Old Guys Still ROCK

Blair Armstrong (01:38.735)
All right, all right, all right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever you may be when you're watching this or listening to us. If this is your first time here, you have just found the best damn podcast you've never heard or seen before in your whole life. We are known as old guys still rock. I am Blair Armstrong of team Armstrong, Colwell Baker. You kind of kind of see that behind me.

I'm a global luxury specialist in the world of residential real estate in the beautiful, beautiful Coachella Valley. If you don't know where the Coachella Valley is, just think of Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indio, La Quinta, all of those cities, there's more of them intertwined there, but that is the Coachella Valley. So if you're looking in the world of real estate out here, I strongly suggest that you try to find me, because I've been embedded into this world.

since about 1997 on and off. So possibly on your left, possibly on your right, maybe just right, that's right in the middle. Can't speak right now, but right in middle is my good friend and the other host of the show, Wright of Brett Wright, Incorporated located in beautiful, beautiful Eugene, Oregon. We'll get into weather here in a little bit, but we are an episode number 149 today, brother.

Brent Wright (03:01.036)
Game changer.

Blair Armstrong (03:02.095)
Game changer. We are almost at that. know that. What do you want to call it? It's not even a century is over past the century mark. What's the 150 mark? So but what I really want to get into today, brother, before we get too deep into the weeds on this is just really want to. One thing I want you to start thinking about here is I feel like the world has changed a little bit and somehow some way that men forgot how to lead.

That's gonna be our subject today. The world is constantly changing, but I'm seeing more and more how that man may have forgotten how to lead. But, so that's gonna be our topic today. I just want you to start to think about that for a little bit, but before we go too far into that, how the hell are you? What's going on in your world?

Brent Wright (03:40.526)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (03:51.906)
Good, good. Speaking of leadership, went to a men's leadership meeting that we have weekly. It is a bunch of guys from our church decided to start a men's group that's not associated with our church, but it's called Fire Night. Sometimes we have a fire, sometimes we don't have a fire. So I was out till 10.30 last night doing that. And it is a call to action group, meaning

We're calling people to action to serve in the community. We're calling people to action to serve in their church, to serve with their kids, to serve with their wives, to lead them properly. And so this is top of mind for me right now is just massive leadership and mindset shift. I'm kind of the old guy of the group. It's a 30 something group. Typically the guys are anywhere from 27 to 38 kind of a thing.

Blair Armstrong (04:45.201)
Okay.

Brent Wright (04:49.709)
So I'm the old guy, being 53. They did harass me last night and say, we had no idea that you were that old. What kind of skincare procedure do you do? And I said, it's my wife that keeps me young because she's 16 and a half years younger than me. So she tells me to do all the things and guides me and coaches me to success. So that way I don't have as many sun spots.

Blair Armstrong (05:01.349)
Hahaha!

All right.

Blair Armstrong (05:19.825)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (05:19.981)
and all of the fun stuff. So yeah, this is definitely not just top of mind, but it is a passion project of mine and has been a passion project for about 25 years. Since I, you we talked about it prior episodes before, since I kind of woke up, right? And realized that I wasn't being a fruitful leader. I wasn't being a supportive leader, empathetic leader.

You know, a lot of people take that connotation of leading as aggression. And although sometimes it is aggression, it doesn't always have to be. It's the Sun Tzu principle. Sun Tzu said, it's better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in the war. And so meaning,

You have to be everything to everyone. We talk about that a lot here. And so meet people where they're at, lead them, guide them, coach them, but do it in such a way that it doesn't feel like it's such an aggressive path. I don't wanna tone that down because aggression is important, but understanding when to be aggressive and when not. We've all had that, right? So you've probably done this with your wife.

She needed an empathetic situation and you went to aggression. You went to fix problem instead of listening to the problem. I do that, guilty as charged. So.

Blair Armstrong (06:45.201)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (06:50.031)
Right.

I think we all do that, right? It goes back to our multiple guests, Ken McCumber, right? Do you need me to hear you? Do you need me to help you or do you need me to hug you? Right? So it's kind of going to that way. But really sticking with this topic today, mean, going back to leadership, and think that's really, I mean, when we talked two years ago, when we came up with this idea,

Brent Wright (07:00.245)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (07:06.519)
Yeah, yeah, yep.

Blair Armstrong (07:18.417)
to start a podcast. And again, we're now 149 episodes in for those who are just turning into like, who the hell are these guys? Go back and watch 148 other episodes. We're gonna figure it out. But the whole purpose behind that is exactly what you said. It's been a passion of yours for 25 years is to engage, equip and empower new leaders to not only to come down the side of you, but also to take your reins in the future.

and continue that and make that better, better to where you've brought it to, right? It's always as a leader in my mind when I hear you say that as like, okay, I am going to engage with you, figure out what you, you know, where your skills are, and I'm going to equip you with some of the things that I have learned, and then I'm going to empower you to make you better than me. So, yeah.

