Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Life's Complexities and Modern Masculinity

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

The Tragic Tale of Mark: A listener, an Operations Manager in the oil and gas sector, shares the heart-wrenching story of his employee, Mark. Mark's life, marked by poor decision-making and personal struggles, leads to a tragic end, leaving the listener grappling with guilt and the impact of his decisions on Mark's young son. The Dilemma of Home and Change: Another listener, a long-time resident of Denver, contemplates relocating due to the city's drastic changes over 15 years. With two children who are deeply rooted in their current life, the listener is torn between the prospect of a better life elsewhere and the potential impact on his family. Modern Masculinity and Raising Children: In our third question, a father of three girls reflects on the role of traditional male behaviors in today's society. He shares his efforts in raising independent daughters while also instilling traditional values. This leads to a broader conversation about teaching young men to respect women's independence while maintaining courteousness, and the nuances of introducing sons to a potential partner's father. The Speed of War Comic Series: ⁠https://www.thespeedofwar.com/⁠ Sign up for the new G14 newsletter here: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/exclusive⁠ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: ⁠https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/⁠

What's going on, everybody? It's been a minute. We haven't had a full out of Friday in a while. Not a ton new. Got a broken finger. Not a big deal. Jiu-jitsu, the gentle art. Got a new beanie. That's about it on the new side of the house. So let's dig into, I'm not going to say it's the old. Some new questions, but are regularly scheduled Friday programming. Here we go. Full out of Friday. I'm looking at danger close now. Can't be clear that. All right. We're off and running. We have three questions. It is, in fact, beanie season. I actually really like beanies.

I would wear them in the summer, but it gets too hot, and I don't want to go down with a heat injury. But it's wintertime here in Montana. Pretty long question for the first one, three different subjects for sure. And let's just dive right in and see where today takes us. I'm reaching out to you as I am faced with a unique situation that I'm struggling to unpack and would greatly appreciate your perspective. I work as an operations manager in the oil and gas sector. In my department, I typically lead a staff of about 20 people. One of the members of my team is Mark, whose name I have changed for the purposes of this letter. Mark is a good guy, but was never super bright. He is the type of guy who has always has something negative going on in his personal life.

He is the kind of person that when presented with a good or bad decision would always choose the bad as if, if he was purposely trying to sabotage his own life. I swear, as much as I like the guy, he always seemed like an individual that could never get out of his own way to make forward momentum in his life. There's a lot more of this email, and I'll definitely get into it. But I think it's safe to say that we probably all know somebody in our lives that is like this. And it's important to remember that we may be viewed as this person in other people's lives as well. This is a tough spot, and life is peaks and valleys. I've had as many valleys, if not more than peaks in my life, so I can deeply resonate with this person.

Both the individual writing this and actually the person who looks like they are on just a vision quest to uproot and destroy their life. It was never intentional, and I really needed the help of other people to pull myself out of that tailspin. Back to the email. A prime example of Mark's great decision making is about seven years ago he had a one-night stand with a stripper, who is also, a recovering meth addict with a severe case of diagnosed bipolar disorder. Classic pairing. I mean, who hasn't found themselves in this situation? From their night together, she ended up getting knocked up. She decided to keep the baby in spite of Mark, even knowing that she hates children and has admitted to not wanting to have the baby, but choosing to keep it for the child support

payments, thus ultimately transforming her into a dependipotamus in its final form, one of my favorite terms. After a lengthy custody battle, Mark was granted sole custody of their son with the biological mother, stripper, rarely, if ever requesting to come see the child. Because of her mental health status, the biological mother was granted lifelong disability via the government. Mark himself has admitted that he was not a well-equipped father, but always did his best to support himself and his son the best way he could, having had the opportunity to meet his son on multiple occasions, it was obvious to see that they both loved each other dearly. And that's awesome. That's great to see from somebody at a distance and as an observer to be able to see that,

and I think we're all capable of this, regardless of how much we might mess up in our life, we're capable of getting some things right. And I think if you can really focus, if you only have a limited ability to get things right in your life, your capacity for doing things right is correct. I would hope that for everybody and that for everybody's sake, the majority of those things that you're able to get right, they start with your family. Fast forwarding years later. Mark's son is now seven, and Mark has worked for me for the last four years. Mark has never been the greatest employee, but I've always had a soft spot for him and have always granted him more understanding given his personal situation being a single father. Recently, I promoted Mark into a

temporary leadership role. I saw potential in him and wanted to give him an opportunity to gain experience to perhaps one day be placed in a permanent leadership role where he could make a larger income to better himself. This opportunity, unfortunately, did not go as planned. While in the role, Mark got caught smoking weed and drinking at the job site. He also was reported for making inappropriate sexual advances and comments to several female colleagues. As a result of this and other previous issues, I made, the determination to fire Mark. Mark pleaded for his job and begged for another chance, stating that he was in incredible amounts of debt in excess of $50,000 due to gambling and luxury spending. He couldn't afford to lose his job and was desperate.

It was desperate. However, I stood by my decision and I terminated Mark. A few days later, I was informed by my colleagues that Mark's body was found. It was ruled a suicide. I also learned a short time after that, with no next of kin or grandparents involved, Mark's son was to be returned to the care of his biological mother. In light of all of this, I feel guilt that I have had a role in this man's death. Furthermore, I feel that my decision has had a ripple effect, placing his son in the worst situation imaginable, and he is now to be raised without his father in an unstable home and likely turning him into another statistic. I'm at a loss for words, and I need help unpacking this situation.

Any thoughts or guidance would be extremely appreciated. Wow. Heavy. There's a lot there. It's complex. You could come at this from an angle of leadership inside of an organization, and I could talk about your decisions or past behaviors you had seen or perhaps overlooked, or favor that you may have given to this individual because you knew more about their personal

life and the potential consequences of that. And that's a separate conversation, at least in my opinion. I don't think that's what you're writing about. You know, you could talk about the personal decisions of a man to, I mean, whatever. The one night stand decision is the one night stand decision. You know, choice of partners may seem inconsequential for most people, for most of the decisions in their life, but this is a perfect example of what can happen if you really don't think it through. But that's a different conversation in and of itself as well. I think what you're asking me, and I'm speaking for you, feel free to write back in if I'm phrasing this improperly is, you're asking you.

me whether or not you killed this man and how much involvement your decision and then your continued decision to hold fast on your original choice to let this man go played in the choices that he made and how responsible are you now for the impact as you describe it the ripple effect to his son and those are deep questions and those are hard ones and what really sucks for me is that I have actually watched this play itself out far too many times in my own personal life. The suicide numbers are what they are when you look at the military community, active duty, retired combination of the two. I'm not so sure about the validity of the 22 a day. If anything, though, I think that might be a little bit low if you do some research on the data on how that number was created.

it was incomplete. The sample size was incomplete at best. But for whatever reason in my own life, I have people that I know and cared about very deeply that made the choice to irrevocably change the trajectory of their life and everybody else that was in their social circle. And I don't think that they were thinking about their social circle at that time, I think that they were operating in a very emotional and non-logical place, and they made

a selfish decision. And I don't want to, I don't want to spend a whole lot of time unpacking that decision. I've spoken a lot about my inability to understand that non-rational decision. And I don't think it's possible to if you are viewing it from a rational place. of course it couldn't make sense and that's that is meant to put zero judgment on the people who make that choice but i've seen what happens and every time i have asked myself a version of what i think you are asking me could i have done more why didn't i see any warning signs was there something that i did whether i knew it or not that may have contributed to the decision that they made um

In my personal experience and in my life, what I end up landing on is not really a great answer to any of those questions, but a deep sense of regret and regret that I didn't reach out more and that I didn't communicate more. And this feeling of I wish I could have been somebody in their life that they could have talked to. I wish I was a closer friend. I wish I was a better friend. I wish I was somebody that they could have leaned on at least for a moment before making a decision that was that horrendous. And I don't know if I'll ever get over that regret. And I don't know if you're ever supposed to because hopefully you can govern your behavior in the future. So I say all of that to say that I think I understand where you're coming from. And unfortunately, I do have a little bit of experience. tangentially or peripherally to what you're talking about. And so we'll start from, you know, the big picture. You are not responsible in any way, shape, or form for Mark's decision. The trajectory of Mark's life that led him to a place where he felt the only reasonable answer, whether he was thinking rationally or unreasonably or irrationally, it doesn't matter because the action and decision have been taken is not your fault. It is the result of what sounds to be, the continued

actions that Mark took in his life. And that's a tough one because you can't say anything to him. You're left looking at the destruction and wondering whether or not you could have done something different. And you could have done something different. But I guess the better question is, what would that impact have been? Would it have stopped this? Or would it have delayed this? Would it have undermined your position at your job where others in that team of about 20 people see you treating this person differently and that it undermines your ability to be an effective leader? And you delay the poor behavior if he was drinking and smoking weed and sounds like he was making inappropriate sexual advances in comments to several female colleagues. I mean, do you think if you had given him another chance that that would have stopped that?

My personal history with things like that, meaning my seeing these things happen over time in both the military and the civilian world is, no, you're not going to actually change that ingrained behavior. You might kick the can down the road a little bit. It might seem like to you in this moment that by firing mark, you put the last piece of straw on the camel's back. and it's very easy to then try to shoulder the burden yourself for everything that happened afterwards. And my advice to you would be this. Try as hard as you can not to do that. And I realize that's an impossible task because you'll probably be asking yourself for the rest of your life questions about this situation and about Mark and asking yourself what you could have done differently. From a leadership perspective, I know very little about your organization and what happened

other than what you wrote in here. But it sounds as if you held the standard and you did not tolerate the deviation from it. And that was your job. The actions that Mark took leading up to that point are his responsibility. It's easy to blame the person who is doing the firing. But the reality is the person that is getting fired needs the hard look, the scrutiny, the objective look into the mirror. So from that leadership perspective, it seems like you did the right thing. The choices he made afterwards, the nuclear mushroom cloud that he has left likely for his son, and especially now the forced intertanglement with his biological mother is not your fault in any way, shape or form. Those are the results of the actions that were taken by Mark. And that is exactly why I don't, at a deep

level, understand the finality of the decision to kill yourself. I mean, to a degree, I can understand how it becomes an option that becomes attractive. But there are so many cascading consequences that come from that. I just, again, don't understand the rational choice. There's no. There's no. nothing that you likely could have done differently. And it is my suspicion that is likely that there is nothing that you could have done to stop Mark from taking these actions. And it may be as easy for me to sit here and say that being not directly involved with this. Hopefully you can hear me. And I don't know exactly when this happened. But depending on the proximity from when you emailed in and my taking the time to actually create this into an episode.

And from when it happened, the closer you are to the date that he killed himself, the likely, the more difficult it is going to be for you to take the time to process it. So I would give yourself some time. There's nothing at this point in time that where speed and violence of action are going to benefit you in any way. Those decisions have already been made by somebody else. and now everybody else who remains is left dealing with the consequences of that. I think the easiest thing to do is to blame yourself to ask the questions,

what could I have done, what did I do? And I think that's all healthy. So the biggest piece of advice I have is instead of trying to deal with this on your own and answer these questions for yourself is to go find somebody to talk through or to talk to to help you work your way through this because I'm not an expert. I have experience peripherally, but there are people who understand this so much better than me and can explain to you the thought process or decision making, however flawed it may be that Mark utilized to get to where he was. And I think that that will help you sit with this. And the last piece of advice that I would give

is if after all of that, you are unable to truly put it down and you still feel haunted by this or whatever term that you may use. There's always a way to help and there's always a way to continue to give back. You know, the innocent person in this situation is Mark's son. It doesn't sound like he's got a stable mother, biological mother, that can help raise him. And who really knows what's going to happen to this child. But maybe you don't want to be directly involved, and that's all right. You can always help people from a distance, whether that is finding and helping them discover programs that may assist this young man, setting up an educational fund in his name.

And of course, in this moment, I'm struggling to think of good examples of ways that you could stay detached away from the biological. mother, but also help. But I think you get the point with just those first two examples. I mean, fuck, everything from a secret Santa where you make sure that the kid has what he needs in the holidays or things that they need for school or just find a way to continue to give back to Mark's son because he's actually the only innocent person in this situation. He's the only one in everything that you wrote that had no impact and no vote and no say in any of the actions that were taken before he was born and up to the point where his dad took his own life. And so that's what I would recommend. Get some help. Find somebody who can help yourself work through this and just realize

that you still have options. Should you feel the need or desire to continue down that path? Question two. Let's get a little bit lighter. Jesus. I've been listening to the podcast for a couple years now and I've enjoyed getting your perspective and opinions usually. Here's a spoiler alert for everybody. Sometimes I don't even agree with the things that I say, which doesn't make any sense, but sometimes I speak before I think. Excuse me. First off, let me offer a bit of background. I was born and raised in the greater Denver area,

and with the exception of college, in a few years in California, I have lived here my entire life. Colorado is my home. My extended family is here, and I've always assumed this was where I was going to spend my life. However, over the past 15 years, my city has undergone so many changes that I am questioning whether or not this is where I want to stay.

I have two children, ages 8 and 11. Each of my kids has a group of solid friends. They love their school and are heavily involved in multiple activities. When I have brought up the idea of moving, I get very in all capital letters, negative reactions from the kids. I can't seem to shake the feeling that they would have a better life in a different setting. Fear not, Montana, I am not targeting you. There's plenty of room for you, sir. I would recommend the area north of Billings.

There's a whole lot of fucking nothing, and you can do whatever you want to up there. With less of the issues that have been disturbing me. I know you moved your family from major city to a much smaller town, and I'm curious if that decision was met with resistance. Is there lingering resentment from the kids? Were they able to adjust socially, et cetera? How did you guys approach it? Interesting question. So I'll unpack briefly how we ended up landing here and why, and I can talk about the kids along the way. We bought an investment property in Montana, myself and my ex-wife back in 2000. and 16. It was being used as an Airbnb and our VRBO. I'm just going to use those terms interchangeably. And our plan was to do the same. We were actually on a trip at a time where we had

been gifted the airplane tickets and we were staying in somebody's apartment in Scotland. And we were talking about how amazing of an experience it was and how thankful and grateful we were that that individual had the ability to do so. And in that course of that conversation, we had the idea of trying to figure out whether or not we could be able to do something like that by finding perhaps an investment property, buying it, using it when we wanted to as a family, using it as an Airbnb in the off time to cover the cost, but then also dedicating time each year to gift it to other families. So hopefully they could have the impact and experience that we were having. So that's what started our search. Why Montana, from where we were living in East Lake, or also known as Chula Vista in San Diego, is that my ex-wife is from Montana. She was born and raised to a pretty young age in Great Falls, which is due east by about three, three and a half, maybe four hours. If any road in Montana was actually straight, you could probably get there in two and you didn't have to weave your way through around the Western Rockies. So Great Falls was kind of off the

table, though, from the beginning, and she had family that lived in the Calisbelle area. So we started with a vacation up here over a Christmas and loved it and brought the whole family. And then it was like the classic postcard type thing. Kids were dressed up in snow outfits, snowmen, sledding, snowball fights, the whole nine. We found a rental property that met the criteria of what we were looking for. We thought it would be amazing to have as a family, an amazing thing to gift to other people. we leaned heavily on my family. I borrowed money from my sister. I borrowed money from my dad and were able to meet the minimum criteria for the down payment. We bought the house. And I believe it was in, it had to have been December of 2016. We spent almost the whole month of December at the house. And I remember picking the kids up from San Diego. I picked up my eldest son Riley and my middle son Tyler from their school. And we drove the whole way in an F-150. and got stuck in traffic, you know, behind accidents and all sorts of stuff. It was awesome.

It was a two-day drive, did the thing in two days, pulled up to the house. And it was, of course, like a banner snow year for Montana. And at the time, I was using the picnic table that sits outside. And I've actually done some Full Auto Friday episodes from that picnic table. And every night I would sweep it off and I would use that as the snow marker to see how much snow had fallen. And I might be, you know, romanticizing this tail to myself at this point. But I swear there was four to six inches of powder every night. It was ridiculous, the snowfall.

And it was an amazing experience for the kids. I think my sister, actually, I know for a fact, my sister and my brother-in-law, their kids came up, my dad came up, his wife came up, and it was just amazing. And we get back to San Diego after that and just saw the difference in our kids. And we were living in a subdivision that was very nice, well beyond our economic means if we hadn't bought that house on a short sale at the bottom of the market in 2008. And I could take a piss, not literally, but metaphorically. I could be taking a piss in the bathroom, open up the window, and touch our neighbor's house, which was a really nice, relatively expensive, you know, stucco house of which there were seven versions in the horseshoe-saped complex. Not complaining about it at all.

But if that's not what you want in life, you're going to realize that's just not what you want in life. The hard part is taking action on that. So my oldest was getting ready to go into eighth grade. And I did some time in a private school when I was in middle school. And I started at a public high school my first day, not knowing anybody. And being a young man is hard enough. Being a young man at a new school that didn't know anybody on their first day sucked. And I didn't want that experience for my oldest son.

So we realized that we needed to move to allow our kids to have time to develop their social circle before they hit the high school age. That was kind of our go, no-goer criteria. We made the decision, put the house on the market, I think in March and we crossed the border. moving into Montana the July 1st of 2017. So coming up on carry the mouth, I wish Glover was here, coming up on seven years here in 2024. So that's how we got here. And that's the process that we went through to get here. Now, to answer your questions specifically, was there any resentment from the kids? Actually, let's go back. Was there any resistance from the kids? No. They had that experience at the house in, which would be the best way to describe where it is, because I don't want to tell

people exactly where the house is, Southern Calispell, which is close enough. They had the experience of the vacation up here and the time in Southern Calisbelled. Now, mind you, that was during the wintertime and we were focusing on wintertime activities, but they had a blast, and I don't remember any of the kids offering any resistance. Now, having said that, my middle son and youngest were about the ages of, you. your children, eight and 11, plus or minus a year or two, I think. But I don't remember any of them having any level of resistance. And I don't, and in the conversations I've had with them, which I have talked to them many

times about how they like Montana and their plans moving forward in their life, I have not encountered any level of resentment from the kids. I also, though, asked for their opinion at that time period that my wife and I at the time were discussing this move, not because I was going to allow their. answer to truly govern whether or not we made that decision, but I wanted to at least factor it into our decision-making process. At 8 and 11, you should expect your children's social circle in their activities to be the absolute nucleus of their life. They have almost no context for the greater world. Where they have lived is where they have lived and what they know and who they know is

what they know and who they know. So I would expect resistance. But what I would say with that is there's a reason why we don't let kids that age vote. And there's a reason why we don't let them drive or own a firearm or enter into military service. And that's because their brains are not fully formed. But yours are as a parent. And what you've laid out for me to a degree is a portion of the reason that we wanted to leave California as well. And it is my job as a parent. This is my personal opinion. It is part of my role as a parent to develop the most capable and resilient children possible. And the reality is this. You are saying that you thought you would live in Colorado forever, but you're already now thinking about that's not going to be

the case. What do you think the odds are that your kids would stay in Colorado forever? And my point in asking that is, statistically, it's probably not great. I'm not saying it's impossible. I think it's improbable that they would stay in one place for their entire life. And how can you develop a level of resilience and prepare them for that ability and maybe even desire to want to move around a little bit as they navigate throughout the later years of their life? I would say exposure to it is a great one. I don't think it's a bad thing at all to expose your children to different living conditions, different living environments, cultures, weather, whatever it may be. I also don't think it's a bad thing if you love the situation that you're in to not do that.

I think there's value to both. I'm not even going to try to weigh one versus the other. But your kids, I think, my own personal opinion, based in absolutely no science, completely anecdotal, I think they'd be better for the move. And it's okay if they offer you resistance because that will fade. And your kids are in an age where they are very adaptive, they are very malleable, and they are more resistant than you think. Resilient, I should say, not resistant. So although they are offering you that negative feedback in the moment,

the vast majority of this decision needs to be made with you and your wife. So I would focus it on that. And look at what they value the most right now. and just make sure that where you're going to go is going to offer something to them that is equivalent. If you take them to, you know, even where I'm living in Calispell, which is funny, people argue about the holding population of this city or town, whichever one it may be, depending on population size, you know, it's a hillbilly town or it's growing too fast. Let's say there's 20,000 people here in the winter. If I were to at this age, put myself back in this situation, let's say we're from here and want to move my kids to some remote Alaskan Fission Village with six people in it, yeah, that's going to be jarring. And I think that that

deserves a much deeper conversation. But if it's relative living standards, but a change in environment, maybe a change in pace, a change in culture, I think those are all really good things. And I would advocate for that exposure. Yes, I would advocate for that exposure. What I was just thinking through real time was, is it what I advocate for that exposure or what I just say, I think that there's value there and you need to make your mind up on your own. Both of those are actually kind of true. But those are the reasons that we chose to live here and chose to move here. That's the experience I've had with my kids. I think they're thankful to be here. I would, of course, have to ask each one of them individually, and I will do so

shortly after recording this over the next few days. And if they have a different answer than what I have provided, I'll happily on the next Friday episode report back. If you don't hear back for me on this topic that that means that they agree with what it is that I have said because I don't want to speak for them. But there's value in both. Just make sure that you can kind of match the conditions that your children are thriving in right now. So it's not going to be overly jarring. And I think what you're going to find is the velocity that they adapt and interact into that new environment will shock you. And it's awesome to see. And I really think it's a good building block for billions later on in their life. And that's what I have to say about that. Question three.

And the father of three girls, 15, 19, and three. Sir, you are a saint. I feel like you're going to lose every argument that you may find yourself in at your house. You're probably even going to lose every conversation that you're in at your house, even though it's not supposed to be competitive, but you're outnumbered. After listening to your episode with Paul Roscoe White, I found myself thinking about the role of traditional male roles. And if they do or do not, play in the modern youth. The issue I see, and it may be a part of, is today's women are raised to be independent. I myself have tried to raise my girls to be independent, such as I have taught my 15-year-old how to change a tire and check the oil and other small things. Not because I want

her to, but in case she has to, when I or someone else cannot help her. I've also tried to continue some of my traditional ideas, such as opening the door for their mother and them, pump my wife's gas while she sits in the car walk on the inside of the sidewalk when we're walking walk on the inside of the sidewalk i think you mean have her walk on the inside of the sidewalk what you're saying is closer to the buildings and the street well when you walk on the street and numerous other small things my question is how do we teach today's young men that they can still be courteous and respectful of women while also respecting their independence especially in a society that seems to be downplaying and emasculating traditional male roles.

Also, as a father to both sons and daughters, what advice would you give your sons when first being introduced to a young lady's father? From my experience, many young men don't know how to approach fathers or even give a proper handshake. I'm going to start there because I actually have seen this as well, too. Not necessarily with my daughter's had limited boyfriends at this point. The interactions have been okay. I'm talking about people of their age.

They don't seem to have the willingness or ability to approach people, engage in a conversation, let alone start a conversation or introduce themselves to somebody they don't know with a firm handshake and eye contact. I was taught super young that that is critical. And that is a skill that needs to be taught. I don't think you come out of the box or that one ingrained. But walking up to somebody grabbing a hold of their hand, giving it a squeeze, not trying to crush it, obviously, depending on the person, time and place, maybe a situation for everything. but making eye contact, hey, how's it going? It's nice to meet you.

My name's Andy or my name's Riley or Tyler or Julia. Because I think man or woman, you need to be able to do that. First impressions absolutely matter. And I love it when younger generations come up to me and introduce themselves to me in that manner. I think it's fucking awesome. And it sets the stage for only good things. Okay. So now, though, independence in...

I was just about to say women. I know that's what your question is based in. And you may not be satisfied with my answer because I think independence should not have a gender tied to it. I think women should and need to know how to do everything that men need to know how to do. Like teaching your daughter how to change a tire or check her oil or whatever it may be is not something that I think you should do because you want her to not be stranded or isolated or be. be waiting for somebody else to rescue her, those are just really good life skills to have. If it's something that you would teach your son, it's something that you should teach your daughter as well. Like for the vast majority of things, you need to strip away that gender role and just

think of independence as exactly that. Maybe another way to think of it is instead of saying the word independence, self-reliant. They need to be as self-reliant as humanly possible. I believe human beings do. And that includes capacity and violence. I hear a lot of people, you know, have said that males need to include myself for clarity, need to be capable of violence. It's whether or not you can control that violence and what you do with it that actually is the measure of a man. And I think that's true. But there are physiological differences between men and women. And one of them is size and strength. And those absolutely matter. And I look at my daughter and the one thing I don't want my daughter to be is a victim. But I don't want my sons to be a victim either. And here's the reality

when it comes to just specifically and myopically this violence approach. I believe that human beings should be fucking lethal. I don't think you should be lethal, but I think you should be capable of lethality. If you're not, you're basically waiting around for the stats to catch up with you, which they hopefully never do, and you're going to fall into the victim category. Because if you can't handle yourself, your entire life is going to be waiting for somebody to come help you. And if you're a man or a woman, that sucks. So when it comes to that violence perspective, apply that equally to women as well. I think it actually might be an even more important skill for women. So everybody should know those skills. And I think more of what you're talking about is, is it a gender role or is it just

respect? I was raised in the same way that you were. I don't. I don't open the door for my wife because I feel like it's written down in a rulebook somewhere. I open it because I want to because I love her at a deeper level than I have the vocabulary that I'm able to describe. I have a level of respect for her that my vocabulary fails to be able to articulate properly. I walk on the outside of the street where I will put myself very passively in between what I consider to be a threat at all times and her. or my children or people that I care about because of the level that I care about them. I don't feel like that's associated necessarily with a gender role. For me, that comes from a place of love and respect.

So that, I think, is maybe a better conversation as opposed to what should be this behavior for men, all men should do all this and all women should do all that. At a baseline level, let's develop a high level and sense. of independence. And then let's talk to young men, and because this is what you're kind of asking about is here as young men. Let's talk to young men about respect. Let's talk to young men about intent. And let's talk to young men about motivation. And then even more importantly than all of that, you have to model this behavior. Giving somebody a book on stoicism while you fucking freak out at every opportunity that emotions present themselves, what are you teaching there?

The answer is absolutely nothing. If you tell you, you, people that you need to respect women at all times or this, that, or the other, and all your children see as you demeaning the other sex. And this goes in both directions as well, too. From men to women or women to men, you have to model those behaviors. So if you can model those appropriate behaviors that are based in respect and love, layer that on top of an extreme level of independence. That's an amazing thing. Hopefully, your daughters all find a man that as equally as capable and as independent as they are, and they do these things because they want to, not because they feel obligated to do so. Obligations and doing things only because you feel obligated

to do so, God, it sucks. It gets old. Opening the door for my wife, I look forward to doing it. I open it for my daughter. I open it for my sons. I open them for my friends. I actually open them for strangers too, because I just actually think it's a respectful thing to do. Male or female, if you are walking behind me and we're approaching a building, I'm going to open the door for you and say, hey, how's it going? Have a nice day. Or if you say it to me, thank you. I'll say, of course, my pleasure.

Have a great day. Happens at the coffee shop all the time. I love doing it. And again, I don't think there's a gender role that is associated with that. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you have to or you should. You don't need to ride up on a white horse

because a woman is changing her tired and feel like you have to do it for her. All of these things need to be respected. and they need to have some boundaries on that. And those are harder conversations, unfortunately, then. Well, women should be able to do this and men should be able to do that. I'm starting to ramble here a little bit because this is a complex, not problem, it's a complex issue.

And I just, I hate binary answers. The emasculating traditional male roles, I think that there is a small minority of people that are actually interested in doing that. And you don't have to be one of those people. I think you're already doing the right thing. You're modeling good behavior. And here's something cool. If you have somebody who wants to date one of your daughters and they come up to you and they won't make eye contact and it's a wet noodle handshake, you have an opportunity to greatly impact a young man's life. And you can teach them and show them and talk to them about a way to be better, about a way to do it better, about a way to carry themselves better, a path towards self-implead. improvement. And here's the cool thing too. If your daughters are super independent, they're likely,

hopefully going to attract people that are also in the same boat. And those are the people that you want on their team. But let's say that they attract somebody who is not. Again, you can view that through the lens of, oh my God, what am I going to do? This person isn't worthy of this, that, or the other. Or you can say, you know what? Right on. I've been surrounded by women my whole life. Time for me to teach men some shit. as long as there are strong male role models out there, people can talk about emasculating the traditional male role model, but I don't think it's going to go anywhere. It is, in my mind, an essential part of who we are, the fabric of our society, but it has to be

controlled. You know, toxic masculinity, when I hear people talk about that, the things that they're talking about, I wouldn't even describe as masculinity. There's certainly toxic traits, but somehow it's associated with masculinity. just remember everything can be toxic to include water you can drink so much water that you absolutely kill yourself even though you think it's something benign and harmless it's required for life but you can kill yourself with too much of it so traditional male roles are the same you know masculinity is exactly the same so keep it in check and uh take the opportunity to course

correct and teach people when it presents itself to you and that is where i would leave it for you see you guys all on monday