The Art of Manliness - The 5 Marks of a Man

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.480 We often think of the difference between a boy and a man as a matter of age, but Brian

00:00:15.580 Tome says that there can be 15-year-old men and 45-year-old boys, and that the real difference

00:00:20.300 maker in being grown up isn't a matter of the number of years you accumulate, but the

00:00:23.840 qualities, behaviors, and mindset you possess.

00:00:26.760 Brian is a pastor and the author of The Five Marks of a Man.

00:00:30.540 Today on the show, Brian unpacks what he thinks are the marks of mature manhood.

00:00:34.260 We talk about the need to have a vision and how life-giving hobbies can create that vision.

00:00:38.060 Brian argues that manhood requires staking out a minority position, being part of a pack,

00:00:42.480 and creating more than you consume.

00:00:44.160 And we discuss the ways men can still be protectors in the 21st century.

00:00:47.840 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash marks.

00:01:00.000 All right, Brian Tome, welcome to the show.

00:01:05.600 Brett, fantastic to be here.

00:01:07.400 Long-time listener, first-time caller.

00:01:09.520 Well, glad to have you.

00:01:10.960 So you have spent your career as a pastor who's particularly focused on working with men.

00:01:17.200 What are the problems that you saw come up over and over again with the men that you interacted

00:01:22.460 with that drove you to write this book, The Five Marks of a Man?

00:01:25.760 Yeah, well, it probably started when I got a lot of feedback from women saying, 1.00

00:01:33.600 hey, could you do something to get the men in this church in line?

00:01:36.720 And I at first took it as, well, you're just complaining because the guys who you want to

00:01:42.760 ask you out, they're not asking you out.

00:01:44.680 So I didn't pay much attention to it.

00:01:46.200 But the more I heard them and the more I observed a lot of men's behavior, the more I realized

00:01:52.200 there is a bunch, a bunch of guys who haven't grown up yet, a bunch of guys who still aren't

00:02:01.140 willing to make a commitment.

00:02:02.600 Even a commitment to talk to a woman, even a commitment to date somebody.

00:02:07.220 I tell fraternities, I've spoken to a number of fraternities around the country, and I tell

00:02:12.040 them, I said, guys, if you will talk to a woman, you can have any woman here you want 0.80

00:02:17.660 because young men are afraid to talk to women.

00:02:21.360 They're okay to text them, okay to be in a group context, but just not comfortable.

00:02:26.120 And I saw again and again and again how young men were struggling.

00:02:28.720 And then I saw older men and I used the men loosely.

00:02:33.280 The premise of the book, Brett, is there's such a thing as a 15-year-old man and there's

00:02:39.400 such a thing as a 45-year-old boy.

00:02:42.280 It doesn't matter how old you are.

00:02:45.520 It's a matter of these marks that I started to discovering.

00:02:50.100 And I saw these guys, a couple of my friends, I just thought, gosh, dude, you're 45.

00:02:55.840 You still have a hard time getting up early and going to work and keeping the same job.

00:03:01.220 You still have a hard time keeping a commitment to a woman after all this time. 0.99

00:03:06.860 You still act like the way I acted when I was 15.

00:03:11.880 It just seemed odd to me.

00:03:13.280 And so that was all part of the stew that I was swimming in at that point.

00:03:17.780 Yeah, these 45-year-old boys, in the words of my son, 13-year-old son, Gus, he would say,

00:03:22.840 they don't mean business.

00:03:24.480 They don't even know their business.

00:03:26.980 I like that.

00:03:28.040 Yeah, well, that's one of the marks that I uncovered.

00:03:31.640 And when I say these marks, I would just have the listeners say, if you picture a man who

00:03:38.180 you respect, your father, a father figure, even a man from history, Abraham Lincoln, a

00:03:43.840 Winston Churchill, I think you'll find that these five things come up again and again and

00:03:48.580 again and again and again.

00:03:50.100 And one of them, you just mentioned with your son's amazing quotes.

00:03:53.480 I'm going to have to write that down.

00:03:54.580 If I do a revision of the book, Brett, I'm going to quote your son.

00:03:57.620 They don't mean business.

00:03:59.000 And what he's basically saying there is these guys don't have a vision for their life.

00:04:03.540 A man has a vision.

00:04:05.540 A boy lives day to day.

00:04:07.080 And until there's something out in the distance that you don't have that you want and is going

00:04:16.500 to take two things, time and difficulty, that's what a vision is.

00:04:20.960 There's time and difficulty before you get there.

00:04:23.540 And boys want it all right now.

00:04:25.920 They don't want to work out and get their physical goals.

00:04:29.060 They don't want to work their way up the food chain in the business world.

00:04:33.420 They think immediately everybody should hear their ideas because they're so amazing.

00:04:37.080 No, when you have a vision, there's something out there that's giving you reason for why

00:04:41.720 you're doing what you're doing today, whatever that vision is.

00:04:44.380 And they change over time, right?

00:04:45.520 It's just something out there.

00:04:46.260 It could be getting college education, getting married, being the first person in my family

00:04:50.580 to actually stay married, starting a business, doing a triathlon, whatever it is, a boy will

00:04:57.640 never take off a goal like that because he just wants to have a good day.

00:05:01.840 I've noticed this too in a lot of grown men is they, a lot of them who are floundering,

00:05:06.560 they seem listless.

00:05:08.200 They just, yeah, they lack a vision that they're shooting for.

00:05:10.340 Why do you think there's so many men lacking that bigger vision for their lives and for

00:05:14.140 their families?

00:05:16.400 I think there's a confluence of a lot of things that have come together.

00:05:21.460 The men today and brought by men, I'm talking about anybody in their, you know, 20s, 30s,

00:05:27.580 40s.

00:05:28.520 Everyone thinks that the, the earliest generation is the weakest generation.

00:05:32.480 That's been part of American history.

00:05:34.060 Every German generation from John Adams back, all thinks, oh, these new Americans, they're, 0.96

00:05:38.500 they're just going to be weak. 0.99

00:05:39.500 They're, they're, they're, they're horrible.

00:05:40.700 But I do think if we look back at the things that we've done to bless our kids, the things

00:05:46.620 we've done to set our kids up for success, I think we've made them more short-term focused.

00:05:52.560 I think as we've talked about things like follow your passion, follow your passion, you get

00:06:00.840 up every day and you go to work and you find that you're really good at something.

00:06:06.340 And then that becomes your passion because you're finding you're having results with

00:06:10.520 that.

00:06:10.940 But follow my passion.

00:06:11.780 What's that supposed to mean?

00:06:12.400 Every, every 18 year old is supposed to be a social media influencer.

00:06:15.600 That's never been an option, Brett, for any male in history.

00:06:19.480 So we've got all these things that are first offs that we're dealing with right now in,

00:06:24.200 in America, things that have never happened in anthropological history.

00:06:29.240 Even the idea of adolescence, that term wasn't known until about 1900.

00:06:35.000 It was coined like 1900.

00:06:36.520 Oh, adolescence.

00:06:37.240 There's this weird thing that's happening with kids as they come into puberty.

00:06:41.040 Well, that went from being when you were 13 to when you're 13 to 18.

00:06:45.680 Now what's 13 to 35?

00:06:47.700 You know, people feel like they still can't make commitments or are still trying to find

00:06:51.120 themselves.

00:06:52.160 Hey, try to find yourself.

00:06:53.460 It's okay that we're all on a journey of self-discovery, but we have to say, at this point, I don't know

00:06:58.160 enough about myself to move.

00:07:00.080 I've got some outages and I've got to look at those instead of just an idea for what I

00:07:04.320 might do in the future.

00:07:05.720 Yeah.

00:07:05.840 I love that idea of not following your passion.

00:07:09.340 Instead, this is from Cal Newport from that book he wrote, So Good They Can't Ignore You.

