SPEAKER_01 0:04

And listen, this is why you may feel like you're an unfinished man, right? Because these are all these life skills that you probably didn't pick up because you had an absent father. And we're telling you, simply put, bro, whatever voids exist, whatever skills you didn't learn, whatever lessons were never taught, build them. Learn them. Educate yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

And apply them. Please apply them. Just don't learn. Apply it. Yes, apply them. Failures Podcast. Today we're talking about the missing father figure. And why did it leave you unfinished? This is the Missing Man Manual. It's not an episode where Rich and I vent about our past and not having our fathers in our lives or blaming other people for our lack of success. It's not a cope episode. It's not a venting episode. I think this episode is going to be more for the young man who wants a solution to this problem. Why did my missing father figure leave me unfinished? The question that we hope to answer today is how do you move on? How do you overcome? How do you create your own manual to the missing man that was not in your life? How do you turn your father wound into overcoming your father wound? Let's just say hypothetically you were dropped to the jungle, the wild Amazon, dangerous animals all around you, constant rain, the elements are fucking you up. You're just in a terrible situation. You're a young man in the middle of nowhere with no roadmap, nowhere to go. That is the perspective that Rich and I are going to come at this episode with. We feel you. Why do we feel you? Because this problem was Rich and I's problem. And not to say that we're over it. I don't think anyone gets over the father wound, not having a father figure in your life, and the burden and the level of compensation and overcompensation that comes with not having a father around. If you check our archives, Rich and I have older episodes discussing this issue, but it did so well with our community that we decided to run it back. But this time we're going to run it back with some more actionable advice, and we are really going to help young men figure out how to navigate this jungle of a world that you're in without a father figure. Rich, I know this was a deep one of you, and we did get a lot of engagement on you speaking on the issue with your father or not having a father figure growing up. But I guess the first question I want to ask you to kick it off is do you remember that feeling that you didn't have a father figure? And what did you learn because he wasn't around?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, just I'm excited to unpack this one, bro. Cause, well, not excited, but like ripping up old uh wounds.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Man, I'm excited to get into this one.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I'm excited to talk about this pain. Yeah, free therapy. Yeah. Man, honestly, what I do remember, it's funny how when you're hurt by something at a young age, you just remember like the things you didn't have because that person wasn't around. And for me, what I can immediately recall was I remember had a lot of questions about sex and women that I didn't feel comfortable going to my mom and asking her those type of questions, right? I had questions about money, personal finance, fitness, health, like all these sort of basic manhood principles, right? That I felt like only a father can teach a young man. I had all these questions, but I never felt comfortable going to my mom to get the answers because, you know, I feel like I was gonna get the woman's perspective on how to become a man. And I wasn't sure if like that was the right perspective that I should be receiving. But ultimately, I do recall just feeling the overarching sense of like abandonment. I'm like, damn, my pops left when I was really early in age, and I never really got to build a relationship with him. And I just remember feeling like, damn, was I not enough for this person? And it's interesting because when you let your mind wander into the realm of like the what-ifs, you start to feel like, damn, was I the problem? Am I not good enough? You start to question your self-worth. And I just remember as a young guy just battling those feelings internally. You know, these are demons that every young man who grows up with a father has to overcome. So I'm hoping that we can share some actionable advice for the young guy feeling the way we felt when we were younger.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, Rich, we are gonna get into both of our situations and how I think if you tell your story about how your father literally wasn't around, and my version of the story, where my father was physically around, but he wasn't around mentally, he wasn't around emotionally, he wasn't around in any other way than just to hit the streets and provide for me and my brother and my mother. And at 12, 13 years old, my father left and he had his own issues, and my mom was forced to move on without him. And me and my mom wound up living together. So I think if you take those three versions of a father wound, or what was it that was missing for a lot of the young men in our community, it could be all the way from a father who was there physically but wasn't there emotionally, wasn't there for them when they needed him? And then you go to your situation, which is a bit more extreme and more traditional in the sense that your father wasn't around. So I kind of want to touch on all of those because I feel like when we shared our story in the first episode titled Father Wound, which was one of our earlier episodes and frankly our most successful episode, it hit us like, damn, why did this strike a nerve? Why did our community show up in such crazy numbers for that episode? And I'm interested to know your takeaway, Rich, from kind of digging in and learning more about our community and why that episode struck a nerve and what it meant to you as a 38-year-old man who has a son.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Bro, honestly, I'm hurt by that, Jess. I'm hurt that that is our most successful episode. Because to me, what that tells me is that our community of young men feel this wound and want solutions for this wound, you know, and they don't have anywhere to turn to. Famous people are not talking about this, YouTubers are not talking about this, content creators are not talking about this. Like, this is sort of like the elephant in the room that every Latin American, every African American, every like minority who grew up without a father, immigrant parents feel. And like, no one talks about this. And, you know, here we are, like some new guys in the space talking about our own lived experience of growing up without a father or growing up with an absent father, and immediately people start to resonate. And it's just because this type of content doesn't exist out there. So my first reaction was like, damn, I'm kind of hurt that people have no solutions for this wound that they feel of not having a father around.