What They Don’t Tell Fathers About Raising Sons: Green Beret Nick Freitas

Young men are going to revolt. You cannot tell men that every aspect of their masculinity is bad and toxic and evil and they're responsible for all the world's ills and expect to get away with that long term because they're the ones that fight the wars, police the streets, et cetera.

Today we have a treat. We're talking to Nick Freitas. Not your typical politician, by the way. He's a former Green Beret, he's a battle tested freedom fighter. He is a total badass.

They're either going to be the people that stand on the wall and guard against the barbarians, or they will be the barbarians.

What do you think influence young women have over young men?

When a man has a woman that he just desperately is in love with, oh, he'll move mountains. I think young men more than anything want not just something to fight for, they want someone to fight for.

You think dads should be dangerous?

Yes.

Tell me why.

Because they're worthless if they're not. A primary job of a man is to protect and to provide. I have yet to find a single woman that is genuinely attracted to a man that she doesn't feel safe around.

How do you think you raise a son today to be that? I guess I was watching one of your stories the other day and it was about fatherhood and one in particular I thought was funny was about, and I'm going to like mispronounce it, but the agoge with your son.

Yeah.

And the story about your wife.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we were watching Real Steel, you know, you know that movie, it's. No, so it's a movie with Hugh Jackman and Think Rocky, but with robots.

Copy.

Right. So, so anyways, we're, we're watching the show and these robots are fighting and it is, it's kind of this really inspirational Rocky style thing. And you know, Luke's watching, he's just kind of intent watching the screen. And I looked over at Tina, I got my two daughters there as well. And I asked her, I said, know what the agogi is? She goes, it's the agoge. I said, that's where the Spartans sent their children, starting age 7, to prepare them for the process of becoming a man within the, the Spartan City state. And then I said, watch this. And Luke was, Luke was about 6 or 7 at the time. And I said, hey buddy, come here. And we, we, you know, wrestled and stuff like that, but this time I wrestled just a, just a little bit harder. Right. So we got the hands up and just Enough to kind of, like, not enough to hurt him, but enough to jar him. And, and he just, like, something changed. And he just tackled me, and we're, like, wrestling, and Tina goes, what just happened to my little boy? And I said, oh, no, no. He's not yours anymore. He belongs to me now. And what a line, by the way.

That is such a good library. I would have been proud. I was like, that's a great.

Well. And we just went to his basic training graduation, so he's an infantry school now. And right after that, he goes to rasp, which is the Ranger Assessment Program. So. But I will say he's still. That boy still loves his mama like nobody's business. So.

Of course. But I think it's. That's beautiful. And I saw that about your son. Did you have allergies when it was happening, or did you keep a stoic face?

Yes. Some dumbass was cutting onions. I, I, I, I, I kept it. I kept it together, though. I was very proud of him, though. Yeah. Very proud of him. But. Yeah.

Would you go back into the military, like, if you could do it all over again?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting because I, I got out of such political frustration with the military and, and general frustration with respect to the way we conduct foreign policy. But, no, if I had to do it again, I would. And, And I had a lot of people. Let me turn this off. I had a lot of people kind of ask me about that. It was kind of this idea of, well, with everything going on. And I was like, okay, with everything going on, do you, do you want to be defended by the sort of people that would only join if the political conditions were correct, or do you want to be defended by people that love the country regardless? And not to mention that, but it's also this question of I don't get to tell him whether or not to do it. He's got to. He's got to think about this. He's got to pray about it. He's got to decide what he feels led to do, and then he's got to do it. And then, yeah, don't get me wrong, I was, I was, I was nervous. Of course, now he's. I don't know if you saw. But on Twitter, when I did this thing where I was proud dad moment, I was putting on his patch underneath that, Pete Hegseth said, hey, congratulations, Luke. Do us proud. And I was like, I just screwed you over with all of your drill sergeants for the rest of.

Oh, no. Yeah. I feel like only Somebody who's in the military knows exactly what you mean by that. Like, oh, you're Nick's son, huh? Oh, yeah.

That'll be fun.

You know, I'm curious because you talk a lot about masculinity and young men today and what's happening in the world around us, and yet you've raised a young man that seems to be really on the path of being strong and resilient in the things we think of as traditional masculinity. How do you think you raise a son today to be that? What did you do?

I don't. I don't. Not to be flippant, I don't think it's all that difficult as long as you just ignore everything modern culture is telling you with respect to masculinity and boys. I think a lot of it is somewhat inherent. Those masculine traits are there for a reason. I think God put them there for a reason. It's like anything else, whether you're talking masculine traits or feminine traits, there's a positive manifestation, there's a negative manifestation. So, yeah, if you use your tendency towards strength, aggression and competition to hurt other people to get what you want, you're an ass clown. Right? Like, but who's going to stop you? Well, you're going to be stopped by probably a different man that also has that, you know, inclination towards strength, power, aggression, competition, but is actually applied toward a noble purpose. And I think young men more than anything want a noble purpose. And they want not just something to fight for, they want someone to fight for. I've said this before when I was talking to a group of predominantly young women, I said, look, it is not your job to make a man a good man, but you will be shocked at how much influence you have. Have over that process. So, yeah.

What do you think influence young women have over young men and turning them into strong men?

Oh, I die for my wife, but more than that, I'll live for. Right? Like, that's the. That's another thing, too. We, we very quickly moved to the, oh, I die for something, because it's a representative of the ultimate sacrifice, right? Like love. Have, you know, no greater than this than you give your life for a friend. But the fact that, I mean, my wife wants me, I want to be a better man. I want to live up to the image that my wife has for me. And so I, I think speaking, you know, again, not speaking for all of masculinity, but I've just noticed that when a man has a woman that he just desperately is in love with. Oh, he'll move mountains, right? He'll absolutely move mountains. And so I. I do think they play just an incredible role. And I mean, the. The flippant kind of joke is that men civilize the wild and women civilize men, but there's something to that.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I think with my husband, for instance, it's the same. I mean, he's a total animal, super aggressive and all over the place, but, you know, the most loyal, hardworking person I know. And I do think, you know, there's no stronger foundation than having an incredible partnership. I'm always kind of in awe, actually, of people who do it by themselves. I cannot imagine, actually.

I don't get it. I don't get it. And one. And I understand that some people are just incredibly driven and focused, but I. I was speaking to a group of students a while back, and I talk a lot about freedom and liberty, especially from the political side, but I actually told me. So I think I need to apologize that I've. I've placed so much emphasis on freedom, not because it's not a worthy goal, but because ultimately it's the freedom to do what. And what you're going to find is that most of the things in your life that give you purpose and meaning don't give you more freedom, they give you more responsibilities. You know, being married does not make you freer. It does make you better, especially if you have a good marriage and a relationship. Having kids definitely does not make you freer. Like, quite the opposite. I assure you, nothing, Nothing gives you less freedom with respect to your time and money than having children and yet hold your child. And, And I mean, you. You want to trade it for a heartbeat. And so, yeah, I think that that meaning and purpose that we get through that relationship, not just in trying to attain a goal, but trying to build something with another person is incredible.

Yeah. Not easy, but worth it. Oh, yeah, A thousand percent. You know, it's interesting because we're going to jump all around, but I was thinking about you in particular. You know, you were a Green Beret. You won elected office in a difficult to win election. You've held that for many years, you know, millions of followers online. To start sor, sort of more broadly, how did you train yourself to become the type of human that accomplishes the things that they want to?

