How Can Men Discover Their True Identity Beyond External Labels?

Josh (00:00:02) -  Good day fellas. Welcome to Uncensored Advice for men. This show is for you guys. And, we're having a fun conversation with the guy. You might have heard his stuff before. Mr. Jake Hamilton, welcome to the show.

Jake (00:00:16) -  Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah.

Josh (00:00:18) -  All right, so we just we bump into each other at a coffee shop or something like that, and I'm like, hey, I'm Josh, blah, blah, blah. Who are you?

Jake (00:00:27) -  I'm Jake Hamilton, and I run something called the Fight. I mean, for me, I'm I. It's great because we asked men this question all the time. When they come to a fight weekend, they come up to the door. And the way they have to enter into the door is we go. Okay. So I ask them three times, who are you? You know, and just try to get down. What is what is the identity you have beyond your name? So we just ask, who are you three times and see where how deep you can go with that.

Josh (00:00:55) -  Wow. Yeah. All right. Take me through that exercise. I'm not prepped for this. I've never, I've never but, like, take take me through that. So I'm walking through the door. My buddy invited me. He goes, hey, you want to come to a fight weekend? I'm like, yeah, man, I love jiu jitsu, I love fighting. He's like, well, exactly. I don't know if you're, you know, what you're walking into. But I walk through the door and you say, hey Josh, so walk me through. That's like walking.

Jake (00:01:16) -  So every the best part is, is you sign up for a fight weekend. You have no idea. You know where you're flying into, but you don't know the address. Where we're going to what the house looks like. The space looks like. You just know you're there with 12 to 15 other men. We're expanding that to be a little bigger now. But you show up and essentially these large vans pick you up at the airport.

Jake (00:01:35) -  Hi. Our names are so-and-so. You drive to the house, you get to the house, and each man comes up one at a time to the front door, and they have to show the work they did, preparatory work that they did showing up, which is they have to write a story from their childhood between the ages of four and 18 and 800 to 1200 words, specifically about that moment that they're going to share in front of these other men over the course of two days, like you will get 45 minutes of care and containment to share that. So these are the things, you know, going into this space that I'm going to be doing this. So I'm already timid, don't know where I'm going or little like, you know, it's a little sketch, the whole thing. We could be abducting you. You have no idea. And you walk up to the door, you meet me for the first time, and at the door, I ask you, do you have your homework? Did you prepare? Yes.

Jake (00:02:25) -  You were only going to get out of this as much as you put into this. Who are you? And every man at that point is like they. Default is always name. Right? So it's like I'm Jake and it's like, course. So, so nice to meet you. Awesome. Who are you? Yeah. So now you know I'm looking.

Josh (00:02:45) -  Here's my work, here's what I've done, blah blah blah.

Jake (00:02:48) -  Right. That's it. So I so I think it's now. And who said the the immature form of identity is who. what do you do? What do you have and what do others think of you? That's the immature form of identity. When I don't know when I have nothing else to lean on, I will default to what I do, what I have, and what others think of me. That's how I'll find my identity. I'll find my security if I don't do any deep work, that's what I'll default to. And so most men will default to I am Jake and I do these things I am.

Jake (00:03:23) -  I am a child of God. That's a real default one in our setting. It's like, well, I'm a child of God. That's great. What is? And then I'll usually if they get to something like that, I'll go. What does it mean? What does that mean? Because most men, they'll, like get to that space of language that they've learned, learn the language. But what is behind that? And what's the mess behind that? That's what we're trying to get to. Right? Like for us, I'm trying to get in the mud with these guys and going, our life is messy, so let's get into it right at the front door. And if that's not what you're in for, you're totally cool to leave. I will give you your money back. No hard feelings. High fives will drive you back to the airport. But if you're going to go through this door. This. This is a space where we're going to go deep. We're going to be vulnerable and we're going to ask hard questions.

Josh (00:04:17) -  Yeah. So super sketch right. So I get off the the flight and I get into an unmarked white van, which my mom and dad told me never go in. Yeah.

Jake (00:04:26) -  We tell everyone we have candy. It's fine.

Josh (00:04:29) -  All right, come on, guys. And then you go to an undisclosed area location.

Jake (00:04:34) -  Who knows?

Josh (00:04:35) -  So why do you guys sign up for this? Right? Like, why would someone do that?

