#65: Faith, Discipline & the Warrior Mindset: Cody Bobay on His New Devotional for Men

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the choose Hard podcast.
I'm your host Cody Mcbroom. I am a father, husband, coach
and entrepreneur whose one sole mission in life is to help
people live better lives. And that starts with step one,
choosing hard on a daily basis that you can build your body and
develop your mind. Today we are going to help you
do that on a daily basis. I am talking to a return guest,

(00:20):
one of my great friends, a very inspiring person, somebody who
has been just chasing his dream and accomplishing it one step at
a time, going through hardships in this living the most choose
hard life that you could possibly imagine.
And he's literally the epitome of what you would look up to as
a dude or a kid watching an action film because he literally
stars in action films. Like so he literally is that

(00:40):
guy, a jacked action film hero, which is amazing.
But he also just came out with abook and it's a devotional.
This is a daily read for you to check out.
This is called Soulcon Warrior 365 devotional 365 days to forge
faith, courage and spiritual strength.
And so today I bring him on and I chat with him about the book.
And the coolest part about this podcast is I literally this
morning just flip through this, the page, put a bookmark in it,

(01:01):
not knowing what I was going to come up with.
And it was so powerful. Every time I opened this book to
the page that I randomly picked,you will hear a powerful quote,
a powerful letter. He wrote to himself while he was
going through a hard time because this book was designed
as something he needed to get him through hard times.
He was not planning on publishing this, which makes it
that much more powerful and relatable.
And then he follows that with something from a scripture in

(01:22):
the Bible. And then last but not least, a
daily challenge and a prayer. So the daily challenge is
something that you would embark on on this day.
And I promise you, if you just go, go get this book and you
read through this book every daylike I am right now, I'm
literally reading through it every day.
And I've been reading through itthe last few weeks now since it
came out as I'm recording this, it really does start your day on
a more positive, uplifting, faithful note that you are going
to be more ambitious. You are going to get after it.

(01:44):
And this is not a soft woo woo devotional.
This is a soul con warrior devotional.
So it tells you like, hey, let's, let's feel the feels.
But it's time to buck up, get after it and get it done.
And I'd love it for that. So we're going to dive through
this book. We're going to explain why he
created this book, how it came about.
You're going to see the emotion on his face if you're watching
the video version of this podcast as I read the page in
this book, you can see him regulating, uh, remembering and

(02:06):
really just sitting in the memory of when he wrote that and
what he was going through And hebreaks down and explains exactly
what he was going through, whichmakes it that much more
relatable. So really excited for you to
listen this podcast again. This is called socon warrior 365
devotional. You can get it on Amazon.
I'm gonna link that in the description along with his
Instagram, so you can follow himcheck out when his latest movie
is coming out as well as when hefinally announces the movie he's
working on now because he couldn't share the details on

(02:26):
the podcast. And you can check all that out
on his Instagram. So without any further ado,
let's get on to this conversation with the one and
only Cody Bobet. The greatest things in life I'll
start with. A challenge you.
Must accept that everything is hard before it gets easy.
Every, every, every, every, everything you want in life
begins with a hard path. All right, Cody, Cody Bobet.

(02:48):
Man, I'm excited to have you back on the podcast.
This is round two of you coming on and it's always a pleasure,
man. It's an honor to talk to you.
I'm really excited about what we're going to be talking about
today. You've been you've been on my
mind literally every single day because I am really reading your
book every single day and I loveit, man.
So I can't wait to get into this.
But for the listeners who didn'thear round one of you being on

(03:10):
the podcast, can you just give us a just a brief intro to who
is Cody in a nutshell? How do you introduce yourself?
Yeah, man, First off, thank you bro.
Honored to be back on to Cody's one show.
Come on, this is going to be a good one.
So I I the the best way I introduce myself.
I've been married this summer for 19 years.
So I couldn't be faithful to a girl before I knew Christ.

(03:34):
I got saved when I was 18 years old when I was active duty in
the United States Navy, spent six years there.
But I couldn't be faithful to a girl to save my life.
Growing up, I lived in the partying lifestyle.
So one of my favorite things about my life is the testimony
of faithfulness to one woman anda really strong, healthy, happy,
incredible marriage. We have two kids, a 14 year old

(03:57):
boy and a 12 year old girl. And thankfully they both love
God and they're being becoming disciples in that, which is
really rad. So those are the two things I'm
most proud about. And we have an acting family.
All of us are actors. So I focus on a specific genre
but do things outside of that. I focus primarily on action and
being the hero, and I have takenother roles, but that's my

(04:20):
primary focus. My wife can do just about
anything. And my son, I mean, he just had
a massive audition for one of the biggest kids shows and
Disney. And he's, he's super talented.
And then my daughter's pretty talented as well.
So that's what we do. And I've, I'm also as an actor,
you're a creator. I'm, I'm deeply passionate about

(04:41):
art. So one of my rules of life is
that I show up to every single day and I'm creative and curious
in the moment. And I think that's what makes
you potentially be a great actor, but I know it's what
makes you a great artist. And I just released my 7th book.
So I've I've failed with a lot of books.

(05:03):
I've seen a couple of them succeed on a big level and one
of them succeed wildly. And hopefully this next one does
too. So that's a little bit about me.
I love it, man. You know, I think we're going to
get into this throughout the book, and one of these things
that I'm going to say right now is going to become very
apparent. It already is apparent just of
how you introduce yourself, but it's cool.

(05:23):
And I have a question that I might have actually asked you on
the first one, but I would be curious to hear your answer.
Again, you were one of the firstpeople that I've ever had on the
podcast that it was clearly a episode about faith.
And this isn't necessarily a Christian or a religious
podcast. This is a fitness and a mindset
and a personal development podcast.

(05:44):
But at a certain point it, it turns into me just sharing my
life, my pursuits, my passions, my practice, and, and my
thoughts on it. All right.
And so obviously Christ has kindof like influenced this a bit
and we've had different guests on the show and stuff.
But one thing I've noticed a lotsince that first time we
podcasted together and I had youon and you really started just

(06:06):
sharing your journey with Christand everything is that it seems
like there's just this shift in the world happening.
You know, and I live in one of the craziest places for this,
that the shift is probably goingto be the last place for it to
happen in and that's Washington state.
There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in Seattle right now.
But I say that to say is like, do you like, what are your
thoughts on this man? Do you see it too?

(06:27):
Do you see guys find like it seems like there's so much more
men and just people in general just curious about God and
curious about Jesus and wandering in these great movies
and books and, and, and people coming out and speaking on it
and there's just so much happening.
It's it's amazing. It's it's phenomenal.
I can't I love it. But what are your thoughts on
this? Why this is happening?
Yeah, you know, I my favorite thing because people ask me that

(06:49):
question quite a bit, especiallybeing in the film space of like,
oh man, it's hard to be open with your faith in that.
And no, I think the more we we get to where we celebrate
everything, right? Like if I want to identify as
whatever, people are going to celebrate it.
I've just learned that my story is my story.
And when people ask me my story,I love telling it.

(07:10):
And you're not going to get to know me without getting to hear
about Jesus, because I am. AI was terribly lost in my sin
of wanting to get high, wanting to get drunk and have sex and be
satiated by the partying lifestyle.
And if anybody's in that lifestyle, they understand it
can just be disastrous. Most of the time it is

(07:32):
disastrous, but it can go reallybad.
And you can have those moments at 2/3, 4:00 AM where you're
staring in the mirror saying what the F am I doing?
That was my life of majority of growing up.
I was raised in a broken home. So I never want somebody to to
really get to know me without hearing of the reality of the
song that we celebrate Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound like

(07:55):
it's so magnificent in my life. But I man Cody, I I would just
say it's really cool to see because the more expressive
everybody's getting and we're saying, Hey, you can be whatever
you want to be cool. It gives the opportunity for
guys like us to say, well, this is who we are.
And and I'm not going to tell you this is how you have to be.
I'm just going to share with youwho I am.
So I go on film sets and people can identify my last hair and

(08:18):
makeup lady was a satanic and she's working with me and I'm
the lead on the film. And we became really good
friends. And you know, it's just, I'm
going to talk to her about my faith because she's going to ask
me about my story and she's going to talk to me about her
faith. You know, it's just really
interesting. So I think we're in a really
cool time to be alive where people want to know.