Brent Wright (08:08.258)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Same thing I do with my son, same thing I do with my daughter, my wife, all my employees.

Blair Armstrong (08:16.305)
So why do you think that we're having such a decrease in that? I have some ideas and so I'm gonna say what I'm thinking right now, but I just feel like we've been inundated with so much stuff that instead of really like, know what, actually we just were around a round table the other day with a bunch of friends and we sat around there for a good hour just.

bitching and moaning and everything that's going on. And then this one young kid said, we're coming, meaning we're done of not being engaged. We're done. We're going to do a do about it so we can sit there and we can talk about all these different ideas. But are we really going up and going out and getting involved with the community? Are we really engaging with these younger guys or even guys our age like, hey,

Brent Wright (08:59.062)
What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it?

Blair Armstrong (09:13.521)
We need to get back on the horse. We get back out there. We have to take back that leadership role that we feel that is being, actually it is being pulled from us, but until we stand up and say, no, you're not taking it back anymore. We're just another pawn in this grand scheme of sit back and just let us handle everything else instead of us going back to, hey, I'm going to fix this. I'm going out there. I'm going to be aggressive and hold my beer.

It's so cool, right? So.

Brent Wright (09:41.346)
Yeah, exactly. Well, know, culture has shifted. You know, we hear this all the time. Masculinity is questioned or redefined. People are saying, you know, that, for instance, Andrew Tate is either loved or hated. We talked about this before in past episodes, that the term toxic masculinity was not something that was even

coined phrase 10 years ago, right? We've seen the studies, you know, we talk about it with when Kate was on that the average men's testosterone was at 950 years ago and it's now 200.

That's a problem.

Blair Armstrong (10:30.971)
big problem.

Brent Wright (10:32.437)
And so what you have is a bunch of these, what I call Nancy boys that are just sitting back waiting for someone to come and save them. you know, leadership has been confused with control or dominance. I spoke about that a few minutes ago. Leadership is not just about control and dominance. It's about leading with the servant's heart. You know, we have a massive amount of technology.

That has, and I've seen a bunch of posts on this lately and had some conversations about this, technology has made us disconnected. It's made us faster and better in so many ways and slower and worse in others. But we have as men, the technology and the comfort has taken out our proving grounds.

Blair Armstrong (11:16.624)
Right?

Brent Wright (11:28.833)
don't have clear rites of passage. So for instance, biblically, a man becomes a man right around the age of nine to 11. And there's some things that were culturally happening in that time period that are no longer happening anymore. And so with that, it feels like the rules have changed and it feels like there's a lot of misunderstanding.

The world didn't remove leadership. It just makes it uncomfortable to step into it.

Blair Armstrong (12:02.769)
What do you think that is?

Who do you think is controlling that, it's making it uncomfortable to step in that spot? Like, my gosh, if I go out and do what I really want to do, I'm going to be scoffed out in front of I'm going to lose friends. So I'm just going to sit in my little spot. And I did my stuff. This is agent for the older guys. I've done my stuff. I'm almost about retired. I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my life.

Brent Wright (12:30.999)
Well, it's a societal thing. It's a shift in societal norms. So again, without those rites of passage, you don't have a nine to 11 year old saying, I'm a man and now I need to take charge. You have these coined phrases, toxic masculinity.

I even have men around me that I know are real men who hate, and I mean are very strong haters of people like Andrew Tate, people like Tucker Carlson, people like Andy Frisella, right? And you hear this, they don't have to get their message across using four letter explainatives.

They don't have to get their message across with being so aggressive. I kind of disagree. If you can't get your message across to somebody without using four letter explainatives, is it the person delivering the message or receiving the message that's wrong? Now we talked about this before structurally, usually in sales and leadership.

It's about if the person receiving the message isn't getting the correct message, then it's the person giving the message that's wrong. I think that we're not tolerating the message. I just got a bunch of feedback by the way. I think it's cause you're touching your mic. Maybe, maybe not anyways, regardless. I think that there it goes away. I think that the issue

Blair Armstrong (13:58.354)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (14:07.281)
Bye.

Blair Armstrong (14:12.472)
Right.

Blair Armstrong (14:17.041)
Okay.

Brent Wright (14:20.333)
is a tolerance issue, personally. I think that people have become intolerant of anything that doesn't make them feel happy and safe.

I mean, you have these safety zones everywhere, these safety signs everywhere, this comfort level. I'm coaching a guy right now that says, if I don't get my hour of checkout time, I don't feel like I can serve or be a good leader. Who told you you deserve an hour of checkout every day?