Jake (00:04:42) -  Two reasons their wife signed them up. Or because there's we usually get about, you know, like a quarter of the guys who wives are like, this is not an option for you. You're going, because they were at an event or I brought it up at something, or we online or whatever, and their wives are like, you're going to this. And the other version of this is men are so desperate for, for some, some change that they're willing to step into whatever space they can when they feel it's authentic. Because, I mean, conference land is great.

Jake (00:05:12) -  Like we can easily do conference land. Just get everybody in big rooms. It's super hype. Great. That's and there's a place for that and it's awesome I love it. That's just not the work we do. The work we do is small, it is tribal, and it is deep into your story so that we can get the courage that we need to tap into, which only comes through vulnerability. Men have all this courage for these external things that like, that's great, like I can. Hurrah for you all day long. That's super awesome. But if you can't do that same work internally, then is the courage you're portraying actually true, or is it just something you're making up to prove to others how tough you are?

Josh (00:05:53) -  Yeah, totally. That I'm totally trying to constantly prove how awesome, how tough I am. Because inside I'm a little kid who needs a validation and approval from other men.

Jake (00:06:05) -  Right. And there's actually nothing wrong with needing the validation. It's just is the validation for my ego or for my character? Is it for my giftedness or for my integrity? Because if you don't know me, you can't really make that decision.

Jake (00:06:18) -  And if I'm not willing to be known, then I'm not willing to know myself first and foremost. Like, I have to get to know me because I can only love to the limit that I love myself. That's what I'm. That's what I'm told is the baseline. So if I have no value for me, if I feel like I'm a piece of trash, maybe because I've been told that my whole life, well then guess what? You're going to offer everybody else the same exact thing, and cycles will continue to repeat until you show up. You actually show up as you are in reality, not the fantasy, and do the work necessary to engage with your story. Because self-discovery is the baseline of how we find self-confidence. Men ask me all the time I want to get more self-confident. I want to be courageous. Self-Discovery is the doorway and the pathway to self-confidence in a man's soul.

Josh (00:07:09) -  All right, so there's there might be a guy listening in for the first time. Man, we jumped off the deep end.

Josh (00:07:15) -  We got real fast. Yeah, man. We're we're in. All right, I'm going to bring us back to the shallow end a little bit.

Jake (00:07:21) -  Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

Josh (00:07:23) -  Here you are. You're tatted up, dude. You play music. You and your wife had this ministry, like, you know, like, tell us about. Tell us about some of your tattoos, man.

Jake (00:07:33) -  I well, I didn't get any tattoos until I was, I think 32 I think was my first one. the short version is I mean, I planted a church when I was 19, like, I've been in full time. I was in full time ministry for over two decades. We planted a church by accident out of a Baptist church. We started a college group. There was like a whole church in church model, emergent church stuff that was happening. I'm an artist, so I was like, hyper creative building sets. A lot of it was experiential. It was like tons of walking into some of that old, even that old, like, ritual.

Jake (00:08:06) -  Some of the the labyrinths, prayer labyrinths, things of that nature that were just I wanted it to be like immersive environments. When I walked into church, you didn't know what you were getting. And so you're walking into this experience. Well, I had a space to do that when I was younger, and that sort of limited, like no tattoos, no nothing. I was like, I had to be like, I was like, I, I am for sure going to screw this up. I'm 20 years old and the church grew from 60 to 600 in like months. Like. And they're all new believers, like new conversions, no history, no background. They're just they saw something they loved. It was rock and roll. And they were 1,000% in. So that church is still going in Southern California. which I just bless it. I just am so grateful that things like that, like you look back at your life and you're like, I can't believe I was a part of something like that.

Jake (00:08:53) -  Like what? A gift from God to to be at 20 years old and not screw the whole thing up, thank God like I was. I had good friends. But, long story short, like when I got 30, 32, I was like, man, I've always wanted a tattoo. And so the first one I got was, this one, which is essentially Sacred Heart inside of, like, the burning bush. And so it's like the song of song and stuff. Like the place me like a seal upon your arm, like a seal of fire. And so there's like this whole narrative behind it, and it actually took like 2 or 3. I think three artists actually worked on it because it was really terrible the first time, got a little bit better the second time, and then finally a really good artist like, help me fix it. And then I got Reformation and Revival tattooed on my forearms. that. I feel like I'm kind of living for reformation.

