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 to another episode of the data war podcast. This is Curt Storring, your host, the founder of Dad.Work. We are here today, with my friend, Ryan King, I actually met Ryan in person after like a year of talking hanging out and being in a men's group together. And it was just so awesome to connect. And then we got to jump on another podcast here, which is round two, because we had Ryan on, I think 3035 episodes ago, which was just one of the best episodes we've had. And it just popped you guys love this. And so I'm really excited to have him back really grateful. Because man, I was listening to this again, I think I needed to hear this, like this was so good in so many levels. And we talked about a lot of stuff here, I initially got into this going like, hey, let's just talk about this red pill because I don't know a lot about that he's been talking a lot about it because it's so damaging to a lot of men. And I wanted to get the lowdown on like just what it was and why it was so dangerous. So we dive in here to what the formula is on being a good man and why that hasn't changed, actually. And why the so called Red Pill movement is so destructive. Why focusing on the fundamentals is the only way to get the external validation you crave and how basically put your head down and execute without getting distracted. There is a lot of golden here guys, if you don't already follow Ryan, make sure to go over to Instagram, check out his Instagram page at the wisdom of kings. There's a ton of excellent writing on there. In fact, I think like he's got to write a book. And I think that's why he's getting this in the first place. To be honest, because he's been collecting these lessons for for sons, if I'm not mistaken, and he's just writing on Instagram now. So we all get to benefit his his tagline on Instagram, I think is the dad you never had. And man that is so true. So so true. So you guys are gonna get a ton out of this. Make sure to follow him. Let us know what you think by leaving a review. And guys, if you want a 10 day challenge that will absolutely change your life and have you being an elite man husband, father in like, literally 10 days, if you just take action, go to Dad.Work slash challenge. I've got a new 10 day free email challenge sign up there, you will get one email per day for the next 10 days. That's going to make your life drastically better. And it's all there for you. It's all laid out right there. So I want you to sign up Dad.Work slash challenge that is going to be a game changer for you if you are still not living the elite, blissful family life that you crave, so head on over Dad.Work slash challenge. Otherwise, let's hop in. Let's go with Ryan King right now. Here we go guys. Let's go. Alright guys, we're back for another episode round two. With my friend Ryan King. Dude, I'm pumped to have you back on. Thank you for joining me because I know this was the first one we did was one of like the first episodes of pot. So I'm super pumped to have you back on. Thanks for coming, dude.

Ryan King 3:34

That's awesome. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, it

Curt Storring 3:36

was one of the it was like everything was sort of like just you know, a few 100 episodes if you under downloads per episode. And then yours was maybe the first one over 1000 actually. And now we're in the you know, the multi 1000s And it's awesome, dude. So I know that people are gonna like this. You got a bunch of followers on Instagram, and you got people coming to you for advice, including me every day. So I think what we're gonna do is we're just gonna like dive in here. Because Dude, you're like a super successful man. business wise, family wise parenting, marriage, all that kind of stuff. And I love this new tagline you got, which is like the dad you never had. That is so so good. And so I think guys are gonna love this. But I want to start off with something I've never talked about here before, which is this like red pill manosphere just like get jacked and get laid and get the money I guess. I don't really know too much about it, dude, like, Thank God, I was never into that. I think I missed it by a couple years. But I know you've dived into it. Because guys are coming to you like looking for this stuff all the time wondering what they're supposed to be doing. So I wonder if we can like just figure out what it is in the first place and why it's actually terrible. And then figure out like what we're supposed to do instead. So can you just give us like the broad overview of what you're seeing and why it's actually not the right way for men to go to pursue?

Ryan King 4:47

Well, I didn't know anything about it until people started sending stuff to me about it. Like what do you think about this? And you know, my first introduction to it was women's sending me stuff about how, you know, should I be okay with letting my husband or my boyfriend sleep with other women? And my first reaction like any, like, I would think any normal human being is like, what? No. What planet? Are you on? We're Hmm. I went to my wife and said, You know, I think you should let me sleep with other women. Like, I would wake up without my parts tomorrow. as would any, like any man that I've ever met in real life, in my entire life, you know? And then it progressively started, people started just sending me these things. And they'd make comments about stuff like, where's this nonsense coming from? You know, and I found out about this, this red pill thing. And people sort of, you know, back when I first started sharing what my beliefs about manhood were and what my experience had been as a married man, people would shoot would reshare it in their stories and be like, this is the anti Red Pill guy. And I'm like, What are you talking about? What is the red pill? I've been, I've never heard anything about it. So it's been kind of a crash course. But basically, I feel like, the way I always describe it is it feels very much like, you know, I don't have teenagers yet, right. But just imagine that you have like, an 18 year old and a 17 year old and you go out of town for a week. And you come home to find that they like there's this huge party going on your whole house is destroyed. It's like, that's what I feel like happened in the last 10 years, when, when I wasn't involved in talking about manhood or any of these things. I feel like I came home, and the kids had been running everything and like, where are the adults been? Like, this is absolutely insane nonsense. And I really think it's a thing where we've lost touch so much with what it really means to be a man, that it's almost like, you've got these guys that didn't have fathers and didn't have, you know, any, you know, even movies and TV shows in the last 10 years and stuff don't even have good portrayals of manhood. Like there's absolutely zero portrayals of what a man really behaves. And so it's almost like, they've refined it's almost like we've like an archaeologist that discovered this ancient civilization. And they're like, they see these cave paintings and hieroglyphics and they're trying to figure out what they mean. And all they can really come up with is like, get laid, get jacked, make money. And they don't, they're like, they don't know enough about the actual civilization. They're just translating these few hieroglyphics that they can barely understand, and the real manhood and that's what that's what it really boils down to, is I see it for what it is as, as an actual grown man. You know, it's just the most superficial surface level, just empty version of masculinity that has no corollary, you know, there was a book, there was this nonsense book that everybody talks about, written by Rollo Tomassi. By the Way of the Superior, man, I think it's cold, and I haven't read it. Because I don't fill my mind with bullshit. But that's apparently that's what's in there. It's like, oh, man can't be by a man's biologically wired to not be monogamous. And all this stuff, you know, and, and since it sounds good, and every young man wants to hear that, like, oh, yeah, yeah, I want to sleep with multiple women. And so it sells, because you're telling guys what they want to hear. But it's not true. It's not real. It He's a con artist. Right? And, and then you had guy and then you had this proliferation of guys like entertainer, come on, come on the scene. And then the freshman fit podcasts come on the scene, saying a lot of the same nonsense, you know, and Andrew Tate, you know, I don't see much of his stuff. But I got sent a real probably 40 times with him basically saying, you know, when I was 20, you know, hot girls didn't want to talk to me, you know, he didn't have time for me. I didn't want to settle down with you when I was 20. And now that I'm 35, and I have value, you want to settle down. And I'm like, and people buy it. People believe it because he uses a forceful voice. And he's very, you know, he just talks loud, you know, and I'm sitting there thinking like, bro, I don't know what your problem was. But I didn't have a problem getting laid when I was 20. When I was in college, me and all my buddies all had girlfriends, like, who were, who were you hanging out with me? It sounds like you're just a loser. And now you're compensating for it now that you've figured a few things out, because I don't know a single guy that was like, didn't have a girl that wanted to commit to him. When he was 20. I could have got married to four different girls when I was I was in my 20s I don't know what world he's talking about. You know, but it's just, he and I are the same generation. I mean, he's not a young guy. He's 36 You know, so it's not like he grew up in this era of online dating and all this other stuff, right, that people are talking about now, which does pose some some actual issues for guys but You know, what I really tried to do and what I think the reason is for

why am I kind of has taken off and whatever influence I have is, I really just revert back to what manhood has always been that we've just forgotten. You know, like, I can't find any correlation. I can't find any teaching preceding 2010 saying that it's honorable for men to sleep with multiple women. Like, can you imagine like, like Superman, right? What if Superman cheated on Lois Lane? In the movie? What would we all think about Superman would be like, way to go top G. Or we didn't want to push back? Yeah, exactly. Like when did when did that change? That's it. Here's the answer. It hasn't changed. There's just a bunch of last little boys that think that because some guy that wrote anybody can write a bloke who's really Tomasi was an expert. Like he just wrote a book. Like, that doesn't mean he knows anything. So it's a it's just something where I'm just going back to the deeper underlying things about being a man, because the problem with the whole red pill thing is that get money, get jacked, get laid. It's like, well, I'm 39 years old, I've done all those things. Let me tell you what's on the other side of that, nothing, you're not going to feel any different. And it's almost like when you're a little kid, all year long, you look forward to Christmas, right. And there's there's this Christmas presents you want, but a month after Christmas, the toys are in the closet, you don't care about it anymore. It's not special anymore. That's the same, that's the same thing about getting jacked, you don't feel different. Not really, it doesn't change who you are doesn't change your heart, it doesn't change your soul doesn't change your purpose. It doesn't change what you believe about yourself, permanently, if you haven't also done the work to know who you are as a man. You know, making money doesn't change you. And if it does change, it only changes you for the worse. Like we all have our stories talking about that. You know, having a lot of sexual partners, you talk to anybody. And that's what's funny, and we'll Spencer's talked about this, you know, there was like the whole Pickup Artists game in the early 2000s, there was a show on VHS one with a guy called mystery. And he was running game on women basically and all this stuff. Basically doing the same things that these young guys now think are like new deals, it's like, go look at your follow up with mystery and see how he's doing now. Let's see how Andrew Tate's doing. And he's 50. Right. And a lot of these young guys is like they don't even stop and think about the fact that that because they don't want to, they don't want to stop to think about the fact that sometimes at some point, you're going to be 4550 years old, right? And what happens if you get diabetes, or you get cancer, or you develop some kind of autoimmune disease or whatever, and you've been sleeping around your whole life. And guess what you had nobody. When your health goes away, when you have when you have something when you get in a car wreck and you have, you know, nine months of rehab to fix your broken leg and all that, guess what you're gonna be at home alone and miserable, because you have no one in your life that truly cares about you. So it's just, there's zero, the whole aspect of the red pill community has no honor and has no traditional masculine qualities that anybody has ever respected at any point in time in civilization. Yeah, men have slipped around. Yeah, I'll give them that. There's been a lot of previous rulers and kings and different tribes and all these things that had harems and all that stuff. But that's not the world that we live in now. And it was never part of civilization. And the civilizations that did behave that way, also got taken over by opposing warlords, and all of their wives who got raped and taken into slavery and became part of somebody else's harem. As soon as they like Genghis Khan, right? Like, yeah, gang has kind of 1000s of wives. It didn't turn out that great fruit for His, for his wife or his wives, you know what I mean? And so they're picking and choosing elements of things. Like it's Build A Bear. It's like, that doesn't work that way. You know, you can't like keep all the things that make modern society functioning and have a harem. Because guess what, there's going to be 30 You know, if you have 100 wives, there's going to be 99 dudes that are looking to kill you and take your wives because there's no wives for them. That's reality, and that's what used to happen all the time and time periods that they refer to that as having harems and having multiple wives. And if you're an alpha, you've got all these all these options or whatever. It's like, yeah, until a stronger Alpha comes and kills you and takes all your wives and kills your children. That's what happened back then. So you can't have one without the other. Doesn't work that way. So yeah, I just have so many problems with that whole red pill ID It started off as a good idea because it was trying to teach men that had no concept of masculinity, some of the basics,

Curt Storring 15:08

right? And I think that's where I was wanting to jump in. It's why is it such a thing? And why are guys so into it? And I think it is that like, what you were saying before is not only have we lost what it looks like to be a man, we've lost, like every ounce of masculinity. And so guys are like, I have this feeling inside of me. And it's got to go somewhere. And I might as well do the self gratifying thing, because then at least I feel like a man. But there's way more to it than that. So like, is there anything that you've noticed about what men are actually looking for here that they're trying to find with the red pill?

Ryan King 15:42

Man, honestly, I think it's, I think it is the mirror image of the radical feminist. They're taking a few valid instances, things that have caused pain, you know, and so what a lot of the red pill guys talk about is, you know, when they try to be good to a woman, they leave them, right? Or the only guys getting girls are the bad boys. Okay? When men get divorced, they lose everything. Right? And they lose their family, they lose their kids. Those are all valid complaints, right? Well, radical feminists have valid complaints about a very small percentage of men who have beaten their wives. And they take those few instances of these bad actors, and they sensationalize it and apply it to all men. Right? Because what a lot of the Redwoods a lot of and I'm not talking about the radical feminists that have platforms, I'm talking about just the women that are feminists, like in the comment sections, right? They have the same complaints like, Oh, we're not going back to the 1950s. Because men, you know, men had complete control over their wives and their wives weren't able to spin their own money and have their own bank accounts and all that stuff. Like, yeah, that really did happen to some women. But not it wasn't like every single woman, right? So they're taking these few instances of valid things that actually did happen. And they were perpetrated by evil men. And they're applying it to every man and saying, We should completely dismantle the entire system, because the possibility of these few bad actions, right. And now the red pill is basically the same thing. Like, are there women that only want the bad boy? Yeah, of course there are. That's, I dealt with that, you know, but that doesn't mean that every woman is like that. How about this? Notice what types of women go after that they're always the superficial, you know, the superficial, quote unquote, hot girl that's got makeup painted on her face, it probably has a Brazilian butt lift and wearing yoga pants that are, you know, pulled up her ass crack. You know? It's like, Yeah, how about you don't go after that girl and go after the girl. That actually seems like she has at least somewhat of good values, good judgment and a good head on her shoulders. Like if you want to, if you want to date superficial girls, don't be surprised when they date the most superficial guy they can date. It doesn't mean that applies to every single woman, bro. Yes, it happens. But when you take the worst, they're evil women than divorced men for no reason and take their kids and move them halfway across the country and take half their money. Yeah, that happens. It does. But it's not every single instance of women. And that's, that's what's going on. And all of our dialogues about any topic that you want to talk about is whether it's feminism, or whether it's the red pill, or whether it's all these other contentious issues. We take these few instances of evil people and apply it to broad groups, instead of realizing and you're a Christian like I am. There is evil in the world. And it's not. It's not exclusive to men, it's not exclusive to women. It's not exclusive to a race, or a nation or even a religion. They're either Christians, or they're people who call themselves Christians who are evil. No matter what classification you want to drill into. There are going to be evil people that will give it a bad name.

Curt Storring 19:15

Yeah, and that goes into the whole. This, it's like people see one person doing something and generalize and then throw out everything with the generalization. And I think that points the importance of knowing how to discern truth and goodness, and like objectivity, and your own values and who you are and your identity. And that's what like I'm starting to see that and the reason why I'm talking about this, because I've started to see it in my DMs. I work mostly with guys who have put their head down for 10 years. And I know you have done the same sort of thing, but you were very clear with your wife that like this is how it's going to be and we're gonna have an amazing life and I'm not going to like just peace out emotionally. But the guys who I work with are typically like entrepreneurial. 10 years knows that rhinestone, they finally won. And they look up and go, Oh no, like, I'm gonna lose my wife and kids, if I don't sort myself because I haven't done any of the work, I haven't been there for them to be supportive. And I even got this DM the other day, like, Oh, if some like woman comes in to the bus, should I get up from the seat? Because like, she's gonna think that I'm like a beta for offering or C or like, should I be chivalrous to try and get her to talk to him? Like, bro? The answer is, what is a good man who is simply that and a good man is gonna get up because you know that

Ryan King 20:31

fear that right? There is the distinction, okay, with everything we're talking about, is men have forgotten that they've forgotten the fact that they have agency. And however they act, and whatever tone they sit, a woman is probably going to follow. And I would also add, not just women, if you get a group of men together, the most masculine man is usually the one that all the other men will follow. Right? And so when you're, when it's a man and a woman, the man should be the most masculine. And so we all as human beings have it within us to follow that match that strong masculinity, right? So even amongst men, the most masculine man is usually the one the other men begin looking to, for guidance for leadership, they kind of wait to react until they see how the most masculine man reacts, right? And so women take that the wrong way and say, Oh, I have a minute my own. So yeah, nobody's saying you'll have a money your own, but it's just natural. You watch the dynamics of NFL team, right? And they're gonna follow Tom Brady, those are all masculine guys. You know, but the guy that's the most competent when you talk about true masculinity, the guy that's the most competent, the most confident, the most, the most experienced, the most self assured, the most prepared, you know, all those things. Every single person in NFL team has a masculine Alpha Dog. But as soon as Tom Brady walks in the room, those guys start saying, tell us what to do, Tom, right. So women get offended when you say these things. And so I always try to point out, like, these dynamics aren't exclusive to male, female. These dynamics are human nature. We just, we just, that's just what we do. And so the problem with the whole red pill, is it removes our sense of agency as men, and it's become very reactive to be it's, it's it all boils down to, in essence, manipulation, you know, how do I get her to think what I want her to think? Instead of, it's like, bro, if you just be a man, you'll get the results that you want. Eventually, you decide what kind of man you're going to be. And you commit to the values and the virtues and the principles of honesty and humility, and courage, and loyalty and commitment and sacrifice. And, you know, boldness, you know, confidence, competence. And then you just do that for six months around a woman and just see what happens. And don't even look at her reaction. Forget she exists, and you do you and you just go learn how to be that type of man. After six months, you know, metaphorically turn around and tell me she's not falling right behind you.

Curt Storring 23:22

Dude, this is so good. I tell my guys, we serve lead and love our wives. Because that's what good husbands do. And we drop all expectations. Because so many guys are like, well, I did this thing now when we haven't sex. And it's like, bro, if you just focused on being a good, trustworthy man of integrity, you'll get everything you want. And I've talked about this on like, I think my stores other day, I spent all weekend last weekend, just serving. When we had like, birthday party for my middle son, we had all this kind of stuff going on, and I was drained by the end of it. But I've never felt so fulfilled. I was content.

Ryan King 23:57

A good example is like the gym, right? Like, we've gotten way too impatient as men for immediate results, right? And so, we do one thing, right? And we turn around be like, do I get six now? It's like, you don't go to the gym and lift for one day and lift weights and expect to go look in the mirror like, oh, do I have muscles now? It's like, that's not how it works, man. Like, if you've got to realize that there's, it's, it's a law of the universe. Like if you just commit to doing certain things, the outcomes are inevitable. You do not even have to think about them. You it's like a recipe right? It's like, you make a recipe for a cake and you put all the ingredients you go buy the box cake, the Betty Crocker box cake and you pour them all and you mix them up and you put them in the oven and the cake happens you don't have to sit there and worry like, is it it's like they pour the box the box into the pans like is it as a cake yet? No, bro. You haven't done you haven't followed all the steps yet. You know they put it in the oven for two minutes. It's like little kid stuff like, Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? It's like, calm your ass all the way down and understand that these things take time you need to you need to really, really calm down. And so am I saying that if you commit yourself to these virtues of being a man, like protect and provide and be loyal, and be present and be strong, and all these things, like, can you do that for 45 minutes, and all of a sudden your wife is going to change, like, gonna be like, Oh, I'm gonna jump your bones. Now, no, it doesn't work that way. You've got to put in the time to execute a certain set of actions, no different than the gym, you've got to eat, right? You got to go to the gym. And if you stop looking in the mirror, and you stop weighing yourself every 15 minutes, and you just say, I'm going to put my head down, I'm not going to get on the scale. I'm not going to look in the mirror. I'm going to put my head down, I'm going to execute a plan that I know we'll work for a year. And I'll look at the results a year later. How many times is that not going to work? Never it will 100? Well, 100% of the time, it will work. You know what sabotages people. It's the results. If there were no mirrors in the gym, and there were no scales, and you couldn't see what any of the results were and you just kept executing that recipe like baking the cake. 100 times out of 100 A cakes gonna pop out of the oven. A flock of geese isn't going to fly out of the oven. Yeah, there's zero question. There's absolutely zero question about what the outcome is going to be if you just put your head down and follow the recipe, right. But we're where people stopped going to the gym as they get on the skin. It's like, Oh, I've been eating perfect. And I gained two pounds today, Oh, my Oh my gosh, is my plan working, I need to change my whole diet. Maybe I need to, instead of doing heavy lifting, maybe I need to change my lifting scheme, and they just get in their own heads. It's like, no, just execute any plan, do CrossFit. You can do powerlifting, you can do yoga, you can do literally just do one thing for a year. And it all of it will work, it will be better than doing nothing, right? Stop reacting, stop reacting, stop doing it for results and disassociate completely from what outcome you're wanting to do. Because that's all just manipulation, when it comes to women, and instead just focus on the agency that you have to conduct yourself in a certain way, as a man, and just do it for a year and tell me that your sex life isn't better. Tell me that she's not following you tell me that she's not treating you with respect every man's like, treat me with respect. If you have to say it. You're screwing up. It's on you. Because I promise you just like do you think Tom Brady has to tell his teammates? You better respect me? Letting me know? Yeah,

Curt Storring 27:58

dude, the, this is so good. And I think that this is probably where people are coming into all the red pill stuff as quick as one they're looking for somewhere to go something to do that gets results and to they're looking for results in the first place. And in a world where everything's immediate. You get like, you know, new notifications, you get UberEATS delivered to your door, you get everything right away. Guys have just lost or have never built in the first place his ability for delayed gratification and putting in the work. And I don't know what else the answer is other than being the example of that to guys. Because I think what you just said, you listed out all these virtues, all these masculine virtues that simply get results. And I mean, I'll throw my way behind that too. That's exactly what I've seen in my life. That's exactly what works with all the guys I work with. It's like you just got to do the work. And you got to stop looking for like you said the reactive, manipulative outcome and make the process what you optimize for. And you just feel so much better dude. Like, is there any other way to get this in the guy's heads? Have you thought about this at all? Like how the heck do we get people to just do the right thing?

Ryan King 29:00

I think they are. I think the reason that that red pill has gotten the traction that it has is that that's all there was. Now that we're talking about this stuff guys are following us guys or listen to the podcast guys are following us on Instagram. You know, now we're gonna grow slower because we're not telling them what they want to hear. Right and so, the guys like to and your tastes and fresh and fit guys and girl Tomasi, they're always going to be more explosive growth with those guys because yeah, it's easy to sell somebody what they want to hear no responsibility get laid anytime you want. Well, yeah, that's gonna sell more than that's telling people. No, it's the same way. We'll go back to the fitness analogy, right? Like the guy selling the magic diet pill that you can take this pill and get fit in, you know, 25 days that's been working since you know, the home shopping network in the 80s when you add like the the buns blast or whatever, that these women with it buy a home or what? So, yeah, aren't that selling what we're selling and talking about what we're talking about is never ever going to be as explosively have as much explosive growth as the red pill stuff. Because yeah, everybody wants the shortcut, you know, but guys are listening. And when we are making headway, it's just, it's always going to be slower and they're in, here's the thing, they're going to try all that stuff first. And then when they still feel empty afterwards, they're going to come and they're going to read what we've been saying, for years. These guys had it figured out all along. And so even for us, we have to buy into the process and understand that the lot of these young 20 Something guys are going to hear us and they're going to be like those old. Those old fogies don't know what they're talking about, I'm going to do what I undertakes, because that entertains telling them what they want to hear. We're not we're telling them, Hey, you're not gonna get jacked into an eight workout sessions. You know, you want to get jacked, do the right thing every day for a year, and it's gonna be really boring, and it's gonna suck. And there's not gonna be anything fun about it. Like, yeah, not not everybody's gonna be signing up for that people don't want, that's not the answer people want, but it's the truth. And so we're always, we have to take our own advice of situations like this and understand that most guys are gonna go to Andrew Tate, and fresh and fit and the red pill, they're gonna go that route first. Because it's easier, it's faster, they don't have to take any responsibility, they can get laid, and do anything they want to do. And it's going to work to a point. And then they're going to get, they're going to reach a point where they're unfulfilled and they're miserable, and they're unhappy. And they're gonna find guys like us, and they're gonna say, Oh, I wish I would have listened to you five years ago. It's like, yeah, so why, but you wouldn't, because you thought you knew better.

Curt Storring 31:52

Yeah, and guys only end up taking action when they're hurting, as in my experience, at least. And I think the the thing that I'm hearing as well as, like, do, there's fruit that comes from living the way that you're talking about, and it's sometimes slow ripening fruit, and it reminds me of like, these guys are, they're the the soil on which something springs up immediately, but there's no route. And so it's just going to be burned right away. Whereas I look back at the last 1011 years of my life being married, and almost 10 years as a father. And I'm like, Dude, this was a long, hard slog to get where I am today. And it required, like you're saying, being super honest with myself, first of all, and then learning how to do all these things in the face of massive opposition with the world. And part of why I like talking about this, especially with guys like you and like everyone else who I have on here who's successful. It's like, Dude, it can be sick, to have a family. It is amazing to have a family and you can be super cool and do all the things you do when you're like a single bro, you can have the money you can get the body you can like have a beautiful relationship, an intimate relationship with your wife. But man, like it's going to take some work, but do it because otherwise you're gonna want a

Ryan King 32:59

debt. And here's the thing that I try to relate it back to so it's not about just like my opinion versus and your tastes opinion, right? Let's step outside of you know, these talking points of get jack to get tan get rich get laid, really. Michael Jordan would tell you the same thing about his career like all these guys that we've we've collectively held up as icons have all been screaming this. I mean, I don't I don't remember a time. So there's this phrase that says it took me 10 years to become an overnight success, right? I don't remember a time where I hadn't read didn't hear that. I'm 39 it's been around at least as old as I am. Right? Like, all these icons that we have, like, whether it's athletes, or whether it's business people that are that we look at, they all are screaming the same thing. Guys are like I want to be I want to win an NBA title. Okay, well start when you're 17. And work your ass off and, you know, enjoy like, like there's a guy in the NBA right now in Yanis Antetokounmpo. He's called the Greek freak, right? And so he grew up in Greece, he was really poor. And he had to share shoes with his brother. They had one pair of shoes between them, they'd have to go to they'd have to go to basketball and swap shoes when they got to play. And he was over there grinding it out in these gyms in Greece without heat without air conditioning in, you know, in anonymity, right. And all of a sudden now guys like, oh, I want to be like that guy. It's like, well, then you need to go find the cold, dark gym that nobody's at the broken rim. That smells bad. And she can go there every day and shoot 1000 shots. And Kobe Bryant did that right? Like you know, Dwayne, The Rock Johnson reinforces this message all the time. Like it took him years of working and like, coming from nowhere and all this stuff, you know, so it's not men know that. Anybody that has gotten results that has become an icon or like I want to life like you that isn't selling something think that's the difference, says the same thing. There's only one way to get there. Right. And so the reason that you should hold the Andrew Tate's and the freshman fit guys and the Rollo Tomassi is, the reason you should have some suspicion about them is that they're selling, they're trying to sell you something like take my course. And I'll tell you how to be like me in six months, it's no different than the get rich quick scheme, the Ponzi scheme that nobody ever got rich from, it's no different than the diet pill that nobody ever got fit from. They are they're the same way. They're a masculine version of that a get rich quick of a Ponzi scheme. It's a masculine Ponzi scheme. I just made that up as we've been talking. But that's essentially what it is. It's a masculine Ponzi scheme because they're trying to sell you join my counsel for $99 a month and I'll teach you how to have the life of your dreams. That's no different. Like nobody, no man that has actually had a fruitful marriage agrees with it, zero. Okay, but it's the same concept. As you know, the rock talks about how he took all had to do all these projects. And he went out and decided he wanted to become a pro wrestler. He was he wasn't he didn't just walk in and he's like, the headline wrestler. He was, he was wrestling and you know, barns in Idaho. And working his way up. He said, he says that all the time that his career, he's been very vocal. But you know what? He's not trying to sell anybody anything. He has no agenda. He's telling the truth. Yeah, all right. You guys have started great businesses will tell you like, yeah, it took me 10 years to become an overnight success in my business. But you know, he's not trying to sell you a course on how to be successful in business. Because nobody would buy that. Here's my course on how to start a business 10 years of shit. And then you'll be successful. Nobody's gonna buy that course. Right? And so that's that's essentially what a lot of this red pill Red Pill nonsense is, is it's a, it's a masculinity Ponzi scheme.

Curt Storring 36:58

Man, I like what you said about guys know it. And yet, we can't help ourselves. Sometimes it's like, the shiny object thing. I do this in business all the time, right? I have been. It's like, I know that it's, you know, it's been now 1011 years, 12 years working for myself. But every couple of years at the beginning. It's like, well, if I just like, I know what to do, but if I just did this other thing, it probably worked faster, because I see this guy selling this course, every single time and I knew better. And I think it's just like you said, being out there sharing what's actually working, showing the fruit of it. And being like, Hey, man, I'm gonna be here, when you realize this is actually,

Ryan King 37:31

you know, I study athletes that I was an athlete, you know, and I coach my kids in sports a lot. And so like, that's kind of where my mind goes. I'm always using athletic metaphors. But But I remember Peyton Manning, Peyton Manning, before he retired, I remember, I think you it was when he was playing one of his his last Super Bowls when he played for the Broncos. And they were making a big deal about how, you know, he was like, 3536 years old. He'd been the NFL for 15 years. And they were showing him for the game. And he was doing the same warm up drills that his dad taught him when he was 12 years old. And he had an hour long routine before every game. And he did the same routine, before his last Super Bowl that he did when he was 12 years old. The fundamentals are undefeated, figure out what the fundamentals are of what you're trying to do, whether it's business, whether it's fitness, whether it's relationships, whether any of these things we talked about, the fundamentals are undefeated, and the greats that whatever they do sports business at whatever. They never forget that. And they never lose sight of that they know Peyton Manning didn't change the drills that his dad taught him because some new flashy coach told him that this thing will accelerate your whatever but he's like, Nope, I'm going to dance with who brought me. This has worked so far. I'm not changing it. Right. And so as a man, that's a big part of to me, I think a lot of that comes from from a lack of conviction in your own in your own self as a man to say no, I'm, I know what works. I'm going to trust the process that I've fought out in my head. That's going to get me to success, that you have to plant your feet and concrete as a man, this is I've made my commitment to this have charted my course, have made my commitment that I'm headed this direction. And I'm not going to be distracted by the shiny objects that come to try to pull me pull me away from where I'm headed. You know, is this path that I'm taking? Might there be a quicker path? Maybe? might it take me longer to do it the hard way? And you know, I'm visualizing like a trailblazer that's got a machete like hacking through the jungle, right? Like, yeah, might there be a better path to where I'm going that somebody else is telling me about? Yeah, maybe. But he also might have an agenda to take me off the path. He also might have an agenda. Maybe he doesn't even know what he's doing any better than I do. And I'm gonna spend my time going down his bed. Just to end up at a point where I've got to pull my machete back out and hack my way, like, there's no guarantee that this other way is going to work better unless you're talking to somebody that's already done it and already been there like your father, or somebody that doesn't have an agenda. Right? That's not trying to sell you something. But you just have to commit, you have to commit. And even if it takes me longer, there's been things that like, in hindsight, I could have listened to somebody and cut a few months off of the work that I did, or whatever. But I did it my way. And I learned something along the way. And that's something that I haven't struggled as much with, you know, is what you're talking about where you get distracted, because I've just always been. I've always known like, okay, I can see the fundamentals, I guess I would say when I talk about the fundamentals, and when I go into anything, that's kind of the first thing that I do is I mentally deconstruct the process, and figure out what the fundamentals what the building blocks are. And so that's kind of how I learned is I have to take complicated things and break them down into really simple steps for me to understand how everything works. And then it's like, you take the Lego set apart and figure out how it fits together. And then you build it back, you know, and that's kind of how I learned. And so anytime I approach something, that's my processes, okay, what are the fundamentals of this, I'm going to break this down, and then I'm going to, I'm going to reverse engineer it, or I'm going to put it back together. And so I've always had a lot of, I don't get my mind changed easily, or get distracted by things, because I see the fundamentals of what it takes to get there. And I understand that it's really simple. It's not, it's not always easy, you know, and I use this analogy a lot. But it's like a marathon, you know, like, running a marathon is really simple. You just keep running, there's literally the simplest thing in the world. Just keep moving your feet, bro, you got this, but don't make it easy, right. And so I'm not saying that a lot of the things that I'm talking about are easy, but they are simple. There's nothing complicated about how to have a good marriage, you gotta keep showing up. And you gotta keep being willing to listen and talk. And you gotta keep working through things. And you got to, you just got to keep being there. And you got it when it gets shitty. You got to hang in there. And you got to just sometimes all you're doing is holding on, you're like in the middle of a storm on a, you know, on a ship. And it's like, you know what, I can't even steer the ship right now. The storm is too bad for me to do anything. Like I literally just have to hold on and write it out. And once the storm is over, we can assess what went wrong and start putting some solutions in place. You know, like, sometimes it's all you can do in a marriage. Just right out the swarm. There's no, there's no, you're not missing out. There's not like a strategy you're missing out on it's like no, when I when I was in that spot in marriage, I was hunkered down in the corner and had a rope to tie myself to the mask. Just made it and hope the ship didn't say that was there was no strategy to it that you don't know that I know that you don't, it was literally just hunker down and try to survive it, you know. And when you get on the other side, you reassess. You know, there's there's not a magic formula to any of this. It's, it's just you got to keep showing up and keep doing it. And those are the fundamentals. And if you can keep your eye on the fundamentals and not get distracted by the latest get rich, quick scheme. Over time, the fundamentals always work. There's a movie line that always for some reason it stuck out in my head, the movie, Remember the Titans ever seen that movie? Denzel Washington, okay, it came out in the early 2000s. But it's about a football team in the 60s. And it was about a school that was integrated. But it was a black school and a white school got integrated and Denzel Washington was made the head coach and the other head coach from the other school that used to be two different schools. Now there one he was the assistant coach will Denzel Washington's offense was only four plays. For the same four plays over and over and over again. The white head coaches like want to do all these fancy offenses. And Denzel Washington, he just looks at him and he says, my offense is like Novocaine, which you know what Novocaine is, it's what you put in the put in your mouth. Once it sits in, you can't feel the damn thing. You know, he's like, my offense is like Novocaine. Coach, give it time, it always works. And that's always stuck with me. It's like if I can figure out what the fundamentals are, just give it time, they always work. Now, there's a lot of times where if I can't figure out what the fundamentals are, then I'll ask somebody, how did you do this? You know, I'm going through this and I can't figure out what the solution is. That's that's what I go out and I seek advice for him. I buy a coaching class for something like that, is if there's something I know that I don't know. Yeah, man, but that's my purpose with all of it is to figure out what all the fundamentals are and then once I figure out what the fundamentals are, this applies to athletics. This applies to any type of success So in marriage, business, anything, once you figure out what the fundamentals are, they always work. Always, you just have, but you have to give them time and give them time and keep executing and they'll always work.

Curt Storring 45:12

Yeah, did talking to you is always so like calming in a sense, because my mind is racing all the time when I'm like, oh, what's the next step? And it's just like, dude, just chill out, figure out what the fundamentals are, and like, it's gonna work, and that it's gonna work has just been not something that was ingrained in me for whatever reason. It's like, oh, I don't know if it's gonna work. Like I could die here. And if I do that, like, I better find the faster, better way. And so there's this thing that I mean, I think it's awesome. Because I don't know how many men I've met, like you who are just like, yeah, it's gonna work. Because I think most of the guys that I work with, at least, they're like, oh, I don't know what to do. I don't know who I am. I'm looking for external reference. I'm looking for external satisfaction, like everything's about outside. And like we talked about before reacting. And I know you have like, it's almost like this is just how you were born, how you were raised. But have you thought about how you get men back to that fundamental? Like, what is it that they're looking for? That stops them from being so needy, for external validation? Is there fundamentals to that,

Ryan King 46:13

understanding that the best way to get the external validation is to focus on the fundamentals, I get all kinds of external validation. So again, it just comes back to you look at all the external validation in the world, if you execute the things the right way. You might not get it immediately, you know. And I don't know that I was born this way. I don't know if we talked about this on the last podcast, I've had this conversation, I think on one of their podcasts. But I grew up as a baseball player. And I was a pitcher, right? And so you don't have a choice, right? Like you're out in the middle of the field by yourself and you make a bad pitch and the guy hits a homerun, you can't just go to like, crawling in the dugout and hide like the umpire gives you the ball, there's, you know, 1800 people watching it, all of your friends, all of your family, everybody, you know, in the old world is watching. And unpark comes and hands you a new ball, it's like, get back on the horse cowboy. You know. And it doesn't take long of doing that to realize that like, as a pitcher. Not every pitch I made was successful. Right. And not every inning was successful. But if you give me a whole game, usually, I made enough good pitches to win the game. I can't get focused on each pitch and I drove myself nuts. drove myself insane. I have to expand my timeframe for how evaluating myself right. And so if you take that analogy and apply to like a major league baseball player, right, like we don't evaluate a pitcher, like, I don't know how many people are familiar with baseball, but most famous pitchers probably Nolan Ryan, almost everybody's heard of Nolan Ryan, right? Like, none of us remember a bad pitch he made. We remember his career, his career, right. And so the most men, and what I feel like I learned is that I've learned that baseball taught me that I see most men not doing right, as I learned, I'm not evaluated on every pitch. If I evaluate myself on every pitch my mind, the way that I look at myself is going to be all over the damn place, I'm going to be batshit crazy, I'm not gonna be able to do anything. So I can't look, I can't evaluate it on each pitch, I can't array I can't really evaluate on each inning, I had that innings. And then there's times were had bad games where I just can't find the feel for it. Right? That doesn't mean that I'm a bad pitcher, it just means I couldn't find the field for it that day. Right. And then to expand that over the course of the season. More often than not, I had a good season, you know, but even the best pitchers that will go 18 and seven. So they lost seven entire games and entire, you know, a pitcher in the major leagues, he pitches, you know, usually 100 and something pitches, right. And if he goes 18, and seven that mean seven games of the year, he had 100 pitches and failed. But over the course of a season he was 18, and seven. So that's a successful season. But expand that now even more into a career. Like Nolan Ryan's have 20 seasons. And so that's the difference in the way that you look at it. And so I learned very early on, it's like, you know what, I'm not evaluating myself on every pitch. You give me a whole game though. And you'll never beat me. Not ever. Not.

Curt Storring 49:30

That lands so hard. For me personally, I'm in this transitionary period of what I at least what it feels like a transitionary period from going evaluate every single thing because my fear was I'm always one pitch away from being yanked. I'm always one pitch away from being cut. And that's ridiculous.

Ryan King 49:49

I can tell you as a pitcher, and I coach Little League Baseball and stuff now and I've seen other teams that are really really highly competitive, right? We play against these other travel baseball teams that are highly highly competitive, and their pitchers feel that pressure, if they make the slightest mistake, they get pulled. And they're all mental back basket cases, all of them. Because our minds can't function that way. We're human beings, we're not going to execute everything, everything perfectly. What I would tell men to expand that metaphor is to say, understand as a man, you're gonna have Nolan Ryan's a Hall of Famer. He's in the Hall of Fame, because we evaluate his career. And as a man, we're going to, as you talked about that external validation, that external validation is going to be based on a season or a career, it's that external validation is never going to be based off of a single pitch. Ever.

Curt Storring 50:46

Yeah, dude, that's, it's so interesting. And this ties into parenting, I think, too. Because I know for me, because I come from that mindset. And I'm actively working to get over into this long term, guys telling you just before the call, it's like, Man, I can feel myself wanting to go back into the old ways of momentum is the only thing I judge myself on. If I make a couple of sales, if the algorithm takes off, if I get a bunch of positive messages on Instagram, like, do things are sweet, but two, three days go by nobody joins us in the Brotherhood or you know, algorithm doesn't hit a post. I'm like, Am I really doing all the right things? And I've got to really keep coming back to Yes, this is a long ballgame. And yes, this has worked. And yes, it will work. And it's taken a lot of time, man. And so I love this analogy of like the Hall of Fame career. I'm not looking to win every single argument with my kid or not argument, but like, confrontation, whatever it is. And so as I go about parenting, I can't be looking at them to do that either. I've got to evaluate their life on an entire childhood and life, rather than like, Hey, bud, you messed up, they're not acceptable. It's like, oh, you messed up. That's okay. How are we gonna work on that? Because I know next time you're gonna, you're gonna throw a good pitch.

Ryan King 51:57

Yeah. And I think it really comes down to finding the most healthy, appropriate metric. Right? And so, to me, it's game film, right? So after an entire game, I will watch film and say, What pitches did I execute? Well, what pitches did I fail at and why. So I do think evaluation and reflection is important, I don't want to I don't want to make it sound like, if you're doing something stupid, the sooner you catch it, the better. You know, but I think you can't do it on a pitch by pitch basis, you have to figure out, you know, the metaphorical game to say I'm gonna you know, so if it's, we're talking about something like fitness, it's like, give yourself three months, right? I'm gonna put a plan together, and I'm not and I'm not going to reevaluate it, I'm not going to change it, I'm not going to get on the scale, I'm not going to weigh myself, I'm going to look in the mirror, I'm just going to put my head down and grind for three months, and we'll see where I'm at. And I'm going to evaluate that, and then I can look back at the pitches that I made, that I do need to fix. I'm not saying you just be a dumbass and keep making bad pitches, right? Like, if you're doing something stupid, you need to figure it out. You just have to find the right, you know, spectrum, on whatever it is. And so as if maybe you reevaluate on a monthly basis, or every two weeks, right, instead of evaluating your child's every action, you know, how have they behaved overall, because they're human beings, they're not going to be perfect. Overall, how they behaved this week, right? Or how they behaved the last two weeks, have they gotten better at whatever I've been asking them to do not fighting with their spouse, or having a good attitude, or, you know, having more confidence or whatever it may be evaluated over the course of reflection, and I use this phrase watch game film, right? Like, just go play the game. And that's kind of the back and forth that I view it as with guys like you, right, that are evaluating every little thing, right? And then you've got a lot of other guys that don't think at all they're just blundering through life like, dumbasses. Okay? It's like, no, it's like this is, you know, guys get guys talking about how do I get confidence or whatever it's like, that's what's great about sports is if you if you take something like the NBA, it's like, you have to go play the game, and you're gonna have a bad game, you're gonna miss a game winning shot, and 50,000 people are gonna be laughing at you, right? But you don't get a choice. You gotta go, you got another game in three days, you got to go play. So you got to get back out there. But in between they watch game film. That's kind of the metaphor that I use is like, go do the things. You'll be apparent for a set timeframe. Two weeks, try this new thing, right? And then watch game film, watch game film about that and review it and say what did I do? Right? What did I do wrong? What what you know, so I'm going to keep this. What are the things that I did? Right? I need to remember the things that I did right? And a lot of times that's just as important as remembering the things you did wrong. There's a lot of times you can do something right and forget that you did it to Why did I not keep doing that thing that I did? That was so awesome. I find myself doing that all the time.

Curt Storring 55:07

Oh, dude, I'm so guilty of that. And I'm guilty of like in everything. And again, this is like literally what I'm working on right now is making the play and going like, Hey, give me the iPad, I need to see the game film right now. It's like, No, dude, you got it. Like you said, I love this phrasing. I love this analogy, actually, because you got to be the man in the arena, you gotta go do the thing. You gotta go complete the mission, complete the battle, whatever you're fighting for, go do it. And then like you said, there has to be this like checking back in. And I do that in my own life in terms of like a very broad sense, where I have the self audit that I do twice a year. And so I play my game on fitness, family, finance, business, whatever it is, but then I know, January in June, or whatever it is, I'm gonna look back and go, Okay, how did that go? Where am I at a 10? Why, and what can I do to get better? And that's a great cadence. And you're making me think like, why don't I do that everywhere in my life? And just make that more, like you said, fundamentals man, like it's just coming back simplifying fundamentals, do the right thing over the long course, over the long haul, stop trying to get external validation. And it's pretty hard to

Ryan King 56:09

lose. And we'll take care of it. Because hypothetically, using that same analogy, right, like game film helps you figure out what more of what the fundamentals are. Because you don't always know what the fundamentals are, sometimes you think something's working. And it's actually not. But the game film allows you to capture a lot of that stuff, right? But if you buy into the process of I'm going to go play, and then I'm going to watch the game film, and I'm going to soak up the good things. And then the things that didn't work, I don't know what's going to make those better, I'm going to try something that I know that didn't work. So it's a process of elimination, I'm going to try something different. And maybe 5% of those things work after and then I go play the game, maybe 5% of those new things work. And when I watch the game film, I add that in, right, and you just keep going and you go get in the arena, you do the things and then you watch the game film, you learn from it, you adapt, you implement new strategies, and you go back and play. And then you keep going back and forth through that process. And you look up over the course of a whole season. And that external validation, you'll get from winning that championship. If you can commit to that, you're going to be getting them VP awards, and you're going to be getting, you know, the championships and the fans are going to be cheering you on like the external validation is just like getting laid when we were talking about the red pill stuff earlier. It will take care of itself. In orders of magnitude, higher levels of external the the amount of external validation you'll get, if you can detach from that and just focus on I'm going to go execute my game plan. Not all of it's going to work. Just like as a pitcher, I have a game plan. But I'm not going to execute every pitch perfectly. If I did it through a no hitter. Every game like the best pitchers of the best athletes that have ever lived, have never perfectly executed a game plan. And so that's where a lot of men don't get it that have no experience, right is they look at somebody like me or they look at Tom Brady and like, Oh, Tom Brady's won six Super Bowls. It's like, Bro, did you see how bad 12 of his passes? Were tonight? Well, no. Well, stop putting people on these pedestals of being inhuman and realize that they're just as human as you are, you know, that the external validation is inevitable. It's inevitable. If you can just stop getting distracted by all that stuff. And just focus on executing the fundamentals. And just keep going and playing keep learning from it. Keep dialing down and executing the fundamentals of your game plan and then go and execute the game plan, and then re rebuild your game plan as necessary, and then go re execute it again, in overtime. That external validation will be orders of magnitude bigger than anything you can imagine. But that can't be your impetus for doing all this stuff. It can't be for external.

Curt Storring 59:09

It's such a paradox a and that's why I think it's so trippy to try and like grasp this if you haven't done it before. Because you're just like, well, I want the thing. But if I don't focus on the thing, I'll get it. And so like what are those things and like you said this whole time is just the fundamentals. Dude, I want to respect your time and I got another call and a little bit here. But I want to make sure people know where to find you. I'll drop the links in the show notes. Dad.Work slash podcast, but where do you want to send guys to find more about you?

Ryan King 59:35

I'm just doing Instagram man at the wisdom of kings.

Curt Storring 59:38

All right, well, make sure you guys follow that. Like I said in the podcast show notes. Make sure to follow Ryan It's like some of the best writing and convicting stuff on Instagram, honestly, I think so. Dude. I got like maybe three quarters of my page of questions unanswered so we're gonna have to do round three some point. But I appreciate your time to get I really enjoyed this.

Ryan King 59:58

Yeah, me too, brother. Always

Curt Storring 1:00:02

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 drop 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 d 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 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 to listen until next week. We'll see you then.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai