Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:01]

Previously on The Sean Ryan Show how do you reconcile the duality of being a Christian warrior, the balance of loving God and yet prepare for war and the removal of threats to human life.

[00:00:17]

For this? I mean ecclesiastes three. There's a time to kill, time to heal. In said there's a time to kill. The Bible says, do not murder. And this is a bad translation where we take the Ten Commandments and we take one of those commandments, thou shalt not kill. It's actually thou shalt not murder.

[00:00:37]

Let's go back to Iraq. You were there for the invasion.

[00:00:44]

We had big army doing a big push through, and we're grabbing high value targets up as they kind of squirt. So it's a coordination. And I wasn't first boots on the ground, but I'm still early enough into Iraq where I could be like, yeah, I was there.

[00:01:03]

Is it heavy? Right off the bat?

[00:01:06]

It was all up close. It was moving in urban terrain and kicking in palace doors.

[00:01:17]

How do you deal with loss? How did you overcome that?

[00:01:21]

I don't think I've overcome loss any more than I've overcome fear. Some guys that were like my platoon and some of my budies who got shot up, it's not this huge tragedy on their part. It is on ours who are left behind and missing them.

[00:01:43]

When was the Warrior Poet Society formed?

[00:01:48]

I came to call it the Warrior Poet Way. Warrior Poet Society. That was my own personal journey.

[00:02:01]

I wanted to touch on feminism sure. And how it's affected society today. I have opinions and things to say on this. Me and my wife actually discuss this quite a bit. But I would love to hear your take on how it's affected today's society.

[00:02:18]

I think it's destroyed families, made men and women miserable.

[00:02:23]

I think that the feminist movement has created a lot of confusion in society as well. I mean, you go you don't really know where anybody fits in anymore. Chivalry is dead, completely dead. And I wish I would have known we were going to dive into this. I would have thought about this a little bit more. But you see it's in everything. You don't know anymore whether you're supposed to open the door for a woman. 1 minute you might get yelled at for opening the door. The next minute you might get yelled at for not opening the door. I always open the door, but I see this stuff too, and I hear about it. My wife right now, we're what, seven months pregnant.

[00:03:23]

Awesome.

[00:03:24]

Seven months pregnant. Half the time she goes to the store, nobody helps her with the groceries. Nobody opens the door for nobody helps her load up the cart. If she's at Home Depot and I'm at work, whatever it is, Chivalry is dead. And then she comes home, we have a discussion about it, and this is what I'm like. Nobody knows what to do know. You get yelled at for doing one thing, and you get yelled at if you don't do that one thing, like opening the door. I can't tell if this is just the bubble that I live in or if it's like this everywhere, but from my observation, there seems to be a new movement of kind of coming back to gender roles. I see a lot of women, at least around here in the area that I live in, wanting to leave the corporate world and get back to being the head of the family or raising the kids homeschooling the kids, just being there for the kids. Are you seeing that, or is that.

[00:04:44]

Just a huge resurgence? Homeschooling has just gone crazy. Millions and millions of folks were able to see what was happening in the government schools through the corona scare and in that they checked out, and they're like, this is terrible. And they had to home school during the pandemic. And what they found is, oh, home school actually can be really enjoyable if you do it well and you're smart and you do some homework and you figure out a way, oh, this is how you do home school. I'm like, that's actually easier than I thought. And it was really enjoyable. It turns out that people love their kids. It's kind of like, oh, this is great. And now I'm not spending massive amounts of money on child care, and you get to actually raise your kids, and you know what's going in their brains. And people found out that it was better, and now there's all these resources of, like, homeschool co ops. Homeschool movement has exploded. I'll be speaking at Homesteaders. Oh, I'm sorry. Homesteaders of America. I'm doing that. But great homeschool conventions. That's it GHC great homeschool conventions. They've got, like, five conferences next year from California to Ohio and anyway, a few other places.

[00:06:06]

I think Missouri is one. South Carolina, that's four out of five. Not bad. But I'll be keynote speaking at all five of those great homeschool conventions in the next year. And I just say that to say this is how invested I am in this. If you want to rescue the next generation, we've got to take them out of government schools, whatever it costs. Go into debt if you have to, and I do not like that. So when I say that, that actually is a big sticky point for of, like, bro, this is how important it is. Take your kids back from the government now, whatever the cost. I know it's hard. Figure it out. Maybe you can't turn that key today, make a plan over the next year to get them out of the government schools.

[00:06:58]

I agree with you. I think it may have been Nick Friedis that was saying you you could take a poll and ask just about everybody. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. Do you trust the government? How many people trust the government that.

[00:07:17]

You know, I interviewed some people, like, recently, and somebody said that they did trust the government. I don't believe them, but I have it on video on my channel where somebody said that. So I have to say, well, there was this one wing nut of a person who said they trust him, but your point remains. No one no one trusts the government.

[00:07:40]

Being why would you trust your kids to be educated by the government?

[00:07:44]

Right. Vody Bachmann said, don't be surprised when you send your kids off to Caesar and they come back as it. That's it. Man you're wondering why everyone's gone woke and has no idea what bathroom to use anymore. Just if like, what happened to our kids? I'm like, well, you gave them to the government for their entire childhood. You saw them at dinner and you attended their sporting events, but the government raised your kids, and social media helped and video games or whatever, but you saw them every day, but you didn't raise them. You didn't log enough hours each day to counteract all the poison and time wasting and ideological propagandistic crap that they were getting fed year after year after year. And so millennial generation and now Gen Z has gone woke, and we feel like, oh, what happened to my daughter? We raised them better than that. No, I mean this in love, but you didn't raise them at all. That hurts to say, because I know it hurts people to hear, but the government raised them, and that's what happened. Government and social media hijacked a generation, and we trusted that they were being taught good information that wasn't undermining our values.

[00:09:18]

But there's been a Psyop in play for decades, which is undermining our values in waging war against the family unit.

[00:09:26]

What do you think the goal is behind that?

[00:09:29]

Control.

[00:09:30]

Control of everything?

[00:09:32]

Yeah, I think the people in power want one thing. It's what all people in power have always wanted for all human history. The people in power want more power for longer.

[00:09:44]

Who do you think the people in power are?

[00:09:46]

How deep do you think this? I think a lot. One is the ones you see are the puppets. There are politicians there who's dangling those puppet strings higher off if they think there's powerful companies that you've had enumerated on this channel and billionaire, trillionaire types around that want to control in the shadows. So there's certainly players like that, and you see their fingerprints everywhere with all the woke stuff. That actually has a very formal funding mechanism behind it. It's not just a groundswell of what people want. It's actually being pushed from the top down on culture. Forced on culture, quite literally in our school systems and in our corporations. It's being crammed in. And so you can't see that and not deny that there are folks who have really figured out over the last 50, 60, 70 years how to perfect tyranny in a model that doesn't lead to some of the upsetting. Overthrows. That their forebears of Mussolini and Paul Potts, mao Hitler of like they had the control that these globalists want, but they were also targets and they had uprisings against them. How do you control people without ever being a target and while giving them the feeling of collectivism so that they feel free, but they aren't free?

[00:11:23]

Or we'll thought maybe it'll be by force. You'll do it altus Huxley thought no. You rule them through their desires, through dumbing them down by allowing them to entertain themselves to death. You can control them indefinitely. And so what they did is like, oh, we'll take some or and we'll take some Huxley. We'll blend it together in a massive psyop so we can have massive amounts of power and control forever. The thing that would stand in the way of it, a few things of like one religion. Religion is the thing that won't bend a knee. It will unreasonably, not compromise. And so if you eliminate religion, people will worship politics. If you don't, if they hold out religion, then there's something higher than politics that holds that politicians have to be or world controllers have to bend the need to and is in competition. That's why Marxism or any tyranical communistic system immediately moves to eradicate religion because totalitarian control cannot exist while there is a vibrant and widespread religious faith going on.

[00:12:43]

I think that's very hard for Western culture, americans in particular, to wrap their head around. But look at what's going on in you know, those people actually believe Kim Jong UN or whatever the new one's name is. Kim Jong UN, right? They think he's God. They think King Jum Il was God. They think that the state is the religion that is the end all, be all incredible.

[00:13:22]

I think religion is something that they want to quell and destroy and they've done a good job of that. Also, I think the family unit the family unit is a bulwark against this progressive ideology. And so they've destroyed the family unit and they want to take over America's youth. If you can take over the next generation and educate them force, you can get them to believe whatever you want to believe. And so that's how you get the next generation is you train them for compliance. You demoralize them utterly. And that's happened to Gen. Z. They are utterly demoralized. Another thing is you want to declaw the strong men. And so there needs to be a war on the family. There needs to be a war on Masculinity, there needs to be a war on religion. And what do you see? You see all these very late in the game where all these institutions, for lack of a better word, are just barely limping, much less alive in the sociological structure that we see. This is very late in the game for America. The jury is out on whether we survive this because all of our institutions of power have been hijacked.

[00:14:42]

The American people are now wide awake. Hate all this, but without any of our institutions of power, it's kind of like, look, more corruption. Anybody going to do anything about it? Anybody? No, no one's doing anything about it. We just let it slide. Okay, we're letting it slide. But you should do something about it. They're guilty. They're corrupt. And we're just shouting into the wind. Nothing changes because it's all super corrupt. And our institutions of power have been hijacked. So it's very interesting time. I do not know how this is going to play out. The optimistic part of me is dying. Yeah. It still dares to hope a little bit. I'm glad my hope is in a different world than this fallen rock. I'm glad that's where my ultimate faith and joy and hope is because there's just not a lot to be found here. But still, while this place is my home here and now, I'll go down fighting for it. Yeah.

[00:15:58]

What does I think we're very similar in this. I'm a little pessimistic. I don't really see a realistic way out of this. But there are some things being honest, I think about this all the time.

[00:16:25]

Yeah, man.

[00:16:26]

It just consumes me because I got to be honest, I don't really care for what I have to endure anymore because I don't think this is going away. But it does really bother me that my kid's going to have to live in this shit. I am always looking for some type of hope. Is there anything particular? Maybe anything that you've jenned up in your head? I brought some stuff up about advertising. That's my latest. Maybe that's going to get the hope. And I'll go into that in a minute.

[00:17:04]

Maybe, but advertisement what do you mean?

[00:17:06]

Well, we were talking last night at dinner. We were talking about, I believe the woke agenda and how I don't think we need to go through it all again on here. But everything you see is backwards. What's down is up. What's up is down. What's black is white. You know the deal. And we got to talking about companies, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street in numbers. We did have this conversation.

[00:17:44]

Correct.

[00:17:46]

And what I think may be a glimmer of hope is we are all watching in real time the demise of mainstream media. It is coming apart fast.

[00:18:04]

Yeah, man.

[00:18:05]

Ever since 2020, mainstream media is falling apart at a record pace.

[00:18:10]

Very fun.

[00:18:13]

Their numbers are down, but they still have big advertisers, golden Globe Awards, Grammy Awards, all these big celebrity events that I never watched them. But a lot of people are enamored with these type of award ceremonies in the lives of celebrities. And nobody watches it anymore.

[00:18:36]

No.

[00:18:37]

It is so bad that a lot of the celebrities, a lot of the actors, a lot of the musicians, they don't even go to the awards ceremonies anymore because they don't want to spend the money on the fashion, the makeup, the hair, the time that it takes to go to receive the award, because they know nobody's even watching them. Not to mention they know that it's not about the best actor anymore. It's about whatever the current agenda is. Those numbers are dropping. Sports numbers have fallen off a cliff. NBA down, NFL down. MLB down. And late night TV. Everything is so politicized that nobody trusts anything anymore. All the late night shows numbers are down. I just had a meeting with.

[00:19:41]

I.

[00:19:41]

Don'T know what you call an agency, kind of like an agent or management agency. And we were kind of going over some of my numbers and they were saying, look, if you look at some of these late night shows, they're only getting two or 300,000 viewers a day.

[00:20:01]

Wow.

[00:20:02]

Some of these shows have four or 5 million views. And so where I'm getting at is you see mainstream media numbers falling off the cliff, sports numbers falling off the cliff. Movies. When's the last time you went to a movie? At Grand Canyon University, they believe that the military, men and women are the unique among the uncommon. You fought for our freedom. Your bravery and leadership are celebrated by all Americans. GCU matches your commitment to excellence with our counselors. Specializing in military benefits and over 260 flexible degree programs online as of March 2023. GCU makes higher education possible for our nation's protectors and their families. To pursue your next journey, GCU salutes you. God bless America. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private, Christian, and affordable. Visit Gcu.edu slash military I can't even.

[00:21:06]

Remember Top Gun, too.

[00:21:07]

Yeah, same thing.

[00:21:09]

That's about it.

[00:21:10]

And there was no agenda. Yeah, I did. Go see Sound of Freedom.

[00:21:15]

I saw that, too. And everyone should go see that movie. I've already seen it. Go see it again.

[00:21:21]

Yeah, but point being, all these numbers are falling everywhere. All the stuff that we used to watch, the numbers have been cut in half, maybe even more. Advertisers, they need to be seen. Ford trucks, they can only pay those major dollars for so much longer before they realize nobody's seeing the advertisement. Because you've ruined the network with your agenda. Where are the numbers going? They're going to YouTube channels like yours. YouTube channels like mine. Podcasts.

[00:22:02]

YouTube. Robs me blind, bro. So no doubt YouTube is making money off me. They're just not giving it to me.

[00:22:09]

I'm not going to argue with that. But what I am saying is now there is this demand and this need for that type of content because it's not scripted. It's not filtered, it's real, it's vulnerable. That's what's drawn in the numbers. It's truth. And eventually, I think that I hope that there may be some type of a possibility where these advertisers come to this realization and they're going, Wait, hold on. We're paying all this money for no numbers. And this stuff over here, the fringe content, is what has all the numbers. Eventually, if they want anybody to buy the shit that they're pedaling, they're going to have to go to where the people are.

