 Welcome to Barbell Logic, Rewind. Welcome to the Barbell Logic podcast, everybody. Got 71 people here. Exactly 71. Definitely 71. Are you ready? Definitely. Can any of you guys get a really ugly Barbell Logic shirt this week yet? Did you notice what the back of the shirt says? What does it say? Weaponized scottism. Definitely. Definitely, definitely. Definitely. Definitely weaponized scottism. So we've got Brad with us tonight. Dr. Pepper and, well, we're just going to catch up with him. It's been a while. Yeah. Thanks for having me back. You had a big meet since then or a couple? And since we were... When was the last time I was on? At least, I mean, you competed a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, it's like the last, yeah, a couple of weeks ago. It did well. So welcome back to the show. Glad you're here. Hey, thanks for having me. We're going to talk about what we're drinking. Sure, what are we drinking? What is your whiskey of the night? 2018 Diet Dr. Pepper. It's a good vintage. It's fantastic. It's a good year. So, Brad, what is going on in the world of manliness? The world of manliness? Yeah, you have your thumb on it. I have my thumb on the roll. Yeah, it's different in your finger, right? When you have your thumb on it, you control it. You control it. I mean, same, same things going on. As always, I mean, we're still producing content of the art of manliness. We've got the strenuous life going on and that's been doing great. I think I've talked about it last time. Yep. It's been good. Just closed another... What do you call them? Do you call them a flight? Do you call them enrollments? Enrollment. So, we had 600 guys sign up for that one and it's going good. Yeah. Yeah. Good community growth. You feel like the... No, yeah, what's been really... Feedback's been pretty good. Yeah, it's feedback's been really great. What's been great to see is... So, we have a way... We encourage people to get together in person and do meetups. And we've been... We've had hundreds of them around the world going on. So, there's meetups. There's places, cohorts in different states. All the states, pretty much. England got one in Belgium. So, it's great. These guys are getting together. That's what we're trying to do. Get people to do stuff, actually, together, instead of just scrolling their Instagram feed and feeling like, how did I get here? That was your whole idea, right? That was the whole idea. Do it in the world. Get people to actually do stuff and interact with the physical world. And that's happening. So, it's great. Give the room just a real quick synopsis of what the strenuous life is. We had this idea a long time ago. Basically, do Boy Scouts for Men, right? Because there's all this stuff you want to do, but you're like, how do I get started? It would just be nice to tell me, what do you want to do if you want to get started on learning about X skill? And so, we decided to do that. So, we got 50 different badges, around 50 different skills. There's things like outdoor stuff, camping, wilderness survival, there's marksmanship. We also have soft skills like public speaking, cooking, style. We've taken all the content we've been producing on the art of manliness for 10 years and structured it right in a way so you actually can do the stuff we've been writing about. I don't just write stuff that people just read about it and like, oh, yeah, that's cool. And then share it. I want them to actually do it. So, this is what we're doing. And then we have like weekly challenges that they have to do and then they have to check in and make sure they've done 60 minutes of physical activity. We don't say what it needs to be. We leave that open to you. Pedestrianism, for example. It could be pedestrianism. Very physical. No, but a lot of guys are doing barbell training. We have a barbell badge and you help me with the requirements on that one with sort of the metrics. So they have to do all the main lifts with, so all the like the deadlifts, press, bench, squat with good form. And then they do the Olympic lifts as well. Because this adds a bit of technicality. And then you have to meet certain benchmarks which is based on body weight. So if you need to be able to deadlift, I forgot what it was. I think we did 1.7. Yeah, like squat a certain amount. And then we did that with the Olympic lifts as well. Like something that was in an area that most guys could accomplish. If you were really overweight, like you would also encourage the guys to lose weight. And a lot of guys are doing that. They don't need to be 150, but if they're 320, it's going to be hard to hit those body weights. 1.7. And it's been cool getting the feedback from guys saying that, you know, they're losing weight. They're more engaged with their family. They're doing stuff that they said they would do for years and they're finally doing it. So it's been great. It's been fantastic. I love that you don't mess around. You do these things. You're not just sitting in the closet. Type in these things up. You really want these people. Yeah, do stuff. That's what I was talking about last night. The way you increase happiness. And by happiness, I don't mean like you're giddy and like... It's not the fleeting. It's flourishing. A sense of satisfaction and meaning. And you don't do that when you're just inside your head all the time. You don't do that on Instagram. Reading stuff, doing Netflix. You get that by interacting and bumping up against the outside world. We call it friction. When you rub up against something. That's how you find out who you really are is when