(08:38):
Like I, I focus on branding a lot, right?
Releasing books, releasing movies, bringing all of the
content to life. The most important thing is the
story. Like what?
What's the story behind it? So yeah, I think I think it's
it's really cool. We're living in a time where
people want to know authentic and they celebrate authentic and
they want to know story like what what made you.

(09:00):
And as as storytellers, we get areally fun place to to be in
them. You know, and Speaking of story,
there's in your story, there's obviously there was a dark
period and that's, it's almost like you need the dark in order
to seek out the life as humans, we don't.
It's almost like it's got to getreally bad and you see that in

(09:21):
the world too. It got really bad.
And then maybe that's what drew people out.
I know I went through a dark time and that's what helped me
seek the same thing. And I see this in success as
well. You kind of have to eat dirt and
fail and grind it out and lose sleep and stress and, and go
through these hard things beforeyou learn the lessons to be
successful. Do you think this is just, this

(09:43):
is just how it always is? And this is where, and I ask
this because choose hard as a theme and as a brand, like it's
the idea of encouraging people to choose hard because those
moments are hard. And it's those moments that
probably are going to lead you where you want to be.
I would love to just hear your general advice for people who
are in the struggle right now. They are failing.
They are getting kicked over andover again.

(10:05):
They feel like they can't see the win, but you know it's
there. There's so many days in your
book where you say the win is coming, right?
And like, what advice can you give people just in general
before we dive into the pages ofthis book?
Yeah, man. So my, my answer is I don't know
when or how the the hard becomes.
Like there's sometimes where thehard is unbearable and you feel

(10:28):
like you're suffocating. And I've been there.
Somebody that struggles with mental health and still I, I
wrestle with mental health, withdepression.
It's something I can really fallinto a pit with and, and, and
grapple and I, I don't give up with it, but I, I, I, it's like
a Octagon. I fall into it with.
I just tell people all the time,I I feel like when I'm going to

(10:49):
go watch a movie and get some popcorn and get some maybe
licorice or Milk Duds or what, whatever, and I'm going to
because man, thank God for good quality snacks.
Like I, I love watching a movie.I want to see the moment.
I love action films. I want to see the moment where
you they killed John Wick's dog,you know, like I want to see
that moment to where all of a sudden that violence feels

(11:11):
justified. Now I want to be eating my Milk
Duds and watching the hero come back to life and pay back the
evil that was done. But to to get there in a movie,
you got to understand he lost his wife and John Wick and then
they killed his dog. And if I'm ruining John Wick one
for you, I'm so sorry. You need to go watch it.
It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

(11:33):
But to to understand why, you'vegot to understand how they got
there. And, and I, I don't trust people
in my life. I'm I'm going to turn 40 this
summer. I don't trust people that
haven't had failure. And if, if you're going to talk
about being successful, but you haven't endured failure and
learned from it, I don't, I don't trust you have the

(11:54):
character to withstand what success brings.
Because Cody, you know this, I know this.
I've had some things be very successful and a lot of
failures. Success is just fleeting.
I mean, it just goes away and you're stuck looking at yourself
in the mirror again. And hopefully with the the
habits you have of choosing every single day, you're hard

(12:16):
because you'll never hit a pointto where you don't have to do
resistance training, cardiovascular training, You'll
never like I love milk Duds, blue Mic and Ikes licorice
popcorn. Like I love those things.
If I ate those things at every meal, I would be a disaster
mentally and probably physically, right?
But I want to, I want to be ableto go through life and

(12:40):
understand I have to be focused with my disciplines no matter
how I feel. So I think to anybody in the
pit, every great story, every great story, every great movie
has to have those moments. Just don't give up and know the
the really big success stories that are sustainable always come
from those those really hard stretches of time.

(13:03):
I think the keyword that you mentioned there too is endure,
because John Wick endured a lot and just because he mentioned
that, it doesn't ruin the movie.Go watch it.
It's phenomenal. But he endured a lot of amazing
fight scenes throughout the whole to get to the end, right?
And so I think people, when you go through that initial pain or

(13:24):
pit, you just have to remember there is a long road of
endurance in, in the crazy part.You don't know how long it's
going to be. And I think that's where it ties
in to purpose. And if you don't have a purpose,
you can't keep continue enduring.
So how do you attach your purpose to what you're doing
right now? And how do you suggest people
attach their purpose? And, and ideally, especially
because you're so, I mean, you just start talking about your

(13:48):
makeup artists being a, a Satanist.
So like you, you can speak to a lot of different people
obviously outside of just Christor just faith, just the Kingdom,
just so some people who maybe don't have that religious
backing, how do they attach their purpose?
You know, like what is the key to to bringing your purpose into
your mission? Yeah, The best thing I I can
tell anybody, I could write a book on this one thing, God, I

(14:11):
don't want to write a book on it, but I could write a book on
it, is that never attach your purpose to outcomes.
A lot of people attach their purpose to dreams, hopes and
potential outcomes. That's not a way to live your
life. Set goals and dream big.
I think there's a really important thing of setting SMART
goals and dreaming really big and understanding that you're

(14:33):
going to fail to accomplish those.
Excuse me, but if you could liveyour life every single day to
say I am purpose to. And this is where the gospel
changed my life of Jesus becauseI'm not promised tomorrow.
The great news about life is everybody's guaranteed to die.
No matter how much people try tobe immortal, everybody's going

(14:55):
to die. Throughout the history of the
world, there's only one person that defeated death, and that
was Jesus and the couple guys inthe Bible that bypassed it as
well, which is pretty remarkable.
But for the most part, everybodydies.
So like we could agree on that scientifically, but you are
guaranteed today. And what I love about the gospel
is Jesus says love God with everything you have and love

(15:15):
your neighbor as yourself. So one of the things I remind
myself is that I am purposed to be present in my day today no
matter what. Like I'm purposed, you are
purposed if and if you can get that in your head that you are
purposed to be present today. Sometimes I think big dreams and
motivation from social media andall these things that we live in

(15:36):
can blind us from being and doomscrolling can blind us from
being present in the moment thatwe have today because who knows
what tomorrow has. But man, I've just learned that
I am purposed to be present, andwhen I'm present, I'm the best
version of myself. And when I'm the best version of
myself, I have the best shot to accomplish my destiny, dreams

(15:58):
and my aspirations. So I think everybody has to
understand, like man, be purposed in your life and you
will accomplish your purpose. But if you're not purposed and
you're distracted, it's the fastest way.
I was in the military for six years.
If I can get you distracted, I can get you confused.
I can get you off course and youwill get defeated.

(16:20):
Would you defined being purposedin your life as simply being
present or is it living to the fullest?
Like like explain what that single thing means for the
people listening. Yeah, no, great.
I you. So I have a graduate degree in
business, an undergraduate degree in business.
For me to be purposed and present, I have to know who I am

(16:43):
and what value I can add to thatpresent scenario to where if you
look at these major corporations, they know who they
are and what value they can add.So for me, I've got to know.
So if I, I can be present in themoment.
Like an example is our I, I go to a local church and our local
church has volunteer requests all the time.

