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1:18
This is Undaunted Life, a Man's Podcast.
1:22
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:23
Let's get into it.
1:25
Listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future.
1:28
That is Proverbs 1920, guys.
1:30
This is normally the first podcast of the year, but we had a special podcast yesterday
1:35
because we were announcing a brand new podcast where I guess we already announced it.
1:38
The Daily Blade, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back to yesterday's episode.
1:41
Jobe Martin and I have launched a brand new show called The Daily Blade.
1:45
You should definitely subscribe to that on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
1:48
It is an audio-only podcast, but guys, just a quick commercial for that.
1:51
It's just a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, and it's devotional content,
1:56
but not like your typical devotional content.
1:58
A lot of that stuff is overproduced.
1:59
You can tell it's transcribed and the guys are just reading it.
2:02
A lot of them don't even write it, but this is going to be Jobe and I and some friends of ours.
2:05
We'll get to that later on with that podcast, but basically he's going to take a week
2:10
of doing these short three to six minutes, maybe around five-minute devotional things,
2:15
and it's mainly for guys.
2:17
We know gals are going to listen to it, but it's mainly for Christian men.
2:19
So if you're sitting there like, man, I just need something quick when I'm on my way to work.
2:23
I just need a way to get scripture into my brains that I can be meditating on and praying
2:27
through it throughout the day.
2:28
That is what the Daily Blade is.
2:29
Guys, go and subscribe.
2:31
The Daily Blade on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
2:34
But I always want to start out with being thankful.
2:35
Thank you so much to our donors.
2:37
Again, we are a donation-based ministry.
2:38
If you guys didn't know that, you do now.
2:40
Undaunted.life/donate.
2:41
That is how we get this information into the ears of guys like you all over the globe.
2:45
And that's how we've slowly but surely become the number one podcast for Christian men on
2:49
the planet Earth.
2:50
And another reason why that is is because people have left reviews and shared this with a friend.
2:55
In this episode today, I'm telling you guys, every single year, this is usually one of, if not,
2:59
the top episode in terms of shared episodes and episodes in terms of total listens and downloads,
3:05
because it's easily shareable.
3:06
Wherever you're listening to this right now, you can easily hit one or two buttons
3:09
and share this with a buddy.
3:11
Guys, this is a tone-setter podcast for the year, okay?
3:14
And so we want this to get to as many people as possible.
3:17
We want our show to jump up in the ranking.
3:18
So if you want that to happen, you got to make sure you leave a review of five stars
3:22
and also share this with a friend.
3:24
So on this episode, we're going to continue my beginning of the year tradition
3:28
of ways to avoid being a crappy man.
3:30
That is a series that we've done.
3:31
I don't know how many years in a row that we've done that.
3:33
But there's been different amounts in different years.
3:35
I know last year was 17 because I was planning to do 17 again this year,
3:39
but I literally added one like yesterday.
3:41
So it's the top 18 ways to avoid being a crappy man in 2025.
3:45
So guys use this podcast in a myriad of different ways.
3:48
I know guys that will listen to this periodically throughout the year as a reminder.
3:52
I've known guys that have taken this list of things I'm going to put in here
3:56
and they type it up and they put it like on their mirror when they're getting ready.
4:00
They'll put a little, you know, no card on their truck or something like that.
4:03
And they'll just think through these things to be reminded of them.
4:06
You don't want to year in, year out basis or day in, day out basis.
4:10
However, they decide to use it.
4:11
Now, as always with this list, there are going to be some that if you've listened to my show
4:15
for any length of time that are going to be familiar because there's some that are just
4:18
going to be on this list until I stop doing this episode series.
4:21
But then there are some that are new for this year.
4:24
So you're going to see some that are on every year, some that I pulled over from 2024 and
4:28
some new ones for 2025.
4:30
So guys, let's go ahead and get into the top 18 ways to avoid being a crappy man in 2025.
4:36
Let's start out the first one.
4:37
And that's start a gratitude list.
4:39
And so this is something that I got from Joby Martin, the lead pastor of Church 1122,
4:44
but he's got a gratitude list on his phone.
4:46
And here are the rules, okay?
4:48
You can do it digitally.
4:49
You can do it written.
4:50
You could, you know, I don't know, carve it into the side of a cave.
4:53
It doesn't really matter.
4:54
But it's at least one thing that you're grateful for for every year that you've been alive.
4:59
Okay.
4:59
And not all of them have to be equal in terms of their importance and they don't have to
5:03
be a rank order.
5:04
So you're constantly moving the rankings around.
5:06
But starting a gratitude list is one of the best things that you can do because whenever
5:09
you're starting to be in your feelings a little bit, when you're starting to feel sorry for yourself,
5:13
or maybe you got passed over for a promotion, or maybe your girlfriend broke up with you,
5:17
or maybe you just, you're down on your luck or something like that.
5:19
You can always go back to this list and realize, man, I got a lot to be grateful for.
5:23
So I actually want to quickly read my list that I've kept on my phone.
5:26
So I am 38 years old, but I have 41 things on my list.
5:28
So here we go.
5:29
My salvation, Kelsey, my wife, James, my firstborn son, Eli, my secondborn son,
5:34
my father, the Bible, and how it got to us in modernity, the United States of America,
5:40
the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Joby Martin's mentorship and friendship,
5:44
Faith Bible Church, which is the church I attend in Edmond, Oklahoma,
5:47
my boys going to the school that they go to, Roman, my dog, he has since passed away,
5:51
but I'm still very thankful that I got to have him, my foxhole.
5:54
Those are those are my dudes, right?
5:56
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in general and specifically my gym, the forge in Edmond, Oklahoma,
6:00
my truck, all of the international travel I've been fortunate enough to do,
6:04
my home gym, hunting on my buddy, Adams land, hunting on my buddy, Heath land,
6:09
my podcast audience, Undaunted Life in general, the Undaunted Life donors, the forging table,
6:14
my book collection, my physical health and athleticism at my age,
6:18
UFC fight nights, good whiskey, good cigars, whiskey and cigar nights, preferably on my back porch,
6:25
the podcast that I listened to, my flexible work schedule, my partnership with all the brands
6:30
that I partnered with. So that's Origin, Jocko fuel, Primal beef, Sorenex and some more interesting
6:35
ones that we got coming for this year. Meat, yes, one of the things I'm thankful for is just meat
6:39
in general, taste buds, my favorite music, mountains, my voice recovery up to this point,
6:45
for those of you that I don't know back in 2024, I had not one but two vocal court surgeries.
6:49
And at one point, we thought I was never going to be able to talk above a whisper,
6:52
much less be able to be a professional podcaster. So I'm very thankful for that.
6:55
That I graduated with no student loan debt from my undergraduate or graduate work,
7:00
baseball, opening day, the World Series. So all that is one. My relationship with the Robertson
7:05
clan down there in West Monroe, Louisiana, and then Dominion. So for those of you that are not
7:09
aware, we launched a brand new kind of coaching mentorship group program called Dominion. You
7:13
can get more information at undaunted.life/dominion. We've allowed the wait list to be
7:18
joined now. So applications were back in December of last year, but we have a wait list going
7:24
for our next rounds of teams that will be opening up in June. But the successful loss
7:28
of a launch of Dominion, sorry, here we go, the successful launch of Dominion. There was,
7:34
I'm just very, very thankful for that. So that's my gratitude list, guys.
7:36
And so it took me way longer to read that out loud than it would be just for me to skim it.
7:41
And so for you, if you want something to kick your year off, if you want to avoid being a crappy
7:45
man and being like, Oh, woe is me and things are terrible. And why are bad things always happen to
7:49
me? All that kind of stuff. One way to get rid of that is to start a gratitude list.
7:53
Our next one here, and this is a new one for this year. It's don't celebrate people that take
7:59
shortcuts. So I want to talk specifically about as it pertains to their body, because there are a
8:06
couple of things that have become very, very popular in the last couple of years. And it's
8:10
leading to some very weird celebrations. So one of those is people that are getting muscle development
8:16
and physical performance with steroids or other harmful drugs. No, I'm not talking about peptides.
8:21
No, I'm not talking about creatine and whey protein or stuff like that. I'm talking about guys
8:26
that are using steroids and different things that are very harmful to the body. They're buying it
8:30
from like swole rhino.com or whatever. And they're just like having some Jim Bro tell them how much
8:35
to buy and how much to inject into their bodies. And then those people are obviously getting
8:39
a physical development. And then a lot of people will give them compliments on that physical
8:43
development. But they're taking a shortcut, right? They're not just eating me getting a lot of
8:48
sleep and lifting hard. They're, you know, cheating. They're they're taking a shortcut. But then also
8:52
you have weight loss. That's via lap band surgery or GLP one agonists. That's like Ozempic,
8:58
manjaro, and then things like that. And so you'll see these people that are very overweight,
9:03
very out of shape. And as opposed to changing their lifestyle, as opposed to doing the thing
9:08
that is most beneficial for them overall, not just bodily, they just want to inject something
9:13
into their leg or have a surgeon take care of their bad habits for them. And so here's the thing.
9:18
You'll have someone that'll be overweight. And then they'll get on one of these things like Ozempic
9:22
or something like that. And they'll lose all the weight. And then it's like, Oh my gosh, girl,
9:25
you look so good. Or a guy was a little bit flabby, a little bit out of shape, starts taking these
9:30
crazy supplements, not really supplements, these crazy drugs that are basically deleting years off
9:34
the end of his life and making his heart, you know, on the verge of exploding, it's like, Oh man,
9:38
you're so ripped and you're so jacked. We need to stop celebrating people that take shortcuts.
9:42
Because that's exactly what this is. Now, if people specifically that are very overweight,
9:48
if they are never going to have discipline when it comes to exercise and diet, would it be better
9:53
that they be smaller? Yes. I mean, just the fact by virtue of their size, that that is going to
9:59
lead them to a whole lot of negative outcomes as it be as it comes to all calls mortality,
10:04
right? They're going to have way more health problems in general as compared to a healthier
10:08
population. And they're going to die earlier. So yeah, of course, I would want them to be smaller,
10:12
but there's no such thing as a free lunch, no pun intended here, because they're already
10:16
finding tons of problems with people that are using Ozempic, manjaro and other GLP one agonist
10:21
to lose weight, right? And we've known for decades that guys that take steroids and other crazy
10:26
performance enhancers that that there is a cost to that, right? You look good in the short term,
10:31
you can perform well in the short term, but you're doing things bad for you in the long term.
10:35
So the question I have for you guys is why do we continue to keep celebrating those people?
10:39
Because a lot of times you have to go out of your way to celebrate somebody because very few people
10:44
will walk up to you. They've lost 75 pounds because of Ozempic and they're not going to walk up to
10:48
you in church and be like, how do I look? What do I look like? You have to go out of your way to
10:53
celebrate those people, to comment on their page, to tell them in public that you think they look
10:59
great and all those types of things. Let's just stop doing that. I think we need to stop incentivizing
11:04
people doing things that are overall net negatives for their health. And so that's a way to avoid
11:10
being a crappy man at 2025 is stop celebrating people that take shortcuts. All right, next one
11:15
here, I think this is a new one. Yeah, this is a new one. This is the one that I added yesterday,
11:19
okay, because this came up a lot in the last two weeks and especially with the Dominion interviews
11:23
that I just got through doing. So I would hear people say this and I would also read it in their
11:27
applications. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I've heard people say and use this phraseology,
11:32
a bunch. So I decided to address it. So that's why there's 18 ways this year, as opposed to 17.
11:36
So here it is. No more I struggle with blank crap. Okay, no more I struggle with blank. No more of
11:45
that language. Because here's what I read. And here's what I heard a lot of people say.
11:49
Ah, man, I really struggle with being in shape. Man, I really struggle with, you know, being
11:56
patient with my family. Man, I really struggle with pornography. And it was always struggle.
12:01
I really struggle with this. But here's the reality guys, you need to change your ideology,
12:06
you need to change the framing of how you're using particular words. Because if indeed you
12:11
had struggled in those areas, you would have overcome them. So follow me here. Let's go back
12:18
to the physical example. If you had really struggled with getting in shape, then you would be in shape.
12:26
Because what does being in shape require for most people that aren't just like naturally
12:31
gifted Adonis is it requires struggle? Because you struggle to get out of bed early in the morning,
12:38
earlier than you want to, you struggle to get out of that warm bed, you struggle to get ready to
12:43
go to the gym, whether that's a global gym you drive to or the gym in your garage or something
12:46
like that, that is a struggle that when you're going through the workout and you're doing things
12:50
that you hate like squatting and deadlifting and burpees and sprints and air dine and all those
12:55
stuff that I hate, you have to struggle to get through those things. When you don't feel quite
13:01
right or when you've you pull a little something and you just don't really feel like yourself,
13:04
you struggle your way through those workouts. And guess what? 60, 90, 120 minutes later,
13:10
you're done, you're done with your workout. You've struggled through, you've been resilient,
13:14
and now you're on the other side. And the rest of your day is going to probably be easier than that
13:17
workout was. That's how I structure my life. I've told people this and they don't really believe me.
13:22
If I never had to work out again, and I would get the benefits of exercise, like the health
13:26
benefits and you know, how I look and body composition and all that, I would never exercise it. I hate
13:30
it. I hate it so much. People like, no, Kyle, you clearly love you. Do it all times like, no,
13:33
it's just what's required of me. If I'm going to be physically resilient, I have to exercise. If
13:38
I'm going to be mentally resilient, I have to exercise. It's all about the struggle. So if you
13:45
are currently dealing with something right, like being out of shape or having a pornography or
13:50
masturbation problem or any of the things that might be the thing in your life, enough with the
13:54
I struggle with language. But if you're going to use the I struggle with language, that means
13:58
you better be on the pathway to fixing whatever the problem is. You better be on the pathway to
14:03
being healthy. You better be on the pathway to fixing your marriage. You better be on the pathway
14:07
to getting masturbation and pornography out of your life if you're going to use that language.
14:11
So if you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, no more I struggle with blank language.
14:17
All right, next one here. Do really hard things that constantly challenges your ego and teach you
14:23
something. So here's the thing about a lot of guys. A lot of guys just want to do the thing that
14:28
comes naturally to them. And so this is an all category. So if you're naturally an athlete,
14:32
you are drawn more to the athletic pursuits. If you're naturally more intellectual, you like
14:37
to read and ponder, you're going to be drawn to those pursuits. The problem is, is you silo
14:42
yourself into the things that you're already good at. And the other problem with that is that
14:46
doesn't guarantee that you will always be good at those things. So obviously, father time is
14:50
undefeated as you age, you will not be as athletically gifted or explosive as you were perhaps when
14:55
you were in your teenage years or your twenties or your early thirties. That's just the reality.
14:59
You're never going to be as good of an athlete at an elevated age as you are at a younger age.
15:04
And so if you are constantly putting yourself into situations where you're just doing things
15:07
that you're good at, that's not that's not a good positive thing. One of the things that I talk
15:12
about a lot and I'll probably mention several times throughout this episode is jujitsu. If you've
15:17
got an ego problem, I promise you jujitsu is going to fix that. It may take a short while,
15:21
it may take a long while. I was somewhere in the middle, maybe medium to long term thing,
15:25
but jujitsu will fix it because you are constantly going to be the nail and you're going to be
15:30
surrounded by hammers. That's just how it's going to be. Even when you get good, I'm a brown belt
15:33
in jujitsu, so I'm not completely worthless. But I still have practices where I'm like,
15:37
have I trained before? I swear I've trained jujitsu before because if a jury had to
15:44
deliberate to convict me of being a jujitsu fighter, I'm not sure they would have been able to have
15:48
enough evidence to convict me if they had just watched that practice. But that's part of the point,
15:53
guys, is it's really, really hard. And it's really challenging mentally and physically.
16:00
And so I have to continue going that direction because I constantly learn about myself. I learn
16:07
about my limitations and I learn about other people because of things like jujitsu. But for you,
16:11
it might be doing long endurance races. For you, it might be studying books that are somewhat beyond
16:17
you intellectually. So you're normally reading these novels that are easy to follow and maybe
16:23
you're reading something that's a little bit more complicated, more characters, more storylines,
16:26
a lot more to the narrative, a lot more to the plot. Maybe it's going into parts of the Bible
16:31
that you've always kind of left alone because they were really hard to grapple with. You didn't
16:35
really understand what was going on. Maybe that's it. But guys, that is the key to unlock a myriad
16:40
of the things for you that are all going to be positive. So guys, if you want to avoid being a
16:44
crappy man in 2025, do really hard things that constantly challenges your ego and teach you something.
16:50
All right, we've got another new one for this year. Practice pre decision, practice pre decision,
16:56
I don't mean practice like, all right, do it, you know, 10 times, then you'll do better later.
16:59
I mean, just this is something you do you practice pre decision. And so again, a lot of these things
17:03
are going to have things that are related to one another. And I'm going to say it a bunch of
17:06
different ways, hoping to land with you guys. But a lot of guys wait to decide. So let's go back
17:12
to the early morning workout example. Alarm goes off the five o'clock. And in that moment,
17:17
you're trying to decide whether or not you're going to get up and work out. Boy, that's probably
17:25
that's way too late, right? Because you're still tired. You just got jolt to the wake.
17:31
You're in your warm bed. And the thought of getting out of that environment and going and doing
17:36
something really, really difficult physically is probably not a good thing. And so for how many of
17:40
you this used to be the way that I would do it is, oh, you know what, I just, oh, my neck kind of
17:46
hurts a little bit or all you know, I've kind of had a rough week. I think I need a mental health
17:49
day. I think I need to just kind of take it easy. Man, another 45 minutes to an hour of sleep would
17:54
really do me well, I really need some more recovery. And then you just go back over new fall sleep.
17:58
And for the rest of the day, you haven't worked out because here's the thing with exercise the
18:01
bill comes do every morning, right? I can't work out today for tomorrow. I can't work out this week
18:07
for the rest of the year. Like I have to work out today for today. And then tomorrow the bill
18:11
comes do again. And if I'm going to be physically resilient and be in shape, I got to do the stuff
18:15
that that requires tomorrow. But so many people don't practice pre decision. Let me use a different
18:19
example because I really leaned on the physical so far. I've talked to a lot of men here recently
18:24
of all ages, but several young men as well that are like, Hey, you know, they'll use the struggle
18:28
language, you know, I struggle with porn. And so, you know, I explained to them the whole idea of
18:32
like, Hey, you don't really struggle with it. If you struggle with it, you would have gotten
18:34
past it by now. But after we get past that, it's like, look, part of your problem is not that you
18:39
have a porn problem. Say you have a masturbation problem. Okay, because obviously no one just sits
18:43
around watching porn. They're always using it as our masturbatory aid so they can climax, right?
18:48
But if you pre decide and you make a blanket pre decision that I don't masturbate,
18:55
well, you don't need to look at porn, right? You're getting upstream of the problem, right?
19:00
So that'd be like you having, you have headaches and you go get, you know, your brain scan and
19:04
Oh, you got a brain tumor. And the doctor gives you Tylenol for your headache. It's like, dude,
19:08
what are you talking about? Like you're not like, I got a tumor growing in my head that's going to
19:11
kill me. He's like, Oh, but this will help you with your headaches. No, you have to really get to the
19:13
source of the problem. But if the problem, like in this case, masturbation is the issue, you
19:18
pre decide that you're not going to do that. Which people are like, well, it can't be that easy.
19:22
No, it is that easy. And the same goes for alcohol. The same goes for a lot of prescription drugs
19:29
and different things. Because here's the deal. Here's the thing that a lot of people don't want
19:32
to talk to you about. People like to treat everything like it's an addiction and not a proclivity or
19:36
a choice. So that's expanded into the world of sex. So people have a pornography addiction,
19:43
right? People have a sex addiction. But most people don't have that because an addiction means
19:47
you literally can't not do it, right? You're addicted. And or it means that your body can't
19:53
function without having whatever that is. Okay. So there are people that like to drink and they
19:58
drink too much, but they're not alcoholics and not addicted to alcohol. So in all of these cases,
20:03
and there's a myriad of others, and I'm sure some of you thought of practice pre decision.
20:07
Oh boy, when I drink whiskey, I make bad decisions because I can't just have one or two
20:12
whiskies over several hours. I have 10. And then I've driven home before I've woken up in other
20:17
people's beds that I didn't know. I've gotten in fights. I've ended up in handcuffs. So I'm just
20:21
going to pre decide that I'm not going to drink whiskey. Okay, boom, pre decision. And then guess
20:25
what guys, there's no stress when you go out with your friends and form your friends. And if they're
20:29
not [inaudible], they'll help you with the decision that you have pre made, right? Pre decide today
20:35
that you're going to be patient with your wife. All right. So I got like a little thing on my
20:39
phone that helps me with pre decision with my wife, you know, pursue her, win her, give her a
20:44
reason to choose me. Think the best of her, right? Patience like being patient in those moments when
20:49
I don't want to be patient. I'm practicing pre decision so that when the thing happens that I
20:54
would normally be tempted to go the wrong way, I've already pre decided that I'm not going to do
20:59
those things, right? Or it works in the positive as well. You pre decide that you're going to do
21:04
the healthy thing. So before we get to the restaurant and got you just love this restaurants, fried
21:09
chicken and gosh, you really love the seasoning and putting on french fries and all that. But
21:12
you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to be in better shape and all that. So you're
21:15
pre deciding, okay, I'm going to get some some natural food, I'm going to get some some steak
21:19
with some eggs, and you know, some some Brussels sprouts or something like that. I don't know,
21:22
that's kind of a weird meal. But you guys, you guys get what I'm saying, you're pre deciding to
21:26
do the thing before you get to the place where you're going to be tempted to do the wrong thing.
21:30
Does that make sense? So practice pre decision. If you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025,
21:35
practice pre decision. All right, another one. This is one from every single year. And I will
21:39
always continue to do this. And it's don't be late for the love of God. Don't be late. I use the same
21:46
example every year, but there was a dentist who had a good friend that would come and you know,
21:51
he would, you know, get his dental work done for his good friend. But because the dentist
21:55
was a good friend of this guy, the dentist felt like, oh, I, you know, I don't have to like,
21:59
go, you know, go over the top and really be there for this guy and all those types of things. So
22:02
we had always pushed his appointments a little bit and he would always be late. And so one year,
22:07
he gets there and he's like, they're on time for his appointment because he's a very astute guy.
22:11
And he was being pushed back again and goes, you know what, just give me all my files. I'm going to
22:16
go to a different dentist. And you know, the, his buddy, his dentist in the back was kind of,
22:20
he heard the kerfuffle going on outside. And he kind of comes up, he's like, Hey, what's the problem?
22:23
He's like, dude, you just keep doing this. You keep, you know, not valuing my time. You keep pushing
22:28
me and pushing me. And that's just not, that's just not right. Like I've got places to be as well.
22:32
And I also had a guy that a guy I really loved, but it's a former manager of mine,
22:35
he would be his places on time. And so like people would come to meet with him, had his office,
22:41
and he would purposefully start the meeting 10 or 15 minutes late to make himself seem more
22:46
important. Okay, so he would waste other people's time so that he could feed his own narcissism.
22:53
Okay, this is bad news. Like that's a terrible thing to do because what you do when you were late
22:58
is you're communicating to someone that my time is more valuable than your time.
23:03
And I think we can all agree that the only commodity that we can't regenerate or get back
23:07
is time. So when you are late, you are wasting people's time. And so you have to think of this
23:12
clearly. So if there's a committee meeting and you're one of the people on this committee or in
23:17
this, you know, work group or something like that, and there's 10 of y'all in that show up to this
23:21
meeting, and you show up 10 minutes late to this meeting, you think, Oh, I'm just 10 minutes late.
23:26
No, actually, you're 90 minutes late because you were the 10th person. The other nine people
23:30
got there on time. So you wasted 10 minutes of all their time. You are an hour and a half late,
23:35
but we don't think of things that way. Like seriously, if I ran a large organization,
23:39
we would never start anything late because part of the reason why people continue to show up late
23:44
is because we don't hold to specific times. So if you say the meetings at 9 a.m. and Bob hasn't
23:49
shown up yet, you'll be like, all right, well, let's wait for Bob to get here. So you've
23:52
communicated to everybody in the room that Bob is more important. Also Bob, the loser, Bob,
23:58
the guy that can't show up on time, Bob, the guy that can't be conscientious enough to get his
24:01
crap taken care of to where he can show up on time, he is more important. And we need to wait for Bob
24:07
so that the rest of us can get going as opposed to starting the meeting. And when Bob walks in
24:12
five minutes late, you don't even acknowledge that he's like, guess what? You're five minutes
24:15
behind. You better mentally catch up because we're not going to stop and we're not going to repeat
24:19
ourselves. Now, obviously things come up. You're on your way, you're going to be on time,
24:24
kid throws up in the car. Yep, you get a flat tire. Something happens at the house, like all the
24:29
electricity goes off. And you know, you got to take get that taken care of before the babysitter
24:34
shows up. And like guys, I know things like that happen. That's not what I'm talking about. That's
24:38
clearly not what I'm talking about. But even in those circumstances, you know, you're going to be
24:42
late before you're late, right? So let's say you have one of those circumstances, kid throws up in
24:47
the car, you got to turn around, double back, get them cleaned up, and then turn around. Guess what?
24:52
You already know you're going to be late for your first thing. So you let the person on the other
24:56
end of that appointment or the person in the meeting or your boss or the person waiting on you,
25:00
you let them know, I am going to be late. My GPS shows I am 30 minutes away. And I know
25:06
our meeting is supposed to start in 10 minutes. The worst thing that you can do is you're late,
25:11
you know, you're late because, you know, of course, you're aware enough to know that you're late.
25:15
And then the person has to text you, the person waiting on you has to text you or call you to be
25:20
like, Hey, where are you at? Are you dead? Are you dying in a ditch? Literally at this exact moment,
25:25
which would be the only acceptable excuse for you being late. Right? Why does that person have to
25:30
reach out to you? And then you're like, Oh, yeah, this thing happened. And oh my gosh, and I'm only
25:34
like five minutes away and all this kind of stuff. It's like, great, you have completely
25:39
inconvenienced me and everybody in this room. And also you didn't give me a heads up. You can
25:44
literally talk to your phone without it being in your hand and tell it to text somebody for you.
25:49
And you couldn't figure out a way to make that happen. Guys, it's a crappy thing to do to show
25:54
up late. So if you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, don't be late. Hey guys, real quick.
26:00
As you've heard me describe before, I am incredibly conservative about the supplements that I take.
26:04
I spent years being terrified of putting different products in my body because I didn't know what
26:09
they were made with or if it was going to be kind of fly by night companies using all kinds of
26:13
crazy ingredients. So I've always wanted to partner with an American company that only uses the highest
26:19
quality ingredients. And that's why I want to remind you that we are partnered with Jocko Fuel.
26:24
Jocko Fuel is Jocko willing supplement company that is based here in the United States. So what
26:29
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26:32
they just released a cookies and cream flavor not that long ago. And it is ridiculously good.
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Make sure you use it with milk and makes it even better. They also make clean energy drinks.
26:40
I finally decided what my favorite was and that's pink lemonade. That is my favorite of all their
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flavors. But they also have the best tasting greens powder on the market. I prefer the peach flavor
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myself. They also make pre-workout and ready to drink protein. So I actually mix the ready-to-drink
26:54
protein in my boy's milk and they love it. They're constantly like dada banana milk banana milk. So
27:00
we got to hook that up in the Thompson household. But I also use their krill oil, fish oil, creatine,
27:05
vitamin D and their sleep aids. And guys, they've got new stuff coming out all the time and a bunch
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off your order. All right. The next way to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, learn to fight
27:37
or become a weapon. I've described it both ways over the years. So here's the thing. There are
27:42
two things that guys really, really overestimate in terms of their ability. Number one, just their
27:49
general ability to fight. And number two, their willingness to act immediately if a kinetic situation
27:55
happens. Okay. So with the first one, there are guys, maybe it's because they were a good athlete
27:59
or maybe it's because they're tall. This is like a thing with big guys, big guys, fat guys.
28:02
They just think, because I am this size, I'm going to be okay in a fight. Now, if your Bob
28:07
sat from back in, you know, the pride fighting days where you're 400 pounds with abs. Okay.
28:12
Even though you're not really that good of a fighter, it's probably going to go okay with you
28:15
in most street situations. But for the rest of us, for all of us normies, right? People that are
28:19
normal size people, guys just overestimate their ability to fight. I've literally heard multiple
28:24
people say, you know what, man, I'm just going to see red and the bodies are just going to drop.
28:29
It's like, well, no, the odds are way more likely that you will see red and then you'll see nothing
28:34
because you're going to get taken out of the fight against your will. You're going to get knocked out,
28:38
you're going to get choked out, you're going to get shot stabbed, something like that.
28:41
That's more likely than you just dropping bodies like you're Steven Seagal in the 1980s or something
28:45
like that. Like that's not real. There's a reason why you can't go back and watch those movies
28:49
and not see how dumb they look is because we have been marinated in 30 years of the Ultimate
28:54
Fighting Championship and just MMA, Valle Tudo in general. And so we know all these round kicks
28:59
and all this super fancy stuff. Guys aren't going flying. That's not how this works, right? If you
29:03
watch enough street fights, if you've seen enough street fights in person, if you've seen enough of
29:06
that kinetic action, you realize that it takes a trained person, for the most part, to be able to
29:11
do well in those situations for the, you know, over the long haul. But also most guys don't really
29:17
understand the hesitation that's going to come to where you might know how to fight or you might
29:23
not know how to fight. But if you hesitate, what is it? He who hesitates is lost. I think that
29:29
applies here as well. So there are kinetic situations I've seen. I've seen tons of videos of this
29:33
where if the guy would have just acted sooner, they would have been safe. Their family would
29:39
have been safe. The people around them they were trying to protect or could have protected would
29:43
have been saved, but they hesitated. You know, I've seen also in like mass shooter or mass casualty
29:48
situations where there are people that immediately run, there are people that immediately look to
29:52
fight and then there are people that absolutely freeze. That just absolutely and completely freeze.
29:57
So a lot of this is about mindset. So when you say learn to fight, am I talking about training a
30:01
legitimate fighting style like jujitsu or wrestling or Western boxing or kickboxing or moi Tai? Yes.
30:06
I am talking about them. I'm not talking about karate. I'm not talking about wing chung or kung fu
30:10
or any of these made up. I'm going to use your chi to like move your energy away from me and I'm
30:14
going to absorb your punches with my woo wah or whatever. Yeah, I'm not talking about any of that.
30:17
Yes, I'm saying that's what you need to learn how to fight. You need to actually learn these
30:21
modalities, learning to use your body in order to fight. Do I mean training with firearms and knives
30:26
and different things like that? Great. Yes. Like concealed carry. I am for all those things,
30:30
but it's also about mindset because let's just take an extreme scenario. Let's say you conceal
30:36
carry and you don't just conceal carry. You shoot quite a bit and you shoot when you make
30:40
sure your heart rate's elevated and you're ready for those situations. Great. You've done that training.
30:43
You've also figured out, you know, how to use, you know, blades on your on your body and different
30:49
things. You've also trained you jitsu for a few years and you know some western boxing and some
30:53
different things like that. So you're so you're comfortable in all those scenarios. But if you've
30:57
not pre decided that you would take a life to save a life, you will hesitate. Again, all these,
31:04
a lot of these are weaving together. You if you haven't pre decided that you would hurt another
31:09
human being to protect an innocent human being, you will hesitate. I saw a video years ago where
31:14
it was all these moms that were, would you do anything to protect your kids and blah, blah and
31:18
all that. And these moms just given this generic general situation, like, yeah, of course I would
31:22
do that. But then the person got specific and was like, would you kill someone in order to save your
31:26
baby? And mom after mom after mom said, Oh, no, I don't, I don't think I could ever do that. It's like,
31:32
like five seconds ago, you were pretending you were a mama bear. And now you're given a specific
31:37
scenario where you would have to take a guilty life, a non innocent life to protect not just
31:43
some innocent life, but the innocent life of your baby. And you couldn't get there. So for a lot of
31:48
you guys, when I say learn to fight, when I say become a weapon, I mean physically, but I also mean
31:53
mentally, you have to get yourself there. So if you want to avoid being a crappy man at 2025,
31:57
learn to fight become a weapon. So this next one here, it's it's kind of a combo one. It's kind of new
32:03
and old. So I'll just get to it, be extra nice to support staff and service providers and make
32:09
sure to say thank you. Okay. So I have been in this habit for a very, very long time. I saw a model
32:16
with my parents. This is, this isn't even like chivalry. This is just basic manners, right? So call
32:21
it Southern hospitality or whatever. But when support staff, so someone checking me in at a hotel,
32:25
any of the staff that's helping me get onto or off of a flight, anyone that's serving me my food
32:30
or my drinks or anything like that, I'm always extra nice and extra thankful to these people.
32:35
And I always make sure to say thank you because there is something very interesting going on
32:41
when it comes to, I guess, the help class in the United States. And I don't mean that in
32:45
the slightest bit demeaning way, but people that are in sort of the helping side of support staff.
32:50
A lot of these people have lost their ability to really communicate and apply way. I've seen
32:56
that just across the board. People don't know how to say thank you. They don't know how to say
33:00
yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no ma'am. And a lot of these people, part of it is because they
33:04
weren't taught it growing up. So they haven't seen it, but it's also not reciprocated, right?
33:08
Or it's not being shown to them. They're not having people be polite to them.
33:12
I brought up this story several times about being at a gas station and I go up to the phone,
33:15
Hey, how you doing today? And they just, they didn't even say words. They just meh.
33:19
They never looked me in the eye. They never looked up. They had like their their phone out and they
33:23
were like watching some anime thing or whatever. So they are like bebooping my stuff. And then
33:27
I'm like, all right, this is weird. So I pay and then it's all right. Have a good day. And they
33:30
just, they just mumbled, right? No, thank you or yes, sir. You have a good day. And guys,
33:35
it's so rare now that when someone is over the top polite, and I don't, I guess not,
33:40
let me back up a little bit. I'll buy that back a little bit. When someone is just
33:43
generically polite, when they say yes, sir, no, sir, hey, is there anything else I can do for you?
33:48
Hey, how can I make this situation better for you? I'm like, can I see your manager? I just want to
33:53
give you a hug in front of them so they know how good of a job that you just did when this is just
33:57
the way that it used to be. And maybe I'm rose colored glasses a little bit because I grew up
34:01
in Oklahoma and I was just surrounded by people that would literally give you the shirt off your
34:05
back. They didn't see as a microaggression to hold the door open for you if you're a woman or any
34:09
of those types of things. But in the world that I live in, in the world that you live in, especially
34:13
if you're a Christian, you should be like giving to people that you may never see again. The least
34:19
that you can give them is your attention and your politeness. Make eye contact with them.
34:25
Ask them if there's something that you could do for them, like any of those types of things. So
34:28
if you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, be extra nice to support staff and service providers
34:33
and make sure to say thank you. It's always a good idea. All right, here's another one. I'll
34:37
do a couple in a row that are every year ones. And this is one that's always a little hard for me
34:41
to talk about because I have to remember how stupid I used to be. Don't let sports ruin your night.
34:45
Don't let sports ruin your night. So I talk about this every year. Okay. So I used to watch sports
34:54
and I really, really cared about the outcome and specifically the St. Louis Cardinals. I'm a big baseball
34:59
guy. Obviously there's 162 regular season games plus the playoffs. And so if you think about that,
35:04
that is hundreds of pitches per game. And if you are living and dying with every one of those
35:09
pitches, that is a problem. Even if you're just living and dying with each one of those games,
35:13
that's a problem. But the St. Louis Cardinals, you know, when I was in my 20s, if they lost,
35:17
you know, a game in May, right, I would be apoplectic. I would be cussing and screaming and I would,
35:23
I would go to bed mad and I wake up angry or sad and it only got worse the far that they got into,
35:29
you know, a playoff run or even a World Series run. I remember going and seeing a World Series
35:33
game. This would have been the 2011 World Series game to in St. Louis against the Texas Rangers,
35:39
Cardinals had a lead going into the ninth inning and Jason Moth the closer blew the lead. Okay. In
35:44
the ninth inning, they ended up losing the game. We were staying at a friend's house near St. Louis.
35:49
And when I went over to their house, I couldn't even talk. I was so mad, right, that this team
35:55
that I wasn't a part of, that they would dare to lose the game because I wanted them to win.
35:59
How dare they lose this game? And so this family's opening up their home to my wife and I, who's
36:05
sitting there like, Oh my God, what did I marry? And they're opening up their home to me and showing
36:09
me hospitality and I couldn't even return it to them or reciprocate because I was mad. I was mad
36:14
that my team won, right? And I was quiet the whole drive home from St. Louis, to Oklahoma City the
36:18
next day. And I look back on that person, I look back on that time period, like you absolute moron.
36:24
But people just do that. They will let their entire being be disrupted by their chosen team,
36:33
not winning a team that they don't have that they have no connection to other than that.
36:39
They have chosen to be a fan of that team and they've bought some merch and maybe even some game
36:44
tickets. That's it. You got grown men, right? 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, grown men that will have their
36:52
entire week ruined because a group of 18, 19 and 20 year old football players didn't do the things
36:58
required in order for their team with their chosen jersey and colors to win, right? And they
37:03
will scream at the screen. They will scream at the ballgame. They'll scream at the players. They'll
37:09
scream at the referee. They'll scream at the coaches. They'll scream at the other team all because they
37:15
want their team to win. And look, I'm a sports guy, but I've gotten to the point now where if I can
37:19
feel myself really caring about the outcome of the game, I'll just skip it. I'll just skip it.
37:24
Maybe my be like, well, that's really immature of you. It's like, well, no, I mean, it's pretty
37:27
immature that I still feel that way sometimes. But it's the exact opposite that I'm avoiding it.
37:31
Because it's going to make me a worse husband and a worse father. And can I imagine I've got a
37:37
four year old and a two year old, if they see me screaming and hollering at a screen,
37:40
like getting all mad or even getting all crazy happy, like those videos aren't cute online, guys.
37:45
When you see these little kids that are like losing their minds, watching sports, that's
37:48
learned behavior. And they learned it from you, right? That's not a positive thing. It's not cute,
37:54
but by any stretch, the imagination. And so like, again, I kind of feel like whenever I avoid games
38:00
and I really care about the outcome, if there's a big comeback win or a walk off home run or all
38:04
that, am I missing that? Yeah. But that is worth it to me. I will miss stuff like that in order to
38:10
lose all the negatives, because I've ruined a lot of nights for a lot of people by being a self
38:14
historic as it pertains to sports again, that I wasn't actually playing in. And so guys, if you
38:19
want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, don't let sports ruin your night. All right, next one here,
38:24
straight up, no porn, no jerking off. Okay, again, I've heard the struggle language. I've heard all
38:29
the excuses. I've heard the Oh, well, I tried accountability and I tried this software and tried
38:33
all that. Guess what, guys, decide, pre decide that you're not going to jerk off. That takes care
38:42
of the porn problem. And it also takes care of the masturbation problem. So as I've talked about on
38:48
the show, that used to be a big problem for me watching porn and masturbating and those types
38:52
of things hasn't been a problem for like 16 years, right? That's a problem for a long time go. But
38:58
the thing for me is I know that that is my bend. I don't have a chemical bend. So I can have a
39:02
whiskey or two and have no issues. And I've never had any illicit drugs of any kind whatsoever.
39:06
Because I don't want to even test if I would be like into those things or if I would like them.
39:10
I'm drawn to the aesthetic, right? I'm drawn to the voyeuristic, you know, checking women out or
39:15
watching porn or looking at pictures online. That's who I used to be. So I had to get to the point
39:20
where I just said, I just don't do this anymore. And the thing is, is in this particular world,
39:25
I feel like we complicate this way too much. And again, I'm not anti software, having software
39:31
on your computer. I'm not anti having accountability partners. I'm not anti having accountability groups.
39:36
The problem with all those things is they have massive holes in them. Because guess what, guys,
39:40
you know how to get around your software. You know how you know how to lie to your accountability
39:46
brothers. A lot of you are good at it. You do it all the time. You know how to hide it from
39:49
your wife. She caught you once. She'll never catch you again. You're just too good at it. Now,
39:53
right? But you know, whatever's done in the dark will be brought to the light. So just keep
39:56
that in mind, fellas. But you know how to get around all those things. So why are you playing
40:01
games with this? Why are you flirting with a sin category that biblically speaking is the only
40:08
sin that can be against yourself? We're not taught to hang out near sexual immorality. We're
40:12
taught to flee from sexual immorality, right? We're taught to flee from lust, not even be
40:17
anywhere near it. And so for those of you that are struggling in your parlance, maybe hopefully
40:23
you're going to shift that this year. I need you to do something for me. Okay. I need you
40:28
to memorize 2 Corinthians 10, 5. Okay. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself
40:34
up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought and make it accountable to Christ.
40:38
That is not here on my screen. I believe I memorized it in the NIV. I'm pretty sure I just nailed it.
40:42
Guys, I'm telling you this. This is going to be a little bit crass. So for the ladies listening
40:46
this, we love our lady listeners. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I promise you it's going
40:50
to land for some guys. Okay. So just listen, the next time you're bored and you've got a boner
40:56
and you're in normally what you would do is you would turn on porn or you would go into your
40:59
mental rolladex or your highlight reel or something like that and then throw your hand in your pants.
41:03
Instead, I want you to recite 2 Corinthians 10, 5 out loud if it's not weird to do it out loud
41:09
wherever you're at or in your head. I'm serious. And if you've memorized it in the NASB and you're
41:18
still feeling a lot of temptation, then go ahead and memorize it in the NASB, the NIV and the ESV,
41:24
and say them all three back to back. And if you need extra help, memorize it in another language.
41:29
You think I'm kidding. I'm not kidding at all. I want you to get the German or the Italian or
41:35
the Yiddish or whatever. And I want you to learn how to say 2 Corinthians 10, 5 in that language,
41:40
because what you're doing is you're changing the wiring of your brain to whenever I used to do
41:46
this modality, this would be the outcome. And now we're changing the trajectory of the initial
41:51
modality. That's what we're doing. Okay. So if you are really wanting to get over that this year,
41:57
if you're like, gosh, this porn thing's got a hold on me. I need to get rid of it. Don't buy in
42:01
to the addiction language. It's BS. It's garbage. Don't buy into it. Or even if you believe that
42:07
it's not garbage, treat it like it is. I promise you, my way of doing it is better than spending all
42:13
this money on all these other things that you know how to get around that aren't going to work.
42:18
Because here's the thing. I think most of you guys that quote unquote struggle with porn,
42:21
you don't actually struggle with it. You like it. You want to keep watching it, right?
42:25
And also, I think you like being a victim. I think you like walking into your little Sunday
42:29
school or your little, you know, pansy men's group and you sit around in a circle and you're like,
42:33
oh, you know, I made it a week without looking at porn masturbating. Then I fill off the wagon
42:36
and blah, blah, and everyone's just, Oh man. Okay. Well, make it make it 10 days this time and all that.
42:41
All you guys, you like doing it. You like doing it. And why wouldn't you? Right? One of the best
42:47
feelings a person can feel is ejaculation. Of course, you would want to keep doing that.
42:51
But you know, you're destroying yourself. You know, you're destroying,
42:55
destroying your positive and healthy sex drive that was given to you as a gift from God.
43:00
You know, you're destroying your marriage. You know, it is absolutely destroying your wife.
43:03
You know that she knows that you're still doing it. You know that if your kids found out, you would
43:08
be so mortified to that. Or if you found out that they were doing it, you would be mortified.
43:12
But none of that is a big enough deal for you to actually take care of this issue because you
43:16
like doing it because you're a selfish prick. Well, not enough. Enough of that.
43:20
This is the time. This is the time right now that you're going to pre-decide. I don't do that any
43:27
more. If you decide you're not going to masturbate, you're no longer going to look at porn. If you
43:32
decide to inject scripture into the time period, mentally, when you would normally go to a negative
43:37
and sinful, lustful place, it is better for you. Second Corinthians 10 five. If you want to avoid
43:42
being a crappy man in 2025, no porn, no jerking off. All right. This next one, it is a combo,
43:48
kind of a new and old. All right. If you're going to be present, be present. If you're going to be
43:54
present, be present. Okay. So in years past, I've described this as treat your presence as a
44:00
present or get rid of your smartwatch. So let me start with a smartwatch thing and we'll get into
44:04
the other side. So some people are just flat out rude because they're just rude, terrible people.
44:10
And so they will be at a meeting or they'll be hanging out with you and they'll be across from
44:14
you and you'll be talking and they'll be like, uh huh. Uh huh. And they got their phone out. Yeah.
44:18
Yeah. Okay. Oh no, I can, I can message them and listen, you know, I'm listening. Uh huh. Yeah.
44:23
Yep. Okay. So that's like the most rude you can be, right? That's like when someone's talking to
44:27
you and you start talking to somebody else. It's like, okay, you horrible person. Just punch that
44:31
person on the throat. But people have gotten smart. So what they will do is they'll take their phone
44:34
out and they'll make a show of putting their phone face down on the table. So they still feel
44:38
a vibrate, but they're not going to, you know, look at it as much. But then they got a smartwatch
44:43
with all the notifications turned on. So you'll be talking and they'll be like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
44:48
Okay. Yeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. What was it on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's fine. It's just like,
44:54
I've just got a little, well, you know, just one sec, just one sec. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. What was that?
44:58
This is worse. The watch part is worse. I promise you it's worse. Okay. You do not need text messages
45:07
on your wrist. You just don't, you don't need phone calls on your wrist. So I've got a smartwatch
45:11
that I've made dumb. I have all the notifications turned off. I don't want to know when I've gone
45:16
over 10,000 steps. I don't want to know if someone's trying to get a hold of me. I don't need that.
45:19
I've already got my phone, which is like an extension of my body, right? I've already got
45:23
that. So why in the world do I need the smartwatch? Okay. If your smartwatch is keeping you from
45:28
giving attention to the people that are standing right in front of you, stop it. But let's broaden
45:32
this out a little bit more in terms of if you're going to be present, be present. So I've had a
45:36
bad habit with my boys, especially when they were younger, because their little kids, what do they
45:40
know where I'll be with them in the floor while they're playing. But I'm looking at my phone.
45:44
And now I've already got the excuses ready made guys. I'm a content creator, right? How can I
45:50
create content if I'm not absorbing content? How can I know what's going on in the world around me
45:53
if I'm not absorbing stuff from the world around me? I need to absorb news. I need to
45:57
absorb videos and I need to absorb culture and I need to absorb tweets. I need to absorb these,
46:03
these DMS and all these different posts on Instagram so that when the exact right comment needs to
46:07
come up in an interview or in a solo episode that I can just boo spout it out of my wonderfully
46:12
smart and astute mouth and I need all those things, right? Or hey, I'm on my email. Look,
46:16
this is a client. I mean, these people pay me. So I got to be able to respond. This is my business.
46:20
But the reality is, is your kids don't care about any of that. Don't care about any of that.
46:26
They just want you, dad. They want your undivided attention. They want when they're trying to
46:33
tell you a story in there, three years old. And the story is like, I found this thing and, well,
46:40
it's got a cap on it. And I was in the closet and I farted, right? That's a three year old story.
46:46
That's a typical three year old story. And guess what? Did that change your life?
46:49
Did I help you grow dendrites in your brain? Did I help you create new pathways where you can
46:53
lead to more flourishing for humans around the globe? No. But it was the most important thing
46:58
that your kid can think to say to dad in that moment. So why not give him your full attention?
47:03
Right. With your wife, like I was at my wife and I were at dinner the other night and we looked to
47:07
our, I looked to my right to her left. This family was sitting at the table. Every single one of
47:11
them was on their smartphones. All of them, varying ages, none of them were talking to one another.
47:17
And so perhaps the dad has an excuse. Maybe the mom is an influencer online and she needed to
47:23
respond to something because it pertained to something that could add to the bottom line of the family.
47:27
Maybe, but everybody. And every time we looked over there, guys, the same thing was happening.
47:33
Even once the food came out, even once the food came out, they couldn't be bothered to put their
47:38
phones down. And I don't know. I wasn't looking at their phones. Maybe they were texting, maybe they're
47:41
tweeting, maybe they're watching YouTube, maybe they're playing some sort of game, but they were
47:44
just dead in their phones, not connecting with the people that are right there in front of them. And
47:51
so for you guys, I want you to think about those times when you're like, Oh my gosh, I,
47:54
I'm sitting here with my family. I don't remember the last time I looked up. That's a problem.
47:59
Right. And if your phone, which it is for me, if your phone is part of your business and making
48:05
things and creating content and responding to emails, if that's part of your business, that's
48:08
great. But just like everything else in moderation and in due time, when you're sitting there on the
48:13
floor with your four year old and your two year old son, yes, I'm talking to myself, that's not the
48:17
time to be scrolling. That's not the time to be doom scrolling, certainly not. It's not the time
48:22
to be responding to stuff unless it's pertinent to that exact moment. So guys, you want to avoid
48:26
being a crappy man in 2025. If you're going to be present, be present. All right, guys, another one
48:31
here. Study the Bible with other men weekly. Study the Bible with other men weekly. So there's
48:37
three things there. Study the Bible. That's one with other men to and weekly. That's three. Let's
48:42
start from the end and we'll back up to the beginning. Here's the thing where most men's groups fail.
48:47
They don't meet enough. So we expect very little of men. And so we'll do a once a month thing,
48:54
or we'll maybe do a bi weekly thing. But let's say you're doing a once a month thing and I miss
48:58
people are like, Oh, well, he missed a month. No, I've now missed two months because I missed
49:03
the month prior to that meeting and I've missed the month after that meeting. And if I miss another
49:07
one, now I've missed a quarter of the year. What are the odds that I'm going to come back to do
49:12
that thing if I've missed three months worth of it? I mean, most men, if they get behind, they're
49:16
like, I just don't really want to play this game anymore. I get it. I totally get it. So weekly is
49:21
what it has to be. That has to be the cadence. I study the Bible with other men. The value I get
49:28
from the forging table, I'm pointing to it because it's on the other side of the studio here
49:31
has been so tremendous. And it's tremendous because I am limited.
49:36
Almost everyone that sat at that table, except for what Terry Fakes, Matt Chandler and Joby Martin,
49:41
none of them are professional Christians. We're just dudes that can read, right? But we all have
49:45
different backgrounds. We've grown up in slightly different, you know, faith mechanisms and studying
49:51
in different ways. And our brains work differently. And so when I study with other men, yeah, I just
49:57
happen to, you know, turn on the cameras and the microphones and the lights and all that. And it
50:00
works out well for y'all. But I'm learning so much because whenever I read, I only get what I know,
50:06
right? I only get what I'm able to absorb. I only get what the Holy Spirit is telling me in
50:10
that moment when I study with other men, that's a big deal. And then also it's study the Bible
50:15
with other men weekly study the Bible. Guys, the Logos Bible software, I talk about it every
50:21
forging table. So if you skip it, that is the most powerful Bible software on planet Earth.
50:25
So if you want to do devotionals, it's in there. If you want to get into different translations,
50:29
it's in there. If you want to do like word studies, all that's in there. So guys, Logos Bible software,
50:35
go check out the show notes for any forging table episode. Logos Bible software, you can go there,
50:39
you can get it at discount. We've got a special link and all that. So we can put that in there for
50:43
you. But guys, this is a big deal. So many men, I know they don't have a foxhole. They don't understand
50:50
the Bible. They want deeper spiritual depth. And none of these men that are complaining about that
50:54
study the Bible with other men weekly. Start there. Find two other guys, find two other dudes
51:01
that will meet you this Tuesday at 6 a.m. or this Sunday at 7 p.m. or whenever the time works out.
51:07
And you just in, I don't care, use the forging table materials, right? Start with Matthew,
51:11
start with Galatians, start with Nehemiah. I don't care. Use those materials. Have everyone study
51:16
and then have them listen to the episode. And then you can all discuss it together. But guys,
51:19
if you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, study the Bible with other men weekly.
51:23
All right. Next one here, get involved with a local church. Okay, get involved in a local
51:28
church. So I'm going to be brief on this one because this is the thing that I want to say.
51:30
And my wife or my wife and I were guilty of that, you know, years ago, seven or eight years ago,
51:35
before we started going to Faith Bible Church in Denver, Oklahoma. Most people, when they look
51:39
at church, they look at a church for what the church can do for them. Is this church going to
51:43
serve my needs is the preaching, my style that I like is the music, something that I enjoy listening
51:48
to is it close to my house? Do I like the people that are there? Do I feel like all those types of
51:52
things? And there are varying levels of those being things being appropriate or inappropriate.
51:56
But the thing is, is you have yet to walk into a local body of believers and think to yourself,
52:01
how can I serve this community? And I've also talked to a lot of men that are like, oh, yeah,
52:06
you know, my wife and I, we tried some churches, but you know, our kids are young and it's kind of
52:09
hard to get them to church. And you know, I would go to these churches, but it's kind of hard to my
52:13
job and my this man, we've all got excuses. But being involved in a local body of believers is not
52:18
an option. So you listen to La Crete church, close years ago and you decide, I'm just going to do
52:23
me, I'm just going to do my own thing. I don't need the local body of believers. Well, guess what?
52:27
Champ, you don't get that. You don't get the right to make that decision. Okay, it is a biblical mandate
52:33
that you get involved in a local body of believers. And guess what? It's good for the body. And it's
52:37
good for you, right? You're never going to find a church that checks all your boxes. My church
52:42
doesn't like I've told, I've told you guys so many times, the overwhelming positive thing about my
52:47
church is that it's healthy. We don't got a lot of drama and we got a bunch of kids running around.
52:52
That's what I love about my church. There are things I don't like about it. Okay, I'm not going to
52:56
lose today to hear because I know a lot of people from my church listen to this, but I've talked
52:59
about some of those things before. It doesn't check my boxes. If I could just like poof, like snap my
53:03
fingers and change certain things, I would do it. But the church is healthy. And guess what? I can
53:07
serve there. I can teach Sunday school. I can, you know, get involved in other ministries. I can
53:13
give in a way that is sacrificial so that the bride of Christ can be glorified, right? And all
53:18
those things. But if you're not even involved in a local church, you can't do that. So guys,
53:22
if you want to avoid being a crappy man in 2025, get involved in a local church. All right, we got a
53:26
few more left here. Next one, this is a new one. New one, guys, love new ones. Think in black and
53:32
white terms. Think in black and white terms. So this is what I mean. I don't mean racially by any
53:38
stress imagination. Too many people are comfortable with gray areas. Too many. And they're like, oh,
53:45
well, you know, the situation in their favorite word to use even if they're dumb is well, it's
53:48
nuanced. Well, well, there's nuance here. And then you ask them a question like, okay, well, can you
53:52
explain the nuance or the tension here? And they can't do it. They were just using a word to fill
53:56
in a place because they've never actually thought through their philosophy on this particular issue.
54:00
But so many people are like, oh, but there's just gradations and there's gray areas and different
54:04
things like that. But the truth is, is when it comes to absolute morality and absolute truth,
54:09
there is no gray. So the skinny on this is if you're a Christian, then it follows that you believe
54:15
an absolute truth, okay, capital A, capital T, absolute truth. If you believe an absolute truth,
54:21
then it follows that you should fight against thinking in gradations or nuance.
54:27
Because what nuance is there to killing an unborn baby? So Mr. or Mrs. nuance, what is the nuance
54:36
there? That is an innocent human being inside of their mother's womb. Make the affirmative argument
54:42
for how there should be gray areas for whether or not we should be allowed to kill that innocent
54:47
baby that is currently residing in their mother's womb. Seemed like an extreme example? Exactly.
54:51
I'm using it to make my point because even with subject matters that aren't nearly as important as
54:57
life and unborn human life, we just get sucked into, oh, there's too much gray area. No, sometimes
55:02
there's just black and white. And again, this goes into, is this a truth claim or is this an opinion?
55:07
So you might think strawberry ice cream is the best. I might think vanilla is the best.
55:11
And guess what? We could pull everyone on the planet and more of them could agree with you than me,
55:15
but it doesn't make me wrong. It's just an opinion. It's not a provable thing. But if I were to say
55:20
that strawberry ice cream exists and I'm holding it in my hand currently, that's either true or not
55:26
true. Okay, there is no gray. There's no nuance in that situation, either either is or it's not.
55:33
And so again, we get pulled into all these different directions. And it's usually by people that are
55:39
non-believers and things like that. It's like, oh, let's philosophize on that and let's really think
55:42
through it. No, it either is or it isn't. And now as humanity, we may not know a thing, but that
55:47
doesn't mean that there's a gradation of the thing. So in the forging table here before too
55:51
longer and here is talking about Noah's ark and different things like that. And well, how did they
55:55
get that many animals and what do they mean by kinds and where they were big? Where did they
55:59
put the poop and all that kind of things? We may not know the exact thing, but the exact thing does
56:03
exist. It is a black or white thing. It either happened or it didn't. It either happened in this
56:08
way or it didn't happen in this way. And so guys, I want you to be thinking lesson gradations and
56:13
nuance in 2025 and thinking black and white terms. And if you do that, you will avoid being a crappy
56:18
man this year. All right. Next one here. Don't pretend that you know something that you don't.
56:22
And I've said it this way before relish in the opportunity to look like an idiot.
56:26
So this is something that guys do. Guys will get asked, Oh, hey, have you heard of this band?
56:30
They'll be like, Oh, yeah, I've heard of that band. And they haven't. Oh, hey, you know,
56:33
you know, you know, this car that I'm talking about. No, they'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
56:35
no, they haven't heard that car. Every I used to be that guy as well, where someone would say,
56:40
Oh, have you seen this? Or do you know about this? Or do you know about this person?
56:43
And you just you just respond like you don't want to be left out of the club. You don't want this
56:47
kind of like disjointed FOMO. And so you're like, yeah, yeah, I do. But look for an opportunity
56:53
to be an idiot in a situation. So I've used this example for all use it again.
56:56
Hunting, I did not grow up in a family that hunted. So I basically didn't do anything outdoors that
57:02
didn't involve the ball, right? I was a ball sports kid. And I was a straight A student. And so in
57:06
order to maintain both of those things, I wasn't hunting. I wasn't camping. I wasn't fishing. And
57:11
even if I wanted to do those things, no one in my family did any of those things. Okay. Now,
57:15
as an adult, I am learning how to hunt. Okay. So this year, I think I'm getting a compound bow.
57:21
And last year for the first time I, I bow hunted and I'm learning different things. But here's a deal.
57:25
And my buddies who are teaching me to hunt, I'm basically a blue belt at hunting.
57:28
So I'm not completely worthless, but I'm kind of still terrible. Right? That's essentially what a
57:34
blue belt is in jujitsu. But I've looked like an idiot a lot. I've made mistakes a lot as it
57:41
pertains to hunting. But I'm relishing those opportunities. Yes, they check my ego. And it's
57:45
like, Oh God, I can't believe you made that mistake. What's wrong with you? But guess what?
57:49
I'm learning. It's better than pretending that you know something. Because guess what? Let's say
57:54
you're sitting there with a bonafide expert and in particular subject matter. Just just pick,
57:57
pick it, pick the scenario for yourself. You're sitting there with a bonafide expert,
58:01
and they're asking you a question to see if you know the answer. And you don't know the answer,
58:04
but you flink around it. What you've done is you've robbed them of an opportunity to teach you
58:08
something and you've robbed yourself of an opportunity to learn something. This can go for sports or
58:13
Bible study or tinkering with something or fixing something or any number of things, guys.
58:19
I always am quick to know. Hey, Kyle, do you know how this rifle mechanism works? Nope. I don't.
58:25
Can you show me? Hey, Kyle, do you know how to take this part and put it back together?
58:27
Absolutely not. Can you show me? And the thing is, is like, they love the process of showing me.
58:33
And then I love the process of learning. And the reason why I've grown to love the process of
58:37
learning is because I've got two boys that are sponges. And if they can learn something because
58:41
dad learned something from somebody else, that is a net positive. So if you want to avoid being
58:45
a crappy man of 2025, don't pretend that you know something that you don't. Three more left.
58:50
Next one here. Look for an opportunity to not be offended. Look for an opportunity to not be
58:55
offended. Being offended is currency. In the in the day and age we're in, it's currency.
59:03
Because if you are offended, you are a victim. And if you're a victim, that means that you are
59:06
somehow more right than people that have not been victimized, right? I've elucidated that a lot.
59:10
A lot of conservative commentators have done the exact same thing. But there are times in your life
59:14
where you could get offended, where you literally were wronged, you were slided, somebody was rude
59:21
to you. And imagine how different things would look in that situation. And even just for you
59:25
mentally, if you just took the opportunity to not be offended. So somebody bumps into you,
59:30
or somebody says something to you that's a little bit off color, or things didn't go as you expected,
59:35
or any of those situations. Don't be offended. There are times to be offended. But for the most
59:40
part, it is not going to serve you well to sit there and be the victim. So quick one there. But
59:44
if you want to avoid being a crappy man of 2025, look for an opportunity to not be offended.
59:48
All right. Next one here. Get involved locally. Okay. So I've said this a lot of times.
59:52
This was especially true last year, because last year, as you saw, especially for my wrap up
59:56
episodes, the entire news cycle circled around the 2024 election. Oh boy. Right. Especially on this
1:00:03
show on any shows on anything that you talk to, like if your water cooler discussions, everything
1:00:08
revolved around that. But then you would ask somebody like, Hey, who'd you vote for for mayor?
1:00:13
They couldn't tell you who was even going for it. Hey, who'd you vote for for sheriff?
1:00:18
Shoot. I forgot to even do that. Hey, your kids are in public school, right? Yeah. Yeah. Who's on
1:00:24
the school board? No clue. But you know, you're voting for Trump. You know, you're voting for
1:00:30
Kamala or whatever your situation is. You know more about what's going on in Ukraine than you do
1:00:36
about what's going on in your neighborhood, right? How is that a positive thing? Because politics
1:00:41
used to be local and we've been convinced that it's now a national phenomenon. Okay. So for everybody
1:00:47
listening to this, I promise you, you will be able to get more done on a local level than you will
1:00:51
ever get to do on a national level. The odds of me speaking out of local political rally versus a
1:00:57
national political rally are way higher on the local side than the national side. The odds of me
1:01:02
being able to sway an election here in my local town air are way better than a national election,
1:01:07
just because math guys, like there are local elections that are decided by a few dozen votes,
1:01:13
right? We're never going to have a presidential election decided by a few dozen votes. And yet
1:01:17
you've spent hundreds of hours con consuming content about a race where you've already
1:01:22
decided who you're going to vote for. So there are ways to get involved locally. There are local
1:01:26
papers. I know what year is it? But yes, you can, you can get the local paper. You can go to let
1:01:31
local chamber or commerce. There's Kiwanis clubs, rotary clubs, different things. You can get
1:01:36
an idea about what's happening in your city, your town, anywhere you live. Guys, if you want to avoid
1:01:41
being a crappy man in 2025, get involved locally. And we are going to wrap up the 18 ways to avoid
1:01:46
being a crappy man in 2025 with a new one. Okay, a new one. Don't only consume content from sources
1:01:53
that you agree with. Okay. So for some of you, if you've gotten all the way to the end of this
1:01:59
episode, at some point on those last 17, I probably made you feel not so good on the inside. Okay,
1:02:04
I can be fairly blunt and fairly straightforward on the things that I talk about. And so some of
1:02:09
those probably bristled up against you and you didn't really appreciate it that much. I get it,
1:02:12
I understand it. But if you're only consuming content from sources where people agree with you
1:02:17
can constantly, you're not growing. You're deepening your level of understanding in your
1:02:22
own point of view, but you're not understanding someone else's point of view. Okay. So if I want
1:02:27
to understand atheism, okay, so somebody that is convinced that we are all a cosmic accident,
1:02:33
right? So they don't believe in miracles. And yet they believe that time, space and matter
1:02:37
entered via a timeless faceless and immaterial beginning. But aside from that, but I can't
1:02:43
understand what's going on in the brain of an atheist if I only listen to William Linkregg.
1:02:47
Okay, or only listen to John MacArthur or only read books from or sermons from Charles Spurgeon.
1:02:55
I'm not going to get a full fledged idea because those guys aren't thinking in that way. They're
1:03:00
thinking how they can speak to an atheist, but they're not thinking in that way. Same thing
1:03:05
politically. If you're sitting there as a Republican, because I know most people that listen to this
1:03:09
politically are more on the right than they are on the left. If you're thinking to yourself,
1:03:13
how in the world could somebody be supporting Kamala Harris? Like, how could someone live in
1:03:18
California and think that Gavin Newsom is a good person for them? Wait, how is it that Justin Trudeau
1:03:24
has been in charge of a major Western nation for as long as he's been? Well, have you tried
1:03:28
consuming content from people that actually support those individuals? I'm not saying they're
1:03:33
going to sway you, right? Because the thing is with most of those people is they don't have
1:03:37
morality on their side. They don't have correct data on their side. It's all just conjecture,
1:03:43
right? It's all just philosophizing. It's definitely not black and white thinking unless it's racial
1:03:47
thinking so that they can get one over on somebody on the conservative side of the ledger. But,
1:03:51
you know, I'll digress a little bit. But if you listen to news sources that aren't the ones you
1:03:55
normally consume, you will get a better understanding of how those people think and why they think the
1:03:59
way that they do. That will be of value to you in a myriad of circumstances, but even especially
1:04:04
in a gospel circumstance. Because if I'm sharing the gospel with somebody that is unchurched and
1:04:10
vehemently atheist, if all you've ever done is listen to, you know, Nana teach Sunday school and you've
1:04:16
listened just to your local passer, you may not be ready for a situation like that. I'm not saying
1:04:21
the Holy Spirit can't do what the Holy Spirit's going to do, but you're going to be kind of taken
1:04:24
for a loop there. But if you've kind of gotten an idea of how these people think, if you've
1:04:29
consumed the arguments of people that are on the other side, it's a net positive for you.
1:04:33
So I'm not saying if you're a conservative that, hey, don't listen to Glenn Beck this
1:04:37
year and don't listen to Matt Wallis this year and don't listen to Ben Shapiro, don't listen to
1:04:40
Tucker Carlson, only listen to people that are popular on the left. But I am saying sneak it in
1:04:44
a little bit here and not just when you hear it on one of those other guys's shows because
1:04:48
that's selectively edited. It's helping them make their point. But listen to these other people,
1:04:53
give them the opportunity to sway you even though the truth of it is that they are not going to be
1:05:00
on the correct side of the ledger as it pertains to that issue. So guys, the last one here of the
1:05:05
top 18 ways to avoid being a crappy man in 2025 don't only consume content from sources that you
1:05:10
agree agree with. So that is the list. Let me see if I can get it all in here. So start a grad two
1:05:14
lists, don't celebrate people that take shortcuts, do really hard things that constantly challenges
1:05:19
your ego and teaches you something. Oh, and I left one out earlier because I snuck it in there,
1:05:22
but what was it the here? Sorry, we're doing it live. No more. I struggle with blank language.
1:05:27
All right, no more. I struggle with blank language. Let's get back into the list here.
1:05:31
Don't be late. Practice pre decision. Learn to fight, be extra nice to support staff and service
1:05:36
providers and make sure you say thank you. Don't let sports ruin your night. No porn,
1:05:40
no jerking off. If you're going to be present, be present, study the Bible with other men weekly,
1:05:45
get involved in local church, think in black and white terms. Don't pretend that you know
1:05:49
something you don't look for an opportunity to not be offended. Get involved locally and don't
1:05:54
only consume content from sources that you agree with. That's the list, guys. I hope it's helpful to
1:05:59
you. But before I let you go, we're not going to do a quick resilience boost add and don't
1:06:01
allow for missions, equipment, men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental
1:06:05
and physical resilience. I've got three links for you today. One is to our donation page. Again,
1:06:08
guys, we are donation based ministry. If you want to see this content getting out to more guys
1:06:12
around the globe, we need your help hop on board be a monthly donor. Also, I've got a link to where
1:06:16
you can join the waitlist for dominion. If you don't know what that is, undaunted.life/dominion,
1:06:20
that link is here as well. And also link to the logos Bible software. It's our link to where you
1:06:24
can get that at a discount. Guys, if you're going to study the Bible this year, make sure you can go
1:06:27
as deep into that subject matter if you want to. We really appreciate it. Thank you for listening
1:06:31
to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive
1:06:35
five star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me
1:06:39
an email to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o @undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook,
1:06:46
and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like
1:06:49
this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name
1:06:55
for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua,
1:06:59
which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description.
1:07:04
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
1:07:10
mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:07:40
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