A Call To Leadership

EP295: Men Need Community with Drew Ishmael

• Dr. Nate Salah

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What if the missing piece in your life isn’t success or status but brotherhood? In this episode, Drew Ishmael shares his journey from military struggles to spiritual rebirth and how radical truth and authentic community gave him a new sense of strength and purpose. His story shows what real leadership and transformation look like when faith and fellowship come first. Tune in to discover how F3 is reshaping men’s lives from the inside out.


 Key Takeaways To Listen For

  • Why the word “brother” carries weight and belonging for Drew
  • The 5 C’s of leadership and the power of candor in brotherhood
  • Disruption, spiritual rebirth, and why the “old you” can’t come back
  • How F3 cured “Sad Clown Syndrome” and why men need fellowship
  • Why passivity in manhood is toxic and leadership requires being the thermostat


About Drew Ishmael
Drew, known in F3 as Power Clean, is a U.S. Army veteran with 22 years of service and two combat deployments. Once weighing over 360 pounds, he credits F3 with saving his life and helping him find his purpose in teaching and leading men. Drew has served as Regional Expansion Q, Weasel Shaker, and Nant’an for JeffCo in the St. Louis Mega Region, as well as a GrowRuck and Freedom Ops Trainer nationwide. Supported by his wife Sarah, a Sergeant Major in the Missouri National Guard, and their two adult children, Drew continues to inspire men with his motto: “I love you, and there is nothing you can do about it.


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[00:00:00] Drew Ishmael
A man's job isn't to be the temperature in the room, it's to be the thermostat. So if we need to get a little bit warmer and get a little bit more excited about something, that's our job. We're supposed to lead that way. Or if it's tensions are high and we need to calm down, we need to be the one that leads that calming.

[00:00:18] Dr. Nate Salah
Hello my friend, and welcome to this episode of A Call to Leadership. I'm Dr. Nate Salah all your host. So glad you are here. Well, I believe every man at some point in some way. Whether it's unspoken or spoken, whether it's been dormant or out in the open longs for brotherhood. Too many of us try to fight life's battles alone. We isolate, we get weak, and when we step into true community, we find strength, healing, shared purpose. That's why today's guest matters. Drew Ishmael, known in the F3  Brotherhood as power clean is a living testimony of what happens when men stop walking alone. After more than 22 years in the Army, two combat deployments, and reaching over 300 pounds, Drew was ready to give up on health and hope, and F3 changed everything through brotherhood, discipline, and his own faith. He rebuilt his life, and now he trains and equips men across the country to do the same. His story, it's raw. It's real, and it proves that community isn't optional for men. It's essential. Let's dive in Brother Drew. Thanks for being here, brother. 

[00:01:42] Drew Ishmael
Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. 

[00:01:44] Dr. Nate Salah
You know, when I was introducing, when we were getting introduced earlier, you said something that was said it was warm to your heart when I called you brother. Why is that?

[00:01:53] Drew Ishmael
A couple reasons. One, I don't have any brothers, earthly brothers, blood brothers, but, . I now have thousands of brothers through F3, which is an organization that I've become a leader in, and I think is forwarding the mission, that you have. Yeah. and I love to hear it from other Christians as well because it sets the tone correctly right from the beginning.

[00:02:16] Dr. Nate Salah
It does. My go-to phrase are brother from another mother, sister from the same mister, right? Yep. And I think part of it as human beings. We tend to forget that we're more alike than we're different. Mm-hmm. And that we share, we share a common bond in our struggles, in our challenges in doing life. I think most people, we strive and desire for some of the same things in life. We may, we may call them different things, we may understand them differently. However, if I were to go down the line and, and ask people, Hey, what are some of the most important things in your life? And one you think about like, well, safety, security. I wanna have security and safety for my family, for myself. What else? Well, I, I'd love to have some peace in my life, right? I'd love to have just where I get up and I feel as though I am not in a, state of anxiety or worry, but true peace. You think you start going online with these human needs, like, well, we're not so different after all. 

[00:03:32] Drew Ishmael
We definitely aren't. I've come to realize through many years of both. Service in the military, but service to clients in what I currently do. And then F3 , that all the struggles fit into basically two or three different, different lines. And a lot of it is lack of faith in a higher power, li lack of understanding that we don't have control. People try to put exert too much control over events, and they have no control over 'em. That creates anxiety. Mm-hmm. I still catch myself doing it. 10 years into being a Christian, I still ke catch myself trying to rewrite the playbook, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I'm not in charge. Yeah. I just get to respond to what happens.

[00:04:16] Dr. Nate Salah
That's good. 

[00:04:17] Drew Ishmael
And my wife is amazing, and she's always there to remind me. And through F3 , we have, core principles and a whole bunch of things. But one of the words that I, I really latched onto the five Cs of leadership, one of 'em is candor. I define it as the radical truth delivered with grace and expectation of the same. So my brother's in the gloom is what we call each other. If I'm not right, I expect one of them to tell me. That's brotherhood and friendship. If they don't tell me, they don't care enough about me to tell me. That's what has led to you and I having a conversation through a mutual, a mutual brother, and, having those radical, truthful conversations delivered in love.

[00:05:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Amen, man. Yeah. So one of our core values in our, our G3, we got a F3 , we've got a G3, I'm gonna have you unpack more about the F3 model. Sure. Our. Three Gs, if you will, are grow purposefully, give generously, go love radically. I love it. That radical piece, people tend to misunderstand what that means. They say, oh, is that a bad thing? Now, of course, the word in and of itself can be used in a way that has, a negative connotation, however, when you talk about it from Jesus's perspective. The way I like to understand radical love, radical truth is it's a fundamental change of the nature of something says what we mean by radical. So we, we use that word radical. What we mean is Jesus is fundamentally changing how we understand love. Yeah. How we understand truth and if we spend enough time with him. Then we can live in the fundamentally altered state of ourselves. Hmm. Because that's what he does. Right? He doesn't come to say, Hey, I wanna make you a better person. He says, you're not even gonna recognize yourself when spent enough time 

[00:06:17]
together, you're gonna look in the mirror and be like, who are you? When I say you've been a Christian for, you said about 10 years, about a decade now. Right. I dunno about you and you, I'm not, you probably have a similar story to share is your change over time has fundamentally altered how others see you? Like there's an old Nate. Oh yeah, there's an old Nate. I'm, there's an old true, I'm sure there's an old Drew, right? Oh yeah. 

[00:06:46] Drew Ishmael
So that old, several, several versions of old Drew.

[00:06:49] Dr. Nate Salah
So I've even had friends who have said, Hey, I want the old Nate back. I'm like, no, you don't. No, you don't. That guy's dead. Mm-hmm. And that's the thing about when we talk about being born again, it's a, it's a weird concept, but it doesn't mean physical. It means a spiritual rebirth that fundamentally alters and changes how people see you. Because you are change, you are different. You're made anew. Right. And, and here's the thing about it. It's a disruption. Disruption. 

[00:07:22] Drew Ishmael
You've, you're, you're, you're right on. we have a leadership book and I'll go into Yeah, yeah, yeah. Disruption's our first point. 

[00:07:29] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. It's a disruption you think about like disruptive innovation. So the way I like to understand disruptive innovation is it's a change. We are going back to the old way of doing things would seem unthinkable. For example, you and I, we've got some gray, we probably grew up around dial-up internet, payphones. I remember. No internet. You remember? No. Internet. Zero internet. Before the internet was even invented. Right. Do you remember, which I know you do, the folks who would knock on your door and sell you encyclopedias. I do. Yep. Mm-hmm. And so we were poor, but eventually we got some free ones or close to free from like a a, a goodwill or something like that. I remember I was so amazed by all the information in these books. So if I wanna learn about an ostrich, remember what we would do, drew for this is like the, the younger, the younger folks listening, right? Getting a history lesson, right? You'd have to like find the O, right? Mm-hmm. And then you could look in the appendix or the index, find what page ostrich is on, go back and read about it. If you didn't have an encyclopedia. You would go to the library. I spent a lot of days at the library card catalog. Remember the card catalog, 

[00:08:49] Drew Ishmael
Dewey Decimal system. I remember it all. 

[00:08:52] Dr. Nate Salah
Now, fast forward today. What do you need to do to learn about an ostrich today? 

[00:08:59] Drew Ishmael
Pull out a device you have in your pocket that sucks all your attention away from the rest of the world, and, type in OST and ostrich will be one of the words that populates probably a hundred percent. 

[00:09:09] Dr. Nate Salah
Right? Takes 10 seconds. You're done. You've saved several hours in that one. Experience. Now some one listening's, like I still prefer to go to the library. I never would use it. That's totally fine. However, for the overwhelming majority of person, going back to the old way would seem unthinkable. And that is what we're talking about. Exactly. It's unthinkable to go back to the old self. 

[00:09:35] Drew Ishmael
And when I became a Christian, that was a definite thing. And then when I started F3 , that became. A definite thing too, and about the same gradual space. So, obviously I became a Christian before I, I, got in the waters of baptism, but, and so that would be probably 12 years ago. But it goes all the way back to childhood where I just wasn't, I was baptized as an infant, but that's not a believer's baptism, so I didn't, I didn't even understand what that meant. I didn't do a lot of church as a kid. We can go into that if you want, but divorces and moving and all the things that happen, join the army at 17 and, anybody who's in the army now, please, please, go to church every week. Seek other believers in the ranks, because that will keep you honest in the military. But I, I, I did that life where I wasn't, I didn't have the childhood upbringing of. Of faith and then, so I wasn't faithful in the army marriage, divorce, my 23 years in the army, second marriage, and my wife and I were baptized back to back the same day.

[00:10:46]
 So God used me all the way during that time. And my mom, who was also baptized that same day, we all went through kind of how God spoke to us and nudged us and threw us against the wall sometimes in my case. To get to that point, and I would never want to go back to the man prior to that, just coming out of the water, I knew that I had a different calling. I mean, I can still remember that feeling like it happened this morning. It felt like something settled on me and it's like, now you're clear. Now your mission is here. And it took me five years to find it. F3 came into my life through the same man who. Brought me and was my water witness for that baptism. Same man who got me going to church again. My cousin by marriage, he'll tell you this, but he's an amazing man and he brought me into F3  as well. And I think that's been the culmination of that mission. I started at birth, but it gave me my ultimate life purpose, which is to make the world a better place, but by challenging men to be better for their families.

[00:11:56]
 Better for their communities and better for their workplace in that order. Right? Obviously, in my heart it goes without saying that it's God first. that's always first. He is always first. And then on earth though it's wife, that relationship, because that's transformative that change you from an individual to a pair a couple. And then your kids 'cause that you can't divorce your kids. You don't get to leave your kids. I mean, I'm sorry, some people do, but you don't get to. And then, and then everything else comes behind that. And in F3  we have shield locks, a really tight group of friends that'll hold you accountable, Wetstone relationship, mentor mentee relationships, and then work comes after that. Because if you don't put those other things in, right, right. Order work really doesn't matter. Work is technically the easiest relationship to maintain because you just go and do your work. You get paid and you leave. Yeah. I mean, even for a business owner, we do the right work. We will get the right pay. Yes. Sometimes in different seasons it's gonna take more and it's gonna take time away from your family, but as long as the whole purpose is correctly ordered, it works. And that all comes in my view, from my faith, in my faith in God. And so. I, I just explained what we call the centrica in F3  and F3  is, fitness, fellowship and faith.

[00:13:21]
 We don't require that you're a Christian, it's faith of any sort. we believe that you're not the most important person in the world, so if you want to be, any other mainstream religion or a non-mainstream religion, that's fine as long as you respect everybody else's beliefs. Majority of people in in the St. Louis area end up being Christian of one denomination or another, Catholic Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and that tends to fit in that space pretty well. I do know some Hindu that are doing F3  , but they realize that they are not the most important person. We all get on the same path of building male community leadership. The greatest thing for me is I found that. Because we don't thump people upside the head with a Bible, that's what kept me out of Christianity for so long. Even though I was seeking something way bigger than myself, I would just be told I was wrong all the time instead of, Hey, let me show you what right is. I came to Christ before I came to F3, but I've seen a lot of men come to Christ because of F3. And it's that slow, gradual trust building and then somebody that they trust because they've done so many hard things with 'em, leads them down that path. That has become part of the, part of the mission, for me is just to expose people to that not. I don't shove it down anybody's throat, but I know it's truth in my heart, and eventually truth wins out. Mm-hmm. So, and this is God's timing. I don't have to worry about it being my timing. And my wife and I have that conversation all the time about if we just knew God's plan, it would be easier. But his plan is his plan, and we're just here to live it.

[00:15:01] Dr. Nate Salah
His plan is obedience. Yeah. that's, I've thought about it like this a lot. I've thought about his, in terms of all the things that, we as leaders. Think that we can control, and as you mentioned earlier, that the illusion of control is real. And this obedience piece is like, I think about all the plans I I make. It's like really there's, that's the only plan that works flawlessly every time. And here's the other part about that, that I'm really happy about is we're not even concerned or worried I should say about the outcomes. Because we're outcome folks, right? Everything's about results. Everything's about results. I've even got shirts to say, results, and the only result that ever matters, and I want to say this correctly, is God's will. And people say, well, I don't know what God's will is. Well, God's will is in God's word you want. You wanna know what his will is. Yep. Abide in his word, John 8:31 and so on. And so you think about that and one it releases us. Drew, I think, and I wanna hear your opinion on this, what men struggle with. Hmm. Okay. And I think one of the things, and, and you know, barring like addiction and, and things like that, but I think one of the things we struggle with is the insecurity of having to get it right. And what I mean by that is we have so much pressure all the way through youth and into young adulthood and adulthood, Hey, you've got to perform to be, to have power, prestige position. And what we realize later, it's like none of that matters. 

[00:16:54]
Right? Not in God's timing or his, his, his structure or his world, and. When I embrace that, not becoming a sloth, but actually increasing my effort in the right areas, we ask a lot of the wrong questions. Like, who am I pleasing? Well, I'm often pleasing, man. Right? And if that's the case, guess what? I'm always gonna be letting somebody down. Correct? But if, if I'm just focused on pleasing God. If I have an audience of one, audience of one, how does that change the decisions I make? How does that change how I interpret the outcomes of all the decisions that are made? Because your business, if your business is consecrated to God, I did that sometime ago actually after I read David Green's book, A Hobby Lobby guy on leadership, not by the book. Great read. I read how he consecrated his business to God. Hobby Lobby. At one point he was huddled under his desk, stressed out about all the problems he was having in business. Hello. Have anybody ever been in that place? Yep. And he, he said, this is your business guy. Not only just saying it, he took action and took all these steps to actually transfer, if you will, to the a trust and, and give ownership, if you will, to God in a way. And there's a release to that. Because then it's like, okay, I'm working for you, God, because then God is no longer your advisor because you know, if you've ever had an advisor, you can always tell an advisor, no, I'm not gonna take your advice.

[00:18:38]
 Your authority is a much different relationship. Correct? And so you move from auth advisor to authority and it says, and then what happens when you have a problem in in your business? Well, Lord, let me pray about this and see how it is. You want me to handle this again? You say, well, somebody listening might be like, well, I've never heard from God. Read his book full of what he's saying. Also, pray, right? Pray is a conversation. You say, well, maybe I don't hear God directly. That's fine, but pray all the same. I will speak to you, whether it's, maybe it's not audibly, maybe it's, maybe it's through someone else. Maybe Drew shows up on a podcast and says something that God is speaking through Drew.

[00:19:16] Drew Ishmael
Wow. There's so much to unpack there. So I've always found, I hear the voice of God in silence in nature because there's no distraction. I've really started. Somebody told me a long time ago, we don't do enough pondering. So taking away all distraction and just being, and thinking and praying, and having that conversation, that has given me more peace than anything else. And then, then I can go in and have that difficult conversation with child, wife, client, friend. That being a place of peace. We had mentioned earlier the hierarchy of needs, and my biggest one, after, you know, some limited success in business, all of the things that normally keep you driving and motivated are gone. Like it's, I don't, you know, I'm not gonna starve. Anybody who sees me knows I'm not starving, you know, I'm not going to lose my house. I'm not gonna hopefully lose my relationship because of something bad I do like. So all the things that would drive me normally or have driven me in the past, all those earthly things kind of go away. And there's only really one thing left is to do the right thing because he wants us to period because he tells us to.

[00:20:47]
 So funny thing is, the way I profess my faith is there's, there's a lot to, the end of a workout. And, and F3  is a workout organization and a lot of people have come to it. And in fact, a former, a good friend of mine who I, I treasure dearly, in fact I named him, you get a funny nickname and the whole thing, but he became a leader in the area and, and is a leader, just a leader in his business, a leader in, F3 , a leader in life, a leader in his church. He was trained as a pastor at one point and he came to a workout and then he goes, wait, what are we doing? We're praying after the workout and there's this leadership conversation that happens and it's like, yep, we do all of that. And he was like, this is what church is supposed to be. It's like Exactly. And the reason we only have the men there is it limits the distraction. Because men need places that are for men. And, and you had, and going kind of to the first question you asked, what are men lacking? Mm. Now what do men need in society? And I think they need fellowship and brotherhood. A lot of people find that through the church.

[00:21:53]
 And that's amazing. And I never really did because I have a different history than a lot of people. I didn't come to the church from birth. I'm a seeker still. I'm still learning. I'm still growing in, in faith. And, and so people will speak at you at this level and it's like, wow, that doesn't mean anything to me. I'm out. And you get one or two chances to do that, and then a seeker is gone, but we get a hundred chances because there's, it's, they're coming for the workout. Mm. And then we slowly work into 'em. Work out in the fellowship and then they learn these people that they truly do have a love for because they've suffered with are speaking a different language. And that language is interesting and that language is faithful, and that language is the ability to handle things that most people can't handle in today's society. And that's. So when we go back to what F3 solved and F3 's been around since 2011. January 1st, 2011 is when DREAD and OBT started the first workout of F3, and that was in Charlotte, North Carolina. And it, they had 34 guys there. And it's grown ever since. It hasn't ever been smaller than that. And, in St. Louis we have, I think, 170 different workouts currently. So that's in St. Louis, and we're nowhere near Charlotte, and it's all over the world. It's in every, every state, I think right now. But what they found on accident is they cured, and we have our own language.

[00:23:32]
 Of course, they cured what they called sad clown syndrome, and that comes from a a Sopranos episode where. a clown cries on the inside type thing. Mm-hmm. And, we have an epidemic of male loneliness, because the, the things that are traditionally male, are no longer traditionally male, or they're gone, or they've been corrupted by some other path. Right. So the only place men feel like they can be men is in places that women wouldn't want to be. Hmm. That's not necessarily where I'd wanna find, like I've done the bar thing, I've done the, I've done the military thing that's just like a, a bar extended. you know, and I've, I've done all these things that were traditionally male roles and you realize that somebody from HR is telling you you can't say something or somebody from, or you're, you're inebriated or you're just not living your best life and not doing a godly thing that's not. Where you cure loneliness, that's where you get more lonely. Mm-hmm. And so I come from, a long line of alcoholics and my dad was an alcoholic, so I spent a lot of time as a kid in a bar watching a bunch of old men be lonely next to each other and not necessarily how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. So, I was like, that's not okay. 

[00:24:59] Dr. Nate Salah
Do you remember how you felt when it's hard when you're young, but do you remember how you felt when you're in that environment? 

[00:25:06] Drew Ishmael
I felt like I had a pocket full of quarters and distraction of a video game, but I remember the first time I played a standup video game, because remember how they used to have the bar video games that were sit down and you had the screen that you could set stuff on, act like a table. Those are the only video games I used to play. Like Pacman and Miss Pacman we're all in that console. 

[00:25:27] Dr. Nate Salah
Same. 

[00:25:27] Drew Ishmael
Because it was just different. 

[00:25:31] Dr. Nate Salah
And now you said you come from a, a family of a line of alcoholic. 

[00:25:34] Drew Ishmael
Oh yeah. I'm, I'm assuming, yeah. his, his father was a violent, abusive man because my grandmother, who was an alcoholic, but she's sweet as pie, and she divorced him way back. So there's a lot of dysfunction, kind of a family curse, I guess. 

[00:25:54] Dr. Nate Salah
What was, what was your relationship like with your dad? 

[00:25:56] Drew Ishmael
So. Funny thing, my dad passed away 30 days to the day before I started F3 . So it was kind of like a, a close of one chapter and an opening of another. My relationship with my father I grew up in, I'm from here, but I grew up out west and I graduated high school out in Arizona and I moved immediately to, North Carolina. So I got as far away as I could get. Now, I didn't choose North Carolina. North Carolina was chosen for me, chosen for me, because I joined the Army. But I joined the Army to escape and just to get out because I knew for a fact I wouldn't have made it through college at that time. I didn't have the discipline. I didn't have. Just my head screwed on straight at 18. I was not the man I am today. Right? That was, that was the child that hadn't put away childish things yet. And I was living free and open. Now, I met my first wife when I was 18, married when I was 19, and we were married for, over a decade. And she's a great woman. She's mother of my children, and, amazing person. She came to Christ actually after me, with my second wife, which is a funny story. Went to the same church for a while, which is funny. But I did this, this whole life. Even married with children. I wasn't, I was still being a child. I was, I was still living, living for myself. It wasn't until well after my second marriage that I started to live for God, and that came around the time of my conversion. 

[00:27:30] Dr. Nate Salah
And was that around the time when your father passed? 

[00:27:32] Drew Ishmael
No. So my conversion was five years prior. I was 40, so I'm 51. I just turned 51 last week. I was 40 when I was baptized. And my wife was baptized. She's a few years younger than me, and my mom were all baptized together. And then. That was probably six months after I'd accepted Christ at a table in a class, a church class with somebody who's a dear friend of mine still, who actually does F3 , has an F3 name. Funny, funny enough. But we started changing and started living four something else prior to even getting baptized. We'd gone to church for a little bit of time as a couple at that point, and we started changing our lives. Like we would just not watch the same movies, and we would not speak to each other the same way. And we would, and we'd recognize true forgiveness and letting things go, in our marriage. And, and so my wife, Sarah, and I really started changing the way we treated everything. And it wasn't conscious. That's the part of becoming a Christian. It's not conscious. It's, you made that choice. The conscious choices in my, my book was to follow God.

[00:28:49]
 This is what my conscious choice is, and he just then just allows you to change or makes you change or whatever it is. But I tried to make the right choice by not doing anything that would upset him. And when I did, I would, I'd be like, Hey, that wasn't. That's how I used to do it. So for me it was gradual that there was a lot of things that were right away, but the gradual piece kind of was five years long and when my father passed away and when I joined F3, that's the kind of when I found the mission. When I found, I found really what I was being called to do. you know, where I used to have a be petrified about speaking in public. Like if you had the cameras on, couldn't do it. No cameras perfect. So something about self-image, something about, and that's, that's not from God. Mm-hmm. You're made in the image of God. Exactly. Hello. Exactly. So I. Then something changed. I started leaning into hard stuff again. Mm-hmm. COVID really did a number because I was in the military for 23 years. I retired when I was 40 as well. 

[00:30:01] Dr. Nate Salah
Thank you for your service. 

[00:30:01] Drew Ishmael
Thank you. And my wife's actually a sergeant Major in the army still. She's been in for 25 years. She's the better soldier, so she stayed in. But you know, I noticed that my life was different. I was changing. I gave up that soldier that had been my whole identity. 'cause I really didn't have an identity in myself because of all the, the disjointed, you know, relationship with my father wasn't existent. I started coming, becoming closer to some local Christians, just through business. One of the best things I ever heard is, don't dismiss our father in heaven because of the way our father on earth is acted. You know, we see our father in heaven as an extension of our father on Earth. And, and that can be a very difficult way to, to live life because then you push away Father God, you know, who loves you with every bit of himself, which is infinite to even understand. I get chills even thinking about it. And because my earthly father was broken, I mean, he went through hell and in life. That broke him, and he was unable to get past that.

[00:31:12] 
But so I say all that to say that five years between my baptism and coming out was, was hard. Was hard to be coming out as a Christian, not coming out. But that was a really hard life. I remember having like spiritual warfare and a lot of things that were happening to me during that time. And then I was also, when I did speak to my father, words that weren't mine were coming out. They were all prophetic words. Mm-hmm. For him, he was like, you really into this Christian thing, aren't you? I said, I'm not into it. It's who I am. 

[00:31:47] Dr. Nate Salah
That's the key. It's who I am. Period. And your journey is representative. When I think of. The walk in faith and the changing of identity of embracing our trueness of self. I love the way Tony Evans puts it. He says, you know, God's always making two preparations. On the one hand, he's preparing his purpose for you. On the other hand, he's preparing you for his purpose, and when they meet, that is the divine appointment. And for us, as Christians, as followers, embrace the identity through the journey because God has not finished with you. He's just getting started, right? He's not finished with me. He's just getting started. The important thing is we know he loves us. We know he cares for us, and we know his plan for us is better than any plan we could ever have for ourselves. 

[00:32:45]
 Hey friend, it's your friend, Dr. Nate Salah, and I wanna personally invite you to something that's been on my heart for a long time. On October 3rd in St. Louis, we're gathering a room full of faith-driven leaders, entrepreneurs. Professionals, lifelong learners, at our inaugural G3 Summit. It's not just another business event. It's a sacred space where we lay down the pressure, the performance, the pursuit of empty success. We step into a calling that's aligned with God's best. For us, I believe you were created to lead with purpose, to give from overflow, go love radically in your home, your business, and your community. That's what G3 is all about. Grow purposefully, give generously. Go love radically if you've been longing for deeper meaning in your leadership, if you're ready to consecrate your influence to something eternal. Summit was designed just for you. You can visit us at my G3summit.com. Reserve your spot today, and I cannot wait to see you there. 

[00:34:05] Drew Ishmael
Exactly. I'm still struggling, so I still fight against, I still fight against it and I catch myself doing it. It feels like daily. My wife and I, we've been married, oh, this is, we're in our 18th year, so we just had our 17th wedding anniversary in. We started out as non-Christians, even though we got married in a church and we're nominal Christians, like we both said, yeah, I'm a Christian. Right. But then we became Christians. Yeah. Truly and truly sacrificed. And truly gave. And then I've always had a struggle with the word surrender. I still probably until F3, I didn't understand the word surrender, like because military mindset, I grew up fighting every day and losing and surrender were the same thing to me. It's not, it's nowhere near that. It's, it's winning and surrendering in this context is, is everything. And so I fought against that a lot. And then I was, I'm gonna finish one story. I finish, we do workouts and I finished almost every time I finish a workout. I say I don't always pray after workout.

[00:35:09]
 I pray internally always when support for the workout. Yeah. Sometimes it feels right and I'll pray, but I always say, I love you men and there's nothing you can do about it. And I got asked early on when I started saying that, where'd you get that from? And I said, well, I got it from a guy who almost died being burned here in St. Louis. And of course his, his book and he's got a movie coming out called On Fire. great. It'll come to me before the end of the, conversation. But, and I never really understood it until I was standing in this circle and I almost audibly heard Jesus say, this is where you say this. This is where you mean this. This is what I've commanded you to do is to love all people. There's not a caveat there. And so when people ask me, how can you love me? I say, because Jesus told me to and I follow him. Amen. And so nothing you can do is gonna make me not love you. Now, I may not like you. He doesn't command me to like you.

[00:36:12]
 He doesn't command me to listen to everything you say or to do everything you do. That's not it. But he commands me to love you and in the love we have with our fellow man. In the case of F3 especially, I hope this takes over the world. Is that candor, speaking the truth with love, radical truth with love. And grace is how we need to treat all of our brothers and sisters, right? We need to understand that my job is as, as somebody who loves you and is commanded to love you, is to speak truth to you. Yeah. I'm not a specimen of humanity. Right. I you're, you look very fit. I am pretty fit, but I don't look very fit. I was, a hundred pounds heavier when I started F3 . Wow. Obviously, that spiritual struggle had been going on for quite a long time. Retired from the military, just kind of gave up. Wasn't leaning on, God wasn't mm-hmm. And going through all that. And, and then F3 has allowed me to put into place some discipline and put into place some language around the challenges we all have, that I just didn't have.

[00:37:21]
 Yeah. and so. I speak it in my regular life. It's everybody, every male I talk to is like, you're welcome to come to a workout. Like, I would love you to see you at a workout there. I don't know where you live, but there's a hundred around you. Yeah. So, the point being though is the workout is the part that gets men there. Yeah. But it's not the part that keeps 'em in there. And that's the, the fellowship and then the faith part. And the faith part is where we, we exercise our leadership, our faith in God. And, you know, we use language to draw all men in. It's not a Christian organization. It's not, but we, we draw all men in because if we can change 10% of a population, we can change that entire population.

[00:38:03] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Amen. And I love your approach to the community piece because I agree that men are hungry for community, and there's, especially post-COVID and understanding where we can bond and, and even understanding like. What's, who are we, and how do we, you know, how gender wise, right? Mm-hmm. Masculinity has been, has been obliterated in a lot of ways, and it's reclaiming, Hey, you know what, it's okay to be different. And it's okay to want to do things that may not feel as though society. endorses them and it's important to step into our identity and, and at the same time, respect. I don't wanna get into a whole nother conversation about the feminist movement because I think there were some good things that, that were needed to happen in that, in that era, and still more things that need to happen.

[00:39:00]
 However, what I would say is this, is that I think there was a confusion for equality and sameness, and so I believe in equality, but I do not believe we're the same genetically. And this is not just me pretending to be a geneticist. I know that I have differences than my wife, not just physically, but in terms of how I, physiologically respond to different aspects of life. And she wants me to step up as the leader of our home, not because she's a passive wife that's stuck in the old days. She knows that, hey, you know what, you've got responsibilities. For this family and those responsibilities. Don't get it twisted. Don't let society twist you into thinking that I should be doing those things. I want you to step up and be the man in this home, and you can get a lot of pushback and flack in today's society for taking that role. However, I can tell you this, that my wife can do things I can't do. 

[00:40:05] Drew Ishmael
Oh, a hundred percent. 

[00:40:06] Dr. Nate Salah
You know, tons of things. And I'm so thankful for that. And there's certain things. And I don't say this in a way that's condescending or egotistical that I can do that she can't do. Exactly. And it's okay. That's how teams win championships.

[00:40:19] Drew Ishmael
Exactly. You don't, if everybody was a wide receiver, you wouldn't have a very good football team. 

[00:40:25] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Special teams defense offense. Right. They all function in different capacities with different, different giftings. They work together, why? To win together, and that's the whole idea going full circle. Back to what you were talking about, about surrendering to God. God is not my adversary. God is my ally. God is not my foe. God is my friend. We work together to win hearts together. Exactly. That's what we do as a team.

[00:40:58] Drew Ishmael
Exactly. I mean, I said earlier my wife's, a sergeant major in the army. She is, she's tough, she's strong, she's smart, she's beautiful, and she's strong-willed, which allows her to be amazing. Yeah. in a lot of ways. And I wouldn't have her any other way. And I've had to really lean on God because his plan is better than my plan. Amen. He can use all things for good. Amen. And he is using our relationship to then, help others. One of the things that, you know, we talk a lot about manhood and I think passivity in manhood is toxic. I think not living up to your role is toxic. And if we look at. If we look at the behaviors that are considered that are actually toxic, those are all behaviors that aren't traditionally manlike. They're not, assertive and positive and loving and controlled. I truly believe that, I've said this for way before I was a Christian, that a pacifist has to have the capacity for Milan. Otherwise, you're not a pacifist. It's not a choice. Right. You're just weak. Yeah. And my first interaction with most Christians was they didn't know that Meek and weak were different.

[00:42:28]
They also used to say, thou shalt not kill. And it's like, wait, wait, wait. Murder. It's thou shalt not murder because how can you go into a profession of arms, which I was in and be told you shouldn't kill anybody? It's like, wait, wait, wait. The amazing thing was it's always the people that misquote everything and try to use the Bible against you are all people that aren't Christian anyway. They're trying to get you to do certain things and, and so I fell for that for decades. Until I was in my thirties and then I was deployed overseas to Afghanistan and I was the historian for the hundred first Airborne Division, small little attachment to the hundred first. And I was interviewing somebody and he said, I've killed people and I'm going to hell for that. And I said, no. I was seeking, I was really leaning into it. This is probably six, maybe eight years before I came, became Christian, but I was, I was leaning in and I was reading. I said, that's not what it says. It's thou shalt not murder. Do you feel you murder? He goes, No, I was fighting an honest battle. And you know, we were, I was protecting then don't worry about it.

[00:43:37]
 Continue to be the good man you are. And I wasn't a Christian. How am I supposed to say that to somebody? But I knew it in my heart to be right and that's where I knew that I was being used in a different way, that non non-traditional use. So that's what started me really leaning into this misguided society that we all sit in and where I just felt uncomfortable in almost every seat I sat in because the hierarchy wasn't correct. Yeah. my own marriage, I started feeling uncomfortable. I realized I was being a passive man. Mm-hmm. And it took another 10 years to get into F3. Really, even after I became a Christian, I was still pretty passive. And my wife took the lead. Why? 'cause she's a strong woman and she does what she has to do to make the family work and do all the things. And she just, if you asked her, if she was sitting right next to me, she'd probably say I was doing everything. I was leading the family. I was suggesting, I was always, he was like another child. And after F3, I realized where I was failing. In a lot of ways, not only physically, not just leaving the house and not, but spiritually and emotionally. I wasn't being the strong emotional one. I wasn't. We have a, a saying, and I don't know if it's dark helmet came up with it or dread came up with all of the people, that started F3 and been there since the beginning. But a man's job isn't to be the temperature in the room. It's to be the thermostat.

[00:45:11]
 So if we need to get a little bit warmer and get a little bit more excited about something, that's our job. We're supposed to lead that way. Or if it's tensions are high and we need to calm down, we need to be the one that leads that calm me. And I'd never, my emotions were my, my guide and everything. If it didn't feel right, it wasn't right. And I realized how wrong that was. Your feelings. You need to control your feelings, not let your feelings control you. And so I'd like to think if you, if my wife were sitting here with me, she would say that F3 saved our marriage. And I believe it did. I mean, she said as much to me, not because she was gonna divorce me. We had made that commitment a long time ago when it became Christians. This is now a covenant marriage, right? It's not a contract, it's a covenant. And we're not the only parties to this marriage. Right. And, so. She would say it saved our marriage because I got physically a lot more able to do things, but the emotional strength that comes from that confidence. And then the willingness to sit with other men that are way farther along in their faith. Yeah. And listen, love it, and talk. And we have a bunch of pastors in the St. Louis area, do F3. So it's, it's really a neat playground. It's a neat community. 

[00:46:27] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Yeah. We've got, so we've right along the lines of, we've got four pillars in our, in our journey. It's, and, and sa same, same pieces. So of course, our spiritual health. Our mental health, which includes our emotional health. Mm-hmm. Our physical health and our financial health. Right. We consider those four pillars that hold up the domicile, the residents of our life, if you will. Can you imagine like the foundation being Jesus, and then these four pillars in each corner of this, this residence, and you go into the residence. What does it house? It houses your relationships. That's all we are is a series of relationship, A relationship with God. Yep. Relationship with our family. Mm-hmm. Relationship with our community, and then relationship with our vocation, our business. And we often put the business relationship first, as you had said earlier in our conversation, and we put that to the end of the conversation because if we believe, if you have a strong and healthy relationship with God.

[00:47:20]
 That pours into a strong and healthy relationship with your family, that pours into a strong and healthy relationship with your community, then it naturally will pour into a strong and healthy relationship with your vocation, your business, and all of these pieces tie in together. And whether I'm gonna, I'm gonna come visit with you, I'm gonna come visit with you in, in the F3 and get good and, and, and do a workout with you guys. Love it. I'm looking forward to that and we'll make sure to keep all that in the show notes. And. Question for you as, as we, as we close this segment of our time together, one day you'll be at the end of this journey, this side of eternity, and you'll have shared all the wonderful things with all the wonderful people you've had the opportunity to. If you look back and you're on the great summit, if you will, of, of, of the journey before you go to meet Jesus face to face, you see all the people who you encountered and you had the blessing of interacting with. If you can think of just, it's a one thing. One thing that you would like them to have said about true. 

[00:48:20] Drew Ishmael
Funny stories among all these groups that I, I now am populated with a good dear friend of mine, and I'll call him Airhead, who is also a good, good Christian. He asked me, so what do you want on your tombstone? What do you want on your obituary? If you could write it, what would it be? And at that point, I said, loved by many, respected by all, you know, just as a, as a catchphrase. But what I would want people to say about me is that genuinely everybody that interacts with me, whether it's a positive or unfortunately, there's negative interactions, believes that I love them because, and from a guy. If you're listening to this on a podcast, 275 pounds, I've been martial artist, you know, combat in the military. And not that I was a tough guy in the military, I wasn't, but I work out, I lift heavy things. I, I'm not the guy you would say, oh, this guy loves me. But I genuinely want people to understand that the reason I listen to 'em, the reason I ask them, I don't ever ask, how is your day going?

[00:49:35]
 I get 'em a question, Hey, I noticed this, and I'll ask 'em a little something. Everybody gets a personal interaction, and the reason being is I want that opportunity to have one more conversation, and in that, that little sentence or that two that know that I genuinely care about 'em, and then that's I'm showing them love, and it may be the only time that day they're shown love. And I hope I can change somebody. So that's, that's truly, I just hope that everybody knows I love them and there's nothing they can do about it. 

[00:50:07] Dr. Nate Salah
Amen. Well, friend, you are on your way. Drew, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. We did it again, thank you so much for being a part of our program. We thank you, and we couldn't do it without you. If you've been blessed by this show, we would just ask that you give us an unfiltered review and share with the world how God is speaking to you through A Call to Leadership. You can do it on Apple or any of the podcast platforms, A Call to Leadership, and we thank you again. God bless you.


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Dr. Nate Salah

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