 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. We did this interview with Ryan, and before that, I did a two-hour one on his show. Yeah, we had to, at one point, I came over to the studio to see what was going on inside there. So you guys were making out because of two-hour politics. That was a long time. Yeah. It was, I mean, just great conversation on topics that are interesting. Well, I feel like we've been holding you back a little bit with the politics as of late, just because we're trying to give our audience a little bit of a break. Well, on this episode, we talk about toxic masculinity. Is masculinity in crisis? Education. Education. Bullying. Oh, good. Bullying. I mean, we went. Some people may be triggered by this episode. Maybe a little bit. And I hope so. I hope this sparks some great conversation. Challenge some ideas a little bit. Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, Ryan does such a really good job of articulating his points. And I think he's been doing this long enough that he knows, like, OK, and you'll hear it in the podcast. Like, you know, he'll quote unquote something, or he'll warn you ahead of time, you know, as far as something that he's going to say that he knows has probably triggered people in the past. But I mean, I don't know. I think what it will do for sure, and I hope it does, is create a really good conversation in our forum. You know, I definitely think we'll have some good dialogue around this. I think it's a topic that needs to be addressed. I think his podcast, man, is not only is it incredible, but I think his timing couldn't be better as far as the message that he delivers at this time. It's about how to be basically a strong, responsible man in society. And what that means in a time when- Yeah, it wasn't even look like it anymore. Yeah, just saying be a man is controversial, you know what I mean? So like, what does that mean? And that's, you know, he talks about that on his podcast. He also talks to people about fitness and health on his podcast. He's a very, very interesting individual, great podcaster, great podcast listener. Ryan's got a book. He's got a YouTube channel that he does all kinds of great stuff on there. He's got courses that he does with the guys. A lot of really good stuff. You can find him on his social media, OrderOfMan, is his Instagram. And then his podcast is also OrderOfMan, and then even easier. His orderofman.com is his website. So pretty easy to find, Ryan. That's right. Now I do want to remind everybody that this month, MAPS Anabolic, the foundational program, the one that started it all, is 50% off. So that's under $60 to get the best muscle strength building and metabolism-boosting program that we offer. We also have bundles where we combine multiple MAPS programs and discount them, like our Super Bundle, which is a year of exercise programming. All those programs and MAPS Anabolic can be found at mindpumpmedia.com. Now, if you're somebody who's coming over from OrderOfMan and listening to the interview, too, we highly recommend before you even purchase anything from us, we have all kinds of free information, free guides out there. You can go to our mindpumpfree.com, and you can download a bunch of free information. We also have an app that is free that's Mindpump Media. So if you're just coming over and you're finding the podcast for the first time and you're a little overwhelmed with 800-plus episodes that we've done, you can actually just in the search bar, put in a topic that you might want to hear about and more than likely, if it's related to health and fitness, we've probably covered it. That's right. But without any further ado, here we are talking to Ryan Mickler, the host of the awesome podcast OrderOfMan. How many years now, Ryan? Are you going? How many years? Since we started? Yeah. Three and a half. We started in March of 2015. That's right. So we're pretty close to the same, huh? Yeah. I can't remember. Do you guys, is it daily? Five days a week. Yeah, yeah, OK. So pretty much daily, right? Every other day, there's something going on. That's crazy. Yeah. But I mean, when we have this, there's three of us. It's really. That's true, yeah. Yeah, it's. And for as long as we've been doing this shit for, there's so much. And there's a lot of things that the three of us are all into that's different. Yeah. And so that it provides so much. That's true. That makes sense. Because everybody that we meet, they're like podcasts. They're like, how the fuck do you guys do five and manage to do everything else that you're doing? It's like, well, this part of it is really easy. There's not a lot of preparation for us. And I know a lot of other people, when they podcast, they do, they put a lot of time and effort into prep. We also don't really edit anything at all, really. So just the way we record it is the way it comes out. So it gives us the opportunity to put out more and more information. Now, the downfall of that is we sucked a lot at the beginning. Like, I feel like we were pretty, you know, poor at the very beginning. And we've gotten sharper as we've gotten. Well, and I imagine, too, I was listening to. I can't remember who I was listening to. I was listening to a show yesterday and there was four of them. And it's like, I had to turn it off because they're tripping over each other and talking over each other. And then I'm like, guys, like, like I can't hear one articulated thought like help each other out, like compliment each other. Don't be tripping over each other. So I imagine there's an art to that. Yeah, I don't think there's too many podcasts that have more than two hosts that flow really well. Yeah. We just worked well together, man. It's really weird. I feel like in the past life, we were all dating or something like that. It was definitely a top. I mean, I mean, I mean, last week. Yeah. Finishing each other's sentences and stuff. So stop. Stop. See, just like I said. So, so, Ryan, you talk a lot about what it means to be a man or what masculinity means today, right? On your podcast. And I feel like that is, and I don't know. It's crazy to me that that is a controversial topic. Yeah, it shouldn't be. It's not, I mean, it's it's it's not that difficult. I don't think, but apparently it is. Well, why do you think, why is it such a controversial? What is, in your opinion, why is it so controversial to say, you know, we're going to talk about being masculine or what it means to be man or the positives of being a man? Like, why do you think that's so controversial today? I think there's a lot of people that have a false perception of what that means. You know, we hear the term like toxic masculinity. I think we're going to talk about that. Yeah. And so people think that maybe men are inherently bad, you know, and if you look at most of the atrocities throughout history, they're perpetuated by men, you know, you can't deny that. And so what we do is we equate some of these horrific experiences and historical events with masculinity itself. And that's a problem. One of the things that you and I had talked about a little bit ago is, is a quality of outcome as well. And if you look at, again, throughout history, men make more money, we're the providers, we're bigger, we're stronger. You look at just about any metric, you look at business and you look at the amount of degrees and physicians and you look at these types of metrics that you're looking at, well, historically they're held by men. And so we're not looked at as, we're looked at maybe more of an enemy, I guess, like a common enemy as opposed, that's keeping people down as opposed to lifting people up. And I think the exact opposite. I think our job as men is to lift others up. It's a man's job to serve primarily above anything else is to serve and help other people. And yet I think there's a lot of people who don't believe that's the case. We haven't experienced that. Maybe they've had personal experiences where a woman in an abusive relationship or a young boy or girl who grew up without a dad or an abusive dad or dad wasn't ever around. And so I can understand, I get it, I really do, I understand it. Yeah, I feel like when people talk about all the bad things that were perpetrated by men throughout history and there definitely were a lot of them, I think if you're going to place the blame on men for the bad because they ran societies, you also simultaneously then should give them the credit for all the good things, the inventions, the creations of society, like all the good things that we may have had. And that is the controversy is when we talk about... Do you think it's that people feel like the movement of empowering women over the last decade or two? Do you think that people just think that message conflicts with male masculinity? I think what I said earlier, it's the enemy, right? It's like there's this scarcity mindset that if women are to be lifted up, then men have to be put down. It's like, well, why can't we all rise up together? Why can't men and women work together in our own ways? And based on the way that we are created, based on the way that evolutionary we've progressed to highlight the things that we're good at and help each other out, lift each other up. Yeah, I agree. And you know, it's crazy because we're talking now in collectivist terms, right, like men and women. And you can generally look at men and women and see differences, but when you break it down to the individual, we're far more similar than we are different, right? Absolutely. Far, far more similar. It's when you get to the ends that you see the differences. It's when you go to the extremes that you see, you know, like for example, if we were, I've used this example before, but if we were to take the top 100 most violent people on earth, they'd probably all be men. But if you were to randomly pick, you know, 100 people just randomly, men and women, and you were to try to guess who would be more violent, if you pick the man, you'd be right six out of 10 times, but women, you'd be right four out of 10 times. Not that huge of a difference, but on the ends it becomes a big difference and that's, I think, where we have the problem. But even bringing that up is controversial, bringing up that there tends to be differences and this toxic masculinity movement, I think there's more of a masculinity crisis than there is, you know, the opposite. I agree and I think that comes back to the backlash that men have experienced, you know, when it comes to these things. But you talk about the violence and we'll talk about the toxic masculinity thing, you talk about the violence and yeah, that's the negative side of it, except for when it isn't, right? Like there's times where men need to be violent, there's times where men need to be aggressive, there's times where we need to be more assertive, there's times where we need to be more physical and so some of that is maybe taken out of context, maybe it's pushed a little too far in certain circumstances. You can't have one without the other, right? Exactly, exactly. I mean, it's the way that we operate and so yes, we're naturally going to be more violent but there's a lot of other things good that come from the same set of characteristics that could potentially be perceived as negative. Yeah, I know that we're