EPISODE 57

ALPHA SHOT: One-minute Sample

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Questions answered in this episode:

• What does it mean to Alpha Up?
• What is the Alpha Quorum about?
• Why does this exist?
• What is the Red9?

Other topics discussed:

The Red9:

• Responsibility
• Resourcefulness
• Reverence
• Energy
• Endurance
• Engagement
• Discipline
• Discernment
• Distinction

Relevant Links:

https://alphaquorum.com/
https://tacomoto.co/
https://bradsingletary.com

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Mike Spurgin (00:00:13):
To alpha up to me means taking full and complete responsibility, looking reality in the face and acknowledging that it’s sucks. An alpha believes differently. An alpha believes that he will achieve. He will overcome. The alpha up means that I have to accept my reality but I’m not going to stay in that reality. So I will accept where I am in this moment and then in the next moment I’m going to take a step in a different direction and so that’s what alpha means to me is to move forward and to want better and to believe better and then eventually we’ll be better. That’s what it is. That’s what it is.

Brad Singletary (00:01:06):
Welcome back to the Alpha Quorum show. Brad Singletary here with my buddy Taco Mike, glad to have you again, sir. Hey, so we want to talk about in general what this is all about. We’ve had just exponential growth on this Facebook group. Uour podcast has kind of gone through the roof, the downloads and so there may be some guys that want a quick understanding of what we are and what this is all about. So just wanted to give some perspective, but before we do that,ujust want to check in with you. It’s been a few weeks since we asked how you’re doing. People are interested in you, sir. What’s you been up to

Mike Spurgin (00:02:04):
Dude?

Mike Spurgin (00:02:04):
It’s been a good last week. I spent 1400 miles on a, on a motorcycle going through a cool, like to best of the best of Utah. We, I met up with a buddy, Justin, Justin’s in the, in the group and he is a good dude and he put on this nice little friend, friend ride and just extending invitation for a lot of guys. And I think there’s a handful of the guys probably listening to this who were on that ride and we, we just rolled on these bigger bikes. So, you know, you kind of have different classes of motorcycles. There’s dirt bikes, I guess you’d even have smaller minibikes, right? Like little little kids bikes, dirt bikes, which is a S a standard sort of off-road motorcycle. And then you graduate up and then you’ve got something called ADV bikes or adventure bikes. And those are like a legit sized motorcycle. They’ll do a hundred miles an hour on the road and, but those are gonna have some suspension, off-road tires.

Brad Singletary (00:02:56):
It felt like a truck. It’s like the truck of motorcycles, what it looked like to me.

Mike Spurgin (00:03:00):
I think so, yeah. And in the back it’s going to have some bags and luggage stuff and a fairing. And you’re going to be able to take that, that dirt bike on the road, hard miles an hour. And then, or when it’s dirt, you’re gonna be able to ride the dirt road. It’s not a dirt bike. So if it gets rough, really rough, really Rocky kind of single track stuff, like little hiking trail stuff, you’re not gonna be able to do that, but you can do any dirt road. And so Justin and it and his buddy Dominick two really high, high, high caliber high quality dudes, very good dudes. They put on this week long ride and just, I don’t know, 22 or 23 of us went out and we toured Utah. We did all of these great national parks.

Mike Spurgin (00:03:43):
We went around Lake Powell. Oh yeah, that’s also beautiful. Monument Valley just saw these amazing places, sites in Southern Utah and it was super Epic. We had great campfires. We had, you know, 20 dudes sitting around a campfire doing good shit, cool stuff, you know living outside, we were camping. We camp for four nights off these motorcycles. And the whole idea was to just create experiences where dudes will struggle and sweat and get through it and get hurt. Bikes, break breakdown, you know, all of the things take chances, push ourselves, have competitions. You know, razz each other, make fun of each other, laugh at ourselves, laugh at each other, and then sit around a campfire and then kind of relive those experiences of the day, go to sleep and begin at again and do that day after day after day. That’s man shit.

Mike Spurgin (00:04:49):
Yeah. And that’s what we did. And those two guys created that opportunity for the rest of us to have that experience for ourselves and with them. And it was, it was fantastic. It was really, really fantastic. And that was a that’s been the highlight. That’s the only like thing I’ve done in this whole quarantine thing that sort of qualifies like man level stuff. Everything else I’ve been doing is what everyone else has been doing, you know, working from home, cleaning up the garage. Yeah. Doing projects, stuff like that. So if we’re going back, you know, since start a quarantine, I’ve done all the normal stuff that everyone else has done. And then I finally have started to go out and do some of this stuff that I usually do. Those pictures were crazy and it looks like you had a drone following around like video. There’s a videographer doing this stuff. That was awesome. Yep. That was pretty cool. It was really good. We have a guy named Joey Webb who went on the trip and he is high KA high class, had a drone, GoPros, like he had legit set up and then put together that little video and then he’s going to throw I guess a bunch of footage together later and make a longer video. It’s fun to have like documentation of your experience. So many guys go out on trips and then we don’t take pictures of ourselves or each other. Right. And I think this, this setup we tried to like do that, try to memorialize the experience. It’s valuable. That’s awesome. What about you? What, what’s exciting for you?

Brad Singletary

So I I’ve been wanting to do this for about a year, but I just started this kind of fitness and diet challenge called seventy-five hard. It was created by Andy Frisella. He’s a, he owns a nutrition company, kind of, I don’t know, started 10 or 15 years ago, you know, he was working like paint, painting stripes on pavement for his job and then he built this company from the ground up and he’s just doing really well now hundreds of millions of dollars. But anyway, he has this fitness challenge called 75 heart is basically this.

Brad Singletary (00:06:46):
So for 75 days you work out twice a day to 45 minute workouts and one of them has to be outside. So that that right there is a pretty extreme requirement. So two 45 minute workouts a day. One of them has to be outside. The next one is to just pick a diet, whatever, whatever it is, stick to it, no cheat meals, no alcohol. So clean eating, whatever that means to you. Pick your own drink a gallon of water a day. I’ve been peeing all night. We’ve been having to interrupt the show to go to the bathroom, but so a gallon of water a day and then read 10 minutes a day, something, you know, inspirational, some kind of self help stuff, stuff with information or skills in it. And then I think the other was like, take a, basically take a selfie. So it’s a progress pick.

