Episode #16
Self-Reliance
In this episode:

Josh and Aaron are back to discuss self-reliance and what that means as a man in today’s world. Join them as they talk about independence, responsibility, and the importance of self-reliance.

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Show Highlights
  • Ego and Emotion
  • Independence

Transcript

Aaron Tharp 0:00
The information provided in this episode is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you have questions regarding your health, please contact your medical provider. Okay, welcome back. So for today’s topic, Josh and I are going to break down the importance of self reliance. And why it is so foundational and fundamental for particularly men to, to develop and to understand the real meaning of what it means to be a self reliant individual. Josh, when we were talking about topics, we get together every, every other week or so, to plan out topics that we want to cover. And this was something that you had kind of alluded to, and we landed on, and believe it was around kind of some of our current culture and some of the things that we’re seeing right now. But I wanted to first kick it over to you to find out really where that really came from, for you, personally. And what inspired the idea for us to talk about that today?

Josh Simms 1:13
Yeah, I think it comes from just how things are in our culture today. There’s a lot of people who don’t feel that they need to put in the work to get what they want. They feel that they shouldn’t have to feel pain or stress, or the the sting of loss or disappointment and loss. I don’t mean like loss of a loved one. I mean, like, you had a goal or a competition and you failed or lost it that. I think for me personally, it kind of goes back to when, again, you have that kind of coming of age from Boys Into Men, and even it can happen again, as we’re men where we kind of realize, like, I gotta do this on my own right? There’s nobody else that can do this. For me, I think I really grew into that. Probably my early 20s. When you just kind of just kind of float through and not really no direction, not really much to do. Got involved in personal training, and would always have a great I think we’ve talked about this in the past and good experiences with some of the doctors that I worked with. And they’re like, Well, you had a real interest in kind of what I do in medicine, you should should look into getting into it, right, and then my little tool 23, I got time for that right? up yet. Again, as men, our brains don’t develop until we’re 25 was too short of that. So so then I kind of went through that and process that. And then eventually kind of got to a point in my life where I was like, I’m not enjoying what’s going on. I hate the lack of control that I have, which is another issue of my own at that time. But it was like, I got to do something about this. And so that’s when I went to school. And then I realized like this, I’m the only one who’s going to take these tests, I’m the only one who’s gonna pass or fail these classes. And I failed a couple tests. And that was a motivator, right? Again, that, that pain and that disappointment of that, like, I know, I didn’t put my best foot forward. So go back to the drawing board reassess. And I don’t want to feel that way again. So I feel that way and right. And just through my educational process and the trials and tribulations of how hard that is there was I couldn’t rely on my wife to do it. For me, I couldn’t rely on my friends to do I couldn’t rely on anybody but but me. And I had to be disciplined. With my studies, I had to be disciplined with getting to class and paying attention to in finding areas that I needed help in and in recognizing my own weaknesses to make them strength. And that that was a time intensive process. And it was Park, right. But on the back end of it. When I got done. It was like, I learned that if I can do that, as an adult with kids, and go through undergraduate and graduate school, there’s really not a whole lot I can do. And I think that’s probably the most valuable thing I took from that. But people don’t want to go through that. That struggle and that pain and that stress to come out on the other side and be like, well, I that was pretty awesome. I if I can do that. What’s stopping me from doing whatever I want? Right? And that’s not an egotistical thing. I think that’s you’ve you’ve you’ve built the calluses of life, to know that you can, you can endure. And I think their current culture and the coddling of especially college age and high school aged kids, does not promote that. Avoid struggle, avoid pain, avoid challenges, because that’s only going to make you feel anxiety. Right? Which if we weren’t supposed to feel anxiety, do you think it would be an emotion that we would that would be elicited so frequently in certain situations? Nope, it’s built in it’s there. It’s it’s a protection. But then there’s also ways that we can desensitize that emotion and realize that we’re safe, even though it hurts a little bit. But people it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around what people don’t want to experience adds that little bit of discomfort because you don’t grow if you’re comfortable all the time. And so I think just as we kind of talked about what we were going to discuss, I think that that’s one of the things that I think people need to hear that if you just do a little bit of introspection and retrospective evaluation of your life, you’re probably way stronger and more able to do things that you think.

