The 3 P's Of Being A Man, Getting Tough and Doing Hard Things

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill, cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And there are a few websites that I subscribe to and read religiously, and there's also just a few books that I will actually read more than once. Now, one of the websites that I actually read religiously is called Art of manliness@artofmanliness.com and, and one of the books that I've read not once, not twice, but actually three times in the past couple of months is called Semper Virilis, which is actually the full title of the book is A Roadmap to manhood in the 21st century. The guy who wrote this book and also the guy who founded and runs the website Art of Manliness, is my guest today. His name is Brett McKay, and today he's going to give us a primer on the art of being a man, getting tough and doing hard things. So, Brett, thanks for coming on the call, man.

Hey, thanks for having me.

And for you ladies listening in, my apologies. I promise at some point I'll get a podcast specifically for you, but in the meantime, just forward this to the dude in your life and I'm sure he's going to benefit quite a bit from it. So, Brett, I think probably just because we're a little bit limited on time today, it'd be fun to just like jump right into this book and some of the biggest lessons you can get from it. And by the way, the book, you can find it for free at Art of Manliness. If you're listening in, I'll link to it in the show notes for this@BenGreenfieldFitness.com But Brett, you start in by talking about this guy, Theodore Roosevelt. And I think most of us living here in America have heard of Theodore Roosevelt, but why do you pick Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a really good man?

Yeah, so, I mean, I think it helps to understand the backdrop of Sempervarylis. And it's technically it's a blog post, but it's like the length of a small ebook and I'm hoping to one day flesh it out into an actual book.

You know, I actually call it a book just because I use the send to Kindle app in my browser and like I've got it on my Kindle. So I think of it as my book.

It's a long thing, it's a long read. But the idea of simple virilis came from a series of posts we did about sort of the history or the development what it means to be a man across cultures and across the world. And come to find out, anthropologists, primatologists, biologists have found, evolutionary psychologists have found there's sort of these similarities across cultures. And those three things are. To be a man in most cultures means you have to provide, you have to protect, and you have to procreate.

Three Ps, right?

The three Ps of manhood. And what we found was I was thinking about this and writing about it and doing research about it. Today in our modern world, with technology, with these conveniences that we have, there are fewer opportunities for men to exercise these primordial traits or these primordial pillars of manhood, which is provide, protect and procreate. So, you know, take example, like the procreate, the pillar of pro. Or not the pillar of procreation. The pillar of protection. Right. You know, across cultures, across the world, across time, men are generally the ones who are responsible for protecting the tribe, right. Whether that's a small tribe and you have sort of the small military unit or large nation states, it's primarily men who fill that role. And it's because men are generally, mentally because thanks to biology revolution, are stronger than women. They, they're just, they're, they're, they're well, more well suited to it. They're more willing, they're more. They have a propensity for risk taking. They have a propensity for being concerned about status and whether you're strong and whatever. So men have this desire to protect and fight and be competitive and take risks. Generally speaking, everyone always, oh, that's not me. Well, like when you speak about gender, you often have to speak about generalities. I know a lot of people don't like, but it is what it is. But in the 21st century, like most men, they'll never have the opportunity to take part in that pillar. Right?

In the protection pillar.

In the protection pillar.

Aside from pretending I'm looking out the front window of my office right now and my son is actually walking around in the front yard with his Superman cape and a lightsaber right now. So technically he's, he's protecting, he's pretending.

He'S protecting our house. Protecting the house. But, you know, most, most Men will not. Like, it's like 1% of the population, the United States, actually serve in the military. And of that 1%, like, a very small percentage actually sees combat. You know, so, like, most men can go. Like, most men can go their entire lives without actually getting in a fistfight, right? Yeah, I mean, that's possible. But back, you know, even just a century ago, for thousands of years, like, war and battle and fighting, that was just a common thing. Like, you had to. You were probably gonna die either in battle or in some sort of feud between another tribe or another clan or another family. Yeah. And I mean, that's great. I mean, like, look, I'm not saying, like, we should go back to, like, feuding barbarian times. Right. Like, I enjoy the comforts and knowing that I don't have to worry about my family getting killed by some, you know, marauding tribe.

Yeah.

But the drawback is, you know, we kind of make the case is that you miss out on something like you have, like, this itch. Right. But you don't have an outlet for it.

Yeah, well, I mean, do. Do we have an outlet for it, though? I mean, like, in our day and age, do. Do we have a way to scratch that itch for that first p that you talk about protection? Like, is there a way that guys can tap into that?

Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, you can, but it's sort of like what your son's doing. It's pretend. It's not actually like, actual. Actual fighting. But you can, you know, you can do mixed martial arts. You can take, you know, play competitive sports, which are. You know, any competitive sport is basically a simulation of war or battle. That's why a lot of sports were developed as sort of a way to practice for battle without killing each other.

Do you think that guys who don't do that are kind of shorting themselves? I mean, like, the reason I ask that is, like, you know, we've got. We've got guys listening in who are out, like, doing lots of running, you know, competing in marathons or maybe going out and, you know, riding bikes or doing triathlons or, you know, engaging in a lot of these kind of solo sports that are really popular these days that don't involve, you know, a little. A little fist throwing here and there or, you know, you know, getting. Getting roughhoused or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like. Do you. Do you think they're shorting themselves?

Well, I think any sports great, because, like, they're. You're. You're challenging yourself, and there's A, an element of competition which is masculine. Right. That's. Men compete, they like to do that sort of thing. But yeah, I mean, I think there's something to taking part in like, you know, actual one on one competition with another man or just a team sport. That's another aspect we talk about in Sempervirellis is the importance of the male group to the development of the man. There's sort of like this popular idea out there. Like, you know, to be an alpha male means to like be like the lone wolf.

Right.

But you know, we know because psychologists and sociologists have found that in order for men to be like healthy and happy and you know, just have a fulfilled life, they need to have like three to five close male friends.

Yeah.

And like they found that hard.

Like that's harder than. I think a lot like that, honestly. Just to be straightforward with you, that's one of my weaknesses is I have more of a lone wolf mentality. And you know, I, I don't compete in team sports quite that much. Like I play tennis and I've got a group of guys I play tennis with. But even that, you know, it's, it's not like this, you know, this, this strong, you know, brotherhood of tennis players.

Yeah. I mean, it's the reason. And it's funny, like they've even found that men who don't have those kind of close friendships die. You know, the mortality rate is higher than men who do have those close relationships. And we kind of, we tenderly make the case in our series of posts that, you know, men are, might be like evolved to have a male gang. Right? Like a close male group because they've. Primatologists have found that chimpanzees are closest primate relatives. The same sort of sociability that exists amongst primates, male primates exist among men. So male primates typically, they just hang out with each other. They don't really hang out with the females. They kind of patrol their territory in a pack of two to three to five other males and there's an alpha male. And the alpha male is always changing. Like there's always like these election seasons where the other lower males will start ganging up on the alpha and just kick his butt and then they'll put in a new alpha. They call that, put in a new alpha. That's called election season in chimpanzee world. But the same sort of, you kind of seen the same sort of thing happen with male humans. Guys start clubs, they get together and start male groups. You know, there's not. You know, you don't hear about female gang problems, right? Like, I mean, I know they might exist, but it's not like, that big of a problem. Like, you're concerned about male gang problems. You know, it's men. The anthropologist Lionel Tiger, he wrote a book about male bonding, that men are usually the ones who start secret societies. There are female secret societies, but he's found that usually when there are female secret societies, usually there's a man involved. Like, he's kind of, like, controlling the scene. So there's a. I'm not saying, like, this is, like, set in stone, but there's an idea out there that men might be evolved for gang life or group life so they can basically work together to defend the tribe, defend their group and expand their territory.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean. I mean, I just personally, from my experience, like, I feel more fulfilled when I'm, like, hanging out with a bunch of other guys who are pushing me to be my best. Right. Because within a male group, there's this idea of honor. Okay, that's something we talk about a lot on the site, this traditional idea of honor. Because if you ask most people, like, what honor means today in the 21st century, they're going to say, oh, it means being, like, a person of integrity and living by your values. But, like, for most of human history, honor meant your reputation in regards to specific virtues. And for men, those virtues were primarily strength and courage. And so there's this. Within male groups, there's. That's kind of how you judge each other and you kind of push each other to make sure you're, like, you're pulling your own weight, you're doing. I don't know, there's like this, like, this idea of camaraderie. Um, and just in my experience, when I have that kind of group around me, like, I perform at my best, right? Then it's just by myself because, you know, there's that idea of shame. Like, you don't want to, like, look bad in front of other people, particularly other guys.

Right.

And I know you might think that's juvenile, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, maybe it is. But, like, it works, like, for me, like, when I have another. Like, I have, like, some accountability from another. Some from my group of my friends. Like, it pushes me to be a better man, which is good for me and then good for my family and good for my community.

