so what the hell is normal

there's no such thing as normal for

for a child growing up and I think

that was probably the biggest thing that I ever taught

Austin was

there is no such thing as normal

there's only such thing as your normal

that is such an important lesson

the myth of normality is what you're describing here

and it's actually pernicious

it is especially pernicious in the age of social media

because you get this sense that

what's normal

is what everybody has on their Instagram page

and so and what everybody has on their Instagram page

is just the highlights the

the stuff that they that they are wanting to share

about what they're branding themselves

welcome back to Raising Men

I'm your host Shawn Dawson

now today we're joined by Brandon Martini

he's the co founder of Stratus Financial

and he's a man

who's navigated some of the most intense emergencies

life can throw at you

from surviving a professional betrayal

that nearly cost him everything

to a radical physical transformation

where he lost over 100 pounds

Brandon knows that our sons are watching

how we handle the pressure

so let's get into it Brandon welcome to raising men

thank you so much for having me

and that gave me goosebumps

the way that you just explained that

so thanks again for having me

well you know what

it's inspiring to have lived a life that that where

where just describing it can do that and um man

I'm happy to be a part 1 of the vehicles

that you're using to tell your story to the world

I'm so excited to get into it now um

I guess let's start with

the discovery of your grandfather's logbook

I I understand now so both you and I are pilots

we're gonna geek out a little bit over flying today

and if our audience can indulge us a little bit

so I would love to start there

so tell me about the discovery of your father's logbook

absolutely so when I was in high school

I I wanted to become a pilot

I wanted to I mean

this was kind of the height of the Iraq war

and everybody want to go fly like jets or like Casey 1

three fives something big

and every time I went to talk to a recruiter

they always wanted me to just become a grunt and

and go fight on the ground

and I didn't want to do that

that wasn't my thing if I can go fly airplanes

I was okay with that found out long story short

later on I found out that

I was talking to all the wrong recruiters uh

but I kind of gave up that dream uh

when I was in high school and I was like

you know what I'm not gonna fly

but I've always kind of looked to the air

and I remember my grandfather telling me these stories

uh when he was well

in the early 90s on how he was learning to fly

and he never finished because my grandmother told me

he's not allowed to finish

because then Brandon's gonna wanna go fly with you

news flash he she was totally right haha

yeah no kidding yeah

and he ended up passing away and I found when we're

we're cleaning out things

and going through all the stuff

I found his flight bag I was big

this big a bag and I'm looking through it

I found his logbook from the stories he told

but he never showed me this logbook

or anything like that

and he didn't have that many hours

he probably had 40 hours uh

but almost none of them were like training hours

he did like mission trips to uh

to Mexico on a Cherokee 6 and

and he would just have fun flights

and he was really just enjoying it

rather than probably learning like he should have been

yeah and I found that logbook

and it gave me this passion for aviation

and I ended up wanting to uh

to get a get a flight

and one thing turned into the next

and ended up becoming a pilot and

and my story will continue going on from there yeah

well and

and so that's a great segue into what happened next

I mean you you decided not only are you

you're just gonna go become a pilot

but you decided to make it into a career

in kind of an unorthodox fashion

I think most of the people that decide to make flying

their career

become an airline pilot or something like that

but but you started a flight school right

yeah absolutely

I realized that I couldn't afford flight training

anymore after I got my private pilot

I maxed out all my credit cards for

I don't know at that time

it's funny

thinking about maxing out my credit cards for $7,000

right but I did

I maxed out all my credit cards for seven grand

and nowadays if I maxed all my credit cards

it'd be a lot haha yeah

like you could almost buy a house

paying that off into your grandchildren's lifetimes

exactly lifetimes uh

but yeah so I couldn't

I couldn't afford it anymore

and at that time I uh

was living with my my son's mom

news flash probably not together anymore uh

we'll get into that yeah

we'll get into that no

I was living with her and uh

and so I was raising my my son a new I mean

he was probably 4 years old when I got my

my initial pilot certificate and I was

I was an insurance appraiser at that time and I

I made good money enough to go get a pilot certificate

but I didn't make enough to be able

to go on the weekend flying all the time and

and have a 2,000 dollar a month hobby back

I don't know in 2,013 14 yeah

so ended up

buying an airplane

by borrowing money from three different people

telling everyone oh

I already have a third of it

I'm just gonna borrow this much and this much

and I'm gonna start a flight school well

I knew nothing about starting a flight school

I barely knew how to fly

but I started with my flight instructor friend of mine

and we ended up renting a closet at Riverside Airport

and literally it was a closet

they took down clothes from the maintenance guys

and we converted it to a full fledged white school uh

we sold uh chips and

and snacks and stuff to pay our rent every month

which was only $96 a month

that was the wow but but yeah

we started a flight school with one airplane and

and I was doing insurance claims during the day

and we hired one guy

eventually to work four hours a day

we're only open 10 to two like four days a week

I'm kidding wow it was fun

that's amazing and so this uh

that fly school turns into I mean so how did that go

was it you know did was it successful

was it middling how how did it how did that play out

I ended up getting in a big fight with my uh

my business partner at the time

and you know what the fight was about

it was about

minimum wage was going up 50 cents in California

for only people that worked in fast food

and we paid minimum wage and and

and my partner said I'm not giving a an increase

it's not applicable to us

we don't have to do that

and I had a really hard time having somebody

work at McDonald's

that made more money than working for me

so yeah it causes big riff and ended up

I borrowed some money from one of my other friends

made him a very silent partner borrowed 10 grand

the company wasn't worth 10 grand at that time

it had an airplane that I owned

well I owned but owed other people money on right

and yeah which I bought for 35 grand which in 20

what kind of airplane was it

a 1980 Cessna 1 72 November model with mid time engines

perfect airplane

that same airplane today is like $150,000

hundred and fifty yeah right

I'm like well I scored on that deal

um

so that was a lot of fun uh

buying him out and got him out

and that was only three

or four months after we opened the business

so it was actually prime time

and perfect timing to do that

uh we ended up I ended up building that business