definitely more dispensable. A society can't survive with few women but a society can't survive with few men. Well, it's funny because, and you're exactly right and society thinks that or a lot of society makes it believe or the narrative at least makes it believe like women aren't valued. I don't believe that's true. I think generally we value women way more than we value men which I think that makes sense, right? We're bred for war and we're bred to be dispensable so that we can protect the tribe and the village and the way of life and that's the way it always has been and modern times has certainly changed that and made things a lot easier but I still think the roles are there for a reason. Yeah, so what does that mean for modern times, right? Like we don't have, it's far more peaceful today. Yeah, we're not threatening like we used to. Yeah, women don't have to or men don't have to go out and hunt their food and put themselves in danger. Women can get a job and earn just as much as men can. What does that mean today for a man to have all those traits and whatever? Like what are the positives of those today? Well, I think a lot of guys have lost purpose and the way that we know this and we can see this is just look at depression and suicide rates among men. I mean, there's studies that suggest they're up to four and five times higher than that of women. Why? Because we've lost our purpose. You know, I see men who are so completely lost, they have no goal, no drive, no ambition, no motivation or purpose in their life and then is it any wonder why they're upset? Why they're depressed? Why they're down? Of course not. And so I think first and foremost, we've got to understand that we do have a purpose and maybe that purpose has changed but we can take drive and grit and toughness and resolve and aggression and all those things that we've used for hundreds of thousands of years as men and apply those same characteristics towards the advancements in our careers, the advancements with ourselves personally, making sure that our families are thriving, that we're serving in the communities in which we live. We can use those same characteristics in much of the same way, although the way that we channel might be a little bit different. How do we teach our sons to do those things? We talked earlier about rights of passage and stuff like that. I'd like you to go over, talk about that a little bit because I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, well, so it's interesting because I grew up without a permanent father figure in my home. My dad was out of the picture by the time I was three years old. I had a couple of stepfathers come into my life. They weren't great examples looking back on it now of what it meant to be a man. And so I floundered, man. Like I didn't really know what it meant. Like how do guys show up? What's our responsibility as husbands and fathers? How do we do this? I had no idea and it really didn't manifest itself until I got married and started having kids and I realized, man, I'm in over my head. Like I'm lost here. And I think a lot of boys are like that. If you look at the statistics of fatherless homes, it's staggering. It's scary even to think how many young boys and girls are growing up without a healthy male figure in the home. And so- I know in some minority communities, it's like 70%. Yeah, exactly. Like the majority. Isn't that, I mean, think about that. Well, we're also dealing with the generation coming up now too, just taking longer to grow up period. So you have kids that are staying at home until they're in their 20s now, not getting their license until they're 20 years or older, getting their first job. Like, so not just men, but both sexes. So it's a combination of the two things gotta be. But see women have a natural right of passage in the sense that as a woman becomes older, if she wants to have a family, she has a natural clock that tells her, well, I better get serious about this because I'm 30, I'm 32, I'm 33, like I need to get serious if I wanna have kids in a family because my body's not able to do this for much longer. We don't have a natural biological clock. Men can theoretically father a child until they die. So we don't have that like alarm clock that says, hey, wake up and get your shit together. You gotta get serious and build a good foundation because you're about to have a family. And we don't have any rites of passage like we've had before. So you've got it like the Peter Pan syndrome. You got dudes in their mid 30s that are just making money, banging chicks and just like, whatever, I don't care. You know, it's not a big deal. I think that's a consequence of that a little bit. Yeah, well, you told me just recently that the Boy Scouts is no longer Boy Scouts, right? Right, it's just Scouts dash BS. Crazy to me. And they have a Girl Scout. It's like we're trying to make this homogenous, men and women have no differences anymore. Well, and here's the argument I always get because I've talked about this and I talk about it and everybody gets upset when I bring it up and it's like, well, girls need to learn this stuff too. I'm not denying that. That's great. I think girls can learn how to tie knots. That's why we have Girl Scouts. Exactly. Right, I mean, Girl Scouts, they mostly just sell cookies or whatever. No, he's right. They don't do a lot of stuff. Well, I mean, but they can do that. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. They can do that. You don't need to change Boy Scouts. Right, you don't need to change Boy Scouts in order to start teaching girls some of these things. You can implement it into a club that already exists. But I think the problem is that we don't have environments where boys can learn from other boys exclusively. Right, like if you think about any interaction that our sons and daughters have, it's usually coed, right? In school, even some sports events and extracurricular activities, it's coed. And there's a time and a place for that, of course. But there's also a time that boys need to interact with boys. That's why I think military service is so valuable. It's why I think competitive sports is so valuable because you learn how to engage. Probably more so now than ever, right? Of course, because it's a commodity, right? It's not as prevalent as it once was. But I think to answer your question, you really need to know about rites of passage. You really need to understand what is a man? Like what makes a man a man? Because a lot of guys will say, well, if you have a penis, you're a man. It's like, well, you're a male, no doubt. But I think a man goes well beyond anatomy. It's about taking responsibility. It's about taking accountability for your life. It's about being a protector. It's about providing. It's about leading and presiding over your family and your community. And that's not an age, that's not puberty, you know? Because you have 30-year-olds that are still in mommy and daddy's basement playing video games when they should be out working and starting their own families and pursuing an endeavor and a career. And so they're males, but they're certainly not men. And so a rite of passage is designed to help a young boy. I've got three boys and a little girl. My oldest is 10. A rite of passage is designed to help him. My oldest, for example, because we've done a couple of now, transition into manhood by helping him understand his role and his responsibility in this life. And people get upset when I say role, because the bad word is traditional gender roles, right? Gender roles are bad. Well, why do you think they're gender roles? Could it have anything to do with the fact that maybe we've been programmed through thousands of years of evolutionary history to behave and work and operate a certain way? It works. I don't understand why we buck the system so much. You know, it's funny when you, this is, I don't know why this is controversial because this has been proven in decades of research that there definitely is a connection between what boys and girls tend to wanna do and their biological gender. Again, at the individual level, it can definitely break down. You can have, and I think you should be free to do whatever you want. Right, because here's one thing I hear is people will say all the time, all the time I get this. Well, I know some women that are stronger than any man I've ever met. Of course. It's like, yeah, of course. You handpicked the strongest woman you know and put her up against the weakest man you know. Of course, you're gonna find outliers like that, but if you take the averages, it's just not the case. Yeah, there's nothing. I mean, again, we can do this in favor of women also. You take the most empathetic, emotionally intelligent people on earth and most of them are gonna be women. Sure. And it's just, this is just kinda how it is. This is not, it's not sexist. It's just reality, it's objective. And it's not even, it's not even remotely sexist because being empathetic is not an inferior quality to being resolute, for example. They're different, but one's not better than the other. And so, but I do think people should have the freedom to do whatever they want, but the funny thing about that is when you do, they've done studies on societies that were prosperous and that were egalitarian or the most egalitarian societies. For example, some of the Nordic countries that have policies that try to promote and push equality of outcome and let people choose the very egalitarian, you find more women choose more of the stereotypical gender role jobs and more men picking those jobs. When you go to poorer countries, you actually see more women choosing more male type jobs, mainly because those are the ones that earn, tend to earn more money and help them rise up. When there's prosperity and open choices, we tend to, generally, again, this isn't on the individual basis, this is kind of a general thing. We tend to choose these more stereotypical type roles where most teachers tend to be women and most... Isn't that the wage argument right there in itself? That, I mean, most women just choose jobs like that that get off in the summers and, you know, that are... Or they value different things like they'll, generally speaking, for example, if you're to pick, if you had a position that required 90 hours of work, ridiculous dedication, and basically no work-life balance, like you're just fucking working your ass off and that's all you're doing. Men tend to pick those times of jobs over women because we tend to have that singular type focus and whereas women tend to value more work-life balance, which is better, which is worse. I could argue that the balance one may be better, but they both may be needed in society. I don't think one's better or I think both are needed. I think it's critical that we have both sides of that. It is so, so important that we understand that there are differences and it's okay that there's differences. It truly is, there's no problem with being different. Yeah, I've seen some of the negative side effects of the current attitudes about men and women affecting, negatively affecting both men and women. I've seen women who choose to be stay-at-home moms get hammer ridiculed, ridiculed by other women. Oh yeah, my wife stays at home and it pisses me off when people say, even women will do it to themselves, like, oh, well, you shouldn't let him hold you back. It's like, what do you mean? Since the time she was little, she's wanted to be a mother, a wife, and a homemaker. And there's nothing inferior to doing that than the woman who goes out and advances her career, which is great too, both are great, but one is not less significant than the other. Yeah, because I've seen them get hammered for that and ridiculed, like, oh, you have a degree and you're wasting it by, you know. By raising the future generations, you think that's a waste? And then of course, I think people should be totally free to do what we want. And if that happens to be a stereotypical role, then so be it if it happens to be one that isn't so stereotypical. So be it also, but this current attitude of that we're kind of pushing and promoting I think is making people less happy because you're hammering on a woman for doing these things and you're hammering on a man for doing these things that they may wanna just do. And there's not a problem with it. Right, and it may not be politicized or they may not be, have thought much about it other than I wanna be a police officer or I wanna be a soldier and a woman, maybe she just loves children, you know. And there's no other explanation beyond, that's just sounds good to me. Well, I've gotten the other end of it too. So I love kids, I love children ever since, and I'm the oldest of four. He wants to be a homemaker. I'm the oldest of four. You know what? I mean, I don't know. Not the wrong with that, Sal. I don't know if I would necessarily, but I'll tell you what, like I've been the oldest of four kids. I've also had lots of younger cousins. I've always been around children. I love children. When I see them in public, I wanna hug them and kiss them and play with them. I'm a guy. I am looked at differently. If I go up to a strange baby and go, oh my God, let me hold your baby. Right, there's more reservations about that. Oh no, they look at me like, oh hell no, you're not gonna touch my kid because you're a guy. So I've been on the other end of that and it sucks. You know what I mean? That we tend to do that, but I understand that some of these stereotypes exist for a reason, but at the same time, it's weird. It's like in our pursuit for opportunity, we've actually, I think we've pigeonholed people worse and we've held people back a little bit as a result of it. Like this, let's talk about toxic masculinity first because that's like a big buzzword right now. What does that mean in popular culture and why is it a bad thing to do? So somebody asked in our Facebook group our definition and I said it's a term concocted by feminists, third-way feminists and those that have been injured or damaged by men to explain away anything they don't like or agree with. Now that's not the real, like if you look at what the real definition is, it's exhibiting characteristics that are harmful or I don't know, I don't know the exact definition. But the fact of the matter is, that words are only as powerful as the meaning we give them, right? And the meaning that we have given, especially in pop culture, to toxic masculinity is that masculinity in and of itself is toxic. That's the message that's being delivered and that's the message that's being received. I don't agree with that. I think there's masculinity and I think there's being an asshole and I don't think that they necessarily go hand in hand, right? Because I know plenty of women who I would categorize as an asshole, right? So it's not about toxic masculinity. It's either, it's masculinity which is serving and helping and lifting people up and using our characteristics and our abilities to serve people well and then there's the just not being a good human being. I got the definition up there from Wikipedia. Okay, I might have messed up. Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that restrict the kinds of emotions allowable for boys and men to express, including social expectations that men seek to be dominant and limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger. I think- So this- That's just a bad parent. This brings me to a question that I was waiting to ask Ryan anyways, which is what do you think about this whole movement with the cry closets and stuff? Are you familiar with this? No, I don't know that term. Oh, shit, you're not. Well, you know these colleges where they have like safe spaces. Is that kind of what it is? Yeah. You called it cry closets, where people would like, is it literally a cry closet or room? Well, we thought it was a project, like a joke, but it turns out that somebody actually built one and people like are adopting it. Yeah, it's popping up in colleges. So here's the deal about emotions, all right? Number one, emotions, they're not bad or good. Even the emotions that we think of as quote unquote negative, like anger, hate, hostility, greed, resentment, bitterness, hate, all that kind of stuff, those aren't even bad emotions because emotions are simply indicators. They're indicators that something's working or something's not quite working in our lives. So we just need to use that emotion to be able to figure out how to progress moving forward, right? If I'm angry, why am I angry? And how can I not be angry? How can I create a situation or environment in my life in which I won't be angry next time? If I'm happy, great, what's making me happy? How can I duplicate that so that I'll be happy moving forward? So it's not negative, it's not bad. Incredible book on what you're talking about right now, how emotions are made. And that's exactly what it is. It's a neurological pathway that's been created in your life. And so it's just, it is exactly what you said right now. It's a nice little flag for you, like, oh shit, like why do I get angry every time someone says that? To dig deeper and that's an opportunity for growth for you as a person. So you're right, it's not a bad. It's not bad. Now to come back to your cry room thing, I think there's this really weird trend of being vulnerable. And I understand it, I get it. Like I think there's a time and a place where we need to open up. But I also believe that there's a time and a place where you need to show some- Toughen up. That's what it is. Man up. Come on. Toughen up. Oh, you can't say man up. Why? Whatever happens, it means stow it. Sometimes you have to put your emotions away so that you can accomplish the task at hand. You know, I spent some time in the military in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. If I would have been vulnerable in some of those situations, I could have got myself killed or other people killed. So there's a time and a place for it, but to say that we always need to be emotional and like this toxic masculinity thing here that we need to be able to express it and vulnerable and open up. No, I'm not buying that. So how do we teach that balance to our kids? Like how do you tell your son like, you know, when it's okay to cry and when it's not or like, how do you handle a moment like that? I think helping them understand what their emotions are telling them. So for example, last year my son came home from school and he was upset and I said, what's wrong? Well, he had a kid picking on him at school. And so we talked about it. Hey, why are you upset? Why does that make you mad? He was teasing you, what are you gonna do about it? And he's like, I don't know, what should I do? And I'm like, I don't know, you're feeling this and it's not my problem, it's your problem. So how do you think you can handle this? And he's like, well, I should stand up for myself. Don't you think? I'm like, do you think that's the right thing to do? Yeah, so he did. Couple of weeks later, the kid was picking on him. He stood up for himself. They didn't get into a physical altercation but he verbally stood up for himself and the kid never picked on him again. And I saw him come home from school that day with his chest out and his head held high. I'm like, dude, how did school go? He told me what had happened. But you know what? We used the emotion of anger and being upset to produce an effective outcome which was him standing up for himself. But as a father, and I think this is where we have potentially got this wrong in the past. As a father, it's my job to open up and communicate in a way that will allow him to experience and feel that and learn from it. Versus, well, you just punch him in the face and toughen up. Or get your teacher to handle free. Right, maybe that's the ultimate objective. So these days, that's typically what I see anymore is the answer is to back away, go get help and get all these people involved. Whereas now what we're doing is we're pulling away from all the tools we're trying to provide our kids to stand up for themselves and have confidence and be able to stand their ground. Even if it means sometimes you're gonna take a beating. I mean, God forbid, right? Because when we were in school, it was like nobody likes a tattletail, right? And you would get your ass kicked if you were the tattletail. Versus like standing up for yourself as one ass beating, going and telling on somebody's a bigger ass beating. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's a verbal and physical ass beating. Or excuse me, an emotional and physical ass beating when you do it that way. I think there's validity to the term man up sometimes. Yeah, that's exactly what's required. We just need to help our boys understand when that is. Now, because you have a very masculine presence with your boys, is there ever times where you feel like you have to let them, hey, it's okay to cry. You don't have to be so tough in front of dad. Do you ever feel like they're trying to overcompensate because they have a father like you? Or do you ever notice that? Yeah, I could definitely see that because I tend to be more of the, hey, let's just toughen up and get the job done. So I try to be aware of that, certainly. And I try to ask questions more than, hey, it's okay. You know, like, it's okay to cry. I can't envision really saying that, but I would ask, why are you crying? You know, it's not like, why are you crying? But like, legitimately, why are you crying? What are you upset about? Why does that make you upset? What can you do about it? What should we do to fix it? So I try to be more results oriented and just using the emotion of being upset as a benchmark for changing something in our life. Right, I mean, I've had this conversation with my kids and I explained, well, you know, if someone's picking on you or someone's dominating you or someone's, whatever you wanna call it, oppressing you and you show them that you're crying and that you're fearful, that will embolden them. Of course. And those moments don't show that and show that you're tough, if you will, because you don't wanna display your fear necessarily. If you're happy about something or you wanna show an emotion because you love something, those are good times to show. But in real life, there definitely are times when you don't wanna show that weakness. You don't wanna demonstrate that. And here's the funny thing, by the way. This is a study that they've demonstrated many, many times. There are some special pictures of men and a woman will consider a man more attractive if he's standing stoically with a straight face versus if he's smiling. But you know what's funny about that? That shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. Right. You started off this conversation, but like with controversial. Like why would that study even need to be... Right. You know, like, obviously, because women are looking for men who are men who behave like men, protectors and have a strong likelihood of being able to secure more provisions. Like that's what they're looking for. That's not bad, that's just what it is. Instinctually. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. If you're a guy and you wanna get like no attention from women, just cry. Yeah, exactly. All the time. Like, you know what I'm saying? I don't mean just cry because you can show emotion, but you cry at struggles or fear. Someone yells at you and you drive off and start crying with it. Trust me, that girl's gonna dry up faster than fucking... Well, so I had a guy in our Facebook group. He was asking about that. Not necessarily crying or whatever, but something like he needed some support from his wife or something along those lines. I'm like, look, your woman is not looking for another child to take care of. So stop behaving like a child. And you know what's sad about this is, and I said something the effect of when you're in factuation with her, the cuteness, that's what I said. When the cuteness of your infatuation with her wears off, she's gonna throw you to the curb. And that's what a lot of guys do. They play the nice guy, they play the child, like, I need you, you're the center of my universe. And that's cute to win. Dude, this is so wild. It's so crazy, because I had a childhood best friend of mine. And we've been friends for a very long time, so I've seen him date many, many girls. And I used to always tell him, like, man, you have this MO. Every chick loves you because he just would worship the ground and they walk on, they say jump. He says, how high? And they just would talk how great it was. And it would be about six months or so. And it was like clockwork. I could tell every time. He'd meet a girl and I just, I'd see where the relationship was going. And I'd try and warn him, like, hey man, you know, sometimes when you're, when you're such a nice guy all the time, what ends up happening? And I know they're worshiping you and telling you how amazing you are right now, but it never ends or never fails that within about six months to a year, they all, then they start punkin' him. And then it starts with little subtle stuff, little jabs, kinda teasing him a little bit in front of the rest of us and with that. Then it becomes like kinda swearing at him, talking down to him. And then before you know it, if he's still with that girl a year, year and a half in, I mean, she's like literally like punking him in front of other people. She probably ends up leaving him. Yeah, and then she ends up leaving him. And it's like, dude. Well, I think what happens in a lot of those cases is she, so we have these energies, right? Masculine and feminine energy. And we all possess varying degrees of that. That's why you see some men who are feminine men. They're not even necessarily gay. They just might be feminine men. So what happens in a relationship like that is you have this woman who's playing the feminine role because she possesses the feminine energy. And then you have this guy who comes in, who's now playing the submissive feminine role, right? The guy like, I'll serve you and I'll nurture and I'll do all of this stuff. And then, so what does she do? She starts to become more masculine and dominant. She takes the masculine energy. And so now she's the man, he's the woman, and roles are all confused and everybody's upset. You know, it's funny, that's a controversial thing to say, but when you look at the statistics, when the rate of divorce in relationships skyrockets when the man is actually the guy that stays at home and the wife works and is the provider, it's a higher rate of divorce in couples like that than when it's the other way around. And that's just the real statistic. I know guys that have made it work and they'll say, this works for us. And look, if you can make it work, all the power to you. That doesn't work for me. I can't see how that would work. And I know it does, but I've seen statistics like that. And I think that makes sense based on how we're wired. And by the way, I'm not saying it's better or worse. Whatever works, works. You should be able to do whatever you want and couples should be able to organize that together. It's just a real statistic that I've read a couple of times. Now the question is because of modern times that we don't have to hunt and kill and do the things that we used to have to, is this the natural evolution that we're supposed to become more like? Homogenous. Yeah, we're all the same. And what are your thoughts on that? I think that poses a very real problem because what it does is it allows the wolves to run rampant. And what I mean by that is that it could be wolves as in potential threat of war, for example, or conflict, violent crime. It could also just be a natural disaster. These situations that just happen over time and throughout the course of history, if there's not any men to stand up against those threats, we face some very serious issues. Now I agree with you, but I'm playing devil's advocate right now because then they would say, someone would say, well, it's, we're in some of the safest times that we've ever been in society, like is it? And a mama bear can be really protective too. Sure, yeah, absolutely. And we might be in some of the safest times in history, but that doesn't mean those things won't happen. It doesn't mean they can't happen. And when we let our guard down, throughout history, what has happened, right? And so I think it's imperative that we learn to be strong, tough, resilient, gritty, physical men so that we are able to handle those situations when they arise. So when we talk about masculinity and we look at our society as a whole right now, what do you think are some of the things currently right now that are threatening it the most? Hmm, man, that's a good question. The things that are threatening society, or excuse me, masculinity the most. Yeah, yeah, in our society right now. Yeah, I think number one and Sal, you and I talked about this, but personal accountability and responsibility. Like we have shifted the blame and the burden of responsibility on governments and institutions and our jobs and our wives and everywhere else that we can. And we've shucked all of that responsibility so we don't have to take it on ourselves. Right, victim role. It is victim role. And what ends up happening when you play the victim is you subject yourself to outside variables, whether that's a company that's going through layoffs or a natural disaster or your wife who is going through, I mean, there's so many situations that could happen when you can't learn to take care of yourself and stand on your own two feet. And do you think that that starts at the home front as dad and mom? Or do you think that's our schools to blame right now? Or do you think that's the message that we're hearing on TV and YouTube and shit like that? I think it's a play for mediocrity that it's okay to be who you are and that everything's okay and you're good just the way you are. Well, that's bullshit. I'm not good the way I am. That's to me, that's empowering. I know some people will hear that and think, well, Ryan, you're kind of being harsh on yourself. No, like I expect and demand more of myself. If I'm not better off in two years and five years and 10 years than I am today, then I've done something horribly wrong. That's growth, right? Everybody's, the opposite is being fixed. Like I'm in this fixed mindset that everything is going fine. Let's all just maintain this status quo. There's no such thing. Yeah, it doesn't happen. You either grow or you shrink. I think the reason why there's sometimes a confusion is because people think that that means I hate myself. That's the victim role. I hate myself and I'm not gonna do anything about it and I'm just gonna sit here and I'm gonna pretend like I accept who I am or whatever. I don't think that's the same thing. I think what you're talking about is, hey, look, I care about myself enough to wanna be better. To wanna be better tomorrow than I am today. Well, and I think part of this comes from the fact that I've been able to do some things in the past that I'm proud of, right? Like I can look back in past history and recognize that there's some things that I've overcome and some challenges that I've been able to face on my feet and that gives me hope that I can continue to do that moving forward. But what we've done in society is we've stripped away any hardship, any challenge, any consequence to failure. And so people aren't faced with certain tasks and tasks that they need to overcome. So they don't have any hope for growing in the future because they've never had to exhibit any strength or toughness or resilience in the past. We've also made fatherhood look like, I mean, it used to be a proud, a very proud thing and a goal in purpose, like to be a father and to be a good father. And now it's almost like, oh man, you can have kids, just go have fun, do whatever you want. Or you look at the media and the dad is an idiot. And almost every TV show, every movie, the dad is just like moron. And you know, does it- Al Bundy's. I was just gonna ask, what do you think about role models today? Like I feel like there's just not a lot of really strong male role models in TV and YouTube and things like that for kids to even look up to. That's why I don't want my children to ever have to rely upon looking to entertainment for a role model. Because they're just not gonna get the role model that they need. You know, they're gonna get the highlight reel and they're gonna get a false sense of reality, just a false sense of purpose and what life actually looks like. And so I try to be the role model. Like that is my job as the, and I'm gonna say another swear word, as the patriarch of my family. My job is to be the example on the role model for my boys so they know how to model my behavior and for my daughter so they know what to look for in a man when that day comes. Yeah, and I wanna be clear too, when you say that, like the word patriarchy and whatnot, I think oppressing people and being violent towards people and treating people like shit is bad. Of course. That's all, I don't even know why I have to say that. That's obvious, that's bad. But I think everybody benefits from men with strong character, responsibility and a sense of purpose. I think everybody, including women, benefit from that. I don't see why that's such a bad thing. I think when people talk about toxic masculinity, they're just talking about shitty people. That's just the bottom line. That's exactly right. It's really interesting because people, and I'm hesitant to have this conversation because I know how it gets misconstrued, but I look at my wife and I with our relationship. We co-lead the family. But at the end of the day, I make the ultimate decisions because the ultimate responsibility falls upon my shoulders for the direction of