The Nick Bare Podcast - Archive - Matt Beaudreau | Changing The World By Investing In The Next Generation

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Matt Beaudreau is the founder of Acton Academy Placer Schools, co-founder of the Apogee Strong Program, keynote Speaker, and host of The Essential 11 Podcast. In this episode, Matt joins Nick to discuss some areas where education system in America comes up short, and how a different approach to education could potentially be the answer to ensuring the next generation reaches their full potential, and becomes the leaders that we need them to be. They also dive deep into how we should parent, how failure should be encouraged for our kids, and how we can inspire the next generation to reach for new heights. Follow Matt on Social Media @mattbeaudreau More Resources: BPN website: www.bpnsupps.com Nick’s website: www.nickbare.com Nick’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness Nick’s Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/barelifenutrition Follow Us On Social Media! Instagram: @thebareperformancepodcast Facebook: The Bare Performance Podcast Twitter: @BarePerformPod

In this episode of the Bear Performance Podcast, we've been taught that education means this checklist where you go through and have somebody tell you this and somebody tell you this and you regurgitate it, somebody tells you this and regurgitate it, and then all of a sudden you're all done. And that's where you get the 30 and 40-year-olds that you described earlier that are just waiting for everybody else.

We understand that education doesn't end just because you, quote-unquote, graduated high school. Education is synonymous for being alive. You should grow. You are going to get an. education in parenting because you're going to be a parent. Education's ongoing or just preparing people for a life that continuously is on going. That's again, goes back to that question.

What should school before? It should be for setting up that kind of mindset. Welcome back to another powerful episode of the podcast. I'm your host, Nick Baer, founder and CEO of Bear Performance Nutrition. Every week we bring you insightful stories, knowledge, and inspiration to help you reach your full potential in life, fitness, and business. If you enjoy the message we're promoting in this podcast, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review on the platform you're listening to. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes that embody the go one more mindset. All right, ladies and gentlemen, today we have Matt Boudreau, co-founder of the Apogee Strong.

mentorship program founder of Acton academy plaster schools host of essential 11 podcast international speaker and uh i want to welcome you to the show brother pleasure is mine sir that's good to be here you know this uh like i was telling you before this episode is going to go up right after father's day and i think it couldn't be the more the most perfect episode to go up for for right after father's day I take that as a compliment. And, you know, I've been following yourself on social media. I've been able to work with you on some of these, you know, one of these projects. And this is a really important time of my life for me because our baby's doing about five weeks.

The best. Baby girl. Yeah. I'm so pumped for you. I'm so excited. Do you guys have a name? We do have a name picked out. Okay.

Not saying it yet. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Cool. Right on. But we did pick out of a name.

And for me, like, you know, we always wanted children, we always did. And it was kind of you romanticize about having kids. But then when it finally starts happening and my wife got pregnant, I started feeling this heavy obligation and responsibility of not necessarily the need and want to go read all these books and figure out what other people are doing, but kind of taking inventory in stock of what do I actually want to teach? daughter to prepare her for life.

Yep. And I reference a lot of your material because it's gold. Yeah. So I appreciate it. Oh, thank you, man. That's awesome. And like I said, you given that forethought going into it,

man, already, you know, already is going to make you 10 steps ahead of the game, man. And she's going to reap the rewards of that. And then like we were saying, you're going to mess some stuff up too, for sure.

And you're going to have a game plan. And that shit's going to throw out, like it's just going to go out the window sometimes, too. I always tell people it's kind of like starting a business, right? You start a business and everybody knows how to run a business until you run a business. And then you go, shit, all right, I got to figure a whole lot of other things out and I've got to be able to pivot. Same thing. Everybody knows how they're going to raise their kids until they have their kids.

And then they go, okay, way harder than I thought it would be, way better than I could have understood that it would be. Way more fulfilling, but also way harder. So you're going to, you know, you'll mess some stuff up and you'll change some things, having that forethought and having a plan going in and being on that same page and that commitment between you and Steph, like that's a big deal, man. So I'm excited for you guys. Well, I want to use like this opportunity in this, in this episode to really talk about the education system and raising kids, raising strong independent kids.

Yep. And like we talked about, it's not just like taking this headline and attacking the school system, but it's really taking inventory and stock of what is happening and how it can be changed or challenged, more importantly. But before we dive into that, I'd love to talk about your background in the education system because I know you kind of have a background in the conventional and unconventional school system. So I'd love to learn more about that. Yeah. So, you know, I always like to give that. I appreciate that because I like to give context. You know, we're talking out there about Naval Rabakon, right? Nabil talks about your specific knowledge.

and it's knowledge you gain from specific experiences that you have, which is why I'm so big on young people collecting as many experiences as possible. So I've been, you know, I actually started out in education at Stanford University and worked there for quite a while in a number of different capacities, but ultimately doing some corporate training there. But I got to see the game of higher ed a little bit. And I say game very, very intentionally. So I got to see the game of higher ed from,

from working there. And then I was a public school teacher. I was a public school administrator. I was a private school teacher. I was a private school administrator. So I saw all of those things from from the inside and spent many years in there, which is why I left to go start the schools that I start. Right. And again, context, I love good human beings who are teachers and administrators in our public schools, in our colleges. Like I, nothing but respect for them and anything I can do, I'll bend over backwards to help them. My problem is always with, with, with, system. So that's why I left to join forces with the Acton network and to build the schools that I have. And it really created kind of this dovetail too to be able to do the speaking

that I did. I started, you know, I spoke a lot in education, but most of my clients were, you know, big Fortune 500 clients. And they were bringing me in because they saw the same problems with the people they were hiring. They were going, hey, we've got our, our Harvard, our Stanford's, our MIT's, you know, we're hiring all these kids that are really, really smart, but we want to fire all of them. They suck. They just play school. Like they don't, you know, they're good at academia, but they don't, nothing's transferring in here. Like, where are we going wrong? What's going on? You know, and so I've gotten that kind of unique perspective, which is why I'm so bullish on people doing something different with their young kids other than a conveyor belt

school program if they can do it. That's kind of, it goes back to how I hire here at BPN, too, is I really, I couldn't tell you of all my employees who has a degree and who doesn't or what that degree is in or what they did in school. And it's not, and I will say this, I'm not saying that I don't necessarily think that college is or is not the right answer for everyone. it's just that I don't I don't care about their college experience because I'm going to interview and judge and evaluate people based off of their experience and what they can bring

to the business. And I know just me being in college and having a nutrition degree in business minor, when I left, I couldn't really apply any of that to what I wanted to do and learn. And I've applied that to, you know, building BPN of I'm hiring for person. personalities for, like you said, everyone can be and is a genius. Mm-hmm. That's right. Where is that area of genius?

That's right. And how is it exposed? When you were in the conventional school education system, how long were you in there before you started realizing something might need challenged or changed? Almost immediately. So I got thrown. It was kind of a trial by fire and I went into a Title I school in Central Valley of California. And so this was a pretty low socioeconomic area. And, you know, the young people are

phenomenal humans, but they're in some rough, they're in some rough spots. And there's a lot of gang activity, a lot of drugs, a lot of, you know, those kind of things. So it was very, very early when I started taking things from like a mentorship standpoint going, okay, I can help this young man, but I needed to help him change his perspective on life. You know, this young man's, you know, 15 still in eighth grade. And, you know, he's got gang ties. Older brothers are in gangs are in prison. Mom and dad are wanting him to sell drugs from the porch when he gets home, right?

And so I'm mentoring him trying to shift a mindset that at 15, man, that's already pretty dang solid, right? But I'm being told algebra is what's going to save this guy. Like, this is what he needs. I'm like, well, he needs to not sell drugs when he gets home. He needs to not look at mom and dad with 209 tatted on their neck and think that that's his example of what he needs to be when he gets older. Like that's what he needs.

So it was pretty early that I started being what I called creatively and subordinate. You know, schools are funded based on testing. And so that's my focus was supposed to be to get these guys to test properly. But I really, I didn't pay that any attention. And I developed really all my own. You know, there's curriculum guides and all this stuff. I'm like, now I'm going to do it my own way. and I'm going to try to individualize it as much as humanly possible.

But the system isn't built for that. So I kept getting brought in. I was brought in by a superintendent who said, you know, we're struggling with you because you don't follow kind of the status quo. You're not doing, you know, really what we're asking you to do. But at the same time, you're the favorite teacher of these kids and you're the favorite teacher of the parents and you're the, you know, so we're really struggling kind of with what to do here.

