081 – Interview With Rainier Wylde Of Evolving Wild

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1:01 This is "I'm Daunted Life" a man's podcast.

1:11 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

1:13 Let's get into it.

1:14 All right, guys, we're gonna do something

1:15 a little bit different this week,

1:16 but before we get into that,

1:17 we need to acknowledge what today is.

1:20 So if you're listening to this on time,

1:22 you're essentially listening to this on June 6th of 2019,

1:26 which marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

1:30 And so I know not everybody listening to this podcast

1:33 is an American or even a Westerner,

1:34 but this is an incredibly important day to us as Americans,

1:38 but really for us across the entire world.

1:40 And so this is not an episode about D-Day,

1:43 perhaps it's something that I should talk about

1:44 at some point,

1:45 but it is an incredible, incredible time

1:48 when American forces storm the beaches of Normandy

1:52 basically in defense of liberty

1:55 and basically eradicating evil from this world.

1:58 And in that case,

2:00 Nazi communist socialist evil.

2:02 And so it's just one of those things

2:04 whenever you look at people that are this age range,

2:06 because a lot of the guys that died,

2:09 of the young men that went on this beach,

2:11 these kids were teenagers, they were in their early 20s.

2:15 A lot of these guys didn't have families,

2:17 they didn't go to college.

2:18 I mean, this was kind of what the soldier was at that time.

2:21 Now, certainly there were people that were college educated

2:24 and officers that died and older people that died,

2:26 but a lot of young people, right?

2:28 A lot of really, really young people died on those beaches

2:31 and died in the subsequent battles

2:33 that led to the defeat of the Nazis.

2:36 But the thing about it that's so impactful

2:38 for a guy like me is whenever I listen to what 20-somethings

2:43 complain about today in 2019, it's absolutely astonishing.

2:48 But what's funny about that is we can sit here

2:51 in lament all day long about,

2:52 "Ah, these kids, they don't know.

2:54 If they could only know what things were like

2:56 back in the day."

2:57 But isn't that kind of why we stormed the beaches

2:59 to begin with?

3:00 So that maybe we can worry about frivolous things.

3:05 I know that's a little bit of a bastardization

3:07 of what went on that day.

3:09 But the thing about it is that was a really hard time

3:11 to go through.

3:13 And society can't really handle too many of those hard times,

3:16 but it took the actions of those brave men going out there

3:21 and doing what they did so that we could sit here

3:23 and argue about nonsense.

3:25 Right, I bring that up all the time

3:26 when people talk about why do we have gender theory now?

3:29 Why do we have all this nonsense about transgenderism?

3:32 Why do we have all these issues

3:34 that seem so outside of the realms of logic and reason?

3:39 It's because we don't have to worry about the Nazis

3:42 coming over to the United States and killing all of us

3:44 or enslaving all of us.

3:46 That's why.

3:47 And so this is a salute to the men that stormed those beaches

3:52 that day.

3:53 There's very few of those men still alive today,

3:55 but they are out there for the love of God.

3:57 If you know one, if you know someone that served

4:00 in World War II, go buy that person a drink,

4:04 buy him a lunch, buy him coffee, do something

4:05 and just sit there and talk to them.

4:07 Because just the fact that they did something like that,

4:10 regardless of the circumstance of how they got there,

4:13 it's still incredible.

4:14 So this is a salute to the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

4:18 And now next week's episode,

4:19 I wanna tease that a little bit

4:21 because it's gonna be a very, very special episode

4:23 for you guys.

4:24 So what I'm gonna be doing is I'm gonna be breaking down

4:26 the debate that went on between Andy Stanley

4:29 and Jeff Durban on the unbelievable podcast.

4:32 And so if you've been listening to this podcast

4:34 for any length of time,

4:35 you've heard me talk about Andy Stanley and Jeff Durban,

4:37 you've heard me talk about their separate churches

4:40 and their ministries, you've also heard me talk.

4:42 I think it was episode 23 of this podcast

4:44 where I was basically talking about how a lot of people

4:46 were calling Andy Stanley a heretic

4:48 and I came to his defense a bit

4:50 and one of his most vocal and outspoken critics

4:53 is Jeff Durban and was Jeff Durban.

4:55 And so whenever they announced this, I was like,

4:57 oh my gosh, this is like, this is nerding out

5:01 in the Christian sphere to an extreme degree.

5:03 And so I've listened to the podcast,

5:05 I've listened to the interview

5:07 and I'm currently in the process

5:08 of kind of breaking it down.

5:10 Because obviously you guys can listen to it

5:12 and you know, I'll go ahead and urge you

5:13 to listen to it on your own.

5:15 But that's something that I think is really, really interesting

5:17 that I wanna maybe break it down in a way

5:20 that isn't as narrative driven as the podcast ended up being

5:24 'cause I thought there was some really interesting

5:26 undertones and I've talked with some guys

5:28 that know both of these men's ministries

5:30 and I think it's interesting

5:32 to kind of get different people's perspectives.

5:34 So I didn't wanna rush that episode,

5:36 which leads us into what we're gonna be doing

5:38 with today's episode.

5:39 And so what I'm gonna be giving you today

5:41 is I'm gonna be giving you the audio from an interview

5:44 that I did with a guy named Rainer Wild.

5:46 And this is a guy that runs this, this mens,

5:49 I can't really call it a ministry,

5:51 but he runs this mens thing that's called evolving wild.

5:55 And he has a podcast called Lost Man Standing.

5:58 And so this is a guy that reached out to me on Instagram

6:02 and then we ended up just connecting

6:04 and it just made sense for him to interview me

6:06 on his podcast.

6:07 And I've been interviewed on quite a few podcasts

6:09 and to be honest with you,

6:11 I haven't really had a stinker yet yet,

6:14 in terms of them interviewing

6:16 and me feeling comfortable with my answers and all that.

6:19 Like sometimes you go back and you're like,

6:20 oh, I kind of misspoke

6:21 or I could have probably explained that a little bit better.

6:23 But I feel like just about every single interview

6:26 that I've done up to this point has gone really well.

6:28 I feel like they were able to get some points across,

6:30 they were able to express some of their viewpoints.

6:32 I was able to kind of get in there

6:33 and speak in a way that would be

6:35 at least interesting to their audience

6:37 because a lot of us kind of share a similar audience.

6:40 But one thing that I will say

6:41 that was more unique about this interview

6:43 as I felt like I was tasked a little bit more intellectually.

6:48 I felt like Rainer came at this

6:52 and he definitely did his homework, right?

6:55 Like he came ready.

6:56 Like we weren't just kind of waxing poetic

6:58 about a bunch of random things that are kind of loosely,

7:01 you know, in the manhood masculine sphere.

7:04 This guy really kind of dug in to me

7:06 and some of the things that we've done within this ministry.

7:09 And I thought it was a very good conversation.

7:11 And this is a guy I can't remember

7:12 if he exactly spoke about it on the air during our interviewer

7:16 if we talked about an off air,

7:17 but this is a guy who grew up in an evangelistic family.

7:21 I think his father was like a televangelist,

7:23 a traveling preacher.

7:24 And so the majority of his upbringing

7:26 was spent, you know, following around the minister.

7:28 And yet today, I think if I were to, you know,

7:31 basically put him in a corner,

7:32 he would probably describe himself as an agnostic.

7:35 And so in addition to probably being an agnostic,

7:38 this guy isn't intellectual.

7:40 He is a spiritual person, you know,

7:42 for whatever that means to those of you out there

7:45 when you use the word spiritual, you know,

7:47 it can mean about a billion different things.

7:49 But I will say of all the interviews that I've done

7:51 up to this point, this was probably my favorite.

7:54 It's probably my favorite interaction

7:56 with another individual, especially

7:57 because I didn't know this guy

7:59 before we got on to do the interview, right?

8:01 So everything that you're hearing is flowing.

8:03 And just so you know, if you ever listen to a podcast

8:06 where I'm being interviewed on someone else's podcast,

8:08 almost as a rule, I don't wanna know what they're gonna ask me

8:11 if they have any planned questions.

8:13 I always like to just flow.

8:14 I don't wanna feel the need to prepare for an interview.

8:18 I'm not a huge fan of that.

8:19 And I know some people do,

8:20 they like to be able to control the narrative.

8:21 And as of this point, maybe I'll change my ideas

8:24 on it in the future.

8:25 I haven't felt like anybody's trying to ask me

8:27 a bunch of gotcha questions.

8:29 Like, oh, we nailed him.

8:30 He was completely unprepared.

8:31 He was caught with his pants down.

8:32 Like, nothing like that has happened up to this point.

8:34 It might happen at some point,

8:36 but I really like the idea of just being able to flow.

8:38 So what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna go ahead

8:40 and put the audio in here from this interview.

8:43 And then I'm gonna have in the show notes

8:45 and we'll all come back here afterwards.

8:46 And we'll talk a little bit after the audio

8:48 clicks out of this interview

8:49 and we'll give you some more information as we move forward.

8:51 And one thing I do wanna point out real quick,

8:53 this might seem like a small thing,

8:55 but it actually, you know,

8:56 it's just one of those things

8:57 I wanna kind of correct the record.

8:58 When he does part of my intro,

8:59 so if you're listening to this on his audio or our audio,

9:02 he introduces me as a couple of things

9:04 that I would not consider myself to be.

9:06 So he introduces me as a pastor

9:07 and he also introduces me as an MMA fighter.

9:10 But I think he was just potentially using those terms

9:12 colloquially because I'm obviously not a pastor.

9:16 I'm not on staff with any church

9:17 or have any that type of designation.

9:19 I don't have my MDiv or any of those things.

9:21 And at the same time, I train MMA,

9:23 but I've had no MMA fights.

9:25 So I don't think it would be fair at all

9:26 to describe me as an MMA fighter.

9:28 But the reason why I wanna be clear about that

9:30 is because there are some people even here

9:32 in my backyard here in Oklahoma City

9:33 that are in the men's ministry space.

9:35 And let's just say they're a little bit comfortable

9:39 with being called something that they're not.

9:40 There's a guy in our area that forever,

9:43 people will call him a Navy Seal.

9:45 They would introduce him as a Navy Seal.

9:47 And this was a guy that was in the Navy,

9:48 but definitely was not a Navy Seal.

9:50 And so he never actually corrected the record.

9:53 And so I think he liked being called a Navy Seal.

9:55 And so he's like, well, I didn't tell people

9:57 that I was a Navy Seal, so it must be okay.

