Embracing Authenticity: Dr. Ed Slover on Navigating Challenges of Masculinity

[00:00:00] What is the most important thing you want them to hear today?

It's this idea of unmemorizing yourself. Very often, really for almost all of us, we carry so much emotional baggage into our adult life and it affects every next relationship we have, whether it's with a romantic partner, with our, with our kids, with our friends, with our, our bosses, with our employees, it affects everything.

And one of the things that occurs to me is that we typically pretty good at extending grace to other people, but we generally stink at extending grace to ourselves.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential, grow into the men we dream of being, while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? [00:01:00] Well, that's the big question. In this podcast? We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast, your home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. Hey, thanks for checking out the show and we hope you get a lot out of it. My name is Brent and today my special guest is coach and podcaster, Dr.

Ed Slover. Ed, welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. Thanks Brent. Great to be here. Now, Ed, we like to keep things light and airy starting out and make things a little Of fun. So how are you on trivia? Uh, I'm generally okay on trivia. It depends. So we'll, we'll, we'll see once you start asking some questions.

Oh, we just got one show, one, one question on the show and I totally randomly look it up. So, you know, it's kind of a, a crap sheet, but we'll give it a try here. What actor performs music Gambino,[00:02:00]

a Glover B Will Smith C Frank Ocean or D Tyler, the creator. Well, I only know, I only know one of the four of the options. So I'm going to go with B Will Smith. Okay. Now guys, you know, the rules don't look it up. Don't cheat. Certainly don't like do this while you're driving your car. Uh, make your guess.

Remember what it is. And we'll get back to this later in the show. Cause we know this is the, Oh, important moment of the show. Now you're going to let me hang in until the end of the show. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, you gotta have a retainer, right? That's very true. I don't do huge introductions because honestly people just don't give a crap about accolades Uh, I can look you up a lot for the show, but that doesn't really tell people who they're talking to.

So in your own words today, who is Dr. Ed Slover? First and foremost, uh, I'm a truth seeker. I've been insatiable learner, [00:03:00] you know, in addition to different roles that I have in my life as a devoted husband, loving father, loyal friend, I'm an unapologetic follower of Jesus Christ. Uh, just actually in, in sort of this weird space, uh, the last two and a half years, the easiest way to describe it is I'm going through a spiritual awakening of sorts.

And learning more about that process has really shifted my worldview and it's, it's, it's an interesting space because we have to ground in, in, in our, our lives in the material world while I'm simultaneously connecting more. So it's been a really unique experience and professionally, I just ended an eight year career as an associate professor of management marketing at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix because I'm following a pull towards, you know, consulting and coaching.[00:04:00]

Uh, of all things, a ministry and Brent, I'm the last guy to start a ministry until you look at how, how God has called people throughout, uh, throughout history. And I've, I really am trying very much to ground in this idea that God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the call. And so I'm rolling with that buddy.

And we'll see where it goes from there. My wife actually quoted that to me yesterday. No, that's awesome. I'm in a conversation with somebody and like, yeah, I don't really feel necessarily qualified, like I would be the guy and Sarah quoted that exact quote. It's like, love it. My, my wife keeps me, keeps me honest.

So we're. She, she keeps an eye on me, make sure I don't get too nuts. What, what's, what's the cliche by behind every good man or behind every great man is an even better woman? No truer words have been spoken. Right? You know, I, I will [00:05:00] be the first one to admit that the fallible man, everything we're doing doesn't exist without my wife in the background.

A lot of people who listen to the show regularly know she engineers the show in the background. But really it's, it's that time sitting and talking with me and encouraging me and saying, Hey, well, what can we do with this? Or how do you feel about this? And, uh, makes everything we do possible here at the fallible man.

So that's, that's definitely true. That's awesome. I have some fun questions for you to lighten into this. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? Oh, wow.

Two come to mind right from the start. I like the idea of being able to be invisible. And if for no other reason, I'm someone who very much likes my personal space. And whenever I'm in that personal space, you know, it's sort of my refuge, my quiet time. And so to be able to disappear for a while without having [00:06:00] to...

Fulfill any necessary or unnecessary obligations would probably be right near the top of the list. The other, and this is maybe somewhat a little strange, is I would love to be able to read people's captions. I mean, think about that when you're in a conversation with someone just to get an idea of their level of engagement.

If they think you're being foolish, if I mean, if whatever, being able to see people's captions. Because you can imagine that those conversations that you, you think are going relatively well, but the other person is over them and wants to move beyond them. You can actually let them off the hook way sooner if you knew exactly where they stood.

So probably those two to start. I think they made a B rate movie where any, any thoughts like that actually appeared in thought in people's heads. And so people just learn to stop thinking. Because it got them in so much trouble so quickly. Uh, I, I, I will be the first to admit that [00:07:00] definitely would probably get me in trouble.

Like, uh. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. It would definitely, it would definitely cause us to think before we know that. Cause us to be terrified before we even think, it's like clear thoughts, clear the head, clear the head, clear the head before I get into this conversation. Ed, what's your go to comfort food?

This may sound strange, but it's sushi. If I could have one, it's not strange. Okay, good. Cause I was thinking, you know, typical might be, might be pizza or burgers or, you know, big, you know. You know, skull size, you know, breakfast burritos or even chocolate chip cookies. Mine, mine sushi. If I could have one cuisine all day, every day for the rest of my life, it would be sushi.

I don't know that I could do it all day every day. But yeah, I, I can, I can definitely dig some good sushi. Uh, Sarah and I just found a great little sushi place that just popped up in the next town over [00:08:00] from us recently, uh, on one of our last days, night date nights. It was like, Oh, we finally found a place that has good sushi around here.

Yeah. So, so I live like in a high desert region, so you have to be a little careful about sushi. Yeah. Especially in landlocked areas. I mean, I mentioned earlier that I live in Phoenix and there are a handful of, of, of chains, but I find that the locally owned and operated places really make some, uh, some nice sushi.

And one of the things I learned. And Brent, maybe you can confirm this. One of the things I learned a number of years ago is that Sushi is less about the fish and more about the rice and how the rice is prepared with, depending on how sticky it is, you know, the concentration of vinegar and salt. It's really about the rice and not about the fish.

Had you, had you heard that? I had, uh, in fact, right? Sushi is, Sushimi [00:09:00] is actually the fish, right? Sushi is all the trim and everything that goes with it to make a complete package. Yeah. See, I, I had heard, I know, I know they get the rice wrong. It's not worth eating. No, no. And you know that whenever you go into a local grocery store and you pick it out of the case and you get home and it's like, yeah, that's not the same thing.

Did I really just buy this out of a grocery store? I will say, do y'all guys, do you guys have Fremeyer where you are? Uh, we don't. We don't. I think, I don't know if this is, if, if this is a definite, but I, I think Kroger owns Fred Meyer and we have Fry's and Fry's is also owned by Kroger and surprisingly, they produce some pretty good sushi.

