Tribesmen

This week’s Skill challenge is to fix something broken. It could be a leaky faucet, a faulty doorknob, or a hole in your wall. Anything in your domain that’s not functioning like it should is a prime candidate. You know the thing you’ve been avoiding, maybe because you don’t have the time or the knowledge to tackle it? Now’s the time to figure it out and get it done!

Get some advice on a wide variety of useful skills by checking out the Dad, how do I? channel on YouTube.

Remember to partner with a friend, either to do the challenge together, or to hold you accountable to completing it. A manhood challenge isn’t complete unless you have a partner.

Post what’s broken in your world, and how you fixed it, in our Facebook group!

Manhood Challenges are designed to help you get better at being a man in 1 of our 5 Marks of Manhood. We’ll have a new challenge for you each Friday, but you should focus on doing the ones that are actually a challenge for you.

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Work is the next big idea we discuss as we continue our series The Story You’re Living In. These ideas can be so big, in fact, that they provide enough context for us to order most of our lives around. We can get caught up in them, to the point that they become the driving force for most of our time, thought, and decision making.

We’re examining each of these big ideas by looking at common story elements that each of them possesses. We believe that if a story has these elements, it can become the type of story we get caught up in. Those 4 story elements are:

• Good in the world
• A villain who comes to corrupt/destroy the good
• A hero who sacrifices/triumphs to rescue the good
• Restoration of the good

This week, we talk about how work can become the story you’re living in. It’s almost a cliche’ to say that men get too involved in their work. But we all know the man, or maybe are the man, whose career has become his whole life.

Work embraces our story elements by giving us a vision of how we can make the world better. If we can accomplish that vision, then we get to be the hero of the story! But that can only happen by chaining us to a cycle of never-ending challenges (villains) to overcome. There is undoubtedly prosperity that can come from the story of work. However, it often comes at a high cost to the other priorities in our lives.

To close, we give some practical tips on what to do if your work has become the story you’re living in. Namely, you should:

• Be honest about why you work too much
• Limit your work hours
• Be someone else’s hero

Call To Action!

We’d love to connect with you. Come join in the discussion with the Tribesmen community on Facebook. Join our Facebook group and talk about what you’re learning from the podcast and how you’re applying our manhood challenges in your life.

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#016. This week’s Courage challenge is to have a hard conversation. Whether it’s in your marriage, at work, with a buddy, or a neighbor, you know which conversations you’ve been avoiding. Courage is about moving toward your fear and acting in the midst of it. Facing that hard conversation will require you to demonstrate courage.

Get some tips on how to have a difficult conversation by watching this video. 

Remember to partner with a friend, either to do the challenge together, or to hold you accountable to completing it. A manhood challenge isn’t complete unless you have a partner.

Post what your hard conversation is about, and let us know how it goes in our Facebook group!

Manhood Challenges are designed to help you get better at being a man in 1 of our 5 Marks of Manhood. We’ll have a new challenge for you each Friday, but you should focus on doing the ones that are actually a challenge for you.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#015. Sports is the next big idea we discuss as we continue our series The Story You’re Living In. These ideas can be so big, in fact, that they provide enough context for us to order most of our lives around. We can get caught up in them, to the point that they become the driving force for most of our time, thought, and decision making.

We’re examining each of these big ideas by looking at common story elements that each of them possesses. We believe that if a story has these elements, it can become the type of story we get caught up in. Those 4 story elements are:

• Good in the world
• A villain who comes to corrupt/destroy the good
• A hero who sacrifices/triumphs to rescue the good
• Restoration of the good

This week, we talk about how sports can become the story you’re living in. For men in particular, sports can become all consuming. It can get to the point where all our time, energy, and even decision making revolves around sports.

Sports embrace our story elements by promising good when our team wins. That team represents me in some way, and their success is my success. But it forces us to make villains out of our opponents. And it makes heroes out of athletes who can never perform up to our standards of perfection.

To close, we give some practical tips on what to do if sports has become the story you’re living in. Namely, you should:

• Limit your input (amount of sports and sports news you consume)
• Limit your output (money and energy spent on sports)
• Limit your time (time used up by watching/playing/coaching sports)

Call To Action!

Want others to find out about the Tribesmen podcast? One of the best ways you can help is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This not only helps other people discover Tribesmen, but also makes them more likely to listen if they see recent, positive reviews.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#014. This week is our first ever Manhood Challenge Friday episode. Manhood Challenges are designed to help you get better at being a man in 1 of our 5 Marks of Manhood. We’ll have a new challenge for you each Friday, but you should focus on doing the ones that are actually a challenge for you.

This week’s Strength challenge is a 60 second push up challenge.

• Measure how many push ups you can do in 60 seconds
• Work on doing push ups a few times a week for 1 month
• Retest yourself in 1 month to see how your strength has increased

Make sure you have proper push up form by watching this video. 

Remember to partner with a friend, either to do the challenge together, or to hold you accountable to completing it. A manhood challenge isn’t complete unless you have a partner.

Post your starting measurements, progress pics/videos, and your final results in our Facebook group!

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#013. We begin season 2 with a new series called The Story You’re Living In, where we’re talking about the big ideas in our world. These ideas can be so big, in fact, that they provide enough context for us to order most of our lives around. We can get caught up in them, to the point that they become the driving force for most of our time, thought, and decision making.

We’re examining each of these big ideas by looking at common story elements that each of them possesses. We believe that if a story has these elements, it can become the type of story we get caught up in. Those 4 story elements are:

• There is good in the world
• There is a villain who comes to corrupt/destroy the good
• There is a hero who sacrifices/triumphs to rescue the good
• There is restoration of the good

This week, we talk about how politics can become the story you’re living in. For men in particular, politics is an enticing narrative to orient all of our thinking and decision making around.

We discuss how politics embraces our story elements in ways that make it incredibly powerful, but also that tend to make villains out of the people around us. It also forces us to pin our hopes for triumph on one person who isn’t often worthy or capable of being a hero.

To close our discussion, we give some practical tips on what to do if politics has become the story you’re living in. Namely, you should cut down on how much political news you consume, find other topics to talk about with your friends, and get a Tribe of men who will help you see when you’re overdoing it on politics.

Call To Action!

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Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#012. For the final part of our series on freedom, we’re answering the question, “Why am I?” Freedom is one of the three pillars of Tribesmen, and we can’t have freedom if we don’t understand our purpose.

When we talk about freedom, we’re talking about fighting for each other to overcome challenges. But the things we fight for, and the way we fight for them, are crucial to actually obtaining freedom.

For most men, figuring out the places in our lives where we aren’t free yet, usually comes down to 1 of 2 areas. The second of those is purpose, the question of why am I?

Men without a purpose tend to become rudderless. And a man without purpose can be really dangerous. He still has to find something to orient himself around, and that typically becomes either violence or pleasure, or both. This pretty well describes the extended adolescence of many males in our culture.

In a Tribe, we find the answer to “Why am I?” together. It requires us to do two things: Get Naked, and listen to Jesus. If men know my story, they can help identify the themes in it that perhaps point to the larger threads that I’m built around. They can also help me see what’s holding me back from living into those things.

And when we listen to Jesus, he helps me find the freedom I need to step fully into the purpose he’s created me for. He made me. He knows best what I should be about. I just need to ask him.

Call to Action!

We want to hear from you! We’ll be doing some “Ask Me Anything” videos over the 2020 holiday break. Send us your questions about anything you’ve heard us talk about so far, or anything related to Tribesmen topics. Visit tribesmen.net/contact and fill out the form with your AMA questions. We’ll post videos in our Facebook group over the break.

Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks of Manhood. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and you can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Lastly, if you’re following along with these episodes live, we’ll be taking a break over the Christmas holidays. We’ll be back with our first episode of Season 2 on January 5, 2021!

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#011. For the first part of our series on freedom, we’re answering the question, “Who am I?” Freedom is one of the three pillars of Tribesmen, and we can’t have freedom if we don’t understand our identity.

When we talk about freedom, we’re talking about fighting for each other to overcome challenges. But the things we fight for, and the way we fight for them, are crucial to actually obtaining freedom.

For most men, figuring out the places in our lives where we aren’t free yet, usually comes down to 1 of 2 areas. The first of those is identity, the question of who am I?

Having confidence in our identities as men is so crucial. At the very least, we should be able to answer the question, “Who am I?” by saying, “I’m a man.” If we’re not there yet, then every other attempt at answering that question is going to fail us in some way.

As men, we’re supposed to receive this answer from our fathers. But most of us didn’t get that answer the way we needed it, and so we go looking for an answer in all the wrong places. Whether it’s sports, work, money, or women, men will try to find their identity in anything.

In order to find our true identity, we need to get a settled answer to that question of “Who am I?” A Tribe of men can help point us towards manhood. But we also need to hear the answer to that question from someone who has the authority to answer it definitively. This is where Jesus is so necessary in our search for freedom. 

Only Jesus can give us the kind of lasting freedom we’re really looking for. And it only comes by asking him. We encourage you to spend some time listening to what Jesus has to say to you.

Call to Action!

We want to hear from you! We’ll be doing some “Ask Me Anything” videos over the 2020 holiday break. Send us your questions about anything you’ve heard us talk about so far, or anything related to Tribesmen topics. Visit tribesmen.net/contact and fill out the form with your AMA questions. We’ll post videos in our Facebook group over the break.

Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks of Manhood. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and you can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#010. For the second part of our series on camaraderie, we want you to get naked. Ok, don’t panic. You can keep your clothes on. But we do want things to get a little risky.

When it comes to building camaraderie with other men, having shared activity and adventure is necessary, but it will only take us so far. We don’t just need shared experience, we need shared understanding.

In order to help each other become the men we were created to be, we need to really know each other well. We need to know how we got to be the way we are. 

We need to get naked. That’s our phrase for what it means to talk about our lives with the other men around us. To get naked means taking down the guard walls, letting other men see under the hood. It means being fully exposed, not with what’s on the outside, but what’s on the inside.

Why is this important? We discuss the necessity of this kind of raw vulnerability with other men. We’re all blind to our own stories, and need other men to help us interpret what’s really going on. We need other men to fight for us, but they can’t do that if they don't know what they’re up against. We need the trust of other men, but we can only get there through vulnerability.

If the challenge to get naked is a new way of thinking about how you relate to other men, we get it. Most men aren’t really comfortable with this level of honesty and openness with other guys. In fact, many of us have been taught not to do that or even shamed for it.

But if we want to get better at being a man, we need other men around us who can help us get there. The only truly effective way that can happen is if they see us get naked. It’s risky, but trust us, it’s worth it.

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We want to hear from you! We’ll be doing some “Ask Me Anything” videos over the 2020 holiday break. Send us your questions about anything you’ve heard us talk about so far, or anything related to Tribesmen topics. Visit tribesmen.net/contact and fill out the form with your AMA questions. We’ll post videos in our Facebook group over the break.

Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks of Manhood. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and you can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#009. This week, we begin a 2-part series on camaraderie. Camaraderie is one of the three big ideas of Tribesmen (along with manhood and freedom), and is what should characterize men as they interact in a group. Camaraderie is about adventuring together to form lasting bonds.

So, it’s fitting that we begin our series on camaraderie by talking about adventure. Manly friendships just aren’t all they can be without an element of adventure to them. 

Ask any man to describe some of his best memories with his friends, and they’ll almost always be about an adventure. We believe that’s because adventure does some pretty great things for a man’s soul, especially a group of men together

First, adventure unites us around shared experience. It creates a story to tell that men will rehash any time they are together with that same group of men. Second, adventure challenges us. Throw in a little bit of risk or danger, or even just the possibility of learning something we’ve never done before, and things get even better.

Third, it’s just plain fun! Most adult men don’t get a lot of fun in their lives, especially not with other men. But we need to simply play, to let our souls come alive.

We close by challenging you to find some buddies and just pick a small adventure to go do this weekend. Big or small, just make it happen. You’ll be glad you did, probably for years to come!

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Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks of Manhood. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and you can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)