Josh (00:09:45) -  All right, so, I guess I forgot to pay my electric bill or something like that.

Josh (00:09:49) -  So our internet kicked off, but, you were describing the the tattoos on your forearm, so, like, you guys might be listening to this, you could always go back to our YouTube channel. But he held up his forearms and he's got these, like, really cool tattoos. And he was describing what they were when we went out. So take us off from there. Yeah.

Jake (00:10:06) -  Yeah. on my forearms, I've got a revival and reformation. So I have, I got these. Yeah, like I said, 32, 34 years old, something like that. And for me, I mean, it's been a core message of ours, you know, reformation in the church and revival in the streets. And then I got a little piece here from Brazil and then my wife on my arm over here. So that goes all the way around. So done in like an Art Nouveau style. That is like one of my favorite styles of art. So yeah, I have that's it on my arms.

Jake (00:10:37) -  There's nowhere else on my body. So yeah, it's just going to fill these in, you know, probably over the next handful of years I've got more ideas.

Josh (00:10:44) -  So yeah. Super cool. Yeah I love the, the tattoos. reformation and revival. Why are those meaningful words to.

Jake (00:10:55) -  I think that reformation is what's needed in the church, especially in this hour. and what reformation has looked like. And I don't mean, a tearing down of the old to then build something new. What I mean is I look at it more like, you ever seen those old shows where they take apart a barn and then rebuild it somewhere else? I love those shows, and I'm. I'm like. And then they add to it and they make it more beautiful. But the old isn't gone. It's the essence of the thing that was re brought into something that can last beyond its life, beyond the lifetime of those who who are rebuilding it now like I want, I want to see it reformed into something new.

Jake (00:11:34) -  And I think there's this whole thing of deconstruction ism that's just not helpful, because then you're just burning the barn down. And that's not helpful because then you have nothing to rebuild from. And I have, you know, I've done a lot of study on Reformation history, and I'm like, actually going to be featured in a documentary that we're doing like we've done for the last year with somebody else that's that's running that stuff. And one of the big things for me is I'm like, well, we have to just understand that even the first reformation wasn't completely helpful. You know, like there was a lot of wrong that came with it. You know, we took out the Eucharist. You know, we took out communion, but then all we did was put a pulpit in its place. So we removed the sacrifice in the blood and put in man's opinion, as if that's better. And so we have to I think the Reformation that we're longing for and looking for is an apostolic move of the church that brings us back to family.

Jake (00:12:21) -  And when we do that inside of the church, actual family, like real family, we do family at home and it bleeds over into our gatherings. Then we'll see the revival we keep praying for. The thing that we're looking to have. Longevity will go beyond a series of meetings. If your marker for revival is a meeting, then we're we're way. We just don't exist on the same page, you know? So for me.

Josh (00:12:45) -  What does a a guy who's been in ministry his whole life, 19 years old, launched a church, you know, or or like, what does that guy know about reformation and restoration? you've been in church your whole life, dude.

Jake (00:13:00) -  Yeah, well, that's why I said reformation inside the church is where it's needed the most. Reformation inside of the church is. We need a space where there's character and integrity. We need a space where people can be trusted, and people actually live the lives on the outside that they do on the inside. And one of the reasons that podcasts like yours are so important is because it's reminding us that character is priority over giftedness.

Jake (00:13:22) -  And we have took a we've taken a huge turn in the church for decades now, decades and decades where now it's just about personality. It's about gifting. We don't care about character anymore, but you character is the only thing that lasts, and the only way to get character, scripturally speaking, is for us to go through suffering and hardship and pain. So we avoid hardship, suffering and pain. We live for comfort and then we develop systems that promote ego over, over transformation. It's transactional. So if you pray a prayer now, you're saved. You give money, you'll get blessed. You come to this, you'll get this, you do this, you get this. That's all transaction. That's not gospel. That's not Bible, that's not God, that's transaction. That's me getting something because I did something that's not really the way it works. You're talking to a guy who has a disabled daughter, who has a daughter that has cerebral palsy. She's 20 years old, doesn't walk. I have to pick her up, get her out of bed every single morning.

