The Vital Masculinity Podcast

In this episode, the gents give you practical ways to begin becoming a just man today.

Show Highlights: 

• Practicing justice requires practicing prudence 
• The importance of practicing justice in everyday situations to form a solid foundation 
• Why it is important to understand laws and customs 
• How reading good books can help us form our "moral imagination" 
• Why we need to watch the kind and quantity of the media we consume 
• Why clear and sincere communication is indispensable to being a just man 

Check out the full show notes here.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

This episode is an interview with VM co-host (and newlywed) Stephen Sloyer about the relationship between marriage and masculinity.  Show Highlights:  How does marriage tie into being a better man?  What exactly is marriage?  Why should we engage in courtship instead of dating?  Why get married at all?  How will marriage make you grow as a man? Check out our full listing of podcasts here. --- Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this episode, the gents wrap up our discussion on the concept of rights and how it relates to the virtue of justice.

Show Highlights:

• Individual vs group rights
• Are rights something we invent? 
• Stealing a friend's beer and Nazis
• The need for universal standards for a basis of rights and justice.
• Natural Law

Daily Deed: 

Take 5 minutes a day to think about and write down which rights are true rights and how you can use this understanding to be a just man.

View the full show notes here.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this episode, the gents look at the concept of human rights and how they relate to the virtue of justice.

Show Highlights:

• How we can think of rights as principles that help us understand how to be just.
• Why can the concept of rights seem confusing and inconsistent?
• Different types of rights:

1. Natural vs. Legal
2. Claim vs. Liberty
3. Positive vs. Negative

View the full show notes here.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this week's episode, the gents delve into the impediments of justice and discuss things that can prevent us from being just men.

Show Highlights:

• The proud man has difficulty learning from others, which prevents him from determining what is their due.
• Being partial to new things, the latest and greatest, can blind us to the justice found in the tried and true.
• Avoiding conflict and adversity often causes injustice rather than solving it.
• A man has to recognize and identify standards in order to be just.
• Each man has to struggle with these different impediments to justice at various times throughout his life.

View the full show notes here.

Daily Deed: 

Take 5 minutes every day and think about the impediments that may be preventing you from being a just man.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this week's episode, the gents delve into the prerequisites of justice. You will learn concrete actions and mindsets you can take to prepare yourselves to be just.

Show Highlights:

• In order to be just, we must be humble enough to own up to our mistakes and make amends.
• Justice requires us to be impartial, and base our decisions on the facts and not social pressure.
• The just man has a sense of responsibility to others, rather than only looking out for himself.
• Recognizing the just thing to do requires knowledge of right and wrong and the ability to make convictions; nonjudgmental relativism is contrary to justice.
• True justice comes to fruition with respect and mercy, recognizing the humanity of the person deemed unjust.

View the full show notes here.

Daily Deed: 

Take two minutes every day and think about how you can be proactively just, in ways that are not commonly seen as an opportunity to exercising justice.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

This episode continues the theme of misconceptions of justice.

Show Highlights

• Does mistreatment justify retaliation?
• Why two wrongs do not make a right.
• Why "live and let live" is not the ultimate philosophy for just behavior.
• How if everyone merely does what is right in his own eyes, anarchy results.
• How justice is not only righting a wrong after the fact, but also making just decisions to prevent wrongs in the first place.
• Why is the just man not motivated by virtue signaling?

View the full show notes here.

Daily Deed:

Think about how you understand justice, determine whether you had any of these misconceptions, and discuss these misconceptions of justice with another man or a group of men.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

In this episode, the gentlemen begin their exploration of common misconceptions about the virtue of justice.

Show Highlights:

• The understanding of justice espoused by modern society emphasizes law and order, punishment,
• Justice is about rendering everyone his or her due.
• Today's society erroneously associates justice with revenge, which is unjust because it is motivated by anger rather than reason.
• The just man responds to injustice with mercy and compassion. He aims to restore what is due to those who were wronged, and to protect them from future wrongs, but not to inflict a more violent punishment on the wrongdoer.
• In reality, justice is guided by prudence, fairness, and kindness, and certain actions may become unjust if performed with the wrong intentions.
• While justice sometimes demands action, justice often requires a man to refrain from action instead of responding to injustice by throwing a temper tantrum or whining.
• Justice requires one to fulfill the specific duties to his assigned role; it is not restricted to relationships with others.

View the full show notes here.

Daily Deed: 

Think about how you understand justice, determine whether you had any of these misconceptions, and discuss these misconceptions of justice with another man or a group of men.

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

Today we have an in-depth discussion about the hazards of perfectionism and how to overcome it. 

Show Highlights: 

• What perfectionism is, why it is contrary with virtue, and how it harms different areas of your life
• The different types of perfectionism and ways to identify which types might be influencing you 
• How our culture reinforces self-destructive, perfectionistic behaviors 
• Specific exercises that you can do to break free from the tyranny of perfectionism in your life

Daily Deed: Pick one of the following seven exercises which you think will be most beneficial for you and work on it. 

1. Look at a situation where you expect a certain outcome and think of and write down all the ways you cannot control that outcome.
2. Consider a task you want to accomplish and write down potential mistakes you might make. Go through the list and imagine the worst possible consequence of each mistake; then look at the good possibilities that can come from that.
3. When someone challenges you or implies that you are wrong, ask for clarification and try to understand where they are coming from. Once you understand their position evaluate it and if you were wrong, admit it and apologize. If the challenge is based on opinion, then recognize the validity of their opinion and either modify your own or agree to disagree and move on.
4. Think about a task you plan to accomplish and write down the specific criteria you would use for gauging success. Evaluate whether your criteria are practical/reasonable; if an item isn't, write down a more feasible one to replace it.
5. Consider a mistake you've made. Examine it rationally, asking yourself how it influenced the manner in which others see you. (With time, it'll become clear that the majority of your mistakes are going unnoticed or are being disregarded as minor.)
6. Think about an activity that you take pride in doing perfectly. Then, write down the many ways in which you can try to achieve the best results with the least amount of work. (This isn't about cutting corners, but about being efficient)
7. Think about an activity that you take pride in doing perfectly. Consider the amount of time it usually takes and imposes a time limit for next time that is a significant reduction. (This is about challenging yourself to work more efficiently by limiting your time.)

For more tools for becoming a more complete and noble man, check out our Facebook group and website at vitalmasculinity.org.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (2015). Jocko Willink "GOOD" (From Jocko Podcast) The Joy Of Imperfection: A Stress-Free Guide To Silencing Your Inner Critic, Conquering Perfectionism, and Becoming The Best Version Of Yourself! (2017). Damon Zahariades

Apollo 11: What We Saw

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support

This episode, an interlude between our cardinal virtues episodes, is a casual and genuine conversation on the "nice guy" phenomenon. 

Show Highlights:

• "Nice guys" make a show of being nice in order to get something in return and are angry if they are subsequently denied what they "deserve."
• A real man doesn't use people as means to an end, and definitely doesn't whine because his attempts to manipulate someone fail. 
• Frustrated with lack of success, "nice guys" resort to being passive-aggressive and acting like a jerk, which is a vision of manhood formed by nothing more than TV and one's juvenile peers. 
• Here at Vital Masculinity, we encourage men to first work on themselves and become better men, whose can focus on something besides get-a-girlfriend-quick schemes.
• If you are not the man that you want to be, you are not going to meet the type of woman you want to meet. 

References:

The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018). Farrell Warren and John Gray

No More Mr. Nice Guy (2003). Robert Glover. 

---

Please like, subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Be honest - this feedback is crucial to helping us improve the quality of our show and reach like-minded men across the globe. Also, check out our website at vitalmasculinity.org and apply to join our active Facebook group to continue the conversation.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vitalmasculinity/support