The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep. 153 Tough Enough With Trey Tucker

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Trey Tucker a therapist focused on men’s mental health, identity, and purpose. Trey works with men who feel stuck, burned out, or disconnected, helping them rebuild their lives with clarity, discipline, and deeper meaning. We explore his journey, his book Tough Enough, and the growing crisis facing young men today from addiction and loneliness to the influence of online role models and the widening divide between men and women.

Tell me a little bit about your background and what you do today. Yeah, so I'm a mental health therapist. I try to help as many people as I can figure out what they're on the earth for and who they are and how they can better live out that mission. And sometimes in that process, we realize there are some things that try to hold us back from accomplishing that mission and becoming the fully best version of ourselves. And that's where the therapy part can come in as a little helpful tool to make you the best version of you that you can be.

what kind of men come to you? Oh man, all kinds of guys, especially, and some women who maybe they don't really want the flowery language, the kind of fluffy way that some therapist type of kind of speak. I came from more of a business background and an athletic coaching background, so I talk a little bit more straight ahead, almost no nonsense without the fluff thing. So guys of all ages and all backgrounds,

and it's it tends to be more like guys in their 20s 30s and but it's I'm always honored when somebody older than me comes around and wants wants to seek out some wisdom so it's it's a fun ride yeah yeah um speaking about men in the 20s is an interesting one because obviously they're facing different types of problems that you know the generations before them probably didn't face even in you know trying to navigate a world of social media trying to kind of navigate a society that kind of everyone continues to tell men how to behave and what to do and it's an interesting time for you know a man in his 20s and you look at all the date of you know you know young men are lonelier than ever before you know they're not

dating you know they're not getting married they're not having kids they're struggling financially what what kind of problems do you see coming up with with 20 year old men at the moment all those things you just listed and the biggest one I see often is distraction yeah whether it be substances or phones or just like I have a great friend of mine who's in his early 20s and every night after he comes back and when he comes back to his apartment he watches a full movie every single night and I'm like dude movies are great but when you're doing it that much and that often you're you're trying to distract yourself from something like so I got curious with him like what do you think it is it turned out there were thoughts

he didn't want to deal with there were emotions he didn't want to deal with and past experiences that he was kind of stuffing and he's just exhausted trying to outrun that stuff and that's what a lot of distraction is about it's like the thing that we're using to distract ourselves is probably not the problem but when we're trying to outrun ourselves or outrun something from our past that's where we're like there's so much more available for your life and that's where I want to try to help you guys get. Yeah. I see,

do you see this even in something like it's a positive intent with kind of a negative consequence? Because I suppose I see this even in, you know, the personal training space where a lot of young men are focusing on their self-development. They're focusing on the gym. They're focusing on, you know, getting as big as they can, making as much money as they can, being in the best shape possible that they can, are constantly on the go as well and not being able to sit still.

Do you feel that that's kind of a coping mechanism? Oh, yeah, a huge cup of a coping mechanism. And I think this is where our world's really merged the best, is that all of those things you just listed, the achievements, the physical fitness, all the health, all those things are great. And we have to be doing them from the right posture or the right heart because, yeah, all those things.

What I find is there's really two paths or two types of guys. There's the hustle guys, which are the guys you just described, if I can just achieve more and more, then I'll feel like I'm good enough. And it's really the fear in there is that I'm not good enough. So if I can just achieve and achieve and achieve, I can outrun that. And then other guys will take that fear that they're not good enough, and they'll go into shrinking mode where, like, if I just don't take any risks, if I just kind of stay behind the curtain or behind my TV screen and just kind of lay low,

then I won't fail, and then it won't be true that I'm not good enough. I can just avoid any sort of risk and therefore avoid the pain of the failure. So it's really that heart or that fear of I'm not good enough. So I'm either going to try to outrun it through achievements and fitness or I'm just going to play it safe. And neither one of the right answer. We just have to actually confront what's in there. I suppose I want to go into, you know, the second category of men that you spoke about in terms of even like, let's say, in cell culture and all that, you know, it, but boys and men who are really struggling in that department, but even staying on the kind of

the high achiever at the moment. How does one figure out that, you know, this isn't, this isn't motivation, but in terms of wanting to pursue and become better, but this is, you know, fear of not being good enough. And I suppose you could also say that, all right, well, you know, fear of not being good enough has probably helped you to achieve a lot of things that you are grateful for and you are proud of to a sense, but then you could probably can't enjoy it long enough because you're probably then going on, okay, now I need to do more. Now I need to do more. When does, where is that lion? Because I think that could be a difficult people to kind of associate as like, well, you know, when is it just, you know, I'm, I'm motivated. I'm, you know, striving for for great things versus,

you know, I'm just, I'm just scared. Yeah, man, you hit the answer yourself. You don't even need me because it is about are we just achieving to get the next high? Or are we achieving from a place of celebration, from peace and from joy and wanting to give out? If I'm achieving to get more for me, for me, for me, then I'll feel good for a short amount of time. And then I'll go back to feeling the way I was. And so then I got to hit my next fix. It's almost like being a druggie.

It's like the research shows that even the high. highest achievement. Like if you hit the biggest goal that you could ever think, you hit that goal, you're going to feel good for tops three months. Like that's the biggest goal. You get three months out of it. And then you go back to feeling the way you felt. And then most of our achievements, I mean, they'll probably make us feel good for a day, maybe a week. So are we coming out this place from a place of I got to get this or else. That's a fear. I mean, we might not call it a fear, but that's what it is. I have to have it if and if I don't then I'm nothing like that's that's not where we want to be because there's no peace there's no joy and then if I can if I can get people to flip it to where

I'm not in this life for me but I already have a source of peace and a source of joy then it's just an overflow of what's already in me and then I get to share that and make the world around me better that's when we start getting fulfillment and really that's what people are chasing whether they know it or not I suppose when you were speaking there I was even I'm thinking of like gold medal syndrome and the Olympics and you have people like Michael Feld to, you know, won as many medals as someone possibly can and then he's depressed for the next three months. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

I forgot about that example. Yeah. And so how do we find, we're striving for achievement, but what we really want is fulfillment. How do we get there? It goes back to what is your purpose and who are you? Like, let's start with who are you? What if, what are you building your identity on?

Because if you're building your identity on something that can be taken away, it's not a strong enough identity or it's not a strong enough source of value for you. What makes you, you, you isn't what you do. Otherwise, we would be called human doings. But we're human beings. So like, when you stop doing your activities or when you step away from your job title or your achievements or whatever, then who are you? Because that's where that source of contentment and peace and joy comes from.

And then once you figure that out, it's like, all right, well, then why am I on the earth? What's my purpose? And it ain't to get more for me because it's never going to be enough. Like John Rockefeller, a famous American businessman, somebody asked him one time, I said, how much money is enough money? And he said, just one more dollar. And so, like, that guy was the rich. this guy in the world at the time and even he didn't have enough money that would satisfy him. So

our purpose can't be just to get and collect and stack all the stuff for me. It's got to be to give. I suppose it's interesting. The identity aspect is interesting because I suppose a lot of people fear that, okay, you finally found something where you feel validated, where people like, oh, you know, he's great, you know, he's the trainer, he's the counselor, or he is the businessman, he's helping me to make money, or he's the sports guy. and then the sports guy retires and who are they now. Like that's a difficult thing to go through for a man. Yeah, absolutely.

Because men especially, we define ourselves by our job title or by our achievements. And like when two men meet each other for the first time, the tendency to ask, hey, what do you do? That is such a high tendency because it's like it's right on the tip of our tongues and it's right on the top of our minds. And so when we're looking for something to talk about with somebody we just met, we just immediately go to like, what's your career? That's got to define me, right?

So I always tried that like when I meet a new person, I try not to ask what they do until at least five or ten minutes into the conversation just to remind myself that this is not the most important part of myself and to hopefully communicate to them that I'm interested in their traits rather than what they do. I suppose staying on the high achiever as well, how much of that comes back to childhood? because I remember having a conversation with someone before and I remember they were said that they were, you know, they were like eight years of, they were eight years old and they were, they were running a race for the first time, you know, in school or whatever it was. And they won and, you know, they got that recognition off their, of their father, like, oh my God, you won. You're great. You're amazing. And they were speaking about how then they always associated with, you know, oh, for me to get, for me to receive love and attention of the, of the, you know, you know, you know, you know, that person, I need to win.

And so then I suppose that's the true into adulthood. Oh, yeah, yeah. Your nervous system learns almost everything it needs to learn in the first 10 years of your life. So our brains are very changeable in those first 10 years. So the good stuff that happens to us, that affects our brain in a really positive way, and then the not so good stuff that happens or the good stuff that should have happened but didn't happen, that really affects the brain as well. So those lessons that get kind of.

programmed into our brains in those first 10 years, they stick for a long time. It's kind of like wet cement. Like if you put rocks in wet cement and that wet cement gets harder, it's really tough to pull those rocks out of the cement. And that's how our brains are in adulthood. Our cement has kind of hardened. And so it's tougher to pull those old beliefs that got imprinted on us in childhood away. And it comes back to, excuse me, it comes back to fatherhood. Because like you said, If a dad, usually he's not going to purposely communicate this, but unintentionally most of the time, a dad is going to communicate that, yeah, you get my love through achievements.

The more you achieve, the more I'm going to love you. And it's just, it really can wreck a guy. Even if it's not something physically dangerous, it's just that belief starts programming us under the surface that we may not even know it's there. I suppose flipping then the conversation. So obviously, like, you have your high achiever who wants to do more and more to kind of receive validation and to receive love. And, you know, you're trying to have the conversation with these people that, you know, you are more than what you do.

