The Art of Manliness - #274： Building Your Band of Brothers

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so surveys show

00:00:19.460 that adult men are suffering a friendship crisis most adult men don't have a single friend they

00:00:24.420 could turn to in a time of need and many sociologists suggest this dearth of male

00:00:28.100 friendship is one of the contributing factors in increased mental disorders and suicide rates

00:00:32.480 among men but close male friends don't just keep you from suffering a mental and emotional breakdown

00:00:37.080 they're also vital in shaping you into a better man that's the argument my guest today steven

00:00:42.340 mansfield makes in his latest book building your band of brothers and today on the show steven and

00:00:46.440 i discussed the bleak statistics on male friendship the myth of the lone alpha male and why making

00:00:51.760 friends in adulthood is so hard for men today we then discuss what he means by a band of brothers

00:00:56.600 why men's accountability groups usually fail and how a close-knit group of friends can help make

00:01:01.300 you a better man we end our discussion by delving into exactly what you need to do to develop a band

00:01:05.940 of brothers and what to do when you get together if you feel like you've been lacking in the friendship

00:01:10.060 department this episode is for you you're going to walk away with some tactics you can put into

00:01:13.600 action right away to begin developing your posse of pals out of the show's over make sure to check

00:01:17.900 out the show notes at aom.is slash band of brothers for links to resources we can delve deeper into this

00:01:22.660 topic steven mansfield welcome back to the show hey it's great to be with you again uh so last time

00:01:36.640 we had you on is a little over a year ago we talked about your book mansfield's uh book manly book for

00:01:41.360 men or manly book of manliness it was a lot of man and manliness in there um great conversation but

00:01:47.900 you got a new book out um building your band of brothers which i think picks up where you left off

00:01:53.600 with your first book so why did you feel it was necessary to write a book on how to develop i mean

00:02:00.180 what it is it's how to develop friends as an adult male uh why do you think that was necessary

00:02:04.780 well you know what i'd written this book mansfield's book of manly men i was speaking about it all over

00:02:09.780 the world grateful for the opportunity and i realized uh months after the book came out and great

00:02:14.900 things were happening with it that i had made a mistake and that was that i had done what many

00:02:19.660 people do i had described manhood i had urged men towards it i had probed them asked questions

00:02:26.440 held up historical figures but i had not actually given them the final step that i knew uh which is

00:02:34.160 that they're going to have to get some men around them to help them execute this they're going to have

00:02:37.960 to have uh as i say a band of brothers to help them perfect achieve uh righteous noble manhood

00:02:43.920 so that that was missing from my first book it was my fault so i decided to write a little

00:02:49.460 companion paperback uh to help bring that to the fore and to emphasize it and so uh it's it's my

00:02:55.720 omission uh and i think it's also an omission we often have in uh in in men's literature that we

00:03:01.220 don't get practical like this so that's why i went after this book but why do you think it's necessary

00:03:05.680 for men to be a part of a band of brothers in order to become the men they want to be right i mean like

00:03:11.400 there's this sort of um trope uh in i guess cinema american cinema the you know the idea of the lone

00:03:17.560 alpha wolf like clint eastwood's man with no name who just on his own he becomes the man he does what

00:03:23.640 he wants he's he's pretty cool because he has that sort of self-resolve to develop himself he doesn't

00:03:28.220 need anyone else why do you think men need to surround themselves with men to become the men they

00:03:33.160 want to be well first of all that that myth that image is a very american image and it's a very

00:03:39.460 selective image i mean there was the occasional lone figure who would ride off into the wilderness

00:03:44.260 but for the most part it was communities that settled the nation and uh so we have this more

00:03:48.960 emphasized in movies than it ever would have been you know in american history but the reason it has

00:03:53.800 to be emphasized is that we we men uh naturally have friendships when we're you know boys when we're

00:04:01.300 in high school when we're in college it's easy the guys are there uh you know we're open to it

00:04:07.320 uh friendships that we don't have to work at it just kind of happens automatically but when we get

00:04:12.400 into our adulthood that's when crisis hits i mean it can happen for high school and college kid too

00:04:17.240 but but it tends to happen when a guy gets into his business life when he marries when he has children

00:04:23.260 it starts to isolate him all those things are wonderful but he tends to not have meaningful

00:04:29.100 connections to other men he knows guys you know maybe from the health club or from the work or

00:04:34.140 you know whatever religious organization he might be part of but for the most part men find themselves

00:04:39.860 the surveys show this they find themselves in a sea of casual relationships i mean you know the

00:04:44.940 surveys very well the average man can't name a best friend he doesn't know who he'd call if he was out

00:04:50.200 of town and his wife needed help at three in the morning um you know suicide rates are skyrocketing

00:04:55.400 when we do the post-mortem on men who commit suicide normally it's loneliness normally it's i don't

00:05:01.100 have a friend normally there's no man close enough to me to know what's going on in my life and so we

00:05:05.760 clearly have a crisis of adult males who do not have significant relationships uh with other men and i

00:05:12.500 don't just mean friendships and golfing buddies now i'm talking about guys who really know their lives

00:05:15.920 and are helping them achieve something better right i think it's interesting too that there is this idea

00:05:21.320 right that's permeated american culture that yeah men men don't like relationships we're sort of

00:05:26.480 loners and things like that but i had psychologists on the show that said no actually men are wired for

00:05:31.400 relationships like as boys men boys are more likely to form these what they call like little you know

00:05:37.180 playground gangs right and while women are more about you know one-on-one didactic relations boys 1.00

00:05:41.900 love making friends and but then as you get as you said as you get into adulthood that just

00:05:47.040 gets harder and harder to do well and part of the reason is it happens naturally when we're young

00:05:52.940 we get older it can tend to become a bit artificial you know they put they do studies where they put

00:05:57.740 little boys and little girls into a room and little girls will move chairs opposite each other

00:06:03.580 look in each other's eyes face each other and one of them will say you know i like your hair

00:06:08.260 i like your dress and they'll start engaging a relationship that way face to face little boys

00:06:13.080 pull the chair side by side look around the room and go i can beat you to that tree hey i bet we can

00:06:18.420 whoop tommy you suppose we can you know go over there and get involved in that and so they look for

00:06:22.480 something to do so men need what we call indirect connections they they aren't going to sit in a 1.00

00:06:28.200 circle and you know dredge up their emotions like some organizations try to get them to do they need

00:06:33.480 something indirect they need to connect while doing something else and that's an art that a man has to

00:06:38.660 learn if he's in a situation like most of us where that's not automatic so you begin your book talking

00:06:44.420 about uh the history of male friendship kind of giving you a cursory summary of it and like as you said

00:06:49.500 earlier this idea of the lone male is a very recent phenomenon so if it is a recent phenomenon

00:06:53.940 what what were male friendships like before the decline of male friendship well male friendships

00:07:01.700 tended to come out of doing other things you were in the military you were plowing the ground you were

00:07:07.440 having the barn raising you were on the ship you know what whatever there was enough work to do 0.68

00:07:13.580 uh there was enough happening and we were enough in community that friendships came naturally out of

00:07:19.480 those kinds of pre-existing connections in other words you were going to connect with men you might

00:07:24.620 as well make friendships among some of them because you were again the village the tribe it simply

00:07:29.580 required it and as we got into our modern society we got a bit more atomized as some people say you know

00:07:36.620 the house in the suburbs the car where you drive alone the cubicle where you work alone at work

00:07:41.720 uh we got into an industrial age and then a digital age uh isolation set in and it's it's not it's not

00:07:48.440 a permanent disease it's not as though we're doomed it's just that we have to reclaim some skills that

00:07:53.720 were sort of automatically used and automatically developed in previous ages and now we have to be

00:07:59.080 a bit more intentional about them and most guys just never are told that they never are confronted

00:08:02.820 with that so they float around like i say in a sea of casual relationships and live out pretty lonely

00:08:07.820 existences yeah you also talk about rust friendships or friendship yeah rust rusty friends

00:08:12.720 yeah a rust friendship is simply an older friendship you're trying to drag into the future that

00:08:18.340 that is not really active like i have dear friends from college um and and i love them dearly and i love

00:08:24.720 talking to them but if i'm relying on that friendship a phone call two or three times a year maybe a

00:08:30.360 vacation together once every five years these guys aren't guys who really know me they they only know

00:08:35.840 what i tell them real friendships know you in 3d they're close enough to see what's going on with

00:08:41.760 you they they know if things aren't going right in your marriage because they're they're close enough

00:08:45.780 to detect it um so so your man's making a mistake if he's taking rust friendships these are older

00:08:51.680 friendships that they're dragging into the future and trying to make those adequate it just it just

00:08:56.360 won't work and sometimes when i ask a guy man do you have any close friends he'll mention army

00:09:00.580 buddies or college buddies or what have you from years ago and that's the best he's got well

00:09:05.680 that guy's in trouble yeah so stephen what's your experience with male friends has this been a

00:09:10.620 problem for you and something you had to be intentional about developing yeah it really is

00:09:15.760 i was a little bit challenged of it either by it even in my boyhood because i was a military brat

00:09:20.520 my father was special forces and intelligence so he moved quite a bit so every year uh for 13 years of

00:09:27.400 my life my childhood life uh i had to make new friends and then we'd we'd up and move so on the one

00:09:33.500 hand i was challenged about friendships and had to make new friends all the time on the other hand i

00:09:37.480 developed some skills maybe other guys didn't have to develop and then i went through high school

00:09:42.200 college and had great friendships there but i fell into the same pattern as as most guys i got i got

00:09:47.960 married uh i had a couple of kids i had a busy career um you know i played racquetball with some guys i

00:09:54.660 went hunting occasionally with some guys but i certainly didn't have men around me who knew me

00:09:59.780 where we were discussing and helping each other with the issues of righteous manhood noble manhood

00:10:05.600 and um and i i went through some crises in my life i mean nothing nothing life destroying but

00:10:11.020 but some crises where i realized you know steven you're alone i mean you know just because you play

00:10:16.360 racquetball with a guy and get a steak or something like that does not mean you've got anybody who's

00:10:20.280 there in a crisis or helping you be a better man uh they're not invested in you you're not invested

00:10:25.860 in them there's something better that should happen here and that's when i really started pursuing what's

00:10:30.200 led me to this book yeah what point in your life did you start being intentional about your your male

00:10:36.160 friends well it really came about when i went through a bit of a crisis years ago the actual

00:10:42.500 nature of the crisis we don't need to take time with although i'm happy to talk about it uh but what

00:10:46.980 happened was some men pulled in around me and began to just because i was in a bit in a bit of trouble

00:10:53.340 um and i don't mean legally or in any major moral way just just relational crisis uh they began to 0.69

00:10:59.800 speak to me they began to say well you know that's happening because you're a knucklehead in this

00:11:03.520 certain area or because you know yeah you got this this quirk in your personality and that's that's

00:11:08.860 obviously what's causing this situation and as they began to kind of hold up mirrors for me as they

00:11:14.080 begin to speak bluntly to me as they began to tell me about their own you know how they got through

00:11:18.840 this on their own i realized that i was living pretty much uh out of what i knew of myself and

00:11:26.700 quick little story that illustrates this the best i know how not too long ago a guy gave me a picture

00:11:33.820 of a part of a scene from a party that i had attended and i looked at the picture saw the person 0.53

00:11:40.160 in the picture i said who is that he said it's you fool well it's one of those pictures that we all 0.54

00:11:46.000 hate you know i was scrunched down on a couch i had about five oreos in my mouth my t-shirt was 0.95

00:11:51.320 stretched over my belly you know my neck was scrunched down on my shoulder so i looked like i

00:11:56.680 had 50 chins i mean i looked like java the hut but i had never seen myself from that perspective

00:12:01.880 and it really dawned on me at that time if i can look away that that i can't even recognize

00:12:08.420 it's probably possible that that i've got some you know internal things that i'm not seeing about

00:12:13.500 myself either i really want to be a good man uh i really want to be the best man i can be i need to

00:12:18.820 have guys around me and so that crisis and that way of thinking caused me to realize uh that i'm you 0.68

00:12:25.960 know i was being an idiot that i i really didn't know myself well enough to to help myself just do 0.57

00:12:32.880 my own insights about myself become the best i could be i needed other men who could see me in 3d 0.94

00:12:38.380 and i gotta tell you it made all the difference in the world so i became more intentional about it and at

00:12:42.480 that time we began getting a lot of these stats about how mid and downward spiral of the suicide

00:12:47.800 rate particularly in england for example and i was raised in largely in europe so i'm aware of

00:12:52.560 european trends and all of that made me realize we had a crisis we had to address so as you've been

00:12:58.320 saying like uh throughout this conversation this is this is more than just a racquetball buddy or a

00:13:03.520 drinking buddy um or sports league buddy this is you're advocating for a band of brothers and

00:13:08.780 you know that phrase is popular now thanks to the hbo miniseries about world war ii and the 101st

00:13:14.620 airborne division but you go into the history of that phrase uh band of brothers uh can you talk

00:13:20.520 about that because i thought it was really interesting sure sure um shakespeare really gave

00:13:26.120 us that phrase and he gave us that phrase in the play henry v uh in that play it's all about a battle

00:13:32.480 between france and england uh in that play uh he has he puts words into the mouth of henry v the henry

00:13:39.860 v the real historical henry v actually made this amazing speech but we don't have much of it written

00:13:44.340 down from that time these were men heading into battle they weren't taking notes so shakespeare

00:13:49.180 imagined that that speech that's called the agincourt speech because it was a battle of agincourt

00:13:54.480 in the early 1400s and um it includes the line we few we happy few we band of brothers well that phrase

00:14:04.620 band of brothers has come down through history uh as just the perfect con the these terse words

00:14:12.560 that really describe what men are looking for they were used at d-day to motivate the guys you know going

00:14:19.700 ashore they were they were used in um you know trafalgar and great naval battles within england

00:14:26.780 english history uh they've certainly been used even in iraq recently either were commanders motivating

00:14:32.360 their troops by quoting uh the agincourt speech and henry v so this this phrase band of brothers of

00:14:39.280 course that's that's where stephen ambrose got it which is why we have it in the hbo special the hbo

00:14:43.540 miniseries but it it really has become the tightest way to describe that we don't just want a group of

00:14:51.380 rowdy guys around us we want a band of brothers men who are committed to us to some degree we're

00:14:56.700 committed to them there's something more happening than just friendship and uh and that's that i think

00:15:02.040 captures it beautifully and and challenges us with it so how how is a band of brothers your idea of a

00:15:07.620 band of brothers so you're saying it's more than just something you a guy you drink with uh do stuff

00:15:12.980 with but you mentioned earlier like it's not really an accountability group or a prayer group or in

00:15:19.780 sort of a men's group that are sort of that are popular in some circles um how how is a band of

00:15:25.040 brothers different from like those type of things well a great question a prayer group or an

00:15:31.880 accountability group i'm all for both but it does it's not going to answer what a man needs because

00:15:37.180 an accountability group for example as it's usually uh styled requires me to figure out what's wrong

00:15:42.460 with me drive across town and tell you about it over you know bacon and eggs well we're assuming

00:15:48.300 i'm going to figure out what's wrong with me we're assuming i'm going to be honest about it we're

00:15:51.720 assuming i'm going to be right um and we're assuming i'm going to you know show up for bacon and eggs

00:15:56.020 well a band of brothers is a group of men who with whom you do life and the thing you're really going

00:16:04.340 for at the heart of a band of brothers is what i call a free fire zone and that means anything can

00:16:10.620 be said that needs to be said to make me a better man and also to make the other guys a better man

00:16:16.200 so you're working towards a situation where you all are pretty much agreed uh what noble manhood is

00:16:21.580 what you're shooting for you know each other well and i don't have to drive across town and next you

00:16:27.220 know two tuesdays from now tell you that i'm having trouble in my marriage or porn is killing me or you

00:16:33.260 know i've gone beyond the one glass of wine a night i'm having five or whatever uh you're walking

00:16:38.520 closely enough with me to know those things and we have a free fire zone which means that we're not

00:16:44.800 we're not going to you know stay away from any issue in each other's lives out of manners or some

00:16:50.020 kind of cultural you know hey we don't go deep with people kind of thing we're committed to saying

00:16:54.520 what needs to be said to make each other better and uh it's not just gathering up in a room and

00:16:59.860 circling the chairs you know we're shooting hoops we're going to climb climbing mountains i mean

00:17:03.940 these are guys you're you're having fun with and you're doing life with but the difference between

00:17:08.460 that and just a group of friends is that you've committed to each other first of all that you are

00:17:12.680 committed to noble manhood and second of all that you're going to address whatever needs to be

00:17:16.960 addressed in each other's lives uh to make this happen and then and then help each other work it

00:17:21.100 through so my band of brothers for example we've had guys who uh you know have weight problems we

00:17:27.480 got guys with marital crisis we've had you know you've got all kinds of situations you're dealing

00:17:31.200 with anger what are you so ticked off about every time you you know talk to your son it sounds like

00:17:36.280 you're about to beat him to death what's wrong with you you know that kind of thing just straight up in

00:17:40.180 each other's face and uh it's made us all better and that's that's what i think men are looking for

00:17:45.320 they want to have fun they want to have rowdiness we're not trying to turn it into a sewing circle

00:17:49.320 but we we do want that uh free fire zone that uh they get said what needs to be said and most men never

00:17:57.080 hear the real business about their lives they never have anybody speaking bluntly to them so

00:18:00.800 that's the difference in this particular group and besides that free fire zone are there any

00:18:05.400 any other essentials to uh forming a band of brothers yeah absolutely you're you're looking

00:18:11.020 for a contagious culture uh you're you're looking for a situation where you guys are uh conducting

00:18:16.720 yourselves with each other in a way that more is caught than is taught this is not a this is not a

00:18:20.600 bible study this is not a it can be a book study but it's usually not um it's usually what i call a

00:18:26.380 contagious culture where you're uh you're you're living out noble manhood in such a way that that

00:18:31.800 that a guy can find people around him who are better at the things he's not good at and get help

00:18:38.180 uh so it's it i i call it contagious culture i think it's important you've got to have a commitment

00:18:44.500 to just unrestrained honesty uh i took guys all the time my guys and i say guys if you hold back on me

00:18:52.820 uh for any reason you know i'm just an idiot you're afraid of me whatever uh i look i feel 0.80

00:19:00.120 sensitive to you whatever and you don't tell me what's going on with me that i need to know i'm 0.99

00:19:03.400 gonna i'm gonna beat you with a stick you know i just we we laugh about it but uh it's a it's a 0.91

00:19:08.020 commitment to absolutely firm honesty and uh those those kinds of building blocks and i describe some

00:19:14.540 practical things in the book but uh those those sorts of commitments and that kind of culture that you

00:19:19.080 create is really what you're going for you're going for an ennobling honest hard-hitting but

00:19:24.960 deeply loving culture among a group of men and how many men does it take to form a band of brothers

00:19:30.180 it just you need one other guy or do you need more than that you know it almost always starts with one

00:19:34.660 other guy um i don't want i don't want any of our listeners to assume that this is the magic number

00:19:39.720 we tend to find that five to seven is is the best number um five to me is almost the ideal but but

00:19:46.920 you know i know fantastic bands of brothers that are three four you know it's just that five is an

00:19:52.920 odd number and it it means you haven't got you know two guys looking two sets of guys looking at

00:19:58.380 each other you know it's enough to mix it up uh it's a basketball team but uh i i find that five is

00:20:05.100 about right but but listen one of the things i want to emphasize is that there's there's no one

00:20:09.640 pattern for this as i describe in the book you know i know guys who meet uh weekly basically by

00:20:16.580 skype because they're spread all over the country and they get together once a quarter for a for a

00:20:20.920 hunt or you know some kind of a fun thing that they're not even living in the same area but they

00:20:25.220 develop relationships earlier in their lives i know airline pilots who meet at airports once in a

00:20:29.820 while and really deal with each other and then they try to get away for a trip or mountain climb or

00:20:34.260 something i mean it can be done a thousand different ways i live in nashville half my year

00:20:38.280 a lot of the tour buses have got men on them who are you know working through my stuff working

00:20:43.700 through your material brett you know uh really uh developing a band of brothers there on those tours

00:20:49.460 so it can be done a thousand different ways but usually it's about five guys uh who are really

00:20:54.900 working it with each other and by the way it's not a meeting it's just a series of relationships

00:20:58.940 where we're constantly confronting and encouraging each other so i mean here's the challenge i mean so it

00:21:03.780 sounds like you can do this you don't have to be located nearby geographically

00:21:08.220 for a band of brothers but it seems like that's the ideal it seems like that's how you can really

00:21:11.640 do life as you say right it's absolutely the ideal because one of the things i say in the book is

00:21:17.060 and i believe very strongly is once you start developing these relationships you you want to

00:21:21.600 do two other things you want to get in each other's homes uh you know that could be as simple as just a

00:21:26.520 shooting hoop some saturday afternoon and ordering up a pizza sitting on the back porch but

00:21:29.940 you know you get around the wife get around the kids you know what's happening in the home

00:21:33.220 um my guys need to see my wife my guys need to see my son my daughter uh they need to be in my home

00:21:39.960 to really know my life and i've i've turned to my wife and said man i think something goes wrong with

00:21:44.400 me or i'm out of town these are the guys you call i mean you want those relationships and then the

00:21:49.100 other thing is we bring the sons in um and it's very important to sort of initiate the sons into

00:21:54.600 uh this band of brothers at appropriate time in their life so that really can't be done long

00:21:59.320 distance i just don't want guys to you know airline pilots that they've got to have five guys sitting

00:22:03.720 in a room they'll probably never uh actually have a band of brothers so i'm i'm cool with encouraging

00:22:08.720 them to you know talk long distance and then get together once a quarter or once every four or five

00:22:13.700 months for a hunt or something but uh yeah the ideal is that you're local so you're in each other's

00:22:18.460 grills so to speak you're in each other's lives and you can actually see what's going on

00:22:22.000 but so there's the challenge i think people are listening to this now like that's it there's

00:22:26.380 thinking this sounds great i want this in my life but the challenge is how do you find men who

00:22:30.520 are one nearby geographically for that ideal of doing life together and two this is the hard part

00:22:35.960 just as interested as you in forming a band of brothers well i think you start with the guys you're

00:22:43.200 already in relationship with the problem with most men is not that they don't have any relationships

00:22:47.020 it's that they don't have any relationships of depth so the guy you're playing golf with the guy

00:22:51.660 you play racquetball with the guy you run with whatever the guys that work you know you just

00:22:56.200 start to turn them we we have a little slang we use internally we call it three being a relationship

00:23:01.420 you got to three be that guy it means you got to start turning the themes you talk about and

00:23:06.760 discussion a bit towards band of brother kinds of themes so it can be as simple as dude i've come

00:23:12.100 across this awesome website called art of manliness jump on there man and let's talk about it next time

00:23:17.300 we get a burger i mean it can be that simple and what you've done is you've taken a uh a golfing

00:23:22.700 friendship or a work friendship or whatever and you've just turned it a little bit towards the

00:23:27.500 theme of manliness and when that guy comes back and goes man you know what i was unfathered i nobody

00:23:33.200 taught me this stuff you know whether it's whether it's manhood and plato or it's manhood and and how to

00:23:40.060 be a cool uncle or what all the things on your awesome site uh you know the guy comes back and says i

00:23:46.020 don't know any of that stuff man how did i miss that well now you got a chance to start talking more

00:23:50.780 about those themes and you say well you know i did i missed a lot of it too but i'll tell you what

00:23:54.400 this book meant a lot to me or this website meant a lot to me or you know i went i heard this guy

00:23:58.800 speak and that meant a lot to me and you just start talking about it you start moving in that direction

00:24:03.320 and if if the other guy is a good candidate he's gonna he's gonna bite you know he's gonna jump in

00:24:08.380 he's gonna say oh man i i don't have that together in fact that's that's one of the problems in my life

00:24:13.640 and then one of the things i urge is that that somebody in this conversation eventually say look

00:24:19.260 you're an awesome shape or you really handle your money well or you've got such a sweet marriage i

00:24:24.620 don't can you help me with that and somebody kind of humbles themselves a little bit honors something

00:24:29.540 in the other guy's life and begins to ask for help and once you do that and you're getting the guy to

00:24:34.960 kind of coach you it's not long before you're going to be able to have that free fire zone with

00:24:39.260 that's mutual and uh really be able to to you know speak into each other's lives the way you need to

00:24:44.960 but but yeah being local uh and then finding the friendships you already have at a shallow level

00:24:50.860 and turning them band of brothers ish so to speak um with a casual conversation that's how it usually

00:24:56.800 starts and how do you respond to like the objection or the excuse like i just don't have time for this i

00:25:02.420 got work i've got family i've got i'm involved in my kids boy scout troop i'm coaching um a lot of

00:25:08.180 older men are busy um how do you what's your response to that well i'm going to say honestly

00:25:13.980 you know i'm an older guy i'm in my 50s and i'm very busy and i got to tell you this has been one

00:25:19.380 of the most important things to me it's improved me professionally it's improved me with my children

00:25:24.840 um i i understand being busy but i also understand that you can be spending a lot of time with your son

00:25:30.640 and not have insight into your son that actually is going to help them because you don't have other

00:25:34.240 guys eyes on who your son is for example i spent a lot of time with my my son now is 30 but i spent

00:25:40.000 a lot of time with him when he was growing up but one of my band of brothers was in my house one time 0.98

00:25:44.560 big big african-american guy former nfl and he turned to me and said you're an idiot i said what 0.99

00:25:50.440 he said you don't even know what your son's doing do you i said no i i don't know what you're talking 1.00

00:25:54.780 about he said i want your permission to take him lunch tomorrow i said you got it he went upstairs

00:25:59.520 told jonathan he was going to go to lunch with him went to lunch with him there was something that

00:26:03.860 he fixed in jonathan's life and they never even i gave them permission not to have to tell me it

00:26:08.560 wasn't a massive moral thing or legal thing something going wrong in my son's life that i couldn't see

00:26:13.960 well that's why you need other eyes on what's going on you see i could have spent a lot of time with

00:26:20.120 my son and and made that part of my busyness but it was about what i really needed was to be more

00:26:25.880 effective more insightful have help i'm convinced when we uh send guys to men's conferences or have

00:26:32.480 them read books about men sometimes we give them the impression they've got to do all this alone

00:26:36.860 well what's been great for me is having other men of different personalities and different gifts

00:26:42.340 looking at my life looking at my family looking at relationships with my children i mean telling you

00:26:48.420 it's made me better in every way everything that they've confronted me about or hammered me about

00:26:53.080 has made me a better just better professionally i mean i mean i can probably track that it's made me

00:26:58.520 more money in my profession because i'm better at what i do because of them uh so i don't think

00:27:03.300 anybody should consider themselves too busy to open themselves up to the input of a band of brothers

00:27:08.200 the reality is they might be able to work smarter and not harder at the things they're already doing

00:27:12.180 could make a massive difference in their lives just in a practical way right so you argue in the book

00:27:17.680 that the heart of noble manhood is found in the phrase manly men tend their fields what do you mean 1.00

00:27:23.640 by that phrase yeah well let's let's turn it around brett who what's the guy we consider to be an idiot 1.00

00:27:28.540 you go over if we know a guy you know who's his house has fallen down his wife's bitter and hurting his 1.00

00:27:34.840 kids are in trouble he doesn't know it he's sitting in the barco lounger with stained sweat clothes on on

00:27:41.520 the saturday screaming for somebody to bring him another beer and a sandwich in other words he's not

00:27:44.840 attending anything around him i believe that every man has a field i don't mean his professional field

00:27:52.160 only a field it's the total body of commitments obligations responsibilities that he's got by the

00:27:57.680 way it includes taking care of himself and you know 16 year old might just have a you know half of a

00:28:04.360 bedroom and a part-time job at pizza hut and and you know obligations to maybe family and church and

00:28:10.920 then you know his school work that's all he's got but that's still his field we teach him to do it

00:28:15.300 well we teach him to own it we teach him to own its dimensions know know what what know what's required

00:28:19.540 of him and and do it well you add a dating life eventually you add college you add more work to it

00:28:24.940 well a guy my age you know i've i've got i've got a field i've got a company i got obligations i've got

00:28:30.340 things to do uh but when we when i get guys away for for for some time at retreats or out this out

00:28:37.100 in the woods we we we talk about look uh one of the arts of being a man one of the arts of living

00:28:42.580 is knowing the dimensions of your field what is it that you've been given to do at this stage in your

00:28:48.320 life and if you've if you've taken responsibility for more you know as i say humorously more than you

00:28:53.980 can say grace over uh then burnout stress and moral failure is heading your way uh you you've got to

00:29:00.200 to know what your field is know what the total body of obligations responsibilities uh are and then

00:29:08.720 uh tend that well uh and not not not hand it off you know my children are my responsibility my home my

00:29:15.980 house my wife my obligations civically my work uh my spiritual commitments and taking care of myself

00:29:22.620 getting the controlled routiness that i need and and taking care of who i am uh all of that's the total

00:29:29.020 field that a man has to tend and i i think the if i if you ask me what what's the fast track to

00:29:35.140 righteous manliness it's when a man recognizes he has a field of responsibilities and begins to step

00:29:41.040 up and take ownership of them uh not in a dominating way uh but in a way that that causes everything

00:29:46.320 within his field to begin to flourish and and fulfill its purpose and that's that i think is the

00:29:50.840 essence of great manhood and so the the band of brothers is there to tell you hey look you got some

00:29:56.420 weeds over in this part of your field take care of that absolutely and you know even a man who's

00:30:03.100 trying to be uh really noble can do some silly things i mean i had i had a i said here's a silly 0.87

00:30:09.060 little illustration but when my daughter was very very young i just started calling her stinker uh it

00:30:14.260 was just a it was just a pet name well when she was 17 and gorgeous i was still doing it and one of my

00:30:19.740 guys said you know what that that's not appropriate that's embarrassing to her she just doesn't have the 0.99

00:30:24.260 courage to tell you you got to stop doing that so i sat down with my daughter and i asked her it

00:30:28.120 turned out it was humiliating to her every time i did it i had no idea now this is a tiny thing

00:30:34.220 but here are my guys able to hear and see something um that i'm not able to see and i i don't want them

00:30:41.600 just guarding me from great big moral issues although that's important you know i want them

00:30:45.480 to know when my language is dropping i want them to hear the conversation with my wife that

00:30:49.620 you know maybe it's indicating there's a crisis going on if i check out the back side of the

00:30:53.640 waitress four or five times in lunch hey buddy what's going on at home that's not who you want

00:30:57.840 to be um so i yeah there's a guardian role but there's also a helping me to be better role all of

00:31:04.480 my guys are better at stuff in the in the in the lore of manhood than i am and so they coach me and

00:31:10.720 i coach them and we get better and i i just couldn't do without them just couldn't do without them and

00:31:16.200 and you know if i'm a successful husband or father it's in large part due to the fact

00:31:19.800 that they are absolutely fierce about making sure that that you know i hear what i need to hear to

00:31:24.820 be a better man it's made all the difference in my life so let's say you found your crew you got

00:31:29.720 things going um everything's really exciting in the beginning but how do you sustain that initial

00:31:34.540 excitement when you formed your band of brothers i mean how can you keep it going months years um after

00:31:41.300 you started well first of all you you've got to be very careful not to make it you know a bunch of

00:31:48.360 guys circling up chairs and staring into each other's eyes and saying how are you feeling today

00:31:52.640 joe men will run from that so we're always doing new things we're always doing those we call it the 0.97

00:31:58.120 indirect event the indirect approach you know guys have got to have guys will talk while they're

00:32:02.720 shooting hoops or grilling steaks or about to watch the super bowl or whatever you got to have

00:32:06.360 something else going and so we just have a lot of fun uh if we weren't guys who were serious about

00:32:11.540 manhood we'd probably still have a lot of fun but we have moved it to this you know core of the free

00:32:16.560 fire zone and the coaching each other and so it stays alive also there's going to be natural change

00:32:22.200 just because i help chaplain the redskins and and go to a church in dc with a lot of the redskins in

00:32:27.720 them i have a lot of nfl buddies and so i've had some in my band of brothers have been some

00:32:32.220 current former nfl guys well they rotate they get transferred we got we eventually say well let's

00:32:37.960 let's bring old joe in over here or you suppose there's so and so might be a candidate to come be

00:32:43.960 part of us or whatever we don't treat it like an exclusive club so it's going to breathe it's going

00:32:48.540 to rotate it's going to switch out there's going to be change it'll have a natural life and by the

00:32:53.680 way every man in the group's going through different phases of his life um and it's a different

00:32:58.040 personality so it keeps it fresh as we kind of you know hammer each other into shape

00:33:02.100 well steven this has been a great conversation um there's a lot more we can get to get into but

00:33:05.680 where can people find out more about the book and your work i appreciate you asking stevenmansfield.tv

00:33:11.260 is where everything that i'm involved in uh happens and on there we have a page called the great man

00:33:16.520 page you'll see it on the home page just click on that and every everything that i'm about with men

00:33:20.840 is right there so i appreciate what you do brett very much makes a big difference in a lot of lives

00:33:25.760 thanks so much well steven mansfield thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:33:29.180 thank you buddy my guest today was steven mansfield his book is building your band of brothers it's

00:33:33.800 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about steven's

00:33:38.120 work at stevenmansfield.tv also check out our show notes at aom.is band of brothers where you'll

00:33:44.260 find links to delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:33:59.640 manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:34:03.220 at artofmanliness.com this episode is recorded on clearcast.io if you're a podcaster who does remote

00:34:07.780 interviews it's a service i developed to help podcasts sound better and avoid some of the skips

00:34:12.360 and audio lag that often happens with skype clearcast.io check it out as always appreciate

00:34:18.200 your team's support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:34:22.120 you

The Art of Manliness - January 31, 2017

#274： Building Your Band of Brothers

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