June 12, 2025 • 42 mins
Co-Host Tom LaGrave (https://mountaintoppodcast.com/honor) My first time guest Tom LaGrave is a retired Navy SEAL, clinical therapist and founder of The Honor Bound Academy, an upcoming learning domain to give adolescents the proper rite of passage into adulthood. In a post-modern world where it seems like everyone is in it for themselves and the end justifies the means, Tom is all about reminding us that honor and character still matter. In fact, the man who focuses accordingly is actually likely to be the one who gets ahead. How is present-day America affecting the mental health of our young people? What's the difference between young people growing up in the 70's and our youth nowadays? And what should a modern-day rite of passage even look like for young men? Did the rise of Secular Humanism really result in the downfall of honor and character? What's Tom's specific warning with the rise of what he calls 'social warfare'? Even though honor and character are related, they're not synonymous. How does Tom describe that link between the two? What is the driving factor for honor and character that almost everyone overlooks? How has the smartphone era specifically mounted an assault against honor and character? Will AI further augment our reality with regard to values, integrity and even our behavior patterns? And of course, how does a strong sense of honor and good character really, truly affect our relationships with women? Hint: It has everything to do with having a valid rite of passage. Most importantly of all, what do we as men stand to lose when we don't fine-tune our sense of honor and our character...whether we realize it or not? NOW...join me on Substack if you can handle the truth: https://mountaintoppodcast.com/substack
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(00:01):
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(01:58):
And now here comes an excellent, must-listen episode that's all important for any man ofhonor and character.
It features retired Navy SEAL and my new friend, Tom LeGrave.
Enjoy, gentlemen.
you
Live from the mist and shrouded mountaintop fortress that is X and Y communicationsheadquarters, you're listening to the world famous mountaintop podcast.
(02:27):
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(02:54):
comm join us gentlemen at the Facebook group, which is always growing full of like-mindedmen
like you, having a little fun talking about women being better men, that is the MountainTop Summit on Facebook.
Today, I have been visiting with a new friend of mine, and I'm sure you're going to lovewhat he has to talk about.
The topic today is do honor and character matter anymore?
(03:17):
My guest is Tom LeGrave.
He is a retired Navy SEAL who now hails from Sonoma, California, and he is the author of abook called Special Welfare.
Social warfare.
Tom LeGrave, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for that kind entrance.
Thank you very kindly back at you.
(03:37):
Well, I want to ask you first off before we dive into anything else.
What inspired you to write a book with a title such as special welfare social warfare?
Because it kind of plays a trick on your brain the way it's worded.
Usually think of social welfare and special warfare and you play the switcheroo there withthe words.
What's up with that?
that came to me, the book was written in four months and that was a year and a half ago,because I was sensing, feeling and seeing that the country was going in a direction that
(04:08):
was not a good thing for our young people.
And I had put together a right of passage program that I was unable to get funded.
And so rather than trash it and throw it away, I wanted to give it to the public domain.
So I wrote a book.
told a story and at the very end, I put all the research that went into creating HonorBound Academy in the book itself, giving you all the insights of what I think is a program
(04:37):
that can go in all 50 states.
It can address many of the issues our young people have when it comes to specificallytransitioning from adolescent to adulthood.
So the bottom line is, uh the country where we're at right now and where our youth
are experiencing it was the concern that had me, drove me, wanted me to write that book.
(05:00):
The Honorboundacademy.org is your nonprofit organization.
What exactly do you do there?
At this point right now, it's up and running with the ability to take on a funding sourceto create the program that is in the book that I was unable to get funded.
so
(05:21):
It's there if somebody comes up and I needed for two years just to get all the wrinklesout of the way, six million dollars so that I could do the program and find out where the
problem and what was right and wrong with it.
And because the uh inability to get that six million dollars, um I've kept up all thelegal aspects to it.
(05:45):
So if somebody wants to give me the six million dollars, it's a tax write off.
So that's where that's from now.
But you're talking about boot camps for young men that kind of represent a rite of passagefor them or what exactly would the program entail?
Here's the thing is there's a boot camp for the military.
There's a training for all the special forces have their own various, depending whatbranch you're on.
(06:08):
This is none of those things.
This is a transition.
My military background was as a Navy SEAL.
The civilian world as a clinical therapist for the last 30 years, I have looked at all ouryouth and it isn't a specific set that I've made this program for.
And so to say it's a boot camp, isn't.
(06:30):
It's uh a learning domain that takes you from adolescence to adulthood, being surroundedby mentors, men who are bound by their own honor.
teaching, not saying what you need to do to become an adult, but showing them.
So it's more a schooling, educational place.
(06:56):
hence the word Academy.
Thank you.
Yeah.
It is absolutely true that even though for millennia, men have undergone rites of passagein any tribe or group, social group that they're a part of nowadays.
There's virtually no such thing.
Adolescence is prolonged.
(07:18):
You have kids who live at home with their moms till they're 30, 35 years old and theyhaven't learned how to adult yet and society is more accepting of that.
There's a softening of men in general.
Lots of guys who just haven't grown up.
They're grown boys is what they are.
Some would argue if I go into the military, that's a rite of passage and that's probably asuitable answer, but not everybody does that.
(07:42):
Hardly anybody does that, frankly, at least in the United States.
If you're Israeli or perhaps Ukrainian, different story.
North Korean, different story.
But if you're an American, simply graduating from high school doesn't count.
Simply going to college doesn't count.
mean, most colleges aren't even teaching youngins how to think critically anymore.
(08:02):
It's just take your money and turn you into some sort of activist.
So what happened there?
How did we start feeling in this culture that a rite of passage for young boys inparticular
was somehow irrelevant.
It came to how parents raise their children.
I came from a generation where children should be seen and not heard.
I had a father that said, if you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about.
(08:26):
It no longer is that type of upbringing.
Our young people are not being put into situations where they are allowed to fail and tofind within themselves the necessary understanding that
within you is a resiliency.
And if a parent does not allow for that type of experience, then over time, we lose theunderstanding of what it is to be a man.
(08:55):
I would agree with that.
So what should this rite of passage look like in your estimation nowadays in thispostmodern culture?
It covers all the domains.
So there's going to be an educational piece that has it's as simple as this.
Can you write a check?
Can you open a savings account?
Can you do the basic things with a credit card?
And then it's also looking at the nature.
(09:19):
I looked at air, sea, land, and fire.
And each one of those pieces from the water, which is my favorite, the program will teachyou how to scuba dive.
When it comes to the air domain, I'm gonna take you up to 10,000 feet and let you jump outof an airplane.
(09:40):
Because what you need to do is these are domains that I came to understand from mytraining.
The first time I jumped out of an airplane, I knew what it was to fly.
I knew a fear that I had never known on the ground.
The first time I went into a pool and drew air through a regulator, I was in a world thatI'm foreign to.
(10:01):
And it opened my eyes to see things differently.
And in that, it is necessary to bring in the program
those types of things where you are looking through a prism of an experience that unlessyou want to get parachute qualified or you want to do scuba diving, you're never going to
(10:22):
have that knowledge, that insight and that ability for me to use in a way to help youunderstand that you are unique, you are special, but you are also accountable for all your
actions.
I can't help but
notice that this is descending directly from your experience and indeed your training as aSEAL.
(10:43):
SEAL is a rough acronym for Sea, Air, Land.
Yes.
And you're incorporating those primal elements into your model of conducting a rite ofpassage for young men.
And the missing component is in my honor bound academy does not have a bell in the corner.
You can't ring yourself out.
(11:04):
I will let you quit, but it's after
We've used all my skills to help you understand that you can do this.
But in the end, if you so choose to quit, I will allow that.
But it's not the same thing as Bud's in that bell.
Bell was the enemy.
There is not a bell here.
I'm not going to just because you're a heavy set kid and can't run.
(11:26):
That's reason enough for me to discharge you from the program.
see.
You talked about scuba.
Yeah.
Scuba.
For any of these guys listening, and I'm raising my own hand as well, I've done scubatraining, they impress upon you early on what you're really going to learn here is how to
panic proof yourself.
um panic underwater, you die.
(11:50):
You don't panic, you'll probably live.
So kind of like when you would take a concealed handgun course here in Texas, nowadays wehave constitutional carry, so this is an archaic comparison.
and has been for several years now, but the entire first half of that training wasteaching you how to deescalate so you never have to actually fire your gun.
So it was basically mostly a course on how to handle conflict.
(12:17):
Then they would teach you how to use your gun, some of the tactics to conceal stuff likethat as kind of like a secondary feature of the whole program.
And that surprised many, but it kind of follows that same pattern, if you will, of scubatraining.
Whereas, you know, I'm teaching you the mindset before I teach you the tactics.
Is that what you're kind of about to?
(12:38):
Yeah, because what you're talking about is drown proofing.
Yes.
That's where you're being pushed in a controlled setting and having an experience that ifyou fail and you come to the surface, we can talk it through.
But if you refuse to go back down, then you're going to leave.
But if you so choose to go back down.
(13:00):
We will stand there and support you until you find within you the skillset necessary tonot panic under that particular environment.
now you're building character.
Thank you.
Well, exactly.
It was more of an observation, but I guess, you know, I'm thankful you're doing that aswell.
The topic of today's show is do honor and character matter anymore?
(13:24):
It feels like a rhetorical question, Tom, but indeed.
a lot of young men and God help us maybe some middle-aged guys too, don't really see muchimportance to honor and character anymore.
What do honor and character actually mean?
Let's define those first and then let's talk about maybe where we lost it and howmeaningful it is to get it back.
(13:46):
So it's kind of a three-part question.
Here's the thing is for all human beings from a very young age, we do not learn by what weare told.
You know, it goes in one ear and out the other.
We learn by what we watch and what we see.
That is how we learn.
And right now, in a larger cultural construct, they are not seeing what honor looks like.
(14:10):
They're not seeing this in any of the realms, whether it be just, you know, what politics,religion, uh city government, all of those things right now are not a concern to stand and
be accounted for.
being an honorable human being.
And where did we lose that?
(14:32):
I, from my experience tracking it back in time, am looking at it as each of thegenerations, sometimes in the 1980s, 1990s, both parents have got to be at work because
it's the only way you can afford.
And so at home, you have an older child raising younger children, and that's calledparentification.
(14:55):
And in that way, when I grew up, at the beginning, mom was home, dad worked.
That has changed over time.
And since we've lost that in-home for the earliest years to be there and parent, it'sbecome less and less a part of the world in which we all live in.
(15:20):
Yeah, that's pretty sad.
So it essentially comes down to for several generations now, none of us have been shownwhat this looks like or taught that it was important because everybody was well, for lack
of a better way to put it, too busy to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about the downfall of organized religion in favor of a more secular humanist society,the way education has changed?
(15:46):
The fact that America really hasn't been in a major military altercation to require a lotof people to enter in the military for at least 20 years.
Does any of that have anything to do with this in your estimation?
Just recently I heard the statistic how few Americans will just stay here at home, nolonger of a religious uh orientation.
(16:09):
the reason why, you know what, I don't know what that is, but all that I know is that
when I was under the most duress and I was with others or if I was alone, it's in thosemoments where I'm turning to my higher power and asking for hope or asking for help.
(16:30):
Whereas today we've gotten comfortable so that it's no longer necessary to believe insomething that is absolutely essential when it's an entire society coming apart at the
seams.
So
That's my thought on it.
as I've written in the book, Special Welfare, Social Warfare, if we don't address some ofthese issues, what we're going to end up with is social warfare.
(16:57):
And when that happens, as ugly as it's going to get, it will probably, from myunderstanding, awaken in individuals a belief system once again in religion.
think we're already there.
Again, you know what, I was going to argue that point, but I wasn't going to say it insuch
absolutes.
think personally, politics has become the religion for most people and it doesn't carry awhole lot of eternal hope.
(17:23):
No.
And nobody wants to talk.
Everybody's afraid.
No compromise.
And again, it goes back to how do kids learn?
They learn by what they watch.
And right now they're watching adult population of, you know what, I've lived all aroundthe country.
There's good people everywhere who seem to be in a fog, overwhelmed,
(17:45):
and not stepping up, stepping forward to bring an understanding of just how honorable andeffective we are when push comes to shove.
oh the keywords here being honor and character.
Yeah.
They're not synonymous, are they?
What's the difference between honor and character?
(18:07):
You know what?
Honor is the word, character is the action as far as I see it.
Go ahead and elaborate on that.
Okay.
So
Honor Bound is an attempt over a year program to instill in you a concept of what ishonor.
What does it look like?
How does it respond?
What is it to you?
(18:27):
And in each of the phases of what Honor Bound Academy is broken down into three phasesover four months with all of the insight is building character on a daily basis, putting
you into scenarios
where it takes a village to survive this program.
(18:49):
You can't get through it as an individual.
It's built for you to only get through it as a class.
And in that, character is making a sacrifice for your brother or your sister to your rightand left.
Those are the things that can only be instilled by the actual actions.
(19:10):
And once again,
Honor is what I'm seeking and the building blocks to become honorable is what is creatingthe character of the individual.
Help me out here.
When I think of the word honor, I'm thinking of holding something in respect or in esteem.
(19:31):
So I can hold God in an honorable position.
I can hold my family.
I can hold myself.
I can hold my country, my social group.
my ethnicity, I can honor all of those things.
So to be in a condition of honor is to be in a place where I respect that which I havedefined to be honorable.
(19:54):
I know that's kind of a word salad, but it's the definition as I understand it.
So if I have a sense of honor, that means I respect something.
And it seems like the dearth of honor would be I don't respect anything, not even myself.
Am I onto something there?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
So character to me is that belief system, that core belief system that guides who I ameven when nobody else is looking.
(20:22):
And I've said several times on this show, so I'll repeat it here.
So you're in on it, at least from my opinion, and you can riff away after I'm done givingthis description.
Character can be described as good character, bad character, or no character.
In other words, if my belief system is such that I believe in making the world a betterplace, chances are
At least in a general level, I'm a man of good character.
(20:45):
If I derive joy from the pain and suffering of others, which would be evil as defined bythe late great Dr.
Mark Goldstone, a mentor of mine, well then you have bad character.
You don't believe in good things happening, you believe in fomenting evil thingshappening.
But then there's this gray area of no character, which is like not having any honor, whichis probably indicative, I'm gonna guess, of not having a rite of passage.
(21:11):
You were never shown what honor looks like, therefore you never had a chance to build acharacter at all.
So you're blown and tossed by the opinions of whatever individual or social group you wantto be close to.
And that's subject to change for the case of expediency.
So honor is that sense of what is good and worthy of my respect or bad and worthy of myrespect if you have bad character.
(21:37):
And character is the belief system you
build around that sense.
Is that a reasonably close definition to yours?
Yes.
So the way the Honor Bound Academy is going to look is you're going to enroll some kidsand help them understand what honor looks like and then they'll be able to build their own
sense of character.
Maybe because of your leadership and mentorship, but they certainly have the right and theprivilege and indeed the need to come to that own conclusion for themselves.
(22:05):
Otherwise it's not really going to be character, is it?
Right.
There's a piece in there that is critical too, and that is expectation.
Expectation is the driving factor in all that you're sharing.
Everything that you're stating here is absolutely correct, and I understand and believe.
But where is the expectation that you do A, B, or C?
(22:25):
It is the expectation that is missing right now.
You don't have to do anything because there's no reason.
What you have in your world right now, if it was so unruly and unacceptable, somethingother than what we see today would take place.
(22:46):
But people are not there yet.
It is only a matter of time before the situation dictates the environment you findyourself in changes all of the wording that you just stated correctly for this moment.
I believe where we're at today is bad, but it's going to get so much worse.
(23:08):
And when it gets so much worse, all of our emotions and actions and deeds are going to becontingent on whatever that looks like, of which I can't see yet.
But I'm also seeing here in the now, expectation is so critical to understanding what youjust brought up as far as making that a point.
(23:32):
Is it because life's too easy in Western culture so we complain more?
Yeah.
You ever been to a third world country?
Plenty of them.
Yeah.
And you know what I saw from my perch?
I saw people who are in a third world country that are still laughing, are still living,still hold their families as all people hold their families.
(23:55):
And they have absolutely no idea of the wealth that I have been.
reared in from in this country.
And so it's that piece that by going and seeing that altered me in so many ways, becauseit was like, wow, it made clear certain things and it awoke and other things and changed
(24:18):
my expectations on what I thought it was to be happy and to be honorable and to be a man.
bet.
You know, we can go to the grocery store and buy dinner.
We can live in a state of what I refer to non-affectionately as the suburban sleepwalk.
Watch other people have adventures on our 80 inch flat screen TV in full high def.
(24:42):
We don't even need a girlfriend anymore.
We can jack off the porn on the internet.
And usually the girl is going to be hotter and better looking than we at least think wecan expect to get in real life.
And then if we're bored with her in five or 10 minutes, we can trade up, you know?
So it's convenience culture.
We door dash our way through life.
And yet when you go to a developing country, it's amazing to hang out with guys who don'teven have an internet yet and don't have plastics like the Messiah in East Africa.
(25:13):
Because these guys have no problem understanding what being a man is and it is integrallytied to honor and character.
You are either part of this tribe or you are not.
And if you're part of this tribe, you're going to hold our values.
We're going to work together as a team.
You know, not unlike a SEAL team.
A SEAL team without a sense of honor or being bound by a common sense of character wouldbe an oxymoron.
(25:39):
It just would implode upon itself.
It wouldn't be a thing.
It would not exist.
So when you go to these, as you call them, third world countries, developing countries,however you want to refer to them, but places where to at least the naked eye, there's not
nearly as much privilege bestowed upon the masses there.
People are happier.
(25:59):
Because every day is a reckoning.
What am I going to do to survive today?
You're not thinking 10 years from now.
I mean, if you're smart and you're really progressive in a good way, I guess you are.
But most of time it's about survival.
It's about tomorrow.
It's about the people around me.
I can't be a lone ranger and survive for 10 minutes, let alone 100 years.
(26:21):
And that's primal.
That's elemental.
That's how we as humans are supposed to be in a community of like-minded people with
similar purpose.
And nowadays, probably no thanks to social media, you know, we get on threads and we'rejust pitted against people who disagree with us so that they can move more eyeballs.
And it's just contrary to literally millennia of human socialization, isn't it?
(26:46):
You've got it in a place that's ideal, because it brought to mind a recent study that Isaw that said that our young people are not being overwhelmed by the iPhone itself.
what they're being overwhelmed with is the amount of choices that are there.
And now you say the Messiah is living in a simpler world where life and death only has oneor the other.
(27:12):
And because of the lack of so many choices, there's a mental health occurrence that keepsa balance that right now is being, you know, too many choices.
I just recently saw that from the APA.
Don't know if I'm completely understanding it or agree with it, but there's something tobe said about what you shared about the individuals with few choices to those who have too
(27:40):
many choices.
Yeah, it is.
It's overwhelming.
And we in this culture tend to look down our nose at the likes of the Messiah thinkingthey're quote unquote primitive.
Yeah.
And really they're living life as humans were designed to live, frankly.
Yeah, nowadays we have so much overwhelm that who's got time for honor or characteranymore?
(28:01):
Basically, we have headlines to tell us what to believe today and if it changes tomorrow,the planks that comprise the platform of our political party change, well, then I suppose
we should be compelled to change with them.
That's not character.
No.
And if we're honoring something different than we did yesterday, I don't know if that'sthe kind of honor at least that's going to lead to any kind of character.
(28:21):
And it also right now, again, the speed in which
time is evolving quicker and quicker, leaving us in even more difficult times because we,the AI part right now, I don't have time to figure that out yet.
It's still overwhelmingly misunderstood for me.
And that world, we actually live in it right now.
(28:44):
And what role will that play in all of what we come to understand today to be what ishonor?
What is it to be a strong male role model?
There is going to be a change such a way as to, I have no idea where it's going to go orwhat it'll look like.
Well, it can sound a bit histrionic to say what I'm about to say in the year 2025, butjust as we've seen a de-evolution away from a sense of honor and character, I think we're
(29:17):
devolving from being humans.
I mean, the band Devo...
m
must have been prescient years ago when they were talking about, we not men?
We are Devo.
Silly song, but serious concept.
I mean, if it's all handed over to AI and the singularity comes and the machines are nowthe master, then it's going to be very real.
I mean, as scary as that sounds, but we will have let it happen.
(29:40):
You use the word real and that is prescient.
is what is, how do we tell what is real?
uh
In an AI world and everything that's media driven and we live in you know, an internetdriven landscape of fantasy.
Yeah.
Who knows?
You know, we won't be able to tell the difference anymore.
(30:01):
You know, my son has one of these oculuses and he'd live on it 24 seven if we let themthis virtual reality set of goggles.
He's got, I tried it.
It's horrifying.
I mean, call me a dinosaur, but I'm like, you know, this is absolutely way too addictiveand it's not real.
I can't help but bring this back to how it affects our relationship with women becausethat's what we do around here.
(30:25):
That's how we roll.
As you probably have long since figured out as a man of your wisdom and stature andexperience, if you don't make a woman feel safe and comfortable, you're not going to
attract her and you certainly aren't going to keep her around long.
You got to be part of that safety solution instead of the problem.
And if we don't know right from wrong,
(30:46):
we don't know what we believe and live our life based upon it, then no woman is ever goingto be able to figure us out and feel safe and confident with us because we won't have done
that heavy lifting for our own selves yet.
Yeah, that's really a poignant thought, isn't it?
Yeah.
Now, and this conversation, this line, for me, the representation comes from JosephCampbell.
(31:08):
Campbell wrote about myth.
And the thing with it is that
he stated in The Way of the Warrior, that transition that Honor Bound Academy is allabout, the transition from adolescence to adulthood, it is stated in there that the boy
must be taken from his mother and that boy must be killed to become the man.
(31:31):
If that boy is not killed, he will forever be a boy man.
And when it comes for his time to find a woman,
he cannot possibly be a man when that detach from his mother did not occur.
Now, the research is there.
I'm not gonna try to sell it to you.
(31:52):
I'm not gonna push it down your throat, but this is the science of what an actualtransition from adolescent to adulthood, where the actions are such that the boy dies in
meaning, not in actuality.
so that he could become the man that he's meant to be, at which point he can find a mateand be to her what she needs him to be and he wants to be.
(32:21):
Okay?
Now you can shoot me on that one.
No, I'm not going to shoot you at all.
Famously, perhaps infamously, Campbell was quite the secular humanist.
Yeah.
And yet he felt like he needed to knit together some fabric
of honor and character through a core belief system anyway.
So, so much for having to be a member of an organized church or religion to make thathappen.
(32:45):
You just have to have some concrete foundation somewhere.
Some would argue that can only come from God, but you know what?
Wise words from Campbell nonetheless about what it means to be a boy versus being a man.
And on that note, with regard to what you brought up, I need both hands to count thenumber of guys who've hired me to coach them who are
(33:06):
at somewhat of an advanced age and still live at home with their mommies who are cookingand cleaning for them, doing their laundry.
And they're wondering why in hell women aren't attracted to them.
And when you try to explain the concept that Campbell described and that you eloquentlydescribed once again for us here, that's what you're talking about.
(33:29):
You're talking about a guy who grows up being a son under his mommy's house with hismommy's rules.
where women in general are seen as authority figures who tell them what to do.
Bingo.
And until that break happens, whether it's through Bud's training or going into the Corpsor going away to college and not having your mommy there anymore, whatever it takes, this
(33:54):
sense of adulting is inextricably entwined with the idea of becoming a man of the house.
Therefore, you are now a provider and protector of women and presumptively of your familysomeday, rather than being at the whim of a woman who's in charge of you.
And unless and until a guy, a grown-up male human being, leaves the nest, he just won'tunderstand that, because he won't have adulted yet.
(34:22):
And this is happening more and more unapologetically.
Men are like, why bother, man?
I got the easy button here all day long.
just hit it and I get fed and I get my bed made and why even have a job?
You know, I'm not going to be homeless or anything.
Mommy's got a roof over my head and you know, life is good.
And then they wonder why they're not feeling that sense of honor, right?
(34:45):
That they should be feeling towards themselves, towards their life, towards their future,towards having any ambition, right?
What are they going to do to make this world a better place?
Because it just has never been cultivated.
And yet, and yet they're like standing with one foot in both worlds, you know, straddlingthe fence, which I mentioned on another podcast hurts if you slip when you're straddling
(35:08):
the fence.
They want to have a woman respect them and honor them, but they haven't crossed thatlittle Rubicon yet of becoming a man.
And then they're wondering what's going wrong.
And you try to describe it to them and it's like, well, I don't get it.
And then they sometimes blame me for calling it out for what it is.
But this has got to happen, whether we like it or not, if we're going to get to that nextlevel of being a man of honor with good character, hopefully good character, where the
(35:38):
women not only start respecting us and honoring us as men, as potential sex partners, but,you know, we start really enjoying life and having a more fulfilling life because of it.
Yeah.
Your point is valid in that.
I still do the clinical, I still have a caseload and I have young males that are justthat.
(36:02):
It is the most difficult uh client in which to address because I thought my best way to goat this was to bring out the readings of Sun Tzu and the Art of War, Bushido, The Way of
the Warrior, The Prince, Machiavelli, and thinking that I could
you know, create the stable foundation on which to stand and find that they don't want tohave they're coming to me for me to fix them with words instead of me giving you
(36:33):
assignments to go out to understand what it is that I'm trying to instill in you based offof the writings of others.
And you want to sit there and tell me I'm not going to do that work.
You know what?
This is talk therapy.
And I'm like, OK.
I mean, hard work to a lot of young men nowadays is sitting down and focusing for 10minutes on something.
(36:56):
That's too much.
I mean, this has been a fascinating conversation.
And I know we probably ruffled a few feathers out there, but perhaps in a good way.
life.
Yeah, absolutely.
If your feathers aren't getting ruffled, you probably haven't figured out your owncharacter yet.
I mean, I have haters, man.
These men going their own way and feminists and left-leaning, guys who don't thinkmasculinity even exists, they get angry at me.
(37:19):
People on the other side of the ledger who are very, very polyamorous or believe innon-monogamy, they think I'm some kind of fool for having a wife who I'm faithful to, and
vice versa.
And if I don't know what I believe and why I believe it, you know what?
I'm toast.
And that's the way it goes for us as men.
If we don't know what we honor and build a character around what we honor, you know, we'rejust gonna lose.
(37:45):
We're gonna have sand kicked in our face time and time again.
We're going to lose every debate and we're going to always feel insecure about who weourselves are and especially about whether women are going to respond to us in the
powerful way we hope they would or not.
Yeah.
I think this has been a fantastic, wonderful conversation.
His name is Tom LeGrave.
He is a retired Navy SEAL.
(38:07):
He was a medical corpsman with the SEALs.
Man, that's a, that's gotta be just an intense job.
He hails from Sonoma, California nowadays and
The name of his book, which I'm going to put at the top of my Amazon influencer queue atmountaintoppodcast.comfrontslashamazon is Special Welfare Social Warfare.
You should get a copy of that.
(38:28):
And when you go to mountaintoppodcast.comfrontslashhonor, you will be ported over to TomLeGrave's website for the honorboundacademy.org.
And Tom, what will they find when they go there?
Everything that we've talked about, the program that I created is there.
the story of how my childhood to the last four decades of working with youth, what isthere, what's missing, and a little story to have you either agree or disagree, but in the
(38:56):
end, hopefully give you a little insight.
Well, if you have guys who both agree and or disagree with you, it only proves pretty mucheverything we've been talking about, that you're a man of honor and character and they can
like it or lump it.
And I think that's great.
So go to mountotoppodcast.com front slash honor, gentlemen.
and get you some.
Tom LeGrave, it's been a pleasure getting to know you, sir.
(39:18):
Thank you for your service and you're doing wonderful work out there.
And man, if this podcast helps in any way, shape or form to help you get some of thefunding you need to do this work and further the cause, I sure hope that happens for you.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
And Scott, thank you.
You've been wonderful.
You've been truthful.
You've been honest and you give me an opportunity that I greatly appreciate.
(39:40):
Thank you.
Well, you're quite welcome.
Either I'm being honest or I'm
Pretty good actor.
I don't know if I'm the latter.
So hopefully if anything, I'm being honest.
Gentlemen, if you haven't been to mountaintoppodcast.com lately, check out our threelongtime sponsors, Fellow Navy Seal, Jocko Willinks Company, Origin in Maine, Hero Soap
(40:00):
Company, and the Keyport.
When you get anything from our three longtime sponsors, you should absolutely use thecoupon code mountinten to get an extra 10 % off.
Also, I still haven't talked to some of you guys.
Get on my calendar.
25-30 minutes we can talk about what's on your mind.
Let me know the ideas you have for the show.
Some of you guys have been giving me some great guest suggestions.
(40:22):
And if it makes sense to put a plan of action together for you to get your life in order,to get your sense of honor and character finely tuned so that women will love you and they
will be, you know, this needs to be said, they will be the right women for you becausethey resonate with your sense of honor and character.
Yeah, how important is that, right?
That only pretends that the two of you will probably get along outside the bedroom as wellas in the bedroom.
(40:47):
If you want to talk about any of those ideas, put a plan of action in effect in your lifethat will get the right women into your life.
Just let me know.
We'll talk about it.
Get on my calendar at mountaintoppodcast.com.
And until I talk to you again real soon, this is Scott McKay from X and Y Communicationsin San Antonio, Texas.
(41:07):
Be good out there.
you
Mountain Top Podcast is produced by X and Y Communications, all rights reserved worldwide.
Be sure to visit www.mountaintoppodcast.com for show notes.
(41:29):
And while you're there, sign up for the free X and Y Communications newsletter for men.
This is Ed Roy Oldham speaking for the Mountain Top Podcast.
oh
Gentlemen, I know it's about time, but I'm finally on Substack.
Go to mountaintoppodcast.com front slash Substack, where you'll find not only every singleepisode of the Mountaintop Podcast that's currently in release, but also all the legacy
blog posts from the old Edumacation blog.
In fact, I've called my Substack Edumacation and I've not only brought all that contentover so you can find it in one convenient place.
(00:28):
I've already added five brand new
Articles that are going to challenge you in fact gentlemen if you can't handle the truthyou probably want to stay away from this sub stack Because this is where I talk about
everything that would be just too much to put in an email newsletter So if you want to geta whole new take on men women masculinity adventure even the career marketplace Head on
(00:51):
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But if you know anything about Substack, it's all about that $5 a month paid membershipthat people who are into Substack tend to donate to each other.
If and when you decide to be one of them, guess what, gentlemen?
The show is going video in about six weeks.
(01:13):
You'll be one of the first people to get an early sample of what that video podcast isgonna look like.
The very first episode thereof is there for you behind the curtain.
at Substack if you sign up for $5 a month.
Plus I'll give you all 27 retired episodes of this very show, which usually goes for $27in the X and Y communications store all day.
(01:36):
If you sign up for a one year membership at 50 bucks, I'll also give you your choice ofany $97 masterclass for men that I've ever produced.
Get you some gentlemen.
It's all at mountaintoppodcast.com front slash Substack.
All the brand new posts are there for you.
And I follow everyone who follows me right back, so I'll see you there.
(01:58):
And now here comes an excellent, must-listen episode that's all important for any man ofhonor and character.
It features retired Navy SEAL and my new friend, Tom LeGrave.
Enjoy, gentlemen.
you
Live from the mist and shrouded mountaintop fortress that is X and Y communicationsheadquarters, you're listening to the world famous mountaintop podcast.
(02:27):
And now, your host, Scott McKay.
How's it going gentlemen welcome to yet another episode of the world famous mountaintoppodcast as always I am your host Scott McKay and you can find me on true social on X on
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(02:54):
comm join us gentlemen at the Facebook group, which is always growing full of like-mindedmen
like you, having a little fun talking about women being better men, that is the MountainTop Summit on Facebook.
Today, I have been visiting with a new friend of mine, and I'm sure you're going to lovewhat he has to talk about.
The topic today is do honor and character matter anymore?
(03:17):
My guest is Tom LeGrave.
He is a retired Navy SEAL who now hails from Sonoma, California, and he is the author of abook called Special Welfare.
Social warfare.
Tom LeGrave, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for that kind entrance.
Thank you very kindly back at you.
(03:37):
Well, I want to ask you first off before we dive into anything else.
What inspired you to write a book with a title such as special welfare social warfare?
Because it kind of plays a trick on your brain the way it's worded.
Usually think of social welfare and special warfare and you play the switcheroo there withthe words.
What's up with that?
that came to me, the book was written in four months and that was a year and a half ago,because I was sensing, feeling and seeing that the country was going in a direction that
(04:08):
was not a good thing for our young people.
And I had put together a right of passage program that I was unable to get funded.
And so rather than trash it and throw it away, I wanted to give it to the public domain.
So I wrote a book.
told a story and at the very end, I put all the research that went into creating HonorBound Academy in the book itself, giving you all the insights of what I think is a program
(04:37):
that can go in all 50 states.
It can address many of the issues our young people have when it comes to specificallytransitioning from adolescent to adulthood.
So the bottom line is, uh the country where we're at right now and where our youth
are experiencing it was the concern that had me, drove me, wanted me to write that book.
(05:00):
The Honorboundacademy.org is your nonprofit organization.
What exactly do you do there?
At this point right now, it's up and running with the ability to take on a funding sourceto create the program that is in the book that I was unable to get funded.
so
(05:21):
It's there if somebody comes up and I needed for two years just to get all the wrinklesout of the way, six million dollars so that I could do the program and find out where the
problem and what was right and wrong with it.
And because the uh inability to get that six million dollars, um I've kept up all thelegal aspects to it.
(05:45):
So if somebody wants to give me the six million dollars, it's a tax write off.
So that's where that's from now.
But you're talking about boot camps for young men that kind of represent a rite of passagefor them or what exactly would the program entail?
Here's the thing is there's a boot camp for the military.
There's a training for all the special forces have their own various, depending whatbranch you're on.
(06:08):
This is none of those things.
This is a transition.
My military background was as a Navy SEAL.
The civilian world as a clinical therapist for the last 30 years, I have looked at all ouryouth and it isn't a specific set that I've made this program for.
And so to say it's a boot camp, isn't.
(06:30):
It's uh a learning domain that takes you from adolescence to adulthood, being surroundedby mentors, men who are bound by their own honor.
teaching, not saying what you need to do to become an adult, but showing them.
So it's more a schooling, educational place.
(06:56):
hence the word Academy.
Thank you.
Yeah.
It is absolutely true that even though for millennia, men have undergone rites of passagein any tribe or group, social group that they're a part of nowadays.
There's virtually no such thing.
Adolescence is prolonged.
(07:18):
You have kids who live at home with their moms till they're 30, 35 years old and theyhaven't learned how to adult yet and society is more accepting of that.
There's a softening of men in general.
Lots of guys who just haven't grown up.
They're grown boys is what they are.
Some would argue if I go into the military, that's a rite of passage and that's probably asuitable answer, but not everybody does that.
(07:42):
Hardly anybody does that, frankly, at least in the United States.
If you're Israeli or perhaps Ukrainian, different story.
North Korean, different story.
But if you're an American, simply graduating from high school doesn't count.
Simply going to college doesn't count.
mean, most colleges aren't even teaching youngins how to think critically anymore.
(08:02):
It's just take your money and turn you into some sort of activist.
So what happened there?
How did we start feeling in this culture that a rite of passage for young boys inparticular
was somehow irrelevant.
It came to how parents raise their children.
I came from a generation where children should be seen and not heard.
I had a father that said, if you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about.
(08:26):
It no longer is that type of upbringing.
Our young people are not being put into situations where they are allowed to fail and tofind within themselves the necessary understanding that
within you is a resiliency.
And if a parent does not allow for that type of experience, then over time, we lose theunderstanding of what it is to be a man.
(08:55):
I would agree with that.
So what should this rite of passage look like in your estimation nowadays in thispostmodern culture?
It covers all the domains.
So there's going to be an educational piece that has it's as simple as this.
Can you write a check?
Can you open a savings account?
Can you do the basic things with a credit card?
And then it's also looking at the nature.
(09:19):
I looked at air, sea, land, and fire.
And each one of those pieces from the water, which is my favorite, the program will teachyou how to scuba dive.
When it comes to the air domain, I'm gonna take you up to 10,000 feet and let you jump outof an airplane.
(09:40):
Because what you need to do is these are domains that I came to understand from mytraining.
The first time I jumped out of an airplane, I knew what it was to fly.
I knew a fear that I had never known on the ground.
The first time I went into a pool and drew air through a regulator, I was in a world thatI'm foreign to.
(10:01):
And it opened my eyes to see things differently.
And in that, it is necessary to bring in the program
those types of things where you are looking through a prism of an experience that unlessyou want to get parachute qualified or you want to do scuba diving, you're never going to
(10:22):
have that knowledge, that insight and that ability for me to use in a way to help youunderstand that you are unique, you are special, but you are also accountable for all your
actions.
I can't help but
notice that this is descending directly from your experience and indeed your training as aSEAL.
(10:43):
SEAL is a rough acronym for Sea, Air, Land.
Yes.
And you're incorporating those primal elements into your model of conducting a rite ofpassage for young men.
And the missing component is in my honor bound academy does not have a bell in the corner.
You can't ring yourself out.
(11:04):
I will let you quit, but it's after
We've used all my skills to help you understand that you can do this.
But in the end, if you so choose to quit, I will allow that.
But it's not the same thing as Bud's in that bell.
Bell was the enemy.
There is not a bell here.
I'm not going to just because you're a heavy set kid and can't run.
(11:26):
That's reason enough for me to discharge you from the program.
see.
You talked about scuba.
Yeah.
Scuba.
For any of these guys listening, and I'm raising my own hand as well, I've done scubatraining, they impress upon you early on what you're really going to learn here is how to
panic proof yourself.
um panic underwater, you die.
(11:50):
You don't panic, you'll probably live.
So kind of like when you would take a concealed handgun course here in Texas, nowadays wehave constitutional carry, so this is an archaic comparison.
and has been for several years now, but the entire first half of that training wasteaching you how to deescalate so you never have to actually fire your gun.
So it was basically mostly a course on how to handle conflict.
(12:17):
Then they would teach you how to use your gun, some of the tactics to conceal stuff likethat as kind of like a secondary feature of the whole program.
And that surprised many, but it kind of follows that same pattern, if you will, of scubatraining.
Whereas, you know, I'm teaching you the mindset before I teach you the tactics.
Is that what you're kind of about to?
(12:38):
Yeah, because what you're talking about is drown proofing.
Yes.
That's where you're being pushed in a controlled setting and having an experience that ifyou fail and you come to the surface, we can talk it through.
But if you refuse to go back down, then you're going to leave.
But if you so choose to go back down.
(13:00):
We will stand there and support you until you find within you the skillset necessary tonot panic under that particular environment.
now you're building character.
Thank you.
Well, exactly.
It was more of an observation, but I guess, you know, I'm thankful you're doing that aswell.
The topic of today's show is do honor and character matter anymore?
(13:24):
It feels like a rhetorical question, Tom, but indeed.
a lot of young men and God help us maybe some middle-aged guys too, don't really see muchimportance to honor and character anymore.
What do honor and character actually mean?
Let's define those first and then let's talk about maybe where we lost it and howmeaningful it is to get it back.
(13:46):
So it's kind of a three-part question.
Here's the thing is for all human beings from a very young age, we do not learn by what weare told.
You know, it goes in one ear and out the other.
We learn by what we watch and what we see.
That is how we learn.
And right now, in a larger cultural construct, they are not seeing what honor looks like.
(14:10):
They're not seeing this in any of the realms, whether it be just, you know, what politics,religion, uh city government, all of those things right now are not a concern to stand and
be accounted for.
being an honorable human being.
And where did we lose that?
(14:32):
I, from my experience tracking it back in time, am looking at it as each of thegenerations, sometimes in the 1980s, 1990s, both parents have got to be at work because
it's the only way you can afford.
And so at home, you have an older child raising younger children, and that's calledparentification.
(14:55):
And in that way, when I grew up, at the beginning, mom was home, dad worked.
That has changed over time.
And since we've lost that in-home for the earliest years to be there and parent, it'sbecome less and less a part of the world in which we all live in.
(15:20):
Yeah, that's pretty sad.
So it essentially comes down to for several generations now, none of us have been shownwhat this looks like or taught that it was important because everybody was well, for lack
of a better way to put it, too busy to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about the downfall of organized religion in favor of a more secular humanist society,the way education has changed?
(15:46):
The fact that America really hasn't been in a major military altercation to require a lotof people to enter in the military for at least 20 years.
Does any of that have anything to do with this in your estimation?
Just recently I heard the statistic how few Americans will just stay here at home, nolonger of a religious uh orientation.
(16:09):
the reason why, you know what, I don't know what that is, but all that I know is that
when I was under the most duress and I was with others or if I was alone, it's in thosemoments where I'm turning to my higher power and asking for hope or asking for help.
(16:30):
Whereas today we've gotten comfortable so that it's no longer necessary to believe insomething that is absolutely essential when it's an entire society coming apart at the
seams.
So
That's my thought on it.
as I've written in the book, Special Welfare, Social Warfare, if we don't address some ofthese issues, what we're going to end up with is social warfare.
(16:57):
And when that happens, as ugly as it's going to get, it will probably, from myunderstanding, awaken in individuals a belief system once again in religion.
think we're already there.
Again, you know what, I was going to argue that point, but I wasn't going to say it insuch
absolutes.
think personally, politics has become the religion for most people and it doesn't carry awhole lot of eternal hope.
(17:23):
No.
And nobody wants to talk.
Everybody's afraid.
No compromise.
And again, it goes back to how do kids learn?
They learn by what they watch.
And right now they're watching adult population of, you know what, I've lived all aroundthe country.
There's good people everywhere who seem to be in a fog, overwhelmed,
(17:45):
and not stepping up, stepping forward to bring an understanding of just how honorable andeffective we are when push comes to shove.
oh the keywords here being honor and character.
Yeah.
They're not synonymous, are they?
What's the difference between honor and character?
(18:07):
You know what?
Honor is the word, character is the action as far as I see it.
Go ahead and elaborate on that.
Okay.
So
Honor Bound is an attempt over a year program to instill in you a concept of what ishonor.
What does it look like?
How does it respond?
What is it to you?
(18:27):
And in each of the phases of what Honor Bound Academy is broken down into three phasesover four months with all of the insight is building character on a daily basis, putting
you into scenarios
where it takes a village to survive this program.
(18:49):
You can't get through it as an individual.
It's built for you to only get through it as a class.
And in that, character is making a sacrifice for your brother or your sister to your rightand left.
Those are the things that can only be instilled by the actual actions.
(19:10):
And once again,
Honor is what I'm seeking and the building blocks to become honorable is what is creatingthe character of the individual.
Help me out here.
When I think of the word honor, I'm thinking of holding something in respect or in esteem.
(19:31):
So I can hold God in an honorable position.
I can hold my family.
I can hold myself.
I can hold my country, my social group.
my ethnicity, I can honor all of those things.
So to be in a condition of honor is to be in a place where I respect that which I havedefined to be honorable.
(19:54):
I know that's kind of a word salad, but it's the definition as I understand it.
So if I have a sense of honor, that means I respect something.
And it seems like the dearth of honor would be I don't respect anything, not even myself.
Am I onto something there?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
So character to me is that belief system, that core belief system that guides who I ameven when nobody else is looking.
(20:22):
And I've said several times on this show, so I'll repeat it here.
So you're in on it, at least from my opinion, and you can riff away after I'm done givingthis description.
Character can be described as good character, bad character, or no character.
In other words, if my belief system is such that I believe in making the world a betterplace, chances are
At least in a general level, I'm a man of good character.
(20:45):
If I derive joy from the pain and suffering of others, which would be evil as defined bythe late great Dr.
Mark Goldstone, a mentor of mine, well then you have bad character.
You don't believe in good things happening, you believe in fomenting evil thingshappening.
But then there's this gray area of no character, which is like not having any honor, whichis probably indicative, I'm gonna guess, of not having a rite of passage.
(21:11):
You were never shown what honor looks like, therefore you never had a chance to build acharacter at all.
So you're blown and tossed by the opinions of whatever individual or social group you wantto be close to.
And that's subject to change for the case of expediency.
So honor is that sense of what is good and worthy of my respect or bad and worthy of myrespect if you have bad character.
(21:37):
And character is the belief system you
build around that sense.
Is that a reasonably close definition to yours?
Yes.
So the way the Honor Bound Academy is going to look is you're going to enroll some kidsand help them understand what honor looks like and then they'll be able to build their own
sense of character.
Maybe because of your leadership and mentorship, but they certainly have the right and theprivilege and indeed the need to come to that own conclusion for themselves.
(22:05):
Otherwise it's not really going to be character, is it?
Right.
There's a piece in there that is critical too, and that is expectation.
Expectation is the driving factor in all that you're sharing.
Everything that you're stating here is absolutely correct, and I understand and believe.
But where is the expectation that you do A, B, or C?
(22:25):
It is the expectation that is missing right now.
You don't have to do anything because there's no reason.
What you have in your world right now, if it was so unruly and unacceptable, somethingother than what we see today would take place.
(22:46):
But people are not there yet.
It is only a matter of time before the situation dictates the environment you findyourself in changes all of the wording that you just stated correctly for this moment.
I believe where we're at today is bad, but it's going to get so much worse.
(23:08):
And when it gets so much worse, all of our emotions and actions and deeds are going to becontingent on whatever that looks like, of which I can't see yet.
But I'm also seeing here in the now, expectation is so critical to understanding what youjust brought up as far as making that a point.
(23:32):
Is it because life's too easy in Western culture so we complain more?
Yeah.
You ever been to a third world country?
Plenty of them.
Yeah.
And you know what I saw from my perch?
I saw people who are in a third world country that are still laughing, are still living,still hold their families as all people hold their families.
(23:55):
And they have absolutely no idea of the wealth that I have been.
reared in from in this country.
And so it's that piece that by going and seeing that altered me in so many ways, becauseit was like, wow, it made clear certain things and it awoke and other things and changed
(24:18):
my expectations on what I thought it was to be happy and to be honorable and to be a man.
bet.
You know, we can go to the grocery store and buy dinner.
We can live in a state of what I refer to non-affectionately as the suburban sleepwalk.
Watch other people have adventures on our 80 inch flat screen TV in full high def.
(24:42):
We don't even need a girlfriend anymore.
We can jack off the porn on the internet.
And usually the girl is going to be hotter and better looking than we at least think wecan expect to get in real life.
And then if we're bored with her in five or 10 minutes, we can trade up, you know?
So it's convenience culture.
We door dash our way through life.
And yet when you go to a developing country, it's amazing to hang out with guys who don'teven have an internet yet and don't have plastics like the Messiah in East Africa.
(25:13):
Because these guys have no problem understanding what being a man is and it is integrallytied to honor and character.
You are either part of this tribe or you are not.
And if you're part of this tribe, you're going to hold our values.
We're going to work together as a team.
You know, not unlike a SEAL team.
A SEAL team without a sense of honor or being bound by a common sense of character wouldbe an oxymoron.
(25:39):
It just would implode upon itself.
It wouldn't be a thing.
It would not exist.
So when you go to these, as you call them, third world countries, developing countries,however you want to refer to them, but places where to at least the naked eye, there's not
nearly as much privilege bestowed upon the masses there.
People are happier.
(25:59):
Because every day is a reckoning.
What am I going to do to survive today?
You're not thinking 10 years from now.
I mean, if you're smart and you're really progressive in a good way, I guess you are.
But most of time it's about survival.
It's about tomorrow.
It's about the people around me.
I can't be a lone ranger and survive for 10 minutes, let alone 100 years.
(26:21):
And that's primal.
That's elemental.
That's how we as humans are supposed to be in a community of like-minded people with
similar purpose.
And nowadays, probably no thanks to social media, you know, we get on threads and we'rejust pitted against people who disagree with us so that they can move more eyeballs.
And it's just contrary to literally millennia of human socialization, isn't it?
(26:46):
You've got it in a place that's ideal, because it brought to mind a recent study that Isaw that said that our young people are not being overwhelmed by the iPhone itself.
what they're being overwhelmed with is the amount of choices that are there.
And now you say the Messiah is living in a simpler world where life and death only has oneor the other.
(27:12):
And because of the lack of so many choices, there's a mental health occurrence that keepsa balance that right now is being, you know, too many choices.
I just recently saw that from the APA.
Don't know if I'm completely understanding it or agree with it, but there's something tobe said about what you shared about the individuals with few choices to those who have too
(27:40):
many choices.
Yeah, it is.
It's overwhelming.
And we in this culture tend to look down our nose at the likes of the Messiah thinkingthey're quote unquote primitive.
Yeah.
And really they're living life as humans were designed to live, frankly.
Yeah, nowadays we have so much overwhelm that who's got time for honor or characteranymore?
(28:01):
Basically, we have headlines to tell us what to believe today and if it changes tomorrow,the planks that comprise the platform of our political party change, well, then I suppose
we should be compelled to change with them.
That's not character.
No.
And if we're honoring something different than we did yesterday, I don't know if that'sthe kind of honor at least that's going to lead to any kind of character.
(28:21):
And it also right now, again, the speed in which
time is evolving quicker and quicker, leaving us in even more difficult times because we,the AI part right now, I don't have time to figure that out yet.
It's still overwhelmingly misunderstood for me.
And that world, we actually live in it right now.
(28:44):
And what role will that play in all of what we come to understand today to be what ishonor?
What is it to be a strong male role model?
There is going to be a change such a way as to, I have no idea where it's going to go orwhat it'll look like.
Well, it can sound a bit histrionic to say what I'm about to say in the year 2025, butjust as we've seen a de-evolution away from a sense of honor and character, I think we're
(29:17):
devolving from being humans.
I mean, the band Devo...
m
must have been prescient years ago when they were talking about, we not men?
We are Devo.
Silly song, but serious concept.
I mean, if it's all handed over to AI and the singularity comes and the machines are nowthe master, then it's going to be very real.
I mean, as scary as that sounds, but we will have let it happen.
(29:40):
You use the word real and that is prescient.
is what is, how do we tell what is real?
uh
In an AI world and everything that's media driven and we live in you know, an internetdriven landscape of fantasy.
Yeah.
Who knows?
You know, we won't be able to tell the difference anymore.
(30:01):
You know, my son has one of these oculuses and he'd live on it 24 seven if we let themthis virtual reality set of goggles.
He's got, I tried it.
It's horrifying.
I mean, call me a dinosaur, but I'm like, you know, this is absolutely way too addictiveand it's not real.
I can't help but bring this back to how it affects our relationship with women becausethat's what we do around here.
(30:25):
That's how we roll.
As you probably have long since figured out as a man of your wisdom and stature andexperience, if you don't make a woman feel safe and comfortable, you're not going to
attract her and you certainly aren't going to keep her around long.
You got to be part of that safety solution instead of the problem.
And if we don't know right from wrong,
(30:46):
we don't know what we believe and live our life based upon it, then no woman is ever goingto be able to figure us out and feel safe and confident with us because we won't have done
that heavy lifting for our own selves yet.
Yeah, that's really a poignant thought, isn't it?
Yeah.
Now, and this conversation, this line, for me, the representation comes from JosephCampbell.
(31:08):
Campbell wrote about myth.
And the thing with it is that
he stated in The Way of the Warrior, that transition that Honor Bound Academy is allabout, the transition from adolescence to adulthood, it is stated in there that the boy
must be taken from his mother and that boy must be killed to become the man.
(31:31):
If that boy is not killed, he will forever be a boy man.
And when it comes for his time to find a woman,
he cannot possibly be a man when that detach from his mother did not occur.
Now, the research is there.
I'm not gonna try to sell it to you.
(31:52):
I'm not gonna push it down your throat, but this is the science of what an actualtransition from adolescent to adulthood, where the actions are such that the boy dies in
meaning, not in actuality.
so that he could become the man that he's meant to be, at which point he can find a mateand be to her what she needs him to be and he wants to be.
(32:21):
Okay?
Now you can shoot me on that one.
No, I'm not going to shoot you at all.
Famously, perhaps infamously, Campbell was quite the secular humanist.
Yeah.
And yet he felt like he needed to knit together some fabric
of honor and character through a core belief system anyway.
So, so much for having to be a member of an organized church or religion to make thathappen.
(32:45):
You just have to have some concrete foundation somewhere.
Some would argue that can only come from God, but you know what?
Wise words from Campbell nonetheless about what it means to be a boy versus being a man.
And on that note, with regard to what you brought up, I need both hands to count thenumber of guys who've hired me to coach them who are
(33:06):
at somewhat of an advanced age and still live at home with their mommies who are cookingand cleaning for them, doing their laundry.
And they're wondering why in hell women aren't attracted to them.
And when you try to explain the concept that Campbell described and that you eloquentlydescribed once again for us here, that's what you're talking about.
(33:29):
You're talking about a guy who grows up being a son under his mommy's house with hismommy's rules.
where women in general are seen as authority figures who tell them what to do.
Bingo.
And until that break happens, whether it's through Bud's training or going into the Corpsor going away to college and not having your mommy there anymore, whatever it takes, this
(33:54):
sense of adulting is inextricably entwined with the idea of becoming a man of the house.
Therefore, you are now a provider and protector of women and presumptively of your familysomeday, rather than being at the whim of a woman who's in charge of you.
And unless and until a guy, a grown-up male human being, leaves the nest, he just won'tunderstand that, because he won't have adulted yet.
(34:22):
And this is happening more and more unapologetically.
Men are like, why bother, man?
I got the easy button here all day long.
just hit it and I get fed and I get my bed made and why even have a job?
You know, I'm not going to be homeless or anything.
Mommy's got a roof over my head and you know, life is good.
And then they wonder why they're not feeling that sense of honor, right?
(34:45):
That they should be feeling towards themselves, towards their life, towards their future,towards having any ambition, right?
What are they going to do to make this world a better place?
Because it just has never been cultivated.
And yet, and yet they're like standing with one foot in both worlds, you know, straddlingthe fence, which I mentioned on another podcast hurts if you slip when you're straddling
(35:08):
the fence.
They want to have a woman respect them and honor them, but they haven't crossed thatlittle Rubicon yet of becoming a man.
And then they're wondering what's going wrong.
And you try to describe it to them and it's like, well, I don't get it.
And then they sometimes blame me for calling it out for what it is.
But this has got to happen, whether we like it or not, if we're going to get to that nextlevel of being a man of honor with good character, hopefully good character, where the
(35:38):
women not only start respecting us and honoring us as men, as potential sex partners, but,you know, we start really enjoying life and having a more fulfilling life because of it.
Yeah.
Your point is valid in that.
I still do the clinical, I still have a caseload and I have young males that are justthat.
(36:02):
It is the most difficult uh client in which to address because I thought my best way to goat this was to bring out the readings of Sun Tzu and the Art of War, Bushido, The Way of
the Warrior, The Prince, Machiavelli, and thinking that I could
you know, create the stable foundation on which to stand and find that they don't want tohave they're coming to me for me to fix them with words instead of me giving you
(36:33):
assignments to go out to understand what it is that I'm trying to instill in you based offof the writings of others.
And you want to sit there and tell me I'm not going to do that work.
You know what?
This is talk therapy.
And I'm like, OK.
I mean, hard work to a lot of young men nowadays is sitting down and focusing for 10minutes on something.
(36:56):
That's too much.
I mean, this has been a fascinating conversation.
And I know we probably ruffled a few feathers out there, but perhaps in a good way.
life.
Yeah, absolutely.
If your feathers aren't getting ruffled, you probably haven't figured out your owncharacter yet.
I mean, I have haters, man.
These men going their own way and feminists and left-leaning, guys who don't thinkmasculinity even exists, they get angry at me.
(37:19):
People on the other side of the ledger who are very, very polyamorous or believe innon-monogamy, they think I'm some kind of fool for having a wife who I'm faithful to, and
vice versa.
And if I don't know what I believe and why I believe it, you know what?
I'm toast.
And that's the way it goes for us as men.
If we don't know what we honor and build a character around what we honor, you know, we'rejust gonna lose.
(37:45):
We're gonna have sand kicked in our face time and time again.
We're going to lose every debate and we're going to always feel insecure about who weourselves are and especially about whether women are going to respond to us in the
powerful way we hope they would or not.
Yeah.
I think this has been a fantastic, wonderful conversation.
His name is Tom LeGrave.
He is a retired Navy SEAL.
(38:07):
He was a medical corpsman with the SEALs.
Man, that's a, that's gotta be just an intense job.
He hails from Sonoma, California nowadays and
The name of his book, which I'm going to put at the top of my Amazon influencer queue atmountaintoppodcast.comfrontslashamazon is Special Welfare Social Warfare.
You should get a copy of that.
(38:28):
And when you go to mountaintoppodcast.comfrontslashhonor, you will be ported over to TomLeGrave's website for the honorboundacademy.org.
And Tom, what will they find when they go there?
Everything that we've talked about, the program that I created is there.
the story of how my childhood to the last four decades of working with youth, what isthere, what's missing, and a little story to have you either agree or disagree, but in the
(38:56):
end, hopefully give you a little insight.
Well, if you have guys who both agree and or disagree with you, it only proves pretty mucheverything we've been talking about, that you're a man of honor and character and they can
like it or lump it.
And I think that's great.
So go to mountotoppodcast.com front slash honor, gentlemen.
and get you some.
Tom LeGrave, it's been a pleasure getting to know you, sir.
(39:18):
Thank you for your service and you're doing wonderful work out there.
And man, if this podcast helps in any way, shape or form to help you get some of thefunding you need to do this work and further the cause, I sure hope that happens for you.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
And Scott, thank you.
You've been wonderful.
You've been truthful.
You've been honest and you give me an opportunity that I greatly appreciate.
(39:40):
Thank you.
Well, you're quite welcome.
Either I'm being honest or I'm
Pretty good actor.
I don't know if I'm the latter.
So hopefully if anything, I'm being honest.
Gentlemen, if you haven't been to mountaintoppodcast.com lately, check out our threelongtime sponsors, Fellow Navy Seal, Jocko Willinks Company, Origin in Maine, Hero Soap
(40:00):
Company, and the Keyport.
When you get anything from our three longtime sponsors, you should absolutely use thecoupon code mountinten to get an extra 10 % off.
Also, I still haven't talked to some of you guys.
Get on my calendar.
25-30 minutes we can talk about what's on your mind.
Let me know the ideas you have for the show.
Some of you guys have been giving me some great guest suggestions.
(40:22):
And if it makes sense to put a plan of action together for you to get your life in order,to get your sense of honor and character finely tuned so that women will love you and they
will be, you know, this needs to be said, they will be the right women for you becausethey resonate with your sense of honor and character.
Yeah, how important is that, right?
That only pretends that the two of you will probably get along outside the bedroom as wellas in the bedroom.
(40:47):
If you want to talk about any of those ideas, put a plan of action in effect in your lifethat will get the right women into your life.
Just let me know.
We'll talk about it.
Get on my calendar at mountaintoppodcast.com.
And until I talk to you again real soon, this is Scott McKay from X and Y Communicationsin San Antonio, Texas.
(41:07):
Be good out there.
you
Mountain Top Podcast is produced by X and Y Communications, all rights reserved worldwide.
Be sure to visit www.mountaintoppodcast.com for show notes.
(41:29):
And while you're there, sign up for the free X and Y Communications newsletter for men.
This is Ed Roy Oldham speaking for the Mountain Top Podcast.
oh
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