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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:23
Let's get into it.
1:24
He who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with the tongue.
1:29
That is Proverbs 28.39.
1:31
Keep that in mind for today, guys.
1:32
Thank you so much for coming back to the show.
1:33
Make sure you leave a five-star review.
1:35
If you like one, I got like a three-star review last week.
1:37
And the thing was like, yeah, I really appreciate this podcast.
1:39
It's like, well, I would have appreciated a couple more stars.
1:42
So if you think we deserve five stars, please leave a review for us wherever you're listening to this Spotify, Apple podcast, iHeartRadio, wherever.
1:48
Also, just remember, we are a donation-based ministry.
1:50
So if you guys want to see more content like this in the future, it's guys like you.
1:54
Not the guy next to you or the guy over there, the guy like you right now listening to this podcast, go to our website, undonton.life/donate, to become a monthly donor support, what we're doing here.
2:02
And then obviously, I, you know, every time I'm not doing an interview, I mentioned OriginMain, we got a new promo code.
2:07
It's Undaunted.
2:09
And if you guys want to try out all their stuff, so on the Jocko Go side, you've got the protein, you've got the greens, you've got the other supplements.
2:14
They just got creatine that you guys can buy, but also on the origin side, the best jujitsu keys on planet Earth, but they've also got boots and hunting gear, which is really, really awesome.
2:23
And if you guys would like 10% off of their products, so you can try them out, go to their website, use a promo code Undonton to check out and get 10% off the order.
2:29
That is all in the show notes.
2:30
And just wanted to say a quick thank you to all you guys for the great response to the last episode where we dealt with, I mean, just an absolute ton of quick hitters.
2:38
I mean, when I, when I say I emptied out the notes section on my phone and all those quick hitters and some that I hadn't gotten to and all those different things, that's exactly what happened.
2:45
So it's almost feels like we got a little bit of a fresh start heading into 2023 because I know we're going to have to deal with a bunch of craziness in the news cycle.
2:51
But on this episode, I have something really awesome that I want to talk about and I'm going to do that at the beginning and then something not so awesome that I'm going to talk about.
3:01
Okay, I'm going to talk about them back to back.
3:03
That's the way it's got to be done.
3:04
So let's start with something really, really awesome.
3:07
So last weekend, I got to go on what many people would consider to be a once in a lifetime hunt.
3:14
And so I can't give away all the details.
3:17
I didn't get permission to, you know, give location, all these different things. I actually just kind of forgot. And so I won't mention, you know, anything in particular, like, but we'll get into a lot of stuff about that.
3:25
But how the hunt came together is there is a listener of our show named Heath that lives in East Texas, East Texas, but he's got a family that has some hunting land and, you know, he's been, you know, a part of this, this land and conserving it for a very, very long time and taking care of it.
3:40
But he's a listener of this show and he's he reached out to me and said, Hey, man, I would love to take you out and take you to this to this land.
3:46
You know, it's in your state and we could go out on a hunt and be really, really awesome.
3:49
And so out in that land, there is red stag.
3:52
And so there are, you know, the stags and then there's the Heinz.
3:55
And so like I had never seen a red deer in person, much less being able to do the hunt.
3:59
I was going to have a buddy come with me that that didn't quite work out, but he had a buddy come with him.
4:03
And so we were just going to kind of make a weekend of it, spend some time in nature and do a little bit of hunting as well.
4:08
And one thing that I mentioned before on the show and I want to make sure I continue to mention it is hunting.
4:14
I think I mentioned this in the interview with Bert Soren hunting provides so many opportunities for growth as a human.
4:19
And you get so many life lessons that you will learn from hunting if you're paying attention.
4:23
Right. Now, I know a lot of you guys listening to this podcast, there's kind of like three types of people.
4:27
There are people that have hunted their entire lives, right?
4:29
There are people that have never hunted ever, not once.
4:31
And then there's people in the middle like me that are, you know, just trying to become a hunter, like as an adult,
4:35
like I want both of my sons to be able to know what it means to hunt, whether they want to do that long term for their own edification.
4:42
I don't want them to know how to hunt. I want them to know the proper way to do it and all that.
4:45
And so I'm so happy to have so many mentors in the hunting space that can teach me things and tell me things.
4:51
But I want to go through some life lessons that I learned specifically from the trip that I went on last weekend.
4:57
Okay. So the first one, I guess the first three, all kind of fall under the extreme ownership wing of philosophy or whatever.
5:05
So if you've read Extreme Ownership by Jocken Willing, obviously, most of you have read that before.
5:09
It's literally taking ownership of just about everything you can possibly take ownership of.
5:12
And then, you know, the philosophy kind of gets out over skis a little bit and you're taking ownership for of stuff that literally has something to do with you.
5:18
But there are three that kind of are in that vein. So the first thing I learned is bring the stuff you'll need to succeed.
5:24
So that doesn't seem like it's that big of advice because, well, obviously, if you're walking into a meeting where you're trying to sell a widget and, you know, you don't have the widget with you, that's going to make it a hard meeting for you.
5:32
You know, if you're going on vacation and you forget your passport and you're trying to leave the country, like that's going to be a problem.
5:37
But for me, one thing, I guess, a bad habit that I've gotten into is because I have so many hunting mentors that I have people that, you know, have hunting land or have a whole bunch of hunting gear or a whole bunch of hunting knowledge.
5:50
I just kind of go in and turn my brain off, right? I bring the bare minimum, you know, I make sure I've got my boots and I've got my camo and I've got my rifle.
5:57
But then everything else, I just kind of assume it's going to be taken care of because that's a lot of the hunting that I've gone on at this point, right?
6:04
But there are really, really important pieces of equipment that you need when you're going on a hunt like the one that I went on, and a rifle is a good one, good boots is another one, but another thing is a rangefinder, okay?
6:13
So, unfortunately, the guys that were taking me out, you know, honest mistake, forgot the rangefinder, but that wasn't necessarily their job to do that, right?
6:20
And the rangefinder will feature prominently later whenever I talk about some more lessons that I learned, but I had means to buy one or find one and I knew before I left that one of those would be a very necessary thing.
6:33
If I intended to take out an animal, right? And so for me, that's just one micro example. There were other things that I didn't bring that I would have, you know, been easier for success had I brought them, but that's a great life lesson, bring the stuff that you'll need to succeed.
6:47
Another life lesson that's kind of under that extreme ownership umbrella is to take responsibility for your own preparation, okay? So that's a little bit different than the first one because, you know, bring the stuff you'll need to succeed.
6:58
But in terms of taking responsibility for your own preparation, yes, that does mean gear, bring all the things that you'll need to succeed even, you know, your headlamp, if you've got to look for an animal at night or, you know, all these different things, but also your body, also your mindset, because again, if you're walking around as much as we did, and if you're on terrain like we were, and if any of you guys go in the Thailand hunts where you're in, you know, Colorado or Utah or something like that, if your body's not ready for a hunt like that, they're probably not going to be successful.
7:26
You're going to have to get lucky, right? If you walk up, you know, one ridge or go up one hill and you're just absolutely dying and you're having to take rest all these times, you got to remember these animals are used to it.
7:35
Like you've got to outwork them to a degree and I'll think them to a degree to make sure you put yourself in a good position and also the mindset.
7:43
So put yourself in the mindset of, I know there's going to be an opportunity to take a shot at some point. My heart's going to be racing, not just because of, you know, so-called buck fever or something like that, but what if you just get to the top of the ridge and you were trying to get there before the animal did and you do?
7:56
And now your heart rate's going, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you're trying to settle everything down and you can't, part of that is your mindset.
8:01
Understanding that you can calm yourself down, you can take deep breaths, you can focus and you can do all the things that you need to do again to make the hunt successful.
8:09
And the last thing in terms of kind of the extreme ownership side of things is to own your mistakes.
8:14
Okay. So I made a big mistake during this hunt, which luckily did not end in the wounding of an animal.