00:07:13.540 And he talks about, instead of following your passion, find what you're really good at and

00:07:19.420 then just throw yourself into that.

00:07:21.400 And then you'll develop a passion because you're displaying mastery and you're actually

00:07:26.020 having an effect on the world.

00:07:27.260 And he says, yeah, the problem with passion, you're following your passions.

00:07:30.100 Passion's fleeting.

00:07:30.800 You can be excited about being a social media influencer.

00:07:33.840 You can be excited about, I don't know, lifting weights or being a coach.

00:07:37.880 That's good.

00:07:38.440 It could change from day to day.

00:07:39.740 But if you find that one thing you're really good at, you discover what life has called

00:07:44.840 you to and try to do that with all your might, then you'll develop that passion as you do

00:07:50.560 that.

00:07:51.000 Yeah.

00:07:51.160 And you discover it not by taking an online survey or seeing somebody else's life that

00:07:55.660 has a lot of expensive things.

00:07:57.300 You discover it by working, by putting one foot in front of the other.

00:08:01.360 That's actually the second mark that I found in my research is that men work and boys play.

00:08:06.940 Men wake up, they feel like they have a job to do.

00:08:10.740 They want to add value.

00:08:12.860 And a boy isn't so much concerned or interested in that.

00:08:16.680 But when you have a work ethic, when you just start hitting the same nail, something happens.

00:08:20.880 And I think, Brett, that's one of the ways that our younger generation of men are at a

00:08:24.380 disadvantage.

00:08:25.540 You and I could probably compare all the crappy jobs we had from age 13 on.

00:08:31.580 We could probably one up each other.

00:08:32.940 I could tell you about when I would deliver papers, satchels over both shoulders, cutting

00:08:38.800 into my neck when I had the big Sunday edition and having to figure out how to do it in the

00:08:42.980 snow.

00:08:43.260 We all have our horror story.

00:08:44.640 I could tell you about flipping hamburgers at Hardee's over an open flame, getting third

00:08:50.180 degree burns under my inner thighs when cleaning out the fryers.

00:08:53.480 I could tell you about, you know, when I was a grunt worker, all of us who are older have

00:08:57.840 those sort of stories of things that were just crappy to do.

00:09:00.560 And those jobs, many of them are just gone.

00:09:02.940 There's no paper boys anymore.

00:09:05.360 The demands on school also can tend to be so high that people don't even have time for

00:09:11.120 jobs.

00:09:11.620 Like how many kids do you know actually have a minimum wage job?

00:09:15.760 I think our parents and we're trying to bless our kids by maybe letting them have it easier

00:09:20.880 than we did.

00:09:21.800 But in the process, we're short circling a way for them to develop work ethic, which will

00:09:25.780 help them discover what their passion is because they find that they're good at it.

00:09:31.920 Okay.

00:09:32.040 So finding your vision or developing a vision isn't about, it's basically, it sounds like

00:09:37.280 you have to just start doing stuff in the world.

00:09:39.440 And as you do those things, you'll discover what that vision is, but it takes action.

00:09:45.800 Yes.

00:09:46.340 Yes.

00:09:46.620 You've got to test things out.

00:09:48.020 You've got to try things out.

00:09:49.380 And again, young males in the history of all of civilization, that's what they did.

00:09:55.560 They had a path that they had to get on and follow that path.

00:09:59.180 Get myself a teepee, go out and hunt, take care of these things, sleep outside.

00:10:05.260 These are all things that every man in every corner of the globe throttle history have done

00:10:10.160 until the last a hundred years or so.

00:10:11.800 And so I think that there's been things that naturally were in place to grow a young male

00:10:18.020 into a man.

00:10:19.000 And some of those things we've evolved out of, and it's actually to our destruction.

00:10:23.300 Yeah.

00:10:23.580 Well, I think it's interesting.

00:10:25.000 I think one of the reasons that also may be contributing to a lot of men these days,

00:10:29.260 maybe in their thirties, forties, who don't feel like they have like a vision for their

00:10:32.340 life is that before, you know, let's say a hundred years ago, this is kind of related to what

00:10:37.860 you were saying about the rites of passage in cultures.

00:10:40.520 You had a vision given to you in your culture.

00:10:43.280 Like, this is what you, what you need to do.

00:10:45.260 And so you did it.

00:10:46.520 Right.

00:10:46.960 And now we live in an age where this is, this is a blessing.

00:10:50.200 You get to decide what you're going to do, but that blessing can also be a curse.

00:10:53.940 Cause it's like, oh man, there's so many things I could do so many things I could have as a

00:10:58.400 vision for my life that it can become so overwhelming that you just don't do anything.

00:11:03.300 Yeah.

00:11:03.720 I interact with people in corporate America who are making huge amounts of money, massive,

00:11:09.440 massive amounts of money.

00:11:11.160 And it's very common for them to think, yeah, but what would have happened if I'd been a

00:11:14.880 stockbroker?

00:11:15.840 You know, what would have happened if I started my own business?

00:11:18.620 You know, great point, Brett.

00:11:20.180 We didn't have these options way back when we just put our head down and went after it.

00:11:25.500 And I think that we're just, uh, we're spending too much time navel gazing as men.

00:11:30.340 Put your hand at the plow.

00:11:31.520 As the Bible says, here goes first Bible quote, because I am a pastor by day, you know, put

00:11:36.020 your hand to the plow and don't look back.

00:11:38.600 When you're plowing a field, you want to fix your eyes on a tree on the other side of the

00:11:43.400 field and let your horse pull you towards it.

00:11:45.960 So your rows are nice and straight.

00:11:47.540 Most of us don't have the attention span to fix our eyes on a tree on the other side of a

00:11:51.540 field.

00:11:52.180 We're just looking left and right, wondering, does somebody else have a better ox than we

00:11:55.720 do?

00:11:55.940 Is somebody else doing it better than I am looking behind ourselves, second guessing my

00:11:59.720 past?

00:12:00.640 No, man, just, just look forward to what you think is best and go.

00:12:05.340 Okay.

00:12:05.660 So I think the takeaway there, if you're a young man and you want to develop that vision for

00:12:08.980 your life, try different, like do different stuff, try different things.

00:12:12.760 Cause that's how you're going to find it.

00:12:13.820 What advice do you have for a guy who's in his thirties and forties?

00:12:16.320 You know, he's got a career, maybe he's got a mortgage he's got to pay and he doesn't feel

00:12:19.440 like he has the ability to go do other things, try different things.

00:12:24.640 Cause it might just mess everything up, you know, make it so he can't pay the bills.

00:12:28.160 Any advice for those guys who feel listless cause they don't have something bigger they're

00:12:31.440 shooting for?

00:12:33.000 Yeah.

00:12:33.500 I think there's a couple of things that they could do.

00:12:36.620 One is to just look under their nose, see what's around them and recognize that there

00:12:42.600 is long-term lasting impact they can have in their relationships around them.

00:12:46.620 You know, as we've put off having a family, I know that you did a bit a while ago when

00:12:52.480 you said one of the marks of man was procreation.

00:12:54.820 As we take a look at, you know, history, I really liked that a lot.

00:12:58.160 Maybe there's six marks of a man, but there is this thing of I've created somebody who's

00:13:04.040 going to outlast me.

00:13:05.740 You know, your business isn't going to outlast you, but you create a person.

00:13:08.520 It does.

00:13:08.840 That's a great vision.

00:13:09.540 If you got, if you have kids, like that's an unbelievable vision that is going to outlast

00:13:14.920 you and you can replicate yourself in those guys and women in huge ways.

00:13:19.020 I think the second thing that you're probably touching on here, Brett, which is another

00:13:22.940 passionary of mine is many men feel that way, but the answer isn't finding a new vision

00:13:31.600 or a new purpose.

00:13:32.500 The answer is you need a life-giving hobby.

00:13:35.360 You need some hobby that captures your imagination, something that you can improve in.

