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EP149 – Best Of Sovereign Man
94 Plays3 months ago
We bring you powerful clips from some of our most impactful guests. These thought leaders tackle the key issues facing men today and provide actionable solutions to help you thrive. Highlighting many of the issues facing men and the solutions these leaders bring.
You’re invited to come to a Sovereign Circle meeting to experience it for yourself. To learn more, go to https://www.sovereignman.ca/. While you’re there, check out the Battle Ready program and check out the store for Sovereign Man t-shirts, hats, and books.
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're a man living in the modern world in a time when men and manhood are not what they once were. You live life on your own terms. You're self-sufficient. You think for yourself and you march to the beat of your own drum. When life knocks you down, you get back up. Because in your gut, you know that's what men do. You're a badass and a warrior. And on the days when you forget, we are here to remind you who you really are.
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to the Cyberman Podcast. I'm your host, Nicky Ballou. I'm here with a man that I greatly respect. This man is a man's man, and honestly, he understands more about what it takes to be a ah good man. than pretty much anyone I know. He also happens to be a legendary knife maker and one of the most successful pro-American, pro-freedom businessmen in this world. I'm speaking, of course, of the one and only Ernest Emerson. Welcome to show, Ernest.
00:01:08
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for that glowing introduction, Nicky. I hope I can live up to those standards that you've just set. Absolutely, my man. Absolutely you can. You're an establishment. So it's great to be here. I'm really glad to have my knife with me. You know, that's just such a beautiful knife. I tell you, these rich light handles, they feel so smooth in the hand. They're just, you know what? It's almost like they give off a warmth. I don't know how to describe it. I love the feeling. Yeah, it's true. Like I just pull this thing out. I hold it in my hand just because. Well, just you know, it's funny. It's funny to say that because I do the same thing. I'll be I'll be just sitting there with my knife in my hand. And I'm wondering, you know, how weird would this look to somebody who just happened to didn't know me? Absolutely. Yeah.
00:01:55
Speaker
What are you doing with that thing in your hand? But like I'm just I'm just admiring it. that so ah And this this sheath, I mean, it's just an old fashioned leather sheath, you know, it's it's just the knife sits perfectly in it. You know, the handles out. It's just gorgeous. I just I got to say the huck is one of my top five all time knives, in my opinion of any kind. It's funny how something so simple um is
00:02:24
Speaker
Tech clicks off all those boxes, I guess. Yeah, it's not fancy. It's not intricate. It's just plain simple. I guess it's like the Japanese sword. Yeah. Ultimate expression of simplicity, but absolutely beautiful as a piece of art to at the same time. Not that that hook is a piece of art, but it is piece of art. You get the point. Yeah, I do get the point. Okay. But you know who it really is? The best player on the team, the best team player. because he supports all of the other players. And if we can all be that best team player in life and in business and in marriage and everything else, ah man, you're gonna you're gonna succeed hands down.
00:03:12
Speaker
But a lot of people never get those experiences. That's why I'm so big. um Now I'm working on all my grandkids. They need to be in sports. They need to be in soccer. They need to be in basketball. They need to be in baseball. They need to they need to go to jujitsu. they learn They need to learn how to box. All of those things, I think,
00:03:33
Speaker
ah theyre To me, they're honestly gosh, I guess I'm successful. ah My sports and athletic careers have probably done more to contribute to my success than anything I ever learned in any class that I ever took. And I i i have more than a four-year degree, let's just say that. ah so Why would I say that? Because participating in those types of events taught me how to lose. They taught me how to improve. They taught me how to be introspective. They taught me that I can't always do the things that I like doing. I need to do the things that I should be doing or that I have to be doing to improve myself. It's like, you look at guys that work out.
00:04:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh, look at that guy's got 20 inch biceps and a 50 inch chest and all that. Wait a minute, what's going on with his legs? He's got chicken legs. Bench press specialist. Yes, sir. And you know why? There's a reason. The hardest exercise in weight training that exists. Squats. Is the squat. So what is the one that most people always avoid? Because it's fun to, yeah, it's fun to bench press and it's fun to do curls and you're looking in the mirror, blah, blah, blah. Doing squats.
00:05:05
Speaker
makes you the strongest person that you can be in terms of weight training. And guess what? My favorite exercise of all time. Me too. Me too. And I freaking loved it. I love the pain. I love the burn. I loved just feeling like I stuck. You just sucked all the wind. beast yeah yeah beast But anyway, again, you know you see those types of things and you wonder why that is. Well, because it's more difficult.
00:05:36
Speaker
Because it it requires more effort. It requires some pain. It requires you facing the the fact that, you know what? Man, I can bench press 350 pounds. with oho I don't want to go over there because I i can't squat more than 200 pounds. and I don't want to look like a wuss. You know what? See, that's that's part of that whole thing. Dude, be who you are. I've never given a hoot. about what people thought of me. So I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. Again, when you when you look at how are you gonna be the best person you are, if you're true to your convictions, then Nikki, you could think I'm the biggest jerk that walked the face of the earth and that's okay. It's not gonna make me not like you. It's not gonna make me modify my behavior because we all know right from wrong, no matter what. now
00:06:31
Speaker
If you look at it the the right side of left and the left side are of, excuse me, the the right side are wrong and the left side are wrong, we all know that some somewhere in between there is our general consensus for correct and moral ethical behavior. So I don't care who you are. Well, he didn't know right from wrong. Yeah, he did. We all do because we all have a consensus generally. I always look at it and say, you know what?
00:06:59
Speaker
How is this person? Is that a guy that I would want my daughter to date? Is that a girl I'd want my my son to date? Because if it is, then I know they're pretty much between those two sidelines or or or sides of the road. But their government, just like our government, has an agenda, and it's not in the best interest of the people. That's strengthening masculinity in China and weakening it in the West. When it comes to freedom, as long as there is any tyranny or any sort of dictatorship, there will always be a group of men somewhere fighting for freedom.
00:07:40
Speaker
Always has been. That gives me hope. We need to wake people up. ah You need to learn how to stand up for yourself. Call the arms for our society, Nick. You know, my thing is freedom always. Always freedom. Always. Freedom above everything. I felt the call to stand up for freedom. It was a powerful call for me.
00:08:03
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Sovereign Man podcast, where we aim to make men masculine again. I'm your man, Nicky Baloo, and I'm here with a very special guest, ah a good friend of mine who I've interviewed many times on my flagship business podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. This man is a champion of freedom, free expression, and free enterprise. He's a man who's actually fought for freedom as a Marine Raider, and he is one of the finest, most masculine men. I know I'm speaking a course of Nick Kumilatsis. Welcome to the show, Nick. Thanks, Nicky. Always a pleasure and happy to be back on. Yeah. Good to have you on my man. Although it's the first time you've been on this show, although you and I have a couple of interviews. That's true. So, Nick, here's the logo.