you have to rub up something that's not you. And as you increase in skill and capacity, like we were talking about it feels good. It feels really good. And what we hope it does is people don't stop there. They'll go from there and do other stuff as well. Create a virtuous cycle. Where you have these small wins which will allow you to get to bigger wins later on. We've meshed well over the years. I think because ultimately we see the big picture. We see the force through the trees. And while you're attacking it from this sort of very general lifestyle manly lens which really came out of, spurned out like your college years. That's kind of when Art of Manliness started. It was in law school. Does that count as college? No, it's post grad. It makes it sound cooler. That's fine. One of the things we've tried to do I was talking about this earlier out in the lobby. There are a lot of fitness podcasts. Strength podcast. They must crush them. I'd love to crush them. That's true. But I think one of the reasons we do well is because we're able to take the thing that we do in the weight room and apply it to the bigger picture of life. No, it's the do-do jokes. It's the do-do jokes? No, that's true. You're trying to do the same thing. What I like about Art of Manliness is that you call men to something greater. There are a lot of 30, 35 year old what we call boys who can shave. They're in men's bodies. They're grown males. So you're trying to call these guys and I like that your your articles sort of span the spectrum. You've got some really deep thinking articles for sure. Deeper levels of knowledge. One of the things I like about your practical articles is that they're actually legitimately practical. Even stuff like your style articles are one of the first things I've ever... The style though is not how to buy a $2,500 suit. Right, right. We're going to dress in a way that's both frugal and you look good. How to buy the $250 suit and we look like a $2,500 suit or whatever. That's the get a tailor. That's what you need to tailor all your clothing. It's like $10 $12. And you can buy a Stafford shirt at JC Penney spend $12 and it's going to look fantastic. It's been $100 on it. I have to take issue with Stafford shirts or JC Penney is like fantastic. What? If you tailor it, you got to tailor it. They look all right. Do you go to tailors? Yes. What are you wearing right now? We'll see. I'm still cheap. So this is the roundtree in your shirt from Dillard's. From Dillard's. I'm a Stafford guy. We're just going to agree to disagree. This is an M.Taylor shirt which I then had to take to an actual tailor. There's a brand and they're like, God, you use this app and we take picture. I'm walking around like turning circles like half naked in my basement for real. Does it even work for your body type? No, it was terrible. And then I got these shirts and I was like, that's not going to work. And then I just took the shirts and took them to a tailor and paid $10 and then emailed them. But they did refund the tailored money. They were like, well, they refunded all that stuff. Yeah, that's good. It's been very practical. That's fine. Essentially what you do is there's an app on your phone that you put your phone, you actually put it down on the floor up against the wall, up at an angle. Right. And then you walk back until you fill up the whole window. That's where you look best. And you have to do it in your underwear, right? So I mean, obviously I was like in a thong. That's what you do. So actually I don't ever, I don't even own underwear. So actually I put Rachel's thong on. And then I was turning. I was in boxer briefs and then you hold your hands up like this and you turn 360 degrees really, really slow. This is the future. Except it didn't work. Yeah, it didn't work. Exactly. Yeah. So the shirts weren't bad. I did get a jacket from them. I got a blazer. It's the weirdest fit ever. I mean, there's no way to salvage. I had to email and be like, either need my money back or you got to do this again. Why does they sit right? Yeah, you're pretty weird. I mean, you know, oh, that's uncomfortable. And you're like, oh, I gotta have my Lulu this. And I got that stretchy panel there. I do like the stretchy panel. There's like shirts. Why don't jeans come with the stretchy panel? Well, they do. If you get the Chuck Norris ones out of the back of that. Oh, yeah. That's right. Hey, why don't you tell us what you talked about? And so what did you talk about? Give us a little synopsis of what you talked about. The art of manliness. We do a lot of history and explore history and what we can learn from it. And one of the things I've learned learning about history and studying it is that like the same problems that we have today, like our great grandpa our great great grandpas, like they had to specifically like the turn of the 20th century, like late 19th, early 20th century. I love that time period because it's just basically the world we live in today like got started then. That's when mass production happened, mass communication, professional sports started, entertainment industry it all got started there. And so during this time period, you had all these advances in technology happening and like people started reporting like increases of anxiety, depression, suicide went up, talked about how narcotic use like went out the roof during this time heroin like opioids they were using it back then to sort of soothe this like the world was just wasn't by them so fast, right? And it was just exhausting and they became sedentary and things like that. And so like