EP001 - Welcome Episode

Aaron Crow (00:02.177) What's up? Welcome to the introductory. Who the hell are we? Aaron and Neil Omnis Rising show. A lot. Yeah, yeah, absolutely man. You know, so a lot of a, there's probably a lot of people that are watching this, a that there's have no idea who the fuck these two dudes are. Some of you may know who I am. Some of you may know who Neil is. Some of you may have heard of, you know, Neal Conlon (00:10.158) Poopoo-pooo! Neal Conlon (00:14.126) We'll have to get some intro music. Aaron Crow (00:31.745) his press forward thing in the background. You see ominous rising back in the background of me. I've got a bunch of geeky stuff behind me. Who the fuck are we, right? What is this thing? What are we doing? My name is Aaron Crow. I've had a long career in cybersecurity and real estate and a lot of different things in my life. But I've also been 350 plus pounds, almost lost my marriage because I wasn't putting in the work and almost ended in divorce. Um, yeah, I got three kids live in Texas. Um, you know, all the things like those challenge coins are not from the military was not in the military. Neil likes to say, I pretend, um, uh, you know, I, I do rucking and, and all the different things, but, um, you know, that, that's kind of a high level, you know, intro of, of the five second or dime tour of, of Aaron. So Neil, why don't you go, bud? Neal Conlon (01:24.894) Yeah, man. I like to tell everybody I'm just a kid from Queens who just really just got told at a very, very young age by my grandparents that I can do anything that I put my mind to it. And that's what I've been doing ever since. They never said I had to play by the rules. They never said I had to do it the way other people have done it. And I've kind of like prided myself over you know, building a what they call lifestyle by design, living each day as a ceremony in your life, and then ultimately being kind of in this world of, I want to live a life of my own terms. I want to get to the end of that journey and recognize that I, there's like no juice left. I want to squeeze every drop out of this life that I possibly can. And, You know, a couple of years ago, I came across, you know, this guy Aaron Crowe on the internet. And, you know, we've been brothers in arms ever since our first meeting. And, you know, one of the things that we kind of pride ourselves on in this relationship that we have is, you know, while we grew up in very, very different scenarios in life, we share a lot of you and I share a lot of the same values, man. And And it's funny because as this conversation around men out in the world has become part of our mission and journey together, it's just a funny thing. I have to appreciate how funny it is because if you went back 20, 30 years ago and the path for dudes. was just super different. Like you went to work, you're either a blue collar worker or a white collar person and you came home at the end of the day and you were probably, a woman was probably in the house raising the kids and that was her job and your job was clear. And the beautiful thing about it is that it's now morphed into so much more opportunity for men. Neal Conlon (03:48.086) but it's also deconstructed a lot of the things in our lives because it's like the identity that people have, what they should be investing time, effort, and resources has opened up this big, weird, how do you even measure being successful as a man? And it's just a funny experience. It's a funny experience to be a human right now in 2024. Aaron Crow (04:14.929) Yeah, man, it's so crazy. You know, again, you and I have vastly different backgrounds. Like you came from Queens. I came from, you know, East Texas. You know, I have also, my grandfather was a big influence on me. Also told me I could do whatever I want. My grandfather, you know, came through the great depression. He had a third grade education because he had to go to work. He didn't have the luxury of going to school. He had to work. And when I mean work, he was. picking cotton and you know, they had a dirt floor house. My dad didn't have air conditioning until he was married and bought his own house. He'd never been to a restaurant in his life until, you know, he was like 18 and had a job and could afford it himself. So, you know, though we have these vastly different backgrounds and upbringings and, you know, situations now, I'm married, I got three kids, you're single, you also have kids though, you know, we have so many things in common. Yes, there's a lot of things that we don't agree on, just like in life. Like I don't have, I'm married. I've been married 15 plus years. My wife and I don't agree on everything, believe it or not, right? Of course we have a lot in common, just like you and I. You and I have so much in common and when we got to the root of that, I remember also seeing you kind of online and you were part in my tactical manhood group. Somebody brought you in and then... we started seeing each other at these conferences and we realized, Hey, we also do cyber security stuff together. And there were so many things we did. And it was in San Francisco where you saw me the first time kind of in passing. And then you reached to send a message like, Hey, are you here? And, and then we were both going to be at black hat in, in Vegas. And you're like, well, Hey, we definitely should meet up. So I remember being at, at in Vegas, going to this, this bar, um, at the top of this, you know, hotel in downtown Vegas on the strip. Overlooking the strip. It's like seven o'clock because I think you had an event at like at 10 So we met up at like seven or eight I don't remember what time it was but it's pretty early, especially in vegas and we were like the only two motherfuckers there, right? It was just you and me and the bartender And and we grabbed a drink we took uh, I think it was yeah, really high in tequila We're sipping on that. Um, and then it was two of them and then it was three of them and it was just like from that point On. Um, it's like a you know, this bond this brotherhood Neal Conlon (06:22.795) Yeah Aaron Crow (06:39.977) created out of this. Like we've talked almost daily ever since then about, and the difference is, is we're not just talking about drinks. We're not talking about, you know, football. We're not talking about, you know, stuff like we're talking about real shit. Like I lost my job in January and I was the chief, you know, technology officer and didn't see it coming. And you know, the first person I called was you other than my wife, of course, but you know, I talked to you, um, you know, Neal Conlon (06:44.215) Yeah, man. Aaron Crow (07:07.825) you're going through things this week and we're talking about it. Like I don't have the answers. You didn't have the answers, but sometimes you don't need answers. You just need somebody that you can lean on, somebody that you can reach out to and say, hey, I'm struggling. And so many men don't have that outlet. They don't have anyone they can be vulnerable with, be real with, be their true selves. They put up this wall, this