Men Carry More Than Steel

In this raw, personal episode of Metal Fabrication Nation, I talk about divorce, fatherhood, court pressure, anger, control, faith, and what men in the trades carry when nobody is watching.

This is not a polished episode.

It is real, emotional, and straight from the heart.

Sometimes the hardest thing a man has to build is himself back up.

#MetalFabricationNation #MensMentalHealth #Fatherhood #SkilledTrades #RealTalk

Metal Fabrication Nation with Greg Sheldon. Real talk for welders, fabricators, shop owners, and the next generation of tradespeople. Built on the belief that AI won’t replace real tradespeople, and the trades aren’t a backup plan; they’re the backbone. 

Greg reminds welders, fabricators, foremen, shop owners, and tradespeople that they are not behind the times — they are building the future. Follow the show, share it with someone in the trade, and keep pushing the industry forward. Want to see what bad quoting may be costing your shop? Get the free calculator and Baseline Efficiency Report here: https://gregsheldon.github.io/metalfabexcel/calculator.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome back to Metal Fabrication Nation. This is Greg Sheldon. Just sitting here in my four-wheeled studio thinking about something that really hits home for me and a lot of the men out there, I'm sure. There's this thing that happens with wives that end up to be ex-wives. They call it the silver bullet. And what it is is they alienate alienate you from your children. And then they send the divorce papers. And then about a month later, you are charged with assault for something that never happened. And they call that the silver bullet, gentlemen. It's an actual strategy that lawyers use with their clients, and their client may be your wife or your ex-wife at this point, to wear you down in the court system to tire you out, to spend all your money so you stop fighting for your kids. To any of you men out there that know that what that's like, it's brutal. It's expensive. It's exhausting. You can't focus on anything else. And if you can, you do it half-assed. I've been through it. And no, I ain't been drinking. I ain't been doing anything. I just it's I parked my car here. This and I just thought this is a topic that so many men go through. And yeah, I'm not perfect. I wasn't a perfect husband. Absolutely not. I failed in a lot of ways, but I did not deserve to have my children taken away from me and alienated from me. Or the two court battles going on at the same time. That isn't fully resolved yet. So I just wanted to let you men know out there, and women, if you're listening, maybe it's happening to you too. I just I got a s I I got a spot in my heart for the men and the trades out there, obviously, because I am one of them. I just pray for y'all. I pray that the Father, Father God, takes care of you. And all of this is happening for a reason. And then it's not nothing you can know. And what I would say from my experience is I fought. I fought hard. I hired lawyers, I self-represented, I did all of that. But the control, you gotta let go of the control. The control doesn't help. It only wears you out more. And it's only gonna end up the way it needs to end up, based on what God has planned. Not you. You can't control it. Control is an illusion. And you can apply that to anything, your career, the metal industry, whatever. We try and control so much in our lives. And at the end of the day, it doesn't help. It only takes. And mostly from you. It's like anger. It's mostly damaging to you. It's, you know, it's poison for you, not the other person. So anyway, gentlemen and ladies, I just wanted to, God bless you, and I wanted to say thank you to anybody that's listening to this podcast. And I'm gonna talk about this more at some point, but that's just a quick introduction. I just wanted to get that off my heart and off my chest and uh out of my soul to you, and I hope that you come out of everything. And I pray everybody on this podcast that's listening finds their purpose within the traits, finds where they need to be. I've talked about not becoming a shop foreman if you're not built for it. And I've talked about ownership and management not doing what they need to be doing, and I'm gonna be talking more about that. But there's positive things coming too. I'm not just gonna bitch this whole time. So this is a bit of the personal touch that I wanted to say that I did say I would do. And uh that's it. God bless y'all. Thank you so much. If you like the show, share it, and um, we'll see you next time. Thanks. Keep it real, and God bless.