Order of Man

00:00:00.000 Men's mental health is an issue that is getting a lot more attention than even when I started this podcast just nine years ago.

00:00:06.960 In fact, men are falling behind in so many metrics from graduation and college attendance rates to declining health, incarceration, and even suicide rates.

00:00:16.660 But what is causing this rising trend in the demise of men's mental, physical, and emotional health?

00:00:22.900 My guest, John Deloney, is here to explain some of the biggest culprits in the modern issues that plague so many men.

00:00:28.600 Today, we talk about the paradox of empathy and toughness as we relate to each other and our children, the importance of making line-in-the-sand commitments, the difference between complacency and satisfaction, why men need to work on projects together, and why all-in is the only way to live.

00:00:47.600 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:53.400 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:58.120 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:03.180 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:01:07.380 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:12.340 Man, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. Thank you for joining me.

00:01:19.920 I'm recording this a little bit late so you can hear maybe my tired voice, but got a little behind last week, trying to catch up, trying to make sure that we deliver a great podcast to you every single week.

00:01:30.740 My internet was out last week, so dealing with technical difficulties, but here we are producing and providing and sharing these resources with you, including this great conversation that I had with Mr. John Deloney, a good friend of mine, but also somebody who is at the forefront of men's mental health and what it takes for us to take our biological hardwiring and bring it into modern times to lead ourselves and lead other people well.

00:01:59.520 Before I get into the conversation, just want to mention my friends and show sponsors over at Montana Knife Company.

00:02:06.780 They've got a big knife drop coming up on Thursday. The name of the knife escapes me right now. I'll have to apologize and you'll have to forgive me for that, but their tactical lineup, including the Wargoat, and I think two or three other knives that they've got on their tactical lineup is absolutely phenomenal.

00:02:23.500 They've been in hunting, they've been in culinary, and now they're breaking into and making waves in the tactical knife space.

00:02:30.240 If you're looking for a good everyday carry knife or something out in the field, if you're hunting, or maybe even in the kitchen as you're butchering the animals and breaking them down to provide for your family, look no further than Montana Knife Company.

00:02:43.300 And one of the best things about these guys is all of their knives are 100% made and sourced in America.

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00:02:58.980 Check it out, montananifecompany.com, and use the code ORDEROMAN, all one word, ORDEROMAN at checkout when you do.

00:03:06.620 All right, let me introduce you to my guest.

00:03:08.840 His name is John Deloney.

00:03:10.520 He has made himself a name working as a mental health expert with Dave Ramsey and now boasts a following of millions across his various social media platforms.

00:03:21.120 It isn't an honor, however, that he is interested in.

00:03:25.220 He's more interested in serving people through his podcasts, presentations, lessons, and books.

00:03:31.220 And with two PhDs, including a degree from Harvard, John is taking his professional knowledge and practical wisdom to serve people all over the world in overcoming their own personal trauma and struggles.

00:03:43.620 In his last book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, John takes these lessons and experience and teaches us how we can utilize men's health to build a life of prosperity and abundance.

00:03:57.760 But as we were saying, yeah, Minnesota was great, man.

00:04:00.460 We got to get you out on one of these hunts, one of these times here.

00:04:03.240 Dude, I have to so bad.

00:04:04.880 Did y'all get anything this year?

00:04:06.960 Well, there was 10 of us, and I think everybody got something except for me.

00:04:11.520 That's not true, but it feels that way.

00:04:14.580 That's so good, man.

00:04:15.920 Oh, man, it's crazy.

00:04:18.200 It is.

00:04:18.820 I love hunting.

00:04:19.480 You got some hunting in this year, though.

00:04:21.960 Yeah, I've been a bunch.

00:04:23.320 I've been more than normal.

00:04:24.420 I needed it more this year.

00:04:26.180 And rifle season starts for us this weekend.

00:04:29.500 So my husband, I mean, my son comes down the stairs, and I just started yelling, five days!

00:04:35.680 And he just started cheering.

00:04:36.800 So, yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

00:04:38.720 How old's your boy?

00:04:39.980 He's 14.

00:04:41.400 Oh, perfect age, man.

00:04:43.100 Oh, yeah.

00:04:43.640 I've been taking him since he was four.

00:04:45.140 So he watches his old man get pretty feral in the months of November and December.

00:04:49.260 So it's good.

00:04:50.500 I bet.

00:04:51.180 Does he hunt himself, or is he just there to tag along and enjoy the process?

00:04:54.840 No, he's been, every year since he was about six years old, I've been letting the leash a little bit more and more and more.

00:05:03.060 And last year, he started being able to sit in his own blind by himself.

00:05:06.740 And now he's too cool for blinds.

00:05:10.460 He thinks they're unfair, so he likes to just sit in the woods and mono and mono.

00:05:13.840 Oh, he does? 1.00

00:05:14.220 So, yeah, he's got that 14-year-old, there's that great quote from Mark Twain that when I was 14, my dad was the stupidest man I'd ever met. 0.98

00:05:23.700 But when I ran into him again seven years later, when I turned 21, I was astounded at how much my old man had learned. 0.96

00:05:29.760 It's very much like that.

00:05:31.080 He's like, you know what, dad, actually.

00:05:32.780 And I was like, all right, cool.

00:05:33.920 So he's got to figure those things out.

00:05:35.060 But, yeah, it's a holy time for him and I, so it's good.

00:05:39.260 That's awesome.

00:05:40.000 Yeah, it's funny.

00:05:40.760 You're going to let him go out and chase whitetail. 0.97

00:05:42.260 It's like, you can go sit in the woods, you're not going to shoot anything, but if you feel like a man, by all means, get after it.

00:05:46.680 No, because then I hear the rifle go off, and then I get a message on our little walkie-talkie, like, got one.

00:05:53.700 I'm like, golly, dude.

00:05:54.840 Oh, so he's killed animals before.

00:05:56.660 Oh, yeah, he's way better than me, man.

00:05:58.740 It's embarrassing.

00:05:59.160 That's awesome.

00:06:00.420 Yeah, he doesn't have the, he's got my dad.

00:06:05.140 My dad was the SWAT guy, and he has my dad's, everything slows way, way down for him, which is kind of cool.

00:06:12.260 My oldest is like that, actually.

00:06:15.140 I get really anxious, I get worked up, I get buck fever, and then I take my boy out, my oldest son.

00:06:20.540 I've got four, but, you know, I've got four boys, or three boys and a girl, but my oldest son, he's like that.

00:06:27.140 Everything is level-headed, everything is calm, cool, and collected.

00:06:30.640 He doesn't get worked up.

00:06:31.760 We went to Africa and hunted earlier this year.

00:06:34.340 Yeah, I saw that.

00:06:35.200 Was it wild?

00:06:36.440 Good time.

00:06:36.800 It was amazing, yeah, and he was just killing animals, and I'm like, are you excited?

00:06:40.900 He's like, yeah.

00:06:41.300 I'm like, well, you don't seem excited.

00:06:42.580 He's like, I'm excited.

00:06:44.620 I'm like, be excited about it.

00:06:45.900 But he's just so level-headed and so cool, which is why he's a way better hunter than I am.

00:06:50.120 You said it's embarrassing, but, I mean, I can't speak for you, but for me, you know, my son's a better hunter and a better, a lot of things than I am.

00:06:58.640 I'm never embarrassed.

00:06:59.600 That's actually what I want.

00:07:00.600 He doesn't know that, but that's actually what I want for him.

00:07:03.120 That's the right way to say that.

00:07:04.320 Yeah, I, when I hear the shot go off, I pump my fist, because I know he's just better at it than me.

00:07:09.800 He's still, he's quiet, he makes perfect shots, and when he doesn't, he's the guy that will be there for four hours trailing and trailing and trailing until he finally tracks it down.

00:07:18.260 But he, yeah, you said it best.

00:07:21.340 There's nothing better when your sons, especially, my daughter's pretty amazing, but it's just different.

00:07:27.400 My son, when he displays the characteristics of the things that I struggled with so much growing up, and I know the hell that I went through, and I still continue to go through on some things, and I see it, a new branch forming on our family tree with him, and it makes all that exhaustion and scars worth it.

00:07:49.780 It's pretty cool.

00:07:51.080 What would you say are the things, generally, and we can dive into some of this at a more deep level, but what are some of the things that you feel like you struggled with that he may not have to struggle with?

00:08:00.920 Obviously, external circumstances, but what about internally?

00:08:03.640 I mean, my great-great-grandfather died at 10.

00:08:11.000 My grandfather was a World War II vet, and my dad was a hostage negotiator and a SWAT guy.

00:08:15.340 So I grew up on the lineage of men who were some of the most amazing men in their communities and in their country and their local churches.

00:08:24.240 They were just amazing guys, but if you open up that toolkit for can you let your son know that he's tethered in and he's safe and that he's loved?

00:08:31.840 I mean, those tools weren't in the kit.

00:08:34.340 So my son, for me, it was a conscious, I will hug my son every single day of his life, and that's awkward for me, especially now that he's taller than I am.

00:08:44.720 I will dip into the awkward and make sure he knows, here's how we treat people, and I'm going to explain it, and I'll be the first to tell him I believe in him when he messes something up.

00:08:54.700 And so it's – the external stuff is kind of the easy stuff.

00:08:59.960 It's the internal stuff, and so he does not operate from a place that he ever wonders whether he's loved and he's connected.

00:09:09.480 And not to no fault of my dad or my granddad, I just spent my whole life trying to make sure everybody saw me and that, like, y'all love me, right?

00:09:19.140 You love me, right?

00:09:19.700 It's this constant either seeking affirmation or trying to find some numbing device to quiet it and giving him the opportunity to go take on this crazy changing world but anchored into something that he knows.

00:09:35.120 I can always walk in that front door because those guys love me.

00:09:37.220 The physical embrace is weird.

00:09:40.400 My son's bigger than me too, and it's like you're leaning into his chest versus the other – the way it quote-unquote should be he's leaning into you.

00:09:48.720 It is a little weird.

00:09:50.000 I can attest to that.

00:09:51.560 Do you ever think –

00:09:52.360 Yeah, we crash into each other.

00:09:53.780 There's two big old boys now, man.

00:09:55.120 Do you ever think that there's any sort of – or maybe even just in your research, any sort of downside or detriment to the idea of – I'm trying to think about how to say this, but embracing our children in this way relative the way that maybe our fathers or grandfathers did,

00:10:17.680 where it was like more hard-nosed, tough love, toughen up, man up, do what you're supposed to do, and now I think there's a greater push for let's embrace our – all of our children, not just our sons, in a more compassionate, empathetic way.

00:10:34.400 Do you see any negative side to that or have you seen anything with that?

00:10:37.560 The greatest real-world example I can give you is – I don't know how long you've been following Mixed Martial Arts, but there was a team called Shootbox, C-H-U-T-E-B-O-X, and they had some of the legend legends, the OGs.

00:10:53.440 Vandale Silva, they had Shogun Hua, they had some of the Wildcats, and they were known back in the – like pride fighting days in Japan and early, early UFC.

00:11:03.200 They were known – I mean, they were just killers.

00:11:06.440 And their practices were legendary for – they would just massacre each other.

00:11:13.800 They were just these insane knockout nights, and they would just beat each other to a pulp, and they'd come the next day and beat each other to a pulp and come the next day.

00:11:22.020 And that made them assassins, especially early on as the sport was evolving.

00:11:29.080 Now those guys can't move.

00:11:31.220 Those guys can't.

00:11:32.360 They have bad CTE.

00:11:34.420 They can't move their joints.

00:11:35.560 They are really struggling.

00:11:38.060 And so there's this idea that I will create a tougher version of you by beating it into you.

00:11:44.600 And I think what the science is telling us and what real life is telling us is you can actually go do harder things and more terrifying things for longer and more accurately better if you're anchored, right?

00:11:59.840 If you are anchored into something that you know that you – a chain that you can't break.

00:12:05.500 And then, man, then you are free to repel off the side.

00:12:08.280 So, no, I think it's the inverse.

00:12:10.860 I think where parents have to be careful is especially is if you go through life, if that – that can quickly turn to coddling.

00:12:16.640 And, man, if you try to take struggle away from your kids, it's theft.

00:12:22.840 You're stealing from them.

00:12:24.380 If you try to make them feel better, that's theft.

00:12:28.140 You're stealing from them.

00:12:28.920 They have to sit in that discomfort.

00:12:31.400 The challenge is can you sit in it with them without trying to solve it for them?

00:12:35.160 That's the magic.

00:12:35.760 Well, that's a good point because I've noticed in my own fathering that when I know one of my children needs to be corrected or disciplined, I'm not as readily available to do that, whether it's mentally, emotionally, whatever, not because I'm worried about their own feelings but because I'm worried about mine if I'm being honest.

00:12:55.600 Mine.

00:12:55.980 That's right.

00:12:56.440 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:56.860 I grew up – my dad was a cop and then he became a minister.

00:12:59.740 We didn't have any money growing up.

00:13:00.960 And then my mom had a year where she was sick.

00:13:03.020 We had less than no money.

00:13:06.120 And I remember a year somebody broke into our house from our local church and they put tons of these amazing presents under our tree.

00:13:13.120 It was a really cool thing, but it haunted me too, right?

00:13:16.100 They broke into your house to do that?

00:13:17.900 Yeah.

00:13:18.440 That's awesome.

00:13:18.580 It was a really cool thing, but also I carried a lot of shame as a middle school kid.

00:13:23.600 Like, oh, we're that family that people have to like buy us gifts because we can't afford any.

00:13:27.760 And so I've had a different kind of life growing up and my son has and my daughter has.

00:13:33.800 And it was just two years ago.

00:13:35.960 It was awesome.

00:13:36.280 It was two years ago I sat down with my son and said, hey, I need to make some changes.

00:13:40.180 This year starts a year when you're not going to have a thousand things under the tree because I've been buying you gifts for me, not for you.

00:13:47.780 And so I'm going to get you a couple of nice things and we're going to go do some things in our local community and that's going to be Christmas.

00:13:53.160 And you know what my eighth grader said to me?

00:13:54.940 He said, dad, I don't think you can do that.

00:13:57.060 And he smiled.

00:13:58.120 And so he had already figured it out, right?

00:14:00.400 Yeah.

00:14:01.060 He'd already figured out dad buys me a bunch of stuff because he needs to feel better.

00:14:04.160 So, yeah, if parents can learn to sit in the discomfort, then we teach our kids that discomfort's not a bug.

00:14:10.200 It's a feature, man.

00:14:10.920 It's part of life.

00:14:12.180 And if your kid loses a jujitsu match saying it's okay, it's not. 0.99

00:14:16.960 It sucks. 1.00

00:14:17.460 You lost. 1.00

00:14:17.960 But I will never not be here with you when you lost.

00:14:22.300 Like that, like you're not going to go through loss alone. 0.99

00:14:24.780 And I think you're not going to sit in that suck alone. 0.78

00:14:27.440 And I think that's where parents can show up. 0.97

00:14:30.140 Yeah, I think that's a good point.

00:14:31.940 I think there's a real paradox.

00:14:34.720 You know, I was watching UFC 309, I believe it was, on Saturday night.

00:14:38.780 And these are some of the most hardened, to go back to your point earlier, some of the most hardened athletes.

00:14:44.460 I mean, these guys are athletes at the finest sense of the word, and they're disciplined, and they're committed, and they're dedicated, and sacrifice, and all the things.

00:14:53.500 And for whatever reason, I've seen this before, but for whatever reason, it really stood out to me.

00:14:57.800 Before one of the fighters went out to compete, his trainer, his head coach, you know, whatever, kissed him on the forehead.

00:15:05.560 Yeah.

00:15:06.440 Yeah. 0.53

00:15:06.640 And in any other context, dudes would say, that's gay, no homo. 1.00

00:15:12.800 Like they would mock it.

00:15:14.460 But in that context, not a single soul on the planet, I think, if they're being somewhat just observant of what's going on, would ever mock that.

00:15:21.660 In fact, I thought it was pretty endearing that somebody would have that level of affection with another man on a platonic level, and then send him out to go get his face bashed in.

00:15:32.240 It's a very interesting paradox to me.

00:15:34.460 Yeah, well, I think it's because we've become so, somewhere along the way, we labeled masks.

00:15:44.460 Masculinity, we labeled strength as distance, right?

00:15:49.500 As the Lone Ranger, as this distant figure that needs nothing.

00:15:55.820 And I just think that's insane.

00:15:57.100 Like we've lonelied ourselves to death, right?

00:16:00.700 We've drank ourselves and Netflixed ourselves to death.

00:16:03.060 And there's a – I think it was Terry Reel that wrote a really extraordinary book called I Don't Want to Talk About It.

00:16:10.160 But in that book, he talks about going to visit with a really tough tribe.

00:16:15.120 I think it was the Maasai tribe in Africa.

00:16:17.200 And I'll get the name of that tribe wrong.

00:16:18.700 But ultimately, they were one of the few remaining warring tribes, and he noticed how insanely affectionate they were with their sons, holding hands with them, hugging them, kissing them all the time.

00:16:30.500 It's very different.

00:16:31.760 And so he asked him through an interpreter, and basically the guy said the definition of a man is someone who can do both.

00:16:41.100 And a true man knows when to do which, when to go to war, when to be really firm with accountability, and when to be very loving and endearing.

00:16:50.720 And there wasn't a either or to that.

00:16:53.340 It was a both and.

00:16:54.600 And I just loved that picture.

00:16:56.980 I think that men have this romanticized version of what masculinity is, and I think it's been fed into us by culture.

00:17:04.560 Where, you know, John Wayne, John Wick, Jason Bourne, the Marlboro man, you know, these guys are all James Bond.

00:17:13.920 They all start with J for some reason, but, you know, where it's, hey, I'm not supposed to work well with others.

00:17:23.100 I'm supposed to work well on my own.

00:17:25.140 Do you feel like in ancient civilizations, you know, you mentioned a couple of tribes here, that it was like that?

00:17:34.460 Or was it more that these tribes were, from a masculine perspective, more physically affectionate, more connected that way in a way that I think we, generally speaking in society today, would kind of be a little bit repelled by?

00:17:51.840 Yeah, I mean, I'm fairly, it's been a few minutes since I've looked at it, but I'm pretty sure the Greeks, they trained naked, right?

00:17:59.800 I mean, there was lots of dude on dude action with those dudes, like, doing wrestling and stuff.

00:18:04.500 So, yeah, I think this Lone Ranger myth is one of the most insane things we've cooked up in the Western world.

00:18:10.740 That's never existed in human history.

00:18:12.780 You always went to war with a band, with a gang, with a tribe, and your people. 0.98

00:18:17.580 I'm reading Empire of the Summer Moon right now, and I can't believe it's taken me so long.

00:18:20.760 As a Texan, that's an abomination, right?

00:18:22.920 But the Cherokee tribes, as they developed their horsemanship, and they, I mean, they took over, nobody went out by themselves. 0.88

00:18:31.680 That's never existed.

00:18:33.140 That's why it's such a silly myth, and it caught on, and it became the way of our world, right? 0.61

00:18:41.040 Do you think we're jaded? 0.86

00:18:43.340 I kind of feel like we're jaded.

00:18:45.560 You know, I talk with thousands and thousands of men every single year, and so many of them, a large percentage, in fact, I don't know if it's the majority, but a large percentage think that they need to do life alone.

00:18:58.080 Or even in a romantic relationship, that being in a romantic relationship puts them at risk, unnecessary risk.

00:19:08.000 Marriage, for example, is shunned by a lot of these guys, and why would you ever get married?

00:19:12.540 You can't rely on anyone.

00:19:13.700 You can't trust anyone.

00:19:15.440 Do you think it's a level of narcissism or just being jaded, or where does this idea that we need to isolate come from?

00:19:22.920 I think we've got a generation of men who were raised by, I mean, this is my hypothesis, dude.

00:19:34.060 My mom was not allowed to, by law, my mom was not allowed to, gosh, I'm going to get out on some real thin ice here.

00:19:43.220 My mom was not allowed to have a checking account by law, right, without my dad's signature on it.

00:19:49.000 My mom was not allowed to get a mortgage. 1.00

00:19:50.840 This is my mother.

00:19:51.640 This is not that long ago, right?

00:19:53.960 And so the next generation, right, I'm in my mid, I'm heading into, I'll be 40, I don't know how old I am, 45, 46.

00:20:01.080 I'm in my mid 40s.

00:20:01.740 Somewhere in there.

00:20:02.840 Yeah.

00:20:03.060 But there's a generation where for the first time in human history, women were told, like, they were denied these just basic human freedoms forever, right?

00:20:14.320 And then they got them.

00:20:15.380 And then the next move was, hey, you know what's more important than being a part of a system is economic security, your career.

00:20:24.700 And then when you get that stuff leveled out, then you can go get a family.

00:20:28.380 And men were told, man, if we could just get back to the way they were, back to the way they were, back to the way they were.

00:20:33.040 Both groups were lied to.

00:20:34.340 And so now you've got a generation of person that was raised in a single home or in a two-parent working home.

00:20:40.640 And so all the derivatives from those challenges there and you've the most core tether that you have, like talking about what we were talking about earlier, when you have nothing to anchor, then the most painful moment in your life is the relationships that should have been the most stable to you.

00:20:55.280 So why in the world would you double down and do that again as an adult, especially we've got this little sliver of history where we don't need other people to survive.

00:21:03.860 I can hit a button on my phone and food just shows up.

00:21:06.500 I got running water in my house.

00:21:07.760 Those things plagued humanity for all of our existence until 100 years ago.

00:21:12.680 And so I don't have to have people anymore theoretically to get basic needs met.

00:21:17.740 And the cops show up reasonably when you call 911.

00:21:21.000 So we've got security taken care of.

00:21:22.160 So we've got these things that have plagued us forever.

00:21:24.720 And so we have this illusion that we don't need other people.

00:21:27.820 And then we got the Internet and we got pornography just pumped into our houses.

00:21:31.320 And we've got these fake friends on these imaginary friends on social media stuff.

00:21:35.460 So we've got Twinkie calories coming in.

00:21:38.440 It's keeping us alive.

00:21:39.640 And we're not healthy, but it's keeping us alive.

00:21:42.040 But I think it comes from, dude, if your dad was more interested in work than you growing up,

00:21:48.560 if your mom was more interested in making a career than you growing up,

00:21:52.620 if you knew existentially as a child you were a bother,

00:21:55.600 why in the world would I entrust half of my estate to some woman who says, 1.00

00:22:00.620 I do.

00:22:02.020 I'm not going to do that.

00:22:03.440 And there's no way.

00:22:04.840 It wouldn't make sense to do that.

00:22:06.600 Here's what's funny that you asked that question, Ryan.

00:22:09.860 It was 18 months ago.

00:22:11.440 I was at a book signing after an event.

00:22:14.780 And somebody asked me a question that haunted me to the point that I got home and asked

00:22:19.280 that the person I work with here, get on Amazon and order every book with the word marriage in it.

00:22:25.440 Every single one of them.

00:22:26.620 Here's the question I was asked.

00:22:27.960 Is it still worth it?

00:22:29.780 And I said, I started to say, yeah.

00:22:31.780 I was like, yeah, I mean, it's the most.

00:22:33.120 And they stopped me and they said, hold on.

00:22:34.820 Your marriage has worked out okay.

00:22:37.240 Is it still worth it?

00:22:39.000 And Ryan, I didn't have an economic answer.

00:22:41.440 I didn't have a psychological.

00:22:42.400 I didn't have a good grounded answer for that question.

00:22:45.740 And so it haunted me.

00:22:47.280 And I've been on an adventure the last 18 months.

00:22:50.440 And I go down rabbit holes, man.

00:22:53.220 Trying to figure out, like, do we still need relationships anymore?

00:22:56.420 Has that ship sailed?

00:22:57.220 And now we're going to have AI assistance.

00:22:58.540 Do we need that anymore, man?

00:22:59.980 Or has that ship just sailed for us?

00:23:03.060 That's a really interesting question.

00:23:05.000 Because if you would have asked me three years ago, I would have said unequivocally yes.

00:23:08.780 I think there's still data to support.

00:23:10.900 You know, from an economic standpoint, for example, that yes, marriage makes sense from an economic standpoint.

00:23:17.840 Yeah.

00:23:18.180 I mean, after 18 months, I'm more in it now than ever.

00:23:21.660 More on pro-marriage side.

00:23:24.760 Than I ever were.

00:23:26.140 I'd never gone down rabbit hole.

00:23:27.440 Because I'm not as much on that side as I was three years ago.

00:23:30.480 So what makes you say that?

00:23:32.060 The data says if you have a good marriage, especially for men, every facet of your life.

00:23:37.340 You have more sex.

00:23:38.240 You have better sex. 0.99

00:23:39.020 Your economics work out better.

00:23:40.500 Your health is better.

00:23:41.340 You live longer.

00:23:42.280 But if you have a bad marriage, every one of those metrics falls off a cliff.

00:23:46.300 And so I think we've made it an either or and just said, you know what, I'm going to opt out.

00:23:51.180 And I'll take 70% over the potential 100%, but that I avoid the negative side.

00:23:56.400 So my thought is if I've got something out here that's great, I need to learn the skills to do this thing great.

00:24:04.660 But I do, man, if you've been burned, if you've been burned, getting back in that fire has to be the most terrifying thing I can imagine.

00:24:11.600 I don't think that anybody who's being honest about the discussion would disagree with what you're saying.

00:24:17.120 I think the argument, and this is one of my arguments, is why does it need to be a three-party agreement?

00:24:24.480 You know, if I'm dating, for example, if I'm dating a woman, can I have a quote-unquote marriage without the quote-unquote government certificate saying that we're married?

00:24:32.960 Can I have all the benefits and have the life and have the thing without the government getting involved?

00:24:37.800 I think that's where most of the men – that's a little bit how I feel, and I think that's what most of the men I talk with about this stuff, that's where most of them land.

00:24:46.220 Yeah, I think the – gosh, the person who pushed me the hardest on that was Jordan Peterson.

00:24:53.120 We were going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and he kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me.

00:24:57.420 And I said something I've never said to anybody, and that never even occurred to me.

00:25:01.300 But he kept saying why, and he kept pushing why, and finally I said because I made a covenant.

00:25:06.340 I put a line down in the sand, and I did it with my church, and I did it with my God, and I did it with my government.

00:25:12.760 Like I put a covenant into earth.

00:25:16.240 And so my initial like concession was like, yeah, I get that.

00:25:21.320 Like I don't want the government telling me where I can live, what I can do.

00:25:24.140 I don't want the government telling me anything these days.

00:25:25.860 And if I've got my local church, that's good.

00:25:28.980 Most people bounce church to church to church if they even go anymore.

00:25:32.180 I think I know myself well enough, and I think I know human nature well enough to know.

00:25:36.500 If you don't have an anchor point that says there's no coming back from this, then the option – you're going to take the off-ramp.

00:25:45.060 I would agree with that.

00:25:48.040 I think that having a ceremony –

00:25:51.380 You get to burn the boats at some point.

00:25:52.840 Yeah.

00:25:53.040 Yeah, I think having – and I think Jordan is – based on what I know of what he said, he would agree with this.

00:25:59.340 And correct me if you think I'm wrong, but that there's something to be said for having a ceremony, having an agreement, having a third-party – not intervention, but involvement, which says I have made a covenant before other people and before a God.

00:26:13.980 That it's a little bit more solid than, hey, I fully commit to you.

00:26:18.360 And it's just I commit to you, you commit to me, the end.

00:26:20.920 Right, right.

00:26:21.680 Yeah, that becomes like a high-five ceremony.

00:26:23.560 Fair enough.

00:26:24.740 A covenant is here's what happens if this thing is violated, right?

00:26:29.920 And so I – here is – and that's the modern contract.

00:26:33.100 And I didn't know this until I worked at a law school, that most contracts are written to be broken.

00:26:37.720 They're just simply a direct – a path for when this thing dissolves.

00:26:42.000 Yeah, find the angles, right?

00:26:43.340 Right.

00:26:43.700 In our current world, I tell people all the time, don't buy a house for somebody you're not married to.

00:26:49.640 There's the faith component to that, which is fine, the morality part of it, fine, and we can disagree on that.

00:26:54.980 But, man, if you don't have – like if you're married, there is a separation protocol.

00:27:00.120 If you're not separating a state, separating kids, separating child – I mean it gets to be a nightmare.

00:27:07.220 And so right now, currently, getting married with a government, having a government certificate gives you – if somebody burns you, cheats on you, hurts you, is violent with you, it gives you an off-ramp that just a simple ceremony wouldn't do.

00:27:22.460 So that's just me thinking out loud here.

00:27:25.580 But you're posing some good questions that I need to make sure that I lock in there.

00:27:30.200 Man, I'm just going to step away from the conversation just briefly.

00:27:33.260 This is a great one.

00:27:34.000 I want to get right back into it.

00:27:35.200 But I need to ask, have you registered for the Forge yet?

00:27:38.860 Now, if you don't know what that is, this is an event and an experience, frankly, unlike any other that me and some of the foremost men in the self-development space have put together on May 1st through the 4th, 2025.

00:27:50.960 Connor Beaton with Mantox, Larry Hagner with The Data Edge, Matt Bedreau with Apogee Strong, and myself have partnered up to create an event outside of St. Louis that you will not want to miss.

00:28:05.120 And with each of us participating and involved in every conversation and every activity and every experience at this event, you're basically getting four events in one.

00:28:16.120 And you'll also be connected with 200-plus other men who are working together to improve their lives.

00:28:21.480 If you only go to one event in 2025, make this it.

00:28:26.740 It's called The Forge, A Gathering of Men.

00:28:28.600 It's our inaugural experience.

00:28:30.640 We're going to be doing more of these, but we want you in right now at the very first one.

00:28:35.900 So when we're doing these in 10 years because we're revolutionizing what it means to hold an event for the people that care about what you share, you can say you were there first.

00:28:44.600 It's at themensforge.com.

00:28:47.680 Themensforge.com.

00:28:48.700 Get registered as quickly as you can.

00:28:50.400 We still have some VIP spots.

00:28:53.060 Themensforge.com.

00:28:54.300 Do that right after the conversation.

00:28:56.060 For now, let's get back to it with John.

00:28:58.060 Well, I would say the other consideration, and I already hear people chirping in my ears right now when it comes to giving you an off-ramp.

00:29:08.040 I know what they're going to say, and I can feel – I feel this.

00:29:10.680 It gives women an off-ramp, but let's not be coy.

00:29:16.660 It doesn't give men the same sort of off-ramp that it gives to women. 1.00

00:29:22.280 I mean anytime you follow a culture that has – that increases women's rights, you increase the number of divorces because women finally have to stop putting up with abuse and infidelity and all these other things. 0.81

00:29:38.780 And they start off – they take the off-ramp.

00:29:42.920 So I think there's a both-and to this.

00:29:44.820 One is men have to learn new skills in the 21st century.

00:29:48.560 Relationships have changed forever.

00:29:51.060 And you are correct.

00:29:52.900 There are men who get burned alive, dude.

00:29:55.540 And that so far in the courts, it's not equitable.

00:29:58.400 I was with two men who are navigating messy divorces right now, and it's just heartbreaking.

00:30:06.360 Like they have all the facts.

00:30:07.500 They have the forensics.

00:30:08.620 They've got the text.

00:30:09.520 They've got everything.

00:30:11.020 And their attorneys look at them and say, I don't know how to tell you this.

00:30:13.120 It doesn't matter what you have.

00:30:14.660 You will lose this engagement.

00:30:16.540 Settle.

00:30:17.360 And it's horrific on my side.

00:30:20.760 Like listening to this going, what?

00:30:21.980 That's just not justice.

00:30:22.900 And they're like, there is no justice here.

00:30:24.780 Everyone loses here, but you lose the most.

00:30:27.480 Settle.

00:30:28.400 And I knew that, but seeing two people that I love and care about go through that right now, it's even more like, good God, this stuff still isn't any better.

00:30:36.080 So there's truth to that.

00:30:37.700 But I don't know that there is, I don't know you get the benefits of a lifelong, I don't know that you get the benefits without going all in and work.

00:30:49.700 And I don't know you get the benefits of anything without the risk of getting hurt is what I would say.

00:30:54.140 And if you hedge your life on, I don't want, I might get hurt on this or they may screw me, then you're going to, you're going to spend your life mowing lawns by yourself.

00:31:02.460 That's going to be the extent because you won't have business partners.

00:31:04.500 You won't have romantic partners.

00:31:05.500 You won't have kids.

00:31:06.160 You won't have any sort of risk financially.

00:31:08.580 Usually you'll just sit in a round room painted in non, uh, non fume paint.

00:31:14.800 I don't know what you, I mean, she's going to sit in there in a risk-free environment. 1.00

00:31:18.360 Yeah, no, I think that's fair.

00:31:19.940 And I'm, and I'm also glad that you clarified.

00:31:21.700 I'm, I, I, in no means was suggesting that a woman should, should subject herself to abuse or cheating or anything.

00:31:28.840 I didn't get that at all.

00:31:30.100 I was talking more about the court system of that.

00:31:32.760 Right.

00:31:33.260 Sure.

00:31:33.620 No, it's awful.

00:31:34.580 It's awful.

00:31:36.000 Yeah.

00:31:36.300 It's horrific.

00:31:37.400 It's horrific.

00:31:37.980 But I've also, I mean, to be fair, I've seen the other side too, you know, my mom, for example, and other women in my life who I have seen, um, absolutely get, you know, railroaded financially, uh, and, and not, not have their side of the equation represented either.

00:31:57.340 So, I mean, it goes both ways.

00:31:59.060 I'm just speaking in broad generalities here.

00:32:01.440 Yeah.

00:32:01.860 People hurt people.

00:32:02.520 Well, I, I, I have an admitted bias because of one conversation I had with one woman, one time who was, um, in an abusive marriage.

00:32:11.420 And I said, you have to leave.

00:32:12.760 And I, that's, those are words I never say.

00:32:14.640 And I said, you have to leave.

00:32:16.180 And she looked at me with a sort of rage that I didn't understand.

00:32:22.100 And she said, where am I going to go?

00:32:24.820 How am I going to eat?

00:32:25.980 And it was essentially, she was saying for my kid's safety and for food, this is my price of admission right now.

00:32:34.240 Right.

00:32:34.660 And I didn't have, I didn't have an answer. 0.98

00:32:37.160 And it was, it was a, I bet I can rally up some guys that we can go burn this guy to the ground. 0.98

00:32:43.560 Right.

00:32:44.060 But the bigger thing is, is yeah, there's, there is a, there's a position.

00:32:47.900 There's a hierarchy.

00:32:48.540 If you're a woman who's dedicated three decades of your life to raising kids and a stay at home mom, which is, which is the rage these days. 0.74

00:32:55.440 Right.

00:32:56.160 Um, that is a vulnerable position.

00:32:58.480 There's just no way around it.

00:32:59.720 And so, um, uh, yeah, I'm admittedly biased and I'm, I'm walking with two very successful male buddies right now as they navigate hell.

00:33:09.240 Um, and they're just getting run over in the court system by, um, two very challenging, uh, divorces.

00:33:15.420 And so it's a, it's a mess.

00:33:17.100 It's a mess.

00:33:17.660 I just go back to, um, I don't know that anything's good, um, comes, anything good in your life comes without, without great risk.

00:33:26.460 I, I, and I agree with that principle wholeheartedly.

00:33:30.200 You said no hedging is the term that you use.

00:33:32.480 And I, you know, I think about that in business and people have told me, oh, what if you're, what if you lose money?

00:33:37.320 Well, yeah.

00:33:37.820 I mean, there's a very real possibility that I will, or I thought about that.

00:33:41.520 Yeah.

00:33:42.220 I mean, the relationship that I have right now, an incredible woman, we've been together for, uh, about a year.

00:33:48.460 You know, she could come to me in tomorrow and say, Hey, I'm out.

00:33:51.520 Was that, was that a wasted year?

00:33:53.780 Yeah.

00:33:55.180 And depending on how you look at it, you might say, yes, I would say no.

00:33:58.640 Like I'm willing to risk that because of the thing that we actually had together.

00:34:02.640 Yeah, absolutely not.

00:34:03.940 Uh, you know what, uh, Ryan, a buddy of mine, he's a, he's a banker.

00:34:07.420 Um, same haircut.

00:34:08.700 He's one of those dudes that we all have in our life.

00:34:10.000 He's got the same haircut since he was like four years old, same type of jeans.

00:34:13.520 Just an old soul.

00:34:15.180 He's the most consistent human.

00:34:16.660 He's a walking Xanax.

00:34:17.640 He's the most consistent guy I know.

00:34:18.880 He's amazing.

00:34:20.020 Um, he's a, he's a very successful banker in Texas.

00:34:22.900 And I remember one time I was going back and forth, um, my wife, like house and this,

00:34:27.720 and Hey, if I buy a house here though, we can flip it in two years.

00:34:31.520 And I was all about this ROI stuff.

00:34:34.520 And he finally looked at me and said, Hey, Hey, 30 year friend, by the way, buy your wife

00:34:40.200 a home.

00:34:41.460 And I was like, what?

00:34:42.540 And he goes, get your wife a home.

00:34:45.440 And I was like, what do you mean?

00:34:46.820 And he said, there's a few things in your life that are more important than an ROI.

00:34:52.240 And so a year or two years or 72 years, like my grandparents all in all both feet in the

00:35:01.120 boat with a romantic loved one is worth it.

00:35:04.040 Even if you get hurt because you learn about yourself, you learn connection.

00:35:07.020 You, you find yourself in places you never would have been before.

00:35:09.800 Same with a home.

00:35:10.780 There's some homes that you buy them.

00:35:12.160 That doesn't make a bunch of sense, but you don't put yourself at risk, but you give

00:35:15.500 your, your family a chance to drop their shoulders.

00:35:18.220 Right.

00:35:19.160 And so I think there's, I think that falls into that.

00:35:21.680 If we start ROI everything, everything, everything, everything, um, it's a pretty hollow way to

00:35:27.240 live.

00:35:29.000 So on that, when I hear that there's, there's a sense of satisfaction that this friend of yours

00:35:36.280 has in life.

00:35:37.140 He's just, he's satisfied with life.

00:35:39.520 I don't know that he's complacent.

00:35:41.080 I don't know him, but he's satisfied.

00:35:42.500 No, he's incredibly aggressive, but he's complete, but he's satisfied.

00:35:45.740 Yeah.

00:35:46.260 So what's the balance though?

00:35:47.680 Because like I think about, I drive a 2015 three quarter ton GMC.

00:35:52.060 I drive down the road just about every day and I see a 2022 three quarter ton white GMC.

00:35:58.900 And I want to buy that thing so bad, but I refuse not because I can't, I can.

00:36:04.640 And it's because I'm satisfied with my truck.

00:36:07.500 I'm not complacent about it.

00:36:08.640 I'm satisfied.

00:36:09.420 I have a truck that does the job.

00:36:10.760 I don't need to go spend another 80 grand to get it done.

00:36:13.740 What is the balance between satisfaction and complacency?

00:36:18.540 Dude, that's the greatest question.

00:36:20.740 Um, Lane Norton, he's, I think he's a mutual friend of ours.

00:36:23.300 He's the weightlifter guy.

00:36:24.420 He's awesome.

00:36:24.980 He, he says, most people spend their life stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

00:36:30.260 He said, if you're 40 pounds overweight and you're listening to the red light therapy and

00:36:35.740 the microplastics conversation, you are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, right?

00:36:41.040 Um, lose the 40 pounds and start sleeping well.

00:36:44.000 And then let's start tinkering at the edges here.

00:36:47.000 Um, in a similar way, there's people who live in an apartment or they have put 1.2% down on a house that they can barely afford.

00:36:56.920 And they have a car lease and they've got consumer debt.

00:37:00.500 And they're out there trying to have Bitcoin conversations.

00:37:04.940 The difference is if you, it, Nassim Taleb talks about barbell investing.

00:37:11.220 You have to cover your home.

00:37:13.660 Oh, nobody, anything on your house.

00:37:15.660 And you're free to do anything.

00:37:17.480 You're free to tell your boss, I'm not doing that.

00:37:19.780 Which then in turn, your boss is free to go.

00:37:22.060 I need more guys like you on my team.

00:37:23.640 You're promoted, right?

00:37:24.680 Or he can fire you.

00:37:25.520 Yeah, so, I mean, it's ironic because you're going to get more of what you want from other people when you do it that way.

00:37:30.400 Always.

00:37:31.280 So, if you will cover your four walls, if you will take care of nobody can take your house from you, nobody can take your car from you because you own it,

00:37:39.380 then you're free to rappel off the side and go be really risky or infinitely more risky.

00:37:45.360 I was able to, after 15 years of working my way up the ladder at this university system,

00:37:51.620 to quit everything to, as my son says, go be a YouTuber.

00:37:55.520 Um, because we had, we'd covered the, we'd covered the foundation, right?

00:38:00.520 And I think most people are just scurrying around the margins without dealing.

00:38:05.640 They're stepping over dollars and they're stepping over a hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies.

00:38:09.300 Um, because it's sexier and it's, it's, it's fringier.

00:38:13.940 Dude, if you can make peace, I have a 2006 Tundra.

00:38:17.460 Every time my boss, Dave Ramsey sees it, he just shakes his head.

00:38:20.300 He's like, what are you doing, man?

00:38:21.220 I know, I know.

00:38:22.280 I see your paycheck.

00:38:23.460 I know.

00:38:23.700 Yeah, but that's surprising.

00:38:24.920 He would say that though.

00:38:26.500 Well, dude, he's dude, his rapper's dope.

00:38:29.520 He's his.

00:38:30.340 Yeah, it's real nice.

00:38:31.640 Um, but like, uh, it is when you cover that, when you can be okay there, then you can go

00:38:38.500 do anything.

00:38:39.060 Right.

00:38:39.540 And so I think that's the difference between complacency and risk.

00:38:43.280 Like it's not, you're not being complacent when you can drop your shoulders and say, I'm at

00:38:47.160 peace.

00:38:47.620 I, I, I, people come at me all the time, dude, on, on the show about, um, can't believe you'd

00:38:53.100 pay off the 3.2% mortgage when you could put it in the, that money in a high yield savings

00:38:58.060 account and make 5.1%, dude, that's 1.9%. 1.00

00:39:01.040 You're stupid. 1.00

00:39:01.800 You don't know math. 1.00

00:39:02.640 It's like, bro, there's a 2% sleep tax.

00:39:05.640 There is a 2% soul tax.

00:39:07.980 All right.

00:39:08.140 You know what I have in my life that you don't have peace because nobody could take

00:39:11.420 my house now, forget it.

00:39:13.280 Right.

00:39:13.660 And so there's this, I think, I think people just aren't playing the right game and I'm

00:39:18.400 solving for peace in my house, dude.

00:39:19.840 And that means I leave money on the table.

00:39:21.260 That means I leave adventures unhad, but that also means the next time you call me, I'm going

00:39:26.040 to Minnesota, dude, I'm going to hang up out of a tree for four days and we're going

00:39:29.800 to tell hilarious stories and chase other guys, deers into the woods, um, because we've

00:39:35.980 covered the foundation here, right?

00:39:38.140 I think that's a good point.

00:39:39.480 I mean, even to go back to that, uh, this year I took my oldest son to Africa all in

00:39:45.120 all with flights, tickets, uh, mounts, things like that.

00:39:48.500 We're 20 grand into it.

00:39:49.960 Yeah.

00:39:50.460 And I had a, I had a couple of people, man, I wish I could go.

00:39:54.300 I wish I could do that.

00:39:55.020 How do you do that?

00:39:55.540 How do you do that?

00:39:56.020 I'm like 20 grand is 1600 a month.

00:39:59.180 Yeah.

00:39:59.600 You get two car payments, some student loans, some medical bills and some consumer debt.

00:40:04.600 And you're at 1600 like that.

00:40:07.120 I don't have any of that.

00:40:09.140 Yeah.

00:40:09.700 I have Z I have zero.

00:40:11.620 So the $1,600 that you spend on all your cars and your other, your other stuff, I just

00:40:17.040 spent on a trip to Africa.

00:40:18.080 It's not like you don't have the money.

00:40:19.700 It's just a, it's a consideration of priority.

00:40:23.400 You're prioritizing the car.

00:40:25.060 Prioritizing the car.

00:40:25.960 I'm prioritizing the experience.

00:40:27.460 And I, I love this.

00:40:29.880 This gets overblown a little bit, but if, if I have a, a North star, I sure love asking

00:40:35.800 myself, what's the story that my son's going to tell at my funeral.

00:40:39.160 And I don't remember.

00:40:40.440 I remember my dad had a blue car and a white car, but man, your son will tell the story

00:40:46.860 of the time dad took me to Africa to go hunting.

00:40:48.960 He'll tell that at your funeral.

00:40:50.700 That that's a part of his nervous system now.

00:40:53.160 And that's, that's more important than any flashy thing.

00:40:55.580 And I told my son the other day, Hey, I'm going to fix this truck up.

00:40:58.520 It's going to be your truck when you're 16.

00:41:00.540 And, um, that my old truck and he got in it and he goes, no, no, no, don't fix anything.

00:41:05.580 I like how it smells.

00:41:06.940 And I thought this doesn't smell great.

00:41:08.800 This is our hunting truck.

00:41:09.580 And he's like, no, no, no, like this, this, this, this is how I like how it smells.

00:41:13.980 And, um, it's, it's, yeah, it's about priorities, man.

00:41:18.280 It's about priorities.

00:41:19.020 Good for you.

00:41:20.140 That smell is interesting.

00:41:21.340 I've got a, uh, 99 Toyota Tacoma as well that I bought in 2001.

00:41:26.760 I'll never sell the thing and I get in there and it smells different, but it smells like

00:41:31.260 memories to me.

00:41:32.520 I love that thing for that.

00:41:34.020 It's the same smell.

00:41:34.740 That's right.

00:41:35.320 Yeah.

00:41:36.120 Yeah.

00:41:36.780 You, you've mentioned a couple of times, this concept of anchoring, and I think I get the

00:41:41.960 concept when it comes to anchoring to your parents or, you know, something as you were

00:41:47.700 growing up, but how does a man who feels like he never had an anchor?

00:41:51.340 Anchor in life, find an anchor today at 40 something years old.

00:41:56.880 God, that's that, that is the question.

00:41:59.140 Can I just, can I just be pretty straight with you?

00:42:02.480 Um, we have the most untethered generation, I think possibly in human history right now.

00:42:10.320 And we are nothing but frustration and rage and God almighty, dude, there is a bad outcome

00:42:19.300 when a whole bunch of men devote themselves to the, to the art and act of rage.

00:42:25.200 Um, so if you find yourself untethered, we have pulled the string on medicine.

00:42:29.580 We've pulled the string on faith.

00:42:31.160 Nobody goes to church anymore.

00:42:32.340 We pulled the faith on the string on education and we've pulled the string on work.

00:42:36.240 We've become slaves to technology.

00:42:38.420 We've become slaves to money that we've borrowed.

00:42:40.940 We don't, we like, you've, you've probably heard it like, well, my dad was mean to me

00:42:45.140 growing up, so I'm never going to Christmas again or Thanksgiving at the house.

00:42:48.120 Or my mom didn't make me a gluten-free dish. 0.94

00:42:50.400 So I forget her like, dude, we are untethering ourselves and men unspool.

00:42:57.760 We do not do well.

00:42:58.780 We're not tethered in.

00:42:59.480 So if you didn't have good anchoring as, as a, as a kid, like millions and millions of

00:43:04.480 people didn't find the question you have to ask is what am I going to do next?

00:43:08.860 You have to get a gang.

00:43:10.160 You have to get a purpose.

00:43:11.180 You have to take a knee before something bigger than you.

00:43:14.340 Um, I think it was Tony Robbins years ago that talked about one of the differences,

00:43:17.940 between, um, young men in the middle East, um, especially in war zones.

00:43:23.200 And I don't want to paint a big, broad middle East, but in war zones and in the Western world.

00:43:27.340 And there was this sense that there's an inspiration to build something, or there's

00:43:32.040 an inspiration to tear something down.

00:43:34.560 And it, the, the goal is I want to be like my neighbor.

00:43:38.980 And if you are in a community that says you can build as high as me, then you will.

00:43:45.060 And if there's a situation where you say, I can never build that high.

00:43:48.320 The only option I have is to knock it down.

00:43:50.840 And so we are fast approaching the, the, the anchoring we have now is to unspool everything.

00:43:57.280 Facts, truth, honesty, virtue, and take like burn it all to the ground and do what we're

00:44:02.280 going to have is we're going to have an entire culture sitting in ash, man.

00:44:05.080 And that's just not a good place to be.

00:44:06.700 So you got to find a gang, you got to find a community that's big, that in service to

00:44:11.220 something bigger than you, you've got to stop seeking pleasure at every second.

00:44:15.320 And you have to not seek grind for the sake of grind, but grind in on, in behalf of something

00:44:21.800 as, as, as some sort of downstream reward for you and your family and your legacy.

00:44:26.580 Um, just you got to plug into something bigger than yourself, man.

00:44:28.880 Do you feel like a man can anchor to, in the absence of physical anchoring, whether it's

00:44:34.900 a relationship or a circumstance can anchor to, uh, values and virtues like honesty, for

00:44:42.920 example, at the core, or maybe it's a belief, like a, uh, belief in like a, uh, faith, for

00:44:48.900 example, where I'm going to anchor myself to God's word and his, his control and his hand

00:44:54.220 in my life, or I'm going to anchor myself to just doing the right thing.

00:44:59.480 And then just letting the chips fall where they may, because it's just what I believe.

00:45:04.660 Can a man do that?

00:45:06.080 You can, but it has to be done in community.

00:45:09.140 You can't do it by yourself.

00:45:10.380 Otherwise you end up with that, with the Marlboro man, the guy in real tight jeans with a cigarette

00:45:14.920 and a hat out there.

00:45:16.640 Um, that looks cool in a black and white photo ad standing next to a square body 82 Chevy pickup.

00:45:22.380 It looks cool.

00:45:23.180 It does look cool.

00:45:24.620 I actually want that now that you say that I want that truck so bad.

00:45:27.720 I know I want, I want that.

00:45:29.480 I want that in the shotgun rack in the back.

00:45:32.240 I want that.

00:45:33.020 And he's got lung cancer and he's alone and he has no one when he goes home and his house 0.96

00:45:38.840 smells like crap and he's got wood paneled walls on the inside of his tray. 0.96

00:45:41.780 It's not a good life. 1.00

00:45:43.340 It's a great photo.

00:45:44.400 It's not real.

00:45:45.560 And so, yes, I think men can, they can anchor to value.

00:45:50.180 They can anchor to faith.

00:45:51.280 They could anchor to a series of principles.

00:45:53.660 Uh, Ryan holiday stoicism stuff has taken off because people are so desperate for a set

00:45:57.380 of principles.

00:45:58.600 Yes, you can.

00:45:59.380 And you have to do it with a gang, with a tribe.

00:46:03.020 Otherwise you're untethered and you get that.

00:46:06.120 Um, well, my sense of virtue, when, where does my sense of virtue stop in your start?

00:46:11.900 Unless we do it collectively, unless we do it together.

00:46:15.160 How does a guy turn a tribe into an anchor though?

00:46:18.500 Because I don't have to go through hard stuff.

00:46:21.680 You have to go do hard things.

00:46:22.640 There's a lot of guys who are like, I have friends, I have guys at work that I hang out

00:46:26.640 with and get a drink after I go to the game with, or like, and I, and I hear what you're

00:46:31.760 saying.

00:46:32.080 I don't think you're wrong, but what does that look like in practicality?

00:46:35.700 Let's say I've got five, six, seven guys around me.

00:46:38.160 We all work together.

00:46:39.220 We're in the same neighborhood.

00:46:40.160 Like, how do I elevate that into something that's actually going to serve me versus something

00:46:45.340 I'm just kind of dinking around with.

00:46:46.660 And I happen to catch the guys in a beer on UFC night every month or something like that.

00:46:52.140 It's as simple as, um, what Michael Easter talks about for all of human history, we had

00:46:58.700 scarcity.

00:46:59.340 Now we have abundance.

00:47:00.440 We have to do something different.

00:47:01.600 We can't just say, oh man, there's food everywhere.

00:47:03.720 So I'm going to eat it all.

00:47:04.460 Cause we're going to, we're going to be dead.

00:47:05.780 Right?

00:47:06.180 So similarly, men never had the option of only seeing other men once a month to grab

00:47:12.180 a beer and watch some fights.

00:47:13.540 They had to build barns together and cut hay together and not die together.

00:47:18.240 That was their life.

00:47:19.480 And so we don't have to do that anymore.

00:47:21.540 So we have to inject that.

00:47:23.920 Um, here's a simple way I've seen it done.

00:47:25.680 That was one of the most raddest things I've ever seen.

00:47:28.100 Um, a group of guys back in Texas and Abilene, Texas, they had this deal where once a month

00:47:34.060 they put names in a hat and they drew a name out and let's say they drew Ryan Mickler, they

00:47:40.520 said, all right, at the last Saturday in December, we're showing up at Mickler's house.

00:47:45.500 You are responsible for all the paint, all the whatever screws and whatever.

00:47:51.120 And 14 to 30 men would show up at your house.

00:47:54.160 And one of the other rules was if you had sons, you had to bring them and they had to 0.95

00:47:58.480 show up so they could see their dads, uh, have, have friends and do things.

00:48:02.160 And, uh, uh, like a buzzsaw of men would show up at each other's homes and do everything

00:48:07.740 all in one Saturday.

00:48:08.780 They would grade an entire yard, paint a garage, put on a new front end bumper.

00:48:14.340 They would do all this, like change the plugs out and the wives would get in all this making 1.00

00:48:18.140 lists.

00:48:18.720 And then the guys who were still there at three o'clock or at five o'clock, you had to provide

00:48:22.440 the beer, the food and all the, all the, the stuff you needed at five o'clock or whenever

00:48:27.860 everybody called it, whoever was left got their name in the hat and everybody showed up

00:48:31.160 at your house the next month.

00:48:32.300 And what happened over the course of a year or two years is everybody kind of learned

00:48:36.860 how to put a plug in and everyone learned how to, because one guy knew how to do that

00:48:42.440 or a couple of guys knew how to teach you how to cut in on painting and slowly a whole

00:48:46.880 community lifted up.

00:48:48.180 And those are guys I still talk to you to this day, right?

00:48:52.240 There's a few of those guys I still call and talk to, to this day.

00:48:55.800 And so, but you learn new skills.

00:48:58.520 Your, your kids got to see you have friends and learn skills.

00:49:00.900 They got to see you make fun of each other.

00:49:02.440 They got to see pizza for breakfast.

00:49:04.620 They got to see the first guy open a beer at 10 o'clock and everyone make fun of them.

00:49:07.660 And then everybody kind of also do it.

00:49:09.100 They got to see all of that when it was cold and it was hot. 0.95

00:49:13.360 And it saved everybody thousands of dollars in having to hire all this crap out.

00:49:19.920 And so you and I, we can, whether we have the cash or not, we can pretty much get what

00:49:25.560 we need done at our house right now because we have access to just endless amounts of

00:49:29.420 credit.

00:49:30.020 What I would challenge the average man listening to this podcast to do is find something at

00:49:34.740 your house you need done and ask a couple of guys to come help you, however awkward

00:49:37.980 that's going to be.

00:49:38.800 And if you don't have anybody that could come help you, therein lies your challenge.

00:49:42.980 Go solve that problem.

00:49:45.820 That's pretty powerful, man.

00:49:47.020 That's such an easy, I've never done that, but I'm like, God, I got to do that.

00:49:49.760 You know, it's ironic.

00:49:50.640 You were talking about wives.

00:49:51.720 It's ironic about this is all the guys complaining about not getting any, all those wives of men 0.98

00:49:56.260 are dropping their panties at the end of the night for guys that are actually going

00:49:59.000 out and serving other people and doing what they should be doing outside of just the relationship.

00:50:03.820 So you're getting so much more out of just being involved with dudes.

00:50:07.900 Like you're going to be well-connected to your kids, well-connected to your wife, well-connected

00:50:12.080 to your community, powerful stuff.

00:50:13.800 And you know how to do a thing.

00:50:15.380 You know how to do a thing.

00:50:17.060 So confidence boosts.

00:50:18.000 I mean, this plug doesn't work.

00:50:19.600 Instead of saying, well, you need to call the electrician.

00:50:21.980 Yes, there is something profound and simple about saying, well, let me go look at it.

00:50:27.820 And you taking the plug plate off and looking at it, oh, I need to get a new plug here.

00:50:32.200 This little end is burnt out here.

00:50:33.980 God almighty.

00:50:35.220 That your wife feels like, oh my gosh, my husband has had to do a thing.

00:50:38.660 That's not, it's become a signal of virtue.

00:50:41.360 Like, I don't know how to do anything around here.

00:50:42.940 That's not a thing to celebrate, right?

00:50:45.100 It's not, it's not.

00:50:47.000 And my arrogance, no matter what my travel schedule is or how many, how much media I have,

00:50:51.900 how many books I've got, I will mow my lawn every Saturday. 1.00

00:50:54.500 Well, that's arrogant and stupid too, right? 1.00

00:50:56.240 Sometimes you need to get, you hire some help out too. 1.00

00:50:58.300 So there's a balance there.

00:50:59.320 But my gosh, learning how to do stuff at the, at the, at the feet of other men is so great, man.

00:51:05.100 I think this is why all of us just get kind of excited about, you know, watching an Amish 1.00

00:51:10.180 barn raising on YouTube or Instagram or whatever.

00:51:13.000 Cause you see these guys come together and they're putting barns up in an afternoon and

00:51:17.220 you're like, that's amazing.

00:51:19.260 But we could, we could do that.

00:51:21.280 We could actually do that if you spend a little time focused on it.

00:51:24.560 And you can, uh, you can get a group of guys that just goes fishing once a month and everybody

00:51:31.240 has to pick a new spot and one guy's going to pick a terrible spot and everyone's gonna

00:51:36.360 make fun of him for the next four years over that once.

00:51:38.720 And that's part of it.

00:51:39.760 And one guy's going to get lucky and pick a spot and, or you can travel across the country

00:51:44.320 and meet a group of guys that you don't know.

00:51:46.460 And it's really easy to bond over hunting and what kind of bow do you use?

00:51:49.960 And why do you use that kind of stuff?

00:51:51.120 And it's freezing out here and Mickler still hadn't got one yet.

00:51:53.780 But, uh, right.

00:51:54.560 I mean, that's, that's the good stuff, right?

00:51:57.000 And everybody dressing the deer out and you take some, I got enough in my freezer already.

00:52:00.640 There's that's, that's the stuff.

00:52:01.900 That's the good things, man.

00:52:03.240 It's so great.

00:52:04.600 Um, and that, that sounds overly outdoorsy and Matt, that's not fine.

00:52:08.800 If that's not for you, that's great.

00:52:10.880 Hey, can you help me with this particular website I'm building instead of just hiring

00:52:14.340 it out?

00:52:14.780 Can you come over to my house and help me with this thing?

00:52:16.320 I don't know how to set up my speakers.

00:52:17.780 I don't know what the thing is.

00:52:19.020 Just stop outsourcing every human transaction and see if you can get some people that will come

00:52:23.380 over and help you. 0.81

00:52:24.620 I mean, I would push back on the website thing.

00:52:26.700 Like, I know, I know, but the only reason I say that is just because the inside stuff,

00:52:32.940 the technology stuff, I don't think people are lacking and I don't think there's a lack

00:52:37.440 of information or know how or stuff rallying around that.

00:52:40.960 Like go do something that's, you know, if you're like, I don't like hunting, then go hunting.

00:52:46.040 If I don't like to hike, then you should go hike.

00:52:49.500 Go hike.

00:52:50.020 Like if all you ever do is I'm going to build a website this weekend or I'm going to, I'm

00:52:54.400 going to, you know, watch Lord of the Rings series with all my buddies, like probably you

00:52:58.500 should do something else.

00:52:59.600 Even, even if you're, um, the guy who was my mixed martial arts coach every once in a

00:53:05.920 while, he would go to the, to this big park in the middle of the city.

00:53:09.540 And these guys would dress up in these medieval things and they're being the crap out of each

00:53:13.920 other, dude.

00:53:14.600 Yeah.

00:53:14.800 I would much rather be in an MMA gym than with these dudes.

00:53:18.020 They had these big wooden sticks and they were just wailing on each other.

00:53:20.500 So whatever it is.

00:53:21.720 Yeah.

00:53:21.880 Don't watch Lord of the Rings.

00:53:22.840 Go play Lord of the Rings, but go do a thing that's hard.

00:53:26.040 And that, that you have to learn and engage with other people.

00:53:29.540 Right.

00:53:30.120 And I think that old, um, it's a gendered trope, but it seems to still work is that, um, women 1.00

00:53:38.620 often bind together socially, kneecap to kneecap and men bind socially shoulder to shoulder.

00:53:46.000 And I think that plays out over time.

00:53:47.760 So go find ways where you can get involved.

00:53:50.400 Ask your friends to help you move instead of calling a mover.

00:53:53.080 Um, do, do hard stuff together, man.

00:53:56.040 Outside of bonding together and tribes and groups and gangs, are there other issues that

00:54:02.680 you recognize that are generally specific to, to men?

00:54:07.300 Uh, I, I think that, you know, I just did a video cause I work a little bit with Daily

00:54:11.500 Wire and Jordan Peterson and promoting some of Peterson's work and, uh, talking about the

00:54:16.880 suicide rate, which is four times higher for men than it is for women.

00:54:20.600 Now, a bunch of women came in and said, well, we, we do it more often than men. 1.00

00:54:24.040 And you just are more successful at it.

00:54:25.800 And successful is not the right word I would use in that case.

00:54:28.840 And it's also not a competition, but okay.

00:54:33.140 Yeah.

00:54:34.060 Point taken.

00:54:35.080 But the point I'm making here is that it's alarming how many men are killing themselves.

00:54:41.580 And is it simply because of isolation or are there other factors at play?

00:54:45.560 It's, it starts, it's, it's soup to nuts, dude.

00:54:48.780 It is, um, I, I did not know how to be a dad.

00:54:53.780 I didn't know how to be a dad to an infant.

00:54:55.560 I was angry all the time.

00:54:56.960 I, no one ever told me.

00:54:58.440 I didn't know that a nine month old is a bundle of nerves that doesn't have any use

00:55:03.060 for a dad.

00:55:03.660 And I took it very personal.

00:55:04.960 And so I, early on, I knew I'm going to go make money and that's going to be the greatest

00:55:10.080 gift I can give my son.

00:55:11.000 Cause I didn't know what to do.

00:55:11.740 I didn't have the skills all the way to education systems that are designed like specifically

00:55:17.660 for the mind of young women, which I have no problem with except that it leaves men behind.

00:55:23.940 So it's not, it's not both hand.

00:55:26.180 Right.

00:55:26.340 Yeah.

00:55:26.480 It's at the expense of.

00:55:27.400 And so, um, you walk through a system where you are a failure factory, or if you are successful,

00:55:34.060 if you figure out how to navigate these systems that are not designed for you, there's a penalty

00:55:38.440 to be paid there too.

00:55:40.400 Um, and then you take out movement and you pathologize just normal adolescent male development.

00:55:46.800 Um, and then there's this ethos.

00:55:48.900 There's, there's, it's the water we drink and the air we breathe that every problem on earth

00:55:53.920 is because of you, because of you, every, like everybody's not safe because of you, the

00:56:01.980 climate, because of you, everything is because of you.

00:56:05.360 And then you get to, uh, you, you get to a workforce that says, all right, now it's, you've

00:56:13.860 been coddled your whole life.

00:56:14.960 Now it's you versus everybody go.

00:56:17.100 And I don't have a psychology for everybody's been coming into the gym and taking the weight

00:56:20.800 off the bar my whole life because it was so painful.

00:56:23.300 I don't have this, I literally don't have the strength to compete in a pretty brutal

00:56:27.180 marketplace.

00:56:27.760 And so, um, and then my wife doesn't need me. 0.99

00:56:31.020 She doesn't know how to say, I need you.

00:56:32.260 She doesn't know how to say the words.

00:56:33.260 I'm proud of you.

00:56:33.960 That's not part of her psychology growing up.

00:56:35.960 She's just been taught that I'm anything that she feels bad about.

00:56:38.420 It's my fault.

00:56:39.460 Uh, it's a nasty, gnarly world.

00:56:41.980 And so I see men checking out and checking out and checking out and checking out.

00:56:46.700 There's just an, there's an end to rage and there's an end to numbing behaviors.

00:56:51.180 And those are the two paths men have been given the last 25 years.

00:56:54.300 Be angry about everything, um, or just numb it all.

00:56:57.420 And dude, there just gets to be an end to that.

00:57:00.900 Uh, again, to go back to, you know, outside of the gang and the tribe type mentality.

00:57:05.060 Cause I honestly, I think a lot of the issues that you talk about can, can be addressed,

00:57:09.780 not solved, but can be addressed and approached through having other competent, hardworking,

00:57:14.780 hard charging men in your corner.

00:57:15.980 Are, have you read the one thing by Gary Keller?

00:57:20.420 I haven't.

00:57:21.180 No.

00:57:21.800 It's a really good book.

00:57:22.820 I read it years and years ago and it's, it's, it was a transformative book.

00:57:26.000 And the premise of the book is basically, you know, what is the one thing that you could

00:57:30.080 do today that would render anything else obsolete or make everything else easier?

00:57:35.960 And I think in the concept of what we're talking about today is having a tribe of men,

00:57:41.260 like you're talking about would render a lot of these problems obsolete or make them a

00:57:45.780 whole lot easier to address.

00:57:47.060 But are there other quote unquote, one things that men can do to tackle a lot of these problems

00:57:52.200 and issues we're dealing with at once?

00:57:54.160 Yeah.

00:57:54.680 I think there's the complete opposite angle of that, which is, um, it took me 15 years

00:58:02.560 and almost blowing my marriage to smithereens before I finally got it through my big thick

00:58:07.280 skull.

00:58:07.680 Well, my wife was not with me simply for my utility.

00:58:11.220 My wife actually loved me and she solved me through the utility and I could not hear

00:58:17.440 it.

00:58:17.580 I didn't have a psychology for it.

00:58:19.180 So there is a skill set number one or demand.

00:58:23.900 You have to go find a gang of men that you do life with that y'all are productively adding

00:58:29.300 to the community that you live in.

00:58:32.160 Whether that's a faith community, a world community, a school community, I don't care what

00:58:34.900 it is and, um, you have to be able to learn new skills, skills with how to talk to and

00:58:43.440 engage with your kids, how to talk to and engage with childhood traumas, how to talk to

00:58:48.100 and engage with your romantic partner, with your wife.

00:58:50.720 You have to learn to do those things and there it's not either or it's both and, and it's

00:58:56.980 you're incomplete without either of those or one of those and the teeter-totter will get

00:59:02.260 balanced the wrong way.

00:59:04.360 So, um, you have to go out and do those things.

00:59:07.520 But by the way, it's easier for me.

00:59:09.620 It's easier for me to go make friends, to go get a gang.

00:59:12.440 It's much easier for me to do that than it was to sit down and learn how to engage with

00:59:17.240 my wife.

00:59:18.240 Oh, of course.

00:59:20.280 I think the odds, at least the perceived odds are, or the risks, I should say, are not quite

00:59:27.060 as prevalent with, Hey, if this friendship doesn't work out, no big deal.

00:59:30.100 If this marriage doesn't work out, that could be the end of the world.

00:59:33.200 Right?

00:59:33.580 So of course.

00:59:35.720 Yeah, but, um, go ahead, go ahead.

00:59:38.560 Well, I was just going to say, just to push back a little bit on what you're saying, you

00:59:41.200 know, you said, it took me a long time to figure out that my wife loves me for me, not

00:59:44.960 through my utility.

00:59:45.660 But then in the next breath, it sounded like what you were saying is go learn new skills,

00:59:49.960 go serve your community, which are very utilitarian.

00:59:53.580 So how does a man find value in himself? 0.91

00:59:57.100 That's fantastic.

00:59:57.840 Not just for my skills.

00:59:59.180 So it's both. 0.99

01:00:00.040 And so I think those who say utility is stupid, men don't need utility. 0.99

01:00:03.940 They don't need to be useful. 1.00

01:00:05.340 They just need to be lovable.

01:00:06.780 Um, that's dishonest.

01:00:08.060 That's not true.

01:00:08.680 Um, and the other side of that is I had to learn new skills to be able to, and I guess,

01:00:16.380 I guess, yeah, if you follow it all the way out, there's, there's a utility there.

01:00:19.480 I had to learn how to, um, Hey, here's this, here's me as being as vulnerable as I can on

01:00:26.540 your show, dude.

01:00:27.620 Um, I was sitting with a trauma therapist going through some gnarly stuff that happened in

01:00:32.280 my childhood that I'll never talk about it publicly, but it was not great.

01:00:35.220 And, um, she, Ryan, she golf clapped me and, um, I obviously, yeah, if she was, I mean,

01:00:47.720 we were laughing, we were having a good time, but, um, but she, she's an older woman. 1.00

01:00:51.740 She just, she just clapped.

01:00:53.620 And I was like, what?

01:00:54.320 She goes, I've been wondering.

01:00:55.420 And you're right.

01:00:57.840 I was right.

01:00:58.580 You're smarter than me.

01:00:59.700 And I was like, what?

01:01:00.740 No, stop.

01:01:01.480 She's just savant. 1.00

01:01:02.400 She's brilliant.

01:01:02.940 And she goes, you've read more than me.

01:01:04.680 You always have a, a, an author you can cite when I ask you a question.

01:01:08.260 She's like, you're smarter than me.

01:01:10.740 She goes, so next time in therapy, we're going to say no words.

01:01:14.700 And I said, well, I'm smarter now that I'm smarter than you.

01:01:18.860 Like, I know that therapy is about talking.

01:01:20.940 And she started laughing.

01:01:21.840 I started laughing.

01:01:22.560 And she said, John, you have all the answers, but you can't sit confidently and peacefully

01:01:31.800 in my presence. 0.99

01:01:33.980 And that's when I was like, oh, damn it, dude. 0.99

01:01:37.660 Every breath I took was a performance. 0.99

01:01:40.000 And so I did not have the skills to be still and just accept my wife's love.

01:01:46.320 I didn't have the skills to be, let my daughter nuzzle up against me while I'm watching a show 1.00

01:01:51.180 and let her nervous system co-opt mine and just have a safe place. 0.99

01:01:56.420 I was an anxious, uh, nuclear reactor.

01:01:59.720 All right.

01:02:00.020 My chest was always hot.

01:02:02.140 And so my son did not have an anchor.

01:02:04.500 This is what men masculinity ultimately is a stillness, right?

01:02:10.000 It is a, uh, I'm confident enough that I don't have to be electric all the time.

01:02:15.920 And I didn't know how to do that.

01:02:17.320 I didn't, I was a set of skills I had to practice.

01:02:20.000 And so I guess technically that's utilitarian, but I had to go learn how to do that.

01:02:24.140 I had to learn how to listen to my wife and not try to solve her problem. 0.96

01:02:27.760 She's smarter than me.

01:02:28.900 She's, she was Dr. Deloney long before me.

01:02:31.180 I'll never be as smart as her.

01:02:32.640 She doesn't need me to solve her problems.

01:02:34.240 She needs me to be there and listen so that she can anchor in.

01:02:37.860 I didn't learn how to do that.

01:02:39.080 I didn't know how to listen to somebody without being like, oh yeah, you know what you need

01:02:42.120 to do?

01:02:42.660 And with guys, we do that all the time and we don't listen to each other. 1.00

01:02:45.220 So we just roll our eyes and like, oh, that guy's an idiot. 1.00

01:02:47.800 But I didn't know how to do that. 1.00

01:02:49.120 So it's, it was both.

01:02:50.360 And well, I think what I'm hearing you say is that utilitarianism is the by-product of

01:02:56.500 in your case, just being confident and comfortable with who you are.

01:03:00.740 So it's not, it's not the means, which I think generally meant, and I've done this too, where

01:03:06.160 it's like, I got to provide, I got to fix the car.

01:03:09.200 I got to pay the mortgage.

01:03:10.400 I've got to do this.

01:03:11.300 I've got to do that.

01:03:11.780 And if I don't, that I'm not loved and I'm not appreciated.

01:03:13.780 I'm not respected.

01:03:14.480 So I just have to be, I have to be competent versus I think what you're saying is that

01:03:22.620 competence is just the by-product of all the other work and that will come, but it's not

01:03:27.040 the goal in and of itself.

01:03:29.520 Yeah.

01:03:30.020 And now that I, we can all take our work home with us now that, um, we can all get side

01:03:36.060 hustles and we can work from home.

01:03:37.500 We can have three full-time jobs working from home.

01:03:40.020 If you want to get up at five in the clock in the morning, go to bed at midnight.

01:03:42.500 Um, but what it's become is it's become heroin.

