[00:00:00] Just a heads up for listeners who may have kiddos around. I want to give a fair warning that my guest and I dive into some adult conversation and topics today, and that includes adult language. So please keep that in mind for any sensitive ears that may be listening Right now, the world needs great men who will stand up and lead with honor, serve with purpose and courageously fulfill their God given roles as husbands, fathers, leaders, and men. I'm your host, Franklin Swan, bringing you practical tools and powerful conversations you can use every day to build yourself into the man God is calling you to be.

This is The World Needs Men. Let's go. Alright, welcome back to The World Needs Men podcast. I have got Josh Gonzalez with me today and really excited about our conversation. Uh, [00:01:00] he is the Director of Operations, uh, for the Faction Foundation. He's a ultra runner, he's, uh, spent some time in family law and real estate, and he has also served as a, on a couple years, is a suicide hotline.

Oh, what would you call it, Josh? A crisis specialist. Crisis specialist and is actually the president of the board that, uh, that does fundraising for that. Run some hundred mile races and, uh, just a go getter and really excited for our conversation today, man. Appreciate you jumping in the show. 100 percent happy to be here.

I guess, uh, start off, just tell us a

little bit about yourself.

Yeah,

a little bit about myself professionally. I run Faction Foundation, now Club Faction. What we do is essentially help go getters close the gap in different areas of their life and that's the gap between their effort and the results. So a lot of people feel they're giving this maximum effort in their life and they're just not seeing the results.

They're in this hamster wheel spinning and spinning and spinning, [00:02:00] mistaking movement. for progress. So what we do, I partnered with one of my mentors, um, former NFL football player, CEO, done a lot of business in his life. And we've taken the best of what he learned in the NFL through being a CEO and converted that into a plan playbook and a team to help people close that gap in their faith.

their family, their fitness, which includes mental health, one men like to leave out especially, and then their finances. And we believe like, those are the core areas that make a human being well rounded and everything somebody needs. So started that about eight months ago with him and prior to that, lived many lives, done many things.

I'm a, I'm a person driven by curiosity. So. There's many times in my life. I just kind of follow that golden thread of curiosity and see where it takes me. So, started [00:03:00] high school working at a divorce law firm, which was a really weird thing to be exposed to so young, especially as a high school student.

Yeah,

it's a, that is a weird,

weird thing to be thrown into. Most high school kids mow yards or, you know. Workout shift at a fast food restaurant.

Well, I, um, I did the rice farm and the cattle ranching. Were the two before that. And I realized I can make more money with my brain than my body. And nothing to that.

That's, it's very beautiful, rewarding work. But, um, my mind, I learned very quickly that to use my mind instead of my body for work anyways.

Oh, that's great. So you're wor working at the law firm? Mm-Hmm, . Okay. And then, uh, go from there. I did that

for about man off and on like seven plus years of, of divorce law.

We did, um, I did some real estate consumer fraud class actions, but the bread and butter, it was a husband and wife law firm at the beginning, and husband did big [00:04:00] business, law wife did family law. It was a good synergy to money now versus. big fees later type law. So family law, which was super, super interesting because I've seen probably a thousand plus, most likely way more than that, maybe two, 3000 iterations of human nature playing out.

And I, at that time, I'm a, I like to really look at people and ask these questions about like, Hey, why did this go on? How is this happening? How did this dysfunction happen? between these two people. So we can, we can dig into that, but, um, just to give the kind of backstory of how I got here and you can point around where we want to go.

After that, I got into, um, or kind of co occurrent with it. I started meeting just some high level people in my life and got into real estate investing. So kind of just moved money from one pot to another, have about 18 units of real estate right now. So have a little [00:05:00] start going for me on the real estate front.

And then about. Eight months ago, that's when the opportunity came with my partner, Derek, and we decided to essentially just make the world a better place because through when I was in the divorce world, I guess probably five years ago now, I, um, I had my own struggles and we'll get into that, but I really wanted to help other people.

And I was, I was trying to find a way to do that. So I looked at crisis counseling and it's a very weird way to just jump into like, Hey, I'm going to go answer a suicide hotline and then we can get in the backstory later. But I, I did that for two years from about four to eight hours a week. Um, we worked for four hour shifts every week for about two years straight.

And that was kind of a dark time, man. Cause I was doing divorces too. And so I had divorces. and suicidal people kind of all day. And it's a, it's a similar world, those two things. [00:06:00] And that, that was, it was very interesting. And we can, we'll go back to dig into where you want to. And then from that, I started realizing like, Hey, I'm making a big impact here.

It was emotionally draining me, but I started getting big into business and I'm like, okay, well I can help. one person at a time on the phone, or I can join the board. And if I joined the board, I can grow the agency. And if I grow the agency, I can hire more people. And then I can help a lot more people than that.

So I joined the board, did that for a year. And then, um, I just asked to be president and I think my passion and authenticity from being on the line, knowing what we actually do, not sitting in a chair, looking down in, was the determining factor of that. So I've, I've taken over that center and since I have probably raised about four, 400, 000 this year in various forms of giving legacy gifts, all, all that [00:07:00] stuff.

