Order of Man - SIDNEY ANDERSON ｜ Make Yourself Antifragile

00:00:00.360 Most men today are being quietly conditioned to break, to crumble, to fall apart.

00:00:07.760 They're raised in environments that reward niceness over strength,

00:00:12.300 validation over being resilient, and comfort in their lives over true and genuine growth.

00:00:19.440 But this show exists to push back.

00:00:21.680 We believe that masculinity isn't really this big societal problem to be solved.

00:00:27.000 It's actually a force to be developed.

00:00:29.240 and every single week we sit down with men and thinkers who are doing the hard work of building

00:00:33.540 themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually so they can stand between their

00:00:38.840 families and destruction and not flinch. Today's conversation cuts straight to the core of what it

00:00:45.120 means to be a man who doesn't just endure hardship but actually gets stronger because of it. We're

00:00:52.100 going to be talking about anti-fragility with Sidney Anderson and that's the idea that the

00:00:57.340 right stressors don't weaken you. They actually forge you. They make you stronger. So if you've

00:01:02.120 been told your whole life to be softer, more agreeable, easier to be around, this is the

00:01:08.000 episode that's going to challenge everything that you think you know about strength.

00:01:13.640 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:01:18.340 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are

00:01:24.020 not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:01:31.380 This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call

00:01:36.700 yourself a man. Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. My name is Ryan Michler. I'm the

00:01:42.980 host and the founder. I just got back from my youngest son's lacrosse game, and I'm doing a

00:01:48.880 late night introduction for this podcast. But I want to make sure I get this out to you because

00:01:53.560 being anti-fragile is crucial in a world that is just begging, begging, and actively working to 1.00

00:02:01.420 make you weak and cowardly and pathetic. So we're going to get to that in a minute. Before I do, 0.99

00:02:05.780 just want to mention I am leaving tomorrow morning very early to go visit my friends

00:02:10.700 up at Montana Knife Company. I've been talking about them for years, and they aren't just a

00:02:15.640 sponsor. They're not just some organization, some random company that reached out to me and

00:02:23.000 wants to get in front of you guys, these are my friends. We break bread together. They've broken

00:02:29.840 ground up in Frenchtown, Montana. They're building knives, 100% made and sourced in America. I spend

00:02:35.800 time with them. Like I said, I break bread with them. I hunt with them. I use their products and

00:02:40.580 their tools every single day. And it's a company I stand by. So if you're looking for a knife or

00:02:48.220 attire clothing hunting gear whatever it may be look no further than montana knife company and

00:02:53.900 then when you check out use the code order of man all one word order of man at checkout to save some

00:02:59.720 money again montananifecompany.com use the code order of man all right man let me introduce you

00:03:05.960 to sydney he is a men's development author he's a thinker he's best known for his work on anti-fragile

00:03:12.640 masculinity. That's the idea that real strength isn't built by avoiding the stressors and the

00:03:18.680 pressure of life, but learning to use it effectively. He's also the author of Anti-Fragile

00:03:24.840 Man and Anti-Fragile Emotions. Those are just two of his books that challenge men to stop

00:03:29.900 seeking after comfort and start developing and building capacity. His work over the years draws

00:03:37.880 on philosophy, biology, even hard won personal experience to give men a framework for becoming

00:03:44.540 harder to break. A man who was largely raised and educated by women. We talk about that today.

00:03:52.260 Sidney brings a very unique inside out perspective on modern masculinity. And he also understands

00:03:58.480 the cultural forces that shape us as men because he's lived them and studied them. And his message

00:04:05.920 is direct. You don't need more grace in your life. You need more resilience.

00:04:14.460 Sidney, what's up, man? So great to have you in the podcast. Thanks for joining me today.

00:04:18.040 Hey, thanks, Ryan. It's nice to be here. I appreciate the offer to join the podcast.

00:04:23.020 Of course, anytime somebody's talking about what it means to be anti-fragile in a world of softness

00:04:30.180 and fragility, then I'm going to take them up on the offer to come talk about how we can be a

00:04:34.200 tougher in modern times. Awesome. Yeah. Especially as a man, uh, that's the last thing we want to be

00:04:39.800 as anti is, is, is fragile. Yeah. Fragile. Another word that comes to mind is, is nice or sensitive

00:04:47.120 or in touch with his feminine side. It's one you sometimes hear not as much anymore, but I've heard

00:04:52.660 that before and it all kind of leads to the same road, which is a lack of respect, self-respect

00:04:57.780 and respect from others and ultimately getting the job done. I think that's my philosophy anyways.

00:05:02.400 No, I agree with you. The more sensitive we are as a man, the more fragile, the nicer we are, the worse the world treats us and the less the world respects us, women in particular.

00:05:17.580 And I think a lot of that stems from the fact that when we are fragile or sensitive or in our feminine, then we really don't respect ourselves.

00:05:24.640 And so it's hard to then expect respect from other folks.

00:05:28.220 Yeah. What do you think is leading that?

00:05:32.400 Is it just a cultural narrative, a shift in the cultural narrative that says, you know, we are so far removed or have this perception of what traditional masculinity looks like that we just want to swing the pendulum to the other side where we have these soft, weak, pathetic, cowardly men who don't get the job done? 0.87

00:05:53.160 And I know there's a lot of disenfranchised women, not only from the extreme version of masculinity, but also this extremely weak version of masculinity. 0.90

00:06:03.720 Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not into extremes. 0.93

00:06:08.640 Yeah, extreme masculinity is, and I don't really care for the way the term is used colloquially as toxic masculinity, because a lot of times it's just acting as a man, people say that's toxic masculinity, which I don't agree with that.

00:06:24.700 Maybe in the extremes, in the tales, it might be. 1.00

00:06:28.180 But I think the way that this has come about is just being raised by women. 1.00

00:06:35.480 I mean, there's been a lot of broken families. 1.00

00:06:37.620 I was raised by a woman. 0.92

00:06:39.080 My dad was around when he wanted to be, but he was in and out of the house and was left largely to being raised by my mom.

00:06:48.640 And that presented a lot of issues for me as a man, not having a steady man in my life and having most of my cues from a woman.

00:06:59.720 And a lot of the men that I talked to say the same story.

00:07:04.540 Either their dad was in and out or their dad was non-existent.

00:07:07.520 And so they were left to be raised by their mothers.

00:07:10.780 And I think it's really caused a lot of problems, not only for men, but for society and the 0.95

00:07:15.200 women that depend on us.

00:07:18.260 I don't know about the world of, you know, post-secondary education and the world of 0.99

00:07:23.040 academia outside of elementary and high school.

00:07:25.820 But if I remember correctly, I was looking at the statistics not too long ago, upwards

00:07:30.800 of 70% of elementary and high school teachers, educators are women. So not only are these

00:07:39.520 young men getting taught and raised by women, and again, like we need to say nothing wrong

00:07:45.720 with women, but it's got to be balanced out with the masculine perspective. So not only

00:07:50.900 are they not getting it in their homes, they're also not getting it where they're spending

00:07:53.800 the most amount of their waking hours in the halls of academia. Is it the same at the college

00:07:58.240 level? No, at the university level, it's pretty, uh, at least, well, I'm coming from a business

00:08:03.320 standpoint. I'm a business professor of marketing in particular. Um, and it's a pretty good mix of,

00:08:08.280 of men and women, probably, um, leaning more towards men. Um, and I'm going to imagine when

00:08:14.060 you start looking at, uh, uh, engineering, it's going to be, you know, leaning more towards men.

00:08:19.400 Uh, there are some STEM in general, I imagine. Yeah. STEM in general, uh, math, things like that.

00:08:24.580 there are some fields, maybe some of the humanities that leans more towards women.

00:08:29.680 But I do agree with you on the K-12. The vast majority of my teachers growing up in California

00:08:39.420 were women. I did have some men, more men at the high school level, but I also had quite a few

00:08:45.760 women. And I think that is probably increasing, especially in probably K-9, that is the vast

00:08:51.960 majority are women. So it's just a reinforcement of what a lot of people are getting from home,

00:08:59.340 raised by a woman with a female perspective and being told to be a man that a woman wants

00:09:05.560 from a woman's perspective, not understanding that they're creating a man that a lot of women

00:09:11.860 aren't going to respect. And then, like you said, then it's reinforced when we get into elementary 0.67

00:09:16.020 school and to junior high school of women telling men how to be men. And I think that's done a big 0.98

00:09:22.980 disservice to society at large. Well, you know, what's interesting to me is,

00:09:30.660 and we're speaking in generalities, and I know there's exceptions to this rule, but very few,

00:09:34.760 at least anecdotally, is a woman will say that she wants, again, a man who's in touch with his

00:09:42.560 feminine side and shows his emotions and is vulnerable and then and then he does that so

00:09:49.340 you have a legion of young men who are doing that in the dating arena for example and then what does

00:09:54.580 she say oh i got the ick of course you did yeah because he's acting like a woman of course you

00:09:59.380 got the ick you told him how to act he acted like you told him and then you were repulsed by it 0.52

00:10:05.780 Yeah. I don't think women a lot of times understand what they're asking. It sounds nice on the surface, but it's not. It's not comforting for women. It's not a secure place to be for women to, in a sense, be with a guy who's acting like a woman. 1.00

00:10:24.720 But that's one of the reasons I wrote the books or ended up concentrating more on the

00:10:30.580 antifragility side of things, both for the antifragile man and antifragile emotions.

00:10:35.320 And I wrote the book as well about antifragile career of helping people to understand that

00:10:42.080 we have stressors in life and we can either allow these stressors to break us or we can

00:10:48.040 allow these stressors to actually make us stronger.

00:10:49.820 And I think that's the key in general of being a man, of understanding that the world's a tough place to be, but it's an easier place to be the stronger we are.

00:11:04.220 Yeah, I think Mark Ripeteau from Starting Strength said, stronger men are harder to kill.

00:11:10.960 And if there isn't seven words that encapsulate what it means to be a man that are better than that, I'm not sure that I could come up with anything better.

00:11:18.320 but it is it is interesting because i think this is why as i've done this work over 11 years it's

00:11:25.880 so crucial that men don't validate themselves through women because i heard this i heard this

00:11:32.480 quote the other day and it's so true you don't ask a fish how to catch a fish

00:11:37.160 yeah it's gonna lie to you even if even if even if it's not maliciously lying to you it's self

00:11:45.440 self-interested. So it's not going to divulge the entire truth, but it's true, right? You don't ask

00:11:51.360 a fish how to catch a fish. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. And part of that is it's

00:11:58.540 self-interested. A fish doesn't want to be caught. But even when you ask a woman how to treat a

00:12:02.960 woman, they are doing that from a woman's perspective, right? They have no idea what 1.00

00:12:07.320 it means to be a man. Uh, and so they're asked, they're, they're, they're, they're trying to

00:12:11.380 create a man, um, that without knowing as a woman, what, what, what, what a man is. And, and I talked 0.98

00:12:21.160 to, to my wife and I, and I've been very honest with her over the last couple of years of how

00:12:26.920 men are. And it really surprises her when I tell her these things about whether it's our sex drive

00:12:33.840 or our need for connection or whatever it is.

00:12:39.660 She is literally blown away about, like, I never heard that from anybody.

00:12:45.420 I never heard it from my dad, my brothers.

00:12:47.540 And I'm not saying I'm the arbiter on everything there is to be a man,

00:12:50.540 but some of these things are just universal as to what a man is.

00:12:54.040 And to talk to a woman who has been married before and is married to me

00:12:59.860 and for her to be, to not understand what truly a man is.

00:13:05.560 But then, like you said, men will turn to women and say,

00:13:08.700 please tell me how I'm supposed to be.

00:13:10.480 And they're giving us false information.

00:13:15.080 And like you said, it's not intentional.

00:13:16.980 They just don't know.

00:13:19.260 Well, I think the other part of the problem is we live in this world

00:13:23.120 where we have access to information unlike we've ever had

00:13:28.520 in the history of our species. And although that's good, and it's created a lot of breakthroughs for

00:13:35.700 a better standard of living for millions and millions of people across the planet, it also

00:13:40.340 means that we're constantly searching for understanding, for nuance, for figuring things

00:13:47.280 out, for knowing what it is we're talking about, for taking pride in being well-versed and fill

00:13:54.240 in the blank. But the problem is, especially when it comes to the dynamics between men and women is

00:14:01.500 women will often say, well, I don't get men. And men will conversely say, well, I don't get women

00:14:06.740 as if we're supposed to understand each other. Right. If I fully understood a woman, why would 0.93

00:14:12.540 I need a woman in my life? And the opposite is true. If a woman fully understood a man, 1.00

00:14:17.520 why would she need a man in her life? How about we don't fully try to seek all of this 0.96

00:14:23.960 information and understanding and just be appreciative of what the opposite sex brings 0.89

00:14:28.320 to the table? Yeah, you're right. I mean, that's one of the reasons in general people are attracted 1.00

00:14:33.140 to the opposite sex because we are different, right? I mean, and I think to your point,

00:14:38.940 we should celebrate those differences instead of trying to fully understand and to make a man

00:14:44.140 into the way a woman thinks he should be any more than a man should try to make a woman into exactly

00:14:51.280 what he thinks a woman should be. If that was the case, then it really removes a lot of the

00:14:58.740 attraction I would imagine that men and women would have towards each other. So I agree with 0.58

00:15:05.140 you wholeheartedly on that. What I've been trying to do over the last couple of years is, to your

00:15:15.400 point, not to fully understand who my wife is or what a woman is, but to understand her as an

00:15:22.300 individual and say, what is it going to take to make our relationship work as opposed to trying

00:15:26.580 to figure out what women are? I mean, I'd like that book, the title anyway, and I've read the

00:15:31.980 book, men are for Mars and women are for Venus. We're different, right? We are absolutely different

00:15:38.580 creatures. As much as society is trying to tell us that men and women are, that there's no

00:15:43.760 differences between men and women. Well, that's, that's disproved every day in so many different

00:15:47.840 ways. So. Yeah. I think it starts with possibly what you want out of a relationship with the

00:15:56.340 opposite sex too, right? Like, do you, you know, you want, I think most men would agree to this

00:16:01.980 because I, I deal with men on a daily basis. We want somebody who's beautiful inside and out,

00:16:06.680 not just physical, but inside and out. Uh, we want somebody who brings peace to our life,

00:16:11.880 who softens the edges, who rounds the corners, um, who makes life a little bit bearable,

00:16:18.440 who takes whatever we provide as men as raw resources and hones and refines them. 1.00

00:16:23.360 I mean, I even think about, uh, what a woman is able to do with the building blocks of life. You know, we provide a portion of the DNA required and a woman takes it and fertilizes it and, and incubates it over a period of, of nine months and turns it into a human being. 1.00

00:16:39.820 or a man who brings home the money 0.79

00:16:43.500 or builds the house or provides the house

00:16:46.280 and then the woman turns it into a beautiful home

00:16:48.960 that you can actually enjoy

00:16:50.380 and have as a sanctuary from the realities of the world.

00:16:54.660 I wish more of us would just embrace that.

00:16:57.620 I think people would be happier.

00:16:59.780 I agree with you, especially on the part,

00:17:01.260 and I've seen that with my wife,

00:17:03.120 is roughing the edges or smoothing the rough edges.

00:17:06.840 Men left to their own devices

00:17:08.520 can be some really rough individuals, right?

00:17:10.600 I mean, we just are.

00:17:11.780 That's part of being a man.

00:17:13.640 And part of being a woman, I think,

00:17:15.920 and one of the values of being with a woman

00:17:17.800 is softening that.

00:17:19.420 My wife has softened me in a lot of ways

00:17:22.820 while I'm still being a man.

00:17:25.740 She hasn't turned me into a woman.

00:17:28.260 Actually, being with my wife has actually made me,

00:17:31.040 in my opinion, more manly,

00:17:32.740 more understanding the more work that I do,

00:17:35.520 writing books and going to men's groups.

00:17:38.280 I've become more of a man since we've met, which has made our relationship better.

00:17:43.120 But she still has roughened a lot of those, I mean, I'm sorry, smoothed a lot of those rough edges that I have.

00:17:49.660 I do also think that it is, it's supposed to be a symbiotic relationship of understanding that there's something that a woman provides to a relationship and there's something that a man provides.

00:18:01.560 And what I don't like is when people try to diminish what one's gender is doing over the other.

00:18:10.440 For somebody to say, well, you know, men have it easy because they're just going out and earning the money,

00:18:15.020 but it's the women who have to make the household and take care of the kids and do all these things. 0.88

00:18:18.340 I'm like, well, then you don't really understand the stress that comes with that, of being that provider

00:18:23.760 and going out and understanding and working sometimes a job you don't like

00:18:28.980 and working long hours and sacrificing to make that money.

00:18:33.820 And sometimes that's diminished.

00:18:35.660 And on the same side, on the other side,

00:18:37.480 sometimes men will diminish the role that women have.

00:18:40.460 Like, oh, you get to stay home all day 0.65

00:18:41.760 and hang out with the kids and watch TV

00:18:45.600 and have lunch with your girlfriends.

00:18:48.040 And I'm thinking it's not that easy.

00:18:49.560 We both have roles to play,

00:18:51.200 whether both people are working or not.

00:18:53.680 And as you said, to celebrate

00:18:55.880 not only the differences that we have,

00:18:58.340 But the role that each person plays in creating that relationship, that family is is very important.

00:19:06.740 Yeah, I think it comes down to a level of respect and appreciation.

00:19:11.200 You know, any man who's ever stayed home with his kids more than five or six hours can say, no, thank you.

00:19:17.580 You got it. Hey, honey, you've got that. Like you're you're amazing at that.

00:19:22.360 I don't want to do that. I, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that a man would

00:19:27.760 want to stay home and be the, be the homemaker and the housewife, so to speak. And I know people

00:19:34.020 that stay at home dads are going to be upset as I say that, but I just think that goes against our,

00:19:39.140 our building blocks. I think it goes against, and the statistics bear that out by the way,

00:19:43.680 that the relationships are strained, divorce rates are higher, financial resources are diminished

00:19:50.040 when that that takes place um so i know we're trying to be heroes and i know we're trying to

00:19:56.500 like really step into the the world of modernity but there's something to be said for thousands

00:20:01.640 and thousands of years of human evolution i i agree with you on that um with my kid's mom i

00:20:08.840 was married for quite a long time and we had three children and the last couple of years um

00:20:15.240 she became a stay-at-home mom and i remember um really stressing out over the way she was keeping

00:20:25.560 the house and you're not working anymore so why aren't you doing this and why aren't you doing

00:20:29.340 that why isn't the house cleaner and why aren't the kids blah blah blah um and eventually she

00:20:34.800 left she said hey you know what i'm out of here and you can have all three kids um that opened

00:20:41.780 my eyes. I mean, we ended up getting back together, but I really started to see what she went through

00:20:46.680 to your point of, this is a really difficult job of, of raising three kids, getting them off to

00:20:52.540 school. Um, I wasn't made for that. I was not, I could not even approach the, the level of, of,

00:20:58.920 of, of care and quality of, of upbringing that my wife, that their mother provided at the time.

00:21:06.080 And so once we got back together, that was eye-opening to me.

00:21:11.020 And you're right.

00:21:11.980 It's not that men can't do it.

00:21:13.900 I just don't think we're the best equipped gender to do this.

00:21:17.960 I think women are far better equipped to do that, even when they're working and things 0.97

00:21:22.200 like that.

00:21:22.720 Now, granted, that does bring up some other issues of how much a man should be involved.

00:21:27.620 But as far as a primary caregiver, I agree with you that, in my mind, an ideal situation 0.57

00:21:34.160 as a woman, as a primary caregiver, and a man as the primary provider. And then understanding

00:21:39.920 that it's required on both sides to make that work. Yeah. Now you live, are you in Texas or

00:21:48.080 California? I'm in Texas. I'm in Austin. Texas. But then you had said you grew up in California.

00:21:53.840 Is that right? Yeah. I was born and raised in LA. Yeah. In Compton, actually. Okay.

00:21:57.460 yeah okay so it was interesting because i was listening to um gavin newsome's wife just 0.88

00:22:06.320 recently and she's been making a big splash on some of this stuff that's absolutely asinine

00:22:10.460 and uh she was talking about giving her sons dolls so they could recognize that it's not

00:22:17.580 only the woman's role to be the caregiver the caretaker and the caregiver and i thought to

00:22:21.720 myself you know it's not that men aren't caregivers it's that we do it differently you know I was at

00:22:29.920 my two oldest boys lacrosse game yesterday and both of my sons had some really spectacular plays

00:22:38.020 they're both really athletic they're both diligent they play hard my oldest son has some d1 offers to

00:22:43.680 go play lacrosse and you know I'm sitting there on the sideline because I take pictures for the

00:22:48.140 team. Cause I, I don't really know the game well enough to coach. So I thought, well, this is a

00:22:51.780 good way for me to be on the sideline with them. And so I take pictures to the degree that I can

00:22:56.840 and I'm, and I'm watching these boys and I have a good relationship with about 90% of the boys

00:23:02.720 on the team and they're coming off and they're getting good hits and they're making plays

00:23:06.280 and I'm calling them out and I'm going to give them a fist pump and I'm telling them good job 0.99

00:23:09.760 and I'm slapping them on the ass and telling them they're, they're doing hard. That's actually 1.00

00:23:14.460 caregiving yeah that is caregiving it just looks different than hugging them telling them they're

00:23:21.640 doing a good job even though they're not telling them that they're special just the way they are

00:23:25.660 even though i can see greater potential in them both are important but let's not diminish

00:23:30.520 the fact that caregiving can look different than feminine caregiving yeah i agree with you i i think

00:23:38.580 men and women, we do, we care for each other differently. I mean, I, as a guy, I've got

00:23:44.400 buddies, man, we raz each other to no end, right? The things that we say to each other, um, about,

00:23:51.580 I won't even get into it, but the things that, that men will say to each other, the men that

00:23:55.340 they actually care about, um, when my wife hears that or other women hear that they, they, they

00:24:01.860 think, well, are you mad at that person? Or, you know, we're going to fight or something. And I'm

00:24:05.780 like, no, this is how men show that they care for each other. Women would never say to each other 1.00

00:24:11.500 the things that men say to each other. And I said, you know, it's only the men that we care about 0.93

00:24:16.300 that we actually talk to this way. And to your point about kids, I remember when my son was

00:24:23.480 playing football, he wasn't the best football player. He wasn't tough enough to be out there

00:24:28.260 and get the hits and hit people. He wanted to play. He wanted to wear the uniform, but he just

00:24:35.100 wasn't built for that. And there was no, you know, he was 13. There was no amount of toughening him

00:24:41.360 up that was going to make him be like their other kids. And I recognized that. And when he started

00:24:47.180 talking about, well, one of my dreams is to be in the NFL, I said to him, son, you're not cut out

00:24:53.580 for this. Now, his mom took it as, well, you're stepping on his dreams and you're not supporting

00:24:59.540 him. And I said, no, what I'm doing is I care for this kid enough that he doesn't waste his time

00:25:05.460 on something that he is obviously not built for. Now, somebody could argue, well, maybe if you

00:25:13.180 had spent more time toughing him up, he could have been built for it. But this was after 13 years of

00:25:19.900 knowing this kid, a kid who's scared to get on a roller coaster, who's scared of sometimes his own

00:25:25.740 shadow, that would be a tall order. My second son, on the other hand, he was made for that

00:25:32.880 kind of stuff. And so I think that the care sometimes that a man gives is the rough and

00:25:39.700 tumble. It's teaching him how to be around other men, but it's also not sugarcoating things if

00:25:46.740 you have a sound foundation on providing that advice. I think sometimes, or I see a lot of

00:25:54.980 with women that the mere mention of something negative towards a child is seen as as uncaring

00:26:03.640 or or mean but i think for men that's one of our roles is to be that that dutch uncle to say

00:26:10.980 sometimes the tough things that need to be said uh and if my son for example would have said but

00:26:16.100 i really want to do this then i would say to him well that's fine then this is the things that you

00:26:19.740 need to do to try to to to toughen yourself up because the way you are now this just isn't going 0.99

00:26:25.140 to happen um and you're right women sometimes will will they're so much softer than we are 1.00

00:26:30.540 they don't like hurting people's feelings um and so they will in in my opinion with with what his 1.00

00:26:37.480 mother was doing was furthering something that really wasn't possible but she just didn't have

00:26:44.820 the capacity to just be honest with him and maybe she truly felt that he could be there someday but

00:26:50.920 uh but but yeah i think that the caregiving it just looks different and and and even more

00:26:56.980 importantly both of them were required because if if you just leave it to a man that's raising

00:27:02.080 sons or daughters and you leave it to the man of his type of caring you're gonna you're gonna

00:27:09.600 you're it's going to be biased but if you also leave it to the woman it's also going to be

00:27:15.040 biased and that's why both are required in my opinion to raise healthy kids and to have a

00:27:20.520 healthy relationship you know where i see this play out in such a simple but profound way

00:27:26.740 is teaching your son or daughter to ride their bike on their own for the first time

00:27:31.820 so you spend you know a few weeks a few months with training wheels you're out there you lift

00:27:37.780 the training wheels a little higher so you're trying to have a balance eventually you take

00:27:41.520 the training wheels off and you're holding the back of the seat and then at some point you just

00:27:45.500 finally let go yeah and when you let go your kid crashes right they go 20 yards 30 yards 40 yards

00:27:51.660 and then they crash and the mom rushes out there and she's like oh let me kiss your boo-boos and

00:27:56.940 wipe the dirt and the debris out of your knees and bring you inside and run it under the water and

00:28:02.600 and kiss you and put a flintstone band-aid on your your knee or whatever and the dad's like no no no

00:28:07.680 no like hold on like get back up let me put you back on here we go again yeah and the the best 0.98

00:28:14.580 way i think for a woman and a man to approach this is for the woman to just take a step back 1.00

00:28:20.980 for a second and say okay like let's see if we if he can get the kid back on the bike and he will 0.99

00:28:26.740 and he gets the kid back on the bike and everything's fine and then when he's done

00:28:30.340 take her or him off the off the seat and say all right go see your mom and then mom brings

00:28:35.920 him or her into the house and does the whole ritual of kissing the boo-boos and the flintstone

00:28:40.740 band-aid or the bluey band-aid or whatever it is and then the husband says hey you know what like

00:28:45.960 your mom sure does love you yeah the woman says hey you know what your dad sure does love you

00:28:50.360 yeah and just respect it respect both sides of it yeah i i agree i i was i remember one time i was

00:28:57.980 walking with my daughter um and she was maybe two or three years old she had two older brothers and

00:29:04.440 and boy cousins. And so she was the only girl for a while and she was running down the sidewalk and

00:29:09.980 fell. I mean, splat like kids do. And she, she looked, she, my first instinct, because it's my 0.92

00:29:17.500 daughter, if it was my boys, I wouldn't have even cared, but because it was my daughter, my first

00:29:21.660 instinct was to run over there and pick her up. And she was on her stomach. She'd look back at me 0.71

00:29:26.960 like this to see what my reaction was going to be. And I said, I said, you're okay, honey.

00:29:32.660 She got up, she dusted herself off and kept running.

00:29:35.820 If that would have been the typical mother, the reaction would have been, oh my gosh,

00:29:41.320 you know, you must be hurt and pick her up and love her and things like that.

00:29:45.180 And whether it's a man or a boy or a girl, I think it's important to understand that,

00:29:50.760 hey, you're going to fall down.

00:29:52.580 You're going to hurt yourself.

00:29:53.480 You're going to struggle in life.

00:29:56.260 And the answer isn't always to immediately console yourself or to look to somebody else

00:30:01.360 to to console you sometimes you just get up and you dust yourself off and you keep going and

00:30:07.600 we've all done that there's times where something has happened to me either professionally or

00:30:14.080 personally and at in the moment i want to deal with that a certain way but i say this isn't the

00:30:22.220 time like i'm in a professional setting i need to just keep going i need to get back on that bike i

00:30:27.720 need to get up and dust myself off and keep keep going and as you said then maybe later then i can

00:30:33.180 i can deal with with maybe some issues that i had with that maybe privately with somebody or just

00:30:38.180 personally um but yeah i agree the the point that i like that you made is that both of those can

00:30:45.160 happen simultaneously it's like sometimes think people think well you have to take one or the

00:30:50.080 other it's like no the dad can play his role pick this kid up and say hey let's keep doing what

00:30:54.940 we're doing and then after it's over the mom can then play her role and say hey let me let me love

00:31:00.900 you let me clean you up and and all but but uh to say that one is more important than the other or

00:31:06.240 one is is one like you know that a lot of times it's the man's point of view that uh you're being

00:31:12.840 cold and uncaring to not to not address that to just have the kid keep going well that's what's

00:31:19.560 required in life a lot of times for us to just keep going and so i think that's what a man's

00:31:24.180 role is a lot of times whether it's your son or your daughter but especially with your sons is

00:31:29.440 hey the world expects you to keep going we get very little um grace uh as a man sometimes from

00:31:40.180 from from society at large because we're expected to be uh tough and and and masculine but as you

00:31:50.240 said in the beginning, society then also tells us at the same time that we should be caring and

00:31:55.320 loving and soft and nice. And those two things sometimes just don't, don't work out. You know,

00:32:02.080 it's hard for, for us to reconcile that. So for me, I tend to, uh, for myself and for the men

00:32:09.260 around me to say, Hey, let's just err on the side of, of, of being a man and, and we can figure out

00:32:14.780 the rest of it some other way. Man, I'm going to step away from the conversation from Sydney real

00:32:20.960 quick. And before we get back into it, I want to tell you about The Forge. Now, this is an event

00:32:25.120 that's coming up April 23rd through the 26th, and it is an experience unlike anything you've ever had

00:32:31.400 before. And if you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you already know that I

00:32:37.220 don't push things I don't believe in or that I don't stand by. So here's the thing. You can

00:32:43.180 listen to every single episode that we or other people put out on masculinity and manliness and

00:32:48.200 all this stuff. You can read every book that I recommend. You can sign up for the battle plan.

00:32:54.620 You can even join the iron council and still not move the needle in your life

00:32:57.860 because information alone is not what builds men experiences. And the forge event puts you in a

00:33:05.960 room, multiple rooms because of what we've got going on with serious men, real pressure, real

00:33:12.380 work. It is designed to expose the gaps that you have in your life and then give you the tools to

00:33:18.320 close those gaps. That's it. There's no fluff. There's no filler. There's no bullshit. There's

00:33:23.680 no sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya. This is real work. And if that sounds like exactly

00:33:29.140 what you need in your life right now to get you unstuck and moving forward, then go to

00:33:33.820 themensforge.com. That's going to be April 23rd through the 26th. So it's coming up in about two

00:33:39.940 weeks, but I want you to grab that spot. Seats are very limited. They are beginning to fill up

00:33:45.160 fast. We've got several left. So do it today. The men's forge.com, April 23rd through the 26th.