Blair Armstrong (15:00.869)
I want to stop right there because that was so good right there. So mark your spot where you're at because I want to go back to what you said earlier. We talked about testosterone levels that were at 900 or a little bit higher back not so long ago. And now we're kind of where guys are going to get their testosterone checked and it's 200. Now there's some regulation in there. Don't go out and get your quick, you know, quick fix, new genetics and stuff like that. Everyone, you know, you go for like

Brent Wright (15:27.213)
That commercial cracks me up by the way. Got this old fat guy and she'll love it.

Blair Armstrong (15:30.257)
I know right and she'll Yeah, and she'll love it too her so but anyway, you know that testosterone level is we've been You said something

Brent Wright (15:44.065)
Well, we don't have to carry heavy things anymore, right?

Blair Armstrong (15:48.902)
That too, but again, if your testosterone level starts to go to a certain spot, you know this and a lot of our listeners are going to know this too. But if it gets to a certain part, the estrogen part of the male body starts taking over. And that's not a good thing. We were built to be leaders. We were built to go ahead and withdraw stuff. Yes, we want to try to fix things. So there is a happy medium in there. Sometimes you're going to win by leading, sometimes you're going to lose by leading.

do lose by leading, you're gonna go forward. But what that being said is we've become soft in a roundabout way. These path of resistance, I'm just not gonna ruffle the feathers. I'm just gonna go ahead and take it what it is and I'll worry about it next time. Well, if it's that important to you, this is in my head and this is obviously being friends with you for a long time and absorbing some of your leadership skills and vice versa on with us is over the course of time,

we become less and less of a factor in TED. Like, you know what? I know that we may not agree on certain things like this, but we have some commonality. But I have to take what you said or what she said and like, hear you, but let's try this, this, this, and this and still maintain that leadership role. I'm just, I'm feeling that I know that I'm repeating myself on this, but I feel like that since the...

Brent Wright (16:48.865)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (17:13.169)
estrogen levels are starting to surpass the testosterone levels that we've become super complacent and not taking advantage of the things that we need to take advantage of.

Brent Wright (17:24.919)
Well, let's evaluate that. So let's talk 50 years ago. So back then, leadership used to mean that you were a provider, a protector, a decision maker, and a spiritual and moral leader and anchor, right? And now the new societally accepted version of a leader is somebody that's a passive person or a passive partner, that's an approval seeker.

Blair Armstrong (17:41.125)
Bye.

Brent Wright (17:54.552)
that's an avoider of conflict and is outsourcing responsibility and outsourcing physicality. Meaning you don't have to be able to lift heavy things like I was saying. You don't have to move stuff every day. You don't have to go out and plow the field. In men physically, when you do physical things, your testosterone increases.

I can increase my testosterone by 200 points by bench pressing heavy stuff one time a day for 20 minutes. I've done it. I've done the experiment. We are designed to not be sedentary. And societally, we are a sedentary society now.

Blair Armstrong (18:32.913)
Crazy, right?

Blair Armstrong (18:44.689)
Go.

Brent Wright (18:47.543)
Look up the word sedentary. If you fit that, change that.

Blair Armstrong (18:54.705)
Brett, it's so much work, you know, and I'm just really happy where I'm at. I've already gone through all that stuff and this is more for our older guys. So younger guys, pay attention to this because eventually it could happen to you if you don't really carry up what we've been talking about earlier is that this is your time. There's no better time to be a leader than right now because the other older guys in us are like,

Brent Wright (18:57.921)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (19:18.895)
So we're really counting on your younger guys to relight our torch. And I think that we can really see some leadership stuff come from the younger guys to reignite us as the older guys. But you know what, man? I just don't need to do it. I don't have time. I'm just going to enjoy myself. It's not really affecting me. I'm just going to move on.

Brent Wright (19:41.857)
Weak. Weak. Absolutely weak.

Blair Armstrong (19:43.258)
Right?

So here's the thing that I am kind of dealing with. I've got to the point with I'm done with it. I'm gonna if something is like not being done right or someone feels like they're entitled to do something. I'm standing up and saying, hey, I think I talked about this a couple weeks ago. Someone came up and you're at a restaurant and they walked up and they were ordering a drink and like, hey, give me one of those to the staff. And I'm like,

Brent Wright (20:11.735)
Mmm.

Blair Armstrong (20:14.481)
I'm literally in this conversation. hear this guy to the side and I go, hold on a second. And I go, what? He goes, what do you mean what? I'm like, hey, how about may I please have such and such and such and Like in there, he's looking back at me and he goes, what are you the, I don't know what kind of police he says. The Polinus police, something like that, right? And I go, that's what you want to call me, but.

Brent Wright (20:37.515)
The politeness police or what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blair Armstrong (20:44.591)
that person is no, the person that you're ordering your cocktail from, your drink from is no different from you. So why don't you give them a little bit of respect and we can all get along a lot better. And he kind of looked at me like, dude, who are you? And I turned around and had my conversation. But then the staff came up to me is like, hey, thank you for saying that. The guy's been kind of a yo-yo head for a while and hopefully that works out for it.

