The Art of Manliness - #330： The Life Skills Every Man Should Know

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast what skills and

00:00:19.280 knowledge sets to the man need to have in order to be effective and self-reliant my guys has spent

00:00:24.040 the past few years thinking about this topic and putting down his ideas in a series of books that

00:00:27.560 he calls modules for manhood his name is kenneth w royce i had ken on the show a few years ago to

00:00:32.680 talk about the first volume of modules for manhood and today on the show we discuss the modules found

00:00:36.720 in volume two we begin by discussing what it means to cope with the world and why many young men today

00:00:42.120 aren't equipped to do so kenneth then shares some strategies on how you can find the time and money

00:00:46.320 to learn new skills we then dig into some of the specific skills he highlights in volume two of

00:00:50.840 modules for manhood including how to teach managing your time and how to become a leader by learning

00:00:55.820 to be a good follower we end our conversation talking about problem solving and why every man

00:01:00.220 should get his pilot's license this episode is a hodgepodge of insights on becoming a well-rounded

00:01:04.760 man for a man who spent his life trying to become well-rounded himself after the show's over check

00:01:09.220 out the show notes at aom.is slash royce where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into

00:01:13.620 this topic kenneth w royce welcome back to the show glad to be back thanks for it so we had you

00:01:27.880 on a few years ago talk about your book volume one in a series called modules for manhood and for those

00:01:34.580 for those who aren't familiar with the series uh what is the overarching goal of this series of books

00:01:41.600 you're putting out called modules for manhood well it's basically to fill in the gaps of males who

00:01:47.980 aren't quite yet men and becoming a man is a process and there's always something to learn something to

00:01:54.660 hone something to do better at but these days a lot of young males didn't have father figures

00:02:01.440 grandfathers uncles or even an older brother to kind of help them show the way so as an author i'm trying

00:02:07.100 to do my part in helping them to fill in the gaps the so-called modules and there's about 42 of them

00:02:14.820 that i came up with and volume two covers uh i think 13 through 25 all right and uh i think it's

00:02:23.120 interesting you quote jeff cooper the famous marksman right pistol fighter gunfighter um and he

00:02:29.720 says that it's about these skills that you're trying to teach is learning teaching young men how

00:02:35.320 to cope with the world around them and what what do you and what does cooper mean by coping with the

00:02:41.320 world around you jeff cooper just before he died in 2006 outlined a whole list of things that he thought

00:02:48.240 a young man should know how to do before he leaves his father's household and cooper thought the father

00:02:54.840 was primarily responsible for inculcating these things you know such as knowing how to fight

00:03:00.280 knowing how to manage money knowing how to cook a meal how to camp out on his own uh speaking foreign

00:03:06.500 languages and so forth so uh you know coping with the world is something a man should be able to do

00:03:12.720 and not have to ask for help for every little thing so so he has all these different skills and it's

00:03:18.920 an impressive amount of skills it's like yeah you said fighting learning foreign language things like that

00:03:23.360 but you also have things like you know a young man should learn how to fly a plane ride a motorcycle

00:03:28.700 let's say you're a young man and you're like man that looks awesome i want to learn how to do all

00:03:33.380 these things but i didn't learn those when i was a you know a youngster a kid or you know in my 20s

00:03:39.440 how do you find the time if you're in your 30s or your 40s how do you find the time and also the

00:03:44.240 money because this stuff you know oftentimes takes money to learn how do you find the time and money to

00:03:48.940 learn these skills well people tend to find buddy who's walking or gaming or you know addicted to

00:03:55.240 screen to entertainment has plenty of time available if they'll drop you know that stuff

00:03:59.660 and go learn real skills so another way to find the time is to start waking up a half an hour or an

00:04:06.800 hour earlier a day you know basically if you get serious about learning something you'll quote find

00:04:12.420 the time the time is there you know are you there that's the question right and what about the money

00:04:18.840 issue well um again you know learning to fly that's the most expensive thing you mentioned to become a

00:04:26.060 private pilot will cost you about nine or ten thousand dollars plane the certified flight instructor

00:04:32.460 your books and so forth that's a lot of skill for not a whole lot of money um you know i quote in

00:04:38.560 in the introduction of of all the modules a young man who was 17 by the time he was 17 he had already

00:04:45.720 bought a powered parachute which is about the cheapest way to get into aviation and become became

00:04:50.900 a licensed uh sport pilot for that so you know this young man as a junior in high school was already an

00:04:56.840 aircraft owner and already a pilot and he did it by mowing lawns he mowed acres and acres and acres of

00:05:01.980 lawns for the previous two or three years and saved his money so that's one example of how it can be done

00:05:08.000 right so yeah time money if it's there if you if you just take the initiative to find it oh sure

00:05:13.540 um let's say you're a dad right you know cooper thought that you know these skills should be taught

00:05:18.280 by fathers to sons what if you're a dad and you don't know how to do half the stuff like you want

