The MRTS: How Men Build Emotional Maturity, Lead With Accountability, And Heal Father Wounds

What does strength look like when no one’s watching? We sat with a table of fathers, husbands, mentors, and coaches to answer that with honesty that cuts and hope that holds. The throughline is simple and demanding: emotional maturity isn’t about feeling less; it’s about owning your feelings, choosing your response, and repairing quickly when you miss.

We start with the basics men are rarely taught—how to name emotions without numbing them, how to suppress in a crisis and circle back to process, and how daily anchors like gratitude, prayer, and core values steady your nervous system. From there, we get practical about accountability at home. The standard is keeping your word in small and large ways, inviting your family into the plan, and modeling the art of repair: “You’re right, I dropped the ball. Here’s what I’ll do differently.” It’s leadership by service, the kind that makes people feel safe, not scared.

The conversation opens wider as we face father wounds head-on—addiction, absence, distance, and the quiet draft they leave in a man’s soul. You’ll hear hard-won lessons on not living in reaction to your past, choosing what to emulate instead of only what to avoid, and building identity with humility, courageous obedience, and fearless honesty. We close with betrayal, heartbreak, and forgiveness: why they’re inevitable if you love well, how forgiveness frees you without excusing harm, and how empathy grows when you’ve known the valley and still chosen the climb.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The Panel Of Men
• 1:04 Ground Rules And Today’s Focus
• 4:19 Defining Emotional Maturity
• 12:30 Handling Emotions Without Numbing
• 19:14 Core Values, Faith, And Self-Control
• 25:14 Guidance For Young Men At 22
• 32:34 Modeling Accountability At Home
• 44:37 Vulnerability, Repair, And Trust
• 53:03 Father Wounds And Breaking Cycles
• 1:05:13 Lessons From Two Fathers And Identity

Transcript

SPEAKER_07: 0:16

Hey, hey, welcome back to the Men's Roundtable Series podcast. I'm your host, Mr. Ew, your moderator. These guys are the hosts right here. In the building, we got several warriors in here, fathers, husbands, sons, brothers doing it big where they live, man. So we got some other guys coming through there a little bit on the late side, but it's all good, man. But just some time, guys, a quick 30 seconds or so. Introduce yourself, your name, where you're from. What are you into, man? Around the horn, however you want to do it, man. Popcorn side. Come on, first.

SPEAKER_04: 0:48

My name's Dwight Heck. I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My life is about helping people live life on purpose and not by accident. And my brand is called Give a Heck.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02

I love it. Who's next? Come on. Coach T.O. Clay, lightbulblessons.com. Live down in Atlanta, Georgia. Retired United States Marine leadership coach. Yes. Man of God. I love the Lord with all my heart. And I love this environment. Being with strong men ready to push the ball down the field.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

I love it. Who's next?com. I'm Lady Freebird, president of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34

I'm a former Navy Corpsman. I'm a product designer by nature. I'm a machinist by trade. I'm also going to write a book called How to Live a Better Life. And I'm in the process of writing a second book called How to Be a Better Man, specifically looking at the weak man and the transition from weak man to strong man, right down to the right of passage that I believe every man needs to go through. I'm a believer in God, not just a believer, I'm a follower. I'm a servant of his, serving in my local church here in uh southwest Missouri. And I'm currently on a contract job with Walmart.

unknown: 2:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_07: 2:13

Who's next? G are we were you done, man? There's some lag between you guys. Were you done?

SPEAKER_01: 2:17

You good? No, it's all good though. We can we can keep it pushing, man. This ain't about me. This is about the people that are going to be following and listening and hopefully receiving some.

SPEAKER_07: 2:26

Who's next?

SPEAKER_02: 2:28

Yeah, I'm Jason, founder of Evolutionary Men, and I lead men's groups, men's embodiment, retreats, shadow work to help guys get connected up in community so they can thrive together.

SPEAKER_05: 2:39

Thank you, sir. Next. All right. Steve Mayner, better known as Stu. AKA Stu. I'm a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant, uh, current full-time communications instructor. Uh, just starting out with C2L consultant and strategies, that's communicating lead. Uh, my passion is about communicating, uh, connecting communication to leadership through interpersonal communication, public speaking. That's it, man. Just here, happy to share. That's plenty.

SPEAKER_07: 3:14

Thank you, sir. Last but not least, the lion.

SPEAKER_00: 3:20

Thank you, Yusuf. Um, uh, my name is Rory Paquette. I'm the host of six podcasts, um, including the power of man, which I am very pleased to say over half of you guys have already been on, which is awesome. And um, I'm a podcast coach, a speaker coach, and um, I also coach uh men with uh leadership and fatherhood. So very, very happy to be here and uh you know, hi everybody.

SPEAKER_07: 3:45

Good stuff, good stuff. You still got one or two more supposed to be coming through. They told me they're gonna be late, but just to be clear on something, because we're in different time zones, different places, could be lagged between us. So take about uh take about three Mississippi before you make your point. Somebody had a chance to uh jump in just in case we don't uh stumble over each other. But last month we were talking about relationships, and that combo got if you didn't catch it. I don't know what's wrong with you, but it was heavy, man. I I think I think she was late. This was a that was a heavy episode, but we got a little deeper than our planned, but we gotta finish that. It was so long we couldn't finish it. It was like an hour and 15, and we still weren't close to being done. So today we got the unenviable task of trying to finish that conversation in less than 60 minutes. So we'll see how that's gonna work out. But let's get into it, man. I want to talk about emotional availability, I want to talk about beating in the home, uh, authority versus accounting. Doing that we're talking about healing father wounds, breaking the cycle with our children, intimacy, forgiveness, trust, also that men gotta deal with every day, man. So I'll kick it off with just the first question that you guys run with this, and then we'll go ahead and uh bring anybody that's new, anybody that's jumping in hearing us for the first time today. In the upper right hand corner of the screen is a QR code. That's how if you decide you want to be a part of this panel, gotta get you on the wait list, all right? Upper right hand corner of the screen is a QR code. Grab it. Interview with me, a real quick one. Get you on the panel, you can be a part of this conversation. First question, man. So, what does emotional maturity look like in a man today? What does emotional maturity look like in a man today? What should grab that first, man?

SPEAKER_05: 5:28

The first should be last, and the last should be I'm a I'm a newbie, but I'm gonna take it because I teach uh a chapter on emotional intelligence, and as it relates to men, just being able to be comfortable with your emotions. Uh, having emotions is human, but what you do with those emotions and whether you can control them or not plays a huge role in our lives as men, because so many men have made decisions that have been detrimental to their relationship and their freedom because they didn't have the ability to control their emotions. So in the house, it goes the same way. If you can't control your emotions at home, you're gonna make decisions that are gonna be detrimental to your family.

SPEAKER_07: 6:21

Thank you, Stu. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01: 6:24

I want to add to that, man. Um scripture comes to mind, right? When we talk about love, right? We love because he first loved us, and it's this inward, then outward flow. A lot of times I feel that we talk about emotional intelligence in the way of how do we interact with others, how others are affected by us. That makes us that deems us whether we are emotionally intelligent or not. Um, but if we're not aware and like Stu said, in control of our own emotions, if we don't know what those are, how can we be emotionally intelligent, right? So I think for a for a an emotionally intelligent man, that's someone that's comfortable, like Stu said, that's aware of their emotions, that knows how to process them, that knows when or when not to speak on them, right? Someone that has complete reign on it. Um, I would say that that is an emotionally intelligent man.

SPEAKER_07: 7:18

Thank you, DL. Who's that? Boy.

SPEAKER_00: 7:21

Yeah, I'll jump in if that's okay. Um I love what you guys had to say and uh agree with everything that's been said so far. Uh for me, as soon as I hear that, the key for me is a man who's not ruled by his emotions. Uh, we need to be able to feel them, we need to be able to process them. You know, all of these things are really, really good. For me, the end result of that is that we still have to be able to function. We have to be able to be fathers and husbands and protectors and providers, and we have to be able to do that without being ruled by how bad we feel or how awful we feel or anything else on a given day. We still have to get up and go out and uh, you know, deliver. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:57

I love that. I'll I'll I'll jump on that as well, just in the sense that um, right, the key is exactly what do we do with them. We all have them, and one of the big troubles with men these days is we're taught by our culture that masculinity means invulnerability. So men don't know how to identify or label or relate to their emotions. We're not taught that from pretty young age. And so, what do we do? We have these uh experiences inside of ourselves that don't feel good. So most men by default turn to things outside of themselves to change their state: alcohol, weed, booze, porn, masturbation, you name it. And it doesn't actually solve what's going on underneath. So learning when we have an emotion to identify it, and then what do we do with it is the key. That's I think what really uh demarks you know a mature man from an unmature man. Because when we don't know what to do with it, it comes out sideways, often towards the people we love or in terms of self-neglect or self-abuse. But when we learn to maturely handle it, where do I bring this emotion? How do I work with it? It's something that's just data for us about what's going on in our lives. And frankly, from the men I know, makes us more effective leaders when we know how to handle that. And just last thing, there's a huge difference between suppression and repression. Sometimes we got to suppress, we're in the heat of the moment, something's going on, we got to get stuff done. But the key is to know we have to come back to it in a safe environment and work or release that because otherwise it accumulates inside of us and it causes damage long term.

SPEAKER_07: 9:39

I love it. Just to give a shout out to our friend, or a friend of any of us, the innovator, Emilia Romans in the house saying blessings, man. Thank you, Alice and Brother. Appreciate you so much, man. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing the message that we're uh sharing today, man. Man, and good point, Jason. Thanks again for sharing that. Who's next?

SPEAKER_04: 9:56

I'll start, um, or not start, continue on. Um, being a dad of five kids, four of them girls, they're all adults now. I had to learn to hone in on something that many people don't have filters called the core values. My core value systems are can be very detailed, but they are very simple in the fact they develop around faith, family, and work. So anytime I get into a stressful situation, I try to within the first, because psychologists have proven, right? That in the first 45 seconds, if you don't change your state, you're stuck, right? It can take you hours to get out of it. So I put things through my filter. I think about my faith. I think about God. Is what I'm gonna say or how I'm gonna react going to serve me? Is it going to serve that person? Is it just gonna make them feel terrible? Is it gonna make me feel terrible? So whether it's somebody that's five, six years old or somebody that's 80 years old, I've put things through a filter and it always starts with my faith. It always starts with God. You know, what would Jesus do? Right? That's my whole life since I was a young kid. I remember one of my young daughters coming to me and saying, Dad, you know, we learned this in youth group today. And I said, What's that, hon? And she was maybe eight, nine. What would Jesus do? Right? So I start my filter at my faith, and the rest just works its way out.

SPEAKER_07: 12:04

Love it, I love it. Amelia's got a question for us today. Well, a comment anyway. Great question. Emotional maturity is knowing when to stay calm and leave in love, not ego. Thank you, brother. Good thought. I love it, man. All right, anybody else is next?

SPEAKER_06: 12:24

If you don't mind, good brother, you suffer. So when when I look at the screen, all of us on here collectively, man, I'm sure nobody's younger than 45. Maybe uh, brother, how old are you, brother? DL, is that is that your name? 40? Okay, so so you're you're right there at it. But what do we what do we say, gentlemen, to that young 22-year-old right now, that he he he may be listening in his ear pods at his job, wherever he's at. And everything we're saying sounds good, but he hasn't developed that full aspect of emotional intelligence just yet. Because I know at 22 I had not, I know at 25 I had not. At 30, I had not. Because again, the external situations that we're dealing with, and I don't want to turn this into a uh nothing crazy, but I know at 49, I I have to manage, like like my good brother just said, uh, as a father, as a as a husband, as a leader, as a coach, as a friend, as a son, we have to continuously manage. But I I think of emotional. I was sitting in the garage the other day, gentlemen, short burst. I pulled in the garage, home by myself, everybody's out, kids at school, wife doing her thing at school, and I'm sitting there, man, and and and I felt the weight. I literally felt the weight, gentlemen. Uh, whatever that weight may be, but I felt it. Started to speak it out, talking to the Lord, man. Next thing you know, I'm crying full blown. I'm literally saying out loud, sitting in the car, you know, inside the garage. Obviously, uh I have a Tesla, so I wasn't sitting in there sucking in fumes and smoke, but I'm sitting there, man, and I'm I'm I'm praying, bro. And I have my eyes closed really tight. And I and I I started seeing those little green dots and seeing those red dots. And man, but after that prayer, gentlemen, after that release, emotionally, man, I was able to get out of that car, man, and keep pressing forward. So did that 22-year-old definitely it's it's possible, but like like the good brother just said, it's so many different aspects, and you got to focus on a few things to get the many.

SPEAKER_07: 14:53

Yeah, but sir, brother. Thank you for being so transparent, man.

SPEAKER_01: 14:57

Hey, can I really quickly yeah, can I really quickly thank you for sharing that because that's that's huge, right? To that 22-year-old, we've got all of these years in this panel, right? We've been through our 40 years in the desert. To that 22-year-old out there, man. Prayer, man. An emotionally mature person prays.

unknown: 15:16

Yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 15:18

An emotionally mature person allows the Holy Spirit who was sent to us to guide us and to lead us to actually lead. And that starts in prayer. We can't know him, we can't we can't follow him, we can't do any of these things or process any of these things properly without prayer, man. Why not ask the one who made the box that has all the ingredients to that compose us? Why not ask him? How these things function, right? He has the to-do manual, he knows exactly how it works.

SPEAKER_07: 15:45

Man, that's it. I love it, man. Anyone else?

SPEAKER_05: 15:49

Yeah, to the the Dan, that 22-year-old thing, that angle, uh, because we do have so much experience uh as gentlemen on the on the panel, is it still comes back to decisions? Do you want to make a decision, an emotional decision, that is gonna make you feel good in the moment, but could jeopardize your freedom or your relationships long term. So if you're young and you're feeling like you're feeling, ask yourself, if I make this decision, what next? It's okay to feel how you're feeling. Tired, frustrated, beat down, great. Acknowledging it first, but don't make a decision in the moment that's gonna cost you years and years and years of struggle and captivity because we know a lot of brothers who are incarcerated right now, been in incarcerated 20, 30, 40 years because they made an emotional decision at 17, 18, 19 year old, and they're still paying for it.

unknown: 17:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_07: 17:09

No doubt. And somebody were not even inside literally bars, they're inside in their home going to work. Yeah, they've been in prison for decades.

SPEAKER_05: 17:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_07: 17:19

Ask me how I know let's shift the conversation a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about modeling accountability. I know that as men, we got a lot on our shoulders and we deal with a lot as far as trying to establish authority in our households and in areas of influence. In your assessment, how do you think men model or should model accountability for their children, for those that are partners in their life, etc.?

SPEAKER_04: 17:46

I think the best way to work on accountability myself is to do what you say you're gonna do. So, from the simplest little things, and here's what I mean: I've taught my kids this as simple as making the bed in the morning. I promised myself years ago I'd never get out of bed without doing a few things. One of them is being grateful to God for being alive, giving that opportunity to open my eyes and have another shot. The next one, once I am blessed to put my feet on the ground, I'm making my bed. I was given that bed, I was given my home that protects me. I need to respect it. Keep things clean in front of my visual, keeps me clean up here. So I literally model that to my children. And I always remind them the simplistic thing of would you talk to yourself that way, right? If you wouldn't talk to yourself that way, don't, right? And be accountable to everything you say to people. Hey, I will do this, right? And do it. Unless extenuating circumstances are there, there's no difference between you look at a young person or older person. I always tell them, listen, you know, here's where I'm at in my life, here's where you're at in your life. But if I make a commitment to you, I'm gonna keep that commitment, right? There's no maybe, there's yes or no, right? There's no in between. I get tired of people personally that say maybe, right? And they're not accountable to themselves. And every time we as men say something to somebody and you don't keep that promise, that accountability, your brain eats away at itself. Giant computer doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie, and it starts running a program that it's really hard to get off of that hamster wheel.

SPEAKER_07: 19:28

That's true.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

Come on, fellas, I know everybody got something to say about this.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

I'll I'll jump in there, then it's all good. I just want to give everybody a chance. So I appreciate you guys. No, to to me, um, you know, um accountability is taking responsibility for uh what is your job in a lot of ways, also. Um, I love the the ideas of leading by example and things like that, but uh one of the things that you know I operate on, and back to the earlier one, I have two boys in that um that age group we were just talking about, one's 21, one's 25. And I raised them both with the idea that the people who depend on you have to be more important to you than you are to you. And that doesn't mean you don't take care of yourself, it doesn't mean you don't fill up your cup. It just simply means that if there's four people at the table and there's three pieces of chicken, you're the one that was supposed to provide it, you're the one who goes without, you're the one who sacrifices. I've led my boys with those ideas of self-sacrifice. Um, you know, hey, if you don't have to self-sacrifice if you provide properly, if you protect properly, if you do what you need to do as a man. But if you don't, if you fall short, then you're the one who has to take that accountability. You're the one who doesn't eat, you're the one that does without. When you come at your life and you come at raising kids and you come at your relationships from a position of if I'm not doing what I need to do, then I'm the one who sacrifices. That position of self-sacrifice, uh, everything else opens up for you. Uh, your ability to have faith in God uh opens wide open. It just opens up uh like the sky during a rainfall. Um, it opens up when you're talking to your kids. Uh your kids can start putting that into practice when they're younger with their friends, with what they're looking for. And it keeps them from that entitled uh idea, you know, that a lot of kids today are suffering from. So uh that's my thing on accountability is uh leading from self-sacrifice.

SPEAKER_05: 21:26

I would say two things transparency and vulnerability. I have four adult daughters, five grandkids, and I try to be as transparent with them about how I'm feeling, what I've gone through, and the mistakes that I've made. Because sometimes our kids look to us like we have it all together, we have it figured out, and being vulnerable enough to say, I messed this up, I don't want you to mess it up. So this is how to avoid driving yourself into that ditch. And being, again, just honest and transparent with them and letting them know I am vulnerable, I make mistakes, but I'm still here and I'm still trying to get it done. And when we can be honest with anybody, we should be able to be honest with those people in our intimate circle more so than we can with anybody else. And vulnerability is one of those things that uh was a was a barrier for me because I was too guarded. I did not want to let them see that I was in, I was uh flawed. I had made mistakes, I have messed up, and I I didn't want them to see me in that state. Uh and the one person I wasn't vulnerable enough with over anything was my spouse, and she was the one person I should have been the most vulnerable to because if anybody else in this world knows me better than me, it's her. And I cheated my relationship for 20 plus years holding it in, tying back into emotional intelligence and not being emotionally intelligent enough to acknowledge how I'm feeling to her. That nearly destroyed my marriage because I didn't let my wife know what I was going through. Because I thought in my mind I was putting a burden on her. But in reality, she here, she's here to help me get through those things. And once I realized that, I'm like, she is dope, she is smart, she can help me get through whatever I'm going through. But it took years and years and years of getting to the point to saying, you know what? Letting it go, I'm gonna be vulnerable.

SPEAKER_02: 23:56

I love that, and I just want to add, uh, I think that's a great example of part of accountability and healthy modeling of it is modeling the art of repair. So instead of pretending, particularly big for us men, that we have to go around perfect, knowing all the answers, never asking for help, getting it right, we're all gonna make mistakes, we're all gonna mess it up sometimes, we're all not gonna know the right answer. And one thing I've had to learn to do with my kids is model how easy it is to take responsibility and repair. Hey, you know what? You're right. I did drop the ball on that, and I wish I had done it differently. And here's what I'm gonna commit to to make sure I don't do that differently the next time. Or talking to my wife, right? Hey, yeah, wow, you're right. What I did right there, I can see how that would hurt you. I'm not gonna defend, right? Instead, I'm just gonna show that it's easy to repair. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you like that, but I can see I did. And that ease of repair, I never had modeled in my family. So I was always like keeping it in, trying to be perfect, becoming a lawyer, arguing why they got it wrong and how actually, if you just understood where I was coming from, you'd get it. Letting go of all that and just showing we being a man means learning, means making mistakes, and it means owning up to it when you need to, and also not falling on the sword of shame and collapsing every time you did something wrong, because it doesn't mean you're a horrible person or man, just means you learn something new. And I think the easier we can model that in our families and communities, the easier it's gonna be for other guys, particularly those 20-year-olds.

SPEAKER_07: 25:34

Before the next person jumps, and I want to just throw a question out. I'm not asking for an answer because this one's one of them kind of questions. This is a tough one. So I'm just gonna just put it out here for us to be thinking about as we move forward in this conversation. You answer it, that's on you. I'm not asking for that. But just think about it because this is this is a serious question. I see this in people who I'm uh uh mentoring and coaching and that kind of stuff, and I see this all the time. It's a blind spot for men. But here's the question Would your family describe you as a leader that they can follow or one that they fear? Would your family describe you as a leader that they can follow or one that they fear? See, because it was blind spot, we got an instant answer. We think we know what it is, but we don't know what they think. We don't know what they feel because they don't always share what they feel. Sometimes they're motivated by fear, fear one that they are about more than respect for you as a leader. So if you're thinking about, I'm gonna ask for an answer. Just ponder that as we continue to talk about the question on the floor about modeling accountability for our children, our family, and our community. Who wants to grow up next? You got it. Lee, go ahead, but I'll show you here.

SPEAKER_03: 26:44

Go ahead. This is a good conversation so far. I'm really enjoying this. It's really causing thought and thinking about how this is uh emotional maturity and accountability modeling and accountability come together. And one thing when when younger men, especially today in today's age, have a hard time dealing with their emotions because they're not taught it by other men, and so they become reactive to their emotions, not uh it doesn't become something that they sit with and think about and feel and express and then let go of. They they have a tendency of reacting upon emotion, which tends to be a feminine characteristic less than a masculine characteristic. And so if we could teach young men one thing, that would be to sit with their emotions and to feel them and to recognize them, but not react upon them. And then in the modeling accountability, one thing I learned as I as I grew and matured as a man is that sharing what I'm doing, where I'm going, where I'm trying to take the family, what the intention of my family is for, and sharing those things with the family so that they know that I have a plan and I have a direction, and I'm encouraging them to come alongside and to be a part of that. And then as they see me accomplish these things, they begin to recognize that I'm taking responsibility for what I said I'm going to do, and then I carried it out. And as they watch me do that, then they themselves begin to learn accountability and responsibility for their own life. So then I take it a step further. I give opportunity for taking accountability. Here's this thing that we need to do with somebody in the family step up and take on that task. And then the family as a whole holds that person accountable for what they've said or volunteered to do. Same goes for myself. When I tell my family my plans, I'm telling them, hold me accountable for what I'm about to do. And as I accomplish these things, their faith in my leadership ability grows stronger, and they willingly, not no longer as in a force, but they willingly fall in next to me and we begin down this path together. And so being emotionally stable, not reacting on those emotions or overreacting to those emotions, feeling them, and then creating clarity in them, and then creating the path I wish we're going to follow, sharing that with my family so that they can hold me accountable as we go this direction. I think it's extremely important.

SPEAKER_07: 29:39

I think it's good. That's really good. Thank you for sharing that, brother. Anyone else before we move forward?

SPEAKER_01: 29:44

Yeah, I want to I want to throw a couple of little thoughts in here. First, I want to thank you, brother TO, for framing that thing for that 22-year-old because you've I think you've opened up a perspective and a directive in the conversation. Um, so I'm I'm gonna be speaking to that 22-year-old probably through the duration of this thing. The 22-year-old man, what you've been hearing here, I think we can string it all together, right, in one concept, um, and that's humility, right? That's living below what the world says you're supposed to do. That's not flexing and being boastful, but as the scripture says, being boastful in your weakness, right? And I'll even go further. And what um my brother up here, uh, I can't remember your name up in the top right. Um, but you you mentioned um you mentioned what would Jesus do, right? And and we can go even further and we can say, what did Jesus do? Because we actually have a track record of what he did. We don't have to guess, we don't have to try to theorize any of it, right? We have a track record, we know exactly what he did. And two of these core principles that we use in our discipleship out here in the Bay. One of them is courageous obedience, right? And that's obedience to the Father's will, even if it hurts. Oftentimes, especially if it hurts, right? Especially if it's going to defame your reputation in the world, but it pleases him, right? That's one step we can take. And the other one, like everyone's been mentioning, this honesty, right? Fearless honesty. Again, honesty that might defame you. Honesty that might make you look less in the eyes of people. But I'm telling you, when it looks right in the eyes of the Father, that's all that really matters, man. The end line, at least for me, I'm probably pretty sure it's the same for each man on this panel. The end line, when it's all said and done, the goal is to hear the father say, Well done, good and faithful servant. It's not to have the world say, Hey man, do you remember this person? It's to have God say, You did, you did a good job, son. You did a good job, daughter. Right. And so that 22-year-old out there, man, it's a tough world to live in. It is, period. All of these things we're talking about are hard concepts. These are things that we've gleaned over time. But the beauty of it is, after all of this time that we've spent struggling through it, we're giving you a map work and letting you know that you're not alone, that it's not uncommon for these things to happen, that it's not easy, but it is possible. Just want to say that to you.

SPEAKER_07: 32:07

That's incredible stuff. Anybody else now we'll move forward. We good the next one is probably just the the gut the gut punch of the episode. Because at least for me as a host, maybe you guys have no idea what I'm talking about. But for me, this is one of those topics that uh it's taking me, it's taking me years to get to uh the place of hope. I'm way better, you know what I'm saying? Totally, you know, I'm I'm working on that, but we're talking about healing father wounds and kind of breaking that cycle. Uh my situation won't make you guys have heard so it's not really a secret. I listened to the first uh three seasons of our original flash show. They call me Mr. You, you hear it in in in in no short order. But uh I didn't have the father in the household, and I essentially chased him across the country just to get one answer from him to a question I had. Why didn't you stay with me? Why didn't you get me? I chased him around the country. I mean, I mean that little like as far as New York history, this part of the country, I chased him that far trying to get the answer to that one question, and I could never get it. I eventually uh had some conversations, but the short order is that he passed away from an aneurysm. I think after his time in NAM, I'm not quite sure all the details, but I had to go and bury him. So it was me in the morgue and him on the icy slab, and I'm pounding his chest with both fists, telling him to come back to life because we still got business to finish. So I never got the answer. So I had to deal with that kind of thing, plus raise three daughters without any idea of knowing how to do that. Now I got six grandkids and one great grandchild. I'm still trying to figure some stuff out. So we have to waste a weights. We're in the shoot right now. So I'm giving everybody a pass great uh relationship with your fathers, no judgment, you ain't gotta say nothing. You you good with with with the last topic of the show, and you you can jump back in. So you don't have to say anything. But if you don't, this is more for you then. But tell us how your relationship with your father or lack thereof kind of influenced your approach to love, your approach to relationship and leadership. How is your relationship with your father lack thereof uh format for you?

SPEAKER_00: 37:06

I'll jump in on that one. Um, mine's pretty well documented. Anybody who's ever listened to any of my stuff. Um uh my dad was uh the worst, uh, alcoholic, um, you know, couldn't handle uh anything, and it was uh pretty regular. He would come home and it was just like clockwork. He'd come home, he'd get drunk, he'd beat somebody up. And that's just kind of how life was for a very long time. Um, as bad as that was, I think that um, especially folks in my generation, because you know, I'm a little further older than 40, uh, for everybody who was over there talking about it, you know, it's a deep. And uh, you know, when you're my age, uh, you come from that Gen X tree. And uh, I think um, you know, guys ended up either following their father's footsteps or they ended up completely going the other direction. Uh I grew up uh in the point where I mean I don't drink, I don't touch it, I don't do any of that stuff, uh, because I'm not gonna put myself in a position where it can become a demon for me and it can take hold of me. But um it was so bad growing up that I grew up with this devout um dedication to not following that. So for me, it's never been a casual thing um trying to not be him. It's been my life's mission to not be him. And when I had my kids, all three of them, uh, one of my first thoughts was I cannot be him. And so, you know, just to speak for myself, it impacted me greatly how that relationship was because it was so horrifying. Um and uh I had it with a father and with a stepfather. So, you know, it was uh I got the double whammy on that whole deal. But uh absolutely positively uh devastating, and um it meant everything to how I was as a father.

SPEAKER_01: 38:57

Thank you, sir. Who's next? I'll jump in. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, uh Lee.

SPEAKER_03: 39:06

All right, I have a very unique situation. Uh I actually have two fathers. Um, I was adopted at two days old, and I never knew in my biological family. Um, I was raised by a Christian family. They were Baptists, grew up in the church my whole entire life. And as an adopted, as a child who's been adopted, there are some things that go along with that. And one of them is this feeling of emotional abandonment. While my parents like loved me and they were very active in my life, there was still this kind of like, he's not really my dad. And it kind of really kind of came about when um my adoptive parents had their first biological son, and while the love didn't really necessarily change, there was now his son and me. And I was older and he obviously my younger. And there was always this have to almost earn their love. And and maybe it wasn't necessarily what they were trying to get across, but that's what came towards me. And so I was always trying to prove myself to my adopted dad, um, trying to do better, always trying to do things that somebody would like. And it really put me in this people-pleaser mentality. Even when I joined the Navy, I still had that people-pleaser mentality. Um, and I was a corpsman, and it had a major effect on the way that I treated other people and looked up to leaders and what I thought a leader would look like. And then about 10 years ago, I met my biological dad, and I got to talk to him and got to sit down with him. And there were a lot of things in his life that I can see in my own personal life that I don't want. I didn't want my life. My biological dad had anger issues, and he would get so mad that his body would shake, literally, shake. He would be so mad. And I thought, no, I am not gonna do that. And seeing those two dads, one was a Christian and one was live for the world. My biological dad went to jail, uh, he did drugs, he did all kinds of things, um, counter to like a 180 from my adopted dad. And even today, I cling to my adopted dad as my father, and I look at him as my father, and his leadership is still impactful in my life, yet my desire is for my bio, my biological dad to be in my life more actively. While him and I don't like his no offense to him, he's a far left Democrat, and I'm a moderate, we don't see eye to eye. But yet, there's a part of me that wants him in my life, no matter what his stance is. And the way that I raise my family and I take care of my family come came from my adopted dad. And then, of course, uh following Christ and what uh he says about leading the family. And so there shouldn't be a desire for my biological dad to be in my life because he's he doesn't align with what I believe, yet it's important. His his presence in my life is is very valuable to me. And maybe that's just because that's the way we were created to always look to our father for guidance and um our values and the way that we lead and and trans transfer through the to through life. Um but yet, you know, my heart's towards God, but yet it's at the same time for my father, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 43:04

Yeah, I just want to speak really quickly to the because I I I identify with both what Rory and Lee said um about seeing the things that we don't like, we're not gonna do. We're adamant that that's not gonna be us. I'm the result, my my broken marriage was the result of uh actually relationships period was the result of the danger in focusing on those things. I was so hyper-focused. Now, mind you, I I love my dad. He was my hero. I emulated him for most things. Um, but I knew the things that I didn't like that he did. I didn't like when him and my mom fought. I didn't like the way that he talked to us. I didn't like, I mean, I come from the era where you were still allowed to spank your kids and then some. So he was still doing that, right? I didn't like all of those things. And I swore to myself, I'm not gonna do those things when I become a father, when I have a relationship with people. Here's the danger in it. I was so hyper-focused on those things. I didn't think about the things that I was gonna do. All I thought about was what I wasn't gonna do, right? So I became a person who was all of those things. I said to myself, I'm not gonna be abusive. I became a very abusive person. I'm not gonna be violent. I became a very violent person because I didn't see the counter to it, right? My eyes were only fixed on all the things that I didn't like. I forgot to learn how to love, I forgot how to learn how to lead, I forgot to learn how to even follow, right? My opinion was the only thing that mattered because that's how he was. Can't nobody tell me nothing, right? And it was uh again to the 22-year-old out there, uh, this might be you. This might be you, and and I'm gonna tell you where it landed me at. It landed me in prison, it landed me with a million broken relationships that probably have no hope of reconciliation. It landed me feeling isolated and alone many, many a night, right? So just an awareness of the danger of that. I would I would encourage you to instead of looking at the things that you don't like or won't do, look at the things that you do like and would do, right? And then you, you know, obviously, my my advice always goes to the last part of it, which is the first part of it, right? The first and the last is to look at that in the light of the gospel, right? We do have a playbook, we do have one. Um, but I just encourage you to it's okay to be aware of those things, don't let that be your focus because I can tell you from experience, uh, it doesn't lead to anywhere good, right? If that's your only focus, like I'm sure Rory looked at the good things that he was gonna do, right? But he was also making sure like those things came from him not wanting to be an alcoholic, not wanting to be an abusive father, right? He saw the out the things that he wanted. I didn't. So if you're a 22-year-old out there who's hyper focused on just the negative, try to find the light and and lean more into that.

SPEAKER_04: 45:52

That's enough.

SPEAKER_05: 45:57

I will I will chime in, and I think it's important for people to hear the very the diversity of relationships and how complicated life can be amongst us, one from an adoptive perspective, one from a biological perspective, and divorced blended families and things of that nature, right? I have I have two dads. I was blessed to have my biological father, and I was blessed to have my bonus dad. And to is gonna relate to this. And if you have served any time in the military, it's about taking your coop, your your toolbox everywhere you go. I'm getting everything I can from my biological, I'm getting everything I can from my bonus, I'm putting it in my toolbox, and then I'm blending those things together and thinking about how do I want to do it. Because they they were total opposites in their way of thinking, which has allowed me to download both of those philosophies and come up with my own. And it's okay to come up with your own and mess it up, but it doesn't have to define you, you know. Great points about not looking at or focusing on what I don't want to be, but thinking about the cards you were dealt or the decisions that you made that uh you're in now, and figuring out a way to be better and tying that into the modeling and the example of what you want your kids to follow. Uh, I think that's just super important to not idolionize our our fathers and not demonize them at the same time, you know, because they're humans at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_07: 47:52

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_05: 47:53

Most of them were dealing with the situations that they the best that they knew how, right? And now that we know better, we download those tools and we do better, or we try to do better and help the next generation not make the same mistakes that we made and the generations before us.

SPEAKER_07: 48:12

I love it. Thank you, sir. Yeah, we got a comment to jump in before you guys keep on going. Our guy, Robert Chase's mind, jumps in, he says it's powerful to see a man being vulnerable, his real strength and opening up not as a sign of weakness, but as a mark of courage and growth. He continues. I love seeing brothers step forward and share their hearts, their lessons, their pain, and their healing. Yeah, brother, that's what we do on this show. A lot of submit, man. Oh man, Robbie is so dope, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 48:42

Yeah, that's our brother right there, man. And and I can say based on shout out to Robert Lytle, Dallas, Texas. Man, his father, you know, rest in power, man. Because when we have conversations, Robin and I, we talk about our fathers and and how pivotal they they were. Just like Stu said, right, wrong, great, horrible, indifferent. We extract those lessons, man. Because I'm a perfect example of a young man having a father in my life. He's always been there. Uh I always say, man, if I call him right now in real time, 11:46 a.m. on the East Coast, 27 October, he's gonna answer. Unless the Lord is taking him home, knock on wood, he's going to answer. And but there's always that little bitty gap at the bottom of the door, gentlemen. If you look good enough, if you you you got that light on and it's dark where you're sitting, you can see that little gap in the bottom of the door. I went through that gap. So, so regardless of how dope your father is, regardless of how involved he is, regardless of you know, everything you can actually think of that we would expect of a father, there's always that gap in the door that an individual like myself could slip through. You know, and so again, it it I look at it today, and when I talk to my dad, I say, Dad, you did everything that that the model father could do. But one thing you couldn't do was duplicate what I saw out in those streets. You couldn't duplicate that little chick at the homecoming dance, you couldn't duplicate when the partner was like, yo, hit this one time, bro. Like, all you need to do is just hit it once. It's just gonna make you laugh, you know, all these different things. And when we converse to this day, you know, he always says, But I gave you the rooted foundation, and you was able to circle back to that rooted foundation. So again, when I look at us on this call right now, we're all fathers. I got two sons as well. One one is 11, one's 16. And man, I'm I'm just listening, you gentlemen, and I'm just sitting here like, wow, man, like I'm not alone. I'm not alone. And and to that 22-year-old out there that we've been building with this whole uh episode, man. Like, man, I know 22-year-olds, they got eight kids. Literally, uh eight children by seven different women, you know, but because they didn't have that structure, as I believe, you know, good brother Dwight was saying, man, that structure. So uh I love this conversation, gentlemen. I I do, you know, because again, when when we listen to one another and we can take these things, I'm I'm coming to Sacramento in January, and and brother DL, I'm calling you. You gotta come, bro. Because here's what we're doing, gentlemen. We're using the air concept. When I say we, me and a couple of my buddies that that's out here really trying to make things uh better for the individuals to the left, right, uh, Jason and whatnot, but we use the air concept, you said. What is air? Like like air Jordan, air a is abandonment, I is identity, and R is resilience. And we've seen the model work, we've seen the model work. We've seen 78-year-old men crying, role-playing, speaking what they would say to their father, just like you, Yousse. You saw him land on the icebox, you know, you pounded on his chest. What would you say to him today, right now, to break that yoke? You know, the identity of that is always gonna be so we could go on and on for days, man. Please, if you're out there, understand, man, that whether you've had the father in the life, whether you didn't, you are still accountable. You're you're still responsible, you still have to shape your identity, you still have to be resilient, you know. As my pops always says, Hey, we didn't just fall off the turnip truck today. But the reality is your kids depend on you. Do not let that same cycle screw your children over. Yeah, I love that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 53:25

Well, at the end of the day, one of the things that I've realized is everybody's talking and it's it's great, right? We look at our lives and we think, well, I don't want to be like my dad, right? So I look at myself and go, my past doesn't have to be indicative of the future. So I use I create a forward roadmap. I have since I was very young, but that roadmap behind, right? A rearview mirror is smaller, but I still need to take into account how I was raised so that I have that critical thinking knowledge, so that when my filter goes through, I go, Oh my goodness, I'm acting like my dad, workaholic. And that's how I my core values. Oh my goodness, his core values were work, work, work. I didn't feel that family in there. I knew he loved me, he provided for me, he told me as a very young man, there's only three things I have to give you roof over your head, food in your tummy, and love you. Everything else you have to earn, and I have realized I didn't have to earn it through him, I had to earn it through God because at the end of the day, he was still still my father, he was still somebody that raised me. I didn't have to like the fact that I got spanked or that he kicked me, smacked me in the head. He was one of 18 kids, had lots of can you imagine back in the 30s and 40s? So I just look at the fact you know what my my father, how he raised me, that's a stepping stone to what I want to be as a man, and these are my core values. And oh, I'm slipping back to that work, work, work instead of faith, family, and work. And my accountability to me specifically creates that emotional maturity, that emotional IQ where it's more stable, where it's not in the valley of despair, going up and down, and you know, I get camped in life and I get caught. I always have that accountability to me so I can be accountable and supportive of everybody around me, from the littlest to the oldest. I know many of you are or um have kids again with me having four daughters and a son, all adults. One of the things that I always think about is when I'm talking to them, am I telling them something that they've seen as a model? Or am I just speaking out of my butt? Right? So always be what you're gonna be. Look at the past, don't let it control you, but you still have to have that as an indicator to control your future and what you don't want to be, in my opinion. That's dope.

SPEAKER_07: 55:51

I love that. That's dope. Yeah, all right. We're getting we're getting getting close to the back end, we're in the back end right now. So I'm gonna just throw out some words and let you guys speak to them. All right, that's how we're gonna end the show today. This is all from a male perspective, so don't tell me what your wife and your you don't need that. This is gonna be your perspective. Betrayal heartbreak, forgiveness, the floor yours.

SPEAKER_01: 56:28

Man, I'm gonna throw out one word in response to all of those words. Inevitable, inevitable, betrayal is inevitable, heartbreak is inevitable, and the best thing about it, forgiveness is inevitable. Um, and they're all free. Each one of them is free, right? When it comes to betrayal and heartbreak, I've learned one thing, and that's expectation when it comes to people, right? I expect people to be people, and what I mean by when I say that is I expect them to be flawed, I expect them to not fit the bill that I I have for them, right? I expect them to be exactly who they say they are, and then some on the lower scale. This way, I'm never disappointed, right? But it's because I've been betrayed by people I held up here, it's because I've had my heartbreaking by people that filled my heart, right? But the best thing is, and again, 22-year-old out there who's experiencing or has experienced or will experience these things, the restoration comes in forgiveness. The scripture tells us when we forgive, that's where we feel the Father's forgiveness. When we withhold it, that's when we know he's gonna withhold it, right? So when you forgive, you're gonna find yourself free of all of the things that you are feeling right now or that you may feel in the future, right? Because betrayal and heartbreak, those are two things that can and oftentimes do hold us prisoner. They take us captive, right? Because we're led in those ways, because those are the things that we poured into, right? And so we expect something back from it. And the last thing we expect is betrayal and heartbreak. But oftentimes, more often than not, that's what we end up getting. So uh, youngster out there, man, be prepared to forgive for the one who hasn't experienced it and for the one who it has experienced it, learn to do it and and and embrace the concept of that because man, I'm telling you, there's so much more life out there to be had uh when you're willing and able to let God break that shackle. And it's as simple as forgiveness.

SPEAKER_04: 58:32

I love that. Dustin, at the end of the day, I look at the fact that in my life, I'm glad I've had all those, right? People go, What do you mean you're glad you had all those? Guess what? You know how many clients I have, thousands of them that I've had over the years in the financial and the life coaching business, and they'll say to me, I just want to be happy all the time. I said, That's why would you want to be happy all the time? If you don't have lows, how do you know you have a high? How do you, if you're not sad, how do you know you're happy? If you're not angry, how do you know you're joyous? You have to have the alternative, and you have to have the opposite side in order to climb it.

SPEAKER_07: 59:08

Walking spinning cartoon, that's what's going on. Watching a Disney movie, that's not real.

SPEAKER_01: 59:15

Yeah, no, 100%, Dwight. I agree 100%, man. We have we have to have those things to to converse about it, right? The converse sides. People think that they're polar opposites, but we're talking about it right now because we've experienced the lows and the highs. That's converse, right? That creates the conversation. Um, but I agree 100%, man. I I would not be where who I am today, and and and I would not be pleased, and I would not be able to serve God joyfully if it wasn't for the fact that I've experienced those lows, because in those lows, I've seen his goodness, right? In those lows, I've seen the light. In that dark, I've seen his light. In the in the hurt, I've seen his love, right? I've tasted and seen that he's good, so I ain't going back.

SPEAKER_00: 59:56

Yeah, I'll jump in on that for a second. The um uh I love what you guys have said so far. Uh, you know, as I've been sitting here thinking about it, I also think that you know those three words are things that we want to strive for uh because of what they mean. Um when when you you cannot experience betrayal from somebody unless you believe in loyalty, unless you believe in uh serving others and and not betraying people. The only reason that betrayal hurts is because you hold yourself to a standard where that's not acceptable. And uh I think that heartbreak is the same way. Um, I think if you aren't experiencing heartbreak, then you're not allowing yourself to love to that degree where you can experience it. And I think you're way too closed off. So if you can experience heartbreak, then uh it means that you're out there and you're giving all the love you can possibly give. And you know, eventually you're gonna hit that. And then forgiveness, I think, is the same thing. Oh yeah, I think forgiveness is the same thing, and then I'll shut up here. But uh, you know, forgiveness is the same thing. You can't offer forgiveness unless you have an idea as to how and to what it means. And if you're not uh in your faith and if you're not you know following following the Lord, then you don't really understand what giving forgiveness to someone who has betrayed you or caused you heartache really, really means. And so I think that if you're feeling those three things, I think you're in pretty good shape, and I think you're on the right path.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:23

Who would that jump in? Go ahead and drop that mic, Rory. Go ahead and drop that mic.

SPEAKER_07: 1:01:26

You already dropped it already. That brand new mic. Who's next? Who is that?

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:34

I just all I added was the fact that empathy, I said one word, all of that helps us develop the ability to be empathetic because if we can analyze our circumstances of what we've gone through, live in that feeling, like somebody mentioned earlier, accept it, it also helps us be the best version of ourselves to be empathetic, to have somebody talk to us and go, hmm, and not and you're listening, you're listening to them, you're not just waiting to respond by actually having that empathy. So those things have helped me be more empathetic, right? To be more kind and considerate, to always think to some, what's that person going through? I always was raised, you know, what's that person going through? What are you walking in their shoes? What would you feel? I know it's tough for people to do that. Well, their life's not my life, but that's not the point of that exercise. That point is for you to slow down, to think, to actually be critical and compassionate about your thought process and what you're thinking about somebody else, and you don't know where they've been.

SPEAKER_07: 1:02:40

You're jumping ahead and doing this. This has been a fantastic conversation. We are up against it a little bit. Uh, but as you know, every month we do this again. So you're looking out for some uh some reach out regarding uh November. If this was so good like this, I don't know what I didn't reach out. I don't know why this was amazing, man. But uh, in the right hand corner of the screen is a QR code. If you're interested in being on the radio for a panelist, jump in, drop it in for your friends who you might think might get value out of that. Get that QR code right there. And you guys, I don't know how to get you guys to share where they can find you because we don't have a whole lot of time left. So let's try this instead. In the live chat on the YouTube channel, Facebook, wherever you guys are watching this, jump inside there with your information. If you don't mind doing this, then everybody's on this panel. Drop your info, however, you're going to be contacted, email, website, whatever it is, drop it in the live chat via YouTube or Facebook. And that way people can find you once you go over the air. So nothing definitely is to do your podcast. Are you wanting to watch whatever it is? Drop it all in there. Hopefully, somebody that's watching will get value from checking you out, checking out your work. So drop in your podcast, your email, your website, or all three. Let them know how to find you, man. And again, man, thank you guys for jumping here and doing this. Not in a not in the private chat. In the live chat. People can see it. They can't see it in the hill. And I close the door and put the lock on it. Put it in the YouTube chat, y'all. Come on, man. Thank y'all so much. Not in the private chat. They're just for us to see. We're behind the curtain, man, behind the fifth wall. Man, everybody knows what's going on. But thank y'all again for doing this. It's been a fantastic conversation. Let's talk offline. If you need to talk about anything, I'm here for you, man. Love you guys and thank you for being here. For your listeners and viewers, this podcast episode is live, so it's on all our social media platforms, except a couple of them. They'll be up within the hour and listening platform before one o'clock today. So thank you again for watching and listening. This is the Men's Round Table Series podcast, and we are men, and we're good with that.