Ladies and gentlemen, but let's just be honest, mostly just
gentlemen and 14% of our audience that are ladies.
We we are you are also welcomed here.
We are talking today about when things go wrong, but nobody
steps up to the plate to make it right.
While you need a great leader in that situation, who the best
leaders that we've worked with are.
And we may, just may bring back an all in favorite, the Mount
Rushmore of great leaders in our lives.
This is the All In podcast with the three greatest leaders that
I know and Clayton. So, you know, in our first
season of the All In podcast, we we kind of got into a rhythm of
hitting Mount Rushmore. We had some fun ones we did like
Mount Rushmore and Dad's Kobe and John Krzynski.
We did Mount Rushmore of the greatest failures, Tim Duncan,
and we've done Mount Rushmore's on some of our greatest
experiences in life. But we've kind of gotten away
from the Mount Rushmore's. But like all great things in
life, you got to circle back. And so I want to bring out to
open us your Mount Rushmore of greatest leaders.
We're going to start off with first draft pick to the Oakland
Raiders, Jose. Are we each doing our own Mount
Rushmore or collective Mount Rushmore?
I'd like I don't want you to get too carried away.
Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore.
Tell me what? Elaborate.
Yeah. I learned a lot from Albus
Dumbledore when I was growing up.
He's someone that is doing the best that he can, but he thinks
he knows. He's someone that admits when
they are wrong. He owns up to his mistakes while
still trying to push people towards goodness and towards
life and towards love. And he's also the most talented
Wizard of the century. But he also hid from Harry that
he was born to die. Which is he admitted that that
was a mistake. That was just good leadership.
I mean, yeah, you can't tell a kid that, you know, if you're
less than 16 years old, you can't.
Handle that even if both your parents died.
He also has one of my my favorite quotes that I don't
have it memorized, but there's something something along the
lines of this is in Harry Potter 5 Order of the Phoenix.
Towards the end, he says, sometimes youth forgets about
the experience of the old, but the old tends to forget about
the. Inexperiencing the youth.
OK, come back to me. I'm going to Google this quote.
Jamie can. You pull this, Jamie.
Jamie. Listen, Double is just a great
leader. Yeah.
All right, It's all right. That's.
Fair. He sacrifices his life for the
good of the wizarding world. Waverly Place, all of them.
All of all the wizarding worlds clean.
Right. You started us off with, I would
categorize that as somewhat silly one.
You're a silly guy. OK, I'm going to go with more
serious one here. I'm going to go with Kurt
Signetti. Kurt Signetti, what he's done
with Indiana football program is absolutely incredible.
But one of the things I loved in an interview that he did was he
talked about how when he came to Indiana, he had to change the
mindset of not just the players that he was playing with, but he
had to change the mindset of the entire university itself.
Because for whatever reason, you know, Indiana, they're in the
Big 10, you know, but they've never been good at football
before. And so the, the mindset around
the entire program was that, yeah, it's just, you know, we,
we play football, We don't, we don't, we don't win football.
And he had to come in, he had to instill a mindset within every
single person within the university of essentially, why
not us? Why don't we believe?
Why are you hiring me here in the 1st place if, if we're not
here to win a win a national championship.
And then since then, obviously they went on to to go and win
the national championship. But a similar thing is happening
at Indiana right now. That also happened at the
University of of Alabama. Kurt Cignetti's contract is like
$12 million a year or something like that.
His His first contract at James Madison was 395 K, and now he's
getting paid $12 million to be. But now they, they've got like
70, they had 70,000 more applications or something like
that to, to the university, to the university.
And so, and now they're going to be able to take, you know, they,
they've taken a lot more out of state students, which is going
to allow them to bring more revenue.
And his his contract has already been paid for in triple because
the amount of out of state students that they've been able
to take has come more competitive.
Yeah, no, that's a great answer. I feel like it's the hipster
answer. Feel like Nick Saban's kind of
the the better pick than Kurt, but he's.
He's the new. He's the.
New Saban. OK, Jamie got back to me just to
close this out because our listeners are on the edge of
their seat. The quote is youth cannot know
how age thinks and feels, but old men are guilty.
They forget what it was like to be young.
I think it's a great quote that applies a lot to to mission on
campus. All right, back to, to, to
leadership. I think in I think we had
another episode about this. For me, someone that have been
very struck with how they led was Saint John the Rebuff.
Now I wasn't there in his book is have a lot of dialogue
because it's not his book, it's someone else writing about his
life. But the example that he set in
the way that he lived mission with the Native Americans has
really struck me. And so he would be on my Mount
Rushmore of leadership. Is that less silly than I was I?
Appreciate that. Yeah, yeah.
That's legit. So, Michael?
You pronounced it correctly this time.
In the first season, you kept on mispronouncing his name.
Jean Leverbaugh. Yeah.
Really. Yeah.
You said Braboof. Braboof Brabe.
Buff because he was jacked. Excuse.
You know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go a little secular
here. I'm going to call on Mr. Steve
Jobs. No, that's terrible.
No, he was awful. He was.
He had his issues. He had specifically in
leadership. Leadership issues.
He was knowing for cussing out employees in the boardroom.
He was really good at building a brand, I guess.
Moving on, he's taken down. We cleaned his face off Mount
Rushmore. OK, stenciled over it.
What do we think about Tom Cruise and Top Gun Maverick?
Good leader. The fight he gets in at the bar,
absolutely. Jamie, can we can we pull that
clip? All right, Joe, Mike, we've,
we've axed Steve Jobs. Yeah.
Awful pick, by the way. Yeah.
Yeah, I was going to go. Vetoed that I was kind of
building this together. Yeah, we no.
We're we're together. I asked the question and I'm
struggling for answers here. So right now we I'm.
Fine with Albus Dumbledore next to Kurt Zignetti on.
Mount Rushmore we have. Don't want Steve Jobs up there?
Kurt, Jean and Albus. I'm going to I'm going to pull
one out here and I'm going to say my favorite U.S.
President Millard Fillmore. You know anything about this
guy? I.
Didn't even know that was the name of a.
President. President.
Miller, Millard Fillmore. He was the US President after
who, Ulysses? S Grant was your Wilson.
Jamie, you know the answer. I thought Your presidential guy,
Zachary Taylor, President Taylor.
Can you name anything about President Taylor?
Wait, you guys don't know anything?
Came out for Abraham Lincoln. I think.
Can you? How many presents can you name
in order? In order, yeah, none. 3I.
Thought you're talking about you can take the first 3.
George Washington? Yeah.
Thomas Jefferson? No.
Whose number? No, no.
Hold on. John Adams.
John Quincy Adams and. No Jamie's.
Freaking out in the back. Who's number 2?
John Adams. Just John Adams.
No. No.
Quincy. Who's John Quincy Adams?
He was the 5th president. Oh, he was.
I think so. And then third Donnie T.
Donnie T No, I don't know, Basically Miller.
Miller Fillmore. The joke is is that he's the
most obscure U.S. President, and that he did
absolutely nothing remarkable except that he was once quoted
as saying that the Capitol Library is way too small.
So, OK, so you've given us a bunch of fake people that you
want to put on the Yep. Mount Rushmore.
Now we're going for real. I was setting this.
I have another answer for. What people do, you build
momentum, you build momentum and you you get people involved and
then you hit them with a big one at the end.
Great. I'm going to go one of my
heroes, Vince Lombardi. Vince Lombardi, He's a fellow
Italian Stallion. There's many of us out in the
world. Rocky Balboa, Sylvester
Stallone. They may or may not be the
right, the same person, Me, Andre Bocelli and Vince
Lombardi, Italian Stallions. And also the guy from Godfather.
You know the guy. Yeah.
What's the I thought Andre Bocelli was an operator?
He is, he is. Oh, doesn't mean you gave.
Me, a game from Godfather. So Vince Lombardi.
One of the most boring biographies I've ever read.
Mostly because it's 27 hours on Audible and that's at 1.2 speed
so I don't know what the inflation is there but it's
probably like 30-4 hours regular.
I'm a 1.4 guy. Lombardi 4.
One 1.4 speed. Yeah, sorry.
Keep going. This podcast is going great.
It's going wonderful. So Vince Lombardi, if you don't
know his story, was born into a poor Italian Catholic family in
inner city New York. His dad owned a small sub shop
Jersey Mike's just kidding. But basically they had nothing
and Vince Lombardi was always undersized.
He he was a nose tackle even though he was like less than 6
foot. Played low key college football,
but was just a a grinder and highly competitive and was was
known for having a knack for pulling talent out of people who
didn't have much talent. He kind of, he was, he was a one
of those characters who wasn't a high profile athlete, but
because he was so smart, he worked his way up the ladder.
You know, analyst positions, coordinator positions, small
schools, small schools, small schools.
Finally got a job at a major conference at the college level
and then was given the opportunity to move up to the
NFL. And when he was hired as the
head coach of the Packers, many people were like, this is this
is one of the worst hires in the NFL.
The Packers were a low market team, still are.
Shout out to our Packers fans. And they basically never done.
They were kind of the laughingstock of the NFL up to
that point. And Lombardi took a team that
didn't have much money, was playing in a market that was the
smallest U.S. market at the time and and still is to this day.
And turn the Green Bay Packers from a bottom dweller of
professional sports to now one of the one of the teams in
professional sports that everyone I identifies as kind of
the face of American professional athletics.
I mean, he he recruited and drafted some of the best players
in NFL history. Bart Starr, probably the the
first great NFL quarterback. He also a little burn in the
back of the throat. He also was pivotal and changing
the way offense was being played at the time.
So if you look at those old videos, it was the old wingback
formation, kind of like Navy, Army, Air Force style triple
option. And he was pivotal and kind of
starting to move the ball down the field through 5/10/15 yard
outs. And just an incredible leader.
His, his famous speech, what it takes to be #1 my dad had on a
plaque in our Home Office growing up.
And I, I just always would read it.
And even as a young kid, just be like, that is what leadership
looks like. It is drawing talent out of
people who maybe don't think they do.
And his famous quote is being #1 isn't the only thing.
No, winning isn't the only thing.
Winning is not just a thing. It's the only thing.
We got. There.
This is the only podcast where we misquote all the important
ones. OK, but now that I've had a
little time to think. Great pick by the way.
John, Michael. That is a great pick.
Did I save myself? And I think the the person that
I'm thinking of very similar is Gregg Popovich, who is also
known for help like finding talent in the most
unconventional types of people and players, who is known for
his leadership style is all about connecting with his
players, right? All of his players want to play
for him, goes to one of the smallest markets in the NBA,
turns them into one of the greatest franchises in the NBA,
and yeah, he's just a good leader.
You read any article about there's not a single negative
thing that anyone has ever said about Greg Popovich is a coach.
But you read all these articles about coaching, what it took to
win 5 championships, all these things.
And I feel like at least what I remember, especially growing up
in San Antonio, what I hear the most is, you know, what made the
Spurs special, what made Gregg Popovich special is he always
prioritized team dinners and connecting with the players and
the players connecting with each other.
I think that's amazing. I love it.
Like as a leader, he his main priority was not winning.
Now, it was probably a top priority, but his main priority
was knowing his players, knowing what they brought the table and
highlighting those strengths to make sure that everyone had a
spot on the team. It's a good pick.
Yeah. What was the worst pick for
Mount Rushmore? Clayton picking Tenet on his
Mount Rushmore of movies or me picking Steve Job on our mount.
Rushmore's leaders, like tenet spelled backwards, is still
tenet. Say, say no more, say no more.
So we've been, we've been joking about leaders and we've been
identifying some great ones. But what I want to get to for
the meat and potatoes of the episode is even if you don't
want to be a leader, leadership is going to find you anyway.
Here's what I mean by that. Often times, responsibility and
leadership show up whether you volunteer for it or not.
Leadership, we think is maybe like a formal title.
