FULL TRANSCRIPT

Brad Singletary (00:00):
Men are faced with unique challenges. And many of our failures come from operating with boys’ psychology instead of the mature and evolved man psychology. We often find ourselves asking what kind of man should we be? There are many perspectives about healthy masculinity and even more widely varying ideas of what it means to be an Alpha today. My three alpha guests and I continue a six episode series on our review of the book King warrior magician lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. They described the difference between boy psychology and man psychology and give a very effective model of healthy masculinity by helping guys rediscover the archetypes of mature manhood. In this episode, we discuss the magician.

Intro (00:58):
If you’re a man that controls his own destiny, a man that is always in the pursuit of being better. You are in the right place. You are responsible, you are strong, you are a leader. You are a force for good. Gentlemen, you are the Alpha, and this is the Alpha Quorum.

Brad Singletary (01:22):
Welcome back to the Alpha Quorum show Brad Singletary here. I’m here with a bunch of magicians. As we talk about this topic tonight, you’re going to find out why these guys are themselves magicians. They don’t know this, but I chose them to be in this series because I think they’re all of these things. These are kings. These are warriors. These are magicians and they’re lovers. Welcome back to Jay Jim and Clint Albright. Thanks for being here. You guys. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you. So the questions we’re going to answer today, what is the magician archetype express in its fullness? We’re going to discuss some relatable examples of men living this way. We’re going to talk about the bipolar shadows of the magician, that detached manipulator and the denying innocent one. We’re also going to talk about how a man can fully access magician energy within himself.

Brad Singletary (02:23):
This segment is about living life as a man with the energy of a magician. That’s such an interesting title. That’s such an interesting word. As we talk about these archetypes. When I thought of magician, I did think of some old school image. You know, some wizard type person who was, I don’t know, casting spells. He has a wand. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking of like Lance Burton or who who’s the magician. David Copperfield is Lance Burton, a magician who was Lance Burton, crazy. You’re thinking of Chris angel, Chris angel. So that’s, you know, those, those street performer type magicians. One of the differences about this, the, the mature masculine magician is that he, unlike the performers, he does tell his secrets. He does show his methods. And that’s one of the reasons I’m calling these guys here, magicians tonight. They each have special, very specialized training in their professions, but they also here are teaching you who are listening right now. And that’s part of what the magician does. So let’s get rolling here, dudes, what is the magician archetype expressed and its fullness? So this is the healthy side. This is the mature masculine, he’s a grownup and he can do certain things. What does he do? What does he know? What’s he about?

New Speaker (03:52):
He’s the knower of specific knowledge, even if he doesn’t realize that he has that knowledge, or it might be commonplace to him. You know, someone, you know, a doctor who knows how to set bones and fractures or an auto mechanic who can rebuild an engine or the airline pilot, you know, who knows how to land a plane to them it’s commonplace. And it’s easy because they have those skills and that knowledge, but to others, those things are shrouded in mystery.

Brad Singletary (04:23):
There’s a great quote from the book that talks about what is magician energy. It says all knowledge that takes special training to acquire is the province of the magician energy. Whether you’re an apprentice training to become a master electrician and unraveling the mysteries of high voltage or medical student grinding away night and day, studying the secrets of the human body and using available technologies to help your patients, a stockbroker, a student of finance, a trainee, and one of the psychoanalytic schools, you are in exactly the same position as the apprentice shaman, or which doctor in tribal societies, you were spending large amounts of time, energy, and money in order to be initiated into rarefied realms of secret power. You were undergoing an ordeal testing your capacities to become a master of this power. And as is true in all initiations, there’s no guarantee of success. So special knowledge you said Jay or what was the phrase that you use? He’s a knower of special knowledge. We’ve given some examples here. What other attributes does the magician have?

Clint (05:36):
As architect of Awareness and insight, but also has an understanding into the unknown, the unconscious, the underlying deeper energies that are

Brad Singletary (05:45):
Yeah. He sees beyond the obvious. It doesn’t,

Clint (05:50):
I think in black and white he’s like thinks in the radiation.

Brad Singletary (05:54):
Yeah. There’s, he’s, he’s beneath the surface of things and there’s complexity that he understands. That’s not common knowledge. This isn’t common sense. Maybe common sense is coming from the warrior, but the magician has a deeper understanding of things.

Jim (06:11):
It’s like, he can see the whole picture, that apprentices just seeing the small pieces, but he’s not seeing the whole puzzle. And that magician can, you know, paint that in this mind and help build, create design, that image.

Brad Singletary (06:28):
I like that it talks about technology and whether you’re, this is, you know, medieval times and you’ve got a horse in a sword or you’re in 2021. And you’re talking about, I don’t know, the tech, the technologies of the day, Elon

Jim (06:42):
Musk or bill Gates or Steve

Brad Singletary (06:44):
Jobs somewhere. I saw something about Steve jobs said that, Hey, you know what somebody is saying about him? I don’t know if he said this, but that what he did is really nothing different than magic. And I’m not really an Apple fan, but I believe that that’s kind of really what this is. This is. Can you imagine the things that Elon Musk knows to be able to do the things that he’s done? So a master of technology, the knowledge that he has comes to him little by little. So you talked about the apprentice and I want to talk about in some of your professions or your past like career training and so forth, kind of how that works, but he acquires this knowledge little by little, he doesn’t jump into the deep side of the pool. You don’t throw him on the, on the big job right away. It’s like, here’s the nuts and bolts and give me the screwdriver

Jim (07:37):
Or less than that. It’s they want to choose you pushing a broom

Brad Singletary (07:41):
And the trash pushing a broom. It’s like, you know, that’s how it goes. It’s like righty, tighty lefty, loosey. I mean, those are, we got to start with basics and the magician is the one who’s teaching that guy. So that’s what I mean about these men here are, are, are that because they’re doing that in, in their own professions, they have special knowledge that they’re relaying to people who are seeking something.

Jim (08:08):
Yeah. It says, you know, in the book, there’s a part that talks specifically about that, that many human magicians in whatever profession or whatever walk of life are using their knowledge and technology proficiency for the benefit of others, as well as themselves. And they’re working to turn that raw power to the advantage of others.

Brad Singletary (08:30):
Something that you hit a lot on in the King episode, Jay was about experiences. And I noticed that that comes up again for the magician that they’re, they’re kind of using that what they’ve experienced in life or with the particular power that they’re handling they’re using their experience to, to guide them through the present. Yeah, absolutely.

Jay (08:56):
You know, there’s a lot of professions out there that you know, use their experiences and their wisdom, you know, being involved with law enforcement, our experiences are really important and you have the opportunities to relay that to other individuals through field training and you get new officers who come in green and fresh and don’t have a lot of that experience. And it’s, it’s valuable to be on a call with officers who have 10, 15, 20, 30 years of experience, because those experiences are valuable and you can go into a situation and, and see things that maybe someone without that experience wouldn’t have.

Brad Singletary (09:37):
Yeah. You’re the OG, you’re someone who’s seen it and been there and done it. And you can, they they’ve, they, they learn to trust themselves because they first trust you I’ve disclosed before that I’m involved in alcoholics anonymous. And there’s a guy on there tonight in my meeting who is about to celebrate his 29th birthday tomorrow. So he’s 79 years old at age 50, he became sober. But like, I can, I can learn to do what I need to do because this guy has been doing it for 29 years. He’s got special knowledge of how to maintain a life of discipline and a kind of spiritual fitness. So, yeah. I’m curious about professions. If we could take a minute, you guys and talk about what did you have to do? What are the, what is the rookie go through? What is the process of initiation into your own field or the things that you’ve done in the past?

Clint (10:31):
I mean, for us, like I said, you know, you start pushing a broom and you’re moving up to learn in the parts and pieces that go into our work. And there’s a lot of it. We put things underground, we put things in concrete. We put things in brick and wood metal and it’s trial and error. It takes time to memorize all that stuff. There’s tens of thousands of different parts. And then you’ve got theory, you know, AC DC and it takes time. It takes schooling. It takes on the job. And then also being with a good magician or a good electrician to instill that knowledge down to them, because that can, that can be negative. That can actually ruin, you know, an apprentice, working them with someone who isn’t confident, you know, maybe a, a mass KIS type magician where they’re unsure of their knowledge. Now they’re trying to train someone and it doesn’t really work all that well. So it takes an understanding of the people working with you, their abilities, putting them with people who they can train, teach them their abilities. It’s a lot of work. It’s not just, you just get in there and start turning nuts and bolts lefty loosey righty, tidy. It takes, thought it takes patience. It takes you know, skills and wisdom that, that you can pass down to these these apprentices.

Brad Singletary (12:07):
So Jim’s an electrician. I think he mentioned that, but you’re, is it you’re a superintendent, is that right? So you made an interesting point there about, it’s not just, I can bet you that Jim, isn’t just very skilled in the electrical crap, you know, the parts and pieces and the, and the, and the like mechanical side of it all. But the people, cause I’m guessing you’re not running wires, you’re running dudes, you’re running other leaders. And so you’ve had you, you’d not only have the magic of how these electrical things fit together, but how people fit together and how my approach for this person. It’s fascinating to me, all of these things, all of these archetypes blend together. So this is King, this is magician. You’ve got knowledge of people. And,

Jim (12:55):
And a lot of those people don’t realize these archetypes within themselves, all these different personalities and, you know, reflecting back on myself, like as I was a young electrician and I would have an apprentice under me, I’m learning their personalities, I’m learning how to teach them. And then that evolved into a foreman’s position where now you’re, you know, you got a crew of electricians and apprentices and you’re, you’re not only giving them the work, laying them out, but you’re also trying to understand their personalities and put people where they’re going to succeed, because that’s the only way I can succeed is if you know, they’re in the right place to help us succeed, you don’t want to put confrontational people together. You don’t want to put people in, in areas are not as experienced. And then you, you know, you move up the ladder even more and now you have foreman underneath you and you’re trying to teach them those skills.

Jim (13:49):
You know, it’s not just at that point. It’s not just the electrical trade, but it’s people skills too. So, you know, you’re trying to work some magic where, you know, people have had a tough time in 2020 with the coronavirus and lost stuff and lost, you know, family members. And yeah, it puts another strain. Another, it puts a, just another, it puts another layer of stress into someone’s work. So, you know, you’re trying to teach, you’re trying to, you know, bring up these people below you, but then you’re also dealing with the personal sides of it too.

Brad Singletary (14:28):
You mentioned earlier about how the magician sees the bigger picture. And that’s what it sounds like you’re describing is that you’re seeing layers of the process that the layman doesn’t, you know, the, the, the rookie w what do you call them? The apprentice. He doesn’t even, he’s not even thinking of it.

Jim (14:47):
Even you have a young foreman and, you know, he calls me up a concern of some of his subordinates or his people underneath them. I’m like, well, did you ask the guy what he’s got going on? You know, maybe he slept on the couch last night. Maybe his mom had a heart attack. You might want to kind of dig into those things where you start making some assumptions.

Brad Singletary (15:08):
So, Jim, I want to take a picture, right? So Jim’s looking at Miranda now, he’s got his glasses, just hold that. I’m going to take a picture. I’m going to put this on, on the post. Cause he’s, he’s over here looking like, like a, like a wizard he’s over here looking like you know, looking through the top of his glasses, like he’s, you know, he got a little gray, he’s got a little, little white hair coming in the beard there and just wisdom. And it takes, what did it take for you to get to that 0.2, three decades of this?

Jay (15:36):
Did you guys just become best friends?

Jim (15:39):
The moment he likes my gray now I can’t post a picture childhood drama. So what about you guys, your professions in terms of, you know, the magician it talked about is the ritual elder. It’s the person who knows and who leads you along the path into the initiation. Now you have this power, you have the authority to go and do the magic. Talk about your, how that worked for you.

Jim (16:10):
The magic is in the bedroom.

Brad Singletary (16:14):
That’s next week. Okay.

Jay (16:18):
You can say, you know what? I started out professionally as a school teacher. And besides going and getting your degree, part of that is you have to do student teaching. So, you know, you talked about Brad, you talked about, you know, learning your skills and your knowledge incrementally to really kind of what student teaching is, is you’re, you’re paired in a, in a classroom and you don’t just jump in and you’re not teaching the full day. You know, you first, you, you monitor on me, watch what that teacher does, and then they might let you just do one lesson. And then the next day it’s two lessons. And then the next day it’s, you know, half a day. And then you progressively get to the full day and every day after class, or after every lesson, you’re sitting down with the teacher and they’re talking about now, what you did well and what you did not so well, and you’re learning those things.