some of the solutions that doctors at the time had were very similar to some of the solutions you hear today about if you're feeling stressed or fatigued or whatever it's like just take it easy. Don't work too hard. It's bad to exercise or lift heavy because that's freakish. You don't want to do that. But then there was another group of people sort of the early physical culture like this is the time period where like body building weightlifting got its start. So like Eugene Sandow, Bernard McFadden these guys started saying no what you need to do is start lifting heavy and getting strong. And so yeah, they said to do that and it helps like when you get physically stronger like it does something to you psychologically, mentally, spiritually, whatever you want to say where you start feeling better, right? And the whole idea was arguing is like there's this quote Nietzsche said joy is the feeling of power increasing and by power he's meaning just capacity to act in the world and the linear progression like it feels good when you hit PRs every workout because you can see in a very quantitative way your capacity to act increasing and I was talking about how if you're starting strength coach and you see an elderly client who can finally lift squat with just an empty bar, right? That's 45 pounds and that's a big thing for them. I mean, what was like the look? I'm sure you saw the look on their face when they did that. What did it look like? What you can see is every time they're able to accomplish a goal this thing changes in their brain, right? And they're able to go like, oh, I didn't realize I could do that thing. Most of them when they start they're like, I can't do it. I can't do this thing. So here's the thing I want to push on you a little bit now that you're in a giant room full of people. You're a pretty private guy, right? Yeah. So you talk a lot about the thing that strength training does for humans, the strength training does for the room for people, for men. How has your life changed over the last several years and getting stronger? You've always kind of been geared towards this manly lifestyle and called this something greater. Well, that's your business, right? And so I'm just saying like, you weren't you're not a little like gamma male like... Something velociraptor. But you were? No, I mean, you were already I mean, I like to barbell train even before I started, but I mean in the past few years it's cool to look back on the milestones I've hit in my training and say, you know, man, I did that, right? And you can look back and when you're having a hard time somewhere else in your life and say, I'm not going to be able to do this I can't do it. I'm like, wait a minute I can't. I have the capacity to dig deep and pull it off. And hook grip. And now, no. I'm never going to hook. I've been trying in my warmups and it's, I don't like it so I'm not going to do that. Nobody likes it. You know what I'm saying? Like your kid's like, I don't want to get grounded I don't want my phone taken away. Right. I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Right. What kid wants her phone taken away? I'll remember that next time. Thanks, coach. Okay. So have you noticed a change? No, yeah, for sure. In you, in the very things that you said. Right. Obviously you've changed physically. Right. By the way, meaty hamstrings. It's got to be a hamstring model. I don't know what that means. Not exactly sure what the market is for hamstring models, but he squats in shorty shorts. Do. And I get to see those. I get to see those four times a week. Right. You do. And I feel like we've really bonded. We're bonded. Yeah. Yeah. Not only that, you've sent me shorty shorts and I now wear your shorty shorts. You got the shorty shorts. Listen, if you haven't converted to the shorty shorts. You got to go shorty shorts. Every guy in the room squats, you should be wearing shorty shorts. The ladies appreciate the shorty shorts. Like it's amazing. So like when you sign up if you get a uniform, like a PT uniform and they get the shorty shorts and we've got, we've got, they're not quite that short. They're not Ranger panties. They're not that short. Hill's got some Ranger panties. Right. And that guy, those are, them's a short. But anyways, I've got crease of the butt cheeks coming out. I've, I've had guys say, my wife really appreciates the shorty shorts. Yeah. Like ladies want to see the leg. They don't want to, you know, do it guys. And Brett and like cornered the market on those, I think for a time, right? So the company we use is Sophie, Sophie, whatever, whatever. The Sophie's right. Sophie. So we've, we've bought, like we became like one of their top civilian consumers of their shorts. Do you know how many pairs of those shorts have gone out? Like if you had to guess, I mean, I just like probably, well, we've had 3,000. Okay. To the TSL member, then on art, just like the art of manliness, like the ones I'm wearing here behind Scott. Right there. I don't know how many we've sold, you know, a couple thousand of those, but like we ran them out and they've had to rejigger their production for this year to take into account all those shorty shorts from them. So by the way, when I got these shorts, Brett was like, Hey, what size shorts are you? What are you like an XL? I was like, send me the mediums. I did. Didn't I? You heard that? Yeah. I wear the mediums. You're looking good, man. Only way to go. When you go to Lulu, what size, what size do the, don't you look around? I've converted you to the short shorts. No, they were the, the Lulu shorts