Newtons 1st Law of Good Men

The toughest part of “being a man” is unlearning what we were trained to be. We grew up hearing that real men don’t cry, don’t talk about feelings, and definitely don’t admit they’re struggling. But that kind of stoicism doesn’t make you strong. It makes you silent until you blow up on the people who count on you. We get honest about what a good man looks like when you’re navigating stress, relationships, and the emotional fallout that can follow divorce.

We talk about emotional vulnerability and men’s mental health in plain language: how to recognize anger before it takes over, how to vent pressure without causing damage, and how to create a safe space where your partner, your friends, and even your coworkers can bring you a problem without fear of blame. We also dig into the “task-driven” mindset that can sabotage connection, and why listening first often matters more than fixing fast.

From integrity and accountability to giving yourself grace when you fall short, this is a practical conversation about healthy masculinity, communication, and becoming a man of value instead of just a man of success. If you’ve ever snapped, shut down, or realized you were the problem later, you’ll hear yourself in this one.

Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review if the show helps. What’s one habit you’re trying to change to become a better man?

Transcript

Welcome And Defining A Good Man

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to the Divorce News Podcast. I'm Zach. And I'm Matt. We're here to help you along your journey. We are also greeted with Phil today again.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello. Thanks for happening. Say hi. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello. Um, today we want to talk about being a good man. What makes a good man? Um, I actually looked up on Google what it thinks a good man is, and it gave um a definition as an individual who consistently acts with integrity, empathy, and respect. Go.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Alrighty.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

I mean, well, if you're just gonna throw it at me like that, let's go. So, you know, that's actually a pretty good estimation of what it takes to be a man, what makes a good man. It's it's interesting what we grow up in society learning, right? It's really stoicism. Yeah. It is all about stoicism. Don't show your emotions, don't cry. You know, men that real men don't cry. Yeah, you know, you're not allowed to have emotions, you're not allowed to do it, any of these things. Rob Sonic. Here we are, what it was, episode six or seven now, and we're telling you all the things that we've done, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

It's everything opposite of what we've been told is growing up, is we're having emotions, we do have them, and they're deep. And it's important that we have these things. And to be a man is to be able to recognize what's going on around you and be strong in that moment, but that doesn't mean you can't feel the pain, you can't feel those emotions, and really allow yourself to be in that moment. You can still be the protector, you still can

Stoicism And The Cost Of Bottling

SPEAKER_03 1:50

be the strong man, but in private and with friends and family, you're allowed to break down.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, so that's a good point. Like, I I I see a bunch of times uh this happened to me when I was a kid and playing T-ball, right? I would miss something, now we get angry, but there was nobody there saying, Hey, I understand you're angry. Um I I know that it's hard to like figure out what this feeling is, um, and here's how to to to offload it. So you just bottle it up, you hold it inside, right? And I think that that's one of the definitions of a good man is being able to understand each of the individual emotions and when it's appropriate to express them, how to express them, so that in the future, when these come up, you don't just like go off the chain or off the rail or whatever, right? You don't just blow up on somebody, or you don't just like break down in the middle of a conversation. You can you can talk about them, you can uh describe them, and you can feel them, yeah, uh, and know that it's okay.

unknown 2:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

You gotta let the pressure out a little bit, you know. Yeah, just it just builds and builds, and you know, you can't keep letting all of that mount up because it just becomes an avalanche when eventually uh explodes out of you. You just can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Um, some of the other uh um what am I looking for the word I'm looking for, um descriptions, I guess, of being a good man is somebody that takes responsibility for his actions, um, uplips those around them and balances strength with emotional vulnerability. So this that last one is kind of what we're talking about now, yeah, the emotional vulnerability. Um, it's okay to tell your partner or tell your buddy or your boss or whoever, hey, I'm struggling.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Right? It's okay to like not be the stoic man who's just standing there feeling depression and feeling anger and not being able to do anything about it. That's like the worst thing you could possibly do. It just like builds up inside of you until you you blow. It's like a Chernobyl event, right? Right. That that fucking valve that was supposed to release doesn't release and then boom, like the whole thing just blows up.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I've got the shout-in actors with coworkers and people. It's like, you know, I would really like to be able to talk to them sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And just be like, hey, we got this thing going on. And if you know, this is the other side of it, is that a good man will also be receptive to somebody who's needing to get those emotions out.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

