Chapter 8 Man Up for Future Generations
Evening everybody. So, it is Monday, November 6. Yeah, Monday, November 6. And tonight is, for those of you who don’t know, each week for the last seven weeks, this is week eight, I’ve been going through and reading part of that chapter. There’s eight chapters in the book. So today is the last chapter, chapter eight, and this one is called Man Up for Future Generations.
So what this is, is I try to give you guys a taste of what’s to come in the book when it releases, and really kind of cool. I see people are getting messages that okay, your book will be in your mailbox November 14. Some are getting messages somewhere between the 20th and the 21st of November. But anyway, it’s getting close. It’s actually telling you it’s going to ship finally. That’s just been, honestly, that’s been the hardest part for me is people, when people say when’s it come out? And I gotta say November. And quite honestly that seemed like forever and a day before it would finally get here, and it finally got here. So it’s getting closer. I’m excited, I’m excited to get it in people’s hands and to hear what people think, whether it’s good or it’s bad. Then based on that, to get started on the next one.
So today I’m going to read a little bit from chapter eight. And chapter eight, like I said, is Man Up for Future Generations. I kind of go into what it is that the world needs, and to kind of summarize what it needs, what the world needs as far as strong men goes, what that looks like. I’m a firm believer in, I don’t want to give information just to give information. There’s a piece right now out there, it’s the information age or, what’s it called on Facebook now? Sure, I get to this point and I can’t remember the name of it. Anyway, I’ll have to describe it because I can’t remember. There’s a term for it and I used it today and I can’t remember it.
But it’s where people talk about information and they sell it, and they may get this information from just simply reading a book. They don’t get this information from actually doing anything or from experience anything or through trials and errors. They just read about it and they sell the information. They sell that knowledge, that piece of here’s what I read. I think that gets back into the travel agent versus a tour guide a piece. But I do not like a book that doesn’t give it, number one, doesn’t give a challenge, number two, doesn’t give you an idea of how do you go about changing whatever it is you want to change and what does that look like?
I think that that’s what I wrote this book. I wanted to have that piece of, okay, so what do we need in men going forward? What pieces that, what is the Man Up project trying to, is it trying to accomplish, and how do we accomplish that? And that is at the end of the book, and that’s called the Man Up Manifesto. That’s where you commit to certain things. That’s the other thing, I want accountability. I know firsthand full well that without accountability, nothing happens. So that’s why that piece is there. But anyway, let’s get on with it and read a little bit from chapter eight. Here we go, the man up litmus test. If you want to know whether you are living your life to the best you can with the man up mentality, there is a surefire way to figure it out.
Spend some dedicated quiet time over the next few weeks and write your own eulogy. What the priest, pastor, and/or loved ones are going to say about you while you are laying in that pine box at the front of the church. Now is not the time to kid yourself either. Be honest with yourself. First, write down not what you think they will say to a room full of people, but rather what they really may want to say, but won’t. Take your time and think this through. Try to picture each person who is there and what they would be thinking or want to say. Once you are done with that, start thinking about what you would want people to say or what you would want people to say. If you need help, think about all the categories of men I’ve listed above or think about the chapters in this book.
What do you want your wife to say? What do you want your kids to say? What do you want the rest of your family to say? What do you want your friends to say? What do you want your coworkers to say? Here’s the best part of this exercise. If you have made it this far in reading this book, you are not in the back of an ambulance on the way to the emergency room because of a heart attack. You are still holding your pen, and your book is still being written. It doesn’t matter what kind of man you have been in your past. Trust me, I’m living proof of that. You have the power and choice to determine what kind of man you will be remembered as.
Will it be a man that settled and didn’t fight, or will it be the one who fought tenaciously to be the best possible version of the man that is you? You are the only you and you don’t need anyone’s permission to be the man you were designed to be. If we want the respect we desire, it is up to us and us alone to man up. If we become, even if we attempt to be the type of men in each of these chapters, there will no longer be a need to apologize for being a man, so that’s what I want. That is the piece of, if we are working to be the best version of men that we can be in following what I think these principles stand for, there’s nobody that are gonna … There’s nothing. There may be some, but there’s nobody that’s going to chastise you for being that man. There’s nobody that’s going to say you’re toxic. There’s nobody that’s going to say you’re overbearing, controlling.
Now, okay, there may be some people that are gonna say it, but let’s just face the facts are facts. They’re idiots. They’re not the type of people that are looking to benefit others to move and put others above themselves, in front of themselves. So I think that piece, I mean … So I got asked the other day, it was what is your next book going to be? What are you going to write about next? I had mentioned earlier in one of my videos that the publisher said, okay, let’s get onto the next video. And quite honestly, that scares the crap, I mean this book scared the crap out of me. And I have yet to see what the response is going to be. But I do know this, I do know along the lines of this last chapter, man up for future generations, the exercise that I did in there with writing your own eulogy, that was an exercise I did, one part of the exercises that I had to do for a coach that we had, a business coach.
That piece was to boil down, because Einstein talks about this phrase of if you can’t explain something in the simplest terms, you truly do not understand it. So we were supposed to boil down our essence of who we are in life, how we show up every single day into one word. What is it that gets us up, drives us, moves us forward to continue to do what we do? It was not an easy task. It took me six to eight weeks. I thought I’d have it and I didn’t have it. Then I’d redo it and I’d try again and still wouldn’t get it. Finally boiled down what that was for me.
Now each of us is different. My wife was different than I was, Brenda. Each of you would be different as well. I tried to get it done quickly at first and then I started to think about it and really take my time and just play with it. That’s why I think it took so long. But when I finally got to it, I was like, yes, this is it. That word was example. I want to be an example to those I meet, those I love, my boys, in business, in my faith. I want to be that example to people that, even though I’m not perfect, I’m doing the best I can.
I think that’s the piece of what that manning up for future generations is that example piece. It’s showing the young men in our lives, the men in training, if you will, what that looks like to respect women, to care for the ones you love, to have strong friendships, to be strong in what you believe, whether it’s faith or whether it’s convictions, moral convictions, whatever that looks like. It’s those pieces of that example of what a man does and how a man thinks.
So when I look at what would be next, it may be how do we change perception? How do we change the future moving forward? We change the future with the future, and that future is kids, young men. So who knows, maybe the next book will have, maybe it’ll be some kind of a manual for dads to take their boys through, on what authentic manhood looks like. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. If you guys have ideas, and I want you to wait until after you’ve read the book, number one, to see if it’s worth me writing more. But I’d love to hear your feedback on what is it you’d want to see or hear after this one?
Obviously it has to resonate with me for me to write about it a little bit. But I like asking questions, and that question, for me, the biggest thing is what do people and what would people want and need? What do they think they need? Yeah. So the Man Up for the future generations is, that’s why I wanted to finish the book with that chapter because I think it is important. I think it’s that important that we as men are, our boys and our daughters, our kids … I talk about this, that they have, the record button is always on. There’s never a pause, it’s always on record. I guarantee you this, they are going to do what we do more so than what we say. You know how I know that? Because I did the same dang thing with my dad. I did what he did. That’s the whole thing, do what I say, do what I tell you, do what I tell you, not what I do. Or do what I say, not what I do.
Luckily I had a pretty good model for what to do. We still have to find our own way, and I think that’s part of that maturation process of becoming your own man, if you will, your own woman as well. It’s finding yourself, being true to yourself, being authentic in who you are and not apologizing for it. Again, if you’re an idiot and you’re rude and you’re self absorbed, you probably don’t want to be true to yourself at that point because that’s really not what a lot of people want. But yeah, so that is chapter eight. At the very end of the book, I think I talked about a little bit, there’s a man up manifesto, and it gives anybody who’s read it a chance to choose, because I’m not here to tell you what you have to do. I don’t believe in that at all. I believe we’re designed beautifully with an ability to choose, an ability to choose right versus wrong, and an ability to choose our own path.
That’s why at the end of the book you’ll see in this man up manifesto where each paragraph starts out with “I choose,” and I’m just [inaudible 00:13:30] little bit extra. I’m going to go through and I’m gonna read each of the main ideas, not the whole thing, but just the main ideas of the manifesto at the end. Here’s what it looks like just so you can see. Well, that’s totally backwards, isn’t it too? Nevermind. Anyway, so in the man up manifesto, the first thing is I choose to man up as an individual and always stay true to myself. I’ll follow my own path and live out the passions of my heart. The next one is I choose to man up in the workplace. I take full responsibility for where I am in life and I will not compare my progress to others, but learn from their successes and failures as well as my own so that I can be the best version of me possible. Next one, I choose to man up with my health knowing that no one else can do this for me, big one.
I’ll make a conscious effort for my body physically and be the best I can be, or a conscious effort to care for my body physically and be the best I can be. Next one, I choose to man up as a friend. I will be an authentic friend because I want to have authentic friends. I choose to man up as a husband. I will accept my wife for who she is, the way she is, and love her to the best of my ability. Notice none of these things say perfect, I will be perfect in these areas. This is, in my marriage I will focus on what I have control over, me. Next one, I choose to man up as a father. I will be fully present with my kids and look for ways to be the hero of their story.
I choose to man up spiritually. I will take time to evaluate what I believe. I choose to be open and I choose to seek truth. The last one, I choose to man up for future generations. I choose to man up in every area of my life, spirit, soul, and body because I owe it to myself, my loved ones, and the world around me. Each one of these areas in the book, and now can there be other areas? You bet there can be, but each one of these areas is an area that you can choose or not choose to be the best version of you or man up. That’s the beauty of this. It’s your choice. Nobody’s going to hold a gun to your head. Nobody’s going to demand that you do this. The only person that’s going to demand that you do this, or that should be demanding that you do this, is you.
Just like I talked about when I quit chewing, until that day came that I wanted it for myself, it was never going to happen. I’ve had a lot of people ask me, how do I do it? What’s the magic bullet? What do I take? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Likewise, there’s nothing that I could take that was gonna help me quit chewing because I didn’t want to yet. There’s nothing that’s going to help you that you can take, or that you can do, or that you can, other than action that’s going to help you man up in these areas of your life, other than you desiring it and going after it. You have to have the desire. You have to have the want, the internal motivation.
Now the book hopefully will inspire you because the inspiration comes from the outside. Motivation comes from within, so hopefully the book will inspire you to become motivated from within for a higher purpose of being a better version of yourself, just like I’m trying to do. Again, we’re not perfect. A better version of making imperfect progress, doing a little bit better every single day. So hopefully you guys are seeing that, I think the book has value.
I’m hoping that when it gets into people’s hands, they’ll see that and they’ll share it. Again, it’s still out there on pre order, but it starts shipping next … Let’s see. Oh, just over a week, seven days, eight days from today. So I’m excited. I can’t wait to hear your feedback. Please, once you’ve read it, come on here and tell me what you think of it, good or bad, ugly. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. I want honest feedback. The only way I can get better personally doing what I’m doing is with honest feedback and I’d appreciate that if you could do that for me.
So I don’t think there was any … Let’s see, Caitlin [inaudible 00:18:05] and I know you’re speaking to me to men, but I too feel convicted to [inaudible 00:18:08] Well you know Caitlin, that’s the thing, the beautiful thing about this process is that this book … I told Brenda she needs to write the next book and it needs to have a WO in front of it for woman up and it could be called human up. I don’t know, I’m not a woman. I don’t know. I cannot speak with authority to women on some of these things because I’ve never experienced … I don’t feel that unless I’ve been through it and unless I’ve done it, unless I’ve learned from it, that I can speak into someone else’s life about it.
So luckily for me, I’m not a woman because I’d be one ugly woman. They call it hirsutism or something. But anyway, where was I going with that? Yeah, it could be all of those ups. It’s just people trying to be a better version of themselves. I love the idea of a book for dads with their kids. So Selena, on that slant, I’ve been thinking too about a book for dads to take their boys through, and a book for, let’s face it, you’ve got single moms where for whatever reason, the dad’s not there, whether he, whether he lost his life and then they’re struggling without dad, however that happened, whether it’s a divorce, whether it’s a widow, a book for moms to take their boys through.
I think too that if you’re a dad, and you know of another young man who doesn’t have a dad for whatever reason, take him under your wing and do that too. We talked a little bit about that as well. But yeah, I do think the idea of the book for dads with their kids is good. Oh, Eli Cox. Eli’s watching. How you doing buddy? Let’s see. All right guys, well I think that’s been, unless anybody’s got any other questions or anything they want me to talk about, I think I’m going to call it for the evening. Yeah. Anyway, excited. I don’t know what I’m gonna talk about later this week, well I actually do. I got a couple ideas, a couple of notes and things that I’ve been thinking about doing and we’ll continue to do this. So if you’ve got any ideas, let me know too. But anyway, you all have a great night. Take care and stay safe out there. Catch you later.