coming a waist size. No, but they also have an inseam, right? You shouldn't be purchasing shorts longer than a seven inch inseam. That's the longest inseam you should wear if you're a dude for shorty shorts. Some style advice here. Yeah. Right. I mean, look, Matt Reynolds from a 285 pound red power lifter. Right. Oh, it's good. That's good. So what are we, I think we're talking about like, what are we talking about? We went from Nietzsche to shorty shorts. How your life has changed. My life, yeah, it's just, it's, yeah, you just, you're a bit more resilient. Are you a bit more resilient? Yeah. No, I am more resilient. Right. Yes. Yes. I would say so. We use eye statements on the show. You got to be vulnerable and you got to get choked up at least once during the episode. Okay. I've never seen you cry, by the way. You haven't? No. The last time I cried like so hard, okay, I'm going to get vulnerable here. Okay. After my family, we even saw Coco. Oh God. Oh God. Like, oh man, in the movie, I just started, I started crying in the movie. If you haven't seen it, if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. It's just, and then when I get home, like I had to go down at the garage and I just, I just bawled my eyes out afterwards. Afterwards. After I got home, like this thing is so sad. It's just like, people get forgotten. That just, that's just so sad. Like the little guy, like there's this guy, like, you die and go to the underworld. So wait, why did you go to the garage? Is it because you're embarrassed? No, I don't know why I went down there. I had to go down there for something. I had to get something. I just had a moment, started this, remember me. Sorry. But like, here's how it works. If you go, you die and go to the underworld and you turn to a skeleton, but as soon as someone on earth, like living forgets about you, you disappear. Oh man. And just that idea is just like, cartoon for kids. Oh my gosh. It's just so sad. And I'm like, I can't sorry. And I just like telling Gus stories about my grandpa. Like don't forget. Don't forget. So yeah, that was, I mean, I, my wife thought it was, she cried, but she's like, that's pretty weird that that was the thing that got you. But yeah, people getting forgotten is first five minutes of up. You've seen, I've seen up. I, that didn't, that didn't do it for me. I don't know. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. Oh, you know, the one, the one I cried. I got teary eyed was the one about the neuro transmitters in your brain. Right. What is it? Inside out, inside out. We're the, we're the the imaginary friend got forgotten. So wrecked you. It's just wrecked me. It's just so apparently legacy is very important to Brett. Yeah, that's yeah, it is psychoanalyzed. So have you printed the entire art of milliless website on like acid free paper? Leather balance. Yeah. No, I should. Yeah, you actually should. So on that topic of legacy, one of my favorite things that I've seen you go through the last couple of years is the way your strength training has affected your son. Yeah. Has been really, really cool. Oh yeah. Gus, Gus loves, you know, I have the garage gym. So my kids are always down there and they're seeing me train and I get their commentary from them. They call it whenever I have like a hard set of squats or deadlift and like my face is all red. It's tomato face. It's like, that's got tomato face. And then I always give the report to Gus about how my training went and how's Gus? He's seven. Yeah. So he's still a little one. Right. Right. Comes to all your meets, comes to all the when you, when you do the meets, it's a thing that you and Gus do. Yep. That's what we do. Gus and he's obsessed. Like we, we stay at the comfort center. He thinks that the greatest hotel in the world. Cause of the waffles. Cause they got waffles in the shape of Texas. Yeah. That's awesome. And I agree. It's pretty cool. And I love waffles. It's been like, so this last meet, it was, it was a great teaching experience. It was. So now I'm going to cry. I'm going to lose it. So I hit the PR on squat and we had to press. And for some reason, going up, my press was just struggling. Yeah. Struggle a little bit. Go into the meet with your press. And cause I, I did 205 at the first one. And then I couldn't even do like, I failed 201. I think of my second attempt. And then the third attempt I came in, got 201 and I locked it out. And then I was bringing it down. And I think just bad habits training. Cause like what I usually do when I rack it, I just like that. And I just throw it in the rack, throw it in the rack. And you just put 201 over there and it's not a standing squat rack. Right. And so I did that. And I got on the left and I missed it on the right and like my wrist fell down this way. And I bent my, I sprained my wrist really, really bad. It was a pretty bad miss. So you it was, it was really just, it was so funny when it was like, what the hell just happened? Well, I mean, you'd missed your second attempt and I was nervous cause I was like, oh no, he's going to go one for three. You missed your second attempt on what appeared to be a strength issue. Right. Not really a form breakdown. Right. So one of the things we're always watching at the meets, you know, you're always really encouraging as a coach, like you're fine, you just misgrooved it, get it was deep down. That was awesome. You got it. You're fine. You know, and I was like, Brett's going to go, Brett's going to go one for three. I was like, the form was okay. And so, so really, I remember I came up to you and said, okay, here's