 Welcome to the 21 report. I'm Frank Pesci and I'm here with Paul Caldwell conservative Christian Mary, Texas patriarch engaged in the fight against the Vagina is zation of men boys and fathers. Paul. How are you? I'm good. How are you great? Thanks for being here My pleasure. What do you think of the event that Anthony has put together so far? To say it to save the event is awesome would be a Gross understatement when I when I came here when I got invited. I knew that it was gonna be something Elliot Hulse coach Greg Adams these guys that I've watched on the internet as well You know as well as the other guys that I've seen, you know off the spectrum of the side I knew that it was gonna be an experience meeting these guys, but I had no idea. I had had no idea at all what how important it was gonna be how important the just the sitting down and Chopping it up with these men. I it's probably one of the most impactful things that I've done in a long time It's awesome. Anthony's done an amazing job with this. It's amazing to hear Which what are some of the content creators that influence you or impact your way of thinking that you've met here? Elliot Elliot's one for sure. Elliot's He's all I've been following him since his strength camp days We I own a gym and I did the same thing and Elliot's actually one of the guys that made me stop doing YouTube content As far as strength training goes because he's so you know, he's got charisma and he loves being in front of the camera And I don't and so I watched Elliot for a long time coach Greg Adams I love watching his content as well Although I don't see eye to eye Exactly with a lot of the things that he's not a lot but some of the things he's a good dude and his heart's good I've watched it. You know I watch his content like Bruce Lee take what I can use and you know dispatch with the rest There's some of the guys that I hadn't heard speak until I got here and now I'm a fan Mike's one of them. There's a couple, you know Arthur another one There's there's a lot of guys that I because I don't spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos I don't spend a lot of time watching YouTube. I did when I first came into the space, but not anymore It's you know, I'm not a fan of anybody. So so then what does daily life look like for you? You're a gym owner a content creator. You're a homesteader What are you unpacking as a man on the daily? I Get up about 3 30 in the morning. Hmm. I gotta get primed up We train my first training sessions at 5 a.m. Jocko's got nothing on you now, man. I Jocko's hour late Don't expect much love much love, but uh, you know, I get up and that's just a At that time nobody's up. Nobody's bothering me. I don't have to feed the animals. I don't have to do anything And it's my time and I found that there's something magical that happens around 3 30 in the morning It's there. It's almost like the universe has the library open and so I spend the first hour and a half, you know study and meditating praying and Laying out and looking at what I laid out the night before of the things that I needed to do So I take that part of my morning and just get ready for the day after training I go home take care of my animals We've got just about everything that you can have we got goats. We got Cows we got chickens. We got guineas. We got we know we got food Right and so we'll take care of that anything that needs to be done on the property We take care of that and then during a break after I eat breakfast I'll do whatever content creation that I'm gonna do and that's usually I try to do it in one shot Whatever pops into my mind my content is based off of what comes to my heart, you know, I I learned I learned a hard way that prayer works because I said a prayer and the expectation of it being answered in a way that I That was pleasing to me and I got the truth And so I start I start my day with you know after after I get all all my stuff going I Pray and I ask for word and whatever whenever something comes to my when it comes on comes upon my heart I'd sit down and I make the video or I'll write a note But that period of time is my video time about 10 o'clock to 11 At that point in time I usually pass out because I got up at 3 o'clock so I'll take a nap and then I get up Then it's any programming that I have to do because I do online personal training for the clients that don't that I moved from the Metroplex So I've got clients that are still there, but I can't train them So I use app do their programs and then generally after that it's based It's whatever is a leftover from the day that I need to do until I train my evening clients So it's just it's bang bang bang throughout the day Paul there's something interesting. There's a pattern that I've noticed here at this convention And that is how many speakers and how many men are starting to come together around prayer and upon Spiritual excellence. This is my third 21 convention and 21 convention started, you know, it has an evolutionary history Right started as you know pickup game and then you know excellence in men and and so much evolution has occurred in the space But one resounding theme that I hear out of these men is Quest for spiritual excellence, right? You see that too Yes, I I think we're in a time, you know, I was listening to Elliot just a little while ago And what he's speaking on is is is what I think we're at weak men have created hard times in our culture But even more than that, I think on a on a biblical scale We're on it. We're we're entering into a state where there's a mass awakening There's a lot of people that are starting to look up and see that things aren't right and I'm not just in this space I've seen it out, you know in the in the world. There's a lot of people that are finally Removing the scales from their eyes But I think there's a calling I think that right now God is the similarly as warriors and those of us who hear that call know That in order for us