How to Make Men Great Again | Adam Allred

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No, they don't. No, they don't. Just so we're clear, this is all societal pressure. It's all this fabricated creation to neuter men. That woman that says, "I love my husband's dad bod" is drinking wine with her girlfriends at the restaurant drooling over the waiter that's in shape.

That's what's going on. She's watching her Vampire Diary movies and watching these hot, sultry guys in shape, and she's getting turned on, and she's not getting turned on by the dad bod. Women like dad bods in the sense that they feel safe with it, because they feel like they control that. Women will say that because they've got the man neutered. They like it 'cause it puts them in control.

But what drives the sexual attraction from women on a fundamental level is that she knows her man's dangerous, she can't control him, and he's attractive to other women. The work that you're doing I think is so critically important at this moment in time, and, um, and it's something I've been delving a little more into in the show. It's, it's not necessarily my area of expertise, so I don't... It's not like all I talk about. But raising two boys, 11 and nine, right, this idea of masculinity, how they fit in the world, how they become the best versions of themselves, how they align with kind of, you know, I, I, my tattoo on my arm is the American flag with an inset cross, right?

I believe in essentially Judeo-Christian values and the initial ethics upon which our country was founded. That's, those are the core values that I live by. How I teach them, how you bring them up, you know, um, I've wanted to have more individuals like yourself on the show because I wanna learn, and I think my audience does too, h- how do we reclaim masculinity if it was ever lost, right? So, uh, you know, with all that, dude, how the fuck do we make men great again? Well, first off, Ryan, thanks for having me on the show.

I think these conversations are ... You're, you're asking the right question as far as I'm concerned. How do we reclaim it? And I think it is something that's been lost, and I think it starts here with these types of conversations, you know? Like more and more coming together and having really frank, honest conversations where we're not trying to be politically correct.

We're not trying to sugarcoat anything. We're just talking, you know, what, what we think is true and what's important. And first off, I have, I just have to say I'm not really an expert at anything, right? Like I don't, I, I, I know what I do for work. I've been in business my whole life.

I'm good at that. But as far as anything beyond that, I'm just a dude. I'm just a guy going through life trying to make sense of it and, and realizing that so much of the things that I've wrestled with and struggled with in this masculinity phase, in this crazy world circus that we live in right now, are very s- you know, everybody's going through the same thing in a lot of ways. And so I started sharing a message on social media a couple years ago. Had no followers, had no expectation of it getting big or anything like that.

Started talking about these types of things. Where is masculinity? What's the state of it? W- how do we reclaim it? And it just resonated, just blew up, and people were coming from all over the world, like coming and having, weighing in on this and having thoughts and opinions, and a lot of women feeling that as well.

I think we have lost our way as men. I think we've lost a lot of masculinity. Not all men. There's a lot of really masculine, good men out there. I know a lot of them.

Uh, collectively we are in a really bad place, and I, and I think every single societal ill that we're facing right now, everything, uh, is directly or indirectly linked to the weakening of masculinity in society. And I don't think it's some sort of natural process. I don't think this is some sort of organic evolution of human consciousness to erase gender roles, erase masculinity and femininity, and create this kinda one gender sort of hodgepodge thing. I don't think that's natural. I think it's being fabricated, manipulated by forces that, uh, want to control us and keep us divided and keep us broken as a people.

So I think we have lost it, and I think we reclaim it by coming together as men and starting to have conversations, starting to act like men, starting to act like our ancestors. You know, the dawn of time, men, uh, they gathered in tribes. This is how they, they operated. It's, uh, they sat around the fires at night. They planned where they were gonna hunt, who they were gonna go to war with, how they were gonna keep the tribe alive, where they were gonna migrate.

You know, they had these conversations. Boys were taken out of their mother's home at early ages in most of these cultures, and they were brought to the fire of men, and they never went back to their mothers because this is how you make men. It's not a good woman that makes a good man. I hate hearing that because I think it's such bullshit. It's other good men that make good men, starting with a man's father.

But in the absence of that or when you move past that into the world and you leave your home, it's gathering in good tribes with other good men where we hold each other accountable. We call each other out. We have each other's back. We share each other's journeys with each other, and iron really does shape, sharpen iron. And we, we've lost that.

In our modern, you know, society, complex society, we've been isolated. We've been attacked at every angle. We've been told we're wrong for the masculine qualities that we have, and it's, it's a real issue. We're suffering the fruits of it nowadays, in our, in our time right now. You know, I'll give you a good example of this as a microcosm.

So my son's playing in a state baseball tournament. Um, he's nine years old. And the other team we're playing, the coach is pretty hard on the kids. He's not a dick. Been, played sports my entire life, through college, after college, been around a lot of different coaches.

He's hard on them, hard, but not a dick. Okay. Our coach, good coach, very nice. They smoke us. Okay?

So before the game, parents are going, "Oh, you hear the way he's talking to the kids?" And you know, this one kid made like three errors in a row in warmups, and he dropped a, a, a goddamnit, which I'm not a big fan of blaspheming, but whatever. And you know, parents are all, you know, half the parents are like aghast. And, and they all look at me because they know I'm a coach too. I coach my older kids, and they're like, you know, "What do you think about this?"

And I'm like, "They fucking need to hear it." I'm like, "He just missed three ground balls in a row." Like, he's starting at third base for his state tournament team. Like, I know he's nine, I get that, but like at this age, you know, he should be able to make that play, and I think it's appropriate for the coach to express frustration at him at the level of expectation that he has for him, and to want him to achieve more than, than giving that mediocre effort that he did. I didn't say all that.

Basically what I said is they need to fucking hear it. And it like-- I-- dude, I've been thinking about it, especially knowing that we were gonna talk and that this, this topic would probably come up. I was like, just that idea that all these moms were, were like, were literally like shocked that he would use aggressive language and call kids out on the field, and yet when it came to game time, they were energized, prepared, they executed, and they absolutely smoked our team, who is treated nice. And I-- it's this idea that like we have gotten a-- we have confused, uh, nice for good. And I've seen a lot, there's been a lot of conversations around this topic lately, and I, and I'd love to know where you fall on that a- and where that line is, 'cause I think this idea of being good versus being nice is something that just at a base level is completely confused in our society, and we are way too nice to everyone and we're way too nice in the way that we interact.

And then that spurs so much of this depression and resentment and confusion and anxiety is 'cause we simply are uncapable today of speaking up for ourselves and expressing what we actually feel in the moment, um, because we always defer to being nice. Yeah, we're incapable of that, then we're incapable of getting punched in the face, figuratively speaking, right? Like, so we're, we're trying to insulate our kids. And, and there's a lot of data that shows that, uh, for example, single mother homes are terrible for the outcome of sons, particularly. Even when you take out the economic advantages that men generally have over females in separate households, single mother homes are a travesty statistically.

Now, of course, there's a lot of good men that come out of single mother homes. There's a lot of phenomenal single mother homes that do a great job, so not talking about all single mothers. But statistically, it is, the da- the data is there. Uh, and it's because of what you're th- you're saying, in my opinion. It's exactly this.

I, I get a lot of single women reaching out to me on c- on my content. "What do I do? I don't have a man in my life." And I, one of the first things I almost always say is get him in martial arts, get him in sports, and let the coach coach. Don't try and protect him from it.

Let him fail. Let him get his ass kicked. Let him get his ass chewed out. This is what boys need. They need strong, masculine presence in their life that's not afraid to just punch him in the face, figuratively speaking.

