099: SEND IT – 2022 Alpha Quorum Man of the Year David Scofield

099: SEND IT – 2022 Alpha Quorum Man of the Year David Scofield

099: SEND IT – 2022 Alpha Quorum Man of the Year David Scofield

Meet Sco, a man recognized as one who epitomizes the alpha way: living life with no excuses. He was honored for his attitude and his actions and his many alpha attributes. He’s a married father of two girls. He works as a welder. He’s a musician, a motorcycle enthusiast, an adventurer and a mechanic. He served in Afghanistan with the United States Air Force and has been a huge advocate for mental health care, especially for veterans and first responders. One of his projects this year included opening the Nevada chapter of Heroes on the Water, a nonprofit that gets veterans and first responders out on the water for fishing and boating adventures. He organized a classic car parade and car show for seniors in an assisted living facility, and has now arranged for men’s groups for these senior men.

 

He describes his views on spirituality, that the deepest part of us is all the same.  He recounts experiences fishing with his dad, how he got into his career, his parenting philosophy, how he does husbandry and why he is so committed to helping other people.  This dude is inspiring and demonstrates with his life the slogan “No Excuses. Alpha Up.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:20:19
Brad Singletary
This year, another man is recognized as one who epitomizes the alpha way, living with no excuses. He was nominated and then selected by a committee to be honored for his attitude and his actions and his many alpha attributes. He’s a married father of two girls. He works as a welder. He’s a musician. A motorcycle enthusiast an adventurer and mechanic.

00:00:20:26 – 00:00:45:19
Brad Singletary
He served in Afghanistan with the United States Air Force and has been a huge advocate for mental health care, especially for veterans and first responders. One of his projects this year included opening the Nevada chapter of Heroes on the Water, a nonprofit who gets veterans and first responders out on the water for fishing and boating adventures. He organized a classic car parade and car show for seniors in an assisted living facility.

00:00:45:24 – 00:01:05:16
Brad Singletary
He was also very instrumental in many improvements made in the hours of quorum, a worldwide men’s organization that now gives him this honor. Gentlemen, I present to you the 2022 Alpha Core, a Man of the Year, David Schofield.

00:01:10:10 – 00:01:33:12
Intro
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 core.

00:01:36:26 – 00:02:10:23
Brad Singletary
Welcome back to the Alpha Quorum Show Brad Singletary here. It’s been a little while. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. And I couldn’t be more excited than I am tonight to be here with my friend who is the Alpha Quorum’s 2022, Man of the year. This man was nominated and selected by a committee to represent what it is that we teach in the Alpha Quorum, which is responsibility, resourcefulness, reverence, energy, engagement, endurance, discipline, discernment and distinction.

00:02:11:13 – 00:02:39:12
Brad Singletary
And this is a guy that I’ve known for a while, and as I put together some of the stuff that I’m going to include later in the show, I’ll just going to kind of drop it in. I had no idea what a bad ass this guy is until I heard from his wife, his parents, two sets of parents, parents and step parents and learned about some of the things that he’s done over the past year.

00:02:39:28 – 00:02:53:06
Brad Singletary
Some of those I knew about, but gosh, is going to choke me up to think about some of these things that he’s done. So, gentlemen, I just want to welcome David Schofield. Thanks, Brad, and welcome.

00:02:53:11 – 00:03:05:24
David Scofield
Thank you. I appreciate it. And it’s is it’s surreal to be on the same list of some of my own mentors that I don’t know. It’s an it’s unreal to me.

00:03:06:26 – 00:03:32:02
Brad Singletary
Yeah. There’s you know, we just want to I think something that’s missing in the world is the recognition of dudes that are doing great things. So that’s that’s part of why this whole thing exists. That’s why we do in June, we do a father of the year at the end of the year. I always know when when it’s when they’re talking about the Heisman Trophy so early December is when, you know, that’s when it’s time to to start putting this together for the man of the year.

00:03:32:18 – 00:03:56:18
Brad Singletary
And you’re exactly one of those kind of dudes. And I just have to say, while we were trying to set this appointment up tonight to record, Dave here just got back. He was out of town for a while with for the holidays. Visiting family, drove hours and hours with his very young children and wonderful. He mentioned on his Facebook he had to stop every 20 minutes.

00:03:57:02 – 00:04:14:08
Brad Singletary
But then he had a buddy coming over that he’s going to take care of is one of his pets before he you know, deploys overseas or something. And still he was here 5 minutes early. And, you know, I was kind of thinking I I’m watching the clock thinking, you know, I wouldn’t be too mad if he if he canceled tonight.

00:04:14:08 – 00:04:32:02
Brad Singletary
I could I could just go home and call it a night. But here he is, right on time, right on the money, just like everybody said that you are reliable and that you do anything to help. And so part of this man is to honor you even further, to hear more about you. We’ve we’ve learned about you from your parents on this video that we’ll kind of clip in here.

00:04:32:02 – 00:04:36:29
Brad Singletary
But we want to hear some things from you yourself. So, first of all, how old are you?

00:04:37:28 – 00:04:42:08
David Scofield
I’m 30. I turned 34 in February. Okay. Thank.

00:04:43:04 – 00:04:48:06
Brad Singletary
So 34. So pretty young guy. Married two daughters who are. How old are.

00:04:48:06 – 00:04:52:11
David Scofield
They? My daughters are almost two and just turned four.

00:04:54:11 – 00:05:14:22
Brad Singletary
This guy, I can’t remember what pictures we included in the video, but he is a very you’re a very involved dad. So you’re you’re not one of these dudes who’s just, you know, paying the bills and kind of leaving it up to others. You’re doing a lot of parenting. You’re doing a lot of fun things with them. Probably my favorite picture of you is with Jade.

00:05:15:03 – 00:05:31:22
Brad Singletary
I think she’s up under your truck or Ensign, and she was like, helping you in the garage. Like all up in there. You know, And you’re you’re kind of leading her through that. And and, of course, you know, sometimes they may not be the best job hands, but but you’re you’re having a moment there. You’re teaching them the little things.

00:05:31:22 – 00:05:36:12
Brad Singletary
And that was that was pretty awesome to see. You talk about your your your role as a dad.

00:05:37:00 – 00:05:48:26
David Scofield
Well, my main my main role or my main goal with two daughters is to, uh, I want I want them to be able to change their boyfriends. You know, boyfriends, oil and his car when I do that, because.

00:05:49:02 – 00:05:50:02
Brad Singletary
That’s that’s like.

00:05:51:04 – 00:06:06:07
David Scofield
The state of things right now. I don’t know. That might be the case, but, um, no, I just, uh, I think it’s super important to be involved in, in my kid’s life to have fun with them and do fun stuff with them. I don’t know. Teach them.

00:06:07:14 – 00:06:17:21
Brad Singletary
Yeah, man. So you’re in the silly, you know, Halloween costumes. You’re. I swear, I’ve seen you dress up like, I don’t know whether one of them was a princess or you were you.

00:06:17:21 – 00:06:18:05
David Scofield
You guys.

00:06:19:01 – 00:06:40:07
Brad Singletary
You had these, like, jeans, shorts, jorts like overalls and kind of dress up. Kind of similar to your daughter out in LA. That looked like a big family barbecue or something. But you’re just involved. You’re engaged. That’s one of the one of our Red nine principles is engagement that you just participate with good vibes, You participate with good vibes.

00:06:40:07 – 00:06:44:04
Brad Singletary
I mean, that’s everything that I’ve seen and known about with you and your kids. That’s what you’re doing.

00:06:44:26 – 00:07:12:14
David Scofield
Right? Um, I think so. I appreciate that. It’s, it’s, it’s definitely, it takes a lot of effort to to do that, but it’s so, it’s so worth it. Just spending it spending the time with kids and with my kids and being able to have fun with them and and teach them lessons through experience in life is I think it’s insanely valuable for them.

00:07:12:14 – 00:07:18:09
David Scofield
And then for me, it helps me a lot. I learn a lot from hanging out with kids, from hanging out with my kids.

00:07:19:20 – 00:07:27:03
Brad Singletary
Yeah, they teach you about life. Maybe they teach you about just a fresh perspective, but they probably teach you about yourself.

00:07:27:03 – 00:07:56:13
David Scofield
To teach me a lot about myself. I learn. I get to learn, uh, how. How frustrated I can get at the pettiest shit sometimes. And they’re a real vehicle for me to better myself when I can. I can kind of spot that kind of stuff in my self frustration, you know, and little things and being able to notice that in myself and kind of spread it throughout the rest of my life.

00:07:58:06 – 00:08:08:22
Brad Singletary
You talk about frustration. One of your buddies on there, I forget his name, but he said he’s known you pretty much your whole life and he’s never seen you in a bad mood. Is that true?

00:08:08:28 – 00:08:13:06
David Scofield
I don’t know about that. Maybe when I’m around my friends, I’m not really a bad man.

00:08:13:06 – 00:08:29:26
Brad Singletary
That’s why it’s always a good time. Some. You got a beer in your hand or something? Cause going to have some fun. What about with your kids? I mean, they. They see you’re frustrated. And if you ever do become, you know, angry, irritated or frustrated, what do you do after that?

00:08:29:28 – 00:09:02:26
David Scofield
Well, I think it’s I think it’s important to let them see me have emotion and then, um, correct it and go, you know, I don’t know how many times I’ve apologized to a four year old for being frustrated and, you know, hey, sorry I was frustrated at this. You know, I think it’s important for them to learn that it’s okay to to be pissed off, to be frustrated and sad and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:09:02:26 – 00:09:19:28
David Scofield
And through them, seeing me frustrated, that doesn’t give me an excuse to be frustrated right. But through them seeing that and then trying to trying to fix it, I think they can they can learn that having those feelings is fine and then they get to process them afterwards.

00:09:20:16 – 00:09:41:02
Brad Singletary
Oh, I love that so much, man. One of my one of our common heroes and mentors is Taco Mike SPURGEON. And that’s something that he taught me. Use whatever emotion you have. You feel what you feel, and you know, you got to keep yourself, you know, restrained to some degree, but it’s okay to feel things exactly like you’re saying.

00:09:42:01 – 00:10:02:07
Brad Singletary
I believe the same thing. I’ve never been one to, you know, take a fight with my wife that we can only do this in the bedroom. They can never hear us argue. I want them to see us have some issue. There’s some flare ups here and there. And I want to see us hug at the end that you can feel what you feel.

00:10:03:08 – 00:10:29:01
Brad Singletary
And it doesn’t have to be destructive. And you can take responsibility for it and be accountable and apologize if necessary. That I think that’s very healthy versus a lot of men stone cold, you know, stay away from emotion or they’ve bottled it up for so long that they really do have, you know, explosive situations. And then it’s almost they’ve never seen you get angry until you really lost it.

00:10:29:25 – 00:10:34:07
Brad Singletary
So some regular feelings as human. That’s normal.

00:10:34:16 – 00:10:34:28
David Scofield
Yeah.

00:10:36:19 – 00:10:44:05
Brad Singletary
So there were some exciting things in there just with your, like, hobbies. You’re a you’re a fisherman.

00:10:44:24 – 00:10:45:07
David Scofield
Love it.

00:10:45:10 – 00:10:49:28
Brad Singletary
How did you how did you start with that? Because I see your teaching. Your girls, even, you know, they were out there fishing with you.

00:10:50:05 – 00:11:23:16
David Scofield
Um, my dad, my biological dad, he. He’s been into it forever. So my first memories of fishing were, you know, with him going out, we would go. We’d go to, like, trout ponds, um, where they stocked a ton of trout and I knew, like, pay per trout that you catch. Like, it’s not really fishing. It was just let’s go catch some fish doing that and then going out on barges and doing deep sea stuff with them.

00:11:24:15 – 00:11:43:26
David Scofield
It really fizzled out a lot, you know, through life. But it’s it’s something that I’ve come back to and it’s it’s a thing that I can I can really find some peace in, you know, I can recenter myself after just kind of living in this crazy ass world and going through the meat grinder every day.

00:11:44:15 – 00:12:01:21
Brad Singletary
Yeah. It seems like some of the value of that stuff is not just if you catch fish or not, but it’s the opportunity to get away, Get out in nature. There’s some solitude. Maybe. I don’t know if you’re most of the time by yourself or you know you’re off by yourself. Even if you’re with someone, you have some quiet.

00:12:02:05 – 00:12:22:28
Brad Singletary
You’re just kind of connecting with the earth. And I mean, that’s that seems like some of the coolest parts of that. I grew up we were commercial fishermen. We had a crabbing business down in Florida, so we fished a lot of different kinds of things. But I lost the appreciation for that, I think because it was work, it was how our family fed ourselves and stuff.

00:12:22:28 – 00:12:28:04
Brad Singletary
And this seems like you’ve gone back to some of your roots with that as a way to find enjoyment.

00:12:28:19 – 00:12:55:27
David Scofield
Right? Yeah, It’s, uh, it lets me it really provides something for me to slow my mind down and focus on something else other than all the things you know, We just have so many stressors and all kinds of shit you got to worry about. That’s a bunch of stuff that’s in the future, and it’s something that that keeps me in the now and lets me focus on exactly what I’m doing.

00:12:56:12 – 00:13:15:12
David Scofield
Kind of hang out. Some fishing is more intense than others. You know, some stuff’s pretty, you know, like tournament fishing gets pretty wild and you’re really focused in on the day and then you’ve got some days you just kind of bait and wait and sit down and drink a couple drinks, you know, whatever those may be and hang out.

00:13:15:12 – 00:13:17:28
David Scofield
And that’s they’re both just as valuable.

00:13:18:17 – 00:13:29:04
Brad Singletary
What’s been your most meaningful, like fishing experience? Was it a tournament, something with your dad? I mean, you probably have so many, but talk about some that were just super cool for you.

00:13:30:19 – 00:14:03:29
David Scofield
Yeah, anytime I’ve I’ve gone out and gone out with my dad has been real cool. There’s one fairly recently, maybe a year or two ago, we went, we went out and we did some deep sea fishing. We did a, we did a 24 hour trip as a as a one day. And we went out. Newport went out to San Clemente Island to try to go get some try, go get some Bluefin, some yellowtail stuff like that.

00:14:04:16 – 00:14:31:13
David Scofield
And I was able to was me, my dad, my father in law and one of my brother in laws through marriage. But it was real cool because we got to go we got to hang out with each other and and be around each other. And most of us, my dad, I think in that video he said, I’ll let you catch some biggest fish next time.

00:14:33:04 – 00:14:55:06
David Scofield
He caught a he caught a fish that time and the rest of us did not. So I don’t know. I think it’s cool that we were able to go. We were able to hang out and we I mean, we sailed together for the most part, you know, like it was it was kind of a bust as far as catching goes.

00:14:55:20 – 00:15:05:00
David Scofield
But it was a good time to be around each other. Road trip with my father in law and a brother of mine. And, uh, go hang out with Dad. And I don’t know.

00:15:05:11 – 00:15:25:04
Brad Singletary
We talked so much about adventure and the need for men to just get out, have some kind of all day or multi-day adventure. Sounds like this was. That was exactly one of those kinds of things for you. What other what other cool adventures have you been on in your life, man? You these pictures and these video, the pictures in the video are just show a lot of fun stuff.

00:15:25:04 – 00:15:25:27
Brad Singletary
You done, man?

00:15:26:15 – 00:15:55:26
David Scofield
Yeah, I’m I’m a I’m a sucker for the, you know, the kind of adrenaline coursing through my veins. It doesn’t really present itself like that while you’re in it. And most of the time it just I think it’s just, uh, I really like that focus that you get that zones everything in your life out, and you just can focus on exactly what you’re doing.

00:15:55:26 – 00:16:11:18
David Scofield
And I’ve found that through several things. Yeah. Um, we’ve got some pictures up of highlighting that was, that was a big part of my life for a few years. Um.

00:16:11:28 – 00:16:18:22
Brad Singletary
Describe what that is. I know just from looking at the pictures, but for these guys on the, in the, in the audience, not knowing what highlighting is.

00:16:20:16 – 00:16:47:03
David Scofield
Basically basically the easiest way to explain it would be it’s almost like a tightrope between cliffs you go, you go up there, hike up, climb, do whatever, get to ends of a canyon and rig up a bunch of ropes and webbing and and walk across, walk back and forth.

00:16:47:13 – 00:16:52:24
Brad Singletary
Oh, that’s crazy. So this this line is how wide is the line? Um.

00:16:53:06 – 00:16:56:27
David Scofield
Usually it’s one inch thick when you’re just one inch wide. Yeah, one.

00:16:56:27 – 00:17:02:11
Brad Singletary
Inch. So that’s like the size of a ruler, right? That’s the thickness.

00:17:02:11 – 00:17:12:19
David Scofield
Of a Yeah, it’s fun. It’s a good time. Yeah. We had a lot of crazy adventures doing that. Um.

00:17:13:19 – 00:17:20:26
Brad Singletary
You have, like, a harness or. You’re right, there’s a little something around your foot. Or how do you know you’re not going to plummet to your death at the bottom?

00:17:21:09 – 00:17:47:11
David Scofield
Like, mentally, you know that that’s most likely not going to happen. Um, yeah. You have a harness. You’re wearing, like a climbing harness and a rope that goes from reclining harness to, like, a a ring that goes around the webbing that you’re walking on normally trails behind you. And if you fall, it’s, uh, it’s a scary moment, but it’s.

00:17:47:12 – 00:17:49:12
David Scofield
It’s pretty exhilarating. It’s fun.

00:17:50:19 – 00:17:52:29
Brad Singletary
No way, dude. That’s the stuff of nightmares. I mean.

00:17:53:16 – 00:17:55:17
David Scofield
Yeah. No, it’s good. I don’t know.

00:17:56:25 – 00:18:02:22
Brad Singletary
So do you stop that? Or how come you’re still doing it? Or when? When did you hang that up?

00:18:02:22 – 00:18:28:05
David Scofield
I stopped doing that. Um, it’s been a few years since I’ve been on a high line. That was. I don’t know, I kind of. I’m kind of a hobby hopper. Um, I got into it. I kind of. I You hit or I hit like, a like a climax. Like a like a high point in learning where I’m learning fast, learning fast.

00:18:28:05 – 00:19:10:12
David Scofield
Like just exponential growth. And then you hit a point where it’s where I would hit a point where where something gets a lot more difficult to progress. And the and then that’s when I find like, okay, well, maybe there’s something else I can progress in a lot. I like to learn a lot about things. So when I get to a point where I know obviously I don’t know everything about it, but I get to a point where something becomes just exponentially harder, way more difficult, I get more joy out of learning something new.

00:19:11:02 – 00:19:27:10
Brad Singletary
Yeah. So you kind of mastered the the basics or the intermediate level stuff and then you’re on to the next hobby, right? Hop on the next kind of fun, fun thing to do. And you’ve, you’ve had a number of those. So your work talk about your work like you’re a welder.

00:19:27:20 – 00:19:28:04
David Scofield
Right?

00:19:28:04 – 00:19:48:04
Brad Singletary
And how did you get into that stuff? I think that’s fascinating. I we were talking earlier about my son. My oldest son is kind of pursuing that in school right now and just loves it. It’s just so manly. I mean, maybe they’re women welders, too, of course. But, you know, you’re you’re putting pieces of steel together and steel or iron.

00:19:48:04 – 00:20:24:28
David Scofield
Steel. Steel. Yeah. So I got into welding. I was working over at Circus Circus. I was in the Adventure Dome, working on maintaining the rides. So climb and roller coasters and, you know, just working on the rides, doing preventative maintenance stuff, doing tear downs and rebuilds and all that kind of stuff. And I liked I just liked the idea of, you know, there was guys there that were welding and I liked the idea of of getting up on a on a track or welding.

00:20:24:28 – 00:21:03:16
David Scofield
You know, I just liked what they were doing and it was something that I could learn. And it’s back to that, you know, learning process. I like to learn new stuff. So that’s really that’s where it started. It started there and I had a lot of help there, a lot of guys. I really knew what they were doing and I would spend time before or after work and just well, and I was lucky enough to have the guys there to, you know, give me some pointers here and there and kind of teach me did some welding there and then and then found a job and got lucky, you know, lucky finding a real good job

00:21:03:16 – 00:21:03:28
David Scofield
for it.

00:21:04:22 – 00:21:21:25
Brad Singletary
Do you think this is your, you know, career home? Is this, you know, really solid and stable? You’re do you enjoy it enough that you think you’ll continue this throughout your life or you’re going to get on a new hobby? What did you call it? Hobby hopping, you know, in a new type of career was hard to know.

00:21:21:25 – 00:21:56:14
David Scofield
So I’ve battled for a long time like, what am I what do I want to do for the rest of my life? Or, you know, like choosing a career for me was always a very difficult thing. And when I finally found welding, I was a late twenties. Um, I was maybe 30 years old when I started welding. Uh, no, I was late twenties Anyways, um, that kind of drew me in to what would be okay for a career.

00:21:57:04 – 00:22:32:01
David Scofield
Um, I feel like anything most things, you know, there’s like, uh, there’s kind of this pipe dream. I think that a lot of people have, including myself, that, you know, you find something and you just dedicate yourself to it and it’s going to work out and it can be your career. And that works out for some people. But for the majority of us, we got to find something, You know, like I enjoy welding, I like welding.

00:22:32:24 – 00:22:40:14
David Scofield
But if I, if I won the lottery, I’m not going to go to work tomorrow. You know.

00:22:40:15 – 00:22:42:03
Brad Singletary
I’m married to welding forever.

00:22:42:08 – 00:23:05:24
David Scofield
Right? But I’ve found my I found my place in it. It’s something that I do enjoy doing and I don’t I don’t hate going to work, you know, I enjoy it a lot of the time. And it’s honestly, it comes down to it does it? It takes care of it takes care of the family. Takes care of it.

00:23:06:00 – 00:23:25:22
David Scofield
It’s got us our house. It’s got us cool stuff for the kids. Um, and, you know, it provides in that way. And really the way I look at it is just it’s just, it’s what I do in the mornings. I work from 6 to 2, Monday to Friday, and, uh, you know, that’s what I do in the mornings.

00:23:25:22 – 00:23:28:27
David Scofield
The rest of my life is, is, is more. So my it’s.

00:23:28:27 – 00:23:29:28
Brad Singletary
The real work and it’s.

00:23:29:28 – 00:23:32:03
David Scofield
The real world. That’s, yeah, that’s the real stuff.

00:23:32:03 – 00:24:10:28
Brad Singletary
I’m yeah, that’s how I feel, man. Work is just what I do to get away from my real job, which is being at home and being a dad. And this is kind of my fun work is fun for me. So, so I’m curious about your spirituality because when I look at this video and I hear the things that people say about you, it just seems like you have you know, he’s walking around helping people and spending every opportunity that you can to to bring love and, you know, bring light to people’s life, to bring some kind of, you know, assistance or help, something that we didn’t get in the video.

00:24:11:21 – 00:24:38:28
Brad Singletary
There was a guy that Scott and I both knew who was a retiree. You know, he basically lives alone. Um, divorced and lives alone kind of retirement age and, and is often maybe down. And Schofield here invited him fishing and he just picked this whole guy up and they went out and fished. And I don’t know whether or not you caught any fish, but man, that kind of thing.

