179: Lucas Krump: Men's Fight for Freedom!

🎙 Episode Summary:
In this raw and powerful episode of the Fire Forged Leader Podcast, host Steve Baumgartner sits down with Lucas Krump, co-founder of Everyman—a movement dedicated to helping men live more connected, purpose-driven lives. Together, they dive deep into what it means to be a man in today’s world, why traditional self-help often fails, and how to break free from societal boxes to live with clarity, integrity, and agency.

Lucas shares his personal journey—from external success and internal emptiness to co-founding Everyman and learning how to live with emotional honesty and masculine authenticity. You’ll hear about the PEERS model, the trap of comparison culture, and why the most powerful transformation starts with radical self-auditing.

Whether you’re a father, husband, entrepreneur, or simply a man ready to live with more purpose, this conversation will challenge you, inspire you, and equip you with the mindset to take the next step in your evolution.

🔑 Topics Covered:
Why “defining masculinity” is the wrong question
How freedom and choice define modern manhood
The PEERS model (Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, Relational, Spiritual)
Why most men avoid the one thing they truly need
The trap of “running someone else’s playbook”
Emotional vulnerability as a strength
Agency, ownership, and becoming the man you were designed to be

💥 Notable Quotes:
"Every man gets to define what it means to be a man for himself." – Lucas Krump
"Don’t be upset with the choice. You made the choice." – Lucas Krump
"Self-help doesn’t work when it’s someone else’s playbook." – Steve Baumgartner
"You can’t serve at a high level if you’re not putting your own oxygen mask on first." – Steve Baumgartner

🔗 Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about Everyman: https://everyman.com

👊 Ready to Become the Leader You Were Forged to Be?
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⚔️ Join the Knights Order Brotherhood – daily accountability, weekly growth, and lifelong brotherhood for men ready to live by values.
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🧠 Leave a Legacy. Forge Your Future.
Subscribe, rate, and share this episode with the men in your life who are ready to lead boldly—with honor, clarity, and courage. Every man has a choice. What’s yours?

#masculinity #menscoaching #lucaskrump #everyman #mensmentalhealth #leadershippodcast #fireforgedleader #knightsorder #personaldevelopmentformen

Transcript

Lucas Krump (00:00)
Because you're making the choice, that's my point. No problem. Like, if that's the choice that you've made, then be okay with the choice. Don't be upset with the choice. Because you made the choice.

Speaker 3 (00:02)
Right.

I like that. You know, there's so many times men get stuck at that point, whether it's a midlife crisis or they feel like this whole overwhelming sensation of life, the economy turns, but this is a choice. And you can choose to stop doing that today and do something tomorrow. Right. Every bit of it is within your control.

Lucas Krump (00:32)
You know, I just think that's one of the most beautiful things about being human, right? And part of our struggle as humans is sometimes we get too attached to the outcome.

Narrator (00:44)
Leaders are not born in a womb. They're forged through heat, pressure, and a whole lot of sweat. The Fire Forge Leader podcast serves the audience through exploring leadership at work, in the community, and with the family, using the practical perspective and real life experiences from the host, Steve Baumgartner, and his guests in the Forge.

Now it's time to enter the forge with the Fireforged Leader.

Speaker 3 (01:18)
Welcome everybody back to the Fire Forge Leader podcast. Today we have an awesome guest by the name of Lucas Crump. I'm not going to go into a lot of details because I really want to have him take us down the journey of who he is. Welcome on to the show, man. I appreciate you coming. For those of us who don't really know you or Everyman, the organization that you co-founded, correct? Correct. Can you just kind of give us the work that you do and

Lucas Krump (01:34)
Hey Steve, good to be here, man.

Speaker 3 (01:47)
Who do you do it for primer?

Lucas Krump (01:49)
I'll try to answer that in the shortest way possible. ⁓ Well, the mission of every man is to empower men to live healthy, happy, more connected lives. And there's a lot of different ways that we do that. You know, and I'll, can talk about our various programs and everything else that we, that we offer. You know, who do we do it for? You know, I think we do it for guys, but as any man would know, ultimately his selfish motivations have

the ability to impact many, many people beyond himself. And so I'd like to think that we do it for the world, for our communities, our sons and daughters and for our wives and partners and all the people that we as men love and cherish. Oftentimes in order to be the best version of yourself for somebody else, you have to be the best version of yourself for yourself. ⁓

You know, I know that's why ultimately I got into this work and selfishly it's why I co-founded Everyman because quite frankly, I needed to do the work myself. And then I knew that, you know, if I started, if I contributed to Everyman, it would hold me accountable to my own growth. And so, you know, I'm, I'm sitting in front of you today. I mean, yes, as an individual that, ⁓

you know, has contributed to what every man is today. But I've also been a participant. I've also been through my own journey and I've done all the programs and offerings and all the work. like selfishly, like I've benefited the most. Now it's incredibly humbling to know that so many thousands of guys have also benefited from my selfishness, but I'd be remiss if I didn't just out myself from the get go.

Speaker 3 (03:38)
I totally agree. It's so cliche, you know, the whole putting on your own oxygen mask before you can actually help others. It is so true. I have that argument with my wife all the time, you know, because she's all about service. I'm like, think you got to take care of yourself a little bit in the middle, right? Otherwise you can't serve at a high level. So it's interesting because I wanted to ask you to, know, being in the space where we work with men,

that there's, we got so much culture out there, so much misinformation flying around, for lack of better words. What's something after doing this for a while that really people misunderstand about the mission of every man?

Lucas Krump (04:16)
You know, I always joke, somehow, you know, probably the media more than anything has kind of taken what we do and somehow turned us into a masculinity organization. Every man is not a masculinity organization. We don't have a definition of what it means to be a man. And if we did, it'd be very arrogant to think that my definition of masculinity is the definition that you need to, you know, ascribe to, if you will. I believe that.

Every man gets to define what it means to be a man for himself. And that's sovereign to him. You know, obviously the work that we do at Everyman and the space that we have allows men to explore that and come up with their own definition. But I only know what it means to be a man in the context of my life. And so when people ask me, what does it mean to be a Like, I don't know, I can just share my own experience. I think the other thing that I would say to that is men don't wake up in the morning and look at the mirror and go.

What does it mean to be a man or what's my definition of masculinity? I just, I don't, I don't, you know, we've been sold some sort of crisis of masculinity as if men are having this sort of internal debate every day. I don't think that's happening. What I do think is happening is men are trying to be all the parts of themselves that are real and true for themselves. Inside the box that they've been given as a man, you know, and,

I just fundamentally believe that men have so much more range, right, of who they are than this sort of singular definition or box that we've been put into.

Speaker 3 (05:55)
Yeah, that's interesting. Something came to mind while you were going through that. We talked about other organizations that I've been a part of, and I'm not going to name those here, but there was a time when I was working with men to create visions for themselves within one of these organizations. And we had a very block and tackle way of going about that. Yeah. And I go to get on a call with this guy to, you know, listen to his vision out loud and, you know, just go through the motions of, you know, working through that.

vision building. And he goes, Steve, can't tell you my or I can't read you my vision, he said. So what do you mean? You can't read your vision. He goes, well, it's not in written form. Like, okay, what form is it? And he goes, I made a painting. And he turns on his video camera and turns it around. And it was this painting and you could tell that it was him and his wife sitting in front of some European

little cafe mountains in the background, you know. I mean, just one of the most beautiful pieces of artwork you'd ever see. And, you know, for us, we had defined vision as an SOP. defined it as something he could truly see as far as artwork. So that really rang when you were talking about that.

Lucas Krump (07:05)
Well, in a piece that I would say to that, and you know, it's been almost 10 years working with men and also I know myself, men have very, very strong tendency to rebel against rules and structure. Right. And so when we try to put men in a box or have us follow a, know, a prescribed set of SOPs, that's fine and it may work. But what the breakdown occur when that

sort of definition or way of being is not embodied. So when you're trying to run somebody, I mean, that's why self-help doesn't really work because guys are trying to run somebody else's playbook in their own life. And you can do that for a period of time, but if it's not yours and you don't embody it, eventually you're going to go the other direction. You're just going to say, fuck it and do something else. You know? And so I think it's very important to sort of...

to understand that aspect of because we are rule breakers. We do rebel. We like to create and define what's real for us with our hands, not somebody else's.

Speaker 3 (08:10)
I like that. So it does bring a huge question to mind though on how do you run your programs with having that sort of mindset that you can't put men in a box? Is there a framework? Is there a standard?

Lucas Krump (08:25)
Yeah, there's definitely a model we believe in. have a model that we call the peers model, physical, intellectual, emotional, mental, and, relational and spiritual, excuse me. You know, if you, if you think about it, that encompasses our being, right? We have our physical self, we have our intellectual self, we have our emotional self, we have our relational self and we have our spiritual self, right? And we have a need to, I say, I could say fill out.

all of those kinds of pillars, right? On some level. And so we encourage guys to obviously think about the peers model and we provide a framework that allows guys to define what their relational self is or their emotional self is or their spiritual self is or their physical self or their intellectual self. And I think what's important about that is we encourage guys to define it for themselves, not in relation to another man.

Because if we're comparing ourselves to another man, well, every man has an entirely different set of circumstances. You know, like I love these guys that, know, they, these like Instagram superheroes, right? These guys are like, I woke up at four in the morning and cold plunged and lifted thousand pounds. And then I, you know, my kid to school and had sex with my wife and, know, did all this other stuff and it's only seven 30. It's like, well, that's great. But you have to understand that that's that guy's job, his job.

is to produce content and make you feel that way and make you feel less than so that you buy into his vision of his reality. And I just, I just don't, I don't think that helps anybody. mean, maybe it's inspiration and I'm certainly not knocking anybody that does that, but you know, we're of the mind that you need to find what, what's, you know, your benchmarks for you.

Speaker 3 (10:16)
And I like that because there's there's a saying that I've used with a couple bosses in my past, you know my rule breaking you can tell me what to do or how to do it, but damn sure don't tell me both

Lucas Krump (10:27)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's so true, you know, and so I think it's important for this work because this, you know, this sort of militant style, extreme structure, you know, I'm not saying that those programs or those offerings are bad, you know, they certainly are helpful for certain people.

To me, that's kind of the basic blocking and tackling, right? It's like, how do you, know, Jordan Peterson is like, ⁓ get up and make your bed. Well, yeah, that's like the basics, man. But after you do the basics, then who are you? Go and define that for yourself and be that person in your life and do that based on what you want, what you feel, what you believe to be true, who you are based on your circumstances and don't compare yourself to anybody else, you know?

Speaker 3 (10:58)
Brush your teeth.

I think that's an important question that you just said in the middle of that too. Who are you? Right? When you look at some of those Instagram people, they're cut 30 pounds in 90 days. Okay. Now what? Yeah. Right. That doesn't define who you are. That's what you look like. Sure. And I mean, you can't change this either, but

Lucas Krump (11:35)
You can't change this, like, you know, you can change your relationship with this, right? You can change what you think of yourself and what your values are and what you, you know, I always say that, you know, what people do when nobody's looking is what defines who they are and what their character is. You know, I also subscribe to, there's a, think it's Socrates said, you know, an unaudited life is an unfulfilled life. And I do believe that part of being a man.

is being able to not turn your attention towards others, but actually turn your attention inwards and look at your life and the parts of your life with a tremendous amount of scrutiny. Right? Like, am I willing to look at my shadows? Am I willing to look at my ego? Am I willing to look at my behavior? Am I willing to accept the way my way of being may have impacted others?

Like that's only, you know, knowing thyself because at the end of the day, and I work with a lot of like startup founders and you know, early stage entrepreneurs. And I always tell them like, I don't care why you want to build this company. I really don't. And you'll probably tell me that it's because you want to do this or you want to fulfill some big social mission or whatever. And that's all well and good. But then I always ask them, but no, why do you really want to do this? You know?

And I don't care what their answer is. Maybe it's because, you know, they want to make their mom happy or they want to like get back at their third grade girlfriend, or maybe they just want to make a lot of money. And I'm like, dude, I don't give a fuck what it is, but you better know why you do this. Because the journey of building something will get so incredibly hard that if you are holding on to a false belief, you will break under pressure. And I believe that to be true about living your own life. Like who are you?

What matters? Now, why are you doing the things that you're doing? I see a lot of guys doing a lot of things and they don't really know why they're doing it.

Speaker 3 (13:31)
That's interesting because there's a dichotomy in what you just said as well, because even if he's doing it for his mother, there's a belief system there that as he does the work, it's probably going to break. Correct.

Lucas Krump (13:46)
Correct. But at least knowing that, right? Being able to look in that and be like, wow, my behaviors or my actions are being fueled by an unconscious desire to make my mom happy. Okay, great, let's start there. Let's unpack that. Why do you want to make your mom happy? What happened? What didn't you say or what does she need to hear? And again, it's that idea that, okay, at least I'm being honest with myself.

Speaker 3 (14:15)
I like that and then you bring the audit back into it. It's not a one and done, right? I can't imagine.

Lucas Krump (14:21)
Never,

never, never, never.

Speaker 3 (14:24)
So then, you know, when you get to that point, okay, what's next? You have a direction you can point after that. I like that.

Lucas Krump (14:30)
Well, and I think that direction starts with saying then, okay, who do I want to become? Or who do I want to be? Or when do I feel most like myself? Or when do I feel most alive? Right? I think one thing that a lot of men neglect is our own innate desire to be free. And I see a lot of guys putting themselves into situations that actually limits their freedom. And that could go so far as to saying, you know, you've got this job and, you know, then you...

got a mortgage and the mortgage depends on the job. And so now you're not free. Now you're stuck to a certain degree, you know, and that's no judgment over that. But you know, what I, again, what I encourage guys to do is like, well, what, what are, what's important to you? If freedom isn't that important to you, well then fine, go and do that. And I understand why you have to do it. And I recognize that you have to do it and you, want to provide for your family and everything else. And I respect the hell out of that, but then don't be upset when that's what you have to do.

Because I believe that agency is so important. Now, you know, now more than ever, I guess. And you know, I define agency by saying, hey, where I am in life, what I have in life, who I'm with in life, it's all a function of the choices that I've made consciously or unconsciously. And I am the sole master of my destination or my life. And so I have to take responsibility for that.

Speaker 3 (15:56)
Yeah, I like that in that decision, you know, if you have a mortgage and car payment, you know, family to provide for, it's still freedom because you're making a choice.

Lucas Krump (16:07)
Because you're making the choice. That's my point. No problem. Like if that's the choice that you've made, then be okay with the choice. Don't be upset with the choice because you made the choice.

Speaker 3 (16:09)
Right.

I like that. You know, there's so many times men get stuck at that point. Whether it's a midlife crisis or they feel like just this whole overwhelming sensation of life, the economy turns, whatever. But this is a choice and you can choose to stop doing that today and do something tomorrow. Every bit of it is within your control. Unless you're...

Lucas Krump (16:43)
I just think that's one of the most beautiful things about being human, right? And part of our struggle as humans is sometimes we get too attached to the outcome. Agreed. Right. Agreed. And sometimes that then limits our ability to fully step into our possibility. like, I'm not a... I'm just of the belief that every man gets to live his life exactly how he wants. And your want is a function of your choice.

And if you don't want to live your life the way it's way you're currently living it, well then make a choice to do something different. And yes, that may hurt people that may disappoint people, you know, that sucks, but not making that choice is going to be an incongruency within yourself, which is only going to, you know, fester and build and hurt you from the inside out.

Speaker 3 (17:34)
Yeah, that's powerful right there. mean, I'm just going to leave it at that. That's powerful. I like that. So let's rewind the tape a little bit. You know, you really spoke into freedom, spoke into my heart with that. Where did you start? There's got to be some sort of catalyst moment and all that that got you to believe what you believe with that freedom, because I could hear the passion when you were talking about

Lucas Krump (17:40)
You

Yeah, I I appreciate that. Well, I grew up in Kansas. I'm one of four kids, three boys. My mom was a single mom for quite some time. you know, I guess what I would say is growing up in Kansas, I just learned very early on that if I wanted to make something in my life, it was going to be a function of me doing it. Right. And, you know, I had a tremendous amount of love and support from my mother and my grandparents.

my brothers and sisters, but it was very clear to me that I was, my destiny was a function of what I wanted to create. And so growing up in Kansas, I had the good fortune of going to an old boys Jesuit school ⁓ after, and then I went to the University of Kansas and after that I moved overseas. I spent 10 years working abroad and you know, I did a lot of things that I thought that I should do as a man. You know, I went and saw the world, had adventures and I...

put myself through business school, then eventually I came back from living overseas and moved to New York City. had beautiful girlfriends and, you know, worked at different companies. One of which was a, was a very successful early stage company that eventually was acquired for a significant amount of money. And after that happened, I was 36 years old. The company got acquired and, you know, I made a bit of money as a function of that. And I can remember very specifically thinking to myself, wow.

This, thought that I was like, did all the things that I thought I should do as a man. Like what do you mean? And after that sort of crescendo moment of this company that I was working for getting acquired, the feeling inside me didn't go away. I was still unhappy. I was still cheating on my girlfriends. I was still, you know, not necessarily living my values. And I'm a root cause kind of guy. And so I was very upset.

When this sort of moment that I thought would define me as a man and demonstrate to the world that I was super successful, didn't bring me the internal happiness that I was looking for. I went looking for it. And, you know, that's ultimately what, what led me to my co-founders of Everyman, Dan and Sasha, and then to ultimately, you know, doing this work and, and helping to co-found Everyman. But again, it was very much my own journey, right? And.

I felt like I, I don't know how to say, you know, it's like, we all believe that once we get somewhere, then everything else is going to work out, you know? And I got there and I'm like, what? Everything else isn't working out. I'm supposed to feel great. I feel like shit. What do you mean? This sucks. And so I'm like, I gotta figure this out. And there you go.

Speaker 3 (20:51)
It's-

Lucas Krump (20:52)
And I the last thing I'd say is like, haven't figured it out. Like it's a, I'm a work in progress. Like I'm still working at it every day. It's, it's a, it's a journey, not a destination.

Speaker 3 (21:02)
I agree. was just going to say it's interesting because, you know, we talked about the building the vision. A lot of men, when they go into that, they're like, okay, I do this once, right? Yeah. Once a year, once every six months, if you're really fast paced, you know, no less than once every three years. But it is a constant evolution because you get close to that goal and you realize it might not be as pretty as what you thought it was from.

500 yards back.

Lucas Krump (21:33)
Of course. And that's the beauty of life. know, we get, we get presented these opportunities. You know, I'm always, I just believe the human experience is constantly evolving and changing. Right? Well, I was a year ago as in who I am today and who I am today isn't who I'm going to be five years from now. I wake up every day and one of my internal mantras is beginner's mind. I'm just like, what, what don't I know? I'm 46 years old, you know, but, but that beginner's mind keeps me curious, keeps me engaged with life.

You know, cause the second that I think that, I got it all figured out, life's going to smack me upside the head and show me that I don't.

Speaker 3 (22:10)
Absolutely. So I do gotta ask you, what part of Kansas?

Lucas Krump (22:13)
I'm from Overland Park, which is a little suburb right near the Kansas border.

Speaker 3 (22:17)
I know exactly where that is. do? Yeah, so I was living down in peculiar Missouri. So, you just a little peculiar. It is, it is, but that's what I liked about it.

Lucas Krump (22:24)
Okay, I know peculiar

You know, I've had the good fortune to live and work all over the world. I've been to, I don't know, over 80 countries and I've lived in New York City and I've lived in lots of different places. And people always ask me where I'm from. It's very important for me to always say that I'm from Kansas because what I learned and the values that that place gave me helps me to always keep my true North, you know, and not forget where I come from, despite all the places I may go.

Speaker 3 (23:02)
⁓ It's a beautiful little part of the world. love Overland Park. ⁓ When we moved down there, I kept on telling my wife that we needed to pick up the house and move over to Overland Park. All of our friends were there. I coached kids jujitsu over there, know, the whole nine yards. was a...

Lucas Krump (23:20)
Now I'm in upstate New York. I live on an apple orchard in the country.

Speaker 3 (23:24)
Well,

that's nice. I don't know about the New York part, but we talked about that earlier.

Lucas Krump (23:28)
We'll take it.

Speaker 3 (23:32)
Yeah, so you've worked with thousands of and they have vastly different lifestyles, vastly different starting points and where they're heading. So what's a couple of common things in the men that you work with that they all need to seem or seem to need help with?

Lucas Krump (23:51)
That's a great question. would say one thing is the phenomenon that I see in men and I understand it because I've lived it. But one piece is oftentimes men will go to great lengths to not do the one thing that they really need to do. And there's no judgment over that. But oftentimes, you know, I see guys really struggling. Sometimes I just want to say I'm like, hey, man, no amount of work, no amount of this or that is going to make the other thing that you need to do go away. And I don't know what that is, but

That's something that I see oftentimes. The other thing, the other theme that I consistently see is men have not been taught, I guess, two things. One is how to be in relation with others. And it's not a surprise because as men, we're, we're supposed to be individualistic protectors, if you will. And I spend a lot of time and I'm fascinated by evolutionary biology, just how, you know, it's

It's fascinating to me that this meat suit that we're in hasn't had any significant, you know, physiological or genetic change in the last hundred thousand years. And so when you actually start to peel away the layers and you just look at it like, well, what's the intention of this, of this meat suit? What's it supposed to do? Well, it's put on this earth to survive, right? That's our number one job. It's put on this earth to survive. And then to a certain degree, it's put on this earth to provide and protect, right? You know, oftentimes when we start to get away from those things.

It's when we find ourselves in trouble, right? You know, so, but, but what I would say is that the operating system that we were given a hundred thousand years ago in terms of survival is not the same operating system that we need to run the meat suit now. You know, I'm not going to walk outside and be attacked by a tiger. So that's okay. But my biology, my nervous system, parasympathetic.

you know, is going to respond to stress and threat the same way. Right. And so a lot of the work that we do with men is like, is helping them understand that. Right. I don't think we've spent a lot of time really understanding like, okay, what is this biology intended to do for us? And how does it support me in being in relation with others? Right. And then I would take that a step further and say, you know, one of the things that I see men struggle with is

understanding their emotionality and how they actually express their vulnerabilities from a masculine place. Because I don't know about you, but no one ever taught me how to express my emotions in a masculine way. you know, our emotions are like, our emotions is like mainlining connection, you know? Like if we can express authentically how we feel and what we're going through with others in a vulnerable and honest way, well, then we can actually connect with others.

And we can create safety for ourselves and we can create safety for those around us. And in doing that, we can actually receive the nutrient of connection, which spoiler is what we need to survive as mammals because we were put on this earth to connect. We're hardwired to connect. out of a pack, he dies. So, so I guess to come up full circle on your question, I think some of these, you know, sort of what I would call foundational sort of skills or awareness that, that I would.

I would take them out of kind of the esoteric realms and put them into just the real and true realms. Like, hey, this is your biology. What is it intended to do? What do you need to be human? What do you need to survive? What do you need to feel purposeful and alive? And how do we pull back the layers and get you to that place?

Speaker 3 (27:36)
Yeah, I think we grew up with the same type of parents, you because we're within four five years apart. But I, I certainly know as a young boy that I was never talked to about emotions. was, know, boys don't cry. Yeah. Pick it up, dust yourself off, get back out there, you know.

Lucas Krump (27:55)
Which, you know, I'm always quick to say we shouldn't condemn how it was because socially and culturally that was the dominant narrative. can look at the negative impact on that and how it's affected us, but we should, if anything, just learn from that and say, you know, and so it's our job as men that experience that. Well, it's our job to contribute to a new definition and a new culture that we know is more supportive and generative.

for men. Because I don't want guys to have to learn that lesson the hard way.

Speaker 3 (28:31)
Yeah, it's interesting. know, I mean, if you look back at it, and I struggled with that for a while myself, you know, holding on to that narrative, just like what you were talking about. But, you know, I look at my father's father, and he didn't even grow up with his family because of the Dust Bowl and everything else that was going on during that time. So he had to be, you know, he was probably more locked into that old school physiology survival mode than what we are today.

Lucas Krump (28:58)
Right. But, know, and this is the other thing that I would say is that we live in a culture and in a world that we are in conflict with in many ways. And what I mean by that is the world is actually trying to steal our attention and our resiliency and our will. Right? You know, it's very interesting if our biology is actually trained to reward us.

when we do hard things, right? When we overcome challenge and struggle, we feel good. Well, why is that? Our body is rewarding us with dopamine. Why is it rewarding us with dopamine? Because a hundred thousand years ago, our body needed to incentivize us to be strong and to endure challenge so that we could be more resilient, so that we could survive. But we now live in a world

that wants to offer us all the comforts and the humans are lazy. I'm lazy and I have to get up and I have to do hard things. I have to go and lift heavy weights. I have to make conscious decisions. No, I should probably get off the couch and make myself food versus ordering something. You know, I should probably have a difficult conversation versus burying my head in the sand. And all around us, you know, like, ⁓ do I need to look at maps?

24 seven a day, no, I could actually probably use my own internal compass to figure out where to go. And it's like, I always tell young guys, because I think that, you know, you and I, Steve grew up in a time when we didn't have these comforts. And so we had to, we had to learn these things. But, you know, I always tell young guys like, Hey, be aware that the world is out to make you soft. And, and the sooner you realize that the better off you're going to be.

Speaker 3 (30:52)
Absolutely. Yeah, I was sitting there thinking about your hard conversations and I remember, you know, we were sharing a story before this started about, you know, where I came from and just to let the audience know, you know, I was talking to you about, you know, coming home, basically ignoring my family, turning on the TV, you know, they'd all be sitting there, but we'd be engaged in our own things. And my wife and I never had hard conversations because she didn't want to confront me. I had anger issues and

I just didn't want to deal with it. You know, I was soft at that point. But now, after growing into that role, we've been together for over 23 years now. Thank you for that. And our marriage today is more vibrant than ever. And we don't miss a chance for those difficult conversations. And also with my kids, it was funny because we were having a, it was my 50th birthday, so we had a party. I said the word shit.

Lucas Krump (31:32)
Amazing, congratulations.

Speaker 3 (31:50)
and my eight year old daughter in front of all my friends, right? She said, dad, you really shouldn't use words like that. And I don't know if I told you this, but I got eight kids that span from four to 31. Wow. Oh.

Lucas Krump (32:04)
Busy man.

Speaker 3 (32:06)
I've been through the gamut. Anyways, with my older kids, I would shut up. You you do what I say, not as I do kind of thing, right? But in this moment, you know, it's so much better because she was able to have that difficult conversation and I was able to say, you know what, honey, thank you for that. You know that I'm trying to work on that and you corrected me when I needed it. So I mean, it's just, it's amazing how much that can help relationships when you actually do the harder work.

Lucas Krump (32:33)
You know, I always say that there's, it's uncomfortable in the moment, but there's often gold in, you know, I, when I talk to you guys, I always like to sort of ask them like, well, how many failures have you had? You know, because failure is when we learn the most, right? We don't learn so much in success. Yes, there are things, but like, you know, when, you know, like,

The path to a great relationship is defined by the number of bad relationships that you've had, right? Because you get closer and closer to knowing and understanding what you want, right? And what you don't want. And you know, we don't honor and celebrate our mistakes as much as we should.

Speaker 3 (33:14)
Absolutely agree with that one. Man, this is, I just looked at the clock and I'm like, wow, this time's just gone by fast. But I do want to get around to every man a little bit. you guys have been around for over a decade, right?

Lucas Krump (33:28)
Yeah, almost. think we're coming up on a decade. I don't know. Seems like yesterday.

Speaker 3 (33:32)
Should be a big party, man. You should know when that date is, otherwise, you know, one of your co-founders is gonna give you an anniversary gift and you're gonna be weirded out.

Lucas Krump (33:34)
Yeah, probably so.

Exactly, The 10 years coming up, it's hard to believe. It's blood, sweat, and tears. I think that's another lesson, The myth of the overnight success. In reality, it's more like 10 years of grinding it out and putting your head down. Eventually, you pull your head up and you look around and you may have gotten somewhere. That's why coming back to what we were talking about earlier is like...

You know, every man has undoubtedly tested me in every way, but-

The mission and what we do has always been the driving motivation to keep going.

Speaker 3 (34:29)
think men as a whole are the undiscovered country of this world, right? We've had all the DEI initiatives and everything else. Women have been heard, different races and religions and everything else have been heard, but man has always just shouldered all that weight.

Lucas Krump (34:48)
I have a belief that the greatest untapped resource in the world is the love in men's hearts. People want to talk to me about bad men all the time. like, don't actually know any bad men. I'm surrounded by a lot of great men that are trying to be better and greater every single day.

Speaker 3 (35:10)
I would say the same, you know, I do some, I work with some groups outside of this that good men have gone off the path for sure. But you know, that happens to everybody. What's that?

Lucas Krump (35:22)
It's normal. was speaking at this conference last week and I had to remind the audience that the purpose of our work is that men leave. Like if we're doing the work that we should be doing, men should take all the tools and all the goodness that they learn in our community and other communities and they should take it and apply it in their lives. And they should reap the rewards of the work that we've done. We shouldn't hold onto them and be offended if they leave. I mean, obviously if they leave and they go on a different path, that's another story.

But, but we need to remind ourselves that like our job is to make men better. And part of being coming better is that you don't need this work. mean, to me, the greatest thing that could ever happen to every man is that there's no more guys. We're out of business, you know?

Speaker 3 (36:06)
It does bring up one question as you say that the one thing with the other organizations that I've been a part of, I always believed in exactly what you said, right? That man should become fully self-sufficient. Once he learns the tools and knows how to tap into himself. But the one thing that generally lacks when that man leaves is the brotherhood.

Lucas Krump (36:27)
Well, the brotherhood is what keeps him, you know. And the brotherhood is what keeps him, and those are the ties that bind. You know, and the hope is that men will have felt that and experienced that, and that will be enough to keep connected in some way to the degree and whatever. That's different for every man, but I do think that's very important.

Speaker 3 (36:49)
Absolutely, and it's hard to build you know that type of brotherhood out in your own community a lot of times because a lot of men haven't taken the Which one is it the blue pill or the red pill that you wake up with? Anyways, what's some real cool stuff that every man's doing right now?

Lucas Krump (37:01)
I don't know, any of the pills.

Yeah, I mean, every man, I mean, you know, we're hybrid. have an online platform, guys join and attend groups every single week led by, you know, what I would call world-class facilitators, guys that have been through all of our trainings and certifications. In addition to that, we have a bunch of retreats coming up in the fall. We've got some outdoor expeditions, which is...

Nice. know, venture travel with some challenge and some deep work. And that's coming up in August. All of it's available on everyman.com. You know, and what I like to say is, know, Everyman is an extension of the founders of the organization. I've just always been of the belief that Everyman desires in one way, or form to be better in his life. I don't wake up, I don't hear from a lot of guys are like, no, I just kind of want to be where I'm at.

But you know, I think improving in some area of our life is something, it's almost like a gift that the universe has given us because it motivates us and it keeps us going forward. so, you know, Everyman truly is an organization for every man and every man is welcome, you know, in this community. you know, it's an honor to see the diversity of men that join and participate and see benefits from the work that we do.

Speaker 3 (38:23)
It sounds like wonderful organization. I'm going to go check it out myself. Anyways, Lucas, I really appreciate you coming on today, man. This has been a great conversation. I always love talking about, you know, what, what other guys are doing in this space. Fantastic conversation, man. Yeah.

Lucas Krump (38:26)
Check it out.

Thank you, Steve. appreciate you having me on. All right.

Speaker 3 (38:42)
Thank you, And we'll see you next time.

Lucas Krump (38:47)
you ⁓

Narrator (38:48)
You have just experienced the heat and pressure of the forge. Remember, words without action are meaningless. Now, after the heat of the forge, shape your thoughts, quench your brain, then put your new tools to use, adding to your leadership. Tune in next week for more lessons from the forge.