Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. [music] This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, [music] who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. That is Psalm 144:1, guys. That doesn't tie into anything I'm going to be talking about today. I just thought I would share that with you. But we are so thankful to our donors, guys. We're so so thankful to have guys just like you helping us equip men around the globe to push back darkness. undaunted.life/donate if you'd like to become a donor and leave a fivestar review and share this show with a friend. Don't keep it to yourself. Today we're hitting your questions. We're doing AMA. I think last time it took us like two years to go. Like it was like two years in between AMAs, but I got a bunch of questions uh from you guys. So I'm doing another AMA episode. If you want your questions to be considered for a future episode, just send us an email to info@undaunted.life, info@una.life, live or send us a DM. Do D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DMs on Instagram, the DMs on Facebook, for whatever reason, they go to a million different inboxes. I don't know why. Just send us something on uh Instagram and on for the ones today if I uh jotted down your name, I'll give you credit, but if not, sorry. It is what it is. First question, what are your dream sports matchups? So, I actually really like this question and I thought about it and I was trying to think like one matchup and then I just kept going crazy. So, college football, I would love to see, again, this is kind of bizarre world, you know, uh, you know, suspending reality a little bit. I want to see a game between the full strength with all these, it'll be full strength, peak, whatever. 2001 Miami Hurricanes versus the 2019 LSU Tigers. Okay, so [clears throat] that those are like the two teams like if you're talking about the best team ever and then you know no shade to the Indiana Hooers that just won the national title, first 16 and0 team. But the 2001 Miami Hurricanes, they had 17 first round draft picks. Just think about that. 17 first round draft picks of the NFL. And then the 2019 LSU Tigers, that was Joe Burrow at his best. That was the first 15-0 team in history. I would love to see that match up for Major League Baseball. I would love to see a matchup between Babe Ruth and Showi Otani. And I want to see it both ways. So, I want to see pitcher Babe Ruth pitch to Show Otani, the hitter. And then I want to see, you know, pitcher Show Otani pitch to Babe Ruth uh the hitter. Like, I just want to kind of see those different combos. I assume because of how much better baseball is today that Show Otani would strike Babe Ruth out and just absolutely destroy one of his pitches and send it about 500 ft in the opposite direction, but that'd be cool to see. Then I thought about MMA. So, a lot of different variations here. Peak Hick and Gracie, not Hoist, but Hicks and Gracie versus Peak Chuck Liddell, right? So, Hixon, you know, get you down on the ground, strangle, you did that, Chuck Ladell, knock you out. I think that'd be cool. Peak heavyweight Jon Jones versus peak Kane Velasquez would be interesting. Peak George St. Pierre versus peak Camaro Usman because, you know, after Camaro Usman defended the belt like three or four times, people were like, he's better than GSP. even though GSP defended it like nine times in a row and against much better competition. And I thought about another one. What if we went like peak light heavyweight juiced up Jon Jones versus peak light heavyweight juiced up Anderson Silva? I know Anderson Silva fought at middleweight or not middleweight, he's fought at 185. So I that is middleweight. [snorts] I think that would have been a spectacular match, right? Because you know Anderson Silva, he definitely cheated. Jon Jones very likely cheated as well. But just put them on all the juice and just see who wins. Also, I thought about track and field. I would love to see Jesse Owens race Usain Bolt. Now, we can see from the numbers that Usain Bolt is significantly faster, but I would just want the visual of seeing how far Usain Bolt would finish ahead of Jesse Owens. Freestyle wrestling, I would love to see Alexander Carellin versus Gable Stefson, right? So, the most dominant freestyle wrestler of all time versus the the last gold medalist, Gable Stevenson. And then in folk style, I would love to see Dan Gable versus Kyle Dake. I wanted to do Dan Gable versus some other guys, but like Kyle Dake won four straight national titles in four different weight classes, but I would love to see those two match up. So, that's the first one there. Next question. Would you rather go to prison for a year or go to prison with a Rubik's Cube and you get to leave when you're done? So, this is a very interesting question, but this is what I'm going to do. As of right now, if you gave me a mixedup Rubik's Cube, I would have no idea how to finish it. No idea whatsoever. Okay, but I am assuming here I'm taking a risk. I'm gonna take the Rubis cube and go into the prison because I'm assuming that somebody there, whether an inmate or a guard or somebody can show me how to fix it, right? Can show me how to solve it. Or you do get visitors in prison. I would have somebody like one of my foxhole guys or somebody who's going to come. I'd be like, "Hey, brother. I need you to figure out how to do a Rubik's Cube and then teach me how to do it when you get here. And then I take the Rubik's Cube with me to the little meeting and I do it. Boom. I'm out. I mean, I'm gonna be in prison for what, maybe a day or two, maybe a week at most. So, yeah, give me the Rubik's Cube. I'm getting out of prison. Let's go. All right. Next one here. This is from Austin. Got a question you've provoked after hearing it on several of your podcasts. I've legit never paid attention to local politics, but was challenged to do so after hearing you talk about it. you got any recommendations for how to go about doing so? This so this is a very good question. I talk about this on the how to avoid being a crappy man episode. So, it's actually pretty complicated if you if you're not used to local politics because if you want to get into national politics, well, that's the 24-hour news cycle. You see it all over social media. Everyone's got a website and a way that you can fundra and do all those things. What about if you just live in, you know, Randomsville, Wyoming? How do you get involved? Well, I got some suggestions for you. Number one, go to some local meetings. Okay? So, I'm very certain that your city has like a city council, school board, county commissioner, like the commission, uh the planning and zoning agencies or offices, political town hall meetings. Those typically, uh take place. So, go there, get to meet those people. Uh most cities have a chamber of commerce. Just be your way in there or send them an email and be like, "Hey, I'm just a concerned citizen in a good way, and I just want to make sure I know what's going on in my city." they could probably hook you up, get on their mailing list. Um, you could also set up a meeting with your mayor and sheriff. Most of those people are pretty easy to to get meetings with. So, get on their calendar, 15-minute meeting. Hey, I'm such and such, so and so. This is my wife. We have this many kids. We go to this school. You know, how'd you get elected? You know, what's your vision for our city? Like, you know, how do you do law enforcement in this area? That'd be kind of good. If you have a local newspaper, consume that. Whether, you know, the paper version or digitally. But if you do those things, you should be all squared away. All right. Next one here. How do you know when it's time to make a job change? I've been praying hard for several months now. Not always in my daily prayers about work, but at least every couple of weeks. I sometimes feel like I know what I'm feeling. Is God telling me to trust him and to make the jump? But then I feel really unsure if it's really God or just me not wanting to be there anymore. It's a great stable job and I've helped grow the company, but I'm feeling like I've run my course and I have other opportunities that are coming up. Not as stable, though. How did you know it was time for you to make the jump into full-time undaunted life from your other careers? If you've answered this on a previous episode, let me know. Blah blah blah. Thank you so much. Appreciate your work. Have a good one. I love this question. This is a great question. Because at the end of the day, it's pray, guess, go. That's a modality that Joby has taught me and taught a lot of people is you can't know for certain. Like, you really just can't know for certain. You pray, "God, reveal your will for my life, the path you want me to take." And then you shut up or stop praying and you just kind of listen. And I mean, you could just listen throughout your everyday life. And God should start showing you things or communicating to you things to make it clear and and pray to God. God, put it on the bottom shelf. Make it clear what your will for me to do is. Do you want me to leave? Do you want me to take this riskier thing? Uh do do you want me to stay? like is is this my mission field that you have for me now or do you have another mission field for me to go to? So So that's one thing I'll say for me with Undaunted Life, I'd been doing Undaunted Life for several years on the side. Had a couple of career shifts, but I had a really nice consulting uh some consulting work that I was doing for marketing and and sales and stuff with a a company out of Austin and that ran its course. And when it was done, I kind of had this internal thought. I'm like, hm, I wonder if it's time to see if this undone life thing is like a thing thing. And lo and behold, my bride, she had the exact same thought. And so when we first got together to talk after I was done with that consulting work, she brought it up. It was like, I wonder if this is time to see if on life is like a real thing. Like, let's see if we can get donors. Let's see if we can get you speaking gigs. Like, let's kind of get after it. So, it was me hearing from God, her hearing from God, us coming together to kind of figure out what that looks like and how we could extrapolate that out. Very risky though. Was making a pretty good living doing what I was doing. It was stable. It was difficult, but it was stable to going to making zero dollars and not having a really good idea of how to make more than that. And then the the thing from there, just kind of tell you two different things. the next right step and over the X. Okay. So, when you're doing this, when you're trying to surmise, what's God's will? What does God want me to do? You need to surmise, God, what is my next best step? What is the next right step that you have for me to do? Like, what do you want me to do? And then you just do that. And then you pray to God again, what's my next right step? And then you do that. And then the concept of being over the X. So, what I mean by over the X is like if you think in a military context, like you're flying a plane or whatever, you're over the X, this is where you need to drop your payload, whether it's a bomb or a, you know, um, provisions for something like that. If you're over the X, you probably need to stay there. Over the X means this is exactly where God wants you right now, doing exactly what you're doing. And you can pray to God, am I over the X right now? Is this what you have for me? Is this exactly where you want me to be? And then you try to surmise. Pray, guess, go. God, I guess this is what you're telling me to do. So, I'm going to take another step. I'm going to go one more step. Go another step after that and another step. But you have to be sensitive to the prompings of the Holy Spirit. You have to be sensitive to what other people are telling you because God could be using other people to communicate to you, no, this isn't the right thing for you or the right time or yes, this is the right time and the right thing. Go, go, go. So that's what I would tell you is if you're feeling that pull and then later you're saying, "Yeah, this probably isn't it, but that's not prayerful, then you should probably just pray a guess and go in the direction that God was sending you." Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Globo Gym or even your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine, maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. No more settling. It's time for you guys to get a guide to help you reach your fitness goals. And that's why I want to remind you about my good friends at Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is a fitness and mental toughness app developed by military special operators and mountain hunters that's becoming a global movement for building mentally tough athletes on and off the mountain. Mountain Tough is a native app ready to be downloaded on all platforms. So that includes iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and there's more. Once you sign up and download the app or access the website, you immediately have access to hundreds of exercise programs and literally thousands of workout videos. Thousands. So that includes structured hybrid strength and endurance programs, daily workouts, the full exercise library, mental toughness training, the Mountain Tough community, and accountability. And you can use it all on the go, online or offline, no matter where you decide to train. So if you're just getting started, that's great. They have programs for beginners. If you have minimal or no gear where you train, that's not a factor. They have minimal gear and body weight programs. And guys, if you're wanting to get into or maintain elite level fitness, they've got you covered with programs for top tier athletes, too. And for a limited time, Mountain Tough is extending undaunted lifers like you an incredible offer. Go to mountaintuff.com, that's mtnuff.com, and enter the code kyle when you sign up for a monthly plan to receive your first month free after your 14-day trial. So, that's 6 weeks free to make sure this is for you. I'm sure it will be. That is 6 weeks free on the best-in-class physical and mental training app in the world. So stop wasting time. It's time to get real fitness results. Let my friends at Mountain Tough guide the way. Again, go to mtntuff. That's mountain.com. Promo code Kyle. All right, next question here. What do you think of gentle parenting versus spanking? So, for those of you that are not raising kids right now, you may not know what gentle parenting even is, but it's basically this concept where there's definitely no spanking. There's no castigating a kid, there's no raising your voice, there's no yelling. Everything is very, hey, you did something that I didn't really think was the right thing. And so, let's go back and let's kind of talk about what happened in that moment. Hm. Why'd you make that decision? I don't know. Oh, well, that's very interesting. Can you tell me more about that? No. Okay. Well, hey, next time when you think I want to do that thing, we're going to do a different thing alto together. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I hate it. I hate gentle parenting. Now, what I'm not advocating is for abusive, like physically or emotionally abusive parenting where every little thing a kid does, you you ramp the volume up to 11 and go nuts. So you give the same negative reaction to if they spill their milk versus if they deliberately disobey you in public and throw a fit, right? Because if everything is the same level of outrage, then it's just noise to a kid, right? They can't think as quickly as you. They can't attach things to their thing like you do. But yeah, gentle parenting is ridiculous. Yes, I believe in, you know, spanking children. I think that is a great thing when used properly. I don't think you should ever spank as a response to your own personal anger. So you get mad, you grab your kid, wham, and then get. That's probably a terrible idea. I think spanking should be when you are chill, when you are in your resting heart rate mode. You explain to your kid, what did you do wrong? They need to be able to say it back to you and you say, so now I'm going to be delivering you a punishment because I love you and I don't want you to act that way. Assume the position. Right? But a little bit of parenting advice that I would uh give you in terms of like dealing with your littles, dealing with your kids, with the kid, they will learn from the prompting from you. And so if you tell them to do something and they ignore you, and then you tell them to do the same thing again, they ignore you. You tell them to do the same thing again, but now we're raising our voice. And then eventually you have to get to where you yell, "Do this and do it right now." What you've just taught this child is I don't really need to listen to dad until he gets mad. So the thing is is if they don't do what you if you know that they hear you. If they don't do what you tell them to do immediately and with a happy heart, there is a punishment. It's not always spanking. It might be a timeout. It might be taking a toy away. Maybe taking away a privilege of some kind. But there has to be an immediate aftermath that leads them toward correction. The same thing for the 95% of my audience. A lot of you guys are dads. You hear in the other room, your wife says to your kids to do something and they don't do it or they give her some attitude and hear you coming in, right? You're like a superhero. You come in, you say, "Hey, you do what you need to do right now or there's going to be hell to pay." You come in and do that. Guess what you've taught the child. I don't need to listen to mom. And I only need to I maybe should avoid making mom or like treating mom badly when dad's around cuz he's going to come in here and give me what for? No. Like you're what you're teaching them is that mom's word is not enough. So I think it's okay if you come in and back up mom with what mom told them to do. But same thing, mom tells them to do something, they don't do it or they defy or they rebel, same punishment, right? So, don't always be the kind of the night and shining armor thing because what that's actually doing is it's limiting your wife's uh ability to be respected by the child. So, some generalized parenting advice for you guys. All right, next question somewhat related to parenting as well. How do you set goals for your kids? So, I've talked to a lot of parents. Maybe they've got some teenagers and they're like, I want to, you know, help my my teenagers set some goals and, you know, they've got some things, some aspirations that they want to do. Maybe they want to go to college or a military academy or or start a business or blah blah blah. So, I want to work on some goal setting with them. This goes back to what I teach in my Dominion program. If you don't know what that is, on daunted.life/dominion, undaunted.life/dominion. But we have six pillars of a Dominion man. One of those pillars is standards over goals. So, you've probably seen the clip or heard me talk about before, but most people don't suck because they suck at goal setting. They suck because they suck. That's why they suck because they suck. Most of us are not one goal setting book or goal setting session away from not sucking so bad as a man, right? Whether that's spiritually, mentally, physically, whether that's with our finances, with our occupation. It's not a goals problem. It's a standards problem. Okay? So again, I always use this as example because it's a bottom shelf example. Tomorrow morning, I do not have a goal to wake up and lift weights. That's not my goal. My standard is is Tuesday mornings, I wake up and I lift. It's typically squat day, right? Yay, squat day. That's the standard. I wake up and I lift. So, I don't sleep in. And the thing is is I don't make the decision when I hear my alarm go off in the morning as to whether or not I'm going to get up and go to my garage and lift. But if I just have a goal to work out tomorrow morning, I'm I'm just going to set this goal. Well, let's say I wake up, I'm a little bit tired. Oh, I kind of slept funny. My neck's a little bit stiff or whatever. We'll just shift the goal. Oh, I'll try to do that tomorrow. See how you start playing the language game? I'll try to do that tomorrow. It's not, "Yeah, I'm just going to do that tomorrow." Or, "Hey, I'm going to move some stuff around today to still get my lift in." See, your brain when you're thinking like a goal person, a goal- driven person is, "Hey, I can kind of move this around. If I start getting out ahead of my goal, I can just increase it because goals are are cheap. You can just adjust them." Or, "Hey, if I'm a little bit lagging behind, let's just decrease the goal." Again, I'm not anti- goal setting. I think it's it's okay to have goals, but I think standards are way more important. So, back to the original question about your kids, you need to explain to them this is a standard of behavior. So, let's say you've got a 12-year-old and he's like, "Dad, I want to go to the Naval Academy." Okay, there's a lot of things that you need to do to kind of make that happen. You got to make really good grades. You got to have extracurriculars. You need to have a relationship with someone that can actually, you know, politician that can basically stamp uh your application and say, "Yes, I suggest that this person should go to the Naval Academy. You have to apply. You probably need to go visit and talk to some different folks." There's a lot of stuff that needs to happen, right? But those are checklist things. But if we back, you know, reverse engineer all this, okay, well, I need to be in shape. I need to have good grades. I need to have extracurriculars. Then let's just set some standards. Okay, we're going to exercise 5 days a week. Standard. We are going to do our homework before we do anything with friends or anything fun like video games or playing outside or something like that. We've got to get our homework done. Okay? We've got to get A's in our classes. So, if we're, you know, at the midpoint of the semester and we've got to be in chemistry or something like that, got to get that grade up. We We just have to get that grade up. So, the standard is going to tell you what you need to do. I need to go talk to my teacher, right? I may need to get some tutoring. I may need to skip a sports season so that I can get my grades better, right? Or if your grades are crushing it, but you're kind of feeling lazy on the extracurricular side. It's like, okay, well, I can stand to maybe study a little bit less because I'm I got some buffer in my class. I got a 95 in this class, so I got a little bit of a buffer, but I really need to get more involved with things in my church. I need to kind of get more involved with stuff in the community. I maybe need to pick up another sport this year. You see how the standard informs the actions? That's what you should do for your kids. And ultimately, you can give them, and there's a lot of great organizations that help you with this. It's standards for what you are as a family. So, I don't say, "Hey, James, you need to do this. Hey, Eli, you need to do that." I say, "This is what Thompson men do." Are you a Thompson man? Yes, Dad. Right. You are a Thompson man. This is how a Thompson man approaches prayer with God. This is how a Thompson man treats a woman. This is how a Thompson man treats a sibling. This is how a Thompson man communicates with a friend. This is how hard a Thompson man exercises. This is how hard a Thompson man works at a project or works at school. You set the standard for what you want as an outcome. So set a standard. Don't worry about goals. All right, next one here. What is the best apologetics presentation for Christianity? This one's actually a really easy one. Quick answer. Whichever one you'll do. Whichever one you'll actually do. Okay. You don't have to be Ray Comfort and, you know, talking up to people on the boardwalk and having them go through the Ten Commandments and showing which ones they violated and say, "Well, actually, you're a a murdering like thieving rapist like blah blah blah." Like, you don't have to do all that. That's fine. I'm fine with that approach. You don't need to get a theological degree. You don't need to do an expanded study on Christian apologetics. If you choose to do that, great. More power to you. But the best apologetics presentation for Christianity is the one that you will do. And you know what the best one typically is? It's being eyeball to eyeball with somebody, opening your mouth, and then saying words. And those words are something along the lines of, "Here's who I was, and here's the hope I had before Christ. And here's who I am now, and the hope I have now because of Christ. And then you just share with somebody. And guess what? They're probably going to open their face and start saying words back to you. They may even ask you questions. And guess what? They may ask you questions you don't have good answers to. But now you have an opportunity to meet with that person again to research it on your own. While they research it, you come back together. You continue the discussion. Right? So yes, I have a sales background. There's like sales approaches. Okay, here's how you approach this type of person with this personality. And okay, here's the type of language you should use. Here's when you should lean forward in your chair. here's when you should lean back. You know, here's the types of colors you would wear. Like I I used to work in a business where I had kind of a long closing cycle. So, I would progressively start wearing darker clothes because it insinuates how serious it is. So, I have a very intense personality. I talk with my hands. I have this face and the square jaw like it's it's kind of hard to be chill. But when I'm sitting down with a, you know, young married couple and all that and the gals is kind of maybe intimidated or maybe a little bit shy, I would wear a light blue shirt, a light green shirt. I would sit back a lot. I would talk a lot lower than I normally talk. I wouldn't use my hands as much because I want to ease them into this process which is for their overall betterment and helps me get a commission. Right? You don't even necessarily need to think about that in terms of an apologetics presentation. When you're in front of somebody who is a lost person, you just share the hope of Christ. It's the easy way to do it. All right. Next question here. How has or uh what has God been teaching you lately? So, uh, there's a couple of things that God has been teaching me lately. The first is the one that I've just been really, really focused on in 2025 and and carried over into 2026. It's being a calming presence at home. Okay, so I literally on the background of my phone, I have a a thing that says lion for them, lamb with them. Lion for them, lamb with them. Okay, that's that's what I have on the the background of my phone to remind me that I have to be a lion for my wife and children, but a lamb with them. My wife and my boys need to know that the line is available if things get kinetic or when the line is necessary. But they don't see the lion very much. Okay? Because guess what? If you're lying all the time, there's just they're racked with anxiety and angst and it's just not a good situation. But if you're a lamb all the time and they don't think the lion's available, they're nervous because they're like, "If anything bad happens, dad's not going to be able to show up. Like, he's weak. He's not gonna be able to protect us." So that's an anxious situation for the children as as well. But I want to be a calming presence when I walk in the room. Some men, they build this this whole thing that when they walk into the office or walk into the boardroom or whatever, they want people to be like, "Oh, shoot. He's here." Does that work very well at home? You want to be a dad that walks in the house and all of a sudden your wife gets all puckered up and not in the good way, right? The kids get all like, "Oh god, dad's here. Dad's here. Okay, calm down. Calm down. I want to be a calming presence. I want to be a welcoming presence. But also like I've been praying to God like there's certain people in my life that can be difficult to love, right? So you probably have a list of those people in your life. And it's usually the people that you you know the best that know you the best or maybe it could be a co-orker or a neighbor like just somebody that's that's difficult, right? So think of it like a neighbor. Maybe they don't cut their grass uh all the time. Maybe they're lazy and leave their trash cans out at the curb. you know, maybe their, you know, their yard looks like a swap meet or something like that. And, you know, even your HOA is like, we don't know what to do with these people. Difficult to love people. Pray to God, help me see them as you see them. Okay? So, if you're in a tough marriage, if you got kids that are kind of awful, you know, again, that that that co-orker or that nextdoor neighbor or something like that, if there's any situation like that, God, I'm frustrated with this person. I don't like some of the feelings and the thoughts I'm having. Can you help me see them as you see them? Because that's someone that's made in the image of God. They might suck as a person. They might be super annoying. They may be awful to be around. All the things. God, help me see them as you see them. So, I feel like those are the two things I've been focused on here lately. All right, a couple more here. How did you avoid getting frustrated and burnt out as a lower belt in jiu-jitsu? I'm currently a two-stripe white belt and I'm pretty frustrated seeing some guys being promoted faster than me. Any advice? So, there's actually a lot there in that message. Bro, if you if you're frustrated at people getting promoted faster than you, that is the exact wrong way to think about it, okay? Because if you're at a good academy, okay, you're not necessarily being compared to everyone that has the same color of belt as you have. Okay? I remember a white belt. I was I think I had three stripes on my white belt. Promotion day came around and I was not called out to get my blue belt and I was mad. I was frustrated. I thought I had earned it. I thought I had earned it. How did that guy get promoted? I beat him. I had the the exact wrong way of thinking because at the forge in Edund, Oklahoma, there's no lifetime achievement belts. They're not just, "Ah, well, you've been around for a couple years, so here's your blue belt." You have to earn it. You earn it by training. You earn it by being a good training partner, competing, you know, every now and then. And then the black belts get together and they decide, here is where this person is, and here's what they should be. We should promote them. Here's the other thing. Don't compare yourself to someone that's not in the same category as you. So, if you're a 45year-old guy that's been training a little bit and you're comparing yourself to the 22-year-old white belt that just graduated from college and he was a collegiate wrestler, you're going to drive yourself insane. But the same is true. What about the guy that's pushing 60 that just got promoted and you beat him all the time? Well, guess what, dude? You're in a different place than he is. You're 20 years younger than he is. You're maybe in better shape. maybe stronger, maybe more explosive. Why are you comparing yourself to that guy? Typically, my understanding is when these black belts get together, they look at, all right, how does John Smith compare to the other people that are around his age, around his athletic ability, around his size, and around his level of training and amount of times that he trains? Okay. Is he beating all the other guys at his level that match that description? Is he handling them? Okay, that might be, you know, reason to give them a stripe or even promote him to the next belt. But they might be looking at you like, man, this guy, we keep showing him the same thing. We keep telling him, you know, he needs to work on this, needs to work on that. He just keeps doing his own thing. He keeps getting beat by a lot of people at his level. It's probably not your time. But the best way to avoid getting frustrated and burnt out at a lower belt is to set a standard. So, I did not start training jiu-jitsu because I needed a hobby. I had hobbies. Had things that I like to do athletically. It was mainly like slow pitch softball and working out and, you know, doing that kind of thing. But I wanted to learn something else. And I didn't start jiu-jitsu thinking, man, I hope I can become a black belt someday. It was like, well, no, I'm going to train in a way to where 9 10 11 12 years from now, I'll be in line to get my black belt, which is about what it takes. Consistent training for about a decade is what it takes to be a black belt. Okay. And so what does that mean? I don't just take weeks or months off because I don't feel like going or because I got busy. I prioritize going and training when I'm healthy. If I'm injured or gone or something like that, I can't avoid that. But then if you're uninjured and you're gone on a business trip, maybe take your ghee with you, take your nogi stuff with you, drop in somewhere. Okay. Another thing for lower belts. I've talked to a lot of white belts and blue belts that are frustrated. They keep getting beat. Talking to a good buddy of mine who's a blue belt. He's at an academy where it's a bunch of killers and he keeps getting smashed. I just told him, man, I'm like, "Hey, you're a blue belt. Who are you rolling with?" I'm rolling with these big, you know, purple belts and brown belts. And I'm like, "And how do you think those are supposed to go? You're supposed to get beat by those guys." Well, you know, they don't let me, you know, roll with blue belts or white belts very much. Okay. What I would tell someone like that, drop in at another academy. Mostmies are okay with you cross trainining a little bit. Hey, you're on the other side of town. Drop into this gym. Hey, you're traveling. Drop into that gym. Because if you're at a really good gym with a lot of really good guys like me at the Forge in Edmund, like training with a lot of killers and you feel like, I'm just getting killed. I'm getting killed. Like, what's going on? Drop in another academy and see how it goes. Cuz I I talked to this exact guy that I'm thinking of. He gets killed where he trains, but when he drops in somewhere else, he mauls people. He's mauling guys that are purple belts and he's a blue belt. He's holding his own with brown belts. If you're at a really good academy with really good people, you're getting good and getting better at the same rate that they are or at least close to the same rate. So, they should stay ahead of you, right? It goes back to, you know, don't compare yourself to who you are uh today. Compare or right? So, don't compare yourself to someone else today. Compare yourself to who you were six months ago or who you were before. So, are you better than you were six months ago? What would you do to the you from six months ago and to the two-stripe white belt that gave me this question? Do you realize you're already a better fighter than most guys walking around? I mean, two stripe white belts, you're basically still a baby deer. But there are a lot of guys that walk around, they don't even understand base. Like if I if I'm on both feet and both hands and you take my right hand away, well, don't push me here to left or back. Push me towards where I don't have a base. Most people don't understand that. You're already ahead where most people are. And the thing is is you're typically not as far behind as you think you are. So I think you're going to be okay. Just keep training. Keep doing the things it takes to be a highle jiu-jitsu practitioner. All right, last question of the day. Hello, Mr. Thompson. I don't know who Mr. Thompson is. I'm looking around for my dad. How can I pursue my girlfriend as a godly man and put God at the center of our relationship? I'm 20 years old and am one week one week into my first relationship. Wow, this is precious. And this is all new to me. I want to ensure that I'm leading and being a man worthy of pursuing her. Thank you for your podcast. It's helping me become more mentally, spiritually, and physically resilient. Man, I I love this because you're a week into your first relationship, right? And you're already thinking, "How can I be a man worthy of pursuing her?" Bro, you are miles ahead of the rest of the people in your cohort. Gosh, the 20-year-old idiots walking around because guess what? They're in a relationship for sex. The only reason why they would not just go on to the next Trist or one night stand and, you know, actually date the same girl is because they just want a banger. They just want to have as much sex as possible. Okay, this girl seems to be giving it up pretty easy, so I'll stick around for a little bit until things get hard or I run into a little turbulence and then I'll get out and kind of look for another low discernment woman with daddy issues, right? You're not thinking that way. So the thing that I would tell you just as a as a few standards, if most of your friends are doing one thing in a relationship and your friends are morons, don't do what your friends are doing. Okay? Second thing, you have to keep the marriage bed pure. You can have no sexual encounters with your girlfriend. Okay? Some couples don't even kiss until they get to their wedding night or the the altar, right? Maybe that's what you should do. And also, I don't know anything about the gal because you didn't put it in the message, but if you're the type of guy that wants to stay a virgin until you're married or not have sex with this gal until you're married, I honest to goodness think that you need to have very serious big boy life conversations as early as possible. There's a guy I'm mentoring right now. He's he's in his 20s. You know, he's he's doing well in life, but he he wants to get married. And I keep telling him kind of like where to look and and all that, like kind of how to find a gal, but you're already in a relationship. But I'm like, bro, on your first or second date, you need to talk about what kind of lifestyle you want to live. Does she want to work and gain a career or build a business or does she want to stay home? What are your preferences? Does she want kids? Do you want kids? How many kids? Right? Like, do do they want one kid cuz they were an only child and they thought it was fun? Or do you want seven kids? You need to kind of have that discussion. Where do you want to live? Do you want to live close to his grand like his parents, her parents? You want to live somewhere off all by yourself? Do you want to live outside the country? Hey, what type of job do you want? Like, do you want to pursue a career or do you want to be in ministry? Hey, [clears throat] how's the household going to run? And you're thinking, bro, Kyle, I'm 20 years old and I was just I've been dating this girl for a week. Do you want to date this girl for another two years before you have any serious conversations? Here you are. You're 2 years in, you haven't talked about anything serious. You don't even know if she's a Christian. You don't know if she's a believer. She doesn't know if you're a believer. Maybe you're in one of those situations. Is that where we're going to start this conversation, you're two years in, you might feel stuck in the relationship? Like, I can't get out of this. I I brought her home to to meet the parents. I went to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. Right? So, a lot of people just kind of blindly keep walking down the road and then eventually they're like, "Well, I guess I should buy him a ring." So, you buy him a ring. You get down on one knee and you ask her to marry you and she cries and hugs and there's pictures and everyone's so excited. Still haven't had a conversation that's real. You go through that process of planning this ridiculous expensive wedding. You kind of do premarital counseling, but it's one of those ones that's just like at a mega church and you go there on a Friday evening and you just take a couple of personality tests and they give you a copy of the five love languages and you leave. You still haven't had any serious discussions about your future and what you want for your lives. Then you get married. Then you start having fights about what he was expecting, what she was expecting, the baggage she's bringing to the relationship, the baggage he's bringing to the relationship. Hey, I don't even want kids. Like, I want to work for the next 10 years. I got to build my career. Oh, shoot. I thought we would start having kids immediately. Bro, now you're married. You're a young married couple and you need serious guidance and counseling almost right out of the gate. So, you're putting yourself at a deficit by not starting those conversations earlier. So, to this young 20-year-old man that's one week into his first relationship, you might be thinking, "Okay, this is like a a baby chick and I've just got to, you know, just protect this thing and just do everything I can to make it happy and, you know, it'll be fine." Bro, if you have some serious conversations with her and she's turned off by that, probably not a guy you should marry. If you say, "Hey, I don't want to do anything sexual with you, like I want to be a virgin until I'm married or or something like that." and she's like, "Oh, that's kind of weird. Drop that girl." You know, leave 40 bucks on the table to cover the tab. Get the hell out. Don't waste any more time with that person. Okay? No missionary dating. No. Like, oh, well, you know, she's a little rough around the edges and she's had a whole lot of sexual partners and, you know, but I can change her. That's usually how the gals think. Oh, this guy's kind of rough. Very rough. And like, you know, he does some really bad things. Kind of has a drinking problem and he, you know, I think I saw porn on his computer, but I don't worry. I can fix him. It's not typically how it works out. Those things typically metastasize and get worse and then ruin relationships leads to divorce leads to affairs leads to, you know, bad relationships with kids or non- relationships with kids or any number of things. Abuse, like all those different things. Have the hard conversations as early as possible. All right, guys. Thanks for listening to the AMA. Again, if you want your questions considered, info@una.life, shoot us an email or a DM on Instagram. Also, I want to do a quick resilience boost before we let you guys get out of here. At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and uh physical resilience. So, I've got some uh links here to where you can check out the donation page to where you can send us stuff for Unda Life. Or if you need a taxdeductible donation, there's somewhere that you can go to donate to the Daily Blade. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast or shoot me an email to info@undantton.life, that's info@undantton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [music] [music]