Transcription
No young man should stumble his way into manhood. The best gift we can give as a father is a clear pathway. Every boy needs a moment where he is called out of boyhood and into manhood. Where his strength is tested, his faith is forged, and his father's voice calls him forward. That's why we created the Brave Co. Ride of Passage. It's a 30-hour weekend where fathers and sons encounter God together. We're going to break a wild horse. We're going to push limits and leave forever changed. Guys, this isn't a retreat. It's not a conference. It's a right of passage. Join us February 28th through March 1st, 2026 in Jacksonville, Florida. Visit braveco.org to learn more about this.
We live in a time where masculinity is shamed and men don't know what it means to be a man. As a pastor and counselor, I've spent the better part of my life equipping and training others. My goal with this show is to translate my hard-earned experience into tools and tactics to help you become stronger as a man. This is the Brave Co podcast. [music] I'm your host Jason Valentin. Welcome back everyone to the Brave Co podcast. I am with the man, the myth, the legend Cole Zik. If you guys don't know who Cole Zick is, you are a new brand new follower to the Brave Co podcast. We have him on almost once a month when he doesn't cancel on me. And Cole's one of my best friends. I just He's also a pastor of Risen King Church here in Reading, California. I taught him all that I know and he's putting it into play every single day. Every single thing.
"Every single day."
"Yeah. I don't think I I'm I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make it to five any day without the things I've learned from Jay."
"I agree. I mean that that was, you know, totally honest. No lie there at all."
"That's true. Um, one of the our our our things that we're aiming at the most in Brave Co., we have a Spartan right of passage in Florida. We've created this partnership with Spartan. Um, we play the the commercial all the time on here, so guys are hearing it, they're knowing about it. And that all came out of this desire and this belief that no young man should stumble his way into manhood, right? The greatest gift that we can give him is a clear pathway into manhood."
"Y"
"And the whole uh the whole like my biggest dream is to create a movement, right? To be a catalyst where pastors, leaders, mentors, fathers start to go, we've we've got to have a real plan. We have to have a real plan for men. We have to have a real plan for our fathers. And I'm not saying we don't have to have a real plan for our daughters. I'm just right now this feels so clear to me. And kind of inside of this U vein, I preached last week"
"On"
"Was it good?"
"Or two weeks ago?"
"Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. There's like"
"Is that my favorite question to ask?"
"There's like there's like your preaching, right? This up here"
"And then"
"And then there's yours way up. Yeah. Totally. That's great. I'm glad to know that it was still good."
"It was. Yeah."
"Yeah. Great."
"Yeah. You would know if you invited me to your church."
"You."
"Well, you know,"
"That's another subject. Anyways,"
"Yeah,"
"To stay on track,"
"Um, I preach"
"I'm good at preaching. We'll invite you to our church."
"Yeah, I'm trying. I preached about God's original plan for men. And Jesus had his whole design, which I'm going to like cut through the chase. His whole design when he came to earth was he found these common everyday men,"
"Right?"
"He basically said to them, 'Leave your comfort. Leave your purpose. Leave everything that you've ever known. Come follow me and I will make you.'"
"Mhm."
"Which is a really powerful statement."
"Yeah."
"'Come follow me, I'll make you.' You see Paul say that in Nevada."
"I saw a clip of your sermon online and it was good. The clip I saw,"
"I was like, I didn't even commented on it."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"You see Paul in the Bible who says, 'Follow me as I follow Christ.'"
"Yeah."
"The whole problem that we have in America today, and we're going to take a different angle than what you guys think, but the whole problem that we have in our world today is we don't have men saying, 'Come follow me, I will make you.'"
"Don't have that mentality."
"We have the mentality of like, 'Go to church.'"
"Or the mentality of like, 'Be good husband, show up.' But we don't have this expectation, this idea,"
"Yeah,"
"This deep inner belief that as a man, my job is to reproduce myself over and over and over again in disciplehip. I God, if God had a plan, so here's my whole thing. If God had a plan for every man, we should have a plan for every man."
"It's great."
"If God had a plan for every son, we should have a plan for every son."
"We're in the trenches in that."
"Yeah. I mean, what does that really look like? How do you break that down? I wanted to talk about that more because I think a lot of fathers that I'm talking to are like, what I've never said this to a pastor or a father where they don't go, dude, you're right."
"Sure."
"I called a bunch of churches this week. Baptist"
"Be the first one. I think you're completely wrong. I think we should just see how it plays out."
"Yeah, you're dumb. Um, I called a bunch of Baptist churches this week to tell them about Brave Code, the right of passage. I'm talking to a pastor and I say, 'We have this core belief that no young man should stumble his way into manhood. That the greatest gift we could give him is a clear pathway.' And he's like, 'You're right.' My next question for him is, 'Do you guys have clear pathways?' Like, is this? And they're like, 'No, we actually don't. That's a that's a great"
"Yeah."
"And it's one thing to talk about it as. It's another thing to do it.' And so I just thought like, man, we could break it down a little bit more. Even just practically as a dad, like what was it like for you? What are you doing? What are the pain points? What are the struggles?"
"You got"
"All of the points are the pain points."
"You got a bunch of boys. You got three boys."
"Yeah."
"Three incredible boys who are really in that age range, right? Like your boys are starting to like climb up"
"Totally"
"At that age range where you start to feel the pain of like, uh, do I have a plan? Am I doing it right?"
"100%. And like you could be convinced one night like you are on the right track and then within 12 hours you were like this ship is sinking and we just got hit by three torpedoes."
"I thought you were cussing for a second. Uh yeah. I mean I think that's I would say that's probably what I spend the majority of my time thinking about right now. 15, 13, 11."
"Yeah. Um, my 15-year-old in particular, he's halfway through his sophomore year,"
"He's doing something two and a half years from now."
"Yes."
"That he's got total decision-making ability for the most part, right? Like I can't"
"Yeah."
"Like right now I can say at the end of the day I can say no, you're not doing this. I'm not going to be able to do that in two and a half years."
"No. Um, and so I would say that I feel weight, pressure, awareness of am I"
"Am I depositing in them the way that they need to be deposited in in a way that they're going to receive it?"
"[snorts] Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes that answer is no."
"Yeah."
"Um, and are we preparing them, you know, to be who they're called to be? You know, I think for us, thankfully, a big piece to that is your community,"
"Right? Like I think one of the things that I figured out early on was"
"I'm going to do much better by my kids if they have more than just me in their life as far as men go."
"That's big."
"Right? It really is."
"My boys are really close with our youth pastors. And I've told my boys on a number of occasions, if you ever tell something to Dylan, who is the our high school pastor, and Josh is our middle school. If you ever tell something to them, I've told them not to tell me."
"M"
"And I want you to know you can tell them something that you wouldn't want me to know."
"Wow."
"Like I I'm good with that."
"Yeah."
"Um and so, you know, I feel like they especially as pastor's kids, they feel like they need a safe space like that. Yeah. You know,"
"Um I think so, too."
"And so, you know, we're I think for us right now, I think my biggest"
"My biggest thing, you know, parenting exposes your inadequacies. Like you I I feel like I've learned I Nothing in my life has shown me how inadequate I am more than parenting."
"I agree with that."
"You know, like"
"Yeah, cuz it's a daily pressure. There's no"
"And you don't care about anything else. Like you care about this."
"It's true. You can't walk away from it."
"You can't walk away. Like I It was so much We were youth pastors for 13 years and we were dealing with inner city kids."
"Like Jay, the stuff we had happened in our sanctuary. I You don't want me to say on this podcast when I was a youth pastor."
"True. And yet the way and I have really good kids. Yeah. Like my boys are awesome and yet the weight of a crumb feels way bigger than the weight of a meal of poor decision. Like"
"You know like a small thing feels bigger now. So I think"
"Like when I look at okay as we're molding these guys I I would say my biggest my my number one priority is making sure they're able to look around. I want them to be have to count on two hands the number of men in their life that they respect. M"
"Like I want them to be able to go give me your top 10 list."
"Yeah."
"They're going to say me, my dad, my brother Joel, my brother John."
"Do you think I'd be on that list?"
"I think for sure I was going to get to that, but you're you're not in front of the family though."
"Feel so insecure about it."
"He's trying to be in front of my family. I'm listing their grandfather and their uncles. And before I can finish the uncles, Jay's like, 'What about me?'"
"I've been in there on a couple hard moments."
"No doubt you have. But you know, I think Yeah. You go there and then you go um Jason Valadin, Ahab Elhindy, Chris Lamb, Michael Miller,"
"Couple coaches in there."
"Couple Oh, big time. You know, coach Gary Reynolds, coach Christian Reynolds, his foot, my oldest son's football coach, Gerald Piper. Like,"
"You know, Mike, my boys are going to be Dylan Josh. My boys are going to go,"
"Man, I've got four handful full handfuls full of guys that I can"
"Yeah. That I want to learn from"
"That have something that I need that are crushing the game that that I trust and respect"
"And that that if any of them, anybody I just listed, if one of my boys went to them and said, 'I got this really hard thing going on. Can I share it with you?' I'd trust any one of them for my son to walk through that with them. And I trust that man's discretion of when I should know."
"I got goosebumps. I really do. I that to me is being able to welcome your sons into a network into a tribe of men is one of the most important things you see in in almost every right of passage it would happen whether it was with uh a tribe in India or whether it was with um, you know, the the bar mitzvah welcoming a son into a group of men you don't just belong to me, but you are one of us. And helping that son to see like these men have wisdom, these men have experience."
"Yeah."
"Is such a massive key to giving a son"
"Because without heroes, without something to aspire to,"
"A man has no reason to delay gratification."
"100%"
"Has no idea of what's possible."
"Yeah. He only has to measure against whatever's being shown, right? Whatever looks flashy, whatever. And so he will shrink down to what he thinks he can do."
"Yeah."
"Or what's been modeled for."
"That's 100% right."
"Which is part of the challenge that we have with, you know, single moms."
"Yeah."
"Is there's no role model, right? There's no male role model. John Eldridge said, 'Masculinity is not something a man's born with, but it's something that's poured into him.' And so for a single mom, it's like,"
"Can you bring in these coaches, these mentors, these men,"
"Just everyday average men, right? That are waking up like an average man is a that does average things is awesome. Wakes up,"
"Yeah."
"Takes care of his family, is present, works a job,"
"Puts food on the table,"
"Plays with his kids. Like,"
"That's freaking awesome."
"Yeah. If you can get your your boys, your sons around that and go, 'This is actually the benchmark.'"
"Right? Like aspire to that,"
"Right?"
"Try to gain that kind of power."
"100%. Well, and I think, you know, and there there's there's different levels to it in different venues. You know, I think you you make a great point. I my heart goes out often to single moms because,"
"You know, it's an impossible job."
"It is an impossible job. And and I think a lot of times people in broken homes or single parent homes tend to feel so guilty about the fact that they're not nuclear and it's not to parents that they almost"
"Even overcompensate with softness at times."
"And by softness, I don't mean, you know, I'm talking like you're just we're not you're not holding them to that standard."
"Yeah."
"Uh and I think there's such a critical vein there where it goes, 'All right, mom, if you're in that boat, this is where I love youth sports.'"
"Me, too. This is probably one of my greatest things I love about you sports. I wasn't good at anything as a kid."
"Yeah, we know."
"Horrible."
"Um,"
"Still."
"Well, I was great at I was all-state wrestler. So, that's something."
"Yeah, that's true."
"Um,"
"Is wrestling a sport?"
"Yeah."
"I'm just kidding. I love wrestling sport."
"Um, greater sport than anything you were all-state."
"Yeah, totally. So, that's true. Uh,"
"That's true. You win."
"Yeah. Um, now I'm not I'm also not saying I would beat you because you are the most densely formed human I know for your size."
"Like if you if you feel this, you're like, 'What is in there?' That is ungodly and yet somehow God gave it to him."
"Yeah."
"Um, but I think sports provide a pretty great opportunity where"
"I mean the fact of the matter is my boys within second day of tryouts are already looking up to a coach in a way they don't anybody else in their life. That's true."
"There's a massive reward for a kid in their brain for being on a team and winning a game."
"Yeah."
"And what I love about it is it's not a reward that can come quickly or without sacrifice."
"You got to earn it."
"You have to sacrifice for it. And it has to come on the other side of hours of preparation."
"True."
"You really can't simulation of real life for a boy."
"It is. I mean, hunting's in that boat. I think Well, I just think any of those things where you have to sacrifice enough to become good enough at something where you in order to get the reward, you have to have worked"
"To be good enough to get that outcome."
"Yeah. There's no way. Okay. So, there's a there's several principles that I think are building blocks in the the formation of a of a young man. And to me, one of the main ones is testing and equipping."
"Yeah. [clears throat]"
"The testing, the purpose of testing, right, is when something gets tested, you see where all the incongruencies are. That's the point of testing. Joseph gets called, then he gets tested, and you see all these incongruencies rise to the surface. And God's gonna equip you through feedback."
"Yeah."
"So, God has this plan, right? Like, we're all called. We've all been called. Everyone here's been called. We think that the callings qualifies us for the commissioning. It doesn't."
"Yeah."
"The calling is supposed to give you enough vision that you're willing to go through the uh testing and the equipping."
"Yeah. I know that I'm called. Therefore, I feel like I'm called to being a doctor. So, I'm going to go through 12 years of school so that I can be commissioned as a doctor."
"Right."
"And I think what sports does is sports gives us that. I want"
"Microcosm of that."
"Yeah. I feel called to play on a team. I want to be Michael Jordan. I want to whatever whoever that guy is."
"And then you get put into the game. You're being tested. You're being equipped. Let's see how you shoot. Let's see how you pass the ball. Let's see how you work in this ecosystem. Let's see what And then you get a bunch of feedback"
"Because feedback really is like where your ego meets reality. Like feedback is so important, right? Because your coach is constantly teaching you"
"This isn't about who you are as a man. This is about your skill set."
"Yeah."
"This isn't about your worth. This is about uh your capacity, your capability and that feedback begins to build capacity. So think about a young man without feedback in his life. His capacity shrinks up."
"So your sons, my sons, as they grow older are growing in capacity because they're being tested. That test is revealing things. What's being revealed they get feedback about. They go and make changes. They make refinement. They get to see themselves in action again. Then they get to try it again."
"Like this is the ecosystem for building a warrior for thousands of years."
"Without that, without that, like that's what a dad's supposed to be doing when he's in the home."
"Yeah."
"'I will make you.' Come follow me."
"Right. Come follow me. I'll make you. He's like, do what I do. See what I see. Learn what I'm learn. Now you try it a little bit. I'll watch you. It's a Jesus and the disciples. Come follow me. Jesus is doing it. They're like, 'Oh, that's amazing.' He's showing them the standard,"
"Right?"
"People are getting healed. They're like, 'Wow.' Then pretty soon, they're doing it and he's watching."
"Yeah."
"They're like, 'This one only comes out with prayer and fasting, guys. This one, he's teaching them. He's giving them pointers.' And then you see a moment where Jesus sends out. He sends them all out and he's like, 'You're going to do you're going to do things that I didn't do.' But it was through that testing, through that feedback. And I think as we're forming, as we're thinking about forming men for dads and for moms out there, if we skip the testing and the equipping, it's the feedback. It's 'raise a child in the way they should go and when they grow old, they won't depart from it,' right? It's the uh a brother is born for the day of adversity with iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. It is that type of kneading and mixing that creates a boy and forms him into a man. Mhm."
"As fathers, the real question is, do I have an intentional pathway into that?"
"Right?"
"If you knew that that was a target from when your son was young, I want to gain a place in his life where he trusts me enough to see the value and the feedback that I'm giving him."
"Mhm. And you create this ecosystem, right, where it's not just all pain, but he can he can look he can learn objectivity. He can learn like I'm getting feedback and I'm learning all the great men in my life get feedback and"
"Yeah,"
"Look at where Dad was. I think you you make this pathway so much easier."
"It's true."
"Yeah. I think it's you you do make it easier and it's it's really helpful when you give the clarity of, you know, because sometimes we our kids can be shooting in the dark trying to please us."
"Yeah."
"And I think that what you're talking about is going, 'Hey, I want to be be really clear, kiddo. Here's what it looks like. Here's the type of man I'm hoping you'll become and what I'm looking for.'"
"And when as you become this, you get trust. And one of the langu we use a ton in our home and examples I go I'm going to give you the level of freedom that you that your trust has earned. Now I love you no matter what. However, when you call me on a Friday night at 11:00 and say, 'Can I stay out till midnight?' The answer to that's going to be dependent on the trust that you've built."
"This is language we've used from really really early. Yeah. Since they were really little. I think sometimes in parenting it can be really easy to just react to not think as as systematic as you're talking about"
"To not to to if you were to go hey what do you want for your boys you you can rattle off all the stuff everybody would rattle off that they're honest and that they are kind and d"
"But no have you sat down and really said here's what I want to see in them when they're adults here's what I'm doing to instill that in them here's what I'm doing to make sure they want to hear me instill that in them"
"And actually coming up with a really clear picture of that."
"Yeah."
"And and it's it's a challenge. You know, one of the things that we do, I don't even know if this is good. I'm going to know in probably 10 years. We're going to find out is I'll make it I'm you know, you know that us Jay, our family, all of us, myself, my wife, my kids, we are unfiltered. Here's what we think. You know, we're not candy coders. We never have been."
"Definitely not. Um, and so with the kids, like I will tell them, I I love you all the same, but you're not all treated the same. It's really based on your level of trust. And I have one that will go, 'How come this one can do this and I can't?'"
"Well, because I'll just tell them straight up, 'Well, because they've earned a ton more trust than you have."
"I really want you to earn trust cuz I want to trust you a ton.'"
"Well, why don't you trust me? Well, that's I'm happy to answer that question. Let me explain to you the things that you've done that have caused me to not trust. That's a big ideal in our home. Yeah."
"Is if you're and and I define to them what trust is. Here's what trust is. Trust means you do the right thing or when you don't do the right thing, you own it."
"As long as you do those two things, we're good. Like, I'm not expecting you to do it. You know,"
"But having language around the clarity instead of making your kids shoot in the dark, just going, 'Oh, I'm just trying to please mom and dad. I can't please them. Never make them happy. I'm just drowning in their lack of approval for me.' Yeah,"
"That's what a lot of kids feel. And I think that what when you get it down into the granular nitty-gritty, how do we create how do we help men, young men transition into manhood, a big part of that is going, this is the really clear picture of what we call a man."
"Here's I want to help you get there. Here's how we get there. And that I think a lot of times Jay that this next wave of parents is having a hard time doing is stepping back and allowing your kid to fail."
"Yeah. If if you haven't set up um a plan for what you're forming in your children, then failure looks like a picture of incompetency on you. Mhm."
"It ne it rarely looks like an opportunity for growth."
"It's true."
"And it it also brings a lot of anxiety cuz if our kids don't do it right, then like oh no."
"Yeah."
"And so"
"I kid kids kids need a very clear plan."
"Yes."
"We often think that like kids really thrive in just like this flowing do whatever. But they don't. They don't actually don't. Kids need a real structure."
"Uhhuh."
"And they really thrive in structure. What's expected of them, where they're going, what can happen. That structure creates a bunch of flexibility for kids."
"It's true."
"If you if you put a perimeter, if you actually put a fence up in a playground, they'll use every edge of that fence. If you don't put a fence up, they often tend to play closer."
"And so, they need these boundaries that go like, 'Okay, this is the safe perimeter.' Yeah."
"Let me tell you where you're at. Let me tell you what the goal is. And this is what I love about I think being intentional"
"Is you can know what you want to give your kids and you can know where they should be going, but if you don't know how to implement it or how to get them to see it, then it doesn't really matter, right? You're just"
"You're just a theologian."
"Yeah."
"And that's right. Well, and and I would even say with it as you got as you get that picture of clarity,"
"Bring people into that. As I kind of started at the beginning, you know, one of the things that, you know, like back to the sports thing again, I I cheer my face off. I also like if we lose or we win, within four minutes of a game ending, I'm about the same person. Yeah. Like I'm like it's kids sport. It it has zero impact. My mortgage is still paid by my hard work, not what just happened. Like [laughter] it doesn't change much in my life. But I found one of the things I've been and I want to give this I think as a point of advice to parents that are trying to figure out how to n because I know a lot of parents that feel pressure do to do travel sports because their kids could."
"I've been very very selective with who I will allow to coach my kids because of this. I'm not just doing sports for the sake of doing sports. We're doing sports to develop young men and my daughter into a woman. Y"
"Um that's the reason we are so committed to sports to the point where"
"We don't our kids don't quit. They know the rule is you try out"
"Once it starts you are on that team to the end regardless."
"There's one time I pulled my son off a team a month in"
"I'm watching these coaches at practice. I'm watching them at the game. I'm watching them cuss out board members during the game."
"Yeah. You're like I don't want my son to be come back."
"I go I'm not giving you my son for five months."
"No."
"Right. And so you're lame. Yeah. Get you know my as you identify this parents I encourage you now whether maybe yours isn't sports I think jiu-jitsu is a really big thing I mean that's a sport but it's different like it's not the same as being on a football or baseball team"
"You know teaching your son or your daughter to hunt these types of things I would encourage you create spaces like that intentionally some pe some dads I know are going I want them all the ways around me that's totally fine I guess I encourage you to get out of just you and get them around other people. Just be really selective with who they're around. And then when you find a coach that you're like, 'Oh my gosh, this guy does he's this man or this woman is sewing exactly what I want in or a teacher or whatever, whatever your extracurricular is, I encourage you to fight for that."
"Now, the opposing side, you know, I pulled Caleb off this football team when he was in eighth grade cuz it was"
"Chaos."
"The opposing side. My son Connor has been on an AAOU team for two years and he's barely touched the floor,"
"Right?"
"This AAOU team was incredible."
"Yeah, if you want it, you got to earn it."
"And he'd come home and he'd be upset and and man, I really want to play. I go, totally get that, stud I'm sorry. Like, you just you started late. You're behind the ball on your skill development, but you got a ton of raw talent. You're going to get there by high school. You're going to be just fine. Yeah, but I you know and and we we had this big pinnacle where he was really bummed that he wasn't playing. And he goes, I need a new team. And I go, kiddo, that is the last thing you need. And he's like, I need reps. I go, bud, I've watched the other AA teams in town. There is no coach like our coach. Yeah,"
"He is developing. He coaches the bottom of the bench the same way he coaches the top of the bench. He cares more about character and integrity and playing the game the right way. And I'm like, 'Yeah, we're not leaving this guy till we have to.' Yeah. You could I mean, if you don't play all the way through high school, we're staying with him"
"Because"
"And then after games, this coach and I are talking about character development and the growth he's seeing in my son. We're even talking about basketball. I'm like, 'This is the coach I need.'"
"You have to remember that you're you're forming a man. You're not raising a son."
"Yeah."
"And so the ultimate goal is I'm raising a man. The chances that your son becomes a professional basketball player is so"
"And he still has to be a man when he shows up there anyways."
"What I think is if a father has a really clear plan"
"If if if he goes I know that these are the first few steps then it's easy to hit that target. Yeah."
"And I think that that's really important"
"In this when you're raising young men is to have some kind of like I know I'm on a pathway. I know I'm on track. I don't just hope and and this is why I love where we're headed with Brave Co is we're creating seven pillars of initiation"
"Which is amazing."
"Here's the here's the seven stages of manhood that every son has to go through."
"Yeah."
"That the first one being the beloved."
"The beloved is the starting point for every man."
"And John Eldridge created this language. Maybe somebody else created it before him. But you are loved not for what you can do but because of who created you."
"Yeah. That's right."
"Right. And that I have to so convince my son that because if I sew into my if I if my son isn't convinced that he is a beloved son, everything else is filtered through the lens of work."
"Totally."
"Through through I have to work for I have to earn this because instead of I'm a beloved son, I'm loved unconditionally."
"Um, and therefore, because I'm a beloved son, I do everything from that."
"Yeah."
"Okay. The next step in a young man's life is the explorer."
"The explorer is incredible because it's saying you're going to go do dangerous things, but God's with you, right? In that experience of giving your son the ability to go and try things and explore and reach out and you know we see it in sports, you see it in in all different areas of life. But this life is hard but God is with you. That's actually the pillar. Life is hard but God's with you is such an important thing. Like imagine a man without that pillar. Life is spo is life supposed to be hard? What do I do when life gets hard? Like"
"You want your son to come to grips to go like life is hard."
"Yeah, that's right."
"But I've been equipped. Look at all the B all the places in the Bible where God has equipped you. He set you up for success. He put And so when you start to talk through"
"These principles with your young man"
"And go this is where the phase of life that you're in."
"Yep. And this is the lesson. And let's talk about in my life where I've seen this. And let's talk about in Jason's life where life looked hard, but what's that forming in you? What's that doing in you?"
"We did this um we did this hunting trip, this right of passage with some of my friends and their sons."
"So there's four friends, five of their sons. They never shot guns before. Any of them. One had shot guns. Uh just a little bit."
"None of the others had."
"Yep."
"So we took them to Texas. We we taught them how to shoot a gun. These boys are 10 to 13 years old."
"Okay."
"Which is so perfect."
"Yeah."
"And we're walking them. The whole goal and so I set it up in the very beginning. Men, the whole purpose of this isn't that you would shoot some animals."
"It's not that you'd have fun."
"It's that we could start this journey for you into manhood."
"That's awesome. Where you'd realize God is raising me into a man of purpose, uh, of competency. You have confidence. So, we're going to give you something this week"
"That you didn't have before. We're going to test you."
"We're we're going to be a blessing for you. We're going to pray over you. We have some we have gifts for you this week. And it's going to be from every man that's here, right? So, create this expectation."
"Um, we're also going to give you feedback this week. We want you to leave your ego at the door. I talked all about that, right? So, I set up the culture and which I think is really important. At some point in a young man's life, you have to go, this is what we're doing."
"You're coming to the age of your life where I'm going to start to expect more of you. But you get more. It's going to be funner than it's ever been."
"Totally."
"You're going to be on this crazy journey, but you're going to get feedback. You're going to have to learn how to leave your ego. So what what happened was these young men, I told them in the beginning, you're going to do something wrong with the rifle and because you haven't never done it before and I'm going to correct you, but also you might see me do something wrong. I expect that you'd correct me. There's no man that's uncorrectable here. And we started this process with these men. We created this ecosystem. So all these men shot multiple animals. We killed 15 animals. The young guys got the first at-bat. It was incredible. They didn't wound any animals."
"That's awesome."
"We killed every one of them because they listened. They were very, very good at listening. And then I started to add I would add a piece at every dinner table, we'd talk through another pillar."
"So from the beloved to the explorer to the warrior to the builder to the brother to the king to the sage. Right. And I'm I'm bringing up a different piece. Man, you're supposed to be dangerous."
"Yeah. It's awesome. Sh. How many of you killed an animal this week? They're all like, 'You're a dangerous man. If your danger isn't under control, then you're a scary man.'"
"What's the value of being capable of being dangerous, right? And we take walk it through it and we they get to see it. And I ask a dad, 'What's an area in your life that you had to be dangerous? That you had to show up? What's an area of your life where you are out on the edge and God had to come through for you? I'm in this crazy journey, but God's with me. I think this is what I love about having a real plan. It doesn't have to be my plan. I don't care if you have my plan. Go to ChatGBT and make your own plan. But you need a plan that you're going my boy's 12, 10 to 10, 13, 15. Great. What's the intentional conversation that you're having?"
"Yeah."
"What's the intentional experience that you're having?"
"It's great."
"What's the Who are the intentional men that you're bringing over to go, 'Hey, I think you should ask Joe about this.' One of the things that we did around the table, we'll finish soon. Is I had each dad because they knew each other say, 'This is what he's an expert at, and this is what because I told all the boys, you're around men that are experts. These men are experts in your life. So if your marriage is struggling, if you grow up and your marriage is struggling and you're not pulling from me in your life, you're working harder than you should."
"An inheritance that you have is I'm good at this."
"Mhm. If if you are in my group, Cole, and my son is struggling with hopelessness and he just feels like and he's not pulling on you, you're one of the most hope-filled, optimistic, like go-getter, hard like,"
"Yeah,"
"He's missing out on something. And so we created this ecosystem where the boys were asking every time they got home,"
"How can I serve you, Jay?"
"I'm serving you."
"Yeah."
"How can I serve you? We talked about when they go home, should your mom have to ask you to do your chores or should you be able to step into that and go, 'Hey, I'm going to do my responsibilities.' Right? These are the things I'm growing into a man. So, we set their moms and their parents up for success. And then we we blessed each son. We prayed over him. The mom sent in a video over the sons. Their dad spoke over them. The guide spoke over them as well. We just created this moment."
"As we're going. I think as followers, I carry the same pressure that every man carries in this. Like, do I have a great plan? Am I doing the right thing?"
"Totally."
"Am I on track?"
"And the more I think through like, what am I going to do? It's literally one of the reasons why we went down this path is like,"
"I don't want to guess if I'm doing a good job in this area. I want to do this area really intentionally in my life. And again, I think for men out there that are listening to this, like, and even single moms that are listening to this, if your boys are between the ages of 10 and 18 years old, one, it's not too late."
"Yeah."
"Two, having a really clear plan where you go, this is what we're doing in your life."
"This is why we're going to have more conversations. Y"
"This is why it's really important. And then having a community of men that you're doing it with is so valuable."
"Yeah, it's great."
"And I think if we can, you know, the content is less important than the intentional."
"Absolutely. That's right."
"I think if we can create that,"
"Man,"
"It's awesome. Well, can we just as we wrap up just talk about the fact that my oldest son is a state champ,"
"Dude."
"Can we just say that?"
"Tell that story really."
"That has to be on here, I think."
"Yeah, I think so, too."
"Running Christian. Yeah."
"Tiny little high school."
"Very small."
"Palisro. 140 kids."
"Gosh."
"Just won a California state championship in football."
"High school."
"High school against a school of 2200 kids."
"It's impossible."
"But watching this game, we had 21 kids suited up. They had 64 on the other side. And we beat them 16 nothing and completed a 15-0 season."
"Can I say I know the other night we were talking about this. It's the difference between an incredible coach."
"Oh man, our coach is the man. Gerald Piper is the man. And Danny Shaw and Bob Low, like this squad, Nathan Bllelock, like these four guys."
"If you think about it, 140, a school of 140 kids is beating high school, two schools of 20,000."
"Yeah."
"The only way that happens is good coaching."
"That's, you know, they have convinced the kids to buy in that have the had this program for four years."
"Four year. We're four years into 11 man. I mean, they had eight men before that. Four years into 11 man."
"Big deal. California 72A state champs. Look it up. You'll see Running Christian. Uh very excited."
"It's amazing."
"Go Lions."
"Guys, hope this um conversation helps spur something in you. If you're interested, we have our ride of passage in Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, February 28th. Um it's going to be incredible. It's uh ages really 12 to 19 years old. We had this partnership with Spartan. I got Steve Weatherford, NFL champions, going to speak there. Um my dad's going to be there. I'm going to be there. Um we have some really great worship leaders that I'm just locking in right now. That that'll be awesome."
"I'll be I'll be singing. I will definitely You'll be singing."
"I would not miss the opportunity to lead worship for you, Jay."
"It's true. We're doing massive team challenges, competitions. Every young man and and father will be in a tribe of 50 leaders, co-leaders. You get a free knife with the Brave Co. event given to your son. He gets a medal um uh a Brave Co medal that we say a blessing over him. You'll get to do that for your son that's gifted to you. Comes with registration. The Spartan race comes with the registration price. You even your meals are included in the registration price. It's $179 for father-son ticket."
"Think about that. It's $179 for a father-son ticket. We're losing I think $40,000 even selling this event out because we believe so much in this. Then you'll get to walk away with our seven pillars of initiation curriculum to continue the journey. You won't have to go, 'Am I on the right path? Do I know what I'm doing?' You'll get it for free. Um, so if you're out there interested in this, sign up braveco.org. You can uh see the event there."
"Otherwise, have an incredible week. Love you guys. See you next week."
"Go Lions."
"Go Lions."
"Hey, Brave Co. Hopefully you love this week's episode. Listen, if you have not subscribed to our podcast, you are already behind. Go ahead and click right here to subscribe to our podcast. And if you have not watched last week's episode, you can click right here and watch last week's episode. And listen, if you want to upgrade your wardrobe, you can check out some of our new hats that we have in stock and all our other swag. Go to braveco.org and you can look at our store there. Have a great week. We'll see you next week."