Actual Good Advice For Men | Ep.29

This week we lay out five fundamentals we believe every man should build, then push past slogans into what those traits look like when life is hard and you still have to show up. We also own the need to fact-check our claims, because being loud means nothing if we’re not being accurate. 
•shoutouts to listeners worldwide and a quick correction mindset 
•health as self-discipline, stewardship, and capability for others 
•contribution as providing more than consuming in daily life 
•purpose as aligning skills and convictions with meaningful service 
•self-defence training as responsibility, awareness, and confidence to de-escalate 
•courage as the middle ground between cowardice and recklessness 
•resilience as the answer to everyday hardship rather than performative emotion 

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon

Transcript

Welcome, Shoutouts, And A Spicy Start

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode 29 of the Ministry of Man Pod. And that's short for podcast. And we're kicking it off because we got a spicy one today. Now, a few a few little things that I gotta say quickly. First of all, I checked. And we're in Japan, baby. We had one listener from Japan. So shout out Japan. We're taking this thing worldwide, subjectively, a top five potty in the world, and we're we've hit Japan. So we're going, we're in the big smokes. Also, shout out Oklahoma and shout out Ohio. Because I've got listeners there that keep tuning in. So you guys are awesome. Like uh for tuning in, for tuning in. Again, we say as Aussies, we say, we don't say tune, we don't say tune, we say tune. So thanks for tuning in.

Fact-Checking And Owning Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Um, also, a quick fact check from the last episode. I'm I said something last episode about something along the lines of under 25 years or something, women are making more than went making more money than men. And I couldn't find that information when I tried to fact check myself. So often what will happen is I record a podcast, I put it out, and then I listen to it back. Most of the time, the things that I say, I'll have already done the checks, but some some things I'll say on the fly and just try and draw from memory. And so when I will listen, I'll listen back and then I'll be like, oh, I better check that and see, because I didn't actually give like I wasn't sure about that one. And so that was one of the things I could not find where I read that, or it's possible I just heard it on a podcast and then didn't fact-check it myself, and then I've just repeated it, which is not good. But do that with with this as well. So if you're listening to this and I say something and I and it's like a fact or a bit of information, like obviously I can give my opinions on things, and you that's you don't need to fact-check that. Like it's just you can just disagree if you don't like it. Uh, but when it's like an objective statistic, it's always best to just do a little fact check. Um, I try and do as much as I can before saying something, but oftentimes I'm just riffing. And so if something pops up in my head, then and I say it, I haven't had time to research it. I mean, obviously, I'm not just gonna spout like make things up. Like, I'm going to do the best that I absolutely can to be as accurate as I absolutely can, but that doesn't mean that some that there isn't gonna be things that like slip through the cracks that I'm like, yeah. So I I I definitely heard that somewhere, but I just couldn't I couldn't corroborate it, so I wouldn't go as far as to repeat that anyway. Last week I was critiquing bad advice for men. So I thought rather than just tearing things down, if you're gonna tear something down, you have to put something in its place, otherwise it's just carnage, it's just mindless vandalism. And so rather than just being like everything is bad, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad, it's better to come with something and say, Well, here's what it should be, rather than that. But this episode, I want to talk about five things that I think are fundamental things to being a man, and it's good advice for men. And I've tried and tested these things as well. These are things that I've tried in my own life that I've also I just fundamentally believe that these are attributes and things to work on for men that will drastically improve your life and the lives of those around you. So now some of these might be very obvious, but I'm going to go in a little bit deeper as to why they should be valued. Now, I'm also not putting in Christianity because if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I'm a Christian, and that is the number one thing. I'm not putting it in this list because I've done full podcasts about it. So I'm not, I'm just gonna I could I could just come in here and just preach the gospel week in, week out, but I might as well just upload the same podcast every single time. So these are more practical steps, like that mostly to be honest, I got from the Bible. Like a lot of these principles are in some way biblical principles.

Health As Self-Discipline And Stewardship

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So anyway, the first one is health. So this is something I I've I've definitely spoken about before, but I want to go in a little bit deeper. So, because health is is directly linked to self-discipline as well. So, as a man, first of all, you need to look after yourself. Like, in order for you to be able to look after other people, you must have first looked after yourself to be capable of looking after other people. So you have to value your your life and you have to steward the body that God has given you the best that you can. Like you can't mistreat yourself. And so there are so many things that flow from being healthy. So obviously, your quality of life is going to drastically improve from being being unhealthy to being healthy. Your self-esteem, your longevity of life, like your actual time that you spend here, it's not gonna be cut short. Well, at least not as likely to be cut short. Brain functionality, vibrance, just your the way that you show up in the world, you're not gonna have as much brain fog, you're not gonna be as like tired and drowsy, and a lot of your your function while you're here is going to be better. And so, in in order for you to be healthy, you have to cultivate self-discipline because it's not actually an easy thing to do. Like, if left alone, we don't just grow healthier and healthier, we deteriorate. So you have to put in effort, you have to actually say no to things that you want to do, and you have to say yes to things that you don't want to do. And it takes a lot of self-discipline in order to do that. Like, for example, if you want to get fit and healthy, and there's certain foods that you really like where they're harmful foods, well, you have to say no to them sometimes, and probably more often than you want to as well. You have to say no. You also have to say yes to possibly getting up really early to go to the gym and then actually going to the gym. Or maybe you've had a really long, hard day at work because you had to go start work at 4 a.m. and then you have to go to the gym after work. And so you're not going to want to do that. Like these are things that are good for you to do that you're not going to want to do, especially if physical activity isn't something that you're genuinely or generally inclined towards. Like I know growing up, I was, I I enjoy fitness and being active. Like I like going for a run, I like going to the gym. And so for me, that there is an element of that that's it's not that hard. But there, but there are often days that I just do not want to go and that I do not feel like going. I've had a few injuries recently and I don't feel like doing anything. And on top of that, the all the things that I like doing, I can't really do. And so I have to do certain types of exercise that I don't want to do at all, that are not fun, not enjoyable. Literally, all I can do at the moment with the injuries that I have is sit on a bike, on just like a rotating bike and just sit there. Like I can't go for my normal runs where uh I can go out into the world and see things. I've just got to sit there on a bike and move my legs, and that's it. So, but it's either that or nothing at all. And so I have to do the thing that I don't want to do. So it's it's essentially it's you have to set aside comfort and pleasures for long-term reward. That is that is basically the essence of it. It's not good enough for you to just keep making excuses and say, Oh, well, you know, I've had a hard day, or you know, I don't have time. It's like every everyone has time. Like there are people that, like whatever their circumstances are, whether they have kids or whether they don't, that still are active and go to the gym. Or even if you do have kids, that shouldn't impact what you eat in your diet, let's say. So there's a quote, Socrates says, if if a man is double gay, then that man is actually straight because the two gays cancel out. Triple gay, however, is very big gay. What hang on, wait, I think that was uh no, sorry, that's the wrong that's the wrong quote. Hang on. Oh, okay, sorry. So Socrates says no man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. That is what Socrates said. And and it's true. I mean, it's it's no man, I like the way that he puts it. No man has the right to be an amateur. Like you you you don't have the right as a man to show up in the world and not at least like take like see what you're actually capable of doing. And it doesn't actually really matter like what age you're at, as well. Like you can still see what you're capable of at the age that you're at. Like you can't you can't check yourself out of the race. Like, don't check yourself out of the race. You gotta you gotta keep going, man. You gotta keep going. You you really you shouldn't, there's not really an excuse that you can have that allows you to just be unhealthy besides having some sort of severe disability. But all things like relatively considered, you should be able to improve on your health at least. There's always things you can do to it to at least improve. I'm not saying you have to be some sort of Iron Man champion, like, but you can do things to improve on your your general health and well-being. Because you you also you need to be able to help people as well, and you are at you are always at the behest of the abilities that you have and your your own capabilities. So if you are the type of person that can't walk up a flight of stairs without getting puffed out, yeah, you're not going to be able to like help that much around. Like, like if you can't okay, maybe you might not be able to chase someone down, but you should be able to help lift a heavy thing. Like at the very least, you you really there's a limit to like how much you can even be relied upon. Like for like you can't rely heavily upon really unfit or really unhealthy people. And you're also you just yeah, so you're limiting your ability to to contribute to society, which I don't think that that is that is a good thing.