00:08:51
Speaker
Love it and movement. Here's the hat. We got we got swag on the website and I wanted to have you here today because throughout history, men have been protectors. Men have been the ones that have gone to war to protect our society from evil doers to protect us from the other guy. And we're living in a time right now where a lot of men are very confused about what it is to be a masculine man. There's a lot of men right now that are buying in, unfortunately, into that horrid lie that masculinity is toxic. There's nothing toxic about masculinity. It's the lack of masculinity that's toxic. hundred percent And i wanted I wanted to have you tell your story to the folks here on the show. And I also wanted to get into a discussion about
00:09:41
Speaker
what it is that has had men like you answer the call to go fight and protect the rest of us, and how you think we can awaken that ethos again in modern men in the Western society. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's there. First of all, I think that the attack is not something that's just, you know, something that happened overnight, right? It's not something that happened in the past year. I mean, this has been, if you look at men and the family and men and, and, uh, you know, at least in North America, right? Um, there has been a multi-decade, uh,
00:10:19
Speaker
I don't want to I don't know if it's a plan. I don't want to say I don't want to make us make me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but there's definitely been a deggert degradation of pe patriarchy in the in North America over the past several decades. Right. And I'm I'm I'm really saying I'm thinking the 70s, you know, and I'm no I'm no historian. But um if you really look at from the 60s on, that's where you start to see a lot less men in the household. All right, here we go. Obviously, if you guys go look this up, it's called, ah you know, it's my take on toxic masculinity. It's on my channel, Nick Komalazzo's, or you can do Johnny Slick shave commercial or something like that. Brother, why don't you put it why don't you share it on the on the Zoom, man? Just go on and share it.
00:11:10
Speaker
In today's world, we were being told that masculinity is bad. that it's toxic, and the world needs less of it. That fathers are an option, not a requirement. We believe that fathers are essential, and that masculinity is essential. We don't think the world needs less masculinity. We believe the world needs more of it. You see, masculinity is the foundation that men are built upon. True masculinity teaches young men how to treat women, how to treat their friends, how to stand up for others, and the why behind it all.
00:11:44
Speaker
As men, we need to be there and show this next generation what it means to be a man, a husband, a friend, and a father. As men, there are a few lessons we get to teach our young. We teach them how to ride bikes, build a force, open the door for a woman, or if the time comes, even fight. They have to meet it. One of the oldest traditions we get to teach our young men is how to shave. This simple lesson, this simple task, is a time-honored tradition that is passed down from one generation to the next.
00:12:19
Speaker
One can say it's the start of a young man's path to manhood. So here at Johnny Slick's, we wanted to be part of that tradition. So we created our all organic shape soap. So all the men out there guiding instead of the example, we tip our hat to you. Stay slick.
00:12:49
Speaker
Brother, I love it man. Yeah, that was ah and was kind of, you know, as we were, um you know, talking about it and we, when we watched this product, I really was like, you know what? And that had happened a little a few months prior to that. And I was like, and it just rubbed me the wrong way, man. And talking about kids, you know, getting in fights and stuff. And I remember my own childhood of, of getting picked on. And, you know, I grew up without a dad. I had to learn how to protect myself. Like I had to get pushed to a limit. And I remember, I remember when I snapped and I said, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm done getting bullied.
00:13:28
Speaker
but that was a lesson that I had to learn by myself instead of a father. And there's, and getting, being a bully is not good, right? Obviously. No, not at all. Not at all. Right. There's, there's, there's, there's nothing okay with that. However, there is, that is a pivotal moment in a young man's life, you know, and if he has a father and he has a professor there to teach them, like, Hey, listen, I can't go fight. I'm not going to be able to fight your battles all all ah for the rest of your life. Like you need to learn how to stand up for yourself. You're going to get some bruises. Life is going to, and that's what I think is the whole thing is messed up about this is we we want to put everybody in these little protective bubbles, but life doesn't care, man. You're going to lose. You're going to fail. Life's going to put, you put, you know, put you down. It's going to punch you in the face and knock you down. So what do you do then?
00:14:22
Speaker
It's our responsibility to teach our young that those things are going to happen, but you get back up, you get back up and you can fight and you can protect yourself and not even, not even that. What happens when you see it for somebody else? Are you too scared? Are you too insecure? So talk to me a bit about why in your opinion it's currency among men to be a man of your word.
00:14:58
Speaker
Well, when it's all said and done, that's all we got. Doesn't matter if you had $6 million, dollars somebody's going to get that. It doesn't matter, you know, what you did with your life, you may leave a legacy, but the way, you know, if I'm looked at as a sleazy used car salesman by all the men who know me, My legacy is going to be shit because I didn't keep my word. I was, you know, cutting deals with them, cutting corners and lights, et cetera, et cetera. But if I'm a man who shows up and does what I say I'm going to do, that is going to be respected by other men because it's probably the hardest thing we do.
00:15:48
Speaker
You know, and with my clients, I talk a lot about the looking good integrity of keeping your word and the personal integrity of keeping your word. Now, if I tell you I'm going to have a book done on Friday and the only fucking reason I write the book is so that you're not up my ass about having it done, that's my looking good integrity. If I don't tell you I'm going to write a book and I do it by next Friday because it's something that drives me, that's my personal integrity. No. So, and so we're looking good integrity versus personal integrity. i I like that too. Those are two very powerful distinctions. Yeah, because we do it all the time. It's a while. You know, I did this while I slapped it together. We had an example with a, with a artifact. You know, I was concerned, uh, giving my best to putting up, putting steak, you know, marinating steaks and getting all the groceries and making a really cool chili for the lunch on Saturday.
00:16:47
Speaker
And it was an artifact thing that the context didn't get delivered down to me. It was just a fucking pain in my ass to get her done. But I didn't want to look bad showing up at the edge Saturday without some other fuckers. So we got it done. And, you know, even when we were doing it, it's like, I don't know about you two men, but my context is just get this fucking thing done. As opposed to my focus was on the food, making sure that these men ate like kings.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, but but unmere that's that's an important context, making sure that many like kinks. So I run a CEO group um and we did an overnight with the men in that group. There were me and four of the men in the group and then a couple of guests came to the overnight. And I wanted us to eat like kings. And I wasn't even in charge of food. I was in charge of the whole overnight. So I found a man who owns restaurants. And I said, look, man.
00:17:49
Speaker
You take care of the food, okay? So he owns restaurants. He's really good with food. And then I got another man to help him out. And this man, you still own a grocery store. So that man who owned restaurants brought some incredible food, like just went and bought from places that he would buy from when he was getting food out there to his customers that are coming into his restaurants, to the restaurant patrons. And the other man, he brought a charcoal barbecue, you know, one of those that's portable, you can take it with you. I mean, it was still a standup one and it was, you know, waist high and all that. But the quality of the food has to be the finest I've ever experienced at ah at a men's overnight. We should explain what a men's overnight is in a moment. But yeah it was the finest quality we've ever had.
00:18:42
Speaker
But my my advice to men is learn to apologize often and quickly, because we screw up often and quickly. But yeah, yeah ah the you know, the masculine relationship is great gone on holding men accountable, you know, helping helping hold a man, no man can hold a man accountable, you have to do it for yourself. But beware the advice giving, because that that is definitely a danger zone. And I see where
00:19:13
Speaker
you know some of these programs that are out there that believe in our own, you gotta be careful of it with the men's work we do, is men start giving advice on how you should be. And that's that's very, very dangerous. No, this is true. And I appreciate you bringing this up. But my question was very different. It was, what are your thoughts on men who are on the receiving end of masculine criticism? And assuming it's warranted, it's criticism that they need to be on the receiving end. And what are your thoughts on them taking that rather than becoming all emotional and going into this bit of a hissy fit mode?
00:19:54
Speaker
rather than actually be interacting with the criticism and using it for their benefit. Yeah. Well, if a man's getting emotional and as you say, having a hit the kid, those men don't have a masculine relationship because there's the the trust is not there. The respect is not there. The the main ingredients, uh, you know, the loyalty, knowing that that man has your back and that's why he's having the conversation with you. if you're getting all emotional and taking it personally, then you don't believe the man has your back. So you don't really have a masculine relationship with him. What if you're just the kind of man who can't, who can't, who doesn't trust anybody and can't take any kind of criticism and he gets all defensive. Well, then what if he's a feminized man in that respect? You know what I mean? i got other yeah You know what I mean? Because listen, I love my lady dearly, but
00:20:54
Speaker
You know, I think I'm smart enough now to have learned not to criticize her. Right. It's just, there's no, there's no feminine criticism here. It's just a bad idea. Right. But I know just i can take a look at you and the gonats and get it over. but I can take a look at you and, you know, as an example and say to you, like, so Richmond, you know what, like you say, you want to live till you're 90 and you're, you're still smoking. What the hell's up with that? man who wants to live till he's 90, ain't dumb enough to smoke. Now, you can either say, fuck you, go to hell, right? Who are you to tell me what to do or shouldn't do? Or you can go, you maybe he's right. And there's there's a lot of men that
00:21:39
Speaker
I don't go around giving men that kind of criticism unless I know that they're in a type of relationship with me where it's called for. If it's a man that I know slightly, not gonna do it. But if it's a man who's a member of one of my groups and he's paying me to to support him in being successful and he's fucking up, I'm gonna do it, right? Um, right. And if he's part of my men's team, I'm definitely going to do it. Right. Like if he's, if he, like you said at the beginning is he said he wants to write a book and he said, I want to do it in a week and it's 500 pages. He wants to write in a week. You're going to say, what are you nuts? Like get your head screwed on straight, right? Let's, let's, let's talk about what you can realistically do. Even if it's unrealistic, you know, at least it's in the realm of possibility. It's not in the realm of fantasy.
00:22:31
Speaker
In the work of men that we do, we believe in standards. No standards, you have nothing. And the way to be your best self is commit to impeccability. I think we should all stand up for our country. Man's got to be free. You've got to be able to have the tools to take care of yourself. And a knife is one of those tools, period. You shared with me how to be the type of man that could build something this magnificent. There's a lot of folks walking around with one of my knives.
00:23:00
Speaker
and that and And when you stop and think about it, the men that... Actually, you know that can that are self-sufficient and sovereign and men that are able to do just about anything. If it's not even a razor knife like you buy for a buck to open your stuff in the in your shop or out in your garage or whatever, you've got one. It doesn't have to look like that one, but you've got one. It can be any of them. You've got to have a sharp tool to do your work every day. You're a man.
00:23:36
Speaker
Men need to discover what mature masculinity is, and they need to discover where they're not being that, so that they can transform their lives into a mature masculine man. When the schools, for instance, chastise and or punish a boy for being a boy, society's got a problem. When masculinity, even the valorous parts of it are mocked, society has a problem. Society needs boys to be boys to grow into honorable, sure, masculine men, pillars and examples of integrity, valor, and doing the right thing.
00:24:21
Speaker
Welcome to Solverman Podcast, where we aim to make men masculine again. I'm your man, Nicky Baloo. And today's guest is a man who's been involved in the work of men for over a couple of decades. He knows as much about issues of men, manhood, and masculinity as anyone I've ever come across. He has led one of the major men's organizations in the world today, MDI Men's Division International, and he is the one and only Jeff Tomlinson. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Hey, it's great to be here, Nick. Really good to be here with you. I appreciate it, man.
00:25:04
Speaker
so You know, we do this show because we believe we're at a juncture in history where men and masculinity are not valued the way they once were. And ah in fact, I would argue that we have an active, hostile, anti-man environment around certainly North America, probably the Western world, and quite possibly even the entire world. And one of the reasons that this podcast exists is to draw the line, hold the line, help men be proud of being men again, and help men reclaim masculinity and restore it. That's a line from one of my friends, Ryan Mickler, who created the Order of Man to reclaim and restore masculinity. But it's a good one, so I'm going to appropriate it. And the reason I asked you to be here on the show is because your man who's
00:25:55
Speaker
quite frankly, been involved in this conversation for some time. Could you give us a little bit of your backstory, how you came to be involved in the in the work of men, manhood, and masculinity, just for the benefit of the listener? Sure. So i in October of 1997, my boss at the time, a man named Colin Drummond, approached me. and He said, hey, do you want to know why you don't get promoted all the time? and I did, stuck in good management. He said, well, meet me meet me at downstairs, which he never did. He never socialized with me. I met with him and he sat down and he said, you heard I did this retreat a few weeks ago. He said, yep. He said, he said look,
00:26:42
Speaker
You're not getting promoted, nothing to do with your knowledge of advertising or anything else. At the time I was in advertising, now I'm a financial planner. but And he said, um you're not getting promoted because of your personality. He said, you intimidate everybody above you. You intimidate me, you intimidate Heather, who was his boss, and the senior clients. Everybody else loves you. There's something with you about that. you you're You're an intellectual bully. I was like, whoa. Knocked me on my ass because I knew as soon as he said it, he was right. No one had ever spoken the truth to me. In fact, like you know you can lose a job today and no one will tell you the truth. They're like, oh, we're making a change. It's all BS. People don't have the opportunity to learn.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yes, we can change society, but we gotta put our foot down and we gotta put the pedal to the metal and we gotta have a passion for men, manhood and masculinity to resume their honored place once more. I agree. It's funny, there's a you've been doing a lot of quotes and I'm not nearly as good at them as you are, but to support something you said, Peter Ustinov, I believe, I think it was him, um not exactly the most portable man on the planet, but this one always stuck with me. He said that men created civilization to impress our girlfriends. That's true. He's right. without it, you know, we never would have done it. We just wouldn't have been, you know, we'd be too busy fighting each other and whatever we do. But it it takes, you know, a masculine and a feminine or in the Asian way of looking at things, the yin and the yang to create the best whole.
00:28:34
Speaker
If you create too much yang, um which I believe is what's happening in society today, I think we've got a lot of men that think the right way to be is to act like women. It makes them very confused. It makes them very poor fathers. In fact, it makes them, like I say, babysitters. I've actually heard men say that about their own children. I have to babysit the kids tonight. Interesting. It just stands out to me that you babysit your own child. and It's because what they do, um with their children is what mommy does. That's where they look to for their example of how to child rear is to do what their mothers do or what their mothers tell them they should do. um' As opposed to going
00:29:25
Speaker
my instincts as a man tell me what the right thing to do as a father is. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm not going to tell you how to be a mother. Don't you tell me how to be a father. Amen, baby. And you know but that is a tragedy. I see it everywhere in society. So I live in a suburb of Toronto, Richmond Hill. um yeah And it's it's wealthy, but the area I live in is more middle class. and I'm in a townhouse. And it's most, it's Canadians, it looks like the UN. It is, there's a very large Farsi speaking or Iranian population, a lot of Indians, a lot of Lebanese, Arabs, ah the Chinese. um its it's And I see the men from all of those cultures in a big park, urban park, if you will, just a hundred meters from my house.
00:30:25
Speaker
And they, you know, there's condos and townhouses around, they don't have many parks. So they show up, like, yeah I see them interact with their children all the time, walk my dogs past that park every day. It doesn't matter what part of the planet these men come from, they're all doing the same things. They're children and I get to watch them in the park, you know, sending their children when they've done something bad, making it okay. and It's, you know, it's not, it,
00:30:56
Speaker
when we and ah When we do this with our children, we perpetuate the problem. That's my point. You're creating another generation whose masculine example is actually not being masculine. ah where does um Where does that young boy look to when he becomes a father in 30 years? He looks to that example of being a surrogate mom. unless there's something that interjects in this conversation and and this this way that society is treating masculinity, um you know that's the problem. We're creating generational memories. I was lucky. I was raised by a very masculine man because I'm going to put up with any of that. um And he had all sorts of flaws. But I think every man ah in the West
00:31:53
Speaker
if they go stand to post, learn to shoot, stick up for the country, even if they never have to fire a weapon in hostility, the act of giving yourself to that notion is pretty empowering the rest of your life. I sit in a room of ah powerful guys and generally speaking, I'm the only dude in there who's you know, gone out with an infantry company into a battle theater with a loaded rifle and done my thing. um And if not, then I'm the only guy that started my own company and cut my own way. You know, it's one of those things. If I've got some veterans and maybe I'm there, you set yourself apart and you get out in front of the crowd. You know, we were talking about this and there's so many little
00:32:36
Speaker
misrepresentations that we hear permeating our culture, but really what it's from the entire West has a problem. And the problem is we have uncoupled in our post-enlightenment, you know, the middle ages and the dark ages and we were all into mysticism and mythology and and and and superstition. And we were burning people at the stake or superstition. How dare you say the earth isn't the center of the universe. And then ah we went to the Enlightenment Age and this was the the age of reason where we abandoned superstition and we embraced rationality and we embraced empiricism and that which can be measured and shown and proven
00:33:21
Speaker
And we are now in a, I would call a post enlightenment age where what you say doesn't have to be coupled to facts. What you learn, your degree, it doesn't need to be tested with empiricism. We have what Thomas Sewell calls uncoupled intellectualism, right? It's intellectualism uncoupled from the reality. And I think it's the core of our problem because the reality is that every family is better with a strong, dangerous, caring male. And every man goes through life better, dangerous. You know, people don't fuck with me ever, because they're like, that guy might hit me.
00:34:06
Speaker
but You probably were. it I haven't hit anybody in a long time, but I think there's an instinctual because ah that that that guy might, I don't think that guy cares. If I get too sassy, he might just pop me. There's a little thing in the back. It's why you don't stare at somebody else's wife or their woman, right? I don't want to get in into it with somebody. Life is better when you're dangerous. It doesn't mean being violent. It doesn't mean being abusive. Being dangerous is good. And and not the day that I'm not dangerous, i i fear i I'm scared of the day I'm not dangerous. We all are. Why do you think guys dye their facial hair? Why do you think guys um taking why do you think one in three guys is on testosterone in the United States? ah's why That's why I collect these puppies. that there's little way There's these little talismans to connect us to being dangerous.
00:34:57
Speaker
because when you're dating, there's, I i heard um jordan peterson something Jordan Peterson said something amazing, I loved it. He said, there's no virtue in being weak. It's your only choice. you Virtue is about making the choice, not because you're so weak you couldn't do anything else. And the thing about being a man, a virtuous man, is because you can commit violence and because you bring the thunder with your personality and who you are and your action, and you choose to be compassionate and fit into a world of women and children and gentle people, that's virtue.
00:35:37
Speaker
So i I strive to be virtuous and I strive to couple people's horseshit statements like toxic masculinity. I forced them to connect that to empiricism. Where do you get that? What do you mean by that? What do you mean toxic masculinity? we be Oh, you mean you had a boyfriend who hit you in college. Okay, that's not masculinity. That's a law-breaking violent criminal. That's not masculinity. Exactly. Just because he happened to be a guy.
00:36:08
Speaker
You know, it didn't matter that if you could read or write, it was you were lucky if you could communicate with the guy next door. You know, so those are the important things and those are the basics. Now you can expand on that, then we have to, if you, you know, go into this kind of, you know, if you go into thiscent but in this in these times, right, because it has changed, but it isn't, the basic principles haven't changed. That is what it is to be a man. So if you talk from, well, as a man, I want want to make a lot of money, that has nothing to do with you being a man. It's nice that you want to make a lot of money. there There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't define you as a man because back then there was no money. It didn't define any of the hundreds of thousands of ancestors that you had before. So why would it define you now?
00:37:00
Speaker
you know, it it comes more down to what is important. If you lay in your bed, you know, ah taking your last breath when you're 85, does it matter that you made a lot of money? Or did it matter that you had a lot of good relationships with people that people said from, this is a man I used to go to and, ah you know, for help because he always had words of wisdom. He always moon, how to help me through things. What is it from, you know, oh, yeah you'll make a lot of money. You know, to me, that's what, you know, helps you get through these times as far as I'm concerned.
00:37:41
Speaker
If you, for example, dedicate your life to becoming a researcher, which is an an honorable thing to do, and you lay in your bed and you can say to yourself, you know, what I did made really a ah big difference in, you know, ah the human race or, you know, it helped humanity moving forward. then you lead a really good life. Now, if you if you if you can do that, you know and you've been a benefit to humanity, you know and then to me, that is a good life. it is a good you know you You did a good job. Now, that doesn't exactly define you as a man. Of course, I understand that. But it certainly is one of the things that you know these are the things that you need to look back to when you yeah you get old.
00:38:33
Speaker
You know, it's the same as I kind of used it to tie it. We were retired because 25 years ago, just before I got married, me and my wife, we made a plan. We wanted to have a nice farmhouse, an old with a bit of property. And then we built a new house with an apartment for my in-laws. My in-laws were getting old, you know, it's family. um And with the apartment, we could take them into the house. They had their own space and we could take care of them as long as we were able to.
00:39:07
Speaker
Now we did that, but it also, you know, that was one purpose of buying the property. The other one was to survive what is to provide for us in the retirement. So we did that, you know, we built a house, you know, we lived there for almost 20 something years. Then my English passed away. And, you know, now we were all living in a big house with a lot of property. And it was time to, you know, sell it.
00:39:39
Speaker
So we sold it. We did very good on it. So it doesn't look like I have to do any more work for the rest of my life. Now that doesn't mean I'm not going to work for the rest of my life, but it's no longer necessary in order to survive. So that means now it will allow me to focus differently on different things at the moment. You know, I can volunteer for six bonds in God knows, you know, Africa if I want to. Or I can go and, and you know, do all all these other things that were before, you know, print not as easy, I'd say, or certainly differently. But again, this was a set up plan. This was something that, you know, you needed to plan for. And now, you know, what now it continues. It's the next phase in this whole plan.
00:40:31
Speaker
So for me, having a plan is a good idea. and you know if you if you If you're a young man and you want to have a family, then you need to focus on what you need to do to provide for the family. What ways of being did you take on as a man that had things work out better for you?
00:40:52
Speaker
Well, I'm not so much sure if it is taking on ways of being that I wasn't before. um It compete opened my eyes to who I was as a man. and there's What do you mean when you say that? Well, it's not that complicated. it is I'm a simple man. and you know I like to do some work and you know you get rewarded for the great. You don't get rewarded for it. It doesn't matter a damn thing because it all goes with the fact that you're doing something. I like building shit. If somebody calls me up and goes, can you help me and build a fence? I'll go and help build a fence. Not because he needs help, but because I like building shit.
00:41:32
Speaker
you know So when it came down to these kinds of things, that became important. You know, family was always important for me. and You know, it was important growing up and it is still important till this day for me. So that has always been the main issue. You know, ah my first wife didn't get along with my family at all. So as a consequence of that, we didn't really have a lot of contact anymore with the family. You know, now you can say from well, she becomes the family. Yes, but it doesn't mean that all the other family goes away.
00:42:06
Speaker
you know, that that those are things that that become important and that you need to, you know, keep important in your life. So for me, you know, being an honorable man, you know, ah being a family man, you know, a building stuff, you know, those are always things that were important to me and that counted. Now if my first wife wanted to go bell ballroom dancing, I'm in ballroom dancing, but not because I liked it, but because I wanted to please her.
00:42:41
Speaker
You know, and there's nothing to do with building in anything. Now, sure, you know, I might've enjoyed ballroom dancing after a while too, but that was never, you know, it wasn't my thing. It's the same as with sports, for example. I love to swim. I've been swimming since I was six years old. Love to go and swim. You know, I did it competitively. I played, I did water polo. Now, I don't mind going to play a game of golf, but that isn't my thing. You know, it's the same. I'll kick a ball around for some chakra, but it isn't my thing. Going swimming, that's my thing. How can you be Dutch and not be into soccer, man? What are you talking about, man? That's a national sport, Nala. I know. I know i'm um you know. It's the exception to the rule.
00:43:33
Speaker
We can go back. ah it It has some some bearing on me personally, but you know I was never allowed to play soccer when I was a little boy. The only thing I was allowed to do was swim. That's where that came from. you know It has something to do with my physical physical abilities, but it doesn't really matter. you know I still like soccer. Did you watch it growing up? I mean, you you know you're a you were a teenager when the great Dutch total football teams were around. you know Folks like Johann van Crogh. It was Holland's golden age of football, basically.
00:44:13
Speaker
It is. And it was. And it was very excited because of that, but it wasn't my sport, right? and For example, you know I got tickets to the World Cup in the States. My dad came over from Holland and we drove through a whole bunch of games that the Dutch team played for the World Cup in in in the United States years ago, right? In the 1994 World Cup. What we're saying is that You can't base your decision making on your feelings. Your feelings have nothing to do with anything. What does logic dictate in this situation? Schools right now, they're not about that. e
00:44:59
Speaker
They are they are a a very socialist agenda because they're here to create, you know, the monkeys at typewriters. They're just looking to make the better the better monkey at the typewriter and not the free thinker, right?
00:45:18
Speaker
Welcome to the Sovereign Man podcast where we aim to make men masculine again. And we admonish you to be manly. I'm here with my man, Rob Arpo. What's going on? art Hey, brother. Yeah, it does. It's a good day, man. It's always a good day when it's a sun day and the sun is shining. It's a sun's day. This is the sun's day. Amen. So today's topic is a powerful one. Logical thinking versus feeling-based thinking. Yeah. It's been lost. Lost.
00:45:53
Speaker
So let's delve into it. What do you mean so when you draw the contrast between logical thinking and feeling-based thinking? yeah so um you know i watch I get a lot of Thomas Sowell on my YouTube shorts and like this man's discussions to me are like some of the clearest you know discussions around logical thinking versus feeling-based thinking. right And he always tackles You know diversity and in in America and particularly with the with the clip that you know just got me thinking about this is, you know, we start starts talking about
00:46:29
Speaker
um the like the mandatory recruitment diversity standards they have at schools. And, and you know, he he looks at the data because data, when you're looking at the whole data set, doesn't lie. When you start taking little subsect, you know, bits and pieces of data and you start manipulating it like that, then then you you'll get a clear picture. and And the, you know, the instance he was using is, he you know, he was saying that you have the the question was about the the the black community and why so few black students graduate from from universities and colleges. And he's like, look, he's like, if you take the national average, he goes, you'll see that above the average, you have the the whites and the Asians and below you have the blacks and Hispanics. but
00:47:20
Speaker
goes, when you look at like the University of California, Berkeley, he was saying that ah they were admitting students, not just based on their, on their on their you know, ah academic achievements, but down there on their ethnicity. So you're taking, you know, some of the the highest scoring black students who weren't above the, may may not know necessarily been above average, most of them were probably below the average and putting them into a school which had, you know, academic studies and demands above average and they were they were dropping out within the first year. and And the thing is like, you could take these kids, you could put them in another another school and they would have graduated.
00:48:03
Speaker
Maybe they wouldn't have been the rocket scientist, but maybe they could have been you know an aeronautical engineer of sorts that could to still have done something with their lives. And now you turned them into a ah dropout because you put them into a place where where they couldn't succeed. And he was, he was going on to say like the only person that really benefits from this whole cycle was the university itself. Cause now you just, you just took tuition from a bunch of kids you didn't intend to keep anyways. So it's, it's nuts. But like when you look at this action was taken by the university.
00:48:41
Speaker
by the actual, well, yeah. It was in a very cyclical way to get money from kids that they didn't intend to deliver their service, which is the knowledge and the value to in the first one. Yeah, yeah. And so you know and again, it comes from this need, you know this mandate of of diversity where you you know you're not in that you not taking the the person that is best fit there anymore You know, motivation is bullshit. If you're going to wait for motivation, you're like, you're just going to get out shut the road. yeah shit you never going to do shit No, this has been a very good conversation and I'm listening to it for my sons. I've got a 15 year old, 17 year old, 17 year olds just started working weekends at a friend of mine's restaurant. The 15 year old in the summer is going to work at the St. Friends restaurant full time.
00:49:42
Speaker
i I'm excited for both these boys. I think it's going to do something pretty fucking awesome for them. And I'm also excited that um they're gonna learn how to think forward and decide what they wanna do with their life. And I think this is a good thing. I think this is a good thing. you know
00:50:13
Speaker
Patrick Beck David of Valuetainment makes an argument that today, university doesn't make any sense for kids. Takes a lot of money from them and doesn't really deliver for them. And I believe that's a logical decision that many people would arrive at if they looked at what is in it for you to go to university. Why should you go to university?
00:50:41
Speaker
And it's my belief that over the years we've been fed this lie. Oh, you go to university, you're going to be able to get the job, you're going to be able to do this. Well, is that necessarily even true anymore? Not unless you're going to go get a job in a very specialized field for which specialized education is required. Like you want to be a doctor. You want to be an engineer. You know what I mean? You want to learn computer science. You need to get degrees in computer science. Absolutely. Things like that. Yes. A thousand percent. The humanities today have become completely woke. They're useless for most kids, right? And open if you're taking an economics course, honestly, you're better off taking that economics course online on YouTube with someone like Thomas Sowell than at the average woke university. So, um and I say this as a man who has a master's degree from an Ivy league school, you know? yeah
00:51:39
Speaker
you know i think I'm telling my kid my sons today, I don't know that you need to go to university. I think you need to go to the university of life. You need to decide what you want to do and let's help you figure that out. And then maybe university makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. No, you know what? Okay, so let's put something and in in into the clear though. You know, schools, especially higher education when it comes to college and university, they are designed to make very limited thinking individuals, right? So like, if you if you're an individual who who requires outside motivation, school's good for you.
00:52:21
Speaker
to a point, right? Because like that that's what it's good it's good for people that want to punch a clock, nine to five, Monday through Friday, and play video games the rest of their lives. If that's all you want to be, school is good for you. Because if you look at all the richest people in the world, you know most of us didn't fucking finish school. I went to college. I never finished. I left right before the big tech crash, and rightfully so, because I could make more money working at Home Depot retail than I could at entry-level tech. so i left
00:52:53
Speaker
um But schools used to sell their students on the fact about getting the good jobs. They don't do that anymore now. Now they're selling to students on the college experience. but Whoa, hold on a second. College experience? Fuck that. The college experience. So what? Now now you're going to go there to skip class. drinking parties, get drunk, and hey know do whatever drugs they're doing.
00:53:24
Speaker
One casualty is one through many. Every life is precious. We're preserving and protecting lives like nothing we've ever seen before. But now we have to apply those lessons to our loved ones and to ourselves in these in these desperately, astoundingly violent times. The wheels are coming off the bus and people don't even realize it. The FBI, every year they report the murder rate and it's a lie. because it under-represents a problem. But what would you understand? The vast, vast majority of gunshot wounds, have the vast majority of knife wounds, we can save them. Nikki and I are going to show you two things that will prevent the vast majority of loss of life from gunshot wounds or knife wounds. Be the helper and not the helpless.
00:54:10
Speaker
Welcome to Cyberman podcast and your man Nicky Baloo. And this is the first. We're having a guest back. Not just back, but back for the second week in a row. How cool is that? How cool is that? Colonel Dave Grossman. Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored to be back on board with you and your great listeners. And, you know, Nikki, both of us, I just tell you, listeners here, you know, ah we got kind of fired up last time. ah Things are crazy bad. things are The wheels are coming off the bus and people don't even realize it.
00:54:44
Speaker
You know, ah ah the murder rate is being held down by medical technology. The number of dead people completely misrepresents the situation. It's much worse than it looks. so People get that in one sentence. You know, medical technology is saving lives. The number of dead people underrepresented problem. People get that in one sentence. But do you really understand what that means? It means a whole field of criminal justice, a whole field of criminal science is basically lying to us. Year after year, they give us a murder rate as a reflection of the problem. And it's a lie. And I beat up the FBI. i I work with them. I beat them up every time. and They said, you know, we're not making those kinds of decisions at our level, Dave. You're right. Nobody can deny it, you know?
00:55:26
Speaker
But the you know the FBI every year they report the murder rate and it's a lie because it under represents a problem. Today everybody is a tourniquet. We'll talk about the tourniquets in a minute. ah Somebody slaps on a tourniquet, saves a crime victim's life, we prevented a murder. So Nikki and I are going to show you two things that will prevent the vast majority of loss of life from gunshot wounds or knife wounds. Just two things, tourniquets and packing the wound. And two items you can carry with you. everybody Everybody's carrying these out, EMS, fire. But do you understand the vast, vast majority of gunshot wounds, the vast majority of knife wounds, we can save them.
00:56:07
Speaker
with quirk, clot, and tourniquets. So the number of dead people under-represent the problem. Imagine somebody said, your grandpa made 25 cents an hour. You make $25 an hour. You're 100 times better off than your grandpa. But where's the law? We all understand about inflation. When somebody says, yeah, murder rate exploded in 2020 like nothing we've ever seen before, but it's still not quite as bad as the 1960s. Ah, catch your BS meter going off. because comparing murders between now and the 1960s completely breaks down. Tourniquets alone have cut the murder rate in half in just the last decade.
00:56:42
Speaker
so so in the just the last decade So things are crazy bad folks and and and and not only that but then in ah the Ferguson effect and and the brilliant Heather McDonald in her book The War on Cops required reading for everybody to understand just how bad it is But Heather even doesn't quite have that thing about medical technology holding out the murder rate. But Heather talked about the Ferguson effect. 2015, 2016 homicides exploded like another way I've ever seen before. But then in 2020, she has what she calls the Minneapolis effect, the George Floyd riots. In 2023, your man, you need to
00:57:25
Speaker
take full ownership. You know, we call our podcast, the sovereign man podcast, we call our movement the sovereign man movement. And what does that mean? That means that you have sovereignty over yourself, right? You are someone who is mentally sovereign. That means you think for yourself. You're financially sovereign. You can pay your own bills. You're physically sovereign. That means you can take care of yourself physically, right? You're emotionally sovereign. That means you don't, you're not a needy little bitch, right? And you're spiritually sovereign and that you have a relationship with your creator and ah you understand that you are his humble creation.
00:58:06
Speaker
ah And if you have all those, you're gonna win. And to be sovereign, one of the aspects of being sovereign is you gotta be able to take care of yourself. It's part of being physically sovereign. You gotta learn hat how had had how to engage in fisticuffs if need be. You gotta learn how to use a weapon if need be. And you gotta learn how to save a life if need be. And in this day and age, hey, pray that it doesn't happen, but be prepared for it to happen. You know, pray for the best and prepare for the worst. That's how you win in life. And if you're a man, that's a man's job, you know, that's a man job. He's got to provide for his family. He's got to protect his family and he's got to be the leader. He's got to preside in his family. Those are the three aspects that make a man a man.
00:58:55
Speaker
You know, and to me you know have this conversation with you, because for me, I want to learn, I want to be better at this. I'm somebody who hasn't paid attention to this sort of thing. And at the age of 55, I'm starting to learn about certain man skills that I should have learned at the age of 15, but hey, better late than never. Cool. and Robert A. Heinlein, I grew up reading Heinlein's stuff. I love his stuff. But he said, specialization is for insects. He said, a man should be a master of a wide variety of fields. ah He said, you should know how to change a tire and change a diaper. yeah You should know how to put a hole in a body and how to p plug a hole in a body. I'm i'm i'
00:59:40
Speaker
i'm I'm paraphrasing Highline. I can't remember the full quote right now, but specialization is for insects. You know, what we've got to be capable of Renaissance man is somebody who's capable of a wide variety of ah of skills, you know, change a diaper and change the tire, put a hole in a body and plug a hole in a body. ah That's what we're talking about today is is is a is being that sovereign man. I am sovereign. I am supreme. I am the ruler of my life. I don't give my health to someone else. I don't give my well-being to someone else. I accept responsibility for my family, for my home. I am the sovereign. In America, we have what's called the castle doctrine. And state after state is right from the castle doctrine. you are
01:00:26
Speaker
a sovereign in your home, in your castle, and somebody comes in your castle and you kill them, ah you have ah you have ah ah yeah you have not violated the law. Castle doctrine has become ah ah and increasingly so across America, and that sets sovereignty written into the law. And biologically, something to understand here, ah biologically, it is very, very hard to get people to take a human life. I wrote about my book on killing, half-man copies sold worldwide in English, translated in eight languages now. Google Scholars has been cited over 3,400 times in scholarly works. But the crazy thing is how amazingly rare homicide is.
01:01:16
Speaker
Oh, look look at that terrible murder. That proves a man is a killer. No, that that's an outlier. That's one in a million. America is a nation of a third of a billion people. That one terrible murder you heard about is one in a third of a billion. I think it's very masculine to take care of yourself. Be a good steward of that which God has entrusted you with, and that is your body. I believe a trade is important for meant to have. Work your trade for a couple years and then if you feel like going to school, then go for it. If you feel like you're going to make more money, we usually equate masculinity with strength and speed. But what happens when a man is in his 60s and 70s? Is he no longer masculine? If he can't bench press 300 pounds, is he no longer a man? If he can't fight, is he no longer a man? I like to say emotions are your enemy and sentimentalism is a trap. Don't deny your emotions but delay your emotions. Men are not disturbed by things but by their opinions about those things.
01:02:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Solverman podcast. I'm your host, Nikki Baloo. This is where we aim to make men masculine again. And I'm here with very special guests, the one and only George Bruno. Welcome George. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Nikki. and honored to have you here, my friend. George, we are living in perilous times in some respects, and certainly men today are no longer admired the way that they were in the past. If anything, they are
01:02:53
Speaker
under assault by the powers that be. The culture is very anti-man, anti-masculinity. And yet there are those of us that are fighting the good fight to make sure that we uphold men and we uphold masculinity. And you're one of the men that's done that. Why don't you start by telling everybody your backstory? Yeah, the backstory is I'm from upstate New York. Italian and Russian family went to school to become a therapist. i also learned how to become a barber as well. I'm a firm believer that every man needs to have a profession and a trade. I don't care what that trade is, but like my grandfather said to me, always have something you can do with your hands. And he put his hands up when he said that, and I get that. So whether it be carpentry or any kind of woodworking, electric ah electrical work, plumbing, doesn't matter what it is.
01:03:49
Speaker
I believe a trade is important for men to have. ah When men ask me, should I go to college? I say, well, how about going to trade school, work your trade for a couple of years. And then if you feel like going to school, then go for it. If you feel like you're going to make more money. And of course, STEM courses are different, science, technology, engineering, and math. If you go into any of those fields, I think that's much better than any kind of liberal arts kind of stuff that is the most popular in colleges today. So I worked as a therapist for decades. I've cut hair. I went to the top in both fields, married, divorced, three children, went into coaching because coaching focuses on a man's future, not his past, where he came from. And we talk about goals, not why you are the way you are, because I don't care about why you are the way you are.
01:04:47
Speaker
And I have kind of a ah tougher approach to it, but I'm not going to demean men. So I don't want people to think as you get older, that you lose your masculinity. Masculinity is for men of all ages, not just for the young. No, masculinity is definitely for men of all ages, and I'm glad you said that. A lot a lot of the men that are these days at the forefront of the manosphere is what some people call it, although I don't like that term. um yeah Movement of men, as it were.
01:05:24
Speaker
are younger men and they are really good at working the algorithms on social media and getting a lot of eyeballs. And here's one of the things that I believe that is not a measure of a man. That is not a measure of his masculinity or his worth. Pointing people to to these heroes, right? This is humans learn partially by being like That's why the apprenticeship model has always been so ah phenomenal. You learn by being around other humans and you learn by watching other humans. You learn by reading about other humans. You learn by by seeing other people that you want to emulate and then taking the steps that they have taken. right You're not trying to become them. You take a similar path and become your version of that. but you yeah like That's how humans have always worked. right It's how kids learn from their parents. It's how it's how we learn. so Why would we not?
01:06:19
Speaker
then take our literature and be super intentional about going, look, here is a hero story about this person. Here's the character of this person. here like That's it. you know And so when I talk to parents all the time, I'm going, man, your environment. matters. Who you have speaking into the lives of these kids matters. The books you have them reading or the books you're reading to them, those things matter. Music you're allowing them to listen to or not like that matters. The movies you're watching, met like if you look at every single piece of entertainment or every single relationship as somebody who is inherently mentoring
01:06:59
Speaker
your young person, you'll be more intentional about who and what you led into those lives. Because you need to, every single bit of it speaking into them, whether it's a good influence or not. So I'm gonna be super, and that's not sheltering by the way, it's showing them greatness. It is. Right. It's showing them greatness. I always love when parents are like, well, you know, if you don't send them to, to public school and so that they can see that there's bad people out there, like, you know, your, your shelter. I'm like, they've got to learn that at some point. Okay. Cool. That's the dumbest damn argument I've ever heard. And like, nobody goes.
01:07:34
Speaker
Well, man, I got to really up my game as an entrepreneur. I i guess I better go to prison and find out that there's bad people there. That's going to somehow make me better. You go hang out with people who are doing things at a higher level than you so that you can learn that. Right? Same thing for our young kids, man. Let's expose them to greatness at every turn. So then when they see the bad thing, it's not tempting. It's not, they just see it for what it is. It's like, okay, cool. You know? So, um no, i'm I'm right there with you, man.
01:08:05
Speaker
You know Matt, this is this is this is great. I love this. um Yeah, i um I think what you're doing is God's work. We are being faced right now by the devil. And the devil is, um the biggest trick he he played was, helping people think he didn't exist, and he exists. He's out there, and there are forces of darkness that are trying to take what was great and destroy it. It's going to take us healthy, loving, conscious masculinity to lead this planet forward. And um I'm excited again. Again, I'm an optimist. I think we're headed in the right direction. And it doesn't matter our political point of view.
01:08:53
Speaker
We agree on one thing. Men are valuable. Men are essential and essential. Men are good. Men are good. Men are valuable. Men are essential. Men are good. And without men, there'd be no world. And I got to tell you, when the Roman Empire started to devalue men, they were conquered by a bunch of intolerant, strong, masculine men. like that. And if we get rid of the masculine protector energy in the West, we're toast. Our enemies are going to eat us up in no time flat. I'll tell you one last story and then then we'll pull it up. This made me cry when this is right after 9-11. And, you know, all of a sudden we we started kind of liking and valuing men again.
01:09:42
Speaker
You know, when, when it was men that, you know, that rushed and took down that one airplane that was headed, you know, for, for, for the white house or wherever it's going, when the firefighters rushed into the twin towers, risking their lives that, you know, to save people, rescue, ah all of a sudden we saw, well, maybe, maybe men aren't like all terrible. And ah and a woman wrote an article, not bed article in the New York times, like I said, Raptor 9 11, she says, you know, I'm a feminist. I've always took pride in being a feminist. And she said, I was the woman that, you know, if I was putting my my my my my carry on, you know, above my seat on the airplane, if a man offered to do it for me, I'd i'd i'd give him an evil look and tell him, I can do it myself. And so she owned, you know, she she was that woman. She said, after 9-11, watching men sacrifice themselves, giving the best of what they ought.
01:10:38
Speaker
got putting their lives at risk for other people, people they don't know. She said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And, uh, I get, I still get tears of my eyes thinking about that. yeah I'm getting tears in my eyes. We need, to we need, we need good men. And there's a lot of good women out there that support what we're doing to help young boys, to help men level up, be the best version of themselves. The majority of women support that. One last thing, I remember having a conversation with a feminist, probably on an airplane one time, and she was probably mid-30s, and she said, yeah, I'm a feminist. And I go, well, well let me ask you then. you know And I told her the feminism I grew up with, that you know you know men were evil, everything that involved a penis was evil, this and that. And I said, you're just hatred towards men. she goes
01:11:27
Speaker
Oh, that was just a few pissed off lesbians. He goes, that wasn't all women? She goes, no, no, that doesn't represent, that doesn't even represent all of feminism, but they were the loudest, angriest voices. And I go, oh, you mean you like men? She goes, yeah, and I like penises. and So it was good for me to hear that, you know, that there's a lot of good women out there. who want strong men. My wife wants a strong man. She wants her son to be a strong man. My son's a strong man. He's a single father raising my my granddaughter, 17 year old girl. She's going to have to have a strong. I've always said ah I hope to create a world in which my granddaughter has good strong men to choose from.
01:12:11
Speaker
And I loved it. A year ago, I was visiting her for her 17th birthday. And she said she's going to the um homecoming dance. And she said, Grandpa, the boy that's taken me to the homecoming dance, his parents are reading your book. No more Mr. Nice. yeah i go There you go. i I've accomplished my goal. I've accomplished my goal. the next generation of men needs to be equipped to carry the standard aloft and teach young boys and men how to be good, honorable men. I think that's very important. That's really why I'm excited to have this conversation with you. ah Oh, and and you know, the truth is, you know, you and I and many other people we could debate, and and I got no disagreement with what you say, we could debate the causes for a long, long time.
01:13:02
Speaker
And it wouldn't change the situation. You're right. what We have to, from here on out. And for example, um you know, I started this year and a half ago, working on something called integration nation. We launched it last July. I'm 68 years old. You know, I'm at the age where most men, if they're not already retired, they're they're they're planning on, you know, how can I go spend the rest of my days on a golf course and, you know, watching TV all night.
01:13:31
Speaker
I figure I got a good 20 years left. And you know what? In that last 20 years, I think I'm uniquely positioned from books I've written, from the work I've done, from the reputation that I have. I'm uniquely qualified and positioned to create something, and that's this, the integration nation. to create ah man a place for men to gather. And and my my goal is that every man on this planet who wants a men's program, who wants to be a part of a tribe of men, who are who are becoming conscious, who are becoming like that good man you're talking, Jordan Peterson. We've got a fierceness. Like for example, my wife is fierce. My wife grew up, you know like you said, tough environment. My wife grew up eight out of 10 kids in poverty in Guadalajara, Mexico.
01:14:21
Speaker
you know with an alcoholic father. She was beat on and abused by family, by neighbors. She's tough. She's tough. She goes to the gym two hours a day. you know she She can out squat me. you know But this is a woman who likes it that as her man, I can say no. I can say, let's go do this. We walk into a restaurant, and they hand her a menu, and she says, no, he'll order her for me. He's my boss. you know She can order for herself. She can open her own doors. But she likes that I am the man in the relationship, whatever that means. Now, today, the car needed fixed. She was out taking care of it, right? We don't have these these gender roles imposed that, oh, the guy has to go fix the car. i'm ah i'm I'm here talking to the world, talking to you, and she's getting the car fixed.
01:15:10
Speaker
She loves what I do. We had you know eight men in the house this weekend. She fed them. She talked to them in English while they talked to her in Spanish. She's proud that her man is making a difference in the world. So here I am at 68. I've got an RV parked up in Seattle at my mother's house. She and I could just be cruising around in the ah RV with the Elon Musk satellite dish up, just having a you know a good 25 years left ah of my life. She's quite a bit younger than me. But you know what? I'm not ready to retire because there's work to be done. And so that's why I say yes to every interview that says, Robert, will you come? Will you talk? Yes, I will. Because we got work to do and it's not going to happen on its own. now i'm I'm an optimist. I actually believe we're in a good place.
01:16:00
Speaker
20 years ago when I went on a book tour for No More Mr. Nice Guy, a lot of people, I did a lot of interviews, television, radio, newspaper, and a lot of people said, Robert, do you see a worldwide men's movement happen? I said, no, I don't think so, not like feminism. I said, I don't think there's one unifying factor to bring men together. And I said, and I don't think women will support the men's movement like men supported the women's movement. And so looking back now, I was right and I was wrong. I don't think there's one thing that's going to unify us, but I actually do believe we are in the middle of a worldwide men's movement. It just doesn't look like that on the surface. But here's how I see it as the optimist. I think we were at an extreme socially for many years, and most extremes socially, when they change, there's some sort of revolution. We go to the other extreme.
01:16:51
Speaker
right you know kill the czar you know you know throw out the shawl of iran whatever we do we go to the other extreme and then it's usually an extreme as well and then we start trying to find middle ground but middle ground between two toxic extremes it doesn't exist right
01:17:10
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Sovereign Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and become the man you've always wanted to be, we invite you to join the movement at sovereignman dot.ca.