(17:05):
If I just volunteer for something I suck at, like I have
two kids, but I suck with a whole bunch of kids, I'm like
kindergarten cop. Like I'll just be like, I'll
have a marching in formation. So I'm just not good in those
environments. I don't have an abundance of
patience. I have to know who I am and
where I can add value to be purposed in those present

(17:26):
moments. And and man, that takes a lot of
strategy. It takes a lot of saying, what
do you suck at in this life? I suck at a lot of things.
That's fine. I outsource them or don't
attempt them. Don't attempt them, but
something I learned in my graduate course as I was going
through this, I just completed my process in the military.

(17:46):
I was I was writing my first book and I was getting my
graduate degree. I realized that you can waste a
majority of your life focusing on things that you suck at to
try to become effective with, oryou can focus a majority of your
time on the things that you're great at and become highly
effective in those areas and then outsource the rest.

(18:07):
Depend on people to accomplish the rest.
And, and I think the only way you can be fully present with
somebody is to truly know this is who I am and this is the
value that I can add. I love that.
Yeah, I think there's a there's a good saying that says you can
be anything you want, but you can't be everything you want.
Yes, that's so good. That's so.

(18:28):
Same exact thing. I think that's super helpful
because I think a lot of people do, they waste a lot of time
trying to fix or build their weaknesses when their strength
is so amazing. And if they just poured all that
energy into that, it, it would take over everything, right?
So OK, moving into this book, first question here is why I
think like, you know, setting the stage with you do hard

(18:49):
things. You've failed multiple times.
You have an amazing life. You you've gone through multiple
obviously chapters of your life based on just the little bit
you've talked about with the Navy and acting and schooling.
And I know you had training experience as well as writing
multiple books. Why this one?
Why is this book that's? Great question.
So this book is a 365 day, technically 366 day devotional

(19:13):
to the masculine soul to transform the way they start
their day. And I got to be honest, Cody, I
never planned on making it a book.
I over the last nine months, I went through probably some of
the hardest months of my life with my struggle with mental
health. And if anybody listening as an
actor, they know this. If you're not an actor, let me

(19:36):
share it with you. An actors job is to fail about
99% of the time and that sucks. It sucks so bad because you know
you when you get an audition, it's based on your headshot,
your agent or your manager pitching you for that audition.
So once you get an audition, it's incredible.
That's a huge win. Then you get these sides and

(19:58):
sometimes it's like 5 to 11 pages of stuff that you have to
memorize and then characterize and say you're not just giving a
line reading, you're giving a performance.
And then you're going to go compete against sometimes B
list, sometimes C list, sometimes A list actors, and
you're competing on this audition.
Into your phone that you're submitting because of COVID,

(20:19):
which has made it really nice because I live in Dallas, TX, so
I can submit all over the world.Then you're going to go up
against some incredible talent and then you're going to wait
and then only one person gets picked for that job.
So over the last nine months I got some of the most incredible
auditions of my career, some of the biggest auditions.

(20:43):
I have one of the best managers in Hollywood, he's friends with
James Gunn, He is just lights out good.
I had to audition to get on his team.
But my 3 auditions were crazy, like wild, out of character
things that I would never ever do on film.
But he wanted to see my acting range and it was a it was a
massive success. So really grateful.

(21:04):
But I'm I'm literally going intothese then auditions over the
last nine months. I mean, Big Sky dance films to
be a Co lead with some of my favorite actors in the world.
And then you get an e-mail, Hey,he's in the final select.
Hey, he's in front of the producers, hey.
And then you're like crap. Well, this could change my

(21:25):
entire career. And you start to process and you
start to think and you start to plan like, OK, cool, I'm going
to be 2 1/2 months in Australia for this shoot.
I'm going to be here. And you start to hope and you
start to think and then you never hear back again.
And it's part of acting. They don't have to say like, oh,
This is why we didn't pick him anything like that.
Oh, he's in the top three, top five, top ten.

(21:46):
And you never hear back. And you, you cannot be a
passionate, present, curious, creative person and not deal
with despair. Well, what was happening to me
is I was just performing really well and making it to those
final rounds and then just not hearing back.
And I'd wake up with overwhelming depression at times
of what are you doing? Are you crazy?

(22:07):
Is this worth it? Are you ever going to make it?
And I had to write to myself. So as you read these
devotionals, they weren't written ever to be a devotional
book. They were literally me having to
go through like David, King David.
He lost his, all of his friends wanted to kill him.
At one point he was in a city called Ziklag, and they were

(22:29):
off. They're about to fight with
King. Let me remember his name, but he
was the King of Gath, Akish, King Akish.
And there he was actually fighting with the enemy.
And they're going out to fight King Saul.
And David was with him. They're like King Akers said,
Hey, we're not comfortable with you coming.
These guys aren't because they're so afraid of your men.
So you have to go back. They're afraid David and his men

(22:50):
were going to turn and fight thePhilistines.
So they send him back to Ziklag.All of David's wives, their
family got stolen by bad guys and the desert bandits and, and
David's friends wanted to kill him and stone him.
And he was weeping and crying and he, the Bible says he went
off and strengthened himself andthe Lord and sought the Lord's

(23:11):
voice. And it's in those moments I
think that, well, I know this book was born for me.
I had to learn how to write to myself to strengthen myself
through those dark times. So this book is written to the
masculine soul because you you get a motivational quote at the
start of each day from a famous Christian.
Sometimes it's a famous artist, not always a Christian, but it

(23:32):
inspires you to art. Then sometimes you get poetic
writing from me. But the next part is I had to
sit and hear God talk to me. So I wrote and this is what what
changed my life and I feel like will change every man's life if
they learn to pray this way. Majority of praying men that are

(23:53):
married should know this. A majority of effective
communication should be listening more than speaking.
And I tell people all the time, your prayer life should consist
more of you listening than you talking.
And I had to sit and learn to hear God talk to me as his son
because the great thing about the gospel is it says, Cody, you

(24:14):
don't deserve anything, but because I love you, I gave you
the gift of Jesus on the cross for you at your worst state, and
I'm going to save you. And it's not just in the saving
that my life has changed. Like that means then I don't go
to hell. Praise God.
It it means that he adopts me tobe into his family and he
considers me a son. Well, when I'm going through a

(24:37):
hard time, I don't feel value atall.
I feel like a pathetic loser that should just quit.
And I started to get tempted with a whole bunch of things.
So I had to start to write, and I probably wrote about 700 of
them. Putting it together was really
interesting because I was writing to encourage my soul to
say, hey, I need to hear from God.

(24:57):
So I couldn't hear from God. I've never heard him audibly in
my life, but I just had to writeto myself.
So I'd write, Son, and I'd just write through these devotional
prayers like God was talking to me.
And then I'd write, Hey, man, here's the Bible verse you're
going to meditate on today, Cody.
And then here's a daily challenge.
And then here's a warrior prayerand I'll talk about that in a
little bit. But that that saved my life,

(25:20):
Cody. It saved my life through some of
those really dark moments when Ijust wanted to quit everything
to say, man, I've got to sit with God as my father and I got
to cry sometimes and I got to let him know all of my emotions.
I got to pour that out to him. And then I have a wife and I
have kids. And after that moment, I got to
get up and drive on. I've got to operate like a

(25:44):
warrior. I've got to choose my hard
that's going to leave a legacy. And I have to do the hard things
I know that are right in my lifewith massive intensity.
So hopefully I can breakthrough and the story of this hopefully
incredible action story has a really good ending and not
falling short in the middle of it.

(26:06):
It's so good. I think I love, I love the the
warrior mentality aspect that you talk about with this,
because I think that that part right there is so relatable to
so many people, including myself, where it's like, you
know, you can be going through the hardest times, but as you
said, you still have a wife and children at home.