[00:22:54]

I hope so. This all is so far above my pay grade, but I would really like that to be true. The more pessimistic part of me may say of like, yeah, but what if those globalists what if State Street and Vanguard and so they're so wildly rich doing market manipulation stuff, they don't actually need Bud Light or Target or Disney to do well. They don't actually care. They don't need it. They can generate all the money they want in a myriad of different ways that they don't care. And so money isn't real. They've gotten so much control and power and into everything, just monopoly over kind of everything that they've got it all. And so they can afford to lose what to us would look like billions, and to them it's kind of like, no, just shuffling the deck. Who knows what their balance sheet actually looks like? But maybe it's just reshuffling the deck for them and they're like, no, we're here to get more power and control. We're paying billions of dollars in losses over this to push this kind of agenda, which demoralizes and ultimately gives us the whole kitten caboodle in ten years of like, they're fine to lose billions when they're going to get trillions and trillions of like, no, we're buying your country.

[00:24:23]

We're fine to let these brands tank because the ideology we're pushing through allows us to literally take over countries. And so I hope that's not true. Again, this is all just speculation based off data points and things that people I've heard that I feel like these guys have decoded the matrix. If what they're saying is true, then this and so it's my own working out of that operi.

[00:24:53]

Well, is there anything that does bring you hope? That's just my latest this is what I think about.

[00:25:00]

Yes, absolutely.

[00:25:02]

These things absolutely. What brings you?

[00:25:04]

Because when I'm done watching everything through social media and the television screen just going completely the wrong way, I go home to my little farm and I greet my smiling wife and I play with my children, and we go down and maybe we ride some horses and then we read a book before going to bed, and we have a good dinner and none of that stuff falling apart touches my sweet family time and my friend circles and the church I go to back home. And there is still opportunity right now to have a really full, vibrant, peaceable, sane life in your home and in your community. You can make your own community with friends and family that isn't buying into all this stuff. And so whereas I visit the world, I check in and I engage in the fight to make it better because I'm a part of this world. But when I am done with that, I go to my own little homestead and I hang out with my family and then I see my friends and me and my wife go on dates and we go through walks in the woods. Right now the economy is in shambles and everyone's feeling the squeeze.

[00:26:38]

We're spending less and so, hey, we'll go on some walks. That's not expensive. You can't tax that yet. But yeah, there's some hope there. A lot of folks are struggling with real bad anxiety and mental health and it's because they're not unplugging from all the bad news and they're carrying that home with you and it's just too heavy, too much, too ubiquitous. You've got to be able to leave it at the door and have a life outside that still. Let's enjoy freedom while we have it and then let's fight for it too. But you got to make some boundaries for yourself, man, or you're just not going to make it.

[00:27:19]

Yeah, I'm with you. Let's talk about your career.

[00:27:23]

Sure.

[00:27:24]

What so you started the boy, your Poet Society. It originally was training, correct?

[00:27:33]

It was YouTube videos. Really? It started as a YouTube started as YouTube videos.

[00:27:39]

What was your first video?

[00:27:41]

It was just me shooting some targets real quick on a know. That's it that was for mine. But I went on someone else's even before that. You know James Yeager? I do, yeah.

[00:27:55]

I never met him personally.

[00:27:57]

Okay, well, it's a shame. He had an online persona. And then there was the man, James Yeager, who is a personal friend and I loved deeply all the virtues and vices of any military grunt or SWAT team dude, you'd have loved. But anyway, he he got me on his YouTube channel and he thought I did a really good job. And he says, hey man, you should do this. And I'm like, what? Just record myself doing what? He's like, whatever you want. I'm like, whatever I want? He's like, yeah man, but you should do this. I'm like, all right, maybe I'll do this. And I'm a man with a message of like, I want to communicate for life change. That's what I want. I want to communicate for life change. I want a journey. Love to be able to document that and bring people along. So I just kind of did that. Here's my reflections. Here's my thoughts. Here's a war story. Here's me shooting. And I just kind of threw all kinds of stuff against the wall and not even see what sticks. But I was documenting my own warrior poet journey. Right. And so it struck a chord and people started following and then it kind of blew up.

[00:29:21]

It turns out people wanted to grow simultaneously in these areas because what I saw is this big gap in the Internet, and that's where everyone's kind of like a lover or a fighter. And the fighters don't really talk about husbandry or kids or being an actual sane, normal, real person. You're the 1000 yard stare, steely eyed killer, SWAT operator, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm so dangerous. We're all special operation blah, blah. But it was this chest beating bravado or it's this sweetie pie thing. And I'm like, no, I want to do both. I want to be a lover and a fighter. I'm on that journey. Who embodies that? Who is out there that I can follow that's on that journey? And I'm like, you know, there is not a lot. Well, I'll just start walking down this road and maybe some people want to join in and they did and it grew.

[00:30:34]

I got to compliment you. There are so many I 100% agree with you too on the fighter stuff. When I started this, I noticed that so many people become a character.

[00:30:53]

Yeah.

[00:30:53]

It's not authentic at all. And then you start seeing them get tired of being that character because it becomes exhausting. Because you become that character. Everywhere you go, people expect you to be that character.

[00:31:08]

Right.

[00:31:09]

And one thing that I got at dinner last night with you is you are the exact same person that I see online talking. You're a very authentic, genuine, humble human being and with a massive online presence.

[00:31:29]

Thanks, man.

[00:31:30]

In a huge business and you don't run into that very often.

[00:31:37]

I could say the same thing about you, which pisses me off a bit because we really should have got together years ago. We talked about, we agreed, hey, we should hang out. And at the time you had alpacas and a Brussels graffon, this ridiculous little dogs, little gremlins. And we did too. And I'm like, bro, former door kicker, you got the funny little dog, you got the alpaca. Surely this means we should hang out and be buddies. But I think you just got busy. And so did I. But what I'm embarrassed at is you're not far away from me.

[00:32:11]

I didn't realize you were that close.

[00:32:13]

Me neither. Better late than never. Better late than never. But I feel like I lost time with you. We could have been homies.

[00:32:22]

It's all good. We are now.

[00:32:24]

We are now.

[00:32:24]

But I will say, I don't know if you feel this, but a lot of times and it's funny, nobody thinks this because this channel started as kind of a gun tuber channel. And then when I started the podcast, it was all military guys. But I'll be honest, it's almost to the point where if you are from the special operations community, that's almost a strike against you. It's like, I don't know if I want to I probably am not going to get along with this person. It's going to be extremely competitive.

[00:33:06]

It's not tedious. It is like, Bro, why do we got to compete? How about this? You win, you're the dangerous super Secret Squirrel sniper ninja, and I'm not. So way to go. Now we can just move on.

[00:33:22]

Can we be friends now?

[00:33:25]

Do you mean that it's hard to just be friends because there's always that kind of rivalry? Or is it hard to interview them or what do you mean?

[00:33:33]

I'm not talking about the guys that I interview, okay? I'm talking about you have to get this too, because you have such a big platform. It should be them. It should be them that trained whoever. It should be them that has that platform. It should be them that's fell on the courses. And then there's, like I had mentioned earlier, special operations. What is it? I mean, everything from day one you said it as well is a competition. You and Ranger battalion. It's earning your keep every single day, wondering if you're good enough to be there. And that carries over. I think we all have a common enemy. Obviously, we have a common enemy when we're in an environment or a profession like that, but then when you take that common enemy out, we turn on ourselves.

[00:34:31]

Yeah, that's perfectly said. I don't pay attention to a lot of it. It'd be hard for me. I'm not cruising, checking in on what gripe anybody had. Typically, I'm not just searching for that stuff, so I'm not consuming a lot of that content. So maybe some of those guys really like me, some of them really hate me. Maybe they don't care. I don't really know their attitude and disposition on purpose. I'm not interested. I know what I'm doing. I know I'm providing a good service for a certain part. Certain part. I'm after soccer know, for lack of a better, I'm after average Joes who are I want to be a good dad. I want to work well, and I'd like to make a few small steps to be a little bit better protector. I'm like I like you. You're my bro. Let's hang out. Let's do gun. Um, and so that's who I'm after. And I'll let all the operating guys operate operationally to make ninjas out of everyone else. And I'll just be over here doing my thing. And if you hate me for it, I get it. Sometimes I don't like me very much either.

[00:35:45]

So I'm sympathetic. I get it.

[00:35:49]

Well, let's get back to your channel. So what did the channel develop into? I know you've taken some turns throughout your career.

[00:35:57]

Yeah. So I really pressed into more teaching tactics. And this is how you shoot, and this is how you can clear rooms. And here's some flashlight reviews, and here's some kit reviews. And I was doing that at a time where there was a gear boom going on and a training boom. This was before politics had swallowed up all other avenues of life. Now, since that time, politics ate everything. So even if you talk about something as benign as the weather, well, climate. Change can't do that. Of like there's the science which science was science? No science TM you know, Anthony Fauci, he is the like all the science stuff of man. There's not a single area of life that hasn't been gobbled up by politics. And so when I saw that move and I saw big moves being made against first and Second Amendment, I'm like, all right, my days on this platform are numbered. I saw algorithm switches over, namely September 2017, algorithm switch over by YouTube. That's the move hugely against the gun world. So all of a sudden, our analytics just fell off a cliff. And if you were small gun channel, good luck getting big because that door kind of shut and I was already like 100,000 followers, so I kind of made the cut off.

[00:37:26]

So I was able to grow and keep growing, but I was growing leaps and bounds. And then the adpocalypse happened, the algorithm rewrite and then my analytics just crushed. I can literally look back in my lifetime analytics and see every time they made an algorithm change. And so right now, though, I'm many times bigger, making far more views. My money from YouTube is 2018 level.

[00:37:58]

Wow, really?

[00:38:01]

They hate me that bad?

[00:38:03]

Yeah. I think I'm heading down that road as well.

[00:38:06]

Yeah. And it's because when everything went political, I hate politics. I hate it. And I don't like politicians. Like people have like John run for office. How about no? How about never? No way. The Lord would have to call me to it.

[00:38:25]

You've never considered it?

[00:38:26]

I have considered it. And after considering, I'm be like, hey, no way. I do not want that. I get it. That it is a way to make millions of dollars, broker a lot of power, and get a lot of recognition and limelight. The problem is I don't care enough about those things. Those are not good carrots for me. I would rather live far more simply. And I like the sphere of influence I'm already operating in. I like that I have no constituents or handlers. I'm beholden to no one. I can say whatever I want. And yeah, the algorithm is going to punish me and eventually put me out of business, but I have to stay the warrior poet. I'm going to be true to who I am, how I built, and what our message is.

[00:39:17]

Good for you.

[00:39:18]

And I hope that our big tech overlords will allow us to continue to have free speech and that they wouldn't rig the deck to our ultimate destruction. But right now, I'm in the problem of they just don't notify my subscribers when I post videos, that's it. I'm like, great, rob me blind, take my money, do whatever you want. But if people ask you to notify them when I post a video, please notify them. And they won't do that. My wife is subscribed notifications bell on. She never gets notifications when I post videos and this happens many times. I'm just saying, my own wife can't get a notification for my channel and she is supportive. She doesn't really care about some of the content that I make, but she loves me. And maybe I'll say a silly joke and maybe I'll give her a little cutesy flirty shout out sometimes because I do that all the time. I'm kind of sweet on her. And so anyway, she's supportive, but she doesn't get those notifications. And YouTube isn't nearly as bad as like, Instagram. Instagram is the worst for shadow banning.

[00:40:31]

I want to tell you about this business venture I've been on for about the past seven, eight months and it's finally come to fruition. I've been hell bent on finding the cleanest functional mushroom supplement on the planet. And that all kind of stemmed from the psychedelic treatment I did. Came out of it. Got a ton of benefits, haven't had a drop of alcohol in almost two years. I'm more in the moment with my family and that led me down researching the benefits of just everyday functional mushrooms. And I started taking some supplements, I found some coffee replacements, I even repped a brand. And it got to the point where I just wanted the finest ingredients available, no matter where they come from. And it got to this point where I was just going to start my own brand. And so we started going to trade shows and looking for the finest ingredients. And in doing that, I ran into this guy, maybe you've heard of him. His name's Laird Hamilton. And his wife Gabby Reese. And they have an entire line of supplements with all the finest ingredients. And we got to talking. Turns out they have the perfect functional mushroom supplement.

[00:41:53]

It's actually called performance mushrooms. And this has everything. It's USDA organic. It's got chaga cordyceps, lion's mane, miyotake. This stuff is amazing for energy balance, for cognition. Look, just being honest, see a lot of people taking care of their bodies. I do not see a lot of people taking care of their brain. This is the product, guys. And so we got to talking and our values seemed very aligned. We're both into the functional mushrooms and after a lot of back and forth, I am now a shareholder in the company. I have a small amount of ownership. And look, I'm just really proud to be repping and be a part of the company that's making the best functional mushroom supplement on the planet. You can get this stuff@layeredsuperfoods.com, you can use the promo code SRS. That'll get you 20% off these performance mushrooms or anything in the store. They got a ton of good stuff. Once again, that's layered superfoods.com. Use the promo code SRS. That gets you 20% off. You guys are going to love this stuff, I guarantee it.

[00:43:22]

Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to itunes and leave the Sean Ryan show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

[00:43:44]

And Twitter's. Kind of touch and go, but Twitter's the freest place I know of. That is public square, large. There's all kinds of these other platforms. I'm like, yeah, you're like, John, you should get on Rumble. I've been on Rumble for years. You're like. Get on. Rumble. No, I'm there. You just don't see me, watch me or find me. I'm there.

[00:44:04]

I get that too.

[00:44:05]

Yep, I'm there. And the fact that everyone keeps telling me to get on Rumble proves to me that Rumble is not the place to be. It's still the largest search engine in the world without anything even remotely close. In second place, YouTube and Google. It is the internet.

[00:44:26]

I wanted to give you props as well because we had spoken about this last night as well. But you are one of the few people from our community that made a Pivot around 2020, 2021 time frame. And that pivot. What I'm talking about is you standing up for what you believe in, standing up for your core values. You appeared to have maybe not put your business on hold, but you made a major Pivot knowing that there could be some serious consequences to your business. And I made that pivot. I saw you make that pivot. Maybe before me, maybe it was right about the same time, but there's not very many people that I saw made the Pivot. And I had around that time period, I had made a Pivot as well. I'd gotten out of guns and tactics, got into podcasting, started taking the podcast very seriously for a multitude of reasons. One being censorship of the second amendment genre. I'm no longer willing to compromise. Yeah, you know, and I see these there's just so many people that all they care about is the money and in their business, in their growth. And it's like, man, I'm going to tell you something budy, if you don't start sticking up for what you believe in because that inspires others to do the same, you're not going to have a business, you're not going to have an income stream.

[00:46:43]

Now fast forward and I want to talk to you about think. I think this entire thing is done. I think YouTube will be obsolete within the next five mean. And one, I think people like me and you will just be deleted, never to be heard from again. But it doesn't end there. On top of these companies agendas, there's artificial intelligence that is just taking over everything. We talk about deep fakes stuff that's happening. I mean, there's already technology that could have a fake you and a fake me having this exact conversation and it's becoming more and more realistic. Every mean that's part of what the Hollywood strike is know, they don't need writers anymore. They don't need actors they can do mean it was a good run.

[00:47:49]

How crazy would it be that let's say in a few years down into our dystopian future we're careening toward they delete, you and I, and they have an AI avatar that looks like us and they script us and tilt us more. So basically you think that Sean Ryan who just walked away from his faith and endorsed Hunter Biden who's running for president and kicking tail. Some people are like, stop, I hate this. This is this, I hate this future. Delete back. Next video. But of like to literally supplant us with an AI digital whatever to borrow on past credibility and people don't know and meanwhile we're rotten away in solitary confinement forever with January 6 folks.

[00:48:51]

No, man, I hope not. But that's just where I see this going. It was me and my wife discussing this this morning, but it was eight tracks, cassette tapes, DVDs or CDs, DVDs, MP3 s. Now I don't even know what we call them, streaming services. YouTube has been around for a while. It's going to become obsolete eventually and I think AI is going to be what takes it out.

[00:49:23]

AI is this big wild card where I can make general guesses on what's going to happen. And I don't have that prophetical kind of gift, not in the capital P, biblical, spiritual prophet kind of sense, but to figure out what's coming, like orwell George orwell amazing ability to kind of predict out what's going to happen. I don't have that impulse, but I can imagine some of it with AI. It's uncharted. I have no idea where that's going. But it does look like the most powerful tool for control ever conceived and created by man. That to me looks more dangerous than a nuclear bomb by far. And so I don't know how that's shaken up, but if you already don't trust the would be powers that be, you give them that a perfect mechanism to manipulate, propagandize and control the world and all the flow of information, that's bad. But you could imagine a world where people just finally, I'm off the internet, here's my community and we're homesteading, they're just done and I'm moving that direction. Really, it's been one little decision at a time without this big referendum of it's all going to die and you need to rewind the clock 100 years and live as a homesteader of like, no, but we've just been a little bit overtime doing that.

[00:50:59]

Homestead life and investing in local community and we like that. It's a healthier life and it makes us feel freer and it's healthy for our sons to grow up taking care of chickens and herding cattle and driving our side by side through the woods and playing with some guns. And we have our own little spot carved out, nothing huge, nothing fancy, a simple little farmhouse, but that's ours. This is ours. And so at some point, you're just kind of like what I'm gaining from plugging into the matrix every day is not worth what it's costing me, and you just unplug and you're done. And then you got to figure out still, well, how do I make a living? And that's going to be different with AI and this brave new world. But I wonder if the whole idea of homesteading is self sufficiency. What if I got myself to a place where my skills and my resources around me were at such a place that I no longer required wealth? What do you use wealth for? Well, you buy food and you buy things. You pay bills. And what if you're kind of more self contained right there?

[00:52:25]

You grow some food, you slaughter a cow every once in a while, you shoot a deer. You kind of hold up there. You barter and trade a bit. You got a little money for XYZ. I don't know. I'm trying to live more and more simply. I'd like to no longer require wealth as if to get some huge nest egg, kick my feet up, know, make trips back and forth to Tahiti every once in a while while I live in a mansion that's so far gone from my not. That was the goal a decade ago. For me, that's retirement. I never plan to retire now. I'm always going to be adding value somewhere, somehow, and I want to live humbly and simply, and I just want to be left alone.

[00:53:12]

Do you feel better now than you did when you had the mansion Tahiti goal?

[00:53:18]

Yeah, much better. We have a simple little farmhouse on our own little homestead, and we're very content and happy there.

[00:53:24]

Was that your wife's goal as well?

[00:53:28]

My wife was raised extremely poor. She had no idea how poor she was in a very small town, in a very poor area. She was on free lunch. She's just dirt poor. Tiny little house she lived in. I love that about my wife. I think it built character for her in a real cool way, and she is just easier to please. And she's been broke with me before. We have been absolutely broke and then deeply in debt, and we had to climb out of that and that was awful. And me and her, we've been through the wringer together. Now, one thing that is a requirement is we're still generous and we're not living like paupers by any means of like, we got some creature comforts, we spend some money. But, I mean, the goal is to live, and I think we've been good stewards of this. We live below our means by a good shot and like to do even more. I think that's the way to travel it's stop buying the big houses and the big cars and leveraging yourselves to death. That's not the way the world is going. We need to be leaning up.

[00:54:51]

We need to run far leaner than we are. We need to be content with less. Stop chasing that carrot. It's going to kill you. And when the music stops, you're not going to have a place to sit.

[00:55:04]

It's a good way to put it. Kind of what I was getting at was when your goal changed, when you went from let's amass this huge amount of money, this big nest egg, to be able to do whatever we want to. I mean, how did that happen? Did you just come home one day and you're like, this is a new plan. We're going to lean up, work less, more family time. We don't need all this money.

[00:55:38]

So I don't know that I ever dreamed of having this huge amount of money or something. It was just kind of the default setting for all Americans. That's what we expect. You make a huge amount of money so that at a certain age you can retire and you live pretty well, very well, or extremely well. Based off that for the rest of your life. You do some vacations, you're going to winnebago and you do your thing. Margarita's on the beach and whatnot. And that's just kind of, I think, the neurological rut. That's the default setting for a lot of Americans. It was pandemic kind of stuff. That was the scare. And I realized how dependent we were on our grocery stores for our food. And we're all on top of each other. And I didn't have actually any skills if I don't know how to grow food or deal with chickens or anything like that. All of our money is in the bank account for what we have and of like what we're locked in these neighborhoods and big cities and COVID was a little bit of experiment. And how self sufficient are you people found out of, like, I'm hopelessly dependent upon?

[00:56:54]

All of a sudden there's this nationwide run on toilet paper and then it's gone. Toilet paper? What? Really? That's the thing. And then the gas stations empty out. Yeah, that's happened a couple of times over the last decade or so. All of a sudden, huge gas lines and then these gas stations are out. Like, what? And then grocery stores just empty of food. Like so much stuff gone and not replenished. And whether it's our power grid or whether it's our food distribution network, which all these systems are extremely fragile. I don't know. Maybe nothing ever really happens bad, but I just realized I would like to be able to be in a little bit more control over it. And really the solution was homesteading. And homesteading is a natural shift in priorities, and it's a natural reorientation in moving from lavish lifestyle and that carrot to something that is forcibly more pragmatic, something practical. We will grow this amount of food and see how that goes. By the way, we suck at growing food. We've killed everything. We're terrible at it. We're getting better, but we're still bad. But you get some chickens well, a third of your meals are covered for the rest of the year.

[00:58:27]

You just get some freaking chickens, man. A third of your meals, you got it for ad infinitum. Hey, that seems like a good idea. I'll get some cows now. And we just literally, right before I came here yesterday or the day before, we loaded a quarter cow into our deep freezer. So we have cows and we breed.

[00:58:52]

Them, and then we eat them.

[00:58:55]

Then we eat them.

[00:58:56]

Congratulations. How's that feel? Is that the first one?

[00:59:01]

No. So we've been doing this for a couple of years, but what I'll do is I'll sell X number of cows. This year I've sold five cows, and I'll do that at the stockyard, and then I'll buy someone else's cow so that we as a family don't sit down and eat Mrs. Moo, who we used to pet. So some folks would be like, Bro, that is spineless of you. You should be eating your own. And I'll be like, maybe so. But I took the cowards route out so my nine year old doesn't cry while he bites into that delicious hamburger. So we sold some cows and then I'd buy one. So that's our system.

[00:59:45]

Let's get back to the AI deep fake stuff. So this is something I think about all the time, too. And I had mentioned to you, we just started this we started a Bible study at my house. And there's a couple of us, couple three families that do it. But one of we have a pastor or a minister, whatever. Is there a difference?

[01:00:21]

In the Bible, there's a few different offices. In the Greek, it's poime, episcovas and presbuteros, and that's like elder. Then there's shepherd, and then there is overseer or bishop. And all these kind of offices are used very interchangeably, and usually they're focusing on the different aspects of what that person does. Now, culturally, it comes about as one denomination likes the word minister, another wants to say the word priest, another one likes to say the word pastor. And still this other one wants to do the word elder. And all of it kind of means the sameish thing until you start having, like, archbishops. And then it's kind of like a pastor of many or a priest of many different priests. And so it has to do with more of a hierarchy that happens more in Catholicism, where you'll have far more of a structured hierarchy. You'll have a little bit flatter of a hierarchy and stuff like Methodism in Baptist or something, or like a nondenominational. Oftentimes it's more what's called congregationalist, and that means it's more of a self autonomous body with a far flatter hierarchy. And so you'll have elder or pastor or multiple.

[01:01:41]

There's probably more than you wanted to know. But don't ask a Bible guy a Bible question in an interview without a time hack. Well, be careful. But pastor, we usually say a pastor.

[01:01:54]

Okay. So kind of where I was headed was I think about a lot. My wheels are always spinning. What's going to happen? How is this all going to play out? AI. I think about a lot. Nobody believes mainstream media. It's getting to the point nobody believes anything. Nobody believes the government. Nobody believes the media. Nobody believes news articles. Nobody believes magazine with this new AI stuff that's happening, and it's going to get to the I mean, the deep fake stuff. You have people calling. They can mimic your voice, call your wife and say, hey, Becca, this is John. I'm being held for ransom. Do you see where I'm going with this?

[01:02:43]

Right.

[01:02:44]

Well, soon they're going to be able to do this with FaceTime. They're going to be able to we just talked about it. They can recreate your image and likeness and voice to do whatever and manipulate it to do whatever they want. So I've always said it's going to get to the point where seeing is no longer believing.

[01:03:07]

Wow. Yeah.

[01:03:08]

Well, a lot of times I come up with these things and then I tell myself, you're crazy. You're coming up with these conspiracies in your head. And then I hear somebody else articulate it. And it was at the first Bible study that we hosted at our home, and my friend Todd said the exact same thing. He said it's going to get to the point where even seeing is not believing because everything is going to be fake. And as you know, I'm relatively new with the Bible, and I haven't read it all. I'm breaking it up into sections. But from what I've heard from people just talking about it, this has already been written that it will get to the point where you cannot tell what is actually real or true.

[01:04:09]

Yeah.

[01:04:10]

Is this where you think we're at? Does it say that?

[01:04:13]

I think we're nearer now to the end than when we first believed. I think we are careening toward an ultimate reckoning with Creator God. And I think us, we are destined to destroy ourselves. We are Mary Shelley's monster. Of course we destroy our lives. We're going to destroy ourselves. And so, yeah, I think it's heating up to a biblically prophesied climax now. I'm really careful in how I interpret end times prophecy because you can take it all kinds of different directions and be like, all right, so Mark of the Beast actually meant this. And I'm like, I don't know, but I'm going to cling to Team Jesus real tight and not do what the world is telling me to do. I'm just going to follow Jesus. I don't know how all this is shaken out, but I know whose side I'm on. But the more I see happening in the public square, the more I want to just hold up and focus on the physical people in front of me, the real world, because just like, you just espoused. I don't trust my own eyes and my own ears and more and more, less and less social media and the Internet has something to offer me of I'm not getting enough nourishment for the poison that I'm taking in.

[01:05:55]

And once AI has thrown into question the things that I do get information on, there of like, well, I guess I'll just value my physical relationships person to person, you know, like how we used to live before the Internet. When the Internet is completely compromised, I guess I'll just get rid of the Internet. Like, what about banking? I'm like, I will do banking in person. I'm not saying I will just not do the Internet. Well, when I was on the mission field, I quit the Internet for a year. I just quit. I found of like, well, I'm really just into my books and my mission. So I got a flip phone and I just kicked off the Internet for a year. So our online banking my wife would have to do, and I'd coach her through it. And we didn't have much money anyway. We spent it all on the mission field, so that wasn't too hard. But when we did have to do something online banking, it was through her Internet connection. I didn't even have it. And guess what? It was a really good year. It was a cool year. You could make it.

[01:07:02]

We survived without the Internet before. We could do it again. Some stuff would be a real pain in the neck. Now, I don't know if me and you could, because my business is on the Internet, but here we're talking about a cataclysmic break, a destruction and unraveling of all kinds of things where a lot of our jobs don't exist anymore. And I'm probably way decent to this. So we're really trying to really look out in this theoretical dystopia. And so I don't know, man are.

[01:07:36]

You at peace with this yet?

[01:07:39]

No.

[01:07:39]

Knowing that the rug is going to be ripped out from under you?

[01:07:46]

Remember, my peace doesn't come from this world. So I can still have joy and peace and hope because this is not my home. I'm just passing through in this life. Just passing through now. I feel deeply distressed by everyone else that's kind of caught up in the fray who are hoping that, no, we got to get this guy elected. And this leader, he's going to get it all right. I'm like oh, precious Child. No, that is not true. Whatever presidential candidate you're rooting for, he is not the messiah you think. And though it would be better that that person got elected versus this other one, they're not going to write all the ills that's every politician for all time. That's the platform. Put me in office, and I'll fix everything. And guess what? None of them have ever pulled it off. And the next one, though. They make it a little bit better or not quite as worse as the guys before them or the guys after them. They're not going to fix everything. They're not going to fix you. They'll fix some stuff. They're not going to fix the whole thing, though. And so that's what my faith is, not in our political leaders.

[01:09:12]

And so, yeah, I can have peace and joy, but, man, my kids are growing up in this world, and there's a lot of folks out there that are lost and that's upsetting, and I still love my country, and I want to fight for because I think the ideals that she embodies is worth fighting for. And so, yeah, I will spend myself utterly on these things. But hope and joy and peace, those don't come from the things I'm fighting for.

[01:09:48]

All right, John, we're wrapping up towards the end of the interview. There is one other topic that I want to talk to you about as do well, doesn't have to do with it is fatherhood. You seem to be a very good father. You're obviously a very involved parent. So is your wife. What do you think? Some of the there are a lot of fatherless kids out there right now today. Even the ones that do have a father, a lot of those fathers are not present. You see it everywhere you go today. You see young men with zero confidence. They sit there and they look at their shoes. They can't talk to you. They can't make eye contact. We had talked about feminism earlier in the Woke agenda a little bit, and that's destroying masculinity. But I think that the biggest assault on masculinity is the absence of the father in homes.

[01:10:50]

Oh, hardcore. No, close second to that. Most kids in America are not growing up with a father in the home. The majority holy smokes. So big clap just for the dads that show up that don't leave. That's awesome. I also want to recognize some dads didn't leave. They were chased out as well. So both are true. What I don't want to do is buy into that cultural dynamic where the guy is always at fault and the girl did great and she's the victim. I'm like, no, some women are so insufferably, impossible to live with, and you were the reason he left. Usually a marriage falls apart because takes two to tango. Both of you had your own junk, and that sucks. And so I'm not judging. I'm sympathetic to that, but just recognize usually two to tango kind of thing. So man, I couldn't agree more that fatherlessness is an epidemic that's destroying the very fabric of our society. Must get fatherhood right now. I wouldn't immediately said, hey, you're a good dad. And I'm like, I hope so. I really hope so. I think there's some stuff that I am doing that's very countercultural, and I think I'm doing some of these things.

[01:12:16]

Well, I can feel it. I know these are good variables. There's other stuff of like, I don't know. I hope so. I hate how I'm so tired and distracted and doing so much that I'm always thinking of like, man, I should really take my kids camping or something. I haven't taken them camping in a long time. Now I'm doing these other things. I just took them to Italy and Austria and Switzerland, and we were together for two weeks doing stuff, and I'm like, I did that, but I think about all the other stuff of the day in and day out stuff. I'll do a little bit of like, kids want to play Airsoft and Nerf and maybe I say no nine times for everyone. I say yes. Man, that sucks. Anyway, I'm just venting my own. I could be a lot better. I'm just worn out and I've got to figure out a good time where I can have some daddy time with them and make it count. But the jury's out on how good of a dad I am. I've got a nine year old and eleven year old, and when you meet them, you'd be like, oh, these are confident kids.

[01:13:25]

You would marvel at their vocabulary. It's really quite striking. Their vocabularies are incredible because they've read more books than most college graduates, I guarantee you. My nine year old, even my eleven year old is the big reader. But even my nine year old has read more books than most college graduates. I guarantee it. If you stacked up the books, we've read just as a family, because I've been reading to my kids since two years old. We've read this many books. Me to them. That's been a culture of them. I get a lot of compliments on my kids, so I think I'm doing some good stuff as a dad, but who knows? Maybe they're going to write a book when they're 24 on how actually dad sucked and I was doing such and such. Maybe I'm guilty of ills that I'm not even aware of. And so I don't know more than patting myself on the back of the few things that I may be doing right. I am hyper vigilant of I hope I am not sucking in ways that I can't perceive. So anyway, you thrust the moniker on me, and I'm just telling you why that made me uncomfortable.

[01:14:42]

Yeah, well, I get it. I'm hard on myself too. But when I come home and I see my two year old son running to the garage door because he heard the driveway alarm go off, that's super cute. Good sign. And when I go to work, he's grabbing my pant leg trying to get me to play with his new train or his cars or whatever, I mean, something's right, doing something right.

[01:15:16]

Good job.

[01:15:17]

I'm sure I'm doing all kinds of bad things and things that I can improve on, but something I'm doing is right, otherwise you wouldn't be getting excited. And I'm sure you're doing quite a few things right, too. John.

[01:15:29]

Thanks, bud.

[01:15:33]

I hate to throw such a general question at you, but what are some of the most important things to you that you would like to pass on to your kids? Some attributes.

[01:15:46]

Oh, wow. All right. You went a different route than I thought. Great question. So I want them to be courageous and bold. I want them to be well educated. I want them to know how to treat a woman they practice on their mom. And so taking care, I want them to know how to resolve conflict. I want them to be leaders. I want them to be honest. I don't really care what they do for a living. I don't care as much, but I want them to live worthy. It's the manner in which they live that's the stuff that I actually care about. And I realize the only possible way I can build that in them is to be it myself. You can teach what you know, but you can only replicate who you are. That's it. And so there's knowing that there's no what is it? Supplement. There's no replacement for spending time with your children. You have to spend time with them. And if you spend time with them and we embody these values, they're going to see it, and it might just replicate and spread. So you'll replicate who you are, assuming you spend sufficient time with them.

[01:17:24]

If you are that way and you spend time with them, it'll almost be impossible not to replicate those certain virtues in them. And so that's my plan. Be better personally and spend time. And I look for teachable moments as we laugh our way through the years and we cry through pains, and we grit our teeth together as we set ourselves against different struggles. But we do it all shoulder to shoulder, and they do it as they see dad do it too. But I'm not living a separate life that they'll one day learn about in my memoirs. They're watching me go through it now. So when I go through a struggle or something happens, I very well may bring the boys over. I'm like, all right, boys, I'm dealing with this right here. Now, this person said this to me, and I felt like saying or doing this. What do you think about that? What should I do? Okay, if I do that and we'll war game out a little bit of that, we'll figure out that together. But I'm inviting them into our structure. So we're very open with our kids about, here's the problems we're solving.

[01:18:44]

Here's what I just did, and it was wrong. I raised my voice at your mother. Let me tell you why I shouldn't have done that and how I should have done that different. And so, I mean, they see me apologize when I do something stupid or when my wife does. And so I'm trying to, hey, here's some good stuff, here's some bad stuff. Your dad is fatally flawed, and I'm on a journey, and I'm trying to get better. So we have grace together for each other. Here's my wins, here's my losses. And so I'm inviting them on this journey.

[01:19:23]

You are setting the ultimate example.

[01:19:25]

That's the goal. And so my hope is they'll learn from my wins and my losses. So I screwed up teaching opportunity. Hey, I did well teaching opportunity. So either way, maybe they can get stronger here. That's the goal. And I don't always do that. Awesome. Sometimes you feel like you're killing it at work and you're sucking at home, and other times you feel like you're killing it at home and sucking at work. It's just real hard to balance those two things really well.

[01:20:02]

I could definitely relate to that.

[01:20:04]

Yeah.

[01:20:08]

If you could give one piece of advice to a new father, what would it be?

[01:20:17]

So brand new father, man. So if you're brand new father, brand new babies oftentimes come out purple with cone heads. Don't freak out. That's just a baby thing. I noticed our first son and mom had this amazing connection. I mean, I love my son. I'm kind of like, yeah, awesome. Cool. Well, see you when you're older. No, just kidding. But as the kids get older and start to communicate, especially sons, they kind of shift over more toward dad when mama rules. The first few nurturing years more and I found myself I got really jealous for my wife's time because my kids got the first fruits. And so my wife is holding up these kids, but I'm holding up my wife. And it felt a little thankless and that I'm after my wife, but she just seems to be after the kids. She's not after me. But the first year, it's really about keeping those kids alive. But you still need to pull her out so that you can invest in the marriage again. A lot of folks will. In our society today, we idolatrize our children, and a lot of times the arrival of our kids marks the beginning of the end for our marriage, because it always becomes about the kids.

[01:21:51]

So, like an example, you're talking with your spouse at the dinner table. A kid runs up with a problem, mommy, Mommy, mommy. Do you stop, allow the interruption, turn and answer the kid and off on the way? Is that the answer or is it no, I'm speaking to your father. Wait. And then you speak maybe a little bit longer now to make them wait. One is a clue that you're idolatrizing your kids at the expense of your marital relationship. Setting a bad precedent is teaching this kid that they're the center of the world and you're going to ruin them for it. And the second one is saying, no, your father is speaking, and you don't get to interrupt your father. You should be listening to your father. And so here, this is one that teaches a kid humility and good manners and patience and restraint. And so that's just one tiny show of that. But you should not idolatrize your kids or you'll ruin them. Love your spouse more than your kids, and your family has a really good shot. Some people won't like that, but it's just good advice. The kids will actually flourish in that dynamic, and it's going to teach them how to do marriage really well.

[01:23:20]

And you make them into these little bratty kings, these little tiny Napoleons, when you let them be the most important. So make your spouse make Jesus be the most important thing. Make your spouse be the like it's the adult centered household, and the kids are invited into it in these parameters, not the other way around. That'll destroy it for brand new dads, invest in baby wise. Otherwise your kids, even as a babies, they're just going to run your wife ragged into the ground. They should eat on a schedule, but look up the book baby wise. Holy cow. That'll save your sanity. First couple of years, you just survive through the terrible twos and threes. And for me as a dad, it started getting really fun. It was fun before. You have lots of joy, but you're worn out, exhausted a lot of times, and you're getting them through it at 45678, 910. Eleven years old. Those have been party. There's been so fun years four to eleven. That's as far as we've gotten so far. Have loved it. Want to freeze them. Not like Walt Disney cryogenically, whatever, but I mean, like Peter Pan. Don't grow up anymore.

[01:24:37]

We really love you where you're at. That's been true of every age since the terrorist twos and threes. Anyway, somewhere in there some good advice.

[01:24:46]

That's some great advice. And throughout this, I learned a lot. Just right there, you're gracious. I'm not even joking around the dinner table thing. That's something I've never even thought of. We're not to that stage yet, but that's something that I've never even thought about that.

[01:25:04]

Oh, here's something of the dinner table thing. This is a new revelation and that it's hard to get your kids to eat. I don't know what it is, but kids just don't seem to want to eat. They want to play and flip upside down. And here's a toy. And you and your wife cleaned your plate, like, 30 minutes ago, and you're just begging this kid to eat. First off, that's not a good way to do business. You should never be begging your children to do anything. All right? You don't want to eat, you got three minutes to finish that up. If not, you go to bed. And when you break up in the morning, this will be your breakfast. And just let them get really hungry until they appreciate food. And anyway, your wife isn't going to let you do that. She's going to play the plea game until she eventually gets really exhausted. And then you'll come in of like, you want me to solve this? And she'll say, yes, I really do. I'm like, okay, but you can't interfere once you give me the keys to this. And they say, okay, very good.

[01:25:56]

And then you're just like, all right, kid, you got two minutes to finish that. As soon as you're done, you go up to bed, go straight to bed. They go to bed without dinner, mind you. They won't eat the dinner, fine. You don't have dinner, go up to bed. Dads know how to solve this immediately. And that's great because Dads will know, a certain amount of dads will know solutions to problems that moms will not in raising kids and vice versa. And it's through the wrestling tension of those two things that kids actually thrive. I solved that problem immediately. I know exactly how to solve the eating problem. And my son, after a couple of hours, called down starving, and I'm like, Would you like to eat? Yes, Daddy. And I brought him up his cold dinner, and I watched him eat that food. He refused to eat earlier, and he had tears streaming down his cheeks while he ate this thing, smiling ear to ear, happy as a clam, he got his dinner. Nice. His little brother was asleep beside him, and he was crying because he was hungry. And he knew that if he didn't eat that dinner tonight, that would be his breakfast, and he doesn't have to eat that breakfast, but you will not eat, and that will be your lunch.

[01:27:07]

And you don't have to eat that lunch, but you'll skip that meal, and that will be your dinner. Easy, mom couldn't do that. Couldn't imagine it. Worked immediately. Never had the problem again.

[01:27:20]

Nice.

[01:27:20]

And so you are built with certain masculine instincts that is incredibly important in the raising of a child. You get it. You get some solutions that your wife will not. She won't she won't like it. It'll be counterintuitive to her, it'll seem harsh, and to you, it's Claire, Isabelle, in other ways. So your job is to make them tough, to grow them up, to make them strong so that they can survive or so that they can be well functioning members of society that are useful for something. Make them strong. Her job is to keep them alive long enough for you to make them strong. And so build them, nurture them. And so you've got these two book ends, and it's through the tension, it's through that let's discuss this man and wife to figure out what's best in any circumstance. If you win all these interchanges, you'll make them a heartless brute, just a punk. And if she wins, they're going to be weak, spoiled little brats. And so it turns out that kids need a dad and a.

[01:28:43]

John, lot of wisdom today. I learned a ton.

[01:28:49]

You're gracious. Thank you.

[01:28:51]

You should think about writing a book sometime.

[01:28:53]

This book. We're supposed to talk about the book. We never talked about the book. We got carried away. Guys, I got a book.

[01:29:01]

You have a book? So, John, once again, I want to say, man, it was a real honor to get to know you in here and have this conversation last night at Mean. I'm just so happy that we finally connected and got to meet in person. I wish you the best of. And once again, for anybody looking to get in touch with John, whether it's training just want to get in touch with him, get the book. Warriorpoetsociety.com, all your social media is under the same handle, I believe. And John, lovell yep, you'll find us.

[01:29:37]

Thanks for having me on, man. I had a great time.

[01:29:39]

Me too. Best of luck to you, brother.

[01:29:41]

Thanks, man. You as well.