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November 18, 2025 17 mins

Most men want to leave a legacy—to know their life mattered and they made a real difference. But too often we think that comes through status, wealth, or reputation. In this episode of the Manhood Tribes Show, we explore a radically different path to impact: following Jesus as the ultimate model of manhood. Jesus shows us that true greatness doesn’t start by climbing higher but by going lower—embracing what’s known as the J Curve, a journey down into humility, suffering, and even death before rising into glory and purpose.

We talk about why every man carries wounds, how those wounds are often tied to the very place of his greatest calling, and why healing them is essential to living out the life God created you for. Through real-life stories and biblical wisdom, you’ll see how following Jesus transforms your identity, restores your purpose, and empowers you to leave a lasting mark—not through chasing fame, but through surrender and strength in Him.

If you’ve ever wondered how to become the man God designed you to be, this episode will give you clarity, encouragement, and a roadmap for stepping into your true legacy.

⏱️ Timestamps
0:00 Why men long to leave a legacy
2:15 The world’s path to success vs. Jesus’ model
5:30 Understanding the J Curve
9:45 How wounds reveal your greatest glory
15:20 A personal story of finding healing
21:10 Moving from wounds to true identity
27:05 How following Jesus changes everything
33:40 Your legacy and calling as a man

💪 Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly. 💪

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Ross (00:01):
Most men want to leave some kind of mark on the world.
It is part of just our makeup asmen to feel like we've done
something in life that counts,that we're gonna leave some kind
of legacy that goes beyond us.
We want to make a difference andbe known for how we've made a

(00:21):
difference.
But for most men, the idea ofhow to do this usually has
something to do with fame ornotoriety or a platform or a
following of some kind.
And so most of us spend thebetter part of our lives trying
to amass and accumulate not onlywealth and reputation, but also

(00:46):
status and standing andinfluence so that we can be
remembered and thought highly offor the difference that we made
in the community that we were apart of.
There's not anything inherentlywrong with this, but I think
there's a model for how to dothings differently, and that

(01:07):
model is what we want to look attoday.
Here on the Manhood Tribe Show,we have been looking over the
past several weeks at how Jesusis the man who is the most worth
following.
We've been talking kind of aboutthe idea that when we think
about Jesus, we don't usuallythink of him so much as a man.
We think of him as like a goodteacher or a religious leader,

(01:30):
but we don't think of himnecessarily as a man.
Who is a man that other menwould want to be like.
We don't really associate theword manly with Jesus, and yet I
think that's exactly what weshould do.
Jesus modeled what being a manis really all about and how we
can do those things well.
And so today I want to try towrap up what we've been talking

(01:52):
about by sharing how followingJesus.
As a man is the best way that wemen can actually change the
world.
This is how we are meant toleave a mark on the world around
us, but it starts in some placesthat we wouldn't expect because
see, the thing about Jesus isthat he calls us to follow him.

(02:15):
He calls us to be like him andactually to walk the path that
he walked.
The path that he walked hassometimes been referred to as
upside down, or is alsosometimes referred to as
something that I like to callthe J curve.
Now I've gotten this idea of theJ Curve from several other

(02:37):
places, including a book calledthe J Curve, by a guy named Paul
Miller.
And the idea here is thatfollowing Jesus means that we
start at one place, and fromthere we don't go up.
We go down, we go downward intothe curve of a J, and then after
going through the bottom of theJ curve is when we finally begin

(02:58):
to make our ascent and goupwards in following the path of
Jesus.
Now.
It's called this J curve becauseJesus modeled that style of
living, that his life alsofollowed this kind of J curve.
We see this in the book ofPhilippians, chapter two, where
Paul, who wrote the book ofPhilippians, talked to us about

(03:19):
this idea of how Jesus lived insuch a way.
That he took on being a humanwhen he was God, and he took on
the form of a servant and thathe served and suffered even to
the point of death.
So he went low and lower andeven lower, still all the way to
the point of death, and yet itwas at that point that God chose

(03:41):
to exalt him to give him thehighest name, the name above
every names.
At whose name.
Eventually all knees will bowand all tongues will proclaim
his glory.
So we see that model of goingdown to then be able to go up,
and that is the same kind ofpath that we are called to

(04:02):
follow.
It's not really the path thatthe world suggests at all,
right?
Most of us know that the pathwayof the world is to try to go as
up and to the right as quicklyas you possibly can with as few
dips as possible.
Now, to be honest, I think allof us know that there is really
no such path.
That's the ideal, but none of usactually gets to success without

(04:24):
some kind of failure along theway.
But still, the point is to tryto aim up into the right.
Jesus is saying no.
Actually, you need to start byaiming downward.
If you're going to follow me,it's going to be a path into
death, and only out of thatplace is where glory and
goodness and exaltation aregoing to come from.

