Recapturing Authentic Masculine Virtues with Skylar Lewis

00:00 - Speaker 1
Yeah, there's no such thing as toxic masculinity, right? So toxic masculinity isn't actually not, since masculinity was created by God, right? Masculinity was created by God, so there's no such thing as toxic masculinity If somebody's acting in a manner that's toxic it's not masculinity.

00:19 - Speaker 2
It's not masculinity, that's not masculinity at all. There you go.

00:21 - Speaker 1
It's toxic, it's just toxic something else Masculinity by nature. God created men as masculine men. It's a beautiful thing, there's nothing wrong with it, and a guy just being angry and aggressive and toxic that's not masculinity, that's just a guy being aggressive A bad actor. Yeah, exactly, aggressive A bad actor, yeah exactly.

00:46 - Speaker 2
Hey, this is Paul Lewis Cole and you're listening to the Brave Men podcast. Today, a great friend, skyler Lewis, is in a conversation talking about his movement, rise Up Kings, which is basically he's gone after what he was, which he was a business guy that ended up being married to his business and not taking care of his family. Then he began to try to figure out how do I navigate that path, particularly when he and his wife Jessica and it's a great story, this, the story of how of their first date I had them tell it. I think it's awesome and uh, but his wife Jessica had her own business, so it wasn't like she was just coming into something not knowing what was going on. She knew what should be done, she knew how life should run and he ended up not running it right and almost running it into the ground. And their story and the story that comes out of that is now touching thousands of men across the country and around the world with a movement called Rise Up Kings and because he built multiple million dollar businesses, he's able to speak in the lives of business owners, business people, and he's also got a thing for a young generation, next generation, in which he helps them become business owners, has a whole event. These are three-day focused events that he does. It's absolutely remarkable.

02:17
And so Skylar and I met through a great mutual friend, jim Franklin, just a few years ago, met at a cafe down the street here, and when I met him we began to talk about what he does and what his dreams were. And I thought, man, this guy has got a large dream. He wants to help remake business so that men who are in business are doing it not at the expense of their family, not at the expense of their emotional well-being, but doing it to the honor and glory of God. And he has perfected a way to walk through this. He's doing events for pastors. It's an incredible thing. Rise Up Kings, and it's riseupkingscom an incredible thing. Rise Up Kings and it's riseupkingscom. And you know I get fired up talking to guys like this because I'm like man. This is what the future of the world is going to be if we can just unleash men like this who get stuff done. The other thing Skyler's done for me personally is help me get my act together. Not in anything, he told me, just the way he lives his life. I think you know you're hanging out with this guy, man, you better get your life together. So, uh, rise Up, kings, and he'll, he'll, walk through it. We've got uh, he talks about the four pillars that they have, you know, with faith, family, fitness and finance, and every life is built on that. So great stuff, fantastic. Hey, I'm leaving in a few days and let me put it, let me see when are you going to listen to this? Depending on when you're listening to this, in May of 2024, on the 17th and 18th in Cairo, egypt. I need you to pray, we need your financial support.

04:07
We are conducting the third event that we've done in the Middle East in Arabic, with Christian Men's Network. Christian Men's Network is a movement of men and pastors and leaders and our goal is to disciple men, to rescue families, to see change happen. That's why I love hanging out with Skyler. We've got it, it's. We're on the same path. Let's rescue men, rescue the family, build strong men and strong churches. So we're doing that in Cairo, egypt. It's events in Cairo, the Maximize Banhood events, which is part of Christian Men's Network. You can find that at cmnmen. Cmnmen and at Christian Men's Network, we produce resources for churches and organizations and fathers to be able to disciple men, disciple your young men, disciple the men in your community, and that means to mentor them and what it means to follow Jesus Christ and to be all in, not just like yeah, I know about them, but to be fully engaged and so you can find those tools. But pray for us about this, cairo, egypt. I'm expecting, believing, that we'll have a couple hundred pastors there we had 130 the last time we did it a couple hundred pastors who are all in on discipling men in the Middle East. And we need our Arabic brothers, arabic speaking brothers. There's 22 nations that speak Arabic, from Northern Africa up through the Middle East. We need those men to know Jesus Christ and we need to be raising up men of faith, men who know how to love their families, guys who pastor, guys who help their pastor. It's not going to be easy. This is not an easy thing, but we're meeting in Cairo. Egypt, need your prayer, need your financial support. It's going to take a lot to do it and I'm really excited about that because I personally have seen so many men's lives changed by the power of God, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that's on these tools and resources we use.

06:19
So here in the CMN studio on a great day. I cannot wait to introduce you to my friend, skylar Lewis. He is the head of Rise Up King, so it came out of his heart. He built numerous multi-million dollar businesses and out of that he and his wife Jessica walked through some deep waters. I won't give anything away. He'll share it. I asked him about it. If he's anything, he's honest man. He is direct, honest.

06:47
You're going to love this time together with Skylar Lewis. Here's Skylar now. It's great to have you, skylar, on Brave Men and the thing that I appreciate so much about Rise Up Kings that you're the founder of headed up. You and your wife prayed over this thing. You went from business and then, well, we'll get into the whole journey and then you start this coaching faith-based which has now become one of the largest faith-based coaching organizations in the country, and it's really been amazing to see and to see the remarkable stuff that the Lord has done. So I should introduce you to everyone as and now, this amazing, amazing man, because you are, you've done a great job, been in your events, watched what's happened and how many children do you have?

07:43
two, two boys, uh eight and eleven eight and eleven, yeah, and you moved to texas, yeah right, loving it, except this weather.

07:51 - Speaker 1
It's supposed to be uh 12 degrees next week.

07:54 - Speaker 2
Well you, know, welcome to texas. You know, but and, but, don't worry, it'll get hot oh yeah, it was.

08:02 - Speaker 1
Uh, what would we have a record a month of 105 to 110 degrees every single day. That was brutal. I was not expecting this weather when I moved out here.

08:13 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so when you, when you do rise up Kings and you do events, you have got a number of events. We'll get into some of those, but when you do those, you should just schedule all of them in Southern California. Yeah, yeah, because that's where you were living.

08:25 - Speaker 1
Did you grow up there? Yeah, I grew up in a town called Hemet yeah, small town, sort of a high desert Kind of a high desert area in Riverside County, and it was yeah, it was on the poorer side of town for sure. Yeah, I grew up in that area and, yeah, it was. Love Southern California, beautiful weather. Happy to be out of California, though, based on all the politics and everything going on there.