barricade, this... this pretend facade on Instagram and TikTok and all these things that, you know, I drive a Lamborghini or, or I've got big muscles or my wife is hot. And, and we went to this nice restaurant and I've got a motorcycle and I shoot guns and, and all the, and I've got a beard. Obviously we both have beards. Um, but this beard is not what makes us a man. Like you don't have to have a beard to be a man. You don't have to shoot guns to be a man. You don't have to, you know, hunt and fish and all these things you can, but those are not the things that make you a man. Um, but so many men are terrified. to and are triggered by you saying us saying, hey, manhood is attacked. Most men are not, they're struggling to show up as a man in their body, in their life, in their world, at work, at home, and just know what, what that means. Neal Conlon (08:20.29) Right, well that's where even the definition of it in 2024 is weird, right, for a lot of people because it's real easy, you know, it used to be a lot easier. Right or wrong, it used to be a lot easier because you'd look at your father, you'd be like, how does this person show up? And then you'd emulate that person. Good or bad experiences, right? And then maybe you'd learn a little bit more from people in your community and stuff like that. But like that was just the way it kind of was. And it's like this ongoing thing now of, now that we get the opportunity to kind of choose, what a lot of people don't realize is like the struggle becomes, it's like men are just like balancing these plates and spinning them. you know, like where they, they're gonna be, they wanna be the protector of their family. They wanna be the provider for their family. They want to run their own businesses. Also, like men wanna have their own shit. Like one of the things like, like men wanna have their own thing, whatever that thing is. Sometimes it's a hobby, sometimes it's some kind of greater purpose or calling in life, but they all wanna have their own thing. And so they end up spinning these plates. And now what's just kind of recently happened a lot, is I really struggle with this concept that a lot of men have just thrown in the towel. They have just said, you know what, either A, their wife or partner has either overwhelmed them or left them, because 70% of all divorces are all started by the woman leaving the man. It crushes the dude. Aaron Crow (10:10.556) Mm-hmm. Neal Conlon (10:14.81) and they don't have the tools or resources and there's nothing exciting about recovery. That's a big piece of it is a lot of us, because this is all men, are not prepared to deal with scarcity. And so then when they get into the scarcity mindset, it just becomes easier just to collect a paycheck, keep your head down, and get your, just throw in the towel. Just throw in the towel. And I'm just gonna do the bare minimum, and every time that I get overwhelmed and drowning in some kind of bill or mechanism, I'm just gonna figure it out, right? And this like sigma male behavior is what they're calling it now, is really a problem because it just dismantles like the community. That's really what it comes down to. And like, you know, what people don't realize now I think a lot of people have just feel, especially men, feel like they've just been let down so many times by other men that they're like, I just want to align with other men that have been let down. And I call these guys now the Eeyores because it's kind of like this like, whoa is me mentality. Like this is the deck of cards that I've been dealt. I just got to suck it up. Like this is my story. This is my narrative. And it's just like, it's just a bunch of bullshit. Like you get wrapped up in the social media stories, and we were just talking about before we started this, I've been approached often about some of my views being views of toxic masculinity. And like, I laugh because it's just like, if you take a moment and you listen to the things that you and I have been saying for years now, it's like, It's actually the exact opposite and And unfortunately like I was watching social media yesterday and it was interesting because there was these two Influencer II guys and they're like good-looking dudes muscular Got the labrigginis Doing the podcast back and forth from each other and they were talking about Like the cost of private jets the cost of real estate and something about crypto I couldn't even pay attention to it was so bad Aaron Crow (12:15.425) Mm-hmm. Neal Conlon (12:42.85) but there was a third party who was a high net worth guy who every time that they said something, he fact checked it and everything they said was incorrect. Like the guy was like, yeah, when I bought my blah, Lamborghini at this price, and he's like, ding. That's not how much that Lamborghini's ever costed. And then the guy was like, when I was shopping for my private jet, ding. And then they like broke down like, So everything that these guys had said was actually incorrect and false. And yet there was like hundreds of thousands of views on this podcast. And then like that just brings up this crazy world that we're in right now, where it's like, you could literally watch something and like take it in and be like, oh my gosh, that's the way it is or that's what it is. And it's completely false. Right, and so it's like, I understand why a lot of guys would sit there and be like, you know what, I'm throwing a towel, I don't wanna have to decipher what's true, what's not true, and stuff like that. But that just creates an argument for being like, I need to be surrounded by people that I know I can trust, and people that know that when something breaks, I can pick up the phone like you talked about. and be like, hey, let me like pick myself out of this scarcity mindset as quickly as possible so that I can get back on track. Aaron Crow (14:18.205) Yeah. Well, and it, it doesn't happen overnight. It's like, you know, you don't get fat overnight. Um, you don't get out of shape overnight. Um, you don't get in these places overnight either. Right. And, and you get in these ruts and complacency and you get to this place where, you know, the norm, you're so used to being around these, you know, sheep, these, I hate to use those words cause it triggers so many people, but you know, there, there really are so many beta males. that are just there and I'm not talking down to anyone, but you want to be the hero in your own life. Like you want to be the hero in your story. And if you're not the hero in your own story, what the fuck's the point, right? You know, we, there's so many today that are looking for somebody else to solve their problem, whether it's, it's God, it's government, it's religion, it's their wife, it's their company, what, whatever that that the thing is, um, you know, uh, Elon Musk, I mean, whoever it is, they're looking for somebody else to solve their problem. Um, it's that, it's that parable of, you know, they're the, the guys drowning or his boat sinks and he's in the middle of the ocean and he, he praised to God, Hey God, save me. And a boat