Order of Man - SURESH MADHAVEN ｜ The Role of Men in a Fatherless Society

00:00:00.000 Guys, if you turn on the news or any social media apps, you're likely to be met with a myriad of fantastic headlines, the latest political scandal, racial tensions, violence, or any number of issues these outlets use to get our attention.

00:00:13.400 Of course, most of this is exaggerated to get us worked up without providing any real solutions to some of the issues that actually do exist.

00:00:22.100 My guest today, Suresh Madhaven, and I begin to break down some of these issues and work towards unpacking and discussing solutions rather than focusing on the outrage that is used against us.

00:00:34.420 We talk about the importance of men's rites of passages, breaking down the concept of systemic racism, crying wolf on the real issues, which you see a lot, movements against masculinity, and ultimately the role of men in a fatherless society.

00:00:49.580 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:55.680 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.

00:01:05.180 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:14.360 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I am the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement.

00:01:21.440 I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're back. I'm back as well. I've been on vacation with my family for about three weeks, which was nice.

00:01:28.480 But it's also nice to get back into the office and get back after this because we have a lot of work to do.

00:01:33.120 So it's interesting as I was getting back into the swing of things, I've been doing a lot of work on social media, as is my life and my business revolves around making sure that I'm sharing this information and this mission via social media.

00:01:47.580 Instagram is playing games with my accounts. And so you may not be able to tag me. You may not be able to mention me on Instagram, on your accounts.

00:02:00.000 Reach is being limited. You may not even see it. Or you may be asked if you really, truly want to follow me because apparently I've been putting out false and misleading information, I think is the term they use.

00:02:11.860 So guys, we need to spread this mission. All right. I don't know how else to say it other than the social media overlords do not like us talking about masculinity.

00:02:24.280 They don't want us talking about it. And if you've gotten any value from any of the conversations and resources that you've gathered here, all I ask is that you share, take a screenshot, tag it.

00:02:34.760 If you can share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, share it on Instagram, uh, and let people know what you're listening to. Cause I try to put out real information.

00:02:43.940 I try to put out the truth. I try to put out, uh, things that are going to serve you and your families and your businesses and your communities as well.

00:02:50.600 So we're trying to do a good thing here. And, uh, I ask in return that you help spread the word because that's what's going to fight against, uh, the silencing that, uh, seems to be taking place more and more, especially with, uh, my social media accounts.

00:03:02.020 So please do that. Leave a rating review while you're at it. Cause that'll help us climb in the charts as well. And, uh, in a way overcome some of the shadow banning that may be taking place.

00:03:11.140 So I need your help in that. So please do that. All right. That's all I have by way of announcements. I'm going to make another announcement later, uh, in the podcast that I think you, especially if you're a father are going to be excited about.

00:03:23.020 But for now, I just want to get into the conversation. Uh, my guest today is a fascinating individual. Uh, we've been connected for some time now on Instagram, speaking of Instagram.

00:03:32.020 Uh, his name is Suresh Madhaven and he is a 13 year, a veteran police officer. He's also the founder of an extremely, extremely successful, uh, company, which provides law enforcement officers, innovative protective gear.

00:03:45.900 It's called two, two, one B tactical. Uh, but guys, he's got some incredible insights into some of the most polarizing subjects today.

00:03:53.020 Uh, and as a black police officer, he's seen both sides of the increasing issues and tensions and challenges between the public and also law enforcement.

00:04:03.720 So guys, it's always been my goal with a podcast to have powerful conversations with men from all walks of life so that we individually can all round out our perspective of masculinity and our roles in society.

00:04:16.220 And this one, gentlemen, does not disappoint.

00:04:20.940 Suresh, what's up, brother? Glad to see you, man. I know this has been a long time in the works.

00:04:25.360 Yeah, for sure. Glad to be here.

00:04:28.080 I'm also glad to see that, uh, Jocko Go sitting on your desk there. 0.99

00:04:31.260 Oh man, this is stupid delicious. 0.99

00:04:35.060 Uh, this is the afterburner orange, right? 1.00

00:04:37.480 Afterburner orange is so good. It's mildly addicting.

00:04:41.260 So they've got a, I've got the inside scoop. I think they've got a new flavor coming out here very quickly for, uh, it's echoed Charles's flavor.

00:04:49.900 And I don't know, uh, I don't know if I'm supposed to disclose what it is, so I won't, but, uh, it too is going to be delicious.

00:04:56.320 It's going to be a close fight for, uh, the best between that and afterburner orange.

00:05:02.240 Yeah. The apple's good. The apple's good.

00:05:05.400 I got to tell you, I am like so pumped, um, up where I was from and, uh, where I'm going to be, uh, this chain called Wawa is pretty big.

00:05:16.780 It's like a, you know, you get gas and like deli, whatever.

00:05:19.960 And, uh, this stuff is now in Wawa, which is like amazing.

00:05:24.640 Cause there's such a huge chain.

00:05:26.200 So to like, see this stuff, to see how much they've grown, to see it in Wawa next to monster energy and Red Bull is kind of wild, but it's awesome at the same time.

00:05:37.200 Yeah, it's wild, but it was also a testament to the power of the opportunities that we have here in, you know, this country.

00:05:43.200 And if you work hard and you're diligent and you put your head down and you get after it, that, uh, man, things can happen.

00:05:48.880 And I know that's true for you.

00:05:50.240 We've had, we've had a couple of conversations offline where, uh, I know a little bit about your background and how you grew up.

00:05:56.920 And people said, you know, it's not going to work the way you want it to, or, or people would tell you these opportunities aren't there.

00:06:02.200 And that you'd look at your life as, as a police officer and a business owner and the things that you've done.

00:06:07.100 I mean, that's a powerful story right there.

00:06:09.000 And that's why I wanted to talk to you so much today.

00:06:11.820 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's incredible.

00:06:13.300 It's just, it's the story that pretty much everyone in my life told me would not be possible.

00:06:20.100 And, uh, I, not to say that I did it to prove them wrong, but I did it to prove myself right.

00:06:27.980 I wanted to prove to myself that listening to the noise around you and which holds true today, more so than ever, listening to the noise around you of people who are trying to create a narrative.

00:06:42.480 And write your story is such a flawed way to be, you write your own story.

00:06:49.400 You create your own feet future and it's not the media.

00:06:54.040 It's not politicians.

00:06:54.900 It's not anyone and anyone who's dependent on those outside sources to create their future.

00:07:01.160 Well, you're destined for failure or you're destined to whatever they're going to tell you that you can be, and you can do in your life.

00:07:07.780 Yeah. It's interesting. You talk about writing your own story because what other people experience, it's, it's all perception, right?

00:07:16.700 We, we perceive things the way they are, and usually they're not entirely accurate. 0.99

00:07:21.580 They usually have some elements of truth because otherwise we wouldn't believe the bullshit. 0.99

00:07:26.740 Right. 0.97

00:07:27.300 So it's some element of truth, but it's usually exaggerated or made out to be more than it typically is, but that's their story.

00:07:36.860 And I've, I've had people in my life, whether it's my parents who have shared their story with me.

00:07:42.520 And part of that has been powerful and productive for me and other parts of their story.

00:07:47.880 I'm like, I don't want anything to do with that because that doesn't actually serve me.

00:07:52.420 So I like that you're talking about creating your own story, writing your own story in spite of all of the other baggage that's been unloaded onto you over, you know, 20, 30, 40 years of your life potentially.

00:08:05.600 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so important that, uh, young men understand that because not all young men growing up in this country, in this world, but let's focus on this country, um, have that father figure that, that, that guide, uh, to show them the way, uh, someone to emulate, um, even those with that father figure.

00:08:35.380 In our society, like Ryan, what's our right of passage in the American culture? Like, what is the right of passage for a young man in America turning over into an adult, a man?

00:08:51.440 I can't think of one. I don't think we have, when you go to other countries, I've traveled around the world. Uh, we spoke about that a little bit. Uh, my mother's from a foreign country in all these cultures, all these societies for young men to young boys,

00:09:05.260 to turn into a man, there's always a rite of passage in some cultures. It's something drastic in other cultures. It's maybe something not so drastic, but it still exists. And it's a test. And that test is a testament to how they view the coming of age.

00:09:25.120 I didn't have to go through anything as a young boy here. You know, I, I, I turned 18 and that was it. They're like, Oh, you're 18 now. So if you want, you can buy a scratch off lottery ticket. That's awesome. I'm like, okay, well, what is there? What is there? You know, I'm, you know, you, you, you know, for sure, there's some cultures where it's like, you know, lifting a stone, moving this, going on a journey, uh, for X amount of days.

00:09:52.540 Uh, and you have to just survive in the wilderness. Um, I did that in boy Scouts, something else that changed my life. And, um, I stayed through, I stayed all the way through, did my Eagle project.

00:10:02.500 And that was something where I had the influence of other fathers, other men, and it taught you different life skills. It taught you. We had one of the merit badges was wilderness survival. We were kids. I don't even know how old we were.

00:10:15.060 And they threw us in the woods for three days. And they were like, you, you, like you have an apple, a peanut butter sandwich, some rope matches and like a tent. And I don't even know if that would be allowed in today's culture. It would be like completely canceled and viewed as like, you know, abuse or something.

00:10:30.860 But me and my buddies, we did it. We made it through. We immediately went to Burger King as soon as the adults picked us up, but like we, we did it. And it was something incredible that I don't see young men in this country today having to do.

00:10:47.940 And these are the things that helped shape who I became, had it not been for things like the Boy Scouts, things like, uh, one of my, you know, my neighbors, uh, who I became friends with their son and his father, uh, a former, a Navy veteran, and just an all around incredible man, a white man took me under his wing and helped raise me, helped show me the way, helped teach me about sports, helped show me how to weld, how to fix a car.

00:11:13.080 All these things because he saw, I didn't have that in my world. These are all the things that happened to me along the way. Serendipitous, maybe, maybe it was the Lord coming down and saying this, this young man needs guidance, but it helped me get to where I am, where I realized today I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have accomplished what I did if not for that. So that's one of the breakdowns I see in our society. We talked about that. I know offline and a lot of these issues, we're going to get into it.

00:11:41.160 I know about policing and some of the things happening with African-Americans in this country. Um, it's no secret. The breakdown of the family structure in the African-American community is horrific. And you have all these homes with these good young men, bright young men, uh, you know, talented, uh, gifted, uh, from a school standpoint, gifted physically in sports as we clearly see, yet they have no father figure in their home. 0.51

00:12:10.840 They have no guidance in their home and they're led astray. And when you're led astray, you ultimately are going to run into the police. Right. And that's never going to go well, especially if you're committing crime. You know, I ran into the police. I wasn't committing crime. I was just the dark kid in an all white town. 0.91

00:12:28.880 And my mother told me the way to be when I encountered the police. And I knew that if I wasn't that way, when the white cops approached me to harass me or, you know, maybe mess with me, I knew that the fear was not going to be from the cops.

00:12:46.220 I knew that if I didn't act accordingly and the cops, God forbid, told my mother, my mother would kill me. My mother would beat me. Right. That fear, which is right. That's good. And true. That's how it should be. Right. Right. It should be like that. But I don't think it's like that anymore. We're in the generation where people want to be friends with their kids and they don't want their kids to get upset with them or pissed off at them. And, you know, I'm like, you know, I can't, we're living in this, like, almost like twilight zone. A buddy of mine, you know, the other day I saw him, he, 0.97

00:13:16.220 corrected his son, corrected his son. His son was like five or six years old. He corrected his son about something he told him not to do. And he corrected him. And his son started crying and got upset and went to his, his wife and was like, you know, crying. I said, what happened? And he said, dad yelled at me and it hurt my feelings. And I'm, I watched my buddy go up and like kind of quasi apologize. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?

00:13:45.120 I'm apologizing. You told him not to do something. He did it. You yelled at him. He gets upset because you yelled at him. And now you're apologizing for hurting his feelings. I said, what are you teaching him? What are you teaching him right now? You know, I grew up without a dad and I know that was wrong. You know, so I don't have children, but I knew that was wrong. That's not how you do. And you look at those little incidents and people say, how did we get to where we are in our society today?

00:14:13.480 And it's those little micro incidents that are happening in these homes across our country, the homes without fathers and the homes with fathers who are misguided. And fast forward a generation. And here we are, here we are.

00:14:27.600 Why do you think so many people, or I should say it this way. Why do you think so few people are talking about the issues with fatherless homes in the black community, but also just generally in society?

00:14:42.100 We're talking about criminal reform and systematic racism and welfare and handouts and all these other things. And it seems to me that very few people like you and me are actually talking about the root, the stem, the real issue, which is noble, honorable, virtuous men stepping in as father figures.

00:15:04.260 Father would be ideal. Father figure is a good second best. Sounds like you had some father figures in your life and nobody's talking about it. And that I feel like if we could address that and work on that, we would begin to solve a lot of the problems, the, the result of fathers missing in the home, but nobody's talking about it.

00:15:26.540 No, it's, it's so easy to talk about. Black man is in the midst of committing a crime. Black people call the police on him. The police arrive. Black man doesn't listen to the police, disrespects the police, doesn't listen to their orders. And there's an altercation. Something happens. He's going into his car. They tell him not to go into the car. 0.98

00:15:55.040 He takes the cops. He takes the cops weapon and whatever it may be. We've seen it all happen. And the man ends up getting shot and, or maybe killed. And everyone is looking at that situation. No one wants to back out, back. Let's look back out from that and say, what led to that man of color, young man being in that situation? What led to it? It's not the situation. 0.80

00:16:25.040 You got to look. It's like, I know you do woodworking. I, I, I, I tinker in woodworking. I like, like crown molding and stuff like that. I'm a big, like woodworking nut. And sometimes when I go to buddy's houses to help, I like working on old farmhouses and stuff like that. And I go, uh, sometimes I'll like do a quick assessment. Right. And I'll, as you know, you, sometimes you pull a wall down and the studs come with it. And you're like, Oh man, I'm like, you got some termite damage here. And they're like, Oh man, like, when did that happen?

00:16:55.040 It's been happening. Right. It's been happening. This didn't happen yesterday. Like the termite sitting coming yesterday to this wood overnight. And now everything's crumbling, man. This has been happening. You got to go back. You got to go back to the root of where it began. Like these young men who are being killed. Let's go back. Yes. We don't want them being killed. No one wants to be killed. Right. I get nervous when I get pulled over by the police, but guess what?

00:17:19.700 I try not to get pulled over by the police. So I operate my motor vehicle in a, in a sane and legal manner. I have all my documents in order. I wear my seatbelt. I don't have my music turned up to, you know, volume 100. So everyone around me can hear my music. I do the things that I feel like I'm supposed to do. And it helps me avoid the system. If you feel like as a black man or white man, whatever, that the system is broken. There's three parts. There's three things you could do. One, avoid the system.

00:17:49.700 By your own conduct. Okay. Everyone says systemic racism, systemic racism in the front, which is crazy because most of these cities, the police chief is black. The mayor is black. The city council is black. Everyone's black. Everyone's all the upper echelon, all the brass and the police, they're all black. So if you're going to say that police department is systemically racist, that means you're saying the black police chief, the black deputy chief, the black captains, black lieutenants, black mayor and black city council, they're all the problem. 0.77

00:18:18.740 Well, I think what, when people are using that term systematic racism, I don't actually think they're using it as the definition of the word. Like when I hear systematic racism, I break down those words. What is racism? Well, it's any sort of behavior action negatively towards another individual solely based on immutable characteristics, like their skin color. 0.73

00:18:41.560 Systematic systems, right? Systematic systems, right? Systems in place that deliberately and intentionally target somebody based on their race.

00:18:52.560 That's what I think. That's what I think when I hear that, but people aren't using it that way. What they're saying a lot of the times is remnants of past systematic racism, which I readily admit existed. I mean, you'd be a fool not to admit that systematic racism did actually exist at one point in this nation.

00:19:11.960 And that systematic racism now is the remnants of those issues in the past. 0.98

00:19:22.120 Yes. Yes. And if you talk to older black men, it's so funny because I have great conversations with older black men and older black men are wiser, right?

00:19:36.500 They've been they've been they've been here for a few decades longer than all of us. And when you say systemic racism to them, they laugh and they're like, son, you don't know what systemic racism is.

00:19:52.100 Right. You know, I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a black gentleman.

00:19:55.860 And he was probably he was maybe mid to late 70s. And he said, these young men today, these young black men today, they don't know how good they have it.

00:20:08.380 And I said, wow, wow, that's a that's a bold statement from a black man.

00:20:13.300 He said, there was a time where as a black man, there were literally things I couldn't do in this country.

00:20:21.960 There was a time where there was literally places I couldn't go in this country.

00:20:27.580 There were educational institutions I just could not apply to.

00:20:32.360 There were buildings that I just couldn't walk to. There were water fountains that I couldn't, you know, all these things he named.

00:20:38.220 He said, can you name me one thing today that a young black man can't do?

00:20:45.900 And I said, actually, I can't. I can't. 0.93

00:20:51.940 So his definition of systemic racism was vastly different than the kids with their thousand dollar cell phone throwing Molotov cocktails at the police in the streets in Portland are saying is systemic racism.

00:21:05.820 Very, very different.

00:21:07.340 But do you think these issues in let's let's take the black community, for example, and I know you can't speak for everybody in the black community.

00:21:14.840 Right. But do you think that there are issues that.

00:21:19.260 There's some validity to what they're saying, or do you think it's just the interpretation of the stories and the baggage that they got from other people,

00:21:28.400 either currently or in the past that we were talking about earlier, that makes them think something exists that isn't actually there.

00:21:35.060 I think that that's a phenomenal question.

00:21:39.740 I think some of what they are being taught, maybe young children.

00:21:46.980 Is based on what happened decades ago.

00:21:51.300 And it is an ugly past that this country will probably never live down.

00:21:57.440 It's an ugly, ugly past.

00:21:59.240 And part of what they're being taught is based on that.

00:22:05.600 Now, there's a secondary component of that.

00:22:09.180 The secondary component is what my mother taught me was this country has a past with people who look like you, son.

00:22:18.620 And the color of your skin in some situations is going to hurt you.

00:22:24.500 There are people who may not like you because the color of your skin.

00:22:27.680 There are people who are going to not give you certain benefits.

00:22:31.120 There are certain people who are not going to treat you the same, treat you poorly.

00:22:35.360 Sometimes it might be the police.

00:22:36.940 Sometimes it might be someone at work.

00:22:38.580 Sometimes it might be a teacher in school.

00:22:40.340 I was discriminated against by teaching.

00:22:42.160 I had a teacher call me a monkey.

00:22:43.500 I had a teacher tell a blatant lie just to get me in trouble and it landed me in, like, detention.

00:22:50.640 And I didn't know why it was happening.

00:22:52.300 But then I went back and I remember, you know, my mom telling me this.

00:22:55.840 And it was funny that the people who, like, noticed it were, like, my white classmates.

00:22:59.840 They were, like, I can't believe that this white female teacher just told a blatant lie about you. 1.00

00:23:05.380 And it's clearly because she just doesn't like you because of the color of your skin. 0.76

00:23:08.420 And I had to just eat that sandwich, right?

00:23:09.980 I just had to eat that sandwich and deal with it and move past that.

00:23:13.280 And now I pray for that woman and I feel bad.

00:23:15.880 Ironically, she's a school administrator now.

00:23:17.780 Of course, she's a higher up, you know, and that's how it goes. 0.95

00:23:20.760 So let me ask you a question on that.

00:23:22.560 How did you not grow bitter, though?

00:23:25.000 I mean, if you personally experienced that, I think you could take one of two paths.

00:23:29.260 Generally, you can grow bitter and have animosity and contention in your heart for these things.

00:23:33.840 Or you could learn how to deal with it as a mature, healthy, responsible individual.

00:23:41.020 What it seems like you've taken the latter, which I commend you for.

00:23:44.120 But it seems like you could have easily gone the other route, too, and become bitter and contentious towards this.

00:23:49.620 Oh, absolutely.

00:23:50.900 You know, part of what my mother taught me was you have to take those things, observe what's happening, notice what's happening, try to avoid them in the future if avoidable.

00:24:08.300 But you have to move on.

00:24:10.800 You have to move on.

00:24:12.020 You know, I think it's John Dudley.

00:24:14.940 Knock on.

00:24:15.980 Yeah, knock on.

00:24:16.760 Okay.

00:24:17.560 He said something.

00:24:20.220 I grew up, you know, dabbling in archery.

00:24:24.240 It was a passion I had.

00:24:26.020 And he said something on Jocko's podcast.

00:24:28.860 He said, don't let the arrow you just missed affect the arrows in your quiver.

00:24:33.400 Because if you're thinking about the one you just missed and you're pulling out the second one, guess what's going to happen with the second one, right?

00:24:42.880 So I just had the mindset of don't let the one situation that just happened right now affect me as I now move forward and I go into the next situation and I meet the next person.

00:24:55.120 I run into the next thing.

00:24:56.140 So it was very easy for me when that teacher did that to me to now move forward and every teacher I ran into that was a white, short hair, blonde female say, she's next. 0.92

00:25:08.000 She's going to she's going to get me next. 0.97

00:25:09.960 And that would have changed my energy and my mood around how I was with them, which could have potentially led them to treat me differently.

00:25:18.980 Sure.

00:25:19.280 So what I did was in a way.

00:25:21.600 Yeah.

00:25:22.120 Right.

00:25:22.740 Right.

00:25:22.980 So if you're expecting it, guess what?

00:25:25.440 It's going to most likely happen.

00:25:27.540 So I said, you know what?

00:25:29.800 I got to leave it behind.

00:25:31.480 That was a miss. 0.55

00:25:33.060 That was a miss. 0.55

00:25:33.920 That was the arrow I missed.

00:25:35.160 OK, I'm going to move on with a clean slate and I'm just going to have that expectation that the next one's going to be a hit.

00:25:41.920 The next one's going to be a bullseye and I'm going to keep going.

00:25:44.840 Was every next arrow a bullseye?

00:25:46.980 No, no, it wasn't. 0.99

00:25:48.280 There were misses along the way, but I didn't let that affect me because otherwise you just grow up hating white people. 0.99

00:25:54.500 You just grow up hating white people. 0.72

00:25:56.200 And that's no way to just go through your life because at the end of the day, Ryan, who does that hurt? 0.98

00:26:01.960 Me.

00:26:02.400 Yeah, it only hurts yourself.

00:26:03.600 It only hurts me.

00:26:04.840 It's going to take possibilities away from me.

00:26:06.700 It's going to take opportunities away from me.

00:26:08.500 It's going to take relationships away from me.

00:26:10.520 It could take relationships with people that could really be out there to help me.

00:26:15.040 And it could, you know, sour those relationships, those potential friendships and more.

00:26:20.040 So I knew from an early on stage that I couldn't be that guy, especially with the way I looked.

00:26:27.560 I didn't have that luxury.

00:26:29.780 I couldn't do it.

00:26:30.720 A lot of people talk about, you know, oh, white privilege, white privilege.

00:26:34.640 You know what?

00:26:36.040 I don't know if there is this this like secret, like iCloud kind of thing out there of things just being handed out to white people.

00:26:44.680 But I got to tell you, I grew up.

00:26:46.680 I haven't found it.

00:26:47.360 If that's the case, I haven't found it yet.

00:26:49.500 I got to tell you, I know a bunch of white people that haven't found it either.

00:26:52.820 Because where I grew up, it was a blue collar town, real small town.

00:26:56.500 Everyone drove like a real old pickup truck and they were hardworking people.

00:27:01.580 And that was it.

00:27:03.320 They woke up every morning.

00:27:04.300 They went to work.

00:27:05.180 They worked hard, came home.

00:27:06.360 Everyone had a modest home.

00:27:07.660 And it was that was just a way of living in that little town.

00:27:11.340 And I didn't see any kind of anything being handed out to anyone there.

00:27:15.760 So I grew up.

00:27:19.140 Around a whole bunch of white people that I saw working their butt off every single day just to like come home and like put some food on their table. 0.88

00:27:27.540 And the man who helped raise me was one of them.

00:27:30.000 I never saw anything handed to him.

00:27:32.400 He was a plumber, electrician.

00:27:34.800 And when he wasn't working for his boss, he was working on the side, long hours, coming home covered in mud.

00:27:41.680 And I was like, where's the privilege for this guy?

00:27:45.520 Right.

00:27:46.020 What happened to him?

00:27:46.680 He served our country in the United States Navy, worked hard his whole life.

00:27:50.460 Nothing's being handed to him.

00:27:52.360 Nothing was being handed to his wife.

00:27:54.280 She went and worked in an office as an assistant every single day.

00:27:58.460 And they struggle.

00:27:59.900 I think that term white privilege is disingenuous when people use that, when they throw it around.

00:28:05.180 Oh, that's just your white privilege speaking.

00:28:06.720 I don't really actually think they believe that there's some sort of privilege that I have access to that they wouldn't necessarily have access to.

00:28:16.020 I think it's meant as an insult, as a critique on something that may not fully exist, as an excuse for maybe somebody's own poor behavior or own missed opportunities based on their own set of circumstances or their own actions and behaviors.

00:28:34.900 And just because they miss those opportunities or don't acknowledge them or fail with them doesn't mean that some opportunity I have takes away from anything that that individual may have.

00:28:49.840 Yeah.

00:28:50.140 And you're 100% correct.

00:28:52.120 And you know where you really see that is I spent 13 years as a police officer.

00:28:57.780 And during that time, I had many encounters with people that would kind of allude to that, right?

00:29:06.600 And that white privilege, right?

00:29:08.440 And this is a white privilege.

00:29:09.980 And this person of color doesn't have that privilege. 1.00

00:29:12.000 Let me tell you, once again, with all the words in our society, right?

00:29:15.200 And people are just making up, redefining things.

00:29:17.740 We're redefining what it is.

00:29:19.520 A boy, a girl.

00:29:21.520 We're just redefining things.

00:29:23.240 You know, the word racist.

00:29:25.260 People are just redefining racist.

00:29:26.800 Now, like, I've been a victim of actual racism.

00:29:30.140 So you could imagine how much of a slap in the face it is for me when someone says, that flag right there is racist.

00:29:40.380 And I'm like, what?

00:29:42.780 What?

00:29:43.640 Like, it's offensive, right?

00:29:45.120 When you've actually experienced real racism and someone just points at some inanimate object and it's like, that's racist.

00:29:51.160 Out of the blue.

00:29:51.880 And you're like, what are you?

00:29:53.260 Like, it's offensive to me, you know?

00:29:55.400 So, you know.

00:29:56.900 It diminishes.

00:29:58.780 Racism exists.

00:30:00.100 Let's throw that out there.

00:30:01.620 Today, it exists.

00:30:04.420 I don't think anybody's saying it doesn't exist.

00:30:06.300 But when everything, quote unquote, everything is racist, then nothing is racist.

00:30:11.860 And you're actually undermining the argument.

00:30:13.700 And you're doing a huge disservice and injustice to those, like yourself, who have actually experienced true and real racism.

00:30:23.100 Yes.

00:30:23.500 Yes.

00:30:23.860 And you know what?

00:30:24.380 I spoke to a woman.

00:30:25.140 I spoke to a woman a few years ago when there was this whole thing going on with sexual harassment.

00:30:29.920 And this woman, she'd been raped. 0.91

00:30:32.420 She'd been raped while she was at school. 0.99

00:30:35.360 And she was a white woman. 1.00

00:30:37.260 And I was having a conversation with her about what was happening with me and all these allegations, whatever, you know.

00:30:42.500 And she said, you know what? 0.90

00:30:44.540 I was raped. 0.99

00:30:46.420 I was violently raped. 0.99

00:30:49.640 And that was a sexual assault. 0.71

00:30:53.160 And to me, to see women now coming forward out of the woodwork 30 years later saying, 30 years ago, this guy brushed past me or touched my shoulder.

00:31:08.600 Or made a comment about how attractive you were.

00:31:11.740 Right.

00:31:12.440 And I was sexually assaulted or sexually arrested. 0.98

00:31:16.420 This woman, like I said, a white man. 0.97

00:31:18.240 She was a liberal white woman.

00:31:19.560 Let me tell you, she was a liberal white woman. 1.00

00:31:21.760 And she's from California.

00:31:23.220 She said, that's offensive.

00:31:25.360 It's offensive to hear what some of these women are throwing out there as sexual harassment and, you know, sexual misconduct. 1.00

00:31:33.620 And she said, that's offensive.

00:31:35.220 I was like, I was a real victim.

00:31:37.220 And all these other little things now, all these people coming forward, who does it?

00:31:41.260 It drowns out the real victims.

00:31:44.340 Yes.

00:31:44.820 It drowns out the real victims of sexual harassment. 0.66

00:31:48.080 And when she made that point, I was like, wow, you're right.

00:31:51.160 Because now the woman who actually gets raped and sexually assaulted, she's like kind of marginalized with the women who are like, he looked at me funny.

00:32:00.440 Yeah. 0.68

00:32:00.600 And then nobody listens to her.

00:32:02.380 Yes.

00:32:02.640 Right.

00:32:03.020 It's the boy who cried wolf.

00:32:04.680 You know, so if everything is sexual misconduct or everything is racism, then anytime anybody brings anything up, it's like, oh, here we go again.

00:32:14.200 You know, I got to hear about the white privilege.

00:32:15.880 I got to hear about the racism.

00:32:17.180 I got to hear about the sexual assault.

00:32:18.880 And I'm not saying that to diminish any of that.

00:32:20.860 I'm saying that it's hard psychologically to take all of that and assume that it's all that serious and that grave.

00:32:32.360 When we know for a fact, it just really isn't like a flag or a commercial or a car being somehow racist just because somebody decided one day it was.

00:32:44.060 All right, guys, I'm going to step away from the conversation very briefly because I've got some exciting news.

00:32:49.480 A lot of you are probably already aware of this.

00:32:51.540 But if you're not, you need to know that I'm excited to announce that the order of man empire is expanding as my son, my oldest son, will be launching his own podcast in the coming weeks called man in the making.

00:33:07.160 As a father and son, we're going to be talking about the issues that need to be talked about that are always the most comfortable to talk about.

00:33:14.300 This is things like money and drugs and alcohol and sex and pornography and culture and religion and all of the uncomfortable, awkward conversations that we as men know are important, but struggle with.

00:33:28.920 We're going to be having some of these conversations and talking about some of these issues.

00:33:32.520 But he's also going to be interviewing successful men and learning from them how a boy becomes a man and transitions into manhood.

00:33:39.940 So if you're a father of a son or you have a desire to be or you will be at some point, this is going to be an incredibly powerful resource for you.

00:33:48.420 There isn't anything out there like this.

00:33:50.960 And I'm excited to have my son working closer with me, me with him, and then him have some interest in what we're doing here and taking this to the next level.

00:34:00.900 So we'll be sure to let you know as we get more information.

00:34:04.060 But if you want to learn more about what we're doing and also get notified when the podcast drops, then head to order of man.com slash man in the making order of man.com slash man in the making.

00:34:19.520 It's going to be cool.

00:34:20.440 I'm really excited about it.

00:34:21.500 I think you guys will be too.

00:34:22.540 And I think it'll serve you well.

00:34:23.640 So again, order of man.com slash man in the making guys for now, I'll get back to it with Suresh.

00:34:30.280 Yeah.

00:34:30.900 Yeah.

00:34:31.240 It really.

00:34:32.220 And you know what, like you said, and the same goes for racism.

00:34:35.380 As someone who's experienced it, I know that I've talked to other people who've been the victim of real significant racism.

00:34:43.880 Like they were something significantly negative happened to them solely based on their race.

00:34:48.880 And they see these other things happening.

00:34:51.140 And all that other noise is drowning out what happened to them, which was actual racism.

00:34:57.140 But no one hears their story or no one hears their voice.

00:35:01.020 Because why?

00:35:02.220 Because someone's too busy saying that this box of pancake mix is racist, you know?

00:35:07.660 And people are like, oh, let's focus on that.

00:35:10.320 Let's focus on that.

00:35:11.380 That's the new thing.

00:35:13.440 That's racist.

00:35:14.180 Let's cancel Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben's or whatever.

00:35:17.220 And this guy over here is like, I was just fired and I can't feed my family.

00:35:23.580 And it was solely based on someone calling me the N-word and something bad, like something really bad.

00:35:29.920 And I'm like, man, I feel bad for this guy because no one cares about that anymore.

00:35:33.920 What's cool and what's hip and what's woke.

00:35:35.820 Like, don't go fly the flag of what that guy went through because that won't get attention.

00:35:42.680 Let's go after the box of cereal on the shelf.

00:35:45.220 Not able to be outraged about.

00:35:47.040 But what is, so what is your perception?

00:35:51.380 Well, let me ask it this way.

00:35:53.040 Have you been targeted because you're not saying what you're quote unquote supposed to be saying?

00:36:01.700 You know what, when it comes to racism, right?

00:36:04.840 You're not, you're not playing the victim card.

00:36:07.420 You're saying you've experienced it, but you're not necessarily a constant victim of it.

00:36:12.680 And so that's not really the narrative that you as a black man are supposed to be saying right now.

00:36:19.300 So do people get after you about that?

00:36:22.440 Oh, you know, what's funny.

00:36:23.900 The people who are the most, the people who are the loudest about, you know, Black Lives Matter, justice, no justice, no peace, all this stuff. 0.99

00:36:39.120 The people who are the loudest about that are typically the people who are the most vile toward me.

00:36:45.920 When I say, you know what, how do you get rid of racism?

00:36:51.320 I think Morgan Freeman or Denzel Washington said, stop talking about it.

00:36:54.760 Stop talking about, stop perseverating on it and move past it.

00:36:58.880 I'm not saying it doesn't exist because I know people who know my story know I experienced it from my own department.

00:37:06.300 I worked for an all white police department.

00:37:07.980 I was the first officer of color to be hired in the department's history.

00:37:11.580 This is in 2003.

00:37:13.040 And I broke the mold.

00:37:13.920 People call me Jackie Robinson because no one ever thought that this all white town that even wore white caps that they say had a tie to an organization that, you know, I was the first.

00:37:27.300 I was the first in that town.

00:37:28.300 And I, you know, I broke that mold and I, you know, and I experienced racism from inside that police department.

00:37:34.020 I experienced racism from the town I worked in.

00:37:36.280 It was predominantly white.

00:37:37.480 I pulled over an older white couple on the side of the interstate.

00:37:40.800 And after my conversation with them, I was letting them go.

00:37:43.380 It was a Sunday morning.

00:37:44.100 I think they were going to church, come back from church.

00:37:45.780 The woman turned to me and said, officer, I must say, you're awfully well-spoken for a Negro.

00:37:52.820 And I was like, gosh, I was like, well, this is like 2005, Ryan.

00:37:56.860 This wasn't like 85 or 75.

00:37:58.800 40 years ago.

00:38:00.240 That's a town I worked in.

00:38:02.220 That's a town I grew up in.

00:38:03.260 So I will say that what is out there, the privilege that I feel like that some maybe white people have is that certain times I go into a store and if I'm just coming from the gym or something, I see the looks that I'm getting.

00:38:23.480 Maybe they're tracking me through the store.

00:38:25.340 Yeah, maybe they're looking out, is this guy going to steal something or something like that?

00:38:28.440 I feel that a little bit from time to time.

00:38:31.600 Those are the little things that I say that, okay, if I was white, that probably would not be happening. 0.54

00:38:38.480 Those are the little things.

00:38:40.140 But as far as anything else in this world, a single mother.

00:38:45.240 I graduated pre-med.

00:38:47.160 I went through Boy Scouts.

00:38:48.380 I had a great career in going into research and then had a career as a law enforcement officer where I saved lives.

00:38:55.280 I delivered babies.

00:38:56.520 And then I started my own company in my garage without two nickels to rub together.

00:39:00.900 And now we're a global company.

00:39:02.880 We have 200-something retail locations worldwide.

00:39:05.420 We have a headquarters in New York City, Times Square.

00:39:07.820 And I started that in my garage with nothing, my own sewing machine. 0.94

00:39:11.480 So don't tell me that there's this cloud hanging over Black people holding them down. 0.87

00:39:18.900 Don't tell me that because I'm not going to buy it. 0.75

00:39:21.240 I'm not going to buy that story.

00:39:22.920 It's just not real.

00:39:24.740 You can tell that story.

00:39:26.440 But how many stories of success are we seeing every single day of Black men? 1.00

00:39:33.420 Let's forget about athletes.

00:39:35.340 Forget about it.

00:39:35.960 Obviously, some of the wealthiest people in our country are African-American and Black athletes, right?

00:39:40.960 So let's not even talk about that.

00:39:42.640 I'm talking about entrepreneurs, business people, teachers, lawyers, doctors, highly successful Black people in this country.

00:39:51.100 Are you going to just point the finger and say they all got lucky?

00:39:54.520 That's a slap in all their faces. 0.97

00:39:57.140 Tell someone, tell a Black doctor, a successful Black lawyer, there's a guy not too far from me. 0.96

00:40:03.620 He's one of the top insurance guys in the country for, I guess, life insurance and all, whatever.

00:40:08.580 He's one of the top in the country.

00:40:09.740 Tell that guy he got lucky.

00:40:12.240 Tell him he made it to where he is based on luck.

00:40:17.640 Don't tell me that it's not possible.

00:40:19.800 It might be a little harder.

00:40:21.700 Yeah, it was harder for me.

00:40:23.240 Single mom, immigrant mom. 1.00

00:40:24.960 And, you know, I had, you know, a little bit of a bump from having my friend's white father, you know, kind of guide me and pull me up and, you know, show me the way. 0.72

00:40:34.460 They showed me.

00:40:35.340 They introduced me to the Lord and they introduced me to a lot of work ethic.

00:40:38.880 And that helped save me.

00:40:40.560 It did.

00:40:41.380 But don't tell me it's not possible.

00:40:44.300 No one gave me.

00:40:45.120 I didn't have someone write me some million dollar check to start my company.

00:40:47.980 I didn't have that.

00:40:48.960 So that's like telling someone, I'm sure you know someone who's lost a ton of weight, right?

00:40:55.700 Sure.

00:40:56.020 I know people who've lost a ton of weight.

00:40:57.900 You know, a friend of mine, he just recently lost like 85 pounds.

00:41:00.720 Changed his life, right?

00:41:01.980 85 pounds.

00:41:02.640 He, you know, he literally like lost a small child.

00:41:06.380 And so tell him that it's not possible to lose weight.

00:41:12.700 It's too hard.

00:41:14.020 Fast food is everywhere.

00:41:15.400 There's too many, there's too many temptations everywhere you go.

00:41:18.740 You know, donuts are just so delicious.

00:41:20.820 How can you say no?

00:41:22.020 And, you know, it's hard to eat healthy.

00:41:23.900 It's hard to meal prep.

00:41:24.880 It's hard to work out every day.

00:41:26.340 You know what?

00:41:27.420 Tell him it's not possible.

00:41:29.000 And he's going to say, wait, I just lost 85 pounds.

00:41:31.240 It is possible.

00:41:31.840 You just don't want it bad enough.

00:41:33.500 Well, I say the same thing to people of color.

00:41:36.040 I made it.

00:41:37.380 Don't tell me I can't make it.

00:41:39.020 You just don't want it bad enough.

00:41:40.340 If you want it bad enough, you'll make it.

00:41:42.540 If you want it bad enough, you'll lose the weight.

00:41:44.560 If you want it bad enough, you'll create it.

00:41:46.960 And you're not going to let anyone say, well, you're 300 pounds, man.

00:41:52.400 You're never going to be 200.

00:41:54.220 Bro, you're never going to be 200.

00:41:56.000 Oh, you have dark skin. 1.00

00:41:57.560 You're never going to be your own businessman.

00:41:59.420 Man, there's too many things.

00:42:00.900 You know, it's systemic racism, man.

00:42:03.040 No, you can't.

00:42:04.120 There's no opportunity for you.

00:42:05.360 You're never going to make it.

00:42:06.440 Well, if you listen to all those people, you never will make it.

00:42:09.200 Or you can say, you know what?

00:42:11.740 I'm going to create my own future.

00:42:13.420 I don't care what you say.

00:42:15.060 Yeah, there's some things.

00:42:16.360 Yes.

00:42:16.700 Just like with fat people. 0.93

00:42:18.500 Yes. 0.96

00:42:19.180 There's fast food on every corner.

00:42:21.440 Yes.

00:42:22.260 Everywhere you go, there's an opportunity to eat bad, drink garbage, and treat your body poorly.

00:42:28.300 Yes. 0.89

00:42:29.260 And just like with people of color. 0.81

00:42:31.800 Yes.

00:42:32.080 When you go around this country, there are certain people in certain situations that may not like you because of the color of your skin.

00:42:38.640 They may not throw an opportunity at you, at your feet, because of the color of your skin.

00:42:43.480 But guess what?

00:42:44.900 It doesn't mean you can't make it.

00:42:46.840 That's right.

00:42:47.100 You just have to work around it.

00:42:48.540 Just like the fat guy has to drive past all the fast food stores and not take that Coca-Cola and that Mountain Dew and go for that bottle of Smart Water and, you know, hit the gym instead of hitting the couch.

00:42:58.620 All those things.

00:42:59.840 You have to just stay on the pad.

00:43:02.040 And it just takes dedication.

00:43:04.460 It takes time.

00:43:05.380 And it takes drowning out the noise.

00:43:07.060 I joined jiu-jitsu not too long ago.

00:43:11.080 I like that.

00:43:12.420 They're like, literally, I had people say, you joined jiu-jitsu?

00:43:16.880 That's like a white guy's sport. 0.51

00:43:18.040 I'm like, oh, my God.

00:43:18.720 Are you serious?

00:43:19.860 What makes it a white guy's sport?

00:43:22.120 I was like, wait a second.

00:43:23.680 Wait a second.

00:43:24.460 Okay.

00:43:24.860 I was like, whatever.

00:43:25.800 Anyway.

00:43:26.280 So I was like, yeah, I'm going for it.

00:43:27.700 I'm going for it, you know?

00:43:28.840 And I had put it off.

00:43:29.920 I had put it off.

00:43:30.500 I had put it off.

00:43:30.960 I had wrestled growing up.

00:43:32.420 And I put it off.

00:43:33.120 One of the hardest high school sports, by the way, is wrestling.

00:43:35.440 High school wrestling.

00:43:35.960 Not one of the hardest.

00:43:36.680 The hardest, the hardest, hands down.

00:43:38.120 I don't care what anyone says.

00:43:39.460 I don't care what anyone says.

00:43:40.500 100%.

00:43:40.600 High school wrestlers are the most fit athletes in the world.

00:43:43.360 100%.

00:43:43.920 And as for our high school athletes.

00:43:47.020 So I put off jiu-jitsu.

00:43:50.320 I put off jiu-jitsu.

00:43:51.160 I'm too busy.

00:43:52.000 You know what?

00:43:52.600 I decided.

00:43:53.100 I said, you know, I'm telling myself a lie.

00:43:54.660 I'm telling myself a story.

00:43:56.140 If I want to make the time to join jiu-jitsu, I will make the time.

00:44:00.620 And I also knew that if I wanted to get good fast, I needed to go three, four days a week.

00:44:05.620 Well, I ended up going three, four days.

00:44:08.000 And I started going five days a week.

00:44:09.480 And I became addicted.

00:44:10.840 And two weeks ago, I got my blue belt.

00:44:12.840 Yeah.

00:44:13.260 Congrats, brother.

00:44:14.100 Congrats.

00:44:14.840 Thank you.

00:44:15.140 Thank you so much.

00:44:16.140 And it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to work to do and put the time in.

00:44:20.560 It was also one of the most rewarding.

00:44:22.400 But guess what?

00:44:23.160 I didn't get that by myself.

00:44:25.900 One, I had to actually make the time to drive 30 minutes each way and then spend an hour to two hours there.

00:44:33.120 But guess what?

00:44:34.200 There were other people, my training partners, every time I went.

00:44:38.020 The instructors, the coaches, my professor, who's one of the best in the world.

00:44:43.140 You know, all those people made that happen.

00:44:47.120 So when I got the belt, there was a couple of people who were like, you did it.

00:44:51.080 I said, no, we did it.

00:44:52.780 We did it.

00:44:53.580 Everyone in my world that supported me there, everyone that supported me at home, I didn't earn that blue belt.

00:45:01.380 We, there was a we involved in earning that blue belt.

00:45:04.380 Because if I just walked in there every day and I was by myself and I had to just watch a video to try to learn jujitsu.

00:45:09.840 Roll around on the ground by yourself. 0.98

00:45:11.460 With one of those dummies. 1.00

00:45:13.480 I wouldn't have a blue, you know, it's not possible. 0.93

00:45:15.820 And the same thing goes in life.

00:45:17.640 As a man of color, I utilized my networks.

00:45:21.120 I utilized my networks.

00:45:22.560 And guess what?

00:45:23.380 There were people of color that helped me get to where I am today.

00:45:26.200 And there were a lot of white people that helped me get to where I am today.

00:45:29.460 That helped grow my business, you know, and helped me grow.

00:45:33.860 My partner who helped me launch the business is a white Jewish guy.

00:45:37.600 You know, if not for him, the company would not be where it is today.

00:45:41.540 My partner, Brad.

00:45:42.380 So all the people who have that narrative of the world is against you and you can't do it.

00:45:48.040 And there's a systemic cloud hanging over.

00:45:50.840 That's the greatest lie being told in our society right now.

00:45:55.840 And I did it.

00:45:57.360 I did it without a dad.

00:45:59.980 Can you imagine?

00:46:01.180 Can you imagine if you have that father figure in your home guiding you, giving you that mentorship, teaching you, keeping you on that path?

00:46:10.360 Imagine how powerful young men, white, black, purple.

00:46:14.280 I don't care.

00:46:15.600 I don't care.

00:46:16.240 Right now in China, they got little boys going through like quasi-buds training on the beach in cold water, lifting heavy stuff.

00:46:25.620 Little boys.

00:46:26.360 Why?

00:46:26.720 Because they were worried about their young boys getting too weak.

00:46:30.300 Yep.

00:46:30.760 Becoming feminized.

00:46:32.420 Right.

00:46:32.940 And now China has their boys like doing like, you know, sugar cookies on the beach and like in the surf.

00:46:40.680 And you're like, what the heck?

00:46:42.460 Because they realize the importance of a society of young, strong boys turning to young, strong, young boys turning to strong men.

00:46:53.740 And that's what they want.

00:46:54.920 Meanwhile, here we have like men on the cover of Vanity Fair wearing dresses.

00:46:58.840 And I'm like, what is going on here?

00:47:03.040 You know, and that should be a concern for young black men and young white men.

00:47:09.000 You know, this goes back to what you were saying earlier too about, you know, the termites, right?

00:47:14.760 That it didn't just happen.

00:47:16.680 So I'll post about things, whether it's, you know, men wearing dresses and trans issues and all this kind of stuff.

00:47:23.860 And people will say, what does it matter?

00:47:25.060 Why do you care?

00:47:26.100 It's not a big deal what other people do.

00:47:28.020 I'm like, look, this is how it happens.

00:47:30.680 You know, it's these little micro movements in redefining words and attempting to change culture and tweak the norms and make things acceptable that maybe oughtn't be acceptable.

00:47:44.460 And if we don't start talking about it and we don't draw the line in the sand and say, no, you're not actually going to do this because the lines are already drawn.

00:47:53.280 And here's what I'm going to talk about.

00:47:54.600 Yeah, people are going to get after you and they're going to get after me because we're talking about things they deem unimportant.

00:48:00.020 But I'm telling you, every little movement moves the narrative, the Overton window, just a little more, a little more, a little more.

00:48:06.640 And then 10 years, 20 years, 40 years from now.

00:48:09.300 You know, I'm 40 years old.

00:48:11.340 I look back on my childhood in the 80s and over that 35, 40 year time frame.

00:48:17.160 The culture looks a lot different than it did not that long ago because we let these things creep in and they take hold and the Overton window moves and moves and moves.

00:48:27.940 Yeah. And if you don't, if you don't address it and you don't speak up and you don't hold court to say, hey, everyone, let's take a look at this and let's know that most people, the bottom 99 percent see it happening.

00:48:43.040 Well, but kind of like started like they don't want to see it.

00:48:46.200 They're like cognitive blindness sets in or they'll say that really doesn't affect me.

00:48:51.500 Right. Yeah. So let me just let that go.

00:48:53.420 It doesn't really affect me personally.

00:48:54.700 So I'm just going to let it go.

00:48:55.680 And then you have that, you know, it's funny, the jujitsu, I was rolling with a black belt the other day and I was in top side control.

00:49:04.940 For those of you, you know, you're on top perpendicular to the person.

00:49:08.660 And.

00:49:10.300 Within about two minutes, it was very slow, it was very slow, but within two minutes, I didn't realize he had managed to move his arm into a position that.

00:49:21.240 But at the two minute and one second mark, he was able to completely turn over and get on top of me.

00:49:27.240 OK, and it's in the obvious, you know, it's called sweet.

00:49:31.920 So I said, wow, I was like, God, that came out of the blue.

00:49:36.240 And afterwards I said, I was like, wow, that happened.

00:49:38.800 Like you did that so fast. It happened out of the blue.

00:49:40.920 Like I didn't, he's like, do you know, for two minutes I was moving my hand from here to on top of my belly to brace, to create like, you know, against your hip.

00:49:54.940 And I was waiting and waiting and waiting for you to move.

00:49:59.620 And every time you move, I just move my hand like half an inch and you didn't even notice it.

00:50:03.940 I think you noticed it, but you didn't really do anything about it.

00:50:06.520 And then it took a full two minutes within jujitsu. Seems like an hour. Seems like an eternity.

00:50:11.460 And he said, and then it happened. He said, so that didn't just happen.

00:50:14.500 So it was a progression and I did nothing about it.

00:50:19.680 Mm hmm. You didn't react to that at all.

00:50:22.360 I didn't react. I kind of felt it happening, but it didn't seem like anything that was threatening to me.

00:50:28.180 So I let it go. I'm like, oh, he's just moving his arm a little bit. He's just wiggling.

00:50:32.120 He must just be wiggling. He's trying to just wiggle.

00:50:34.440 Oh, and man, boom, it hit me. It hit me.

00:50:38.520 And that's what's going to happen in this society.

00:50:40.560 We're all letting these little things go by, little things go by.

00:50:44.140 And one day we're going to wake up and it's going to be like, boom.

00:50:47.680 And people are going to be like, wow, how did this happen?

00:50:50.820 How did that happen overnight? Nothing happens overnight.

00:50:55.080 Success doesn't happen overnight. You don't gain a hundred pounds overnight.

00:50:58.260 Right. Everything happens over time.

00:51:01.900 And if you don't take the time to stop and notice and recognize and say, this might be a problem.

00:51:08.280 This is like a this is the incremental problem.

00:51:11.320 And it's like those little things along the way.

00:51:15.660 Take care of them when they're when they're small problems and you prevent the big problem.

00:51:20.760 Right. We're not doing that as a society.

00:51:22.780 I want to go back to you in law enforcement.

00:51:25.520 I know you said you you serve 13 years in law enforcement.

00:51:28.880 Do you see I mean, it's clear if you were to watch the news 24 seven that there's there's a shift in policing.

00:51:39.780 At least that's what it appears to be, because that's what the media wants you to believe.

00:51:44.280 Right. I don't think all that much has probably changed in the past 10 years.

00:51:48.800 I just think it's louder now and people think it's an issue.

00:51:51.200 But but what is what is your take as somebody from the inside who has seen law enforcement and the way that law is upheld and administered in this country?

00:52:01.720 You know, what what's your take on the way we're doing it?

00:52:03.960 Where is it going well?

00:52:04.920 Where do we need to make some changes and reevaluate the way we're we're taking care of things?

00:52:12.920 Great question.

00:52:13.720 I think we have to start with.

00:52:18.000 How are the situations that are getting the most attention?

00:52:22.700 How are they.

00:52:25.380 Happening, how are we getting to those situations?

00:52:27.720 Right. Like so.

00:52:29.700 Cops aren't going around locking up like five year olds.

00:52:32.540 Right. Right.

00:52:33.780 It's just not that's just not happening.

00:52:35.500 It's not true. Right.

00:52:36.560 And for the most part, cops aren't going around, you know, harassing seven year olds or 10 year olds.

00:52:42.120 Right. It.

00:52:43.720 There is something that's happening early on that's leading to these situations.

00:52:48.880 Now, in some situations, I will say the cops are one thousand percent wrong in the George Floyd situation.

00:52:56.140 I don't know a single human being that has supported what that Derek Chauvin did.

00:53:01.460 I don't know a single person. Right.

00:53:03.240 Wrong is wrong.

00:53:04.440 And you have to accept that cops are not robots.

00:53:08.440 They're not machines.

00:53:09.960 They're imperfect human beings.

00:53:11.920 We're all imperfect human beings. Right.

00:53:13.840 And they are going to screw up.

00:53:16.120 And they also have emotion, which is going to let them do things that maybe they shouldn't do, which as human beings, we all do.

00:53:24.540 Right.

00:53:24.840 So you're we're not going to see that's not the last incident of a George Floyd, Derek Chauvin that we're ever going to see in our lifetime, you know, and I know we're going to see it again.

00:53:36.800 It's going to happen again.

00:53:38.060 We don't want to see it again.

00:53:39.180 And of course, we hope it never happens, but we will see it again.

00:53:44.080 We want to see less and less and less to say we want to never happen again is almost, I would say, impossible because of the amount of police interactions with people and, you know, human beings at policing.

00:53:56.840 Until we have RoboCop and robots are policing.

00:53:59.960 I don't think we're going to not see things like that.

00:54:02.700 Right.

00:54:03.000 So that starts to present if you're talking about even getting into like federal policing and that starts to get into a whole nother arena with its own set of problems outside of what we're experiencing now.

00:54:14.620 Right.

00:54:15.020 Right.

00:54:15.480 And careful what you wish for.

00:54:16.800 So I tell people.

00:54:20.360 Before you talk about the actions of police officers, I ask them and I, of course, at, you know, at events and things like that, I hear people talking and throwing out there and I'll say, how many years did you do?

00:54:33.440 And they're like, what?

00:54:35.120 I'm like, how many years you served?

00:54:36.980 And I go, I was never a cop.

00:54:39.400 I was like, so you're sitting here telling me that something you saw on the news, like a 15 second clip of what a police officer did.

00:54:51.120 You're telling me what the police officer should have done, but you've never done the job.

00:54:56.760 Right.

00:54:57.220 Well, you know, but to be fair, though, there is a there is a line here because I don't.

00:55:02.640 And here's one thing I'll hear quite often is, you know, like, well, if you've never served, then don't talk about it.

00:55:07.060 It's like, no, that's actually not correct, regardless of people, whether or not they've served in the police department or in the military are still entitled to their opinion.

00:55:17.220 It ought to just be an educated opinion.

00:55:22.140 But there is a line between, yes, still, you're welcome to have an opinion.

00:55:27.220 That's why we have this great country.

00:55:28.600 But let's just make sure it's an informed opinion before you just go run in your mouth reckless about something you don't understand.

00:55:33.440 Yes. Like, I literally have had people who've said, why did he shoot the knife out of her hand?

00:55:40.500 Right. Right.

00:55:42.520 That is like mind blowing. 0.95

00:55:45.400 But you've got to realize, like, like, I'm not ignorant to the fact that people like that who are innocently ignorant exist. 0.82

00:55:54.920 You have to know they exist. Right. 0.81

00:55:57.300 That exists.

00:55:57.920 So there are people out there who truly believe that a police officer can draw their gun and shoot a knife out of someone's hand that's waving it around.

00:56:06.220 And that's an easy thing to do.

00:56:08.420 They don't know that some of the best shooters on the planet couldn't do that, let alone when your heart rate's at like 180.

00:56:14.580 Right. And like there's like a baby in the background.

00:56:17.580 And like, you know, you know, people, you know, so they just don't know.

00:56:23.720 Right. They don't know.

00:56:24.640 I don't think you even need to do the job to realize that that like, listen, that's not really an easy thing to do.

00:56:29.760 Now, I think we're we're training.

00:56:34.000 I can say this wholeheartedly.

00:56:37.060 Like. Police and I worked for a department that was really progressive, that offered a lot of training, but it was.

00:56:46.040 Not even close to the training that I think police officers should have.

00:56:50.440 I got trained after being a police officer when I started training with guys like Dom Rosso, when I started training with guys like to land, you know,

00:57:03.020 I started training with guys who really knew what they were doing, like real tactical operators.

00:57:09.240 And I spent my own money traveling around the country to meet with these guys and train with them multiple times.

00:57:15.860 And it made me.

00:57:18.040 I was very thankful for it, but it also scared the heck out of me because I realized how poorly I was trained as a police officer.

00:57:26.520 Police officers are so poorly trained in this country. 0.98

00:57:29.580 It's almost pathetic. 0.98

00:57:31.120 And most people don't know that most people will who say, why didn't the cop shoot the knife out of their hand? 0.97

00:57:37.800 They're saying that based on their belief that police officers have this super high level of training.

00:57:44.340 Well, and these are also the defund the police people. 0.89

00:57:46.940 It's like, well, why don't you shoot the thing out of his hand?

00:57:49.140 And also we need to defund police. 0.95

00:57:51.520 Well, there's a little bit of a disconnect there.

00:57:54.020 If you want this police officer to be the greatest sharpshooter ever walked the planet, then defunding them probably isn't the answer.

00:58:02.160 Right, right.

00:58:02.720 And sending social workers like people don't know.

00:58:05.140 I share this with people and they're like, what?

00:58:07.000 I'm like, you know, anytime a social worker had to make a house call on a mentally ill subject, they called the police for an escort because they were worried.

00:58:15.420 They were worried that they would go into this home and maybe something would happen.

00:58:20.420 There'd be a mental health episode and they were worried for their safety.

00:58:24.220 So every time a social worker went to the house of someone mentally disturbed, they called the police for an escort and we had to go knock on the door first.

00:58:33.160 And then we had to stand in the living room and just kind of like stand there in the corner while they had the discussion on the couch.

00:58:38.120 We were just kind of on standby.

00:58:39.660 So the people who've never done the job, they don't know that.

00:58:43.940 So they're saying send social workers to these calls with these crazy people who are like, you know, waving a knife around.

00:58:50.480 Just send social workers to calm them down and talk.

00:58:53.280 They don't really.

00:58:53.900 I talked to over a dozen social workers.

00:58:55.960 They were like, you couldn't pay me enough to go to a call like that by myself without the police.

00:59:00.780 Of course, that's not what they're trained to do.

00:59:02.900 That's not what they're trained to do.

00:59:04.440 And guess what?

00:59:05.040 I talked to a Ph.D. in social work and she said, I have my Ph.D. in social work, in clinical psychology.

00:59:12.880 Never once in any of my courses in my entire career were we trained on how to deal with someone who was angry and crazy with a weapon.

00:59:21.420 Ever.

00:59:22.480 Ever.

00:59:23.360 And I said, you know, but the people who are in screaming defund the police and send social workers, they're just saying that they don't know.

00:59:30.400 So we need more training, but because police training is horrific, but we also need a better understanding from the public of what police work actually is and what it entails and the things that happen happen in real time for the cops.

00:59:47.760 It happens in a millisecond.

00:59:49.700 Like, I go to work now and I have to make decisions based on an email that comes in because our factory is maybe short and, you know, material or whatever.

01:00:00.380 And I have some time to analyze that decision and I can make a decision.

01:00:04.480 And even if I make the wrong decision, what's the worst?

01:00:07.400 You have an inventory shortage.

01:00:08.900 You got to put out of stock on the website.

01:00:10.540 You have some people that are a little upset that they don't get their order on time.

01:00:14.600 It's a pair of gloves or tactical shoes or something like that.

01:00:18.040 Whatever.

01:00:18.340 No big deal.

01:00:18.760 A police officer has to make that decision in like a millisecond.

01:00:23.940 And guess what?

01:00:24.780 The worst that could potentially happen is they get killed.

01:00:27.560 Yeah.

01:00:27.740 Somebody dies.

01:00:28.440 So most people, they go to work every day and they feel like they got to make tough decisions, but those decisions don't infect their livelihood and their life.

01:00:37.940 Right?

01:00:38.280 So it's very different.

01:00:39.640 So we need a better understanding from the public on that front.

01:00:42.580 But before we even look at all that, we can avoid all of it altogether. 0.98

01:00:47.120 We can have the worst trained cops in the world who are just like complete bumbling fools and don't know how to deal with people if you avoid the police. 0.98

01:00:56.500 If you don't commit crime and you don't even see the police, you don't see the police. 0.99

01:01:07.180 You don't interact with them.

01:01:08.180 Right?

01:01:08.480 So I can't tell you the last time I got pulled over.

01:01:11.480 Why?

01:01:12.020 Because I don't speed and, you know, I do the right thing.

01:01:14.660 Right?

01:01:15.080 I don't commit.

01:01:15.980 I don't run into the police because I don't commit crime.

01:01:18.120 You know, I don't hang out in crime-ridden areas because I just know that, like, even if I'm not committing a crime, if I'm in a high crime area, I may get stopped by the police.

01:01:26.840 So I just know.

01:01:28.060 So step one, avoid the system.

01:01:29.700 Step two, if you happen to get tied up in the system, you make a wrong turn, you're hanging out with the wrong guy, or they pull you over for no reason.

01:01:38.300 Happened to me.

01:01:39.560 Work the system.

01:01:40.560 Know the system.

01:01:41.460 Hands on the wheel.

01:01:42.320 Windows down.

01:01:43.320 Yes, sir.

01:01:43.860 No, sir.

01:01:44.700 Whatever you need.

01:01:45.580 No, no problem.

01:01:46.560 Right?

01:01:47.140 Know the system.

01:01:48.040 Know how it works.

01:01:48.700 If you know the system is broken or flawed, know how to work the system.

01:01:53.600 Know how it works and work it.

01:01:55.380 We all know. 0.99

01:01:56.440 Don't sit there and say, oh, cops are out there killing black people in the street. 1.00

01:02:00.760 Okay. 0.98

01:02:01.220 If that's what you truly believe, although that's not the reality, right, because ratio-wise, the police kill more white people annually than black people by far compared to 15% of the black people committing 51% of the crime. 0.94

01:02:14.420 Ratio-wise, more white people are getting killed. 0.50

01:02:16.440 That's just the numbers. 0.98

01:02:17.360 That's not my opinion.

01:02:18.420 But if you're a black man and you get stopped by the police right now in 2021 and you know what's going on in this world, what are you going to do?

01:02:26.400 Well, you should probably be respectful.

01:02:30.160 Yes, sir.

01:02:30.820 No, sir.

01:02:31.580 Here are my hands.

01:02:32.300 I'm not going to make any furtive movements, whatever.

01:02:34.520 And if for some reason you say, hey, you're under arrest, you got a warrant or something, you put your hands behind your back.

01:02:39.620 You don't try to fight with them.

01:02:40.860 You don't try to take their gun.

01:02:41.940 You don't try to take their taser.

01:02:43.220 You don't try to run.

01:02:44.120 You don't try to run back into your car and reach under the seat for something.

01:02:46.620 You don't do any of those things because if you do any of those things, you know what might happen because you know what comes next.

01:02:55.200 Exactly.

01:02:55.480 You know what comes next.

01:02:56.340 So you're doing that knowing what might happen.

01:02:59.620 So know the system, right?

01:03:01.540 And then if you get involved in the system, avoid the system, but if you get involved, work the system.

01:03:06.360 Step three, Ryan, and I tell people I did it.

01:03:10.220 If the system is broken, avoid it.

01:03:13.140 If you're in it, work it.

01:03:14.400 And then join it to try to change it.

01:03:16.700 I joined the police force because I knew what I experienced as a young man in an all-white neighborhood. 1.00

01:03:23.640 And I said, you know what?

01:03:25.380 I knew how I was treated by the police.

01:03:27.160 Well, I can either complain about it or ultimately I can try to do something about it.

01:03:33.420 And ultimately, I left a career going into medicine and I went into law enforcement.

01:03:39.000 I wanted to go into the Navy.

01:03:40.140 My mom ixnayed that like lightning fast. 0.99

01:03:42.900 Lightning fast.

01:03:43.700 Which it sounds like based on what she said with the vest and everything, which ended up turning into your company, she's had some pretty good insight, even though you didn't initially like it the way it maybe came across or the way she shared it initially.

01:03:55.820 Yeah, yeah.

01:03:57.160 I mean, it was, oh man, she was tougher than having a mom and dad sometimes, you know, but she's, you know, one of the, well, yeah, she had to be.

01:04:04.940 She had no choice, right?

01:04:06.260 And she's one of the strongest women I know.

01:04:08.720 But so I said, you know what?

01:04:10.640 I'm going to try to join the system and change it from within.

01:04:12.740 And you know what?

01:04:13.340 I got to tell you, back in the day, as you probably know, when we got out of high school, guys who didn't really have a direction and maybe college wasn't for them, they went into the military.

01:04:24.900 That's what I did.

01:04:25.820 They joined the military.

01:04:26.780 That was the thing.

01:04:27.560 And like, people were like, hey, listen, you know, you're throwing your life away.

01:04:30.440 You just graduated high school.

01:04:31.500 You don't know what you're doing.

01:04:32.280 You're going to the military.

01:04:33.300 People were just like thrown into the military.

01:04:35.240 And they went to boot camp.

01:04:36.300 They went to basic training.

01:04:37.160 And that's where young men who were going off the path were pushed toward, right?

01:04:43.500 Right.

01:04:44.560 And it was a beautiful thing.

01:04:46.120 It was a beautiful thing because they would go to, you know, basic training.

01:04:49.420 They get squared away.

01:04:50.320 They get some, you know, some, you know, some guidance and some structure in their world.

01:04:54.980 I see no movement whatsoever to say, young black men, if you feel like there is a systemic problem in our country with policing and you have intelligence and you have the physical capacity, your strong mind and you have a strong body, right?

01:05:14.280 Join the police force.

01:05:16.200 Make a difference.

01:05:17.140 Be the difference from within.

01:05:18.880 The system is broken.

01:05:20.540 Get in it.

01:05:21.340 Get in it and change it from within.

01:05:23.140 Now, we're seeing a lot of agencies that have a lot of people of color in their higher echelons.

01:05:29.520 But we're seeing a problem where the change is still not just just not happening to where we need to be.

01:05:34.640 So that conversation needs to happen as well.

01:05:37.300 What change?

01:05:38.600 You said the change is not happening.

01:05:40.220 What change are you referring to?

01:05:41.680 Well, I think that what we have to have is a better understanding of white police officers of the mindset of the young black man.

01:05:53.140 And the young black man needs to have a better understanding of the mindset, right? 0.89

01:05:58.480 Every situation we enter as human beings has three components, threats, obligations and opportunities, right?

01:06:06.300 So a young black man who's pulled over by the police has to realize, okay, in this situation, there's certain threats based on what I do.

01:06:17.500 There's certain obligations I have to make sure he feels okay and feel safe and doesn't feel threatened.

01:06:23.980 And there's opportunities.

01:06:25.520 The opportunity here is for me to act like a human being, not act like an animal, not do some crazy stuff and have that police officer walk away saying, you know what?

01:06:38.220 I was walking up to this car thinking that I was about to run into something with this young black guy.

01:06:43.640 And man, what a gentleman, how respectful, had his stuff together, had his act together, we're squared away.

01:06:51.900 Wow.

01:06:52.280 So you maybe just changed that guy's mindset, right?

01:06:55.080 Now, as the police officer, you have threats, obligations and opportunities.

01:07:00.360 What are the threats?

01:07:01.240 Well, the threats are, could this person be on?

01:07:04.100 Could this person have a weapon?

01:07:06.100 You know, could they potentially try to take my weapon up?

01:07:09.160 Obligation.

01:07:09.760 What's the obligation?

01:07:10.580 Well, I'm going to treat this person with respect.

01:07:12.320 I'm going to be cautious, but I'm also going to give this person the opportunity to present themselves and present their story and not make an immediate assessment of what they're doing or, you know, where they're going simply based on the color of their skin.

01:07:26.320 Because this person may be the sole breadwinner for his five brothers and sisters at home.

01:07:32.200 And that's why he's out here at one o'clock in the morning.

01:07:34.260 Not that he's driving drunk or has drugs, you know.

01:07:36.980 So that's my obligation and the opportunity.

01:07:40.420 What's my opportunity?

01:07:41.640 My opportunity here is to present to him that I'm not going to treat him, based on the color of the skin, the time of day, where we are, any differently than anyone else.

01:07:50.160 I'm going to focus on that because I don't know his story.

01:07:54.060 Be in a mood of wonder.

01:07:55.620 What's his story?

01:07:56.440 Where is he coming from?

01:07:57.720 Is he trying to feed his family?

01:07:59.240 Is his mom a single mom and he's trying to help pay the rent by going out there and working?

01:08:03.620 Maybe that's why he's not in school.

01:08:04.820 I don't know.

01:08:05.460 Let me be in a mood of wonder about this.

01:08:07.620 And vice versa.

01:08:09.080 Let me be in a mood of wonder as I'm in the car with the police officer.

01:08:13.460 Better understanding of being in a mood of wonder of their stories, threats, obligations, opportunities.

01:08:20.120 Wonder about them.

01:08:21.020 Learn them.

01:08:21.540 Know them.

01:08:22.080 And now you can walk away.

01:08:23.220 I saw a black man post a video the other day on TikTok where he had a conversation.

01:08:28.560 He pulled over by the police and he was doing something wrong. 0.99

01:08:31.720 And he ultimately was given a warning because he was speeding very fast and doing something stupid in his car. 0.73

01:08:37.420 And he put it on TikTok. 0.86

01:08:38.680 He's like, he's like, that white police officer was just so nice to me.

01:08:42.400 I was nice to him.

01:08:43.520 He was so respectful to me.

01:08:44.780 And he could have given me three tickets.

01:08:46.300 He gave me a warning.

01:08:48.160 See, people?

01:08:49.200 This is a young black man.

01:08:50.220 He's like, see, people? 1.00

01:08:50.940 Not all these white cops are out there to kill you and, you know, hurt you. 0.99

01:08:54.300 This is a warning. 0.99

01:08:55.280 I got a warning.

01:08:56.120 He took care of me.

01:08:56.940 He knew my story.

01:08:57.940 He took the time to hear my story.

01:08:59.620 He knew where I was going, why I was speeding.

01:09:01.960 And boom, there you go.

01:09:03.360 So each of them took care of the threats, obligations, and opportunities.

01:09:06.740 And they both left with a better understanding of each other's background.

01:09:10.880 And we need more of that and less assumption.

01:09:14.780 Less assumption, more a mood of a wonder of what's this person's story?

01:09:18.980 How can I make this a better interaction with this man to change his outlook on the police?

01:09:27.320 That's a powerful framework.

01:09:28.840 I mean, that doesn't just apply here to what we're talking about, but it applies to every facet of life,

01:09:33.060 whether you're growing a business, getting in shape, getting into a relationship,

01:09:37.720 threats, obligations, and opportunities.

01:09:39.540 That's powerful stuff, man.

01:09:41.620 Yeah.

01:09:41.980 Yeah, man.

01:09:42.420 Every opportunity, you know, you're a family man, right?

01:09:46.160 And, you know, you speak about it, your position with your wife and your children.

01:09:49.940 Every time you deal, interact with them.

01:09:52.280 Every situation you have with them, threats, obligations, opportunities.

01:09:56.760 You know, when you're married, you have the measure of the man you are with your bride

01:10:03.460 is the smile on her face and how safe she feels, right?

01:10:07.960 That's the measure.

01:10:09.640 How safe she feels with you, with you and around your children, and how big is the smile on her face?

01:10:14.600 You know, those are the things that people shift their focus away from.

01:10:18.860 And, you know, we're so distracted by cars and money and homes and all those things.

01:10:24.300 But the reality is, in this world we're living in, it's that relationship and taking care of what

01:10:31.020 are the concerns of that person?

01:10:33.620 What are their fundamental concerns?

01:10:35.660 Let's address those fundamental concerns.

01:10:38.140 Everything else is secondary and tertiary.

01:10:40.100 And that goes for relationships, your family, your wife, your kids.

01:10:43.300 Because you get pulled over by the police.

01:10:46.000 You know, to think people are like, you know, I'm a black man getting pulled over

01:10:49.700 and now I got to worry about the concerns of the cop, the white cop coming up? 0.52

01:10:53.580 Yes.

01:10:54.520 Yeah.

01:10:55.240 If you have an understanding of that, the situation will go better.

01:10:59.340 It's going to serve you.

01:11:00.040 Sure.

01:11:00.460 Yeah, it'll serve you. 0.94

01:11:01.500 And the white cop has an obligation to know the concerns of the black man who just got pulled 0.97

01:11:07.500 over by a white cop.

01:11:08.500 But you're obligated to know his concerns, his fears, and understand them and respect

01:11:13.840 them.

01:11:14.340 So it goes both ways.

01:11:15.940 And if both people do it, both people walk away just fine.

01:11:19.440 And you know what?

01:11:20.300 The media doesn't show you about 10 million arrests a year.

01:11:25.420 10 million arrests, over 10 million arrests a year by the police.

01:11:28.400 The media doesn't show you the millions and millions of arrests where a young black man

01:11:34.000 says, yes, officer, I'm sorry, I understand, puts his hands out, under arrest, yes, sir,

01:11:39.420 and goes to jail without incident.

01:11:41.600 They show you the 0.01% of when a black man decides to fight with the police, and they 0.55

01:11:47.520 try to make that what's happening every single day.

01:11:51.320 Right.

01:11:52.180 But if they ever showed you the numbers of arrests and the number of peaceful arrests that

01:11:57.480 go without incident compared to the number of incidents where, you know, they're trying

01:12:01.620 to make you believe that every black man that gets pulled over by the police is getting 0.74

01:12:04.460 shot and killed. 0.99

01:12:05.280 And every black man that's about to be arrested is running from the cops. 0.99

01:12:08.660 It's simply not true. 0.98

01:12:09.660 It's a disservice to black people. 1.00

01:12:11.820 It's just not true.

01:12:13.960 I love it, man.

01:12:14.840 This is powerful stuff.

01:12:15.720 And these are the kind of conversations we need to continue to have.

01:12:18.380 You know, they're not always easy.

01:12:19.600 They're not always comfortable.

01:12:20.400 We talk about things that are very polarizing.

01:12:23.740 I'm sure people are going to have their fair share of conflicting ideas with our conversation

01:12:28.760 today, but man, this is why we do it, though, because we need to have these conversations.

01:12:33.900 We need to come to some common understanding.

01:12:35.860 We need to attempt to understand each other.

01:12:38.000 I like, like I said, the threats, obligations, and opportunities framework.

01:12:40.820 It's very, very powerful.

01:12:42.460 Hey, man, as we wind things down today, let us know how people can connect with you.

01:12:45.520 I know you've got your organization, your company, and man, very thoughtful.

01:12:51.020 The things that you're sharing, the insight, the information you're putting out there is

01:12:54.220 much needed in the world today.

01:12:55.320 Um, you know, uh, at 221B Tactical across the board, you know, Facebook, Instagram, uh,

01:13:01.880 trying to build up the YouTube channel, uh, as well, because YouTube is a way to get a

01:13:06.320 powerful message, um, out there.

01:13:08.900 Um, uh, my personal, uh, account is, uh, at Suresh Actual.

01:13:13.160 Um, but, you know, part of, you know, what we're doing is not just trying to sell gear,

01:13:17.440 you know, tactical gear where all of our gear is designed to be like no other tactical gear.

01:13:21.980 So trying to make the same stuff as everyone else and putting a different label on it is

01:13:25.860 a flawed way of going about things, right?

01:13:27.640 You have to be unique.

01:13:28.480 You have to be different.

01:13:29.600 So that's what we do.

01:13:30.640 And then, you know, we have the, our main product, you know, for body armor ventilation for the

01:13:34.340 cops that are sweating, uh, uh, to high heaven with their body armor on.

01:13:39.340 But part of also what we're trying to do is a little bit more training for cops.

01:13:43.380 And there's, there's too many people out there trying to do like gun training and shooting

01:13:47.560 training and all that kind of, you know, ninja stuff on the range.

01:13:50.660 And listen, those guys can have at it, but guess what?

01:13:55.040 99.9% of times cops are not pulling their gun out, right?

01:13:59.220 Their best weapon is going to be their mouth and their words and their language. 0.97

01:14:03.180 So everyone out there trying to do, you know, fast draws with the shot timer and all this

01:14:08.300 stuff for like cops and you know, all that stuff.

01:14:09.900 You know what I tell cops, you know, we should focus on, focus on language, communication skills

01:14:15.800 and jujitsu focus on those two things because jujitsu has completely changed my life.

01:14:21.520 And I took a few decades in my life to go through this, like this, this complete metamorphosis

01:14:26.140 that I've been going through and it's been life-changing and that's a whole nother conversation,

01:14:30.080 but it has changed my life, not just from the standpoint of learning jujitsu, but being

01:14:34.200 a man, being a business owner, uh, being a family person, it's completely changed my world,

01:14:39.160 but it's a whole nother discussion.

01:14:40.040 Um, but for police officers, we're trying to go through the training of what it means

01:14:46.620 to be a police officer and have deeper understanding of the people that you're dealing with and

01:14:51.880 how can that mood of wonder threats, obligations and opportunities mindset and feeling emotion

01:14:59.320 change how you interact with people that ultimately leads to things that we don't want

01:15:05.300 to happen or we could change our, we could change our narrative with people and have situations

01:15:10.560 end up where everyone's leaving hale and hearty.

01:15:14.540 So you have an opportunity there and how we harness that.

01:15:17.860 I don't want to focus on how you're going to, you know, hit your target in 0.1 second when

01:15:21.920 you draw your weapon.

01:15:22.800 That's not for cops. 0.91

01:15:23.800 Some people think it is, and I'm not saying there's anything bad about that.

01:15:26.540 Obviously you want to be proficient in deadly situations.

01:15:29.140 It's very important, but what, what can you happen before that?

01:15:33.820 You know, I forget who said something, someone, uh, someone has said before the bang, what

01:15:37.120 happens before the bang?

01:15:38.300 So let's, you know, left of the bang.

01:15:41.380 Right.

01:15:41.960 Um, so yeah, focus on left of the bang, right?

01:15:45.020 Because after the bang, that's what we all know what happens there.

01:15:47.320 What happens left of the bang is what happens before the bang and focus on that focus on

01:15:52.300 that training.

01:15:53.560 And that is the training that is going to save your life and potentially help you save the,

01:15:59.220 you know, taking someone else's life.

01:16:00.640 And that's what we're focused on from our training standpoint.

01:16:03.220 And there's a lot of great guys out there doing a lot of great things.

01:16:07.000 John Lovell has a phenomenal, uh, uh, platform out there with a lot of training things that

01:16:12.400 I tell people, I tell cops, man, sign up for that, man.

01:16:14.780 That stuff is awesome.

01:16:15.900 I love supporting other brothers in this community.

01:16:17.780 I tell everyone I meet about you, especially I've told a lot.

01:16:21.220 Most, I gotta tell you, I told more young men than grown men about your platform.

01:16:26.440 Uh, because I feel like a lot of what you share is stuff that I wish I would have known

01:16:31.120 as a young man.

01:16:32.560 Me too.

01:16:33.300 Stuff I did learn when I was a kid too.

01:16:35.720 Right.

01:16:36.380 Right.

01:16:36.840 So I, I, I steer a lot of young men towards you because that's, that's important.

01:16:41.300 It's a, it's a groundwork.

01:16:42.400 And I've shared your platform and sometimes it's gone over a little bit, uh, funny, but

01:16:47.960 I've shared your platform with a lot of young black men that I am trying to steer. 1.00

01:16:52.700 You know, I see anytime I have an opportunity to interact because some people who don't

01:16:57.320 call me an uncle Tom and don't call me this and don't call me that, you know, who have

01:17:02.120 reached out young black mothers and say, can you, can you talk to my son?

01:17:06.920 I'm watching your videos.

01:17:08.400 I'm hearing what you're saying.

01:17:09.700 I see your message.

01:17:10.700 I agree with you.

01:17:12.160 I don't want them to go down that path.

01:17:13.980 I don't want them to end up getting killed by, what can you do?

01:17:16.680 Can you talk?

01:17:17.140 And I've shared with so many teenage boys, your podcast and like, listen, listen to this

01:17:23.400 and get back to me.

01:17:24.700 And then let me know what you listen.

01:17:26.340 What did you hear in that?

01:17:28.100 And it's funny.

01:17:28.520 Everyone hears it differently, but let me know what you hear and let me know how that's going

01:17:33.440 to change your actions and your narratives moving forward.

01:17:38.020 Because you don't have a dad.

01:17:39.380 Your mom reached out to me to kind of get some help because you're going down a little

01:17:42.940 bit of a path.

01:17:43.760 And now I'm giving you this guidance now.

01:17:45.280 And I don't have your platform, but if I could push people to your platform, right?

01:17:49.580 Well, then that's the change.

01:17:51.980 That's how you impart that little bit of change, slow and steady.

01:17:55.140 So, you know, what you're doing is no small thing.

01:17:57.160 I don't, you know, I don't, I think, you know, that's no small thing, but I want to let you

01:18:00.920 know that I've been doing my part in helping young men of color to get on the right.

01:18:07.880 And they may not have, sometimes they're being raised by their grandmother.

01:18:10.520 I've had, you know, you know, these grandmothers reach out to me from these urban and these

01:18:15.900 inner cities.

01:18:16.560 And they're like, listen, I don't want my son going down this path.

01:18:20.140 I know you're a police officer.

01:18:21.400 You're a business owner.

01:18:22.660 Can you give my grandson some guidance?

01:18:24.960 And I say, yeah.

01:18:25.600 And I'll give him some guidance.

01:18:26.620 And I say, hey, listen, these are some of the books I want you to read.

01:18:29.660 And I want you to listen to these podcasts and let me know what you hear.

01:18:32.880 Man, it's amazing that they come back and they're like, they're like a whole different kid,

01:18:36.760 you know, and it's a beautiful thing.

01:18:39.040 So, you know, that's part of what I'm doing.

01:18:41.300 Selling gear is cool, but that, you know, changing lives from that aspect, nothing's

01:18:46.040 cooler than that.

01:18:47.400 Well, we're going to sync it all up.

01:18:48.360 So the guys know, I appreciate you, man.

01:18:49.960 I appreciate our friendship and your words of wisdom today.

01:18:52.760 We'll stay in touch.

01:18:53.560 We'll do it again.

01:18:55.180 Like I said, much needed conversation.

01:18:56.980 So thanks for joining us, brother.

01:18:58.480 Thanks, man.

01:18:59.020 Thank you so much for having me.

01:19:00.080 It's an honor.

01:19:01.920 All right, guys, there you go.

01:19:03.000 My conversation with the one and only Suresh Matt Haven.

01:19:05.060 And I hope that gave you some different perspective, something to chew on and something to consider.

01:19:10.500 You know, I don't expect that all of us are going to agree on every subject.

01:19:14.260 I think that would be, well, I think it'd be weird if that were the case.

01:19:19.060 But at a minimum, I do hope that via this podcast, you're getting some information to consider.

01:19:24.240 Let it bounce around in your brain a little bit.

01:19:26.060 Think on it, sit on it.

01:19:27.460 Think about how it might apply to your life.

01:19:29.200 And ultimately what you can do with the information to make your life better, to make your family members' lives better, your community members, your neighbors better.

01:19:38.620 That's the entire goal is how do we give you resources, tools, conversations to improve your capacity as a man and enhance the life of you, of course, and the people you care about.

01:19:49.360 So, as I started out with a podcast, we've got an uphill battle.

01:19:54.820 I mean, that's the reality of it.

01:19:55.800 We've got an uphill battle when we're talking about reclaiming and restoring what masculinity is and what it means and how it functions in a healthy society.

01:20:03.200 And I can't do it alone.

01:20:04.520 I need your help, guys.

01:20:05.360 So, please share, tag, post, whatever you can do to get the word out.

01:20:10.420 Leave a review.

01:20:11.740 Join our Facebook group.

01:20:12.900 Just get involved because it's going to take millions and millions of us.

01:20:17.960 We've been doing a great job.

01:20:19.360 So great that we're starting to get some attention, which is good and bad.

01:20:23.720 It's kind of a mixed bag, but we need to make sure we have everything in order in order to combat what I think we'll continue to see more of, which is more shadow banning, more flack, that sort of thing.

01:20:36.420 But we can push back against it and we should be doing that.

01:20:38.860 That is what we should be doing as men.

01:20:40.680 So, please share this.

01:20:41.880 All right, guys, we're going to be back tomorrow for the Ask Me Anything with my co-host and friend Kip Sorensen.

01:20:48.360 But until then, guys, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

01:20:53.060 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

01:20:55.980 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you are meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - July 06, 2021

SURESH MADHAVEN ｜ The Role of Men in a Fatherless Society

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