the family. And so some people hear that and they're like, oh, you're sexist and you're misogynist and how could you keep her down like that? It has nothing to do with that. She voluntarily is part of this arrangement, if you will, because she recognizes, based on past behavior, that I can lead my family where we want to go together. So we make decisions together, but ultimately the responsibility lies on my shoulders. I've gotta be able to perform in situations where she and my children are relying upon me. Now, Ryan, are your kids too young for you to have conversations around social media yet or are you starting to have those conversations? My oldest, he's 10 is. And even my second, he's almost eight. We've talked about some of that stuff as well. Yeah, what do you see with that and do you have plans for how to monitor that or regulate that or what do you see when you look at Instagram and YouTube? I think the problem with social media, which is ironic because I use social media as well as you guys do so much to grow our brand, is that we begin to seek outside validation for our lives. And so if my kids don't have a sense of validation that they've done it for themselves, I think social media can become a real problem. I mean, it's challenging enough even if you are a confident person to be on social media. Like I am, I'm confident. And yet I see what you guys are doing, what this person doing, what that person's doing. I'm like, well, how come I'm not doing that stuff? So for me, it's really about creating situations and environments where my kids can foster and develop their own sense of confidence and be able to turn inwards for their validation rather than having to seek mine or anybody else's. So do you think that you will allow them to have their own Instagram page, do whatever they want? Are they already currently doing something? But I think it would be a mistake not to allow them to do that. Right, and I have the same argument or a conversation about video games. Some guys are like, video games are the devil and no kid should ever play video games. I'm like, well, I mean, video games are great. You know, you learn technology and you get, there's some social elements to it. I mean, there's a lot to it. It can be taken to the extreme, just like going to the gym can be taken to the extreme, right, when it becomes an escape from your real life. So I don't see any problem with having my kids engage in social media as long as I'm there and I'm monitoring and helping them understand how to use it in a healthy way. Any thoughts on advice for parents on how to teach kind of like that balance? Like Justin, I love when Justin and Sal share, I don't have kids. So it's really neat to hear how they father around these situations, like how do I teach my kids? Like how much time they should be playing video games and how much time they should be spending on social media. Like, do you have advice for people, like what you think or that you implemented? Yeah, so I think there's this antiquated way of thinking, which is the one that I always come to for an example is like, we don't talk about money. Like, you know, like my mom, she didn't talk to me about money. Like that was taboo, you don't talk about that stuff. But for me, I'm like, no, I'm gonna talk about it. I'm gonna tell my kids how much I make. I'm gonna tell them what taxes are. I'm gonna tell them what debt is. Like I'm gonna tell them if we have debt, I'm gonna tell them how much money we make. That's so important. I don't know why people didn't do that. It's a great, it's something you need to know as an adult. Yeah, absolutely. And it's the same thing with social media because I'm on my phone quite a bit and it would be easy for my kids to think, oh, I'm neglecting them or just on this little device and not giving them attention. But I help them see it through communicating with them. And that is the biggest problem, I think, but it's also the greatest solution to just about any problem that we might face is just open your mouth and share what's going on. So I show my, specifically my oldest what I'm doing on social media and how I'm using it and how it's impacting other people and how it's impacting us. I also teach them about boundaries. Hey, I'm putting the phone away, not just because I said so, but because this is a boundary. This is a space where every night we get together, for example, and have dinner together. No distractions, no devices, no electronics. This is what we've agreed to do because X, Y, and Z. So the more that we can have these conversations about the way I operate, not just because dad said so or because I'm the parent, but because of these specific reasons, they're like, oh, I kinda understand that. I kinda get that. Kids are a lot smarter than you think they are, that's for sure. Now, out of all your kids, do you see any of them like, does one push back more on some of the things or the values that you're trying to implement or they all kind of follow suit? How do you feel? Well, my youngest is two and he's gonna give us the hardest problem. Oh, you can tell already. Now, he doesn't push back on my values because he doesn't know what they are as his two, but he will, he will. Oh wow, you can just tell. I know he will. Just tell stubborn he is. Oh man, it's not that he's stubborn, it's that he's just wild. Like, you could tell him, no, don't do that and he'll like, don't touch that vase or whatever, you know, whatever. And he'll look at you and he'll like, as he's looking at you, touch the vase and he'll be like, you little, he's gonna press all the way. Yeah, so I know he's gonna give us the biggest challenge for sure. Oh wow. What do you think about the education system? You know, we have, boys are medicated at much higher rates than girls are, especially with ADD and ADHD medication. Yeah. Boys graduate at lower rates than girls do all the way up through college and they tend to perform worse in test scores and stuff like that. Like, what do you think about the current education system? I think there's a real problem that's stacked against boys, quite honestly. Dr. Leonard Sacks has some great work on this and Dr. Warren Ferrell has some great work on this as well. Leonard Sacks is, Boys Adrift is the book that he wrote on this particular subject and Why Gender Matters and then Warren Ferrell wrote a book called The Boy Crisis. And there's some real problems. I think primarily the biggest problem in the way that we can address this within the school system, specifically for boys, is experiential learning, right? Because what we do is we put these boys into classrooms, we tell them to sit down, to shut up, to color within the lines, to don't talk, to don't ask questions, do it the way you're told and this is the way you do it. Except the problem is, is boys don't learn that way, right? Like I take my boys and they're outside and they're throwing mud at each other and squishing bugs and burning ants with magnifying glasses and just basically being boys, rough housing and all of that. Well, what ends up happening is these boys get into these classrooms and they don't want to sit down and shut up, would you? I don't want to do that. And so they bounce around, they wiggle. They get a little... Sal's 37, I still can't get him to sit still in one of our fucking meetings for over 30 minutes. That's true. That's not true. But does that mean you have ADD or ADHD? I mean, I would, I definitely would get the diagnosis. You would be diagnosed, but maybe it's just, maybe you just need to focus your attention on something that's more engaging, right? Maybe you're boring, man. Right, so maybe that's your fault, not his. But yeah, I think for the school system, I really see a future where apprenticeship programs actually become a little bit more prevalent than they have in the past. I think there's value in learning as you experience the process of... What do you mean? Well, I could definitely see when it comes to trades, for example, that's gonna become significantly more prevalent than it has in the past. I've said this multiple times on this show because right now you see developers and you see this whole push for software and that's such a flooded market. It doesn't make any sense for me to push my boys in that direction. That market is so saturated. And what's left, dude, skills and trades, that is a dying thing. Yeah, and it's so important. I mean, it's much needed, it really is. So I think I can see companies, and I don't know, I haven't articulated this very well or thought about it too much in depth and flushed this out, but I can see companies sponsoring and providing scholarships for kids coming up. An example of that. An example that I think would be what I think we're seeing right now, which is like big companies like Apple getting into education. I mean, I foresee the future of an Apple University and you start off there and then you pick, they have so many positions available in the company and they're constantly growing. I could see those types of trades. That's the experiential thing that you're talking about. It doesn't even have to be the trades. It could be software like Justin was saying, if there's a demand for it, rather than putting you in these classrooms in these environments that seem to be difficult for boys or for men, like here, come work for us for a year. We're gonna pay you this little bit so you can learn, you get the certificate at the end, which then qualifies you to work for us. I could see that being a much better alternative for a lot of people who may not fit in the whole school model. Yeah, 100%. When I started in my financial planning practice, one of my friends who started at the same time as me, his whole family, their dentists, his dad, he's got two brothers, he's got two brother-in-laws, he's got two uncles, they're all dentists, and he didn't go to dental school. He was going to, but it ended up not, and he went into financial planning practice. And I remember something he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, you know, I'm gonna take four years in this business and this is my tuition. I'm gonna make a little money. I'm not gonna make a lot of money, but I'm gonna invest and pour everything I can into this for the next four years, and I know I'll be better off. Well, the guy does amazingly, amazingly well in his financial planning practice, just as well, if not better than his family who's in the medical practice, because he didn't have to go in and pay that tuition, and he's not coming out of school with three, four, $500,000 worth of debt. Some of these guys come out with that much. It's insane. Yeah, I mean, if you take like an oral surgeon, for example, I've seen $400,000 plus of debt before they get into the office and start making money. You don't even own a house, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, you've got the education, which is great, but cool. When you look at the statistics on what it takes to even save that kind of money, how long it takes the average, I mean, I was just rattling off a stat to these guys. Do you know that less than 6% of America make over $100,000 a year? Is that right? 5.8. Wow. So 5.8. That makes you plated out here. That makes you poverty in San Jose. Yeah, I know. Oh, I'm sure. But I mean, think about that. If 94% of the country is making less than $100,000 a year, but then 60% of those people that go to college are coming out of school with $30,000 to $80,000 in debt, like, how long it takes someone who makes $80,000 a year to save $100,000? But it's not even that they're coming, and that's a problem, yes, but that's not the real problem. The problem is they're coming out with $30,000 to $80,000 worth of debt with no job prospects. Yep. Right? No experience. If you had a $100,000 job lined up and you came out with $30,000 in debt, okay, take three, four, five years, pay the debt off, that's manageable. But when you come out with that kind of debt and you don't have a job, and you can't get a job, that's a problem. It's a racket. It's 100% a racket. Look, if everybody could get a car loan for whatever car they wanted, and it was guaranteed and there were policies that said, no, we need to give car loans to people because it's good for people, nobody would be driving a Hyundai. Everybody would be buying $100,000 cars. This is why you have universities with fucking million-dollar libraries and this, that and the other and your book costs $300 and you have $100,000 to graduate with a liberal arts degree, which is gonna give you nothing. Right. That's insane. The whole market's fucking skewed. It is ridiculous. But it's funny because you hear people defend it and obviously when we talked about this, if you're a physician or an attorney, you have to have a degree, okay, I get that, we understand that. But people will defend it and say, well, I built this incredible network of other broke people. Like, what, tell me about your network. It's crazy. Yeah, the market's responding to it though. You're starting to see, I mean, I can watch YouTube lectures in colleges whenever I want. I can buy books online now for much, much less. It's starting to change and you're starting to see people go in that direction because they've priced themselves out. They've made it so expensive and so insane that you're seeing now these other markets start to open up and allow people the opportunity to educate themselves. And I mean, I don't have any formal education. All my education in fitness and health is all through certifications and courses I've taken and things that I've read. And I could sit and talk with the smartest, scientists and doctor in my field and we can have a pretty good conversation on it. And I have the experience behind me because I've been training people and working with people for 20 years. I mean, I've seen this in my financial planning practice which I just sold about a month ago. But these financial planners have been in the business for 20, 30, 40 years. They're oblivious to what's happening. I'm like, you used to be a gatekeeper but the problem is now is that everybody has access to the same information you have. And so there's no need for a gatekeeper. And so I would tell these advisors, I'm like, look, we're dying here. Like it's just a matter of time before we're out of business and I'm gonna start doing this. And so I started a podcast for my financial planning practice and everybody's like, ah, it's stupid, you don't even have a, and I started to pick up clients that way. And now financial advisory practices pay me to come in and teach them how to do work. I didn't know you'd do that too. So you have a- No, I sold, I sold the business. Oh, shit. And the podcast, Everything All Together or what? I didn't, so the podcast, what I did is in 2014 is when I launched Wealth Anatomy. So it was a podcast geared towards helping healthcare professionals with their financial services. Oh, no shit. So I did about 20 episodes and I started to pick up clients. And then I realized really quickly I enjoyed the medium of podcasting, but I'm like, I don't wanna have that conversation. And that's when I pivoted and switched gears over. Oh, I didn't remember you telling me that. So that's how it all started then. I was gonna ask you if to kind of, I know we've been already talking for quite some time now, but we should kind of revisit for those that didn't hear the original episode that we did with you, how did you turn this feeling and passion that you had for this dying masculinity that we see in our country right now into a business and a podcast? Like, how did that happen? Well, the podcast part was easy. I mean, I just, I started it. People always say, how do you start a podcast? You answered the question. You started it. Like everybody knows how to buy a microphone and start. Press record. Right, exactly. Right. So that's what I did. And again, that was in 2015. And I got about six or seven months into doing it. And we had picked up a ton of traction with Facebook group and with a podcast. Like, it was doing really, really well. And my wife and I were having a discussion and she said, you know, I really appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate the conversations you're having. You seem engaged and excited about what you're doing. It's really cool to see, except for you're not spending so much time in the financial planning practice, which is affecting family household income. Yeah. This is what makes our money, honey. Yeah. And that's exactly what it was. It was like, so you either probably out of like scale back or figure out a way to make money. I'm like, well, I'm not scaling back. If anything, I'm doubling down on this thing. Oh, wow. And so. Now, when you, was that because you were just loving it so much or did you have the foresight to see kind of where this space would go? I didn't see it. Oh, okay. I didn't see it. I just, I just enjoyed it. Oh, okay. I had faith that I could probably make a little money and, you know, offset at least the time of, and the investment of running the hobby at that point. Yeah. So I had that faith that I could make something work. And so I was listening to a podcast. I can't remember the podcast. It's probably like a Pat Flynn podcast or John Lee Dumas or something. Anyways, they were talking about running courses. And I'm like, well, I can do that. I'll just, I'll do a 12 week course. I'll open it up to 12 guys and we'll just like see how it does. And I sold those 12 spots like overnight. Just boom, sold them. And it's a 12 week course. And we get about like eight weeks into it. And the guys are like, what do we do when this is over? When's the next one? Then what do we do? And I'm like, I don't know. Should we just keep going? They're like, yeah. So I'm like, all right. Well, then I opened it up just for everybody. And I mean, that's the iron council. That's our brotherhood now. We've got 400 and just under 450 members of that. So explain how the course works and like what you, I mean, obviously you were just kind of testing it out at first and it ended up taking off. Yeah. What did the curriculum look like? I mean, and how did you do it? Was it like a virtual thing? That's what it was. It was a virtual thing. Let me just think about this year for a second. We had six topics. That's what it was. We had six topics we were gonna cover, one topic for every two weeks. And what they would get at the first is they would get an assignment for that topic every two weeks. And then we had a Facebook group where we'd have discussions about the topics and the assignment and all that. And then on the second week Friday we'd have a virtual call. And we would just discuss and talk about what we learned and the challenges and whatnot. That's essentially what we did. Very cool. It was cool, man. And we've done a lot since, you know, since we opened it up, we do it every week now with 450 guys, it lost a lot of its intimacy when we got to like 120 or 30 members. I'm like, well, how can we maintain this level of involvement and intimacy? And so we created battle teams. So now these guys operate in 15 man teams. We do challenges. We just got done with a 30 day wellness challenge these guys all competed against each other. Like it's cool. We do some cool stuff. Oh, that is cool. Now, is it like a one time fee? Is it a monthly monthly subscription? Is that how it's set up? Yep. Is that how it originally did when you first did the 12 week? Or did you do like the first time? Like let's just. No, I did it. Well, I'm almost embarrassed to say what I offered it for. But it was a hundred bucks. Well, a hundred bucks. I mean, that's you had to test it out. I didn't know, man. I had no idea. So we so I made a thousand bucks that first month. Right. Which, again, comes back to what I said earlier. I had just I didn't make a lot of money. But I had proved that this is viable. Right. To myself and showed my wife too. Hey, look, this is viable. And she and she wasn't she wasn't being not supportive. But she's like, I don't know if it's going to work. She was skeptical. She wasn't that she wasn't supportive. She was just skeptical about it. And I showed her. She's like, oh, that's kind of cool. You know, and so I try to keep her involved as much. If guys knew how much a woman had in the say of order of man, I don't know how much longer they'd stick around. That's funny. Well, you are a team, you know. That's 100% right, man. I mean, we make decisions together. I don't I don't make decisions without her because the decisions I make are going to impact her. And so she has a right to know those things. We get we get asked a lot about like building a business, right? Everyone always asks, like, you know, what's the most important thing, you know, when you're you guys are trying to build this online social media business or podcast podcast business. And I think what you did speaks to what I'm always talking about, which I think a lot of people put the car before the horse where they're trying to figure out, how am I going to make money? And what am I, you know, how and they're always thinking about how they're going to monetize everything versus do I even have something that provides enough value for people that they would even consider paying? Yeah, you know, do you get people asking you a lot like that are trying now to fall in your footsteps and create a podcast also and create a business around it. Yeah, so like what do you tell these people? I mean, I think you're right as far as the money thing. Like they're so worried about money. I'm like, look, people are selling the dumbest shit out there and they're making millions and millions of dollars. Like have a little faith that you'll be able to monetize this at some point and in some way. The first thing you need to do is you need to start having the dialogue. You just need to start having the conversation. Where? I don't know. Where do you spend your time on social media? Start there. If it's Facebook, if it's Instagram, if it's Twitter, if you enjoy podcasting, whatever it looks like, just start. That's number one. Number two is just be ruthlessly consistent with what you're doing. Because I see a lot of people who will start something and they'll start having some of these conversations and they're like, oh, I don't get any traction. People don't, I'm like, dude, you've been doing it for two weeks. What makes you think people are going to find you? Like just go out, keep doing it for years and years and years. I mean, we've been doing it. You guys, what, like four years you said roughly? Yeah, almost. Almost a year. We did it for a year and didn't even monetize for the full year. The full year, we're just trying to build authority and provide value. That's the exact, and same on my side, it was about six, seven months before I opened that course up. So just have some faith at work. Understand what your messaging is and people say, nobody's listening, nobody's tuning in. That's good. You don't really have your message articulated yet. You don't sound all that great. Like you guys were talking about your first podcast, but nobody listened. So it's okay. You know, and I was thinking about that with my first YouTube video, which I kept on there. And I looked at it a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, what was I doing? I was in my garage and it was like, I had the camera set up on one angle of the garage. I was all the way away and like, it was bad. It was bad, but I leave it there because I'm like, you have to start somewhere. Now have you, I mean to where you've grown this thing now, are you still pretty much just you and the wife that run everything or do you have people in our team? Oh, you're still running everything. Just me. I mean, I have some contractors. We have somebody that helps me with podcast production. I have guys that help me run our brotherhood, The Iron Council. But yeah, yeah, it's just me. And then as far as like the different ways that you monetize now, obviously you have the brotherhood, the monthly that you're doing there. You got a book that you did, right? The book, yeah. Anything else that you do to monetize right now? We do some apparel. We've got some shirts, hats, that kind of thing. That's right. That's a little bit. And then we do our experiences. So we do three and a half day retreats. So I have guys come into Southern Utah and all of our events are designed to push guys mentally, physically, emotionally, challenge them, test them, give them some new skills and new conversations and new friends to be able to charge forward with the rest of their life. So tell me what a weekend like that looks like. That's really interesting. Yeah, so I have these guys, they fly in. They fly into Vegas. I'm about two hours north of Vegas. So then we drive them up to a cabin that we've got in Southern Utah. And from the get go, it's physically demanding. I mean, we're pushing these guys almost like you would think of basic training a little bit, maybe not quite so intense. And then we put these guys in teams and then we let them compete against each other the entire weekend. So there's banter and they're trying to compete and trying to sabotage each other. It's cool. Things that guys wouldn't normally do, but they have a craving to do, a desire to do. It's funny you just went there because we were talking off the other day about what is it about men that we have this natural, like we pick on each other. You don't say it. You each other nicknames that are horrible. That are fucked up, man. Yeah, screwed up, right? Yeah. What is that about us that it seems like it's human nature almost? I do. I think it's a way to connect and bond, right? I think women maybe have a hard time seeing this when we give each other a hard time and if we give each other screwed up nicknames and razz each other. But I do believe, for the most part, it comes from a position of love. Like if you give somebody a nickname, it's because you care about that person, right? And so it might be a little dark maybe. But in a way, it's just our way is guys of expressing, hey, I care about you. We don't have any say I care about you. So I've heard theories on this and one of the theories is that because women don't necessarily do this with each other. In fact, on our forum, I put, I think I did a post and I said, hey, we did an episode on this and I talked about my buddy who owns a restaurant and I'll tell you the story because it's hilarious. He's touring me around the restaurant and he's introducing me to a staff. This is John, this is Susan, this whatever. This is nine, he's walking through and I'm like nine and I'm like, you don't look German, like nine. And he goes, hey, nine, show them why we call you nine. And he raises his hand, he's missing a finger. And it's like shit like if you have an ugly friend, his nickname is gonna be ugly. Like it's real mean shit. So I did a post on our forum, like tell us your nicknames and the women were telling their nicknames and guys were like, oh, the girls are like, oh, Susie is my nickname and the guys are like shorty. Cause I'm short, you know, fat head cause I have a big head or whatever. And I read theories on this and one of them is that men test each other with that because if you can hold it together when someone's digging at you, then we know that you could probably hold it together when you really need to. Well, yeah, if I'm out hunting and we're in battle or something, I hope if I call you a name you're gonna start crying and crumble, right? But I also think there's an element of trust too. Like, like, hey, I'm gonna build trust and credibility because if I'm busting your balls about something and like you said, you can handle it, then I know, okay, we're cool, right? So like I went and did, are you guys familiar with Total Archery Challenge? No. So I got into archery the end of last year and I've been on a couple of bow hunts, which is awesome. So they do these total archery challenges and they took us up into Snowbird, which is the mountains of Northern Utah and they take you up on this tram and then you kind of work your way down the mountain as you're shooting 25 different targets, deer, pigs, that kind of stuff. And I was fortunate enough to get paired up with a really good group of guys with some friends of business that I work with, Mountain Ops and there was a guy by the name of Sidney that joined us and I've been following him on social media for a while. He's a triathlete, he's just an incredible guy, but he's a double amputee. So he's hiking down this mountain with us, shooting his bow with us, like doing everything with us. I mean, the guy is absolutely incredible. Does he have like prosthetics? He has prosthetics at the knee and so he's got, he had those little like flexible ones. You know which ones I'm talking about? And so he said, he's trying to shoot standing up. He's like, guys, I got to kneel when I shoot because the way that those prosthetics work is like it requires a lot of balance. So he can't shoot a bow while he's trying to balance his body. I'm just so blown away by this guy. I mean, I was struggling going down the thing and I've got healthy legs and feet. He's got no, he's missing both of his legs. So we get down to the bottom and we get like on target number 25, that was the last target. And he gets down on his knees and he's going to shoot his bow. And he says, hey guys, I just, I want you to know I really appreciate you guys. He's like, most people would have left me at target number two. And he's like, but I just need to ask, you guys don't like, you guys don't judge me, right? And everybody's like, oh no, no, no, no, we don't judge you, we, you know, we, you're awesome. We like what you do. I'm like, yeah, I judge you a little bit. You know, and he just busted up. Like he's just laughing, you know? Cause you know what? Nobody tells him the truth. Right, right, yeah. Like nobody can give him a hard time. They're so delicate and walking on eggshells. I bet he appreciated it. He appreciated it. Yeah. Because I was willing to say something and joke with him because he's a dude, just like I'm a dude and we just want to have a good, and now we're closer because there's just a level of trust and credibility. Like if I didn't trust that he could handle that, I wouldn't have said that. If he didn't trust me that it was coming from a good place, he would have taken offense. So I think it forges a tighter bond. Yeah, I think it's a hundred percent true and it's funny because we know this as guys and it's an experience, it's kind of a male experience. If you're in a group of guys and one of them makes a joke or pokes fun at you and you act like your feelings were hurt and you, you know, whatever, you're fucked. Yeah, oh yeah. You are screwed. They are gonna now. Oh, we're gonna ramp it up. Yeah, and it really, two reasons. One, you showed weakness, but two really it's because it's kind of a bonding thing and I don't know, I appreciate it. Like we talk shit to each other relentlessly here. Every day. And we're bad about it. Like we'll talk shit about shit that's personal. Like real stuff. You know, I'm not saying stuff to Adam or Justin about things that are made up. Like I'm literally poking at shit that I know is true. And they fucking laugh and appreciate it. And they hit me back with the same stuff and it's a great time. It's definitely a great time. I like the theory though that you said about like it's a test, right? Because if you're not talking about real stuff, it's not testing. But if you're talking about real stuff that you could potentially be upset about, you're like, let me see how this guy's gonna respond. Okay, he can respond. Cool. I'll hang with him. Well you were in the military. I can only assume that you guys would rip each other especially out. All the time. All the time. But it never, I know that there was guys who took it hard. And you know what? They had a hard time making friends. Because they weren't, and you know what? And hearing what you're saying. Maybe it's subconsciously we just thought this guy's not emotionally tough enough to be somebody I wanna maybe spend more time with. On that note, what do we think about like what's going on with the anti-bullying campaigns? And I feel like, you know, that's become a huge thing now. Yeah, yeah. All these words that can hurt you. Like have you dealt with anything at school with your kids with that yet? Just the one I told you about earlier. You know, the bullying thing is like, number one, not everything is bullying. Like we need to understand that. Not everything is bullying. Teasing is just kind of the natural progression of life. It's just the way it is. So not everything's bullying. Not everything needs to be taken the extreme. You don't need to ruin a kid's life because he called your daughter four eyes or whatever. Like that's not bullying. It is what it is. But the other side of it too is like, we need to be able to teach our kids some emotional resiliency. You know, like if we can't allow a kid to call, to make, to call a kid brace face or something without saying, well, he bullied. Right, yeah. But not equip our daughter or son with the resiliency to say, dude, shake it off. And why do you think that's so important? What do you think is so important to teaching that lesson? Because if that is... Is that life? Not only is that life, that's like a sliver of life. Right, like if you can't handle somebody teasing you or mocking you or making fun of your shoes or whatever, how are you ever gonna deal with everything that life has to throw at you? It's true. I think we should definitely, and we have, but I think it's important, I don't need to argue this, to teach kids to treat each other well and with respect, of course. But the best anti-bullying campaign ever really is to teach kids to stand up for themselves. Yeah, because you know who doesn't get picked on? The kid