9:59 I don't wanna operate that way.

10:00 So I wanna be as upfront as possible.

10:03 I train that stuff, you know,

10:04 I do some certain things that a pastor does,

10:06 but it is not fair to call me a pastor or an MMA fighter.

10:09 So as long as we're clear on that, we can move forward.

10:12 Now, further ado, let's go to episode 32

10:14 of the "Lost Man Standing" podcast,

10:16 which is my interview with Rainer Wild.

10:18 - Hey everyone, welcome to "Lost Man Standing",

10:22 the podcast where we explore spirituality, ecology,

10:24 and sex through the lens of the sacred masculine.

10:27 I am your host, and guide, Rainer Wild.

10:31 We have a great podcast for you today.

10:33 Super interesting, Kyle Thompson, "Undaunted Life".

10:37 You probably know him via his podcast

10:41 where he is out there.

10:44 I mean, this guy lays it all out.

10:47 I had about an hour on the line with him.

10:51 I got to watch him work.

10:53 He stands the whole time we're talking.

10:56 Just a ball of nervous, intense energy.

11:00 I really appreciate it a lot.

11:02 Listen, Kyle is an interesting dude.

11:05 He's a pastor, he's an MMA fighter,

11:08 he trains in Jiu Jitsu, he's a reader,

11:12 he's a poet, he is a scholar.

11:16 And I got to be honest, he's got some views

11:19 that I probably don't see eye to eye on.

11:21 You'll hear me actually challenge him

11:23 in this podcast a couple of times.

11:24 But what I love is that he actually engages the dialogue

11:29 over and over.

11:30 There is something so beautiful

11:33 about the way that he interacts with challenge.

11:37 In fact, one of the things I took away

11:39 from the time that we shared together

11:41 was this concept that you should routinely expose yourself

11:45 to things that you do not like.

11:47 Do not agree with or that will challenge you

11:51 to make you stronger, smarter, and in the end,

11:56 to expand your horizons as a person.

11:59 All right, without further ado, Kyle Thompson.

12:03 - Maybe you can tell me what you think is going on.

12:09 You're here because you know something.

12:11 What do you know you can't explain, what do you think?

12:14 You felt it your entire life.

12:17 - Well, they're all sunshine and rainbows.

12:20 It's a very mean and nasty place.

12:22 And I don't care how tough you are,

12:24 it will beat you to your knees

12:26 and keep you there permanently if you let it.

12:28 - It's hard man, it's harder if you still get it.

12:31 - I've been around, you know.

12:33 There was a time I could see and I have seen,

12:38 but there is nothing like the sight

12:42 of an amputated spirit.

12:44 - But it ain't about how hard you hit.

12:46 It's about how hard you get hit and kick moving forward.

12:49 How much you can take and kick moving forward.

12:53 That's how we're gonna start.

12:54 - Today, I've got to stop and profile like never before.

12:59 To be the man, you gotta beat the man.

13:04 And I'm saying, right here, I'm the man.

13:09 - Now, yeah, so I was looking at a promo for you

13:17 and actually for a devotional that you've written,

13:20 right? You wrote a devotional, yeah?

13:23 - Yeah, absolutely.

13:24 So the Uversion Bible app, which is,

13:26 I think that app has been downloaded like 300 or 400 million

13:29 times or something like that.

13:30 It's one of the most famous apps on the planet Earth.

13:32 But this was actually kind of the whole start

13:35 of me getting undaunted life content out to people

13:38 because I was clicking through the men's devotionals

13:41 on this app because you can just search for apps based on,

13:44 you know, anger or, you know, the Bible in a year

13:47 or whatever the thing might be.

13:48 But I was clicking through the men's devotionals

13:50 and I was like, man, these things suck.

13:53 These things are terrible.

13:54 These are like women's devotionals for men.

13:56 Like it just, they weren't any good.

13:58 And I didn't know if it was me.

14:00 Like maybe I was being too judgmental or something.

14:02 So the Uversion Bible app, which actually started here

14:05 in my backyard by a church here in Oklahoma City.

14:07 And so I went to someone that was a friend of mine

14:10 at that church and I said, hey, what's the deal

14:11 with these devotionals?

14:13 He's like, man, if you don't like them,

14:14 how about you just write one?

14:16 And I was like, you can do that?

14:18 I didn't know that was like a thing.

14:19 And so he's like, yeah, yeah, write it, submit it.

14:21 If they like it, they'll publish it.

14:23 And so I wrote a 21 day devotional thinking,

14:26 no one would ever see it.

14:27 Really, I didn't think it would get accepted.

14:29 It got accepted.

14:30 And then it was published.

14:31 And here we are, I don't know, two years later,

14:33 it's been completed about 50,000 times up to this point.

14:37 And, you know, that kind of launched people saying,

14:40 hey, we want more.

14:40 And so I wrote another devotional, hey, we want more.

14:42 Okay, so I launched a podcast.

14:44 So really the devotional is kind of the catalyst

14:46 for everything that we've started to do

14:48 through undaunted life.

14:49 - Yeah, and when I read the language for it,

14:51 it was really interesting.

14:52 I want to just read it here.

14:54 The promo says, can I be manly and spiritual?

14:58 How can I serve God with my mind?

15:01 Is my physicality and act of worship?

15:04 How can Jesus be the lion and the lamb?

15:07 And then obviously in each of these 21 days,

15:13 you try and lay out answers to those questions

15:16 while helping men cultivate manly resilience

15:20 in those three areas, spiritual, mental and physical.

15:23 And I'm just so curious, where is all this coming from in you?

15:28 Who are you to put this together?

15:32 Where is this manly quest and spiritual quest coming from?

15:36 Right, put a face to it for us.

15:38 Who are you and why?

15:40 - Yeah, that's a really good way of phrasing the question.

15:43 It's, 'cause everyone that's on a manhood journey,

15:46 that's essentially everybody with a Y chromosome.

15:48 But beyond that, in modern society,

15:51 there's no declaration of when you become a man.

15:53 We live in the United States, in the West,

15:55 where there's no rights of passage.

15:56 There's not something, okay, once you go through this,

15:59 you are now considered to be a man,

16:00 you just kind of make it up on your own.

16:02 So in your head, maybe when you graduate high school,

16:04 the first time you have sex,

16:05 the first time you get a big boy job,

16:07 the first car you buy with your own money,

16:08 but those are all different reasons

16:10 for why we become a man.

16:11 But for me, what I will say is I became a Christian,

16:15 a follower of Christ when I was a sophomore in high school.

16:19 And so right around the time,

16:20 when I was trying to figure out what it meant to be a man,

16:23 I was also trying to figure out what it meant to be a Christian.

16:27 And what I've realized is those things are fairly divergent,

16:30 that there's not a whole lot of crossover.

16:33 And so what I notice is I tend to be a little bit more alpha

16:36 and more dominant in my personality.

16:38 I tend to surround myself with guys that are like that.

16:41 Athletes, Jiu Jitsu, practitioners, fighters,

16:43 those types of things.

16:45 And I would always get this tendency

16:47 when I would talk to some of these guys,

16:48 they would go to church.

16:49 And for whatever reason,

16:50 they felt like they had to make a choice.

16:52 And it was, I can either be a Christian or I can be a man,

16:55 but I can't be both.

16:57 And so that tension, that dichotomy,

17:00 was kind of just like in my soul

17:02 since I was like in my early 20s.

17:04 And so it's just something I've thought about a lot

17:07 and something I've talked to other people about a lot.

17:09 But it finally got to this point where call it,

17:12 God ordained, call it, meet, have an indigestion one day

17:15 and just making a decision that I was gonna do it.

17:17 I was like, I gotta do something about this

17:18 because I don't want this alpha type guy

17:21 to miss out on who Jesus is,

17:23 just because he goes to a church and sees all his followers.

17:26 And it's like, I don't wanna be one of these doe boys.

17:28 If this is what it means to be a Christian,

17:29 I'm gonna go do something else.

17:31 And unfortunately, even if they're wrong or right,

17:33 that doesn't matter.

17:34 The reality is guys have missed out on Jesus

17:37 because of the example that they've seen in his church.

17:39 And so what we're trying to do through undaunted life

17:42 with the help of God, with the help of the Holy Spirit,

17:44 with everything, is to change the dynamic

17:47 in guys' brains being like, no, no, no, no.

17:49 You can be alpha, you can be manly,

17:50 but you can also be a Christian.

17:53 And it has nothing to do with what you're into.

17:55 So if you've never hunted before,

17:56 that's not what I'm talking about.

17:57 If you don't drive a four-wheel drive truck, I don't care.

18:00 If you've never choked anybody out before

18:01 or been choked out yourself,

18:02 that's not what I'm talking about.

18:03 I'm not talking about what you like as a hobby.

18:05 I'm talking about do you cultivate

18:07 manly resilience on a daily basis?

18:09 Are you looking for opportunities

18:10 to cultivate your spiritual, mental, and physical resilience?

18:14 As long as there are guys willing to do that,

18:16 we're gonna continue to put stuff out.

18:18 - That's really amazing.

18:19 It actually kind of reminds me,

18:20 I was talking with a gentleman in a church

18:23 that I attended for a while and he was an FBI agent.

18:27 And you know, like a lot of men,

18:29 you notice when they first start coming

18:31 to a spiritual gathering or a church,

18:34 they start off in one of the front pews

18:37 or the front quarters of the church.

18:39 And you know, within a couple of years,

18:40 they're actually by the back.

18:42 And sometimes in the reception area outside they have,

18:45 unless they've been drafted into leadership

18:47 or are being paid to be there,

18:49 they are by the exits very shortly.

18:52 And I remember asking him, I was like,

18:54 what's going on with you, Mike?

18:55 And he's like, I feel like every Sunday I come here,

18:58 my bowls are being cut off.

19:01 - Yes, I mean, dude, that's probably the perfect.

19:03 He needs to like put that story on an Instagram post

19:07 or put that on YouTube or something

19:08 because what he's describing is the story

19:10 and the conversation that I've had

19:12 with so many different men.

19:14 Because, and I talk about this on my podcast,

19:16 episode number four, it's, you know,

19:18 we talked about a little bit off air,

19:19 but it's called Pussies and the Pews.

19:20 I kind of detail the history of the church

19:23 and how it became feminized.

19:25 Because during the, you know, 1800s and 1900s

19:29 in early 20th century, you see most

19:32 of the strong, virile men were operating outside

19:35 of the church.