But we're making some really, really big changes because, uh, mental health is a. It's a, it's really a silent epidemic that's going on right now in the world. Um, some statistics and numbers before the COVID pandemic to after our call volume increased 738%. Cool. And like, that's, it's a big number. And what people don't realize that's, they don't have a frame of reference for numbers that big.

Cause like, Hey, we hear the stock market went up 5%, 9%. We're like, Oh, that's big. But. 736 percent is, is,

is absurd. Let me ask you, has, has that increase, has that maintained itself like post COVID or, or is that level, is that gone down at all?

So it's maintained in a way, we actually had to close one of our lines down because the volume was too high.

So we've, Kind of had to have decreased it because it burned out a lot of our [00:08:00] staff, a lot of our board members. And what we do now is we solely answer for the 9 8 8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. So beforehand, we had our own line in our, I live in Arkansas, and then we had the 9 8 8 line. So we're answering from two sources.

And what we've done now is consolidated to only answering for 9 8 8, which if people don't know, because most people don't, that about six months ago. Maybe more. We changed to a very recognizable, it used to be a 1 800 number to 988. So everybody knows no matter where you are in the United States of America, you can call 988 and it will link you with a local crisis center like mine to support

you through that moment.

So I want to make sure because there's so much context, that thing's going to be important. So you're based in Little Rock, but the. The hotline is a national hotline.

Yep. So how it works is it's nationally run by 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and we, [00:09:00] there's centers in every state. Okay. So my center covers currently half the state of Arkansas and then the state government department of health has a center that covers the other half of the state.

Okay. So just to give me an idea, what would one day's call volume be? Okay. You're pretty much on the phone almost the whole four hours, like y'all, but y'all have like a number of calls that come in again, just context. I think last year we answered 23, 000 calls and that's, that's just from half the state of Arkansas

crazy. That is mind boggling. Okay. So, and that's 23, 000. That's the 700 percent increase. Yeah. So actually the year

before that was 33, 000 and then we had to, in early 2023, we phased out. our, our hotline to go to the straight 988 Suicide and Crisis [00:10:00] Lifeline.

Okay. So you're the president of that organization, overseeing about half of Arkansas, taking 23, 000 calls a year.

And you saw an opportunity instead of just talking one on one, it's like, Hey, I can, again, use your mind and leverage that to go grow the organization, impact a lot more people than just, just the one on one calls. Give a little context for the listeners. Cause they're not watching you right now. How old are you?

26. 26. That's, that's getting after it in my mind and in my book for, uh, for 26 year old to be running an organization that is, I mean, that's, that's not a small thing that y'all are handling. I mean, how do you go through, how did you get trained to handle those calls?

Yeah. So we have a 40 hour training for any new crisis specialist and the first 20 is bookwork classroom.

The next 20 is Apprenticeship on the Line, and then within a few months of getting that, you have to take [00:11:00] a in person two day assist training, and that's called Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, which is a in person two day workshop where you're, you're doing a lot of role plays with people, you learn how to really make safety plans, how to have space, how to active listen.

And most people. They don't know it. They're terrible, terrible, terrible listeners. And so I would say that a lot of our training was focused on how to listen and then how to build a safety plan and de escalate the situation with the caller. But it's such a dynamic situation. So for the people who make it through the training, there's an element of, you just have to have experience and build the experience in these, in these crisises, because I'll talk to a.

65 year old man, and then jumped to a 16 year old kid, and then jumped to a 35 year old person who just lost his whole family in a car accident and is thinking about ending his life. [00:12:00] That's it. What people don't realize about mental health, it does not discriminate. You can be rich, poor, any socioeconomic status, any race, any gender, it hits all people equally.

And I, I think people are surprised when they, when you, you can hear that, but when you, when you see it a lot, it is a little surprising.

So there's not a, you don't see a stereotype of a person coming through. It's anyone and everyone is dealing with this. 100%. And with that many phone calls every year, that means people that you pass up and down the street every single day, You're probably passing some of those people just on a normal course of business calling in.

You are. And, uh, we, we've pivoted our center. Our, our call lines built out really well, but I'm a really deep thinker. And I was, I was kind of thinking like when somebody calls in our line, it's the downstream consequence of a lot [00:13:00] of things that happened up that river. Like so much stuff got there. The result of that is there's so many times to intervene before they call us at a, at a life or death moment.

I'm going to end my life. I'm not going to end my life. So we're really pushing educating the community to, and not we, everyone's like, well, we have these like four hour and two day long trainings. And it's like, not everyone can do that. So I built out an hour long training with our staff for like just regular people.

We do them at businesses and stuff like, Hey, here are things to notice. If this does happen, here are the resources. Here's what you can do for, for somebody that's in a crisis,

man, that is just mind blowing. So, so you're 26, you spent several years doing, working in a, in a divorce law firm, and then you jumped into the real deep end of helping, uh, suicide, uh, you know, potential people dealing with suicide on a, on a [00:14:00] hotline.

And then, and now you're, man, I'm not even sure, like, there's so many things I could ask about this. So, like, you step back, I know you said that there's not, like, a stereotypical situation, but there's, is there anything you can glean from, like, like, some kind of commonality, or what do you see, like, if you look at it from a really high level, can you, can you take, have any takeaways from it?

Yeah, there's a, there's a few meta themes, I guess we'd call them, that I noticed and broadly there are, I am, I'm not enough and I have no purpose. And those are really big things to unpack. And it varies to how you impact them at what age the person is that's kind of calling in. But those are the big things.

People just don't, they're struggling with purpose and identity at a really deep level. And I think some of it's just social media. There's so much information out there. The world is more complex than it used to be. So there's just so much thrown [00:15:00] at you. And then also, I mean, you start reading like Frederic Nietzsche, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, like all these great authors, these Marcus Aurelius, like these are things we've been dealing with for a very long time.

And we're just more aware of them now, probably some of it,

but it has to have been accelerated. You know, like you say, you go read my meditations and there's so much about mindset and, and overcoming limiting beliefs or, you know, stories that don't serve you, but then you fast forward to 2024 and the world is just so fast.

Now there's, there's a lot of stuff coming out right now, just about what social media is doing to people, to our kids, uh, you know, just impacting so many elements and aspects of our lives. And then, and then you've got the real number, you've got a. a call in that goes up 700 percent just in a very short time span.

So, I mean, that really is just a massive problem, and there's probably not nearly enough awareness. [00:16:00] of just how big the problem is, but even if there was, like, what do you do about a problem that big? Like, how can you even put a dent in something like that?

Yeah, you have to, well, to, to go to the beginning of the acceleration, 100 percent and COVID isolated people.

And I think isolation really magnified the same with divorces. That's why it was a weird time on me. Our divorce practice probably doubled or tripled, like to the point you couldn't even answer the phones. But that seems like a weird thing to say, but I, I mean that like during COVID the crisis line shot up and the, uh, divorce practice shot up and I think it's that isolation and it's so easy to avoid turning inward when, when you artificially distract yourself with a lot of stimulation and suddenly when that stimulation was removed, the, the fractures, That run through every person became much more [00:17:00] prevalent.

And then the result of that was. A, a really big uptake in divorces and our crisis line. So, and, and what do you do about that? You, you make more awareness is the only way. 'cause it's like pe a people need to know they can call 9, 8, 8 if they're in a crisis. That that's the first thing. So that's a resource.

Anyone who listened to this now has in their pocket, you can call for somebody else. Mm-Hmm. . Hey, if Johnny's going through a hard time, you don't know what to do, call them. Say, Hey, I got this friend going through this, what should I do? Yeah. And then also it's just educating people on this new thing. My parents generation did not get taught anything about mental health.

And so now we just have to teach people. And it's a really complicated topic, because even therapy right now has gotten a pretty bad rap. Like, Hey, you're just validating people. You're not pushing them. There's this kind of you're perfect the way you are culture, [00:18:00] right? Which in my anecdotal experience has not seen that do any good for someone.

So there's even challenges when you do reach out for that help is like, what do we actually need? And that's why I loved your podcast. And I chose to come on here because it's the world needs men and men have been. I mean, just push down like we have not been allowed to be men. It's a very complex topic that takes a long time to unpack what's going on in the world.

But masculinity is not something that's valued or appreciated. And I think it's also deeply misunderstood. And there's a few, Probably really bad men that people hang on to. And they're like, Oh, well, that's masculinity. And that's, that's not the healthy ego, the healthy man. And so it's just, it's a, it's such a complex thing, but yeah, to answer your

question.

And, and I completely agree with you, just what you just said and point out, like, You know, the world needs men, like, [00:19:00] first and foremost, healthy, like, mentally, physically, emotionally healthy men is like where it starts because everything else kind of falls apart if you don't get that, if those things aren't there, everything else doesn't matter.

And I love having the perspective of, I mean, I'm 42, so you're a bit younger and just have a younger generation, uh, you know, view on this. So I love getting your perspective on this because we're not taught often, how do you be healthy? I mean, beyond like eating some healthy food and exercise, like what is mental health?

What is emotional health? And, and how do you do those things? And I think that's, that's so important is a skill set. That, that people just don't have and, and you see the evidence of that. I'm very curious, what, what drew you into working in these two particular positions, like you said, like, like those are two very dark places.

Probably about as dark as you can go. And so what drew you into that? Like. You [00:20:00] think there's something? Yeah. No,

I know there's something a hundred percent. Yeah. So it was my own darkness. Right. So how my journey worked is the divorce thing. Just, I became good at it. And this goes into why I stayed in it a little bit, but I, uh, graduated high school and decided to go to college and I didn't really want to go to college, but I was expected to go to college.