Tell him, you know, what they need to do. Y- you share that. I've got an 11-year-old boy. Three years ago, he got on a f- a basketball team, and the, the first season we just got absolutely eviscerated. And the coach, one of my buddies, shout out to Rich, he is hard on those boys, something similar to what you're saying.

He, he yells at them. He loses his temper. He's hard on them. He pushes them. He, you know, past the breaking point.

And, uh, over the course of the last... He's been, my son's been on his team for the last three years. Uh, a lot of kids have dropped off. Almost always it's the mothers. They're getting offended that Rich is yelling and, and I'm where-- with you.

I'm like, "Dude, do it, Rich." You know, i- i- i- it's short of actually abusing the kids. Go hard at him, man. Be-- k- kick my son's ass, dude. I want him to know that he's got to respect masculine.

He's got to respect the coach on the field. He's got to be able to take his hits. Go for it, Rich. And we just had our last season. We were one of the best teams in the league.

So three years, our guys, boys have just progressed. It went from zero, losing every single game the first season, to now winning most of our games our third season, and I credit it to Rich, his coaching style. He's hard on the boys. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's talking about.

He's competent. But then he really just gives these boys, uh, you know, what, what they need, which is strong, dominant leadership to get these boys to like turn up and do what they need to do. So I'm glad you shared that story, 'cause I think that's really, really important. The question about the nice guy versus the good man, they're not the same thing at all. I, I think fundamentally when you're talking about being nice, uh, you have two things going on.

One, you have a level of deception. So the nice guy's putting on a front. They're not actually saying what they feel. They're not actually doing what they think is right. They're, they're trying to fill expectations that other people have given them.

So they're really, really concerned about fitting in. They're really, really concerned about what other people think about them, and so they c- constantly are trying to conform to what they think the social requirements of them are, either in a relationship with a woman or around other guys or at church or at work or whatever, and it's a level of weakness. So we're talking about deception that is also compounded because it is deception. It's weakness, and then we try to parade that as strength. And I, I went-- I, I was raised very, um, orthodox, religious, Christian religion m- my whole life.

One of the things I, I've, I've broken away from that largely, that theology and dogma. I still consider myself Christian. I read my scriptures every single day, I believe. But breaking away from the religion, and one of the fundamental problems I've had with that is that the church that I went to- The holidays are here, and that means it's the most wonderful time of the year to save with Rakuten. Use Rakuten to stack cash back from your favorite stores on top of holiday sales.

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It's truly a no-brainer. Join for free today and get a new member bonus after minimum qualifying purchases. Just go to rakuten.com, download the app, or install the browser extension. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Terms and conditions apply Was constantly in the business of neutering Jesus, trying to create a Jesus that was a nice guy, that tolerated everything, that was sweet, that never offended anybody, that just accepted all kinds of everything, and I don't read that.

When I read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, none of that fits. And so I'm reading the scriptures, I'm listening to the pr- you know, people speaking, and I'm like, "This isn't, this isn't adding up." Jesus was a man's man. That guy told the truth at the cost of being liked. He told the truth at the cost of his own life.

He was killed because he was a truth-teller. Just like all prophets that have come on the scenes that have spoken the truth, they are killed by society because they're w- they're willing to say what really needs to be said rather than fit in or be accepted, and the nice guy is concerned with fitting in and being accepted. The good man is concerned with telling the truth and orienting his life towards the truth. That's the difference, I, in my opinion. Completely agree.

I, uh, one of my favorite, um, uh, Greek myths is around, uh, Prometheus. And for those of you who, who aren't necessarily, uh, attuned to that, uh, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, knowing that he would be punished. And his punishment was he was chained to the side of a mountain in which, uh, I wanna say it was falcons or condors, some very razor-taloned bird, uh, basically ate his liver out, uh, every day for the- On a repeat ... rest of for- forever. And, uh, he willingly accepted that punishment in exchange for doing what he thought was right and, and was the truth, which was man should have this technology. It shouldn't be held over them, um, in the form of a fire in this case.

And I think that today, to your point, this idea of fitting in, uh, it, it just destroys people. It absolutely destroys them. And I see it, and I've talked about it a lot on this show. I had an awakening about a year ago. Um, I've always been fit.

I always try to keep myself fit, um, and work very hard at that. And I was coaching my kid's baseball team, and I, I actually walked out. Uh, uh, he was pitching, and I walk out just to kinda calm him down. He kinda had a couple bad batters and was... I could tell he was a little out over his skis emotionally.

So I was just giving him a chance to breathe. And I'm standing out there and talking to him, and I'm kinda scanning the crowd, and I was literally the only guy, the only man who didn't have a dad bod- Hmm ... beer gut, right? Now, I don't necessarily wanna be judgmental because look, everyone lives their lives. But what I saw was an acceptance of an unhealthy lifestyle because it was the norm for everyone else. So instead of thinking for yourself and saying, "You know what?

I get that today having this keg hard beer gut and being a dad bod is something that, like, is now held up as, like, there's, like, T-shirts and whole brands built around it," which I think is fucking insane 'cause they're all unhealthy. But, like, to just not think for yourself and be like, "Here, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna reduce myself to the meme so that I fit in with everyone else on this normalized idea, even though I know my back hurts, my brain is foggy, I have no sex drive, I'm not attractive to my wife, I am not setting a good example for my kids. But it's socially acceptable, so I'm just gonna let it go." And I was like, "I will n- I will never allow," and we'll... And, and, and it changed a lot of the focus of this show too to this idea, which then, um, one of my audience members made this for me, bro, which is so cool.

Uh, he's like a wood shop guy, and he's, like, learning how to do wood stuff. It's just the letters GNF for those who are listening at home, and it stands for give no fucks. Right? Like, live your life. Yes.

It's your life. Live it. Yeah. And so, so when you're, when you're talk... Like, I'm very interested, um, when someone comes to you, a guy comes to you, right?

And maybe he's struggling with this stuff. Maybe he, he had been kind of indoctrinated by his mother or by, um, you know, kind of this postmodern liberal bullshit that, that so many men have shoved down their throat in public school, et cetera. And he, he's trying to break out but is caught in that vortex of kind of average and, and, you know, this, this niceness. How... What's the first step to start to crack out of that mentality?

I wanna unpack a little bit on what you were just saying a minute ago and then get to that. It's a great question. One, I hear this all the time too. Women'll say, "I love dad bods." And no, they don't.

No, they don't. Just so we're clear on that. This is all societal pressure, and it's all this fabricated creation to neuter men. That woman that says, "I love my husband's dad bod" is drinking wine with her girlfriends at the restaurant drooling over the waiter that's in shape. That's what's going on.

Or she's watching her Vampire Diary movies and watching these hot, sultry guys in shape, and she's getting turned on, and she's not getting turned on by the dad bod. So women like dad bods in the sense that they feel safe with it because they feel like they control that. So women will say that because they've got the man neutered, and so then they feel like, "I like it 'cause it puts me in control. He doesn't have any options. I don't feel insecure."

But what drives sexual drive, what drives the sexual attraction from women on some fundamental level, and this is hard to say 'cause people tell me I'm wrong all the time, and I'm telling you this is true, is some level that she knows her man's dangerous, she can't control him, and he's attractive to other women. Doesn't mean he's acting on it. You... As a man, I don't support any f- infidelity. I believe you stand to your commitments.

You stand by what you say you're gonna do. You take care of those on your watch. Starts with your wife. I absolutely believe that. I'm a traditional man that way.

