 What up, fam? Anthony Johnson here today, co-founder and CEO of the Redman Group, founder of 21 Studios, 21 Convention, 22 Convention, 21 University. Visit 21University.com, sponsor today's show, join it. It's a free 30-day trial. I appreciate it, and you get access to all the awesome speeches of 21 Convention early and ad-free and check it out in the App Store for iPhone and Android. Free download, free 30-day trial, boom, search 21 University. Now, without further ado, welcome to today's show of the Redman Group, today's episode, episode 138, how to handle agency and conflict like a man. Joining me on today's show will be returning guests and returning alumni speakers of the 21 Convention, Coach Noah Revoy and Pastor Michael Foster. So without further ado, welcome them back for the show, Noah and Michael Foster. Thank you very much. How you doing, boys? My pleasure to be here. Doing good. Nice. So in today's episode, like the title says, I want to discuss these issues quite directly. They've been on my mind lately for, I think, fairly obvious reasons what's been going on in the Manusphere, but also much more importantly, I've finally watched the Godfather trilogy for the first time in my life, which is 30 years late maybe, but excellent movie series where obviously there's a lot of responsibility being passed on through generations and family, and then obviously conflict management in the exact style that they went through in the movie in that kind of context. But it's interesting, nonetheless, and it's very masculine, in my opinion, you know, movie series, particularly the first one I thought, which is really, that one blew me away, two and three were fine, but one was like, wow, I understand now why this trilogy is so revered. So, you know, first question I want to ask you guys just on a basic level, you're both like deeply Christian, devout Christians, Michael, you're a pastor, know you also have an extensive history in this and work with it. So in Christianity today, for example, I'm not a Christian, by the way, you guys know that for the audience watching, I was raised Catholic, but I've been an Objectivist Atheist for like 10 years now. But in Christianity today in the West, how are agency and conflict, how are those issues handled in the church? Are they being handled well by men and by leaders in the church or not? What are you guys kind of basic thoughts on those issues in the church, agency and conflict management for men? I can speak to conflict. So pastors are trained these days to avoid conflict at all costs, right? They're basically taught that if there's conflict in a church that you've somehow failed, right? And so then the pastor's role is to be an inspirational speaker that makes you feel comfortable. And that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not historical Christianity, but it has been that way in the States in the West for a while. There's a lot of different reasons for it. But I will tell you that if there isn't conflict in your church, you're failing as a pastor, right? And there is always underlying tensions in relationships, like constantly, and your job as a pastor, you teach the word, you administer the sacraments, but in doing so, you also are working like a hot compress. So hot compress is when you take like a rag and get really hot water on it and then hold it against a wound to pull the pus to the surface, right? So we are not causing conflict as much as revealing it, right? Or sometimes pushing a crisis to the front so you can deal with the underlying issues. So folks are always looking for ways to avoid it. And the way people avoid conflict is interesting. It's not the way you always think. There's the form that we think of most, which is just ignore it, act like it doesn't happen. It was I administered in the South for a long time, and the South was very difficult because they're very passive aggressive people, right? And they'll be super polite to your face, act like you're amazing, say great things about you, whatever, and hate you beyond your back. And it's not in the Midwest, there's some of that, but the Midwest is still a little more direct in America. So there's that there's that form of just avoiding conflict. The other form of being poor with conflict and avoiding it is looking at it like a fire. And you once it pops up, you freak out and you try to stomp it out as quick as you can, right? That is not a panic, right? Yeah, exactly. Because they're not good at it, they can't manage it. It's they're scared of it. And that sort of response is not that's not a lot of people that are drama prone, aren't good with conflict. And people say, Oh, they love conflict. I actually know they, they hate it. They can't manage it. They don't know how to live in the tension. And that's a necessary place to be as a pastor. And a lot of my work is kind of evangelistic, you know, I mix with I keep a mixed company to say the least. And it means I have to learn how to manage tension. And so I think a lot of folks just don't know how to deal with conflict. And then on top of that, you have pastors that are trained to comfort people. And what the old saying is, the job of a pastor is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturb, you know, part of my role is to disturb people, right, to wake them up, you might be an enemy of God, you're going to die. You know, I have to open these, their eyes up to uncomfortable truths and be okay with it. And a lot of these guys are nice guys, think a Robert Glover's book, a lot of those pastors are like that and the majority of their car gets our women. And so they're, they're all the more prone to avoid conflict and to appease when they should say, No, I'm not sorry, you know, I don't take it back. Yeah, minister should be should be a patriarch and a patriarch is a shepherd of his people. And you know, what you described is exactly right a lot are essentially just a cheerleader. They're a cheerleader holding a Bible. And that's not what we need down in days. There's a reason why the church attendance had been dropping. There's a reason why, you know, young people that talk to me say, Noah, what's the most conservative and what they mean is what's the church with the most patriarchal minister that you can recommend to me and finding one that's even slightly that way is difficult. Absolutely. And people will peacemaking will be labeled peace disturbing by middle managers of corrupt religious and political institutions. Yeah, right. And so and there you see that actually in the book of Acts where Paul thinking I wrote this down here acts 24 five, right? He comes and he's speaking the truth. And it causes this riot because the Jews, the Jewish leaders like stir all these people up. And they're like, this man, you know, this man is a troublemaker, right? Well, he's not a troublemaker is actually bringing peace by speaking the truth. Truth is a prerequisite to true peace, right? And what there's a distinction between peace and quiet, right? What a lot of people want is the quiet. But how many times have you been in a relationship where quiet actually represents some of the most intense conflict, right? You're not talking. That's even like World War II. I mean, that kind of appeasement and quiet rather than peace led to mass genocide, mass the biggest war in American world history, where millions of people were slaughtered. And that just, you know, you're talking about on an individual, more specific local level, but it seems to go from a micro to macro sense as well from understanding your concepts correctly. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's institutional institutionally speaking, we see this in our politics, in our ecclesiastical environments, you know, in our households, in our businesses, where if you upset somebody, that means that you're in the wrong, right? Like they've never considered like maybe you're the one that's in the wrong. Like if they feel inflamed by your rhetoric, therefore, your rhetoric is inflammatory. That's a sort of way of thinking. I'm like, this is an inflammatory rhetoric, man. I'm not a shock jock. I'm just telling you what it's, I don't, I don't live to get a reaction out of you. Well, the truth is emotionally inflammatory to people who are liars, right? Absolutely. Yep, I agree. And that's right. Yeah, but conflict is, for example, I did something yesterday that upset a really close friend of mine. And he, he texted me late last night, like kind of angry texts. And so I go to bed early. He goes to bed late. So we finally caught up this morning. And he was apologetic and I was apologetic at some level too. And he was like, well, I shouldn't have talked to you that way. And I was like, no, this is, this is why relationships good is that you and I could be really frank with each other and we can even overstep. And because we are frank with each other, most of the time when we overstep, it's not that big a deal. We can say I'm sorry, we're able to move on with our life. And we can trust each other. We can push each other's limits. And when you can't do that in a relationship, you're always walking on eggshells like, you know, that relationship, you can't build anything or work together. That's why this is why I did this post on how men tease each other and how it's a good thing. And people did not react to it well, right? I mean, I mean, the saying is that men insult each other and don't mean it women compliment each other and don't mean it, right? But the reason men insult each other is the same reason a woman tests the man. We're testing each other like how sensitive are you? If I make fun of you, if you don't, if you don't push back a little bit, then you're a wuss. But if you push back even harder, you're an even bigger wuss. And it's just like, and this is why bullying and teasing of a sort play a big role in masculine development, learning how to have an appropriate response to when people are messing with you. And what we're trying to figure out as men is this a guy I can trust in the trenches? Is this a guy that will react the proper way? And so my son Athanasius, he's my second born, he was he was really, really sensitive when he was a kid. And when I'd make fun of him, he get all offended. So what did I do? I mean, no, what did I do when it when he got offended by me teasing him? Double down on it, double down. That's exact. Every father knows that like, you know what, man, you can't be like this. I can't have you being sensitive. I am your dad. I love you. You know, I love you know, I accept it. You know, you get hugs from me all the time. I take you fish and I spend time with you. I compliment you. If you get a little bit of a tease from me and you re overreact, like I'm not back down. That's not going to be in my son. My son needs to be able to thrive in these challenging situations because that's basically the future for our kids, right? It seems that you want two things. You want them to thrive and you want them to calibrate his response and to understand the calibration and like a skill sense. Because like you mentioned, you can underdo it and they're kind of a wuss or they can overdo it. And it's also kind of a wuss thing too, because they're emotionally compromised at that