Jay (17:07):
And you’re learning about classroom management and managing your time and working through all that stuff. And so they’re that initial magician and imparting all of their wisdom and teaching it to you so that then you can carry on and do that yourself. I feel like that helps create flow. It’s something, you know, talked about here. They’re teaching you to eventually get into that flow state. And I see that with guys all the time, where they set a ladder up and they go up to do the work and they got to come back down and readjust their ladder. Then they take some material up and they’re like, Oh, I forgot something. So they got to go back and get some material and they come back and then they forget a tool. They haven’t gotten into that flow state. They haven’t into seeing

Jim (17:50):
The whole picture. When you are in that archetype, you are flowing and it just, you get everything you need, you get your questions answered, you get your material and you just start flowing. And that is a great state right there. Wow.

Brad Singletary (18:08):
That’s, that’s magic. It’s magic, totally being in a magical kind of flow state.

Brad Singletary (18:14):
How about you, Clint, you know?

Clint (18:16):
Being a younger therapist to understand, and to take in this wisdom. I think I had to take a lot from my own life experiences, like losing my father or going through the route 91 shooting and, you know, spinning better part of 10 years going to college to have all this education. And I think education definitely brings a sense of wisdom. And, you know, as I went through grad school, I can remember the first time I saw a client and imposter syndrome hit me pretty hard. And I just kind of think back to what my peers said, my mentors books I’ve read, and just try to grasp on to the wisdom and making sure that I don’t falter shake during those moments. And, you know, being a therapist is a really weird profession. You have people come in from all walks of life who have variety of different issues. And they’re kind of looking to you to find the wisdom that they need in order to grow. You know, it’s a, it’s a very privileged job and I absolutely love what I get to do. It’s, it’s a complete honor to guide people through their worst moments of life and to see them gain that wisdom for themselves and to walk the life that they want to live. Wow.

Brad Singletary (19:29):
Awesome. Yeah. So I’m in the same profession here is Clint and it like has already been said, you know, just starts a little by little, you start observing and then you do your own hours and then you’re being supervised. And then you meet weekly with the supervisor. And then the time comes when you kind of set loose. And that’s the state I’m in now is that I no longer, I’m my own kind of licensed person who I don’t have to really report to anyone. And I do continue to seek out, I guess, supervision from my peers, you know, colleagues that I trust, but I love the idea that you’re just, we’re learning in little bits and pieces. And then once you’ve learned it, then you become, you become the mentor. So part of this we’ll talk about here somewhere is that you’re not only learning from a magician.

Brad Singletary (20:18):
You got to become that. And in order to do that, you’re the teacher, you’re the instructor, you’re the leader, you’re the supervisor. And to me, that’s one of the most fulfilling things. I love nothing more right now. I have a few interns that I’m supervising and we meet every week. They talk about their cases. It’s just really cool to share some little secret that I’ve learned in sometimes the secret it’s not in the book. Sometimes it’s the opposite of what the book told you to do. And I’ll say, well, here’s how I might approach that. Or here’s one way that some people might look at this and it blows their mind. It’s the coolest thing ever to just see the lights come on for people. I think I, I really love this, this archetype, this

Jim (21:03):
Part of the book has a great feeling.

Brad Singletary (21:06):
So mathematics, engineering, astronomy, law, medicine, chemistry, any specialized knowledge. Another thing it talked about was the secrets of language. And we happen to have here tonight, some great communicators. But when you think about your jobs and the things that you’re doing, you know, you have vocabulary, Jim, you know, words that I’ve never heard before. Jay knows topics and concepts that I’ve never considered. And the same with Clint, even though we were in a similar profession, that’s kind of the fingerprint of the magician is his language, the things he knows how to say, think of the words that a doctor knows. He knows words that we don’t know. And just by knowing the word, you have some framework for understanding,

Jay (21:51):
I feel like you could expand on that too to body language. Okay? Like there’s times I can see people working and they’re not saying anything, but I can tell they’re having a tough time body language. I can sometimes walk by people and I can see they’re in there. They’re having a tough time. They’re frustrated, but they don’t want to say nothing to me because they don’t want to know. They don’t want me to know that they’re not that they’re purposely slowing down, but it’s taking them longer to do something. So, you know, I just say something, Hey, how’s it going? What’s happening. And you know, maybe I can share some insight to help them and, and make their job easier so they can succeed because that is the goal at the end of the day.

Brad Singletary (22:28):
It’s amazing. You’re, you’re kind of talking about the magician sees the invisible. This is the words that they’re not speaking. These are the things that you don’t literally know, but you know, there’s an intuitive process. You’re sensing that someone is feeling something habits in therapy all the time. They’re not saying anything, you know, the content of what they’re talking about. It may be the opposite of what, your sense in their feelings. And so to, to just take note of that, read between the lines, that’s what a magician is doing. I think a lot of times,

Jim (23:00):
I think they’re also, they have that. You talked about that insight, but also understanding, you know, cause and effect Virginia’s from that experience, that someone who’s younger and doesn’t have those experiences, isn’t going to understand almost kind of like that 30,000 foot view that you’ve been there. You’ve done that. So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, let’s not, let’s not do it this way, but this is why. And then redirect them and go the other way. Isn’t that the story of the bowl, other than the sun overlooking the field of, of cows and teach us Sage master, let’s hear this that says let’s run down and bang. One father says, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, let’s walk down and bang them all

Jim (23:52):
That’s wisdom. He had foresight. The sun was just like real quick hurry fathers. Like, we’ll go get them all.

Brad Singletary (24:03):
That’s what electricians talk about at work. We do.

Clint (24:06):
I do. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. What we talk about, I think going back to like you know, body language, the language that you use, like you, you being a boss and seeing your workers and everything. You’re also a BS detector. Since you’ve gone through all these trainings, since you’ve have all this wisdom, you can, you know, when to call them out and say, Hey, this isn’t the right way of doing things. And don’t sugar coat it for me, just own it. And construction is funny like that. You know, we hide a lot of imperfections sometimes, or sometimes we leave a lot of loose ends and yeah, I’m constantly drilling them with questions and they get frustrated and they get irritated with me, but there’s a purpose to it, your failing, which in turn, all of us fell as a group. So, you know, we need to bring all those hidden or those issues to light so we can address them so we can get them taken care of so we can move forward and succeed.

Jay (25:03):
And the body language, they, they, they absolutely express it to me. I see it in them. I see it in their eyes. I see it in their jitteriness or in their short statements to me. And they’re not given all the details. Oh, and we, we see that. Do you talk about body language and cues? And in law enforcement, we call that pre attack indicators and being able to identify those movements, those looks, they might not be saying anything, but they got that 30 mile stare and they’re fixing to fight. So understanding what those cues are and being able to hone in on can be the difference between life and death in our profession.

Brad Singletary (25:43):
Yeah. You can see through things like manipulation and denial. Discernment is strong with the magician. He knows when there’s a Wolf in sheep’s clothing, he knows the tricks. I love the book, the 48 laws of power. It’s really kind of a dark book. Have you heard, have you heard of that one? If you saw the cover, you might recognize it, but the 48 laws of power, I forget the author’s name, but he kind of really talks about all these. It’s almost like this is a way to have power, but it’s more like the tyrant power, the manipulator power, how to manipulate. And there’s all these little secret things that you do to you. You know, like I can’t even think of some of the things in the book, but it’s really kind of scary, but I’ve encouraged people to read that. Not because they want to become this manipulative person, but so that they can sense manipulation when it’s happening. You know, when someone isn’t committing to something, you can realize, maybe that’s a manipulation. So yes, the BS detector is strong in the magician. He sees what isn’t there and he knows that what he does see, isn’t always what it seems like he sees.

Jim (26:52):
So we once again have the same for that. And that’s, you know, don’t believe anything that you hear and only 50% of what you see.

Brad Singletary (26:59):
Ooh. So this is just a weird kind of side note, but something that I noticed when I graduated from college, you see the, you know, the Dean or the who, the president of the school, and he’s conducting the graduation ceremony and we all have this, these weird things on this. There’s a gown, there’s a little thing coming off of your little hat. The mortar board is what they call it. And it’s like, and then I remembered seeing like preachers on TV. And I’m like, why is the preacher wearing like a graduation outfit? And then, and then you go to court, I’ve been there a couple of times, but you see the judge and he’s wearing this robe. And like, what is this about? And, and, and it really, these things originally denoted those who had taken clerical orders, they had the mystery, they had the, they had the, the they’d gone through the rights and the secrets and the oats and the tests and all the things that kind of initiated them into higher knowledge.

Brad Singletary (28:00):
And one author talked about this is borrowed finery. The robes proclaim a primary concern for things of the mind and the spirit sobriety of life and concentration of purpose removed from the largely mindless mechanical routines of our everyday world cap and gown. And now inst that the wearer had accepted certain rules of living and had been tested in special kinds of knowledge. It’s just fascinating to me about this stuff goes back centuries and centuries, thousands of years of human history, and here we’re going to dress up. And, and even when you think about, remember when they pronounce you graduated, they, you switch it from the right side to the left side. And some of this there’s even similarities in certain religious ceremonies and things like that where it’s similar. So the bestowal of knowledge sometimes comes with symbols and that’s something that I really dig.

Brad Singletary (28:56):
I’m kind of an artist in my nature and I love symbols. And even the, the Alpha Quorum logo, if anybody’s interested, there’s some symbolism to that, but there’s a spiritual aspect to the, to the magician in ancient kind of tribal societies. The magician was like the Holy man, maybe the, the, the medicine man, but there was a spiritual side to that. And there was also an interesting thing about sacred space. So the magician spiritually kind of understands the link between the seen world and the unseen world, like the human world, the world of nature and the world that we can’t see. Remember he’s not just seeing the electrical currents or, or manipulation. The worker, he’s seen things maybe that are supernatural, or he has an understanding of things like astronomy and how that matters to the world he can navigate. And isn’t all this stuff just kind of tied into one big truth and like the light of how things operate sacred space was kind of the container of raw power in the book.

Brad Singletary (30:04):
It talked about the arc of the covenant. You know, this is old Testament stuff. And then in the movie Raiders of the lost Ark, they were, they were taking the arc and, and it started to fall and some guy reached up to steady it, and he, and he dies on the spot because he didn’t have the, he didn’t have the privilege. He didn’t have the, he wasn’t a magician. And only, only people with certain authority could, could kind of touch that because it was a sacred thing. So this is like the, the sanctuaries in the churches and the temples and the prayers and the things you’re seeing, you’re asking for divine power to come down. And I really kind of relate a lot to that side of the magician that they, they put themselves in sacred space. And that might be nature. That might be your canoe.

Brad Singletary (30:56):
Think of the ritual magicians, who would like draw a circle around themselves. And it’s like, I’m claiming this ground. You know, this is, this is a Holy space, or I’m doing my, my ritual and whoever they’re praying to and whatever they’re doing, but we can enter this sacred space by listening to certain music preparing for this today, I was listening to you would probably all laugh if you heard it, but it’s this arm mantra. It’s like, I don’t even know what, who does the arm chanting? And there’s no words. And it’s just, this, it’s like 432 megahertz, I don’t know. But it’s about focus and concentration, alpha waves, beta data, Delta waves, there’s all this different kind of science about tuning into concentration and relaxation and calm. So sacred space is of course, yes, the, this is the Holy ground of your, you know, your synagogue or whatever you may belong to, but also maybe it’s in your vehicle when you’re coming home from work. And you’re listening to your music to get you in the spot to be able to go home and be cool for your woman, you know, and take care of your kids and calm yourself from the chaos of the world. I just love the spiritual side of the magician too. Any thoughts on that? You guys?

Clint (32:13):
Yeah. Like where you took it there and that cool. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I had an old boss coming up as an apprentice. He used to always tell me, you know, he had his hat on for work, but when he came home, he made sure he, you know, it was an imaginary hat, but he made sure he hung it on the tree before he walked in that door.

Brad Singletary (32:30):
Yeah. It’s like this symbolic, you know, disrobing of that side of me and I’m changing into another kind of identity. So I love like the symbolism of, I mean, I really do. I like the symbolism of like religious things and just anywhere, I mean, a logo of a company, there’s all kinds of hidden messages in places

Jim (32:51):
A long time since I read it, but I’ve started generals come from something old, like Sumeria Sumerian or Egyptian or five stars represent like, you know, a high authority figure. And here we are with our military, the highest rank is a five-star general. Wow.

Brad Singletary (33:08):
Yeah. So these are magicians who are playing a vital role, that five star general, that’s the ritual elder. He’s preparing the next generation of leaders in generals to kind of become like himself. One of the, one of my mentors in life talked about leadership is to duplicate yourself and think about in your trades and in, in your professions, you’re trying to teach this guy what, you know, and if you’re the learner, you’re trying to learn what this guy knows. And so the passing along of this special information, I don’t know this is this is such a cool topic to me. So let’s talk about some examples of the magician when, when men are living this way, who was that like? I thought of one, but it’s maybe a crude example. So this is a TV show house. I th I don’t know if it was called house MD, but he was, this was a teaching hospital in New Jersey and this genius who was kind of a jerk Dr.

