27.120
whether they're in the sober living whatever phase they're at in their recovery and
00:26:31.060
man time and time again the guys who don't make it they don't find something that they love
00:26:36.900
doing they just and most of the time they're you know in the house and they're they're on video
00:26:43.160
playing video games all all day and night and those are the guys who drop off you see them od
00:26:49.300
and die and or whatever it's like the life becomes so bad that they almost wish they you know and
00:26:54.880
you know what i mean like it's so important to find something that you'd love doing especially
00:26:59.540
if you're dealing with you know addiction and stuff yeah 100 do you feel like people who suffer
00:27:06.520
with addiction are, they have that, I mean, maybe this is just a dumb question, but they
00:27:16.040
do have that sort of all in black and white thinking addictive personality and they just
0.59
00:27:24.660
orient it towards something destructive. Do you think it's as simple as just orienting that
00:27:30.280
energy towards something constructive as opposed to destructive yeah and you know this isn't
00:27:38.740
everyone but the the the type of mindset that i see that struggles the most is usually people
00:27:44.340
who are like atheist and they're just it's all intellect there's no soul no using the intuition
00:27:51.460
and and yeah the intellect is incredible right for certain things i wish i had a little more
00:27:58.120
of it sometimes but the um it's yeah it's the guys who are just all in their head who who struggle
00:28:03.820
the most and they're like oh there's it's not even worth trying to go out in the world and do
00:28:07.420
anything or connect to people or be constructive or because everything sucks and um i want to die
00:28:13.680
or i just want to play you know whatever it is world warcraft or yeah so that's kind of my two
00:28:20.380
cents on that yeah what do you what is your mission then you know if you if you're thinking
00:28:24.520
about, okay, well, I don't want to just sit and play World of Warcraft. I don't even, I don't even
00:28:30.380
have Dungeons and Dragons. I don't even know what it is, but like, it's even hard for me to say.
00:28:34.720
I'm like, am I, am I saying that right? Um, what do you think, what, what would you consider your
00:28:41.580
mission outside of, Hey, I just, I want to surf. I want to, I want to, you know, be a good partner
00:28:46.200
to my, to my woman. Do you have kids? Yeah. Yeah. I have a eight year old daughter. Yeah.
00:28:51.980
okay so yeah like i i imagine you know like i want to be a good father but outside of that
00:28:57.000
what would you say is your personal mission um well uh let me see here i was i had something
00:29:07.340
on mine i'll catch you in a sec but you know you were going to tell me about how good you are at
00:29:12.320
world of warcraft or whatever your whatever global ranking is i think that's what you're
00:29:17.420
going to talk to me about the funny thing is i think that mentioning that game is probably
00:29:21.320
super dated so the video gamers out there are gonna be like what is this guy talking about what
00:29:25.640
the hell are these guys talking about right now yeah but yeah i mean my mission dude is um i'm
00:29:31.640
still it's it's i'm still figuring it out right but like i'm a i'm a newcomer christian and i'm
00:29:37.800
still learning a lot like i'm just i'm just now ripping into the bible i'm like getting to a place
00:29:43.660
where i can actually sit down and read it and be like wow this is the first time i've ever actually
00:29:47.560
been able to read this thing like um so in many ways it's kind of like when you're a newcomer in
00:29:53.680
recovery in aa you just you just do a lot of listening and you can help sometimes you can
00:29:59.220
help people with your story more so when you're a newcomer than when you're an old timer because
00:30:02.980
the newcomers can connect with you more and relate to you more so um and you know the thing is like
00:30:11.880
the crazy thing is like i i i didn't want to write a book i don't like i didn't i got to a place where
00:30:17.880
i just kind of wanted to set up life on a beach somewhere and just go into hiding and just live a
00:30:23.620
quiet life and make a simple living and but then you know this woman came into my life and she's
00:30:30.740
like no you're not doing that like no because i won't get into all the super like deep stuff that
00:30:37.720
we've experienced together with spirituality and becoming a christian and but i i um i it's like i
00:30:44.600
i have a mission to do and i i my thing is i want to the the final goal is to have like a surf club
00:30:51.040
um which is sort of like a ymca for surfing but uh and i don't really want to you know um relate
00:30:59.420
it to something like ymca but somewhere where i can um have a good influence on young young kids
00:31:05.020
young men especially ones who are surfing and stuff and just give them what basically what i
00:31:10.340
didn't have as a kid because i man i mean my with the situation with my parents i was on my own and
00:31:17.060
i had to live through so much turmoil and pain to get where i am and yeah that's necessary
00:31:22.480
sometimes but i think if you i i look at like people who were formed by good families and
00:31:30.060
