Gregory Vetter Podcast
Gregory Vetter shares the raw realities of entrepreneurship—the struggles, breakthroughs, and lessons that shaped his journey, as told in Undressed. Tune in for unfiltered insights on resilience, reinvention, and the true cost of success.
Gregory Vetter Podcast
Stop Being Weak (Backbone Series Part 1)
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Most people don’t have a knowledge problem.
They have a backbone problem.
This episode breaks down the real idea behind Greg’s new book Backbone: Stop Being Weak and Do What’s Right—and why so many people today are stuck, soft, and avoiding the decisions that actually matter.
This isn’t theory.
It’s what happens when you take leadership, family, business, and real life—and strip it down to what actually works.
Because at the highest level, everything comes down to one thing:
Do you have the nerve to do what’s right…
even when it’s uncomfortable?
Greg and Moe get into:
- Why most leaders fail (and it has nothing to do with intelligence)
- The danger of chasing consensus instead of clarity
- How comfort is quietly destroying ambition
- Why modern culture is producing weaker men—and what that actually means
- The role of discipline, tension, and hard conversations in building anything that lasts
- And why how you show up at home is the same way you show up everywhere else
This conversation also gets into something most people avoid:
Consequences.
Because when there are no consequences—
there’s no growth, no leadership, and no standard.
And without that?
Everything falls apart.
At the end of the day, this isn’t about being tough for the sake of it.
It’s about being the kind of person people can rely on—
in your business, your family, and your life.
Because if you don’t have backbone…
nothing else matters.
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Pretty much comes up I think the end of testing everybody gets one of the coming stuff and everybody else gets fucked. 52 investors might fuck over 52 and fuck one of them fuck everybody else over. And I would have made an unbelievable amount of money. What boomerang's coming back? Cause it's coming. Yeah, you gotta protect your family, you gotta do what's right there, but you also have to do what's right, generally speaking, regardless of the consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, yes, children of all ages, Maurice Taylor here, Gregory Vetter. Moe's in colors today, no longer in the ninja all black. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I thought I'd mix it up today. Nice hat. You know, the blues with the blue with the blue with the blue with the reds, with the reds, with the just a tad.
SPEAKER_02That's an Annapolis high school matching situation, which most people don't know about.
SPEAKER_00I think I need this. I might need to put a booster seat this time. You can put that cushion under your ass.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a little short. All right. Well, we are gonna be discussing my new book, Backbone.
SPEAKER_00Backbone. I thought this was a great conversation.
SPEAKER_02Stop being weak and do what's right.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And you designed the book cover, which I think is magnificent. Yeah. We need uh it's like a backbone, it's like a spine, but it says backbone. A double on tendre. I showed I showed sever in the book cover. He goes, Oh, I like it. He's like very modern. That's what he said. Sever funny. Ooh, very modern. I like it. He's like, it's backbone stacked up and it's almost like a vertebrae. I'm like, Yes. You're this actually took a long ass time to get right. We did, we did go through that a few times. I mean, and then once you put that together, it was like, well, we're there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Two, four, six, eight.
SPEAKER_02Who do we appreciate?
SPEAKER_00Backbone.
SPEAKER_02Backbone. All right. So the book. Um, you got any questions to begin, or you want me to give you a synopsis or what? What's good?
SPEAKER_00Let's go with go with the synopsis and then I'm gonna chime in because I have some things here.
SPEAKER_02Do you now?
SPEAKER_00Kind of sort of, yes.
SPEAKER_02All right, so one of the things that I've always done in my life is I read a lot and I combine a lot of different stuff into my own. I take, I pick and choose things I like, things that apply to my life. I'm constantly testing things. Do these actually work when you apply them? I don't really care about the theory of it all. Too many people talk about the theory of it. They don't apply any of it to reality. And so, in the grand scheme of the world, it's completely fucking irrelevant. And so there's a bunch of different ideas that I have put together. And the impetus behind all of this is one of the best leadership books that I've ever read. Uh, is by Edwin Friedman, and it's called Failure of Nerve. And he was, it's basically an accumulation and a summary of his life's work. He died before he could finish it. Um, but this dude lived in Washington, D.C., was a rabbi, a marriage counselor, a leadership consultant, a performance coach, and a therapist. So he kind of saw every aspect of teams and leadership and everything else. And at the end, at the end of his life of seeing it all, religion, sports, business, family, all of it, he boiled it all down to something as simple as a failure of nerve. And when you read the book, it is deep. Most people, when they read it, it's like it's too much. You know, you make the recommendation for someone to read it. They're like, bro, I'm gonna read it. I got 10 pages in, and I'm just like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? One of the things I think I do a good job of is I am a good translator to the everyman.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Right? So if you look at everything I do and read, I think I do a great job of taking all of that and just applying it for anybody to understand. So that was one of the ideas that I think the masses need to understand and adopt to be able to thrive in their own life or their own lives. Um, and then there's a couple other principles in here, um, but all of it takes all of that, applies it to my life, applies it to the journey, applies it to today's societies, and it really kind of just boils down to like we need more backbone. Men today, in 2026, there's not a lot of backbone. And if you have it, you're probably doing pretty good. And if you don't, your life is in fucking shambles.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so let's just, before we get into it, let's just backbone. Just break down why backbone. Uh, what is the what was it? What would that be? You used the title for the book backbone for what reason?
SPEAKER_02Having a large set of nuts didn't really apply well for the book cover. Grow some nuts. Grow grow a sack.
SPEAKER_00As a as the uh as that one video on the internet says, when the guy went to the doctor, he said, Would you test me for the for the day, doctor? Trying to see if you got that dog in you. Well, right, but that's basically it.
SPEAKER_02You ain't got that dog in you. Right. You don't have the dog. And I think backbone when we were growing up, you heard that a lot. Like, yeah, you need to have some fucking backbone. You need to stand up straight, you need to do what's right, put your chest out, you know, stick up for yourself. Stick up for yourself, have some fucking backbone. Don't be a yellow-bellied chicken. Right. You know, go out there and get it. And so I thought backbone pretty much sums up how I think of the opposite of a failure of nerve. Right. Like if you have backbone and you're having tough conversations and you're leading organizations and you're leading by example, and you're a leader in your home, and you're doing all the stuff you're supposed to be doing. You're raising your kids the way you think they should be raised, kind of regardless of social pressures. Mike Tyson has the greatest quote on discipline ever, which is it's doing the things that you hate to do, but acting like you like it. And the same is applied to health, the same is applied to business or following your dream. You need to methodically show up and do what's required. You gotta do what's right, and I think you'll sleep better at night, so it's not just about being overly strong in moments, but it's doing what's right. Because I think karma's a boomerang.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so what whatever you got is coming back at you.
SPEAKER_00I believe in that 100%.
SPEAKER_02And, you know, I've thought a lot about the end of Tessie Mays with that because I had so many options and so many moments towards the end where everybody's kind of positioning to take the whole thing over, and they wanted me to kind of join their side, and everybody else gets fucked, and I would have made an unbelievable amount of money in the process. And I thought about that boomerang, and I thought about would I be able to look at myself in the mirror if I fucked over, right? There's 52 investors, so I fuck over 51 and partner with one of them, fuck everybody else over, make a shitload of money. What what boomerang's coming back? Cause it's coming. Yeah, it's definitely coming. And so having backbone, yeah, you gotta protect your family and you gotta do what's right there, but you also have to do what's right, generally speaking, or what you think is the best possible course of action, regardless of the consequences. Yes, and again, that kind of goes back to this failure of nerve thing.
SPEAKER_00And um I was just ready to speak on that because this is that was uh a strong quote in your book, and I like to build a moment around it, which you kind of briefly talked on the beginning, but it was failure of nerve is when leaders give up clarity to chase consensus, sacrifice mission to soothe feelings, and avoid and avoid decisions because someone will be upset. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, think, dude, think about when you think about our C-suite and the executive team at Tessie Mays when we were there, how many different people we had with how many different opinions we had on every situation. You had Channing with HR. I mean, if we listened to her, we'd be fucked.