01:03:46.500 It's become a numbing device that gives us an excuse to not plug in with our kids, with

01:03:52.960 our families, with our communities.

01:03:55.080 And so we do have to provide, we do have to have that terrifying question that I didn't

01:04:01.180 have a psychology for, which is like, there's a famous showdown my wife and I had in the garage

01:04:07.960 after my second book.

01:04:09.100 Like, like, she's like, John, we have enough.

01:04:12.100 And I remember yelling, like, as she walked out of the room, I remember like not yelling

01:04:16.420 at her, but yell like, what the hell's enough?

01:04:18.800 I didn't know what that, I didn't, I never even thought of that word.

01:04:21.120 Right.

01:04:21.440 And so there's this idea that we can work and work and work and tell ourselves, we're

01:04:26.140 just providing.

01:04:26.760 I got to, if not for me, there's going to be, that's true.

01:04:29.740 That's actually true.

01:04:30.760 And how often have I stayed at work till seven or eight o'clock?

01:04:35.080 Cause I just, oh man, it's just easier here, dude.

01:04:38.280 Yeah.

01:04:38.700 It's just easier here.

01:04:39.360 I don't want to throw the Frisbee with a seven year old and I don't want to get onto my 0.99

01:04:43.340 son because his pants are on backwards or whatever he's trying to do.

01:04:45.740 I don't, it's just, I can just, I'm just going to do another thing here and I can tell

01:04:49.500 myself it's cause I'm paying the bills.

01:04:51.840 Well, you know, to be fair about the book story and the infamous blow up or whatever

01:04:57.160 you had with your wife, books are a horrible, horrible strain on relationships.

01:05:02.080 So anybody who's out there and you could write the best stuff in the world, all the things

01:05:07.720 that you should do in a relationship and it will destroy your relationship if you let

01:05:11.580 it.

01:05:11.680 The greatest gift you can give to your marriage is don't write a, don't write a book.

01:05:14.620 Totally.

01:05:14.980 This don't totally.

01:05:16.240 Amen.

01:05:16.880 Amen, dude.

01:05:17.640 Golly.

01:05:19.340 Um, one of the things that I've been learning, I haven't learned, but I've been learning is

01:05:24.540 just being able to say, I don't know, or I don't have an opinion or I don't care about

01:05:32.600 that is a superpower.

01:05:35.200 When you just said, I don't know, the next thing you said, I don't have an opinion on

01:05:38.680 that, Ryan, I literally felt my shoulders go up around my ears.

01:05:41.760 I just felt it.

01:05:42.600 Right.

01:05:43.280 Yes, that's exactly right.

01:05:45.260 Like, I don't know.

01:05:46.720 And I don't know where we got in our heads that our value is based on having some answer,

01:05:51.360 but that's the word.

01:05:53.460 I don't know, man, but it's a, it's false.

01:05:55.840 It's fake.

01:05:56.360 It's not real.

01:05:57.500 Yeah.

01:05:58.540 Well, brother, I love our conversations.

01:06:00.120 Hopefully we can have a little bit more personal conversations on a future hunt or something

01:06:03.480 like that.

01:06:04.420 I love that, man.

01:06:05.540 Don't give up on me.

01:06:06.320 Keep calling and asking.

01:06:07.340 Oh, no, I won't, man.

01:06:08.160 I'm going to get you out there.

01:06:09.100 I'm going to come knock on your door and drag you out of the house. 1.00

01:06:11.520 If I have to, at one of these, at one of these points.

01:06:13.480 So where are you living now?

01:06:15.060 I'm in Southern Utah.

01:06:17.520 Like St. George area?

01:06:18.920 St. George.

01:06:19.520 Yeah.

01:06:19.620 Just outside of St. George.

01:06:21.360 No way.

01:06:22.300 Okay.

01:06:22.900 Don't tell me you were just here.

01:06:24.880 No, it was about two years ago, but I, I'm in Utah four or five times a year now.

01:06:28.440 So I'll, I'll swing something up and figure something out.

01:06:31.220 That'd be fine.

01:06:31.660 Let me know.

01:06:32.200 We'll make it happen.

01:06:33.140 All right, brother.

01:06:33.600 Let the guys know where to connect with you and learn a little more about what you're up

01:06:36.600 to.

01:06:37.940 Um, you can just follow me, um, at John Deloney.

01:06:41.100 Actually, you know what?

01:06:41.740 Get off social media.

01:06:42.560 Just get off.

01:06:43.540 Um, you can watch the YouTube show or the podcast, the Dr. John Deloney show.

01:06:47.340 You can check that out after only after you watch the order of man show.

01:06:51.120 Um, then you can check that out, uh, while you're headed home, but, uh, yeah, you got

01:06:55.220 to hit all 1600 episodes or whatever it is before you start listening to John Deloney.

01:06:59.720 That's exactly right.

01:07:00.900 That's exactly right.

01:07:02.400 Are you familiar with, uh, Cal Newport?

01:07:04.700 Oh yeah, yeah.

01:07:05.380 I know Cal.

01:07:06.420 Cal's amazing.

01:07:07.300 I mean, he's a big advocate of not being on social media.

01:07:09.780 He's an amazing person.

01:07:11.460 His, um, uh, yeah, there was his latest book tour.

01:07:16.360 There was two episodes that he put out that I paraded around here that we had spun up

01:07:20.960 some really heavy conversations here at our office.

01:07:24.220 Cause I think he's right.

01:07:25.580 And, um, yeah, that's my bold prediction.

01:07:28.620 If your business is entirely social media, it's going to go away in five years.

01:07:32.560 You should start thinking about alternative ways to do your life now.

01:07:36.160 That's me.

01:07:36.900 Um, maybe it's some lofty thinking too, but we'll see.

01:07:40.360 Hopeful, hopeful and wishful thinking, right?

01:07:42.220 Yeah.

01:07:42.380 YouTube and podcast.

01:07:43.600 Hopefully there's some version of them out there forever.

01:07:45.840 But, um, this, this, this crack scrolling dude is just not good for us, man.

01:07:52.380 Yeah.

01:07:52.600 It's bad.

01:07:53.240 It's bad.

01:07:53.940 All right, brother.

01:07:54.540 We'll, we'll connect everything up and link everybody to the podcast.

01:07:57.280 I appreciate you, man.

01:07:58.060 And of course our friendship as well.

01:07:59.720 Uh, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

01:08:01.360 Hey, can I say something real quick before you get off?

01:08:02.760 Yes, absolutely.

01:08:04.540 Watching.

01:08:04.940 Um, I just want to thank you for giving a model, a picture of what it looks like to struggle

01:08:11.620 and then to dust yourself off and then to fall and dust yourself off.

01:08:17.060 And then you're doing something that most men in your situation never, ever do, which is

01:08:22.340 show new smiles and new laughter and new joy, because there's going to be a, uh, uh, um,

01:08:29.860 like a high school auditorium full of people ready to poke fun at you or to go.

01:08:34.540 I told you so if you ever skin your knee again, if you ever fall again, and it takes great

01:08:39.500 courage.

01:08:39.980 I think the courage, it takes courage to get up, of course, but it takes more courage to

01:08:43.380 say, I'm living my life again.

01:08:45.820 And that model that you're putting out for the world is really, really important, man.

01:08:49.820 And very, very few people have the courage to do that.

01:08:51.780 So thank you for that.

01:08:53.100 That means a lot.

01:08:53.940 It's been a, it's been a struggle highs and lows, but that means a lot to me, especially

01:08:57.680 coming from you, man.

01:08:58.420 I appreciate it.

01:08:59.200 Well, the, the lows are our, that's our currency of the day, right?

01:09:02.680 It is to tell everybody, like they call it, uh, they call it, um, there's a, there's

01:09:06.660 a term, term for it, but it's some, it's pornography, right?

01:09:10.140 Look how bad everything is.

01:09:11.340 And few people have the courage to actually show, look how good stuff is going.

01:09:14.360 Like I met somebody and she's great.

01:09:16.620 My son and I had a great breakfast.

01:09:18.540 We went to Africa, dude.

01:09:19.660 That's amazing, dude.

01:09:20.740 And I appreciate you putting that stuff out.

01:09:22.600 It gives us other men who are struggling, like, dude, it's, it's all right to have a good

01:09:27.420 day too.

01:09:28.480 Yeah.

01:09:28.940 Thank you, man.

01:09:29.580 That means a lot.

01:09:30.220 I appreciate it.

01:09:30.880 All right, brother.

01:09:32.240 Take care.

01:09:33.080 You too.

01:09:35.800 Gentlemen, there you go.

01:09:37.080 John Deloney.

01:09:37.900 I always love having conversations with John.

01:09:40.100 Uh, he and I have met in person.

01:09:41.800 We haven't been on our hunts or anything together, but I'm sure that's happening.

01:09:44.720 And I think after this conversation, you can hear why this one was so powerful.

01:09:50.260 Uh, please make sure that you connect with John on the gram, on Twitter, on YouTube, all

01:09:54.600 the places, pick up a copy of his book, building a non anxious life.

01:09:58.560 And then if you would, just as a brief ask, just take a screenshot right now that you're

01:10:03.020 listening to this podcast, post it up on Facebook or Instagram or X and tag John Deloney, tag

01:10:09.240 myself at Ryan Mickler and let other people know what you're listening to.

01:10:12.760 It's a selfless way to promote what we're doing and to share a mission of reclaiming and restore

01:10:17.480 masculinity that millions and millions of men across the country need to hear.

01:10:20.940 This is the way we get this out.

01:10:22.220 You know, we could do Facebook advertising and all these high dollar budget type things.

01:10:26.720 And, you know, we will get into that a little bit, but at the end of the day, it's what

01:10:31.220 your neighbor thinks.

01:10:32.460 It's what your dad or your brother or your cousin or your friend thinks that's going to

01:10:36.700 have the most impact.

01:10:37.560 And if you have somebody who would benefit from hearing this, then go ahead and share

01:10:41.540 it that way.

01:10:42.740 That's my ask for you today.

01:10:44.100 Also check out the forge, a gathering of men again, May 1st through the 4th, 2025.

01:10:48.680 And you can do that at themensforge.com.

01:10:52.640 All right, guys, those are your marching orders for the day.

01:10:55.080 We'll be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything.

01:10:57.860 Until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:11:02.840 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

01:11:05.800 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:11:09.820 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

01:11:18.680 We'll be right back.

What's The Deal With Men's Mental Health？ With John Delony

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Order of Man

What&#x27;s The Deal With Men&#x27;s Mental Health？ With&#xA0;John&#xA0;Delony

Episode Stats

People

Summary

Transcript

What's The Deal With Men's Mental Health？ With John Delony