The Best of 2025 | Aggressive Life

Welcome to the Aggressive Life. Hey, this is Dyrt. I'm your podcast producer, and I'm sitting down with you on the last week of 2025, looking back at our favorite moments from the podcast this year. And honestly, it was a huge year for the podcast. We passed our 300th episode this year. We passed two and a half million downloads this year. And the biggest change for us this year came back in February, where we moved to a video format. For about four years, we have been audio only. The switch to video was a big deal. It changed how we thought about the show, how we captured the show, how I edit the show and produce it. It was a big, big shift. And you guys responded. YouTube views climbing. Spotify views climbing. And for you audio-only people, that's fine. Keep doing what you do. But video is available. If you ever want to watch the podcast, you can find links to the video in every episode. I'm so grateful that you hung with us through this year, through the switch to video, and you just want to celebrate the moments that defined 2025 on this podcast. I'm going to share six of our most popular, our most downloaded, our most talked about episodes of the year. This is just only a snippet from each conversation. If you missed the original one, you can find links to every single one of them in the podcast description. Go back, check out the full episode. Let it push you forward as we move toward 2026. Now, by far, the most excited I have been about a podcast in a long time happened in the lead-up to Man Camp, when we got to connect with world-class adventurer, explorer, manly man Bear Grylls. Now, listen, Bear Grylls has been a bucket list guest for me for years. I've tried and tried and tried. I was never successful to land him on the podcast. But it happened this year, and I don't think I've ever been more nervous for a podcast than this one. Just wanted to make sure the audio was crisp, the video was good. Everything came together, and it did. Let's check out a snippet of Brian Tome and Bear Grylls on the aggressive life. You mentioned as a teenager, was there a significant spiritual moment for you as a teenager? Yeah, I always had a really natural faith as a young kid. I just knew that something was out there, and it was good, and it was for us. I couldn't really articulate it more than that. But then I went to school, and I went to a school where church was very formalized. You'd have to go every day. Most of the service was in Latin, delivered by a guy in a white dress in a pulpit. I just thought, wow, I've got God wrong. God is not wild, cozy, free,

empowering, and makes you smile. God is judgmental, is in Latin, and is not relevant. I let my faith go for many years as an early teenager. Then I remember when I was about 16, my godfather died, who I was really close to. He was like my dad's best friend, and lived with us a bunch of time. Out of the blue, he died. I remember just being really, really upset. One day going down at our school grounds, going finding this tree I used to love to climb, and just getting on my own right at the top of the thing. I remember just saying, I wish you were like as I knew you when I was little. I wish you were like real. It was so good. Amen. Little did I know it, that's the prayer of your life. It's saying, I need you. I really need you. Be with me. Nothing dramatic happened, but from little acorns, big oak trees grow. Just things gently started to come into my life. That presence and that light and that quiet assurance from that moment has never left me. I've had doubts, for sure. I still have doubts, to be honest. I woke up the other day and I really questioned whether any of this is real. It's this whole thing madness. I regularly have times like that, but the presence of God has never left me. I know that. I know it. It's been the great truth, the great strength, the great backbone in my life ever since. I'm still not very churchy, to be honest. I struggle a lot with the formalized side of faith. faith, but I look at faith and doubt, two sides of the same coin, you know. I find church with a few good friends and with my family saying my prayers in the evening over them, and I know every day we're loved, you know, regardless of what I feel. I know that light is always there, and it's the greatest thing I have. To be honest, it's the only thing I really feel I have. The rest is window dressing. Well, there really is a good juxtaposition that isn't wrestled with enough between the Christian faith and the rugged outdoors. You mentioned before the guy in the white dress and all that stuff with many corners of Christianity. Yeah, it is a much more sanitized, civilized form of faith that is just somewhat unrealistic and unattractive to the average guy. One of the times I went over to Israel, I had a female Jewish guide, and she said, you know, Jesus was a rugged man.

He was rugged. He walked miles every day, and he had shoes on that wouldn't support his arches. And he was, he was, you know, in the trades, he had unbelievable calluses on his hands. And for that kind of guy, this is a woman who's talking here who's not a believer, but just given the historicity of it, for that kind of guy to be on a cross, refusing a drink while he's on a cross, and yet simultaneously groaning, this is a tough guy, she said. And it was like, okay, I always know that's the Jesus I know, but I think you're the first authority, quote, unquote, authority that's ever put it that way. And it's coming from somebody who isn't even a believer. There is, there's that piece that I think goes hand in hand with the outdoors life, because, you know, Jesus and the disciples, they were camping the whole time. They weren't in a lot of hotels around. All the time. And walking. And like, and also like, just think how much time was actually spent just sitting around a fire. Right. Taking the mick out of each other, laughing, eating, feasting, you know, the best that the religious elite could throw at him is that he was a drunkard and a glutton. Right. You know, it's like the Jesus, the real Jesus is so different from the sanitized version, the Christmas version I was brought up with. And it's been a lifetime of unraveling and finding this wild, unschooled, like, beautiful spirit that, you know, it's like everything I hope God would be. And yet so often the faith we're kind of presented with from school and institutions is everything that I'd never want in a God. And yet, whenever I've encountered the real person of Christ, this, as you say, this man of the land, man of people, why did all the regular everyday people just fight to be close to him, just touch the hem of his cloak? You know, why?

What was it that drew people and why did the elite fear him so much? For me, it's such a compelling story. And like, the more you look into it, the more it's like, you know, that all of our stories, whether we're nervous, whether we're excited, whether we're impulsive, whether we're reckless, whether we're arrogant, whether we're cynical, you know, it's all in there. And I like that because it's all of us at the same time at times in our life. And yet the foil we meet every encounter with Christ in his journey of life, healed, empowered, challenged, embraced, transformed, you know, it's like, I mean, you know, it still blows me away. It really does. Now if you were at Man Camp this year, you got to see Bayer live and on the stage, but he wasn't the only special guest at Man Camp this year. We had Dante Bowe, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, member of Maverick City Music, does his own music also under his own name. Dante was a huge add to Man Camp. He helped lead us in worship the entire weekend, and it was phenomenal. Now before Man Camp, Brian sat down with Dante to talk about his life, his own faith journey, and his creative pursuits in music. Let's check out a clip from Brian and Dante Bowe on The Aggressive Life. I feel like your story is one that's more relatable to the average guy than many people's story. Like, I might hear young worship leaders sing that song, I searched the world. and it couldn't fill me. You haven't searched the world, you're freaking 25. You haven't been outside of the southeastern United States. You haven't searched the world. But when I start to interact with people who are like, no I've been like homeless, no I've been like hanging out with drug people, no I've been. My parents were drug dealers. Were they really? Yeah. Were they good at it? Very good at it. Like we were raised, we were raised great and we had a good life and I didn't know they were drug dealers. Wow. Until like today, I feel like it was

too late when I found out. Because my mama was like two years later she ended up quitting and like going back to working as a nurse and all that stuff. But like at the time, I didn't know. Years and years and years. And so I was raised you know across the street from the trap. That's what they used to sell. And they didn't get convicted, they just quit? No my mom did. My dad went to jail. He did, okay. He went to jail and got out when I was 14 and just just went back to regular life and that was that was amazing but it was definitely traumatizing. Yeah, wow. Having my dad every day and then gone and I think a lot of people look at drug dealers as bad people. And sure like it's not like something I think is commendable but my parents were really just good to me and my brother's sister. They were just very good to us and we genuinely didn't know and they felt like they were giving me a better life because they didn't graduate high school. You know what I mean? And so they were making money like they did and they just got it. My mom explains it like she would she would definitely condone what I'm about to say but like my mom explains it like she said she was addicted to how fast the money was and how and how quick she can like fix stuff. So she could fix like anything that was going on in the house or like if her kids needed something she's like oh I can go buy the school supplies like you know and so she was addicted to how how how how fast it was you know. Yeah I was that's what how I was raised yeah. I could completely see that. That's uh that's why I didn't feel like I fit in when I was becoming a Christian artist. Like I I was raised in church just like they were but I always felt kind of judged and and I think people didn't understand me. Because your parents were drug dealers? I feel like people didn't understand me just because I didn't I wasn't raised to be like politically correct all the time and so I had to learn that and I'm still learning that but in my house my mom and dad really allowed us to express ourselves like we got spankings and stuff but a lot of times my parents would why would you do that like okay what made you do it was like therapy every day and um and I think a lot of the kids that are in worship now who are amazing weren't necessarily raised practical like that. It was more they had this spiritual thing that was happening

even when they were young like I went to church when I was younger and stuff and my grandparents were pastors but my parents were very they were very practical with me so I think when I use that tool in the worship space sometimes people can get really offended you know and I'm learning that. The tool in the worship space what tool in the worship space? Just the practical just being practical and asking questions and acquiring things and you know I run my marketing team I run the distro team I run my booking agent like so most artists don't do all that but I like literally am in every meeting concerning myself and um and um you know the artist being the bad guy sometimes in a meeting is just not fun for people you know and so I I had my moments in the industry when I when I probably stepped on toes because of a bad deal or something like that and it was because of my parents and how they raised me to be a good person and to to acquire like they ask questions and get answers you know I mean and stuff like that you know so yeah you're making aggressive moves that's why you're in the aggressive life you're making an aggressive move of actually managing your life and actually managing your career. I meet and interact with pastors all the time of every size church that feels like they just need to preach teach and give vision no you need to be like in the weeds you got to get in the weeds of your life and of your ministry in the weeds is where where there's little itty-bitty oak trees they're starting to come up you got to protect them in the weeds in the weeds there's things I mean need to be eradicated you got to get in you're gonna make the aggressive move to actually be in there and be involved and not just passively hope and assume everything's gonna be okay it's not. That's good I don't I hope they heard you yeah I hope y'all heard him that was actually very good that's what I just said but he explained it better. Like the weeds bro like things that only you care about not just some random guy that's an executive like only things that you care about And that's perfect right there. I'm actually gonna take that, what you said.

Yeah, there you go. That's a BT original. A lot of stuff is, and that's one of them. And one of the most aggressive things that I did this year is I spent 40 days purposefully staying away from my phone. Yes, I used it for phone calls. Yes, I used it for text. I shut down social media. I turned off my news apps. I didn't scroll videos. I didn't mindlessly scroll, scroll, scroll. And it was difficult and it was so good and life-giving. And one of the reasons I did it, I was inspired by Brian's conversation with his friend and pastor in Nashville, Darren Whitehead. Darren has led his church through a digital fast many, many times, talked about the power of learning to limit the influence that technology, your phone, social media, YouTube has on your life. It was one of our most talked about, our most downloaded episodes of the entire year. Let's jump back and hear Brian and Darren Whitehead on The Aggressive Life. So your first, how many of these digital fasts have you done? So we've done, we've done it two years in a row and we're about to do our third next month. So this will be our third coming up. And the first time you did it, cause most of us have never done one. So the first time you do it, what do you do other than,

what do you do? What do you delete? What can you do? What can you not do? How, one thing you already said, best to find other people to do it. Hopefully your church is doing it. If you're in a church or somebody else, communal impact. What else? What's some nuts and bolts? All right, so this is what I learned. So the first time I did it, I got rid of my iPhone and I used a dumb phone. I used a light phone and a week or so into this, I realized I just can't participate in American life without a smartphone, or at least it is very difficult to do so. You know, I'd drive downtown and I'd try to find a parking space and then it's a QR code to pay for your parking. Or I can't even get into the building at church. I can't board an airplane. I can't order a Uber. You know, like there's just so much of our lives, but it's not all harmful. So as we started developing our point of view, I started to realize that we need to think about the apps on our phone through the lens of distraction versus utility. Not all apps have the same detrimental impact on us.

So distraction apps are things like social media and games and news apps and video apps, and even email. The things that become wormholes of distraction, the things that when you pull up at the lights, you can't help yourself. You grab your phone and you look down and you just start scrolling, right? You wanna get all the distraction apps off of your phone and you wanna turn your phone into a utility device. That is phone, text, calendar, a camera, a calculator, board the airplane. You know, when you jump on a Southwest flight and you use the app, you don't then get on the flight and play with the Southwest app for the next 45 minutes, you know? Because it's a utility, it's not a distraction. So the call is, in a digital fast, is to remove all of the distraction apps off of your phone. And then what happens is invariably, you're gonna reach for your phone like a reflex reaction. You're gonna open your phone, you're gonna realize there's nothing cool to look at and you're gonna put it down again. So it's getting all of the distraction apps off of your phone. And the way that it works is four movements. The first movement, can I just ask you a question? You're doing 40 days, right? Yes. Yes.

Our idea is like, I was really challenged, like, oh man, maybe we should have done 21 or 30 like you initially recommended. I actually didn't want to do 40, but our team said, hey, look, we're in an area of the country where a lot of people are Catholic. They give up something for Lent. Lent is kind of put in there. Let's do that. So that's what we're doing. The first year I did it, I did 30. The second year I did 40. So I've done both. Okay. So the digital fast is 40 days and it is four 10 day movements. The first 10 days is to detach. We want to invite you to detach from all the distraction apps off of your device and detach yourself from the device. When you're at home, don't carry it around with you all the time. Put it in a drawer. Don't use it as an alarm clock. Don't make it the last thing you touch before you go to bed and the first thing you reach for in the morning, right? So detach from the device. The second 10 days is to discover.

You start to discover all kinds of things that you've been covering over by distracting yourself with these devices. It turns out Brian. that when we're sad, and when we're anxious, and when we're afraid, or when we feel shame, that is an unpleasant feeling. And so what we generally do is we grab our phones and we open them and we look at something that is going to help us forget what we were thinking about. We distract ourselves away from uncomfortable feelings. Well, when you stop doing that, you actually start to notice some things you weren't noticing. You might notice something in your kids or your spouse. You might even notice something in yourself. You also start to rediscover the voice of God, which we have all but silenced because every sort of discretionary gap moment in our day is buried in a glowing rectangle. Instead of saying, Lord, what do you want me to pay attention to right now? Who's the person that I should be seeing? What is the thought or the person that you are dropping into my heart that I need to reach out to? So the second 10 days, you really discover. The third 10 days, you begin to delight. And I was talking to Dr. Jonathan Haidt about this, and he was really excited. And when I finished speaking, he said, can I tell you why the third movement is delightful? He said the brain science behind this is that the dopamine receptors in your brain reset after a couple of weeks. And we are overstimulating dopamine in our brains with social media. And what happens is dopamine stops working properly in our brains. It stops bringing peace. It stops bringing joy. It stops bringing pleasure. It stops calming anxieties. It stops being effective. So it takes a couple of weeks of depriving that overload, and then your dopamine receptors reset, and you actually start to experience the way God has intended our brains to function. You actually experience pleasure again. And I remember I was in this season, and my daughter, who was about 13 at the time, said to me, Dad, come and watch me on the trampoline. And I walked outside, and it was so funny, Brian. It was like I could feel the grass under my feet, and for whatever reason, I noticed it. And then I walked outside, and there was a gentle breeze, and it was about 71 degrees, and the sun was about to set, and I could hear birds. And then I could hear the squeal of my daughter jumping on the trampoline. And I didn't have my phone with me. And I was so present. I was so aware that I was here, and I was watching something truly sacred in my daughter

asking me to watch her. And I had this conscious thought, this is a better life. That's what it's like when you get into the third movement, into delight. The fourth movement is to determine. And the idea is, I need to determine what my digital habits are going to be as I come out of these 40 days. And we encourage people to think about their digital life like Marie Kondo helps people clean out their closets. You know Marie Kondo is? No. She helps people simplify their lives by cleaning out and throwing out things in their closets, right? And she has this famous question. She invites people to hold up items of clothing and ask the question, does this item of clothing spark joy? And if it doesn't, you throw it out. And if it does, you keep it. And people are purging their lives and simplifying their lives by using this technique. Well, I want people to Marie Kondo their digital life. And as they are coming out of the digital fast, ask yourself the question, does putting TikTok back on my phone spark joy? Does putting Instagram back on my phone spark joy or Facebook or Twitter? I'm not saying you should never go on social media again. What I'm advocating for is maybe it shouldn't be on your phone so that you're not looking at it 63 times a day. These smartphones have become appendages on our bodies. And the challenge is to try to regulate our consumption of these devices because they're always there and it is like visual candy. And when you consume too much candy, how do you feel? You feel sick and kind of ashamed of yourself. You know, the way you feel when you've been doom scrolling for 65 minutes. Yeah. I don't, I don't use X formerly known as Twitter. At some point we have to stop saying that, but I don't, I don't use X. So that's, that's going to be an easy delete. Facebook. I use Facebook, but mainly it's for utilitarian reasons to reach people who I want to reach. It's not necessarily for personal enjoyment. So that one's not too hard. Instagram is a one I really enjoy. I love the ads. They give me ads are exactly what I want. It serves me up content. I'm going to miss that one, but I'll tell you one that I'm really, really freaked about. I'm really freaked about deleting YouTube. I don't, that's where all my screen time is, YouTube. And I don't, I haven't taken a dump without my phone for 15 years. I don't even know if my rectum works if I'm not holding a phone in my hand. Honestly, I don't know the word. I could be, I could be a turtle dogging it, a prairie dog, you know, turtling it. Going to the bath, like, oh, I hope I make it. Oh, where's my phone?

And I'll risk it and turn around and go find my phone because I cannot stand, sit and not watch car restoration videos or hunting videos. I'm concerned about that one. Right, right. And that will be a part of detaching. And once you get through that season of discomfort, you will find some joy on the other side. Dirt's still laughing. Whenever I can make dirt laugh. I'm still laughing about that one. You like getting dirty. What'd you like about that, Dirt? The prairie dog? All of it. All of it. I also love my Australian friend. I love when I break him out of his, like, nice proper Nashvilleian Christian ways. It's wonderful. Now, yes, we have some incredible guests on The Aggressive Life, but it's not just that. It's also an opportunity for Brian to share what's going on in his life, the wins, the hardships, what God is teaching him and where God is leading him. And one of the ways he did that this year is he was very open about his wife Libby's cancer journey. Now, in this episode that was recorded early on in that journey, Brian talks about how him and Libby are reframing their thinking around it, not being a victim, but thinking about it as an adventure. They're going someplace new they've never been before, and they're going to figure it out together. Now, I'm pleased to say Libby's made it through her chemo treatment. She's doing well. We're rooting for her. We're praying for her. But this conversation still packs a powerful and potent punch. Let's jump back to hear Brian talk about the adventure he did not want to be on. The aggressive life is not just a motto for a podcast. It's actually how you live. That's where it came from. And I'm seeing you do some really aggressive things, even in the midst of this difficulty, like one of them being you're not puppy dog eye in it. Right. And you're talking about it like an adventure. I've never heard anyone talk about cancer like an adventure. I just wanted you to like, can you unpack that for us? Like, why would you call it that? Well, it's not an adventure until something goes wrong. Me having a night of camping someplace is not an adventure because I understand camping. I understand the holes. I understand all the nuts and bolts. And there's virtually nothing you can throw at me at a night of camping that would make an adventure because I know and understand it really well.

Even a torrential rainstorm, that'll get the juices flowing a little bit. But even that, I've been through enough of those. But, you know, adventure is a more recent one. Last year when I went on a cattle drive, hadn't done that before. Hadn't had saddle sores before. Hadn't participated in cutting off the balls of little calves before. When you don't know and you're not comfortable, that's when it's adventure. I don't know anything about cancer. I just recited things about lymph nodes. I don't know anything about it. I've heard lymph nodes before. I didn't know anything about that until in this. So it is striking that same chord as adventure because I don't know what I'm doing. It's difficult. Everything is fresh. Everything is version. And I don't have any answers. I'll go back to camping because I've done it so much. You can ask me anything about camping, anything, and I'll have an answer. It might not be the answer for you. You ask me what kind of sleeping bag you should get, and I would tell you, hands down, best one, Big Agnes. Done. But some people don't like it. But it's an answer, right? I don't have any answer when it comes to supporting my wife with cancer. I've never done it before. I've never had a very close friend go through the same situation, supporting his wife through it. So it's an adventure. Though I don't know anything about cancer, how to support my wife through cancer, I do know a bit about being uncomfortable and learning to live in the midst of uncertainty. It's the same exact muscles. But it's also an emotional adventure more than it is a physical adventure. There's some physical change I've had to make in my life. It's more emotional and spiritual, and those are always the hardest adventures for me.

So yeah, there's a lot of carryover and crossover, and I'm finding that aspect of my life is serving me, and actually both of us, serving us well during this journey. That's great. I know, too, you've said when you're doing something new, there's a lot of learning, right? I mean, because you haven't done it before, and you're gonna make mistakes, and that's part of the process. What are you learning new right now? It could be physical, it could be spiritual, emotional. What are some things that you're picking up as you walk into this new season? Well, I hate to answer that question right now, because we're still at the very beginning of it, and things will be probably very different with a whole different list, you know, in a couple, few, several months, whatever it is. But there's things I'm more noticing right now, more noticing how passive I've been around the house on certain things. Lib is not bedridden right now. It's not like she has no energy. We went to a Cincinnati Reds game yesterday, but still, I've just tried to up my game on some areas to serve her, and I've just been more passive on letting dishes sit in the sink in the past than just knock them out right now,

because why have her do that? So I would say right now, there's things I'm noticing. The only big learning I have right now that I would call a big learning is we do the right things in good times, so we have the right things in hard times. We are so covered right now by a loving community that's around us, not just our kids and grandkids, but our friends. We haven't made a meal now in a month, and people are stacked up for a while. We've had people just supporting us, praying for us, doing things like having a house cleaner come over and clean and all that stuff, and it's not because I run a big organization and people are just trying to play nice with me. It's because we have genuine friendships that we're invested in, and those folks are just a support network. It's amazing, and I go like, my gosh, how does somebody who doesn't have friends, which is the norm, or if you have friends, you basically have associates, you're not really doing life with others, how do people get by in this time? I don't know. All I know is, man, are we glad that we're able to lean in to these people and some of the relational choice we've made. It's a blessing.

And it's powerful, because you were hitting the reps, like you said, when life was good, because when the doctor calls, says this terrible thing is going on, that is not the time to try to go find friendships. Right. Right. You're way behind the eight ball. You need them then. Oh, yeah, for sure. You're not going to find them then. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, I know, and that's really scary. It breaks your heart in a fresh way when we look at the loneliness epidemic in our country and how people are struggling. It's one thing to bemoan that people are staring at their screens or gaming inordinate amounts of the day and they're robbing potential relational activities. It's one thing to talk about that theoretically, but it's another thing to just grieve over, oh man, that kind of lifestyle leaves somebody so exposed. Vulnerable. Vulnerable and exposed when the storm comes in, because it is coming in. None of us are immune from having a storm, even though there are some preachers who like to make you think that there are,

there is, no, there is not, sorry. And if you think there are, you've been deluded and sold a false gospel. Jesus says, in this life, you will have trouble. That's a promise of Jesus. That's not a promise that anybody points out, prints out and puts up on their, puts up on their, up on their refrigerator, but that is a promise. In this life, you will have trouble. So we need to do things, not necessarily so that I have something when it's hard times. I do these things because it's just what works and what God tells me to do. God tells me to have great friendships. Jesus modeled having great friendships. The book of Proverbs, which I'm gonna complete tomorrow, my Bible reading plan, talks about it all the time. Wounds from a friend or cord of three strands and all these things. Cord of three strands, by the way, in the book of Proverbs is not. As much as you want to make it, this is not about God, the triad, God, the Father, God, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Quarter three strands is not a wedding verse. It's fine to use at your wedding. Quarter three strands basically saying, hey, don't just have a best friend. Multiple is good because the more you have, it's a strong cord, right? So you don't do these things to benefit yourself later.

You do these things because you know it's what works and what God lays out for us, but it's just really great on the back end. You get the benefits of it. It's really cool. Now you've heard Brian say it many times, the aggressive life is not a man podcast. Aggressiveness is just as much for women, but Brian is interested in issues that influence men and the state of men in our current culture and world, and one of the front runners in that conversation is his friend and pastor down in Florida, Joby Martin. Joby joined us for a conversation about how biblical manhood isn't toxic, but also isn't tame. It was a powerful conversation. Thousands of you have checked it out and shared it. Let's jump to a short clip from Brian and Joby Martin. For all of human history up until about 75 years ago, there were just two categories of male. There were boys and there were men, and it takes men to bestow manhood upon a generation of boys. Well, in our culture, we have this brand new category and it's not really a boy, it's not really a man. Sociologists would call it adolescence. We would call it like a dude. It's just kind of a boy that can shave. So like physically, he's a man, but he's not yet stepped into the responsibility of being a man. And boys are about consuming and men are about sacrificing, about building, about giving. And so I want, especially my daughter, when I want to raise my boy to be a grown man, and I want to raise my daughter to be able to identify the difference between a man and a boy. And so I think that distinction is a big part of why we're in the mess we're in today in regards to manhood and masculinity.

Right. Yeah. You mentioned adolescence. That used to be a thing that sociologists or psychologists looked at just a very brief transitional period when you came into puberty and your voice was changing. Because until, gosh, I don't know when that was. You may know, Joe. Was it 1920 that came around or whatever it was? As soon as you could ejaculate in every culture, as soon as you could ejaculate, you could create a family and you were meant to be a man. Right. Well, now you're an adolescent like, I don't know, what are you now, 13 to 15, 13 to 20, 13 to 30 now? This long period of not taking responsibility, trying to figure yourself out. It's sad. Yeah. It's really sad. I tell you, it really hit me. I was doing a I was on mission in Kenya, Africa for like six months back in the 90s. And I was working with the Maasai tribe and with a bunch of seminarians. But I was the only one that they thought was a warrior enough to be invited in to meet the chief. Because, you know, if you've been to seminary, ain't a lot of warriors, right? And so they asked me, they said, in your culture, when does a boy become a man? And I was like, oh, man, I don't know. Because you ask. I mean, Obamacare says 26, like 25, you could be on your mom's insurance at 26. You got to get on your own. And so because it takes men to bestow manhood upon a generation of boys right now, what we got is a bunch of boys trying to bestow manhood on other boys.

And so that's where it falls off into the ditch of, well, it's about how much money you can make or how many likes you can get or how big your muscles are, you know, kind of depending on the culture that you're in. And it's a real shame. But like you said, for I mean, think about this for all of written human history, a boy would become a man by being invited by men into manhood. He would either go to war, start a career, start a family. And then he was a he was a man. Ultimately, what that just means is he took responsibility, you know, that he did not abdicate responsibility. He did not just pursue comfort, but he tried to get his world in order so that he can invite other people into that world to be taken care of. Yes, it's a lost art. It is a lost art. And why do you do you think that there is some master plan out there that's trying to keep males boys? Yeah, he's called the devil and he only. to steal, kill, and destroy. And oftentimes you see in the scripture, when the enemy wants to thwart a move of God, he tries to wipe out a generation of young men. You see it with Moses, see it at the birth of Jesus. I mean, this is his plan. And yeah, so, I mean, you think about it. I mean, think about this. All right, my son's 20 years old. When for most of his life as a straight white male who is a conservative Christian in our culture, he has been taught, he is the problem, that his very nature in and of itself is somehow toxic. And the best thing that he can do is just get out of the way, maybe just go waste your time and play some video games or feel guilty or whatever. And I think a part of the reason you've seen this resurgence in the alpha male in the past couple of years, like politically and socially, I think the pendulum is kind of swinging back the other way. Right. That whole phrase is so insulting and insidious, toxic male. I mean, there certainly are males who are toxic. I get that completely. But that we talk about that as much as we do is horrible. If you said toxic femininity, you would get strung up. I mean, if you even start to talk about how women are controlling, how women are, oh my gosh, horrible.

But the fact that we can say toxic masculinity without a bunch of caveats and motivators to make sure you understand, no, I'm not saying that. It's horrible. There's a full scale assault on anything that's traditionally masculine. Yeah. And an attack on gender is an attack on the character nature of God, because it was God's idea that he would create image bearers, male and female in his image and likeness. That was God's idea. So men do not fully image God and women do not fully display the likeness of God. It is men and women in a compliment together that fully image who God actually is. But that doesn't mean either male nor female need to apologize for how God has created us to be. And newsflash, boys and girls are different. I mean, if you've raised little boys, little girls, they're just different. Yeah. Yeah. How much do you think that is cultural condition? How much of that is just inbred DNA? I think first and foremost, the core of it is the fingerprint of God, because as much as the culture has tried to condition it out of us, you just can't condition listen, the amount of mamas that are terrified that their little boy might play with a toy gun one day. Right. Because there's terrified that he he's he's going to do something crazy. And if you don't let your son play with little guns, he's just going to chew his grilled cheese into a Glock nine because the Lord is a warrior. The Lord is his name. And he was created in that boy's image. I mean, listen, when my kids were playing in the backyard, when two pinecones fell out of the tree, JP made him grenades. Reagan made him friends. That's just how they do. And there are definitely some boys that are not as masculine and some girls that are more masculine. But generally speaking, generalities are generally true. That's why they're generalities. And so I think these are the fingerprints of God on humanity. And we don't need to apologize that God has made us men. Now, there's this old Scottish proverb that I quote all the time. For every mile of road, there's two miles of ditch. And so the enemy doesn't really care which ditch you wreck your truck in. And so a lot of men wreck their truck and abdication, you know, they're boys and they just sit on the couch and they don't do anything. And honestly, they just they just try to stay out of the way. But it doesn't do any good to overcorrect and just reckon the other ditch and think that, well, I'm gonna be a real man, so I've got to have muscles and fight and drive a big truck and hunt. And now, even though I do all of those things, none of those things make me a man. They may be awesome, but they don't make me a man. What being a man is, is bending your knee to Jesus and then taking on the responsibilities

that he has given you as a man. Right. We're going to finish with a podcast that surprised us the most. You know what? You don't have to have a famous name to make an impact. It's all about the aggressive moves that you're making. And to lead up to Man Camp, we had two guys on the podcast, Rory and Matt. They live in New Hampshire. They have a podcast of their own, but they're just average Joes. They're going to their jobs. They're taking care of their families. They joined us to talk about the crazy way they got to Man Camp about four years ago, five years ago, and how they've been bringing back van loads of guys. since. They were there this year, and they're going to keep coming back, bringing guys because Mancamp matters to them. Now, listen, this video blew up on YouTube. Over 20,000 views. Incredible. Through the roof. Matt and Rory, keep going, guys. Keep doing what you're doing. And if you didn't get to hear it, let's check out a snippet from Brian's conversation with Matt and Rory about the importance of Mancamp. Mancamp has been a growing thing for a while, and this is called The Aggressive Life. It's not called the Mancamp podcast, but it's one of the more aggressive moves that I've ever made in my life. Choosing to just take men out in the woods, poop in the woods, push on people spiritually, do something that's totally outside the box that I'd never heard of before. It was 500 people the very first one in frigid conditions in Indiana, and then we went to Kentucky, and now we're in Ohio, and it's sort of grown a bit every year. And this year is going to be really good, but maybe one of my favorite, favorite years was when we were so close to having every single state in the United States represented, and we put out a call saying, wow, we're almost there. Hey, if anybody wants to come from these states, we're going to give you a comp ticket. And what do you know? One of those states was New Hampshire. And one guy said, really? The contact is really, really? I'm going to get a free pass. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. He drove all the way with a buddy. Can I bring my buddy? Yeah, but I'm not paying for that loser. So yes, they drove all the way from New Hampshire to this thing they had really never heard of before. Never been around. So go back. Go back. Tell us your version. Like, you show up. Why did you decide to come? You show up, and what was different than you expected? Better or worse than you expected?

You know what it was, Brian? I seen a video on YouTube, and it was the most epic thing I'd ever seen. I never knew about Man Camp, had no idea, nothing. I see this video of this big dude jumping a minibike off of a ramp into a pond, and there's bubbles everywhere, and people are jumping. And I'm like, what is this? And so I click on the video. I watched the whole thing, and it was a promo that y'all had done for camp. And so I'd seen that, and I was like, this is crazy. I've always looked and wanted something like this. And I seen that clip, and I was like, okay. And then like a day later, I think is when they posted something about like, Man Camp was closed again. Mind you, this is the third time I tried to make it, and I didn't make it for lack of preparation. But I saw the message about the states, and one of them is New Hampshire, and I'm like, I should say something. I should say something. I probably should say something. I really want to get in. So I said something. We grabbed, they gave us a ticket. I bought a ticket for Matt. Our first year, we flew down because I didn't know what we were getting into, and I was like, I don't want to drive that far. Blah, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. That's a long ass drive. How long of a drive is that? It's almost, I think it's almost 15, 14 or 15 hours. Brutal. So first year was wild. We had high expectations, and y'all exceeded it. Exceeded those expectations. As far as what? As far as the program? As far as the vibe? The feel? What was it? Okay, so expectations, you know, just New Hampshire, we grew up. We're always out in the wild. There's woods everywhere up here, so we're always playing in the woods. Adventure's always been something that's been a big part of our lives. It's always been something that's a big part of my life, and seeing that and seeing the guys all out in like a war camp setting, you guys are just spreading them all out there in the middle of nowhere Ohio. And so I was like, man, that looks incredible. And then getting there, seeing it, that exceeded the expectations on like just the fun outdoor adventure stuff, right? But then I think there were some other expectations of like, because I don't know about you, but you go to like conferences and stuff like that, and you get a lot of hype, and then you just kind of go home, and there's nothing substantial, right, Matt? There's nothing really substantial that you take home. We still talk on a regular basis to our trip

captain that we had the first year. Oh, that's cool. Who was it? Do you remember? Yeah, I remember. His name is Matthew Hyatt. Shout out, Matt Hyatt. You're awesome. We love you, dude. He's from Connecticut. He's an incredible dude. He's bringing his own crew again this year. That's great. That's really great. So the cohesiveness, the fraternity, the stickiness of what you experienced was beyond expectation. Absolutely, from the adventure to the campfire sessions to just your time building brotherhood because our lives are so crazy that we don't build friendships anymore as men. I don't know, it's wild. So just that focus time and then the mash tent, we'll get into that later, that's wild. But man, just every level of an adventure that you could cover with adventure, with masculinity, with testosterone and meat tubes and everything, just absolutely incredible. The experience that you guys do, it's unlike anything. It's unlike any other thing that I've ever participated in. Yeah, and I know Rory and I kind of use this as our, most people use January 1st as their ground to, I'm gonna be better. The start of the new year. Start of the new year, Rory and I kind of use. Man camp's the start of our year. Oh, fascinating. That's where we get going. Interesting. October to October. That's interesting, I like that.

That's an interesting rhythm. Yeah. Boy, that makes me wonder, ooh, I might've just had an idea for a new session, new talk this year. Because I do a thing with my family every Christmas Eve. The story, when Jesus says to blind Bartimaeus, he says, what do you want me to do for you? And we do, with the family, go around, what do you want Jesus to do for you this year? If you do something, what is it? Not necessarily your goals, so that's fine too, but what do you want him to do for you? And it's interesting that Jesus asks him that. When he's blind, as in, well duh, return his sight to him, but maybe that wasn't his biggest need that he had. Maybe there was something, and maybe Jesus just wanted him to say it. But it makes me wonder if that might be a little teaching at man camp, is to say, hey, this year, talk around the campfire, what does he want Jesus to do for you? And then every year, what we do in our family, when we come back together at Christmas Eve, we open up the file, which we haven't looked at for 365 days, and we review what it is we said we wanted Jesus to do for us, and we see what the hit rate, and the hit rate's about 50% of things that happen.

It's pretty cool. You know those, the booklets you guys hand out? The little guides? Yeah, I'm pretty sure Matt has them all still, right? Yeah, yeah. So I keep those, and every year, when the next year's coming around in October, I go back through the previous year's guide, go through it. Same exact thing you're talking about, Brian. And going through it, seeing where God had the victories, you know, where the challenges were, see if those challenges are still here, you know, at that current time, a year later. And then it's, I mean, it's a great way to really track, coming out of an experience like man camp, to track your progress, where you're going, and where we just made a commitment after year one, this is the way, like literally just this is, man camp is the way. Now, what do we do? How do we get more guys here? Because they need to know about this. They need to understand and experience this. And so we just made that a pact. And then every year from the first year out, we haven't missed one. Hurricamp was honestly my favorite. Which is last year. Why was that your favorite?

The reason I think that stands out as my favorite is it, it had the limitations of, you know, weather, you can't control it. And so that created limitations where we had to adjust, you know, you're not just having all this free time. I feel like everything became extremely more intentional. Guys were seeking the mash tent a lot more intentional. I know the guys in our group were. And these are guys that some of them, this is their first experience of faith. And they were like, just radically transformed through it. And guys that you would never expect, literally never, ever expect. And they got there and it was just, because of the weather and limitations around that, it focused their hearts, I think, intently. That's why it was my favorite. Yeah, I love that. That's it for our look back on 2025. It was an amazing year, but I want to know, what were your favorite moments? What were your favorite episodes? Who were your favorite guests? Let me know in the comments, whether you're on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, leave a comment on this episode. Tell me, what was your favorite moment? What was your favorite episode? Your favorite guest? What do you want to see next year?

Would love to hear from you. People who leave a comment on this episode, no matter the platform, I'm going to draw a handful of names. And in the beginning of 26, I'm going to send something to help get your new year kick-started right. So, leave us a comment, and let us know what you loved from the podcast in this past year. Most of all, it just means a ton that you would give us time in your week to chase this aggressive life together with us. Keep going. Keep making the aggressive move. Keep pushing forward. We have some incredible things planned in 2026. I can't wait to share them with you. But until then, that's it for The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes, and more at bryantome.com. My new book, a 60-day devotional called The Five Marks for Man, 60 Days to a Powerful Life, along with all the other books in the Five Marks Library are open right now on Amazon. Be sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Then send an email to DIRT, that's DIRT, at bryantome.com to get a free Aggressive Life sticker. Find more on Instagram at bryantome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.