But that's what I mean. I'm using that as one example. There's there's a thousand different examples, but I'm not letting stuff that people are kind of bullying or kind of think I this is my space and not being entitled to it and being an aggressive in the right way. What you said earlier, being aggressive in the right way is you can't let things just pass by like, you know, I guess just a jerk. Just let him be a jerk. He's going to continue being a jerk until you take that leadership role like

This ain't happening anymore. And yes, it's a form of aggressive. No, it's not a form of toxic masculinity. It's a standard. And we talk about that every single episode that we have on our. Yeah. And if you make the guy upset or if he wants to, you know, take it to the next level, but saying that's where it needs to go, you can't we have to stop. You can't let people. And again, in the right way.

Brent Wright (21:49.837)
Standards over feelings.

Blair Armstrong (22:06.853)
continue to take advantage of because no one said no to them or no one has questioned their motives. If it's something that's not right, if something is not fitting your standard, stand up and say something. Yes, it may be an embarrassing moment.

But if you want something fixed, you're going to have to take that leadership role in the right way. I'm not saying go in combat.

Brent Wright (22:28.845)
Well, you must be the change that you seek, right? So if you want something changed, you have to do it. It is tough, it's not easy, and there's not a lot of people doing it. Interesting side note, so my daughter had an interaction with one of her classmates. Her classmates said, why are your parents so strict?

Blair Armstrong (22:51.397)
Hahaha.

Brent Wright (22:53.077)
And she said, my parents aren't strict, they love me. And in our house, we have standards over feelings.

Blair Armstrong (23:01.265)
Good job, Emma.

Brent Wright (23:02.765)
Now she's gonna be 12 next month. And it was a big proud dad moment. And so, but remember guys, leadership isn't about control. It's about clarity, responsibility and presence. Presence is the key to that. Responsibility is the key to that. And clarity, having a clear vision for what you see happening in your life.

Blair Armstrong (23:05.68)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (23:09.104)
yeah.

Brent Wright (23:31.797)
and then helping people to understand that clarity and then being present in the moment.

We talked about this two or three episodes about presence. It's very, very important. And it's very costly if you don't do it this way. So the cost of passive men is your kids lack direction, women, your wives are forced into masculine roles out of necessity, not desire. My wife has zero desire to take the garbage out.

but necessarily it needs to happen. And if I'm not gonna be the one to do that without being asked, she's going to do that and it's gonna cause division. We have clear roles and you should have clear roles. In your business life, it's a lack of decisive leadership and it's a big culture drift. You can't build a good culture in your business.

with being passive. Your employees are looking for direction. Your customers are looking for direction. Your vendors are looking for direction. We have a set of core values hanging everywhere in our facility and we quote them to our customers and our vendors as well as our employees. And our employees are now quoting those to our customers and our vendors. We had a delivery the other day and the guy

Blair Armstrong (25:05.041)
to

Brent Wright (25:07.991)
We have a clear way to take a delivery. It says, leave here on your designated shelf, on your designated spot on the shelf and bring the invoice over to the office. It's clear and simple. Three steps. The guy brings it into the shop, doesn't put it on the shelf, drops it on the floor.

Blair Armstrong (25:23.771)
Ha

Brent Wright (25:34.047)
leaves the invoice, the invoice goes fluttering into the parking lot. My employee goes chasing after the invoice, walks over to the vendor and says, we have a clear way for you to make a delivery. You need to go talk to the office.

You didn't follow our delivery procedure. And that goes against one of our core values and then cited the core value to our vendor. Now this guy didn't care too craps. But by the time my manager was done with him, he not only understood the direction, but then cared about the direction at least a little bit microscopically.

And so internally, this cost of passive men, most men will feel lost, frustrated or numb. That delivery driver was probably just going through the motions. He was just numb. I'm just.

Blair Armstrong (26:34.641)
Going back to what we said, it's like, you know what? No one's ever said anything to him. No one's given him a standard. So it's just going to keep on going. And finally, maybe through that starfish back to go on, but keep going.

Brent Wright (26:40.386)
Right?

Yeah.

Brent Wright (26:47.563)
Yeah, and so internally, what you see in that person is that they have no fire and they have no drive. They have no ambition. They're just checking the box, checking the box.

So here's a question for you. After all that I've said, what happens in your home when a man won't leave?

Blair Armstrong (27:11.921)
like becomes discontent, right? You have a wife that doesn't believe in you, or wife or partner, whatever you wanna put into that, I'm still with the standard household is just like you have a wife that doesn't believe in you, doesn't have faith in you, doesn't have trust in you, can't rely on you.