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah. We speak about villains in the episode, and I want to be clear out the gate. This particular episode, which is essentially our second time speaking on this specific subject, is we want to be clear the villain in this episode is not your father. The villain is not even your mother, it's the emotional stress and the burden that you've taken on and you allowed to be essentially your entire identity. I speak from experience. I allowed an absent father, someone who was mentally, emotionally not available, be the reason why I was who I was all the way until my mid-30s. I'm 40 years old now. This didn't hit me until my last relationship, where I got into an argument with my ex, and she basically checkmated me in the argument, and she was just like, Man, look at your fucking Instagram bio. It says Macho's son. You live in the shadow of your father. You are living to make sure that that man recognizes you and sees you with his own eyes. Your inability to be a good partner, your inability to let people in, honestly, your work ethic, everything about you is a shadow that comes from whatever situation hasn't been handled between you and your father. And the reason why I wanted to start here, Rich, is because we touched on very briefly something that I thought was most important when I re-listened to the old episode and I thought about this episode. The greatest progress that I've made in my life on this specific subject was the hot coal analogy. And I think we have to reiterate what I meant when I said if you have to carry a burden or some sort of identity from your past around with you to define you for the rest of your life, you're doing yourself a disservice. You're doing future people that want to love you and care for you for you a disservice. And in your situation, Rich, you have a son. I plan on having a family. I met a beautiful young lady that I want to have a family with. If I didn't address that hot coal that I was walking around with that was burning my own hands and no one else felt the pain I felt, if I didn't address that and drop it when I believe I dropped it a few years ago, it was like the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders because I wasn't living in the shadow of something that I had no control over. I was moving forward with no burden, with no resentment, with no agenda, just moving forward and understanding that part of my life was just that part of my life. And I can't really change or control that. So I want to be clear from the beginning of this episode: the villain is not fathers. The villain is not pointing at someone and saying, because of you, I'm this, or because of you not being there, I am not this. The villain is the hot coal that you keep holding. You need to let go of that hot coal so you can properly move forward in your life and figure out who you really are without that burden.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, that's well said, Just. And, you know, I think it's interesting how you know you could view your relationship with your mom or dad and always feel like you yearn for their acceptance, you earn for their love, you earn for their validation, right? And that feeling is okay, bro. Like these two individuals are literally your creators, right? Like they put you on this planet, they gave you life, they give you everything, right? So wanting the most out of that relationship from each of them is not a bad thing. And I think that's why the father wound stings so much, is when you get that love, the validation, the care, the nurturing from your mom, you're like, ah, cool, the mom side of things are taken care of. And then you turn to your pops, and if he's there but not there emotionally for you, or there to validate your wins or acknowledge you in any way, you feel the wound. Or if he's just not there physically at all and he's completely out of the picture, you also feel the wound, right? But to your point, Just, I think it's important, like you have a distinction here, right? You have the glass half full analogy or the glass uh half empty. And in that analogy, you gotta look at the world as the glass half full, right? Because you do have your mom and she is around and she is your support system, and she is potentially playing both roles. I think the poison is when you start to look at the cup half empty and you start to make the second half of that empty cup your identity. Nah, man, my pops wasn't around. Like I'm this because of my pops, right? Like I'm a hard ass because of my pops. I'm aggressive because my pops wasn't around. Um, I didn't go to college because my pops never instilled that in me. Like, all these excuses about why you're not doing good in your life because your dad wasn't around. Like, that is the poison that we're definitely trying to highlight too.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Rich, we spoke about it earlier and we should get into it immediately. I think one of the biggest hurdles that you can get over early in your life, if you are a young man that metaphorically feels like you're at a disadvantage, you were dropped off in the jungle with no help, no male role model, no roadmap, just in the middle of the jungle, no way how to get out. It's very plausible and understandable and reasonable to play the victim in that situation because you truly are a young person that got left in a defenseless position to fend yourself against the world. So feeling like a victim feels right. And you're not wrong in that moment. But as you move forward, one big issue that we have in our community and you have to free yourself of is the victim script. Like this victim script is the stories you keep telling yourself about how you got here as a young adult. Yes, a young kid should not be left out in the wild to defend themselves. Rich, I forgive you. I'm looking at myself in the camera, Justin, I forgive you. That wasn't your responsibility. You weren't put into this planet. Someone brought you onto this world. But it has to stop there when you're young, because as you move forward, you need some sort of legs to stand on. And if the victim script is the thing still holding you back, if it's your cope, it's your cop out for every issue you have in your early 30s, your mid-30s, your late 30s, you're not doing anybody no favors, even if it's true. You get what I'm saying? Like, even if there's truth to this victim that you play in your own life, you're not doing anybody no favors by moving forward. It's the equivalent of a person who was born handicapped, autistic, missing a limb, face deformed, skin issues. If you keep blaming how you were born instead of moving forward, you're living in a jail and you're living in an old story that you keep telling yourself. And that right there, the victim script, has to be our first stop outside of the father wound expressed. Because if you don't get to this early, the entire episode doesn't make sense because you're going to keep going back to that comfortable place where you get to blame someone else.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah. And listen, you're paralyzed. If you're making the abandonment that you feel of your father not being around, you are living like a person who's paralyzed, right? You're not able to move forward, you're holding on to excuses. Like they come to a point just where that abandonment becomes an excuse of why you don't take actions on certain things in your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, Rich, I want to just get into a real life situation. Imagine a young man going through this. Imagine yourself, imagine myself. What are some regular life things that come up that you can easily point at and say, yeah, I'm like that because I don't have a father figure?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, listen, just being bad with women, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Um, being bad with money. Being bad with your emotions, dealing with conflict, not having emotional regulation. You can't discern the difference between being angry or trying to solve a problem. Yeah. You want to know how I know? Because these are things that I deal with. I don't deal with conflict well. I'm easily triggered. I'm irritable. And I don't have good emotional regulation. It takes a long time for me to get out of a very dark headspace, a very visceral, angry headspace, and get into a more calm, oh, this is the real Justin. And I have to give myself that forgiveness in the 20 seconds it takes for me to go from being angry, vengeful, spiteful, you know, like that rage. And then I got to get out of that space quickly because I do realize, oh shit, this comes from not having that proper infrastructure, a man around that helped me manage that frustration that I never dealt with. So I wanted to address that. Rich and I still suffer from these things. We still fight these things in the daily. So I don't want our listener to feel like, oh yeah, these guys, easy for you to say, you got over it. I'm still dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

