Why Self-Help Fails Men (ft. Russ Ewell)

Why are so many men trapped in isolation and feeling like failures? In this episode, Russ Ewell breaks down why behavior modification fails, how to overcome secret struggles like porn addiction, and how real mentorship changes everything.

Checkout Russ Ewell and all that he's up to 👇
Newsletter: https://deepspirituality.com/the-spiritual-frontier-introduction/
Book: https://deepspirituality.com/book/
Church: https://bacc.cc/team/russ-ewell/

Men of Iron president Ryan Zook sits down with Russ to get into the part of faith nobody preaches: the difference between "religious Christianity" and "spiritual Christianity," why behavior change without heart change just makes you better at managing your bank account, and the day a church program put Russ's son — who has Down syndrome — on a separate field. Russ didn't leave. He built a school, the technology, and inclusive leagues so no other kid would sit out. Then he wrote a book saying the rest of us have God wrong too.

If you're the man who does everything right and still feels like God is disappointed in you, start here.

WHAT WE GET INTO
• Why most men want an older man in their corner — and almost none go looking
• "Religious" vs. "spiritual" Christianity, and how to tell which one you're living
• The real reason behavior change never sticks
• What actual mentorship looks like — including the phone conversation everyone's going to argue about
• Raising sons, inherited patterns, and the fear of becoming your parents
• Formation vs. destruction: what to do with failure
• How one man investing in one man built everything Russ has

TAKE YOUR NEXT STEP WITH MEN OF IRON
Score your Core5 Assessment
https://menofiron.org/score-your-core5/

🧗 BASECAMP — Daily devotionals built for men who want to grow:
https://menofiron.org/basecamp-free/

🏔 RIDGELINE — go through it with other men.
Small-group resources:
https://menofiron.org/resources/small-group-resources/

👥 SUMMIT — be mentored, or mentor another man.
Mentorship resources:
https://menofiron.org/resources/mentorship-resources/

CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro
4:32 The crisis with young men
11:23 Why behavior change isn't enough
28:52 What real mentorship looks like
31:47 "Give me your phone"
48:11 The field that changed everything
55:03 "I had no interest in God"

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#ChristianMen #Discipleship #Faith

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In the history of the world, no man or woman has figured it out for themselves. That just never happens. No one's done it.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

This is Russ Yule, pastoring nine church campuses in the heart of Silicon Valley.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And yes, failure can come with consequences, but the thing is, even if it does, it should come with formation, not destruction.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

It's your job to be faithful to that link in the chain because God's kingdom is built by one person faithfully investing in another person. That's how we do what we do.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

And I became a Christian because the guy I met was really good at basketball and I wanted him on my team. I had no interest in God.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hey, welcome back to the Men of Iron Podcast. At Men of Iron, we exist to change a culture one man at a time, and we do that by leading men to thrive in their core five. That's your faith, family, friends, fitness, and finances. We offer tools and resources that can help you in every one of those areas. So if you need help in one of those, uh click the link in our description. You can find them or you can reach out to us at info at menofiron.org, and we'd be happy to connect you with anything that you need. Uh today on the podcast, we are joined by Russ Ewell, who is the executive minister at Bay Area Christian Church. And we're excited to have Russ on the podcast. Welcome, Russ.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you for having me on, Ryan. I I'm excited to be here and uh and I've listened to your podcast and I'm encouraged by what you're trying to do. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Why don't you uh just kick us off? Tell us a little bit about yourself and uh what you've been up to out in California.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Okay, well, I is uh as we talked uh beforehand a little bit. I told you I live in Silicon Valley and our churches, the Bay Area Christian Church. Uh I'm the executive minister there. There's nine different locations. So if you live in the Bay Area, you can go to our BACC.cc site and you can uh come visit church. But uh uh we also have and uh and highlight uh inclusive ministries. I have special needs kids and uh we started a ministry a long time ago. Uh partnerships with the Warriors uh in regard to basketball and partnerships with the earthquakes in regard to soccer for including kids with special needs. Uh and that's a big thing for me. I launched a company for helping kids with special needs who have communication problems, talk and communicate when they have limitations, got software for that. Um then uh recently and putting everything together because I try to have a multi-bel multidisciplinary approach to everything. Uh spirituality to me is is also at it's supported by everything from psychological to sociological studies and census data and everything else. And so I started a newsletter called The Spiritual Frontier. It's on Substack, and it's also uh you can find it at our uh platform we use for spiritual content, dspirituality.com. But that's what I've been up to, and that's what I've been doing. I've got three kids and been married and in the Silicon Valley both for over 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Okay, fantastic. Well, we'll we'll put a link to uh the spiritual frontier in our description. If you guys want to check out Russ's content, we encourage you to go over there and check out the newsletter. Russ, you reached out to us and talked about like your passion about talking about uh formation, uh particularly as uh for young men. So I'm excited to dig into that today. Um what's your what's your take on it? What are you seeing?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Well, one of the things that caught my attention, uh what's been catching my attention for a long time on the ground, because I I uh I do ministry and so I I I work in the part of our church with, like I said, we have nine locations, but the location I'm in, uh the oldest people are probably 45, but generally I'm dealing with uh 14, 13, uh to about 35. And that's the group I work with the most. Uh and so it's been a really uh inspirational thing and an educational thing. But I've I've come face to face with the challenges that young men face today. Uh and the statistics tell it, you know, 46% of young men feel like a failure is one of the big things. That came from the Institute of the Family. And and when you see that in a stat, it's like, oh wow, that's something amazing. I didn't know that. But I see it in in in real time with people. And one of the things I see the most is a lot of young men have negative thinking about themselves. They have negative thinking about men. And so I grew up, I'm older, and I grew up at a time, you know, when I I I just watched one the other day when Westerns were really big, you know, and they had the cowboys. And and so I grew up at a time where where, you know, uh uh men were kind of the heroes, you know, and uh in of every movie. Now that someone could argue that well, it was a little too much because you know, women and minorities weren't, you know, they were just props, okay? But but the thing is, you men, men really had that robustness. I don't know that young men know what to do right now. That's why a podcast like yours is so important, because being able to find out what being a man is about and how to be a strong man, which includes being loving, uh, is so important. So I I I saw that, and then I saw three or four deaths of despair. And for those who don't uh know, that's suicide, overdose, uh, alcohol-related deaths, three or four of those are men. And I began to pay attention to that, and then in my interaction with young men, I found young men didn't want to go to college as much, uh, didn't have the confidence they could go to college. Then I read the statistics, which said that young men are declining to go to college more often. There are more young men that are neither in college or in a job that actually supports them. And so one way is to just blame young men. The other is to look and say, maybe society has got something wrong, and we need to look at culture in society. And so that's what I began to do. And when I began to do it, it it really became apparent to me that formation is a big part of it. And some people, you know, would say discipling, but the reason I say formation, uh, which was a word I didn't used to like using, spiritual formation. I was like, what's that all about? But the reality of the matter is it's a really healthy word because the secular world understands formation, and it's a way to communicate to the secular world what spirituality can do for you, and it's really building lives. And uh so that's how I got going on it, and that's how I got excited about it, and that's why I was excited to communicate with you uh about having a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I'm gonna throw you off for one second. I gotta know what westerns you're watching. This is important for the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I don't know. I I people people will judge me. No. Uh I just um okay, I'm a I'm a I'm an old Western fan. Like movies that I I wasn't even alive, you know, for some of these movies. But the most recent one I watched was Clint Eastwood and Unforgiven. All right. And uh one of my favorites is uh Clint Eastwood and Outlaw Josie Wales. Uh I'm also a big Sheridan Taylor fan, and uh I think it's called Lawman Bass Reeves. I I watched that. I found that very very, very good. Uh and then uh, yes, I've watched John, I don't think I've I've missed any John Wayne movies. There was one John Wayne movie that I tried to watch on the whatever the old channel. It's called Real Bravo or something like that. And I tried to watch it, and my parents kept making me go to bed because it came on late at night, and like three years in a row I tried to watch it, and they go, It's time to go to bed. I never got so it wasn't until about 10 years ago that I saw the end of Rio Bravo. So uh yeah, I'm a big I I can go on and on about westerns. Uh uh, you know, my probably my favorite Western is Tombstone uh with Kurt Russell. That's probably my and Doc Holiday. Uh oh gosh, I'm gonna forget the guy, Matt Iceman.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Val Kilmer.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It's one of his best performances. Oh my gosh. I unbelievable. So yeah, I'm a big uh my and my wife doesn't really like Western, so you know, yeah, you know she's we have that in common.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

We have that in common. And uh just to make sure nobody judges you, I had a when we had our first son, so my my oldest son is 11, and it was our first baby, we had no idea what we were doing. Um when he was first born, obviously he wasn't sleeping at all. And so I had this long stretch where I'm laying on the couch with my baby son on my chest under the under the blanket, watching Outlaw Josie Wales, watching Unforgiven, which is is not good content for babies. Okay, let's just let's just be clear. We're gonna be on the ball. But but he has never in his 11 years of life mentioned any of those movies. So I think uh I think I'm free and clear. All right. But I'm a Clint Eastwood fan.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Oh, we're on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

All right. Back on point. Uh when when it comes to like the stats are sobering, and and we look at the stats, we represent the stats as well. This is this is why men need mentorship so badly. Yeah. Because it's just not happening. I think culture used to kind of promote it. You you back in the day, you had people that were kind of informally mentored just because that's how life worked.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And now the the generational gaps are so big that a lot of young men aren't even crossing paths with older men, let alone sitting down and having intentional conversations. Like it's just not happening. Um, so I'm curious what you're, you know, you're highlighting the stats. They are sobering. How are you seeing that play out when you're interacting with men in your ministry?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Okay, so one of the things I try to teach, well, first, I try to work on growing myself. So I I still have mentors for myself. I still have people I go to and a circle of relationships to deal with all the different challenges I have in life as a father, uh, as a husband, as a friend, as a leader. I think leaders are particularly needed. So because I value that, it makes sense for me to teach it. And one of the things I try to help guys understand, because it took me a long time to understand this, is behavior I I wrote down what I thought behavior changes actions, spirituality changes us. That's one of my big things that I try to help people with. Because part of what really it it so Christianity to me, and I was an agnostic, Christianity to me is so much more powerful than the average individual sees it as mean. Some of it's because Christianity has caricatures. When you watch a movie or a television show, it's very rarely rare that it's reflected accurately what Christianity is like. Uh and and sometimes they're negative depictions, but even the positive ones, they can't, even if they try, get all the way down to it. And what is it about? I think it's about walking with God, and I think walking with God is about allowing God to shape your life. Hebrews 12 teaches us that that I like the N I R V translation because it uses the word training, which you know I think at the ultimate Greek of the word discipline is it's training. Because when we hear discipline a lot of, especially in the Western world, we think, you know, get in trouble, be, you know, you know, be be punished, that kind of thing. But it's actually training. And so uh one of the things I try to do a lot is help guys understand they're gonna need training. And sometimes young men today are sensitive about, you know, because they lack confidence in the interior of their life, they become more sensitive on any input they get. And so one of the things I try to work with them on is developing a relationship with God where God gives you confidence, and you develop your confidence from the fact that not only does God love you, but he's got a mission and a plan for your life, and that the things that you go through, he's going to use. He doesn't make them all happen to you, but he's gonna use difficulty, he's gonna use suffering, he's gonna use good times, he's gonna use friends to shape you. And so when you get on board with that, you can have a sense, you know, I'm a big believer, and you can have a sense of destiny because you can understand, and destiny doesn't mean you're gonna be president of the United States, but destiny means you're gonna live your life to the fullest and the best that you can live your life. And so I try to teach guys that this is not only in church, but when you have it in church, you get a deeper sense of why. As opposed to when my coach would tell me, hey, you gotta do it this way, I just knew it was his way to win a game. But when I understand that I'm being shaped by God on my basketball team to learn that I'm not the center of the universe, that's a much healthier way to be able to imbibe input, which is formation. And so a lot of times I start with just, you know, where are you at with your parents? Because if you don't learn how to listen at home to even things you don't like or don't want to do, like I never wanted to take out the trash. If you don't learn to listen there, you're gonna continue that pattern in life and ultimately have good mentors in your life. People help you. You do have to be willing to at least listen and try to execute on what they're gonna tell you and trust. And so I try to work a lot on that with young men, and and we've been successful. I'm not saying we're better than anybody else. I'm just saying we've been very successful at, for instance, getting guys who weren't gonna go to college or trade school to go to college or trade school, guys who have difficulty in dating. How to, you know, a lot of times young men, no one's there's a stat out there that says, uh, and it's not a government stat or anything, but it's a 45% of young men have never talked to a woman in person. And so when you look at that kind of thing, you go, that's a that's a guy who needs help in dating. I needed it when I was coming up, and honestly, I didn't have somebody, my dad didn't sit me down and go, hey, here's how you this is how you approach it, this is what you do. And so all those things to me are what we try to help people with, with the foundation is teaching someone how to have a relationship with God is the foundation from which you gain confidence to even be able to be shaped and formed by people as God is ultimately the former of your life.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

I love how you're highlighting the the spiritual aspect of the whole journey. Um, because like so so for us, we're leading men to thrive in the core five. So faith, family, friends, fitness, finances, we're always asking guys to set goals and invite accountability. But the caveat that I always throw in there is if you're only doing this for a behavioral change, you're just gonna get better at managing your bank account. You're not gonna grow to be the man that God's called you to be. And we want you to grow to be the man that God's called you to be. We'll we'll help you with your bank account, we'll help you with your friends, we'll help you get a little bit more active, but we're not doing it because we just want you to set, you know, lift weights tomorrow morning. We're doing it because we want you to honor God with the things that He's given you, and that's a different thing. And I think when you enter into a genuine relationship with God, He's changing you from the inside out. And so there's this spiritual thing happening in you that's not gonna happen just by setting a goal and accomplishing the goal. And it it does, it gives you confidence, it gives you a sense of destiny, you have a bigger meaning and purpose in your life. And I think you know, those stats that you're highlighting, like suicide is going nuts. Like so many men are so filled with despair that they decide to end their own lives. Why is that? Part of it's because they don't have a bigger understanding of who God's called them to be and what God's called them to accomplish. They're dealing with very difficult things, and I I don't know how you come out of that without a relationship with God. It's so important. So I I appreciate you pointing that out. Um how are you going about bringing these connections? Like how are you getting these younger guys connected to these older guys that can help to form them?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So one of the things that um so I'll I'll just talk about uh there's multiple environments I'm involved in. There's technology, which is the company I work in, and just working with technology workers here in Silicon Valley. I'm not talking about in all in the church, but in and outside the church. Yeah. And there's the um the inclusive part we do, which is volunteering and serving. Uh we have a lot of young men. My son started in the program when he was like eight. He has friends who start when they're eight. They're all now in their very late twenties or early thirties, and they're still friends and they still stick together. And some of my uh son's friends come over every week to have dinner with him, go to lunch, do things with them. And and so there's that volunteer aspect, and then as I mentioned, there's the the the spiritual aspect. So one of the things we do is we try to make sure uh we had a men's all men's gathering, which I was just doing a a s a small thing, and then uh eight hundred men showed up. I think it was six. Yeah, eight hundred men showed up, and we weren't we weren't really, you know, aware. Let me think but it's between six and eight hundred men showed up. I can't remember the exact number, I know it was no longer the six hundred, but it packed the building. We we we didn't expect it. And I talked all about this kind of a topic, and in it I spoke directly about young men needing to find older men to be their mentors. And then what we do is we actually will pair people up. So if we run into someone who's got a financial challenge, we pair them up with an older guy in our church who has a financial challenge. Outside, when guys uh we we reach out a lot to people that are software engineers and and and just engineers of all types, and offer them opportunities to volunteer with our company that does inclusive software for special needs. A lot of times having that sense of mission, and what I find amongst young men is it's very positive. They do want to care, they do want to be in relationship, they they do want to use their skills, but oftentimes there's no launching pad for them to be able to get there. But we talk about it a lot. It's a it's a conversation not merely in the pulpit, but on the ground, and I personally do it. Uh, I work very hard at working with guys uh uh that are so I'll give you an example. Uh there's a uh 13-year-old kid uh in our church who uh I don't think he was very interested in God, and I so I'm he's a basketball player, I play basketball, and so I would always go and and talk to him in the fellowship. I would always go see him, and you know, he wouldn't really be talking to anybody, I'd go see him every time. Uh just the other day he decided to become a Christian, and it was really exciting. And the reason I'm mentioning it is showing interest. We we do make a big act of older men showing interest in younger men. Another thing we talk a lot about, you you were talking about how do we set this up? We talk a lot to older men about not living only for their ambition and not living for only their role. And one of the things I talk about as leader of a church is that someone's got to replace me more than one person. And that, and and so we have a thing where we're trying to make of all of our nine locations, 50% are gonna be led by Gen Z or millennials, and we're getting really close to that. And so before, you know, we're like can't do anything, we're trying to get out of the way and give opportunity. So a big part of it is giving opportunity. Now, the hard part for me is when mistakes are made because I'm a perfectionist, and and understanding how not to crush somebody. It's almost like a a pitcher, a young rookie pitcher. Sometimes you leave him in the game and he may lose it, but you build his confidence and you live to play another game another day. And so we do a we just do a lot of things to make sure that people are matched up, make sure that older men understand their value and importance in helping young men launch, and then we do a lot of teaching in the congregation we're in about this subject, and we're working on it even more. So that's that's some of the stuff we do.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I uh I know there's a there's a study that 77, I think it's 77% of men desire to have an older man invest in them and lead them and help them.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

And it's something like only 30% of men will actively try to find that. If you if you spend any time with men, you will see that play out in real life. So what it means is the vast majority of guys out there, young guys, older guys, guys in general, they want help.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

But there is this sense of kind of pride, maybe hesitation, maybe you don't want to be very transparent. You're not actually gonna ask for help. And when you don't ask for help, you don't get help. And so if you can, like what like you're talking about, like if you can create a bridge and create a culture of, hey, this is a place where we actually invest in each other because we need each other, the the need's there. Yeah, people want it. And and what you see happen over and over again, I'm sure you're watching it happen out there, you're offering something that people need and want, and when you make it easy, they're engaged. It's it's like you thought you would have a small group of men meeting for a regular gathering, all of a sudden there's 600, 800 guys. It's because there's not much out there to intentionally invest in guys, to call them up, to equip them to lead. And so when there's something like that that launches, people want to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

That's right. That's right. You know what's interesting about what you're saying is that I think for a lot of young men, well, let me go back, and and there's no reason for those who are listening, I I I don't advocate that we decrease our emphasis on women, because I think women have had a lot of needed advances over the last decades and not just opportunities, but investment in their development as young women, which is important. The issue is that I think we've slid back on men, and one of the areas is so for a lot of young men, I shouldn't say a lot, but there are situations where young men and they don't have the relationship with a dad. You know, I think that there's what is it, one in five families are, you know, are are not led, don't have a father in the in it or something like that. And so the the problem is that young men start a lot by their relationship with their dad. For me, the challenge in my dad with me and my dad is we didn't we didn't have a conversational relationship. It it I should say an emotionally conversational relationship. And a lot of what young men is they need someone to nur you know to bring them out. Now, a lot of times it's the what the mom who does that, but what we as men have to grow in is making sure as fathers that we either are having those kind of emotionally healthy relationships with our sons. That doesn't mean everything's positive, but it means everything's emotionally honest. And if we don't know how to have them, as older men, going and finding mentors for ourselves to teach us that. And I think that's I agree with you about pride because we all are pri well, I'm prideful, I know that. But I think there's also an inability to understand how to be vulnerable, how to how to how to let down the wall and say, you know, I got I go to you, Ryan, and I say, Hey, I'm I'm really confused about dating. I don't know how to act. Or I'm really challenged about marriage. I remember I was getting marriage help years ago, and uh this early in our marriage, uh within the first three years or so, and we sat down with a couple and the the the the husband, I mean, he changed our lives because he goes, Well, you know what I've noticed in people is that if if they don't start making changes, they eventually just become their parents. And I was like, What? You know, that he wasn't being negative on my parents, he was just letting me know that whatever patterns I might have been judging are the patterns I'm fulfilling. And so I think just lowering the walls. I I had a conversation, and this person was not in the church when I was trying to get fit, you know, because I wasn't in good fitness shape, and uh I I was going to spend class, I was doing all these things, and I sat down with him. He was a coach at one of the universities that taught the class, and I got to know. And I sat down with him, and I want to say again, this is not someone who was going to actually started visiting our church, but he wasn't a churchgoer or whatever. And uh, and and I said, Man, I don't know. I'm doing this, I'm exercising like this, I mean, and I just I've hit a wall, I can't get past this wall. And he said, Well, are you doing this? I said, Yeah, check, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm exercising. He goes, Are you, you know, are you doing this? Are you doing that? And he went through all the basics and he goes, Well, the only thing I know to do is you've got to eat less. And then I was like, Oh, wait a second. And you know what? That was the breakthrough for me when I just changed that diet. And then and a couple of friends of mine who are doctors said, Yeah, about and and you probably know better than me, but they said, you know, diet, eight 80% of weight loss is gonna be your diet, it's what you what you're consuming. The the reason I mention it is it's not just going to people in the church is not saying, it's going to people who know more than you know, and it's being vulnerable enough. Because for me, when he said to me, you got to eat left, I started laughing. And he says, I he was like, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or anything. I go, you're not. I go, I'm looking for the answer, I'm looking for the solution. And so I think some of it is we have to create an environment where young men can be learned can learn from their fathers and their friends how to communicate vulnerably, not be afraid. And then another thing, and I know I'm lumping a lot together, I think societally we have to help young men not imbibe the negative uh frames that are put around what it is to be a man. And there are a lot of negative messages that you can get in if in media when you consume it about men. And they may be, they may be true about particular types of men or whatever, but it's important that young men, especially when they're in their teen years, understand it's awesome to be a guy, and it's it's awesome to be a young man. And I that was my experience. You're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna you're gonna make young man mistakes, and we all do. But that's part of the formation. To me, what I tell a lot of young guys, the mistak, and I know that uh Coach Sheshewski from Duke talks about this a lot, the failures are an essential part of growth. And when we end up highlighting failure and punishing people for failure, whether it's private or public, we're basically saying you can't be formed, and I would throw this in because I believe it. Even older men need to be allowed to fail. And yes, failure can come with consequences, but the thing is, even if it does, it should come with formation, not destruction. And so I I I think we've got to work real hard societally on creating an environment where young men feel like I can say what I feel, say what I think, and I think most young men don't think they can. They think they'll be judged for it.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I think a critical part of that is yes, like every you're gonna fail. It's gonna happen. Like if you're if you're doing anything, you're gonna fail. A huge part of making sure you don't fail again is inviting feedback. And and you see it with these these guys, like we see it with proteges, we see it with mentors. The guys that invite feedback are the guys that grow like crazy. Like if you can come and you can say, Hey, you know, I uh I was working on a family goal this week. I was trying to show up for my kids, I screamed at my kids on Wednesday night. I I I shouldn't have done it, I don't know how it happened, I regret it. Can you help me figure this out? Well, now we have something to work with. Right. And if you just hide it, we're not even gonna know it's happening. And if the mentor is just gonna discipline you or yell at you, you're not gonna grow. But if you're welcoming feedback, you're gonna grow like crazy. Because a guy that's been a dad, of course he's been in that boat before, exactly the same way. He has the same regrets that this guy's experiencing in real time. He can help him make sure that that's not gonna happen again. So when you're inviting feedback, it's like, hey, you know what, that happened to me. I remember it. I had young kids, uh I had a tough day at work, I came home, I took it out on my family, I regret it too. I still think about it today. Here's what I would do different if I was in that situation. Well, now we have an incredibly mutually beneficial relationship where this guy can invest in the guy behind him, and this guy can learn from his mistakes, and we're not going to make the same mistakes. So it's just so powerful uh and encouraging. Like, who doesn't want to do that?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, you I have a question for you because I mean you're doing this a lot, you're thinking about this a lot, you're very involved in it. One of the things I run into sometimes is is people who they have a automatic defensive and negative reaction. What are some of the things? I know you're interviewing me and all that, but I'm so curious to hear you. No, go for it. Let's do it. What are some of the things that that that you that you try that you're able to do to help people be able to lower the defenses, not not get angry, not get mad? I I've seen people just go, I don't want to have anything to do with it because I don't I don't want to you know hear this. And I try to tell them it's like American Idol, right? Some people I used to watch that show a lot. Some people go in there and they're convinced they can sing. And then they're told, well, you can't sing, and they lose it, they go ballistic. And I was like, too many people are that way. But I I just am curious how you approach that because I tell people, I don't think it's unique to our experience in mentoring to see those reactions. I think it's all over. But I I know you probably know a lot about that. Could you just tell me? And I because I'm listening to learn here.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

So our uh our our mentorship is a it's a formal program, it's one year long. So our our protege, that's the guy getting mentored, meets with a mentor every other week for a year. So you end up meeting 26 times. Usually they meet more than that. You're doing text, you're doing calls, whatever you need to invest in the guy. What we notice almost universally is that there's this really strange honeymoon period that can be a month, it can be two months, if it goes longer than that, you're in trouble. But it's where the guy's not really bringing the real stuff. And so there's there's usually this point, it's not all the time, but there's usually this point where the mentor has to say, hey, like are we gonna are we gonna do this for real or not? Because I don't want to hear that you're killing it every single week. I don't believe you're killing it every single week. So are we gonna work on real stuff or are we just gonna come together and drink coffee and enjoy our coffee and you know pray for each other and call it a day?

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

So almost always there's some point in there where the protege himself has to decide, do I really want to grow from this experience or am I gonna just coast? And what we say is if if you're here to coast, just don't do it. Like just don't.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Because you can do that on your own without a guy. Just coast. Um but if you're gonna if you're gonna have this mentorship relationship, you gotta be serious about trying to grow. And part of that is you have to invite feedback. So you're asking how we do that. The mentor has to push wisely. Yeah. You know, if you push too hard day one, that's too much. You know, you gotta build some rapport, build some relationship. Um, but you do have to push. So it's like, hey, what was your goal? So for us, they write their goal in their books. So the mentor writes it in his book, the project writes it in his book, you're unified on the goal, you know what the goal is. It has to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. It has to be a smart goal. So the the mentor speaks into that. Hey, uh, you're saying you wanna you want to grow in your walk with God this week. That actually doesn't mean anything. Like everybody wants to grow in their walk with what are you actually gonna do? Yeah, so you have to make it, okay, I wanna wake up at 7 o'clock, I want to read in my Bible, I'm gonna start in John chapter 1. By the time we meet the next time, I will have read John one through five. Okay, now we're dealing with specifics.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So when you sit down with me in two weeks, I'm gonna ask you if you read John 1 through 5. And if the answer is no, you're not in trouble, but we're gonna have a conversation about why you didn't do what you said you were gonna do. So the protege has to want feedback, yeah, the mentor has to drive real accountability, and there does. There has to be trust, there has to be a commitment to each other. Yeah, and that's that's the magic in the mentorship. So I'll give you a personal example. Um, I had I had a guy that I was working with that was he was really struggling with pornography. And you know, it was we came together, it was like, hey, I I got this problem, like I just I just can't stop watching porn.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Okay. Um do you want me to to help you, or do you want to just like bounce stuff off to me? No, I I want help. Okay. So my conversation with him is okay, like um where where are you watching porn? Like, well, on my phone every night, right before I go to bed. It's like, okay, like I can pray for you. I can show you the passages about how God has something bigger for you. Uh, I can also tell you, get off your phone. And so when you come and meet with me next week, the conversation is actually gonna be how much were you on your phone? Because we always know you're on that thing scrolling nonstop, and it leads you into a place you don't want to go, so I'm gonna ask you if you were on it or not. Uh so then I said, Well, where does it where does it start? It's like I know where it starts. It always starts. I get on Instagram, I start scrolling Instagram, my mind starts to wander, and I go down this dark path. I'm like, great, give me your phone. We're deleting Instagram right now. If you come back here next week and it's on your phone again, like you're not serious about what you're trying to do. And and you know, like does that sound harsh? Yeah, it kind of sounds harsh, but it's like, hey, let's let's make a difference here. And there's a to me, specific specifically with pornography, of course there's a spiritual side. Like Satan is attacking you, he's dragging you away from your calling. There's all kinds of sin issues that come out of it. Yes, but there's a practical side too that's like, hey, if you're on your computer in the basement every night at nine o'clock and you start watching porn, don't be in the basement on your computer at nine o'clock. Yeah. So I I like to do both sides of that. Like, let's examine who God's called you to be, and let's actually be realistic about where you're being led into temptation, how you're being caused to stumble, and let's stop those things.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah. Well, what I like about what you're saying, and and this is something we try to practice in our overall church. And I just wrote up uh for our website, I just wrote a five-part series called The New Frontier, based a little bit on John F. Kennedy and the oh back in the 60s talking about the New Frontier, and I said, part of the New Frontier for our church is we've got to uh shed the historic and cultural measurement of a church by its size. And we're a larger church, but we have to stop thinking about that and we have to start talking about formation. And it doesn't matter if you have 5,000 people who are unformed, they're not going to make a difference in the world. They won't even make a difference in their own life. And that was sort of a that's been a progressive thing for the last 20 years for us, last 22, 23 years for us, to really move in the direction where you see we can't get sucked in by the culture of numbers. The reason I mention that is I think Matthew 28, when it says go make disciples, is about what you're talking about. I think it's about shaping lives. It's not about controlling. Some people say, I want to control. Well, I love what you said about, hey, if you're serious about changing, you really want to reach your goals, then we'll do this. But if you're not, you know, you can you can do it on your own, on your own. And society right now, I think undermines too. The young man who's talking about Instagram, it's funny, you talk about pornography. I was gonna I was gonna bring that up as a as a one of the challenging things that I think is about formation, not because I think people should be ashamed of that, but because that's one of those personal things that's hard to talk about, but can be overcome. But I I think church culture, one of the reasons that we won't make a difference in this issue, and and you've got guys like Richard Reese, Scott Galloway, and others in the world talking about it, they're gonna make a bigger impact than the church unless the church decides this is what we have to do for young men. I love hearing you say it, and you mentioned, you know, the word harsh, which I think a lot of us hear when someone says that. But here's what I remember, you know, growing up and what I've tried to do with young men. I was coached, and I was told when I was doing something wrong. And I was, and that wrong was connected to playing time. So, so that and one of the things I love about sports, sports has a scoreboard, and you know how good you are. I always tell young men when they're competing with each other, I go, look, it's not that complicated. We all know who's better at what. The nice thing about sports, you walk in, I had two friends who were extraordinary ball players, and you just walk in and you go, they're better than me. Okay, that's good. Now let's be a team. I want them on my team. But and so I love what you're doing, and and I, you know, I never thought of, and I missed it. If you hit it in one of your podcasts, I must have missed. I never thought of the terminology protege. And I want to I want to say specifically, like in the church I'm a part of, we have something called prayer partners. And we make sure everybody has a prayer partner, but that's different than having a mentality of saying, hey, you as a you as a protege should find a find a mentor. So I really want to compliment you on that and and all and and the way that you've broken it down. Uh I I've been breaking down being a disciple or following Jesus into devotion, conviction, vision, and impact. When you have devotion, conviction, and vision, you're gonna have impact. But whatever the framework, uh I I love it. And I love yours because regardless of where you want to go spiritually, it's gonna help your life in every area. And it's so exciting. And we're trying to do what you're doing. I'm I'm looking forward to sharing, of course, uh the podcast when it's released to our folks because just listening to that section by you, I think will really uh that's a powerful thing that you're sharing that a lot, I think, churches don't have. They don't have somebody saying, hey, this is where we need to go if we're gonna help young men.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

It's funny you bring that up. I I so I I was a pastor for 10 years, and most recently I was at a pretty large church, and we were we were talking through discipleship. How can we do discipleship? And one of the one of the options was if we could just figure out how to get our people one-on-one, like a like an experienced guy investing in a less experienced guy. And we were talking across the church, so it wasn't just men, but it was like, hey, if we could have somebody that's been following Jesus for a long time, leading somebody else to follow Jesus for a long time, we could really make a difference. Yeah. And I think one of the challenging things, I'm I'm not a church leader anymore, but one of the challenging things in church world is you still have to do all the other stuff. Like you still have to run your service, you still have to do your Wednesday night thing, and it can feel pretty overwhelming. And so we ended up not going that direction. It was just like, hey, let's let's have better sermons and let's serve our people better coffee or something. It wasn't actually like that. But um, we you know, it was like, man, like it it it's a novel idea. What would it be like to have one guy investing in another guy? It's almost like exactly what Jesus did. This could be really powerful, yeah. And it it makes a huge difference and it multiplies. So I it it is hard for some churches to get it off the ground and kind of wrap their head around it. Yeah, I'm not sure why that is. Um, but man, churches that that get it, it sounds like you guys get it, like it makes an incredible difference because you don't need a team of ten pastors to lead a thousand people.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

And see, that's you have all your people leading your people. That's the key. And again, I want to highlight that what you and your team are doing is changing all kinds of lives. And that change won't just be like you mentioned the pornography thing. It's not gonna just help him with pornography, it's gonna help him problem solve with every single area of his life. And I I I I love that. What what I found in the and I said we've evolved a lot over the last 20 to 25 years, probably is what it's been, is what I found was that a lot of ministers were, including myself, but I didn't get into this very much, I what because I wasn't interested in it, but that discipleship becomes a way to build and grow their church. And that and that's I think where the problems took place that I saw. People were they weren't mentoring somebody to help their life be built. They were mentoring them to help the church achieve its goals, whether it was numerical goals or whatever. And I don't know that that goes on everywhere, but that was an experience I had. I I I never fully bought into that because I I tend to thrive on relationship and I tend to enjoy relationship. But what we've done is said the key to breaking free from that is putting God at the center and making everything about developing a relationship with God and everything you said, building the person's life. And I think what people have to do in churches understand, like as a minister, I don't consider the sermon the most important thing I do, and I don't consider the activities and events the most important thing I do. I think the changing of lives is the most important thing I do. And and I agree with you. And the hard part is the pride of being a leader and the desire for attention, status, the worldliness. It's all that I've got it in me. It's all there. Discipleship, true discipleship, true mentoring is about removing yourself so other people can advance. I'll tell you a story. I I decided I played basketball for a long time, and then I injured my ankle, and it was one of those injuries I just couldn't get healed right away. So it took about two years to get the ligament back where it needed to be. So I decided I'd coach a team in the league I was in. And I decided, because I was working with a couple of teenagers, I said, I'm gonna coach a teen team in the adult league. And so I began to coach it. I went to, I had held a practice, and I coached like my coach coached me. He was very structured, which I hated. He was very structured. You play them, you run the play. So anyway, I came in and the kids are all kind of crazy, and I said, look, we're gonna do this way, and they were like, oh, we hate this, we don't like this, and you know, why can't I just do this? I go, just trust me if you just do this. We were in the adult league. I thought we were gonna get killed because they were so indisciplined. We ended up winning the championship of the adult league. And the lesson I took away from that is I didn't play a second, but I had more fun and made more of a difference by helping these guys. And I think that changed me on the interior, and it began to impact how I lead. So I would say to ministers, whether you have a church of 20 or of 20,000, whatever it is, the imprint that you unleash when empowering people by letting go, and I'm not a I've not mastered this at all. I I'm humbled by the challenge, and talking to you may just remind me how important it is. I think you unleash the potential of all kinds of people when this goes on. And I would encourage people who are Christians, or maybe not even a Christian, this whole thing we're talking about mentoring, it's the key to life. I I had it before I became a Christian. I had coaches, I had a neighbor, a neighbor's father, who I had many neighbors' fathers and friends' fathers. They'd pull me aside and go, Well, what about this? What about that? I just think that's the magic of life.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Uh same thing. I I can point to five or six different men that entered my life exactly when I needed to. I didn't know it. It usually started with like, hey, why don't we get together sometime? And I'm sitting at a diner or something, all of a sudden in some kind of really pointed conversation about maybe you should pay attention to this. And I'm I'm willing to help you continue to pay attention to this if you continue to meet with me. And I I I didn't go find him. Like I do firmly believe that God sent him into my life. Yeah, but it it's why I'm so passionate about mentorship because I would not be the man I am. The husband I am, the father I am, the leader I am, without those five or six guys, they changed my life. And guys need it. Like we need it so bad. Yeah. And it, you know, what did it cost those guys? You know, they met with me a couple times, they bought some cheap diner food, like it not a lot. And I think it was very meaningful to them. I know it was very meaningful to me. It's just a powerful thing. And I think it is like, not not to be cliche, but it it's what Jesus did. You know, hey, I want you to come with me. You're gonna do what I do, you're gonna see what I see, you're gonna learn what I want you to learn because I'm gonna give this to you, which is insane, by the way, that Jesus is like, yeah, it's actually good that I'm leaving. Uh you you just take it from here. Like, okay. And we I have this presentation I've done a bunch of times. You can follow those men that Jesus invested in. You can literally look throughout history and see they invested in this guy who eventually invested in this guy, who eventually invested in the guy that invested in you. It's your job to be faithful to that link in the chain because God's kingdom is built by one person faithfully investing in another person. That's how we do what we do. Yeah. So it's it it's exciting, it's encouraging.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

You know, it's it's really interesting because I I and I, as you're talking, and I'm hearing it, and I'm also hearing in my head the voices of people I've worked with that go, well, discipleships had a negative effect on me, and I don't I don't want to be that's controlling, and and you know, I don't want to be in that. And and and and I and I and I get that, I respect that, and I think that does happen. But the the thing we have to understand is though that these statistics we're listing out. They're not coming from a they're not coming from surveying Christian men who've been discipled. They're coming from a world that says you can you be your own person and go figure it out yourself. In the history of the world, no man or woman has figured it out for themselves. That just never happens. No one's done that. And so I think it's important for us to understand that that the despair in a world today, and I think our listeners, I I want, you know, go look at the statistics. Just look it up on, you know, just go search on Google or whatever, and and and look up the statistics about despair. It's extraordinary, and it doesn't even include the millions of people in despair who aren't suicidal, who aren't on drugs, who aren't drinking, but they're in despair. And formation is the answer to that through mentorship and friendship and and discipleship, all the ships you know we can put together. It's the answer. But I I I think the autonomy that the world tells young men, you don't need to listen to anybody. Be find yourself and be yourself. Uh I think that has proven these statistics prove it doesn't work. And I think we have to speak out more and say, not that it's I think you need to be autonomous. I think people need to have their, you need to be I need to be rest. You need to be an individual who's unique. But that journey requires, as you said, those people in our lives who will help us. And so what I love about what you're doing and what you're talking about, and and is it's outside of a pastoral role. You're saying, I mean, it is a pastoral role, but outside of church leadership, and you're saying, hey, men just need this. And so I think the church has to learn from you and say, what if we can get, and we may not be able to find a you know, Orion, but what if we can get a guy who goes, I'm gonna have this impact on five people? And and if you do that five people enough, you suddenly have thousands of people getting helped, and that's a huge difference, even statistically, that's a huge difference. So I'm I'm just excited about the conversation and what I'm learning from you.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

I I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about um you were talking inside the church, kind of outside the church. Um what are you doing outside the church that is feeding people that are looking for it? How how are you doing what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, I think one of our best impacts is our inclusive ministry. So I'll try to package this in a s in a in a concise way. So when my son was about eight, we ended up being part of a little league uh uh uh baseball program, and uh I always wanted him, uh he's my my oldest was the first one. I always wanted him to be like I was in sports, but not I know he had special needs, Down syndrome, so I didn't expect him to, you know, be like in the NBA or the NFL, but I wanted him to have that experience, and I grew up in Michigan where the experience was you go as play as a kid, but on the sidelines, your family's there. Your mom and dad, and your mom and dad are talking to your friends, mom and dad, and that translates into birthday parties, and that translates into family gatherings and it translates into being lifelong friends. I wanted him to have what I what I had. And so uh they had a special program for special needs kids in the in the Little League, but it turned out that the the special needs kids were all on the same team. They were on one set of teams, and they were they were put on a separate field. And after a while, I was like, well, this wasn't what I was looking for. It was a phenomenal program. I still say that to this day, but it wasn't what I wanted my son to experience. And so I got some soccer players that I knew that had played at high levels. One of them had played in Spain and and and other played semi-pro in some college. And so I got them together and we started a program where I invited friends of mine who had typical children, neurotypical children, to be in this program with my sons and other people who had neurodivergent uh children. And we built this league and it began to grow, and people began to show up and want to be a part of it. The the foundation of it was not just helping my son. I said if you come to this event and you are a coach or a kid who's typical and will help us, we will help you. That program has grown from just being at one park in Foster City, California to being all over the Bay Area and in many places of the world where people have imitated it. And that's what's led to our partnership with the earthquakes, our partnership with uh uh Warriors, and our partnership with different universities. And so this is not about you need to go to church. It's about come into this program, two things happen. You mentor special needs kids, and a lot of these kids end up being, you know, a lot of special needs people they don't have anybody come to their birthday parties and they don't get invited to any. But in this program they do. So these young men get to mentor. And I talked to one of my friends uh who's who coordinates with the earthquakes, and he said, you know, they've got elite uh academy soccer players uh playing there, and one of the things they like about incorporating helping special needs kids into the training of their players is these kids are elite, they get everything top of the line, but they get to be involved on that level. So I I think one of the best things we do as a church is teach people that that the world is not every second about you, it's about other people too. And I'll tell you, it builds character, it builds empathy, it's it's it's pro pretty high on the list of the great things that go on. And one of the challenges I face even in my own church is helping people understand the value of having your kid in it and and and having your kid be a part of it because our best outcomes are generally kids who who do this for a year or two, and some of them they just do it their whole life, even as adults. And and they they're bringing their own kids now to these events. So that's one of the best things we do.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

I love it because it's it's not I I'm assuming you're not doing a Bible study at the soccer game.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

No, we in fact we don't we don't allow any inviting or talking to people. It's it's our our mantra in our church is making God known and doing good, and when we do good, there are no strings attached. Do not we have an Easter egg hunt every year in all of our locations, and we have people who are Hindu and Buddhist come to the Easter egg hunt because they want their kids to experience either. There's no sense that the church attendance or involvement is required. We don't want that. I want to I want someone who's Muslim to go, I can put my kid in this and be a part of this, and I don't have to worry that someone's trying to change his mind about anything. And and we feel like that light shines anyway, and people get inspired and go, hey, I want to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

I love it because it it's like, hey, let's get involved in our community, let's get involved with other people outside our church. It's amazing what happens when that happens in a meaningful way. Yeah. And guess what? People start to wonder, okay, what's the Jesus thing? Like, what's going on here? And you see God start to move and you see God start to work, and and you can do this stuff. Like, you know, we talk about like mentor a guy who's not a Christian. You don't have to make him become a Christian day one. There's an incredible hunger out there. Just be present, help him figure out how to navigate life. Now we're we're clear, like, we believe you need a relationship with Jesus. You can't be the man you're called to be unless you have a relationship with Jesus. Yeah, but we have we have guys all the time that are like, I don't believe in any of this stuff. Great. Like, let's start on just helping you understand what it means to be a man. How can you do what you need to do? And and frankly, usually they become very intrigued about Jesus. And I'm not saying that they're getting saved week two. Yeah. Um but it it's kind of rare. I mean, it's it's like you you go to church, you're hanging out with all your Christian friends, you're not involved in the community, uh-huh, and because of that, there's this weird barrier. So, how can we break down those barriers and care for people? And I'll tell you what, I mean, you open the podcast with all the stats that that men are dealing with, particularly young men. They are so hungry for someone to genuinely care about them.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

And when you show up and you genuinely care, you'll see how God starts to work in their lives. And it's God that does the work. You don't have to do it. God's gonna move and work in his heart, and it's it's gonna change who he is. God, God's bigger than you are. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

And this is what I did to launch our our our making God known and doing good mantra is I looked at Jesus. Jesus helped a lot of people, and he didn't go in and say, Okay, once you decide to follow me, I'll heal you of leprosy. We've got to take that seriously. And I don't I I think that what's happened is, and and I've got my own issues in this area, church culture can supplant the plan of Christ. And Jesus' plan that you talked about about making disciples, or you know, how he worked with 12 and then there were 11 and they were 12. But if he could do that and if he made that impact, I don't think he means for there to be one big giant leader of a movement thing that that leads everybody. I think he's saying that that, and this is what I believe, you, 45-year-old you that's got kids, you have a special life. Just you. And you take that, and maybe you're an electrician, you take that life and you reach out to a young man and you say, Hey, you don't seem to be doing anything with your life. Would you like to come and apprentice with me three days a week? I'm not gonna pay you, but I'll train you, and you can work for me, or I'll pay you a small wage, but you work for me, and I want to mentor you in your life. Jesus did that, and he trusted, apparently, I'm gonna say, God to take care of the rest. And in my heart, and I know some people may not like this, I believe that if all I can do is good in someone's life, and they never ever become a Christian, that is something God wants me to do, is to do good in someone's life. And I think that's an important part of Jesus, is he did so much. I mean, the Bible literally says he went around doing good. And so that's in the book of Acts. And so I think I think it's important for us to not feel guilty or or compromised when we love people and then trust God to do what needs to be done. Because some people immediately are thinking only thing a Christian wants out of me is to get me to join their church. And so if you fulfill that, then they're gonna you're you're shutting the door instead of no, I want to help you, and if you're interested, fine. You know, and I became a Christian because the guy I met was really good at basketball and I wanted him on my team. I had no interest in God. But that was what did it, and so I think uh, you know, that that that's an important thing. I just love what you're doing, and I love how you frame it and think about it. It's helping me.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Well, I appreciate it, Russ. I I enjoyed the conversation, man. I really enjoyed having you on the podcast. Um, just as we wrap up, is there is there anything else that you want to touch on? Anything else you want to leave with our audience?

SPEAKER_01 54:41

You know, I one, I I I I want to encourage people to keep listening to your podcast. That'd be my thing. Honestly, I think it just just having those conversations that make you remember as men, there's a lot we can do to help each other. Uh and then I would just I just want to encourage everybody what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna walk out of here and go, you know, I've got to even be more committed to helping people be formed than I am. And I've got to be, and as a minister, I've got to make sure I'm not in the way of allowing people to blossom because I'm trying to play a bigger role than God wants me to play. And so that's what I'll walk away with. And those are just things on my mind that I've learned today.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

Well, I appreciate the time so much, Russ. I appreciate what you're doing out there. Uh let's just keep encouraging each other, sharpening each other, and let's keep building God's kingdom together. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

100%. One day I'm gonna have to get you on my podcast. I'll come. I'm gonna come looking for you because I gotta have you.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

You're gonna have to come to Lancaster, though. You're we're gonna make you come out here and sit in a horse and buggy and do the whole thing, man. That's what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Do the whole thing. You know what? If I get to spend time with you, that would probably get me moving to the concaster. I I think I don't know. I I think you might I think you might make a couple corrections on my fitness approach. You know, you might go, I want to put you on resistance training, I think.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

We we don't have to change the world in a day. You know, small steps build over time. We're good to go. All right. Thank you for having me on. I love it. I appreciate it so much, Russ. Thank you. Hey, thanks for listening to the Men of Iron Podcast. Uh, we hope you enjoyed this conversation with uh Russ Ewell. You can check out his newsletter with the link in our description. If you need help thriving in your core five, that's your faith, family, friends, fitness, and finances, please check out the resources in our description. We'd be happy to help you out. Thanks for listening to the Men of Iron Podcast. We'll see you again next week.