8:20
Okay. So I've talked before on the podcast about how there's one animal that I shot at that I didn't kill in my entire hunting career.
8:26
I wounded the animal, never found it. I constantly think about that animal. I think about them probably way too much.
8:31
But in this particular hunt, we're hunting red stag and I see a stag and we'd seen a bunch, but we couldn't really get good shots going.
8:37
And so we're rushing to get in position and I get my gun set up and I get on the glass and the stag is moving, right?
8:46
And he's moving and then he stops and these animals are very active. And so he may stop for two or three seconds.
8:52
So in that window of time, you've got to get a shot down range if you feel confident in the shot.
8:57
And so I ask for a range on the animal. Again, we don't have our rangefinder because I didn't make sure that we had one on the trip.
9:04
That was my mistake. Now I'm here. I'm looking down the glass. I don't want to come off the glass to have a conversation and, you know, look at the topography and look at all these different things and guesstimate distances and, you know, do all these other different calculations.
9:15
I just ask for help. And one of the guys on the trip, he gave me a range. He said the range out loud and I was like, really?
9:23
You're comfortable with that? I think it's going to be farther. He's like, no, man, like, this is your range.
9:28
You know, he basically told me a hundred yards, which is what my rifle was sighted in for. And so I shoot as if it's at a hundred yards and the stag doesn't move.
9:37
Neither do the Heinz. And like, I never experienced such a thing. I was like, did I actually hit him and he's in shock right now or, or, and I'm shooting suppressed. And so obviously, you know, there's not this big boom that would scare them.
9:49
And so I missed. I just flat out missed. And then here's where my biggest mistake happened.
9:55
I go ahead and I run the bolt and I get another round in the chamber and I shoot the exact same shot.
10:02
I literally do the definition of insanity. It didn't work the first time. And so I do it again the second time. I do it the exact same way. I make no adjustments whatsoever.
10:14
And what do you think happened? The exact same thing. I missed the animal. Again, we couldn't see, you know, where the shot landed, but it had to have landed well short of the animal.
10:23
And then finally, I think the animal in this amusement was like, all right, see you guys. And then they take off. At this point, I'm sick to my stomach. I'm mad, right? I'm mad at myself.
10:34
You know, the guy that called out the distance, he's sick to his stomach. He looks like he's going to throw up. But almost immediately, I realized, you know what, he did his best in that moment.
10:43
And it wasn't correct, but it was my shot. It was my responsibility to take a shot that I was comfortable with. But I leaned on some again.
10:52
It was just kind of lazy on my part. I just lean on somebody else. And, you know, some of that had some more experience in me and it just didn't quite work out. Okay.
10:59
But we'll move on from there because I don't want to ruin the rest of it, but I want to move on to some bonus lessons. Okay. So those three are under kind of the umbrella of extreme ownership.
11:08
But there's a couple more lessons that I learned from this particular trip and there were more, but I'm just trying to keep it to these five.
11:13
The first bonus lesson here is learn to live with disappointment, but make sure the experience of that disappointment propels you to future success. Okay.
11:25
So let's say that was the end of the trip. I shoot those two shots. I miss. That's it for me. Well, obviously, in the future, I need to make some adjustments to my preparation to make sure that something like that doesn't happen again.
11:37
Namely bringing the rangefinder, but also maybe learning how to range. And I've done some courses before that'll kind of help you when you don't have a rangefinder to range and get an estimated distance so that you can dope your scope or adjust up or down or left or right or something like that.
11:50
Right. But also there was an opportunity even before those two missed shots where we were on. We were in this very, very rocky kind of Canyony type place.
11:59
And we knew because we had one of our guys off in the distance, he could see the red deer and we couldn't. We knew that they were down in this, this valley or down in this Canyon, rather, and that they would be coming up at some point, but we couldn't really see them.
12:12
And so me and the other guy were standing on this on this ridge.
12:16
And I think to myself, like, I think we maybe need to go to this next ridge. And the other guy made a really good point. He's like, well, you know, if we're down in the in the Canyon, climb it up. And, you know, the red deer go, you know, walk and buy while we're down.
12:30
We're like, we'll be pretty disappointed ourselves. So obviously going to the next ridge would have made us that much closer, but just kind of is what is so we wait, we wait, we wait, we wait, we wait.
12:37
And then we decide, okay, let's go ahead and go to the next ridge. So that's what we do. And wouldn't you know it right when we get to the next ridge.
12:43
My, my guy that was kind of guiding me, he looks down and he sees this enormous, beautiful red stag in the bottom of this Canyon.
12:50
But in the time it takes me literally to get my rifle up to where I could even see through the scope. He's gone.
12:56
And by the time that red stag makes his way to the top of the hill, he's not walking. He's running like something spooked him. He takes off.
13:03
Gosh, that was so disappointing.
13:05
Because at this point, I'm getting nervous. I'm thinking, you know, this is again before the two missed shots I had. I'm thinking, Dad, come at like, what if that's it?
13:13
What if that was, that was like the prize bowl of this or not bowl, but the prize stag of this entire area.
13:19
And, you know, I miss my opportunity because we didn't just go to that next place. But again, that's hunting to a degree, right?
13:25
Because, you know, I wasn't right and thinking we should get to the next ridge and I wasn't wrong.
13:29
And our guide wasn't right or wrong to think we should stay where we were. It was probably the right call from the beginning because if he came up a little bit earlier,
13:34
we would have saw him and we would have had a shot at him, right? And so that's a disappointment that I had. But again, that's all about propelling us to the future.
13:43
And again, you kind of have to take a little bit of the things you learned with a grain of salt because what is the exact lesson there?
13:50
You know, in that exact moment, it would have worked out had we gone sooner. But in another scenario, and I guess in a parallel universe, it would have been the exact opposite outcome.
13:58
Okay, but you just take what you can learn from your disappointments. Don't just be disappointed. Don't just lament, but make adjustments.
14:07
And the last lesson here on this hunting trip is never forget to give thanks to God for his creation and provision.
14:15
So going back to the hunt, this is after me not going, us not going to the ridge in time and not being there again. Of course, we had no idea.
14:22
This was after the two misses and, you know, we're down, but we're motivated. Like, let's keep hunting. Let's keep figuring it out. You know, we got in, you know, I had to leave the next day.
14:30
And so it's like, Hey, this is the last day we got to figure something out. And long story short, we do get in position on this ridge.
14:36
We think that the red deer are going to be coming through this canyon. They do. There was a stag with two hinds. And this time, you know, I was able to estimate the distance.
14:44
We all kind of stopped and, you know, took, took a little bit of an idea. We were estimated around 300 yards. You know, the red stag had finally stopped moving.
14:53
And so I didn't, you know, adjust my scope. I held over the shoulder of the animal. So it's first time I've ever shot at an animal where I held as opposed to adjusting my scope.
15:03
And luckily, the bullet goes exactly where I wanted it to go. The stag was dead, you know, really in seconds. He actually ran into the river. So we had to drag the guy out of the river.
15:15
But, you know, I was able to, we were able to hunt this animal, get into the right position because the guides were so good at spotting stuff and so good at getting in the right position again.
15:24
And I had no freaking idea what I was doing when I was out there. I was just trying to learn, be a sponge as much as possible, made an adjustment on the fly, took the shot, worked out, went and found him.
15:34
And of course we got him out there, got him, you know, quartered out and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But one thing that I've started to do with hunting is I love to give thanks to God again for his creation that I'm even hunting in, but then the provision of the meat.
15:47
And I did, I included these two guys on Heath and Dylan, Dylan who I had mentioned, but that's he's buddy and he did a great job for us. Like, you know, he went, you know, and sacrificed his body, hiking up these areas to kind of push the red deer in a particular area to kind of scare him our direction like just, you know, did a great job for us.
16:03
I got down on my knees with this red deer and I put my hand on it and I gave thanks.
16:08
I thanked God for allowing us to be in his creation. I thanked him for the beautiful weather. I thanked him for, you know, the technology that we were able to use, the rifle to be able to take an animal like this, but also that animal is going to mostly feed my family, but also feed
16:20
other families got a lot of meat that's coming off that, that animal that we can use. And that's a gift from God.
16:26
That is something that not everybody on the planet has the capability of.
16:30
Not everybody can hunt. Not everybody has animals in their immediate area that they can, you know, shoot or kill at one time and then feed their family for a long period of time.
16:39
And so I just feel overwhelmingly thankful. And that's my encouragement to all you hunters out there is that when you take an animal, regardless of what the animal is, if you plan on eating it, put your hands on that animal and thank God.
16:49
Just take a second. I mean, I prayed for 20 seconds, just giving thanks to God for the time and the brotherhood that was created, you know, because obviously whenever the animal went down, we're hugging and slapping backs and doing all those different things.
17:00
But again, guys, you should always be looking for opportunities to God for God to provide for you and should be able to recognize that provision would probably be a better way of saying it.
17:10
So regardless of what you're doing, even if it's outside of hunting, look for opportunities to give thanks because everything that is good in your life is a gift from God.
17:20
And certainly that hunting trip was so, again, just wanted to thank Heath and Dylan for doing that. And it was just such an awesome experience.
17:27
And I wish a similar experience for a lot of you guys that are listening to the show that you could have something similar to that in your future.
17:34
So that's all the positive stuff, right? Hopefully that was good for you guys, even if you're not a hunter. Hopefully that quarter of an hour didn't really, you know, make you go crazy.
17:43
But now I need to talk about the not so awesome thing that I need to address.
17:47
So apparently, guys, I have a new nickname and it's the dark eyed interviewer.
17:54
Oh, yes, I am the dark eyed interviewer. But before we get to how I got this new nickname, I need to make something abundantly clear from the jump here.
18:07
So I'm not about to talk about what I'm about to talk about in detail what I'm about to detail as some sort of, you know, cathartic experience for myself.
18:15
I'm not trying to be petty. I'm not trying to, you know, save my pride from further injury or anything like that. And that all makes sense here in a second.
18:23
And I've truly debated what to do about this situation and I've debated what to do in this particular circumstance.
18:30
And I've included the opinions and ideas of some very, very smart people that are very close to me.
18:37
And what I've concluded is that this situation has to be discussed. And also, there's no perfect way to approach it.
18:46
There are trade-offs here. There are things that I deem are more important than other things.
18:50
And again, taking in the, you know, the opinions of people that know me, that have no trouble hurting my feelings.
18:56
I've taken all that into account as I address this. So there you go. Clear as mud. Okay, so let's back up.
19:02
So let me talk to you a little bit about how a lot of people are booked to come on the show.
19:07
So whenever I have these guests, and again, you guys are just, you love the guests we've had. 2022 has been incredible.
19:13
I can't wait to do my wrap up episode about the podcast that we've recorded this year.
19:16
But a lot of times I will reach out to people.
19:19
So I'll reach out to them directly or I'll reach out to their publisher or I'll reach out to, you know, their marketing company or something like that to try to get them on the show for some particular reason.
19:27
But then I have other circumstances, which is actually pretty awesome. There are publishing houses that will reach out to me and say, Hey, here are four or five books that we have coming out in the next three to four months.
19:38
Here's a summary of the book. We can send you an advanced copy, an advanced reader's copy or an art copy. You can check it out.
19:46
And then if you like it, we can book the person on the show, or if you just like the description and want to book them, then we can do that.
19:51
And then also there are publicists, you know, these marketing agencies that will get somebody that's either got a documentary out or a book or they're doing something special, but they create an app or something like that.
20:01
And they will pitch them to me to come on the show.
20:04
In years past, I would basically take just about everybody because I wanted so desperately to keep the consistency in the momentum going with the show.
20:11
Even when I was just doing one episode a week. But even now, whenever we're doing three episodes a week and for the last several months releasing two interviews a week, I'm being a little bit more critical about the people that I accept on the show.
20:20
Just because I want to make sure I'm not, you know, doing too much of the same type of content. I'm constantly bringing people in the show that are interesting to you.
20:27
Okay.
20:28
So I was pitched an interview two or three months back from a publicist from a company that I very, very much like, but will leave name, listen, and you know, you'll understand why to interview a guy named Ryan George about his book scared to life.
20:43
Now, that name should sound familiar to all of you that are, you know, longtime listeners of the show is because he was a guest for episode 394 this podcast, which just came out, you know, two or three weeks ago.
20:53
Okay.
20:54
Now, this is what I'll say from the beginning.
20:56
When I was pitched this interview, there's something about that I was like, I don't.
21:01
Okay, a guy that experiences Jesus while doing like extreme sports and these crazy stunts and, you know, death, defying stuff, walking on airplane wings and skydiving and, you know, bungee jumping and all that.
21:11
Like, okay, I didn't really get it. But again, I, I'm not just taking myself into account here. I'm taking you guys into accounts like, well, maybe my audience will be into it.
21:18
So I didn't really want to book the interview, but for whatever reason, I was like, yeah, I'll go ahead and do it.
21:22
And then when it came time to prepare for the interview, obviously, I need to read the book. I read, you know, I read every word of every book before the person comes on because I feel like that's an honoring thing to do for them.
21:30
So I didn't want to read the book, but then I did anyway.
21:33
And then I read the book. And I found the book to be kind of vapid, you know, kind of verbose, it just kind of dragged on and on. I didn't really get the point in a lot of different areas.
21:43
But, you know, it is what it is. You know, you said you were going to read the book. So you read the book, you prepare the interview and it's up to you. They're dedicating their time to you.
21:50
Give them the best effort you possibly can. But then whenever it was interview day, I was like, man, for what a reason, I just don't want to do this interview.
21:56
I was just in a bad mood about the interview, not a bad mood in general, just bad mood about the interview. Then I did the interview and I didn't enjoy it.
22:03
And I can count on one hand and still have some fingers, let the number of times I've done interviews and just, as soon as it was over, I was like, Oh God, thank goodness, that's done.
22:11
I'm so glad that interviews over that I can just move on with my life. Didn't like the interview while I was going on. Didn't really like afterwards, even when I was editing in it, putting it together, I was like, I don't think this is very good.
22:21
I'm assuming I'm the problem that you know, it's my, you know, maybe it's a mistake that I made or maybe I'm going to be the only one that feels that way.
22:27
And then I just released the episode so I could get it out of my cue, get it out of my brain. And you know, an interesting note about that.
22:34
Before I released the episode, I made about, you know, again, I kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, I made about a half a dozen, a half a dozen guys aware of all that stuff that I just said.
22:43
And I had them listen to the episode with a critical ear to see if I had given this guy, Ryan George, a fair interview, or if I sounded even the smallest bit perturbed or annoyed or frustrated or anything like that.
22:56
And 100% of those guys, again, all these guys, I picked them specifically because they have no problem hurting my feelings. All of them said, Kyle, if you hadn't said anything to us beforehand, I would have not noticed anything different. You gave them the same level of energy, the same level of interest, you pushed in a very nice and polite way.
23:12
I don't see any problems with this. Okay. And that was their honest reactions, right? They were just like, you know, just kind of is what it is. I, you know, there's, there's no there there, essentially. So I put the interview out there. Again, and like with almost all of my interviews, I tend to forget about it.
23:27
Because, you know, it's on to the next thing, right? You know, I've got the next interview. I've got the prepare for. I've got the next book I've got to read. I've got the next thing that we're going to be doing.
23:35
We've got some cool things coming out beginning of next year. Like, there's always something else on the to do to do sheet. Like I've got this list right here in front of you that has constantly got stuff on it and boxes that need to be checked. Okay.
23:45
Now, I especially wanted to forget that particular interview, just because again, I didn't enjoy the guest or anything about the process of the interview.
23:52
And so I move on, at least I think so, because that was until a fan of the show, who just so happens to be the same guy that took me on the red stag hunt, believe it or not, he, he sends me this text completely out of the blue.
24:04
And this message was about Ryan George, and it said, have you seen his blog post about you and the interview?
24:12
That's verbatim what this fan sent me about Ryan George. Have you seen his blog post about you and the interview?
24:17
And what's funny is I was in my truck in a parking lot about to put, you know, the car and drive. And I immediately just started laughing.
24:25
I literally laugh out loud in the truck by myself, because I knew what was coming. I could just feel it in my bones. And the last time I had a feeling like this was when I was dealing with everything that was going on with Crispin Mayfield.
24:39
So if you go back to Episode 284, this podcast, we have a lot of new listeners, go back and listen at least to the introduction, the first five, six minutes of Episode 284 with Crispin Mayfield, because there was something odd to me about the last few minutes my interview with Ryan George.
24:55
There was something odd to me about his facial expression and his tone when he signed off.
24:59
And in the few minutes, you know, before I close the interview room, because I have to grab the audio, grab the video, make sure it's all good to go, tell them, you know, around what time it's going to be released.
25:07
And, you know, just basically do my thank yous and goodbyes. In those few minutes, his countenance had changed, his whole approach had changed. It was just, it was odd.
25:15
It wasn't like crazy noticeable, but it was just slight. Okay.
25:19
So my buddy sends me the link to the blog. He posted for a site and for, you know, his followers to see. And so I go to this, this link whenever I get home whenever I have time to actually read the read the whole thing.
25:29
And his website is titled Explorience, which, okay, there's so many words in the English language. Do we really need to make up words to, you know, sound smart.
25:39
So it's a combination of explore and experience. But the, the blog in question that he wrote about me and about, you know, our show and his experience was posted on November the 23rd.
25:48
And the title was jujitsu Jesus.
25:52
And just reading the title, I could see exactly where this was going.
25:56
Okay. So I read the blog and essentially in the blog, he's trashing me. He's trashing the show.
26:03
You know, in, in light of that, he's basically trashing you all for, for listening to a guy like me.
26:09
And he's trashing my, and I guess you could say our approach to Christianity and pushing back darkness and culture in general. Okay.
26:16
So right after reading this, this article where he's, he's trashing me, I was about 50% [inaudible] and about 50% deeply amused. And within like 24 hours, it went to like 2% [inaudible] and like 98% deeply, deeply amused.
26:30
And we'll get more into the contents of the blog here in a second rest assured. But the thing that I found out found about this is I found this to be a very, very inappropriate thing to go on somebody's show to use their audience for something to your end, only to turn around
26:44
and basically bite the hand that's feeding you. Okay. So without getting into all the details, I reached back out to the publicist that booked this initial interview and I just expressed her very briefly. We were on the phone for two or three minutes.
26:54
I just kind of explained the situation, explained that the blog was out there because she didn't know it was even out there. And I just said like, Hey, I don't really appreciate the fact that I gave him literally hours and hours and hours of my time attention and my business's time and attention.
27:06
Only for him to turn around and trash me before the interview was even released. I think that's deeply, deeply unprofessional. And I just wanted you to know, like, I want to continue working with people that you represent.
27:17
But, you know, if he's going to do this to me, he's probably going to do what he did to other people. And, you know, so that that's interesting information for later.
27:24
So let's get into the blog itself. So the blog itself was much like his book. It was way too long for what he was trying to accomplish. It was verbose. It was, you know, overly poetic.
27:35
He was really like forcing this language trying to make it seem, you know, less vapid than it actually was. He kind of skips around muddies, you know, whatever point he's trying to make.
27:43
And here's the thing is the blog doesn't exist anymore because he took it down because his public has basically told him to do so.
27:49
I took screenshots of the blog before he deleted it. So I still have it, but I'm not going to, you know, post it anywhere. I just have him so I could, you know, basically refer to it as I discuss it here on this podcast.
27:58
And we can't possibly go through all of the contents of the entire blog. Believe me, I'm doing you a favor. But the first thing that people will notice or that people did notice when they read the blog, because again, remember, I didn't find it.
28:09
I didn't seek this out. It was sent to me. And certainly there were people from my audience that read it.
28:13
The thing that you'll notice about the blog is that he's trashing me in the show.
28:17
And yet he never actually refers to me or this show by name.
28:21
And that was the first time I really started getting very, very amused at this, because he only refers. He doesn't refer to me as Kyle Thompson.
28:29
He doesn't refer to him. Don's a life of man's podcast.
28:32
He calls me the jujitsu fighter, the combat sportsman, the martial artist, the man with a giant metal lines head on the wall behind him.
28:42
And then my personal favorite, the dark-eyed interviewer. The dark-eyed interviewer. Doesn't that sound ominous?
28:51
Yeah, I'm just going to accept it. I'm going to lean into that. And he only refers to the show as what's billed as a Christian manhood podcast.
28:59
Okay, so he thinks he's being slick, but anyone that follows him will know that he was on the show.
29:05
Like the profile of the show, I mean, I'm just stating facts here. I'm not bragging. Like the profile of the show is much bigger than the profile of his experience website.
29:12
And so obviously people that follow him know that he was on the show and yet in, you know, rather cowardly fashion, he neglects to name me.
29:20
Like he wants to trash me and make a point, but he neglects to name me. So I've done all that set up here.
29:25
Now let's get into the actual quotes from this actual blog article here. Okay.
29:31
All right, let's get it. The Jiu Jitsu fighter hosts introduced me after a bumper of heavy metal music. His words spewed fast, intense, and staccato.
29:40
And if you're wondering, staccato is definitely not a word. Over the course of our hour-long conversation, the dark-eyed interviewer made clear that he lived in a state of outrage.
29:50
He validated the claim on his website that he quote, "Tackles hot button issues that most pastors won't go near, such as the lack of true masculinity in church." You like it? My voice cracked when I'm saying masculinity here. Let's pop another throat lodges. Here we go.
30:04
Tackles hot button issues that most pastors won't go near, such as the lack of true masculinity in the church. Supposed toxic masculinity in culture.
30:11
How to defeat pro-abortion arguments, wokeness, and cancel culture, CRT, the LGBTQ+ cultural revolution, and much more. Okay, so again, he calls me the dark-eyed interviewer, which is obviously trying to make it seem like I'm this kind of evil, brooding guy that lives in a constant state of outrage.
30:28
Now, obviously, if you've listened to the show for any length of time, this is episode 400. Nice round number. You know that there are times when I get fairly outraged.
30:36
There's some sort of actual injustice that's happened. There's, you know, some sort of news story that gets me fired up. So yeah, you get outraged, but to say that I live in a state of outrage, that's kind of odd.
30:48
And he's saying I'm validating that claim because of things that are on my website. Okay, like saying I'm going to tackle these hot button issues. Okay, so that's interesting. So back to the blog here.
30:59
He had read my recently published book and found multiple statements in its pages untenable. He seemed to want an argument to spar on air and showcase his dominance.
31:10
Like, when I'm reading this, that sentence especially just made me giggle and to spar on air and to showcase his dominance.
31:19
So here's something that's clear about this guy. He seemingly can't handle pushback and he can't handle masculine pushback, I guess, in a way, because if you go back and listen to that interview, which if you want to go for it.
31:31
But if you go back, there are things in his book that don't make sense to me.
31:35
I don't say just don't make sense in general, even though that's an argument that could be made. They don't make sense to me. And so I'm asking follow up questions.
31:41
And then when we got to some places where there was some disagreement, I had to ask follow up questions because that was the line of questioning that we were in in the interview.
31:50
And I'm not just going to ditch it to move on. And I even said in the intro for that interview, there were a lot of rabbit trails that we could have gone down, but it would have just busted up the entire interview.
31:59
And it would have just became an argument. And so because I've done this for a long time and I don't suck at it, like, I just went in and, you know, tried to push where I could push all the while knowing that there's a trajectory that this interview needs to stay on.
32:09
Right? But also, did you listen to my interview with Sean McDowell that was released earlier this week? Okay, because he and I disagreed quite a bit on that interview, right?
32:21
And then we're both smiling the whole time. You know, we're both asking on his questions and giving on his feedback back and forth.
32:26
And as soon as that interview was over, the number one thing that Sean McDowell, you know, complimented me on was how how I was able to push on him and, you know, push back on some of the things that he wrote and to disagree.
32:38
And to do it in such a positive way.
32:42
And then in all of our email interactions thereafter, the same thing. The same exact thing. He's just very, very complimentary of how we're able to do that. And guys, that has happened all the time. Like, the only two interviews where that hasn't happened has been with Ryan George and Crispin Mayfield, which that's not exactly, you know, Mount Rushmore that you want to be on.
33:01
But I've pushed a lot of people on this show, and they always come back for the most part. I say always for the most part, they come back and say, man, that was really respectful. You know, you really, really engage with my content and where you didn't understand where you disagreed.
33:13
You stood your ground. You allowed me to say my piece. I really, really appreciate that. But apparently that doesn't work if you're Ryan George. Okay, so back to the blog here.
33:21
His biggest complaint from the books, not the Arctic chapter. That's where I unpacked how Jesus attracted people from both ends of several spectrums, how the famous rabbi was known by what he was for more than by what he was against.
33:34
The man with the giant metal lion's head on the wall behind him declared that Christians have a duty to decry the sins of our culture into that culture. Okay. The reason why I would say that I think Christians have a duty to decry the sins of our culture into that culture is because we do.
33:53
Because morality is a real thing. And again, he's talking about the be know what you be known what you're for and not what you're against. But what people like him, these people that are very obtuse, very dense.
34:05
They don't see that when you say, and I've said this, I think I said this one last one of last week's episodes. When you say that you're for something, you're automatically communicating that you were against other things.
34:15
I think I use the example of ice cream. If you say your favorite flavor of ice cream, you say that when that flavor is available, you are against all the other flavors of ice cream.
34:21
If you are for the protection of the unborn in the womb, you are against the murder of the unborn in the womb.
34:26
If you are for judging people based on their non immutable characteristics, then you are automatically against people that do judge people based on their immutable characteristics, whatever they may be, right?
34:36
You automatically do that because duh, because that's how words work. That's how thoughts work.
34:41
But again, this is a guy that doesn't want to get into the culture war. He doesn't want to get his hands dirty.
34:47
And so he's just going to lean on the fact that, uh, Jesus supposedly was just wanting to be known for what he was for and not what he was against.
34:53
So back to the block here. In my response as in my book, I contend that evangelism should compel us to follow Christ's example.
35:00
I explained how Jesus did confront brokenness, but mostly in personal, compassionate conversations.
35:06
I pointed out how Christ biographers recorded his grace filled interactions with people who made wrong choices or priorities.
35:13
So real quick, he's trying to soften the blow by saying, you know, he Jesus confronted brokenness by mostly personal and compassionate conversations.
35:20
He's going to try to, you know, dissuade you from believing that there were any other ways that he operated, but also he uses the phrase wrong choices.
35:27
You know, interactions with people who made wrong choices. Okay.
35:30
I think the word you're looking for is sin.
35:33
You know, it's not wrong choices that are going to send you to hell. It's sin. Okay. So back to the block here.
35:39
I noted how he saved his name calling and bold confrontations for the corrupt religious elite.
35:44
Jesus targeted his public condemnations only at those who made knowing him more difficult, not at the sex workers, tax collectors, Romans or outsiders.
35:52
Okay.
35:53
So he's bringing all this up and he's purposefully, this is Ryan George again, purposely ignoring the times when Jesus did rebuke people boldly and publicly.
36:03
Okay. Jesus literally made a mob of people so mad that they chased him outside of the town and tried to kill him.
36:11
Right.
36:12
I don't know about you guys. I've said some incendiary things in my day. I've never been chased out of town by a lynch mob, essentially. Never happened.
36:18
Okay.
36:19
But again, he's talking about how Jesus saved his bold confrontations for the corrupt religious elite.
36:25
Well, Ryan George doesn't understand what a lot of people don't understand is the religious lead of that day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Jewish Sanhedrin and all those people.
36:34
They were the cultural elites. They were the culture.
36:40
So when people are like, Oh, you know, Jesus didn't really, you know, talk about cultural issues. He just pushed back against the religious elites.
36:46
He pushed back against the people that were controlling the culture of the day.
36:52
Do you understand that? And so that would be akin to the people that are controlling the culture today and our day, whether you think that's a particular political party or Hollywood or, you know, social media companies or people and, you know, whatever.
37:07
Right.
37:08
The controlling elites of society were doing things that were wrong and against God.
37:14
And Jesus pointed that out with regularity. Okay. So back to the block.
37:18
I told the combat sportsman that we can't ask those outside the family of God to abide by our house rules, especially when that church house is filled with rampant abuse, hypocrisy, debauchery and other scandals.
37:31
Okay. So we absolutely can, first of all, and I talked about this when I interviewed him, we absolutely can because it pertains to morality and rightness.
37:38
Okay. Now, obviously we see him Paul in the New Testament talk about how, you know, we're basically taught who to judge and judging those people inside the church and letting God deal with the people outside the church.
37:47
But to sit around and pretend as if there's nothing that we can say or do about the dark darkness that's pervading our culture is a biblical nonsense.
37:55
Oh, we just can't ask people that are outside the family of God. We couldn't possibly ask them to be moral. Could we? Well, yeah, we can. We ask people all the time.
38:02
That's why every country on the planet has laws against murder.
38:06
And not every worldview thinks that murder is necessarily wrong. But why does every single governmental culture think that it is?
38:14
That that's kind of a big thing to think through. So back to the blog here.
38:18
As most evangelical culture warriors do, the martial artists defended the practice of spewing hate on those outside the church and anyone outside of conservative political dogma by pointing to the story of Jesus flipping tables in the temple.
38:31
And at this point, guys, it's like, okay, there he goes spewing hate, the major buzzword hate.
38:37
So he would define hate as anything that he doesn't like. Hate is, well, that seems icky and that seems rude. And so I'm just going to call it hate.
38:46
So telling somebody that is homosexual, that if they act out in a homosexual manner that that's wrong and hurts God and is sinful, he would say that that's hateful.
38:56
Pointing at someone and saying, look, I don't care what color your skin is. I'm going to judge you based on your non immutable characteristics that somehow that would be me othering somebody if they didn't happen to look like me.
39:06
Also, liberals, which I'm pretty sure it's you can say that Ryan George is that type of person liberals hate that Jesus cleared the temple. They hate that story and they hate that it's in the Bible, even in general, because they don't know what to do with it.
39:22
Okay, they just don't know what to do with angry line of Jew to Jesus. They just don't get it. Okay. And just a side note, because again, you know, even how Ryan George framed the story was was incomplete at best and incorrect at worst, but he didn't just flip tables in the temple.
39:37
As Ryan George said, he cleared the temple.
39:41
He flipped the tables and he cleared out the people and the animals and nobody tried to stop them. So this story does seem very icky, very mean, not very Christ like, at least by our modern standards. Okay, so back to the blog.
39:56
Culture wars do both the left and right sides are sorry. Culture wars on both the left and right sides of political and religious aisles leveraged this account, but failed to notice that Jesus did this only once, maybe twice across years of ministry.
40:10
They also overlooked the fact that Jesus didn't roll in with a posse of table flippers. His disciples didn't make whips, let alone, let alone crack them. Jesus didn't deputize his followers to topple tables.
40:20
He didn't turn to anyone in the crowd and say, go and do likewise. Jesus couldn't dispatch disciples to Holy anger or righteous indignation because as Paul the Apostle wrote later, there is none righteous, not even one.
40:31
The only person in history of in the history of humanity whose sovereignty could be trusted with wrathful confrontation is the only one who has ever held omniscience and the only one who has also died for everyone he chastised. Okay.
40:43
So this section here, guys, and don't miss this. This is a stunningly bad argument by Ryan George, and this is why he's fundamentally arguing against being Christ like or acting Christ like when Christ does something that he, Ryan George, deems as inappropriate
41:05
or too severe, because I'm assuming that he would co-sign, Ryan George would co-sign all the other places in the New Testament where Jesus did something and people followed his lead and he didn't have to say, go and do likewise.
41:19
Because we get this concept of reading the New Testament, understanding just even a modicum of theology that we are to be as Christ like as possible.
41:27
That is how we are to live. In your marriage, you look at the model of Jesus and how he sacrificed for his bride, the church, and you are to comport yourself in that way as a husband, as a husband.
41:38
But apparently, Ryan George wouldn't co-sign that.
41:41
And he tries to downplay like, oh, you know, he did it only once, maybe twice again, go back to my interview with Titus Kennedy because he gives us a tremendous amount of evidence to suggest that this happened at the beginning of Jesus's ministry and at the end of his ministry.
41:54
This is a very, very important thing. And it wasn't the only thing that Jesus did. Obviously, there are things that Jesus did that were not recorded in any of the four Gospels, right?
42:02
So when you look at a show like, you know, the chosen or something like that, they're trying to almost like read into what are some of the other interactions Jesus could have had with his apostles, disciples, and other people from that time period, right?
42:11
But he's making this argument, and perhaps he knows it, but perhaps I would assume that he doesn't, he doesn't, he's oblivious to it, is that if you act in a Christ-like manner based on what you read in the New Testament, and he doesn't really like it, then he's not going to think it's good.
42:24
He's going to call you a meanie, meanie, meanie pants, and he's going to say, you're giving him the sads and you're hurting his feelers and all these different things.
42:31
Okay. Now, I'm going to skip a lot of this blog because, you know, he went into this very circuitous argument that dragged on and on and never actually made a point.
42:39
And I'm just going to go into the end and read, you know, one of his final salvos. So he said this, the Great Commission wasn't to call or wasn't a call to win converts, or to sign multilevel marketing downlines.
42:51
Okay, so let's talk. There's two things there. So the winning converts part. Yes, we are actually called to win converts. For sure.
42:58
To a degree, that's exactly what people are doing when they evangelize.
43:01
So it doesn't mean like, oh, I'm just going to, you know, give you all these Christian apologetics and it's going to be so awesome that you're going to come to the father like, but that's not really how that works.
43:09
But when you evangelize, you are trying to win converts because you want them to be converted, right, because, again, words.
43:16
But also, he takes a shot at the fact that we have sponsors on this show, because he says, or to sign multilevel marketing downlines.
43:25
So, you know, he's taking a shot, the fact that there are people that are paying us money or doing things for us so that we can provide for you, the audience, but also provide for us here and to keep the lights on to a degree again.
43:35
We're mainly donation based, but we do get some money from advertisers, right?
43:38
But then I'll read this last section here and then we'll kind of try to sum up all this nonsense.
43:42
It was a command to make disciples to grow the family of God by compelling others into a shared adoption.
43:48
Our assignment is to represent our family and our father in such a way that when we ask someone if they'd like to be adopted, it's a no-brainer.
43:55
Paul, the converted crusader, wrote that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance, not God's anger, not his verbal barbs, and not his jujitsu.
44:05
So, at this point, I'm just rolling my eyes because it's like, oh my gosh, like this guy's intimidated by jujitsu somehow.
44:11
I mean, it's just like not even necessary, not even to the point, but again, that's kind of indicative of his writing style, of his presentation style.
44:19
But he's neglecting to understand that some people come to the father because their level of depravity is revealed to them.
44:27
And they realize that God is a loving God and God is love, but he's also an angry and jealous God because you can't just, again, read the parts of the Bible and put them in your heart, just the parts that you like.
44:40
You have to take all of it into account, okay?
44:42
So, I actually responded to the blog post, so I left a comment because there was a comment section, there weren't any other comments, go figure, so I leave this comment in the comment section.
44:52
If you're going to flame someone online, at least call them out by name.
44:55
You could even try engaging with their critiques when you're actually eyeball to eyeball with them as opposed to waiting until after the interaction and running to your blog to complain about how they were supposedly mean to you.
45:06
Signed, the dark-eyed interviewer.
45:09
Because as I said, I'm just going to go ahead and lean into that moniker now.
45:12
So he actually responded via email, okay?
45:14
So, you know, he took the blog down, so the response, you know, went away.
45:17
So here's the exact reading.
45:18
I'm going to read word for word, his email.
45:20
I'm not going to add or take away anything.
45:22
Good afternoon, Kyle.
45:23
My publicist asked me to take down the blog post from my site after a phone call with you.
45:27
I have done so.
45:28
But in case you didn't see my reply before I removed it from the site, here was my response to your comment.
45:33
Hello, Kyle, my intentionality in making this anecdote anonymous and ambiguous was mint in kindness, not cowardice.
45:40
I've not sent this post to my email subscribers or shared it on any of my social media channels.
45:44
It was something I could send to the guys in my spiritual community where we just spent more than two months discussing the perils of culture war Christianity.
45:52
Also, this post was a personal exercise to prepare for the controversy that will no doubt swirl on my media tour for my next book, the working title of which is abusive theology.
46:01
Can't wait to read that barn burner.
46:03
I'm grateful for my conversation and debate on your podcast.
46:06
Your listeners have been gracious to me on Instagram.
46:08
The photo I posted of undaunted life on my media appearances page intentionally shows both of a smiling.
46:13
If you lived in town, I'd be happy to grab a meat heavy meal with you to continue the conversation.
46:18
So I read this response and it's like, man, I did not know that you could go 100 miles an hour in reverse.
46:25
Like the biggest backtrack, like the first words out of my mouth after I read this was, God, what a [inaudible].
46:33
Like literally doesn't lean into it at all.
46:36
He writes this entire blog. I mean, gosh, how many thousands of words was this blog?
46:40
Just man, man, man, man, just say it.
46:42
After statement, after statement, that's going nowhere.
46:45
Like just making things up whole cloth.
46:47
But then again, when he has an interaction with me directly via email, he's like, oh, that was my intention.
46:52
It wasn't cowardly. I was just trying to be nice, you see, right?
46:56
So I've got a lot of thoughts on this.
46:58
But I'm just going to kind of try to keep them as succinct as possible because there is a takeaway for you.
47:02
Again, this isn't for my own catharsis.
47:04
This is for you guys trying to give you something that you can learn from all this.
47:07
So a few thoughts.
47:09
This seems like, you know, one of my guys, Derek pointed this out to me.
47:12
This seems like a strategic move on his part to get views, to get more views, to get more attention, something apparent.
47:18
He apparently craves. So he's creating drama for publicity.
47:22
And here I am talking about it. So there you go.
47:24
Perhaps it's working, but that's kind of age old PR, you know, create a little bit of drama.
47:28
You know, all presses is good press, you know, or no presses, bad press or something like that.
47:32
However, the statement goes. So I think he was trying to do that.
47:34
Also, I think that using someone's audience for something to your benefit,
47:40
even though you don't like that person and don't like their content and don't like their audience
47:46
is definitely what it means to be an attention whore.
47:50
That's what Ryan George is.
47:54
He's an attention whore because
47:58
well, I'll get more into this here in a little bit, but I'll just leave that there.
48:02
So when you're taking advantage of somebody that you don't like, but you get some attention
48:06
that's very harsh behavior. And the last kind of random thought here
48:10
is this guy is obviously very intimidated by masculinity. I don't know why.
48:14
I can take some guesses, but I don't know why. He likely does all these, you know, extreme
48:18
stunt, you know, things to try and prove some level of masculinity,
48:22
you know, actually exists inside himself, you know, he'll likely never stop searching
48:26
for it. And, you know, and I'm not saying that to make fun of him. Like, I pity
48:30
him to a degree. Like, I would, I would say, like, if you want a good
48:34
action item from this, you know, you should be praying for a guy like Ryan George because it's like,
48:38
you know, this guy is doing very, very dangerous things. He's risking his life because supposedly
48:42
Jesus is at the end of this, you know, hobby rainbow of some kind.
48:46
And part of the thing, guys, is why I'm responding to this and spending so much time on it here
48:50
on this podcast. And, you know, not doing that every time there's some random
48:54
troll on Instagram or somebody that sends me a mean email because I'm pretty sure I've never done
48:58
something like this other than the intro that I did for the Crispin Mayfield interview. But the reason
49:02
why I felt so compelled to talk about this on the show to try and, you know, set the record straight to a degree
49:06
is that Ryan George knew about me and my show
49:10
before the interview. He knew that he didn't like and I talked about this. He knew that he didn't like me or our approach and yet
49:16
in an attempt to sell books. He took the interview anyway so that he could access all of you.
49:22
All of you guys listening to this right now are watching this right now. He wanted access to you.
49:26
And he had to come through me to do it because, again, this is important. He posted this blog
49:32
well before I released the episode with him. He posted the blog.
49:36
So it wasn't like he saw the interview, watched the interviewer listen to it,
49:40
and then decided all these things. He did it beforehand like a week and a half beforehand.
49:46
And in that blog, he made several references during it that that details
49:50
only somebody that watches the show or listens to the show would even know.
49:56
So he mentions that a dude jujitsu. We didn't talk about jujitsu on the on the interview. I don't believe.
50:00
Like I have metal music as my intro outro.
50:02
People that I interview don't hear that because I record my intro
50:06
and outro after the interview is done. So he also comments on quotes
50:10
from our website so he had obviously gone to our website to dig into the content.
50:14
He made references to our sponsors so he knows we have sponsors for the show.
50:18
Also, he used the show to try and sell books.
50:22
And then in addition to that, he decided to use his experience on the show
50:26
as fodder for his blog. And he posted our interview which apparently
50:30
caused him psychological harm to his media appearances page to make his profile seem bigger
50:34
so that he can continue to profit off of me and my audience.
50:38
And I just I won't stand for that. Not for a second.
50:41
Because I thought about for about, you know, two milliseconds
50:45
that I was going to just delete it, delete the interview.
50:48
I didn't think the interview was very good anyway. I didn't think he was very compelling.
50:52
Just to lead it, he'll disappear and the ether people will be like,
50:54
"Hey, I was listening to half that episode and then it disappeared."
50:57
And then I would just renumber all the episodes I had coming out and it would be no big deal.
51:01
And no one would be any, everybody would be none the wiser.
51:03
But it's like, no, it's, I mean, it's...
51:05
I honored the guy by reading his book. I had him on the podcast to talk about it.
51:09
It's content that was created. Not all my podcasts are created equal.
51:13
There's 400 of them out there now. They're not all going to be number one, five stars, right?
51:17
But also as I was thinking about this is what could be more cowardly than having these feelings
51:22
before the interview, but then not saying a word about it to my face.
51:26
Like, I can't imagine putting myself in his shoes.
51:29
I cannot imagine learning all this stuff about somebody, realizing,
51:32
"Oh my God, I hate this guy. He's not worse."
51:35
Like, I can't imagine thinking that and then one, taking the interview
51:39
or two, not addressing it during the interview.
51:42
Or even I'll give him this, we talked before the interview began, before I hit record,
51:46
and we talked after the interview was over, after I stopped the recording.
51:49
He had nothing to say, nothing to say until he sat back down at his computer
51:54
and decided to write a blog that, "Oh, he wasn't.
51:57
I hadn't seen it to anybody. I didn't write it."
51:59
Well, then why'd you write it? If nobody was going to see it, it's a nonsense argument.
52:03
And honestly, guys, like I've told you before, I don't mind being critiqued.
52:06
I welcome critique. But again, it's like, I'm not going to take critique
52:09
from people that I wouldn't take advice from.
52:11
But it's the whole pretending you feel one way only to express the opposite feeling
52:15
as soon as I'm not around. That just can't get behind.
52:17
So we've gone on this journey here, guys. We're all this way into this story.
52:21
So why am I bringing this to your attention?
52:24
Because I want you to avoid acting like Ryan George did
52:28
if you're ever in a similar position as him.
52:30
I want you to actually get something out of the fact that he and I has passed cross.
52:35
I want you guys in the audience right now to get something
52:38
out of the fact that Ryan George and I had a conversation,
52:40
because I don't think you can get it from the interview itself.
52:43
So I came up with some options for you.
52:46
The first thing, I kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier.
52:49
Don't try to find Jesus at the end of your hobbies.
52:53
Whether your hobby is walking on the wings of airplanes
52:56
or golf or jujitsu or boxing or race cars or fancy football or whatever.
53:02
Don't try to find Jesus at the end of your hobbies.
53:05
Because if you believe Jesus is part of the Godhead,
53:09
if you believe he's part of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
53:13
Jesus is everywhere. Jesus is in everything.
53:16
Every good thing that you have on this planet is because of him.
53:20
Goes back to what I was saying at the hunt,
53:22
sitting there putting my hand on this dead animal that's still warm
53:25
and just giving thanks for that.
53:28
But I didn't find Jesus there.
53:30
I'm not on some journey to see how many animals I can kill to see.
53:34
Oh, well, I killed that animal.
53:35
And that's when I really, really felt comfortable with Jesus,
53:38
the Son of God, the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah.
53:41
Like, don't try to do that.
53:43
Also, don't bite the hand that feeds you.
53:46
Again, he used my audience to get on here and then immediately turned around
53:51
and trust me in this show on his blog.
53:54
And who's to say that he wasn't going to add that to his mailing list
53:57
and send that out to a bunch of people.
53:59
But it's like, guys, that's not really a good thing to do.
54:02
Like, just think about like working with somebody.
54:05
Maybe there's, you know, somebody, because whenever you're doing this podcast,
54:08
like we're partners in this interview because you want to sell something
54:11
and I need content, right?
54:13
So we're doing this dance.
54:14
So we're like business partners.
54:15
Can you imagine doing business with somebody?
54:17
Is you and this other guy or other gal owned this company?
54:20
And then just trashing them immediately after you do business with them?
54:24
And they're the person that's providing a way for you to make money
54:27
and feed your family?
54:28
Don't bite the hand that feeds.
54:29
That's nonsense.
54:30
Also, don't be in an attention whore.
54:33
Like, going back to this, don't pretend to be something in front of somebody.
54:38
Don't pretend that you like that somebody when you don't,
54:41
just so that you can use their audience.
54:43
Like, again, you might think that's a good thing.
54:45
Well, Kyle, you know, the ultimate thing is I got to get my message out to more people
54:48
and if I had to deal with some some podcasters or some media people that I don't like,
54:51
well, then that's just okay.
54:52
But address it with them.
54:55
Like, again, if he and I live together or not live together,
54:58
but like live in the same area or something like that,
55:00
if I had a way to get in front of him and deal with all this,
55:03
like I would, but it's like, hey, you've framed me publicly.
55:05
So here it is.
55:06
You're getting it back.
55:07
But it's like, dude, don't, don't act like that.
55:10
Like, if you don't like somebody, don't associate with them.
55:12
We have freedom of association here in this country, at least for now.
55:15
You don't have to associate with them.
55:17
Certainly, if you don't like them.
55:19
Also, don't backtrack unless your position has actually changed.
55:25
So again, he writes this email backtracking from all the points he was making to,
55:30
you know, the however many people read his blog, right?
55:33
And he's backtracking.
55:35
But he didn't change his mind.
55:37
It wasn't like he's like, oh, I thought Kyle was the biggest meanest mini [inaudible] ever.
55:42
And then, you know, I did the interview and, you know, I read his response later and, you know,
55:47
I've changed my tune because if you're going to backtrack in that way,
55:50
you're probably going to have to have an apology as well.
55:52
Apologize that person and then say, hey, I've changed my viewpoint on that.
55:56
And that's fine.
55:57
I've had to do that a lot in my life.
55:59
Hey, I thought this way.
56:00
I've come into some new information or I've had a change of heart.
56:03
God has smacked me across the face.
56:05
Dude, I'm sorry.
56:06
Here's how I'd like to operate moving forward.
56:08
But you don't backtrack unless your position has actually changed.
56:12
Stand your ground.
56:14
Double down.
56:16
Like a good response to me would have been like, no, you are not someone that I feel like
56:21
dignifies the level of respect that you think you do.
56:26
I think you're bad.
56:27
I think you're a damaging person.
56:28
I think you're mean, whatever at least own it.
56:31
But this whole, like I'm going to pretend thing like goodness.
56:34
It's just pathetic.
56:36
Also, don't cower when the focus of your ire or your disdain or your fear is in front of
56:44
you.
56:45
Confront them.
56:46
Again, Ryan George knew about this show, knew about me and my style well before he came
56:51
on my show and well before he wrote a silly little blog, but he couldn't confront me about
56:55
it.
56:56
He just cowered, he cowered and just decided that he was going to not do that.
57:01
And then fame, niceness later and be like, oh, I did that as a favor to you.
57:05
It's like, no, you didn't son.
57:07
Also, don't talk about my Jesus or my Christianity.
57:13
The biggest bit of feedback that I've gotten from that podcast that I did with Ryan George
57:19
is why did he keep talking about like his version of Jesus or his Christianity?
57:22
Like I can't remember where it was.
57:23
It was towards the end.
57:24
I think where he was just like, yeah, you know, these people, you know, came up to me and
57:27
they're not Christians, but they said, Hey, man, if I ever become a Christian, I would
57:30
want to follow your Jesus.
57:31
I would want to follow your version of Christianity.
57:34
And as I think I mentioned on last week's show, it's like, you got to be really, really
57:36
careful.
57:37
People are saying stuff like that to you.
57:38
Like really careful because if people are like, Hey, your Jesus sounds awesome.
57:43
It's like the guy that was sitting here to die for your sins because you're so depraved
57:48
and awful that that's the only way that you could have propitiation for your sins so that
57:52
you could be in front of a just father.
57:54
That sounds super fun.
57:57
Like again, loving Jesus is an amazing thing.
58:01
Understanding the truth and the true message of the gospel is an amazing thing, but you
58:06
don't get the full gospel unless people understand that they are depraved because Jesus is just
58:12
an accessory otherwise.
58:14
He just something that you sprinkle on top of all the other, you know, pseudo morality
58:19
things that you do in your life, right?
58:22
And so that's where you get this whole concept of my Christianity or my truth.
58:26
It's like, you know, I'm going to take a little bit of this stuff here and I'm going to ignore
58:29
the stuff that'll make my LGBTQ friends uncomfortable.
58:31
Oh, and I'll take some of that and oh, yeah, you know, well, that that scripture says we
58:35
probably shouldn't kill babies in the womb.
58:36
So we'll put that over there.
58:38
That's my Christianity, right?
58:39
You know, quote unquote my Christianity.
58:41
That's a la carte Christianity and we can't do that guys because there are parts of the
58:46
Bible has Alistair Begg had an amazing sermon.
58:49
I posted part of it on my on my Instagram here recently.
58:51
I'm actually going to look it up on here because I want you guys to listen to it.
58:55
Where he's basically talking about how, hey, dude, you can't change the Bible.
58:59
Like changing the Bible is not something that you're able to do.
59:02
And so the one that I'm talking about here, so it's truth for life with Alistair Begg.
59:07
That's the Alistair Begg sermons.
59:09
And this one was posted on December the fourth and it's called God gave them up part two.
59:15
God gave them up part two on December the fourth, the name of the podcast is truth for
59:18
life with Alistair Begg.
59:20
And so those are things that he's talking about.
59:22
It's like, look, you don't have the right to change the Bible.
59:25
You don't have the right to say, Hey, I don't like this part, but I like that part.
59:28
So I won't talk about that, but I will talk about this.
59:31
You don't get to do that.
59:32
Okay.
59:33
And the last thing here, guys, perhaps the biggest point in all of this is I think you
59:38
should be known for what you are for and for what you are against.
59:44
And that is how you push back darkness again, I talk about abortion on this podcast all
59:48
the time.
59:49
It's the ultimate example of injustice.
59:52
It's the ultimate example of bullying.
59:54
It's the ultimate example of murder because there's no one more innocent and there's nobody
59:59
more defenseless than an unborn human being that is currently geographically located inside
1:00:04
of their mother's womb.
1:00:05
Okay.
1:00:06
So if you're one of those mealy mount nonsense people that says, well, I want to be known
1:00:11
for what I'm for and not what I'm against.
1:00:13
At some point you have to say that you are against somebody slaughtering that baby, sucking
1:00:18
them through a vacuum tube or cutting them up inside and then pulling them out in pieces
1:00:23
or in some places, taking them out whole, snipping the back of their neck and letting
1:00:27
them expire or letting them be born alive and then just setting them alive, waiting for
1:00:31
them to expire.
1:00:34
So you can say all day that I'm for I'm for women and I'm for women's rights and I'm
1:00:38
for babies rights and I'm for all these different things.
1:00:41
Are you against that?
1:00:43
Because I know a lot of squishy pro life people I've talked about them and called them out
1:00:48
on this show that they're all they're all about saying their pro life until it gets
1:00:52
icky.
1:00:53
Oh, well, that woman was raped and impregnated.
1:00:57
I guess we can kill that baby.
1:01:01
Are you for that or are you against that?
1:01:03
Because I'm going to go out on limb here and say that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the
1:01:08
guy that was sent here to die so that we could have a way to get to the father that he would
1:01:13
have said he was against that and he wouldn't have tried to use poetic language.
1:01:16
He wouldn't have tried to make up words by combining words.
1:01:19
He wouldn't have tried to just somehow get everybody in the crowd to understand what
1:01:24
he's saying without actually saying it.
1:01:27
He certainly wouldn't walk around like here's the thing.
1:01:30
Here's a thought experiment for all of you be known for what you're for, not what you're
1:01:33
against people.
1:01:34
Do you think the people that were following Jesus around for three years knew what he
1:01:38
was for and what he was against?
1:01:40
Think they had any clue because if you read the gospels, yes, some of his stories are
1:01:46
kind of confusing.
1:01:47
Some of his parables, you're not going to get the first time that you read it.
1:01:50
That's why you need the Holy Spirit to help reveal the meaning to you.
1:01:52
But do you think his followers knew that he was for certain things and against other things?
1:01:59
Like do you think that he only talked about the things that he was for?
1:02:03
Do you only get that by covering up your eyes as you're reading parts in the New Testament?
1:02:08
So guys, be known for what you're for and for what you're against.
1:02:12
That's how you're going to be able to do most effectively pushback darkness.
1:02:15
All right, guys.
1:02:16
Thanks so much for listening to this podcast.
1:02:17
We do appreciate it.
1:02:18
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost add adult to life.
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Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual
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So again, I got the link here so you guys can go to the origin website so you can check
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out their Gee's boots, jeans, protein drinks, energy drinks, supplements, hunting gear,
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all that kind of stuff.
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hunting swag.
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So go there.
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Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order and then also I've got a link to
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the donation page.
1:02:44
All right, guys.
1:02:45
Thanks so much for listening to show.
1:02:46
We do appreciate it.
1:02:47
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, leave us a positive five star
1:02:50
review.
1:02:51
If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
1:02:54
to info@undaunted.life.
1:02:56
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:03:01
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:03:03
Just go to www.undaunted.life and also we want to thank the man August Burns read for allowing
1:03:08
us to use their music for our content.
1:03:10
The music on this podcast is our song, Cutting the Tides, which is off their 10th anniversary
1:03:13
re-recording of their album leveler.
1:03:15
The links are in the description.
1:03:16
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:03:18
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:03:24
I'm seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:03:54
[music]