19:36 Maybe they were at war during World War I, World War II,

19:39 Industrial Revolution sent a lot of those guys

19:41 into the factory or underground,

19:42 doing all these different kinds of things.

19:44 And so the only men that were left in the churches

19:46 were the old, the young, the weak and the stupid, right?

19:50 And so if you're, if you're one of those men left

19:53 and if you're the pastor, when the overwhelming majority

19:55 of the people doing anything in your church or female,

19:57 wouldn't it make sense that the sermon content

19:59 would get a little bit more towards the emotive side

20:03 of things?

20:04 Wouldn't the decorations become a little bit more feminine?

20:06 Wouldn't the singing, wouldn't the music,

20:09 even the lyrical content become a little bit

20:11 even more homo-erotic?

20:13 Sing about Jesus as if he's your boyfriend,

20:15 as opposed to being the conquering king,

20:16 the conquering lion of Judah.

20:19 We're singing about Tinkerbell Jesus on Sundays now.

20:22 And it's just like, you get these guys that they show up

20:25 in church and for whatever reason,

20:27 it's just like, their minds will be neon signs blinking.

20:30 This is not for you.

20:32 We didn't build this with you in mind.

20:35 And that's part of the thing is people ask me all the time,

20:38 how can the church fix this masculinity problem?

20:40 How can we get more men to volunteer?

20:42 For every one male volunteer, we have 10 women.

20:45 I was like, unfortunately, the church

20:46 isn't gonna be able to fix it

20:47 'cause the church caused the problem.

20:49 It's a parachurch thing.

20:50 It's something that's gonna happen outside the church

20:52 that infiltrates the church that's gonna change that.

20:55 But yeah, I mean, I feel for your buddy.

20:57 I absolutely feel for your buddy

20:58 and he's certainly not alone.

20:59 - I actually wanna go back to something you said

21:03 and it triggered a question in me.

21:06 Is it easier to be masculine without Christianity

21:10 in this culture?

21:11 - I think the caveat you added at the end

21:14 makes that a really easy question to answer.

21:16 In this culture, absolutely.

21:18 I think it is because here's the thing about it dude

21:20 and you know this to be the case.

21:22 Most masculinity on a cultural side

21:27 is caricature masculinity.

21:29 So it's what people would consider to be toxic masculinity.

21:33 It's smacking your secretary on the butt.

21:35 It's driving the truck, drinking the beer,

21:37 chasing the women, hunting.

21:39 It's when you think of caricature men, manhood type things,

21:42 growing a beer, like whatever the thing is,

21:44 that's what people think like, oh, that's what being a man is.

21:46 Yeah, and you got all the glorious,

21:48 I know you guys can't see his beard right now, but I can.

21:50 It's all kinds of glories

21:51 making me feel little for having a cropped one.

21:54 But that's the thing is,

21:56 it's very easy to live up to the cultural standards

21:58 because culture has cripplingly low expectations for men,

22:01 especially now.

22:03 And again, like talking about in the West

22:05 where we don't have rights of passage,

22:07 manhood is one of those things where people can say

22:09 at some point, you know what?

22:11 You're just not a man.

22:12 Like if you're a man and you run out on your wife

22:15 and leave with the secretary and you leave the kids

22:16 at home and all those types of things,

22:18 people are gonna be like, you know what?

22:19 You're not a man anymore.

22:20 That's not something a man would do.

22:22 We don't have a corollary for women.

22:24 When a girl becomes a woman,

22:26 that's more of a biological reality

22:28 of what's going on with her body

22:30 and her biological maturity

22:31 than it has to do with who she is as a person.

22:34 I mean, if a woman were to leave with the pool boy

22:37 and leave the husband and all the kids at home or something

22:39 like that, people are gonna be like,

22:40 well, you're just not a woman anymore.

22:42 Like, that's not something that would happen.

22:44 And so, yeah, I think it is much easier

22:47 to be a man outside the church

22:48 because when you go to church,

22:49 getting back to your question,

22:50 when you go to church,

22:51 how many people are talking about masculinity?

22:53 I mean, show up on Father's Day.

22:55 You're gonna get destroyed.

22:56 Like, you're gonna get ripped up one side and down the other

22:59 and you're gonna go to that once a year,

23:00 men's event at your church

23:02 where they're gonna tell you to,

23:03 "Man, up, brother, and we're gonna be there for you

23:05 "and we're gonna pray for you.

23:06 "We're gonna do all these different things.

23:08 "You get all super motivated."

23:09 And then nothing changes.

23:11 So you show up to church and there's no model.

23:13 No one's giving you a model.

23:15 This is what Christian manhood looks like.

23:17 This is what headship is.

23:19 This is how you are supposed to lead your wife.

23:21 This is how you're supposed to lead your family.

23:23 We don't get a lot of those lessons.

23:25 And if we do, we get it as an aside

23:27 inside of a sermon series built to tell us

23:29 how to better love ourselves or something like that.

23:32 And so it's just, it's something that

23:34 it's getting harder and harder to do within the church

23:36 because there's no concerted effort

23:37 or concerted message to give to the flock as it were.

23:41 - Yeah, or it strikes me that

23:42 because churches often aim to be relevant to culture.

23:46 They borrow the symbols of culture

23:49 and appropriate them to try and appeal

23:52 to any population that might come through their doors.

23:54 So, oh, we really wanna connect to men.

23:57 So what we're gonna do is we're gonna parade

23:58 some Harleys down through the front pews

24:02 and boy, that's really gonna firemen up

24:04 and then we're gonna get them to go to the barbecue later.

24:07 And like, as you said, that's not masculinity.

24:09 I mean, I love a motorcycle,

24:11 but that's not what makes a man a man, right?

24:14 - Well, I mean, I was about to ask you,

24:15 does stuff like that work on you?

24:18 - No, I mean, that's the thing that would be boring.

24:20 - Why does it work on you?

24:22 - Well, for one thing, I don't think

24:23 that we can simply borrow consumerism, right?

24:26 And have the concept of we simply need more and more stuff

24:31 to come to a place of soul, a deep soul, right?

24:34 And that's unfortunately, anytime I start to hear

24:36 that messaging that you simply need to buy more

24:39 in order to be more, I just turn off.

24:41 I mean, I'm done, I'm done with the conversation,

24:43 especially in a spiritual context.

24:45 I'm like coming to the mark.

24:47 - Yeah, I agree with you completely.

24:48 And it's funny you say the way you said it,

24:51 the church that, again, was the church that I attended

24:53 for a long time, the pastor, Craig Rochelle,

24:56 wrote this book called Fight.

24:57 And it was this very, very basic,

24:59 very read it in an hour men's book or something like that.

25:03 And I was super excited for it.

25:04 And there was a men's event mainly to launch his book,

25:07 but also to kind of get men together at the church.

25:10 And they had an MMA octagon on the stage.

25:14 And it was like, you know, red and black

25:16 and he's coming out in his shirts like extra tight that day.

25:20 And like, he brought his voice down another octave

25:22 and he's like, basically growling at everybody.

25:25 And it was just kind of like, all right.

25:26 Well, Craig's a manly dude.

25:28 Like anyone that knows Craig Rochelle, he is a manly dude.

25:30 He's not a fighter.

25:32 There were, I would say 95% of the people in that gym

25:36 never threw a punch at someone else's face

25:38 with ill intent in their entire lives.

25:41 But we had the symbol, right?

25:44 This symbol of the fighter in the books called Fight

25:47 and it's got a dude with his hands,

25:49 his knuckles wrapped and all that kind of stuff.

25:52 And it was like, okay, I get it from a marketing standpoint.

25:54 But it was like, that was the only men's event

25:56 the church did that entire year.

25:59 Was, hey, let's get together.

26:00 Let's get a little synopsis of his book.

26:02 Let's invite our friends.

26:03 There weren't any lives changed that day.

26:05 There weren't any guys that were like,

26:07 I was going one way.

26:08 Now I'm gonna go the other way entirely

26:10 because I read this book, because I saw the knuckles

26:12 on the screen, none of those things worked.

26:14 We had the symbols, but we didn't have any of the substance.

26:17 So what was it worth?

26:19 Yeah, you got the Harley's, that's great.

26:20 So now I get to smell exhaust while I'm trying to sit here

26:23 listening to your nonsense sermon.

26:25 But at the same time, it's not doing anything for me.

26:27 You know what I mean?

26:28 And most of the guys I think would agree

26:30 with you and I on that.

26:31 - When I think about Jesus, when I think about Christianity,

26:35 sometimes I wonder about that,

26:39 that word you used, substance.

26:41 And particularly within the conversation we're having,

26:44 I guess I'm wondering, what's the inherent crossover?

26:48 Why does a man need Christianity?

26:52 That may sound like such a basic intro question for you,

26:57 but I'm just really curious without theology,

27:00 without some kind of dogma, why does a man need Christianity

27:05 in his life?

27:07 - I would say he doesn't need Christianity.

27:08 He needs Jesus.

27:10 Because when you say someone needs Christianity,

27:12 you're also saying he needs the traditions of the church.

27:15 You're saying he needs, well, I was about to say

27:19 some almost sacrilegious.

27:20 And I don't want this to show up later

27:22 on someone else's vodka.

27:23 - I'll say this, yeah, I know, sorry, sorry.

27:26 So I caught myself, we're not gonna go there.

27:28 But the thing about it is, is men need Jesus.

27:31 Because Christianity is a description of a reality

27:37 of something that happened 2000 years ago.

27:39 They gave it a name so that you could call yourself

27:42 by that group, by that group title.

27:44 Again, people weren't even called Christians initially.

27:47 They were called followers of the way, right?

27:50 The initial reason why people ended up being called Christians,

27:53 it was almost like a slur.

27:55 Like, oh, those Christ followers, those Christians.

27:58 And so it wasn't a name that was created by Jesus.

28:02 His last name isn't Christ.

28:03 It's just kind of one of those deals

28:04 that people just kind of like picked up.

28:06 But most guys, they get lost.

28:08 Especially like a guy like me didn't grow up

28:09 in a family that went to church.

28:11 You know, you and I have very different backgrounds

28:13 in terms of where we came from

28:14 and where our theology came from and things like that.

28:16 Like, I couldn't imagine what it would have been like

28:18 growing up in a family where presumably the Bible was read

28:21 or mentioned or that you didn't have to blow the dust off

28:25 of it once a year to pretend on Easter that you gave a crap.

28:28 And so it was just a very different upbringing for me.

28:31 And so the thing about it is, I feel like guys so much,

28:35 especially if you're an achiever,

28:37 if you're like a, you know,

28:38 one of those achiever competitive mindset type folks,

28:41 you want that list of things that you can do

28:43 that'll make you a good whatever,

28:44 make you a good football player,

28:45 make you a good fighter, make you a good dad.

28:48 But they try to do the same thing with Christianity.

28:50 And then it becomes them just, you know,

28:52 circles jerking themselves, chasing their tails

28:54 would probably be a more appropriate way putting it.

28:55 But it's just kind of one of those deals like,

28:57 no, men, men don't need Christianity.

29:00 Like they need Christianity.

29:01 Like they need a hole in their head.

29:02 They need Jesus.

29:03 Yeah, they need the influence of the Holy Spirit in their life.

29:06 They need God.

29:07 They need, they need the triune God.

29:08 They don't, they don't need, you know,

29:11 traditions and things that have maybe not been passed down

29:15 effectively through time or something like that.

29:17 And I'm not talking about scripture.

29:18 So don't at me with any of your inerrancy issues here.

29:21 Guys, this isn't the appropriate way to do that.

29:24 But, but that's kind of what I would say to that man.

29:26 And, and I mean, even from your perspective,

29:28 I'm curious just since I didn't grow up in church

29:31 and presumably you were around the church a lot as a kid,

29:34 how does that same question of going through your dynamic

29:37 and your background, how would you answer that?

29:40 Yeah, first of all, that's not fair.

29:42 I'm here to, I'm here to ask questions.

29:44 I don't care, I'm talking about it on the end.

29:47 It is.

29:48 We're in the octagon now.

29:49 Okay.

29:50 No.

29:51 Good thing we're not in the same room.

29:52 It'd probably be bad for me.

29:54 No, I mean, that's a great question.

29:55 You know, I, it's so interesting hearing what you're saying.

29:59 And it reminds me of the stones,

30:01 the rolling stones and the Beatles.

30:04 So arguably the Beatles are the definition

30:08 of what the outer limits of rock could be, right?

30:12 Like Eleanor Rigby is a string quartet

30:16 and yet it is a quintessential rock song.

30:18 The, the Beatles though, they grew up dirt poor.

30:23 They were commoners.

30:24 They were working class dudes.

30:26 And yet they are the, the elegant statesmen of rock, right?

30:30 The outer limits.

30:31 Meanwhile, you have the rolling stones

30:33 who grew up literally, you know,

30:36 silver spoons in their mouth, totally privileged.

30:39 And yet when you listen to their music,

30:41 they are rough and tumble.

30:43 They are the streets.

30:44 They are the very core of rock and roll.

30:46 So it's so interesting how you can have an upbringing

30:49 that is one way and end up in a completely different trajectory.

30:53 So I mean, hearing you talk, you're far more fundamentalist

30:56 than I am in many ways.

30:57 And we can actually talk about this

30:59 'cause you do have some interesting outliers

31:01 on your, your book list, which I do wanna ask you about.

31:04 But, but I think just in general,

31:07 I think probably you are far more core than I am.

31:12 And yet it sounds like you had a very different upbringing

31:14 in the sense that you weren't in that core.

31:16 You weren't in that place.

31:18 As you said though, I grew up very, very traditional.

31:20 My family was very, very conservative.

31:22 My father was a tele evangelist.

31:24 I saw the lower 48 United States

31:26 from the backseat of a station wagon

31:27 while he preached the gospel all around the country.

31:30 And I think it has produced in me a wandering soul.

31:34 You know, I've gone to all these different continents

31:36 in search of ascended masters just to try

31:38 and find something of substance.

31:40 So I think in answer to your question,

31:42 I think for me, do men need Christianity?

31:49 I think there is something essential about what you said

31:52 about Jesus.

31:53 I think to me, he is the ultimate rewilder, right?

31:56 I feel like we've lost something within civilization.

32:00 We've lost something and whether we lost that at the fall

32:03 or whether we lost that when we invented agriculture

32:05 or whatever it was, we lost something along the way,

32:07 something wild and primal.

32:08 When I read Jesus, I read it and I go,

32:11 holy [inaudible], this guy is pointing to a different way

32:13 of living a way that is, is hard to sit with

32:17 if you're the powers that be.

32:19 It's hard to sit with unless you allow yourself

32:21 to be transformed from the inside out

32:23 and you instantly begin to challenge

32:25 the systems when you do.

32:27 And that's really interesting to me.

32:29 And for me, I find that terribly counter-cultural.

32:31 I find that terribly aggressive, assertive

32:35 and often much more dominant than people wish he were.

32:39 - Absolutely, the thing about it is,

32:41 is you describe something maybe unintentionally there

32:44 that I think is so key.

32:46 You use the word aggressive, counter-cultural,

32:49 fighting against power to describe Jesus.

32:52 Now, if you walk into a modern church,

32:55 every time I go and speak in front of a group of guys,

32:57 I tend to ask this question out of curiosity,

33:00 but the answers are always the same.

33:02 I say, raise your hand if in the last year,

33:05 your pastor at your chosen church,

33:07 which we're talking to guys that are Catholic, Protestant,

33:09 spread out through all kinds of denominations,

33:12 raise your hand if you have heard your pastor

33:13 mention the Lamb of God.

33:16 Every single hand goes up.

33:17 - Totally.

33:18 - I say, hands down.

33:20 Raise your hand if in the last year,

33:22 your pastor has mentioned the Lion of Judah.

33:25 One, two, out of a room of 50 to 100.

33:30 So you have Jesus who is 100% Lamb of God

33:35 and also 100% Lion of Judah.

33:38 And the thing about it is,

33:40 is we don't talk about the Lion of Judah.

33:42 That's why our logo is a lion.

33:43 That's why I sign off every podcast,

33:46 keep seeking the Lion of Judah.

33:47 And that's not because the Lamb's not important.

33:50 It's that if you worship at the altar of the Lamb,

33:51 you're worshiping an incomplete ideal of who Jesus is.

33:55 So it says in scripture that Jesus came full of grace and truth.

33:59 We assume fullness in terms of if we're looking at a cup.

34:03 So if I had two pictures, I'm gonna pour in 50% truth

34:07 and then 50% grace, right?

34:09 And then we get 100% Jesus.

34:11 No, no, no.

34:12 He was 100% grace and 100% truth.

34:15 He was 100% of both.

34:17 But most people don't think of Jesus as a man's man.

34:20 They don't think of him as somebody that was speaking truth

34:23 to power or whatever sort of like trope you wanna throw out there.

34:26 They don't think of it in terms of that.

34:28 And so especially if you're an alpha,

34:30 if you're a type of guy that follows strength,

34:32 if strength beget strength inside of your mindset,

34:35 then that's something that you're drawn towards.

34:37 But no one wants to follow a boyfriend Jesus, Tinkerbell Jesus.

34:40 They wanna follow this version of Jesus

34:42 such as Cute Cuddly and easy to talk about.

34:45 But that's why modern pastors don't like talking

34:47 about the line of Judah 'cause he's unpredictable.

34:49 He's scary, he's aggressive.

34:51 He's the guy that went through a premeditated form

34:54 of aggression whenever he turned over the tables

34:56 in the temple for the money changers

34:58 and then the people that were selling doves

34:59 and things like that, there is no indication

35:02 that Jesus showed up to that temple with a whip.

35:06 But we see a description of him driving the money changers

35:09 out of the temple with the whip.

35:10 What does that mean?

35:11 That means Jesus left when found a whip

35:15 or when made one and came back.

35:17 It was premeditated, righteous aggression.

35:20 Why don't we talk about that enough, right?

35:22 There are times-- - He lost his [inaudible]

35:24 in that moment. (laughing)

35:26 - Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

35:27 But I mean, it's even kind of what you said earlier

35:29 whenever you brought up them a little bit

35:30 more fundamentalist, I'm linear.

35:33 I'm very linear in my brain.

35:34 I tend to be black and white on issues.

35:36 So that's why, politically, if you give me an issue,

35:39 I'm probably gonna fall starkly on one side or the other.

35:42 Like we mentioned off air about abortion.

35:44 There's not an argument on the planet earth

35:46 that someone could give me.

35:47 That would be like, you know what?

35:49 That's okay, we should probably kill that baby

35:51 in your stomach.

35:51 You know what, you're right.

35:53 You don't have enough money to support this baby.

35:54 It's definitely better to be dead than it is to be poor.

35:57 You're right, let's kill the thing.

35:58 Like, you're just not gonna find that.

35:59 And so I think for me, just within my personality,

36:02 I tend to be more linear.

36:04 And so I didn't have this crazy, you know,

36:06 I had a needle jammed into my arm

36:08 and I was trying to, you know, overdose moment

36:11 and then the sky's parted and Jesus came down

36:13 and took the needle out of my arm.

36:14 I didn't have one of those experiences, [inaudible].

36:17 I know, that would have been a whole lot better

36:18 for your podcast.

36:19 But, you know, it was just a Sunday night

36:21 Hellfire and Brimstone guest pastor that, you know,

36:24 came and did something.

36:25 I was like, man, I don't wanna go to hell.

36:26 That sounds terrible.

36:27 But then as I became, you know, more familiar

36:30 with Christianity, I realized that this is a thinking,

36:32 thinking man's religion.

36:34 There's just a bunch of men that don't think within it.

36:36 There's a bunch of men that just are like,

36:38 ah, you know, I don't really know why,

36:41 but the Bible says so or my pastor says so.

36:43 So that's what I believe.

36:44 It's like, no, no, no.

36:45 So many of the things that we believe are backed up

36:47 by history, archeology, you know,

36:51 writings by secular historians at the time.

36:54 And so without getting on another diatribe

36:56 about something else entirely,

36:58 that's probably why I tend to be a little bit more concrete

37:01 and fundamentalist.

37:02 But man, it's just most guys don't even think about thinking.

37:06 So it's hard to even have that conversation

37:08 with a lot of them.

37:09 - Well, speaking of thinking about thinking,

37:11 I gotta ask you about some of your books.

37:13 I mean, this--

37:13 - All right, let's go.

37:14 Let's do it.

37:15 - So if I had to look at your book list,

37:18 I would read three sort of imperatives.

37:23 I would take away three imperatives.

37:26 Be Christian, don't be Muslim, don't be gay.