That's also the it kind of becomes your protector. Yeah, you you can protect other people, not just physically, but you can protect their emotions and create a safe space for someone else. Um, it's important as a man to create a safe space for your spouse, your girlfriend, so your friends to be able to express those things. Right. To be able to listen to them and take that information in. It's so hard to realize

Letting Emotions Out Safely

SPEAKER_03 4:55

that sometimes I just need to stop what I'm doing and listen.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So I have this I have this problem a lot, where somebody'll come up to me with a problem and immediately my mood changes. So we'll be at in in at work, right? And then somebody'll say, Hey, something's got contaminated, there's a tray that's messed up, whatever. And then my first reaction is blame and anger. I don't stop and look back and think of like where the process could have broken down. I don't think about the person that I'm projecting this to now, right? Yeah, my first reaction is, God damn it, this is gonna affect me negatively. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, who did this? Why did it happen?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Right. So this is one of the things that I've been working on recently is like putting everything into perspective with with people around me. I don't want people to be scared to come with me to me with a problem because I want to be the fixer. I want to be the protector. I want them to come to me and say, hey, this guy's gonna get it done. He's a good, upstanding man. He's gonna be able to fix this problem that I have.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

You know, on that, on that topic, uh edit this out if you have to. And and I'm gonna I'm gonna actually call you out for a little bit because to our listeners, you have to understand myself and Zach, we've been spending a lot of time together trying to, you know, put this podcast together for everybody. And so we have become much closer and have spent numerous hours and hours inseparable. And and I have I've witnessed this in you, and and the moment that I'm thinking about is my computer breaking down. Oh yeah. And and we're we're upstairs and we're working on my computer, and it's having a glitch, and I can't figure it out. I've done everything I think I can, but I'm like, Zach's better at this than I am. So I'm coming to get the help that I need. And we're working on something, and his wife Kelly is like, Hey, can you come and check this for me? And it was it was something that was important to her at that moment that she wanted checked, and he was in the middle of doing something trying to fix this computer. And so his internal focus was strictly on this computer. And and I watched this as a third party. I watched Zach's brain go from frustration of holy shit, I'm in the middle of something to stop. Okay, what is it? Okay, let me let me take care of my spouse. And he stopped what he was doing and apologized for you know getting frustrated in that moment of I'm I'm working and and paused and just I watched that reset in real life. And it was okay, it's so what did you need? How can I help? And and just watching it in real life was just so refreshing because I think all of us do that. We're so like focused on something we're in the middle of, and someone else needs our help with whatever it is, and it seems so non-important to us because we're in a task. Yeah, right, right. I think as men, we are very task-driven. I want to finish the thing I'm working on. I have this thing, I think I've got it figured out, I'm in the middle of it. I can't stop right now. But you realize, like, no, my spouse is more important than this task at hand. Right. I'm going to stop and I'm gonna help her. And you did, and it took all of 30 seconds and it was over, and we were and we were back at it.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

I was like, I babe, I'm sorry. I'm I'm doing something. I didn't mean to get frustrated with you. I didn't mean to blow off what you were doing. What can I do? And she was like, I mean, it's it's okay, it's not a big deal. Like, this wasn't something that has to be done now. Um, just when you get done with that task, will you come help me?

unknown 8:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I said, Okay, yeah, I again, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blow up on you.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

And it's something that's taken me a long time to be able to like, if that's a blow up, you guys are doing fucking great. Well, it hasn't been, but no, I understand what you're saying. Like, it was uh that's probably been a task for yourself of like trying to correct to be a better man, and that's you know, that's just something we all live with, and you know, we all have our our little triggers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Like, yeah, so I and it all sorry, it all just it all takes work, like you gotta you gotta really push yourself to make those changes to first identify what you're doing wrong and to break that natural mindset.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So I think this is where a lot of guys struggle, is because there are a lot of guys that don't realize that they're doing these things or that their their actions are affecting other people. I think that a lot of us are very selfish. There's a lot of guys that are just very selfish. And when somebody comes in when you're doing something and they interrupt you, it I'm the same

Creating Safe Space For Others

SPEAKER_00 9:40

way. It's like, why are you bothering me? Right. We don't we don't stop to think that whatever they're dealing with is important also, especially to them. Yeah, they could be having the worst time trying to figure out how to make the garbage disposal work, whatever, right? You know, and it's very important to them at the moment. So they're coming to the person who they think is the fixer and the protector to take care of it when we're actually doing something that I mean is also important to us, but as a good man, as the person that they're dependent on, uh, you need to stop and reflect and say, hey, this is really important to them. I'm gonna take care of it real quick. What I'm doing, I can put on hold. My project is is gonna be there when I get done.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

It's not life and death. Right. Unless it is. Call 911. Okay, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

But what really helped me figure a lot of this out was when I was manager at the restaurant culverse.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, and you know, fucking love culvers, that fucking ice cream. Oh, it's clustered. Sorry, it's clustered. Yeah, get it. My bad. The fries are fire.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

But like being being in being a manager of a restaurant, it's a hundred things to do and a thousand distractions. Yeah. And being able to balance all these different high school high school kids who are still figuring things out and they don't really know their own emotions or you know, really how to do do things. Some people don't even know how to use a mop.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I actually believe that. I've I've dealt with teenagers recently. I can actually believe that.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, it's like they look at that thing, it's like, what am I supposed to do with this? But but like being able to balance out, and you know you've got all your tasks that you need to do to run this restaurant. And he comes in and is like, hey, I need tomorrow off. You're like, all right, let's try to figure this out. Like, what what what can I do to help him? Let's also try to like have a coaching moment of hey, it's really we can we can try to figure this out, but it would be helpful if you gave this to me like two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Right, like right. Trying to give them some like life lessons while also dealing with all the shit that you're still dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, and now I gotta find somebody for Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Right. And I'm that's that's part of being that good man, right? Is you're you're the problem solver, um, but you don't let the problems that you're dealing with project onto everybody around you.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Most of the time. Yeah. Sometimes there are times where it it's it's just gonna get out. And you know, you need to be able to make restitutions.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, I I say that I know four words and they're all bad because they all come out at the same time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

You know, and that that kind of falls into integrity, right? Yeah. And and having integrity, what that means to me, and I I probably could look up the definition here, but integrity to me means doing the right thing to the best of your ability, whether someone's watching or not. Correct. C. S.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Lewis said that. I'm looking at the quote right now. Is that oh well then I need a quote? So smart man. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. There we go. There you go. Look at you.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

You're so smart. Uh I've probably read that once before.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Probably. It's a really popular quote. I mean, don't give him too much credit. He's I love C.S. Lewis.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

But no, to your point, it's really easy when nobody's looking to cut corners and to slack off. That usually leads to problems down the road, though.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

You know, every cut corner needs to be collected later. Yeah, I was about to quote you. You said that the other night when we were at game night and we were talking about cutting corners. He's like, well, for every cut corner, someone's gotta pick it up.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It's true though. I mean, if if you're at work and you you kind of slack off a little bit because your boss isn't around, then eventually the work that you cut out on or you just put off it still needs to get done.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

And whether you do it or not is is an issue for somebody else. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

And the same is true in your own house, right? Like if you don't have some kind of regiment at home, right? And I'm this is this is I'm speaking to myself right now because I've kind of failed at my own regiment. I had things, you know, I did my laundry every Tuesday, I did my dishes every Wednesday, and I had this like regiment of things that I used to do. I was very consistent with them. And even with my own integrity, I've kind of failed at that at times, where it's like I let the dishes pile up and I haven't done laundry in two weeks. And it's like, well, I'm not keeping even integrity to myself. Yeah. And and it's a struggle, it's not something that you just, oh, well, I'm a man, so I just have integrity. No, it's something we work at.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

It's it's actual, it takes effort to have this. And this goes back to the emotional emotional vulnerability that we talked about earlier. Um, when you let yourself down by not having that integrity, it's okay to not beat yourself up about it.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Right? You just you you see that you've done it, you realize, like you said, you didn't do laundry for two weeks. Don't beat yourself up about it because the the hardest person on you is you. Always. You're nobody's ever gonna be harder on you than you are.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

You have to give yourself grace. So you just have to come back into the mindset and say, look, this is where I fucked up. It's okay. I'm gonna fix it. I won't let it happen in the future, but don't dwell on it. Um I I think that's very important for men because I think that a lot of us spiral and you have one fuck up and that leads to another fuck up, and then there's another one, and another one, another one, another one, and then eventually you're like bottle of bourbon in hand, just taking drinks of it because you're like, This is the only way I can. Yeah, exactly. Um, so it's okay to have grace on yourself, but also with others, and I think that's part of being a good man is being able to like understand that nobody's perfect and that people are gonna mess up, but instead of like losing control and losing your anger and and blowing up on them, meet them with grace. Yeah, I think that's very important is to meet everybody with grace because uh people are gonna mess things up, you're gonna get cut off sometimes over and over. Right. Uh Kelly reminds me about this all the time when we're driving. Um, somebody will pull out in front of me, right? And I'm just like, You are the worst person on the entire planet. I hate you. I wish you would die.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

That's that's because they interrupted your task. You were driving a straight line.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Exactly. They inconvenienced me. How dare them.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

But then she'll like pull me back in and say, Hey, what if they're like on the way to the hospital because their dad's dying? And then I feel like the asshole because I didn't think of that.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And it could be true, right? So one thing that's been very hard for me to actually grasp is having the the emotional ability to see that I'm not the only person on the planet. Yeah. And to like understand that there's others who might be struggling, who might be dealing with shit in their own lives. Um, and then having the grace to be able to like accept when they have faults. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of men that just like that's an issue for them. I'm also very much of the if you're not perfect at what you're doing, get out of my way. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Sorry, sorry. We're saying that's not the point. I mean, you deal with this too.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Oh, but we understand. I'm sure we deal with this at Whole Foods, and we deal with this.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

It's such a mindset,

Integrity When Nobody Is Watching

SPEAKER_03 17:20

even for me, that I struggle with constantly, is you know, a complex task feels or looks to me as a simple one. Yeah. And and someone may not have done that task before, or maybe they just don't excel at whatever that task is. And I look at it and I see one plus one equals two, and I'm like, how do you not get it? And I get frustrated, and I lose grace for them. Yeah. Right. And I really I get frustrated because I had practiced that task for years on years on years, and they're doing the task for the first time, or maybe their third, but in any case, you know, it's just it becomes that frustration because I expect perfection. Perfection. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I run into this at Whole Foods where I where I work the produce truck, I break it down. I've got hundreds of boxes that I've got to put in this cooler and organize them. And guess what? Everybody else who tries to put those boxes back, they don't put them in the same spot. And I have to keep it in mind that that's you know, my organization is not necessarily it has to go here.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right. Everybody's got their own way of doing things, and that's okay. One of the next uh things that was mentioned here is um taking responsibility for his own actions. I think this one is the hardest one for a lot of men.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Really hard to say sorry sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, not only that, but understanding that you might have been the problem. I I think that there's a lot of men, I very much at fault to doing this, thinking that I am perfect and that you know I am infallible, and it's not the case. Like I fucked up a lot of shit. Yeah, and I realize that it's taken me a long time to understand that I have fucked up a lot of shit in my life, and that's on me. Right. And I think that's a lot of men go through life thinking that way that you know I'm not the problem. It wasn't my drinking that caused this problem. Uh it just it wasn't my laziness that like my boss was an asshole, he fired me. Well, it's because you were stealing food off the fucking line.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Like this is where you need a less self-reflection. You need to take time to really like examine yourself and and figure out if something went wrong. Like, I believe that in every conflict there's something better that every side could have done. Right. And I want to find that for myself.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I I I I know that like in my marriage, my last marriage, I was not a perfect partner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

I we talk about this about that on the last episode. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

