#161： Turning Boys Into Men： The Power of Mentoring
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Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, we talk about the importance of mentoring young men and why it's so important to have mentors in your life to help you become a better young man. In this episode, we have a special guest, Dream Gunter, who is the author of the new book, "The Man Book" and has been a mentor to many young men in his neighborhood.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so a while back
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ago i got an email from an art of manliness reader his name is dream gunter and he uh he's
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he does a lot of mentoring for at-risk young men in the oakland area so we're talking young men in
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poverty who are at risk for crime and the like and he was working on a book directed at these young
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men and he asked me to contribute something to it it's all about skills that a guy should learn
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that a lot of these young men weren't learning because they didn't have dads and that book came
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the man book and it's out right now we're going to talk about it today but also on the podcast i
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talked to dream about mentoring or being a mentor for young men and why it's so important what you
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can do to become a mentor to other young men and why even if you're a grown man your 30s 40s or 50s
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should find mentors in your life to help you become your best self also we talk about just this content
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in the man book a lot of great stuff about becoming responsible holding yourself accountable we talk
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about dealing with setbacks and failures talk about a huge setback that dream had while he was in
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college that shattered his dreams of professional baseball a really interesting podcast with a lot
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of great takeaways so without further ado dream gunter and the man book all right dream gunter
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welcome to the show thank you all right so you have this book uh called the man book out and uh you
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asked me uh to be a part of it which i was really honored we're gonna get to that we're gonna talk about
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that in a little bit but before we get there let's talk about what brought you to writing the book
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um you have a really interesting background um because you're a young guy uh i mean you're in
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your 30s i'm imagining yeah i i think i think i'm young yeah so but you spent uh most of your
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adult life uh mentoring young men so we're talking like high school kids yes what are the biggest
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problems you saw in the lives of the young men you worked with and talk more about the type of young
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men you did work with okay um so the type of young men that i usually worked with are inner city youth
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so it was most of them most of them would be black and latino background um i thought it was really
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important to to touch those cultures um because of the struggle that a lot of them have been been a part
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of the biggest problem that i see with young men is just the lack of belief in themselves and i think
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it's due to the support around them since the lack of belief in themselves is so low they sometimes do
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whatever it takes to make others believe what they want to create about themselves gotcha and do you
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think that that lack of belief in themselves i mean did it stem from not having fathers is it poverty
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is it not you know not having that support uh network there yeah actually i actually believe
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it's the challenge they face i think they go to every race so i think that some of the topics that
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i touch in the book are for every single race so the the youth that i've worked with is not
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primarily about race it's more about culture and the poverty where they grew up in and when they
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a lot of that poverty is based on not having a father around i don't know the stats exactly but i know
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that when there's this one parent household or one income coming in it's less likely that the family
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is going to be successful and of course a lot of people have made it out but some people don't know
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how to make it out and they're struggling and the kids and the young men in those families have to put
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a lot of burden on themselves so they're trying to do something and show something and create something
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that they don't really know how to do exactly i always tell people if they've never been shown
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something how do you learn how to do it you know and when i was growing up i played baseball and if my dad
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never showed me how to play baseball how would i know how to play baseball yeah so i mean yeah
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having that dad around just not even like to like show you specifically like sit down and show you
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hey son this is how you do it but just being a model you learn a lot through osmosis as a as a as a kid