point by the teasing, right? That's exactly right. They're emotionally compromised. That's what you're looking for. Yep. The ability to moderate our response to stimulus isn't something we're born with. You know, baby can't moderate that and we have to teach children that. Now, you should be teaching it to boys and girls. The difference is if you don't teach it to boys, you end up with these big, strong, powerful men with no emotional control and then they're dangerous. You know, it's like a Rottweiler with no training and they end up doing things that they regret later and ruining their entire lives. You know, men end up, when women break, they mostly destroy themselves. You know, and men break, they have the capacity to destroy the world. So it's extremely important that we raise them with that capacity to control their emotions and control their response to stimuli and we do that by teasing them. And so one of the examples of this would be like an unhandled alpha male who just doesn't raise by a single mom, maybe, but went in a more masculine, at least superficially direction, but has no moderation for his behavior. And a more extreme example would be like Stalin or some dictator, like murderous dictator with no ability to, you know, basically peel back or moderate behavior that's going to as a leader, right? And then you end up just fucking, you know, killing people and putting the gulags and stuff. Yeah, and he actually relied on a lot of people from damaged families in the most militant secret police groups. A lot of them were people that were raised poorly. And they were raised, there were some studies done on a lot of single children of single mothers and stuff like this. And they had all of this anger and aggression and they had no switch to turn it off or to redirect it to somewhere positive. You know, because men are supposed to have anger and aggression, but we're supposed to channel it into useful things. It's supposed to be righteous anger. Hitler's another one with terrible parents. And that kind of gets brushed over in history. It's like, where did this guy come from? He just randomly was this terrible. No, there's probably a cause to it in the source. And there's still a responsibility to put on the individual, of course, but he didn't pop out of nowhere, you know? So another question I want to ask you guys more specifically is both of you are, you know, hardcore Christians, which I love, but you've associated with me and speaking at a conference that's secular and run by an objective as atheist. What kind of conflict, if any, has that produced in your lives in Christian circles? If you guys can speak to it? I'm sure some, right? If my understanding is correct? I think sometimes. So one of the main fallacies nowadays is a sort of guilt by association, right? So you and I, we're not really in a business relationship. Like I come and speak for you and all that stuff at your conference. But we disagree on things publicly, often. You ever once, you always get in from time to time, you get in a mood where you want to poke at somebody on Twitter and you've poked at me before or whatever. And I don't care like whatever. I, I look for opportunities to speak where I don't have to compromise, right? I don't have to compromise the 21 so far. The day I'm required to compromise, I'll just say, hey, it was good while I lasted, you know, in part ways. But yeah, I'm certain people have used guilt by association with me all the time, right? But I just don't care, right? Those people will use some, if I stop connecting with people that are outside of the tribe, so to speak, they'll find a new reason to hate on me because it's not, it's not the real cause of it. And so to me, it's, it's no big deal. You know, I associate with a lot of people I disagree with. So, you know, one thing I've, I've come to mind having you speak at the, and I'll have you go next Noah, but one thing I've had come to mind after having you speak in Reverend Disley Peterson speak, as I've, my mind, I was raised in the nineties, I'm a child of the nineties, that was most of my childhood, and that's the impression of America that I got in American culture. And back then, in my opinion, in my understanding, it was more normal for Christianity to be expressed and exerted outside of churches and the public square or even in school and different stuff, one nation under God. Now, of course, that's under, that's been under assault pretty heavily the past 10, 15 years, if not even longer, but that's been my experience or observation of it. So in a way though, as much as I observed that in culture, that aggression against Christianity, in my mind, it's still normal to see Christianity be exerted in secular open spaces in a competition of ideas. And that to me is what 21 Convention is and should be a TED Talks for men that's open to a wide variety of ideas that meet at least some minimum standard. You know, they can't be for feminism, they can't be for communism or totalitarian crap. They can't be for like extreme racism or explicit crap like that. Outside of these very minimal or fundamental boundaries, it's like anything goes, right? If you're a pro man, a pro masculinity, in a way that I see as as genuine. I mean, the reality, the way the way that I see it is your, your standard is truth. So you invite people that you believe are speaking the truth. And anywhere that there's truth, I'm going to go speak. If, if, if the qualification is you got to be speaking the truth and what you're telling people is true, you know, all men who are dedicated to finding the truth end up in very similar conclusions. They might come at them from different angles, some from atheism, some from Christianity, but they end up with similar conclusions because above religion, above everything is truth, is reality. And so we're going to end up with a lot of overlap and what, you know, there's a lot more similarities to what the speakers believe than there is differences. And the differences are often in how they're applying the truth that they see. They, they have different personal desires of what they want to accomplish with that truth. You know, I'm not going to go somewhere though where, you know, I feel that people aren't speaking truth that I would reject because of that. And when we say truth, like I don't even care if we agree on something necessarily, like that might come to a point, but like I've talked about with communism and feminism, like really extreme stuff like that, that should be a baseline to be at the conference. And I've made that explicit at numerous points over the years. But I, my, my main focus is like, do you believe you're telling the truth? Do you actually believe that to the bone? And do you want to speak that in public on a public stage and try to get it to ideally millions of people? That's the goal. Every speech I wanted to get to a million views, that's kind of my goal when you guys get up on that stage. And that's what matters to me, is are you speaking the truth as you believe and understand it to the bone, not, not some false pretense, not some other motivation that, that's superseding that truth has to be your number one priority. I love the way Michael says it, being a pastor, the entire point is being a truth, truth teller. I wasn't aware that that's how Pat being a pastor, Reverend is defined. But I believe you, I think you're being sincere and that I love that. And I wish more pastors would be like that in everywhere, especially in Florida, where I live. I agree. In the book of Acts, in Acts 17, Paul, he, he speaks at Mars Hill, right? And this is a place where philosophers would come and debate different issues all the time. And we don't have those spaces anymore. We used to have those spaces. I remember back in the 90s, thank you, darling. I remember back in the 90s, that my wife and I, we used to go to this coffee shop. And there, there wasn't very many laptops yet. They existed, but there weren't a ton of them. They're certainly on iPhones. So you'd go to these coffee shops, and there'd be board games, and you would like play board games with people you don't know. And I was, I'd ask them like, so what's your story? What's your life about? What do you think about Jesus? And we'd have these incredible conversations. And some of these people became Christians from those conversations and remain friends for many, many, many years. But now these, these public spaces don't really exist like that anymore. So they call them third places, more or less, right? First place is your home, second place is your job. And third place is where you spend the next amount of time where you interact with the public. They don't exist anymore because of all of our personalized devices that pull us out of relationships. So for me, I'm always looking for a place where I can engage those ideas. So for me, going to 21 was about the speeches, but also about me meeting the speakers and talking to them and pushing back on them and figure out where they're coming from and understanding that. And we need more of a public square and Twitter to some degree is a public square, but it's, it's got a level of limitation to it because of its short form media. And you even had disagreements with another reverend there, Justice Lee Peterson. You and him are not ideologically identical. Yeah, that's, that's fair to say. Yep. So Noah, have you had a pushback from Christians for even associating within an atheist, an atheist run conference that's secular? Yeah, someone mentioned about the swearing. And you know, you'll hardly ever see me swear. It's very rare. Usually if I'm, only if I'm surprised by something, but very rare that I swear. And, you know, that seems to be a big deal to a lot of people. And I understand they have a strong preference for that. So that was one of the issues. And then, you know, there, it kind of came out of a pickup artist community, which a lot of people find to be, it's not their cup of tea, let's say put it that way, they're not happy with it. And the reality was, is if they don't like it, they can stop following me. I'm not worried about it. I'm here to speak the truth. And I'm not here to cater, you know, Michael is, is a, as a pastor. So he is, has a specific mission. He has a focus, what he's doing. My focus is not to just Christians, I would say about a third of my followers are probably Muslim for, and I'm not catering to anyone in particular. I'm just speaking the truth about relationships. And it happens to attract a certain crowd of people. So, yeah, I only care about that. And so what ends up happening is, if you don't like it, come and talk to me about it. I think a lot of times we take our preferences, and we externalize them to other people. And then we start creating rules for them, based on what we think is preferable. And that's, you can't universalize your own preferences onto other people. Even Christ complained about the religious leaders in his time, creating more and more burdens on people, giving them more and more rules. And that's just something that you shouldn't be doing as a Christian. A little tyrants, basically. Yeah, you know, with the cursing, I curse a lot, obviously, you guys know that around people who are highly