[music] This is Undaunted [music] Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future. That is Proverbs 19:20. Guys, we're so thankful for you being here. First podcast of the new year. Happy 2026 to everybody. And also, I want to start out with being grateful and having some gratitude for you guys. So, we are very, very, very thankful to all of our donors. So, guys, there are some ministries out there and some different businesses where they just get these huge single donors. They've got one or two donors. We've got guys like you that are giving 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, $1,000 one time, and it's all because you want to see us equip other men around the globe to push back darkness. So, we appreciate you guys. And if you haven't donated yet, what's wrong with you? Come on, stop being a freeloader. I'm just kidding, but not really. Undaunted.life/donate. undaunted.life/donate. Guys, leave a review for this show. Five star review and a positive few words. And share this with a friend. Guys, this is always the episode every single year that is the most sharable episode, okay? because some episodes are, you know, maybe an author you haven't heard of or a subject matter you don't really care about. This is going to get everybody. So, make sure you share this around. And on this episode, we're going to continue our beginning of the year tradition with our ways to avoid being a crappy man series. And so, over the years, guys have used this series in a lot of different ways. So, some guys will listen to it, they'll go to the show notes, they'll see the list there, and they print it out. Some of them put it on their mirror. Some of them save it on the background of their phone. Some guys look at the list and maybe every month they're picking two or three that they're really going to focus in on. But however you guys want to use it, make sure that you apply this because I don't want to be screaming into the ether here. I would like you guys to go ahead and do this. And I'll just kind of give you an idea of how I put this list together. So every year I've got the list that I did for that year. And then as I'm going through the year, I will evaluate some of the things on that list. And I will also think of other things that should be on that list. Okay? And so what I did and what I do every year is I will take some things off the list and I will add some things to the list. I think for this year for 2026 it was the most new ones that we had ever done that we added to the list. But then there's going to be some that are always going to be on the list every single year. So you guys should buckle up for the 20 different things that we have on the list this year. But then I've also got something that I want to give you guys as a free resource. So some of you have already seen this. We actually released two episodes today because we are announcing something here on January the 1st of 2026. We are launching and have launched the 31-day resilience reset. 31-day resilience reset. If you don't know what I'm talking about, undaunted.life/31days. undaunted.life/31 days. It is in the show notes. For some of you guys, you need a reset of some kind. Okay? And I'm going to go into way more detail in the little bonus episode that was posted today. So, I'm just going to be brief right now. Some of you just need a little bit of a reset, right? Spiritually, mentally, or physically, you're out of sync. Maybe you're stuck in neutral, stuck in the mud entirely. And so this is to basically get you going, okay? Because on every single day of the 31day resilience reset, you have to read scripture. You have to exercise. You have to pray. There's different challenges. You have to read a chapter of the book. You have to listen to our other show, The Daily Blade. If you're not following the Daily Blade, that's just five minutes a day, either with me or with Joby or one of our friends. And it's getting you Bible, right? It's getting Bible in your ears. You have to list things that you're you're thankful for. But then there's also some things that you just can't do for that 31day period. You can't look at porn. You can't masturbate. You can't drink alcohol. You can't take any drugs, including marijuana. You can't intake any sugar that's not naturally occurring in something like fruit or honey. And what it's doing is it's resetting your brain. For some of you, resetting your spirit, for some of you, resetting your body to get you ready for the rest of the year. Because the dumbest thing that people do is they take their life seriously in January and they live with intention in all these important areas and then they just slack off and screw around for the next 11 months and then they just hit the reset button in January again. I want January to be a catapult that throws you into the rest of the year. And here's the other thing. There are guys that are going to be listening to this episode for the first time in like July. Okay? So, what's to say that you don't just start this in August or September or any month, any day of the year? But there is some psychological significance to the first day of a new year. It feels fresh. It feels like a fresh start. So, just wanted to draw you to that resource so that I can help you guys. Undaunted.life/31 days. But here we are. [clears throat] The 20 ways to avoid being a crappy man in 2026. Let's start with the first one. And this is a new one. Hold your sources for truth to a high evidentiary standard. Okay. So, one thing that happened as we went into last year, I'll say actually kind of started on September the 10th, right, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Within a few weeks, we started seeing grifters online. We started seeing people that were starting to make money off of special revelation. Think Candace Owens or I've got some special details that if you knew what I know, Tucker Carlson or something like that. And the thing that none of these people seemed to do was provide any evidence for their claims. And you can't really blame them because their audiences kept growing and their net worth kept growing as they were providing no substantiation for any of the fantastical claims that they were making. And what a lot of people out there did, even some of you here in this audience, and I'm not just picking on Candace and Tucker, there's there's plenty of people that do this, both sides of the aisle, Christians, non-Christians, the whole the whole nine yards, right? But there are people that are making these huge statements that are plausible that sound like they could be right. And a lot of us, a lot of you are basically like, "Yeah, that's good enough. That is now truth for me." Not necessarily my truth, right? You know, the new cultural phenomenon, but you're like, "Nope, that sounds plausible." So, it's true. But I would encourage all of you to follow AAM's razor. If I can summarize AAM's razor, I think that's OCC ams razor. The explanation that has the least amount of things contingent upon one another is the likeliest explanation. Okay. So, is it possible that TPUSA and Erica Kirk and the Trump administration and Donald Trump individually and the Jews all got together to kill Charlie Kirk for some reason that no one can explain? Yes, it's it's plausible. It's it's possible. But is it likely? No, it's not. So for all of you out there, especially for you Christians, and if you're not a Christian listening to this, we are so thrilled that you are here, keep listening. But if you're a Christian, we purport to know the ultimate of ultimate truths, which is how we can have everlasting life, how our life could never end, how we can live in eternity in the presence of a holy and just father, God, our creator. So we should have the highest evidentiary standard possible for truth. Okay? We should not be thrown this way or that way with whatever is happening in culture. We should not be able to be so easily swayed like a gullible sheep would be to someone's point of view that they can't substantiate in any way, shape or form. Okay? So we should be people of the book. You should have Bibles around. They should be worn in and you should be reading them because I need to remind you what happened in the desert when Jesus was being tempted by the devil for 40 days and 40 nights. The devil was quoting scripture kind of. He was quoting scripture out of context and leaving some very very important details out. And how did Jesus respond? It is written. [clears throat] It is written. Written where? It would be the Old Testament. But now for us, we have the entire revelation of God via scripture in the Old Testament, New Testament. And we should be able to look at culture. We should be able to look at charlatans. We should be able to look at faux journalists. We should be able to look at influencers on the internet. We should be looking at different people and to be able to say, "This is what you say is true, however it is written." So, [clears throat] the first way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, hold your sources for truth to a high evidentiary standard. All right. The second one here, don't pretend that you know something you don't. So, this one's really, really hard for a lot of guys because we don't like looking like a fool. Like, it's just not really something that that we want to do. It's not something that we revel in is the opportunity to look like we don't know something. But when you act like you know something that you don't, two things simultaneously happen. Number one, you look like a fool to everybody that knows what's going on. And number two, you're stealing an opportunity from somebody else to teach you something. So, so let's take an example. Let's say I walk up on a guy that's working on an old hot rod, right? He's got a 71 Chevel or something like that. You know, that's one of my dream cars. And he's working on it. And he's like, "Hey, can you help me with this transmission?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah." And I just, you know, roll up my sleeves and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah. What about the burp burr over there? And how about we drain the dillydally?" I'm going to look like a fool because I don't know anything about working on old cars. Just not something that I grew up doing. is not something that I've done as an adult and he's going to know immediately that I don't know what I'm talking about immediately. So, I'm going to look like a fool and then I'm stealing an opportunity away from him to teach me something. Now, as any well uh adjusted and good redblooded American male would do, he's probably going to give me a little bit of crap because this is a world that he knows and I don't, right? The same thing would be true. I kind of give people crap when they try jiu-jitsu for the first time, right? You know, it's just part of the thing, right? you're going to get a little bit of ribbon from the guy, but you take your ribbon and then you take your lesson, right? But if you pretend like you know something that you don't, you don't get that opportunity. So, the number two thing to do this year to avoid being a crappy man, don't pretend that you know something that you don't. Number three, this is kind of a remix. I I've talked about this in a certain way, so I'm kind of rewarding it a little bit. I think uh it's been in the past, learn how to fight, but now I'm saying prepare yourself for violence. So, what I mean by that is, yes, in order to prepare yourself for violence, you need to know how to fight. Okay? Go on the internet and watch street fight videos and it'll prove my point that most men think they know how to fight, but they don't. They don't have any clue how to fight. They don't know how to throw a punch. They don't know how to throw a kick. They don't know how to do a takedown. They don't know how to end the fight with a submission. Most men walking around completely overestimate their abilities marshally. And the reality is is you never rise to the occasion. You always fall to the level of your training. That's just the reality, right? And so if you think that you're just going to see red and bodies are going to start to fall, no, you're going to see red and then you're going to be dead. Because if you're going up against somebody that knows how to fight, you have no chance. So I'm talking mainly about using your body in this context. So you need to train martial arts that are real. Okay? Don't waste your time with, you know, point fighting or karagar or different things like that that are, you know, kromag. can't even technically train it because, you know, it's like eye gouging and crotch grabbing and different things like that. You need to do Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, western boxing, some elements of judo, kickboxing, Muay Thai. You need to be able to strike, but you also need to be able to grapple. Cuz if you only learn striking and nothing on the ground, you are only good when you are on your two feet. And if you grew up in a wrestling background or certain jiu-jitsu that really take the takedown seriously or judo or something like that, if I can dictate where the fight takes place, I'm at the advantage, right? Cuz all those fancy spinning kicks and like, you know, 360 elbows and like all that crazy stuff, it only works when you're on your two feet. Those things essentially don't work when you were on your back. I've planted your hips there and now you can't move. Okay, so that's the physical component of using your body, but also you need to train with other weapon systems. You need to be able to be uh sufficiently comfortable with carbines, with pistols, with knives, with with other things like that, long guns for some of you. Because here's the thing, we don't know when, how, or the circumstances behind when we are going to have to protect ourselves andor other image bearsers of God. We don't know because for most of us in America, we might get in a street fight if things go crazy. I saw a video recently of an illegal immigrant, I think it was in the UK, that walked up and smacked this person's child was like an 18-month-old. And I think it was the grandparents. So, they just kind of grabbed the kid and kind of huddled up and ran away. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh." Right? I kind of want that to happen to one of my kids because they're going to be just fine. They're not even going to remember it, but it's going to be the greatest single day of my life. Right? because you just get to unleash hell and not go to prison, right? But for some people like say Christians in Nigeria or Mosamb beek or in Sudan or other places, they may be fighting for their literal lives against Islamists that want to cut their heads off. You know, I've spent some time here recently uh with the work of Raymond Ibrahim. He's been on the show before, but he has an amazing three-part series of books that started back in 2018. Sword and Scimitar, Defenders of the West, and the two swords of Christ. Talking about a lot of the crusades and the battles, the official battles between Islam, Muslims, and Christianity, Christians. We don't know if we're going to be in one of those battles at some point. And you may be listening to this in your aironditioned room and in your suburban house, and you know, you just kind of go to work every day and you would never hurt to fly and all those different things. And if that's how your world is for the remainder of your life, you might be able to opt out of violence. But for most people, you're going to have to opt into violence at some point. Which leads me to my overall point about preparing yourself for violence. This preparation is not just physical. It's also mental and spiritual. I was literally just asked today to defend my position that Christians should be able to use violence. This is a person that had kind of more of a pacifistic worldview. You could tell by how they worded the question. Pacifism is [clears throat] an a-biblical concept. You cannot read the Bible in context and come away thinking to yourself, I'm never allowed to use violence. Right? You should spend some time, I don't have time today to elucidate everything, but just war theory, I think, is certainly a part of this discussion. But also, pacifists don't technically exist. Do you know why? Because pacifists are always willing to call the police. They're always willing to let their local magistrates or even their local military protect them to do violence to other people on behalf of them. So you see, even pacifists are proviolence. They're just too pussified to actually do the violence themselves. They are outsourcing their violence to the government. And from where I sit, I am unwilling to outsource my violence to somebody else. Okay? my primary violence. Now, I'm all good with calling the cavalry, right? Someone's breaking into my house. Honey, call the police. I'm getting geared up, right? So, when they arrive and the average response time for 911 in America is 7 minutes. That's if they answer because if you live in a large city, you might be on hold for an hour and a half, but in seven minutes, I have to do everything I can to protect Kelsey, James, and Elijah and myself and potentially anybody else who's in our home. Okay? So I'm all for them coming to help me on the back end. But primarily it is my responsibility and duty to protect imagebearsers of God. And if I am not spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally ready to take life, then the odds are it is my life that will be taken. So the number three thing, the number three way to prepare or to avoid being a crappy man in this year is to prepare yourself for violence. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Globo Gym, or even your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine, maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know, you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. No more settling. It's time for you guys to get a guide to help you reach your fitness goals. And that's why I want to remind you about my good friends at Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is a fitness and mental toughness app developed by military special operators and mountain hunters that's becoming a global movement for building mentally tough athletes on and off the mountain. Mountain Tough is a native app ready to be downloaded on all platforms. So that includes iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and there's more. 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That's mtnuff.com and enter the code kyle when you sign up for a monthly plan to receive your first month free after your 14-day trial. So, that's 6 weeks free to make sure this is for you. I'm sure it will be. That is six weeks free on the best-in-class physical and mental training app in the world. So, stop wasting time. It's time to get real fitness results. Let my friends at Mountain Guide the way. Again, go to mtntuff. That's mountain.com. Promo code kyle. All right. Number four, don't be late. So this is on every single year and it will continue to be on every single year because when you are late gentlemen, what you are communicating to the other people in your life is that your time is more important than their time is because the only thing we can't get back is our time. That's one of the reasons why I put so much effort into these podcasts, into these episodes, cuz I know for a fact you can't get this time back. So, if you invest in an hour or so of this podcast today and it's terrible, if it's awful, I can't give you that hour back. Now, if you lose money, you can always make more money. If you lose relationships, you can always make additional relationships. There are plenty of things in this life you can lose and do something to regain them. That's not how it works with time. And so, when you show up late, I always use this example. Let's say you're coming, you're going to a meeting. There are six people in this meeting, okay? [clears throat] and you're the seventh person. All six of them are there. They're there for the 9:00 meeting and here you come walting in at 9:10. Okay, you're 10 minutes late. Oh, shoot. I'm sorry. You've got your coffee and you got your bag and you're taking it all off and you sit down. You open up your laptop and you get your notes out and your blah blah blah. And you're like, "Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready for the meeting." Well, you just think you're 10 minutes late. That's not that big a deal, is it? Well, no, you're actually an hour late. Well, well, Kyle, I thought you said the meeting started at 9:00 and they they came in at 9:10. Well, no, no, no. There's six other people in this meeting. You see, because when you're late, you're typically a fairly selfish individual. And I know things come up, kids throw up in the car, you get behind an accident on the highway, you're in an accident on the highway. I'm not talking about those situations. I'm talking about life is normal and [snorts] you didn't do the stuff that you were supposed to do in order to be on time, right? You got around too late. You screwed off. You screwed around and went and you got your latte and your scone and whatever. And here you are. Six people were already there. And so six people had to wait 10 minutes each for you to show up. That is an hour of wasted time to humanity because you suck because you're selfish. Okay? And some of you were like, "Oh, you know, you know, I'm just I'm wired for this. If you grew up with my family, you would have never been on time." And it's it's like this genetic thing. But I always use this example as well. If I told you today at 2:37 p.m., meet me in this parking lot at this pin with this these grid coordinates, whatever, and I'm going to give you a briefcase with a million dollars cash, no strings attached. All you got to do is be in that parking lot at 2:37 p.m. It's a miracle. These people that are never on time, can't be on time, I'm wired this way, my family was like this, you don't understand this excuse, that excuse, whatever, they're going to be there. Come hell or high water, they will be there. Why? Because they deem that meeting important, important enough for them to prepare for it, to be on time, but they don't look at other meetings that way. And there are things that are casual, like if it's like, hey, we got kind of a come and go birthday party. it's going to be between 2 and 4, blah blah. If you show up at 2:15, no big deal. That's a casual thing. But if you're going to a meeting, if someone is relying on you, if you've got a deadline, a group project, or a work project, and you have to get your part done by a certain day at a certain time, it is incumbent upon you to do that. Okay. So, the number four way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, don't be late. Number five, this is a new one for this year. Don't let being nice get in the way of doing the right thing. So, I've said this a lot over the last several years, and Vodie Bacham was the first person I heard say it, but there's a lot of Christians that have been lulled to sleep thinking that the 11th commandment is, "Thou shalt be nice." And so you have a lot of people using what some would coin toxic empathy or even the sin of empathy as Joe Riggnney said in his book the sin of empathy that we just need to be nice. That the ultimate Christian ethic is to be seen as nice when that's not the ultimate Christian ethic. There are plenty of things. Just look at Jesus. We don't have to, you know, open it up to the entire Bible to make our point. Just look at Jesus. How many things did Jesus do that seemed mean [clears throat] culturally speaking in 2026? They seemed really mean. They seemed, you know, pretty judgmental, pretty exclusive, pretty black and white. More on that later. Like, like, oh gosh, pretty offensive. Gosh, he believed in some offensive things. That son of God, gosh. But if your main ethic is being nice, there will be so many times when you won't do the right thing. Think about in the context of violence that I just talked about earlier. If somebody is violating another human being, another image bearer of God, is it nice to physically stop that from happening, which could involve bloodying that person up, injuring them, and even potentially killing them? Well, no, it's not nice. But in that scenario, I don't care about being nice to the wolf. I care about being nice and protective of the sheep, of the person being violated by the predator. So that may seem like an extreme example to you, but there are even situations potentially in your own home, in your own place of business where somebody is saying something that is rude, that is biting, that is anti- good, and you just sit there quietly because you can't think of anything nice to say back to them when what they need in that moment, they don't need to necessarily be castigated, they don't need to be dressed down, but you need to stand up for what you believe to be moral. And if you are a Christian and if you are basing your morality on the ethics that come from the Bible, then you are in the correct position. And yet here you sit silently because you can't think of anything nice to say. And so I think as men, we need to stop doing that. So the number five way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, don't let being nice get in the way of doing the right thing. Number six, start a gratitude list. So this one actually uh was a suggestion by Joby Martin. He probably got it from somebody else, but basically he told me I'm trying to I'm going to bring it up on my phone real quick while uh I'm doing it live. Uh but basically, you need to have a note on your phone of the things that you are grateful for. And you need to have a list that involves at least one thing for every year you've been alive. Okay? So, I'm 39 as of the recording of this. So, I need at least 39 things on my gratitude list. And I'm actually going to read my list to you. Okay? So, I'm not going to, you know, number them, but here I'll read them all out. But I have a total of 42 things that I am thankful for. All right. My salvation, Kelsey, my wife, James, my eldest son, Eli, my youngest son, my father, the Bible and how it got to us in modernity, the United States of America, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, Joby Martin's mentorship and friendship, Matt Chandler's mentorship and friendship, Faith Bible Church, my home church, my boys going to the school that they go to, Roman the Giant, who was my dog, my foxhole, uh, Brazilian jiu-jitsu as a whole, but also the Forge where I train, my truck that I get to drive around, all the international travel I've gotten to do, My home gym, hunting on I I list two of my buddies lands here. So, hunting on Adam's land and hunting on Heath land, my podcast audience, Undaunted Life as a whole, Undaunted Life Donors, The Forging Table, my book collection, my physical health and athleticism at my age, UFC fight nights, good whiskey, good cigars, whiskey and cigar nights, preferably on my porch, the podcast I get to listen to, my flexible work schedule, my partnerships with companies like Origin and Jaco Fuel, meat in general. Yeah, meat. taste buds, my favorite music, mountains, my voice recovery. Up to this point, for some of you that don't know this, two or three years ago, I had a couple of vocal cord surgeries. Thought my career as a speaker and podcaster was over. So, obviously, I'm thankful to even be able to talk right now. Graduating with no student loan debt, no student loan debt, baseball opening day in the World Series, my relationship with the Robertsons down in West Monroe in Dominion, which is my coaching program that I do. It's a six-month intensive disciplehip coaching program. So when I'm in my feels, when I don't feel like praising God, or when I don't think I've got a good life, and when life's just really getting after me and I don't feel very much gratitude towards the life that God has given me, I can go to an anchor point and it's right there in my phone. So the number six way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, start a gratitude list. You will not regret it. All right, number seven, a new one, consume the Bible every day. Notice how I didn't say study the Bible every day. Because guys, I get it. You got a job that requires hours. You got a woman in your life that requires attention. You got kids in your life that require attention, discipline, you know, raising them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You've got hobbies. You've got friends that have things that you need to do. You got things around the house that need to get done. You can't study the Bible every day. For a lot of us, that's just not really in the cards for you. but you can 100% consume it every day. So, I remember talking to a guy recently. He had one of the most packed schedules that I've ever seen in my entire life. I had him describe it in detail. It involved going to bed late, waking up early, a long commute. It's just kind of the nature of his job. But then I asked him the question, how much time per day do you spend on social media, right? And I spend time on social media. Obviously, we have an Instagram and a Facebook that, you know, we try to get our content out to people, right? So, I play the game as well. And it was like 45 minutes to an hour every single day. And here we are trying to find time to squeeze thing into things into his week, right? Like taking his wife on dates and his kids aren't even old enough to be doing activities yet, but we're trying to squeeze thing into these different holes in different pockets. And it's like, bro, there's there's like five to six hours every week that you're spending scrolling. And look, I get it. Sometimes you just want to veg out and scroll. But if you can do that, you can read a chapter of the Bible every day. You can listen to the Daily Blade. Again guys, check out the Daily Blade. It's me or Joby. Five minutes a day on your way to the gym, on the way to the work site. Get some Bible in there because not every day is going to be a study day, but every day can be a consumption day. So whether you're doing the Daily Blade, listening to a pastor preach, reading the Bible on your own, doing a devotional plan on your phone, doing something through the Logos software, which again, I think we'll put the link in the show notes where you can get the Logos Bible software at a tremendous discount. You need to be consuming the Bible every day because again, if you don't know what truth is, then you can't defend it. The number seven way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, consume the Bible every day. Number eight, if you're going to be present, be present. So, one of the biggest problems that I had to address in my life and I'm still addressing, I'm in the process of, and what a lot of men have to do is even when their body is present, their brain is not. So here they are. They're sitting in the house. Their wife is nearby. Their kids can be heard in the house somewhere and they're just like this scrolling away, typing away on their phone or they've got their laptop out and they're answering work emails or they're sitting there with nothing in their hands, but their brain is on their inbox, right? Their brain is on the job site. Their brain is focused on the thing that they didn't get done. Their brain has traveled into some other philosophical network. They're trying to figure out, "Oh, shoot. I should have said this to this guy, but I didn't think of it at the time. Oh, I should have said this." And oh, they're thinking about, "Okay, tomorrow at the gym, uh, I'm going to go from three sets of five to five sets of five, or maybe I'm just going to go up in my You see what I'm saying?" They're not there mentally. So, one thing that I've had to do with my phone specifically, because this thing never stops buzzing, right? Whether it's Instagram or text messages or emails or phone calls or group me or whatever the thing is, it's always buzzing. There's always somebody that needs something. So, what I do with this phone, when I'm done for the day in my studio, I set it down on the desk and I go and I go be with my family. Could be an hour, could be 3 hours, but after the boys get down for bed, right? If mom and I don't have anything to do, then I'll come back up and I'll get it. And here's the thing, no one was on fire during those couple of hours. No one was on fire so bad that I was the only person that could preserve their life and save them. Yes, I think if you're going to be a foxhole brother, you have to make sure that you're available in almost all circumstances, but your first ministry is to the people of your household. And if they can't even get your attention because you're so much in your phone, dude, I I know grow grown males in their 40s that are playing video games on their phone. Video games. Phone games. Their kids are growing up right in front of them, right? You can't get that time back, remember? and they're playing games on their phone. They're setting their fantasy football lineup. They're doing extra research to make sure that they've got their draft squared away for next year. So guys, the number eight way to avoid being a crappy man this year. If you're going to be present, just be present. All right, number nine. This is new for this year, say it with your chest. Say it with your chest. Here are some words that we need to get out of our vocabularies as men. should, could, would, might, maybe, kind of. Cuz here's the thing I'll get. I'll be like, "Hey man, uh, we're doing this thing something something blah blah blah. Details, details. Hey, it's Friday at 2 o'clock. Are you going to come?" "Oh, yeah, I should make it." "Oh, yeah, I could I could make that happen." Uh, oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe I'll be there. Here I am stuck with the same question. Because in all that meandering, at no point did you give me a coherent yes or no. Because if it's no, I can plan for that. And if it's yes, I can plan for that. But I should be able to doesn't answer that. Because inherent in your answer is that assuming there's not a tornado, assuming that my kids are not in the ER, assuming that I don't get mugged in my car jacked, I'll be there. So that's already baked into the cake. So just say with your chest, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Yes, I will be there at that time. Yes, I will take this job. Yes, I will help you with this project. Yes, I will make sure that they are there on time. Whatever the thing is, yes, no. Not maybe, not kind of, not sort of. Yes or no. So, the number nine way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, say it with your chest. All right. Number 10, don't let sports ruin your night. That's been on here every year, but I've added something, a new addition to the back end. Don't let sports ruin your night. And no Wii language. No Wii language. So, I throw myself under the bus every every year. This is not going to be any different. I've ruined a lot of nights for myself and a lot of family and a lot of friends because of my fandom for the St. Louis Cardinals. Became a St. Louis Cardinals fan when I was like 11 or 12 years old when Mark Magguire was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the St. Louis Cardinals. I had red hair, hit home runs. He had red hair, hit home runs. So, I had his nickname. I was a little Mac. He's big Mac. Okay, I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan. But my fandom for the St. Louis Cardinals into my late teens, early 20s was egregious and unhealthy. Okay, I remember a time when I went to this would have been oh [sighs] this would have been the 2011 World Series game two. Okay, Cardinals win game one. They lose game two in the ninth inning. Okay, blew a lead in the ninth inning. Jason M blew the save. I was staying at a friend's house that night that lived just outside of St. Louis. And I get to their house again. They've opened their home to my wife and I to not have to drive the seven or seven or so hours back to Oklahoma City from St. Louis. And I could barely speak. I could barely speak to my host family because I was so mad that my team lost a game. Now, the Cardinals ended up winning the World Series in seven games after a thrilling game six. But even if they hadn't, why did I treat those people that way? Why did I do that? Which leads to the second thing because I had no bearing on the outcome of that game because I don't get checks signed from the owners of the St. Louis Cardinals to me because I don't play for the team. So for a lot of you, your sports fandom has a lot to do with your identity. Okay? So I am still a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but I don't live and die with every pitch in every game anymore. In fact, if I'm watching a Cardinals game and I can feel myself really starting to care about the outcome, I just turn it off. And if I don't feel like I have the emotional maturity to watch a game without acting like a [ __ ] I just don't watch it. I check my phone at the end of the night. Oh, they won. Or, oh, they lost. Then I move on. Move on with my life. But when you say we, [clears throat] excuse me, when you say we all the time, yeah, we lost that game, we really got to get our defense in order, man. We really need a new offensive coordinator, man. We need to figure out who our fourth and fifth pitchers are going to be in the rotation, man. We this, we that. Guys, there is no we. You're not a part of the team. Now, if you are a player on a team, if you're on the coaching staff, if you're one of the trainers, yeah, it's we, right? We all win as a team. We all lose as a team. But for 99.9% of us, we're just fans. So, it doesn't matter what league, doesn't matter what team, it's not we. And guys, if you can't let sports just be sports and it not impact your attitude and how you act, then you just can't watch it. Like, and I'm not going to apologize for that. If you watch your favorite college football team lose on some random Saturday in October and you start kicking the dog and cussing and acting a fool, that's ridiculous. Like, what's wrong with you? But it's culturally acceptable. So, we just go along with it. And it's also generational. Cuz around here, you know, I've been at, you know, events where there's a bunch of U fans watching an OU game. Something goes wrong, bad call or something like that. Dad starts freaking out, cussing the refs, going nuts, whether it's live or watching on television, and then I watch their kids, five, six, seven year olds. They're downloading that into their memories. And they're going to do the exact same thing that dad does. Why? Because dad did it. So guys, if you can stop doing that, you're going to end some generational nonsense right there. So, the number 10 way to avoid being a crappy man, don't let sports ruin your night, along with the new addition, no we language. Hey guys, real quick. You've probably heard the phrase ignorance is bliss, right? Well, some of you are ignorant about where the beef that you buy at the grocery store comes from and what it took to get to you. So, that single package of grocery store ground beef can contain meat from over 100 different cows, sometimes from multiple countries. And if one of those cows was sick or mishandled in some way, it's mixed right into your dinner. So, most people don't realize that some ground beef at the store isn't just beef either. It's scraps and trimmings chemically treated with ammonia to kill bacteria and then blended into bulk up the weight of what you're buying. It's legal. It's cheap. And it's on the plates of Americans all over the country, usually without the customer ever knowing. So even if you buy what you think is a nice roast or steak, it's been passed from feed lot to processor to packaging plant handled by people who will never eat it and raised by farmers who will never see the end product. And in that journey, the cattle were likely fattened on hormone-packed feed, pumped full of antibiotics just to survive cramped feed lock conditions, and processed alongside meat from hundreds of other animals. And by the time it hits your grill, you don't know whose cow it was, what it was fed, or what's actually in it. I don't want you or your family eating lowquality, jacked up beef. That's why I want you to use the official beef delivery partner of Undaunted Life, Primal Beef. So, Primal Beef is a cattle operation owned and operated by Shawn Glass. He's a retired Navy Seal that partnered with Jaco Willing to launch Primal Beef. So, what makes Primal Beef different from other beef delivery companies? It's a combo of the following. All American Black Angus cattle. And the beef comes from one farm and that's in Virginia, Shannondoa Valley. The beef is all natural. No hormones ever, no ma ever. And after slaughter, the entire carcass is dry-aged, then hand cut by artisan butchers, and then flash frozen to ensure that it maintains tenderness, marbling, and flavor. And here's another cool thing. For every box sold, Primal Beef donates meat directly to a member of America's special operations forces through the C4 Foundation. So, you can take pride in knowing that your purchase will help put literal food on the table for America's finest warriors. If you're still on the fence, it's probably because you've been eating too much soy, drying your emote tears with your bangs, and you've forgotten what real food tastes like. Primal Beef can help with that. Try Primal Beef out today by going to primalbeef.com. That's primalbeef.com. Use the promo code kyle to get 25 bucks off your first order. Again, that's primalbeef.com. Promo code kyle to get $25 off your first order. All right, here's a new one for this year. Number 11, pray over your family. So, one of the big things that I've told guys that has made such a huge impact, this is through my Dominion coaching program, but also just in general, we've all heard pray for your family, right? So, you're praying for your family when they're not there. And we have all heard pray with your family before dinner, for a road trip, whatever. But how about praying over your family? Because there's a big difference when I grab my wife's hand in the morning. I say, "How can I pray for you?" And then she tells me the things that are on her mind or what I can pray for. And sometimes she doesn't have anything front of mind. But I just pray over my wife. I pray life into her. This is huge with my boys. When I pray over James and Eli that are five and three years old right now, I'm saying, "God, thank you so much for letting James and Eli be my sons. Thank you so much for me being their daddy. I just pray that they would grow up to be courageous, godly smart courageous meek tender men. They're hearing this, guys. So, as I give them lessons throughout the years, right, as we do their rights of passage, they're going to be able to attach to an identity that has come through prayer. Okay? So, this is pretty straightforward, guys. If you're not praying at all, you got to pray. If you're praying with your family, great. If you're praying for your family, great. But if you're praying over your family, fantastic. So, the number 11 thing you could do this year to avoid being a crappy man, pray over your family. Number 12, this one's pretty simple, pretty straightforward, not a whole lot of nuance. No porn, no jerking off. Okay. The number of guys, and it's going to happen again this year, that, and we'll get into this later, struggle with porn. I just can't stop looking at porn. I just can't. Whatever. Whatever. You don't have a porn problem, bro. You have a masturbation problem. Okay? Because I have not met the human. They might exist, but I've not met the human that watches pornography and does not use it as a masturbatory aid. Does that person exist? Because I don't think they exist. Why do we watch porn? Doesn't matter what kind. Why do we watch porn? Is so that we can give ourselves an erection, keep an erection long enough for us to masturbate and then climax. Okay? So, if you take masturbation off the board, there's no need for porn. Boom. You just solved your porn problem, right? Now, it actually goes way deeper than that. There's a self soothing aspect to that. There's It just goes all the way back to sin nature, right? But for a lot of you guys this year, you're, oh, I'm going to get the account accountability group this year. Okay, I'm not anti-account accountability group. I'm going to get the software this year. I'm not anti that either. I've got software and you know it's kind of worthless because you know it hasn't pinged because I haven't you know looked at pornography and masserate in like 16 years and so like you know I my my accountability partners get no emails right from the software because I just don't view that stuff anymore. But if that's all you're doing is getting the accountability doing all those things without making the decision pre-deciding that you're not going to do that stuff anymore it doesn't really matter. I remember being in a group years ago when I was trying to kick the porn habit early in my marriage. So this is 16 17 years ago. I I was in this group and this guy this guy would go and he's like well hi you know I went two days without looking at porn and then you know I fell off the wagon and I sinned and blah blah blah and then the leader of the group's like man well last week it was just you went one day in a row. Well so you've doubled it. You've done two. Let's see if we can get three days in a row this time. And I'm like are these dudes for real? Is this what we're doing? Are we setting the bar that low? Because when guys come to me and they're like, "Man, you know, it's been it's been a week and I just I can feel the pull of porn." I was like, "Okay, but just but you just don't do that anymore." They look at me like, "Well, what do you mean?" I'm like, "Well, yeah, just just don't just don't jerk off anymore and then you won't jerk off anymore." And then if you do that, then you won't be looking at porn and so you don't have to worry about your wife finding your porn stash or, you know, the things on your phone and the apps and all the stuff. And then so that's just done. That's just gone part of your past. and it's like mind-blowing to them. But you just have to precide. More on that later. Uh more on that here in a second, actually. But the number 12 thing that you can do to avoid being a crappy man this year, no porn, no jerking off. Let's get right into number 13. Practice predecision. There are so many people that wait until the moment of decision to decide. Like how that doesn't make any sense. Let me give you an example. Pornography and masturbation. As soon as I'm done with this call or this call, as soon as I'm done with this podcast, there's no one in my house. So, if I wanted to throw my hand in my pants and pull out my phone and look at pornography and masturbate, I could. But I pre-decided about 16 years ago that I don't do that anymore. I'm not a person who masturbates and so I don't need to look at pornography. Predecide. I'm not waiting till the moment of temptation like, "Oh, the the house is empty. No one's here. No one will ever know. Oh, I can delete my history because we all know how to get around our filters, by the way. It's like the easiest thing in the world. Like, you can trick your accountability partners or just lie to them, right? But I pre-decided that I'm not going to do that. The same thing happens for exercise. So, I know that tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and lift weights. Assuming that there's not a house fire or that my leg doesn't fall off in bed or whatever, I'm going to go and lift. Well, how do I know that? Well, because I I already decided because I want to be physically strong. I want to be physically resilient. I have to lift weights in order to do that. And so that's just what I'm going to do. So there's no decision making that's happening tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off. When the alarm goes off, I turn the alarm off. I've pre-decided that I'm not going to hit snooze. And then I'm going to go get my stuff on, walk out into the garage, and I'm going to go lift. And it makes life so much easier. So, in the morning when I'm in my warm bed and I don't want to get in the cold garage that okay, well, it doesn't matter because I've already decided that's what I'm going to do, right? And you can apply this to your marriage. You can apply this to your friend group. You can apply this to your jiu-jitsu gym. You can apply this to your own personal study. You can apply this to any place in your life where you need discipline over motivation. So, if you want to get better at that, just preddecide. So, the number 13 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, practice preddecision. All right, number 14, another new one. No more of the everyone makes mistakes attitude. Okay, I'm very specific in my wording there because does everyone make mistakes? Yes. But there's another word that I think people are actually meaning, but they don't want to say because it sounds icky and scary, and that's sin. Everyone sins because this is a mistake. I was supposed to turn left at the light. Uh but I got distracted and I turned right instead. That's a mistake. That's not a sin, right? I didn't do that on purpose. It was just a mistake. But we're not just a bunch of mistakers walking around. We're sinners. We lie to people. We hate them in our heart. We do violence to them either physically in person or in our hearts. Right? We're adulterers. Some of us with our physical bodies and some of us just by lusting after another woman, right? Are those just mistakes? Ah, you know, everyone makes mistakes. I've heard it said before because I was talking to this person where the husband and wife situation, there was an affair and one of the family members involved told the person, they're like, "Uh, yep. You know, everyone makes mistakes." It's like, I'm sorry, makes mistakes. This [clears throat] guy hid an affair. He had a complete separate sexual life with a person. Like he he told this woman that he loved her. Like that that was just a mistake. He didn't trip and fall on the curb cuz he didn't step high enough. This is deep-seated sin nature. So significant that it ended his covenant of marriage. What are you talking about? And so part of this is because we have this kind of casual attitude about mistakes that are actually sins. And Christians have bought into the lie as well. Oh, you know, everyone makes mistakes. No, we need to hold ourselves and our brothers and sisters to a much higher standard, especially as it pertains to our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with our neighbors. But when we look at sin so flippantly as to call it mistakes to to miscatategorize it, that's deeply problematic and we shouldn't do it. So, the number 14 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, no more of the everyone makes mistakes attitude. All right, number 15. No more I struggle with blank language. I struggle with insert. I struggle with porn. I struggle with my weight. I struggle with communicating nicely to my wife. Okay. The thing is, if you struggled more with whatever the thing is, you'd be further along, wouldn't you? So, I tell guys that want to be where I am. you know, we're working on decades of of no porn, no masturbation, that kind of thing. As I was, they're like, "Oh, I'm struggling with with porn and all that." I'm like, "No, you're not. You're allowing it to control you. You're not struggling against it. Let's look at your physical fitness. You're 50 lbs overweight. You're sloppy, right? You know, you need to just kind of, you know, get in shape. I'm really struggling with staying in shape." No, you're not. You're not waking up earlier so that you can get to the gym so you can do more. you didn't hire a trainer, uh, which is going to cost you money, right, to to give you some more things to help you to make sure you're not going to hurt yourself doing these things, right? You're you're not paying attention to what you put into your body. You're not being disciplined with the hours which you eat and the things specifically that you're eating. You're not tracking macros. You're not doing anything. You're not struggling at all. You're just kind of like amiebaing your way through like just kind of existing. So when you allow yourself to talk in this way, you will start to buy into your own BS. You'll start to get high on your own farts. Oh, I struggle with this. No, you just haven't taken it captive yet. You haven't taken your thoughts captive. 2 Corinthians 10:5. You haven't taken your physical fitness captive. You haven't gotten a plan together for how you're going to save your marriage, for how you're going to reconnect with that child, for how you're going to make this quarter way better than the last two. You haven't figured it out because you're not struggling. So, the number 15 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, no more I struggle with blank language. All right, number 16. We got a new one here. Work on go muscles, not show muscles. Okay, if I go back to when I was a little kid, I was a big WWF fan at the time. Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior. Love these guys. All of them were jacked. All of them were on roids, but they were jacked. I didn't know what roids were when I was like seven. And I thought, cuz I was a dumb little kid, that when you got muscles, you just got to keep them, right? I didn't know that you had to work your way to get those muscles and then, you know, maintain them or continue to get bigger or whatever. And so when I started lifting on my own, the first thing I did when I got my first paycheck from Outback Steakhouse in Lton, Oklahoma when I was 16 years old, I went to Gold's Gym. I had a talk with the manager. I guess I kind of had a sales uh you know, my own sales way of doing things. I couldn't afford the membership because I was just a bus boy. So I said, "Hey, can I pay this much and train here? I really would like to train here." They're like, "Yeah, we can do that." And so what did I do? bench press, bicep curls, tricep extensions, calf raises, right? Were those things valuable? Well, sure, right? Your muscles get a little bit bigger, you get a little bit of a pump, you get to feel good. But those were show muscles. That helps you look better in, you know, board shorts and a tank top. But they didn't make me stronger. I remember this uh buddy of mine, Brandon, in high school, he said something to me. It was really offensive to to my 17-year-old ears, but he's like, "Yeah, you're big, but you're not strong." And I was like, you you don't know me. I got all offended, but my god, he was right. Brandon was right. I was physically bigger than a lot of the people around me, but there were people that were physically smaller than me that were physically stronger than I was. And so, for some of you, you don't you're not a professional lifter. You don't get four hours a day over two training sessions to lift and all that. You're not going to compete in Mr. Olympia or even a local bodybuilding contest. And so with that in mind, why are you wasting so much time doing show muscle stuff? Why are you doing so many bicep curls, right? Why are you doing so many tricep extensions? I know it it's fun to have big arms and all that and you look good in your T-shirts, but if you've only got a limited amount of time, you [clears throat] have to work on your whole body. So you don't like doing cardio, okay? No one likes to do cardio, but you do it so that you can be cardiovascularly strong. Some of you don't like lifting, right? The process of hypertrophy drives you nuts, right? It's uncomfortable, okay? But the value you get from three sets of deadlift versus three sets of bicep curls is substantially different because with deadlift, I'm working my entire posterior chain. I'm basically working from the back of my head to the backs of my heels with one lift. And so, if I'm trying to squeeze the most amount of impact because I only lift three days a week, right? that that's all I get and I have a home gym, right? So, you have to maximize what you're doing. So, show muscles are great, but it's deadlift, squat, bench, and overhead. If you can only do a handful of things in a week, those are the things you focus on. That's going to give you the most bang for your buck. And that's also going to help you in other areas of life, right? We're seeing more and more research coming out about powerlifting, right? and focusing on muscle hypertrophy being best for your overall longevity as a human being, right? So, bicep curls and calf raises are not going to make sure that you can get on and off the toilet when you're 80 years old. Okay? And so, those things might be fun, but maximize the things that are actually going to work for you, that are going to help your jiu-jitsu, that are going to help your slow pitch softball, whatever the thing it is that you're into. So, the number 16 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026. Work on your go muscles, not show muscles. All right. Number 17, don't celebrate people that take short shortcuts. Don't celebrate people that take shortcuts. This actually applies to the last one because we live in an era where if you're not getting jacked fast enough, we'll just inject some experimental peptide into your system. Inject some antibiotic, no anabolic rather, into your system. You'll get bigger faster. Now, your heart might explode, but hey, you'll be jacked in your coffin, right? And here's the other thing that I've seen, okay? We live in, you know, the era of Mjaro and Ozimpic and all those types of things. And so, you see these people, men and women, that are significantly overweight and then a few months goes by and they're skinny and it's like, whoa, whoa, look at them. Now, a lot of them look like a melted candle. That's kind of your first giveaway because you're not just losing fat. You're losing like muscle, connective tissue, and all that. So, they just kind of look skinny fat. And, you know, from a plumbing perspective, they are skinny fat. But then I see these people go like, "Oh my gosh, girl, you look so good. You couldn't wear that dress 3 months ago. Now look at you." And we're just celebrating these people. It's like, celebrating what? What did they do other than pay for the monthly subscription? I mean, they didn't prescribe it to themselves. They didn't develop the technology that developed the medication. They just paid for it. And look, guys, there's no free lunch. No pun intended. With, you know, people that are overweight, there's no free lunch. You know, the the in the history of class action lawsuits, the fastest class action lawsuit that came after a product went to market is with what is it? GLP ones, right? With those impact, major, those types of things. Fastest one ever. Well, how'd that happen? Because a bunch of people are like, "Oh, I don't have to work hard and diet to be skinny. This is perfect. Oops, gastrointestinal issues. Oops, cancer issues. Oops, other side effects that may occur. Well, shoot. I guess there is no free lunch. I guess I'm going to have to move more and eat less. I guess if I want to have the body when I look in the mirror that I want to see, gosh darn, I'm actually going to have to work at it. I'm actually going to have to sacrifice. I'm actually going to have to delay gratification. One of the ways that we can help these people do that is to not celebrate them for taking the shortcut. Because, you know, some of them you you can't really tell if they did that on their own or they took medicine. But for a lot of people, it's completely obvious. They've changed nothing about their life. They're just jabbing some medicine into their abdom abdomen at, you know, different rates throughout the week and month. Okay. So, one thing that we can do to avoid being a crappy man in 2026 is to not celebrate people that take shortcuts. All right. Number 18, think in black and white terms. So, one of my least favorite words in the entire English lexicon is nuance. Now, there are times when that is appropriate. There are times when we need to take a nuance perspective, when there is gray area. Most of the time though, we need to be operating in the terms of black and white because let me ask you this. Can you find actual capital T truth in the gray areas? Can you? What about all these third wayers? These third way Christians, these, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not liberal and I'm not progressive. I'm the third way or sorry, I'm not, you know, liberal or conservative. I'm the third way, right? I'm not Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I'm third way somehow, right? Well, the example I always use is what is the third way on abortion? You know what the third way on abortion sounds like? Yeah, those are image bearsers of God in the womb, but they're kind of big cuz they're in the third trimester, so that seems kind of icky, so we shouldn't kill them. But yeah, first semester and into the second or second first trimester, second trimester. Yeah, that actually kind of makes sense cuz they don't really look too much like a human that much yet. Uh, so I guess that's fine. Well, you know, if if the mom was raped or there was incest, then I guess it's okay to kill that baby because as we all know, a murder makes a rape go away. That's what third way sounds like. And we need to stop thinking in those terms, especially when it comes to the things morality. They either are moral or they are not. We either should advocate for the killing of the unborn or we should advocate against it. It's either morally neutral for a child to be given puberty blockers and to have their healthy bodily tissue cut off or added to or it's horrible macob and evil in addition to being immoral. Okay? Now, you might be thinking, "Well, Kyle, not everything in this world is black and white." Yes, I've already elucidated that by saying there are times when nuance is realistic. But most of you don't ever go to the areas of black and white because you go back to earlier. You're just too concerned with being nice. You just want to be nice to people. You don't want to say, "Yeah, that's wrong." Because sometimes you need to be judgmental. Because in order to make decisions, you have to judge. You have to discern this over that. And yet, when we're making philosophical declarations or moral declarations, we get really uncomfortable with black and white. And so, if you want to be a better man this year though, number 18 way, think in black and white terms. All right, a couple more left. Number 19, be extra nice to support staff and service providers and make sure to say thank you. Okay, so one thing that I think all of us have noticed this even happening to me in Oklahoma where everyone's polite support staff, people that work at restaurants, how many of these people don't know how to talk to you? They don't know how to be polite. They they have people all day that don't talk to them nicely or politely, right? They don't treat them as if they're valuable. They've lost the ability to say please and thank you. I've talked about this before on the show. I was at a 7-Eleven convenience store and I put whatever I was buying up on the counter and I go, "Hey, how you doing today?" And the lady goes, she didn't even say words. She made a noise. And I was like, "Okay, that was weird." Rings me up. I pay. All right. Have a great day. What? What are you? ogre. Like, what are you doing? This person had no ability to make eye contact to to be nice, to be polite. I think part of it is is because we as a society, as an overall culture, have stopped putting a premium on being nice to people, right? And so, you might think, well, isn't that what you said we shouldn't do earlier? No. If that becomes your overriding worldview over everything else to be nice, that's problematic. I'm talking about in your daily interactions with strangers, right? So, when the the server comes to the table, you make eye contact. Hey, thank you. What's your name? Oh, Johnny. Okay, Johnny. Great to meet you. Uh, yeah, thanks for taking care of us. I'll have a water, no lemon, please. What did that take from you? Nothing. Okay. And this leads to the thing that I've tried to get a lot of you guys to do, and a lot of you started to do it. If you want to get more prayer and more of a godly focus in your life, the next time you sit down at a restaurant, okay, the server comes to your table, she sets down or he sets down all of your food in front of you. And then what do they do? All every time they say, "Is there anything else I can get you? Is there anything else I can do for you?" And this is your answer. You can take it verbatim. Yes, actually, we're about to bless our meal. How can we be praying for you? Yes. I need something else. Here's what we're about to do and I want to include you in it. You know what you're saying in that moment? I see you, Johnny. I see you. I remembered your name. You're valuable. We're about to pray to the God of the universe who created all of us, including you. And we know there's something that you need prayer for, whether you've thought about or not before that moment. And most of [clears throat] them don't. They're usually pretty shocked by that question. But you know how my they almost always respond. Well, yeah, actually there's there's this thing I' I' I've been worried about or well actually my neighbors been really struggling or they they have something. Now, from time to time, people are like, "Oh, I know that's weird." And you know, you're going to get that response, but you're just throwing a little wrench in the equation because this is what they expected you to say, especially you're in Oklahoma. Hey, is there anything else I can get you? Yeah. a ranch, please. So, they were expecting that. They weren't expecting prayer. And so, you know what I've done? I did it this week at a lunch. I was at lunch with three other guys. There was a gal. I asked her if we could pray for her. [sighs] She kind of, oh, oh, wow. Uh, yeah, actually. And she told us what she was worried about. And then I said this, you can take this verbatim. Hey, whatever your name is, Heather. Hey, Heather. Um, I'm not a long- winded prayer, so if you want to hang out for just a second, I can pray over all of us. And you know what they do? They stay while you pray. Maybe they feel obligated to do so, but a lot of them actually want to stay and do that. Sometimes we all grab hands. Sometimes I just pray in and out of that prayer in less than 10 seconds. I repeat back exactly what the server just said. And you know what I've done for them? I've helped speak and bring life into that person. Not to make me feel good. I can leave them a nice tip and make them feel good, but it's saying, "Look, I see you. You're valuable. Jesus loves you. God loves you. God sent Jesus here to die for you so that you would have a chance to put your faith in him so that you could be justified before holy and righteous father right now. You're not saying that every time, but you're doing the work of ministry. So, if you want something to focus on, that's an easy one that you can do several times a week. So, number 19 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026. Be extra nice to support staff and service providers and make sure to say thank you. All right, but here we are at the end. Number 20, and we're ending with a new one after we started with a new one. The number 20 way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026. Touch grass. Dutch just touch some grass. If you don't get the slang or or the colloquialism, the real world doesn't just exist on social media. Okay? I've talked to friends who they spend 30 minutes, an hour on on Twitter and then they're ready to go to war with whatever side they disagree with or whatever and they just can't believe the evil in the world and all that. And we should be aware of those things, guys. But go out and touch some grass. Put your phone down. Go to the woods, right? Hug your wife. Hug your kids. Go for a walk. Realize that the world is existing exactly where you are. So, I forget who said it, but they made me think about this. Think about your great-grandparent, right? So early 20th century, this was the size of their world. It was where they lived certainly. But in terms of media, they maybe had a weekly local newspaper. They had the local, you know, barber shop or five and dime or something like that where, you know, people would kind of chat about what was going on. And then they had the local radio station. That was it. That was their entire world. They weren't burdened with the problems of people half a world away. And look, there's a ton of power in this phone. Basically, the entirety of human history I can access with the right prompt into chat GBT, right? So that there are some certain positives to that. But when your entire world is digital, it's in your video game profile, it's in your avatar on whatever social media site, it's in your algorithm, then you lose sight of the things that actually matter. You can't name your local mayor. And yet you are just sure that the Democrats are trying to destroy the country. Okay. Well, they might do that, but the immediate impact of your mayor, your sheriff, your local dog catcher is so much more significant than the balance of power in Congress. It impacts you, but not as readily and not as locally. Okay, so my last encouragement to you guys, and these should all feel like encouragements for the most part, and the 20th way to avoid being a crappy man in 2026, touch grass. So, that is the list. I'll go ahead and repeat it again here. Hold your sources for truth to a high evidentiary standard. Two, don't pretend that you know something that you don't. Three, prepare yourself for violence. Four, don't be late. Five, don't let being nice get in the way of doing the right thing. Six, start a gratitude list. Seven, consume the Bible every day. Eight, if you're going to be present, be present. Nine, say it with your chest. 10, don't let sports ruin your night in no we language. Number 11, pray over your family. Number 11, no porn, no jerking off. Number 13, practice predecision. Number 14, no more of the everyone makes mistakes attitude. Number 15, no more I struggle with blank language. Number 16, work on go muscles, not show muscles. 17, don't celebrate people that take shortcuts. 18. Think in black and white terms. 19. be extra nice to support staff and service providers and make sure to say thank you and 20 touch grass. Guys, we really appreciate it. Before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, a few links for you today. I've got a link to our donation page. Again, we would love for you guys to hop on board, be a donor, undaunted.life/donate. Also, our Dominion coaching program. We've got our team set for these next six months, this session, but we do have a wait list open. undaunted.life/dominion. Also, the Logos Bible Software, best Bible software on the planet. Don't use it at full price. Use it at a discount. And then also the 31-day resilience reset. Make sure you go to our website. Is a completely free resource. undaunted.life/31day. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undantton.life. That's info@undanton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undauntton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [music]