But there needs to be some level that she understands she has no control over you and some level that you are dangerous as a man for you to be able to maintain a sexual chemistry with your wife. So all of this stuff that's going on right now is designed to break down masculinity, and I wanna share one other quick story on this. My, my best friend, he's got a ranch up in Wyoming, 600 head of bison up there. I've gone up there a bunch of times. I've gone up a couple times to harvest a bison.

I shoot a, shoot a bison, take home the meat. It's awesome experience. He has the females and the children, the calves, they're all in one, uh, out in the pasture. He separates the bulls out from them Because if the bulls are in the herd, it makes the whole herd hard to manipulate. It, hard to file them off to the slaughterhouse or whatever he wants to do with the herd.

Because the bulls will rile them up. It'll stand up. It'll resist that control and that manipulation. That's what's happening right now in society. We're the livestock, and the people in power are trying to either neuter the men, turn them into this nice guy sort of bullshit syndrome stuff, or completely remove them, isolate them, tell them they're toxic, they're bad, whatever else, make society hate them.

Because the herd is easier to manipulate when there's not strong masculinity within the herd. That's what, that's what's going on, period, in my opinion. That's what I see. When it gets to the question of, what do men need to do when they start to become aware of this and they say, "Hey, what I'm doing isn't working. I'm not satisfied.

I'm not fulfilled." Uh, whatever it is they're looking at in their life that's not working. The first fundamental thing you have to do is get in a tribe with good men. Now, that's gonna be hard if you don't have that in your proximity. You know, a lot of men don't.

A lot of men don't have close friends. They've been isolated. They gave up their friends for a career or for a marriage or whatever because that's what they were conditioned to do. But if you want to level up as a man, you gotta have brothers with you in the boat doing the same thing. You are the product of who you surround yourself with.

We hear this all the time. And in our modern age now, it's not just who you surround yourself with in proximity, it's who you surround yourself with on social media. What type of podcasts are you listening to? What type of influencers are you following? What type of books are you reading?

What is it that you're putting into your head that's coming from other masculine sources out there? And the really cool thing in this complex modern society that we live in is that you can pick whoever you want. Y- everybody's on social media, so you can literally hang out with Joe Rogan every single day, or Jordan Peterson every day, or J- David Goggins or whoever, 'cause you can listen to their content every single day. So the primary step number one is putting a constant source of masculinity around you, whatever that looks like, inundating yourself with that every single day. And, and then you start to naturally level up.

Your paradigm will start to shift. Your programming that you're putting in this biological processor that you have is gonna start running differently, and the outputs are gonna start reflecting these inputs. And the really cool thing about this is it doesn't take an enormous amount of discipline to, like, white-knuckle your way into being a better man. It takes you just making a conscientious, disciplined effort every day to constantly surround yourself with the right kind of programming so that you can start to level up. You can start to think differently.

When your paradigm shifts, your thoughts shift, your emotions shift. When your emotions shift, your actions change, and then your reality changes. Yeah. I was given incredible advice by this mentor. So I had, um, I had a health scare in 2017, and by health scare, nothing serious.

I basically passed out. I was MC-ing an event. Second day, closing keynote, I'm supposed to do a fireside chat. I get, we're like five minutes from go time, right? This is the finale.

I fucking drop right to the floor. I had allowed myself... I was probably 20 pounds overweight, drinking too much, eating shit food, um, not mentally taking care of myself, not sleeping properly. You know, I had this vision of myself back when I was a college athlete and post-college and, you know, I played three sport athlete in high school. I was, I had that vision in my head.

Yet if you, I was like, it wasn't translating with what I saw in the mirror, which was not the same person. Okay, so I have this moment. I basically am on the floor. The guy's gotta go out and finish the conference by himself. I pull myself together, whatever.

It's, you know, it was embarrassing, but more of a wake-up call. And so that's when I really started this journey that, you know, we find ourselves here, 2025, X number of years later. But during that time, I met this mentor and he said, and I said, I said, "Man, I'm, I'm fucking way off, dude. Like I'm way off. I'm not working out.

Um, you know, z- zero quality in my sex life to the, to the, to what you were saying before." Like just all the things. I'm just this, this, this shadow of who, who I would like to believe myself could be. And dude, he looked at me, we were on Zoom, and he said, "Pick one hard thing and just do that. Just do one hard, find one thing that for you is hard and just go do that for like three months.

See where you're at in three months. Just do one hard thing." And what happened was, a- a- as you can probably imagine, um, you know, I picked, uh, I picked a, a, a deadlifting goal. I wanted to deadlift f- uh, five plates. I, I didn't make it.

I got very close. I got to 465 but, um, uh- Good for you. Yeah, I probably coulda got there, but to be honest with you, um, I started to get some like knee pain and I was like, you know what? There, there's a risk to reward there. You gotta balance- Yeah, I was like- ... doing deadlifts.

I was like at 43 years old pulling 465, I'll take that as a victory- Yeah, yeah ... and, and get back to just being in regular shape. But my, but what happened was, dude, and this is the beauty of like this, this idea is like, okay, so that was hard and I was, and I, so I had, what did I have to do to get that goal? I had to start eating better, had to start eating more protein, had to start taking care of myself, had to make sure that I got appropriate amount of sleep, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden you look up and you're like, and it didn't take me, just for everyone, it didn't take me three months to get to 465. It took me like three years.

But, but the process, it was like to do that one thing forced me to do all these other things and all of a sudden I pop my head up and I'm looking around and I'm like, "Oh shit." Like, I'm like kinda back to being almost athletic again and like, it, being a, a man again. And w- why, why? And here's where my question comes from. And how did, how did you feel though?

How did you feel? I felt like... Oh bro, it was, it was like, so, so I've always been, I came from a super poor family in a tiny little town in the middle of fucking nowhere in upstate New York. At 12 years old, I remember looking around my community, and this is God. To me, this is God, right?

I remember walking around this tiny little town. Every male in my life was either an alcoholic, drug addict, or a criminal, as well as all my friends' dads, right? Like we were just getting by. Like it was everybody. I remember walking through that town going, "I gotta get the fuck outta here."

Like, "This can't be my life." Like, "I gotta get out." At 12, right? And, and to me, that can only be, that's only, God put that thought into my brain because plenty of my buddies that grew up in that town did not make it out. Some of them aren't with us anymore, some of them are in jail, right?

So like- That was got. So, so I always had this, this like, I don't give a fuck mentality because I had to to get out of that situation. If I did what those guys did, I was screwed. But, but I, to your point in getting neutered, like when I, when I hit, when I got out of high school, hit college, and got into the professional world, I started believing all this shit that you're talking about, right? That like you gotta be nice all the time, and you have to be put together, and you gotta have the nice stuff, and you, and you know, you, you know, you don't wanna be too aggressive.

You don't wanna be too intense. And I completely lost myself. And then in the process of getting after that deadlifting goal, I got myself back because now I'm, you know, like I'm in my... At that ti- when I first started, I was in my early 40s and, um, you know, it took me, like I said, three years to get there. I, I like, I'm w- lifting more than 24-year-old college kids- Yeah ... at the gym.

And I'm like walking around, and my shoulders are back now. I'm like watching women eyeball me, you know? Like young... I'm like, bah, this is, this is fun. Like this is different.

Like, you know, I'll never would cheat on my wife, but like, um, it was just, it was like re- How did that, how did that change the energy between you and your wife? Well, I, we ultimately ended up getting divorced I think over it because she liked the neutered version. That's sometimes what happens, man. Yeah. It, it, that's what you have to be prepared for.

Yeah. I think that's really important. It can go either way in that. Yeah. It's either gonna drive you to the punchline, which you just were too afraid to get to.

Mm-hmm. You're just going through this process of like, you know, we're supposed to stay together and do all this stuff, and I'm supposed to be neutered, and I'm supposed to be weak. Either gets you to the punchline, like this is not where you're supposed to be, or it brings that relationship back together in a really powerful way. Yeah. It was, I- Both, both, both are the right outcomes.

Yes. I, the, I... Dude, I'm so glad you said that. I think that's such an important point, right? Like I think a lot of times guys who would love to go on a journey like this, right?

In their head they fantasize about a journey, taking on a hard challenge, whether it's a marathon or what- whatever your thing is, right? They, I think they project out all the potential outcomes, and they assume some of them are right and some of them are wrong. And I think that what you just said is one of the most powerful points that you can make on this topic, which is whatever outcome comes out of the journey is the right outcome. That's a very hard idea I think for people to, um, uh, uh, catalyze in their brain. I think it's very difficult for them to do that because- It, it, it- Go ahead.

Sorry to interject. I wanna interject on this. No, please. I think this is so important. It's only hard if you don't know what your purpose is of, as a man.

It's only hard if you don't understand what your purpose is. If you're confused with all these other side quests and all this programming you've gotten from society, it's really hard. And the... Going through a divorce is hard no matter what. Like I'm not taking away...

I went through a divorce six years ago. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my entire life, and yet it led to the greatest, happiest, most fulfilled place I'm at now in my entire life. So it was the catalyst for so many things after the fact. But a- I, I really, I really fundamentally believe this, uh, that a man, every man has the exact same primary purpose on this planet, and that purpose is to be the most powerful, best, authentic, vibrant version of yourself. It's to know that your purpose is to up, level up.

That's your purpose, primary numeral one. You, that's how you orient yourself towards this world of entropy, where every day we walk out our front doors, it's storming our own beaches of Normandy, and the, the resistance is there, and everything's gonna be attacking us and trying to tell, tear us down. If you don't understand your role is to level up in that adversity, and that adversity is good for you, and adversity is what makes you stronger and better, and it's the only way you can learn, it's the only way you can grow, that the world of entropy is designed for our benefit and it's happening for us, not to us. And when you understand that's what your purpose, everything else will start to make sense. You'll start to see it really clearly.

But so many men have been conditioned that a woman is their purpose. They've been conditioned by a single mom or by, you know, a school system where the women were the authority figures. They roll into adulthood. They're told women have basically arrived, and we're supposed to catch up as men 'cause we're really dropping the ball. We're weak.

We're stupid. We're bumbling, and a woman's gonna help us like, you know, find ourselves. And so they start to make a woman or they start to make these external things their purpose and their priority, and then everything gets fucked up at that point. Everything's off the rails. Look at the way men are portrayed in every fucking sitcom or show that happens outside of like John Wick.

It's the guy's a bumbling doofus who can barely keep it together, and if it wasn't for the wife, the house would be on fire, and the kids would be, you know, animals running around like Lord of the Flies. And it's insane because that's not the household that I was raised in or that I saw, right? I mean, my parents got divorced early, but in both cases, both my dad's, you know, him and his new wife and my mom and her new husband over time, in both cases, like while alcoholic, drug addict criminals, uh, in both scenarios, the men, the m- the man ran the house. And I was blessed that even though they were fuck-ups in their normal life, I got a lot of love. So I do understand that I was blessed in that capacity, and not a lot of people come out of situations like mine with love.

They... It's obs- absent of love, which is probably how I was able to make it out. But, um, uh, this idea that, that we're the bumbling ones, and if it wasn't for these put-together women... Now, granted, I, I believe it's a, it's a s- like, and I've heard you say that it's a symbiotic relationship, right? It's meant to be this relationship where y- the woman is as important as the man, but her role is different, right?

Our role is different than hers, but not, not necessarily better or worse, right? Not more important or less important, but wholly different. And that is the lie that I think is killing us, is that somehow we're just these dumb animals who need to be pointed in the right direction. Uh, and you know, if it wasn't for women, we wouldn't know what we're doing. And it's like I've actually watched my career, my self-worth, my physical strength, my, uh, relationship with God, my relationship with q- kids.

Since I extracted myself from that, from that marriage three years ago to today, I am I am as close to the best version of myself as I have ever been once I took my power back and started saying, "This is who I am. Take it or leave it. You don't have to like the way that I am, but this is exactly who I am and who I believe I'm supposed to be." But going back to your, to the thing you said, like, I would never have chosen that. I would've just stayed that neutered version of myself if she...

She had a midlife crisis essentially, um, and kind of, you know, chose a different path. But, um, uh, you know, it just-- I would never have chosen that. I would've been unhappy for another decade of my life if, if I hadn't been able to extract myself from that situation. Scary, difficult, challenging. I mean, dude, you, you...

I know you went through a tough thing, right? You, you, you're, you feel low, you feel dark, you question every decision you made. You're depressed. You, you don't even understand half the feelings that you go through. How did you pull yourself out of that dark moment, right?

Like, you, you, you, you... Not necessarily how you got into it, but how did you, how did you start to pull yourself out of that spot? Oh, that's a great question. Um, so I, uh, when I, when I, uh... I did what so many men did in my first marriage, which is that I've always, I've always considered myself a fairly masculine man, fairly driven, fairly ambitious, but I really bought into this bullshit that when you get married, happy wife, happy life.

You pedes- you pedestalize her. You kind of worship her a little bit, and you... And, and she can't really be wrong 'cause she's a woman. And so, uh, uh, and the responsibility was on me to kind of just constantly try to conform to what she wanted, and it didn't make either one of us happy. It was a terrible frame of...

A- and I inherited this largely from my religious programming, to be honest with you. Society does it, but I was really religious, and so I was conditioned to think this way. So, uh, I'd... One of the things I'd done tragically that so many men had do- have, have done before is I gave up my friendship group because my wife didn't like them, and my wife didn't like them because she wanted to control me. I don't, uh, I don't think this was a conscious thing on her part.

I think it's just baked in there, you know? They do these shit tests, and they see what they can control. Self-preservation for her. Yeah. It, it...

You know, they start having kids. They're vulnerable, and so what they're gonna do is try and neuter the man to make him safe for her. And essentially she's doing the opposite of that. She's creating a man she doesn't respect and then d- ultimately doesn't feel safe with, and then it's a whole thing. So I did that.

I gave up my tribe of friends. And when I got... started going through the divorce process, which she instigated, by the way. So she was the one pushing for it at the end. I, I was in this, "No, you just go down with the ship. You just stay neutered.

You, we have kids now. It's all about the kids." And she really started pushing it. What's ironic is as soon as I accepted that and as soon as like, "Yeah, this is what we're doing," she flipped. And then she was like, "I don't wanna get divorced anymore."

But she'd already pushed it to the breaking point. She'd already got me- Yeah ... to agree with her and get there finally, and then she tried to play the Uno reverse card. And, uh, I had broken out of that fog that I had been in for so long, and I was like, "I can't, I can't go back." And then it's just kind of funny how the story changes women. Uh, so many modern women nowadays, not all, uh, refuse to take any kind of accountability.

So then the narrative that she told everybody was that I was abandoning the family and I cheated on her. Neither one of them was true. I fought like hell for custody with my kids. I have 50/50 custody with my kids. My kids, uh, sun rises and sets on them.

I never cheated on her. I never even flirted with a girl when I was in the marriage with her. But that became the narrative of why, uh, w- the marriage was coming to an end. So one of the first things that happened, and, uh, just a credit to my homies, is that, uh, they just showed up. My buddies showed up.

When I was going through... Some of them were going through divorces at the same time, so we could kind of share that journey together. But even the ones that weren't, they were just like, "Bro, we're here for you." So I started hanging out with my friends again. That was hugely therapeutic, uh, for the process.

But the, the, the truth is, is at the end of the day, you have to bear your own cross. You have to realize that you're gonna take a lot of hits in life, and that's okay. And what happens so often for most of us is we get really resistant to the learning. We just are going through shit, and instead of trying to learn and say, "What am I, what am I being taught here? What is this adversity designed to teach me?"

We either just try and white-knuckle our way through it, or worse, we start to become a victim by it. We start to feel sorry for ourselves. We think we got the short end of the stick. We feel like we're screwed somehow, and we start playing this victim card, which is... It, it, it's just the worst possible way that you can, you c- orient yourself towards life is that you've been shortchanged somehow.

So I, you know, I... But I was in that state. I was going through this divorce. I was mad at God. I was like, "Fuck you, God.

What the hell was that about? I tried my best to make that work. I did everything that was right. I did all the right things in it, you know? And it didn't work.

What was that all about? I turned to you. I prayed to you. I asked you constantly w- why, you know, how to, to change me, to help me be better, to make my marriage work, and none of that worked. And now I'm going through divorce, and I'm mad at you.

I'm mad at my s- my whole identity is being shredded apart, all the things that I thought I knew about myself, my confidence. My money's being taken from me, all my resources. And worst of all probably in all that, it, it was my kids. I'm losing 50% of the custody I have with my kids. I love my kids."

So I'm in that state, and I was for, for a little while feeling like a victim. Now, I showed up every day. I put one foot in front of the other. I had responsibilities. I didn't quit.

But I was in this state of being angry and bitter about it. And I went into a, a, a constant state of depression. Every single day I woke up not wanting to live. Every night I went to bed hoping I would die. I would fantasize about dying every day.

I wasn't about to kill myself. I had kids. I had responsibilities. Uh, I, I wasn't, like, having suicidal ideations. Uh, but I fantasized about it, just being released from the pain that I was going through.

And every single day there was no breaks. And I remember praying to God, just having these conversations. I was com- it was breaking down even my anger at him. I was just getting so blasted by this. And I was just like, "God, can you just take this away for 20 minutes?"

Trying to negotiate with God on this. Like, "Just give me 20 minutes where I don't feel like shit. Give me 10 minutes. Whatever I can get. Just some break from this."

And I had this really profound spiritual experience in the midst of that, and I got this voice that came into my head, uh, where God was like, "Son, if I take away the pain, I take away the learning. I can't take it away from you. You gotta eat your broccoli. This is your broccoli. You gotta eat it."

And when that epiphany hit my head, there was a catalyst of other domino effects internally that started transpiring. And when I realized that, and I believed that, I heard that voice, and I was like, "Okay. Ah, that's what's going on. I have to eat my broccoli." I, I, I stopped begrudging the pain.

Even though I was still depressed, even though it was every day I woke up feeling like I- my backpack was full of bricks, I stopped, like, feeling sorry for myself. And then, you know, I like, "You know what? I got a, I got a lot of bricks in my backpack today. It may take me a long-ass time to take care of my responsibilities today, but I'm not gonna quit, I'm gonna carry my bricks, and I'm not gonna complain about it." And then that started to translate into a state of gratitude, and I started really...

You kind of had to fake it at first a little bit, but I really started trying to tell God in my prayers and my meditations, "Thank you for this, God. Uh, this is teaching me to be a better person. This is deepening my humanity. It's giving me context. It's, it's giving me resistance and adversity that I know fundamentally is how I progress and learn."

I really started leaning into that, and within a couple of weeks, my prayers of gratitude for this pain and suffering that I was going through went from being faking it to really authentically believing that and feeling that and having a real profound gratitude. And then it was like overnight the pain went away. The depression was gone. As soon as I took the lesson out of that, as soon as I leaned into it, opened myself up to it, stopped trying to resist it, stopped trying to feel sorry for myself, as soon as I started leaning into that and accepting that and embracing this world of entropy and taking it for what it's worth, that this is the catalyst for growth, th- then it, I, I... Once I got that lesson, I didn't, I didn't have that pain anymore.

And so it's really the, kind of those two things, my buddies showing up for me, like having my back, knowing I wasn't alone, and, and then having this recognition that my cross was mine to bear, and that I needed to appreciate the fact that I had even a cross to bear to begin with, and that that was important for me on a fundamental level. And then it really just... I don't know, man. It was just like, it was like the launchpad. Yeah.

Off after that, you know? It... We have a saying in my house that I use with my kids: "Everything is your fault." Everything. You strike out and you think the ump made a bad call, it's your fault.

You got a bad grade on a test because you think the teacher didn't teach it right or d- doesn't like you and over-marked your, it's your fault, right? You didn't get this done, it's your fault. Everything is your fault. Your, your girlfriend dumped you. Everything is your fault, right?

Everything. And, and whether that is technically true or not doesn't matter, you know? And, and this is something that I kinda, I just had to develop through all my own beats because I did the same thing, man. You know, I would look at it and be like, "God, I don't understand. Like, I'm a good person.

I, I never cheated on my wife. I feel like I give everything I have to my kids, everything I have to my friends. I, I do this pod-" AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com. That's R-U-B-R-I-K dot com. "... cast. I write this newsletter.

98% of it is free. I just share everything I have. I just want people to be successful, and I wanna be... You know, I live in abundance," and what the fuck? Like, come on, man.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're, you're talking and you just don't understand. And you know, the voice you got is exactly what you needed to hear. What I needed to hear was, "Everything is your fault. Stop being a victim," right?

Like, if it didn't work out the way that you thought it should, understand that it worked out exactly the way it was supposed to, because everything is your fault. And, and when you embrace that, you stop looking at the world as like, "Oh, Adam said this shit that made me feel bad, and then that f- then I needed a drink to cope with it, and then that drink turned into five, and now I'm hungover and I'm not doing well on this sales call." And it's like n- no, all of that is your fau- Adam did nothing to you, right? You know what I mean? He made a statement that he thought was true.

You took it a certain way. You're the one that decided to have the drink. You're the one that decided to have five. You're the one that woke up hungover. You're the one that's sucking on the sales call.

Those were all your decisions, not Adam's decision. And that, that idea, um, you know, that idea came to me, like, after reading The Obstacle Is the Way, which I thought was a really... You know, I don't always agree with Ryan's politics, but I do think his writing is phenomenal. And, um, that concept of like God put that shit in front of you because He needed more out of you than you were giving, so He needed to put some hard shit into your life so that you could ascend, so that you could be a better version of yourself. He needed you, right?

Like, like, obviously you have been called to talk about this idea of masculinity and helping men better understand how to retake... Like, does that happen if you're the neutered version of yourself grinding it through a, a loveless marriage or a marriage that, you know, isn't working the way that you'd like it to? Does that ever happen? Do you ever become that guy that you are today? Most likely not.

No, pain and suffering is a catalyst. It is a catalyst for all growth. Uh, and I, I, I actually agree with everything you're saying. I take it a little bit of a different angle on it's your- Yeah ... all your fault. Uh, I say it's all your responsibility.

