The High Value Man Conversation
The High Value Man gets what he wants from WOMEN, WORK AND THE WORLD OF MEN. He's confident, charismatic, creative and collaborative and it all begins with High Value Conversations. Have a listen to this weeks High Value Conversation.
Hosted By:
Erin Alejandrino & Josh Lashua
The High Value Man Conversation
Chris Hutson's Journey with Freedom Plunge And Intentional Parenthood - HVMP Special Episode
What if you could turn a challenging New Year's ice bath event into a thriving business and a mission to build resilience? Join us as we uncover Chris Hudson's incredible journey from that very experience to founding Freedom Plunge, an at-home ice bath recovery tool. Chris, a dedicated father and CEO, shares how his commitment to family and intentional fatherhood, especially to his daughters, fuels his passion for helping others grow through cold exposure.
Discover the profound impact of cold exposure on personal development and resilience. Chris reveals how setting and keeping promises to oneself can shift your mindset from reacting by default to living with intentionality. Listen to his heartwarming story about building resilience in his daughter through competitive softball, and learn about the "Men of Light," a community fostering growth through weekly discussions and challenging activities.
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https://www.instagram.com/chrisshutson/
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I think we just established a new rule this morning that if you don't show up two weeks in a row, you can kick your door down. How important it is that a daughter has a relationship with her dad and like a strong, healthy, like, respect, admiration for to have those deposits of my dad's my model for exactly what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Most of the time when people begin the process of cold exposure, they set a routine for themselves, and a routine is nothing more than a promise to yourself. I don't want to have to be the dad that reparents or that tries to piece together a blended family.
Speaker 1:You don't take the time to be intentional with your kids or your partner now, you end up trying to retro-parent them in their 20s and 30s.
Speaker 2:What I would say was the first time I heard God's audible voice in my mind and I knew it wasn't my voice.
Speaker 1:And he said to me this is the High Value man Conversation Podcast, a show dedicated to the mission of building high value men. One great man means a great family, a great neighborhood, a better city, community state and the world. The question is, if not you, then who? All right, my friends, welcome back to the High Valley man Conversation. This is a bonus episode with my good friend, chris Hudson. He is a father and husband. He is an entrepreneurial spirited man and he's a leader of my friday morning men's group, men of light. And probably the coolest thing not really the coolest thing, but one of the coolest things, literally coolest is that he is the founder, ceo and creator of freedom plunge, and that is the at-home ice bath recovery tool that I've been using for the last year and a half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, a year and a half now Totally customized, branded for the High Value man Conversation. It is so cool. It is super durable. There is a previous ice bath company that I have bought and spent multiple four figures on and it has not held up to the test of time and this unit has. It is just the coolest piece of equipment and we'll talk about you know the benefits of ice bathing and plunging, but it's definitely my favorite recovery tool and I'm so blessed to have you here, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, you were one of the first people that trusted me with the custom ice bath and I got to say your design is still one of my very favorites. It's sick. It's really sick. It's awesome. You're the only person I know that put their face on it.
Speaker 1:My face is on it, Yep, yep it is on, it, it is on it. That was season two of the podcast, where my face was the cover of it.
Speaker 2:And it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:I where yeah my face was the cover of it. So, yeah, and it's beautiful, I love it. It's a good face. It's a good face, awesome man. Well, I'd love for you just to drop a little bit of your story, man. Who are you? Why do you do the things that you do? Give us a little bit of your testimony so that my listeners can get to know you a little more.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, by the birthday in two days.
Speaker 2:So I'll go ahead and say it I'm 40 and I'm excited to be 40, excited about the next stage in life and in the Bible, 40 is a very significant number, obviously, and it represents the closing of an old season and an opening of a new season, so I'm excited for that.
Speaker 2:I've been married for almost 17 years to my beautiful wife, jessica. Almost 17 years to my beautiful wife, jessica Got two girls, nine and five, about to be 10 and six which I cannot believe and I'm going to try not to cry while I talk about them, because they are my champion, warrior, princesses and they're why I do what I do. Like you mentioned, we started Freedom Plunge about a year and three months ago or so, and I started that because some of our mutual friends Garrett, uncle Buck and Nick Surface on the Impossible Life podcast, before I knew them they have an ice bath event on January 1st every year at 6 am, and just to be the type of person that's out of bed, let alone in some freezing cold water, at 6 am on the first day of a brand new year tells you a lot about the people that are in that circle.
Speaker 2:And I was fortunate enough to be part of their first event, and it was before I knew them. I had only listened to them on their podcast. I didn't even know that they were part of our church that we go to, and so I went to that event. I took my brother-in-law with me. I paid for his ticket because I felt like I needed somebody to go along with me and be courageous with, and I remember the feeling that I had when I got out of the cold water.
Speaker 2:It was a great physical feeling. I could feel the energy and the electricity on my skin, but I felt way more accomplished in my mind, doing something that I'd never done before, doing something that was painful, that I wasn't sure how it was going to feel or if I could even do it. But it's a testament to being around a handful of other people who are showing you the way, that are modeling it. Uh, doing hard things together is a great way to grow in relationship, and I didn't know at the time, but that was the start of uh many great relationships from guys that were that were in that group. And I went home and I, I reflected on it and I, I, um, I knew that I wanted to recreate that feeling for myself and, um, so I found a, found an article online about how to how to build your own cold plunge at home, and I built it and uh, it worked.
Speaker 2:It was rough. I mean, you could literally the first one, I think you could literally cut your back open on it getting in and sliding down Um, but I, I put that one on marketplace and I sold it within like a day or two. I was like that's kind of interesting. So I made another one. Um didn't really like that one, as that one either Kevin proven it did that five or six times and sold them all within a couple of days of each one and maybe thought maybe I've got something here, yeah. And so, um, over time we've uh, I don't want to say it's perfected, but it's uh, it's in a very finished form and, uh, if you look at like the ice, um, it's getting filled now by more and more companies, but at the time you could either get an $1,100. Basically, you know dirty bucket of ice that you're going to seven, 11 every every day and filling it up with water.
Speaker 2:It had no filtration to it whatsoever. Um, or you could spend five, six, $7,000 and get an ice bath, and a lot of people do that, yeah, and in my opinion, that's uh, um, what's the point of doing that when your ultimate goal is to create cold water that's clean and that's simple to use?
Speaker 2:And so that's why we created our company, and then the company really took off whenever we figured out how to customize, and it also makes it more durable, because now they can go outside without any issues whatsoever, because we're wrapping them just like you would a car, so they're able to stand up to the elements. Just like you would a car, so they're able to stand up to the, the beatings, the elements yeah. Just like you put yours through, yeah.
Speaker 2:And my favorite thing about the company, though, is it's an amazing opportunity for me to tell my testimony, because the ice bath is not so much about the cold water. Yes, there are physical benefits out of it. Absolutely you sleep better, you recover better, reduce Absolutely Sleep better, you recover better, reduce inflammation. I hardly ever get sick now. But all those benefits really pale in comparison to the mental side of things. So it was part of a tool that I used to really transform my own life Two years ago more than two years ago now, almost three years ago now I was a completely different person than that sits in this chair talking to you right now. I was successful by the world's standards, top software sales rep in my company and just bought a new house and Jess and I just celebrated 14 or 15 years of marriage, two beautiful kids, all of that. And I just went to her and I told her like man, there's really something that's missing here and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:And I had grown up in the church but I had always had religion and I did everything out of duty and out of fear. I always thought God was up there just waiting for me to screw up and bought me on the head Right, and so I would get really hot and cold with that and bought me on the head right, and so I would get really hot and cold with that. I would get very disciplined with being in the Word and going to church and all that, but I never had relationship with Jesus at all. And about that time I started going to a church called Elevate Life Church, which you and I both go to, got involved in Mighty Men. I had just started Men of Light, which we'll talk about as well, which we're I both go to, got involved in Mighty Men. I had just started Men of Light, which we'll talk about as well, which we're lucky enough to have you in every Friday morning. I saw it modeled for the first time of guys that were not only like what I wanted from the outside perspective in my life physically fit, financially sound but also guys who were just on fire for Jesus and their sole purpose was to grow the kingdom. I had never seen that before and um, so once I saw that, I saw that there was a new way, new way to live, and that you didn't have to be driven by your emotions, you didn't have to live a life that was all about you, um, you could still be extremely successful, um, but also be on fire and love the Lord and live a life that pleases him.
Speaker 2:I've come to realize that there's nothing that we can do that's going to make God love us anymore or any less. He can't love us anymore, but it is our job. To how much we please Him? And how do you please God? Well, you have faith. And what is faith? In Hebrews it says that faith is believing in what we can't yet see and operating that way. And that's how you will be pleased.
Speaker 2:God is living in a life of faith and, um, the ice bath really correlates to that in my mind.
Speaker 2:Um, and our company is based on where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom.
Speaker 2:And so when I got around guys who had the spirit of the Lord and I saw the freedom that they walked in, I saw what it looked like to do that, and I started to do those things and I started to think more like what would a person of strong conviction, of strong faith, who has a relationship with Jesus, who doesn't have addictions or doesn't live by his emotions, how would they act in this situation?
Speaker 2:And I saw it modeled and I started to put it together in my own life, and the ice bath was a big part of that, because it represents. It represents being uncomfortable by choice. I figured if I could be uncomfortable by choice on a daily basis, over and over and over, I would get one step closer to becoming the person that I wanted to become and live in the life that actually pleased God. And so, um well, I you know I obviously gained financially from selling ice baths. The real purpose behind behind Freedom Plunge is to share my testimony and help others use the ice bath in the same way that I have to find out.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And to find out their real identity, which is we've all been adopted into the family of God. He is, you know, he is our father, I am the son and I should start acting like it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, Powerful man. How has the ice bath specifically helped create freedom in your life?
Speaker 2:You can't really control your emotions. You can't necessarily control your thoughts, but you can control how you, how you respond to them, control your thoughts, but you can control how you, how you respond to them. And for anybody who's never taken an ice bath before, what happens when you've, when you're about to get in, is you start thinking about all the reasons why this is either going to suck or I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:This is stupid.
Speaker 2:Yes, why am I doing this? And if you can receive those thoughts, process those thoughts and emotions that are coming in, and then do, and then do what you know you need to do. That creates freedom, because now you're not living by default, you're not living a life that's being dictated to you. You're on your own terms now.
Speaker 1:That's good. Yeah, love that, love that and it's, it's so. It's such a simple mechanic, when you really break it down, is most people live by default because they're controlled by thoughts and feelings drifting and just going to the next thing of that feels right or doesn't feel right. Living in this constant state of fear, cycling, and what the ice bath teaches you is that I'm in the driver's seat. Yeah, like I'm truly in the driver's seat. I don't have to live by default. I can truly live by a life of design, and also the greatest piece of it is that, oh, it's going to be uncomfortable. I get to live by a life of design and have what I want, and I can control thoughts, feelings, emotions, behavior, outcome, those types of things, but it's going to end up looking the way that I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, quick story, I guess early purpose. Um, so my daughter's nine and she plays really competitive softball, and um, there's a lot of parents who really care about the performance of their kids. Um, of course, I want her to do well, but more than anything I want her to have I want her to have resilience. The way that I've learned to define resilience I didn't come up with this is from Garrett. Um is simply um, keeping the promises that you've made to yourself, and so, um, there's a lot of things that my daughter and I do together where we, where we're simply just keeping our promises to ourselves, and that's the ice bath as well. So beautiful thing about the ice bath is it can represent whatever you want it to represent, and most of the time when people begin the process of cold exposure, they set a routine for themselves.
Speaker 2:And a routine is nothing more than a promise to yourself, and they'll set a routine of at this time of day, I'm going to get in the ice bath, I'm going to get in for this long and do and think about these things while I'm in the ice bath. And if you don't do that, you're not resilient. And but if you do do those things, you do become more resilient and it's simply just keeping a keeping a promise to yourself.
Speaker 1:That's good. It's good, so powerful. It's the simplest way for you to actually develop and create a personal development plan is keep the promises you make to yourself. It's not more complicated than that. Yeah, why does it have to be complicated?
Speaker 2:It's not complicated, we make it super complicated.
Speaker 1:So the Freedom Plunge like a big chunk of our guys inside of men of light. So men of light is our Friday morning. Uh, men's group that Chris started. I want you to touch on that story of how that started here. Um, but men of light is every Friday morning. I leave my house at five o'clock. I get to your place by five, 25, five, 30. And we go through a book together. There's about 20 of us in the group right now.
Speaker 1:It's a small group that is focused on reading a powerful book, having some powerful conversations and connecting, and so it's one of my favorite parts of the week because I know that I'm always going to glean some wisdom from the men inside the group. There's also the recommitment ceremonies that we do at the start of each of these books. So after we finish a book, there is a new book we're starting and the new book begins with the recommitment ceremony. The recommitment ceremony typically has been the ice bath and praying over each other, talking about things we're believing, what we're going to let down, so we're going to let go of and really the prayers and beliefs and bringing together community as we start this new book and this, this fellowship. Um, it's a hard thing we do as a community together. It brings us closer, as men and men need hard things.
Speaker 1:To build upon this random story from this the last three commitment ceremony, we did, um, we didn't do an ice bath, we did a, uh, we did a pond swim. It was very cold out and it was like an ice bath, but we, we decided to swim across the pond and, uh, I'm not a very good swimmer, and so myself and another gentleman who will name, rename, rename I remain unnamed protect his privacy. He knows who he is. Yeah, we both had a little bit of a panic inside of the pond because it was very cold and we're just, I'm not built to be a swimmer, he's not built to be like a swimmer.
Speaker 1:And I just remember that moment, feeling like, oh my goodness, like if I go down I'm going to die in a men's group on a Friday morning, but what a way to go. But it was interesting and funny, because what I love about the ice bath is it starts to build another tribe. It builds a tribe of men that like doing hard things, like challenge themselves and realize that the reason why I'm really doing this is to level up and become a better version of myself. So I think that's like a whole other aspect of what you're building with your company is you're building tribes of men that recognize that I have to condition myself through daily hard things, otherwise life is just going to take over.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard the story of men of light really read back to me before.
Speaker 2:That was, uh, that was awesome man. Um. So I'll tell you kind of how Men of Light started. So about two and a half years ago, this whole transformational process started for me. At that time in my life I lived very, very much by comfort, quick dopamine hits, avoiding conflict, not facing the real root cause of really what was happening in my life at the time. But at the same time I lived a life where nobody would have ever have known any of those things. Sure, I was the guy that my wife is super social and at the time I was very introverted and she would always talk about we should go out and have a double date with these people and I was like you know, I've got enough friends and honestly, I had no friends, but I've got enough friends, I don't need more friends.
Speaker 2:You know, we can go on a double date, but that'll probably be at the end of it. And what I didn't realize at the time was that was a total defense mechanism. It was like if I really let myself be known by other men, they're not going to like me anyway, so why even try? And I've recognized that that's a pattern that a lot of men have. We were at a. I live in a great neighborhood, everybody knows everybody, everybody's kids are about the same age, all that. And we were at a party and, as much as I hate to say it, because I don't drink anymore, but I was wasted, hammered.
Speaker 2:Somebody handed me a golf club and I can play some golf. I was an All-American in college. Somebody dared me to hit a golf ball out of the backyard. I said, yeah, absolutely give me that golf ball. And I threw it down and I swung and I missed, and I missed so poorly that I fell down.
Speaker 2:And that tells you the level of inebriation that I was at that time. I was so embarrassed by that. You know that feeling where you wake up the next day and you've been subconsciously sleeping or unconsciously sleeping, and you just wake up and you're like, what have I done? Yeah, and you start to recount all the things that you had done, the people that you embarrassed. I know I embarrassed my wife. And so God woke me up, probably about four o'clock that next morning, which I shouldn't have really been awake. I should have been still sleeping that off, um, but I couldn't go back to bed.
Speaker 2:I just felt so disgusted and embarrassed with myself that I went into my office and I sat down and I said at the time I didn't have a relationship with Jesus. I didn't feel the need to open my Bible or turn on worship music or anything like that. I didn't really know what to do except just sit there in my filth. And I'm sitting there in total silence and for what I would say was the first time I heard God's audible voice in my mind and I knew it wasn't my voice. And he said to me I need you to start a men's group that's going to change the culture of your street. And I sat there for a second and I was like man. I know that was God, but I don't want to do that. I sat there for a little while longer and then I heard a different voice and for the very first time I could tell it was the enemy's voice and it wasn't my own and it wasn't God's.
Speaker 2:And he said to me who are you? He said to me who are you? To start a men's group? That's going to change anything after what you've just done and what people don't know about you. They would never follow you if they knew you. And that played to my fears that I had before and for the first time and I don't know why or how I didn't negotiate with that voice.
Speaker 2:I picked up the phone, I listened to the first voice, I picked up my phone, I sent a text message to 15 guys in the neighborhood the only guys that I had their numbers and I wrote them a text and I said something like you've been put on my heart.
Speaker 2:You're getting this for a very specific reason.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start a men's group. The purpose of this men's group is to change the culture of our street and we're going to be called the Men of Light and we are going to start off by doing an ice bath and we will meet every Friday at five 30 in the morning. And I look back on that now and I probably could have got a lot more men if I wouldn't have mentioned the ice bath, part Um, but out of those 15, I had five guys say yes, and out of us six guys that started in in men of light, four of us are still still together in the group. The group has grown, like you said, to a little over 20. It meets in my home every Friday at 5.30 am, and about five months ago God put a vision in my heart to grow Men of Light, and so the vision now is not only to change the culture of the street but help other men do the exact same thing, and we're going to have 100 men of light groups in less than 10 years.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 2:I actually heard one year. That was Steve Weatherford's vision for the group.
Speaker 1:I'm still saying 10 years, but hey, it could happen because of guys like you, because of guys like Steve, because of guys like Nick and Garrett, who are in support of it as well.
Speaker 2:How?
Speaker 1:many satellite groups are there.
Speaker 2:In this next book we'll have nine total groups Nine satellite groups that are going to have anywhere between 15 and 20 men per. There's no size constraints. Some guys start with four, some guys start with 12 or 15. But those guys all meet on the weekly basis. I empower them and I I enable them. On thursday mornings, the leaders we talk about last week how it went, we talk about takeaways. We from this week's reading, um we we talk about challenges and give advice and honestly share our own god stories as well, so the leaders can all grow from each other yeah and then, uh, in those, in those nine groups it represents seven different states across the US and right now, a little over 90 guys.
Speaker 2:They get together as men of light and it's been one of the most fantastic and stretching things that I've ever done, because, as I was talking to our group last week I don't I still feel like I'm figuring this out myself about how to lead the group, how to be truly involved in a church and have have, um, like strong kingdom friendships as well.
Speaker 1:It's awesome man Off topic. Best and worst book of men in life.
Speaker 2:Uh, the best book would definitely be the one that we just finished.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um uh. By John Bevere. It's a book called the awe of God, which talks about the importance of uh, of having a uh, a fear of God, and not the type of fear that turns you away from God, but the type of fear that you don't want to be anywhere away from him and it drives your entire life and how you act and how you treat other people and how you, how you discipline yourselves, and the importance and the benefits of having a holy fear of God, because if you fear God, you have nothing else to fear.
Speaker 2:Um, the worst book. I don't even know the authors. There were two PhDs and it was horrendous.
Speaker 1:It was, uh, this was actually worse than the ice bath.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would take a thousand ice baths before I read one page. And we can thank our friends the Impossible. Life. It was just Nick. Oh, just Nick Can't be lumped in with that.
Speaker 1:Nick with the Impossible Life for the recommendation of this book and also then no longer being in the group.
Speaker 2:He's coming back, okay cool, he's back in now.
Speaker 1:I love it. He dropped the book bomb and it was how to read the Bible, for everything is worse.
Speaker 2:Yes, which sounds like a great book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was. It was like reading drywall.
Speaker 2:Yes, they totally missed their purpose. Yes, it was.
Speaker 1:It was a very difficult and challenging read, but it was also a great reminder. Just like the ice bath, you do it, you commit to it and you push through it. And great sleeping material though.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it's a really great testament to what makes a successful men's group, though, and one of the reasons why Men of Light has lasted two and a half years as it has, and it'll last forever, is that once you can make it, make a commitment to something, you finish it. Yeah, and you're maniacal about that. The only days that mental light doesn't meet on a friday is if it's literally christmas day or new year's day, because we're all going to be at the ice bath event yeah, I love that every other, every other friday, we're meeting.
Speaker 2:Even if I'm on vacation or out of town, I still open up up my house. The guys have the keys to my or my front door. They open up the house. The exact same way, have the exact same meeting even if I'm not involved.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love and some of the some of the ground rules for being a part of this. Um, this Friday morning mafia tribe is um, you are. You are not allowed to quit unless you do it in person. Yes, and so you have to do that in person. The recommitments are all done in person, and I think we just established a new rule this morning that if you don't show up two weeks in a row, we can kick your door down.
Speaker 2:That's an unspoken, unspoken rule yeah.
Speaker 1:So just, you know, the neat thing about this is having friends in your life that have that you've given the permission to have intrusive accountability. You know, there there's accountability. You can get an accountability coach online. You can track your macros, you know, check in the app, all that stuff and have accountability, and that's that's great. Intrusive accountability says I intimately care about your head and your heart. I know you, I've seen the color of your carpet, I know I have your wife's phone number, I have got gps turned on and like knowing where you are. We've got accountability in that place just so that I stay on track. Because guys are knuckleheads and it's so easy to drift and to shift and to just like you know what I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna disappear for a little while, yeah. And then, once that starts happening, you start to repeat the vices, the drinking, the drugs, porn, whatever it is. But to have guys in your life that you've given permission to be intrusively accountable, to call you forward, call you out and have the hard conversation, is how you level up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one thing I love about our group so much, because I struggle with that, honestly Having the conversations that need to be had. That's why I'm so drawn to you, that's why I'm drawn to Josh. Conversations that need to be had, that's why I'm so drawn to you, that's why I'm drawn to Josh. So I'm drawn to a lot of challenger type men because I didn't have that modeled growing up. And even yesterday I was having a conversation that needed to be had with one of the guys in the group who did exactly what you were just talking about, where he was going through some challenges. He, you know, he retreated and he got a phone phone call from me and he had Josh knock on his door and I didn't even know Josh was doing that.
Speaker 2:But that's, that's very Josh, yeah, and by being in the group, you're you're giving permission to other men to hold you accountable, but ultimately, the goal is to be the man that doesn't need to be held accountable. Yes, yes, that you hold yourself accountable, that you have discipline. So, um, that's one area that I that I specifically mean where I'm still figuring all this stuff out, where I get to. I don't even consider myself the leader of the group. It meets in my home, but it's definitely our group and uh and uh, I try not to actually speak too much in our group because there is so much wisdom yeah and you get to learn from guys like you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that we're all learning from each other, which is so cool wisdom and you get to learn from guys like you. I appreciate that we're all learning from each other, which is so cool, and I think that one of the neat things that the group takes on is it takes on it's very Holy Spirit, led from the standpoint of there's. There's a different lead, like every week, like you kind of notice, a different personality come out. Somebody maybe has been quiet for a couple of weeks and just the timing of the topic in the book or the conversations prompted beforehand, but there ends up being a different format. It's very tribal from the standpoint of there's wisdom that we all get to learn from. Something I heard you say that I want to touch on a little bit because I know we have similar story in this is not growing up with a strong model of what we now know to be healthy masculinity and just the power of being able to surround yourself with healthy, masculine, god-fearing men what that's done for your life in the last few years yeah, um, everything.
Speaker 2:I think we've all heard the jim rome quote. Like, you are the product of the five guys that you spend the most time around. If you want to be, if you hang around four rich people, you're going to be the. If you want to be, if you hang around four rich people, you're going to be the. You're going to be the fifth. If you hang around four knuckleheads, you're going to be the fifth Right.
Speaker 2:And I understood that in an intellectual level and from, like a business level, but I never had that applied to like my faith and um. So when I've, when I finally decided, um, that I would let guys into my life, I had to make the determination that these were the right guys. Not all men are the right men to be let in, sure, but what I had witnessed from the outside told me that this was the right group to get really, really vulnerable with. And there's a difference between vulnerability and transparency, and vulnerability is actually inviting men into your home, and so Men of Light is a physical representation of vulnerability, because I invite them into my home. Transparency is just seeing them through the window and giving them a wave. They can see you, but they don't really know what's going on and so, um, being around the right guys that I had to actually pursue. They weren't friendships by proximity, they weren't friendships by default. They were guys that I recognized as I wanted pieces of their lives, either, either from a physical standpoint, finances, family faith. Take different pieces of those guys and and create like the ideal man. And um, so I've, I've pieced together, um, the ideal, the ideal man, by surrounding myself with those guys who I, who I love dearly, who I look up to, who I know, if I get off track, that they're going to come knocking on my door or kick it down.
Speaker 2:Yep, I know you will, I know you're that guy, and so with that and match that with my own actual relationship with Jesus. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 37, 4,. Delight in the Lord, he'll grant all the desires of your heart. I always miss that first part. I want Him to grant all the desires of your heart. I always miss that first part. I want Him to grant all the desires of my heart.
Speaker 2:But my heart was in the completely wrong place and for the first time over these last two and a half years, I've actually delighted in the Lord. I get excited to read my Bible, I get excited to go to church, I get excited to open up my home and talk about you know, welcome the Holy Spirit into the room. So in doing that, plus my personal relationship with Jesus, like I would say that you know we're not there yet. It's always. It's a lifetime journey, but God is absolutely granting the desires of my heart through friendships, through my marriage, through my relationship with my children. He's revealing areas of my heart that still need to have work done on them, that need to be refined, and heart that still need to have work done on them, that need to be refined, and things that still need to be broken off, um, but it's never a process that I, that I fight anymore Like.
Speaker 2:I embrace the discomfort of uh, continually becoming a brand new version of myself, and it's also given me great awareness of as a father as well that my girls, like my nine-year-old, I better enjoy her right now because here in four months, three months now, she's going to be 10 and she'll be a whole new person at 10. And I had better enjoy her at 10 because she'll be a whole new person at 10, just like I will be at 40 and 41 and just like you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think is just so neat about this group what you've done with Freedom Plunge and how you're stewarding your relationship with your daughter is that all of it comes back to really becoming the best version of yourself by surrounding yourself with the right people and choosing to do the hard, difficult things.
Speaker 1:So many guys bury their head in the sand and take that passive approach, just avoiding responsibility and not not realizing the impact that they're going to have is going to have an impact for multiple generations and so that you, being a girl dad, and like you, being one, that is going to be the best example for what they're going to choose as men in their life. Like that's powerful. I don't think enough fathers recognize that is that the man that you are and you're modeling to them, how you're showing up your discipline, your follow through, your integrity, the men that you have around you all that is the framework and perspective for how she's going to make decisions for her life. And I think if more fathers realize that and just realize the impact that they have, whether they have a daughter or son, that they would take more personal responsibility the same way you would. Yeah, it's powerful. Love it, man.
Speaker 2:Steve Weatherford said something to me a while back that really stuck with me, and it's how he chooses his friends. He chooses his friends for what he wants to model for his children. He chooses his friends for what he wants to model for his children and, just like you just said, it matters so much what and who you allow in your home and when I see all of my friends, when I see men of light come into the living room it's not often, but when it does happen, when she wakes up early in the morning and she sees that there's 15 or 20 guys in the living room, she sneaks downstairs and comes and hops on my lap. Yeah, those are deposits into her memories that I feel like are going to pay huge dividends. Yeah, because there's a big part of me that I have two girls and I would have loved to have had a boy.
Speaker 2:But it was last year at Mighty Men Camp. I was watching dads and their sons kind of go through rite of passage type exercises and I started to tear up a little bit because I was like man, I'm never going to have that. And I want to say something to all the girl dads out there is that you may have wanted a son, but God made you specifically to be a girl dad, and I recognize that now and one day you will have sons yes, they will just be your daughter's husbands, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you will be a very different voice in their life and very impactful, because fathers and sons have their own dynamic and relationship. But to have an outside voice that gets to choose them in a very different capacity is going to be a powerful, powerful mentoring voice.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and so it matters. It matters how you lead yourself and how you are with your, with your daughter, because she's going to end up either looking for someone just like you or someone as the opposite of you. Yeah, and I want my daughter to grow up to find somebody just just like you, or someone as the opposite of you? Yeah, and I want my daughter to grow up to find somebody just just like me.
Speaker 1:That's that's such a powerful piece of confidence right there. Man is to be so proud of the man that you are, who you've surrounded yourself, what you've built, that you want your daughter to model, and that I think it's beautiful. My head goes somewhere completely off topic. We're going to riff on this for a second.
Speaker 1:So I'm in a uh, I'm in a season of single right now and dating a little bit, and I've been enjoying it a lot. It's been a um, I've been enjoying just the, the freedom of being able to travel, spend time with dog, podcast, work out three times a day, like, just connect with with my guys, um, but I am noticing a, a very unique pattern that I didn't pay as much attention to before in in the dating space of how important it is that a daughter has a relationship with her dad and like a strong, healthy, like, respect, admiration for and have those deposits of my dad's my model for exactly what I'm looking for. The conversation is different, the level of respect is different, the level of their personal self-belief is different. The father's voice specifically on the daughter, I think is one of the most impactful things to her personal development.
Speaker 2:Yes, totally agree, we do. I do something with my daughter called champions Academy, which three days a week she wakes up at 6 am, she's downstairs by 6.15. We pray together and embrace, with her head on my heart so she can hear the reverberation of my voice coming through my body into hers. That's good. We say declarations, so things that God says are true about her, that are positive, that are uplifting, that are encouraging and challenging. We memorize a Bible verse and then we train. So we do some hard stuff together.
Speaker 1:So cool.
Speaker 2:And I want her to be strong and fit physically and develop those disciplines early on. But most importantly I want her to know her identity before the world tries to tell her identity. And, um, I, if it's, if you don't do a program like champions Academy, which is going to be available here, here soon, for thousands of dads to consume and put into place with their, with their children, do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be intentional.
Speaker 2:I would say the second best book that we read, um in. In men of light, um is called point man by a guy named Steve Farrar. And uh, there was one line in that book and I think some people really disagree with this, but I couldn't agree with it more is that quality time is found in the quantity, and everybody wants quantity time. But it's very difficult to consistently plan the quantity time or quality time. Everybody wants quality time. It's very difficult to plan for quality time.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to plan for quality of time and then be led by the Holy Spirit, be led by your own intuition, by your own conscience, on how you need to show up in this moment. And so Champions Academy is a three-day-a-week thing where we spend 30 to 45 minutes of intentional time together. That's really quantity of time. Not every champions Academy is like groundbreaking, right, um, but it is going to be meaningful to her when she's like. It's significant now, but it would be meaningful to her when she's 19, 29, 39, 49. And I I find for myself that, um, if I don't schedule that quantity of time with my daughters through champions academy and through weekly date nights with them, just like we should be doing with their wives. So good um that it doesn't happen yeah and everybody says they want to be intentional.
Speaker 2:But what does that actually mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, unless you have a plan, calendar exactly plan, you put it on a calendar and josh and I have talked about this, um, quite a bit is, if you don't take the time to be intentional with your kids or your partner now, you end up trying to retro parent them in their 20s and 30s.
Speaker 1:So this is the, the son that's still living home when he's 34 and struggling to figure out who he is. This is the daughter who is dating the knucklehead, or maybe she's exploring something, um, in regards to like the wrong direction, and you're like how do I even fix this when they're 25 and 30? And now they're just traveling down what we know to be a life of destruction, because maybe we were there and that you can't. You can't really retro parent, like at that point, like you have to be a good guiding post, you gotta be a good friend, you gotta be good mentor and you got to make sure that you're modeling the right way. But if you have young kids in the house where you can be intentional, purposeful, dedicated, discipline and spend that investment of quantity time and quality time, it's going to make a lifetime of difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally agree. Um, one of the verses that we were just studying in Men of Light talks about how, if you fear the Lord, your children will be like vigorous olive trees sitting around your table. And an olive tree is really an interesting tree because it's obviously very beautiful. It's synonymous with sacred land in the Bible. It produces liquid gold. It's synonymous with wealth and prosperity in the Bible. But, most importantly, it's also an extremely resilient tree. It can withstand fire. It can withstand freezing, cold temperatures. As long as the roots are in place, that tree can rise up from the ground and it may take, you know it takes about 17 to 25 years for it to produce fruit right To produce any fruit at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then it will produce fruit For generations, for generations.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this verse is what it's really saying. Is that what? Just what I said before, what you do now matters, but it's going to be through your legacy that you'll be truly blessed by, by your offspring, by your fruit.
Speaker 2:And when I read that, I've read the full Bible, and when I read that, I don't ever remember reading that verse and it has stuck with me. So so much, because that's exactly the picture of what I want for, for, like my girls, I don't want to have to be the dad that that reparents or that tries to piece together a blended, a blended family. I want my daughter to choose me in this season of life, when she's a teenager, when she's a 20 something, when she's a 30 something. I want her to do business with me, you know.
Speaker 2:I want her to be part of every single part of my life, both of my girls, and so now is the time to train them up so that they don't go astray.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. So much wisdom, so much wisdom from that book. It's amazing. I love it, man. So we touched on Freedom. Plunge your story, your testimony, the power of doing something hard and difficult every day, the tribe of men of light, the benefit that's provided to both of our lives. Being a girl dad, we're going to grow Freedom.
Speaker 2:Plunge, It'll become a household brand in the ice bath market. It's going to continue to fill that middle market and grow. I see from that having the ability to share my testimony on stages around the country and really just bring more people to God through that. Um, I see, uh, my wife flourishing in our next season as well as she. She's not 40 yet, but soon she will be. Um, I've watched her blossom and grow. One of my prayers for her that I pray every day is that her faith will continue to grow and prosper, and I'm seeing that happen through not only the women that she's chosen to place herself around but, also by becoming a business owner herself and doing things that she's never, that she's never done before.
Speaker 2:And then men of light will get to a hundred groups.
Speaker 1:Love that Beautiful, beautiful. Anything else you want to leave listeners with, I think that'll do. Cool Guys, check out Chris Hudson, freedom Plunge on the Instagram. Check out freedomplungecom. He has been just gracious enough to provide a coupon code too. It's high value and we'll save you some coin on your custom Freedom Plunge. So check that out on your checkout. But more so than anything, give this guy a follow on the social media. Give him some love.
Speaker 1:If you are a girl dad, one of the things that I really believe it's part of your long-term mission too, is to speak to those fathers out there that are raising daughters and do it in such an intentional way.
Speaker 1:But find this guy, connect with them, reach out to them, build some fellowship.
Speaker 1:If you're interested in establishing a community-based men's group, men of Light being one of the 100 chapters that will exist in the next decade, reach out to us, because that is a mission that will definitely come to life.
Speaker 1:And I tell you, one of the biggest highlights of my week and this is of all the many things I've done and many things I've done over the years it is this Friday morning fellowship. And there was a point when I was living much farther away it would be 45 minute drive and I would happily do it every single Friday because it's such a meaningful part of the week. Have something like if you don't have something like that, maybe you're the guy, maybe you're the one to break the chain, establish a better neighborhood, better conversation and, if you want the support to do it, this leader here is developing and equipping the leaders to be able to give you the blueprint, the formats, and also teach you the way of discipling. And so so many great things picked up in this conversation, but probably my biggest takeaway is go do something hard every single day.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, love it, All right, my friends, much love, many blessings, and if you enjoyed this episode, do us a big favor like subscribe. Share it with another man on a mission that is trying to change the world Boom. Share with another man on a mission that is trying to change the world boom, you're off the podcast. Get back to the fucking mental lab.