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Rights of Passage
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In this special episode of the Uncommon Wealth Podcast, host Phillip Ramsey explores the significance of rites of passage in cultivating maturity and responsibility within families, illustrated by the recent experiences of his sons, Beckham and Oakley Ramsey. Through engaging storytelling, the episode delves into the personal journeys of the Ramsey boys as they celebrate their transition to manhood through unique family rituals.
Throughout the discussion, Phillip shares insights into the family-oriented rite of passage exercises that offer a mixture of tradition, responsibility, and adventure. From participating in high ropes courses to sharing heartfelt moments with family, Phillip's approach aims to instill a sense of maturity in his sons. This episode provides a thoughtful exploration of supporting young men in their journey to adulthood and highlights the impact of communal support and guidance.
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Transcript
Introduction to an Uncommon Life
00:00:00
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you. Welcome to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're going to introduce you to people who are living uncommonly. We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path that is uniquely right for you.
Significance of Rites of Passage
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to an episode of the Uncommon Wealth Podcast where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. Today, i have a fun episode and topic that I'm super excited to talk through and it is a rite of passage. What is a rite of passage? Who does a rite of passage? And why did I think that it was important for my family to do a rite of passage?
00:00:47
Speaker
First off, I would say that... What is a rite of passage? A rite of passage to me is ah when you tell your sons that they are now a man.
00:00:58
Speaker
And I feel like there's a lot of cultures that do that. For example, like bar mitzvah. After your bar mitzvah, you're now a man. Well, we don't have that. So I thought we would instill that in my kids. um And whenever they turned 13, we did a weekend celebration with all the men in the family.
Experiences of Beckham and Oakley
00:01:12
Speaker
So ah I have two amazing guests for us today. We're going to talk through both of the rite of passage. The first one, drumroll, please.
00:01:21
Speaker
Beckham Ramsey. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Glad to be on here. I'm glad you're on here, man. This is actually your second podcast. It is my second podcast. The first one we did was after your rite of passage, and i want to see if we can somehow archive or get that from the archives and try to like post it on Uncommon Wealth Podcast, ah because we did that from another one. But would be fun to listen to that now that you're older. It was like two years ago, almost three years ago now. Dang, it's a long time. It is.
00:01:49
Speaker
ah So that's the first guest on the show. The second you guys would never guess, but my second guest in studio, three of us, is my youngest son, Oakley Ramsey. What's up, buddy? What's up?
00:02:02
Speaker
This one's for you. So we're going to unpack this. What is it? What did we do? Why did we think it was important? All of that stuff. So, and you have fun person, like a perspective because we have Beckham who's now two years older after he did his rite of passage. And then he was also on Oakley's rite of passage ah the whole time, which was absolutely a joy for me to just kind of hear the wisdom that Beckham had.
00:02:27
Speaker
with Oakley as well as just, um, yeah, the cool thing. So let's talk about who we had for the rite of passage. So Beckham, who did we have for your rite of passage?
00:02:38
Speaker
We have my grandpa. We call it from my mom's side and my dad's side. That was a lot of fun. Also for halfway through the trip, my mom's, sister's fiance, right? Yeah, the that's right. Okay. Yeah. Nick. nick yup Yeah. So he was, uh, he said he was coming the whole weekend, but he ended up getting sick at our dinner. And then he ended up leaving that night, almost had to go to the hospital. I think he was passing a kidney stone. So totally legit reason.
00:03:07
Speaker
And then he came back the next morning and then we, uh, we had breakfast and then we did an escape room. Okay. So, and then ah for Oakley, who did you have for your rite of passage?
00:03:19
Speaker
ah We have both my grandpas. Yes. um We had my two uncles. Yep. And ah my brother and dad. That's right. So at that time, Nick, who went to your rite of passage, Beckham, ah he was now ah in the family as an uncle. And then your older or your other uncle came, which he was he was tied up with Beckham. so ah So here was your characters. We had Chris, which is ah Oakley's ah grandfather from his mom's side.
00:03:49
Speaker
Then he had ah my dad, Phil, which is a grandpa on my side or my dad. Then he had Nate, which is his uncle. And then he had Nick, which is his uncle on the other side, and then Beckham, his older brother,
Family Bonding Activities
00:04:02
Speaker
and than myself.
00:04:02
Speaker
So let's talk about what we did first. And we tried to mimic, pretty much ah mirrored it for both things. So what did we do first?
00:04:13
Speaker
ah So we and got our stuff on and we went on like a hike with a flashlight. Okay, good. But even before that, what did we do?