37:32 So I'm curious, what from your personal world

37:35 draws you to titles like that

37:37 that leaves me walking away with those thoughts?

37:39 - Well, for the record, for everyone else listening,

37:42 none of the books are titled those things.

37:44 So trying to back me into a corner here.

37:48 All right, let me just kind of tease it out a little bit.

37:50 So part of the thing about cultivating mental resilience,

37:53 which is something that we talk about a lot,

37:55 is that you have to read.

37:57 And people are like, okay, it's gotta be more complicated.

37:58 And that's like, no, it doesn't.

38:00 You just need to read books.

38:01 I don't care how many, I don't care how fast,

38:03 I don't care how big they are, you need to read books.

38:05 And so a lot of guys would ask me, hey, you know,

38:08 what books should I read, which one should I start with?

38:09 And I would kind of give them the same two or three,

38:11 but I was like, man, what if I gave a guy a suggestion

38:15 about a leadership book and an apologetics book,

38:17 but he was really into philosophy or survivalism

38:20 or money or whatever the thing,

38:21 then I basically just gave him something

38:23 he wasn't interested in.

38:24 So I started to, this is how I cultivated that book list.

38:29 Books that I had read myself that I got a lot out of,

38:32 even books that I didn't like,

38:34 that I knew other people would get a lot of things out of.

38:37 But then I messaged probably two dozen

38:40 of some of my closest guy friends that I knew

38:42 were thinkers and got their lists.

38:44 Like what are the books that every man should read?

38:47 And what it ended up becoming was the hundred books

38:50 that every modern Christian man should read list.

38:52 And the thing about some of the titles

38:55 is I think I even put it at the top of the website,

38:57 I can't remember, there's like a little warning,

38:59 like, hey, not all of these come from a Christian worldview.

39:02 I don't agree with every single word

39:04 and every single idea and all of these things.

39:06 But there is a book called "Washed and Waiting"

39:08 by Wesley Hill, and this is a guy who is a non-pract,

39:12 yeah, yeah, he's a non-practicing homosexual theologian.

39:17 This is a guy who has only been same-sex attracted.

39:19 He never had an attraction to women

39:21 under any circumstances whatsoever,

39:23 but long story short, this is a guy

39:25 that for the sake of Christ is going to deny

39:27 his homoerotic tendencies and desires

39:32 so that he can serve Christ.

39:33 This was a decision that he made.

39:35 That book challenged me so much

39:38 because I was an ignorant kid when I read that book

39:41 and I still use the word [inaudible].

39:43 I thought it was still something

39:44 that I use in normal everyday vernacular,

39:46 which is a very offensive and dirty term.

39:49 But I even did a podcast episode a few months ago

39:51 called "Wise Stop Using the Word [inaudible]."

39:54 That book is the reason why.

39:56 And so this wasn't some sort of book like,

39:58 hey, read this if you're a homo

39:59 and this is gonna fix you.

40:01 Like it wasn't one of those things.

40:02 It was like, man, if there was a guy in my life

40:05 that was same-sex attracted,

40:07 he would never think to come and talk to me about it

40:10 because I'm the guy that uses the f-word, right?

40:12 I'm the guy that just throws that around

40:14 and calls his friends that and calls guys on TV that.

40:17 And so that was a book that really, really changed,

40:19 changed my point of view on something like that.

40:22 But also you mentioned the Islam one.

40:24 There's two books on there by Nabil Khureshi

40:26 who has since passed away.

40:28 But this was a perspective.

40:30 One was more of a research and history book.

40:33 One was more of an autobiography of Nabil's life.

40:36 But this was a guy that grew up as a Muslim

40:39 and was a super devout Muslim

40:40 and his entire life was dedicated

40:41 to converting others non-violently.

40:44 But then the first book kind of talks about his conversion

40:47 and how he felt like Jesus was like after him almost.

40:50 And then the second book kind of draws the dichotomy

40:52 between what Christians believe,

40:54 what Muslims believe and what's actually true or not.

40:57 And those books are so important.

40:59 And the biggest reason why I included those in the book list

41:01 is because pastors don't like talking

41:03 about fundamentalist Islam.

41:05 So how many churches can you go into

41:07 whether they're reformed or Presbyterian or whatever,

41:09 where they're gonna talk about fundamentalist Islam,

41:11 they're gonna talk about the things

41:12 that are said in the night, Surah.

41:14 What the concept of abrogation means

41:16 whenever you're talking about that.

41:19 What is the difference between the Quran and the Habith?

41:22 There's so many things that Christians are ignorant on

41:24 and that is the number one thing on the planet

41:25 I can't stand is ignorance.

41:27 And so that's why a lot of those things were on there.

41:30 And again, I'm unapologetic

41:31 that this is a Christian men's ministry.

41:33 And so this is the 100 books

41:35 that every modern Christian man should read list.

41:37 But if you're a non-theist

41:38 and we've got a lot that listen to our podcast

41:40 and that like listening to some of the things I have to say,

41:42 they kind of tune me out when I start going

41:44 all Jesus hands on them.

41:45 And that's completely fine

41:46 'cause they're still gonna get some value out of that.

41:48 'Cause there's a lot of books on there

41:50 like I 48 laws of power.

41:51 That is not a Christian book whatsoever.

41:53 Like that, but that's one of the most incredible books

41:56 that anybody can read

41:57 'cause you're gonna get major doses of history,

41:59 major doses of philosophy.

42:01 It's gonna challenge your brain in such an extreme way.

42:04 And so the book list is always growing

42:07 and it's always expand.

42:07 It's not growing.

42:08 It's gonna stay at 100, but it's always changing.

42:10 I've taken books off.

42:11 Initially that I was like,

42:12 ah, what a stupid book.

42:14 Why did I put that on there to begin with?

42:15 - Well, you take off.

42:15 I gotta hear it.

42:16 What'd you take off?

42:17 - Oh gosh, there were a couple of novels

42:19 just because I don't tend to read too many novels.

42:21 I think one of them was Think and Grow Rich.

42:24 - Oh yeah, yeah.

42:25 - And to be fair, that is not a book I had read,

42:28 but it had been recommended to me

42:29 by several of the dudes on my list.

42:31 'Cause there's still some books on that list

42:32 I'm getting to myself.

42:34 'Cause it's not my list.

42:35 It's our list, I guess is the best way that you can say it.

42:38 But at the same time, I kind of realized

42:40 that that was like the secret, but for money, right?

42:44 I'm gonna like put positive vibes out into the universe

42:47 and then the universe is gonna rain down nickels on me.

42:50 And I'll be, so it was like,

42:51 it was a very wushu, [inaudible] type of thing

42:54 and I just wasn't really into that.

42:57 So there's a couple of books like that.

42:58 But then there's other books that I'm like,

43:00 man, that's a solid one and I'm trying to think of one.

43:02 Actually, I got my computer right here in front of me.

43:03 I'll be able to tell you here in just a second

43:05 some of the ones that we've deleted.

43:06 But it's not because it wasn't like, oh my gosh,

43:10 I can't believe I put that out there.

43:11 That's gonna be embarrassing for later.

43:13 But I think there was a Howard Zinn book on history.

43:16 - Oh yeah.

43:17 - Yeah, what was it called?

43:18 - People's history of the United States.

43:20 - Yep, that's the one.

43:21 So I'll, okay, I got the list of all four books

43:24 that I've taken off.

43:25 So People's History of the United States was on there

43:27 and rolled off Healing the Masculine Soul by Gordon Dalby.

43:32 I took that one off.

43:34 - Interesting.

43:35 - John Maxwell, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

43:37 To be honest with you, I'd never been a John Maxwell fan,

43:41 but I had a couple of guys suggest that book.

43:43 But John Maxwell has written the same book 74 times.

43:47 And so I was like, I just can't,

43:49 I thought about leaving it on there

43:50 'cause I was like, okay, you could read this one

43:51 and get the general synopsis of everything.

43:53 And then the last one was Think and Grow Rich.

43:56 But you know, those are still books

43:57 that I would encourage people to read.

43:59 I mean, it's not like, oh my gosh,

44:00 we got to like whitewash our Instagram

44:02 of everything that we've ever mentioned

44:04 when it comes to that book.

44:04 But the thing about it is, is you're not,

44:07 if you're a dude and you go to my book list

44:09 and you don't find anything interesting,

44:10 there's not anything wrong with us,

44:11 there's something wrong with you.

44:12 - Yeah, I like to say about my library.

44:15 If you don't, I have a book that should offend

44:18 and challenge every single person in there.

44:21 No matter who you are,

44:22 there should be at least one book

44:23 that offends and challenges you.

44:25 - Well, that's the same thing,

44:26 is you strike me as a guy that is okay

44:29 with a little bit of dissonance.

44:31 And so, you know, I've got a group of guys as an example,

44:35 they get together on Sunday nights.

44:36 And we call it Fight Club,

44:38 but basically it's a glorified book club

44:40 where we have a book where we get together,

44:42 we read it on our own,

44:43 but then we come together and talk about it.

44:44 Then we do a circuit workout and then we train Jiu-Jitsu.

44:47 Most of the guys in there don't have a Jiu-Jitsu background,

44:49 they don't have a wrestling background,

44:51 but this is the only male community they have.

44:53 They don't have their fraternity anymore.

44:55 They don't have the military anymore.

44:56 They don't have the last football team they played on.

44:58 They have us, right?

44:59 And it's 12 to 15 guys every Sunday.

45:01 And it goes really well.

45:04 Right now we're reading a book called Why Evolution is True.

45:07 Pretty much everyone in that room

45:10 is a creationist Christian.

45:12 But we're reading this book written by a guy

45:15 who's, you know, being touted as, you know,

45:17 he's one of the great, you know,

45:20 biological humanists, authors, naturalists,

45:22 whatever you would consider themselves to be.

45:24 And so here we are reading this book,

45:26 but we're not reading it from the perspective

45:28 of how can we destroy this book?

45:30 And the next time we get into a conversation

45:31 with a biologist,

45:32 how can we tell him this idea of stupid?

45:35 It's like, he's got something to teach us in there.

45:37 Even if, even if the majority of it's hogwash

45:40 or not fully thought out or not fully described

45:43 or backed or whatever, who cares?

45:45 We're gonna learn something from that.

45:47 And so we're constantly expanding ourselves.

45:49 We're not just, you know, this echo chamber.

45:51 We're not just in there reading CS Lewis

45:53 and Ravi Zacharias.