00:05:23.120 to teach your son like how to be efficient how to cope but you you're still trying to figure that out

00:05:27.800 yourself how do you impart those skills when you're still trying to figure it out on your own

00:05:32.100 well you know one one way to do it is to fake it until you make it you know however incomplete the

00:05:37.120 dad is he certainly knows more about whatever you know subject than the son probably does so you know

00:05:43.040 the dad needs to ramp it up and then teach to the son what he knows as he knows it when i was in

00:05:49.280 college for example i would take a course and the next semester i would tutor it and i never claimed to

00:05:55.360 be an expert but i knew i knew more about the subject than my students did even though i just learned it

00:06:00.760 a semester ago so you know fake it till you make it right you know a child will respond to any kind

00:06:07.800 of good instruction and i think i think sons are fair they know that fathers aren't omnipotent and

00:06:13.580 omniscient but what counts is the effort so you know dads need to to bear down and fill up the modules

00:06:20.020 so that that leads me this idea of teaching your son leads me to one of the modules you cover one of

00:06:25.380 the very the very first one in fact in volume two is this um is teaching and why do you why do you

00:06:31.720 think it was such teaching is such an important skill for men to have that you you made it one of

00:06:36.060 those modules well you know men should be examples of two others for their family and for society and

00:06:42.640 part of being a good example is being able to impart what you know how to do and what you know in your

00:06:47.880 head and so there's a certain process a certain way to be a teacher you know teaching is a science and

00:06:53.660 art and so i thought it important to describe what it is to teach what's involved and basically

00:07:00.260 anybody is a teacher if they can show someone to do something quicker than that student could learn

00:07:06.580 to do it on their own and the other reason it's important to know how to teach is because you really

00:07:11.500 don't know something until you've taught it that's the final examination for any skill is if you can

00:07:18.620 impart it to someone else and as you do so you're going to learn more about that skill or that

00:07:22.940 knowledge set than than you did before uh when you weren't teaching it so it's the final way to

00:07:28.120 know that you've you've you own something is if you can teach it yeah that second point i think

00:07:32.640 goes back to that question about if you're a dad and you don't know this stuff how do you teach it to

00:07:36.540 your kid like teach it to your kid and that you're going to learn how to do it right yeah and there's

00:07:40.520 some things dads could go hey son i'm not real you know up to speed on this but you know let's go

00:07:45.140 fishing together i'm no great fisherman but uh i know a little bit about it from my dad and my

00:07:49.880 grandfather let's go fishing well we'll learn some of it together and that's good for the

00:07:53.640 relationship because it's more of a partnership you know in in that learning experience versus dad

00:07:59.300 being always the authoritarian teacher and the son always the student you know once in a while in

00:08:05.000 some things it's good that they both learn it together and the son knows that they're learning

00:08:09.520 it together yeah i think it sets a great example for your son it's like look my dad is 30 40 and he's

00:08:16.920 still learning like it's his education didn't stop with school right so another aspect that you

00:08:23.360 model you call out in volume two is time management as we mentioned earlier if you want to cram in all

00:08:29.120 this stuff learn all this stuff these modules you have to manage your time effectively and efficiently

00:08:34.800 so i mean what's your approach to time management and productivity that you lay out in the modules for

00:08:40.020 manhood well you've got to realize that everyone has the same amount of time in a day whether it's

00:08:45.700 warren buffett or someone who's destitute on the streets they've all got 24 hours in a day

00:08:50.560 and so we're given a resource every day of an of a new day and i say yesterday is a canceled check

00:08:57.780 tomorrow is a promissory note but today is cash so how you spend today to the minute you know once you

00:09:05.660 get really efficient and vigilant about it will add up to a real life versus if you fritter your time away

00:09:13.620 you're not going to have much of a life you're not going to be effective you you won't have goals

00:09:17.800 that are fulfilled you won't attract a quality mate you won't have a good career so you've got to

00:09:24.120 consider the wealth that you're given every day when you wake up in the morning i've got a full day

00:09:29.860 that i can spend like cash in the bank or cash in my wallet so you've got to drop the unimportant

00:09:36.500 things you've got to start with the important things and start with a start with stuff that has to be

00:09:42.740 done that's important or urgent and and tackle that immediately i had a quick vignette i got online

00:09:49.420 one time at a coffee shop and instead of tackling the day's business i you know went to some fun

00:09:55.360 emails and told some jokes and looked at some jpegs and all that and i could have finished my business

00:10:01.120 had i started with my business but no i i played instead of worked and i never forgot that and so

00:10:07.040 i always remind myself start with the a's not with the c's yeah i mean i love that analogy of

00:10:13.860 time is money i mean we often hear time is money but like really thinking of your time as money

00:10:18.280 and spending it like that it really drives home like man and also like that money's going to go away

00:10:23.980 right like this is cash that disappears at the end of the day will help you manage better you also