(26:27):
So there's a part of you that you have to sit in that and
learn from it. And you do have to weep and you
do have to feel, but then you also got to buck up and lead
because that's what you're called to do and you're
responsible for as a man. And I think that there's a lot
of people who, I would say most people on a, you know, I don't
know if you see this too with the guys you talk to, they
almost deviate and ignore one ofthose parts.

(26:49):
They either don't sit and think and feel and, and pray and
meditate and, and try to figure out what's going on and learn
from it. Almost as if that's, you know,
the victim, like I'm not going to sit in this or they stay in
that. And then they are the victim
mentality when they're needing to be a leader inside their
house or in front of their spouse or whoever it may be if

(27:10):
they're running a company or anything like that.
Do you see that a lot too? Like they're kind of missing one
of these sections. Oh, man, it is.
Yes. Yeah.
It's so difficult to manage. And this is what I learned from
King David, the Book of Psalms, about 70% of the book of Psalms
was written from King David. And he poured his heart out.
I mean, anywhere from like, God crushed the teeth of my enemy.

(27:35):
Like that's pretty intense to. I'm so depressed.
I feel like you've left me. God, where are you to God?
My anxiety is causing me to soakmy pillow at night from tears.
I need your help. And David would pour his heart
out and I feel like if you want to be an effective warrior, and

(27:56):
I love the word warrior, you have to be present with your
emotions. And you also have to execute on
the objectives of the day. So you have to be learn to be
present with your emotions. Do not ignore the way that you
feel. Allow those feelings to come in,
process them. I like to journal about them.
Hey, this is what I'm feeling today.
This is what's going on with me.Process it.

(28:19):
Allow those to sink in. But what I wrote in this whole
devotional is those feelings aren't your master.
We all know this. If you live your life doing good
when you feel like doing good, you're going to live a sloppy,
disastrous life. Because most of the time you
feel like sleeping in, you feel like doing whatever you want at

(28:40):
night when you get home from work, kicking your feet up and
you, it feels good to do things that are destructive for your
body. A majority of the time, we can't
live that way. We have to be present with our
emotions. We have to identify them.
We have to learn to cry. We have to learn to celebrate.
We have to learn to experience life, but then also handle the

(29:02):
objectives that we have, like a warrior.
I don't care who you are in our world today, you have to do
resistance training. I don't care how you feel about
it. Oh, it's hard.
It's, you know, not my thing. I like to just do cardio or no,
you got to do resistance training because we're a
majority sedentary with what we do.
You have to do resistance training to, I mean, prevent

(29:23):
osteoporosis. I'd say muscles, probably one of
the top currencies that we have going forward, muscle mass and
you have to train your heart, you have to cardiovascular
training. Those things suck.
Like you can have a good attitude, you can do it with
friends, but majority of time when you go into the gym and you
get, you know, you got a sweat and you got to hit that
Stairmaster for 25 minutes and you're going to do squats and
it's not fun. It's not fun.

(29:46):
There's a lot I like to sit in amovie theater with popcorn and
Milk Duds way better than than do that.
But I think it's really important for us to understand
we've got to be able to sit and process emotions. 3 1/2 years of
my career, Cody, I spent traveling the country in two
different countries, speaking tomen's conferences, men's
gatherings, talking about any struggle that a man could have.

(30:09):
The most important thing that I I learned is that when men start
to struggle, they hide their emotions because they don't want
to be a burden to anybody else. And it's trying to be heroic and
it's, it's really trying to be like strong.
And a lot of like pornography addictions come from that of
like, I don't want to put a burden on my wife.
I don't want to do this. Like a lot of them come from

(30:32):
man. I, I just don't want to add to
somebody like alcohol addictions.
It's especially addictions to opioids, pills and all those
things of that's not heroic to hide emotion.
Heroes learn to process and experience emotions, but not be
controlled by them and do what'sright anyway.
And that's really hard to do. But if you want to allow the

(30:57):
story of your life to be victorious, like the Tecumseh
quote, when you when you go to die, you're like a hero going
home. You have to learn how to
experience emotion but not be directed by the winds of those
emotions. You have to be directed by the
the propeller of the purposed you being purposed and present

(31:18):
in your life every single day. It has to be the driving force.
And I think you can definitely speak to this too.
And, and I've had my fair share of struggles with mental health
and stuff like that too. And I've talked to so many
people. I, I truly believe I can't say
this. So caveat for people listening,
I can't technically say this, but I think that resistance

(31:40):
training and spending time in whatever way I know how I do it
and I know how you do it, Cody, But however you need to do this,
but spending time with yourself in your head with God, reading,
praying, meditating, journaling,like just doing that simple like
read, pray, journal, like just those three things.
And then strength training is the cure to mental health.
I think that like the problem is, is that people run to

(32:03):
medication because that is an easier way to go.
Just take this pill and it'll just Gray things out.
And that only makes things worse.
It's very difficult to train andit's very difficult to journal
your thoughts and it's very difficult to stay with your eyes
closed, talking to the Lord, being quiet, thinking,
listening, right? Like all those things are very
uncomfortable. But once you do those things for

(32:24):
a consistent basis, I mean, it can change your life.
And I'm assuming like that's probably was that a part of the
catalyst for you to to fix and get help with your mental
health. Yeah, yeah.
No, I man, I you have to. I'm shocked at how many men
don't have the practice of meditation in their everyday
life. I would be a disaster if I
didn't have it. And meditation is hard.

(32:46):
It is more necessary to me than most of my disciplines.
I need to. Psalm 23 is the Psalm that I
meditate on. So I do repetition,
visualization, meditation. A lot of people ask me about it.
I do a minimum 10 minutes, maximum 30 minutes, and I invite
my imagination into my prayer life.

(33:08):
I'll recite Psalm 23 because it takes a long time for your brain
to get focused and calm. For me, I sit into that.
I've done deep water meditation.I've done box breathing into
meditation. I I'm a big fan, not a big fan.
Meditation has saved my life. So I have to learn how to do the
visualization side. Calm my mind, calm my mind, calm

(33:32):
my man, then fill it with maybe it's that day.
Maybe I have an audition that I want to just crush.
I need to be in that moment. Maybe I'm going to a film set
and there's an action sequence, then a then a cool emotional
scene that I'm shooting that afternoon.
I want to feel and experience that with the calmness and
stillness of my mind going through it, go going through the

(33:53):
perfect repetitions in my mind before I execute.
So it is it is a necessity to me.
And it really comes down to verysimple things like you said.
Like I think the the biblical masculinity would would change
the world if all of men started to steward their mind properly,

(34:16):
steward their money properly, steward their fitness properly,
and steward their emotions properly if we just did those
things consistently on a daily basis.
This year is my 19th time reading through the Bible and
people are impressed by that. I am really slow at reading.
Like so slow. I would rather write a book than
read a book because I'm a slow reader.

(34:38):
I have dyslexia and I, I, I can read through the Bible because
it only takes me 10 minutes a day.
Like I just read 10 minutes a day and that I get through the
Bible every year. And if I miss a day or, you
know, whatever, I'll, I'll do 20minutes the next day, but I'll
break it into 10 minute chunks. So I, I just think it's making
these priorities to where they're not overwhelming because

(35:00):
I promised we could take inventory in everybody's life to
say, I'm going to look at your screen time and how much you use
social media. If I could just take a chunk of
that. I, I think social media is
great. I love, I mean, Cody use social
media effect. I love social media great, but I
don't want that defining the inner meditations of my heart.
I don't want that. So yeah, meditation is, is
really important. And again, for all the Christian

(35:23):
men out there or men that are onthe fence like I, I got a review
from my buddy Casey that was really cool about my book.
He bought my book because he's connected with me.
He's a former Special Forces guy, and he said it earned a
place on his bedside table because he's been wrestling with
this huge gap. Is God real?
Would he ever be close to me? And just this wrestle?