45:54 Like we're in there actually trying

45:55 to expand our knowledge base.

45:57 - Which I love that you quoted or rather

45:59 that you just referenced CS Lewis.

46:01 The thought that came to mind as you were talking is,

46:04 Lewis's quote that all truth is God's truth.

46:07 And if that is true,

46:08 then you don't have to actually be scared of truth, right?

46:11 You don't have to be scared of facts

46:13 or those kinds of things.

46:14 I think a lot of faith-based,

46:16 whether it's Christian or not, it could also be atheists.

46:19 But a lot of people who are very faith-based

46:21 in their approach to the world tend to be scared of facts.

46:26 They tend to be scared of truth, right?

46:29 Because it offends their convictions.

46:32 I think it's a dangerous place to be a love

46:33 that you're actually helping challenge men's lives

46:36 on this.

46:38 Talking about CS Lewis, you know,

46:39 Lewis is someone who struggled an awful lot in life.

46:42 And I think some of those things have come up

46:44 in recent biographies.

46:46 Sexuality was certainly a big part of his life,

46:49 which has been hidden for many years

46:51 and has come out in recent years.

46:53 I'm curious, just talking to you.

46:55 Well, oh, Cormac McCarthy, "The Road."

47:00 That's a book on your list, isn't it?

47:02 Yep, I read that.

47:04 I was a first-time father when it first came out.

47:07 And man, I just sobbed.

47:11 I sobbed as a father.

47:12 It was so hard to read for me.

47:15 I'm so challenging.

47:17 I'm curious if you could talk about some of your struggles

47:20 as a father and some of your experience as a father,

47:23 just navigating this world.

47:25 'Cause I wanna know you as a person beyond ideas, right?

47:29 How has this impacted you?

47:31 Yeah, "The Road," I mean, brutal book, brutal concept.

47:36 And just so, up to this point,

47:39 my wife and I, we will have been married 10 years in May

47:42 of this year.

47:43 We don't have any kids yet.

47:44 Oh, you don't have kids, okay, yeah.

47:45 Now, but your question still stands and this is why.

47:50 My wife and I, we recently lost our second baby.

47:55 And it's one of those deals where the first time it happened,

47:58 we didn't really know how to deal with it,

47:59 how to talk with anybody about it.

48:01 At this time, we've obviously told more people about it,

48:04 even though it still is private-ish here.

48:06 I am talking about it on the interwebs.

48:08 But the thing about it is,

48:09 is I've had the mindset of a father for a very long time.

48:13 I just have lacked the experience, right?

48:15 And so, I'm constantly thinking of ways

48:18 that I can make myself, put myself in a better position.

48:21 One of the reasons why I'm so excited at the idea

48:24 of having a son is so I can make up rights of passage, right?

48:29 So that starting at the age of 12,

48:31 doing something once a year,

48:33 leading this young man to the age of 18,

48:36 with some sort of culminating event,

48:38 where he knows that there's something that he's accomplished,

48:42 that he has developed himself.

48:44 Because as much as I love my dad, I didn't have that, right?

48:46 My parents got divorced when I was 13,

48:48 not that big a deal happens to half of us.

48:50 But it was one of those things my dad was taking away

48:52 during a very pivotal part of my life,

48:54 and I didn't get to see him very much.

48:56 And so, he did the best he could,

48:57 but his dad was taken away from him bodily

49:01 when he was 13, 'cause he was killed by a drunk driver

49:04 in a car that he was supposed to be in.

49:06 And so, at the same time, he was trying to learn

49:08 how to become a man, you know, he didn't have a dad.

49:11 He had no one to look up to.

49:13 And at the same age for me, my dad was still alive,

49:16 but I didn't get to see him very much.

49:17 And so, a lot of that in terms of how you are a father

49:21 and how you don't on other people,

49:24 it's such an important thing,

49:26 because the one commonality that I get from every dad

49:29 I talk to is you thought you couldn't love something

49:33 anymore than what you do, and then you have a kid.

49:35 And it's like, you never thought you had it in you

49:38 to be violent until you see your baby girl,

49:41 or something like that, to where you just pull out

49:43 all these scenarios out of your butt of,

49:45 okay, what if a dude did this?

49:47 How many of his fingernails would I pull up

49:49 before I let him die?

49:50 Like that type of a thing goes into your brain.

49:52 But for me, fatherhood is something

49:55 that I'm very much so looking forward to

49:56 if my wife and I are, are able to do that,

49:59 because it's such an intentional lifestyle.

50:02 You can be an accidental father,

50:04 and you might accidentally raise someone

50:06 who's not a convict.

50:07 But at the same time, if you're doting on the kids,

50:10 if you're involved in the kids' lives,

50:11 the odds that they're gonna abuse drugs,

50:13 the odds of them getting a girl knocked up,

50:15 or getting knocked up themselves,

50:17 the odds of them dropping out of school,

50:18 the odds of them committing a crime and going to jail,

50:21 they go down to an extreme degree

50:23 when dad's just around.

50:25 He doesn't even have to be a good dad.

50:26 He just has to be around.

50:27 Most of the statistics are just if dad's in the house,

50:30 not if dad's any good.

50:32 And so just the thought of being able to have that level

50:35 of impact on a human being is something that's really exciting.

50:39 - Yeah, and I'm hearing in your story,

50:40 some of these threads that come together

50:42 in that devotional, I guess you've written too,

50:45 but particularly that devotional tagline

50:48 that really spoke to me as far as cultivating

50:51 manly resilience, you've experienced resilience in your life.

50:54 - Yeah, that's the thing I try to tell people is,

50:59 I don't feel like I have an extreme story.

51:01 Like I've got buddies that, you know,

51:02 were gang enforcers in Chicago

51:05 and fighters on hockey teams that one day,

51:07 you know, literally Jesus snatched them up, right?

51:11 It wasn't like, oh, come close to me

51:12 and maybe we can talk.

51:13 It was like, you're gonna be my son now.

51:15 It was just a different situation.

51:17 I didn't live a very hard life.

51:19 I never went hungry.

51:20 I never went without.

51:21 I got most of the things that I wanted

51:23 in every single thing that I needed,

51:24 but there's a reason why we chose the word resilience

51:28 and why resilience is a common thread in everything.

51:31 And the reason is,

51:31 is because most people like to use the word strength.

51:34 And so this is an example I use all the time,

51:37 so, but maybe your listeners haven't heard it this way.

51:39 So half Thor Bjornsson,

51:41 he's the mountain from the show Game of Thrones,

51:43 he is currently the world's strongest man.

51:46 This is how we know.

51:47 He won the last two Arnold classics.

51:49 He won the last world's strongest man competition

51:51 and the last European strong,

51:53 Europe's strongest man competition.

51:55 Those are the three biggest strong man competitions

51:57 on the planet earth.

51:58 Well, the Arnold classic was about a month ago.

52:00 He set the world record for elephant bar deadlift

52:03 over 1100 pounds.

52:05 He's trying to break the all time deadlift record,

52:08 which I think would be 501 kilograms,

52:10 which is 1100 something something pounds.

52:13 Anyway, here's the reason,

52:14 here's the point for the story.

52:16 The day after the Arnold classic,

52:18 half Thor Bjornsson was not the strongest man

52:21 in the world.

52:23 His body was broken down.

52:25 He had had to compete at this insanely high level.

52:28 The day after the Arnold classic,

52:29 there was somebody else on the planet that was stronger,

52:32 without fail, 100%, right?

52:34 But here's the thing about strength,

52:37 is strength will leave us.

52:38 Father time is undefeated.

52:39 I guarantee you that 20 years from now,

52:42 half Thor Bjornsson will not be competing

52:43 in the Arnold classic, much less winning it, right?

52:46 There will be someone else that is the strongest man.

52:48 Someone else will break the deadlift record.

52:50 It's gonna happen.

52:51 But resilience is something that you can have forever.

52:55 The ability to be able to bounce back.

52:57 And so we normally think about that

52:58 in terms of physicality.

53:00 So when you're 20 years old and you roll your ankle,

53:03 versus when you're 60 years old and roll your ankle,

53:05 you can bounce back pretty fast when you're 20,

53:06 but when you're 60, you got some other things

53:08 you got to consider.

53:09 You're not just gonna be able to bounce back.

53:11 But the same is true about our mentality,

53:13 what's going on mentally.

53:14 And the same is true spiritually.

53:15 'Cause I know guys that lose their jobs,

53:18 and all of a sudden they're questioning about whether or not God exists.

53:21 And a guy like me, I'm gonna be like, bro,

53:23 if you'd gotten raised as God like super exists,

53:26 all of a sudden, is that the continuum that you're living on?

53:29 Because he wasn't spiritually or mentally resilient.

53:32 He didn't have that ability to bounce back.

53:34 Everyone gets calluses on their hands when they work out,

53:37 whenever they cut down trees or work out with a barbell.

53:40 What about callusing your mind?

53:41 What about callusing your spirit to where something goes

53:44 not according to plan as if Genesis, post-Genesis 3 world

53:49 is the actual world that we live in?

53:50 Are you prepared to be resilient?

53:52 Are you prepared to be the one person in your life

53:55 that everybody else can depend on?

53:57 I mean, say people have good and bad

53:59 that they like to say about Jordan Peterson,

54:01 but there's a massive concept that Jordan Peterson talks about a lot,

54:04 which is be the man that everybody depends on

54:07 at your father's funeral.

54:09 And it's just like, think about if you've got a good relationship

54:13 with your dad and he dies,

54:15 and think about what you would have to go through

54:17 to be the number one most dependable person

54:20 during that time period.

54:21 You have to be resilient.

54:23 There's not another option at that point.

54:25 So that's a lot about why I put myself

54:28 in tough situations physically, mentally, and spiritually.

54:31 I try to read books that are five to 10%

54:33 beyond my mental capability of understanding.

54:36 I try to, when I compete here in a couple of hours,

54:38 I'll be on a jiu-jitsu mat with guys that are more athletic,

54:41 stronger, and more experienced than I am.

54:43 And those are the guys that I'm going to seek out.

54:45 I'm not going to go seek out a bunch of busters

54:47 that I can smoke all day long.

54:48 I want to continuously push myself.

54:51 And maybe it's because I'm a lunatic,

54:52 but maybe there's some benefit behind it as well.

54:55 - Why are lunatic or the son of God?

54:57 Is this what's happened?

54:59 Sorry. - I don't know.

55:00 It's possible, it's certainly possible.