I know Fred Meyer at least used to be a fairly local company to Washington and on the West Coast, but they have like sushi chefs. That's all they, and they make it for all the stores and then [00:10:00] distribute it to the store that morning. Like they get up like bakers do. Yeah, sorry, like three or 4 a. m. and mass make sushi and then it gets delivered to local areas for us.

So it's usually a safe bet for us, but it was nice to find a restaurant that actually had good sushi. What's your favorite ice cream? Oh, it's, it's like 1A, 1B, depending on, depending on the mood, it's either a chocolate Reese cup style ice cream or mint chocolate chip. But Brent, it has to be the faux green color mint chocolate chip.

It just isn't the same thing when it's, it's white mint chocolate chip. It, it messes with my, it messes with my psychology right before I take a bite of it. So I have to know, I have to know what I'm getting. Um, and, and then it requires, uh, not the mint, but the, the, the Reesey cup, chocolate, uh, Reesey cup requires a peanut butter sauce of some kind.

In [00:11:00] fact, let's just get rid of the ice cream altogether and we'll just start, you know, you know, sucking on a straw of the peanut butter sauce. I, I, I could do that. I, I will eat peanut butter right out of the jar. So, um, yeah. I actually had one of my friends had a spoon made in this gray that says Brent's peanut butter spoon, and that's just because I will like just walk by if I don't know what I want to eat, you know, I'll just walk by and take a big scoop of peanut butter out of the jar, just walk around with a spoon of peanut butter.

Okay. So based on that, I have to know, are, are you a Jif person, a Skippy person? I'm a Jif person. Okay, good. All right. We, we can be friends then. I'm a Jif person too. Right. It's divisive. My, my wife was a, uh, I think Skippy, crunchy peanut butter. Nope. She's correcting me. I heard that yell from the dining room where she's...

Sorry. Adam's crunchy. It was Adam's. Adam's crunchy. Okay. And I grew up with a Jif Creamy dad, like peanut butter was a go [00:12:00] to food for him. So that's what, that's what we had in the house. Uh, him and mom came to a negotiation because mom was crunchy too. He grew up on creamy peanut butter, so it's all we had in the house.

Yeah, it really speaks to what's called the power of primacy, which is what we learn first, right? So you had someone hand you, uh, you know, some peanut butter when you were a kid. It was the first time you'd ever had it. Plus you're being, you're having that being Um, shared with you by someone you love and trust and then all of a sudden you have this delightful experience and it leaves such a lasting impression, uh, on our brains.

Uh, and that's why after you've had Creamy Jif, whenever you're, you know, a little tight, nothing else will really do after that. I mean, it'll do in a pinch. But that pinch has to be, um, you know, just pretty awful to, you know, voluntarily consume Skippy or Peter Pan. Pretty much. Yeah. Although, [00:13:00] ironically, my dad didn't like sweet peanut butter.

He hated Reese's. Interesting. Jif peanut butter, yes. Like, Reese's, Reese's peanut butter cups is my go to. That's my candy. Yeah. Uh, if I'm, if I'm gonna get like something like that, my dad hated it. But just the sweet peanut butter, no, no. No sugar added and it's like, dad, do you know how much sugar they add to Jeff?

It's, it's a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Ed, what purchase of 100 or less have you made in the last year that's had the most profound impact on your life? The purchase of 100 or less that's had the most profound impact in my life. Uh, probably, probably a recent book, of all things. I, I mentioned earlier, sort of the spiritual journey that I'm, that I've been on.

And one of the questions that, that just kind of came across my field of vision was, What was Jesus doing between roughly the ages of 12 [00:14:00] and 13 until he formally started his ministry at age 30? What did he do? Where did he go? Because the Bible is, uh, is unclear at best. As to what he did and what we do know is that he taught in temple because he was he was in effect a child prodigy with with religious teachings and scriptures.

But what did he where did he go? What did he do? And there's some evidence and I haven't done enough. inquiry on this to confirm if this is legit. So take this for what it's worth. There's only one documented place that points to where he went during that 14 or 15 year period. And that was, he went East to India.

And so this book that I bought was called, it's called the Yoga of Jesus. And it's this idea, and again, not confirmed at least by anything that I've been [00:15:00] able to locate. It's this idea that he actually. Studied under gurus or masters. Uh, to perfect the art of meditation and quite literally connect with God consciousness.

Crazy, interesting idea. And it, it's something that has literally, for me, flipped everything that I've learned on its side. And it's like, could, could it be possible? And in the late 1800s, there was a Russian, uh, a Russian author that came across these documents in India and ended up publishing, uh, a work on this.

And this work was ultimately verified by a number of other scholars in the early to middle part of 1900. There's other work that has since, quote, debunked it at, you know, in the late 20th century, but it's a really interesting idea, isn't it? To [00:16:00] see, could it be that he, he knew of his divinity when he was a boy and then for lack of a better way of saying it, maybe affected it through the practice of meditation.

I don't know. It, it, it's had a profound effect on, on, on how I, uh, how I look at what I was taught and it's causing at this point more questions than answers. I'm not sure, I'm not sure I accept that concept, but it's an interesting, uh, thought for sure. Idea for sure. Yeah. Ed, what are you most proud of?

I am, uh, I am most proud of my family. Uh, they, you know, one of the things that. I think happens as, as, as you get a little bit older, [00:17:00] I just, I just turned 49 and invariably you're going to go through a period where you look back on the first part of your half of your life and realize it's an important thing to seek the validation of other people and to acquire material things, money, status, all ego, you know, based things.

And then, um, transition and where you, if you're going to make that transition. You know, as painless as possible until the second half of life, you really have to deconstruct that first part and then you're reconstructing your second life. And as part of that process, Brent, I, I see awe and wonder in my wife and girls just every day.

And it's interesting because my girls at the time of this recording are 15 and 13. And so, they fit every cliché of teenager. And you know, you know this, that every preceding generation pooh [00:18:00] poohs, you know, the, the next generation about being entitled or lazy or, you know, worthless or whatever, and we're doing the same thing with, you know, Generation Z.

And it occurs to me, I was like, we should probably stop doing that. Because they're interesting even in the silence. They're really interesting people. Oh, and by the way, their spidey sense is keenly attuned. They know we're talking about them. They know what we're saying about them. And they resent the heck out of it.

These are really smart, capable, well intended young people that quite frankly want, you know, just really want the adults in their lives to give it to them straight. Not sugarcoat anything, just, just be honest cause the truth's enough. And I get to see this every day in, in, in my girls and I get to watch my wife be the mother of, of them.

And it is absolutely awe inspiring. [00:19:00] That's what I'm most proud of. I get it. I have, uh, two little girls, I have a nine year old and 11 year old. One just the ones, nine year old just turned nine last week at the time of this review. God bless you. My 11 year old is getting ready to go to her first overnight or at church.

Uh, with the youth group and I'm as a former youth minister, I'm feeling it a little bit. I'm like, uh, she can't be that old. No, don't blink. Yeah. I, it's been fast at this point, but my wife and I joked about it. Cause it was, it was difficult, you know, taking the kid to kindergarten the first time. Yeah.

Taking her to her first youth event a week ago was way harder. Yeah. We spent a lot of our years of our life working with teenagers. So it was like, No, she's not that old yet. Yeah. Are you familiar with Darius Rucker's song, It Won't Be Like This For Long? Mm hmm. Oh man, I can't listen to that without just crying [00:20:00] every single time.

Um, not only the, you know, the, the message itself, but just seeing how fast it goes. And make no mistake, I, I'm absolutely looking forward to my girls moving out. It's this weird psychology. I don't want them to leave because I love them more than I can possibly, you know, try to describe. I mean, that's one of the things you learn if you're a relatively functional parent, is that our language is too primitive to adequately describe the love you feel for them, which is why we have cliché.

And yet I can't wait for them to leave. I mean, it, it really is this interesting space. No, it makes perfect sense to me. Uh, it's one of those uncomfortable spaces dads don't like to talk about, but them moving out and succeeding on their own. Confirms to us that we did a good job as parents. Yeah. Right.

That, that, that's where the excitement comes from is right when we see them step out on their own and stand on their own two feet [00:21:00] and actually start to live their life. Yeah. And see the person they are growing into. That's, that's either a gut check that, wow, I did a horrible job as a parent, , or it's that, you know, tear jerky moment of.

Yeah. Wow. We really managed not to screw up the kids. That's awesome. You know? Yeah. And usually that's the best we're hoping for. It's like, please God, just don't let us screw them up on the way through. And seriously, one of the things I've said, you know, for a long time is that for first time parents, you're going to mess them up.

You want to obviously, you know, minimize the damage, but you're gonna, you're well intended, you're a good person, but you're gonna mess them up, and the only thing you can really hope for is that when they're in their late teens or early twenties, you've done a good enough job that they're functional enough to forgive you.

Yeah. Yeah. Please, go ahead. I, I do have a story for you, and it, just to, because you have, you have two girls. Our oldest [00:22:00] has been, uh, dating a young man who's a year older. He's a, he's a really good, nice, respectful young man. But a few months ago, I walked into, uh, to my home office and I looked outside and he was, he was dropping my daughter off, but they were outside of the car and they were arguing.

And so I went to the, the inside garage door and opened it and I could see them, but I couldn't hear them. And... He actually took a posture that I didn't like, it's like he puffed his chest up a little bit and he lifted his hand. He wasn't going to strike her, but he was making a point. And I saw the look on her face and she was just like, you know, knowing her, she's, she was just over it.

She just wanted to get inside and just done with it. And so I actually walked out and addressed him and let him know in no uncertain terms. We've absolutely loved having you a part of our life, but the price [00:23:00] of admission is respecting that young lady. And he's just, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And for what it's worth, he ended up texting me like 20 minutes later apologizing and, and, and then later apologized to my daughter.

So he's a real conscientious young man that just had a bad moment. Mm hmm. But it was, it was definitely an opportunity for. Us as, as dads and us as strong, principled men to role model in the moment, what good looks like, because what he was doing was the opposite of that. I have friends lining up to, uh, the first time a boy comes sniffing around the house, I'm a biker and I'm a fairly big guy.

I've been lifting most of my life. I like to do strong man stuff. I'm, I'm a fairly. Broad tattooed. Uh, [00:24:00] it's, it's funny. Anybody who knows me just laughs. Cause they're like, you're not intimidating at all. It's like, yeah, before you knew me, you thought I was, cause, cause you know, I'm, I'm fairly just a very warm welcoming person, but on the outset, I look a little scary to some people and it's like, I have my biker friends all just waiting.

When someone shows up to take out one of the girls, it's on, man, it's on there. They cracked me up. That's awesome. I told her, I said, huh, I'll just be waiting. I don't have to act out to get his attention, but you know, that's the right of passage as a father. Sarah's dad met me at the door with a gun, you know, it's, it's right of passage and he was just teasing.

Right. It was all meant to be a joke. Of course. It's not like I was freaked out or anything, but it was like. Oh, okay. You've been waiting for this moment your whole life, haven't you? and even if you need to embellish moments, it's like, son, just, you [00:25:00] know, I've been to prison and I'm not afraid of going back, you know, things like, Oh, bad boys.

That was a good movie. Did you see that one with years ago? Yeah. Yeah. They run that whole scene. One of the guys comes to take out Martin Lawrence's daughter and every dad in history saw that movie and went, yes, that's how it's going to work guys. We've been spending a little time just getting to know Ed and letting you see who he is and why we're talking to him.

The next part of the show, we're going to dive into, uh, men and contemporary culture. We're going to roll our sponsor and we will be right back with more from Dr. Ed Slover. Now, before we go any further, I wanted to share with you guys. I don't always tell you how much I love doing my podcast. Like I passionately love what I'm doing.

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Colleague, and I wouldn't trust anybody else with my show guys. Welcome back in the first part of the show. We spent some time just getting to know Ed and in this part of the show, we're going to discuss men and contemporary culture. Uh, we're going to take this from a slightly different angle than we have in other shows, because I think Ed is up to the task.

So this, this is a little more direct questions that I ask some people sometimes, and I want to, you know, kind of compare the concept of men. Through a few generations, right? Because as we're talking about contemporary [00:27:00] men, we have to look back at some changes that have happened along the way, right? We go back as far as what they call the greatest generalization, generalization, general, can't talk the greatest generation back in the world war two era men.

And we have men who are lying about their age to get in the draft and to go to war. Right. And protect our way of life here in the U S and we have, right. Multiple generations. We have the silent generation, baby boomers, gen X there's debate. Uh, my wife and I both remember Jim Y being separate from millennials.

Although, you know, the newest things are trying to mix the two, then Gen Z. And now I guess we're into Xennials or Gen Alpha, whatever you want to call them. We've gone through, and that's a lot of years guys that we're covering, but there is major contrast. And what I'm curious about is how we made this trip across really only [00:28:00] about six generations and the difference in men in that generation and those generations, the older generations.

Uh, of like my grandparents to men now, it was a dramatically different time, no doubt. And I mean, that's, that's understating it. So this is obviously not a comprehensive review of everything. So just some, just, just some thoughts. If we go back the better part of 80 to a hundred years. The climate of the times was, was one where we were, we were a manufacturing nation, but we still, you know, we weren't as nearly as urbanized as what we are today.

And then, of course, the stock market crash in 1929 that led to the better part of 12 to 13 years of an economic crisis the United States has never seen. And even, even if you fast forward, you know, 15 years ago, or even in the [00:29:00] last couple of years, we haven't experienced what What the people experienced in the Great Depression did and then, but in terms of men, men were known as providers and protectors primarily.

And they would be the ones out tilling the land and working the farms. They would largely be the ones going to the factories. And mothers typically stayed home with kids. And that was, that was the order of the day. That was the culture of the times. And then, of course, we get into World War II. There's, uh, there's a draft.

There's, you know, you've got such a high concentration of men actually going. To serve in the military. And there were plenty of wonderful, heroic women that did as well. Then we come back post war and we're victors. And the society fundamentally changed. We went from having like the 20th. You know, 20 of the strongest [00:30:00] military in the world before Pearl Harbor to top two or three in the world.

And so, and, and wealth increased across the board. The family fundamentally was still together and still intact. Where dad typically went to work, mom typically stayed home. I'm not, you know, placing a value judgment on that either way. But the, the climate was such where families could subsist on one income.

You'd raise your family, you'd eat dinner every night together, the nuclear family was a whole. And then we fast forward into the late 1950s and into the 60s, and even into the early 70s, so a 10 to 15 year period where, culturally, there was a seismic shift. In addition to the much needed civil rights movement, you had the rise of feminism, you had the start of the dissolution of the nuclear family.

And all of a [00:31:00] sudden, the, the family unit is completely disrupted, and then it's like, what's the role of dad if dad's not in the home? You know, and It's like, okay, so then we're, we navigate the 1970s and into the 1980s, all the while there's this threat of geothermal nuclear holocaust that everybody's terrified out of their mind.

And we get into, I'm a Gen Xer and we get into, into millennials. You have all of this, this proliferation of technology. Meanwhile, the nuclear family is dissolving at an even faster pace. Particularly in lower socioeconomic areas, and then we, you know, we bring it forward into into generation Z that hasn't been solved, at least the nuclear family problem and along the way.

Men have, men have been viewed differently from World War II, [00:32:00] you know, and, and, and before and a, and a couple decades after as primarily protector provider to doing that is viewed as somewhat toxic. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that. Um, stripping people of their dignity and behaving aggressively, even violently, we can't condone any of that.

But what happened to the, the protect, protector and provider role? Well, that's still there, but people will have to be careful with how they show up in, in those settings. But then one other thing, among many other, one other thing really, really did shift. Is that a couple of generations ago, men showing vulnerability was perceived as weakness and nowadays we don't show vulnerability.

It's perceived as weakness. And I would even, [00:33:00] uh, I'd love to get your take on this too, Brent. I even would submit to you that showing vulnerability is an absolute strength, if for no other reason, it allows men to be able to relate more effectively with their, their romantic partners, with their friends, certainly with their children.

I, I hear the vulnerability conversation a lot. And I think it's going to more often than not boils down to a semantical, um, uh, a semantical, um, semantical argument of how we're defining vulnerability in the moment. Yeah. Right. Because you can say vulnerability and a bunch of our listeners are going to hear X, right?

Where some of our other listeners are hearing Y and some of them are, Are we're listening, hearing Z and some of them aren't even the alphabet. Some of them were like, when they hear the word vulnerability, we have some guys who are just totally [00:34:00] shutting down. And some guys who are going, yes, be vulnerable, be open.

Right. And I think he comes down almost a semantical argument about what vulnerability is. Yeah. And in the context. So we're talking about it because I've heard women be like, Oh, men need to be more vulnerable and cry in movies and just be open and talk. No, no, no, no, no. That's not vulnerability for a guy.

No. Okay. If a guy we, like my daughter's like tease me because, uh, valor, Oh, my good valor in a movie crushes me. And I used to make fun of my dad. So Like we've come full circle, uh, Valor, just, I see someone sacrifice themselves for their, their friends, their comrades, and I'm just like, the tears are going right.

My daughter's like, here, dad, get a Kleenex. Oh my goodness. Right. Yeah. But see, that's, that's not vulnerability to me. That's not how I would define it. So I think that's where we run into a lot of [00:35:00] problems with this discussion. Yeah. It was so for, for my part, whenever I think of vulnerability, at least in contemporary culture is showing up in a way where we take a genuine interest in.

Elevating our degree of emotional intelligence, where we have, uh, we have an awareness about ourselves or how we're, how we're, you know, physically feeling. Now, if we think about how the brain works, our brains emote first. Emotion is simply the chemical cocktail that gets released. And then you have a sensation we call that feeling.

And so Getting in touch with what that is, not the, you know, not the, you know, the hallmark card, you got to get in touch with your feelings, but actually being aware because through that recognition, we have a decision to make on how we show up in every next conversation. From there, it's like, okay, well, I'm, I may not like how you're showing up, [00:36:00] Brent, I might disagree with how you're showing up, but I can empathize with how you're doing that.

And if I have a genuine curiosity as to what you're experiencing in the moment, that, by definition, makes me somewhat vulnerable because I'm putting my curiosity out there. And from there, once I have a better understanding about how you're showing up, Then I have another decision to make is how I regulate myself.

Do I disagree to the point where I tear strips off of you? Well, that's not effective to anything. Or do I really pay attention to how I'm feeling, even if I disagree with how you're showing up and regulate my interaction with you because I value our relationship more than anything else. Because if, if you actually think about that process backwards, what it does is it puts the relationship at.

at the center, it's the focal point. And if I value our relationship so much that I want to [00:37:00] maintain the integrity of that, knowing full well there's always gonna be, you know, nicks to the relationship anytime there's conflict, then I probably am a little quicker to press pause on how I regulate myself.

Because I have a good idea of how you're, how you're feeling about it in the moment, whether I disagree or just don't care. Because I have a better, I have a, you know, I have more awareness of how I'm responding and showing up in the moment. And I think if we can, if we can go at relationships like that, that makes us vulnerable because we don't know, we don't know how the other person is ultimately going to respond to that.

See, when I think about vulnerability, right, as we get into this discussion. I go to a much more primal level with it. See, ability to be vulnerable to me is like the ultimate, like display [00:38:00] of security and power. Uh, I, I, so I'm the ultimate form of strength, because it, it honestly, it's a flex, right. To be able to be vulnerable for a lot of guys, because like I said, I I'm a movie nerd.

I don't know if you're a big movie guy, but I I'm, I'm a big movie nerd. Uh, did you ever watch the series? The Witcher on Netflix? I, I, I haven't, I gotta tell you, I can't bring myself to watch Superman. Uh, where a long white wig, uh, you know, he was better. He was better than the witcher. Was he really? I'll have to check it out.

Yeah. Henry Cabela is a dedicated gamer, like hardcore dedicated gamer. And he actually took the role because the witcher is his favorite game of all time. Gotcha. Uh, so he actually does it really, really justice, but there's a scene. I won't throw a lot of spoilers. So then there's a scene where the witchers are like these ultimate bounty hunters.

They were. Chemically and magically made [00:39:00] from the children of witches to hunt monsters. And so they're, they're actually enhanced. They have elixirs that enhance them. They're stronger, they're faster. Their senses are sharper and he's standing at court, right? He got drug into this with a friend of his and he's standing at court and these two Lords getting an argument about killing some monster.

And he, he just kind of blows them off and laughs. Cause he's like, yeah, cause y'all ever seen one of those, which immediately escalates the situation. Right. And they're like, Oh, you're calling us a liar. And he very quickly backs down very calmly. And it's like, I'm sure that my Lord just happened to encounter a form of the beast I've never seen before.

Right. And the queen was like, Oh, now here's an interesting character, you know, uh, I, I understood that this happened, right. And she hates a certain [00:40:00] race. And he supposedly beat a couple of them. And he's like, actually in truth, I got my butt kicked and they had a knife to my throat and he just let me go.

Like they, they own me. I should be dead. Yeah. And the queen is like any man that can be that upfront with his faults is going to make far more interesting conversation tonight than the rest of you guys. So you come sit at my table because there's this total flex of this guy who is supposed to be just an animal, like he is a power level mercenary on unstoppable by most humans.

And he's like, Nope, I got beat up. And like, it was, and as you watch the scene, like you can feel that in the scene, they did a really good job portraying it. It's like the super flex of, I got owned. Which means all of you would have died, but, uh, and to me, like, when I saw that scene, I'm like, Oh, some writer [00:41:00] got it right.

That's the flex. When you can turn around, you have to be secure in who you are, who you perceive yourself to be in your strengths. You have to be securing your own weaknesses to be able to be that brutally open. And just put yourself out there on display and that takes courage, no doubt about it. It takes courage.

It's interesting because when you think about the root word of relationship, it's relate. Well, if we want deep, meaningful connection with others, we need to figure out a way to relate to them. Well, sometimes the shared experience that we have with others is, is really close to our heart. And in order to, in order to really have those deep, meaningful relationships, we have to be willing to, you know, display that.

And, which is an interesting, [00:42:00] it's an interesting idea because our willingness to display it, independent of how it's received. The courage comes from our willingness to display it. It, we could get crapped on when we do that and that's, that certainly happened and that gives us pause for the next time we feel like we want to do that, certainly, and everyone, everyone's gotten burned that way, but it's in the, the willingness to be able to do it and when that is reciprocated, the nature of the conversation fundamentally changes because you become, you, you start having more emotionally intimate conversations and If you think about like conversations like riverbeds, the nature of the conversations, you know, widen and deepen over time.

And those are, those are the lasting relationships, you know, like you and your wife, me and my wife, me and, you know, our, our girls. It's like the, [00:43:00] ultimately the conversation is the relationship. And if we want to assess the strength of any relationship, we really have to look at the quality of the conversations that we're having.

And part of that, especially with those people we let into our circle. is the display of vulnerability. See, and like I said, we, we get started to get into kind of that semantical debate, right? Because that is right. And both those are variations on vulnerability and how they're displayed in our lives and in the people we interact with, uh, there are times as a dad, right, that you've displayed vulnerability with your children and from an outside perspective, looking in.

Someone from the outside or a person who studies this kind of thing, we'll look at it and go, wow, look how vulnerable you were with your kids. And at the same time, you as a father going, what are you talking about? What is this nonsense? Stop dad, [00:44:00] right? And that, that hat crown of being a dad comes with vulnerability.

If you want your children, if you truly are intent on being a good dad, it comes with a form of vulnerability built in because your children have to see you in vulnerable States. If they're going to have a healthy outlook moving forward, if they're going to know how to. React to situations or interactions with other people, you know, you're going to have to have that vulnerability with them, but we don't see it that way.

Right in the moment as men, a lot of times we're, we're not thinking, Oh, I'm being vulnerable. I'm thinking, Oh, here's a teachable moment with my daughter. Right. She can see me fail. She can see me stress. But she can also see me rise from that. She can also see how I handle that situation. So when she's faced with that, and that's all this going through my head.

And I know, [00:45:00] I know we established this. I know some scary people. I really do. But, uh, it happens when you're, uh, I did a short stint in the military. I got into special forces training. Then I got injured and was pulled out, but you know, I, I've been around some. Super scary people, like the top end of the top end tier one operators.

You used to come through my base all the time. I'd see green berets, Delta force, which don't officially exist. Uh, Navy air quotes. Yeah, well, in the history of the United States military, there's not actually a document ever proving the existence of Delta force, but we all know that there, you know, the CIA did a couple of movies.

So let's be real. Yeah. He knows, he knows, uh, you know, the CIA had guys coming in and out of our base. I've been around some really scary guys. I used to know a guy who was Mr. Army twice and the head of Charlie company for the Rangers. What does it, what does it mean to be Mr. [00:46:00] Army? Like it's, it's a in house competition that's both physical and performance based, but he was the commander of there.

There's three companies of Rangers in the United States. He was the commander of one of them. Jack, Jack was the most unassuming guy in the world. My goodness. Like you just radiated. You could just like, I do not want to make that man angry. I remember him stopping my friend. My friend and I were running through the church as a kid.

And like, just barreling through the church, like seven, eight years old. And he just put his hand down, right? He was talking to somebody, put his hand down. My friend ran into his hand, chest to hand. Right. And it was like a cartoon. My friend's arms and legs went forward, just dead stop. And he looked down at us for just as calm as can be.

He said, Peter, Brent, if you don't stop running, I'm going to rip your lips off.

Two kids go screaming out of the church building. [00:47:00] My dad thought it was hilarious cause he was good friends with my dad. Uh, so of course he shared the story with him. We're like, we're hiding until our parents are ready to take us home. Yeah. Right. I've known these, most of them are very unassuming. None of them ever had to prove anything.

And these same men, I have one good friend. I mean, the dude is, I can't even talk on air about what he used to do. Um, but he turned into the biggest baby. Him and his wife were divorced. And every night he talked to his son before they went to bed and this deep voice, like Johnny Cash level voice. Scary man turn into the biggest baby on the phone.

Like we, we, we'd be having dinner and he'd pick up the phone and the tone would automatically go from rah, rah, rah, to, Oh, well, like just like, daddy loves you. Right. It's like, Oh, this is kid. Okay. Um, but dad's don't, dad's don't see it as vulnerability. We see what [00:48:00] you do and interact. Yeah. It's just how you, what you do and how you do it.