Brad Singletary (00:07:38):
I, I’m not really I’m not really doing the progress pics, so I guess I’m not actually doing that full speed. But, so some of the guys in my group that I lead, actually all of them agreed and some of them are really getting after it. And we have this little contest, we’re kind of keeping score and however many of those boxes do you check every day. So everybody gets a points value. I’m probably in third place out of about nine guys or something. So how, it’s just a challenge because I, I always talk myself out of, Oh, I don’t know if I can do that. Could I drink a gallon of water a day? You know, what if, what if I can’t work out? I’m just doing the best that I can every single day. And it’s, it’s been about almost two weeks of it now.

Brad Singletary (00:08:15):
So how are you guys tracking that progress? What do you do? You have a Facebook group. It’s just a spreadsheet. It’s a, it’s a, it’s just shared Google docs or Google sheets and it just automatically calculates, and you have the date and it just go in there and under your name, click on the thing and it adds up to points and there’s a little scoreboard at the front. And so it’s interesting to me that some of the guys, one of the guys is in his fifties, but some of the people that said they couldn’t do it or wouldn’t do it, they’re doing it anyway. They’re finding themselves drinking more water, trying to eat more healthy. And even if they’re not doing it perfectly, they’re more intentional about what they’re doing. And that’s kind of the point. You know, none of us are used to look at us.

Brad Singletary (00:08:54):
A couple of guys are pretty fit, but most of us are average dudes. And, and anyway, it’s just, it’s something I’ve wanted to do and I had been a little scared and finally kind of manned up. And did it, what do you think pushed you into, into doing it? Is it the, the group effort? I think it’s the group and just, I had always wanted to do that. You know, I was very active earlier in my life. I played college football and just lifted weights and did a lot of that. And then for 20 years just went kind of dark on the whole fitness and activity thing and all kinds of issues with weight. Ended up having a weight loss surgery anyway. It was just was calling for me, my body needed me to, maybe it’s that cortisol we talked about. I just needed to burn some of that stuff off and find a way to expend some of that energy.

Brad Singletary (00:09:39):
So that’s what I’ve been up to. That’s what I’m most proud of lately. So this program sounds super well-rounded. I have heard and everyone’s heard of like where it’s just exercise, just fitness, just the diet diet. So a couple of things that are interesting about this is you can pick any diet you want. He’s not telling you you have to pick this deck because a lot of those, here’s your diet plan, you got to do this, you gotta do that. But what’s interesting is it’s throwing in this like little reading component. This is like being self reflective and meditative. Is he go so far as to say like incorporate any breathing or meditation or self like legitimate self-reflection into this? I don’t know. I guess the only self-reflection he talks about is taking a picture. You know, and I hate the idea of a selfie, but I think he’s thinking you’re going to look different if you do this for 75 days. And the pictures that I’ve seen in people that have done that, yeah, you can tell they’re losing, you know, 2030 pounds or whatever and so, or you know, firming up and looking good. So maybe that less maybe that’s more kind of superficial and less reflective that way. But I wish we could replace that one for the, I dunno, journaling or something. Maybe you guys modify it and then agree to the new terms. Yeah, we’ll call it the 75 alpha.

Mike Spurgin (00:10:55):
Maybe that’s a call to us to come up with something like that. Maybe like legit. Maybe we need to develop our own little program and then have some kind of website thing. So maybe if somebody is listening and they think, Oh man, I would love to participate in a program like that, but that I don’t want to do it on my own. You know, honestly for me, I’ve never in my life never wants with one exception, my wife read the whole 30 book. I read that book to hold 30 out if you’re not a program, but it’s kind of like caveman style eating of like, you know, more if it doesn’t look like food, don’t eat it, you know what I mean? Eat things that look like food, look like what it is. And so we did that and I did it for 30 days.

Mike Spurgin (00:11:33):
I felt damn good, felt really good. I would never have done that if she hadn’t have sort of wanted to do initially. So I’ve never once in my life done any program of any type where I was on my own and I’ve only done one this one. And it was with somebody else, with my wife, my wife. So I would be willing to participate in some self-improvement, kick program, diet, exercise, reflection, spiritual growth, like, you know, something that would incorporate and create like this whole nice, well-rounded sort of the goal of like making me more well rounded in all ways and all categories. Oh, that’s so awesome. But I’d only do it if it was in a group and there’s other people and I could sort of like be competitive about it.

Brad Singletary (00:12:20):
That’s kinda cool. You know, that that competitive part we’ve talked about that one of the needs of men is to compete and whatever. And that’s a healthy, that’s a healthy thing. And I’m sure on the, on the bike trips it’s like who can get up the Hill first or you, there’s probably some of that element there of like, who’s got the fastest, shiniest bike or whatever. So with this one, yeah, it’s, it’s literally a scoreboard. That’s what we call it. Let’s check the scoreboard, you know, and there’s one guy who’s just killing it every day and others who are thinking, you know, Oh, maybe I’m, maybe I’m neck and neck with fourth place, you know, and that’ll be better than the last place or whatever. So I love that idea. Maybe there are some people out there, we’ve got some physicians on board. I know, and people may be, I don’t know, into nutrition and fitness, so,

Mike Spurgin (00:13:00):
So I’m thinking exactly that. Maybe we get a couple of people who are in our group already that understand all this stuff. Let’s create our own little program. Let’s make a website. This is all easy stuff. I think I’m just talking out of my butt.

Brad Singletary (00:13:11):
Well, I think it’s, I, I like what you’re saying about it can be more sort of well-rounded but less restrictive in some ways. You know, there’s some diabetic who can’t eat this way or somebody with gallbladder problems who can’t eat that way. Maybe it’s more open to, in some things, maybe the activity levels, you know, there’s some 70 year olds in our, in our group, they should be able to do it too. Okay, well we better figure that out and make it happen. That’s awesome. What we want to talk about today is just for those people who are new to our message. We’ve been, we’ve been doing this for a couple of years now actually, but we want to just talk about what this is all about and why did we start? So I’m Brett, this is Brad here and I’m a clinical therapist. I’ve been in the field of counseling for about 22 years and one day a few years ago I realized that almost everyone that I worked with was either a man the wife of a man, children of a man or someone who had been hurt by a man.

Brad Singletary (00:14:11):
And I just realized with some of my own failures under my belt and these things that I kept seeing that men, so many men are feeling powerless or they’re overdoing their power and control or they’re self-medicating or they’re just men are struggling in many cases. And so I found this passion to just start looking at some of the literature out there about the needs of men, considering my own problems and pain that I created for myself. And so I got in a conversation with a friend of mine, Derek Johnson, and we thought we would start a podcast. We’ve done all different kinds of topics that took us a little bit to kind of figure out what we want to even do with it. You know, we toyed with little, I guess political topics or different things about spirituality and relationships. And I think over that first season we, we narrowed some of that kind of down.

Brad Singletary (00:15:05):
What we found is that we literally have a worldwide audience. There’s some statistics and things that you can look through. Where we publish our podcast. We just I think today reached 11,000 downloads and that’s decent, you know, for beginners, for total amateurs, it’s 11,000 times somebody clicked on our episode to hear what we have to say. It’s pretty cool. We found it. 67% of our listeners are men, so the rest are women. My son was even telling me tonight he was helping me set up the mics and everything that one of his friends this, this girl, apparently this teenage girl, 16 year old girl listens to the show. How’s that? I don’t know. I was like, I should give her a shout out on this show. And he’s like, don’t say her name, don’t say her name. But anyway he was in here secretly videotaping me with his Snapchat and I guess he was probably sending her something.

Brad Singletary (00:16:01):
And who knows? I may be, I’m on tick tock right now with my bald head. But anyway, I don’t even know what those all words, salad stuff you just said is we’ve had this exponential growth recently. And in fact, in the last episode, the one called shit sandwich that one had almost, well more than double the downloads of every other episode that we’ve had, even those that have been up for two years. And so something is happening, something is taking root. And we just very excited about what’s happening. We just also two weeks ago, started a private Facebook group for men. I can’t believe it took us this long to do this, but maybe we didn’t know how or what it was we were trying to accomplish. But Mike tells me that as we speak, we’re almost at 500 members. These are again, men all over the world.

Brad Singletary (00:16:51):
People from, you know, people from all walks of life, different races and religions and backgrounds, professions their physicians on their truck, drivers, welders, people that ride dirt bikes and people that are nurses and teachers and all kinds of different things, artists and so forth. So we wanted to address those of you who might be new to us to our message and basically share what it is that we believe. We believe that men changed their lives by engaging with a tribe to improve their actions, attitudes and attributes. And while back, I just, you know, as I looked at what it is that makes a man an alpha, what does an alpha, anyway, an alpha is a leader in alpha is the bright shining star in alpha is maybe the strongest in the animal kingdom and so forth. And so I just really liked that terminology about an alpha.

Brad Singletary (00:17:52):
And as I consider what attributes and attitudes make that kind of man, I thought about responsibility. So this is, comes from, this is on our website. It’s called the red nine. And chime in here, Mike, if you hear anything you want to add to here. So an alpha is responsible. He handles his business. He’s not going to see himself as a victim. You know, he’s taking care of his own needs. Those in his stewardship, he’s accepting things that he can’t change. We’ve talked about that in many of our shows about the need for acceptance, but he changes the things that are unacceptable, that he can change. He’s accountable to his goals and the needs of those that, you know, in his, in his tribe and his family. Never blaming others, never becoming the bad guy himself. He is responsible, and that means sometimes rescuing the vulnerable, but not letting yourself get in a place of entanglement.

Brad Singletary (00:18:51):
With perpetual victims, you’re not, you’re rescuing the truly vulnerable, but avoiding entanglements with perpetual victims who are gonna are going to get you caught up in a bad way. So responsible and alpha is resourceful. He leverages available resources. He knows how to research. He knows how to study. He knows how to figure things out. He gains assets, and he maintains those things with some, with some good judgment, always expanding his knowledge, trying to be self reliant, be prepared, resourceful. One of my favorites here is that an alpha is reverent. So what does that mean? We had a whole show on this. It basically means that you’re seeing the big picture. You’re humble, teachable, service oriented. You have gratitude you recognizing mortality, recognizing that one day you’re going to die and valuing life. And that I think also includes accepting and seeking contact with a higher power, whatever that is to you.

Brad Singletary (00:20:04):
I heard somebody who went to a 12 step group and they, they couldn’t, they just couldn’t believe in the traditional concept of God. And so for him, his higher power was the Pacific ocean, you know, the spring mountains you know, his, his Labrador retriever, you know, as an innocent being that was his higher power. So that we’re so reverends means that we’re really tuned into the spiritual. I think that’s a key one. One of the, one of the touchstones in my life has been the outward look beyond myself. I’m an arrogant prick most of the time. And having a grounding and a higher power means that I need to slow my role and I

Mike Spurgin (00:20:48):
Need to realize that there is no sun orbiting around me. There’s no, there’s no nothing arbutin but some flies in my hair. That’s about the only thing orbiting around me as it should be. And so humility like you talked about. And then having, having a, a relationship or a want of a relationship with a higher power is key. I know we have a lot of guys who are both in out and going out of religion and that’s okay. Doesn’t matter. We don’t care. I don’t care. I personally don’t care. I have friends who are full throated ant atheists, like loud mouth atheists and that’s cool. It’s all good. That ain’t me and I don’t want to be that, but I don’t want you to change. I want you to sleep at night and I want you to have peace and if that’s your thing, don’t ever change. So some of us though get hung up on that one. This whole like construct of spirituality and higher power and God, when you are talking to a guy and that’s a hangup for him. Do you have any, any way

Brad Singletary (00:22:07):
Words to smooth through that and get past that? Yeah, I mean, I guess for me spirituality and its core is really about connection. You know, and if you’re connected to the earth, if you’re connected to other people, I can imagine there were probably moments for you on this trip you just described about, you know, just appreciating the beauty that’s out there and the amazing view and how you’re connected to all that as a, as a person in this creation. You know? So maybe, maybe for me this reverence idea is just immense respect, gratitude, feeling connected to other people, connected to some bigger picture. Since you know, this is not about religion for sure.

Mike Spurgin (00:22:51):
I liked that you, I didn’t think about it until you just brought it up. The whole on that motorcycle trip, there were moments as I ponder right now, there were moments on the bike cruising, the temp, the air temperature was perfect, the sun is shining, it’s warm. And I’m looking at four or five guys in front of me in the mirror, a couple of guys behind me and the scenery is just rolling out as beautiful and everything in that moment. Like I just had a good launch, whatever. Everything that moment exactly right. Having moments of feeling super peaceful and profoundly calm and then having that warm glow of joyous like love is that maybe the word right? A love and an appreciation and acknowledgement that I’m a, I’m a, I’m a a ball. You got a big wheel turning and there’s a bunch of bearings and I’m just one of them.

Mike Spurgin (00:23:48):
I’m not the wheel, I’m not turning the wheel, but I’m a bearing and I’m a part of the wheel and the wheel rolls smoother and better with me in it and the, and the, and the more I can contribute to that, the turning of that wheel, the better it is for me, the better it is for the wheel and everyone else involved. And just that, that feeling of like real complete wholeness. Super cool. Super duper duper cool. And just like that happened multiple times with just that nice buzz. It’s a buzz. It’s a total buzz. It’s a hundred percent buzz and you can call it your higher power. You can call it the universe, the zone. God, y’all way give it any old name you want. It’s all good. I don’t care. But it’s getting clicked in to that, to that wavelength. Like plugging your wiring into that battery. To me, that’s this line item of reverent. Yeah.

Brad Singletary (00:24:58):
Just off respect, love. Maybe those all go to that. And alpha is energetic. So this is about your body. We talked in the last show. I don’t know what order we’re going to post these in tonight, but we’ve talked about what to do with your body. Preserving your natural strength, taking care of putting, using the right fuel. You know, we’re talking about diet, rest, you know, are you sleeping enough? Are you oversleeping? Are you conscientious when you’re, you know, when you’re using supplements, medication, you know, you’re pumping yourself full of steroids. You’re not a fricking alpha. I’m sorry. Are you avoiding avoiding destructive indulgences? You know, you’re choosing things that bring you strength to your body. I just think that being energetic and maintaining your energy helps you to, to be a productive man.

Mike Spurgin (00:25:50):
You know, earlier in one of our episodes, you, you made this great analogy about gasoline and an engine. Just imagine buying this ultra high performance car, McLaren F one Ferrari. You’ve got this machine that was so much thought and engineering and an expense went into creating this. You go down, you spend big coin to get this and then you pour in maple syrup and some orange juice, right? And some Tang like you, you just pouring nonsense into the tank and hit the gas and then you’re, you wonder like, what the hell that’s so many of us are doing that with our body and that’s our car and we don’t give a crap. And we think we’re in despair. We think we’re like invincible. Just dump in pills, booze, you name it, charge it hard, run hard. Steroids. Got to look good. Supplements over supplementing. What are these like you know, you go to the health food store and you, it’s like almost steroids and it’s almost, you know, it’s that stuff that’s like that human growth work around. Yeah. Oh that stuff for real. That’s in your tank.

Brad Singletary (00:27:13):
And some people, some guys I think are, they’re under utilizing that. They, they, they won’t go to the doctor. You know, they don’t, they don’t go get that thing fixed. The little medication that could help with all these other things, they won’t do it. You know, they have sleep apnea, they won’t use the machine. So

Mike Spurgin (00:27:28):
That kind of stuff. So that’s dysfunction on the other way. Yep.

Brad Singletary (00:27:30):
The way, like, I don’t need to go to the doctor, I’m fine. I’m totally good, you know? And so it’s being conscientious about all that. Hey, your body matters. This is your vehicle, man. How’s it running? You know, how’s your, how’s your machine operate? Just going on here and alpha is engaged, you know, that’s being in the present, wherever you may be, you’re immersed in the moment. This is living in the here and now, eliminating distractions. Doing your work with a pleasant attitude, you know, you’re sticking to it. Also enjoying leisure and recreation. That’s something that maybe I should do more of. But I know some people do that way too much leisure and recreation, that’s all they do. That’s all they’re about. Or people that cannot be entertained. They can’t have fun. They can’t go out and enjoy you know, a night on the town or people that that’s all they do. Maybe this one being engaged is about traditions and kind of the fun and enjoyment. We talked before about smiling and laughter and just good vibes and being able to live in the present, using your voice to defend yourself and other people. Any thoughts about being engaged? You know, living, being where you are?

Mike Spurgin (00:28:46):
Yeah. You know, this is something that I probably have a hard time with because I like to do 22 things at once. I like to have like during the day I work at home and most of what I do if I’m not working on a bike, so I’m not, I’m not hands on a bike. I’m hands on my computer because I’m doing parts or got something going down with that. But I’ll have 22 tabs going, which I’m clicking into. You know, what’s going on here, what changed there? I like, I like this constant flood of like newness on my phone. I’ll have like 22, I got Facebook, I’ve got Instagram clicking through. What you got your email paying that, Oh, I’ve got a sale thing, let’s check that out. And so I’m constantly seeking the newness, like the continual drip of newness. It’s somehow like, it’s feels to me like I’m, I’m immersed and like I love the thought of like refreshing.

Mike Spurgin (00:29:50):
Like I’m going to refresh this and see what change, change, change, change, change, new change, new change. That’s not really living in the moment as it, because I’m living in that future. I want the next moment. Like I want the next moment to be newer, better awesomer than this moment. And so that’s, that’s a deficiency on my part. It, it means that this moment isn’t good enough. I need the, I need the next one. I need the next one to be good. Or this one was good, this one is good, but I need the next, next moment to be good. Or, and that’s, that’s exposing to me, right? That’s exposing me as a bit. That’s, I’m weak there. So this one calls me out. This one hits me.

Brad Singletary (00:30:32):
I don’t know. I th I see you as one of those guys who’s very engaged in who you know. I’ve, I’ve seen you have conversations, you’ve talked about this on the show conversations. Even with me, we are writing things down as we’re talking, you’re, I think you’re working through some of that stuff. All these trips and things that you take to be able to have fun and ride down the stairs at a casino on your mountain bike during the quarantine. Like that’s, that’s an engaged guy. That’s a guy who’s tuned in and clicked in to be fixing these, these high level machines that you’re working with. I think you’re pretty good at being engaged. The next one is, and during a guy that I’m working with having some marital problems, he told me the other day, he texted me and said, I think this is it.

Brad Singletary (00:31:16):
This is the last straw. Whatever their fight was that DAS, no, it’s not the last straw. This, it ain’t over it. This is a fumble. You know, you throw an interception like this is like take a break a breath and get back on the field. This is, this is not over. So to be enduring means that you are never out of the fight. You make adjustments if necessary, but you’re going to persevere with some fortitude, some grit, and you, you know what’s ahead of you. You know what the outcomes are. They’re out in front of you have goals and you’re not losing sight of that that you’re pursuing. You’re just acquiring new tools. You’re trying to use whatever’s at your disposal to continue, and not only are you doing that for yourself, but you’re inspiring other people to endure. I just think endurance, that’s the guy who doesn’t quit and just continues even when it’s hard. That’s an alpha as an alpha. Yeah. So many times people want to hang it up and I’ve been that person before. I’ve quit things, quit people quit jobs. I’ve quit good habits that I had. I’ve plenty of times have not been that person, but as an attribute, that’s definitely as, as an action that an alpha takes. That’s it. And Durance not giving up.

Mike Spurgin (00:32:34):
I will Pat you on the back for that and I’ll give myself props too. I mean, I’ve got some deficiencies here in this, there’s few on these that I really need to, I need to put some effort and energy into. The one thing that I do feel good about is my ability to endure, take a bullet to step into a bear trap, have my leg chewed off and just keep going. Like I’ll just, I’ll just army crawl my way along until my limbs are all nothing. Then I’ll pull myself on the chin and you know what I mean? Like I just have this fire inside of me to, to live and to endure until like never. I remember being a young guy, I don’t know, high school or maybe a little bit later and reading, going, going through Winston Churchill speeches and just reading that.

Mike Spurgin (00:33:17):
I must have, you know what? I just spent a lot of time at thrift stores and I think what I did was in the book section, you just captivate me. And I think I got a couple of books of like, you know, Churchill speeches and some other great leaders and thought leaders like that. And I remember having a scratchy pencil, like a number two pencil and going through and just circling and underlining stuff because I thought that’s fricking, that’s nails. That’s how you do it. That’s how you live and that stuff just sunk in, sunk in deep and I do a lot of stuff bad and wrong and mediocre. There’s one thing though that I feel really solidly sort of like clicked into and that’s I’m going to endure. You’re going to have to murder me to get me to stop. You’ve got to kill me like you. You want me to not continue on. You have to kill me for that.

Brad Singletary (00:34:10):
Let me just say to you guys out there listening to this, you might be a badass but you’ll never be taco Mike in high school in the thrift store reading Winston Churchill speeches and probably he nod the pencil to where he could have a lead on the end of it and circling those things in the throat. You will never be that. That is just an image of an alpha right there. Maybe being in a thrift store, reading Winston Churchill, you’re in high school. That is a great dude. I’m so serious. Pulling up in front of their store in my Volkswagen bus, long hair, man. Those are good times. I peaked too soon, but it’s probably all dead. All right. An alpha is discerning. So we’re learning all the time, learning and discerning. You’re investing in your knowledge, but also you’re perceptive. So you’re maintaining realistic expectations.

Brad Singletary (00:35:07):
Your, your, your objective, your fair-minded, rational and your judgments. Fair in your judgments, both of yourself and other people. You have opinions and you can assertively express those opinions even if their own popular. You’re seeking worthy mentors and you need their wisdom. So discernment really to me helped me with that mic to definition. But the sermon to me means that you can see and you can read and you can perceive what is real. You can what is and you don’t let your feelings get in the way. You don’t let it opinions get in the way. You don’t let you know, other people’s tricks get in the way. But just that you can see and you’re gathering information. You’re learning, you’re in the thrift store as a young person reading with the church. That’s a discerning man if you asked me.

Mike Spurgin (00:36:03):
So I think discerning, I think you nailed it. I think the only thing I would add to discerning is using wisdom and experience to influence your perceptions. So we, we did a show where we talked about reacting emotionally and some of us instantly, we use our like emotional processing to make our decisions. Like our decisions are based. If I’m mad that all of my decisions are going to be very colored and influenced through that anger, like I’m going to make irrational decisions reactively because I’m mad and I’m not going to be able to calm myself down. I’m just going to like do things in that moment and say things in that moment that I’m just going to light fire to stuff. Cause this is how I feel. I feel mad right now. So that’s not exactly a definition of discerning but, but somebody who is discerning is able to look at themselves, look at other people, maybe somebody who’s discerned.

Mike Spurgin (00:37:07):
Here’s the, here’s the thought stream. I just got maybe somebody who’s discerning is with that person and then is able to look at that and say, you know they’re, they’re in a shit storm right now. Like I’m just getting, nor I’m gonna ignore what they’re saying cause it’s a throw away. They’re pissed. They’re out of their mind. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to give them a full pass. This moment right here, it’s going to be a write off. I’m going to write everything off that they’re saying. I don’t need to win this one. I don’t need to win this one. I’m going to let them just burn that out. Just go ahead man. You take it just spin, spin, spin. When you’re done you’ll have the ball bled out and then we’ll talk. We’ll have a second conversation.

Mike Spurgin (00:37:47):
We’ll have a conversation after this one cause it was a full ride off. So somebody who is discerning is able to sort of like judge with deep, authoritative like wisdom and kindness and fairness and character and then just decide like, is this, do I need to get involved in this is it says nothing is this, is this PR? You know, I’m not going to take this personally. Somebody who’s discerning is able to just weigh all of that out and then evaluate when they step in, when they step away. It’s just this great set. It’s a great word and it’s a great sense of, of how I am going to what am I going to spend my money on, my like, you know, mental and emotional money figuratively, is this worth my money? No, you keep it in my pocket. Yeah, totally sense. And an important

Brad Singletary (00:38:36):
Part of that, the last thing there is about mentors and kind of this, the idea of tribe. We’ve talked about this so much. You may have no idea what to do. You may be clouded by emotion and that’s when you run to your brothers. That’s when you run to your boys and you say, Hey, here’s, here’s the situation. Here’s the solution that I think I’m going to go with change. My mind helped me. Help me if I’m wrong, tell me if this is, tell me if this is the right way to approach this. So you need men to help you be discerning as well. They’ll give you, they’ll give you the truth. They don’t have any, they don’t have any reason to lie to you or be your cheerleader. The right ones will anyway. So that’s another way to be discerning, disciplined. Boy, this is one that I need to improve. But this is about living orderly. You know, things are, things are in order in your life. You know, what’s going on, your place, places in a complete wreck. You’re maintaining your stuff, you know, you know when the bills are due and even that, your appearance and so forth, it’s, you know, you’re taking care of things as they should be. Taking care of time, money, your environment, you know?

Mike Spurgin (00:39:41):
Mmm.

Brad Singletary (00:39:42):
You exercise some restraint. You don’t just go with whatever feels good, but you temper your passions and you temper your appetites and you organize yourself and your things.

Mike Spurgin (00:39:55):
It’s about discipline, alphas or discipline, would you say? Yeah, I’m not good at this. I mean, if you come to my garage, you’ll see that I’ve got piles on piles, my piles grow, piles. I’m just got more tools than everybody else, but I’m on disciplined with the way I like manage all that. So that’s, that’s kind of a ding. So I’d be a hypocrite if I added too much about this, but what I would say is that I seek to, to improve. So that’s something that I can, I can say with a little bit of well my head L highs, I seek to improve that. My wife is great at the concept of systems. My wife says, look, if if, if you’re failing out a thing, it’s probably because you don’t have a very good system of managing whatever the moving pieces are that’s involved.

Mike Spurgin (00:40:41):
You don’t have the head space, the time, the interest, the whatever, the skill, the talent to deal with that. And so you just, your problems, you lack a system, you have a good system. And so I think that being a disciplined alpha is somebody who puts in enough work to create enough systems to run the things that he doesn’t want to run or can’t run or shouldn’t run. Maybe his time’s better spent. You know, I shouldn’t be spending my time organizing the garage, but I could put a system in place where I don’t have to organize it. Because when I, when I had that thing in my hand, instead of just tossing it in the pile, I have a nice, I have a tool rack or whatever and a thing and, you know, just it’s a lack of systems or I just need to hire it out, sub it out. Right? So that’s one that I can put some effort into. Yeah. Processes.

Brad Singletary (00:41:34):
That’s the thing, I guess that helps you be disciplined. The last one here on the red, nine distinguished, and really to me, that means to be capable, dignified. You know, again, you’re always sharpening yourself. You’re, you’re, you’re just, you’re maintaining yourself in a way that can be respected, especially by the people that you respect. And that the way you carry yourself speech and everything else, it’s purposeful. So that doesn’t mean you never swear. It just means that you know exactly when to do it and exactly what not to do it. And you’re doing these things to, to help yourself and people around you level up. Thoughts about being distinguished and dignified Mike?

Mike Spurgin (00:42:18):
Yeah, I like to think about that as being respected, being respectable so that you can be respected. I’m not talking about in seeking approval now there’s, there’s kind of a fine line there. I think some guys walk around looking distinguished, acting distinguished and they’re looking for approval, right? They want to look above their station and that’s a slippery slope. It is. So I think what matters is if you are distinguished, look, it’s, I think you’ve, you’ve said it well here I am distinguished, I’m dignified and capable. I sharpen my intellect and develop my, my frameworks of understanding of the world. I think an alpha puts in the time puts in the work to become respected because he adds value to everything in his life. So I think a distinguished person, the mind, my, the way I see this and read this and would interpret this is an alpha is looking to add value to everybody in every situation and everything in his life he’s looking to serve.

Mike Spurgin (00:43:20):
There’s a, there’s a, so, so I work for myself. I’ve got, I’ve got a couple of businesses that I’ve started in the last six months or so and they seem to be doing okay. They seem to be doing well and I’ve put some stuff in place to make that happen based on a concept that was taught to me a couple of years ago when I listened to this guy Tony Litster. Good dude. I’ve read some stuff and listen to him and one of the things that stuck into my head was he said, if you want success, if you want business success, if you want financial success, if you want desire to achieve those things. And I do because I like those resources. To me, money is just a tool in my pocket. I want tools in my garage. Why wouldn’t I want tools in my pocket?

Mike Spurgin (00:44:11):
Why wouldn’t I want as many green little paper tools in my pocket as I get as I can, as I, as I earn, right? So he basically put into my head add value and people will hand you their money, just add, find something somewhere, some way and add value. And you will have people telling you, take my money because you’re adding this so much value to my life and value. You can define that in lots of ways, but I’m going to define it in the terms of being distinguished. I love it. And so if I have distinguished myself, to me being distinguished as like being unique, being a one off, right? Like the red flower around the white flower, that’s a distinguished visually that’s distinguishing itself. Like it’s different, it’s unique. So if I’m, if I’m a man of distinction, if I’m distinguished, I stand out from the rest and the guy who stands out or the business who stands out attracts the attention, attracts the customer, attracts the the way word guy, you know?

Mike Spurgin (00:45:19):
Maybe some, maybe a way. Also, you could apply this as like if you, and I know you do this, Brad personally, you seek an endeavor to help men and to be a support for men. And you’re distinguished in the way you do that by, by having this alpha quorum, by using resources and tools at your disposal in, in new and imaginative and clever ways. And so you’ve distinguished yourself from the crowd. There’s other guys, there’s other home is they could go out and, and see, but you’re, you’re distinguished in that way and so you’re adding value. And so people are probably gonna come to you and be attracted to you. So this particular one I like a lot. I think that an alpha works hard to distinguish himself as an alpha. He rises up, he looks different, and all of these other things fit into that. He looks different. He comports himself differently. He acts different, he’s distinguished, he’s distinguishable apart from the rest of the herd. The rest of the crowd, he’s the Buffalo in the, in the, in the herd who’s got the little, his shoulders are a little broader, his horns little longer, as little sharper. You know what I mean? Like he’s there in the herd, but there’s just something about that one. And that’s what an alpha is and that’s what an alpha seeks to do. That’s awesome.

Brad Singletary (00:46:41):
So we’ve talked a little bit about what is our basic message and where are we going to go from here? I’m interested in expanding the influence of this thing. We’ve been around for a couple years 11,000 downloads on our podcasts. I just think that we, we do have a unique message and that is that this is not about abs and you know, getting more women under your belt. This is about being a good man and the best man that you can be. And we just want to, you know, expand and broaden the reach. Talking about some get together as we’ve already Mike. Well, and this is Mike’s thing. Mike’s been doing this for years, man. Richmond, you’ll see things come through on their homey home evening, which is maybe you can explain that a little bit, but we’re going to have things like that. Some maybe annual events coming up. These are

Mike Spurgin (00:47:30):
More like quarterly. You’ve done a few times a year. We were under quarantine. Now we would have had one, but talk about man Richmond, right? Yeah, I think we’re going to miss two. We’ve already had one in February that we missed and then there would be one in June around father’s day. I’m not sure if that’s going to go down. So man Richmond was something that we started a couple of years ago and it’s basically just like a backyard DIY car show, gun show, you know, show and tell dude, show off table, bring your cool stuff, sit around, eat good food. We’ve always had like first class high level, you know, catering, good food. And one of the things that guys in my personal experience, if there’s a get together, if there’s dudes who get together, it’s around a sporting event, which is completely cool and legit and totally valid.

Mike Spurgin (00:48:17):
And so that’s a it’s a, it’s a fight or a basketball game or a playoff thing and that’s, that’s a thousand percent awesome. And I want guys to do that. There are I think many versions of a, of a, of a dude get together. And my, my personal version is cars and guns and motorcycles and you know, a table full of cool things that you have in your garage or that you want to show off. So for me, if I’m going to do it, if you’re going to come to my house and I’m going to feed you and we’re gonna have a Throwdown, that’s what it looks like. So these man enrichments, homey home evenings, that’s, that’s how we roll. That’s what we do. And we typically, we’ll do three a year, but this year it looks like it’s going to be stunted out.

Mike Spurgin (00:49:06):
Maybe just we’ll do the one in November. We do check Norris’s birthday in February, and then we do father’s day, the sun, the Saturday before the Sunday father’s day. And then we do the November one. But as Brad just mentioned, one of the things as we roll out of this whole coronavirus mass is putting together some of these events where we can get face to face with guys that we’re seeing on Facebook, guys that are listening, guys that we’re seeing in the comments and who want those, those chances to hang out. And so we were just talking about earlier coming and we would love to hear your ideas. So call email, text carrier pigeon, send us a of vine. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Get with us a Periscope. We’re retired out earlier. Tick tock, tick tock. Send us a tick tock.

Mike Spurgin (00:49:57):
Is that a thing? Send us a tick doc and share with us what you would imagine what some sort of like weekend a retreat, get together a shooting event off-roading, camping, something. We’re sort of open to all ideas and all suggestions. And so if you’ve got a vision in mind of something to get 20 or 30 dudes together and have a campfire, I mean, I was just telling you about the, we kind of did a version of that motorcycles last week. If there’s some thing, some, some some bro down that you have thought about or maybe you’ve done or maybe you’ve participated in and you’d like to see that happen. We’re open to those suggestions. So we’re laying out the blank piece of paper here before all of you homies saying, what would you like to see? How would you like to interact with each other and with us? And, and let’s, let’s get that going. Let’s get it going.

Brad Singletary (00:50:55):
So in general, you know, you’re listening to this right now because you’re interested, you’re listening. You may be, have followed us. Maybe you’ve just gotten tuned in to what we’re doing. But I hope you see that this is a little bit different than what you’ve heard before. What can you do to help? Listen to the show, share it, subscribe, leave a rating and review be engaged on the new Facebook group. If you’re not involved, it’s just facebook.com/groups/alphaquorum and that’s the private closed Facebook. Nobody will know that you’re on that page or he see what your comments are. You if you need to vent, awesome things about your wife, no one will see that unless they’re also in the group with us. So like, and comment on other people’s posts that kind of gives them a little bit of love back. Invite your friends to that, to that private group as well.

Brad Singletary (00:51:42):
What else can you do? I would say become alpha yourself and love on some dudes who can become that too. So many men are just, they’re failing because they don’t have the right kind of support. Maybe you’re already there, you’ve already reached some place of, you know, you’re feeling good about where you are. Find someone that you can lift up and do that. Also, we’d love your ideas about content, things for the show. If, you know, one of the things I wanted to do, and we started this a while back, but it just took time and I didn’t have that, but I want to highlight alphas, you know, the average alpha, the dad out there who’s taking his daughter to the dance and he’s dressed up in some weird costume and whatever. We did a thing for a while called fatherhood Friday. So if, you know, some just super cool alphas or some people who are really demonstrating the, the, the characteristics that we’re trying to teach, share them with us, tell us about them kind of behind the scenes offline.

Brad Singletary (00:52:37):
And we’d like to highlight those guys. Also the idea of a volunteers, you know, maybe you have some expertise with graphic design. I mean, pretty much for the last couple of years, all of our, all of our stuff has been created by me and it’s high level stuff, man. It’s pretty, it’s tough to do. I have six kids and I, and I own a business and I you know, doing this. So I’ve done the graphic design and the sound work and social media and all that stuff. So if you’re passionate about what we’re doing, you believe in what we’re doing, you see where this thing could, could go. We could use some, some assistance if you want to volunteer, if you have a special talent with anything creative or you’re a great writer or you can do things virtually. You know, we’ve had people here from Canada and Australia and England and all over the world, Taiwan.

Brad Singletary (00:53:28):
So if you, even if you live far away, feel free because there’s plenty we can put you to work doing. We just want to know that you would, you know, give it a fair shot and have some sort of commitment to it or have the time. I appreciate what you guys have a shared with us so far. I think this new Facebook group is going to really show us where we’re at and show us what the needs of men are out there. Any last thoughts here on kind of introduction to the Alpha Quorum? Mike?

Mike Spurgin (00:54:00):
I think that the alpha Quorum seeks to help out guys who are looking for brotherhood and fellowship. If you’re getting it somewhere and you feel fulfilled and it is working for you, then pour, pour more into that. Like we don’t want converts and we’re not starting anything to, to become converted to. So if you’ve got a good vehicle already tell in in fact, tell us about it. Tell us why you like it. Tell us what works. Cause cause we’re nothing more. Look, here’s, here’s kind of the way I see this. There’s a lot of groups out there you can jump into. There’s a lot of free stuff, pay stuff. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of gurus out there. There’s a lot of guys blowing a trumpet and saying follow me. And in a way I guess maybe that’s what we’re doing a little bit too.

Mike Spurgin (00:54:47):
All of those, they’re blowing a particular trumpet and making a particular music. And you, you either like it or you don’t. You hear it and it’s your song or it’s not, you resonate with it or you don’t. So you know, Mike and Brad, Brad and Mike and the guys who are along this little journey with us, we are who we are and you’re listening to us and either, you know, we chime the bell or we don’t. If we do, then the alpha karmas for you and the guys in it want to want to walk the road with you. If it’s not, that’s completely cool. Keep your eyes open and keep looking because there’s somebody out there and I think that every, every dude will do well. Whether that group men’s group is in his church or in his four H club or his BPOE group or foresters international, what are some of those other fraternal groups?

Mike Spurgin (00:55:38):
You know, the masons lodge, whatever, it doesn’t even matter. It’s the bowling league. It’s it’s homeys in your fantasy football team, like softball team. Who cares if you’ve got that and you’re plugged into that, stay exactly plugged into that cause you’re supporting them and they’re supporting you. We are doing what we’re doing because this is what I would want to create. Selfishly, I’m doing this for me. Everything that we do, everything that we’re sort of like throwing out there. I’m, I’m on board, Brad’s genius for starting this. I’m just lucky to be a part of it and I’m on board because this is exactly what I want and need for myself. And so if somebody jumps on the skateboard too and they say, I like where this is going, let’s go together. Good on them. Again, I just, I just want it for me, I’m just selfish and looking to make sure this is something that works for me and helps me.

Mike Spurgin (00:56:36):
So all of that to say thank you. Thank you for participating. Thank you for listening to this stuff. Thank you for giving us comments and giving us feedbacks and being on board. And the beauty of this really at the end of the day for me is one less guy spinning out, dropping out and, and closing out. Right? Too many of us are too. Many of us are flaming out. So if there’s only one guy, if this message, if this whole mission or whatever you call it, if we touch one guy and we pull one guy up the ladder, that’s good.

Brad Singletary (00:57:17):
You invented the term alpha up to bring us home with, what does it mean to alpha

Mike Spurgin (00:57:24):
Alpha up alpha up means to, whew, that’s a good one. You threw me there. I wasn’t right. Let’s both, let’s both give three sentences on that. You go first.

Brad Singletary (00:57:36):
So there’s a lot of criticism out there about the term man up, you know, because that, that there’s, you know, the, I don’t know, I guess maybe the feminists or certain people would, would say there’s, there’s some gender problem with saying man up or whatever. And I don’t know. It just some, one of the shows, Mike spontaneously kind of said it’s time to alpha up and it just kind of stuck. And I love that. I love that phrase. That’s, I even have it right here in my office as a little reminder to myself that that means I can be better. I can be brighter, I can grow, I can be more. Those are the red nine. Those attributes that we mentioned before, I can step up. I can be more, I can be better. I can change. That’s what it means. Damn for means I can change. I was supposed to say something after that.

Mike Spurgin (00:58:23):
To alpha up to me means taking full and complete responsibility, looking reality in the face and acknowledging that it’s sucks often. Life often sucks. Balls. It’s tough, it’s ugly, it’s bloody, it’s messy, it’s disgusting. Sometimes it’s hopeless. Sometimes it’s just a disaster and it seems like there is no way out and around that and the truth of the matter is is that’s all in my head. It’s none of those things it I perceive it to be those things, but it is absolutely none of those things. Life is all that I possess in my own power to to frame it and to believe that it is. So if I believe it’s those things, it will be those things and I’ll go down that road and receive those outcomes like that’s what will be served to me. That kind of outcome. What it means to me to alpha up is to believe differently and to and to towards a different reality.

Mike Spurgin (00:59:23):
Because to alpha to me means I’m going to live a life where I may step in shit, I’m going to clean it off and I’m going to ask you if you will help me get it out of the little grooves in the bottom of my shoes. Remember those nice shoes back in the day and they had the zigzag thing and we had a dog. This is a true story. He had a dog and I would step in that sometimes the Doug crap with those shoes and it was a bugger to get it out. And I felt very like, like I’d take a stick and I’d grind it out, but you would help me together. We’d get it all out and my perception of my own life would change because you’re with me and you’re fighting the same fight with me because today it’s on my shoe.

Mike Spurgin (01:00:00):
Tomorrow will be on yours. And so it’s all this circle and we’re helping each other through the whole journey and the whole process. And I believe an alpha believes differently. An alpha believes that he will achieve, he will overcome an alpha to alpha up means that I have to accept my reality but I am not going to stay in that reality. I have to accept it because to fight against it is fruitless and pointless. So I will accept where I am in this moment and then in the next moment I’m going to take a step in a different direction and I’m going to, I’m going to climb a ladder and I’m going to, I’m going to rely on you and you’re going to hell. You’re going to push me from behind and it’s going to be, and it’s probably going to be ugly because it’s going to be me slipping off steps of a ladder and you push on my ass on the bottom and I’m like, you got shit on your shoes and I got shit on my shoes. I’m probably sitting on your head and, and it’s probably going to look like a, like a comedy show, but we’re going up the steps, we’re climbing it together. And so that’s what alpha up means to me is to move forward and to want better and to believe better and to, and then eventually we’ll be better. That’s what it is.

Brad Singletary (01:01:11):
That’s what it is. All right, brothers, this is a, this is, this is a movement. This is not just a, this is not just a fun show. We’re trying to reach people. We’re trying to reach men who need men in their life, so get us connected. You connect with us and get those people connected. All we’re trying to do, we put in hundreds of hours, hundreds of dollars, lots of investment in our time and just mental energy. All we’re trying to do, like Mike said, is save the guy. Save one guy. We just want to meet one person where we can help him. All right brothers for this episode. Have a good night. Peace out. Hey, thanks for listening to another episode of the alpha corm show. You believe that men changed their lives by engaging with a tribe to improve their actions, attitudes, and attributes. You can check out the show notes on our website@alphakorum.com follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and please leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to our show. Hey, this is a podcast, not therapy. So even though we may feature professionals on the show, this is not intended as therapeutic advice. If you need someone to talk to, please reach out to us and we can get you pointed in the right direction. Until next time, gentlemen, alpha up,