00:10:29.220 quote hemingway where he famously said you never confuse motion for action oh that's a great quote

00:10:35.020 yeah any examples and maybe from your own life or from just your observation of other men of how

00:10:39.960 they confuse motion for action well a lot of people men and women claim to be busy and i put busy and

00:10:46.780 you know if you can hear the quotation marks in my voice and they're in motion but are they getting

00:10:51.700 important things done and getting important things done right you know that's really the question uh

00:10:57.360 you know it's easy to spend a day somehow the day will go whether whether you want it to or not it

00:11:03.160 will go away but what did you get done what did you accomplish you know you should have some goals

00:11:08.560 in mind general goals and then those are localized to the day to within hours or even minutes within

00:11:16.020 that day you take a a tycoon i forget his name but he's he's a chinese billionaire and his day is

00:11:23.400 planned by every 15 minutes you know quarter of the hour is blocked out you know this is a man that

00:11:28.980 knows what his time is worth and gets stuff done so you know are we in motion are we moving stuff

00:11:34.620 around just to move it around or touch something once especially a piece of paper touch it once

00:11:40.460 reply to that letter finish the task that that piece of paper demands throw it in the trash whatever but

00:11:47.020 touch it once get it done and then move on to the next task don't keep rearranging things on your desk

00:11:53.340 you know moving it a little bit here and then two hours later a little bit there touch it once and

00:11:58.380 get it done so that that's action versus motion and speaking of time management there's a really

00:12:04.000 interesting movie called in time and it's basically where the currency of the society is based on time

00:12:11.060 and you're born with you're guaranteed i think 25 years and then after that you know have you added

00:12:18.340 to your time account in your first 25 years if not you clock out you die and it's a fascinating

00:12:24.940 concept the movie is pretty well done it could have been uh better but it's good enough to to be an

00:12:30.500 attractive presentation of that concept and they've got a little digital clock on their forearm he's got

00:12:35.200 100 years and he gives it away and uh that causes all sorts of interesting problems right um yeah i think

00:12:42.360 that's justin timberlake is in that movie if i remember that's right right yeah um yeah so yeah and i

00:12:47.580 love the the touch at once i mean that came from i remember david allen from getting things done

00:12:52.020 advocates that as well that's right and you talk about getting things done if you have if you're

00:12:57.000 listening this podcast haven't read getting things done or gtd how it's often referred to right great

00:13:02.820 book highly recommend it yeah he's the master of that oh yeah for sure you know speaking of this

00:13:08.480 confusing motion for action you also warn readers to stay aware not confuse excessive studying and

00:13:16.500 research as action because i i think i guess the the the insidious thing about you know studying and

00:13:22.020 researching it makes you feel like you're doing something but you actually aren't sure right so how

00:13:28.240 do you know uh when you've reached the point where you've learned all you can and you're ready to start

00:13:33.220 actually you know putting rubber meets the road type stuff right you know if you've got a project that

00:13:39.500 you've got to research and get into with a lot of study for the project you might be wise to have

00:13:46.500 some milestones written down in advance to give you an idea of your progress beyond that it just takes

00:13:53.880 practice doing it and kind of a gut hunch and uh this is something that i i have to do myself because

00:14:00.160 every one of these modules in my three books all 42 of them each one of these deserves its own book

00:14:07.540 and many books have been written about any one of these subjects so how do i know as an author trying

00:14:13.040 to give you the the short version of it know when to stop and that that's a tricky one and you know

00:14:19.620 there's a science to it the milestones in advance and then the art the gut hunch uh will come into play

00:14:25.640 later but then if someone really loves to read and research like i do sometimes it can be a very fun

00:14:31.700 vortex to let yourself fall in gigabytes of info about this i think that's enough and i just

00:14:37.520 went through that researching the ribosome microbiology nucleic acids and proteins and

00:14:43.920 how they're formed and all that in my chapter about evolution and that is a fascinating vortex

00:14:49.800 and it i finally crawled my way out of it but i did and i think i'm satisfied with with what i've

00:14:56.080 got and i think it's going to be chapter 33 so yeah it just takes practice knowing when to stop yeah

00:15:01.100 yeah i've often found i can get trapped especially when you're planning business stuff

00:15:05.140 right like you want to like read as much as you can and plan as much as you can and you have this

00:15:10.700 perfect plan you're like okay and you just end up planning more and planning more and then when you

00:15:15.320 finally start to take action you quickly realize that that plan you had pretty much worthless i mean

00:15:20.780 like it didn't go according anything yeah that's right yeah but at least you know that right right

00:15:26.580 you got it has to go somewhere else yeah i think it's eisenhower said that uh plans are worthless but

00:15:31.660 planning is everything that's a great way to put it yeah yeah because i think the the what planning

00:15:36.620 does it allows you to get your mind around the whole project and then when things don't go

00:15:41.680 according to plan you have these mental models in your head so you can start adapting on the fly

