Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Welcome to Focal Point - Episode 001

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Where do you go to consume your news? Can we even call it that anymore? Is it actually the "news," or is it editorialized information designed to elicit a specific response? One of my favorite quotes comes from a recent conversation with Sebastian Junger, paraphrasing: "The role of the media is not to tell you what to think, but to let you know what to think about." In a sea of media resources designed to only tell you how to think, we are going to try something different. Our goal is to have conversations about relevant topics where we offer our opinions based on experience and leave it up to the audience to decide what to think on their own. I am not interested in being right, I just want us all to collectively be "better."

Right now, I know there's a dilemma amongst single people. We have more single people in this country than we've ever had. People socially think they're being connected through social media, but they're disproportionately being segregated from each other because they don't want to actually interpersonally react. What's the single most important characteristic of a man? They have the lens of Instagram, their fake lives from the social media perspective. But inside, you know, if you pulled the curtain back, they're deeply flawed.

arrogant and egocentric, like all the kind of like negative pieces of psychology that we would expose. All right, everybody, welcome back to focal point where we discuss current events, things going on in society that we think need a little bit more discussion. Today, I'm joined by Mike Glover, CEO of Fieldcraft Survival, Domestic Terrorist, and Evan Hafer. That's true. Yeah. Evan Hafer, the alleged founder and CEO of Black Wrecked Coffee, both of you are probably bought and paid for assets of the U.S. government, given your work with the Central Intelligence Agency. However, today we're not going to be necessarily talking about that. Yeah, we're not going to be talking about that.

What are your thoughts on what many people are discussing and talking about for the decline of masculinity, or another way it has been phrased? the toxic nature of masculinity, or we could look at it through the lens of the generation that is now one or two behind us, your thoughts on the world that they are entering and the what they are being taught and being, I don't want to say, groomed into because I don't think that's necessarily correct, but just the lens that they now view the world through versus the lens that we viewed the world through at their age, as specifically men. since the three of us are men here. Yeah, I think guys are completely lost in society right now.

I think Gen Z, I mean, a lot of men that I train at Philcrass Survival, from rewilding experiences to even flat-range stuff, show up not because they want to technically potentially train. It's because they're looking for something, especially in rewilding where a lot of men, when we have fireside chats, are talking about discussing with us, that they're missing purpose, they're missing tribe. And I know you talk to Sebastian Younger about this,

and it's a significant part of his book tribe where he shares a story where he went to Restrepo and spent some time in a fire base with infantrymen. He got it because he realized, man, I missed that camaraderie, and I don't think a lot of men have camaraderie. I don't think they have friendship groups like we have, or we lean on each other. Well, so hold on.

I think it's important that we recognize that all three of us, regardless of the generation that we grew up in, had a very clear path on what we wanted to do in the communities that we went in. So that I think will always be unique. It's very hard, I think, to describe the camaraderie that can come from the communities that we volunteered for, were screened for, and were selected for, and have a robust amount of experience in that world. For the people, though, of our generation who didn't have that path, do you think that they

are actually different than the current generation because we I think it's important to recognize that we are all three of us are anomalous in the path that we took and then for the experiences that come from that the people that we grow up with have the same lack of purpose as the current generation and if they if they did what changed do you say anomalous mm-hmm why don't you use words like that when we're just like hanging out he's like Mike he doesn't say words like that unless he's on a podcast Mike is Asian so I wanted to to tie back in numbers.

Yeah. So he'd be with us. I like that. Yeah. Give it with a program, Evan. Yeah. He's our quaint. I'm sorry.

If we want our quant involved in the conversation, we have to tie it back in the math. It's a, it's a great, it's a great question because I think generationally, every generation of men, let's say a 20-year cycle, every generation of men deals with these kind of problems. And, you know, we are very dependently at something. pointing our lives tethered to our service and a very deep understanding of what tribes are, what camaraderie is, what brotherhood is. And so we recognize kind of like what that felt like. And I think in a way have gotten out of that service and kind of replicated that for ourselves in a small form. I mean, we have small groups, small friendship groups that are like many tribes, like the teams we served on in small numbers. I don't think men who are,

disaffected from that, understand the start point in that. I mean, a lot of men, like right now, I know there's a dilemma amongst single people. We have more single people in this country than we've ever had. People socially think they're being connected through social media, but they're disproportionately being segregated from each other because they don't want to actually interpersonally react or engage. And that's part of the problem, right? There's not a good start point. It's not like, my dad taught me how to build relationships and do interpersonal things that were going to make me better as a man. So I think, I think a lack of family units, family gatherings, traditions, community is what we're seeing. And more people are lonely, more people are by themselves in their own echo chambers on Reddit than they would actually be interpersonally.

like even doing things like this where we're just hanging out and talking about things. So I think that's scary because I know I can affect my children and teaching them that. When your kids are around us, they see those engagements.

But if you don't know the start point, which is most of the men that we mentor on DMs and messages, it's like there's a systemic issue going on with men right now. What do you think, Kevin? I think it's probably not new. I don't think it's new to our generation of men.

I think people, just in general, I think they're going through a significant crisis of purpose or an existential crisis. I think... Do you think that's new? Or that just kind of repeats itself for every generation? I think the... What I would say is the newfound information that we have access to,

and then the distraction, the layers of what I would say is a meaningless distraction caused a lot of chaos and confusion and then you also have the layer of social media that convinces people you have to be a certain way and they're following social media influencers, you know, men and women both and they're looking at these people that are clearly, they're not virtuous. They have the lens of Instagram, their fake fucking lives from the social media perspective.

But inside, you know, if you pulled the curtain back, they're deeply flawed, arrogant and egocentric, like all the kind of like negative pieces of psychology that we would expose. I think people are looking at social media for guidance. That's not the place that you need to seek guidance. I think there's a war on masculinity, which is also part of the greater international culture war. I think there's a war on Western civilization. I think there's a war on logic and just general philosophy in general. General philosophy in general.

So I think we're being, we're being targeted specifically because we represent a significant amount of energy. And if you can devalue the accomplishments of Western civilization, and then if you can devalue the accomplishments of men in what I would say is from the last 2,500 years, then you can essentially soften up your target to allow a different narrative. you know i think in a land where people are talking about you know chay rivera carl marks as heroes right as heroes yeah they're heroes whereas they're they're their search for meaning and purpose where they can go and find it they're not finding the what i would say is the virtuous avenue in order to find it because they're plugged into something that's immaterial, it's, you know, their technology device and Instagram is not going to tell you how to live your life. You have to ultimately decide who you are and how you're going to live your

life. And you have to also determine without being forced what is good and what is evil. And then how you're going to live a virtuous life plugged into your family, your community, yourself. And if you don't do that, you're a ship without a rudder. And nobody on Instagram is going to fucking give you the guidance and do it. So I think all of those things, I don't think it's new. I think now it's just way more confusing because that fucking thing is a huge distractionary device. It's being thrown into your room every day. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, Whereas like roll back the clock 40 years ago, if you were searching for, you know,

man search for meaning, you would dive into the pages of a book and have to concentrate. Or you would go somewhere to a church or to, you know, you would interact with people in physical space. You don't do that. You scroll through Instagram.

You're looking at, you know, six packs and titties. And you're like, well, this is fucking awesome. This is how I'm going to live my life. And you think that, you know, a new submariner is going to make your life back. It's not. What? It's not.

Well, I'm not, it's a slightly artificial question because it's complex. In your opinion, what's the single most important characteristic of a man? If you had to pick one, like I said, complex. Courage. You could, come on. Really? Yeah, 100%. Courage.

I think being a good father, there'll be mine. I mean, that's a whole conversation of its. what that means, but I get it. I would say integrity. Oh, we'd look at that values. Yeah. Just not, I mean, you can, just answering the question that was asked, you know, is what we're looking for.

Yeah, yeah. Just listening, being a good listener. Being involved in the conversation. It's a skill that a man should have. What about not being a douchebag? Maybe that would be what I would recommend, Evan. When are you going to start that? I think you should turn around and do that to yourself in the mirror.

Yeah, when are you going to do that? I'll say that. You should wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, don't be a douchebag. What's your actual answer? It's integrity as well. I think integrity is as a value metric when self-evaluating yourself and how the world looks at you. If you wake up and consciously hold that as a virtue, as a value, and you do checks and balances and you check in with yourself, having integrity, being a man of your word, those things are lost in a lot of people. and it's one thing within your realm of control

that you could affect every single day. And I haven't been as virtuous as I'd like to be. But if you're holding yourself to that standard, it's not just a word on a dog tag and basic training. It's actually something that you live. Let's be honest, I don't think anybody is ever as virtuous as they would like to be. Yeah, of course. It's the pursuit of the virtue that I think is important.

The striving for it. So for an 18-year-old young man who finds their way to this, what would you recommend to them to close it out? What steps would you recommend for somebody who is looking for that purpose but doesn't know where to start? They want to be virtuous. They want to have integrity. They're bombarded in all different directions. What piece of advice would you leave them with to get them oriented on a better path? The best advice I'd give is society tells you a lot of things that you're supposed to be,

and a lot of that is wrong. Like when I was very young, 17 joining the Army, becoming an adult through an experience in the military, everything that I was around was telling me, if you wanted to be cool, you had to go out to the club, you had to go to the bar, you had to drink, you had to do all these men activities. And when I realized quickly, when I separated from myself, because I was never a follower in that sense, and I started following my own course of action, I was more successful just because I wasn't following everybody else. And so I would say for young men who want to be successful in life, take a step back and don't just go with the flow of how society wants you to be. There's this expectation, for example, that you should be single because you got to get all of those feelings out and you got to do all those things early on. Because once you're locked down and commitment, that changes the game.

And I'm not saying to guys, go out there and lock yourself down or over commit. I'm saying the structure of family, the structure of like friendship, having that structure is going to set you up for success. like being conventional seems like a bad thing even in our backgrounds and experience in the military being conventional

was like you are too square pegged and and we were like we thought we were more unconventional or more irregular and so we were special it's like actually

we were just more disciplined and more conventional we had better routines we had family structures we had committed relationships we had faith in something Those things aren't that bad. They actually will improve your life.

And I wish I would have followed suit faster. I wish I would have committed in relationships sooner. I wish I would have locked myself, been more disciplined. And I think, you know, all of that seemingly is a lot. But I think guys are lost. And we need to start those family units. I'm more squared away as a family unit than I've ever been. and I feel the same with all my friends.

They all have good relationships and good family unit situations. Yeah. Which makes them more squared away. What do you think of them? Well, I think to talk about a piece of his advice, and then I'll layer on to it, which is just be yourself. You know, I think he talked about not following his peer group,

you know, really trying to define who he was. I couldn't agree more. I think at a very early age, like 1920-ish, I just said I don't care what other people are doing. And, you know, what I purposely did was I essentially, at 19 years old, I was like, I'm not going to buy into anything that's current. I went and bought like 501 shrink-to-fit jeans

and a bunch of flannels. And it was like, this is what I wear. not because I think it's cool, because it simplifies everything in my life and I don't have to participate in what I would say is the social cool pressure. And now I'm just going to define what it is that I think is the right path based on my curiosity. So I've never been wandering or a ship without a rudder. I'm very empathetic to people that are, but it's something that I've said, I tell we had kids I didn't have a TV you know the only thing I would do like typically is like I would read I would run I would spend a lot of time in the mountains and trying to understand what I wanted to

do like the the definition of life like my my search for purpose and that that I'm not saying like I understood that I'm just saying like I just had the confidence and the courage to say I'm going to go do this and it's not because I want to do it because everybody else thinks it's cool it's because what is it that I want to do and then go do it but I've done that my entire life so I think when you define your your your purpose your essence philosophically and you don't give a fuck what other people think man it's a great feeling because you know what it is it's freedom Like, I don't have to live, like, by these rules that people, these artificial, absurd rules that people create around quite literally

meaningless horseshed, whereas the single greatest points in my life have been in, like, the most remote areas of the world with a fucking paperback. It's fucking awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I think you guys. Encapsulated how I feel about it too. I would advise people to spend more time determining who they are as opposed to measuring themselves against others, which is hard with the anxiety rectangle that we all carry around in our pocket. Easier said than done, but I think it nets you at a better place and you have a foundation and a moral compass for who you are, and you're less apt to be deviated or drawn towards the things that, quite frankly, I don't think.

think provide any sense of fulfillment or purpose, but goddamn people follow them in an unbelievable way. But baby, you guys can tell us in the comments. Thanks for turning into this last episode of Focal Point where Evan and I talk about important things and Mike just answers whatever question once. Haters. Hater's going to hate.

Haters. Hope you enjoy that episode of Focal Point. Current events, giving you perspective. That's the value that we want to provide. If you're interested in all the day, things you heard, especially at the roundtable with a lot of perspective from experts in their field and people we want to talk to, make sure you subscribe to the links down below. Focal point coming to you in 2024. Thanks, guys.