You know what we identified here in our Mount Rushmore where
people who had leadership positions, head coaches of
programs, CEO's, Saint John, Deborah Buff, kind of the leader
of the Jesuits in the New World. But one of the most important
qualifiers for leadership is leadership is not a title, it's
influence. And so for people that do not
have a title, you look up to people who show certain
qualities. Maybe it's a spirit of calmness
in the face of adversity. Maybe it's a willingness to take
charge of a situation. Maybe it's just capacity or
capability to be someone who, when a gap exists, that you're
the one to take the initiative to step in.
It doesn't necessitate a title. Sometimes it comes with it, but
it produces a responsibility to step into the void.
And I'm curious for y'all, have you worked with people either
professionally, maybe it was growing up that didn't
necessarily have that title like a head coach or CEO or business
leader or president or a St., but who showcased leadership in
a profound way can? You repeat that question.
Who do you know that stepped into leadership without a title?
Yeah, but has LED anyway I'm. Trying to think of some good
examples in my life. I think one one that comes to
mind for me is my grandfather. So he fought in Korea, fought in
the Korean War. He's the youngest of 14 children
born to Vito great name and his mother and his mother died in
childbirth with him. So his dad was left with 14
children, a widower and a lot of mouths to feed on a poor
strawberry farm in rural Louisiana.
Has he ever heard of Independence, LA?
I have. That's north of New Orleans,
kind of as you move up into northern Louisiana.
And my grandfather, as the youngest of 14, was cast right
away into helping out the family.
So he would pick strawberries outside in the farm.
He would carry the strawberries on his back to market to sell to
make money for the family. And as his older brothers were
moving on and and leaving the family, most of his brothers
actually fought in World War 2, he became cast into kind of the
the leader of his family, even though he was the youngest.
So he had nine older brothers. And then there was 4 girls and
then there was two boys. And my grandfather and my
grandfather talks about how even though he had other boys at
home, he was the one who naturally took charge as the
older boys graduated and, and moved on.
And it's cool because you see that leadership in him growing
up and, and taking part in family life and, you know, being
able to, to provide for the family.
But then he went and fought in Korea and he was 18 years old.
And it's crazy to think about because I would not feel
comfortable with most 18 year olds I know fighting for our
country. But looking back then, it was
probably his hardened life that prepared him for such a moment.
And when he was fighting Korea, he was a Marine infantryman.
And as he was, they were taking a hill in Korea.
They're trying to take the high ground like Anakin.
They he stepped on a landmine and it blew off his entire left
leg. Like Anakin?
There is a lot of analogies. Here.
Like Anakin, he was also the Chosen 1.
That's good. That might have been top moments
in the podcast right there. They have to be on the top 10.
But he stepped in right away and and he was he was laying on the
ground with his leg blown off and, and one of his infantry men
came and, and put him on his back and carried him all the way
back. And he spent six months in a
naval hospital getting rehabilitated.
And then you know, he has to re enter life and he's 20 years
old. He has a prosthetic leg in the
1950s, which I have to imagine is probably not very
comfortable. And, and he married my
grandmother and, and started a family.
But because of his prosthetic leg, he was denied at a lot of
factory and industry jobs because he was disabled.
And so he took a job as a wood shop teacher at a public high
school. You know, not the not the
sexiest job in the world, doesn't make the most money, but
he created this beautiful life for his family.
They had six kids, my dad being one of them.
And he was such an example to me.
He's, he's still living. He's 96 years old and still
walking around on a prosthetic leg that he got, you know, 76
years ago. And his name's Lawrence Michael
Lucido, Senior and my dad's Lawrence Michael Lucido Junior.
My parents skipped me. Not sure why.
We'll talk to them about that later.
But then we named our son Lawrence Michael Lucido the
third because we wanted him to showcase the same leadership
without a title that my grandfather showcased throughout
his life. And and that's something
stepping into responsibility that I want my kids and and
myself to emulate. It's.
A great story it. Is wonderful.
You know, I just speaking about Deacon, Deacon Larry.
You know, he, I think, I think maybe I might have told the
story before on the podcast, but he was Deacon at Saint Monica
and he would always ride a bike by all the windows of the school
and handle license plate on the back of his bike that said
groovy on it. And he wave with all the kids
through the windows. It's like we were starting our,
our school day. And then, you know, I, I knew
him very impersonally then and then got to know Deacon Larry.
