[00:00:00] 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. All right, welcome back to The World Needs Men podcast. I have once again Derek Price and Josh Gonzalez with me today and we are going to deep dive into the third of the four pillars that we're on with this series. Uh, this one is specifically going to focus on fitness and not just physical fitness, but our [00:01:00] physical and mental fitness, both of which are critical for men to, to build and strengthen and, and get on, on track.

And we're going to deep dive that and just have a great conversation today. Derek and Josh, thank you all for joining me once again and excited for today's conversation. Thank you, Franklin. I was going to make a joke about your hair, but at this point, your listeners, I'm going Like, his hair is great, shut up, you're bald, go move past it.

But thanks for having us on, man. Of course, of course. All right, where do you want to jump in? Well, you know, we're talking about this and Josh and I got together and said that if we have an hour and we want to make it actionable, like how do we kind of segregate and separate and break down? Because here's the thing, there's a lot of theory and there's a lot of big overarching discussion, but if you don't really make it actionable and maybe get into like some of the specifics.

of the winds of why you want to put your effort into this category. Like, like you only have a hundred, like, let's just [00:02:00] say you have a hundred points, right? Like every day you wake up, Franklin, you have a hundred points. Where are you going to spend your points today? Well, if I throw them into fitness, then I can't do it with, you know, maybe I don't have as many points for family or for my alone time or playing video games or whatever.

So what I like to do is, is not really like convince people of why they should do, why they should spend points on fitness. So much as supply them with information of like, Hey, you know, if this, then that. So I break down like physical fitness into like three main buckets, right? Like what, what are, what are good reasons why you'd want to have good or above average physical fitness, um, versus not putting time into it.

And my three buckets, and I'll go through these. The first bucket is for health, happiness, and longevity. So I put that in like bucket one, and I'm going to go through some points of bucket one of, Like, if you're going to spend your points in fitness, one of the buckets that you're going to fill is the health, happiness, and longevity of what those [00:03:00] benefits on the physical side provide.

Now, huge asterisk, all conversation about physical relates direct correlation to mental. So while we talk about them, that they're two things, imagine I'm saying right hand, left hand. They're both hands, they both have fingers, they both do things, they both grab things, they're both functional. I use this one mostly for this.

I use this one mostly for this. They are two separate, but at the same time, they're, they're one. It's, it's kind of the, the egg situation, the yolk and the white are two different things, but it's still a, so, so as we talk about this and as we dive into physical side and as we dive into mental side, understand that they're applicable, that the principles are applicable on both sides, but that they're specific to themselves.

So hope that made sense. So back to my buckets. The second bucket I have, and I'll go over in detail, is how physical fitness will drive for better relationships and for personal [00:04:00] fulfillment. And then the third bucket is the discipline, commitment, and goal setting lessons that you learn from it and what it does for you.

So, when we get into the physical side, I'm going to try and steer the majority of my conversation today on the physical side. And Josh, with his background in being, you know, running a large charity and running a suicide hotline for a number of years, is going to kind of dive in on the mental health side.

So, so that's my overview from the top on physicals. I'll go through the three buckets. And, uh, Josh, tell them what you're gonna do on the mental side. Yeah, so on the mental side, we'll go over kind of the same benefits of why mental health is so important and understanding that, like, this lives on a spectrum.

Like mental health. is a part of your health. And it can go to that kind of disordered range, but understanding it's on a spectrum. And then a big thing we're going to focus on today is some, like, actionable strategies for improving your mental health. [00:05:00] Because that, sometimes like Derek said, we get so into the theory of things, we don't realize like, hey, what, what can I do to improve this?

And mental health is kind of a, It's a more subjective, it's a weirder one, and some people say like, hey, journal and all this stuff. So we're gonna go over some really good strategies for that and just with the understanding like, hey guys or not, I don't have a professional license. I've been certified in crisis counseling, but I'm not an LCSW.

Neither is Derek. So when we're talking about mental health, if you feel like you need to talk to a professional, like, please go talk to a professional that has the appropriate licenses. That was a good job, Josh. You offloaded any liability we have for the information. That's the, that's the paralegal in him coming out, right?

This is for information purpose only and not to be used without the direct written consent from your physician or provider who manages your health. There, it's recording. To take that a bit further, because I think it's easy to conceptualize what I mean about physical health, because there's a, there's a physical [00:06:00] visible component.

And the hard thing about mental health is you can't see it and it's, it is subjective. Josh, do you have kind of a definition just to give us a baseline of what you would call or define as mental health? How I would define it? I think it just goes back to your emotional wellbeing. Um, your, I guess, physiological and emotional wellbeing, because Because your thoughts can increase stress, which then affects your physical body.

So I think it's really going to be the, it's sort of a self defined state of your emotional and physiological well being. Okay. You know, I'm going to dive in on that. I've heard a picture that makes sense to me is. Your mental space is an emotional harbor. So I actually picture like a harbor, like a big, in an island, a big harbor.

And your mental health and the effort that you put into strengthening that is [00:07:00] the anchor chain that keeps your craft secured in place. Because mental health is one of those things that lives underneath the surface at all times. And has the ability to be, when you have less resiliency in your mental health, when stress comes, when the storm comes, when the big waves come, you get battered all over the place and you start to spiral.

And you can spiral into things that trigger you. Triggering. All of these things are, if this is normal, and a stressor comes to me, and we call it triggering, it can push me off of normal into chaos. Right? And that's kind of that bipolar thing we talk about. You're like, too far this way, too far this way, too far this way.

We're trying to get to here. And when we talk about like, um, Stoics, we talk about people that like, they, and very enlightened people that are tuned, they try and live like right [00:08:00] on a singular beam. And that beam is like, here is where they are. And as stress, energy, you know, in this, in my analogy, like the weather, the storms, the rocks, the hurricanes, the gale force winds, the waves, right?

as it comes at you, they're immovable because they're anchored and they're anchored securely and they're moored to a dock or to a shoreline. They're, they're anchored somewhere and that anchoring doesn't happen on accident. So just as if I were to say, Hey Franklin, I lifted weights and became very strong so that in the NFL, if I was to hold a position and somebody was to apply physical stress to me and trying to push me out of that position, my physical strength.

And my, my, all the training I put into balance and coordination and reaction and all that would make, I could maintain my spot. And that makes sense to you. Basketball, football, wrestling, fighting, whatever, right? Somebody's trying to put their, move me [00:09:00] away from my, where I want to be. My physical strength holds me there.

My mental health, and remember, there's a million ways to skin this cat, but mental health too has that same, here's where I am. And when stress and bad news and bad phone calls and people that flip me off on the on the way to work and somebody, you know, didn't return a text and they texted me in all caps and you know, my girlfriend or boyfriend or somebody broke up with me or I got fired from my job.

All of these stressors, you know, finance come at us and if we can work to be here, then we don't get moved towards chaos, right? Like if normal and health is right down the middle and in our, in our body systems, we call that homeostasis. So, remember like, our human bodies, our physiology, work off a process of homeostasis, meaning our chemistry that makes us us is always trying to stay on one wavelength.

And when we get like, for example, [00:10:00] testosterone, it's supposed to be right here. If I start taking too much testosterone and my levels go up here, my body will begin to down regulate and make less of it. Does that make sense? to try and get it to where we come back to normal. So our body is always in the search of homeostasis and normalcy and right down that beam.

And that's applicable to physical health as it is to mental health. And I think if we all said, when you, in your mind's eye, think of somebody right now who you're like, man, this person has like bad mental health. Everything that comes their way blows them off center. Every little thing triggers them.

They're always in a rage. They always have chaos. They're always stressed out all the time. They're running around. you know, on fire, they get really, really sad. Then they get really, really happy, but they never hit that landing point. And it is that, that anchor chain that Josh is going to talk about that we work on, just like going to the gym to lift weights so that you can hold your physical position.

If somebody pushes you, your mental health can do the same thing. And so when I look at mental health, you know, we're talking [00:11:00] about, you know, anxiety and depression and all that. Like it's that balanced mindset that keeps us here, even when triggers and bad things or other things are trying to push us off of it.

And to kind of take Josh's point too, to make an analogy of this, like when you're sick, you go see a doctor, when you're not sick, you don't go see a doctor, but that doesn't mean that you're a super healthy person. It just means that you're not sick. So just as we go to the gym and eat right and have a plan for optimizing our physical health, we're also coming at this from the standpoint of how you can optimize your mental health.

from a place where you're not necessarily needing to go see a doctor because we're not saying you're sick, but just because you don't need to go see the doctor doesn't mean that there aren't activities that you need to be doing every day in order to optimize your mental health and be in a state where you're thriving mentally, not just existing and not just at a baseline just [00:12:00] above needing professional help.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, if you're, we talk about this all the time, if you're a 24 ounce receptacle, like if you're a 24 ounce glass, right? And if I put 25 ounces of water in you, that one ounce, you know, would never get held by that glass. It would always come over the top. It would blow your lid. It would stress you out.

It'd be too much to handle. It's just, it's what we talked about. It's more than I can take. The job of mental health and actually putting your time and energy into developing and strengthening it increases the size of that receptacle. So you can go from a 12 ounce glass to becoming a 15 to becoming a 20, So just like, just like an athlete, that one mile is the longest run, as soon as they build up to a marathon, one mile is only 1 26th of what they, whatever stress amounts, or you look at mental health, and if, if 12 ounces of water gives you a 12 ounce glass puts you, man, I'm right at the breaking point, you know, all those comments you hear, well, you don't control the outside variables of stress that come your way, [00:13:00] you don't control the weather, you don't control the lottery numbers, You have to control other people's mindset.

So knowing that I can't control what's going to come my way, I can control how I receive it. So I'm going to work to grow my vessel bigger. So in a perfect state, I would grow my, my cup into a 44 ounce cup. Having been a 12 ounce cup and say like, Oh man, that 13th ounce of water put me over the top. Now I'm a 44 ounce cup.