08:57 - Speaker 2
Yeah Well, we won't get into that. I mean, you can't talk politics or religion, except that's what we do, right? So when you, when you start now, you started a business, was this a family business? Where did things start with you, with your business?

09:13 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so I started out. No, I started. I mean I'll kind of go back. So I remember as a kid looking up at the ceiling. I grew up in a 700 square foot mobile home.

09:21
So I actually took my kids back over there about a year and a half ago, did you really? Yep, we drove out there, pulled into the trailer park and, again, nothing wrong with trailer park, so this is like a low, low, low end one, and there's a cop arresting somebody as we pull in. I'm like, oh my gosh, and we're a former neighbor, yeah, it was, it was, it was rough. And so we pull in, we're driving around. I can't, I can't find our, our house that we grew up in. So stay there for about 10, 15 minutes, about to leave, and I finally drive by and I see this little tiny tin mobile home that me, my sister and my mom lived in, a one bedroom, probably 600 ish square foot, 600 to 700. And, uh, I don't know if you've ever been back to your previous houses, but they always looked bigger.

10:03 - Speaker 2
As a kid, they were bigger as a kid.

10:05 - Speaker 1
You were smaller Totally, and so it was so small. So that was kind of the foundation of what got me, I think, inspired to to want something more out of life, you know. So I just I felt the call, I felt the desire to want something more, and so I went on a journey of trying to really find internal significance and so started little businesses all the way up until I was 18, got my real estate license when I exactly when I was 18, everybody was out partying, I was, I was studying for my real estate exam. So a week after I took my test, after I graduated, um, so you started some businesses and everything went great.

10:43
Uh, no, no, it was rough. It was rough little businesses. I didn't know what I was doing. I did not know what I was doing Uh, but my first real business after high school was a financial services company. So we did uh sales, we did financial services, we did all kinds of that stuff and that's uh. Around the time I met my, my, my, my future wife.

11:03 - Speaker 2
Yeah, now she was in a business Yep, right, yep which was a direct sales, yep, all right, you guys weren't in a competing business, nope, but she was in a business doing well, mm-hmm Right, mm-hmm, crushing it.

11:17 - Speaker 1
Yep, very well, she had a nice car, she had her condo, she was like 20 years old, 22 years old, just killing it, doing a great job.

11:24 - Speaker 2
All right, okay. So now some of the background on that was she was doing that and then your business was up and down.

11:33 - Speaker 1
Right, yep, up and down to the point where I had made a decision to either quit what I was doing or go find a job. So I was at that point and I wasn't a job kind of guy at all. And so I remember actually, when I first met my wife, we met at a dance club a little dance club deal and I grew up Christian, by the way, was saved early on but really lived kind of a hypocritical, lukewarm life. Early on I saw my mom do a lot of. She loved Jesus with all of her heart but stayed really broken for most of her life and it was very confusing.

12:11
So she'd talk about Jesus, but then she'd go get drunk and that's when she would invite people to church.

12:16 - Speaker 2
And it was very confusing and so I yeah, a lot of pain, yeah, a lot of pain, a lot of pain, and so I kind of lit play that out.

12:23 - Speaker 1
Right, I would, I would carry the Bible at high school and I would be that guy, but then I'd be, you know, trying to do other things inappropriate. And so it was. It was a very so. I was all over the place. So, anyway, I met her at a dance club and then our first date. I remember pulling into a. I invited her to pho. I put on a suit. I did not need a suit for any reason. I had a brown suit Threw on the suit and I parked. I was driving my dad's carpet cleaning van at the time.

12:48 - Speaker 2
Well, this is a story I remember. You parked the van further down so she wouldn't see it.

12:53 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, parked around the block. Parked around the block, got out with my suit and this was a smelly Astro van, I mean I don't know, if you my dad couldn't get the smell out. It was stuck in the van so it smelled horrific. And so anyway, I get out, walk in the restaurant, have my suit. She's kind of impressed, and so that's really how our relationship started. I always wanted to kind of prove myself and be successful or be somebody, and a lot of times I chose the wrong path to go. Do that.

13:23 - Speaker 2
Yeah, is that why, with Rise Up Kings, part of what you do and what I've watched is you help coach men into focusing their lives. Yep, so it's not just all over the place, right? You know, one of the things that we know about focusing our lives is that focus isn't about greater intensity, it's about greater intentionality. It really focusing comes from cutting things away that don't belong, right? So when we do that, when we do that, and what you're coaching man with Rise Up Kings is here cut this out, cut that out and do what you're great at.

14:00 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I found most men really struggle with living an intentional life. They get pulled in their business, they get pulled to kids sports all over the place, and so what we've done is we've built a process called becoming a four pillar man. So that's what we're we're developing four pillar men. And so what four pillars are? It's faith, family, fitness and finances. And those four pillars, like men, can focus on four things really well, and you could add a couple other things, but really really well. They could create excellence in four things Outside of that five, six, seven, eight, ten things.

14:35 - Speaker 2
But you can't do the seven mountains. Then yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, exactly so yeah, so it takes right you have.

14:44 - Speaker 1
so yeah, so it takes, it takes the right you have to cut things out, like you mentioned, and so, yeah, we, we dive in and I think men listening to this if they can choose to live a life of excellence, like jesus did, but choosing, like you got, to pick something to focus on you got to pick that thing.

14:55 - Speaker 2
You're going to be excellent yeah and faith, right faith.

14:59 - Speaker 1
We purposely have that as a first pillar, like that's really the foundation for everything. It's really the ultimate pillar. It's, however, we still call it a pillar. So it's faith first, then family, then your fitness, then your finances how did?

15:12 - Speaker 2
how did you come to the place where faith became prominent in your life?

15:18 - Speaker 1
yeah, so I was saved early on um, so you knew about jesus knew about jesus, and-hmm yeah.

15:23 - Speaker 2
Knew about Jesus and Knew the flannel graph or the little stories and knew the stuff.

15:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and I had a heart for him. I mean, I remember being at youth group, really experiencing his presence. So I had a heart for Christ and I had a heart for the world also. Yeah, I was torn in both directions, and so it wasn't until I actually got married that I really started to dive deeper into my faith, because I was realizing my fleshly way of operating was causing more pain than it was goodness in my life, and so I think it was from the pain of living a life that was lukewarm or really not for Christ. It was through that pain and through all of the difficulties that I had created the chaos I was creating in my life, that I really had to make a choice, and I remember that choice. I had to choose to strictly follow Jesus, like really truly follow him, as opposed to just on Sundays when I went to church, and so that's when it really shifted.

16:29 - Speaker 2
But I think I needed what was that moment like I mean what happened right then Skylar.

16:34 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, it was just a conscious decision. It was a conscious decision to follow, as opposed to follow my own desires. And so and that's where I started I started tracking. I started tracking my faith, I started tracking reading the Bible, I started tracking all the things that were important around that time, because, even though I made the choice to follow Christ and this is a lot of men they'll make a choice to follow Christ, but yet their system and their life isn't set up in a way that produces results.

17:05
So you have a bunch of I'd call it average Christian men that really aren't giving their lives or living a life of excellence because they're lacking some process, they're lacking some associations, they're lacking some systems in their life that help facilitate that. But their heart might still be the desire to grow closer to Christ, but they're we're easily distracted. Yeah, they're waking up too late to do a devotion. Yeah, all of these things are happening.

17:31 - Speaker 2
Yeah, we talked about that the first part of every year I always talk about. The problem with resolutions is they always come with off-ramps and we are master negotiators with ourselves and we go ah, you know, it didn't work. You know, it's why you love being in the gym the end of February, because now it's not as crowded. Oh yeah, you know, I mean by the end of January. It truly is, and we joke about it and laugh about it. But the fact is, if you're going to live a life that has impact and significance, there has to be a process by which you live, right. So, when you talk about faith and you had this tipping point and we talk about you talked about crisis and chaos right, we don't change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing right. So now, what happened? Right then? What was it? You're married, Everything's good, You've got a new business going. What was that pivot point?

18:25 - Speaker 1
Yeah, the pivot point when I shifted and decided to really go all in with Christ. There was multiple pivot points. There was multiple pain points that led to that specific and it wasn't more of a specific pivot point. It was a culmination of small pain points and shifts where I shifted my life and said I'm going towards Christ and then life would still happen and I'd have to shift again and shift again. And that was really my journey. It wasn't one major moment where I did the 180. It was small, impactful moments that just slowly evolved me. There's a book called Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard and an incredible book, and it talks about just the slow process of shifting your heart and your will towards Christ. Right, and it's not fast.

19:22 - Speaker 2
Long obedience in the same direction.

19:24 - Speaker 1
Yes.

19:25 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yes, talos Holder, yeah, that's really it. So it's the small little incremental decisions that then we hold onto that become part of our life. Yes, because so much of our life, 40% of our life, they tell us, are lived by habit. So, rather than making just a resolution or live by habit, so rather than making just a resolution, you build a new habit. Right, you built a new. So now tell me about this tracking.

19:51 - Speaker 1
When you say you started tracking things, what does that mean? Yeah, so I got a Google spreadsheet and started tracking the things that were most important to me on a daily basis. So I had I started out with my morning routine. Was I waking up early, like that? I set a goal to wake up at 5am. I had I started out with my morning routine. Was I waking up early, like that? I set a goal to wake up at 5am. I had all of these specific things that I believe would help create success in my life, and faith was a part of family fitness. All my workouts, even sexual intimacy, I track that, because I know that if I'm doing a good job loving my wife many times, intimacy will improve, and so these other indicators kind of led to so intimacy is, in a sense it shows.

20:34
Lagging indicator. Yeah, it's an indicator.

20:36 - Speaker 2
That's a lagging indicator. It's a great way to put it, because it then shows they're over here. You haven't got totally distracted out of this time with family, uh, love, affection, um, uh, not just loading the dishwasher but unloading it. It's like. It's like I remember, uh, somebody talked I was talking with some men one time about that and it was, uh, the one I was talking about man. He said it was a big deal when I started loading and not everybody has a dishwasher, but he had one. And he said I started putting dishes in the dishwasher. He thought, dude, I'm golden, this is awesome. And then one day he's watching his wife put stuff away and he went yeah, I should probably do that, do that he goes. That's when it felt like a sacrifice, that's next level right there.

21:29
Yeah, that's when it felt like love. Yeah, this is really love. I don't just load it. I mean, I thought I was doing pretty good just putting stuff by the side of the sink so we could all do better oh yeah, it's like it's a journey.

21:44 - Speaker 3
And the thing is right.

21:45 - Speaker 1
Emotional intimacy precedes physical intimacy, so the more we can lean into uh, being a mo. Like opening up, not only doing the dishes, not only cleaning, like investing at one of our pillars is family, so it's investing every single day in your marriage. So what does that look like today? Today I wrote a love note to my wife and put it by the uh, put it by the coffee maker. And so I wrote a note to my son. I put it in his iPad little holder, so when he wakes up in the morning he's going to open it up and see that. So it's these daily little investments. Those are great.

22:17
And the emotional intimacy that's necessary to have a marriage that's thriving means like opening up and being vulnerable. Uh, what I've realized is when people become clear on their intent, when they get clear on intent, action uh, usually disruption follows. So what's happening is I've gotten clear this year, so it's going to be my best year ever. Like I'm going to. My goal every year is to become a different version of myself, where I'm almost unrecognizable right At the end of the year. I'm like man where people say, skylar, you're different.

22:46 - Speaker 3
I'm like yes, they say I'm the same, but I'm like oh crap, I didn't make any progress you know.

22:52 - Speaker 1
And so what happens is is disruption follows like intent, action Of course. And so I was at a date night with Jessica this weekend and I'm talking, I'm like all right, well, I kind of just felt convicted. I'm like, babe, I'm going to share with you some of my journal entries. And so I started sharing some pretty vulnerable stuff with her, like at dinner, like I did not want to share it, did not want to share it, but I shared it because I'm opening myself up, which creates intimacy like that is. That is vulnerability leads to vulnerability is true intimacy.

23:35
Totally, and there's a lot of guys that kind of live that surface life with their friendships and even their wives. And it's taken me, you know, 13 years of being married to get to the point. But when I first met Jessica, I had a lot. I was, I was bullied as a kid, I was messed with, I had a lot of insecurities. I learned to put up walls and I'm still. I've been practicing taking down those walls.

23:55 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's, it's the peeling of the onion, it's, it's different layers or, uh, you know, you hear it said many different ways. Because here's my deal, skylar, I'm talking with Skylar Lewis, who's a head of, a founder of Rise Up Kings, an incredible faith based coaching organization helping so many men become better at what they do. But I found, you know, I get asked about this a lot. You know, men and women, the difference between men and women, all that sort of thing, and men are headliners, women are fine print, but I don't think it's always that way. But my deal is I think men are more complex. I think men are more complex.