55:02 - Dude, this is my complaint about the name of your podcast,

55:05 that episode four about the Pussies and the Pews,

55:07 because here's the deal.

55:09 Like the Pussy is so resilient, sorry, I recorded a podcast.

55:14 - I did not comment for anybody that was expecting a comment,

55:18 but I will be honest, I did laugh.

55:20 I got to be honest with you, I did laugh when that was said.

55:22 - It's just my push back against that horrible aphorism.

55:26 I'm just like, yes, I think there's,

55:28 we've got to come up with a better insult

55:30 that actually is more anatomically true.

55:31 That's all, that's all I'm saying.

55:32 - We did it for you.

55:33 We did it specifically for this exact moment.

55:36 This is a culminating event here.

55:38 We're such a time as this, for sure.

55:41 I mean, it's interesting talking about this

55:43 because one of the things that it brings up for me

55:46 is the presence of the book The Prince by Machiavelli

55:50 on your list.

55:51 And when I read that, there's a big part of me,

55:56 and I'm very familiar with that book,

55:58 there's a big part of me that wonders,

55:59 how does this square with the way of Jesus?

56:01 How does the prince, I mean, is this the way of the slime in?

56:04 Is this the way of the serpent that Jesus also said

56:07 you needed to be shrewd at, or just tell me,

56:09 I'm curious how does that line up?

56:11 - So the prince being on that book,

56:15 or being on that book list rather,

56:17 it has a lot more to do with how that certain book

56:20 can be applied than the fact that it's just a classic.

56:24 Because you're gonna be hard pressed to find many book lists,

56:27 whether it's 10 books or 25 books or 100 books for men

56:31 where the prince is not on there.

56:32 - Totally.

56:33 - It's a classic, it's a political classic.

56:34 If you're politically minded, it's a psychological classic,

56:38 it's a philosophy classic, it's all those different things,

56:40 philosophical classic.

56:41 But at the end of the day,

56:43 the reason why the prince is on there

56:45 is the same reason why Robert Greene's

56:47 the 48 Laws of Power is on there.

56:49 Because if you better understand how to manipulate people,

56:53 I think it's easier for you to understand why you shouldn't

56:56 if you have a Christian worldview.

56:59 So Machiavelli is very much so about deception, right?

57:04 That's why Tupac's dead because he wrote a song

57:06 about Machiavelli and he's deceiving everybody,

57:08 he's on the island somewhere.

57:09 Like that's the whole thing surrounding him.

57:10 Even though Machiavelli is so much deeper than that,

57:13 as a political thinker and the things he was able

57:17 to accomplish and the reason why we still know his name,

57:19 I shouldn't even know how to pronounce that,

57:21 much less like be able to remember it,

57:23 you know what I mean?

57:23 But at the same time, it's the same thing that you would say

57:27 is think about if you exercise.

57:29 So I look back on exercises I did five years ago

57:32 and I'm like, why did I ever do that?

57:34 What a stupid exercise.

57:35 That was bad for my body.

57:36 It didn't give me the gains that I wanted, blah, blah, blah.

57:38 I'm smarter now, I know better.

57:40 But it's because I know better that I can be better, right?

57:43 And so if you have a Christian worldview

57:45 and you're looking at things through a Christian lens

57:47 and you are unlike the American government

57:49 in that you do use the gospel as a lens through which

57:52 you do decision making and you do planning

57:54 or whatever way you wanna describe it,

57:56 knowing the way that people think is beneficial for you.

58:00 Like just think about it, we live in a culture

58:02 that doesn't look at dialogue in the way

58:05 that it did one generation ago.

58:07 Everybody has to run to their side of the aisle, right?

58:11 Whether that's political, whether that's personal,

58:13 whether that's, I like this team, you like that team.

58:15 So we hate each other.

58:16 Like whatever it is. - Very identical.

58:18 - Absolutely, absolutely.

58:19 But the thing about it is is understanding

58:21 comes in the middle, right?

58:23 And so I love sitting down, having cordial conversations

58:27 with people that vehemently disagree with me.

58:30 There's a buddy of mine that he and I,

58:31 the last time he and I got together,

58:33 we hung out for three hours.

58:34 We drank whiskey and we disagreed about everything.

58:37 We disagreed about theism, about abortion,

58:40 about immigration, about politics in general,

58:44 about certain candidates, about movies,

58:45 about music, about everything.

58:47 There are like very few areas of crossover

58:50 where he and I get along.

58:51 But the whole time we're talking,

58:52 even whenever he got so offended by me

58:54 and I got so offended by him,

58:56 we knew we were gonna shake hands

58:57 and leave that bar as friends.

58:59 And that's exactly what we did.

59:00 We shook hands, hugged.

59:01 And we just laughed about it the next time we saw each other

59:04 because there was productive dialogue

59:06 all throughout that conversation

59:08 and it caused both of us to think even days and weeks

59:11 after the conversation ended, right?

59:13 And so books like The Prince and 48 Laws of Power

59:17 and Meditations and all these different books,

59:20 they're gonna force you to look at different parts

59:23 of who you are and examine whether or not

59:26 you could physically or mentally do that to somebody.

59:29 That is the number one overriding thing.

59:30 I mean, if you don't sell like 10 copies

59:32 of the 48 Laws of Power, just based off this podcast,

59:34 I mean, I should get a dollar for every time

59:36 I mentioned it at least, come on, Robert Green.

59:39 The whole time, that book is a roller coaster,

59:41 no matter what your worldview is.

59:43 If you think we're highly evolved monkeys

59:44 that wear pants and communicate with each other

59:46 using words, like, or if you're, you know,

59:49 a Theus in the earth is only 6,000 years old,

59:51 you're gonna read through that book and be like,

59:54 oh, that's a really good point.

59:56 And I could have closed that deal like a month ago

59:59 if I had just like mentally ninjaed this guy,

1:00:02 but I didn't do it.

1:00:03 But if I had known Dan, what I know now, would I have done it?

1:00:07 I mean, it's a call you on the carpet type of thing.

1:00:09 That's why we include stuff like that on the list.

1:00:12 - What I love about what you're detailing

1:00:15 in your approach to not only the book list,

1:00:17 but your approach to life that I'm hearing

1:00:21 is you expose yourself to difficult situations

1:00:25 or challenging situations to build your toughness.

1:00:30 Is that right?

1:00:32 Is that something you do aggressively?

1:00:34 - I think that's a fair assessment

1:00:36 of kind of what I like to do,

1:00:39 because at the end of the day,

1:00:41 I don't get extra bonus points

1:00:42 for beating people I should already beat, right?

1:00:45 So think about it just in terms of a jujitsu tournament.

1:00:48 I mean, if I go in there and I fake my belt level

1:00:51 and fake my experience level and go in there

1:00:52 and whoop a bunch of people that aren't nearly as good as I am,

1:00:55 I have accomplished nothing.

1:00:56 I've essentially done nothing.

1:00:58 Well, people do that mentally all the time.

1:01:00 They only listen to podcasts from people

1:01:02 that have the point of view that they do.

1:01:04 They only read books from people that agree

1:01:05 with their worldview.

1:01:06 They're never testing themselves.

1:01:08 And a good example of that is our Sunday school

1:01:11 that we have at the church I go to,

1:01:12 it's not called a Sunday school,

1:01:13 it's called something else, but it's a Sunday school.

1:01:16 It's a couple of Sunday school

1:01:17 and my wife and I are kind of the youngest couple

1:01:19 or the only couple without kids,

1:01:21 but we have this long list of topics

1:01:25 that can be taught in the class.

1:01:26 And the class is taught by like seven or eight different people.

1:01:29 We just kind of come in for a lesson.

1:01:31 Well, I took on the concept of moral relativism last Sunday.

1:01:35 And I've got 30 minutes to take people

1:01:38 through a discussion about a topic

1:01:40 that you could spend the rest of your life studying

1:01:42 and not really get any semblance of an idea.

1:01:45 But the thing about it was,

1:01:45 as I told everybody when I launched in,

1:01:47 I was like, when I was researching this,

1:01:49 I thought it wasn't gonna take me long.

1:01:51 It took me about five times longer

1:01:52 to prepare this presentation than I thought it would.

1:01:55 And the main reason is because there's so many different

1:01:57 pockets and there's so many different rabbit trails

1:02:00 that you can take in the subject matter,

1:02:01 but it's beyond me.

1:02:03 That's why I continue to dig into it.

1:02:06 And I was like, this subject is gonna be very philosophical

1:02:09 for some of you.

1:02:10 And some of you want me to get up here

1:02:11 and tell you how you can better love yourself

1:02:13 and how you can just depend on Jesus

1:02:16 for all the things you need.

1:02:18 And those are positive things,

1:02:19 but I don't do TED Talks with a few Bible verses

1:02:22 sprinkled into it.

1:02:23 It's not my style.

1:02:24 And so I told everybody, I'm like, strap in.

1:02:27 This is gonna be hard for all of us.

1:02:28 That's what she said.

1:02:29 But that's just kind of one of those deals

1:02:30 where it's like, it's just something that you had to do.

1:02:33 It's beyond you.

1:02:34 That's how you cultivate it, right?

1:02:36 And so if you ran a mile and seven minutes,

1:02:39 try to run it in 655 next time.

1:02:41 There's always a little bit in the gas tank

1:02:43 with your body, with your mind and with your spirit.

1:02:46 And people just have to embrace that.

1:02:47 We don't do hard things anymore.

1:02:49 We live in an era where we don't have to defend

1:02:51 the edges of our property from rival tribes or countries.

1:02:55 We don't have to go and kill our food.

1:02:57 We get the choice to do that.

1:02:59 And it's like a vacation when we go and do that.

1:03:01 People didn't do that for vacation 200 years ago.

1:03:04 They did it to survive.

1:03:06 That's why everybody weighed like 120 pounds,

1:03:08 because it was really, really hard to do

1:03:09 and keep everybody sustained.

1:03:11 But at the end of the day,

1:03:13 you've got to constantly be pushing yourself.

1:03:15 Like if you have an easy day, you didn't have a good day.

1:03:20 One of my questions as I'm hearing you say this is,

1:03:24 what's the role of weakness in this?

1:03:27 I asked, I recently, I had a friend

1:03:31 who a tremendous world competitor athlete.

1:03:35 Recently, he just had a tremendous amount of nerve damage

1:03:38 and neurological damage that has rendered his body

1:03:42 incapacitated.