That's interesting. You know, one of the things I told my son before he went off to basic training, and especially because of the field he wants to go in with Ranger regiment, where now you get into, like, high attrition rates and whatnot. What I told him is the vast majority of people, I saw failure throughout the military, and you could argue throughout business or whatever, they beat themselves far before anybody else did. I mean, it really was a mindset, and that's almost become cliche, but I can't emphasize it enough. I've watched people that were smarter than me, stronger than me in. In many respects more capable than me fail because something got to them. It was either a desire for comfort or safety or security or whatnot. But they went into a training environment or they went into some sort of competitive environment. The idea of, I'll do it up to this point versus I'm not going home without it. And that's a far different. That's a far different mindset because I think in one set you are looking for a reason to quit or you're looking for a price where it's too high and you don't do it anymore. And on the other, it's more of one of the goal has to be achieved. So how do we adapt to changing circumstances in order to achieve it? My wife and I were very adamant about that when we got, you know, married. It was this idea that it's the whole, you know, Cortez burned the ships. And that's not to say there aren't situations where you adapt means, okay, this was not a good idea, do something else. Right. That's not the same as quitting. But yeah, I think. I think a big part of it is just saying that when you're going to do something, it's not just about attaining it for its own sake. It's about if you are doing something for which you have given your word or for which other people are dependent upon you to achieve, you need to look at that very differently. I think it's interesting. And this doesn't just apply to men, but when I speak about it in terms of young men, somebody asked me, like, what does it mean to be a man? And I said, well, when somebody says man up, be a man, your mindset automatically goes to overcome difficulties, problems, pain and danger in order to accomplish your mission and uphold your word. That's what it is. So, okay, that's the mindset that you need to have is when I am obligated to something not just by, you know, desire or not just by, you know, profit, even though I think profit's a fine thing, but when there's also a component of honor there, well, then you have to live up to that.

The Burlington Coat event is back. Buy a coat now through November 29th and get $5 off your merchandise purchase of 25 or more from December 6th through December 24th. Plus, Burlington is donating 50,000 new coats to help those in need nationwide. Through our partnership with Delivering Good, we've been keeping you warm for over 50 years. We'll see you at our coat event, Burlington Deals, brands.

Wow.

Visit burlington.com coats for details. Yeah, yeah. We have a dear friend, Kevin, who is on one of the teams, one of the tough teams, and his younger brother went in as well, and he called Kevin to ask for advice, like, what should I do to get in? And Kevin, who is a man of few words in general. Brilliant. Brilliant, actually, like kind of a philosopher warrior. But he just responded, just don't quit, and then hung up. And I remember the time being like, yeah. I was like, Kevin, that's like, isn't there more advice? Chris was like, one, no, you know, let us handle the advice here. And two, no, that is kind of it. It's not a. Here's a 42 step program in order to ensure you're properly trained to not quit buds. It's just don't quit. Yeah, but, but how do you, in life, how do you train for that? How do you. It seems like so many people these days, you don't keep your word to yourself, which I think is your most important word. And you quit all the time, actually on everything that you want. Like, how does one become a person who says, I don't quit?

I think part of it is you. You practice doing hard things. You practice doing good things that are difficult that you wouldn't otherwise want to do, and then you insist on doing them. And once you, and once you build a habit of doing it, I think it becomes easier. And there's, there's studies out now that demonstrate that this impacts parts of your brain that will, you know, essentially grow and develop and become. Develop more resilience in you in order to overcome difficult things once you do it. But I also think it has something to do with. There has to be some motivating factor beyond yourself. You know, again, I'm for, for me, on some level, that's like, that's the faith component, right? It's the idea that there is objective, there is objective truth, and there is objective right and wrong, and I have an obligation to live up to the good, to the right. And then when you look at the people around you, whether it be your spouse or whether it be your kids or Whether it be other people that depend on you, that becomes kind of that physical, manifest manifestation of that esoteric principle. And I think when you combine those two things and you get used to actually accomplishing those things, you develop habits and you develop reputation, and you have a natural inclination to want to defend those things, and you also see the positive benefits as a result. But the. The reason why I say there has to be something beyond just whatever your objective is or your material gain or whatever else is because at some point you're going to be asked to do something that is not going to benefit you materially. In fact, it could cost you quite a. But it is the right thing to do. And in that moment when you've developed a reputation and you've developed the ability to continue to do that regardless, that's where I think it really takes hold. And it becomes such a core part of your identity that to do the opposite is unthinkable.

I love that we have a created contrarian thinking it's like 13 things that we live by. 13. Because we think if you keep working, it turns out you get a little luckier.

Yeah. Yeah.

So go figure. Number. Yeah. And. And one of them is, you know, do the right thing even. And maybe especially when it hurts.

Yeah.

And I do. Is something beautiful about. I think at this point, my husband and I try to have friendships that are few but deep and the ones that we have. One of the core, you know, components of a friend that I know that I want to travel through time with is have you ever stood up in a way that I can see somewhere, whether that's publicly or otherwise, and done something that was against your own self interest but seemed like the right thing to do? And if somebody has not ever done that that I can see, that is an indicator to me that we might not get along.

Absolutely, you know. Absolutely.

Yeah. And I think, you know, you've done that multiple times, obviously, going into political office and now you talk about things online. You're always. You got a lot of people who love you online and a lot of people who do want to give you some feedback. They got some. They got some points that they'd like to get.

An interesting comment section.

Yeah, I know. I always tell people, if you ever feel bad, just go to my comments section. It's real fun in there. But I. I think, you know, one of the. The things that I found most interesting about you as I went down the rabbit hole is this focus on faith and family that you have. And it's not just for young Men. Although you talk about masculinity a lot. You were a girl dad before you were a boy dad.

Oh, yeah.

You know, multiple times over. And so for all of, like, the young women listening out there who either have a husband and want that husband to be an incredible girl dad or want, you know, a dad that was incredible themselves, what advice do you give to men raising daughters?

O gosh, we, we did a whole series on this on, on just that topic. Men. Men raising daughters. Some of it was on our YouTube channel, some of it was at an event I was just speaking at. So I, I usually started off with this funny story where I had a little girl. And, you know, I remember there was two people that I, I asked for advice, right? The first one was my wife because I figured, hey, you know, you're, you're a woman, you probably have some advice on what you like, you know, you would want dad to do. The second one was the, the biggest man whore I served with in the military. And this dude, good operator. Good operator, right. But this guy, I mean, I don't, I remember just walking home like, okay, I don't know what you say, but one day my daughter may find herself in this situation, and I want her to be able to identify you. So how do I ensure that whatever it is you do or say that apparently works so well doesn't work on her? And it's like.

Did he laugh?

Oh, yeah. No, he didn't. He didn't. He was actually, he was kind of, again, another one of those kind of like, laconic guys. Not, not necessarily, not about, not a bunch of bravado. Not. He went for more. The mysterious, you know, thing and, you know, kind of the cigarette just like, tell your daughter you love her because if you don't, somebody someday, somebody who doesn't will, and they'll believe them. And like, a part of you wants to be like, dude, I just want to beat the piss out of you right now. But I asked and he gave a damn good answer.

He was honest.

And yeah, he was. And, and, and look it, I, I, I have no doubt that if we went back, we would find at some point where he was young, naive, and in love and got his heart broken. And now everyone's gonn. Not that that excuses anything. I'm just saying that we generally find reasons why people, you know, turn out the way they do. But so I used to always tell people, tell your daughter you love her. And I tell this to men specifically. I said, guys, we have this problem. I said, we always get Frustrated with our wives, right? Because why won't they just tell us what they want? We want to do it, just tell us what we want. Like I know you think we should know, but we don't. And then you don't tell your daughter you love her because, well, you go to work, you provide a house, you're working 60 hours a week for her. Doesn't she understand that's love? Maybe, maybe not. Dude, how about you just tell her, tell your daughter you love her. Obviously you've got to do the things that actually demonstrate that that love is genuine. But you need to verbalize it with your daughter. You need, you need to be able to spend that time, you need to be able to do goofy things with your little girl when she's 2 and 3. You need to be wearing the stupid little feather bow on tiara and drinking whatever the hell that was. It wasn't t right but she thinks it is right and you need to be spending that time and some guys will be like, do they really remember? You know, does, does your 17 year old daughter really remember what you did at 3? I said your 5 year old daughter remembers what you did at 3. Your 7 year old daughter remembers what you did At 5. Your 10 year old daughter remembers what you did @ 7. By the time you get to 17, you have established such a pattern of love and commitment to her that of course she's going to want to talk to dad about things, of course she's going to want to ask dad about things and of course she's not going to want to do things or find herself in situations that could be harmful for her and that would hurt you. I said so tell your daughter you love her and demonstrate that you love her. The second thing is you have to be able to tell your daughter the truth. Like you have to be a source of wisdom and truth for your daughter because there's going to be this inclination among friend groups and everything else to like prop up and do you need to be the person to where when she comes to you with a problem, even when, and it starts when they're little and she's trying to figure something out, she wants to talk with you about it. Listen, don't immediately try to solve anything, listen to the problem because she's giving you insight into the way that she sees the world and when you establish that pattern of being willing to listen, she's going to ask you to help figure it out. I said again, this is another issue we oftentimes get into with our wives, right where they're like, for the love of God, honey, can you please get to the point? Right? And it's like, well, sometimes the point is just going through that process of understanding the circumstances, what's going on. The way she sees it, it's like, again, God has designed her to look at all of these different emotional cues that are going on within an environment that is an incredible asset while we're sitting here going, I just want the facts, the emotional components that are impacting these decisions are part of the facts. And so listen to them go on that journey with them as they explain everything that was going on and what they witnessed and what they saw and what they observed. Ask them questions about it. Why did you ask that? Or, why did that happen? Or what do you think about that? But at the end, when they're asking an honest question, you have to be able to want to tell them the truth. And sometimes that's dad's job, right? Is we give hard truths. But if you give it, if you give the hard truth in love, and they're convinced that it's always for their benefit, they're far more likely to be able to accept the truth. And so then the third thing is, is that you got to be willing to hear the truth from them. And so there's gonna be times where they catch you, you did something wrong, you screwed up, you taught them a standard, and you fell short of it. Now when they bring that up, now, they should do so respectfully because there is a respect that is. That should be, you know, owed to a mother and a father. But if they do it respectfully and your attitude is, I'm in charge here, or, what do you know about raising kids? Or what do you know about the circumstances, you're just kidding. Whatever. If they're right and you're wrong, and you don't take that opportunity to look at them dead in the eye and be like, you're right, I apologize, and I want to thank you for having the courage to come and talk to me about it, in part because I see so many parents will say, you know, my kids went off to college, or my kids went off here. They went down, and we didn't raise them that way. And then you start to ask about, okay, how did you raise your kids? And what you realize is you didn't teach your kids values. You taught your kids an authority structure. And the authority structure was, you're in charge, and what you says, go, and what you say, go, you know what? Maybe that's fine as long as you're in charge because you love them. What happens when it's the college professor? What happens when it's the bad boss? What happens when it's the politician or whatever else it is when all of a sudden they're the authority figure, not you anymore? So you got to be able to tell them the truth, and they've got to be able to tell you the truth and know that you're a safe place to come to tell them the truth. I said, and what I found. I'm not saying any of this is a silver bullet. Right. But what I found is that when you build trust with your kids younger, because. So I think so many dads especially think, well, once they get to a certain age, then I step in and I do more. Nope, Starts immediately. It starts holding them as they're a baby. When you build that connection over time, that connection doesn't go away. The last thing I'll kind of say on that be, I think there's a lot of parents that think, how do they compete with culture or friends or Hollywood or the Internet? And I think there's this growing tendency to say, well, I hand my kids over to the experts for their education. You are the primary educator in your child's life. That's not to say that you can't outsource certain topics or subject matter to other people, but if you're just handing your kids over to the Internet, that's what you're doing. You're not giving them access to the Internet. You're giving the world access to them through the Internet. And they're not. They are not capable of understanding certain concepts or being exposed to certain ideas at these tender young ages where they have not developed the mental or intellectual capacity to be able to deal with it. And so you need to protect your kids from that environment and train them up in a way to where they're prepared for it when they see it. And so if. If you can foster all of that, the one thing I will tell people is, you'll be shocked at how easy the teenagers are. Like, people, oh, my gosh, teenage years. I'm like, my teenage years with my daughter were easy. Absolutely easy. I keep saying, and then one more thing. And then I always. But the big thing, the big thing for dads, too, is relationships, because that's the thing. Dad's. Again, what was the first question I asked about? How do I. How do I prevent my daughter from falling for a guy like you? I'll never forget the first time we homeschooled our kids but there was one year we put them in a public school, and we took them out immediately after. But it was fifth grade. My oldest daughters were walking down the dirt road. She just got off the bus, and I can hear her talking to Tina, my wife going. And Tina said, you need to tell Daddy. Go tell Daddy. I don't want to tell Daddy. When I can hear this, I'm like, what do you not want to tell Daddy? She goes, well, a boy at school likes me. I said, okay, you know, do you like this boy? And she starts to blush a little bit. I said. I said, sweetheart, it's okay that you like the boy, right? Like, what did you tell him? She goes, well, I'm not allowed to date. We actually had really strict rules around dating.

Yeah.

Ones that nowadays everybody would consider, like, horribly draconian. And I said, what did you tell him? She goes, well, I'm not allowed to date. And. Because that's not what we should be focusing on right now. We should be focusing. I said, okay, that's good. What did he say? He said, he'll wait. And in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, all right. You're either a really nice kid or you're a little punk, right? And I said, well, sweetheart, let me tell you something. He sounds like a nice boy. And the fact that he likes you tells me a ton about him. Because who wouldn't love you, sweetheart? You're pretty, you're intelligent. Like, you're a good person. Like, what boy wouldn't like you or be attracted to you? Like, that's obvious. I said, do you know why we tell you you should not date until you're actually ready to consider marriage? And she goes, well, yeah, it's the right thing to do. And when I said, it's more than that, sweetheart. I don't want anyone playing with your heart, and I don't want you playing with anybody else's heart. I want you to respect your body. I want other people to respect your body, and I want you to respect the body of other people. I said, because one day, I want you to have what your mother and I have. One day, I want you to have that relationship that is just so strong. You are going to be so insanely in love that you were just. You're not going to think it was possible. You're not going to think it was possible. I said, and in that day where you meet that man that God has for you, that you're going to build a relationship with, I promise you I'll say yes. I promise You, I'll say yes to that guy when he's worthy of you, I said. But in the meantime, I want you to be thinking about that. I don't want you to be thinking about this as some sort of frivolous thing that you engage in for fun. I want you to think about what you really could have. And that was enough for both my girls. And I never had pushback on any of it. And I, And I think that's one of the big problems that a lot of men have, a lot of dads have, is they, they really lean into this idea of, you know, I'll kill anybody that touches my daughter. Which, by the way, not a bad instinct. I always tell dads, your. Your daughter might not. Might not want you to beat up her boyfriend, but she wants to know you could.

Yeah.

And she wants to know you would. Right. She wants, she wants that security from dad. Yeah, but there, there is something. I mean, you, you know this better than anyone, especially from the business world. Delayed gratification. If, if you can, if you can look at that thing that you actually want, and when it comes to marriage that is so incredibly important, and if you can prioritize making that what it's supposed to be and then doing the proper things, I think it, it keeps kids focused on what they could have as opposed to all the frivolous stuff that they see going on.

It's beautiful. You also explained the why to your daughters, which I think is so important, and not just giving them that authority. No, you can't, because I said so. Not very useful, but instead going a step deeper and saying, here's this. Why does that resonate with you? Do you understand?

Yeah.

I mean, even at our company, it's always, well, you can tell somebody that that's informing. You can then have somebody make sure they actually understand. So that's. Hey, do you, do you understand what I said? Not I just told you, but do you understand? And then finally it's agreement. No, I actually, I agree we're on the same page and maybe even one step further in, I don't know what that would be in life, but incentive alignment. So are you also selfishly incentive aligned to do the thing that now you understand, agree with, and are informed about? And if you can hit all four of those levels, then you have people who just continue to work on the path.

Oh, totally agree.

By the way, if you're building a business right now and you're stuck or you want to break out to the next level, maybe you're not where you want to be today. Believe me, I've been there many, many times. I want you to know I got you. We help you help thousands of business owners a year figure out how to scale to the next level. One of my favorite mentors said, every level you have, there's just a higher level and a higher devil. And so if you've been in business for a while and you're doing six, seven, or eight figures, there's probably one thing standing in the way of your next level. That's why we host Growth and Scale workshops four times a year throughout the year in Austin, in Miami, in San Diego. And you may be a fit to come to one of them. If it sounds interesting to you to get help on how to scale your business to the next level, you can reach out to my team at the link in the show notes. We believe in you builders, but we also believe that it's a lonely road and you can't do it by yourself.

You said something else too, once where you said that it was about. It was about arguing with your spouse. And you said something, it was like, oh, absolutely spot on. It was this idea that it's not about winning arguments with your spouse. It's about both of you winning or. Because if your wife loses or your husband loses in the argument, you both lose, lose, the marriage loses.

It's very true. And I. I don't profess to have a perfect marriage or have. Never argue. No. And so I'm always, you know, it's the same as you, I'm sure. I'm always really careful about saying, like, this is what I got figured out right now. Let's check back.

Yeah.

You know, in 80 years, let's see, like, how we're doing. And like, was this the right thing? But all the things resonate a lot with me from you and your daughter, because my father and I are very, very close. He's here in town right now, in fact, and he works with me in my business, and he's one of my closest confidants. And, you know, I'm now 38. And so he did all the things that you mentioned. And, you know, in some ways, I think even him and I are closer than him and my brother. We're just a lot alike.

Yeah.

And, you know, when I was younger, I think a lot of people would say, oh, you know, men would say, I can't wait to have a boy. I want to have a boy. I want to have a boy. Which I totally get. There is some sort of primal, you know, Handing down the torch, the name, et cetera. But also there's something really incredible about father daughter relationships.

Oh, it, you know, there, there's, there's a reason why they say something about that, that mother, son relationship and that father daughter relationship, because there is, there's something special. I, again, another thing I tell guys, especially tough guys, right? You think you're a tough guy, then you, then you have a daughter and you find out what a SAP you are.

Yeah, exactly.

Like all of a sudden you're the one like, you know, little piggy tails and like, you know, it's. Because there is, there's something about that, there's something unique about that relationship that brings out the tenderness in a man. And. Oh, yeah, it's, it's incredible with both, with both my daughters. It's funny, my oldest daughter's married now, my youngest daughter is graduating high school. And yeah, there's, it's sitting down and just having those discussions about their day and what they're thinking and why and going through the problem solving component. And it is, it is amazing when you can embrace the idea that men and women have different strengths. That's, that's not to say that they can't have similar strengths or, or thrive in a variety of fields, but it's amazing how complimentary the attributes are. And I feel like there's just been this competitive focus between men and women. It's like, that's not what it's supposed to be. It is so complimentary. And once you just embrace it for what is like my wife, I learned, I learned the hard way when my wife says something's off, something is off. And I can remember early on in my marriage going, well, why do you say that? Why do you think that? Explain it to me, babe. I just don't know. I haven't. And again, I wasn't taking the time to let her actually talk through what it was that she was observing and picking up on that I wasn't picking up on. And I, I have since learned that just because she might not be able to articulate what's wrong in that situation yet, there's something wrong. Like, I have learned to trust my wife's discernment, again, the hard way, by not doing it because she couldn't present, you know, a robust and comprehensive enough argument only to find out a week later, six months later, a year later, oh, holy crap, she was right. There was something wrong. There was something off there.

And you guys were high school sweethearts, right? Married for 26 years.

26 years.

Yeah. That's wild.

19 and 20 when we got married.

You have some comments about dads in general, and I think I saw some where you said you think dads should be dangerous.

Yes.

Tell me why.

Because they're worthless if they're not. I'll elaborate. A primary job of a man, one of the primary jobs of men is to protect and to provide. I have yet to find a single woman that is attracted, genuinely attracted to a man that she doesn't feel safe around. In fact, she's more likely to be attracted to a guy that she doesn't feel safe around, but she knows can, like, actually handle themselves in a physical altercation than she is a super nice guy. That's absolutely weak. And I think that should just tell us something about psychology, and I think it should just tell us something about the created order. But a simpler way to put it is if your family was in danger and you had to call another man to get him out of it, how would you feel about yourself? Right. How do you think your wife or kids would ultimately see you? I don't want to be seen as a nice guy. Right. Nice guys finish last. You know why? Because they should. Right. Nothing. As I look at the mentors in my loan, my life, whether it's Christ or, you know, other heroes or role models I've had, none of them are people I would describe as nice guys. Compassionate? Yes. Empathetic? Absolutely. Generous. Yes. But also capable of intense and focused violence when necessary. And so you absolutely have to be dangerous. Never toward your family, but on behalf of them.

Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. I mean, I. When I was. We were talking about Tim Kennedy.

Yeah.

Down below. But Tim's become a dear friend, and. And I think I loved his line about, you know, I cannot tell you the amount of violence a man has to go through in order to be this kind. This soft.

Yeah.

You know, and so I think. Yeah. I mean, I certainly find it with my husband, too. There's nothing better than I remember, you know. You know how people talk on the Internet. You have trolls sometimes, Right? So I have trolls sometimes on the Internet. I've never actually met one in real life. Everybody's nice. Everybody. I always have a good time. You probably have some different experiences in politics.

Politics a little bit different.

Yeah. But I, like, everybody has always been great. I mean, incredible builders. It's so cool when I meet members of our community, but. But there was one guy on the Internet that was just not very nice. And what's wild is Chris met him he's gonna kill me for telling this story. But he met him at an event.

Oh, really?

And the guy didn't recognize. And it was kind of a well knownish guy. Chris wouldn't do this to somebody random.

Yeah.

It was kind of like, like this guy, you know, purports himself as somebody.

And should have known better.

Should have known better. And he came up to Chris mistake number one and was like, I know you from somewhere, man. Like, how do I know you? And Chris was like, dear baby Jesus, what do I do in this moment? Please let me choose the path of life. And didn't do anything crazy. Which I really, younger Chris might not have done that, but you know, kind of pulled him in closely and said like, you know, I'm Cody Sanchez's husband. And then did a. You would know this because you're a fighter. Whatever. You can. Like a wrist lock.

Yeah.

Which doesn't look like much. Right. But can be cripplingly painful, from what I understand. So the guy squeals apparently and falls down to the ground.

Yeah. And.

And then he's at our friend's event and, and so Chris calls me. The guy sort of runs off afterwards and, and goes to our friend who's hosting the event is like this guy, you know, and they look over at Chris and like, oh, him. They're like, well, what did you do? Because he would not do that unless there was some, some reason. And Chris called me afterwards and he's like, you're either gonna be really mad at me or maybe not mad at me and tells me the story. And I kind of chuckled, but there was a. I wasn't sure how I would respond, you know, because I don't want somebody brawling or being triggering and, and doing inappropriate things. But you're right. In that moment, I was like, that's my man.

It was controlled violence.

Yeah. I would do just about anything in the world for him. Because how few people would actually, when it comes to it, to stand up and be like, unacceptable behavior.

Yeah.

Not allowed.

Yeah. I, I, and I have to tell you the best. One of the most incredible compliments my wife ever gave me is like one minute, it was just out of nowhere too. She just stopped me and she goes, you need to know that, like, you make me feel safe.

Oh.

I was like, well, I can go on that compliment for a year. Right? Like that. That's all it takes. Right. But yeah, with. Tim says with this idea of. It's another thing when young men ask me like, you know, how should I Be trying. I said, have you ever been hit in the face? I've been punched in the face. No. Like, probably should be at some point. Right. I'm not saying you got to be, you know, a UFC champion like Tim Kennedy, but you need to learn how to fight, and you need to go through what it looks like to. To really come up against that concept of fight or flight and to choose fight.

Yeah.

And when you can do it and when you come be more competent at it. It. You are far more likely to utilize it in a way that is both effective and measured. And that's a perfect example of what, you know, your husband did. It was. It was measured violence in a moment that didn't cause any sort of permanent damage or whatnot, but let somebody know. And quite frankly, we have too little of that in society right now. That's why you have so many trolls, is because they believe they can operate in this world where they can say whatever they want and get away with it without any sort of physical consequence. And I think for most of human history, and to some degree still today, every man understands that violence is always an option. When we. When we. There's. There's a reason why there's a certain level of. Of politeness that even though it doesn't look like that sometimes, because physical violence is. Is always an. Isn't always an option between men and, you know, get. You better be capable of it. So.

Yeah. And especially, I mean, you see this because you travel all around. Obviously, you're in politics in the legislature now. You've chosen to serve in a different way. You've been doing that for some time. And I imagine often when you're at these university campuses or when you're going to, you know, parts of your district, you encounter people that vehemently disagree with you one way or the other. So I guess I'd be curious. What do you do in situations? What do you see? What do you see out there right now when you're talking to people in your district or you're talking to people about politics?

I have a pretty, like, I have. I have a good district. I have a pretty, like, you know, it's rural Virginia. Right. And so I don't run into too many situations where people come up and are, like, overly, like, verbally abusive. They may be a little bit confrontational. The closest it ever got in my district and. And like little Culpepper was during the BLM riots and there. There. But you know what's interesting is, have any riots in our town and Part of the reason why you didn't have any riots in our town is because we had marches, we. We had organizations and demonstrations like, yeah, that's fine, you know. You sure? But part of the reason why you didn't see, like, cities burning or, or things getting graffiti or bricks going through windows is you wouldn't have had to worry about the cops showing up.

Right.

Our community would have showed up. Because you're not doing, you're not doing that to my neighbor, you're not doing that to my. Protest all you want. The moment you get violent, violence is going to be met with violence. And, and again, that's a necessary component within society because of the barbarians. And I'm not saying, just saying that everyone that engaged in a BLM march was a barbarian. But if you're a rioter, if you're someone that believes in destroying things, yeah, the barbarians are kept in check by the good people that are willing to use physical violence in order to maintain order. I've had, I've had instances where people got a little bit hostile on the question, but here's the other thing I'll say is I've never been in a situation where you've had the paid protesters come in because that's what a lot of this is. It's nowhere near as organic as it's made out to be. When you see people, like, standing up and shouting and screaming and whatnot, that's usually a very organized effort. Typically what happens is, when I showed up to my last town hall, when the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season, and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst. Probably 45, maybe 50% of the audience were people that showed up to, like, you know, protest me. But the ones that were really, really, like, loud and kind of obnoxious, they were all outside. The people that actually came in and sat down that wanted to ask me questions, some of them just wanted to hear from their delegate, others wanted to try to catch me. There was one guy that started yelling at me from the audience and I stopped answering a question. I looked at him and I said, no, keep it up. I want my family to say, I want my kids to see exactly what that looks like. Like, he shut up, like, right away. So part of it was just about understanding what are they after right now. And what are the various, you know, intellectual, verbal or debate tactics that you can use to try to engage in a civil discussion? And if they don't, you can address it other ways. But one of the things that I've had times where I've had people that were very upset, and it's like, you're a politician. You work for me. And I'll stop and be like, let me just explain something. I don't know who taught you that you can talk to me that way simply because I represent you, but it isn't true. So if you want to yell and scream, that's fine, but don't expect me to sit here and be like, oh, sir, you know, I understand your concern. No, you're an ass. Because that's not how people talk to each other.

Yeah.

So I'm a man. You're a man.

Right.

You want to talk to me like a man, Then do that and understand that I'm not going to sit here and believe in some sort of sacred thing where you get to scream at me because I happen to be a representative of. And I've noticed that a lot of times. There was one time in particular online where I had a pretty bad troll who called me like a coward over a vote. That is a word you do not call another man unless you're willing to fight about it. And so he calls me, you know, calls me a coward. And it was funny. It wasn't even for a vote I took. And I said, you seem to be incredibly courageous online. I look forward to meeting you in purpose or in person to see if you were as equally brave in person. Person. And my wife looks at me, she goes, did you just threaten a constituent online? I said, no. No, I did not. I just said I would be eager to see if he was equally courageous in person. And the whole tone kind of immediately went down. So, yeah, that's been my experience.

I mean, I do think, though, you're right. There's something about, you know, it's almost like anything in life. You know, I have a friend, Alex Hormozi, who has a quote that's basically like, you know, you. There's no such thing as. What is that called? Where you. Imposter syndrome. There's no such thing as imposter syndrome. It's really just if you have the reps, you don't get worried about doing the thing. And so I'm not sure I always agree with that. I also think it's different for men and women. But the part that I think is Interesting is when you have all the reps, the thing that you propose to have the reps at, you're not so scared to have the confrontation.

Yeah.

And so some of the part about being a strong man or I think a competent human is like, if somebody comes at me and says. Or somebody comes at you and says, hey, you haven't really done this thing in business. You're not competent. If you've actually done the thing, you're quite competent. It's very hard to rattle you. You can say, I would love anytime you would like to discuss in depth or compare balance sheets, I'm happy to. Right. And so I think that's a beautiful thing for young men. It's like, you don't actually have to be. Be big and strong and violent. You just have to take reps. Yeah. You know, and it's the same thing in business.

I think my favorite. I'm gonna say I. I kind of disagree with Alex and the idea that there's no such thing as imposter syndrome, because I. I know one in. I think this is really common among combat vets. I think it's really common among military personnel. Like you asked me earlier, like, do you ever miss it? And it's like, yeah, I do. I mean, here it is. I've been out since 2009.

And.

And theoretically, if you looked at my. My resume on that, it's like, well, okay, what do you got to be? What do you have to doubt yourself on within those credentials? Right. Green Beret, Ranger, like, combat. Well, because somebody else did something more or somebody else did something more dangerous or. Or whatnot. And it's. It's like, well, did I really. Did I really prove myself? Did I really? So that. That's a constant. That's a constant nagging feeling in the back of your mind, did I really prove myself? I. I would say the other thing, too, is I. I got to a Point, late 30s, early 40s. And I remember someone saying, oh, well, Nick, you know, you were a Green Beret. I wouldn't mess with you. And I was thinking, when was the last time I went to the gym? When was the last time I actually grappled? When was the last time I actually, like, shot? And I started thinking about this. It's like, you know, it's been a while. Do I have capabilities or do I have stories? And I. I realized. And then I'm like, no, I got some good stories. I got some good stories. But if I am living off the reputation of those stories, well, then I'm not that man anymore. And I still want to be that man. And so that is a. That is a quest of constant improvement. And. But Alex Hormozi had a quote that I really loved where he. Where he said he had all these young influencers that were asking him about how to be successful. And he goes, he goes, go out and do something and then talk about what you did. Don't preach to people about what they should do. Hey, I went out and I did this, and this is what I learned from it. And I was like, gosh, I love that. I love that statement.

It's so true. Yeah. A lot of young people today want to be content creators online. And I think be careful what you wish for, because it does feel like hooked into the matrix. I'm sure you feel the same thing. You know, there will be a point for sure where I'm very willing to share all the things and be online as much as I am now, because I think this is one of my areas of purpose.

Yeah.

I think that if I was younger and people had told me how to make money and what was possible and actually talked about the thing that we're not allowed to talk about, politics, religion, you know, money, faith, like, then we might actually progress things further. So even after I've made a lot of money, I want to continue to talk about it, because we shouldn't stop top. But it's not so fun just talking on the Internet all the time. Like, you can become a egotistical narcissist. And simultaneously, for those young people, my thought is the same thing, which is go live an incredible life.

Yeah.

Go do something adventurous. Go take huge risks, and that will lead to content. So good. You will never have to sit in a room and come up with ideas.

Yeah. Well, and, and, and from. With what you do, like, you. You are constantly engaged in the thing that you're talking about. It's. It's talking about the thing is not the primary thing that you do. Even though I think it's one. I think it's an incredibly valuable thing that you do because, you know, I, again, I was raised by a nurse and a cop, and then I went into the military. None of those are entrepreneurial. And look, I think we elevate them within our society in a way that's good, sometimes excessive. But for some reason, at the same time, we have denigrated entrepreneurialism. We've dem. We've demographed. I mean, Calvin Coolidge said, the business of America is business. And like, I find your journey and how you actually got into finance and entrepreneurialism and everything else. Fascinating, because it wasn't triggered by this, this natural inclination early on to just want to make a lot of money. I mean, it was, it was like doing research on journalism and human trafficking. And I've always had this, like, immense respect for entrepreneurs because for me it was always. That was terrifying. Jumping out of planes, like kicking indoors, flashbang in rooms. That was exciting. Possibly like risking your entire financial security in order to, to build something with no guaranteed paycheck, with no get. That was terrifying to me. And, and because it terrified me, it pissed me off. Right. And, and so I wanted to learn more. And that's, that's what, like, I love watching your channel because I feel like, okay, I understand what she's explaining and why. And it's the unapologetic, no, this is a good thing. This is how you actually the, the exchanging of goods and services that people can voluntarily choose to do business with you or not, but only choose to do business with you if it's mutually beneficial. Like, this is nothing. I hate this phrase, you know, I want to, I want, you know, businesses need to give back. The hell does that mean? Like, so, so let me get this straight. Somebody, you know, did work, built up capital or built up something and then decided to take this enormous risk in order to provide other people with goods and services to mutual benefit, which inevitably creates massive amounts of opportunities and raises the quality of life. Life. But that's. The person needs to give back. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great when a business chooses to invest in those various things or chooses to engage in philanthropy. But I hate this inclination that if you run a successful business, you owe people something. No, you're, you are providing something that people have voted on with their dollar as being good. And, and it's that, that's one of the things that. But I'm starting to watch this now because as, as happy as I am with a lot of the things my wife and I did with respect to agent or educating our kids on values and critical thinking and work ethic, neither one of us were entrepreneurs. And so now I'm going through this process of, okay, this wasn't something I was able to give my kids the degree that I wanted. I remember my youngest daughter was very, was much, was very entrepreneurial. Like, she was the one that was making jewelry and doing other things and wanted a little cash register. She could do it and like, encourage that with our homeschool curriculum, but we couldn't impart wisdom from experience, so we had to gain it in other ways. But now I'm looking at it, it's like, no, I need to. I really need to lean into this because it is something that I want to be able to provide opportunities for my kids, but also education for my grandchildren because it's a wonderful thing. And I'm, quite frankly, I'm pissed that it's been denigrated by our society.

I totally agree. Well, and also, you know, I remember when my husband got out of the military. You know, the military, as far as he explains it, there's a ladder. You know, you take steps, you do things, and the next thing shows up. And in business, there is a component of it that could be seen as a ladder, but it is a very haphazard ladder. There is certainly no guarantees, and there's no 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 steps. And seeing into your future is actually quite hard if you choose to take the mantle of ownership. And so I think it's also incredible when vets go out and build businesses because you guys can handle. You have a very high pain tolerance. Like, the pain tolerance threshold is high. And I think half of entrepreneurship is just pain tolerance plus consistency. That's it compounding.

Yeah.

And. And so you already have that. But the, the willingness, I think, to take the risk of, like, I have no idea what any of the next steps are whatsoever is different. Maybe special operators. I think you guys get it a little bit more because you had more flow.

There's definitely. We're put in more situations that I think are probably beneficial to an entrepreneurial mindset. But I think the biggest thing that. The biggest thing that I love listening to talk to entrepreneurs is it's this whole idea of, you're right, there's this ladder. You do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. And entrepreneurs are like, that ladder sucks. I want a different ladder. I want to slide. I want a rocket ship, right? Like, I want to it. And it's like, you can do that. And the entrepreneurs are the ones like, I don't know, but I'm going to try it. And I was like, this is it. Look, we don't have any geographical frontiers. We have economic and entrepreneurial and innovative frontiers. And like, I desperately want. I desperately want us to get back to this idea that, look, we have this. We have this innate desire in us to. To engage in conquest.

And.

And for most of human history, conquest meant, I'm going to kill you and take your stuff. Why? Because I'M stronger. And nobody questioned it. It's not like everyone was sitting around going, well, this just seems kind of immoral. Like, no, no, no, no, Gaul's ours now. Right? And before that gall went, you know, sacked Rome. It's like, you know, v Victus. Right. You know, woe to the, the vanquished. And, and really what free markets and capitalism and all this does is it allows you to con, it allows you to conquer through voluntary cooperation and through the benefit of the people that choose to do business with you. And that's an incredibly positive form of conquest. And so, yeah, I, I think again, one of the things I appreciate so much about your channel is especially if like from a homeschool parent perspective. I didn't want to send my kids into the vast majority of college university classes to learn about business. I wanted to learn from people that were going to one, tell them the truth, not be so overly formulaic that it's like, you know, this is, this is the business school. But no, it's like, this is what I've learned, this is what I've done. This is what works. These are things to look out for. I think it's far more engaging. It, it's far easier to listen to, it's far easier to learn from. And like, I get very, I get very excited about that.

Well, there's also a lot of studies now that show that in particular for learning, the worst thing that you can do is have a classroom setting that actually the best thing that you can do, especially for business and for likelihood of success in business, is to make students do business. The best business school is business. And so, you know, I was last night with. There's a new university here called University of Austin and then there is. University of Texas, has a new center called Civitas, which is trying to go head to head with Stanford's Hoover Institute.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

And it's an incredible organization. They just got a hundred million dollar grant to build out what I think might be a center for. I'll connect you with them. You'll actually love Ryan Streeter, the guy who runs it. And it's all about free markets. That the founding of America was actually good. Shocking. I know that. Yeah, that, that freedom for all is actually a huge liberty and that constitutionalism is quite important for um. And then a belief that overall in individualism, you know, in the ability for the individual to do good, but that the individual is sovereign and in the system. Last night we had this dinner where we were kind of trying to think about like, what would education look like if you could choose for children based on what works data only throughout the entire system? And so they were kind of walking us through it. And you've done this because you've homeschooled, but, I mean, could you imagine today if you had. Think about what they had us do, if you forced me to sit in a room for eight hours today in one of those plastic chairs, listen to a teacher preach at you, maybe get in, I don't know, maybe five questions in total throughout the day, and that was it. I can't. That's a. That's a ring of hell for me.

Oh, gosh. Well, the modern public education system was built off of a Prussian model that was designed to make really good conscripts and factory workers. I was once sitting with the mayor of Charlottesville or the vice mayor of Charlottesville. Now, for those in your audience that are not familiar with Charlottesville, Virginia, it's our version of Portland. Right? So I'm. I'm a big free market guy. I'm a big school choice guy, and I'm talking to a guy that is about as progressive as you can get. And I looked at him, I said, I just. Can we just put everything aside for. I have a question. You and I both agree that education is important. Important, absolutely, Nick. Okay, great. Do you think eating's important? Like, no. No food. Do you think food, like, starvation's bad, Right? Yeah. Okay. Food's all right. I want you to imagine that at some point in United States history, the government got together and said, gosh, you know what? Eating is so important that we cannot possibly leave it to the individual or the private sector. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to set up 10,000 government grocery stores, and we're going to assign you a government grocery store based off of your address. Now, when you show up to the government grocery store, you don't actually shop for groceries. Your groceries are provided to you based off of some sort of counsel that has determined the size of your family and what they believe is the appropriate caloric intake. Right? And then you're going to get your bag of groceries. Now, if you're not happy with something in your bag of groceries, not a problem. You're just gonna have to show up to a lot of local, state, and perhaps federal board meetings in order to determine what should be in your grocery bag, while the lobbyists for the people that currently have things in your grocery bag spend millions of dollars influencing the process to ensure that nothing Ever changes. Oh, by none of the people working in this government grocery store are ever rewarded based off of creativity, ingenuity or work ethic. They're purely rewarded based off of seniority. Do you think that is a grocery store you would want to be forced to shop at? No. It's exactly what we did with public education. You're assigned a government school based off of your address. You have little to no say over any of the curriculum. If you want to change something, you don't like something, prepare to go through a huge political battle for which you are the underdog every single time. You can't leave this school unless you can afford to too. And none of your teachers are rewarded for creativity, ingenuity or work ethic. It's all about seniority. And we are shocked that this is not. That this mass production approach to education is not producing the sort of results, optimal results. I, I worded it. I was actually speaking at a homeschool convention.

By the way. That is such a good counter argument. I'm going to use that everywhere. It makes all the sense in the world.

I. And the other thing too that I always try to be careful about, about. I'm not claiming that everybody that has been involved with the public school system or public education or teachers are all evil, mean, nefarious. I'm not seeing any of that.

My mom was a 30 year special education teacher. She would say the same thing.

My son in law is a high school count. Like there's some. Absolutely. My grandmother was my fourth grade teacher, like phenomenal teacher. But it is a mass production approach to education and you are going to get mass produced results. I said so. So there's a lot of people right now leaving the public school because they don't like what's being taught. What I tell people is if the public school overnight taught everything that I loved, I still wouldn't send my kids. And the reason why is because of the structure that it's been set up to achieve. I said, do you have any idea the amount of time I recaptured with my children? Do you know what it's like to watch your child sitting there there just so frustrated over a particular textbook or method of learning and being able to say that day let's find a different one, or even better yet, watching your sophomore in high school struggle over a particular subject and then looking at him being like, what do you want to do with your life? Well, I want to do this or I want to do this or I want to do this. You know what? None of that Requires this subject. Every kid's got to learn how to read. Every kid's got to learn how to do basic math. Every kid's got to learn how to, you know, to. To write and effectively communicate and critically think. But imagine being able to have the power to customize an education to both your child's strengths and weaknesses and their overall objectives. It's. It's nowhere. It has never been easier to do this. Like, again, I wish I would have found. I wish I would have found your channel when. When I was still. Because all of my kids are graduated now, right now. I still send them stuff.

Right?

But, I mean, I. I would have said, hey, you know what we're gonna do? You know, we're gonna do today when we. When we study economics and entrepreneurialism, we're gonna sit down, we'll listen to Cody talk about this. And I want you guys to, you know, like, my youngest daughter, she developed a business. Okay, good. We're gonna. We're gonna do this, and we're gonna try it, and we're gonna learn together, because I've never done it either, but we're gonna learn together, and I'm gonna give you access to people that know how to do these things. Like, I want people to understand that. I know it. We have been taught to feel like this method of education is the preferred one. But in reality, what we've. What we've really been told, parents, is this is the safe option if you don't want to be criticized.

Yeah, it's exactly right.

Oh, it drives me nuts.

No, but it's passion is always. I feel like where. Where there's that, like, intense burning. Irritation is usually where change happens. You know, it's like so much friction eventually leads to fire, and. And so I think it's really important. And also, you know, I think about it. In Austin, we are at the epicenter. I have never lived in a city that has so much happening in regards to education. There's Alpha School, which is like Joe Lamont, that's Elon Musk backing it. Where they do, you should. You should actually get connected with this guy. It's fascinating. I'm gonna go out and visit. Mackenzie's the head of the school. I think she has a lot of similar beliefs to you, but essentially it's two hours of computer work a day, you know, with teachers as well. But it's AI directed based on interests and, like, a core, you know, sort of the main principles you talked about. You go through a certain set of projects. When you finish Those two hours worth of projects or you finish the actual projects, then you move on to your curiosity zones. And those can be both physical but they can also be obviously intellectual. And a lot of it is hands on pursuit, pursuit. So they run small businesses every single day. You know, they write books at a very early age and they actually use modern day technology to augment and to have personalized instruction through AI. It remembers everything that you've learned and then it figures out where are your weak areas.

What's this called again?

It's called the Alpha School.

Alpha School.

I mean, I haven't, I don't go there, I have no affiliation, but I've been really impressed what I've seen. And then you've got Apogee, which is Tim's school. And then you've also got University of Austin, which is, is Joe Lonsdale's school is pushing back against traditional universities. And then you've got, then you've got Civitas. So it feels like there's some movement. I mean, I know it's easy I think for a lot of people to get pessimistic today, you know, and you see it every day especially. It's, it's probably quite hard sometimes not to be pessimistic with all the things you see happening in politics. But do you have a lot of reason, do you have a reason that you are optimistic about America in the future?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I think we're, I think we're incredibly resilient as a people and I think we're starting to see a backlash against this kind of like cultural narrative that we've seen that, you know, America sucks and our founding's horrible and we're all a bunch of oppressors. It's the younger generation that is revolting against that. Right now. It's starting off with young men, but I think young women are coming around to it as well. Now I will say this, I was talking with, but I was on trigonometry and they asked me the question, like, what is the biggest thing that nobody's talking about? I said young men are going to revolt. You cannot tell men that every aspect of their masculinity is bad and toxic and evil and they're responsible for all the world's ills and expect to get away with that long term because they're the ones that fight the wars, police the streets, etc, so they're going to revolt. I don't know which direction yet because they're either going to be the people that stand on the wall and guard against the barbarians or they will be the barbarians. Barbarians. But I see this, I see this trend taking place now where I'm seeing this increased popularity with, again, people that are optimistic about business and entrepreneurship. And you're not getting on there talking about the latest numbers in the Dow Jones or the latest numbers, and you're talking about, hey, how can you do something that's practical and how do you do it? And did you know that this was like, it was fun. I, I was sitting, I'm like, honey, did you know that Laundromats? And, and she's like, I was watching Cody with you when you forgot. But it's, it's that, it's that excitement because again, it's that, it's that idea of conquest, right? I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna build something or I'm gonna find something that I'm going to enhance. Right. Or I'm going to improve upon. And that's exciting because it gets us driving in this positive direction. And I still believe, I still believe that is built into our, our, our system and who we are. And I, I think that unfortunately, our modern culture and a lot of it within academia has just fought against that tooth and nail. But the other thing that we've realized is that the solutions that they've offered us suck. Right? It's like, it's not like those theories and those ideologies haven't been winning for the past six decades. They have, and nobody's happy. And now people are looking around going, I'm tired of what experts are telling. Experts are telling me, I want to see what works. And so expertise itself is getting redefined and do. I don't want to hear about how many degrees you have. I want to see what you did. And I want to see what, what is, what does your family look like? What does your business look like? What is your. And if it's working, then now I want to learn more. And I'm starting to see a resurgence of that. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's. Oh, gosh, I think, I think we have the opportunity to be back in such a big way. I do. I've said it another way. We can win it all in one generation. Have kids and raise them like this. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, yeah, this all changes because this, politically, this is a numbers game. So have kids and, and raise them to believe in these things and to be passionate about them and excited about them.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I, I'VE been wanting to play around with an idea. To your point about a lot of the stuff that I talk about now is I, I think about it as more for adults. You know, it's like, okay, how do you start this business and grow it or how do you buy a business? And I try to be accessible at all levels and. But to me, there needs to be some resurgence of like we had the lemonade stand when we were kids, remember?

Yeah.

But we, and we kind of learned money through that. There's still legislation I saw in something like 30 states where lemonade stands are illegal, which is hysterical to me. And you need permits. Yeah, but we'll leave that aside. That can be one of your many jobs in politics. I'll not take that one on. But there, there like needs to be a second level to me, which is, you know, you can't really have a lemonade stand every single day. And what is the level that we teach the next generation of kids? And so is it like, you know, lemonade stand to then having a gumball machine to then having a vending machine to then like, how can we stair step kids into business ownership in the same way we do into home ownership or as we do into, into school? And so, I mean, if anybody's listening and wants to do something with it, I'm happy to help fund it and get behind you. But I really want like your kids to have and my kids to have before they go off to college. I want them to have experimented with like two or three real businesses that wouldn't break the bank. They don't have to become their future at all.

Sure.

But like teach them the gateway drug to loving entrepreneurship.

There was a program that we had in Culpepper County, Virginia and it wasn't started by the school system, was started by entrepreneurs. It was called E Squared. And what they did was they ran like a Shark Tank style program for students. And it was interesting because when they first tried to do it, the school pushed back. Right. Because it was going to take away from classroom time. Oh, oh dear. Right. You have an opportunity to talk with some incredibly successful entrepreneurs. Like we had one person that had worked for like he had ran Jaguar in America and this guy is offering for free to educate kids on entrepreneurialship and take them through the process of starting a business plan. And what does it look like to get a patent and what does it look like to compete and what information. What does it like to sit down in a business negotiation?

And.

And so they initially said, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to spend all the time. We're going to spend all the effort, and we're going to give the winning team, like, each of them are going to get like a. I forget what it was, so don't quote me this, but like a $5,000 scholarship. And they're like, well, okay, we'll do it, but we want every team to get something. They're like, no, actually, they said something better. They said, every team does get something, they get knowledge, but the team that wins is what gets the cash prize. Because that's reality. Reality, Right. And they let him do it. And it got so popular that it was. You would. You would listen to students. In fact, there was one student who he was gonna go off to medical school, and he said, look. He goes, I don't. He goes, I might go into my own practice one day or whatnot. He goes, but I don't. I don't plan to run a business in the sense that we learned here. He goes, but this is one of the most valuable things I've ever done because it taught me more about what business really is and how it operates and the risk involved and the. The problem and the amount of government regulations you have to go through. Like, it. Create. It created this very appropriate hostility toward political meddling within the marketplace. But I. I would just say, like, I think you're already doing part of what you described just by putting out the content you do. Because both of us know people that are really, really good at something that can't explain it worth a damn.

That's the hard part. And simplify it.

Yeah, you can, right that. That's the. Do you know. Oh, gosh, I just forgot his last name. His name's Nick. But the Fat Electrician, he's on the Unsubscribe podcast with Brendan Herrera. So Fat Electrician is his name.

I love this already, by the way.

I would argue one of the best historians we have in the country, right? Not because he's written a thousand different books on history, but just because his ability to do research, have recall, make the appropr connections, and then share information in a way that is incredibly entertaining and sticks with you is phenomenal. It's absolutely phenomenal. I was on their podcast a while back, mainly because I just out of the blue, on Instagram, I went to Fat Electrician. I wanted. I said, dude, I love your content. If it had slightly fewer F bombs, I would use it for my kids, you know, homeschool curriculum. And he goes, you're not the first person to tell me that. But that is what I think is also so exciting about what's going on right now. There are plenty of things, there are plenty of dangerous, bad and evil things that happen through the Internet. But the Internet is a morally neutral tool. It can be used for good, it can use for ill. But again, from a home school perspective, one of the things, or just from, let's say an alternative education perspective, doesn't have to be homeschool. One of the things I am so excited about is again, I rince takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time, you mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you said you hear about Dave. Or even tea time, tea time, tea time, you, mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry, rinse. It's time to be. Great. If I had to do it all over again, you would be a regular part of my kids homeschool curriculum because of your ability to effectively communicate what you have done successfully. And so when you say why, like am I optimistic about America? Yes. Yes I am. Because people that never would have been in afforded voice before. Why? Because you're probably not going to drop everything you're doing to go be a business professor. Right? And you're probably not going to be, even if you do get like speaking engagements or you get to show up on the news, what do you get? A 30 second blurb? A 1 minute blurb. But now because of these open platforms, you have the ability to actually educate and speak to a broad audience. And that's the part where I think when the good ideas come out, eventually they win.

I love that. So we, we have a tradition here on what we end on. Kyle, can I grab a pen from you? So in the bathroom, pretty please? And the tradition is that we have each of our guests write a little note to young Nick. A little note to young you. What would you tell young yourself? Maybe you know, 15, 16, 17 year old Nick. And then we'll give you a couple minutes to write it.

Okay.

And then we have you read it to the audience.

Okay.

It's a little note to others. Okay. Okay. So we're going to have you read your piece.

Okay. All right. Dear Nick, first things first, get back to the gym. Your future wife is way too hot to settle for a dad bod. Next, start taking Your relationship with Christ more seriously. It will not only provide the foundation of your worldview, providing objective truth and morality, but it will provide you with an identity which can weather all storms. Your wife is amazing. Take the time to listen because the insight and discernment she brings is going to be invaluable to you. Spend time, more time with your kids, even when you're really tired, and buy Bitcoin. Just trust me.

That's incredible. Nick, it was such a pleasure having you on the podcast. Where do people come to see more of you? Instagram, YouTube, what's your favorite?

Sure. So we're kind of across all the platforms. We probably do the most work on on Instagram and YouTube. You can just find us at Nick J. Freitas. But no matter where you're at, TikTok, Tok, Facebook, etc, we've got a podcast called Making the Argument. We got another program we go do called the Y Minutes as well as Doge Watch. So regardless of what you're interested in, whether it's family, culture, history, politics, we've probably got something for you on there.

Yeah, I love your Instagram. I was going through some of my favorite old reels of yours, and one of mine was the one where you're like, after 22 years of marriage, my wife told me she no longer loves me. And then you hear your wife in the background go, honey, that that's not true. And then you're like, well, she told me to shave my beard, which is the same thing.

Same damn thing.

That's so my husband. You're the man. Thank you for fighting for freedom and sharing all of these things that typically Green Berets do not share about daughters and love and marriage and the education system and homeschooling. And so I find you to be so unique, and so what I think men need in this country and maybe the rest of us. So thank you for being here.

Oh, it's absolutely my pleasure. Thank you.

Hey, guys. If you've ever thought about buying a business, we've built what I think is the best acquisitions and business buying, community and education curriculum in the world. If you've ever thought about wanting to buy or own a business, or if you want to add more businesses to the mix, it's called the Contrarian community. And what this is, is the goal is we give you the three things that the best business buyers use. Your own advisory team, your own investment committee, and a deal team. We get together each week to review deals live and beat up all the deals that you're currently looking at while you simultaneously learn the best way possible, which is called modeling. Modeling by seeing other people put together deals. This is how private equity buys businesses. This is how investment teams work and we're stealing the methods from Wall street and giving them to you. If this is interesting to you, go to click the link and you can actually talk to my team direct about if this is a fit or not. We can help guide you. The link is in the show description. Hey crew. This is so cool. The podcast is growing like crazy and it's only actually because of one thing you. I don't know if you know this, but the only way the Big Deal pod grows is when you share it with somebody else. We don't do ads, we don't do pay for play, we don' on other people's podcasts and talk about it. So if you think there was something helpful here, if we made you money, we made you think about your business or life differently. The most beautiful thing you can do for me is share it. And the most beautiful thing you can do for someone that you care about is to share it with them. Help them grow alongside you. So please share the pod. That's how we grow. And also tag me on anything you share. I love resharing other builders across Instagram, Twitter and all other platforms. Thank you from the build bottom of my heart. You're super important to.