00:15:46.720 and that wouldn't have been possible if you didn't do the planning in advance there's a module right

00:15:51.380 there you should you should put that in your that eisenhower quote that's right in your

00:15:55.100 yeah i could yeah i could look into that you know it reminds me when i was studying to become

00:15:59.680 a private pilot you know it's a very hierarchical sequential study and your skill set you know you

00:16:06.380 start with this and then he adds this and so forth but aside from that my own personal research on

00:16:11.960 aviation was was very kind of haphazard i'd basically snarf all the uh magazines that i could from the

00:16:20.200 terminals you know people leave their old copies of aopa and pilot and flying and all that so i'd ask if

00:16:26.520 you know you guys done with this it looks like you've got plenty of magazines so i take home you

00:16:29.860 know scan uh the the information that i liked and so i was learning about aviation in a very random

00:16:35.360 sense but this mosaic began to fill itself pretty nicely after about a year and i had a very wide and

00:16:43.760 and occasionally pretty deep knowledge about flying that i got you know from magazines and books so

00:16:49.480 but that on top of the the actual planning and study to you know get your pilot's license i think

00:16:55.760 rounded me out pretty well as a young pilot so another thing that young men or men in general need

00:17:01.480 to learn in order to cope with the world is problem solving because once you get into adulthood you

00:17:08.800 quickly realize that life is just basically solving problem after problem after problem that's right

00:17:14.860 and that's right for a lot of young men that can be daunting and even paralyzing how do you how do you

00:17:21.500 suggest young men going go about categorizing problems to help them move forward with solutions

00:17:28.100 well i guess maybe the first thing is to uh discern who owns the problem you know just because there's

00:17:35.180 a problem and it's in your face is it your problem or is it someone else's problem that they're trying

00:17:40.180 to put on you you know my mom says who owns the problem you know whose property is it's not my property

00:17:45.080 that's that problem is your property so if it's not your property then you know don't don't mess

00:17:50.800 with it further than that let's say it is your property well if you can't define it or act upon it

00:17:56.340 you know there's nothing to do but forget it is it really a problem you know can you do anything

00:18:00.960 about it is it going to affect you you know like weather i can't do anything about a hell storm

00:18:05.640 except stay out of the hail you know but uh other than that if you've got to start to deal with a

00:18:12.180 problem then deal with problems big enough to matter yet small enough to solve i read that

00:18:19.700 somewhere and i think it's a fantastic way to uh philosophize on this if the problem's not big

00:18:26.760 enough to matter then you can forget it but if it's too big to solve then what are you going to do

00:18:32.120 anyway so you know get philosophical about what's what's in your face if it is big enough to matter

00:18:38.700 and small enough to solve then all right now now you're on your way to having to deal with something

00:18:44.480 and the book talks about you know the steps in that especially if they're important problems the

00:18:50.260 first step would be to separate facts from opinions then you define the real problem which is which is

00:18:57.100 often something else especially dealing with women you know they may may get in your face about

00:19:01.620 something and complaining about a and a is not bothering them they're bothered about b and you've

00:19:08.960 got to know women and know your woman to get to all right honey what's what's really bothering you

00:19:14.200 and it'll be something entirely different step three secure evidence on those possible solutions step

00:19:20.780 four weigh the pros and cons of each possible solution and problem solving is a skill and you get better

00:19:27.600 with any skill that you practice well and a real man loves problems because hey as ben carson said

00:19:33.980 it's it's just a chance to do your best do your best another opportunity to do your best yeah yeah i think

00:19:39.380 that one of the biggest challenges particularly for younger men when they're just starting out in life

00:19:42.880 is figuring out what is really important i remember when i was a young lad of 18 19 things that i thought

00:19:51.400 were really big problems like they weren't really big problems i made them big in my head and i spent a lot

00:19:56.460 of time and energy on that and uh yeah as you get older you start learning how to discern that

00:20:01.480 yeah you get a perspective i i would tell young boys i once helped raise i said look guys you know

00:20:08.920 one one was like uh let's say nine years old and i said look i know this seems a big deal to you now

00:20:14.960 but think of at your school a six-year-old complaining about you know a six-year-old kind of problem

00:20:20.240 you know you look at him as a nine-year-old going what a kid what a punk what a baby

00:20:24.620 right and i said you know in a few years you'll think back on this problem you're having right now

00:20:29.200 at nine as something babyish so just realize you're however old you are right now young man

00:20:36.980 you're going to be older later so keep keep a long-term perspective about life and you know

00:20:43.560 the old uh phrase in a hundred years will this even matter or even five years will it even matter

00:20:48.480 to anyone including yourself probably not and speaking of young men and problems um i mentioned

00:20:54.060 this in the book and i want to mention it on air don't be afraid or hesitant to ask somebody for

00:21:00.060 help especially if the problem is is new and it hasn't set in you know let's say you broke something

00:21:05.840 your stuff fess up you know ask dad or mom or or someone else look uh i kind of did this and most of

00:21:13.620 the time an adult a seasoned man will go yeah it's it's kind of a kind of a goof but uh it's not as bad

00:21:19.860 as you think and here's how we'll handle it and it's like uh but if you let your problem fester

00:21:26.520 it may become become too big for even an adult you know to handle and uh attorneys may have to be

00:21:33.220 called or doctors or whoever you know at the next level so uh handle your problems early and even if

00:21:41.380 you have to ask for help to get out of a jam just just do it yeah that asking for help that can be

00:21:46.040 particularly hard for men because you know you want to show independence yeah you know and show

00:21:50.620 that you can cope with the world but you know it's a learning process and sometimes you need to

00:21:54.280 you should try everything yourself but at a certain point need to reach out and ask for some help get

00:21:58.500 some insight yeah asking for help is coping you know if you're lost don't don't try to act like

00:22:03.760 the stud in front of your girlfriend driving around aimlessly just just pull over and go hey

00:22:08.240 looking for such and such right another problem you tackle in the book that a lot of not just

00:22:13.160 i think it's all men at certain points in the life they're going to face whether you're young

00:22:16.520 midlife or older is getting into a rut can you like maybe you can share like was there a time in

00:22:23.160 your life when you found yourself in a rut and what did you do to get yourself out of it oh absolutely

00:22:28.740 yeah i think i mentioned in the book i had a whirlwind uh college career i got i got a business bba in

00:22:36.240 just three years and it was taking a lot of hours and you know just just studly you know just rammed right

00:22:42.400 through it the dean of the business school is just amazed all my professors thought i was

00:22:46.400 something really unique and then i graduated and it's like well now what do i do and i had a year

00:22:53.460 brett of just like wow just just stunning silence i hadn't made any plans whatsoever of what to do

00:23:00.040 after my college graduation and so i might as well have just spent four years you know in college and

00:23:06.240 planned for the graduation after that i would have been you know ahead of the game so uh yeah that was a

00:23:11.860 very black year and uh i finally just had to pull myself up out of my bootstraps and and i went to

00:23:18.120 europe to a trade show and attracted the sponsorship of a business i was in the motorcycle industry

00:23:23.360 years ago and so but even right now i'm transitioning from very philosophical and political type works with

00:23:31.800 all the boston tea party books i've written you know about government constitution and privacy and guns

00:23:36.640 and so forth and you know for my own self i pretty much exhausted my interest and my passion in a lot

00:23:43.080 of those subjects so i'm having to switch gears and you know write and think about other things you

00:23:48.700 know modules being one of them so i wouldn't call it a rut but it's certainly a transition but i've got

00:23:53.660 some tips about getting out of the rut you know if if if you're if you've got negative emotions or you're

00:23:58.800 bored or you're tired or you're depressed you know you've you've just you've just got to go do

00:24:03.680 something either for yourself or for somebody else you just can't wallow in it if you do cobwebs will

00:24:09.980 start to form on your soul and those cobwebs turn into tethers and then steel aircraft cables and i

00:24:17.900 see people and i know you do too every day that are just walking walking ruts and you can tell that

00:24:23.960 they've been in that for for a decade and they ain't getting out and so realize that this could happen

00:24:29.460 to anyone especially if you have a reversal of fortunes if your business tanks guaranteed that

00:24:36.180 you're going to be upright facing the sun all the time and so you've got to learn how to get up and

00:24:41.760 stay up and you know life is life is work and it's up to you to do it yeah yeah that's i mean it's it's

00:24:49.720 i mean the solution is so simple right just you just got to start doing something the hard part

00:24:53.900 is actually just doing that thing and it really is it's it is a matter in my experience when i've

00:24:59.120 been in a rut it's a matter of just oftentimes just sheer willpower right and just getting you

00:25:05.360 to take that first step because once you take that first step it's like an object in motion stays in

00:25:09.460 motion right once you get going you'll keep going but it's just that first part you know an object

00:25:14.160 at rest stays at rest you got to really exert a lot of energy to get to get going that's right

00:25:19.040 i know that's i know a lot of people who are in a rut they want to hear oh there's got to be

00:25:22.100 some kind of hack that i can do and oftentimes i'm sorry it's like no there's not you just got

00:25:26.900 to start doing something and uh the rest will take care of itself i'll tell you a good hack if

00:25:31.680 you're depressed okay let's hear it is either to work out do something very physical because that'll

00:25:36.880 change your endocrinology get your serotonin levels up and all that working out will will help

00:25:42.380 get over depression the other thing if you're depressed or kind of in a funk go do something nice

00:25:47.720 for someone especially a stranger you know go go to the senior center and help out there or the

00:25:52.840 library or find some way to help out and forget about yourself forget about your own damn problems 0.75

00:25:59.060 and how sad and miserable you are just you know act like it's not even you anymore just go do something 0.59

00:26:04.880 for someone else and that will make you feel good because you've made other people feel good

00:26:09.320 so uh it's not all about you get out of yourself you know that's i tell myself that get out of

00:26:15.140 yourself yeah you know there's other people out there you're not the only you know one on the

00:26:19.720 planet get out of yourself right i love that um you also devote a section to leadership which is you

00:26:24.880 know every man's going to be a leader at some point in his life and i thought it was interesting

00:26:27.800 um in this section for your leadership insight you went to a um spanish i think he's was he jesuit

00:26:35.020 what kind of priest was he was he is balthus art gracian gracian yeah that's a fantastic book yeah

00:26:42.720 yeah what the was the art of worldly wisdom is what it's called right that's right what it's called

00:26:48.300 yeah um what can this set like i think he's like from the 16th century 15th century spanish priest

00:26:56.280 teach us about being better leaders well he has his book is kind of like uh marcus aurelius's

00:27:04.260 uh meditations uh just things he wrote to himself over a long period of time and then it uh concocted

00:27:12.000 itself into a book and they're they're very small vignettes i mean each subject you know gets a

00:27:16.920 paragraph and the book itself is very tiny you can get on amazon and fit in your back pocket it really

00:27:21.700 is a must must thing to have um and i picked out a few things he talked about let your behavior be

00:27:28.920 fine and noble common and nothing uh have distinction and speech and action prize intensity

00:27:36.140 more than extent to give a give way in everything or to everyone don't be a bore adapt yourself to your

00:27:43.640 company just just great stuff but a leader is anybody who has followers you know someone could

00:27:49.800 be a leader not really even know it but if you've got followers you know let's say uh you've got a

00:27:55.500 couple of younger siblings you're a leader to them they they look at you as as a quasi-adult

00:28:00.520 almost and especially if you if a you know 17 year old boy has a nine-year-old sister you're you're

00:28:08.860 like a god to her and so if you've got a follower you're a leader and you better know the extent of

00:28:15.400 your influence and uh you know how important it is to to to act accordingly you know everyone's a leader

00:28:21.720 somewhere so uh and there's an art to it and there's personalities that are much more suited for

00:28:28.040 it you know like the so-called entj and the myers briggs the field marshal you know these people are

00:28:33.700 natural born leaders in my book on the back cover robin old's you know 23 years old this guy was a

00:28:40.560 major in the u.s army air corps in uh england and was a squadron commander p-51 fighter pilots at 23

00:28:48.240 natural leader then went on to uh be a fighter wing commander in vietnam and then headed up uh

00:28:55.880 the u.s air force academy you know so it's just in some some men to be a leader to someone so you

00:29:03.100 better know something about it yeah so in your book in your section about leadership you you talk

00:29:09.660 about the importance of leaders being good followers which is counterintuitive because oftentimes the

00:29:15.600 literature on being on a good leader especially like i don't know the pop leadership stuff not

00:29:22.000 not the real it's just all like no a leader is like this dynamo he's charismatic he doesn't he

00:29:27.460 doesn't submit he he's he's leading from the front um why do you think leaders should be good followers

00:29:33.780 well there are some leaders that are kind of born into it like that and those so-called dynamos were

00:29:39.000 probably dynamos at three and four years old and you know since then and so they they've been used to

00:29:44.920 being at the forefront and leading people and that's one kind of leader i don't think it's

00:29:50.020 necessarily the best i think the best leader and the military uh will support this are the ones who've

00:29:56.620 come through the ranks um i'll give you two examples the uh you know someone who goes right into

00:30:03.420 officer training uh school and becomes a second lieutenant who's never been an enlisted man or a

00:30:10.500 non-commissioned officer and certainly the military is full of those kinds of officers but who the

00:30:15.480 military really values are the so-called mustangs and i think uh lewis puller of the marine corps chesty

00:30:22.260 puller is the best example of that he started out as a buck private in the marines you know back in the

00:30:27.780 i think the 1920s maybe world war one and retired as a brigadier general i believe and the reason he was

00:30:35.300 such a good officer especially in world war ii in korea was that he had been there as a grunt as a buck 0.99

00:30:42.380 private and so he was really knowledgeable about the needs of his men and he knew what they were

00:30:48.280 capable when they were just bitching to bitch about something and when there was a real issue that the 1.00

00:30:54.040 men couldn't handle and so he he understood them inside and out because he had been one yeah i love

00:31:00.520 that because that's my been my experience as a leader it's whenever i i ask i'm always like i'm

00:31:06.400 never i never ask someone to do something that i haven't done myself at some point because i know

00:31:11.540 yeah like you said you get that experience you know what is possible and like you said you know

00:31:17.440 when someone's just like i can't do this we know you can do it you're just not thinking and then you

00:31:21.080 can coach them if they come up sure sure parenting is similar to this uh when i was raising a couple of

00:31:27.180 boys with uh my girlfriend who had children from a previous marriage you know they would kind of

00:31:33.480 grouse once in a while of why they had to do this or that and it's not fair and i said look i was a boy

00:31:38.980 myself i know exactly what you're going through so you know there's no surprises ahead of you that i

00:31:45.760 haven't you know experienced myself and grown out of and this is why i'm here to help you know teach

00:31:50.640 you and get you into manhood so right well um there's a lot of other skills you cover in the book you

00:31:56.340 talk about self-defense which i think we talked a little about in the previous podcast we did

00:32:00.100 you get into economics you get into time management but the one skill that i thought was interesting you

00:32:06.620 you highlight because after i read this i was like okay i gotta do this oh good i gotta do this now it's

00:32:11.260 getting your pilot's license why do you think every man should go out and get their pilot's license 0.76

00:32:16.320 well i mean since we're on the art of manliness i mean the first and most obvious answer is because

00:32:21.700 it's a steadily manly thing to do i mean why wouldn't a man want to fly an airplane yeah that's

00:32:28.880 the simple answer uh to get into it a little more deeply he uh experiences a totally new level dimension

00:32:37.000 of freedom that uh you can't find anywhere else um i mean no more tsa blue glove groping him and his

00:32:46.380 family which i don't understand how any man would put up with that at the airport um you've got the

00:32:52.340 freedom to fly from a to b and you decide what is a and what is b you know instead of having to drive

00:32:58.240 three hours to denver to pick up a big airplane you know why don't you fly it out of grand junction

00:33:03.080 colorado where you live um and then the other thing that uh i've really come to enjoy about aviation

00:33:10.160 and this is something that you don't really read about or your instructor will tell you about

00:33:14.160 but you have to experience it for yourself as a pilot is that you've entered into a new and higher

00:33:21.440 level of humanity and that sounds a little elitist but quite frankly the barriers of entry to becoming

00:33:28.760 a pilot are high enough that it excludes a lot of people that just you know will never be there

00:33:34.440 don't deserve to be there for example i just got back from oshkosh where 10 000 people fly in with

00:33:40.380 their airplanes and so you know everyone's got phones and tablets and uh etc and they've got

00:33:46.760 these public charging stations and instead of just hanging around for an hour waiting for your

00:33:51.740 your tablet to charge up you can plug it in and go have a shower go have breakfast and come back and

00:33:57.340 it will still be there because you're amongst thousands of fellow aviators and you know quite

00:34:04.020 frankly they just uh operate at a higher level of ethics of responsibility and of capability and so

00:34:11.740 for me that's becoming almost as enjoyable and gratifying as the flying itself and is i think a lot of

00:34:19.660 guy reason why guys don't take that up so they think the the cost is prohibitive is it really that

00:34:25.280 expensive to get your pilot's license uh no becoming a pilot isn't all that expensive especially

00:34:30.720 for what it gives you to get your private pilot license that's above sport pilot which means you

00:34:36.540 can fly something up to i think 12 seat you know aircraft versus only two seats as a sport pilot

00:34:42.740 private pilot license will cost you about ten thousand dollars uh that includes the plane that

00:34:48.340 includes the instructor that includes your books and that will take you about oh anywhere from

00:34:54.600 three to nine months just depending on the tempo of how often you can get to the airfield and get

00:35:00.820 your license yeah that's not bad at all i mean considering like what yeah what you get and this

00:35:05.360 is it's definitely an investment for sure yeah i mean that and i mean is it so the process is when

00:35:11.460 you get your pilot's license there's a you said there's a sport pilot license and there's a private

00:35:15.840 right do you do you have to start off with the sport license and then move to the private or can you

00:35:20.120 just go right to private you can start and go right to private uh some people get sport first

00:35:25.600 because it's a little cheaper cost you about six thousand dollars mainly because it only requires

00:35:30.680 20 hours of dual instruction time versus minimum of 40 hours private pilot uh you are a little limited

00:35:37.740 as a sport pilot you can only fly uh one passenger you can fly only in the daytime you can't ever have

00:35:44.040 clouds below you you always have the ground visible below you and i think you're limited to

00:35:49.140 10 000 feet uh and also you usually can't fly into big airspace class bravo which would be uh lax

00:35:57.000 denver chicago unless i think you have some sort of enforcement uh most people that fly routinely fly

00:36:03.780 kind of at the sport pilot level um you know you don't have that many people with you you don't fly

00:36:08.940 into you know big cities so it would be a good stair-stepping way to get into flying and start with a

00:36:15.120 sport pilot and then you can always add private pilot later on and like a plane is it something you

00:36:21.480 you own or do you rent one and if you do own one how much does it cost to own a plane the uh renting

00:36:27.440 versus ownership decision usually is made when someone's flying over 100 hours a year below that

00:36:34.980 if you've got at least a fairly good deal on renting a plane which is anywhere from 100 to 130

00:36:40.820 dollars an hour including fuel that's basically for a cessna 172 skyhawk it's a four-seater it cruises

00:36:48.060 about 130 miles an hour for about 400 mile range um if you're flying more than 100 hours a year

00:36:56.060 the economics make more sense to buy uh the skyhawk over the long haul and you know a plane like that

00:37:03.020 will cost anywhere from 25 to 50 000 just depending on uh age and condition gotcha so you can you can

00:37:12.200 get these used there's a good used market oh sure in fact a lot of the planes that are flying uh aren't

00:37:17.640 made anymore uh cessna doesn't make their entire line like the 180 skywagon which is a great plane but

00:37:24.200 they stopped making it in the 70s i think so yeah a lot of what's flying is old you know my plane is from

00:37:30.320 the 60s and a new plane like a new brand new skyhawk today is 300 000 and you can get the the

00:37:37.640 cherriest you know 1980 used skyhawk with nice avionics for uh you know 60 000 you'd have a hard time

00:37:45.860 paying more than 60 000 for the nicest used skyhawk and you're just you know the other 240 000 premium

00:37:52.540 for a new plane uh just isn't worth it but people are catching on the values of of these older planes

00:37:59.220 and so the market has kind of bottomed out but i think it's starting to rebound a little bit

00:38:04.060 both in the aviation sense uh and also you know national economy may be improving under trump so

00:38:10.300 if you want to start flying this is an excellent time to do it especially with fuel being you know

00:38:15.020 four to 450 a gallon for avgas are you seeing more people get their private license i mean have you seen

00:38:20.920 since you've had it have you seen more people kind of enter into that that domain i i statistically that's

00:38:28.400 it's not happening i i see people getting into it because i'm i'm at airports and i've talked to

00:38:33.180 pilots you know i i named half a dozen people who just got their license in the past year but that's

00:38:38.320 only because i'm immersed in it uh i think nationally we have fewer pilots every year than the previous

00:38:44.360 year uh we're trying to do a lot to to uh reverse that there's a rusty pilot program a lot of people

00:38:51.240 uh have their license they're just not current they haven't flown for you know four years or 40 years

00:38:56.360 we're trying to get them back into aviation and we're also trying to entice the younger generation

00:39:01.020 of the joys of aviation so we're we're doing our best and low fuel prices are helping because you

00:39:07.540 know when i started to learn how to fly uh avgas was five to six dollars a gallon versus uh under 450

00:39:13.320 so the environment's good with low fuel prices and low uh prices of used airplanes so uh i've become

00:39:20.700 sort of an aviation missionary uh wherever i go and so a guy's best bet in trying to get started

00:39:27.560 with this is just google their local pilot school yeah if you live any you know anywhere near a large

00:39:33.620 city meaning a hundred thousand people or more there's almost guaranteed to be a certified flight

00:39:38.480 instructor uh if not several um meet all of them because people are people and you're only gonna

00:39:44.440 you know click with one versus another and you know find out the reputation of of uh these flight

00:39:50.460 instructors versus each other there's very few bad ones and you know you're likely not going to to

00:39:57.760 fall into a uh a regrettable situation with whoever you choose i mean i called the first guy out of the

00:40:04.100 book i liked the sound of his voice and uh nice older gentleman reminding me of my grandfather and uh

00:40:09.960 you know i love the guy he was just wonderful and so anyone can can find a good instructor where they

00:40:15.900 live the main thing is just to get up in the air at least for an introductory flight brett

00:40:19.820 and after that boy if it's in you uh it will just take off that's awesome well ken this has been a

00:40:25.680 great conversation where can people go to learn more about uh your work i've got a website

00:40:30.700 javelinpress.com or all my books are on amazon of course and that's probably the quicker way to get it

00:40:37.320 especially for kendall all my stuff is on kendall uh so yeah kenneth royce uh kenneth w royce at amazon

00:40:44.900 is probably the fastest way i also have a new youtube channel uh boston tea party on youtube so

00:40:52.020 uh i've got some excerpts of my older speeches and i'll be adding more content content to that very soon

00:40:57.540 awesome kenneth w royce thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure my pleasure too brett

00:41:02.640 thanks for what you do it's a great site and a great mission you guys got so i'm happy to be a part of it

00:41:06.940 i guess it was kenneth w royce he is the author of the books modules for manhood they're available

00:41:12.140 on amazon.com you also check out our show notes at aom.is slash royce where you can find links

00:41:16.840 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:41:18.760 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:41:34.860 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:41:38.260 podcast i've gotten something out of it over the years you've been listening to it or months really

00:41:41.780 appreciate you give us a review on itunes or stitcher that helps us out a lot thank you to

00:41:45.020 everyone who has given us review really appreciate that as always thank you for your continued support

00:41:48.800 and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - August 15, 2017

#330： The Life Skills Every Man Should Know

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