We talk about this a lot. You can't stop dating your partner. I stopped dating my partner.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Right. Uh and we we grew apart. I take responsibility for that. I have tried to fix that now in my new relationship.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Um, because I recognized that I was at fault for for some of the issues that we had. Um and I won't let that happen again. Uh my anger was also a big thing. Like my ex-wife couldn't come talk to me about basically any problem that we had because my first reaction was anger. Right. So luckily Kelly calls me out on this all the time. Like, she's stronger than any person I've ever known. But she's helped me see that the way I respond to things has a negative effect on people. And that's helped me realize that I was also the problem. So I'm taking responsibility of how I am reacting to others to try not to make them feel like either less of a person or upset or even scared to come talk to me with the issue.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah. Yeah. I've had a couple high schoolers cry, and that that drove that message home. Like, I really need to be careful how I talk to people sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Right, because uh something that I say that I don't think is an issue could really affect the person that's standing next to me in a very negative way. Like they could be scared of me at that point, and I don't want anybody to ever be afraid. Well, I'll say that. Somebody could fuck me at bar, I want them to be scared of me.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Right. Uh that's why you go to the gym, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Those those asshole kids that ding-dong ditch me at three o'clock in the morning the other day. I want them to be scared of me.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

But at the same time, I want them to also understand that hey bro, I don't hate you. I'm not mad at you. I well, I was mad at you at the time. I understand why you're doing it because you're a stupid little kid, but like that grace that you have with other people is very important.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And that's one of the main main principles of being a good man is being able to have grace with the the people around you.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Yeah, that that self reflection is a big part, you know. You gotta be able to understand that. All of your actions, good and bad, have consequences. And that doesn't mean that consequences are always a bad thing. That your consequences sometimes are good repercussions, sometimes they're bad repercussions. You know, um equal and opposite constantly.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yin and yang. There's a give and take and everything. Yep. The universe has a balance. Exactly. However you want to say it.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Everything you're gonna do is going to have a reaction.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Einstein equal, or not Einstein, but physics. Physics, yeah. Every reaction has an equal Newton. Yes, yes. Sorry. God, I'll just stop quoting third Jesus Christ. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah. That kind of leads me into the next thing I want to talk about. And one of the final parts of this is uh a good man will uplift those around him. And Kelly does this to me all the time. She'll show me a TikTok, and there's some I don't remember what the online like verbiage is for this. Um, but it's always like give people like the most exuberant compliments you can because it just makes their day. So like if somebody comes up to you and says, You smell good, don't just be like, Yeah, thanks. Right? Like, oh my god, thank you. I picked this out like at Ulta and I was worried that some people weren't gonna like it, but I I'm so happy that you do like yeah, if somebody gives you a gift, make it the biggest thing you've ever done. Like, yeah, oh my god, thank you so much. This is such the greatest thing I've ever seen. Uh, I can't believe that you thought of me. Like, just always be uplifting people because then you're gonna get respect from others.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

The the people around you are gonna be like, oh, I can come talk to this guy, I can trust this guy. They're not gonna be like scared, um, they're not gonna be intimidated by you. I don't want to intimidate anybody. I want people to be able to talk to me. Like I in the OR, yeah, I can get very serious. And I know that's very intimidating to some people, but there's not a lot of room to fuck up in the OR.

unknown 24:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

There really isn't.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

There's literally a life on the table.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Exactly. So it's a very serious thing. But I also try to make when I'm in there, make it feel like it's not as serious as it is, because there's a lot of people, especially like the the newer scrubs that come in, that get very nervous

Accountability And Owning Your Impact

SPEAKER_00 24:20

that they're gonna mess something up.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So they mess something up, right? They're in their heads so much that they fuck it up. I don't want to be the guy that responds to them in a way that makes them feel worse. God, that is the hardest thing I do every day. I know. I I do the same thing. It like something in my brain just goes, why aren't you getting this?

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So when I realize I'm doing that, I always try to like turn around and be like, hey, you're doing a great job. I I know this is really complicated and it's really confusing, and I know you haven't done it a lot of times, but like you're doing good. Um, we're gonna keep working on it and we're gonna get you to be like perfect. I I tried, I recently have been trying to like make everybody around me feel like they're special and to uplift them and bring them up. Yeah, because a rising tide raises all ships, or whatever that for that phrase is, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah, that's you pretty much got it.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Yeah, yeah. I you're the you're the literalist or a rising tide raises all ships, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you said. See, it's good that we have Phil here because he's got the smarts.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

I got I got the words.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

He's like our dictionary for Scrabble. He just makes sure that we're doing it right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's he's good at like figuring out the the words.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

You know, whatever you're missing, I I I got it.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

I got a fucking monkey brain, he's got lizard brain, and you've got words. I got words, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Um remember that we'll go pray trivia at some point.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

We always do. We're always sad when you don't show up because we don't know words. There's always a literature question. We're like, God, where the fuck is Phil? Well, send me a text. He's read that you can't. That's cheating. Oh, invite you. I thought she'd like phone a friend. Um that's called integrity. Listen, look, we're just look at the callback. Look at the callback everybody into being a good man, but I do think it's very important to try to uplift everybody around you, make them feel special in some way. Yeah, it seems silly and it seems stupid for a lot of guys to like show that playful kind of like vulnerable like child, inner child.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah, I still quote six seven all the time. Jesus Christ. We said it earlier this episode. I was like, I resisted.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

We'll have video soon. You'll be able to see, you know, Phil here juggling whatever the fuck the 6-7 juggle is. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Sorry if I derailed it. No, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

But yeah, I I this kind of goes back to that emotional vulnerability we talked about at the beginning. Your inner child is very important, it wants to come out. Like there's so many guys that are just so stoic all the time because they think that that makes them look like a badass or makes them look hard or I fuck. I don't know what.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yeah, like I do whatever they can to make money and you know drive fast cars and all that.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Well, that's that's a different topic.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

That is a different that's touching on a different topic.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

That's the manosphere. We're gonna get into that in the next episode. We we we're gonna deep dive into the manosphere. I got some some issues with that shit. But there's a lot of guys that I interact with on a daily basis, and and you can tell the guys that they're they wear the Punisher shirts and they wear the like the no fear, and God, I haven't thought about no fear since like 90s. Jesus Christ, I'm old. Um, but you know the tap out and the fucking uh affliction and like they just try to look like a badass all the time, and they look kind of miserable, right? Because they won't let that inner child out, they won't let themselves be goofy or weird, yeah. They're just trying to be cool all the time. And I think that that hinders you being that good man.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Yeah, it's really hard to create a space where you can be vulnerable for others, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Or have them when you're you're stoic and mean mugging everything around you, right? When all you are is the protector, you're none of the other things that yeah, it requires to be a good man, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

And and that turns a lot of people off. And that's actually it's a very sad way to live. Like, I don't I don't want the guy standing next to me to only ever have his arms crossed with a scowl on his face. Like, I want him to be able to be fucking stupid with me and like sing uh journey at the top of his lungs in the middle of the bar. Like that's right, we go to singo and we're like we're like the loudest people in the bar and we're having a great time and it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

I mean, it's it's such a good time. Um, but I don't think

Uplifting Others Inner Child Closing

SPEAKER_00 28:45

you can do that if you don't allow yourself to be vulnerable like that.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah, it was for me, it was something that I had to learn how to do. Yeah. Because I really was, or at least in my own mind, I was that stoic guy, right? I was the the guy who only did exactly what I had to. Point A, point B, I never did any deviation. It was not about having fun, it was about completing a task. Life was boring and incomplete. Yeah. And and it's just not it wasn't healthy.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

It's not healthy, it's not physically healthy, it's not emotionally healthy. That's the big one. Yeah, it's not emotionally healthy. You can go to the gym all you want to, but if your emotional health isn't the same as your physical health, you're half a person.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Yeah. Right. Um Yeah, this isn't to say you don't go to the gym, you don't learn how to fight, you don't learn how to be a protector.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

It's just go do brig Brazilian jujitsu.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

Like go also be able to go sing karaoke and act a fool. Right. Exactly. So be the complete person.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

That's the juxtaposition, right? You have the discipline of say a martial art or a gym routine with the ability to be silly and stupid. And then that, I mean, that allows you to like draw in people to you that you never thought you would you would meet or or or learn to like love, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Yeah, you can be the protector both emotionally and physically.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Correct. And that I think that's the main takeaway that we're trying to make with this episode of being a good man is that you need to be the person that can both protect their feelings and their body.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Right. Um, we've been at this for half an hour now. I I think that it's time uh we wrap this episode up. Matt's probably got some words of wisdom for us, as usual.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah, this was a word. I have you know what, I wanted to stay on brand here. We kept, you know, going all with all these science quotes. So I've I've got Albert Einstein closes out today here. Says, try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I love it. Amen. I love that. That's that's gonna play into the Manosphere episode. Um stay tuned. That's the to be continued. All right. On that, guys, divorced dudes out.