who's confident, assertive, it knows what he's doing, can defend himself verbally, physically if needs be. That kid doesn't get bullied. The kid that gets bullied is the weak passive kid who maybe mom and dad never taught him any toughness. I remember when I was in, I must have been in fifth or sixth grade. I think I was. I got into a quote unquote fight with another kid and I say quote unquote fight because it was like a pushing match in school. And we got, both of us got sent to the principal's office and we got scolded and I think we got sent home for that day or whatever it was. And I thought my mom was gonna be pissed or she was gonna call a school and she was gonna get upset with that kid's parents. But she enrolled me in karate. Oh wow. Like that was her response. She's like oh, you're gonna get bullied or picked on or you're gonna get in fights? Well okay, you need to know how to defend yourself and handle yourself. So she enrolled me in karate. Like that to me was the appropriate response. I went to a junior high that was just lots of gangs. It wasn't the greatest school at all. And these guys would walk around and they would, they bully and punk people and people would be afraid. And they did it to me. I had this, I was in the line at the water fountain, the kid cuts in front of me and I had about 30 seconds to think about what was going on. Like this kid's cutting in front of me. He's got all his buddies over there. They're in their little gang or whatever. Am I gonna let him just do that? And so I stood up for myself and I got in a fight. I got jumped twice by these kids and then they left me alone. And I think it's because they were like, this is way too much trouble. We're not gonna fuck with, he's gonna stand up for himself every time. We're gonna kind of leave him alone. Now of course there's very dangerous situations. Well nine times out of 10, those people that are picking those fights don't really wanna fight. Most of those kids that are trying to bully and start, they don't really wanna fight. They just wanna assert themselves and impress you. It's not really like, and so when you actually fight back, they're like, oh shit, like I didn't really want to get hit on this. And it's human nature too is the path of least resistance. So bullies, what do they want? There's a thousand things they could want, but they're after something and they wanna get to it the quickest and most effectively and efficiently as possible. And you represent an obstacle, right? But little Johnny, next to you, we can pull him over, but you can't take you, right? So we're just gonna take the path of least resistance. We're gonna go that way and say that way. Yeah, you just gotta teach him to stand up for themselves, be assertive and stand your ground. Doesn't mean you have to be violent, but if definitely, here's the deal. There needs to be a threat of, there needs to be that threat there for people to respect you. Otherwise words mean nothing. If you don't have teeth, it doesn't mean shit. This is the reason why, fuck man, this is the reason why we have a second amendment. It's like that second amendment gives all the other Bill of Rights teeth without that. They don't really need it. What's freedom of speech if you can't, there's no threat behind, oh, if we take it, what's gonna happen, you know? And that's just life. And if you don't learn that skill, you're gonna get bullied at work as an adult. You get bullied in life by people all the time. And yes, I understand shit happens and I understand things can be very violent. You gotta be smart about it. And we definitely should teach kids to not be assholes, but one of the best antidotes to that is just stand up for yourself. Yeah, there's a Jordan Peterson quote, and I'll probably butcher it, so I'll just paraphrase it here. He says, you know, something along the lines of a nice man is not a good man. A good man is a violent man who knows how to control it. And that to me makes a better man. Is somebody who, a man who's capable of displaying violence and aggression and dominance and all those things that he may need to but knows how to control it and how to use it. Well, the baddest dudes I ever met were like that. The baddest dudes that, yeah, are the ones that calm, relax, don't freak out, don't act all emotional, don't get all angry, don't bully, don't do any of that stuff like that because deep down they're a bad ass if they need to be. I examined that quote quite a bit because when I first heard it, it was confusing to me. And I understand now what it means. What it really means is, and here's another way of explaining it, when you have a choice between two decisions and one's the right decision and one's the wrong decision and you choose the right decision because you're afraid of the punishment you may get for making the wrong decision that doesn't make you righteous, it makes you a coward. The truly righteous individual is the one that makes, that knows that they can choose the wrong decision and still decides to choose the right way. It's the same thing with, it's the same thing when you see men who are respected in high positions who have access to all these women, for example, but they choose to not be with them. They could if they wanted to but they choose to be with just one. And those are the guys that other men tend to respect. He's got the choice but he chooses not to. If you're a guy that isn't with a lot of women and is very, what's the word, promiscuous, you're very faithful to your girl but it's because you can't get other women, that doesn't make you a good person. It's just because you can, not available. Yeah, no other options. But I think. And that's what it means. It means literally like, you know you can defend yourself violently. You can be tough if you need to be but you choose not to. Not because you're afraid or anything else but because you just use the right, do the right thing and that's a good person. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think too, this is really to come back to what we were talking about earlier. Why fatherhood is so, so important because as I was growing up without a father, I was weak, I was passive, I was scared a lot. I avoided altercation and confrontation. And I think a lot of that stems from the fact that I was raised primarily by my mother. You know, she did a wonderful job on her own. She was working two, three jobs at a time to make sure ends were being met. But she even recognized that she could not help me be fully a man without getting another man involved. So she got me involved in sports. I joined the military because I needed that. If I would have had, I think, more of a fatherly type figure in my life, I would have been more confident. I would have been more assertive because it wasn't always about nurturing in, are you okay and how can we make this good for you? Which is what my mom provided. And you need to have that. You need to have it. Yes. But you also need the side which is like, you are okay, stand back up and let's get the job done. And I didn't really have that growing up. And I think it manifested itself in a lot of weakness in my early years. So true. I know you talked a couple of times about serving in the military and I did wanna talk about another alarming statistic that has to do with men, but in particular in men that serve, I read a statistic and I'm not sure if it's true that more men die, more men who've served in the military die of suicide than they do in combat. I would not doubt that at all. Yeah, so why do you think the suicide rate is so high, especially among men and especially among men who've served in times of war? I think it comes back to conversation. I can't, we've done some, we've talked so much today. I can't remember when we said this, but it comes back to purpose. So when you're in the military, you have purpose. You have clarity of purpose, you know what the objective is. In a lot of ways you're told what to do, why to do it, how to do it, when to do it. And so it's very clear, it's very focused. A lot of soldiers and Marines and just our veterans in general define themselves by them being a warrior. And that's how they know themselves to be. Then they get out of the military and what happens? They're no longer a warrior, right? They no longer have anybody telling them what to do and when to do it and why to do it and how to do it. They feel lost. And they're lost. So I work closely with a company called, not a company, an organization that's a nonprofit. It's called American Dream U. And their mission is to help integrate and transition our nation's warriors into civilian life using the tools and the skill sets and the characteristics and virtues that they have developed and honed in their time in the military service and then helping them find their quote unquote next mission. And I think that a lot of military members have a hard time finding that next mission. And we talked about it. Every man longs for a battle to fight and adventure to live and a beauty to rescue. And without some of those elements, it's very, very easy to get lost and become helpless and depressed and ultimately suicidal. It's unfortunate. I think the answer to that is helping more military members find their next mission. Do you think it's similar to like what we see with like even like celebrities, right? That especially ones that were become a celebrity at an early age in their whole life. They identify as this famous person and then that kind of goes away, it fades away and then they no longer know who they are. What they do is it's- It's a lack of purpose. And again, it comes back to the validation thing. Like if you're defining yourself by some outside validation or outside circumstances, all of that can be stripped away from you. Like you guys, have you guys read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel? Oh no, no, it's a book. It's on my list. Oh, read that book. I mean, he's a Holocaust survivor and he's a psychologist, I believe. And he talks about the fact that everything can be stripped away from you, right? Like your freedom and your dignity in a lot of ways. I mean, there's so much that can be taken from you and your titles and your money and your wealth and all of your family, all these outside circumstances that you say you value. But there's gotta be something that can never be taken away from you. It's your purpose, it's your meaning, it's how you show up and it's the same regardless of what environment that you're in, even in one of the most horrific environments that you could possibly imagine. And it's a fascinating, fascinating book. You guys ought to read it. It's really good. I'm gonna check that out. I've heard of it, yeah. Well shit, man, you're probably one of my favorite people to talk to. Right on. You say that to all your guests. No, I don't. I actually don't. I've said it to a couple, but yeah, it's great talking to you, man. I feel like we should do this again. Let's do it. I'm open for it. For sure, yeah. I appreciate you coming on the show and thanks for helping us. Sal's gonna work on his beard. Yeah. You have a very healthy beard. It's coming in. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Well thanks for coming on. Thanks guys. Appreciate you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.