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i tell people all the time i say for me as a man every child i come in contact with
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i need to make make sure that a child's watching me so whatever i do i act like a child's watching me so
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i don't want to do anything that i wouldn't want a young man or um or a young woman also to see
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so i try to make sure i live my life in an area where somebody can watch me and learn from me i
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have actually a two-year-old son currently but even before he was born i still had a lot of young men
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that i was connected to and i want to make sure that i showed them a model of how to how to walk and
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how to talk and how to do certain things yeah being coming to dad definitely makes you more
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self-conscious of how you act because you realize i mean mike my son's like five and like he's
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you you realize you don't think they're watching but they are because like he's done stuff that like
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i did that and like i'm like that's the only where the only place he learned that you know
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to do that like it was from me and i didn't sit down and teach him how to do it a lot of times we
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don't even know that they're watching us so for example i hate and it's going to be terrible it's
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going to you're going to hate this but i hate vegetables like i hate vegetables and i eat i eat my
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meat but i don't eat the vegetables like i should and my son is two years old and now he doesn't eat
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his vegetables and i'm watching him like why won't you eat your vegetables and i'm starting to
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realize that maybe he sees dad not be his vegetables and i've never told him i always tell him to eat
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his vegetables but it's just because he watches they see what i do yeah they're always watching
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so like what in the beginning of the book i talk about a young man and the reason why i wrote the
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book i took these young men to see a motivational speaker and i don't know if you know who tony robbins
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is but i took him to see tony robbins and we're in a hotel room and we're listening to music
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and one of the young men was talking about how his father lives actually a block away from him
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so basically my program i had him in my program and i had this brother his brother lived with his
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dad and his brother would come to the program every saturday and say hey dad told me to tell you hi
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and the young boy was 18 years old he said i don't understand why my brothers always tell me that my
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dad says hi why can't he call me he only lives a block away from me he says i'm 18 years old i don't
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know how to tie a tie i don't know how to talk to a young woman i just don't know how to do things that
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i feel like a father is supposed to teach a son and all i know is about everybody that's shown me
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on my in my neighborhood how to how to do these man man things and they don't do it in the right way
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so that's when i said what what can i do like i know my role is to be these young men's mentors but
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what can i do to help other young men get over that hump of learning how to deal with that you know
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with the loss of a father just getting that manhood advice from somebody so that's why the book was
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created gotcha not yeah it's the man book's office it's got a lot of great photos in it and
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it's littered with different like man skills that you wish you know that dads are supposed to teach
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their their sons but you start off the book thank you talking about um accountability and responsibility
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why is that the reason i started off with that is because i feel like men in general have an issue
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with accountability it is all it's always someone else's fault you know when we do certain things
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it's it's not my fault but it's somebody else's fault all the time accountability means letting
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go of your act let your let your actions rise above your excuses in the book i talked about three steps
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of accountability um it's like in the beginning is taking responsibility during it is empowering
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yourself and after is accepting personal responsibility gotcha and and how can a man
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develop more accountability and responsibility lives even like you know even like i've noticed
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myself i'll do that too like the whole like something wrong happens and then i'll just like
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i'll blame something else and i'm like well i probably should step up and take so i mean even if
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you're if a man's in his 20s 30s what can they do to develop more accountability in their lives is it a
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matter of getting a group of friends that hold them accountable is it just holding themselves