24:35
Only because women open up more with other women. They'll sit and talk about things. You're like, dude, I never talked to my friends about that stuff, you know, or they'll, they'll come and tell you something about oh, do you know, so-and-so couple is going through this and this. You go, dude, I don't know. I was with the guy, you know, two days ago. He never said anything about it. And because we have we're compartmentalized, highly compartmentalized, and however you want to put that, whether it's little drawers or boxes or whatever it may be we have a tendency. You know the things that happened to you when you were young. You tuck them away and you close that thing up. So intimacy is opening that up and saying here's a place you could actually hurt me, you could actually poke me there and it would really hurt. But I'm going to give it to you anyway because I trust you.

25:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, intimacy is right into me, you see, right. So intimacy is into me, you see. So, allowing our spouse, our friends, to truly see our fears, our deficiencies, the things we're insecure about, like that's what, that's what opens up the door to really powerful friendships and connection. And, yeah, a lot of men are kind of missing that and a big part of that stems from the, the, the pain that was caused. I think men, I think why we compartmentalize, we close it up. Yep, we learned that as a kid.

26:03 - Speaker 3
Yeah, hey, you know what that?

26:04 - Speaker 1
hurt.

26:05 - Speaker 3
I'm not going to.

26:06 - Speaker 1
I'm not going to share that again with my buddies.

26:08 - Speaker 2
Well it's, we started young with guys. Ah, get up, man, that didn't hurt, that didn't hurt With our father.

26:15
You're saying yeah, you know whatever maybe a coach or whatever and there's a certain place at which you want men, yeah, get up. You know everybody gets kicked in the nuts. Come on, you know, get up and let's go. One of the things that you know, my son Bryce, who's here, was a great basketball coach, and my son Brandon coaches baseball. So we're involved a lot in athletics and one of the things that's really concerned us about the modern athlete, if you will, is guys will get hit and then lay on the ground and then like dude, no, get up, just please get up, just get up and get off the field.

26:54 - Speaker 1
Are you talking about? I mean, we went to a mavericks game our first mavericks game and our kids are there like soccer players, yeah. And well, when we were watching, like luca, he would just get hit and he'd throw a fit land on the ground and I'm like, are they what's going on? What's going on with this right? So our kids weren't used to that, like they're like hey, what, why?

27:12 - Speaker 2
is a hall of famer. He barely got hit. Why is a hall of famer? But he is european.

27:17 - Speaker 1
So there's that yeah, a little dramatic soccer thing, yeah, for sure, you know.

27:22 - Speaker 2
And trying to get the call and all that stuff. You know that's a whole different deal. I mean, you know, I don't know, detroit Pistons, the bad boys of Detroit, all that sort of stuff, larry Bird, who wouldn't have put up with that kind of stuff? So the thing is so, that's different. So that's fine, good. So now faith. You tip into your faith. You're running a business that's going well. But you had a personal issue you talk a lot about in your settings, about pornography, and one of the things about for me when guys talk about porn is that the issue, the real issue, is unwise thinking that happens out of it, wrong triangulation of thoughts, you know, if you will, a kind of a fogging of the ability to walk through our day-to-day life. So tell me about that, because you talk a lot about it and you help a lot of guys get set free from that, Scott, and I love the fact that you're able to talk about it.

28:14 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I found my first porn magazine when I was 12 years old. I was hanging out with some buddies and we, uh we walked up and found this really cool tree out in the middle of a field, walked up into it and right, there was a was a porn magazine. And so from that moment I got, I got hooked on the, on the pornography, and so I I struggled with it, 13, 14, 15 years old. I mean I really had a hard time and I and I I knew it was wrong, so I felt tremendous shame and guilt, but I couldn't, I didn't have the willpower or whatever was necessary to really stop it. And so it continued all the way until I was 18, 19, 20. I mean all. I mean I really honestly struggled with pornography for most of my adult life, and it could be once or twice a year looking at Instagram, right, and so and in other words you get triggered.

29:04
Yeah, I get triggered, Right. And so I remember when I was 16 or 17, I started studying pornography. I'm like this is insane, Like it is so addictive, Like I've never experienced anything like this. So I started to dive into the challenges. What actually happens neurologically?

29:20 - Speaker 3
The psychology of it.

29:22 - Speaker 1
All of it, yeah, neurolog. All of it Neurology yeah, 100%. So what happens is, yeah, our brains completely change when we become addicted to pornography. It's like being addicted to anything else, even with sugar. Your brain will start to shift, and so my hey, wait, wait, wait.

29:39 - Speaker 2
Don't get off into sugar. Yeah, I have to, man, we're not going to do sugar. I don't want off into sugar. Yeah, I have to, man.

29:42 - Speaker 1
We're not going to do sugar. I don't want to do sugar.

29:43 - Speaker 2
I've started a new thing this year.

29:45 - Speaker 1
I'm killing it right now I'm killing it.

29:48 - Speaker 2
I'm almost Okay. That's the end of this podcast. Yeah, exactly, we're done. Yeah, so no, yeah, Okay, I did mess up today the year. I'm like man, I um, but I'm, I'm good now, I'm good, okay, so, so anyway so, yeah, pornography, so I, I struggle with that, and so my um, I, I desire to see men set free, and so there's a process for that.

30:14
Yeah, yeah, and so what was it that? What, what, what is? What was the first thing? What would you advise somebody? How do you counsel somebody? What's the first step to really get set free if you're really knocked out by this stuff, you know, by porn?

30:25 - Speaker 1
Yeah, the first thing is being committed, making the decision that it's a must I have, this has to stop, and once you make that decision, there's a pathway. So after that, it's going and getting some accountability, finding a couple dudes that you go to and maybe have had less challenges, or you say, hey, would you mind, are you open? Or a mentor, are you open to having some accountability around this and doing a daily text message with a thumbs up or thumbs down if you messed up and lusted? If you did not. So that's one part of the process. And realizing what's happening did not. So that's one part of the process. And realizing what's happening.

31:04
So, neurologically, what's happening is you're getting triggered and then the neural pathway goes straight to porn. You could be triggered from boredom or stress. Those are the two main triggers, and so we have to be aware of what's triggering us to desire to go. Look at lust, and we're using it as a form of sedation. So it's how we sedate. Some people sedate with alcohol, some people just sedate with sugar food, some people sedate with lust and pornography.

31:28 - Speaker 2
That's interesting. Yeah, In other words, to kind of push it down.

31:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's to remove whatever emotion.

31:33 - Speaker 2
Push down the pain. We're pushing down the pain.

31:36 - Speaker 1
It's a huge problem with men right now is they're sedating with social media. When now is they're sedating with social media? When they get stressed, they pull their phone out. It's now automatic because the trigger stress. The neural pathway, though, goes to like whatever you do after you feel an emotion, you will now build a neural pathway to that.

31:54
So if you get stressed and you grab a drink of alcohol and you do that a couple more times in a couple more days, your brain says, oh wow, oh cool. So stress means I should do this, and it starts to strengthen it with myelin, and it's strengthened. That strengthens that neural pathway, and the more you do it, the myelin thickens and that that that habit now is so hard to break. And so that's what happens with porn. So you get stressed out or you're bored sitting on your computer, you're like you know what I'm going to do this. But just realize, every time you decide to pull up Instagram and look at a half naked woman, understand what emotion you're feeling, but if it's stressed and you do it a couple times, your mind, if it, the more intense the emotion, the more. The more intense that neural pathway, the thicker that neural pathways built. So we have to be really aware of what we do when we're feeling stressed or bored. That neural pathway.

32:47 - Speaker 2
It's sort of it would be like a river and you're building kind of a canal coming off of it and pretty soon the water just keeps going that way and then it pushes through to areas you don't want to be and, um, you know that that whole, that whole look of that to me, john 10, 10, jesus talking about it, becomes so real because at any point in time 24, seven the enemy's trying to take you out. But he doesn't necessarily know your thought. He didn't know your thoughts. He knows your actions. He didn't know your thoughts, he didn't know. Hey, I wonder what he's thinking. You know the enemy's, not God, right? So now he's looking at you and he goes oh yeah, doing this, okay, we're going to pull some more things across the pathway there for him to look at.

33:34
But John 10, jesus said the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Steal, kill and destroy. For me, steal, kill and destroy. For me, skyler, it's not about so often we as men, we think in terms of home runs or touchdowns or six goals. If we're playing cricket, we think in terms of the big hit Steal, kill and destroy, boom, dead, no, no, no.

33:58
Quite often, what that steal, kill and destroy is to steal your enthusiasm for something to, to then begin to destroy the dream Right and to kill, if you will, that desire to do the right thing. And so steal, kill and destroy really is about trying to just distract you just a little bit off of what you know was the design that God had for your life. So now here you are, bam, and so we tend to it's what you said earlier and it was so good which is those small little. You begin to look at the little, small habits this thing, that thing, the next thing, the next thing, and pretty soon, by adjusting those and putting them in the right place and having a desire to do that. And one of the things we have as men is we have the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. We have God Almighty, who desires us to become everything he designed us to be Ephesians 2.10, right, he designed us his masterpiece.

34:57 - Speaker 1
Yeah 2, timothy 1.7, right, there you go. He doesn't give us a spirit of being timid, but of power, love and self-discipline. So the self-discipline comes like. He gives us the power to be disciplined. Yeah, right, so there's so much power in that.

35:12 - Speaker 2
Tell me about Rise Up Kings. So where'd that come from then? So now you're building a business, you're dealing with some of these addictive issues in your life you. Where did that happen? How did Rise Up Kings come about?

35:30 - Speaker 1
Well, I started as I was scaling some companies. I started a water and fire restoration company a construction company. Superior Restoration Started growing that Just sold that, yeah three months ago.

35:41 - Speaker 3
Super or four months ago.

35:43 - Speaker 1
Super excited about that. And so as I was scaling that company, I realized I was really having a hard time staying balanced and so I would focus on the business. But then as soon as I started focusing and really with guys we tend to have a one track mind right, we can do really good at focusing at sports or our profession or a career for a pastor, like we get really good, but then some of these other things we miss out on, them, we lose focus of, they get out of our peripheral, and so I would focus on business. But then my wife would come and Jessica would say Skylar, I miss you, I'm like crap, okay.

36:19
And so I would go focus on being present with Jessica, and then my business would start to to to dwindle and I'm like man, this is freaking difficult, like how do you manage all of these things? And then my fitness, and then my fate, everything would just it was really difficult managing these spinning plates. And so I struggled with that, and that's where I started really putting more processes in place. I said, hey, my business has a lot of processes, I have weekly meetings, I have all these processes, but my personal life I don't have barely any processes there's no.

36:50
SOP. There's no, yeah, there's no process, definitely no SOPs. So, yeah, so. So I started developing that process and so, as I scaled Superior, I got the business to a place where I was working two days a week. Then I eventually got to one day a week. It was running, it was pretty successful, and so I I no longer had my passion. I did some self-reflection and realized I was scaling the business really to prove myself and to prove my worth, and that's where I was getting a lot of my worth Going back to your upbringing.

37:20
Exactly so. After I did some deep reflection and work, I realized, you know what I don't want that to drive me anymore. So my heart shifted, my aim shifted and I started to focus more on other people. Like I want to go make a difference in other people's lives. You know, yes, this is cool, but you know what? I'm willing to let that all go away. I want to focus on seeing other men rise up and have process and love their wives and have passion and be fit and just love Jesus with all of their heart. Like become free and healed men.

37:50 - Speaker 2
Yeah. So you didn't start Rise Up Kings to be on the cover of a magazine. No, no, yeah, it really was. I mean it came out, this Christian altruism, if you will, this desire to see someone else benefited, which is really where love comes in. You know, lust is the desire to benefit self, even at the expense of others. Love is the desire to benefit others even at the expense of yourself. So true love always gives. So you started this thing out of love. You wanted to see other guys know what you and Jessica have and be healed.

38:26 - Speaker 1
That's why I love hanging out with you, paul. You've always got these powerful sayings, almost pastoral in a sense. You're uh, what do you call that, when you there's always?

38:38 - Speaker 2
twos and threes. It's called old. It's called I've been around a long time. It's called sage. I had a guy the other day. He said you know, you could be a father in the go, sage is what you tell some old guy. I go, let's go wrestle. You know, let's see who's old that's awesome.

38:54 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's that's what. That's what I love, love, I love. I remember first our first lunch or a breakfast. Yeah, and uh man, after I sat down with him, like this guy has so much wisdom and knowledge and uh, yeah, very excited, excited to be spending time with you.

39:10 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I like hanging out with you because it gives me some like energy, like dude. Well, there's also that little thing of I'm not going to let him be the only guy that has a really great Google analytic thing and his whole sugar deal. But I'm not going to. I'm going to put that off. I'm going to push that down a little bit. The sugar thing, I'll let you do that. We'll see how it goes. Actually, my sister hasn't had. Lois, who's an attorney, hasn't had sugar since I don't know it's some kind of thing like 2007 or something like that. Wow, she's just done this. She just did this deal. I'm jealous. It started with a health thing hey, you got to do this and then it became a lifestyle thing and she's better off for it.

39:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's my goal Because sugar is my. I don't have a lot of addictions Sugar Sugar is the thing that's very hard to kick for me.

40:03 - Speaker 2
Yeah, If you read the books like Peter Attia, who's real hot right now with all the physical stuff longevity and living longer and sugar being one of the things that really in our culture, in the Western culture in particular, that's a big issue, and particularly the types of sugar we have the refined and all that sort of thing you probably know a lot more about it than I do, because you're one of those guys that once you're going to do something then you research it Right. You probably know every kind of sugar there is.

40:30 - Speaker 1
I do. I'm tracking calories, tracking all that stuff right now, every day. Yeah, I love it.

40:35 - Speaker 2
It's fantastic so yeah, go ahead.

40:37 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So back to, oh, yeah. So love you talked about love, so my heart shifted. My heart shifted and I realized, and I actually became healed. That was a moment of healing where I realized you know what I've been doing all of this and I found that to be true with a lot of entrepreneurs. They have this inner drive of achievement, not because they love helping people, but because it's kind of their inside, there's something that they're wanting to prove, some level of kind of internal significance.

41:04 - Speaker 2
Definition, yeah, yeah, definition Looking to prove themselves, and so what I do with my hands becomes my definition, and that's when we become a follower of Christ. That's the largest shift, is we go from our definition being with our hands to our heart 100%.

41:21 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So that happened, that shift happened and that's what happened to you With me. And so I, yeah, I started getting guys together, doing groups and just fell in love with gathering men together. Like I love, like I've launched so many Bible studies at our kids' schools with first grades dad, dads, and I mean I just love getting men together and creating community and getting vulnerable, like when I start a Bible study, first thing we do is we I have an agreement, we all sign and then we all I share as deep as I can yeah, yeah, yeah we have.

41:51
Oh yeah, there's a, there's a there's your nda sign that we call it uh, uh, yeah, yeah, anyway. So we have a whole thing that they actually sign that they won't share what another man shares, and right. So we just need community guys. We need real community, not kind of surfacy stuff. We can get away with it, but our hearts want to be seen. We have a question on our intake form at Rise Up Kings. It says do you feel like anybody truly knows you? And more than 50% of the guys say no, like truly knows your struggles, truly knows what's going on inside you. Most men don't feel truly known, and so that's my like. There's healing that comes when you're fully known by either another man or your spouse.

42:41 - Speaker 2
This is why community in the church is so important.

42:43
This is why, you know, we can talk about the issues in the church and the problems and this guy messed this one up and this happened and whatever but the bottom line is Jesus set up, if you will, a system, his body, the church community for us to come together and to meet guys and to be able to sit down and break bread, have a glass of wine, do life together and then out of that to begin to grow, cause it's, it's really in that place to know and be known. And most men, I would say the vast majority of men and I'm trying to remember the Barna research on this, or uh, was most men don't have somebody they can call if they're out of town and their wife has an issue, they don't have anybody they can call. They might have an employee that they could find, but they don't have a friend. They don't have anybody they can call. You know, I think the latest research I saw is that the average man has 1.7 friends and my joke on that is that everybody knows the 0.7 guy.

43:45 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's good.

43:46 - Speaker 2
Because he's the one that doesn't show up when you move. It's like, dude, I'm trying to move my barn, I'm going to move the barn over to this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not there. It's like there's the one guy yeah, that's your buddy. So let me ask you this, because I want to begin to land this, because you're fascinating. I could talk to you for a long time about stuff, but I want to hit a couple of things. How do I, as a man, become closer to God?

44:17 - Speaker 1
Number one is spending time in the word. Okay, so that's number one. Yep, the Bible, a hundred percent. So it's because what happens is is as you spend time in the word, it starts to change your heart, like that is the way to have your heart shifted and changed to match the will of God. We want our will to match the will of God, and so spending time in the word is one of the most profound and simple ways to do it. And a caveat to that, or an added bonus to that, is spending time in the Word with other men. So some of my greatest spiritual growth came from dissecting the Bible and spending time understanding and learning the Bible together with other dudes, with other guys. It wasn't from a one hour message at church on Sunday, like that's not where I leveled up.

45:09 - Speaker 2
That can motivate you.

45:10 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it gets me a little. Inspired.

45:11 - Speaker 3
I get a little nugget.

45:13 - Speaker 1
But hearing other people's opinions and what they're dealing with in relation to the script to scriptures Application. Yeah, A hundred percent. That was. My biggest growth by far was spending time diving in.

45:26 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, we have a tendency to you know, uh, guys will say, because the old school thing is hey, come, do a Bible study, and usually it means some guy's going to preach, you know so. So for me it's like hey, let's do what you know, let's do success together, let's be successful, let's. Let's grow closer to God, let's be a better man, let's. In other words, what is this really about that I'm doing in this group, in this community of, in this brotherhood of men? What is it? I'm becoming a better me. It's what you talked about.

45:59
I want to be a better version of me by the end of this year, and if we use January, you know, december it's a good, good thing as a fiscal, spiritual, fiscal year. You know, what do I want to be by the end of December? Well, I've got to start towards that today. It doesn't mean every day is going to be perfect. You already had some chocolate chips, bro. I know, jack, am I going to have to call you? Why are you shaming me about that? I need to text Jessica and go. Hey, Do not text.

46:27 - Speaker 1
Jessica, Sorry tell you this, but I'm going to add it into my app.

46:30 - Speaker 2
Don't worry, I'll put it in there. Yeah, it'll be. No, I think of Lou Engle. Lou Engle's well known as a man of fasting and prayer and he's headed up the call and I think their goal now is to get a million people into Washington DC around the elections. And I was there helping him when we did the production for 400,000 people in Washington DC in the early 2000s and but I remember Lou Engel talking about fasting, because this is a guy you just go, man, this is the guy. Seven day fast, 10 day fast yeah, we're doing a 21 day fast, I mean full on and and he talked about he.

47:08
He got up and he shared that he. He said about three weeks ago I started a fast. He said the second day I saw some grapes. Now, this is a guy that, like you think nothing you know would ever deter this man. Right, nothing would distract him.

47:23
He said I saw some grapes and I thought, yeah, I'll get some juice from the grape. He said so I put the grape in my mouth. He said so I put the grape in my mouth. He said I kind of sucked on a little bit and then, without thinking, I went to get the other grape and I ate this grape. He said so I thought, okay, I won't do that again. And I said pretty soon. He said within the next five minutes I ate all the grapes. He said I have broken more fast than anybody else has ever even started. Wow, and it hit me so strong. And you read Eugene Peterson's autobiography, you know, and you read about other great men and you realize the journey is a real life journey that sometimes you eat the grapes and then you know what to do. You start again.

48:13 - Speaker 1
And the way to start again is to not shame yourself. I think where people get stuck, the difference between shame and guilt shame is I am bad, something's wrong with me. Guilt is I did something bad. So shame is what you want to avoid at all costs, cause it's like something's wrong with dang it. I messed up on my fast. Shame is what you want to avoid at all costs, cause it's like something's wrong with dang it. I messed up on my fast. I'm not disciplined.

48:32 - Speaker 3
I'm not this.

48:33 - Speaker 1
I'm so like as I ate those chocolate chips, right Cause the fear is, if we don't shame ourselves, we're going to keep messing up. So we like. We let ourselves sit in shame each time we mess up, whether it be lust or porn. Like the Satan, if he can keep somebody struggling with porn in shame, man, they're locked up and that guy's stuck forever.

48:57 - Speaker 2
Well, the issue with putting a law on ourselves is, we're lawbreakers by nature, right? So anytime we put the law on us, our flesh is going to rebel. So that's where we have to recognize the grace and the mercy of God. And Jesus came not to, you know. Basically, shame is going to happen because it's part of a human response. It's like it's like the disciples were the disciples hanging out with Jesus? They get into a storm, he's sleeping and they're like dude, we're going to die. They get into a storm, he's sleeping and they're like dude, we're going to die.

49:30
Think about this they're with Jesus, the Messiah, who they know is the Messiah, and that they still fall into fear. So Jesus, when he woke up, he goes dude, guys, come on, man, you know where's your faith. Here's the thing. He didn't shame them because they're human. He knows we're human. So Jesus came to take that shame off of us so that we could recognize what I just did in eating the grapes was be human, and he knows my stuff and what I just did in messing up because I said I was never going to do porn again and dang it. I did it for six months and then I just messed up last night.

50:15
You know what it's called being human, and the beauty of following Christ with reckless abandon is that he loves us no matter what, and God is a father. And Jesus then says OK, you know what, I'm the God of new beginnings, I'm the God of do-overs, I'm the God of fresh starts. That's why there's the morning, that's why there's the nighttime, the start of the day, and that's why morning comes, why Fresh starts, new beginnings, right. So now here we are and we go after it. We say you know what? Yeah, yeah, I ate the graves. Just, I love that great story, I ate the grave very applicable because we all, we all mess up on stuff and we just have to.

51:03 - Speaker 1
The sooner someone we talk about the drift a lot, and so what happens is when we get triggered, we mess up on something, guys will tend to drift, and so drift means you're starting to drift into a valley, and so what happens is many men they get triggered, then they drift and they're in this valley, and so if you can shorten the gap that you're in the valley, then you will be a high performer. But if you're like a lot of other guys right, and your drift is three months where you didn't work out, or three months where you didn't read the Bible, or three months where you didn't do your devotion, or six months or a year, man you're.

51:40
So the goal is to shorten that drift where you're drifting a couple of days You're like, yeah, I jacked up for a day or a couple of days or a week, but it wasn't a month long drift that threw me off, because every time you drift it shifts your identity. You start to not see yourself as that person anymore.

51:56
But if you can be disciplined and shorten the drift, you start to see yourself as that person Like no, I'm a disciplined, I'm consistent. Oh, cool, like that's who I am, I am a consistent man. But, man, if you allow drifts, so get back up. Get back up on the horse, right? Yeah, get back on the fast and really continue that journey.

52:14 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's it, skylar. I love that because that's what repentance is and that's what forgiveness is. And David, who wrote most of the book of Psalms, right, and then we know about David's life, and the Bible's very open about the life of many of these men and leaders. Oh yeah, that's why I love it.

52:35
About them, getting the disciples getting mad at each other and then wondering who was better than the other one and who's sitting closer, and all this kind of stuff. Man, it's just real life. But David, having messed up over and over, what was the power of David's life? What was the greatness of his life? Right, he repented. The greatness of his life is he would get real and then repent and go. Okay, his mercies are new every morning. Let's go do this thing, yeah, and get back up.

53:09 - Speaker 1
It's the grace and the forgiveness I mean. That's what's unique as Christians. We have that right. We have consistent, constant forgiveness. It doesn't mean we continue to sin on purpose, but we're forgiven Like we are. We are forgiven so we can move on. We can say, lord, forgive me for that sin, overeating, or whatever I was doing.

53:28 - Speaker 2
Well, if you continue to sin on purpose, isn't that where we have to kind of stand back and go okay, something's out of reflection time, reflection time and and that's where I need somebody. You know whether that's a counselor, you know psychologist, whatever it is, pastor, leader, friend in the group, go ahead, dude, you know that thing. Yeah, yeah, you know. So it's like uh had a guy, uh randy, and uh randy came to church and accepted christ in a men's group on a wednesday night and came sunday and he came a couple weeks to his church we were attending and judy and I met he and we thought it was his wife. It was a girl he was living with and we took him out to lunch, had a great time together, and then, uh, that following wednesday came the men's group and he goes hey, you know, the girl that I was with it's not my wife. Oh, I thought you guys were married. Do you have a house together? He goes yeah, well, we bought a house together and we live together. So, okay, so you know, we didn't make a big thing about it and I said okay, and then about a week later he comes to men's group and he says you know, I've been man studying the Bible and reading and really getting into this being a Christian. He said, uh, I think probably, uh, us living together is probably not the right lifestyle. I go dude, that's a revelation. So let that be your revelation, and now you figure out what you're going to do about it. So I was the starter of the men's group that night. He comes to me afterwards and he said he said I think here's what we're going to do, here's what I'm going to do. We'll start with this. We're not going to have sex. We're not going to, we're not going to have sex anymore. So, okay.

55:01
So Sunday I drive in the parking lot. He's already there and he's standing at the front. He waves at me. I go, hey, yeah, you know like what's up. And then I start he goes no, no, no, no, I got to talk to you. I go, yeah, what's up? He goes. You know the thing we talked about Wednesday night. I said, yeah, you know the commitment. I go, yeah, he goes. That's not going to work.

55:22
That's not going to work. So, and what do you actually need to do? He said, actually, she and I need to talk about where we're at in our lives, where we're at in our faith. And they decided to break up and then sell the house, divide the assets, that kind of thing. And it was the right thing for him, because she ended up in a totally different journey. He ended up marrying a different lady, having children, and so it's like if we parse every single moment right, like every imperfectness of our lives, it's like having a beautiful car If you take and go look at that Ferrari, you'll find a flaw somewhere.

56:04
It's not all perfect. There's stuff somewhere in that car. And if we try to parse our lives every single little piece and try to come to a place of perfection, we'll wipe ourselves out and we'll put shame on ourselves. And that's where we need to trust God and rest in him and go. You know what you made me. You know me. You know my heart. I'm all after you. I'm a hundred percent. I repent and let's get up and do this thing. And that's why I love Rise Up Kings, because you give men a process and and so you've got events going all the time right, you've got different level events we can come in and now you've got age divisions. I come in with kind of a peer group and tell me about that process.

56:52 - Speaker 1
Yeah, right now I'm trying to figure out who is larger, but I believe we're one of the most, or if not the largest, faith-based personal development organization, cause I used to. I spent some time with Tony Robbins. I've done some of the secular personal development. I'm not a huge fan of it, cause it it's there, there there's it's because there's half-truths, there's some things that are accurate, and then they throw in a little lie and some deceitfulness.

57:16 - Speaker 2
Half-truth is a whole lie.

57:17 - Speaker 1
Exactly, and so what happens is Christians are out there in secular personal development, learning and growing, but they're kind of starting to go the wrong way. And so I'm like man, we really need more faith-based. Where do you go outside the church, where there's a biblical foundation, where you can do healing and trauma work and level up, you can be around people that aggressively want to improve their faith, family and fitness and finances? There wasn't options out there. I couldn't find four pillar men to go hang out with and to go do life with, and so we created it three and a half years ago. And yeah, we have some they're just really transformational experiences and we have a coaching program, a mastermind, a whole thing God's and again, I tell people I'm just along for the ride, like God's driving this thing. Man, I have no clue how it got started or how it's, even where it's at, and as long as God wants, me leading it, I'll lead it yeah.

58:07 - Speaker 2
Oh, come on, man, you don't do the over humble thing on me, man. No, no, you just you got it. I'm open. I'm open to call me out on it. You are open and you're malleable and you're open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

58:20
But the fact is that God's placed within you a particular desire, because he has a desire to see men's lives changed. Okay, so one of the things that that we want to do is we want to be crushed in the sense of the of the grape becoming you know wine. We want to be crushed in the sense of the olive becoming you know oil. That's a salve. But at the same time, we don't kill our ego, we allow it to be crushed. The difference is that Christ then uses that ego that's been crushed, that id, that thing in us, that drive, and then reforms that into something beautiful that brings about beauty in other people's lives.

59:04
If David didn't have a drive to be a great warrior, he never would have been a great leader. And the willingness he had to serve to serve Saul right, to serve others the willingness he had to serve made him a great leader. But he was willing to go fight, to actually do stuff. So that thing in him that was designed in there before he was ever born. That's what God used. And God's used that in you because you have this drive, this thing that many of us don't. So because God raises up men like you, us. We other men are better because of that Right.

59:47
And if you do what you're supposed to do, and if Bryce does what he's supposed to do with music, and if Jesse does what he's supposed to do with video, and if this guy does what he's supposed to do with the articulation of digital stuff, whatever the whole thing is, if we all do what we're supposed to do, all of us become better, stronger, and then when Christ returns, he comes back for this robust, powerful church that isn't just barely hanging on, but we've actually begun to change the entire world. And the Bible says every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. How does that happen? It's not going to happen because the church ends up running politics.

01:00:31
We did that. It's called the dark ages. It happens because the lives of men are transformed, because we're all doing that thing that we're called to do. So I just, I would just want to tell you, man, rise Up, kings is awesome. I love what you do and the fact is, and and thank you for being generous with Christian Men's Network, you've helped us with our work we've done in the Middle East and I expect to see you in Cairo, egypt, with us at some point, yep.

01:01:01
If we can work all the schedules out. But I mean this thing you know what's happening in the Middle East. You know, when we change the hearts of men, we talk about the terrible things going on in culture. We talk about whether it's carjackings or terrorism, I mean from Detroit to to, you know, southern Mindanao, all the different issues. It all comes back to this raising up men who know Jesus Christ is Lord and savior, who father the next generation and change the future of the world. That's why I'm a fan of Rise Up Kings, that's why we do Christian Men's Network and that's why we're allies.

01:01:39 - Speaker 1
There's so much synergy there. I'm very, yeah, very excited to be partnered with you guys and look forward to supporting you and, yeah, grateful for just what, god, I feel like there's a stirring in men's hearts right now. I'm really seeing it happening.

01:01:53 - Speaker 2
I think there's some stuff happening. Man, I know I think it's big.

01:01:56 - Speaker 1
Yeah, 100%. Like men are ready to rise up, to level up, to just to take on their marriages, their families, their communities at a higher level. There's just a stirring.

01:02:07 - Speaker 2
Well, there's been enough pain, enough dysfunction, enough pain, enough pushing down of masculinity. You know, I don't even call it biblical masculinity anymore. You know why? Because true masculinity is modeled by Jesus Christ.

01:02:20 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I actually, yeah, I actually teach there. Yes, exactly, there's, there's. There's no such thing as toxic masculinity, right? So toxic masculinity isn't actually not, since masculinity was created by God, right? Masculinity was created by God, so there's no such thing as toxic masculinity If somebody's acting in a manner that's toxic it's not masculinity. It's not masculinity, that's not masculinity at all.

01:02:45
It's toxic, it's just toxic something else. Masculinity by nature God created men as masculine men. It's a beautiful thing. There's just toxic something else. Masculinity by nature God created men as masculine men. It's a beautiful thing, there's nothing wrong with it. And a guy just being angry and aggressive.

01:02:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, toxic.

01:03:00 - Speaker 1
Toxic yeah. That's not masculinity, that's just a guy being aggressive A bad actor.

01:03:05 - Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly being a bad actor. Yeah, dude, this, yeah, exactly being a bad actor. Yeah, dude, this is awesome man and you've got some great coaches. It's RiseUpKingscom and from there I can navigate into events. You've got amazing videos, case studies, you've got a podcast and contact store. I don't have your mug out here. I've got a mug. In fact, I had some made because I loved your coffee mug so much.

01:03:36
Oh, great, yeah, great. Well, I put our name on it. You know what I'm saying. I get it A bunch of Rise Up Kings coffee mugs, but the stuff you do is such excellence. It's so great Love having you on Brave Men. Thanks for being on Brave Men today.

01:03:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I love what you do. Thanks for having me Bless you.

01:03:52 - Speaker 3
Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmnmen. That's cmnmen. Your host has been Paul Lewis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts are downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.