00:13:41.880 Because I think it's important for us to men to feel like we're on some sort of improvement

00:13:45.700 plan.

00:13:46.640 You know, I know for you, at least for a while ago, your hobbies seem to be cross-training

00:13:50.300 and power lifting and stuff.

00:13:51.680 And that's a good hobby for me.

00:13:53.400 I've got elk hunting is one for me.

00:13:55.600 I don't know much about it.

00:13:56.840 I'm learning.

00:13:57.360 I've got to get in shape.

00:13:58.360 I'm dreaming about it.

00:13:59.340 I got to plan trips, all that stuff.

00:14:01.040 I've got another hobby of restoring old cars.

00:14:04.060 Got to learn things about that.

00:14:05.640 Ask other men questions about how to rebuild a T-150 transmission.

00:14:10.860 And it takes creative thought and it's a vision.

00:14:14.080 It's something that's fun to do.

00:14:15.580 And I just meet a lot of guys who aren't doing anything fun.

00:14:19.000 And they think the answer is I need some huge career shift.

00:14:23.160 Maybe I'm okay with if you do a career shift.

00:14:25.360 But first, is there anything you do that brings you life that you're not paid for?

00:14:30.140 Is there anything you sink a lot of money in simply because you like it?

00:14:35.480 That's a real outage for us.

00:14:37.960 Okay.

00:14:38.040 So your vision doesn't have to be just constrained to your career.

00:14:41.240 Correct.

00:14:41.480 You can look beyond that.

00:14:42.380 Yeah.

00:14:42.520 I think that's a good insight.

00:14:44.520 So sometimes a hobby itself can form that vision or purpose for your life.

00:14:48.580 And something I've noticed too in my own life is hobbies can inspire a different vision

00:14:54.800 for your career too.

00:14:56.700 Yeah.

00:14:56.880 I was on one of my hobbies is adventure motorcycling riding.

00:15:01.540 And I never thought that that would do anything other than just be fun to camp with other guys.

00:15:06.280 And we were on a campfire one day and I wasn't looking for a new vision.

00:15:10.300 I wasn't looking for anything different to do.

00:15:12.680 And one of the guys around the campfire opened up about something really vulnerable in his life.

00:15:18.580 It was one of those moments like when someone goes there, everyone around the fire says,

00:15:23.840 wow, I don't hear that very often.

00:15:26.180 And I could probably say something like that right now if I had the courage.

00:15:31.400 And there was this really great bonding moment.

00:15:33.880 And the next morning before we were heading out, we were on the same campfire.

00:15:37.880 And I said, guys, every time we come and do this, people open up, we get vulnerable,

00:15:43.560 we go back as better men.

00:15:45.580 And I don't think it's the fact that we're on motorcycles.

00:15:48.700 I don't think it's the fact that we're staying away from our home for a couple nights.

00:15:54.400 I think we're tapping into this thing of camping and being around a campfire.

00:15:59.320 Like every man from all history has sat around a fire and shared their heart or encouraged one

00:16:04.340 another or had drinking stuff or gotten ready before a big battle.

00:16:09.020 I said, what could we do to make something like this accessible to more men who are never going

00:16:15.000 to get in a motorcycle?

00:16:16.120 Who cares if you ride a motorcycle or not?

00:16:17.300 And that became this thing that has become a vision for my life that I never, ever, ever,

00:16:23.740 ever, ever would have thought of.

00:16:25.120 It's called man camp. 0.98

00:16:26.760 And it just came out of nowhere.

00:16:28.840 And I would have never said, hey, how can I have, we have 3,000 guys, seven different

00:16:34.620 countries, 40 different states coming together actually tomorrow.

00:16:38.560 And it's going to be really crazy.

00:16:40.180 And I could have never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought, well, how could I, what could I do

00:16:45.200 that would gather 3,000 people from around the world?

00:16:46.900 I would never, but because I was just trying to take a break, I was trying to have a hobby,

00:16:51.620 I was trying to detach.

00:16:53.280 Then an idea came to me and I realized, oh, I'm actually kind of set up for this.

00:16:58.480 That's how these big visions come, these quote unquote big visions.

00:17:01.720 When you're just being faithful with what you feel you need to do, and then something

00:17:06.280 comes to you and you decide to step out and put one foot in front of the other.

00:17:10.080 Going back to that idea of just, you know, putting your hand to the plow and just looking

00:17:12.940 at the tree and just keeping going.

00:17:14.340 I mean, I know a lot of guys, once they've decided, this is my vision, this is what I'm

00:17:18.060 going to work on.

00:17:19.080 It can be really tempting to be like, well, I'm just getting tired of this.

00:17:22.800 I want to do something else.

00:17:23.580 I'm going to jump ship and do something else.

00:17:25.840 Any advice on playing the long game?

00:17:28.020 Because as you said, the boys live for today, men play the long game.

00:17:31.320 So any advice on getting better at playing the long game?

00:17:33.660 I think if you're going to make a shift, it needs to be because you've been doing the

00:17:42.980 same job for a long time and you've really tried to innovate in that job, but you're

00:17:49.080 repeatedly seeing really bad, negligible results.

00:17:53.560 And if that's your situation, you've been faithful, you've been hitting the same nail

00:17:57.140 over and over again, then you might want to look at a, look at a change.

00:18:01.300 But I think for most of us, the problem is that we don't hit the same nail.

00:18:05.860 You could line up a railroad tie and you could put tent nails in it and you could take your

00:18:11.120 hammer and just start hitting each of those nails as you feel hitting them. 0.99

00:18:15.840 But the only one that's going to go down is the one you stay on and you keep hitting the

00:18:19.560 same nail to sink it.

00:18:21.120 There's a lack of tenacity that's bred into us by our culture.

00:18:25.040 We don't have to be tenacious.

00:18:26.720 There's so many safety nets.

00:18:28.240 There's so many options.

00:18:29.640 There's so much distraction, right?

00:18:31.280 We're losing that focus.

00:18:32.300 So when a man can learn to focus on a thing, he's almost always going to find that he's

00:18:38.720 going to have success because very few men are able to focus.

00:18:42.660 One bit of useful advice I got from my dad.

00:18:45.020 So my dad was a federal game warden.

00:18:46.560 He did that for 30 years.

00:18:47.980 And I remember when I was, I was like 18 or 19.

00:18:50.320 At this point, he was probably 25 years in the job.

00:18:52.740 And I asked my dad, how do you do, like every day is the same day for you.

00:18:57.180 And you've been doing this for 25 years.

00:18:58.700 Like, what do you do?

00:18:59.920 And his advice was, he says, I just focus on each day and try to make the best I can

00:19:04.980 out of that one day.

00:19:06.380 Then everything else just kind of takes care of itself.

00:19:08.880 I thought that was pretty good advice.

00:19:10.500 That is a good one.

00:19:11.360 Okay.

00:19:11.560 So the second mark you talk about in the book is men take a minority position.

00:19:15.420 How do boys do the opposite of this?

00:19:17.160 Yeah, well, boys are always looking to be in the majority.

00:19:22.580 In Cincinnati, we don't have a pigeon problem because somehow, and it's debatable how this

00:19:28.800 happened, was this introduced or did they just come here?

00:19:31.120 There were peregrine falcons that came to our city.

00:19:34.000 There was a couple of families that actually went to one hotel a number of years ago.

00:19:38.020 And there was the falcon nest sitting right outside.

00:19:41.200 It was really crazy.

00:19:42.460 And what happens is these peregrine falcons, they just waste all the pigeons.

00:19:47.880 That's how they eat.

00:19:49.040 They come down and just crush them and destroy them.

00:19:52.440 And that's what it's like with boys and men. 0.96

00:19:55.780 Boys are like pigeons. 0.81

00:19:57.560 They squawk around. 0.69

00:19:58.820 They poop all over the place.