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accountable i i think actually it's everything combined in a one you know it's having a mate
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that holds you accountable it's about having friends that hold you accountable and also yourself and i
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think that's the biggest part of holding yourself accountable because i know if i do something or even
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if i don't do something if i'm a part of something then it's my responsibility to give my part i know in
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the book i talk about if you're in a group a study group and you're all have a certain project going
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on and the person in your in your group doesn't do a certain part and then you end up not doing
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your part either and then you guys get an f and then you get mad and you say you know they didn't
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do their part so that's why we failed but you have to realize that you didn't also do your part
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and you didn't also do the part to the level that it should be at you know so you have to take
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responsibility for your actions in every aspect of your life and i think that's really huge in
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young men because as we're growing up we just like children so like i was saying my son's two
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and he might do something and i say you know josiah my son's name is josiah i'll say josiah
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you know did you go back to vegetables you eat your vegetables and he'll say yes knowing he didn't
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eat his vegetables and i i'm thinking about how did a young child that's two years old already learned
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how to lie and already learned how to not be accountable so i think it's it's kind of inherited
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and um all like just as as young people as grown people we just don't take accountability for our
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actions and adults grandparents every a lot of people don't take accountability and i think
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that's huge in our in our world today is being accountable for the things that you are a part of
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gotcha gotcha so you move on and you talk about i thought this was really interesting you talk about
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three approaches or three levels of how people approach life can you talk about what those levels
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are yeah so the levels are uh survivalist success and significance and i think that most people
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they want in life to have number three the most but they want to do it while getting number two
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which is so they want to do it with significance but they want to get it while they're getting
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success so like if you're getting success but you're not significant sometimes people can just
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deal with that you know or if you're significant but then you're you're you're broke and you don't
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have any money you know you're like what's going on and i think the goal is to how how do you
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create all of that into one gotcha and so just to clarify so survivalist is like you're just
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trying to get by right and yes bare bones is necessity and success is is when we're talking
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about success are we talking about primarily financial success and actually no we're talking
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about all types of success but just living a comfortable life okay all right and then significance
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is i'm guessing it's just like living a life of meaning or leaving having a larger purpose and
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leaving a legacy exactly living with purpose so in the book i talk about four steps you have to take
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to get a significant life and actually to create all three and and without if you miss even one of
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those steps it's hard to create that significant life that you want to create and the the steps are
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passion confidence goal and lifestyle and what i mean my passion is before anything starts you have to
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get a passion for something as i was saying when i was younger i played or not in college i played
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baseball and my passion was being the best player i could be that i had a passion for baseball when i
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wrote this book i had a passion for changing young people and and it's actually kind of crazy going off
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topic but the book was for young people and young men that grew up without a father but the feedback
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i've been getting from people is that this book has been beneficial to all men so not just the younger
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man that i thought that i was writing the book for but it's been beneficial for all men and also even
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women are having that have sons or trying to just know more about how a man should act that's just
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side note but passion is about what what does your heart really desire and confidence is huge because
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if you can't create confidence in yourself other people are believing you also and and when i mean
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confidence i don't mean cocky i mean that you really believe that your passion is important and you