SPEAKER_00My girl Chan made me take down my Sesame Street video. Yeah. Well, I think it was Chan.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I love her. Yeah, that's true. And she served her role perfectly. But my job was not to only make HR and legal happy. That's not my job. Then you had sales, which, you know, they're selling everything for as cheap as they can to get the yes. So you can't only listen to them. You got operations who then hates sales because they're just fucking getting orders. They don't give a shit what's going on. Fucking supply chain up. You've, you know, so you've got all of these different groups that all want you to agree with them. They're always positioning and manipulating, whether or not they know it or not, for their own position to be correct. And in the midst of all of it, you've got to stand strong, remember where you're going, remember everybody that's involved, and you've got to do what's right in that moment. And what you see today is, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, or whatever the fucking saying is. It's whoever's yelling the loudest. You're just like, all right, here, fine, take it, shut the fuck up. Yeah, so you can shut up. Right? But we never had a culture of that. So the squeaky wheel did not get the grease. You got told to shut the fuck up. Here are our goals. I'll listen to you. Let's take in all the information that we can. And I explain this to people in this decision-making matrix, always just kind of think of like a color wheel. Every color is different. I'm in the middle, so I'm taking in all the different colors, and I'm trying to get an understanding of what positions everybody has and why. Another great analogy I always used was the beach ball, right? You got a white panel, a yellow panel, a red panel, and a blue panel. Green. Sometimes depends on the beach ball. If this is a classic 1950s, there's no green. I'm gonna have to look that up. Uh, but in your world, you think the beach ball's red. Your whole world's red. One one whole world's yellow, one whole world's blue, white, etc. And you forget that you're a panel on a beach ball. And you forget what your role is because you're just trying to make sure your shit is the most dialed in. Right. And so being able to maintain that focus and sit in the midst of all the chaos and maintain the appropriate amount of tension, that is the game. Because sales needs to feel tension, just like operations needs to feel tension. HR and legal always needs to feel tension, just like the marketing team needs to feel tension. And all of it only works through kind of this equally distributed amount of tension. And sometimes it flows a little bit over here, and sometimes it flows a little bit more over here. But in the grand scheme of things, all of that tension allows the machine to work.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02And you see it probably more. The most blatant examples are like professional sports now and college sports with the NIL deals and the transfer portals. Um, but then also in families. You know, you see it when suddenly like there's this thing called like a man cave where like you send your husband down to the basement where he's you know has a TV and a little bar and his favorite sport stuff hanging on the wall, and he's come see my man cave. It's like, isn't this your house? Isn't this whole thing your man cave?
SPEAKER_00I never looked at, I never looked at it like that. Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02Or or or we send him out to a shed. I've converted my shed to a man cave. And you're kind of like, okay, why? Why are you hiding in a shed behind your home? And I think it comes down to these failure of nerve conversations where you just don't want to get into an argument.
SPEAKER_00You just separate yourself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I'm just gonna go hide in the back and drink some beers and watch some sports and you know, I I don't want to get into an argument. And it's like, well, that's not life. Right. Right? Because how you do something is how you do everything. And so if you're kind of normal operating procedures to go hide in a shed and drink some beers and watch some sports, you're probably doing that at work. You're probably doing that with your kids, and that's not how anything develops. And so you're basically creating this environment where everything's weak. Nobody has tough conversations, nobody's doing hard shit, nobody's got any backbone, kids can't follow their dad as a leader, so they don't know what a man should be. The sons look at their dad and go, okay, I I can be bald, I can be fat, I can drink every day, and my main you know, hobby is being a fan of a professional sports team that I don't play for. Well, then that's what they're gonna be.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And then if you have daughters, that's what their future husband is going to be.
SPEAKER_00Because they look up to the dead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, you're the example of the man in their life. So if the man in their life wakes up late, is overweight, not strong, doesn't work out, doesn't stand up for the things he believes in, hides from tough conversations, and basically has no backbone, what is she gonna marry?
SPEAKER_00That's another podcast episode in itself. I'm gonna have to write that down.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I mean, I actually just did a Substack article. It's it's not out yet. I think it comes out on Sunday. Um last summer, I mean a couple guys we had to like lift a car to save a girl at Broadley's uh lacrosse tryout. Remember, I told you about that? Yep, yep. And it's an interesting concept that like dads should be able to lift cars. So we're leaving this tryout.
SPEAKER_00That's a nice one. That's a nice title.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, that's the title. Dad should be able to lift cars. I'm leaving this tryout. A guy I played in the MLL with was there. It's a fucking brick shit house. Head coach of Towson right now, Sean Natalin. Total, total animal. And he's right in front of me. He's pulling out. We hear a bang, his eyes go like this. He jumps out of the car, right? So I'm pulling out of my spot. He's coming this way. I see him jump out, start jogging. I open my door, I hear screaming, so I jump out. My daughter jumps out too. We run over. There's a door open of a Lincoln Navigator, and a girl is screaming, and the door has pinned her in. She's half in, half out. A car crash uh Lexus, I think it's a GX, like the Toyota 4Runner size. Yeah, crashes into the front of the navigator, bounces off, and then pins this door on this girl's waist. So the girl's screaming, we can't drag her through the car because she's fucking legit pinned. So we're like, oh my God. So like five dads that are all kind of built like me run over, and there's people everywhere watching, everywhere. And we try we're first we try pushing the car. Like, can we push one of the cars over to pull her through?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And we can't. It's not we can't push it enough to be able to drag her through because she's really fucking pinned in. So then we try lifting the Lexus, but the back fenders plastic, so we basically rip it off. So we're like, fuck. So then we get behind the navigator and we fucking lift this car over and then drag her through. And how many days was it? There's five of us. And ambulance comes, girl goes to the hospital, she ends up being okay. And we're, you know, I don't know, 200 people are there watching like these five fuck like we're big dudes. I'm 6'3, 220. And like we fucking lift this car, and we're walking back, and Broadly goes, Good thing you lift so much. And I'm like, why? She goes, You just lifted a fucking navigator, that's why. And now that girl's okay. And I was like, That's a great point. Right. I called my wife and I told her what was happening. She was like, Well, good thing you deadlift so much. And it was interesting because like their natural reaction was not, How did you do it? Oh my god. It was just like, yeah, I mean, I see you in the gym every day lifting unbelievable amounts of weight. It makes sense. Like, good thing you do that. Good thing you were there. Right.
SPEAKER_00But there's 200 people standing there that couldn't do shit. Like then nobody didn't even run over. They just see five. If I was there, I'd have ran over there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you probably would have, but the the other baseline reaction, and this is kind of that Navy SEAL quote that everybody loves to quote, which is like you don't rise to your expectations, you fall back to your training.
SPEAKER_00That's nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, yeah, it's true. Every single one of those people were like, There's nothing I can do. Like, I don't work out, I'm overweight.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if for me if That's first thought, even if I was working out working out. Yeah, I do work out, but even if I wasn't working out, yeah, but you say but you say that, but you always work out.
SPEAKER_02Like you may not be seven-day a week grinder, but you're always in shape.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I try to stay in shape.
SPEAKER_02And you know how to fight. So you're I mean, what's that gonna do with living the navigator? It it is the mindset of I can get in there and do something if I need.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'd have Ranova and tried to help.
SPEAKER_02Right. So all of that to say, because we were talking about that whole story, because our daughters are gonna look to their fathers about what kind of man are they going to marry. Maybe she marries somebody like me, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.
SPEAKER_00But she'll have the key basic things to look out for.
SPEAKER_02And then and then that's gonna be her decision. Yeah. Like if she wants to marry some, you know, skinny fat fucking nerd, that's her that's her call. You know?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But she knows what's possible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she knows what when my dad was out there, at least she finds somebody. Right. So it's uh in the book, uh you talk about why backbone is not around anymore, or at least as potent as it used to be, probably back, I would say, back when my grandfather and then my father, and then what's coming up. Even even with my my my grandmother, why do you always tell me, well, they don't make grammars like that no more, boy. He said, Boy. Well, just I mean, dude.
SPEAKER_02So there's a great book on raising boys. It's called Iron John by Robert Bly. I think you talked about it. I never read that. I'm gonna have to have to read that. I reference it in this book as well. Then you say your dad gave you that book? Yeah, when I had my son. Yeah. He goes, This is how I raised you. Wrote a little note in it, read it. This is how you need to raise boys. And it's basically a breakdown of how men have become so soft. And when was this book written? Late 70s, early 80s, I want to say.
SPEAKER_00So they would so it's it's been slowly a slowly decline or a slowly imbalanced change.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right? And it comes down to the long story short, is like the feminist movement of you know, hating toxic masculinity and hating kind of like these strong aggressive men that stand up for what they want. And for whatever reason, that became kind of like this call sign of like, you know, fuck the patriarchy, and I don't like these guys. Well, then they ended up marrying very weak, skinny, fat, feminine men, which goes back to the exact point of your kids are gonna look to your father. Yeah. So then those kids grow up going, oh, you know, my dad goes to his shed for his man cave, so he doesn't have to talk to our mom, and he hides in there and drinks beers and watches fucking you know, March Madness instead of doing it in his own home. And in the communory. And it's just it's just a common example of there's no backbone anymore because it's just slowly getting beaten out of people. We don't reward it anymore. The school system is set up for very quiet, very obedient, very low energy people to sit in a seat for eight hours a day, politely raise their hand, memorize facts, and don't talk back. Right. Well, that's not how shit gets done, dude.
SPEAKER_00That's not how you achieve anything. Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_02Dude, can you imagine if that's how we approached building any of the companies that we built?
SPEAKER_00The first no, we'd be like, okay.
SPEAKER_02All right, sorry about that. Didn't want to uh you know ruin your day or take away some of your time there. Absolutely. It's like hell no. We did not take no for an answer.
SPEAKER_00So do you think you think uh you're saying here we're not lacking intelligence, we're lacking courage. Yeah. So when do you think that shift happened?
SPEAKER_02I think it's been a slow, you know, it's been a 1% reduction every year, or you could say it's been a 1% reduction every month, but everybody has their own sequence of getting the soul beat out of them. Because I watched this really interesting video today about Mr. Rogers, and he was being interviewed, I think it was Congress was interviewing him. They go, Well, what's the most important thing for a parent to know about their children? And he said, the most important thing for a parent to know about their children is to remember what their childhood was like and what it was like to be a child. That's the most important thing. And I think that that's really important and deep when you think about it, because like what were you like as a little boy before school gave you fucking detention for standing up?
SPEAKER_00I think about it all the time when I'd be ready to say something to my daughter. Like, what was I doing at that age?
SPEAKER_02I try to, you know, I'll be like, I say I say that to my wife every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because my boys, when we're eating dinner, they're telling stories. Next thing you know, they're up, they're dancing, they're doing their deal, they're and she's like, they need to sit down for dinner. I'm like, yeah, I agree they need to sit down, but like this story's really good, and it requires a dance scene. Let them finish. Yeah, let it like let's get it. Because I remember my dad always tells this story the first day of elementary school, Epping Forest dropped off at the gate. All the parents waited for the gate, and then you basically either walked back or your parents drove you back. Door opens up, and I take off sprinting past my parents, just running. And they drive behind me and finally pull up to me, and I'm like fucking upset. My dad's like, What is wrong? I go, they want me to sit in a chair all day long. And my dad laughed, and he goes, They're still trying to get me to do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're still trying to get me to do that, right?
SPEAKER_02And we forget the natural energy that these little gifts from God have in them before we beat them down. Right. I I saw this other thing of, and I don't know if I fully agree with it, but this parental person was talking about how you shouldn't make your kids share. And I was like, huh, let me I want to hear about this. And they go, Well, it's their shit. And just because some other kid wants their shit doesn't mean they have to give it to them every time someone asks. Maybe there's a time and a place for them to share, but not every time. Because some kid comes up and goes, I want that truck, or I want to sit where you're sitting, they don't need to say okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we wouldn't say that if somebody came up to everybody go, hey, uh, you're at a coffee shop.
SPEAKER_02I'd like to sit here, please. Let me use your computer. Yeah, it's like, no.
SPEAKER_00Like, no, you can't use my computer.
SPEAKER_02This is my seat. I'm sitting here. Right. And I thought that that was really interesting because as a parent, you're always like, you know, at a park or whatever. Come on, Jimmy, why don't you go share with Johnny over there? And it's like, no.
SPEAKER_00I think that might be a would you call it not secondhand embarrassment, but it makes like make make you look like you're a bad parent because the other parents looking at you like, oh, his kid don't share. Like, or you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think so much of that, so much of parenting that I see is not what's best for the pa what what's best for the kid. It's what does the parent want to be doing in this moment as a parent. Or what do you how you want to be looked at as a parent. We gotta go here and do this thing and take these pictures. Why? You're the only one that wants to do it. The kids want to hang out and relax.
SPEAKER_00Kids don't ever want to take pictures. Right. Now, for the most part, we're like, oh, another picture. Right.
SPEAKER_02And granted, I, you know, I've got pictures. Pictures are memories. And I have unbelievable amounts of pictures, but I I just every time I think it's really interesting where it's like, well, we need to go do this for the kids. Well, they don't want to do it. And I'm not saying you listen to your kids all the time because I'm the king of like shut the fuck up, yeah, get in the weight room, get in the car, like you're gonna eat this, you're gonna do that. But I do think it's interesting, and I'm always very aware of when it when I feel like a parent's doing it just to look good.
SPEAKER_00Right. You know. I I I can feel you on that because I can see when um when I'm at the grocery store with my daughter just the other day, and she walked past somebody and she said, excuse me. And then the woman looked at her and said, and then he looked at me, she said, good job. Right. It was like, uh, I mean, that made me feel good. I was like, Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. But you know, it's just a thing, because I guess a lot of kids now, or a lot of people just in general, aren't using manners. And I was raised on that, was one of my strong hands. Me too. Was like, say yes, especially my uncle who was from down south, he always said, It's yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no ma'am. And that was just it was like, it wasn't no alright, it wasn't no yeah, it wasn't no what's up, it wasn't no, huh. It was they call you, yes, sir, yes, ma'am. You know what I'm saying? Well, and and thank you, please, and just being courteous.
SPEAKER_02Dude, I'm a stickler on that. Like when we're in a restaurant, you look at the waiter when they're speaking, yes, you say, yes, please, thank you, you know, yes, thank you, whatever. You're you're not disrespectful. Genevieve paid her way through college as a waitress. So if you think we're going into a restaurant and my kids are gonna be dis disrespecting somebody, like you're fucking drunk.
SPEAKER_00Just my just any kid disrespect is just that's my type of a pet peeve is I would yank your kid up in his store if I believed that you know we I'd get away with it.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think that wow we were growing up, other random people, the whole community could discipline you. Yes, and there was not some holier than now parental nonsense of if you were disrespecting some dude and he gives you a fucking earful or whatever, you know, it would have to be real extreme for another parent to come in and give them like who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Versus now, you can't say shit to the kids to another kid.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, you can't. I think and now uh I think we probably were the last generation to to be around and to even be in that culture where it really took a village. I mean, I hear stories from when my father was young, and then probably uh probably already down to my grandmother, you but my aunt would say, Well, your father would get in, my father said, I would get in trouble coming from school because the principal back then lived in the neighborhood where we lived at. He said the principal would beat me. He said, and then let's just say Miss Hawkins, when I was running up, she would hear about it. She'd call me, I'd get a beating there. He said, then somebody else, Mr. Jones, heard, I would get an ear for a beating there. He said, by the time I got home, I already got three beatings. And when I got home, my mother would beat me, and then I had to wait for my father to get home from work.
SPEAKER_02Well, and do I think you need six beatings? No, but do I think you need probably one? Yeah. My my dad, I mean, he's 82. He went to a Catholic school in Ohio. I came that don't even look like Papa V82. I know. And the priest was a golden gloves boxer. So my dad in high school got out of line. And the fucking principal was like, I'll see you after school in the boxing ring. And beat his fucking ass. Whooped his ass. And my dad still talks about it to this day. He goes, Dude, I was being disrespectful in class. And this teacher, maybe it was a nun, walked out, told the principal who was a golden gloves boxer. He walks in, he goes, I'll see you after school in the boxing ring. He's like, I went in there, put those boxing gloves on. I was ready to go, too. Like, I wasn't gonna let him beat me. He's like, he whooped my ass. And I do think there's something here on the consequences to actions, which I just don't see anymore. Yes. I don't see any consequences to actions. Everybody's got a fucking YouTube channel. Everybody's doing some stupid fucking prank on somebody, and then they're completely shocked when someone whoops their ass for doing some ridiculous prank on somebody. Yeah. I mean, it's on it's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00Dude, it's unbelievable. The most stupidest stuff, but then one of them wind up really seriously hurt, and then they want to then they want to cry. Right.
SPEAKER_02What do you what do you mean? You're why would you do You just walked up to a stranger, smacked him in the back of the head, and like you got knocked out, and you're confused why you got knocked out. You don't put your hands on someone you don't know unless you're ready to go. Right.
SPEAKER_00And now I wanna, I wanna say, I wanna believe that this is all stage. Cause I would I somebody knock me in the back of my head at at the Home Depot when I'm trying to pick out a new pair of plies, I'ma turn them around. I'm gonna say, would you think I'm dumb? Like I don't like it, like I don't know it was wasn't you. Way I'm in the gym too. I'm I'm already looking for a nice scuffle.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I just they must not have dads or something. Because I don't, if I ever did that, my dad would fucking whoop my ass. Oh yeah. You'd be like, what are you doing? What are you doing, dude? Like, do you my dad always gave me more of like a lecture of like, why are you trying to basically like bring dishonor to your own name into our family? And like when they say shit like that, you're like, fuck.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes you feel bad, right? My bad. I can I can see that. Yeah, my father was more of a lecturer as well. I really had to do something to get a whooping from my dad.
SPEAKER_02And I think it was extreme.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I probably only did. I think my dad probably whooped me in my whole lifetime, maybe two times. And I want to say the last time my dad punched me, I was 18. I had to come home from community college and go in the house. I can't remember. I was riding with, I was riding with me and Whitey and our friend. We was coming home from from school from the community college. And I said, Hey, Whitey, man, you need to take me home. He said, Why do you need to? I didn't really tell him. I said, Yeah, man, I just I just need to go home. But I was punished. My father said, Look, when you come from school, you go in the house. I was 18 years old, and I went in the house too. So even from that, you know what I'm saying? And basically, all he would do is like, like you say, he would give me stern talking. So you just the words, you know what I'm saying? Just like, I better be in that house. I don't care how old you think you are. My father told me I need to go in the house, I'm gonna be in that house. Yeah, yeah, dude. Same. I can count on one hand. And um, to get to get back to the backbone book, you said something earlier, and you kind of breezed over just a little bit that new word toxic masculinity. Yeah, that that's been over, I guess I would say last three years, people have been bringing that up. Maybe a little more, but yeah, probably well, for me, you know, I'm not up on the news that much.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, it's it's a recent phenomenon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is a recent phenomenon. So is that taking away or adding to uh the backbone? And what and what is your take on that? How is that impacting?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think it's funny because I got into a debate with somebody about this one time.
SPEAKER_00Yes, please.
SPEAKER_02And um she was going off on toxic masculinity, and I just brought up well, toxic masculinity basically only exists if there's also toxic femininity, and then there's a spectrum of that, and it's in the eye of the beholder, in my opinion. And she's going off saying that doesn't exist, and there's only toxic masculinity because there's a fucking patriarchy and all this other bullshit. And I just said, and I I kind of let it go because we were in a public place and I didn't want to unleash holy hell on it.
SPEAKER_00So it was with someone you didn't know, and you just No, I did know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, and we were carpooling home together, okay. And Genevieve's looking at me like it's their car. So like you can you can position this later, dog, and maybe that was a failure of nerve in that moment, but like I mean, that was your wife. We were getting we are getting in it, and um it really, in my opinion, it it is in the eye of the beholder. Because when someone goes, well, that's toxic toxic masculinity, well, explain that to me in great detail, right? And no one can ever. Well, I don't like their tone, and I don't like their attitude, and I don't agree with this, and I don't well, that's your opinion. That doesn't mean it's true. And granted, there are some moments, I'm sure, that we could get a really clear-cut definition of what that is, but in the grand scheme of things, men are built different than women are. Yeah, we have we have different roles in the world, we have different capacities, we have different evolutionary traits, we are hardwired differently.
SPEAKER_00So a lion could be toxic masculinity, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, anything could, right? Because like we're fighters and we're hunters and we're protectors, and that is how we have evolved over time. They did a bunch of studies. I was watching, there's a woman actually right now, she's on this whole um this like podcast tour basically talking about the the entire woke movement is directly tied to um basically women in the workplace. It has crossed over a majority, and so all of the natural evolutionary female traits are now why the woke movement exists. It's really interesting. She was on like trigonometry and a bunch of other places. Um But one of the stats she brings up is they were doing basically scientific studies on like what wakes a woman versus what wakes a man when they're asleep. Right. Oh, I got something about that. And so women, they hear a baby cry, they wake up.
SPEAKER_00That's good you said that, because that was going to be my first thing.
SPEAKER_02In a man, the woman doesn't wake up, but when a man hears something outside of his home, like a branch break or something like that, he wakes up, she doesn't, because his job over time is to protect the home, and the woman's job is to protect the young. Yes. And I think that that's such an interesting thing because we try and have all of this balance of it's your turn, you go up and and get the kids. It's my turn, I go do this. Well, it's like, okay, is there's a home intruder. Is it your turn, Genevieve, to go take out the home intruder? Is it your turn to cut the grass? Right? And the answer is no. It's never your turn to take the trash. Right. And but it's interesting that we've made it such a polarizing topic that you can't even really talk about it intellectually without someone getting offended by it. Right. Which I I don't really understand.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, back to that, April always tell me, you didn't hear your daughter crying? No. I said, No, I didn't hear. She said, I can't sleep through that.
SPEAKER_03I said, She said, You sure you didn't?
SPEAKER_00I said, She was right near another room.
SPEAKER_02I ain't here. I don't know. Well, and it's scientifically proven, which I think is really interesting.
SPEAKER_00And I checked the doors like three times. Oh yeah. I'll be down there, I'll check it, I'll go back upstairs. Dude, I got fucking guns hidden everywhere, dude. I'll sit on the bed and then I'll be like.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm gonna check the door again.
SPEAKER_02Well, and again, it's it's what we're built for.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, so let's uh getting this down. If someone reads this book, what changes about how they live their life the next day? And is this book just is it just for men or or women can get things out of it as well?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, it's not just for men, but I do think um men are in a bad spot today versus women today. Just I mean, what is it right now? I have a a really fun fact here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you just because we had that uh which got a lot of looks, that masculinity podcast you did, which will probably uh give some more insight on your thoughts on where masculinity is going and where it is at this current moment.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the suicide rate for men over the past couple years has basically tripled. And you know, in in when you look at people graduating from college, the stats on men it's going down, people getting white-collar jobs, men, the stats going down. And I I do think it has to do with this like never-ending beatdown of how we're hardwired, and then finally dudes are just like, what they can't take it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like uh what the fuck am I even doing this for? You know, that stacked on top of again everything that goes on on social media, dude. And you just looking at this guy on his jet.
SPEAKER_02Well, you think everybody's on a fucking jet, you think everybody's rich. Yep. You I I do think the dating apps have fucked everything up.
SPEAKER_00Me right now, that's just a whole different thing. We never had to deal with that shit. I'm like, what do you mean? Right. You're on a date net.
SPEAKER_02Like you go to the bar. Go outside. Right. Go to the bar, go to Whole Foods, go to the gym, join some clubs, go to the fucking library. I don't give a shit. Go to places that you Barnes and Nobles. Right. Like, see what they're reading. Say what's up. I was actually giving my uh son and his buddy some some instruction.
SPEAKER_00That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get we should do that. We should get a group of young men here. Let's go. And we talk about, and we tell them the old-fashioned way. Dude, I literally get a to get a girl.
SPEAKER_02You know, they have all these stupid pickup lines that will never work.
SPEAKER_00I used to love stupid pickup lines because if you can make them laugh, you can get some.
SPEAKER_02That is true.
unknownI love that.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Uh, but I was just like, guys, it's literally as simple as you walk up and you go, and I go, use your own lingo, right? You guys are young, don't quote me here. But here's the theme. I think you're beautiful. Or I think you're you're killing it.
SPEAKER_00What's up? Let's go to Rita's.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Can I buy you? I go it's gonna be older when you can buy them beers. Yeah, but I was like, Ice cream. Can I buy you a beer? Can we go get a coffee? Can we go out to dinner? Can we go to Rita's? Yeah, like that's it. And they're either gonna say, no, or they're gonna be really flattered because no one talks to other human beings anymore, and they're gonna go, hell yeah. And then you're in. And that's life in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_00In my dating life, I would consider myself more as a as a pippin'. Why he was like Jordan? He's just out there. I mean, if he he, you know what I'm saying? Off the cable. He would just lob them to me. Yeah, that's how the way I would, he's in. But I can tell, I always say myself now, back in the day, I was kind of a little, you know, rejection was like, I don't, I don't want them to say no to me. Yeah, well, that's you know what I'm saying? I really I got there. Sometimes I feel good, I go in. But you know, for sometimes it was like, okay, I'm just gonna have to you just gotta wait for the eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I was with my boys, it was just like live. Yeah, I'm just catching them off the rim.
SPEAKER_02Oh god. If you're if you're Scottie Pippen and Whitey is Michael Jordan, I guess I would be Dennis Rodman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there you go. Just get a rebound. Yeah, now if if it was me, Whitey, and Darren, then I become Dennis Rodman.
SPEAKER_02And Darren If White Boy John Stockton was on that team from the Utah Jazz, that'd be me.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. All right, so uh let's um bring this full circle to a closing to a closing mark, this book.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I think we should do a couple episodes on it. I mean, this was just kind of the general synopsis of what inspired it, which is the failure of nerve. Um, and there's more to to dive into.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is a lot.
SPEAKER_02It's just right like each each chapter is basically like a different concept. And I think the next one we'll do is the comfort trap.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I got that in here too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, why comfort is destroying you. Because again, it's the same thing as fill your nerve. It's like, I don't want to get in the ice bath.
SPEAKER_00It's like, well, no one fucking gives a shit, man. Yep, yep. You said that in here. You say America is dying from comfort, not hardship. That's a bold claim. Explain that. How does comfort quietly destroy ambition and resilience? I mean, how much time you got?
SPEAKER_02It'll be the next episode. How about that?
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_02Comfort trap coming up.
SPEAKER_00Boom. Talk to the people.
SPEAKER_02All right. Greg Vetter Podcast, Moe Taylor, the new book backbone stop being weak and do what's right. Peace.