00:04:27
Speaker
So I went to a steakhouse, Rube Steakhouse. Yes, we did. And that that was a lot of fun. went into that for both of them. Yeah, we did. So what you do is you get your own steak, you can pick it out, and you go to a big open grill, and you can make your own steak. Yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker
And it's it's just a fun experience, because nothing says more manly than just eating steaks. Right. And then every person that was on the rite of passage gets a list of eight questions before we go. And one of the questions is, when did you become a man?
00:04:55
Speaker
And that's the question that we go through at dinner. And so we all got to cook our own steaks and grill our own steaks. But let me just point out something quickly. So Beckham has kind of become kind of a chef since the last time he he went on his rite of passage. And so when we went to the grill, he first got like the, one of the what would you say? Like...
00:05:19
Speaker
It was of the biggest steaks. It was one of the biggest steaks, but also like one of the most technical steaks. Like the guy, when he introduced the steaks, he's like, this one could be the best one if you do it right, but it can be the worst one if you don't do it right.
00:05:31
Speaker
And Beckham says, i want one of those. So I was like, oh, here we go. So we go to the grill, but I remember when you did it, when you were 13, like you didn't even know what to do. You were just like eating the garlic bread, which is not a bad decision.
00:05:43
Speaker
But then, so flash forward to when Oakley's rite passage, you step up to the grill and rock this thing out. Thank you. It was a good steak. It was a good steak. And people were jealous of his steak. Like, they were looking over his steak. It was amazing. So kudos to you, Beckham.
00:05:59
Speaker
Thank you. Oakley, what did you think at this point Because you didn't really know what was going on for the weekend. I thought we were just going to eat a lot, and then we were going to go home and just like talk about stuff. Yeah. Yep.
00:06:11
Speaker
Um, so we didn't do that, right? We ate steak. We, we asked, when did you become a man? And then we all kind of went around the room, um, or yeah, uh, the restaurant, the table. And we talked about that.
00:06:24
Speaker
Okay. After that, uh, we ended up do, we did get dessert cause it was your birthday. Yeah. They gave us free dessert for i our birthday or something winning. And who else's birthday is on that day?
00:06:35
Speaker
Your birthday? That's right, it is. So we both got two desserts, or one we both got each a dessert, so two for the table. And then we went where? Where did we go next?
00:06:47
Speaker
Do you remember the resort, what it's called? or or Wildwood Hills Ranch? Yeah, Wildwood Hills Ranch, which is south of, I would say south and east of Winterset.
00:06:59
Speaker
Super cool place. They really do a good job. um If you know their mission, you can go to their website, Wildwood Hills Ranch. um They do an amazing thing. So look it up. It's awesome. So we go, we rent a cabin there and we go straight there, which we got a new car and the car took us down a gravel road, which we didn't do. So it took us a little longer, little stops, little stops, but we got there.
00:07:23
Speaker
So we get there, we get all unpacked. And what was the first thing that you got to do as now? Like, no. Do you remember the first thing you got to do when we first got there, Beckham? You got to pick everyone's room. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that ah the the boy turning into into who man gets to do in ours is pick the rooms.
00:07:44
Speaker
So for Oakley, he had about five people he had to put. And then one of his ah the uncle i had to leave. So he only had to pick four of us. And then, well, I guess five.
00:07:55
Speaker
So why did how did you pick the rooms? Yeah. I didn't meet my brother as like the small ones and then all the like big people as the like big bedrooms. Yeah. So we had four bedrooms and then two loft, two beds in a loft. So we did that and then we kind of convened and we started talking through some things. um One was like, what was the most challenging thing in your life?
00:08:16
Speaker
We talked through. I should have grabbed my questions. Do you remember the questions? What was your favorite Bible verse and why is it your favorite Bible verse? um Definitely ah the most challenging things that as that you've ever had to to endure, which was interesting. Oakley, what did you think about that after hearing everybody's...
00:08:35
Speaker
Crazy, kind of. Yeah, yeah. But one thing that I did want to instill is like, hey, things don't always go according to plan. And that's when I think God can really work to his best. so But then, then what?
00:08:47
Speaker
What did we do then? Then we went on a hike with the flashlight. That's right. Yep. So by this time, it's super dark. And this this resort's pretty big. And so we went on a hike.
00:08:59
Speaker
And ah the point of the hike is that the the boy who's turning into a man gets one flashlight. That's the only flashlight we get. And then we go in to the jungle or the woods in this case.
00:09:12
Speaker
And then we just follow.
Challenges and Teamwork
00:09:14
Speaker
um But we only have one flashlight. So because we had so many people, sometimes you have to look out for the for the masses. And the point of the the whole exercise is eventually the person in the front, the guy with the flashlight,
00:09:28
Speaker
figures out that he has to lead from the back. Like you have to shine the light in front of you to make sure everybody else can see, but the ambient light is the thing that kind of flashes in front of you. But we didn't get to that because a lot of people had their own ah cell phone flashlights.
00:09:43
Speaker
And because the last time Beckham did it, his grandpa slipped and hurt his knee. So I get why they did it, but super fun. Okay. But so let's talk about, we probably went on a How long did we go? It was now it was 1.37. I'm pretty sure. Okay. A little bit under a one and a half miles.
00:10:00
Speaker
And then were getting back to the cabin again. This could have been 10 miles. We would have taken, we would have followed Oakley to the ends of the earth. But, um, so we get back to the cabin and what's right next to our cabin.
00:10:15
Speaker
Oh, a slide, like a water slide that they like put in there Yeah, that's right. Good. And were you and Beckham climbing on it? Yeah, we you started climbing on it, and so we slid down it. Yeah. and um And we were climbing back up, and i had a flashlight it flashlight in my pocket, and it fell out. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
And then it got in the water and all we could see just like this light shining out of the water. yeah So we were all watching him kind of climb around, slide around. All of a sudden we hear this cocoon and then doh do shootoo dooooo splash.
00:10:55
Speaker
And the flashlight fell out of the back of your pocket and slid all the way down this slide into the water. And what do we think right away, Beckham? oakley we lost the flashlight and you're gonna get it that's right well we just thought it was over like well there it goes like flashlights and water don't really mix and so i was like well there went that flashlight um but what else what then happened uh so we go down to the dock to see like how deep it is well it kept flat it kept lit up like it kept like flat like not flashing but the light kept like going straight up so we were like wait a second and
00:11:33
Speaker
We can maybe get this. Maybe we can get it. Yeah. So we grab paddle out of the boat. Yeah. And I like check to see how deep it is. And it's like five feet or so. Yeah, I agree. And um because at first you were freezing, you could get it.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah. But then what happened? Then it was ice cold and I did not want to do it anymore. Yeah. And then what? And then ah my brother came over, and he just got in and got the flashlight, and it still works now.
00:12:12
Speaker
It does. It does. So Beckham saved his brother. Was it cold? It was pretty cold, but sometimes it's got to be a man. i don't think Oakley realized that for a while, but sometimes you got to be the bigger person and grab the flashlight when you don't want to. But it was pretty cold, but it was worth it. Totally. Memories were made. We got it on video. We got pictures of it. Pretty sweet.
00:12:33
Speaker
So we go back into the cabin and we play some games. We played Chameleon. That was a fun game and funny. Yeah, it was. um And then we went to bed.
00:12:45
Speaker
ah The next morning, what happened? Did we mention the bugs in there? Well, we could. Yeah, there's some bugs in there. You know, some ladybugs that just kind of die over time. Anyway, so but it is a really nice resort or place to go.
00:13:00
Speaker
So we get up the next morning. Actually, something happened in the middle of night, twice actually. Uh, our grandpa threw up. That's true. Twice in the middle of the night. He did. And the fire alarms went off. Yes. It was bad. Uh, so we didn't get to really sleep great. Uh, but the next morning we found out because our, uh, your, your grandpa was in the basement kind of level. We were kind of in a different section. i Found out that he threw up last night, probably cause of super rich food and all the steak. Cause we ate like Kings. Uh,
00:13:31
Speaker
So um that kind of changed some things up in our agenda. ah But we went over and in the resort. And what did we do? Beckham. What did we do after that? Oh, so we got out for breakfast. We had donuts and breakfast pizza from Casey's, which was a lot of fun. Yes. And then we all walked over just across this like little lake thing, more of a pond, and there's a large high rope score, so it was pretty cool. Yes, it was. So we all did high rope scores together. So it was Nick, Phil, Chris, Beckham, myself, and Oakley.
00:14:04
Speaker
So six of us. And everything was going smooth. Until what? So I went up first, like the guide went up first and then he like called one by one. yep And I go up and then my grandpa, Phil, goes up.
00:14:21
Speaker
And so we're just waiting up there and he's like, oh man, I don't feel good. And just throws up right on me and beside me. And he's like, he just like keeps letting go and he's like saying, I think I got to go down. And then we sent him down. yep Yep. So that was an experience.
00:14:40
Speaker
So Bapa or Phil, ah he had to come down and then ended up just being five of us that did the high ropes course. Because l four. Well, five because because Chris did it for a while.
00:14:52
Speaker
Right. And then it ended up just being four. But super fun. And I think that was a riot. I think we had a blast. That was super fun. Yeah. And then just as a little history, I have been on that ropes course before and it was, we did not do as good as what we did. Like it was, it was a struggle, but we ended up doing super fun.
00:15:11
Speaker
Uh, so after that we ended up driving back home and, uh, what was at home?
00:15:19
Speaker
All your family were there? Oh, yeah. All my family was there. And not ah Phil because he was still sick. That's right. But we all went there.
00:15:30
Speaker
we Yeah. Partied. Yeah. We partied, had cake and ice cream. His, his grandmas were there. His aunts were there. His cousins were there. We did the whole thing. So that was the rite of passage. And then they also, um, one of my favorite things that we ask is like, how can we help continue to encourage Oakley in his life?
00:15:48
Speaker
Um, and just keep being there for him. And that was really cool. Um, and then we all wrote letters. So like all the important people wrote letters to you just to kind of encourage you along the way.
00:15:58
Speaker
After that, we now turn to Oakley as a man. And there's still some maturity that still needs to happen, but it'll continue to happen. So Beckham, what was your favorite part about your rite of passage?
00:16:11
Speaker
I just like the like the responsibilities I got and just knowing that like at now at this point now, I account for more in our family. and just like i I mean something to our family above the the fact that I'm just part of the family. That meant a lot.
00:16:25
Speaker
that's Also, just seeing all like the amazing men in my life and how they've shaped me and how they're continuing shape me, that was also really cool. yeah I agree. um the only thing that we did different with oak beckham that we didn't do with oakley's we went to ah an escape room uh as as men to see if we can escape and we actually did um but that was the only thing different we didn't do high ropes course we did an escape room instead so all right oakley what was your favorite thing about the rite of passage uh probably seeing like all my family there like knowing that like i can look like for them if i like need something or something That's good.
00:17:01
Speaker
That's good. My favorite thing for Oakley's, well, I'll i'll go to Beckham's. And i I hope this is the same thing that I said. But my my favorite thing about Beckham's rite of passage was just that I wasn't alone raising you. Like I had like my grand my dad and then my wife's dad. to help me and then nick was there as well but i just remember feeling So, honored that it wasn't just me who had to raise you but i had kind of a team around you and how much they loved you i love that part ah for oakleys my favorite part rite of passage was to see his brother
00:17:35
Speaker
um and his answers so As I said before, the question that we said at Rube's Steakhouse was, when did you become a
Reflections on Growth and Support
00:17:41
Speaker
man? we all came around and went to Beckham and he was like, it was this weekend when I was 13. I was like, that's so cool. But then it ended up evolving. like My favorite answer for Beckham's was, how can you continue to support Oakley as he as he matures into being a a man of God. And he was like, I'll be probably there the most for you because everyone else is just older. And so logistically that oh Beckham will be around, uh, Oakley the most, he'll always be there for him. He loves him. And then he'll always be there to point him to God. i thought that was awesome.
00:18:14
Speaker
Did you, was that kind of how yeah. Okay. Anything you'd add on that? what Would you add anything to what I just said? i just kind of No, I think that you pretty much summed it up. Just that i I'm there for Oakley, even though I'm more brothers, so we're going to mess around. But like at the end of the day, I love Oakley, and he's he's an amazing guy, and he has so much potential to be an amazing man.
00:18:34
Speaker
know he will. So just knowing that I'm always there for him, like no matter how hard it gets or how hard it isn't, like I'll still be there. At the end of the day. Yeah, dude, that's awesome. so that was my favorite part.
00:18:45
Speaker
um Oakley, anything else you want to add for the rite of passage? don't think so. What are you most excited about being a man now? Uh...
00:18:56
Speaker
oh Probably that like I have like more responsibility and stuff. and like If I like want something, it's like but don't know better, maybe.
00:19:07
Speaker
Okay. Good. um
Closing Thoughts on Pursuing Uniqueness
00:19:10
Speaker
All right. Well, you've been listening to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast. This is your host, Philip Ramsey. Thank you so much, Oakley, for your wisdom. Beckham, always a pleasure. course. This is second time. It's the first time for you, Oakley. Hopefully, will be more.
00:19:22
Speaker
That was fun. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks for listening. Until next time, go do something uncommon and have a great day. That's all for this episode brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners.
00:19:32
Speaker
Be sure to visit UncommonWealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.