Forge Virtue Podcast

1:1 Mentorship → https://forgevirtue.com/

Check out my video on why you're not lazy (it's much worse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W07OYChR8Y

The desert fathers had a name for the man who is always busy, always out with his mates, always with something playing in the background. They called him the noonday devil. From the outside it looks like a full life. Underneath, he is running from silence, from presence, and from the life he knows he is called to.

Most men never catch this in themselves because their crutches aren't sinful. The late nights with the lads. The gaming sessions. The binge series. Even the good Catholic friend group. Because these things are lawful, they are the easiest things in the world to justify.

St. Paul gives two tests in 1 Corinthians 6:12 that cut straight through that excuse. Most good Christians fail at least one of them without realising it.

In this episode I break down acedia and how to recognise it when it's happening to you. I go through St. Ignatius on true and false consolation, Aristotle's three kinds of friendship and the signs your friend group is holding you back, and why constant screens and noise betray something deeper than wasted time.

Then I get into what real rest actually looks like, drawing on Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture, and why the world's version of "treating yourself" is doing you more harm than you think. I finish with one question from Ignatius you can ask yourself after every weekend that will tell you exactly where you stand.

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Mentorship: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

Timestamps
0:00 Running From Silence
0:50 All Things Lawful Not All Profitable
1:24 The Crutches We Hide Behind
2:52 Paul's Two Tests for Any Habit
6:20 Good Things That Aren't God
7:30 True vs False Consolation
10:20 Sacrificing the Lower Good
14:05 Forged Virtue Mentorship
15:11 Friend Group Validation
17:30 TV and Screens Consolation
18:52 Acedia the Noonday Devil
21:04 True Leisure as Receptive

If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Most men think vice is a bad habit they can drop with one good decision. It isn't. Every sin you repeat leaves a mark on how you think, what you crave, and how much of the truth you can still see. Ten or twenty years of small compromises can't be undone by a single burst of willpower.

In this video I react to a clip from Jordan Peterson on the Chris Williamson podcast about the "10,000 micro retreats" that corrupted the universities, and I apply it to the spiritual life. Peterson watched faculty fold to the administration one small demand at a time. The same thing happens to a man's soul.

Custody of the eyes is bigger than avoiding immodest women. It covers every input you allow in: the music you listen to, the podcasts and shows you consume, the people you spend time with, the food you eat, the alcohol you drink. All of it forms you into someone. The question is who.

Then there is the snooze button. You set an alarm the night before, you gave your word, and the moment it goes off you break it for the comfort of the flesh. That says something about your dignity as a man, and it is being built into your identity every single morning.

We also talk about the frog in the boiling water, the seed choked by thorns in the parable of the sower, and why the courage to live a holy life never waits for zero risk. You are only courageous if something is at stake.

In this video I cover:

• The neurological grip of vice and why one act of willpower doesn't break it
• How desensitization to sin builds up over years
• What custody of the eyes really means
• Why the snooze button is a question of dignity and identity
• How the world, the flesh, and the devil wear you down bit by bit
• Why every moment of your day belongs to Christ

Follow me on Rumble in case I get banned: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Mentorship: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: Links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Vice Is Deeper Than One Action
• 1:22 Peterson on Micro Retreats
• 2:10 Guard Every Input
• 3:55 Snooze Button and Dignity
• 5:23 Courage Requires Risk
• 7:37 Small Decisions and the World
• 9:05 Every Moment Belongs to Christ
• 10:00 One on One Mentorship

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I've spent years studying health maxing, vitalism, thumos, and virility through a Christian lens. This started back when I was eighteen, diving into a corner of the internet obsessed with physical excellence as a form of arete. Most guys treat the body and the soul like two separate projects. They're not. Every spiritual sin starts in the flesh, and if you're neglecting your biology, you're neglecting your zealousness for God's kingdom whether you realize it or not.

In this video I break down the daily and weekly rules I actually live by. Some of it will surprise you. Some of it will make you rethink your morning routine, your diet, your sleep, and what you're doing to your nervous system every single day without knowing it.

In this video I cover:

• The governing principle behind physical mastery and virtue
• The exact order of operations for your morning (and why breaking it wrecks your whole day)
• The truth about sunlight, circadian rhythm, and why most men are hormonally sabotaging themselves
• Grounding, EMF, and why your bedroom might be working against you
• Cold showers and why heat is quietly destroying your recovery
• The nutrition rules I follow, including what to never put in your body
• Nose breathing, fasting, and training principles that build both muscle and the will
• What to cut completely: alcohol, vaping, and the substances dulling your discipline

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED:
https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living.
→ https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person.
→ https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly.
→ https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here.
→ https://forgevirtue.com/links

0:00 Health Maxing And Christian Virility
2:40 The Body As A Temple
6:06 The Daily Rule Begins With Prayer
7:45 Sunlight And Circadian Rhythm
12:13 Grounding And Cold Showers
16:27 Nutrition Seed Oils And Protein
18:53 Nose Breathing And Sleep Environment
25:06 Training Without Burnout
26:55 Fasting And Weekly Rhythm
29:11 What To Avoid Alcohol And Nicotine
31:26 Recap And Mental Health Benefits
34:06 Your Body As A Sacrament
35:17 Fit For The Kingdom Resources

Distraction and destruction come from the same root word. That's not a coincidence, and once you see it you can't unsee it.

I open this one with something I do with the men I coach directly, a habit that looks meaningless from the outside but is doing more work than anything else in their lives. Then I get into why the device in your hand is not a neutral tool, why prayer feels impossible for you right now, and the actual math on what this is costing you over a decade.

Most guys think they know how bad their screen time is. They don't. And the men who do wake up to it are the ones who actually start living with intention instead of getting dragged along by an algorithm built to keep them exactly where they are.

If you've ever wondered why silence feels unbearable, why you can't sit still with your own thoughts anymore, or why your prayer life has gone dry, this is the video that explains it and gives you the way out.

In this video I cover:

• why distraction is a spiritual problem before it's a productivity problem
• the science behind why your brain can't just "put the phone down"
• the real reason you struggle to pray
• the compounding cost of your screen time over years, not days
• a practical rule of life to regain autonomy
• why brotherhood and the Sabbath are non-negotiable in the fight

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED:
https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living.
→ https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person.
→ https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly.
→ https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here.
→ https://forgevirtue.com/links

Timestamps
0:00 Distraction Leads To Destruction
0:53 Why Daily Accountability Matters
3:42 Proverbs On Vision And Purpose
4:24 The Algorithm Is Not Neutral
7:12 Why You Can't Pray Anymore
9:52 Mary And Martha Distraction
11:05 The Compounding Cost
15:06 Reclaiming Your Autonomy
17:01 Brotherhood And Accountability
17:28 Keep The Sabbath Holy
18:18 Live With Intention

Pope Leo XIV told the world on 26 August 2026 that the faithful must not be "strangers and silent spectators." Almost everyone will hear that as a call to do more at Mass. It is not. In this live stream we go back to the actual documents, in Latin where it matters, and show what the Church has meant by active participation from Pius X in 1903 to the present day.

For sixty years "active participation" has been read as activity. More lay roles. More movement. More words. More jobs in the sanctuary. And the more activity we added, the fewer people came. We put the numbers on screen and let them speak: Mass attendance in the United States falling from 75 percent in 1955 to roughly 20 percent today, Australia dropping from 11.8 percent to 8.2 percent in five years, New Zealand losing Catholic identification while the population grew. If activity were participation, the busiest liturgy in history should not have the emptiest pews.

Then the question that flips the burden of proof. If the old Mass really was a silent movie of a man's back, why did people cross oceans, walk miles and fill churches every Sunday for 1,500 years? Were the greatest saints in the history of the Church simply sitting there confused?

What we cover live:

• Pope Leo XIV's full August catechesis series on Sacrosanctum Concilium and why he calls the reform continuity, not rupture
• The seven false versions of "active participation," named and dismantled on air
• Which parish practices are legitimate options and which the Church herself condemned in Redemptionis Sacramentum
• Tra le Sollecitudini 1903 and the Latin text that does not contain the word "active"
• Pius XII in Mediator Dei: you truly offer with the priest, but you are not a concelebrant
• Sacrosanctum Concilium read line by line, including Latin, Gregorian chant and reverent silence
• John Paul II in 1998: silence and stillness are demanded by active participation, not opposed to it
• Ratzinger on the oratio: "external actions are quite secondary"
• Our Lady at the foot of the Cross, the perfect icon of participation with no words, no function and no movement
• A practical guide for men: how to actually pray the Mass, part by part, at the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Latin Mass

Bring your questions. Live chat is open throughout.

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

Podcast in reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AdkwqkE20M

You already know what to do. You have known for years. So why does your life look exactly the same as it did twelve months ago?

This is a short one, but it deals with the reason most men never change.

I almost never finished the podcast that prompted this video. I turned it off halfway through, bored, convinced I was hearing the same recycled advice for the hundredth time. Something made me click back on it a few weeks later. The second half contained three ideas that explain why so much formation content lands on men who agree with all of it and change nothing.

The first has to do with why the most important truths in your life sound boring. There is a specific reason certain advice makes you roll your eyes, and that reaction is telling you something about yourself that you are not going to enjoy hearing.

The second explains why the man who wants an extraordinary life cannot keep behaving like the men around him. Most people are not aiming where you claim to be aiming. Their behaviour is calibrated to their goals, not yours. If you keep matching it, you already know how this ends.

The third is the one that would have saved me years if I had understood it at eighteen. There is a single measure that determines whose criticism you should take seriously and whose you should discard entirely. Apply it honestly and most of what you are afraid of stops mattering by the end of the week.

Underneath all three sits the difference between the soul that shrinks to fit other people's expectations and the soul that stretches towards great things in spite of fear. The Church has names for both. Most men are living in the first one without ever having chosen it.

St James says faith without works is dead. You can hold the closest approximation to divine truth available on this earth and still be a grave sinner. Knowing is not the same as doing, and the space between the two is where most men spend their entire lives.

You do not need to be taught. You need to be reminded.

In this video I cover:

• why the truths that matter most sound like cliches, and what that says about you
• the gap between knowing something and executing it
• why extraordinary results demand non-ordinary behaviour
• how to weigh a man's opinion by his proximity to your goal
• the disordered fear of judgment that deflects a man from the good
• pusillanimity, magnanimity, and stretching the soul towards Christ

I also share an update on the Fit for the Kingdom School, which launched last week. The masculinity course is up, community access is free, and we have just begun a ten week theology of the body course with Father Ben Duza on Tuesday nights at 8pm New Zealand time. https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

Chapters
0:00 The Hormozi Podcast That Struck Me
1:10 Why Deep Truths Sound Like Cliches
2:20 The Gap Is Execution Not Info
4:05 You Need Reminding Not

Chapters
1:19 How can fathers repair relationships with sons
13:16 Young man asking a woman for inappropriate photos
16:20 Where can I get FFTK Merch
16:52 How to Structure Morning Prayer
21:26 Would you take TRT when you get older
25:14 Helping teenage boys become real men
36:33 New haircut
36:57 Women being strong without becoming girl bosses
45:33 How do you overcome lust

Live Q&A on faith, fitness, relationships, and life advice, open to everyone. Join Tomas from Fit for the Kingdom as we work through your questions on prayer, training, dating and marriage, discipline, and living a serious life in the middle of a world that makes it difficult.

We will be revisiting some of the best questions from previous Q&As and taking new ones live in the chat. I will have a co host with me to help field questions and keep the conversation moving, so this will be less of a monologue and more of a real discussion.

When:
Saturday 10:30am NZST
Saturday 8:30am AEST

Set a reminder above so you do not miss it.

Ask your question:
Drop it in the live chat, send me a DM on Instagram, or reply to the story.

Cannot make it live? The full replay stays up on the channel, so subscribe and hit the bell to catch it.

What we cover on this channel:
Fit for the Kingdom is a Catholic formation apostolate running across New Zealand and Australia. We help men and women build the physical strength, spiritual discipline, and real community needed to live for Christ without compromise. Expect training, prayer, Catholic teaching, and honest conversation about relationships, vocation, and what it actually takes.

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio.

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

I don't get anything out of prayer.

I've heard that from a lot of men. I've said it myself. And the moment you say it out loud, you've already told on yourself, because that sentence assumes prayer is something you're supposed to be extracting a return from.

In this video I break down what prayer actually is, starting with the part nobody wants to hear. You owe it. Not because it feels good. Not because it makes you calmer or more focused or more productive. You owe your father honour because he gave you existence in a limited way. God gave it to you absolutely. Aquinas has a name for the virtue that governs this, and once you see it, the days when prayer feels like nothing stop being a reason to quit.

But that's only half of it, and the half that gets men praying like they're paying a bill. What you owe isn't tribute to a distant force. It's communion with a Person who has a name, a face, and wounds. Christianity was never a religion of the book. Christ didn't hand out a text and disappear. He founded a Body and gave Himself in the Sacraments, and the man who tries to do this privately ends up with a religion of one, with himself sitting at the centre of it.

Then I walk through the five forms of prayer from the Catechism. Most men only ever pray one of them, and it's the smallest one. I'd ask you to be honest with yourself as I go through the list, because the order matters more than you think, and the last one tells you whether the other four have actually changed you.

FOLLOW ME ON RUMBLE IN CASE I GET BANNED: https://rumble.com/c/tomasmones

Skool: Stop doing this alone, join a brotherhood of Christian men who will hold you to the standard you already know you should be living. → https://www.skool.com/fit-for-the-kingdom

FFTK: Come train, pray, and build with men in person. → https://fftkingdom.com/

1:1 Coaching: If you're tired of knowing exactly what you need to do and still not doing it, apply to work with me directly. → https://forgevirtue.com/

Find out more: links to all my social media profiles and content can be found here. → https://forgevirtue.com/links

Chapters
0:00 Why Prayer Feels Unclear
2:47 Three Ideas About Prayer
4:03 Prayer Is an Act of Justice
8:45 When You Do Not Desire Prayer
12:16 Dryness and Desolation
15:10 God Is a Person Not a Force
18:43 Walk the Sacramental Life
20:49 Song of Songs and Intimacy
21:26 Five Forms of Prayer
23:57 Praise and a Wedding Story
26:32 Prayer Changes Your Life
29:38 The School Community
31:28 One on One Mentorship