to get through this fight, man We're gonna have to we're gonna have to lean up on that Corinthians verse that says put your full armor on we've got to do That and I think that that's what's happening right now. A lot of us have walked a horrible path But like Saul we're being called out of that and I think that even for myself I was at war with God for years almost two decades Over a prayer being answered. I didn't like what I got. I thought that how could you do this? And so I spent a long time on the other side of that on the other side of that and it was it was I Just set up I set a prayer out of desperation and the answers that I got That's what sent me down this trajectory because it wasn't what I intended the prayer that I sent up It was very simple. Just show me what what's true show me what's real I was talking about a person not the world and it was it's been it's been insane. It's been it's been insane It's been crazy because there is just a voice a constant voice Saying get ready Paul hard times make hard men Tell us a little about your story. What makes you who you are today? I think I Think the biggest thing was losing my father like I didn't lose him in Death but to the penitentiary and when I was seven I think I was seven eight years old My father got put back in the penitentiary and my mom. I was the oldest of four kids My mom lost her shit. She just she went off the rails and I watched that I literally watched my mom fall the pieces and because my dad wasn't there. We had no we had no structure We had no we had no We had nothing and so in the middle of the night in the middle of just it just seemed like the middle of our life My mom uprooted us and moved us to Texas And it was always it was always hard. It was hard because we didn't have what other kids have We literally lived on a piece of property my mom and my sister slept in a tent me and my brother slept in her car and we had to pretend that everything was normal when we went to school and We would have the bus driver drop us off We would get out like two miles up the road because we didn't want anybody when the bus would have to turn around our Houses that they at the end of this dirt road in the country and the bus to drop us off Would have had to turn around and the people would have seen that we had no house And so all the way up until I was a probably my freshman year in high school eighth grade I failed the eighth grade the first time I went through it because I never went to school My mom was my brothers and sisters moved to California My mom was a bad alcoholic and I didn't have any rules man. I had no rules I had no there was she couldn't tell me what to do I was I mean she was drunk and I was bigger than her and she couldn't control me so I did whatever the hell I wanted to do and there was no one to stop me and Finally my grand my grandmother and my mom conspired to Get me off my mom's payroll, I guess and my mom dropped me off in California under the Under the guise of moving there. We're gonna move there. My brothers and sisters already left my grandmother She saw what was going on. She heard how my mom was rolling and She didn't like that. Well, those those kids were her grandkids from her from her son. I wasn't So I overheard my mom and my grandfather talking about taking us and I got on my bike and I took off man I took off and I didn't I didn't come home for the Three or four days I just went from house to house to house and I would ride by and make sure when my grandfather's van was still there I would go back to my buddy's house and I kept doing that until he was gone because I knew he was gonna stick around wait And so I thought I'd beat I thought I'd beat it. I thought I'd beat the draft and Everything seemed I was a mama's boy horrible mama's boy. I love my mom more than anything else and I Was stoked it was just me and her I like I love my brothers and my sister But I was stoked to be the only kid Because I was the I was the first one and I know you're first-born you get another kid You became the man of the house. Yeah. Well, yeah, I was the man of the house as soon as I mean I was eight I was responsible for my siblings because my mom would take off on benders And she wouldn't come home until it was time to go to work So she would take off on Thursday Friday and wouldn't come home until Sunday or Monday morning There's just no that was normal and my grandmother knew about that and she feels like that's not cool so she got them and It was probably about a month later. She told me, you know the guy she was with had Boxes and boxes of cash in his closet. I thought I thought it was porn Because he had a lot of porn and so yeah, he had porn in the same boxes They were old Budweiser long-knit boxes He had him stacked to the brim with porn under his bed And he had these same boxes in his closet and so I was like I'm gonna go get some of this porn out Check it out. You know, it's a nosy little kid and I pulled these boxes down and it was these these Stacks man just stacks of foil Squares I was like, what is this man? I opened it up and I'm like, oh shit. It was a hundred dollar bills These boxes were stacked. So I was so young. I didn't realize the dude has no idea how much money's here I was I didn't take a dollar. I put it up and I got scared and didn't say anything to my mom He was an old dude He was an old oil guy and he had gotten a divorce and his wife raped him So he took all of his money out of the bank got it in cash and just put it in put it in boxes That was his that was his deal So my mom tells me that we're gonna move to California We're gonna finally be a family and then she tells me Billy's got a lot of money in his closet I'm like, yeah, you know, I know I saw it and so I knew I was like shit. She's telling me this secret She's got to be telling me the truth and so We get to California Everything is you know, everything seems cool. My mom's throwing this money around buying everything for everyone trying to she's being a good mother you know, she's doing the right things and we're there for about a week and There was something that went wrong. There was something that was in my soul, man There was it was got weird. She started talking weird to me like slipping saying I'm like, you know What are you talking about like you're acting like I'm staying here? Well, it was time for her to go She tells me that I can't come back with her because she needs to get all of her all of her affairs straight and She'll be back in two weeks well two weeks turned into two months and it turned into two years and That was a dagger to my soul like it's it's it's surprising that I can say this now without Getting emotional because it hurt for a long time still does but Eventually my grandmother told me she's like your mom's not coming back and at that point I realized I was on my own I had my grandmother, but I was on my own and From that point I just I made up my mind that I was just not gonna let I Wasn't gonna let life fuck with me and I started doing things the way I wanted to do it and Doing that ended up making a lot of bad decisions and I think the catalyst that Probably my gogy was when I went to the penitentiary and when I went there Everything that I said I was never gonna be everything that I'd said I would never do that. I saw my dad do I realized that's what I was and That's the point. I went to war with God and with myself with God because I have a daughter that I that I'm estranged from she and I do not speak I Have a daughter, but I don't have a daughter And that's because her mom, you know when I went to the penitentiary her mother You know, she'd wear her own way told my daughter a bunch of a bunch of things about me But the reason why I went to war with God is right before I went to the penitentiary About probably about a week before I finally got caught I was on the run for a while and My girlfriend was working at this telecommunications place and shit one of our co-workers was a reverend of church I was riding around Austin with guns under my seat just doing Get oh shit, man. I was I was a I was a hustler and I was living a life that was just stupid and so one day I go and I Pick her up and she brings this dude to the car with her and he just jumps in the front seat What the fuck's going on and he starts talking about God talking about Jesus talking about My purpose in life and I'm sitting there going dude. I'm on the run from the police I'm going to penitentiary when they catch me like what purpose do I have in life? What what what good do I have to offer anyone and he told me come to my church and I'll show you Well, I go to this church service and there's these 11 12 13 year old boys in the same situation that I was in When I was their age broken and going the same route that I was on carrying guns getting busted just doing dumb shit and They're little gang bangers And he I he took me to this thing I thought I thought I was gonna be part of whatever. I'm gonna be listening to him He's gonna be helping us and it was like now, man He put me on he put me in front of these kids and he was like Tell him about your life, man, and I I was I never did anything like that before And so I started talking to these little dudes and they started crying and it was like whoa guys were gangsters man and They it was it was a trip because in that moment They made a prompt they made a promise No, I don't know if they kept it because I disappeared But they made a promise to change their lives and they started going to the church So I went to church. I was there for probably I went for that week I went probably four or five times you're told I'm in prison. No, no, no, this is before I went before you Yeah, so this is this is the prelude to my war with God And in that moment, you know, I was I was on the run and I had when I got caught I had like 10 evading arrests like they would come to get me and I would be gone I used to be really fast and And so they were they were trying to catch me because I violated my probation. I cut the monitor off my leg Paul Just looking at you and understanding your story You are not a guy that I would want to come cross ways with during that time of your life Yeah, I was bad. But what I do see is I see a transformed man whom I am more So comfortable being next to I feel like my heart and your heart are melded together Because we come together under a common purpose. We come together to events like this We get to share our experiences and the old man is broken off right behold a new man sits here Driving people towards their purpose now. I lead with that because I was very moved by your speech Particularly with regards to fatherhood You as a man who we have just shared briefly in your story didn't have a father in the picture Circumstances life were very difficult cause you to get jaded go to war with God Close you to make bad decisions, but put you on a path to finding purpose. Yeah How do you as a father in your own household or how would you give advice to men who are raising families particularly sons? To raise up their sons in a way that they don't have to experience the same pain that they can at a young age start on the Trajectory of excellence because that's what you're doing now You told me a little while ago about the habits of excellence that you pursue You're up at 3 30 in the morning. You're praying you're getting a download from from heaven You're doing your workout. You're doing your chores. You're putting your priorities in order You're visiting your clients. You're getting the rest that your body needs you have habits of absolute excellence Now I myself as a father have some regrets because I've made mistakes as a young father Mm-hmm, and I have learned along the way that we can never break the spirit of our children because they're made for greatness Yep, what's your take on that? Have you made mistakes and how do you fix them? What would you say