religious, I tried to moderate that, not out of position of compromise, which like Michael, I detest, but out of a position of respect, particularly if there's religious components to it. But actually, people don't probably realize this, but I don't think women and children should swear. In spite of my, you know, pretty proliferous, that's the right word, cursing that I'm known for in the Manisphere. And I really believe that. And if, you know, when I have a family someday, that's exactly how I raise them and expect them to behave. And when they get older, if they want to curse like me, I have no problem with that. That's an example that I set. And I kind of expect that. That would be probably the most likely outcome I would think for my sons anyway. But we'll see, right? Time will tell. So the next question I want to get to you guys with is, I actually have a list here. I'm going to get read through with this. So let's talk a bit, Noah, you and I were talking about Jesus before Michael is restarting his computer for the show, you know, the reboot. So how did Jesus handle conflict? Was he like kind of a pushover? Was he a badass? Like was he timid with conflict, avoidant or was he into it? What happened with that? Jesus said, I came not to bring peace, but a sword. So he came, as Michael mentioned earlier, to disturb the people who are too peaceful, too settled in, too stagnant. And he was there to disturb the order that existed, to do away with one order and bring in a new order. And that can't be done without some sort of conflict. You know, if you think about it, he also was, he called some Pharisees sons of vipers. So they were the sons of the devil. You know, talked about their place where they gathered as a den of vipers. He went to the temple twice, made a whip and drove people out of the temple who were taking advantage of the ordinary people, the ordinary men and women. You know, he was doing his job. His job was to clean up a degenerate system. And that's a tough job. I mean, he ended up getting killed for it. Yep. I can relate loosely, loosely speaking, loosely speaking. Michael, do you have some comments on this, the way Jesus even called people vipers and sons of the devil and these things? Sure. A lot of people imagine Jesus as like this, you know, easy going hippy, you know. And that's, that's not true. His language was at times harsh. He called, he was always calling out hypocrites, but he wasn't just calling out hypocrites, but he especially went after them. He would press people all the time. And one of my favorite stories is John, John six. And that's where Jesus, he, he, all the loaves and all the fish, he makes all that food happen. And, and all these people follow him over across the sea of Galilee, I think it is. And they're looking for more food, but he won't, he won't give it any more food because he's not interested. And he says, actually, you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood. And he's not really speaking of cannibalism. He's talking about your life being sustained by your faith and worship in, in him. And then all these people get offended and leave. And when they leave, Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, well, you guys going to leave too, right? Because they say, you know, master, these are very difficult things you're saying. And he doesn't apologize. He says, are you going to leave too? And Peter says, who else can has the words of eternal life? But you see, there's a point where you could have pleased them, but he didn't. He wasn't a crowd pleaser. He was willing to push the issue. The examples that Noah gave as well are very good ones. But Christ demands absolute obedience to him. That's why your position on Jesus cannot be that he's a moral teacher. He's either who he says he is, or he's in the same person. Because any human being that demands worship and demands absolute loyalty is a sociopath. But Jesus does. And Jesus is willing to offend people and Jesus doesn't cater to any crowd. He's willing to push back even on his own disciples. And that, that is masculine. Men have, I was talking to the leadership at our church and I said, look, our church is bigger than any one of us, right? Like we don't have loyalty to any person as much as we have loyalty to the mission. As long as we all are on the same mission, and we're keeping to our doctrinal commitments, then that loyalty is there. But when you move away from that, then we're parting ways. And that's very important that, and that's Christ. Christ does what pleases his father, not what pleases his crowd. Yeah, it seems like Jesus has committed to the truth above all. He was the truth. He says I am the way, the truth and life. No one comes to the father except by me. And he's also not just concerned with people believing the truth. If you go to Matthew chapter seven, he talks about building your life on the rock, right? And a lot of times people think that that means, well, believing the Bible, well, he actually is talking about believing and acting upon. And what's what I think we all hate is someone that knows the truth, but lives, you know, lives in a way that's not congruent with it, the opposite. So like acting on verb is really important, right? Like actions over words. Yeah, well, the actions, so I always tell people you have professed theology and functional. You have the things that you say. And then you have the things that you are actually part of your operational system, what your true modus operandi. And so that's, that's got to be huge. Because that's what I'll tell people that want leadership. Like, I hear what you're saying. I'm with you. But I want to see it in your life, right? And I want to see what your actions are. Last night I was doing marriage counseling. And I was like the first question I asked the wife, I always, I always do this. It always throws them because they're never ready for it. But a lot of men will call me and they're like, what can I do to save my marriage? Right? And so we, I do focus on control the controls. Like you can't force your wife to change. But you can do things that will make yourself more respectable, whether she gives you the respect you deserve or not, that's really on her. But here, like you can get in better shape, you can believe your house better, you can develop all these skills. Let's focus on those things. You can be a better communicator. I always talk about that because that's those are things he can act on. I could tell him all the things his wife needs to do. But so what, like what, you know, that's the problem I have with a lot of folks in the atmosphere. Like, why won't you tell the women, right? Like, well, I do when they talk to me, but I'm talking to you, man. You literally spoke at the 22 convention for women. Yeah. And I, and I was, and I didn't, I didn't, I didn't pull my punches at all. So when I told the woman though, I said, look, I think your husband is making real efforts to make this marriage work. He's making these changes. I think he's a good man. I think you've done well with this man. And I focus on controlling the troubles. Here's my question for you. What actions are you taking to change to improve this marriage? What are you doing? And that was hard for her, right? Because the idea that a woman has to change is not things that women are used to being confronted with, in particular, by a pastor. It's always the guys to screw up. We might as well be speaking Chinese to them. Yeah. And so when I got to convince the manager guys, a lot of times like, hey, sometimes the guy is a screw up. Sometimes the marriage is his fault. I'm not one of those guys that's trying to blame all men. But look at the problems in your life. Aren't you like often the cause of them? I mean, but I'm going to say the same thing to women as well. But the almost no one says that. And so we can't, I don't want to become, that's, that's the danger I see in the manager where we overreact and we remove agency from men, right? Men are powerful. Patriarchs are powerful. You know, they all think, I always see this online. Well, you got lucky with your wife. No, no, I didn't. I didn't get lucky. It was luck how to deal with it. Now, to some degree, I was born in a different time. And I, and I recognize that the internet has changed things. But our marriage was difficult. And I've, and I've exercised leadership ability to lead my wife to where she is now. Right? So once that she was like tame and wild horse or something, she gave you, she, yeah, that woman, I used to say to her in arguments, I used to say, like, look, did Jesus die for you? Have you ever committed a sin? Or does the cross have you have no need for the cross? Is that it? Because I couldn't correct her. And what I realized is that early on, I remember one day I decided, I'm going to correct her today. And I'm not, I'm going to make sure what I correct her on something that's a real mistake. And into she admits that it's true, I won't give up. Right? So we're like up to three in the morning. This, this goes on for hours. And I'm like, I am not going to lose. And, and I did, I did win. And I remember we were meeting with this couple that were thinking that we might join our ministry at the time. And he was telling me about how his wife once got out of the car, because they're arguing that she got out of the car to intersection to do a power move, right? And I said, well, Emily, once you tell him what I would have done if you did that. And she's like, Oh, Michael would have drove off. And that's exactly right. I would have been like, All right, this is not how adults work, work, right? We don't do this in this family. I hope you have a quarter or I hope you have a cell phone, see, you know, and that guy he came around. But that when I heard that story, I was like, I can't have a man on my ministry team that is laughing at that or that sort of stuff is present in his life. Now, I don't want blowhards. You know, my wife compliments me, I'm very thankful for I need her and for, for, for the mother of my children to help me build this household. I need her, but I need her to be my executive, right? Like she's, she follows me. I'm her superior, not moral superior, not superior in essence. In essence, we both are humans. We bear the image of God. But in terms of rank in this household, I am absolutely the, the one that's superior. And that's old language. That's the language of the Westminster Confession, which is something that every Presbyterian used to subscribe to and it was very common coming out of the for English peer attends coming over here to subscribe to it has a whole chapter on the relationships of superiors and inferiors and equals, right? And that idea used to be present, but now egalitarianism, what it does, it takes and flattens everything out where there are and what that does, it causes chaos, right? Because you need, you need hierarchy, you need order. And that's what all companies realize over time. So I want to get into the hierarchy thing in a minute with Noah, actually, almost called him Nevoi, like mixed Noah and Nevoi. But we had a, we have a comment here, or question I want to get to it's kind of general. So that's not super on topic, but it's relevant. It's from