Unknown Speaker 0:00

If you are the foundation of your family, you are the firm footing. They build their lives on. You carry a glorious burden and you never dream of laying it down. You carry it with joy and gratitude. You show up, even when you don't feel like it. You lead, serve, love and protect. You are a father. This is the dead word podcast where men are forged into elite husbands and fathers by learning what it takes to become harder to kill, easier to love and equipped to lead. Get ready to start building the only legacy that truly matters. Your family

Curt Storring 0:59

Welcome back, guys. This is Curt Storring, your host of the Dad.Work podcast here and today my guest on the show is Christian Winger. I connected with Christian on Instagram recently and he is just he's a badass man. Like I really really like what he's about. I really like how he's stepping into being out there a little bit more sharing what's worked for him because he's got a great, great story. He is the CEO of Prairie View Community Charter School, a brand new project based learning environment located in chugwater, Wyoming. He's also the founder of the stop hiding podcast and genuine beef company, a grass finished cow calf operation which ships their sustainable beef nationwide. His true calling is to empower those around them to reject mediocre lives and reach for their fullest potential, which you guys can see why we get along right. He currently lives in southeast Wyoming with his wife and three children where they chase their dreams on their high plains homestead you can find him across all social, usually Christian winger on Instagram, for example, a Christian winger, that's where we connected, you can watch him and his wife Jill on YouTube, the prairie homestead is the username there, you can listen to his podcast, which you can find on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen, which called Stop hiding, which is great. I've listened to the first number of episodes that he's released there, and he's going to continue crushing on that, guys. This episode, we talked about the damage men do to their families by hiding in the shadows, and living within their comfort zone and how to stop hiding, building an identity outside of what you do for work. How Christian navigated his wife's business and financial success and learn to lead in a new dynamic, the trap of caring more about the curb appeal view of your life than you do about the living room view. Why you need men in your life who will call out your blind spots and truly support you why playing things safe is keeping you small, and the importance of leveling up everywhere in your life. For the benefits of getting deeply involved in your local community and planting roots. This was so fun guys, I really really enjoyed this podcast episode. And I love getting the dive in at the end there. But what he's doing in his real life community, it's so good, we are so connected these days. But there is something happening where we're losing this local connection. I think that is going to be the next step of this journey as leaders as fathers is building roots and leading in your actual communities. We're gonna get into that. Anyway, this is an awesome awesome podcast guys, thank you so much to Christian for diving in and just being fully open and authentic with me. So you're gonna enjoy this anything that we talked about? You can find it Dad.Work slash podcast and the show notes. If you have not yet Would you please also leave a review it takes like 30 seconds and Apple five seconds on Spotify, all you got to do is hit the rating button. And please just leave your thoughts, your thoughts your view your writing could help more men do this work which will lead them to becoming better men, husbands and fathers for their families, which is going to let their children live a greater life and be good leaders of their families. Which means in a generation or two guys, we could be living in a better world. And it all comes down to your view. Okay, I'm not putting all that weight on you. But you know what I mean? Right? This is going to help more guys do the work. So please help me out. Get this in the ears and more dads leave a review, leave a rating. That's all we're gonna jump into this episode now with Christian Winger. Here we go. All right, dads, I'm here for another episode of the downward podcast with Christian winger and I said the name that time instead of stumbling over my words, man, thank you for being here. And thank you for this new project you're doing which is a way for you to step out of the shadows so that other men can do that, too. So welcome, dude, thank you for being here. Yeah, absolutely.

Christian Winger 4:04

Happy to be here,

Curt Storring 4:06

man. And I, here's the thing, like, I connected with you on Instagram, things were awesome. You're saying all the things that I was like, Yes, this is just so blatantly true. I need to like at least talk to you a little bit. And we start talking about Instagram. You're coming on the podcast now. And I was listening to your show, which I think you just launched, which you can talk about for sure. But there was a part of that where you're like, I wasn't showing up in this portion of my life as a good husband and father. And you sort of skimmed over that. And I was like, oh, what does that look like? You know, like he's got this awesome everything going on right now. He's successful, dude. What did that look like? Because everyone who listened to this podcast knows I sucked big time. And I'm curious what socking look like to you. But also then how you navigated through that so are you willing as like the very first thing we talked about it just go into why you psyched? Yeah,