You know, and so that led me to think, well, naively at that time, because I didn't really know. It was like, all right, well, if I become a site administrator, if I become a principal, well, then I can make the change that needs to be made. And then as you go get that credential, you start going, wait a second, okay, this is all politics. This is all money. This is all, we're not talking about the kids at all. And so you start diving into like, why is this built like this in the first place?

And, you know, you kind of get this unraveling of a long history of something that is really designed to encage minds, not unleashed. minds. And you'd start to realize I was, you know, I was tricked. I went through this credential program that taught me how to perpetuate a system. It didn't teach me how to educate and how to unleash. It taught me how to perpetuate this system. And this system's not built for kids. So what the hell am I doing? I was kind of explained it to you earlier that so my mom was in the education system for her entire career, her entire life. And I learned a lot by watching her. mom was in special education, life skills, and then the supervisor of special education.

And what was really cool about those programs is it didn't follow a conventional curriculum. There wasn't necessarily standardized test. My mom had to get really creative and think of, okay, when these kids, these students graduate and leave. I think some of them could stay in school so that they were like 21 years old. it's her responsibility and obligation to teach them how to live on their own and get a job. Yep. So some of the things they would do is, I know they teamed up with like Pizza Hut, for example.

And they go into Pizza Hut and they'd fold Pizza Hut boxes. And then they would deliver all those folded boxes or they go work at different organizations or businesses and get involved. And it was really cool seeing that because she had to be very unconventional. And she was preparing them to survive in the world. That's exactly it. And what's cool is that she also had the intellectual freedom to do that, right? Somebody saw, okay, she understands how to do this. She's got the, we're going to give her the flexibility to do that.

We're going to give her the flexibility to go ahead and create. One of the biggest issues with the conveyor belt systems, especially now, is that you're not given that freedom anymore. So it's like, I think in California, it's somewhere around 50% of new teachers leave after three years, never to go back to the profession. 50%. Why is that? Well, they're going in because they genuinely want to go impact young people, right? They want to go do the right thing. They want to go help. They're good human beings that want to raise strong young human beings. And then they get there and immediately the cuffs are slapped on them and they realize, I can't do what I'm here to do. I have to follow this playbook. And the

playbook's not helping these kids. And the kids know it and I know it. And we all just play this little freaking game, right? They don't have the intellectual freedom anymore, so they say, see you later. That's a problem. That's a problem, because then the ones who stay are either staying because, you know, maybe they're disenchanted, but they're only a few years away from retirement, and they're like, and I know many of these teachers, and they're like, yeah, you know, my pension's tied up here, so I'm just going to ride it out these last few years. Is that who you want with your kids? Is somebody that, and I'm not saying those are bad people, but they're not excited and they're not there to inspire your kids, right? Or you've got people that buy into the bigger, you know,

some of the, some of the agendas that are getting pushed. I don't want them with my kids either, right? So again, it's the system is what I have an issue with. And that's a huge part of it right there. What scares me being a soon-to-be father, you know, before my daughter will be able to go to school. It's still quite a few years. But in school, they're, you know, they're going to end up spending more time with those guides and teachers than they are with me and my wife. Yeah. During the week. And that scares me because then I'm trusting someone else to develop their minds and their hearts.

That's right. And I lose part of that ability. Agreed. One of my questions to you is, what do you think school should be for? Oh, that's the question. What is the answer? What should school be for? That is the question.

Are you familiar with Seth Godin? I love Seth Godin. So Seth is one of my favorite human beings on the planet. And I consider him a mentor in many ways and have had some really good conversations with Seth. After I left the, I'm getting to the answer to this. After I left the public schools, you know, I again, at that point still somewhat naively, I went over to some private schools to teach and to run those, not understanding that most private schools are modeled after.

public school. So it's the same pig, different shade of lipstick, and you have the same kind of issues. And I was figuring all that out and was just learning about what acting is, but in my head, I was, oh, yeah, there's a Seth book right there, right in front of us. So in my head, I'm sitting here trying to design what should school before. And then I found this manifesto called Stop Stealing Dreams that Seth wrote. And that was part of the very beginning. He's like, well, what should school before and I never had really sat and thought about that question right you just go in and again not paying it you just go in and I'm seeing things that are wrong and I'm pushing back against the system but I never stopped to go from the foundational aspect of okay well what the hell should this

before anyways and that was in his manifesto I read the entire manifesto in my car in the parking lot and decided right then and there that I was going to go build my own school and I told the other administrators the next day hey I'll finish out this year and I won't say anything but then after that I'm gone. I'm building my own thing. So what should it be for? What should we do as parents? We want to raise

the strongest, most resilient, happiest young humans that can go provide for society. They can go impact more. They can provide services and value to other people. They can go create more than they consume. They've got a peace of mind. They understand.

what their inherent genius is and they can go out and do all these things happily and are also self-sufficient enough to not have to live in our basement until they're 30, right? And they still have a relationship with us, but they're out doing these amazing things and they are living out their purpose. That's what we want as parents.

And school should only be an extension of that. It should be a place where that is in partnership with the parents, unleashing those exact same things. That's what it should be for. And there's no way to find the individual passions, purpose, you know, destinies for these young heroes on an individual level when you're putting everybody together,

you're only sitting with your same date of manufacture, you're doing the same thing, same time, and it's the same thing that everybody's done forever that we all know doesn't transfer over in real life anyways. It doesn't freaking... So that's what school should be for. And so I always tell parents is if you can find that school, because there are some, I believe we build those,

great. That's a great place to partner. If you can't find those schools, you have two options. One, build one, and I'll help you do that. Or two, homeschool. And we can destroy all the myths of homeschool too if we want to do that because that's another great way to go, to build world-class humans and have a world-class education.

In terms of homeschooling, you know, my wife have talked about this. But one of the things we have discussed, and I'm curious, your thoughts on it is the socializing aspect of going to school and avoiding that or missing that in homeschooling. I love that question. Because that's one of the pervasive things, right? People say, well, shan, all the homeschool kids are the weird kids, right? That's what we're afraid of. That's totally, man. I get that.

I get that. That's, again, part of our cultural, it's part of our cultural condition. Did you go to a public school? I went to a public school. So did I. Any weird kids in public school? Oh, yeah. Well, shit.

That's part, right? Like, we pretend that if the homeschool kids are the weird kids and all the non-homschool kids aren't weird, right? It has nothing to do with the system, weirdness, however you want to define that. I always tell parents, if you're weird, your kid's probably going to be weird, right? You're leading by example. Your kids are going to do what you do before they do what you say. So if you live in a way that's strange or awkward or uncomfortable,

you might raise strange, awkward, uncomfortable kids. It won't matter if they go to public school, private school, homeschool. That's their main influence, right? So the whole, you know, weird kids come from homeschool is provably false. But you're talking about the socialization part of it. So there's a couple myths that need to be busted. One, it's a myth that you're only going to gain socialization. skills if you're around people your own age. Nick, how old are you?

31. I'm 42. Should we not be speaking right now because I'm 11 years older than you? Well, that would make no sense. It would make no sense. But in school, you just hang out with the kids that are right about that same year or so as you. You automatically revere the older ones. You automatically look it down and you can press down on the youngers, right? And they've got, it's this weird social hierarchy that doesn't exist in the real world. It doesn't work that way. And then whoever the oldest people are on campus are automatically the authorities that you can't question ever.

And I'm going to ask that human being if I can go to the bathroom and they can say no and I have to go, okay, right? It's this weird social structure that doesn't actually map out. The closest societal social structure that we have to that, where you only get to associate with a certain group of people. You don't actually get to make choices for yourself all day long. So what happens is when you do have some free time, you find clicks and units,

and then you are empowered, you know, you're like, maybe I should bully this other group because that will empower me to actually at least have a voice. You know, otherwise I'm just following directions and standing in the straight line and asking permit, the only other system we have in this country that kind of mimics that is prison.

That's it. Otherwise, it doesn't play out anywhere. So why would you normalize that? You normalize what you make normal. So why would you make normal that weird false social structure that they're never, ever, ever going to see again in any place that's healthy?

Right? Why would you do that? So my kids, you know, we're in, they're obviously the Acton academies that I built. They were there, but right now they're homeschool. We live on this ranch. So they're working together with each other every day. They have conversations, adult level conversations with mom and dad every single day. They're talking to one of my neighbors who's 75 every single day having conversations.

We just sold a bunch of animals a couple weeks ago. And so that guy drives up in his big trailer and he's got some kids and the kids come out and my kids are welcoming them and having conversations and then that guy gets out and my nine-year-old goes over and goes, okay, here's the bill of sale for this. You're going to sign right here. I'm going to take a picture of that and that's what we'll keep for our end of that and then I'll write you a receipt and then you can give me the cash. And he's like, I'm like, yeah, because that's what we've made normal. So my kids are homeschooled. They interact with people of all ages all day long and none of it's weird. They actually own most of those conversations.

because people are sitting there and going, I don't understand how to interact with a nine-year-old that's an adult. So you make normal what you want to normalize. That's what you make normally. You make those kinds of interactions normal. You make those kinds of conversations normal. School, as is designed, is far from freaking normal,

and that's damaging because you build bad habits. That's the sneakiest part of conveyor belt schooling are the bad habits that you build, the beliefs that you build around how life, works. Whenever I come across someone who's younger, you know, 7, 8, 9 and can hold an actual conversation with me. Yes, sir. I'm so impressed and mind-blown. And it takes me back. Yes, sir. It makes me think of the movie, Remember the Titans? Oh, yeah. Where the daughter was like this assistant coach. Yes. She's interacting. That's right. That's right. Little Hayden, uh, whatever her name was

when she was little. Yeah. When she was cute and wasn't crazy. Yeah, totally. I was talking to, our chief revenue officer, Kat Thomas, last week. And I was explaining, that's what I kind of see, I hope that my daughter is like, yes. She is just like this little adult who can hold conversations and interact. And one of the things me and my wife have been talking about the past year is being able to have these conversations that reach levels of depth. Because we're so used to having conversations at our surface level. Yep.

And, you know, it's the weather. we're talking about COVID or masks. And you just meet these people. It's like, why are we talking about this? That's right. We're wasting our time. We're wasting our time. We're pretending.

I want to have like, I was telling my wife when our daughter can start having conversations, I want to talk to her. Like she's one of my buddies. Like we're going to have conversations about business and entrepreneurship and explain to her what is going on in our lives right now. So she's a part of it. That's right. That's exactly it.

And you establish that foundation early. That becomes normal. those become normal relationships, right? So then that is what, again, they're taking mom and dad as the prime example as they should of how human beings behave. So when mom and dad like to engage in actual conversations, they go, okay, cool, this is kind of cool.

This is the way it goes. And so they'll want to engage in actual conversations. They won't have patients or tolerance for the surface level stuff all the time that everybody else will. They'll be used to that. And again, you go developmentally appropriate, right? You're not going to go, you know,

have these long in-depth conversations around entrepreneurship when she's two, but you can still have a pretty decent conversation and they'll understand a whole lot more than you think, man. You're leading by example with that. That's like when I was on the call with you and some of the students there, part of the mentorship program,

some of those kids, they may have been nine, ten years old. They were asking me quite, I was completely mind-blown by the questions they were asking me of how intentional and deliberate and deep they were. I left that, I went into that call thinking of what they might be asking me or what you might be asking me. And when you turned to them for the questions, I told everyone around the office, I was like, I can't believe the questions that these kids were asking me. I was completely impressed. That's it, man.

And it's not, and that's the way it should be because young people are ridiculously capable. They're capable of high-level thinking. They're capable of high-level conversation. They're capable of being the adults we wish we saw in this world. They're capable of that. So we need to pour into that and build into that. And that's the whole point of this, bro.

It's like, look, man, some of these things are just basics. getting back to looking someone in the eyes, shaking their hands. Yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no ma'am. Those aren't, it's not, you know, just fluff and, like, no, you set a pattern with your life and the way you're going to behave, right? You're setting that foundation. And these young people, man, they have learned not just to ask those really good questions because good questions are infinitely better than good answers, but they've learned to, you know,

we get off the call with you and we debrief. Cool, man, what do you guys have? What's in your notes? What is it? And they write to, okay, man, when Nick said this, I really like this. When Nick said this, I really like this. And okay, this is great. And then what happens is, you know, the next week we talk to, you know,

Andy Frizzella and the next week, you know, we'll talk to Laf Babin. And then we start to go, okay, so let's look over the last few weeks. What kind of patterns are you noticing? What are you saying? And they start going, oh, okay, well, Nick said this, Andy said this. Leif said this. Man, okay, I'm seeing a pattern of success here. I'm seeing a pattern of how great people think.

And then it starts to build exponentially from there. And so then they're not interested in talking about, you know, the latest video game or whatever. Like, that's just not as interesting as real life because their minds are just going exponentially with who I could potentially be in this world and what impact I could make. And especially for a young man, that's in our DNA, I don't want to go conquer. And they're talking all these guys that are conquerors. They're talking to Nick Bear who's this freaking stud entrepreneur and stud athlete.

They're talking all these guys that and they're going, man, that's who I want to be. And this is apparently how I do it. And they're learning those patterns. It's freaking awesome. When we talk about building a business, we talk about our North Star all the time. We're guided towards that North Star of what we're trying to accomplish. In terms of parenting, like for your North Star, what does a success and failure look like? Like, do you, like, say your kids hit 18 and they go on and, you know, they start living their life

outside of your household? What does success look like in terms of that and what does failure look like? Yeah, it's a really good, it's a really good question. So I have to take that back to myself first, right? Like, what does success look like for me? What does failure look like for me? Well, success looks like for me. I've got peace of mind because I'm living a purpose.

Peace of mind doesn't come from doing nothing. Peace of mind comes from doing the thing that you think you're, you know, you're here to do. And so, you know, do I have a purpose and are my relationships intact? Can my wife come to me with anything and everything all the time and know that I'm a good spot to be? Can my kids come to me with that? That's the same thing I want for them.

I want them to feel this peace of mind knowing like, hey, I am pursuing something greater than myself. And I feel really good about that. And I have an emotional stability enough to when things get sideways because they will. whether it's life circumstances, whether it's other human beings telling them they suck, whether there's other human beings telling them they're the best thing that ever walked. Neither of those are true. I want them to just be emotionally, you know, stable enough to handle that and to know

that I can always go back to dad with any of these questions all the time. Like he's forever a mentor for me, a guide for me. That's what a good parent is. They're a mentor. They're a guide. right and and if you have that established relationship that mentor and that guide doesn't go look this is the mentor and the guide's here to open all these doors and invite you to walk through and as they walk through and they get scared look back at that mentor and go what do you think what's you know and you have

those conversations that's all I want for them and we distilled that down you know we've got a set of family rules you have the bodro family rules and it's 11 rules that we have in our house and and people say see there's the authoritarian side no no this is our contract it's a set of values that we've decided we want to be when i say we decided the kids had a hand in that decision as well and the kids have a hand and making sure that plays out in our family every day my six-year-old boy goes dad rule number six is no complaining fix it you kind of sound like you're complaining right now what are you going to do for your solution and i go Got it, man.

Yep, you're right. I need to fix that. Thank you. Right. They get to hold me accountable to that too. So it's the set of values that we've distilled down because we think that's what makes an awesome, productive, peace-filled, freedom-filled, sovereignty-filled life.

And that's what I want for them is to take those same values there. Always be able to come back to me for help. Always be able to come back and go, hey, man, you need to step up your game. too. That's all I want. One thing that my wife and I have experienced so far and obviously we don't have, our baby's not here

yet, but I'll start talking about some of these things that are going through my mind and kind of just thoughts and plans for the future and we get this response a lot and I'd love to hear your take on it and it's

just wait. I'd start talking about something I want to do with our daughter or how we want to raise her. And they say, oh, just wait. Just wait till you're actually there. And it could be even like my fitness. Like, yeah, I'm going to keep training like this in the fall. So on to just wait until your daughter's here. And it's, well, no, like, I'm pretty good at holding myself accountable. Yeah. I'm pretty good at holding other people accountable too. Where are people falling short with like this excuse of just weight and what is your response to that that's what is it's an excuse it's the same excuse as you know

if you went you went to start your business and you may have had people around you and maybe well-meaning loving people who are like oh nick you know bad idea right and so they're putting their they're projecting their own thoughts on that so the just wait is usually them coming from you know past experience where things got harder and more difficult to navigate because now you've got this human being that you're responsible for and so then they look back and go well i stopped working out or I, you know, our relationship went to crap or, you know, when you're in the midst of not sleeping, you're not going to, whatever, they're projecting their own stuff. You already know it's going to be more difficult.

You're going to have to be more intentional about how you handle your time. You're going to have some sleepless nights. You're going to have some things that test you and Steph. You're going to have those things are given. So what? So what? It's like anything else. You can use it as the excuse or you can use it as the reason.

to get better. It's one or the other. It's just like anything else. You can use it as the reason that you're going to suck or the reason that you're going to rise to the occasion and become a new level. Like, yeah, your Nick is crushing life. Awesome. Now you're going to raise the game because you're going to continue to crush life in the way you are now, but you're also going to crush it as a husband and as a dad and the way your husband changes when's your dad too. Right. And it's, you're going to have a choice. You can either keep all the business stuff going over here and then go, I'm going to use this as my excuse as why I'm a shitty husband or a shitty dad, or I'm going to really focus on this and use it as an excuse as to why I'm going to let the business just fail, or I'm going to get

better as a human and grow, and all those things are going to come along with me for the ride. You get to choose it. Yeah, one of the questions I get is, aren't you scared? Aren't you scared of what life's going to look like. And I can confidently and honestly say, no, like not one piece of me is scared. I know I'm going to get so much stronger during this. For sure. It's like this reinforcement armor that I'm about to wear. For sure.

And a bunch of people will start to say, too, well, aren't you scared because of the state of the world? Right? Aren't you stare? Look at the way the world's going. The way of the world as if, you know, as if before you could just always predict everything, you know, it's the state of the world. and I always tell parents, look, man, it doesn't matter what the state of the world is.

We focus too much on going, gosh, how do I fix the world around here so that my kids are going to be okay? No, build a stronger young person, build a better young person for the world so that it doesn't matter what happens in the world. You've got a strong young person who is able to navigate that, make that normal. And you've got to start at the beginning. You know, if we looked around and all of a sudden all these, you know, houses that are going up, you know, you got a builder who's building all these houses and they're building buildings, whatever. And then in the first, you know, three, five, seven, ten, 15 years, this builder, every house they built,

it just starts, they just crumble and they crumble and they crumble. Or somebody's making a car and after 10, 15 years, they all just blow up. Well, you'd go back and go, man, what? What are we doing wrong? We're obviously not putting in some sort of foundational thing that is making these things last. Like we look at that and go, that's a problem. We'll look at the young people in our society.

We've never seen more upset, unhappy, you know, suicidal, lost, you know, a generation that's searching for purpose. Like we've never seen more kids that are in that boat. So what are we doing foundationally? to make sure we have better kids for the world rather than trying to go, okay, we got a bunch of these broken kids, how do we do all this superficial shit to save them?

No, no, no. We need to build stronger young people. And again, comes back to the education, comes back to the parenting. Those are the two biggest things. Culture, media, that's always going to suck. They're always going to have a bunch of garbage in there. Parenting and education.

Get those two things right? The world can go to shit. The world can go to shit right now. my kids are going to be freaking not just fine. They're going to go crush. They're dragon slayers. And I can say that confidently. And everybody that meets them says that confidently.

And the question that I get all the time is, well, how do you discipline your kids? How do you discipline them? Why are they like? Like, how do you dislike? It's like you, right? Somebody comes up to our house and my kids go up and shake hands and introduce themselves and then they're conducting business, you know, with them or whatever. And guys are like, what the, like, how do you discipline them?

them. Do you beat your children often, you know, or whatever, right? And I always tell people, I don't discipline them at all. I've taught them to be disciplined humans. We just don't see that. We don't see it in adults. Never mind kids. You teach them to be disciplined humans. The world is their oyster, especially now, especially now. It breaks my heart to know that there's such a massive disconnect between the kids that I get to help, right, not just my own, but the kids that I get to serve and to help raise up and seeing what they're capable of and seeing what they're doing and unleashing these young humans on the world. Like, I'm overjoyed understanding where they're going to go in their lives, but it also

equally breaks my heart to know that so many young people are not going to have that, whether it's because they have bad parents, because they're in Canberra belts or the combination of both, right? It breaks my heart that there's going to be such a disconnect, but there is. Makes me think of, as you were explaining that, a race. and, you know, for example, like I had this marathon this past weekend. Yeah.

And as the marathon's getting closer, a lot of the runners, a lot of the racers, they're freaking out about the weather, the wind, the course, like all these things that we can't control as people. Like the world is, it's always moving and changing. And there was someone next to me who was freaking out that it was going to be five degrees warmer than it was supposed to be.

and the wind was three miles per hour faster and it would a headwind. And they're freaking out. They're trying to establish this plan. And I'm the type of runner. And I'm like, I don't give a shit what the conditions are. That's right. I'm waking up running no matter what. Bingo.

I've trained for this. Like, there are things that I can't control. I'm going to adapt and put a bigger effort forward to combat what I'm about to experience. Exactly. Because I'm resilient. I've built this foundation. This foundation can break through walls. Bingo. And that's what school should be for. That's what education should be for. It's that mindset.

People ask me, what should the curriculum look like? Curriculum is self-confidence and self-awareness. Everything filters down from those things. You get self-confidence from actually doing hard things, from falling, from failing, having your mentors and guides going, yes, that's awesome. It's all good. You can do that. You get back up and you keep going and then you start getting those victories and you start stacking those victories and that's where real confidence comes in. So they've got to be able to do some hard things like that. Right. And then that self-awareness from again, trying as many things as humanly possible so that you can go, ooh, I like this, I hate this. This is okay. I'm really good at this. I really suck at this. Do I want to get better at this? Do I not? Do I want a team with somebody?

Right, you start to have those conversations with you have as many experiences as possible. And it's that mindset, that foundation that makes strong humans. Speaking of strong humans. So I heard you reference the public education system as the fast food model of education. And with that being said, you also started talking about how we need this learner-driven environment. And as I heard you talking about this, I started thinking about adults in my life. and some of these adults, they're searching, they're not searching or wanting to learn.

They're not going out and trying to learn and search for that themselves. They're waiting. They will sit and wait to be guided and told what to do. Bingo. I mean, these people are 30, 40 years old. And then they've never adapted or learned this.

And as I'm like kind of digesting and dissecting some of these things you were saying in one of the interviews I was listening to you, I was thinking, why is this? Oh, this must go back to their foundation of the way they were taught when they were younger. And now 20, 30 years later, they still don't know. They're not breaking the habit. It is crazy.

Right. So explain to this, this fast food model of education. That's, yeah, you're, dude, that's, it's one of the habits that I'm talking about that people don't break out of. It's the habit of I'm looking to be told what to do. I'm needing to outsource all of my thoughts. There's an authority that I just have to be blindly obedient to. I don't have to necessarily like it. I don't have to agree with it.

I don't even have to understand it. I just have to do what they lay out in front of me. If they don't lay out something in front of me, then I'm just going to kind of sit and wait and see, you know, if somebody comes along to tell me what to do. So, yeah, I talk about this being the fast food model of education. Because people go, one of the things that I get all the time was, well, you know, did you go to public school?

and I said, yeah, I went to public school. So I went to public school too. I turned out fine. I turned out fine. So what's your deal? Like, well, okay, let's dissect that for a second. First of all, fine sucks. I don't want fine.

I'm not fine. I'm more than fine now. But I had to get myself out of that, and that didn't happen until I was done with school. Because I graduated with all my straight A's and still didn't have a freaking clue who I was or what I had to offer the world. I had nothing.

I was a chump. I was good at sports. I was good at girls. So what? I got nothing to provide the world. So fine sucks. I don't want fine for my kids either. I want them to be dragon slayers.

I want them to be, you know, leaders of leaders. I don't want fine. So the way I kind of give people the, you know, the contacts is as I go, all right, man, if you've got somebody that's going to go 12 years in a specific system, which is what we do with these can bear about schools and sometimes 16, 17, depending on if you go to Converbalt style college. If you had somebody who was building a habit of 12 years, 16 years, whatever, of just eating McDonald's, that's all the ate.

Three meals a day was McDonald's the whole time. Are they going to be alive? Yeah, they'll probably be alive. They'll be fine. But are they going to be optimized as a human being? Are they going to be the healthiest possible version they can be? Of course not. Like, not only are they not going to be the healthiest version,

think about the habits, the physiological habits, the psychological habits of just going, hey, this is what I do, three meals a day. I eat my chicken nuggets and my big macs and my whatever. Think about that human versus the human being that starts out super curious, super excited, and they get to go immediately to a buffet. And they start trying real food from all over the world. And they're trying this food here and they're trying this food here. And they're trying this. And they're trying this.

McDonald's says you got five things on the menu. They're all garbage, but you're going to be fine as long as you just eat these, you know, choose from these five foods, right? Your five subjects, in school. Over here, we're going, no buffet from all different parts of the world, all different cuisines, all different chefs. Then we're going to bring in some master chefs over here. They're going to give you a different take on this and a different take on this. 12 years of this versus 12 years of this. The end of that, 12 years over here where you've got that buffet, you've really, really can actually say what my favorite food is because I've tried so many. And you start to get creative too.

You start to go, wait a second. The way Mario Battali just did this. Like, I like the way he did that. So what if I took this food here and I combined it with this food and we start creating? And you might create something that's never been seen before that you bring back to the world, right? You have just this different experience. You have a different understanding of who you are and what's available and what's actually out there. and you have different habits around that

than these kids that have done the McDonald's version of education. So it's one of the best analogies I can ever give to people to try to get them to understand the difference between conveyor belt schooling and what we're talking about with either a learner-led environment

or what you can do with a homeschool program. And the learner-led environment encourages failure. Absolutely. It has to. It has to. You'll experience this. Your little girl is going to be, you know, she's coming in July.

July 8th. Sweet man. That's my brother's birthday. So she's born in July. So somewhere, you know, next year, June, July, maybe a little before, maybe a little after. She's going to be crawling around and she's going to pull herself up on the couch. And she's going to be standing there and you guys can be like,

what are you doing? And then she's going to turn and she's going to look at daddy and she'll be smiling and she's going to start taking a step or two. She's going to fall on her ass, right? What are you guys going to do? You're going to go, that's awesome. Let's go. You're going to clap.

You're going to cheer for her. You're going to like, that's awesome. That's great. And she's going to go, okay, that was cool. All right. She'll pull herself back up and she's going to take another step and she's going to fall on her ass, right? She's going to do that over and over and over again.

And she's going to see you guys cheering her on. And she's going to go, okay, whatever I'm doing right here isn't working, but they really like what I've got going on here. So I'm just going to keep going on this. I'm going to keep trying. and then it's not going to be long before she's walking her way over to you, and then she's going to be running, and then she's going to be an athlete, and then she's right, it's those progressions.

You guys don't go, you suck. You just fell down, you piece of, like, that's, nobody does that. Then we get to school and we go, uh, don't, don't fail. Failure is a bad word. Failure, don't, you can't fail anything you do. And by the way, there's going to be a timeline. for you that's, you know, in comparison with everybody else your age. And if you don't hit that timeline, you're failing.

The failure is to be avoided at all costs. And you start training our mind that failure is a bad thing versus it's just the first step in going anywhere. You can't be good at anything the first time you do it. Now, almost never. You've got to keep going with it, right? But we get in our mindset that failures are. So yes, in a learner-led environment, they're going to fail.

And that's awesome. We encourage it. We encourage them to fail, often, fail, forward, and keep going. You know, and with irregardless, without looking at a timeline, because that's another thing that school teaches, that's a bunch of horseshit, is that there's a timeline that you've got to read at a certain age that you, there's a such thing as a grade level, right?

I'm doing fifth grade level math. What hell does that even mean? If that existed in the real world, well, gosh, man, I'm 42, you're 31, I better be way smarter than you. I better have a shit ton more money than you. I better. And every other 42 year old on the planet better be exactly the same as me. It doesn't work like that.

It doesn't happen. Right? So the whole timeline thing is horseshit too. So we just eradicate all of that altogether and let people actually grow their way they're supposed to grow. I always tell people when I, you know, when I came in here, did you look at me and go, well, shit, now that I'm seeing him up close, now that I'm seeing him walk,

I bet that dude didn't walk until he was like 18 months old, right? Of course not. But I didn't, I didn't walk until I was 18 months old. So was I, was something, you know, that was just my freaking timeline. I was still a 5-9, you know, end up being a 5-9 white dude that could dunk. I still was a dude that was, you know, got to compete in mixed martial arts. I still was a dude that was a good kickboxer.

I was a really good athlete. Nobody looks at me and goes, cool, man. He obviously walked late. Like, those timelines are bullshit. And that's another thing school puts on you as those timelines. So again, it's these little sneaky things that have such an impact of your mind. So the learner-led environment, we eradicate those so that we can just unleash who that person's going to be when they're going to be that.

I like the term fail forward. Yeah. I heard you and Tim discussing that. Kind of breaking it down further between either parents or teachers or guides or mentors as we're growing up. And if we ever approach a level of uncomfort or failure, someone steps in and pulls them back away from that. Totally. And I guess one of my questions is, and I don't know if there's an answer to it,

but if we don't get ahead of this right now and we keep allowing the same, system to grow and develop the way it or not grow, to stay the conveyor belt style. If we don't get ahead of it now and these kids who aren't developed or challenged or put into this new system, you know, by the time they're 20, 25, 30 years old, what causes them to awaken? What made you wake up? Yeah. They almost never do.

and I don't say that to be pet. I'm very optimistic as far as my outlook on life, but in my experience, which at this point is with hundreds of thousands of parents and young people, they almost never do wake up out of those habits. Almost never do. So what causes somebody to, which is why I'm so, again, hell bent on

making sure they don't get there in the first place, right? It's the old Frederick Douglass comment of, let's raise strong children so we don't have to fix broken men. And it's that because so many people are broken mentally and they're in caged. And so then they start to look at it. It's that whole like, you know, a bird born in a cage

thinks flying is an illness. You know, and that's how most people become after that age. So they almost never do get out. And I think it's usually a circumstance, you know, for anybody if they do get shaken out of it, whether it's, you know, they've got, you know, maybe it's they have their own kid or maybe, you know, for me, it was literally sitting in a movie with my wife that kind of shook me. So I'd had all these little, little instances, little pieces here and there.

I was teaching and I was seeing all these things and I was just questioning things like, like, what the, like that, you know, being creatively and subordinate and going, why are we supposed to do this if this is what this person needs and why am I, at Stan, why is this person, why do we think as a culture that, you know, college admissions are always just this meritocracy when I'm just being taught and told how to, that we're circumnavigating that all together because this person's rich. So welcome to Stanford University, even though they got a 1.7 and just got out of jail, right? So like, it's not the meritocracy. So I'm seeing all these things. But it was, you ever see the movie Pursuit of Happiness? I have, yes. Okay. So we didn't even have

kids at that time i don't even think we were married when that movie came out but i remember going to that movie with my my wife i think we were engaged at the time and there was the um the moment where will smith is playing uh chris gardner and it's based on chris gardner's real life and that was actually a really good book too chris gardner went through some shit um and he's on the on the floor with this kid in the bar station right and that's where they're going to sleep for the night because they don't have anywhere to go and he's putting down the paper towels and somebody's banging on the door and he's, you know, closing,

keeping the door closed with his foot and he's got his kid there and he's just crying. And I was like, dude, I, I've got to figure, I've got to figure this shit out. I have got to figure out

what my life is going to look like and make sure I've got my shit together so that I can give every opportunity for my future kids. There is no way in hell. Not just that. There's no way in hell. I'm not going to be able to control

every single variable that I can possibly control when I have them. And that really shook me. And it actually started me down more of a deep dive into why schools are built the way they are and kind of going on and reading John Taylor Godotow and Ivan Iliage and some of these guys that are historians of the system itself. And that's when I really started kind of going down those rabbit holes and trying to figure

that out and trying to figure out who I wanted to be as a parent, who I wanted to be as a man, who did I need to be as a husband, who did I need to really started focusing kind of at that. So I credit that for helping shake me awake a little bit. So the goal with a lot of this is it's bigger than the school system itself. It's bigger than education. It is changing the world by attacking the source at the peak time of development. That's it. Start from the foundation.

Start from the foundation. And again, that's why I've shifted away from as much as I, you know, the day to day on the campuses that I had that I had started in the Sacramento area. I can exponentially impact more people now helping other people, helping people like Tim, helping people, you know, open these schools. Because then by nature, they're going to pull in 100, 200, whatever they do. It's like, great, we can help more people open these and they can help homeschool families figure out how to do that.

We can run the mentorship program. We're going to do a mentorship program for dads under the, Apagee umbrella as well to help the dads influence their kids and kids in their community. I think that's, you know, from an exponential standpoint, we can impact more young people there at the source, like you said. I love the idea of the mentorship for the dads. Yep. I love that.

Needed, man. Because that's, again, like, that's where it starts. Your kids do what you do before they do what you say. So you've got to be leading. You're always leading by example. So you need to make sure it's a solid example. So some of the things that make Act in Academy different.

Entrepreneur mindset, self-awareness, growth mindset, critical thinking, independence. Yes. One of the things that, and Tim was telling me about this

when he was on the podcast, we were talking about how traditional schools have science fairs. Acting schools have business fairs. But it's not like this fake thing. They actually start and create a business. Yeah.

We got to talk about that because I'm mind-blown by that. It's the best. So the Sacramento campuses, the three Sacramento campuses that I started, just had at the time of this recording, just had the business fair this last weekend. Now, I didn't get to go because my flights all got canceled. I was supposed to go out there. That's what I was going to go meet with Mark

and we're going to do this podcast and we're going to do the business fair. So I didn't get to be there with this one, but I've been obviously to all the rest of those as well as to some others. our business fairs, man, at those Sacramento campuses. And how old are these kids? So from five years old to 18, even the five-year-olds are starting something, right? Even if it's just their home, you know,

baking their version of cookies or their version of cupcakes or, you know, they're creating Lego monsters that they want to sell, right? Like, it's their business. We'll get 2,000 people to show up in three, hours for these young kids. That's incredible. Talk about the learning experience, right? Right there, because these young kids are coming in.

They're setting up their booth. They've created their products. And they're having to interact with the public. And we tell the parents, stay away. Come as a shopper, stay away. Right. Now, if they're five and they need a little help on the change side or something like that, you can be in the background and, you know, if you need help there a little bit.

But as they get older, parents, stay out of it. They set up the booth. they set up the product, like this is their business. They interact with the customers. They got to figure out how to have those conversations, how to market. If nobody's coming by my booth, what can I do to get people to come by my booth? What, you know, they're making real money and real time, having real conversations and going back and debriefing later, well, why, you know, I'm 12 and I made all these, you know,

I made all these cookies or whatever. Why didn't I sell any cookies? Well, maybe it's because you were right next to this other kid. It was five selling cookies and they're just a lot cuter than you are, right? You start to, but you really have to debrief all these real things. So what happens is every single year, they just get better and better and better. Right. And so you've got these kids every year, they start to level up their ideas and level up what their business is.

And then sometimes they hit something where it's like, this is actually going pretty dang well. And you'll see them taking into perpetuity. And we'll just be for the business fair. They'll run that business all year. They'll run it all year long. And so we'll have kids that, you know, in those three hours at the business fair, some kids that'll make 20 bucks and they're over the moon. We'll have kids make three or four grand in those three hours.

And they'll go, hmm, okay, I think I have something here. And then they'll take their business into perpetuity. And so you've got kids at, you know, a lot of acting campuses, and we've had this at ours too where they're paying their own tuition. They're paying the tuition because they make enough with their business to do so. Now it's not. Like it's this utopia that everybody does, but they have the opportunity to do that, you know, if they get their mind right. And so you got all these kids that are continuously tinkering and trying to figure all these things out. And always, you know, again, kind of like you said,

when you meet these young kids and they're asking these high level questions and you're like, what the hell? And it kind of shakes up your worldview and go, wait a second. Kids are capable of this, right? We had our ranch in California. We had a small ranch before we bought the one that we live in North Carolina and people come over and like, oh, cool, you know, that's, you guys have have a couple horses. And it was always the best telling them, yep, we have two horses because my daughters bought the horses, because my daughters had businesses that they created and ran and made enough money because that was their goal, was they wanted to take money to buy horses. So my daughters bought horses and then took care of those horses, too, also took on the responsibility

of getting out there and shovel and shit and, you know, and doing all that. And at what ages? when they bought the horses, they're 11 and 9 now. They were 9 and 7. That's awesome. Yep. And they're not, when I say, of course,

they're special because every human being is special, but they're not some sort of savant. They're not some sort of like, ooh, that it's out of the norm because societally, culturally, we've made that not the norm. I always tell people,

child labor gets a bad rap. because we think of it like sweatshops and, you know, being forced into things they don't want to do. Kids want to work. They want to do things. They want responsibility. They want that. They crave it.

They enjoy it. And when you start to go, okay, cool, man, let's go. And you can start failing on this, have a business idea and you go and it doesn't make any money. Cool. Awesome. Why didn't it make money? Great.

So what can we do? What can we shift? Do you have any other ideas? What can you start having those kinds of conversations? They fail forward a little bit here. there and then something hits and they have that victory to go back on it's like goggins talks about going back into the cookie jar you know and they have that to go back in because they've got that that victory they can go back to dude sky is the limit how thin is the line between getting involved

and then doing too much on behalf of your kids because i was thinking you know i'm thinking about the business fair yeah parents in the back i would typically and traditionally see Yeah, it's the quote unquote kids business, but the parents running it on behalf of the kids. Yeah, just like the science fairs, our dad stayed up the night before to finish the freaking volcano or whatever the hell it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's, that's all that. So, you know, the line there is, do you know, Savon, Matosian? I do not.

Okay, so Savon used to, who's one of the original, as CrossFit, like started taking off and took out. He was at CrossFit HQ. He was their original media guy. I did all these movies and documentaries. And I got introduced to him years ago from Jason Kalipa. And I had Sabon on the podcast a while back. And he says, look, our job as parents. And I love the way he put it because I think he nails kind of this conversation.

He says, look, our job as parents, when your young person falls down. your kid falls down, your hero falls down. Your job is to not go rush over and go, hey man, can I pick you up? Are you okay? Because your job is to stop, to look around, make sure there's no danger around, make sure there's no bears running out of the forest, make sure there's no cars about to come hit your kid, make sure, and then you step back and you just wait.

And you let that young person get up, you let that person see you not react to that because it wasn't anything worth reacting. let that young person go, okay, cool. And dad didn't just steal the air squat from me that I got to utilize when I got up. I got to dust myself off and everything was okay. And so from then on, it's like, okay, cool. If I fall down, well, I know that's not a big deal. I just dust myself off and I keep going.

Whereas most parents run over, ah, or, you know, and they want to help them up. And they want to, again, you're starting to set the pattern of any little thing that goes on, any little thing that's not really a big deal. Mom and dad make it a big deal so the kids start to think it's a big deal and everything is worth panicking over and everything's worth getting upset and everything's a bigger deal.

You start to establish those patterns. So I think the line usually is if there's danger involved, especially at a young age, if there's like danger, like they could legitimately really, really, really get hurt. And I got to step in for safety reasons.

Great, man. step in for safety reasons, right? You want to step in on things like character, like character and manners, like those things still matter, right? So I would always step in on my kids and go, no, that's not how we treat people. And what's the appropriate way to treat somebody? Like, I'll step in on manners. Otherwise, it's better to sit back to watch and try to think,

are there good questions that I can ask that are just going to have my young person think through this a little more? because kids don't. We just, you know, kids act, right? It's part of being a kid. Is there a good question I can ask? It's going to make them think through it. And if there's not, or if I don't get to the question fast enough

and they do something that's a little crazy and they have to learn, okay. Well, we'll let them learn. But stepping in too soon is always a problem. Manners matter. Keeping them from dying matters. Otherwise, we usually need to back off. For my understanding, a lot of the methods of teaching that you practice are based off of challenging questions. And I think it's the Socratic method of teaching.

And, you know, if people listening now are thinking, well, if these standardized tests don't work and this typical curriculum on a timeline doesn't work, how do we actually educate these kids? And the way Tim was kind of describing it to me is the students are the heroes. Yep. And the teachers are the guides. Yep. And the guide's responsibility is to find out what the heroes want to learn about. And they facilitate that conversation through questions being asked. Yep.

Through questions. Through inspire, you know, they want to inspire. They're leading by example. They want to be inspirational. But they should not be interjecting their own thoughts. Our job is not to, their job is not to say, look, here's what you need to think and when you need to think it. Their job is to just inspire them to learn to think. So the guide's job is just to ask these questions.

We call them, you know, their responsibility is kind of be the game maker, right? So their job is, you know, if you go pick up a game at Target and you've never played the game before, you and stuff sit down, and you're like, okay, what are the directions to this game? And then you guys have to figure out the game. and then you guys have to move forward. And then if you guys want to kind of create your own family rules to how you guys play that game, then you guys can, you know, whatever.

So the job of the guide is to kind of be the same thing, to be this game maker that kind of lays out, you know, the rules of the game as much as possible so that the young people can have those systems. They can go and start to explore and ask more questions. And then if they come back to the game maker and ask a question, the game maker's job is to go, hmm, how can I ask a question back to them?

that's going to, you know, get them to kind of think through and figure out their own answer and choose their own adventure, right? And that sounds scary to most people because we've been taught that education means this checklist where you go through and have somebody tell you this and somebody tell you this and you regurgitate it. Somebody tells you this and regurgitate it. And then all of a sudden you're all done. And that's where you get the 30 and 40 year olds that you described earlier that are just waiting for everybody else. We understand that education doesn't end just because you, quote unquote, graduated high school, education is synonymous for being alive.

You are going to get an education in parenting because you're going to be a parent. Education's ongoing. We're just preparing people for a life that continuously is ongoing. That's, again, goes back to that question. What should school before? It should be for setting up that kind of mindset.

Do you find that your kids are constantly asking you questions, but not just basic questions, but very insightful questions. All the time. More often than not now, questions that I don't even necessarily have an answer to, which is great because I can go, man, I don't know, how should we find out? Where should we go to find this answer?

Like, where would you go? What do you think we should do to try to figure this out? How can we put this together? Yeah, all the time, man, all the time. And that's what you want. it's exactly what you want. And you and family, or you and your family have like,

you know, dinner at night or you go to restaurants for dinners. Because this has been a big topic of conversation between me and my wife. Okay. We've become very observation. You know, we're very observational now.

Yeah. As we have a kid on the way and we go to dinner and we look at families and are they speaking? Are they on their phones? Like, when you guys go to dinner or have dinner, is there an intent behind that time of sitting down

in what you're going to talk about? or is it just whatever it comes up? That's a good question. So the day-to-day normal dinner, so having dinner together is not like we do it every night. That's how we grew up to. 100%. Like we do it every night.

That more often than not is just conversations. There's no phones, and that's for me, my kids don't have phones, but there's no, you know, they're not going to take a computer. They're not going to take it. There's none of that stuff there. It's just where they're hanging out together,

having conversations. part of so the caveat for this is I'm with my kids all day so we have intentional conversation time there are conversations we're very intentional about whether it's from Socratic you know a Socratic mindset or whether it is based on kind of the mutual study so they're you know they're all taking on books all the time various books and so our job as parents is to put them make sure they have great books in front of them and that they're excited about reading. And then we put them in that, the main character's shoes and we have decisions. And so we've got to be able to read those books simultaneously too.

And so we can have more in-depth conversations. So we have those intentional conversations happen during the day anyways. So dinner time for us is just hanging out, having a good time having a conversation. Sometimes those things come up too and sometimes they don't. If I didn't have those kind of conversations already built into our day, I would make the dinner time. If that's really the only time we were going to have it, I would be more intentional about that, about having those specific conversations.

And then once a week, we also, at dinner and what you should do it on Saturdays, we'll have kind of like a family meeting sort of deal. And that's just a quick check-in on, I mean, we're seeing each other all day. We're with each other all day. But it's a quick check-in on, hey, how's everybody doing? Is there anything special that you want to bring to the table that you're struggling with? Any goals that you have for the week ahead that you need help with? How are mom and dad doing on things?

And to give context to it so it's not just this arbitrary, like, yeah, everybody's fine. Again, we got those family rules, right? And so you can go, hey, is everybody, are we knocking these out, or any of these rules we need to be a little more intentional about right now as a family or as individuals, right? So we'll have a little bit more of a focused conversation

around the values on Saturdays. Otherwise, it's just a chat. But if I didn't have that time during the day with them, I would make it more intentional on that. I like the idea of this book club almost. You know, even me and the team here at BPN, And we'll have books that we're always reading together. There's like four or five books at a time that these small groups of people are reading.

And I'll typically find a book. And then if I like the first couple chapters, I'll push you down to people and say, you know, here's the next recommendation. But what I found by doing that is when we go do team dinners or we're sitting in the office, we have things to talk about. And it's not just like bringing them up. It's challenging each other on topics in the book. Right. So you're talking about one of the big, so like, you know, Apage, obviously we have, you know, books in there at Acton. We've got a great books list. One of the things is I'm putting together, you know, the, under the Apage umbrella, kind of the homeschool component for parents that want to build world class, you know, a world class education system at home.

Great books and great conversations around the topics and ideas in those books. You realize if that is something, you know, if that is something, that you stay consistent with, that is a world-class education. You throw in some, you know, you can throw in some writing around that if you want to, writing about, you know, what you discovered and what you talked about and some of your ideas around that, putting those down, sharing what you wrote with somebody else, having a great conversation around it because Nick read the book, Matt read the book, and so we're having a conversation around it. That is world-class education. People want to make it way more complex than that and think, well, we've got to have, you know, certain curriculum over here and this curriculum over here.

You don't. That alone right there is a world-class education. Don't muck it up by putting another garbage in your that right there is huge. That's been my business education. Yeah, totally. That's it. Again, people want complex. You read great work from great humans that have gone before you. You have conversations around the ideas that are shared and you go actually do something in the world that's related to that maybe or not related to it, but you go actually try some things and you mess it up and then you readjust and you keep trying. That's it. It's not complex. We're just taught and have

bought in to this religion of doing it so differently. Yeah, I mean, what I've learned in terms of business development, leading people, managing people. In the past, you know, two years, I've read dozens of books. And they have completely transformed not just my business, but my ability to work with people. Yep. My ability to be a better husband to have better perspective on the man that I want to be and need to be. Bingo. And having a huge foundation on my morals.

Yep. And the foundation of that. but I love what you're doing with the Apogee strong mentorship program in terms of developing young men, young kids into strong men and putting morals first. And I was talking to Steph last night as I was kind of preparing for this podcast.

You know, we have a daughter on the way. And she was in the living room watching TV. You know, she's pretty uncomfortable right now. It's 100 degrees. I'm sure she is, man. Texas. Women are so much.

cooler than we are. Oh my gosh. So much tougher than we are. Like women are, you know, moms are the greatest superheroes on the planet. And our jobs only exist to help them do their job. It's been incredible watching it for sure, this transformation. Yeah. And it's only going to get more incredible. Yep. She was watching TV and I was prepping. I had to stop what I was doing and come talk to her. I said, I know we're having a daughter. and if we keep having more daughters, we never have a boy, I need to find a way in my life to help these young boys turn into strong men. I know like Pedroos and Ray Cash Care are doing a lot of stuff with that,

with the Squire program, which is amazing. Love it. Amazing stuff. And one of the things I heard you mention in the process of building strong men is that sometimes the term masculinity, it's a bad rep. And I love the way you positioned this. You said that the opposite of masculinity is not femininity. It is immaturity and childish.

Right. That for me was one of just hearing you say that is what made me stand up, go out to the living room, tell staff, we never have boys. We need to find a way to get involved. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. I appreciate that.

Yeah. that was that god i believe i post that was my friend kit cope um who was a former ufc guy too um and we're and we were talking about that concept because we look at masculinity um the whole concept of toxic masculinity is is horseshit those don't go together masculinity by definition i believe is a set of virtues and a set of values right the opposite of man is woman cool you can make that like that's that's great masculinity is this set of values to create more than than you consume to serve others more than you serve yourself to treat people not just the golden rule of treat people how you want to be treated but treat them you know even better than the way you'd want to

be treated like it's it's those kind of things that is a it's a call to a higher level of living and serving other people. That's what masculinity is. So to me, the opposite of that is being childish, being this delayed adult that is just self-serving, that doesn't want to, you know, wants to live in this self-serving metaverse rather than get out in the world and actually help other human beings to have a better life. And, you know, again, I think masculinity,

it's a cultural, it's a cultural attack. And so that's, we were talking earlier about paying attention. People just automatically react and they've been trained. Okay, well, somebody says, masculinity. Well, then they're a piece of, you know, whatever. And that's got to think through those things. And that's what we're talking about in that conversation. So, yeah, having good men be that example.

And that's one of the reasons I wanted you to be, you know, a part of that program is because I've, again, watched you for a long time too. And it's evident that not, you're not just this, beast of a human in business and athletics, you're a good man. Like, I don't give a shit if somebody is a beast in business and a beast in athletics. If they're an asshole, I don't care who they are. They're a good man.

Then, yeah, I want to partner with them. And I want our young men to just see continuous examples. We have lost this sense of, of being able to look to heroes in our culture. And I want to bring that back because we've got a lot of men who are worthy of being called a hero in my belief. And it's not just your guys that are going to war.

It's not just your guys, you know, it's the guys that are doing good things day in, day out, leading by example, exhibiting all those virtues that we talked about as far as masculinity is concerned. And I want to put a spotlight on those guys for our young men to look up to. What I could see as like I said before my daughter's not here yet but I'm already thinking 18, 20 years away.

Yeah. I hope that when my daughter's getting ready to get married or looking for a husband, that that man that she finds is strong. That's right. That's right. And the reality is she's going to first look for a guy who, exhibits similar traits to dad for better or for worse. You are the early example of what a man is supposed to be. So if she sees dad having good manners and treating other people well, she sees dad treating her mom well. She sees dad opening doors. She sees dad, you know, doing all those things that a good

man does, exhibiting those virtues and values. She's far more likely to go, okay, well, that's the guy that I, that's the guy that I need. And that starts, that thought process starts day one. Those first five years are just as impactful in that regard as, you know, there's kind of the trend of, you know, dads that are like, hey, we're going to do daddy daughter dates and daddy daughter dances and all that stuff. And I'm all for it, man. That's fantastic.

It's great. I've taken my girls to a bunch of these daddy daughter dances and we get all dressed up and get them in their ball gowns and, you know, go and get the nice cars and, you know, we're shuffling in and out. We go in and we dance and, you know, flowers and cars. It's freaking fantastic, dude. It's the best. It's the best.

If you're a piece of shit for those first five years, you're not, you're starting from the bottom. You're struggling with, you know, you can't add in that stuff on top and expect everything to be okay because you've already set a funky foundation that's going to be hard. Like they're developing so much in those first five years. So it starts day one. And dad is that example of the man that, you know, that she, that she'll look for. I can't wait, man.

Huge responsibility, man. It's a huge responsibility, but what a freaking opportunity, right? What an opportunity that is. So great. And it's like the most selfish, amazing opportunity in the world, too, because as much as you pour into those young humans and, you really won't want anything necessarily in return, what they'll give you in return. There is no other human being on the planet that can give that to you, ever.

And you'll, you get it now, you get it intellectually now when you have her. And she starts getting older and you guys start developing that relationship. I don't just mean, older, I mean, if you much, she starts developing the personality and looking at you and smiling at you and you will understand it. At a much, you know, you'll just understand it at a much deeper level that you never would be able to. it's the best. I'm like five weeks out from I'm so pumped for you, dude. I'm so pumped.

I can't wait. When we found out, staff was pregnant, because it took us, we were trying for about a year. Yeah. There were some frustrations there. Sure.

And stuff got pregnant and, you know, it didn't like hit me at first, but as it's gotten closer. Yeah. I've thought about it more of this. I feel this obligation, this responsibility to really show up.

And for me, like when when she's 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, I mean, I know that that result is an investment that me and staff are going to put in to help develop and build this independent woman. And it's crazy to think about that. But there's so much molding you can do and encouraging that I'm excited for that next chapter. Yeah. That's it, man. It's just the encouragement. It doesn't mean that you don't, you know, always, always tell parents, man. It doesn't mean that, you know, you don't do these laissez-faire parenting where you don't ever.

Like, that's horseshit. And you don't do the authoritarian kind of stuff. That's horseshit. It's in the middle. What I tell people is you, your kids are going to do some things and they're going to mess up. And so, you know, you stay calm on that and call them on it calmly. If you've already set a foundation of like, look, this is just who we are. This is who the bear family is.

This is our contract with the world. This is our set of values. This is it. This is who we are. And when they miss the mark on that, because they will, you correct it calmly. Right. We had that event with Ray and Badros and all those guys a few weeks ago, and I was talking about this from the stage,

and I gave an example of my young man. I said, you know, a couple weeks before, he was, I saw him outside running around the farm and was having a good old time. And I walked by his room, and he had a bunch of late. Legos and a bunch of stuff all over. And he knows that, you know, responsibility comes before freedom. So the responsibility was you get your room cleaned up

before you go out there and have a good old time, right? And so I can go out there and be the ass. What the fuck, dude? That's not going to do any good. It's going to just damage a relationship. I was calling him over and it's like, came in. So what comes before freedom? Responsibility.

Cool. So you have the freedom to be out here right now and that's awesome. I walk by your room and there's a bunch of Legos on the floor. what do we need to do on that? Be responsible and go pick up my Legos first. Cool, man. Awesome.

Thanks. Sounds good. Right? Super calm, super easy. The hard part about parenting is you may have to do that exact same thing the next day. And that's where you get tested more not to lose your shit. Right? It's the consistency because, again, they're going to miss the mark.

But you going, okay, that's not that big deal. Cool. I'm going to calmly, again, point back to our agreed upon values. even if he doesn't fully get at six what responsibility before freedom means. He knows that that's a thing and he will get that really freaking soon. So you calmly correct when they miss the mark, but you go over the top inspirational when they hit the mark. You're reinforcing those habits through that.

Just like when she falls down and you're reinforcing like failure is okay. It's all right because you're going to get there and she learns to walk, right? It's the same thing. When he hits the mark, it's like, man. I gave another example and just saying, you know, he was walking through, we've got this little gate that goes out to this garden, and he's walking through the gate, and we're all outside, and he stops.

And he goes, wait. And he pulls the gate back, and he goes, ladies first, right? And he lets his two sisters go, and he lets his mom go. And he was going to let me go, too. I grabbed him. I picked him up, and I looked him in the eyes, and I'm like, hey, you just did that because you are a good man. That's what good men do is what you just did right there.

So proud of you, man. Every time you do stuff like that, I just get reminded what a good man you are. Put them down and go on. Right. You go over the top, inspirationally pour into them, right? When they do those things and you're consistent at that too. You're consistent at this and you're consistent at that. Dude.

I mean, that's it. I mean, you want to have a little boy next. It's for sure. But, dude, either way. Either way, it's the best. I was saying, I was always like, oh, I want to have a boy, you know, have my first two or girls. And I'm like, I don't care if I only ever have girls forever now.

I don't care. You won't care either. I didn't care. The whole dinner reveal. I was split in the middle. I could care less if we had a boy or a girl. Doesn't matter. I could care less.

I don't care if we have all girls after this. Yeah. But I love the thought of developing strong men for the future. Yeah. And having some sort of peace in that because there's also a responsibility and obligation there. That building that foundation is what changes the world. And that's what you guys are doing. It's the only thing that can, man.

The only thing you can. And at some point, you and I, me before you, but we're going to be broken down, God willing, we're still here. right, we're going to be broken down and we're going to need strong men who are still out leading by example and leading the charge and saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done and perpetuating the cycle and raising more. Like, we're going to need that too, right? And so we're going to be left with the young men we help build. And I think that's just a massive responsibility. And I don't see enough men stepping up to the plate on that. And that's a huge call to action. I think for men in the society is to do that, you know, in any way they can.

If they're a dad, that's, that is your legacy right there. And if not, no problem. But how can you still help perpetuate that cycle? Matt, I appreciate it, man. It's been a very insightful for me, especially as a new soon-to-be father. And I can't think of a better episode to launch right after Father's Day for all the fathers out there. So thanks to the time today, man. I really appreciate you.

Honored. Everything you're posting on social, which we'll link is it's so intentional. It's very deliberate. And there's always really solid key takeaways from it that are quick to digest and then implement. Thanks, ma'am. It's been great, man. Thank you. Honored, brother.

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