ultra testosterone. This guy I've seen around for a while. How's Michael Foster treated by mainstream Christians? I figure he is hated in the larger Christian community. Is there some commentary you have on that? Yeah, I get a lot of hate. I get lots of, I probably get negative emails every day. About once a month or every other month, someone will send a message to my wife if they track her down. We've gotten better at making that hard to do. But they'll say, Hey, I'm praying for you. I'm sorry you're married to such a terrible person and all this stuff. And if you need help and Emily laughs at it, we laugh at it at this point. And, but yeah, we get people like that. I just bought a German Shepherd in part because I have had a few death threats, you know, from nut jobs. And often they'll identify as Christians. And so there's a lot of hate out there's a lot of people will say things that I believe things. I'm like, I've never said that. Well, you imply that. Where did I imply that they can never show me because they're just lying, right? Because I, if they want to argue with me, they can. We can get scripture out and we'll talk about it, but they'll never do it because I'll destroy them. We're going to lose because my position isn't my position is what scripture teaches. Like you can read Mary daily is a famous feminist theologian. And she said the Bible is hopelessly patriarchal and it is like any honest atheists. I always tell people I love reading radical feminists because they're they're way more honest than the egalitarian Christians. Radical feminists were like, yeah, you can't redeem the Bible, man. It's, it's all it's man centric. And the egalitarian Christians like try to like edit and change the truth. And those people, they, they all sorts of terrible things about me. And I just block them and move on with my life. Like that's part of the deal, man. That's what happens. So moving on Noah, I want to talk about not only value hierarchies but hierarchies of agency. And you introduced this to me recently and I've never seen this before and I found it very interesting. So if you can kind of comment on this, let's see if I can, I think it's going to cover up the whole screen, but you can comment on this. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, this is something that that my my one of my clients who I work with as well came up with. And this is based on Plato's try fun or Plato's theory of how governments are organized, but really, it applies to any organization could apply to the hemisphere, you could use it in a business. And it shows how levels of agency sort people into groups where they fill specific functions, and how those functions also, when they're in charge of the organization, what type of organization you get. So if you got non functioning people in charge of an organization, you get tyranny. If you have slaves in charge, like we have in a democracy, we're all kind of slave owned by the government essentially, and we vote, then you end up the democracy. And the oligarchy is when it's rule of the businessman, the democracy is rule of the warrior class. And the aristocracy is rule of the very highest agency, what Plato calls the philosopher kings. And he uses different metals to represent them as a is a symbolic way. Michael, do you have some some commentary on this, perhaps like what does the Bible, for example, say about agency, and what agency that men should take, like you're talking about patriarchy and hierarchy and a family. But what does the Bible and Christianity say about agencies in terms of responsibility as a man to lead and to be masculine and all this it assumes it. It assumes men are responsible for the outcomes of their life. And I'm looking at the comments here, and there's some babies in it. And what, but what I'll say is that like, for example, in Proverbs chapter 24, the writer says I went by the vineyard of a lazy man, and he sees it all all broken, broken down, right. And then he says he looked at it and learned and and said a little sleep, a little slumber and so poverty comes upon you. In other words, when you look at the outcome of someone's life, in the state of their lives, the state of their bank check, the state of their body, the state of their relationships, it does generally say something about them. Now it could be that there was a storm, a fire, what a plague caused that thing to be broke down, right, like they understand that. But, but in general, it does say something about your life. Like I said, so when I when I'm looking for elder candidates, I want to see their wife and their children, I want to see how they act. I want to see if he, if his wife respects him, I want to see if he has good leadership ability. And that's going to be generally reflected in the state of his wife and his children generally reflected. People lost their freaking minds when I said that. They said that, oh, so if if a wife leaves the husband, that's his fault. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Like, yes, a lot of women leave because they're terrible, wicked, wicked people and scripture would condemn that. But like, we all know guys that have poor leadership ability, and it leads it's reflected in their followers. If I come to a any sort of company that's having trouble with its employees, I'm going to look at the management style, and I'm going to look at their management commitments. We all do that, right? And so there's a difference between also responsibility and blame, right? I am responsible for every single thing that happens in my house. That doesn't mean I caused it. But it is my responsibility to deal with it, right? If one of my sons decides to go like, break in and steal something when he's like 15, I'm responsible for that. I'm responsible to deal with the discipline of him, but the consequences see it through. Did I cause it? Well, if I was a poor parent, I might have, but I don't, but I also might not have. And that's what people have to understand is in scripture, it sees the patriarch as responsible for everything. And that's where with some of the stuff that I see with the feminine imperative, when I try to figure out like, okay, if men are so superior, how did women, how did they wrestle the reins away from men? How did that exactly happen? Right? And what I think happened is I actually think the reins were given away by some men. And probably there's a lot of guys that knew if you give women power, they're easier to manipulate, right? And so there was guys in power that were giving power to women to manipulate them to so they could have control over men. So I actually see the feminine imperative and patriarchy, a sort of evil patriarchy working together. And you see that all throughout the Old Testament, like the devil using Eve to get to Adam, or you see the Philistines using Delilah to get to Samson, or you see Pharaoh attempting to use the midwives to kill the Hebrew children. You see guys doing this. And so I always hear these guys say, like, there's nothing we can do about the feminine imperative, women are control, and we can't stop it. Like hell, I can. I will. I am. Like I'm doing it right now. Like we're planting churches that aren't anything like that. And now, is it uphill battle? Absolutely, man. It's poisonous right now. It's deep in. We look at the state of our culture, and it's a real problem. That's what I think people have to understand is that there's the natural fact of patriarchy, which is undeniable. There's never been a matriarchal society really. But that doesn't mean that that the legal system reflects that. We do live in times right now, where patriarchy is being worked against in the legal system. But what I want to tell men is like, you can do so much, you can accomplish so much. But a lot of the guys are in the manosphere because they've experienced a terrible divorce. They grew up very awkward. They don't know how to relate to women. And with those guys, I don't want the bitterness and the failure they've experienced to taint their whole life. Because I think you can win in some big ways. You are made to build things and to conquer. And that's what I that's my message is one of positivity towards men, recognizing the reality that day we live in is dark. Do you think that some of the that bitterness taints the manosphere and in generalized sense, due to the demographics it pulls in, people want to be comforted, right? So when whining women come to churches, and they're like, you know, they're so so much of a problem with churches right now is that there's a whole class of women in their 30s that were told go, you can have it all, right? You can get the man of your dreams, you can have your career, you know, and then they're finding like, actually, your metabolism stopped, and you're kind of chubby now, and no one wants to date you. And it doesn't help they have a bunch of cats and drink a bunch of wine and work crazy weird hours. And then they're like, Oh, well, I'm very unhappy. So the church then creates the gift of singleness. Singleness is not a gift. It's a state of life celibacy in scripture, which is a call a life where you decide not to be controlled by your sexual desires. It was a purposeful decision. That's not what these women did. They were a lot, they're told they could delay it. So in those churches, these guys are always telling these women, like, it's okay, it's okay. In the manosphere, there are people that feel like they have no agency over women, no control over their life. They want to be kept in that bitter stage and comforted. So you can build entire courses and entire fallings telling men that they're justified in their bitterness, right? And what I want to say is like, at some level, I understand why you're bitter and your your anger at the system, and your anger at the state of women and your anger at feminist leaders is justified. However, staying here is is a failure to launch. It's a rest of development. And as a man, you must mature and overcome, right? And so that's what we have to do to get out of this situation. I want to take the red pill and bitch about women. But what it is, what it is to it's not even comforted. It's coddled. They want to be treated like children. You know, a lot of times we'll say that, you know, this man is acting effeminate or something. What we really mean is he's acting like a child. If you really break it down, he's being a child. The red pill is the ability to look at the world the way it really is and see reality. But that doesn't mean you're going to do anything positive with it. That just means you notice it's like that. You might decide, hey, the life is tough. I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the decline. You know, or you might say, no, I have some things under my control. They're within my power. And I'm going to do what I can do with what I've got. And this is, you know, this is a bifurcation of society. But the people who want to enjoy the decline, they're a profitable group, you know, and they're easy to manage because you manage them through fear. The other group where you give them agency, I tell all of my clients that my goal is for them not to need me anymore. I want to teach them enough agency that they don't have to