What No One Tells You About “Having It All” as a Man

Every man wants to “have it all” — the perfect career, family, fitness, faith, and freedom. But the truth? You can’t. And chasing that dream will only leave you burned out and empty.
In this episode, Don exposes the myth of “having it all” and shows how to build a life of meaning by choosing what truly matters. You’ll learn:
 • Why the online version of success is a trap
 • How to live with honor and make intentional sacrifices
 • Why a tribe of men helps you define and protect what matters most
📘 Want to go deeper into the 5 Marks of Manhood — including Honor?
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Question for You
 What’s one value you want to uphold — and what’s one thing you’ll need to sacrifice to honor it? Comment below and share your example.

⏰ TIMECODES
 00:00 The Myth of Having It All
 01:18 The Reality Check
 03:32 The Importance of Honor
 04:54 The Illusion of Internet Perfection
 08:03 Personal Experience with Overcommitment
 10:46 Building a Tribe and Setting Priorities
 13:34 Conclusion

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 #ManhoodTribes #MensGrowth #WorkLifeBalance #FaithForMen #MensTribe #Masculinity

ABOUT MANHOOD TRIBES
 In our culture today, many men don’t feel like they know what it means to be a man, and they lack male friendships. Manhood Tribes guides you to becoming an extraordinary man by pursuing strong, healthy masculinity and building a life-changing group of men around you.
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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:01

Men today are told that we can have it all. If you look at just about any kind of men's influencer on social media or YouTube or any place else on the internet, you will find guys who are making promises that as a man. You can have it all be it all, do it all. You can have the six pack abs and the big biceps, and you can have the six figure income all while only working five hours a week. And you can own a giant house and a boat to go with it and take lavish, elaborate vacations, and at the same time, have a family that loves you and praises the ground that you walk on. And a faith that inspires others and a life that is full of meaning and joy and purpose. And you'll never be worn out. And all of this is capable and yeah, right. It just starts to feel like, is this real? Like who, whose lives are actually looking like this? And I think that's really the problem, is that lives don't actually look like that. The internet. Makes lives look like that. But we know that the internet usually is not telling us the truth. In fact, almost always, it's not telling us the whole truth. And we know from that that the guys who are promising these things are actually overpromising those things because they want to sell us something. Now, all of that is complicated, but the reality is that. As men, we actually kind of do want it all. Like that idea is super enticing. I wish I could be the man who had all of those things, and I probably imagine that you do too. Wouldn't it be nice if life looked like that? But when we try to pursue life like that, we end up burned out. Fatigued, exhausted, lonely, isolated, and probably shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to at least one major category of our lives. Maybe it's our family, maybe it's our health, maybe it's our faith, whatever it is, something always tends to suffer as we try to pursue the life that has it all. So inevitably we have to get to the point where we admit and recognize that the kind of life that's being sold to us on the internet, where we can have all the amazing things and be all the amazing things all at once, isn't a real life, but. What are we gonna let go of to be able to choose a life that we actually can have? Where would we actually want to sacrifice to be able to say, Nope, I'll be content with doing well at these few things, where in these few things I just know I'm gonna fall short. Nobody wants to admittedly say, yeah, I'm just gonna fall short in those areas. So how do we as men figure out what a life worth living actually looks like when we know we can't have it all? Let's talk about all of that today here on the Manhood Tribe Show. My name is Don. I'm the host here at Manhood Tribes, and it's really my goal to help you as men to figure out what it looks like to be a man, and then to develop a group of other men around you who are help, gonna help you get to the place that you want to be as a man. Here at Manhood Tribes, we talk about that as a life-changing group, known as a tribe, and I really want to encourage this idea of tribe in our episode today, because I think that's really where we need to hone in on, to try to figure out what is the life that we actually want to have and how do we begin to move towards that as opposed to this have it all kind of life that keeps being sold to us on the internet. Now, I'm glad that you're here because we're gonna talk about one of the things at Manhood Tribes that I think is probably one of the most important things that we talk about, but it's also one of the hardest things for us to talk about and to understand, and that's really the whole idea of. Honor. Now, if you've been around manhood tribes a little bit, then you know that honor is one of our five marks of manhood. If you're brand new to the Manhood Tribe Show, or to any of our content, you can actually go back to some of our earliest episodes where I talk about the five marks of manhood, and in particular about the mark of honor, which is what we're gonna talk about today. But the idea of honor is really just about doing right by your peers. It's about having a group of men who are close to you and that together you are sharing a set of values and challenging one another to pursue those things and get better at them. That's really what honor is all about. Now, hopefully you're choosing some values that are really good and meaningful, not only to you, but to, uh, life and society at large. And so you're becoming a good man as long as well as becoming better at being a man. That's really the way that honor works best. But the point is, is that you need a group of men around you in order to be able to pursue the mark of honor. Now, what does that have to do with what we're talking about today? Well, the thing about this whole di idea of men having it all is that it lives almost entirely in the vacuum of the internet where there aren't real relationships, where there isn't real community, where there aren't physical. People around you helping you to figure out the way to go. You're looking at the highlight reel of someone else's life, or of someone else's career, or of someone else's family, or of someone else's fitness or you know, you name it, you are looking at the things that they want to show you. You're not seeing all the flaws. All the failures, all the struggles, all the way that their life probably doesn't add up to that, have it all life that they're trying to sell you. But they're showing you just enough of those kinds of things to tease you and entice you into thinking that that really can be a possibility. But the way that they sell it to you very often is just by following their program, buying their coaching package, signing up for their fitness membership, you know, whatever it is. Look, I'm not knocking any of that. In fact, I'm a content creator who follows a lot of those same strategies. But the point is, is that rarely is it ever about joining a group or a community of people that you're with locally who are going to help encourage you and push you to being the kind of man that you really want to be. Now, there might be some kind of like short term accountability that you do with a, you know. Short term coaching group or some kind of other community that you sign up for. But for the most part, even those things tend to be virtual or distance oriented, and they're short-lived. They're kind of goal focused. And once you've accomplished the goal, the group no longer serves its purpose anymore. None of that is really the kind of community that's necessary for building honor, and here's where honor comes into play in all of this discussion. Honor is what's going to help you be able to figure out what do I need to focus on and what do I need to let go of? Because you'll be living in a community of men who are asking the same questions, and together you're coming up with a set of values that saying, these are the things that we're going to honor. These are the things that we're going to prioritize because that's what's going to help us become the kind of men that we want to be. And in our group. And our tribe. When we honor those things, we will challenge each other to be pursuing those things, even if it means letting some other things fall by the wayside so that we can make the most of those things. It's really the opposite of the habit all life. It is the what kind of life is a good life. And let's go after that life together and challenge and encourage each other to pursue that. But if you don't have a group of men in your life that are pursuing that kind of life together, then you're gonna fall victim to whatever influencer on the internet as showing you the flashiest, shiniest six, iest you, you know, whatever kind of package that they've got to be able to entice you into that have it all kind of life that isn't really actually a possibility. I know that for me, there was a time early on in my adulthood, probably in my like mid to late twenties when I was starting to pursue this, kind of have it all kind of life, and I was signing up for a fitness program both online at my and at my gym, and I was signing up for a. Faith-based cohort to help me not only grow in my faith, but also to try to grow as kind of an entrepreneur and a business person. And I was also signing up for a marriage class at my church with my wife because I wanted us to get stronger as a couple and to develop our marriage and to get better at doing those things. And I was also trying to take on some new hobbies. I wanted to do a triathlon and I wanted to get better at some outdoor and adventure sports, and I was pursuing. All of the things. And what began to happen was a couple things. One, we ran outta money. I was spending way too much money trying to sign up for all these things and be a part of those things and do all of the things and kind of with some hope of like, ah, one of these things is gonna eventually pay off and we'll catch up with the money that we've overspent. And of course that didn't happen. I just ended up overspending and in some places, and in some ways, I actually put us into some real financial, you know, troubled waters because I wasn't being healthy or wise with our finances. But the other thing was, is that I just got exhausted. I was doing so much and trying so hard at all of it. I couldn't give a hundred percent to anything. And so I was just spread really, really thin. I was trying to be alive in too many places and I just couldn't maintain it. My relationship started to suffer, but my just overall energy level started to suffer. I was tired all the time and I never felt like I was showing up the way I wanted to in any of those places that I was trying to give my time and energy to. So I really did decide some of this has got to go, and that's when I started to prioritize some really key. Relationships and friendships in my life to be able to say, these are the people that are going to matter to me and together, I want us to try to choose what are the things that are gonna matter to us, and I'm gonna pursue those things as well because I know that if these guys around me are choosing things that should be prioritized in our lives. I can trust them. I, I actually value them as people. I value their opinion, I value their perspective. And, you know, the ways that they're thinking about going about life are probably really good things. Now I'm having input into that as well, but together we're helping to establish some rhythms, some values, some things that we're going to honor, and that's how we decide what a good life actually looks like and what kind of life is worth pursuing. So. Having that kind of honor means having a tribe. You've got to really prioritize building those quality relationships with men around you. And then as you do that, it's important to recognize that you need to regularly establish some values with your tribe of what the things are that your tribe is really gonna hold as most important. It is also good to recognize that those things might change over time or even be different for different men in the tribe depending on what season of life or stage of life that they're in. So it might be for guys with kids of a certain age that prioritizing. Stay at home family kinds of activities is really important, whereas guys with kids at a different age, it might look really different in terms of the things that they're prioritizing, but both men or all men in the tribe might really say that, Hey, family is gonna be one of the things that we prioritize. Even if it means we have to sacrifice a little bit in terms of work or income goals. We really want to prioritize our families. That's great. If that's what you guys as a tribe decide, then you've created a value that you're all going to go after together, and it immediately sets some boundaries to where you can say yes to this and no to anything else that might get in the way of those things. Maybe as a group of men, you're really gonna say, Hey, we really care about health and fitness. Like this is really important to us. We want to be men who are not only in shape, but are physically prepared for being healthy and meeting all of the challenges that life is going to throw at us. That's great. Now you have some priorities. You have some things that you as a tribe are gonna focus on. And being healthy and being fit is not just, you know, like an internet goal to go after because somebody told you that as a man, that's what you should do. It's something that you as a group of men have decided. This is what we're going to honor. These are the kinds of men that we're going to be, and that may cost us a little bit. It may cost us some income. We may have to move some money around in order to be able to devote to our health and fitness in ways that we can't devote to other things so that we can make health and fitness a real priority in our lives. Okay, now you figured out what you need to say yes to and what you need to say no to in order to be able to make that thing a priority. Okay. This is what having honor really can look like in a tribe, and it sets you up so well. Now, if you're a little bit confused about this whole idea of honor and you would like to try to understand it a little better, I want to tell you about a book that I wrote called How to Be a Man. It walks through not only the mark of honor, but all of the other five marks of manhood as well, and how to be able to live those things out in the context of a tribe. You can pick it up on Amazon right now. Just look for How to Be a Man by Don Ross. I would love for you to get a copy and to allow that to help you get started on your journey of getting better at being a man. Now if you are the kind of man who prioritizes having a tribe and living by this mark of honor, then it is going to set you up to be able to push back against this false narrative of the have it all kind of life, and it's actually going to set you up to be able to have. A life that you enjoy, that you love, and that you're at peace with. You're not chasing it all the time, but you actually can have a life that is purposeful, that is meaningful, and that is enjoyable. And yes, you won't have it all. You will not be able to accomplish every goal that the internet tells you that you should as a man of 35 or 55 or 75 or whatever age, but you will be a man who values and accomplishes the things that your tribe says are worthy of honor, and that will make you into the kind of man who you truly want to be. That will bring you a level of validation and satisfaction and peace with your life that you will never know. By chasing the have it all life that the internet is trying to sell to you. So pursue those friendships, pursue honor, and learn to have a good life, not a have it all kind of life. I hope that this has been helpful for you and has given you another grid to be able to think through on how to be able to handle your life, especially as it relates to all of these other things going on in your world. I would love for you to engage with this episode by putting something down in the comments and just saying, what is one value that you want to uphold, and what is one thing that means you're going to have to sacrifice? All right. What's one value you want to uphold in your life, and what is one thing that means you're going to have to sacrifice? Put that down there. It may help some other guys be able to think about it for themselves as well, and you can create a good discussion going on there in the comment section down below. All right, I hope this helps guys. I look forward to talking to you again real soon here on the Manhood Tribe Show. We'll see you then.