I'm like, I don't even recognize it anymore. And that's when you hear people say like, Dude, nothing stresses that guy out. He's calm all the time. You can't rattle him. He's unshakable. Yeah, because. what you're putting into him. He's like, yeah, okay. You don't even 10 percent of my capacity. And it was like a baby fighting an adult.

Like there's not a, like, you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm in a fight. You're like, there's a baby fighting me. Like it's not even a, it's not a thing I'm thinking about. It's like a hamster wanted to beat your ass. You'd be like, I'm, I'm, I'm not overly concerned about this right now because our, our capacities are different.

So, so I think that said, that gives a little set in setting as far [00:14:00] as like where we're going and that mental health for, for Josh and I, okay. We've had like a big epiphany or awakening, Franklin. This isn't something that I've gotten too deep with you so far, but during our, we just had a large summit and Josh was in town and we had a bunch of people show up and we were able to go through all this stuff and.

and really talk it out. And then afterwards during our AAR, we hot wash, right? And during the hot wash, we sit down and say, what was good? What was bad? And what can we do better? And the reality is we came up with, if it's not functional, I'm not interested in it. And I think that's a Derek Price thing, and it's a Josh thing, or it is a faction thing.

But if this, if the information isn't functional, then it's just theoretical. And theoretical information, this is a commodity, you can go on the internet and type in all these questions, you get all kinds of answers, but functional requires the exercise and practice of actually putting it to [00:15:00] the paces and see does it work and testing it.

And as such, we talked about, you know, physical fitness, if I said functional fitness, everybody's like, I know exactly what that is. What does that mean? Think about it. Actually think about what does that mean? Functional fitness. is what by definition? It's the ability to like, live life and do stuff that's hard without having to like, think about it.

Hey, my buddy is having a couch delivered. I'm gonna go help him carry it. My friend needs his car rack to put up on top of it. It's a 200 pound rack on top of his car. I'll go help him. Hey, I got a bunch of rocks. I need to move to the backyard. Hey, I need to chop this tree down and clear my land. Hey, my truck is stuck in the mud.

I need to put this wrench on it and pull it out of it. Functional fitness means that we're improving our physical strength so that we can be more functional in society. So let me take that same term and I'm going to coin it. So if anybody else hasn't done it, well, asterisks. What does functional mental health look like?

Functional mental health is having the tools [00:16:00] synonymous with the physicality of strength, but on the mental side, and on the strength side, I say that it allows me to thrive in stressful conditions because I'm stronger than what is, than the stressors coming at me, which is what true functional fitness is.

Functional mental health is the same thing. My mental health is stronger than the stressors coming at me, and both of those can be developed, as can what we spoke about functional faith. You can have faith that lives in your rearview mirror, like we talked about last time. Or you can have a functional faith that lives in front of you, that you strive to achieve and grow into.

You can have a family that shows up for you. Or you can have a functional family that functions as a family should. And remember, family is just people that show up. So the, the really important aspect here, and listen, I've been the CEO of two very large mental health hospitals. So when I speak about mental health, and you're like, who is this guy?

This is the guy that has 500 people on staff, 180 patients, residential, in queue. People with suicidal ideations, depressions, anxiety, SUDCD, which is substance abuse, chemical [00:17:00] dependency, PTSD, emotional trauma, all of it, all of it. And at the end, if I can give them a functional mental health and a strategy to get stronger in their areas of weakness, then they're less apt to have such the big pushes away from normal, and they're faster to snap back.

Case in point, let's take it to physical. A physical person that trains physical and a non physical person that doesn't train physical both have to walk up a mountain. It's difficult for both of them, obviously less difficult for the person that's in shape. But what we're not thinking about is the next day the person that's in shape still feels pretty and can go on and do more stuff.

The person that achieved that, but wasn't in good shape, is sore and is like dead ridden as their body takes days to recover from it. Mental health is the same thing. That mountain is a trigger [00:18:00] in mental health. If somebody's saying something, it's an emotion, it's a feeling, it's a song, it's somebody treating me, or whatever, whatever it is.

It's still difficult, but I immediately snap back and I'm ready to take on the challenge again the next day. If I don't have strong and healthy hygiene in the mental health space, then climbing that mountain mentally, It's going to mean that like, I'm going to get knocked down, I'm going to be blown away from normal and it's going to take me a long time just like somebody with sore legs because they've never worked them out to get back to normal.

Somebody with poor mental health hygiene takes them a long time to get back to normal. And then heaven forbid, a second storm comes before I even get back to normal. Now you're spiraling. Now it's compounded. When you hear people that are like, dude, it just keeps coming, the hits keep coming. And last week this happened and this week that happened.

Two weeks ago that happened and I'm thinking to myself, why aren't you recovered from what happened two weeks ago? Oh, because you're the guy that's [00:19:00] walking up and down the mountain without being in shape. So it takes you a week to recover from a workout like that, because to you, that's a Herculean effort that requires a Herculean recovery.

Had you trained a lot, you'd have been normal the next day. And that's where, like, Franklin, you don't stress out a lot because you upgrade mental hygiene. And when stress comes your way, you're like, stress, normal, stress, normal, stress, normal. So when the, when two or three stresses hit a row, you're like, stress, stress, normal, normal, stress, stress, normal.

And somebody that doesn't have hygiene is like, stress, stress, can't get back, you have stress, stress, can't get back, you have stress, stress. Look how far away I am from normal. Now, I'm freaking out. You dump 20 ounces of water into a 12 ounce glass. I can't decipher. It's all over the place. My life is chaotic.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to crack a beer and forget about it. And that's where it goes. And then you start making decisions from that place where you're just wanting to sedate that pain you're in. Yes. Right. You go crack that beer or, you know, do any, any number of things that [00:20:00] just kind of try to in an effort to numb out that pain.

And then you make a worse decision that compounds and exacerbates the problem, increases stress. And so then all of a sudden it's like a snowball going downhill where you're actually the one accelerating the thing that's making your life miserable. Not realizing that, like, you just need to have these practices in place so that you don't go down that path.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, it, what I'd like to do is jump into, like, those three pieces because I kind of started with, like, Hey, there's health, happiness, longevity, and then there's better relationships, fulfillment, and then there's commitment, dedication. So just so that sort of your listeners and Josh's like, Hey man, you always steal all the minutes.

Like, can I have some of some, I'm going to do the physical side. We're just going to see a lot of parallels. So let's talk about like the bucket of physical fitness pertaining to health, happiness, and longevity, which you wouldn't normally put physical fitness and happiness, right? Because you [00:21:00] think that's mental health, but increased energy levels is a product of being physically fit and physical fitness boosts.

Overall energy, making it easier to get through the daily tasks with vitality. Number two, we're going to be doing some of this. Improves mental health, regular exercises, reduces stress. It actually, the physical burn reduces stress, reduces anxiety, and reduces depression. Leading to a happier and more balanced mindset.

So the physical, like I personally use the weight room, and the gym, and the Jiu Jitsu dojo, as physical, and it provides me with improved mental health. Because it kind of clears that stuff out for me. Here's another one on the health, on the longevity side, is better sleep. Engaging in physical activity helps regulate sleep patterns, resulting in more restful and restorative sleep.

On the doctor's side, you want to go to longevity again. We're not, and remember, you know what you haven't heard yet, Franklin? Is, let me see my body fat, let me show you my [00:22:00] abs, and look at my biceps. But how about this? If I said, if you do a physical routine, you'll have enhanced immune function, consistent exercise strengthens the immune system, reducing the likelihood of illness, longevity, physically fit people just live longer, healthier lives with a lower risk of chronic disease like heart disease or diabetes or cancer, it's just a fact, and at the same time on longevity and happiness, like you're really happy if you can prevent chronic conditions, fitness helps them.

Manage and prevent high blood pressure, cholesterol, and other lifestyle related conditions. And then on just the health side, improve mobility and flexibility, man. Staying physically active promotes joint health. I've seen that as a chiropractor. Seen that as a musculoskeletal side. Reduce stiffness. Let your body work better under less stress, and enhances overall mobility, particularly later in life.

So those are seven, seven quick points, and you see a lot of [00:23:00] tie between, you know, health, happiness, and longevity. and actually physical fit. And what I think we should do as opposed to me doing a full runoff is like, Hey, Josh, on your side, when you're talking about mental health and you're on the health, happiness and longevity, like what are your thoughts on, on having better mental health versus not having mental health?

I think we, when we're, we're talking about mental health earlier, we, we hit kind of the measure of resiliency, which is like that rubber band, like how quickly Can I return to baseline if the wind pushes me off of it? I think there's the other part of mental health, which kind of goes to this vitality index that you're talking about.

That's like, how do I feel during the day? Not, not just what storms I can withstand. Cause that, that's super important. But like, How is my energy levels? Like, how is my self talk? How am I motivating [00:24:00] myself? Like, what goals am I aimed at? Like, how do I feel about the responsibility I've taken in a life? And am I pursuing something meaningful?

I think A big part of finding that that first pillar you're talking about, Derek, that is super entwined with mental health is finding meaning in life. And that can look differently to every single person. But what I've noticed most from answering, uh, my crisis hotline and just seeing so many repetitions of individuals at the very bottom of their mental health sphere is, is kind of that lack of meaning.

And how that manifests is the desire to not continue in life. And what I've seen just anecdotally in my life is the humans who have a greater why, a greater meaning, and maybe it's not greater in the sense of it's larger, maybe they're just more in tuned with it. They've really thought [00:25:00] about their family and how that motivates them to, to push, to withstand the storms, is.

They generally have just better thoughts when the storms come and that goes to not being pushed off But it they just feel better their stress levels are less which when you have less stress Your sleep's better and it it kind of prevents that snowball that you've talked about Franklin happening in the very first place So I think that's a really important part of mental health is finding that meaning that gives you that You ability to remain positive, remain dedicated to a goal when the storms come.

What other words? As you've, uh, been on the hotline and been seeing people get help, have you, have you noticed anything, any, uh, kind of common threads? when it comes to somebody going from a place where they have mental health challenges [00:26:00] and getting to a place where they're really healthy. So I, I think that's a, a super, super individual journey for each person as we know how it looks, but I think it goes back to what I said, like meaning and community, finding meaning and finding community, a big, and that, that's really a big part of what we do here at Club Faction is try to.

Give people community because you wouldn't think like, hey, community and mental health, or maybe you would, but that that's a huge aspect is just having a family and that family doesn't have to be blood related. It's just people that care about you that celebrate your wins and stick with you by your losses.

at the same time. So a big theme is, is not that I've noticed on the line was not, was just loneliness. Like a very deep seated loneliness. You combine that with lack of meaning. It's a rough, really rough space to be in. And I think what, We have to realize when we talk about mental health and physical [00:27:00] health just on the actionable side is like if somebody's overweight and they want to lose weight, there's a generally an expectation and it's a little different now, but it's going to take some time, right?

Like if I, if I don't have muscles and I want to get ripped. It's probably going to take me 12 months, and it's going to take consistency, and what we have to know about mental health, building that better, it's almost like that garden in your mind. Derek used an example of a ship and an anchor of the resilience of staying grounded, but like, think of like your mental, your thoughts as like a garden in your mind, and maybe there's a bunch of weeds.

in that garden. And it's over, it's just overrun with weeds, right? It's just like, if a farmer doesn't take care of his field, there's going to be a ton of, tons of weeds in the field. And we got to start plucking those weeds out. And then some are going to regrow over time. And it's a process that takes [00:28:00] time.

And you have to start like learning how to reframe your thoughts and, and your reality. Cause at the end of the day, the thing that it's so challenging about mental health is like, It's, it's you. Like, it's, it's all you. Like, nobody else has to live in your mind besides you. You're the only person that has to do that.

You're the only person that really understands that. And so, it can be easy for people to give advice in this space, but ultimately, like, I think people have to take the responsibility, because when you wake up in the morning, You know, the first things you think about that, that's all on you. And if you want to reframe that, if you want to live that more positive life, like it's, it's a, it's a journey to get there.

It's, you got to pluck those weeds away and you got to do this. And that goes back to finding meaning, right? You, you got to have that reason as to why you want to pluck those weeds as they come, as they come, as they come. I love this idea and what's coming to my mind is just, uh, purpose and then [00:29:00] connection.

You know, if you look at even recently with COVID, like you isolate people and you take away their ability to have any meaningful like work, which for a lot of us is our purpose in life, and then you see the mental health effects and you've talked about them in our prior discussions of just what happened, you know, when people got stuck in their homes for 30, 60, 90 days or however long it was.

And, and even if you look at prison systems, like the worst punishment you can have is solitary confinement, which is isolation and just what the mental impact that has. And so just the idea of finding purpose in one of the best ways to do that is through service to somebody else. Like, You can find a deep amount of purpose in your life by just going, who can I help today?

Who is a person that I can help make their life a little bit better, and then if you put effort into Spending time with other good human beings that fill you up, like those two things alone will put you in a [00:30:00] really healthy place to begin to work on yourself. Totally agree. You hit something there about community, Franklin, that's interesting, and especially after COVID.

What I've noticed, just being in the space, going to a lot of events, Being in the mental health world a lot is people derive a great sense of like emotional satiation when they are engaged in meaningful conversation. And I've seen that at our shooting events like We go out, we shoot all these guns, great time, and then the most value, almost, is the after conversation.

And what are the ingredients that make this conversation? It's, it's, a lot of it's vulnerability. And we know that it's like, hey, like, that was such a surface level conversation, or hey, that person feels so fake. And it's because sometimes we're not comfortable going down a level of depth. [00:31:00] into ourselves because that requires a vulnerability.

But the paradox is that's where the most meaning is derived, and vulnerability is what it takes to get there. And what I've noticed like post COVID is that people are less apt to have those conversations, but deep down they're really starved for it. So I think a big takeaway, and that's what we do in our line, right?

When somebody calls into our line, we give them that depth. of conversation at the level the person is open to receiving it. And that, that's a very, and when you listen and you engage and all the stuff we talked about last time of validating that person, it's a conversation, even with a friend, can be a healing process.

It can be an energizing process. And I think when we look at conversations and the ones that didn't achieve any depth, that were super surface level, tend to be the opposite. And they're a [00:32:00] draining conversation because We're spending so much energy trying to not be vulnerable. And if you just be vulnerable, if you just, and this is a very biblical idea, if you just surrender, right?

Like, you don't have to maintain that facade, you don't have to do any of that, and you can have that truly authentic interaction with another person. So, so just try this on. Like, it just seems like it's such a, uh, a meaningful correlation and example. So, we're starved for connection. Like, there's this piece of us that is so, wants it so bad, right?

But we're afraid of it because it requires that we be vulnerable. Now, let's take that over to a physical. the starvation for literal food, right? Like, we need food in order to thrive and grow and live. But imagine if the thing, like, if you were actually afraid of eating, how detrimental that would be to living [00:33:00] in private.

And if you take that analogy and apply it over, I mean, maybe it seems, maybe it's overly simplistic, but like, you can't have a full, healthy and abundant life. If you don't have connection to other people and you can't have real connection, if you don't have vulnerability and a willingness to just. for them to see you and you to see them.

But because of that fear, we literally like starve ourselves of the thing that I think God put in us that we, we truly need. Yeah. It's just a, I don't know, to me that it's just kind of a wild way of thinking about like, it's easy to see or neglect when it's our emotions. But if you took that same thinking and put it over to like something physical, as physical as food, we literally die if we don't eat for long enough, but we kind of die mentally and die spiritually.

when we, when we don't have connection to deep and meaningful connection to other people. Facts. So, I mean, the question would be why? Like, [00:34:00] Derek, why do you think that's the case? Yeah, because that which doesn't get tended to dies, right? It's the flower in your garden. You don't water it, it dies. You don't, if you put your, like, check this out.

Totally healthy guy breaks his arm. You put in a cast, he doesn't use his arm for six weeks. Comes out, it looks like. All of the muscles gone, which doesn't get used, goes away, which gets used, gets stronger. That's, that's everything, all the time, that's all aspects of, of our, you know. of our body. Not to go like super deep, but this is going to excite Josh as we get into the concept of entropy.

And when we get into entropy, we basically say that everything after creation is in a point of, is continual degradation and decline. And so your mental health is Just like your physical health and all other things, your wealth. If you're not putting intention into the maintenance at the very least, if not the increased strengthening or abundance of, then the natural order of things would be to those your entropy and things were going to decline.

[00:35:00] So, the one of the most dangerous things I hear is when I say to somebody, because I'm, I'm, I'm in this space. I'm a, I'm a physician and I'm in the space of change and I'm a coach and all those things that go along with it. And I say, Hey man, what are you doing for your mental health? And I hear comments like this, Oh, I'm good.

Okay. Let me just change the words out there. Hey, what are you doing for your teak? Do you brush it? Oh no, they don't have any pain in them. I'm good. But we know what's going to happen without the manual and continual upkeep, you will break down. Right? So that, that concept of entropy is kind of like the, I like to think of things from the positive and let's, let's dive into why we should do this because it's positive.

you know, static and stasis and which leads to entropy, leads to degradation, is also the backside of that saying like, if you don't put effort into the upkeep at minimum, the maintenance, [00:36:00] if not the strengthening, it's going to deteriorate over time. That's just the natural order of the universe that we live in.

So when I talked about those three categories, You know, the second category. And again, you haven't heard us one time yet on this physical fitness podcast talk about bench press push ups and how many sets or reps you should do. Because it doesn't matter. I've done every workout on planet Earth and guess what works?

The one that you show up and commit to. That's the one that works. It's four sets of ten or five sets of twelve or three sets of eight. Two sets of five, like it's, it's minute detail until you get to like the professional level of why you're doing. Are you getting on stage as a bodybuilder? Because this workout's important.

Are you going to the Olympics as a powerlifter or an Olympic weightlifter that does snatch and clean and jerk? Then this is important. Are you specific to the sport of volleyball? Are you specific to the sport of wrestling? Like then it gets different, but for the vast majority of us, which is the 99. 999%, [00:37:00] Your workout plan doesn't matter so long as, as, you know, it has some basis to it and it's the one that you'd like and it makes you happy because Listen, let's have two workout plans and one workout plan.

This guy is like, I'm super excited to do that, man. That makes sense to me. And I like it. And I love it. And he's going to get a double benefit. He's going to get the mental health benefit, the excitement benefit. He's going to stay committed, that committed motivation in terms of the dedication over time becomes habitual lifestyle and foundational.

I give you a workout and you're like, I'll do it. But like, I don't like it. You're being pulled the other way the whole time, right? So on, on bucket number two, and Josh, you'll be able to pick up on this because you'll, you'll see that when I talk about that better relationships and personal fulfillment bucket of why I want you to spend your time in, in fitness, mental and physical, and it's also, this is a World Needs Men podcast, which means if you're listening, you're a patriarch, you're an alpha, you're a leader, like it is literally your job [00:38:00] to be the captain of the ship and what you steward and purvey.

So, when I talk about better relationship and personal fulfillment, first point is increased confidence. Being physically fit improves self esteem and body image. Makes you more confident in your interactions and your personal and professional relationships. Listen, you walk in the room and you're in great shape, nobody gives a crap about your abs, but the immediate understanding is that person is dedicated to something and puts time into something and can complete a task that they set out to do.

That's just fact. The next one is better emotional regulation, which again, I'm talking about physical fitness, but yet it's leading to mental because physical activity helps manage emotions and cope with challenges more effectively, leading to stronger relationships. Talking about strengthened relationships, engaging in fitness activities together.

Listen, Worlds Needs Men, like walks and gym sessions or outdoor adventures, brings couples and families and friends closer. You don't believe me? Try it. And then call me and tell me I was wrong. [00:39:00] How about this? World needs men. Better relationships and fulfillment. Set a positive example for your family.

Leading by example through maintaining fitness encourages children and your family to adopt these healthy habits and then hopefully they'll pass them down. World needs men. That's what we're doing, right? It's about leaving the world a better place. Make it better while we're here. Leave it better when we leave.

And let's take it a step further. Let's go to greater capacity for family activities. You want better relationships through physical fitness. Being physically fit. It means that you can participate in active outings with your family, whether it's hiking or biking or playing sports or paddle boarding or surfing or going to the beach or, or whatever.

Listen, I, my oldest daughter, is going to be married in the next couple of months. They will most likely have a kid somewhere in the near future. I want to be a World Lean's Man. I want to be involved in that person's life and in my grandchild's life. Being physically fit is going to allow me to do that on the activity side versus [00:40:00] sitting in the chair overweight.

and unable to perform and just watching it pass me by. And then before I hand it off to Josh, I'll say like, if you want better relationships, if you want personal fulfillment, the big monkey in the room, the 800 pound gorilla, stress, exercise releases endorphins, literally making it easier to manage stress, which positively impacts your performance.

The interactions with loved ones and it reduces your conflicts. That's just a proven, studied, objective fact. More endorphins, more dopamine, makes you happier, makes you calmer, makes you less reactive to stress. That is button number two. The one I'm going to sell you on, get in the gym. And I think a big part of, a strange thing people don't think about, about mental health sometimes is like.

building self respect for yourself. I think we're stuck, [00:41:00] or some people are stuck, like, I hear these people like, hey, you should read these affirmations every day in the mirror and tell yourself all these good things about yourself. How my mind works, this is me, is I can't tell myself something that's not true.

And I think as you remain consistent in the gym, or you consistently do these things, you train your body, your mind to know that, hey, I am a consistent person. I am building self respect, like, I said I was going to be, go out to do X, I did X, and that is good, like, I have a practical, anecdotal, like, life experience, where I completed something I said I was going to do, and then like, hey, why do we do super hard things, like, why do we run marathons?

Like, why do people run marathons? Like, hey, I want to run a marathon because it's hard. And well, why do we want to do something that's hard? Because we want to, we want to see if we can do it. [00:42:00] And then we do do it. It's like, wow, we spent all these months training for something. We completed it. We did it.

Like, good job. And I think there's an element of like, when you're building your mental health, it's the same thing. Like, Hey Franklin, like, I really respect you for doing this podcast and making a large effort to change men's lives. Okay, so I respect you for something, and I can start getting little pearls from that.

Like, well, I, I'm respecting Franklin because he's helping other people, so what if I help other people? Then I might start respecting myself more. Like, what do you admire in other people when you read their books, you hear their podcasts, and what is it ultimately they're doing? Like, okay, well, if you do that You're going to build that same admiration for yourself, and I think that's another super important part that you get from physical and mental health.

Yeah, there's got to be some action behind it. You know, that reinforces it and solidifies it in your life. It's [00:43:00] just, you know, telling yourself some things. I mean, just kind of like, I can tell myself I'm rich, I'm good looking, I'm whatever it may be. If my, if in my heart or in my subconscious mind, I don't believe that to begin with, there's no lasting change or really no meaningful shift from where I'm at.

But when I start doing things, then that's when things begin to change. And you have to. I think we all rea like a big part is like, oh, hey, cool, this idea is awesome, but realizing we all have different starting points, like the person who has maybe severe PTSD, their subconscious mind is going to be very, um, maybe worked or distorted from the present state because of some severe trauma in the past, and then it's not going to be as simple as like, hey, let me do a few good things, To make me feel good about myself or make me feel worthy.

Like it's, it's very, depending where you're at and your past and what, what deck of cards you were [00:44:00] dealt when you were born, I think it was Warren Buffett calls it like the ovarian lottery. So like, we kinda, we don't have much of a choice what we're born into and, and the, the cards that we were dealt and just.

You know, it's going to be different depending where you started and like your journey is going to look different than other people, but I think it's really important like we respect and hold space and encourage people that like, hey, there is a way out of this. Like, you may be seeing option A and option B very binary, like, but usually there's an option C, D, E, F, G.

That maybe you're not seeing, and this is kind of what we do in our line, is like, maybe open up some possibilities that there are other ways to do things, um, and seeking professional help, being, you know, having those deep, meaningful conversations, um, doing consistent things in the gym. Building that self respect for yourself, building that self love for yourself all contributes [00:45:00] into raising that, that, um, fitness score, um, of, of your, of your person.

I want to tie in real quick to something that Derek said a minute ago and, and make a really strong point for the men listening to this, because like you said, this is the World Needs Men podcast. So as men, and if we have wives, if we have children, we have families. Our greatest responsibility is to lead our families.

If you are not physically, if you are neglecting your physical and mental health and fitness, you are neglecting and undermining your ability and your capacity and your, and your integrity. When it comes to leadership, a fit man can lead his family better. A fit man can serve his family better. A fit man can, it can be a, be someone that his kids looked up to and are proud of, that his wife can look up at and [00:46:00] be proud of, and, and there are far too many men who who have stories around why they don't need to go to the gym or they don't need to work on their normal health when it's like, no, that's a non negotiable and that's a required standard if you take responsibility for leading your family seriously.

End of story. I don't care like what the story is behind your fitness, why you want to do any of these things. Like at the end of the day, your physical health and fitness. is a required standard in order to lead your family, period. And that is the only reason, in my mind, you should need to get out and get into the gym and start working on your mental health.

It's the foundation. Yeah. If that one doesn't make sense to you, like everything that we're giving is just sticks and sticks and framework on top of the foundation that you just talked about, Franklin, but you're a hundred percent right. Like that's, that's your bottom line. That's what you [00:47:00] build off of them.

If you don't have that. You have to develop your bedrock or else you're, you're throwing your anchor into deep water. It's not hitting the sand. You're just playing pretend. Gentlemen, as we, uh, get close to wrapping these up, what are some, uh, final thoughts that you all would have for the men listening to this, maybe to jar them a little bit, helping them to wake up if they need to wake up or help them to, you know, get some sleep.

Just have encouragement if they're already on the right path, but need, need some, some additional motivation. First, as always, thank you for the, the platform. And, you know, I talked about three buckets. The last bucket is the bucket that we all know. So that's why I've saved it for the last. And I'm not going to dive into and go through all the points of it, other than to just say discipline, commitment, and goal setting.

Like teaching discipline, commitment to measurable goals, instilling perseverance, Promoting Time Narrator, all the things, the objective things that you've already heard and read from Jocko and everybody else on the planet Earth about a discipline, [00:48:00] discipline, commitment, commitment, you know, goal setting.

But I, I think that the biggest pearl today, the most obvious, is what you just kind of summed up just now, Franklin, and I want to leave your listeners from my point of view where your singular reason to put points into physical and mental health is so that you can be the man that you wanted to show up in your life when you were a kid.

Be that person, right? Be the strong person physically, be the strong person emotionally. Be the person that you don't get rattled, that doesn't shake you, and not because it's fake, but because you have training, and you have practice, and you have reinforced and strengthened it. Be the person that you, that your family feels confident walking down the dark alley with, and if you're not, then change it.

Be the person that your kids look at and say, someday I'm gonna have kids, and I hope my dad's still around. Right now, he's a hundred, he's hundreds of pounds overweight, he's gonna have a heart attack, he's gonna die of diabetes. Now listen, there's things you can't control, but there's things [00:49:00] that you can.

And if you just, if you're not taking advantage of controlling that with all of the many resources that we have in this world, then it's almost like you're an asshole. You're being selfish. And maybe you need to hear that, and maybe you don't. But if you die early because of shit that you chose, and you're not there for your kid's kids, That's on you.

That's painful, but that's fact. Amen. And

we all need to hear that. Like I'm a fit guy, right? And I love hearing that, right? Cause it gives me more motivation and more just drive to keep doing what I'm doing. Cause I know that there's a bigger purpose than just a set of abs or just the way you look or just making more money. Like this comes down to leading your family.

This comes down to the legacy. What are your, Kids gonna remember. What are your grandkids gonna remember or not remember? And it's way bigger than you. I'll leave us off with [00:50:00] just be the change that you want to see in the world. Think as simple as that like if You know, there's something you don't like.

You know, you see this kind of broken, fractured society. Be the change. Be the strong one. Be the healthy person. That's it. It starts with us. It's Mahatma Gandhi. I had to Google that, but I was like, that's gotta be a Gandhi thing. Josh went to India. Somebody should have a whole podcast on him living in the cave with the Indian gurus smoking peyote with their 50 wives and his experiences.

We'll, we'll leave that one for another episode. Cool. Aw man, Josh and Derek, thank you all so much. This wraps up our, uh, number three of our four part series, uh, Mental Physical Health. Men, if you're listening to this, Get out, sweat, work on your mental state because your family needs it, they deserve it, and, uh, and you honestly deserve a man that, uh, that you can be proud of when you look in the mirror.

That wraps [00:51:00] this one up. Go be the man the world needs.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to the podcast, give us a rating and review, and share this episode with one man you know needs to hear this message. We want to encourage as many men as possible to show up as the strong leaders Loving husbands and intentional fathers their family deserves.

And until next time, be the man the world needs.