Redefining Noble Manhood: Building Resilience and a Life of Adventure with Stephen Mansfield

00:04 - Speaker 1 Hey, this is Paul Lewis Cole. You're listening to the Brave Men podcast, fired up to have you here today and I am in the West Callahan Christian Men's Network studios, based in Dallas, fort Worth, texas. And this conversation with Stephen it's always interesting because he's current, he's got an office in Washington DC, he lives in Nashville, he's got the Mansfield Group, he's a coach, he's a consultant, he keeps people on the front edge of what's happening in culture, stays in the middle of that and he is an outspoken advocate I love this for the cause of noble manhood. Of course, mansfield's Book of Manly Men might be the first thing I actually read of his. I saw some other things he'd written. He's written over 30 books and the first one I actually got was the source things for biographical film, for Oliver Stone's book about George W Bush titled W. If you didn't like the movie, don't blame it on Stephen. The book was good. Whatever Oliver Stone does with it is something else. 01:18 But always a great conversation, always enlarging my thinking process, getting me thinking about some stuff, always pushing the different edges of what we should actually have our minds open to as followers of Jesus Christ, as men of God, as noble men, as warriors of the Most High. If you will, and one of the things I've been thinking about recently and I put it out in what we call a Brave Men motivational email comes out three times a week. If you haven't subscribed to it, go to cmnmen, cmn, christian Men's Network, cmnmen, and you can click on there somewhere on that thing and say subscribe to our email that comes out three times a week. It's a motivational email called Brave Men Motivational and I wrote something recently. That's really been what is it? It's been like a new filter, not that it wasn't there before, but you know how you get a word, or you hear something, or something comes up, somebody says something and my son Brandon, in a brilliant sermon all of his sermons are brilliant, but in a brilliant sermon a couple of weeks ago, when I was home on a Sunday and I'm there at his church, gallery Church on the south side in Fort Worth, historic south side said something just in passing he talked about we're consecrated people, we're set apart. 02:52 Something about that phrase just hit me and I thought man, that is who I am. I am set apart. I need to live like that and I want to hit that with you right now. Jesus said this for their sake. For others, I consecrate myself. This is in John 17, 19. And he says that they may also be sanctified in truth. Another translation says I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. 03:27 Now, to be consecrated means to be set apart, dedicated or devoted, you know, we might want to say fully devoted for a particular purpose, and I want us to bring that to the front of mind. It has been front of mind for me, particularly for the last few weeks. It just kind of really hit me. Hey, I'm not called to blend in with the patterns of this world. I'm called to be distinct. You are called to be set apart, wholly devoted to Christ, and as we walk this path, being formed into His image, we draw men to Christ. 04:05 I appreciate that about Stephen Mansfield. When he writes the books, he puts his whole heart into it, shares stories, his book on brotherhood, sharing stories about the deepest hurts, if you will, betrayals, things that have happened in his life, and then how God has healed those things. Here's another scripture 1 Peter 2.9,. And then we'll get into this conversation with Stephen. You're a chosen people, you're a royal priest, a holy nation, god's very own possession. This is 1 Peter 2.9. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. We weren't called into the light just for us, it's for others. 05:01 And I've got so much stuff on my desk, man, it's awesome, there's so much going on. Pray for our trips to Costa Rica, peru. We've got men going to Uganda. If you want to go to something remarkable, go to Uganda with Otto Kelly in the fall of 2025. We've got trips in 2026. See the pyramids, see Petra, all that kind of stuff. But what you're going to find is you're going to find a group of resilient, strong men that you're going to work with and then you're going to be speaking into the life of nations that need men to stand up, just like the nation I live in, the United States, and Peter said this you can show others the goodness of God because you are called out of darkness. You're called out Brother. You are a set apart man. You are a man who has been called to live and I love what Stephen calls it a noble life of manhood. 06:10 For tools and resources to disciple men, go to Christian Men's Network. That's cmnmen. Cmnmen. It's where you can sign up for the Brave and Motivational emails and then also listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to it too, subscribe to it, make sure you see it. And then also we've got Monday Night Men, which is on YouTube and Facebook. Christian Men's Network Facebook. Christian Men's Network YouTube. Go to YouTube. Go to Christian Men's Network. Subscribe to that. 06:44 Hey, stephen Mansfield, I'm reading his book right now. I hadn't read it before. It's been out. Lincoln's Battle with God, lincoln's Battle with God. That's a great one. And so, stephen Mansfield, appreciate him. Appreciate him being a friend. He is a man who's been around the world. Appreciate him being a friend. He is a man who's been around the world. He spends a lot of time in the Middle East, has a tremendous ministry there with the Kurdish people and then an outspoken advocate for Jesus Christ. He is a radical and I love this spirit about him. He's just full on man and you're going to love this. Here's Steven Mansfield Talking with Steven Mansfield, celebrated author and raconteur. I looked up that word. I looked up that word. I thought it meant like a guy who's kind of you know, out there doing crazy stuff. What it means is a man who can tell stories and tells them. Well, I thought you meant somebody who collects raccoons. 07:48 So that's how stupid I am Well yeah, being from the South, maybe that would fit, since you're in that culture. But, stephen, thanks for taking the time. I want to hit some things real rapidly in this. But we're in a crisis of manhood. You speak about it often. 08:13 - Speaker 2 What are the top things that are hitting you right now? I'm very much moved by this TV series Maybe you've heard of it Adolescence on Netflix, because it's fascinating to me how this has prompted a global discussion about manhood and everybody can watch it. It's on Netflix. It's four episodes, masterfully shot. 08:27 The entire each episode is one camera shot, which is amazing, but I won't give it away. But it's about a boy and how he becomes shaped towards what now people call toxic masculinity, even though he seems to have decent parents and a good school and what have you? So, traveling internationally a lot, as I do, and having a lot of international connections as you do, paul, it's amazing how this one four-episode Netflix series is prompting a discussion around the world. And you know, you and I live in this space, so we're saying things as much as we possibly can, we're urging certain perspectives. 09:01 But what shocks me is how new even the most basic information about how to raise a boy, or how boys can get radicalized, or boys and violence, or the online toxicity and cancer on manhood that can happen. People are confronting it as though it just arose yesterday. This has been going on for years. So anyway, I don't mean to be critical, but this is what most strikes me right now is this one little four-episode Netflix show has prompted a global conversation. You can't believe the media that I've got beating at my door, that I can't do even you know BBC, german radio, all that kind of thing, because it's almost like they were just awakened to it. 09:43 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's amazing how we come late to some of these things and yet it's right in front of us. What do you think that is? Is that denial? Is that? Oh, it's going to be better next year. 09:54 - Speaker 2 I think it's a number of things. It's what you and I know is a matter of the attention span of this generation. You know boys, violence, toxicity, radicalization, their estrangement from school and education, and mentors and fathers. You know that passes by somebody's mind for 30 seconds and then they forget it. You and I live in that space, but others forget it. So when it comes back around and, by the way, this is a fictional thing, this is not a documentary Right, it just blows people away. So I'm glad for the conversation. I'm a little sad that people like you and I have been saying this for decades and some folks are just now starting to catch on. We better hurry up before we lose a generation of young men. 10:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I remember speaking to Warren Farrell, who wrote the Boy Crisis with John Gray, and he wrote it years ago. In fact his first studies of it as a sociologist or a studier of culture is when he first went into it. He was on the board of National Organization of Women and he came in with his studies. In his study this is decades ago. Important thing for a young boy is to have a male figure, a father, and basically he said the studies show, as they bring in, if you will, if you brought in sort of a funnel. He said, right at the narrow part of this whole thing is that a father raised by a boy, raised by his biological father, will be more healthy and more successful in his life than any other thing we could do for him. And they basically shut him down, kicked him off the board because they said that's not our agenda. Yeah, yeah, so it seems like agendas have. It's almost like Sudan two men who have selfish agendas because they care more about themselves and their position have killed over 2 million people. 11:51 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 11:52 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you the other thing. Yeah, there's no question, I know it's an overused phrase, but cancel culture is killing an open discussion about manhood and men and what's possible. But there's something that is good news for me. One of my favorite statistics is that psychologists tell us that if a young boy can't be raised by his biological father for whatever reason, other men can make as much as 85% of the difference that a biological father might make. That means we're not lost if the rest of us will get engaged. You know all this, of course, but that moves me. 12:25 - Speaker 1 But we have to say that over and over, we have to trumpet that, we have to be loud about it, that if men are involved in the lives of young men, everything changes. You know, fatherlessness when we speak of father, I think to me, Stephen. When we speak of father, I think it's the spirit of a father. I think it's if you will, it could be the spirit of a mentor, If you want to talk about discipleship, mentoring, raising up the next generation, and it's the spirit of a father that changes everything. So fatherlessness is the leading indicator of poverty in every culture of the world. 13:02 - Speaker 2 Yes, exactly right. That's exactly right, and you know what touches me about this series of Netflix and what you and I are talking about is the difference, the way the boys are different, and that's what's causing problems. I get called by schools and people who know what I do and you do too and the problem is that boys can be as much as five years behind girls of the same age as they go through school. 13:27 Therefore, they're labeled slow and you ask boys to sit at a desk for eight hours a day and then, when they act out a little bit and get a little bit rowdy, you try to drug them. And so I've got an eight-year-old grandson and a three-year-old grandson. They walk in our house, they very politely kiss Bebe, their grandmother on the face. You know, I've got an eight-year-old grandson and a three-year-old grandson. They walk in our house, they very politely kiss Bebe, their grandmother on the face, and then they turn to me and they go ah, the game is on right, the house is going to be torn up, let's tackle Papa. 13:55 My German grandson called me Opa. But all that to say it's nothing but healthy, it's nothing but good, it's nothing but the fact that they're just built differently. But our society having not been taught that just doesn't know how to handle them. 14:08 - Speaker 1 You're absolutely right. I go back to back in the day. So back in the day for Brandon, who's our producer over here, back in the day for him means about 15 years ago. For me, back in the day means 1970. It seems to me it was 1976. 14:26 I produced a series of television programs for a USC professor by the name of James Dobson and I remember even in that series that many years ago he was talking about the fact that boys should not even be in a classroom until they're nine years old. Yes, yes, and I appreciate. For instance, there's a school here, jesuit. It's a school for boys here in the Dallas area where I live, and they don't start classes until 9 am and then they give plenty of movement time in between classes, plenty of time for guys to bump into each other and everything else that you would do as a young man. But this whole thing of getting a young man up at 6.30 and having him in class at 7.15 and then expecting him to just sit there is feminine and then expecting him to just sit there is feminine. 15:25 - Speaker 2 It is, and I got to tell you that it's not what I'm called to do. But one of the things I do want to encourage some others to do is start boys schools. Why can't we have separate? We know we can, we can do it legally, but why can't we have separate schools where we encourage more movement, more sports, more of that kind of thing? Pick them up at their level, don't compare them with girls. 15:49 You know, boys fall behind, as I've said, about five years and then they catch up along about the college years, but in some cases they're lost by that point. And so we could do separate boys schools where we use all of this knowledge we have of the difference in boys and it's been proven to produce amazing kids when it's done right and in a moral grid and what have you. So I think we're learning some things. But you're absolutely right the conveyor belt schools that just insist that everybody progress at the same pace and everybody get the same level of exercise and everybody eat and do the same thing. It's just not going to work that way. 16:20 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it didn't work for me Me either Me, either way? Yeah, it didn't work, for me Neither. So building your band of brothers, Lincoln's battle with God, Mansfield's book a manly men, 10 signs of leadership crash, God in Guinness is a great one, but you've written a number of books. I want to get into something you did in your podcast. You've got a podcast and that podcast where do we find that? 16:48 - Speaker 2 Greatmantv is our website and it's a great man podcast. Wherever podcasts are streaming. Wherever the finest podcasts are Wherever the finest. Most elite podcasts are there we are baby. 16:59 - Speaker 3 Great, great man we're a great man. 17:01 - Speaker 2 The two words great man are run together G-R-E-A-t capital m-a and all run together. 17:06 - Speaker 1 Yeah, okay, great man dot tv. So then, and then that's the podcast. But what I like is the, the new format you're doing. You do a talk and then you do a build this. You got, uh, jt mcra and what's the other brother's name, anthony flemmons, anthony flemmons. And so basically you do a podcast and then the next podcast is them fixing. What you said Is that. 17:28 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm kind of the I don't mind a bit that, I'm kind of the professor type. I teach it for 10, 15 minutes. Break out the Greek, the Hebrew, the history, the psychology, whatever. These guys are the some of the finest men's coaches I know. Anthony's, african-american, served some time in prison early in his life. Now he's a very successful restaurateur hilarious. Jt is a builder just the one of the finest men's coaches I know. 17:51 And they take it for about 45 minutes and take what I've said and they coach it into the lives of men and I love the combination. I really do. 17:58 - Speaker 1 I love the whole concept. I love the way it's done. One of the things you talked about recently we're going to get into the Kurds, which is a hot point for you. You actually did a TEDx about it TED Talk and then when we get into Lincoln Mansfield's book, a Manly man, we're going to go through a couple of things on that Crisis and manhood Trump. The first hundred days, we'll get into that in a little bit. But you said in your podcast something about Universe 25. I don't want you to, you know, give away the whole podcast and since somebody can go listen to the whole thing. But it's a fascinating study. 18:29 - Speaker 2 I think professor calhoun 1968, if I remember correctly, it something where he took and created a utopia he created a utopia for mice, for mice that should have caused them just to thrive, and apparently there's some aspect. The reason that psychologists and medical people use mice is that there are some behavioral similarities, and so we created this ideal situation. Everything should have been perfect, and what happened was the males began to be vicious, they began not to procreate, began to be vicious. They began not to procreate, they began to form gangs, they became fat, they became lethargic, the females began eating their young. I mean, it just went crazy. 19:13 And what they realized was what you and I've talked about many times, and that is that men need challenge, they need certain forms of combat, that the ideal luxurious situation, you know, is. It just makes them weak and ingrown, and they even use the word vein of these mice and lethargic. And that's, and basically, of course, the parallel even though this is decades old, this study, the parallel to the modern man sitting there in front of his video games and eating too much, and lethargic and on his phone all the time, is very, very apt, and so a lot of what was fascinating was here's something from the 1960s with mice, but you could have used the conclusions and the analysis of our modern males today, and so I thought it was a fascinating parallel. 19:58 - Speaker 1 Because things became too easy. 20:01 - Speaker 2 Too easy. The food was provided, women were right there, they were comfortable, et cetera. But instead they ganged up, they got fat, they got lethargic, they became violent. Almost all the males had cuts on their skin from where others had snipped at them. Even though plenty of food available, they fought over resources. It was ridiculous. 20:20 - Speaker 1 So because they didn't do hard things, didn't have challenges, and we know psychologists today would tell us, and people who study these things in your brain, your brain doesn't develop because you didn't do anything that challenged you. And so, and I'll give us, let me give a biblical parallel. I just was thinking of this the other day in some readings I was doing. But you think about Joshua, and he went up against a place called Ai, second major battle as they came in out of Egypt and then through the wilderness 40-year dance, and then into their promised land. Second major battle was Ai. And they got thrashed, they got their butts kicked, kicked, and he's laying on the ground saying, man, I wish we'd have never even come here and, uh, we should have just stayed in the wilderness. And then God says to him this loving God, father this is why we call him father. He says the first words from God were not oh, you poor little one. Oh, I'm sorry, did this trigger you? You know God says get up. Why are you laying on the ground? 21:32 - Speaker 2 Yeah, God shows up with an attitude. 21:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, here's my summation on that is that Jericho was too easy. And so, jericho, what'd they do? They just marched around six days. Seventh day, seven times, boom, they yell, walls fall down. They're like dude, we're good, yeah, we're good. Look at us. 21:52 And I think there's a whole lot of that, because then what happens is he goes up to AI and he goes yeah, just send a few guys. Because, look at us, right, and we live so often on past victories, yes, and we live so often on past victories for our life in the current reality that we look at it and go, oh yeah, I got this. And, if you will, where I think it hits us as men, a lot is in our thought life. Hey, I can think these things I can play around kind of on skirt the edges. You know on an online show that I shouldn't be watching. Skirt the edges, you know on an online show that I shouldn't be watching. Skirt the edges on things I'm reading or seeing, or skirt the edges a little bit on my alcohol intake, whatever the case may be, Because, look it, I got through this other thing, I'm good. 22:38 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and you know, Paul, that's why we have this generational cycle I'm going to point here, right over my shoulder, this guy right here is Colonel Lee Mansfield, my father, and he was a consummate warrior, special forces intelligence. He is one of that generation that won freedom for us. Well, as a result of his victories and that generation's victories, I've never had to serve in uniform. So unless I decide to throw myself into hard things, great causes serve big things. Be a man. I just live in the ease and the security that he bought for me. So now my generation. That's what we all do in my generation. 23:14 We decline, we then produce weak and perverse sons, you know what I'm saying so, every generation has to do exactly what you're saying and not just live in the previous victories, but craft victories of its own, even if they're internal. So, like I got up this morning and hiked for a long ways Well, I do that so I stay in shape. My father did it too, you know cause he was the consummate cold warrior fighting the Russians and keeping them out of Berlin. But, but I, I'm doing it because I don't want to be any lesser than that generation, even though I don't have the same battles, and that's just who we've got to be. 23:44 - Speaker 1 Man, you're so right. I had a friend years ago, gary Clark, actually an acquaintance who said to me we were at a restaurant in Peru doing a missions outreach and everybody's. I mean, we've had a few days there and all of a sudden there's a lunch thing with steaks and all sorts of stuff. It was great. And he's having a salad. I go dude, why are you doing that? And he said this, stephen, he said this is a gift to my grandchildren. I never forgot that His deal was I'm going to be healthy to be here for my grandchildren. And it seems to me that this study on Universe 25 that you're talking about was the mice ended up without a purpose. 24:23 - Speaker 2 Exactly they ended up without a purpose, exactly. 24:25 - Speaker 1 They ended up without a raison d'etre. 24:28 - Speaker 2 You know, paul, they literally, in the report, used this phrase a lack of adventure. 24:33 In other words the male mice didn't have anything. I'm going to use, you know, other language. They had nothing to conquer, they had nothing to go after, they had nothing to pursue, they had no sense of adventure. And literally, these animal behavioralists use the word adventure and I would have to say that that's why we've got to craft it in our generation. You know, I'm going to climb that mountain, I'm going to swim that lake, I'm going to learn how to scuba, I'm going to do whatever Learned how to shoot. Well, go hunting all that kind of thing to keep the adventure before me. Otherwise, I'm sitting in the office, you see, here, you know, eating Oreos, and might be doing some good writing, but I'm going to get away 500 pounds, you know. 25:11 - Speaker 1 Well, and that's the thing, and it's, it's, and a lot of guys will go to the gym and work out, but again, even then a half time you see him walking around, because there's not a purpose If you said hey, you're going to be fighting at Logan Paul, they say, hey, you're getting in a ring with him. 25:32 Do you know that my workout regimen would change? Yes, you would have a little bit more purpose to it, but we're not doing adventure, so we need to, and this is what we need to do for young men. One of the things that you wrote in your book, mansfield's Book of Manly Men and, by the way, your first book was it was your first book, the one on George Bush. 25:53 - Speaker 2 My first book was the one on Winston Churchill. Okay, and that's what really broke things. And through a series of other books, it led to my biggest seller ever, which is the Faith of George W Bush, which sold into the millions. 26:05 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and so that really put you in a different place, and it came at a pivotal time in your life. 26:11 - Speaker 2 Yes, it sure did. 26:14 I had just come out of a divorce and because my wife had decided to leave our marriage, I decided to resign the big church in Nashville that I was pastoring. I didn't want to take the church through it I know some pastors do, but I just didn't think I should. And so shortly after that I had the chance to write the Faith of George W Bush, which repositioned me in every way and gave me a platform in DC, and all that kind of thing and most everything I'm doing now came from that. You know that jetpack on my, on my backside, but but I'm really grateful for how I was able to turn that towards the writing about noble manhood. 26:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and then Mansfield's book A Manly man. But I want to get back to that. This is a fascinating thing and, if you don't mind talking about this, because I do tell this story quite often, stephen, because of our relationship, and you've got an office in Washington DC. Your wife is an executive, still in the music field. 27:05 Very successful songwriter and producer yes, Songwriter and producer, and you've got an office in Washington DC. You help people tell their story Right. But you went through a really difficult time in that divorce and I remember you talking about. You thought that the men you had been around at the time would be those men who would be with you. 27:28 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I can't, I'm sorry, go ahead, I didn't mean to interrupt, no no, I said I moved to Nashville to be on the staff of a large church Right, and I came from West Texas, kind of a distant, long drive. My reason for saying that is when I got here I built new friendships but it turned out and I eventually became the senior pastor of that church Right. But all of my friends worked for me because I came and I built mainly at this large church. I loved my friends but they all worked for me or, you know, were part of that church. So when my wife at the time decided to leave the marriage and thus I was going to go through a divorce and I left the church, by leaving the church I ended up, unbeknownst to me, leaving the friends. You know some of them not all of them were vicious, some of them just didn't know what to do and pulled away. But the point is I ended up alone and so God really was good to me at that time. 28:26 I began to rethink my life and I realized I need to have a band of brothers who are not about where I work or where I work out or something that's going to change. And now I have that. Now I do. 28:31 - Speaker 3 But I work out, or something that's going to change. 28:32 - Speaker 2 And now I have that. Now I do, but I made a mistake. I built stupidly and that's why you have to be intentional about your band of brothers and build with people who are going to, you know, be with you forever. And I have that now. The men I'm with now we will. We will carry each other's caskets to the grave. You know we will bearers. 28:58 - Speaker 1 It's just that kind of thing, and, yeah, it was my, it was my own fault. I made the mistake of uh, because thinking that my band of brothers were all people who worked for me, which wasn't, which was foolish, well, but but also we, we tend to do that and we haven't built a friendship. We've built an acquaintance, yes, and I remember being, I remember sitting on a, uh, a bike, you know a stationary bike at a health club, at a gym, and so, uh, the guy working on the bike next to me, another guy, man, walked up to him and said hey, where's, where's you know, whatever the man's name was, where's jamal? He says, oh, man, uh, you didn't know. He, he had a heart attack about a month ago. 29:28 And the man who had walked up said man, we close friends. I had no idea he was sick. I go, how close of a friend are you? You know? So for this man, now think about this. For this man, he, his perception was where, I'm a close friend of this man. So now you've got to think what are his friendships? What has he built If he doesn't even know, cause he just knew the man from the club? He goes, yeah, I see him here every other day. 29:58 - Speaker 2 Yeah, see, paul, I talk about this all the time. I'm so glad you brought it up. Men have in America, especially the Western world. They go through kind of a progression where relationships are easy in high school, maybe college maybe military, early profession. 30:17 Then they get married, they get kids, they get houses and they start living isolated lives. So I'll ask men of that age who are your friends Because I'm big on this band of brothers thing who are the men you're closest to? They will almost always tell me what psychologists call rust friends. The rust friend is the guy who was in your wedding seven years ago and you've spoken to him twice since. And so when I, when I ask a guy. 30:33 You know who are the who's your, who are your best friends. He'll mention somebody who he loves but is nowhere near close enough to him to have eyes on him, to help him in a crisis. You, you know the surveys they do. Who would you call if you were out of town and the plumbing breaks at your house? You need somebody. Somebody over to your house. Your wife's flitting around on her nightie. Who would you trust to handle that? Who would you trust to get your son out of jail if he got picked up by the police at three in the morning? You're out of town and most guys can't name that because they can't name a best friend, and so they talk about rust friends and that's why I don't have any. 31:08 I'm not ashamed at all to be beating men. You know shaming them towards. You've got to have a band of brothers. You can't walk alone. Walking alone is killing men and that's one of the reasons as you all know, paul, we both study these things that male suicide is so high in the Western world. The average when we do the post-mortem on a male suicide, he's almost always writing a note saying there's not a man who knows anything about me, there's not a man who's now women saying. There's not a man who knows anything about me. There's not a man who's putting that Women do. But what he's saying is my father's dead, my brothers are estranged, I don't have any friends. I'm going to kill myself. That's what's in the suicide notes. 31:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and friendship or brotherhood, if you will. Brotherhood is not based on proximity but based on affection, exactly. So you know that's fascinating. So you know that's fascinating. And I want to get back on the first maxim here because that's where I was headed. But it's interesting to me studying this in the United States, where you and I reside. But we travel the world and I suicide, male suicide between 25 and 65, a large group, but number one for men in the United States. If I asked somebody, I said wait, what do you think is number one? You know, percentage wise, male suicide in the United States for men. Where do you think that would be? Well, new York, stressful LA, and the number one is Montana. And it has to do with isolationism, you bet. 32:43 - Speaker 2 And also antidepressants are more prescribed there per capita than any other state in the union. I mean, you're absolutely right, you're right on it. Wow, I didn't know that. One Per capita, in other words, the number of pills per number of people is higher than anywhere else. Now you would think it'd be New York or LA or one. You know some of the some of the hellhole cities that we talk about jokingly, but no, it's Spontana. 33:04 - Speaker 1 Mansfield's a book of manly men. I want to get back on this because this is one of the things that you had a number of maxims in this, and the first one is I thought it was great because it's a very broad definition, but it says manly men do manly things. 33:22 - Speaker 2 Yeah, you know a lot of the men's coaching, men's classes, men's ministry is basically I'm sorry to be critical, but basically it comes down to emotions management. You want men to feel differently. I want men to master a lore, a craft of what it means to be men. And I know something, I know a secret about men, and that is that they're doing things externally. It will seep into their souls. 33:45 It might be different for women but I, you know now racquetball has gone out of fashion, but I used to play a lot of racquetball and when I picked up that racket and strapped that strap around my wrist and had my glove on and gripped that leather, my body reset, my emotions, reset something physical, reset me completely. I could feel tingling in my toes. I mean, I had been on the court for so many hours, held that racket so many times in exactly the same way that it was as though it changed my inner life. And I'm not saying that's all there is, or psychology and men's counseling would be much easier, but it certainly is part of it. So I start with Mansfield's book of manly men with that maxim manly men do manly things, and a couple of guys who've gotten really into that book and, forgive my language, here they uh with a t-shirt that says screw my feelings, I'm doing the right stuff. I'm doing the right stuff, that's that's. That's that came out of that book. 34:45 - Speaker 1 They're having fun with the uh with that maximum, because if we can get men doing the right thing, that's half the battle you know, and it, it and it doesn't have to be a big thing now when you racquetball, you know when you have that, when you're playing against somebody, it could be your best friend, but when you have a rollout against them off that front wall, they're nothing better in the world. It's just like just and you just go got you. 35:07 - Speaker 2 That's good. That's gonna live forever, baby. I do a rollout with one of my friends he's hearing that about that next christmas no, I don't know, I just that's gonna. There's gonna be a poster on his wall of that moment so I had to. 35:20 - Speaker 1 I had to cut. We had an old tree in the back of the our lawn and uh, so I got my chainsaw out and uh called my grandson he's 15 said hey, we got to cut down a tree. He was like, all right, I'm in, and put him on the chainsaw and, of course, posted it in our family thread and made sure he was wearing eyewear, sure, because I knew I was going to get in trouble if he wasn't, and so, but you know, that was just a moment. For him it's just a little thing, it's a pretty good sized tree actually. Moment for him it's just a little thing, it's a pretty good sized tree actually, and but it had, it had died through the freezes that we had here. And just a little moment like that, just a little photo of him standing with the chainsaw up, lifted up, going with his foot on the log. 36:05 - Speaker 2 Absolutely. I did the same thing with a blower. I bought a blower, a leaf blower about the appropriate size and power for my eight-year-old grandson and I said go to it. You should have seen the transformation, baby. He was blowing birds down out of the sky and I said now your job is to clean off the patios in the garage, which he loves because of course it's noise and it's mess and all that. But my point is these guys, they're geared for that kind of stuff. They want that. It's encoded in their souls. 36:34 - Speaker 1 You, these guys. They're geared for that kind of stuff. They want that. It's encoded in their souls. You know, a friend of mine, jeff Gorsuch, wrote a book called well. It was about discipling men and he said women bond face to face over tea, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a challenge. No question, I think we can't forget that and it's been one of the preeminent things that you've talked about for years, talking with Stephen Mansfield, who is a noted author, coach of men and leaders and books on leadership, and so appreciate you being with us. On Brave Men, of course, my privilege. You know the Kurds. This is really fascinating to me because even before I knew about your look at it and your focus on the Kurds, I had seen it years ago in my travels in and out of the Middle East and I'd always wondered you know the Kurds up there in? Was it North Iraq? 37:28 Yeah, you know largely largely, largely, and I'm like what, why, why, why are they stuck up in there? How did that happen? And what does that mean to me today? And I want you to get into that a little bit. Cause it. You know you did a TEDx talk on it, but I think it affects us because, uh Well, just get into it in the mistakes of TE Lawrence and Gertrude Bell and some of the others. 37:52 - Speaker 2 Well, just generally, the Kurds consider themselves the ancient Medes and we have confirmed that ethnically. Their national anthem actually declares we are the Medes. So they are part of the Medo-Persian Empire. We read about it in the Bible. They were there on the day of Pentecost. I mean they have a heritage in all that we read in Scripture. Wow, they were there on the day of Pentecost. I mean they have a heritage in all that we read in Scripture. So they're amazingly gifted people, fierce warriors. They teach their sons and daughters to shoot, hanging upside down from trees and on one leg and all that kind of thing. It's stunning. They were the bodyguards for the czars and all that kind of thing. 38:26 After World War II they were used. They were promised an independent homeland by President Wilson in his 14 points. But Sykes-Picot Treaty some of the secret treaties that Europe engaged in during World War I I may have said World War II just a moment ago, but I meant World War I they used the Kurds to buffer between what is now Turkey was the Ottoman Empire and the Hashemite, the kingdom of Iraq, which is a completely made-up country. It didn't exist in ancient times and so they've not been given their own homeland. They've been used and that's allowed them to be abused through history. Well, what brings them into our story now is Saddam hated them because they have such a strong culture they wouldn't assimilate into his arab dreams for iraq and uh, so he persecuted them. He bombed halabja with gas, famously in 1988 yeah, that that 1988 thing. 39:21 - Speaker 1 I still remember photos that came out of that uh, where he 5 000 died instantly. 39:27 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it was terrible. And of gas, which, by the way, is a horrible way to die your lungs are on fire. People contorted so much they snapped their own backs. I mean, I could go on. It was terrible. And of gas, which, by the way, is a horrible way to die Horrific gas, your lungs are on fire. People contorted so much they snapped their own backs. I mean, I could go on and on. And another 5,000 died within the next months. So all of that to say. 39:45 What brings me into the story is that when Saddam was persecuting them in the early 90s, a number of Kurds earlier on in history, a decade before'd come to Nashville. The Kurds being very tribal, said well, when the US military said, well, we got to get you out of here. Where do you want to go? They said we want to go to Nashville, where our kinsmen are. So today Nashville has the largest Kurdish population in the US. Really, I was here pastoring One of the pastors, eventually senior pastor of a large church, and I only because we have the money to help them, to build tea houses, to develop training organizations and so on, and before long they began to weep and say please go help our kinsmen in-country. So now, these years later, I've just stumbled into becoming one of the primary advocates for the Kurds, made an embassy to the Vatican, testified before Congress, did the TEDx talk you talked about, wrote a book that won some awards from Kurdish societies for telling the Kurdish story, and I guess I'm on my 35th or 36th trip over there into northern Iraq. 40:39 Consider their political leaders, my buddies, and I love them. I love them. They're fierce, they're masculine, they're deeply loyal to the United States. Every Marine, every special forces, every SE I've ever talked to, who play, who fought next to the Kurds, adores them. And yet, of course, the U? S has betrayed them a number of times. That's been a hard thing. So it's been one of the great privileges of my life to walk so closely with them, have them as my friends. Um, I was just to give you a sense of how loyal they are. I was at a, at a, at a gathering, it doesn't matter what it was in, gunfire broke out and four or five Kurds jumped on me, uh, to protect me and keep me from gunfire. Now, humorously, I'm six, four, 280 pounds, so it takes about five Kurds to protect my body. 41:27 They tend to be a little bit smaller, but they didn't. They didn't hesitate, they wrapped themselves on me and started shoving me into side rooms, and they didn't miss a beat. They were going to give their lives for their American advocate. Friend. 41:37 - Speaker 1 And that's an act of brotherhood. That's who they are. That's nobility and loyalty and faithfulness and it's part of their culture. 41:49 - Speaker 2 Now they speak their own language. Often they speak Arabic, but they speak Badnani and Kurmanji, two Kurdish languages, either, one of which I speak. Most of the leaders speak pretty good English and I have interpreters over there, but I love them. They're in northern Iraq, they're all throughout Iraq, iran also, by the way. There are a couple of million of them in Europe. I mean overall in the world, there are about 35 million Kurds. They're the largest people group in the world without their own homeland, and that's not likely to happen in my lifetime, but I do advocate for a Kurdish homeland somewhere in the world. 42:24 - Speaker 1 So, coming out of World War I, we talk about TE Lawrence. That was Lawrence of Arabia, winston Churchill, who I think at that time was chancellor of the Exchequer or somewhere there in government. Yeah, he was Position that dad had held Right. 42:41 - Speaker 2 Eventually, that's what he held. 42:42 - Speaker 1 Yes, yeah. So then you're saying, basically they cut it up, they created something out of nothing. 42:51 - Speaker 2 They coming out of World War I. Yeah, there's some imperial arrogance even among some of the people that we admire. I like TE Lawrence. I like, of course, I've written about Churchill. He's one of my heroes. But right after World War I they were agents. He and Gertrude Bell and TE Lawrence and Churchill were agents of the British Empire and they did what was best for the British Empire. They carved up Iraq. They carved up the Middle East. They used the Kurds as a buffer between what is now Turkey and Iraq. 43:23 Churchill once arrogantly said much as I admire him he once arrogantly said I created Jordan on a Sunday afternoon in 1921. And that's how it was at that time. They were just creating nations and creating buffer zones and putting they put an Arab king in charge of Iraq, you know, et cetera, king Hussein, and it's caused a lot of the problems we deal with since. In fact, you can go on Google and look up, find a photograph of an ISIS warrior holding a sign that says no More Sykes-Picot. Now that's the name of the treaty that was signed after World War I. So here we are 100 years later and ISIS, of course, terrorist organization. We don't take them that seriously, but the serious side of their case is they're fighting back against this treaty that, again, churchill and others were in support of, and so it's a sad era, and even some of our heroes were involved in some of these decisions that led to bad things. 44:22 - Speaker 1 Today, yeah, so it's something that we need to pray for and pray for you as you work through this, thank you, and for those men and their families, because they are still being persecuted and being, if you will, buffeted about by the world. 44:37 And when we talk about the world, when we talk about the United States turning on the Kurds, I would say that it's pretty much what I would look at. What I would think of is what we call a deep state, In other words, a parallel government within the government that has its own agenda. 44:54 - Speaker 2 Yeah. 44:54 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no question. 44:55 - Speaker 3 No question. 44:56 - Speaker 1 So, which is what President Trump now, in his second term of office, having moved in. What is your feeling and we're basically taping this podcast, no matter when you hear of it about the 100th day, roughly of his first 100 days in his second term as president. 45:20 - Speaker 2 What is your take on this? Well, you know, because you watch your politics and lived in DC, that what we usually do is talk about the first 100 days. That's become a measure of a presidency. It ain't going to work with this president. And the reason it's not going to work with this president is that he has come into office with the attention of blowing up a lot of what he's responsible for. He wants to downsize the US government. He wants to get rid of certain departments. John F Kennedy, you know what has he accomplished? What has he strengthened? What has he expanded? 45:54 That's not the way we're going to be able to answer the question with Donald Trump. He's a disruptor. He doesn't use a, he uses a hatchet and he's often playing 3D chess when other people are playing checkers the famous illustration and he's trying to bludgeon some people and intimidate people into certain moves and in some cases he actually wants to dismantle, for example, the Department of Education. So the traditional measurements and way of analyzing the early success of a president just won't apply to this president. He will not fit any of the previous molds. 46:26 I think a lot of what he's doing is well-intentioned. Some of it's a little ham-handed I think we'd all have to agree with that, but at least the virtue of it and I try to always look at the virtues of any president the virtue is that he's trying to do some things that very few others have the courage to do, and he's just stubborn enough not to care that much about the blowback. Now he needs to pay attention to civil rights and he needs to pay attention to why generate more opposition than you have to, and he needs to pay attention to the court. 46:55 The courts, ultimately, will shut him down if he's not careful. But, overall, I'm happy for the regime change and I'm happy for a lot of what he's trying to accomplish, though I would do it differently. 47:05 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so the Department of Education. This is a fascinating one, because I remember Ronald Reagan, which is when I had an office in Washington DC years ago in my business I was in. One of the things he said is we should get rid of the Department of Education. This is Reagan saying that because it wasn't something set up by the founding fathers. It's you know, it was set up by President Jimmy Carter, if I'm not mistaken. 47:31 - Speaker 2 Yes, and our educational success has been in free fall ever since. It's declined. We did better when you had local school boards setting standards, keeping things high. Department of Education has not served well. It basically is a disbursement center for federal funds but does not heighten academic achievement, and we need that desperately. Right now we're sinking. We're way down the list of the list of world nations when it comes to education. 47:59 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we're the government and we're here to help you, and so, but it seems to me, it seems to me, stephen, that the president, president Trump, loves to be on the front page president, President Trump loves to be on the front page. 48:16 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I think if you want me to air my criticism of him, it's that he loves the cameras and the attention and the bombast a little bit too much. For example, you know my work is in history and so many presidents have had to bring in national leaders and quietly in the Oval Office, slap them around a little bit. I mean, I don't mean to be arrogant, but I mean we just have to say this this can't go on. You got to behave yourself. What are you doing? 48:37 Trump brings in this man I happen to admire a great deal, Vladimir Zelensky. I think he's a Churchillian figure in Ukraine and I'll be in Ukraine here before in a few months and in the Oval Office with all the cameras of the world on him, just takes the guy's head off and has his pit bull, JD Vance, doing the same thing. Now I like JD Vance. Don't misunderstand, but that meeting was atrocious and again, somebody maybe a little bit wiser, a little gentler, a little more surgical, would have done this in private and probably accomplished more. Instead, we've got this big blow up. We've got this man humiliated in front of his people. 49:11 Back home, the Russians are emboldened. It wasn't a good moment, and so I think some of the goals are good, Some of the tactics are flawed and, as a result, we've got all the upheaval and the dollar losing 10% of its value and all this stuff which was completely unnecessary, and people are going to think I hate Trump. I don't. I like what the conservative administration is trying to accomplish. I just think that you can do it skillfully, or you can do it with a big, loud explosion and then you can spend the next six months cleaning up the explosion. I don't think that's the most efficient way to get this done about doing hard things. 49:42 - Speaker 1 One of the things I think, and just my sort of push on us as men, what I've done, what my son is doing and has done. I think if you're a man, you care about your culture. It's not just about voting for whoever's president, it's about being engaged. And I look at it and say you know what? You need to just go coach little league baseball. You need to go be involved with what's happening in your own culture. I mean, think about this. 50:19 There are sports leagues that have had to close down in major cities because they didn't have enough coaches. 50:25 You and I have both been particularly now with our grandchildren been at a soccer game where it's all moms coaching who don't know how to play soccer because some dude didn't just stand up and go hey, I'll help. So you know, or somebody else, and I'm not, I'm just saying if we had 600,000 men who moved into coaching little league and pop Warner football and football and the seventh and eighth grade teams at a junior high, because you don't have to be degreed to coach at that level or below and if we did that, think about that. 600,000 men who follow Christ with all of their heart and they just begin to speak into the lives of young men. That's not an easy thing to do and it's hard to do it. You got to go there after work and you got to get all your gear together ahead of time and all those sorts of things. You got to show up for double headers on a Saturday afternoon when it's 98 degrees. Bottom line is this is what changes the future. 51:28 - Speaker 2 We could change the nation by just that. Right there You're exactly correct. 51:31 - Speaker 1 Future we could change the nation by just that. Right there You're exactly correct. 51:40 - Speaker 2 And so I appreciate President Trump. What I love is men who get involved locally Well, and you know, one of the things that we need to be extolling all the time is how this stuff is changeable, it's fixable. For example, you and I are recording on a certain date. Guys obviously will hear it later. 51:51 This morning the news came out of England that their Supreme Court ruled that a man who thinks he's a woman is not a discriminated class. He's not a discriminated being or in a discriminated class. So England's writing itself on the whole trans issue. It's getting it right, and I think what people would say is well, it was just four months ago that the whole world seemed to it's getting it right, and I think what people would say is well, it was just four months ago that the whole world seemed to be going pro-trans. Now we're kind of getting our head together. Coming back, the courts are lining up. In other words, my point is it didn't take much, it just took some courageous souls to say this is insanity. This is not civil rights, this is insanity. And my friend Riley Gaines is out there, you know, extolling what's happened in women's sports and calling for a virtue there. What a courageous woman. 52:40 Exactly. I love her dearly, lives here in Nashville, a friend of ours. But my point is I mean it didn't take that much to turn the tide and so where were we before then? And I hope that emboldens men. Let's get out there, let's get the message out, let's call men out, let's build a culture of noble manhood. 52:59 - Speaker 1 Yeah, a culture of noble manhood. Bring your brother, it's brotherhood. Bring men to your church. Bring men to your backyard barbecue. Bring men to your cigar circle. Whatever the thing is, you know, grab some guys, go hunting. Bring some people, bring up the next generation, show them what manhood is like. I want to finish with this, because when we talk about courage, I think of a few different men that stood up when, if you will, the three Hebrew young men all they did was stand when everybody else bowed. If you will, the three Hebrew young men all they did was stand when everybody else bowed. And one of those men, who stood in America and is known around the world for it, is a man named Abraham Lincoln. And yet Abraham Lincoln even went through some of his difficult time. Well, he went through a difficult life, really difficult, but then he struggled with faith. I want to finish with that and where he finished on that, where he came to that place of faith. 53:57 - Speaker 2 Abraham Lincoln's interesting. His parents were deeply Christian, all caught up in the revival called the Second Great Awakening A little extreme for sensitive little Abraham as a boy. But Abraham suffered a lot of death in his life. His mother died when he was eight years old. His sister died when he was 16. He fell in love famously with a girl who also died when he was in his early 20s. 54:17 His friends said he dripped melancholy as he walked and he had problems with what we would call today depression. His friends actually had to sit suicide watch sometimes in his life. Most people don't know that. When he was supposed to marry Mary Todd Lincoln the first time he left her standing at the altar, they went to find him. He was laying in bed fingering a pocket knife, considering suicide. 54:40 But some good Presbyterian ministers got into his life, began to teach him, began to call him back from the brink, began to challenge his reading of Thomas Paine and some of the other skeptics coming out of the Revolutionary Era and there's no question he began to make a journey of faith. Now he never joined a church, he was never baptized, but he kept a Bible on his desk and he talked to people about it and he definitely prayed and he attended a church in New York Avenue, Presbyterian Church in DC, which still exists, etc. Etc. And he had questions. He was a bit of a skeptic. We don't know exactly where he was when he died and, you know, on Good Friday he was at a theater where he was shot. 55:20 I don't mean to laugh, but I'm saying it wasn't like he was in church, but nevertheless, this was a man who brought his Christian faith to bear on his conduct in office in a way that few presidents have. And that's why, you know, I live in Washington DC, as you know, most of the year, and though the city's called Washington and the main, most visible piece of architecture is named for George Washington, it's Abraham Lincoln that people identify with the city. People come from China, India. Those are the main foreign visitors, and what they want to do is go visit Mr Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial and talk about Lincoln, and if I'm sitting at a restaurant, they want to bring up Abraham Lincoln. So all that to say, it's a pretty powerful story and it sure has shaped our nation. 56:04 - Speaker 1 Yeah, because he was a man who was willing to lay down his life for others. Yes, yes. 56:10 And that is the true aspect of love. Yes, exactly, A man who's a brother, a man who loves, is willing to lay down his life for another, and you've said it often in many of your writings is that's why we were placed on earth. It's not about us, it's about somebody else. Exactly the man who heads up the Global Fatherhood Initiative for us, Otto Kelly, says it this way. He said when you were birthed, God was thinking of somebody else. Yes, well said, well said, Because that is what, that's why we're here on the earth. Stephen Mansfield, thanks for taking the time. You know, the thing is, the issue for me talking to you, Stephen, is that you are a man who's so well-read, You've written books on so many different things and it's Stephen P-H Mansfield, M-A-N-S-F-I-E-L-D. So if you look that up, if you go on DuckDuckGo or whatever, go on the different search engines, you'll find Stephen's books all over the place. Find them at Barnes, Noble and so forth. But you know, we could talk forever, man. We could talk for hours. 57:18 - Speaker 2 I wish you'd just sell everything you own out there and move to Nashville, and then we could hang man. 57:22 - Speaker 1 Yeah, okay, all right. So you know, I grew up in California and I love the ocean. I miss the ocean. I live in Fort Worth and I miss the ocean. I live in Fort Worth, and the reason I live in Fort Worth is because six of my nine grandchildren live in Fort Worth. I get it. 57:35 - Speaker 2 I get it. There you go. Got to do it, got to do it, baby. That's all there is to it. 57:39 - Speaker 1 That's where it's at, man, and I pray. Blessing on you and on this. You've got some new things you're writing, Excited about that. I know if you're able to talk about it yet Not yet, not yet, but everybody will hear about it. It's going to be pretty big. I think We'll call it Mansfield's Secret Book. You've got that coming up and looking forward to that. You're helping a lot of people tell their story and you are a man that, if you will, is using every gift that God's given you to expand the kingdom of heaven, and you're doing it courageously, because you're willing to stand up for people who can't stand up for themselves. And so you, and tell me where to find the website again. 58:24 - Speaker 2 My personal website is stephenmansfieldtv, and what we do for men is based around greatmantv. Just run the words greatman together. 58:32 - Speaker 1 Greatmantv tv yeah, and that's where you can find the podcast and everything else, everything, sure. Anyway thank you, stephen, for being with us. Again, thank you for being who you are and fully expressing, I guess, would be the best way, fully expressing, I guess would be the best way, fully expressing what God's put in your life in order to change and help and transform the lives of others. Because we know this that hope is alive and hope has a name, and hope's name is Jesus. 59:03 - Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely, Paul. You're very kind. It's a privilege to be with you, my friend. Thank you, Steve. 59:08 - 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 cmn.men. That's cmn.men. 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 your fine podcasts are downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.