Jake (00:14:15) -  Do you think I've not fasted? Do you think I've not prayed enough? What? So what's the reasoning? Well, the reasoning is I'm not looking for the. I'm not looking for the gift. I'm not looking for the miracle. I'm looking for the gift giver and the miracle maker. I'm looking for the father. I'm looking for something that's bigger than my circumstance. And I'm looking for something bigger than a meeting. And for me, I've been in enough meetings, probably more than most people will ever want to be in, in their entire life. And I've watched so much of the behind the scenes break my heart. That is what that is what I know about Reformation, that is what I know about restoration is behind the scenes. We all know it. It's coming to the forefront now. You know it's coming to the front. Things are being exposed because behind the scenes it doesn't look any different, but it has Jesus's name on it, which is which is so gut wrenching to me because we should be offering something better than something, more than a meeting and something better than just great language.

Jake (00:15:13) -  And to me, that's the reformation that I'm talking about. I'm looking for. I'm looking for people who are hungry for character and integrity and lifestyle over just how do we hold bigger meetings and, like, host a better meeting and call it revival or call it, you know, whatever we want to call awakening, you know, so it's like, oh, these things had real cost to them, you know? And by the way, these people looked hella rebellious while they were on Earth, you know what I mean? They did not fit the mold. And so they're fighting for things like, for me. I mean, again, like, I'm super French. I'm like, I literally I vote because I live in America, because I've been given a privilege to I have a right to do it in my country. And I have a privilege to do that in my country. But my king sits on a throne forever and does not move, so I. I plead to a higher government, So I'm not moved by who sits on the throne in America.

Jake (00:16:10) -  That doesn't move my heart. You think I'm confused by like if I'm still moved. But I would say it, take it as dramatic as I would like to is if I'm still moved by who's seated in the the white House. I'm operating in a government other than kingdom. Look at what Jesus says when he sits before pilot. Pilate says, don't you know I have authority? He says, you have no authority except for what was given to you by my father. What he's saying is, I'm not. You can't take something you didn't give. You can't take my life. I'm willingly giving it up. By the way, then he says this. He says, for my kingdom is what? Not of this world. If it was, then he gives you the definition. If it was, my followers would respond in violence. Because that's what your kingdom does. My kingdom doesn't do that. It lays down and gives up its life as proof that it's a part of my kingdom. That is what a man does.

Jake (00:17:02) -  A man willingly sacrifices and and serves regardless of what he gets out of it, because he's not fighting for the kingdoms of the world. He's fighting for the kingdom of his God.

Josh (00:17:14) -  Jake, you're not supposed to make me feel like convicted. You're not supposed to challenge me, man. This is. This is my freaking show. I tell you, when you were talking, especially about politics, where we're recording this in July of 2024 and there's a lot of political stuff going on. I get so caught up in it. And I'm looking at the presidential debate, which was like a SNL skit, right? Yeah, it was absolutely. And I'm so caught up in the the politics. I'm so caught up in the fear. The fear of what's going on. And dang it, man, do I forget that my king. I operate in a different kingdom. Thank you for that challenge, bro. But don't do it again. No, I'm just kidding. Well.

Jake (00:18:00) -  Well, that's. And that's the beauty of what you're fighting for, what you're fighting for on this podcast.

Jake (00:18:05) -  And what we're fighting for with the fight is we're saying, I believe that family is the greatest government on earth to transform nations. God instituted a family and a marriage in the garden. And at the end, it's the spirit and a bride who say, come. We are a family first. And I don't mean the family of God that meets on Sundays. I mean my Nikki. Geneva, Ezra, Judah. We are more dangerous than any politician on planet Earth. When we focus on our family, our friends, our community, the families we're connected to, and we go to war for each other, that was why 300 BC Constantine's like, let's number the churches. Why? Because they're meeting in homes and they outnumber our army When we can't be numbered and we can't be counted, we cannot be stopped. And we're missing that danger again, because family is way harder than posting angry things on Facebook.

Josh (00:19:08) -  Yeah. For sure. Yeah. For sure. When was this call? Or, you know, the spark.

Josh (00:19:17) -  When did the inspiration happened to create the fight?

Jake (00:19:23) -  Like most things, it's, you know, when your life falls apart, right? So like, you know. So I'm, I'm playing at an arena with Jesus culture in 2010 and my marriage is not going good. There's no addiction, there's no pornography, there's no, there's no adultery. There's none of this stuff is going on. Right? So there's no affairs. It's I'm a workaholic. But because my work is Jesus and ministry, everyone applauds it and they don't question it or challenge it. So I'm running all over the planet with my wife at home and young kids and no one cares. They just say, run harder. Your family has to pay a cost because of the anointing, which is the most horrific thing you can tell anyone, especially young men. And so for what happened was I play this arena and the next morning we're sitting with a leader who basically my wife asked my wife who didn't have a father, and this is like a father figure asks her, hey, how are you actually doing? And she just begins to cry and she does not cry.

Jake (00:20:20) -  She is super strong. And so we go back to his hotel room for four hours and she just says, this isn't a marriage like you don't prefer us. Like I'm not going to leave you, but like, we can't pretend that this is a marriage anymore.

Josh (00:20:36) -  I'll tell you, man, there are some crazy forces that probably don't want us to chat. It might be the heat of freaking California or the heat of Florida, but we were diving into a beautiful, moment where you got this inspiration for fight. You're. You're doing this tour. You know, you're. your man. I see this so much in ministry with pastors or leaders, and they're, like, pouring their life into the the good cause. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and screw your family. Right. And basically, yeah. So this pastor or father figure, ask your wife, how is she really doing? She breaks down, turns into an intensive kind of like therapy session, essentially with you and your wife and this this leader.

Josh (00:21:22) -  What the heck was that like?

Jake (00:21:24) -  She just now I mean, it's good to like, you know, we looked back. We've looked back at this all the time because it was such a pivotal moment for us. So she basically says in that moment, she's putting on my face the face of every single man that's ever heard her, wronged her, abandoned her, rejected her. And so that's what most men don't want to do, is bear the weight. This is what most men don't understand. Let me put it this way, is that I'm sitting in that room and I have to choose whether or not I'm going to pay the price for all the men that have ever heard her, even though I wasn't there and I didn't do it. But I can be the man that that that that tide breaks against. I get to be that man. That's a privilege for me. And in that moment, she'll tell you she's like, I watched Jake. You can watch videos of it on YouTube. We have some, like where we tell the whole story.

Jake (00:22:13) -  But she goes, I watched him, I just sat lower on the couch and I got off the couch and just sat at her feet because I was like, I had enough sense to know. I knew something was wrong. I just couldn't identify it. And this father figure was like, dude, here's the deal. You're selfish and you're doing everything out of ego And you, in immature immaturity. Immaturity will tell you to leave your family or leave your calling. A mature man figures out how to do both so that their family is preferred and their calling is held stable. And I was like, that is what a man does like that, to be honest with you, it moves me so this day because I'm like, I'm so grateful for that moment because I was like, that is the masculinity I was looking for. And nobody was telling me that. They just said, you played well. You're anointed, you're gifted, you're called. Look at all the good work you're doing for God. Look at the platforms you're on.

Jake (00:23:06) -  Anybody would kill to be on those platforms. And I'm like, I want this woman to be healed and whole by the time we go into the grave, because I exist. That's the man I want to be. And I chose in that moment to do that, which was not easy for all of us. It was I'm not saying that sounds super heroic. It was very dysfunctional. I didn't know how to do it. Very codependent for a long time because I didn't, you know, you kind of pendulum swing to one side where I'm like, okay, now if you're happy, I'm happy, which isn't healthy either. And so there was a lot of work to be done in that. But part of what happened was we started going to these churches because our, again, unhealthy our paycheck was connected to traveling. And so we were able to take off some time. But eventually, as we were getting a little bit healthier, it was like, okay, I need to go and take on some of these things.

Jake (00:23:57) -  So we go out, but we only went together. So we go together as a family, which means you don't make as much, which means things are harder and whatever. But I was like, this is what we're going to do. If we're doing it, we're at least doing it together to go, you know, whatever. But we're in green rooms and in the green rooms. They'd be like, how are you? And we're such open books. We're just like, dude, it's a crap show. Like everything's crazy and we suck and like, marriage is falling, marriage fell apart. And here's the whole story. And pastors are like.

Josh (00:24:26) -  Oh.

Jake (00:24:29) -  but here was the crazy part. Every single time they would follow up and be like, hey, can we talk to you guys afterwards? Me too. Can I talk? Can we can we talk with you? Yeah. That was it. And all of a sudden, that's that was the seedbed for us to go. Oh, we're not alone in this.

Jake (00:24:47) -  No one is talking about it. No one's saying anything. Their marriages are in shambles in these massive meetings and no one's saying anything. And then in the midst of that, a man told me he grabbed. We sat down with him. And we love this dude. he's just got, so great for Alan Hood from, he he planted a church. And actually, I think he's in Florida. Your neck of the woods somewhere down there. And so Alan Hood is just a legend to me. And he sat and we sat down with him, and his family is just so beautiful. And he told me, he said, listen, I love what you're doing, but you've reached with marriage. You can only go so far. But because if you want to save marriages, you have to get men, he said. You have to get men. And that's where our phrasing comes from, where it's like men must go first. One of the definitions of a true biblical, mature man is he chooses to go first in any and all circumstances.

Jake (00:25:48) -  And when most people hear that with, you know, in culture, they're like, oh, that's patriarchy. Men go first. I'm like, no, no, no, men don't go first. And systems and structures, men go first and service and sacrifice. That is their role. That is their God given responsibility. I'm sorry that it sucks, but when Eve ate from the tree, nothing changed because she was not responsible for the garden Adam was. So when she ate, they didn't realize they were naked. Adam eats. All of a sudden they're naked and they're ashamed. Shame didn't enter when Eve ate. Shame entered because the man was not responsible with what he was, what he was in charge of.

Josh (00:26:33) -  You know what happens to my little monkey brains sometimes when I'm talking or when someone's talking. My, my brain thinks of all these like, jokes or inappropriate things to say. Right. So I just got to go there. We got.

Jake (00:26:50) -  Yeah. You got to let it go there.

Josh (00:26:51) -  Yeah. So men must go first. And we're guys. We're not talking about insects. We're not talking about just this thing. Because let's follow up with as a service. Right. It's like insects specifically. It's not who goes first wins. Right. And yeah, you know, let's let's also hear in that sacrifice and service. And I know one of you guys was thinking about, you know, sex when he said that I was too. But if you take this area of service and sacrifice. Not for the ego, not for the reward, not what do I get out of this? But what could I give and what could I do? I think that's important. So here you are. Let me just paint this picture back for for guys that are trying to, like, connect the dots here of how how this connects with them. You're doing a good thing. The world is applauding you. You're traveling the world singing and talking about Jesus, right? Like that is the ultimate sacrifice.

Josh (00:27:49) -  That's what's worth, you know, as Christian dudes we're supposed to do, but at the expense of your family. And I've seen this happen with so many ministers, worship leaders. And just like I grew up in the church and I just seen it just turned into a complete catastrophe. Yeah. When the ministry goes before your family. Yeah. For the first time, you heard an opposite conversation. So let's do this. You're now talking. And you mentioned this to to ministers and pastors or or even business guys who they're calling is in the world of business. They're calling versus their family. Repaint that picture for us.

Jake (00:28:32) -  I think the biggest thing that I can say is, is character over calling. Like what the if we keep saying the Lord looks at the heart, right? So I know men who will go, will spend thousands of dollars and travel 3000 miles around the world to minister to strangers they'll never see again and post it all over the internet. Give testimony next Sunday at church but don't know how to walk 30ft across their own living room and minister to their own family.

Jake (00:28:59) -  That's a problem. That's the problem is, I think I'm a hero going across the world to minister to strangers, but don't realize that real heroism is found. When I walk across my living room and minister to my own wife in the way she needs to be ministered to. And I mean, let's take it another direction. I know men who work out for hours in the gym. They put in the hours at the gym every single day, but they don't know how to hold a 40 minute conversation with their wife. Like, that's that's a problem. Now the. But then when we try to fix it, we end up in feminist forms of spirituality and emotion, which do not help because there is masculine ways to have emotion and masculine spirituality that looks different then from a feminine perspective. I think that's why a lot of churches don't attract really masculine men, because really masculine men don't want to sing romantic songs to their Savior. They want to engage in the fight of their lives for their family, but they're being given a feminine language and, and, and feminine forms of spirituality that do not connect with their masculine heart in that does not make them that they are actually right.