And that word expected plays a big role into my story. And I got to school. And it's an interesting perspective when you look back at things as to when you were going through things. But I was very, very miserable, got very depressed and like a more high functioning depression. The, not a lot of people, depression is very misunderstood.

So we can get into that later. But I started just having horrible, negative self talk. I was essentially living a life that was not my own. I was living somebody else's story and it wasn't my own story. And when you do that, I think your, your [00:21:00] unconscious and your, your body rebels against it. So what that led to me was drinking, just partying too.

That's what people did. That's what I thought you do. You go to college, you party and drink. That's all the stories that that was everyone's experience. I'm like, okay, well, that's what I go do. And so I did that and it, it made me so miserable, man. And I ended up. It just spiraled and spiraled and spiraled and I finally had a plan of how I was going to end my life and I had it all planned out.

I was going to do it and there was a, I missed all my exams and stuff cause I was a disaster. And I had a teacher there and I sat for the makeup and she just looked at me, just made eye contact with me and I just And so she's like, okay, go take care of yourself. And I got back to my dorm room or something and I got in the shower, try to like cool off.

And I just started like choking myself, hitting myself, like just [00:22:00] mutilating myself in the shower. And I'm just like, there was a part of my like rational brain. It's like, I had a knife. I didn't cut myself yet, but I was like, dude, this is out of fucking control. And there's, there's something of just rationality left in there.

I was very focused in the moment, but Angel, whatever it is, reached out and I called a hotline. And so they kind of bad, like they, they needed to admit me. So I got admitted to a, to a, a mental facility and stayed in there for, I don't know, a week, 10 days. And so after that, I got out and that's just all acute care.

None of that, none of that stuff works, but it saves your life, but it doesn't, doesn't actually solve the underlying problem. And so I went, got out of school, tried going part time at a different city and [00:23:00] just same feedback loop, like drinking, friends, hanging around. I wouldn't call them bad people, but just, I still wasn't living the life I wanted to live.

And I started really studying, um, Carl Jung was a psychologist and he talked a lot about becoming an individual. And around that time, I started reading books by Ayn Rand on individualism, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead. And I realized that I had no identity and I was living somebody else's life. Like, and I really realized that deeply.

So what began after that was like a construction of an actual foundation of who I wanted to be, not who somebody else wanted me to be. Or when I say somebody, it's not a person. It's, there's so much pressure for young people right now, Franklin to fit into a box. And that box says, Hey, like maybe you go to college.

You get a [00:24:00] job, you do this, you get married, like it's this predefined path. And school for me just taught me how to listen to people like it taught me how to respect and comply to authority arbitrarily and not really like question and question rules that that was not rewarded at all. I got, I got in a lot of trouble for questioning things.

So as I started breaking down my belief system, my question, that was my process of healing was. Let's, let's become an actual individual, not, not a collection of all this other crap and figure out what you truly want to believe. And that was a really, really dark period. And so from that, as I emerged, I was in Boy Scouts in high school and my, my scout master always said, give back to those who have given to you.

It's a, it's a pretty foundational thing. And when I was looking to give back, it's like, well, I called a [00:25:00] hotline. Why don't I be that person that answers the hotline and that's how I started that journey.

Yeah, it's a whole, um, it's a saying you're, you're most, you're most prepared and equipped to help the person you used to be.

Yeah. Right. And so that, that makes a whole lot of sense now. So with mental health. I mean, and I mean, I've struggled big time. You know, I've talked offline about that. I mean, used to be a guy going in the garage and beat myself up, right? And it's like, how does a, like a smart young man, like good looking dude, like you, I've got a beautiful family, like.

You know, good at bringing like meat, like, I think that's part of the problem is there's so much shame and guilt around even talking about it and no one wants to, to address it or acknowledge it. And it's like, it's to your point, it's not like random people with these massive problems that are dealing with this.

It's like normal humans who you may be friends with, like, if you're listening to this right now, like some, you [00:26:00] may have a buddy. who is a great friend of yours who's struggling massively because there's, there's so much that keeps him from reaching out or for saying anything. And how do you even like Open up and share that with someone in a way that they don't look at you weird or judge you or, or whatever all those fear things are.

And so you had the courage to reach out and, and seek help and go down that path. And two things. One, I think it's one of the most powerful things is for, Anyone struggling with mental health, especially, um, to just realize, like, you're not alone, right? And that whole isolation thing, when, when you're isolated, it feels like you, you believe you're the only person in the world experiencing what you're experiencing, but obviously that's not the case.

And then, There are ways of finding healing, not just help, because like you said, you went to that first deal and it, and it put a band aid on, on the situation for a little bit, right? It made sure that you didn't go all the way, but it didn't heal you, but there are [00:27:00] resources and there are, there are, there's paths you can take to find that healing.

And so we'd love for you to talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, I would say the, the first thing I'm like starting that journey, if like how to have this conversation with somebody, the, the better question is like, how do you listen to people? Because here I am on a crisis hotline on 22, 23, and I had people of any age tell me their deepest, darkest, darkest, darkest, darkest, darkest, darkest.

Secrets. It's like, how, how did I do that? I've never met these people. I don't even know him. And the answer was listening. And when you, when you truly listen and like you hold space for somebody, and this is not like, Hey, and we've heard this before, but I'm thinking what I'm trying to say next, but you, you, you kind of, you put yourself to the side, like mentally, you're, you're, you're.

You're a vessel for them is essentially what you become. And just, just talk to people like, Hey, how's it going? And like, if you're not, [00:28:00] if you're actually in that interaction and listening to them, you, you can quickly pick up on it. Like, uh, it's, Hey, it's going great. Like, are you sure, man? Is it actually going great?

I know we just say that sometimes, but I really just want to know, like, how are you doing and, and being open enough to receive that with your close people, because I can't tell you how many people I've known that have suicided, that people are like, I knew, I didn't, we didn't know there were no signs or anything.

So I think the more we can ask those questions, like, how are you doing and, and mean it not use it as a passing thing is really helpful in the, you brought up a good part of shame. And like, even if you ask that somebody who has pride in themself, which is its own thing is like, are they going to be open?

Cause they feel so shameful to talk, talk about this. Cause if they speak it out, that's bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's not the reality. That's the [00:29:00] stigma you want to break right there. That's the taboo ness. It's not necessarily like, oh, this topic is, it's that people feel shame when they talk about it.

That's where the taboo ultimately lies when you break it down. And that's where community comes in of trying to have those people who are open for that and just letting them know that. It's okay to talk about this. That's, that's what we do in our line. Like, Hey, this is, this is a place where you can talk about this.

It's confidential. Just share and like, be amazed the things people tell you when, when you truly

listen to them. What's the biggest thing you've learned looking back at your experience with the law firm? with the hotline, like you come away from that. And I know you're still involved with the hotline, but what are your big takeaways?

Like, that's a lot of experience to have by the time you're 26 years old.

Importance of communication. First thing that came to mind, um, when I was at the law firm, [00:30:00] I made my own reason of why I saw so many divorces. And this doesn't include like sexual abuse. That stuff's different. I'm talking about normal, normal ish people and their problems.

And I called it the, the Voldemort Principal. And in Harry Potter, The one thing that's super taboo to say it's the word Voldemort and what happens with people in a marriage is this little thing comes up Maybe it's a little resentment. You don't like the way somebody does things and it grows and grows and grows, but nobody addresses it It's the elephant in the room.

They don't want to say anything about it And eventually that it's it's like a small little dragon and then it eventually becomes a big dragon And it's, it's the thing everybody knows about, they don't want to talk about because people do not like confrontation and confrontation is super, super healthy and especially in a relationship because you have two different people [00:31:00] like trying to merge, but that's going to cause conflict and in a healthy way, but people don't address that, which leads to contempt and contempt is, you know, there's that micro expression, you kind of flash up like, You can see it if you, if you watch people and contempt leads to resentment.

And this happens over six months to a year. And suddenly once resentment has festered, there's usually, it's very difficult to save that relationship. And by that time, the, like the negative parts of their personality. Cause you know, everybody, everybody has their demons like, uh, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

He's one of my favorite authors talked about the line dividing good and evil runs through the heart of each person. And so we all have that kind of dark side per se. And what happens when you don't communicate, like both of your dark sides suddenly emerge and that's, what's fighting each other. [00:32:00] It's not your conscious mind anymore.

And it leads to a mess. And everybody loses, usually. People talk about winning and losing in divorces, but the children always lose. I don't, I don't think I've seen any divorce where the children have won with the exception of, like, horrific physical and sexual abuse. Then, then definitely, like, You know, and the other thing is, man, we just, with a relationship, we're so, I think people have that initial spark of love and once that fades, they don't, or that honeymoon period, once it fades, they don't really know how to re, because when we get in a relationship with someone, that's where I learned very deeply, we, they, we project onto that other person the best parts of them.

Like, and it is so wonderful. We see them for who they could be and not who they presently are, but who they could be. And that's a gift because it goes both ways. [00:33:00] But what happens is as you spend time with that person, that projection kind of crumbles because it's, it's not real in the present, right? It's a, it's a future ideal.

And then those people have to re once that disillusionment happens, they have to rediscover each other and like, Hey, who is this person? And, you know, kids complicate that. And like, how do we still find that connection with each other and work through that and reintegrate our understanding of who that person is.

And at this moment, And then encourage them to be the best version, but accept them how they are and not try to change them all the time. And what happens usually in that period is where that divorce happens is because they're like, well, how did I, I didn't know he was a big narcissist. I've heard that a lot.

several hundred times. And I've, I've, I've heard so many of these common, well, I didn't know he was this, I didn't know he was this. And it's because they, they projected something beautiful, either gender onto each other, and they weren't [00:34:00] able to work through that period once that thing broke. And so I've, I learned that supernatural in all relationships, business, like relationships are relationships.

A business relationship is a marriage, especially if you have partners. You're just, you're not having sex with them. It's the only, really the only difference. Hopefully you're not. So it kind of gave me a really deep insight into how people function as a unit. And, and I really studied that because I wanted to be as well educated.

So when I made my decisions in life, I was able to make the best decision that I could make.

Yeah. Did you ever see anyone that called in to start that process, but found a way to heal things and, and reunite and, and, and get their marriage back on track?

Not frequently, unfortunately.

I'm assuming, but I mean, marriages aren't profitable for [00:35:00] divorce attorneys.

So I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of incentive on the attorney side to like, try to get them to figure out how to work it out. I may be wrong.

It depends on the attorney. I think that's a stereotype. Got it. And I think there are attorneys that are that way, but I've worked for a few different types of attorneys.

I've worked for some that encouraged that, and I've worked for the type that I wouldn't say they encouraged it, but more your direction of what you're talking about. But I do believe to some extent that is a stereotype a little bit, which all stereotypes have a grain of truth to them, you know? Right.

I've seen very peaceful divorces, and those were always the good ones, like no fueled by anger, rage, scorched earth type situation, but sometimes people try therapy, sometimes it works, but I've, I've always worked for experienced lawyers, so I think we kind of got the, the cases by at that point, they, they most likely [00:36:00] weren't going to make you, you'd be surprised.

Most, I would say most people that came to our office, their, their marriage probably ended a good six months before they came in, like emotionally, sexually, physically, it, it, it died along a long time before that. And which is sad. So that when, when they come to our office, it's usually like, if you make the point called divorce lawyer, There's usually been months and months of thinking about that.

Like, I think there's this thing like, Oh, people just get divorced so easily, but my experience has been that people give it quite, quite a bit of thought. And there's, there's a lot more that goes into that than just saying that just happens easily and people don't really care type thing. Got it.

Man, if, uh, if more men could show up and love their wives well, pass the dating point, pay a lot of attention to them, make them feel loved, make them feel, I, uh, ran into a friend of mine yesterday [00:37:00] and, uh, he asked just the best question to ask a married man.

He said, are you nurturing your wife? I was like, man, that's a good question. And it really, you know, because loving your wife is great and, and, and, and pouring into her, but man, to, to nurture brings up a whole different perspective. I mean, I think of a garden or a, you know, nurturing a plant, like you're watering it, you're caring for it.

Like, are you nurturing your wife? If more men nurtured their wife and took on that, that role, How many fewer divorces and broken families would there be? I'm sure that there's, there's ownership on both sides, but this is the world needs men. So I only talked to, to the man side of the equation. And it's like, man, if, if like, that's just like, I can even feel in that conversation, like you worked in that.

I can't imagine how dark it is because just having this conversation, I feel in a sense of darkness just talking through that. I cannot imagine living [00:38:00] in it. And so like, just. Man, if more men could nurture their wives, how much better would it all be?

I agree, but I'm going to, I'm going to take a little deeper, please.

I think some men need to nurture themselves. I think that a lot of their dissatisfaction gets projected onto their life. And it's dissatisfaction with themselves and everybody else just gets the shit end of the stick and gets their baggage dumped onto them, including the spouse. But I, I think more men need to take responsibility for their own lives.

And it's like, man, we, if your dog gets sick, you're going to damn be sure you're going to give your dog the medicine your dog needs to heal. You're going to take him to the vet and you're going to do all this stuff. But these men who are overweight, who, who know people are not stupid, they know what they need to [00:39:00] do.

Like a guy who's overweight, who has diabetes, when he looks himself in the mirror, He does not feel good about, he can't see his own dick when he looks down, like, they know, people know, so it's just like, take that action and, and, and pour into yourself, because if not, like, you're going to be a miserable soul, and you're going to make your wife's life miserable, and yes, like, nurture your spouse, but if you're not, it's like, you've heard this one.

When a plane goes down, the air stewardess say, Hey, put your mask on before the person next to you. If you're not taking care of yourself, like if you're working a nine to five job, you hate the people you work for suck. And you feel like you were meant for more, but you're confined in this little box and it eats at your soul every day.

And then you're like, well, How do I give my wife more energy and make it better? Like you're looking at it wrong. Like you're not going to have that to give to her because A, you're a fraud. You don't even care enough to love yourself and give yourself what you need. [00:40:00] So how the hell are you going to give that to her?

So personally, like it's my belief that you have to find that in yourself and that shit's earned. You don't just get to say like, Hey, I love myself. I respect myself. Like you can read the affirmations and do all that. I guarantee you at some level, it will not work. You have to build it through action. And you have to, what I tell people is look at the people you respect and admire.

What are they doing?

Do

that. And if you do that, You're, you're giving your, your self practical experience to rely upon, like suddenly now you respect yourself, you've taken on responsibility, you, you're not a fraud, you're not the dentist with messed up teeth. And then you can begin to be that for your spouse.

and support her, but it's, it's almost an impossible problem to solve. Like, Hey, my life sucks. And like, let [00:41:00] me pour into my wife. Cause like you, you don't have anything to pour because you're not even giving it to yourself. So I, I, I completely agree though, at, at a level above that, like people need to nurture their spouses.

But if you, if you focus on yourself and you can do this while focusing on other people, give yourself some attention. And, and if you just like laid in bed with your eyes closed alone, it's just like, what could I do to make my life better? It's going to tell you, whether it be God, your consciousness, whatever you believe in, you're going to get answers.

They might not be the answers you want, but if you want to know where to start, that's where you start.

Yeah, you make a great point. And I would, I would venture to guess that, you know, that person, not only can they not, they're looking to other people to fill them up, Right? And not only can they not give, but they're actually just taking, taking, taking because they're themselves empty.

Yeah. So your, your partner, your wife wants to come home [00:42:00] and see her husband and he's drained. And he's just going to vampire her. Then you're both drained. Then you're both drained. You do that for a few years, she's going to start resenting you because you're just taking from her and you, you take from her cause you have nothing and you need something and that's, I don't want to demonize that because.

I could say that's bad, but it's, it's really sad because people don't, and that's why I'm here with club fashion is like, just people don't know the tools, like when somebody like this goes, the value of coaching, when I hired Derek and I had a organization here in Little Rock called school of man kind of helped me with this, but we just weren't taught these things.

And I think grown men weren't, it applies to all ages and especially. young people are really struggling with this, but just like understanding these, these concepts of relationships, how to deal with people, how to give stuff to yourself. And [00:43:00] college certainly does not teach you how to do that. It teaches you how to comply.

That's the sad truth about it. And men were, I think if you, if you look at the Bible enough and a lot of other religions and, and anecdotally, what's true to you is like, The people that get a lot of attention on social media, they're all living adventurous lives. And I think like deep down, we all want our life to be an adventure and an adventure has the highs, the lows, the ups, the downs, the hard, the sad, the happy, but that's what life should be.

And I think some people, this goes to all the 10, 000 books about don't be complacent, but it's building that relationship with adventure and with your partner, with yourself. with, with everything. And it, it makes the, if you find some type of why or purpose identity, it looks very different for every person.

If, um, you can find a religion, there's so many ways to find it. The, the hard stuff, the [00:44:00] dark stuff becomes more bearable to, to handle. And

we've talked about a lot of dark stuff. Let's bring some light in. So you're a successful young man. You've, uh, but you made the decision to step away from some. from some of your career and move into helping men get the tools and get their life in order.

So I would love to know kind of your journey for making that decision and what you see now, stepping into like stepping into making a difference, but doing it in a different way. And I would love to know kind of the purpose that you're finding in that and how you made the decision and just really take us in into that part of the equation.

Because that's the thing, like, you listen to our conversation, it's like, man, is there any hope? Yes, like, and that's the thing, like, yes, these are dark, dark realities of our world, but at the same time, there are, there are tools, there are resources, there are [00:45:00] men and organizations out there all over the place.

that are, are helping to equip men to show up better. And so, like, so talk to that whole side

of the equation. Yep, 100%. So to start with the why, I just wanted to, my change, so I was, I was making very, very, very good money doing what I was doing. And then I jumped to zero money. So, A, like, what I've done well is I have a strong filter for congruence, of my present self and my future self.

And I realized what I was doing with law and real estate, which I still do real estate, but it wasn't super congruent with my future self. And so I made the transition solely off of I want to be more congruent with who I want to become. And that, that, that made it. And I want to help more people is ultimately what it came down to.

So we started Club Faction [00:46:00] and just like, realized how the problems we've talked about and how out of balance men are and how misaligned and incongruent their actions are with their actual deep, deep priorities, what they want. So what we do is really help people audit that, like, Hey, here's where you are.

This is where you want to go. How do you get there? And that that's what has brought me so much pleasure is being able to sit with those people in the darkness and then help them. Since I've lived there for many, many years, um, I had imposter syndrome for a while, like being straight up honest. Cause I'm, I'm still quite young and I'm now having a lot of people way decades older than me listen to me.

And it's because I understand stress. Uncertainty and anxiety, fear, like once you really understand those, those things, which all lie between the known and the unknown, right? That's, that's where those things lie [00:47:00] and helping people work through that is just awesome. So we, form this company club faction to help people work through that.

No matter where they are starting, you can be starting at the bottom, at the middle, at the top. Some of the guys we have at the top are just like, Hey, 1 percent matters at that level. So really my journey to get here was just wanting to have congruence with who I want to be. And when you do that, You start speaking from your soul in a way, like you, when you lean into your passion, you talk differently, you walk differently, you think differently, you're fueled differently.

And it's, it's such a beautiful thing because it's just, it's a different source of fuel and it, and it's truly amazing.

So talk to me about the, like, so you've got the faction, you talked about faith, family. fitness, finance. What are some of the, like the real, like practical components [00:48:00] of that, that, that y'all teach men?

Yeah. So the first thing you have to know where you are. So we have a, depending on what level somebody comes into our program, we have all the way from like a 47 a month with the trial to, um, you know, around the two, 3, 000 mark, and then the one on one level. So we, we kind of meet people wherever they are at and we assess them.

It's like, Hey, here's where you presently start because. You can't create lasting change without knowing where you're starting. If you want to lose weight, what do you do? You step on a scale. Super simple. So we do that, faith, family, fitness, mental health, finance. And then we got really deep into where do you want to go?

Because like, think of our company, like Google Maps. Where are you? Where do you want to go? Only two pieces of information you need to give it. So we get those two pieces of information. And then we're the roadmap. We tell you, Hey, turn left here, turn [00:49:00] right here. This is that. And how we do that is we built a system and that system is really built on the basics, which seems weird, but mastering the basics.

I've been privileged to be around NFL football players, billionaires, people from the CIA, steel team six, like some of the highest level people in the world. The commonality is they're really, really, really good at the basics. And that's their foundation. So we provide that foundation for people in all areas of their life, no matter where you started.

And we do that through a system of 1 percent improvements. Hey, like if you're, if you haven't even thought about faith and your background was like, Hey, I went to Catholic school growing up, but I, I don't know if that shirt fits me. Like, let's just think about what shirt you want to wear as, as a metaphor, of course.

Yeah. And, and building people up that way. And we have like group sessions where we really dig into like big ideas [00:50:00] across all those areas. So that's the practical part of what we do. Then we reassess people at the end of their journey because we stand by our product and we guarantee there's going to be a Delta, a change.

from your, your beginning score to your end score or measurements, just like, Hey, how do you know if you lost weight? Well, the scale doesn't lie. And our assessment tool is our scale. And it gets a little more complicated with how do you measure faith, right? And stuff like that. So that's where we put our sauce into designing, uh, an assessment that does that practically.

And this, like, it's important for me that no matter what faith you are, we don't discriminate you. It can be anything you want. It's just your ethical system, your guideline, your North Star, your light at the end of the tunnel is what faith

means to us. Got it. And then you apply those, those things just across those four areas of your [00:51:00] faith, your family, your, fitness, which includes physical and mental, and then finances, which could be your business, your career, your job.

100%. And building, and it's intentional to order as to how we did things. And it goes back to my conversation earlier when you were talking about nurturing, like, faith, like finding your own stuff first, cause you're, you're, I would, I would hesitate to call somebody a man who didn't know themselves and who they were and what they were all about.

I think that's a big part of being a man is having principles you'll die for and then family, right? So your, your faith, your family, then your fitness, which is not just like push ups working out. Like we talk about, well, how do you call fate? How do you combine faith with fitness? Well, like, hey, God may put me in a situation to be an instrument of impact for this world.

And if I'm 300 pounds and somebody is in a car crash and I'm presented with this opportunity and I can't pull them out, [00:52:00] what am I like? So, so we, we combine all the pillars and how they interharmonize with each other. Cause most people don't think, well, faith and fitness. Those don't go together, but they do.

They all work like that.

Yeah. Yeah. I like to look at it too, is like your, your personal life fuels your professional life and then your professional life like funds your personal life, right? But they're, they're not, uh, they're synergistic and they work together. And they can take you much further. Like if all you do is focus on making money and you let your body fall apart, your purpose and your faith fall apart and your family fall apart, don't care what you make it, what you create in business, it will crumble and burn at some point, right?

Yes. Or you find a man who's deeply committed to his faith and and knows his purpose. He knows his mission in life. He knows who he is. You look and he invests in and nurtures his wife and has a great, Thriving relationship with his kids and then his body and his mindset are both. weapons [00:53:00] effectively. I mean, they're, they're, they're dialed in.

That guy is going to be able to show up in business and just crush it. Right. So it's just, they work together. They're not independent. And when you combine all four, that's just kind of on unlocks the, the ultimate, like very basic game plan for how to. How to win at life. 100%. You've nailed it. That's exactly what we do.

So you, you've nailed it on ahead. Josh, man, this has been, this has been a very exciting and challenging conversation. I don't think I've had anyone who has gone as deep as you. You're, you're my youngest guest so far, by far, and you've gone deeper than anybody else. And you've just got such a perspective and already like wisdom in life and experience.

And I think more people need to hear your story. I really appreciate you coming on today. If someone wanted to follow you, find out what you're up to, check out the work that you're doing. Is there any place that they could do that at?

Yeah, a hundred percent. Probably go to our company website, www.

[00:54:00] clubfaction. com. That would be the best place to start with that.

Okay, perfect. We'll, we'll, uh, include that in the, uh, in the show notes. Well, man, thank you. This has been a pleasure. I appreciate your time, uh, your wisdom, and I'm sure that you'll continue to, uh, to make a difference in the world in a very meaningful way.

So thank you.

You too, man.

Thank you.

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