Contribution, Provision, And Finding Purpose

SPEAKER_00 11:15

And that leads me on to the second thing is contribution, being able to contribute to society. And and I've mentioned this briefly in the past, but as a man, you you should be giving more than you're taking, just as a general rule, you should be providing more than you're consuming. And so the world around you, in whatever whatever capacity it is, needs to be better because of you. So I I'm not saying that you have to change the world. I know most people that say that they want to change the world, they don't even know what they mean when they say that. They just go, yeah, I just want to change the world. And usually it's like a vanity thing. I heard some guy go, I don't know how, but I'm gonna change the world one day. And it was like, okay, like what are you gonna change about it? And they're like, I ought to, I'm just I just know that I'm made for something big. And it's like, well, what do you what do you mean? Like you just like that just sounds like pure vanity. You just like it sounds like you've got a bit of a gog complex. Like you're gonna change the world, and it's just like um, I I don't know what you mean by that. Like, I think you just want to be remembered, which which is like that's you know, it's a very human thing, but just call the spade a spade. It's you just it's vanity. Like um so provision, it's it's basically just being able to provide. You you can't be a man and have other people providing for you in all areas of your life. Like it's fine to like to have some areas of that. Like, that's not it's not bad to to receive provision, but you want to be providing more than you're receiving, I suppose. So you so um, and if you aren't currently contributing, you should at least have a plan in place to be able to contribute in some way in the future, like working towards being able to contribute. And yes, this can be just a job, by the way. Like, I someone commented on one of my clips uh of me talking about this briefly, saying uh they got really upset because they're like, anyone with a job is contributing. And I'm like, yes, that's true though. Like, I don't disagree with that. Like, if you have a job, like that is contributing to the society, and you're also you're getting some sort of you're you're giving something, like you're getting monetary value in return, and obviously what you do with that is whatever you want. I mean, I'm still of the I uh ideology of Christian ethics, which is to be generous and to not be so, you know, chasing I guess material wealth and gain and whatever. Um but but uh what I'm saying is that a job can be that. It's it's it's no it's no less than that, but it's it can be certainly more than that too. Um and if you want to go deeper, then have that be your purpose as well. So every man needs to know what their purpose is. Like there are certain the things that like there's a reason that you're here, and especially because I believe that God doesn't create things arbitrarily. So that includes you. That includes you, the person listening. You specifically weren't created arbitrarily, you were created with intention. Like God isn't in the industry of just creating random things for the sake of it. Everything has a purpose. Everything in nature serves a purpose and it's distinct. And the way that humans are is that we're very unique. Like no one human is exactly the same as the other. Everyone's got their own traits and qualities, different things that they're interested in, different things that they're skilled in, different things that they actually care about as well. And so you look at all these things and you go, okay, what are the things that I'm good at? What are the things that I care about? What are the things that maybe make me annoyed or make me angry that that I would want to change? Or what are the what are the things that really speak to me as a person that I'm like, man, this this is an important thing, and I want to get involved in that. Like these are the sorts of questions you need to ask yourself to be like, okay, so like I could just work a day-to-day job, and I'd be happy with that. And for some people it is, because for some people, their job doesn't actually it isn't relevant to their contribution in the world. Some people just have a family, and that is the contribution, and that's a beautiful thing. Like raising a family is incredible. Uh some some people it like their purpose is dealing with other people in terms of maybe some sort of like charitable care or something where they're able to maybe I don't know, bring some sort of fellowship and community to people. And so that doesn't you don't need to have that be your job. Like you can do a job and you can do something else on the outside. But what I'm saying is like finding your purpose is a if that is the same thing as the the way that you're contributing, that's also a good thing. It's like blending passion and purpose into the one thing, essentially, because you can have passion and something and no purpose. Like I could say, oh, I'm passionate about sport. I love playing it, that is, I don't watch a lot of it, but I love playing sport and being active. I'm passionate about the gym, let's say, but I don't feel like I have a purpose in that. Like I don't want to be a personal trainer, I don't, I'm not, I've not really got any interest in pursuing any sort of job. And so my passion for it doesn't really give me a purpose. And, you know, previous jobs that I've had, like I used to work in a call center, and I mean I had a purpose there, but there was no passion. I didn't care about it. I like there was a purpose, I was providing something, you know, people needed help, they would call up and I would help them. But uh, but I I couldn't say that I was passionate about doing that. And so if you're able to find something that is both your passion and your purpose in the one thing, well, by golly, you've got a good thing going. So shoot for the stars, brother or sister. This is advice for men, but you know what? Anyone can kind of apply this in in whatever respect you want.

Self-Defence And Training To Fight

SPEAKER_00 17:25

So, anyway, next one fighting, straight up being able to fight or defend yourself and defend those around you. Similar to health in some respects, but also very different. Like, yeah, if you aren't able to protect yourself and those you love, then you you need to fix that because like you can't rely on other men to protect you and your family. Like that that that's the that's the alternative. If you as a man are not able to protect yourself and protect your family, you're going to have to rely on other men to protect you and to protect your family, or you are unprotected, you're currently unprotected because if if you can't rely on other men or other people to protect you, which is most likely going to be men, then you're unprotected and you're vulnerable and your family's vulnerable, or your future family. So you have to have something in place. I know based on experience, what I can do based on being in altercations, I know first of all, I know how to spot danger a lot easier now. So I know the look in in a man's eye when what with with what he's capable of doing as well. I know the look in someone's eye when they are willing to fight as well. You you can tell when someone's never been punched in the face, by the way. There's certain people in the world that you'll meet and you go, I know for a fact, the way that this person's talking, he's never been punched in the face. And he's talking to someone that has been and that's that's clearly uh punched people. So Sean Strickland, who as I'm recording this, uh, I hope this is not a spoiler for anyone because he just had a fight, but he just won the the belt again. And there's certain ways that he speaks when he when he'll speak to someone, and he'll say things like, No, you don't understand, like I'll literally kill you. So he'll say things like that. And when you hear him say that, you you know that he actually means it because some people will will give threats, they'll give you like, I'll smash you or smash your face in, or I'll do this, and like you're looking at him like you don't know what you're talking about, though. Like you you get it, you know. If you've been in a lot of fights, you know how easy it is to fight. Like it's not difficult, it's not because you're not scared to do it. Surprisingly enough, getting punched in the face doesn't hurt that much. Like it's like sometimes getting a corky is worse, sometimes getting pinched is worse. Like your the skull is pretty solid. So sometimes, oftentimes getting punched in the head or the face doesn't actually like there's not a lot of physical pain involved in it. Obviously, if you it's not good, like you don't want it to happen, but it doesn't hurt as bad as people think if you've never experienced it. And so you you you can see as well when when someone let's just say this if anyone's if if you if you've ever been in a fight, you you'll know not to push someone. They should never push someone unless, like, unless you if you push them, you have to get ready to punch them immediately. Because if someone put if if someone pushes someone that has been in a lot of fights, their response isn't to push back. They'll they'll punch. That that'll probably be the next thing. Because that because the fight started at that point. If someone pushes you, the fight started with them. I you if you want to win at least, you want to get the first punch. Uh, and there's that's sort of like the green light, because you don't just want to also legally, you wouldn't want to just punch someone. Okay, I don't want to get into giving legal advice for getting into fights. You shouldn't ever get into a fight. This is only in the situation that you might have to. Um, but you definitely don't want to instigate, you definitely want to de-escalate as much as possible. But here's the thing you would have the confidence to do to de-escalate because you know that if it ever did escalate, then you you're sweet. And so you're usually de-escalating for the sake of the other person. Like you you shouldn't ever want an altercation to break out. And if you do, you should you should you know look into that because it's not it's not a good thing. All this to say that the important thing is that you need to be able to protect yourself, and uh a man uh with no means to protect is no man at all, in my opinion. So you you need to fix that. You you you can't rely. Rely on other men to protect you. And you also can't just live your life as a unprotected man. So just don't be that guy. Just it's super easy as well. All you have to do is sign up to a boxing class. You can do it once a week. Like the amount you can learn from just a boxing class once a week. I mean, it doesn't have to be that if you don't like boxing. You can do MMA or Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu if you want to do that. I mean, you can even do bloody Krav Megar if that's your if that's your poison. But it just gotta be it has to be some form of like physical fight training that you know what you're doing. And again, you don't need to learn, you don't need to compete, but you have to know something. You just have to know something. So that's another thing.

Courage, Hard Talks, And Facing Fear

SPEAKER_00 22:43

And knowing that actually is gonna help with the next thing, which is courage. So every man needs to be a courageous man. In order to be a man, courage is one of the most fundamental things. In in 1 Corinthians 16 13, it says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Now, when it says act like men, what they're saying is to be courageous. So when you look up the the Greek words for that, the way that they would use that phrase to act like men is to be courageous. It's it's synonymous. That's the translation. So in in the face of fear, you can't be a coward. Like, and I've spoken about before what I mean by courage, because Aristotle has the the golden mean, which is it's somewhere in between the extremes. Now there's flaws to Aristotle's idea of ethics, but for courage, I think it's really good because obviously the the furthest extreme on not having no courage is cowardice, but the other side of that is recklessness. And you know, if someone's got a gun, you know, you don't just be like, I'm gonna use my courage to run at him head on, and he's 20 meters away, and I'm gonna run at him yelling. You're like, you he's gonna shoot you and you're gonna die. And so that's a that's that's not courageous at all, it's just stupidity and recklessness. So courage obviously is is genuinely or generally within your means of being able to do something, but oftentimes that the times that we need to be courageous, it's it's like having a hard conversation or something. It's like, oh yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to say, you know, the hard thing to say when it should, because I don't want to create any weird atmosphere or oh, I just I'm not confrontational like that. It's like we'll get we'll be confrontational like that if you need to be. Like if if the reason that you're not saying something that you should say is because of fear, well then fix that. Like that's not a manly thing, like fix that part of it. Say the manly, say the thing that you need to say. You can't you can't just be a coward. Like the other thing is as well, is that it's one thing to say these things, like you have to actually put these things into practice and foster situations that you can practice this. So obviously, with the fighting thing is easy because you can you can take a class. When it comes to something like courage, you almost have to facilitate these environments and put yourself in environments where you're faced with fear in order to overcome them. So I like I literally jumped out of a plane because I'm afraid of heights. Like I went skydiving because I'm like, okay, well, my biggest fear is heights. That's okay, how do I tackle that? Well, skydiving is a thing that people do. So, all right, let's do that. And then so I got used to the feeling of being in an incredibly high place and then doing the thing anyway. So you you need to put yourself into situations when when the fear would normally appear so that you get familiar with overcoming it. Because it doesn't offer, you know, it's not an everyday thing. You don't go through your life just feel well, hopefully, you don't go through your life feeling fear every single day. And if you do, then you've got a lot of opportunities to overcome it. But but fabricating those or or like making putting yourself into these situations where you can elicit fear in order that you can practice overcoming it is a very valuable thing to do. There's a general, General Norman Schwartzkoff said the more you bleed in peace, the less you bleed in war. So you obviously you want to put yourself in in in in tough environments while while you don't need to. So when it comes to the time that you do need to, it's much easier and it's going to be a lot less difficult for you to do it. So yeah, so you know, there might be times in life where you can't you can't afford to just run away. You have to you have to do something, you have to do something about it. You know, everyone saw that video. I don't know if anyone saw that a video went viral where this guy and a girl were standing there, and this other guy ran up and started to try and take the bag from the girl, and the guy that was with her, that looked to be with her at least, just sort of cowered and just sort of went back and didn't do anything, and he was just like freaking out. It's like, bro, like if that was your girl and you just allowed another man to take her purse, and she's trying to fight back at this point, by the way, and you don't do anything. Like, how you can't look yourself in the mirror. Like, you gotta look, you gotta be able to look at yourself in the mirror and and like what you see. Like, that's like, and I don't just mean in appearance, I'm talking about looks maxing. Um, but I am talking about you know, the the the make of the man, the quality of the man that you see in the mirror. Like, are you do you believe in yourself in some respects? Like, because that's gonna be really hard on you if you don't, like it's gonna be really hard on your mindset if you don't believe in yourself and you don't think that you're a valuable person. Like, you going to how can you not have mental health issues if you're that type of guy? But here's the thing it's all super achievable, it's all things that you can do to improve your life, and this is one of them. Yeah, and and you've got to be able to like stand up for yourself as well. That's the other thing, is I mean, if if someone's like stepping on you and disrespecting you and you just don't say anything because you don't want to cause any weird energy, it's like they've already made the weird energy, by the way. When someone's been passive aggressive or they're saying rude things to you, they've already initiated the weird energy. You calling it out is like like if you want to take it there, let's take it there. Like, let's do that. Like, if someone's gonna say remarks that are rude or disrespectful and they think that they can get away with it, like you know, just these subtleties, let's air it out. Like, why not? Like you said the thing, and like oh uh unless I misunderstood. Oh, okay, if I misunderstood, no worries, then then there's no problem there. But you can you like so it's either gonna be you calling them out and then then you're checking them so not to speak to you in that way, you know. You you teach people how you want to be spoken to, and if they meant nothing by it, then okay, cool. Well then we we we can go about our day and and be pleasant. Um but you yeah, you can't you can't be the type of guy that's just like like because here's the thing I've been that guy, I've been that guy many, many times where I've had people disrespect me publicly and not say anything. And these are the types of things that you come away from and you look yourself in the like in the eye, you take a look at yourself and you go, okay, like how why did I just let that happen? And so you you get uh you're you're lowering the value that you perceive yourself to have because you you can't forget that, by the way. You can't just ignore it, you can't brush it off. Like that really happened, and you really remember it and you really felt the effects from it. And so, in order for you to get like have a bit of respect for yourself, like sometimes you have to say things and call things out. And you know what? I've created a lot of like awkward moments and awkward situations, and that's fine, and I'll continue to do it if I need to, if I need to, because oftentimes what happens is you only ever need to do that with one with with a person once. I've had a lot of different arguments and altercations with people, uh, but usually it only ever happens once because they know that they're like, okay, well, I can't I can't be rude to this person, I can't disrespect this person because they're probably gonna say something. And if you're the type of person that is rude and disrespectful to someone, you're weak anyway. Because what if you have a problem with someone, why would you just not just say the problem? Like you're obviously a coward for not just stating what the problem is and just bringing it up. Instead, you have to use these weird tactics of being rude and disrespectful. So I don't I don't respect that at all. So yeah, stand up for yourself and have have the hard conversations. Like you you don't you don't want to be like Mark on Peep Show who gets married because he was too he was too afraid, he was too afraid to break up with his fiance that he didn't want to marry. He's like, Oh, I could never. No, I could never. You just have to say say the hard thing, man. There's a guy now. Let me pronounce his name, Rabin Dranath Tagore. I think I'm saying that that right. He says, Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them. So I like that. I like that now. This is the last one, and this one I could probably speak for a long time.

Resilience Over Comfort And Complaints

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I'm gonna try and not go too long on this one, but it's it's about resilience. This one is huge. You need to grow your shoulders, boys. Stop letting liberal women tell you that crying is gonna help you because it simply will not, it doesn't do anything. Like real men cry, okay. Real men also don't cry too. So what? So what? Like and like the the like I can I cannot stress enough the issue isn't that guys aren't crying enough. That isn't the issue. If people are saying real men cry as an attempt to make men feel less shame and therefore not taking their lives, that isn't the reason they're not taking their lives because they're afraid to cry and they're getting shamed for the times that they do cry. So much deeper than that. Isn't like it doesn't help, okay? It doesn't help to stop listening to like again, it's really bad advice. It's really bad advice. The best advice is to try and build up your resilience because that is the thing that you can do. If you build yourself up, you can handle more. That's the thing. If you've lived a really bubble-wrapped life and you've never dealt with hardship or experienced any hardship, yeah, you're not gonna have a lot of resilience and you're gonna fall at the first hurdle of life. Life is difficult, it's really hard, and it does not care about your situation. It does not care that you're struggling, it will not stop for you. So, what are you gonna do about that? Like, what are you gonna do about that? Because there is something that you can do, which is build up your tolerance and your resilience to be able to deal with the struggles and the the trials of life. The whole like what doesn't kill me makes me stronger is actually true. That is actually true in in a in a lot of ways, as far as like dealing with mental uh hurdles and and things like that. I'm not talking about, you know, I got beaten half. I'm not talking about Dragon Ball Z. Like in Dragon Ball Z, they get beaten from an inch of their life, and then they it that's like they get a lot stronger after that, like double their power if they if they survive. So I'm not talking about that. But here's the thing like JFK said, do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger men. That's the thing. Praying for an easy life. Why? Like, what wouldn't you much rather? Like, it's the whole thing of like, I want everything else to be different, to cater to me, rather than me just being able to deal with everything else. You can't change everything, you can't change the entire world around you, but you can change yourself. That is something that you do have control over. You can control the controllables, don't worry about trying to control the uncontrollables. It's a crazy way to think. And like, here's the thing: men were fine. Men were fine for thousands of years not sharing their their feelings, and then all of a sudden, dudes want to start crying and talking about their emotions and their feelings because some people, some girls basically told them that that's what they should be doing. Like, oh yeah, you guys just need to open up more. No, we don't. We actually don't. We actually don't. I mean fair enough if you if you want to talk, like talk, like it's fine, but if you don't want to, like it's not like the times that I don't want to talk, I just I just don't want to talk. I don't know, dude. It's just like like when guys when they find that they like guys actually do this. Is what a lot of the guys are saying when they decide to open up and talk. No one cares. That's what that's what they get met with a lot of the time. Like, you're like, okay, guys, open up and talk, and then who are they gonna talk to? Uh the the boys, you're gonna talk to the other boys who have like boys just do not have the innate ideas to be able to emp empathize in the same way, like women giving advice, and they go, guys, you should do what we do. We we talk about our problems, we share, and then they're met with a group of girls that have been bred from their day they were born, and it's like biologically in their nature to be to empathize and to show comfort and support and nurture, like guys opening up to their mates, it's like, yeah, man, that sounds sounds rough. Um yeah, yeah, don't really know what to say, and so it's like so that that's one thing of like telling guys that just don't know what to say back. The other thing is trying to talk to uh that that's even if you have mates, like a lot of guys like don't have a lot of close friends that that would even feel remotely comfortable just opening up and sharing some some things. So there's that side of things. They're like, okay, well, I don't I don't even know who I would talk to. The the another side is that it's never it's not received the same way. So when a guy starts talking about his emotions and his feelings and he's crying, a lot of girls get the ick and they're like, ugh, I don't like that. Like it's different because when girls say it, they're like, Yeah, I like a guy who cries or something, like an emotional guy. And what they're thinking of is like some Hollywood movie scene where like a guy has just lost his entire family, and he's like crying, but it's in this like really deep emotional um thing where he's like he's not weep, he's just like kind of like weeping out of the eyes, and it's just this moment, and like the tragedy's so dark and just so heavy, and you can see that he's trying to like not like hold it in, and then it's just like tears sort of coming out, but it's just like this incredible scene, it's like emotionally moving, and it's like that situation doesn't happen for most guys. Like, if if a guy's talking about his his emotions and his problems, it's like it's not gonna be like that, like it's not gonna be this like movie thing. So guys crying, like girls really they they don't actually like it, not in not unless it's from in a Hollywood movie. But the