No, that's a great point you just mentioned, just because I feel like this wound, we've said this before, doesn't go away. What you have to try to find the ability to do is minimize the wound to a small, insignificant size as possible. Because the wound is what's allowing for you to continue to move forward. For example, I chose to be present in my children's lives because I know what abandonment felt like. And I never wanted my children to feel that abandonment. So the only reason why I'm able to make sure that I'm there for them is because I still feel that wound of abandonment, right? It's still lingering somewhere. I just don't make it my identity. I just don't use it as a crutch for excuses, right? So I think to your point, this is something that doesn't go away, but you have to find ways to minimize it to sort of like a smaller volume, something that is not overarchingly impacting like your everyday life, and you're using it as a crutch for excuses. Another thing I could call out too, just is like one of the things that I feel like helped me out tremendously was this sounds a little selfless, but put yourself in your father's shoes. Just think about where his mental was when he decided to leave. What was he going through? What were his circumstances? What were the cards that he was though? And I'm not saying to put yourself in his shoes to give him sympathy. I'm saying the more you understand and unpack why this dude is not around or decided to leave, the faster you derive at a feeling of acceptance. And it's a significant pivot in your life. Because once you're able to accept what happened in that situation and that relationship between you and your dad, then you could start to pivot to work on yourself and make the strides that you need to, you know, move yourself forward.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, Rich, I know I said this story before about the pandemic and how it played a crucial role in my ability to really understand what it was about my relationship with my father that was bothering me in a way that I could literally not put it like a pin on it. I didn't understand where the root of my frustration was for a man that I my father was a deity to me, like this untouchable, incredible, my dad will beat your dad up. Kind of I was living in a warped universe where every human that came around me, from the age of zero all the way to 15, I never met another man that didn't tell me how incredibly amazing my father was. Your father's a great guy, your father's a stand-up guy, your father's a general, he'll do anything on the streets to figure it out for us. My father was a leader, a man amongst men. What was so confusing to me and what I learned during the pandemic was the relationship I had with him in my house, with my mother and my brother, was so different than the relationship he had with the world and how the world saw him. And I held him to a standard that wasn't even fair for any human being, let alone a standard for myself at 40 years old currently. No adult living should be held to a standard that's unattainable. And during the pandemic, the company I worked for gave everyone five free sessions of therapy. Any therapist of your choice. And naturally, I went to a therapist that was a woman that specialized in people that come from inner city, lower income, abusive families. And like she specialized, she was a black woman, and she specialized in understanding that of the plight of people of color and people that have a little guilt for succeeding in a family that didn't necessarily have a lot. And Rich, it only took two sessions before this therapist identified my problem. And my problem was oh, you've pedestalized your father, and he's nothing but a normal person. We call that false idols theory. You're putting someone on a pedestal that is a flawed human being. You have to take him off that pedestal. He is nothing but a regular person, but you gave him this regard, you gave him this grace, and because you gave him such high standards, you've given him power over your life to be this person that can't make any mistakes. But she told me a story about her father, which I related to, and she said, I had the same problem. My dad was um a black man that was raised in the 50s and the 60s in the United States. Racism was prevalent. He set a standard for me that I couldn't keep. He was a Harvard NBA. He went and got his master's degree. And she said in that very moment that she was giving me therapy about my father, even to this moment, Justin, I still feel like I'm not enough for my father because he is the bar of excellence in my life. He is the mountaintop that I'm never gonna be able to climb to the top. And when she said that to me, my whole worldview shattered, bro. I was like, oh, so our parents are just. Normal flawed people like everyone else, she's like, No, your father is just as flawed as you are. You have to give him grace, you have to let him be a flawed man and don't hold him to that pedestal because you holding him to that pedestal is what makes you disappointed in him. Fuck me up. Fucked me up because it it unlocked a lot of the hot hole that I was holding. No parent is perfect because no parent is this unflawed human walking the planet. And that's the lesson that I had to take away. And it was false idols. I had false idols. And it made me deal with all authority different after that. There's no boss, there's no police officer, there's no politician, there's no president, there's no crossing guard, there's no fucking sheriff of the police department that can tell me anything anymore. Because I'm thinking to myself, oh, we're all flawed humans walking this planet. Nobody really knows. And when you come to the conclusion that nobody really knows, everybody's figuring it out day over day, it gives you grace. And that right there was a huge life unlock. So, like I said before, the fathers are really not the villain in this episode. It's the worldview you have and how you decide to move forward from that pent-up aggression you have towards someone that you have resentment towards.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, bro. And listen, we've said this before, Just, you have to free yourself from that wound. You have to free yourself from that pain. You can't walk around life carrying the burden of abandonment, the burden of like feeling that you're not good enough, uh, that you have no self-worth because your dad decided to leave your family. Like, that is a very heavy burden to carry. And I'm telling you, if you carry that burden all throughout your life and into adulthood, you just become paralyzed and you're a person that is difficult to connect with. You're a person that is is hard to just overcome obstacles, bro.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Listen, if you want to free yourself of the shadow that looms over you, that is a kid that grew up without a dad, you have to remember one simple thing. The more you value what you have zero control over, the less control you have over your very own life. Don't let that go over your head. The more you value what you have zero control over, the less control you have over your very own life. That is a huge unlock for me and a huge life cheat code because any situation that my energy, input, effort doesn't control the outcome, I just gotta let go of that steering wheel because if not, I'm always gonna live in a purgatory where I feel like I can't defend myself. You either become your father or you spend your life trying to prove you're not your father. That is the hell that most of these young men live in. This is the hell that I lived in. And Rich, I'm sure the same for you. You define yourself based on what you did not have. And that's a fucked up situation to be in because you don't even know who you are because you spend so much time trying to get your lick back.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah. Listen, and for me, just I think you hit the nail right on the head. That was a pivotal moment for me, was when I came to the realization that I can't control my circumstances. I can't control that this individual decided to leave his family. But what I can control is how I feel about the situation. What I can control is how I move forward, how I rebuild my worldview, my identity, how I self-educate myself, how I learn about things, you know, about manhood, and just overall, like how I build myself to be sort of the opposite of what this person was to me, right? Like, bro, that is the worldview that I took on just. It was, I'm going to do everything possible to be the opposite of what this man was for me. I think that reframe is extremely important, but it can also be a dangerous one, right? Because I think some guys fall into the pitfalls of going on the internet to try to find substitute dads, right? Some revert to the streets to find substitute dads, someone to fill that void of you not having a father around. And we definitely got to unpack that, just because I feel like that whole mechanism of like gathering information on the internet, subscribing to like alphabetic content, joining a gang, getting locked up, getting cool with gang members, like there's a whole genre of father substitutes that we also need to unpack.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

When you think of a substitute, Dad, you think of the past 10 years, definitely in the last five years, a lot of young men who are in the middle of the jungle, dropped off in the middle of the wild, crazy animals all around, the weather conditions are terrible, it's raining, and you're left there as a young man with no father figure to defend for yourself. And that's where substitute dads come in because content creators realize this. So I'm saying Rich and I are hypocrites because we do understand the weird situation we've put ourselves in where it's like, man, are we truly gonna say we can offer our community guaranteed actionable advice to their problems? Absolutely not. I don't think we're capable of solving anyone's problem in one 50-minute podcast, let alone an eight-minute YouTube clip, let alone a fucking TikTok 30 seconds. So, what Rich and I wanted to point at as one of the main points of this episode was be careful with what happens once you realize that you have a father wound and you've figured out that there's an axe grind towards your father because he's not around. Because what comes of that is the most predictable things that every research paper on young men who overcompensate has pulled. And what is that, Rich? Overcompensation, ultra-alpha energy, guys that are overcompensating to be hella manly. You start finding new dads on the internet. So you you look up to any guy that resembles anyone with a roadmap that could get you out of the jungle. Hey, uh, I feel like this creator can get me out. Hey, sir, do you know how to get out of this crazy jungle that I'm in? Yes, follow me. Of course, if I'm desperate, I'm gonna follow anyone that's even holding a map. It doesn't matter. They don't need any more proof than that. So when you talk about substitute dads, you have to proceed with caution. Because you're so lost, you'd probably follow anybody. Because you're so vulnerable, you'll probably trust anybody. Because you're so broken and you have all this youthful fucking testosterone, you'll probably run to the end of a cliff with a guy that's talking about some real, you should get really big, take TRT and steroids, get strong, fuck the world, fuck women. That shit sounds enticing when you're lost in the sauce. So substitute dads is a huge segment that we should get into, Rich, and how that affects young men and how it affected you and how it affected me.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Bro, I think I have a very toxic way of viewing the substitute dad because I feel like I was definitely looking for a way to fill that void when I was a young man, but ultimately the realization that I came to, bro, is that all men are flawed. All men are flawed, right? All humans are flawed, yes. All humans are flawed, right? But bro, once I came to that realization, I really got to a point in my life where I felt like I can't blindly follow any one man. I have to discern my own opinions, my actions, discipline. Like I have to have ultimate trust in myself that the decisions that I'm making, that the opinions that I have, that the life that I'm crafting for myself, my lifestyle, my identity is the right way of doing things. And to zoom in a little bit, the reason why I feel that way was because my mom ended up remarrying. And she was with my um stepfather at the time for over like 10 years. And that was as close to a father that I've ever felt like I had, right? He was the guy she was with for an extended period of time, and he was around from about 15 to 20 something. But long story short, this man ended up cheating on my mom twice. And I happened to catch him both times. Is that why you did air quotes for him? Air quotes, because he was my what I thought was my stepfather substitute dad.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Was he almost like at that young age, someone that you hoped could be a father figure, like someone that can lead you out of the woods?

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like he was the closest thing to a dad that I ever had. Ever since that experience, I'm like, damn, my pops left when I was two. I had a stepfather for about 10 years that turned out to cheat on my mom twice. And I really started to grow like trust issues for the quote unquote like father, right? Like I'm looking for a father figure to fill the void that I feel. I'm like, I got to a point where I build a hard shell for myself. And to reiterate, I decided a long time ago, just that I will not follow any one man's advice blindly, not from the internet, not from a relative, not from a stepfather. I collect and gather information as I go along, but I'm never living with these blinders on that any one man has a solution to all my problems. Because I feel like you're living in a fallacy if that's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, it's the equivalent of not having the right nutrition, right? Like your body is looking for something that no one needs. And in your situation, Rich, you knew you needed a male role model, a solid man in your life to be your road and your map for what it is to be a man in the inner city that you grew up in, in the fucked up financial situation you grew up in. But just date back to 12-year-old Rich. What does that feel like? Knowing that no one really put that blueprint in front of you, and you just clinged on to the first guy you saw. And of course, you were once again met with disappointment.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah. And listen, just if we're putting ourselves in the headspace of like a 12-year-old Justin, a 12-year-old Rich, that void is scary, bro. Like you looking out into the world and feeling like, I don't know what I need to do next. Like, what should I be doing? What should I be learning? What should I be researching? Should I be reading books? Should I be going to play in the park? Like, there's no one out here other than your mom guiding you. It's a very scary thought, bro. And I remember being 16, 17, being like, man, I don't want to be how my father was to me. Like, I want to be present for my children. I want to give them a life that I never had. And shit, even when there's things that I can't give my children to this day, I feel the guilt that I might be slipping back into like what my pops wasn't able to do for me. So I always live with this like push and pull of like trying to show up for my children, trying to be a good father, trying to not be what my father was to me. And this like, it's a constant struggle. I can't tell you that I have the solution for it all yet.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Rich, think about the three words we keep walking around and tossing around and discussing and unpacking. Substitute dads, false idols, anti-dads. What's an anti-dad? Well, if my dad was this, I'm gonna be the opposite. If my dad was um mujeriego, a guy that had a lot of girlfriends, someone that was always stepping out of my mom, I'm gonna be a pro-woman kind of guy. I'm only going to support everything women because I live in the opposite mirror reflection of my dad. I am the opposite. He is the shadow, I am the person. I am the person, he is the shadow. Notice how everything we've discussed, because it it is the top three things that came up in our research when trying to understand the headspace of this young guy, all of the identities that these young men create all stem from the father wound. And like you said, most of these situations, including ours, they never fully heal. So what does that mean, Rich? It just means that you think you're solving your problem, but you're living in the vessel and in the idea of a wound that you have, and everything comes from that wound. It's the equivalent of drinking salt water. You think you're doing the right thing because there's fluid there and it's going to quench your thirst. But no one tells you there's salt in the water. And in that salt water, every time you drink thinking you're solving your problem, you're doing things thinking you're solving your problem. You're building your entire life identity around this problem that you have. And the more you drink, the more thirstier you become. The more self-help content that you consume, the more helpless you become. The more therapy that you go out and get, the more therapy you need because you realize you're living further in that identity. The more prescriptions you get, the more the milligrams increase because you need more prescription. These are all infinite loops that you can't get out of. And I don't know the solution to this, but I think pointing it out is probably the most helpful thing for this young man. Aim to solve the problem. Get to the root of it. Don't aim for a prescription. We've discussed this in other episodes. The more you indulge in the pain that is the thing that's stopping you from being your best self, the more the pain lives and exists. I don't know if there's a solution, but I would tell you stop leaning towards the salt water and just find something that is going to quench your thirst forever. And you have to understand that if you're on your 30th audiobook and your 100th YouTube video and you have screenshots and screen recordings of a whole bunch of things that are going to allegedly help you get rid of your problem, is that you're living in your failure. You have to figure out a solution to it.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Yeah, absolutely, bro. And just shout out to moms, bro. Like, how gangster are moms that they just step in and like show up as mothers, show up as fathers, handle the household, pay the rent, pay the bills, take you on vacations, buy you clothes. Like, I love the fact that I could point back to my childhood and be like, damn, my mom really played both roles. And she whipped our ass too. So, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. She really played like the man-father role. And I remember being young and not realizing that she was playing both roles at the time. I really focused on the fact that he wasn't around. And it's almost like I put blinders to what she was contributing. Because I'm like, in my mind, as a young guy, I was like, you can never be my father. Like, you can never teach me how to be a man, right? So you because you live with this Aggie aggression that, like, nah, man, you're not my dad. The only person that could show me how to be a real man is my dad, right? This is like, I know that this is how some young men feel, because I felt like this too. But I just want to remind folks that as you get older and you start looking back at your past and you start to see how your mom showed up for you, you have to acknowledge that she's playing both roles and probably still is playing both roles for you. And um, that can't be overlooked, man. Shout out to moms.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, and Rich, I I do want to say something that I think could help a young man that is dealing with a life crisis that he knows started with not having a father in his life. If you are still angry at your father, and you're in your late teens, early 20s, shit, late 20s, and you're still angry at him, one simple thing that I've done in my life that has helped me is you can do one of two things. One is you can forgive him out of genuineness, or if you can't genuinely find it in your heart to forgive him, you can forgive him out of selfishness. You can selfishly say, you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna forgive him so I can move on. And I think that's one part of the episode that I want to get to, Rich. Part of moving on is what you just said, appreciating the life for what it is at this moment. And part of that appreciation is thinking to yourself, like, damn, I don't know if Rich would have been the father he is today if he didn't have this unfortunate situation that he was raised in. I don't know if Rich would have an appreciation for his girl and the mother to his kids if he didn't realize how important his mother was to his life. There are the yin and the yang of the life experience. And if you can't take both with that little bit of salt that came in your water, then that's fine. But I think the best way to move on is to really have a perspective of what's to come in the future. I know for a fact that this experience that I was unfortunately given as a young man, given my situation with my family, I will not replicate that with my kids. I will fight everything to not replicate that with my kids. And I do think that is a good way to look forward and move forward from this situation of a father womb.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, I agree with you, Jess. And you know what that reminds me? Six years ago, I thought that I had come to a place of full acceptance. I internally forgave my father for like not being around. And I remember this one day vividly where I had just closed on my house. I went to Home Depot, I picked up some supplies. I'm driving home, right? Like I just got the keys that day. And I just remember thinking to myself, damn, if my father only saw what I had just accomplished, would he be proud of me? Bro, I fucking balled for 15 minutes straight from Home Depot all the way to my house. And, you know, I got to my house, wiped away my tears, and really gathered myself. And I was shocked to feel like, damn, like I just really cried about that. Like I'm 32 years old, and I just cried about like not having my dad around. It wasn't really about him not being around, it was just me not having the big homie, the father figure, to be like, yo, am I the guy? Am I doing it? Like, am I am I doing the right things at 32 years old? Like, what of the 32-year-old, do you know, uh, just purchase a house? And I didn't have that validation and that's acknowledgement that I wanted during that time. And I just remember filling that void, and I had to sort of fight those feelings of like, you know what? We don't need the validation. Pat myself on the back, keep it moving, you know. But I say that to say to every young guy listening, you might feel this way your whole entire life, bro. I'm 38 years old. I can't tell you that I don't have these thoughts from time to time about feeling abandoned by my father, feeling like he wasn't around. Thinking about the what is. How would have my life turned out had he been in the picture? It actually could have been worse for me. He probably would have guided me in a way where I shouldn't have been guided, and I'd be doing some other shit. But fortunately, I was raised by my mom. She did the best she could, and I'm fairly successful in my own right. So I think it all worked out the way it was supposed to at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Rich, I do want to ask you a question to follow up on that, but one thought or a response to what you just said that I think is a huge takeaway for myself, just listening to you, is these holes in our life that feel like huge potholes that define us, they can't be filled. That story you just told me, I've heard you say it before, but it hit me different this time. You're hoping to fill these voids left behind people that should have been there. But these voids can be filled, and that's okay. A woman is not gonna fill that pain of that void that you have from a fucked up childhood, not having your father around, not having enough money, not having enough options in life, getting abused, getting teased. A woman's not gonna fill that void. A lot of money is not going to fill that void. Closing on your first house, knowing you grew up in a fucking little ass apartment in West New York with your brothers, your mom, uncles, aunts coming in and out, barely any food for you when you get home after practice or school, closing a house is not going to fill that void. And my word to the young man that misses his dad and feels like he wasn't present in his life, I have News for you at 32, your greatest accomplishment, getting a call from him, is probably not going to fill that void either. The best thing you can do, and I got this from your story, Rich, is to just do a 180, turn away from the void and start building on a brand new foundation that is your life currently. And build your family's legacy, your last name. Build on a solid foundation. Do not try to build on that void because everything will collapse. You're trying to fill that void that's unfillable. And that story, Rich, of you closing on your house is such a beautiful story. But it's insane to me that you accomplished one of the greatest goals that any young man in your family with your last name has ever done. You're fulfilling the dream of your grandfather, whoever the fuck came from DR to the United States, to live the American dream. You are the fucking manifestation of whatever that idea was. And you immediately gave that moment back to the hole in the ground. And you were like, man, I wish somebody would have scrapped that. Turn around, build that foundation. And I know you well enough now at 38, Rich. That's what you're on. You're building that with your daughter, you're building that with your son, you're building that with your girl. And I love that for you because I see you and me. We are one and the same. And the more you live in your past, the more you're haunted by your past.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Man, that's well said, bro. It's it's so crazy how we attach ourselves to all the different voids that we feel in life. And, you know, you you have to play the cards that you were dealt, right? You can't constantly complain that you were dealt a bad hand and blame the bad hand for your shortcomings, right? Yeah, bro. Like at some point, you have to come to acceptance that these voids exist. They're going to hurt, they're going to come up periodically, but you have to find ways to navigate around them. And one of the things that has helped me just navigate around these voids, like you said, is building a solid foundation of people who love me. My mom is around, my brothers are around. I have a girlfriend. I have two children. I have an incredible relationship with my girlfriend's family, her mom, her dad, her grandparents, her aunts. Like I have surrounded myself with a community of people who love me. And because I'm surrounded by so much love, that makes the voids that exist in my life that much smaller. They're still there, they still exist. But because I'm surrounded by such a solid foundation, I'm not gravitating to those voids like if I didn't have them, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Yeah. I mean, the void is important. And if Rich and I are not a good enough case study of quote unquote successful men that have literally conquered everything in the world, I can point out a few references from history and even some fictional to remind the young man that thinks, oh, I'm gonna become a millionaire. I'm gonna become a billionaire. I'm gonna show my dad that he missed out on my life. I can point you at a few stories to confirm that that hole in the ground that was your missing dad, that you've built your whole identity on this hollow foundation, it never gets filled if you make your entire life about them. Case in point, Mike Tyson, abandoned by his father, mother was a prostitute, Brownsville, Brooklyn, the worst fucking place on the planet. This dude was raised there, had to fight bullies in order to make it out of the streets of New York, gets arrested, meets a mentor named Customato. Customato becomes his substitute dad, straightens out Mike Tyson's life. He becomes the champion of all champions, youngest heavyweight champion of all time at 19 years old. Customato dies at 24 years old. What happens to Mike Tyson? He becomes a fucking crash out. Multi-millionaire, one of the richest people on the planet, crashes out. Why? Because he took that hole that he had missing in his life and gave that responsibility to another man. That man was his trainer. That man had an objective. He loved Mike Tyson, but you know how many fucking poor kids are in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Brownsville, Brooklyn, Fort Green? You know how many people live in New York that could use a father figure? If Mike Tyson didn't know how to knock motherfuckers out, Costumato would have not cared about him. Customato's a great guy. I'm not shitting on him. What I'm saying is Mike Tyson built his whole identity on this new father figure. And the minute that man died, his whole life was upside down for 20 years. Why, Rich? There's no substitute for dad. There's no fucking amount of patchwork and fake cement and grass and twigs that could fill the hole that is the hole that's missing in your life from not having a father figure. You gotta move on. You have to move on. Another example, Elon Musk, literally the most wealthiest human on the planet Earth, SpaceX, about to go public, merging all his companies together, multi-trillionaire. If you had two drinks with Elon Musk, I know this because I read all his autobiographies, you know what his number one drive is? Not to go to Mars, to prove his father wrong. His father was also an engineer, and his father was someone that abused him physically, mentally, treated him like shit, told him he was dumb, he was worthless. And Elon Musk took that devil that was inside of him, that was the relationship with his dad, who was also an engineer, and he 100x'd his entire life. But his entire drive comes from his relationship with his dad. Elon really wants to prove his father wrong. Elon's father is still alive, by the way. He's from South Africa. He shits on him every opportunity he gets, and he tells the media, Elon got a leg up because of me. He learned everything from me. I know that feeling. That guy reminds me of a guy who raised me. And Elon ain't gonna stop because he literally has left planet Earth and he's on a whole other planet, and he's still looking down at that little punk ass hole that was the curse that was his father, not giving him the validation he wanted. Last example, Alexander the Great. I'm not gonna bore you with the story, but Alexander wasn't the best military expert. His father, Philip II, was the OG. Everybody in history knows Philip II, greatest military mind of all time. You know who never gave Alexander the Great his flowers? When Alexander the Great literally conquered the entire world? I'm not making this shit up. 80% of the known land conquered. You know what Alexander, what was in his journals writing back home? Hey, mom, did Philip, my dad, does he know how far I've gone? Does he know how much world I've accomplished? It's not just a me enriched thing, it's not a just an enrich thing. I named three of the most accomplished humans that have ever walked the fucking planet. And they still haven't filled that little hole, Rich. So, my best advice to you, my best advice to me is A, don't try to fill that hole. Move forward, build on a solid foundation. It's not out of denial, it's out of not holding the resentment. I don't want to hold resentment no more. I want to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Yeah, I agree. And you know, just when you zoom out and you really think about doing all this work for yourself, think about the net negative that is happening now that you've worked on yourself and what you can potentially become for someone else. For example, you can become that missing void for your brothers and sisters, for your nieces and nephews, right? For your cousins, for any stepchildren you might have in the future, for your own children, right? You get to be the person who breaks the cycle, right? The vicious cycle of abandonment. You get to break that. Think about moving forward in life with that power and that responsibility that you can take on as a man and as an individual for the future younger generation and lean into that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Just to kind of close out and build off of what you just said, Rich. Who is Elon Musk's number one comp in life? Do you know who he compares himself to, a fictional character? Do you know who that is? No, I don't. Iron Man. Iron Man. Tony Stark. If you know anything about Iron Man, Tony Stark, do you know why Iron Man created an iron suit and became a version of himself that was a womanizer and alcoholic and a guy that was known for being the strongest man in the world because he created a suit that made him strong? You know what the comic book metaphor for that was, Rich? Iron Man's father was also a fucking engineer. He's the original Stark of Stark Enterprise. And Iron Man's father treated him like shit. And Iron Man's father told Iron Man that he'd never be anything. He's not strong, he's not smart, he doesn't have any superpowers. The dude in a fictional world created his own iron suit and became a superhero in the name of his father's denial. Elon Musk's favorite character is Iron Man. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the father wound and living in this hell that is you just existing and asking yourself, like, man, I'm a grown man. Why can't I get over the fact that I live in the shadow of my father? Why can't I get over the fact that I everything I tell people is this definition is, yeah, bro, because I didn't grow up with a dad. That's why I am the way I am. Why is that? Your brain has a way of remembering shit that didn't even happen. That's another big problem, Rich. Your brain keeps telling you stories of the past that are altered and changed in a way that makes sense to you. But when you tell one of your uncles or somebody about that, they're like, oh, I don't remember it that way. That's not how it happened. Well, why does that happen, Rich? Why do we keep telling ourselves the stories that build the narratives of who we are today and why we do what we do? It's why an alcoholic can justify having 10 drinks a day. It's the story that you tell yourself. And that little story you keep telling yourself is defining you. It defines me. And I guess in some version, Rich, it defines you. I wanted to ask you with the sun, how do you manage that balancing act knowing that you still deal with that?

SPEAKER_01 54:50

I mean, it's very complicated, right? Because in one end, I have the ability to give him everything I never had him more. But in the other hand, I don't want to raise a spoiled brat who feels like he has it all and feels like he doesn't have to work hard for anything. So this is a balancing act that I constantly struggle with is like giving him what he needs, getting him what he wants, but not overcompensating for the things that I never had. And listen, ultimately, I think the best piece of advice that we could give to the young men who are filling like this void exists and are trying to find solutions for how to move forward from this is really we want you to become the man that your younger self would look up to. Become the guy who you needed when you were young.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Rich, I'm gonna put you on the spot because I did this in the father wound episode. I re-listened to it before we went on air today. I was always curious to hear what you would say off top. And my question to you is if you had to write a letter or give yourself advice right now and be able to send this video to your younger self, to a young version of yourself that needed a father most, what would you tell him about what's he's going to experience in the next years of his life? And what would be the most invaluable advice you can give him?

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Yeah, I would tell my younger self two things. The first thing is I would tell my younger self to trust yourself, right? Like there's a lot of uncertainty when you're a young man about how to navigate life, what is right, what is wrong, what are the best choices for you. But ultimately, you have to gather as much information as you possibly can and make the right judgment call for you. And you only do that by trusting yourself. So I would tell my younger self, trust yourself. And the other thing I would tell my younger self is you have to relieve yourself from the pain and the burden that you feel of the father womb void, right? These were the hands you were dealt with, these were the circumstances that you were given. You have to find ways to navigate around these different emotions of anger and anxiety and frustration that you may feel because this man didn't show up for you the way he should have shown up for you.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Well, one more question. What would your advice be to that guy who was looking for other men to help him find his masculinity or find a substitute dad or let someone else raise you? What would your advice be to your younger self or even your son right now is probably looking for other male role models outside of you?

SPEAKER_01 57:34

I've said it before, Jess, and I feel very strongly about this. All men are flawed. Shit, you said it. All humans are flawed. And leaning for advice to any one man for all your solutions to all the voids you feel, to all the wounds you feel, are not the answer. Because what you might admire someone for, like uh Steve Jobs, who by the way was a piece of shit father. You know what I'm saying? Like there's you can admire great people for the right things and you can admire them for the wrong things. But I don't think any one individual man on this planet has all the answers. So you have to find the ability to take pieces of advice from different men who you admire, but ultimately piecemeal this advice, right? Take the best attributes from each individual man that you admire, and then cultivate your own self-identity and your own version of what you identify to be manhood.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Yeah. Rich, I do want to do a few um steel man arguments, and I want to hear your feedback, and I think we should close the episode out with that. But what would be your response to a young guy that has ran through the entire YouTube gamut about this conflict that he has about his father? And his response to us is like, yeah, this is great. I mean, the internet already covered this, and my therapist already covered this, and I've listened to all the red pill content, and they've also covered this. Why is anything you guys are saying is any different? How is this gonna help me?

SPEAKER_01 59:17

We're doing a couple things, right? We're highlighting that this pain exists, right? And we're giving men an outlet to really be in tune with this wound, right? Like our comment section has filled up with men feeling exactly the way we felt growing up without a father. So because this avenue doesn't exist and this outlet does exist, we're opening the door and inviting this conversation to exist, right? I feel like other content creators don't really zoom in and dive deep into the nuances of the father womb. And you know what, just like in closing, I feel like if you are a person who's living with this pain and suffering of feeling that you have this looming void in your life, think about what your absent father's doing right now. Yeah, he's probably not thinking about you, bro. Damn. So you're wasting all this time, all this energy, all this anger, all this angst and anxiety of like, man, but he wasn't around, and I'm not who I need to be because of him and him, him, him, him, him. All this energy to him. What is that guy doing? Not spending any energy, any time thinking about you. It's not worth it, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

Rich, with all due respect, is that something that you've done to help yourself get over it? Because that actually sounded very fitting to your situation.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Absolutely. I mean, wherever he is on this planet, he's living his life very comfortably without me in it. So why am I gonna spend any amount of my energy thinking about someone who does not think about me? That man does not know whether I'm alive or dead. Think about that. Like you've birthed a child, but you don't call at least once a year to find out if that individual is breathing or not. Why would I spend any energy towards someone who doesn't even care about my well-being? Rich, has he met your daughter or your son? No, no. I don't think he knows I have children. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah. This is a real father womb. This is like a real absence. This is not just like a flyby. I was in and out of your life. Like, it's been over 20 years that I haven't seen this man in person. So the void is is there, but like we continue to say, is just you have to find ways to navigate around this void because this is inevitably going to exist and reappear throughout different phases of your life. But you can't make this void your identity, bro. There's just too much to live for, too much other things in life to put your energy towards.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

Rich, I want you to stay right there because I feel like we hit a sweet spot that we haven't discussed the whole episode, and it's worth, at least for the listener that's still tapped in. I had a Reddit thread story that I wanted to quickly run past you, but I actually think you already gave advice and I want you to unpack on it, which what you just said was really good. It was like, man, really think about it. It's almost like a girl that you're in love with in your third period PE class, gym class. She's really cute. Every now and then she'll like smirk at you, but she don't even know your name. And you spend your entire day obsessing over her, thinking about her, you're picking clothes based on her, you got your mom buying you cologne because of her, or you're you're slicking your hair in different ways. Everyone knows that feeling. That's just like a regular middle school kid, right? Like he's just like, man, I really like that girl, but that girl probably is not thinking about you. And the day that she shows up with the captain of the soccer team and she's dating him, that's just gonna crush you and devastate you in a way that it's gonna feel personal. But to your point, Rich, it's like if your dad openly chose not to check in on you and has openly shown you in every way humanly possible that he doesn't give a fuck that you're on the planet, why are you giving him all this fuel and energy? Like, it doesn't make any sense. If I tell you the story from the girl middle school perspective, it makes sense, but for some reason it just doesn't hit the same when you put your father on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

Yeah, that that's exactly right. Like I said, this could be toxic, right? But these are just some coping mechanisms that I've built for myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Nah, it's not. It's not. I don't think it's toxic. I actually think it's what I was saying before. You're looking at this problem you have that you didn't create. It's almost like somebody gave you a plot of land that was already rotten. The dirt is rotten, the plants are rotten. You cannot build anything, you cannot grow anything from this dirt. It's dry. It doesn't have anything, it's left a life there to die. That life is your life. An adult male decided you weren't worth putting a little water on, putting a little fresh soil in, putting some sun into. You're a plant that can't grow here. You'd be a fool to spend the next 50 years of your life trying to create life where life was just forgotten. You should turn around and find a fresh plot of land where you can bring new life, bring your life to the you moving forward, not you moving backward. That's not toxic. There's no way that can be seen as toxic.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

Yeah. And listen, I mean, you can focus on that, right? Because inevitably it's going to come up. But I've really reframed my mind to think about I'm past that, is what I mean to say, in short. And I think about what it could be for my son, what it could be for my nieces and nephews. My girlfriend the other day told me, like, oh, my sister's son like looks up to you. Like he like really looks up to you. He says he wants to be exactly the way you are when he grows up. Wow. And he has a vague idea of like what I do, but like it's interesting how a seven-year-old could look at me and be like, I want to be like that guy. Like, whatever he's doing, it must be working. So I want to model my life around that guy. Not his dad, right? Like that guy. Yeah, yeah. And it's super interesting and it's honoring and and it makes me feel good that the younger people in my life look up to me in that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

How old are you, Rich? 38. How old is that young man or young kid that looks up to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Seven.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

If you were able to tell yourself when you were going through whatever fucking mental gymnastics you were trying to overcompensate, wearing the tall tea, smoking, trying to look crazy in the streets, trying to wild out, trying to be a part of something. If you were to tell yourself back then that a seven year old kid would look at you as this beacon of excellence and someone they want to be, would you believe it?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

No. No. Like you said, it took a lot of mental gymnastics to get to this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

But you don't become anybody's role model, or you don't become anybody's. Anybody's idea of somebody that's excellent without going through some pain, without going through some failures, without going through some hardship. You stand today as someone that's so solid that people can look up to you, but that doesn't happen if you don't have this father womb. Yeah. That doesn't happen if you don't have this shakeup early in your life where you can stand there, stand tall as somebody that's been through something and you stand firm. That is what allows a woman to lean on you. That is what allows a young man to look up to you because you're not just a person who was born strong and fit. You're a person who was born obese, had bad dieting habits, lived in a food desert, and then you transformed your body into someone that's fit, strong. It's one thing to be given a life advantage and be born on third base and touch home plate and say, look, I scored, versus someone who wasn't even invited to the baseball game. Your dad didn't take you to the baseball game. And here you stand touching home plate a few times. I think humans are very aware of people that can solve problems. And you stand tall as someone in your family that can solve problems. And now you probably have things, material things that young people could look at and be like, wow, my uncle's lit. Like he's just home all day. He'd be on his computer, he owns his house. Like, how is he doing that?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Well, you're doing that because of all the shit you've been through. You know, like before we go, Rich, I did want to mention this uh YouTube guy that I follow. Uh it's kind of hypocritical. We're saying I don't follow people on YouTube, but we are a platform. His name is Kappel Gupta, C-A-P-E-L Gupta. He mentally helps athletes and Fortune 500 business CEOs figure out what's stopping them from maximizing on their life potential. And a lot of it is explaining to them what's stopping them from being great. He has a lot of these YouTube videos of him talking to the world's best athletes in the world. And one thing that he always asks the people that he's speaking to, and I think it came up here, which was, what is this version of you that you keep talking about? What is this story that you keep telling me about your past life? Are you sure it's a reliable story? Are you sure that your brain is not lying to you in order to make up for what you don't have currently? What is this version of you that you keep talking about? And it made me think of it because every time I think about my past, my story, the story I tell myself, it's such a sad story. It's such a victim story. And then when I go out into the world, I can feel me sharing that, like my shoulders are slumped and I feel bad for myself. I can almost feel myself when I'm telling my story, hoping that people feel bad for me. So, what is this you that you keep talking about? What is this story that you keep telling yourself? Is it reliable? That's a question I want to leave with our listeners. This victim story, this sad story, this I don't have, I went, I didn't grow up with a father story. Are you sure this is a reliable story? Are you sure? I don't know. Most of the time when that dude asks these God-level businessmen and athletes, he asked them that question, they go into this like infant mentality. It's almost like they're 10 years old again and they they're hopeless and they can't control anything in their lives. And the boogeyman that was their dad that physically abused them has stopped them. Is like, dude, you're a CEO of a top 10 company in the world. You generate billions of dollars a year in profit. And you mean to tell me that the story about your dad who whipped your ass two times in front of everyone in your middle school is stopping you from being the man. Kill the story. Here you stand today, a grown man. Just let's kill the story. The story is unreliable. Your brain is an unreliable narrator.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

Yeah. And listen, that's this is why you may feel like you're an unfinished man, right? Because these are all these life skills that you probably didn't pick up because you had an absent father. And we're telling you, simply put, bro, whatever voids exist, whatever skills you didn't learn, whatever lessons were never taught, build them. Learn them. Educate yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

And apply them. Please apply them. Just don't learn. Apply it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Yes, apply them.

unknown 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

Very important. We're learning, building our community that people love absorbing knowledge and not taking any action. We don't want this channel to be that channel. Failures podcast is not only about learning from your failures, but about making adjustments and taking action on the new information that your failures gave you. So yeah, Rich, I mean, this one we knew was going to be a deep one. I feel exhausted, I'm not gonna lie. I felt like I cried. You know, like I that like Lagrima, like the energy that came out of me is like, man, this is free therapy. And I want to thank everybody who checks in on failures. I want to thank you, Rich. Because this low-key is free therapy, man. A lot of these issues just don't go away. You have to think them through and take action in your life so they can go away.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

Yeah, absolutely. And listen, man, I want to hear from our community. If you're someone out there who's felt this father wound, still feels this father wound, still navigating through the different voids you may feel in life. Drop a comment, send us an email, hit us up on TikTok, we're on all the social media platforms. But we definitely want to hear back from you guys because, man, this is what we're trying to cultivate, Just is a community of guys who just help each other out and help find solutions to things that um that we've all been through. Feelers podcast. There you have it. We out of