10 Differences Between Boys and Men: How to Stop Acting Like a Victim

If you are tired of waking up exhausted, feeling out of shape, lacking absolute focus, and settling for a life that is a fraction of what you actually deserve—then you are in the right place.

I just got back from serving as a leader at an intensive five-day young men's church retreat. During the trip, a powerful message was shared that completely hit me right between the eyes. It was a breakdown of the 10 core differences between boys and men. As I sat there listening, I realized that so many adult men in today’s society—including entrepreneurs, business leaders, and real estate investors—are still letting boyish mindsets sabotage their ultimate potential. They are pointing fingers, avoiding extreme ownership, and acting like victims to their circumstances.

In this episode, we are drawing a line in the sand. We dive deep into these 10 timeless lessons so you can use them as a brutal, honest checklist for your own life. Whether it's shifting from a consumer to a provider, breaking the toxic cycle of complaining, or mastering the compounding "trickle effect" of your daily discipline, this episode is the wake-up call you need to scale your business, lead your family, and reclaim your personal power.

Key topics we cover in this episode include:

• Taking vs. Giving: Why boys constantly look to consume, while men focus on building, serving, and giving back to their families, teams, and communities.
• Killing the Victim Mentality: Shifting away from blaming the economy, the government, or your boss, and stepping into complete control of your actions and reactions.
• The Trickle Effect: How small, daily micro-habits compound over time to either smash through obstacles like a powerful stream of water or quietly destroy your future.
• Protecting and Stirring Honor: Raising the standard for how we treat others and using our words to build people up instead of tearing them down.
• Rejecting Passivity: Standing firm in your convictions, staying to fight during trials, and prioritizing daily spiritual discipline and reflection.
• Exceeding Expectations: Breaking free from the mediocrity of doing the bare minimum and committing to elite execution when absolutely no one is watching.

Stop waiting for life to get easier. It’s time to stop making excuses, take absolute accountability, and step up as the leader you were born to be.

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Transcript

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Boys are constantly victims, and many of us in today's society are still acting like victims. Today we're going to talk about the 10 differences between boys and men because some of these lessons can still be instilled into us today. And many of us have not taken a full step to take accountability for showing up as a man. Boys take their identity from others where men take their identity from the king. But us as men, we can learn from this list, right? We can learn to from all the things here that were bestowed upon us with this list and how we can use it in our daily life. One, to make sure we're living as men and showing up as men daily. But two, as checks and balances for ourselves to say, am I doing this or does this need work? Ask yourself those very questions today. All right, let's go. If you're tired of not feeling fit, tired of just having a focus, tired of just not having the life that you deserve. This is your place to be. I'm Jason Yarussi. Today we're going to talk about the 10 differences between boys and men. You know, I just spent the last five days at this great church retreat as a leader for young men. And one of the talks, right, one of the talks that was given was about just the difference between boys and men. And I thought this was just perfect for today because some of these lessons can still be instilled into us today. And many of us have not taken that full step to take accountability for showing up as a man. So the first one was brought up is that boys, they take, right? They learn early on to take what they need, right? To go aft and get what they think that they deserve. But when you become a man, you give. You give back, right? You give to your family, you give to your workplace, you give to your employees, you give to your health, you give to God, right? You give to all these things, you give to your church, you give to all these different things. You no longer take and just constantly look to consume and just take what you feel is right for yourself. You look to go out there and help by aiding, by giving to others. Number two, boys are constantly victims. And many of us in today's society are still acting like victims. Everything's against you. Society's against you, your job's against you, your boss against you, the government's against you, your health is against you. Anything that goes wrong, you know, the cops are against you, your friends are against you, your enemies are against you, right? Everybody's against you. But no longer do we look at it that instead of looking and pointing the finger at all the reasons that you think you're hurting or not having, men take responsibility. They take responsibility to be in charge of their circumstances, in charge of their actions, and very much more importantly, in charge of their reactions. It takes no more saying that to understand that the world is difficult. There's challenges each and every day for all of us in many different ways. But as you look through your life, how much of you truly turn the finger back onto yourself and ask yourself, how could I have done different differently here? I see so much about people who put themselves in bad circumstances and then are just irate at the outcome, right? How dare this happen to me when you were certainly the one who pushed the narrative to put yourself in a place that you shouldn't have been in the first place? Where does it come back for you to be responsible for your actions? Responsible for how you talk, how you walk, how you show up, how you help, getting back to number one. Number three, boys spend their lives, right? Spending your lives just playing video games or wasting energy or doing things. And there's a certain part of that of freedom of just youth and vigor and all those things that allow you to be. But as you become a man, you have to invest your life. You have to invest your life to be faithful to God. You have to be investing into your life to be a great father, a great husband, a great friend, great to yourself, great to your body, great to your own health. You have to invest into your future so you can create a future that duplicates not for just you, but for so many around you. You know, one of the last talks today was about the trickle-down effect that, you know, over time we all want things immediately here. But if you have a certain point, right, like a drip of water, right, it becomes so powerful, right? If you have a slow stream, you know, at time there may be a rock that impedes it, and the water may find its way around the rock. But if that water and that stream of water continues to trickle and just hit that rock and hit that rock and hit that rock and hit that rock, eventually it will start to cut through and make its own path right through the rock. And you can think about this in positive ways and in negative ways, right? That that trickle effect can just explode into positivity, right? Going to the gym four days a week, just reinforcing your mind with positivity, having quiet time or reflection in the morning with the Bible, spending quality time with your family, investing into learning more to reading books over time. Magnificent and massive improvement. Every weekend, you know, going out and partying, just eating ice cream three or four days a week, having just a negative attitude and just constantly yelling at your family or at the workforce, blaming everybody else. That trickle effect can push you in directions that are just outside of your control, but also put you in a place where you absolutely don't want to be. Number four, men treat women as ob or boys treat women as objects of desire, but men treat women as their sisters who honor, whose honor needs to be protected. You look at social media and you see all these instances of men just not being protective of women and at many times putting them down, pushing them down, even at times striking them. And so little do we see men that stand up and come to their aid and be protective of them. On the other hand, I know many men that are just magnificent people who stand up to do their best for their family, for any woman who needs help, for anybody who needs help, and put them in a position to lead, to protect, to serve, to care. Number five, boys will tear down with their words when men will stir others with their words. And the stirs in a positive motion. How are you using what you say? I have conversations all the time where I can just tell the direction of the person's mind with the first sentence that they say. Oh, well, when this happened, man, what horrible thing this has been, right? Oh, just I hate this. Man, it just, you know, things are just not great right now, right? And the last one, there can be truth in that. You can be honest with that. But if you're always saying everything is bad, what do you think your mind's gonna tell you? When the other side, men understand that within something that's not great, there is a challenge, but there is a lesson and there's a responsibility and there's an action. And there's an understanding that what you do can bring up everyone around you with how you use your words and how you present yourself and how you help to make things better, even when they're far from it. Boys, number six, boys leave in the moment when men live in light of eternity. It's easy to act because it feels good at the moment, right? It's hard to understand that your life and your actions can transpire into greatness, into positivity, into a purpose, into a movement. But you can't just be living in moment to moment where you're not reflecting on how this is going to affect you and others for the future. Number seven, boys will quit in a trial while men will stay and fight. I mean, what a what a great list this is. Men stand up for what they believe in, true purpose to that. They stand up and they say, This is everything, and I will stand behind it. Belief in God, right? There's many challenges that we talk to about these boys that they're gonna be challenged constantly, that from people that just honestly don't understand it, haven't heard about it, or truly don't believe it and have disgust for it. They're gonna be in a position where they have to stand up. And the hardest thing as a man, but also as a young boy, right, is to be in a position where ten people say one thing, but you're the one who believes another thing, to stand up and say, I understand that you have a position, but this is my position and this is what I stand for. Number eight, boys are spiritually passive. Men reject spiritually passivity daily. Simply put, are we having quiet time in the morning? Are we reflecting, get up and praying? Are we doing the things that we need to be to walk in a way of Jesus? If we ask ourselves daily, are you saying your prayers? Are you reading your Bible? And I'm guilty of this too, of not putting into quiet time the work to be closer to God. But we can all learn from this lesson of how are we showing up daily? It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it. Number nine, boys take their identity from others where men take their identity from the king. You know, we had this great lesson, honestly, about Jacob, which is uh stands for heel grabber, was what his name stood for, right? And how interesting we matched that he hung on to God, right? Because he wanted to, you know, hang on to something finally instead of pushing everything away and trying to work through it to himself. And from that, he was given a new name. And I too could give myself a new name today, but only one can change our identity. So in yourself today, how are you showing up? What are you clinging to? Are you bringing yourself to speak to God when when you have challenges, when you have struggles? Or are you constantly trying to push away and say, you know what, I should be able to figure out on my own? There's many things as men that we want to hold on to and just say, I should be able to do this. But we have to give ourselves to God to understand that there is a path here. There, there's a plan here. And even though we can't see all the steps, the steps are there. And that's why hindsight becomes completely evident in 2020 fashion. But looking forward, we have a massively hard time connecting the dots. Lastly, number 10, boys do the bare minimum when men exceed expectations. You know, as funny as it is, we had to clean up the cabin on the way out, and the boys were kept trying to say, well, how much do we have to clean, right? Can we just pick up two things each, right? Right. And there's this part where can we just do as little as possible to get the result? Where the question is, we have to do it until it's done and do it to it's great. And life is about that, right? If you want to be mediocre in life, just do what you can to do the bare minimum and see what happens. Do what you can to constantly not do the work when the time is needed. But if you're a man, you go over and the top to just do your best on everything, regardless when people are looking. Most importantly, when no one is looking. You push yourself past the level to do great things. Now, I can't take credit for this list. This was a massively impressive list put together by New Vision Church. It was very important for the boys to listen to this and just to learn this and hopefully to reread this and go through it in notes and understand what it but us as men, we can learn from this list, right? We can learn to from all the things here that were bestowed upon us with this list and how we can use it in our daily life. One, to make sure we're living as men and showing up as men daily, but two, as checks and balances for ourselves to say, am I doing this? Or does this need work? Ask yourself those very questions today. All right, that's what I have for you today. This is the Liver Oranger Podcast. I'm Jason Roosty. Let's do this.