Brad Singletary (34:06):
Gregory House, he was like this healer, and there was all these like mysterious illnesses and they couldn’t put the pieces together, but he would always like intuitively just find the answer and kind of cure these people’s problems that defied all previous kind of understanding. But he would also, he would kind of play mind games with some of his colleagues and he was a teacher. So it was a teaching hospital. So he’d have all these, I don’t know the term, maybe residents that were kind of following him around and he would pick their brains and quiz them and kind of play a little, but he, he always kind of figured it out. He was a jerk, he was addicted to pills. He had a lamp, you know, and he was kind of an, but that’s an example of someone, if anyone, any of you are familiar with that show house there’s the doctor who wasn’t just, didn’t just have the ordinary stuff. He had this intuitive sense and could really like apply information that nobody even knows how he put it together. It was just a genius. What examples of a magician? Do you guys know

Jim (35:11):
Tesla? All right. Tell me about that. He is the person who helped create AC theory in the electrical world. While some people were pushing DC, he was pushing AC, which for us, that’s what we use a lot of is AC electrical. It’s, it’s just a better use of electricity. So, you know, this guy basically changed

Brad Singletary (35:38):
The world in some ways, just think about that. It just, it just looks like magic to me to think about, we don’t even, we don’t even care what it is. We just flipped the lights on and it works, or we do the thing and it works. But Jim is one who has like the special knowledge of like way deep underneath and why it does what it does. Super cool.

Jay (35:57):
You know, kind of going on what you were talking about, Brad, as far as being a teacher, being a mentor is I think about my dad who was a school teacher. And I, I always go back to, I don’t remember how old I was probably 10, 11 years old and my dad’s my dad. And I knew he was a teacher. And I remember him getting a call one day from the principal of the high school that he taught at, who had been offered a job in a different town. And he called my dad and wanted to talk to my dad if he should take that job or not. Wow. And it really, it had always just stuck with me because, you know, the principal, you, you always look at as man, that’s, that’s the principal, that’s a top dog, that’s the top dog. And he’s calling my dad and asking for his advice and, and it really kind of stuck with me that he must have that knowledge and that experience that other people are going to kind of that mentor for others out there.

Brad Singletary (36:56):
Yeah. He respected something in him and could, you know, kind of trust his understanding of things. Even if he had a different position, he knew that he had like developed something in himself that was trustworthy. Yeah. That’s awesome. All right. So what does it look like when a man is operating from the detached manipulator energy? This is the active shadow. This is the unhealthy guy. Something I think about is that he still has the knowledge, you know, he still has, he knows things. This D this manipulator knows what’s going on in the world. He he’s got the special knowledge, but he’s, you know, a lot of times trying to sell it, he’s trying to gain from it in some kind of selfish way. And that’s not to say you shouldn’t sell a service, or if you have a special, you know, I charge money for helping them through their problems, but this is a person who’s doing. So with manipulation

Jay (37:53):
To go along those lines, Brad, I, I think of the, the salesmen who I call it, like bread crumbs. They, they give you a little bit, make you think that you can be just like them, or you see the classes online advertise for, you know, real estate classes. They get you to that, that hook get you in there. But they really don’t quite give you all the information. It’s like MLM stuff like multi-level marketing or whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so they’re, they’re making you believe that, Hey, you can be just like me, you can be successful. And they have the knowledge, but they’re not wanting to give it all out.

Brad Singletary (38:30):
Yeah. That’s what a sales letter is. You know, I’ve done some training, looking at online marketing and stuff like that. And the sales letters to kind of get you pumped. It doesn’t really tell you anything, but it makes you think they’re going to tell you, but now if you just put in your credit card and then they’re going to upsale you, and it’s just, it’s kind of a racket, really in a lot of cases, one thing the book talked about was like propaganda ministries, controlled press briefings. It’s funny because this was probably written 40 years ago or something 30 years ago, this book censored news, artificially orchestrated political rallies. I’m quite sure that some of this has gone on in the last 10 or 12 years and are in the United States. So this is the power shadow, the over achieving shadow of the magician. They don’t guide others. Like the magician is helping you along mentoring you. This person leads you down a path. You don’t even know where you’re going. They’re using like deception and so forth.

Clint (39:29):
It reminds me of like, what was it? Bernie Madoff, Bernie Madoff. Yeah. Agreed to see if all those people screwed people out of millions and millions of dollars went to jail for, it said that he was investing all their money. They were good to great return. And it was a pyramid.

Brad Singletary (39:45):
Yeah. Was that in Ron or was that in? I want to say around that time. Yeah. I remember I remember hearing about it. I didn’t quite follow exactly what they were. What happened? One that I learned about through actually teaching some graduate courses was about women smoking cigarettes. Okay. So the tobacco companies came to a guy named Edward Bernays. He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, famous early psychologists. And they said, Hey, we want to sell more cigarettes. Well, at that time, it was taboo for women to smoke. But for men, it was always portrayed in the media. And the advertisement says like this, this was a classy man. He has power. And this was right when women, women couldn’t even vote. I don’t think at this point, but he said, Hey, look, you’ve got half of the half of your market. You’re not even tapping into.

Brad Singletary (40:36):
So he was trained. He had special knowledge about psychology. And he said, we need to tap into the unconscious like drives of these women. And what was the unconscious drive while it was to have power, because they were really oppressed at that time, he said, let’s stage, we’re going to stage this thing where we’re going to show women smoking on TV. It was mind blowing. And so there was this parade, it was like one of these, you know, Macy’s some famous parade and it was black and white TV. And they showed these women gathered in a group, marching, just puffing the hell out of these cigarettes. And they called them torches of freedom. And one of the, one of the guys was even saying, this is, this was a phallic symbol. And, and, and, and almost represented, you know, not, not literally maybe the, the male penis, but it represented male power. And here’s these women. And then, you know, you end up with like the, I think it’s Virginia Slims, the little slogan, you know, we’ve come a long way, baby. Like, Hey, look at these women, these classy women who can smoke. And so now they’ve doubled their market just by tapping into like unconscious psychological energy for women needing, you know, to feel equals and so forth in that crazy

Clint (41:53):
Advertising.

Brad Singletary (41:55):
So much of that like subliminal stuff. And just the emotion. I remember I did some classes on marketing and they talked about, you got to, you got to appeal to emotion.

Jim (42:05):
You have think tanks for that, just to appeal to someone, to generate and increase sales. Yeah.

Brad Singletary (42:15):
Alcohol, commercial. It’s always the fun people with the pretty girls in the, and it’s, and it’s amazing. And that’s what location, so what people want is that feeling. And so they say they’re selling the hope that they can have this feeling if they just drink Heineken or whatever, nothing against, I mean,

Jim (42:35):
I think withholding information is, is a big one too, because you know, for me, I can’t grow if someone can’t take my place. So if I’m withholding that information to me, I become, some people might see it as job security, but I see it as just becoming like stagnant. And there’s no growth with being stagnant. So withholding information, this person’s not growing, you’re not growing. You’re not able to move on. You know, there’s a lot of manipulation with withholding information. It’s almost like a form of power, a form of control.

Jay (43:13):
You’ll see that that not only does withholding the information, they’re unwilling to share that information. So there might be five people in the office or on the work site that could potentially do the job, but they’re like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I got it. I got it. I got it because they don’t want to share that information because then they get to keep it for themselves. And that’s, you know, that job security. Yeah.

Jim (43:33):
Yeah. You’re kind of piecemealing a job rather than sharing all the information. And I hate to say it, but there’s a lot of smarter guys out there that work underneath you and they have a lot that they can bring to the table as well. I mean, there are magicians in their own, right? So giving them the whole scope or as much as you can, you know, share with them can actually benefit everyone in a hole. You might find a shorter, quicker, easier way to get it done.

Jay (44:02):
Yeah. I think that’s where you see the difference between the detached manipulator and the magician magician is they both have the knowledge. One’s willing to share it and be the mentor and build people up. Or the other one is willing just to keep it for himself.

Jim (44:15):
He has a lot of insecurities. He’s scared of losing his position or people finding out that he doesn’t have the knowledge. And I mean, in my field, we have so much to remember to learn, you know, that’s why we have code books so we can reference that stuff. You can’t retain. It all. You can’t remember it all, you know, you just gotta, You know, your tribe, you gotta be able to lean on your tribe, your warriors for your, for your help.

Brad Singletary (44:40):
One example in the book was about medicine and that in, you know, the highest paid people are the specialists, you know, the oncologist or whatever. And that they say, I don’t know if I, I mean, I’m guessing this happens in every profession, but that they might withhold information that would heal the person because they could profit from the medicine. I think that there was a comedian. I don’t know if it was Chris rock or somebody like that talking about, you know, ain’t no, Hey, ain’t no money in the cure. It was money in the treatment. And I think that was like, I really feel like that’s true sometimes. Like, and we need you to come back and listen for this prescription. You need to come every month just so we can monitor it and whatever. And it’s just, this built-in kind of manipulation that’s happening.

Brad Singletary (45:25):
Instead of saying, I had a doctor one time that told me I had something going on, I can’t remember what it was, but he said, it’s sugar, the more sugar, the sicker, you’re going to be in everything in every part of your body get rid of sugar. And it w it was just like old Asian guy, doctor, you know, he just, he had an accent and he, I felt like it was Mr. Miyagi telling me something that was important. That was like valuable. A doctor telling me don’t eat sugar. You would think they all say that. And maybe nowadays we’re hearing more of that stuff. But think of the simple truths that aren’t being shared, that would help people. That’s a detached manipulator. Another thing it talks about is that he he’s not only hurting others, but he also hurts himself. He’s caught in this continuous web of like pros and cons.

Brad Singletary (46:15):
I know people like that and they message me and they’ll say, Hey, which is better, this one or this one. And they never really pull the trigger. And it’s always just this, you know, the wheels are, yeah, the wheels are spinning. It’s not really anything substantial. They’re afraid to make the wrong decision. So they don’t make any decision. They’re kind of the always argumentative. The, they got the yeah. Buts. Yeah. But this could go wrong. And what about that? And they analyze the out of the things that they could just take some action on. So they’re detached in that way. All right. Let’s move on to the denying innocent one. This is the passive shadow of the magician. What are they like?

Jay (46:57):
I think they’re kind of envious of those who act. They want that power and that glory and status that they see in other individuals they’re not willing to put in the work. They, they see someone rich or they see something, somebody do something good, but they don’t really realize all the hard work that went in on the backend to get to that point. And they’re not willing to put in that work.

Brad Singletary (47:21):
Yeah. So they’re, they’ve got this kind of jealous side. They want glory and fame and they want the status, but not the right.

Jay (47:31):
Yeah. You’ll, you’ll see them. They’ll see somebody, Oh, that looks cool. And they start to do it. But after two weeks, they’ve lost interest because It’s too hard.

Brad Singletary (47:38):
I think there’s also a manipulation that goes with this too. So maybe they’re sabotaging the successful person someone’s on track and they’re really doing big things and they sabotage it and then they kind of a catalog. What, who me and they’re kind of playing dumb. And you know, there’s this gas lighting almost. So they’re making you question your own intuition. Like, well, wait a minute. I thought this was all worked out and figured out and they create problems maybe to keep you from success and reminds me of the trickster. Yeah. The, yes, very similar. There’s a quote that I saw somewhere in kind of preparing for this from Theodore Roosevelt who hated this type of person he said, talked about, this is one of those cold and timid souls who knows neither victory nor defeat. So there an innocent one that denying innocent one, gosh, that’s disgusting to think about. And remember, we’re supposed to be pondering. Like how, how do we do this sometimes too? Do we play dumb? Do we kind of deny we should claim our innocence when really we’re just, we’re not being responsible. I think we can.

Jay (48:55):
I’ll admit, especially in relationships, kind of that passive aggressiveness, that when we get called on it, we kind of play the innocent. I didn’t, I didn’t have any bad intentions or ultimately, you know, you know, what you were doing

Brad Singletary (49:10):
Puts you in a defensive posture, kind of faking this naive, pretending that you’re innocent. You’re the innocent one. All right. So how do we fully access the magician energy? A man realizes he doesn’t want to be a manipulator. Doesn’t want to be a, you know, sabotager the denying innocent one. How does he start to develop this magician within himself?

Jay (49:36):
Like we’ve kind of talked about already before is one. You have to find a mentor, someone who gives you guidance directions and advice, but also you become a mentor yourself and that more and more men are apps have absent fathers, or don’t have a good relationship with their father. Therefore they’re missing those good examples of what, you know, men should emulate. And so having that mentor yourself and then turning around and being one yourself to others that’s why I think, you know, programs like big brothers, big sisters those types of programs that give those individuals that haven’t had a good role model, an opportunity to, to see what one should be like

Brad Singletary (50:18):
This part of the book we talked to earlier in one of the other episodes about initiation and rituals and so forth. So I was heavily involved both as a young man and as a young adult leader in the boy Scouts of America. And so I was selected to be a part of the order of the era, which was kind of the honorary, this honorary kind of arm of scouting. And there was all this like symbolism, there were secret words. We went through this thing called your deal where, you know, you go out into the woods and w w for us, it was actually to where we had at summer camps was this nice, you know, there’s a Lake and there’s just this nice camping area where they did all the summer camp. And we just basically did service, but on very little food, we had a boiled egg for breakfast.

Brad Singletary (51:07):
We had an orange for lunch, and you’re working, doing like cutting down trees, hauling wood, you know, digging holes and fixing, patching up the trails and so forth. And you had to be silent. You had to be silent. Oh, and the night before they walk you out. And by the way, everybody’s dressed in native American garb, like feathers and everything. And back in those days, you know, there’s no technology or anything. So they walk you out alone and drop you off in the middle of nowhere. And you just have to sleep on the ground right there. And we’ll pick you up in the morning. I mean, I’m like 13 years old scared me plus to be, I don’t know if I’m sleeping on ants. I can’t see anything. I just, and so I eventually, I probably cried, probably cried myself to sleep, but I just curled up and went to sleep the next morning, wake up and work all day.

Brad Singletary (51:59):
And that night there’s this ceremony, this huge bonfire. And they come and they just, there’s this kind of ritual feeling to it kind of based on native American culture, very, very cool stuff. And there were these kinds of memberships statuses, and you, you know, there was a, there was a handshake, there was a couple of really cool things. And so one of the things the book mentions is if you haven’t done things like that, some kind of Rite of passage, or if you’re a mentor for a young man to allow there to be some kind of symbolic initiation into this new power. And we’ve talked earlier about graduations, high school, college graduations, there’s, you’re wearing weird clothes. You’re doing things that are, you know, it has meaning it’s just a ceremony of some kind. And I, that, that was really cool. I love this symbolic,

Jim (52:48):
The spiritual stuff. I feel like for a man to access his magician energy is to find purpose, to find purpose and what he does. And that gives him direction. You know, that gives, helps him create flow. That helps him access strengths within himself, that he may not have known even had. So yeah, definitely purpose will help you along your way. This is also mentioned in the book. And I think it’s similar to the last archetype is needing to be regulated the other archetypes.

Clint (53:27):
So the magician inherently is in a position of power. And if he’s going too far to left to right, the other architects kind of check them.

Brad Singletary (53:37):
Yeah. He becomes a, if he’s not checked by the King, he becomes a manipulator. He’s not checked by the lover. You know, he’s maybe detached or the, the, the one who sabotages. I really liked that these all really kind of fit together in some way. You gotta be all of these. That’s the idea of this whole book to be a healthy, mature man. You’ve gotta be all of these things and let each part of you influence the other part of you

Jay (54:05):
Actually, that’s this part of the book. And there was one part that talked about that the magician, the magician alone does not have the capacity to act. This is the warrior specialty, but he does have the capacity to think. And it really kind of set home that, yeah, they all do kind of work together. And that, that, you know, we talked about the warrior earlier in having all the skillsets and being able to go and have that mindset, but the, the knowledge to do that stuff,

Jay (54:31):
It comes from, let me do the magician,

Brad Singletary (54:36):
Going back to the sacred space rituals, draw a line in the, you know, draw a line around, you do something deliberate. That is an attempt to like connect you with energy. You charge your phone, your phone’s running dead. You plug it in. There are ways. And if you think about it, and this may not have anything to do at all with the traditional religious idea of spirituality, but to connect with something that charges you, you know, charges, your battery, puts you into some universal energy, your intelligence flows through you, meditation. That might be one of those things. It may be for me being in the water. When I’m in water, I grew up in Florida, we had boats and we were always at the beach or in a river. And had a Creek running behind the back of our house. Just water for me is a sacred space where I can just really connect to something like really deep something pure in there.

Brad Singletary (55:34):
And now I just, I’m afraid to take my shirt off and go places. But I was like, it was like a form of meditation for you. Yeah. It just brings me into the here and now, you know, when you’re, if you’re swimming, I ask clients a lot of times, when’s the last time you went swimming. And the very depressed people say, Oh, 12 years ago, I went swimming. If you’re in water or doing anything that you’re just immersed in it, the thing, whatever it is, I came at midnight or what, you know, out on your boat, it is kind of meditative because you’re so focused on the thing. You’re back in a trailer. You’re not worried about what’s going on in your bank account, that noise. You’re not thinking about not thinking about noise. So this, this sacred space is a yeah, it’s a deliberate, intentional effort to just charge up.

Brad Singletary (56:24):
And I think that’s very important for a magician. I agree that magician too. I mean, to fully access it, you can’t stay stagnant. You’ve got to constantly be learning, exploring definitely. That’s the ways to, on that magician energy within you, just because you’re existing. Doesn’t mean you’re living. Yeah. Ask questions, read books, Google. I mean like seriously, you can just learn so much if you’re just open to it. And if you believe that there’s information that you want, you know, if you believe there’s information out there that you need and that someone has it, Jay can teach me a lot of things about a lot of things in Clint and Jim. And that’s part of the, by the way, that’s, that’s why we’re sitting here. It’s 10 30 on a Wednesday night. Everybody’s got to get up early. And I’m just, this, this has been a magician kind of meeting here tonight.

Brad Singletary (57:17):
This whole thing, this podcast, the idea of the quorum and having people kind of supporting other men, Hey, I’ve got something. You know, one of my clients is a, he wants to learn about welding. He’s 40 years old. He wants to change jobs tonight. I’m going to go home and post in the Facebook group who in Vegas is a welder. And would you let some dude come to your house and like spark up your welder and like, tell him what you think of the profession. That guy’s a magician and the guy who’s coming to learn will probably soon be that someday. Man, this has just been a very valuable thing for me to have you guys here appreciate your like involvement. I’m liking this chemistry. I’m liking this flow. I’m like we got regular contributors, you know, on the news channels. They’ll be like, so-and-so contributor. You know, you’re I want you to routinely come back. We still have two more episodes. I wish we could send people to you. Somebody might connect to your voice here that comes up. We’ll talk about it. Somebody may want to talk to Jim. My son actually said he wanted to buy you an ice cream or something and chat with you for 20 minutes about electrical a of ice cream.

Brad Singletary (58:27):
Thanks guys. We appreciate you being here till next time. No, it’s

Speaker (58:32):
Alpha gentlemen. You are the Alpha and this is the Alpha Quorum.

 

Brad Singletary (00:00:06):
We live in troubled times. If there ever was a time for men to step up and be leaders, it is right now while the coronavirus may not be affecting you and those around you directly, yet it will. Estimates are that one in 10 Americans will get the virus. You will likely not die from this illness they say, but the impact has already begun in terms of anxiety and worry. We see this in the grocery shortage. It is affecting the economy. People are losing their jobs and your wives and children need your strength. Today we’ll be discussing how you can be a man of strength when everything is falling apart.

Brad Singletary (00:01:19):
Welcome back you guys. Brad Singletary here. I’m here with my friend and mentor, Mike spurge and taco Mike, welcome back, Mike. Oh dude, you flatter me. Thank you. Good to be here. This is a, so right now we’re in the midst of this torrent of Irish thing and we’re keeping our social distance, whatever. That’s right. Six to six seats, 60 feet apart. It’s rough. I do want to get closer. Trust me. God. So before we start today, I want, we wanted to talk about, you know, how to be a man in difficult times, but just wanted to check in with you. It’s been a few months since we’ve recorded and published a show. So tell us where you been. What have you been doing, sir?

Mike Spurgin (00:01:54):
It is. There’s been a lot of water under these bridges since we’ve last talked. There’s a lot of new things on both sides. I think that’s been going on. So maybe, I don’t know. We’ll start with, so I’m out of my job and I left it. Wait, how long has it been? Six months. Hello Brad. How long has it been since we’ve done these? Five months? It was like October last time we recorded. Okay. I think it was a little bit before that I bounced and started doing my own thing. I’ve got a couple of side hustles that, that seem to be paying the bills and working out good selling some I do some motorcycle parts and take some guys on the Baja trips and then just have some other little side projects that are working out. Things at home seem to be really good.

Mike Spurgin (00:02:38):
Let’s see what else? You know, I think maybe I’m just super happy and super stoked to be. I think finding and looking for and finding and then trying to pursue things that make me super calm and super happy. That’s sort of like my objective and agenda for like what I do for work. I, I have this little mindset and it seems to be working out that if I do the next most right thing and the thing that really like sparks me in and gets me going, then the money will just sort of like trickle along and follow along. So I’m not, I’m not doing anything specifically pursuing money as the objective. I’m doing things to do the next right thing. And then the money just is as a natural result, sort of an outflow. It’s like, it’s like water flowing out of a rock. And, and I’m, and I’m grateful and happy for it and to receive it, but I’m not pursuing that specific as the end goal. It’s just a nice outflow from it. So that’s sort of attitude and mindset seems to be working out for me and I’m going to continue doing it that way until I feel some reason to, to change that. But I don’t think I will. What about you dude? What’s new with you?

Brad Singletary (00:03:45):
These are good for me, man. My marriage is stronger than ever. My kids are healthy. I feel blessed. I’m just a very eager to be back in the saddle here with the alpha corn show. You got a new office, this cool office? Yeah, that’s new. So I do men’s groups here. That’s part of my, my clinical practice and also something that we’re going to introduce in the future with alpha Corum, some men’s kind of mastermind groups and so forth. So I needed a bigger space. How’s it called? Giant. Yeah, I’ll post some pictures. I my, my boys and I built these shelves and are in my garage and picked out all the artwork and just tried to make it look cool in here. I live here it seems like so feeling good about things man. Life is good. I dropped about 20 pounds at the end of last year and a feeling

Mike Spurgin (00:04:29):
You look cute. I like the metal legs on this table.

Brad Singletary (00:04:33):
I bought those from a guy in New York. There was probably people here who could have done it but I bought this from this guy shipped them to me. I gave him the specs cause I want it to line up over here and just wanting to have the rustic

Mike Spurgin (00:04:45):
Metal look. It looks, it looks good. It looks kind of manly. This is, I know you probably have women clients that come in here but this is like kind of like a studly looking joint with the Buffalo on the wall and the like whiskey bottle kind of looking things over there. That’s cologne bottles. I don’t have whiskey in there and we’ll drink the cologne later. I’ve been to one of your men’s groups and it was a, it was a very cool experience where, you know, I think there were like seven or eight dudes in here and it was really free flowing. I do as you know, I do a lot of 12 step stuff and guys sometimes don’t bring sort of themselves to the table. They hold back their reserve and you can, you can sense that. I think these guys all were bringing their full selves into this little discussion that we had and I think that this is a, a cool room to do it and I think you’ve got a good thing going here.

Brad Singletary (00:05:36):
Well Mike came to that group when he told part of his story and I tried to record that, but the awesome amateur sound technician, I am, I messed that up. I had the microphone plugged into the earphone and put it in the output or whatever. Fast afterwards. I have a few minutes I recorded on a, on my phone. So I’m going to post that at some point. Really good stuff that you about things you’d learn. So let’s get into our topic today. So we’ve got the Corona virus going on and it really makes us ask the question, what do we need to be? I think there’s a lot of fear out there. Most of my sessions last week probably saw 40 45 people last week and everyone began talking about this and where they stand with it. Most of the sessions, the entire visit last week was about what’s going on for them emotionally and at home and what’s happening with their job and just really dealing with the panic of all this.

Brad Singletary (00:06:29):
So the questions that we want to talk about today are the things that exist in the average guy that may create challenges for him. What’s maybe weak or what are some of the things that may make him struggle in situations like this? What are the principles that men can govern themselves by in a time like this? What are some of the things that men need to be doing to pervert, preserve their own strength and help their families? And how can men be supportive of others within their own families, other dudes and to the larger community. So I guess I just want to start with some of the things that I think men are already dealing with that show up at a time like this. I believe that change reveals weakness. Change also reveals strength. But one of the weaknesses that I find is I’ve worked with men this week and I looking forward to hear what you have to say about this too, is just fear.

Brad Singletary (00:07:29):
Men are afraid of losing something. They’re afraid of financial loss. They’re afraid of how this could affect their own family. Surprisingly not too many people seem to be worried about the health aspects of it, but just the economy and how this is gonna play out for them and their careers and you know, the F the finances, how are they going to pay their rent? So forth. Any thoughts on, on that type of fear that you are hearing from people? So you’re saying then that the guys that come in are the clients that you have. Everybody has this as a topic. Everybody brings us up. The session sort revolves around, this is a master under Eliza under everything. Yeah. Whatever issue we had been working on, that all kinda got put aside and probably 75% of what I talked about with them this week was what’s going on right now.

Brad Singletary (00:08:19):
Yeah. And the main concern was like financial concerns that they’re having. Yeah. I think some people are afraid of like, you know, the government, there’s all these conspiracy theories and just what does this mean in the bigger picture, on the grander scale, on the world stage, what’s happening? And there’s a lot of lot of fear out there about things that people can’t control. And you know, I guess I’m just trying to direct them back to the things that they do have influence over, which is their own choices and actions and their attitudes at home and so forth. So, so when men are expressing these fears, are they in panic? Are they in like full free fall or are they just saying that, you know, I’ve got sleepless night over some of these worries. Yes. Some were talking about, you know, not being able to sleep or they’ve began drinking again.

Brad Singletary (00:09:04):
There’s, you know, they’ve kind of fallen back into some of their poor coping strategies and so forth. They’re they’re, you know, they’re irritable and they’re just having, there’s just tension so it shows up in a lot of different ways. But a lot of that really I think is just about their doubt, their doubt about, you know, their own ability to stand up and kind of be the man and they’re just very mistrusting of what they’re hearing in the news or, you know, th th either either thinking that things are under-reported or over-exaggerated in some way. And so they’re, you know, maybe doubting the, the political decisions about closing things. Why do we have to close the school? Some guys are kind of doing the tough guy act kind of saying, this is, you know, this is this is ridiculous and, you know, I’m just gonna carry on with my life and I’ll go to the store if I want to.

Brad Singletary (00:09:55):
And just it’s, it’s a little bit ridiculous what I’ve, what I’ve seen and I think that’s why I wanted to do this show. There’s plenty of reports and news things out there and plenty of people talking about this. And as I left today, I told my wife what we were talking about. She said, Oh, capitalizing on coronavirus. Huh? So, no, I just think that our audience is you know, they need to hear from us. It’s been so long, number one, but also what does it mean to be an alpha at a time like this?

Mike Spurgin (00:10:24):
You know, I had a conversation with a guy the other day and he was kind of rabbit hauling some of these conspiracy theories that maybe, just a quick thought on that. I think that there’s this strange threat of narcissism that that happens when somebody falls down the black hole of these conspiracy theories and, and, and there’s a little bit of like pride and arrogance that creeps into that in a weird way.

Mike Spurgin (00:10:43):
That’s sort of like, I know more, I have it figured out. I’ve got an intellectual advantage over some other things, some government, some whatever. I know more or I’ve cracked that code, like I understand at a deeper level, at a more profound level than anyone else. And here’s what I, here’s, let me, let me give you, let me like take a bunch of your time and then fill it with this very sacred knowledge that I’ve been able to like gather and, and, and through sleepless nights and like endless hours of just angry sort of like clinch job, you know, self-talk. Like I figured this out in the meantime, think of all the time that that dude has not spent time preparing himself, calming himself, sharpening his blade, getting himself ready to be very useful. Cause in my opinion and in my experience, the dude who has the most to say has the least to give. Interesting. So the dudes that I often meet up with or talk with or encounter who have

Mike Spurgin (00:11:54):
The best insights and the most, you know, they’ve made the biggest discoveries that everybody else needs to hear about often. Not always, but often those dudes, like they got nothing. They got, they got nothing to help me with. They’ve got nothing to help other people with unless you’re talking about consuming time. So if that’s the metric, then they’ve got plenty of that that bring in a lot of that to the table. But if you’re talking about really useful resources that’s just kind of a void there. So I think that there’s a strange bit of self aggrandizing narcissism that happens with, with fellows who like really deep dive this stuff. And I just think that there’s no purpose to it and there’s nothing to be gained. You can, you can have all kinds of mistrust and doubt about anything. But you know, here’s the bottom line.

Mike Spurgin (00:12:43):
There’s, there’s not one damn thing that you’re going to be able to change really on a, on a, on a huge level. Everything is, everything is, I like to, I like to live my life at the smallest possible level and go out from there rather than backwards. So if you’ve got all these great ideas about how to save the world, then hurry up and become president or King or emperor potentate or prime minister or whatever the hell that is, like get up there and make those changes. But if that’s not your trajectory in life, then don’t stop. It’s just a waste of time, wasted time or your mental energy is, it’s just a real, it’s a fool’s chase. It’s fool’s gold. So, you know, I don’t want to call anybody out. I don’t really want to stomp on your parade. Like, if that’s your hobby, then I hate to take that away from ya.

Mike Spurgin (00:13:29):
But I just wonder how much more useful we could be if we would just really get at the heart of living and serving and abandon all that stuff. I wonder if, you know, part of the speculation is just people trying not to get caught off guard. We’ve been hurt by things in the past, you know? And so I wonder if some of that, just to play devil’s advocate a little bit, I wonder if some of that is just an attempt to not be taken by surprise and so they’re imagining every single possibility, you know, this is a, this is terrorism, you know, this is a, this is a government takeover and the, the, all these crazy ideas and so what maybe people are really trying to do is prevent further pain for themselves, but they’re not really taking any action anyway. Like you say, they’re just talking about it.

Mike Spurgin (00:14:14):
The people that have the most to say are doing the least and it’s taken away from the time and mental energy that you could be, you know, placing towards some kind of action. That’s what I’m, I guess that’s what I’m hearing you say. I think so. That’s a good summary. Did you know you get these guys in here that sort of like runoff and want to want to w how do you counsel them? What do you say to somebody who’s got all kinds of theories about all this stuff?

Brad Singletary (00:14:38):
I talk about the serenity prayer, man. You know, what is it that you, what is it that you have control over and do you have the courage to accept those things that are within your realm of influence and your sphere of influence that’s

Brad Singletary (00:14:52):
You and your home and your family and your words and how you spend your time and your money. And that’s all you need to be focused on, brother. That’s it. All this other stuff. Maybe it’s so maybe you’ve got to figure it out, but what good does that do you, the dishes are in the sink and the kid’s diaper needs changing and there’s stuff that in the garage that you need to be preparing. Let’s get to work.

Mike Spurgin (00:15:14):
I agree with that. I, I like to imagine that, that, that guy who is spun out, you know, we only have so much bandwidth, right? The pipeline of the brain can only process so much and do so much. And if 50 80, 70% is consumed with all this stuff, then that is those are wasted resources as far as I’m concerned. So I would, I would urge somebody who sort of like caught in that spiral to, you know, it’s addictive too. There’s a dopamine hit, there’s a, there’s a nice little piece of dopamine that happens when somebody feels like they’ve really figured something out. It’s the same thing that happens when you have a victory in a strategic game or just some like score at work or make a sale or whatever. That’s all. Just sort of like chasing fields. And I understand that. Like, I’m not, I’m not going to dump on the guy who’s chasing those fields.

Mike Spurgin (00:16:03):
That’s fine. Everyone’s got their own little game, their game, they’re playing, you know, a race they’re running. So no judgment, no value, good or good or bad. Really at the end of the day with all of this, it’s just chasing feels pointless right there. Super pointless. So if somebody can begin to extract themselves out of it, I think they would do themselves and the people around them. A good favor. If the can lack of confidence. What is it about guys you know, we talked about control. I think that that’s a huge generator of fear because this is stuff that’s outside of our control. There’s not a damn thing any of us can do about this. Like locked down. If your work has shut down, if you were going to casino and it’s closed, there’s not one thing you can do about that. How, how does confidence and control sort of like merge into each other? Cause I see that merging. If I don’t have control then that’s going to erode my confidence in cause those are the big things that I can’t control. Then I’m going to maybe lack my ability to deal with the small things. Probably be frustrated. My wife frustrated the kids. I’m frustrated. The bathroom door handle doesn’t open up like it’s supposed to frustrated the garage is too crowded to get get. I can’t find what I’m looking for. Like that would just compound into frustration. Are you seeing that happen?

Brad Singletary (00:17:28):
Yeah, for sure. People are so caught up in the big ideas and the, you know, the big abstract stuff that’s out there, the big, you know, the conspiracies and whatever and they’re not focused on, they’re not engaged in the present. And that’s, that’s what an alpha does. He’s in, he lives in the present. I think he’s aware of the bigger picture, but he’s living in the present and he’s engaged with right now he sees happening around

Mike Spurgin (00:17:50):
Him. He sees what’s within his power and he takes control and takes action on that in the here and now. So this like desire to have control over the, the, the huge areas of life. I think we both agree that’s wasted time because then there’s dirty dishes in the sink. The kids want to go out inside and play. His wife needs a break. She needs the kids to be gone for a little bit. He probably would, would be better off being consumed with that sort of stuff. Yeah. Consume yourself with the here and now. Okay. so a couple of thoughts that I had about, about this particular one was this was kind of funny when I, when I came up with this, the earth doesn’t give a shit about us and this is kind of evidence of that. And it happens when there’s a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake or whatever.

Mike Spurgin (00:18:40):
Like the earth doesn’t care that we live on it and it doesn’t give a damn about what we do up here on top of it. It doesn’t. And so when something like this happens, it’s sort of like piercing this bubble of this thought that we’re special. And I think a lot of us individually have that feeling of like, I’m special that my life is special, my life has meaning. Now listen, this sounds like I’m devaluing or I’m diminishing the individual worth of each person. I’m not doing that. I’m just talking on like this generic sort of abstract where each one of us looks at our lives and our place in our house as if it’s some carved out little palace and it’s, and it’s very special and very unique. And you know, wind, wind con flies around it and yeah, it gets rained on, it gets wet.

Mike Spurgin (00:19:28):
But like we’re super, I’m super special. I am this one unique little entity and all of the chaos of the universe and somehow I’m just going to make it through. And that’s probably this mindset that’s maybe happened for the last, I don’t know, many, many years, especially if you’re a millennial or maybe like you and I are. We’re in our forties. There haven’t been any real disasters or calamities in my lifetime. There have been no Wars. There has been nothing that has upset the natural balance. Maybe like the gas crunch, but I was a kid. When was that? In the 70s I mean there’s nine 11. I mean there’s 11 there’s been some blips for sure. There’s been some blips, but like this to my mind is probably one of the, if not the biggest, like sort of like, you know, big things that have come along.

Mike Spurgin (00:20:15):
And so if I am super again think about like things in terms of narcissistic programming, if I believe that I’m super special, then my world’s going to be rocked by this. The fact that maybe like my, my work clothes, these things can tend to like de stabilize and upset people in a huge way. And so the takeaway that I sort of like look at this as like dirt doesn’t care about us. It kinda doesn’t even want us on it. And so when one of these things happen, it just is sort of like this humbling equalizing thing that says like, Hey rich guy, you’re not that special. And Hey, super strong dude with the muscles and the, the really white teeth and the, the no tan lines, you ain’t that you ain’t that big of a thing. Like your job’s in a shutdown and put you on the street and the world doesn’t care.

Mike Spurgin (00:21:03):
It doesn’t care about if your name’s on the side of a building, it doesn’t give a crap about any of that. It doesn’t really want us on it. Oh, so true. So these, this thing and things like it kind of handle this humbling effect. I think it’s good for us. I think it’s good for all of us. Me too. It’s good for me to just like kind of think about that. And then, you know, the other thing, and we kind of talked about it already, is this loss of control. You know, we live in the United States and Brad, you and I, like we’re white dudes. We’re white males in the United States of America. We’re the most powerful fricking dudes who have ever walked the planet. Like we, you and I can, can control more resources at our fingertips. We would be gods if we could trans, if we could get in a time machine and take everything that we have, power and authority over our vehicles and guns and whatever, a five gallon can of gas.

Mike Spurgin (00:21:56):
If we took, you know, just a handful of things back a hundred years, like straight up, we would be gods because of the power that we have. So that’s interesting. So some of that’s kind of, I dunno if it’s being taken away, but some of it’s being muted a little bit and that’s probably freaking some people out and that’s okay. That’s natural. It’s probably normal. It’s okay. But a lot of us probably are, are kind of losing our ass because we just don’t feel like the ground is under us. We feel like some of it’s being taken away from us a little bit.

Brad Singletary (00:22:32):
Yeah, you don’t have toilet paper and water. You don’t feel like much like a God when you have that stuff going. That’s so crazy that people are doing that. I, I haven’t spent any time trying to explore that, but do you know why people do that?

Mike Spurgin (00:22:44):
No idea. I, I don’t know why toilet paper became the thing. I just, it’s the craziest thing ever. I don’t think I want to know. I’m not going to spend any time trying to figure it out, but it is a weird thing. Then I’ll just finish out. So like loss of control, you know, there’s some, some, some of us we were S we so much want control. The illusion of control seems so attractive to us. It, it sort of exposes itself. Like I was thinking about a guy that I was with not too long ago and his food came in it. And again, here’s two white dudes in the United States of America or out in a restaurant, his food comms and whatever he ordered, it wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. His expectation was not met and the dude was like very controlled and very measured and he was pissed and he told him like in no uncertain terms with like a stiff jaw told the waiter like you did a bad thing, you’ve done a bad thing here and the chef, this is a disappointment.

Mike Spurgin (00:23:42):
And then the guy took it back and then the whole time he was consumed at the injustice of like they pry him the wrong food. So now you know, and that also comes out with you like order something on Amazon and it shows up and it’s the wrong color. Sarong size. Oh my God, how do I, why do they know who I am? Or traffic gets reroute or somebody cuts you off or somebody cancels their plans on you or the flight gets changed. And like we know so many people that just can’t deal with that. This experience is probably really good for them. Yeah. It’s probably really, really good for them. Very humbling, very humbling. We’re not that special. We are not that special. The earth doesn’t care that we’re on it. I love that man.

Brad Singletary (00:24:34):
So what are the principles that men can kind of live by at a time like this? What are the things that will help us? Just the idea, the, the, the attitudes, I guess that will help us be our best at a time. Like this. For me, one of them is responsibility and I don’t mean responsibility to go out there and save the world, but to fully be aware of our duty, to provide and protect, you know, we, that that I think is a sacred role, especially for fathers and husbands. So we should first take care of ourselves and our own family. Real men feel a responsibility and they take actions to assist the vulnerable with some of the vulnerable people are in your home. Your wife may be, would not be able to you know, defend herself and the tribe at home if she had to.

Brad Singletary (00:25:28):
Maybe your children couldn’t provide food or take care of necessary things that you might need to be looking after. And so we’ve talked about control already, but to know what you can control and what you can, I just think we should spend zero energy on what we can’t control and just feel a sense of responsibility. Not just for ourselves but for, for others around us. You know, I there were, I’ve used social media a couple of times to find out where others needed some help. Someone needed some some water, nursery water and some like baby formula and things like that. Someone who had lost their job they had a child with special needs. I wasn’t able to get her connected, but I used everything I could to try to help this person find some some childcare for this little girl who was who was actually her granddaughter that she had custody of.

Brad Singletary (00:26:26):
And so I just, I th I think, and that’s not me doing it the right way. I just felt a sense of responsibility for, okay. I know people in North Las Vegas, I know people that may be home. I know some teachers who may be home. I knew some people that may an opportunity, it would be nothing for me to ask, Hey, is anyone available to help this person with that little girl? They are still working, excuse me, the granddaughter. And so responsibility just says that we can do some things. We can’t change the whole trajectory of this thing in the big geopolitical sense or whatever. But we can handle our household, we can handle our own attitude. We can look around us and see if there may be those that we can help. Also, something that, you know, this has created some resourcefulness in, in me and my family for sure.

Brad Singletary (00:27:18):
Just creativity. We’ve made things in the kitchen that we probably never would have attempted in pantry dinners. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. I mean, we were grading potatoes the other day and my wife is, she’s Polish and she said, you know, this calls for some potato pancakes. And it was just like, so this is kind of a comfort food, potato pancakes. But it was a, it allowed us to kind of be creative and I just think we have an opportunity to live life in waves that we may not have had before, you know, conserving water and doing things like that. That just to be a little more mindful of what’s happening in it. Although I don’t want to live in a scarcity mentality. I just want to live in a, in a place of like mindfulness about what’s going on and okay maybe I don’t need to be driving all over town.

Brad Singletary (00:28:10):
Maybe I want to save the gas in my vehicle or whatever. I loved the, I don’t know where this came from. I think it was a wall, world war two thing talked about fix it up, wear it out, make it do or do without, which kinda had to do when times are tough during war. You can do without some of the things that you may have grown accustomed to and live with a little bit simpler life, you know, if you, if your income has is diminished because of all this or your you know, just being stuck at home, be creative, be resourceful, see what you can come up with. And I think that that’s a principle that men can live by. Also for me, reverence. And we’ve talked a little bit about humility and just to be appreciative. You know, I love the, the, the focus.

Brad Singletary (00:29:01):
You see some things through social media. People talk about prayer and just calling on your higher power, seeing how you can serve other people, recognize that we’re connected. And you’d be surprised how little there is, you know, how little contributions can actually make a big difference to other people. And so when we see ourselves connected to other people and just recognize that this could be it, you know, this is probably not the end of the world. I’m not talking about that. But this could be, this could be it for me and maybe I need to have a, a little more humble, kind of reverent, gracious attitude at home with my family. You know, this be my parents who were in their seventies this could be, this could be hard on them. And so if I see myself as connected, more connected to my loved ones and just society as a whole, I think I’m a little more respectful, you know, and I maybe I would honor the, the you know, the council, I guess for us to keep our distance and so forth. And those are just some of the top principles that I think will help us to be the kind of men we need to be during something like this. How about you Mike?

Mike Spurgin (00:30:14):
So I like your wife was making those potato things. So we have this wheat grinder, like it’s a big fricking machine and it’s a got a motor in it and a hopper. And then my wife is very, very thoughtful and responsive about responsible about things like this and sort of having like a pub. We’ll start pantry and reserve food and things like that. We have these can’t number 10 cans, these big cans of wheat, like wheat kernels. And so my son who’s, you know, looking at this as an adventure and he should. And I am too. I think we all are in my house. I think we’re looking at this as a bit of an adventure because it’s new, it’s novel, it’s different. Like this is really sort of turn normal life on its head and that’s, that’s straight up good. It’s, it’s a straight up good thing because it’s shattering all the old like habits and patterns that we were in, which may or may not have like served us.

Mike Spurgin (00:31:07):
And so all of that is sort of like swept away. And so we’re recreating like new schedules. Like everything’s new, everything is kind of like up ended. And, and for that 100%. So we wanted to make some bread. We make bread off, not often, but occasionally. And so w I don’t know who had, who had this idea, but let’s break out that wheat grinder and let’s grind wheat, the wheat beans. I’m not saying that right, but you know what I mean? And we’ll make flour, we’ll make our own flour. And we did. So we brought that thing out and we made it and we probably would not have done that had this have not happened and that’s going to be a fun memory. And so some day we’re going to be on the other side of this and it’s not going to be that far off really.

Mike Spurgin (00:31:48):
And I think that if we are, if we have a mindset of if you have an alpha mindset of leadership and how do we guide our families through this and keep, keep ourselves calm as well as them, then I think all the memories when this thing blows over are going to be good ones. They’re going to be really, really good ones. So you know, some of the thoughts that I have about this exact topic and that question was what are the principles that men can govern themselves by in a time like this? For me, I’ve got a couple. One of them is I think that a man would do well to continue to live a life of discipline, self-discipline. And so I think what that looks like is wake up on time. Get your whatever time you used to get up and go to work.

Mike Spurgin (00:32:24):
Get up at that time unless it’s maybe crazy and you worked overnight hours. But I think if you kept a normal schedule, you know, wake up at six 30 get and get up, get out of bed, get dressed, get dressed for the day. Don’t spend the day in pajamas. Make yourself look as presentable as, as is necessary for the things that you’re going to do that day. If you went to work in a suit, don’t do that. But just, you know, don’t wear pajamas and flip flops all day either. Make yourself presentable, look like you’re ready for whatever. Make the bed set about your day. And if your day doesn’t look anything like it used to. So I work at home now and so my day really doesn’t look any different than it always did. But if I used to go into a job and now I’m going to be at home, what I want to do, I think what I would try to do is structure a day that looked disciplined and organized.

Mike Spurgin (00:33:12):
I think that the, the concept of discipline will also come come through with the, with the guy figuring out and looking at his, his new routine. Like the other thought too is see this thing as a gift. Imagine the whole stole schedule that you used to keep for most of us is being handed back to us. So we used to, you know, couple of days ago, our time was given over to somebody else. Like somebody else owned our time. We went to a job, we rent, we re, you know, if we get a paycheck, we rent ourselves to somebody who trades us money for time. That’s sort of like put on pause right now. And so now time is yours. You get to do whatever you want with your time. Why don’t you rent? Why don’t you sell yourself your time? And so what might that look like?

Mike Spurgin (00:34:01):
That might look like a fluxion your hustle muscle. You might need to figure out if you got to, if you got to generate some dough, I think it’s time to flex your hustle muscle. That might mean you need to make something, sell something, create some value, go out and do some for, do something for somebody and then we’ll trade you either money for that or something else of equal value. This could be the opportunity for dudes to like look at what they’ve been doing and then get fed up with it. I think I think there’s a ton of dudes, I think there’s a ton of dudes who are super pissed and unhappy at this life that whatever that life is that they feel like they’ve gotten themselves locked into. What did you mean what it already was before this happened? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, getting up and trading money for time and, and doing it for some of the, they didn’t give a crap about them and you know, maybe even being involved in work or pursuits that you know, weren’t their own.

Mike Spurgin (00:34:54):
And so what if this is just like a big opportunity to hit this reset button, this master reset button in your life and just clear all that away and stop worrying about that like you were being ha. Well I think this is a huge gift of the universe. A lot of us are pissed. Maybe that energy needs to be flipped. Maybe anybody who’s pissed about what’s happening here really could, could do themselves a big service by looking at it on the opposite and saying, I’ve just been handed maybe the greatest gift of my adult life. An opportunity where for like the next four weeks, nobody really is, nobody’s got their thumb on me. I’m not under anybody’s control. I get to think and choose and do and, and, and create a narrate to myself what it is that I, I want to like revamp myself into. If somebody were to look at this with that sort of mindset and then take each day and, and, and hustle up tangible things, intellectual things regarding whatever kind of their, what their future could look like. A lot of us sit around and we say, Oh, what if I make you, do we make excuses? I do. I’ve done this. I’ve made excuses that I haven’t taken steps in my life because I don’t have the time.

Mike Spurgin (00:36:06):
The university is handy you all the time you need. And so if somebody isn’t sure about what that, what that could look like, then I think you go on a vision quest. I think you figure it out. I think it’s a time to like reset a little bit. Yes. And, and whatever that, whatever you need to do. Just sort of like tap into that. Like get it done, get it done. If you need to go on a hike, if you need to lock yourself in a closet, get a pad and a paper, turn the lights off, close your eyes, open your eyes, sit in the sun, sit in the shade, take a four hour shower. Like I don’t even know what it is for you. You’re gonna have to work that out on your own. But like some of us neglect figuring out who we are and we’ve put that off.

Mike Spurgin (00:36:51):
And so we were living this lives. We’re living a life of, you know, a hamster in a wheel just spinning, spinning, spinning, and it’s not our wheel. And, and, and, and none of it feels like it’s in our control. What if the university just handed you all the control you could ever need in your whole life? It handed you your life for four weeks. I think that’s how long this thing’s going to take. So any one of us who were out there bitching and moaning and complaining that the government is about ready to plant a chip in your forehead or whatever. I think that that is, that is, that is, that is brain power misspent. Yeah. I, I’m not knocking it. I mean, maybe that’s gonna happen. I don’t know. But what I think isn’t going to happen is, is some of us getting our shit together, getting our asses in gear and using this to reset and do you great word that you said, or revamp or revitalize or rebuild or whatever.

Mike Spurgin (00:37:45):
Our own personal lives, our own personal, the trajectory of our lives. It can happen right now. This, this could be the best four weeks of our entire life, of the life of our country, a life of our family. This could be the most amazing time that we’ve ever been handed. And F all the news reports that say we’re all going to die. We’re not all going to die. If those reports that say, you know, the tanks are rolling through, like, I don’t got time, I ain’t got time for, ain’t nobody got time for that. I got time for that. You know, what I need guys should be spending time on is self-reflection goals. Things I want to do, things I want to create, figuring out how to be a better man, how to alpha up if I spent four weeks, if I spent the next four weeks drilling into that, talk to me in a month, come see me in a month and let’s like let’s high five each other. That’s the kind of alpha thing that a guy could do with the next four weeks. If you come to me in four weeks and you have more theories and all you’ve done is right, played video games and watch until mental masturbation. Like if we talk in the last, Hey, what have you been up to bro in four weeks of, you know, video games and, and news reports and internet surfing and black hauling, all that stuff. I don’t know what to say to that. I dunno.

Mike Spurgin (00:39:14):
This is a gift. That’s how I’m seeing it. Let me finish out here. So, you know, to be able to like hang out with our families and our wives for, for this period of time is a huge gift. Like look at, I guess the, I guess the overall mindset is look, every one of these things, everything that’s involved in this, everything that it touches as a gift and I think that has profound power to really like flip switches on and our brains and turn this experience into something that otherwise it would be not, I think it would be great if we were to say thank you for everybody’s still working. Like even grocery store clerks and the delivery drivers. These are people who are out there, you know, getting it done, making it happen. If you’re one of those hats off to you guys who are first responders, military medical people, medical staff, if you know, like a nurse or somebody in medical service, like let’s figure out a way to collectively give them a big, high five love. And Brad, what do you think? What do you think about anything I’ve said? Any of that Landon with you. Oh, I love it.

Brad Singletary (00:40:13):
I see so many people who see this as just a vacation and they’re just kind of, or maybe they’re down, maybe they’re scared and afraid or they, they have a sniffle and they think this is, I’ve got the, I’ve got the virus and I need to, you know, I’m going to isolate myself. And they’re really kind of exploiting the opportunity to be lazy. And I just think, you know, if there’s a, if there’s a gender that’s more lazy, maybe it’s men and I, I love what you’re saying about still stay engaged. I mean, you don’t go to work, we’ll get up and work anyway. There’s plenty of work for you to do on recalibrating your life or on reconnecting, you know, whatever, whatever it may mean. Interesting that here we are in the first week of this and we are in new here. We’re back on the show and we’ve kind of really got some new energy. We’ve been planning to do this, but this is how you and I are doing that I think is by returning to something that w that we love and see as a way to construct another people. So I love it. You’re saying stay engaged, keep working. Even if you don’t go to your job, get up,

Mike Spurgin (00:41:14):
Hustle, work your ass off. Like I guarantee you if you looked around your house, you’d have 40 hours of work on your house projects. I do projects and things that haven’t been done or need to be done better and need to be were done. You know, like, I don’t know about you, but I probably have all kinds of business ideas and inventions I want to do and things I want to create that. You know, I’ve used the excuse of, I don’t really have time to focus on it, to voting energy to it. Here it is. Here it is. So if anybody is out there and they’re listening to this and, and you’re down and you’re depressing your bomb that you know, whatever it is that you counted on has been taken away from you. Have a cry, have a moment. Take a moment like that’s valid.

Mike Spurgin (00:41:53):
It’s totally legit. It’s totally valid to, to take a tear, take a knee, have a moment, you know, be bummed about that. That’s completely fine, normal and acceptable. Then get off your ass. Take that moment. You know whatever you need to do and take that moment. Get up and then get to work. Get to work on yourself. Get to work in your house, get to work on your relationship. Get to work on your future. It doesn’t keep doing your job and maybe you’re one of those lucky people who have your jobs just now transition to home. We’ll get your laptop out and get to work. Start busting ass like don’t let anybody else tell you how you should feel. Don’t let the news tell you how you should feel about this. Don’t let anybody get in your head and tell you what you’re supposed to think about this.

Mike Spurgin (00:42:40):
I tell you what a hypocrite right here I am telling you what you should think about is they wouldn’t have caught that if you didn’t tell them. So I will. I will suggest what, what I’m doing to think about this. What I’m thinking is is that this is an opportunity. Every part of this is an opportunity. Every single slice and dice of this is an opportunity and I’m not going to waste it. I’m not going to lose it. I’ve got four weeks, I’ve just sort of looked at this as somebody handed me, somebody took 12 months and then gave me one to do whatever I want with and I’m going to freaking exploit this thing. I’m going to like milk this. I’m going to continue doing a lot of things that I otherwise am already doing, but I’ve got new stuff like this has sort of energized me to like click up and do some new things, some new ideas that I want to like make happen. And I think that I would not have just sort of, you know, I’m just, I’m looking at this as, as if it’s some just sort of like gong or chime has been wrong in my head and I’m sort of snap me to like a new bit of attention or focus. I’m going to bring this, I’m going to bring this tile out and give you, get every drop out of it. I can. That’s awesome. Oh

Brad Singletary (00:43:48):
Man, I love that. I am, I just can’t wait to share this with everybody that I’m working with right now because some of them need to hear this very message here. What do you think men need to be doing to preserve their strength and protect their families? So we talked about being engaged, being live in the present, stay busy things for you to do. I just want to mention taking care of your body. So even for those who are the hustlers who were taking advantage of this opportunity, you still need rest. You still need to drink water. I talked with a physician the other day, a client of mine actually, and he was talking about how water drinking water alone may protect you in ways that you just don’t even understand. So just good healthy principles the best you can. I’ve kind of had this little sniffle because I’ve been, I’ve been kind of eating the cheap food right lately and it’s, it hasn’t been the best for me.

Brad Singletary (00:44:42):
So I’m just looking for ways for myself that I can continue to take care of my body. And you know, I’m a soldier, I’m a soldier in this, in this thing and I’ve got to keep myself healthy and strong. And also I think to find ways to show love to the people in my circle, you know, reach out, show some charity toward other people. And maybe that, maybe that showing love, you know, means also to show some love to yourself. Read your own gauges. There’s always a light that tells you when you need an oil change or when the fuel is low. So check in with yourself and look at your own needs and see what may be missing. If you, if you feel that there’s an unmet need, see if you can identify what it is and get after it. Great opportunity here. I love what you’re saying about this should be seen as a gift. Mike.

Mike Spurgin (00:45:47):
So one of the things you had down here too is show some charity to others. You talked about that with that experience with that lady. Why do you think that if we, and I’m not doing this, I gotta I gotta admit I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about ways. We went to the grocery store and, and got some things in my wife who’s very thoughtful in this way. Got some extra supplies that we specific she had earmarked for somebody specific. I haven’t done that yet. I’ve thought about it. You know, have you heard any of your guys come through where they’ve done some of that stuff? Done some of that stuff?

Brad Singletary (00:46:23):
Yeah. You know, people are checking in with, you know, elderly members say of their church or their community or just checking in with the neighbors, Hey, do you have what you need? And just kind of saying we have plenty. Something that was impressive to me was divorced. A guy who’s divorced and kind of has this bitter connection with the ex wife. He kinda checked in and said, Hey if there are needs over there we, we, we got you covered over here. You know, if you don’t have enough flour, sugar, water, whatever it may be just let me know. He was also looking after his own children, but kind of put aside the, the tension of this, of this kind of nasty divorce and offered, you know, himself and his supplies up to what he may have kind of considered as an enemy.

Brad Singletary (00:47:12):
So just people checking in with their, their kids friends, families, you know, kids in the neighborhood, kids that go to school with people in your normal kind of circle. I think asking questions and just checking in with others. That’s just a pretty alpha thing to do to seek out the vulnerable, don’t be taken advantage of and you don’t have to save everyone and don’t spend your last dollar on someone else if your family’s in need but see what you can give. I just think that’s, that’s what an alpha does. He finds a way to strengthen other people. One of the things that we did, I was kind of caught off guard by it and I thought it was a little crazy but I loved it. So the other day my wife pulls out the Christmas decorations and put all the Christmas lights back up on our house.

Brad Singletary (00:47:57):
And so we have snow man in these big blowup Christmas things out there. Seriously, it’s going on Christmas lights around my house or I’m expecting an HOA, fine hearsay. But she put this big sign out front that she just hand painted and said, spread cheer, not fear. We will make it, you know, we’re going to be okay. And there was some little hashtag thing and she posted it and sh she, she got, I don’t know, a couple thousand likes and the news channel contacted her and they wanted to come and interview or, and take pictures. They never did. Probably they had plenty of other bigger stories. But it was just cool. That wasn’t the purpose. She just and there were a lot of haters on that. People, people really kind of commented on her like, you’re crazy, you’re just trying to get attention. She said, you know what, there are children who are stuck in their homes and if they’re out walking their dog or driving by as they go to the grocery store in this bleak time and they see a snowman in our yard, maybe that brings him a little bit of light, you know?

Brad Singletary (00:48:52):
And so I just, I, I think to see us all as connected and, and you know, I loved her little line there. Spread cheer, not fear.

Mike Spurgin (00:49:01):
That’s amazing. That’s ho send me a picture or send me that post. I need to see this. It’s making me think about I’ve probably brought this guy before Sebastian younger. He’s the guy who wrote a book called tribe. And in that, one of the anecdotes he talks about is how during times of collective calamity statistical instances of things like depression, anxiety, all of these psychological maladies that seem to be like just chronically inflamed generally during these sort of like tragic times go down crime goes down. Violence goes down, drinking goes down. All of the things that people do to self medicate and then be irresponsible. That seems to take a back seat to the collective need of the community. This, this general feeling of altruism that’s always there, but seems to take a back seat to selfishness in times of calm and Plenti during these collective calamities.

Mike Spurgin (00:50:09):
Then people’s focus is towards the tribe that collect the needs of the tribe. And selflessness comes out and becomes a key marker to survival. And what your wife has done is a small slice of that. And, and I think that a guy, any, any alpha guy would do really, really well to kind of copy that. You don’t have to put decorations in your yard, but to do things even in your own house that create for you a feeling of confidence and optimism. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to be fine. Yeah, but you know, school is closed. I know. So let’s, let’s jump on Khan Academy and let’s learn something. You know, you’re in a trade, you know a lot. You are, you are skilled, you’ve got all kinds of talents and abilities that you’ve spent, you know, a career honing. Do your kids know the fine points of, you know, the, the, the work that you do, do they understand?

Mike Spurgin (00:51:16):
Like, have you ever apprenticed your son into some of the things that you do that come so naturally to you but would be like this amazing gift to give him or your daughter? Does she understand? You know, some of the complexities of, you know, whatever your work is, this and the kids are home now and, and where we live in Clark County, Nevada, in Vegas, the school district is just throwing up his hands. It’s like we don’t know what to do. We’re not going to do anything. And it’s kind of a, it’s kind of a big thing. And I’m not, I’m not pointing a finger coming down on, cause I, I don’t want to be in their shoes. I have no suggestion. I have no suggestions. So I empathize and acknowledge what a tough spot they’re in. So this is an opportunity. Every, every dad, every alpha, every guy, every dude should be thinking about ways that he can now sort of like shepherd his children into some training and some like this, the time to homeschool, it’s time to homeschool.

Mike Spurgin (00:52:13):
And so parents can alpha up. Again, what a gift, what a gift, what if a kid, what if a kid, what if, what if a teenage kid, right? How a teenage son this month where his dad gets to spend all this time with him. And maybe do some projects or whatever. What if this is the exact thing that that kid needed to change the trajectory of his life. We look back and we think, well, you know, everything counts. Everything matters. You know, what’s that thing? The butterfly flaps, his wing and the over here and then now on the other side of the world, there’s a hurricane from it. I don’t know if I’m doing a very good job with that little visualization, that little story, but you get the idea. So everything has a ripple, everything matters. And so again, to go back to what I was saying earlier, this could be a huge sort of like Mark moment for, for all of us if we see it that way.

Mike Spurgin (00:53:01):
And, and let me, let me drop in my little things and then we’ll finish this one out. So I think that a guy would do well to the question here was what are some of the things that men need to be doing to preserve their own strength and protect their families? So you know that I forget who said this or where it came from, but you know, like on an airplane when the oxygen mask drops, you got four people in your row. They all need them. You’re the dad, you put yours on first, you don’t do the kids and then you last, you do yours first and then you do the people that you serve. So men need to be, dudes need to be taking care of themselves. Like they need to get their crap together and they need to pull it together.

Mike Spurgin (00:53:44):
And so T again, take a moment, like if you need to, if you need to have a a moment of tears, make it happen. Like, dig into that. Like don’t mope your way through the next four weeks. Take a day, sorted out. Call a buddy, call one of us, do a thing, figure this out. Like, get on top of of this for yourself emotionally, spiritually, all of that. Get that worked out. Get that work through. It’s not a onetime thing either. Like, I’m, I’m not delusional. I know that if you lost your job, you’re not going to just like you know, sit in a dark room with the blinds pulled, have a tear and then snap. I’m, I’m good. Like I get that, but pull in some resources like you need alpha up and do what needs to be done and then get on with it, get on with this.

Mike Spurgin (00:54:38):
And I think there’s all kinds of ways to also, so, so that was sort of like get your oxygen mask on and then there’s ways to blow off some of the steam and some of the pressure that is undoubtedly building up, not even inside of you, but in your family. Like you’ve got this dynamic now where some of us have never been home for like a full day of sunlight with our kids and our wives. Some of us have never had that. We’ve never had one entire day of sunlight where we’ve all been together in the house together. We’ve, a lot of us have different schedules where a wife has gone and kids are gone, the husband’s gone, whatever. So there’s a lot that’s new going on here and that’s stress and pressure. So dude’s maybe you need to figure out what, what your hobbies are.

Mike Spurgin (00:55:21):
Maybe you don’t have a hobby even neglected that, which is fine. But now it’s time to maybe figure that out. So get the guitar out of the attic. Get the basketball pumped up, get your track shoes out, get some new laces in them, whatever it is that can and should happen. Find ways that you used to. And I think that the secret to this would be, don’t invent something new. Go back in time. Go back to what’s worked for you in the past. Don’t try to like figure out now how to, how to hang glide now. Never done that. Go backwards. Get your baseball cards out from underneath the bed, whatever it was, the reliably and, and, and you know, brings you a little bit of joy, a little bit of tranquility. It’s a touchdown to sort of like a happy time. Do that. Get that for me.

Mike Spurgin (00:56:08):
Funny. I don’t know if it’s funny, but Legos. I love Legos, man. I love Legos. You know, I love about, I love the tactile experience of like the little bits and pieces. I love taking chaos. You dump a bag out and it’s just chaos. And then I’ve got this instruction book that is what’s order and control. It’s order and control. And so I can take a pilot chaos and then through following steps I can create order and control. And what I imprint onto my little time screwing around with Legos is that I know that life ordering controls and illusion. So I know that I’m a realist and I know that in my own personal life there is no order in control, but I can like, I can have that through this little experience and it just really works from, it’s very calming and very centering and settling.