Aaron Tharp 5:24
Yeah, there’s an accountability is the, the, I mean, that’s almost a precursor to that, right. So I would imagine that, and we’ve learned that having been without a stable father, or having been without a stable father figure in your own life, that that was probably something that was maybe more challenging for you than would be for somebody who had a dad around, or who didn’t have to learn them. Those things in that way. Me personally, I learned, I learned in really two different ways. One was from my my own pop, him and my grandfather had a fairly contentious relationship, he moved out, when he was a junior in high school, he moved out of his, and he just basically took the van and left, right. He was living in a house with seven sisters. So first of all, I’m lucky to be sitting here. Yeah. And then at one time than my grandparents adopted two Vietnamese girls, so there was nine. So but you know, there was a lot of pressure on him. And I don’t want to spend the time talking about that. But he literally didn’t have a pot to piss in, when he was a junior in high school. And, you know, when I look back at the things that I saw him do, and the things that I mean, he really like carved himself out of stone, and where he’s at now, of course, it’s, you know, 40, some odd years later, that was, you know, obviously very, very known to me, and I got to witness that firsthand. The other part was individual sports. And I would say, particularly wrestling, for me really big that into my DNA, I don’t know anything other than what it means to be self reliant upon yourself. I mean, in an individual sport, wrestling’s not the only one and an individual’s sport, there’s nowhere to point, there’s nowhere to run and hide, you know, the work falls at lands at your feet. And it rests upon your shoulders rather, to see to it, that you find success or that you’ve that you reach your potential or your goals. There’s no word of there’s nowhere to run and hide. So there are those are the two real crucial areas for me that I learned it. And I just think that as a man, I can’t speak from from what a female is drawn to in but I would think that, that his own moral compass, right, the things that guides his decision making, the things that are we’ve talked about before, but the things that are like his true north, right, those things are really fundamental, because as a man, you need to be a reliable person. And you can’t point to other people to be able to do that for you. That’s what the self reliance is. You make your own judgments, you use your own faculties, you’re your own individual, with your own experience, and you trust in that judgment, and you trust in that guidance. And as part of doing that, especially if you’re a father, who leads a family and you have kids of your own, and you’re leading your family, I hope to someday that’s paramount. There’s no way of getting around that. But we live in a time where you know, no competition, and everybody gets participation medals. And there’s just not a lot of developed patience for like working towards an endeavor over an extended period of time. The things that are just given to you or handed to you because you think that you you’re owed them, you don’t value them for shit, because you haven’t earned there’s no sweat equity there.

Josh Simms 9:17
Yeah, cuz, again, we were talking about this before, it’s if you don’t have the pain of loss or failure, that how can you value the victory? Or if you don’t have a pain of the process? How can you value the end goal? It’s never going to keep you on the path. Right? I think Dropbox guy was talks about staying on the path on the path, right? And it’s the path of your life and your goals and the things you want to attain and how how you find that path because a lot of people don’t really have a path right? If they don’t, they don’t see like, okay, these are the things that I want to accomplish. There’s not many people who are goal oriented. And I guess I kind of want to get one thing out of the way, a couple of things. One, we were talking about this topic, not as if we’re perfect. I feel like the landmine of my life before this point is long indeed, right? I have made a lot of mistakes, I have screwed up a bunch of times. And one of the things that I always have trouble with, with the leadership books and the things that we read, is that people don’t ever explain like how this is how I failed multiple times to get to this point. And then we as a society, don’t we only see the microcosm of a person in the moment that we catch them, right? So you see a guy driving the miles, right? I want to pray bla bla bla, but how do you know that guy, his dad didn’t die when he was seven, his mom was poor, he just ground himself into dust to getting where he’s at. And that he’s not a philanthropic human being who helps other like, people just make these assumptions based off of the moments that we see. Right? I’ve been guilty of that in my life. And so I don’t want people to think that works for taking this high, this hierarchy of like, we’re better than everybody, because I am not. So I just kind of wanted to get that out of the way. So people understand that we’re coming from a place of of experience, in addition to a place of where we want to kind of help people find a way to lift themselves up and push push through and be self reliant. So

Aaron Tharp 11:12
yeah, you have to participate in your own rescue. I mean, say you, Josh, you wanted to get in really good shape? I mean, is that something that you can go by Walgreens? Or is that something that your neighbor John is going to be able to do for you? Are you going to be able to rely on John’s judgment to be able to get your ass in the gym every day? That room? No, no, but that’s how you learned it, though. That’s how you learned

Josh Simms 11:35
it. Yeah, I know that the positions that I’m in right, are 100% the consequences of the decisions that I’ve made, I cannot turn around and go like, Man for more for that time. I wouldn’t be where I’m at. That’s completely false. Right? It’s a lie that is that people perpetuate to themselves, because they don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions. Right. And it’s a it’s it is a and I can use the word pandemic, but it is it is a pestilence in our society that is running rampant, the lack of accountability, have self accountability, to say, yeah, things are the way they are because I made the decisions that I made, right, and the more that we rely on other people to do things for us, the further we fall down that hole, because we never find a way out. And that’s the problem with systems like welfare for full families. Like, why are you continuing to let these people rely on the government to prop them up and support them? Because they’re, they have no reason they have no incentive to ever get out of that hole, and change the legacy of their family to be better contributors to this asset to the society to their lives to their fate, like, there’s no incentive, right? So when people sit there and say, like, well, for more for ABC, and D, as we talked about, there’s plenty of paths out, you’re just you just don’t want to take,

Aaron Tharp 12:52
right. And it would be really important to just get a visual on what that looks like, which is I’ll take the handout. But it’s their fault that I don’t have it the way that I want. Exactly. Could you more remove yourself from any responsibility and accountability? Again, I’ll take the handout. That’s nice. I didn’t have to work for that. But it’s their fault that I don’t have it the way that I think I should.

Josh Simms 13:16
So I deserve it. Right. Which is, maybe one of the phrases that triggers me the most, right? Like people’s Oh, I deserve that. You don’t, nobody deserves anything, right? You earn these things. Like that’s how you get what you want, you have to earn it. I don’t deserve million dollars, just because, you know, I grew up poor, and I’m, I’m a minority, like, how does that help me? How does it help me help others? It doesn’t. All it does is perpetuate a cycle of greed, and laziness and lack of accountability. And this pretentiousness to believe that I should get what I want. Because of the circumstances I came from. It’s garbage. It’s complete garbage. And anybody who says otherwise is lying to themselves and the person the people that they tell it to because they just they’re trying to either get likes on Twitter or or attention on themselves that people think like, oh, they’re such a great bastion of, of social justice, when it’s when it’s really not true.

Aaron Tharp 14:17
It’s based on resentment. Yeah, if you want to know the, the, in my, I guess, in my opinion, that’s, that’s, that’s how I see it. But going back to the guy that drives a Maserati, the fact that he’s driving them as rotti is also commensurate with the fact that there was risks that he took along the way, and that there were mistakes that were made, and that there was accountability that was owned, and that there were strategies to get around your Where are you we’re falling short. But again, like you said, all that is missed because the knee jerk reaction is like, Oh, this guy’s got, you know a bunch of money. Let us also not forget the fact that yes, The Maserati is nice, but also comes with that a lot of responsibility. If he’s a guy that runs a fortune five, or fortune two or three company, okay, well, he’s got now hundreds of lives these these, he has to speak to and look out for. So is that something that that you equate with having a mazaraki? Because you should, you know, he’s got people that work for him. And the people that work for him have places they want to go and families they have to look after. And now’s they have to feed. That’s an enormous amount of responsibility. So the the knee jerk reaction of like, you know, this is the this is why I don’t have as good as I would like it is because guys like that. He was, if he especially the game from the projects, what tools did he have that you did not exact, or that you were without?

Josh Simms 15:54
Yep, yep. And, you know, I think, again, there are people who are like that, who are silver spoon pricks who just don’t care about their dad’s company, they inherited it, they don’t care about me what worked for them, right. But I would say that, especially in the smaller business world, the vast majority of those people, because you can still make really, really good money running as long as they really do care about the people that work for them. And they do take that they burden that responsibility of their jobs and their lives and their,

Aaron Tharp 16:20
and then a mentor, they want to mentor younger people.

Josh Simms 16:24
And that’s what we were talking about that before the podcast of the infinite game by Simon Sinek, and Extreme Ownership and knowing that, like, what you do now, is a microcosm of the of the path that’s laid in front of you, right, these moments that we do now will decide how those things go for, again, for me, for my kids and their kids and their kids, right? Can I work through all my crap that I still deal with, in order to have my kids build on the legacy that we’re trying to do? Because it’s not going to be rainbows and sunshine, right? Like, I still got plenty issues that I have to deal with, right? And they’re going to have some issues. And hopefully, we can just kind of get those issues out of our family at a certain point generations down the road. Right? And what does the Bible say is like, I didn’t know how many generations it says the, the curses of the Father reformed, and so on, and so on, right. And there’s a lot of truth in that man, it doesn’t turn around in one cycle, it takes time to get rid of that stuff. So if we don’t see it, that way, you’ll never fix those, you’ll never read your legacy or your family have those problems until you take them out, again, self reliance to take these things head on, and be honest and accountable about it. And then you can, you can change the world. And I know that’s a it’s a trope, and it’s cliche, but you really can’t, if you’re if you’re focused, and you’re trying to do the right things. I mean, think about some of these guys that impact millions of people, it literally shifts the way the direction the world is heading. It’s quite amazing. And it doesn’t I mean, it just takes a lot of self reliance, a lot of risk. And it just takes some balls to do this. And

Aaron Tharp 18:03
you do you have to remove your own ego from it. Which is, that’s not a white picket fence. It’s not easy to do. But it’s it’s

Josh Simms 18:12
incredibly hard to do. Yeah, anytime that you question anything, right? That’s your ego kicking in, right? If you look at it from the Freudian thing, anything that you think is not good enough, or my idea was better, or that’s kind of stupid, like, that’s, your ego is constantly pulling at you, to tell you that, like, yeah, you’re right. Everything that you know, is right, and you can do whatever you want, because it’s your right. And to humble that is really, really, I mean, that’s a practice, right? That’s not just something that we can do that takes time and practice and being around other people who are who are humble. And they’re open to understand that like, you know, just maybe a little bit of ego there and we’re not gonna we’re not gonna react on that, right. It takes other people have been there equals rounding for that to be really successful. But I think you breed that within a team or you breed that within a company or organization or a family. And it’s hard, man, it’s people don’t understand how hard that is. It’s really hard to be like, because Jocko says is whenever I get in a disagreement with somebody never is I’m always talking about that guy. I think he’s an amazing human being from top of I mean, like, if you listen to him, there’s very few things he’s, that’s questionable. You know, he says, When I get to disagree with somebody, I want to find out how they’re right. I want to prove I want them to prove me wrong and to prove themselves, right. Because then it’s like, okay, perfect. I have I have subdued my ego. And then it allows that person to be autonomous within their ideas and to be able to express themselves and to have conversation and conflict and conflict resolution. And then you get to work together as a team. And I get there’s a lot of value in that because people don’t want to do that. They want to be warm, right? We’re not going to listen to what you have to say, and we’re just gonna plow ahead with my idea. Nobody ever wants to be wrong, but that he does a lot of value being wrong again, right, you’re wrong. You find out why you’re wrong. And then you can be better

Aaron Tharp 20:01
So, yeah, that that goes back to the whole, we’re not going to keep score. There’s no, there’s no such thing as good competition. It’s like, okay, well, if we’re not learning those things on the soccer fields, when we’re, you know, five, six and eight, nine, how do we expect to just show up in a fortune 500 company or at our jobs a nine to five, and expect to just manifest that ability to work with others into into to hear others out, and to commiserate together to work as unit towards a higher goal or a higher purpose that, really, you’re you’re contributing to, but it’s not solely you that is getting there. And it’s not solely your decision. I don’t mean you. But like, it’s not an individual’s decision to get there. You’re a cog in a piece, and you’re an instrumental piece. I think that if, if people read too far into the idea, you brought up the assignment, the infinite game, you know, we talked a little bit about this, that it could be, I think it would be easy for people to follow and fall into a nihilistic place where it’s like, well, why even try? What does it even mean? What does it even matter? Yeah,

Josh Simms 21:09
there’s no, if anybody hasn’t read that book, he basically talks about that it’s business or wherever you work, if you’re involved in that, there’s no finish line, and it was there before you after you leave, it’s going to continue on. So get it out of your head that you think that there’s always going to be this place where you can get a new one. That’s it, right. It’s not the case. And it’s a hard concept to wrap your mind around.

Aaron Tharp 21:32
It is it is because it’s all you know, we okay, you’re supposed to grind and you’re supposed to get it, you’re supposed to be goal oriented and you’re supposed to achieve. You know, I think that Jordan Peterson says this quite often where it’s, you know, that’s nihilism is what drove the Columbine shooting. And, you know, that’s a that’s a really horrific event. I mean, it was, it was horrific. But if you take the time to understand the motivation behind it, which was that it was they were prone to nihilism, which is, you know, we’re, what’s it all mean? And what is this all for? And that we’re kind of a waste of space as humans? Well, that’s

Josh Simms 22:12
nothing I find no, anything that there’s no value in human life. And that’s not nihilism. But I think you can see that how we can get to that point. Exactly. They get to the point.

Aaron Tharp 22:24
Yeah, that’s an extreme. And, you know, there’s just, there’s no end to that really, either, like, how far can that really go? Before? I mean, if that’s gonna turn into a disaster right away, I think that you and I come to the same camp in terms of, okay, well, yeah, she may not get to, if it’s an infinite game, and that is maybe somewhat disappointing. In some sense. You would be better off if you pitched in, carry the load, took on some responsibility, and, you know, pitched in and took care of your own shit. Rather than to, you know, assign blame or to assign guilt, or to assign some sort of oppression, narrative around your experience, it does nobody any good, and how reliable and strong are you ethically and morally as a person? If that’s your, your presupposition, it’s like, okay, well, if it’s not worth discussing, you know, he, you came into this world as an individual, and that’s how you’ll leave. And throughout the 19th century, what did what did we do, as, as individuals, I mean, part of what we’re all living in today is a manifestation of people who did exactly that, that they all collectively pitched in, and they carried a load and they spoke their truth and, and, and that they relied upon themselves and that they, they were dependable people. So that way, not only for themselves, but for their families, for their communities, and for the broader communities that we’re all living in today.

Josh Simms 24:00
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look, I mean, that’s a great point, right? In the reason why that was the way it was, then they didn’t have a choice, right? It was like right survival. And there’s very, there’s very, these high water marks in in our history as a country where people came together to push through these terrible times, won the Great Depression, World War Two, Vietnam as a little bit of a different one, because that was, you know, kind of an unnecessary war. And then then one that we have completely just cratered on was Coronavirus. We had a great opportunity to come together as a nation against an invisible enemy that didn’t care who you were, where you came from a color your skin was, and we let that divide us. And we let that break down our society, almost to the point of I mean, it’s still we’re kind of in the middle of it where we can go sideways pretty quickly. And I think it’s gonna have long term ramifications where people didn’t Put their opinions and their emotions and their ego aside, to lift up the greater good, right? They chose mass to divide people. Now it’s vaccines to divide people. Now, it’s your political stance to divide people. Now, it’s Afghanistan, right? Like, you had these very political things, very political things. And now we have a really big issue on our hands. And the infinite game of our terrible leadership, right, because this is the infinite game, pinpoints to a leadership thing is where they only think about what they’re doing right now, because they don’t care what’s going to happen in five years. And that’s the problem. That’s where if you had an infinite game, in our governmental leadership, it would look completely different. But we’re not, we’re not doing that. And I think that’s there’s a trickle down effect of that, where if that were something that we could implement in all areas, people would just operate much differently. They would contribute, they would lock arms with people, regardless of their beliefs, they would find common ground of agreement, to get past the stuff that’s really kind of manufactured to make people pissed off in order to get more YouTube and Twitter clicks, and all this crap and get things done. Because if we don’t handle this correctly, and it we can have some pretty disastrous stuff, and we kind of went off the rails or got political, but I think there’s still applications of how you can see that’s a great example of a failure of leadership, and how that working in the moment, and not playing a long game can really can really tear society apart. But just the, the fabric of it. And you can use that as good examples in your life and your leadership and so on so forth in order to avoid those problems. Because it’s actively happening to distribute tvm. Right, our leaders of the country, just bitch back and forth at each other about the dumbest things that are inconsequential in reality, and now that there’s a big problem, they don’t know how to handle it.

Aaron Tharp 26:51
People are home all day, and they’re watching news. So it’s just the inflammatory newsfeed,

Josh Simms 26:57
but it’s a sign that also have leaders who, who contribute nothing. Right? Like what our senators and what our politicians what do they actually do for you as a person and as a citizen? Like, can you think of anything that anybody in government has done for you, Aaron? You know, so why do we rely on them? That’s my point like this is this this again, this gets back to the self reliance, they’ve done nothing for people, yet they people honestly believe that they’re going to make a difference in their life, when the only person who can is you. And you can circle back to our tribe, podcast, your tribe, the people that you put your trust in, that are going to hold you accountable, that even hold accountable. Why are we relying on these people who don’t care about us to make our lives better? Again, it’s a lack of self reliance, when we can rely on ourselves to do better to be better to make better decisions, to better our lives. And those the lows of the lives that around us was that we love and we care about.

Aaron Tharp 27:50
Yeah, it’s incumbent upon every individual and I would say it’s probably even maybe a little bit more incumbent upon every man. I mean, that’s in the bio of my thoughts in my bio for this show, is that I feel like it’s, it’s it’s incumbent upon every man to find out what that is for himself. And whatever idiosyncratic way that is for you, all the better. Because that manifests itself in various ways that we all get to benefit from. But you know, the avoidance of conflict, and, you know, it’s all about the segment, or the group, or the other collection that you’re a part of, and it’s like, okay, well, you know, one of the one of the best books I’ve ever read I’ve ever read the the first and second essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, no, no, very, very good. It’s very good. It was written, I believe in like, late 1800s, I believe. But it’s only about 20 pages long. And it talks about self reliance. And it’s that you were born into this world with everything that you need. And of course, now it’s like, okay, well, there’s so much distraction, there’s so many different influences, and so many different things that, you know, you can get pulled in different directions. And you don’t need that. You don’t need as many things as you think that you do, because you have all the faculties you were born with them.

Josh Simms 29:15
And you’re constantly told that you don’t

Aaron Tharp 29:17
right. And we’re and people are always running from it and because they have to attend to some sort of like group or some sort of other validating external setup or arrangement that confirms their belief or that confirms their their doubts.

Josh Simms 29:36
And so do you know why? Groupthink a canceled culture is so powerful

Aaron Tharp 29:44
because it does not facilitate conversation? Well, no,

Josh Simms 29:47
but I mean, why it’s so influential and so powerful for people to want to be involved in like the groupthink and then why canceled culture has such a strong why it works, so well. So group groupthink and being in the in group, right is, is because we’re social creatures. And so if you find people that you think agree with you that you hold up to a high standard, if they include you in the group, it fires every pleasure center of your brain. But when you take somebody and you cancel them, or remove them from that group, it’s so mentally devastating to people that it will it will trip a cycle of anxiety and depression that will, if unchecked, could potentially lead to something like suicide or self harm, because you have been removed from your social circle. It’s like when they kicked the lion out of the out of the pride, right? You’re ostracized, they basically wander, they starve, and then they die, right? Because they cannot figure out how to function without within that group mentality. They don’t know how to work outside of that. The problem with our society is, is we’ve set up all these different groups that you can kind of move from one to one, which then creates an identity crisis. And then once you kind of get ostracized from those, then you’ve lost your sense of self worth and who you are. Right? So somebody who was like, oh, yeah, man, I really like fantasy football, and you kind of just bounce around. Next thing, you know, you’re like, all the sudden, I’m like, pro trans like, which, again, who cares about that, but like, this slippery slope is, and then once anybody finds out about something that you said before, and then you’re kicked out of that in group, I mean, it crushes people. I mean, you see it all the time, and you see just within high schoolers, right? These kids who are like, Oh, I was bullied, I was kicked out of a group, and then they commit suicide. So it’s a very powerful thing when you are in these influential groups that are, you know, pretty toxic, right? And then somebody takes your group turns on you and removes you from it. And that’s why it’s, it’s so powerful to find a group of people who are supportive, non judgmental, and will hold you accountable for your own good, not because it’s supports the group, right? That’s the tribe thing that we’ve talked about. Because why would you have self reliance right there, we do have weaknesses. And that’s why we have teams and we kind of talked about that too, as teams are important because it helps your weaknesses becomes your strengths, or someone else can help you become stronger in that area. But also, if you have a good tribe of people that you can rely on workout partners, guys, you go and hunt with, you know, shoot guns with all this stuff that we kind of talked about on here, who you can sit over a table and be like, Hey, man, you’re making like all these. There’s something going on in your life can talk to me, bro, like, tell me what’s going on. You can ask that stuff out, the things that you avoid, are powerful. But again, that’s like a toxic masculinity thing, right? You can’t have a bunch of guys sitting duck blind and hang out and talk about their problems. Because it’s, you know, toxic masculinity.

Aaron Tharp 32:37
Well, yeah, maybe perceived that way. But um, I trust that the people that I’m there with are good people, and they’re out for my better good. And we’re doing this as a as a nice outing for us. I’m going to do that.

Josh Simms 32:51
Yeah, we’ve got more that whole group has a moral compass. Right, right. And I think there was a sense of time where that was kind of warped and like, Hey, I will go to the VFW. And

Unknown Speaker 33:02
like, the old boys club.

Josh Simms 33:04
Yeah. Right, which there was bad things that came out of that, right. But I think we’ve kind of moved on from that. And it’s like, I got a, I got a group of guys who were all married dudes with kids who like, if there’s an issue, we can all talk to each other about, like, and I tell you right now, one of them is like mess around their wives. It gets strung up, like because we all know each other’s wives, we all care about each other’s families. And you’re not going to break that bond, because you’re stupid. Yeah, right, you’re just making a bad decision, you’re, you’re being influenced by something that is not true. And then people still see that as like this. You know, you got this group of guys, and they’re all successful, and bla bla bla, bla bla, and you might catch us out one night, having a few drinks and kind of just being guys and having fun. But like, at the same time, on the back end of that we’re gonna watch out for each other and our families. So people don’t see that part of it. Because it’s good. And that’s the problem, right? We need more of that we need people to have more of that. And that’s part of your tribe to be reliable on each other and on yourselves to, to do those types of things.

Aaron Tharp 34:04
I would argue to that the, the quality of that circle is far superior and more important than the quantity of it. And, you know, of course now it’s quantity. It’s It’s the it’s the acquisition of more followers more likes more validation. But you would be best to to find a core group of people that shares your same beliefs has your same compass. That’s a smaller, that’s a smaller group.

Josh Simms 34:37
Yeah. And in the war against that is widespread and strong, right. Social media apps are designed. They basically are designed to trigger the pleasure centers of your brain, right, right. Like when you refresh your iPhone, you pull out from the top they design that because it’s like a slot machine, so it elicits that same little dopamine mean kick every single time. And the more followers and likes you get the people don’t even know and probably you probably won’t even like them, right, that drives people to continue that behavior and to entrench themselves further in those things. And then before they know it, they can’t, there’s no

Aaron Tharp 35:14
way out. What’s interesting is that like, I mean, Twitter kind of lends itself to being somewhat of a, let’s be honest.

Unknown Speaker 35:23
It just is. Yeah,

Aaron Tharp 35:24
the thing is, is that like, when somebody mentions, you know, let’s say 50, positive things about something that you posted about you, you’ll bypass all of those to read the 51st comment that was negative, you’re right. And you react to it almost as if it was somebody that you actually know. But you don’t. But you have that same reaction. It’s like, you’ll never see that person. You don’t even know if they’re real. But the the, the knee jerk reaction that you have is that it was somebody that that you actually knew personally, and that they slided you Okay, well, what about the first 50? No, I’m not that you should be keeping score that way. But it’s like we have that tendency to, to look that way. And it’s like, it’s a bad, bad game to get into.

Josh Simms 36:08
Yep. And then what percent raise that issue is, when you do address that person, then the 49 or 50 Other people will attack? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. So it almost it again, it perpetuates that behavior of like anyone who disagrees with me, I’m coming for you. And my whole crew of Twitter followers the spot like, it’s such a, it’s such a house of cards, I can’t I can’t wrap my head around why people hold so much value within that. I just can’t figure it out. I mean, I maybe it’s a consequence of just I don’t know, man, I can’t, I can’t. It’s amazing to me, like why people invest so much of their emotions and energy and self worth, in an online presence for people that you’ll never interact with ever on a daily basis, personally. Because if you physically couldn’t, and you probably actually wouldn’t like those people really? I don’t know, it’s very confusing to me. It’s one of those things where I can’t

Aaron Tharp 37:05
we’re not wired to understand them. Yeah, we’re not it’s the same way what the because you’re reacting to a complete stranger. You know, we don’t know what the what the algorithm really means. Like, maybe maybe it just it skews more towards people that are having a really shitty week.

Josh Simms 37:23
Yeah, I think I mean, I think it’s designed to right, it’s right. It’s, it’s, it’s designed to loop those people in and lock them in, and then it pushes things to you that you’re either going to agree with, they’re probably actually more often strongly disagree with, right? So it’s, it’s basically hacking your brain to not be able to put the phone down, which is really amazing to me, because the morality of that is so terrible, that like, people are just okay with it, though. Like, like, people don’t understand how manipulated they’re being at their detriment. Yet, nobody does anything about it, right? I got I’m not like a government step in and break up the protests, but it’s like, who’s gonna be the don’t understand, I feel like we’re kind of, we’re playing the biggest part and tearing our society down. Let’s just keep let’s just keep going. Right? I mean, I think that’s an I think it speaks volumes of money. But I think it’s also more of a control thing, too, right? Like, you’re kind of tugging at the strings of people, you could get them to do whatever you want. Like, I’m on YouTube. And I’m like, Oh, look at this guitar beat. And I’m like, why is this video of Joe Biden, it’s kind of like coming up on my, all I do is I watch like, guitar players on YouTube. And I’ll watch a couple medical things. But like, somehow, within the way that my algorithm works on the staunch conservative, which I do Lean, a little more conservative, but I’m just like, but it’s getting me to, because if I click on that thing, guess what’s gonna happen? I’m just gonna get all this other crap to flow, and it’s going to keep my attention.

Aaron Tharp 38:43
Yeah. And you’ve also just taught the algorithm to serve you more than likely,

Unknown Speaker 38:47
you know, whether that’s good or bad. Right, right, we’re getting way off the rails

Aaron Tharp 38:52
are part of what’s inherent in what was pretty, pretty foundational to those social media platforms was the representation of each individual’s experience. Oh, look at this picture that my friend posted or look at this post. And this is a funny tweet. It’s it’s like, that’s kind of where they were all started. We were interested in seeing that. We were interested in hearing that we were interested in partaking in that and pitching into that

Josh Simms 39:20
and seeing your friends in there. Exactly. And so that they moved away, like, oh, I want to move to Colorado to consumer, but I can see through him in his life. That’s right, right. That’s not a bad thing,

Aaron Tharp 39:29
right, in one short decade. Now, it’s like not silent. So you’ll be ostracized or no if you’re not a part of this group, and you won’t be welcome in or you’ll be asked to leave or you’ll be canceled or whatever the case may be

Josh Simms 39:45
like, I would love if they would do a social experiment. And if they removed the Like buttons from all social media platforms for like three days, what would happen, what people how people would have their responses and the way that they would talk on there and the things that they would post how they would change cuz you don’t get that reinforcement.

Unknown Speaker 40:03
So yeah, for eight,

Josh Simms 40:04
seven, just like, you know, like, I think it would be really interesting to see what would happen. I think it would almost be like a crack withdrawal for people. Oh, yeah. They wouldn’t be like, don’t don’t even open they start to freak out about it. Yeah. Because that’s their, their self images is put within that. It’s quite interesting. I think it’d be cool. We can get to here, Twitter, Jack Dorsey. And here we can see we can get social experiment.

Aaron Tharp 40:29
Yeah. So what else? What else were we talking about? Before? You were mentioning something about, you know, doing this with your kids? Yeah. You know, how do you how do you raise them in a way that is better than you have it, but so that they don’t overlook or that they don’t miss out on the chance to learn the value of, you know, extended periods of investing in yourself and investing in a particular endeavor? How are you balancing that as a as a father?

Josh Simms 41:07
Whether it’s taught my kids or young? That starts there, though, guys? Yeah. So the hardest. The hardest part for me is, I don’t want my kids to experience or their experience, right. And most people don’t they always think like, why have these issues in my life, and I don’t want my kids to have to suffer right? Now. Sometimes we take that too far. And we’re like, Man, I really that really sucked when I lost that game. So let’s just give medals to everybody. There’s no winners, no losers, right? That’s like the coddling of the youth, which is a terrible idea. But I think they still need to experience. I mean, I think it’s I think if you’re in a well functioning family, that is that is together, there’s a mom and dad, mom and Dad, I don’t really care. And there’s kids within there and you’ve got roles defined and these needs are being met, you have to find ways to let them know that there’s winners and losers in life, that their struggles in life that there’s going to be there’s going to be hard times and that you as an individual have to get through those on your own. I think sports is great. I think if I had my way out of all my kids in mixed martial arts or jujitsu, right, it’s a Joe Rogan said it best was like, there’s a hammer nail your the nail for a really long time. It’s not like six months, it’s years of just getting rolled, right? But then Monday you become the hammer. And then then jujitsu is a great example of an infinite game, you can never stop learning. But then you can never stop passing your knowledge down to the next practitioner. That’s why you practice Jiu Jitsu. It’s just like medicine, but not the same thing. But it’s the same thought of like, this is going this far, it’s going to continue to grow. Right? So I would put my kids in like a martial arts like that, where there’s, it’s a competitiveness, there’s the, in a real life application, right? You could really, you could really hurt somebody. But it’s a controlled environment, where there’s people who are telling you when to stop, there’s a notification to say, okay, I can pass out, you’re gonna break my arm. Let’s stop. Okay, so there’s a safety valve there, you brush up against the guardrails of failure, you’re allowed to have someone say, Okay, this is where you went wrong. Right? If you want to avoid getting in that situation, again, this is how you can not do that. And then so you teach those values to them. You grow in a community of people who are going to support you and care about you, and not just about you as a jujitsu practitioner, but in your life, right, I think it’s a, I think it’s a fantastic setting for that, right. And then other activities, team sports, so on and so forth, to learn your position, your role, how to work within a team, how to how to build trust for your teammates, within you and within each other. So they went that way, like, because everybody’s ever been on a team has left their teammates at some point, right? They made a mistake, and then they that’s up. That’s almost a vomit inducing thing, if you care, like, if you miss something, and somebody scores a goal or touchdown, like you almost want to puke more because you let your teammates down, rather than you got beat. That’s the learning. And that is learning. So you can go up to these people and say, like, I made a mistake, I messed up, I’m going to do better, I’m going to train harder, so that we can win as a team and I won’t let you down, right? There’s a ton of value in that because you take that in life, too. In school, when you get projects at work, when you work with the team, right? Those things are long term benefits where you can constantly be reminded of that time. And I think volunteering for those who have less than what you do is vital, because you get a true picture of poverty and sadness, and people who have circumstances that they can’t overcome. And then you can give your time for free with nothing and expectation in return to help them because then it’s you create an altruistic mentality and then to get back to those who are less fortunate, or who literally can’t stand up for themselves for help themselves, right, not a 19 year old kid who came from an affluent family who has identity issues. Right, those are the people who don’t mean they need help, but they don’t need that type of help. When you go and help someone out like a homeless shelter,

to feed them to clothe them, with nothing in expectation return, I think that’s another part of it that really helps young kids, that’s probably more appropriate, like 12 year olds, 13 year olds, to see that and make that a regular part of their life, to help them get over the fact that it’s not all about you, and that you can get what you have to help others. So that’s one of the things that I want to do with my kids and martial arts, team sports, and then and then volunteering to kind of help say, Well, this is how you’re going to learn your life of individuality working as a team, and then you got way better than you can ever imagine. Because I don’t want to show up in like, how do I show my kids how to be poor? Right? That’s, I don’t mean for that to sound like a statement of like, well, you know, great, and, but it’s like, I’m gonna fight, tooth and nail to make sure that my kids are fed, they are close, they are taken care of, right? That would be a failure as me as a father and as a man for my kids to not be able to do that. So that’s not gonna happen. But I show them that through another way through giving their time and energy and effort and playing their eyes and his people and talking to them and learning about them. Giving back to them.

Aaron Tharp 46:13
Yeah, you need to, you’re encouraging them to get out of their own two shoes in their own experience. Because it isn’t all about them. No, yeah. And as a kid, I mean, we will we, we were all started as kids, the whole world revolves, revolves around you. So and that’s

Josh Simms 46:30
normal. That’s a that’s a survival, right? That’s built in. Right, right. And as we age, we learn out of that, if you don’t teach people how to get out of that, they will never get out of it. There are people who today who are grown adults who can’t think about anybody about themselves, because they only think that their self interest is the most important thing in the world. Even though they contribute such little back to others, they still think that then then then Me Me, me is the most

Unknown Speaker 46:54
important thing. They call that a personality disorder.

Josh Simms 46:58
Borderline Personality versus a personality disorder. I think you could probably pick out a few of us.

Aaron Tharp 47:07
Yeah. Well, I, I think that we’ve we’ve certainly done our part to illustrate, you know, the the real need and the importance of being self reliant as an individual. So I

Josh Simms 47:21
think I think a good idea what we should do is to maybe give some, either other podcasts recommendations, reading recommendations, because again, we’re not, we don’t have all the answers, and you might hear this in a different way from another person, which will help you understand it and apply it better. Like do you have any resources for people that you would recommend that guys read? Listen to research? Yeah,

Aaron Tharp 47:44
I would say it depends on what you’re after. But Cory Wayne would be a really good one. Jocko is very good. I don’t want to steal your thunder on Corey Wayne’s really good. He’s an online. He’s an online coach. A life coach peak performance coach. Let’s see here. I mean, Jordan Peterson would be a prime example. I think he’s probably at the top for me to

Josh Simms 48:09
be well, pro rules of life. I would start with that middle champion. Yeah. That off slowly.

Aaron Tharp 48:14
Yeah. Yeah. And to be honest with you even that’s a that’s a lot of that’s a lot of texts. And obviously, as you know, he’s incredibly smart. I got a lot from his lectures. Yeah, YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, his lectures are incredibly powerful. Even dude going so far as like weaving in archetypes and how they’re illustrated through Disney movies and a lot of that psycho analysis. So I would say him above above even Cory for sure. Those would be the two that I can think of, at least right now. I’m sure I’ll think of six or seven more my Well,

Josh Simms 48:56
it probably good. Yeah. I would recommend people read two books by the same author, Ryan Holiday. Oh, sure. Ego is the Enemy. And the obstacles the way. If you approach those books, they’re short reads are only like 150 pages, they’re tiny little books, and you can get through them in a couple of days. Read every read and reread them, right. If you can subdue your own ego and read those books there is so like pound for pound, the amount of value in those books is incredible. It will teach you other people’s failures, and egos and he will teach you other people’s failures based off their ego. And the obstacle in the way or the obstacle is the way excuse me will teach you that the path of least traveled is the best facing the obstacles head on taking on the challenge head on. And he gives historical references to this where these people didn’t waver from their beliefs and they didn’t waver from from their things that that we’re we’re good at. So it’s not like people like Hitler. You know? It’s not anything crazy like that. It’s actually like philosophers and other people who have through their trials and tribulations come on the other side and said, This is great. And if I didn’t go through that, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And it’s those those two books I recommend anybody has a daily stoic podcast so you can listen to the five seven mo quick hitters. Yeah,

Aaron Tharp 50:19
he’s got a lot. His work is really grounded in stoicism and

Josh Simms 50:24
a lot of philosophy based stuff, but not so much. So that just flies over people’s heads. He does a really good job. Yeah, indicating just the kind of philosopher but just to the general guy who’s trying to get some value. Is

Aaron Tharp 50:34
there the same principles that apply today? The very same? No, it doesn’t change.

Josh Simms 50:39
That’s the amazing part about it. It just those those things came from hundreds of years ago under still those were etched in stone. Yeah, it’s quite amazing. Yeah.

Aaron Tharp 50:48
Well, that’s gonna do it for us. I want to take a quick moment here to thank Adam, Adam, our AV guy, who has done a brilliant job at putting together our podcast and the video quality

Josh Simms 51:06
all the promos, everything he’s done all that stuff. He shoots it he edits it he posts I mean, he does all the social media presence everything for this podcast, man for limitless man. Yeah, so

Aaron Tharp 51:15
a huge democratic gratitude to you, my man, and we wish you the best of luck going forward. So we’re gonna miss you. And hopefully you’ll still tune in so I was moving to Dallas. Yes. So maybe maybe plant a man explained flagged down. You know, we get some viewership up anyway, it’s not about that. But thank you for everything you’ve done and best of luck on the board. That’s going to do it for us. So thank you for tuning in. And we’ll catch you on the next one. Cheers.

Josh Simms 51:46
Thanks for tuning in to the episode guys. We appreciate your listening. Do us a favor if you hit the like button below and subscribe. You can also hit the little bell that’ll send you a notification when we post a new episode. In addition, if you have any questions, concerns or comments, shoot us an email at hosts that’s plural h o s. T s at men explained podcast calm or go check out medic Spike podcast.com whose favorite just share this with anybody you think that they would like it. Appreciate you tuning in. We’ll catch you next time.