The Manlihood ManCast is a personal development podcast for men. The “Virtues of Manhood Series” will look at the virtues that masculinity should embrace, and in this episode, Josh Hatcher talks about the virtue of honor.
To honor something is to hold it in high regard. To recognize it’s value. It has come to mean respect or esteem. .
In 2019, Lou Costa of Ironmill partnered with Manlihood on a blog campaign entitled “Rise Up” We wrote weekly blog posts exploring manhood, and calling men to step into more.
We shot a handful of videos to go along with our posts, but we never used them.
After he died, I dug out the unused footage that we shot. It was raw, powerful, and I think it deserves to be a part of Lou’s Legacy.
Some day, Lou’s sons are going to Google his name. I want them to be able to see his face, to hear his voice, and see into his mind.
So these episodes are dedicated to my friend Louis James. Costa.
Growing up in a small town has its challenges. Especially now, as small towns have been wrecked with the opioid epidemics, poverty, and other related issues. Lou talks about how men need to take ownership of their community.
Josh talks about the power of personal resurrection, of rising up from the dead, transforming into a new person.
This episode references these blog posts written by Josh and Lou.
Men can often hide behind “masks” of masculinity. We hide our authentic self behind a different version of ourself – and we do it for a number of reasons.
The Mask of Stoicism – We bury our emotions, rather than to properly deal with them.
The Mask of Bravado – We pretend to be courageous when rather than to actually be brave.
The Mask of Success – We focus on the outward signs of success, while we neglect the thigns that are more important.
The Mask of Superiority – We pretend to be smarter, better, stronger, more superior than others – and often belittle others as a way to avoid facing the truth about ourselves.
The Clown Mask – We self-deprecate, and entertain – going for laughs because laughter is easy approval.
What we need to do – is to be our authentic self. There’s a time and place for each of the things that these masks represent. Not everyone needs to see your deepest emotions – and to learn to trust the right people so that you can be real with what your are feeling, and to be real with yourself about what you are feeling -but also to put in the work to deal with what you are feeling… That’s the right way. It doesnt’ mean EVERYONE needs to see it – but you don’t have to put on a false face.
With Bravado – sure – there’s a place for bravado. Sometimes – when you’re faced with a challenge that requires courage… and you don’t have it – you can drum up that courage – make yourself FEEL brave… and then the real courage is in the actual action step you take. But if you allow that bravado to become a MASK – a cover for your identity…
The same is true for Success – is it wrong to want to succeed? To have a nice house, or a nice car? Or if you HAVE a degree of success, is it wrong to show it? No. But do not allow it to become your identity.
We break out of our masks by: 1. Understanding who we are.
Don’t ever forget that Mount Everest is littered with bodies of once highly-motivated people.
“But when I say our sport is a hazardous one, I do not mean that when we climb mountains there is a large chance that we shall be killed, but that we are surrounded by dangers which will kill us if we let them.”
George Mallory, 1924
I’m never going to hike Everest. I love the wilderness, and I love the beauty of nature. I love adventure, and I respect the adventurers who push themselves to go further and see bigger.
Hiking Everest is a grand adventure. Fit for some men madder than myself.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong about scaling to the top of the highest mountains in the world. There’s a fierce spirit in us that wants to achieve.
I love reading about feats of bravery and courage. About stories of overcoming adversity and trial. I still can’t get over the bodies that have become mile-markers on the journey.
Green Boots is the name given to the unidentified body of a climber that became a landmark on the main Northeast ridge route of Mount Everest. The body has not been officially identified, but he is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber who died on Everest in 1996.
Highly motivated people. Trained people. Prepared people. Bodies now preserved by the cold and high altitude. Freeze Dried Mummified Signposts
Motivation alone can kill you.
And your body, though preserved and memorialized as a waypoint, is not truly immortal.
We can achieve great things. And we can fail. But it’s almost a sad thing that your body, unrecoverable, could become entirely utilitarian.
At lower altitude, a meal for grizzlies or sharks. A filler for a decorative urn on a shelf. A profit for an undertaker. An organ donor. (a nobler cause no doubt – but you’re still dead)
Even alive, we can be reduced to utilitarian ends. A moneymaker for pharmaceutical companies. A cog in the industrial complex. A sperm donor. An ATM.
Everest is certainly a worthy opponent for a man. I have to ask though if there isn’t a bit of vanity involved.
“Somebody once said that climbing Everest is a challenge, but the bigger challenge would be to climb it and not tell anybody,”
Motivation drives us to achieve – and if we do achieve – we may enjoy a little success, a little bragging rights.
I had the privilege of helping a good friend with some public relations work. He has an amazing story. I wrote a feature-style press release and sent it to the local newspapers to tell his story. It got picked up by the Associated Press, and distributed to newspapers across the country. Then it got picked up by bigger and bigger news outlets, and he got a call from Good Morning America and The Today Show. I helped him navigate the process of appearing on the show. They wanted him to come tell his story. The Today Show offered to fly him out to Manhattan, put him up in a hotel, cover his expenses, and they asked for a shorter embargo to give themselves some exclusivity. He was able to take his wife and me with him to Manhattan. What an experience to walk on the set at 30 Rock and meet the folks we knew from TV. The rock band Fall Out Boy was playing the show that morning. We got to see them warming up in the street, and we hung out in the green room eating breakfast with them.
I didn’t really get the opportunity to talk to them. I’m not a fan of fawning over celebrities. But everytime Fall Out Boy comes on the radio, I announce to whoever I’m with that I had breakfast with Fall Out Boy.
But at the end of the day…. Do I KNOW Fall Out Boy? Did I PERFORM with Fall Out Boy? I wasn’t even ON the Today Show. I was with a friend who was ON the Today Show.
At best, a sixth level connection to any kind of greatness in the situation.
Greatness by proximity.
Men – climbing Everest isn’t the real greatness. BEING Everest is the greatness.
Be your own Everest.
Everest is doing what is designed to do. Be a really tall mountain. And it’s doing a great job at it.
Are we doing what we are designed to do? What we are destined to do? Fulfilling our PURPOSE? That is greatness.
“I’ll be down in a just a minute, honey. I need to finish this. It’s important.”
Important is a slide rule.*
*Only Gen X and above have any idea what I’m talking about when I say “slide rule.”
A Bell Curve. A Sliding Scale. Common core math may not have taught the concept. Sorry. Maybe I can explain it better.
What we value as important is often dependent upon the situation we are in.
That call from work about the TPS reports is important. But not as important as your kid is in the ER.
Moments of crisis, moments of trial, and heartache, sometimes leave us shaken. Imagine going back to work and listening to someone drone on about profits and production when your dad is on life support….
Imagine missing your child’s entrance into the world because you had to work overnights.
Paying your bills on time, getting out of debt, being fiscally responsible is important.
But if my kid needed an emergency surgery, and the family deductible isn’t met, I’d not think twice about the cost needed.
Our priorities are all screwed up.
I can’t tell you what YOUR priorities need to be, or which order they need to be. Heck, sometimes they bounce a little. Sometimes you gotta work a little extra. Sometimes you gotta shuffle and juggle to get things in place. That’s life. There is no such things as balance. At least not in the MOMENT. I think we find balance over long periods of time.
But your kid doesn’t care about your work/life balance when you miss their ball game.
Honestly, I struggle. Taking care of myself has not been a high enough priority. Especially this past year. I think I’ve happily settled into stroking my conspiracy and fear-porn glands a bit and allowed myself to camp out in the dark and seedy underbelly too much.
WAIT? IS JOSH A Q-ANON? No. But I’ll admit – there’s a draw for me to try to see behind the curtain of corruption. The former journalist in me is always connecting dots and seeing deception. I like listening to the news. I like scrolling on instagram. I LIKE reading declassified files on the CIA and FBI website, or scrolling through data dumps on WikiLeaks. There’s a side of me that is VERY interested in these things. That doesn’t mean I believe any of it. But I like to look for the truth under the surface that seems to get ignored.
It’s my dark side.
I can’t tell you how many blog posts I’ve written in my head that expose the actual true things that I’ve learned (cutting through the hyperbole of the extremist websites, and the smoke and mirrors of the main stream press) – but I realize that going down that rabbit hole is not IMPORTANT.
I just went a whole weekend with Instagram deleted from my phone— with all of my notifications turned off. Not checking newsfeeds. It was hard. Digital Cocaine Withdrawal. I was itchy. LITERALLY ITCHY all weekend. I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket when my phone wasn’t even within a mile of me.
There was some other stuff going on that required my attention, and my emotional involvement. My wife asked for our family to have a retreat, to focus on God, to focus on each other, and to cut everything else out.
I scrolled a couple times. I feel a bit dirty admitting it. I needed a little hit. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be leaving the green pastures and going home to a full blown apocalypse. ( I didn’t. The world is still here. )
On the last night, I started to break down. All of the pressures we had been facing came crashing at me. I felt PAIN. Deep personal emotional pain. Not just from the current situations, hell…. Some of it was four decades old. I’ll get into that another time…. But I basically collapsed on the bed and sobbed quietly for twenty minutes.
My point is, THAT crap is important. The fact that I have some deep personal woundedness that I need to work through that I’ve been numbing and fuzzing out for 40 years… that’s IMPORTANT.
I keep ignoring the fact that my health is important. Well, Last October’s heart attack should have gotten my attention, right? Gawsh. I’m about as stubborn as a mule.
I think most of us don’t even THINK about our priorities. We MAY think about our values – though we live our values whether we think about them or not… but our values and our priorities are not the same thing.
To prioritize is to actively get your hands dirty and organize the crap into piles so you can deal with it.
The Eisenhower Matrix may be helpful as you evaluate tasks according to priorities.
I can’t answer it for you. I can’t tell you what should be important to YOU. But I can tell you – if you don’t take the time to really evaluate what things are important, you’ll find yourself spinning your wheels in a flinging sludge field full of cow crap, and wondering why you aren’t getting anywhere. Trust me. I know this from experience. I’m working on it. Work on it with me.
Not like Eddie Murphy Raw – on the edge and unrefined – full of curse words and a fancy leather getup.
More like, there’s a rash under my belly where my waistband rubs, and I’ve been scratching it too much, and now the skin is flaking off and bleeding, and no matter what I do it stings.
Except it’s not just my underbelly. It’s the underbelly of my whole life.
I’m coming back from a weekend away dealing with a personal family crisis. And NO – it’s none of your business.*
*If you know, it’s because I trust you to keep your yap shut and protect my family’s pain. If you don’t know – it shouldn’t be on your lips.
The past year and a half have been like a crisp denim waistband rubbing against my rash. Major life changes. (Even good changes can be hard changes.) Stupid viruses and lockdowns and non-stop fear-porn and engineered outrage. If anyone had any kind of mental weakness or infirmary, this past year has rubbed it RAW.
There are two choices for aging beef, wet and dry aging. Let’s explore the two methods.
WET AGING
Wet aging includes storing meat in sealed airtight bags under refrigeration (32°F to 34°F) up to 3 weeks. Wet aging results in traditional beef flavor and is the most common aging method.
DRY AGING
Dry aging is less common than wet aging due to the complexity and cost. Beef is stored uncovered in a refrigerated room (32°F to 34°F) under controlled humidity and air flow for up to 4 weeks. Dry aging results in distinctive brown-roasted beefy flavor.
When I think about raw meat aging, it’s hard to think about it being good.
I’ve thought a lot about what I do here at Manlihood.
There is a lot of pressure to make this all search engine perfect, so that the the artificial intelligence that governs what things are good for us and what things are bad for us know if Manlihood is good for us or bad for us. I could write a lot of blog posts like:
5 Things you need to know about being a good man!
The Truth about manhood
Masculinity Under Fire: How to preserve and protect manhood
4 Things To Make You a Better Father
And don’t misunderstand me, I may write some like that. They can be helpful, even if they are formulaic.
But maybe what we really need isn’t a steak that’s well done – it’s a steak that’s rare.
Interesting that we use “rare” to describe meat that is cooked just enough to kill the germs and worms.
Rare.
Different. Unique. Special. Treasured.
Raw.
Uncooked. Pristine. Original. Irritated.
As I get ready to launch a new season of the Manlihood ManCast, and as I build Manlihood into a bigger and better community to help men be better men, I’m reminded that my role in it is not necessarily to “polish it” or “cook it to death”
It’s better if it’s pink in the middle, and a little bloody, or a little uncomfortable.
I’m sure you are aware that Big Tech uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to determine what podcasts and what platforms people want to listen to and engage in.
One of the factors that determines which content gets pushed out to more people is how well that content performs.
So I had this crazy idea. (WHAT?? JOSH HAS A CRAZY IDEA?? Yeah. you know me. All the time)
For my birthday – LET’S HACK THE EVER LOVING AI OVERLORDS. What if today, June 15, we love bombed the algorithms by hitting PLAY on The Manlihood ManCast and just let it play all day.
I’ve got hundreds of videos and podcast episodes.
If all of my followers and friends just tuned in and let it play all day, it would tell Youtube, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, and everyone that Manlihood is making content that people want to here, so they will show that content to more people like you.
You don’t even have to actually listen if you don’t want to. Load up the youtube channel and let it play all day on your TV.
Hit play on your podcast app, and just let it play in the background.
If 100 people, or 1000 people played a few hours of programming from Manlihood – the robots in charge would be FORCED to pay attention, and it will tell them how valuable Manlihood is!
But speaking with Richard was a pleasure. Richard is a connector. He builds relationships with people, and genuinely cares about them. He’s building something really special simply by making friends and having conversations, and it allows him to encourage and help men and women, especially veterans in a powerful way.
Give the episode a listen and make sure to subscribe to his podcast.
Josh Hatcher of Manlihood appeared on one of the introductory episodes of The Significant Man Podcast with Warren Peterson this week. Josh talks about the importance and the value of masculinity in today’s culture, talks about properly processing emotions and becoming more emotionally resillient. He tells some of his story, how faith and becoming a man helped him overcome bullying and many other issues in life.
Warren Peterson is the Founder of the Significant Man movement, and the author of several books for men. He discusses masculinity within the context of faith, and holds an annual Men’s retreat in the Colorado Rockies.
Listen to this episode, and subscribe the Significant Man RECHARGE podcast!