like i like for example i see this uh this one guy he his clips all the time he's got like 10
00:31:36.140
kids and he's you know he's christian and his family's cranking and it just i'm like wow
00:31:41.760
something's working in this guy's life whereas with other families you'll see like they have
00:31:47.280
one kid and everything's collapsed and the the kid is in a terrible situation because they don't
00:31:53.140
have god or like this seal of protection in a way so yeah does that um come through basically with
00:32:01.140
where i'm at with my mission no i think great question i have a tough question to answer right
00:32:05.260
it is but i think a lot of guys who listen to this are trying to unpack and discover i don't
00:32:13.680
like the i don't like the word find it's too passive for me when when you say find but what
00:32:20.960
i'm hearing you say is that you're actually unpacking it you're discovering it you're
00:32:25.040
building it you're trying new things um i love the surf club idea for young men and i thought
00:32:32.480
of something similar here in town not with surf because you know we live in the desert so there's
00:32:36.920
no surfing here unless it's a you know like a fake wave pool or whatever which is cool like
00:32:42.000
or or wakeboarding i guess there's a lot of not wakeboarding wake surfing is that what it is
00:32:46.920
Wake surfing? Yeah. But what I do appreciate about what you said is, and this is what I would want
00:32:56.620
guys to know, is that whatever you suffered with when you were a young man and a boy is probably
00:33:04.740
the path. That's what I found. I've interviewed over, gosh, close to 600 highly successful men
00:33:10.360
in their own right at this point. And it seems to me that whatever men struggle with tends to be
00:33:16.500
the path of development and improvement in the lives of other people yeah yeah and i mean i just
00:33:24.620
feel like even recently this has really come on pretty strong that that's where i can probably
00:33:29.720
have the most impact with young men you know and uh you know girls as well boys and girls but like
00:33:37.500
in those uh developmental stages where they're coming up and maybe they don't have a strong
00:33:42.820
family to fall back on and it's like well come to the club come surf and you know we'll do some
00:33:47.700
other cool stuff as well um i was just curious though uh because i mentioned i was listening
00:33:53.980
to your episode with john eldridge which was i love how he talks about how how god is just so
00:33:58.080
wild you know like and and kind of like nature right it's it's like yeah it'll it'll mess you
00:34:04.540
up but it's beautiful as well it'll kill you but it's dangerous but it's it's beautiful as well
00:34:11.280
Like, are you still discovering your faith journey?
00:34:14.180
I didn't get to finish the episode, but I was just curious.
00:34:26.720
I don't read the Bible a whole lot, quite honestly.
00:34:29.900
I pray often and I feel like sometimes I find some divine inspiration.
00:34:37.520
but yeah it is one thing that continues to evade me if I'm being honest um so yeah I'm kind of on
00:34:47.020
the fence a little bit about it not that I don't want to believe I do I want to get in the game
00:34:51.380
but I have yet to see a reason to quite honestly yeah I mean it's it's a battle even like with
00:34:57.400
me having some really positive stuff happen in my life it's a daily battle I can go down really
00:35:02.960
quick quick where i'm like this is to tell tell my wife this is i'm done this is bs like this
00:35:09.080
what god would allow this or that you know like did that whole kind of framework but um yeah so
00:35:16.240
i mean but then i have my updates too where i'm like okay no i see i see what i see it god's like
00:35:21.320
kind of creating a framework here for what i need to do and i think like you mentioned it's just like
00:35:25.360
going back to what did you walk through as a kid and what what you know what what do you have to
00:35:31.180
offer like young kids or whatever it may be, right? Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think
00:35:37.180
that's exactly right. I believe that he has given us gifts and talents and abilities and it's up to
00:35:41.940
us to use them. We don't have to, you know, we have our agency. I've never really wrestled with
00:35:46.820
what kind of God would allow this to take place because I've never really considered in the lives
00:35:52.780
of my own children that if they make mistakes or something horrible happens, whether it's
00:35:57.880
medically related or, or some existential tragedy that it's my doing. I would not allow that so to
00:36:06.520
speak as their father, but it just happens. And I feel the same way is true with God is that,
00:36:12.880
you know, he is omnipotent. He does have complete power and authority and sovereignty over all
00:36:18.740
things. But if he were to interject that way, what it would mean is that he's taking away
00:36:25.740
someone's agency. And he's not, it's universal principles based on what I know, what I understand
00:36:33.440
of the Bible and God is that he is governed by principles just as we are. And that is that he
00:36:40.380
will not take away our agency. So. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. More shall be revealed, right?
00:36:49.660
Yeah. I think that's the, you know, like some people might say, well, isn't that convenient?
00:36:54.000
like the things that go great are god's doing the things you don't understand well you'll figure it
00:37:00.720
out or you'll find out later it's like that's pretty convenient but also i happen to agree with
00:37:05.580
it yeah yeah definitely man well and i like what you said too and i wish i wish guys would really
00:37:13.500
hear this because when you ask me that it's it lands so much more powerfully for me personally
00:37:29.380
and has a scriptural reference for every problem that I have
00:37:45.220
And I wish people, I wish more men understood that
00:37:49.640
to speak up on things that are relevant and important to them
00:37:58.580
I mean, I'm curious because I'm trying to figure it out too, you know,
00:38:05.880
I didn't for a long time, just like that Christ was the Messiah
00:38:11.240
I mocked all that, but I've just had quite a few powerful things happen
00:38:15.880
in my life in the last few years where I'm like, wow,
00:38:19.360
And this is worth seeking out because what I had before was garbage compared to even with my life getting better and sobriety and all that.
00:38:27.840
I just got so sick of building things up and getting so close to success and then everything collapsing.
00:38:35.800
You know, and it's even in sobriety and sorry to cut you off.
00:38:39.900
I just and I want to mention this because like I think there's there's it's like a generational thing.
00:38:45.820
Right. And I'm sure you've talked about this with guests before, but like the trauma, the cycles, I watched it.
00:38:52.360
It's it happened in my grandpa's life, the alcoholism, building things up, the marriages and then everything collapsing.
00:38:59.200
And then they go through that cycle over and over and over again.
00:39:02.580
And then it happened in my dad's life. And it started happening in my life.
00:39:06.640
And it's like, what even when I'm sober? OK, so I can't blame it on alcohol.
00:39:11.900
you know and it's like okay i think there's something well not i think it's like god kind
00:39:18.180
of speaking to me through people and showing me that it's actually these like generational
00:39:23.820
curses or spirits that that affect each the each generation and so that's what i've really been
00:39:32.040
learning about digging into because it's just like i can't put my head in the sand with it
00:39:40.300
i mean that makes sense you know i think a lot of us will do that i i i've used this analogy in
00:39:48.120
the past where you know you might be playing peekaboo with your kid or your nephew or niece
00:39:53.080
or whatever and you cover your eyes and then you reveal your face and they laugh and giggle
00:39:56.800
and then they do the same thing and and toddlers actually believe that if they cover their eyes
00:40:02.980
and they can't see you that you can't see them. And we laugh and we tease about it because it's
00:40:11.700
funny. It's stupid. It's funny. It's silly. And yet as grown men, we do the same thing. We're
1.00
00:40:17.920
like, oh man, maybe if I hide my alcoholism, people won't see me. Maybe if I hide my pornography
00:40:23.900
addiction, maybe if I hide my insecurities and my doubts and frustrations, my wife won't know.
00:40:28.720
no everybody knows bro everybody can see you and the minute that a person wakes up to that reality
00:40:35.400
is the minute they realize okay i gotta actually do something about this yeah yeah definitely like
00:40:43.640
like i mentioned before when i was a kid you know in my early 20s i had people saying mike
00:40:48.440
you're an alcoholic straight up and i remember oh my god i couldn't tell you how mad that me
00:41:08.400
But yeah, like you said, people, but I had to come to terms with that.
00:41:13.400
And it's, yeah, it's not easy, but you got to face it.
00:41:19.240
How would you react if I were, we don't know each other, but how would you, if we were
00:41:24.380
friends let's say a day-to-day basis friends if i were to say hey mike you're an alcoholic
00:41:29.720
how would you react today versus the way you would have reacted then oh i usually beat people
00:41:36.800
to the punchline i usually i mean i usually say hey i'm a recovering alcoholic it's not like i go
00:41:44.080
around wearing it on like you know sure right badge but like if it's for some reason it comes
00:41:50.740
up or they're like, we're drinking, come down to the beach. I said, man, I'm a, I'm a recovering
00:41:55.480
alcoholic, you know, I've been sober a long time. Thanks. But I could come down and, you know,
00:42:00.180
bring some, uh, spin drips or something. Do you, okay. So here's one of the questions I've had a
00:42:06.500
lot and I want to get to your book as well, but do you ever question or have you ever had a
00:42:11.700
consideration that wrapping up, and I'm not saying you do this, but this is one of the things that
00:42:16.480
I've often wondered is that if we wrap up our identity and being quote unquote, an alcoholic,
00:42:21.260
does that make us more of the thing than saying, no, I'm not an alcoholic. I just struggle with
00:42:27.300
alcohol. And so here's what I'm doing to overcome it. Do you understand what I'm saying? Does that,
00:42:32.380
does that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, uh, especially when I was more into the meditation
00:42:38.760
and stuff, I would, I stopped saying I was an alcoholic for a while because I was listening
00:42:44.720
to teachers who were like, don't put that out into the universe and all that. And, um, you know,
00:42:51.840
it's, uh, well, I'll back up even a little bit before that, you know, for a long time,
00:42:57.020
I didn't want to go to AA because I didn't want to be associated with those people or
00:43:02.120
being an alcoholic and because they were losers, man, I don't want to end up like them. I went to
0.91
00:43:07.480
meetings with my dad when I was a kid, F that, you know, like, but you're speaking my story right
00:43:13.460
now but i ended up there and like i said i was at such a bottom that i had no choice and i also
00:43:22.600
was like you know what i'm screwed anyways i might as well these people know they're these people
00:43:28.760
know how to live life without drugs and alcohol and then when i started going to meetings and
0.94
00:43:34.000
it's anonymous so you don't know who's in there you think it's all losers i've sat next to some
00:43:40.340
of the most successful inspiring people on this planet in the meetings of AA they've got 40 50
00:43:49.900
years sober you would never know at the top of the top and you know what I mean and I'm like well
00:43:55.940
there goes that another breaking down what I think something is I don't know anything I don't um but
00:44:04.060
uh yeah there was one other thing I was going to touch on about that but does that kind of
00:44:08.320
makes sense to you yeah i mean total sense because i remember sitting in a meeting and there was a
00:44:15.260
person who every time i went they they said i'm so and so i'm an alcoholic i've been sober for 30
00:44:24.460
years and i was like i'd roll my eyes you know i'm like dude you're not an alcohol 30 years sober
00:44:31.060
and you're still calling yourself an alcoholic like it was really hard for me to wrap my head
00:44:36.160
around. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough, man. I, I get that. And I guess I've sort of just surrendered
00:44:44.220
to it and I could be wrong by, by saying, you know, saying I'm an alcoholic, but I just have
00:44:49.140
sort of surrendered to it. Cause it's, I, I needed to meet people who knew how to live life without
00:44:54.520
the drugs and alcohol and be okay. I didn't know how to do that. So I just, yeah, I've basically
00:45:01.040
surrendered to it. What did you, what did you, you said be okay. What, what do you feel like
00:45:06.540
you needed to be okay from? Well, you know, looking, well, it was obviously then it was
00:45:15.700
my externals, but I didn't realize how much it was, it was what was going on in the interior
00:45:20.420
life for me. I, I just wasn't okay ever. Like I, I've even in sobriety, I mean, I mean,
00:45:27.820
you name it I've been addicted to it sex nicotine uh you know call drink coffee alcoholically like
00:45:36.640
like it's just this and I've gotten a little better with it over the years but it's like this
00:45:41.540
dis-ease from within and it's obviously it's like I grew up in a really stressful environment
00:45:48.440
that's I I've been in a low level anxiety my whole life and not even known it because that's
00:45:53.360
what my parents imprinted on me god bless them that's what their parents imprinted on them
00:45:58.900
right i mean my dad's story is so horrific i got a chance to sit down and interview him
00:46:05.080
and he said things that i i i can't believe dude it broke me for like a week i mean just
00:46:12.160
his dad disappearing from alcoholism his mom beating the shit out of him and his brother
0.97
00:46:19.000
when he's eight from six years old all the way up to eight or nine you know like screwing bringing
0.97
00:46:26.120
dudes home from work screwing dudes right in front of him to the point where he was on the street
00:46:30.340
with his little brother living in an abandoned home in hollywood just living with homeless people
00:46:36.180
like that the homeless people helping them out you know giving them some hot dogs and stuff and
00:46:40.520
then his mom he hasn't seen his mom since he was nine years old so he and his dad was gone so him
00:46:45.700
and his brother ended up in like the system you know juvenile hall mclaren mckinley all these
00:46:52.240
and he was there until his late teenage years like just so just just horrific stuff has been
00:46:57.940
going on in my family line for a long time yeah that's it's hard but it's also really fascinating
00:47:07.360
i i'm kind of i'm wrestling with this question i want to ask because
00:47:14.500
like let me just ask at what point do you stop blaming your parents or their upbringing
00:47:22.180
or the the cycle or the pattern and decide to start being your own man
00:47:31.200
for me it was in the right away in the 12-step program while going through the steps
00:47:35.640
because as long as you remain the victim and i'm sure you've talked about this a thousand times
0.99
00:47:41.400
you're you're fucked you're you're the victim you are you're not going anywhere dude you gotta
1.00
00:47:46.420
man up yeah whatever happened happened but you gotta take responsibility for your life
1.00
00:47:51.860
and i got that through the steps like yeah and then getting to a place where
00:47:58.600
i mean you know it sounds corny but it's like okay i'm grateful for my situation with my parents
00:48:06.720
and all that because okay now i have some tools to work with people who are going through this
00:48:12.720
and there's more people than not that are going through this in the world i think you know like
00:48:17.480
going through what the the stuff with the parents the rough childhood the trauma the addiction
00:48:25.400
alcoholism like abuse agree i agree yeah it's i think it's more common than not for sure because
00:48:31.120
you think about like look how many even in just la i don't know there's 20 million people there
00:48:35.840
there's not that many people who are doing well like you might if you go to santa monica or
00:48:40.140
whatever palisades there's nice homes and but what about inglewood compton most la is is on fire
00:48:48.860
yeah they're in the middle of a big political shake-up right now too yeah and that's just
00:48:55.040
one area as well so yeah yeah so you know what i mean though that's just one area right of like
00:48:59.520
there's so much poverty and stuff like look what's going on all the with the native american tribes
00:49:03.920
I'm sure there's probably one near you somewhere. It's, it's not pretty.
0.95
00:49:07.280
The Utes. Yeah. The Utes. And yeah. And Navajo as well.
00:49:13.580
Um, with the native American ancestry, what, what is your, what is your,
00:49:17.900
I'm probably not going to say this right. Your tribal heritage.
00:49:25.580
She's half Chippewa and Sioux for, so North Dakota, they're from North,
00:49:30.040
they're right near the border there and near Canada.
00:49:32.160
do you think that so obviously we're going to get into a little bit american history i'm just i'm
00:49:37.520
actually curious i've been wanting to ask somebody where you have that heritage built you know built
00:49:41.080
into your dna do you feel like the united states government has enabled a lot of the the maybe you
00:49:50.380
don't even think this but from the outside looking in we can have an honest discussion about it the
00:49:54.320
the the victimhood mentality the you know the the oppressed mentality potentially do you think that
00:50:03.700
that that has to do with the way that the united states government has treated
00:50:07.920
native american indians throughout our history yeah it's interesting you know so i didn't
00:50:16.760
grow up on the reservation you know my mom and her family did for part of their life and then
00:50:23.160
they got off the reservation and came down to we grew up mostly between California and Hawaii
00:50:28.600
my mom mostly grew up in Hawaii actually but I actually thought you were Hawaiian initially so
00:50:33.820
that's interesting I didn't I didn't yeah I'm a mix Irish and uh and and native so um makes perfect
00:50:39.900
sense Irish and Native American they just go together so well yeah and like I said we like
00:50:45.000
to drink dude yeah well that's that's one thing both both cultures seem to have in common right
00:50:50.980
yeah but you know it's funny when i was younger my dad used to say to me he used to say you don't
00:50:58.520
have a chance kid you don't have a chance as far as like drinking goes because of you know both
00:51:03.920
sides of the family just being torched from alcoholism do you think you embrace that idea
00:51:08.120
though do you like did you it probably didn't help it probably it's not a very positive thing
00:51:12.960
to say to your son you don't have a chance kid you don't have a chance you know like uh but what
00:51:20.320
i wanted to mention because i have been to the to the reservation you know like i'm i'm you know
00:51:25.300
i'm a member and all that i'm enrolled but like um what i noticed was um i mean it's it's i mean
00:51:32.920
if you think about like just a culture being wiped out overnight what that does to the people
00:51:40.620
to the survivors right it's pretty heavy man i talked to a couple like you know people have lived
00:51:46.760
there their whole life and I mean they have stories from through their family lines of like
00:51:52.520
they were like they remember people going through the reservation and shooting the natives and like
00:51:57.880
they would get like shillings for like I think I forget how much 50 shillings for a girl or
00:52:03.280
100 for a man you know and it I you know a lot of cultures go through wartime and stuff right but I
00:52:10.480
mean obviously you but like I think that that is really kind of stored in the DMA that trauma of
00:52:16.260
Like, just the whole culture being wiped out overnight is stored in their DNA.
00:52:25.320
But just from what I've observed and what I've felt in my own veins at times,
0.98
00:52:37.540
It's, you know, if they're not, like, super unhealthy, you better watch out
1.00
00:52:45.300
But, yeah, it just seems like they're dealing with a lot of trauma and they're numbing the pain with whatever they can get.
00:52:52.700
But I'm sure there definitely is some enabling going on because you can, I think, like I said, I haven't lived on the reservation, but you can make it on the tribe with doing, I think, almost nothing.
00:53:04.360
You can be taken care of with housing and, you know, I'm not certain on that, but just from what I've seen.
00:53:14.660
When you talk about numb the pain, and it's not just Native Americans.
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00:53:23.620
I remember when I went to Havasu Falls years and years ago,
00:53:41.320
and beautiful crystal clear water spring fed coming right out of the cliff side it's beautiful
00:53:48.000
and we were hiking back out and you have to go late in the evening or early in the morning
00:53:54.340
because it gets too hot you'll literally die if you try to hike out in the middle of the day it's
00:53:58.000
just too hot so we're hiking out at dusk and we get through the village because it's i don't know
00:54:04.780
if it's the havasu tribe or navajo indian tribe i don't know actually but the tribe there still
00:54:10.840
manages the land that's their land and they let tourists like myself and others come in
00:54:14.860
and enjoy the springs and we're walking through the village and a sheriff rolls up and he's like
00:54:21.940
what are you guys doing here like we're we're hiking out we're going home he's like you guys
00:54:26.260
got to get out of here everybody's shooting each other and i'm like i'm like wait what
00:54:31.680
like everybody's shooting what are you talking about and he's like yeah everybody at the saloon
00:54:36.420
or the bar or whatever. It's like killing each other. And we heard gunshots and we're like,
00:54:41.400
yeah, we're getting out of here. And we left. And I couldn't help but think what you just said is
00:54:46.260
like, there is just so much hurt and pain and trauma built into it that has just become part
00:54:57.840
of the culture. It seems like at this point. And I actually think that about a large swath of the
00:55:04.240
black community as well. And it's, it's hard to see, but you can't help but think that that
00:55:10.220
trauma has just been handed down generationally. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I won't speak too much
00:55:18.160
about my mom's side of the family, but most people, most of them have had issues with alcoholism and
00:55:26.020
you know, there's been like lots of suicide and death and you know, one family member was
00:55:32.520
homeless for a long time they found her burned alive in a car they don't know if she did it or
00:55:37.080
someone else you know just just really just awful awful stuff man and um and like i said i you know
00:55:44.680
not to get too deep into the spirituality stuff but okay it's trauma right but it's also i think
00:55:51.220
a big part of it is these if you believe in christ in the battle of good and evil there's demons too
00:55:56.480
And they work in people's lives to create the same patterns of destruction.
00:56:05.180
And, you know, it's like, so this is stuff I'm still learning about.
00:56:08.760
And I'm trying, I'm still gaining confidence in talking about it.
00:56:15.460
But like you said, it's like, man, sometimes the newcomer can connect with people more than some, the old timer, right?
00:56:26.480
yeah no i agree tell me a little bit about the the premise behind the book a life of opposing
00:56:34.320
forces when you talk about that concept what exactly are you referring to yeah just the uh
00:56:41.420
battle of light and dark in my own life like i uh i i had some amazing things happen with surfing
00:56:50.040
when i was a kid you know and like i i was lucky like we were poor but i lived a block away from
00:56:56.700
the ocean in uh in solana beach is my hometown and i could surf every day multiple days get stay
00:57:05.360
out of the house you know stay out we didn't even have a house we were living in the back of a
00:57:09.000
mattress shop you know um so just staying out of the mattress shop and surfing every day so and
00:57:14.180
then so through that i you know i started doing well with competing and then i don't know how but
00:57:19.900
I was able to turn pro for a few years in my early 20s I mean I failed miserably once I was pro
00:57:28.400
because of my my alcoholism stuff kicked in and then you know my family collapsed but so I've then
00:57:34.460
I've experienced the dark as well it's like yeah it's been really just so I've had this really
00:57:38.920
amazing I don't like saying the yin and the yang but it's been like this this experience of light
00:57:45.040
and dark happening in my life, in the external and on the, you know, interior as well.
00:58:00.660
We might've competed against each other in a, in a, a group.
00:58:04.420
It's, it's called the Switchfoot Bro-Am where it's like, I don't know if you ever heard
00:58:11.100
They have a big contest down here and we actually won it that year.
00:58:13.860
it was um me and three other guys but i think rob was on another team we were competing against but
00:58:19.980
that guy's on such another level that he's just he's you know it's like he's up there with slater
00:58:24.120
and all the gnarliest guys of all time yeah that's cool uh ever had a close encounter with a shark
00:58:31.380
i've seen so many sharks over the years man whether it's in that's so scary
00:58:37.060
or hawaii or so many dude it's yeah it's it's scary it's like in in california we mostly deal
00:58:47.020
with juvenile great whites so okay they're still like if it's you know they could take an arm or
0.93
00:58:53.480
something if it's you know if it's a little bit bigger but most of the time they could take an
00:58:57.820
arm no big deal i got two of them i know i know it's funny you say that because i heard someone
00:59:03.160
talking about this the other day a surfer was talking about how like like comparing surfing
00:59:06.860
to other sports and he was like yeah imagine a golfer's like tigers they're just about to take
00:59:11.860
a swing and then i don't know where a freaking lion just comes out and rips him to pieces on
00:59:17.520
the field you know because i mean like like mcfanning got hit yeah hit by a great white
00:59:24.140
shark in south africa during his heat in a competition and i mean it luckily it just it
00:59:29.660
just kind of rattled him and shook him like it didn't grab him it broke his leash did you ever
00:59:34.520
see this no no i didn't yeah great white shark he was sitting waiting for a wave it came up and
00:59:40.020
bumped him off his board i think he punched it in the in the nose or face but um it was a really
00:59:46.140
close call everyone thought he was dead that's terrifying like i don't know why we risk this i
00:59:53.460
don't i don't but it's like why why do you that that's a good question why do you i ask myself
00:59:59.160
that all the time but but i like i was saying before um well part of it is like this might
01:00:07.080
sound dramatic but man i've been through so much pain in this life that it feels like i've already
01:00:10.820
died in many ways and if that's how i go then we all gotta die you know so i know that's kind of
01:00:19.880
heavy to say that you know but and i hope i don't because i want to have a family and i want to do
01:00:25.280
good things here on earth before i go but it's just it's i love surfing i when i'm in the ocean
01:00:31.060
it's the most alive that i feel anywhere like i and i i need to be in close proximity to the ocean
01:00:38.280
for that reason um so i just love it i love it you know i don't like i said like if you ever come
01:00:45.280
over here i want to get you out in the water oh just keep me away from the sharks man like
01:00:51.260
if i can out paddle you or something then i'm good to go just keep me away from the sharks but
01:00:56.100
yeah look i don't i actually don't think you're way off base i think more men probably think
01:01:01.520
about this than we let on i i often joke about getting eaten by a grizzly bear when i'm on a
01:01:07.980
hunt not that i want to get killed and mauled by a grizzly bear they're terrifying but if i'm gonna
01:01:14.300
die at least i have a story that my grandkids get to tell about how grandpa tried to fight
01:01:19.900
off a grizzly bear and lost that's cooler than dying on my you know deathbed at 90 years old of
01:01:26.840
of lung cancer or something i don't know yeah imagine just sitting around even at you know
01:01:32.640
the age 50 60 whatever just rotting with cancer for years and this is more just like a bam you
01:01:39.880
know like straight to heaven or hell where you're going somewhere but um you know and god bless
01:01:45.900
people going through cancer which just seems like sure we're not making light of it no yeah
01:01:49.820
And that's another thing that just seems like it's just getting out of
01:01:52.760
control with him, not to go on a tangent, but yeah, go ahead.
0.95
01:01:56.940
What, what would you do if you saw a great white moving in for the kill?
0.87
01:02:06.780
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I also have done,
01:02:12.140
I did ocean lifeguarding for like six years in San Diego and a guy got a
01:02:16.940
swimmer was deep he was he wasn't that far out but he was it was about 10 or 15 feet of water
01:02:22.280
and a great white hit him and just took his legs just his whole almost the whole bottom half of
01:02:27.800
his body just shredded dead you saw this i was there that day i didn't see it happen live but
01:02:34.260
i was there that day and the body was at our headquarters under a tarp but uh he you know
01:02:39.880
you just you're in with great whites you're not even going to see him coming a tiger in hawaii
01:02:45.700
you might you might see coming you might they might come you know come surface sort of or you
01:02:51.160
know maybe uh different types of sharks you might see them coming but a great white you're just
01:02:56.140
you're just gonna be like bam it's over you know did you see that it's horrifying the video i think
01:03:02.500
it was a year or two ago the guy that got attacked by a tiger shark and he was in a bay or something
01:03:08.200
and he was just screaming as this tiger shark was attacking him it's it's horrifying like it's true
01:03:14.460
it's it's traumatizing to watch let alone to actually be there and probably experience it
01:03:19.540
but did you see that you know what i'm talking about no well did he actually get like bitten and
01:03:23.920
like did he oh bro yeah that tiger shark killed him like he he's on video him getting killed on
01:03:30.760
video he took the tiger shark toyed around with him a little bit and then eventually just dragged
01:03:34.920
him under the water i mean he it killed him oh a swimmer or surfer uh i think he was just i think
01:03:42.780
he was just swimming i don't think he'd be surfing no surfboard okay no i don't think so i could be
01:03:47.220
wrong but i i don't think he was surfing dude i've never i've never seen that on video before do you
01:03:52.700
know where it was or no i don't know that no i don't know god the tigers scare me the most man
01:04:00.020
when i'm surfing in hawaii i don't know why because they're just they'll just eat anything
01:04:05.900
well they're the they're the most they're the most aggressive towards humans correct of all
01:04:10.680
the sharks is that right and they're like garbage disposals they'll just bite into anything like i
01:04:15.760
mean i saw a video of one biting into a plastic canoe a fisherman you might have seen that one
01:04:20.020
but just just might as well sample that you know like whoa that's wild
01:04:26.400
i'm not going surfing with you man we're already like come out here we'll go hunt
01:04:33.620
together but i'm not going surfing with you bro like no way i'm good yeah
01:04:38.660
well man i really appreciate it um how did this has actually been a really good conversation i
01:04:46.800
love having conversations like this and i and part of the reason is is because you said i'm
01:04:51.840
i'm new to some of this journey and i think that's where myself and a lot of guys who will listen to
01:04:58.160
this will resonate is with guys who aren't the gurus right the experts the the cream of the crop
01:05:04.820
like have it all figured out necessarily but the guys who are like in the trenches doing good things
01:05:10.260
struggling with other things but figuring shit out and i love that about this conversation today
01:05:15.380
so how do the guys connect with you learn more about what you're doing and and pick up a copy
01:05:20.020
of your book as well uh yeah i just wanted to mention real quick before i say that was um i
01:05:27.980
mean the only reason that i was open to faith and stuff is because i had two christian guys come into
01:05:33.220
my life at the same time and they didn't even know each other one was from australia one was
01:05:38.180
from california and and um and i was at a bottom i went through another separation at the time
01:05:46.020
and i i was just like i think it's important for you to mention that when going when i go
01:05:52.740
through a separation it's really hard i can't eat i can't sleep for a year i waste away like it's
01:05:58.440
there's something that happens in me that is it's it's not normal i've heard of it happening
01:06:03.940
with certain people but it's like it's really hard but um but you know so i when i saw these
01:06:09.360
older guys i was like wow and they both they shared that they didn't even kiss their wives
01:06:14.240
until their wedding day and i was like what you know like that that's not how i've been doing
01:06:21.260
things in life like like but somehow these guys things were working they were married to their
01:06:26.360
wise for 20 years great their kids loved them you know works cranking like there's something
01:06:32.640
working here i was like i want that so i just you know that's kind of what was the the catalyst to
01:06:39.560
get me to where i am today but um you can you can reach me uh we have our website further active
01:06:46.620
and then um and then i'm getting help with all the social stuff too like i've always been anti
01:06:51.580
social media i really am not a fan of it but i see how it's necessary with with doing things
01:06:56.600
with like what we're doing here and so uh my insta handle is just michael s millen
01:07:01.760
so and the books on amazon and anywhere that you prefer to get it we'll sync it all up brother
01:07:08.480
appreciate you man um i will actually come surfing with you sometime you know if we if we can make
01:07:14.100
that happen in southern california if you go on a hunt with me we'll we'll we'll do a double whammy
01:07:18.540
We'll do something like that. Do you hunt at all? Uh, no, I mean, I spear fish, so that's kind of
01:07:25.060
like hunting, but no, dude, that's, that's sharks hunting you. You're putting blood in the water.
01:07:29.980
That's different. It's not, you keep going back to where the sharks are. I'm trying to get you
01:07:33.520
out of the water on the land. Yeah, no, I would love, I'd love to have a crack at that, you know,
01:07:39.480
um, definitely let's, uh, keep in touch, man. I'm really stoked to meet you.
01:07:43.620
Awesome. Mike, appreciate it, man. Thanks for joining me today.
01:07:48.540
All right, gentlemen, there you go. My powerful conversation with Michael Millen. I hope you
01:07:53.700
enjoyed it. I actually really enjoyed it. It felt like talking with a buddy who, you know,
01:07:59.920
we would just sit down and, you know, be on a hunt together or, you know, just hanging out
01:08:05.480
as two guys. And I think those are some of the best conversations. And I hope this one
01:08:10.400
impacted you in some way. I know there's a lot of men because I talk with you guys all the time
01:08:24.980
Make sure to check out Michael on the gram and the socials.
01:08:28.340
Also pick up a copy of his book, A Life of Opposing Forces.
01:08:33.820
Last thing, guys, make sure to hit that preview call
01:08:37.600
Again, that's Tuesday, June 9th tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern.
01:08:55.880
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
01:09:02.840
we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.