But then on the flip side, you will have, okay, like we spoke about, you'll have a lot of men in their 20s who are struggling right now to achieve for whatever reason that is. You know, they're struggling in dating, they're struggling in career. They're struggling in education. And, you know, a lot of boys and young men. are probably opting out of society due to that. And, you know, a positive thing for them would be to maybe go down the self-development route of maybe getting in shape of, you know, making, increasing their finances, of doing all these things that, you know, the world will validate you and tell you how great you are

for two in these things. So I suppose in a way, you know, that is going to have a net positive on their life. But then, again, like we said, then it can translate over to the whole. play achiever who, you know, only associates who they are with what they do. Yeah, like I want guys to get off of their asses and take action. I don't want them sitting around being passive. And then the next step is let's do those actions for something bigger than ourselves. Because if all we're doing is switching from the play it safe crowd to the grind or the hustle

crowd, then really we're still got the same root problem. But take action, do something, follow through the. what you say you're going to do. And then that internal confidence can help you start figuring out, who am I? What's my purpose? And then I can keep achieving because the achievements are fine. It's just what are you trying to get out of the achievements? Are you trying to get for yourself or are you trying to make those achievements benefit

somebody else bigger than you? You said most men don't know how to trust God. That's why I wrote tough enough. What did you mean by that? Yeah. And this was me. This is almost any other guy that I've ever dealt with. is that we as men, since we are built to be achievers and we're built to be protectors,

we tend to think that, like, I've got this. Like, I can just handle life myself. And sometimes, like, for a while, that works. And then after a while, we realize, like, oh, I have such little control over what happens to me and really such little influence over the world around me that, like, there must be some higher power bigger than me. And so then I have a choice. Do I acknowledge what I would call God and then try to live for him since I think he created me?

Or do I keep on just putting the blinders on and be like, no, I got this. I'm going to just keep on proving that I'm strong enough and tough enough and all that stuff. So what I found is that the peace and the joy that I was looking for came once I realized that I can trust a being that created a whole universe. If he can create a whole universe, then he probably knows how to handle my life too. Why do men struggle with that? Why do I struggle with silence, with peace? Why is that, do you think? Oh, man, the silence piece.

So whenever I get asked, what's like one mental health tip I want to like, as I hope people will remember is that I beg them, please get comfortable with silence because our brains just, we are so distracted and we're at such a fast pace in our society that our brains have just gotten so used. used to being on the treadmill all the time. And like from a exercise perspective, if I worked out with you and we were doing bicep curls, and then we walked out of the gym and into our cars, but we kept the weights in our hands

and kept doing bicep curls all day and all night, I mean, our biceps would freaking give out. And so what we have to do in the gym is hit them hard and then let them rest so that they can build back even stronger. And you had to think of our brain as a muscle as well, because it's a thing. if you're just constantly feeding it information more and more and more. You never let it rest. It's going to give out, too, just like the bicep would. So I beg people to get silence at least 30 seconds a day and then increase it because

God made our brains in such a way that they know how to heal themselves if we give them the space and the silence to do it. And it's tough to do because not only is the brain, we've trained our brain to never be used to silence, so it's our habit. But then also it goes back to that stuff like, what am I running from? What are the fears in me? What are the past experiences in me that I don't want to deal with? And I might not even know that I'm stuffing them. But in those moments of silence, those things start coming to the surface because they're asking to be processed and dealt

with. Yeah, that makes sense. I even find it in myself where, you know, I constantly need distractions, whether like I'm in my room and it's quiet and then I need to put a podcast on or I'm going to walk and I need to listen to music or put a podcast on or I'm even in the toilet and I need the scroll. I constantly need distractions. I can't just sit there with my thought because it feels like your brain is just racing them. Yes, yes. You experience it? I experienced it. I've had to train myself. This was horribly uncomfortable for me. There was a time a few years ago when I was in a pretty bad way mentally, emotionally, I knew I needed something drastic. So I went for a walk for eight hours with no music, no nothing, just me and my thoughts in eight hours. It was terrible for the first two or

three hours. I wanted to quit. And then at the end of the eight hours, I wasn't like perfect by any means, but I was so much lighter in my head and everything felt just clearer so that the stuff, the circumstances that were challenging me, they didn't go away, but I had so much more mental clarity to be able to deal with the circumstances. So you don't have to start with eight hours. Again, start with 30 seconds. But now it's my habit of like a lot of times, most of the time when I'm driving in my truck, I don't really play any music or podcasts. If I'm walking around, like whether it's an exercise walk or something else, I'll keep the AirPods out of my ear. It's like just giving my brain that space and then I feel better because of it.

What were you like in your 20s? Oh, man, my 20s were, I look back and I'm like, I was trying so hard to prove that I was good enough. And it goes back to your earlier question of I had circumstances where I got praise and validation more from people. thankfully my dad praised more of the internal stuff rather than my achievements but rejection was kind of my pattern my I don't know regular wounding in the teenage years and the elementary school years and so in the 20s I was just trying to use hookups as the way to prove to myself and to whoever else that man I am good enough so these rejections these rejections don't define me because now I'm getting girls to say yes you know it's like

I wish I could have come back to myself in my 20s and just wrung my own neck. But that didn't quite work. As far as it's a learning curve that a lot of men in their 20s, like we said, it's either one or the other. It's like you're trying to get validation from women or else you have the other side of the coin where, you know, men are just opting out and not even talking to women. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I was that way as well for some of my life, just playing it safe too. and neither

strategy worked but I tried them all. You said you see the same patterns. Men feel replaceable. They don't know how to rest. They tie work to endurance. They only feel valuable when needed.

So where do you think these beliefs come from? Usually it's our past experiences. A lot of people, a lot of therapists use the word trauma in pop culture right now. We use it too much. I hate using the word trauma, mainly because men don't want to hear that word.

So I use the word injuries. Like if guys are sitting around, one of the coolest things to talk about is, hey, what's your worst physical injury? Like the most terrible broken bone or biggest cut or whatever. And so I just use injuries for the internal stuff, too. It's those moments from the past that left a mark on us or left those messages in us, like the rocks on the cement. Like for me, when I was in fourth grade, I was the only new student at my elementary school. and everybody else had been together since probably they were like, I don't know, five years old. So I'm walking in first day of class.

I'm nervous. I walk up to my class. They're all sitting in a circle. And one guy in the circle, he looks up at me and he goes, dang, I'm glad I'm not looking into a mirror right now. And I'm like, looking back, that was a pretty clever insult from a fourth grader. It's a pretty clever way to say I was ugly. But then in that moment, I wanted to freaking crawl into a hole and disappear because everybody was laughing at me. for being ugly. So what I didn't know is that in that moment, I took away some beliefs like,

well, you must not be any good, like you're not good looking. You're probably going to get rejected anytime you're the new person in the future. So just play it safe if you ever have to be the new person. And all these other beliefs kind of got planted in there as well. So I think that's where this stuff comes from, is those past experiences that make us think certain things about ourselves that are just lies. I like the way you turned the terminology. language into injuries versus therapy because like you said, I think in modern society now we have kind of over terra pot. What's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, therapists. Therapized everything and and I don't know if a lot of men like I the conversation around mental

health has never been you know more active more people are speaking about it I feel and yet we still have a serious mental health issue with you know men suffering from anxiety and depression and, you know, all these things. So sometimes you feel like something's not working. And I think it may be like, obviously I'm speculating, but it may be like there's just not that relatability for a lot of men to a lot of therapists, especially it's a very female, you know, increased industry as well. It is, it is.

and I think a woman can work well with a man, a female therapist can work well with a man, but they have to approach things in a more problem and solution way, because a lot of therapy is very much, we're going to empathize, we're going to make you feel seen, we're going to make you feel heard, and then the missing pieces, there's no action, there's no follow-up to actually deal with the root of it. And men, we see a problem, we want to fix it, and therapy, I think the reason that therapy isn't working as well as it should in general is because we're not focusing enough on the solution. We focus too much on the problem and whatever you focus on the most

is what you're going to get more of. And so it feels good to be empathized with, feels good to be seen and heard, and it also feels good for the therapist to be able to play that role for somebody. But eventually you've got to push your client to actually take some uncomfortable steps. Yes, it's almost like, because women tend to just biologically ruminate a lot more than men will, where men are a lot more active at doing and rather than processing. That's it. And both are needed. You can't have one without the other, so it's not like a better or worse than thing.

Yeah. I spoke to a therapist before and she said, I'm a therapist who doesn't need to hear about your problems. And I think what she meant by that, I think, what you meant by that in regards is like, okay, we'll understand what the problem is, but then create actions for solutions rather than ruminate on the, you know, tell me how you feel about that. And now, I understand there's that can go both ways as well, because you, you may want to understand. But sometimes even understanding the issue doesn't help you to solve it. No, I mean, you do have to have a clear idea of what the actual root cause of the problem is.

Because if you think, well, like, let's say if you're trying to change the tires on a car and you've got the wrong tools to change that tire, like you've chosen the wrong tool because you're not really connected to what's going on with the tire. So you got to know what's going on with the problem first to get the right tools because you can try really hard in mental health with the wrong tools and it's not going to do any good. So yeah, you've got to define and understand the problem. and then you've got to get the tools that connect to it. How do you help men who do end up ruminating too much in the problem? Okay, they understand the problem. They understand what's going on in their lives. But it's like that quote,

it's like you don't drown from falling in the river, both staying submerged in it. And I think a lot of people stay submerged in their suffering and in their pain because maybe it's familiar. Yeah, yeah, it's familiar. So I do two things. I try to get them out of fight or flight because a lot of times people get stuck in that activated mode.