00:20:00.240 They make a lot of noise.

00:20:01.280 They don't clean up after themselves.

00:20:03.340 They run in big, big, big packs.

00:20:05.640 And then men are, there's few of us, Brett.

00:20:07.800 There's few of us who have principles that we'll die for.

00:20:10.380 There's few of us who will play the long game.

00:20:13.440 There's few of us who will endure hardship and feel like it's a mark of manhood to just

00:20:18.920 endure it and suck it up. 0.99

00:20:20.420 Because sometimes you have to do that as a man.

00:20:22.900 And there's few of us.

00:20:24.260 You take a minority position.

00:20:25.740 Your beliefs as a man, you're going to find they're in the minority relative to the rest

00:20:30.020 of the culture.

00:20:30.600 I'm not trying to be in the minority.

00:20:32.380 A man doesn't intentionally love to be in the minority.

00:20:34.820 He just recognizes whatever it is, he's got a guiding star.

00:20:38.800 He's got a north point on his life that that's more important to him than the approval of

00:20:44.400 the masses, which is what the boys need.

00:20:46.980 Yeah, I can see this happening.

00:20:47.960 Let's say a man who's got a career in a particular profession and there's a lot of pressure to

00:20:52.120 spend a lot of time at work, right?

00:20:55.000 That's what you do.

00:20:56.080 But this particular man says, no, family's more important.

00:20:58.700 So I'm going to spend more time with my family and less time at work.

00:21:01.960 And they might get derided for that.

00:21:04.440 They might have opportunities to advance in their career, be limited because of that

00:21:08.480 position, but they got to be okay with that.

00:21:11.260 Right, right.

00:21:11.760 You can't have it all.

00:21:13.500 You can't work out five times a week, be well read, be up to speed on the latest TV shows,

00:21:21.940 binge those, have a career that's thriving and going someplace, have a wife who loves you,

00:21:28.100 have kids that respect you.

00:21:29.920 You can't have all those things.

00:21:31.420 You got to be happy having a couple of those things to a really, really high degree.

00:21:37.300 And then other ones, you just play in and dabble in from time to time.

00:21:39.820 It's choices you have to make.

00:21:41.440 And boys just don't want to make choices.

00:21:44.100 All right.

00:21:44.220 So having a vision will sometimes require you to take a minority position.

00:21:47.940 And that can mean being a minority in terms of the smaller number of people who recognize

00:21:54.080 that everything in life has trade-offs.

00:21:56.440 So you got to make choices.

00:21:57.340 But it can mean also bigger things, big professional, moral, ethical decisions.

00:22:03.540 Any advice on strengthening the nonconformity muscle that will allow you to go against the

00:22:10.300 tide with your vision and principles?

00:22:12.460 Because a lot of men, as soon as they meet with some resistance, they're tempted to just

00:22:17.220 give up because it's easier to go with the flow.

00:22:21.020 Well, what I do personally, as I look at the historical figures that inspire me, and it

00:22:29.160 seems like all of them were a voice in the wilderness.

00:22:32.760 You know, Winston Churchill saying, hey, we have got to take the Nazis serious here.

00:22:37.680 This is not, not good.

00:22:39.420 He was taking a minority position until finally they realized, okay, we have to go to war.

00:22:43.460 I was over in Germany just last week touring some of the sites of chaos and destruction

00:22:50.460 from the Nazis.

00:22:51.540 And at all these sites, there's a person that's memorialized because they didn't go with the

00:22:59.360 majority.

00:23:00.060 One of the sites I went to was a concentration camp outside of Weimar.

00:23:03.800 It's called Buchenwald.

00:23:05.080 And there was a pastor there who got thrown in because he refused to give Nazi propaganda

00:23:10.300 when he was doing a funeral, got thrown in there and then refused to take his hat off

00:23:15.140 in respect to Hitler on Hitler's birthday.

00:23:17.980 So he threw him in solitary confinement, which is right where the buses came in, unloading

00:23:23.280 all these inmates.

00:23:24.880 And the guy started preaching out of the window.

00:23:28.560 And so they took him away and they killed him.

00:23:31.080 And then they put boxes over all the windows so that nobody could do that in the future.

00:23:34.820 And you could see all that stuff there.

00:23:35.840 So when I see these things, Brett, of people who stand for what is right, who go,

00:23:40.300 a different path, I'm always inspired.

00:23:42.940 And I just kind of log it away in my mind and say, okay, Brian, when people don't understand

00:23:46.700 you, when they think you're doing the wrong thing, even if you think it's the right thing,

00:23:50.440 don't expect everyone to applaud.

00:23:52.940 That is not the lesson of history.

00:23:55.280 All right.

00:23:55.380 So look for historical examples.

00:23:56.680 That can be a great way to strengthen, to steel yourself up.

00:23:59.700 Yes.

00:24:00.320 I like that.

00:24:01.320 I'll give another one.

00:24:02.660 Another one would be look in the past to when you took little mini stands.

00:24:07.900 What were those stands that you took?

00:24:09.680 Look, it's the many things that we do that prepare us for the future.

00:24:12.840 And so with the minority position, we think back to, I remember when I was in college and

00:24:18.140 it was a psychology class.

00:24:19.840 I think about this frequently, actually.

00:24:21.400 I use it to psych me up.

00:24:22.820 And I remember they were talking about the id and how some people believe in God.

00:24:26.980 And this wasn't some Christian Bible school.

00:24:29.120 It was a secular university.

00:24:30.020 And my professor's name was Dr.

00:24:32.260 Heckle.

00:24:33.160 I kid you not.

00:24:33.920 That was his name, Dr.

00:24:35.520 Heckle.

00:24:35.820 And he said, well, for instance, does anybody in here happen to believe in God?

00:24:42.600 And there was about 80 people in this classroom.

00:24:45.660 And I sat there.

00:24:46.980 I looked around.

00:24:47.600 I started to have a cold sweat breakdown in my face.

00:24:50.560 And I knew people there did.

00:24:52.640 This is, this is 1983, you know, no one was, it felt like it was three hours.

00:24:59.040 And I remember raising my hand and then he had a, he didn't belittle me.

00:25:03.300 He just asked me a question.

00:25:04.180 So that was it.

00:25:04.800 And when I was done with that, I thought, wow, that was a big deal.

00:25:07.880 I think it's the first time I stood up and was the only one in a room and raised my hand.

00:25:13.860 That formed me for things on down the line that were later on.

00:25:17.140 And so I think about those things and I tell myself, you've done this before, Brian, this

00:25:21.360 is just the most recent one, but this is in your history.

00:25:24.720 You can do this.

00:25:25.740 All right.

00:25:25.840 Take courage from the small things.

00:25:27.140 I like that.

00:25:27.940 Yes.

00:25:29.220 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:25:34.300 And now back to the show.

00:25:35.960 A third mark you talked about is men are team players and you argue that it's boyish to want

00:25:41.820 to be a lone wolf.

00:25:43.360 Why is that?

00:25:44.960 Yeah.

00:25:45.260 I've heard guys say this.

00:25:46.060 I'm a lone wolf. 0.98

00:25:47.400 And I'll say to guys, I'll say, you mean you're weak and you're going to die sooner 0.98

00:25:51.840 than you need to?

00:25:52.920 And they always look at me like, what are you talking about?

00:25:54.740 And I say, well, anybody who knows wolves knows that when you're a lone wolf, you're

00:25:58.860 weak and you die sooner because wolves can only live when they're in a pack because that's

00:26:03.420 how they can pull down an elk.

00:26:05.360 We've even dramatized, mythologized this beautiful characteristic of not needing anybody or not

00:26:12.460 being able to play with other people well.

00:26:15.300 And it's coming to our detriment.

00:26:16.320 I think this is why men are four times more likely to die of suicide.

00:26:20.100 And all of our other statistics are horrible because we are not making relationships, which

00:26:26.380 is another way of saying team.

00:26:27.840 We're not entering into team environments with people, other guys or women.

00:26:32.920 Yeah.

00:26:32.980 There's that quote from Rudyard Kipling.

00:26:34.420 For the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

00:26:39.140 Oh, that's good.

00:26:40.180 Brett, why didn't I talk to you before I wrote this book?

00:26:42.420 I should have that in my book.

00:26:44.040 What am I doing?

00:26:45.220 No, it's a good one.

00:26:46.900 And it goes to this idea of going back to ecology when they observe wolves.

00:26:51.200 The lone wolves are usually the ones that got kicked out of the pack because they were

00:26:53.980 a runt or they were just mean.

00:26:56.240 They just weren't cooperating.

00:26:57.160 They weren't helping the pack out.

00:26:58.300 And so they oftentimes they're like the pack reject.

00:27:00.440 And like, you don't want to be there.

00:27:02.180 Yeah.

00:27:02.660 No, you're right.

00:27:03.200 So I know a lot of men these days, we've talked about this on the podcast.

00:27:05.960 A lot of men these days feel like they don't have a pack.

00:27:07.960 They don't have a group of friends that can strengthen them.

00:27:10.820 Any advice to those men who particularly in their 30s and 40s, that's when it gets really

00:27:15.640 hard.

00:27:15.980 When you're in your 20s, you're still in college.

00:27:18.060 It's easy to make friends.

00:27:19.720 Any advice for men in their 30s, 40s, 50s who are looking for a solid group of friends

00:27:25.120 that can help them become a better man?

00:27:29.140 Absolutely.

00:27:29.500 It's not an easy path, but I 100% have the answer.

00:27:34.060 The answer is life-giving hobbies.

00:27:37.240 That's the answer.

00:27:38.740 Women, there was an old book decades ago, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

00:27:43.160 Do you remember that book, Brett?

00:27:44.240 Oh, of course.

00:27:44.740 Yeah, it was huge all over the place.

00:27:47.060 Yeah, it was massive.

00:27:48.300 And he said, yeah, women go to lunch, men go to their cave.

00:27:52.040 Women tend to be more able to just go to a meal and look at somebody and talk or have 1.00

00:27:57.340 a book study tend to be able to do that better than men.

00:28:00.460 I'm not saying those things aren't manly.

00:28:02.580 I'm just saying that tends to make more sense or come more naturally to a woman.

00:28:06.560 Men, on the other hand, we get friends when we do things together.

00:28:12.320 It's not because we're in college that we had friends.

00:28:15.120 It's not because we were in high school that we had friends.

00:28:16.480 There's no magic friend dust in high school and college campuses.

00:28:20.180 It's that we were doing things with people.

00:28:22.620 We were on athletic teams.

00:28:24.220 We were in intramural things.

00:28:26.340 We were on debate teams.

00:28:27.740 We were doing things that caused us to be around people.

00:28:31.660 And then friendships popped up.

00:28:33.260 Then what happens is we age.

00:28:35.300 We're so immersed with our career or with our streaming or with whatever it is that we're

00:28:41.720 not doing things with other men.

00:28:43.420 And when you're not doing things with other men, you're not going to be able to find another

00:28:47.380 friend.

00:28:48.340 But if you take up a hobby of, just name it.

00:28:51.480 I just named a couple of mine.

00:28:52.820 You take up a hobby of restoring a 1978 Jeep CJ7.

00:28:56.560 There's things that you don't know and YouTube won't help you with that a friend of mine has

00:29:01.100 a new friend by the name of Pete.

00:29:02.520 He'll come over and like, hey, you got to do that.

00:29:04.120 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:29:04.840 And all of a sudden we're friends.

00:29:05.840 You take up whatever it is.

00:29:07.860 You're going to find people to do that with you.

00:29:11.200 And that's where the friendship starts.

00:29:12.960 I had a group of closest friends where we were riding motorcycles together.

00:29:18.240 A couple of them dropped out.

00:29:19.740 So we said, we can't let these friendships die.

00:29:21.440 So we started hunting together, lower impact.

00:29:23.880 And so we have text threads of where are we going to go this year?

00:29:26.900 What kind of, what kind of gear are you getting?

00:29:28.720 Here's the new gear I'm getting.

00:29:29.960 And it's, it's, it's banter and it's beer planning meetings and all that stuff, because

00:29:36.140 it's a hobby.

00:29:37.240 We are starved as men as hobby.

00:29:39.200 And I want to tell you, brothers, you're not a bad person.

00:29:42.620 If you don't have a hobby, you're not a bad person.

00:29:44.180 This isn't a moral thing.

00:29:45.780 It's just, it's okay to spend money on yourself and time on yourself.

00:29:49.680 It'll make for a healthier you and a healthier family.

00:29:52.560 All right.

00:29:52.640 So find a hobby.

00:29:53.560 So it could be CrossFit.

00:29:54.980 It could be jujitsu.

00:29:56.220 I know a guy who joined a bagpipe band and he does that and he does like, they do parades

00:30:02.200 and he's made a lot of great friends doing that.

00:30:05.060 That's awesome.

00:30:05.880 Yeah.

00:30:06.040 We're not talking about doing stereotypical manly things.

00:30:08.700 I just shared some stereotypical manly things.

00:30:11.320 Bagpipes are pretty manly.

00:30:13.460 Bagpipes are very, very manly.

00:30:14.880 But I'm even saying, do you want to go to a poetry writing class and learn how to write

00:30:21.280 poetry?

00:30:21.720 And there's other men there and you're like bouncing haikus off each other or something. 0.99

00:30:26.000 Great.

00:30:26.280 This isn't a matter of doing classic masculine stuff.

00:30:28.400 It's just doing something that fills you up to get you on other men where who knows

00:30:33.740 a friendship just might happen.

00:30:36.560 Yeah.

00:30:36.800 I mean, like back in the day and people still do this today, but I think you had more

00:30:40.060 happened more a couple of decades ago.

00:30:41.560 Like men would get together just to play cards, play poker, play bridge.

00:30:45.340 And I mean, look, you might not.

00:30:47.000 And what's the thing about doing this stuff together, like doing stuff with other men, you might

00:30:50.780 not have these deep, vulnerable conversations, but doing the stuff allows that to happen

00:30:57.940 if it does happen.

00:30:59.240 Right.

00:30:59.660 Right.

00:31:00.180 Well, yeah, you named a couple of them, right?

00:31:02.200 Cards, right?

00:31:02.820 I remember my dad going to, he wasn't a poker player, but he played bridge club.

00:31:06.240 Yeah.

00:31:06.780 He'd go with bridge club.

00:31:07.820 So cards, that's gone for most people.

00:31:11.280 Elks club, that's gone.

00:31:13.180 Lions club, that's gone.

00:31:15.160 Softball teams, they're pretty much gone.

00:31:17.140 You go by a softball field 30 years ago, every night you'd see guys out there playing

00:31:21.820 who probably shouldn't have been playing, but they're grown over.

00:31:24.220 Guys aren't there anymore.

00:31:25.720 Bowling leagues, they're pretty much gone.

00:31:28.640 All of this connective tissue we had in our culture, Brett, that would enable us to connect

00:31:33.160 with one another.

00:31:33.900 Because again, men connect with other people when they're doing something.

00:31:37.860 So all this stuff that we would do and meet men, that connective tissue is gone and

00:31:43.300 it's really unhealthy.

00:31:44.420 So a man's going to have to really figure out how to create that connective tissue for 0.89

00:31:48.460 himself.

00:31:48.780 But it is job number one for your mental health and for your future.

00:31:51.680 And I think the advice there for men who want to start growing that connective tissue,

00:31:55.260 I think something that helps is just manage expectations.

00:31:57.560 Like it's going to, it might take a while and it could be a lot harder than you think.

00:32:02.200 Because I've noticed this when you try to get other men together, like they're busy.

00:32:05.680 They're like, they're not used to doing stuff with other people.

00:32:08.540 They're used to prioritizing other things.

00:32:10.040 So the idea of prioritizing friendship or doing stuff, it's hard for them.

00:32:13.480 So they might flake out or they, oh, I can't make it.

00:32:16.520 But you just got to keep being consistent with it.

00:32:19.360 And you got to play, you got to play the long game with this, going back to that other mark

00:32:23.560 of manhood.

00:32:24.780 Brother, you're right.

00:32:25.740 This goes right back to the vision.

00:32:27.360 It's going to be time and difficulty and there's going to be misses.

00:32:31.100 And actually what you might find too is the initial guys who want to be your friend are

00:32:35.600 the guys that nobody else wants as a friend.

00:32:37.620 That's why they're available.

00:32:38.760 Yeah.

00:32:39.080 You know, I mean, there's some people out there that are just not helpful and it may

00:32:43.740 take you a while to break into a friend group that will have you or to find another person

00:32:48.700 like yourself who has all the right stuff just is dealing with the same thing.

00:32:52.500 But you've got to keep trying.

00:32:53.880 This is, this is a vision you need.

00:32:55.740 The mental health statistics are very, very clear on this.

00:32:59.920 It's going to take time.

00:33:01.060 It's going to take effort.

00:33:02.060 And once you find it, it is worthy.

00:33:04.360 It is, it is gold.

00:33:05.520 In this section about men are team players, you talk about how boys reject authority and

00:33:12.040 men respect authority.

00:33:13.560 And you talk about respecting the authority of like teachers in law enforcement.

00:33:18.140 But something that I thought was interesting is that you said you need to respect the authority

00:33:23.380 of your friends.

00:33:24.740 What does that mean?

00:33:26.020 And what does that look like?

00:33:26.920 First of all, it's a complete turn on that you've actually read my book.

00:33:30.780 I can't, I can't tell you how many podcasts I've done where someone just looks at the

00:33:36.180 thing they sit down.

00:33:37.120 So dude, I'm, I'm, I'm truly honored.

00:33:38.960 That's, that's awesome.

00:33:40.120 Yeah.

00:33:40.300 Let's go to one of the greatest teams that a man could be in ever be on.

00:33:44.540 And that is a marriage.

00:33:45.280 It's the ultimate team with a person who compliments you.

00:33:48.280 That's what a team is.

00:33:49.180 You're in relationship with people who have skills and abilities you don't.

00:33:52.500 And so you're married, you're with somebody who has body parts that you don't skills and

00:33:56.860 abilities that you don't, whatever your skills, abilities are and theirs.

00:34:00.140 Now, when you think about the number of people who've been divorced, which that statistic

00:34:04.100 is incredibly high.

00:34:05.640 And then if you think about the number of people after divorce who say their friend says, I saw

00:34:13.920 that one coming, that's heartbreaking.

00:34:16.040 So I encourage young men to get references on people they're going to date or while they're

00:34:24.760 dating them, while they're dating them, ask around, do you know this woman, you know this 0.98

00:34:30.340 girl, what's your history been like, what's she been like, you're not looking to see some

00:34:34.540 perfect woman, but you're looking to see if this woman is somebody who can't pay attention 1.00

00:34:40.340 and always goes from one guy to another.

00:34:42.200 You need to know that if this is a woman who doesn't serve, he, she never serves. 0.97

00:34:46.440 She's always about herself.

00:34:48.220 That's a sign.

00:34:49.400 We do references when we hire somebody for our business.

00:34:52.380 Why don't we do references when we go out on dates with somebody?

00:34:56.320 Your, our divorce rate will be lot, lot, lot, lot lower.

00:34:59.560 Okay.

00:35:00.820 So if you're a friend, part of being a friend is letting your, letting your friends know

00:35:06.180 like, well, maybe you're not making a great decision here.

00:35:09.000 And that's another thing you talk about in the book is that men want to make other men

00:35:12.860 better.

00:35:13.660 Boys just want to make sure everyone feels comfortable.

00:35:16.840 Right.

00:35:17.340 Yeah.

00:35:18.360 Yeah.

00:35:18.800 There's a, there's a, there's a scripture verse that talks about the wounds of a friend

00:35:23.500 bring healing.

00:35:24.440 You know, it's when my friends see me doing something that I get healed.

00:35:30.000 I've taken significant amount of time off every summer.

00:35:34.180 And I thought a couple of years ago, Brett, I thought, you know what?

00:35:37.300 I've been doing this for a while.

00:35:38.860 Maybe I won't do that this summer.

00:35:40.460 I know you you're really in love with Vermont and doing all that.

00:35:43.580 I've got my different places where I go to.

00:35:45.860 And I had a friend of mine say to me, he said, man, you sound like someone who has bipolar,

00:35:50.740 who's feeling good and thinks they can now go off their meds.

00:35:54.680 He said, this, this rhythm has worked for you.

00:35:57.520 You're doing well.

00:35:58.360 Don't change it.

00:35:59.440 And I didn't listen.

00:36:00.460 I didn't listen.

00:36:01.580 And I changed it.

00:36:02.780 And I paid a massive, massive price.

00:36:05.120 I just wasn't fresh.

00:36:06.680 I started getting into destructive behaviors.

00:36:09.080 I couldn't weather criticism the same way because I didn't have just the clarity of

00:36:14.620 detoxing and detaching.

00:36:16.200 I was less energetic, less resilient in the face of criticism.

00:36:22.080 It just led me down a dark hole.

00:36:23.580 And I didn't listen to my friend.

00:36:25.580 And my friend was trying to tell me something that I didn't realize.

00:36:28.980 That's why you need friends.

00:36:30.680 You need friends not just to laugh with somebody and have some beers with them.

00:36:33.800 You need friends that give you golden wisdom and insight that no book or no counselor is

00:36:40.200 going to give you because they get you.

00:36:42.100 Okay.

00:36:42.900 So if your friend gives you hard advice, they've, they've taken the minority position. 0.98

00:36:46.880 They're giving you hard advice.

00:36:48.720 Don't reject it outright.

00:36:50.320 Maybe listen to it.

00:36:51.720 Right.

00:36:52.240 I've got a friend who I'm giving him hard advice and he's just not listening.

00:36:55.900 So he just keeps, it's a divorce.

00:36:58.360 He's been, he's gone through divorce and he's not detaching from his toxic previous wife,

00:37:05.180 even though it's over the paper sign.

00:37:07.560 And everything he, he just keeps allowing himself to be manipulated and controlled.

00:37:11.820 It's, it's the weirdest thing.

00:37:13.640 And I've hammered him on it.

00:37:15.160 I mean, I just, I mean, I've, I've, you start nice and soft and then you, you just, you take

00:37:21.300 on this demeanor of a football coach.

00:37:23.060 He's trying to fire up somebody in the locker room because you see their emotional welfare

00:37:26.880 crumbling before them.

00:37:28.640 And I'm making a little progress, but he will tell you that if it wasn't me giving him some

00:37:34.300 wounds from time to time, he'd be way, way worse off.

00:37:37.160 We all need it.

00:37:37.960 None of us are perfect.

00:37:39.180 And that's why we need our pack to build into us and round us out a bit.

00:37:42.940 Okay.

00:37:42.980 Another Mark you talk about, we kind of mentioned it earlier, is that men work.

00:37:46.580 How does a boy's approach to work differ from a man's approach to work? 0.95

00:37:50.660 Well, a boy just doesn't want to do it.

00:37:52.860 A boy just wants to be supported.

00:37:56.540 A boy wants to only work at something that is, that is fun to do.

00:38:00.880 A boy wants to work just long enough at minimum. 0.98

00:38:04.100 Brett, I remember my first real deal job.

00:38:06.260 I was 22 years old.

00:38:07.940 A company sends in this financial guy to help me figure out what I'm going to do with retirement

00:38:12.760 savings.

00:38:13.980 And he says, okay, what time, what age do you want to retire?

00:38:16.780 And I said, I just mouthed as a boy, because I was a boy at 21, I mouthed what I'd heard

00:38:23.640 everybody else said.

00:38:24.620 And I said, oh, I want to retire like 55.

00:38:26.160 I said, oh, okay, 55.

00:38:27.260 So he put some pencil to paper and figured out, well, you have to save this much every

00:38:31.380 month to retire at that age.

00:38:32.920 And I said, okay, maybe I'm not retiring at 55 because that was, that was too difficult.

00:38:39.480 I'm turning 59 in a week.

00:38:42.940 I, I can't believe that I actually thought at 55, 55 is what I want to be done.

00:38:49.780 I feel Brett, like I'm just starting to figure out life right now.

00:38:52.600 I, I can't believe that I fell hood to boydom as a fantasy to be retired at 59.

00:39:00.020 What, what, why to do what?

00:39:02.160 So I could retire to Florida and play golf and watch Price is Right while the mosquitoes 0.92

00:39:07.120 suck the blood out of my geriatric skin. 0.92

00:39:09.840 I mean, why would I do that? 0.99

00:39:12.440 Because it was boyish thinking.

00:39:14.120 A man, he's here to work. 0.98

00:39:16.060 I'm sorry to go Bible on you, but I am a pastor.

00:39:17.900 So it's the most foundational story in the Bible.

00:39:19.760 It's Adam and Eve.

00:39:20.360 Most people know about it.

00:39:21.660 Adam and Eve were put in the world.

00:39:22.600 Put on the earth, whether you think it's literal or figurative, that's your prerogative.

00:39:27.380 And what do they do before anything happens in the world?

00:39:30.200 They work before anything happens wrong, before they bite of the forbidden fruit, they're working.

00:39:36.460 They're working the ground.

00:39:38.320 They're naming the animals that tells us that work isn't something that is evil.

00:39:45.260 It's something that is good.

00:39:47.820 And a man has to be working.

00:39:50.000 And we see the statistics on this.

00:39:51.460 When a man stops working, the dementia and the physical fitness and the death comes way,

00:39:57.820 way, way, way, way sooner.

00:39:58.840 We talked about these guys who are old and like still going on, like Clint Eastwood.

00:40:03.940 Nobody would have seen this guy who created spaghetti westerns, you know, decades ago.

00:40:09.320 I used to watch as a kid, no one would have thought that that guy would be a prolific director winning Academy Awards in his 80s.

00:40:19.500 His best work is in his 80s.

00:40:21.800 And how is that guy still going at 95?

00:40:24.100 You know how?

00:40:24.840 You know why?

00:40:25.800 Because he's working.

00:40:26.940 That's why.

00:40:27.520 Because he's fresh as a result of it.

00:40:30.180 A boy doesn't think about this.

00:40:32.080 But a man wants to be fresh.

00:40:33.240 So I'm not saying, Brett, that you need to be in corporate America and you need to be earning a paycheck until the day you die.

00:40:38.620 There's realities.

00:40:39.700 You're going to be pushed out.

00:40:40.780 You're not going to be as physically capable to fill a job.

00:40:44.040 But that's not what I'm talking about with work.

00:40:45.720 When I'm talking about work, I'm talking about adding value, making the people around you better, having a reason to get up in the morning.

00:40:54.320 And a man should never, never have some goal of taking it easy and not working.

00:40:59.540 It's a recipe for disaster.

00:41:00.820 Yeah, I like that.

00:41:01.320 Work's not just making money.

00:41:02.860 Work is also doing service or being a mentor or taking up some, I don't know, working for a nonprofit when you retire.

00:41:09.760 That's also work.

00:41:11.600 Yes.

00:41:12.060 Yeah.

00:41:12.500 100%.

00:41:12.980 And I like that, you know, adding value and having that outward mindset can really keep you going for the long term.

00:41:18.300 But also, I think a lot of men, some men struggle with, they embrace work too much.

00:41:23.640 They become workaholics.

00:41:25.160 So how do you balance work with other areas of your life, like family or those life-giving hobbies you were talking about?

00:41:31.880 Well, I think we have balance wrong.

00:41:34.460 I think most people, when they think of balance, they think of it as a, you know, a scale where you have equal weights on either side.

00:41:40.860 And I think the best metaphor for balance is a golf swing.

00:41:46.660 You know, to hit the ball as far as possible, you have to load up different sides of your body.

00:41:52.260 Load up your right side on your backswing.

00:41:54.520 Load up your left side on the follow-through.

00:41:57.040 And at no point are you balanced.

00:41:58.800 If you're balanced, then you're not going to swing.

00:42:00.820 The process of swinging is, by its nature, unbalanced.

00:42:05.740 That's, I think, the kind of balance we need.

00:42:08.380 Recognizing there's certain seasons of our life where I'm going to be really weighted up in one specific area.

00:42:15.040 And there comes the problem.

00:42:17.200 Because it takes wisdom to learn when you're too weighted up on work.

00:42:21.820 It takes wisdom to learn when you're too weighted up on pleasure.

00:42:25.760 But you need to be able to have both those things.

00:42:28.100 Younger guys, I give young guys the same advice.

00:42:32.240 My son, my son has more hobbies, more outlets, more things than I ever had at his age.

00:42:38.180 Shoot, probably more than now.

00:42:39.740 It's just the younger generation.

00:42:41.080 They're in a different thing.

00:42:43.260 And what I spoke with him about, and he's doing really, really well with this,

00:42:45.840 but I tell this to younger guys all the time.

00:42:47.540 I say, hey, your 20s is a time for you to be unbalanced.

00:42:52.040 Because right now, what you want is to become amazing at whatever your job is,

00:42:58.660 or find by the time you're 28 what your job is, cycle through a few.

00:43:02.860 This is when you want to be weighted up on that, loaded up on that.

00:43:05.960 Because that's going to create freedom for you and financial margin and options in the future.

00:43:11.180 But if you right now just want to work 40 hours a week and have all your hobbies,

00:43:15.940 you're not going to have the life as a 50-year-old the way you can.

00:43:20.760 Which is why one mentor of mine, Bob Beal, who wrote a book on decades,

00:43:24.560 he says the most successful, effective, productive decade of a man's life is his 60s.

00:43:31.780 And his second most productive is his 70s.

00:43:34.860 And the reason being because we've learned, we have networks, we've got knowledge we didn't have

00:43:41.320 before, we can connect things together.

00:43:43.860 And that happens because over the long span of your life, you've been doing the right thing.

00:43:47.440 So for the balance, I think you've got to say where I am right now,

00:43:51.080 what is the right amount of work life right now?

00:43:53.780 You always have to take care of yourself in terms of having adequate friendship time

00:43:57.040 and play time and all that stuff.

00:43:58.540 But those things are going to change over the years.

00:44:01.640 You also have this chapter, I love the line,

00:44:03.840 boys consume, men produce. 0.94

00:44:07.400 So how can shifting from a consumer mindset to a producer mindset,

00:44:10.720 help a guy step into the role of a man?

00:44:13.380 Well, it's pretty funny.

00:44:14.420 You know, we're known as Americans.

00:44:16.080 We're not even known as American citizens.

00:44:18.180 We're known as American consumers.

00:44:20.060 You hear that all the time.

00:44:21.180 How do you keep the economy rolling?

00:44:23.000 Consume.

00:44:23.680 You know, George Bush way back at 9-11,

00:44:25.800 he said, let's keep the economy rolling, keep spending.

00:44:29.760 We don't spend that much time talking about producing.

00:44:32.340 We're just looking at the consumer price index.

00:44:35.300 We're consumers.

00:44:37.160 And if you can figure out how to produce,

00:44:40.060 how to produce something that somebody else doesn't have,

00:44:44.680 you're going to do just fine.

00:44:46.640 It could be anything.

00:44:48.380 Producing widgets, producing kids, producing wisdom for other people.

00:44:54.560 But how can I add value and make things better because of my role and spot on the earth?

00:45:00.500 If that's how we make a life, we produce.

00:45:03.540 Yeah.

00:45:04.000 Boys, consuming is just about taking from the pot.

00:45:07.840 Producing is about adding value to the pot.

00:45:11.180 Yeah.

00:45:11.460 It was Adam Man who said, it's always take, take, take.

00:45:15.960 That's what the boy says.

00:45:17.740 Take, take, take.

00:45:18.800 I said that one time to my son who was a teenager.

00:45:22.680 I said, hey, man, you're just taking my son.

00:45:25.560 I'm talking about something.

00:45:26.140 My son is an amazing man.

00:45:27.520 Very, very, very, very, very proud of him.

00:45:30.220 He's crushing life.

00:45:31.660 He's doing amazing.

00:45:32.520 But there was a lot of things.

00:45:34.240 There were very, very hard conversations.

00:45:36.380 And one of them was, you take, take, take.

00:45:39.140 You take my tools.

00:45:40.520 You take my car.

00:45:41.740 You take, you're always pushing.

00:45:43.000 You're always wanting more.

00:45:44.720 And that doesn't bode well for our relationship or for your future.

00:45:48.440 You've got to be known as a guy who gives more than he takes.

00:45:51.280 You've got to be known for a guy who creates more than he consumes.

00:45:55.060 That's a message for all of us to be reminded of.

00:45:57.660 All right.

00:45:57.760 So the fifth and final mark is men are protectors.

00:46:00.720 What does being a protector look like in the 21st century?

00:46:04.840 Yeah, that's, that's a tough wrinkle.

00:46:07.260 It was very obvious in the past, the way you're a protector, you're a protector of your tribe.

00:46:12.140 We, we've needed men to have muscles.

00:46:14.640 And that's why today there's even conversations in, in Ivy League classrooms that have been on the

00:46:19.780 cover of Time Magazine over the last.

00:46:21.560 Decade or so.

00:46:22.300 Like, do we even need men anymore?

00:46:24.200 Like, I can't believe we said, do we even need men?

00:46:26.880 And what they're saying is we've evolved as a society and a civilization.

00:46:31.820 We have machines that are doing work for us and we're not raiding the neighboring tribe

00:46:37.020 where we need men and their muscle mass. 0.52

00:46:38.820 So, you know, what, what, what are, what are men needed for?

00:46:42.240 We're needed to still protect.

00:46:45.080 Now, sometimes that does mean you're gonna have to put your body in front of a situation.

00:46:49.600 I have a, no, this is years ago.

00:46:52.480 So I found out about a guy at the gym where my wife was working out and he was hitting

00:46:57.660 on her.

00:46:58.040 I ran across, uh, email or something like that.

00:47:01.120 And, uh, he's a trainer at the gym and I had to walk in there and call him out in the middle

00:47:05.420 of the day, called him out in the parking lot.

00:47:07.260 He was training a client.

00:47:08.640 I said, I need to see you in the parking lot right now.

00:47:10.160 And he came out and fortunately I caught him, caught him off guard, freaked him out.

00:47:14.840 And I just told him, Hey man, you need, you need to stay away with my wife.

00:47:17.000 And he started jabbering around.

00:47:18.160 I said, no, look, I look at this.

00:47:19.140 Look, can you stay away from it?

00:47:21.020 It ends now.

00:47:22.120 And he said, okay.

00:47:23.420 And that was it.

00:47:23.920 That was, that was a sense of protecting there.

00:47:26.580 I have a friend who's a quadriplegic.

00:47:29.240 He's not going to be able to protect.

00:47:30.560 And I said to him, Ryan, because of your ordeal in your spiritual depth, you can protect people

00:47:37.920 by giving them wisdom that they're not going to get anywhere else.

00:47:41.500 That's a way to protect.

00:47:43.000 That's a form of protection.

00:47:45.480 No, I think that's good.

00:47:47.500 I like that.

00:47:48.080 And also I've noticed as I've gotten older, one of the protecting roles that I play as a

00:47:53.740 man, like it's any group I belong to.

00:47:55.720 I'm always looking to see if there's any individuals who either intentionally or unintentionally

00:48:02.760 are causing problems.

00:48:04.520 And I think the boy thing would be like, well, I just won't say anything.

00:48:08.780 I won't do anything about it as an adult.

00:48:11.400 And especially I'm in a leader position.

00:48:13.100 I'm like, I got to take care of this.

00:48:14.520 I got to make sure that the group is okay.

00:48:17.320 And that individuals feel safe and they're not being annoyed.

00:48:21.060 And so it requires having uncomfortable conversations with individuals saying,

00:48:25.720 hey, you're doing stuff that's making this person feel really, really uncomfortable,

00:48:29.780 or you're just messing up the dynamic of the group.

00:48:32.720 And I'm here to make sure that that doesn't happen.

00:48:35.640 Like we want everyone to have a good time.

00:48:37.820 Yeah.

00:48:38.100 Oh, that's a great example, Brett.

00:48:39.960 Yeah.

00:48:40.360 Run to the problem.

00:48:41.740 A man runs the problem.

00:48:43.720 He doesn't assume somebody else is going to do it.

00:48:45.240 That's passivity.

00:48:45.920 If you look at these five marks, Brett, and you said, is there any through line through

00:48:48.980 all of them?

00:48:50.020 I would say the through line is passivity versus being aggressive.

00:48:54.760 And by aggressive, I'm not talking about powering up and dominating somebody.

00:48:59.040 I'm just saying you make the move.

00:49:01.360 You're pushing.

00:49:02.480 Men do that. 1.00

00:49:03.220 We make the move.

00:49:04.140 They want to make it right.

00:49:05.040 Where boys are passive.

00:49:06.120 So yeah, a boy would not do what you're doing.

00:49:08.260 The boy would not invite a hard conversation.

00:49:11.020 He would just wait for somebody else to do it.

00:49:12.780 Or he would just stop attending the group when he would just judge and complain about the

00:49:17.900 person.

00:49:18.440 That's because boys, that's what they do.

00:49:20.100 They don't take action.

00:49:21.860 They don't run after things.

00:49:22.940 But a protector, that's what he does instead of a predator.

00:49:27.620 Men are protector.

00:49:28.740 Boys are predators. 0.79

00:49:30.120 They take, take, take.

00:49:31.960 Well, Brian, this has been a great conversation.

00:49:33.380 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:49:35.120 You can go to bryantome.com and The Five Marks of a Man is available in bookstores everywhere.

00:49:43.560 All right.

00:49:44.080 Brian Tome, thanks for your time.

00:49:44.960 It's been a pleasure.

00:49:46.120 My pleasure, Brett.

00:49:47.300 It's been a bucket list item to be with you and honored to do so.

00:49:52.540 My guest here is Brian Tome.

00:49:53.760 He's the author of the book, The Five Marks of a Man.

00:49:55.860 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:49:58.240 You can find more information about his work at his website, briantome.com.

00:50:01.820 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash marks.

00:50:04.500 We find links to resources.

00:50:05.800 We delve deeper into this topic.

00:50:14.340 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.

00:50:16.920 Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives,

00:50:20.300 as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years about pretty much anything

00:50:23.200 you think of.

00:50:24.360 And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give you a

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00:50:27.980 It helps out a lot.

00:50:28.760 If you've done that already, thank you.

00:50:30.480 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think was something

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00:50:33.660 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:50:35.780 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:50:37.220 Remind you to listen to the AOM podcast with Put What You've Heard into Action.

The Art of Manliness - October 07, 2024

The 5 Marks of a Man

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