we ended up having 14 aircraft two locations

2 separate one 41 certificates

and a 8,000 square foot full maintenance facility

I still have the maintenance facility today

amazing flight schools

I do not because I exited them in July of 23

wow and then uh

so you built that up that's going great and then um

there was kind of a betrayal that happened right

there was a betrayal that happened in I don't know

I think it was a late 20 20 early 21

I kept on hearing some rumbles

that there was another flight school coming

and no one would tell me who it was

the airport manager

who I thought was kind of my friend

cause I've known him for several years

he wouldn't tell me that who was coming and I was like

this seems really odd and it made me feel uneasy yeah

so I was I was asking around and I mean

I'm fine with competition

I have no problem with competition actually

I I was friends with a lot of the competition

and then

I found out this flight school that was coming

was gonna be was gonna be owned by one of my employees

and I was being betrayed by one of my employees

wow and then is and he

he found apparently some rich guy to

to back him ended up

he made a bunch of false accusations like about me

he would say that he would

he would call

he would call me like a drug runner and a

a beater and all

these crazy things that were 100% false

and I was just like what is happening

he was basically trying to slander me

so people would leave my company

and just he wanted me out of business completely

for whatever reason I don't know

but he hated me I had a

I had a boat that I owned

and I put on the back of it called Plain Money

and that was the name of my boat

it's called Plain Money P L

a N E Money and I bought it with

money that I would flip from airplanes

and I used to buy and sell airplanes

so I'd borrow money from people

I would buy an airplane I would fix it up internally

and then I'd resell the airplane

I'd split the profit with my investor

and my maintenance company would make money

people at the airport make money insurance

everybody's making money on this deal

and everyone's coming out and and

and you get a nice refurbished

refurbished airplane out of the whole deal and

and it's a way to keep your maintenance um

my main is shop busy is shop busy

when you're not actually doing other paperwork

I imagine it it was fantastic

it worked out for so many reasons

but I made I made like $10,000 on this one deal

and I decided I'm gonna go buy

buy a boat'cause I really like boats

so I spent a whopping $10,000 on a 1996 boat

that was in nice condition

1996 Bayliner Sierra 2655

the cream of the crop

I'm out here in Newport Beach right now

looking at million dollar boats outside

right and you've got your little

my 10,000 dollar boat 10 thousand dollar boat where

where the the rent for the slip cost more than the boat

it did for the first year

and I I've just

and everybody was jealous of that

oh and I had a limousine that I bought for $3,000

you're riding around in a limousine

although you're in the front

uh no

no I

I bought it I actually bought it with a friend of mine

and we were using it to like go to events and stuff

and it was kind of fun and people would pay for it

that's cool and we would pay some of the front

front office staff at the flight school

they wanted extra work and I was like

if you want to drive the limo for us

hell you go ahead and do that

so I I think that's where the jealousy came from

they thought I was

like this rich millionaire from owning flight schools

and they had no idea what they were getting into

none of them ever owned a business

let alone a flight school

they just thought I was rolling in cash

and I'm buying all these airplanes

little did they know

I'm borrowing money to buy the airplanes

and paying off the airplanes over several years

so it

wasn't like I'm rolling in cash like they thought I was

yeah

so they ended up opening up this flight school finally

and they called it Westbound Flight Academy

and they opened it 20 feet away from me

literally their airplanes were facing mine on the same

like row of tie downs and then I had that one guy leave

I found out it was him

and then I had several of my CFO's just up and leave

and they went to go work for him

I had my office manager leave

who was like running my show most of the time

I had everybody leave

except for two flight instructors

that were with me since day one

also funny part was

those two flight instructors were

part time flight instructors

and they've been around for

I mean they're they were my age or older than me

and they were just doing this for fun on the weekends

but I had one flight instructor

who was young and impressionable

his name was Matt he decided not to leave

and and he was really listening to them

he was unsure on what to do

he was like at this moral crossroads of

do I listen to all my friends

who are flight instructors

or do I or do I help Brandon who has helped me

luckily

he picked the right choice and he stayed with me

and I don't say it only because I'm me

and I think that I was the right choice

it really was the right choice for him

because

that flight school lasted a whopping three months

and all those crazy things they accused me of

their investor their investor was doing

that he was

literally using those airplanes to run marijuana

across state lines and do drops

and he got like indicted

and it was all over the news and all over the internet

and I was like I feel so vindicated right now

it's unbelievable yeah

but the damage was done

they took a bunch of my instructors

they took a ton of my students

a ton of them and I was so disappointed

some of my students I got back after the three months

and I openly took them back

because they were just going based on hearsay right

they don't know I mean they're

they're yeah

they're not part of the the whole thing

but the part that pissed me off so much was

they ruined aviation for probably 30 or 40 people

because they'll never go back

they think that's normal in aviation

bad talking this other flight school and

and and telling them things are

are wrong by the way they

they tried calling the FAA on me

saying my airplanes aren't maintained properly

they tried doing all this shady stuff

I welcome the FAA

come do an inspection all my airplanes

come to my my maintenance shop

come inspect my maintenance team

come inspect my SOP's we are 1

41 certified so

we had to go through all of these

procedures and make sure

that our airplanes were in tip top shape

and we've never failed

we've passed 100% every single time uh

so I welcome the FA and the FA basically turned off the

like they stopped investigating me at that point

because they realized that it's just like

disgruntled employees creating issues

and it was it was mind blowing

I remember one day when all of my employees left

that day literally everybody left within 24 hours

almost everybody

except for those kind of two and a half people

and I was in my office thinking

what's going on with all this betrayal

I can't believe this

I just moved to a new place in Huntington Beach

so I was planning on not being here that much anymore

like I was planning on I was

finally had my team in place

so people could run the thing

and they thought that they could run a flight school

like without me

and they didn't know what I did in the background

whether it was from home or or wherever

and I remember in my

and I remember it vividly right now

I was in my office

just throwing up in the trash can of so much stress

and like bawling and crying

and I was so emotional and it was the worst

it's probably the worst day that ever happened to me

yeah so

you know I

I I imagine

had that whole thing played out a different way

and that that instructor had come to you and said

hey Brandon

you know I've got this partner

who's interested in bankrolling me

to start another flight school

what do you think I should do

and you know

he actually opened up

instead of going around behind your back

and creating a lot of drama and all that stuff

my guess is that you would have given him advice

you would have tried to help set him up

you would have I mean

we all benefit from having more flight schools

and so my guess is that is that

had he done it honorably

and above board and all of that

that you would have been you would have helped him out

and probably what you would have done is uh

beware of this guy you know

here's all the stuff I have to do behind the scenes

here's all I mean

be really really

really really careful

and instead he goes about it this other underhanded way

and being sneaky and all that stuff

and it it ends in disaster

doesn't it complete disaster for him

I don't know what he's doing now

but I know he's probably not flying

I know he sold his airplane that he owned

uh he owned an airplane as well

and I know all those airplanes they

they got sold off one by one

and I know a couple of those instructors are not

even working in the in the the industry anymore

they all wanted to

they all wanted to to work at an airline

and I think two of them out of like

the 5 or 6 that left

are not even in the industry anymore

which is terrible they like ruined their reputation

like people don't understand

when you screw people in this industry or any industry

industries are small people will always remember

and if I see that guy his name is Gabe

I don't even care I'll say it out loud

if I if I saw that guy

I would tell everybody do not trust this guy

he's the biggest snake in the world

and he was

and he tried calling me and apologizing one day

and I took his apology and I was like

I'm not gonna listen to your apology

I don't know who

who everybody's blaming everybody else

and I'm like screw all of you guys like

like I'm not you guys put me through hell and back

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna respect you

I think there's something that

I don't think a lot of people

understand I had a friend one time who's a really

really really smart guy

and he grew up in a really tough area of town um

he was just he was just really smart

but he his entire world view was related to man

what's the angle

how can I eke out an extra dollar from you know

this guy or whatever it was always

he was always trying to find the angle

and what he didn't understand

if he had just used his intelligence

to create value for the world

then he would have achieved so much

and he would have created so much value

and he would have

he actually would have come out ahead financially

instead he was always looking for the angle

he was always looking for okay

you know we're splitting the pie two ways

how do I get a little bit extra of your piece

and as a result

anybody who was interested in 1 + 1 = 3 stuff any

you know who's interested in growing the pie

nobody wants to deal with them

and so he's

stuck with a bunch of other people

that are just trying to get

increase the size of their pies and it's

he can't even see his his whole world view is

is it's a fixed pie and so

how do I maximize the size of my piece

by taking part of yours and as a result

he never actually gets to see the world

the way that you and I do

which is that if you and I get together

we can increase the size of the pie

and it doesn't matter if it's 49

51 or 51

49 those differences are minuscule in the whole

in the whole scheme of things

but because they're engineered in a particular way

so that they see

the world in this particularly unhelpful way

they actually don't get visibility into

the way it can be if you create real

true value yeah

I think that people don't understand

the true value of what synergy is

and synergy is 1 + 1 equals more than two right

and and they don't they don't look at life like that

which is which is really sad I mean

when we get together we

we talked several times over the past month and we

when we talk we're like

what can we do together to increase increase

how can I help you and how can you help me

and let's let's go let's go do something exactly

and let's go have a good time doing it

that's kind of my philosophy

you've you've got to create something way cool

and just have a great time

and it's gonna

it's gonna impact so many people about that

and and that's that you're

you're bringing up this story

and that's a little bit of inside baseball here

but you and I

we can spend five minutes with each other

and we can see a Kindred spirit there yeah

and like oh I know about this guy I you know

he's a lot like me in these ways

and he's different than me in these other ways

and okay we

there's stuff we can do together and

and I imagine you saw the same thing

and I don't have to worry like

I'm not

worried that you're gonna go off and bad mouth me

behind my back or any of that stuff

because I can see the way that you

that you look at the world and

and you can see the way that I look at the world and

and so and it's obvious

and just as I can see that in you

if you were a snake I've been around the block

enough times to see the snake too

and I just don't even deal with them

I I try to stay away

yeah you just stay away from them

serpents are there and they bite and

and then and the funny thing is

if you're one of those snakes and you think oh

you know I'll just get this extra dollar this way

you don't even realize the myriad of people

the whole world

actually does work the way that you think it does

because you are only surrounded by people like that

you have self selected into a group of snakes

and it's unhealthy it's unhealthy

and it's not lucrative and it's destructive

and it doesn't create value

it's turned really well now

I love yeah

I love the story so tell me about

you have a you have a son and um

I'd love to understand you

you mentioned your relationship with the boy's mom

and let's let's get into that a little bit

and your son is of an age that

the way that I like to put it is

he's on the freaking front lines of

not only is he on the front lines of

of an uncontrolled experiment

that we're doing with our boys today

but he's on the front lines of front lines of a battle

and so I'd really love to get into that

why don't you tell us about the boys mom and and

and how that went and uh

and then we'll go from there yeah

so my son Austin he will be turning 15 next month um

I had him pretty young I uh

I think I'm 38 right now

something like that or turning 38

I don't remember how old I am

but I know how old he is now

that's right how funny

but I had him in my early 20s

and it was a rough time to have a kid

in your early 20s all of your friends were out partying

and having a great time and

and here I am I'm the first one to have a kid

in my entire friend group

and when I was younger I didn't want kids

I was like I'm not gonna have kids come here and uh

and I didn't see see

see mental value in having I didn't see any value in it

I just saw uh

takeaways nowadays I

I see the polar opposite of that

I see the lessons that I'm learning as a

as a man and as a father

that I would have never Learned

unless I had my son uh

which is incredibly beneficial

but uh yeah

there's an interesting you know

when you're younger you often times you

you look at the world in this transactional way

you're like oh OK

you know this is gonna cost me $1 and I'll get a

I'll get $2 back and so it's a good idea and

and stuff like that

and having kids is one of those things that it never

from a transactional standpoint

you can't justify it at all

it doesn't work out the math doesn't work but

but it is so unbelievably valuable

it's valuable in ways that you cannot

even imagine and so if you're analytical

the way that I am and the way that

that you are you

you'll never be able to come around on it and

but then when you do it and you look back on it

you're like man

I'm really glad it happened that way

same here and it's

it's this perfect kind of

illustration of the limitations

of looking at the world in a transactional way

yeah and I

and I also say I think as a young father

somebody who wanted to provide for his new family

I mean I went full bore um

I wasn't living with um

with my son's mom when when she got pregnant

I lived on my own cause I moved out when I turned 18

I went back to my parents for six months at a time

maybe once or twice but I was living on my own

I I had my own career

I was making decent money for the time

and I immediately got a new apartment

bigger place moved her in right away while pregnant

like within weeks moved her out of her parents house

and we played family and it was

it was eye opening

I Learned so much about myself and being with with

with somebody um and

and after you do that and then as soon as the kid comes

your whole life is flipped upside down

I mean

I remember when I was at the hospital and had the

had Austin and literally

they had more people at that hospital

than they've probably ever had

for a birth of a child I

he was surrounded by so much love with family

family on both sides

and I probably had 40 of my friends there

40 of them like I said

I was the first one there's pictures

and they were drinking in the

in the in the

in the waiting room like having um

like celebrating I mean every

it was just such a a joyous time

but I remember I was there and it was me

uh Austin's mom and

and of course him and my grandmother called her Moose

there's a whole long story about Grandma Moose

I was no longer with us today

but that was my grandfather's uh

wife uh

who we talked about in the beginning of the episode

yeah yeah

and she was with us and she

she drove with us on the back

and I remember leaving the hospital uh

with Austin and I'm like

are they allowing me to take this baby home with me

by myself I don't know if you felt that way

when you left the hospital 100%

but I'm like

super careful putting him in this car seat

and I'm like are they really letting me take this home

like I I don't have to like sign them out

I think maybe I did

they had to cut off something but yeah

they yeah but it felt so unreal that they're letting

there's no license there's no license for a baby

I think you need one um

maybe not really

but some people probably should have one but it

it taught me so much about of life of having my son

and I found out a few years later hey

sometimes you just can't put the kid 100% first

you have to put your own feelings as a man uh

first and you have to have those hard conversations

with your woman and if it's not working out

and you can't

come up with those differences and fix those things uh

then then maybe you should move on

and I will say if I was older

I think and more emotionally mature

cause I wasn't emotionally mature in my early 20s

obviously um

I we probably would have stayed together

we were together for 14 years

um on and off

we started dating at 14 years old

we broke up at when I was 28

so we probably would have stayed together

if I was more emotionally mature

and I've Learned a lot through

through the years of raising my son and having

and having very deep in depth conversations with um

with the women that I date and

and especially

uh when it comes to

to relationships and what you want in relationships

and I think that's very hard

to have those conversations

uh long term

and luckily it turns into raising good children

uh but raising teenagers is a whole another story now

how's your relationship with um the your

your son's mother now fantastic

um

it's not as as good for him with her right now um

because I think kids go through that

yeah I think I

I I think it's probably both ways

it does it does

I mean he screamed at me a couple weeks ago

and was yelling at me I don't like you anymore

blah blah

OK sounds good

I know I did the same thing man

imagine what it's like to be a 14 year old boy now

it was hard when I was 14 and now now

oh my gosh and we'll get into some of that in a minute

but yeah I mean

it goes to that

I remember telling my dad that I hate him inside

the middle of the street

and we got almost into a fist fight

by pushing and shoving

is the first time I realized that I could take my dad

and I I didn't thank God

but but it almost turned into that as a teenager

so

I'm thinking my son's now going through the same stuff

but I get along great with um

with her um

literally I have no issues whatsoever

I haven't had issues with her

and years and years and years um

even when um

she's married now she's got a nice husband

him and I will hang out and commiserate over her

her every once in a while

yeah but we'll we'll hang out

we have no problems we

he he texts me and talks to me about guns and cars

and we have kind of similar interest

that's great so we we have a blast no problems

and I mean when

when my son broke his collarbone the first time um

Austin just wanted her to come to the house

and she stayed in my guest bedroom

uh my girlfriend didn't care

I mean it was just everybody knew like that's the

that's what I mean

by the level of emotional intelligence

there was there was nothing there

it was just hey I co parent my son wants his mom around

she sleeps in the other room and it was

it worked out nice

and that's what I think co parenting and

and real emotional maturity really is in today's yeah

and it would be so easy to let your ego get in the way

and you know

get butthurt about the you know

the fact that it didn't work out between you guys

or either right

it only takes one of you guys to decide to create drama

for there to be drama

and so both of you actually have to decide no

no no okay

we're gonna

we don't have a choice

we have to have this son together

and we can either like maximize his potential here

or we can create a bunch of drama that's just gonna

ruin everybody's lives and he's gonna end up worse off

and if we just get over ourselves and just say alright

well given this is the situation

how do we maximize the benefit here

what do we do and it turns out that wow

okay we can be partners and raise this kid together

and it can be awesome I fully agree

fully agree

yeah I've seen that happen

I've got I've got some

I've got some buddies that are there that that

that are in that type of situation

I I'm fortunate enough to still be married to

to my wife with with our kids

the mother of my kids um

and and

and it's great um

and I think

we're really fortunate to be able to have that

but you know what if that didn't work out

and there have been times when when

you know we've had discussions like that

you know what would it be if

you know things are really things are really tough

you know we how are we gonna make this work

and we consider what that would be like and

and I'm hoping that we would have the exact same

emotional maturity you're talking about too

if if it if it were to come to pass

and hopefully it won't hopefully it won't

and

but the fact that you're even able to think about it

and talk about it in in direct ways like that says

says so much about you and so much about your wife

and so much about a relationship that

that I don't think a lot of

especially young men are starting to understand today

I try to have conversations with my son about

emotional maturity and um

what it

what it means to have conversations with people

and the small thing

shaking a hand when you meet somebody with a firm grip

and and looking somebody in the eyes

and just the basic things that

young men are not getting nowadays

especially with the Covid Covid kids

I mean those kids would just look down at you and like

just sorry nice to meet you

if you can see me on video

I'm like putting my head down away from my microphone

but it's that's the things that people

that kids were just okay with

and that's I think what's

what's been happening when only mothers are raising

raising children

and there's a lot of deadbeat fathers in this world

that's for sure but

I think

there's a lot of deadbeat mothers that try to take

the father or take their fathers away from their kids

because they think that they just need their mother

and especially with men

that our egos are mixed up in it

it goes back to that thing

it's boys need positive male role models

and I mean that's

boys without positive male role models

have much worse outcomes than boys that have them

it is an undeniable fact and

and so you know

I mean

it it can come to pass where

if you're a single mom

and the father of your boy is gone

and doesn't want to be involved in your son's life

then you have to solve that problem another way

but man

it is just such an unbelievable tragedy

where the mom pushes the father away

because you have somebody there

you have somebody already invested in your son's future

and you're pushing him away for your own ego reasons

it's it's a real tragedy

and it really harms your boy

yeah and I

I think that most women realize that once they

once their kids become in their 20s

and they start resenting their mothers

for that type of stuff

which it's just something I've noticed

I don't have any empirical data on that but

but I have noticed it and it's

it's tragic it's literally ruining children

men and and women alike

just young men and women it just

it's very sad to me

I really I really hope that kind of changes and

and the divorce system in the US

that's unbelievable though

actually in California

it's probably one of the best

because it rewards mothers and fathers equally um

at least in terms of of custody and

and time

but I think that a lot of men still just rather oh

they're probably better

if they're just with their mother

more often than me

I don't want to put them through one week with me

than one week with them I'll tell you what

every kid doesn't know what normal is

every kid has

I used to tell my son this because he used to complain

my life's not normal um

every once in a while and I'm like Austin

what's normal what is normal

and he was like uh

this this and this

I'm like that's normal for that person

this normal is normal for you

so his normal today is

he rides his bike with his friends all the time

his normal today is he goes for rides on my Duffy boat

his normal today is going for rides in supercars

that's his normal that's normal for most other kids

that's right his normal is also um

he lives with me full time

he doesn't he doesn't see his mom very often

um some kids

their normal is the opposite of that

and some kids their normal is they go in

and they see both parents living together

absolutely miserable yelling and fighting and

and hating each other and living in different rooms

and that's their normal

so what the hell is normal

there's no such thing as normal for um

for a child growing up and I think that was

probably the biggest thing that I ever taught Austin

was there is no such thing as normal

there's only such thing as your normal

and that is such an important lesson I

I I love that sentiment

I haven't necessarily thought about it like that before

but yeah you know the

the the myth of normalcy is what you're describing here

and it's actually pernicious because you think and

and it it

it is especially pernicious in the age of social media

because you get this sense that what's normal

is what everybody has on their Instagram page

and so and what everybody has

on their Instagram page is just the highlights the

the stuff that they that they are wanting to share

about what they're branding themselves

and so as a result

you're getting just this constant input of

of the the commercial version of everybody's life

and comparing it to the actual reality of your own

and you think that that's normal

because that's all you're ever seeing

and it's really it

it it affects your ability

it affects your um

your opinion of yourself your self esteem

your feeling of self efficacy and self confidence

all of that is just really

really negatively impacted by

this sense that everybody else is normal

it's really really pernicious

it is I mean

I'll tell you my life is not normal um

but it's my normal um

it's also what I've created for it

so it's it's

it's the way that it goes in all of life

I'm sure billionaires think their life is not normal

but it's their normal yeah

and same with people who are poor

I think that also correlates with happiness

by the way um

normality and normal and

and what you have and what you don't have

I'll tell you this the most

I know this is a little off topic from that

but I think it goes with the same thing on normality

some of my best friends who have a 9 to 5 job

and they work some overtime hours

and they go home and they see their wife

and they see their kids and

and they don't have to worry about work

when they get home

they're just done for the day and they work and make

make 100 grand a year and

and they work really hard yeah

they're some of the happiest people I've ever met

rather than the people who go and crush it

and try to make a million dollars in a year

and they're always on their phone like me

I mean I'm always on my phone

I went to did a trip to Europe last

last year for 35 days and I said hey

after this time in the afternoon

it is now time for working on the West Coast

or the East Coast

and literally my hand is just in my phone

I'm not talking to anybody

none of this is happening and it just is what it is

and and what makes you happy

I'll tell you this

me going 9 to 5 job every day having to grind it out

I would be the most unhappy person in the world um

but still those people that do that

sometimes seem to have a happier life than I do um

which is really kind of a interesting yeah

so I like

I like to let kids know and to think about that

when you raise men you've got to

you've got to think what makes you happy

and what should you go after

and uh I also don't believe there's any

such thing as happiness

I think there's such thing as contentment

like

does it bring you contentment rather than happiness

and I've gone through a diet right of

of of of what makes happy

and one of these days

I'm gonna write a book on happiness versus contentment

and if happiness actually exist

I think that is a valuable line of inquiry

I think that I think that's a really good idea

if you really start thinking

let's switch gears and talk about

I would love to talk about

you know as I mentioned earlier

you're with your boy your 14 year old boy

I mean absolutely 100% on the front lines of the war uh

on on our boys

and I wanna understand how are you dealing with it

how do you you know the

the there are two aspects of it that I'd

that I'd love to to explore

and the first one is you know

we have these devices in our pockets

and it is 24 by 7 access to porn

it's 24 by 7 access to games

to gambling to

all of these things

that can rewire a 14 year old brain

in a way that is totally maladaptive

like that when he's 28 will be

his life is gonna be very difficult

if you let that happen so what do you do about that

and then the second thing is related

which is through these devices and social media

and all this stuff our

our boys are getting this mixed message

and there's the the mixed message is

there's this left coded message about masculinity

that masculinity is bad

and that boys should just act more like girls

and it it's very like

you should feel guilty for having genitalia

outside your body and then

and that's over there on on that extreme

and on the other extreme is this right

coded message where where no no

no all that stuff

that they're trying to make you feel guilty about all

those are those are virtues you should

you should embrace being an asshole

and being masculine is about being an asshole

and the fact is that true

healthy masculinity is neither of those things

it's not toxic it's not hateful

it's not putting anybody down

it's it's

it's being a provider it's being a protector

it's being it is

it is defaulting to try and try to make things better

not worse and so what do you do

like what are your tactical approaches

to eliminating those pernicious uh

influences on your boy and

you know trying to get him to cultivate a

a healthy vision of masculinity

well there's a lot that you asked in there

so I'm gonna do my best uh

but I'm gonna start off with the cell phone thing um

my

my my uncle

he's got kids around the same age as

as Austin and he's taking a different perspective on

on how to raise raise a man

he has a young man um

that's literally a month younger than Austin and he

he has not allowed that that

that boy to have a cell phone still

he's not allowed he still has

he has everything blocked on his computers

if he he has an iPad

he's only allowed to call certain people

he's not allowed to talk to other people hell

he's not even allowed to talk to my son on there haha

um because the way that I'm raising him is my suspicion

I have never really asked directly

but it sounds like that um

because I don't block anything from my son nothing

um my parents didn't block anything from me

because they didn't know how

computers were just coming to age right haha

um and there was no such thing as parental settings

or anything like that it couldn't block anything for me

right I

if I wanted to find something at 12 and 13 years old

and go find porn on the internet

I could do that

that was before the internet really had

it was more like Limewire and Napster

but you could do all of that right

and I mean I remember as a kid

if you want to go see something

you had to find the little the

the the uh

pay per view channels that weren't paid for

and they would be all you could see one boob on there

right and right yeah

we had a satellite dish yeah

and not a direct TV like an old school satellite dish

where you actually had to move the dish in order to

find the satellites and we would be looking for

you know the hazy Jamaican woman

exactly yeah

and so we all did all that stupid stuff back then

and it it was harder

than just having one of these devices in our pocket

like you were saying obviously

um I also had computers and I

I came up in the age of internet just like you

and I remember downloading AOL for the very first time

sitting in my parents garage next to

next to the uh

the pool table etcetera and

and I was able to do anything I wanted

because my parents didn't know better

and I come from the aspect of

did I turn out okay yes

do I have my own demons inside of me

just like we all do yes

of course I do do I think that any of those experiences

changed the way that I think now

possibly

but I don't think it's changed the way so dramatically

that that I've turned out to be an improper person

or anything like that

I just feel like I'm a good person overall

so I decided early on

that I would not block anything on my

my kid's phone and I would talk to him about sex

drugs drinking

you name it

I would talk to him about it from a very early age

and I would bring it up to him and

and tell him all of these things

and I'll tell you now he has

like an unhealthy want of

wanting to be outside all the time

with all of his buddies working on bicycles

and I don't know the last time he's played a video game

um I know he'll

he'll scroll on on TikTok or whatever

probably at night before he goes to sleep

and probably watches porn or whatever he does

I don't talk to him about that

but I do tell him about the psychological

determinants to certain things

and how how

how watching porn is not real life

that is some crazy idea that doesn't always come true

and if you think that that's the way things will

it's going to affect you with

with things like Ed and it's gonna affect you with

and he's very uncomfortable

talking about any of these things

I still bring it up and I tell him hey Austin

if you're gonna drink you

I don't want you stealing my stuff and

and doing the things that I used to do

on filling my dad's uh

vodka bottle back with water

I didn't really do but my friends did right

I said

I would rather you just do it at the house I said

if you wanna go smoke pot

you smoke pot at the house

and I'll go get you high as you want

so high

that he would probably never wanna do it ever again

you'll get sick yeah

that's right exactly oh yeah

and that's and that's kind of how my parents raised me

back in the in the 90s right

I mean

and I've taken a a hybrid perspective

where

I don't stop my son from doing all of these things

I know that he's probably doing them and I

I tell him the positives and the negatives

and I want him to be able to make his own choices

because if I control him he's going to be

I know a lot of people I've

that are Mormon that are great people

but I'll tell you this

a lot of the young Mormon people that I know

they go out and go wild

the day their parents aren't watching them

and I think that if you are like that

your kids are gonna go wild and you've got a 50

50 chance if your kids are gonna go wild

and end up in drugs and alcoholism

or if they're gonna be extremely upstanding citizens

and and do that same thing to their kids

so I've gone a little bit different

and I allow my son to do kind of whatever he wants

within reason I mean

I don't let him just go out and go party

or anything like that

he has to be home at a certain time

and I check out who his friends are and

but I don't put restrictions

and I think that the way that I'm doing

it's working out just just fine

um

he's been turning into a really good boy so far

he's a little too spoiled

yeah

I have my challenges and sometimes that's a little hard

but I love that sentiment

um I think it's absolutely the case that

if you try and keep your kid in a cage

um they're gonna wanna break out of the cage

and I had that experience

when I was when I went to college

I had a roommate who his mother

basically controlled every minute of his life

and so when he got away from her

it was just like he ran wild

and this was one of the smartest guys I've ever met

in my entire life and he ended up

you know not really reaching his full potential um

really much of any potential at all because

because he was he

he never really got to go wild in a sandbox

he went wild as an adult and that's

that's really a shame and now

I mean and you gotta

keep them from making mistakes that will affect

the rest of their lives um

and so but your job as a father

is to prepare them for the real world

and creating a a

a cultivated little fake world

where they're protected from all the malign influences

and all that stuff that's not the real world

and so you're not preparing them for that

you're preparing them for this garden

that you've created and that's not gonna serve them and

and so whether or not it makes sense to go fully

over to the other extreme as

as you seem to have done

actually I think

depends on your son's readiness to get exposed to that

he is going four years from now

he's gonna be out of the house

yeah and he's going to have those influences and

and he's gonna be outside

of your Protection

so you better have broken down the walls by then

and you better have prepared

him for doing those things

by then otherwise he's

he's he's gonna be ill prepared and and by the way

he's not gonna

feel comfortable coming to you for advice

or talking to you

or even maybe seeking advice from other people

and that's a real problem yeah

I mean two things when I was growing up

my dad would allow me to have alcohol if I wanted it

and the funny part is

all my friends were not allowed to have alcohol ever

yeah um

and I'm talking about late teenage years like 16

17 18 as long as you didn't drive

you could drink at the Martini household

so to speak and I never wanted to drink

I don't think I even really drank until I was like

22 or 23 same exact story for me yeah

it just it didn't sound appeasing

because I was allowed to do it

I didn't need to sneak around I was like

well if it's not against the rules

um then it didn't really matter right

and I I kind of take that philosophy with my son

and honestly

he just goes on and hangs out all his friends

I've never I think I could figure out if he's drunk

I haven't seen him in a while is independence

they want to assert their independence

and if you give them healthy ways of

asserting their independence

like being outside

and being with their friends and working on bicycles

then they'll do that but if you give them

unhealthy ways to assert their independence

like sneak around behind your back and drink alcohol

then they're gonna do that instead

exactly yeah I think that's a

I think that you know

I don't know that there's a perfect way to handle

this moment I

I know that we're running an enormous

uncontrolled experiment with our boys

and I know that you know

you're

you're right in the thick of it and you're on the

on the front lines um

and and the philosophy of not being you

you can't control everything that he's ever gonna do

so make sure that he has the skills

and the capability

of dealing with those things as they come

I think that's I think that's a good way to look at it

I also think that I mean

as we all know the media is

is so controlling and and

and they're

they put these narratives around in everybody's minds

especially when it comes to femininity and masculinity

and all these things

like you were talking about earlier

but they also try to say that

all the kids wanna do is be online

and all they wanna do is talk TikTok

and all they wanna do is X

y and Z

no I don't see that in a reality right now

I see kids less on their cell phones

I think my son is less on his cell phone than I am

that's true I think you're probably right about that

and the funny thing is journalists are the most hyper

online people you'll ever know

and so their their outlook is particularly warm

and they're millennials like myself

I'm on the border

but all the millennials including myself were fucked

the generation

the millennial generation

grew up partially without technology

because we did we grew up in our kid

kid years with no technology

and then hyper focused into technology

and then when we all got to college

all there was was social media everywhere

so we had this great time to

to live and then we had this

hey now we have social media

now we don't have to have interactions with people

now we don't have to have a high school reunion

I've never had one

I'm coming up to my 20 year this year

and I'm not gonna have one

there's nobody doing it there's no reason to do it

because everybody who I'd ever wanna talk to

is on Facebook is on Facebook

and you've been communicating with them

for all these years the people I want to

at least I do there

so I I think that the

like me I rather be on social media all day long

I mean or I wanna go to a bar and go talk to people

and things like that but there's no in between

I think that my son's generation

which is Gen alpha they want to be out

and they wanna go have experience with people

they don't like what our parent

their parents do

they wanna do the opposite of their parents

just like every generation

I don't wanna do what my parents did

they're losers

all they wanna do is go hang out and talk on the phone

and be on social media it's really weird

my son calls me calls me like on the phone

calls me more than he texts me

that should blow everybody's mind

that does that does almost 15

he calls me and yeah

I see all of his little friends all over the house

cause I I make my house the house to go to right

yeah that's on purpose

so I can kind of watch them around

and all of them are talking on the phone

they are not and by the way

when they say talking on the phone

I go with my fingers like this

they go like this haha

but yeah I mean

it's um

I think that a lot of things are changing for young men

and I think that they're more resilient than we uh

that we give them credit to credit for

and that may be just my perspective

and maybe not as much yours

but there's a lot of things going on

and I know that we're running

running low on time today

but uh

I mean

I think you talked earlier about the manasphere stuff

yeah

and I was kind of curious on your perspective on that

too

yeah I

I um

I I really struggle with it

because I think that

the algorithms that really dictate what we see

and what we don't see then the

the bubbles that end up getting created

the algorithms are geared towards

um engagement

and engagement can be manufactured by anger

right and you get people riled up

and

I think that when you look at the messages

that our boys are getting about masculinity

I think that the

it it is a really

it's it's ripe for getting people riled up

and the algorithm wins

if you're mad at the left or you're mad at the right

the algorithm wins

as long as you're mad and as long as you're scrolling

and I think that we should be really really

really careful about engaging in

in that kind of structure and

and as a result and

and it's not you know you

you alluded to it

your boy doesn't filter the world through social media

the way that I think maybe you and I do

and that's really healthy actually it's

it's far healthier than than

than the way that that

that we're doing it and

and so

it's my sense

that the world is trying to impose

this vision of masculinity

either dictated you know

the left coded version where masculinity is evil

or the right coded um

version where the

the or the hyper right coded version where

where where evil is a virtue um

in real life that's not the way it is

I mean in the interpersonal

actual interactions that real humans have

it's not that way and so

you know

maybe the answer is just to have more interpersonal

reactions that humans have right

have more discussions I agree

I think I agree in a way but I

I think that the

the people who are putting out all of the

the men's rights type of stuff online

and I watched this documentary

and I know you haven't seen it yet

so I'm not gonna spoil the whole thing for you

but you gotta check it out the manifesto one

I will be and I'll be I'll be doing an episode about it

I need to you gotta text me after you hear it

I will maybe yeah maybe we'll do a watch party together

oh I'm down haha

um so there were some things though

that these guys will say out loud that actually

I think gives men

I think that most men who watch these guys

I'm not gonna say all but I

I think most

and I really truly believe that see these guys as like

they're assholes um

they really are I mean

the these guys will go out and they just

they treat women like trash

and I think that if any of

any guys watching them actually go

and do those things

I think they Learned very quickly that hey

it's good for shock value

it's like Howard Stern back in the day

but it's not good for reality

but I will tell you that certain things

when I was growing up I mean

pickup artists is like

a thing with the manosphere down now

and I will say when I was a young man

I was a chubby guy

but I had more confidence than anything

because I would watch like

the guy mystery who was a pickup artist

and they had a TV oh

I remember that guy

and I read the book on it and I was like

yeah wow these are just little things to make you more

and it actually works out well in your life

because then you become more confident right

um and maybe not to use as a pickup artist

but to use as confidence building

and I think that there's always

in negative things

there's always a little bit of positive

and that's probably how they became so big

and they became more negative yeah

um

but a lot of them are really big into father's rights

and I mean a lot of men don't have any rights or

or they get trampled upon and if they're in bad states

they're really gonna get trampled upon and

and some of these things are talked about by the

the Andrew Tates of the world and the

and some of the others

he's probably the most most popular

I think that

you and I are probably in violent agreement about that

I think that

part of the part of the the issue is that the

there is 20% of what they talk about

the initial 20% is like that

it's they're they're the only ones who are talking

about these really really important things

and then they

they use that as a gateway drug into their gift

and that first thing is healthy and good and important

and it needs to happen

that second thing is bad

and we can separate those two things out

and some of those messages

our boys need them

our boys need that message about self confidence

our boys need that message about self worth

and self efficacy and those sorts of things

and if they're not getting it from us

if they're not getting it from our culture

they're gonna get it from another place

and that other place

doesn't have their best interest at heart

it really doesn't it it really doesn't and so like

I guess we were close

we were more aligned than I figured on this

on this topic yeah

we're quite aligned yeah yeah

we're quite aligned well I always love to

to finish up these conversations by asking people

give me like think of

can you think of one principle that you would use to uh

when when you think about raising healthy men with

with strong healthy

excellent masculinity give me one principle

honesty and directness oh man

that is so good I mean

I didn't even have to think about it

it was just like instantly because yeah

that's the way that I live my life

when it comes to my relationships

and when I say relationships

I don't just mean uh

like sexual or emotional relationships with

with a woman I mean relationships with all people

um because our

our friendship is a relationship

um the

the people that work in my office

that's a relationship with them in a work workspace

it's all different types of relationships

and if you are honest and direct with people

sometimes you'll piss them off

but at least they know where you stand

and uh

it's got me in trouble over the years

because I'm a little too honest

a little too direct but would you rather know who I am

and know who you're dealing with

or would you rather

have somebody who's tiptoeing around behind your back

like some of those people at the flight school did

and I would say nine out of 10 times

people want the honest and direct person

it always it always works out better that way

it always works out better

yeah it

it's it's painful

it's hard to do but like everything that's hard to do

or that's everything that's valuable

it's hard to do yeah

true story well Brandon

thank you so much I have really

really appreciated getting

a chance to talk to you about your story

we didn't even uh

we didn't even get touched on the whole lot of it

so we're gonna have to do that watch party

we're gonna have to do that uh

and we'll have to get together again

I uh I have really enjoyed this conversation

I appreciate it me too yeah

I mean I would love to be on again sometime

and I know

I said the same thing about the aviation one with you

so um

it sounds like we're gonna be long time friends

and maybe we can do this again in

in Q2 or something but I love it

I love it

Brandon Martini is the co founder of Stratus Financial

he uh helps enable people to

to live their lifelong dream of becoming a pilot

Brandon thanks so much for being a part of raising men

thank you so much for having me

I really enjoyed this conversation

if anybody wants to reach out to me uh

you can reach out to me on my

my podcast is called Aviation Mentors

my email is Brandon at aviation mentors dot com

you can also find me on LinkedIn

which is probably the best place to find me

and what I'm doing

and and if you're ever out in Seal Beach

California there's a new wine bar coming

it's called Solera and uh

and come in and have a glass on me

I'd love to love to meet you

there I'll be there and we can

we can we can all go there together

we'll have a raising men uh uh

a wine bar yep

I love it I love it

I love it let's

let's let's make it happen

okay to everybody listening

thank you so much and remember you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino