00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the lion within us, a podcast, serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders they’re predestined to be. I’m your host, Chris Grainger. Let’s jump in. All right, guys, this is a big one. This is a big, big, big week for the line within us. I’m so excited for us here as we get started. And guys, you know, for every episode of the line within us, you know how we’re gonna start?

I mean, it’s, it’s not even, uh, a question we’re gonna start by looking at God’s word and God’s word this week. We’re on Ephesians chapter six, verse four, reading outta God’s word right here. Fathers do not provoke your children as anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

God’s had a big spiritual kickoff with on this, on this scripture rather, and really broke that down and gave some insight to what this means. Cuz too many guys just stop at the discipline part of this scripture. And they don’t think about the instruction of the Lord. So I really unpack what that looks like, how we can start applying that in our lives.

And guys, I pray that that spiritual kickoff was just that, that kickoff that you needed in your pants to get your but, and gear and get up there and start being the, the, the, the line with them start unleashing that guy. Right. So we’re gonna be talking about today. On this episode, we’re gonna be talking about turning sons to men.

I gotta guess this is, I can’t believe again, sometimes I can line with Dennis. I have to pinch myself on the men we’re able to connect with because the messages that they can bring are so powerful, and this is one of them. So we’re bringing with, to, to you today, Ryan LER, that he is the founder of the order of man movement.

Now, Ryan, just a phenomenal guy, big time podcast. He’s been podcasting for, for seven or eight years. He had, again, host the order of man, if you do not listen to the order of man. You need to add that to your regimen. This is one that I listen to every week. I only have a few podcasts. I listen to every week.

I’ll go through those in probably another episode. I learn a lot from Ryan. He’s a phenomenal podcaster, just a great man. And, and guys, we’re gonna learn a lot here. He’s gonna unpack so much about being man and what that actually looks like. You know, Ryan is, is, is not one short of opinion. So I’m so excited for him to share his wisdom, his insight, check out the show notes.

We’ll have ways that you can sync up with Ryan. He’s pretty big on social media. Uh, it’s these types of conversations that are gonna make us better. They’re gonna challenge us. I get it. They’re gonna make us think they’re gonna really make a sit back and reflect, how are we doing as, as, as husbands how’s we doing as fathers, but that’s what the line within us is all about.

Guys. It’s not about just being comfortable. Anybody can be comfortable. It’s end of friction, where the change happens. And that’s usually where the great things happens. All right. So I’m not gonna hold him back from you any longer. So get, get ready. Here we go.

Ryan LER. Welcome to the line within us. How you doing today? My friend.

02:53 Ryan Michler
What’s up Chris? Good to see you, man. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.

02:57 Chris Grainger
I guarantee you haven’t been looking forward to it as much as I have man. So I’ve been, I’ve been excited about it. Been talking to a lot of my buddies about, you know, what, when I told him I was actually like talking to Ryan Ker, like there’s no way I’m like, bro, I’m telling you, like this is gonna be, it’s gonna be hot.

So, uh, man, I gave an intro Ryan, but I, you know, not all listeners may, may not know about the order of man. So, and intros are just me talking. I love to hear the, the guest himself to lay it out. So would you mind just kind of give a brief, you know, how, how you got to where you’re at and what you’re trying to do with order men?

03:26 Ryan Michler
Yeah, I started the podcast. It, it originally started as podcast about seven years ago and, and I, and I did it for selfish reasons. Really? My goal was to be able to have conversations with incredible men, who I was motivated by inspired by and, and led by. And so I reached out to a couple of guys and from day one, I actually had another podcast.

A lot of people don’t know that I had another podcast before order of men. And I found out very quickly, I loved the medium of podcasting and to be able to have conversations like this with high caliber men and the technology we could use, uh, I just didn’t want to have the same drawn out conversation I was having regarding financial planning, which is my background did that for about a decade almost.

Uh, and so I realized I love the medium of podcasting, but I wanted to shift gears. And when I started the order of man podcast, it really, really took off. And I, I didn’t expect that even as you were saying, you you’re talking your buddies and like no way you’re having him on that sounds so foreign and strange to me, cuz I really don’t consider myself to be anything special or unique, just a guy trying to figure it out and right.

And that’s how we’ve always presented order of men. It’s not order of Ryan. It’s not, I’m better than you it’s Hey, like let’s, let’s create. A brotherhood. Let’s have some camaraderie, let’s have some accountability, let’s hold each other’s feet to the fire. Right. And if I can help foster and facilitate that for other men and they rekindle romantic relationships, they, uh, start leading their children better.

They start businesses or secure promotions or get in shape or whatever their ambitions are. And, and I was a little bit of a catalyst for that through the guests that I interview, then man, I’m

05:04 Chris Grainger
all about it. Right, right. And I tell you what I mean in, in weekend and week out and guys go to the show notes, cuz you will make sure we, we sync up everything to you connect with Ryan.

Cuz I mean, I learn something every week from your interviews to your ask me anything to your Friday field notes, man. I feel like every week you’re, you’re challenging me from a man just, just in different areas. And I, and I love how diverse your topics and your guest are and just your structure. And, and that’s why I’m excited today because we’re talking about turning sons to man and Ryan.

You, you don’t know it, but I I’m a, I’m a three time girl, dad. And this November, the tall order. Well, it, it is bro, but this November we’re expecting a son. So, awesome. Congrats. So we’re looking forward to that. So I, I’m trying to learn, particularly from men like yourself, uh, on how to lead that young man, I mean, and it’s going, and it’s all on me.

I, I got to, to step up and be a man to show him how to do that. And I think people like you, if, if I can learn from it, that’s what it’s all about. So maybe talk to the guys out there. How do you teach? I know you’re big on protect, provide preside as men. How do we, how can we start doing that to our sons?

06:12 Ryan Michler
Well, I think the first, the first answer is, is start with yourself. And mm-hmm at this point, I feel like that’s a bit of a cop out. It’s easy to say, be an example. But the reason everybody says it is because there’s so much truth in it. Right? And, and there’s such a discrepancy between what we believe about ourselves or how we view ourselves ideally, and the way we’re actually showing up.

And so the fact that we need to continue to stay be an example. And look, when I say, be an example, I’m not just talking to you. I’m not just talking to the people who are listening, talking to myself. Mm-hmm , I fall short in so many ways. Every day, screw up. I mess up. I, I, I fall short. And so when I say, be an example, that’s a reminder for me too, that I need to be an example and I need to show up in a powerful way for, for my boys and, and my girls.

So we’re exactly the opposite of you. I have three boys and one daughter. Okay. Yep. Yeah. We’re exactly the opposite. And boys and girls are different. They are they’re, they’re naturally different. Yeah. Uh, my, my, my sons are more. Inclined to take risks. They’re more physically aggressive. Uh, they’re they’re louder.

Um, my daughter by nature is more nurturing. Uh, she really wants to be like her mother, my wife, uh, and, and she wants to make sure that everybody’s okay. She’s a bit of a peacekeeper and that’s a natural, that’s a natural order of things. And I love it. Uh, so I think Jordan Peterson actually sums this up really, really well.

He said something several months ago and, and, and it resonated with me. He says, you know, our job is to help our children do dangerous things safely, right. And we don’t allow that enough in society. But I think that especially rings true with our boys is allowing them to go out and to explore and take risks and climb trees and get into fights and, and do these things.

But in an environment where it’s not gonna hurt them or injure them permanently. There’s gonna be some consequences for sure. Right. Uh, and so I try to do that with my boys. I try to give them opportunities where, you know, they, they can get themselves into a little trouble. They can get themselves in, into a little bit of a pickle and not so much that it will impact them forever, but enough where they’ll feel this sting of it.

And they might think twice about the way in which they go about those behaviors. But really for boys, it’s about harnessing all of that masculinity, that bra testosterone that’s cosing through their veins and then helping them channel aggression, dominance, stoicism, uh, propensity for violence, risk, taking into productive outcomes for themselves and other people.

And I feel like that’s my job as a father. And I think if more fathers did that, we’d live in a completely different society than we

09:01 Chris Grainger
do. Oh, absolutely hands down. And I’m so glad you went to Peterson, man. I’m, I’m a big Peterson thing. I, I actually got to see him speak, uh, a few months ago here in North Carolina.

And I think that one of that rules is like, don’t mess with a kid when they’re skateboarding. Like, you know? Yeah. I think that’s just from his first book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, you want him to do those dangerous things, but you also want to, you know, to, to give them that space to learn and be creative and to, to make those mistakes, to be a leader, cuz you can’t lead until you actually have, have led in the past and make those mistakes and you learn.

And I think too many times we’re just, we’re in, into society now where, where moms and dads, we just try to mow down everything for our kids. And then that is not, that’s not gonna teach them and get them to be where they need to be.

09:42 Ryan Michler
We live in a, a pretty amazing society, a pretty amazing time to be alive.

It’s always interesting when people say, you know, I was born, uh, a hundred years too late or 200 years too late and they romanticize what it would’ve looked like in, um, You know, the early west something or, or, or medieval times or the dark age. Yeah. I’m like, I dunno if I’d wanna live through that, but we romanticize it because we see it in Hollywood and it looks great and everything else, but man, those were some really, really dark, dangerous, disgusting times.

Uh, and in a lot of ways, there are some, some, some dark times that we have in society now, and that I’m sure we’ll have moving forward, but we live in incredibly prosperous age and it comes with advantages and it comes with disadvantages. The advantages are, we have technology like this where you and I can have conversations.

You’re in North Carolina, I’m in Maine. Uh, so you know, we’re, we’re hundreds, if not thousands of miles apart. And it’s as seamless as it can be. We have access to the internet. The amount of information that we have at our disposal is incredible. I just had a shoulder surgery, actually, a pet surgery more specifically, uh, five days ago.

I’m not dead and it’s repaired. And the, the medical, this was crazy when I went into the operating room one, um, anesthesiologist said to the other, Hey, are you ready? And she said, yes, I’m ready. And that’s literally the last thing I remembered. And I woke up, uh, two hours later in, in the recovery room. Like what happened?

And I didn’t have any pain or nothing like medical technology and advancement is, is incredible. Like we live in this incredible prosperous time, but also it’s us into a false sense of security. And our biggest concern is that the guy at McDonald’s put mustard on our hamburger when we didn’t want mustard, right.

Or, you know, some dumb ass on the road cut us off and who knows what they were dealing with. And like, those are our biggest concerns. Or I got laid off from my job because the economy, and so, uh, now I need to get a new job or instead of costing $80 to fill up the truck and now cost a hundred to fill the truck.

Well, congratulations. You know, you gotta pay $20 extra, but your ancestors were literally starving to death. When they wanted to get from the east coast to the west coast, it took them years. Yeah. To get to, and, and people die because of that travel. It’s a blessing and a curse. And we ought to be aware of where we stand within our, our humanity, the existence of humanity, and realize that we need to put ourselves in situations that are gonna be challenging.

I think about the gym is a, is a great example. OK. The gym’s a funny

12:40 Chris Grainger
thing, right? Yeah. Why do we need

12:43 Ryan Michler
it? Right? Why do we manufacture these perfectly air condition? Climate control, beautiful buildings with, with precisely balanced bars and weights. Why do we do that? Because life isn’t hard enough. Like you’re not chopping wood, right?

You’re not hunting all day. You’re not breaking down, uh, a lion or a deer in order to feed yourself. You’re not trying to use a bow drill to start a fire. You’re you’re not doing those things. So we have to manufacture that shit so that we can make it harder than life really is. And it’s just not all that hard.

right.

13:24 Chris Grainger
It’s incredible. When you think about it, man. Cause I mean, it’s like you’re right. I mean, back in the day, you know, you think about the, some of the strongest guys I grew up in the country and some of the strongest guys, I remember, you know, being beside were farm boys, farm strong, man. That’s it, man.

You don’t mess with farm strong man. Cuz those guys will take you out.

13:43 Ryan Michler
Did you grow up in North Carolina or where’d you grow

13:45 Chris Grainger
up? Yeah, it’s Southern Virginia, but right on North Carolina line. So we lot of tobacco farms in this, in this part of the world. Yes sir.

13:52 Ryan Michler
When I, so I move from. Uh, Southern California Anaheim area to a very, very small town in Southern Utah.

When I was, uh, 13, 14 years old. In fact, the high school I would’ve went to in California had more kids in the high school than the entire population of heroin, Utah, which is where I moved to. Okay. And when I started playing football as, as a, uh, well, I, I played when I was in seventh and eighth grade. And then when I moved to, to Utah, I played as a freshman.

I started playing football and, you know, there was a couple of teams that we, that were rivals, but they were. Notorious for being strong is like Milford and Canna. And, and these guys are all farm boys. They’re moving pipe, they’re hauling hay. They’re throwing hay all summer long. They come into football and it’s like, these are like men, these are grown men.

Right. You know, and then you have to go and play em as, as, as a 16 year old kid in high school. And it just wasn’t even, it didn’t even seem fair, but man, we’ve lost a lot of that. We really, really have.

14:57 Chris Grainger
We have, man, we definitely have, well, I mean, when you, so thinking about, alright, we, we had sons, we’re trying to get them there.

You know, we have all these things, the world’s throwing at ’em. How, how do your tax exchange you do? You said you got three, three min, three, three sons. I think your oldest Brexit he’s got that podcast. So he’s your oldest, but how does it vary from your ages on the tactics that we need to as fathers to be raising these, these, these young boys to be men?

15:24 Ryan Michler
Yeah, I mean, Breck is my oldest. He’s 14 years old. Uh, and he’s very much like me. He is, he’s a clone of me minus the beard at this point. But other than that, he’s actually more fit than I was. He’s bigger and more fit than I was when I was 14. Uh, and, and I attribute that partially to what I’ve implemented it in his life and other people that I’ve introduced him to, that I didn’t have when I was a young man growing up, my mother, uh, raised me on her own and she did a great job, but there was some deficiency there.

Um, right. Not anything ill intent towards her at all. It was just, she’s a woman, you know, and, and a woman can’t fully raise a, a young man into, into a man. Uh, so he’s, he does have an advantage that way. Uh, and then I’ve got, my second son is, uh, almost 11 and then I’ve got my third son. Who’s our youngest and he’s, uh, six.

Okay. So the, the tactics don’t really change all that much. I am very involved with my oldest because of his age and his ability to do things and hang if you will. Uh, and, and their personalities are all different too. You know, we have to remember that the personalities are different. My youngest son is a little tornado, you know, it was, it was funny.

We had, uh, his uncle, so that’s my brother-in-law over this past week. And, uh, he’s he, for whatever reason, he started calling him furious, George, I guess one day he was sitting there and he just had his underwear on and he was eating a banana. And my, my brother-in-law his uncle called him furious George.

Right. that was such a good, that was such a good name for him. And even, you know, we started calling him that and he gets so mad when you say that, and he’s like a little, just a little Terry, he just gets mad and he’ll bite and scratch and, and do whatever he can. It’s different. My, my oldest is not like that at all.

He’s very, he’s very relaxed. He’s not very confrontational. Um, he’s not passive, but he’s not confrontational. He’s more of a, a pleaser, I would say. Right. Uh, my, my second son is more introverted he’s content with spending time alone and doing his thing and working on his projects. Very smart, very intelligent.

Doesn’t need to be around. People doesn’t need to be, uh, in the mix, just does his own thing. And then we have furious. George. Who’s just a little terror. So I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. I, I wish I could tell you, oh, just do X, Y, and Z, man. I’m figuring it out just like anybody else. But what I would say is I allow all of them to be boys.

Right. And when I see behavior that I think is positive, or maybe not even positive, like let’s say for example, furious, George decides to fight his older brother. You know, I might not say that’s a positive behavior, but I’m gonna let it play out right. Within reason. Right. And when he gets his butt kicked, cause he is going up against 11 year old then.

Okay, well, what do we learn from that lesson either you should not pick on 11 year olds or maybe you should learn to fight. And so we, we let them be boy. Yeah. And then we try to temper that and harness that into a productive outcome. It’s not very tactical. Uh, it’s more 30,000 foot view. I just don’t have the answer on what is the perfect formula.

18:48 Chris Grainger
No, but I think it’s, it’s spot on. I can’t remember if it was a fun Friday that you had, I’m not a fun Friday, a a, a Friday field notes or our, our fun, our Fridays are fun Fridays. That’s how I got that mixed up. But you said something about, you looked out the window and it was your son and your daughter.

And I think one of ’em pushed the other. You kinda let it play out. They were, they were in the garden and it played out and your message to, to your daughter was, you know, look, you gotta stand up for yourself and your son, you know, but you didn’t go out there and immediately stop that. And, and you took that as an opportunity to teach them.

And I think there’s so many dads out there that would’ve just jumped out right immediately and, and, and stopped it versus letting this stuff play out. And I think that helps our sons and our daughters at the same time grow and mature and, and understand the different personalities. Well, there

19:33 Ryan Michler
was no immediate threat.

Right, right. And that, and that’s what we need to understand is that if it’s not going to be a, a, an imminent threat to our children’s lives, maybe let them work through it a little bit. And that’s not to say, turn it into some real world scenario of ward of the flies. Right. But because at some point you should step in and you should start to communicate with them about what happened and how it played, the way that it went and how it better and that’s job as right.

Give, give enough to hang themselves a little, not so much as they’ll strangle themselves. Right. But just enough to hang themselves. And then you can start talking about the lessons that we learned. Good point, good point. And there’s lessons on, on both parts, you know, in that example. And I don’t remember that exact scenario that you’re addressing, but yeah, my daughter needs to learn to defend herself.

Mm-hmm she, she’s a woman. Um, she’s probably at some point I hate to say gonna come into some encounter where she’s intimidated or threatened, or maybe even in a vulnerable, vulnerable position. So she should learn. She should learn how to take care of herself. Uh, my son, yeah. He needs to learn how to treat women and how to respect.

Just people in general. Right. And if he gets popped in the nose and he deserved it, then I’m gonna celebrate with my daughter in front of him and say, good job. Right. And, and then I’m gonna say, well, if you’re gonna step up to the plate, you better learn how to fight because you, you called it. Now you’re gonna deal with the consequences of that’s.

21:11 Chris Grainger
Right. That’s right. Uh, there’s so much to be said there, Hey, we’ll take a quick break. We wanna jump right back.

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21:48 Ryan Michler
bring encouragement,

21:49 Chris Grainger
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So, Ryan, one thing I wanna get your input on man is from raising men. Let’s boil this down to the church, cause I want, I wanna get your, your insight here because I wanna understand can, first of all, can’t we have strong men and sons in the church. And what can we do to get more guys in as I’ll give you some, some context, you know, I serve in our church, I’m a deacon there and too many times I see the moms bring the kids, you know, or, or, or their sons, or if the sons are just checked out and dad’s not.

What do we need to be doing different or, and maybe, you know, to, to actually foster masculinity and, and, and to build, to start building these strong men in the, in the church and in the faith.

22:53 Ryan Michler
Yeah. So when you say the church, I’m, I’m just going to assume for the sake of argument, you’re talking about all sorts of denominations and religions and everything else.

Okay. So is that accurate that that’s that’s pre yes, sir. I mean, we’re talking about Christianity, but when you say the church, there’s all sorts of denominations. So let’s just the right there. Exactly the problem with the church. If we’re gonna use that term again to broadly talk about all, all, all Christian, all Christian S frankly.

Yes. Is that they’re

and even more so they’re becoming increasingly ran by women like there’s women, pastors, and all of this kind of stuff. That’s, that’s very strange. That’s a strange concept to me. And even if they aren’t in some sort of. Leadership type position. They, they have a lot pull within the church. They have a lot of, uh, a say they’re, they’re the ones who speak up.

They’re the ones who speak out. And frankly, the church is, uh, catered towards a, a feminine perspective. And that’s the problem. Mm-hmm, , that’s the problem. I’ll give you an example. This is anecdotal years ago. I, I, uh, I have been very active with the young men in, in our church. And this was years ago, probably four or five years ago.

Now we took, uh, probably six young men between the ages of 14 to 16 years old. Uh, on a camp out one evening and it was an overnight camp out. And we drove about an hour north from where we were, and we started the Trailhead and we hike down into the, into the canyon and the valley, and that took us about four or five hours to hike down and we made camp.

And then the plan was the next morning we’re gonna hike out. And then we were gonna stay one more night at, uh, a member’s cabin that was in the area. Okay. And so we take the four or five hour hike down and, uh, we come before about two hours into it. We come to this little watering hole and the boys are like, Hey, can we jump in?

Yeah, absolutely. And they need a little cliff diving and they jumped in and, you know, they were running around, having fun. They all stripped down to their underwear and they were doing their thing. It was a great time. The boys get out, they dry off, we go on a hike and we come back down and, and they say, Hey, uh, brother, Mickler what time is bedtime?

Now these are 14 to 16 year old boys. And I said, I don’t know what time you guys wanna go to bed? They’re like, well, we don’t know what’s our curfew. I said, you don’t have a curfew. There’s no curfew here. But what I will tell you is that we’re waking up at six o’clock in the morning and we’re having a quick breakfast and we’re going to the bathroom and then we’re hiking.

Right. Cause we got another five or six hour hike and they said, well, okay, so what time should we go to bed? I’m like, no, you make that decision. Right. And those boys stayed up all day. In fact, or all night, excuse me. They went down to the stream. One thing they did is they went down to the stream and they caught a frog.