Jake (00:30:14) -  They actually need forms of spirituality, specifically Christian forms of spirituality that engage with their masculine heart. And I mean, one guy puts it this way, this is the simplest form. I've heard it a man at the beginning of his life, a sense. So his he ascends. From the moment he's born. He goes into hero mode. He goes and takes on everything. Right? That spiritual journey is boom. But in the midst of that, if we're talking about tribal initiation or rites of passage, by the time they were 12, 13 years old, the main thing that they're being introduced to in initiation is death. You are going to die. That is what that is the primary focus of initiation. You are not as powerful as you think, but keep ascending that hill until you get to midlife crisis, which is the crisis of limitation. Not enough time, not enough resource, not enough whatever for the rest of my life. And then I get three pads. I can become an embittered old man, which is it all sucks.

Jake (00:31:12) -  It's not worth it. Or I can continue my ego pursuit. Buying the cars, doing the stuff, trying to keep my hero journey going. Or I become a wise old man. And I begin the descent, which is the way of the cross. So now I descend and I give my life away for the remainder of my life, so that by the time I go into the grave, physically, I have nothing left to give. Now that is a masculine spiritual journey. The feminine form of spirituality does the exact opposite. It descends first. So a man is ascending in his youth. While a woman is descending, she realizes that she is weaker in the physical sense. Her body begins. She begins to menstruate, so she does have that introduction to death and bleeding moving forward. Then on top of that, she gets married. Oh my God, what happens? She loses her name. She has to give up her lineage to become a part of yours. Descent. Descent. Pregnant. Now she's super vulnerable.

Jake (00:32:03) -  She's building another human inside of her body. Descent. Descent. decent, decent until she gets to midlife. Empty nest. Kids are leaving. She has died way more deaths than a man has at that point. And so guess what she does? She doesn't descend further. Midlife. She begins to ascend. She begins to lead, to walk in power, to walk in authority. That's why we see so many women in Scripture running with Jesus later on in their lives. Why? Because these women are funding the movement. They are a part of this in take 27.

Josh (00:32:41) -  So we were talking about the inverted the the masculine journey is like this, this mountain ascension, then dissension in the feminine journey, which I've never heard this before. This is really amazing. It's dissension. Then Ascension you said. That's why older women, you know, there are funding the kingdom and building and that's why you see them get super involved in this stuff.

Jake (00:33:04) -  That's right. Because they're.

Josh (00:33:06) -  Dangerous.

Josh (00:33:07) -  Oh, I like that.

Josh (00:33:08) -  They're super.

Josh (00:33:09) -  Where did you.

Jake (00:33:10) -  Oh yeah. That's the phrase dangerous old woman. There's a book again. This is what's hard. You're I am a huge proponent of of this mythological storytelling way of of of growing the human soul. I think it connects with what Jesus did. It's called, you know, I always say it this way that in two of the Gospels, Jesus says I or it says that Jesus never taught without telling a fake story. Now we call them parables because it makes us feel very theological. But these are made up stories, right? He tells a story that points to a truth that if he just told you the truth, you would not accept. If you don't like that version, Nathan does it with David when he gets caught with Bathsheba, right? Nathan gets the information, but he doesn't give David the information. He gives him a story, a myth. He gives them. He gives him a story about a man with sheep, a man who has a bunch, a man who has one.

Jake (00:34:03) -  And David, in that self judges self assesses because it was disconnected from his experience. Here's my point with this is that while I'm doing all this studying about ritual rites of passage, mythology and how it connects to story, very C.S. Lewis in nature, a very much loved C.S. Lewis story and journey and Tolkien. That whole thing is just blows my mind. But in the midst of that, I came across an older book by, Richard Rohr called wise A Wild Man to Wise Man, and it's in there that he talks about this journey in the book Wild Man to Wise Man. He breaks this down and there's an old video like from from like, you know, 20 years ago that he did. And he's just sitting there talking about this journey. And because that's where his whole, his whole ministry and platform was built on working with men and holding circles of men. And most people don't even know that part about Richard Rohr. That was all he did for years, was just give his life to men and to marriages and families.

Jake (00:35:01) -  But that's where I first came across it. But my reason for bringing up mythology is that a lot of it is about the hero's journey and which is, you know, Joseph Campbell in nature. If you've ever seen Star Wars, you know, Hero's Journey. And I'm sure it's come up on this podcast. But the idea of that descent to going into the underworld, which isn't hell, it's the shadow, The place. And shadow isn't the bad part of you. Shadow is the repressed and rejected parts of you that you don't want to look at. We have to engage with those things, and we usually, if we aren't taught to engage with those things prior to our midlife crisis, we are now clinging to those things in a long bag that we drag behind us. And no wonder all of us men are so tired. By the time we get to 40, we're dragging around 500 different versions of ourselves that got rejected or repressed or like thrown in the garbage can because it didn't get us the connection and the affirmation we desired.

Jake (00:35:54) -  So now we're tired. At 40 years old. We're tired at 50 years old because we're dragging these versions of ourselves around and going like, I just don't want to do it anymore. Even if your life is good, you're just tired because you haven't been able to fully engage with that journey that you're supposed to be on that deep spiritual journey of connecting with all the parts of yourself to become who you were always meant to become, created to become.

Josh (00:36:19) -  Yeah.

Josh (00:36:20) -  And that's why we see crises happen. Mid-life crises or affairs or or sabotage. Right. Like for for me, I've seen this in the past is things start to get boring for me. I'll self-sabotage. I'll blow shit up. Right? Like I'm just like, I'll do something to to stir things up.

Jake (00:36:38) -  Well, notice that's why. That's why women don't have a midlife crisis. Because they've descended first. because they descended first. They don't have a midlife crisis because they're about to walk in their power. Men have a midlife crisis because they have to decide whether or not they're going to give that power up and yield it to make someone else strong.

Jake (00:36:58) -  That is the question of middle age.

Josh (00:37:01) -  Whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Josh (00:37:02) -  Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Josh (00:37:03) -  Whoa.

Josh (00:37:06) -  Women are about to walk into their power. I'm taking notes.

Josh (00:37:09) -  But yeah, yeah, I'm.

Josh (00:37:11) -  A little slow here. No, sorry. And then men, as they get older, they have to go from wild man to wise. And part of that is giving up your power to empower someone else. That's it.

Jake (00:37:23) -  That's legacy. Legacy is not something I leave. It's something I live. Right. So if I leave my kids $10 million. But I never lived in a way that taught them to steward $10 million, then I am actually damning them by giving them $10 million because they will squander it and waste it because I did not live in my legacy, I tried to leave one. That is not possible. I have to live in legacy in order to pass it on. And that is what we're talking about in midlife. I go, this is where I'm at. These are a few things I still need to get off the board.

Jake (00:38:00) -  These are few things I still need to go after. Right? So a ton of people don't even hit their stride until 4050. So I totally get that. What we're talking about, though, is we're talking about I spend the later years of my life giving everything I have, I've earned, and I've learned a way to empower and equip those who will live beyond me.

Josh (00:38:27) -  Jake. Phenomenal. job articulating, you know, the, the the path today, the conversation today, the the interview today. for guys who do want to go deeper and, have these conversations where you guys go to connect with you.

Jake (00:38:46) -  this is the fight. Com is a full platform. We have courses on there. We have community on there. We have resources. We do a live gathering every Monday, which is followed up by what we call the daily Drive. So Man Talk Mondays, then followed up by Daily Drive. So every single day you're getting an up, you're getting an encouragement and a challenge to stay on, stay in the work, stay on the path, stay on your journey.

Jake (00:39:10) -  we want it to feel like we we joke that it's like a workout workout app for a man's soul. That's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to help you stay in the fight every single day, because the moment we get distracted will buy into fantasy and let go of reality.

Josh (00:39:23) -  Yeah. And you wrote a book called The Journey to Biblical Masculinity, and it's is it pre-released right now? Is that what it's going?

Jake (00:39:31) -  It's. Yeah, it's on pre-release right now. It'll be available August 6th. It's 12 paths every man must take. And it's the entire book is based on the story of Parzival and the quest for the Grail, and pulling out biblical pathways from an ancient story that was was typically used to walk a boy or explain the journey from boyhood to manhood for young men.

Josh (00:39:53) -  Very cool. And one more time. This is the fight.com. That's it. You're listening into uncensored advice for men today with Jake Hamilton. Sorry about the internet issues. My bad. and if you guys would ever like to connect with our guests, or contact information will be in the show notes below.

Josh (00:40:12) -  Fellas, we love you. And if there's, a topic that you'd like to maybe dig into more, head on over to Uncensored Advice for men.com. There's a little microphone at the bottom. You can leave me a voice message or a contact button at the top, and you could type out something, pretty awesome. And, till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. See you fellas.