00:33:53.900 All right. Do that right after the rest of this conversation. Let's get back to it with Sydney.

00:34:01.060 Yeah. I mean, I think there's also a hierarchy between the sexes of virtues and values, 0.99

00:34:06.440 right like softness empathy kindness are our values there's no doubt about it but is that

00:34:14.200 what a man ought to prioritize no i don't i actually don't think so no i don't i don't

00:34:19.320 think so prioritize toughness grit domination resilience protectiveness that those are the

00:34:27.140 those are the virtues that i'm not saying we can't be kind and caring in the process but there's a

00:34:31.960 time to, uh, get to work. There's a time to get it done. Um, and you're right. Like

00:34:39.300 it's not that we're any less than it's that we compliment each other. And I just wish that

00:34:46.940 men and women could say to each other, well, I actually, what I was going to say is I actually

00:34:52.220 think it's important the person that we pick to live our lives with. Right. So, you know,

00:34:58.040 you see these third wave feminists who are just nasty. They're just nasty, gross. They're, 1.00

00:35:04.560 they're, there's so much vitriol and hostility towards men, but I'm not going to lie and say

00:35:10.520 there aren't men who are the same way that way towards women. There are, we have, we have a

00:35:16.720 version of third wave feminism called the red pill movement called Meg Tao. Most of the manosphere

00:35:22.700 who are actually pretty much male feminists 1.00

00:35:27.880 in the truest sense of the word, 1.00

00:35:30.300 they're just behaving the same way

00:35:33.280 as the thing they reject or say they're repulsed by.

00:35:37.760 Right.

00:35:38.460 And I think it's worse when it comes from a man 1.00

00:35:40.940 because as the name implies, being a feminist, 1.00

00:35:44.720 I mean, you're feminine. 1.00

00:35:45.920 But when a man takes on those same attributes,

00:35:49.500 I think it's actually worse for the man.

00:35:54.040 I think it's worse for society.

00:35:57.060 I know I keep talking about society at large, but when we talk about what it means to be a man and what the benefits that society gets from men, not only just our families, but the children we raise and then they go out into the world, that the less of a man that we act, the more society is harmed.

00:36:18.880 And for men to be red pill and to be woman haters and and to act like the very thing that they're rejecting, I think it does immense damage.

00:36:30.500 But that's not taking anything away from the women who do the same thing.

00:36:34.580 I don't think that that is anything productive as well for this third wave feminism.

00:36:39.940 And like you said, the vitriol, sometimes the seeming hatred for men for just being men.

00:36:46.000 And I hear a lot of just being a man is toxic. And I'm thinking that is so far from reality. I mean, you know, it is. It's so far from reality, in my opinion.

00:37:02.900 And what I've found is the men who truly act like a man is supposed to act have happier families.

00:37:10.580 They have better careers.

00:37:12.300 They have better jobs.

00:37:13.300 They have better connections with other men and with other women.

00:37:16.540 And I found that even with myself.

00:37:19.140 I mean, again, it's one of the reasons I wrote the book is I started understanding that I didn't really like the way I was coming across.

00:37:30.300 or way. I didn't really like myself. Um, and so it was, it was harder for me to, to interact with

00:37:37.080 other folks. It wasn't something that was conscious. It was just the fact that I really

00:37:41.940 didn't like where, where I stood as far as being a man. And I think that came out in, in ways that

00:37:49.540 were unintended, me being too sensitive about things, me overthinking things, me trying to be

00:37:55.660 nice. Those are the things that I've dialed back over the last couple of years. And I did hear

00:38:04.820 somebody make a nice distinction with something I read. And they said there's a book that was

00:38:10.700 written that we probably all know about called No More Mr. Nice Guy. And there's also this idea

00:38:16.700 that there's a difference between being nice and being kind. And I think that men, a good man is a

00:38:23.500 kind man. And, but that comes across differently than for a woman, but being a nice man is,

00:38:30.020 is what I've really moved away from. I try to be as kind as I can, which means I care for,

00:38:36.400 I respect others. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm honest with others, but I'm not going to be a doormat or what

00:38:44.180 I heard today. Somebody said, a man said this about himself, that he's a wet wipe. And I've

00:38:49.880 never heard that and i i had to chuckle in one one minute i chuckled and at the same time i said

00:38:57.080 how sad is that that a man knows that he's a web wipe and the next question is are you going to do

00:39:04.860 anything about it so i mean i think that's a good point and you know i as you were saying that i 0.99

00:39:11.600 wrote this you know like i can be kind and respectful to people but i will fuck somebody 0.55

00:39:15.720 up and that's exactly what they need in a certain situation. So I'm not incapable of doing that. 0.54

00:39:21.580 And I think that's the difference. A nice guy, the way we're defining it is incapable of the

00:39:26.840 latter half. All they can do is be soft and weak and cowardly and pathetic. And they think it's 1.00

00:39:32.720 being kind. I, okay. So I do have to take issue with one thing that you said. Okay. And I want

00:39:38.120 to, I want to discuss this. So you said that it's, it's sometimes worse when a man steps fully into

00:39:43.940 the extreme of masculinity relative to a woman who might be a feminist. I, I don't agree with

00:39:50.740 that. And I don't agree with that because if you look at the, the entirety of history, it's men

00:39:57.560 who have created civilizations. It's men who have created economic systems. It's men who have put

00:40:03.500 people on, on neighboring planet. Well, the moon anyways, it's, it's men who, yes, sure. Some of

00:40:12.380 it has perpetuated the violence by men overwhelmingly but it's also men who are doing the protecting

00:40:17.660 it's also men who are picking up the trash it's also men who are building the buildings

00:40:21.840 and so i think a woman can be just as toxic in a different way than a man can men will be violent 0.50

00:40:29.840 but women will be conniving and vindictive both are extremely dangerous yeah no i i agree with

00:40:37.240 you and i think i think you misunderstand me what i meant to what i said was that that when a woman

00:40:43.420 is a third wave feminist that as bad as that is that when a man acts the same way that red pill

00:40:51.560 man that is acting like a male feminist that that is worse than a than a third wave woman acting 0.63

00:40:57.420 like i still don't know because if you look at modern culture look at the dangers that have come

00:41:03.080 from this, this crazy version of equality and equity and distorting the truth and letting

00:41:11.940 people flood our country and letting people, criminals go free. That comes largely from

00:41:19.400 the feminized version of taken to the extreme tolerance and acceptance. And I'm not going to 0.54

00:41:27.500 like play the comparison game, but I think it's, I think you can make a valid case that third wave

00:41:32.900 feminism is just as if not more dangerous than this violent extreme of masculinity oh okay okay

00:41:40.980 so i i see what you're saying i guess what i'm talking about is the women who who are so far

00:41:48.260 in their feminine that they they're almost they're like a male feminist is what i'm talking about

00:41:52.560 like a male feminist is worse than a female feminist is what is what i meant to say i agree

00:41:57.580 with you i would agree with that yeah i would agree with that absolutely that's the point i

00:42:01.340 was trying to make is that when a man is in his feminine and he's acting like a third wave

00:42:06.960 feminist, that that's worse than a woman doing it because a woman is feminine and she's acting

00:42:13.180 like a feminist, right? But when a man takes on those same characteristics, it's worse, in my

00:42:19.220 opinion, when a man is acting that way. I agree with you wholeheartedly that men have created this

00:42:24.900 world. I mean, and we've done it with women. We've done it for women. But by and large, it's men who

00:42:30.780 go off to the moon. And it's men who go out and take the arrows and do the exploring and

00:42:38.000 do all the tough jobs. I mean, there's a lot of equality in the world today,

00:42:44.020 but there's still not a lot of women who opt to work on an oil rig or to lay asphalt or to 1.00

00:42:50.660 roof in the middle of the summer in Phoenix. I mean, you just by and large don't see that. 1.00

00:42:56.520 And so when I do, when I hear, when I hear people say that men should be softer and men should be more like women, I think, no, that if you were to do that, then you would have a lot of men that didn't want to go out and go off to war and go to the moon and riff in the middle of this summer in Phoenix, right?

00:43:18.080 Because if we're going to be more like women, then we're going to start acting more like women.

00:43:22.540 And I think that has done a big disservice to – especially Western Europe and the United States.

00:43:31.400 It's really – Canada as well, that there's such an emphasis on men softening themselves for what – I don't know – I don't believe it's for the greater good. 0.98

00:43:45.600 I think it's maybe too – I can't even explain why this would be a benefit for men to start acting more like women. 0.68

00:43:54.700 And the reason I say that without having an explanation is if we tell women that they should be more like men, we get immediate pushback. 0.94

00:44:05.360 Like why would we want to do that? 0.58

00:44:06.860 Well, that goes both ways, right?

00:44:08.780 I mean women aren't told you should be more like men.

00:44:12.520 women are told that actually what what people like you and me and a lot of other people are

00:44:17.840 saying is that women should be more like women that that the more that a woman starts acting

00:44:23.220 like a man the the harder her life becomes the the the less um fulfilling her life becomes 1.00

00:44:30.680 and i've this is buried out uh has been borne out with a lot of women who make it to their 40s or

00:44:36.540 50s and say that they regret um focusing so much on their career and not having children

00:44:42.200 and things like that. And, and I'm not saying that they were acting like men, but their focus

00:44:48.160 tended to be more like a man that I'm going to focus on my career, um, and above all else.

00:44:54.960 And a lot of that doesn't bode well for them later in life. 1.00

00:44:59.980 I think what I would say to that, and you tell me what you think about this is because women

00:45:04.840 will often say, well, you know, I've had to act like that because this man in my life or this,

00:45:12.000 are these men that I'm surrounding myself with, or these men who come into my life or who I date

00:45:16.340 or marry, they're not acting like men. So I'm required to, and I would say there's validity

00:45:22.960 in that there's, there's truth in that. But what I would also say is your picker is broken. Yeah.

00:45:29.560 You it's, it's not that it's not that there aren't men out there who will do that. But again,

00:45:36.020 oftentimes a woman will scoff at a man who is a good provider who's a good protector maybe he's

00:45:45.280 a little boring yeah maybe he doesn't have the edge maybe he doesn't have the the enthusiasm

00:45:50.660 and excitement and venture as as the bad boy or whatever but the more you choose that don't

00:45:57.540 then apply what you chose on a specific level broadly and say that all men are this way all

00:46:05.380 men are bad. See, I trusted this guy. No, you avoided red flags because you liked that he was

00:46:12.300 a bad boy. And then you simultaneously say you want a nice guy, but then you go back to the bad

00:46:18.540 boy. Yeah. And, and I've seen that. Um, I I've seen it not too much with myself, but with others

00:46:25.240 of saying, I want, I want a nice guy. They get a nice guy. And then this guy's boring or this guy

00:46:31.380 is not right there it's the ick that yeah it was gross icky yeah or was he just decent to you

00:46:38.420 he's too soft uh when when my wife and i ended up splitting up at some point

00:46:43.520 my my kids mom she started dating this other guy and um and we got back together but during that

00:46:51.680 time she said yeah this guy it was some kind of altercation outside of a bar and basically she

00:46:58.840 said that he was not going to defend me. I felt so insecure being with him. And she had told me

00:47:06.080 when she met him, like, oh, he's super nice and this and that. Okay, great. Well, when it came

00:47:10.740 down to it, that was the very thing that repulsed her at the end. And it wasn't the sole reason we

00:47:16.940 got back together, but it was one of the things that she started thinking about and saying, well,

00:47:20.440 I'm with this guy and he's really nice, but I don't feel secure with him because like you said, 0.99

00:47:25.200 he's not going to step up and try to kick ass. You know, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying 0.97

00:47:30.640 I'm the toughest guy in the world, but, uh, I've, I've had my, I've, I've had my ass kicked before. 0.95

00:47:34.900 And if it comes down to it, to protect my wife, to protect my children, I'm willing to step up 0.97

00:47:39.780 and do that again. I mean, I try to do things like, uh, like a lot of men do to, to prepare

00:47:45.200 myself for that. I've earned a blue belt, a blue belt in jujitsu. I've, I, you know, I, I proficient

00:47:50.460 with guns. I, I keep myself fit because I think those things are important for a man to be able

00:47:57.020 to understand what his capabilities are and to not overestimate them, but to understand that,

00:48:03.920 Hey, I'm willing to do this, or I'm preparing myself to, to not only protect myself, but to

00:48:09.300 protect my love, the ones, the people that I love. You know, what's interesting about that too,

00:48:15.700 sydney is like the the more the more capable a man is the more that he doesn't need to run around

00:48:23.120 and beat his chest like i i know i know some absolute killers literally killers like they go

00:48:31.100 out and hunt bad guys for a living they put bullets in the brains of bad people this is what

00:48:37.460 they do as a as an occupation a vocation and they're some of the nicest i'll use the nomenclature

00:48:44.240 sure we are. There's some of the kindest men that you'll ever meet because they have nothing to

00:48:49.200 prove. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Um, and, and I've found that in, in the work that I've

00:48:59.060 been doing on myself, again, going to men's groups, um, being, talking to other men about

00:49:05.300 the struggles that, that men sometimes have, um, the things that we don't want to share with women.

00:49:11.300 I think a lot of times, as you say, that ick factor, if we open up too much to women, the women, they don't feel secure. 0.61

00:49:18.160 So my approach has been, which a lot of other men, is to read and to talk in men's groups. 0.99

00:49:25.000 And then you take the product of that back to your relationship.

00:49:30.020 Instead of the problem, you take the solution back.

00:49:33.160 And a lot of times with my wife, she'll ask me, so what did you learn today in your thing?

00:49:38.360 What did you guys talk about?

00:49:39.180 And it's almost like I don't want to tell her about the stuff we talked about.

00:49:44.260 What I want to do is just act the way that I'm learning how to act, right?

00:49:51.420 And instead of explaining to her what, it's like just wait a bit.

00:49:57.760 You'll see the results of this.

00:50:00.020 Instead of explaining to you what problems I'm having and what solution came out of it, just wait for the actions.

00:50:09.180 uh so i so i was writing this down as you were saying this because i thought to myself you know

00:50:14.420 you really have to filter the conversations you're having with a woman in your life and

00:50:19.580 the same way i would filter the conversations i'm having with my children i don't i've got a

00:50:25.020 my youngest is 10 i don't disclose all of the intricacies of life based on how i see them at

00:50:32.360 45 years old. That's crazy. I would never do that. Um, and, but what's interesting is that

00:50:40.480 you'll often hear when I, when I say, Hey, like, look guys, you want to be honest with your wife,

00:50:45.340 but you don't need to disclose it exactly the way you see it with her every single time.

00:50:49.880 And people will push back and they'll say, well, you know, if you, if you can't trust your wife

00:50:54.840 to be who you truly are, then that's not the woman for you. And I thought to myself, you know,

00:51:00.280 If everybody could see my thoughts at any given time, I'd spend the rest of my life in prison.

00:51:07.240 Our job as men is to also be protectors.

00:51:11.720 It's to buffer and shield from the realities of the world.

00:51:15.140 And that means that, no, I'm not going to disclose every single thing in every exact way that I feel it with the people in my life.

00:51:22.980 It's not responsible.

00:51:25.000 Yeah.

00:51:25.320 No, I agree with you.

00:51:26.660 The same way we buffer with co-workers, even though our wife is usually our one, I'm not saying she has to be our confidant.

00:51:36.040 I don't think that I'd rather speak to another man about the things that I'm really, you know, have to deal with.

00:51:42.260 And I don't deal with a lot.

00:51:43.400 I've gotten to the point in my life where I've got a pretty good understanding of who I am.

00:51:47.360 But we still sometimes need to talk to somebody.

00:51:49.360 But I'd rather not talk to my wife about that.

00:51:51.560 But some of the things that even though I've been telling her over the last couple of years of like this is kind of, in my opinion, what a man is and here's some examples of that, that in itself, sometimes it's hard for her to wrap her head around.

00:52:04.440 If I, to your point, were to tell her some of the things that goes on in my mind, some of the things that I think about, some of the things I suppress, she would probably leave.

00:52:13.940 I mean, absolutely. When I tell her the things that are acceptable, she says, I can't believe

00:52:21.000 that, or I never knew that. But if I were to tell her what my innermost thoughts were,

00:52:27.100 I mean, I've got, I've got a twin brother. I can tell him my innermost thoughts. I've got a buddy

00:52:31.260 here at work. I can tell him my innermost thoughts and he, and likewise, but if I were to do that to

00:52:36.100 my wife or if he was to do that to his wife, oh my gosh, that would, that would be a recipe for

00:52:40.680 disaster i mean i think they would lose faith in us and and start questioning um you know their

00:52:46.400 life choices yeah but you know it's interesting i'm curious what you say about this but i actually

00:52:52.360 think that's a huge component of being a man you know there's there's a quote that i love and i'll

00:52:57.300 butcher this but it says something to the effect of the real man gains renown by just by standing

00:53:03.940 between his family and destruction absorbing the blows of fate with equanimity and equanimity is

00:53:11.880 calmness with clarity with confidence that's a man's job and so in from where i sit it's our

00:53:19.340 job to take all of this i almost think of it as radiation right the radiation from the world it's

00:53:25.860 it's the vitriol it's the hostility it's the making money it's the it's the contention it's

00:53:31.140 the animosity it's the violent people and then it filters through us and then what gets passed

00:53:37.240 through is pure and good and clean and safe for the people that we love but I am really curious

00:53:44.980 because you talk about what it means to be a man what does it mean to be a man to you how would you

00:53:49.760 define that um you you that what you just said I've never heard it put that way um to me is is

00:53:58.220 is a great definition of a man to be that buffer for your family, for your children,

00:54:03.100 to buffer them from the outside world, not just financially, but emotionally and to help them

00:54:10.420 feel secure. Again, that's one of the reasons I wrote the book. There's a book that I wrote called

00:54:15.680 Antifragile Man, and it talks about understanding that life is tough. You say that, you know,

00:54:21.880 it's like all this radiation coming at you, right? That as a man, that we can, we've got

00:54:28.060 two options in a sense. We can either allow the world to affect us to the point where we're

00:54:34.520 ineffective for our family, or we can be what a man is meant to be and to be that person that

00:54:41.420 absorbs all the shocks and filters and absorbs, if you will, that radiation and only lets what

00:54:47.360 passes through to be beneficial to our family. So real quick, let me, let me talk about what I

00:54:52.760 mean by being anti-fragile. So, um, there was a book that was written back in 2012 by Nicholas

00:54:58.440 Taleb, and he is the one that exposed this idea or just exposed this idea of anti-fragility.

00:55:06.520 So he says like, you know, when you look at things that are fragile, an egg or a wine glass,

00:55:10.840 we know what happens if you drop those, they're going to break because they're fragile.

00:55:14.940 He said before he came up with this concept that what people thought the opposite of fragility was, was robustness or in the common parlance in a lot of the self-help books, it's resilience.

00:55:26.840 But he says, well, what that is, is imagine taking a tennis ball and throwing it against the wall 10,000 times.

00:55:32.460 The tennis ball is made to resist that, right?

00:55:36.320 It's robust enough or it's resilient enough to withstand that pressure.

00:55:40.420 but what he realized is the tennis ball doesn't get stronger because of the stress it just gets

00:55:46.820 it just withstands it what i decided to do is write in this book called anti-fragile man and

00:55:52.560 another one called anti-fragile emotions is applying that to manhood to understand to make

00:55:58.020 a point to men that it's not enough that we just withstand the pressure of life that we actually

00:56:03.960 need to grow from the pressure of life and so that was the the insight from his book is actually

00:56:09.900 using the stressor of life to become stronger. And the model for that, there's three of them.

00:56:18.240 Our bones require stress to remain strong. Our immune systems also require stresses,

00:56:26.080 whether it's through vaccinations or through natural pathogens in a controlled environment,

00:56:31.240 a controlled way, I should say. And the third one is our muscles, that those require stress to grow.

00:56:38.320 And any one of those systems, if we do not stress the system, right, then our bones become brittle, our muscles atrophy, and our immune system weakens.

00:56:49.480 And so what I decided to do is I decided to write a book to apply that same concept to being a man.

00:56:57.540 And so to understand that as a man that we owe it to ourselves first to become as anti-fragile as possible.

00:57:06.300 to understand that life is going to throw these stressors at us every day. And it's our job to

00:57:12.660 take those stressors and make ourselves better from that. Not just get back to baseline when

00:57:20.540 somebody knocks us down to just get up and say, okay, I'm the same as I was before I got knocked

00:57:25.040 down. But no, something happened in life and I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to grow

00:57:30.200 through this stress the same way our muscles, our bones, and our immune system do. And I think that

00:57:36.000 once that has helped me to, to understand that, to, to answer your question directly to being a

00:57:43.480 man is, is in my mind, in so many different ways is to become stronger from the stress that life

00:57:51.780 throws at us and to not crumble and to not also to not just stay static. It's not in my mind,

00:57:58.800 it's not enough as a man to just be resilient and, and, and absorb this. It's actually,

00:58:04.540 we want to use this stress to make ourselves better. Our families are better off as a result.

00:58:09.200 We're going to be more successful in our careers as a result. Um, and so that's the crux of the

00:58:15.220 two books that, that I, that I, I wrote is to, to, in a way to appreciate the stressors in life

00:58:25.140 and to use them to, to make us better men. Yeah. As you were saying that, it got me thinking about

00:58:32.060 resistance training and there's always a lot of debate on how much weight you put on how many

00:58:38.720 reps you do what's the balance between them but i think what i see more and more popping up now

00:58:44.340 is the reality of the situation is time under tension so you take the weight you're lifting

00:58:50.420 you know measured by time under tension and that's what actually develops and builds the muscle so if

00:58:57.100 you're putting on extra weight, but you have no time under tension, you're going to have a

00:59:03.800 decreased result relative to somebody who might put on lower weight, but has more time under

00:59:09.460 tension. I think that's what you're talking about here. What does that actually look like in,

00:59:14.140 in a tactical sense though? Like how does a man actually tactically put himself under pressure

00:59:21.100 or time under tension in what you said, controlled environments?

00:59:25.580 So yeah, that's a great point because you're right.

00:59:28.840 If you go to the gym and you go work out every day and you overload yourself to the point

00:59:32.820 where you can't recover, then you're going to be worse off.

00:59:38.300 As far as the time understanding, that's a great analogy of understanding that there

00:59:43.260 are stressors in life and it is our job to understand when we're going to engage with

00:59:48.340 those stressors and when it's not worth it.

00:59:50.780 And there's a concept in the book called optionality to and a lot of times it applies to to anger of anger is a natural thing for people and more so for men.

01:00:02.960 And there's there's different ways that we can we can deal with that.

01:00:06.960 So this time under tension, in a sense, and if I try to apply it to that, is I can either be angry all the time, right, and overload my system and be worse off for it, or I can choose when do I engage with my anger and when do I not.

01:00:27.440 So there's times where we need to express our anger.

01:00:30.000 There's times where we need to just say, this isn't even worth getting angry about.

01:00:35.020 But understanding when we should engage with this and when we shouldn't is not in the same sense of working out, is not going to overload our systems to where we can't recover.

01:00:46.100 There's something I'd like to say.

01:00:47.500 I've said it to a colleague yesterday.

01:00:48.760 I said it I said it to people all the time of engaging things and trying to understand this time under tension and not spending too much time but spending enough is is when we are addressing things is it's something like if somebody says something that we might want to respond to is does it have to be said does it have to be said right now?

01:01:11.240 and does it have to be said by me and if I can answer all three of those questions then that

01:01:17.160 is something that at in the moment I will engage with but there's other times I think okay well

01:01:21.920 this is something that needs to be said but it doesn't need to be said by me it needs it maybe

01:01:26.040 it does need to be said but it doesn't need to be said right now let me have some time to sit with

01:01:30.100 it and so it's not a perfect analogy but as far as this time under attention is understanding that

01:01:37.540 when to engage with this stress, with these stressors that are going to make us stronger

01:01:43.040 and when to just say, if I constantly engage with it, and I'll just use anger as example,

01:01:49.700 if I constantly engage, that's going to be counterproductive. But if I never engage with

01:01:54.560 the anger, that's going to be counterproductive as well. I'm going to be that nice guy that just

01:01:58.180 gets walked over all the time. And what my book is trying to help men do, both books,

01:02:04.540 The Antifragile Man is, as the name implies, it was written for men. The Antifragile Emotions,

01:02:12.140 that one can apply to both men and women, and both men and women have bought my book,

01:02:16.940 but I still think it applies more to men than to women. And my goal with those two books is to

01:02:24.020 help other men just have a framework for understanding, in a sense, of how to be a

01:02:32.440 better man. Now, again, I've got work I still need to do. Um, but this book really helped me to,

01:02:40.000 to stop being so much of a nice guy to start looking at myself as, as, as more of a man.

01:02:48.420 And that has helped the relationships, uh, especially, especially my marriage and,

01:02:53.700 and just relationships with people in general.

01:02:55.520 you you know what's really ironic about this is is i don't think that never getting angry

01:03:03.660 makes you a safer person to the people in your life no i don't think so and i don't and i don't

01:03:09.400 and conversely i don't think always getting angry clearly doesn't make you a safer person

01:03:14.220 i think if you can get angry appropriately and and i think that's the key word appropriately

01:03:21.220 or how do you get angry properly your your wife is gonna look at you and say oh yeah he's angry

01:03:28.460 and he has every right to be and then coupled with he's responding to it properly actually

01:03:36.120 makes you a safer person than the man who just pens it up doesn't do anything doesn't ever get

01:03:42.740 angry doesn't feel emotions is always happy is always smiling is always giggly that guy's not

01:03:47.660 safe either. No, he's not. Um, uh, my, my, the goals of both the books is really to help men

01:03:56.200 to increase their capacity to handle more stress. Right. And so that's what anti-fragility is about.

01:04:03.240 When we, when we work out, when we go to the gym and do resistance training, we're building more

01:04:09.120 capacity, right? It's the same way with whether we train with our guns or whether we do jujitsu,

01:04:14.420 We're building capacity in various ways.

01:04:18.340 And you're right, the man who never engages with his anger is not building capacity.

01:04:25.820 He's just ignoring one of the common stressors of life.

01:04:31.560 The man who's always getting angry is not a nice person to be around.

01:04:35.540 He's a tedious person.

01:04:37.140 He's exhausting.

01:04:38.780 And he doesn't seem like a safe person.

01:04:40.720 But a person who can appropriately engage with their emotions, this could be loss, it could be sadness, it could be grief, anger is one of the more common ones.

01:04:51.980 That person, as you said, they're going to become perceived to be safer because they can regulate their emotions.

01:05:02.080 People who can't regulate their emotions or people who don't have or seemingly don't have emotions, we all have emotions.

01:05:07.240 Some people are just really good at suppressing them, but that always comes out in some other

01:05:11.600 ways.

01:05:12.060 Some, as you know, some of the nicest guys around are some of the most vindictive or

01:05:17.340 some of the, um, uh, people who just can't, can't handle it.

01:05:24.300 It looks like they can handle it because they never get upset, but that's got to manifest

01:05:27.780 itself in some way or another.

01:05:30.320 Yeah.

01:05:30.720 I mean, it's brewing under the surface.

01:05:33.240 Well, Sydney, why don't you tell us where to connect with you?

01:05:35.460 learn a little bit more about what you're up to, and obviously pick up a copy of the

01:05:38.620 Anti-Fragile Man and Anti-Fragile Emotions. I want to send the guys your way and see how we

01:05:44.080 can begin to regulate these things a little bit more. Awesome. So both books are available at

01:05:48.920 Amazon. I also have a website called Stand Publishing, so standpublishing.com. That one

01:05:57.760 will take people to my personal website, and that will reroute them to Amazon. But they can learn

01:06:04.340 more about the books and the suite of books that I have. But yeah, both books have been

01:06:10.040 well-received by both men and women. I had a woman the other day, I did a book signing here in Austin

01:06:15.660 and I was talking to her. She asked me to tell her about the books. I did. And she says, well,

01:06:22.120 I've got a daughter and I'm going to buy these books. And she bought The Antifragile Man, 0.70

01:06:26.780 even though she said, you know, my daughter needs to read this too. I don't know what her reasoning

01:06:31.380 was, but I was happy to sell two books. So those are the two outlets. And, you know, I just I hope

01:06:40.500 that the people find the same value that I have. They've just didn't I think in any time you write

01:06:46.460 a book, especially if it's a nonfiction book, and especially if it's something that that means

01:06:51.160 something to you, it's going to going to resonate, not only with with me, but what I'm really hoping

01:06:59.480 is it resonates with, with others. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. And I can attest to

01:07:05.160 the work you're doing. I've been able to dig into what you're doing and obviously research based on

01:07:09.380 this conversation. So Sydney, I appreciate you taking some time today. Thanks for imparting

01:07:13.420 some of your wisdom. I know the men are going to be served by what you're doing and you're doing

01:07:17.900 good work. So keep it up, brother. Thanks for joining me today. Awesome. This was a great

01:07:21.420 conversation. I appreciate it, Ryan. Nice to meet you. Man, there you go. Sydney Anderson.

01:07:26.780 I hope you enjoyed it. We had a really good discussion. I love having conversations like

01:07:30.720 this because it almost feels like we're just old friends sitting around the campfire or sitting

01:07:35.760 around the dinner table or the barbecue or a round of golf and just shooting the breeze,

01:07:41.200 talking about the real issues that we struggle with as men. And the thing that I like about

01:07:46.040 Sidney is obviously he's got a lot of good answers. And if you want to check out what he's

01:07:50.120 doing, look at the anti-fragile man and the anti-fragile emotions. We talked about both of

01:07:55.640 those books, but he's got a whole litany of other books that you can check out on the subject of

01:08:01.160 anti-fragility. Guys, outside of that, make sure you check out The Men's Forge,

01:08:06.640 themensforge.com, April 23rd through the 26th. I'll be out there. Larry Hagner will be out there,

01:08:12.380 and we've got plenty of incredible guests. And then also make sure that you check out my friends

01:08:18.480 at MontanaKnifeCompany.com

01:08:22.060 and use the code ORDEROFMAN.

01:08:24.360 All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow

01:08:26.120 for our Ask Me Anything.

01:08:27.620 Until then, go out there, take action,

01:08:29.760 and become the man you are meant to be.

01:08:32.100 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

01:08:35.040 If you're ready to take charge of your life

01:08:36.680 and be more of the man you were meant to be,

01:08:39.080 we invite you to join the order at OrderOfMan.com.

01:08:48.480 You

Order of Man - April 14, 2026

SIDNEY ANDERSON ｜ Make Yourself Antifragile

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