Sean fills in for KIP who is traveling the world. He talks about his missionary work in Ecuador and how to make a difference in the lives of others. He also talks about some of the things he has done in his life to help people in need.
00:00:00.020You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:05.940When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.320You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.280This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.440At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.740Sean, what's up, man? So great to see you. Thanks for filling in for KIP today.
00:00:27.500I'm always grateful when you do. You have some great insight, and I know we'll always have a good discussion when we're together riffing on these things.
00:00:34.360Yeah. Everybody's been traveling. World traveling. We've all been all over the place.
00:00:39.780I know. Well, KIP was in France, and I think he might be in Switzerland or somewhere. I think he's traveling home now.
00:00:45.760I went to Scotland like a week. Yeah, about a week ago. I was in Scotland for seven days. What about you? Where have you been?
00:00:53.280Ecuador. I was in Ecuador for a few weeks with my daughter.
00:00:55.720Yeah. Oh, nice. Were you missionary work, or what were you doing down there?
00:01:00.880It was a humanitarian thing, but there was also a religious type of, definitely a spiritual aspect of it as well.
00:01:21.040That's awesome. Yeah. It's amazing how little effort and money goes such a long way in countries like these. I've actually never done anything like that. I would like to do that. But I think I've heard stories and had conversations with people who do quite often, actually. And I'm blown away with how much the dollar goes or our time goes when we donate it that way in some of these countries.
00:01:44.840Dude, it's insane. I mean, this place, I've done it in Nicaragua before. We're on the board of a charity, and we did it there. And to give you an idea, when we were there, the average annual income for these families in these communities we were in were $500 a year.
00:02:04.640Yeah. And so we helped rebuild this. If you want to call it a hospital, it's kind of like a medical center. And dude, some of the worst conditions I've ever seen, but us just upgrading that, and it was like maybe a couple grand.
00:02:20.040And that meant the world to like this giant region of people. And they were like beside themselves. They treated us like kings, you know, when we were there, just doing that, you know, this, the school that we helped rebuild the dude that was like the foreman or the job site, if you know, you call them that. Number one, there's no machinery. So we did everything by hand.
00:02:41.200Hmm. So I literally, we were moving like one and two ton boulders with, uh, with, uh, just a pry bar, you know, the giant pry bar and rolling it on something. Is that what you're doing?
00:02:52.280Yeah. Rolling it like, like tying ropes around it and pulling it into different positions and different spaces, like digging holes to pull it into and stuff. I mean, it was just, you know,
00:03:02.860the ingenuity of these people too. Like I remember when I moved to Maine, we had this big wood burning stove that I needed to get from the barn into the corner of the house.
00:03:13.760And I had no, I've attempted to just lift the thing up just to see how heavy it was. And these things are, they're heavy. I mean, I don't know if it's five, six, seven, 800 pounds, but these cast iron stove, wood burning stoves are super heavy.
00:03:28.660I called my neighbor up. He's a, he's a long time, new Englander. I call him up and he knows how to do everything. And he comes over and I'm like, Hey Ben, I need to move this thing. How do I move it? He's like, Oh, it's easy. We just get three PVC pipes, put them in front, put it on a board and just roll it and just keep rolling the PVC pipes. And that's what we did. I never in a million years would have, it's so dumb. It's so simple. I never in a million years would have thought to do that.
00:03:51.880But the ingenuity out of necessity that people have is incredible to me. And then you think about things like the Egyptian pyramids or the pyramids in Mexico, thinking about how those people did what they did.
00:04:03.880Even in Scotland, you know, you see monuments and cathedrals and castles built 1000 plus years ago and the architecture and the craftsmanship that goes in the cathedral in Glasgow that we went to was unbelievable.
00:04:19.680I think it's the oldest operational cathedral in Scotland, if I remember right. And it's beautiful. We don't even do that now, let alone a thousand plus years ago.
00:04:28.260No. No. Yeah. And that's the fact that they spent the time, you know, right. Do it is on top of that is, is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Well, should we get into some questions today? I mean, that's the point of being here.
00:04:41.940We're 10 minutes deep into this thing, but let's get into some questions. And these ones we're fielding from, I believe we did, we did the Facebook group on these questions. So if you're interested in having some conversations, these are generalized conversations they're having in the Facebook group, but you can do that at facebook.com slash groups.
00:04:58.260Slash order of man. And if you want to have more detailed conversations that are oriented towards action with built-in accountability, then go sign up to be notified when our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council opens back up in, let's see. I think it's August at middle of August, I believe is when it may be middle of September. I think it's middle of September, somewhere in there. You'll just sign up and you'll be notified.