Because just like the other you said this or you talk about this big massive game that you never do anything about it So why am I going to when the chips are down come back and rely on you now sometimes when you do I've This situation and every person had it your wife comes back to you and asks you for advice or it gives you a different scenario and you lay out well, okay, did you do this this this and this and

which has happened a lot lately. And every relationship has this, but it happens a lot lately. And it kind of, there's pushback on it, right? There's a little bit of pushback on it. It can't be this way. I can't just tell you, you gotta do it this way. It's going to make things.

Brent Wright (28:19.169)
because they don't trust your opinion. They're asking for your opinion, but your actions haven't supported your ability to give your opinion, right?

Blair Armstrong (28:22.156)
We're done.

Blair Armstrong (28:27.473)
But when they go ahead and like, know, guys are freaking, he's not right. He doesn't know how to handle it. And they go back and kind of do what you said. And it works. That's going back and building up trust. That's a leadership to it. So sometimes you're going to give advice that is going to be not receptive. And, and, then once they're like, well, you know what? I'm just going to try it. And if he's wrong, I can say, well, I did try that and it didn't work out.

Brent Wright (28:35.757)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (28:46.477)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (28:56.385)
Have we confused being nice with being weak?

Blair Armstrong (28:56.453)
but when it's working.

Blair Armstrong (29:01.679)
Yes, yes, I don't. Yeah, I think that we tried to, know, we go back to your empathy part of, know, our compassionate empathy, what you and I have a hard time with a lot, because we have tasted life a little bit differently than a lot of other people have, right? And so when...

Brent Wright (29:04.267)
Let's expand on that. Tell me more about that.

Blair Armstrong (29:23.781)
There's certain times that you have to be compassionate and you have to have some empathy and I'm not saying being cold and this is the way it's run. But there's also a time like, hey, we're done going down this path and you can keep doing it this way. This ain't happening anymore. And it's a rough conversation. is, it can make it for a rough couple of days, but eventually.

If you stand your ground on it the right way, you don't need to be a a-hole about it. But if you stand your ground the right way, it builds a different level of that relationship. takes a relationship to a more intimate level and intimacy never dies in a relationship. Well, it can die if you don't feed it. But I'm just saying this, you can always have more or more intimacy up and up and up and up.

Brent Wright (30:11.254)
Well, it needs to be, it needs, just like a vine, needs to be pruned every day, right?

Blair Armstrong (30:15.889)
Yeah, there's some stuff that you have to get rid of and there's some different directions you may have set it the wrong way, but you have to come back. This is what I meant or things like that. That's why I'm a big believer in those type of discussions. And when it starts getting to a very turning point of a conversation, which a lot of people rely on this, I'm just going to text you my feelings. What is in their head and what's on their fingers on this part?

Brent Wright (30:38.988)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (30:44.027)
gets lost in translation to this part.

Brent Wright (30:47.008)
Well, we've talked about it before. It's two dimensional instead of three dimensional. It's a low level conversation, right?

Blair Armstrong (30:52.763)
So you're reading something and like, well, where are you going with this instead of really talking it out or being or having the words misconstrued and and then that just puts gasoline on the fire and then trying to reoccur that. So I'm always a big believer if you have to have a passionate conversation or something that you're going to get into the weeds about stuff. Don't put it on text. Have it face to face, it may not be fun, but it's the best way.

Brent Wright (31:16.896)
Have it face to face.

Blair Armstrong (31:21.905)
especially for me, don't put it on text, because I'm going to read your stuff. And if you're being aggressive to me on text, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to basically like, yep, we're done. We're not talking about this anymore. That's not the right way for you to handle. I should pick up the phone and like, okay, let's get this out or let's have a meeting. I don't care if it's a business partner, friendship, your marriage, whatever it is, is like.

Brent Wright (31:45.312)
Well, back to our belief system, yours and mine, it's straight up biblical. It says, if you have a problem with your brother, take it to your brother first. Right? And so...

Blair Armstrong (31:48.058)
Right.

Blair Armstrong (31:54.192)
Yep. Right. Then we go back to, but then we go back to like, know what, I'm just I'm not even I don't have the bandwidth right now to deal with this stuff. So I am just going to go ahead and let that be right, even though I know that it's not right. And I'm just going to pass it off. then your masculinity and your leadership roles are going down, down, down, down, down, down. Well, I'm just going to be able to where I see a lot of it here, a lot of it that

These guys just get overrun by their wives because they're like, I'm just going to go play.

Brent Wright (32:29.142)
Well, they're not getting overrun by their wives. They're not leading in the way that we're talking about. And so again, when men don't lead, something else has to fill the vacuum. And it's rarely, if ever better for you or your spouse, either one. And so when you don't lead, it's not your wife's fault that she's having to lead. It's your fault for not leading.

Blair Armstrong (32:35.023)
Well, yeah.

Blair Armstrong (32:42.576)
Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (32:55.995)
know the scapegoat, I just, this came up to me, you know, happy wife, happy life, right? Well, she can be happy while you're leading. Just, you have to rebuild that with it. Get, it, let it.

Brent Wright (33:00.172)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (33:09.43)
Well, it's trust levels. Trust is easy to lose and hard to regain.

Blair Armstrong (33:15.277)
and dropping off a box at the, you know, in the entitle like, hey, I'm just going to let them do whatever they want. Not setting a tone.

Brent Wright (33:22.39)
You ever see those old movies where they drop a bag of poo and light it on fire? That's what I feel technology has done. It allows people with no fear of reprisal to drop the bag, light it on fire, and then allow you to stamp it out with your foot and get your foot full of poo. It's just, it's ridiculous.

Blair Armstrong (33:30.224)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (33:37.222)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (33:48.726)
my God. It just reminds me. You're probably you're not a big movie guy, but I love some Billy Madison, some Adam Sandman movies because this is so stupid. And they do that. They light the bag of of Poole on Fire and the wife and the guys going out the door. And it's like someone left another someone left a little bag on fire out here. She goes, don't go out there. It's filled with Poole. goes, don't you tell me what to do, you evil woman.

Brent Wright (33:56.662)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (34:01.197)
All right.

Brent Wright (34:17.825)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (34:18.149)
goes out stamps on it, it's full of poo. So anyway.

Brent Wright (34:21.642)
Yep. On that note, biblically, it also tells us to take counsel and seek counsel from our wives.

Blair Armstrong (34:34.287)
Yeah, and again, what a fine line we're writing through this conversation, right? We're asking you to be a leader, but we're also asking you to get advice and get wisdom from your wife who typically have that empathetic, compassionate stuff to help those leadership roles, because we're going to need both of those. So you're going to have to have a little bit of compassion. You're after a little bit of empathy, but you're also going to have to have that testosterone stuff like that, not toxic.

Brent Wright (34:49.344)
Well...

Blair Armstrong (35:01.211)
You're only here for one purpose and that's produce kits. There's a much bigger purpose for women.

Brent Wright (35:04.81)
Yeah. So here's three key points. This is probably a golden nugget moment for those modern masculine leadership. This is the definition. Ownership without ego. Strength with empathy. Direction without domination.

which is exactly what you were talking about.

and what I said earlier, you have to have ownership without ego.

It's okay to be right, but you don't have to throw it in people's faces, right? Strength without, or strength with empathy. You can be a strong leader and still be compassionate. You can still provide direction without saying, I told you to go over there.

Blair Armstrong (35:55.109)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (35:59.051)
You can say something along the lines of, think it might be a good idea if we go over there. What are your thoughts? Again, direction without domination, seeking counsel as well.

Blair Armstrong (36:16.569)
It goes back to what you've been reading for the last couple of weeks that likes a little note you have on your desk right there. That also pertains into a leadership type of mindset, right? And yeah.

Brent Wright (36:26.176)
Well, my decision-making, yeah. And I'll go over that again. Decision-making, it's right over here, guys. Number one, does this serve me? Number two, is this reasonable? Number three, does this get me to my outcome? And number four, is this consistent with my values and standards? I had to look over my laptop. But it's right here on my wall because I had to retrain myself.

to look at every situation and to go through those four steps before I act. And that's direction without domination. I have to direct myself to do those four steps and then ask that person if they did those four steps in their decision-making process. One thing that I've been lacking on, but trying to do better at is

leading my wife to the Bible, meaning my decisions and my reasons for doing things should be fulfilled by quoting her biblical scripture. Now, again, I said this, you heard me say this, I've been failing at it, but I've been trying to do better. So my first inclination, if you will,

is to go with domination.

That's the testosterone part. The emotionally mature part is to give direction without domination. So in that I say, your actions are not consistent with what we've read before.

Brent Wright (38:15.839)
And here's what we read.

Where does that land with you? And then shut up.

Blair Armstrong (38:26.097)
Yeah, you know, how important is it to listen and talk once in a while, right? We always talk about that. You have one mouth and two ears, use them accordingly. And even though that we have these grandiose ideas, if you're not on the same page, your ideas don't mean anything. Or if you're not having good communication.

It's just not going to work. But there's also goes back to what we talked about earlier. I know that we recapping a lot of stuff. The thing is just like, where's your trust level on that? Where has your even if you did fail, what you say, which we all do, we fail miserably every day, somehow, some way, whatever it may be. But really like is taking that and don't let that don't use as a crutch or a setback or gosh, I wish I'd have done something different. Yeah, I messed up there.

Brent Wright (39:14.794)
Well, don't use that as an excuse to just to not try again. Exactly.

Blair Armstrong (39:17.093)
to not go try again, right? Yeah. And so I think that's also a big thing too is like, you know, I've tried to to try to try to, and it just seems like I'm falling on deaf ears. I have to go have a meeting with somebody that can't, it's like blowing me off. I'm like, dude, this, we're finding a spot now that it's, we have to have a different understanding. I could be your biggest asset, but right now you're just treating me, you're treating my words and everything like they don't mean anything.

Brent Wright (39:44.799)
It's a liability, right?

Blair Armstrong (39:46.192)
Yeah, it's a liability. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. Okay, I'll handle that. Well, it's been two weeks. You're not handling it. So we just need to have a different conversation. What do I need to do to I'm not saying put it all on your shoulders. I'm willing to help in this situation. But we have to get this from point A to point B. I'm not letting this slide. This is not hitting the standards not what only what this business needs to be, but where we have to go in the future.

Brent Wright (40:01.568)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (40:12.901)
So we've got to figure it out now before it just becomes another casualty of war or just like, they let him speak. I heard him. I'll just let him go and eventually it'll just go away. And that's where I see is I feel that we've lost a lot of leadership. We sit around the tables, we sit around the water cooler, we sit around the fires and we talk and we talk and we talk and we talk and we talk and we talk and then.

It just goes away. in that 10-second, actually we talked about before, we're in that 10-second society. We're passionate for about 10 seconds and then we just let it slide, but we never really fix the problem. And that's where the leadership is. It's going to be a grind to get it from point A to point B to point C, and it's continuing the process. But you have to keep grinding it out until that standard is now set and like, okay, you build on it. It's a lot of work. We don't want to, I just feel like there's a lot of us that don't want to do the work.

Brent Wright (41:10.08)
Don't want to do the work.

Blair Armstrong (41:11.151)
And I'm guilty of that a lot. I just want to get out of this situation. But maybe more than likely, God has put us in that situation. Like, I'm putting you in this fire right now because I know that you have the faith to it. Don't give up on this. Make sure that it gets done. And then lead by example from that. Let other people watch you. Let other people hear you. And then move it along from.

just move it along and get it to that way. So other people said it and now their standards different so on and so forth.

Brent Wright (41:47.745)
Well, you talked about trust earlier. I'm gonna give you five pillars of trust. So number one is clarity. Know where you're going, not where they're going, okay? Number two is discipline. Do what others won't. Number three is accountability. Talked about that earlier, no excuses. Number four is protection.

physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We talked about a lot about that going through this. Number five is vision. Give people something to follow. Here's the summary to that. Would your family follow you or tolerate you?

Brent Wright (42:32.884)
I'd love to have Christian on, because I think he would have a lot to say about this.

Blair Armstrong (42:36.593)
Yeah, that's a lot in that, right? That's a big one.

Blair Armstrong (42:43.505)
I think a lot of people would say, just tolerate it, right? It's just who they are. And this too will pass. And I can't change it. We talked about this relationship. Hey, this is who I am. This is way I've been for all my life. Take it or leave it. Because no one challenged that situation. No one asked why. I'm like, hey, maybe give me advice, being in that leadership role.

Brent Wright (42:52.522)
and I can't change it.

Blair Armstrong (43:12.337)
I understand what you want here, but maybe look at it this way. I'm not saying it's the right way, but just maybe put a different set of eyes on it or a different set of words on it and try to do that. For us males, it's very hard to be told that we are wrong, to marinate in that a little bit.

Brent Wright (43:30.646)
Well, you have to change your mindset. You have to go at everything with a servant mindset, servant leadership.

Blair Armstrong (43:35.643)
But it's also what you always coach very well on, right? Losing is OK. Losing is not going to kill you. Yeah, and that's hard. It's hard. It's funny.

Brent Wright (43:41.974)
Yeah. You must lose well.

It is hard. I had one of the one of the guys I coach is a younger guy. He's 27 and he said, when does it get easier?

I said, I want you to answer that question. He goes, well, it feels like never.

Yep, it doesn't get easier. The more that you try to push to be better, the harder it gets.

Blair Armstrong (44:18.575)
And there's no magic pill for that,

Brent Wright (44:20.842)
Zero. I can give you a small magical pill, a little bit, okay? It's not gonna be easy, it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna be comfortable. So strap in, get ready to engage, and I'll give you the practical steps. Start with your home. Set direction. Finances, health, and values, right? We talked about standards over feelings in my house, okay? Speak up.

Blair Armstrong (44:25.201)
Okay. Yeah.

Brent Wright (44:50.058)
You talked about that earlier. Stop avoiding hard conversations. Doesn't matter if it's uncomfortable, have those hard conversations. We talked about this earlier. Build your body. Physical strength equals mental clarity. This is something I did last night. Find brotherhood. Other strong men will sharpen you, okay? And then you need to reconnect spiritually. Leadership without foundation collapses.

Blair Armstrong (45:10.842)
I don't know.

Brent Wright (45:19.828)
If you don't have a solid foundation, then your family can't have a solid foundation. If you don't have a solid foundation, your business won't have a solid foundation. Let's go back to the three little pigs. You heard that when you were a kid, right? The wood house, the straw house, the brick house. Stop building straw houses, guys. Start building brick houses.

25 years, it's been my passion to build brick houses. Now about three to seven times a day, I start putting straw onto that brick house and wondering why it's on fire. Okay, so this is a call out to myself. It's a call out to my brother Blair. It's a call out to all my brothers in leadership. It's a call out to all business owners. It's a call out to anybody who is not happy.

Blair Armstrong (46:00.204)
Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Wright (46:15.936)
but the direction their life is going.

Blair Armstrong (46:22.629)
This just popped into my head.

Blair Armstrong (46:27.953)
And maybe this isn't happening anymore. So this is a question to our listeners and our people who are watching this. You're gonna listen to that anyway, because you can watch and listen at the same time. For the women, have you had the conversation with your husband one year, two years, 10 years, 30 years?

I need you to get back in that leadership role.

Blair Armstrong (47:01.297)
how incredibly difficult that could be. There is some men will take it as emasculating comment, but come back with it. And this has been maybe, know, April or Christmas, it's a call to action. But then the same is like, I see what you're doing and I know that you're trying and stuff like this, but this is where I'm looking for your leadership.

Brent Wright (47:14.208)
to call the action,

Blair Armstrong (47:29.847)
And for men, if the women that are listening to this and you go back to your spouses and you can play this episode for your husband if you're the women that are listening to this. But to the men going, being understanding, don't combat, well, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. You may do a lot of things, but they may be looking for this little piece of leadership that they're just not getting.

even though you think that you're giving it. Again, this is pointing fingers at me, this pointing fingers at Brent. You may think that we are giving it, we're providing for this, we're doing this, you don't have to worry about this, we don't have to do that. They may be listing that little piece. So women, this is a challenge for you and maybe get some advice, maybe some godly women to it as I'm looking.

I need my husband to lead me in this way and be in knowing that it could be a hard conversation, which is okay, because you're just you're setting that you're setting a new standard. And new standards are good to graze it up. So don't be afraid of it. It's which it can be like, God, you know what? It's just I'll deal with everything else. I just does so many things the right way. I'm just going to let this slide. But if you're needing something.

It's important, just as it is important for us to tell you women from guys to tell our wives, this is what I'm needing and not be afraid of that. And I think what that will do for a lot of men, we've been, which is our subject today is how the world's changed is.

Maybe they're looking for another way to lead, but they don't know. And without that communication, they're never gonna find that way. And maybe that reignites the fire. My wife needs this from me. I want to provide, which we're providers. I want to provide for her. And if she's needing that, maybe you start working on that. And then get report cards.

Brent Wright (49:18.55)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (49:27.953)
month, weeks, whatever. Hey, I know you asked from this, I hitting, am I getting to that spot where you're needing me? So by the way, it just came into my mind. So obviously God put that in there. There's probably a lot of call to action on my part that I need to do. But I just, would really encourage you as wives is even though that your husband may do a lot of things for you, if there's something missing in there, what's that leadership thing that you're missing?

Brent Wright (49:28.107)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (49:57.537)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (49:58.138)
and see what happens with that.

Brent Wright (50:00.907)
So maybe men didn't forget how to lead. Maybe they were never shown. And that is the purpose of this podcast, is to show people how to lead.

Blair Armstrong (50:06.245)
That's a big deal.

Yeah.

Brent Wright (50:13.302)
But here's the truth, leadership isn't given, it's taken. Not from others, but from your own excuses.

Blair Armstrong (50:28.441)
And I'll...

Brent Wright (50:28.487)
Take that.

and go make a damn difference.

Blair Armstrong (50:37.073)
That's it everyone. Gave you a lot of good stuff for there. Men and women. I watch this together if you can. You wanna have a date night for a little over 45 minutes instead of watching some little dumb show on Netflix that is really not reality. Watch this episode.

Brent Wright (50:56.554)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (50:58.383)
both of you guys together, maybe take some notes, what hit home differently, when and what hit only differently with you, man, what happened, what can we fix? was realistically that Brenda said this a couple of times to the podcast, it really starts in your home and that will spawn with your kids, that will spawn with your business partners, your friendships and so forth. So get back that leadership role.

Two people in the household can have their leadership roles and that's a fine. I'm not saying it has to be all man, but man, you were built to be a leader. And then after that, go back, if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube or iTunes, whatever, hit that subscribe button. Hit that notification bell. So every time that we have an episode which comes out once a week, you have a new subject to talk about in your relationship with your friends and your family and all these different things.

and it's going to help not only you become a better leader, but help them become a better leader. So that's all I have for this week. Until we see each other next week, I want you to stay safe, but most of all, God bless.