(04:46):
So what does that look like?
Well, for most men, I think theeasiest way to figure out what
the path downward looks like isactually to look at the wounds
in your life.
Now, I'm not just talking aboutphysical wounds, although in
some ways sometimes physicalwounds can actually reveal the
places where we are mostwounded.
But I'm talking more aboutwounds of the heart.

(05:08):
In what ways have you, as a manbeen wounded in your identity,
in your sense of self and yoursense of purpose and your sense
of just what you're supposed tomean to the world?
Where have the words been dealtin your life that they have hurt
the most?
Maybe you have been told thatyou just aren't good enough and

(05:30):
you're never gonna make it.
Maybe you have been betrayedover and over again and you've
come to believe that you aren'tthe kind of man who can ever
have real relationships thatlast.
Maybe you have been told thatyou're weak and you just aren't
going to amount too much as aman.
And so you have come to adopt aposture that just assumes

(05:51):
there's not much that you cancontribute.
Whatever your wounds are, theyhave been dealt very
specifically to you.
In fact, you have an enemy whohas sought very intentionally to
wound you in the places whereyou actually would be most
capable of making a difference.

(06:13):
You are wounded in the place ofyour greatest glory.
Let me say that again because Ithink it really matters to this
conversation.
You have been wounded in theplace of your greatest glory.
Now, glory just means the placewhere you're meant to count the
place of your fame andreputation.

(06:34):
The place where you are mostmeant to be honored.
Those are things we talk abouthere on the Manhood Tribes
Channel, that glory that's meantto shine out to the world, that
is the place where you are meantto make a difference.
That is the place where you aremeant to leave a mark on the
world, but because of that.
And because of the fact that youhave an enemy, that is often the

(06:57):
place where you get mostwounded.
So figuring out the pathdownward usually begins by
looking inward.
It begins by looking at what arethe places that you as a man
have actually been most wounded?
What things have been said toyou?
What things have been done toyou that have caused you to

(07:17):
doubt yourself, to believe liesabout yourself, to turn away
from the things that you mighthave been interested in, to
choose paths that were differentthan maybe the things you
actually cared most about orwere most passionate about.
What are those things that havewounded you and have caused you
to live a life differently thanmaybe what you truly and deeply

(07:38):
most wanted?
Those are the places to begin toexplore.
And as you follow your heartinto those places, it's going to
be a way downward.
It's going to force you to lookat and to pay attention to the
really hard things in your life,to examine the things that hurt

(07:59):
the most, and it's going in someways to feel like death.
It's gonna force you to tearopen old wounds, to examine
things that were really painfuland have continued to be painful
probably for much of your adultlife if you haven't looked at
them very closely.
You are going to need to ask andexamine those things in such a

(08:21):
way that causes you to say, whywere those things done to me?
What have I come to believeabout myself as a result of
those things?
As a result of those messages orthose actions, what have I come
to believe about God as a resultof those actions, those wounds.
How has my life been shaped bythose things?

(08:42):
Those are the kinds of cluesthat you're going to get about
why your wounds were given,because they reveal your glory.
They reveal what's most true ofyou and the way that you are
meant to make a difference inthe world.
I'll give you an example from myown life.

(09:02):
In a lot of ways, I was a littlebit of a.
Uh, out on the edge type of boy.
Growing up in my kind of likeadolescent years, I wasn't the
popular jock kind of kid.
I was more of the like bandgeek, if I'm honest.
I was the kid who like, eh,wasn't really sure of himself,
wasn't very big, wasn't veryathletic, wasn't very confident,

(09:26):
and so just had a lot of waysthat I never.
Felt like I quite measured up asa boy in PE class.
I was often the kid who waspicked last.
I was the one who did the worston all the physical challenges,
you know?
So like, I just kind of neverreally felt like I measured up
very much as a young man.
And so I came to kind of believeabout myself that, uh, when it

(09:50):
came to Manly and especiallyphysical things, I just didn't
measure up.
I wasn't gonna be as good as theother boys, and especially as
other men.
That came to morph into more ofan idea that I just didn't
belong among the world of men.
I was somehow less than and justdidn't count as a man.

(10:12):
All of these were messages thatwere sort of subtly delivered to
me, but repeatedly over time towhere I just kind of came to
believe that I didn't have whatit takes.
I didn't measure up when theworld needed men to show up.
I wasn't what the world waslooking for.

(10:32):
This was, I think, a wound thatwas very intentionally dealt to
me because I think on the flipside of that, what God has been
asking me to do, the glory thathe has given to me is to
actually be a leader of men toreach and to speak to men in
such a way that helps men comealive to figure out who they are

(10:53):
and how to be the best men thatthey possibly can be.
That's why I'm here doing thischannel for you.
So that that can be true of you.
But if I never believed that Iwas a man, how on earth was I
going to lead other men?
So, of course, my wounds weredealt in that very specific area

(11:14):
to try to take me out before Icould ever get started.
And to address those things, Ihad to go deep into those very
painful memories and figure outwhy had those things been done
to me and what were actually thethings that were really true
about me.
What had I chosen to believethat steered my life in a

(11:34):
direction that wasn't actuallywhere I needed to go, or that
wasn't actually true about me?
And how could I begin to coursecorrect on those things?
Now, what's so good about Jesusis that he met me in those
places.
He met me in those very low andpainful memories of my life and
those wounds that had been doneto me and those lies that I had

(11:55):
believed about myself, and hebrought healing and restoration.
He taught me truths.
To be able to hang onto so thatI could see that all those
things that were said and doneto me weren't actually true.
And what he believed about mewas something really different
that I could hang onto and thatI could believe and I could move
towards that the man he createdme to be was the most true

(12:18):
version of myself, and that'swhat I needed to move towards.
And in doing that and findingthat healing and that
restoration, and those messagesfrom him, I began to move up out
of the bottom of that J curve.
I began to come up out of thatplace of death and despair into
a life that he had created forme.

(12:40):
But all of that was only on theother side of dealing with.
All of those very painfulwounds.
There was no glory to be hadwithout passing through the
death of those wounds first.
Yeah, that's what life and Jesuslooks like, and being able to do
that enables us as men toactually be able to have the

(13:02):
kind of impact that we are meantto have.
When we understand who he hasmade us to be as men, it changes
first our own identity.
We begin to see ourselvesrightly, the way that he has
created us and the kind of menthat he has made us to be.
And then beyond that, it startsto impact our closest

(13:22):
relationships, our wife and ourchildren.
If we're married and we havekids, our tribe, our closest
group of men around us, thoserelationships begin to be
impacted by the fact that we areshowing up as the men that we
were created to be.
Not the men who are defined byour wounds, but the men who are
stepping into the glory that Godhas given us.

(13:43):
And beyond those closestrelationships, that identity
begins to filter into the waythat we show up in the world, in
our workplace settings, in ourlocal communities.
And even then, it might give usa bit of a sense of dream and
purpose even beyond thosethings.
As a way to be able to say, whatkind of difference could I make

(14:06):
in the world if I actually livedinto all of this identity that
God has given me?
If I truly lived out being theman that he has made me to be.
What kind of difference could Imake in the world?
And often those dreams and thosevisions are far bigger than we
could possibly imagine.

(14:27):
If we will let Jesus shape ourimagination, if we will let his
dreams for us be our dreams forus, we will be blown away by
what he wants to accomplishthrough us.
But we have to begin withallowing him to heal the wounded
and the broken places in us sothat we can then move into the

(14:49):
glory that he has created forus.
Men are meant to change theworld, but if you really want to
make the kind of difference thatyou were meant to make, you're
going to do it by followingJesus, following him down into
the place of death so that youmight come up again into the
place of life.

(15:11):
These things are so good andthis is why Jesus is the man who
is most worth following.
No other man can we give ourallegiance to who is capable of
doing what Jesus can do in ourlives if we will surrender
ourselves to him and follow himclosely.

(15:32):
I hope men, that as a result ofthe videos in this series that
you are seriously consideringfollowing Jesus if you haven't
already or if you have made adecision to follow Jesus, that
you are actually looking at himin a way that you're going,
okay, as a man, there's, there'sthings that I need to do
differently in order to moreclosely follow him.

(15:53):
He is worthy of all of yourallegiance, of giving your whole
life to so that you are becomingmore and more like him, being
the best version of yourselfthat you possibly can be.
If you would like to get aroundsome other men who are trying to
do that very same thing, I wouldencourage you to check out our
Manhood Tribe's community.

(16:14):
There you will find men who aretrying to get better at being
men, who are trying to getbetter at following Jesus and
who are looking to connect withother like-minded men.
If that interests you, why don'tyou check out manhood
tribes.com/community and see howyou can put your name on the
list for the next time that ourcommunity doors will open.

(16:36):
I hope if you've enjoyed thiscontent, that you will like this
video and subscribe to thechannel.
It will be the best way tocontinue getting great manhood
content for you each week.
I also hope that you will engagewith us here in the comments
down below.
Put something down there aboutwhat is one area where you hope
to make a difference in theworld, and how following Jesus

(16:57):
would be able to enable you todo that.
All right.
I look forward to seeing whatyou have to say and to
responding to your commentsthere, and I look forward to
talking to you again in thefuture here on the Manhood
Tribes Channel.
We'll see you then.
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