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This is Undaunted Life Man's Podcast, I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:52
Let's get into it.
0:53
All right guys, special interview for you today.
0:54
We've got Steven Mansfield coming on the podcast today.
0:57
He's an author, speaker and consultant and the host of two podcasts, the Steven Mansfield
1:01
Podcast and the great man podcast and this guy is just an author.
1:05
He's a New York Times best selling author of over 30 books.
1:09
And so some of his books that you might have heard of before the search for God and Guinness,
1:12
the faith of George W. Bush, Lincoln's battle with God, building your band of brothers,
1:16
choosing Donald Trump, the miracle of the Kurds.
1:19
Those are just to name a few guys.
1:21
He's done a lot of writing and a lot of thinking on a lot of different subjects.
1:24
But mainly he deals with men's issues.
1:26
Yeah, he deals with history and modern culture and religion and those different things.
1:30
But this guy is a big time advocate for noble manhood.
1:34
So back in 2013, he released a book called Mansfield's Book of Manly Men.
1:39
And this was kind of a kind of a core book for a lot of people.
1:42
It's a very seminal work in the area of philosophy around men's issues, especially in the church
1:47
and things like that.
1:48
But he's got a brand new book out that if you're listening to this on time, it was released
1:53
this week.
1:54
If you're listening to this today, this podcast is released.
1:56
This book was released a couple of days ago.
1:58
It's called Men on Fire, restoring the forces that forge noble manhood.
2:03
I mean, just such a great title.
2:06
It's an awesome book.
2:07
I just read it.
2:08
They sent me an advanced copy.
2:09
It was absolutely fantastic.
2:10
But let me just kind of read the description to you this from Amazon.
2:13
This will kind of give you an idea as to what they're looking at here.
2:16
Okay.
2:17
Men are in crisis from every direction.
2:19
They are presented with a deformed masculinity.
2:22
Men that sees women as conquests rather than partners, one that values success at work
2:26
over success at home, one that hinders true and open friendships with other men who hold
2:31
them up and hold them accountable.
2:33
One that presents them as either the bumbling, disconnected dad and sitcoms or the predator
2:37
in movies and video games and in the news, men were made for more than this.
2:42
It's time to rekindle the fire living inside of them and awaken them to the value of valiant
2:47
righteous manhood through inspiring stories and hard hitting biblical truths.
2:51
Stephen Mansfield uncovers the seven fires that ought to burn in a man's soul, the fire
2:55
of destiny, heritage, friendship, love, battle, legacy, and God.
3:02
This raw guide to the restoration of a noble, honorable manhood will challenge men of every
3:06
generation to live well, invest in others and leave a powerful legacy.
3:10
Guys, we go everywhere in this conversation.
3:13
We talk about a lot of different things.
3:15
You are not going to want to miss this one and without further ado, let's get into it.
3:20
Stephen Mansfield, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
3:23
Man, it's great to be with you.
3:24
Thank you very much for having me.
3:26
I'm so glad to have you on.
3:27
You are one of the preeminent voices in the kind of the world of manhood and masculinity
3:32
and the philosophies that go around there.
3:34
And that's, that's where we'll start today.
3:36
You talk about manhood more than you talk about just about any other subject on the
3:40
planet.
3:41
Why is that?
3:42
Well, it's because I believe, first of all, manhood for the most part, masculinity is
3:46
in decline in our generation, but it can easily be turned around and it's the key to a lot
3:51
that's wrong in our society.
3:52
I mean, here we are as you and I speak right now talking about the coronavirus situation
3:57
in our world.
3:59
Well, a lot of the solution to that, and this is no slight against women, is men being
4:03
men, men being real men, men being fathers, men being men of character, men being men
4:08
of networks and ingenuity and creativity.
4:12
And so I care about men.
4:14
I love men.
4:15
I want to see them reverse the course, the downward spiral of masculinity in our generation.
4:19
And I want to see them be the solutions they can be in our time.
4:22
Plus, I want to see them live fulfilled, happy lives, which they're not going to do until
4:26
they find their purpose.
4:27
So that's why I focus on it so much.
4:29
Absolutely.
4:30
And you definitely put your money where your mouth is because you do a lot of speaking
4:33
and writing about this topic.
4:35
And that's why we're doing this interview because if you're listening to this interview
4:38
on time, guys, this week you release a new book called men on fire, restoring the forces
4:43
that forge noble manhood, just a very, very strong title to a very strong book.
4:48
I just finished reading it.
4:50
What was the impetus behind writing this book in this time?
4:53
Well, as you know, I had done two other books, Mansfield's book of manly men and building
4:58
your band of brothers, delighted for the impact those two were having.
5:02
But one theme I really wanted to dive into are the fires that ought to burn in a man's
5:07
soul.
5:08
What really should be fueling a man?
5:10
What really should be on fire inside of his gut as he lives his life.
5:15
And though I had treated noble masculinity, great masculinity, as I call it in my other
5:20
books, I wanted to dive down and really delve into these, I think there are seven total
5:26
fires that ought to burn in a man's soul.
5:29
And I felt like that can be part of the restoration that most men are looking for.
5:33
So that's the theme of the book.
5:34
Yeah.
5:35
The seven fires you mentioned there.
5:36
The fire of heritage, battle, destiny, friendship, love, legacy, and God.
5:43
And guys, we can't go into all of those today because we just got a little bit of time,
5:46
but go buy the book.
5:47
It's absolutely worth your time.
5:49
But one thing is you've, you've got quotes in a lot of your books and your book before
5:52
the table of contents, there's a great quote.
5:54
It's this, go forward to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.
6:00
And that's from long fellow.
6:01
And I, I just thought like when I was reading the table of contents, I was like, okay, that's
6:04
a great, great place to start.
6:06
But one of the battles that I, or one of the fires I did want to talk with you today is
6:09
the fire of battle.
6:11
You have this great story in there about 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and you talk about the
6:15
word malikos and how that's how we get our term malleable in our modern vernacular.
6:22
But Paul was warning against people being too soft and people that have been created
6:27
a perverseness as a result of their luxurious living.
6:31
And that we've got an enemy, and that's our softness and our sensuality and our indulgence,
6:35
our easy living that we have right now.
6:38
Can you kind of flow on that a little bit as to why that's such a danger for guys?
6:41
Sure.
6:42
We are living in a luxurious world, even with coronavirus, I mean, what are we being asked
6:47
to do?
6:48
Go home, eat, watch TV.
6:49
You know, it's not like we're being asked to break rocks or fight the Nazis.
6:53
And so I'm glad for our prosperity.
6:56
I'm glad for the wealth that we have, but we have to realize that it can make us soft,
7:01
that it can make us, and actually that Greek word being soft to the point of perversion,
7:05
that we can get real soft, we can get real cushy, and it can lead us to all kinds of deformity
7:09
of soul.
7:10
And so even though we have this wonderful wealth and all the luxuries that we have,
7:15
for example right now while we're home in our coronavirus age, we still have to be building
7:19
in some hardship.
7:20
We still have to be training ourselves.
7:22
We still, for example, as I'll do every day while I'm home, do bodyweight exercises, keep
7:26
the body in shape, keep in fighting tone, because battle is something we're made for.
7:32
There are spiritual battles, there are emotional battles, there are relational battles of a
7:36
good kind, you're fighting for a relationship, and then there are the broader battles in
7:39
our society that are more traditional ones in the battle field and against crime and
7:44
what have you.
7:45
And so a man is made for battle doesn't mean he's a contentious person or a violent person,
7:50
he's made for, made for battle, and we don't keep that edge, we don't keep that fire working
7:54
within us, we don't keep that sense of preparedness physically, mentally, spiritually, in every
8:00
way in terms of skills to go to battle, then we're not going to be the men we're made
8:04
to be.
8:05
- Well and Stephen, before we move on to the next fire, just a quick follow up on that one,
8:09
why do you feel like most guys, especially as they age, why do you feel like most guys
8:13
take their focus off of making sure that they themselves and their body is, I guess,
8:18
battle ready for lack of a better term?
8:21
- Well, I think that we have, we don't understand the mind-body connection, first of all, anything
8:29
you really are involved is your body, whatever you're devoted to, whatever you're given
8:33
to, you marry your wife, you're not just marrying her with your mind or your emotions, you're
8:36
marrying her with your whole being and your whole body.
8:39
But as we get older especially, we tend to work on the emotions, we tend to work on the
8:44
mind, we tend to live out of our minds, watch a lot of television, read a lot of books,
8:48
whatever, but we don't realize that the body is important.
8:52
Just think about what happens to you when you do a workout.
8:54
Think about the reset of your emotions, think about the future orientation that you have,
8:59
as you're lifting weights, as you're doing your body weight exercises, as you're going
9:03
for a run, you're doing something to prepare for the future, it's resetting you, it's putting
9:08
a toughness into you, the hardship, the difficulty, the barriers you're having to push through,
9:14
it's training your emotions, it's actually reprogramming your mind.
9:18
So this is essential.
9:19
And I think we've had tried to have a lot, in some of the men's movement, we've tried
9:24
to have a movement that was about emotions and about the mind but wasn't about the body.
9:29
And I think we've got to build toughness, we've got to build masculinity so to speak
9:33
into our bodies and by that I don't necessarily mean just muscles and hair, but I mean a toughness
9:38
inside of us and take our bodies with us as wherever our minds and our emotions go.
9:45
So it's just essential that we reconnect mind to body and harness the body in service of
9:51
the vision of masculinity we're trying to achieve.
9:54
Well, you're speaking our language here with Undaunted Life because we constantly talk
9:57
about spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
10:00
And typically when people think of those things, they think of strength, right?
10:03
I want physical strength and there's the muscles and hair that you were talking about.
10:06
But essentially it's, no, are you resilient?
10:08
Do you have the ability to bounce back?
10:10
It's great that you've read 100 books this year, but can you sprint all out for 200 meters
10:14
to save your life or to save someone else's life?
10:16
And if you're not prepared to do those things, then you're not prepared to be a warrior.
10:20
And that really dovetails nicely into another section I want to get into.
10:23
I want to talk about the fire of legacy.
10:25
You have a great section in there that I won't read in its entirety.
10:28
But essentially you're talking about how the men of your father's generation, these were
10:32
people that didn't narrate life, right?
10:34
They didn't narrate the world going on around you.
10:37
They basically wanted to lead by example.
10:39
And if you picked up things from them, then great.
10:42
But the thing that was very interesting is I want to read this last little quote here
10:45
is, as a result, I was left to figure things out on my own or to seek out mentors, which
10:50
I've spent a lifetime doing.
10:52
I love my father, but I learned almost nothing from him that did not come from quietly watching.
10:58
Now you're very attuned and sensitive to father wounds.
11:02
People have heard people talk about wounds from a father or a mother.
11:05
Would you consider the fact that your father interacted with you in this way?
11:09
Was a wound or are you grateful at how he did this and how did this overall effect your
11:14
views on legacy?
11:16
You know, my father, I wouldn't say that it produced a father wound.
11:19
It produced a father gap.
11:21
And that's probably the main way I orient to my father, other than positively.
11:26
There was a lot of wonderful stuff about my father and he impacted me tremendously.
11:30
It was a hero in many ways.
11:33
But I had to get a friend to teach me how to shave.
11:37
I had to have a friend taught me how to change the oil in an engine.
11:42
I had to go out to seek mentors and I'm talking about as of the age of 13 or 14 years old.
11:47
My father was a war hero.
11:49
He was a high ranking officer.
11:51
He was an exemplary man.
11:53
He had great affection for me.
11:54
I knew he loved me.
11:56
He never came into my room to do anything nasty.
11:58
He never got drunk and stopped anybody around.
12:00
He was an exemplary man.
12:02
But he just did not narrate life to me.
12:05
And if he ever did say anything, it was like a football team did well on TV and came from
12:12
behind.
12:13
He would say something like, "I love seeing a man improve on himself."
12:16
And I would go, "Oh, okay.
12:17
There's a life lesson."
12:18
But I got it accidentally.
12:19
So all that to say that having sought out mentors and having worked hard to become a good man
12:25
who has skills and knowledge, I'm aware that we should be making it easier for the next
12:30
generation.
12:31
And so I narrate things to my kids.
12:33
I'll say, "Well, you know, because I'm trying to be a good man, I do the following.
12:36
I mean, I'll just let those words drop from my lips at a restaurant when we're just all
12:40
talking and yucking it up."
12:41
Or my son will bring up some guy in the newspaper and I'll say, "Well, that's just not how a
12:46
man's meant to behave.
12:48
I try to do it this way."
12:49
And so there's constant lessons, but my kids aren't rolling their eyes, you know, bored
12:53
and because I'm sitting them down and lecturing them for 45 minutes, I'm just narrating life
12:57
as it goes forward.
12:59
And that's a skill that my father, I think, if he had added it to his life, he would
13:03
have launched both his sons, I think, to much greater heights because we would have learned
13:09
earlier, learned better and been more secure in the process.
13:13
Part of the problem with the father not narrating well is that you produce a great deal of insecurity.
13:18
I step out in the world and I realize how much I don't know about what's going on.
13:22
I don't know what to do with my penis.
13:24
I don't know what to do with the razor blade.
13:26
I don't know what to do with a car.
13:27
I'm not sure what to do with a girl on a date.
13:29
I don't even know what to do with pimples.
13:31
And so I'm feeling insecure as I step out into the world and, of course, your teenage
13:35
years are already, you know, lean towards insecurity.
13:38
So all of that, I think, was rectified by narrating life.
13:43
It builds more secure sons, more capable sons, more achieving sons.
13:47
Well, Steven, I appreciate that very much because as we sit right now, my wife is in
13:51
the third trimester of a pregnancy with a baby boy and I've been thinking obviously
13:56
a lot about being a dad to a son and what that looks like and just having the concept
14:01
or even the vernacular to say, narrate life because the same thing, I picked up a lot
14:05
of great things from watching my dad, but he never really said explicitly, this is what
14:11
you do.
14:12
This is what you don't do.
14:13
I just got to see it in action.
14:14
And guys, we're going to transition here to the next fire and this is the last fire we're
14:19
going to talk about and this is the fire of God.
14:21
This is a second to last chapter of the book and this book is worth or this chapter is
14:26
worth the price of the book.
14:27
I mean, this chapter is absolutely fantastic.
14:29
I text you before this that as I was reading it, I was like running out of highlighter ink.
14:33
Like I was just highlighting so many different things and there's so many quotes we can get
14:37
into guys, but you're just going to have to trust me.
14:39
You got to get the book to get into all these fires, but a crescendos with the fire of God,
14:43
but there's one quote, I kind of have a two part question for you.
14:46
So here's the quote from that chapter, except for the growing number of churches that have
14:50
learned to become men friendly.
14:54
Church has often been a place where manhood goes to die.
14:57
I care about it here only because I don't want attitudes towards church to keep men from
15:03
God.
15:04
Okay.
15:05
So that's from a couple of different sections of that chapter, but a two part question here
15:09
is what is a man friendly church because most people have never even heard of such a thing.
15:14
And why does this perception of a lack of manhood within the church still exist today?
15:20
Well, the fact is that if a church is not careful and I'm not a guy who's pro church,
15:25
I don't hear me being negative church, but if a church is not careful, it can emphasize
15:29
a lot of things that on the surface look feminine.
15:32
It can emphasize art, it can emphasize emotions, it can emphasize human and relations highly.
15:41
And men who haven't been mentored and haven't been fathered or haven't been in that kind
15:46
of environment can feel very put off by it.
15:49
And the church can lean in a feminine direction.
15:51
I mean, you know, probably the old joke that they're all meant to be critical of the church,
15:56
but a man eating lion would die of starvation in most churches or I was a pastor for many
16:01
years.
16:02
So I'm going to pick on pastors, but only because I are one that there aren't two genders.
16:07
There are three men, women and preachers.
16:09
And so it's all that's insulting, but it just indicates how we feel about those churches.
16:16
Users can be man friendly if they are intentional about reaching to men.
16:21
I know of a pastor, one of the guys I respect the most in the pastor.
16:25
And he decided years ago, he said, look, most church jobs are held by women.
16:31
He said, I'm going to build a church that leans towards men.
16:34
And I think it'll grow so well, it'll actually employ more women and be better for the women
16:38
who are connected to the church.
16:40
So he made sure that 80% of his jobs in that church, and by the way, it's a 10,000 member
16:44
church, what's got a lot of people on staff, were held by men.
16:47
Well, the women are delighted.
16:49
They loved that their men are taking the lead.
16:52
This church built a very man friendly, man oriented church, the pastor does triathlons
16:58
and there are vids for men, of course, they're taking care of the women too, don't misunderstand.
17:02
But many more women are employed than ever would have been otherwise.
17:06
And the wives are thrilled because the men are really being true men, godly men, righteous
17:11
men.
17:12
And the way if you should ever hit your wife in that church, you will have some men showing
17:18
up at your door.
17:19
That's how that church deals with things.
17:21
And so it's a wonderful situation, but it's because the church decided to reach to men,
17:28
to emphasize masculinity, to model it from the pulpit, and to serve the women.
17:34
And they're very well served and very thrilled.
17:36
So I think we've got to be aware that we've lost the generation of men that most churches
17:42
are mainly filled with women these days, so that that's being changed, but have mainly
17:47
been filled with women because the men are backed away.
17:49
And we can win them back, but we have to have men friendly churches.
17:52
Well, as a quick follow up to that, why do you feel like most churches seemingly don't
17:57
even try to be men friendly?
18:00
They don't know how.
18:01
They simply don't know how.
18:02
That's what I spend a lot of my time doing is talking to pastors and helping them understand
18:05
how you do it.
18:06
In most churches, a pastor doesn't feel a personal need for a men's ministry, but he
18:12
knows he probably ought to offer the guy something in the church, and so he hands it off to somebody
18:16
who can do it.
18:17
So it's two or three runs removed from him.
18:20
It's a side ministry and something going on on the side of the church.
18:24
And because women have better bonding skills, you have a women's breakfast or a women's
18:28
retreat or something like that, 80% of the women in the church show up.
18:31
But with men, I speak often in churches where you've got 5,000 people and they're thrilled
18:37
to have 100 men show up for a retreat.
18:40
So that's absurd, I mean, theoretically you've got 2,000 men attending that church.
18:45
You shouldn't be happy with less than 1,500 men attending that retreat.
18:48
So all I have to say, it's a matter of the pastor basically handing it off.
18:54
He's delegating it.
18:55
He's got it too far removed.
18:56
He doesn't emphasize manhood from the church.
18:58
He's afraid, I mean, from the pulpit, he's afraid he'll be criticized.
19:01
He doesn't weave noble and righteous manhood through the entire warp and move of the church.
19:06
Like he should also weave noble womanhood throughout the entire church.
19:10
Men need a little bit more help.
19:12
They need a little bit more pull in.
19:13
Church is not an environment that's natural for them, whereas it is for women.
19:17
And so he's got to lean towards the men, lead from the pulpit.
19:20
In fact, I think most pastors should be seen as the main leaders of their men's ministry.
19:25
Now, I don't mean that they have to do all the administrative work, but they should be
19:28
the titular heads of their ministry.
19:30
Of the men's ministry, it should be seen that way.
19:32
The churches that do that not only grow dramatically numerically, but they have very, very strong
19:37
outreach to men that then, you know, has a result in a lot of conversions, a lot of
19:41
impact in the society.
19:43
Absolutely.
19:44
I really, really like that answer a little bit later in the fire of God chapter from
19:47
your new book.
19:49
It's a quote here that I really want you to get into as well as this.
19:52
I am also fierce about another aspect of this since men see religion as a feminine thing.
19:57
And since God and Godly men in history are often portrayed in unmanly ways, we often
20:02
lose the masculine content of faith.
20:05
It's there, but we miss it, or it is papered over by less engaging images.
20:10
Can you, can you go in a little bit further with that last part there, just it's papered
20:14
over by less engaging images?
20:17
Yeah.
20:18
When we tell stories from church history, for example, we tend to tell stories that aren't
20:23
very manly.
20:24
We tend to make a, do an unmanly presentation of who Jesus is.
20:28
I'm not trying to turn Jesus into Arnold Schwarzenegger, but just a plain text reading
20:32
of the four gospels shows us that Jesus was a man.
20:35
I don't just mean he was a male.
20:37
He was a man.
20:38
I mean, I was, I just came back from Israel about two months ago and I was again struck
20:42
by how far they walked.
20:45
I mean, to walk from the sea of Galilee down to Jerusalem, which Jesus did dozens of times
20:49
in his life with his disciples teaching as he goes.
20:53
That was a serious haul, man.
20:54
That's the kind of thing we would put on backpacks and call ourselves a success for accomplishing
20:59
an four day weekend.
21:01
My point is that we've unmanned the stories that we tell, the bonding of men, the physical
21:08
things they went through, the masculine friendships in Scripture, the connections between men,
21:14
the connection between Jonathan and David in the Old Testament, the fact that Jonathan
21:18
was such a man, an event, such a masculine, aggressive spirit, such a godly spirit, that
21:25
his armor bearers said, "Look, do whatever's in your heart to do.
21:27
I'm with you, heart and soul."
21:29
I mean, that kind of response from the life of a man, from his heart, from his spirit,
21:34
that's what build friendships, that's what mobilizes them, that's what we want to have
21:37
with our friends.
21:38
And so we're not emphasizing that aspect of the Scriptures.
21:41
And it's very possible for a pastor to get up, tell a Bible story, never referred to any
21:45
of the masculine themes in that story.
21:49
You know, as you know in the book, as you've read it, I won't go through the whole thing.
21:53
But when men read the book, they're going to find that I described Jesus in a masculine
21:56
sense.
21:57
They had brothers who were suspicious of him, he did a very physical occupation.
22:04
His father died early.
22:05
He was hunted every day of his life, and we're talking about masculine drama every day of
22:09
his life, what he went through, what he endured, and that's not even just the last six hours
22:14
of the cross that he was on, that's his entire life.
22:17
And so there are masculine themes of friendship and bondage.
22:21
And you know, I just use a quick little, almost humorous example.
22:25
I was just recording an Easter sermon for a big old church in our studio.
22:31
And one of the guys who gets beaten up all the time when it comes Easter is Thomas, he's
22:35
always called doubting Thomas.
22:37
But Thomas was a man.
22:39
I like Thomas.
22:40
I talk about Thomas.
22:41
I talk about his connections when Lazarus was sick and about to die, and Jesus was about
22:47
to go with him.
22:48
His other disciples said, "Don't go back to Judea.
22:50
You were threatened and almost stoned there."
22:53
Thomas speaks up and says, "Look, let's go with him and die if we have to, but let's
22:57
go see our friend who's dying, even if it costs us our life."
23:00
I mean, that's a manly response.
23:02
That's friendship.
23:03
That's boldness.
23:04
I see Thomas in a kilt, not doubting Thomas, as we often call him.
23:10
So all that to say, you bring those themes out.
23:13
You bring those themes out of noble manhood.
23:15
They're right.
23:16
They're on the page.
23:17
Just celebrate them as you do everything else.
23:18
And then men have something to feed on and model their lives after.
23:22
Absolutely, guys.
23:23
And if you like those comments, you're going to get more of that if you read men on fire.
23:26
So make sure you check that out.
23:27
We will make sure the link is in the show notes so you can pick that up.
23:30
But another one of your books is called "Building Your Band of Brothers."
23:33
And guys on this podcast are familiar with me talking about foxhole guys, like the guys
23:37
when you look to your left and to your right that you're excited that you see them.
23:41
Whenever you're going through whatever thing you're going through in life, you're glad
23:44
that those guys are there.
23:46
And you also have a chapter in the new book called "The Fire of Friendship," where you
23:49
talk about indirect connections and fire-free zones and calling in reinforcements, kind
23:55
of different categories of guys.
23:57
So if you would, if you could even give us a brief description of indirect connection,
24:01
fire-free zone and calling in reinforcements, and why it's so important to have guys like
24:05
that in your life.
24:06
I appreciate that.
24:08
One of the questions I would ask every guy listening to this is that in the coronavirus
24:11
season, who do you miss?
24:14
Who is it that you just want to call and connect with on FaceTime or Zoom?
24:19
Who is it you need speaking into your life to be a good man?
24:22
That's a man with whom you have a serious band of brothers kind of relationship.
24:26
I believe that in ages past, our ancestors had manhood built into their lives.
24:31
They grew up in tribes.
24:32
They grew up in villages.
24:33
They grew up in large families.
24:35
We, however, have a different kind of life.
24:37
We had friends real intensely when we were in high school and college, but now we tend
24:40
to have rust friends, that guy that's in our marriage, that was in our marriage that we
24:43
haven't talked to in 20 years.
24:46
And so we have to be intentional about our friendships and intentional about building
24:49
a band of brothers.
24:50
The goal of the band of brothers is to have an arrangement I call the free fire zone.
24:54
You need men around you who are willing to say whatever needs to be said to make you
25:00
a better man, who are willing to coach you out of the situations that hold you in bondage
25:04
and they form your life and help you become the man you're made to be.
25:08
You need men who are able to speak to you bluntly and coach you and get you where you
25:12
need to be, and you're able to do the same with them.
25:15
If you retreat, if you pull back, if you don't have anybody close, then you're going to be
25:19
a fool because a fool in this context is death a defined as a man who is self-defined.
25:26
If you're self-defined without anybody else's input, you're going to be deformed.
25:29
You're not going to be right.
25:30
I need men speaking to me.
25:32
I need men seeing what's going on in my life.
25:34
I need men who know my life without me narrating it for them.
25:38
In other words, I don't show up at a breakfast once every six weeks and tell them what's
25:42
going on with me so they can help me.
25:43
I need men who hear the bitter cell phone call with my wife or watch me check out the back
25:48
side of the waitress or notice that I'm eating too much and I put on 20 pounds or hear me
25:53
drop in the f-bomb.
25:54
None of those examples are real.
25:55
I'm just saying that's the I need been close enough to hear me and know me and know what's
25:59
going on in my life so they can help me achieve the vision of noble manhood.
26:03
All of us do.
26:06
The one quick thing I'll say about the Indirect Connection is that the worst thing you can
26:10
do to step out and begin to engage each other is put them in a circle and a fellowship hall
26:15
and a bunch of chairs and say, "How do you feel in the day, Joe?"
26:18
Exactly.
26:19
He'll never get back.
26:20
Instead, you've got to create indirect connections.
26:23
You've got to grill some meat.
26:24
You've got to turn on the game.
26:25
You've got to get a basketball and go to the court.
26:28
You've got to do something where men can connect without the object being to connect.
26:33
The object is to eat.
26:34
The object to enjoy the game and men tend to connect while they're doing something else.
26:39
They do studies with little boys where they put them in rooms and watch them through two
26:43
way glasses, two way mirrors and girls, you can turn chairs directly to each other, look
26:48
each other in the eye and say, "I like your hair."
26:51
Boys turn side to side though and start looking at what they can do together in the world.
26:54
I bet I can beat you to that tree, I bet we can get Tommy to pull us in that wagon,
26:59
I bet we can set that door on fire, that kind of stuff.
27:04
Boys connect by doing stuff together.
27:05
They don't connect by staring in each other's eyes longingly and starting to say sweet things
27:09
to each other.
27:12
Even the shyest guy listening to this broadcast right now can connect with other men if he'll
27:17
create some indirect connection.
27:19
The worst thing you can do is circle them up in your living room, start asking them how
27:22
they're feeling.
27:24
Absolutely.
27:25
I'd say all the time that men connect shoulder to shoulder and women connect face to face,
27:28
it's just a different thing that we have inside of us.
27:31
To transition more into just a general subject matter about manhood, there are a lot of times
27:37
where I'm a little bit concerned about some of the things that are said and how that may
27:41
affect men and women.
27:42
You and I talked about before and you quoted again in the first chapter of your book about
27:46
how 20% of college and university women are sexually abused.
27:50
Let's just assume that that stat is completely accurate.
27:53
In that category of sexual abuse, there is actual sexual assault and then there's also
27:58
women that go on bad dates, women that get cat called.
28:01
That's all kind of in the same thing, but let's just say that we're true.
28:04
When you talk about stats like that or even Barack Obama or Joe Biden who like to say
28:09
that stat as well, is that potentially damaging to women and the reason I say that is because
28:15
if a woman thinks that there's a one in five chance that she's going to get raped walking
28:19
on a college campus, it's like a war zone to her.
28:21
Then also for a guy, an 18, 19 year old, impressionable guy, he might think to himself, "Oh no.
28:27
Am I one of the five?"
28:29
Can you speak a little bit about how stats like that or things like that might actually
28:34
be a little bit harmful to folks as well?
28:36
Yeah.
28:37
I think they are harmful.
28:38
By the way, that's based on self reporting.
28:40
While I don't want to be in a position of doubting women who are saying they're abused,
28:44
we do need definitions, what is abuse and what exactly happened, but that makes my case.
28:50
That's why we need to be sure about our behavior.
28:54
That's why we need to be sure about what we're saying and what we're doing.
28:57
I have absolutely no doubt that I have never abused a woman.
29:02
Why do I know that?
29:04
Because I had a father who modeled behavior towards women because I had men around me
29:07
who taught me a noble code about women because I was a Christian sitting in church.
29:11
I was taught how women ought to be cherished and cared for because I conducted myself
29:15
well.
29:16
I've never abused a woman.
29:18
I've certainly sinned in my relationships with women.
29:21
I've said things I shouldn't have said and been impatient, what have you, but I've never
29:24
abused women.
29:25
I would never be in that 20% stat.
29:28
Even if that stat's half true, it's only 10%.
29:30
Still, 10% of all women on college campuses are sexually abused in some way who's doing
29:35
that.
29:36
Men who are untrinsable, unfathered, untaught, untrained, unconnected to a vision for noble
29:41
manhood.
29:42
You're absolutely right.
29:44
That kind of stat can do some damage, but what it ought to do is not drive us away from
29:48
women, not drive us away from a vision of noble manhood.
29:52
It should drive us towards our moral code.
29:54
It should drive us toward a manly code so that I go out on the dates, and of course
29:59
I'm not in the dating years I'm married, but if I go out on the date as a young man,
30:02
I know who I am.
30:03
I know what my principles are.
30:05
I know how I'm going to conduct myself.
30:07
I know what I want that girl saying when I take her back to the dorm, on the other
30:11
side of that date, Steven Mansfield is a good man.
30:14
He treated me well.
30:15
He protected me.
30:16
He took me out on a good date.
30:18
He didn't try to do anything untoward.
30:20
I look forward to being with him again.
30:22
That's the kind of stuff you want.
30:24
There's no question that there's a lot of criticism of noble manhood out there, but that's
30:28
why we've got to redefine it by how we live.
30:30
Excellent.
30:31
Thank you for your answer on that.
30:32
You mentioned this book earlier, and I want to make sure to bring it up again because the
30:35
first book of yours that I actually read was Mansfield's book of Manly Men.
30:40
I read that a few years ago and inside that book, you've got Manly Maxims, that dovetail
30:44
really nicely into the new book, but you talk about Manly Men do Manly Things, Manly Men
30:49
tend to their fields, Manly Men build Manly Men, and Manly Men live to the glory of God.
30:55
I bring all that up because you've got some exciting news, and I mean, it's not exactly
30:59
breaking news.
31:00
Everybody knows it by now, but you've got a version of this book that's coming out in
31:03
Spanish.
31:04
Eliebro de Ombres.
31:05
I'm not great at my Spanish pronunciation, but talk about the impetus behind even getting
31:09
this book into Spanish and why that's going on.
31:12
Well, I'm really excited about this.
31:14
This book was written almost a decade ago, and my publisher, which was Thomas Nelson at
31:19
the time, now it's Harper Collins, did such a fantastic printing of it.
31:24
Hardback, beautiful.
31:25
I may imagine you've got one, so you know what I'm talking about, unless you read it
31:28
on e-book.
31:29
It's very nicely done, beautifully put lots of graphics.
31:33
Well, that meant it was a bit more expensive, and so they didn't want to just quickly rush
31:37
it into other translations, and so now finally they have agreed, and I didn't have to twist
31:44
their arm.
31:45
It was their idea, but finally they're putting it into Spanish translation.
31:48
Well, this is really exciting to me because, of course, I care about my Spanish brothers,
31:51
my Spanish speaking brothers, but also because I know stats, I track stats of men worldwide.
31:58
In a lot of Latin America, for example, you have a very high femicide rate, very high
32:04
women being killed by their husbands or their male friends.
32:07
In fact, Lima, Peru is the world capital for a femicide, meaning what's going on there
32:12
socioeconomically is that women are starting to advance, they're starting to rise, the
32:17
men aren't rising as rapidly, they don't know what to do with these women that are moving
32:21
into the managerial class, and beginning to make money, and breaking free from some of
32:25
the social constraints, and so the men, not knowing what else to do, killed their wives,
32:30
killed their girlfriends, killed the women in their lives.
32:32
Now, I'm not just saying that all Latin men are murderers.
32:34
Please don't misunderstand me.
32:35
I'm just saying that they've got some strongholds down there of this kind of behavior, and so
32:39
it's thrilling to me that we can get this book into Spanish, get it into Latin America,
32:44
get it into the Spanish speaking world elsewhere on the globe, and then, of course, I'm going
32:48
to follow up with men's events, and so as time goes forward, anybody who's got connections
32:53
with people in the Spanish speaking world, where they can pull together the event, let
32:56
us know.
32:57
Frankly, we were scheduled for a big Latin America tour right before coronavirus hit.
33:03
We were advised by the State Department and by the people who were coordinating those
33:06
events to hold off, but we're going to go back just as soon as it's safe to do so, and
33:11
follow up this book with some big events down there, but I'm thrilled because there's not
33:15
a lot on manhood printed in Spanish.
33:18
Now this book, which has been, and I appreciate you saying it, one of the leading books in
33:21
the field, is available in Spanish, and we're going to go hard after some events down there
33:26
and see if we can make a difference.
33:27
I'm sure that'll make a difference.
33:28
And guys, if you have not picked up that book, I am an e-reader.
33:32
I tell guys all the time, that is a book that you need to buy the physical copy because
33:36
it is absolutely gorgeous.
33:38
So definitely check that out.
33:39
One thing that you did, you've done as well, again, you've talked a lot about manhood,
33:42
but you've got something called the great man project.
33:45
So if you could give our listeners a brief overview of what the great man project is
33:49
and how they can get involved, I appreciate that.
33:51
What I want to do with men is not shame them, not talk about last 24/7, not put them down,
33:57
not chastise them for toxic masculinity.
34:00
I want to call the greatness out of them.
34:01
I want to give them a vision of what great manhood looks like and help them achieve it.
34:06
And so we call our movement great man.
34:08
It's capital G-R-E-A-T and then capital N, that we printed as one word, it's just a branding
34:12
thing, a logo kind of thing.
34:14
And so we call it great man.
34:16
Our website's greatman.tv, for example, our Twitter is the same thing, great man.
34:22
And so that's our vision.
34:24
That's our purpose.
34:25
It's the way that I explained to men what I want to do.
34:28
I am not trying to say that men are greater than women.
34:31
I am not trying to say that I just want to produce churchills and linkens.
34:36
I want every man to find the greatness within him, to cry out to God, to take hold of what
34:41
God intended for men and for noble masculinity and to live out great manhood.
34:47
And so that's what we're doing with the website, with Twitter, what we're doing with our social
34:51
media, is what we're doing with events all over the world.
34:53
And now the three books, Mansfield's Book of Manly Men, Building Your Band of Brothers
34:57
and Men on Fire.
34:58
And I think we're going to have an impact.
35:00
We're also going to do video series.
35:02
We've got a lot going.
35:03
We're networking with the other men's organizations in the world.
35:06
We're not going to try to be an island because we are both in a situation now of great need
35:12
for noble manhood and great possibility to turn around the downward spiral of noble manhood.
35:16
So greatman.tv is where we're doing it and we'd love to have you guys visit us.
35:21
Yep. And we're going to have all of those links in the show notes.
35:24
And we are going to get into the last section of the podcast here with some of our more
35:27
interesting guests.
35:28
I like to do a section called what would you say to somebody that said?
35:32
And then I fill in the blank.
35:34
And the thing about it is, is you only get about 30 seconds to answer.
35:37
I won't have a timer on you, but it's what would you say to someone that said blank and
35:41
you just got to give us a cursory overview of what might end up being a rather large topic.
35:46
So are you up for it?
35:47
I'm ready to go.
35:48
Let's do it.
35:49
So what would you say to someone that said the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging
35:54
men to be more masculine.
35:56
Masculinity is toxic.
35:59
Toxic masculinity is an abomination.
36:01
Toxic masculinity is damaging, but the one thing you do want is noble masculinity, men
36:06
leading well, men being righteous, men loving their families, men being fathers.
36:11
So you're completely wrong.
36:12
We need exactly that.
36:13
We need men to be great men.
36:16
And it's the reverse that is cause such an abomination of our society.
36:20
Excellent.
36:21
What would you say to someone that said, why should we worry about the Kurds when we have
36:25
so many problems to deal with here in the United States?
36:29
Because we're in a global world and the Kurds are some of our best allies and we are going
36:34
to be putting troops in the Middle East if we don't stand behind the Kurds.
36:37
That's been proven.
36:38
That's already happened during the Trump administration.
36:41
Stand with the Kurds.
36:42
We realign the Middle East.
36:44
We stand with our friends and it will mean less American investment overseas.
36:47
The best thing we can do if we want to make America great again as some are saying is
36:51
stand with the Kurds.
36:53
All right.
36:54
What would you say to someone that said there is no difference between men and women?
36:59
You've never been to a locker room.
37:00
You've never walked the streets.
37:02
I realize I've been trying to be a little humorous here.
37:05
But the fact is there's massive difference between the two.
37:08
We ought to know it.
37:09
We ought to celebrate it.
37:10
This is something that's come from our universities.
37:12
The agenda is basically a social construct that is absolutely not true.
37:17
It's damaging both men and women.
37:19
We need to be teaching women to be good and noble women, men to be good and noble men.
37:23
And we will have a happier, better, stronger, more secure society as a result.
37:27
All right.
37:28
Next one.
37:29
What would you say to someone that said a weak man is a safe man?
37:33
No, a weak man is a man who's in danger.
37:36
A weak man is a man who's making an angry wife.
37:38
A weak man is a man who is raising up insecure, misbehaving children.
37:44
What you need is a man who's strong, doesn't mean it has to be muscle, he doesn't mean
37:48
it has to have a lot of hair, doesn't mean it has to be athletically gifted.
37:52
But he needs to be strong of character, strong of heart, strong of spirit and strong of understanding
37:57
of what noble manhood is.
37:59
And then we'll have a better society because that will radiate out everywhere.
38:04
Excellent.
38:05
What would you say to someone that said, I can be fully man and not believe in God?
38:11
You can be a somewhat better man.
38:13
If you have masculine examples, if you don't believe in God, but you will not fulfill the
38:17
purpose for which you were made, you will not take hold of your design unless you believe
38:23
in God and ask his help in the grand project of becoming a great man.
38:27
All right.
38:28
Just a few more here.
38:29
Donald.
38:30
All right.
38:31
Here we go.
38:32
You know where I'm going with this now.
38:33
I said, Donald Trump is the most pro life president the US has ever had.
38:38
He is a strongly pro life president in terms of his policies and I celebrate that.
38:42
He's not the most strongly pro life president the US has ever had, just as a matter of fact.
38:47
But it is absolutely true.
38:49
He is policies have been stridently pro life.
38:52
He's advised by pro life people.
38:54
He's appointed pro life jurists.
38:56
I celebrate that and I want to see it continue as a pro life man myself.
39:02
All right.
39:03
Would you say to someone that said a biological woman can't decide to be a man?
39:09
A biological woman can decide to change her parts to masculine parts to some degree, but
39:13
she cannot decide to be a woman.
39:15
She will always be a woman inside of a rather denatured man's body.
39:20
This again is that view that the gender is a social construct.
39:25
And so we're doing a lot of damage.
39:27
And by the way, imposing this on the young is absolutely devastating them.
39:30
So untrue, unwise, misguided, destructive, agreed a couple more.
39:35
What would you say to someone that said, we don't need to worry about history.
39:39
We should only focus on the future.
39:42
Well, then you will be as though a person was driving a car without rear view mirrors.
39:47
You will be as though a person is driving, trying to make a trip without maps.
39:52
The past is not dead.
39:53
The past is not just, uh, uh, outdated.
39:57
The past are the principles that we need to fashion the future.
40:00
So we read history in order to shape the future.
40:02
And the last and potentially the most important question of the day, what would you say to
40:06
someone that said, Steven Mansfield has the voice of a God.
40:10
I do not ever say that whenever that was said in scripture, somebody got dead, uh, when
40:17
they took the place of God, no, I said, a God, not the God, okay, the voice of a God.
40:22
I don't want anything to mind said about me, except that I worship God, but I appreciate
40:27
the kindness of, uh, of the intended compliment.
40:29
I'm glad I have a voice at all to offer this generation, but God, a God, the God, no, no,
40:35
no, no.
40:36
Uh, I'm Steven and God is God and I am not.
40:38
Well, Steven, we thank you so much for the time that you spent with us.
40:41
That's all for me.
40:42
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
40:45
Just guys, this is, this, this age of tumultuousness and suffering and hardship and difficulty,
40:50
uh, throughout history, whenever this kind of season has happened, uh, always on the
40:55
back end, if people stayed true, if people kept their vision, uh, if people remember
41:00
who they were, there was a great flowering of creativity and literature and innovation
41:05
and investment, uh, and there was always a massive improvement.
41:08
So don't lose heart.
41:09
We will get through this.
41:11
The question is going to be what are you going to be on the other side and you're deciding
41:14
that now on the council of your own heart.
41:16
So take it seriously.
41:17
Great days are ahead.
41:18
Steven Mansfield, thanks for coming on Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
41:21
Great to be with you buddy.
41:26
There it is guys.
41:27
Hopefully you enjoyed that talk with Steven Mansfield.
41:29
Here's the thing guys is guys do so many things where they're talking on podcasts or they're
41:33
doing interviews or maybe they're doing their own show.
41:35
I got to tell you, I think Steven Mansfield is the best in an interview format.
41:38
I've seen him speak live.
41:39
We've talked about his podcast, you know, we've listened to his podcast, but when he's
41:42
answering questions, you can tell his boldness that he's answering the questions with.
41:46
He gets right down to business, but also his answers are just absolutely amazing.
41:50
I really hope you guys enjoyed that.
41:51
All right guys, before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
41:53
As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience.
41:58
Specifically, we do that by providing content that forges spiritual, mental and physical
42:01
toughness.
42:02
So for today, I'm going to give you a rundown of all the stuff we talked about today to make
42:05
sure you have the right resources.
42:06
So first, we got the Steven Mansfield website so you can get a lot of the information I'm
42:10
going to tell you about through there, but we've also got links to the Steven Mansfield
42:13
podcast and the great wet, the great man website and the great man podcast as well.
42:18
So you can check out all that content that we talked about.
42:20
Then I've got a huge link.
42:21
It is his Amazon.
42:22
So I told you he's written over 30 books, so just giving you a bunch of individual links.
42:26
I don't want you to miss out on a book that might be to your liking because again, he's
42:29
wrote written a lot of books about manhood, about presidents, about history, about a lot
42:32
of different things.
42:33
So it's a list that gives you all of them, but I did pull one of them out.
42:36
I've got the link to his brand new book that is out this week.
42:39
Men on fire, restoring the forces that forged noble manhood.
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And the last thing I've got for you is just a YouTube video of his speech that he did back
42:46
in 2017.
42:47
This is him basically talking about the concept of building your band of brothers over about
42:51
an hour.
42:52
So I think that you'll definitely enjoy that.
42:54
So thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.
42:56
We really do appreciate it.
42:57
If you would subscribe on Apple podcast, iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts or Stitcher and refer
43:01
your friends to listen and share this on social media.
43:03
Guys, if we deserve a five star view, please take the time to leave us five stars and a
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few sentences letting us know why you like the content.
43:09
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the entirety of 2020 and the beginning
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of 2021.
43:14
So if you want me to come speak on your podcast at your men's event, whatever, just hit me
43:17
up info at undaunted.life again, that's I N F O at undaunted.life.
43:22
Our website is www dot undaunted.life.
43:24
You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life or Facebook.com backslash
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undaunted life.
43:29
Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app.
43:32
Just search undaunted life under plans.
43:33
And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their
43:37
entire music library for our content.
43:39
The intro I'll show track on this podcast is our song defender, which is off their latest
43:42
record entitled guardians.
43:44
The links to all of this are in the description.
43:46
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
43:48
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical
43:53
toughness, keep seeking the lion of Judah.
44:14
Peace.