I'm sure you see it in the physical fitness world as well. If you're always just on and ready, you can't actually think clearly. Because when you're in fighter flight, the subconscious brain shuts down the conscious brain and you don't make really strong decisions. So I've got to get them out of fighter flight so that they can zoom out and start to notice their own thoughts and then decide, okay, which thoughts do I want to keep and which thoughts do I want to change. So that's part one. And then part two is once they have a clear head, give me a clear head, I want to help them get a really clear dream for what they want their life to look like.

Because we can't really take a step with boldness until we have a destination that that step is going to lead to. Tell me about your relationship with grief. What do you know about grief? Grief happens so much more often than we think. So the most obvious way grief happens is when somebody dies, but then it also happens when there's a huge loss in your life or a huge change. So a huge change happens. Let's say you change jobs. The first week, really the first day of a new job is one of the top five most stressful days in someone's life. So any kind of big change like that, grief is just your brain catching up to reality. So like if this is reality here and my brain still thinks that reality is here, grief is that unconsorough. Grief is that unconsor.

comfortable processes of your brain finally coming to terms with, okay, yes, we now, we now agree this is reality. So the first day on a new job, all kinds of new stuff and new adjustments are happening and your brain is trying to process everything. So that needs to be grieved. It sounds weird, but it actually does. Anytime there's a loss, like a breakup, that's a huge thing that needs to be grieved because not only have you lost that person, but you've lost essentially the routine that you had and the version of yourself that you used to have. When you graduate from high school, college, whatever, that's another huge loss and a huge change together because now your identity as a student is totally different. And probably the friends around you are totally different. So grief has to

happen. And it's really, the only wrong way to grieve is just to not do it. And some people, a few people get stuck in their grief, but I'm not so worried about that. I'd rather people actually grieve because most people won't get stuck in it. What does healthy brief look like then? Yeah, so when my dad died in a car accident, I was just, I mean, shocked was probably the first two weeks.

I really didn't feel anything, especially like I was in charge of planning the funeral and all the details that go along with that. So like, I didn't have the time and the space to even feel anything. And then finally after all that had died down, I was like, I'm still not really feeling anything.

So I need to carve out intentional time to grieve. So you don't have to do it this regimenly, but I decided I'm going to sit down for 30 minutes every morning and just grieve. Like whatever needed to come out of my body, I would let it out. I made a deal with my grief. I'm like, all right, we're going to grieve for 30 minutes every morning. And throughout the rest of the day, you can tell me that you need to be processed, but we're going to deal with it the next morning.

So I made a deal saying, yes, I will deal with you. I will process you, but we ain't just going to do it whenever. And every morning that looks like sometimes I would look at pictures of my dad. If tears needed to come out, they came out. Sometimes I would write him a letter that I knew logically he would never get to read, but it was getting the stuff out of me that I wanted to say. And so just all that time, I was just letting my nervous system bring forth whatever it needed to bring forth so that it could get out.

Because emotions like grief, they're just chemicals. and if we'll just slow down enough and again give our brain enough time and silence to process them out, they can kind of expunge those chemicals out. And that's where exercise also can play a huge role in grief because you can burn off some of those unhealthy chemicals that are kind of trapped inside your body otherwise. Do you think that also ties into, you know, men's fear of silence and constant distractions and maybe even busyness is that if they do stop and, you know, allow their thoughts to race, then something as uncomfortable as grief can come up.

Yes, that's, that is the number one reason. I think people stay so overly busy is they're, they're just afraid of that discomfort, that emotional discomfort. And this goes like, this goes into, even guys who are really physically tough. Like, I'm sure you know them too. I'm thinking of guys, like, they can. lift a crazy amount of weights, they can run all kinds of races, and so they can do whatever physical discomfort you need, but if you ask them to sit five minutes in a room by themselves

with no screen and nothing in their ears, they get freaked out. It's like, no, no, no, I can't. It's like, no, no, you can just, you can handle the physical discomfort. Now you've got to show and prove to yourself that you can handle that internal discomfort too. What role does addiction play in modern society now with young men struggling? Yeah, yeah. The addiction is like I never I never freak out when somebody's addicted to something because I know the addiction is really just a symptom. It's like a leaf on a tree.

If the leaf isn't really full of life, I don't examine the leaf a long time. I just go to the root of the tree. So like if somebody comes to me with some sort of a tree, addiction, I don't really care what it is, then I'm like, okay, well, what's that thing doing for you? Like, what benefit are you getting from it? Because then they can start to see for themselves, like, okay, it's not about the addiction. It's about this root cause down here. And typically, it's their, they're either running from something or they're trying to, let me put it this way,

they either running from something inside, whether it's thoughts or emotions, or it's their way of coping with the stress of the world around them. And so one way or another, they've got to have relationships, deep relationships. That's, if you boil down all the research about addictions, what they actually, what solves them is deep relationships. And if they don't have them, they're probably going to stay in the addictions. If they do have them, they will most likely come out of them. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was Johann Harry who said in his book, it's like the opposite of addiction is connection.

Yep, that's it. Yeah. And I remember I was speaking to someone even who was going through AA. And I remember they said one of the famous kind of lines in AA is like alcohol was never the problem. It was the solution to the problem. Yes, exactly. And I like that. Where do you see that come up in kind of modern society for young men at the moment?

Is it true? Their phone is it true? You know, Xbox and PlayStation and or is it true? Because I know obviously, you know, maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we would see, I suppose it's still prevalent today, but it would be a lot of kind of alcoholism, it would be drugs, it would be gambling, and I suppose there's kind of a new era of addiction coming up in terms of porn, in terms of gaming, in terms of, you know, again, this, you know, something that is going to switch off my brain. Yeah, yeah, so the good news is,

like you said, or you alluded to this, the traditional substances that we would think of as addictions like alcohol actually is decreasing at least in america the consumption of alcohol and here as well people would be shocked about Ireland as that were known as a as a country who would that shrinks a lot but actually we are our alcohol units of drinking as shot right down ah interesting what's replaced it there i think it probably is well there's it's it's it's it's kind of complicated because there's a lot that we have a cost of living crisis so there's a lot of pubs are closing. A lot of people, a lot of kids are kind of staying at home. They're on their phones. They're actually not going out. So it's not that they're just not drinking. They're actually

not socializing either. And I think there's there's a play of that of the way kids have actually grown up now in a different society to what we did. You know, they have different types of turd spaces. They don't really have third spaces as much. So I think that's contributing to it. I think a lot of the millennials who did used to kind of binge drinking feels. now have all started running half maritans and you know all so i think there's there's a different there's a there's a i think there's a couple different things at play but um yeah i i see it a lot in the data and just observing people um you know especially people in their 20s they they drink a lot less uh in england yeah okay so it's it's like a mirror image of what's happening in our country

as well so i'm i'm glad that the alcohol is coming down because it's it's so physically and emotionally destructive, and I'm glad the research is finally getting out about that. And then to answer your question, we're doing very similar stuff over in this country now. It's like, yeah, the screens are probably the biggest addiction. And then from there, especially for guys, you got nicotine. That's a huge one. And then you got gambling. That's one that doesn't get talked about enough, but that's a silent killer going on right now.

Like we have a American football player who's fairly well known at the collegiate. level who just yesterday he said he's going to take a leave of absence from the team to enter gambling addiction or sorry gambling rehab because of the gambling addiction and he may get charged with some crimes because he's got some sketchy bets that he's been placing and that he's just kind of the current face of it but really gambling addiction is on the rise without people really talking about it a ton yeah and it's so accessible as well and if we talk about young men and obviously one of the biggest issues with young men is the high high suicide rates I mean, there's nothing that's going to put pressure on a young man more than financial issues because of something like gambling.

Yep, yep, exactly. And going back to that cost of living crisis, we're approaching that territory as well. I don't know what to make of this whole global. It seems like most countries right now are having a cost of living crisis. I don't know what's behind that and where that's headed, but yeah, it's causing a lot of stress. You said that all the money made from your book will go towards obviously helping young men and also fighting human trafficking. Could you tell me a little bit about that? What is your reasoning behind that?

What is your experience? Yeah. When I first learned what human trafficking was, it infuriated me. And I think everybody has at least one cause like that that just it breaks their heart so much that they get so angry. they can't forget about it. And that one is mine. I just, to imagine these kids being kidnapped and put into a living a hell of being trafficked and having to be just used over and over and over by these guys, it's just,

it just makes my stomach turned. Could you explain for like just for the listeners in Ireland who may not be as clued on to, you know, the extent of human trafficking around the world? What was your first experience of understanding how deep rooted this situation or this problem goes? Yeah, yeah. So it is, it's unofficially the biggest business in the world. Now, you know, because these criminals are not just going to advertise how much money they're making. But if you just Google human trafficking financial numbers, you'll see it's bigger than all the other industries put together. And what happens is often a girl or a boy, they will get kidnapped and taken into a different country. And then these, these, uh, criminals will sell these kids and either sell them outright one time or they'll charge people to come and be physically with these kids. And it's horrendous. So one of the things I did, I got to go to Southeast Asia and I served undercover on a raid team where we posed as the people that were wanting to buy the kids.

Where in Saudi East Asia? They're not. They don't want me to say which country because they don't want the tactics to be exposed in the, particular places, but South East Asia is kind of the biggest place on earth for that. So, but yeah, we, we have a team and we went undercover and I was kind of the, I don't know, the tip of the spear because I'm an adrenaline junkie. And we were able to take down a bar that was pimping out underage girls. And we were able to rescue 20 girls through, through that trip and through that raid.

What was that experience like? That was the biggest honor of my life and also the most strange. rest of my life because you know you're wearing secret cameras on you because you have to get all the evidence in a way that they don't realize you're getting the evidence and so they said if if your secret camera breaks and these girls accuse you of doing something with them that you didn't do in these countries you are guilty until proven innocent yeah not innocent to prove it guilty so they said if your secret camera breaks and you get accused you're probably going to prison the rest of your life you're never going back home and so I thought well

I thought, be careful what you wish for, right? So, but thank the Lord, the trip turned out well and nobody, nobody had that happen to them. And again, we got those 20 girls out. And I suppose in regards to human trafficking, I suppose, you know, there's obviously in the States as well, obviously there's, you know, the big divide around, you know, strong borders and stuff like that. But the way I see it, and especially it's the exact same in Europe, is that if you don't have strong borders, you're actually just creating gateways for people, for, for, for children to be trafficked.

So it's, I, I see on the other side, okay, they're saying it in a way where they're trying to be humane, but it's actually the most inhumane thing you can do because one of the easiest ways to, to get children around the globe is to open up borders. That's it. That is exactly right. I can't say it any better myself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, I'd say it's a very, It's a very taxing on the soul to probably investigate them type of stories. Yeah, it took, that whole trip took a lot out of me. And then any kind of research I do ever since, it definitely is taxing and it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanted to touch on as well, because I know you touched on this and I find it interesting as well. Just in regards to, let's say, the gender divide that we see online these days, like, whether you're looking at, you know, the man of sense. sphere or third wave feminists and you know, you know, people telling boys, you know, how, um, you know, toxic the other side is. And then you have women saying how toxic men are. And you have this toxic masculinity, you know, phrase that has gone on for a long time. And where do you

think we're at in regards to that gender divide? Like, what do you think are the downstream or have been the downstream problems that have that have occurred from you know extreme voices on both sides gassing up their their gender essentially yeah well first of all it's people trying to deal with their own pain yeah so whether it's a woman who's been hurt by a man or a man has been hurt by a woman that's real pain and therefore we have to acknowledge that and because both things are true it's not either or then you have to have a healthy response to your pain so just injuring the person that injured you is not going to actually heal your injury or injuring the whole gender that represents the one person that hurt you is not going to heal your hurt.

And so that's first and foremost. And then I think there's got to be some sort of, I'm not the hugest conspiracy theorist or something, but there's a clear attempt right now for us to be divided along so many lines. and especially the gender one. It's like, I don't know why it has to be a competition between men and women. Like, men have amazing traits. Women have amazing traits. A lot of those traits are complementary where they fit.

Like, they have strengths where we have weaknesses, and we have strengths where they have weaknesses. Can we celebrate that? Can we use that in conjunction with each other? Or why do we have to stay in this? Like, it's got to be one of the other. that's that's to me just I know I'm probably oversimplifying it but at least if we could start to figure out like how how are our differences fitting together instead of competing I think we'd be in a much better position yeah and I suppose it means you can't really have the conversation on things that are really important like I know you speak a lot about how you know having a father in the home is going to be essential for the development of a young boy and we know that there's a lot of homes out there that you know it is a fatherless home and And I found this as well, if I speak on this topic, it's like me saying, oh, fathers are really important for boys' development. And then it could upset, you know, a single mom who's doing our best and the father left for whatever reason.

I said, oh, what are you saying that I can't bring up my child? And it's like, again, it's a zero. It ends up becoming a zero-sum game, a zero-sum conversation. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be. It's just the people, what I've found is when people get. defensive like that. It means we have hit on their insecurity. It's like if I have a physical bruise on my arm and somebody accidentally brushes up against it or maybe if purposely hits it,

my reaction is going to be even greater than if you hit my arm that didn't have a bruise. And so like a woman like that, it gives you a response like that, it probably shows like, yeah, she does probably feel insecure about it or maybe even inadequate about it. And so instead of being curious about like, hmm, why am I tempted to react this way? she just lets that pain out as a reaction rather than a response. What are both sides getting wrong in the gender divide? Okay. Let's start with men since we can fix ourselves.

I always try to start with like, okay, what can I adjust versus what can somebody else adjust? We feel as men as if we've been thrown away, discarded, whatever, told that everything about us is toxic. So, therefore, what can we do? to be of service because we're not going to be able to argue verbally that we are good enough or that we're useful. We have to prove it through our actions. And I think all people, all humans, men and women are naturally selfish. Like if there's a group picture that I'm in and I'm looking at that group picture,

I'm looking at myself first. So we have this selfishness in us. Let's acknowledge that. and then let's decide we're not going to let that part of us lead us either so if men could step up be of service be sacrificial then that actions without words premise would go a long way and then from the female side i mean i first i go back to the pain issue it's like yeah they they have been hurt in many ways by men and just the world in general and i think the just the premise of how do I actually heal my pain so that I don't assume that causing more pain

on other people is going to be the healing or the solution of my own pain. It's like the old eye for an eye that doesn't work. It's just you end up with both people being blind. How do we get to a stage where both sides are looking at, you know, positive role models? Because obviously if if if the teacher and the coach and the parent and, you know, the neighbor are all being replaced where I'm spending 10 hours a day on my phone. And the phone is showing you the most extreme versions of the algorithm. So it's showing you the Andrew Tate and it's showing you the hyper-feminized I hate men side of the internet as well.

And then you're seeing these people and then you're seeing what these people are actually showing you about the extremes of the other end and you're thinking, oh, all women are crazy. Oh, all men are toxic. Oh, you know, it's, you have a warped perception of what the other side is like. Yep, yep. And there's no nuance left. Yeah. It's just black and white.

Everything is just one solution. Like anytime somebody says, well, if you would just blank, then you've already lost the premise because you've tossed out any sort of nuance. So, yeah, the solutions are much more complex. And therefore, we got to know the people. the actual people, not just the 30-second clips of the people. So, yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity for places like churches or nonprofits or, heck, even parents and schools to really, let's create spaces that reteach the magic of face-to-face

interactions. Like, we've lost social skills, but we've also, because we lost the social skills, we've also lost the fulfillment and the joy that comes from just sitting with each other and just talking without a screen to use as a crutch. So I think if we could feel the benefits inside of us from just face to face talking again, then that would be the first step and actually creating a little more harmony

and fixing this divide. Yeah. Do you think Gen Z have recognized this because you can see even from the statistics, like a lot of young men are going back to church? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a worldwide movement that is showing that, yeah,

it's guys. for for multiple of reasons have realized like, yeah, I need a higher power than me because frankly, this whole hustle culture, it disappointed them. Like, they got all the achievements

and they still weren't fulfilled. And they realized like, well, I did everything I could, so I need something outside of me. And I think that there's a, that's a very exciting thing to me to see. It's because it's not only are they going to be fulfilled inside, but then they're also going to be

thinking more of a service-oriented purpose for their life. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. So what is fate going to bring them? What has faith brought you? Yeah. So first, it's a sense of validation, I guess, for lack of a better term. It's like when I know, when I experience God telling me that he loves me, that I'm

his son, that I'm good enough apart from anything I do in the outside world, I mean, then I've got that internal sense that, like, I am a somebody, I am good enough. And therefore, I've got that confidence to then take out as an overflow so that I can serve somebody else. And like, I want other people to experience the peace and the love, the joy, the contentment that comes from having a relationship with God. And so it's like if I try it a really good dessert, I want, I want you to try it. Like, hey, this is really good. Try it. And that becomes the purpose is like helping other people find what you found. after men

after young men find fate if a young man's listening to this today and they're a little bit kind of struggling in regards to not knowing what to do with their life or who they are or just feeling a little bit lost feeling like they are lacking accomplishment lacking meaning

they're starting with their fate where what else can they do what would your advice be to a young man right now it just feels a little bit lost yeah yeah I think you can you can find your purpose by asking a few different questions of yourself like number one what are the traits in me that I like about myself and that's sometimes a hard thing to figure out because we're so negative with ourselves and then with everybody else is

I bet if I ask somebody to tell me two things they don't like about themselves they could come up on the spot but if I ask them to come up with two things they do like about themselves most of the time a guy I'll kind of sit back and like huh I don't know so I'm like well we're sitting here I'm not going to let you get out of this question so fine things things that you already like about yourself, the traits inside you, and then look at your past experiences. What has trained you up to this moment and what are those meaningful moments from the past? Because those are probably clues about meaningful moments you can create in the future. Like, who influenced you in the past? Who are your biggest role models? That's probably how you

can be a role model for somebody else. Another way to look at it is what are those painful moments that you don't want other people to experience that you want to either prevent in somebody else or you want to help somebody else who already has been through it. Yeah, those are kind of the, oh yeah, and other other issues is like what issues break your heart kind of like with me with human trafficking? Like I never experienced it firsthand, but when I learned about it, it, there was something in me that came alive that wanted to do something about it. So if you're trying to find your purpose, those are usually the three areas I look for them. Right. Where can people follow the work that you do and also can you tell them a little bit about the book as well?

Sure, yeah. The book is a book for guys really of all ages but the examples are for guys in their 20s or of guys in their 20s because nobody's ever written a book for guys in their 20s before. It's crazy to think about it and so I don't want them being forgotten and but again the principles are for guys of any age and yeah, I am donating the proceeds to organizations that help young guys and help end human trafficking and then the social media easiest place to find me it's rugged counseling on all platforms instagram TikTok YouTube all the things yeah and the book is tough enough and you can get it on amazon yes sir tough enough on amazon wherever books are sold it should be out there right thank you very much for a wonderful conversation i appreciate your time thank you but this was awesome