And while I was sleeping, they put that frog in my bed. and my, I was sleeping under the stars. I didn’t bring a tent cause I didn’t want to carry the weight, but they put that frog in my, uh, in my sleep bag, which was funny. And I appreciated it. I appre even, even though I was tired, I appreciated the joke.

And I said, you guys better get some sleep. No, no, no. We’re okay. We’re all gambling. All right. Whatever. They stayed up probably till four or five in the morning. Oh wow. Down at down. It was me and another, another leader with them. And they were at the stream and they were doing all who, who knows what they were doing.

And six o’clock rolls around my alarm goes off. I wake up, kick their sleep bags. I kick their tent. I’m like, let’s go boys. Like, can we sleep another hour? I said, no. I told you leaving at six O’. Yeah, all night. I was your choice. Not mine. You, your grudgingly and made breakfast and had a

home. And the, the unofficial motto of the trip was, do, do what you want,

26:53 Chris Grainger
but suffer the consequences. Okay. .

26:57 Ryan Michler
That was what, there was a different motto, but that’s what we decided the, the official motto was I will find a way or make one, but the UN official motto was do what you want, but suffer the consequence.

Cause I told them that and we get home and I had a couple of mothers reach out to me and they said, I can’t believe you let those boys stay up. And I said, you know what, don’t lecture me. You’re a woman. And I appreciate and respect that. But you’re their mother. You entrusted those boys with me. We had a great time.

They’re happy. They’re fulfilled. They have some stories. They did something hard. They did something challenging. So don’t you lecture me about the way that I lead those young men, right?

27:43 Chris Grainger
If you have an

27:44 Ryan Michler
issue with that, then don’t send. But they’re with me and I will take care of them and I will protect them and I will lead them, but this is what they needed.

But this underscores the problem. You have women in society, lecturing men about how to be men and how to raise boys. And I love women. I love my wife. I love my mother-in-law. I love the women that I interact with. I love my daughter. I love women and I love femininity, but I’ll be damned if I can’t be a masculine presence in the lives of the boys, I’m here to serve whether that’s in a church organization or within my family or coaching youth sports.

And there’s no woman, who’s gonna tell me how to turn a boy into a man, because you can’t, they can’t do it. Right. But that’s the problem with the church is that the church wants men to act more like women mm-hmm and then you have all of these. Weak cowardly, pathetic feminized, men acting like women. And then that you wonder why, why enrollment in the church is down.

Cause men don’t wanna be lectured to by women. Men don’t wanna sit there and be preached at for hours upon hours at a time. You know what we wanna do? We want to go shoot guns and we wanna fight and we wanna be physically active and we wanna compete against each other. And society has made that wrong.

It’s not wrong, right? It actually can be very wholesome if we do it in controlled environments with right. Very specific, clear oriented outcome. And so if I’m a member of the church, what I’m telling men and at you as a deacon is, Hey guys, Sunday, we’re gonna go to church and we’re gonna worship and we’re gonna pray and we’re gonna get on our knees and we’re gonna do what we need to do, and we’re gonna learn.

But Tuesday night we’re going to Jisu together, right? Wednesday night, we’re going to the shooting range. Thursday evening. We got a pick game of basketball at the local high school that we reserve for Thursday nights at seven O’. And I expect all of you to be there. We’re all with a prayer. We’re gonna have a quick spiritual lesson, and then we’re gonna beat the shit outta each for an hour and a half.

And then we’re gonna close with a prayer and we’re gonna go home better men. Right. And if the church learned to do that outside of Sunday sermons, Yeah, it would be a completely different faith completely and much better, much more wholesome, much more well rounded and much more advantageous, not only for women, but for men.

And by the way, the women will be served by men acting like men. Yes.

30:40 Chris Grainger
What, what about Sunday morning? I mean like, is there anything, if you’re, if you’re leading a church, what could you do on a Sunday morning to, to make it more attractive, to pull into more, the more masculine areas to, to get the guys more, uh, engaged?

Is there anything to do or is it just, is it, is that too far gone? You’re and you’re thinking of programs

30:57 Ryan Michler
outside. I don’t think it’s too far gone. One of the most spiritual moments I ever had as I was in Iraq in 2005 to 2006, and we had every Sunday, this, uh, makeshift building, it was an Iraqi detention center.

They used to hold prisoners and whatever in this, in this area that we had made our base. And we had this really, really rudimentary, almost Adobe type building that every Sunday we met in and we all walked in there with our body armor and firearms, all of us had M sixteens or M four S and we all had body armor.

We had helmets on and we walk in there. And the first thing we did was at the door, we’d take our rifles and we’d set ’em down under the pew so we could get at ’em if we needed them. Sure. But they were under the pew. And one of the most spiritual moments I ever had in my entire life was in a congregation in Iraq with probably 50 to 60 other guys, all with our rifles, between our legs, under the pew sitting there and body armor, sweating our balls off.

And we were hymns as men, no win, right. There were no women there. It was all men. And we were singing praise to God. Right. And I’m telling you, man, that was the most spiritual moment. One. I don’t want him to deny some other moments I’ve had, but one of the most spiritual moments I’ve ever had in my life, because it was men singing phrases to God.

And there’s something about our void, like, think about leadership, right? I believe it’s a man’s job to lead to preside. Right?

32:25 Chris Grainger
Think about the

32:25 Ryan Michler
way that we’ve evolved. Even just physiologic. Our voices are deeper. They’re louder. When my daughter speaks, she’s like a little PIP squeak, right? She doesn’t have the ability to project her voice the way a man has the ability to project his voice.

And when you have 50, 60 guys who are all voluntarily deciding to be there at church stinging phrases to God, while a weapon of war and destruction sitting between their legs under the pew, ready to act at any moment in body armorer to shoulder, brother, to brother, and a common cause. Man, you, you want get the guys together at, on a.

Maybe say, Hey, if church starts at nine, nine o’clock Sunday morning, Hey guys, we’re getting together at eight 30. We’re gonna be here eight 30, maybe the, the, the chapel’s open. Maybe you guys meet out in the parking lot. Maybe there’s a separate room you can meet at, and you do a, you do a, a scripture, but it’s a, it’s a manly scripture.

Yeah.

33:27 Chris Grainger
Right? Like

33:28 Ryan Michler
about battle. Like the Bible has all sorts of battles and, and guys who were like strong and bolding and they were fighting lions like Daniel, you know, facing off against lions. Like that’s what you choose. That’s the scripture you choose. And you talk about the story of that. And then you sing a strong battle hymn.

Right. Right. And you get in the spirit and you get in the Mo and then you go to Sunday. And your wife’s there and she looks beautiful, cuz she’s got her Sunday dress and she’s got her heels and she looks amazing and you’ve got your kids and your daughters have, you know, the bows in their hair and their dresses look so beautiful.

And they’re so, so just so lovely to look at and you’ve got your son who will be there and he’s got his little boat tie on and his desk and you see your family, but then you realize, oh, I’m the man. I’m the man of the family. Like it’s my job to be the man and everything else that comes into who you are.

Yeah. In that moment of, of a Sunday sermon is all filtered through the lens of you having 10, 20, 30 other guys. You just talked about fighting fricking lines with contending, with the devil. Yeah. Battling for what’s right and against what’s wrong. And all of that is filtered through that lens. That’s a beautiful way to start a Sunday.

34:50 Chris Grainger
Man that is that’s powerful right there. And I, I can’t, I must admit, I’m not surprised that you said worship, you know, that was an area I can, I can only imagine that that scene in Iraq where, where you guys are together. And this is where I, I think the church Ryan, we, we could step up. We could do differently, cuz too many times we’re singing songs like Jesus is our boyfriend.

That’s just not the case, man. We got, we gotta, you know, change it up. And like you said, worship to the, to, to, this is the God of the universe. I mean, this is, this is the, our savior. And I tell you what, he, he’s not kissing us on our nose and patting us on our butts and, and, and call us a Skile on a snowflake and all these things like we we’ve, we’ve completely missed a mark.

So that’s great advice, man. Thank, thank you for sharing that. I

35:33 Ryan Michler
saw a meme or, or something the other day and it resonated so, so loudly with me. It says Jesus wasn’t hippy. He was a warrior.

35:42 Chris Grainger
Yeah,

35:43 Ryan Michler
man. He stood up. Jesus died. Like he died. Mm-hmm for what he believed in, right. He wasn’t seeing praises of quality and happiness for everybody.

No, he was like, no, this is the truth. Right. And if you’re offended, that’s on you, but this is the truth. Right. And he believed it so much, so much so

36:10 Chris Grainger
that he

36:11 Ryan Michler
said I will die for this. And he did. He suffered immense pain that we can’t even imagine. Right. Because of what he believed in, that’s not hippy shit.

That’s right.

36:22 Chris Grainger
It’s warrior stuff right there. That is, is warrior. And we, we forget that. I mean, we, that’s why the line within us, we talk about the lion cuz it’s it’s, you know, I get it. He’s fully lamb, but he’s also fully lying and, and we want to make sure guys lean into that. And I tell you what I learned so much just from you right here.

I I’m pumped up about what we could be doing differently in our churches, man. So thank you for that. Well,

36:45 Ryan Michler
look. There ha there there’s always a duality, right? Mm. You can’t really have a lamb. I’m just speaking figuratively. If you don’t have a lion. Right. And you can’t really have a lamb, if you don’t or excuse me, a lion, if you don’t have the lamb that’s right.

Right. And sometimes us as men, we’re only lions, we’re aggressive and we’re violent and we’re dominant and we’re physical. Okay. Well, that’s not,

37:17 Chris Grainger
that’s not what we’re after. Right.

37:20 Ryan Michler
We need to have the lamb as well within us. Right. Which says that we, yes, we can be physical. Yes. We can be dominant. We can be controlling.

We can be violent when necessary, but even violence. Why do we do it? If I was walking down the street and I saw a, a, a young attractive. And I thought, well, she’ll make an easy pre and I’ll either violate her or steal something from her. And I went and I violently attacked that woman and got what I wanted.

I think we could all agree that that would not be a, an effective use of my masculinity. Right, right, right. But if on the other hand I saw somebody else doing something to that young woman and I decided to go up and defend her. Right. And protect her, or even maybe put a bullet between that guy’s eyes because of what he was doing.

I think most of us would agree that that was an effective use of mass dealing. Right. But it wasn’t just violence. It was actually mercy. Right. It was actually compassion. I didn’t have to put myself in that scenario. I could have turned, turned my eyes. I could have averted that I could have walked down another street I could have, could have pretended like I didn’t see anything, but I did because I loved another human being enough to put myself in a dangerous situation.

Right. That’s the lion in the lamb. Yeah, we need both man. Got it. And you can’t have one without the other? No,

38:48 Chris Grainger
they, they run together. Absolutely.

38:51 Ryan Michler
Well, another example is I spent some time, uh, a couple of weeks ago in Hawaii. I was on the island of Moai and every year I go to Hawaii and I shoot and hunt access deer out there.

And there’s roughly from the last numbers I heard about 70,000 axis deer on the island of mochi and the locals hate ’em. They hate the axis deer. Okay. And on the big island, the locals hate the goats. And these are, these are lands, right? Access deer goats. Like they’re not predators they’re prey. Right. So why do the Islanders hate ’em?

Well, they hate ’em because they eat all the vegetation. They consume all the resources, the goats eat so much vegetation that when it rains, it erodes the dirt because the dirt has nothing to cling to the roots of the plants that they’ve eaten. Right. And it all goes into the sea and it ruins the coral reef.

So the locals hate them. Mm-hmm I was at a, uh, last year I was at, I went to a subway after a successful goat hunt and I had my, my, my hunting stuff on, I think I was probably a little bloody from a, a goat that I had killed out there. And I was in subway and I saw this woman and, and she was, she seemed, my assumption is that she was local and she turned to me and she says, have you guys been hunting?

And I’m like, oh, here we go. She’s gonna be at me. And I said, yes, you know, we’ve been hunting. I was hunting goat. She’s like kill all of, I was like, oh, Why. And she told me, she told me about this, right. And how they eroding the coral reefs and nesting with the ecosystem and all this kind of stuff. And, and these are animals, the goats, the sheep, the axis, deer, pigs.

These are animals that have no predator. Like there’s, there’s the 70,000 axis deer on the island of Molo tide have no predator to balance out the ecosystem except for us. Right. As hundreds we go. And we’re the predator. There is a natural order to things. Yes. And when we mess with the natural order and we all become lambs or access deer or sheep, it’s a problem.

If we all become predators, it’s a problem. Cuz then we have nothing to eat. Right. We need both. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

41:02 Chris Grainger
Amen. Absolutely. Brother. That was awesome. Let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back.

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That’s the line within.us/habits and start creating the habits you need to be the leader, your predestined to be.

So Ryan, I wanna shift on you, man, cuz I, we we’ve been talking about church and that’s great. We’re still talking about raising men and now I wanna talk about education and this is something I’ve learned from a lot from you recently, you even had a guest on recent, you guys were talking about alternative education and things like that.

I know you homeschool your children and your wife leads that. Maybe give some advice for our guys out there. You know, what can we need to be doing to help educate our sons to, to, to live and see and understand what actual truth is.

42:14 Ryan Michler
Well, they need to be surrounded by truth. And you’re really just not gonna find that in government schooling.

Okay. Government schooling has been corrupted and I’m not saying it’s all bad. It’s not, there’s a lot of great teachers. I have, there’s a lot of great public school te uh, coaches that I had, uh, that really added value to my life. And I don’t think I would be the same person if I didn’t have those people in my life.

But the reality is that the government schooling system is broken and it’s compromised. And it’s dangerous to the wellbeing of our young children. Mm-hmm . And that’s why we made the decision about three years ago, this about a year, year and a half pre COVID to take our kids out of the government schooling system and to educate our children at home.

And I don’t say school or children at home, um, more accurately, we educate our children at home, right. Which means that we have a curriculum that we follow and we teach them what they need to learn about reading and writing and math and history and all these kind of things. But it’s done under our supervision and we are looking for opportunities and ways to serve them based on their unique gifts, their unique talents, their, their, uh, behaviors, their personalities.

And so again, an example would be my daughter. We didn’t know this, but she’s dyslexic. So when we began to teach her how to read, it was very frustrating for her, of course, and also for my wife. And I like, just read it, just look here, just read. Right. And, and she said, thes move.

She’s enough that in the government schooling system, she probably could have sat in the back and she probably could have faked her way through it and gotten through and been just fined through the program, but not really even learned how to read effectively. Uh, and I, I noticed one day she was reading a book.

Reading a book to me. And it was like verbatim, like, man, she’s got this. And then I looked at her eyes, she really wasn’t reading the letter. She was just looking at the picture. She had memorized, oh, like a poem. She had memorized it. She was just reciting a poem. She wasn’t reading, she was reciting something.

She had memorized some time looking around at other programs and, and, and things that were available for children who were dyslexic. And we found a couple of great programs and we purchased those programs and you know, it’s not perfect for us. Cause this is a, a, a, a learning challenge that she’ll have.

But we were able to spot that and do something about it because of it. But then there’s also days where I remember the first day they homeschool very first day. My wife is responsible for 99.8% of the homeschool stuff. Right. Cause I’m working. I work outta the house. This office is in my house. Kids are downstairs.

My wife is there with them. They’re on summer break right now. But uh, the very first day they homeschool. Two experiences. I’ll never forget. They go for a walk outside, we’ve got 50 acres and the, the, the loop they go, if it’s just the manicured loop, not into the woods that we own, but just the manicured loop is exactly one mile and they get back and I will go downstairs.

And I said, how was your walk? And I said, look at what we found. And they have this, this frog. And it was in a little container that my wife had had poked and poles in and brought said, oh, that’s an awesome frog. And I’m like, dad, it’s not a frog. It’s a toad. And I’m like, okay, what’s the difference? They’re like, well, actually, and they had printed out the difference between a frog and a toe.

Yeah. And I don’t, I don’t exactly remember what the difference is, but they could tell you, they could tell you exactly what the difference is and why that was indeed a toed and not a frog. And I said, got it. This is cool. Yeah. Like they’re taking real world experiences. And they’re applying and they’re learning and they’re growing later that day, it was probably around noon.

My wife comes upstairs and in my office and she knocks on the door and I wasn’t on a call. So she comes in and then she says, Hey, we’re done with, with schooling. And I said, oh cool. So you guys are gonna take a lunch break and then get back to it. She’s like, no, we’re done with the day. And I’m like, what, how can that be?

Like, you guys have only been going for like two or three hours. She’s like, yeah, this is all they had to do. And I’m like, no, this has gotta be wrong. And it wasn’t wrong. What I realized is that the government schooling system is so inflated, so bloated and filled bullshit and recess and transferring from class to class in assembly.

And red tape and bureaucracy that what takes the government school system? Six to seven to eight hours per day actually takes a normal person two to three hours. Yeah. Per day. That pace is different. It’s it’s not even the pace. Yeah. Pace maybe, or just not pace. I wouldn’t say it is just effectiveness.

Okay. Okay. We could cram what the school district would take six or seven or eight hours into two or three hours. It’s not rocket science. It really isn’t. It’s it’s so simple. And parents will say, well, I’m not qualified. You’re you are definitely qu you’re more qualified than a school teacher. And I school teachers, the honest ones will admit that’s true.

The dishonest ones they’re so arrogant. Egotistical. That they think, well, because I have a degree or because I spent tens of thousands of dollars on this degree, I’m better than you. You’re not better than me. As a parent. I have four kids. You have 30, you need to deal with. I have four that I need to deal with.

I know that intimately, I spend every waking hour with my children. I know what their issues are. You don’t, and I’m not up school teachers who are trying to do the right thing, because I know there’s a lot of kids out there who are really struggling, who don’t like my kids, but does that mean that I’m required to put my children through a, uh, inferior program because other people have to deal with that situation?

No, I’m not gonna do that. I’m their father. I’m gonna give them every opportunity that I possibly can to them up for success. I’m if not more qualified than any school teacher out there to be able to teach my kids about breeding. About history about math. All I have to do is read a fricking book. That’s all the teacher did.

Teachers are pretty qualified in navigating bureaucracy, navigating red tape, working with classrooms full of 25 to 30 to 40 children. That’s not my situation, right? I don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy. I don’t have to deal with the red tape. I don’t have 40 kids in my class. I, we have four. Yeah. I don’t need those qualifications.

What I need is to be able to read a book and to be able to share the information from the curriculum. And there’s a lot of great curriculums out there. And so I wish more people would homeschool their kids. And I wish more people would stop complaining about and saying, well, you know, we don’t have time.

We don’t have money. We’re not qualified. No, you are. That’s not to say it’s not gonna take sacrifice. It really, really is. There’s a lot of sacrifice that comes with, well, our kids need to be socialized. You know, where my kids are right now. They’re at the lake in swimming programs with 10 other kids, you know, where they’re going after that, to their friend’s house, because my wife has a doctor’s appointment.

She’s gonna be, she’s gotta go outta town. I’m gonna be here working. And my kids are with their friends, peers, like school hardly has the monopoly on socialization for children. There’s all sorts of excuses that just aren’t legitimate excuses at all. Right,

50:04 Chris Grainger
right. I mean, you’re, you’re all over. And I’m, I’m, I’m trying to think now through, for guys like myself, like we, that is our goal.

We want to get to the homeschool situation and we’re, and we’re trying to get finances, you know, line up everything that we can do that for the meantime, when, when they’re, when they’re in that curriculum, what, is there anything we can do to, to really speak truth or to try to help? Correct. When we see things are going wrong, any advice for the guys that are, they’re trying to get there, but in the meantime steps they should take.

50:33 Ryan Michler
I mean, it’s hard because frankly, they’re getting, if, if your kids are in the public school system, how old are your kids?

50:39 Chris Grainger
Uh, 12 and 10. Okay. But I thought you had three boys. Oh, well then three girls. So 12, 10, and then, oh she, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Then 10, 10 month old girl. Yeah.

50:49 Ryan Michler
Okay. Got it. Okay. She is not in the school system.

Yeah.

50:52 Chris Grainger
Big, big gap there. So our, that is big goal. The 10 month old and our son we’re we’re homeschooling my, my, my wife and I we’ve we’ve already said, you know, we’re, we’re Mo we’re definitely coming, making that transition, but we’re trying to figure out for our girls now, the they’re going into seventh and fifth grade, man, what can I do?

I mean, they’re in a pretty good conservative school. They’re teaching some pretty good things to us, not traditional public school system, but still, I wanna make sure that I can do what I can. And other dads out there listening to speak.

51:21 Ryan Michler
Yeah. Okay. That’s good. I’m I just wanted to clarify there. So what, what I would say is you need to become, uh, a louder voice to the best that you can than their peers and their school teachers.

Okay. Cause their school teachers, even in a conservative schooling environment are not entirely accurate and they’re not teaching them truth. I just, I just know that’s that that can be true. Sure. Um, and, and it’s not because they’re bad people. I don’t, I don’t think school teachers are the overwhelming image.

Some are, yes. Some of them are evil. Some of them are corrupt. Some of them are just nasty. Um, but I don’t believe that’s the overwhelming representation of school teachers. Um, I take more issue with the system than I do with the individual teacher. Right. But they are hamstringed by curriculum that they need to teach.

They are hamstring by certain ideologies that permeate the, the school districts and the classrooms and, and, and schools in which they operate. So the problem is they’re spending six to seven to eight hours there in, in the schooling environment. How many hours are you spending with them? Three tops, right?

Right. You wake up in the morning. Maybe you spend 30, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, maybe at max, before they go to school. And then they come home, they get home at, let’s say four or five o’clock you have dinner together. Hopefully you’re having dinner together. If you’re not, then that’s out the window, but let’s say you spend an hour at dinner.

Uh, and then another couple hours of, you know, maybe most people just have their kids watch TV or play video games. Yeah. Or, or it’s like, Hey, go over and spend time with your friends. And so they go from school to hang out with their friends and you’re spending like two hours a day with your kid. Yeah.

52:58 Chris Grainger
How’s that gonna work? Yeah. That time investment. Yeah. Time’s where it’s at. So

53:03 Ryan Michler
what, what men need to do if they are not in the position to have their kids at home just yet. Yeah. Are we working towards that is you need to make yourself more present in their lives. So that might mean that you guys, instead of waking up at six o’clock, you actually get up at five o’clock every morning.

Right? And you do a quick workout together. Might just be a 20 minute workout. Might be a 30 minute workout. And you actually, instead of just having dinner together, you actually have breakfast together. Yes. Hey, what are you gonna do today? How are you gonna show up? Who are you gonna stand up for? What if somebody says something you don’t agree with?

How are you gonna handle that situation? You start working through these scenarios and just like, I, I, I know because you being Christian understand the concept of the armor of God. Yes. You, you help these children put on their armor for the day because they’re gonna have to battle, right. They really are.

They’re gonna have to go to battle with their emotions, um, with the way they’re being manipulated with their intelligence, with their brain, they’re gonna have to go to battle and you need to be able to equip them to be able to stand the test when, when it comes. Uh, and then when they get home, it’s no, you’re not going immediately to play with your friends.

We’re gonna go for a walk tonight. And then we’re gonna sit down for an hour at dinner, and I’m gonna ask you about your day. I’m gonna say, what was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day tomorrow? What do you wish you would’ve done differently? What are you going to do differently?

How are you gonna behave? How are you gonna show up? Who are you gonna stand up for? Tell me about your friends. Who do you like? Who don’t you like? Why do you like them? What’s their best characteristic. What’s their worst characteristic. What if they ask you to do something that, you know, to be wrong? What are you gonna do in that situation?

And these are the questions and the conversations you should be having with your kids. And then they go play like, let ’em go play. Of course. And they go play with our friends for an hour and they come home and then you sit down with them at night and you tuck ’em into bed and you read ’em a wholesome book, or you read from the Bible and you sing a song, you sing a song to them while they go to sleep.

And you pray with. These are all things that we could do a lot better of. And I’m telling you, if you spend that two to three to four hours per day in wholesome activities with your children, right. It will arm them with the, the power and the strength and the, and the faith. They need to be able to navigate the seven to eight hours of yes,

55:24 Chris Grainger
indoctrination, you’re all over it.

And, and that’s why I I’m, I’m pretty big on like family devotion speaking time, but time just ti kids spell love. T I M E I’m I’m. I’m convinced of that, man. And, and like on our way to school, I drive on the carpool in the mornings. Like we pray together and I literally pray a hedge protection around them, cuz I want to protect them from that indoctrination.

And from, from the, the, the false, the MIS, and then I’m really big on inspecting what they’re being taught. And I don’t mind challenging the teachers and having those convers, you know, confrontational conversations, but still it, we, we’re not just going to, you know, hide behind a rock here. So man, I’m thankful you had, you, you walked us through that.

My wife is actually homeschool her and her four siblings. They were all homeschooled. So we that’s, that’s better. She knows. Yeah. She knows. She, she knows she’s got the, uh, she’s got that foundation and, and there’s also a stigma with homeschool and I’m just trying to debunk that. So anytime we can talk about it, I wanna talk about it.

And I think how you called it like an alternative education, I believe is what you call one of your recent home, home based education, home based education. I mean, that’s just, that’s awesome. Great stuff. The,

56:28 Ryan Michler
the, the other thing that I would say, well, it’s good that your wife is on board. That’s very important.

Cuz a lot of times I’ll hear from men who want to do it, but their wife’s not fully on board. And that obviously can be, can be a real challenge. But another thing that I would suggest with your children and I hear this a lot is like, man, I’d love to spend more time with my kids, but they’ve got after school.

They’ve got so many extracurricular. We’ve got football or for you it’s dance and cheerleading maybe or piano or

56:57 Chris Grainger
whatever. Softball, volleyball, man.

57:00 Ryan Michler
Softball. Volleyball. Yeah. You’re sports team. Yeah. Yep. And so what I would say is, okay, so you wanna spend time with your kids, but you want them to be involved in those sports.

Cause sports are great. Coach go coach their freaking team. That’s right. And then I’ll hear guys are like, well, I don’t know anything about softball, bro. She’s 10, right? But she’s not competing at the collegiate level. The bases throwing a softball or baseball and say, Hey, coach, like appreciate what you for daughter and the rest of the girls here.

Um, I look, I’m not an expert. I would love to be able to contribute in some way. And that coach is gonna be ecstatic. Cuz I’m telling you the amount of people who volunteer is, is. Minimal it’s minimal. And that coach can be like, what? We actually have a dad who wants to contribute. Yeah. And maybe you don’t run specific plays.

And you’re not like if we’re talking about football, for example, like the defensive coordinator. Right. Okay. But you’re telling you can’t run base drills, right? You tell him you can’t run conditioning. You you’re, you’re telling me you can’t teach them the fundamentals of fielding a ground ball. I mean, you don’t need to be a, a rocket scientist here, like get over yourself and get your ass in the game.

And don’t tell me, you don’t have time to spend that. Coach would love nothing more than to have a fully engaged present father. And by the way, if we’re talking about girls or boys, it doesn’t matter. You might actually be, if you’re a coach might be the only male fixture and that young woman or that young boy’s life, you might be the only one.

That’s right. And so do your job, not just within your family, but your community as well,

58:47 Chris Grainger
man, powerful stuff. And I I’m big on coaching, Ryan that that’s, that’s something I think we need to have more guys, do I coach basketball, volleyball, softball, whatever they play. I’m coaching. I didn’t know anything about volleyball.

Awesome. But like, uh, you know, volleyball, we’re just hitting the ball. So I’ll figure it out. Right. Just

59:03 Ryan Michler
just go with it, man. You’ll figure it out. Just being there and just saying, Hey, do better. That’s right. Hey, work harder. Hey, you know what? Yeah. You fell get up. Let’s go be a team player. Everybody knows that I don’t need to know about, I don’t know anything about volleyball plays or I don’t know anything about that, but I could be there and I could coach in some regard

59:23 Chris Grainger
for sure.

That’s that’s right. That’s right. Well, Ryan, I know we’re running up against the time, man. I, I had, we, we call it feeding time on the line within us. Just a quick, quick fire around just a couple questions. You got time for that. Absolutely. Let’s do it. All right, man. But what’s, what’s your favorite thing about being a dad?

59:39 Ryan Michler
I actually like the challenge of it when I’m challenged with new scenarios or my oldest son, as he gets older, where he is like, looks at me in a way that I kind of wanna punch in between the eyes of, you know, right. It’s the challenge of it is exciting for me. And I’m like, okay, how do I navigate these waters?

The newness of it all. Nice. The challenge of it all. We’ve got furious, George, and I’m like, I don’t, I never had one of these before. What do I do here? I love that. I love that part of it. I really do.

00:10 Chris Grainger
I hear you. What’s what’s the least favorite thing about being a dad.

00:15 Ryan Michler
Um, man, that’s it. That’s a tough

00:18 Chris Grainger
question.

That’s like a

00:19 Ryan Michler
loaded question. uh, look, I mean the, the, the, I don’t know, I feel like I was always born to be a dad. I really I’ve. I’ve really kind of always been an old soul. Okay. Like, there’s nothing I don’t enjoy. I mean, sometimes I’d like to maybe be a little bit more selfish for myself and my wife.

Right. I would like to travel with my wife a little bit more for sure. Right. But that those sacrifices are small in comparison to the benefits we receive. Very

00:48 Chris Grainger
cool. What do you wish you would learned sooner about fatherhood than, than you did?

00:55 Ryan Michler
Um,

I, I wish I would’ve known that it’s okay. Not to be perfect. I thought a father had to be perfect and had it all figured out and just be perfect in the eyes of his children. And what I’ve realized now is that it’s okay to mess up and it’s actually okay to own it with your children. I’ve actually individually apologized to my children at times for the RA the way I’ve reacted or the way I’ve responded or the way I’ve conducted myself.

And I’ve found that when I do that, it garners a lot more respect than I thought it would. I thought it would undermine my credibility. I actually bolstered

01:31 Chris Grainger
it. Nice. What about, what’s a new habit that you want to create with, with one of your sons this year? Or maybe you’re trying to get, you’re trying to help them create

01:43 Ryan Michler
my second son.

I I’d like to spend more time with him. He, he, his personality is so different than mine and he’s into different things than I am. Uh, he’s into, uh, web design, graphic design. He loves robotics engineering. Those aren’t necessarily big concerns of mine. I’d rather be outside and hunt and do Jisu. And my oldest son’s all about that.

So it’s very easy with my oldest son. It’s very easy. Um, but I would like to get more involved in robotics. Um, I even think he, he loves battle bots, be familiar with battle bots. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Is, is maybe creating a battle bot or, or some sort of robot. Yeah. That, that ha that perform a function with him. I think doing something like that with my second would be really, really cool.

02:27 Chris Grainger
Nice, nice. LA, last question, Ryan. What’s one thing you hope the man out there. That are listening to this conversation. Or remember from today,

02:35 Ryan Michler
I, I look, I just want, don’t want men to abdicate the responsibility and we do so often, you know, we stand, we ship our kids out to public school and we think that they’re gonna come back.

Perfect little angels. Um, we hope that another coach is gonna be able to teach them what they need to know. They’re gonna learn what they need to know. It’s like you can’t outsource that you can enlist. And we should. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying you need to do it all on your own. You should the help of other men in raising your children and in raising your children, whether it’s the church or sports school or whatever, we should enlist other people, but you can’t outsource the responsibility of it.

It’s your response. Yes, sir. So find a way to be more involved, more present, more active, get over yourself. Humble yourself, go coach, go mentor, man. Maybe you know how to play guitar. I don’t know how to play guitar, but maybe you do. Right. And so you, you teach your kids how to play guitar and maybe you teach them guitar lessons for 10 bucks an hour or whatever.

Like, whoa, that’s not gonna make me any money. It’s not about the money. Right? It’s about serving your family and serving the kids in the community. Like find a way to get more involved with our young men and young women. Cause Lord knows it. They need it more than I think they ever have

03:46 Chris Grainger
got that. Right.

Where, where do you want guys to go, man, if they want to check out to learn more about you or of man, I mean, we’ll sync it all up, but is anywhere you want to tell ’em directly.

03:54 Ryan Michler
Yeah. Two places you can check out the order, man podcast, wherever you’re listening to this one. Uh, and then you can go to order of man.com.

That’s our headquarters in our home base. And you can learn about all the things that we’re doing over there.

04:06 Chris Grainger
That’s awesome. Definitely, definitely. Check that out guys. That is a go-to for, for your host chair. I listen to order man every week. Love the episodes, Ryan, is there anything else you’d like to share today?

My friend, that’s it,

04:15 Ryan Michler
man. This was a great conversation. We went through a lot and um, man, great questions. Great conversation. Really excited about what you’re

04:23 Chris Grainger
doing. Thank you, sir, you are you’re. You’re an inspiration to me. And, uh, I learn from you every week. So thank you, sir. My honor, my honor,

you win, jump in a boxing ring and expect to win without training, right? So why do you think you can win the battle? Get Satan without putting in the work for the Christian man, it starts with knowing scripture and your heart to help you out and get started with your training. We created a free guide of 10 scriptures.

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All right, guys, that was a powerful conversation from Ryan LER. I’m gonna tell you what. He’s somebody. I, I, I literally learn from him every week guys. So this is a, this is a conversation. I know he, he unpacked a ton here. You know, we talked about, you know, how to show up and be a father for our sons. You know, what, what does it look like in the church?

What does it look like from an education standpoint? Tons of stories and insight and wisdom that he gave us just to, to, to be able to step up and to lead, to lead our families, the way that we are called, we need to really lean in guys. There’s no one else that’s gonna lead our sons, except you, you have to step up, you have to show them if we’re gonna make them from, from sons to men, guys, conversations like this with people like Ronler is what it’s all about.

Again, I can’t believe we were able to do this to order a. Highly encourage you guys to check that out. He has great conversations weekend, week out. I learn a ton from Ryan. It was awesome just to get to hang with him and to, to be able to, to support and serve him. So guys, uh, again, thank you so much. So the question this week, you know, what does sovereignty look like?

You know, how do you define that sovereignty? You know, what, if, when you think about that in your life, it, it should mean something. It should mean something guys. So again, if you like this conversation today, share it with somebody, share with a brother out there. They need to hear this type of conversation.

You need to have this type of messaging pour into your life. This is powerful. This is, this is inspirational. So guys, don’t just, don’t just sit on this one, share this one out. I highly encourage you to connect with Ryan as well on the socials and connect and connect with us on the socials as well too.

We’ll be out there. We’re trying to give you guys good information, good encouragement every day, every day. So go check out the line within.us. We have tons of resources. There. We have courses available. We have eBooks available. Uh, we have blogs guys. It’s all there to serve you. It’s all there to help you be the leader, your predestine to be as a Christian man.

We know Satan is pushing back against you. You know, he’s pushing back against me. He does not want the line within us and be successful. I can guarantee you one thing, the way you guys are listening, the feedback we’re getting we’re we have momentum and in conversations with people like Ryan, that is where it’s all at.

We’re just gonna keep leaning forward. We’re gonna keep fighting, gonna keep putting on that armor of God every day to serve you. So I pray this, what this did serve you. Well, give us a rating, write a review. All those things, help guys. Seriously. They do make a difference. If you want to help go, go check that out.

Come back on Friday. I want we gonna wrap everything up for a fun, a fun Friday episode that I. We’ll try to tie everything together. I got some really good tips that we’re gonna be able to pull. I got from, from my conversation with Ryan, as well as just off the air conversations with him that I think will serve you guys.

Well, so get after this week, have some fun, enjoy the rest of your week. Stand up, serve let’s step up and let’s be the men we’re called to be let’s lead our sons. And look, if you don’t have a son like me, I don’t have a son right now, but I have opportunities out there to serve other young men to help them grow in their wall.

So get after it guys unleash the lion within.