Why Modern Boys Need Magnanimity with Boad Swanson

I think this generation has a chance of doing better

maybe than maybe some prior generations

and I think the world needs it

I think the world needs strong men

I I

I agree with that 100% I

I think the I think our culture thirsts for it

yeah and

and I think so

another way to look at

what you and I both describe as the masculinity crisis

is it's a masculinity opportunity for boys

like your sons

hello and welcome back to Raising Men

Today we are joined by Bode Swanson

now bode is an entrepreneur

a father and an author of a book called Great Sold Men

which looks to Aristotle's 12 virtues

to help young men flourish

build character and navigate modern crossroads

drawing from classical philosophy

historical figures like Marcus Aurelius

and George Washington

and modern icons like Ray Lewis and Tom Brady

Bode offers a timeless roadmap for raising better men

bode welcome to raising men

Sean so good to be here

good talking to you a little bit here before too

we got a lot in common I yeah

I I think so too

I'm really excited about this conversation

I think the kind of

the act of mining the past

and past wisdom that has managed to survive

all this time is a really

really valuable exercise and you

so the the

the title of your book Great Sold Man

is kind of a nod to Aristotle's concept of magnanimity

yes which is a very difficult word to say

and I think I I pulled it off

but for

for listeners who don't really know what that is

how do you define it and

and why did that feel like the right frame

for a modern book on masculinity and character

well magnanimity is

it is a uh

kind of an arcane or archaic word and um

when you think of a magnanimous man

it's someone that I think in our vernacular today

it would be someone who has a bright personality

who is warm who is engaging

who is intelligent who is masculine

who is strong

who kind of like embodies all of the virtues that you

you would expect

and a classical man

or a man that you'd want to be around

someone that has charisma and light and not like

the toxic kind of masculinity that

you know we hear so much negativity about

um and that's

it really is what Aristotle was talking about

and so just to just to lay out the

the form

of what he would say would make a magnanimous man

he

he identified 12 virtues that if we find the balance in

and we live or we

we learn to refine our characters in a way

where we embody these virtues

or they become habituated to our personalities

we in time become magnanimous

or like we we

we almost like he says

have this crown that we wear

or this luster about us that others can sense

but not see right

obviously we're not wearing a crown around um

so the virtues that he talked about were

I mean I won't list them all

but there are things like courage and Temperance

and justice and wisdom and friendliness

things that all of us want to develop

and that the world certainly needs more of

so so essentially

to the degree that we can master all of these

magnanimity just becomes a part of us

and that really is his goal

and men that's what he

he thinks that all of us should be pursuing

so yeah

and 12 is kind of a lot to

to to keep in your mind

you know um

what uh

you know give me

I don't know if I'm if I

I'm getting started what

what should I focus on first

oh gosh

what a great question um

the first one that I start with in the book is courage

yeah I think courage

and Aristotle considered it a cardinal virtue um

so he describes in the book or well

not in the book but in his lectures

he would describe what he called the golden mean

and the golden mean is essentially there's a spectrum

uh

that each virtue lives within right

and the middle of that spectrum

is called the golden mean

and so for courage uh

that's where we wanna be right in the middle

if you have too much courage

it would you would become reckless

if you have not enough courage the

the the extreme end of that would be cowardice

so as an example

if we were in a

living in an age where we would go into battle

you know collectively as

as men

where right now we have military to do that for us

thankfully but

running into a situation that doesn't

actually require a fight that's that's

that's too extreme it's reckless

running into a to a

a burning building to make sure no one is in there

uh to save

that's reckless that's not courageous

we're being we're not being wise

um the opposite end is cowardice

and I think every man inherently fears cowardice to a

to to a great degree

um so Aristotle argued that we need to find the

the balance right in the middle so we

we have the wisdom to discern

when a situation requires courage

and when it doesn't require courage

in the book I used the story of

two stories in the book

I used the story of Desmond Doss

who if you've ever seen the movie Hacksaw Ridge

is it uh

exemplifies two types of courage

moral courage and actual battlefield courage

the moral courage he had

he was a Seventh Day Adventist and was a pacifist

and didn't believe in carrying a weapon

and you can imagine the

the flack that he got from his fellow soldiers

for not carrying a weapon in World War 2

in Japan but he didn't

and he and he held to his principles

he was a medic and at this great battle uh

which it was later uh

named Hack Saw Ridge

he went out without a weapon and saved up to

I think it was 74 men

he would go out into this battle with bullets flying

and bombs going off and he would save an injured man

bring them to the precipice of a cliff

and have them lowered down to safety

and they would go back in and do it again

74 times through the night

he did that without a weapon

and obviously like

what a hero right

yeah and

and obviously gained the respect and

and admiration of his fellow soldiers

for doing such a great thing

the other example that I use is Dan Lanning

who is the currently

the head coach of the university of Oregon

football team and we all

I think we all look at people like Dan Lanning

or CEOs or people that have had a lot of success

and we think

oh gosh they

you know they're so lucky

especially in a political era

when there's so much presumption

that there's all this privilege that it

that is given to certain types of people

well for Dan Landing

there was no privilege given at all

and I go into the story in the book

but this is a man who in order to get to where he is

went bankrupt was on food stamps

uh

had his car stolen had his bike stolen

his wife got cancer I mean

it was challenge after trial

after challenge

after trial for him to ultimately get where he was

uh and Dan found the balance

and Desmond Dox found the balance

of having the right type of courage

and every boy I think

growing up needs to know the difference between

those two extremes and whether it's moral courage

or the type of courage where we're putting our actual

our lives at stake we need to develop that

society needs us

to know the difference between those extremes

and to act in a way where we're brave enough

honorable enough

and discerning enough to know when to apply it

and when not

and I just don't think that we're talking about that

specific

and other virtues enough anymore to develop them

Henry David Thoreau wrote in a Walden

he said but it is a characteristic of wisdom

not to do desperate things

and it's a good one yeah

yeah it's

it's a beautiful quote and there's a kind of

uh kind of a second layer to the quote or

or to you to the to that philosophy

is that you should be living your life

such that desperate things are unnecessary

and that's that's why it's a characteristic of wisdom

right

you should be able to take a measured approach and

you know manage the tensions that life bring to you

and if I I

one of

one of the realizations that I have about masculinity

in general is

that men are the people in our culture

that don't have the luxury

of pretending that the tensions don't exist

we are creating the sandbox

that allows people to pretend

that it's okay to always do X

or always do y or

or whatever but we have to manage the tensions

we have to recognize that

there's a wilderness out there

that we need to

that we need to be protected from or our

our community needs to be protected from and

and so go ahead

yeah well

so the question is like

who is developing that sense in sensibility in our boys

well and it's not

that's the question right

and we have to do it as as their parents

we have to create the circumstances such that they uh

that that they cultivated in themselves right

we can't force them to do it

we can't we can't make them drink in the

in the horse analogy but we

but we must create the environment where it

it makes it possible and necessary for them to do that

I would I would say absolutely

and I think it's it's

requires a kind of a deliberate parenting where

I mean parenting is way more thoughtful

than I thought it would be

especially as kids get older

when the kids are young you know

you're just making sure they stay alive

and don't fall down the stairs

or whatever but as they get older and you can see their

you know they're

they're processing information constantly

and they're getting all kinds of mixed messages

from school or sports

or friends or neighborhood

or certainly social media and

you know just media in general

and there has to be a counter

to whatever they're picking up

outside of your control and I

I think as men and fathers

if we're not trying to

if we don't have a vision ourselves

of what we're trying to mold

then I think the world and what the world has to offer

become much more compelling to our sons and daughters

yeah so

it's been surprising to me

and that's why I wrote the book

because I felt like

my words to my sons and daughters only go so far

yeah at some point

they just turn you off they don't wanna hear anymore

they don't wanna listen and I felt like

I had to offer them something that they could take

and grow with in time

at their own pace and at their own leisure right

which is in a book uh

and I and I happen to find

I'm not like a big philosopher or anything

but I I just in my

in my effort or interest in trying to develop good

manly qualities in my sons

I happened to run across Aristotle's uh

Nicomachean ethics that's the name of

of this book and found these 12 virtues and I said

oh gosh that's it I mean

if I could get my boys to

to talk enough about these things

that developed at least a little bit of an interest

so as they age in the right time

they'll they'll

they'll draw from the book yeah

uh instead of me trying to explain it at dinner

and they're gonna tune me out um

I felt like that would be a a better model and

you know then I

I started thinking about all their friends who I love

all these guys that they've grown up

playing sports with

and then I think about my buddies and their kids

I love all those guys and I just thought

started thinking about you know

in general

I think in America at least there is really a

a masculinity crisis

and we can debate about why and where that came from

and whatever but I

I think we're

we're kind of at a point where a lot of young

men are asking questions like what am I supposed to be

can I follow my instincts to be a leader

or to be strong or to stand up for myself

or to stand up for a principle

or do I have to like play it small or play it weak

so I don't get cancelled or don't get yelled at

or I don't get called out

or get a bad grade in school

because the teacher thinks that

you know I'm a bad person for whatever

um so if we can

if we can focus as dads

on trying to build character in our sons

um or at least

showing them the path towards developing character

I think this generation has a chance of doing better

maybe than maybe some prior generations

maybe some prior generations

and I think the world needs it

I think the world needs strong men

I I

I agree with that 100% I

I think the I think our culture thirsts for it

yeah and

and I think so another way to look at

at

what you and I both describe as the masculinity crisis

is it's a masculinity opportunity for boys

like your sons right yeah

you know your

your sons grew up in the thick of it

you you know um

you know they're

right at the age where they came of age

in the social media um

context everything they do is recorded

everything they do is judged um

you know probably perhaps unfairly

all of that and they had to reckon with that

and they had to

figure out how they were gonna turn into men themselves

or and you had to help them do that

and I just wonder like

what are the lessons that

that you took away from um

you know just for

for context for the for the listeners

how old are your sons

and what are the lessons that you took away from

from that

and what are the successes and failures that you had

in applying those you know

that

that wisdom that you gained about those virtues to them

well

my sons are 20 and 18 and

um again

going back to the impetus of why I even wrote the book

I I didn't

I didn't navigate my 20s very well

at least my early 20s yeah

and I just wanted so badly for them to do better

than I did I think that's what all dads want and moms

yes right

we just want our kids to

to be awesome and to have successful lives

and so I so

so that's what kind of started this whole thing uh but

it's funny as

as a dad you know

in writing the book

it gave me the opportunity to reflect on each virtue

and the way I set the book up was I'll

I'll introduce the virtue

I'll define the virtue according to

kind of how Aristotle saw it

and then I'll tell a bit of my own story

and grappling with the virtue

and trying to come to terms

with it or you know how where I'm at with it or and I

and then I'll use a

either a historical figure or a contemporary uh

person you mentioned uh

Washington and Lincoln and then Ray Lewis and Tom Brady

you know

those are good examples of the characters I use but

a lot of what I do is

I go into how I blew it on these virtues

and one of the

one of the virtues that

one of the stories I tell is about my older son

when he was probably 8 or 9 years old

and me helping him with math homework

and I think this is in the chapter on magnanimity

you know which is the crown of all virtues

and man I blew it bad

I just I'll never forget like I just I

I consider myself to be a a fairly good teacher and and

and I like teaching

and I was trying to explain this

and he just didn't get it

didn't get it and I'll explain it a different way

and he didn't get it and he was in

what drove me crazy is he kept guessing

just to get out of it I'm like dude

don't guess just whatever

yeah and

and I started getting more and more frustrated

and it got to the point where I was angry

and I was like yelling at my poor little 8 year old son

who he was trying his best

but now he has all this pressure of this big

towering father figure who he loves

who is yelling at him

hollering at him because he doesn't understand

and I just boy

I just regret that so much

and even sometimes today like he's 20 and he's 6

4 and 2 50 and he's a towering guy himself

and sometimes even still I'll apologize to him

I'm like I'm so sorry when you were 8

when I yelled at you for your math homework

cause I just felt so

I just failed so badly in that moment

um yeah

so I I think a lot of

a lot of what helps us develop the virtue ourselves

is going through like blowing it

just doing an awful job

and then having the courage to reflect on

how we blew it how we felt in that situation

how we made someone else feel in that situation

like it's it's really

I think anyone with a brain can

can discern that when we feel dissonance inside

or when we create

when we draw tears out of our kids and we feel bad or

or like we know the difference between right and wrong

and and good and bad and whatever

and when we're bringing in

that negativity into our world

we need to be introspective and

and self reflect and

and that I think if we have the courage to do that

that's the beginning of developing the virtue

at the end of every chapter

I go into I give a challenge

it's just actually says okay

think of a time that you did not demonstrate patience

in this case right with my son

yeah and what the outcome was

and then for the and write it down

and think about how maybe you could have done it better

and then for the next week

put yourself

in a situation where you deliberately practice patience

and you you know

whatever you have to do to do that

and then write that down and so

so much of this is just trial and error

it's blowing it and then thinking about it

and then it's like a golf swing

you know like if if you're a golfer

like I got I it's a golf pro one time told me

at the end of your swing just to hold it at the top

at the end of the swing and think about

or watch where the ball is going

and think about your swing

and the outcome that the swing produced yeah

and I thought that was really good life advice too

like anytime I end up with an outcome I don't like

or don't like

I just hold that swing and I think about what

what created this slice or this yep ball

this duff that I just hit

like 10 feet and pulled my head or whatever

right now yeah

it's golf I

I mean I've

I've said this another episode I've

I've just gotten into golf

about last last Thanksgiving

actually is when I bought my

my first set of clubs yeah

and I uh

I had dabbled in it when I was younger

but I hated it because I was terrible and I

and so hard didn't know what I was doing and

and it's really really

really hard yeah

and what I've and I love it now um

and primarily one

one of the things that I realize about that game now is

it is

it is like life magnified 1,000 times and put on

fast forward a round of golf is

is like that all of the skills that serve you in life

in terms of being patient and trusting the process

and not caring about outcomes

and being strategic when you need to

and tactical when you need to

and all of those things

those things are rewarded in golf

and if you do them improperly

they are soundly punished and you just get this

the it

this constant drum of of

of that and it is

it is so rewarding

and it is so maddening when you're not doing it right

yeah but it is so rewarding when you are

even if you're not getting the outcome that you prefer

like well it's

it's true and it never stops

like the the

the balance that you have to maintain

the cool that you

the composure you have to keep in golf

no matter how good you become

it's it's

it's always gonna be there

you think about the best golfers in the world

you know

they're dealing with at a much more like finite level

they're dealing with the same frustrations

and going through the same battles

emotionally and mentally and philosophically

that a new golfer is going through yeah

that's what well and

and that actually was what

initially drove me away from the game

is because I went to watch a golf match

and I saw Tiger Woods play

and he played he had a bad round and he was very

obviously very frustrated and angry with himself

and he went to the driving range afterwards and he was

you know hitting

let's

his pitching wedge or something to a flag that was like

130 yards away and he was just

he would strike the ball and then

he would be very animated about how upset he was

with the result of that hit

and he was hitting the ball within like

four feet of this pin

and I can't get it within 40 yards of this

of a pin like that

and yet he feels the exact same way I feel when I play

I was like there's no end to it

it's just pure frustration yeah

and that's kind of right

but it's also the case that you'll play poorly if you

if you're in that mental state

and if you can just like relax and trust that well

I'm capable of a certain level of performance today

and I'm just gonna go and try and maximize my

my performance to the best of my capabilities

but I'm not going to expect from myself anything more

than what I know I can deliver

and I will be happy if I deliver that

and so and

and that was one of the things that

that I realized is that

I was focused so much on what I ought to be doing

I should be able to hit this this club 175 yards

but then and then and perfectly straight right

and so I'll aim perfectly straight and aim such that I

you know if I hit it perfect

then it will do exactly that thing

and then I get all mad when a

the 80% of the time I hit it poorly

and it squeaks off to the right or does whatever and

and I'm all mad at myself

and instead

what I've done is when you listen my performance

80% of the time it's gonna do this

and 10% of the time it's gonna do this other thing

and 10% of the time it's gonna do this other thing

and so let's just make my peace with the likely outcome

and then just go with the flow

and as soon as I started doing that

it it released me

it released me from this kind of obligation

I felt to myself and I feel like

you know

to bring this back to the subject of our conversation

I feel like that's what we have to do with our men

with our boys is we have to release

like the anxiety that we have associated with

are they gonna be good men

are they gonna be able to make a living

are they gonna be able to find a

a mate are they gonna be able to XYZ

all this anxiety we have on their behalf

we just have to let it go

you know show them what a good man is

yes and show them what we do

and then they'll be able to take those lessons

and they'll improve upon them

and they will be better men

than we'll ever be able to be

because they'll have better

resources at their disposal

have less baggage that we piled on them

they'll have better tools

you know with modern technology

all of those things and if we do that

then conversely as opposed to

if we just like

focus on making sure they have all these skills

and all you know

drill them into them if we

if we if we hand

if we approach it obliquely

they have a much higher chance of succeeding

I think you're right than if we try and force it

I think you're right it's

you know you

you you talk about sports

and sports is a big thing with kids obviously

you know we have the youth travel

sport industry from 2022 to 2026

has grown from a 20 billion

dollar industry which is huge to over a 40

approaching 50 billion dollars

that does not surprise me no

at all me neither

and it is so so bad

it's it's crazy

and I I look at

I look at you know

we we kind of got trapped in it a little bit

and I remember we're at

we got in the baseball and basketball trap when

when my kid was my oldest boy was young

and I remember one day he was probably 11

10 or 11 years old

and one day he walked off the baseball field after

you know just

just daily you know

traveling all over the place

daily practice three hour practices

blah blah

blah on and on

he walked off the field and with a passion and

and then he's he's a pretty mellow kid

passion that I hadn't seen

he said dad

I hate this that was it

it was over yeah

but but I think a lot of times it feels like as parents

for some reason

we want so badly for them to be successful

and we see in in our

in this era we measure success so much by

by by way of like sports success

whether you get a scholarship

I think a lot of young men grow up with a

with a focus on success being financial

or as it relates to I mean their

their role models are either sports figures

or musicians

what yeah

and when we're not

and you talked about going about it obliquely

when we're not teaching them about

the virtue of George Washington

or the virtue of Lincoln

or the virtue of other great men uh

in the in history what do we expect if

if our focus is on use sports and traveling to Vegas

and Florida and

you know wherever else

and that's all we kind of and

and the dads drilling it into them constantly

and not giving them space to develop another like

what do we expect of course

they're gonna be

probably really good pictures

until they blow their elbow out um

but what what's happening in the meantime

what kind of character are they develop

what kind of men are they are they becoming

so we with our oldest son

we just made a rule that on Sundays

we were gonna it was just gonna be a family day

we weren't gonna play any sports

and so we'd tell these travel teams hey

and he was a good enough athlete what's that

I said we just we just don't play on Sunday so yeah

and he was a good enough athlete where they are like

okay fine

like whatever we think it's crazy

but you know whatever yeah

and and

and I don't think they expected us to actually do it

but we did

and he didn't like it and he complained and whatever

and finally he got over it

and then all the other kids kind of

fell in line because we had established that

but what the interesting thing

thing that happened with all that was he

with all these other families

who were so focused on the sport

we put the priority on our family

and we took the priority off of the sport and

and I think the message that we were trying to send was

there are bigger things

there are more important things than baseball

or basketball

and the most important thing to us is our family

and our relationships and we try to do that

fun things on that day and whatever

and ironically he ended up

you know

playing college football and he ended up having a

you know having a successful career

but more importantly I think he developed a sensitivity

or at least an understanding

that

there are things that are more important than football

there are things that are more important than money

and fame

and he's a great young man and has good character and

and loves his family

and I think he'll probably raise his kids

at least he tells us he will

he'll probably raise his kids the same way

so it's like this you said it

like going about it obliquely and

and prioritizing things that are

that will live beyond the 20 years that you play

baseball basketball

football soccer right

it's like yeah because

because the sport will end

sport you will for sure end you

it will absolutely

and it will end long before

you have way more life not playing the sport

then you will have playing it

and it doesn't seem like that when you're young

you feel like you're gonna live forever

and that this is the way your life is gonna be yeah

and but you will have way more life

like three times the life yeah

after you're done playing sports well

and what happens to a lot of guys is

and this happened to me I

I played

I played high school and college football and

and I got to a point where when I was done

because of injury playing football

I had to figure out who I was I mean

I I didn't have an identity outside of my sport

and I was depressed

and I was used to being treated a certain way

because everything revolved around the sport uh

for the most part and it

it really did me a in some ways a disservice for

for many years

and I think a lot of young boys go through that

when did I had a I had an episode back in in June

um with a guy named Jonathan Last and his son is um

actually he's a freshman in college now

and he plays at a very you know

elite baseball and

and he would go to tells the story where he

he would talk to his son

he would do this twice a year where he would

have the conversation like you wanna keep doing this

and the sun would be like well

you know we put all this money into it and stuff and

and and all that stuff you know

I mean I gotta see it through he's like

let's back up for a second

he said there's only two reasons to do sports

one of them is for money and the other one is for joy

and

you're not gonna make money

you're not making money

you might someday you could maybe like

that's a you could be very like a 1.5 percenter yeah

yeah that's it

that's I mean

you might get lucky and win the lottery that way

but if you're not growing and learning and

and getting enjoyment out of this thing

and you're not making money

then there's no reason to do it yeah

and so like search yourself yeah

and and and he I mean here he was you know

his son has all of this potential

they've spent all of this money and all of this thing

and it would be very easy to go no

you gotta grind it out and stick it through

and all that stuff and

and it would be very very easy to do that and

and yet he would have this conversation twice a year

just just make it sure alright

let's go and then you know

you put it behind you

and then you act like it's the most important thing

in the world

but you don't get to act like it's the most

important thing in the world

if you don't take a breath every once in a while

and go let's remember that

this isn't the most important thing in the world

and then and then let's go back

let's let's just make sure that we still wanna do it

and then we'll go back to the fiction yeah

yeah that's a good dad

like it's not about you yeah

it's just it's it's

it's about it's

it's gotta be about the kid and you yeah

and you teach within those

the boundaries of you know

what you're trying to establish as a father

but uh

anytime it becomes about us

and us fulfilling our dreams to our kids

oh boy

yeah well

and I think that that's a lot of

I mean I found

I've really struggled with this because I love sports

I love it

but I didn't get into it until I was too old to

I mean so I was a

I was a really good volleyball player

I played beach volleyball and um

but I didn't start playing volleyball until I was 30

and what that meant is that

a lot of ambitions that I might have

to go really far in the sport

or play in college or play pro

or any of those things

those ambitions were out of my reach

they were impossible because I was too old to do it

and I just wasn't gonna be I

there's no way I could be good enough

um to do that

and I that

that was frustrating for me

I wish that I had found the sport

and found the passion for it

when I was young enough

to actually see what I could have done with it

yes and so

when I watch my boy play basketball

and kind of screw around and wanna play

and instead of

instead of playing the sport and all of this

I'll get frustrated

and I finally just had to like

I had to really really realize that

everything that's making me frustrated and angry

about the way that he's deciding to engage in the sport

is purely about my own ego

yeah I want to be the dad of an elite athlete

because I know he could be

I want to be the I

I I want that

and I don't want it for him

I want it for me I mean

I kind of want it for him too

because I know what I would have valued

but I but I

but I actually mostly want it for me

and as soon as like

I kind of acknowledge that and realize that for myself

then

then it turns it into kind of a shameful activity right

I don't

I don't want to be the kind of person that's like that

and and so it makes it a little bit easier to

makes it a lot easier to just lay off

well it's a balance too though right

cause cause as a dad

you have perspective you know

that so much good can come from sports yes

so many good life lessons are taught through sports

we talk about you know

what are the institutions today in America

that are teaching young men how to become good

adult men right

I don't know man

like they're so they

most of them have crumbled away

but yeah and even

even well

and you mentioned it the

the the

the youth sports is getting professionalized

and so even that is kind of going away

I mean in the sense that

if you're not specializing by the time you're 12 or 13

then you're kind of screwed

like you're not gonna go to well

you're kind of screwed in the sense

that you're not getting a scholarship to college

in baseball if you have if

if if you haven't specialized by

by 12 which there's definitely some truth to that

but I but I think a lot of kids

if they specialize too early

they either can get injured or they burn out

like my kid who walked out the field and said dad

I hate this he was a

he was a good baseball player

and I I think he could have

he could have done something with it

but yeah it's

it's back to the balance as a parent

like a lot of good training

can come from from sport I Jim Harbaugh

I'm from Ohio

so I hate Jim Harbaugh cause he's a Michigan coach

but he has there's a great

great quote where he said he said

football is the last bastion

we have on earth to develop toughness in men and

and you can apply that to

you know other sports and because yeah

there are a lot of things that are that that

that you can say that about

and it's true and it is also true yeah

but it gets

it can like Aristotle's golden mean in the balance

it can get to a point where we

as parents lose sight of that

and it becomes too extreme or or

you know in some cases

maybe not enough

maybe sometimes we don't push our kids enough

and they think oh

my parents don't care and and

you know I have all this talent

but no one's given them any kind of

reason to believe in themselves

or any goals to set

or any perspective on what a life and

sport can do for you right

so so so it's not like

I don't think we're saying that sports is bad

and youth sports is bad entirely

it's just it's just a balance

you know another one of those areas that I

I just thought of

that I also kind of talk about in the book

that used to develop character

I think this is maybe controversial cause

you know

and our generation you know

you and I are about the same age

it was it was somewhat goofy in some areas

but I grew up in a Boy Scout troop that was really cool

and yeah

my grandfather was my Scoutmaster

and my uncle was an assistant

my dad was in there my cousin was in there

my brother was in there and

and we had all of our bros in there

and we'd go camping and we'd

you know we're chopping stuff up and

you know

building forts and setting fires and shooting guns and

you know it was awesome

it was so cool and going on backpacking adventure

I mean it was really like a

such a idyllic way to kind of

spend your early teen years

until you get distracted with girls and other things

um but that's

that's another institution that's just

that's just gone so it's even more incumbent

I think upon us as dads to

to become men of character

yep and virtue

so that we know how to live it and teach it

or not teach it and and

and live it so that it in that oblique way

I love that you I love that word that you used

uh live it in such a way where our

our sons and daughters see it and want to emulate it

instead of us kind of pounding it into their heads

yeah yeah

hundred percent now

I always like to to end these conversations

with the same question which is

if there is one principle that every parent listening

should consider to and

and consider to impart

and consider to live by when raising their boys into

into excellent men what

what would that principle be

there's a principle that Aristotle talked called

taught called magnificence

and and the way to understand magnificence is

generosity at scale

and so it's one thing to see someone in need

like a homeless person let's use

for example and give them $20 and

you know they can get a meal or whatever

it's another thing to develop

to build something that will live beyond you that

that addresses poverty in your community

that helps to alleviate poverty in

in your community so if there's one principle that I

that I hope to instill in my kids among many uh

it would be to

to live in such a way that you can build systems

or build organizations or uh

build structures that can live beyond you and and

and help to address needs in the community

I'll give you a couple examples one is

and Anthony Gaudi

who was a architect in Spain in the 18 hundreds uh

started to build a cathedral in Barcelona

which is now we call the LA Sagrada Familia

I don't know if you've been to Barcelona

but I I know exactly the cathedral you're talking

it's amazing it's amazing to

to stand in this cathedral

it's so

it started in 1888 and it still isn't done

so Gaudi's vision of what he was doing

was to glorify god in such a way that he knew

he did not have the capacity to actually

see it through

he knew that it would take generations of architects

and glass cutters and stone workers

and laborers

and artists to ultimately finish this building

so we're in 2,026

I mean it's been over

well over and we're approaching 200 years

hundred fifty years yeah

of working on this on this

on this structure so

so if we can implement in our kids this idea of

of building things that serve humanity

that serve mankind that serve your community

that are bigger than you that aren't about you

that are about something

that can help to make the world a better place

that's where all of the virtue that we develop

really coalesces

into something that is really applicable

and really meaningful and

you know again

the bad end of that spectrum

you know where the

where the golden mean would be to build something great

the the deficiency would be you're blessed with means

with wealth or riches or capacity and talent

and you hoard it and you do nothing with it

you have this capacity

to do something that could actually benefit

your community and humanity

and mankind and instead

you just

you squander it and you buy a yacht and you just

you know sail around the Mediterranean every year with

with your ladies I mean

that's not you're not serving any broader uh

good than your own kind of carnal desires and

and so so

that would be a principle that I would hope my kids can

can pick up not that they're gonna have

you know extreme wealth where they

they could sail around the Mediterranean

but Aristotle talked about it

all of us have

the potential to do something within our scale

like within our means right so even if I'm

my dad was a teacher and

but he was an artist and he taught industrial arts

so my home is filled with boats that

plural that he's built and

and works of art that he's created

furniture that he's built um

and art that my parents have collected

because they just

he just thinking that way and that had a

a really meaningful effect on me

so now as a

as a 50 something year old man with a family and a wife

and a little bit of means

my wife and I have started a foundation that

that supports artists that do the kind of work

or that create the kind of work that we feel is

is beautiful and adds value to humanity right

so I never would have done that if my dad as a

as a teacher a man of modest means

hadn't focused on building beautiful things

and surrounding himself with beautiful things

which Aristotle you know

one of the features of a magnanimous man is

that

he surrounds himself with beautiful and useless things

what does that say like

why would you do that

why would he feel that's important

I mean that's maybe another discussion

but art in and of itself you could argue is beautiful

perhaps but maybe a little bit useless

but on the other hand it

it fills us with perspective perhaps

or it makes us think perhaps

or it makes it challenges our

our you know

long held notions that we have about this or that or

or it's simply just a beautiful thing that

when we look at

maybe it reminds us of a principle or a virtue of our

the time that we bought it or

or of our dad who created it or

or whatever so um

so I know it's a long winded answer

but I would I would say um

I love that principle of

of magnificence in building something that is a legacy

and lives beyond you and serves something beyond you

I think that's a fantastic principle

where can uh

people learn more about you and

and your work

well they can uh

the website is great sold men.com

uh the book is

is great sold men and I'm also um

pretty active on Instagram uh

at great sold men and Facebook at great sold men

fantastic well

so all

the links to all of those things

are in the show notes below

and this has been Bro Bode Swanson

he's the author

of the book Great Sold Men and uh and check it out

it's uh again the links are in the so in the show notes

bode thank you so much for being a guest on the show

Sean you're awesome man

thank you for the great conversation

I was really enjoyed and for those of you listening

thank you remember to like and subscribe and as always

thank you for listening to Raising Men

and you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino