136 - Letters To Our Sons: Solving Challenges For Boys & Men

In this episode Christopher Lawhead shares his passion for starting conversations and building a community around helping boys & men to live great lives and thrive in HEALTH, WEALTH & HAPPINESS.

Chris is a father, entrepreneur, jiu-jitsu coach, and newly published author.  He started journaling as a part of his morning meditation practice years ago.  This practice turned into a habit, which has yielded his first book "Letters to Our Sons" and a new life endeavor; to offer resources and solutions for boys' and men's mental, physical, and spiritual health challenges. Chris' new start-up "Dude Legit" is aimed at inspiring, informing, and serving those boys and men struggling.  He has organized a passionate team of parents, neighbors, martial arts instructors, therapists, NLP practitioners, and healers to contribute to this crisis we face; with the hopes of creating, curating, and distributing resources to keep boys and men out of prison, off the streets, and alive and healthy.  His new company "Dude Legit" is focused on the art of dudes living great lives.

To learn more visit www.dudelegit.com and click on the social media links to connect.

Visit www.amazon.com to purchase Chris’ book…Letters To Our Sons.

In this episode we cover:

2:35    The Boys & Men Crisis

5:21    Letters To Our Sons

7:54    One Foot In Front Of The Other

11:19    Speak Up

15:47 I   t's Ok To Be Vulnerable

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Special thanks to Christoper Lawhead for being on the show.

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Transcript

Did You Know  0:02  
Did you know that men make up 80% of suicides? Simply put, men and boys are in crisis. The good news is there are tools and resources to help. 

Intro  0:12  
Hello, action taker! Welcome to Live Blissed Out a podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action. So let's get to it. In this episode, Christopher Lawhead shares his passion for starting conversations and building a community around helping boys and men to live great lives and thrive in health, wealth and happiness. Chris is a father, entrepreneur, Jujitsu coach and newly published author. He started journaling as a part of his morning meditation practice years ago. This practice turned into a habit, which has yielded his first book, "Letters To Our Sons," in a new life endeavor to offer resources and solutions for boys and men's mental, physical and spiritual health challenges. Chris's new startup, Dude Legit, is aimed at inspiring, informing and serving those boys and men struggling. He has organized a passionate team of parents, neighbors, martial arts, instructors, therapists, NLP practitioners, and healers to contribute to this crisis we face with the hopes of creating, curating and distributing resources to keep boys and men out of prison, off the streets and alive and healthy. His new company, Dude Legit, is focused on the art of dudes living great lives. To learn more visit www.dudelegit.com and click on the social media links to connect. Visit www.amazon.com to purchase Chris's book, "Letters To Our Sons". 

Ko-Fi  1:53  
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Disclaimer  2:08  
The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. 

Marisa Huston  2:20  
Chris, welcome to the show.

Christopher Lawhead  2:23  
Hi, Marisa. It's an honor to be here.

Marisa Huston  2:25  
It's wonderful to have you. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Set the stage for our listeners and let them know what we're going to be talking about.

Christopher Lawhead  2:35  
Well, I'm a father and a friend. And I have noticed what I would consider a significant crisis amongst boys and men. I have lost some very good friends to suicide and alcohol and I have watched as we all have watched these little boys do crazy things at schools, and I'm tired of it. And I want to do something about it. What I've chosen to do is write books, have conversations, do videos, start a little humble media company, essentially dedicated to the health, wealth and happiness of boys and men, put it that way. This started when I was taking a trip to Hawaii and Hawaii is a very special place for me. I've gone there many times and I go there and I pray and I meditate and I center myself. And it's a wonderful spiritual place. And I was flying out there to visit a friend who had just lost her husband to alcoholism. And her husband was a good friend of mine. I knew of him from high school, we spent time in college together, I played flute in his wedding. And on my flight out there I was journaling. I'm a journaler. I write in my journal every day, I type on my computer every day. And I just decided I was going to count how many friends I had lost since my last journey to Hawaii. And it was 13 years. Within 13 years, I had lost 17 friends. They weren't all my best friends, but some of them were. And some of them were more acquaintances. But I cared and loved all these folks. And I realized that the vast majority of them had died, either by suicide, or by drugs and alcohol, which to me is a different form of suicide. And that number shocked me. I was on my way to Oahu to pay my respects to a lost friend. And what am I going to do? I gotta do something. And so my solution, and I won't pretend that I have all the answers, even any of the answers, but I'm gonna try and my contribution to the mental health, the happiness of men and boys is to write books, and to interview people and to talk to amazing people like you and see if we can reduce that crisis, reduce that suffering. And this is my first podcast as a guest after writing my first book, "Letters To Our Sons," of which I started simply writing to my sons. I'm raising two boys. And not only am I concerned about my two boys, but I'm concerned about my friends and the society as a whole, and here I am. So thank you for having me. Marisa.

Marisa Huston  5:05  
It's such a pleasure to have you. We don't have all the answers but the difference here is that you're doing something. And you started with this amazing book to your sons. Could you share a little bit more about what you included in that book and what its purpose is.

Christopher Lawhead  5:21  
So I have two young sons five, and nine. And I started writing letters to them a few years ago. And then when I moved, I lost all the letters. And these letters were long winded rants about the world and what you should do. And we're talking four pages, five page letters. When I lost them, I said, Well, I'm really going to do this this time, and I'm going to publish it so I don't lose these letters again. And so again, I wrote long winded letters, I collected them, I said, this is too much. So I reduce them to a single page. And then I said, that's too much, you know, my kids are young. So then I reduced them again, to these short, little cute rhymes in the style of Dr. Seuss, to get my point across. And it's just laying the foundation of what I think these boys should understand. I talk about figuring it out, whatever it is, you got to figure it out. I talked about time vampires. I talk about kindness, and family. I have 36 letters. I've documented these things that I want my boys to learn and I put them in a format that's, I think, quite easy for a father, a mother to read to their sons, and then talk about it. So you can read one of these letters in 20 seconds. And then you talk about it. So let's say focus, you take 10 seconds, you read the poem about focus and then you talk to your kiddo about focus. Well, I think that's a superpower. Well, why is that a superpower? Yeah, it doesn't make you fly. It doesn't give you X ray vision. But focus is absolutely a superpower. So it opens up these conversations.

Marisa Huston  6:57  
Absolutely. And here's the thing. Parents love their kids and many of them have a hard time telling them as often as they wish. I hear it all the time parents going, I wish I'd told my kids how much I appreciate them more or love them. And some never write any letters to them, much less, publish a book with letters, much less, share that information with others. What you're doing here is you're taking your knowledge, what you believe, what you feel, is important for your sons and you're now putting it out there for other people to appreciate and be able to benefit from. You took it to another level that could help more than just your sons. Writing letters, they easily get lost or forgotten. But now you have something that can be cherished for generations to come if not forever. That is really where it's at. Taking action and doing something to help inspire others.

Christopher Lawhead  7:54  
That's my hope. My superpower is simply to try. And that's actually going to be in my next book, which is Superpowers. I'm almost done with book two and it's a book about real life superpowers that kids can use and adults can use to. And so if you want to write a book, well just write a book, right? I love the quote from Frank Zappa. Somebody said, well, how do you become a composer. And he said, first, you must start a composition, and then at some point, you must finish that composition, and then you will be a composer. You just have to do it. And this process of writing this book was wonderful. I really, really enjoyed it. To the point where I do this every day. I write every day. It's part of my everyday morning routine. So eventually, I'll be good at it.

Marisa Huston  8:40  
Yeah. And I think most of us don't learn that until very late. Where we're so concerned about so many things, that we stop ourselves from taking action. It took me a really long time to realize that failure is part of the process. And it's okay to make those mistakes. Because as I go through them, I realize I wouldn't be where I am right now, if I hadn't fallen or if that direction didn't work out for me. It's part of the journey and it's part of what leads you where you need to go. So embrace it, and don't be afraid of it. It's that fear that stops us from doing the things that we really want to do.

Christopher Lawhead  9:16  
You know, when I used to teach music lessons, they'd say, well, I'm scared to do the recital, or I'm scared to try to play this piece of music. And I'd say, well, what happens if you mess up? And they'd think and they'd think, and I'd say nothing. Nothing bad happens if you mess up. And thank goodness you didn't give up when you were trying to walk. When you first started to learn to walk. Because listen, you got up, you fell down, you got up, you fell down, you got up, you fell down, over and over. And eventually you learn to walk. And you hope that you can take that approach with everything that you care about and everything that's worth doing, right? Like this podcast right here. This is my first podcast as a guest. And we were talking before we hit record and I said hey, I'm a little nervous because this is my first podcast, You just assured me that it's just you and I talking and we're starting something cool here. And you just offered so much help and so much comfort and assistance. And here we go. You want to do a podcast like you've done now, what 130 episodes? Well, I'm guessing you started with a single episode. And then you did a second episode and a third. One foot in front of the other.

Marisa Huston  10:24  
Exactly. It's taking that first step. The fear that you had for being on the podcast, because it was your first one is more in your head. Because the reality is, once you're on it, and you realize we're sharing great information with people that could be helpful to them, you take it outside of yourself. I guess it's self imposed. We're thinking so internally, when it's really about the people that are listening to us right now and how we can help them. I was very excited to talk to you about the book, because I think what you're doing with that, people need. Why do you think this is happening? Is this any different than it has been in the past? Meaning is it more magnified and that's why we think it's happening more? Or is it really happening more? And in that case, what do you think is causing it and what are some things we can do to help support men more so that they feel valued? That they're not feeling hopeless.

Christopher Lawhead  11:19  
Well, that's a huge question. And we could talk about that for the next 20 years. I'm gonna give you the nerdy answer and then I'm gonna give you my kind of heartfelt, funny answer. The nerdy answer is really addressed in the book called, "The Boy Crisis" by Warren Farrell. And he goes in depth into the various reasons that we have a boy and men crisis. And he goes deep into the culture and the statistics, and all that. So I won't pretend I can articulate it as well as Warren Farrell, right? He's a PhD, he's a super smart guy, put a lot of work into it. I'll give you one example. And this is the Bill Burr example. So Bill Burr is a famous comedian and he has this bit where he says, you know, women get together, and they talk about everything. They talk about their feelings, their lives, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their struggles. They talk about everything. Men get together, and they don't talk about all that stuff. In fact, they hold stuff back to the point where they can't even admit a puppy is cute. And because they can't admit a puppy is cute, that stuff just builds in them and builds in them and then they have a heart attack when they're 50. Bill Burr says it in a very funny way but to a significant point, I think men need to learn to speak up and commune with each other and acknowledge they have problems and tell each other they have problems and support one another. It's all well and good to man up, be tough. I'm all for that, right? I'm all for being tough. I'm all for, quote unquote, manning up. I'm also for telling people that you're struggling. I'm also for admitting that you're not the toughest dude in the world. I'm also for acknowledging you might have mental health struggles. So one of my solutions that I've been participating in quite vigorously is simply talking. Talking to my buddies, talking about our mental health struggles, talking about our families, talking about our kids, our hopes, our dreams.Yeah, we can still be tough and we can still go to jujitsu and wrestle on the ground and flex your muscles and all that. And we can be vulnerable with each other. So, I think that's a big key is the shift in the masculine culture, to acknowledge struggles, to acknowledge vulnerabilities. There's just a power to talking to somebody. I don't want anybody else to struggle. But when I hear somebody admit that they have the same struggles as me, it makes mine easier.

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Marisa Huston  14:27  
Absolutely, you don't feel like you're alone. And that's what happens is you really feel like nobody else is experiencing it. Specially in today's world where we put a show on. 

Christopher Lawhead  14:38  
Oh, yeah. 

Marisa Huston  14:39  
When I watch social media, to me, it's all a show. It's kind of like one big reality show. People are trying to get your attention so they're dancing and telling jokes and maybe even masquerading it with content that is actually useful. But at the end of the day, they're trying to get attention And so whatever that means that's what their goal is. And so you start to question, is what they're doing in front of you real? Or are they doing it just because they know that it's going to grab your attention? And you have to question that and realize that every single person in this world is struggling in some way. They're just not telling you but everybody's struggling. There is no one out there that is living a perfect life, no matter the circumstance. I think just knowing that and knowing that there are people out there that have the same experiences and struggles, really helps you realize that you're not alone and we can help each other. And there's probably people out there that have been through it, and can help you navigate through it too. How can they do that, if they don't even know what you're going through?

Christopher Lawhead  15:47  
That's right. They won't know unless it's safe for them to hear it. It's safe for you to say it. You know, I trained Jiu Jitsu, and it's become a great love of my life. And when you get a black belt, we call you professor. And one of the head professors of my academy, he went on a TED Talk, and this is a tough, tough man. His name is Elliot Marshall. He was in the UFC, he's got a black belt in jujitsu, he's a big strong dude, he's super smart, he's got a degree in mathematics, he runs a very successful jujitsu academy. And this guy went on to a TED Talk and admitted he had significant anxiety. He admitted that he had a mental breakdown. And I was so inspired by that, because if you look at him from the outside, you say, wow, he's as tough as they come, he's as successful as they get. This guy has got it all together. And then he goes on a TED talk and he says, listen, I had a mental breakdown. I have a therapist, I'm on medication. And that was super inspiring to me, because he is talking to people, specifically young men, that would probably never admit that. I would have never admitted that I had mental health challenges or depression when I was in my 20s, or even my 30s. And now it's okay, it should be okay or at least it's getting more okay to talk about those things. So when he went on, and did that TED Talk, I was just blown away to the point where I went on one of his jujitsu retreats in Maui. Yes, there's plenty of sweaty dudes choking each other on the mats. But there's also guys meditating on the beach. There's also guys in a circle talking about their struggles. It was just a wonderful thing. And I think we need more of that. And to make that, okay. That's what I'm going to do with my books is I'm going to show people that it's okay. It's okay to talk about this stuff. It's okay to lift each other up. It's okay to be vulnerable. And I hope that that makes some kind of contribution. I don't know what I'm doing. But guess what, most people don't know what they're doing. Right? We're all stumbling and bumbling our way through life.