comes by and Hey, but he doesn't want to get in the boat. Cause he's like, no, I'm good. I prayed to God, God will save me. This happens three times. Finally, the guy, the guy drowns, he ends up in heaven and he's like, God, like. Why have you forsaken me? I prayed to you and you didn't save me. He's like, I sent you three boats. What more do you want? Like, you just got to get in the damn boat. Um, there's so many men that are that way. Like why is obesity so rampant in today's society? It's not because of lack of knowledge. Knowledge is there. Nobody from a knowledge perspective, there's no reason anyone should be overweight. Okay. So what is it then? It's not a lack of knowledge. Um, it's a lack of desire. It's a lack of grit. It's a lack of being uncomfortable. It's a lack of, uh, w you name it. Like obviously everybody, obviously there are some physical reasons. Obviously people have medical conditions. Most people are just not willing to do the work. It's a, it's a lot easier to sit on the couch. It's a lot easier to hit snooze. It's a lot easier to eat ice cream and burgers and pizza than it is to wake up and go rock, then it is to run a marathon, then it is to do an Ironman, then it is to do any of these things. Aaron Crow (16:44.661) Um, and, and that's why masculinity is, is at stake, right? It's why, you know, I've got three kids, two of them are boys. Like it's why I'm, I was, you know, excited last night when, you know, my oldest Charlie, he has friends over and last night they, he's doing 75 hard right now. Um, so he's got friends that he's brought in, um, they're coming over to have a sleepover, like hang out for the, it's during spring break. And they're out in the garage. They're going and doing a rock and they're working out. They're pumping iron in the garage. And then we carry, and I went to dinner and then we came back from dinner and they'd grab the jujitsu mats and they're upstairs and they've got boxing gloves on. So they're beating the shit out of each other and they're rolling jujitsu in the, in the, like they also played video games. They also had VR and all that kind of stuff, but they were also doing these other things, right? And that's part of it. Like nobody says you can't play video games. Nobody says you can't eat pizza. Nobody says you can eat ice cream. It's just a matter of what, what makes you who you are? Like what is the best version of you as a man? What does that look like? And everybody's version is different. You don't have to grow the beard. You don't have to look like Neil and I, you don't have to be in the military. You don't have to be a police officer. Like you don't have to, you know, go shoot every weekend and, and carry a gun all the time, like yes, you should be able to take care of yourself, but that doesn't mean that it has to look a certain way. It does mean that you need to be the best version of you and whatever that looks like. Right. And so many men are so triggered. They don't have anybody to reach out to. They, they don't have anybody like Neil, like myself, that they don't have those connections, that brotherhood that when, if Neil's not showing up, I'm going to call him out on it. And vice versa. If I'm, if I'm not showing up, he's going to 100% say, dude, what the hell are you doing? Like, this is not what you say you want. This is not where you said you wanted to be. So why are you 400 pounds. Like why are you skipping workouts? Why are you eating ice cream constantly and not doing your rocks? Like, what's going on with you? Because this is not who the man that you told me you wanted to be. And I'm going to fucking hold you accountable. Neal Conlon (18:50.262) Yeah, I can't believe I'm actually gonna say this because I've been really thinking about this a lot lately because I very much agree with all the things that you just said, but it's like, you have to realize that I think a big piece of this is the fact that societally, we're just, for probably the first time ever, we're going through this experience where most men, unless some other weird health issue happens, they're all gonna live to be 85, 90 years old. And it's almost like, if you think about it, if you go back, you and I talk about this all the time, it's like I remember being a kid, and I remember being a kid at a baptism, or a communion, or a birthday party, and all your great uncles show up, and there's like, they're like in their 50s, they got a Budweiser in one hand and a Marlboro red in the other, and they look like they're on death's door at like 56 years old, right? And like everybody was like that. And so like there was this concept of like, you were gonna work to a certain point in your life, you were gonna retire when you were like between 63 and 65, and then you were gonna die by the time you were 72. Aaron Crow (20:03.275) Mm-hmm. Neal Conlon (20:21.298) And now, I really think it is, is like, I think that lifestyle was the proponent for like, get married in your 20s, buy a house in your 30s, get your professional gear on track, professional life on track in your 40s, and then have your retirement party when you were like 60, and then be done with it all, right? And so like, there was a plan. Right? Like insurance policies were built for those plans and life insurance and healthcare plans were all built for this concept. And now you got men living into their eighties and nineties and that model is just not clear for a lot of people. But I can say like, especially for men 35 to 55, it's like, Your biggest struggle really is you're not, and I'm saying this as a guy who's dating somebody but not married like you've been for 15 years, at that stage of your life, the partnership, the relationship you're supposed to be, like that will make it better. Then you get into this weird thing now where it's like, I don't care what anyone's stance is on religion is, but I think you have to have faith in something. And then, Then between having the right level of intimacy in your life and the right relationship, and then having faith in kind of life is happening for you in some way, shape, or form, you can kind of get into this place of being like, all right, what do I need to work on? Because what's taking me further away from those things? And the thing that I keep on coming up with over and over and over again, with guys especially, is like, I'm gonna be 46 next week. I only wanna have the problems that a 46 year old is supposed to have. I want my knees to bother me a little bit once in a while. I want to feel a little bit more sore when I go to the gym. I wanna have to think a little bit strategically about my diet because my metabolism. Like I want 46 year old fucking problems. I don't wanna be whining about how to make money Neal Conlon (22:47.106) or whining about why don't people like me or why don't I have friends or stuff like that or giving up on people, which is like the problem of like a 25-year-old man or even like a 16-year-old man. And what I find over and over and over again is that men who struggle in that 35 to 55 range, typically you're not gonna have problems of a 35 or a 55-year-old man. You're gonna have the problems of a 16-year-old boy. who just didn't have the right opportunity to grow up in the right way. And my final thought there is really just around, I don't wanna be fucking 70 years old and have those fucking problems. Aaron Crow (23:21.283) and you're going to have the problems of the 75 year old. Aaron Crow (23:26.961) Yeah. Well, and you're going to have the problems of the 75 year old, right? So, so we see both sides. We see men that are in their forties, their thirties and their forties. They're having problems from a financial and a, and a, and a maturity level of, of men and, or, or boys, um, in their sick, you know, in their teenage years, but physically they're having problems on, you know, from the 70s. Like again, I know people in their 70s and they're like on death's doorstep. They're basically just waiting to die. They can't walk across the room. They can't sit down. They can't walk upstairs. And these are not because they have massive health problems. Most of them are just because they don't exercise. They don't do these things. And they're just waiting until the end, right? And their mindset is, well, I'm old. I'm supposed to be this way. Right. Where that that's bullshit. Like there's also 72, 75 year old people that are, you know, doing CrossFit competitions or, or doing running marathons and are, you know, bodybuilding and all these different things. So you get to create the life. Obviously there's, there's adverse, you know, people have hip replacements and knee replacements and physical and, and medical issues, but you can still make the best of whatever situation you're in. or you can sit down and wait to die. Right. And, and too many people, unfortunately, especially men in this world, too many are just at a very early age giving up and they've sat in the corner and they're just waiting to die. They're just letting life pass them. They're dealing with whatever is given to them and they're complaining about it all the time. They're unhappy. They don't have friends. They don't have connect, not real friends, not men that will not brotherhood. Maybe they have friendships. But it's all surface level bullshit. They're talking about sports and beer and you know that the waitresses tits, right? That's all they care about And they don't get beyond that and they're not building things like I was listening to somebody the other day and they were talking You and I talked about this all the time, right? If your friends if you're just talking about things that happened in the past Or you know, hey, we you know For whether it be your physical. Hey, I was a Aaron Crow (25:46.641) star athlete in high school or, you know, I, I did this one thing one time. If you're not planning for the future and you're not building things together or talking about the things that you want to build tomorrow, what are you doing? Like you're, you're literally living in the past, like instead of planning for the future, instead of, Hey, I want to go do this and I want to build this and I want to build this, this business. And I want to be, I want to get my body in better shape and I want to go do these, these activities and these, these functions and I want to take my kids. And if you're not excited. and living and planning and dreaming, then you're living in the past and you're just letting shit happen to you. Neal Conlon (26:24.062) I think the living in the past thing is wild. I mean, like I recognize that I'm a little bit of an extreme example because, you know, I graduated high school, joined the Marine Corps, traveled all over the world, did a whole bunch of cool things, lived in Japan, right? Lived in multiple states and then a bunch of years in the corporate world, travel over the world, travel over the world, travel over the world. So I might be a little bit of extremist in this, but I remember when I turned 40, and still it just happened recently, I had someone on Facebook reach out to me that I went to high school with, and they were like, remember blah, in our senior year? And I was like, no. But it was such a big thing, and I was like, literally I've done so much in my life that I, no. that memory maybe is repressed somewhere down in the data storage in the basement, but I don't remember that thing at all. And it's like, just because of the reach on social media I have, probably once a month I'll have somebody reach out from when I was in high school and be like, remember me? And I'm literally like, no. Why was the person who sat three seats across from you in history class? I'm like. No, I've just focused my life on forward. And again, I want every drop of this life to come out. And I recognize though, like it's very hard, right? Like we have to highlight, it is extremely hard for people to actively kind of choose, right? To do something differently than the majority does. And I think that's the big thing. It's also a struggle for a lot of people nowadays is like for the most part, Whether you grew up in a bad environment or a great environment, there's enough systems and programs and facilities that like, in theory, you could go to the grocery store when pasta is, boxes are $10 for 10 boxes, and you can eat pasta every day for the rest of your life. Now I don't think you're gonna have a great life doing that, you're gonna hate yourself, but like. Aaron Crow (28:45.897) Yep. Neal Conlon (28:49.506) There's no like hunting for your meal tomorrow. You know, there's no, you know, war tribe in the next village that's contemplating coming and taking your shit. And so it's just like, there are many of us who then turn around and then go, you know what, that's not the path I'm gonna go on. Whatever my current status or situation is, I want better. and I'm gonna go do this on my own terms. And those people do everything from starting candle businesses to building communities and platforms, to building mobile applications, to taking whatever profession you're in, and then going, you know what, I can make more money if I do it on my own. And then like, it's not necessarily a money thing, it's more about a resources thing, because what I've realized also over time is like, and this is for anybody who's listening to this, it's like. really the only thing that gets in the way of you being happy is your lack of resources. Like really like if you have enough resources and money is a resource, your relationship is a resource, your time is a resource, the people around you is a resource. So like it's real, real simple, like almost too simple that if you can accept the fact that people you surround yourself with are important to how you feel. That how you spend your time is important, right? Money is a resource, and your relationship is a resource. And I would even go as far as to say your faith is a resource, those five things. And if you go, all right, I'm gonna focus on those five things for 90 days, and I'm not gonna, I'm gonna avoid all the noise. Aaron Crow (30:32.627) Mm-hmm. Aaron Crow (30:36.005) Mm-hmm. Neal Conlon (30:44.382) I guarantee you it'll be better in 90 days. Like I've done it myself multiple times. I've done it myself multiple times to been like something gets effed up in life. And I'm like, all right, I was obviously not focused in the right direction. Let's regroup myself. Let me go get some time with some friends. Let me go get some partner time. Let me focus on ways to make money. Let me get control of my time and let me think about it like this. And then like literally just focus on it. And all of a sudden at the end of 90 days, you're like, why did I let myself get there? Aaron Crow (31:22.065) Yeah, and it's so you can do so much in a very short amount of time, right? You know, obviously you've heard my story a thousand times, not your dad. You know, I was 350 pounds, right? You know, and this wasn't that long ago. Um, in a very short amount of time, I made changes. Same thing with my, with my marriage. Like it wasn't that long. Um, it took a long time to get there. It's not going to be solved overnight, but you can make massive change in a very short amount of time, like the way that you attack things, especially. if you surround yourself with people that will challenge you and hold you accountable, right? It's, it's, you know, there's a reason why things like CrossFit are popular, right? It's because you go harder when you're with other people, right? When you're working out by yourself, if you have great discipline, maybe it's perfect. Some people really do a lot better in, in a group environment. It's why the Peloton, you know, group classes and group classes all around all these different things, they have this group element. It's why, when I go rock, like I, I love doing the community thing. We have a rucking group that we do, where people come and you do it together. So you're getting a fitness thing, but you're also, you're having this brotherhood, right? It's the same thing with building a business or any of the things that you wanna do, doing it with and being surrounded by people that have similar aspirations. Not that they wanna build the same business, not that they have the same relationship, but that they want to improve. They want, they have that. They're not in a lacking mindset. They're not in a, uh, they're in a growth mindset, right? They're, they're looking to improve themselves in all of those areas from, from physical, um, spiritual relationships wise, you know, business wise, financial wise, like all of the things, it doesn't mean you're going to be perfect. It doesn't mean you're going to be, you know, next level on everything, but you know, again, going back to the time travel thing, a, I think being in masterminds being surrounded by people that that are in there, it helps you time travel, right? You're gonna accomplish things so much faster than if you do them by yourself. The other piece is that if you're not, then you're stuck in the past. If you were the same person that you were in high school and you're about to be 46, that's a problem, right? You were fucking 18 years old, now you're 46. If you're the same person, like when I, I remember when I first went back to, you know, my, Aaron Crow (33:47.657) high school city when Carrie and I moved back to that city. Most people didn't recognize me. I had to introduce myself. And yes, I'd grown, I was a small kid, but still I was just a different person. And many of them are the same people they were, and they're still talking about their senior year, this game when they ran this touchdown run or whatever. That was the highlight of their life. And you hear it with military guys too, right? You hear that, you know. they did this thing and there was this event or whatever, and that was the highlight of their life. It's not to take away from those things. It's just that, okay, you've done it. It's like all those patches there on my wall or the challenge coins over there or the metals that are there. Like those things, yes, they happen, but they're done, they're in the past. Now what are you gonna do, right? I can't run a marathon once in 1982 and say, well, I'm a marathon runner. When's the last time you ran a marathon? 1982. You're not a marathon runner. You were a marathon runner. in 1982, but you're not a marathon runner anymore. Neal Conlon (34:44.95) Yeah Neal Conlon (34:48.286) Yeah, it's fascinating because I think that part of it is also obviously the way the education system is built. Right. So we get kind of ingrained in that. Then there's the stories that we kind of tell ourselves, you know, and I think it's like, it's wild though, because there's just so much opportunity now, like because of the internet, like, Neal Conlon (35:16.871) And there's just so much opportunity to consider making money in different ways and achieving different things. And you wouldn't even know where to begin to look. When you and I were kids, you'd have to break out the yellow telephone book and go searching for things in the telephone book to find where anything was. And now it's like... Oh, you wanna learn how to run a 5K? There's a course teaching you how to run a 5K. I look at it even in my Ironman journey, how I thought it was fascinating, because I was almost 250 pounds when I decided I was gonna run the Ironman, and then I started Google around on the internet, and I would laugh because there's a website, I'm not gonna give the real URL, because I just don't remember it, but it was like, Neal Conlon (36:14.754) www. and literally it was like six months. Like here's this Ironman, for anybody who doesn't know, you either run 70 miles in a day, bike, run, and swim, or you do 140 on the big one. Both of them are monumentous tasks that when you look at it, you're like, I don't know how these people do these things. And at one point, I'm sure when it started, That was extremely true because you'd have to be a lunatic to train like that. But then now, fast forward to 2023, you go www. and they literally have broken it down into like six days a week, here's your training, here's how many calories to eat, here's what you should do, here's the gear, here's the process, here's this. And I remember very clearly, vividly, the first time that I biked from my house, bicycled, Aaron Crow (36:45.329) Right. Yeah. Neal Conlon (37:10.786) from my house to New York City, which was 109 miles to the World Trade Center. And I was like, I cannot believe that I just did that. But it was very, very doable. My point being is like, it was actually, the training up to it was easy, step by step by step. And I did it because I had a community and people inspiring me. I was working with an endurance group. I had a coach who had done a bunch of Ironman. giving me kind of ways to get better, quicker, faster, more efficiently there through systems and processes. And the website was telling me everything. Like you could do that with F in anything now. Do you wanna make a, this is the big thing we talked about, the 100 man fly in. It's like, you wanna make a million dollars a year? Google it. Then you gotta do the work. You know, you wanna be a good man? You wanna show up as, you wanna show up as a healthy man? Google. Aaron Crow (37:57.951) Yeah. Neal Conlon (38:10.622) what does a healthy man look like? Take some inventory in your life. And then if there's things that you're missing, be like, all right, well, if I'm not naturally approachable, that's a big one, I think, for guys, is like a lot of guys are like, nobody ever talks to me, or like I'm a dick, or people think I'm an asshole. And it's like, yeah, you wanna know how you get away from that? You stop being a dick, you stop being an asshole. And rather than not being approachable, like this is very much like for years. I was very unapproachable. I've got this big tattooed bearded kind of demeanor, but there was a period in my life where before I got my teeth fixed and fixed a bunch of my inner shit, like I was very unapproachable. And the way that I conquered that was I became, I started approaching people. And that was like an active choice for me to start doing that rather than just sit there in my own shit all the time. Aaron Crow (39:09.417) It's, it's so simple, right? All this stuff. Can you do it on your own? Could you have trained for, or could you have done a Ironman by yourself? Of course you could have. Would you have been as probable to be successful? No. Why is that? Because you're learning from the mistakes of others. Like you're instead of going and trialing airing you, you were able to, to use the lessons from people that have been there and done that, like they've been there, they've trained, they've. They've ran the marathons. They've, they've rode the bikes that far. They've swam that far. They've done all three. That's the thing about an Ironman that makes it so difficult, right? Is most people they run or, or they were, they swim or they bike. They don't do all three, especially in one day at one event, right? Those distances. That's why it's such a monumental thing to do. But all of these people that you're these coaches and these people that you work with, they've done it. Right. So they know how to build over the years. So they built this so you can learn from that. And the problem that I see, and we talk about this all the time is so many men think, Oh, well, I'm just going to do it on my own. I don't need that. I don't need you to tell me how to be a man. I don't need you to tell me how to run a man. I know how to fucking run. Of course you do go do it your own then. Right. Like, why are you here? Why are you wasting my energy telling me that you don't need what, what we're talking about? Like if you, if you don't, then. Go away, right? Unfortunately, or not even necessarily unfortunately, well, I would say it this way. Unfortunately, so many men think that way. And I see that as a very short-sighted perspective. I've opened myself up to being coachable, right? And, you know, go all the way back to Pee-wee or little league baseball. You can have a kid that is a great athlete. and they can hit the ball, they can run fast, they can tackle, they can shoot the jumper, whatever. But if they're not coachable, I don't want that player on my team. Right, I don't want the kid that is just a natural athlete, but is not a good team player, that is not coachable, is not willing to do what's best for the team and grow and have that growth mindset. I know how to do it, I don't need your help. I'm better than you, I don't need guidance, right? Those people are not good people to be on your team. They're also going to hit a limit Aaron Crow (41:32.905) that they can't overcome, right? You look at Jordan, you look at, you know, Tiger Woods, these guys are the elite of the elite. They have coaches and they always have had coaches. Why is that? Because they were all natural athletes. They were all the best at what they do, yet they still hired coaches because they wanted to have an edge. They hired fitness coaches, they hired mindset coaches, they hired strength and nutrition coaches. They hired coaches for fucking everything that I can get a little bit of a nugget that's going to get me 0.001% better than I am today. That's going to give me the edge over my competition. That's going to give me the edge over myself. But so many men look at it as you, who the hell are you to tell me? Like, you're no better than me. Neal Conlon (42:18.634) Right? Aaron Crow (42:22.429) Who the hell are you? Like I didn't say that I was better than you. I just said that I've done this one thing and I've learned some lessons from it. And I'm happy to share that stuff with you. Does that mean I have a perfect marriage? No. Does that mean that my wife and I don't fight or that I have, you know, I'm constantly perfect on my health and my fitness and my diet? No. It just means that I've been through the shit and I can talk about it and tell you the things that I've learned along the way that can potentially help you. to get where I got instead of having to go through all of the struggles that I went through. Neal Conlon (42:57.51) I love this direction, because it brings back to a story that on my podcast last year, we did an interview with one of the strength and conditioning coordinators for Division I College. And you're spot on, and what's interesting is I think one of the biggest challenges, and you've mentioned this also, is like... unless you have been in some kind of coaching scenario as a child athlete or maybe in the military, maybe in the job workforce, there's some coaching scenarios evolving now, but it's very, very hard to become coachable because you just don't have any examples of that. And in the world of football, what's fascinating is the coaches go around, right, at the high school level or the college. the college coaches are all flying around checking out the prospects, and they see the student athlete perform, right? They're like, I want that one on my team. I want that quarterback. I want that lineman. I want that defensive end. And then when they bring them to the school for the training, the very first thing they do is give them to the strength and conditioning coordinators for three days. And what you don't realize is, while the coach of the team who owns the playbook, and every coach should have a playbook for you, they say, okay, we need to like, you know, do the work now, and the strength and conditioning coordinators will take these athletes, right, through a heavy workout, and they will constantly correct them during the workouts. And at the end of that three-day trial, the strength and conditioning coordinators will get to vote and they will say that, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down on this person. And it's based off of one simple thing that when they make corrections to these athletes, were they able to implement them? Because will they be able to take corrective coaching and get better no matter what level they're operating at, will they be able to improve? And that's the difference between a championship team Neal Conlon (45:19.658) and a team that's mediocre and just kind of has a bunch of players on it. Aaron Crow (45:26.457) It's it's I don't care where you are in your life. You can always get better. You can always be coached. You can you should always be able to be coached. Like, you know, my marriage is currently in the best place it's ever been. I didn't I didn't know this where we are existed. Right. And better than when we first met, better than honeymoon phase. Like all of the things are just better. Does that mean I get to just stop working on it and coast? No, because what's going to happen then? Right. It's going to go downhill. Same thing in my fitness. Like, you know, if, if you stop pushing and you stop growing, then you're going to lose it. Right. If you stop working out, you're going to get, and you eat pizza, you're going to get fat. Um, you know, if you stop exercising, if you stop working on your marriage, if you stop working, focusing on fit finances, if you're stopped, you know, why do they say the hungry people are the ones that, you know, are the most successful in business? Right. It's because when you're, when your backs against the wall, You don't have a choice. I love the, I love the meme or whatever, like, you know, the drug addict, the heroin addict that doesn't have any money and needs a hit. They don't ever just say, well, I don't have any money. I guess I won't, I won't get high today. Right. They find a way, right? I know it's a bad analogy, but they do like they find a way they go steal shit. You know, it's not the greatest, you know, uh, model of, of who I want to be. But the point is, is like, you can find an excuse or you can find a way. And I know that's, you know, uh, Neal Conlon (46:40.293) Hahaha! Aaron Crow (46:54.617) something people say all the time, but it's true. Like I tell my, I tell my kids this all the time. I tell my wife this, I tell myself this, like I can sit here and one of the guys says this all the time on my calls, but he says, I've got poopy pants. Okay. Everybody's had an accident or whatever, but you get the concept of poopy pants. Do you want to sit in it or do you want it like it happened? Period. Are you going to sit in it and just stay in that place? Are you going to get up go wash yourself off, change your drawers and get back to life. Like are you going to just focus on that thing that happened? Are you going to get over it and do something about it? Like you lost your job. You know, it's the Jaco thing that I sent you the other day, right? It's, you lost your job. Good. Your busy, your biggest customer isn't paying his bill. Good. You got laid off. Good. You know, your wife and you are, she wants a divorce. Good. You got to have knee surgery. Good. Like all of these things you can, you can take, and put a positive spin on. And what I mean by that is you can decide how you're going to react. It is your choice how you respond. Neal Conlon (47:58.702) Mm-hmm. I think that is so important to build that kind of emotional muscle. And again, I recognize that it's a focused effort into being like, where I am right now is not where I wanna be, right? And being able to move through that. And I wanna add in there, it wouldn't be one of the Neil and Aaron calls if I didn't say something that was controversial. So, but I feel very drawn to this because there's been a handful of times in the past couple of months where I've been talking to men about getting some coaching. And we talk for a couple of conversations and then it turns out that they end up going to work with a women coach. And it's really, really fascinating when you get into that because the example I always give people is like, Men or women are just we're just wired different we are just wired differently and the best example is if a woman is on stage and She's large and overweight and she's talking about the struggle of being judged for her body Even a skinny woman in the audience is gonna is gonna agree and be like yes, I understand your pain But if a large man is on stage talking about his struggle with pain the guy who's super skinny in the audience is probably gonna go get a cheeseburger because he's bored. And you know, like as crazy as it is, what men don't realize, and it's their lack of trust is the problem, is that we are kind of hardwired to want to emulate success, right? Some people say success leaves clues and we wanna follow it, right? So we see men who are built differently than us. Aaron Crow (49:33.269) Right. Neal Conlon (49:57.498) and we ask, what are you guys doing? What's your workout, right? Like we see other men making good money and we will go, well, what's he doing to make money? Right, like maybe I need to get in on that. Now. You put 10 women in front of the average man and you have them tell that woman, have that woman tell you their story. We are hardwired to not go, I wanna be like her when I grow up. Like Oprah is fucking famous, right? I've never in my life been like, I wanna be like Oprah. Like you get a book, you get a book, you get a book, but like. Aaron Crow (50:43.059) Yeah. Neal Conlon (50:43.902) I've never been like, I wanna be like Oprah when I grow up. And like, there's never been a point where I can look at a woman and be, and it's just a matter of like, it's not even shaming the woman, but if that's the case, then the reality is, is that men need men. We need men who will hold us accountable to things without judgment. And when we drop the ball or miss the shot or fall flat on our faces for trying, we want somebody to pick us up and be like, yeah, like I hear you, that must've sucked, but let's kind of keep on going here towards the prize. And you're never gonna get that from a stronger source than a man that you trust. Aaron Crow (51:32.177) Yeah, it's the same thing in parenting. You know, Carrie and I were talking about this the other day, but, you know, there's a reason why there's a yin and yang. There's a reason why women and men are different. Again, a controversial topic in 2023 for whatever reason. But, you know, Carrie and I don't look at things the same way. When when our kids fall and skin their knee, she's running over there. Oh, my God, are you OK? And I'm like, get up. You're fine. Neal Conlon (51:32.386) Like you're never gonna get that. Aaron Crow (52:02.249) Right? You know, we were talking the other night and my now 20 something, you know, year old nephew, um, back in the day, he was right. His mom, uh, you know, he was raised single mom, so he didn't have a male, you know, real role model and influence in his life, at least, um, at this time for, for some of the things, right? Um, anyways, long story short, we were at a restaurant and he needed to go to the restroom and I was going to restroom anyways. I'm like, yeah, I'll go with you that way. You know, he was probably you know, I don't know, nine, 10, 11, maybe, maybe even 12. It was a busy place. Didn't want the kid to go to the bathroom by himself. So I asked Corey in the bathroom and he gets there and it was a two-holer. So there was a urinal and there was a, there was a stall and somebody was in the stall and, and he was like, well, a two-holer. Yeah. Neal Conlon (52:48.622) That's some Texas shit. You call that a two-holer? That's some Texas shit. Aaron Crow (52:54.709) So there was somebody in the stall. So I'm like, well, just, he's like, well, I can't go. I'm like, what do you mean? I go, do you have to go number one or number two? And he's like, just number one. I'm like, okay, we'll just go right there. He's like, I can't. I'm like, why? He's like, cause I can't sit down there. And I'm like, no, no. Aaron Crow (53:14.593) pull your pants down, pull your little thing out, aim it over there and go. And he just kind of looked at me like nobody had ever said that was okay. At home, his mom had always wanted him to be sitting down because he didn't pee on the seat, right? It's easier. That's the way she does it. Like, so he'd never had, it seems so simple. And now he laughs about it and thinks, Oh, uncle Aaron taught me to pee standing up, you know, all those years ago. And it's a, it's a funny story. But it just shows that without little things and it's a little silly thing, um, you know, no big deal, but, um, it's, it's real. Like it's a reason why, you know, Charlie's doing 75 hard and, you know, my daughter is tough and, and they need that yin and yang. They need the mom to be soft and they needed dad to be hard. Um, and, and her to her to make me a little softer and me to make her a little harder. Right. And, and they need that yin and yang of parenting of, of influence. Right. And the challenge today is so many men aren't even being a man in their own lives. So the woman is having to step into her masculine because he's not doing it. So she's trying to play more roles on the masculine side. And that's just, it just doesn't work. Right. It really does not work. The man needs to be the masculine. That doesn't mean that the woman can't, nobody's saying a man's better than a woman. That's not what we're fucking saying. It's just, there's different things. Like it's not like go to the, go in the kitchen and cook. I cook more than my wife does. It's not a, this is the thing that you have to do because you're a female. Like it's not that it's that there are things that I look at things differently than my wife does. Like I want to go do the adventure. I want to, you know, let the kids go out and just, you know, fall out of the tree. Like you're fine. Right. You're, you're, you're not dead. Nothing's broken. Get over it. Right. And that's not how she is. But we need that in this world. And unfortunately there's a, there's a lack of it, which is why you and I feel called to do this. And because we've, we've experienced it and benefited from it ourselves. We want more. I want a strong world for my kids to grow up in, right? I want my daughter to have men that she can choose from. I want my, my son, you know, Charlie wants to go to go to the military. I want him to have other men at, you know, young men that he can be Aaron Crow (55:36.753) in a brotherhood with, you know, fight with, stand, you know, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder with, and not be like, you know, upset because they don't have, you know, a latte in, you know, Afghanistan or wherever the hell they happen to be, you know, at the time, right? It's just, you know, it's, it's the world that we're getting into changing standards and all that kind of stuff. Like obviously we continue to go into a controversial topics here, but it's, it's where we are today. Neal Conlon (56:05.746) Yeah, I think and I think this is we're coming up on the hour So we'll wrap this up here But this is the type of conversations that we need to have more often And I think like there is this like weird thing around awareness for I think the parents To realize that like I would say most children Most adults now At some point we're probably over mothered and under fathered It was just a generational thing of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And we've all been over mothered and under fathered in some way shape or form, or another version of that. And I think it's like, takes a moment, especially when you have kids to be like, am I going to do this differently than the example that I have? And if the answer is yes, then it's a really good opportunity to do so. I mean, like, I'll be super honest, transparent. Like, I had an absent father in my life for years, and so I have no examples, or I have, or my way of training myself to engage with my children differently has become what would my father have done? And the answer is my father did nothing. Oh, so I'm gonna do something. And literally, like, every single time that I walk myself through that process, Aaron Crow (57:27.71) Right. Neal Conlon (57:32.87) it always plays out better. That may be a little bit of an extreme tool, but really it's like, your examples are always great examples. Even the lack of good example is still an example of what not to do. You just gotta be able to have the awareness there to be like, wait, what's the answer I'm trying to get to? What would be the best thing to do? What would my mom or my dad have done in a situation? They would have done this. Aaron Crow (57:48.777) Yep. Neal Conlon (58:01.726) All right, that is not the best way to handle that. I'm gonna do the opposite of that or another thing, or I'm gonna learn from somebody. And then it always works out that it always is a positive. It's always a positive in that example. Aaron Crow (58:13.565) Yeah. I mean, it happens in marriage. You know, you ended up in a divorce. Look at, look at people who've been divorced and their, their relationship immediately after that divorce, the spouse, the, the partner that they choose, whether they get married or not, um, is almost the polar opposite of their previous spouse almost every time. Right? You know, every, it's just, they, they go for exactly all the things they didn't like about their previous partner. they look for the exact opposite in their new partner, right? And they don't necessarily, the problem with that is if you don't also remember the good things, like there was a reason you got with this person most of the time. So what are the positive things? So they, if you ignore the positives and only focus on not doing the negatives, you can buy, you can miss a lot of good things and, and overlook the negative things in the new partner, which also ends in disaster because, oh, well, I wanted them to be, you know, home and not working, or I wanted them not cheat on me, but now they're, they're not sexual or whatever those things are. So like you said, though, we're at the top of the hour, um, want to respect everybody's time. Um, we're going to continue to do these things and have these conversations cause I think it's needed. Um, I think it's, it's valuable, um, not to mention that it just sharpens our, uh, our sword, uh, as we continue to bounce things off of each other and continue to have these conversations that we do. Neal Conlon (59:27.971) Yeah, ma'am. Aaron Crow (59:38.897) It's great to have the benefit of allowing others a little insight into the mind of Aaron and Neil is terrifying as that may be sometimes. Neal Conlon (59:49.866) Glad we did this, man. We'll see you at the next one. Aaron Crow (59:52.477) Yes, sir.