Christian Winger 4:58

for sure. Thanks, brother. I mean, so really the the main thing that started for me was when I, I kind of had an our family kind of had a big shift in career changes, you know, my wife was building businesses online, and I was, if you've ever listened to my story, I was an electrician for about 15 years. And I'd spent a tremendous amount of time, basically perfecting this idea, this is who I was, this is what I was going to be, you know, in my mind, I didn't know how to think big at that time. And so in my mind, you know, I just had this vision and this, this big picture idea of, okay, I'll be an electrician for, you know, till I'm 65. And I retired, whatever. And one day, I found myself quitting my job, because it no longer financially made sense for me to be doing that, where I could come home and help build the businesses that we had going here and start building a ranch and we built an addition on our house. But I went through this transition period where I literally just didn't know who I was. And during that time, I lost my identity. You know, I always identified myself with a, you know, a foreman, or job site superintendent, or electrician or teacher, bla, bla, bla, and then the next thing you know, it's like, well, I'm at home, I'm building a ranch up, but, you know, I built an addition on my house, but I'm just like floundering. It's like, what am I doing. And so really, what it did was, it provided an opportunity for me to start hiding, because I was uncomfortable with who I was, I was uncomfortable with where I was at, and be completely honest with you, I was, I was uncomfortable with the success that my wife had felt, because here I was, with my wife having massive success in growing these businesses online and making a lot of money to now it's like, well, we no longer need, you know, I'm still making 100 grand a year as an electrician, but it's like, I don't need that anymore, you know, I can, I can do more with my time, you know, coming home, and being a big husband and being a father of three kids. But I knew what a husband and a father looked like, as an electrician, you know, as somebody who worked 60 or 80, or even 100 hours a week, sometime, you know, and I always had this story that I told myself was like, I don't want to go on the road, I don't want to be like some of these guys, you know, they're gone three weeks out of the month, or, you know, they're gone 28 days out of the month, you know, and they never see their family. And they you know, they don't get to spend time with their kids. But yet, in reality, I was kind of doing the same thing. I was just, I was home every night. But you know, I was still working 6080 hours a week. So when that changed for me when I came home. Now, I didn't know how I didn't know what that looked like, I didn't know what does. What is this? You know, not any want to say a stay at home dad necessarily. But what is somebody who works from home look like? How does, how do I show up as a father now? How do I show up as a husband now? And dealing with all these insecurities of look at all the success that my wife has having? You know, am I really am I really worth anything? Now, this is where I found all my worth before and all all the work that I did, and all of the skills that I had, I mean, I spent 15 years perfecting, you know, my trade, so to speak, you know, and I just and I, you know, it's like, okay, this is what I'm gonna be forever. This is what I've spent all my time learning how to do and master and be good at, you know, so that I could get my own recognition and my own accolades from and then one day find myself like, Well, I never need I don't need that anymore. You know, now doing other things, but it's like, who am I? So I spent a really I spent a period there where things just kind of crashed and burned. And I just figured out ways to hide and I figured out ways to, to not show up in my family, not show up for myself not show up for my kids. Because I didn't want to deal with all that stuff. That's why I've called my podcast and my program stop hiding. Because really, it's it's, you know, it's a message that I have to hear. It's, you know, I talk to people all day long, and I record podcasts or I do videos or I do whatever and I everybody sees these and they're like, Oh man, uh, you know, you know, this resonated with me so much. And I'm like, Yeah, that's great. I'm glad you got something out of it. But I was really saying that to myself. Totally really, man, I was the one that needed to hear that so that's really how it all started. It took a pretty good wake up call to get me to wake up out of that and realize, yeah, I am hiding. I'm just floundering around here. I'm not doing anything. I'm wasting time you know, I'm wasting time with my children. I'm wasting time with my wife. You know, I literally I use this analogy I especially I find it accurate with men as we're concerned with how things look from the curb. We have this curb appeal we went when people drive by our place or when people drive by our life and see you know from the road How do things look? And we spent all this time dressing that up making that shit look good. But you come in one step from the curb. And now all of a sudden you see all this shit burning down. You know, your marriage is burning down your body is burning down your business is burning down your relationship with God is burning down like all of this stuff is on fire. But yeah, we're hiding from it. We're protecting it all from this outside view. And we can't do anything with it when it's like that we're spending all our time protecting this image, you know, and falsifying this image, if you will, of what things look like, from the curb. And so that, that was one of the biggest takeaways that I had at that time was that I have to stop, you know, I have to stop being concerned with what that image is and start being concerned with, what's the real story that I'm telling myself here. And that's a tough place to come out of, you know, that, you know, I appreciate hearing you say that you sucked, because I mean, I'd like it's, I mean, it was it was, it was a period there were it's like, you know, I don't want I don't want to say that I was on the edge of a divorce, or that I was on the edge of losing anything, or my family or my friends, because I've got a pretty resilient wife who, who stuck through a lot of this. But if it definitely went through a period there where I could have, you know, I was faced with a crossroads of, you know, almost an ultimatum, if you will, of, okay, what are you going to do, you can either change, you can either start working on yourself, you can either, you know, work for the cause of this family, or, you know, you can continue going down the road that you're going in, and things aren't gonna be, things aren't gonna be good there. You know, some of that came from some outside influences in my life. And some of that came from my wife. And I appreciate the fact that she, she was willing, and she was strong enough to stand up and fight for those things. I talked to people how, you know, a man now or even even a lot of women now who, who will write me or they'll message me and say, you know, how do I get? How do I get my husband on board to do some of these things that you're talking about doing now without doing it from a nagging standpoint? Like, yeah, I get that. You can do it from out without being nagging. But at the same time, you gotta be willing to fight for what you want, you got to be willing to collide with him over the things that are not working in your relationship. They're not working in your life. And if you don't have that willingness, and you're essentially settling here, essentially saying, Okay, well, you know, that is fine. We're not going to do anything about it. We're not going to push forward with this. And that's what my wife did not do. I mean, she, she was willing to collide, she's willing to say, Hey, pal, the shits not working. And you know, I didn't sign up for this program. So that was, there was a period there were years there where it took me a while to wake up and shake out of that and go, okay, yeah, I can, I can see much bigger now.

Curt Storring 12:26

Oh, man, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing all that. And I've got like, at least six to eight things that like we could go off in different directions, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Yeah. And maybe we'll just go down the list, honestly, because I want to get to each one of these. But that identity piece, I was talking to my grandfather a few years ago. And I said, Why don't old men get old so fast. You know, like, there's that thing that they're sort of like in their 60s, and it's fine. And then they hit like the 70s. And suddenly, they don't know anything that's going on anymore. They're like, totally out of like, they're just out of touch. It seems as what I have observed in my family, at least Yeah. And he's like, Well, because they've lost the identity of who they were in their career. And especially for that older generation who was staying in the same careers for a long time. Or even if you're in there, like you're saying for 15 years or whatever, suddenly, you're not that Then who are you because society, your father, Whoever didn't instill that sense of self in you, where you're like, Dude, I don't care what I do. I know who I am. But that piece was so hard in your journey. And I know it was in mind too, is like, Oh, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm successful, whatever. But when you have a season where you're like, oh, man, I don't know if it's gonna work. I think I might like lose everything. It's like, oh, suddenly, it's not the business. It's a problem. It's like, oh, I'm a failure. So how were you able to, like navigate the, the identity piece? And maybe like, Who are you now? That is different than who you were before? And is that more grounded in family? Like, what does that look like? Sure, sure. And

Christian Winger 13:51

that's a great point. You know, the thing that I've, I've often discussed with several men and really started this conversation off with my wife several years ago is, I feel like, especially men, but I think it happens to women, too. That in today's world, and in today's society, we're given this image of who we are, it's like, you know, who we're expected to be. So for instance, with me when I go back to when I was an electrician, you know, I had this image of, okay, I'm this I'm, I'm an electrician, you know, I'm surrounded by electricians, you know, obviously, there's good ones, there's bad ones, you know, there's some that have climbed that career ladder and are running multimillion dollar jobs and they've got, you know, years and years and years worth of trade knowledge. And, you know, so you know, if you're driven like I was you would be, you'd look up to that, you'd be like, Okay, that's that's what I want to aspire to be versus the guy who just shows up, you know, wants to put in his eight hours and, and be gone. But either way, it's still his image that's been handed to us. And one of my biggest problems is I didn't know how to think beyond that image. So it's like in this world, we're given this image it says, Okay, you're gonna go to work. You know, you're going to you're going to get married, you're going to have kids or you know, you've Before that, you're going to graduate high school, you're gonna go to college, you're gonna get married, you're gonna have kids, you're gonna buy a house on the corner lot, you're gonna have two dogs, you're gonna have, you know, whatever, you're gonna work until you're 65, and then you're gonna retire. And then you're gonna hopefully spend 10, or 15 or 20 years, you know, sitting on the deck, drinking sweet tea, or whatever, you know, it's like, This is who we are, this is the, this is what we shoot for. And so really, at the time, that my wife was going through all of this personal development and growth that she was going through building her businesses, she was learning how to think outside of that. And I, I was there, you know, I was seeing and I was witnessing it, we were hanging around a lot of other people and a lot of other successful business people. And it started stretching my view, but it still didn't know how to relate that to me, I still didn't know how to go, in my mind. I'm still just this guy, who's going to be an electrician until I'm 65. And then, you know, I didn't know how to think beyond that. What does being an entrepreneur look like? Or what does being a dynamic husband look like, or dynamic father look like? Or how does you know, because those are oftentimes images that were not handed, especially in, you know, like the construction world or the trades world, or maybe even the ranching in the agriculture world, you know, sure, you've got fathers, you've got husbands, but they don't often project this image of just a bang up dad, or, you know, my, my children is my number one thing, or my wife is my number one thing, it's always I got, you know, I got 60 hours, I got to put in this week, and then my family gets whatever's left. So, for me now, it's trying to continually ask myself, How do I think bigger? Whether it's in my businesses, whether it's in my relationships with my wife, or my kids, or even my friends? It's how do I, where am I putting up the roadblocks, whether they've been handed to me from society, whether they've been handed to me from my family, or you know, from friends or whatever? Where are we putting these natural roadblocks at? And how can I figure out how to, how do I challenge those, whether I'm, whether I have the ability to challenge myself, or what or whether I need to be surrounding myself with the right type of people who could see those blocks that I've put there, and be able to challenge them. I use the example when we first bought our property back in 2006, nobody lived in this place for three years it was completely abandoned, was rundown, 67 Acres is just a total disaster, all the fence lines were a mess, all the buildings were a mess. And we didn't know how to think big bend either. And so the very first thing we did was we started building some fence lines, because we wanted to put it in a tree row. And we built this fence line, like right next to where our shop was, right next to our house was and you know, in our mind, we're thinking, Oh, we want to have as much pasture as we can for the cows or for the horses. But it's like, we didn't give ourselves the ability to think big enough beyond our own yard. And so it was within a year, we had to move that fence, we moved, like 25 feet out. And then it was like two years after that. It's like, fuck, we got to move this fence again, because now we want to have this here, we want to do this. And so we ended up moving that fence four times, before we were able to think big enough of put this shit out there, always get it out there away so that you can see what's going on. You know, and I think we do the exact same thing in our life. You know, like I said, I my biggest limiting belief was, well, I'm only an electrician, I can't, you know, I've lost my worth. I've spent, you know, 15 years perfecting this trade now. You can't just start over and learn something new, you know, that just doesn't work. Who does that? That doesn't happen in the world. So it's figuring out how do we challenge all of that, I think is the is the biggest question.

Curt Storring 18:36

Yeah, and I love that metaphor. That's so good. Like, where are you in your life going? Like, I think this fence line is good. And then you bash into it a few years and you're doing so much more work every single time you got to do that cuz I'm just thinking about you out there, taking the posts out, moving them out there getting new posts, putting the wire like whatever it takes. And it's like, dude, if you just did this the first time would have just been smooth sailing, but it requires that growth mindset, which is like I can get better and my life is not dictated by my circumstances which is also I'm sure we'll touch on point victim thinking the last point I want to touch on here because I don't really have personally the like the experience in this but I know some guys who do with your wife's success, and there's any wives listening like they're just going like Oh, I know what's going on. Anyway, if you guys are the husband's like me, I had no idea. Your wife's very popular as a homesteading blogger. I don't know the other way to say it, but very successful. I think my wife is a fan. But you now coming in going like, Man, I don't need to be the provider. Like that's a core piece of fatherhood, husbanding all this kind of stuff. And then like do you play second fiddle? Like what do you do in here? Do you start your own thing to prove that you're actually a man like, what was that like? Because I know a lot of guys who have this successful hard charging wives kind of feel emasculated. Are you able to talk a little bit of what your experience there?

Christian Winger 19:59

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, from the beginning, I was always very supportive from, from the aspirations that my wife has, because my wife is extremely driven. And I mean, I've known that since the day I started dating her was one of the things that I was attracted to her about, I like smart people, I don't want to want to hang around somebody who's, you know, just a bump on a log, so to speak. But, you know, from a very early on phase, my wife started trying to push forward and figure out how to do things, you know, and not achieve and had this idea of, okay, I want to be a business owner, I want to be an entrepreneur, you know, she, she was just occupying her time in a way to keep herself from getting bored. But when she started making money and started working in these businesses, we sat down had several conversations, and, you know, it's like, okay, because in the blogging world, and in the network marketing world, and that kind of area, you go, you see a lot of other husbands and, you know, everybody kind of gets together and everybody talks, and it's like, okay, is this stuff working? Is it not working? You know, once you start finding some success, I use this, I used to hear a lot of other bloggers in the circle that she was running in saying that their goal was to retire their husband. And that infuriated me when I heard that, I mean, it made the frickin hair stand up on the back of my neck, I'm like, you know, don't ever tell me that you are going to retire me, that's not going to happen, that should not be your goal in life, is to figure out how to retire me. You know, that didn't she didn't have a problem with that. She's like, Yeah, that's cool, whatever, you know, I want you to be happy and do the stuff that you want to do that fulfills you. And then, you know, we first started finding more and more and more success, and started going into more and more and more events. And, you know, you start running into more people who are, who are successful, who have grown businesses, and they look at me, and they're like, you know, why are you still working? Your wife's making all this money? You guys have found a bunch of success, your growing business, blah, blah, blah, you know, and I'm like, what, what do you expect me to do, like, come home and sit on the couch and watch, like, give a shit about football. So like, he expect me to just sit on the couch all day long watch football and eat Cheetos? Or what? You know, like, I work because I like to work. I'm also driven like my wife. But I do what I do, because I like it. You know, I don't do it. Because I'm, I have this begrudging law, I've got to go to work, or I go to work because well, I've got a mountain of debt or whatever. I mean, I physically love what I do. And I've always been fortunate to be that way. So when the fit when the stage actually got set to okay, what would it take for me to come home? Because now we are finding success. And I can start inserting my place into some of this, I can start seeing how can I bring value to the table? We had several conversations of what that would look like. And I usually put some big Bullseye up on the wall, it's like, okay, if we started making this much money, or if we've saved this much money, or, you know, whatever, then maybe I'll think about quitting. And then we'd hit that. And then I'd be like, okay, yeah, that's great. Well, if we save this much money, or if we start making this much money, then yeah, maybe I'll quit, you know, and well, then we'd hit that. So eventually, it came down to that time where Yep, we didn't need that anymore. I don't need to be the provider. What I'm doing now is really, you know, me choosing to go to work every day is really, in some ways, it's hurting my family more than it's helping it because I'm gone for 60 or 80 hours a week, and my wife is running businesses, and she's raising three kids, and she's homeschooling three kids, and she's making more money than I am. And so it's like, what does this do to my value? What does this do to my worth, as a man, as a provider, as a father, you know, how can I be that strong husband? How can I be that strong? Father, if I'm not that provider, if I'm not that breadwinner so to speak, because I coach men now on you know, one of my questions that I asked them was, how do they want their kids to look at them? Or how do they want their wife to look at them? Well, it's the same thing that I was asking myself then is, how can I get them to look at me if I'm not the provider, and really, what this turned into was a big victims game and a big victim story. And you know, me feeling sorry for myself, and, you know, going and my wife has got all the success. And you know, like I say, on the outward side of it, I was very, very supportive. I mean, I shined the light on her every time I got the opportunity, I'd never once tried to make her feel bad for doing the things that she was doing. But inside it was like tearing me apart inside. It's like, how is this actually going to work? So eventually, I had to come to terms with that. And you know, and really what it took was some other men in my life to kind of step up to me that were big enough that could see through my stories they could see through my victimhood mentality, and ultimately be able to see through my manipulations, I'll call it because, you know, when you turn into a victim, you're very good at manipulating people around you. You're very good at manipulating your story and convincing other people that believe the story that you're trying to tell. And a lot of times if you're not telling that story to somebody who's either been through something similar to that or they just know how to see through your bullshit Then you're successful in manipulating them. But then all of a sudden, one day you come across and you talk to somebody, you tell them the story, and they call you out on your crap. And they're like, Man, this is just a victim story. You know, it gets tough. It's like, what do you mean? Did you want to turn into this victim even more, you know, you want to be it's like I'm being denied my victimhood. Well, eventually, you have to swallow that down. And, you know, really what, what enabled me to do? It was having men that were big enough, in my life, I was I was fortunate enough that I could go okay, yeah, I, I understand, you know, it takes a while to unpack that it takes a while to peel back those layers. But once I was able to set the victim pneus aside, then I was really able to focus on myself and go, Okay, this really isn't about me. You know, this isn't necessarily even about my wife, either. This is about us as a family. This is us as a family unit. This is us as, as raising our kids are building those businesses and that kind of thing. But that's, it's, it's tough.

Curt Storring 26:02

No, that's so good, man. And it's so I see that in my life, too. All of the things that have, like, catapulted me forward, were the opposite of what I thought would be it because I'm like, I'm gonna put my head down, I'm gonna think about this. And it's always come from other good men, like every single time coaches, men's group, mentors, whoever, and it's being it's getting your blind spots called out, because we've got tons of blind spots, I don't know about you, I continually run into more blind spots on myself. And if you don't have eyes on you, you're going to be continually in that victim mindset. Were there ways or I guess, what were the ways that you sort of reinserted yourself into the family and now that it's like this bigger picture, as the leader, because I see a you're very clearly like the masculine leader of the family, you've gone through all this kind of stuff, you sort out your own issues with it, the ego, all that kind of stuff. And then you reinsert yourself. I know, you started a ranch, I think, I don't know if you call it started or founded or whatever. But you did more stuff. Once you were clear of all that baggage, what did the reinsertion of like leadership look like in your family?

Christian Winger 27:10

Sure. So the first step really was that, like I say, I'll say it again, is that ability to stop hiding, because I can't You can't be a leader, if you're hiding, you can't be a leader, if you're, if you're playing the victim, if you can't be a leader, if you're trying to sort of protect this image from what things look like from the curb, versus being more concerned about what things look like from your own living room. And so that was the first step of me figuring out how do I how do I start to lead inside this family? Once I was able to shed, you know, the victim, victim, Enos and, and get rid of my ego problems and start feeling sorry for myself that oh, hey, you know, I spent 15 years as an electrician, and that seems to be a big fucking waste of time. So now I'm just gonna go be a stay at home dad, you know, it's like, once I got rid of that story, now, it's like, okay, how can I actually start to lead. And that's the thing that, you know, I talked to men today, and that they can't see and you just touched on it yourself of, we have these blind spots, and we have these things. It's like that first fence that I built, you know, if I had other ranchers or other friends around me at that time, that would have seen me building that fence, they'd have been like, hello, listen, bro, that's probably a really bad spot for you build that fence, you might want to push that out there like another 100 yards or something, you know, because you don't know what you're gonna do. You don't know how you're gonna grow, you don't know what you're gonna expand or what you're gonna build. And it's the same thing now is, it's, it's being able to find those blind spots and having enough people that can challenge that stuff. So for me, it started with literally being how do I be a leader inside of my family? How do I bring organization? How do I bring structure to my family? Not that, not that my wife wasn't doing a good enough job. She was she, she was forced to figure out how to make all of this stuff work. When I was off feeling sorry for myself and not, you know, not doing what I should have been doing as a man and as a father, and as a husband. You know, it, it uses, we've used the terminology in the past that all of a sudden, it's like, Hey, I figured this out. I'm not a victim anymore, I'm ready to be a leader, I want to come home. And you know, I'm gonna make this all making them make all this happen. And it's like, I want my crown back. I'm ready to be the king now. And I want my crown back. And that's a lot of times, wives are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pow. Like you spent five years or years or eight years, like out here, wandering around in the woods, you know, get drunk with your buddies and not showing up and you're forcing me to raise the kids and to make this family work and to make the businesses work. And now all of a sudden, you just show up one day and you want you want to be the leader again, and you want your crown back and you know, you want to be recognized as all of this. And so it was it was almost like, slap number two in the face. For me. It was like Okay, now, my victim story, but now, you can't just show up one day, and be like, Okay, this is what I'm gonna be. It's like, cool. Let's let's start that process. Let's see what that looks like. But that takes time. You know that. I've got to build that

Curt Storring 29:59

somewhere. It's time dude. Nobody's ever said this in the same sort of way that you haven't. I've been trying to get a better way to say I'm sorry for interrupting. I'm just, I'm so pumped up, because this is the piece that guys don't get told often enough. I've got a part of my program as well all about trust and integrity. And part of that is realized when you start showing up better. It's actually going to get harder. Yeah, because they're gonna be like, Oh, sure. Now I'm gonna believe you after years of you sucking and showing me with proof that you suck. And oh, man, give me yeah, come Yeah, bring my bring my crown babe. It's like, Nah, no, thank you. Thank you so much for touching on that dude. Because I experienced that too. And I feel I feel seen man. Sorry. Anyway, continuing

Christian Winger 30:40

Well, that's an important aspect that men have to understand. But the women have to understand to like, they've got to understand, hey, they they've done all of this work, they've, they've kept the ship running for however many years, you know, the husband decided to just not show up. So you know, they need to be congratulated for that, because there's a lot of them that could have just burned the ship down themselves, you know, but they kept that going. But at the same time, the man can't get, you can't get sidetracked with, you know, you can't get sucked in and lured back into this victim mentality of hey, now I'm trying to show up. Now I'm telling the truth. Now I'm establishing some consistency in my world. And yet, I'm not being recognized for it. It's like, you know, if that would have happened to you how long it would have taken you to re establish that trust, and to regain that respect. And you just got to put your feet down, and you just got to put your head down and be like, Okay, we're just gonna go to work. And we just got to prove that this is done through consistency. And that's really what it came to me. You know, it was, it was discipline, it was time. And it was just, it was showing up and doing the things that I was going to say I was doing. And every time I did, and it would take time, but every time I did, you know, over a period over an extended period, not like you know, for a day, but over an extended period, my I would see changes in my wife. And that was the confirmation for me because she was recognizing and she was responding to, you know, what I was doing. And for a period there, you know, here again, you want to suck, you want to get sucked back into this mentality of well, you know, I'm working out or I'm balancing the checkbook or eating right, or I'm spending time with the kids or I'm cleaning the house, or I'm doing whatever it is that I'm doing. And yet at the same time, we have all these stories of well, my wife doesn't, she doesn't love me the way that I need to be loved. She doesn't understand my love language, she doesn't want to have sex when when I want to have sex, or as many times as I want to have sex or she doesn't touch me or look at me or, you know, whatever the way I need that to happen. And 99% of the time, it's because there's still some kind of a wall, there's still some kind of a brace there, that takes time to break that down. And I went through a period where I'm like, I'm just never gonna have this, like, my wife just isn't gonna respond the way I want her to respond. She's not gonna, she's, I'm just not gonna see that I married the wrong person. You know, if that was what I wanted, I should have married somebody else. But as I was able to sort of take my focus off of why am I doing what am I doing? Is my reason for doing all of this stuff. Getting my life on track, so to speak. Is my reason for that because of her, or is it because of my kids? Or is it because of me? And initially, I had this idea of No, I have to do all this for them. If you've listened to some of my stories, in the past, I talked about how I chewed tobacco for 18 years, and I couldn't quit, I couldn't quit, I couldn't quit. And every single time I was trying to quit, it was because I was trying to quit from my wife or it was because I was trying to quit from my parents or my friends or whoever. And it wasn't until I decided, You know what, I'm gonna quit for myself. But I quit cold turkey. Like I still have a half, half empty can like I still have it and the tool graduates, it's like, I just didn't need it. It's like, No, I don't want it anymore. And it was the same shift in my mindset here is okay, why am I working out? Do I want to look good? naked in front of the mirror? Because I want my wife to be attracted to me. Sure. Maybe that's that's a byproduct of it. But the the initial reason has to be me. And one of my coaches, one of my mentors early on, he told me, he told me something that rocked me to my core, and he said the king eats first. And in my mind, I'm like, No, that's that's screwed up. Man, the king Kenny, first, the king. You know, he's a provider, he's got to make sure that his wife eats first and his kids eat first and that his business is the first and his employees and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, No, he's like, the king eats first. And he's like, if the king doesn't eat first, if he doesn't fulfill all of this stuff for himself first, then he can't be that provider for them. He can't provide the best for his wife. If he's not providing the best for himself. He can't provide the best for his kids, if he's not providing the best for himself. And so that was where I had to shift again was okay. Am I doing all this stuff? Because I'm trying to get accolades from my wife, or am I doing all this stuff for myself? Regardless of what happens in my world and my marriage and my family and whatever? I had to figure What I want at first and who I was first. And when I was able to do that, and connect those dots and create some discipline from that, I saw everything else change, I saw my businesses change, I saw my relationship with my employees change, I saw, like my relationship with my kids change. And I saw my relationship with my wife change, and all of a sudden, all these little things that I thought, you know, oh, my wife's never going to look at me that way, or she's never gonna talk to me that way, or she's never going to trust me, you know, in that way, or she's never going to seek my advice for this type of problem. And that way, all those all those things started to change now. And it's because I was fulfilling my cup, essentially, first, I was building myself first. So that now she had something to draw, where before, she didn't have anything to draw, and I didn't have anything to offer, because I wasn't doing anything to build myself up. You know, I'd see so many men today who are hiding, you know, they're sitting around, they're feeling sorry for themselves, they feel stuck, I get it, I was all there. It sounds like you were there for a while. And it's like, you can't just get out of that by snapping your fingers. If you want out of that. You have to take the action to do something, to start building yourself out of that. You're not gonna lose weight unless you change what you're doing. You're not gonna gain muscle unless you change what you're doing. You're not going to gain knowledge. You can't, you know, my problem is an electrician is no, I spent 15 years, I went through a trade school, I had 16,000 hours of experience before I could even take my masters test. And now it's like, you know, my story was, that's all I can't do anything else. Now. It's like, now I've reached an age where I can't learn anymore, which was a bogus story. It's like, No, I could go get a PhD right now, if I wanted. I mean, I'm 42, who cares, I could go completely reinvent who I am, you know, 10 times in the next 20 years if I really wanted, but there again, it's like, I had this image of what society hands me of knob, this is what you do. And this is how you act. And this is how you should behave. And this is what's expected of you. And it wasn't until I started surrounding myself with other men that it's like, oh, this dude, you know, like, he became a millionaire or a billionaire or whatever, when he was 50. Or, you know, you start, you start learning and reading and pumping yourself up and building yourself. Now, that's, that, to me, is what it means for the King to eat first. And if as long as I'm positioning myself that that way, and I'm doing that work continually, then I have a I have stuff to offer other people. If I stopped doing that, I almost immediately stop having something to offer people. And that's, that's kind of the other flipside that I see people don't get as they they're like, Okay, I'll read a book. Okay, cool. Or I'll go to the gym for a week, or I'll do a you know, I'll do a 60 day diet, or I'll do a 90 day cleanse, or I'll do 75 heart. And then once I'm done with that, like, my world should be different. And it's like, no, it was different for 75 days, it was different while you read that book, it was different while you were feeding your brain through podcasts or through audiobooks or through something. But then when you stop, all that stuff stops with. So you have to continue this as a daily thing where you continue to feed yourself, if you want to feed your family every day, if you want to build your children up every day, you got to feed yourself every day. So I think that's the big thing.

Curt Storring 38:17

Well said, Man, all of that was gold. Thank you. Yeah, the thing that I tell my guys, in relation to that is that action is the antidote to average, you just you have to do the thing. If you don't want to be mediocre, if you don't want to like oh, you can't be mediocre. And I what I love about what you just said was there's like this perfectly balanced, nuanced center point where I think men should sit, which is, yeah, I gotta make sure that I am the rock. Because what my wife and kids need is they need to reach back and go like, Oh, thank God, he's there. Rather than like, you know, this paper thin thing, because I've just given and given and given, but at the same time, once you are that rock, then it all goes into building family, doing things to build them up. So it's like this, this two step process. And who knows which one comes first almost. But it gets into this cycle, where you're built up, they're built up, and it's just continually building and building and building. Yeah, so I'm hearing a lot of like mindset expansion in your story, which is extremely exciting and interesting from where you're coming from. And I want to make sure, because I don't know how long it's going to take. You take the whole rest of it, we want. But I want to make sure that we cover the hiding piece from sort of the ground level. And I think we've probably already gotten. I won't say most of it, but a lot of it covered because it's just all over this conversation already. But you started this podcast, presumably for a reason because you see this as being a major issue in men. So just to wrap up the pieces you said hiding here hiding they're hiding here. What does it look like when men hide? What do they hide from? And then how the heck they get out of

Christian Winger 39:51

it? Yeah, that's a great question. So hiding, really, for me at the most basic level is, is simply Staying in your comfort zone. It's you've you've established what this comfort looks like in your life, whether that you know, whatever that those habits are, those routines are those patterns that you currently have, that is making you comfortable is also what is keeping you stuck. And you can't get out of that you can't grow from that you can't change from that unless you move outside of that comfort zone. And that comfort zone is something that I, you know, I like into the shadows. If I'm in the shadows and the lights not on me, and nobody's looking at me right now, it's really easy for me to just hang out here and be quiet and chill and have a nap and whatever. And nobody's going to know what's going on. Like, nobody looks to me, you know, you touched on it a second ago, where your kids are looking for that rock, your wife is looking for that rock, and they're, you know, sometimes they feel around and go, Oh, yeah, are you there? You know, if they can find you, then they're like, Yeah, this makes sense. If they can't find you, well, that's probably because you're hiding in the shadows. And so I feel like every man, every woman, everybody in life, you know, was created to provide or to fulfill some kind of purpose, through through creation of something, you know, I don't think we're all just designed to be consumers, I think we're designed to be to create things and to produce things. And often in times, even in my own life, you know, like I say, when I when I changed my career direction, I went through this hiding period of Well, now I don't know who I am, and I can't change. You know, I went, I was, I was recognized as a top Foreman within the company that I was working on, I was working on a multimillion dollar school, when I when I quit. And then I went to the pipeline, I was working on a one and a half billion dollar pipeline. And then I quit that. And then I came home. And it's like, here in this world, I knew everything, you know, maybe not knew everything, but I knew a lot. And I knew and I was recognized for that. Then I changed to Wow, no shit in this world. Now, I don't know how to be a good father, I don't know how to be a good husband. I don't know how to be an accountant. I don't know how to study Profit Loss, I don't know how to, you know, I want to help my wife, grow these businesses and make them make them grow and build more businesses and do this kind of stuff. But I don't know how to do any of that. And when you don't know how to do it, you got two choices, you could go, Hey, I don't know how to do this, I need to learn and possibly look like an idiot. Or you can stay in the shadows. And so that's really what I was doing for a period is like, I don't want to admit, you know, here, here I was this guy who had all of this recognition, all these accolades and all these attaboys and knew how to do all this stuff, to now I don't know how to do anything. And so I find that I have found myself in that several places over the last several years that I have been willing to grow, I've been willing to step out of the shadows. We started started grass fed, grass finished beef operation, we've bought a restaurant in our town and completely remodeled it, build a commercial kitchen inside of it. You know, we've done all we've flipped residential real estate, we've done a bunch of stuff that some of it I had a foundation for some of it. I wasn't born on a ranch. I wasn't born in the country, I didn't know how to raise cattle. I didn't know how to artificially artificially inseminate one I didn't know how to pull a calf. I didn't know how to do any of that, you know, but it eventually, I had to connect it back with my why of why do I want to do this? Why is this important to me? And then understand the willingness behind? Here's why I want to do this, am I willing to step into the light and, and be an idiot for a while in order to learn that? And that's really the decisions that ultimately we have to make it's, do you want to stay comfortable? Do you want to stay stuck? And I would challenge that if that if you say yes, it's because you don't know what you really want in life, you don't know where you really want to go? You haven't sat down and said, Who do I want to be in one year? Who do I want to be in five years? What do I want my family to look like in five years? What do I want my finances to look like in five years? What do I want my body to look like in five years or my health? My relationship with God my retirement account, whatever. There again, if I'm in the shadows, I'm not thinking about that forward. You know, sometimes those are hard questions. And they were extremely hard questions for me when I first started when when my coaches and mentors started asking me and my first assignment was, Who do I want to be in a year? And I'm like, I have no clue how to even answer that. I've never thought about that far. Maybe I thought about it when I was an electrician, because I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna be an electrician, nothing changes there. I'm learning the trade. I'm gonna be I'm gonna do this, whatever, but nothing's gonna change. And now. Well, what do I want to be in a year? What do I want my body to look like? What health would be like, What do I want my family to be like my relationship with my wife? You know, sometimes those answers are not always real comfortable. Well, there again, it's because you're stepping out of the shadows. You're stepping into that light and you're going, what does this look like? What is it going to take to create those things and to achieve those things? And so that was why I thought in developing this podcast, really for two things. I was being stretched again on my own home front because my current coach is like, hey, people are fascinated with the life that you live. They're fascinated with the life that your wife lives. They're fastened they did with the branch. They're fascinated with the Western culture that you guys have. They're fascinated with the, you know, we don't live off grid, but we live without a lot of systems that most modern Americans have. And they're, you know, he's like, they're fascinated with that. And he's like, not only that, but they're fast. The people who know you're fascinated with what how you have grown, and what you've changed in the last eight years, or 10 years, some of the businesses that you've built and how you flip your family around, and how you flipped your finances around and all of that. And so he's like, You really need to be telling that story. And he's actually told me this for several years, and I've just kind of been like, Nah, people don't give a shit about that they don't want to know about now for me. And really what that was, was this defense mechanism. Again, I was now uncomfortable here in the shadows. Once again, it's like, Man, I don't have to grow everywhere. Like I'm growing businesses. I'm looking like an idiot raising cows, blah, blah, blah, getting this stuff, I'm pushing myself, I don't need, you know, I keep pushing myself everywhere. Well, yeah, I actually do. And that's, you know, that's comes back to surrounding yourself with the right type of men who can see the potential in you, you know, I guess that's the advantage for the coach that I have now is he can see things in me that I can't see in myself. So right now, I look at the horizon. And I might say, Yeah, I've produced 10 podcast episodes. And it's like, what's the point of this? I can't you know, how's this ever gonna grow? How's this people aren't gonna care about my story, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's my short sighted vision, you know, that's me being able to say right now, I'm still looking at this fence that I built 10 feet outside my back door, you know, where he's looking at it and go, no, actually, what you're doing is you're setting fence posts right now, for a fence that's 400 yards past your house, and you can't see all the stuff that it's going to build, and you can't see all the stuff that it's going to connect in the people's lives that you're gonna help influence and connect with, and all that you can't see that yet. But you just have to trust that it's there. And so it takes me being able to trust with Okay, I like to help people I love to teach. I love to connect with men, I like to see people grow, you know, and if I get outside of my comfort zone, once again, if I start sharing, well, here's who I am. Here's the skeletons that have been in my closet, here's all the shit that I've burned down. Here's all the stuff that I'm not running from anymore, I'm not hiding from anymore. And if I'm not doing it, and that means you, you can also not do it. You know, that's when things start to change. That's where the magic starts to happen.

Curt Storring 47:26

Man, the thing that comes to mind is what I've been calling the do more paradox, because I've noticed in the last year of my life, like I've always been what I considered a high performer, quote, unquote, like, pretty fit pretty successful, pretty good family, like pretty everything. Yeah. And that was like, okay for me, but that's also a death trap. And so this last year, I've gone all in on this project, and all in on my fitness and a lot of my family and everything has gone all in. And yet people go like, Oh, what are you going to burn out? Dude. I'm like, I've never I've literally never had more energy. And it's because I've never done so much. And I'm starting to wonder if this is like the I don't know, like a gift of men were made to toil. And so the more toiling you do, or curse to toil depends on how you look at it. The more we do, the more we can do. And so guys are like, I'm just, I'm trying to make sure my energy is not like totally spread out everywhere. And what you just said about, like, Do I really have to grow here? I have to grow everywhere. It's like, yes, that is the like, this season right now, dude, I don't know about you. But it's been the most growth and satisfying, because I just never stop. Yeah, I don't feel tired. I don't feel burnt out. I'm not leaving my wife behind. I'm not leaving my kids behind my business is growing. Do you like is that accurate? Do you think? Do you have you found the same thing where you just do more? And then you get to do more?

Christian Winger 48:47

Oh, absolutely. I've always said even years and years and years ago, before I was had this growth mindset, I might happiest when I'm completely buried in something to do, which is why I like the big construction jobs, you know, they were and I like to being the responsible one because I had a tremendous amount of pressure, you know, you got a multimillion dollar job that, you know, is your responsibility to keep on track. And if you can't keep it on track, well, now there's liquidated damages, or there's penalties or there's whatever, you know, what you just didn't need to do, you don't want to let that happen. And now it's the same way. It's like, I'm my happiest when I have the most going on here and I have the most pressure Well, I've got to grow here. I've got to expand here. And I'm my happiest when I'm connecting those dots. There's a time where I think men go through this period where they can't see what's going on and they lose sight of that vision. You know what when men are a lot of times they're trying to come out of this trench so to speak. And they've they've maybe put together a one year plan or they've started to put together some visions on here's who I'd like to be here's what I'd like my body to look like or my relationships to look like or my businesses to look like or whatever. They start to put some of those pieces together. But then it's like it's so far out there on the horizon that they still they still can't see that path. It's like looking at the top of a mountain and going yeah, I want to get to the top of the mountain But you can't see the 497 miles of trail, you know that it takes to get to the top of that mountain. And so another big key thing that somebody told me once is you have to just trust the process. And a lot of times, I can't see the process, I have to surround myself with people who have seen the process, who have been through that process, they have taken those steps themselves. And that's really what I look at what I'm doing. Now, it's not like I'm some guru. It's not like, I'm Tony Robbins, or the, you know, I'm this big podcast guy who, you know, has solved all this stuff, or built all these businesses or whatever, you know, I'd simply look at it from the standpoint of, I have climbed up this ladder, you know, as far as I've gotten, and I know what's below me. And I look back, if I look back five years ago, and I go, man, I was really struggling at this point in my life to just get to that next rung. Like, how do I get to this next rung, it's just it, I just can't get there. Now what I would have given for somebody to just be like, Hey, man, that's right there, give me your hand, I'll show you where to put your foot, you know, I'll show you where to put your other hand, I'll show you how to hang on, I'll show you how to step up, whatever. You know, what saved me, maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe years off of my journey of just having the ability to sidestep some of those, you know, some of those tricky spots. And so that's really what my goal is. Now it's figuring out how do I help those people? You know, I'm not going to take you from step one to step 900. You know, that's not my job. My job is to go okay, you're on step 427. And I'm going to help you get to step 428. And then we'll see what things look like after that.

Curt Storring 51:36

Yeah, man, I love that that's, that resonates so much with me too, because it's taken a while for me to go. Like, I think my journey has been long, because I didn't have anyone there for the first number of years. And so I have gone through, you know, from I think my ladder started at least like 1000s of feet into the ground. I just recently over the last couple years, you know, got to a place where it's finally above ground. And yes, you're right, I would have literally given everything, to not have had to suffer as much as I did. And for things to not get to the point of breaking that they did. And now I'm grateful for all that because it's allowed me to be the man that I am. I think our greatest gifts grow in the gardens of our deepest struggles. But at the time, dude, like it almost cost me everything. Yeah. And that was too close for comfort. If you can just find someone. I know a lot of guys who got like golf coaches, business coaches, and it's like, what do you do for your family? Man, right? What do you mean? It's like, Are you kidding me? This is the most important thing. It shouldn't be, I think, yeah. And you're not doing any learning. You're not getting anyone on the rung. And it's been hard for me actually, through this process of also coaching man and leading men and men's groups and all that kind of stuff is like narrowing what you just said to my wrong. You know, like, I want to get them here. I want to bring them up here. I want to Hey, did you think about this, and I just been going like, dude, simplify, simplify, simplify, and if Christians up on 427, and I can help them at like 201 to 215. Or like, wherever, okay, I'm here, then you go up the ladder, and you just need to use that as a way to grow in your life, as Christian has been saying about like expanding that fence line, look at these rungs. Where do you need to go next, not where you're actually going and trust the process from people who have been there. And don't listen to people whose lives you would not want to trade some part of for yourself? Because that's a big thing people hear like you're saying the Guru's right? Yeah. One, one thing I want to touch on and feel free to go in any direction you want. I think, and here's this is just my wife saying, oh, ask me about this. So apologies. I promised I was gonna bring your wife into it. But I think that you guys are doing something locally, I think you're doing something in terms of like you said, you bought a restaurant, you're building business and stuff like that in your local community. And I have been online for like a decade as an entrepreneur. So I've just been head down my, you know, the world's my oyster, whatever. But I've been feeling more and more drawn to start building and edifying my local community. And I want to know what you guys are doing. And maybe why because I know there's movements like I think there's a conference called county over country. Yeah. Which is like, Oh, do that makes so much sense. Yeah. Is that something that might be worth talking about how to take all of this work you've just talked about, and push it into the people who are like, physically closest to you?

Christian Winger 54:17

Sure. Sure. That's a great, great observation. And it's it's funny, because my story is almost the opposite of that. I've spent a decade investing into my county, essentially, now I'm trying to figure out how do I broaden that horizon. But if I back up, I mean, it was one of the things that I've always been attracted to my whole life. I grew up in town, I grew up in a city, I didn't grow up in the country, but I've ever since I was like, five, it's like, I want to be out of this. I want to be out there where, you know, here again, it's not that I want to be off grid or that I want to be 100% responsible for every single one of my needs. That's not necessarily what I want. But I want to be somewhere where I'm responsible for a lot of those needs. And the thing that amazes me about the county and the country The mentality, if you will, at least here in Wyoming, where we're at where we're at, is everybody relies on everybody out here. And so we live, we live about 40 miles from the nearest big town. There's a small town of 150 people about nine miles from us, but the main town of Cheyenne is about 40 miles from us. And so we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere, like, literally, there's still people that live out in the county, there's still we've still got neighbors, you know, we're surrounded by big ranches, 1000s and 1000s, and 1000s of acres of big ranches. But all of those neighbors still rely on each other when branding season comes around, all the ranches and all the neighbors go to everybody's branding. You know, we go from this guy's house brand, their cattle, then we go to the next guy's brand, their cattle go the next guy's brand or cattle. And it's the most amazing community feeling that you can just did you can see exist, it's like, it's like stepping back 100 years in time. You know, I remember when I was living in town as a kid, like you didn't even know your neighbors. So you had no, you had no clue who your neighbors were, you didn't have dinner with them, you didn't help them you didn't, you know, sure, you might pick up the trash can farm with the wind, blow it over, you might shovel the sidewalk or something or whatever. But it's not like you were an eve anywhere instrumental part of their life. And it's not like out in this community where it's not like I'm a linchpin to somebody else's operation. But it's, you are a part of their operation, you are a part of their community. And so we've done that for literally about 15 years now of just trying to invest into that hair. Again, we didn't, we weren't born, we didn't, we didn't have pedigree into this community, essentially. So it took, it took a while to kind of break into that surface. But, and starting our own beef operation, starting raising our own cows, starting our own ranching has helped. And then eventually looking further to, I started volunteering as a firefighter. So I'm the Assistant Fire Chief in our small town, I've been that for 12 years. And so that's a huge community service, you know, that's a, that's a volunteer thing, I don't get paid for that. And that's another I mean, that's probably a whole topic of it in and of itself of, of where the world that we live in. Now, people don't know how to handle hard things, they don't know how to handle death, they don't know how to handle car accidents, they don't know how to handle, you know, whatever. And so we immediately call on somebody else to come and help with that situation, which has been an opportunity for me to do. And then recently, two years ago, we purchased the restaurant inside of chugwater, called the chugwater. Soda Fountain, it's the oldest operating soda fountain in the entire state of Wyoming. And, you know, we just we saw this Hunterdon, whatever it is 20 year old building, that's like, you know, it's fallen down, and the business model kind of sucks. And you know, it just it needed so much that a lot of people looked at us and they're like, why would you buy that? Like, it's got all this stuff wrong with it? And to me, I'm like, yeah, if, because it has all that stuff wrong with it, if I fix all of those things, that means it's going to make it a better business, you know, I would be more concerned about paying premium price for a business that had no problems, because what kind of value am I going to add to that business now, but we looked at it really more from just a business investment, we looked at it as this is just as much of an investment into our community, as it is to a place to put your money. You know, if you're looking for a place to grow your money, a small town restaurant in the middle of COVID, it's probably not the best place to do it. If you're trying to invest into a community, yeah, that's a great place to do it. And that's really what we wanted it to be, we wanted it to be a place for the community, we wanted it to be, you know, we wanted it to be a continue to continue to be that historical marker for the town, and, you know, be a business in town and provide employment for some people in town. And so it's just it's been all of those little aspects of, of that community together. But I think we are seeing a major shift in the country right now, of where people are starting to look for those types of communities, you know, whether whether it means they get up and move and you know, move to rural America, maybe maybe not. But, you know, you can create that community in your own hometown. No matter where you are, you can create that community, you're creating that community with the group of men that you have, that you're coaching, and that that in and of itself is really what is the power, you know, that's the power behind. It's not that you can't write a book, it's not that you can't have a podcast, it's not that you can't, you know, shoot Instagram videos or whatever. But when it comes time to actually connecting with people face to face and hearing their stories, or, you know, sometimes hearing their lives and calling them out on their lives and being like, Hey, man, you know, you can grow from this you can get beyond this, what if you challenge this story, things start to make a huge difference. And I think that happening at the community level is just it's phenomenal. And so that's that's really what has been our push and our goal is to to help continue to make that thrive.

Curt Storring 59:47

I love that you guys are doing that that that came to me recently I was on Instagram and I don't usually scroll it up but I saw something about a guy who was doing a fundraiser and it was to buy an ambulance for the local community and I'm just going like, I'm up in Canada, like you would never be allowed to do that, first of all, because the government has his hand and everything. But like crazy, This is so insane. I want to be the guy who blesses a town in a community that I live in. And so to see you guys starting to do this, man, it's an awesome template that I want to model as part of like my vision one day, because it's beautiful. And if guys, especially today, especially the last two or three years, don't have like the Brotherhood, the in person community. And I rejected all that for years. I even remember telling, I feel like such an idiot saying this. I remember telling my granddad when I first moved out here from Alberta. I was like, Yeah, I don't need friends. Like they just, you know, whatever, I'm good. And as a young man, that was a stupidest thing I could have said, Because I wasted years, not having other people breathe life and wisdom and rebuke and correction. And just edification into me. Yeah. And so if this is not something that you guys have, I want you to listen really hard to what you just said about like, it's different. It's just different as we've been building, like our own community here, and the kids friends become our friends through the parents, church, and all this kind of stuff, man. It's a game changer. I would value community and relationships over almost anything else. And that's one of the things that keeps us where we're at, outside of Vancouver, which, you know, average house price is like $8 million, some stupid, just about not quite, but it's just one of those things where it's like, we would have to leave our community, are we willing to do that? And it's like, no, so we're just gonna have to make more money. But it's so important, man. So thank you. That's awesome. I'm really pumped that you guys are doing that. Any final thoughts here? I'm going to wrap it up. I don't want to put you on the spot if we cover everything because I'm full up, dude. But any final thoughts? And or where would you like to send people to find more about you?

Christian Winger 1:01:48

Really, I think the final thought is just that idea of still building that community and finding yourself plugged into something, you know, I, I kind of had a similar path to what you just said, of like, I don't need a lot of, I don't need a lot of friends. But I'm like, I don't need a lot of deep friends. And really what I needed, or I didn't, you know, I didn't need but I kept was the guys who wanted to continue to lie to themselves, the guys who wanted to drink all night party all night and hang out, you know, and whatever. And when you find when you surrounding yourself in that type of community that's just keeping you stuck. You know, it's not helping you because now you're lying to yourself, and they're lying to themselves. And all you guys are just sitting around talent, a big freakin pile Alize that's like, it's not serving anything. So make sure you're plugging yourself into that right type of community. And that type of community is challenging. It's tough to build the community, you know, your football community, that's an easy community, because it's like, there's no boundaries, there's like, hey, you know, it's like, I respect the fact that we're going to sit here and drink, and we're going to watch football, but we're not going to talk about how much I weigh, we're not gonna talk about my latest blood results, we're not going to talk about when last time I had sex with my wife, we're not gonna talk about, you know, as my business profitable, we're not gonna talk about all that stuff's off limits, where when you build this other type of community, like we're discussing, that's a different community. And it's tough to build, it takes time it takes that trust, it takes that element to be able to say, Okay, I'll get outside of my comfort zone here. You know, I'll extend my hand. That's thing about the fire department. You know, I mean, I've seen stuff on the fire department that I would have never dreamed that I would have seen and helped people that I would have never helped and been through some of the most difficult situations in my life and doing that. But it took a willingness on my standpoint to be like, Okay, I'll put myself there. Because it's not easy. You know, I could have just said, No, I don't want to do that. That's tough. I don't, I don't want to pull a dead kid out of a car accident. That's let somebody else do that. You know, that's tough. That's no different than you sit at a football game and said, I don't want to ask my buddy, you know, about his health results, or about his marriage or about his business? Or, you know, I can see he's covered in stress. I can see he's, you know, he's working himself into a frenzy. You know, but I don't want to go there because it's too hard. And so I would challenge you. No, actually do go there do do that. It's do hard things. Those hard things are what make us grow. those hard things are what make us feel like not even make us feel like they're there what's evident to the fact that you're helping, you're caring and you're loving on somebody and you genuinely care. It's not hey, I'm just here to stroke my ego, it's here. I'm here to offer you something even though it might be challenging for myself. So that's really the main thing that's what I would wrap it up with. And the other thing is just define the stop hiding podcast on any of the places you'd like to listen to podcast check that out, or I'm on Instagram Christian when you're on Instagram. Stop hiding there. So I do quite a bit on most most active on Instagram, then I'm on Facebook and all the other ones too, but mostly on Instagram. So

Curt Storring 1:04:43

yeah, that's where I found you highly recommend the follow I will put all those links in the show notes at Dad.Work slash podcasts. If you guys want to check those out after you finished listening to this, give him a follow listen to podcast. It's new leave a review as well. As soon as he left a review for the downward podcast, obviously, but I'm listening and doing it It's good stuff and I really appreciate that you're putting this work out and that you are not hiding anymore. Because you're gonna help a ton of men. So thank you for being here, dude, I appreciate you.

Christian Winger 1:05:08

Yeah, thanks a bunch for asking do you been great?

Curt Storring 1:05:12

Thank you for listening to the dad work podcast. That's it for this episode. But if you would like to stay in touch between weekly episodes, why don't you go over to Instagram and follow me there because I draw up a number of things throughout the week that are related to what we talked about on this podcast, but usually go a little bit deeper, provide some tips you can find me on Instagram at dad work dot Kurt. That's da di W O RK dot c u r t. And please, if you have been getting something out of this podcast, if it has touched you if it has improved your marriage, your parenting or your life, would you please leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating. If you have a few extra seconds, leave a quick review. That's the best way that we can get this work in the hands of more fathers. And I truly believe that we change the world, one father at a time, because each father that parents better that loves better raises children who do the same. And in just a couple of generations. I feel like we could be living in a world much better than the one we live in today. Your review will help along that path. And I thank you so much for being here. Listen, until next week. We'll see you then.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai