150 Steve Mayeda: On Fatherhood

Fatherhood has felt like a continuation of my previous pursuit to become a good lover... Similar traits apply. Which is why I wanted to speak to my friend Steve Mayeda. I know Steve from way back in dating coaching days in the infamous PUA world. Steve is a father of 4. He shares about his divorce, balancing providing with presence, and fatherhood (and motherhood) in modern culture.

Transcript

Mr.

Maeda,

Good to see you again.

What's up,

Man?

It's been too long,

But all this good stuff has happened since.

So you either fill me in or I'll fill you in.

Well,

Both actually,

Well,

I want to say last time we spoke,

Which I think was four years ago,

It must've been a conversation on masculinity.

I don't really remember what we talked about,

But I do remember somehow towards the end,

I asked you about your kids.

Cause you have six,

Right?

No,

I have four kids,

But I do have a six year old.

So that all works out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sometimes I can't keep track.

I haven't been on Instagram in a while,

But I've always seen on your Instagram.

I was like,

Man,

He's got a lot of kids.

I don't know how many,

But,

Um,

But anyway,

You said something,

I mean,

I was many years away from being a father,

But you said something like,

Um,

It kids are great.

Like if I,

If I had more money,

I'd have a limited kids or something like that.

And that stuck with me.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Cause I wasn't,

I wasn't really thinking in those terms,

But that actually from that moment,

I was like,

Yeah,

You know what?

I really need to,

I feel like I need to be a father to feel like I'm completed as a man.

And uh,

Yeah,

Four years later I'm a dad now.

And then,

Uh,

Yeah,

You know,

I've been looking for like role models,

Just anything information.

And so much of the information on for dads online is like,

I don't know how to put it.

It's like,

Uh,

Assumes guys are idiots.

I basically every book that I've seen or any,

Any resource.

Anyway,

This is all to say,

I wanted to reach out to some,

Uh,

Fathers I knew who are a little more bad-ass.

So yeah,

You came to mind,

Man.

I'm excited to know what other fathers there are.

Cause it's really difficult and I have a different perception than you because I get dad advice.

Now,

Now like,

You know,

Instagram,

YouTube,

All this stuff,

It's so niched out,

But I get this really bad advice that is like all this really red pilly stuff and like this angry shit.

And um,

Or like a pity party of like,

Oh my God,

It's so hard.

And dude,

You know,

We just got done with a dad's call earlier tonight and every single dad I know that I would say is a good dad,

Really questions that including myself.

And I don't know,

Man,

I don't know.

I like,

There's so many ways I could be better and there's so many ways that I could improve,

But in looking back,

You know,

It's like you do a good job or you do a job.

Look,

You can screw up as a father in so many ways.

And believe me,

I have in so many ways,

But in retrospect,

And then in looking at what really does,

You know,

Make the experience poor for your child,

For your mates,

For all of this sort of stuff,

You know,

You can do those jobs fairly well.

And um,

And there's so much that goes into that,

But Jesus,

Man,

Like when I look at some of the dads in my group,

I'm like,

Man,

You're such a good communicator or with your kids or with your spouse or whatever.

Or it's like,

Wow,

You've really been able to manage your time in an amazing way while not dropping the ball as a father.

Or it's like,

You,

You got to such a great accomplishment in your life or building a way to provide.

And for all these things,

I think what's most important with all of that is that you hit the baseline.

Like being a rock star is I think a cultural problem that gets in the way of everybody and really,

Really,

Really causes a problem.

But being what we were meant to do,

What we were born to do as fathers is so important to keep in mind.

And if we have that as a baseline,

That's the real win and that's the real accomplishment after that.

Yeah,

Cool.

You know,

You were popular or you did something or you,

You know,

Made a bunch of money.

That's awesome.

But if you don't have that baseline down,

That's,

That's huge.

And you've got to meet it,

You know,

So that,

I don't know.

You mean like the obsessiveness with fame or something or success?

Being successful in any way is good,

But I think in our culture,

We forego God,

Our real superpowers of being a human being,

Which is very,

They're common.

They're not actual superpowers,

But like to have empathy,

To care,

To,

You know,

What were you do to,

What were you born to do?

What did evolution make of you?

What did all of the great creations that are beyond evolution that are manmade,

That are things that,

That we did as a culture,

As a society,

As a,

Well,

Maybe not as a culture or my culture or society and maybe,

But of the great human acts of compassion,

Of joy.

When we get to our born to be qualities that were from our evolution,

Like to have a body that's healthy,

To have empathy,

To care,

To,

You know,

Part of that is,

Is to care for your children,

To have moments that are beautiful.

That means something only to them and only to you that,

That is going to shape them.

That,

You know,

And this is one of the things that I know,

And probably,

You know,

From being a father,

I didn't know how important my father was.

My mother was until I was a father,

You know,

And then as my kids grow older,

Cause I have a 16 year old of how important it is to do some of the right things in one's childhood,

Because they're going to matter when that child becomes a parent or when that child,

You know,

Goes through heartbreak or something like that.

These are such key moments in man,

Like a kid's life.

It's huge,

But they don't matter.

Like that's one of the beautiful things about fatherhood is fatherhood is the long game.

Now,

Of course you can have a great relationship with your child,

But the mother is so important,

So important and so beautiful.

So such a divine thing.

And of course the father is in those moments too,

But,

But a mother it's amazing to watch.

Like,

I don't know if you got to witness the birth of your child and I've witnessed C-sections and I've witnessed natural and I've had two of both and they're both amazing.

One's not better than the other,

But it's like,

Woman,

How did you do this?

Like,

How could we ever disrespect a woman?

How about this?

How could we ever not see that as such an amazing life-changing thing,

But it's common,

You know,

Childhood.

It's so unreal,

Right?

It's so unreal.

And it's once in a lifetime,

Yours was unique as mine was unique and everybody else's is unique.

And that's so awesome.

But a father's role and a true mother's role,

You know,

It's a lifetime.

And so the lessons that your child will learn,

You know,

Come out and get worked out much later.

And I didn't realize that was important when I was a kid and I didn't realize that was important when I was first a father.

And then as life kind of unfolds itself,

You're like,

Oh my God,

You know,

Every single action matters and it matters uniquely to me and my child.

And that's the superpower,

Right?

That's one of them.

That's one of the great things that's so common and beautiful.

But I think by the rock starness,

We think being a really strong dad or a buff dad or a dad that makes a lot of money or a dad that kills it with all this stuff,

Or that I can still be,

This is like one of the things I hate,

Man.

And I don't really talk about this stuff a lot.

So thanks for asking this question because it really puts me on a rant.

And you know,

We have,

We have a fatherhood call in my groups and we do touch on this a lot,

But one of those things is so massively like,

Man,

We can be successful,

But if we're missing any moment of our time with our child,

Then we're really missing out.

Because you can repair yourself from debt.

You can repair yourself from loss.

But our culture seems to think it's more important to look good,

To have independence,

To have the values of society,

Which might be like fame,

Adoration,

Power,

Status,

All these things.

They think it's one of the most important things.

And if we let those things overshadow moments with our kids,

It's really screwed up.

And nobody's perfect.

Nobody's perfect.

Like my older kids will tell you,

They're like,

Man,

I don't know,

Man,

My dad's crazy or whatever.

But like that is important to understand that you spend the right time with your kids and you understand that,

You know,

Keeping them safe and alive and all those things is great.

And then having them emotionally fed and being around is so,

So important.

So important.

Anyway,

I don't want to go too crazy.

You hit on a lot of things.

I was just trying to keep up.

Yeah,

I mean,

It's been,

It's been actually a big discussion amongst my friends who've also become recent dads about,

I mean,

A couple of things you mentioned.

It is,

I mean,

For dads,

It's like balancing the work life and the home life.

I mean,

It's a simple thing,

But like most of the guys I hang out with are entrepreneurs.

So we have a lot of,

A lot of choice with how we spend our time.

And there's some guys who spend a lot more time with their kids and they're kind of foregoing money.

There's other ones who are like going really hard to provide.

And I don't know what the right thing is.

Maybe there is no right answer,

But I'm curious what the,

What have you seen?

What has come up?

Are there any principles?

Man?

No.

Yeah.

Well,

Look,

It's a tough one because I'll,

I'll speak from this perspective.

Like for a long time,

For 16 years,

I've been a father and I've had my business.

Okay.

And in those,

Those are,

There are tragic errors and there are some good things that,

That were done really well.

And there were things with great intentions that ended up bad.

And so being an entrepreneur,

Having,

Having the freedom to work and live by my own hours anywhere I'd want with my own time,

Worked in some good ways and bad ways as a father.

So when I first became a father and my son was born,

I didn't know what to do.

And there were a lot of crazy things going on in my life.

And I say that because there's no excuse for failing.

And I really didn't know what to do.

And so I chose to rebel and be irresponsible in those times.

And that caused pain and damage and it caused pain and damage to my two first sons because I became a father and didn't know what the hell was going on with this relationship.

And it was all crazy.

And we were both crazy,

But again,

Both of us will tell you,

You know,

Both parents is like,

Man,

We shouldn't,

We should have chilled out.

We should have chilled out and maybe not tried to make a relationship work that wasn't going to work.

I shouldn't have rebelled in whatever way.

She shouldn't have done whatever she did and yada,

Yada,

Yada.

And we have definitely talked about this and also with our kids.

So,

In that whole experience of making mistakes,

That's terrible.

And what do you do as a father to make mistakes?

And here's one of the greatest principles because in my life,

Like a men's is a huge thing.

And in going through all of this,

You hear all these different things and all these different pieces of advice and you inventory yourself and you look,

Or that that's my way of doing things.

And in that,

The greatest thing is,

Is that if you screw up as a father and you can recognize it and there's all sorts of things where that can manifest,

But if you make a huge mistake,

Then you need to be responsible for how that mistake manifests itself in your child and how you need to be responsible for that is you need to be there for that child.

If you caused something,

Which caused them something trauma or traumatic or painful or whatever,

And it affects them later on in life,

Because it's not going to be seen now.

And I could say,

Sorry,

And here's money or whatever that doesn't cut it because things that happened to me as a kid have lasted and shaped my whole life and kind of manifest themselves and relationships and so on and yada,

Yada,

Yada.

So with my first two children,

There were a lot of mistakes and I don't want to disrespect them and say like,

Oh,

Well,

You can see how it played out.

Their lives are played out how they're played out.

And we all,

Trauma and pain is nothing new to human nature,

But also what's nothing new to human nature is learning to amend those things and be a great person from it,

Or be the best person that you can from those things.

And that's big in my life with my first two children.

Later on,

There was huge stability with my relationship with my ex.

And last time we talked,

We were still together.

We got divorced and there's all sorts of stuff that I could talk about with that,

Which is why here's so much of the angry fatherhood commentary.

Because I look at the divorce stuff on social media and I'm like,

Oh man,

Who are these guys giving advice?

Because in that there's a lot of pain,

Like people,

The mother of my oldest kid said something when we split up and she said,

I hope you guys figure everything out and whatever people do that's crazy when they split up gets done quick.

And I thought that was an amazing way to put it because when people split up and there's kids involved,

Crazy stuff happens and you need to minimize that for your children and probably minimize it for yourselves.

And it affects your kids probably a lot more than you think.

But in that relationship,

I had total choice.

Like I had everything right.

I could work when I wanted.

I made sure I was around my kids.

I took care of my kids every day.

Well,

There were probably some days I missed,

But I mean,

It was actually interesting because when you go through a divorce process,

You look at who the kids are most beneficial for and they look at stuff like school and doctors and all that stuff.

And I actually took the kids to school more than her.

And not that it's a competition,

But those things were actually measured out.

In a very sad time,

It was good to look at that because it was like,

Wow,

I used my freedom and my time to a very good degree of,

I guess what I would consider fatherhood.

Where it failed is the relationship part,

Which is very difficult.

And we had a lot of good relationship or we had a lot good in the relationship.

And I've been in recovery,

Well,

All my life,

But for the last 14 years or maybe 13 and 11,

12,

That could probably,

Oh,

It can't actually be reduced.

So I've been in 12 steps up for a long time.

And then in that,

Really into meditation and whatever,

Self-development.

And I take it seriously.

It's not like I just say this.

And in that relationship,

There were a lot of things that I did good.

In the things that I did bad,

Again,

I didn't know,

But I still have to own them.

So I didn't realize how tough it might be to be working all the time to provide or to go through the swings of entrepreneurship,

Because I don't know about for you,

But for me,

I'll go through big swings of making tons of money and then dips and to not focus on how stability may have been more important and so on.

And she has her own stuff within this.

But with me,

Let me put it this way again,

In the inventory of all those situations,

I really looked a lot at my part as best as I can from all angles with a lot of people helping me to see how much my part played in all of this,

Because you always have a certain part.

And it was a lot less than it had been in the past,

Which is good,

But it still was a part and the result was still a breaking of a relationship.

But in that,

I guess the long explanation of this,

There were a lot of good choices that I felt I made with fatherhood that were great.

Man,

Spending tons and tons of time with my kids and spending those moments that it's so cool because they won't remember,

Or maybe they will,

Maybe something will happen and they'll remember these moments when they were a baby and times with their dad that were so special,

But I got to feel them.

I got to smell the smells.

I got to hear the cooing.

I got to be so proud,

Be so hurt sometimes,

Even be there.

One of the greatest moments was my son.

This is so crazy.

I was exercising in the backyard and I built this jungle gym for them.

And in reality,

I worked out on it and still do more than they do.

And even now as they're older,

They plan it very little in comparison to me working out on it.

And my son,

He was really young.

He was like three years old or something.

He climbed up the little ladder thing and he fell.

And I was working out and I was videotaping the workout or whatever,

Just for whatever reasons.

And when he fell,

It was so sad.

And it was the first time that I felt in our relationship that trust was broken.

And of course,

He didn't know he's a baby and he's climbing up and all of a sudden he's hurt.

But there was a thing where it was like,

I'm responsible for you and I'm here working out and doing whatever.

And you climbed up a little bit too high.

You slipped,

You fell and nothing bad happens.

There were nothing that we need to go to the doctor or anything,

But that the hurt,

The sadness,

The pain,

The panic.

Those things that are inevitable in life and that thing which happened,

Which was right there with me.

Oh man,

It was like a heartbreaking moment.

And in that it's so beautiful too,

Because it's a moment that's unique.

It's a moment where every single moment that we have is unique and once in a lifetime,

But those ones where it hits a part of you that you've never felt before and in a connection with another human being,

That's amazing.

So that stuff is awesome.

When I look back and I think about money and vacations and those things,

Man,

Screw that.

Just make enough and make more.

And a big thing for stuff within my groups is we want to have some amount of wealth so we can have savings for our kids.

And I tell this to you,

I have a really good life.

I'm happy I could get by with.

.

.

I'm fine.

I'm totally fine.

I think I could work my business and maintain it and be fine.

But if I don't have.

.

.

God man,

And I don't have this right now,

I'll tell you.

If I don't have $20,

000 saved for each child in my bank account or an account for them,

It's not a good feeling.

It's a bad feeling.

And I'm not saying that needs to be a standard,

But I think a lot about my parents.

I think about what they did for me.

I think about all the problems that I had and they were there in those ways financially or emotionally,

Or they were there face to face.

Those are important things to keep in mind.

So those are goals for me to have for my children in terms of wealth.

But what's so important in that is the time I get to spend with them and the time where they can remember things.

And so I don't want to say like,

Oh,

It's cool.

You could be in poverty and have nothing.

But I really do want to say time is the most important thing.

And if you don't have that,

All the wealth or cool stuff or whatever that you have for your kids will probably not be used as best as it could have been.

It's something you said that stood out is like the no excuses thing.

It's like,

If you do make the wrong mistake with how you allocate your time,

There's no one to blame it on when you're the dad.

It's actually something I've noticed with my parents already.

I haven't had a great relationship with my parents,

But since I've made them grandparents,

They've given me all authority.

They've actually shown me the most respect ever.

And it's just like,

Oh yeah,

We're done.

You're the authority now.

And it's like,

Oh shit,

This is something I've wanted for my parents my whole life.

And now it's a lot of pressure because there's no safety net.

If I fuck up,

I just fucked up and that's it.

There's no one I can blame,

No one I could be resentful at for it.

And it's a good feeling.

Well I don't know if you know this,

But of my family,

I was a terrible son and had a terrible relationship with my parents.

Been disowned multiple times.

And I'm speaking of them highly now because there were good times in my childhood.

There were also really bad times and bad times where you could say like,

You know what,

Maybe they made the wrong decisions.

But I'll tell you this,

I was a nut.

I was crazy.

And if I explain how bad,

Like I'm not overemphasizing any of that stuff.

I mean,

I was a drug addict.

I lived on the streets.

I stole stuff.

I,

You know,

Was involved in bad things,

I guess you could say.

And in some ways I'm very proud of that aspect of my life,

But they had to deal with that.

They had to deal with a son who was dying,

Who was,

You know,

Attempting suicide and like,

You know,

For real,

You know,

Like not,

Not,

Well,

I mean,

It's always for somewhat of attention,

But I mean,

I was,

I put them through hell,

Man.

I can't imagine for how many years,

Like where I was not talked to by them,

You know,

And essentially disowned,

Which I sure as hell felt that more of a reason to rebel.

But yeah,

That's gotta be painful.

That's gotta be just horrific as a parent.

And there were some bad things and,

And you know,

On their side too,

And all that sort of stuff,

But it's kind of interesting because my,

My parents,

As they get older and my brother was always like a good kid.

I was the bad kid,

But my,

My brother doesn't have any kids.

And so now,

Or,

You know,

For the last 16 years there's this weird thing where I'm really very involved in their lives.

And a lot of that past has been healed.

And I'll tell you this,

Man.

I come from a line of certain mentality,

You know,

Maybe that I've learned from other people to talk and make things equal,

Like face to face,

Mom and dad,

They don't want to do that.

They,

And they just say,

Hey,

Look,

We're,

We're proud of you.

You're good.

You,

You,

We had whatever we,

You know,

We're not,

We're good.

Let's be good.

So they,

They don't want to talk about it.

And I,

And in a way I got to respect that,

You know,

And,

And we're good and it's,

It's really cool.

Yeah,

My folks are the same way.

They don't want to talk anything out.

It's just like,

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know what you're talking about basically.

So part of me is like,

You're disrespecting me,

But at this point now,

You know,

They're old they're,

They're,

Uh,

77 and 81 and almost 82.

And it's,

You know,

It's just like,

Okay,

Cool,

Cool.

Let's let's do it.

And going through stuff like,

Like I'm bad at all this stuff,

But going through their wills and those things like,

This is not my language,

But this is,

You know,

The,

It's a really interesting thing.

And then to see that,

You know,

Kind of like you're on a mountain top and you see the parents who are older,

And then you see the young kids who are just doing young kids stuff and don't get it.

It's kind of cool.

You'd see both sides,

But,

Um,

You said this,

Oh,

The,

The,

The fatherhood,

The pressure pressure is on man.

Pressure's on.

And one thing I also want to tell guys,

It's like,

You know,

You,

I don't know if when you were younger,

You'd go,

Like,

Uh,

You'd hear some guy be at some therapy thing or maybe see in a movie and he's like,

This weight was just lifted off my chest.

And I didn't realize the pressure I was under.

And I used to think like,

Oh man,

To be so dramatic.

But now there's times where that happens.

And,

Um,

That's my man.

That's part of the strength.

That's dude,

I get gray hair.

I get stressed.

I might be praying and going whatever.

And then the weight gets lifted off my chest,

But what an honor it is to be a man to have that and to know what that is and to know that,

That.

And I don't know if this has happened to you,

But I'm sure it has.

And I'll just tell you,

It'll probably happen.

A lot is where you go,

Man,

I'm at a fork in the road and there's no right decision,

But I got to make one.

And if I go right or left,

There's going to be consequences,

But you have to live with that.

And that's,

That's part of the beauty of fatherhood.

And uh,

And what,

What an honor,

What an honor,

You know,

Um,

One last thing,

And then I'll let you ask another question.

I'm sorry.

I always do this,

But you got me so excited is in publicly.

I don't get to talk about this enough.

And I did a podcast with a bunch of dads and it was,

It was good,

But in a different way,

It was different way.

But I looked at myself and I'm like,

Man,

I'm old shit.

And uh,

It's like,

Man,

I'm older.

I was doing this meditation.

I was getting real deep and I went into all the old stuff.

I'm like,

Oh Jesus,

Man.

I'm even older than that.

God,

I have so much stress.

You know,

I'm going to die early.

And you go through all this fear or whatever,

And in meditation,

Sometimes you're going deep and all that stuff.

And I just got to this point where it was like,

That's right.

You,

You,

You are your age.

You're probably going to get sickness before other people.

You're probably going to do whatever in every single line on your face is part of a story that gave you something where you could now turn into merit and honor.

And then there's other things that you probably don't know,

Or you're willfully making poor choices about that'll aid you even more,

But that's part of life that you got to live.

And what a cool thing.

And it's not so like I could be like being healthy.

I'm all for that.

Like,

Please,

You know,

Don't change your diet at 40 or 36 or something like that.

Do it now.

Right.

Do when you're young,

Um,

Don't damage your body.

You know,

Don't do too much jujitsu.

Don't get too many concussions,

You know,

That MMA class.

Maybe let it pass.

But um,

With all of that,

Like a lot of times,

I think we look at health as never being hurt.

And I think part of the human experience is that you're inevitably going to get hurt and you hurt yourself and you do it out of ignorance and choosing the right path from that is a lot more valuable than always just choosing the right and safe thing.

You know,

And I always bring this up because a true virtue means nothing if we haven't lived the counter.

So wouldn't it be awesome if I say,

Man,

I stand for honesty.

I live for honesty.

Honesty is the best thing in the world.

I'm going to fight for honesty because it's the right thing.

Why would you not fight for honesty and truth and whatever?

Well,

If you know the value of a lie,

The value of a lie,

Like,

Like why somebody might do that.

And even with that,

Whether the motives are selfishness or choosing the right thing,

Or maybe you need to choose the right thing for your family or whatever you,

You,

You lie,

You don't respect the truth.

This manmade thing that we all agree upon.

That's good.

Right.

And when you go through that wisdom of realizing then the consequence of that value,

When you realize that it came from a choice and that choice was in you,

You know,

Whether it was evil or bad or in the shadow or whatever shit.

And you go,

Man,

You know what,

I'm going to decide to have honesty.

That's a much different version of honesty or truth than somebody who's never looked at that.

And somebody who just looks at truth or whatever freedom or all this other stuff that we say is great and fight for.

And they've never known the other side of it.

That's what a boy does.

That's what a naive person does.

That's one of the most disrespectful things to a human manmade thought,

Because nature doesn't really have truth.

It has existence,

Right?

There's only one way.

There's not a counter or a deception or something like that.

And so when man goes,

Oh,

We have this potential to lie,

This potential,

Which probably has some value in communication and da,

Da,

Da,

Da.

And when we go,

Man,

We're going to honor truth and we're going to honor it.

That has to come from some experience and pain.

And that's what fatherhood,

I think really does in motherhood too.

I don't want to disrespect that,

But I'm a father.

I can only relate with mine and there's a lot of pressure and you make mistakes and you make big mistakes that your kids get to live out and you get to watch and you get to go,

Man,

I was probably a part of that.

And how do I make it better?

How do I make it right?

How do I change things?

And not so that I could be cool and again,

A rock star and all this stuff,

But make the cool YouTube thing.

But so that this human being in front of me that I brought into the world,

That's of my seed,

That's of my expression,

That's of my line,

Man,

How do I do that?

And that's a beautiful thing.

And when you have that perspective,

It's humbling and it makes me see the world in a different way.

So actually something that has been,

Actually the thing that I've been struggling with,

If I'm honest,

Because I'm only three months in the fatherhood other than being up with a crying baby.

I haven't really been challenged really.

The thing that has been troubling me though,

It's been in my own head related to what you just said of,

I feel like certain,

Before you have a kid,

Everything's open,

Right?

You could do all these things,

All these possibilities.

And I feel like my window of things I can do has gotten really small.

And that's honestly freaked me out a little bit.

And I don't know if it's related to fear of aging a little bit,

But I think it was different just a year ago when I was slowly aging.

And when I think about certain experiences I might not have again,

Or things that I thought I was going to do that I'm not going to do,

That really upsets me.

And it's funny,

You brought up MMA as an example.

I decided not to do Muay Thai,

Even though I live in Thailand,

Because I didn't want to get hit in the head.

But since having a kid,

I've been doing Muay Thai a lot.

I don't know if it's an early midlife crisis or something.

I just want to do stuff I did when I was young kind of thing.

And yeah,

I don't know.

I've just been troubled by it,

If I'm honest.

Before I had kids,

I don't think I was ever knocked out.

Maybe I was.

I was probably flash knocked out,

But I did train martial arts,

But not MMA stuff like karate.

We didn't really hit each other.

And then when I was doing drugs,

There was a lot of brain stuff that I did with getting hit or maybe getting into fights.

But I don't think I was ever knocked out,

Knocked out.

But I've been knocked out plenty of times post kids.

So that's bad,

But I get it.

I joined the club,

Dude.

I've done the same thing.

But an experience is really an important deal.

I'll tell you this,

For me,

I think I was like,

Because I started that really when I was like 32 or something like that.

So it's kind of late and like full contact stuff.

And so I was like waning down and I forget what age,

Maybe 36,

Maybe 38.

I just remember I got,

I was sparred with a dude and I get out of the way and his punch grazes the top of my head and it just grazes it.

And I was like,

Oh,

I'm fucked up.

When's this round going to end?

I'm losing.

And I didn't get knocked out,

But I'd been knocked out plenty of times.

And I was not the same for six months.

And that really put the fear of God in me.

And I I've never sparred since.

And that was,

I think in 2013 and I was just like,

I'm in,

In,

In jujitsu,

I've definitely done jujitsu from there,

But you know,

I dislocated my neck in jujitsu.

I've broken my ankles,

Dislocated them so many times.

And my knees have had problems,

You know,

Shoulders,

Stuff like that,

Nerve damage.

And there'll be times where,

You know,

We're training a take down and I don't train hard and I'll hit,

You know,

The side of my head or something too hard.

And it's like,

Ah,

I'm I got to go old man speed.

It's actually funny.

There's a dude I trained with who's who's 50,

Might be 51 now.

And he told me,

He's like,

Steve,

Don't be afraid.

He's like,

I've trained martial arts for like,

You know,

Since I was 14 years old and I'm still training today and all the guys that won belts and championships in their twenties and early thirties,

They're all not training.

They're all on a couch,

You know,

Eating chips and I'm not.

And so he's like,

Say no to training partners,

But you know,

I had to learn and that sucks.

Like when you're good and you can kick ass and then all of a sudden you can't,

And there's somebody who's literally just stronger and faster and you cannot compete with that.

It sucks because you never had to do that before.

And so when that comes about,

It's like,

I wish there were more people that talked about it rather than going like,

You know,

I'm over 40 and still kick ass.

Like,

No man,

Like talk about the reality of those things and maybe the wisdom from it and all long-term martial artists talk about it.

Well,

Maybe not like maybe not long-term jujitsu guys or that sort of thing,

But like,

You know,

When you get into like the lineages of old,

Older arts,

People talk about those things and that's important.

I want to backtrack to something that you said about kind of like the fear of missing out.

Let me tell you something,

Man,

At 41,

I got divorced and it sucked.

And I didn't think it was the right decision.

And she thought it was a better decision for whatever reasons.

And in that I was like,

Oh,

Fuck,

I'm single.

And it's real interesting because people do stupid,

Stupid,

Stupid shit.

And they go through breakup,

They do stupid stuff,

Both men and women.

And I tried my best to keep my stuff chill.

And I'm sure I fucked up in all sorts of ways.

And she could tell you,

But she really made some big mistakes.

And she went so far as to try and accuse me of child abuse and had this whole thing put together and,

And I fought to see my kids.

And like,

You hear all these fathers talking,

This is what I hate about all the Redville guys.

So they talk about how like much power they need to have.

Because that's going to be the thing which ensures you'll never have pain again in life.

What a way to live out of fear.

I don't,

Man,

I've always had a lot of power in my life.

I mean a lot.

And when it came to this horrible thing of my ex and I breaking up and she did some really stupid stuff,

I dominated in court and I had the ability to take the kids away from her and get full custody.

And we weren't talking and we still don't talk about this to this day.

But I made the decision that the kids were better off with her in court.

There's no doubt that nothing's like a slam dunk,

But there was no doubt black and white law.

I had,

Boom,

I had the ability to take custody from her and have sole custody and even cut her out completely if I would have wanted to.

And when somebody attacks you,

You have to do those things.

And I wonder about these things,

It's been three years or something around there.

And I do think I got the right advice from people,

But I think the best thing I did was I got advice from people,

Which most people don't do when they're going through these problems.

And maybe the people that were giving advice to her,

Maybe were not the best or I don't know what her deal was,

But she really tried to do some very bad stuff.

And I won.

And so when it's so funny,

Because all the red pill guys always thought they were just such idiots because they were talking about power with women and that,

I'm like,

Man,

It's so just do that.

Build yourself up as a man,

Don't fake it,

Really do it.

Don't try and have a title,

Just do it.

And then when it comes to court stuff,

I've been screwed in courts and I got that there's certain things you have to do to get things to happen right.

And if you can win something,

You can win it.

If you can't win it,

Then you have to figure out a way where you don't.

And so in that,

I let her have the primary custody.

And it's interesting because a lot of guys will go,

Well,

Then you have to pay child support and whatever.

Man,

There's nothing wrong with that.

If you get screwed on child support,

Which I've been before,

That's probably because you did something wrong.

And that could be an elaborate thing.

Maybe you didn't protect yourself in court or whatever.

Maybe you just showed the wrong shit,

All that sort of stuff.

But when you do that,

Your life can be very free.

And it's a bad time.

The kids are better off with both of you guys,

But if they're not going to be,

Then you have to figure out what the best is.

And my custody arrangement is kind of like a 60,

40 thing.

So she has 60,

I have 40,

Sometimes it's 65,

Sometimes it's 35,

Whatever.

But it's a pretty good thing.

Even if it's 50,

50,

It's not like both of us being together.

So that's bad,

Or I think that's bad.

I think it would have been better for us to raise the kids with both of us there.

And the world's modern too.

You can have relationships in all sorts of ways and yada,

Yada,

Yada.

But at that point,

I was like,

Oh my God,

It's been seven years and I'm free.

And let me tell you all the stuff that I have,

Because it's always funny too.

I'm about to start releasing more stuff on social media that's a little bit more cool,

I guess.

And I've always been good with cameras and filmmaking and so on.

I just don't use it so much for myself,

But I think me and my team,

We're going to go for that,

Which is kind of interesting because I hate the whole influencer lifestyle.

Like you're an influencer,

But I really believe you seek your higher self.

So many influencers,

It's all about like,

Look at me and all this sort of stuff.

So when I look at those people's lives or I meet them while traveling,

I kind of want to be like,

Oh man,

I really do live that way.

Like I do what you're trying to convey and maybe you do convey,

Like that's what I do.

I do whatever I want.

I come home and see my kids.

I spend good time with them.

And then I can live wherever I want in the world for five days,

10 days.

I have the money and means to do that.

And I do it.

And of all of what that means,

If I want to go hike Machu Picchu or whatever,

Do something really cool,

I can do that.

And I don't do that to be cool.

I've already done that.

It sounds like you have too.

And I guess why I'm saying this is the fear of missing out is something that's so cool and it propels us in youth.

And I don't want to disrespect it,

But it's different to me now and I still have it,

But I like experience now.

And in time,

I can almost guarantee that you will have the opportunities to do whatever you want,

Whether it's with your woman,

Whether it's with your child or children or whatever it is,

Or if it's by yourself.

But what's most important is I experienced something.

So if I make a bunch of money,

Cool.

That money has a use for my kids.

If I get to go someplace cool,

How can I enjoy it?

How can I take this into my life?

If I meet great people and get to be on the beach and there's a sunset and there's women and music or whatever,

But how is that serving me and who I am and not me trying to live the idea of a dream of what I'm supposed to do because I'm missing out.

So I guess at some point in a certain age for me,

Thankfully,

Because I know a lot of guys haven't experienced this and I could revert from it too.

I don't want to sound too arrogant,

But it became about who am I now and what's the value of what I'm living instead of that being for anybody else.

And of course I like attention and all that shit,

But man,

It's so much about how can I have these experiences?

And it's crazy.

And I guess the reason why I'm telling you is,

Dude,

I get to do whatever I want now and I do.

And that doesn't mean I'm cool or powerful.

That means that I get to make the mistakes I make.

I get to own them.

I get to taste the life that's delivered to me and it's awesome.

Man,

Dude,

There's always going to be some fear of missing out,

But man,

There's a beauty and experience that never gets old.

And I wonder sometimes like when I'm,

God,

I went to Antigua,

Guatemala and I've never been,

It was very nice.

It was very expensive,

Very touristy,

A lot of gringos.

It's like everybody there who has some money and wants to do the cool thing and do the cool photo op is there.

But it was beautiful.

It was beautiful.

And then I'm thinking,

Yeah,

But why couldn't I go to the water park with my kid?

Which one's better?

And I don't know.

To me,

The value of life that's in front of me is much more important than what I think it's supposed to be.

You actually said something a bit ago.

I forget exactly,

But it's like our culture has lost respect for the experience of parenting.

I think you're talking about mothers.

Like there's actually been a discussion with my wife and a lot of her friends and other young mothers we know where it's so devalued that at least in America,

It's seen as a good thing.

If a woman could get back to her corporate job in like three weeks or something,

It's like our culture has kind of forgotten.

Or maybe it's because it's not monetizable,

The parenting role,

That it's become not so important.

And a lot of my friends and even my younger brother,

Who's much younger than me,

He's 10 years younger,

All of him and his friends think it's ridiculous to have a kid.

It's like so irrational when you can't get to experience all of these things in our consumerist utopia.

I'm curious what you think about that.

Have you seen the show Love,

Death and Robots?

No.

It's kind of like Black Murray.

They show these different technological futures and they have this one episode where they figured out immortality through some injection you get every six months,

A booster actually.

And the cost is you become infertile.

So there's these rebels in this futuristic society who skip out on their boosters so they could have kids.

And they're the illegal,

They're basically like the terrorists in that society.

Anyway,

That's an extreme thing,

But I'm curious what you think.

You asked me a question and I apologize in advance for talking too much,

But where do I begin?

Women are so beautiful and they can hurt you so much too.

And they can be bad and same with men.

And God,

Man,

If we forget that in what is some of the essence of femininity and I think about this because I don't care what sex you are,

What you identify as.

With my friends,

I try as best as possible to respect them if they change their pronoun thing like all that stuff that people get all political about.

I don't care.

My friend wants to identify something,

Whatever.

And then there's something where we're all doing this thing where we label ourselves as like,

Whether it's boss or coach or whatever the hell it is.

But that thing of motherhood and a fatherhood,

But man,

You asked me about this motherhood thing.

What a beautiful thing.

What an amazing thing.

And I'll never forget that.

Man,

There's so much I think about this,

But there was this thing which I remembered of my ex when she gave birth in this room,

Actually like right,

Right.

Well,

We're not on video,

But you can see me whilst we do this interview,

But right,

Right behind me.

And she's screaming and pain and labor and screaming and it's insane.

And I'm like,

Come on,

Come on.

And she gave birth and it was like the most beautiful thing.

And I,

And I think about that because it was like,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

Man,

Down the road three or four years later,

We're going to split apart.

It's such a heartbreaking thing.

Like I'll,

I'll think about that sometimes like in meditation or you're going into deep stuff.

It doesn't matter.

The beauty of a mother is something that has seen life and death in a moment and goes through the fear of God and labor.

And again,

If you've got a C-section,

More power to you,

It's all good.

You know,

It's still part of this.

You birthed,

You care,

You grew something in you for nine,

10 months.

You fed it.

You know,

You loved it before there was a concept of what it was beyond at least my comprehension as a father.

And you gave birth to it.

And in that birth,

You promised to do your best.

And in that birth,

There's a commitment in motherhood that isn't written,

But it's in our DNA or souls or whatever you want to believe in that you're going to fail.

And that child is going to be angry at you.

That child is going to love you.

That child's going to,

And that's,

That's a part of your role in the fact that you can accept that as so cool.

And every single human being,

Every single woman can,

Or,

You know,

Maybe there might be some problems or you're born and you can't have babies and whatever,

But like there's that in you,

That's a part of what we carry in our DNA.

That's such a beautiful thing.

And to see that is so amazing.

And I'm going to say this because there's been a lot on my mind.

I'm writing a book that's more about the man side of stuff.

And in that I want to write a book about the woman side of stuff.

And I don't know if I'm going to,

But I'm just bringing it up and,

You know,

I have lots of thoughts and lots of wants,

But women of the world,

Especially in traveling around,

You see such a great pain.

And women in the U S you know,

Like,

And in Western countries,

Like there's a lot of guys that are like,

Feminism sucks,

Dude,

Shut up.

Like feminism was there for a reason.

I get it.

Plenty of people take it too far and we may have lost perspective on it.

And maybe now we need to regain perspective on it.

It's not my thing,

But it was really needed at one time.

And if you spend time in the third world,

It's or wherever it can be horrible,

Man.

And I've seen women go through horrible things.

And you know,

Like we say in the U S you know,

50% of women or 70% of women,

How about you go to a country where 100% of women are sexually assaulted all the time.

And they're forced to raise these children or they get pregnant and it's a secret because their dad or their uncle had sex with them.

And you know,

That's the reality that you see.

And yet at the same time,

And this is going to sound really fucked up and I'm just like,

These are again,

Impossible things that are just so horrific,

But I see them and I know people who've lived them and you see yet a mother still be able to love from that and to carry life and to take maybe the,

The,

The sin of a situation or the pain of a situation and still turn it into this great human thing.

You know,

And that's where,

Like,

I think there's of nature things that are really great.

And I think there's things of man that man can only create that you don't see anywhere else in nature,

Which are like thoughts or building or art or whatever.

And you see women carry a very specific message of that,

A very much pain,

Like pain,

You know,

Again,

You go back to this like really angry American feminist,

And then you go to Columbia.

And it's like,

Oh my God,

Like that,

Like,

This is horrible.

This is disturbingly horrible.

And yet there's,

There's a love that can come from it.

You know,

That comes out in motherhood that comes out in all sorts of ways.

And it comes with pain and tears and real,

Real life happening.

And that's a beautiful transformation that happens with women.

And it's also sad and disturbing to see at the same time.

But it really makes you respect the whole thing,

The whole thing.

And I'll last I'll say is this we're all of the mother,

You know whatever you want to believe,

But just generally in general,

The most philosophies and metaphors of the world,

You know,

The sky's the father,

The sun's the father,

The moon's the mother and the earth is the mother.

And we're in the world of the mother.

I really believe it.

We're in a world that's,

That is born to be feminine in some ways and born to be masculine in some ways.

And you as an individual get to decide how you live.

And I very much relate with the masculine side.

So there you go.

But to see and respect the mother man.

Yes.

Yeah,

Definitely.

What do you think about this trend towards especially educated people not having kids?

I mean,

Hey man.

I have kids.

So I have to say how wise and amazing it is to have kids.

But dude,

I never wanted to have kids.

I just did a lot of drugs and got drunk and was really irresponsible and somehow it happened.

And then you go,

Wait a minute,

You know,

What a beautiful thing.

Now,

You know,

The human experience can happen in so many ways.

And when you think about this,

Like some very spiritual people take vows not to have kids and you know,

That's respected.

So you know,

If you have certain information,

There you go.

But I think where it becomes bad,

The difference between a spiritual person and kind of like maybe what you're describing is the spiritual person generally,

And they fuck up a lot.

Don't get me wrong,

Man.

Religion gets crazy and spirituality gets crazy and whatever,

But it tends to not have an elitism to it.

And it's a part of a sacrifice for maybe a greater good or that's the idea with it.

And so with a more educated society,

It seems to come in with this idea that it proves that they're somehow more intelligent or they have more freedom.

And that's bullshit.

You know,

Everybody can have whatever freedom they want.

You just have to look for it.

I honestly think that if you're holding onto a thought and idea to be superior in some way,

You're holding onto something to really hold yourself back.

But you know,

It's my opinion.

So that's my take on that.

Cool.

Actually,

I want to go back to the first thing I meant to talk about and then we got lost.

With like advice given to fathers by our culture,

There's a lot of like speaking about this with a friend who just had a kid too,

Where we grew up in the nineties,

He's my age and our models for fatherhood in like nineties sitcom,

Family sitcoms were like the Homer Simpson,

Maybe Danny Tanner,

But always like a kind of bumbling incompetence.

Good loving guy.

Who's also an idiot.

And then we're looking at like the seventies,

He had Archie Bunker and George Jefferson,

Who were never seen as incompetent.

They were seen as mean,

But they're never seen as incompetent.

And I don't know what the,

What the version of that is now in the 20 twenties,

But I have found it hard to find advice from men who actually respect.

Because like you said,

There's the angry red pill guys who are maybe reacting to like the overly coddling version of that.

And yeah,

It's been hard to find.

Yeah.

It's been hard to find good role models.

Dude,

Let me tell you something right now.

I broadcast a message of,

You know,

A lot of like,

Like,

You know,

I thought I,

I don't talk about loving the mother enough.

And like,

This is a really good conversation because man,

The,

The love of the mother is,

Is,

Is key.

And I meditate,

I do like yoga stuff and you know what a lot of people consider as a feminine in our culture.

And I'll just tell you this,

Man,

Like I'm down to compare any time more than likely my life is pretty fucking bad-ass and I don't need to talk about it.

And we kind of talked about this in the message.

Like I wish I could be more bad-ass cause I've lost a lot of it.

Dude,

Man,

I've,

I've fought for my life.

I've made it out alive.

I've done whatever,

Man.

I fucking lived.

Robbing is a thief for like four years out of a car all over the United States.

I've gotten fights.

I dealt drugs.

I did whatever was in front of me.

I took risks.

I jumped off of buildings.

I did like all sorts of cool stuff.

I traveled the world and fucked tons of women and cool.

Like I could tell you the values of that.

I'm not trying to hate on it.

And so for people to be judgmental and say,

That's like toxic masculinity,

Whatever,

Man,

Like if I caused harm,

I want to look at it and fix it.

And I want to discourage harm.

But some of those things are very,

Very good parts.

You know,

It's very amazing parts of masculinity.

So when I hear people talk about like how we need a bad-ass or whatever,

Maybe start with not needing a nineties sitcom.

I always thought it was interesting.

I can pick up and they'd be like,

Well,

Ray Romano and look at what we did.

I'm like,

Man,

I never,

I thought they were funny shows.

Like that's cool.

Bauke Bartokomis was hilarious because he was like weak or whatever.

I don't know.

Then when we go to the flip side,

Like Archie Bunker,

It's real interesting.

Cause I've had an experience and I work with,

With a couple tribes and they're,

It's not like,

Like it's very serious.

Very.

We're getting ready to go into sun dance where people will really,

You know,

Go for four days without food or water in order to get there,

You have to do like four to six years of questing and all these different things.

And they're going to,

You know,

Sit out with no food or water and a hundred degree weather you know,

Pierced and hanging from a tree and you support them.

It's a pretty intense grueling thing.

And it's an entire 10,

11 day experience and it kills you in that it's hard.

Right.

And in that out of the line,

Cause it comes from a direct lineage there,

There was a lot of terrible abuse.

Like you want to see what you want to consider like an alpha male that,

Or what,

You know,

The red pill wants to see or whatever you see that in those areas.

And when I look at it,

I'm glad I don't live a hundred percent of the time in that culture.

And I don't want to insult anybody's culture because where you grew up is where you grew up and what you live,

You have to honor,

Like,

You know,

It's your culture,

Man.

We learned in our,

In our culture and us culture to respect that,

But to see abuse and to see dominance and to see women afraid for that,

I'd probably say the way we live is better with all the stupid stuff that makes us mad.

And we have to find solution for the stupid stuff that makes us mad,

But I don't,

Not to say that Archie Bunker represented,

You know,

This guy that beat the shit out of the women that he was around and forced them to do whatever.

But I think it's,

I think we live in a,

With some really good things that came out of that.

Again,

Let's like go back to the third world.

Like whenever I tell stories and like my friends here,

Like,

You know,

Usually a female,

Sometimes male is civil,

Why don't we bring feminism to them?

Like,

Man,

Go right ahead.

But here's what happens is you go to Argentina,

You go to Costa Rica and you educate the public and women get their rights and then they don't have an economy to sustain that.

And there's more to it than this.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't,

But when we project our ideas of what the world should be,

Be responsible for it.

And don't just think we have higher thought towards things and get to walk away.

And so when men,

Women,

Whatever,

Red pill people,

Feminist people,

You want to project your ideas,

Know that there's a struggle in that,

That there's a big,

Big struggle in that.

And so with guys going,

We need to fight back and become men,

Man,

No,

No,

That,

You know,

I was talking about with honesty,

Well,

Violence is there too.

You know,

I mean,

You know what it's like to hurt somebody?

I'll be honest with you.

Like,

You know,

We met,

Well,

We knew each other through online stuff,

But in jujitsu,

But I've had my legs broken and I've had my nose broken.

I've had all my orbitals broken.

I've also broken people's stuff and it feels good when it happens.

You know,

When you hear bones break because you punch somebody,

It feels good when you hear somebody's ankle dislocate or their man,

Sometimes this guy's knee dislocated and it just unraveled like a can of worms,

Snapping open.

Hey,

I remember you have crazy leg locks.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And and I felt so bad afterwards because that guy's life is going to be different.

I've had,

My knees have been dislocated and it changed my life forever.

It kept me from a lot.

And and there's a wisdom that you need to get from that.

And maybe that's the thing that's lost,

But it's not the let's go out and fight.

You know,

If I'll tell you this,

Man,

This is interesting.

The guy told me,

He said,

See a woman from Colombia that's 18 years old is much different than a woman in the United States is 18 years old.

She's had much more reality.

She's probably seen somebody murdered.

She probably had to start working at 10.

She saw family members go through extreme poverty,

Whatever,

You know,

All this sort of stuff.

And the reality is different around who you are,

Human value,

Consequence,

You know,

How you live,

Your options for life and all that sort of stuff.

And I think that that's important.

But if we went,

OK,

Well,

Let's let's take,

You know,

The grace and peace that maybe some,

Not all American women go through.

And it's robbed women from this wisdom of,

You know,

This horrible shit that they had to deal with,

Which there are differences that that woman will have.

But we need to think of like how to learn those in different ways.

And as men,

We don't necessarily need more war or violence,

But we do need to understand the meaning of those things.

Maybe we do need some war or violence,

But not in a way where we're destroying each other,

Not in a way where we're drunk with power,

Not in a way where we're naive with it.

And I think we need some wisdom from it.

I guess all this comes into like advice for fathers.

Man,

You're going to learn most of it from enjoying time from your kids.

And when you feel down and bad,

Go and do something cool and you're going to mess up.

And if you mess up,

Ask for help from a man who's found peace and fatherhood and not from a man who's found regret and anger.

If you get divorced,

Do what you got to do for your kids.

But understand that it might be a legal process,

But it's definitely an emotional process.

And it's definitely a process that's going to affect your kids more than you or your soon to be ex.

If you stay married or stayed together,

Or if you don't want to get married or whatever,

You need to understand that you're going to go through really hard times,

But you're in it together.

And if you're in it together,

It means when you have a problem and she's wrong,

That doesn't matter.

Just as when she has a problem and you're wrong,

It doesn't matter.

What matters is that you guys together can make it right.

And that is hard to do.

Hey,

I failed at it.

That's terrible.

But if you go the long run with each other,

Just realize it's a hard road and both of you have to be right for those reasons.

I mean,

God,

You know,

It's something,

Fatherhood is something that is so big and massive that it's in our DNA.

It's in every form of religion on how to do this better.

It's in every ancient,

Whatever,

Scripture,

And you're a part of it and it can be that divine and awesome for you.

And I'll tell you this,

This is kind of corny,

But there's that movie Benjamin Button,

And it's about a dad who,

You know,

His age reverses or whatever.

And at the very end of that movie,

There's this segue.

It's actually a really cool part of filmmaking.

It's basically a letter that he's written to his daughter who never knew him.

And he basically says,

Like,

You're going to be broken and you went to your first prom and all this sort of stuff.

And he says,

You know,

The thing is,

Is in life,

You're going to make a mistake,

But you can always fix it.

And in fatherhood,

There's going to be times where you feel you fucked up so bad and it's irreparable and you're done because we have all the weight of the world.

We were supposed to provide,

We were supposed to do X,

Y,

And Z.

We were supposed to do this for our kid.

And the best thing that we can do is seek higher knowledge.

I would say,

Get some right people around you to help guide you and take a step forward.

And even if that step forward is wrong because you took the wrong step,

You were reactive,

You were impulsive,

Or the people around you gave you the wrong advice,

That's better than not moving at all because your job is to serve.

It's so good and it's so important.

And man,

I just think for dads,

It could be so great and I just hear all these people talk about it like it's this dopey thing or this weak thing or this thing I'm supposed to be angry about,

Fight for father's rights and whatever.

No,

Man,

Be a father first,

Understand the value of your rights and then be,

That's what we need who's fighting for father's rights.

Not a bunch of angry,

Reactive men,

But men who know how to find the human virtues in tough situations.

So that's my advice.

Cool.

Thanks.

That's great.

I wrote that.

I jotted down a lot of notes there.

Cool.

Thanks,

Man.

This has been great.

I didn't get to ask you what's been going on in your life lately.

Whole bunch of stuff,

Man.

You know,

There's so much,

So much,

So much stuff.

You know,

There's stuff I want to do with business.

We'll see if I do it.

And again,

You know,

It's the business stuff is for my kids.

That's really it.

And I feel like I'm failing at that because there's a certain amount of wealth that I want to have for them.

And man,

I just,

I don't like talking about it because maybe I should talk about it more because I just feel I'm behind.

In terms of serving me,

I'm good.

Other than that,

Man,

It's all just,

You know,

Meditation and trying to do whatever work,

You know,

That maybe or maybe not I was born into in this life to do.

And I'd sure like to think that,

You know,

Because it just makes it easier for me to wrap my head around things.

But yeah,

That's it,

Man.

And within that,

You know,

I get to travel a lot.

I get to come back to Austin and have a good group of guys.

And I guess like the things that I live for is kids,

The guys in my work.

And then,

You know,

Just try and stay busy.

You know,

Like,

I don't know why I'm writing this book.

Of course,

Wouldn't it be great to have some legacy and change the world and be remembered forever?

But,

You know,

I think I just kind of want to write a book.

What's the book exactly?

You know,

Okay,

So I'm not sure because I'm working with this editing team.

That's the other thing too,

Because I write tons of stuff.

Right.

And there's,

We're at the beginning and there's like,

I can write a lot,

But it's not necessarily good.

So let's just be clear on that.

But a lot of it is going through what is considered to be toxic masculinity and that I've lived and I found it was necessary part of my life.

And there's a lot of,

I really don't like the term divine masculine or any stuff like that,

But there's a lot of real beauty that came from that.

And what beautiful mistakes,

You know,

That came from that.

And I've done it and lived it.

And I guess maybe if there's something in it,

You know,

Hopefully people get something out of it.

You know,

Who knows,

Maybe nobody will care,

But it sure is fun to write it.

I'll tell you that because,

Okay,

As quick as I can,

I've lived a lot of violence.

I've lived a lot of crazy sex stuff.

And you may know of like whatever my history in the pickup industry or whatever,

Which I don't really have,

I don't see as a bad thing.

Like in pickup,

It's interesting because culture hates it,

But I didn't see pickup artists hurting women that much.

I might've,

But I was like one of the rare guys,

The people hurting women were people totally outside of that industry,

The misogyny and arrogance that comes out of it.

Those guys were like duds.

They did nothing.

They were just all boasting people that really didn't hurt individuals more.

They really hurt themselves and other men,

But I lived those things and I wanted to do it and I could carry a lot of it out and for better or for worse.

But in that there's a rich wisdom that comes from it.

Then also with drugs and when you get into what a lot of like red pill guys or men's rights people or whatever,

I think they're all the same,

But they love to be different.

They always talk about the pains of man.

There's suicide,

There's depression,

There's addiction,

There's custody stuff,

There's divorce,

There's getting screwed over,

Working too hard,

Overstress.

I've lived all of those things and I've found them to be great teachers and great things.

And maybe that's because I had to find the lotus in the mud of them,

But I did.

And so it's writing about a lot of that.

And where can people find more of your work?

Man,

You know what?

There's websites that probably aren't maintained too well.

So AustinMedsDevelopment.

Com,

The sexual life is the old one where it all started.

But just go on social media at Steve Maeda,

S-T-E-V-E-M-A-Y-E-D-A.

Look for me on Facebook or Instagram and TikTok now.

And maybe by the time this podcast comes out,

I'll have some good epic cinematography stuff.

Cool.

I'm off all social media,

But maybe I'll peek in just to see what you're up to.

Oh,

Man.

Well,

Stay off.

You're probably smart for that.

Yeah,

We'll see.

Cool,

Man.

It was great catching up.

All right,

Dude.

Later,

Man.

Yeah.

Take care.

See you.