00:24:39:19 – 00:25:04:29
Brad Singletary
That’s something that this dude still talks about as a very meaningful experience in like his whole life. So anyway, spirituality, because I think that’s obviously very different from from religion. Some people use religion for spirituality, but what is your sense of like the inner world of like purpose or just I’ll just let you take it from there? How do you see spirituality.

00:25:05:11 – 00:25:42:00
David Scofield
Spirituality So for me, this is something that I’ve I’ve learned a lot this year, specifically, Um, I’ve always, I’ve always so I grew up in, in religion and, um, there’s there are, there are definitely parts of it that made sense to me, Um, yeah, being kind of people, you know, being cool with other people, helping each other out, that kind of stuff.

00:25:43:00 – 00:26:15:07
David Scofield
And then it gets into weird rules and, and some, you know, some crazy stuff that just didn’t make sense to me. And that’s where, where religion loses me. Um, but I, I kept that, uh, I try to keep that base of just kindness and love with in day to day life. And sometimes it doesn’t show up every single day, right?

00:26:15:07 – 00:26:57:24
David Scofield
But it, uh, I try to make it or I try to have it show up on a fairly regular basis. Um, let’s see. So one of the big things I learned this year, it was actually kind of a crazy, kind of a crazy thing. I so I came to the group Facebook page and I brought up, um, I brought up a trouble that I’ve had for a long time with, um, with self, like, how do you love yourself?

00:26:59:08 – 00:27:18:09
David Scofield
And went into this thing about it and, you know, I just, I have trouble like loving myself. I always see all the things that I could be doing better, you know? You see, I really all those things stick out to me. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done or how good I’ve done. You can always do better. Always. Forever.

00:27:18:10 – 00:27:49:19
David Scofield
Right. Um, so I have those were kind of my focuses and I have, I don’t know, I had a lot of really bad kind of self-talk about stuff like that and, and just needing to do better, wanting to do better. And anyways, I brought that to the group on Facebook and somebody, somebody mentioned a book and they stated that the author was Eckhart Totally.

00:27:50:27 – 00:28:26:12
David Scofield
But looking for the book under Eckhart totally didn’t come up. He accidentally put Eckhart Totally. Long story short, I’m in a I got into a kind of a rabbit hole of Eckhart Totally. And through listening. So Eckhart totally is a spiritual leader. He’s a spiritual teacher. He’s really, really cool. He takes he takes things from a bunch of different religions and brings them all together.

00:28:26:13 – 00:29:14:21
David Scofield
Um, he calls he calls a lot of it signposting, like, uh, like religions or signposting. They’re all kind of pointing in the same direction, but teaching it a little bit different and whatnot. So he uses a lot of the, the teachings from like Christ or Buddha or what have you, um, but the, the, the big thing, spirituality wise, that has all kind of come full circle and is really hit home for me this year in particular, is that we are he uses he uses the word human being as two words.

00:29:14:21 – 00:30:09:06
David Scofield
We have our human side and we have our we have our being. And our human side is our, our that’s that’s the side that’s programed. That’s, you know, from from birth til this very moment, you’re you’re learning. You’re almost like a computer learning through your life experience. Um, and that being is when you can separate that and you can, if you can sit and you can shut that off and just be if you just sit and experience everything that’s around you, um, kind of without sense, like, without touching or smelling, you, you just experience the world around you and appreciate it.

00:30:10:01 – 00:31:08:17
David Scofield
Um, that’s being, that’s, and obviously this spiritual teacher does a lot better job talking about that than me. But, uh, in that being and that’s, that being is, is in everything that’s in all of life, um, so with that said, so I have that you have that you know, our kids have that the uh, the, I don’t know all that everybody in the world that’s driving us all crazy or, you know, like whatever it is, they all have that same being, um, so really, the way I see it is, is what I’ve learned is that we are all we’re all the same brain.

00:31:08:19 – 00:31:38:24
David Scofield
We’re all, we’re all the same thing, just kind of programed differently. And I guess that’s, that’s a big thing that I’ve, that I’ve come to learn about my spirituality, that kindness and, and grace and and love can be extended to everyone and everything because it’s all we’re all I don’t know. We’re all the same.

00:31:39:18 – 00:31:55:21
Brad Singletary
How is that different from what you thought before or how was that a new I? It makes me want to I’ve seen and read some of his stuff, but I want to go learn more. I love what I have learned from him and watch some videos except he talks so slow. I had to turn it on like 1.5 or two to x, you know?

00:31:55:21 – 00:32:09:24
Brad Singletary
But how is that different? What? What was novel or new about that philosophy, about being and how we’re all the same kind of similar beings?

00:32:09:24 – 00:32:24:04
David Scofield
I guess in my past it’s been, um, it’s been separate. It’s been separated like we.

00:32:26:15 – 00:32:36:15
Brad Singletary
Separated, like based on your accomplishments or whether or not you were keeping the rules or your, the worth of your being was dictated on some other thing or.

00:32:36:17 – 00:33:02:16
David Scofield
Right. And yeah, in a lot of religion there’s like, are you worthy or, you know, worthy. Worthy of what? And what are the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. I don’t, it’s, yeah, that, that kind of stuff separated everybody. And then a lot of religions too. I’ve learned about a lot of them.

00:33:05:02 – 00:33:29:11
David Scofield
And in most cases it’s, you know, like, well, this is the this is the correct this is the right religion or the true religion or the this is the right God or, you know, all this other stuff is nonsense. And it’s not that’s not really the case. That’s all. To me, all of those things exist because we believe they exist.

00:33:29:11 – 00:33:51:05
David Scofield
They we think somebody thinks they exist. Therefore they do, because they’re not it’s not a tangible thing, but of a mass number of people are thinking of it or or believe in it or then then it’s there. You know, you can’t deny that. So it’s there for them. That’s very real. Yeah.

00:33:51:19 – 00:34:05:12
Brad Singletary
So I don’t know you saying that you learned a lot of this this year, but you weren’t seeking it, so you first had a question. So I love a whole lot about what you’re saying. You know, you kind of had some questions about what was it your asking about in the Facebook group?

00:34:05:12 – 00:34:07:02
David Scofield
It was it was self love.

00:34:07:02 – 00:34:09:19
Brad Singletary
Okay, How do I learn to love myself?

00:34:09:19 – 00:34:10:27
David Scofield
Yeah. Yeah.

00:34:10:29 – 00:34:12:27
Brad Singletary
So somebody turn you on to a book.

00:34:13:16 – 00:34:17:15
David Scofield
Totally by accident. Yeah, it was. It was a different book by a different author.

00:34:17:28 – 00:34:21:08
Brad Singletary
And I found it through the search of the wrong thing.

00:34:21:08 – 00:34:28:19
David Scofield
I found Eckhart totally. Okay. Yeah. Um, because that’s the author that he put out. Okay.

00:34:29:08 – 00:34:49:17
Brad Singletary
And so here’s I love about that. You have a question, So you’re wondering about being a better man. You’re wondering about how to love and appreciate yourself more, respect yourself more, whatever that was. And then you ask for some help. So resourcefulness is part of the man. That’s part of what you talk about. You always loved to learn.

00:34:49:17 – 00:35:05:24
Brad Singletary
You always want to be growing. You always want to learn new things. So then you ask other people, this Facebook group, you know, 15 or 1600 men from all over the world. And so you just throw it out there, Hey, how do I learn love myself more? So something along those lines, pretty much.

00:35:05:24 – 00:35:19:23
David Scofield
It was I mean, it was more drawn out than that. And and I’m a lot better I’m a lot better at writing something out. I can articulate what I’m trying to say better. But yeah, it was basically along those lines.

00:35:19:23 – 00:35:42:28
Brad Singletary
You threw it out there and but you’re seeking like the wisdom that other men might share. Some probably had all kinds of different ideas and thoughts, but that itself is bad ass that you’re asking for insight. Give me some wisdom to lead me to something of some understanding. You found this other stuff by accident. You go, you said devouring it or you were, you know, you spent a lot of time learning about his teachings.

00:35:43:05 – 00:35:43:19
David Scofield
Right.

00:35:43:24 – 00:36:00:17
Brad Singletary
And that’s changed you. And then what has how has that changed you since then? So I want to talk about some of the and things that you’ve done this year. But how does that make you see things differently just walking around in the world on a day to day basis?

00:36:00:17 – 00:36:35:14
David Scofield
I appreciate and I truly love all it’s hard to say, but it’s true. I love everything. You know, that’s that’s going on. I appreciate, you know, people experiences time that people put into stuff just there’s so much that goes into every single little thing that’s like in your life, every moment of your day. There’s so much shit that goes into that just aligns for that moment to happen.

00:36:36:02 – 00:37:19:25
David Scofield
And, and I, I try. It’s helped me try to appreciate every moment that I can. It’s helped me a lot with, with, with judgment of other people. I’ve always tried. No, maybe not always. I’ve tried to better myself with judgment of others and of myself. But, you know, when when I can look at everybody as, I mean, weird as the same thing, you know, the same we’re the same thing.

00:37:19:25 – 00:37:24:21
David Scofield
I can truly believe that. Everyone’s just they’re just doing their best. Could they do better? Hell, yeah.

00:37:25:20 – 00:37:45:01
Brad Singletary
So on the human part of that thing, you’re saying the human thing is like you’re tall and thin and I’m short and chubby, but our being is the same. So we have different we have these distinct differences in our human side. But the being that, you know, this whatever exists in us is the same is the same thing.

00:37:45:01 – 00:37:47:12
Brad Singletary
And maybe that’s a spiritual part or whatever.

00:37:47:12 – 00:38:21:13
David Scofield
Definitely it is. Yeah. And the human side is isn’t just physical. It’s it’s our thoughts. It’s our, um, it’s our thoughts and it’s our actions. It’s the things that we do. It’s how we get through life. Like, I mean, you’re a, you know, a lot of people have coping mechanisms that they have started when they were young and they don’t even know that they exist until they sit down with someone like you and kind of break things apart and and learn, Oh, I do this because of that.

00:38:21:13 – 00:38:28:21
David Scofield
Or I think this way, because of this experience or this number of experiences in my life. That’s our that’s our human side.

00:38:29:00 – 00:38:38:26
Brad Singletary
So the human part is whatever is unique to us individually, the beings side is what’s not unique. It’s we’re all we all have this common commonality.

00:38:38:29 – 00:38:52:02
David Scofield
Yeah, it’s it’s consciousness is what you know, Eckhart would Describe it as. It’s just it’s this consciousness that everything has just this existence.

00:38:53:19 – 00:39:20:29
Brad Singletary
Yeah, that’s great stuff. I love one of his quotes. Something about whatever the universe brings to you at any given time is exactly what is necessary for the evolution of your consciousness. Like whatever bullshit you run into, it’s good. It’s you need that. This is something meaningful for you. Take it and use it. And and of course, he’s much more like poetic about it all.

00:39:20:29 – 00:39:30:10
Brad Singletary
But I love that stuff, man. So you were talking about Grace a little bit. What are you. What are you talking about with talk about the concept of, like grace.

00:39:30:10 – 00:39:54:19
David Scofield
And so we go going with that. So like, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll look at my kids when they’re doing something wrong or, you know, they’re upsetting me and I don’t I don’t think of I don’t think less of them because they did something that you would expect a four year old to do, you know, or a two year old to do.

00:39:54:19 – 00:40:19:04
David Scofield
Like, of course, a two year old is going to throw a tantrum at some point. And, you know, a four year old is going to push her sister and take a toy or, you know, you know, I don’t think less of them. You know, you handle the situation and you help them learn through it and whatnot. But that to me is is having some having some grace for them.

00:40:19:04 – 00:40:33:01
David Scofield
Like, I’m not going to think less of you because you screw up. Um, and that extends to everybody. And then the hardest thing for me was was extending that to myself.

00:40:34:18 – 00:40:37:01
Brad Singletary
It’s easier extending grace to yourself.

00:40:37:05 – 00:40:59:07
David Scofield
Yeah. So having, you know, just knowing that it’s all right to do dumb shit, you know, I can. I can screw up and learn from it and keep going like you would like what you were just saying about Eckhart’s quote. Um, well, what did you say again?

00:40:59:12 – 00:41:07:06
Brad Singletary
Something like, you know, whatever the universe brings to you is exactly what your consciousness needs to evolve or something like that.

00:41:07:06 – 00:41:24:00
David Scofield
Right? So yeah, so all the, all the dumb stuff, all the, you know, all the great things and all the bad things and wonderful things and horrible things, and then everything in between is all helping us in some way. If you let it.

00:41:24:05 – 00:41:31:26
Brad Singletary
It’s all beneficial, as painful as it might be. Right? There’s some good in it. And let it, let it help you, Right.

00:41:32:01 – 00:41:32:12
David Scofield
Wow.

00:41:32:26 – 00:41:53:26
Brad Singletary
So, yeah, man, you’re talking about, you know, Grace for the four year old. She pushes her sister and whatever, and then and then to other people outside of your family, maybe. But then even to yourself, it seems like we spend so much of our thought, so much of our time thinking. We spend so much of it in judgment.

00:41:54:09 – 00:42:15:25
Brad Singletary
And that’s not very useful. I mean, so one of the red nine principles is discernment, which means, to be fair in your judgments, you know, see, read between the lines and see what’s going on and try to notice what’s reality. But that also might mean some greater depth to the person’s worth as a you know, the person’s like.

00:42:15:29 – 00:42:34:08
Brad Singletary
And when you’re talking about this being earlier, you were talking about in the religion, you know, the idea of worthiness, you’re saying there’s just this infinite worthiness. Everybody’s worthy. They’re the being. It can’t be changed. There’s no need to to prove yourself.

00:42:34:17 – 00:43:00:14
David Scofield
Right? Right. It’s just it’s just there. We we all have it, and it’s, uh, it’s mind blowing that. I mean, it’s. If you really think about it, it’s mind blowing that we even exist. Like what a what a crazy thing that is. And how. How grateful can you be that you can. They literally are just here. That I’m shit, that I’m here right now is insane.

00:43:00:14 – 00:43:05:20
David Scofield
But anywhere in the day, you know, just say you. I don’t know.

00:43:05:24 – 00:43:32:18
Brad Singletary
Yeah yeah the I think I’ve heard somewhere who quoted this with, you know it’s like a one in 4 trillion chance that you came to me that you and I came to exist one in 4 trillion. So there’s some meaningfulness to it all. And so one of those principles in the retina and we talk about reverence, and that is, you know, it’s often used in like, you know, in the religious world or whatever.

00:43:32:18 – 00:43:53:27
Brad Singletary
I think some pastors, even their title is like reverend, and it comes from the same word. And but the idea is just that there’s some humility. You got some gratitude. You know, you kind of see things as connected. You see life. You treat life with some respect. That’s what I you have a very strong sense of like reverence.

00:43:54:17 – 00:44:12:08
Brad Singletary
You know, I’ve seen your pictures of you out here on the strip or whatever in that banana suit. I saw you a zip line in naked. I’m pretty sure I tried to get that in the video, but it was to your skin blended in with the desert background. We couldn’t see it, but that was true. That showed.

00:44:12:28 – 00:44:17:03
David Scofield
Up in the air.

00:44:17:03 – 00:44:24:01
Brad Singletary
Coming down between the harness, you know, and ball sack everywhere. But you do, man. You got this this great sense of.

00:44:24:01 – 00:44:25:10
David Scofield
Like.

00:44:25:10 – 00:44:50:17
Brad Singletary
Just kindness, respect, humility, gratitude. That’s pretty awesome. So you went seeking that. You found you found some things that were helpful in your own understanding that. But but you know what, man? You before all that because some of your lifelong friends here in this in this video said they’ve known you since high school and you’ve just been a helpful dude all the way I mean, all the way through life.

00:44:50:17 – 00:45:10:25
Brad Singletary
Neighbors move in and you’re just showing up, offering to help with stuff. You know, here’s some tools here. What do you need? Let me help you out. Dave’s done things to help me. I mean, and so this isn’t just this year that you’ve been that guy. You’ve kind of been you’ve been shaping that part of you for a long time.

00:45:10:25 – 00:45:36:26
Brad Singletary
And and maybe some of that is just some inherent gifts that you have, I believe. But talk about just how you handle the people in your life. You know, the the neighbor, the coworker, the friend, the family member. Because surely people piss you off, but you’re giving a whole lot of good out there. You’re doing a lot of good.

00:45:36:26 – 00:46:20:19
David Scofield
Thanks. Yeah, I, I, I try. I think I think it was back when you, I think you had Justin Mackey right on on here and he spoke about relationships. Mm hmm. Um, and that’s, that’s what that is of. I’ve to me, relationships are uber important in, in life in general. And every relationship that I can, that I can have and help grow is, makes me better off.

00:46:20:19 – 00:46:49:24
David Scofield
And hopefully I can. I can make them better off as well. So that’s, that’s what that is as well. I’ll help whoever I can. And I think, I think helping people if I, I truly enjoy helping people and doing stuff for others. But it really does come back, you know, tenfold. The the more you do for for other people that you feel it right.

00:46:49:24 – 00:47:22:22
David Scofield
It feels good. But then somewhere down the road something pops up and you need some help and or, you know, someone offers you something or I don’t know I just I think relationships are super important in life because, I mean, it’s kind of the idea behind the Alpha Quorum race is we need tribe and the society that we live in now doesn’t really force us to create that tribe like it would have, you know, whatever thousand years ago.

00:47:22:22 – 00:47:47:01
David Scofield
But through trying to make these trying to trying to create and feed relationships, it creates that it creates your own kind of tribe. You you know, that those people can count on you. And a lot of the times you can count on those people.

00:47:47:28 – 00:48:09:24
Brad Singletary
I can just tell that that’s not your primary motivation. Otherwise, you know, that’s maybe manipulation or that’s a transactional relationship. You’re not doing that. You know, the guy your your dad was talking about where you’re going to dinner and somebody broke down and you whip around, make a U-turn and you know, you’re helping this guy. You’re supposed to be somewhere for a family dinner and you’re helping some guy on the side of the road.

00:48:10:01 – 00:48:22:15
Brad Singletary
That’s not he you probably not going to run into him again. You don’t need you’re not out there gathering credits for your future. And I don’t know how I know that. I just feel it. And I know that’s not what you’re doing.

00:48:23:01 – 00:48:59:20
David Scofield
Yeah, I guess maybe I was kind of. Maybe I’m. Maybe I’m wording that wrong or something. I just. It is about I think I really do think relationships are important, but I don’t have to receive from a relationship and situations like that. It’s just I don’t know. It just it, it feels right to go help somebody like some dude who is stuck in the middle of the street.

00:48:59:20 – 00:49:03:14
David Scofield
And poor guy was driving an old dodge, you know. So I. Oh, yeah, they.

00:49:04:06 – 00:49:04:28
Brad Singletary
All, they all need.

00:49:04:28 – 00:49:16:17
David Scofield
Help. Know how to get out and help them pushes Dodge and mentioned that it was a if it was a Chevy where you wanted to go but uh, yeah, I don’t know. Um.

00:49:17:00 – 00:49:18:29
Brad Singletary
Well, a worst case scenario would be a Ford, but.

00:49:19:11 – 00:49:19:17
David Scofield
Just.

00:49:19:25 – 00:49:20:15
Brad Singletary
Keep that out.

00:49:20:23 – 00:49:21:16
David Scofield
Okay? You know.

00:49:21:16 – 00:49:38:01
Brad Singletary
Keep it serious in our talk here. Well, yeah, man. So, like, you’re you’re you’re talking about, you’ve you’ve learned some language recently that says kind of we’re all the same, but you’ve been living that way. You’ve seen that’s what you would want to do. Somebody if, if you were stuck somewhere, if you were broken down, you would want that.

00:49:38:01 – 00:49:44:01
Brad Singletary
And so maybe part of it is, well, why not help this guy? Maybe it won’t take too much of my time. Did you ever make it to the dinner?

00:49:44:08 – 00:49:46:07
David Scofield
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

00:49:46:14 – 00:49:49:10
Brad Singletary
And without too much, you know, grease on your hands or whatever.

00:49:49:12 – 00:49:54:01
David Scofield
No, I was. I was pretty gassed. Uh, that was a big, fat girl of a truck, so.

00:49:54:01 – 00:50:17:00
Brad Singletary
Oh, so you mentioned the. The interview with Justin Mackey, and I don’t know if he used this word in the podcast that he did a couple episodes with us or if it was in conversation outside of that. But he talked about I’d never heard this word before, but husbandry was like the art of, you know, being a husband, husbandry anyway, think is a great word.

00:50:17:00 – 00:50:37:26
Brad Singletary
I guess it’s a real word. Probably. He’s smarter than me. So talk about husbandry. Your role as a as a husband and how you, you know, some of the principles that you’re trying to live by, how that stuff shows up in your marriage. And I know I know your wife. I know Bri, and she seems like just a sweetheart.

00:50:37:26 – 00:50:47:13
Brad Singletary
And but I know when you’re when you’re dealing with human beings, when you’re dealing with feelings, when you’re dealing with a long term relationship, things probably creep in. And, you know, we’re all human.

00:50:48:16 – 00:51:04:20
David Scofield
Right, man, to be it, to be a husband, to be in a in a marriage, you kind of a I feel like I kind of grew up thinking that it’s one thing and actually having no idea what the hell it actually was.

00:51:04:20 – 00:51:05:00
Brad Singletary
We all.

00:51:05:00 – 00:51:07:12
David Scofield
Got to do it in.

00:51:07:18 – 00:51:08:06
Brad Singletary
Fantasy.

00:51:08:14 – 00:51:42:15
David Scofield
Yeah. Yeah. We don’t you don’t know until you do it and the biggest thing with trying to to be a good husband currently and be better as I go is again, I’m constantly I think it’s important to try to learn. Um, there’s always room to grow, right? And I don’t know, I just. I really try to be there for her.

00:51:42:15 – 00:52:07:25
David Scofield
I try to support her in, in a lot of things. Um, but I, I learn a lot from her. She’s, she’s the first person in my life that has ever, like, any, any wild ass idea that I have or stupid thing that I want to do or whatever. She just it, she’s like, Yeah, go ahead. And that is huge.

00:52:07:25 – 00:52:34:19
David Scofield
And so I think that part of being a good husband is also is I mean, there’s been a lot of guys that have talked on, on this podcast about that kind of stuff. But for me, a huge thing is, is learning from your spouse, not just learning like, you know, what are they what do they need in, in your relationship or or how can you help them and do all this stuff.

00:52:34:19 – 00:52:50:00
David Scofield
But learning from them, like using them as an example to also be better? Mm hmm. Um, and I, I try my best, you know, to do that with. With my wife.

00:52:50:27 – 00:53:17:07
Brad Singletary
Yeah, there’s some. I think this was some research out of Australia. I’m not sure who who has this. Maybe it’s the Guardians. I’m not sure, but somebody out there, somebody famous is talking about. The fact that the happiest relationships are literally where the man is, where the husband is, he allows himself to be influenced by his spouse. So the worst relationships are where the man does not have any.

00:53:17:15 – 00:53:33:23
Brad Singletary
He won’t allow any. He won’t allow himself to learn from her. And you’re saying you’re you’re allowing yourself to learn. There’s a lot to learn. There’s there’s a lot going on in life. And you’re allowing her to influence you. So she’s supportive, but she’s also teaching you and.

00:53:34:03 – 00:54:00:14
David Scofield
Right. And I think that’s that balance is important because she is very supportive. Um, so I know I’m not just like, you know, being taken advantage of, although honestly, today before I came over here, um, I, I told her, you know what? I don’t, I don’t really enjoy or like the fact that I am as trained as I am because she might.

00:54:00:14 – 00:54:22:09
David Scofield
My two year old went over and dumped a bunch of just went over and dumped the dog water all over the floor. And my wife and I are both sitting on the couch and she saw it happen and I was kind of staring off into my phone and she saw it happen. And she said something along the lines of did did just dump the dog water.

00:54:22:26 – 00:54:42:28
David Scofield
And I looked up and I see the dog water spilled on the floor and like, without anything just like stood up. And it takes all energy to clean this shit up. And I don’t know, but she does the same thing too. So that is I’ve learned from her, but I don’t know, maybe I’ve been programed by her too.

00:54:44:10 – 00:55:03:01
Brad Singletary
Man, there was a moment, and maybe it’s because I’m looking at this. When I was doing this video right at the very end, when she said, There is no one more deserving of this award, and I’m very proud of her. Now, I don’t know her that well, but I think I know people well enough and I’ve got this on my earphones.

00:55:03:01 – 00:55:23:11
Brad Singletary
I’m playing the same clips, you know, 40 times each to get it. All right. And I just hear this little bit of emotion. I hear this little bit of just excitement that she is truly proud of you, man. Like I it was just giddy. She was trying not to be to look too. But she was saying there’s no one more deserving of this.

00:55:23:11 – 00:55:34:20
Brad Singletary
And I’m very proud of him. And I don’t know, I just I believed her. I believe that that was a deep appreciation for you when she said that. I just maybe others didn’t catch that. But do you think she’s proud of you?

00:55:34:27 – 00:56:01:00
David Scofield
Absolutely I do. Yeah, I think I think we’re both proud of each other. We’re both growing and learning and and it’s you can’t you can’t help but feel proud of of your spouse when when you’re paying attention to their growth. You know, I think how now they’re doing.

00:56:01:00 – 00:56:17:04
Brad Singletary
Wow, that’s cool. You can’t help but to be proud of your spouse if you’re paying attention to their growth. That that may be the problem with a lot of men is that they’re not paying attention. They’re not looking at men and women, too. But if you’re paying attention, you’re probably going to be proud.

00:56:17:27 – 00:56:20:14
David Scofield
Right? Wow. Yeah.

00:56:20:15 – 00:56:42:12
Brad Singletary
I see you guys doing like music festivals. And, you know, I know you both have great careers, but maybe, maybe you’re not, like, infinitely loaded with cash or whatever, but you make things a priority. You’re doing trips, you’re traveling, you’re taking a little weekend getaways. You got you’re going to concerts and you’re just you seem like you’re just living life together and making it making it work.

00:56:42:12 – 00:56:45:20
Brad Singletary
I mean, it just seems like you’re kind of living the American dream.

00:56:46:13 – 00:56:53:17
David Scofield
Making it work. Yeah, that’s definitely that’s it right there. I don’t know. Yeah, we’re doing our best for sure.

00:56:54:19 – 00:57:12:09
Brad Singletary
There’s a couple other things I wanted to mention. So you did a you did two huge things this year. Talk about heroes on the water, because we talked about the mental health and the we’ll talk about the whole program and your involvement with it and why you did it.

00:57:12:23 – 00:57:42:29
David Scofield
Here is on the water is a I’m super excited about and blessed to be able to be a part of here in Vegas. So Heroes on the Water is a organization. It’s a it’s a nonprofit organization that’s all over the U.S. And we were able to get a chapter started here in Las Vegas. And what we do is provide like a day of fishing.

00:57:43:12 – 00:58:11:17
David Scofield
We take people out, we’ve got kayaks, we got kayaks, trailer, fishing gear, a bunch of cool stuff. And we take veterans active duty and first responders and, their family, and we organize little events and get everybody out on the water to go fishing. Just a it’s the slogan for heroes on the water is paddle fish.

00:58:11:17 – 00:58:14:05
Brad Singletary
He’ll paddle fishy or that’s awesome.

00:58:14:05 – 00:58:39:17
David Scofield
And it’s something that I’ve found in my life that helps me out a lot. And I know it’s helped a ton of other people out and just, I don’t know, like what we were talking about before, kind of connecting with nature and getting your mind focused on something else and and a million other reasons that it’s good. But yeah, we’ve got some we’ve got some good plans for it this year.

00:58:39:17 – 00:59:03:03
David Scofield
We didn’t we didn’t do a ton with it last year. I think we well we got our three outings done last year. Um, one of them I was able to get a group of firefighters from here in Vegas. We went out to, we actually went out to a frigate, I think it was Gun Lake Reservoir out in Utah and did some fishing out there.

00:59:03:03 – 00:59:24:21
David Scofield
The guys had a blast. Most of them hadn’t really fished and I don’t know, they loved it. They had a good time. And that’s that’s really what it’s about, getting people out to go get away from especially jobs like that that are pretty mentally taxing. Um, trying to serve the guys and the men and men and women that serve us.

00:59:25:10 – 00:59:25:23
David Scofield
So.

00:59:26:14 – 00:59:40:02
Brad Singletary
Yeah. So what was your involvement with that? I mean, this is a nonprofit that exists out there with chapters all over and whatever. It didn’t exist in Nevada, right? Until you got involved in what was your how did you how did you do your part of that?

00:59:40:13 – 01:00:19:10
David Scofield
So I guess it did kind of exist in Nevada. But the last director wasn’t I don’t know, I guess I don’t know the full story of it. Nobody knew about it and they weren’t doing any events or anything. So I probably got busy with life and whatnot, but I heard that they wanted to start a chapter here and just I reached out to a bunch of people and finally got a hold of someone that was in charge of getting chapters off the ground.

01:00:20:11 – 01:00:29:29
David Scofield
Um, and so, yeah, so we started the, we started the chapter out here.

01:00:29:29 – 01:00:53:04
Brad Singletary
It’s just remarkable, man. People don’t do that. I mean, people like that. And that’s the kind of thing that this guy is, you know, I think you got some opposite work schedules with your wife. You know, you spend a lot of time with your two very young daughters. You’ve got your own full time work, you’ve got your own hobbies, you’ve got all these friends you’re taking care of, even strangers on the side of the road.

01:00:53:11 – 01:01:14:24
Brad Singletary
And then it’s like, Hey, let me start a nonprofit here in Nevada for the veterans. And first responders. You know, take them out fishing, paddle, fish, heal. Good grief, man. That’s just that’s the most impressive thing ever. So this is all about kind of mental health and healing from traumatic experiences. I mean, that’s part of their, like mission statement or something about.

01:01:14:24 – 01:01:46:04
David Scofield
Yeah, that’s a lot of it. Um, it also recognizes that the families deal with that too. Like, um, you know, people, people, men and women coming back from deployment and, and stuff, they’re, you know, a lot of times are different when you get home, Um, therapy, first responders, they see the wildest stuff, you know, they deal with some crazy stuff and then they got to go home to their families.

01:01:46:04 – 01:02:06:08
David Scofield
And, you know, it’s hard for them. But, you know, there’s probably some distancing and stuff with family and whatnot. So it lets their family come out as well. And let’s people let’s let’s the families connect and do something fun together and just kind of provides the vehicle for them to do that.

01:02:06:08 – 01:02:08:07
Brad Singletary
So you are a veteran yourself?

01:02:08:17 – 01:02:09:13
David Scofield
Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:10:11 – 01:02:17:29
Brad Singletary
I had the hardest time getting information about that, but I’m curious, so you served in the Air Force? Yep. And you went overseas. You?

01:02:18:28 – 01:02:51:00
David Scofield
Yeah, I did. Um, I did a year, uh, in Korea. Um, and then, uh, let’s see, I was in, I was in Phenix, and then I went to Korea for a year, and then I was at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where I had the chance to deploy with the combat search and rescue guys. I’m not half as bad ass as any of those guys, but I was.

01:02:51:00 – 01:03:03:20
David Scofield
I got to go with them in support of them. Um, and so, yeah, deployed to Afghanistan and uh, had some wild experiences out there.

01:03:03:20 – 01:03:09:13
Brad Singletary
And what year was that like, where was that in terms of the whole war and everything? What about what you.

01:03:09:13 – 01:03:15:13
David Scofield
Were that I was in Afghanistan in 2011. Wow.

01:03:16:19 – 01:03:24:12
Brad Singletary
So you were just young if you’re 34 now, that was like 12 years ago. You were pretty young, pretty young guy at that point.

01:03:24:17 – 01:03:31:06
David Scofield
Yeah, I think I was for 21, 22, 22, maybe 23.

01:03:31:07 – 01:03:35:14
Brad Singletary
Would you would you recommend the military? I mean, if a young man is interested and would you.

01:03:36:28 – 01:03:37:02
David Scofield
You.

01:03:37:02 – 01:03:40:28
Brad Singletary
Can’t see this because we’re not filming it, but his eyes just got really big and.

01:03:41:13 – 01:04:00:19
David Scofield
Oh man, I think it’s I what you need to understand about the military is that it’s not, uh, it’s not a job. This is. It’s the military is a life. And that’s a hard thing for a lot of people. It was hard for me.

01:04:00:19 – 01:04:07:19
Brad Singletary
You’ve got responsibilities. Even when you’re not like, on the job. You it it’s. It’s all day and night for years of your life.

01:04:07:25 – 01:04:36:14
David Scofield
Yeah. And they move you wherever they want. And. And you know, you’re, you’re, you’re a tool for the, for the government. So it’s, I mean if you understand that and you want to go do it and you want to, you know, go fight for freedom or, you know, whatever have you, a lot of guys I remember just joined so that they could get the benefits, you know, and that’s another thing.

01:04:36:14 – 01:05:18:18
David Scofield
Sure. Um, I would only recommend the military to certain kinds of people. And if I do recommend the military to anybody, I definitely recommend the Air Force. Um, just being in it. I know everybody talks shit about the Air Force because you call Air Force the Air Force. Um, but the reality was that being in the Air Force, you are treated better than the Army guys were treated or the Marines were treated and, um, as far as military goes, like we had been in the Air Force, you’ve got it pretty cut.

01:05:19:12 – 01:05:38:25
David Scofield
And so if you want to go, do it. Smart and join the military, then you want to join the Air Force. If anything, I think unless you want to. I don’t know. That totally depends on somebody wants, you know, what do they want to go after? So he wants to go be an infantryman. And you know, you’re going to you’re going to fucking go through it.

01:05:38:25 – 01:05:42:21
David Scofield
But yeah, if that’s what you want to do send it, I.

01:05:43:07 – 01:05:51:28
Brad Singletary
I saw you on one of the pictures there. You’re like laying on top of this huge, like bomb or something. I was just like, Oh, I bet that wasn’t authorized.

01:05:51:28 – 01:05:55:01
David Scofield
Yeah, Yeah, that was when planking was.

01:05:55:14 – 01:05:57:15
Brad Singletary
Oh, yeah, that’s what it was all about.

01:05:57:20 – 01:06:03:05
David Scofield
Planking on stuff. Yeah. So I just laid on a is a big practice. Bones. Uh.

01:06:04:06 – 01:06:26:01
Brad Singletary
So military veteran you care about, you know, the mental health of first responders and veterans were instrumental in creating this Heroes on the water. You also did something this year that was super cool. And I want to know how you how this came about. This car show. So this was like an assisted living facility or something. And you arranged like this car parade.

01:06:26:01 – 01:06:44:09
Brad Singletary
And there’s one of the pictures in there where there’s all these guys wheelchairs. You know, these guys look like they’re, you know, 80, 90 years old or something. And they’re sort of waving at the at the the shovels and the mustangs driving by or whatever they were. And what how did that come to be?

01:06:44:21 – 01:07:16:06
David Scofield
That was that was super cool. I’m glad I got to do that. And we actually are doing a, uh, a men’s group at that assisted living. How are you freaking serious as well? So we’ll do a monthly we’re doing a monthly men’s group there. So the guys so that came about because, um, I’m going to sound kind of silly, but I was, I was listening to a podcast and it was Gary, it was Gary Vee.

01:07:16:06 – 01:07:48:11
David Scofield
I was listening to a Gary Vee podcast and he mentioned, um, go volunteer at a retirement, a retirement home or assisted living home or something along those lines. Go volunteer there and experience and people that are very aware that they’re at the end of their life. That’s the harsh reality of it. You know, that’s they know that, right?

01:07:48:14 – 01:08:12:28
David Scofield
We all know that. Um, a good experience. People that are, that are at that stage in life and and you can you can gain a lot from that you learn lessons from those people and and because they they just have so much more experience in life than we do or than I do right now. You know I’ve got my 30 years compared to their 8590.

01:08:13:21 – 01:08:46:09
David Scofield
So that’s why I seek it out. I was like, okay, yeah, sure, I’ll go, Why not? Um, and I got a hold of a place is assisted living. So there’s differences, right, between retirement homes and assisted living homes. And then there’s other stuff too, that are a lot more intense. So assisted living homes are for people that cannot get through their day without some sort of help.

01:08:46:17 – 01:08:54:12
David Scofield
Mm hmm. And then you have more intense stuff where, like, everybody’s got dementia and stuff, like the.

01:08:54:12 – 01:08:57:25
Brad Singletary
Nursing home is missing or way more severe cases.

01:08:57:25 – 01:09:00:13
David Scofield
But right. So this is kind of a in between.

01:09:01:08 – 01:09:03:17
Brad Singletary
Yeah, it looks like an apartment, kind of almost or something.

01:09:03:17 – 01:09:29:26
David Scofield
Yeah, they’ve got like dorms and, and whatnot. But so in going they’re talking to their, um, director, their activities director talking to her. And this was before Father’s Day or something. It was, it was the month before Father’s Day. And she asked me if I had any idea. She’s like, Look, I’m a I’m a, you know, I, I like to do activities and whatnot.

01:09:29:26 – 01:10:19:22
David Scofield
And this is this is my job. So I do. But it’s hard for me to think about stuff for for the guys, for the men. Like, do you have any ideas for these guys? And that’s how it all kind of came to be. I went down there to go talk about times that I could call bingo numbers and it turned into, okay, yeah, let me think of some cool ideas and activities, activities that were more focused on the more focused on the men in in the home, because so through that and talking to some of the people that are there, some of the men that are there, you learn that these guys have done like

01:10:19:25 – 01:10:50:01
David Scofield
it an 80 year old, you know, 85 year old man was around in World War two. And like, I’m I’m talking to guys in this home that are that there’s this one guy that will just forever be in my head, just happy as hell, a real cool dude and real energetic. And he, uh, he was a he was a dive bomber in World War Two.

01:10:50:02 – 01:11:22:11
David Scofield
This man was just dive bombing Nazi ships and the guys here have done really bad stuff. They’ve all done really cool. Like they’ve had a lot of cool life experience and they’ve now they’re in this assisted living home where, like, you know, they can go to a Walmart and like peruse around Walmart once a week and they have like bingo nights and paint nights and, and stuff like this.

01:11:22:11 – 01:11:34:27
David Scofield
And, um, so when she asked me about ideas for men, you know, that got me thinking about, well, what would be it was something I want to do because they’re, they’re no different. Right right.

01:11:34:29 – 01:11:35:26
Brad Singletary
They were all the same.

01:11:35:26 – 01:12:01:15
David Scofield
Shit And I have like, let’s give them, let’s think of something cool for them to experience, to do. So that’s the, the car show thing came up through that and, uh, yeah, I don’t know. Just brought it up to her and I actually brought it up to the Alpha Forum Group. A bunch of the guys in the group came up with some other ideas that we’re going to, you know, that we’ll do for the men’s group.

01:12:02:00 – 01:12:26:18
David Scofield
Um, but it was that was, that was a real cool thing to put together and, and I guess resourcefulness and relationships really came into play with that because I just reached out to anybody. I knew that because I never put on a car show. I don’t know, like I’m not even a huge car guy, like, I like, I love cars, trucks, all that stuff.

01:12:26:18 – 01:12:55:00
David Scofield
But if, if, uh, I don’t know, some classic car drives in front of me, I can name like four or five, you know, but I probably won’t know the year, you know. So just reaching out to people and, and got that, uh, and it was a bunch of people wanting to volunteer their time to, uh, go hang out in a parking lot because it’s really all a car show is, it’s just like, let’s all get our cars together and talk.

01:12:55:10 – 01:13:12:22
David Scofield
And what better thing for a, for a assisted living home to go see all these cars that you, um, Grandma probably did some wild stuff with grandpa in the back of one of those cars, too, You know, just bring some fun memories.

01:13:12:22 – 01:13:19:03
Brad Singletary
These were the hot rods when they were young and stuff. Yeah. That’s so awesome. So how many cars is the end up having there? And do you remember how many?

01:13:19:06 – 01:13:29:23
David Scofield
Oh, I don’t even know. Probably probably somewhere around 20, 30 cars.

01:13:29:23 – 01:13:58:14
Brad Singletary
Dude, that is so cool. So see that I you as you’re talking, I’m remembering something that Taco Mike said I forget what what episode but he but he basically said if you’re not leading out and doing something awesome, you’re missing out. You’re missing out on opportunity. You’re missing out on like, blessing other people’s lives. And here you you’re arranging and helping helping this thing come together because you listen to a podcast, you’re looking for things.

01:13:58:14 – 01:14:16:01
Brad Singletary
You’re looking for inspiration out there. You’re trying to you’re trying to learn about life. Someone suggests it. Go spend time with people that are at the end of their life. And you said, okay, sounds cool. I’ll do. I think that could do for me. So you go out there and you end up spending all this energy and effort to take care of someone else.

01:14:16:13 – 01:14:45:11
Brad Singletary
So not only was this good for the old man and the wheelchairs and then this facility this is good for the people who have the cars. You’ve got 20 or 30 people now. They’re invested in sacrificing time and they probably loved it because they like to show off their, you know, their hotrod, Ford, whatever. And they get to come there and maybe meet with some of their friends and people that they know, the people in the facility, you know, the staff members kind of get a little break maybe because you’re out there kind of handling them for a while.

01:14:45:19 – 01:14:56:02
Brad Singletary
Now that’s turned into something else. Oh, I remember when we announced your Man of the Year award, someone on the Facebook group said he works with you out there. Yeah. Nathan Something, I think. Nathan.

01:14:56:02 – 01:15:04:07
David Scofield
Nathan. Uh, man, I got to feel like a jerk. I think it is. Nathan. Jay Sort of the Jay Forgive me.

01:15:04:07 – 01:15:05:27
Brad Singletary
Jacobson Or something like that, or.

01:15:06:22 – 01:15:32:27
David Scofield
I believe so. Jackson Jason Don’t know. Sorry, man. I know he was. He was super cool. He reached out to me and asked if there’s any way he could help and and so he came out and he helped me with he was actually super cool because I was running all over the place and, you know, and talking to people and like, trying to park people and then trying to get people outside.

01:15:32:27 – 01:15:53:12
David Scofield
And, you know, I was all over the place talking with the director and yada, yada and. He was he was really is super cool to watch because he would go and like someone in a wheelchair, you know, he’d go grab a wheelchair and okay, you know what? What kind of cars out here do you remember? What do you what do you like to see?

01:15:53:12 – 01:16:06:27
David Scofield
What do you want to go check out or whatever it will somebody around chat with them, take pictures with them, forum yada, yada, and then bring them back inside and grab somebody else. And this is super cool to see that. Yeah.

01:16:06:28 – 01:16:11:03
Brad Singletary
Oh, that’s great, man. That’s just, you know.

01:16:12:11 – 01:16:12:17
David Scofield
It.

01:16:13:12 – 01:16:46:25
Brad Singletary
Even before this year. It sounds like you were the type of man who’s just, you know, really worthy of recognition. You’re always just taking care of people, really putting yourself maybe last. I mean, I know it’s it’s it, you know, you’re okay to take a week off work and go out of state with the family and, you know, do some fun things that you enjoy and you don’t mind, you know, spend a little money on yourself, have a have a good time and kind of entertain your wife and and get out there and and enjoy life with so much of your time.

01:16:46:25 – 01:17:07:23
Brad Singletary
Is focused on other people, I’m just convinced that like selflessness and service, that is what’s missing in a lot of men’s lives. Know we’re so self-absorbed, we can think ourselves a victim. We can think, poor me, look at all this stuff that’s happening. Look at what the government is doing. Look at the taxes I have to pay. Look at all this garbage that’s going on.

01:17:07:23 – 01:17:36:04
Brad Singletary
Look at all this political shit. Look at you know how my way is treating me. Look at how my wife isn’t coming through for me. Look at look at all these things. We’ve not talked about any of that. We’re talking about you making decisions, taking action, removing obstacles, work, you know, making incremental improvements. You went from car show to now a recurring men’s group at a place where the men are dying.

01:17:36:04 – 01:17:38:20
Brad Singletary
We’re all we’re all we’re all headed that way anyway.

01:17:39:03 – 01:17:39:13
David Scofield
Right.

01:17:40:04 – 01:17:54:04
Brad Singletary
My man? You’ve got like, you know, you’re 34. Let’s say you’ve got 60 years left. What else you want to do, man? What else? What other kinds of things do you want in your future? And and we’ll wrap this up here.

01:17:54:04 – 01:18:23:22
David Scofield
Um, I don’t know. I, uh. I think I. I just kind of want to continue on the path I’m on and kind of see where it takes me. I guess I’m not. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the could bes and maybes and in the future. And I really just want to focus on now, you know, that’s great.

01:18:24:02 – 01:18:47:23
Brad Singletary
I’m that kind of person that I can get too carried away with some ideal or some, you know, fantasy thing that I want to do or accomplish and and not live enough in the here and now and in the present. And you’ve just shown that you have this incredible I know you’re not perfect. I know there are things that you probably wouldn’t want people to know about in your life.

01:18:47:23 – 01:19:10:03
Brad Singletary
You know, things that might be embarrassing, things you’re working on, things you’re always trying to improve, but damn, you’re doing good in the world. You know, people that know you the best, they just. They love you to death. You’re just a good, good man. We talk about, you know, an alpha No one really is is an identified alpha.

01:19:10:13 – 01:19:54:04
Brad Singletary
You do alpha. You know, when you’re arranging a big party for old men, that’s some alpha shit. You know, when you’re putting together a nonprofit and organizing an organization here for veterans and people that need healing, and you’re taking people that have never faced much out onto the water, helping them have an experience. You know, when you’re dressing up in a unicorn costume with your daughters, when you are slack lighting or high lighting, when you’re, you know, enjoying music at a festival, um, you’ve done wild and crazy things, too.

01:19:54:14 – 01:20:17:25
Brad Singletary
Those are just alpha moments that you’re just accumulating and you’re just taking advantage of opportunities. We talk about attitude, actions and attributes, and I think the attributes kind of come as a result of attitude and your actions. And what I’ve seen from you, man, I’ve known you for a few years now. What I’ve seen from that is just that it’s just stellar in every way.

01:20:17:25 – 01:20:39:25
Brad Singletary
I’ve been inspired by you. I’ve learned from you. You’re creating a little ripples out there that are just never ending. It’s just never going to end. You’re putting together, you’re putting together that strength, other people’s lives. And I’m just very, very proud to know you. It makes me want to be better. You’re like way younger than me, way better looking.

01:20:39:25 – 01:21:09:06
Brad Singletary
It’s inspiring. It’s inspiring to just to know somebody who’s getting after it. But you’re not all about you’re not even really all about. You’re not you’re not showing off. This is just you understanding the thing about being that we’re all the same, that we’re carrying something inside us. All that is that’s from the same place. It’s from the same material.

01:21:09:06 – 01:21:28:01
Brad Singletary
It’s the same substance exists in all of us. And that’s why you can help the old, you know, the old retired man. That’s why you can, you know, sacrifice some of your time, Just give so much. So in just a small, silly token of appreciation, we’ve got a little bit of swag here for you. A t shirt, a hat.

01:21:28:27 – 01:21:50:27
Brad Singletary
We’ve got this awesome little trophy sort of award. I want to pull it out of this and show you to it is kind of fragile. I dropped when Taco Mike won this, I dropped it and it cracks easy. So you just got to be careful with it. Put it up somewhere safe. But Man of the Year 2022. David Schofield That thing is, I love the look of that.

01:21:50:27 – 01:21:51:15
Brad Singletary
It just kind of.

01:21:51:29 – 01:21:52:23
David Scofield
Yeah, that’s awesome.

01:21:52:23 – 01:22:12:14
Brad Singletary
It just it’s just black. I’ll put a picture of it up. It’s a little black kind of black thing that he’s got his name engraved in there and then some of the African imagery and, and then this, this had this is one of my favorite new designs here is no excuses alpha up. Yeah. And it’s and even if it’s upside down, it’s the same thing.

01:22:12:20 – 01:22:13:25
David Scofield
Oh, yeah, that’s cool.

01:22:14:23 – 01:22:18:08
Brad Singletary
So if you ever get flipped over in your ATV, either.

01:22:18:10 – 01:22:18:16
David Scofield
You.

01:22:20:20 – 01:22:41:09
Brad Singletary
Don’t know what you represent, dude. Davis, Scofield, man, appreciate his go. You’re just a hell of a man. Somebody that inspires me. I really appreciate you coming down after a long week. A long drive yesterday, helping a friend out earlier. Getting here right on time. Just reliable, as always. And I’m just. I feel like my life is better because I’m associated with you.

01:22:41:09 – 01:22:42:19
Brad Singletary
So I really appreciate you, dude.

01:22:42:19 – 01:23:14:09
David Scofield
I appreciate it. And then honestly, the same goes for you. Goes for goes for a lot of this group. But yeah, I’ve I’ve learned a lot, a lot from you and I don’t know that I wouldn’t be where I’m at, honestly, without you, Mike and a lot of the other guys in this group, and I do want to I do want to recognize that most of the guys in our group probably deserve this.

01:23:14:09 – 01:23:36:14
David Scofield
I don’t, I don’t feel like I deserve this award or this recognition or whatever more than anybody else. I think that I think a lot of people deserve it. And equally, I’m proud of a lot of people out there and I don’t know and grateful for for the example that everybody else has set.

01:23:36:20 – 01:23:57:23
Brad Singletary
So I forgot to mention before that SCO also had a podcast before, and that was kind of inspirational to me too, to meet him. And we talked early on I mean, years ago, I mean, three or four years ago, it was about some of the little tips and things. And he’s you know, we talked about sound quality and a lot of things that he had worked out that I hadn’t.

01:23:57:23 – 01:24:15:22
Brad Singletary
And I believe that we’re going to have you on here a whole lot more. And I hope I wish you didn’t live on the other side of the planet from me down here in Henderson. But I’m looking forward to just continuing to learn from you, man, and just see what see how, you know, we can help each other and help other men.

01:24:15:22 – 01:24:38:19
Brad Singletary
So I really appreciate it. You guys, when you have an opportunity to show some love, when you have an opportunity to give and to serve and to be engaged and have a good attitude, take advantage of it. People are going to notice you’re going to have an opportunity to create never ending cycles of good, because can influence your own children.

01:24:38:19 – 01:24:49:14
Brad Singletary
You can influence your wife, be influenced by her people, you work with people around you. So follow the example of David Schofield and have no excuses. Alpha up.

01:24:50:23 – 01:25:02:08
Intro/Outro
Gentlemen, you are the alpha and this is the alpha quorum.

 

Click your podcast platform below or listen to the embedded file on this page.

091: LEARN TO LOVE – with Donald “Butch” Williams, Esq.

091: LEARN TO LOVE – with Donald “Butch” Williams, Esq.

091: LEARN TO LOVE – with Donald “Butch” Williams, Esq.

Moto racer, marathoner, former LDS Bishop, current law practice owner, Harley rider and Las Vegas Rescue Mission volunteer Butch Williams joins the Alph Quorum Show and speaks of the profound lessons taught to him by the mature men in his life. He shares experiences about struggles early in his marriage and how he and his wife partnered up to heal and build a beautiful life together. This humorous, wise, and gentle teacher, a man of pure masculine energy, shares some unforgettable stories, passing along bold and very charming bits of ALPHA wisdom. You’re gonna love this conversation. 🔺

Our guest today was born in Las Vegas on February 2nd. 1966 He’s the youngest of five children. His father worked a variety of jobs when Bush was a kid. His father started the Las Vegas Motocross Club and later the Las Vegas Bicycle Motocross Club. Every Saturday and Sunday, he spent at the motocross and bicycle motocross track with his family organizing and running events.

Butch also raced both BMX and motocross himself. When Butch was about 14 years old. The track was no more feasible to run. His dad started a plumbing company, and Butch began to learn the trade of plumbing, which also worked a variety of other jobs and high school, including being a dishwasher at Marie Calendar’s and driving a delivery truck.

When he was 19 years old, he decided to serve in LDS Mission which had joined the church approximately three years earlier. He served in Alaska and had a wonderful time there. Upon returning home, he attended college at UNLV and then received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Construction Management from Brigham Young University in 1991. While at BYU, he met and married the magnificent Paula Jones from Woodburn, Oregon.

They have six children, five of whom are married. They are the grandparents of ten grandchildren, which attended law school at the MCGEORGE School of Law in Sacramento, California. He graduated in 1994 and returned to Las Vegas with his family in 1997. He started his own law practice. He mostly represents contractors and subcontractors in construction issues. He also practices in the areas of real estate and business law.

Approximately seven years ago, his son in law, Drew Starbuck, graduated law school and came to work with Butch. Mr. Starbucks practices primarily in real estate planning and probate. They own the firm Williams Starbuck.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:10 – 00:00:02:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
Risky move. I’m like the heck you are.

00:00:05:06 – 00:00:05:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he did it.

00:00:06:05 – 00:00:18:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
He would walk to my house every night and he would just walk the neighborhood with me every night. He said, how about the plan of going home and learning to love your wife and.

00:00:18:20 – 00:00:22:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
Have her learn to love you? What I garnered from that.

00:00:23:13 – 00:00:27:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Was this concept of one on one time. He said, Just hold on.

00:00:28:06 – 00:00:31:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Just hold on. The light will return.

00:00:32:29 – 00:00:35:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
So he turned me in to the Nevada State Bar.

00:00:36:05 – 00:00:39:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wrote a letter on me, said, Mr. Williams told me to go.

00:00:39:20 – 00:00:40:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
F myself.

00:00:42:27 – 00:00:47:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
If I need a car. I got a call from bar counsel. Who is this porch? Williams?

00:00:48:15 – 00:00:49:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yes, sir.

00:00:49:21 – 00:00:52:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Did you tell that lawyer to go F himself.

00:00:52:24 – 00:00:53:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yes, I did.

00:00:54:13 – 00:00:58:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
Can you not do that anymore? No, I won’t. And I’ve never done it again.

00:01:04:05 – 00:01:23:23
Speaker 3
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. This is the Alpha Corps.

00:01:30:21 – 00:01:56:23
Brad Singletary
Our guest today was born in Las Vegas on February 2nd. 1966 He’s the youngest of five children. His father worked a variety of jobs when Bush was a kid. His father started the Las Vegas Motocross Club and later the Las Vegas Bicycle Motocross Club. Every Saturday and Sunday, he spent at the motocross and bicycle motocross track with his family organizing and running events.

00:01:57:08 – 00:02:19:01
Brad Singletary
Butch also raced both BMX and motocross himself. When Butch was about 14 years old. The track was no more feasible to run. His dad started a plumbing company, and Butch began to learn the trade of plumbing, which also worked a variety of other jobs and high school, including being a dishwasher at Marie Calendar’s and driving a delivery truck.

00:02:19:20 – 00:02:47:14
Brad Singletary
When he was 19 years old, he decided to serve in LDS Mission which had joined the church approximately three years earlier. He served in Alaska and had a wonderful time there. Upon returning home, he attended college at UNLV and then received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Construction Management from Brigham Young University in 1991. While at BYU, he met and married the magnificent Paula Jones from Woodburn, Oregon.

00:02:48:25 – 00:03:18:22
Brad Singletary
They have six children, five of whom are married. They are the grandparents of ten grandchildren, which attended law school at the MCGEORGE School of Law in Sacramento, California. He graduated in 1994 and returned to Las Vegas with his family in 1997. He started his own law practice. He mostly represents contractors and subcontractors in construction issues. He also practices in the areas of real estate and business law.

00:03:19:08 – 00:03:42:19
Brad Singletary
Approximately seven years ago, his son in law, Drew Starbuck, graduated law school and came to work with Butch. Mr. Starbucks practices primarily in real estate planning and probate. They own the firm Williams Starbuck. But I’m so glad to have you here, man. I have been I’ve had my eye on you since I started this whole thing and thought, That’s it, dude, I want to get in here.

00:03:42:19 – 00:04:02:13
Brad Singletary
So we ran around in some of the same circles here, probably ten or 15 years ago, and I’ve moved to the other side of town, and maybe you’ve moved out of that neighborhood, but I’ve watched you with your family and what you have going on. And I just thought this is the exactly the type of man that I want to highlight once we get around to being able to do that.

00:04:02:13 – 00:04:13:29
Brad Singletary
So welcome here, man. I really appreciate you driving all this way. Drove up to my building today and I see this black Corvette and, and I knew exactly who was here.

00:04:14:21 – 00:04:18:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
It’s an old one. It didn’t cost very much or whatever.

00:04:18:06 – 00:04:46:11
Brad Singletary
It’s super sweet. So again, thank you for being here, man. We’re just we’re just trying to help men level themselves up, whether that be through education or through learning how to have be better in their family or through emotional intelligence, you know, recovering from addictions and just being good men. And so anyone who knows you, I’m sure, would safely say that’s a good dude to be highlighting as a good as a good man.

00:04:46:11 – 00:04:48:05
Brad Singletary
So thank you again for being here.

00:04:48:19 – 00:05:05:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’m glad to be here. And I surely don’t deserve any praise. But but I life life has been good to me. Challenging but good. And if there’s ever a time to spend on raising young men to me and it’s now, right?

00:05:05:18 – 00:05:23:22
Brad Singletary
Yes, totally. That’s one of the reasons that we feel good about what we’re doing. We have a smaller audience but I think we’ve had listeners from 39 different countries through this whole thing. And so we’re hoping to just continue to grow this and appreciate you being a part of a part of this here today. So talk more about your family.

00:05:23:22 – 00:05:28:23
Brad Singletary
You’ve got ten grandchildren. Are they are most of your kids here in town or they live in other places or.

00:05:29:06 – 00:05:49:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, so we’ve got my oldest son, Tyson, and his wife live in the San Diego area. They’re in Carlsbad, California, OK? They’ve got three little kids and yeah, he runs a shelter business down there. And as a couple of other things that he’s involved in, we’re trying to get him back to Las Vegas, but he seems to like that surf too much.

00:05:49:11 – 00:05:57:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
I bet. So I’m sure he Sanford coming home. He won’t be back My daughter, Kayla.

00:05:57:21 – 00:06:17:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Kayla Starbuck, she’s married to Drew Starbuck, OK? And she’s wonderful. And a matter of fact, when she met Drew when they were in college, he wasn’t sure where he was going. And so she helped him figure out where he was going. And next thing you know, he was in law school and next thing you know, he’s practicing with me.

00:06:17:16 – 00:06:23:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
So never underestimate the power of a magnificent woman, right?

00:06:23:04 – 00:06:24:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. You can keep.

00:06:24:04 – 00:06:28:02
Brad Singletary
Your eye on in there. If he’s working with that, you can you can always be watching, right?

00:06:28:02 – 00:06:37:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
All the time. He’s great. He’s he was in the Marines, and so he came in with maturity and just just a good guy. Good, humble guy.

00:06:37:25 – 00:06:39:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. Looking for a little girls.

00:06:39:13 – 00:06:45:00
Brad Singletary
I looked him up. I looked up on your website and looked up you and him and saw your pictures and read a little bit about him. It’s impressive.

00:06:45:08 – 00:06:45:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, he’s.

00:06:45:29 – 00:07:00:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
He really is that good. We just love him to death. Then I have a son named Zach. Zach’s married, and he just finished law school. He decided not to come to work for Dad, but he’s working for a big firm. I guess it pays more money. I don’t know.

00:07:01:16 – 00:07:02:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
He’s doing well.

00:07:02:16 – 00:07:26:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I’ve got a daughter named Hailey. She’s up in Utah. She’s married to Vince Miller. We just love this guy. He graduated with a master’s in accounting, but his love is the army is. Well, his father was next in line to be the chaplain for the United States Army. Wow. And decided he didn’t want to quite go that path.

00:07:26:19 – 00:07:38:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
But Vince has followed his father in the military, and he finished Army Ranger training last year. And just now he’s trying to be a Green Beret. So I.

00:07:38:13 – 00:07:40:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
Now yeah, he’s a he’s a fun.

00:07:40:03 – 00:08:09:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Kid. Plus, he likes to go fishing. And I like that so I got a place to fish. Hey, yeah. I have a son named Josh. Josh is married here in Las Vegas. He’s working in the construction industry. And finishing his education at U and LV in my last girl or child, I should say, is Alexa. And Alexa just finished flight attendant school for Breeze Airlines, which is, I guess, a subsidiary of some sort to JetBlue.

00:08:10:08 – 00:08:11:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
OK, so maybe we’ll get some.

00:08:11:19 – 00:08:16:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
Free flights out of all of this. I don’t know how many passes like Buddy passes and I like free.

00:08:18:19 – 00:08:23:04
Brad Singletary
So your wife, you said she’s from Oregon. You met her at school. You met in college, right?

00:08:23:04 – 00:08:36:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. She’s amazing. She is from a little town called Wood or I should say named Woodburn, Oregon. Her father is a veterinarian. I thought I might be marrying into money. I come to find out he’s a farm vet.

00:08:38:06 – 00:08:40:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right. Like I came to further find out.

00:08:41:09 – 00:08:42:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
If it cost more than the price of the.

00:08:42:29 – 00:08:48:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
Cow. They usually just shoot the cow as the oldest of six kids.

00:08:50:05 – 00:08:51:20
Donald “Butch” Williams
She’s just great, you know?

00:08:53:00 – 00:09:06:05
Brad Singletary
So you we talked a little bit about your career. You have a law practice here. You do like construction stuff. That’s a majority of what you’re doing. It is. And then your son in law.

00:09:07:03 – 00:09:07:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah.

00:09:07:11 – 00:09:08:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Drew Starbuck, yeah.

00:09:08:14 – 00:09:28:27
Brad Singletary
And then your son in law, Drew. He does some other things, real estate and different types of types of practice there. So you started that three years at three years after you graduated. That’s pretty quick. I, I mean, I don’t know much about the practice of law, but it seems like three years after that’s fast doing your own thing.

00:09:29:03 – 00:09:51:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
It was probably too quick. But, you know, I had worked three different jobs in three years out of law school now. I never got fired but I always just felt like I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. So I came home one day kind of in a somber mood. And my wife was five months pregnant with our fifth child.

00:09:51:26 – 00:10:09:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I said, Honey, I’m just I just don’t know what it is. And she said, well, start your own practice. I said, I don’t have any clients. I said, Maybe one or two. She said, It’ll work out. I said, But you’re five months pregnant. We don’t have health insurance. It’ll work out so the first call I made was to the baby doctor, I’ll never forget.

00:10:09:24 – 00:10:13:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
Call you. Do you accept a payment plan.

00:10:15:14 – 00:10:18:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he said, We’ll work it out. So I.

00:10:18:21 – 00:10:35:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
I went to the bank, and in those days I’ll never forget the guy. I believe his name was Larry Woodrum. And he was at Bank West of Nevada, and somebody said, You got to go see Larry. He’ll loan you money. So I walk in and I sit down with this guy, and I’m sure my head was hung down low.

00:10:35:25 – 00:10:50:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
I said, Can I borrow $50,000 to start a law practice? 15 minutes later, I had $50,000 in account. Wow. And all magnificent part of that, as I look back of the story, is that two years later I called him. I said.

00:10:50:25 – 00:10:51:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Larry.

00:10:51:16 – 00:10:57:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Can you take your $50,000 back? I never had to use it, and I’m tired of paying interest on it.

00:10:57:13 – 00:10:58:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow. So.

00:10:59:03 – 00:11:04:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, I don’t think people get loans that easy anymore in Las Vegas. But but that’s how it worked out.

00:11:04:14 – 00:11:15:00
Brad Singletary
And it seems like your wife had all the faith in the beginning. She kind of pushed you toward it and said, don’t you worry, like it’ll work out. And you had the courage to make a big leave. That’s that’s impressive.

00:11:15:13 – 00:11:46:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. I’ve talked to a lot of young men who wanted to start their own practice, and they have asked me over the years how do you do it? And I would ask them a question, how much do you give to charity every month? And if the response was very little, then I would say, you’re not ready yet. Now, the reason I said that is because when I was going to start my own practice, I was actually racing motorcycles again.

00:11:46:17 – 00:12:04:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I was out at the track one night and I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked me a question. He said, How much do you give to charity every month? And I said, I don’t know, 40 or $50. And he told me, You’re not ready to start your own practice. Wow. And I said, Well, how much do you give?

00:12:04:17 – 00:12:23:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he told me. I said, Well, that’s my house payment. He said, Yeah. He said, When you learn that concept, you’ll be fine. And so what we did is I actually went home that night and I was kind of mad at my friend. That is being a little judgmental, but we went home that night and I talked to my wife about it.

00:12:23:27 – 00:12:56:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
I said, Honey, I think there’s something to what he’s saying. If we’re going to start this, we get we got to give more and she said, OK, so we did. We immediately started to give more. And, you know, the phone has always ring. So here I and that was 1997 and now we’re in 2022 and even through the recession the phone rang and so every young person that I have given that counsel to whether it be in the practice of law or other business, their phone is ringing.

00:12:56:08 – 00:13:09:06
Brad Singletary
Well what, what is the principle there like? I mean just that you are you have the kind of maturity, you have the kind of, you know, selfless maturity or something. How does that work? What is the math on that?

00:13:10:08 – 00:13:39:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
I don’t think it’s earthly math. Right. You know, my parents, when I when I decided to join the LDS Church and in the end serve a mission, they were OK with me joining the LDS Church. But when I decided to serve a mission that didn’t go over or as well originally as what I thought it might, but they knew I was dedicated because I, I worked and I saved about 12 or $13,000 and this was back in 1984, 1985.

00:13:39:02 – 00:14:03:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
So it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of savings. When I came home from that mission, my money was still in my bank account. I had no idea that they had paid for it. Wow. And I asked my parents what, what did you do, why they said, well, we just decided to pay for it, but now we’re going to give money every month to a charity because we recognize our business had never done so well so you know, those are things stick in your mind, right.

00:14:04:15 – 00:14:04:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah.

00:14:04:25 – 00:14:27:05
Brad Singletary
That’s great modeling from your parents who didn’t necessarily share the same faith but but respected what you did. And even though they started to show you, you you originally showed them you taught them something that they reinforced you carried that and spread that same message to young professionals out there. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s why you’re here right now, that kind of thing, man.

00:14:27:05 – 00:14:28:29
Brad Singletary
I got goosebumps thinking about this.

00:14:29:15 – 00:14:43:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
And that was pretty powerful. Another thing I did as soon as I made just a little bit of money is I put $1,000 cash in my pocket. In that thousand dollars cash has been there now since 19, I guess 1997. So please don’t mug me.

00:14:44:05 – 00:14:51:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
If I’m black for every black Corvette, that guy’s got money in his pocket. But the concept again, I was a.

00:14:51:25 – 00:15:02:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Little kid and this guy walked into our house on 560 Saint Louis and downtown Las Vegas. His name was John Vann. Who he was a friend of my father’s. And he pulled out.

00:15:02:13 – 00:15:07:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
This wad of cash was a little kid in a in a lower than middle class income.

00:15:07:19 – 00:15:33:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’m looking at that thinking I don’t know what he does, but I’m in, you know. Right. I said John, why do you carry that that money? He said, so I can say no to people if I need to. Now, that stuck with me, too. So as a young lawyer, if somebody walked into my office and to this day, even if they’ve got money if something doesn’t feel right, I know I’ve got enough in my pocket to feed my family for a little while.

00:15:33:28 – 00:15:35:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow. And so that.

00:15:35:00 – 00:15:36:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
Concept, you mean.

00:15:36:22 – 00:15:42:07
Brad Singletary
Carrying $1,000 cash in your pocket, all this your whole your whole life since you were a young, younger man.

00:15:42:07 – 00:15:43:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Since 1987.

00:15:43:13 – 00:15:45:05
Brad Singletary
Oh my. You have it right now. You have.

00:15:45:05 – 00:15:49:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right now. Oh, that’s the coolest. Thing I’ve ever heard. I mean.

00:15:49:20 – 00:16:08:21
Brad Singletary
I can think there’s a lot of reasons for that. Like, I don’t know in the world of like, you know, alcohol, I’m in recovery from alcohol. And I would hear people say things like, you know, they want to just keep one beer in their refrigerator just to prove that they don’t need it. It’s there, but they don’t they don’t need it.

00:16:08:21 – 00:16:17:13
Brad Singletary
They’re kind of flooding themselves with some exposure. And so you got money and you could spend it, you could blow it, but you’re you’re just hanging on to it. That’s kind of cool.

00:16:17:13 – 00:16:32:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
That’s why I can spend it. And if I spend it as soon as like the users, they have just a little bit more. But when I get, you know, so there’s a little fluff there. So if I can somebody needs something, I can buy it right? Or get out of a tight situation or however you want to say it, all of that.

00:16:32:04 – 00:16:35:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
But at the end of the day, there better be a thousand.

00:16:35:21 – 00:16:36:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I can say no.

00:16:37:05 – 00:16:42:03
Brad Singletary
I need I’m going to I’m going to steal that trick. No, I got to tell my wife, when I get on the air, open up the safe for me.

00:16:42:03 – 00:16:54:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
We got to get 1000. Just keep it on Venmo. I don’t know how to use Venmo, but my wife sure does. So she knows how to talk to that Amazon guide to ensure comes around a lot. It’s guy I.

00:16:54:18 – 00:16:58:18
Brad Singletary
Thought my wife for a while was having had something going with the UPS driver, you know, like.

00:16:59:07 – 00:17:00:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
All right, I hear you.

00:17:00:29 – 00:17:18:15
Brad Singletary
We didn’t welcome Jimmy Durban. I just want to he’s been on the show before. You guys know him and but he is also another stellar guy. He just wanted to be here tonight. Drove up in a pretty special looking Harley Davidson that was pretty sick man. That was impressive. What do you what are you driving out there?

00:17:19:11 – 00:17:28:10
Jimmy Durbin
It’s a Harley Roadster. Oh, 2019. And it’s full disclosure. And being transparent, it actually belongs to my middle son.

00:17:28:24 – 00:17:31:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I can’t take credit for that.

00:17:31:17 – 00:17:35:19
Jimmy Durbin
Mine’s in 94 heritage soft tail OK or of a cruiser bike.

00:17:35:19 – 00:17:37:17
Brad Singletary
You told me how to get somewhere quick and so you.

00:17:37:22 – 00:17:39:15
Jimmy Durbin
Yeah I had to get here fast keep it.

00:17:39:15 – 00:17:40:06
Brad Singletary
Warm for you.

00:17:40:25 – 00:18:08:16
Jimmy Durbin
I think also just to kind of give the audience a feeling when I when I came in and met Butch you could feel the love I could feel the love speak for myself kind face um sharply dressed and then when you read the intro birthday’s February 2nd mine’s a third oh. Very well meant to you and Elvis as well.

00:18:08:16 – 00:18:37:28
Jimmy Durbin
Right. And so I, I’ve appreciated what you said because I think that’s how men can help men is these little nuggets, these things that there’s this wisdom that you gained along your own path and the things that stuck. And so I really appreciated you sharing those two things because that’s that’s what I want to learn from you. Right?

00:18:37:28 – 00:19:13:01
Jimmy Durbin
Is how have you continued to keep your heart upfront? Right. Oftentimes you talk about having a a soft front and a hard back. No concept from Bernie Brown of being vulnerable as a man, being tender, authentic, transparent, and also having a hard back and being a protector and a leader and a fighter and a mentor for these young men that you talked about, for these young lawyers that you talked about, for your family and your your son in law’s.

00:19:13:01 – 00:19:24:19
Jimmy Durbin
And so what else would you say to your younger self as you gain this wisdom now sitting as a 56 year old man in this chair.

00:19:25:04 – 00:19:51:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, I went through something in 1995 that I haven’t shared with a lot of people, but I was just out of law school starting salary was $36,000 a year, wasn’t necessarily horrible in 1995, but I had $65,000 with a student debt. Wow. And I had three children and my marriage fell apart and so I ended up living with my parents.

00:19:53:01 – 00:20:20:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
My wife’s trying to decide you know, is he going to come home? I’m trying to decide what I’m doing, where I’m going. And I remember just laying up at my parents one night staring at the ceiling thinking to myself, I don’t know where I’m going. I just am so discouraged, so down. And this old guy knocks on my door and he happened to be my LDS bishop.

00:20:22:19 – 00:20:38:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he said, May I speak with you for a few minutes? I said, Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t say no. He’s a nice guy. Even though I had anger in my soul, I just couldn’t say no to him. And he came in and talked to him and he said, But what are your plans? I said, I don’t know.

00:20:38:27 – 00:21:04:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
I guess I guess I’ll get divorced and figure out what to do from here. He said, I guess that’s a plan. He said, How about the plan of going home and learning to love your wife and have her learn to love you? And I said, I don’t know how that’s possible, but he left that evening and it again, it just stuck in my mind.

00:21:04:24 – 00:21:43:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I, I went home and this, this little bishop, about six foot six tall, he would walk over to my house every night after and he had 11 children on a school teacher salary. So big time hero right away he would walk to my house every night and he would just walk the neighborhood with me every night. And he would talk to me from everything about physical intimacy with my wife and how I could improve that to emotional intimacy, to dating, to communication.

00:21:43:17 – 00:22:00:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
The things that I guess I just never learned at home. And I guess why would I have learned them? I mean, my parents had a great relationship, but we didn’t talk about these things. And, you know, my wife and I we always just we always talk about the first five years of our marriage being. We don’t talk about that.

00:22:01:16 – 00:22:20:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
And then we talk about from 1995 on and it’s just been the most magnificent marriage. I mean it’s really, it has been but again what I garnered from that was this concept of one on one time.

00:22:21:28 – 00:22:23:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Well, you know.

00:22:23:18 – 00:22:36:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
He gave me his precious resource of time and so I try to do the same. I, you know, I’m not great at it, but if I see a need, I recognize just a simple text message, probably not enough.

00:22:37:21 – 00:22:54:17
Brad Singletary
You know, he was kind of in this automatic role of mentorship or stewardship with you. But in. So did he push for that contact, you know, or were you, you know, asking him to, hey, come take a walk or you said he just would show up? Yeah. I mean, that’s cool. So I think every man needs a mentor.

00:22:54:17 – 00:23:31:11
Brad Singletary
Every man needs a bigger tribe of, you know, six, eight, whatever number of people. But to have one person at a critical time in your life care for you. He’s busy. He’s got 11 kids at home and he’s leading the congregation and he’s got you that he’s kind of singled out as someone that’s worthy of his time evening, you know, this special time to come and walk and talk with you that is that’s one of the coolest images that have ever been, you know, painted on this show to me is you walking with a man who’s talking about all of the deep things, all of the things that maybe you wouldn’t want to talk about

00:23:31:11 – 00:23:43:08
Brad Singletary
with anyone else. You made it comfortable somehow. You made it comfortable to do that. What what was it about him that made you feel like you could comfortably talk about those personal subjects?

00:23:43:15 – 00:24:11:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, I think just his warmth. I mean, I just felt like I was walking with God in some respects. Right. I knew that he was a confidant. I knew he had wisdom. I mean, even as a I was 28 years old, so still pretty young. Right. But I could just see, you know, just his love for me and I then fast forward what, 20 years?

00:24:11:08 – 00:24:38:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he called me to be a bishop in the LDS Church, last thing I ever expected. But the concepts that he taught me I was able to put into play as people would come to me with marital issues and other issues. And I thought, man, God, I mean I that was a really painful process. In 1995 I got to know God better, I got to know my wife better, I got to know this bishop better.

00:24:39:10 – 00:25:03:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
But then as I fast forward, I think to myself and God, God could see these things play out. You know, he could see in the future that if I listen to this guy, good things would probably happen in my life, you know, if I didn’t, if I went out on my own and did my own thing, then I might pay a different price and have a harder time having a relationship with God, at least for a season.

00:25:03:27 – 00:25:06:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
So it was a painful process, but it was wonderful.

00:25:08:06 – 00:25:45:20
Jimmy Durbin
Brad just put out an episode about reframing and in his thoughts just from a very raw, beautiful authentic place of the Alpha Quorum and what that is and what type of man in his heart that is and how it should project in the world so I appreciate you relating that story because I oftentimes think, as you just indicated, we really don’t talk about before 1995, 1996, right.

00:25:45:20 – 00:26:26:04
Jimmy Durbin
We, we get this idea that well we’ve had this pain and it’s healed and so it’s behind us. But in the end as a result of that we kind of create a silo and those individual silos that happen to us as men, then we don’t allow the healing process and the learning process and the grace that happens. And so would you mind just sharing like what the struggle was like, what, how did you get to that mental place, emotional place, spiritual place like because I’m sure I can relate to it.

00:26:26:04 – 00:26:44:17
Jimmy Durbin
I, I’ve been to that place. There might be someone listening who’s there and I kind of believe that we’re all we’ve either gone through, we’re going through, or we will yet go through that place that you were back in. So do you mind sharing that?

00:26:44:21 – 00:27:13:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
No, not at all. One of the things that he asked me to do was go to the church and listen to a talk from a guy named Jeffrey Ah, Holland that was coming to town. Well, I had so much anger and frustration in my life at that time. I think just being poor for so long, going through law school, I mean, when my wife and I were in law school, I had $1,000 a month scholarship or rent was 550 a month.

00:27:14:20 – 00:27:27:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
We paid our tithing. So now we’re down to 900 a month and we never went on welfare. Well, you know, you live that way for a number of years of just, you know, impoverished, if you.

00:27:27:26 – 00:27:28:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Were making.

00:27:28:15 – 00:27:28:20
Brad Singletary
It.

00:27:28:20 – 00:27:49:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
Barely by me, you know, and we always made it you know, by the grace of God, we always made it. But, you know, there’s frustrations and I’m spending, you know, 12 and 14 hours a day studying and there’s little kids at the house and all those things are, you know, they’re just going to lead to a tough situation if one doesn’t get it squared up.

00:27:49:20 – 00:28:03:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I didn’t, I didn’t have it squared up. I felt my job was to work and get through law school and make money as fast as I could. So I took that same attitude into the profession that first, and then I got humbled.

00:28:05:05 – 00:28:06:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right. But anyways.

00:28:06:14 – 00:28:24:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Jeffrey Holland was coming to town and this old guy, Roy Ford, says just come with me, just come with me. I said, I don’t want to go. But again, I didn’t want to say no to him right there. I just loved him. You love somebody. You don’t want to say no. So I remember I remember sitting in the back of the building that night.

00:28:24:01 – 00:28:46:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
And Jeff, our Jeffrey, our Holland stands up at the pulpit. And this is what he says. I’ll never forget it. He says, If any of you are feeling dark tonight like there’s no light and that you might never feel light again, I just want you to do one thing for me tonight. Well, soon as he started down that path, you could imagine my right eye open to what?

00:28:46:17 – 00:29:17:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
All my left eye open to and then his counsel was so simple, but I’ve used it many times in life. He said, Just hold on, just hold on. The light will return. And it did then, and it has numerous times since. So that’s my encouragement to people. When you’re in a dark spot, try to just hold on. You’ll notice that God will put certain people in your life at that time.

00:29:18:07 – 00:29:25:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
Even if they’re uncomfortable to you a little bit. They might be those those angels that.

00:29:25:27 – 00:29:27:10
Jimmy Durbin
Especially if they’re uncomfortable.

00:29:27:10 – 00:29:34:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
To express you. Yes, especially if they are. So, you know. Yeah.

00:29:35:25 – 00:29:56:22
Brad Singletary
You said something earlier about what the guy said to you when you were in. He said, you know, what is your plan? He said, What about the plan to go and learn to love your wife? And that’s an interesting thought about learning to love, because I guess maybe when we’re younger, we just think, you know, you either love someone or you don’t.

00:29:56:22 – 00:30:17:28
Brad Singletary
And but this is like you have to learn how to love. What did that mean to you back then and what were the kinds of things you needed to learn? Like you you obviously were interested in her. You married her. You have a family. You know, you’re she’s a beautiful to this day, a beautiful woman. I mean, but you had to learn how to love what does that mean?

00:30:19:22 – 00:30:48:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
That’s a great question. And maybe a little more background would be helpful. So I met my wife when when I was at BYU, we fell in love immediately was just instant infatuation. And so we got engaged two weeks later and married three months later. Now, it’s public knowledge now, but it but it wasn’t for years. But my wife had had a child when she was in her senior year of high school.

00:30:49:04 – 00:31:12:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
And this was a by the way, she told me about it immediately when we got we’re starting to get serious and of course, as a young guy, I’m like, oh, no problem. Well, she had given the child up for adoption. And back then, adoptions were were very private. Right. So I guess I always felt this little bit of maybe jealousy.

00:31:12:13 – 00:31:40:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Maybe maybe she didn’t love me as much as she loved her boyfriend. Who she had the child with. So, you know, just inadequacies on my part. Right. And being vulnerable is the right word. But I should add that for many, many years, until we were able to by the grace of God, three years ago, we were able to make contact with this.

00:31:40:17 – 00:31:40:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow.

00:31:41:09 – 00:31:41:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
And.

00:31:42:01 – 00:32:13:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
Oh, he’s just wonderful. It’s everything we ever dreamed of. That’s maybe a story for another day. But anyways, so I just always felt like, you know, kind of second fiddle just, you know, and I realized one thing this bishop did is he said, you know, the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to fly that guy down from Oregon because he and Paula, your wife, they never had really a chance to to separate.

00:32:14:03 – 00:32:33:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
And then, by the way, there was nothing going on with Paula and her ex boyfriend for for all those years were married, nothing like that at all. But my bishop could tell that there was something holding me and Paula from progressing and one of the it was just a really out of the box thinking, right? Yeah.

00:32:33:03 – 00:32:33:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
We’re going to we’re going to.

00:32:33:28 – 00:32:42:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Fly down her ex-boyfriend so they can walk up and down the strip and say goodbye to each other because they never got a chance to years ago because Paula’s parents.

00:32:42:01 – 00:32:46:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Broke them up. Wow. What a risky move. Yeah. I’m like the heck you are.

00:32:49:11 – 00:32:51:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he did it. He did it, OK.

00:32:51:20 – 00:33:21:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
And it was wonderful because for some reason, it released my heart and and I was able to say, yeah, she she does love me and everything’s OK. And this guy had gone on and married and has a wonderful family and like I said, just a few years ago, by the grace of God in that app, 24 in me, we were able to finally, after all these years, find this this child and man just awesome.

00:33:21:00 – 00:33:21:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow.

00:33:21:12 – 00:33:22:15
Brad Singletary
That’s super awesome.

00:33:23:26 – 00:33:50:12
Jimmy Durbin
So when Brad asked that question, the way I heard it, the way I heard him ask, that is I choose who I love. And I heard that in your story. And then I love my choice. Right. And so how else in your years of marriage with your sweetheart and under what circumstances and situations have you had to learn to continue to love your choice?

00:33:50:21 – 00:33:52:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, it’s great.

00:33:54:01 – 00:34:10:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
One thing my mom said to my wife and I often in our first number of years of marriage is you’re not dating. You got to keep dating. You got to get out of town a couple of days. I’ll watch the kids. But again, in my stubborn self, you know, I just need to work. I need.

00:34:10:20 – 00:34:11:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
To. Right.

00:34:12:23 – 00:34:38:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Well, you know, after 1995, I took that counsel and so we began to date every Friday night. We don’t miss now I was on a campout or something. We’d go out Saturday night. We then began to take a trip once a year, twice a year for a week away from the kids. But the most important thing, getting back to that old bishop, he said every day do an act of kindness for her every day.

00:34:39:06 – 00:34:46:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he said the same thing to her every day, every day, every day. He said every day. So you know how many candy.

00:34:46:07 – 00:34:50:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
Bars I’ve woken up over the years? She still thinks my greatest joy in life.

00:34:50:26 – 00:34:54:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
Is a is a Hershey’s it’s not Hershey’s a CS.

00:34:54:07 – 00:34:55:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
Sucker. It is a.

00:34:55:24 – 00:34:57:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
Second greatest joy life.

00:34:57:03 – 00:35:03:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
But so I found a lot of those. In the meantime, I’m I watched a lot of dishes.

00:35:03:04 – 00:35:12:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
And, you know, just, hey, I’m going to the kitchen. I’m just you want water? Do you want anything? You know, common sense things, right? We love those. We serve. We we know the contents.

00:35:12:12 – 00:35:13:00
Jimmy Durbin
Of little things.

00:35:13:00 – 00:35:18:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, but but if we’re not serving someone, we it’s really difficult to love them.

00:35:19:01 – 00:35:42:17
Brad Singletary
I notice you’ve done that so much. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t know if it’s a good place to transition, but you’ve done a lot of service throughout your life. So you talked about the charity thing in the beginning. You know, sharing that with young attorneys. You know, if you’re if you’re not paying anything to charity, you may not be ready to start your own practice that represents an attitude of giving and sacrifice.

00:35:42:28 – 00:36:01:29
Brad Singletary
Talk about some of the other things you’ve done. You mentioned camping trip. Was that like scouting type stuff? You’ve done some you’ve done some volunteer teaching. You’ve done the most recently. I think I’ve seen you do a stuff at a like a homeless shelter maybe, or talk about some service opportunities that you’ve taken advantage of.

00:36:02:10 – 00:36:22:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, I’m pretty involved with the Las Vegas rescue mission. You know, I didn’t know anything about the Las Vegas rescue mission. And here I was serving as a bishop in the LDS Church, and somebody called me one day and said, Hey, we’ve got this 18 year old boy here from Colorado. Can you meet with him? Yeah, try to help.

00:36:22:22 – 00:36:43:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
I meet with him and I realize I don’t know what to do. With this boy. You, the way nice kid moved in from Colorado was was not LDS. He just showed up to Vegas wanted to start a new life. So I called my wife. That’s always a good place to start, honey. I got this kid in my office.

00:36:43:04 – 00:36:51:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
I don’t know what to do with him. I mean, what am I going to do? Give him a food order or something? I can’t move them into our house because we’ve got daughters at home still. And she said.

00:36:51:24 – 00:36:52:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
We’ll call.

00:36:53:00 – 00:37:15:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Heather Gibbons. I said, Oh, I know Heather Gibbons. So I called Heather. And Heather just is well connected in Las Vegas as far as just knowing where the charities are, knowing what resources are available. I said, Heather, can you come see me? She shot right over to my office. She said, OK, but here’s what you do. You take this boy to the Las Vegas rescue mission.

00:37:15:27 – 00:37:39:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
They will put him up for a couple of weeks, no questions asked. They’ll feed him. And during the day, he’s got to leave the premises, go out, try to get a job. Come back at night. I said, Well, I don’t know much about this place, but I like this a lot. So I started to learn about it. And, you know, every night at 5:00 as you may know, they they open their doors and they’ll give anybody a meal, no question asked.

00:37:40:23 – 00:38:15:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
I love that. But I tell you what I love more is that they want to help people with addiction. And somehow, some way, they hope that out of the four and 500 people that they feed one meal a day or two, that a few may come forward and say, I don’t want to fight the addiction anymore. And the first thing they ask for unless something is changed, which I don’t think it has, is they’ll take you in for long term addiction, recovery but you got to give them your phone number.

00:38:16:10 – 00:38:38:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
You got to get rid of your sources. And if you’re not ready to give up the phone, you’re not ready to get help yet. I just fell in love with the organization, so I began to contribute more resources and time to do that organization. There’s many more out there. You know, it’s finding a charitable organization that you connect with shouldn’t be too.

00:38:38:01 – 00:38:39:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Difficult for most of us.

00:38:39:12 – 00:38:48:29
Brad Singletary
So why do you do it? I mean, why you’re busy. You’ve got a law practice, you’ve got five children and grandchildren. You got, I’m guessing, what, season tickets to the Golden Knights?

00:38:48:29 – 00:38:57:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
I do I mean, there’s a lot of stuff going on that’s part of that. A motorcycle Corvette. You got to got wife. You got everything.

00:38:57:13 – 00:39:03:05
Brad Singletary
Like, what makes you want to go to the Las Vegas rescue or whatever places to serve? What makes you do that?

00:39:04:07 – 00:39:29:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, I guess I’ve never thought about it that much. It’s just maybe it’s innate, maybe it’s natural. Or maybe it’s because, I mean, how many people have just stepped out over the years and either lended me a hand or I remember one time we were driving back from Sacramento excuse me, from Las Vegas to Sacramento. The year was 1993.

00:39:30:17 – 00:39:55:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
So picture this. I got my wife, I’ve got two kids in the back in this rag down old Hyundai, and we’re heading up to 95 to go through Reno on Memorial Day to get back to Sacramento, to go to law school. And I break down in the sweltering heat this was before cell phones. I look at Paula and I said, what do we do now?

00:39:56:04 – 00:40:24:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Pray. Well, we’ll pray. So we prayed right then this guy pulls up behind me and he’s an older fella. So I got out of the car and I met him and he said it looks like you got a problem. I said, I do, I, I blew the timing belt. He said, and I said, why did you stop? He said, I was in my home up in Yerington, Nevada, up the road a number of miles.

00:40:24:24 – 00:40:31:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I looked to my wife and I said, hey, we need to go. We need to go right now. She’s like, Where are we going? He says, I don’t know, but we’re going somewhere.

00:40:33:27 – 00:40:50:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
And anyways, to make a long story short, we piled my wife, myself, and those two kids into their car. You know, they could have just taken this to Reno and dumped us at a hotel for the evening, but they didn’t do that. They took us all the way to Sacramento that night.

00:40:50:26 – 00:40:51:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow.

00:40:52:07 – 00:41:11:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so you know, when you have people over the years that reach out to you and just help a little bit, it’s just not hard to give back, right? I feel like I hold my. All right. I owe my whole life try in some way to give back for all the blessings I have. I mean, I just I’ve just been blessed.

00:41:11:22 – 00:41:11:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
I mean.

00:41:12:07 – 00:41:45:21
Brad Singletary
That’s why you’re here when I say, you know what? What makes you do it? You said I didn’t even think of it. I mean, you’re sacrificing. I know that you’re donating. You know, money, time, resources, every, you know, volunteering over there. And I’ve also seen you re try to recruit people. So we’re friends on Facebook. And I’ve seen this, so, hey, they need, you know, we need an extra server or two tonight, you know, like you’re arranging these things and you’re not only going there for yourself, but you’re bringing some folks along with you, like that kind of leadership toward something so selfless.

00:41:45:21 – 00:41:50:05
Brad Singletary
I mean, that’s just, you know, coolest kind of man. Yeah.

00:41:50:20 – 00:42:12:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Well, I like I really like somebody’ll tell me, hey, listen, I’m having problems with my teenage kid. He’s just he or she’s just they’re becoming abstinent or they’re just they’re becoming secluded and they don’t want to help anybody. And they’re back talking. I said, all right, I’ll pick you up at 345. You and the kid so I’ll bring him in the kid to the shelter.

00:42:13:12 – 00:42:29:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
And after a night at the shelter, that kid those eyes are opened up a little bit about about real life. So I think that’s a nice way kind of to give back to you, I guess. Not that I’m, you know, I’m just trying to help a kid. Yeah. Who? Right.

00:42:30:08 – 00:42:39:04
Brad Singletary
Some perspective. He gets to serve. He gets to contribute, but he also takes away something from that, too. Absolutely. And I’m sure you do, too. I’m sure there’s some.

00:42:39:10 – 00:42:40:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
Every time.

00:42:40:07 – 00:42:52:10
Brad Singletary
No gratitude and just some. And I can just picture you’re you’re sitting there, you know, with a prayer in your heart for these people. And, you know, you’re you’re trying to extend love and positive energy while you’re there.

00:42:52:20 – 00:43:13:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. Can you imagine just one person out of the 500 saying, tonight, I’m going to start over and all of a sudden they go through their the program over there and then they go get educated or get into a profession. And ten years down the road, they’re taking people to the rescue mission to get help. Right. That’s the that’s the payback, right?

00:43:13:14 – 00:43:14:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. Pay it forward.

00:43:14:09 – 00:43:15:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. You pay for it.

00:43:15:11 – 00:43:15:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yes.

00:43:16:02 – 00:43:36:28
Brad Singletary
So how did you learn to be a man? You’ve got all these great qualities. I just I really think that there are some men out there and you you guys seem you who are listening. You know what I’m talking about? You just see people in every aspect of their life just seems seriously good. No one’s perfect, but you can just tell that they are bringing a lot to the table.

00:43:36:28 – 00:43:39:28
Brad Singletary
And I think you do that. But who taught you how to be a man?

00:43:40:28 – 00:43:44:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, I don’t know. I think I’m still learning. That’s why they always had me work.

00:43:44:17 – 00:43:46:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
With the youth, because I’m still a kid.

00:43:46:01 – 00:43:48:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
My wife tells me I’m a kid. I don’t really understand it.

00:43:48:22 – 00:43:49:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
She said she raised.

00:43:50:01 – 00:43:51:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
Seven kids, but I’m only.

00:43:51:11 – 00:43:52:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
Counting six.

00:43:53:04 – 00:44:02:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I don’t know. You know, I really do still feel like I’m learning. I do. I mean, I was listening to a grade. I like Joel Osteen. Oh, yeah. People don’t, you know.

00:44:02:26 – 00:44:05:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
But I like him a lot. I like him, man. You know.

00:44:05:10 – 00:44:33:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
He’s positive and just I was just listening to one of his talks the other day about learning like I never get too old that learn. So he went on for 35 minutes about things we can do to learn you know, he said that every year most people spend 300 hours in an automobile. He said, do you realize in 300 hours how much you can learn if you listen to it, talk or listen to something to.

00:44:33:07 – 00:44:34:21
Brad Singletary
Make your video book or something.

00:44:34:21 – 00:44:35:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
To teach us if you’re.

00:44:35:24 – 00:44:53:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
Into sales, how to become a better salesperson and if you’re a lawyer, how to be a writer, you can go on and on, you know, if you’re working in the church as a pastor or whatever. But the concept was, don’t ever quit learning. And so I think I’m still working on this being a man thing. I still like a little bit of risk.

00:44:53:15 – 00:45:15:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
I still like a joke a lot. Sometimes it go over well, sometimes I don’t. But I think it started out with my dad. You know, my dad, he was he’s a big time hero to me. He was raised here in Las Vegas in I guess he was born in 1937 and so other four or 5000 people in Las Vegas then.

00:45:16:08 – 00:45:35:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
And he comes from a pretty troubled background. He was in and out of facilities and he fell in love with my mom when he’s about 14 or 15 years old. But my mom came from a good background and my grandpa had enough of my dad. So my grandpa had the sheriff take my dad on the edge of Las Vegas and say don’t come back.

00:45:36:10 – 00:45:37:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
So my dad.

00:45:38:02 – 00:46:00:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
So my dad ends up working in orange farms in Visalia, California, and then he went to San Francisco. In the meantime, my mom had been married, had a child, and my dad got word that she was going through a divorce. So he hauled back to Vegas and he saw her at one of these like little happy days diners in the fifties.

00:46:00:06 – 00:46:23:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right. And he her nickname was Shorty. He said, Shorty, you know, we’ve been apart a long time. Don’t you think we should just get married now? And she said, yes. And he became a man. He became a man. And I never saw my parents fight. They never made much money, but they always worked together. They did everything together.

00:46:23:21 – 00:46:41:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
They were just buddies. And, you know, some of his techniques were kind of fun. Like he told us one time, us boys, I don’t think I’m going to ask you again to make your beds he never got angry. Well, we didn’t make our bed. The next day, our beds were on top. The roof.

00:46:42:18 – 00:46:42:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
There was all.

00:46:42:29 – 00:46:46:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Kinds of things on top there. If I’m 56 St.Louis bicycle.

00:46:46:09 – 00:46:54:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
Parts shoes, it didn’t get put away. A bed sits on the roof, but he never got angry.

00:46:55:14 – 00:47:07:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
He anger was not in his makeup, so he would discipline, but never with anger. Oh, my gosh. That sounds like Christ to me. I’m a teacher better way, but I’m not going to get angry. Angry about it.

00:47:08:27 – 00:47:12:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
I love that. Yeah, I’m going to try that. Yeah. No.

00:47:13:22 – 00:47:16:27
Brad Singletary
I’ll have the h.o.h. Getting after me. Like, what is all that stuff.

00:47:16:27 – 00:47:24:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
On your roof? Well, they got tile roofs now, and so i’m not sure how that would go. We had our rocks on our roof. What makes.

00:47:24:15 – 00:47:25:28
Jimmy Durbin
You think it won’t be your stuff on the.

00:47:26:04 – 00:47:26:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
Shelf?

00:47:28:24 – 00:47:32:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’d be careful with that one. Right. There might be.

00:47:32:24 – 00:47:51:08
Brad Singletary
So your dad was a great example of that. You said he became a man. That’s a process. That’s a like, you know, that’s it’s not just we don’t age into it. Something has to happen to us. I think. I mean, so what what did you what else did you see from him or other men in your life that demonstrated how you become a man?

00:47:52:01 – 00:47:52:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, I think a.

00:47:52:19 – 00:48:13:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
Lot of hard work and that was one thing is that he he had a tremendous work ethic and and, you know, that concept of like, attract like. Right. It’s just it’s a beautiful, eternal concept. Usually you’re going to attract people that are like you in some ways. Otherwise you just you just bounce off each other, right? And so I got to watch his friends too.

00:48:13:08 – 00:48:41:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
And all of them were just young, trying different businesses, you know, staying out of trouble. My mom and dad both knew they were alcoholics and one day my dad missed work. So he was very functional. But one day he missed work and he never drank again. That was it. And I thought to myself, here’s a guy that comes from nothing that has every excuse in the world because he was abused as a kid.

00:48:41:25 – 00:49:07:20
Donald “Butch” Williams
All these things to not be a man. And he decided he’s going to be a man. He’s going to be a good husband and a good father, and he’s going to work hard and be loyal. And he was all of those things he never had to say. And I watched it right. You know, when we’d go work at the track as a nine year old and an eight year old kid on a Saturday morning, pulling out of bed at four in the morning to get in the back of the truck, to ride.

00:49:07:28 – 00:49:08:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
To to go.

00:49:08:23 – 00:49:17:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Under the Charleston underpass and on to the I-15, out to Craig Road in the back of the truck. When it’s cold in the winter and hot in the summer. He didn’t have to say anything. It’s just we’re.

00:49:17:29 – 00:49:20:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Going to work. Let’s go. Right.

00:49:21:05 – 00:49:45:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I’m just blessed. Blessed to have people like that in my life all the way through. My first my first boss coming out of law school, a guy named Norm Kurtzman. Wonderful. Wonderful man, fought in World War Two. He was a boxer he was so ethical. And I remember asking him one day, hey, how many billable hours do you want from me?

00:49:46:03 – 00:49:46:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right.

00:49:46:12 – 00:49:49:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Lawyers, billable hours. Well, he was a little bit.

00:49:49:06 – 00:49:54:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
Cross-Eyed and he was cantankerous. And so he’s kind of looking at me, but he’s looking over there.

00:49:54:24 – 00:50:00:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, we’ve had these conversations before right I was scared of him. He says.

00:50:00:26 – 00:50:20:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
Don’t you ever talk to me about billable hours. One day in my life. You give me your hours every week. And then I’m going to give the client the fair hours. Clients are not paying for your education. So you go on and you work and you learn to do the product right incorrectly. Don’t you worry about billable hours.

00:50:21:04 – 00:50:33:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yes, sir. Well, again, that concept concept sunk in and so when I hired my son in law and we had the same conversation about how many billable hours a week, because that’s what.

00:50:33:21 – 00:50:35:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
The law firms are telling the.

00:50:35:21 – 00:50:37:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
Well, yeah, I said, don’t.

00:50:37:04 – 00:50:49:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
You ever talk to me about those billable hours. You give your hours to me. And then I would look at the hours. Why did it take so many hours to do that project? I’m dying over here. But after a.

00:50:49:16 – 00:50:57:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
Few years, they get efficient and then they can keep their billable hours and it doesn’t matter. Right. But what a pure concept. Yes. That’s also ethical, right? Yeah.

00:50:58:07 – 00:51:19:11
Jimmy Durbin
So it’s nice to see that that those things weren’t lost on you, that you have paid it forward. That it allows you to be the man that you are and have the heart that you have and and be transparent and share this vulnerable story about the struggle you had in 95 with your wife and that all those things added up.

00:51:20:25 – 00:51:23:25
Jimmy Durbin
So thank you for that. Appreciate it.

00:51:24:13 – 00:51:45:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, no, it’s wonderful. But like I say, you asked the question, well, you know, becoming a man and and I answered it. I was kind of serious that I’m still becoming a man. So I got COVID in December of 20, 20. And it wasn’t the nice version about day 12. I said, I don’t know if I’m going to make it through this or not.

00:51:46:06 – 00:51:51:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
I never went to the hospital, but my oxygen kept getting closer to that 90. Right. That 90.

00:51:51:13 – 00:51:51:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
Mark.

00:51:52:20 – 00:52:10:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I was so miserable. Anyways, I did overcome it. And by the grace of God, I guess I got to stay on earth for a while. Longer, but a couple months after that, I began to have what you professionals refer to, and I didn’t know what they were then. Ruminating thoughts.

00:52:11:10 – 00:52:12:01
Brad Singletary
Rumination.

00:52:12:01 – 00:52:33:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
You’re you’re going to lose everything you everything you’ve worked for, you’re going to lose. You’re going to lose it. And they would not all of a sudden I was up all night sweating, heart palpitations. My wife has suffered from some anxiety and depression in her life. And one day I woke up again. This was only a year ago now and everything was dark.

00:52:34:16 – 00:52:49:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
For the first time in my life, I I’ve always been an optimist other than the 1995 heartache I’ve just been this optimist. You know, everything is going to be OK for everybody else, including myself. And then it hit me. Depression and anxiety.

00:52:50:05 – 00:52:50:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wow.

00:52:50:27 – 00:53:14:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so we got me into counseling and because she said, OK, that’s it, we’re done messing with it again. Power over. Good woman. We’re done with this. You’re going to be OK. But you have to you got to listen to me. I’ll listen to you, honey, because right now I feel so low. And she said, OK, so she got me into counseling, and that was helping and but it wasn’t enough.

00:53:15:17 – 00:53:38:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so finally she got me into a psychiatrist and they put me on Lexapro, and it took about two weeks. And all of a sudden, things started to clear up. And I was like, OK, my gosh, I feel OK. Again, this is I mean, I was just so grateful. So I been open about it. I have not.

00:53:38:29 – 00:53:39:28
Brad Singletary
That is great.

00:53:40:04 – 00:53:47:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
And just telling people this, you can turn this around. Sometimes we can’t, right? Sometimes.

00:53:47:19 – 00:53:59:01
Brad Singletary
Well, but so that’s good to know because I didn’t know that. But I think I might have known that you had COVID, but you were you were just been the epitome of energy. You’ve been one of those guys. I mean, you’re a runner right? You’re still running.

00:53:59:01 – 00:53:59:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
I am still running.

00:53:59:28 – 00:54:05:08
Brad Singletary
You’re a runner. I mean, you’ve done like marathons and. Right. You’ve done all that. You’re like a real runner.

00:54:06:05 – 00:54:12:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’m serious. Like, I’m like me and if I run, I’ve got to go to the bathroom, you know, if somebody is chasing me. Yes. Yes.

00:54:13:26 – 00:54:18:12
Brad Singletary
So you so health and energy and that kind of thing. But to talk about.

00:54:18:18 – 00:54:18:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Total.

00:54:18:28 – 00:54:27:28
Brad Singletary
Crashing after this COVID thing, having some thoughts that maybe seem to be out of control, get help. Listen to your wife, start counseling and medication and. Yeah.

00:54:29:02 – 00:54:31:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
That’s why you’re here. Well, she told me, she.

00:54:31:05 – 00:54:42:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
Said, but you never do medication without counseling, ever. Well, how would I have known something like that? Other than that, she’d been down the path. I’m like, OK, I’m listening to you. I’m all ears.

00:54:42:23 – 00:54:58:20
Brad Singletary
Was there any was there any hesitation or I mean, were you it was just that bad that you would do anything bad? What about a year ago? What about in the past? Would you have been the type to I mean, I think it’s clearly that you’re pretty humble, but you also have you got a smart aleck in there.

00:54:58:20 – 00:55:13:28
Brad Singletary
You know, you’ve got you got some you got you have a rowdy sense about you, too, you know? So, like, did that ever have would you always have been OK with that or is there some old school part of you is like, I don’t need that you had to fight through.

00:55:14:14 – 00:55:47:20
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, not at all. And I don’t say that with any false sense of humility, but it was so miserable. I always thought I understood kind of what depression was or anxiety was because I’ve read about it, lived with it, saw other family members with it, but I didn’t understand it until it hit and I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody except for the lessons learned blessings come from it.

00:55:47:28 – 00:56:14:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
And one of the blessings is through counseling. I learned, you know, how to meditate more, how to get myself more in the present. I mean, I just remember going to dinner and looking at my cell phone 25 times thinking there’s an important email that’s going to come or an important text message. And now I go to dinner and I put my phone to the side and I look at my wife’s hair or I say, I can stay totally in this conversation now without thinking of anything else.

00:56:14:06 – 00:56:37:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
But being sitting right here with two wonderful men in the city of Henderson, Nevada, with lights on and air conditioning blowing, counting my blessings and I could never do that before, even though I always felt like I was kind of a humble guy. I could never stay completely present and so I remember talking to the counselor a while back.

00:56:37:24 – 00:56:49:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
He said, What do you worry about? I said, I don’t ever want to feel like I felt a year ago any good counselor just like yourself, Brad. He said, But would you be open to it?

00:56:51:02 – 00:57:07:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
I said, I guess I would be, because right now I’m going to live in the moment. I’m going to live right now. I’m going to consider the lease of the field. I’m not going to take a purse or scrape with me anymore. Yes, I’ll save for the future. Yes, I’ll still plan for the, you know, the things that I can control.

00:57:09:17 – 00:57:10:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
But I’m going to live today.

00:57:11:26 – 00:57:23:22
Brad Singletary
That’s another one of those things that I’ve just been so impressed with, as I’ve kind of just watched you from a distance here the last few years. I mean, you see things like, you know, you’re dancing that at the hockey games.

00:57:24:15 – 00:57:25:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Like a fool.

00:57:25:25 – 00:57:27:26
Brad Singletary
And when I say like a fool, I mean, there is.

00:57:27:26 – 00:57:30:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Nothing foolish about it. That’s a man who’s alive.

00:57:30:28 – 00:57:34:29
Brad Singletary
You’re not afraid of what you look like. You don’t have much rhythm. Why are you kind of that’s pretty.

00:57:34:29 – 00:57:38:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
Good, you know, rhythm. But that’s not the point you’re feeling.

00:57:38:04 – 00:57:47:11
Brad Singletary
The music, you’re feeling the environment or or there’ll be these like, I forget what you call them, but these are little like, you know, donuts with the granddaughters day or whatever.

00:57:47:11 – 00:57:49:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
And that’s every Friday. Every Friday.

00:57:49:12 – 00:57:53:24
Brad Singletary
OK, so you got some little rituals where the grandkids come over for mourning or what happened?

00:57:53:24 – 00:57:58:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
No, no, no. I get up, I get my exercise in. I hit the donut shop and then I show up at their house.

00:57:58:17 – 00:57:59:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
You go to their house, I.

00:57:59:16 – 00:58:00:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
Go to their house.

00:58:00:23 – 00:58:01:18
Brad Singletary
Like, here’s some.

00:58:01:23 – 00:58:04:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Here’s some big old fries. You go.

00:58:04:09 – 00:58:11:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, that’s right. Yes. And then we we actually send donuts to the ones that live in California because we can’t be there. Right, all the time having delivered there.

00:58:11:17 – 00:58:14:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
So we haven’t delivered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a pretty.

00:58:14:27 – 00:58:18:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
Cheap way to say, Hey, Grandpa and Grandma, I was thinking about you, right?

00:58:18:20 – 00:58:20:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
I guess so. Yeah. No, we have a good time.

00:58:20:27 – 00:58:41:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, I think ever since I was young, I think it was my dad, too, probably. But trying to make somebody smile, right? You know? I mean, it matters. Maybe that’s the only time they’re going to smile the whole day. Maybe for a week. It’s the only little bit of joy they’ve had. You just never know what is going on in somebody else’s life.

00:58:41:11 – 00:58:51:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so I think that’s kind of an innate gift. I really do. Right? You know, maybe sometimes it’s not a gift at all. Sometimes it goes too far. And I got to answer to the boss, if you know what I mean.

00:58:51:25 – 00:58:57:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’m not talking to God. I’m talking to the other boss. My eternal boss. So sometimes I go.

00:58:57:25 – 00:59:00:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
Too far and I kind of back it off a little.

00:59:00:21 – 00:59:05:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Bit. But it’s OK. She’s she’s learned she’s had.

00:59:05:12 – 00:59:06:08
Brad Singletary
To learn how to love.

00:59:06:08 – 00:59:07:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
You, too. Oh, yeah.

00:59:08:08 – 00:59:09:07
Jimmy Durbin
Yeah. That part of you.

00:59:09:17 – 00:59:10:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, right. Yeah.

00:59:10:12 – 00:59:52:18
Jimmy Durbin
Grab nice and talk about you know, today I call myself Jimmy but for 42 years prior to that, it was Jim. And then when I got into recovery realizing the individual, the part of me that crosses the line, that pushes it too far is my ego, is my pride, and it’s being driven because of maybe that my feeling or I’m feeling insecure insignificant or that I don’t matter, I did something wrong or I’m not in control.

00:59:53:23 – 01:00:13:20
Jimmy Durbin
And so I’m trying to my ego’s trying to make up. Jim’s trying to drive the car, so to speak. And I’m just curious as to what you’ve noticed, because I think that’s the other thing about being a man is being able to talk about our weaknesses, about being able to kind of own that piece of it so that we can then apologize, like you said.

01:00:13:20 – 01:00:32:00
Jimmy Durbin
And, and of course. Correct, right. In that part of awareness and being mindfulness. And so how does that show up in your life? How does that manifest when when that ego, when that pride kind of kicks in? And what’s your process for OK, being aware of that and then of course, correcting.

01:00:32:11 – 01:00:32:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah.

01:00:33:28 – 01:00:58:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
In in my business, right. A lawyer, there’s just so much of that and I’m guilty of it as the next person. But I think the man upstairs has been kind to me in that I usually know when I go too far. I remember I remember years ago I had a case with this guy and it was just getting more and more contentious, more and more contentious.

01:00:59:15 – 01:01:05:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
And finally I said something I shouldn’t have said. So he turned me into the Nevada State Bar.

01:01:05:18 – 01:01:07:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
And wrote a letter.

01:01:07:02 – 01:01:10:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
On me, said, Mr. Williams told me to go f myself.

01:01:13:07 – 01:01:21:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I made a call. I got a call from bar counsel. Is this puts Williams? Yes, sir. Now, when bar counsel calls you, you’re.

01:01:21:13 – 01:01:21:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Shaking.

01:01:22:02 – 01:01:26:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
Right did you tell that lawyer to go F himself?

01:01:26:25 – 01:01:27:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yes, I did.

01:01:28:17 – 01:01:35:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
Can you not do that anymore? No, I won’t. And I’ve never done it again. But things have heated up over the years.

01:01:35:11 – 01:02:03:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Another situation that I had with a lawyer that I just love and respect, but it just, you know, our clients are going at it so heavy. And so we start sometimes take upon ourselves the personality of our clients, and it just went too far. And so I just thought about it. After a contentious conversation, shut my door, got on my knees in my office, prayed to God that, you know, hey, listen, we’re only fighting about money here or something, right?

01:02:03:13 – 01:02:25:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
In the big scheme of things. And the impression was send him a cookie basket to his firm right now. So I asked Robin, my assistant, would you send a cookie basket over there? And that healed it just like that one cookie basket. And we were healed and we were fine. We’ve had probably 40 cases with our respective firms over the years, and they’ve all resolved, you know, in a friendly fashion.

01:02:25:29 – 01:02:46:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I think just like you said, we all all of us have egos and they’re going to come through sometimes. And if we just have certain rituals in our lives and things we can we can keep some humility, right? It’s not always going to happen, but we know when it’s gone too far. We know when the red flag comes up, right?

01:02:46:14 – 01:03:05:24
Jimmy Durbin
Yeah. And like, I appreciate that word, ritual finding a series of actions that I can take every day regardless of how I feel. And I to me, that plugs into why you do the service and why you pay for it and why you talk to these men. It’s just having this ritual to keep the ego in check.

01:03:06:14 – 01:03:35:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. And everybody has their own way. I mean, I get up every morning and I’ll read scriptures for 20, 30 minutes and then I’ll exercise and then I’ll get going for the day. And if someone says, well you have to be up at 430 tomorrow, then I guess I get it. I’m getting a bit 3:00 because I’m concerned about ever changing that that, that thing, if you will, for lack of a better word, that I feel has carried me in life.

01:03:35:29 – 01:03:44:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, academically I really, really struggled in high school I graduated deal with Las Vegas High School with a 2.2 GPA.

01:03:44:28 – 01:03:46:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I never thought this guy.

01:03:46:14 – 01:04:03:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
Was going to college. Right. It was I just, you know, I just couldn’t sit in a room without and focus on an academic things very well. And then I went on that mission well, when I was on that mission, they had this little prize you would get if you memorized a hundred scriptures.

01:04:04:15 – 01:04:06:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
Well, I really had to work hard at that.

01:04:06:25 – 01:04:20:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
But I did it took me six months or something, but I memorized every one of them. Well, again, you’re in your younger years, right? And you’re thinking maybe I could go to college but when I came home, by the grace of.

01:04:20:23 – 01:04:28:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
God, you and Elvie would let anybody and even me. It was a long time ago. It’s not that way anymore. I’m sure but they let me.

01:04:28:06 – 01:04:29:05
Brad Singletary
I’ve been a fan for.

01:04:29:05 – 01:04:31:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Life ever since. Oh, you bet I am.

01:04:31:27 – 01:04:53:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I signed up for college again. Never thought. And none of my family member had ever got family members had ever gone to college that all of a sudden I said, Hey, listen, it’s taking you three and four times to understand complicated concepts when the guy next to you gets it. The first time I recognized that very early in my life.

01:04:54:05 – 01:05:15:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I said, you better learn persistence so I’ve made my mind up very early. You might beat me, you might beat me in the courtroom, you might beat me in a debate. But I’m going to work harder because I know I have to work two or three times harder than you to be able to stay with you in this arena.

01:05:16:21 – 01:05:32:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so I think, again, by the gift of God, you learn your weaknesses. If you if you ask them and if you spend some time at them and then you just work through them, just you know, if brains, natural brains is not your not your thing, well then persistence better be.

01:05:33:23 – 01:05:55:27
Brad Singletary
And that’s so great. You’re just the openness to like, OK, I may have this deficiency in some area, but I still want and deserve and believe that I can reach these other accomplishments. I just have to work harder. I mean, that is one of those traits that’s that’s some of the, you know, traditional masculinity that seems to be missing today is just, oh, OK.

01:05:56:04 – 01:06:15:01
Brad Singletary
Well, guess it means I need to work hard. I guess I need to push harder and I can do this. I just have to it’s going to require more from me and I love that you that you’re saying this right now. Like, OK, I, you know, didn’t even do well in high school. Now you’re an attorney, now you’re balling.

01:06:15:01 – 01:06:29:07
Brad Singletary
Now because of hard work and persistence and that discipline. So you’re talking about a little bit of a morning ritual. You have some you talked about reading scripture exercise. Is that running pretty much mostly or.

01:06:29:07 – 01:06:47:25
Donald “Butch” Williams
I’ll run four or five days a week and go to the gym and lift weights a couple of days a week. Just something to get the blood flow right. It’s getting harder as you get older, but I don’t miss very often. Even this morning before church, I walked six miles. I just I just need to be out breathing air and thinking and focusing.

01:06:47:25 – 01:07:00:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
I usually listen to a talk or something positive or listen to good music. Nothing too crazy on the you know, I might be the only person in the gym that’s listening to a, you know.

01:07:00:05 – 01:07:06:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
A spiritual, spiritual thought or spiritual music. Because I’m trying to get my spirit.

01:07:06:17 – 01:07:08:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
Tuned up before the world takes.

01:07:08:21 – 01:07:10:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
Over at about 8:00 because the.

01:07:10:28 – 01:07:12:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
World’s coming right.

01:07:12:06 – 01:07:12:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
Every day.

01:07:13:10 – 01:07:30:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so I’m just trying to tune upright, and some people don’t have to do that. Mike, my wife, is a very simple faith. I wish I could be more like her. Like her faith in her hope is just so she doesn’t need an hour to do that every day. Well, guess what I do or my ego will take over.

01:07:31:16 – 01:07:33:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I just have to know where you are right now.

01:07:33:16 – 01:07:34:28
Jimmy Durbin
Great awareness. Yeah.

01:07:35:16 – 01:07:55:07
Brad Singletary
I have a couple more questions for you, but one is what major error do you see men making? You’ve been around a lot of guys. You’ve been around a lot of people professionally as a leader. And you talk about as a as a bishop. I know you’ve done some things with the young people in your church. You’ve had like lots of opportunities to serve.

01:07:55:07 – 01:08:18:04
Brad Singletary
Just you’ve been a community man. I mean, you’ve been all around the place. What do you see guys messing up on what? I mean, if our average listener is a 40 year old father, let’s say younger father, you know, maybe has a couple of kids working fairly functional, but what kinds of things do you think average guys are missing out on or not doing well?

01:08:18:04 – 01:08:23:04
Brad Singletary
Not paying enough attention to mistakes they’re making see any patterns.

01:08:25:05 – 01:08:28:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
I think one is just trying to learn to listen.

01:08:29:06 – 01:08:31:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
It brings me back.

01:08:31:09 – 01:08:35:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
To the Bishop days. A couple would come in and be at each other’s throats.

01:08:35:21 – 01:08:39:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, it’s his fault. It’s her fault, it’s his fault, it’s her fault.

01:08:40:00 – 01:08:44:09
Donald “Butch” Williams
And at first I thought I had answers that, well, I this is.

01:08:44:09 – 01:08:49:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
A real easy fix, you know, maybe, maybe you guys should do this. Maybe you should do that. That didn’t seem.

01:08:49:23 – 01:09:04:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
To work very well. And then it hit me one day. Just let him have it out a little bit. Just listen. Just slow down and listen. And once I did that, they would go, boom.

01:09:04:07 – 01:09:15:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
Boom, boom. And then they would look at me like I was a miracle worker. Hey, that was great. Oh, my high five. I didn’t say anything. I just listened so.

01:09:16:27 – 01:09:47:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, it’s the best thing in life. Well, that’s that’s an exaggeration, but one of the wonderful things in life is maybe you are the smartest person in the room, but nobody has to know about it. You know, when you walk into a room and you’re humble and you’re listening, then people want to talk to you, then you know what the issues are, whether it be your wife or your child or somebody you’re trying to mentor, you don’t know the issues.

01:09:47:05 – 01:10:09:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
If you begin to talk to you quick, you just got to listen. And guess what? Listening takes time so that’s to me, it’s I know it sounds so simple, but it’s not simple. But if but if we and I I’m still working on this. Trust me, if we’ll work on the concept of listening, we’re probably going to go pretty far in life.

01:10:11:00 – 01:10:23:23
Brad Singletary
What keeps guys from listening and why don’t they? You’re saying it takes some time to do that and maybe patience, but what else? What other obstacles do men have keep them? Why don’t we listen very well?

01:10:23:23 – 01:10:24:20
Jimmy Durbin
Can I jump in here?

01:10:24:20 – 01:10:26:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, yeah, jump in. Yeah.

01:10:27:15 – 01:10:51:06
Jimmy Durbin
Feedback. I got quite a bit in my late twenties and thirties. Jimmy, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care because it was always about me. I always wanted to impress you. I was coming from a place of, you know, negative beliefs about myself or whatever the situation was. Or I had to prove myself.

01:10:51:06 – 01:11:17:21
Jimmy Durbin
And so I had to be the smart, you know, whatever that was. And so I wasn’t listening. I was talking about me and I just kept hearing this feedback from different people in my life at different times of, like, just shut up and lead with your heart. And I think when I first walked in that same space with you, that’s what hit me was here’s a guy who I can see his heart.

01:11:17:21 – 01:11:24:24
Jimmy Durbin
I can see the love in your eyes. I can it radiates in your face, this countenance, the glow, despite the fact that you’re bald.

01:11:25:03 – 01:11:45:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
You ready? And you see the glow there. You see, I had like five years left at the front and I lifted off and my wife’s like, word your hair go. I said, Honey, somebody took a picture of my bald head two weeks ago and showed it to me. So I just finished the job yeah. I think it’d stay in that way now, but I don’t know.

01:11:45:03 – 01:11:46:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Looks good. It looks good.

01:11:47:26 – 01:11:49:00
Brad Singletary
Kind of like it myself.

01:11:49:00 – 01:11:52:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah, it’s not bad. But. No, I know.

01:11:52:12 – 01:12:16:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
It’s it. It takes time. It’s a it’s a skill. I’m still working on it sometimes. But you met. You answered your own question. You might not know that, knowing that you did, because we’re moving along, but you said two things. Time and patience to be a listener. It’s going to take some time time’s only measured in men, so we have a limited amount of it.

01:12:16:02 – 01:12:20:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
So that leads into the next thing. A 40 year old guy with three kids at home.

01:12:20:20 – 01:12:21:28
Donald “Butch” Williams
He don’t have a lot of time.

01:12:21:28 – 01:12:35:23
Donald “Butch” Williams
In his mind. He’s like, I got to go here. I got this, I got that, and impatience. And most of us are not born with that one, right? So we have to learn it over time. So time and patience.

01:12:36:09 – 01:12:57:01
Brad Singletary
I think, too, that if you believe that there is something valuable coming from the other person, I mean, to listen also requires that you respect who’s talking and you respect who’s who’s out there. Even if it’s your children, they’ll tell you important things if you just listen. I remember listening to a an audio book or, I don’t know, some influencer of some kind.

01:12:57:01 – 01:13:07:18
Brad Singletary
And he said he was talking about like your wife complaining at you or something. And he said, you want that data, that’s information you want. Don’t act like don’t shut yourself down.

01:13:07:28 – 01:13:08:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
Hear it.

01:13:09:17 – 01:13:16:01
Brad Singletary
Hear it, and then you can do something and then you can minimize it by taking action and listen. But you have to listen first.

01:13:16:08 – 01:13:43:05
Jimmy Durbin
And I think what comes with that time and patience, at least for me, was the realization that no matter who was in front of me, there is value. They have something to offer. But because of my ego and my pride and my judgment, you don’t have you don’t have anything offer. And that is that is the ego. That is my pride of of believing that and instilling that.

01:13:43:05 – 01:13:44:28
Jimmy Durbin
And so I don’t have to listen.

01:13:45:23 – 01:14:09:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
That is so good. Before I came here, I was at a different meeting, and this church leader stood up and he said, I want to show you this picture, and it’s a picture of Christ. And he’s getting ready to heal someone, but you can’t see the person he’s healing. He goes, Do you notice that kids and he’s talking to a group of kids, even this 56 year old kid.

01:14:09:16 – 01:14:43:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I’m like, I know where he’s going with this. He says, Christ can’t see the person when you go serve someone you never want to think that they are less than you or anyone else. In other words, you want to be on the same plane. Everybody’s got a story, and it’s usually a pretty good story. And when you take time to listen to anyone, you’re going to probably get some nuggets that are going to bless your life.

01:14:43:20 – 01:14:55:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
I mean, I’m sitting there listening to you guys today and I’m just thinking, man, I’m just learning from these guys. They think they know I’m learning. I’m sitting here learning from these guys, you know.

01:14:56:05 – 01:14:57:11
Jimmy Durbin
Which is why men need men.

01:14:57:20 – 01:14:59:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
That’s why I’m in me then.

01:14:59:11 – 01:15:17:10
Brad Singletary
That’s right. That is exactly why. So tell me something that you’re still trying to figure out about life. You know, you’re saying you’re 56, you’re still growing, still learning to be a man, but literally something that you want to still maybe begin or still round off in your life.

01:15:17:24 – 01:15:51:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, I saw that question is a precursor. What am I what am I still trying to learn so this is going to sound a little generic, but but I do mean it. I’m still trying to learn more about the nature of God. I’m still trying to understand how you know, his compassion can be there for even a guy like me raised in downtown Las Vegas, maybe I’m still trying to get better at my profession.

01:15:52:06 – 01:16:15:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
I mean, I’ve thought about this concept of retiring and, you know, these types of things and just doesn’t feel right. It just feels like I can still learn and maybe be of some benefit to my clients. If. Right, if they want me to do something that maybe I can help them with it, you know? So I think it’s just this concept of ever learning ever learning whatever’s around us.

01:16:16:11 – 01:16:20:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
I don’t know what tomorrow brings. So we’ll see.

01:16:20:13 – 01:16:45:24
Brad Singletary
So what is the most alpha attribute about you? And we just I just did a podcast before this one that I’m kind of trying to define that because I hate the way the world looks at the alpha male that’s such an ugly caricature. But Alpha being the highest part of you, you know, the best, purest, most, you know, the most, the strongest brightest piece inside you.

01:16:45:24 – 01:16:54:16
Brad Singletary
What is, what is that for you? Something that you can really be proud of and own as a talent or gift. What’s special about you? What is your superpower?

01:16:55:24 – 01:16:56:18
Donald “Butch” Williams
I don’t know.

01:16:57:14 – 01:16:58:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
I saw that.

01:16:58:05 – 01:17:00:27
Donald “Butch” Williams
Question, too, and I wanted to punch that thing down the.

01:17:00:27 – 01:17:03:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
Field. You know, but then I.

01:17:03:22 – 01:17:09:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
When I painted it, I felt like our punter in high school one time, he put it and it went right off his foot into the stands, to the right.

01:17:10:05 – 01:17:13:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I never seen 180 degree punt before. And we.

01:17:13:19 – 01:17:16:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
Saw it. I’m not going to mention his name, Jim Capper.

01:17:16:02 – 01:17:19:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
But if you’re out there, our best punt die or saw in my life.

01:17:20:04 – 01:17:44:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
I don’t you know, this is really a tough one, right? Because it makes you talk about maybe equality. You you have figured out about yourself over the years that maybe you could pass on. Right? I mean, really isn’t that kind of the core of the question I would say just keep working at it. Whatever you’re doing, just keep working at it.

01:17:45:19 – 01:18:10:22
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, if you’re in a tough spot right now, tomorrow’s probably going to get brighter. And if it’s not tomorrow, it’s going to be the next day if you keep working at it. Right. I remember an old, old guy named Jeff NGO Bush gave a little talk one time and the first reminder that he gave himself every day is, I am a child of God.

01:18:11:13 – 01:18:18:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
I am a child of God. My mom used to say to me, hey, Butchie, you know, I don’t like you sometimes.

01:18:18:19 – 01:18:22:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
But I do love you. There’s some days I don’t like you, but I love you.

01:18:23:08 – 01:18:44:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
And so I look at God that way. You know, there’s some days he’s not going to like the decisions I make because they’re my decisions and they’re prideful and they’re, you know, but I know he loves me. And I as I jump into scriptures every day or listen to a talker, I’m reminding you of that love. I, I, I see that love in the eyes of all those at the Las Vegas rescue mission.

01:18:45:12 – 01:18:56:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
I remember walking to church one day as a bishop. This guy was walking right to I’d always walk to church because it was a one mile walk to my church from my house. And with having six kids at home, it gave me a chance just to.

01:18:56:16 – 01:18:58:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
Clear my mind a little bit and go try to be.

01:18:58:19 – 01:19:22:15
Donald “Butch” Williams
A bishop right in. This guy is walking at me and he’s big guy. He’s burly, and he’s tattooed from head to toe, and I’ve never felt like I was a real judgmental person, but I’ve judged and I’ve judged wrongfully, you know, that guy’s walking that me. All of a sudden I went from his tattooed body into his eyes and I could just see the light of Christ in this guy.

01:19:22:27 – 01:19:45:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
And I said, That guy right there is your brother. And things changed that. How I viewed people from that day forward, I just, you know, nobody’s less than you. Nobody’s better than you. If you’re going to compare yourself with someone, if you really find it necessary to compare yourself with someone, go ahead and compare yourself to God. You’ll get yourself humble because you know, he creates worlds without end.

01:19:46:00 – 01:19:46:16
Donald “Butch” Williams
And you’re.

01:19:46:16 – 01:20:01:13
Donald “Butch” Williams
Sitting here just trying to make $10, keep a little money in your pocket to pay the bills next month. Right? Right. So I mean, just keep working, right? Do the best you can, stay humble and keep working. Things will work out. They do.

01:20:02:13 – 01:20:30:01
Brad Singletary
You just have so many stellar qualities, man. When I someone asked me before what what I thought it meant to to be an alpha. And I read this book recently called King Warrior, Magician, Lover and to me, that kind of this book is about archetypes and that we all possess these different archetypes. So that of King Now that would be like the good leader, you know, a benevolent king he’s giving to his kingdom and whatever he’s king.

01:20:30:01 – 01:20:55:07
Brad Singletary
That’s the leadership area. And then warrior is the guy who’s fighting for the good, you know, fighting for the right thing. That’s your profession. You know, maybe you’re you’re a warrior that way. You’re a warrior. We’re talking about that. The Las Vegas rescue mission, helping, helping in good causes. You’ve been involved with a lot of those things. Magician means you have specialized knowledge, not only that, you have specialized knowledge, but that you share it.

01:20:55:13 – 01:21:16:16
Brad Singletary
So unlike a street magician, this kind of magician is someone who would teach their tricks. And you’re doing that with your son in law who’s in your practice and all the young attorneys that you’ve been able to influence. And then lover lover is a guy that’s showing up with donuts at the grandkids every Friday or, you know, dancing in the stands at the the Golden Knights hockey games.

01:21:17:09 – 01:21:35:26
Brad Singletary
You you just you just a grateful person. I’ve just seen some amazing things from you and I really appreciate you being here to to to join with this man. And I and I hope that we can, you know, I don’t know, continue our friendship. I guess we haven’t been super close, but I’ve known you for probably 15 years.

01:21:35:26 – 01:21:57:20
Brad Singletary
And a guy came to me one time to work with me. And you were called as his leader. You were in that period and he said, I believe that God knows who I am because this person was, you know, he’s my pastor, he’s my bishop. And he is a person that I believe is going to help me in my life.

01:21:57:20 – 01:22:16:13
Brad Singletary
And and I remember hearing just how you two this guy was kind of like the man who influenced you way back and that you treated him that way. Maybe you had him in your home and all these kinds of things. And it’s just it’s just great to know that there are men like you around. You’ve got these great polarities.

01:22:16:13 – 01:22:54:21
Brad Singletary
So on one hand, you know, you’re running every morning. You’ve got you’ve drive, you ride a Harley, you have a black Corvette. And yet, you know, your biggest goal is to continue to learn to understand God. Like you don’t see those kinds of things in people, you know, motorcycle, motocross rider back in the day, marathoner Harley Davidson, you know, Corvette driver and highly spiritual talking about tenderness, you know, the love and people that kind of that is the most brilliant, beautiful stuff that I’ve ever seen in guys.

01:22:54:21 – 01:23:05:02
Brad Singletary
And you just you really represent that a lot. So thank you for who you are and for being willing to come and share with us a little bit here. Do they Jimmy, do you have any closing thoughts or questions or.

01:23:05:02 – 01:23:28:13
Jimmy Durbin
No, I just Butch here. I appreciate thank you for showing up in the world you know, thank you for the difference that you make. I still think you punted that that question. You know, I think your superpower, you love your love. You found a way to fall in love with yourself and it it shows up. And so thank you.

01:23:29:01 – 01:23:54:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
Man. You’re welcome. And I and I’m never going to forget the term it was worth driving out here for a lot of reasons. First you see again, Brad. But second of all, I’m never going to forget that terminology. A hard back and a soft front that that just that’s the the the new saying for this week just hard back sometimes your back’s got to be hard that world’s coming at you but you can keep your front soft.

01:23:54:16 – 01:23:55:05
Donald “Butch” Williams
I love it.

01:23:55:05 – 01:23:56:09
Jimmy Durbin
Yeah. Keep your heart open.

01:23:56:10 – 01:23:58:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Oh, so good. So good.

01:23:58:25 – 01:24:00:21
Brad Singletary
I’m just soft everywhere I’m soft in.

01:24:02:11 – 01:24:10:21
Donald “Butch” Williams
I need to harden up a little bit like these two guys. A little myself. Great. Soft. Yeah. What’s that joke from the eighties?

01:24:11:14 – 01:24:13:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
We used to tell each other. You get Dunlap Disease?

01:24:13:24 – 01:24:24:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
Yeah. You know what’s dumb about disease? When you’re barely done, that’s over your male rash. I don’t know where they get these things. The eighties were a great time to be alive. Hey, would.

01:24:25:25 – 01:24:36:01
Brad Singletary
You guys, we just want to highlight some of the best men that we can get our hands on. And I think we’ve scored big time here tonight. This Lou Williams, I meant to ask you how to why the name Butch.

01:24:36:09 – 01:24:41:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
You know, you wonder if you’re going. That’s Alpha from day one when they start calling you. But you’re a.

01:24:41:07 – 01:24:42:21
Brad Singletary
Total stud when they do that.

01:24:43:04 – 01:24:45:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
So that is a story.

01:24:47:16 – 01:24:47:24
Donald “Butch” Williams
When.

01:24:47:24 – 01:25:05:04
Donald “Butch” Williams
I was born, my mom wanted to name me Don because she had an Uncle Don. That was just a talk about a humble guy. I remember him as a kid. He’d come into our home and he he was so humble. Adam Langley was his name. Well, I had another Uncle Don, and.

01:25:06:02 – 01:25:10:14
Donald “Butch” Williams
He was a little rougher. So my my mom my mom.

01:25:10:14 – 01:25:11:29
Donald “Butch” Williams
Wanted to name me after the.

01:25:12:20 – 01:25:15:11
Donald “Butch” Williams
More humble Don. Good. Don. Yeah, yeah.

01:25:15:29 – 01:25:21:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
And my dad said, Well, I’ll tell you how we’re going to solve this problem. I’m just going to call him Butch.

01:25:22:03 – 01:25:25:01
Donald “Butch” Williams
And that was it. I thought I had it.

01:25:25:01 – 01:25:25:26
Donald “Butch” Williams
Shaken in high.

01:25:25:26 – 01:25:27:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
School. Nope.

01:25:28:19 – 01:25:29:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
College? Nope.

01:25:30:24 – 01:25:36:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
Law school? No. Got into the professional world. A few clients call me.

01:25:36:03 – 01:25:37:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
Don, and it’s still Butch.

01:25:37:06 – 01:25:39:07
Donald “Butch” Williams
So I imagine that’s.

01:25:39:07 – 01:25:40:10
Donald “Butch” Williams
Will be on my tombstone.

01:25:40:10 – 01:25:42:03
Donald “Butch” Williams
When I get creamy.

01:25:42:03 – 01:25:46:02
Donald “Butch” Williams
Cremate it off the coast of Hawaii. I heard you can do that for 300 bucks.

01:25:46:02 – 01:25:50:06
Donald “Butch” Williams
I said, Why not? You know, I like the North Shore. Throw you.

01:25:50:06 – 01:25:51:08
Brad Singletary
In a volcano or what.

01:25:51:08 – 01:26:01:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Do they do? It’s a Neptune society. 300 bucks. You know, they sizzle you and put you out on the ocean, man. That way, when I’m resurrected, man, I’m in one cool area. So I’ve got.

01:26:01:17 – 01:26:04:08
Donald “Butch” Williams
That in my trust right now. But my wife says I have to change it.

01:26:06:16 – 01:26:09:04
Jimmy Durbin
Tell her the new thing now is composting. So you just want to be.

01:26:09:18 – 01:26:10:00
Donald “Butch” Williams
Stuffed.

01:26:11:17 – 01:26:12:09
Brad Singletary
Into a tree.

01:26:12:09 – 01:26:13:27
Jimmy Durbin
And then spread the dirt all over.

01:26:15:14 – 01:26:20:17
Donald “Butch” Williams
Oh, that’s a little stuff going on there. Yes, it is. And it’s great to.

01:26:20:17 – 01:26:21:19
Donald “Butch” Williams
Be with you guys. Thank you.

01:26:21:19 – 01:26:22:13
Brad Singletary
Thank you, man.

01:26:22:13 – 01:26:24:02
Jimmy Durbin
Thanks for coming in, you guys.

01:26:24:08 – 01:26:27:10
Brad Singletary
Until next time, no excuses, Alpha.

01:26:29:14 – 01:26:34:16
Speaker 3
Gentlemen, you are the Alpha and this is the Alpha Quorum.

01:26:40:11 – 01:26:41:12
Donald “Butch” Williams
There it is.

 

Click your podcast platform below or listen to the embedded file on this page.

090: YOU ARE NOT AN ALPHA (And Neither Am I)

090: YOU ARE NOT AN ALPHA (And Neither Am I)

There is some bone-chilling real-talk in this explicit and uncensored episode. In his most impassioned solo show ever, Alpha Quorum founder Brad Singletary goes OFF about the “caricature” associated with the term “alpha” and turns upside-down and inside-out the notion of the “alpha male” being anything of valuable aspiration. He briefly shares the history of how men have been improperly compared to animals based on their sexual market value alone, and encourages men to dominate only themselves and behave in a way that breathes life INTO and ON TO whatever they touch.

The way he defines alpha behavior in “alpha moments” is a game-changer, both for the worldwide movement of men’s growth, and for the worldwide audience of this show and members of the Alpha Quorum. He shares the background of why he began this entire enterprise and the context behind the use of the word “quorum.”

Brad admits that he is not an Alpha and explains why you aren’t either. “Alpha’s don’t exist; only behavior that produces either good or evil, and motives coming from either love or fear.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT

“00:00:00:07 – 00:00:24:10
Brad Singletary
We don’t need to spend any more time arguing what an alpha is. They don’t exist. Alpha male and beta male. Those are slang names for men. They’re means they’re caricatures. To me, alpha is the highest combination of qualities that you’re capable of in any given moment. Stop projecting your shadow onto other men that you believe are weaker than you.

00:00:25:11 – 00:00:56:06
Brad Singletary
Instead, get aligned with the highest energy, the alpha is inside you as one part of you. So let’s talk about dominance hierarchy in the many parts of you. Which leader is running the show? When we say alpha up, it means to call forward the generous king. Dominate your low value, low level, ignorant, selfish greedy and ego driven default trashy ass behavior when you were producing good.

00:00:56:06 – 00:00:59:07
Brad Singletary
That’s Alpha when you’re acting out of love.

00:00:59:12 – 00:01:22:29

That’s alpha 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, This is the Alpha Corps.

00:01:29:04 – 00:01:51:03
Brad Singletary
Welcome back to the Alpha Quorum Show. Brad Singletary here. I’m on this microphone solo here today with a message that is pretty important to me. So I’m the founder of the Alpha Quorum, and I have done pretty much everything that you’ve seen behind the scenes all of the the things that we’ve ever really produced. It’s pretty much me behind the scenes of that.

00:01:51:03 – 00:02:20:01
Brad Singletary
So I just wanted to talk about a topic that has been kind of controversial, and that is about the term alpha. You are not an alpha, and neither am I. Alpha is not a status It’s a state of energy, its behavior. It’s a collection of actions in any given moment. It’s about dominating yourself, not others. It’s about winning the competition with your own base and lower frequency habits.

00:02:21:09 – 00:02:51:06
Brad Singletary
To me, Alpha is the highest combination of qualities that you’re capable of in any given moment. So a little history on this. Alpha is, of course, you’ve heard this stuff before Alpha is used in the sciences to describe the biggest and baddest and most brightest and powerful thing in a group that might include things from the alpha male, from the study of primates to alpha stars in the constellations of astronomy.

00:02:52:05 – 00:03:17:27
Brad Singletary
Well, bro we’re not chimpanzees in primates and wolves and in other animals. There’s a designation of one in the group as the quote unquote, alpha male And that labeling has sadly carried over to a description of dominant acting men. And I just want to clarify our position on the term alpha Alpha male and beta male, those are slang names for men.

00:03:17:27 – 00:03:56:06
Brad Singletary
Their means, they’re caricatures. The beta is often seen as a guy who is not assertive or stereotypically masculine and is disregarded by women. And people use that term as a derogatory identifier. Prior to around the 1990s, the alpha and beta terms were pretty much exclusively used for animals, particularly in relation to mating privileges with females. The ability to hold territory like the food intake hierarchy within the herd or the flock.

00:03:57:06 – 00:04:24:12
Brad Singletary
So in the animal world, a beta animal is one that is submissive to higher ranking members of the social order, meaning that it must wait to eat and has fewer or no possibilities for mating. Franz DiVall who is a primatologist and ecologist, claimed in his 1982 book Chimpanzee Politics that his observations of a chimp colony could be applied to human interactions.

00:04:25:06 – 00:04:55:25
Brad Singletary
Some reviews of that book, including one in the Chicago Tribune, compared it to human power structures some of the media outlets began to use the term alpha male, particularly referring to manly males who succeeded in business. And then a bestselling book in 2005 called The Game, which is a pick up artistry book by Neil Strauss, is credited with popularizing the alpha male as an aspirational ideal.

00:04:57:20 – 00:05:33:26
Brad Singletary
But the caricature of the alpha male often consists of the careless, loudmouthed breeder on a conquest for bitches who with a flashy, ego centered pickup artist, narcissistic style And he uses and manipulates people for a self-serving end. This is not what we are about. Pretty much the opposite. We’re also not interested in categorizing dudes in some ranking system, talking about alpha and beta based on like their ability to excite people or their sexual market value.

00:05:34:14 – 00:06:01:08
Brad Singletary
There’s plenty of persuasive and attractive men out there with captivating styles, and they only do harm with their powers. That shit ain’t alpha, and it’s not what we’re about at all competitive, capable, wealthy, attractive, powerful dudes. Aren’t bad. But those kind of stereotypical traits or alpha expressions are all that is required to be counted among the best of men.

00:06:02:05 – 00:06:28:21
Brad Singletary
Because what about integrity and responsibility and good judgment? The strongest of men have power, but have all of their powers in check. They are regulated against arrogance and pride and the use and misuse and abuse of people. The ability to love is probably my own simplest definition of what it means to be alpha, the ability to love. But alpha is not an identity.

00:06:29:25 – 00:07:03:10
Brad Singletary
It’s an attitude which leads to actions, which leads to the development of attributes which increase and improve as we evolve in our lives. Alpha is about excellence, and excellence is the highest quality that you are capable of producing on this day. There is neither a comparison nor any sort of contest. This is not a club for show offs and cocky dudes looking to entertain other people, but mostly themselves.

00:07:05:02 – 00:07:32:07
Brad Singletary
I want to talk for a minute about Quorum. I created the logo and all of the branding and all the websites and all of the things that go along with the Alpha Quorum. And initially the word alpha was huge. The letters were big and in really small letters underneath was quorum. Well, I didn’t like the font, and after a couple of years I thought it needed a little bit of an update but I changed it.

00:07:32:07 – 00:07:54:02
Brad Singletary
To include Alpha is very small and Quorum are the big letters. Well, what is this about? What is this idea of core? It comes from Robert’s Rules of Order. It generally has to do with like political processes or voting. Let’s say there’s a meeting or a committee of people in the political process in order for a vote to take place.

00:07:54:25 – 00:08:27:19
Brad Singletary
A certain number of people called a quorum need to be present in order for the vote to be valid. That guards against misrepresentation and that prevents taking things in a direction that the body of people would not be happy with. So this group isn’t about the alpha, it’s about the quorum My belief is that if you don’t have a quorum, a tribe of trusted men who you consult with on the business of your life, you’re missing out.

00:08:27:19 – 00:08:49:20
Brad Singletary
You’re probably screwing up We are weakest when we are isolated. We make the worst decisions alone. If you think about it, think about your worst decisions. Think about the worst period of your life. You didn’t have dudes to talk to. You didn’t tell the truth about what you were doing. You didn’t let people know of your plans to end this relationship.

00:08:49:20 – 00:09:28:06
Brad Singletary
You didn’t tell people about your decision to file bankruptcy. You didn’t tell people about the bonehead shit that you were about to do, probably because of fear and shame, and you didn’t have those relationships to start with. We’re not monkeys, bro. We’re we’re not wolves. So stop comparing yourselves to other dudes. If you are hiding in the shadows and noticing all the powerful men that you’d call Alpha, stop projecting your own hidden and dormant badassery onto other guys instead Pull out your own and use it.

00:09:29:00 – 00:09:56:27
Brad Singletary
Stop projecting your shadow onto other men that you believe are weaker than you. In fact, just stop with this kind of judgment at all. Instead, get aligned with the highest energy within you, the chimpanzees who dominate other chimps is the alpha because it doesn’t have a self to dominate. Like us, higher humans have. He lives on instinct. His goals are territory.

00:09:57:02 – 00:10:24:19
Brad Singletary
His goals are mating privileges. He’s thinking about food. And even if some animals out there have some kind of complex psychic structures that you might compare to conscience, there’s nothing like the abilities that we have to make good decisions based on conscience. But if mating is the outcome you want to measure, then yes, by all means, go do all the animal shit.

00:10:25:13 – 00:10:47:03
Brad Singletary
The peacocking, the grunting, all the things that the animals do to call in a mate. I think a lot more of you than what you can do with your dick and I hope that you do too. Our minds and hearts are made of parts, and we have more than one way of being like to think about how you behave when you’re dating.

00:10:47:12 – 00:11:11:26
Brad Singletary
Let’s say a first date versus how you behave at work or at the gym. Think of your differences when you sit pondering the dark details of your past versus when you’re walking on the beach with a loved one on vacation. There’s a part of you that is gentle and easygoing and tolerant and part of you that is aggressive and angry and fierce.

00:11:13:04 – 00:11:37:23
Brad Singletary
The situation you’re in is how you know which part to engage, hopefully, if you have it figured out. Being alpha is different if you’re holding a baby versus if you’re trying to win a competition. How do you alpha when you’re holding a baby? Well, hopefully with some confidence and skill and the ability to soothe and comfort this child.

00:11:38:12 – 00:12:06:04
Brad Singletary
Not being afraid to sing to him or to embarrassed to dance around and afraid that you can’t rock them to sleep You’re comfortable. You’re confident. You’re having an alpha moment. If you’re afraid of holding a baby, that’s not your highest form of energy. I know dudes who can’t hold their own children because they’re afraid. Get it figured out.

00:12:07:17 – 00:12:26:21
Brad Singletary
How do you alpha in an athletic event or a motorcycle race, you’re prepared. You have the best equipment possible. You have a strategy. You’ve taken every possible measure to have a competitive edge. And you’re having an alpha day. You’re having an alpha month or week or and having an alpha season.

00:12:28:27 – 00:12:59:00
Brad Singletary
We have these archetypal energies embedded in us that have been passed down through both nature and nurture. And we’ve talked about this in some previous podcasts, but we’re borrowing here from the work of Carl Jung, who says that inside we all have the energies of kings. And also the shadow side of that tyrant and weakling. We have the energy of warriors and also the shadow of sadist and masochist.

00:12:59:28 – 00:13:30:10
Brad Singletary
We have the energy of magicians as well as the shadow side of manipulators and dummies. We have the power and the energy of lovers, as well as the shadow side there of addicts and impotent lovers. We all have alpha energy in us, too. And we also have the energy of selfish punk ass bitches who are afraid of our own shadow and don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground.

00:13:31:10 – 00:13:57:24
Brad Singletary
In every given moment, we either embody alpha energy which is the highest form of ourself. We embody that in its fullness, or we live in some shadow form of the upside down shadow on a on a long continuum of polar opposite energies. And we can be both. We can. We can swing back and forth from one to the other.

00:13:57:24 – 00:14:12:22
Brad Singletary
Show me a brave soldier, and I’ll show you a guy who sometimes cries like a baby. Show me a physician and I’ll show you someone who sometimes indulges in the most disgusting and unhealthy habits.

00:14:15:01 – 00:14:37:14
Brad Singletary
Show me a nice guy, and I’ll show you a man who’ll become a raging and abusive monster. Show me a pastor and I’ll show you someone with an evil side. A wicked, carnal, deviant, devilish, sinful side, which, of course, he has to hide for the sake of his job. So none of you dudes have arrived at some alpha state?

00:14:37:14 – 00:15:06:09
Brad Singletary
I haven’t either. That’s for damn sure. There’s no such arrival at no such destination. There is only the arduous journey of continuing to try to stay in a state of both love and reason, of both leadership and humility. Of enthusiasm and a respect of courage as well as compassion. You and I have behaved in alpha ways before. We have acted on our highest energy at times.

00:15:06:09 – 00:15:23:16
Brad Singletary
We’ve operated from the highest possible qualities within us, and you and I have also acted out of little beta bitch energy more often than not, taking the lead, taking direction from the inferior reasoning in our inferior selves.

00:15:25:24 – 00:15:49:22
Brad Singletary
So we have alpha moments. There have been times when you experienced and expressed and acted out of pure alpha energy. You were decisive and bold and loving and strong and influential and fun and fierce all at the same time. We can say that we are a man. We can say that we are men. We cannot say that we’re alpha.

00:15:50:13 – 00:15:58:12
Brad Singletary
So often the alpha at work is a whipping boy at home or the whipping boy at work is the bully at his own house.

00:16:00:28 – 00:16:29:24
Intro/Outro
I heard a wife say one time about her husband (that she was cheating on) that you’re either an alpha or not. I don’t think that’s true. If if we’re talking about the ability to attract reproductive mates, then maybe. Yes, but even then, the age and health and mobility and the effects of financial standing in so many elements can change the state of the natural alpha to a less desired, less valuable consumer instead of a producer.

00:16:30:27 – 00:17:04:04
Brad Singletary
So this isn’t a permanent, unchanging status. We’re up and down with our energy. We’re up and down with our integrity. A man may have instinctual propensity toward leadership or enthusiasm or flamboyance or dominance in some fashion, some type of dominance. But he isn’t always that. And neither is the so-called beta always weak. Our alpha states are fluid, and they fluctuate like our weight, our mood, our hunger.

00:17:05:13 – 00:17:39:27
Brad Singletary
It’s not static and permanent, like our height and not irreversible like our age. So what are we all about up in here in the Alpha Quorum? We’re about this grown ass man. Evolution. We’re about support. Education. Community. Unique experiences. Resources. And expanding influence. We believe that men evolve by engaging with other dudes to improve their attitude. Actions and attributes.

00:17:41:01 – 00:18:16:14
Brad Singletary
We’ve we’ve done entire podcasts on each of these before. We’re going to continue to talk about it. Here are the read nine Attributes, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reverence, Energy, Engage Judgment, Endurance, Discipline, Discernment and distinction. The alpha state is all about life. You have a life. You are adventuresome and bold. You’re maybe you’re a mover and shaker. You’re healthy in every respect.

00:18:17:03 – 00:18:56:21
Brad Singletary
You create life not by breeding, but by showing up with some love and energy. People want to be around you because you elevate them with your presence. Just being there makes it feel good. Your purposes are unselfish. There’s a lot of smooth, charismatic guys who can do those things. But if the purpose isn’t unselfish, not alpha, if you ask me And lastly, that you preserve life, you protect people, you help maintain their security, and that is more important to you than than your own security.

00:18:57:08 – 00:19:26:12
Brad Singletary
So it’s about life. You have life, you create life, you preserve life. And why this whole thing exists it’s to connect you with men so that you can improve your attitude. You got to take better actions. And as you do that, your attributes change and you begin to operate from alpha qualities more often I want to talk about the dominant part of you.

00:19:26:12 – 00:20:07:20
Brad Singletary
That’s what to me, Alpha is. The Alpha is not a man in a room who’s better. The Alpha is not the most attractive person. The Alpha is the dominant part inside. You don’t dominate other people, dominate yourself, dominate your low value, low level, ignorant, selfish, greedy, and ego driven. Default trashy ass behavior. The alpha is inside you. It’s one part of you So let’s talk about dominance hierarchy in the many parts of you.

00:20:07:21 – 00:20:39:06
Brad Singletary
Which leader is running the show? In the control room, the cockpit the Central Command station. Inside of your head and your heart. When we say alpha up, it doesn’t mean go around waving your dick at people and revving the engine with your little rattling fart carrying on your import at the red light It means to call forward the high priest in your head, the generous king, the wisest member of the team of archetypes inside you.

00:20:39:07 – 00:21:11:13
Brad Singletary
It means you’re not hiding in shame, ever, and you can be both rowdy and outrageous, as well as humble and grateful. Don’t be a high chair tyrant. Be a benevolent king. Don’t be a sadistic bully. Be a warrior fighting for good things. With the least amount of casualty. Don’t be a manipulative trickster. Be a magician who gains and shares special guys knowledge teaching others your tricks.

00:21:12:26 – 00:21:41:05
Brad Singletary
Don’t be an addict who is compulsively chasing destructive forms of stimulation Be a lover who can engage fully in the sensual and the sensory moments of life. 2000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius said, waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. We don’t need to spend any more time arguing what an Alpha is. They don’t exist.

00:21:42:09 – 00:22:07:13
Brad Singletary
Only behaviors that produce either good or evil. Only motives that are driven by love or fear. Think about yourself. Think about your behavior when you were producing good. That’s Alpha. When you’re acting out of love, that’s alpha. You’re acting out of fear, which is most of our negative qualities. Most of our anger. Most of our bullshit is coming from fear.

00:22:09:11 – 00:22:33:17
Brad Singletary
If you know that you’re capable of more, you need men around you who can mentor you and tell you when you’re being dumb. Every time I’ve worked with a man who was cheating on his partner, he had zero friends or zero friends who were headed anywhere, anywhere excellent. If you want this for yourself, get in touch with me and I’ll show you how to do this.

00:22:34:26 – 00:23:01:02
Brad Singletary
We have the private Facebook group We have a Discord server. We have Zoom group meetings. I would like to help you know how you can organize some things in your neighborhood so that you can get together with other men. And you have this understanding that you need me and I need you. And that kind of community, that camaraderie and that brotherhood could save your life.

00:23:02:29 – 00:23:25:21
Brad Singletary
Hey, if you like what we’re doing, give us a like and a follow. Leave us a rating and review. Share this where you can. This is important to me. And I’ll tell you briefly why this is important to me. Number one, men are isolated. Some research out of England, several years ago said that. 50% of men and I’m sure that’s true everywhere.

00:23:25:22 – 00:23:29:19
Brad Singletary
50% of men do not have a best friend or even a close friend.

00:23:31:20 – 00:24:01:00
Brad Singletary
When you look at the statistics about suicide and imprisonment and substance abuse, all of those things are happening predominantly to men. There was a time in my life where I made terrible, terrible decisions. That’s when I myself was not engaging with other men. I wasn’t sharing, I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t hanging out. I didn’t go to the campfire and didn’t go on trips, and I didn’t have lunch or breakfast with anyone.

00:24:02:01 – 00:24:04:18
Brad Singletary
And I made the worst decisions ever.

00:24:07:16 – 00:24:34:29
Brad Singletary
Five years ago, my wife’s brother died by suicide. He was in Afghanistan veteran. I believe that part of his trauma was the isolation that he felt. He spent years serving with other men, serving around other dudes, having cool equipment, having trips and missions and things that they did together, all supporting each other. And then suddenly that stopped. He took his life at 25 years old.

00:24:36:16 – 00:25:15:19
Brad Singletary
I’ve been working for 24 years now in behavioral health. I work as a therapist and a counselor and a coach and what I see is men who are weaker. Men are too soft. Sometimes men are too strong and too hard. And I think one of the most important elements to growth in evolution is working with other dudes, have a person as a mentor to say, Hey, can I count on you to bounce things off of you here and there so that you have one person that you can have as a as a mentor and then build a smaller tribe of people, maybe six to eight guys, maybe three.

00:25:16:02 – 00:25:35:03
Brad Singletary
You got a text thread that you can that you just know, hey, we we don’t have to hang out all the time. We don’t have to you don’t have to be buddies. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. But for sure, when there’s something going on, I have several friends that I contact pretty much every time. My wife and I have a fight.

00:25:35:17 – 00:26:14:04
Brad Singletary
Why would I do that? Because in the past I’ve done dumb shit. I’ve gone to jail for it, so I need to check in with my quorum member. That means that there’s a minimum number of people who are there to make the decision. So as you make decisions I don’t mean everything, but when significant things are going on, when you’re dealing with emotion, when you’re dealing with painful stuff, when you’re dealing with other people or hard to navigate situations, check in with some dudes that you’ve been helping them out with their stuff and that you have a brotherhood together if you need help to, to know how to do that, contact me.

00:26:15:06 – 00:26:42:05
Brad Singletary
I’ll give you some tips on how you might do that first. Join us on Facebook. Join us in the Discord Server. You can participate in our Zoom meetings that we have on Sundays. We want to add more to those you guys. We don’t need to spend any more time arguing what an Alpha is. They don’t exist only behaviors that produce good or evil, only motives that are driven either by love or by fear.

00:26:43:03 – 00:26:50:08
Brad Singletary
Think about where you’re at. Check yourself and until next time. No excuses. Alpha up.

00:26:54:08 – 00:26:59:11

Gentlemen. This is the Alpha Quorum.

 

 

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She’s a Moving Target: Get in the Game

She’s a Moving Target: Get in the Game

Men expect our women to be easy to deal with. We expect the target to sit still and let us shoot it. That’s not how it works; if it was that easy, we wouldn’t even have any drive for it at all. ⁣

Some men like to hunt, investing all kinds of time and energy and resources chasing down a moving target. We sit in silence, patiently waiting for the elusive animal, using all kinds of bait and camouflage and tools and weaponry. Some men like to fish and spend insane amounts of time trying to capture a creature we cannot even see beneath the water with expensive lures and all manner of techniques. And it’s so much fun. We see it as an adventure.⁣

Some men like sports where there is an opponent running around who needs to be chased. Quarterbacks try to throw a prolate spheroid to a guy literally running 40 yards in 4.2 seconds. We swing sticks just slightly fatter than a broom at balls moving 90 mph. We become entranced in pursuit of the fastball, the curve-ball, the change-up.

In hockey we are fascinated with strapping metal blades to our feet and running on ice to chase a 3” rubber biscuit with a curved stick all while evading the defender who’s trying to knock our teeth out. And it is fun. It is a game. It is something to invest in. It is something that thrills us. Imagine your favorite player whining that the competitor is playing hard to get. Lame. Never happens. ⁣

So why do we have that attitude towards our women? We want them to lay there with their legs open and be quiet. We want them to be easy to figure out and simple for us to understand. Boring. The feminine moves and flows with sometimes chaotic rhythm and retreat. The true masculine is a disciplined pursuer. He is in competition with himself to figure it out and make the right move at the right time. ⁣

Get in the game, bro. Change your attitude about your relationship. Yes, the target is moving, and you may feel like you are never quite sure how to be. See this as a game against a respected rival. Stay focused, stay disciplined and conquer. You’re not trying to win. You’re not trying to conquer her, you’re trying to conquer your impatience. Conquer your s e l f.

🔺 Alpha Up

Disconnection: It’s Not a New Problem

Disconnection: It’s Not a New Problem

Disconnection: It’s Not a New Problem

BRAD SINGLETARY, LCSW

Founder, Producer, Host, Men's Coach

BRAD SINGLETARY, LCSW

Founder, Producer, Host, Men's Coach

He was slammed all day and went without lunch again. The 2-day-old leftovers in his company fridge weren’t very appetizing anyway, but he sure was hungry now. As he walked by his wife, he gave her a kiss and could see she was scrolling through her Facebook feed, so he sat down across from her at the table and took out his own phone.⁣

She looked up after she finished reading an article her sister posted, but her husband was already looking down at his phone. She’d been on her phone too, so she didn’t resent him for it. Much of the time they spent together, they were on their devices – everyone was. She dismissed her thoughts, and looked back down at her feed.⁣

Edward Hopper’s 1932, Room in New York, depicts a similar scene. He’s engrossed in his newspaper, she’s playing a melancholy, one-note song. The disconnection is palpable to the viewer outside their city brownstone.⁣

Fast-forward nearly a century, and the scene has changed, but the disconnection is still there. Instead of a newspaper, it’s a smart phone. Instead of the viewer on the street, it’s the followers and friends on social media. It seems everyone has a highlight reel for the world to view, but if it were honest, it would show the couples looking away, distracted, and disconnected.⁣

Dudes are escaping. It’s not the newspaper anymore – it’s gaming, porn, work obligations, and the list goes on. It’s easier to connect to an online gaming partner 5,000 miles away than it is to connect with our real-life partner sitting 3 feet away. Why?⁣

Science tells us, when we are depleted cognitively, we give up more quickly. By the time we have time, we’re too tired to give much effort. It’s not a coincidence that couples spend their last waking hours in front of the TV before bed. They’re too tired and cognitively depleted to do anything else.⁣

What can you do to take back control and connect? Prioritize your time.Don’t over obligate yourself and try to create white space so you have the energy to connect with your partner. An Alpha takes responsibility. An Alpha stays engaged. Make the time to Alpha up👊💪