Marisa Huston  17:52  
We are. It's like one big experiment, isn't it? I think in our society, we think of men as physically strong and we think of women as mentally strong. But the reality is, it doesn't matter who you are what you are, we all need a balance of both of those things in our lives. And even women have a lot of challenges with telling somebody else that things aren't going well. Like, I don't know, this motherhood thing, or I'm not really good at the business that I set out to accomplish or whatnot. It's just being able to admit that you're failing in something, at least in your definition, whatever it is, you wanted to go after you didn't make it, and now you're feeling like what's wrong with me? And being able to share that authentically and have other people not only listen, but empathize and realize that they've probably had the same experiences, you realize, when you open up, you're helping others just as much as they're helping you.

Christopher Lawhead  18:51  
You're absolutely right. Some of my neighbors and friends and folks, I've kind of rallied to my cause. have said, well, why don't you do this for girls and women as well? I'm not going to pretend that girls and women have their all their lives together? Absolutely not. I just noticed a bunch of my male friends who killed themselves. I have two boys. I'm narrowing down the demographic of which I serve, not to exclude anybody. I just see this demographic needs some serious help. And I happen to be in a position where I have time to do a side project like this. I'm obviously raising two boys. And this is where I'm going to serve. This is my mission, and we're gonna have conversations about it, we're gonna write books about it, we're gonna shoot podcasts about it. We'll see what happens.

Marisa Huston  19:38  
You know, you got to start somewhere and you got to start where you feel you can make the most difference. And so I know you wrote your book recently and that was just published. 

Christopher Lawhead  19:47  
Yes, Letters To Our Sons. 

Marisa Huston  19:49  
Letters To Our Sons and people can get a hold of that on like Amazon?

Christopher Lawhead  19:53  
Yep, on Amazon. I'm self published. Letters To Our Sons by Christopher Lawhead, and and I've been working on the second book. I've just made a habit of writing. So, the second book on Superpowers is coming out soon. I hope it starts conversations.

Marisa Huston  20:08  
And you just started a YouTube channel called Dude Legit. 

Christopher Lawhead  20:12  
Yes. 

Marisa Huston  20:12  
So people can go in there and subscribe. And you're doing like a little experiment right now. And people should just check it out. Because I'm probably not going to be able to explain it as well as you do on YouTube. So, people can just go in to Dude Legit and subscribe and follow along in your adventures there.

Christopher Lawhead  20:29  
Yes. So I'm starting a little humble media company around this mission. And Dude Legit is the YouTube channel. And www.dudelegit.com is the URL, right? That's our website. And we've got a Facebook and Instagram and all that. But it's mostly the website and the YouTube channel. And right now I'm just talking to people. This is a endeavor in its infancy. I'm not even crawling yet. Who am I talking to? I'm talking to you. I'm talking to my neighbors. I'm talking to counselors, martial artists, business people, moms, dads, folks that are concerned with this. And we're going to try to make life a little better. That's all you can do. And so yeah, www.dudelegit.com and Dude Legit on YouTube. Right now, I'm doing a 30 day challenge on YouTube to act as if I had 30 days to live. And I'm just vlogging about it. We'll see how it goes. It's been very intense at times, and very fun at times. So that's a fun experiment. I urge people to do things like that.

Marisa Huston  21:26  
You're doing something. You are having conversations, you're putting stuff out there for people to have a resource, to learn more, to talk, to share. And you're building a community. That takes time. And it takes a lot of dedication and passion for what you're doing in the sense that you want to make a difference for others. And that's where it all starts. You know, I've talked to a lot of guests on the show who could have easily just experienced something terrible and felt sorry for themselves or walked away from it. But instead, they turned that into, like you said, a superpower to help others. And that's exactly what you're doing. I'm really glad you were able to come in here and share this with our listeners so that they know that there are resources out there to help them through because we all are struggling in some way. Knowing that there's help is the first step.

Christopher Lawhead  22:18  
I think you're absolutely right. And I thank you so much for having me on your podcast. And we're in the first stage of creating this Dude Legit miniature media company and building a community. You're exactly right. And so if anybody wants to help or join the community, it's just www.dudelegit.com. Shoot us an email, offer solutions or if you need help. LOike I said, we're just stumbling and bumbling our way forward just like everybody else, but we're doing it in a way that we hope will be of service. Thank you so much for having me.

Marisa Huston  22:50  
As long as we stumble and Bumble together. 

Christopher Lawhead  22:52  
Amen, sister!

Marisa Huston  22:54  
So great to have you. Thanks for being here. 

Christopher Lawhead  22:56  
Thanks, Marisa. 

Marisa Huston  22:57  
That's a wrap for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks to Christopher Lawhead for joining us and thanks for listening. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/LBOVM or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!