I mean, if we had to, if we had to label it, then by virtue of that, we would, we would label it as such. I mean, it's just baked into the cake. Yeah. What is, what are we actually talking about when we're talking about vulnerability? Right. I think that's where we get a lot of the confusion on it. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, I, if we think about it, like in, in leadership. Not so much, not, not so much military is civilian organizations in military. The there's, it's not a one to one comparison for obvious reasons, but like, I, I never had the opportunity to serve in the military. I have a congenital absence of my left kidney.

So my NFL and military career ended the day I was born. Yeah. Well, I mean, we didn't know it until I was three, but. Yeah, you know, everything's, everything's worked itself out, but the, you [00:49:00] know, in civilian organizations, one of the things that, that just even to this day that, that still comes up is, um, a lack of approachability from someone that's lower in the, you know, in the organizational hierarchy so much so that Gallup, Gallup's recent report that came out a month or so ago points to, um, Employees reporting only 16 percent of employees are reporting that they have a meaningful conversation every week with their manager.

Like, how does that happen now? Granted, they don't do a really good job describing what meaningful is and what I'm not at all suggesting. Is that me as the leader and you as my quote follower need to have a psychotherapy session to really dig into either one of our deep seated, you know, pains from childhood.

I'm not at all suggesting that, but what if, what if we as the [00:50:00] leader present ourselves as being a little bit more relatable, be a little bit more human, being willing to admit mistakes whenever we make mistakes. Uh, correct wrongs whenever we get certain things wrong rather than putting up this veneer or this, you know, this armor of invincibility, which makes us that makes us even less approachable to other people.

And this has practical implications. Because a leader's effectiveness is his or her ability to get results with and through other people. Well, if that other person or those other people don't willingly follow that person, that compromises the results of the entire operation. Which, not coincidentally, compromises the, the, the benefits to the leader.

And so it becomes this negative feedback loop of sorts, you know, whenever we, as men, choose to put [00:51:00] the armor on and, and not be approachable versus meeting the other person where they are and then, you know, being willing to open up and be more relatable.

I've been really blessed last decade plus that I was in the corporate world. I, I never once had a boss where I didn't feel like I could just walk into their office. You're lucky. I know, like I said, I'm really blessed. I, I've had great upper management where everywhere I've been, like there was even, even when I knew I was coming in to show them was like, Oh, we have a difficulty here.

Right. I never once felt like I could not approach them. Even if it was my fault. Uh, so I, I was very blessed in that. And I know there are definitely places where that's problematic, uh, for people, but it's the difference on, I think, concept of servant leadership [00:52:00] versus. I'm the boss, right? I, that really, I think comes down to

there's definitely vulnerability involved, but there's also a mindset shift of I'm the boss. So you have to follow me versus I'm the boss. So let me walk with you as you go through this trip so I can help you.

And yeah, the, the idea of positional authority is highly seductive because there is power that comes with positional authority there that just comes with that. Part of the challenge is we just keep repeating the same cycle over and over and over. And your experience is fortunate that you, you've had favorable experiences.

The data is, is really clear that [00:53:00] only 31 percent of the U. S. workforce reports being engaged at work. 18 percent are actively disengaged. These are the people that are looking for jobs while they're at work. And then the middle 50%. These are the quiet quitters. These are those that are just doing the bare minimum to keep their leaders off their back.

And, while they not, might not be looking for jobs at work, they're actively looking for something else because they're just largely unfulfilled. Now, this isn't, this isn't... Completely driven by, by male leaders. I mean, you have to involve, you know, women in positional authority too, but by percentage, especially as you climb the hierarchy, still by percentage, it's, it's, it's largely men.

And I think there's just, I think there's a big opportunity to be able to show up differently, if, if for no other reason, there are better financial implications [00:54:00] whenever we do. Absolutely.

I think that we've, uh, we've seen a lot of cultural shifts, right? With you, you mentioned the quiet quitters, which is such a recent terminology. Yeah. Uh, I, I laugh, I I'm finding it 43. I used to not get it. Right. I, I was, you know, the teenager, like everybody else. And I thought, you know, the old people, my parents, you know, the older people who were their friends, like, yeah, you just don't get it, man.

Blah, blah, blah. Right. We all went through that process. I now understand that 43 with how fast the world is radically changing. Those old men means you see sitting on his porch or guys from second hand lions and it's like, man, just leave me alone. I don't want to learn anymore. I don't want to change anymore.

I don't want to learn something new. You are [00:55:00] changing what words me are changing terminology. No one, no one had heard of quiet quitting except for a very small circle of people. 10 years ago. That's right. Right. And so we have this constantly shifting landscape. And I know one of the things that modern men are really having to deal with in contemporary culture is some of the shifts in, uh, hostility, whether it's perceived hostility or actual hostility.

Right. Uh, in the last decade, we saw men deal with, right. What started out with the me too moment, which. Okay. Let me be really clear about this. Cause I'm going to upset somebody. I absolutely do not condone, condone. And I have a much harsher idea of what should happen to men who actually hurt women or children.

There's never, ever, ever an excuse. That's right. Right. [00:56:00] Unfortunately, what started out as a honest movement movement to expose some really horrible people who are abusing their power, turn into a tension grab, and then it turned into a men are back, let's let's all men are mad. Believe the women, all men are mad.

We don't need proof. We just. You know, if I said it, it's good enough, men are bad, right? And that, that foiled out pretty quickly, thankfully, where people started going, uh, this doesn't really make sense. Right. And then right after that, we had the toxic masculinity terminology started to surface. That's right.

I started hearing about toxic men, toxic masculinity. Which I would actually deem as lack of masculinity, the men they were describing, right? We saw this assault of toxic masculinity and that carried on for a few years. Uh, I was just discussing with someone yesterday. It's like, thankfully you hear that thrown out less and less and less, but [00:57:00] it was this.

Open attack on masculinity and men for almost a solid decade to the point where, uh, I don't know if you spend much time on social media, the new, right. Lose your mind there. Yeah. The new trend is these little girls will go and film themselves in the gym. In revealing workout outfits so they can blow up at the guys who are ogling them on film.

Right. I've seen some of those. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's the newest trap. We have guys who are getting scared to go to the gym, right? The gym has always been a sacred as one of the last sacred bastions where men could just go grunt and work out. And now we're attacking men there, which is a new variation of this decade of men that right.

And I'm [00:58:00] not bagging this on all women because I think there's a negative root behind that that's just trying to sweep people up through crowd reaction, right? Uh, herd mentality kind of thing, but there's this attack on men and masculinity. And so men in the current contemporary culture are now bottling up even more.

We're, we're starting to become more fearful. We're starting to be afraid to approach women. We're starting to be afraid to even talk to women or look at women at this point. Uh, and there are the knee jerk reactions. I hate the MGTOW movement, men going their own way. Have you heard of that? Uh, it's, it's this movement, they call it, they shorten it to MGTOWs, men going their own way.

It's, you don't need women. Uh, if you want to have a play toy for a little while, sure, but no serious relationships. Women don't bring anything to it. Use them, kick them to the curb. You don't actually need them. Just do your own thing. Focus on you. And I was like, ah, that's the bad pendulum swing to the far [00:59:00] other side instead of coming some kind of reason.

But with this 10 year plus attack now on men, I think we're dealing in contemporary culture with young men who are just like, and even middle aged men who are just like trying to put their heads down and just go through life. And I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking at you. I'm, I didn't say anything to you.

We're afraid to talk. We're afraid to interact with other people that aren't already super tight knit. And it's having this impact on contemporary men, because where we were starting to, I think we were honestly actually starting to make progress with men starting to be more comfortable with the idea of vulnerability and acknowledging their emotions, whether they dealt like with them, the way women want us to deal with them, that's, that's never actually going to happen.

But... Well, we're just wired [01:00:00] differently. That's not the way our feelings. Men were actually becoming more comfortable with this concept. There was a nice little, I saw that up curve. I got really excited. I was like, yes, yes, this is positive. And now we're seeing it tilt back down because men are becoming afraid to interact at this point.

A lot of confusion has been sown for sure. And this, it's been more pronounced in the last decade. This has really been going on for the better part of four decades. Where there's just been either a covert or overt attack on, just call it masculinity, you know, in general. When I was at Grand Canyon last year, uh, in the fall semester, Brent, I had five male students come up to me separately and ask, What does it mean to be a man?

And I found that particularly alarming because [01:01:00] the student population at Grand Canyon University is, they come from conservative Christian homes. Mm hmm. I mean, it's the largest private Christian university in the country. And so, young men coming from conservative Christian homes, and we're not talking about the liberal or even far left, you know, political slants, they're generally, genuinely confused as to how to show up in the world.

And, okay, so what do you do with that? Because... Even Lane, you mentioned middle aged men. They're really in some type of self preservation mode. So Brent, make sure you don't say these certain things out loud and you get to keep your job. Make sure you don't say these other things out loud and you get to keep your reputation.

And it's, it's just this highly transactional type of thing that's all grounded in fear. Versus maybe what men used to do was [01:02:00] stand up in the face of, of that, not to necessarily focus on being less afraid, but, but being braver, showing more courage in the face of certain things that for my part, Brent, quite frankly, are absurd.

I mean, the idea that it's, it's, I'm committing some act of violence to you or someone else because I'm not acknowledging your pronouns, I find to be patently absurd and I refuse to do it. Now, so you

get to dictate the terms of this. You, you don't have to worry about getting fired. Well, that might be the case, but I also am a business owner that is dependent on customers that are willing to hire me. And for anyone that is offended by me saying out loud that I will call you by your name, but not by your pronoun, if you view that as me being violent to you, I don't want to do business with you anyway.

And having that conviction to stand [01:03:00] up and say, no, there are just certain lines that we're not going to cross here. And if, if, if those types of things bother you. Then I'm not really the one missing out on not having a relationship with you because if you look at the buckets of my virtues and flaws, the virtue bucket is way more full.

So it really, you know, we get into that. So all of that I acknowledge is simple to say out loud. But it's not easy to live out, especially if you have, if you have a family and you have a mortgage and you have car payments and you have tuition payments and you've got all of these obligations you need to fulfill, it's terrifying to go outside of, you know, the, the prevailing quote wisdom, but I'm not sure that if we, if we are tasked with living to our most authentic and integrated selves, That we can go with the flow with [01:04:00] a clear conscience.

I just, I'm just not convinced of it. I wish I could say that it was truly surprising in a time where most people are afraid to answer the question of what is a woman. Right? Contemporary, you know, are struggling with, well, what is a man, right? That's, that's a natural progression. If we can't define a woman, I can see how it's disturbing that it's, uh, that invasive.

Right. Uh, as you said, most of your students were from conservative Christian homes. So the fact that it's become so pervasive that it's bleeding into, uh, that really heart culture of this is, this is the standard, right? This isn't a question for us, but we do live in a time where people apparently are confused about that.

I'm not sure how, and for all those people out there who are like. Changing my pronouns is violence. You have never experienced real violence. I that's, that's all I can even say about that. [01:05:00] Dr. Silver, how well do you sleep at night? Do you toss and turn and wake up more tired than when you went to bed?

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Now let's go on to the show. We've talked about some really depressing things today, but here, here's, here's the bigger question. Where does our audience go from here? Right? We have a lot of men listening to this show who are trying to become the best version of themselves. They're trying to live with purpose.

They're [01:06:00] trying to become the men they are intended to be. And in the face of this current contemporary culture that we live in for men, where we're still being attacked, where the ideology behind masculinity and men stepping up into those roles that we've traditionally. Uh, been in where, whether it's provider or protector or, you know, being what we recognize as masculine men, there's a lot of fear that's pervasive because of all this going on.

Where do we start moving forward? Where, where can people listening right now? Uh, I know you do coaching where, what are the first three steps that men listening this can take to reclaim and start moving in the direction they need to go into that positive men that they want to be. I want to qualify that answer by going back to what I said earlier during the [01:07:00] show is that the lens through which I'm seeing the world is this, it feels like I have, I have a foot in both in two, two areas, one sort of material world, very practical, um, and then the other is much more, much more spiritual.

Now to answer your question, the, the first thing I would suggest is to take time where you can go and reflect, quiet time, if you, if you've got to take a walk, if it's, if it's going somewhere and sitting in your car for a little while, if it's meditation, if it's doing a staycation and, and taking a couple days if you can afford it to go to a hotel room, And just sit and reflect and put away the distraction.

Now, some of that might include prayer. So that might include, you know, digging into scripture. If you are of that spiritual ilk, [01:08:00] others might just be just taking time to be. We are so focused on doing and going, and everything is. Uh, we're so incredibly distracted. We just, we're human. You've heard the cliche.

We're human beings, not human doings. What if we actually took a step back to get quiet and truly reflect on our thoughts? Journaling is another good example of this and, and trying to define, define what is my purpose, what is the call on my life and where am I in with respect to, to answering that call?

The next is a mentor. You reference coaching, coach, mentor, someone that you can either that you have a relationship with or you can develop a relationship that you know and you believe has your best interest in mind and no matter what they'll give it to you straight. There's [01:09:00] going to be those moments where they're going to pull things out of your blind spot and have you think about them.

There's going to be other moments where they metaphorically grab your face masks because they've got to get your attention because how you're, how you're doing things or how you're showing up is actually counterproductive. The whole, that, the whole nature of that relationship is they're designed to make you better.

And then really then the third thing is taking that coaching or mentorship and figuring out every single day how do I apply it directly to my life so I become fractionally better today than I was yesterday. That whole Jordan Peterson, Carl Jung, I mean, that idea is not new. I mean, Aristotle talked about being better, a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday.

I'm not even talking about being a wholesale better version. Ourselves today versus yesterday. It's like, can I have more patience? Can I be a little bit better? [01:10:00] Can I bite my tongue and not say that means spirited? Can I make that one extra phone call to a friend I haven't talked to in three months or send, you know, send them a text, something every single day that allows you to get closer to that, that purpose.

Now, being a Christ follower, I. How I would articulate that is answering God's call on your life, because until we start ourselves arguing for our potential, we have to acknowledge that no one else is going to do it for us. So it's like, stop arguing against your potential and what can't happen and what all of these things that you're up against that seem insurmountable, that seemingly are out of your control.

And start arguing for your potential and start really identifying those things that are within your control that you can go make a better life, [01:11:00] you know, on, on paper, it seems, it seems somewhat easy to describe, as I mentioned earlier, it's not, this is crazy hard stuff, especially whenever you, um, we've created these habitual thought patterns that.

That we go from zero to stress and anxious and depressed, you know, like that. And then we end up coping with things that are largely ineffective. Whether it's binge watching Netflix, mindlessly scrolling on social media, drugs, alcohol, pornography, it's like, whatever. It's like, well, if, if those things aren't adding productive value to your life, you already know they're not.

It's like, what if we just start. Making those fractional improvements every day to start adding, uh, adding those things in that do add productive value. So you, you, you went and ruined it, man. I was trying to sell incremental improvements. Something I thought of, you know, all, all of our listeners are just shattered.

Brent didn't come. [01:12:00] Right. I'm a fraud. I didn't come up with it. I'm sorry. No, it does. It does date back to Aristotle, and it's gone throughout the history. Carl Jung said it most recently. Jordan Peterson is popular repopularized it. Um, but it, it, it wouldn't have lasted, you know, as long as it has throughout human history, if there, there wasn't value to it.

Well, I mean, honestly, I won't say everything that can be discovered has been discovered. But honestly, the, the most powerful and profound pieces of wisdom I've ever come across have been around for a lot of years. That's right. There's been a lot of people who crossed this dirt ball called Earth over the, you know, however many years humans have been on it.

Uh, I think it's absurd how every generation thinks they're thinking of something new and it's like, no. So I, I, I was just teasing because I, I am the first to admit, like, I didn't come up with that. It's just a principle I live by. Um, something I encourage others to live by because that's [01:13:00] real change, right?

That's real growth. It's a little bit. One thing, make one, one good choice today somewhere, right? Adds up. Now, Ed, where is the best place for people to find you? So a couple of different places. Quest consulting service.com. So that's service singular. That's my, uh, leadership and Business con consultancy. I also have the quest for life.com.

So the number four is actually the numeral for four. So the quest for life.com. You can see it on the screen there. There really get into. Uh, mindset and, uh, peak performance coaching, midlife mentorship, um, I, I had spent a career in the commercial health and fitness industry. So I still have a passion about that.

So if anyone's interested in, in learning more there, and I also founded a ministry. I mentioned that earlier, which is completely nuts when I compare it to a previous version of myself. But if [01:14:00] people want to check that out, it's, it's not my credit to take. com. And guys, we'll, we'll have all those links down in the description of the show notes.

We will make sure that you can find Dr. Slover and that you can continue this conversation with him. Uh, I highly encourage you, he's got a lot of platforms to connect with. I highly encourage you to go see even more about what he's about. We've, we've grazed the surface of where this could go. I knew this was going to be an interesting conversation.

Uh, I've been looking forward to doing this interview and I must say. We did an awesome job of totally not talking about almost anything on my notes. So, uh, you know, some of my favorite shows, honestly, is the ones where the conversation just went naturally. Yeah. Uh, I have my run of show to keep me organized, but when something's going, I like to just let it go.

And so. Not disappointed at all. I enjoyed the conversation incredibly. Um, I'm going to have [01:15:00] to reframe some things when I get ready to produce the episode, but I'm glad I'm going to. That's a, that's a good problem to have for me. I enjoy that actually. Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you. Now. I know all of you are dying to know which actor performs music under the stage name Childish Gambino.

Is it A. Donald Glover, B. Will Smith, C. Frank Ocean, or D. Tyler the Creator? I have no idea who Tyler the Creator even is. Uh, and you guessed Will Smith. Uh, unfortunately, Will Smith is not getting jiggy with that. Oh, Brent, come on. Uh, Donald Glover, the child of Danny Glover. Yeah. Apparently has a music stage name of Childish Gambino.

I know everybody is just, they've been waiting the whole show to hear that, I'm sure. Brent, that's really too bad. I I'm, I'm so devastated. Once we get off our, our call today, I'm going to enroll in a self esteem class. [01:16:00] Oh, no, I'm going to go. I'm going to go pull out big wheelie style and just listen to the album.

I'm disillusioned now. Yes, guys. Uh, Ed has given us so much to think about and to consider. Ed, I want you to take us out with what is, if, if someone listening today, didn't catch anything else, what is the most important thing you want them to hear today?

It's this idea of unmemorizing yourself very often, really, for almost all of us. We carry so much emotional baggage into our adult life and it affects every next relationship we have, whether it's with a romantic partner, with our, with our kids, with our friends, with our, our bosses, with our employees, it affects everything.

And one of the things that occurs to me is that we. Typically pretty good at extending grace to other people, but we [01:17:00] generally stink at extending grace to ourselves. And part of doing that is recognizing that how we coped whenever we were younger is no longer an effective coping strategy for us to move forward to realize the purpose of our life, to answer the call on our life.

And in many ways we have to turn around and examine it and endure some degree of pain. in the process with the willingness and the open heart and displaying vulnerability to give that younger version of ourselves a hug and say, you know what? Thank you. You helped get me through whatever I was going through at the time, and I couldn't be more appreciative.

And I love you for it, but you can't come along anymore because. How we cope then will not get me to the next phase in life. And until we do that, we will, [01:18:00] we'll feel stuck. We'll spin our wheels constantly. We'll just, it's, it will be Groundhog Day over and over and over again, and we'll wonder why. But once we're able to actually start reconciling pain of the past, so we're not carrying it into every...

Every next conversation we have with someone, then we have a legitimate shot. Then we've leveled up our mindset and we have a legit shot of performing better in all aspects of our life, most notably the relationships that matter to us most. So Brent, I'll leave you with that idea. So we really need to un memorize the version of ourselves that is on a wash, rinse, repeat, you know, cycle, you know, day in and day out.

Gentlemen, Dr. Ed slo. Dr. Ver, thank you for joining us today here on the podcast. Guys, as always, be better tomorrow 'cause of what you do today. We'll see you on the next one. [01:19:00] This has been the Ible Man Podcast. Your home for everything, man, husband, and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show.

Head over to www.thefallibleman.com for more content and get your own Fallible man gear.

I'll take it all.