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Welcome to the True Man Podcast.
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This is an invitation to radical reconstruction of a man's masculine heart and soul in a place of safe community where we dare to ask questions buried deep inside a man and explore ways to help you become a better man, a better son, a better dad, and a better spouse.
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Well, welcome back to the true man podcast.
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I am, of course, your host, Mike Van Pelt, MVP.
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And today we're going to uh talking about something that uh been talking about over the last few weeks and excited to finally get to this point.
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So thank you for being here with me today.
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Uh I've said this before, I'll say it again.
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I'll say it until the final podcast airs.
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Hopefully never, but you know, why put a number on it?
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Thank you.
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Thank you for being here with me on this podcast.
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And the greatest thing that you can do for me, in all seriousness, is to grab your phone, which I know you're listening on right now, and forward this podcast onto a buddy or friend, or maybe just email me and say, hey, we had a great conversation on our men's small group about the topic that you talked about today.
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Now, selfishly, today is really all about me as we begin to roll out the American family renaissance.
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But in many ways, yes, this is my personal story.
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It's about how this all started to some degree, but but it's really about you because the body of work is about you, it's about building men and building communities, which is everything that I'm all about.
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So every man, I believe, that has ever built something worth building can tell you the moment it started.
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Not the launch, not the announcement, not the day the doors opened or the phone rang, or anyone else knew it was real.
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It's that quiet moment before all of that.
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And that's where I find myself right now.
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You know, a lot of this is about when a conviction became a decision for me as I think back on it.
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And a decision became a direction, and a direction walked out faithfully, one step at a time over months and years, has become a mission for me.
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That moment started when I wrote a chapter in the book, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today.
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And I actually remember the very room uh that uh I had that phone call on uh in with uh Jim Jim Britt back in my house in Atlanta.
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But on September 14th, we are going to breathe life into that chapter that I wrote that has turned into a mission and a passion, I believe worth pursuing.
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So today I want to take you behind the build here a little bit, not the polished version, the real one, the version that includes the wilderness seasons, the pivots, the phone calls that changed everything in the moments, where the only way forward was to do the very thing that I was calling other men to do.
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Ask for help.
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This is the story of the American Family Renaissance.
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And I believe when you understand how the mission was born, what it cost, what it required, and what God has done with it, is doing with it, and how the spirit is moving it, you're going to walk into September 14th differently than you would have otherwise.
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You ready to go?
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I know I am.
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So, as I mentioned, a couple of years ago, I was asked to contribute to a chapter in a book with uh Mr.
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Jim Britt, who is, of course, a part of the American Family Renaissance Summit.
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I remember having about a two-hour conversation with him, uh, just wildly impressed, needless to say, with Jim's background, everything he had done.
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And uh he asked me to be a part of the book, Cracking the Rich Code.
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There's a uh pretty good-sized series of them going at this point, I believe over 20.
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I was in volume 11.
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It's really a collection of voices on success, leadership, and personal transformation.
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And I sat down to write my chapter and to figure out what I actually had to say that was worth putting in print.
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How about we put it that way?
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Something at that point really came out of me that I wasn't really fully expecting.
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I wrote about asking for help, not as a leadership concept, not as a productivity strategy, really as a confession.
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I wrote about the years that I spent trying to be the man that I thought I was supposed to be.
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Building, striving, performing, projecting, carrying everything in silence because that's what I believe strong men did.
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Showing up for everyone else while quietly running on empty inside.
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Managing the image, right?
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Well, the real man underneath was just simply exhausted and isolated and not entirely sure where he was gonna go.
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And I wrote about the moment that changed everything.
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The moment I finally stopped, put down performance, got honest with God, with myself, with the people around me, and said three words that I felt like are the hardest thing that I've ever had to do.
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I need help.
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And I wrote about what happened after those three words, how everything shifted, how the walls I had built to protect myself had actually been keeping out the very things I needed most.
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Connection, accountability, brotherhood, truth.
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How the moment I ask, well, help began to arrive in ways that I hadn't anticipated and could not have manufactured.
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I titled that chapter, The Power of Asking for Help.
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And something happened when people read it or heard about it.
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Men reached out, men I didn't know, men who said I never read anything that described where I am more accurately than that.
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Men who said I needed to hear that it's okay to ask.
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Men who said I didn't know another man felt that way.
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That response told me something that I could not ignore.
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This wasn't just my story.
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Oh, how often we think that.
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So much more to say, more to build, more to give.
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So I just kept writing.
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And you know, I want to ask you something right now before I go any further.
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Is that your story too?
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Not all of it, maybe just a piece of it.
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The piece where you've been carrying something in silence that was never meant to be carried alone.
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If that's you, well boy, oh boy, this episode is certainly for you.
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So stay with me here.
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So writing the chapter in that book really lit something in me that wouldn't let go.
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So I did what a man does when a fire gets started.
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I kept going and I sat down and wrote my own book, True Man, True Ways, a roadmap of discovery to the masculine heart.
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Now, of course, in that book, I didn't really write about the power of asking for health, but all of it was really interwoven in there because it's a part of my story.
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And it was everything that I had been building in my coaching career when I wrote that book.
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It's um in my faith, in my reconstruction as a man.
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It's laid out in true man true ways.
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It's laid out in the chapter that I wrote in Cracking the Ridge Code.
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But in true man, true ways, I laid out a roadmap for the man who was done drifting and ready to find his way back, ready to take back his identity, his purpose, and become the man that God had created him to be.
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And somewhere in that process of writing the book, uh doing the podcast, and really working on all the content that I was working on, it became clear to me that I could no longer ignore what I was feeling.
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I had a message, I had a real one, a message that was connecting with men in a way that went beyond the page.
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And I knew with a clarity that I hadn't felt in a long time that I needed to get to the front of the stage.
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I needed to be in the front of the room.
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I had a desire and a passion and a mission called by God to get there.
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This is not about ego, it's not about platform.
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Because the men who need to hear this were not going to find it by accident.
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Believe me, all the noise in the world.
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Someone had to stand up and say it out loud in rooms full of men who were ready to hear it.
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And that kind of conviction led me to pick up the phone and call my buddy Scott Schilling.
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Now, Scott is one of the most trusted voices in leadership that I've ever encountered: a partner, a mentor, a man whose counsel I have come to rely on in the way that only happens when someone has proven themselves over and over in the hard moments.
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You know, I called him to begin developing the keynote speech.
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And together we started building the power of asking for help, a talk designed to go into rooms full of men and to say the thing that most of them had never heard another man say out loud.
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And as Scott and I worked, as the message sharpened and the vision expanded, what started as a keynote became something neither of us had originally planned.
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And Scott looked at me one day and said, What we're building here, Mike, isn't just a talk.
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This is a gathering.
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This is a mission.
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And he was right, and I knew it right away.
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And what happened next is what I want you to understand because it is the most important part of this story.
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Building the summit required me to do the very thing the keynote was calling other men to do.
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Ask for help.
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Build in community.
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Don't try to carry this all alone.
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So I reached out to the men whose voices I respected.
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About a hundred, as a matter of fact.
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Men who built something real, men who had a message that belonged in the same room as the men I was trying to teach.
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Now remember, I said a hundred.
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Yeah, I reached out to over a hundred people.
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That means I heard a lot of no's, or literally nothing at all.
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But again, this is a mission.
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This was called and designed by God for me to build.
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No was not an option.
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And yet God provided, and one by one they came.
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Scott Schilling, Tom Ziggler, Bob T, Bob Bodine, Vince Miller, Chris Widener, Jim Britt, they all said yes.
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Eight men, one stage, one mission.
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And friends, the American Family Renaissance Summit was born.
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And here's what I want you to feel right now.
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Not just understand, but feel.
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You see, this summit exists because a man got honest about his struggle, wrote it down, kept building, and did the very thing he's calling other men to do.
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That is the power of asking for help.
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Lived out, not just preached.
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Have you ever let your honest struggle become something useful?
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Have you ever let what you've been through serve the man standing next to you?
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Because that's what I was facing.
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So let me pull back the curtain a little further.
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Because the summit is not where this started, and it's not where it ends.
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It started with a conviction that has been building in me for years.
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That the American family is in trouble.
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Real trouble.
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Not the kind that fixes itself either.
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The kind that requires men, real men, awake men, men who are willing to be reconstructed to stand up and lead differently than the generation before them.
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And that conviction led to the true man life coaching, the work of sitting with men one-on-one in the hardest seasons of their lives and walking with them towards something better.
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It led to this podcast.
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It led to writing books and talking about the hard and difficult things that men need to hear to reclaim their lives.
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No fluff, no soft edges, just the questions men need to be asked and the answers they've been waiting to hear.
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It led to the book True Man, True Ways, a roadmap of discovery of the masculine heart, a guide for the man who is ready to do the honest work of becoming who his family needs him to be.
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And now it has led to the American Family Renaissance, a faith-based movement built on three pillars, and I believe are the non-negotiable foundations of everything worth building in this culture.
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God, family, country.
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In that order, always in that order.
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And the American Family Renaissance is really the broader vision here, the movement, the mission that says we are not going to watch the American family continue to disintegrate without doing something about it.
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We are going to build men who build families who build a nation.
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And underneath the American Family Renaissance, it's that engine that does the personal work of transformation, true man coaching.
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It's what I am most excited to tell you about.
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And part of that that will precede the American Family Renaissance Summit is called The Standard of a Restored Man.
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It's going to be a 12-week course.
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The nine marks of a restored man, each one anchored in the fruit of the spirit from Galatians 5.
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It's God, God's design for a man expressed through the lens of masculine leadership, built into a structured cohort-based journey with other men who are serious about the same standard.
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This is 11 weeks to build the man, a 12th week to build the house.
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This is not a self-help situation.
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This is not inspiration that fades by Thursday.
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This is true reconstruction, man.
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And it's the most important thing that I've ever built.
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So September 14th is almost here.
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That is the release of this recorded series.
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And we've worked our tail off to get it up online and get it ready and get it going.
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And I want to tell you what I believe that day is, and what I believe it's not.
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This is not a motivational event.
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It's not a collection of inspiring speeches designed to pump you up for 48 hours and then fade when Monday morning hits.
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It is a line in the sand.
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It is a day when men who are done drifting, men who are tired of carrying it alone, tired of performing, tired of the gap between who they are and who they know they're supposed to be, get together around a mission and make a decision.
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And the decision is simple.
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It's the same decision that changed everything for me when I wrote that chapter.
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It's the same decision that every man I've coached who made real progress eventually had to make.
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And that is this the decision to stop managing the image and start asking for help.
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Now I have poured everything into September 14th.
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The speakers on that stage are not just colleagues.
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They are men whose lives and messages I deeply respect.
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Men I believe God has placed in this room for this moment.
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Scott Schilling, he saw the mission before I could fully articulate it.
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Tom Ziegler, who carries a legacy of belief in human potential that this generation desperately needs.
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Bob Titi, who will reframe the way you lead with questions you've never thought to ask.
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Bob Bodine, he will carry out the authentic man underneath the performance.
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Vince Miller, who will name the isolation and show you the way out.
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And Chris Widener, who will give you something that you can do today that begins to change everything.
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Finally, Jim Britt, who climbed out of a cotton field and into a life of impact.
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And I he will show you exactly how that shift happened.
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And me, little old me, bringing the message that started it all.
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The power of asking for help.
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One day, it's free.
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It's no cost to you to sign up for this event.
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All you need to do is click in the show notes.
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You can sign up right there, or you can go to my website, follow the summit links, and you can sign up and get this at no cost to you.
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And the way we've built this out, you can listen to each individual speaker at your leisure.
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Folks, these average about 23 minutes an interview, and they are packed full of wisdom.
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You don't want to miss this.
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In fact, not only do you not want to miss this, you want to forward it on to a buddy right now.
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And of course, for the men who come to the September 14th event when it's released, I don't want you to just walk away thinking, well, this is just one event.
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Now what do I do?
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Maybe you're thinking, I want full reconstruction, I want to be the best guy I can be.
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Well, the doors to the standard of a restored man will be open that same day.
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And for those that sign up, you will have the opportunity to be personally guided by me.
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And this course is built for the man who is ready to go all the way.
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Now I want to close today the way I closed the chapter in my cracking the rich code book with honesty.
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Here's what I know about the men listening to this right now.
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Some of you have been on this journey with me for weeks.
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You've heard the message on biblical masculinity and felt something stir inside you.
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You've sat with the fatherhood episodes and felt the weight of the gap between who you are and who your family needs you to be.
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You've listened to the loneliness episode and recognized yourself in it.
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You've heard the generational patterns episode and named maybe for the first time what you've been carrying and what you refuse to pass on.
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And something has been building in you.
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It's been churning in you a readiness, a hunger, a quiet conviction that this is the season.
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Not someday, not when things settle down because they never do, but now when something has to change.
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And that is not an accident, friend.
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That is the Spirit of God doing what he has always done with men who are honest enough to pay attention.
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So here's my ask not as a podcast host, but as a man who has been where you are and found his way through it.
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It's really that simple.
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Come to September 14th.
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Sign up for it now.
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Bring your whole self.
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Not the polished version, not the performing version, the real guy.
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Let eight men who have built something real speak directly into your life for that one day.
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And if that day does what I believe it will do, if something cracks open, if something shifts, if you walk away knowing you still need full reconstruction, take the next step.
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Get the standard, do the 12 weeks, let the nine marks become the code you live by.
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What if that code could change your life?
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Because the man your family is waiting for is not a different man.
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He is you, honest, surrendered, asking, and finally ready to be built.
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That man changes everything.
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So go out and register right now, American Family Renaissance.com forward slash summit.
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Get on the wait list, the standard of restored men, on my website.
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In fact, this will be an option to you when you get the summit.
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An incredible honor to be on this journey.
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And I hope you will join me on September 14th when we release the American Family Renaissance Power of Asking for Help Men's Summit.
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I want to see you on the other side of Reconstruction.
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God family country.
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Let's build this.
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If it told you a story you needed to hear, share it with a man today, like I talked about in the beginning.
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Just one, because that's how this mission grows.
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One man telling another man the truth.
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And go out and register for free at no cost to you for this summit.
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And declare today that you want more wisdom in your life.
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God bless you and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:34.559
Thank you for supporting True Man Life Coaching and the American Family Renaissance.
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It means a great deal to me, and there's nothing I'd like more than to have you show up and gain the wisdom that I think you're looking for.
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So join me at the American Family Renaissance Revival.
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Again, God bless you.
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Thank you for listening.
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And go out and make this your very, very best day ever.