1:03:44 Even the experience of air rushing in,

1:03:48 touching his skin, sends him into just tremors, right?

1:03:52 He's having difficulty even approaching life anymore.

1:03:56 And I'm sitting here thinking,

1:03:58 God, how does this conversation about strength

1:04:02 and mastery and power,

1:04:06 how does it apply to people who are really struggling,

1:04:09 who are just struggling to get out of bed in the morning,

1:04:11 you know?

1:04:13 - The assumption inherent in your question

1:04:15 is that he is now limited.

1:04:17 So if you were to look at him today,

1:04:20 compared to who he was five years ago,

1:04:23 yeah, I think limited would be a fair description.

1:04:26 But he's not limited, he's alive.

1:04:29 His body works.

1:04:31 I mean, how many quadriplegics are out there

1:04:34 like doing big things?

1:04:37 Almost every day on Instagram,

1:04:38 I see someone that has like half a torso

1:04:41 and like a third of an arm doing a deadlift somehow.

1:04:44 I literally saw a guy today that had two prosthetic legs,

1:04:47 one prosthetic arm and he was falling over

1:04:50 trying to do a deadlift.

1:04:51 But he got it, he eventually got it.

1:04:53 That guy has every excuse in the world

1:04:56 to sit in bed and die slowly.

1:04:57 But he made a different choice.

1:05:00 He made a different idea.

1:05:01 What about someone with a learning disability?

1:05:03 Should they not read something

1:05:04 that's five to 10% beyond them?

1:05:07 I mean, that may be basic, basic milk for a guy like you

1:05:10 or a guy like me, but for them,

1:05:12 reading, I can't even think of an example of a book

1:05:16 that would just be an easy, quick read.

1:05:17 But for them, that's gonna be something

1:05:19 that's gonna take them a long period of time

1:05:21 and a lot of effort.

1:05:23 But that's why I tell people all the time,

1:05:26 it's like, push yourself beyond where you are.

1:05:29 So right now, because of how I am,

1:05:31 I'm in really, really good shape.

1:05:33 And there's a lot of guys that I work out with

1:05:36 that aren't in nearly as good a shape.

1:05:38 But that's kind of my job to turn to them

1:05:40 and encourage them to push past, to embrace the pain,

1:05:44 to go to that place in their brain

1:05:46 where their body's like, dude, you gotta stop

1:05:48 and their mind's like, no, keep going.

1:05:50 It's just like, that's just something that you have to do.

1:05:53 So that would be my encouragement to your buddy

1:05:55 is, bro, you're alive.

1:05:56 Do something with yourself.

1:05:57 Like, and one of the options for doing something

1:06:00 is not sitting in your house doing nothing.

1:06:03 And I think that's our role as men,

1:06:05 as part of a tribe, as part of a team,

1:06:07 part of the unit, describe it however you want.

1:06:10 We have to encourage these guys to stop settling,

1:06:12 settling for their circumstances.

1:06:14 No one ever wrote a story about a guy

1:06:16 that did exactly what he was capable of doing, right?

1:06:20 You know, it's always those stories of people

1:06:21 who had everything against them.

1:06:24 And there was no way they were gonna succeed.

1:06:26 And, you know, there's just no possible way.

1:06:28 Those are the stories that we pass down through the ages

1:06:31 or that we tell at our family reunions.

1:06:34 And so for a guy like that, you've still got something to add.

1:06:37 So add something.

1:06:39 - Man, I feel like I wanna leave it there

1:06:41 because I think that's such a good wrap up.

1:06:44 Is there anything, at least from your stance,

1:06:47 that you wanna say that you feel like

1:06:48 is being left out of this conversation, this dialogue?

1:06:51 I want you to have the last word, man.

1:06:53 - No, I feel like you've done a good job.

1:06:55 And you asked a lot of questions

1:06:57 that I don't get asked very often.

1:06:59 So this was intellectually stimulating

1:07:01 and challenging for me at times, which I appreciate

1:07:04 'cause sometimes you don't get that.

1:07:05 You kind of get the same questions over and over.

1:07:07 And I don't mind answering those,

1:07:08 but it is nice to kind of go a few different directions.

1:07:11 But my encouragement to your listeners would be this,

1:07:15 is you're gonna have so many opportunities in your life

1:07:18 to cultivate nothing, to where you're physically tired,

1:07:22 you're mentally exhausted, you're spiritually exasperated.

1:07:25 And the easiest thing for you to do

1:07:27 would be to take the easiest way out.

1:07:29 And that is the number one thing that I want you to not do.

1:07:32 Don't look for the easy road out.

1:07:34 Don't cut a corner on your run.

1:07:36 Don't skim over a section of a book

1:07:39 because it disagrees with your sensibilities.

1:07:41 Don't ignore the prompting of the Holy Spirit

1:07:44 because you're jacked up still

1:07:46 about something you read in the Old Testament

1:07:48 and you don't exactly know what it means

1:07:50 and you can't exege it properly.

1:07:51 Don't run away from those opportunities.

1:07:53 Christianity is a thinking man's religion.

1:07:56 It is a religion that is based on facts.

1:07:58 And if you're one of those guys out there

1:08:00 that has struggled with that,

1:08:02 maybe the church has treated you poorly,

1:08:03 maybe you were raped by your pastor,

1:08:05 whatever the thing is, whatever story, horrific story

1:08:07 that you have, read the gospel of John

1:08:09 and then read it again and then read it one more time.

1:08:12 And if you don't feel like Jesus is coming after you

1:08:14 and that he's trying to communicate something to you,

1:08:16 all right, you move on to something else.

1:08:18 But give Christianity a shot,

1:08:20 but even in general, even if you don't like that,

1:08:22 come see us, we're a daunted life, a man's podcast.

1:08:26 Listen to us, listen to stuff that we have,

1:08:28 send us ideas, we're here for you guys.

1:08:30 And as long as y'all are listening,

1:08:31 we'll keep putting stuff out.

1:08:33 And you're out of Oklahoma City, is that right?

1:08:36 - Yes, sir.

1:08:37 - So if someone's in that region,

1:08:40 they can hit you up somehow?

1:08:42 - Yeah, absolutely.

1:08:42 Just shoot me an email, guys, info at undaunted.life,

1:08:45 info at undaunted.life.

1:08:47 I live in Edmond right outside of Oklahoma City,

1:08:49 but I'm Oklahoma City based.

1:08:51 And so I'd love to connect with you guys.

1:08:53 There's actually been several guys

1:08:54 that have taken me up on that.

1:08:55 They come and train on Sundays and do different things,

1:08:58 but if there's something I can do specifically

1:09:00 for you, even in your area,

1:09:01 I had a guy in the UK reach out recently

1:09:03 to be on his podcast, "A Dude in Australia."

1:09:05 I had a question about this church versus that church.

1:09:08 That's the power of social media, guys.

1:09:09 So if there's anything I can do to assist you,

1:09:11 if you've got a small group or a men's conference

1:09:13 or something like that and you need a speaker,

1:09:15 that's not gonna suck, look us up

1:09:17 and we'll do what we can to help you guys out.

1:09:20 - All right, man, thanks so much, Kyle.

1:09:22 I'm gonna sign us off here.

1:09:24 Hey, everyone, thanks for listening and stay wild.

1:09:27 (upbeat music)

1:09:32 All right, guys, I know that was a little bit different,

1:09:34 but hopefully that was interesting for you guys.

1:09:37 That is a podcast that I would definitely suggest

1:09:39 that you check out again.

1:09:40 He's not gonna always come from the worldview

1:09:42 that you might have, you may not share his opinions.

1:09:44 That is no excuse to not taking someone else's content.

1:09:47 So you should always look for different perspectives.

1:09:50 And at the end of this episode here,

1:09:52 just before we let you guys out of here,

1:09:53 as you know by now, this is our quick resilience boost.

1:09:56 So this is a men's ministry

1:09:57 and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.

1:09:59 And specifically, we do that by providing content

1:10:01 that for just spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.

1:10:04 And so I feel like if you listen to this episode

1:10:06 of his podcast, I feel like that's gonna happen

1:10:08 for a lot of you guys.

1:10:09 And I felt like that happened

1:10:10 for some of the people that listen in on his stuff as well.

1:10:12 So I've got the episode link here for you.

1:10:15 So if you wanna listen to it on his channel,

1:10:17 I've got that here for you in the show notes of this podcast.

1:10:20 And also I have his Instagram.

1:10:21 So his evolving wild Instagram.

1:10:23 It's a very interesting follow.

1:10:25 It's a very artistically pleasing thing

1:10:27 if that's what you're into.

1:10:29 And so that's a really good thing.

1:10:30 So do what you can to support my buddy, Rainer,

1:10:32 and I really appreciate y'all listening in today.

1:10:35 All right, guys, please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud,

1:10:37 or Google Play and refer your friends

1:10:38 to listen to this podcast.

1:10:40 And if you would, share it on social media.

1:10:41 If you use the hashtag on Daunted Life,

1:10:44 we'll be sure to give it a thumbs up when we find it.

1:10:46 Guys, if we deserve a five-star review,

1:10:48 we're currently still five-star review to cross the board.

1:10:50 So fingers crossed that it stays that way,

1:10:52 but that is how this podcast continues to grow.

1:10:54 The algorithm likes five-star reviews

1:10:56 and likes it when you share it around, all right?

1:10:58 I'm currently booking speaking engagements

1:11:00 for the remainder of 2019.

1:11:02 So if you want me to come speak on your podcast,

1:11:03 to your men's group, at your coaching team,

1:11:05 like whatever the situation might be, coaching team,

1:11:08 hit me up info@undaunted.life.

1:11:10 That's my email info@undaunted.life.

1:11:13 The website is www.undaunted.life

1:11:15 and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter,

1:11:17 @undauntedlife or facebook.com/undauntedlife.

1:11:21 Check out our free devotionals on the U-version Bible app.

1:11:23 Just search "Undaunted Life" under plans.

1:11:25 And as always, we won't thank the band,

1:11:26 August Burns Red, for allowing us

1:11:28 to use their music library for our content.

1:11:30 The intro outro track on this podcast

1:11:32 is our song "King of Sorrow,"

1:11:33 which is off their latest record entitled "Phantom Anthem."

1:11:36 The links to all of this are in the description.

1:11:38 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:11:40 Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,

1:11:43 keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.

1:11:47 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:11:49 (upbeat music)

1:11:58 (upbeat music)