Mike Spurgin (00:56:54):
So whatever it is that helps get you centered, dive into that. I might also throw out, be a good time to like sit in a chair and read a book, sit in it. I was thinking the other day, when’s the last time I sat down with a magazine or a [inaudible] or a book or something. This is a great time. Again, a gift. What a gift. What a gift this is. Move your meat suit. Like exercise your meat suit. Yeah. Get outside man. Move around. Do some stuff with your body. Do some jumping jacks. Like th feel that feeling of what it is to get a little sweaty when your heart pumps a little bit. Get some, get some of those. Just get some of that endorphin. Go and get endorphin rush from like moving around. It’s a real thing. Make that happen.

Mike Spurgin (00:57:36):
And does put the kids to bed. Here’s the last one. Put the kids to bed. Put some like Rose petals on the floor. Play some Barry white. Oh, Oh baby. And see what happens. Like why, why not let this be a full experience where you are trying to fully tap into like everything that is real in your life. And so if your relationship with your wife is stale, see what you can do for that. See how you can like serve her. Be kind to her, be attentive to her. Be in court, the hell out of your wife. Why not? You got four weeks to do that court that court the hell out of your wife and see what happens. So those are some of my thoughts on like what, what could a guy be doing to be taking care of himself? I think there’s more, I’d love to hear what some of the suggestions in the comments of this episode might be, but those are mine.

Brad Singletary (00:58:34):
All right, so we’ve talked about the last question a little bit already too. How men can be supportive of others, you know, with the communities. I’ve talked about some of that just to listen and you know, ask people how they’re doing, what they may need. I found a little quote here, this goes back to something you were talking about, about Sebastian younger two book about try. But this I think I found this on social media, but just want to read this a little bit here. It says, years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected me to talk about fish hooks or clay pots or grinding stones, but no Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur or thighbone that had been broken and then healed.

Brad Singletary (00:59:21):
She explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You can’t run from danger. You can’t get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for a prowling beast. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. So a broken femur that has been healed as evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who has fallen bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. I’m helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Meet said, we are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized. I love this because this is a great opportunity to do that. Even though we’re isolated. Check in with your friends. Call your aunt, your grandmother that you haven’t talked to. Check in with people.

Brad Singletary (01:00:10):
Recognize that we’re connected. And that’s what makes us, you know, civil, intelligent beings is that we can take care of our own. Another thought that I have about taking care of others and ourselves is a to not be too serious. There’s a lot of really cool humor out there right now. My favorite little meme that I saw was a, I used to cough and this is true for me. I used to cough to cover a fart. Now I far to cover a cough. I’ve just been all about these funny, these funny things is kind of keeps things light and I’m hope it’s not offensive to anyone, but I just I think we gotta to have some fun and not take this so serious, not be a scared whimpering, you know? Don’t be so nervous about all this and just appreciate it as an opportunity. Like Mike said so many times. So what about you Mike? How do we take care of our community and other people and then we’ll wrap up with our final points?

Mike Spurgin (01:01:06):
Yeah. you know, I really didn’t throw any notes in here. Other, you know, I put down the oxygen mask one, we talked about that. Maybe this one for me is to I think it’s important to like, maybe I’ve mentioned this before, like just figure, figure out what you’re feeling, figure out what you’re thinking and get to the heart of it. I know that there’s a lot of emotionalism that floats on top of, some of those people are mad and that’s probably the general mad and frustrated. Like you have to think if there were two emotions that dudes are probably feeling the most fear would, maybe it’s a trifecta. There we go. That’s the Trinity. So it’s fear, frustration, and then anger. I think those three are the things that dudes are feeling. And you know, dudes are, it’s a classic thing like guys don’t feel, guys don’t cry big boys and cry.

Mike Spurgin (01:02:00):
Men don’t, men don’t have emotions. We all feel emotions. Yeah, we do all the time. We just did just send her around anger. Right? That’s typically the emotion that a dude feels is anger and frustration. And so that’s probably happening a ton and my thought on that would be Le let shit go. There’s no reason to get angry about any of this because there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Again, maybe to drop back some we talked about earlier, what in the hell is a guy right now? My neighbor, I’m making this up, but let’s say I made my neighbor at the mailbox and he’s all pissed. He wants to like bend my ear, just flap his jaw about how like pissed off he is it everything. What the hell does that do for anything? Why don’t you tell me about what you’re going to do about that roof?

Mike Spurgin (01:02:43):
You need to reroof that friggen house neighbor dude. Like why don’t you tell me about that tree, that dead tree that I’ve been looking at for for two years now. Why don’t we talk about that stuff? Cause that you can control all the rest of this nonsense that you’re, you’re jamming on about like I don’t give a shit about any of that. I don’t care about that. That has nothing to do with you. Me, our life staying alive. Helping each other living extra. So I think it would be super helpful for a dude to figure himself out til they get centered. Okay. Be angry, be frustrated, be be those things and then get to work, get to work, get to work. Like let that shit go, bleed that stuff off, have your moment and then let it go. Get going, get your hustle muscle on, get down to business like let’s, this is business time.

Mike Spurgin (01:03:31):
So whatever a dude needs to do to get into that head space. Like I know Brad and I, I know we’d like to help you do that. I bet you have plenty of people, plenty of resources and if you don’t, here’s a call out. I think. I think you need to like, I think you need to ask yourself serious questions like, well, I don’t have any friends. Why don’t I have any, why, what kind of life? This could be like deep, deeply self-reflective. What kind of life have I been living all these years that now in a time where like I could probably use somebody to talk to. I don’t have any friends. I have. In fact, I’ve had a conversation with a guy not that long ago and that was kind of the punchline of the conversation. He had all kinds of like everybody was, he just had, he just, it was endless.

Mike Spurgin (01:04:15):
His problems were endless. The complexity of his life seemed to be just outrageous, outrageously endless. Like every, we would talk about something for about 40 or 60 seconds and then that would like [inaudible] would like pinball, him to a new, Oh, and then you still like he would say, Oh, and that reminds me, or Oh, and another thing. And it would turn into another avalanche of just going down this, you know, road. I dunno how it came up, but kind of towards the end of it, it just sort of like dawned on maybe both of us at the same time like ms do damn your friends didn’t have any friends, didn’t connect with anybody, didn’t have anybody. Kay cared for, cared for him and, and such a pissy attitude about some of the things in life. I honestly, I mean this isn’t very charitable, but I was seeing like no wonder, you know how many friends you’re a, you’re a pain in the ass, right? Right. You didn’t want to be around you like you’re a TA, you, you’d be a terrible friend. You would just be a suck. Like you would just suck energy and time out of everybody else. Like why would anybody want to be around that emotional vampire? Totally. So anyway, this the, again, all of these things, these are gifts that were being handled so we can figure this stuff out. So I don’t know, that’s probably not very clear about that question, but that’s my thought on that.

Brad Singletary (01:05:33):
That’s awesome. I think what we’re saying, a lot of this as we wrap up here is just to be grateful. You know, things have always worked out. When I think about hope, when I think about, you know, there are some uncertainty around us right now and if we need hope, the best way to look forward and project into the future, knowing that it’s going to be okay is to look behind you with gratitude. If you look back and consider all the ways that you’ve already been delivered, you’ve already been through. I mean your, the day of your birth was freaking traumatic. There was a time you couldn’t even wipe your own ass or walk. Okay, you’ve fallen down, you’ve been hurt. There’ve been so many painful things you’ve been through. This is, this is new territory, but how do you know it’s gonna work out?

Brad Singletary (01:06:18):
Cause it always has. If you’re breathing and you’re alive today, everything has always worked out. And I have a little thing that I share with people about changing the what if too. Even if we get stuck in the what if, what if this happens and what if I get sick and what if people die and what if we’ll play that on out to the end. Because even if it does happen, even if you get sick, there’s a 98% chance of your survival. And if you go to even the worst case scenario where someone that you love is deeply affected or or dies from this, you’ve got to go. If you’re going to think that, go ahead and play it on out cause it’ll be sad and it’ll be inconvenient and it’ll be hurtful and painful, but you will carry on and you’ll figure it out. Just the way that you’ve always done. Final points. Mike

Mike Spurgin (01:07:03):
And alpha always finds a silver lining in any situation. This is no different. We’re gonna make it, you’re gonna make it. Everybody you know is gonna make it. And if even if they don’t, Brad, that was beautifully said. You’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. Stay, stay hopeful. Stay positive. Standard, routine. Don’t get sucked into avoidance distraction. Don’t, don’t fall down the endless running, running through all the episodes of a series. Don’t watch all 47 episodes of breaking bad or whatever it is. Put some, put some checks on yourself. Like if, if, if that’s helpful for you, then that’s fine. I don’t, I don’t want to take that away from you, but like throw some, throw some boundaries around that. Give yourself 45 minutes a day to like, you know, surf Facebook or whatever. Stay away from porn. Stay away from drinking. This is not a time to like smoke more weed. None of those things are going to be helpful. None of that fogginess is going to, it’s going to dull your blade. All that stuff is going to dull your blade right now. You need to be sharp for yourself, for your family, for everyone around you. And so this is not the time to to numb out and to dumb down. It’s exactly the opposite. Like your life needs you, the world needs you, your family needs you. Hell we need you. And so

Mike Spurgin (01:08:27):
None of that serves none of it. None of it’s going to none. You’re not going to look back on this four weeks and say, damn, that was like, I remember that as being [inaudible] all that time I was stoned. Like I was so, so great. Man. I’m so happy I spent a whole month stone. Like, Hey, this dude, let me tell you about may when month is this February, March, let me tell you, March of 2022, that was the best month of my whole life. I was like stoned for four weeks while the world went to hell. Like no that’s not, it’s not any to be proud of. That is nothing to be proud of. Be a support, be a support to the people around you. I would like to see an alpha guy build some, use this time to like build some reserve and margin into, into the system of your lifestyle.

Mike Spurgin (01:09:20):
So you know, the world is built on this false belief that everything will continue just as it has been without interruption. And that’s for like we talked about earlier, for you, for you, the life of you and me so far, that’s kind of what’s happened. Like we flipped that light switch and the power in my life, the power is always turned on. Every toilet I’ve ever flushed. Like it disappears. Things like that. The car always starts, there’s always gas at the pump. There’s always food on the shelves. Like those things are constants, but that may not be the case. This isn’t going to change like this little coronavirus thing. In my very own personal opinion. This is nothing like this is just a blip. This is anomaly. All of us are going to bounce back, everything’s going to be just fine. But what I think this does is it indicates to us that this, again like this world we live on, this world doesn’t care that we’re on it and it’s going to do something to some of us some other time that is going to like, you know, shake our world literally, figuratively, whatever.

Mike Spurgin (01:10:18):
And so this is a really good time for an alpha to get his shit together and that might look like getting some food under your bed. If you want to put a knife and a machete and a gun in a drawer, do that. If you don’t have cash, it’s tucked away somewhere and make that happen. The things that that you can do to like put your oxygen mask on, you need to alpha up and do that. Like I’m strongly suggesting this is a time to really consider that kind of stuff. And if the work that you’re doing doesn’t make the money that you need to make and want to make, then like figure that out. If you’re not even in the trade that you think you should be in or doing that, that figure that out. So this is really, this is a time, this is a gift.

Mike Spurgin (01:10:58):
This is a gift of time to work through all that stuff. And so right now I’d like to see dudes alpha-ing up and then I, I’d love to figure out a way that we can sort of like check in with each other. And I don’t know, maybe we could use a Facebook page something, but I’d love to hear guys, if you’ve got goals, if you’re going to create some goals for yourself, if you’re going to invent some new things, some new systems for yourself, it will be amazing to hear some feedback from, from, from the audience, from, from us about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. And maybe ways that we can support each other. And if you like, we could collectively sort of like, I don’t know, support that whole, the energy behind that. We’ll figure that out. So maybe that’s just my final statement. It’s like don’t fall down the black hole of escapism behaviors. They’re super tempting, especially right now feeling like, you know, of not having control, not, not knowing what’s going to happen. I know I want to numb out. I just want to blast out of this thing and, you know, zap out of it. Have a tear. It’s a crazy time. I totally get it. Have a tier and they get to work.

Brad Singletary (01:12:03):
I love it. It’s an interesting season of our lives. It’s an interesting season of, in the world’s history and it’s an innocent great season in your life. Speaking of season, this is season two, episode one of the alpha corn. We’re glad to be back. We’re here to help men improve their lives by engaging a tribe to improve their attitudes, actions, and attributes. Hey, give us some love on a, on iTunes like us on Facebook and follow us on,

Mike Spurgin (01:12:29):
You know,

Brad Singletary (01:12:30):
However that goes, I don’t even know exactly. We love you guys. We’re, we’re gonna w you’re gonna hear from us more. We’re looking forward to what’s about to happen here for the alpha quorum for now, Brad Singletary and taco Mike. You guys take care and alpha. Up Be well,

 

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