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have confidence that's what you're what you're passionate about is is it's helpful to somebody
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else when you do goals i talk about smart goals and i know in school they always talk about smart
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goals which are specific measurable attainable realistic and timely so you have these goals that
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you have to create and write down your goals that's based off your confidence and your passion
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and the biggest part that i feel like is is lifestyle you know a lot of times we have passion for
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something so say we want to change the world or we want to um i don't know if you want to cure um the
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water epidemic that we have you know and then in your lifestyle you continue to drink bottled water
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you know whatever whatever you say your passions and what you're confident and what your goals are
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your lifestyle has to match that so if you want to be a person that wants to like lift up women and
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make sure women are living successful but you're always dating 10 women at a time then you're you're not
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living the lifestyle of what you're trying to create so basically you're just saying like walk
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the talk right exactly right okay yeah i've seen that happen a lot where people yeah they have they
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have this idea or ideal that they they want to strive for but they don't actually live up to it or
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actually put that into action all right so uh you talk this is kind of interesting you have this
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section about vulnerability and yeah you don't really associate that like being vulnerable as a guy
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thing like that's not masculine but you explained vulnerability in kind of a different way that
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made it like okay that that makes sense what do you mean by like a man should be vulnerable
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yeah so like most men have been taught to hide who they really are you know or i wouldn't say
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hide who they really are they've been taught to hide their feelings you know we we're supposed to be
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we're supposed to get upset be tough and laugh we don't really show the other emotions or we're not
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supposed to show those other emotions and i think one of the biggest complaints when i talk to women
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is i always hear women complain about the thing that they have issues with with men is that we always
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shut down you know we get upset we shut down we don't want to be touched we don't want to be talked
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to we just want to shut down and go into our own cave and and i feel like this that's the biggest
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issue in this world today and that's why i feel like people get killed people get hurt i feel like
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that's why a lot of things happen is because we hold so much in us until we explode and then we
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explode then that's when we kill somebody or that's when something happens you know because we're holding
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so much anger and so much frustration in us instead of being able to let it out and talk to somebody
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or be vulnerable open up to even if it's just open up to people close to you but you have to be able
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to let something out and i heard this one time that before you can even receive something so
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all right let me actually give you an example so if i decide that i want to give up smoking
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right i have to if i give up smoking i have to uh combat that something with something else so
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if i let go of that i have to get something else right so i can't just say i'm going to stop smoking
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and then just stop cold turkey if i say i'm going to stop smoking i need to uh maybe work out at that
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time that i feel like i have to smoke so something has to change that that desire to smoke
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so that's the same thing with with being vulnerable we have to have something that can can heal us from
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that hurt or something that can take over that hurt so when instead of us just holding it all in
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we have to be able to let it go to get something else into us right we can't even receive anything
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if we're holding so much hurt into us and so much frustration into us so we can't love if we're not
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being vulnerable so it all comes together if we don't open up we can't we can't receive anything
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does that make sense yeah yeah yeah and then i like how you also talk in the book about how
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uh vulnerability is like the the first step towards self-improvement in a lot of ways
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right like you have in all aspects yeah because you have i mean basically being vulnerable is like
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admitting like i don't have all the answers i'm not good at this thing and like that i mean i know