the deal, dude. You just got to get really angry. I don't know what it is. I don't know what you got to think about. We're going to forget you if you don't hit this. That would just make me sad. And I would cry a lot. My oxytocin would go out. So you get this perfect press grind, grind, grind, locks it out. And I'm like, yes, I'm so excited. You bring it down, put the bar back in the wreck and miss one of the J. And it just, your wrist cocks weird and the thing drops and you catch it doofy and it's all super awkward. You know, and the second you did it, I was like, man, and so you got red lights. You should have gotten it because you didn't get it back in the, didn't get it back in the wreck. Now. Gus was just upset. He was crying. He took it really bad and he was like, dad, you failed. And I'll never forget. Right. And he said, I'm so disappointed dad. And I was like, oh, man. And and he's also worried because I was hurt. Yeah. All right. He's worried I wasn't going to be able to deadlift. I was like, oh, look, it's all right. It hurts really bad. We'll put some dirt on it. Put some dirt on it. Yeah. And so we'll get back at it. You know, it was really nice. So I mean, I was on the bench, you know, and like the, the training area where they, they hold you and I was, it was have this talk with them. It's all right. You know, and we're going to be or get over this. Yeah. These setbacks and you just got to bounce back. And so, yeah. I went back in. I had a wrap, put wraps around my wrist for the deadlift. I just compressed things a lot. So I just didn't feel anything anymore and when in there, I pulled a PR. So you were in the hallway, you know, just before they, they're making their platform ready like bars loaded for Brett McKay. So we'll nose to work and Matt goes on the back. And Gus was like, my dad, you know, I was like, no, no, no, man, he's just getting tired of us. It's good. It's what we do. It's all right. You're like, yay, Gus. He's like, yeah, okay. Yeah. So when I hit the PR, Gus is really excited. He was pumped to see that. So it's been great. I've been, and I'm looking forward to the next ones. It's a cool edition that we have together. What's so awesome about it is that Gus gets to look at his dad and see his dad do that. And not just that, right? He's been able to do that and watch you at every meet you've done. He hasn't had to see you overcome adversity really until this meet. And so, man, it's a good lesson for him. Well, I want to, can we go on a tangent here? Sure. Please. People who've affected you in your life and they don't even know it. I had football coaches that did the same for me. One in particular, my lineman coach. And he just had a big impact. Just not only on the field, but outside as well. And I just like, I'm going to write him a letter. What's his name? Coach Chamley. Chamley? Chamley. Chamley. Chamley. Chamley. Edmund. And Edmund North. And I wrote him a letter and just like, this is what happened because of you. Yeah. And I think if you have someone like that in your life, like it's a teacher or a coach or somebody, like do that, like find their address and write them a letter, especially like teachers, right? Because like teachers, you don't know if a teacher is a success. Thankless, Cham. Right. Until like 10, 15, 20 years later. And so let them know that, no, what you did was worth it. Like it helped me. I've been trying to do that slowly, track down my mentors and write them just a letter and just like, here's how my life is now. And you had a part in that. Yeah. What did he do? What was it that set him apart for you? So, you know, on the field is pushing you, but like outside the field, like he would bring all the linemen to his home and we'd have parties and like pizza. And you got to see him interact with his family. So you got to see that aspect of what it means to be a good man, a good husband, a good father. And just outside too, he would catch me in the halls and he would just say encouraging things, right? It was about, not even about football, which is about, it could have been about student council or whatever. Yeah, he just cared. And I even like, I had another football coach, the head coach, Kyle Heath. He was really like the football coach in Friday night lights, right? Like he really cared. He didn't just see it about you're, you're coaching these guys to win football games. It was like, no, I'm trying to turn these boys into men. And so part of that is he would, every year, he would sit down with every player, bring them off an interview and it's like, what's, what are your goals for this year? And you'd say like, well, I want to start like, no, no, like besides that, like, what are your goals outside of football? And he would kind of give you some, like he got some advice, like here's what you need to do. And that was really encouraging to me. And I, they're teachers, they don't get paid that much. You don't have to do that. They could have just phoned it in, but they did that and that meant a lot. Do you think that had an impact on what you've done in your career choice later in life or just did it kind of subconsciously? I think subconsciously, right? Like I had, I just had a lot of great, you know, mentors, particularly male mentors, just in those really formative years, you know, men at church as well. You know, one of my high school teachers is one of the reasons I went to law school because he was, he went, he was a lawyer before he became a public school teacher. He's one of the reasons I didn't take the bar. Right. Right. But yeah, he, he said, yeah, you should do that. Go because like no one in my family is an attorney. I was the first one that went to law school. Yeah. And it was because of him. He had a lot, a huge impact on that. So yeah, it's a challenge. I give you all the night, find somebody in your life that had a big impact on you in your formative years, track them down and write them a letter and just say, here's how I'm doing now. And you had a part in that. Yeah. Yeah. It'll mean a lot. I mean, geez. And start to take the younger generation. And yeah, then you have to start doing it, right? And do the same thing. You have to start doing it. It's a half joke and everybody, you know, gives us a hard time about it where I was like, Hey, you're smart. You should be having kids, right? But really it's about, it's about pouring into people that way, right? Like, I'm able to pour into my kids. And if you don't have kids, you should be able to, you should pour into other people. And even if you do have kids, you should be pouring into people who aren't just your kids. And so it takes a village. It does. And it takes a lot of energy too, right? It's, it's not something that just feels good. That's the thing. Like it's, it's really hard and it can be exhausting. Sure. But it's satisfying whenever you pour yourself into somebody, right? Or something outside of yourself. And we get hurt too, right? Yeah. You are going to help people. And they let you down or they're not going to be, they're not going to thank you for it. There's just a great essay, I forgot the name, except from like the turn of the 20th century guy, he wrote an essay called, you know, you have to have the courage to face ingratitude, right? And it's the courage to go out and help somebody and don't, you know, they're not going to say thank you. And you have to have that courage to do it and expect nothing in return. So it's a skill you have to develop. Well, because when you do that, you're not just refining one person. Right. You're being refined by the thing too. Right. And so, and that was kind of what I was talking about in my talk last night, is don't just make your pursuits and strength about you, about hitting PRs, because that feels good. But if you really want to turbocharge that, like, take that and apply it outside of yourself. Yeah. Don't you think that's the thing that sets us, that really sets us apart from what other people are doing? I mean, look, there are lots of other groups, especially kind of powerlifting groups who are strong. We're really, really strong. But I don't think they've made the connection with what it does for all of these other facets of your life. Right. Right. Right. It's not spent a lot of time with it. Yeah. Louis Simmons is refining somebody's confidence. Yeah. I mean, my favorite stories that come out of the community are the ones about, you know, I got stronger. So I was able to lift my adult son who's paralyzed out of bed. Sure. Or whatever. Those. Or I was able to fight for my marriage better. I was able to hit you right. Right. Like we handled my kid, got leukemia and we were able to fight, you know, whatever those things are. And that's the thing, right? So getting a 16-year-old kid strong, having it make the difference between him being a starter on the football team or somebody on the bench is cool. Right. But there's not a lot of depth there, right? Yeah. But to watch it change who he is and watch him go from a boy to a man is something else. Yeah. And watching what it does to my wife and watching what it does to my daughters and watching what it does to 82-year-old Sybil, those are the things that I, you know, it's not about strength. I mean, like strength is, it's huge. Obviously, strength is the foundation of everything we do physically. Man, it's so much more than that. Right. And so it's cool that once we've discovered that, it's far better than cool. Once we've discovered that, we've got to pass that along. Yeah. It's too important now. Not too. I agree. Yes. Feeling bold enough to do a little Q&A. Yeah, let's do it. Let's probably get this mic and walk around. Okay, we'll do it. All right. So we're going to do, we're going to take, we'll take some questions from the audience for Brett. What, hey, what was the thing while he's getting that? What was the catalyst that made you to decide to start Art of Manliness? Uh, what, I mean, here's the story, how it happened. Like it's like, it sounds just like those, you know, mythical startup stories. Like it started in the garage and blah, blah, blah. What it was, I was in a boarder's bookstore while I was in law school, taking a break from studying and I was just browsing the men's magazines, right? The men's lifestyle section. I was looking at the headlines on, I just realized on these magazines, like every month it's the same thing. Like articles on how to get six pack abs, you know, sex positions, you need to try tonight. How to get laid. How to get laid. How to do it right. Yeah. Like the $4,000 sweater you need this season is like the travel, like where you need to travel. And like when you're a broke law student, like that's not, it just doesn't, like it's not a, it's not possible. It's not attainable. This is what didn't relate to it. Sure. But they also just like, this doesn't resonate. It doesn't feel like what it means to be a man. It's not just aesthetics and stuff. So I was like, you know what? How old were you? I was 25, 24. I mean, I was young. I mean, it was pretty bold to be like, I'm 24. I'm going to sort of blog about how to be a man. Well, even to read those things and be like, I mean, you can read those and be like, eh, like that's dumb and then apply to me, but to actually kind of understand there's these greater implications there. Right. And that there's a need for those things. Right. That if I'm thinking this. There's other people like, I don't, yeah, never, yeah. And that's the thing, like when I, as soon as I started it, I started getting immediate feedback and they're like, this is great. I've been looking for something like this for a long time. So that's been, it's been a lot of fun just finding like-minded men, right? They, you know, seriously with the art demands, we do like the serious stuff, but we also do like fun stuff. Sure. Like you're going to find stuff like how to poop like a samurai on the site. And, or if you, you know, how to, how to gird up your loins, like an illustrated guide on that. And that's just like my personality. Literally. Like literally gird up your lines out of the did in the Bible. That's just my personality. I like to have goofy, fun stuff. But I also like, I like to hit serious stuff too. Yeah, you do. Yeah, it's cool. Are we on Scott? Yeah. So we'll do questions. I don't have much cable here. So if anybody wants to ask any questions of- Questions from Brett. You can do it here. There we go. Come on up. Come on up here. I'm going to stay behind that speaker though. I'm curious, what was your deadlift PR? It's your last meet. Sure. It was 574. Nice. It's awesome. So I'm getting close. I think I'll say 600 October. For sure. 600 October. And remember that's with a B&R bar, which is the worst bar ever made for a deadlift. Right. Yes, it is. It's a terrible bar for a deadlift. No, it's fine. And it's just really hard. It's a 29 millimeter bar. He could pull 600 on a deadlift bar right now. Do you think so? I'm cutting right now. Well, whatever. You know what I mean. Yeah. He said we beat you. You were still deadlift 600 with that. Yeah. Without more? Yeah. Come on over here. I can't bring it to you. You'll squeal. I'm an English teacher and I love your book reviews. So I was wondering what you're reading right now that you would recommend. What I'm reading right now. Okay. So fiction. I'm rereading Lonesome Dove. Oh my gosh. For like, this is my fourth time. She's wrecked me with that. Going through it. And then for other fiction, I would recommend, if you're looking fiction for men, The Road is another one by Cormac McCarthy. That's another one where I, that's one of those I cry. Like that's, I read that once a year. It's a very happy family summer. Right. Love and sort of. I read it once a year, sort of like as my catharsis. And I just, I'm sobbing and then like I hold my kids and I'm just like kissing them. Has there ever been a book that captures the love of a parent for a kid? Nothing like that man. As much as The Road. Right. Right now. So that's another one. What I'm reading, I'm always reading because of the podcast. So what am I reading? I'm reading a book about Thoreau and sort of the culture that he grew up in. It was really weird by that time period in the New England. Like everyone was really into magic and fairies and like ghosts and astrology. And it all intertwined with Christianity. And out of this Thoreau kind of came up with his and Emerson, the transcendental movement, where it's kind of, kind of hippie-dippy type stuff. But it's just really interesting. So that's been fun too. The Grant book? You sent me that? You liked it, right? Yeah, the Grant biography was great. He listed this grant. Like that was great because I mean, I think Grant is like super underrated. Everyone just remembers him as sort of this bumbling drunk. His administration riddled in scandal. But the guy had soul. Like he had a lot of demons to battle and he battled them. I think successfully the best he could. And I mean this is crazy. This is a guy, like he was selling wood on the side of the, at a corner in St. Louis because he was so poor. And he ends up being president of the United States a couple of years later. Like that could not happen today, but that sort of stuff happened back then. So it's a good one. You know, you got me reading fiction again. I had read fiction since I was in high school. And when you did your book signing in Tulsa, we came down, we were doing a training day that day. And you said, Hey, I'd really like you to come down to the book signing, come down to the book signing. Somebody actually, I saw some of the guys in the room. Yeah, some of them here, yeah. And you talked about why it's important for men to read fiction. Yeah, most men are like, they're more nonfiction type, right? Yeah, I love nonfiction. Yeah, you learn things. It's practical, whatever. But like fiction is important for men because there's, there's like psychological things going on. Like there's, when you read fiction, you have to engage your theory of mind, which is this, it's what you use to figure out what other people are thinking, right? Theory of mind is what allows you to have a conversation with somebody. It's what allows you to figure out, well, he said that, but did he really mean what he said or like, what's going on there? So when you read fiction, it helps strengthen that. But also, I think just fiction, like we are storytelling animals. Like we love stories and fiction is sort of, it's virtual reality allows you to learn about ideas, concepts, battles of, you know, good and evil, ethics, morality inside of a story. It's like virtual reality. So you get, it's like a video game safety there, but it allows you to take your mind to a place that it wouldn't normally go. Right. Especially if you're a guy that's wired a lot, like a lot of us are, it was very logical and systematic, which is great when it comes to logical sort of reasoning, but not great when it comes to creativity. So it lets my mind go to places that you otherwise wouldn't have gone to. Yeah. And it allows those concepts to, I think, even imprint in your brain better because everyone remembers a story. You might not remember some logical argument, right? But you can remember a story. Yeah. Yeah. So last time I cried out loud, like actually made noise was reading Lonesome Doves. Lonesome. It's, oh man. So I won't ruin it. So who has, what does that sound like? Who's read Lonesome Doves? Who's read Lonesome Doves? Okay. Listen, you don't understand how good it is. It is the best. You have to read Lonesome Doves. It's like 800 pages long or something. Yes. It's maybe 1,200 pages. I don't know. That's 900. Don't exaggerate. Reynolds exaggeration. I know. It's like, I think it's like 900, but it reads really fast. And you, like, you feel like you're friends. You don't want to read it fast, by the way. Right. Like, it's so good. Like, it reads fast. Like, it doesn't feel like you're like, you get lost in it and you read 120 pages and you didn't even realize you did it. But you get 500 pages in and you start getting depressed because you're like, the book is going to come to an end soon. Right. I'm not going to be able to handle this. That's why you reread it again so you can visit your friends at Lonesome Doves. Yeah, yeah. So good. No, it's good. That's great. And the mini-series is good too. So. Right. What's up, Brett? Hey, how's it going? Good. My name is Ryan. I just downloaded your app, but I haven't checked out any of your stuff yet. But as I walked in, I heard you said you were from Edmund North High School. Yeah. Awesome, man. Me too. Oh, fantastic. Go Huskies. Go Huskies. All right. What did you, what other sports did you play besides football? I just did football. Oh, and I was my thing. Is your number, your number's not retired. You're not in the football hall of fame for Edmund. No, I was, I was like a mediocre player. I finally started my senior year. I think it might have been a pity start. My entire career was a pity start. What year did you graduate? I graduated in 01. Oh, wow. Okay. Baby. I was on, I was on. Oh, wow. Oh, no, it's not that weird. I graduated in 09. So. Okay. I, I graduated in law school from 09. So. Cool. So did you play football? I actually wrestled. You wrestled? Okay. North has a good wrestling program. Yeah, they do. Gives my accent. Rick Bolenbach. Yeah, Bolenbach. Yeah, I wrestled for him in like eighth grade. No way. Yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah, he's great. Well, cool, man. Other questions? Good to meet you. Yeah, likewise. Got one. Hey, so you talk quite a bit about the refining power of doing hard things. Right. If you don't mind sharing, maybe can you think of a time where you had to have a conversation or approach a situation that you really didn't want to have, but you feel like either you or the other person or the other party benefited afterwards? Yeah. No, I mean, you have those a lot when you own a business. Because they come up, you know that, right? You have this uncomfortable conversations. I have no idea. But like one really one that I can remember was, so I graduated, here's that where I started the art of manliness when I was in law school. By 2009, I was eking out enough where I could be like, I could live on this sort of and eat rice and beans. 1150 a month. Suddenly. Yeah. And so I, I graduated in 2009. I knew I didn't want to practice law because I, I interned and I decided this isn't for me. Like I'm not, this is just not what I'm going to do. And so I have for reading to kill a mockingbird. Well, I guess that's not like that. Most of all, you just read and write memos and yeah, it's really good. It's really good. So I had the decision to make. Okay. I couldn't really support a family with the blog yet. I didn't want to waste three years of my life that I just spent and lots of money. So I need to get a job in the legal field. So I worked for a company called Thompson Reuters. If you hire attorney and your attorney needs to find out what the law is, they use Thompson Reuters or Westlaw. So I got a job teaching law students how to use Westlaw was a fantastic job. Get to work from home, paid well at 401k health insurance. It was awesome. I got to a point where the site continued to grow and get bigger and bigger. My, my first, my son was born. We had our second book going on and everything came to a head. And I just, I couldn't do everything. I had to make a decision. And then like, I did not want to have that conversation with my boss. Like I only worked there for like six months and say, Hey, I know you spent a lot of money training me, but I got to quit. I'm out to run a online, run an online business, right. So I put it off and off and off. And finally I just did it and boss was like completely supportive of it. And he said, no, I support that. It wasn't, that's the thing. Like the things you think are going to be really bad aren't as bad when you actually do. Oh, the anxiety. Just you worry. It's like, what are they going to, what are they going to think? I'm, or that you start thinking like, I'm not, I'm, I'm irreplaceable. I'm going to put them in such a bind. It's like, there's a giant corporation. They don't care. Like they find someone else to put there. So that was one that, that comes to mind. So that's our show. Thanks for listening.