Hmm. 'Cause there are things that happen in your life that aren't your fault. Somebody does something you have zero control over or influence over but affects you in a certain way, um, that you, you, you had no control over. That doesn't mean it's not your responsibility. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, right? You, 'cause we're saying the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter whether it's somebody else's fault or your fault. The reality is it doesn't matter. It's your responsibility. What are you gonna do with this?

And the, the thing in life is that you get to manifest your reality. Everything that we see in the external is a reflection of the internal. Percent. The external is the internal. And y- the, the, the hard thing with this is that y- there are really, like, two truths.

In every scenario, there's two truths. You could put it on a spectrum, but I just say for easy polarity, there's two truths. There's a negative truth and a positive truth. Both are equally true That's the crazy thing about this. The negative truth is true.

Oh, it's hard today. Oh, this happened. Oh, this happened. You can come up with a long list of things about why life was hard, why it wasn't fair, whatever the, whatever you wanna come up with, and it's true. Those things that you're saying in your head are probably true.

There's a lot of good reasons to not show up today. And the opposite is true. There's a lot of good reasons to show up today. The positive truth, it's just as equally true, and that's why it's, it's so hard to rationalize someone out of a negative truth into a positive truth because in their mind, they're rationally right. This is true.

This is true. This is true. I c- I can hang my hat on this. This is why I'm getting screwed. It wasn't my fault, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It... That, that could be true. But the other truth is that all this stuff is happening for you. It's designed for you to level up and grow and be better. That's also equally true, and you can find all the reasons why you should succeed.

And so you really just get to pick what truth that you wanna lean into. Do you wanna lean into the negative truth or do you wanna lean into the positive truth? Do you wanna lean into being more, uh, you know, submissive and compliant and broken or do you wanna start becoming more authentic, more powerful, and more vibrant? You get to pick that truth in this life and nobody can pick it for you. But what helps enormously in that process, going back to something we've already been jamming on, is who you surround yourself with.

When you surround yourself with men that are picking the positive truth, men that are taking their hits on the chin like men and still getting up every day and taking care of their shit and leveling up and getting better, whether that's in immediate proximity or whether that's guys you're listening to. You know, a phenomenal book that just was, had a profound impact on me was Jocko Willink's, uh, "Extreme Ownership." Like, and it's exactly what you're saying. That book was just so good for me. It taught me things I already knew, but it just in a m- more powerful, vibrant way.

But I'm surrounding myself by those types of influences. That's the stuff that I'm programming my brain with. When I start hearing people complain about how hard their lives is, no ma- matter how true it is, when I start feeling that victim energy coming off from people, I can't be around them. I'm like, "Dude, go, go away," like, or I'll go away. Like, I cannot be around that stuff.

It's so corrosive, and it's infectious because you surround yourself by victims, you'll start thinking like a victim. You surround by- yourself by a bunch of people who think life's out to get them and it's that person's fault and it's capitalism's fault and it's whatever else, everything's fault, not my fault, you will start to think and inherit that negative truth, and it will become your truth, and it will become your reality. But you get to choose. You get to choose. They're both equally true.

Which one are you gonna choose? Which one's gonna have the better outcome? I mean, it's a rash... It's an easy decision when you pull yourself out of the emotional, you know, turmoil and you start to look at it from a, a macro level. It's like, well, obviously if I choose to see things positively and optimistically, my life is gonna start reflecting positivity and optimism.

If I see things negatively, it's gonna start reflecting that. Y- so you get to pick, man. Which one do you want? So you're in this dark place and you start to pull yourself out, and like all humans, you have setbacks. How do you...

A lot of guys that I know who've started on a journey, gotten three months, six months, a year, sometimes multiple years into a, into a journey of, of finding who they are, becoming a more powerful, connected version of themselves, and then something happens, a relapse. They, they go on vacation and maybe they have issues with alcohol and they drink too much and now they're kind of back into their old ways, or they f- they, they feel like they're fixed and they start hanging out with that group of buddies who is toxic, who is victim, you know, and now they're... How, how do you recalibrate yourself when you, when you find yourself stepping off the path? Like, what is your mechanism for, for reorienting yourself back in the direction that you want to be going in when you find yourself in a place where it, it isn't that? Great, that's f- another great question.

So progress isn't like this. It's like the stock market. It's gonna go like this. And so you have to just know that you're gonna take three steps back, forward two steps back. You're gonna take two steps forward.

Some days you're gonna take three steps back. It's gonna do that. That's, that's the world of entropy. When you step out your front door, you're getting attacked. It, it's just how it is.

The world is against you, and it's not against you because the world is bad or evil. It's against you because that's the only way you learn how to grow. Like, God designed this perfectly for our development and our progress. And so suffering really is a catalyst for everything, and so you have to recognize that. Like, and so one, just accepting life on its terms instead of trying to get life to fit my terms.

This is what I think it should be, using words like should or shouldn't. This shouldn't have happened to me. Instead of, like, this is what happened to me and this is how it works. This is working or it isn't working. It's not whether it should be working or shouldn't be working.

It is or isn't. And so I'm gonna just accept life on its terms. Like, life is resistance. Life is hard. I'm gonna get my ass kicked every day I step out the front door.

Some days it's gonna be harder, some days it's gonna be easier, but either way it's coming at me. That's the first thing is just accepting that, in my opinion. And then the other thing for me was really just learning to talk to myself like I was somebody that I liked. Instead of that voice inside that w- so much of, so many of us men are programmed with, that shame voice that just talks shit on us. You're a failure.

You're a loser. Oh look, you can't do that. You thought you w- had gotten better, but you're really not better. Look how bad you are. You know, this internal voice that just is so destructive and corrosive inside our heads.

I got that from Jordan Peterson. I really started changing the way that I spoke to myself. I started talking to myself like it was somebody I was coaching. W- I wasn't trying to make everything look like it was coming through rose-colored lenses, right? It...

Own the fact when you fail. Uh, treat it like it's a constructive opportunity to learn and grow instead of like it's game over and you can't do this. And I wanted one personal story on this. This, another's kind of spiritual and I hope that's okay. I'm kind of waxing spiritual on our, on our podcast, but- Wax away, my friend.

When I was, you know, like s- even as I got out of this depression state in the early stages of my divorce, y- you're still... You never arrive. So first off, you never arrive. You never get there and then it's like, I, you know, it's not like a video game where you get to save your progress and you're good. It's not how it works.

Every day is this refiner's fire, and so you just, you go through that. So there's no arrival. There's no getting to a point where I'm good now. It's everything is a struggle, and that's okay. Um, you know, I, I, my kids, um, unfortunately, they, th- they go through the divorce too.

And as much as I try to insulate them, and, and their mother, to her credit, wasn't trying to bring this to the kids either. We both tried to do best that we could by the kids, which made, made the divorce infinitely better than it could've been. A lot of my friends went through different experiences. Uh, y- A lot of the, the shit that you're going through as a man gets poured out on, on your kids, unfortunately. And, uh, I was taking my son to school one time, and he said something or did something, and I s- just snapped at him, and he didn't deserve it.

It wa- he didn't do anything wrong. He was just being a kid. I'm driving him to school, and all the shit I'm dealing with comes out on him, and he didn't deserve it. And I drop him off at school. I was yelling at him, just a sh- being a shitty dad in that moment.

I dropped him off at school. I watched him walk into school with his shoulders slumped, you know, and that's what I'd given him for today, was a bunch of bricks in his backpack that he had to carry now that I gave him. Wasn't his fault. It was my fault. I unloaded this stuff on him.

And I sat there in front of the school for probably, like, 10 or 15 minutes just, "I'm a piece of shit. I'm a failure. I'm not doing this right." I just w- you know, just beating myself up. And, and a voice came into my head.

Again, I get these occasionally. And it was like, "Hey, ju- k- just skip this part. You don't need to do this. Just, just get to the good part where you start to change and you learn from this." And I stopped and I actually listened to it, and I was like, "Okay, I've never thought like that before, but I'm gonna s- check myself right now, and I'm not gonna say another negative thing to myself, even though there's a lot of good reasons to talk shit to myself.

I really screwed up. I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna get to the good part, which is where I make changes and I get better." And so I went through the rest of my day. I went off to work, went through the rest of my day, got everything done.

Didn't carry all the shame and guilt which, which makes it impossible to progress. When you're shamed, when your guilt... Shame is attached to addiction, for example. Like, they can scientifically show the psychology of shame- It fires a lot of the same neurons ... it, it, it keeps you entrenched in one place. So we think shame is good for us 'cause it'll get us to change.

It does the opposite of that. Shame keeps you entrenched right where you're at. So I skipped the shame part, and I went right into work, got my stuff done, went and picked up my son from school that day, and I just had a real heart-to-heart conversation with him. And I said, "Son, I'm a kid, too. I'm, I'm responsible for you as your dad, but I'm going through a lot of stuff.

You didn't deserve what happened to you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. That wasn't your fault. That was my fault, and this is why it happened, and it's not a justification.

But I want you to understand it wasn't... You know, it's coming from a place of me really struggling, and I, and I, I took that out on you, and I'm sorry." And then I took my son to go do his favorite thing. I bought him some ice cream. We went home, had a great night.

You know, great evening, and I've never done that since to him. I've never talked to him like that since. And I was able to skip the entire part of just beating myself up and talking shit and just get right to the good part of, like... And, and that, I had to do that by changing the voice in my head. I had to ch- you know, this voice came into my head that I don't feel like was mine.

I feel like it was something that came, an endowment, you know, a divine endowment. But then I had to, I had to, like, hold it together where, "No, no, I'm not gonna talk shit." That voice started coming back in. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I'm only saying positive things.

Adam, you're working on this, dude. You're doing good. You got a lot on your plate. You're gonna fuck up. That's okay.

That's part of the process, but you're gonna get better. You're gonna level up. This is all part of learning." And I just had to force that positive, constructive coaching voice into my head, and I was able to skip all of the nonsense and just get to what really matters, which is that we learn from the trials and tribulation we're going front- through, and we get better. And that's, that's what I was able to do with that epiphany that I got.

I get a little, I got a little teary-eyed there. I, you know, I've been through the same thing. I, I actually... Couple weeks ago, you know, I, uh, you know, I, I tell my kids all the time, w- especially when it comes to sports, I, I, I literally don't care about the outcome. Attitude and effort, that's all I care about.

There you go. That's, that's what... If I can teach you anything, it's attitude and effort, right? And I, and I saw my, my son not delivering the effort that I would expect to see out of him. And, and, it...

We get in the car after the game, and similar situation. I kinda unload on him a little bit, right? And I realize, like, two or three minutes into this diatribe, I'm not even fucking talking to my kid. Yeah. I'm talking to me.

Oh, this is good. I'm talking to me. Yep. I, I'm literally... I'm not even talking to him.

I'm literally... I'm... In my head, I'm manifesting all the things that I'm not doing, the bad decisions that I'm making, the places where I'm procrastinating instead of taking action, right? And, like, and in general, you know, I, I would like to believe that I'm a pretty intense, hardworking person, but, like, I still have these things inside of me and, and even things from my past that I haven't dealt with, right? Like, I played college baseball, which is great, but I probably never gave it more than 90% effort.

So I have this thing inside me- Right ... of, like, you never got to see how good you could be because you never gave 100%. Now I'm putting that shit on my kid, right? Uh, who, who knows if he wants my life? He don't want my life, you know what I mean? He's got his own life.

And, and I, I stopped w- and I just said, "I'm sorry, bro." I said... His name's Duke. I said, "Duke, dude, bro, fucking it's one game, man. Who cares?"

I was like, "You know, you, y- you work so hard. It's a long season. You're 11 years old. You play a massive amount of sports versus what we played back then." Mm-hmm.

Like, "Dude, you're good. I'm sorry," right? And I ha- and now I'm fucking crying. He's looking at me. He's like, "Dad, are you all right?"

And I'm, like, cr- crying in the car, uh, uh, because I realize that, like, oh, my God, I was just willing to give my kid all this... I love this idea that you said, bricks in his bookbag or whatever, right? Bricks that he had to carry. I'm giving him these bricks that he didn't deserve. He didn't ask for 'em.

And frankly, at 11 years old, I mean, you have one game that you're a little off and whatever. It's not like he didn't make any plays or whatever. Like, holy shit. Like, take, pump the brakes and maybe, you know, you just found some shit you gotta deal with, right? And it's...

Man, it really wakes you up when you can be self-aware like that. I, uh... Yeah, I, I feel that, dude. I feel that a lot, you know. And talking to my dad, I've learned a little bit about that, too, that some, uh, shit he gave me was stuff that he didn't deal with, you know?

And I think we do that. And the... Breaking that cycle, though, uh, breaking that cycle, I think, is very, very important for us. And then it allow... A- again, it gives us a target.

Now I know, hey, I got some shit that I gotta deal with around my relationship with effort and, and this and, and stuff. And, um, you know, I, I wanna go back to one point and, and I know we're getting close to the number here, but, uh, I just have to touch on this. I wanna get your take. So when I coach, I coach mostly entrepreneurs. And when I coach those entrepreneurs, I walk them through what I call Reality OS, Reality Operating System.

And, and you spoke about this a, a minute ago. Uh, um, and it's, it's why I wanna bring it up. I feel like so much of, of this conversation, the ideas that bring the actual toxicity into what we're talking about are either cultural, societal expectations, ideas, concepts, et cetera, that are placed upon us that have no basis in reality. There's no receipts for why those ideas are pushed on us as true, and yet we accept them. And when you remove that veil, kinda you were, you were, you were referencing this before, different, different words, like, and you just, just operate strictly by what reality provides you, so much of this nonsense goes away because it's like, it's like you...

It's not how it works in real life, right? In real life, the beta, uh, soft, weak man who can't... who, who their, their female does not believe could protect them, can provide for them, can, can, can have an original thought, can, can be that, that driving force of the household, whether she needs you to be or not, if... once she doesn't believe it, that relationship is toast from the standpoint of, of any true connection of relation, right? So, okay, so that's reality. So we can say everything we want about feminism and women's power and m- toxic masculinity, but at the end of the day, we are seeing more divorces. Uh, we're seeing, um, liberal women are the most unhappy and depressed, um, constituency of any that you can find in the United States, right?

These, these postmodern liberal women who live by this, this feminist mentality, they are the most depressed. So if you're living in reality, how can you maintain that, that, that, that vision, that, that idea that this is correct when, when there's no receipts on the back end to show you that this actually produces a positive menta- a, a po- po- positive societal progress? I, I just... I can't get past it. So I guess my last question for you is, taking everything we've talked about into account, when guys are sitting here, they're listening to this, maybe they're... hopefully they're on a walk or at the gym or they're just driving or whatever they're doing, right?

They're listening to this, and they're saying, "Shit, I, I, I wanna be that strong guy," right? What, what is the core concept in, in reality? What's the one concept that they can grab onto to use as, as that, that, that, that initial light to pull themselves out of this place, right? If you could just give them one concept to say, you know, again, we're broad stroking, I know individual, but you could just give them one. You can hand them one and say, "Hey, you start here.

Good chance you're gonna pull yourself out." What would that be? I'm gonna, I'm gonna break the rule that you just gave me and I'm gonna give you two. Oh, shoot. That I can think of.

There's no rules. There's no rules here. You can do whatever you want, man. The first concept is that you can get better. You, you have to believe that.

Like, it's, it... you... Too many people are in the victim mindset, men, where it's like, "God just cursed me. It's just how I am. It's just how it is," or whatever, and they, they don't think that they can make any real changes because maybe they've tried in the past. They've tried to discipline themselves.

They've tried to do things differently, and it didn't work. And so they just feel like this is their, this is their journey, to just be that guy that goes down with the ship, and life is just misery, and it's just checking off boxes of responsibilities and, and being unsatisfied. And they... And you have to believe, and not just believe, but know that you can be better than you are. And here's one way you know that's true.

This isn't like a pep talk. It's not just something to try and get guys to feel more positive. If you can look out around you, whether that's in immediate proximity or stories you've heard, t- people you've seen, uh, on social media or on the internet or whatever, if you see somebody that's been given less than you and done more than you, you don't have an excuse. You can do better. And everybody can find somebody that got a lot less handed to them and did better than them.

All of us can see that around us every single day. Guys that turned up, changed their life, made it happen. So you don't have an excuse. You can be better. And then the second thing is just, like what we've been talking about.

Too many people, myself included in my first marriage, when, when I was coming out of it shaking my fist at God is, thinks, "I've done everything right. Why isn't life working out?" We think we've done everything right. We think we've paid the price tag that needed to be paid for whatever that is we wanted out of life. And the truth is, you haven't.

You just haven't. It, it, it, it... The, the, the world of entropy doesn't care about your feelings, and it doesn't care about your perspective. It's just the hard, cold truth. Either it is working or it isn't working.

And so when you say to yourself, "I'm doing everything right and it's not working," you're not doing everything right. Just start there. And that's not to beat yourself up. That's to start being constructive and saying, "Okay, what is it that I can start to do that I can make tomorrow just 1% better?" It's like kinda what you were jamming on earlier, just picking one thing, you know, to just start improving your life on.

1% better every single day for an entire year isn't 365% better. It's 37 times percent better. You can start in a single year, in six months, drastically change your outlook on the world and therefore change. You know, when you change the internal, the external changes. Everything in the external starts to change.

And so you, you, you have to take a ruthless approach to your own self-development and progression, and one that doesn't sugarcoat anything or doesn't give you an out, doesn't give you an excuse. You get the excuse 'cause you didn't get what that person had or whatever else. Nope. This is your life. This is your one life you got.

There's no reset button. So own it. Be the best version that you can be every single day. And that doesn't mean you have to hit the ball out of the park tomorrow. That means you gotta be a little bit better tomorrow.

Go be a little bit better tomorrow than you were today. What does that look like? Well, there's so many different ways to be better, so many different avenues, but it's gonna start by who you surround yourself with, what type of influences you're putting in your head. And you'll start to see those things that you need to improve on, and you'll start making small changes. Jordan Peterson talks about this.

Get up and make your bed every day. Start with that. Organize your life a little bit. You don't have to go and be like, uh, the John Wick tomorrow. But start today just making your bed.

And then maybe tomorrow it's like getting up 30 minutes earlier than you did the day before so you can execute a little bit better and start to take some accountability for your life in the morning. And, you know, you just start finding little things that you can tweak and adjust and, and then it kind of starts working and then you keep doing it. And then pretty soon, like you said, you pull your head up and you're like, "Dude, I'm dead lifting 465 pounds. I feel like I've got this energy and this drive. And yes, my marriage is falling apart now, but this is the catalyst now for the rebirth, the phoenix of being reborn from the ashes into something better."

God gives us pain and suffering so that he can strip away our own bullshit and our own self-deception, our own lies, and build us into something much more authentic and powerful than we were before. So just making those changes, knowing that you can make changes, it's possible. Other people are doing it. You can do it. And then start to look at your life really critically.

Not, I don't mean shamefully. I mean like really analyze what you're doing every day. What's working? What isn't working? Start making some of those changes.

Don't stop. Don't quit. Don't give up on yourself. Keep making those changes. You know, what do you listen to at the gym?

What do you listen to while you're driving to work? Are you just listening to music or are you listening to some podcasts about people talking about what we're talking about right here? What are you putting into your head? Start making those small changes and suddenly your world just turns into a completely different place. Dude, I wish you didn't have to go to the darkness to be where you are today, but I'm so glad that you're here today sharing this message.

I love it. This has been phenomenal. Um, I know you have a program for guys where, that they can get in. Maybe just tell them where they can go if they're digging on this and they want to get deeper into your world. Where can they go to do that?

How do they get deeper connected to you? How can they learn more from, from the work you're doing? Come in, uh, social media platforms, all social media platforms, Adam Allred official. And then yeah, we, we haven't officially fully launched the... We, I have a whole...

It's, it's more of a community. It is a coaching program, but it's more of a community for men to gather where we have weekly firesides that I host. We have curriculum and, uh, m- material that we cover, but it's more of conversation, brothers sitting around the, the virtual fireside sharing our journeys with each other. And we have a chat group and we have a whole bunch of things. We've got like 40 members right now, so there's like hardly anybody there, but we haven't even started marketing it yet.

Yeah. We're working on some software for some accountability. Got this log, daily logbook. We have guys that are starting to, they're testing it right now. We're working out the little kinks, and once we have that, we're gonna fully launch it.

But if you're interested in coming and being part of the party, I'd love to have you there. The only thing we ask, it doesn't matter what your background is, it doesn't matter, uh, who you are, as long as you show up authentically and you're coming here to be, you know, a part of the, part of the process of leveling up together. All characters are welcome. We've had really profound success stories already. One of, one of our, we call, it's called Doughboy.

Uh, Doughboy's a spectrum for me on masculinity. On one end of the spectrum, you have the Pillsbury Doughboy that was harmless. You poked him in the stomach, he giggled. On the other end of that spectrum, you have the Doughboys of World War I that were willing to fight and die in the worst conditions for love of God and country. Where are you at on that masculinity spectrum?

That's why it's called Doughboy. We have a masculinity, uh, assessment test, which isn't like giving you a score on how much of a man you are. It's giving you a, a viewpoint of how you process the world through the seven different articles of masculinity. Which hat do you put on the most? And then we do a lot of training and discussion about how to put on hats for different occasions, how to adjust so that you can be the best, most effective, competent version of yourself in whatever set of circumstances that you have in your life.

So if you want to become a part of it, uh, the price point is really, really cheap. This is about mission over money. Uh, we do have a membership, a monthly membership fee, but it is to keep the lights on and keep the content made and keep everything working. Um, but it's, it's accessible to anybody who wants to start making changes in their life. So love to see you there.

Appreciate the hell out of you, man. Thank you so much. Likewise, Ryan. Thanks for having me on the show. Great discussion, man.

Let's go. Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Hey, stand up. Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show.

Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts. Ain't anything for me. I never switched up, no changing me. The only thing changing is me. If you're an HVAC technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle-free.

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