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for a lot of guys like that's kind of that sucks like you don't want to admit that like you're
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incompetent or you're not good at something right you're just to put on this you know uh front that like
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you you have it together but if you want to actually get better you have to admit and be
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vulnerable and like say hey i don't know how to like tie a tie can you show me how and how many men
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want to do that especially to another man you know no yeah and then and and also is the fun if i mean
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we make jokes about a lot but you know if we're driving around and we have a woman on a patch seat we
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don't want to stop and ask for directions because we have to feel like we know it all yeah you know and
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it's funny but it's true because we have to we have to always show that we are a man's man
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instead of saying you know what i don't know how to get there let me give directions yeah you know
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thank god for now our iphones and our our cellular device that can give us directions so we don't have
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to ask anybody else but you know it's it's it's just the the true statement that men have an issue with
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giving themselves up yeah or feeling not even giving them feeling like they're giving themselves up
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yeah like they we like i feel like we let ego get in the way sometimes right of a lot of things
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yes yeah right and so i mean it happens to let me i just like here's a perfect example of my own life
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of uh vulnerability is like i'm i'm lifting weights right and i'm trying to get stronger
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and i i have a coach that i go to and like i send him my my uh videos of my lifts so he can
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critique them and today's list like they just sucked i just i was not feeling good this morning
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and they were terrible and i knew they were terrible but i had sent him in to him anyway
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because i knew like he's going to have advice for me what to do um so i kind of admit like i
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this suck i i sucked right now but i need your help and i know that he's going to send feedback to me
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that's going to help me get better and improve upon that so it all starts with like opening yourself
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and letting go of the ego yep and working out is probably is one of the one of the biggest parts
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you know just like if we're if we need a spot in the gym a lot of times we're like no we don't want to
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ask for a spot because we got this and then the weight gets too heavy and it's stuck on our chest
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and we can't even pick it up and then you don't want to show that we exactly exactly right um all
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right so uh you move on a lot of this is really interesting you talk about the the three f's plus
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one as the backbone of being a man can you explain what the three f's plus one is yeah so three f's are
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fight failure fear and then the plus one is faith um you know i feel like every man has been taught
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these things right and it could be good or bad but and even if it's you don't have a father around but
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everybody's been taught you know that you fight you know there's failures there's fear and there's
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faith but you i mean we might have all been taught differently but we've all been taught these things
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um and even if people don't agree with my points in this book everybody agrees with these four things
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are something that we live with day to day in every aspect of our life we are either fighting
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you know for what we believe or we're not fighting because we're we're we're fearful that we're going
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to fail in what we believe in or we're fighting because we have the faith to believe that what we're
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fighting for is right and that can be in every aspect so um i think fight failure fear and faith
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are important in our life and i just what i put in this book was trying to simplify that into
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understanding why these things are important for us and why they matter and maybe not in the same way
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everybody else sees them gotcha so dream here's a question so you uh work with a lot of at-risk youth
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the the the sad thing about poverty or like the the young men who are at risk like it's a it's a
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it can oftentimes be a cycle right it just goes on always always yes always so how do you break out
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of that i mean you talk about uh you know men need to become a changeover but like how do you do that
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how do you actually escape from your past and what are the biggest obstacles that prevent young men
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from letting go and growing from their their past that might not have been so great
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and it's that's a great question and it's and it's huge because um so i'll tell you how this
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how the changeover basically started um talking to one of the friends of mine he has a son and he was
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talking about how um his son is about eight years old and he said that it's really hard for him to
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you know relate and be there for a son all the time and i didn't understand what he was talking about
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because my father's always been there so i i don't think i ever appreciated it until i talked to
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my friends that didn't have fathers around and he was telling me that sometimes he'd just go home
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and cry because he didn't know what he was teaching his son was the correct thing and i and it blew my
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mind because i said wow if he's never been taught something how does he know how to teach this what
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like what is what what can he do and i told him and i called him later on that said you know what
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you're going to be the changeover look in the dictionary to see what changeover meant and it said just
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to change to do something different and i said wow this is you can change your legacy like this can be
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a word that we can use to change the whole trajectory of like your whole family's lifeline
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is if you change then everybody else behind you changes and and if you go to any kind of you know
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what people say the projects or the hood if you go to these places a lot of times it the grandmothers
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or the great-grandmothers lived in the house then the grandmother took it over then the mother took it
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over then you know the son or whoever else has taken it over but the house stays in the family
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because everybody's been in the same in the same house right how do you change that if your whole
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legacy has been one thing you know and my my thought was you have to see yourself as whatever
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you decide you want to create and want to become you see yourself as that right and the biggest thing
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is connecting to the mentorship piece in there but the thing is to find somebody that is what you want
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to become and once you find somebody that's what you want to become you model after them you find
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that so for example my dad is to me probably the most amazing man in the world right and it's going
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to be funny but i've never seen my dad do anything wrong and and i've literally never seen him look at
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somebody say oh what what do they what are they wearing he i've never heard him cuss never nothing
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everything he does is about positivity and uplifting and um when i went to college one of my friends
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uh his dad was i think his dad was a pimp and his mom was a prostitute um and they gave him up to his
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grandmother then he left his grandmother when he was about 14 so this kid was living on his own
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till he was in college so he's in college and and we're doing things and we became really close
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and he came to my house one time he was talking about how he didn't have a car he didn't know what
00:22:45.080
to do my dad and and so i'll tell you my parents aren't they're not the most wealthy people in the
00:22:51.720
world you know they're regular middle class people that struggle just like everybody else but also can
00:22:56.000
pay their bills he was talking about his struggles how he's never really been given anything never
00:22:59.580
been got a gift or or he and he doesn't have a car my parents decided to give him their car and this
00:23:05.280
was in 2002 and they gave him a 98 intrepid so a fairly newer car and they decided just to give him
00:23:13.880
their car because they felt like he needed something and this kid cried and cried and cried and now this
00:23:19.160
man has two kids and he is probably the best father ever and he does everything and he always
00:23:24.900
credits that just from that moment that my dad gave him that car because he said he realized that people
00:23:29.540
are do care about him and there is people that are important and just because he saw somebody
00:23:34.120
caring for somebody else now he knows how to care for other people and that's a simple simple thing
00:23:38.500
that happened that changed his whole entire life gotcha and just what i'm saying is you can be the
00:23:43.660
changeover based on just modeling somebody else's actions awesome and it also takes we'll talk about
00:23:49.680
this later too but it takes someone who's you know let's quote unquote gots it together got it
00:23:54.580
together to reach out and help someone who needs that that change exactly exactly okay we'll talk
00:24:01.780
about about that in a sec well let's go back to this i just i read this about you and i thought
00:24:06.480
this was really interesting so you you talked about failure and that's a big part of every man's life
00:24:12.320
they're gonna have big setbacks in life can you tell us about a big setback in your life that you
00:24:17.460
had to overcome and how did you handle it yeah so um wow so i have actually yeah i've had i've had a
00:24:26.400
huge setback in my life um it basically changed everything about me when i was in college i played
00:24:32.380
baseball i was in missouri i did actually really well playing baseball and i thought i was going to be
00:24:37.260
drafted um and a lot of the people thought i was going to be drafted i actually was traveling around
00:24:41.840
different places to perform for different teams when i was in college at that time out of nowhere
00:24:46.420