So that's this protection component.

That's this protection component.

Got it. And I know, like, with Theodore Roosevelt, and I want to ask you about these other P's as well, by the way. But in part of the book, you say that Theodore Roosevelt took part in judo and boxing matches in the White House, and he punctuated his schedule with hunting, skinny dips and the Potomac. And I don't know if he did that with other guys or not. And brisk hikes. And so it sounds like he was kind of going out of his way to tap into these kind of roots of fighting and protection. Obviously, he literally did fight in the war, but he was judo in boxing. Like you bring up in the book, I've got the equivalent of a fight club, like, a few miles from my house. And I've always thought about going in there and kind of joining up and going a few nights and seeing what it's all about. I haven't yet, but this certainly makes me think a little bit more about doing it.

Yeah. So, yeah, the reason we picked out Theodore Rose was for this example. Right. So thanks to technology, thanks to basically modernity, our culture doesn't really need all men to be good at protecting and fighting and being strong. And you can get away in your life as a man not having to be very strong physically, not having to really take risk, not, you know, you can just sort of slide through life. Right. Because, you know, society allow. I mean, we have a. We have an economy and a system that allows you to do that.

Right.

And a lot of blessings that come from that. But Theodore Roosevelt, he's an interesting guy because he came from this very affluent family. He could have, you know, his family was. They were a moneyed family. His dad was super rich, and he could have spent his entire life just sort of, you know, coasting by not really having to embrace hard things. But he decided to, like, make that, like, purposely, like, go, you know, embrace the hard way, do hard things, because he felt that that was, you know, he had this idea of this strenuous life, and he felt that was the way to personal fulfillment, but also being the most useful to his country.

To his.

Yeah, to his country. So since he was a young boy, like, he took up exercising, gymnastics, he went hunting. Yeah. And when he was in his 20s, after his first wife and his mother died on the same night, he went out to the Dakotas and became a rancher. Just for the fun of it, just to give it a go. He embraced. You know, the cowboys loved him. They were kind of suspicious of him at first because they thought he was just sort of this, like. They called him dudes. Like this Easterner dude who was just a Highfalute, in fancy pants. They called him Four Eyes because he wore glasses, right? And, you know, that's a funny story. So this cowboy, they're in a saloon and Teddy Roosevelt walked in wearing his glasses and guy called him Four Eyes. And, and this guy had guns on him, right? Had pistols like most people did. And like Teddy Roosevelt just punched him in the face and knocked him out. And like, after that, none of the cowboys gave him any trouble.

Wow.

And then, yeah, he, when he, he signed up, when the Spanish American War was going on and they went to Cuba, he developed his own platoon, basically took him down to Cuba and he charged San Juan Hill. He didn't have to do that. Like, he, like his own father, right, had enough money during the Civil War that he was able to pay a replacement. That was kind of a thing that happened. Like, you had enough money and you got drafted, you could pay like another poor person to take your place. His dad did that. And Teddy Roosevelt could have done that with any of these things, but he decided, no, I want to do this. Like, I want to, I want to live the strenuous life. So, like, yeah, for me, he's like a perfect example of a, A man who, who, who's born in the comforts of modernity has, you know, he could have escaped that, but he purposely decided to embrace what we call the hard way.

It kind of, kind of reminds me of the photo I saw of the, of the. I don't know what summit they were at, but like, Barack Obama was inside the, the climate control gym, like pedaling on a bike, and Vladimir Putin was out, like swimming in the frozen lake. This is just a really interesting other contrast. Contrast. When to. It comes. Comes to presence. So the provision thing, like providing, where does that come in?

So, yeah, that was another important aspect. Across cultures, anthropologists have found that in order to be a man, right? And that's another thing I didn't need to point out. We're all born males, right? But across cultures, becoming a man, that's a status you have to earn. It doesn't just happen. You have to earn it. And the way you earn it is by, you know, fulfilling certain roles or fulfilling certain accomplishments for your particular culture or tribe. And they'll say, you are now a man because you've done these things. And providing is one of those pillars. And David Gilmore, he's the anthropologist that kind of coined the phrase the three Ps of manhood, provide, protect and procreate. Found that across cultures, one of the, the things that marked the difference between a boy and a man was whether the person or the boy or the male either consumed more than he produced. So if you consumed more from the communal pot than you put into it, you were a boy. But if you provided more to the communal pot than you took away, then you were considered a man. You're an adult. I think that applies for both, like, today in our society. I think that applies for both men and women. Right. That's kind of like. We still kind of have that. A little bit of that in our own culture. You know, you're not really considered an adult, Right. Until you leave mom and Dad's house and you really no longer have to rely on them financially or economically to provide or support yourself. And then, you know, you're. That's sort of. That's sort of there. That's sort of like a rite of passage, one of those rights of achievement that signifies the transition from childhood to adulthood. I don't need mom and dad anymore to support me. And so for men across, you know, for most of human history, to provide meant, like, you had to hunt. Primarily just hunt.

Right.

That was the. Because hunting required.

Not a lot of guys do these days.

Not a lot of guys do. These guys. So, yeah, like, hunting, you know, the reason why men hunted were, you know, again, the hunting was a very dangerous activity.

Yeah. Do you hunt, by the way?

I don't. I don't. It's like something I've been. It's been on, like, my, like, bucket list forever, and it's gonna happen this year. It's hard. Because here's the thing that's hard about hunting in America today is that no one does it anymore. And so you ask around, like, you know, hey, you know. You know, you've heard that. So this guy hunted and, like. Yeah. Just not going this year. It's like, gosh, this is.

Yeah, you need to move to Washington State, man. We've got. Yeah. Too many hunters out there. Yeah.

Here's the crazy thing. Like, I come from a line. Like, my family, like, they hunted. Like, my dad, he was a federal game warden. Like, he actually, like, went after. He hunted hunters.

Yeah.

The reason, like, I was asked, like, why, you know, why did you ever take me hunting? It was like, well, you know, I was just too busy, like, actually giving tickets to hunters.

If a guy's not going to hunt, what are some other ways that he could tap into this provision, you know, whatever you want to call it. Provision gene, or propensity to need that provision as the second P of Being a man.

Well, yeah, I just like the whole idea of, like, producing more than you consume. Like, we have a culture that's you. That encourages a consumer mentality. Like, you just. You buy stuff. That's how you define manliness. Or your masculinity is, like, by the stuff you buy.

So could it be something as simple as just like maybe growing a little bit of your own food?

And that's growing a bit of. Yeah, exactly. Growing a bit of your own food. Taking part in a, you know, a hobby where you build stuff, woodworking. I mean, just any. Any opportunity that you have to produce something with your own energy and your own ingenuity, you're able to. You're kind of. You're able to tap into that. That pillar.

Gotcha. Okay, cool. So the ultimate here would be to, like, build your own bow and arrow and actually go hunting.

That would be the ultimate, for sure.

Yeah. And by the way, for those of you listening in, my. My buddy is one of the best bow hunters in the Northwest, and he's. He's coming on the podcast here in a couple of weeks to talk about how to get into bow hunting, which is a fantastic mode of fitness, by the way. And I have about 15 deer outside my. Outside my door that roam here and there, spreading ticks everywhere. So I will certainly be listening in to that one. Okay, so we've got protection, we've got provision, and then the last one sounds like the fun one, procreation. So tell me, why would you have to include that in a book? Are guys not kind of tapped into procreating these days?

Yeah, so it's sort of weird now because for most of you in history, like, procreation meant actually not just sex, but, like, actually producing progeny.

Right.

I mean, if you look from just like a very, you know, visceral evolutionary standpoint, like, that's why we do all these things, right? It's why we protect and why we provide is so that we can procreate and ensure that our genes are passed on. And so, yeah, across cultures, a man was sort of, I guess, given the responsibility of initiating sex and initiating courtship there. And they were sort of. Most men, like, in most cultures, men were sort of. I guess the. Whether or not a woman became pregnant was, like, the man's responsibility. So, like, if, you know, a man had a wife and the wife they were trying to have children, the wife wasn't having children, then, like, it was the man's fault, and he would be made fun of and yada, yada, and like, like, he's less of a man, et cetera, et cetera. But now we know, you know, next technology, like, there's stuff that, you know, you just can't do anything about that. And so, yeah, I mean, like. And you look at across cultures, too. Like, one of the signifiers of sort of your. Your status as a man is, like, how many children you have. Right. The more children you have, the more manlier you were.

Right.

Because you had more people that you could provide, you know, that depended upon you. And so, yeah, I mean, that's sort of like the procreation pillar is sort of like a controversial one today because everyone's, like, worried about, like, overpopulation or, like, everyone's got their opinion on family and children or whatever. And what we found, we kind of made the case is with these three Ps, right. We made the case, or I made the case that there needs to be a balance amongst the three. You can't just, like, focus on one. Because what they found, what these anthropologists have found is like, whenever there's a pillar missing from a culture, another pillar gets emphasized too much and becomes sort of distorted.

Yeah.

So there's like these. They found in these sort of peaceful island cultures where there's not really any war. Like, the men there are just obsessed with sexual. That's all they think about. That's all they talk about. Or, like. And here's another example, like in Japan, where Japan has just like this really fascinating history of the code of the samurai, the Bushido code, a very warrior martial history. But after World War II, they demilitarized. They no longer have a huge military, and most men didn't serve in the military. And like, you know, they don't have. You can't have guns there, except for very rare cases, things like that. And there it's like there's sort of that perversion again, because they put all that emphasis on, like, the provide role. So you had this idea of the Japanese salary men who, like, their whole purpose in life is like, you know, work and, you know, serve your company. They worked for. They took like those martial values of the Bushido and applied it to corporate world.

Yeah, that's interesting. So it's almost like a little bit more of like a docile culture, but they're producing a lot.

Yeah, yeah. And they. And we kind of made the case, like, in America at least, you know, where not many men have opportunities to, you know, take part in that protection role, there's fewer opportunities for, you know, because of the economy, to you know, be providers. Right. You see sort of that same obsession like the procreation role sort of emphasized more. So you have like this obsession with sex as like the definition of what it means to be a man. So yeah, you read like most men's magazines and most men's fitness or lifestyle magazines, it's all about like, you know, how to please your woman and like how to have sex for three hours. And like here's, try these positions and.

Like, you know, at the same time though, like the, the kind of, the sad thing is that, and maybe it is because we don't engage enough in these other two roles of protection and provision, but guys have a lot of issues with just fertility in general and like low testosterone and androids and like, you know, I'm sure you, I think you've even written about this on your site, you know, about the issue nowadays with low testosterone. And it's like even in a culture that might be swayed a little bit more towards that procreation aspect, it's like we, we've still lost a lot of our, you know, almost like our, our fertility or our virility, so to speak. Yeah.

Because you're not in, you're not, you're not being physically active and here's.

You're not chopping wood. Yeah.

You're not chopping. Like the funny thing too is like even when you talk about physical fitness in our culture, it's like it's not about being strong or like being strong for fighting or for hunting or for your job. It's like you, you work out so you look hot.

Yeah. Right.

Like that's, that's what it's about. You got to have the six pack cows, you got to look sexy.

It's all about, it's all about, it's not like you're doing seated rows so you can, you can like pull the string of a bow or, or you're doing like your, your tire flip so you can chop wood better. You're just doing it to look good.

You're just, you're trying to look good.

Yeah.

And you know, and I think what ends up happening is you have a lot of men who, they look strong but they might not be particularly tough or hardened. Right. So I mean, yeah, I mean I would try to infinite like. Yeah, we kind of make the case that we need to tap into some of those more primordial ideas and not just make it about sex. And you know, there's these other aspects of manhood that you should probably check out because it'll give you a more well rounded life.

Yeah. Protect, provide, procreate. The three P's. I love it. Like, we only scratch the surface of what you get into in the book. And by the way, just, we're not like, like a offending people. You, you actually have some really good parts in the book that go into, you know, what if, what if you are sterile, what if you are gay, if you're disabled, like protection provision and procreation. You know, there are some cases where that might not be possible and you know, I'll leave it to people to go read the book. But like, you know, we're not, we're not trying to exclude people here, but you, you do take that into consideration.

Yeah, it's basically do what you can. Yeah, right. Like do what you can.

Basically. Like. Yeah. Like if you're, if you're gay, you could, you could still focus on, you know, the part about being a manly warrior. If you're sterile, adopt. If you're physically disabled, you could still work on your intellect. Like you talk about all that in there. Yeah.

Just find a way you can be useful to your culture, your society, your tribe and. Yeah, that's the bottom line.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So the book is Semper A Roadmap to manhood in the 21st century. It's totally free over at artofmanliness.com I'll also link to it in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com. brett, thanks for coming on the call today, man. I know you've got, by the way, your own kids and you're, you're looking after them today, but you've got, you've got a couple of kids.

Yeah, I got two kids.

Okay, cool. Nice. So you've, you've also got the. Well, I guess you've got all three P's. Yeah, all three P's Kind of on your plate with that. Yeah, yeah. Nice. All right, cool, man. Well, thanks for your time today.

Hey, thanks, Ben. It's been a pleasure.

All right, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Brett McKay from artofmanliness.com signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com thanks for listening.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

The math, it.