00:05:21.500Yeah. And I mean, if I could add to that, as far as the questions go, you can see it in today's questions, not that they're bad questions or that they're better. They're just not as detailed. And, you know, it's tends to be in from the Facebook group. And, you know, there's actually one in here that will address with that, but let's jump into it. First one, Sasha Flammersberger, who says, why, in your opinion, do so many men in the Facebook group mainly seem to have problems with women? Greetings from Germany.
00:05:48.140I mean, that's a good question. That is, that is a reoccurring trend. That's something that gets brought up so often. You know, I don't know, other than that's the issue that guys are dealing with, right? Struggling in the relationship, struggling to lead, struggling to have connection. But then I also think there's an issue with the way that manliness and masculinity are talked about broadly and generally.
00:06:13.940We're supposed to be domesticated and docile and quote unquote, good little boys. We're raised that way from the time that we're little. Sit down in school, shut up, color within the lines, do what you're told, sit here for eight hours. If you show any sign of energy or boredom with the current system, you're heavily medicated and sedated. It's rough for specifically for boys.
00:06:40.000If you want some good information on this, you can check out Dr. Leonard Sachs' work and Dr. Warren Farrell. Warren Farrell has a book called The Boy Crisis and Dr. Leonard Sachs has a book called Why Gender Matters and Boys Adrift.
00:06:54.240And all three of those go into depth on why the educational system is really failing our young men. All that to say is that we have generations now, multiple generations now of men who are raised, not like men, more like a feminized version of a man. And it doesn't resonate with women.
00:07:17.060We're told that it does. We're told that, oh, you know, this is what women want and this is how they, but then if you actually look at at least anecdotally, and we can get into the evidence, but I can even tell you just from an anecdotal level, the messages I get from women are like, I really want my husband to step up.
00:07:31.760I really need him to lead. I really need him to be more assertive. I really need him to chase his dreams. I really need him to bring some structure and clarity and vision and discipline into the relationship.
00:07:41.420These are the messages I'm getting from women who were married. And it's, I think men are in a precarious situation because they're told on one hand, like, hey, you know, you don't want to rock the boat and be nice and let everything, you know, go by and conditioned to do that.
00:07:57.380And on the other hand, we have now generations of women who are having a hard time finding men who will step up and lead the way that they would like them to lead so that they can step more fully into their femininity.
00:08:07.240So that's, that's the underlying reason why relationships are really struggling. And you see divorce on the increase and you see less people even getting married to begin with, because there's this polarity that's supposed to happen between men and women.
00:08:23.560And it's not society is telling women to act more like men and society is telling men to act more like women. So there's no polarity. And because there's no polarity, there's really, if we're all the same, no reason for us to unite and form a union.
00:08:35.700It's when we're different and strong in different areas that a union makes sense because now us together is better than us separately and individually.
00:08:45.520Yeah, that really good. Number one, number two, that was a deeper psychological dive into the question than I thought initially, you know, which is awesome, but I'm going to attack it from more of a, I guess, from the hip response.
00:09:02.880And what I thought, as soon as I saw the question, I thought the reason we get so many questions about women is because we're men and there's a men's group and most of the angst in our lives is going to be surrounded around issues with women in our lives, you know, as well as most of the joy in our lives as well.
00:09:22.280Um, but most of the issues I think that we deal with as men are surrounded by, um, woman issues. I mean, as if you're single, it's man, how do I find a partner? Right. And how do I find the right one when you're, and then when you are in, uh, a relationship, then it's how do I make her happy? How do I keep her happy? How do I write? And, and that's a constant struggle.
00:09:48.540And, and so the bottom line answer is it's never easy when we're dealing with the opposite sex, because we're so different and we're different by nature, all the things you were talking about. And because of those differences, it causes issues in our lives. And because we have a public forum now, you know, I think there's, there's such a rise in divorce and everything.
00:10:11.760Part of that is also because of things like social media, where now we have these voices that we listen to, and we don't know which ones to clearly listen to. That's where you mentioning places like the iron council are so important because you have a group of men, uh, with what should be similar values to yours, helping you through that process and helping you step up.
00:10:34.940Like you were talking about in different areas, um, and it's any public forum. Now there's going to be more things expressed. So I don't think necessarily that there was less of those things. Yeah. The divorce rates were less and everything else. If we went back 50, 60 years, that divorce rates were less, but it doesn't mean that the angst that we had with women in our lives was less.
00:11:01.520They're just more of a place to talk about it now. And generally in settings with other men in the past, you didn't actually, I wouldn't say I should, I won't even say you didn't talk about it because I think that's what men talked about most is, oh man, my lady's doing this to me at the, at the house or whatever. Right.
00:11:20.520At the barbershop, they'd all get the barbershop at the bar and politics. Yep. I mean, and, and so, you know, that, that would be my answers. It's because we're men and this is a men's group. And so there's always going to be issues with women in any group of men that are speaking to each other.
00:11:38.200Yeah. I thought that was a good point is, you know, between that and money, those are the issues that drive our decision-making process, money and women, right. For better or worse. So that's what we, there's also just all, and you alluded to this. There's just a lot of horrible advice out there.
00:11:51.200So, you know, specifically for men about, oh, you know, women are bitches and women don't deserve and men going their own way and extreme red pill type mentality. And there's, there's no collaborative efforts. There's no desire to, or at least no conversation or very few, I should say, because we talk about it, but very few conversation about serving the woman in your life, but also making sure that she's capable of serving you and having a reciprocal relationship and adding value in each other's lives in specific and unique ways to each other.
00:12:21.200But the mainstream narrative is, you know, forget about women. Women don't need men. Men don't need women. Marriage is outdated. It's antiquated. It's unnecessary. So this is the messaging and we're reaping what we sow.
00:12:34.260Yeah. The effort, right? That the, the effort being put in for success in anything is being downgraded in all conversations.
00:12:45.640All right. Joe Marino asks, Ryan Kipp, where do you recommend keeping firearms in the house? I know some guys who have a cabinet for their rifles, but also keep a handgun unlocked by the pillow or nightstand. Just wondering what your preference is for what you like to lock up and what's more accessible. Also, are there any firearms you recommend in general?
00:13:07.000Sounds like he's trying to figure out where my firearms are in my house. I don't know if I want to answer this question or not. No. Um, I mean, I've got, I've got our rifles and our shotguns and several pistols in, in my safe, in my bedroom, you know? And so I've got it all locked up. I'm the only one with access to that, a code to that. So, uh, that's where the 99% of my firearms are. I have one by my nightstand. It's in a, I can see it right now. It's in a, in fact, let me just grab it real quick.
00:13:35.240Anyways, this is the gun case that I use right here. And it's the same one. Is it really? Same exact one. It's right next to my, it's on my nightstand. I just keep it on my nightstand. Um, it does have a key on it, which is good, but I, it also has. So a lot of people would just think that that's biometric, just the way that it looks. If you're looking at this on YouTube and if you're not go check out YouTube because our YouTube channel is growing, but this is not a biometric safe. It's not a fingerprint scanner. And I actually like that. It's not a fingerprint scanner.
00:14:05.220Because I don't want that thing to malfunction if I need it quickly. So even though it looks biometric, it's actually just a code that I would put in here. So I punch in the code and then I've got my firearm right there. Um, and it's loaded, you know, it's, uh, what I mean by loaded is that there is a round chamber because if I get that thing in the middle of night, the round needs to be chambered.
00:14:27.220Um, you know, but there's some other considerations. I have kids at the house. So having a firearm, just sitting on the edge of my nightstand is probably not going to be a thing that I'm going to do with my kids there. Now I introduced my kids to firearms. That's important. If there's firearms in the house, then you need to be familiar with what it is.
00:14:47.300I don't want them to be curious about what that heavy metal object is that dad likes to play with. Like, I don't want, I don't want them to be wondering what that is. So we go out and we shoot, we shoot pistols, we shoot rifles, we shoot shotguns.
00:15:01.300You know, this is part of our, of the dynamic or culture of our, of our family, because I don't want that. The analogy I've used in the past is that we're all afraid. I think to some degree that one of our children might fall in the pool and drowned. So the question is, do you keep your kids away from the pools or do you teach them how to swim? Well, every healthy functioning person says, okay, let me teach my child to swim. So if the situation arose, they'd be able to take care of themselves, you know, and not die.
00:15:29.020I think the same thing can be true of firearms. They're going to be exposed to a firearm at some point. So do you keep them ignorant about what it is? Or do you teach them the, the, the lever of respect that firearm deserves and how to use them correctly and what's appropriate behavior with firearms and what is inappropriate behavior with firearms? And these are conversations that we have. So, you know, there might be a lot of guys here like, no, you got to have that thing on the ready. And if that's your thing, great, you know, but just make sure you're taking into consideration who has access to that firearm.
00:15:57.620Uh, and, and, and keep your family safe. You might need to keep them safe from an intruder, but if there's risks of them accidentally discharging a firearm, then that's your fault. And you aren't keeping them safe into the same way. Some intruder might break into your house and injure or kill one of you or your family member. So something to consider. Anyways, that's, that's what I use. What you, would you, anything different?
00:16:19.700Yeah. Mine, mine's exactly the same as yours, except mine does have the fingerprint scanner on it. So it has both. And, um, it's just, I mean, the thing is so fast that it's, that's the first thing, but if it does malfunction, then you'd hit the code, you know, and you're talking, it costs you a few seconds, but, um, it's the same thing. And then, yeah, my safe has all my other weapons in it, but I keep everything in the safe for exactly what you said, just because the kids being around.
00:16:47.620But I can tell you, we, my safe, when we moved into Tennessee, um, I did just a mess getting a safe in my house. I'll just call it that. And so it took, it took like nine months to get the safe installed. Um, so during that time, my bag, my guns were sitting in their bags, you know, and they were, or in cases and had locks on the cases, but still, um, accessible.
00:17:15.640If any of my kids wanted to get to them and they knew what was in them. Um, they didn't touch them a single time. And I think the reason for that is like you said, we go shooting enough.
00:17:26.820Right. And so there wasn't a desire to check it out. Let's check out the gun. They didn't have a desire to show their friends. Um, so I agree with everything you said, but I think I would also add to that.
00:17:40.280I think hunting has helped a lot with that. And I don't know if you have seen this, you know, taking the boys hunting, but their respect for life, um, was, went up.
00:17:52.680I mean, I can't even really quantify it in their respect for life and it's increase after introducing them to hunting. And that's been every single boy to a T, even my eight year old. Um, I took him out hunting with us. We went, uh, hunting for pigs in California. We were night hunting.
00:18:16.780And so we actually did some with the night vision goggles and stuff like that. Oh yeah. And, uh, as cool as it was and as cool as he thought it was, um, he had a, he really distinguished the clear line between, you know, video game, uh, violence and actual violence and taking a life and what that meant.
00:18:38.120And, you know, you know, how there was a living thing that's no longer living anymore. And so just their respect for what those do as a tool, uh, increased. And so again, it, it decreased their desire to play with them.
00:18:54.180Right. Um, cause they understand that they're tools, that they're not toys. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and so that, that lesson was the most valuable part in, uh, the way that,
00:19:08.120we keep our weapons, you know, now, I mean, the safe is just an extra added layer that now I really don't have to worry about, but, um, you know, well, I think it's important.
00:19:20.240Not to mention, I've talked to my kids about this, even just outside of the firearms discussions that we've had, protect your shit.
00:19:28.260Yeah. Like if somebody breaks into my house, you know, they can steal my computer. They can steal.
00:19:34.720There's not really much here. Maybe some electronics and some cameras and things like that. I don't want my firearms getting into the hands of criminals.
00:19:43.180So those are not only are they expensive, they're deadly. So I, you know, that's my responsibility to make sure that the tools I'm using are safeguarded from getting into the wrong hands.
00:19:55.600Forget about also getting into the hands of my children, but some criminal who breaks in, like, I don't want them to have access to those firearms because what are they going to do with those firearms?
00:20:04.560And that's my responsibility as a firearm owner. So that's another reason you should have your, your stuff locked up. You know, your cars should be locked. Your doors should be locked.
00:20:14.300It's unfortunate, but it's the reality of the situation. Protect your stuff. It's your, those are your resources. Protect them.
00:20:19.440Great point. You don't want to build an arsenal for the bad guys.
00:20:23.640Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. We convenient little, little shop for the, the bad guys.
00:20:29.460Yeah. All right. All right. Next question.
00:20:31.760Uh, James green. Why didn't Kip call you out regarding your excessive drinking?
00:20:38.960So I'm glad he asked this question. Uh, and I saw, I saw these questions and I saw this one come up. And if you don't know, I had a real problem with, with drinking, you know, heavy and excessive drinking.
00:20:50.980Which created a lot of animosity and contention in my previous marriage. And which I ultimately led to the, my divorce.
00:20:58.740The reason Kip didn't call me out is because he didn't know. That's it. That's the only reason. Cause if he would have known, he would have called me out.
00:21:07.820I don't know if he would have called me out necessarily. I don't know what that means or what that might look like for you, but he would have said something for sure because he cares about me.
00:21:15.440But I will say that there were people who did know, and I didn't know that they knew, but they knew, and they did not call me out.
00:21:21.520And the reason they didn't call me out is they were worried about making it awkward and making it uncomfortable and how that would come across.
00:21:28.300And they didn't want to pry. They should have called me out. And I'm not putting any blame of my decisions on them at all.
00:21:35.620Those were my decisions to make. And they were poor ones, but also because multiple things can exist at once.
00:21:41.720If you see a brother struggling, the last thing on your mind should be, I don't want this to be awkward.
00:21:47.320Like you see somebody struggling with something, whether it's drinking or drug abuse or pornography addiction, or just their behavior.
00:21:55.660Maybe they're stepping out on their wife, like just behavior in general.
00:21:58.700If you see any poor behavior in a brother of yours, then it is your responsibility to bring that up.
00:22:05.060And that's how you know you have a true brother, is that he's more worried about you than he is about the relationship with you.
00:22:14.660That's kind of an interesting way to phrase that. He's more interested or more concerned with you than he is in the relationship with you.
00:22:23.040And that's important to know because a brother, the way that I'm describing it, will sacrifice the relationship in order for you to get what you need.
00:22:33.260So he's willing to lay that relationship up on the altar, knowing that, hey, if I approach Sean about this thing that I see, this might damage the relationship, but I care so much about Sean and his success and making sure that he's good, that I'm willing to lay that relationship down if it means that I get him on a better path.
00:22:51.840If that's how you know you have somebody who really actually cares about you, and that's a very difficult thing to do, and it's very rare to find in somebody.
00:23:00.640So what I would suggest is, number one, be that for somebody else.
00:23:04.900If you're that for somebody else, you're actually giving them permission to be that for you.
00:23:09.020If you do find somebody who's that for you, don't screw it up by responding negatively or blowing up the relationship every time this person comes to you and calls you up because it's easy to do that based on our ego.
00:23:23.000Oh, man, every time, you know, Sean holds me accountable for these things and it's frustrating.
00:23:30.000Yeah, it might be frustrating, but that's a valuable resource that you have in your corner that you better appreciate and acknowledge what that person is doing for you because you'll need that at some point in your life.
00:23:39.520So, again, be that kind of person, acknowledge those kind of people, and do whatever you can to keep those people in your corner because those people are really going to save you or at least serve you when you're making poor decisions.
00:23:51.600And you will. We all will, and we all do.
00:23:54.480Yeah, and I'm glad you said that. It's because he didn't know because I'm like, man, I wish Kip was here to be able to defend himself.
00:24:02.020But I can say I'm around you enough, too, that I didn't know. I had no idea.
00:24:07.300And I've and here's the thing is all addicts are until they're not.
00:24:12.540And that's something that it's one of the things that you master as you have an addiction is you obviously don't want to want people to know.
00:24:20.400And so you're good at hiding it, finding ways around it where you get good at deceiving.
00:24:28.240And I mean, I was in enough intimate places with you like hunting, right?
00:24:34.120If we were in a position where we went hunting together, even the friends we were with were, you know, drinking, doing other drugs and doing things that we didn't participate in.
00:24:51.960And so, you know, I never saw any problem there.
00:24:56.120But my understanding before going on that trip was that you didn't drink, you didn't smoke, you didn't, you know, participate in any of those things.
00:25:03.500And, but I can guarantee you that if I did see you, I would have at least brought it up.
00:25:08.400I'd have been like, oh, you know, hey, I thought you didn't drink, you know, is that a new thing?
00:26:51.500It might just, or excuse me, it might not be that.
00:26:55.340What I'm trying to say is that it's not always nefarious.
00:26:58.540There's just things that people are dealing with.
00:27:00.860You know, for example, I mean, I talk with guys every single day who are dealing with relationship issues.
00:27:05.960And I know for a fact, for a fact that these individuals have people in their lives that are closer than I am, and they don't know anything about these relationship issues and struggles this person's having.
00:27:19.840Either you're not disclosing that to your people, and you should because they can help you, or your people aren't paying attention and or are not willing to have difficult conversations with you about it for multiple reasons.
00:27:33.980So if you are a brother to somebody, and you are, whether you think you are or not, you have a responsibility to look for what people are struggling with.
00:27:43.740And if you see any sort of even just behavioral difference, difference in habits, difference in their inflection and tone of voice, then bring it up.
00:27:52.040Like you said, hey, is that an occasion?
00:28:03.980But that would have at least opened the window and allowed me to step through that into a path of recovery, maybe sooner, maybe soon enough for me to salvage my relationship or other parts of my life.
00:28:17.960And who knows, but all we can do is at least offer, right?
00:28:21.400And I think it's, as you said that, I thought of most churches, most places that you're involved in, even a lot of work sites now offer help for people, you know, struggling with addiction for different things.
00:28:36.200And I've had this discussion with people.
00:28:40.160And I'm like, well, have you gone to your bishop, to your pastor, to the, you know, I know your church has this program that helps with that.
00:28:48.800And it's free and it's, and it's confidential.