my liver failed i i didn't understand why because i didn't drink you know usually when you when you
00:24:51.260
think about liver failure you think about somebody's an alcoholic and i had never tasted alcohol in my
00:24:56.300
life so it was very awkward for me to have an issue where my liver was had failed and at that time i
00:25:02.020
didn't know what to do i was taking i worked out a lot and i was taking um a pill that i thought was
00:25:08.760
just you know over the counter pill thought it'd be fine come to find out the pill had a steroid in
00:25:12.780
it but not a steroid to like get you stronger but a steroid to kill you so my liver failed and
00:25:18.460
i didn't know what i was going to do so i went from 245 to 145 in a month my bones had kind of
00:25:25.700
deteriorated so much that i can barely even walk so i was in a wheelchair and and trying to get by
00:25:30.320
every day and it was just it was horrible doctor came into my room and told me that there was a
00:25:35.220
possibility i can die and he told me like if i wanted to get a liver transplant they would have
00:25:40.140
to seek out somebody that had the same you know liver as me and i decided that i didn't want that
00:25:44.020
i said you know if it's my time to go it's my time to go because he told me that if i got a liver
00:25:47.740
transplant and the person was a smoker or something like that their traits i might inherit those traits
00:25:53.100
and i decided no that's nothing i want to do i'm gonna just you know hopefully hopefully just
00:25:58.760
make it i was blessed and i made it after i made i went back to try to play baseball again
00:26:03.520
and the ncaa my first game of season i was on we were playing um at the metrodome
00:26:08.200
in minnesota and i was getting ready to go on the field and my coach got a call saying that
00:26:13.200
the ncaa is not gonna let me play because i had taken a steroid so i didn't understand because i
00:26:17.980
said that i didn't know anything about it being a steroid my doctor wrote letters to him and said
00:26:22.360
jureen didn't take a steroid it was or the steroid wasn't it wasn't a steroid to boost him working
00:26:27.220
out it was a steroid that kills him the ncaa still wouldn't let me play and they basically said
00:26:31.860
that they it wasn't that what i was taking was negative but they had to basically make
00:26:36.220
an example out of me a good player that you know that was taking something i shouldn't that i
00:26:41.280
shouldn't have been taking so at that time i had no idea what i was going to do i was stuck i said
00:26:46.060
all i thought i was going to do is ever play baseball so i came back home i've been working
00:26:49.720
with youth over the summer i i come out and help out of different programs and i said you know what
00:26:54.280
let me just help out my community start working with students and i realized that that was what i was
00:26:57.740
supposed to be doing and that's why i got sick so that i can come out here and be a blessing to
00:27:02.300
these young men so i definitely had a huge setback but that oh that setback basically was really a
00:27:08.740
setup for this huge success about changing lives of young men and how do you avoid i mean did you
00:27:15.560
get angry i mean and if if not like what did you do to like not get angry like i mean i could see
00:27:20.480
myself just totally getting angry at the world god like the ncaa like yeah no no oh no it was it was
00:27:27.320
it was complete like when they first i was completing because you know as as a you know 20
00:27:32.060
year old baseball player you're thinking this all you're going to do and i'm stuck i don't know what
00:27:36.320
to do um and i was angry you know and and i won't and to this day i won't say that i'm angry now i wish
00:27:45.260
i could know what the possibility would have been but i feel like everything happened exactly how it's
00:27:50.580
supposed to happen so at that time i was angry um but i think the anger changed about
00:27:56.460
two and a half months later after i came back home and i think i was also embarrassed because
00:28:02.660
i was saying how could they say that i took a steroid i did take a steroid you know when i look
00:28:06.240
at steroids i think about players you know like mark mcguire people that were intentionally taking
00:28:10.600
steroids to get better and that wasn't me so i was really frustrated um but but when i came back home
00:28:20.120
and i went and worked with i think it was my first student i uh went into i was a p teacher i went
00:28:25.060
to a kindergarten class and i had this kindergarten circle up and we were just dancing around and doing
00:28:31.040
little moves and i had them um play four square and it was my first day and my teacher i mean one
00:28:37.520
of the students a five-year-old boy said you're the best teacher we've ever had and this is my first
00:28:42.380
day and i said wow i guess that's what i'm supposed to do um and that's when everything just kind of
00:28:47.540
started i just stayed with that and i ended up running stolen and doing different things because i felt
00:28:51.400
like that's what i had to be doing and i love it now that's awesome that's awesome so you found
00:28:56.180
another opportunity and you took it yes gotcha and also i guess another lesson is don't like the
00:29:03.340
guys out there because i know a lot of guys work out and they do like be careful the supplements you
00:29:06.840
take because oh my goodness please yeah please they um they actually um they end up having me as a
00:29:13.240
spokesperson um for um a lot of different things i had to go speak speak on capitol hill
00:29:18.920
about supplements a lot of things that i found out is that if things aren't actually you can go
00:29:25.520
into gnc and say hey i want you to sell my product and they can sell it it doesn't have to be fda
00:29:31.120
approved for them to sell it at gnc which is incredible like that blows my mind i'm like how
00:29:35.780
can a corporation be able to sell whatever they want you know without without it going through some
00:29:40.420
type of you know regulations and they and they don't have to yeah there's there's really no regulation
00:29:45.360
there like you can pretty much slap a label on anything and anything it's crazy and the guy that
00:29:53.020
was selling my product was actually making it out of his um out of the trunk of his uh car he had he
00:29:59.500
has a minivan he was making a product out of the trunk of his minivan and sold in in two weeks he
00:30:05.200
sold 1.5 million dollars from this supplement that he made out of the trunk of his car crazy like they
00:30:11.380
they're selling this at gnc amazon yep whatever so yeah that's another thing that there's that's