come back and ask someone for advice all the time. They can get off on to their own, get their life sorted. And that's not profitable. Keeping men on the hook over and over and over again for, you know, your constant reassurance and your coddling and selling them that coddling, that's super profitable. It's like drug dealers basically dealing pills. They're pill dealers basically. Yeah, that's the whole manager is filled with pill dealers. They're not fathers, right? They're the scripture Paul says you have many instructors, but few fathers, right? What I want out of my son is a peer, right? That's the goal. I'm raising a man. And I don't want my boy to be dependent on me and always, like in every state, I want to be a source of wisdom, always be ahead of him in the race. But there's going to be a time where he catches up to me in a lot of big ways. That's my goal. What the manosphere red pill should be about, in my opinion, is should be men helping lift men out of that and get them competent and able to move forward on their own. But that's hard, right? Because like guys are really upset. We have to let them get over the hump. Like a guy that's coming out of a divorce where he lost everything. And I've had a lot of, I have a lot of pastors that reach out to me that their wife goes nuts and cheats on them like multiple times and they try to work it out, right? And she eventually leaves and then they'll still blame the pastor as if like it was his fault. And I know a few of these cases like, sure, in every situation, there's things you could have done better. But I'm like, no, the woman is the problem. And then these guys will be so like negative because they just spent 20 years of their life building something with someone and was all wiped away in a moment. And then they're told that they're the cause of it. Well, I get that that guy's going to be angry for a time. So I'm going to give him some space to process that and work through it. But my goal is to get him to move through that phase, right? And I think the Manisphere has all these gurus that take ideas that have been around forever. And they're constantly repackaging them into the same stuff. And there's people that just get stuck in this rut. And we have to help them get out. But these kind of gurus that make these $35, $100, $2,000 Gumroad courses that have no new value in them, right? Like making content, I get it. That takes a lot of time. There's value, coach. Your time is valuable. So I'm not like giving them a hard time for asking for money. But I'm like, man, dude, just go get Glover's book or read the first, you know, like, I know we all have trouble with Rolo, but the first rational male books, a pretty decent book is very helpful. You could like get three or four books. And, and there you go, you're fine. You spent like 30 bucks. And that's about all you can get from the red pill right now. And he did a good job in that book of taking content, in my opinion, from other people. And I've had some of these content creators actually reach out to me with, with specific links, evidence and a hierarchy of logic for how this actually happens. Which is what I've known about for years, but it's much more loose because it's like, you know, he pulled from like 15, 20 years in my opinion of history and the manuscript, these various kind of minor content creators that it's almost impossible to track down. Like who's going to go on So Swab from post from 18 years ago? Like, are you kidding me? And you bring up, you bring up an important point. Michael says there's a lot of teachers and not a lot of fathers. And if you are incapable of helping men raise up to maturity and become men, then see, for us, we say, well, yes, we have this option. We could be grifters if we wanted. We'd probably be the best grifters. We don't want to be grifters. We want to help people. But some people, that's all they got. They don't have anything of value to offer. All they got is the grift. They really should be there in the audience listening because they probably need help more than they have the ability to actually give it because their own lives aren't in order. Truth gavel, that one. Truth gavel. The thing that blows my mind so much right now is like someone was, I shared something on Facebook and someone was like, well, do you ever lose your temper with your kids? I'm like, of course I do. Like, what are you talking about? And then just the very idea that like, I'm like this perfect saint that has it all figured out. And there's such a voyeurism today that people really believe the images that people project online, especially the folks that are a little bit younger. And we, if you're like me, I'm 41, those of us that are in the higher 30s and early 40s, we knew not to believe the internet. I don't believe Instagram. I know those guys are renting crap half the time. And I know real millionaires. I used to play cards for a living. I used to be a card counter. I was part of a huge card counting team. They made a movie about it. I know the guy, I know some of the guys from the MIT team going way back. And so, but I grew up in the Midwest and I grew up poor. So they told me to dress up like a rich person. So I dress up like a rich person, which I wear my jacket and my nice thing, my nice shoes and I go. And they keep picking me off and figured out that I'm a card counter. And I suddenly realized that rich people that I met in Vegas, they're walking around and like cargo shorts and like a t-shirt or whatever. They didn't dress anything like that. And so, I had this image of my head of what wealth looked like and what maturity looked like. And what's funny is like, you look at a lot of these folks online, like there was some Tik Tok or someone shared the other day, actually a couple of months ago, we shared in one of our chats answering, he was this guy. And it was like the dumbest, like recycled dumb down PUA stuff that you've ever heard. And you're like, this guy hasn't done any of this. Like this is like, I used to make a lot of money doing an FBA fulfilled by Amazon. I did over six figures. And then I always saw some guy recently talking about how he made all this money on FBA. I know he did it because I did it and that's not how it works. And so, what these guys see is this image and they buy into it so easily. Like, how dare you? Like this guy is twice the man you are. Maybe is. How the heck do you know? Like, well, how do you even know? Right? Like, you don't know my life. You don't know that guy's life. You just know what is curated and put before you, you know? They remind me of like little greedy fat kids out of a movie, maybe like Willy Wonka or something. And they're just munching on these lies and they're just gobbling up the lies, getting fatter and fatter. And like, how dare you tell me these aren't lies and they're just fucking eat, chowing them down. But that's what, yeah, because I know what you were saying. It's all carefully manicured public personas that are bullshit, probably 80 to 90% of the time. And the fanboys are so. I remember once, early on when I was getting involved in this stuff online, I had a very glancing critique of Rolo. It was very glancing. And all these Rolo bots came out, like telling me how terrible and dumb I am and how I'm purple pill or whatever. And I was like, what in the world, guys? Like, we can't have disagreements without people losing their freaking minds. And it's because they're, they're fanboys that they're like, no, no, he's the prophet, right? From on high. And you see that I see this in churches too, like you'll criticize some famous guy. I remember once I wrote this whole post about a pastor called John Piper about how he screams at his wife. And he, and in the end it was revealed to be satire. And but all these people got really mad because my point was like, I bet John Piper once screamed at his wife, right? He's like a normal dude. And but the fanboys like, how dare you slander John Piper? You don't know what his life's like. I was like, well, first off, you didn't finish reading this, I can, I can tell that you didn't. But, but my point is that he's a man like we are and you guys are worshiping these people. And it's a legitimate cult of personality. And it's very common in the man's sphere. I think due to demographics that get attracted to the man's screen general, and then the cult leaders called the personality. I don't want to make it like a formal Kool-Aid cult, even though digitally, I guess it would be like digital Kool-Aid with these pills and shit. But they pray on these guys and they like predators or parasites, and then they foster this codependency in them. It's very sick and twisted. A lot of these men behave, a lot of these men behave very much like abused children. And I wouldn't doubt if most of them had trauma as children as well, it made them more susceptible to this. And you know, their, their daddy comes along to them and says to them, Oh, mommy was bad. I'll take care of you. And then here's the max them. Here's the irony is we're talking about guys you get divorced, bad divorce rate, bad divorces, bad breakups. You know, they're in relationships. I was in one myself years ago, five years ago with a BPD woman, Medusa, she's known in the man's sphere, right? And the reality is these guys, they go from, at least not in my case, but in many cases, they go from, well, it's complicated given my public history with the man's sphere, right? But they go from a toxic, abusive relationship with the woman, and then they go into a toxic, abusive relationship with a YouTuber or a content creator. And it's, it's the mirror. Now the content creator doesn't have a pair of tits typically, but otherwise it's very functionally the same. It's the same type of abusive pattern of behavior. It's weird. Some of them could stand to lose a bit of weight. Yeah, for sure. They might have a pair of tits. We got a, we had a fourth, uh, yeah, the man boobs, the man boobs, the man, what do you call movies? What we call movies. But we have another guest to bring on here, the one and only, the legend himself, Tony Bruno, Anthony Bruno. How you doing, man? How you doing guys? You're pretty good, man. Good to have you on. I've caught a little bit of it, so I've been out running around. I've got about probably 20 minutes or so for it. Head back out, but I saw the topic and I think it's a great topic. Yeah, Tony, what's your basic opinion of how men should handle a conflict? Obviously, there's been conflict in the man's sphere. It's quite public at this point. It's not the first time it's happened. Do you view conflict as a healthy thing to air out? Should it be swept under the rug and hidden in private? What are your kind of thoughts on just conflict in general from a philosophic perspective? My thoughts on conflict as a man, I think we need to face conflict head on. I mean, I think it's really a simple, simple thing. I don't think it's, um, I don't think it's an issue. I don't run from conflict. In fact, um, I think when somebody comes at you hard, my way of dealing is coming back a lot harder. I don't run. I don't say, Oh, okay, I wish you well. Take care. That's just not me. You know, somebody wants to push me or say something, say, you know, say something that, um, that I know is true. I'll really come back even harder. That's not an issue. But I think, I think what happens is, is that men avoid conflict because they have no, no self worth or the conflict is truth. And they're just afraid of, of recognizing it. So the real, the re the, like the deep reason why men avoid conflict is this comes up in coaching all the time is that when they were children, they tried to have conflict with their parents. I don't think that rule is fair. And what happened, they got smacked. They got screamed at. They never got a good result out of conflict. Their parent never said, you know, maybe you're right. Give me your argument. Tell me why that's, that's not correct. And reason them into a position. They never got that. All they got was abuse whenever there was conflict. And so now they're gun shy. They don't believe conflict can have a positive solution. The reason that I'm pro conflict is because I get into so many conflicts that end up turning out better for everyone. And so I'm habituated to conflict bringing results that I like that I want. And you know, that's you'll even see that in marriages. If you had a lot of conflict with your mother as a kid, it's going to be hard for you to have conflict with your wife. If those conflicts didn't turn out well. And they're just habituated wrong. They need to reprogram themselves. I mean, with myself, I'm sure people have noticed it, but I've been a little outspoken lately. And there's a reason why because I believe in truth. I believe in honesty. I don't believe in my truth. I believe in the truth. I think I think there is certain certain aspects of truth where people say this is my truth. Well, your truth isn't right. There's a lot of things that that I'm really, really passionate on. And that is, is when you are called out. And facts are facts. I think the man that the conflict is about, I think you should face it. You know, I don't believe in this, you know, I think there are times when we do have to approach somebody behind the scenes, contact specific basically. Yeah. But when there's something that's public handle it in public, plain and simple. I've had a lot of attacks on me and I welcome it. It's not like I don't block anybody. I'm not, you know, there's people I block just, just people that are just, you know, shitsters or just not, just not really understanding what the issue is or just being a basic troll. I'm blocking somebody. But as far as like blocking somebody's somebody's comments or something like that, it's very rare. So in scripture, Jesus gives, so church discipline is something that's been lost, but used to be a major part of how churches work. We don't discipline people anymore. But in Matthew 18, Jesus says, if you go to the person first one on one, say, Hey, got this issue. And then if they won't listen to you, you bring a friend with you. And they're like, Hey, this really is an issue. Try to work it out. And then if they still won't listen, you bring it before the church. Right. And that, in my opinion, refers to the leadership of the church. And so the way we do excommunications and our so excommunications when someone is removed from being allowed to have the Lord supper, because their life is at odds with their profession, right? Or they reject it outright or whatever. We give them a lot of opportunities, but there's a progression, right? So you like, now, that's how you usually do it. And so a lot of times a pastor like me will critique some teacher will say, Hey, that's, that guy shouldn't be doing that. And they'll say, well, Matthew 18, did you go to him one on one? No, I didn't. He said it publicly. Like, like, so you get to Galatians where Peter is treating the Jewish Christians like they're better than the Gentile Christians. And Paul stands up and Paul says, I rebuked him to his face, right? Because what he was doing was not in line with the gospel. So when something's done publicly, you deal with it publicly, right? Then and there, usually, right? Unless it's something like that's so subtle that behind closed doors is the easier way to direct it. But if it's a big deal, right, if anyone in my church got it into the pulpit, I had someone fill in for me and said something that was straight up heresy, I would stop it in the service and correct it. Right. I would have no problem doing that. Like, it would suck that this is about to get really awkward, but it's going to. So you that's the thing you go to the person if it's a private thing, private matter, go to them, bring someone else, then elevate it to a council of men. That's how it works in the church. If it's a public sin or a public error that's serious, then you deal with it publicly. And that's just that's what scripture teaches, you know, there's a contextual hierarchical response to it. It's a series of steps that it's in a hierarchy of degree and scope. That's right. And we're encouraged to deal with these things as early as possible. The longer that we allow conflict to fester, the worse the conflict is. And, you know, the most destructive conflicts in organizations are because they festered, because either someone was avoiding getting conflict with them, or someone who had to say something was avoiding saying it. And you know, men should not be nice. We shouldn't be nice to each other. We should be kind to each other. We shouldn't be nice. Nice means hiding the truth because we're afraid to offend someone. And that's that's one of the problems. It just festers. It's like a wound and some not everyone's a doctor. Some people are the doctors in society. And they come along and go, here's a festering wound. I better cut it open and treat this guy. And some people just don't like it. They don't like to be treated. Yeah, I have a question I want to open to all three of you guys. You know, order is not super important about it. But maybe maybe Mike will be best for it, given the specifics of it. So in the mannosphere, you could speak more widely to any organization or community. I want to ask how are men, particularly leaders, manipulated or poisoned by the deadly sins, the seven deadly sins of Christianity? I don't even I can't name up top. I have a lost three of these things. Well, the biggest, the biggest sin is a general category, but it's pride, right? And so pride is the opposite of humility. Humility is a accurate understanding of yourself, right? Like it's not acting like you're lower than you are, or you're higher than you are, just knowing who you are in the eyes of God. Pride is thinking more highly than yourself than you ought to. And I think that's a big one. These guys are always bragging on themselves one way or another. And scripture says, let the lips of another man praise you. You know, I, the quality of your life will demonstrate your mastery. So that's one. The other one is just lying, honestly, the straight up lying and deceiving. And so a lie is different from a deception. A lie is like a, like it's not true, but deception is allowing people to believe things or manipulating the truth. And so what I see in a lot of, uh, Manisphere types on is that they are very sophisticated manipulators where they like the poison, the well, and they do it at a subtle level. That's how you do it, right? Well, you know, so the church does this all the time. I see this with leaders like, Hey man, you talked to Joe. Oh yeah. Yeah, Joe, you know, he's got things going on, not doing so well. Well, what's wrong with Joe? Uh, you know, I really can't say, well, why'd you bring it up, man? You know, once you keep Joe's business to yourself, well, that's you poisoning the well, they'll do these little things like, well, there's things about them you don't know, right? Well, either tell me or don't tell me, but that is not allowed. Okay. And so when people gossip to me, I just tell them like, Hey, I'm going to tell them this, you keep, I'm going to call him up. I'll give you a day. You call him tomorrow and tell him what you told me, right? Or I am. And so what I see in these content creators a lot of times is that there's a subtle poison in the well that's deceiving and they're acting like there's something that they're not. And here's the thing, if you're real about who you are, if you think about a lot of the drama that's going on right now, just being upfront about the reality is enough to gain the respect of the sort of people you want, right? And, uh, yeah, like that, I think that those are some of there's some of the things I see there pride and just lying. Yeah. Noah, Tony, maybe Tony you can comment on greed. Do you think that there are men in the community who put profit and money before truth? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's, that's a given. And I think, I think what we're seeing now, and I'm being real about this is that I think we're seeing what I call the, the great awakening in the Manisphere. I think that men are really come into the Manisphere to focus on improvement, being the best version of themselves, really, really becoming a better man. And I think what's happening is, is that a lot of these guys are just simping for their, and I hate that word, but simping for their favorite content creator. It's, it's like, I've got to protect this guy. But I've also been on a show here recently where I called in and a guy was, was, um, basically defending somebody. And one of my last comments to him was, Hey, which course did you buy? And I nailed it. I nailed it. So what happens is I kind of liken it to a, a child that's been molested or a woman that has genuinely been abused. They don't want to come out and say something. They don't want to come out and talk because they're embarrassed. They're still going to defend that abuser, that person that abused them. So I think that's one of the issues we have in the manuscript. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a ton of envy as well. You know, your, your program is bigger than my program. You've got more subscribers than I have. The, all of this envy leads people to a lot of the lying I think is about envy. If people have to stand on their own merits, we'd see a big difference in who's getting attention. But people don't want to stand under their own merit. They want to cheat because they're envious. And because they have this pride that someone else has gotten ahead of them or getting more attention. And some people talk about it being about money. It's not just about money. A lot of this is about power. There's, this shows recently where the gods are whoever's getting attention. And that actually gives them power. And a lot of people see themselves that way. They see themselves as little mini gods. And the more attention they get, the more power they have. It feeds their ego, feeds their pride is what we mentioned earlier. And if someone is taking some of that man, they got to destroy them. They got to tear them down. They got to undermine their organization, whatever they can do to take that power away from that person. When I got the call to be from, to do 21 last year, I was, and then Anthony is like, it's going to be in 4k. Like that's good. Right. Like I'm thinking like, man, I have gotten fat this year. That's what I was thinking. And, and like, and then I'm going to be in front of these people, but I decided, you know, look, I'll just do what I can in these 30 days. But I'm not going to hide this. I'm not going to try to be something that I'm not, right? And, and what, what better way to like be inspired to, to get in shape, right? Then stand up on, on the stage in front of people like that. And, but I, to me, it was like accountability. Like what this is, this is, I made decisions that led to this. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to hide in the thing is, at some level, I have no excuse because the easiest thing you can change as a manager image, right? The easiest thing you can is just hit the weights, fast, eat healthy, whatever. That's easy. So that, that does reflect some character issues and priority issues in my life. Now I will solve that problem this year. Absolutely. I am. I just put my gym in, working out, very, very motivated, got my, my treadmill where I can like walk on it, why I'm doing my calls, get all my steps and all these basic things. So I need to take care of that. But there's a lot of things like that, that other people hide that are much harder to resolve. And I think at these people are just very fake and namely about the relationships, right? Like, like I see these guys like, look, man, don't tell people, you know, I don't rake women on, on scales. I don't even think of that way. Not because I'm above it. I just been married a long time and I don't, I don't, I don't even know how I'd figure out a one to 10. I know like that's, that's not, that's not good looking, you know, that is, but like you better not go on shows like saying, my wife's a nine and a 10 and bragging and bringing it up. And then it's not true, right? Because the problem there is that you're betraying people's trust and you're lying. If you said like, look, I got married to my wife and we've, we've, we've had some rough times and, but we love each other and here's what we've learned and what we're working at. Like people wouldn't give you a hard time if you were real. And I just think we have these guys coming in to 21 or not 21 into the manager that are just posers. That's all there is to it. And they're just fakes. And if you're real about the problems in your life, men that know how hard it is to be masculine in the whole area and take control of your life will respect you. You won't lose respect. Dumb little grifters. Guys talking about, oh, your wife's only like a nine. Yeah, dude. But I'm not masturbating to porn like you do all the time by yourself, right? I'm a father of eight children been married almost 20 years. Like, I'm going to get off the show and have a great day with my family. Like I do most days, but that's so beta. That's so beta. What are you living a blue pill fantasy, bro? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, but it is, you hear these guys like, okay, whatever, man, you can talk about your tens and nines. But like, that's not, that's not how I live. These things are real in my life. It's not just theory. And that's, that's what men are looking for is like proof, right? Not just theory. Now you mentioned these lies about relationships. And I understand what you're saying. I know exactly what you're talking about, obviously. But I think it goes even beyond that. For example, Tony and I know a certain speaker who shall not be named who in 2019 was very fat, had a beer belly all of a sudden, it was those pictures of this. And then this certain speaker wore a woman's girdle kind of thing around the stomach on the stage when he gave speech to falsely present a more flat physical appearance on his body. And then, you know, the next day, there's another photo of him where his gut is just hanging out because he took the girdle off. I mean, this is how extensive the posers are on the lies and the fraud. It's not only about the relationships in these things, which is really serious, right? Especially on the public lies. And it's this deception about age and appearance by wide margins. I mean, this is like miles of years being taken off a woman and, you know, tripling sexual market value in these things. But it even comes down to putting a girdle on your body like a woman, like a fat woman trying to look skinnier, a fat man trying to look skinnier rather than just saying, like you, Michael, you're saying I was kind of fat in 2020 and I tried to do as best as I could before the convention. And that's exactly what you did. And then you just gave a speech and nobody cares really what you look like. Well, I like Steve Williams. Like Steve Williams has that, he's got that belly. And what I love about him is that he just, he gets up on stage though, he doesn't care. Like he's just got, he's got like a real swagger to him. And what I was thinking about him is like, that guy is genuine. Like think whatever you want to think about him. But that sort of like real swagger, like you can't help but respect men like that. You know, like because that's having that sort of confidence in your life is harder to get. And how many guys, and look, I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not trying to down, downplay the importance of being in shape. It's very important. But how, how many guys do we know that are in great shape, but don't have that confidence at all, right? They don't have like, you know what I mean? And guys like Steve, the chicks will dig it. They'll, they will dig that confidence in a big way because they're looking for leaders. And, and that's, that's what I would tell a guy like do both, but really work on getting that, that joyful swagger that guys like that have. I think there are many. Oh, great. Good for him. Yeah, what it is is there's a lot of these men are ashamed of things. If you're hiding something, you're not doing it for other people. You're doing it because you're ashamed of it. You know, there are people that for security reasons, they use a pseudonym. Okay. But if you're hiding who you are, who you really are, not just your name, but your marital status, your lifestyle that you have children and not have children, whatever, you know, imagine Michael says, I got 12 kids, you know, and because he's, he's ashamed. He didn't hit an even dozen or something. When you start acting out of a place of shame, you get corrupted. If there's something you're ashamed of, own it and fix it. That's what a man does. But if you're not a man, if you're a male, you know, you're not a boy anymore, but you're not a man either. You're stuck in like limbo. You're going to hide it and you're going to do everything you can to double down on that lie. And it can get pretty, pretty bizarre. People can get really carried away with these lies and they just keep, since it's not true, why don't they stretch it a little farther and a little farther and a little farther and you'll see them getting deeper and deeper into their lie over years till it's absolutely pathetic. And finally, finally, thank God, somebody pops that bubble, blows it up and lets everybody know that they're just a steaming pile of shit, you know. This is Anthony had sent me a great article this past week about lying and I don't know if you want to post that in the chat, Anthony, but what a, I've sent that to a few people and they're like, wow, and that is just that it tells a lot. It really does when you read this article. Yeah, so it was discussing, you know, just liars in general, but specifically the psychological consequences long term of lying, lying, lying, lying, which I think Michael could speak to probably really well from a Christian and religious perspective. But even just in more general psychology, when you create this false reality, it creates a lot of stress, like even cortisol, I get to remember, double remember all these things and then you do lie again. Now it's like triple reality of lying to this person and he lied in public. So it's different there, but in private it was different and then the truth is different. And then there's a fourth person for a fourth lie and it's this web, the spider web of insanity you spend for yourself. So like Noah is saying it's like a rat in a corner that's just freaking the fuck out, lying like crazy as they're just collapsing under the weight of the lies. So that's what Tony's referring to. I'll see if I can find that exact link again. I don't remember the title of it off the top of my head. But yeah, if you do this research, you know, the psychology of lying, it's not just like how they do it, which is good to understand to defend yourself. It's also like, what does it actually do to the individual? And the reality is from a religious or psychological or philosophical perspective, it just fucks your whole life up. I mean, it really damages you and the people around you. And all of us have probably seen that in our lives and people that we've had to combat who are liars and manipulators and stuff. What I've noticed about people that lie is they lie in general because when they start making specific false truths, it's hard to maintain that. It's hard to remember all the little details that you gave. And when you call someone on that and they don't remember the details, it's a basically it's a red flag because they are lying. I mean, it's simple. My rule of thumb is when I catch someone lying to me about small things, I assume there's a really high probability they're going to lie about big things. Maybe not immediately, but on a long enough timeline, little white lies turn into big dark lies. That's how that works almost every time. So the minute I catch a small lie and like red flag, let me pay attention to that and sure as shit, you know, you got to watch for confirmation bias long term, but you don't want to like get over aggressive with spotting a liar. But the reality is when it's a lie about something small and you know it's a lie definitively, man, that's that's a downhill relationship for sure. Here's a rule of thumb that's, I think, pretty helpful is really pay attention to adverbs. I like to say the road to hell is paved with adverbs and that's up to you. You learn in writing, but anytime you're sticking L Y words, weak in a statement. So if I ask my son, hey, son, is your room clean? He'll say it's mostly clean, which means it's not clean, right? So when people start putting using lots of L Y words, man, you focus in on that. Why are they trying to weaken a statement? Right? Why are they? Is your wife pregnant or mostly pregnant? Yeah, right. That's exactly right. Like, you know, it's almost like when someone says they're seven. Well, look, she's like a she's not like an eight, but she's like a seven point five. You're like, I mean, when someone's saying that, you probably round down at least. But also, also when somebody says, well, when they're talking to you, well, let me be honest with you. Oh, man, I always say, well, finally, you know, or I'll say, I like to say jokingly, I'll tell you, let me be dishonest with you for a moment, you know, just to check to see if people are listening. But yeah, you're right. You hear that that's a sales tactic, like that, that they're saying like, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you in on something. Oh, yeah. Right. And anytime someone tells you lots of secrets, just assume that they're telling all your secrets to someone else, right? These are like real basic rules. But in leadership, I'm always listening to the L Y words or the what like preachers, there's this preacher, Tim Keller, he used to always do this in his sermons. He'd always like, I wonder if, and perhaps would we just consider for a moment, instead of just like being plain spoken, Jesus says, if you don't believe in me, you're going to hell, right? Like, like, I wonder what Jesus meant by that? Like, well, what do you mean? Like, it's very clear. So they'll, they'll try to soften things. Anytime someone's trying to leave room to get out, you want to focus in. And they might just, it might be a slip up, but it's, it's usually a tell. Well, let me be honest with you guys real quick. I do have to go. Okay. I've got an estimate to do. I'm a contractor, but I also want to just let people know real quick. If you don't mind, Anthony, that my show on Saturday night is called get it off your chest. So I allow people to come on the live panel, get it off their chest. If you want to debate on something, talk to something, I welcome all haters. I welcome any other content creators. It's a fun time. I've got a great panel of guys and the show is, is growing, which I'm happy with. So is my channel. But Saturday night is get it off your chest. So you can join the live panel, get it off your chest, debate, talk, say something within, within reason. We don't, you know, not stupid stuff, but something that's valuable. So, but I do have to hit the road. And, but I appreciate you guys having me on for sure. Yeah. Thanks for your time, Tony. Okay. Thanks. Cheers. Good man. Good at being a man. Yeah, someone, someone asked earlier if the grifters start to believe their message. And one of the, I think this is extremely important because once someone believes a lie, they become incredibly convincing at getting other people to believe that lie. Because it's hard. You're not, you're not detecting the normal subtleties of lying. And they actually believe it. You can't talk them out of it at that point. So you can't catch them in the lie because they believe it. What people believe doesn't really matter. It's what the truth is. And so if these, if these grifters are believing lies and, you know, even if they're sincere, you can be sincerely wrong. You can be sincerely dangerously wrong. That's why other people in the man's sphere have to come out and say, no, that's wrong. No, this isn't true. This isn't, you know, if it's, if it's a factual thing, this isn't what the science says. Or no, you're, you're living a lie. And, you know, it's not comfortable to do that. People say, oh, you're throwing shade and all of this stuff. We're not here to pump other grifters up. That's not our job. Our job is to deflate lie bubbles, deflate them, expose the truth. There's got to be some people in the man's sphere that do that. And it's a thankless job. And you've been doing a lot of that, Anthony. Really thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, the mission is to expose and destroy. And we'll be forming an entire organization soon, kind of like Project Veritas, kind of a hybrid trial between Project Veritas and the Babylon B, the Christian satire site. So you guys, this is probably maybe not a surprise to you, given the memes that I make. People call me Anthony meme Johnson lately, which is pretty funny. I don't want to comment. I appreciate the kind words and it has been quite a ride lately doing that. But I'm acting in accordance to my values to the T. And yeah, I get help for it sometimes, but I get a lot of positivity too. When it comes to the territory, you get being a truth teller in many ways, many ways makes you the villain, you know, Jesus and your religion that you guys believe was not. I mean, it's complicated long term, but in the short term, he got killed telling the truth essentially, right? He was murdered for that. I did want to comment though on this specifically, you know, so do you think that most of the griptors have come to believe their own lies? So no, you've commented on that. And I want to make two specific comments. Number one, effective liars and Michael might even know about this too. Just from card counting and trying to, you know, navigate your life as a pastor, the people that try to snake and take you out, right? You're good leaders, so people are going to hate you for that in some ways. But good liars are, they do a lot of things, but two things that do at minimum is they believe their own lies. They do so as much as they can. It makes you a better liar. The more you can believe the lie, the more convincingly it's going to come across. Number two is that you have to mix in the truth a little bit when you lie to make it effective. If you tell a complete lie, it's more dangerous and more risky, a more effective lie that's lower risk, long term, so risk prone, is to mix in some truths. This is why I recently have been calling Roel Tamasi extremely purple pill. And I mean that. And he's a guy that calls everybody around him a purple pill grifter, purple pill grifter, purple pill grifter, right? He's doing that for like probably half a decade now. Easy. The reality is that's a guy who does drop some red pill truths and then he lies to people. And I've exposed that previously back in 2019. That to me is where the purple pill really comes from. It's not just these, you know, it's too, it's too simplistic to, you know, accuse people being purple pill based on some argument, debatable beliefs about this and that with hypergamy and women and whatever. When you're selling people the truth and then you're also knowing and lying to them, you are definitively purple pill. You were a huckster selling a mixture like paint of red and blue, red and blue. And that comes out in one stream of thought and words and books and and spoken word too. So they believe in lies and they're more convincing and they mix in truths and make it effective like poison. No one needs a bowl of poison soup. You want to poison somebody, you give them a nice bowl of soup that's hot and steaming and smells good and they mix in just enough poison to get it to get it down and rant. Yeah. And then you call everybody else purple pill so that when that comes back around to you, it's no longer effective. You diminish the power of the word. Don't worry. I'm going to have to go. Yeah, it's good. I'm going to have to go. Take care, gentlemen. It's been a fantastic conversation. Thank you. No, take care. I mean, I guess what I'll say on that is in my experience when people confess things. So if you have a bad conscience, you have to find some way to deal with it. And people have a tendency to confess, but they do little confessions, and so they'll say, you know, it's like someone who stole, I don't know, $20,000 so lying. So yeah, I stole 20 bucks or something. They do these little confessions. And as a pastor, what I've learned is that that tends to be a sort of iceberg. There's what's above the water, what you see, and then there's a whole lot underwater that you don't see. And so those little confessions, like when I'm dealing with guys with pornography, I'll ask, like, hey, man, how's it going with pornography? And they say, well, yeah, I haven't looked at pornography in a while. And I'll say, what's a while? Well, it's, I don't know, it's been a bit like a month. Has it been a week? Has it been a day? Well, I looked at it yesterday. That's a while, you know, but you see them softening it and like, so they're giving you a little bit saying like, yeah, I did look at it a while back. But it actually, whatever, or how's the arguments going with your wife, you know, whatever, they'll tell you, they'll give you little bits of it to, to, to, they think they'll satisfy you by doing that. And you've got to press to get the actual issue. And I think that's what we have to do with a lot of people too. And you got to squeeze them, squeeze the truth out of them. Yep. Well, I know you got to go see Michael and I know I had to go too. So we'll kind of wind down now. I really appreciate your time today, Michael. Thank you. Everybody in the course. It's been a really good conversation, really great chat. And everybody make sure you visit Michael at this is, it's good to be a man.com. And you're on Twitter at this is foster and gab at this is foster. Correct. And we're also, I should follow you Facebook. Yeah, that's good to be a man too, right? Yep. For the moment. Yeah. So tell me about it. I know. Of course, if you guys want to support the red man group and 20 in studios, you can join 21 University. It's got a free 30 day trial. You have speeches in there for myself, Michael Foster and hundreds of other speakers. It's like a Netflix for men and it's got a free 30 day trial. And then if you want to stay, it's 1999 a month. I appreciate it. And it supports both the red man group and the 21 convention. And you get early access, ad free, all that great stuff. It's like Netflix, right? Before it comes out later on YouTube. So you can support our videos that go free to the world with 21 University, boom. Michael, any last words on agency and conflict? There was more I wanted to get to, but I know we need to wrap up. Yeah. There's so much that we could say. I would just tell guys like start small and let it snowball, right? Take responsibility for yourself. Someone asked me what was the most manly thing I did on the interview. And I said to them, stop being a victim, right? Damn. Is this going to be covered in your upcoming book too? You have the book to work on, right? That's, yeah. Actually, I'm going to finish the final edits on the chapter 10, which is the last chapter today. My co-author turned it, but we started out to write a book for men. And we're going to do a whole part on marriage and all this stuff. But honestly, we spent nine chapters talking about a man's mission, how he gets it, and how he can take control back and as opposed to being all about women. Like we think a lot of guys, I've noticed a lot of marriage books, are a lot of books on manhood is all about how to get a wife, as if that's what defines a man. That's part of it without a doubt. But you get a wife to help you accomplish the mission you're doing. So if you don't have a mission, then what invariably happens is the wife becomes the mission. And that's the whole idea of being a pedestal or one eye is where we want to call it. And so we spend a lot of time on like helping young men know how to be a man and develop a mission. And that is certainly where we start. I think that's where guys like Jordan Peterson or Jaco Willings or whatever, they have helped so many people simply by emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility and dominion where is closest to you. So yeah. Great stuff. Michael, thank you for your time. I'm going to wrap up the show. Everybody else to see next week, most likely, Saturday, 11 a.m. on the Redman Group Channel and 21 Studios. Peace out. And click the like button to subscribe, comment, all that stuff. It helps the video and the speakers who are involved in this show today. I appreciate it. And so do that. Peace.