(35:44):
And he is a warrior. And he came out of that and
faced a lot of things in his life.
And now this devotional is next to his bed because it has
impacted him so much. And I think it's just really
important for us to understand like we, we are a human that was
created. And if you don't, if you don't

(36:04):
believe that and you're totally against it, just read the book
Fingerprints of God, Total atheist does the human genome
project and they have to make a human body.
And that was the human genome project.
So they actually did it and theythey made the design, the
blueprint to make a human body printed out would be as tall as

(36:24):
the Washington State Monument. So they finished the project
greenlit and funded by the administration for Bill Clinton.
And, and he said there's no way to study.
He was an atheist when he started.
He said there's no way to study and see the human body and not
find faith in God. The darkest moments I've ever
been in, and I just want to share this with everybody.

(36:45):
I've never talked to one single person that does not believe
that God exists, no matter what God it is, if you're satanic,
whatever, you believe that God exists.
And I've just never, I've never had those times where where
people don't genuinely believe. But I think it's being honest
with yourself to sit in that, not allow the distractions to
keep your mind so busy and sit in those meditations, the time

(37:07):
of meditation. And man, take take one day a
week with no technology and justpen and paper and no movies, no
nothing. Just like smell a blade of
grass, like smell a leaf. Like look at a leaf and think of
photosynthesis for one hour. Think about how little you know
about science when you start to look at a leaf and chlorophyll

(37:29):
and photosynthesis and you're like, holy crap, water and
sunlight goes to this leaf and it makes carbohydrates to.
How does it, you know, like justtake time in nature and think
about science. Invite your intellect into those
moments. So yeah, man, I'm really
passionate about it. Once and when you have a child
who goes through like their Y phase, you quickly learn out,

(37:52):
learn that you only know like one layer of Y.
You get to these things. You're like, I don't know, I
have no idea. That's crazy.
I have no idea. I'll never forget I was on a
camping trip with my son and he was, he was seven years old.
And he said, Dad, how do stars stay in the sky?
And I was like, oh, man, who? Well, you know, I'll tell you

(38:13):
when you're older. Like, I don't know the exact
answer to that. I remember looking and where
there's, you know, the campfire and we're looking up at the sky
thinking, I have no idea actually.
I say gravity and then that's about as far as it goes.
I have no idea how that works. Flux capacitor keeping?
I don't know, son. Shut up and eat your

(38:34):
marshmallow. Wow.
You know I. Think yeah, it's good, man.
It's it's cool. One of the things you mentioned
that is I have a really interesting observation.
Someone I'm fascinated with is, is this idea of stewardship and
I've, I've found it very interesting to watch how people,
so many people lack self respectwhile constantly chasing the

(38:56):
respect of others who realistically don't really
matter in the grand scheme of things.
You matter far more. So you should be earning your
own self respect and it's earnedthe same way, right?
You earn self respect by doing the work, getting the result and
then proving to yourself that you could do it just like the
other person who did the work and got the result and has proof
of it. You respect for that thing, most
of which was hard stuff they went through and you respect
them for that. So, but I say that because I

(39:19):
find it really cool that there'sa lot of guys like yourself who
put an emphasis on stewardship, which is is, in my opinion, this
idea of treating your body, treating your business, treating
your relationship, treating yourlife, treating the, your car,
this table, this podcast equipment, the world, everything
as well as you can. Because you don't own a damn

(39:40):
thing. God does.
And God's given that to you. And the cool part about that is
you have such a high regard and respect for God that you excel
in these areas and treat your body and your life and your
relationships and all these things so great.
And it's that one simple shift that could take somebody from
not doing what they should be doing and treating themselves
the way they should and being the best version of themselves

(40:01):
just from the simple fact that you realize life is such a gift
and you have to steward it well,you know what I mean?
And it just, it's such a, it's such a shift.
Yeah, it's man, it's, it's supercool when you realize you're not
taking any of it with you. And you can read about King Tut
and you can read about these Pharaohs that roam and LED the

(40:23):
land in Egypt and the craziest things ever.
These, you know, that created the pyramids in the underground
systems. All these things have like lay
literally were some of the most brilliant leaders to walk the
face of the earth and they try to take it with them and you
can't. And as you go through this life,
and especially the more mature you get, you start to understand
the most important things are inyour top currency is the time

(40:47):
that you have with the people that you love and the people
that you love. They should care about your
quality time with them, not whatyou can get them and what you
can do for them and what you canbuy for them.
They should just care about you and love being with you.
And man, I, I, I think once, once you get to the place to

(41:09):
where it's truly about the, the stewardship, the failures don't
sting as bad and the, the successes don't distract you as
much. And we have to get to the place
to where it's no matter what my next film does, I still have to
wake up and eat healthy. I still have to wake up and

(41:31):
have, I have stuff to choose my heart.
It's not like you unlock a pointin life where all of a sudden
you're immortal. You'll never have pain again.
You'll never have joint pain. You'll never have headaches.
You never have to worry about like problems and depression and
anxiety. You still have a human body
every day that you have left on this planet and that time is

(41:52):
limited and you don't know when that's going to end.
So you may as well maximize it. Man, I just see so many people
distracted and, and I think again, if I was going to attack
a civilization, I'd want them distracted so they wouldn't see
my plan against them. And one of the books that
changed my life was the Screw tape Letters by CS Lewis.
It's a small read or listen like3 hours to listen to it.

(42:15):
If you read it like one times the speed, you know the, the
normal speed. But it's CS Lewis who wrote
Chronicles of Narnia writing like he's a demon in training
for this young, young demon on how to destroy a human life.
And it's magnificent. But the key is just keep them
distracted and then you can torture them.

(42:36):
That's similar to Outwitting theDevil.
It's a really good book. Really good, very, very trippy
to listen to. But really?
I just listened to it recently and yeah, 'cause I yeah, really
good book. Very, very eye opening and and
just like the fact that he's interviewing the devil like it,
it is just in the way he, I mean, it's exactly what he said.

(42:57):
He talks about humans as these distracted beings.
And you know what, like this is actually perfect too because
I've always been like this dude,this book, your devotional
literally came out the perfect time because I didn't have a
devotional at the time. And I'm a big, my morning
routine changes over time, but Ialways have something that sets

(43:19):
my mode for the day. It's it shifts me.
And like, that's a huge thing because I do believe that the
way you start your day really does change your attitude, your
outlook, everything, your reactions, responses.
And it's cool because my wife has her devotional on her night
stand now I got mine, my daughter has hers that we read
to her before bed. It's, it's like perfect.
And so I start my morning with this every day.
And it's, it's been phenomenal, man.

(43:40):
I've been reading it every day since I got it.
And it couldn't have come at a better time.
And I think that everything we've talked about thus far is,
is honestly like the perfect context and build up for opening
this up right now and, and talking about a few things
inside of it. Because you know, one, you've,
you've been transparent about your past.
You've been transparent about mental health and the importance
of it and your struggles with itand the, the constant failures
and difficult decisions you haveto push through and everything.

(44:03):
And then you created something to get yourself through those
difficult times and out of that,that mess in your head
essentially. And then it became a book.
And so guys listening might be like, man, like I wish I had
that attitude. Well, you can literally because
this is, this is what Cody did for it.
So the cool thing, and I'm not, I'm not joking bro.
So one of these, I have 5 bookmarks in here, little sticky

(44:25):
notes that are ripped up. One of them is like today
because I'm reading it. So obviously the other four, I
literally just picked a page, opened it up and stuck a piece
of paper in there. And it was a phenomenal, like I,
I made sure every time. And after the 4th one, I was
like, these are all perfect. Like these are perfect for
today. So I'm going to literally open
this up to the first one. I want to read just a little bit

(44:47):
of this. And I want you to just kind of
reflect and, and kind of on thisfirst one.
Maybe tell us that how you, how you went about formatting this
'cause you have a, you have the date, you have a quote, then you
have a section, which I imagine you read, then you have a piece
of scripture, then you have a daily challenge, then you have a
warrior's prayer. And it sounds like a lot if
you're listening, but this takesMe 2 minutes Max.

(45:07):
And I'm not a fast reader. Like this is not crazy.
The challenge is a separate, I have to leave and go do it.
So that might take me more time depending on it, but it's it's
really cool. So today there's well, this
first one I opened up to was January 7th and a quote by Rick
Warren to start. When you understand that life is
a test, you realize nothing is insignificant.
Then you say, son, nothing in your day is wasted.

(45:31):
Not the interpret, I'm sorry. Not the interruptions, not the
long waits, not even the suffering.
Every moment is an opportunity to respond with faith to grow
and grit to trust deeper. I use traffic jams to build
patience. I use detours to develop
character. I use silence to strengthen
dependence. Don't despise the small moments.
They are prove the proving grounds of your calling.

(45:53):
Dude. I love, I love that I opened it
to this page first. So good whoever can be trusted
with very little can also be trusted with much Luke 1610 and
the daily challenge is treat every moment today, especially
the frustrating ones as a test of your faith.
Pass it with purpose. This is dude, like if choose
hard could be summed up it, it'sliterally this because it's it's

(46:13):
approaching every moment that hits you and and beginning to
instead of reacting or not knowing what to do, it's
instantly knowing that you have to push through.
You have to have faith. You have to embark down the
difficult path because it's going to lead to a good place.
And this frames that so well, especially with the little
moment. So I, I love this page, man, but
break this down for us. How did you decide?
Like what was it that made you think I'm going to pick a quote

(46:36):
and then I'm going to write a letter, I assume to myself as
though the words that you're hearing as you pray.
And then you pick a quote, a, a verse, and then you have this
daily challenge. Like was this daily challenge
what you decided that you were going to do today?
Like how did this, how did this come about?
Yeah, man, Thank you. Thanks for reading that.
I love that one so much. And I know exactly where I was

(46:57):
at when I wrote that and I was on a plane that I faced a 10 1/2
hour delay that day. And I, I want people to
understand one of my favorite things about life.
If you can navigate through understanding, every opportunity
is an opportunity for you to grow stronger or you to grow

(47:20):
weaker. And it's a rule we have in my
house that it's weak and easy tocomplain.
It's hard and effective to choose to go grow stronger.
And man, weak people talk about other people, strong people,
they talk about how they can improve.

(47:41):
And, and I've never, and I've heard this on social media.
I'm not sure who this quotes from.
I've never had an actor that's way ahead of me talking bad
about me. I just hit a milestone on my
social media where I have over 200,000 followers and I'm like,
oh that's on Instagram. I'm like sweet.
Then I look at somebody else, I'm like they have 14,000,000.
I am so far away and you start to see this.

(48:02):
But I've never had Alan Richardson make a post slamming
me. He has no idea who I am, even
though I love his career, I lovewhat he's doing.
We have to understand there are moments that define our destiny.
And I think every moment helps define my destiny.
And I want everyone to be a brick that I'm continually

(48:22):
building, whether it's I'm fatigued, tired, my flight's
been delayed all day and I'm on a plane.
And on that plane there was a a lady that was really grouchy.
So I was the company I was with.They were flying me first class
and I was sitting in first classand she was demanding things of
these shortices and the weather was bad and everybody was kind

(48:43):
of tense. And I remember I was sitting
there and I was watching and I was writing and I love the
structure of and it was really hard to make the structure for
these devotionals because I wanted something that I loved
because I think to to be able todo anything properly as an
artist, you first have to be deeply inspired and impacted by

(49:04):
it. I wanted to be done in 2
minutes, 3 minutes and and be a thought process that can be
sticky with me through the through the day.
I love quotes. I love Rick Warren, what he's
been through. His book Purpose Driven Life
changed my life. When I was 18 after I became a
Christian, I grabbed that and read it and it was men.
So I love that. But I wrote these in a way where

(49:27):
I felt like it was God speaking to me and it's what I needed to
hear in that moment because I want so many times, like I just
want right now to be on a film set in Hollywood leading an
action film because I love it somuch.
But if I really want to get there, I have to keep building
the bricks of intentionality, understanding my entire life has

(49:49):
purpose. My entire everything coming
against me, whether it's a 10 1/2 hour flight delay and I'm
sitting there next to a lady that's complaining and I'm
analyzing this and, and having empathy for the stewardess
that's serving and stressed. And that's where I with this,
where I wrote that one. So I just wrote it.
I actually love Jesus calling. Every time I read Jesus calling,
though, I feel like I'm reading my wife's journal.

(50:11):
And I've always wanted a kind ofJesus calling for the masculine
soul. So I love what Sarah Young did
and that was brilliant and phenomenal.
I love it so much. But I wrote it in a way that it
could be Jesus calling for the masculine soul and then it would
give me something to challenge me because I like to be
challenged. And then a warrior prayer.
One of my most important things is I feel like as men, we have

(50:34):
to learn to be able to sit and process with our Heavenly Father
and and experience his presence,all the emotions that come with
it. And then because that's not all
of life. That's a part of life that
transforms your day. Then you have to go to the gym
and then you have to go to work and then you have to speak and
act and perform or audition whatparent and husband and do all

(50:56):
those things. I wanted to train my mind to
say, Lord, help me to pray and to operate with my daily
disciplines, with my exercise asas a warrior that lives in
honor, that knows. I used every opportunity as a
building block because I don't know.
I'm, I'm an actor focused to be an action hero in film.

(51:17):
I don't know if I'll ever make it to where I want to go, but I,
I do know and I have to guarantee myself this every
single day. I do know if I get there, I will
have the character to sustain a healthy marriage and a life that
my kids will be proud of. Something that is I think I

(51:38):
think everybody needs to hear just from the story you told
about the plane and, and based on this page I read is that you
had to intentionally start journaling, intentionally sit
and think and observe. And, and, and I say that because
I think a lot of times people, there might be somebody like, I
want people to visualize this. You're sitting on the plane and

(51:58):
you see this happening too and you're getting kind of irritated
and frustrated. Then you look over and you see
Cody. He's not looking very
frustrated, pondering. He's journaling, he's reading,
he's thinking, he doesn't look angry.
He has a good energy to him. And in your mind, a lot of times
people would never think that you're putting together this at
that moment. They're honestly probably

(52:19):
somewhat envious, right? They're just like, how does this
guy not get irritated? Why is he so calm and like, how
does he stay so positive and allthat stuff?
This is why, and This is why I think these things are so
important. This is why before I was reading
this every morning, I was doing something else.
Every morning I was reading something no matter what.
That's why I read a proverb every single morning, because
you have to frame your mind going into the day because it's

(52:39):
not our natural tendency to justrespond positively and be
optimistic and and respond patiently.
Don't react abruptly like that is not the the the bad response
is always what naturally comes to mind.
Emotional, reactive, angry like those things are human
tendencies and we have to fight against them.

(53:00):
And this is part of the way you do it is starting your day with
this, which is it's so great, dude.
And I want to clarify to everybody listening, like I was
literally taking my kids where I'm in company coming over
tonight in like, you know, 30 minutes from now.
And I had to take them to Walmart.
And there was a guy that like cut off next to me and like, I
literally drove up and made eye contact with him because I feel
like sometimes they just need tosee the size of the man that

(53:23):
they're looking at. And so I'm with my kids and
they, you know, they see me do that.
And I was like, oh, I shouldn't have done that, guys.
I'm sorry. So just just so everybody knows,
this devotional came from the heart of trying to be the best
person possible. But I have like Happy Gilmore
inside of me that I have to justkeep down.
Can go from like wanting to be good to like ripping a guy's

(53:45):
throat out and back and forth. So most of the time I try to be
that positive, present and purpose person in the moment,
but sometimes stupid people pushme over the edge and I do
stupid. Things that's what makes it that
much more relatable. Dude, like and I'll, I'll
compliment you on this, 'cause Iwas talking to a client

(54:07):
yesterday about this coach client because I did something
different situation. But what I did similar to what
you just did is apologize in front of my daughter.
Because I think it takes a lot of humility to to be able to
stop right after doing somethingthat you don't want others to
see and be influenced by. Now your kids are going to be

(54:28):
influenced by how you corrected yourself, which takes a lot of
humbleness, man. And so, and I did the same
thing. I like, it was a rough morning
the other morning and I should have handled it better with my
wife. And I was just kind of being
dismissive about it. And so I stopped.
I was like, I don't care if we're going to be late for
school. Got on the knee, apologize about
the whole situation in front of my daughter, just to let her
know it's not how a dad acts. It's not how a man acts.
I'm sorry for that. And it wasn't a huge deal, but

(54:52):
it's a big deal that I did that in a positive way, you know, and
it, it's that's not what I wanted to do.
That's not easy. That's you know.
That is, I tell guys all the time you ought to be an
effective dad. Your kids need to hear you ask
for forgiveness. And it starts with, you know,
the only, the only thing good about me is that I'm forgiven.

(55:12):
So I need to show that and celebrate that.
And I'm forgiven every day. And no matter how good I do in
some areas, I can literally justbe a disaster in other, other
areas. And I, I think it's just
constantly living in that forgiveness, understanding that
you need forgiveness every single day and throughout the
day. That makes us super effective.

(55:34):
So I love that man Thanks. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, absolutely. And this devotional just written
I just so everybody knows, I once I had them all and I
probably have 700 of them total.It was the hardest professional
thing I've ever done. I had to take them out and then
I had to format them and then I had to get them all to where

(55:57):
they're in one page of AI wanteda certain size book.
And then I had to go through andmake the format, make sure the
formatting. Then I had to make sure the flow
and then I picked some out and put move some around.
And I wanted the experience to be Cody like you're talking
about. I actually read it every
morning. It's with my Bible and my
journal because I pray for everyman going through it and I've

(56:19):
written so many of them. Some I know exactly where I was
at like that one when I wrote itand some I think back to where I
was, but it was it was when you read this book, I know each page
is soaked in prayer and its purpose to be in that position
in that month. And that was professionally.
It's the hardest thing I've everdone was cross that finish line

(56:41):
of I knew it was excellent and Isubmitted it to release.
Yeah, I, I think a lot of peoplethey forget to think about after
all the words have been put intoa document, there's still a lot
left to deal with the book man. And, you know, I think, do you

(57:02):
have enough time for me to read a another page or two?
Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm great.
Yeah. So I think that one of the
things and this this is another good example of this.
And the last page was too, but the second page I just flipped
to randomly April 12th. And it's, you can see this is
about an issue. You can see your own issue in
it. You know, you had an issue that

(57:23):
you were working through when you wrote this, but as soon as
you read it myself or another person, it's like, I know
exactly what The thing is. So this one, I don't know how to
pronounce Craig's last name for this quote.
Craig Groshell. Yep, that's.
It Oh, there we go. You cannot correct what you are
unwilling to confront. So true, son.

(57:43):
Ignoring the issue won't fix it.Avoiding the conversation won't
heal it. You are not called to comfort,
you're called to courage. Love.
That confrontation isn't anger, It's love and action.
It's clarity with conviction. It's stepping into the tension
instead of tiptoeing around it. I didn't put fear in you.
I put the truth and boldness in your bones.

(58:03):
So speak, move, lead, speak the truth and love Ephesians 415.
The daily challenge was confrontone situation today that you've
been avoiding. Do it with truth and love, dude.
That is a great one. And again, like confront one
situation today. But as soon as you read that
quote and you start going through this, ignoring the issue

(58:24):
won't fix it. You know exactly what issue pops
up in your head and you need to confront it because so many, and
this is so powerful because there's so many guys and gals
and everybody that we have an issue and we just keep dealing
with it and we keep accepting itand we keep moving around it or
trying to avoid it or tucking onthe rug.
But the most uncomfortable thingis the thing.
You have to go through it. You have to grow through it.

(58:46):
Yeah. And and that, that one for me
specifically, it was before I had to have a meeting with
somebody that I was going to letgo.
And that one was really tough oflike, hey, this is what I'm
called to. I am called to be courageous.
And that's really hard when you're going to hurt somebody.

(59:08):
And you know, the Bible says a wound from a friend is better
than a kiss from the enemy. And I just had, you know, I
think one of the hardest things with being a visionary
entrepreneur and you're leading and growing is having those
really hard conversations that you don't want to have.
That can be in your marriage with a marriage counselor, that
can be with your kids. And I just had to remind myself

(59:31):
like, I have to be bold in my speech.
I have to understand. And you know, I love Craig
Rochelle and that quote really kind of just sucks because it's
so good. And I, you know, I, I hate it,
but it's, it's choosing your hard and making sure that when

(59:51):
you go through those moments, you learn as much as you can,
your present and you're practicing being present and
you're, you, you take it on so. I just had to remind myself like
because I wanted to put the meeting off and cancel it and
make up an excuse. But either way, if I don't have
that meeting, suffering happens because of my inadequacy to have

(01:00:13):
courage inside of my bones to get the job done and be a man
and take care of it in a good way.
Be a man and take care of it. And sometimes you, you get those
amazing moments. And the end of that call didn't
go well. And I didn't, you know, make a
friend from it, but I didn't lose my mind.
I protected my vision and my company and it was good.

(01:00:35):
It was really good. It was just really hard.
And, and I think when you can understand, and that's where
this devotional has has helped me so much.
When you, when you go through this, and I hope everybody that
reads it feels like it's prayerfully inspired because it
is for sure, because it was never intended to be written for
a book. It was written from my lessons.
I was going through literally like a journal to myself to, to

(01:00:58):
encourage myself to speak courage to myself.
And then I love poetry. So I, I, I write some of them as
poetry and, but none of them were ever shared to social media
anything like that. I just would write them and it
was, it was really a cool process.
But I I need everybody to know you need those shots of courage.
You need those shots of motivation, you need those shots

(01:01:19):
of inspiration before you start a day.
So thank you for sharing that one, man.
Yeah, that was that was that onewas written before a really
tough meeting that didn't even end the way that I wanted it to,
but it ended the way that I needed it to.
And it was protected like a warrior going forward.
And warriors do the hard thing and they do it to protect the
purpose and destiny that they'refighting for.

(01:01:42):
And, and that's super important,man.
I mean, you think of if there's a lot of rhetoric to say you
want to be a warrior, it's that's really cool when you're
working out and we're talking about it.
But when you got to go extinguish the work of evil with
violence of action, maybe that work of evil is you, you
tolerating pornography and that addiction.
Maybe that work of evil is, you know, most of the time in

(01:02:04):
today's world, it takes violenceof action to stop the evil that
we're destroying our lives with alcohol addiction, gambling
addiction. Maybe you have an addiction to
an apathetic life, but you have to take violence of action.
Everybody wants to be a warrior until it's time to say, I need
counseling. I need to go to sexual to essay
Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody talks cool rhetoric

(01:02:28):
until it's time to put that sword to the test and, and, and
make it bloody with things that you have to, you have to do
effectively. And, you know, thankfully we
don't live in a world where we have to pick up our sword and go
fight bad guys all the time. There's, you know, I'm, I'm kind
of grateful for that, but we have to pick up the, the

(01:02:49):
metaphorical blade constantly. And, and sometimes we want to
leave it down and we want to leave it at our house and, and
not do the hard thing. But man, if we can just create a
habit of doing those hard thingswhen they need to be done, our
life will be so much more protected and purposed.
And then we don't have the poison of regret drinking that
every night. Yeah, dude, it's, I love

(01:03:11):
watching your face as I read these two because you can tell
the memory pops up, which is really cool, you know, and, and
dude, I know exactly how that isas an entrepreneur, I know I've
had the same. And you build it up in your head
for days and days. And it's there's, you know, with
every great calling comes great responsibility and great

(01:03:31):
sacrifices. And I think that's the part
people see the calling. They don't see the sacrifices,
the responsibilities a lot of times, which brings me to my
last page. I want to read because it it and
it's today. We'll finish on today's as we're
recording this. Oh, I'm sorry, tomorrow, not
today. I've moved the bookmark to
tomorrow. But this is literally so on
point with what we just said. And the quote from CS Lewis is

(01:03:53):
hardships often prepare ordinarypeople for an extraordinary
destiny. Son, pain screams, purpose
whispers that alone, bro. I I read that and I'm like, that
is so good. Paine screams purpose whispers.
The pain says quit. The purpose says continue.
You are not abandoned in the hurt.

(01:04:13):
You are being anointed in the fire.
The greater the crushing, the greater the calling, the deeper
the pain, the higher the purpose.
Hold on son. The plan is bigger than the
pain. And we know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love him who have been
called according to his purpose.Romans 828 and the daily
challenge of this one was when pain hits today, whisper this,

(01:04:36):
God's plan is greater than my pain.
Man, that is such a good follow up to the last one, which is
crazy because they're months apart, but like so good.
Any memories? We're going to like kind of wrap
it up here on this one, but anything you want to say about
that before we close out? Yeah, so that is a quote from
Clive Staple Lewis, one of my favorite guys ever, CS Lewis.

(01:04:56):
It was a mantra in my head for years and years and years in my
life and still is, that I have to remind myself that hardships
in our lives prepare ordinary people like me.
If you're listening, like I'm totally ordinary for
extraordinary destinies. And like having that

(01:05:16):
understanding in my life was so important that hardships take an
ordinary person like me and prepare me for an extraordinary
destiny. There's nothing extraordinary
about Cody Bobe. I have to be humble enough to be
aware of that and to be able to really process and navigate
that. For me to live an extraordinary
life, it's going to take hardships because I'm I was not.

(01:05:40):
I didn't come out of the womb like an NFL athlete.
I didn't come out of the womb like the star player.
I have friends that have that. It's crazy.
I mean, they came out of the woman.
It's like, oh, they're going to be one of the top athletes in
the world. A friend that was NFL athlete
finished the NFL and then he's like, oh, he went to a CrossFit
gym, started rowing. The dudes like, dude, you're
really good at rowing. Went to Rio on the rowing team,

(01:06:01):
never rode before and now he's like on his like 4th business
that is sold, exited over hundreds of millions of dollars.
Like the dude is just good at anything he does.
I'm not that guy. I've never been that guy.
I'm an ordinary guy. He's reading the devotional 2.
He's a great guy, he loves it. But I've never been an
extraordinary person. But I want to be an
extraordinary. I want to have an extraordinary

(01:06:22):
destiny. So I have to embrace hardship
and know that it's making an ordinary person like me and hope
that it's making me to be prepared to live that out.
And CS Lewis also was an ordinary person that, you know,
impacted storytelling in a magnificent way.
So yeah, I, I just really want people to understand the pain

(01:06:49):
that you're experiencing. Will scream and purpose always
whispers. And it's one of my favorite
lines I've ever written was in that one, any stage I've ever
spoke on, any makeup chair I've had, ever had a conversation
with, anybody I've ever talked with one-on-one, they don't want
to hear about the time when I was in Cancun with my wife and

(01:07:12):
it was easy. And it's just like nobody.
Those aren't cool stories. They want to hear about the time
I was with the IDF special forces starving to death,
thinking that I was, I was so cold one night I had to have my
buddy that's a marine spoon me from the back because I was
shivering so bad. And I was in the desert in
Israel and I was going through their survival training.
They want to hear those stories where the the pain was screaming

(01:07:33):
so loud I literally thought I was going to die.
And then I hear something outside my tarp.
We have a tarp over us and I hear it and I think it's a
better win. So I grab my knife and I'm ready
for a fight and I flip my tarp up, but I'm literally I have the
flu. I'm shivering and shaking and I
see something. It's 3:00 in the morning and it
has my bowl in its mouth and it's a fox.
And I was so mad because it was a fox.

(01:07:53):
I threw my knife and it took offwith my bowl.
People want to hear those stories when you're trying to
describe something, to tell a story to, to, to leave an impact
in somebody's life. And I just have to remind myself
constantly that the pain screaming at me that you're
never going to make it. You're never going to have one
of these auditions breakthrough.You're never going to get cast

(01:08:15):
in a really big movie. That pain will scream.
And for me to hear my purpose, the truth, I have to get really
quiet because we know from the Bible that God, his voice, he
did this with Elijah. His voice comes in a whisper.
It's not in the firestorm, it's not in the earthquakes.
It's in that still small voice. So the purpose that we have will

(01:08:37):
whisper. So the moment you start to feel
like the depression, the anxietyscreaming at you, you know,
that's pain that hopefully is going to make a really cool
story. But you got to you got to get
quiet and and listen to purpose because it what I found is it
whispers to you. So good man, so so good.
I love it has been phenomenal, man.

(01:08:59):
I'm going to link everything that you have in the show notes
because you got a movie coming out Savage coming out soon in
the next month or two. I think you said you have
another one that you can't really talk about that you're
getting ready for and training for and everything.
So that will be something peoplecan check out and tune into.
If you just go follow him on Instagram, which I'll link that
in the show notes and then I'll link, uh, this book.
Do you want like what Amazon, your website, all that stuff?

(01:09:21):
Just link it all in there. It's my first book only through
Amazon. So it's Kindle softcover,
hardcover. It's only through Amazon, which
has been it was #1 in two categories, and it was my first
book ever in the top ten. It was #9 of best sellers on
Amazon when it released Super Red.
Huge man. Congrats.

(01:09:42):
Yeah, yeah, so awesome. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a
big win. So yeah, just Amazon would be
great. And yeah, man, just that my next
film will be November, December,which will be an action hero
crazy, awesome film. And then Savage will release on
streaming in about a month or two.
Love. It awesome well I will link all
this. The book is called Soulcon

(01:10:03):
Warrior 365 devotional 365 days to forge faith, courage and
spiritual strength. Cannot recommend it enough Like
I said I got it immediately. It was funny because you, you,
you texted me and I was like, bro, I already, I already got
it. I'm, I'm, I can't wait.
Yeah, like I, I was on it right away because this is right up my
alley and I cannot recommend it enough.
So I'm going to link all that inthe description of this podcast.
You guys can check it out and gofollow Cody and, and dude, thank

(01:10:25):
you so much for spending time with me.
It's been an honor and it's always a blast talking with you.
Yeah, likewise bro. Thank you so much, Cody.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#65: Faith, Discipline & the Warrior Mindset: Cody Bobay on His New Devotional for Men

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#65: Faith, Discipline & the Warrior Mindset: Cody Bobay on His New Devotional for Men

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