00:30:16.420
something if you guys do it if you take supplements be careful of the supplements you take definitely
00:30:21.820
so watch out for that let's talk about male friendship what what role has male friendship
00:30:28.100
played in your life and be shaping the man you are i so i'll give you an example a long time ago i was
00:30:34.120
struggling with something basically about friends supporting me i i ended up being and my friends
00:30:39.340
weren't supporting it and um i was venting to another friend about you know the issue i had
00:30:44.140
with that and he said dream you have to understand because you support everybody else that doesn't
00:30:50.260
mean that everybody's reality is going to be your reality or your reality is not going to be everybody
00:30:55.500
else's reality and it made so much sense to me and and i couldn't at that time i was like wow why is
00:31:01.760
he saying that but afterwards i thought about what he meant by that and basically these people weren't on
00:31:08.600
the same path as me not that they weren't still my friends but they sometimes friendship is not
00:31:14.220
based on longevity like i've like i've always thought like if i've had if you were my friend for
00:31:18.000
20 years i feel like you should be my friend for the rest of my life you know and a lot of times is
00:31:22.720
friends are here for seasons so that might have been you know a five a good five year season but
00:31:28.360
i might have another friend that's here that pushes me and helps me grow so i think every friendship
00:31:32.580
is about what can they give to your life to make you better and make you stronger and i would also
00:31:39.320
say never stop being yourself like don't allow anybody else to make you not be yourself you know
00:31:45.560
find friends that appreciate who you are and help you strive to do what you want to do in the past
00:31:49.620
and don't hold your path over over your head let's end this talking about male mentorship this is this is
00:31:54.520
how it all started i'd like to end with this i know there's a lot of guys out there who would like
00:31:59.020
to start mentoring like it's something they feel like they they want to do but they're not sure how
00:32:04.240
to do it any advice for the guys out there who would like to start mentoring yeah for me mentorship
00:32:13.260
is the most important thing you can do and you can get out of so mentorship always not about the
00:32:19.080
young person or even the older person it's about yourself right and i don't want to take it as selfish
00:32:22.920
but mentorship can be selfish sometimes because what you don't know is that you're getting
00:32:28.320
so much out of it right kids have literally changed my life based on me just hearing things
00:32:34.380
they're saying they're the thoughts that they have about themselves and then it creates things that
00:32:38.240
i said oh you know what i have that same thought about myself you know so how do i help them and i'm
00:32:42.460
struggling too so it's very powerful um actually currently i'm trying to create a platform for mentors
00:32:49.180
for people that share the same goal so i'm trying to create some type of online thing where men can
00:32:54.840
become mentors if you're a young person and you want to be a doctor you can you can go on this
00:33:00.640
website and you can talk to a doctor about your thoughts and the doctor give you feedback about
00:33:05.480
how you can become what you want to become um i think it's really important for all men to
00:33:09.440
you know some and even if you're not even if you feel like you're not successful yet you still need
00:33:13.080
to be in some type of mentorship because what you have you can always share with somebody else and
00:33:16.400
help somebody else out yeah i mean like because i've had guys say that like i want to mentor but
00:33:20.440
like i'm 30 years old and like i feel like i need a mentor right and i got why should i be out there
00:33:25.680
mentoring these kids when i think i need a mentor even those type of guys should try to try mentoring
00:33:30.820
out definitely and i actually have a mentor now you know i'm 33 or my 34 no i'm 33 but i'm 33 and i
00:33:39.140
still to this day have a mentor i feel like you never stop there's always going to be somebody that
00:33:42.800
knows more than you about what you want to do and maybe it's not even what you want to do but you
00:33:46.580
might see somebody you say you know what i want to be that one day so that becomes your mentor you
00:33:51.480
talk to see if they'd be your mentor i have mentors now to this day and i'm this age and i mentor i
00:33:56.480
literally have about 20 to 25 young men that i mentor to this day so i think it's really and i i don't
00:34:03.180
encourage anybody to get that many because it's really hard to maintain those relationships because
00:34:07.180
mentorship should be personal so i would say grab try one young man and try to mentor that young man
00:34:12.820
and also get you a mentor also that can also give you the tools that you need so i think it's it's
00:34:18.560
it's every platform you come to people need mentors and uh dream this has been a great conversation
00:34:24.900
where can people learn more about the book and your work yeah so my book is actually on my website it's
00:34:31.240
not on amazon i know a lot of people ask about it it's on amazon and the reason it's not on amazon
00:34:34.640
because amazon i i created a product and i felt like the quality is very very high and when i put
00:34:43.560
on amazon the quality doesn't won't stay as high as it is um so that uh it's only on my website
00:34:48.940
currently and that's www.themanbook.org um so themanbook.org if you want to know more information
00:34:56.600
about it please uh contact me if you uh people need speaking engagements please contact me i've been
00:35:02.660
traveling a lot recently but whatever whatever i can do and to share the story of the man book and
00:35:08.020
change young man's life i'm willing to do awesome well dream gunter thank you so much for your time
00:35:13.180
it's been a pleasure thank you so much my guest today was dream gunter he's the author of the book
00:35:18.180
the man book and you can find that on themanbook.org
00:35:22.500
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:35:30.380
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy
00:35:34.820
this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher help us get
00:35:38.960
feedback on how we can improve the show as well as help spread the word about the show as always
00:35:44.660
thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay