ANDREWS & WILSON | Shepherds Series: Dark Angel (Ep. 297)

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0:48 This is on Daunted Life of Man's Podcast.

0:51 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:53 Let's get into it.

0:54 All right, guys.

0:55 Today, we've got two special guests on the podcast.

0:56 That is Brian Andrews and Jeff Wilson.

0:58 So, Andrews and Wilson are the best-selling co-author team of the Tier 1 thriller series,

1:01 Sons of Aller, and the Shepherds series.

1:03 We're going to be talking about the latest book, the second book in the Shepherds series

1:06 called Dark Angel.

1:07 We're going to be spending a lot of time on that today.

1:09 Now, these guys are a man's podcast veterans.

1:11 They were on episodes 235 and 228, so on one of those episodes, we talked about what

1:16 had just happened in Afghanistan, and then on the other episode, we talked more about

1:19 the first book in the Shepherds series, kind of how they write as a co-author team.

1:23 All of these guys are United States military veterans, and in this episode, we went into

1:26 a lot of different areas, but one thing I did that was different about this episode is

1:29 I separated them.

1:30 So, last time, we had them in the same area, and that's how they do a lot of their interviews

1:34 is they're both in kind of their own area, and then we were talking to them both at the

1:37 same time.

1:38 But I wanted to ask some of the same questions to both of them, but separately, just to kind

1:43 of see what they would say, and then we got to poke fun at each other for a lot of that.

1:46 So, that was a lot of fun.

1:47 And so, I asked them essentially the same questions for both interviews, but it's going

1:51 to be very, very interesting to hear how differently they perceive certain things, because in

1:54 this episode, we talk about Afghanistan.

1:56 We talk about Ukraine.

1:57 We talk about the overall state of the United States military and some of the things that

2:00 are changing with diversity, equity, inclusion, and the lowering of standards, but then we

2:04 get into how they got hooked up and how they figured out how they could write books together.

2:08 We get into "Dark Angel," kind of the, I guess, how they deal with the faith element of their

2:13 books while also making the books very, very violent.

2:16 We talked about the state of masculinity, and both of them gave very, very different

2:19 answers as to kind of what the current state of masculinity is in our culture, and then

2:23 I did "What Would You Say?" to someone that said with both of them at the end, we get

2:26 into a lot of great subject matters.

2:27 So, I really enjoyed my time with them, and so, we'll be giving you the interview with

2:30 Jeff Wilson first, and then we'll switch it over to Brian Andrews.

2:33 So, guys, stick around because their answers are amazing, and it's also amazing how well

2:37 they work together and how different some of their answers are.

2:39 So, it should be interesting for you, but I won't keep them from you any longer.

2:42 So, without further ado, let's get into it.

2:45 Jeff Wilson, welcome back to "Endaunted Life of Man's Podcast."

2:48 Great to be here, man.

2:49 I was looking forward to talking to you.

2:51 Congratulations to you.

2:52 I know you got a lot going on right now.

2:54 Thank you very much.

2:55 Yeah, I got the new baby here, so I don't know when this is going to come out, so I don't

2:58 know if I'm going to be able to talk to my audience before then, but I will give them

3:00 a big, long update as to the expansion of the Thompson family, but, yeah, I mean, we're

3:05 making a habit of this.

3:06 This is your third appearance here on this show, and so, we'll see what kind of trouble

3:09 we can get into, and then we'll talk with your buddy here in a second, but I've heard

3:13 you were just telling me off air, you have a bunch of exciting updates, and the funny

3:17 thing about it is how you framed it.

3:19 You were praying for blessings from God and you're praying for all these great and cool

3:21 things to happen, but now you're getting all these cool opportunities, but now you got

3:26 to do the work.

3:27 They got to do the work.

3:28 Yeah, just give me, like, a brief overview of some of the cool stuff that you have since

3:31 the last time we talked to you.

3:32 Sure.

3:33 Well, the biggest thing is, you know, I think we talked to you, we were, was just ahead

3:36 of the release of the first book in the Shepherds series, Darkins, and that book did great.

3:41 It was, you know, you're always, you're always wondering how it's going to be received with

3:45 your existing fan base when you do something a little different, but people loved it.

3:49 So that was fun.

3:51 The second book is probably out by the time this airs, and the third book comes out in

3:55 the fall.

3:56 So that's doing great.

3:57 We actually are excited to announce the Tindale side, another three book deal with

4:00 us.

4:01 So there'll be at least six books in that series.

4:03 So that's fun.

4:04 Sons of Val are still going strong.

4:06 The next book in that one comes out in June, and we finally, people can stop emailing us

4:10 because we finally got another tier one book done, Dempsey book seven comes out next, next

4:15 February.

4:17 And then we've got a new techno thriller series coming out next year to starting with sandbox.

4:21 So lots going on in the writing, but we've also got some new opportunities.

4:25 I think we told you before, we sort of look at ourselves more as storytellers than novelists

4:29 and we've been looking for a ways to branch out into other forms of media.

4:34 And like you said, we've been praying about it that we would not just get opportunity,

4:37 but we get those right opportunities and the right relationships because, you know, it's

4:40 a crazy world out there.

4:43 And that's coming through.

4:44 We can't get into a lot of detail, but we've signed a deal on a feature film based on one

4:49 of our unpublished projects that comes out in a couple of years.

4:53 And we're negotiating another TV deal in addition to the one we have with Shepard.

4:57 So yeah, it's, but yeah, like you pointed out, now you got to do the work, right?

5:02 Right.

5:03 So are you, you guys are just really bored a lot.

5:05 Is that kind of how it goes?

5:07 It's like, hey, we haven't written a book in seven minutes.

5:09 Maybe we should crank out another book, but before we get too much into the writing stuff

5:12 and all that, which we will get into guys, we did talk a little bit on this podcast.

5:16 We had you guys on to talk really right in the aftermath of the initial drawdown in Afghanistan

5:22 and we got your opinions on that.

5:23 But that's everyone's knee jerk opinions.

5:25 And so to a degree, I kind of set you guys up unintentionally to be like, Hey, this, this

5:30 news is 17 minutes old.

5:31 How about you give me your complete, you know, rundown of what you think's going on?

5:35 And now that we've had some time to breathe in terms of what's going on with Afghanistan,

5:39 you know, where we're coming up, you know, later on this summer will be one year since

5:42 the pullout.

5:43 What, what are kind of your feelings as to what happened now that we've, the dust has

5:47 kind of settled a little bit, not for the people of Afghanistan, obviously, but about

5:51 kind of how the United States has maybe perceived now around the world because of what we do.

5:55 Absolutely.

5:56 I mean, yeah, like you said, I remember that so vividly we, we called for people to be

6:01 praying for veterans who were going to be impacted by that because it was impactful.

6:05 I know for me personally and a lot of other people that left friends and blood and treasure

6:09 on the battlefield and then to pull out the way we did.

6:12 I would say that my opinion on that has not changed much, if at all, in terms of, you

6:18 know, as you know, we try to stay out of the politics of it in terms of partisan politics.

6:23 But whatever you're leaning, whatever your party, there's not really a possibility to

6:28 say, wow, that went well, right?

6:30 I mean, it just, it didn't go well.

6:32 It was done, it was done poorly, Americans lost their lives, Americans and allies were

6:36 left behind.

6:38 And the country that we spent enormous amounts of money, blood and personal sacrifice in

6:45 is now descended into chaos.

6:47 So like literally what else can there be to say that it's just horrible.

6:53 I have seen the impact that it's had on our fellow veterans and it's significant as you

6:59 and I predicted on that, on that interview.

7:01 We knew that the six months to a year following that were going to be really difficult for

7:05 a lot of people.

7:06 You know, you were sort of nursing yourself along with your issues saying, well, at least

7:11 we did something important.

7:12 And when that was pulled out from some of some of these guys and girls, it was devastating.

7:17 So we're seeing that.

7:18 We're seeing that in the ministry, the military ministry that we lead in Tampa and we're seeing

7:22 it in just in the veterans community in general.

7:25 In terms of, you know, how we're perceived in the world, I tend to let the diplomats in

7:30 the talking heads argue about that.

7:33 But again, common sense, like, would you partner with me if I, right?

7:38 So I just don't, I just don't think there's anything controversial here.

7:42 I think no matter what your political leaning, this was a catastrophe.

7:46 Who's to blame the timing, you know, information, intel?

7:51 They can argue about that all they want, but anybody that tries to pretend like this was

7:54 done well is things were stupid, I guess.

7:57 Well, I think it's okay to question the decision making of the people that are in power, whether

8:02 you want to hang this around the neck of Joe Biden or his cabinet, which is actually running

8:06 the show or the generals or whatever that type of thing is.

8:08 But the thing that's scary about that is the same crew, the same smart crew of people that

8:13 that are our moral betters, right, are also dealing with the, the current situation that's

8:18 going on with Ukraine.

8:19 Now we're not dealing with it, you know, as we did in Afghanistan, because we don't have

8:22 boots on the ground, at least that we know of, and at least not yet, but in again, it's

8:27 hard to even comment on the situation in Ukraine, because who do you listen to?

8:31 Which news outlet, like which, which thing that turned out to be false, do you actually

8:35 believe now and just don't haven't gotten the update?

8:38 But just in general, I know we're being very, very broad brush because we don't have all

8:41 the time in the world today.

8:42 But what are your thoughts on the situation currently going on Ukraine and what we could

8:45 do about it?

8:46 We actually have a lot of opinions on it for reasons I'll outline in a minute.

8:49 But I want to latch onto something you said that really resonates with me.

8:54 You know, we are allowed to question, we are allowed to raise these issues.

8:59 I would argue that it's bigger than that.

9:01 It's not just a right that we have, it's a responsibility we have.

9:05 The entire fabric of America is founded on the idea that we are a country run by you

9:10 and me.

9:11 We're a country run by its people.

9:13 And so the day you stop asking questions, the day you stop, you know, holding people

9:18 accountable is the day you've completely obviated your responsibility as an American citizen for

9:23 the running of the country.

9:26 We're a employee-owned company, right, in America.

9:29 We all have a share and a stake and we have a responsibility to make it succeed.

9:33 So I really like that you said that resonated with me a lot.

9:36 In terms of Ukraine, you know, Brian, I'm going to be interested to hear what Brian says.

9:41 And, you know, if we don't take an opportunity to make fun of him at some point, then that's

9:43 an opportunity.

9:44 We have to.

9:45 It's because we're all on these together, right?

9:47 Right.

9:48 So I separated you because I want you all to talk trash about each other.

9:51 I'm trying to create some disputes so that we can break you all up to see if we can do

9:54 a reunion tour.

9:55 There you go.

9:56 This is a whole big thing.

9:57 I'm trying to think.

9:58 What's interesting about the way things unfolded in the early stages of war in Ukraine is we

10:05 are not the smartest people.

10:06 We're not prescient people, but we do observe what's going on.

10:10 And we wrote a book in 2019 called Collateral.

10:14 And in that book, Russia amassed troops on the eastern border of Ukraine.

10:19 They had already taken Crimea, of course, they, yes, they staged, as you remember, they

10:24 staged an incident that made them the peacekeepers and protecting Russian interests.

10:29 And it unfolded almost chapter by chapter, the way we wrote in collateral, the difference

10:35 was in collateral, we had an organization and a government invested in the security of Ukraine.

10:42 And so they were beat back and defeated.

10:45 And so that's the question.

10:47 What's the right answer?

10:48 I get the nuclear threat.

10:51 I get that.

10:53 But anybody that is observing the leadership in Russia, this isn't us against the Russian

10:58 people.

10:59 I want to start by saying that.

11:01 The Russian people, by and large, as you've seen on the media, they're not for this either.

11:05 So this isn't Russia.

11:06 This is a few crazy people in charge of Russia that are responsible for this.

11:12 And we have to be aware of that.

11:13 And so the idea that it's like, well, we don't want to upset the bully because then

11:17 you'll beat us up.

11:19 You were in, you were a kid, you were in the schoolyard.

11:22 What inspires a bully to beat more kids up, letting him beat some kids up, right?

11:26 And so if we think we're going to be safer by not stopping things, whether it's through

11:32 a UN force or whether it's through the EU or armed support, direct support, I'm not the

11:38 expert to decide what it should look like.

11:40 But we don't have an active role in stopping this.

11:43 And we think that by just letting him take what he wants in Ukraine will somehow be safer.

11:49 That's insane.

11:50 That's madness.

11:51 Again, it's, it's the same people that are just trying to tell you, look, we're smarter

11:55 than you, but there's something virtuous about someone that says, Hey, I thought like I am

11:58 a smart person, I'm intelligent, but I thought this thing and did this thing and it turned

12:02 out being really to be really, really stupid.

12:04 It doesn't seem like anyone in government on either side of the aisle, frankly, has

12:07 the capability of being like, yeah, I was really, really dumb.

12:10 I didn't, if I could go back, I would not make this dumb decision.

12:13 But I think this all, and this will be the last question and then we'll get into the

12:15 book stuff.

12:17 I feel like as an outsider, right, having not served in the military, having, you know,

12:20 not even being tangentially involved with the current military, that the United States

12:25 military is not focused on the right things.

12:28 At least the things that we're seeing from government is they seem to be focused on diversity

12:31 and inclusion and making a diverse force and, you know, making it to where men and women

12:36 can kind of have some of the same standards and let's change the physical standards so

12:39 more people, especially women can pass.

12:42 And it seems like we should be worried about lethality over everything.

12:46 And we should be like, if every single soldier looked the exact same, but we were the baddest

12:51 military on the planet, I think that should be the goal.

12:54 But that that's what it looks like as a civvy looking in on this world is it's like, what

12:58 are we doing?

12:59 Like China and Russia aren't trying to like make a diverse fighting force.

13:01 They're trying to make a lethal fighting force.

13:03 Like, am I crazy?

13:04 No, you're not crazy at all.

13:06 I will say that I probably fall somewhere in the middle having served.

13:09 I think that we are stronger when there's diverse opportunity for sure.

13:15 But the idea that we have to focus on one or the other is madness, right?

13:19 And so I agree with you.

13:20 It shouldn't be a social experiment by any stretch of the imagination.

13:23 Do I think that a special operations force is better when it has diversity of thought,

13:29 diversity of culture, diversity of opinion?

13:30 I do because you bring different things to the table.

13:34 But that can't be your focus.

13:35 You have to say, here's the mission.

13:38 Here's what we need to accomplish it.

13:39 Who can best accomplish that mission?

13:41 And here's the standard.

13:42 And here's the standard and move forward.

13:44 Now the flip side of that is if you as a fighting force see outright discrimination

13:50 that there are people who are qualified for jobs and they're not getting them because

13:54 of their sex or their race or that's wrong and you as a military need to address it immediately

14:00 because that degrades the force, right?

14:03 But that's not what's going on.

14:05 And so I agree with you.

14:06 The focus of the military should be to have the most lethal fighting force.

14:10 The person that gets selected for pilot training should be the guy that is going to be the

14:14 best or girl that's going to be the best fighter pilot.

14:17 Should there be women?

14:18 Sure.

14:19 As long as they're qualified, as long as they can do the job and as long as they can contribute

14:23 and they have a mission and team before self attitude.

14:27 So you're a man, a woman or a mermaid, if you're coming into the military to prove something

14:34 about mermaids, you have no business there.

14:37 If you're coming because you want to serve the country and you want to do something and

14:40 you have the skills to do it, you should be afforded that opportunity.

14:43 So that I'd say that not to disagree with you in any way, but we can walk into gum.

14:49 Like you can make sure there's no discrimination while building the most lethal fighting force

14:53 on the planet.

14:54 Yes, they've lost their focus, it needs to be fixed before it's too late, but it's not

15:00 impossible to do both these things.

15:02 Well, it's okay to disagree with me, but not that much because it's my show and that'd

15:06 be rude.

15:07 I don't want to kick you off on my own show, but like one day when we're sitting down,

15:10 we'll have a scotch and discuss this.

15:12 I think it's indicative of a sick society when they let their women fight their wars.

15:16 And so that's just kind of a general way of saying things.

15:19 And I mean that in forward facing combat roles.

15:21 I think that that is something that is not their calling, that that is a, they have a

15:25 separate calling to society and to basically worship a, a, a all knowing and all powerful

15:30 God is not to be in the fighting force that is trying to push back darkness.

15:34 But again, like I said, we can spend the rest of our time today just talking about that

15:37 and that is not why we're here.

15:39 Let's get into the world.

15:40 It would be a rich conversation that I look forward to having because we're probably not

15:44 so far on our opinion on that, on that subject with a couple of little tweaks.

15:49 But, and, and those are the conversations that are fun, right?

15:52 And those are the best ones to have scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other.

15:56 So we'll make sure that we put that on the calendar.

15:57 But so we can pay the bills.

15:59 Let's talk about y'all's writing career and for anyone that has not listened to your

16:02 two previous appearances on this podcast, first of all, how dare you?

16:05 How dare you not have listened to my show since day one?

16:08 Come on guys.

16:09 What is wrong with you?

16:10 But for those people that are a little bit behind as of right now, how did you and Brian

16:14 get hooked up, you know, and, and how does a co writing process work on the books that

16:18 you guys produce?

16:19 Because obviously, most people don't do that.

16:21 There's individual writers, but you guys are co authoring these books.

16:25 Take us through all that.

16:26 Yeah.

16:27 So the answer to both questions is, is linked to the same thing.

16:29 And that's that we, we share a history of service.

16:32 We're both Navy veterans.

16:34 We met at international thriller writers has a meeting every summer.

16:38 We're actually looking forward to it coming up the last week in May, early June called

16:42 thriller fest in New York and all the writers get together.

16:45 But the long story short, the way we met my very first time at thriller fest, my wife,

16:50 Wendy and I went, we were very excited.

16:52 We're in the city.

16:53 I was a debut author.

16:54 My first novel had come out.

16:55 My second one was almost out.

16:56 And so they had this debut author program.

16:58 So we came to be part of that, but I will tell you that I don't, how do I say this?

17:04 It's not that I don't socialize.

17:05 Well, I don't enjoy social situations, partly because of past experiences and stuff.

17:11 I do well there, but it's not my favorite thing.

17:14 So I'm sitting in the hotel room, I'm flipping through the, you know, they give you a little

17:17 bulletin with all the people that are going to be there.

17:19 This sounds psychotic, but I'm like memorizing the faces of the guys that are military.

17:25 Like I'm like, all right, if I got to go to this cocktail party with a bunch of people

17:29 I don't know who are writers and editors, if there's a few mils, right?

17:33 So Brian was one of the faces like, oh, he was Navy and there were a few others.

17:37 And so, you know, when he tells it, I sound even more like a stalker.

17:41 But so we go to this cocktail party on the opening night, and sure enough, I see him

17:45 there.

17:46 He's like, I think that's that Brian Andrews guys, the Navy submarine officer, and he was

17:50 sitting by himself when I usually tell it, he's crying in his beer, but since he can't

17:55 defend himself, we'll leave it at that.

17:57 So we go over and we start chatting with him and we made an instant friendship connection.

18:01 He was his, his wife and my wife have a lot in common.

18:05 We're both family and faith before anything in our lives, our kids were the same age.

18:11 So we just met and became friends and it was a couple years later that we wound up, you

18:16 know, writing together.

18:17 I was actually Brian's idea, I'll save that one for him to tell you.

18:21 But we started writing together a couple years later.

18:24 In terms of the process, that military thing is really the key.

18:28 You know, people who have served, well, not just the military, but people that have had

18:31 a life of service that know what servant leadership really looks like.

18:36 And that's a big thing in the, in the military, especially in, you know, elite units like

18:42 or elite places like Special Warfare or the submarine community.

18:47 You have to be able to put the mission before yourself, you have to be able to put your

18:50 team before yourself.

18:51 And you have to understand that you're a cog, right?

18:54 Like you can't, Brian can't just mount up on a $6 billion submarine and be a lethal fighting

19:01 force.

19:02 He's one part of this, you know, colony of people, every one of them has to do their

19:06 job perfectly for it to work and in the Special Warfare community, the same thing.

19:09 And so early on, we did, agreed we would write together.

19:13 That's what we said.

19:14 We said, you know what, let's take what we've learned as military officers and apply it

19:18 to this.

19:19 There'll be no ego, there's no your stuff, my stuff, everything you write.

19:23 I can change everything.

19:25 You write, I can change advice versus, and it's going to be about the product.

19:29 It's going to be about writing the best book, it's ours, it's not yours or mine.

19:33 And so that's how we approach it with a very, you know, team before self attitude and for

19:39 us, it works.

19:40 And every co-op, there's not a lot of them, but every co-op team has their own thing.

19:45 That's ours.

19:46 And I think it works for us because of that military connection.

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20:16 Well, I appreciate you letting us have a peek behind the curtain in terms of all that.

20:21 But let's talk about the new book.

20:22 So thank you guys for sending me an advanced copy of this.

20:24 It is called Dark Angel and it's out this week, guys.

20:27 If you're listening to this on time, and it is the second book in the, what I thought

20:30 was going to be a three book series of the Shepherd series, but now it's being expanded

20:34 out to six, which is awesome for you guys.

20:36 So how about you remind our listeners of what the Shepherd series is and then give them

20:40 an idea of what they can expect with Dark Angel?

20:42 Absolutely.

20:43 In the broadest terms, the Shepherd series is what Andrews and Wilson does.

20:47 It's covert ops and, you know, bad guys and good guys and door kicking and a former Navy

20:51 seal and all that.

20:52 But what we did in this series was we were able to layer in other things that were passionate

20:57 about things like crisis and faith, our main character, a little different character and

21:01 hero.

21:02 For his hero's journey, you usually get guys at the top of their game, right, like John

21:05 Dempsey and chunk in our Sons of Valor series.

21:08 These guys are badass doing their thing top of the game.

21:12 We meet Jed when he's broken physically, emotionally, spiritually.

21:17 This is a guy that encountered evil as a young man and ran from it.

21:20 Like it's not a classic hero's journey.

21:22 And so what we attempted to do was to take those entertaining, you know, covert operations

21:29 elements and blend in themes of crisis and faith.

21:33 What does that look like?

21:34 Jed is a guy who has run away from his faith when he had to confront evil and he hasn't

21:37 found his way back to it.

21:39 And some biblically based supernatural elements of spiritual warfare.

21:44 We chose that because, you know, those of us that have been places and seen true evil,

21:49 we want to be able to show that to people in a way that can be entertaining, but maybe

21:54 informative because I believe those things are real and are out there.

21:57 And even in church, we don't talk about it much for some reason.

22:00 I think the church used to, but we don't now talk a lot about the good.

22:04 We don't talk a lot about the evil side and we don't talk a lot about what that looks

22:07 like.

22:08 So we tried to put those elements in, which makes it, well, first of all, as a writer,

22:13 creatively, like, right, this guy's the limit, right?

22:17 But I think also just as a reader and as someone involved in military ministry, it's an opportunity

22:22 to share some of these themes.

22:23 And maybe at the end, someone reads the book and has something they want to think about

22:27 or talk about.

22:28 Well, I think that's a, that's an important thing because that's one thing that's missing

22:31 from this genre in general is that extra element, because usually have there's the revenge element

22:36 and you've got the, you know, fighting for my teammates element, but having that faith

22:40 element is very interesting.

22:41 However, and I'm sure you've heard this pushback a lot from a lot of people.

22:44 It's also a violent series.

22:46 And so some people will find that out, especially people that are in the church, like I posted

22:50 a meme the other day on our Instagram and someone says, isn't this a Christian page?

22:54 Because it was, because it was funny.

22:55 It was a satire thing.

22:56 I reposted something from the Babylon beat, but everyone loves to moralize and clutch their

23:00 pearls when something kind of offends their sensibilities.

23:03 But there are a lot of people that would, would say to you guys or at least think that it's

23:06 inappropriate to have a series that's violent, that also has these elements.

23:10 So talk to me a little bit about that pushback.

23:12 You may get it.

23:13 It is funny, and first of all, I'm happy to report we've had less of that than we thought.

23:18 We found a little.

23:19 Okay.

23:20 But less than we thought.

23:21 And part of that, we credit to Tindale House specifically, but Christian fiction in general

23:26 is sort of in this evolution phase, you know, 10 years ago, if you said, describe the cover

23:32 of the newest Christian book, you'd say, okay, it's a girl sitting on the back of a wagon

23:35 with a bonnet on and like, that's what, that's what it was on his romance.

23:39 I was Christian fiction.

23:40 And that's what you could get.

23:41 I think that what the Christian culture, if you will, the church, and I mean that in

23:46 the acts two way, the broadest sense, the church, the community of believers, is coming to realize

23:50 is that, yeah, you know, we're not supposed to be out of the world, but we are in it.

23:55 And we can't talk about difficult things if we're not willing to describe the world

24:00 that we live in.

24:02 And so even just a few years ago, I wrote an inspirational fiction book about war called

24:07 war torn, and I couldn't publish it with a Christian, Christian publisher, because they

24:12 said, oh, we love the themes and redemption and finding your way back, but there's so

24:17 much violence.

24:18 Can you get it some of that out?

24:19 It's like, well, then what's he struggling with, if you, so I think you're exactly right.

24:23 There's this, there's this sense that you, that the church or the publishing industry,

24:29 they're going to be very maternal, right?

24:31 They'll let us know what is okay for us to read.

24:35 The reality is, I'm a Christian, you're a Christian.

24:38 Did you see the last born movie?

24:40 Did you watch the last mission and possible movie?

24:42 Of course you did.

24:43 It's exciting and it's entertaining.

24:45 So if you're going to be doing that anyway, why not come up with some stuff that's exciting

24:49 and entertaining and action-packed and realistic and gritty that can also expose you to these

24:55 themes of crisis and faith and who is God?

24:59 What is good and evil?

25:00 What's the role in the world, redemption, these things?

25:04 So I think that you're seeing an evolution in Christian fiction led by companies like

25:09 Tindale House to do stuff that's a little, a little grittier, a little more violent.

25:15 But I can't show you a story about a guy who recovers from his trauma, if I'm not allowed

25:19 to have you have an emotional response to what his trauma was.

25:23 Absolutely.

25:24 And the thing with Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness.

25:27 And you can't push back darkness if you don't look at it, if you don't recognize it, if you

25:31 don't see it, and there's a lot of men around the globe that are doing things in areas that

25:36 we don't even know about, but pushing back against human trafficking or pushing back

25:40 against darkness in other ways around the world.

25:42 You can't do that by just covering your eyes and pretending like it doesn't exist, which

25:46 I guess gets me into the next topic I wanted to talk about because we didn't get to talk

25:49 about this very much in your other.

25:50 I just want to say one of the thing on this, if you don't mind.

25:52 I know you've got a time thing, but these people that say, "I'm not going to read dark

25:58 intercept because of the violence," they must not read the Bible because there is violence.

26:05 And I'm not just talking about the Old Testament violence and the wars and this tribe and that

26:08 tribe throughout the New Testament.

26:10 I mean, did you have an emotional visceral response when you read about the stoniest

26:15 Stephen?

26:16 That was an important story, but would it have been important if they didn't talk about the

26:20 violent part of it?

26:21 You had to have this horrified visceral emotional response to Stephen being stoned to death in

26:28 order to be moved by him looking to heaven and saying, "God, your will, and here I come,

26:33 I put myself in your hands."

26:35 You can't have one without the other.

26:37 So these people that are uncomfortable reading about violent themes in a Christian book, I

26:43 don't know how they get through the Bible.

26:44 They must really sterilize the Bible in order to get through it.

26:48 I literally wrote down their sanitizing violence to a degree because what Jesus did when he

26:53 cleared the temple was a violent act of righteous aggression.

26:57 So he didn't walk through and like, "Oh, I'm just going to toss this table and toss

27:01 this table like it's been depicted in some Christian media and things like that."

27:04 He was almost reluctantly doing it.

27:06 No, no, no, no.

27:07 He saw what was going on.

27:08 He left.

27:09 Made a whip came back.

27:10 This was premeditated aggression, so it's like, "What is that if it's not violence?"

27:16 And so what I wanted to get into and this kind of dovetails with all the, you know, talking

27:20 about manhood and masculinity, but obviously I think the state of manhood is paltry in

27:24 the United States, the state of masculinity.

27:26 Even traditional masculinity is being branded as toxic and you're not allowed to do certain

27:31 things or say certain things because that's just not acceptable in modern lexicon or modern

27:35 parlance or whatever.

27:37 But from your perspective, what do you think the state of manhood and masculinity is in

27:41 our culture?

27:42 And we can talk about that specifically in the church because I talk about that a lot,

27:46 a lot of the super effeminized men inside the church that are being further effeminized

27:50 by their effeminate pastors, you know, the lack of rights of passage to usher young men

27:54 in demandhood.

27:55 Take it wherever you want to go with it.

27:56 Yeah.

27:57 So first of all, let me start by saying another area where we're in 100% agreement, okay?

28:02 I think that stealing from our sons, like you and I are where we are and we're probably

28:09 not going to be swayed or moved.

28:10 We're not going to suddenly become feminized because of the cultural change.

28:13 I worry more about the next generation.

28:15 I worry about my sons.

28:17 I worry about the people, the half generation in between us, the 25 year olds and the effect

28:24 that'll have.

28:25 And once that effect happens, like you're alluding to what happens to the church?

28:30 What happens to the community?

28:31 What happens to the nation?

28:32 What happens to the world if we emasculate men from manly things?

28:37 I'm very blessed.

28:38 I go to a church where that's not an issue.

28:40 We have a man camp every year and men go out in the woods and do stupid things that men

28:45 do and talk about God and have praise and worship and that sort of thing.

28:50 We have a very robust ministry at our Grace Family Church called Courageous that is for

28:55 men.

28:56 And the bottom line is it's not a rights issue.

29:00 Men and women are different.

29:01 You can talk into your blue in the face about equality, but equality has to begin with understanding

29:08 who you are and men are different.

29:12 God made us that way and to try to make men not pursue their natural course of what God

29:18 created them to be so that another group will maybe feel more comfortable is a form of madness.

29:25 So I agree that you do see a feminizing of manhood in America and it's not a good thing.

29:34 It's not a good thing for the individual, but it's also not a good thing for the church,

29:37 for culture or society at large.

29:40 There's been something that I've been thinking about here recently and I'll probably flesh

29:44 it out in a future podcast, but under everything in society is the threat of violence.

29:50 So if you get pulled over by a police officer and you refuse to do the things that he asks

29:55 you to do, violence is how that situation gets solved.

29:58 If you tell a country you're not going to do this to your people, you're not going to

30:01 cross our borders, you're not going to do these things.

30:03 If you don't have violence as the deterrent, it's not a real deterrent.

30:07 Like sanctions and oh, we're going to shame you on the world stage.

30:10 So what?

30:11 Like you have to show a show of force.

30:13 And so when you feminize the men in your culture, at some point, the wolf's going to

30:18 come knocking.

30:19 And if you look around and you don't see sheepdogs, that's what I talk about with pastors.

30:22 If you look around and you need sheepdogs and you don't see any, that's not their fault

30:26 completely.

30:27 That's your fault.

30:28 So I'm glad you go to a church that doesn't really go there.

30:30 And one, one other quick thing before we kind of get towards the end and wrap up, one of

30:34 the things that I feel about with men that they're doing to themselves.

30:38 So you know, cultures doing their thing to try to feminize them.

30:40 Men are not exercising in their minds very much.

30:43 They're not reading.

30:44 Obviously, Tyndale House can tell you that they know the numbers about men, especially

30:48 Christian men and how they don't read.

30:50 Talk to me a little bit about that because last year I read, you know, 40 something books,

30:54 which was an extremely, you know, prolific year for me personally doing reading.

30:58 But I talk to so many guys that read somewhere between zero and one books a year every single

31:03 year.

31:04 What is it with men?

31:05 Why do they see reading as this chore that you stop doing when you graduate high school?

31:08 Yeah, I don't know the answer to the why, but you're absolutely right that it's a, that

31:14 it's a real thing.

31:16 You know, it's the joke in our industry is, you know, how do you get a women go out and

31:21 find books?

31:22 And we'll maybe read the book if you hold it in their face and say, I want you to read

31:26 this book.

31:27 What now?

31:28 Exactly.

31:29 And so if there's even a marketing strategy for, you know, male oriented books in the

31:34 Christian market that it's like, we need to market, you know, the shepherd series to women

31:39 so that they'll get their husbands to read it because they're, they're not going to

31:42 go and discover it.

31:43 I don't know why that is, but it's for sure a real thing.

31:47 I will say that there's maybe a little culpability in society, especially in Christian fiction

31:53 for the reasons that we just talked about.

31:55 Look, if you're going to tell a guy, look, you should read more.

31:58 And he says, well, I want to do something that's comfortable for my faith.

32:01 And he goes to a Christian bookstore and all he sees is Amish romance.

32:04 He's probably not going to become a big reader.

32:07 Like that's the wrong line.

32:08 And so, you know, the whole, one of the whole purposes that Tyndale House had in, in bringing

32:12 us in to write this series is to address the need for books that will entertain in that

32:19 market of male readers, you know, so I'm not saying that's the reason we can't blame it

32:24 on publishing and say, oh, yeah, if only there were better books because there's certainly

32:27 plenty out there.

32:28 But that's a real thing, at least in the Christian market that is being addressed.

32:33 So.

32:34 Well, I have an idea for the, the back half of the Shepherd series.

32:37 How about Jedidiah go to Pennsylvania to an Amish community and like there's like this

32:44 negative, this underbelly of Amish community.

32:47 That's like the Amish mafia, maybe, maybe there's something there.

32:50 Maybe they fall in love with a Irish or Irish Amish woman in a bonnet.

32:54 I'm just saying it could be something that you could do.

32:56 You can kind of weave these worlds together, genres together, man, we'll sell a million

33:00 bucks.

33:01 That's a, that's a free idea.

33:02 I won't even take a commission.

33:03 But hey, since you've been on the show before, you know how I like to end it.

33:06 I do a little series here at the end called, what would you say to someone that said now

33:10 last time that we did this, I gave some to you and then gave some to your partner, but

33:14 now it's just you.

33:15 We're going to do a truncated version of this.

33:16 So I'm going to say, what would you say to someone that said, I'm going to fill in the

33:20 blank, you've got 30 seconds maximum to answer these questions, this is lightning round.

33:24 So you up for it.

33:25 Let's do it.

33:26 All right.

33:27 First one, what would you say to someone that said the easiest way to deter the United

33:30 States as enemies is to be strong and intimidating on the world stage?

33:34 I agree.

33:36 That's what I would say to them.

33:38 That's a pretty easy one.

33:39 Right.

33:40 I just, I served you up that one.

33:41 Yeah.

33:42 Yeah.

33:43 That was the sandwich.

33:44 That was the gift.

33:45 It's like a little appetizer.

33:46 You know, you got to kind of ease your way into these, but let's get a little bit harder.

33:48 Let's go to the next one.

33:49 What would you say to someone that said, I just don't have time to read?

33:54 Anyone that says they don't have time to read is a liar.

33:57 Now you can see, if you say to me, you don't want to read fine.

33:59 If you, if you make reading a priority, you make it, you know, I don't have time to do

34:04 my Bible study, but I do it every morning.

34:05 So yeah, that's, I would say you're a liar.

34:08 That's not true.

34:09 That's one of the reasons why I tell guys to e-read is because this is always with me.

34:12 So if I'm getting my oil change or if I'm waiting to pick up my sons from school or something

34:15 like that, I've got my book right here.

34:17 It's not like, oh, I left it on my, on my dining room table or something.

34:20 I will say you, the excuses don't even exist anymore because anyone that says, you know,

34:24 the opportunity to just sit down and open a book.

34:27 Okay, fine.

34:28 I'm going to, I think it's not true, but I'm going to give it to you.

34:31 So here's your solution, audio books.

34:34 You're driving to work.

34:35 You're driving back and forth.

34:36 You're picking up the kids.

34:37 We sell 30% of our sales right now are audible.

34:40 Wow.

34:41 That's a real, and we're blessed to have the most amazing narrators.

34:45 We have, you know, McCloud Andrews for this series.

34:47 We have Ray Porter, those books come to life.

34:50 So that, maybe I'll change my answer to, okay, get an audio book.

34:54 Hey, that's the thing too, like Ray Porter, he does the Jack Car novels and all the things

34:58 like that.

34:59 Like guys, like this is how you can get this content into your brain, but I'm busting up

35:02 my own show here.

35:03 This is lightning round.

35:04 Let's go to the next one.

35:05 What would you say to someone that said the United States is time as the dominant force

35:08 in the world will soon be at an end?

35:11 I would say that will only be true if we let it be.

35:14 That's our decision.

35:15 America can decide to be weak, or we can decide to be strong.

35:19 We can decide to lead, or we can decide to follow.

35:21 And it's a decision we should make as a people, not one or two individuals.

35:26 Absolutely.

35:27 Next one here.

35:28 What would you say to someone that said, "Why would I read when I can just watch television?"

35:32 Well, see, now you put me in an awkward situation because we're, we've got like a half a dozen

35:36 TV and movie projects in development.

35:39 What do I want them to do?

35:40 I want them to read the book first.

35:41 There you go.

35:42 I think that, I think that's good goes back to the first answer that's lame.

35:46 You can not tell a story in two hours like you can tell in a, in a hundred thousand word

35:52 book.

35:53 You've got to be able to get in the minds of people.

35:54 It'll bring a layer that you don't appreciate if you'll do it.

35:57 All right.

35:58 Just a couple more left here.

35:59 What would you say to someone that said the United States military should be more concerned

36:03 with diversity and inclusion than lethality?

36:06 You are wrong.

36:08 We'll leave that one there because I agreed.

36:10 Last question of the day.

36:11 We've made it.

36:12 Let's say to someone that said, "It's hard for me to wrap my head around Christians writing

36:16 such dark and violent books."

36:19 We are Christian men who write about the world we live in in the hope to inspire others to

36:24 deal with those difficult, dark things.

36:27 Guys, again, you can't push back against darkness if you don't recognize its existence, but that

36:31 is all for me.

36:32 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

36:33 Nothing other than, man, thank you so much for having me.

36:36 I always, I always feel lifted up when I talk to you, man.

36:39 That's awesome.

36:40 It's awesome.

36:41 That is a, that's a great compliment.

36:42 This though, could y'all slow down on releasing the books?

36:44 I've got a busy schedule.

36:45 You know what I mean?

36:46 Y'all keep, every time y'all write a book I want to have you on, can you just slow down

36:49 just a little bit?

36:50 Wow.

36:51 Maybe every other.

36:52 You know, we're doing four books a year.

36:53 Maybe you just have us on every other book.

36:54 Okay.

36:55 I'll have you on every other book.

36:56 We can make this a regular thing, but Jeff Wilson, thank you for coming back on Undaunted

36:59 Life of Man's Podcast.

37:00 Thanks for having me, brother, and I hope we can get you to Tampa to speak to the men

37:03 here.

37:04 Let's get it.

37:05 All right.

37:06 Brian Andrews, welcome back to Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.

37:10 I am so happy to be here and I'm happy that we're doing on a Friday, right?

37:15 So it's got TJIF vibe going and head into the weekend.

37:19 It's sunny outside.

37:20 I got great weather in Kansas City today.

37:22 So yeah, perfect that.

37:23 Well, there's always great weather in Kansas City and if it's windy, you can smell barbecue,

37:27 just kind of misting through the air right into your nostrils.

37:30 So that's a good thing.

37:31 Yes.

37:32 Just got done talking to Jeff.

37:33 Terrible interview.

37:34 Like I told you off here.

37:35 I don't know what it is with that guy.

37:36 I asked him these straight questions and he just can't give me a good answer.

37:38 But you know, obviously I'm kidding.

37:40 We love Jeff around here.

37:41 He's consistently bad though, right?

37:43 He's got back on for him.

37:44 Right.

37:45 I mean, that's the thing is the worst thing you could possibly be is good sometimes and

37:48 terrible other times.

37:49 If you're going to be something, just be that thing no matter what.

37:51 But and the only reason we're saying that is because Jeff isn't here.

37:54 He's on the same room.

37:55 So he can't punch us in the nose.

37:56 But we're going to get into a lot of subject matter to give us some great updates on, you

37:59 know, the expansion of y'all's materials, you know, y'all are getting into other forms

38:02 of media.

38:03 So maybe that'll come out throughout this interview.

38:05 But like I told you off air, I'm going to be asking you a lot of the same questions.

38:07 So my audience will be able to compare which one of you is smarter, more handsome, more

38:12 articulate, all the things.

38:14 So no pressure.

38:15 But you know, Jeff did actually set a pretty good standard with the last interview.

38:18 So I hope you're up for it.

38:19 I'm bringing my a game.

38:21 And maybe what we do is we have a user like Paul.

38:25 There we go.

38:26 Okay.

38:27 I like that.

38:28 Maybe we can do a poll and see which one of you guys is the better of Andrews and Wilson.

38:31 You know what?

38:32 What I told him is like, I'm trying to drive a wedge between you guys so that y'all leave

38:35 right your own books and then come back and we could do a reunion tour and I can, you

38:38 know, I can speak at it and maybe play the kazoo.

38:41 I think we got some options here.

38:42 I think the kazoo, you had me at kazoo.

38:45 Let's just say that.

38:46 Perfect.

38:47 So let's come out of the world of ridiculous for a second because last time we had you

38:50 guys on the show where actually it was the first time we had you on your show.

38:53 This is your third appearance.

38:54 We I kind of got y'all's immediate reactions to what was happening in Afghanistan because

38:58 the week that I talked to you guys was the week that the United States pulled out of Afghanistan

39:02 and created that power vacuum, you know, we lost, you know, over a dozen service members

39:07 in that bombing, you know, just an absolute, you know, what show, but here we are, you

39:12 know, nine months removed or whatever, you know, later on this summer will be one year

39:15 since we've left.

39:16 I'm just curious what your opinions are now and if they've shifted at all in terms of

39:20 what what did we do?

39:21 Like what did we cause or type of pain?

39:23 Did we cause how our veterans are feeling about the situation, how the world feels about

39:27 our status in the world?

39:28 So give me some more thoughts on what what went on in Afghanistan and how you feel about

39:31 it now.

39:32 Well, I mean, what a cadetic world we live in, right?

39:35 I mean, that during that last interview, that was that was the big news and look what's

39:40 happening right now with Ukraine, right?

39:43 So I mean, I think we have a pretty good I'm not trying to in any way downplay the problems

39:50 with our withdrawal and the tragedy of how certain elements of that were handled or just,

39:58 you know, the Afghanistan endeavor in general.

40:03 But if you look at sort of how we manage Afghanistan start to finish our objectives and the things

40:10 we accomplish and you compare to, you know, the absolute humanitarian crisis and horror

40:15 show that is happening in Ukraine, I mean, I think that maybe the world looks at our

40:20 standing through a different lens than they did, you know, one year ago, would you agree

40:25 with that?

40:26 Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that.

40:28 And the concern that I have is China's watching this, you know, Russia is obviously watching

40:33 this.

40:34 So if you're China, why wouldn't you go for Taiwan?

40:36 Why wouldn't you push into other areas?

40:37 I know India is watching this Pakistan is watching this there Iran.

40:40 There are a lot of people that either don't like us outright or don't like us behind behind

40:46 the scenes and they're watching how we respond.

40:48 And I mean, let's talk even a little bit more about the situation in Ukraine.

40:52 It's the same group of people in government that made the decisions to do what they didn't

40:56 have Afghanistan that are making the decisions about what to do in Ukraine, which would give

41:00 us all pause, right?

41:01 Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is that you have a situation now where for the

41:07 first time in a long time, the entire global community, and we're not talking, I'm not

41:14 talking about governments, I'm talking about people.

41:17 People have made their voices heard.

41:20 They voting with their dollars and they're voting with their time and their commitment.

41:24 We have people going over there helping out in this effort.

41:28 Now, you've got a cyber army that Ukraine has put together through social media, recruiting

41:36 people from all over the world to help with that.

41:38 You have donations flooding in through nonprofits, but also people using instruments like Airbnb

41:47 to rent properties that have been bombed and destroyed simply as ways to donate money to

41:54 families that are in crisis over there.

41:57 And then of course, you have all the veterans who are volunteering either to provide training

42:04 or some of them are actually getting into the fight.

42:06 So that's very encouraging.

42:08 I actually feel like, and maybe I'm in a minority, but I feel like the current administration

42:13 has done a pretty good job managing this very volatile, very unpredictable, dangerous

42:19 dictator that we have in Vladimir Putin.

42:22 In 2014 with Crimea, I was disappointed the way that we just sort of like, everyone just

42:29 sort of ignored what happened there.

42:31 It's like, okay, well, naughty, let's slap Putin a little slap on the wrist, but he got

42:39 away with it.

42:40 I mean, from the very beginning, we ratcheted up financial sanctions to the point where

42:47 I think that we could be knocking Russia back into a pre-1990 type of economy, there's some

42:57 talk about that.

42:59 And also, I think we've done a good job of getting weapons and support and training into

43:05 the Ukrainian army.

43:07 The risk here of trying to intervene in a non-Nato nation, especially one that is so

43:15 near and dear to somebody who's mentally a little bit unstable, I think Putin has shown

43:20 he's not rational when it comes to certain decisions.

43:23 I mean, the last thing we want is a nuclear conflagration from this conflict.

43:29 So I think we've walked him to the edge.

43:33 And I think the administration has not done anything to discourage the type of veteran

43:42 activities and public support for Ukraine to the optimal extent.

43:47 So we'll see.

43:48 I mean, everybody likes to be an armchair quarterback, but at least right now, we haven't gotten

43:57 into World War III.

43:58 So and for the most part, I've listened to hours and hours of podcasts about the history

44:03 of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and that area of the globe.

44:08 And I still don't know exactly what's going on.

44:10 And it's hard to tell what we're getting from whatever news source, whether it's propaganda

44:14 or whether it's real, you know, you had the ghost of Keve, you know, and they're like,

44:18 Oh, there's this jet.

44:19 But then it was like, it was filmed from like a video game of this jet flying through

44:24 Keve and all that.

44:25 And so it's like, it's really, really hard to keep everything.

44:27 But I will say, if, if the world doesn't know what the deterrent is, like just recently

44:31 Joe Biden was asked about, you know, what would be the deterrent because he went back

44:35 on something he said where he said, yeah, these sanctions will be a deterrent.

44:38 And then someone asked him about it.

44:39 And he's like, no, no, no, no, we never said it would be a deterrent from future action.

44:42 The problem is, is if you keep it a secret, what the consequences are of if you cross

44:46 this red line, but then it goes back to Obama and Syria, don't cross this red line, definitely

44:51 don't cross this red line, you know, shame on you if you do.

44:53 And then they cross it.

44:54 And then we do nothing.

44:55 Again, everyone pays attention to that.

44:57 And the volatility.

44:58 And again, this is not a podcast about Ukraine, again, like I said, we can spend the next

45:02 three hours talking about it and still not be any wiser about it.

45:05 But that does kind of dovetail into something I want to get into before we get into the

45:08 new book.

45:09 And that's just the overall state of the United States military, because as I was talking

45:12 about with Jeff, as a civilian, I look at the United States military and it seems like

45:15 they're very, very concerned about diversity, equity and inclusion.

45:19 They're very concerned.

45:20 I had a guy from the Air Force send me an email that was someone that he was training

45:24 him about how to put his pronouns in his bio, of his email, right, in his email signature

45:30 and all that.

45:31 And it seems like we're worried about things that have nothing to do with lethality, have

45:34 nothing to do with, you know, being powerful or killing the enemy or something like that.

45:39 So from your perspective, having, you know, served in the military or a veteran, you still

45:43 do a lot for veterans causes.

45:45 What does it feel like for a lot of those guys?

45:46 Do they feel that kind of pressure?

45:48 Is this all just, you know, propaganda from right ring Twitter, like this stuff isn't actually

45:52 happening, kind of give me an idea from where you sit.

45:54 Yeah.

45:55 I mean, I'm fairly far removed from active duty at this point, I would say.

45:58 But I mean, I guess my take would be I feel like, and Jeff and I talk about this a lot.

46:03 I do feel like the loudest voices right now are the people that are concerned about the

46:08 least important things.

46:10 So like maybe there is something going on with, you know, that sort of training or that sort

46:17 of thing.

46:18 I would, I would conjecture that, you know, in your average unit, you know, that's one

46:26 hour training a year that maybe is mandatory or whatever.

46:31 And people do what, hear it, do what they need to do, do what they think is right.

46:36 And then they move on to being professionals and doing their job.

46:38 I mean, what I think was great about our military is that we do have a diverse military, just

46:43 like our country.

46:44 We have a country that's full of people from all different nationalities and backgrounds

46:49 were a country that was founded based on immigrants.

46:52 But we also have, you know, a military, we have both men and women serving and we're

46:57 all working together.

46:58 And so I think it's that, you know, the fact that we do work together and the fact that

47:04 we do have a really strong and functional military.

47:07 Yeah, we have our hiccups, there's disagreements, there's racism, there's these elements.

47:12 But I think most of the people, the vast majority of our servicemen and women, they're locked

47:17 on, they're doing their job.

47:19 And I think if you, again, don't want to just go back to Ukraine, but we've been surprised

47:25 at how ineffective the Russian military has been.

47:28 We've been surprised that they haven't been able to execute their mission, the losses

47:33 that they've taken, the lack of cohesion, the lack of strategy.

47:38 And you compare and contrast that, we're pretty harsh critics on ourselves, right?

47:42 I think you look at our losses in Afghanistan over 20 years and suddenly, you know, benchmarking

47:49 Russia against the United States or benchmarking us against them, you would say, wow, you

47:55 know what, we did a lot better job than maybe some people gave us credit for or even maybe

48:01 we give ourselves credit for.

48:03 So that's been an interesting takeaway for me recently.

48:06 Yeah, all the diversity, equity, inclusion stuff, I always thought that, you know, none

48:10 of that woke stuff would enter, you know, corporate America or enter the military.

48:14 And here we are in the last few years, and that's exactly what it's done because I don't

48:17 care if we found out that five foot seven men of Latino descent that are 165 pounds.

48:23 That's the perfect soldier.

48:24 The entire military look like that.

48:26 I don't care as long as we're lethal because again, I didn't sign up to defend this country

48:30 and to put my life on the line to defend people that say these crazy things.

48:35 And so again, for us, I think we're focusing on some of the wrong things, which maybe people

48:39 would say that about the beginning of this interview, because we're supposed to be talking

48:42 about the new book.

48:43 So let's talk about the new book.

48:44 And so we'll get into Dark Angel here in just a second, but, you know, Jeff kind of gave

48:48 everybody a little bit of an idea, but I would love to hear from your perspective as well.

48:52 And because if you didn't listen to your first interviews, you kind of went into this, but

48:55 for those in the audience that have not listened to your previous appearances on this show,

48:58 how did you get hooked up with Jeff?

49:01 And, you know, how did that co-writing process begin and then how does it continue?

49:05 Because that is not a very common thing to see two last names, you know, on a book of

49:10 people that work together.

49:11 So tell me about that whole thing about how you guys got together.

49:13 Yeah.

49:14 And I think the other cool thing too is our longevity, right?

49:17 So he ended up meeting, I think, 2013.

49:21 So it's been almost a decade since we met.

49:23 We met at a writers conference in New York called the International Thriller Writers.

49:28 And this is a really fantastic organization, very collegial, very fraternal in the sense

49:34 of, hey, you know what, we're all thriller writers.

49:37 We're all different stages of our careers.

49:40 But you know what, we all could use some help, whether it's networking, whether it's understanding

49:46 how marketing and promotion, whether it's understanding certain elements of the craft

49:50 of writing, getting an agent, finding an editor.

49:54 What is it like to work for this publisher?

49:56 What is it like to work for that publisher?

49:57 These are questions that you can't really go online and research, right?

50:03 These are the types of things that you really need to be around people who've been there,

50:08 done that, and are willing to share their experience.

50:11 And you know, when I started my writing career, I realized very quickly, hey, I can't just

50:16 buy the how to get your book published book off of Amazon, read this thing and think that

50:21 it's going to happen.

50:22 I tried that.

50:24 And I realized it's, you know, the strategy is lacking.

50:26 I need to get into the thick of things, ask people who've been there who've been successful

50:31 for help.

50:33 And that's what I did, and I joined the debut authors program at ITW.

50:40 Jeff happened, coincidentally, to sort of reach the same conclusion.

50:44 He joined the same program.

50:45 So the same year, we're debut authors, and we met in that debut author class.

50:51 And being two military guys, you know, with families and same life sort of goals and experiences,

50:57 we became fast friends.

50:59 And it wasn't until a couple years later.

51:00 I mean, we kept attending that conference.

51:03 But a couple years later, you know, he had, I think he had published his third book and

51:06 I had published my second individually.

51:11 And I hadn't started anything else.

51:12 I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

51:14 And just sort of almost just as a brainstorm, I was like, dude, it would be kind of fun

51:21 with you did special warfare at his submarines.

51:23 What if we did like a seals and subs type of book, and we worked on it together?

51:28 He's like, you talking about like co-offing something?

51:29 I said, yeah.

51:30 He's like, I don't know how that would work.

51:32 He's like, how would that even work?

51:34 He's like, cause I, you know, I write by myself, you know, it's like a very solitary endeavor.

51:42 So how do you do that with somebody else?

51:44 I was like, well, I mean, I don't know, let's, let's play around with it.

51:48 Maybe we could divide it up by chapter, maybe we divide it up by point of view or, or something

51:52 like that.

51:53 And so we just said, well, let's brainstorm something out, we'll write five chapters,

51:57 see if it's working.

51:59 If it's not working, you know, I said, take it, you can take the book and run.

52:03 If it is, let's try to finish it.

52:06 Turns out, you know, that sort of military approach of, hey, you know what?

52:11 It's easier to lift this 800 pound log over your head when you've got a bunch of other

52:17 people helping you than trying to do it by yourself.

52:20 Guess what?

52:21 That actually applies to business and applies to writing too.

52:23 So even something as solitary as being a storyteller, being a novelist, there are benefits to

52:31 teaming up because turns out you're maybe not, maybe you don't know everything and maybe

52:36 every element of storytelling, you've got some strengths, you've got some weaknesses

52:40 and that's what we found.

52:42 So our particular blending of towns and experience was very beneficial for us.

52:46 We felt that synergy right away.

52:48 Well, beneficial for you guys and also beneficial for the audience because you're getting two

52:51 different perspectives.

52:52 And I mean, even like a really detailed reader is not going to know, oh, well, this, this

52:56 section is clearly from Brian or this section is clearly from Jeff.

52:59 You kind of weave it together in a really, really nice way, which leads us to the second

53:03 book in the Shepherd series.

53:04 So this is Dark Angel.

53:05 So guys, if you're listening to this, it is out now.

53:07 You can get it in the show notes and pick up a copy of that.

53:10 But let's go and talk about it.

53:11 So this is the second book of what was supposed to be three books, but that has been now expanded.

53:15 You're actually going to be doing six books in the Shepherd series.

53:19 So how about you remind our listeners what the Shepherd series is and then give us an

53:23 idea from your perspective about what they can expect in Dark Angel.

53:26 Yeah, the Shepherd series is where we took what I would say our core brand, which is

53:33 covert operations, espionage type thrillers, and we decided to add an additional element

53:40 of spiritual warfare and sort of what is the unseen hand?

53:45 You know, I think all of us who have served or even in your daily lives, sometimes you

53:50 feel like there's that unseen hand sort of something operating behind the curtain.

53:56 It's just out of view.

53:57 You can feel it.

53:58 You can sense it.

53:59 Sometimes see the outcome of it, but when you go to look at it, it's not there.

54:04 And you know, we've all had that little voice in our head that maybe says, you know, I wouldn't

54:08 do that or turn right instead of left or maybe not get on this plane, you know, maybe not

54:14 go to the grocery store at this time or something like that, you know, is it paranoia or maybe

54:19 something just one step beyond going on?

54:23 And we thought, you know, that could be very interesting to incorporate that into a special

54:28 warfare type of mentality.

54:30 If you talk to operators, a lot of times you'll hear stories.

54:33 I mean, one of the one of the sub characters in the book, you know, we, we gave a guy named

54:37 Eddie, a cameo, and one of his experiences was very much like that.

54:41 You know, he, he heard and saw signs that, you know, what my team is in the wrong position.

54:47 I need to relocate.

54:48 He didn't have any intelligence coming in his ear telling him he needed to do that.

54:53 He was just his perception of the situation, he relocated his team and then that building

54:59 blew up 30 seconds later.

55:02 You know, so these are the types of stories, these are types of things we thought they

55:06 don't show up in traditional thrillers.

55:09 Let's put them in there.

55:10 Let's see if we can incorporate spirituality and ask questions about God and good and evil

55:17 and crisis in faith and these are the types of questions that people ask themselves in real life,

55:23 but they don't show up when Mitch rap is, you know, going in for the kill, right?

55:28 But they do show up, you know, later when you're back after when you're home from the mission,

55:33 you're sitting around with the guys and you're trying to deal with the loss and, and, and

55:37 the killing and, and the stress and anxiety of the choices that you've made.

55:41 You ask those self yourself those hard questions.

55:44 So we put them in the book.

55:45 Yeah, it's certainly a unique element for this genre.

55:48 So that faith element in the series is a really cool thing, especially for guys that don't

55:52 really like to read Christian guys that don't like to read, they go to a Christian bookstore,

55:56 they don't see anything that really fits who they are, you know, if they're maybe rough

55:59 around the edges or maybe they're retired military, they're veterans, and they don't,

56:02 they don't really see something that really speaks to them.

56:04 But that's the thing about this series is there's the faith element, but it's also a

56:08 violent series.

56:09 And so some people, especially, you know, maybe church folk would find that to be odd,

56:14 you know, at the least and maybe even inappropriate.

56:16 And so I know y'all have gotten some pushback to the violence in the series and kind of the

56:20 darkness of the series.

56:22 So how do you guys deal with that or what, what are your overall thoughts on that pushback?

56:25 I think that's a great question.

56:27 And I think it's maybe a starting point for a dialogue too.

56:30 And I'd be, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it after I give my answer to, which is

56:35 that, you know, I think if we could solve every problem with just understanding, compassion

56:45 and love, we would, we would.

56:50 And I wish that we could, but we can't, right?

56:55 Because there's certain, you know, there's certain situations, you know, when you have

57:03 a terrorist staring down at you with a machine gun, you're not going to be able to give

57:11 them a hug and talk them out of it, right?

57:13 So sometimes we have to stand hard against evil.

57:18 And that's, I think that's sort of the point that we're making here, right?

57:23 Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself.

57:25 Sometimes you have to punch back so that you don't get taken down.

57:29 Well, I think to that, you know, as you know, our mission here at Undaunted Life is equipping

57:34 men to push back darkness.

57:35 And I said this to Jeff, you can't push back darkness if you don't recognize it if you

57:38 don't see it.

57:39 But also there's always this underlying threat of violence, okay?

57:43 So whether, you know, you're either farming out violence to someone else like police or

57:48 the military or you're performing it yourself.

57:51 But when you tell someone to do something and they don't do it, there's always this underlying

57:55 threat of violence that really comes from the man.

57:58 And the thing about it is is it would be nice and it would be awesome if we could solve

58:02 all these issues without violence.

58:04 And you know, you look at, you know, stories from the Bible, you look at Jesus doing the

58:08 violent act of clearing out the temple, right?

58:10 Like putting it, putting his hands on people and animals and clearing them out.

58:13 That was premeditated righteous aggression.

58:16 We have so much unrighteous aggression in the world today that we just lump all aggression

58:21 into the same category.

58:22 But again, if you're going to deal with real darkness and real issues, you don't deal with

58:27 it by throwing doilies at it, you know, sprinkling, you know, potpourri all over it.

58:32 Sometimes you have to push back in a very violent way.

58:34 And a lot of our guys that have been downrange, they've seen that.

58:36 They've seen evil that we can't even fathom even in great novels, right?

58:40 And so that that's kind of where I would would come from.

58:42 It does.

58:43 Does any of that strike you as odd or are really, you know, off my rocker?

58:46 No.

58:47 So I think that you've hit the key issue.

58:51 So here's what we need to always keep in mind.

58:53 We cannot turn to evil to save us from evil, right?

58:58 You see a lot of that happening, right?

59:00 Right.

59:01 Okay.

59:02 We're scared.

59:03 So we're going to preemptively do something bad so that something bad might not happen

59:09 to us.

59:10 Sure.

59:11 That's wrong.

59:13 It's also wrong, I think, to be cowardly and let, you know, someone who is immoral,

59:21 you know, hurt your family or hurt your country and sit back and hope that doesn't happen.

59:27 Right.

59:28 So this is a gray area and there is no right answer.

59:32 There are people out there who will take pre meditated action that is unjust.

59:38 And there are people who will not take premeditated action that is unjust, right?

59:43 So it's just, I think this is the trickiest thing.

59:47 And I think maybe this is an area where the U.S. military has actually done a pretty good

59:54 job over the decades, you know, which is, and why we're called the world's policemen.

1:00:01 Because we think about this question.

1:00:04 We think about it a lot and it's up and down throughout the chain of command as well, which

1:00:10 is, you know, when do we intervene and how do we intervene and how do we keep, you know,

1:00:15 our troops safe and how do we minimize collateral damage so that we're not, you know, we're

1:00:21 not going in and bombing baby hospitals like the Russians are in Marimple, right?

1:00:28 Have we made mistakes?

1:00:29 Have we had collateral damage?

1:00:30 Yes.

1:00:31 But it's always top of mind, right?

1:00:33 It's always top of mind.

1:00:35 So as long as you're aware of, hey, I'm not going to be a perpetuator of evil when I'm

1:00:42 trying to stop evil.

1:00:43 And I'm trying to do is stop evil and do it in the most just and righteous way possible.

1:00:50 And that's sort of where the shepherds organization comes from, you know, they're not pushovers,

1:00:56 but they're not out there just killing wantedly either, right?

1:01:00 And so that's what's kind of cool about this series is that they're a faith based organization.

1:01:07 They believe in goodness, they believe in justice.

1:01:11 And they also believe that, you know what, we can't just ignore evil and let it run rampant.

1:01:17 Yeah, I think you're making a really great point.

1:01:18 I forget who brought it up first, but you know, how the Russians are just basically trying

1:01:21 to carpet bomb areas in America, we're trying to put a missile through a window like that.

1:01:26 That's the difference.

1:01:27 And you talk about Israel, they will warn people in buildings that they're about to bomb it.

1:01:32 They will send messages to these people.

1:01:34 They will send soldiers into that building to make sure that the, you know, certain people

1:01:38 are cleared out before they bomb this particular area, essentially giving away their operations

1:01:44 plans to the enemy.

1:01:45 So the enemies are taking, you know, they're contraband or taking their weapons out of

1:01:48 there and moving along, but they would rather do that than to blow up a building, kill,

1:01:53 you know, three enemies, but then kill three dozen families, right?

1:01:56 Like, that's kind of the difference.

1:01:58 So when we look out, you know, that's one thing now is we can't moralize.

1:02:01 We can't say your truth is right and your truth is wrong.

1:02:05 Like there's, there's no standard of absolute truth and there's no standard of absolute

1:02:09 morality, supposedly, but you can't look at the situations and how we handle ourselves

1:02:14 and say that we're all the same, to say that we're just like Russia, we're just like Iran

1:02:17 or we're just like whoever any of one of our, our, you know, enemies would be, but I do

1:02:21 want to transition a little bit out of kind of the world of writing and into the world

1:02:26 of manhood and masculinity, because one kind of through point to all this, Brian, is that

1:02:30 there's an attack on masculinity and there's obviously a lot of things that are traditional

1:02:35 masculine things or just traditional masculinity or being called toxic outright.

1:02:39 They're just being saying that this is a toxic thing that is happening.

1:02:42 So from your perspective, obviously being a veteran, being a writer, you know, hanging

1:02:45 around with guys, you know, guys are subject matters of your books and things like that.

1:02:49 What would you say the state of manhood and masculinity is in our culture right now and

1:02:54 you could take that to manhood in the church, you could take that into our lack of rights

1:02:57 of passages that kind of welcome young men into manhood, just take it wherever you want

1:03:01 to go.

1:03:02 Yeah, I mean, I think this is a hard question to answer just, you know, I can't just answer

1:03:09 the question, but we can, we can certainly dialogue about it, right?

1:03:12 And I think as a father, I have three daughters.

1:03:15 So as a father of three daughters, I feel like my job is to prepare my daughters for

1:03:23 what it's going to be like out there in the real world.

1:03:26 And I want to be that representation of masculinity that's, you know, as close as I can, what

1:03:33 my opinion of being a good dad and a strong father is, you know, I try to embody those

1:03:40 elements, which is, you know, teach my daughters that, you know, you need to be smart.

1:03:46 You need to use your head, right?

1:03:48 You can't trust that everybody just because they tell you something that is the truth.

1:03:53 Recognize situations that might be dangerous and how to take care of themselves and stuff.

1:03:59 Because I want to be that protector.

1:04:00 I want to be there, you know, to save the day and shield them and take the punch or,

1:04:07 you know, expel them out of a dangerous situation, but I'm not going to be there for that all

1:04:12 the time.

1:04:13 So I think, you know, part of this idea, I think, of manhood is finding the courage and

1:04:21 the strength to be the example that you need to be to both your sons and your daughters.

1:04:29 But also, you know, prepare our young people for the challenges that are in the world.

1:04:33 I think a lot of us have become maybe too emotionally fragile.

1:04:40 And you know, I don't, did I tell you the story of the new recruit with the poke poke

1:04:47 story?

1:04:48 Did I tell you that story?

1:04:49 Do you mind if I share that story now?

1:04:51 Yeah.

1:04:52 Let's get it.

1:04:53 Okay.

1:04:54 So when I was on my first submarine, it was sort of near the end of my tour there.

1:05:00 You know, so I was fairly senior and I was doing a tour.

1:05:03 The ship was in port.

1:05:04 I was doing a tour of the ship and one of the engineering duty petty officer that day,

1:05:11 he brought a new guy, he was taking a new guy around and he was showing him everything

1:05:16 and he said, Hey, Lieutenant, I'd like to introduce you to petty officer so and so,

1:05:21 you know, he's a new M division guy and I said, Oh, this is great.

1:05:25 So I, I met him and he's talking to, he's, you know, we're having this conversation,

1:05:29 but this senior enlisted guy, he, while he's talking, he's poking this new guy in the shoulder,

1:05:35 you know, with his finger pretty hard, poke and he'd say that he'd say, poke, poke, you

1:05:42 know, while we were talking and it was very uncomfortable for the new guy, right?

1:05:46 He's like looking at it first he kind of last like, huh, huh, yeah.

1:05:51 And you know, and then he's like, and then I see the look on his face like, what's going

1:05:54 on here?

1:05:56 And then the senior guy says to him, he's like, do you like this poke and the guy's like,

1:06:03 no, he's like, what are you going to do about it?

1:06:06 He's like, I don't know, he's like, you got to cry, poke, you're going to quit, poke,

1:06:14 poke, what are you going to do about it?

1:06:17 He's like, ask you to stop, he's like, poke, well, here's his deal.

1:06:23 This is what it's like here every day, poke.

1:06:26 So you better get used to it because this is life.

1:06:29 And for me, that was like a real paradigm type moment because that is what life is.

1:06:38 Every day there's something poking you, right?

1:06:42 It could be professionally, it could be in your family, it could be that your car had

1:06:47 a flat tire on the way to work.

1:06:49 Life is a series of pokes and you have a choice.

1:06:53 You can either cry about them and complain or you can quit and you can give up or you

1:06:58 can man up and you can take them and you can figure out how to deal with them.

1:07:03 And that was the lesson that the senior guy was trying to teach him is that life on a

1:07:08 submarine is really hard and there's going to be days where you want to quit and times

1:07:13 that you want to cry and people that are not being treating you even professionally, right?

1:07:20 But you have to find strategies to deal with those things.

1:07:25 And those strategies have to do with time management, confidence, your communication skills.

1:07:34 And sometimes it's just standing up for yourself in a situation where you're being tested.

1:07:40 So those are sort of elements of masculinity, I think that maybe don't get discussed, but

1:07:48 we need to think about and we need to teach our young people.

1:07:51 Yeah, preparing them to be able to, because you only have so much time on this planet

1:07:56 to make your impact.

1:07:57 So whether you lead this really small private life or you, you know, lead this big life

1:08:01 where a bunch of people are looking to you as an influencer or something like that, you

1:08:05 only get to make an impact while you're here, unless you leave wisdom filled lessons for

1:08:11 the people that come after you.

1:08:12 So for me, I have two sons now.

1:08:13 And so it's like, okay, the idea of them growing up, not knowing exactly what a man

1:08:18 is and what's expected of them is astonishing to me.

1:08:21 And the same thing for you with daughters, I'm sure you want to show them.

1:08:25 This is how a man should love you, watch how I love your mom or watch how I love my sister

1:08:30 or, you know, their aunt or my mom or whatever the situation is, because you want them to

1:08:34 look for those elements because a lot of these, you know, issues with girls acting out in

1:08:38 sexual ways or in rebellious ways is because their dad is a dope.

1:08:41 Their dads, you know, buried in his fantasy football draft, you know, statistics or he's

1:08:45 gone or he, he is verbally abusive to mom or physically abusive to mom.

1:08:50 And then these women, they go and perpetuate the cycle by doing the exact same things

1:08:54 themselves.

1:08:55 And so that's one thing that for a lot of us, yes, there are the things that you do that

1:08:59 only affect you directly.

1:09:00 But then there's the things that you do that everyone else is watching.

1:09:03 And if your children are watching, those are going to be the ones that are going to be

1:09:07 perpetuating who you are and what your family name is into the future generations.

1:09:12 So it's an incredibly, incredibly important thing.

1:09:14 So I appreciate your perspective on that now.

1:09:16 Wait, wait, let's go one more.

1:09:17 We got time for one more thing.

1:09:19 Yeah.

1:09:20 Good morning.

1:09:21 I think we have a really interesting thing that just happened in the last week with Will

1:09:23 Smith and the Oscars, right?

1:09:25 Yeah.

1:09:26 So this is an example and I've thought about this again.

1:09:29 I don't want to just armchair quarterback, but I thought about if I was in that situation,

1:09:34 you know, how would I have responded from a position of strength?

1:09:38 And this is something I think we should all think about is when you respond from a position

1:09:43 of strength, it doesn't necessarily mean using your fist, right?

1:09:48 So Will, if you think about like, well, first, let's talk about Jada real quick.

1:09:53 She has a condition where she's has hair loss and she has decided to embrace it and shave

1:09:59 her head.

1:10:01 And she's obviously uncomfortable about it, but she's trying to take the strong position

1:10:05 to embrace this publicly, right?

1:10:08 Now, when Chris Rock mentioned GI Jane, if you remember, did you see that movie?

1:10:14 I'm familiar with it culturally.

1:10:15 I know what it was about.

1:10:16 Yeah.

1:10:17 Yeah.

1:10:18 In that movie, when she shaves her head, that is a moment of empowerment, actually.

1:10:23 She's shaving her head because it's like, I'm going to go be a seal.

1:10:28 I'm going to be one of these guys.

1:10:29 I'm going to overcome and have power, right?

1:10:32 So it's interesting.

1:10:33 I think if Jada had, when Chris Rock made that comment, if she had been like, heck yeah,

1:10:40 I'm GI Jane too, or been like, yeah, you know, like, if she had embraced it from a position

1:10:46 of strength, how would Will have reacted, would he have gone up there and slapped Chris

1:10:50 Rock?

1:10:51 No way.

1:10:52 No, because she would have demonstrated strength.

1:10:55 Let's say that she continued, let's say that she didn't do, she did what she did.

1:10:59 She was upset, having a bad day, feeling not confident.

1:11:03 How could he have handled that differently?

1:11:06 He defended his wife's honor, right?

1:11:09 You could make the argument that he did that by slapping Chris Rock, right?

1:11:13 You could make the argument he defended his wife's honor, but he could have defended his

1:11:16 wife's honor in a position of strength that was different, right?

1:11:22 Of course.

1:11:23 Right.

1:11:24 He could have.

1:11:25 The situation where he walked up there, put his arm around Chris Rock and whispered in

1:11:29 his ear, hey, I'd like you to make a public apology right now, because what you just did

1:11:35 was embarrassing for me and my wife.

1:11:39 And then he walked back to his seat.

1:11:41 What would have happened then, right?

1:11:43 Chris Rock might have publicly apologized, and suddenly now Will Smith looks like, wow,

1:11:49 he's strong, courageous, used his mind, you know, so I don't know.

1:11:54 It's just different ways you can handle every situation.

1:11:59 And sometimes the position of strength is whatever is the most difficult thing for you

1:12:04 to do, whatever takes the most courage for you to do is probably the thing that is the

1:12:12 stronger action.

1:12:14 Well, that's something that's interesting that you bring that up.

1:12:17 I'll be talking about that on a future episode.

1:12:19 I haven't been in the studio in a while recording my own episodes because I've been out with

1:12:22 the baby, but with that situation, it's people that take themselves way too seriously.

1:12:27 It's people that are incredibly fragile because the only people that respond to jokes with

1:12:32 violence are people that are very, very insecure.

1:12:34 And there are a lot of things and I all these people that are like, oh, he stood up for

1:12:37 his wife.

1:12:38 It's like the he's also a cook.

1:12:41 He's also a guy that likes either watching or knowing about his wife getting, you know,

1:12:45 railed by another dude.

1:12:47 And so it's like, now's your time where you're going to stand up for your wife's honor.

1:12:51 But you know, I've, I've talked to a lot of people and then we'll, we'll get towards

1:12:54 the end of the show here.

1:12:55 I've talked to a lot of people that are very, very dangerous.

1:12:57 So these are people that I train with, maybe they're the world class fighters.

1:13:01 Maybe they've competed in fighting.

1:13:02 These are just very, very dangerous dudes and I've asked them because I'm, I'm an aspiring

1:13:06 dangerous dude.

1:13:07 I'm working my way towards and I asked this one guy in particular, I'll leave him out because

1:13:12 I didn't say I would, you know, share this publicly so I didn't get his permission.

1:13:16 So his, his, he's more of a reserved guy, very, very chill guy.

1:13:20 He's not the type of guy that you would be intimidated by because he's just a regular-looking

1:13:23 dude.

1:13:24 Now his wife can be a little bit of a loud mouth.

1:13:27 Like she can, she can get offended.

1:13:28 She's got kind of this big personality or whatever.

1:13:31 And I asked him, I said, Hey, man, what if some guy at a bar was like making comments

1:13:36 towards your wife, maybe, maybe trying to pick her up or maybe making fun of her or making

1:13:40 fun of you?

1:13:41 Like, what would you do?

1:13:42 He's like, leave, you know, get our stuff and leave.

1:13:45 And then I was like, okay.

1:13:46 So let's say she started like mouthing, right, and when y'all, it's all the way out the door,

1:13:50 she starts mouthing.

1:13:51 What would you do?

1:13:52 And he's like, I would usher her out more quickly and I'm like, okay, okay.

1:13:55 Let's say a guy put his hand on her, like, you know, touched her, poked her in the shoulder

1:14:00 or like smacked her butt as he was walking by or something like that.

1:14:03 And then he goes, well, then it's on.

1:14:05 And so the thing for this is this is a very comfortable guy, a very dangerous guy.

1:14:10 He will freaking kill you if he has to and he has the capabilities of it, but he's like,

1:14:15 you can't say anything to me.

1:14:17 There's no magic word or magic phrase that you can use towards me or the people around

1:14:21 me to make me put hands on you.

1:14:23 But the moment you enter my physical bubble and you break through that wall, it's over

1:14:28 for you.

1:14:29 And I've always internalized that and thought about that.

1:14:32 Like what would have been great is if Will Smith had gone backstage during the commercial

1:14:36 break and said, you know, talk to Chris Rock as a man because here he is much bigger than

1:14:40 Chris Rock, much more specifically imposing and said, Hey, brother, I know that you made

1:14:44 that joke.

1:14:45 I know Jada has done public engagements where she's talked about alopecia and how she's

1:14:49 strong and how she's she's going to overcome it.

1:14:52 And it's not really that big a deal, but you know what, she actually is pretty sensitive

1:14:55 about that.

1:14:56 And I know you've probably heard some stuff about her and I's relationship.

1:14:59 But if you wouldn't mind, maybe you don't have to do this publicly.

1:15:01 But if you could just go up and maybe smooth things over with her, like I told her I was

1:15:04 going to come talk to you.

1:15:05 If you wouldn't mind, I think that would mean a lot to her.

1:15:08 That's even stronger because you're not putting your personal issues into the public sphere

1:15:13 and all that.

1:15:14 I promise I'm going to talk about this on a later episode, guys, don't you worry.

1:15:17 But I was really interested that you brought that up.

1:15:19 But we do kind of need to bring this to a close because you've already gotten more time

1:15:22 than Jeff.

1:15:23 So he's going to think I like you.

1:15:24 So we got to keep you guys even, right?

1:15:26 Yeah.

1:15:27 Yeah.

1:15:28 You may not remember this.

1:15:29 You probably will.

1:15:30 I do a lightning round towards the end of most of my interviews.

1:15:32 It's called what would you say to someone that said and I'm going to fill in the blank.

1:15:36 Now last time we did this, I asked one to you and then I would ask the next one to Jeff.

1:15:39 We're going to do a truncated version and you're getting all of these.

1:15:42 These are lightning round questions.

1:15:44 You have 30 seconds maximum to give us your thoughts on this question.

1:15:48 So you up for it?

1:15:49 Sure.

1:15:50 All right.

1:15:51 Let's get to the first one.

1:15:52 What would you say to someone that said the easiest way to deter the United States' enemies

1:15:56 is to be strong and intimidating on the world stage.

1:16:00 The easiest way for the United States to deter enemies?

1:16:04 Yes.

1:16:05 Yeah.

1:16:06 I think as long as the United States is operating from a position of strength, you know, we project

1:16:11 position of strength is again, like sort of what we've been talking about.

1:16:14 Confidence.

1:16:15 That is a deterrent.

1:16:16 Strength is a deterrent.

1:16:17 Absolutely.

1:16:18 What would you say to someone that said, I just don't have time to read.

1:16:22 I would say then you're missing out on an opportunity to grow your imagination, but also

1:16:27 to learn.

1:16:29 Absolutely.

1:16:30 Next one here.

1:16:31 What would you say to someone that said the United States' time as the dominant force

1:16:34 in the world will soon be at an end?

1:16:38 I would say, well, 30 seconds clock ticking.

1:16:44 Yeah.

1:16:45 Yeah.

1:16:46 I would say, you know, that's yet to be determined.

1:16:47 Yeah.

1:16:48 We will see.

1:16:49 I don't want to hold my breath, but we'll see where it goes from here.

1:16:52 What would you say to someone that said, why would I read when I can just watch television?

1:16:56 Well, when you watch television, you're being spoon fed the information.

1:17:00 I think when you're a reader, you're actually an active participant in the story.

1:17:04 You get to make decisions as you're reading about, you know, what do the characters look

1:17:08 like?

1:17:09 What do they mean?

1:17:10 You get to imagine the TV show or the movie in your head.

1:17:13 So it's a much, it's a much more enriching activity.

1:17:15 Right.

1:17:16 You're much more involved.

1:17:17 All right.

1:17:18 A couple more here.

1:17:19 What would you say to someone that said the United States military should be more concerned

1:17:22 with diversity and inclusion than lethality?

1:17:25 No, I mean, I think the United States military needs to be concerned with executing the

1:17:32 mission of the night, the objectives of the United States military.

1:17:35 Wouldn't that be nice? It would be nice if we could go back to the old school thought

1:17:38 of that.

1:17:39 But hey, we're winding down here.

1:17:40 We got our last question of the day.

1:17:42 What would you say to someone that said, it's hard for me to wrap my head around Christians

1:17:46 writing such dark and violent books?

1:17:50 I would say that let's have a dialogue about this because violence is not most is not single

1:17:59 faceted.

1:18:00 Right.

1:18:01 So this is, this is not something I can answer in the lightning round, but let's sit down

1:18:05 and have a talk about it.

1:18:07 Absolutely.

1:18:08 Well, hey, that is all for me.

1:18:09 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

1:18:10 No, just thanks for having me on and look forward to coming back in the future.

1:18:16 Hey, I'll tell you the same thing I told Jeff, can y'all chill out on writing so many books?

1:18:20 All right.

1:18:21 Like when like a quarter of my interviews for the year are you guys because you keep writing

1:18:25 books like I'm running out of stuff to ask you that makes me sound smart.

1:18:28 I mean, let's get some reader questions for the next time.

1:18:33 Have you had any good feedback from any of your readers or listeners?

1:18:36 I have had good feedback.

1:18:37 We even did a giveaway with the last book.

1:18:38 We should probably do that again for this one.

1:18:40 Maybe we can work that out after we get done, but yeah, you will do reader questions next

1:18:44 time.

1:18:45 That's a great idea.

1:18:46 But Brian Andrews, thank you for coming back on undaunted life of man's podcast.

1:18:48 Thanks for having me.

1:18:49 It's a great time.

1:18:50 There you go.

1:18:51 Guys.

1:18:52 I hope you enjoyed the return appearance for Andrews and Wilson on the show before we let

1:18:54 you go.

1:18:55 We are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life.

1:18:57 Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual

1:19:01 mental and physical resilience.

1:19:02 So here are the links I've got for you today.

1:19:04 I've got a link to Andrews and Wilson's website, their Amazon page, their Facebook page and

1:19:08 also their Twitter.

1:19:09 All right, guys.

1:19:10 Thanks so much for listening to the show.

1:19:11 We do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this.

1:19:12 Please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star view.

1:19:16 If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an

1:19:18 email to info@undaunted.life.

1:19:20 That's I N F O at Undaunted Life.

1:19:23 You can follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for

1:19:25 everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.

1:19:29 Just go to www.undaunted.life.

1:19:32 And we want to also thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music

1:19:35 for our content.

1:19:36 The music on this podcast is our song, cutting the ties, which is off their 10th anniversary

1:19:40 re-recording of their album, Leveler, the links are in the description.

1:19:43 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:19:45 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:19:52 We're seeking the Lion of Judah.

1:20:22 [music]