other side of that as well is that they get ostracized by other men, like other men don't really like it if a dude is overly emotional because it's she it is signaling weakness in a degree. It's like, dude, you if you can't shoulder something, like we want to help, by the way. Like guys will be like, okay, we want to help if there's something going on. It's not like guys are opposed to men dealing with things, but if the approach is that they're like crumbling and bawling their eyes out, it's like, bro, you like get a grip, like a little bit. I want to help. But um, and like um, you have to understand, it's varying in degrees. If you are the guy that's lost his whole family, or if you are a person that's had this insanely traumatic upbringing, like there are there are things like I'm trying to speak broadly, but this is something that probably needs a little bit more nuance because there are definitely situations that people have gone through that if they were bawling their eyes out, no one would would think they're weak. And you're like, yeah, because obviously, like with that kind of life that this person's had, it's a wonder that they're able to put a smile on their face at all. You know, there's there's all there's always going to be situations and things like that. But like a lot of the advice for men is just like uh like that kind of advice of men should talk about their feelings and all this sort of stuff. It's it's to do with guys that are just have a had a rough week at work or just you know, are feeling a little bit lonely because they don't have a girlfriend or something. And so it's like there's certain elements where it's like, yeah, okay, you do actually have to pick yourself up by your bootstraps. And it's like, oh, life's hard because I've got bills to pay and like I've got some responsibilities. That's the person that I'm talking to that, you know, that's a large majority of men are feeling they're you know, they're feeling down because of this sort of stuff, it's like general life living stuff. Like life is hard, it's not easy, like it like there are things that you have to do. You can't just have everyone cater for you. There's effort and things that you have to do. So if the general act of just living a life and having to go to work, and people are can't even do that, and they're like, well, just talk about it. It's like that's that's what I mean. That's because talking about that is like, bro, you do just need to actually grow some resilience and you need to strengthen yourself. Because you can do it. Here's the thing: you don't have to do the crying, you don't have to do the the emotional talks, you can just build your resilience. That is a thing that you can do, and you can just end up handling the things. You don't need to sit in a circle with all your boyfriends all holding hands and crying together, watching Marley and me. Like there are other ways that you can deal with your problems and grow as a man. We we do, we we can grow, we do grow, we get stronger, we can deal with things, it's okay. And and to be honest, especially if you're a Christian, bro, especially if you're you've literally got God on your side, you're the God of everything on your side. So we're like whatever you're dealing with, if God's with you, I mean come on. And whatever, and whatever you're dealing with, I can guarantee you Jesus had it harder. And so if He if He did what He did, we can definitely do what we need to do. Yeah, what Jesus did on the cross, man. And this is like you don't even have to like people argue about the divinity of of Jesus. The argument doesn't really surround anyone that tries to say that Jesus wasn't an actual, like that he didn't exist at all, there's not even a conversation about that in scholarship. Like usually those things get thrown out pretty quickly because there's just an overwhelming sense of evidence that Jesus existed and that he was definitely crucified as well in the way that he was. So the the contention that people, you know, obviously have discrepancies with is whether he rose again from the dead. But obviously, if you have a worldview where rising from the dead doesn't exist, you're obviously going to be like, okay, well, there must be another explanation because you're not factoring in the possibility. Like, this is a okay, this okay, I'll save

Five Takeaways, Faith, And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_00 42:16

it for another day. Anyway, so those are the things. So health, contribution, fighting, courage, and resilience, those five things. If you can work on those five things, not only will your life improve, but your loved ones' lives will improve, and then your community will improve. And um, this is good advice to me. This is good advice. This is the if people told me this when I was in my early 20s, bro. Like, instill these things into me. I'll tell you what, my 20s would have looked a whole lot different. But um anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up there. You know, it's at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it's all trash and garbage because Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and he's coming back soon. So get to know him. I'm telling you now. Best thing you'll ever do. And let look, here's the thing. If you're still here and you're listening, let me know. Like if there's anything that you like, give me some feedback. And he and also, like, if you do listen to this, like rate and review, apparently that really helps to get the potty out there, giving it like uh a five-star review, it helps to like get it into the algorithm because we want to take over. We want to take over the world. We've reached Japan, we're in the US, we're in Australia. Where else have we been? I've been to some random places. Uh like there's some places in like Southeast Asia and and Africa. I've had I've had South Africa. So, anyway, thanks for listening. I love your all you're amazing and uh see you next week.