I mean, I've spent a little bit of time with him just
interacting with, with your family.
But you, you, you telling that story.
I think, you know, I think of Deacon Larry Lucido.
What I think about is that he's a, he's a man of joy.
He is truly a man of joy. And just, you know, hearing you
tell that I'm like, wow, he, you know, the, the hardships that he
had to go through, not only just growing up, you know, in his, in
his family life, but then having to go, go to Korea and then, you
know, immediately, you know, coming back from Korea, having
to deal with the hardships of how do I get a job when I have
this, you know, disability. It's amazing that he wasn't.
He didn't grow resentful even in the midst of that.
I wonder if it's just as as that generation of men has, you know,
slowly passed on. I think they're called the
greatest generation is kind of how they're identified in in
generational terms. It's such a sad.
It's so sad because they went through so much like that
generation went through, you know, probably a lot of them,
the Great Depression, a lot of them either fought in World War
2 or Korea. And then they had to make a life
for themselves as the country's reeling and trying to find its
identity. They're trying to create a life
of safety for their kids from a life that they never had.
And I just my grandmother, his wife passed away just a couple
months ago. And it's just really got me
thinking of how much I wish my kids could have more time with
that generation. My favorite thing growing up was
we just sit at my grandpa's feet and just have them tell us
stories. And some of his stories were
just unbelievable. Riding, riding cows out in the
pasture. He he almost drowned in a Creek
because he got bit by a water moccasin and started having a
reaction. And then his brothers rescued
him. It was just like every day in
their life was an adventure. And I wonder if that is what
created these leadership qualities in these men that
frankly, as I look at our generation, who hasn't gone
through some of those things, They had World War Two, we had
COVID and you know, people are like, Oh my gosh, COVID was so
hard compared to what those men went through.
We were stuck in our house looking at our computer all day,
not not fighting for our lives every day trying to put food on
the table. What do you think this
generation is lacking that that greatest generation had the
opportunity to? Have.
Well, what's the saying? I'm going to butt here at about
it. I think we're.
Talking. Yeah.
Hard, Hard. Yeah, go for it.
Hard times create great men, great men create good times,
good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.
What do you think we are in that cycle?
I think we have moved from great men have created good times,
good times have created weak men, and that is kind of where
we're sitting right now. So you're, you're, you're you're
back to your original question, it was what is our generation
lacking? Is that what you said?
Yeah. What are they lacking in
compared to that generation? Is it the experiences that they
had? The shared hardship.
It's got to be part of it.
Maybe not the whole equation, but a big part, yeah.
Is there a way to create those opportunities without living in
a Dust Bowl in rural Kansas? In my brain initially goes to
well. I also wonder what technology
what what role technology plays in this right.
You're talking about your grandpa, all these adventures.
Would those adventures be there if there's an option to be on an
iPad, right? Or to watch TV or whatever where
it's like, and maybe this goes back to the hardships, right?
Of like the parents were going through hard things, his dad was
going through hard things. So it forced the kids to like be
outside a lot and to be working and to be helping out the
family. But those are two things.
I think of it like shared hardship, but also what has
technology done to us to that? We prefer that and maybe goes
back to like the lack of hard things by distracting ourselves
with technology or with whatever it may be.
That, that was, you're kind of hitting on a little bit of what
I was thinking about, which is just that in, in every
generation, in every life that's lived, there's an invitation to
embrace the cross. You know, for your, your
grandfather's generation, there was an invitation there.
There was a a widespread, not just cultural invitation to
embrace the cross, but you know, that there was no, there is you
couldn't not embrace the cross in that moment.
You know, you know, he was called up to Korea and that was
something that that he had to do as part of his duty and
responsibility, that there was no avoiding it.
And he had to face it head on. And I think perhaps something
that, you know, exists because of technology and just the, the
comfort that we have in our, in our culture and society right
now is that there are crosses that are looking at us in the
face every single day of our life.
But it's very, very easy to hide from them.
It's very, very easy to escape from them.
That reminds me of a story that one of the best, if not the the
best leader ever worked on there used to love telling the story
of AI might butcher a little bit there.
There was a man, can't remember maybe Vietnamese, that when he
was in Vietnam, Catholic was captured by the Communist Party
and would get tortured a lot in order for him to apostasize and
to leave the faith. And he never did, like not once
throughout the all the years of capture, torture, all these
things he never did. He eventually got out, moved to
America, had kids and slowly but surely, you know, with just like
the comforts of life that he had.
Now again, I'm butchering the story.
He, he slowly started to like give in to certain things,
right? He slowly started to like, well,
you know, maybe I could do this and, and, and well, maybe I
could go walk my daughter's school.
I don't have time to go to Mass anymore.
Not a bad thing, but I just kind of kept building up to within
two years, this man was like not even going to Sunday Mass
anymore. And I, I think again, not the
best retelling of that story, but it kind of hits what you're
saying. When he was in Vietnam,
captured, being tortured, the cross was in front of him.
There was no option but to face it and to embrace it.
Versus when he got stateside, the comforts of our culture,
right? He was able to kind of get
distracted from the cross. And that's when like things
started to fall apart. And again, the, the, the story
he would say, would like that. My old manager would say a lot
was like, what com communism couldn't be out of him.
Our culture stole from him without even trying, right?
And I think it hits on what you're saying.
The cross was no longer in front of him.
And I feel it in my own life when I'm going through something
really hard, that's usually when I feel the closest to our Lord.
But when I'm not going through something really hard, that's
right in front of me. That's why it's really easy to
get distracted and not embrace the cross, right?
Is that what kind of what you were getting?
Exactly. Exactly.
That quote scares the the poo poo out of me for our, you know,
that we get at the clean podcast here because it that is like
going back to the question of what is our what what has
happened to our generation? This is what's happened.
We, and I'll say we because we're included in that, have
been lulled to sleep by comfort and and men are desperately in
need of a battle to fight. And when they don't have a
battle to fight, that's when they lose their desire for
leadership, when they don't feel a need to lead, then they won't.
And when they feel like they're being lulled to sleep and
everything's great and everything's comfortable, what's
their lead? Instead, I'm going to, you know,
grab a, a scar on Fortnite and grab a chug jug.
And that's going to try to. What you say?
What's a chug chug chug chug chug chug chug chug jug.
I thought you said chug chug. What are what are you saying
here? Where is this going?
Basically. I got lost with.
These before. That I forgot everything you
said leading up to. Our, our, our grandparents were
fighting real wars. And now we have a generation of
men who are playing wars on video games and not even real
wars, but wars with building materials and fake guns and, you
know, pinatas and. Cool skins.
Cool skins and they can turn into a monster and it's just
it's insane. And why are why are people
attracted to that? Well, they're attracted because
they need a battle to fight in their lives.
And So what they're getting in a video game is kind of a an empty
void of the actual desire that's deeply rooted in them, which is
a desire to lead, a desire to fight, and a desire to find a
battle that is worth engaging in.
I think the reality is, is that for your for your grandpa,
grandfather going back to to Deacon Larry here is that there
was a various a very obvious war, a very obvious battle that
was in front of him. And I think what's scary is that
there's, there's, I think to us, there's a very obvious war and
battle that's, that's raging all around us at, at any given time.
But for many people, it's a silent war.
They don't know, they don't know that it's going on, you know,
and that's been, you know, part of our, our role within, you
know, within focus, the missionary apostolate
organization that we work for is how do we wake people up to see
that that God is real, that there's a, a reality of, you
know, people losing their faith, people losing what it means to
be human, people losing what it means to be, you know, a part of
the family. And we're slipping very, very
silently into a culture of a culture of death, a culture of
isolation, a culture that's anti family and anti anti life.
And how do you wake people up to that to see, hey, this like
there's, there's a battle going on and you've got it.
You have a role to play in this. You got to step into that.
And going back to the idea of the cross, leadership is a
burden. Leadership is, is a cross and it
doesn't have, it doesn't necessarily have to do with your
title. Anyone can be a leader because
you know, for a, a leader is someone who is woken up to the
fact that their life is about the, the laying down of their
own life and the service to other people around them.
And it doesn't matter if you're at the top of an organization
and you've got thousands of people to lead, There are
always, always opportunities to serve the people in your life
to, to, to bring them joy to, to, to meet them where they're
at, to go out of your way to do something for them, to help
them. And it's like, gosh, how what is
how do we invite people to that in a way that is, you know,
where there's a, there's a great challenge in front of you,
there's a great burden in front of you, but there's also a great
joy waiting for you even in the midst of that.
And I think you actually answered the question for us,
which is what is this generation lacking?
This generation is lacking that reminder.
They're lacking the reality. If you wake them up, they will
come alive in Christ and step into Christ like leadership in a
way that they never thought before.
My my favorite moments of evangelization and and sharing
the faith with others are our annual conference called Sikh.
We, we have an all men's session.
And this year at the all men session, the MC did this thing
where he, he got the, the men to do like a, a war cry is not the
right term because that kind of sounds cringy.
But it was like a, he was like, I want you to grunt like an
animal, but also scream. And it turned into and, and he
would just say, give me one and the whole crowd would go, you
know, give me another Now give the speaker 1.
And it just became this, this thing where every time he would
get up there, he would go give me one and all 6000 college men
would stand up and go. And so there's, there's a
reality to win when you awaken a man to a battle cry.
And a battle cry doesn't have to be as serious as the world is
ending and you need to pick up a sword.
The battle cry can be as simple as your wife needs you to be
present, your kids need you need you to be present.
That's your battle cry. That's your battle cry and and
go out and get it. And I was thinking as you were
talking, and we've been talking about war.
Why do men love movies about war?
Why is every football pregame speech about we're going into
war to fight the enemy. And you know, even boardroom CE
OS talk about the great battle between companies.
It's because men respond to a narrative and a pedagogy of the
great battle. And so if if a football team is
using that analogy and it's effective and a CEO is using
that analogy and it's effective, then we should be using that
analogy to awaken a generation of men and show them that
whether you're an infantryman and enlisted officer, a second
Lieutenant, or the captain of the whole thing itself, we need
you. We got to have you because it's
a losing battle and we need as many soldiers on the field as
possible. How do you make that seem
urgent? I guess, you know, when you're,
I mean, when you're thinking about World War 2, you know,
that seems urgent. You know, there there's
something that's very obviously life or death right in front of
me, you know, but I think for, I mean, I've experienced this
amount when you're just going through your day-to-day, you
know, it's like doesn't really seem like it's every decision I
make is make or break life or death.
You know, how do you, what does that look like to be able to
maintain that fervor and that zeal for fighting the the battle
that's waging within your own heart and then also in the
culture at large? General Husby.
I'm thinking, how do we kind of make it seem urgent?
What are we saying? I, I, I guess, you know, I'm
thinking of the word zeal here, you know, to be, to be on fire,
you know, and it's like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm willing, I'm
willing to do anything and sacrifice my, my life for the
Lord and for, you know, the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.
And, you know, going, going through your day-to-day, you
know, going, going to work, which you know, means, you know,
going to an office. Jose, you and I work remotely.
So we walk into our office and we log on to things and there's,
you know, sometimes there's really important things that
we're doing and sometimes there's admin work.
And then you get home and you, you have a little, you know, you
know, Taco Tuesday and you change a diaper and it's like,
yeah, you don't really feel all the time.
Like there's that, you know, like there's a great fervor and
like urgency for you to respond to, you know, this great call to
adventure in the challenge of leadership and, and, and being a
man in the same way as you might have felt, you know, you know,
like Deacon Larry fighting in in Korea.
Yeah, you, you say that in my my first thought is like, man, I
don't know because I struggle with that too.
For sure, right? I mean, we all do.
And what I'm I'm losing much in a thought here.
Yeah, I struggle with that too. And I look on my life and it's
like when I feel like I'm being my best self is whenever I have
a lot on my plate, whenever I don't have an option but to show
up. There's no other option but for
me to to actually be the man, be the leader that I need to be.
But I don't know how that creates a sense of urgency
because you're right. Whenever I'm just answering a
team's message or whenever I'm just changing a poopy diaper or
I'm just taking John Henry out on a walk so that my wife can
cook like that, doesn't it? Doesn't strike the same right
chord. Yep.
Yeah. One thought I have is I think we
just have to name the reality for people when we're trying to
get them motivated to participate that frankly, it's
not urgent. Like let's just let's just call
it what it is. You are your family is not at
stake today, but the the wrong time to participate is when it
becomes urgent. And so if you don't do anything
to form your children, you're going to see the effects of that
today a little bit. You may see the effects of it
next week, next couple months, next couple years.
I'll tell you when you're really going to feel it when they're
1617181920212230. And so while it may not feel
urgent to the present moment, when we get home tonight and we
see our kids and they're not talking about, you know, all the
horrible moral decisions that they're making or how they're
going to marry someone that we don't like.
No, it's not urgent today. But we know it's urgent because
we want to recognize that when it comes time for it to be
urgent and it's right in front of you, guess what?
It's probably too late. That, that I, I remember my
thought now and it's, it's similar to that, that I, I came
across this a lot when I was in college and in my early days
post grad and even when I was working in the missionary with
my students. We we romanticize the big
decisions, right? And I used to think this a lot
like, man, like I want to be a martyr.
Yeah. You know, if someone tells me to
pass this out, I'm going to say no and then I'll cut my head
off. But when I have to say no to
myself at 6:00 AM on my way to class, I am not willing to do
that. Yeah.
And it's like I I remember these big things, but in all these
little ways that Jesus invited me to say yes to him, I say no.
So it's like, how can I expect myself to say yes in the in the
biggest moment when I'm not even willing to say yes in the small
things? I think this goes back to, to
what you're saying right right now.
It's the small things right now. My, my kid is five months.
He doesn't talk about anything, you know, And it's like, well,
how's it me changing his diaper not going to affect anything.
But it's like, yeah, again, there's all these small
invitations right now to accept the cross of my life that are
going to add up and are going to matter when John Henry's 20,
when he's 30, when our future kids are that age, God
willingly. But if I'm not willing to enter
into that now, if I'm not willing to embrace that cross
now, how do I expect myself to embrace that cross, which is
much harder? And so I think what we need when
we are lulled to sleep with the reality that it's not urgent
today, it may not be urgent tomorrow, but it may be urgent
in a few years or a few months or when that big decision comes
is daily reminders. Daily reminders that there
there's a battle at place, that it needs leaders, it needs
captains are called to participate.
And so something I love is the speech The Man in the Arena by
Theodore Roosevelt. So to close the podcast, I'm
going to read it and we're going to end there because this is
something that I like to listen to as that reminder of the the
mundane of my life, that something is actually at stake.
And so if you're a listener and you feel like your life isn't
urgent today, find something, a daily reminder.
Maybe it's a song, maybe it's a Bible verse.
Maybe it's the man in the arena that reminds you of the battle
that you're going to fight. So here we go.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how
strong man stumble or whether the doer of deeds could have
done them better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust,
sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who airs, but who
comes up short again and again because there is no effort
without error and no effort without shortcoming.
But who does actually strive to do the deeds?
Who knows great enthusiasm, great devotion, who spends
himself for a worthy cause day in and day out?
Who at the best knows that in the end the triumph of high
achievement, And who at the worst, if he fails, at least
fails while he dares greatly so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls who neither no victory nor no
defeat? Theodore Roosevelt, This is the
All In podcast and we are three men who want to be in the arena
day in and day out. If you're a man who wants to
join us, then make sure to subscribe, make sure to like,
make sure to comment, and most importantly, make sure to share
with a brother, with a friend, with a mentor who you love, who
you respect, and who you want to be a leader with you in that
arena day in and day out. We want to take our lives
seriously and we want to do it with you all in together.
This is the All In podcast. We'll see you in the next one.