about excellence in fatherhood? The first thing I would say is be present You'd be present for your kids. You have to be present and you have to listen to them You have to listen to what they're trying to to communicate but I've made I almost lost my son from Getting into my emotions. I had a situation where he moved it He lived with me from the time he was five and when we decided to move out to the country and start homesteading and doing that I gave him the option to move back in with his mother Because he was playing football and you know the city that we lived in was was way it was big We were moving to the sticks and so that decision was made. He went with his mother and that was fine. Well He decided that he wanted to you know, he's gonna play football and everybody was around him was saying to go out Where your dad's at? Well, my wife and I had made the decision that you know, we're gonna we're gonna he's gone We're gonna go ahead and do our thing. We got extremely comfortable And then he decided he wanted to move out back out with us And I saw you know, I told him listen you have to You have to make sure that this is what you want to do because there's no going back There's no going back and forth. We're settled. We're happy and so, you know He promised to see it through a long story short just like so many of us do a girl got in the way of his Progress of his of his walk and all he could think about was her and so The decision it was made between him and his mother that he was gonna Move back out back in with her Because she was trying to be his friend not his mother and I was I was pissed about it You know, they decided to do that. She takes him just and he had a football game after the football game She takes him and he never comes home And so after that visit, you know, I get Monday Tuesday He's gonna come get his things and so when he came to get his stuff I was training one of my the one of the clients that I had grown up from high school And he was now grown man. He'd come to see my new gym We're training my son came to get his social security card. He came to get his things But he was being a coward that he wanted me to put everything in a bag and leave it outside So he didn't have to face me So I put all of his clothes outside, but I kept the social security card so he would have to come talk to me Because I wanted to I just wanted to punch him in his face I was so pissed off because I knew the UIL rules were gonna ruin his senior year He was not he was a football. He was turning into a stud I mean he was a he's gotten to the point to where he was about five pounds lighter than me he was a man and I was proud of him and I was proud of what he what he had become and Because his mother and that his mother promised me that she wouldn't back him and move in back with her too So because I stopped dealing with her so I have no reason to it. I have my son now I don't need to deal with you She got upset about me not want to talk about anything with her or any of that so she partnered with him They she takes him off. So when he comes to get his things, he needs a social That was the main thing he wanted so when he comes in the gym I wanted to smash his face, but I don't I'm not gonna do that to my son And so I took his soul and I told him to change his last name and I saw Saw what it did to him and Had my buddy's kid not died. I Never would have rectified that man But I did So I would tell old fathers Never say shit that you can't take back to your kid Never say something out of emotion Because you can't take that shit back. I mean we're back in the good graces, but he'll never forget that I told him that Right and as a father, I know that when we say things that are as harsh as what you dealt Takes years takes time it takes it honestly takes a miracle in many regards now to fix that How committed are you to the pursuit of finding up those wounds? Oh, no, we're dialed. He's uh, I Ended up just sending him a text and told him I loved him and that was pretty much it You know we caused me and we talked now. He just He just spent the weekend with my wife because I was here, you know why he's gonna watch this Tell me I love you Ben This guy loves you. There's no doubt. I feel you bro. I know what it is to be a father Thanks, bro. I wish you man. It's gonna be all right, man. You got a good father here Believe me when I tell you this is a special man and together your family is gonna carry on a wonderful legacy Because you have a father as hard as committed to you and although we have shortcomings and we fall short Believe me greatness is coming not only for him, but for you and for your family too So I pray a blessing over you guys. Thank you just continually appreciate it, bro What's next for you? projects Man coming to this convention like I said before this has been the it's been one of the best experiences because I Got to hook up with Elliot Hulse and a couple other guys We've got we've got some upcoming projects, man We've got some things that we're gonna work the bugs out, but next year we're gonna kick some ass So we're just gonna finish this year out strong and I hopefully continue working with Anthony and Doing this work man. You're coming back next year if I'm invited. I'll be here Okay, where do you find it? Right now. I've got a my website. I'm working on to break away from the YouTube stuff It's called American and gogi.com a g o g e American you should know how to spell that We also have I got an Instagram page haven't really been on that too much But that's a warrior underscore training. We're gonna get back on that I've talked to too many dudes that are on Instagram gotta be no tick tock But yeah, those are the two main places if you if they got any questions they want to send me a send me an email That's gladiator form one seven at gmail.com. Well, there you heard it Folks, this is the 21 report and I want to thank you for watching. I'm Frank Pesci and this is Paul Caldwell