Why Convenience Is Shrinking Masculinity | Adam Feuerstein of The Forge

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome everyone to doing business with a servant's heart podcast. I'm your host, Steve Ramon, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. The pot this podcast is dedicated to exploring the idea of doing business and living life with a purpose, serving others and yes, achieving success. We believe that we make a when we approach our lives and our work with a servant's heart, we can truly make a difference. We create this show for you because we want everyone to be motivated, inspired, and educated to make an impact in your world. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a community leader, or simply someone looking to bring more purpose and servant heart into your daily life, this is a podcast here to store you. While you're listening to my incredible guest today, because he's going to blow you out of the water, I want you to think about how you're going to serve today and what impact you're going to create today. Today's episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, Pantheon Alliance. Picture yourself joining a leak community of thriving business owners from a variety of industries all working together to create a powerful referral marketplace. It's an incredible opportunity to expand your network and elevate your business to do higher. With that being said, we're going to talk about community, but what my guest is really helping men. And as men, we need more help now than ever, I believe. And he's here to do it, uh talk about that. Adam, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Thank you. I appreciate the invite. I appreciate being here.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Let's jump into The Forge. Great name. But what's your mission with The Forge?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

So The Forge is a for-profit corporation. Uh it's a men's group, and uh basically what we provide in in our core offering is community and purpose while in pursuit of sovereignty.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So, how important is community to you and to people out there listening?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Well, it's a big deal. Uh, one of the things that we address is convenience. We kind of take a lot of different things and put it in this box called convenience. So, what I mean by that is the convenience that a lot of uh largely afforded to us by technology. So, for example, you know, food service, fast food, pornography, you know, streaming services, social media, you know, social media, streaming services, stuff like that, you know, they're not bad. Uh, one of the things we pride ourselves on is we're actually, while have being extremely principled, we are anti-nothing. Uh, and that's important. And I'm sure we'll probably talk about that more uh here in a little bit. But the idea is that's what's shrinking masculinity um in our in our communities, in our communities around the world. I've had the privilege over the years in my in my entrepreneurship to work with people all around the world. And I can tell you this is not just an American problem, it's a global problem. And it's very rare that I meet somebody where we talk about the idea that masculinity is definitely in a state of decline where they don't absolutely agree. And uh convenience is one of the things that we look at. It's not to blame convenience, it's to identify it because while we're in pursuit of sovereignty, meaning that we make decisions and take actions based on counsel from those closest to us and our higher power, we learn to deny the influence, the negative influence of these conveniences. And then when we do so, we pursue sovereignty. The other thing that we discover we call the threat of benevolence, which is the connection between all people, we start to see life from a very different perspective. And it's amazing how that practice lends itself to being the providers, the protectors, and the leaders in our communities.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

I love it. It's it's that's what we need in this world. Exactly what you said. You're nailing it. How'd the forge for the title of your company come from? It's an interesting name.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah, um, really, we have uh, so my background is I was in commercial construction for about a quarter of a century as an entrepreneur. Uh, I got well, I was very fortunate I was able to sell that company, I don't know, going on four or five years ago very favorably. My wife is the CEO and founder of a national finance and accounting and finance firm. And we've sold that business too. So that's where we have time and uh resources to be able to pursue the forge. In the course of those, of that work, though, I got to learn what it's like to work with people again, like I said, around the world, India, uh, Philippines, Europe, North Africa, East Africa, all over the place. And uh we hired some people when we first committed to this idea with without even having a title. And so we basically just came up with a list and we agonized over it for like three months, and all of a sudden, John, this wonderful gentleman, the first person we ever hired, he's like, What if we called it the forge? And we talked about how metal and iron and like you can you can forge men in community and this whole thing, and and yeah, it was just perfect. And he actually designed our little our first logo and it was perfect, and so yeah, it was just a very, very applicable uh to us principally, morally, and uh and to our message.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Great lesson in community, even though it sounds like you hired him, but he's part of your community, and he helped you name your your business like my doing business with a servant's heart. Same thing in the community. Some guy reached out and goes, Hey, you have a heart, you here's your title, and I've taken off since. And then it's power of community. What are men struggling with most nowadays?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Well, it's the you know, in men when when men as we've evolved on this planet, you know, we have different roles than women. One is not better, one is not worse, one's not superior, one's not inferior. Okay, it's all about the human family being in balance. Men's part of that contribution to the human family is that we seek lessons, right? That's our job. We are the ones that left the the tribes, and we're the ones that left the homesteads and have to go out into the wild and hunt and and gather and bring back the resources for our for our people to survive while women remain nourishing and community building and family you know, building at home. So it makes sense that we evolved uh to the place where we are now by seeking lessons, not necessarily comfort. Unfortunately, what's happened is in my opinion, there are some very powerful companies that have figured out how to profit from the passivity of those men. And that's why women are affected by this technology a little and these conveniences different than men. It's not conspiracy, it's it's good business. I'm a businessman. If I had that kind of influence, I'd completely understand it. The problem is, and again, this is back to our anti-nothing, is we can solve these problems without drawing hard lines. We can solve these problems without dividing our country further. No, we don't need another guy out there saying my way's right and everybody else is wrong. We don't need another reason to drive half of our country further away from the other half. Whereas when we look at this issue, the issue of convenience and some of the marketing and corporate strategies that are really driving this, we can blame the corporations all we want. But that's not going to solve the problem. We're only going to divide our family worse, you know, further than it is. What we can do is look in the mirror, take personal responsibility. Why are these things affecting my life? Is it really because Google's good at marketing, or is it because I'm not making decisions based on what's best for me and my community? So when men are subject to that, they not only forego, you know, growing in life through seeking and learning lessons, trial and error per se, but they're also shrunk by this convenience. And you don't have to go very far before you talk to women in our American human family that are talking about, you know, they're on the couch all the time. You know, why doesn't he work? Why isn't he making decisions? Why isn't he doing some of these things? And well, because there's a button for that. There's an app for that. You know, you need to find love. You go onto this, you go onto this particular app. Of course, it favors a very much small minority group of those people. And so, yet again, we're being chipped, you know, their self-esteem, their place in community is chipped away at. And so these conveniences just shrink and shrink and shrink and work to eliminate that from our existence. The problem is there's nothing to replace it other than anxiety and depression and frankly suicide, as the rates of men is about three and a half times greater uh than it is for women. And then women drawn into that vacuum uh is what creates their misery. So that's the imbalance. And it's not about resurrecting, you know, the 1950s mentality. Nobody cares about that. That's stupid. Uh, we're very forward-thinking, very forward-looking. It's not about revolution, it's about looking in the mirror, finding your place and the decisions that we can make uh to make these things better. And then when we do that, those companies that are out there profiting off of our passivity will innovate in a way to then serve in a different way and maintain their profitability and continue to grow. And so nobody has to suffer from this. We just end up ultimately making better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Imbalance is a great word in all this. I love that you said that. That's where it's at right now.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

In your eyes, what does masculinity look like in five years?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Well, on its current track, I think it continues to shrink. But uh, I have to tell you, uh I don't mean this arrogantly, I mean this as humbly as possible. My goal is to change the next five years. And the goal of our community of our community and our ambassadors and our entire program. And the idea is essentially to bring an awareness, to get men to wake up. And it's not to wake up and draw our swords, it's not to raise the rabble, it's to wake up and look in the mirror and understand am I really the best version of myself? You know, is it really the feminist that I'm in this situation? Uh, it's not. Is it really, you know, the dating app that keeps telling me I'm worthless? No, it's not. It's us looking in the mirror, taking responsibility. And when we do that, when we rise individually, our communities will respond. And I think initially it's so bad. That response will be very comforting, very empowering. There'll be a lot of velocity that we can create very, very quickly because when you see this happen, and I've seen it happen many, many times within our communities, these the family of these men is like, whoa, I remember this guy. This is the guy I married. This is that stud, you know, that I chased after, you know, driving the hot rod down the street or captain of the football team or whatever. Not that you need to be either one of those things, just really understand that. And you see these communities fall behind. So this change can happen rapidly because it's almost like all the fuel is there. There just needs to be the right message. And that message cannot be divisive. It simultaneously must be principled. So when you bring those two together, introduce that to men, and they've sparked that fire, and their communities get behind them and induce that energy and like, yes, go, go. You got this, keep going, don't stop. Uh, you can see leadership and balance return to our entire human community, our entire human family very, very quickly. Women no longer overextended outside of the femininity into the masculinity that they are drawn into by our absence. There's a vacuum left, right? And so that means there's a gravity, there's a pull, there's a suction to where we're having where women have to act more masculinely. And in some cases that works, but I can tell you, in a lot of the cases, women are looking for men to step up. And they're, I have four daughters. Okay. I have a wife and four daughters, 25 to 14 years old as of right now. Every single one of my daughters individually has come to me and said, I don't understand why every young man I meet wants a mother.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

That's not good. You know what I'm hearing? It's not good at all. Uh, congratulations, your four daughters. That's awesome. And what I'm hearing out of it is messaging has to change from the outside world, from social media, and we need to look in the mirror. I love that. And that can change. I mean, messaging in the eye. It's that's not a hard change. It's not easy, but it's not hard either. It's doable. You mentioned your beautiful four daughters. How's that impacted your work with the forge?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Well, and in full disclosure, my wife and I have a blended family. We have six kids. The two oldest are boys. I haven't the oldest son genetically. Uh, we try not to separate in our family at all. He's 25, and then we have a 23-year-old son, and then we have four daughters right behind us. And, you know, our sons have suffered, you know, video games and you know, not fitting the norm and really suffering. So I've seen it from both sides in my life. I mean, our sons have suffered tremendously, and they've had to really understand that hey, you've got you got to get off your butt. You there's nothing wrong with video games. Play video games. But if you're looking to learn the lessons that you know your need to pursue instinctually, you're not going to find it there. What you're going to find is anxiety and depression. They're learning that and they're doing a really good job. My daughters, on the other hand, are on the receiving end of having to go out into community. And by the way, I live in Littleton, Colorado, and I've lived in this same zip code for almost every minute of my 47 years. So uh I've got to know this community very, very, very well and see this impact. And so when my daughters come to me and say, Dad, I there's these nice boys. My daughters are well adjusted. We, you know, they they're not drug addicts, they're all do good in school. Like these are all intelligent, hardworking young women. And they come and say, I these guys, I mean, no matter what they look like, no matter how they are, they all end up in this place where they want a mother, and I don't understand why. And so that was one of the things after I retired from commercial construction that just I really had time to get involved with them in a way that I hadn't had time before and learn from from their perspective. And yeah, that that got me fired up uh because I'm like, I I'm in a position where I have the resources and the time to do something, and and I don't want my daughters to grow up in this community where I grew up, where there was never the case before. Nobody was we weren't looking for a mother in those days. We were looking for the honor of the responsibility of being able to contribute to a family.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

A forge can help parents, it sounds like, as well as men and as well as men women. It's across the board. That's good because the forge, I want the audience to know, is it's got a masculine tone to it, but he's helping everybody. I mean, he's a better parent because of it. And the can and and I love this because community is so big of this very emotional subject.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

I mean, it's it's and you got five guys talking about this, good stuff's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, and and we've just so it's so amazing that my wife and I had this time. We traveled all around the world, we traveled all over the country. We just really, you know, we've been everywhere. I tell everybody we started in Honolulu and end up in East Africa, you know, in the impenetrable forest in the backcountry, and some of the most uh if you didn't if you didn't believe in a higher power, go step step foot in those those, they call them forests. I'm in Colorado, those are forests. What I what I saw in East Africa was jungle. But you know, if you don't, if you don't believe in a higher power, step foot there in a six million-year-old forest and uh see if that doesn't change the way you view everything coming back from that. Uh, and it's a huge deal. And you realize, like I stood in villages that still don't have electricity and talked about this, and it was there was a resonance there. These people really understood, they hear about what's going on even outside, and they're conscious of it. So this is everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Even in some respect, they're probably better off without the technology, social media, media, all that messaging them every day. Aren't they a little better off in that respect?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Well, that's you know, those communities are so vastly different. I mean, as Americans, you know, we look at that, you know, and and we go into these these villages, we would we spend several, we spent almost a month there. And these people have nothing. Like we we think of poor people as somebody that lives in a project house. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing, like barely have clothes, and yet they find satisfaction, they find community, they find happiness. I mean, these there's these kids you'd be out trekking through the jungle, and you think you're like literally in the middle of the nowhere and you're looking for these giant gorillas in the wild, and you hear this, how are you? And it's a young child, barely closed. I don't know how far I can't see him at all, you know, just hearing another person doesn't care what you look like, where you're from, and they're reaching out, and they just and when you respond that way, you can hear the laughter, uh, even though you really feel like you're just in the middle of absolutely nowhere, literally bushwhacking, like you can't take a step without a machete kind of thing. Uh, but they're reaching out for a community and they're so happy to share it. Uh, so it's just a so different, you know, they don't have the kind of things we have in America to even build the scale of like value, of worth, of status. I mean, they don't there's nothing to commit to, there's nothing to constitute status in their community. So what they're left with is humanity.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

That's a fantastic story. That bad audience. If you listen to that and think twice about what you're doing, but I'm gonna because you gotta keep back and listen to these stories and embed them in your soul when you go out and start working with people. You mentioned uh in a question you gave me about listening. I'm a big shut up and listen. It's so important anything you do. But respectful gratitude, how does that mend social the division?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Well, that's one of our rules, right? That we listen with respect and gratitude. I mean, that's just period what it is, and we sometimes have to teach men exactly what we mean by that. But it being heard is one of our most important offerings to people. I mean, we've had men come in literally wrapped head to toe on the brink of suicide. Uh, and because we don't turn away anything, our message is not directed. We it is wide open to any person that wants to walk in the door. Uh any man, we don't it is a men's organization, but uh being hurt, you know, so many times, you know, men discover shame. And then the way they deal with shame, because maybe they came up short one day or they had a good intention and whatever it is, for whatever reason it didn't work, you know, they can't confide in people. They can't even confide a lot of times in their wife. That's not the wife's problem. They just feel like they can't, and they don't have the mechanism or the understanding to look in the mirror and figure out how to develop themselves. And frankly, we're not supposed to because we're communal people by nature. I mean, in my opinion, uh, God created us that way. And so when they show up, you know, we're not one of the number one things we can offer is simply a place to be heard. And when we have we have bi-weekly gatherings that are live, we were in an office complex, we've actually now moved into a theater. One of the things that we do is we provide a platform for that and just bearing witness as the host of these live events in what happens when a man feels like I can be heard, I can say the things I'm ashamed of, and that shame gets absorbed and can be absorbed endlessly by this community of other men that not only understand because they have a similar disposition in life, but uh but aren't there to tell me that I'm wrong. They're there to tell you how to do it better. They're there to be there for you when you want to take the step of looking in the mirror and starting to own your life. The only thing we don't tolerate once men start to take on this work is that there's excuses. It's not your wife's fault, it's not the feminist's fault, it's not this guy's fault, it's not that guy's fault. Let's look at your part in it. And it's not to blame them for everything, it's to give them the power to own their situation. And what we say is once you own it, you're free to give it away and let it go and then assent.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I love that. That's a great message. Listening's big and being heard is just as big. They're the yin each other. We're coming to the end here, but what's a piece of advice that a man, you know, males listening that you could give them to help them build their masculinity?

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Yeah, I mean, the number one thing, uh, the number one pursuit in any individual is taking personal responsibility. It's another thing that convenience does. It gives us a place to point, a place to blame. I mean, psychology fundamentally is this whole ideology that, you know, something happened to you in the past and now you're a victim. So here's your label, right? Now, sometimes that's the truth, and I don't, I'm not a psychologist, but there's other times where those labels, I'm depressed, I have anxiety, I have ADHD. Sometimes those labels are necessary and treatment is certainly necessary. But sometimes it's about owning that an understanding of how you got into that and giving yourself a chance to try to take that on, let go of the things that are causing you to feel that way and therefore act that way and move on to the next level. If you need treatment, you need treatment. Nobody ever denies treatment. But there's also this idea of convenience, right? And we've got to look past that to our own responsibility, give ourselves every shot. Then if we need treatment, fair enough. But so often when we do that, and then the next component is community, and we find a community to plug into, they the synergy there and the really it's just it's being congruent with how we're designed, you know, as people, right? We're so separated and isolated, especially post-pandemic, uh, this ideology is really crept in. But we that's not natural for us. And so if you find a place to go, if you can start to take personal responsibility, you can start to understand uh that it's okay, the situation that you're in, and that we could this all is solvable, and then you supercharge that with a community, whether it's ours or somebody else's, doesn't matter who's got your back, then the capacity, your own capacity and your own value becomes exponential.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

That's a great tip. Audience run with that. Um real quick, I like to get to know my guests a little per more personally. So I'm gonna ask you a unique question. You're at a restaurant with a table of four, you occupy one of the seats, dead or alive, who would you love to sit in those three seats that are empty?

SPEAKER_02 22:07

That's so funny because somebody posted this question the other day on our community board, and uh some of the sponsors were amazing. Um who would I want? So three people. Well, Abraham Lincoln for sure. Uh I'd really, really, really whoever is the director at CERN, the large hadron particle collider in Europe. I don't know who that is, but he would be the one. And there was one I was actually trying to remember the other day, and I can't think of his name. He was the program director for the Mercury, Apollo, and Gemini missions, the same program director. I can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Gene.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Gene Harris?

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Is that what it is? Gene. I know it's Gene.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Gene. Gene Lovell. No, that was the astronaut. Uh, Ed Harris played him in the in Apollo 11.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

He did, but I that that gentleman's his first name.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I don't remember his last name.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Gene. Yeah, that's that's one of the most fascinating characters in just for his role. I don't know anything about him personally, just for his role in the in the development of technology in our country. I would love to sit and have dinner with. I couldn't even imagine.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Talk about pressure. I don't know how he did it, but then sign up for that again and again and again. Yeah, yeah. Well, sometimes you're crazy in a good way. Here's the last question I add to this what food would you order for the table?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Well, that's interesting, sir, because I've been vegan for going on six, seven years now. So uh what food would I order for those? I doubt they're vegan. I doubt any of those guys were vegan. So uh I don't know. I guess it'd be steaks for them and uh I don't know. Some kind of veggies, something or other for me. I eat kind of the same things every day. I've been doing it for years, so I don't venture out too much.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

That's all right. Vegan it is. We'll make it a vegetable type of meal, and that's perfect. Uh, what a great group. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate it. And how can people you you've given us a lot of motivation, inspiration, educated us? I'm sure people have questions or want to reach out. How can they find you Adam?

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Really the best way is through our website, the forge.life. Uh, we have a brand new website preparing to launch that'll get you to our online platform, uh, our community, get us get you to all our socials, uh, all that stuff. Yeah, it's just the forge.life.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

That's perfect. And thank you everybody for uh, you know, me and Adam really appreciate you watching or listening to this podcast. Um, don't forget my TV show, Together We Serve, every Friday, 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. It's on uh Samsung, LG, Roku, Apple TV. See this big old head on your 70th screen TV. I'm sure you're gonna enjoy it. Look at my guests more than my head, you'll enjoy it. And as always, again, I we thank you and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Doing Business with a server star. See y'all.