Men Die in Garden Moments with Derek Jackson

Most men don’t collapse all at once. They drift, they numb out, they get busy, and then one day they realize they’ve been “fine” for years while quietly losing their edge, their joy, or their family. Grant McGaugh sits down with Derek Jackson, a longtime healthcare leader and the author of Men Dying Garden Moments: The Hidden Crisis of Masculinity and the Journey Back to Life, for a direct conversation about men’s mental health, masculinity, and what accountability actually looks like when nobody’s watching.

Derek introduces the idea of “garden moments,” those decision points where the consequences outlast the emotion. We talk through the four areas where men often start to check out: stature (how we respond to changing roles and expectations), spirituality (having an anchor and core beliefs), physical health (including lifestyle and finances, not just the body), and relationships (the growing friction and mistrust between men and women). Along the way, we dig into authenticity, the influence of algorithms and culture, and why “perform, provide, protect” isn’t enough if you never learn to process.

We also get practical: how to build a safe circle of men, Derek’s “board meeting,” where mentorship happens and accountability becomes normal. If you want to lead better, love better, and live with fewer regrets, this conversation is a strong starting point. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review. What’s one “garden moment” you’re facing right now?

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates, visit 5starbdm.com
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And don’t miss Grant McGaugh’s new book, First Light — a powerful guide to igniting your purpose and building a BRAVE brand that stands out in a changing world. - https://5starbdm.com/brave-masterclass/

See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Transcript

Episode Kickoff And Men's Health

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, welcome everybody to the Follow Ram Podcast. This is Grant McGall, and I get to come back to the great state of Florida. A lot of people know that I left about a year ago as far as residency, but I still operate out of uh Miami, Florida. And I'm going to be talking to my good friend Derek Jackson, who's up in the Tallahassee area. He's got some really good things. And I want people to lean in, especially our men, to really lean in on what we're talking about, especially when it comes down to mental health, men's health, why men may be on the right path, or maybe they're not aligned with certain things that could actually take them to a higher level and fulfillment. So, with all that said, Derek, would you like to introduce yourself?

Derek Jackson Introduces His New Book

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Absolutely. Thanks, Grant, for uh the opportunity and the platform here. And hello to all those who are listening. As um mentioned, my name is Derek Jackson. I work for Automated Health Systems. I've been in the healthcare industry now for well over 30 years. Uh, my background, I have a uh bachelor's in uh health service administration from Barrie University and a master's from Bethune Cookman University, uh, master's in organizational leadership. Uh but why I'm on the show today, more than just a healthcare background, and I'll certainly answer those questions for you, Grant, in terms of what I do and how we operate there. But I wrote a book uh back in March uh that I got published. The title of the book is Men Dying Garden Moments, and I'll provide you, Grant, with more on that, some bio and some background about the book. The book is available on Amazon. It is also available on Barnes and Nobles, and uh it is in Kindle paperback and hardback cover um um for you to go out and purchase. Uh, but the reason why I wrote the book, and we'll get into more questions about it, but I've been married 30 years, and I saw a lot of relationships, men and conversations I've had with men over those 30 years were marriages that started with us, dissolved or ended, and others that are prospering. But I've always been one of those individuals that friends would come to and talk to about what's going on in their lives, their marriages, their families, and what have you. And over the years, I would take notes, jot down various things, and over time I said, you know, I this requires deeper messaging. And so I took all of that history, my own uh related history, friends-related history, and said, you know what, I'm gonna write a book. And I've always found that the writing of the book and the stories that I interacted with brought me back to a specific term of what I call garden moments. And garden moments, like leadership, are about decisions we make that are so critical to how we live our lives that it's like that of Adam in the Garden of Eden. And in that garden moment, when Adam was faced with a the proposition of Eve having made a decision and his subsequent decision as a result. That's what I mean by garden moment, is not appointing blame, but appointing accountability. And the lack of accountability is what generated me writing this book.

Four Ways Men Quietly Check Out

SPEAKER_01 2:59

This book is speaking to men's accountability, and I deal with it in four distinct phases. Uh, and it's called called Men Dying Garden Moments for a reason because I feel, Grant, that there are four things that we are suffering from in terms of our mental health, in terms of our being able to navigate uh the new dichotomy, if you will, about how things are being tracked in our society. Um, one of those things is stature, um, how we are and how we stand and are reviewed. There are more women in colleges and universities than men. Uh, there are more women participating in church, there's more women participating in the workforce, or where they are participating in the workforce, there's a shift where we were the breadwinner, they're now becoming the breadwinner. And those are good things, but how men are reacting to them is what requires the adjustment. So my book talks about not only the stature and how we need to navigate, it talks about our spirituality and how we've lost our uh sense of being anchored and whatever that faith is. And I don't I don't tout the fact that you have to be of a particular faith to do that. I have my specific type of faith and what I believe in. Um, but it's really about having a faith and being anchored. So spiritual challenge, stature challenge. Then we talked about earlier, uh, you know, about men's health, and then it's the physical aspect of what we're dealing with, not looking at how we maintain our physical health. And when I talk about physical health, most people only think about the body, but I also think about physical health being how you physically attain and manage your lifestyle, your finances, your credit score, your bank services. Those things have a physical impact and how you're you're managed and thereby also impact your structure, your stature. And then ultimately, the last thing the book deals with is relationships. We are so at odd, men and women. Uh, it's the bashing concept, men bashing women, women bashing men. Uh, there's this concept of us not being able to find a marriage together of minds. And so, my book and what I try to address is man's accountability in it. Okay. This is a perfect book for Father's Day. It's a perfect book uh for your son, for your husband. And dare I say it's also an opportunity for women to also get some idea and I of uh what it is to interact with men and how we sort of think and navigate the world. Um, really important book for the time. I work with a publisher out of Orlando to put this together. Uh, and I can tell you we had a great time in Orlando. Those that didn't make it, uh, you miss an opportunity, interact, have a book signing. Um I'll I'm on the road in Tampa in June. I'll be in Jacksonville, Atlanta, and doing a few things here in Tallahassee as well. So I'll pause there. I was a little long-winded and sharing my message there.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Oh, you got it. I I like how you jump into the the deep end with everything. It's so important. I want people to remember that title, Men Dying and then the garden moments that are important. I I look at that and I I've seen, you know, I've done my own research in certain areas, not just on the men aspect, just in life in general. I look at this as an almost an identity crisis. What do I mean by that? An identity crisis. Like, how do you see yourself and then how does the world see you? What is that gap? And to your point, are we accountable for that gap or we take responsibility? Do we really want to see the man in the mirror and see where we really are at? You said many men are showing up strong on the outside, but quietly breaking on the inside. Yes. How have you seen that reality show up in leadership, in marriage, in fatherhood, or professional life?

The Board Meeting And Safe Space

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, and that's a good question. It's at the core of what my book speaks to. And it first has to stop being the blame game, right? We've got to stop saying what happened to me, and as a result of what happened to me, instead of me reacting in a leadership capacity, I act in a way that's sort of conflict or challenging to what confronted me, right? And so a lot of where we fall short is not having a core base and a an individuals around you. And I hate to use these cliches where people use the terms where if you you you want to show me who you are, show me who your friends are, yeah. But the people you interact with matter. There has to be someone around you, people developing you and growing you. Um, and what I talk about in my book is we just organically, a group of guys, professional guys, um just started meeting on Thursdays, just ever so often, until we got to a point that we called it the board meeting. And we started having meetings, had nothing to do with any initiation, had nothing to do with part of being a fraternal order of anything, although there are individuals within those realms. I mean, we'll have individuals that are presidents of universities to individuals who are janitors for a local high school, just organically come together and sometimes we talk about the world, sometimes we talk about sports. Uh, we never really set an agenda, but it's it's funny how over time it's sort of navigated into this iron-sharpening iron process where men are now talking and feeling comfortable. We don't want you to come in and think because men particularly, it's hard for us to want to give up our emotions, right? It's hard for us to want to bleed. We are silent in our pain and our suffering. And when you know that there's a safe space to have those conversations, no one's forcing you into it. Uh, it is truly men, you know, women that show up become the swirl and takes away the attention of the process. So we try to maintain it for that perspective of keeping it focused. And and dare I say the board meeting is what I'm trying to drive out of. Okay, after you've read this book, you found some interest in it. What are some of the takeaways for us? Well, find your own board board meeting, find your own group of guys, and uh and you dare I say if you don't decide to call it the board meeting, call it whatever you want. I'm not trying to brand board meeting. What I am trying to brand is recognizing your garden moments and make sure you're making the right decisions when you encounter them.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Wow. Well, you said it right there. Making the right decisions, and what are you basing those decisions on? To your point about relationships, it you know, as you're feeding your mind, which is more or less a small computer, right? So it's it's it's taking in the data, it's taking in information. So, what kind of data and information are you allowing into yourself? And then what is that information that you're discerning as truth and what is not, and then making decisions on, right? It's very, very important. And I I get into that world, that next letter in my world, I use a brave framework. I guess I said you got to be brave to live in this world today. We talked about brand identity first, but then relationships is super, super important. Here in the Midwest and where I'm at now in Omaha, Nebraska, we might call that barbershop talk, right? You get into the barbershop and you just have at it, right? Have talk about what sports, you know, politics, whatever, community events, but you can have those conversations, but you start to find, I believe, when you do that, mentors and mentees. Yes, people start to be like, you know what? And what I mean by that is like someone who's done something that you want to do, but is five years ahead, that's a great mentor for you. Learn from that individual. I think we've got away from what I call apprenticeships, right? Like yourself, hey, you you know somebody that's been married five, 10 years, 15, 20, 25 years. Maybe you're you're on that road of your marriage and you're two and a half years in or wherever you may be, but you now want to, you got some questions, right? Because it the marriage turns, it starts to change in flavor from the time that you were married or first married, you had the wedding, and there's a lot of things on the table, but now you kind of learn the other person. You're in a partnership uh with another person, and they they bring a whole set of values on that sometimes you know works in conjunction with yourself and sometimes not. And you need to understand that that fine balance as you move forward. So I would talk to a person like Derek, like Derek, I see that you're in this marriage, it looks perfect, and everybody looks perfect on the outside. It looks great, but they don't know, like open up the hood, and like, whoa, I didn't know you had to go through all this to get this thing down the road, you know, especially if you've been traveling a long way, like 10, 20, 30 years. So the relationships that you can form to help you on your journey, I think is so important. Your book, I believe, helps people to do that when they're starting to say, hey, that phrase garden moments, I think is very powerful. But what does that mean to the average person um who may read this book? And how can men recognize if they're standing right now in one of those

How To Spot A Garden Moment

SPEAKER_00 12:10

moments?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, and very good question. And when I want folks, what I want folks to recall when they are in a garden moment is think about Adam's garden moment, right? Uh sin enter the world at the moment he, not the fact that Eve had partake of the fruit, but the real change came when he did, right? And and so I say to a man, you've got to recognize the consequence of your actions. My dad would would say to me, one moment could be worth a lifetime of pain, right? We've all heard that. You got to recognize is this a moment that's going to create life-changing effect for me? Um, I'm married and I'm having a conversation I shouldn't have, or I'm at the workplace and I'm at lunch, and I'm is having this drink because I have a friend in town going to impact my ability when I go back into the office. I mean, it's any number of things, right, Grant? What I'm what I'm wanting folks to think about in their garden moment is what does that mean when something happens? I always tell people uh who are having challenges in their marriage, and I understand marriage is hard. I don't say that to boast on my 30 years, like I did it, you can do it. That's not the philosophy I am bringing. But I do always ask people to say, what does tomorrow look like? You're not doing what you're doing today with your family. What does tomorrow look like? And subsequently, what does tomorrow look like for your loved ones? Are you now prepared to be a visitor in your house or have someone visit your house? Are you prepared to now have all of those scenarios where there's going to be, you know, certain visits or holidays, you sit on one side and someone else sits on the other side at a wedding. I mean, all of those things people don't look at and you say, is this issue or or problem we're having worth the garden moment? There are going to be times where it is. Sometimes you you do have to turn away and do things. And but the thing about a garden, right, is that gardens have seasons, right? Winter, spring, summer, fall. Uh, you have to plan up, you know, take out the roots and vegetation that are killing the particular product in the garden. So you've always wanna till it. The garden's always gonna have problems. It's never gonna be this perfect thing. Ask any farmer that has a beautiful crop, and then uh uh they get a uh a snow season will come in or cold front, and now all the oranges are dead. Being from Florida, I'm using that analogy. Yeah, right. So you can prepare for everything, but it's how you respond to those moments. And I continually talk about making those right decisions here in your garden moment. One of the subtitles of my book is The Hidden Crisis of Masculinity and the Journey Back to Life. That's also referenced here on the book. Hidden Crisis of Masculinity and the Journey Back to Life. Men have to be able to look at one another and start making decisions that aren't selfish, that aren't in the moment. You've got to recognize that this is something that is so impactful to me and the people that I love. There are people who have relationships that are healthy to the community. You know what I mean? Not just to themselves. And and if you aren't um recognizing the impact you as an individual have have to the whole, then I think you're missing it in terms of your responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Oh man. Great, great analogy, what you're bringing together, which brings me to this that that third level. I talked about your identity, your brand identity. I talked about relationship that you just you're bringing all this together. That third level I always talk about is authenticity. You gotta be authentic and you're gonna be found out. This is the thing. As you go along that path, your true values are going to be tested. And if you don't have what you call your core belief, what do you really believe? You can go outside and tell people you believe this and that. But in the moment of truth, you find out what you really believe. You find out the truth of it, right? Because your activity and your actions told what you really believed in.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And there, and therein lies the truth, right? You you you it's going to be discovered one way or the other. I think we all carry our light and our shadows with us. But if we don't understand our authentic self and where our strengths and weaknesses lie, that's that's where the test comes, right? You know, and you get you that that will tell the tale of the story. You're gonna find out the true self or who you are and where you're you're working through. And as men, we don't always, and I and I talk, well, obviously, I talk to a lot of guys all the time, and everybody is leading with you know that that that their best face. Not most of the time, they're gonna lead from a point of I really didn't know about that, or I may need some help in this area because I'm about to, and we all are on some type of obstacle course, we're all facing a new challenge on the mountain. There is nothing wrong, just like when that quarterback takes, you know, comes off the field and go talks to his coach, like, look, I don't like the way this is lining up. I need some guidance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, right? And I think you've gotten away from some of those core things, like, or maybe to your point earlier, do you have a relationship in your life that you can take a timeout, go run across the field and talk to somebody about this alignment that you're facing before you make a critical decision, right? That's going to impact not only yourself, the your family, potentially your community, you know, what it if you can take that time out, because we're emotionally charged. Sometimes it's a moment, you know. But hopefully you can make that time out. Go talk to somebody, get a mentor like yourself. Now, when I when I see you and you've written this book, now you told me a little bit of your origin story. You

Anchors, AI Speed, And Staying Power

SPEAKER_00 18:09

had had a lot of people in your life, you had chronicalized some of these things, these notes that you've written over over time, and now that kind of became the book. When people finish reading Men Dying Guardian moments, what transformation or change do you hope that they will experience, not just intellectually, but spiritually, emotionally, and relationally?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Very good question. And uh, and I'll take a little time trying to relay that, right? Because that is the core foundation of the book. I talked about those four, um I call them in the books, I call them death. It is spiritual death, stature death, physical death, and relationship death. And what I look at in those moments, they're not about dying, you know, in the term sense of you've now been uh, you know, from a morbidity perspective where you're no longer with us. But you've gotten to men will get to a point, you know, you say, you know what, I I won't do that again. I'm done. I've thrown in the towel. You'll hear men now who don't believe in marriage anymore. I'm not, you'll I'll never marry again, or I'll never get never been married, but heard so much about marriage negatively that they say, I won't get married. Well, what I to use that as an example, as from a relationship perspective, is I want men to reflect back on the impact they have on if they're not. You were a kid. What did it mean for you to have your father in the home? Right. You were a kid. What did it mean for you to see your mom and your dad together? If you never saw that, what impact did it have on you? And and so many of us, I'll never want to be that and find themselves being that. You were talking about authenticity and being what you say you are, right? And it's hard to do those things. But if you have people around you who are supporting you there, who are guiding you there, and you get out of the blame of what happened to you, and now what is my accountability to fixing it? You know, we love our kids so much, our kids could almost do anything, and we'll find a way to say, you know what, I still love you, and you will find a way to write that. Do we do that in all of our relationships? You're my blood, you're my kid, so maybe I give more there than I should elsewhere. Uh, those things are important. Dare I say, in our society today, and Grant, you you talk about having an IT background, everything is in a hurry. And AI has changed that and revolutionized that so much. And there are a lot of people fearful of AI. I said, but to me, a calculator is AI at his infancy, right? I'm not showing the work when I do one plus one. You just know I did it in the count and you trust it now, and you put in a million times 407, right? You don't check the math, you know that the number given to you is right, right? So life is gonna happen, it's gonna be faster. You have to evolve and be prepared for it. And there's good and bad in how all of those things transpire. But the old-fashioned philosophy about why grandma and granddad stayed together wasn't about perfection, it was about staying power. It was about two people knowing they had something bigger than themselves. It was about people recognizing at the end of the day, when my journey's over, am I gonna look back and say, Did I do my due diligence and trying to do the right thing? It's not always gonna work out, you're not always gonna hit the target, but you've always got to be striving to do it. So when someone is done reading my book, I want them to always go back to a garden moment before you make a decision. And that garden moment says, Let me go to my anchor. For me, it's my Christian faith. For someone else, it may be just my upbringing, someone else, it may be whatever spiritual religion or faith they have. Uh, whatever that is, go back. And I hope that that anchor is a positive one, right? You you would assume that the anchor, the thing that you you guide and make yourself is that. Go back to that and those decisions because it will then define you. Okay. You can tell the world and put on whatever face you want, but I I see you. Um One of the things that that I do in my book is I weigh a lot on men, but I have two daughters, 31 and 32. I want the best for them. And I want, and they're they're smart. One's an ANP, one has their second masters, they're doing great, and they're not married. And I mean, I say, I got married in my 20s, and I think, you know, I'm an old school. I don't think you will maybe you get married early before you build and grow those assets, right? Um, but I know that that's different, and generationally things are changing. But I want to have an environment where my daughters are seen in a proper light by men, and men are seen in a proper light by them. And I'm always saying to them, we're unfortunately in a society now where Victoria no longer has a secret, right? Right. I think of the the the story, and I talk about that in the book as well. Is we've gotten away from the blessing of just who and what a woman is, that it the access to it and what you can see is no longer a secret. And I think it's changed men, but men have an ownership in it. There's a reason why nightclubs say women in free until 10. Women get free drinks because it know it attracts us, right? And what about that attraction drives us insane? We should be able to formulate ourselves in a manner of speaking that says, you know, an order because what we know is what may be in there getting the free drink may not be what we want. So why do we go in? Yeah, right. And men have to own that. And until we start owning that, we want to charge women to doing better when we're telling them it's okay to do that and we're not giving an avenue for better. And I can take that vice versa on the side with the aspect of how women may see us. But the focus of my book is the attention on the man, making sure we understand we have responsibility, focus on your garden moment. Know that in your spiritual growth, you need an anchor. Know that in your stature growth, you need to understand. No, I may not have the degree that I wanted, or I'm striving to get that degree. You've got to be working towards better, you've got to be working towards how do you strengthen yourself. And there is nothing wrong with being where you are, but you've always got to be wanting to do better. I am, and I don't mind saying I'm I'm 56 years old, right? And I'm an expression. If the um you were talking about uh you, I don't know if you use the term algorithm, Grant, earlier, but it's like uh if you have a phone today, yeah, and what you look at for more than a couple seconds becomes what is fed to you, right? Right, you're gonna start getting all of those things that are fed to you, you know. As a 56-year-old Derek is gonna be fed stuff that he would have seen differently as a 20-year-old Derek, right? And how I mature in my mind based on those things are gonna matter. So I'm always conscious of wanting to try to relegate myself to being careful what I'm being fed with, and because what I'm being fed with is gonna change and could impact where where I am. So um I I I can go into so many different spirits.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

No, no, no, you are the garden moment is the thing I want to leave people with, and that that is it, because that garden moment, the way I look at that, I call that the visibility of value. That is when you make your value visible. You you done your due diligence, maybe in a fraction of a second, or maybe you took some time, maybe you got off the field, you talked to a mentor, I'm not sure. But at the moment that you made the decision, the value becomes visible. Yes. What is that value? And is it you know high velocity? Velocity, I mean it's gonna move very quickly after you made that decision. What is the volume going to look like? All those things are very, very important as because once the what once it's left the barn, you say when the chicken is left to coop, all that it's gone. You've done it now. Now, to your point earlier, are you accountable for that? All right, have you made the decision whether right or wrong? You made the best decision you felt that you could make. And that's so that that that that is a crucible point of reference. And that is where I look at some of the my gap analysis when I look at where we're at, when I look at grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandsons. Are we really handing off that experience that is necessary for that next generation to come online? You said to yourself the algorithm, you looked at certain things, you knew that the decision that you might have made at 20 is not the same the decision you may have made at 56. However, if someone that was 56 was able to at least give you some information to that 20-year-old, perhaps you might have came to a different decision, right? So if your entire influence has always been like right now, what's being fed, especially to our young people, is a very low level of living, as far as I'm concerned. You know, they're all concerned, or you know, really around the sexual vibe in the music. Is this all that is? And then you're not getting into responsible living. What does that look like? You want all the glitch, you want all the glory, but you haven't put any of the work. Is that truly fulfilling? Because that's usually what happens at the end of the rainbow, especially you get involved with a particular individual, and then you make a decision like getting married is not a light decision. That means this person has more control over your life than your own mother, your own father, and anyone else. This person is has legal control, just as much legal control over your life as you do. Very big decision to make, not something to do lightly. So if you look at their influences on the outside, like, oh yeah, it's all great. You have this great merit, and everybody's out, and everybody looks like they're living, you know, their their best life and it's made a life, and you haven't done the hard work or what does this look like day after day, we have week after week, year after year, of knowing who this person really is or the community in which you're few. So the visibility of your values is super, super important.

Advice For Younger Men Before Regret

SPEAKER_00 28:09

So I would want our young people listening to this to truly understand some of the things I just said and what Derek is talking about, because I know you're all also active in mentoring students and supporting youth organizations. My question to you is what message from your book do you want most younger men to understand before life forces them to learn it the hard way?

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Very good point. Uh and I'll start with one word accountability. Like hold yourself accountable. No matter what happens to you, what you do about it is about your accountability, right? You've got to be able to say, what's my role in this? What's my responsibility in this? How can I change this? Okay, this happened to me, right? What is gonna be my what is the consequence of that action and what am I gonna do about it? Right. So many young people. And I was young once, right? I was uh what I thought was a pretty good basketball player and athlete and done those things. And you know, I was real hard-headed and thought I knew the way. Uh and I remember things, and along the way, my parents would tell me about how to react to certain things and say, you can't be a hothead about this, that, and the third. And as you grow, you learn and you know that. And what you hope you don't do is make a decision that becomes a decision that you cannot come back from, right? We certainly worry about that for our kids. So I want people to understand, be accountable for what you're doing. And then, you know, while I'm talking about my book, one of my favorite books, and I try to try to read uh uh a lot and try to learn and get different ideas and concepts of life. But one of the my favorite books I've uh read here in in the last few years is a book called Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman. Thank you for being late. And the book centers on a man uh waiting for a friend for lunch, and his friend was late. And as his friend was late, he started encountering and thinking about you know things in his life, and he overheard conversations and he said, Wow, that moment that allowed me to reflect changed everything about who and where I am. And that's what I mean. It goes back to accountability, but just a moment, stop sometimes and just think and ask yourself, wait a minute, what am I doing here? Am I doing the right thing? And so, young people, it's we, you know, back when I grew up, the village raised me. Yeah, there are very few villages out there raising us today. You know, when we were uh had our daughters, what I wanted to make sure I do, I wanted to say, hey, have a slumber party, have your friends come over. Because we wanted to, or you know, on our periphery, see what kind of friends our daughters were hanging with to try to gauge, okay, where are they in the hierarchy of those friends? Uh, who's leading this? What is this young lady? What's her family, her background? You can just sort of see without saying a word, you can sort of recognize how those relationships that influence your kids more than you are being fostered. And you go, Oh, wow, that these kids are smart. And you can go, ah, it's good. But then you'll get in those scenarios where you you recognize that may not be the case, and you say, you know what, if my son or daughter is gonna be a friend here, I'm gonna help that kid because helping that kid is helping my son, helping my daughter, right? So we've got to find ways to get our young people in and better avenues and better representation. And also because of the accountability of us as men, you were with a young lady, you may not have planned to be with her, maybe you felt trapped, maybe you uh didn't you got lost in the emotion and the and you birthed a child with that that young lady, and you now are deciding if you're going to be with her or not, and then you ultimately decide you're not. Well, so many women right now are raising single men. Okay. And and and dare I say, even single women, the absence of that triggers and impacts how those two individuals, yes, single parent kids can go be successful. I talk about it in my book. President Barack Obama, single parent, did very well for themselves. There's countless numbers of stories out there, but there are also stories on the reverse. So be mindful of who you're interacting with, how you make decisions, make sure you are accountable and stay focused. Read, uh, get a mentor, um, uh, get educated. Education doesn't always have to come academically. You know, there are social skills. Then we were coming up where shop, learning how to repair a vehicle, uh, learning how to become a plumber, an electrician. There's so many different things that that we can do that's beyond uh sports, athletics, uh, and music. And everything right now is fast. And if you're late, you're gonna miss the party.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

100% on what you just said. And the world is a it's a much different place, but you have a lot more advantages when you see it from my vantage point, maybe your vantage point. Meaning, data and information you can get in in lightning speed, right? Where before you might have to go to library to get some information, or you might have had it in encyclopedia at home, or maybe you went to the school library. Now, in your hand, you have access to the world's intelligence. Yes, that's never happened before, and you can get it customized and personalized just to yourself if there's something that you can identify that you want to know about. Remember, identify what you can know about, right? That's very, very important. Then you can start looking at the relationships, make it real. I don't want people to get away from the fact that even though you live in this digital world, the human-to-human interaction is very powerful. You know, the machine world is just an interface, it's a platform. Me and Derek, right now, is it we it allows us to talk and bridge the gap of distance and time. That's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

But it does not negate feelings, it does not negate the facts that we're sharing here and the fun that we're also having is very, very important. That gets to my last phase, which is the execution. How do you execute on these things that we've just talked about? We know that men are taught to perform, they're taught to provide, they're taught to protect, but not always to process. It's very important. I know that you hold a master's degree in organizational leadership, and you've led very complex teams and systems. When it comes to these things, how are you applying what you know as a man to define what you call authentic leadership today compared to how you were maybe when you were younger in your career? How would you answer that question?

Execution Through Goals And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah, it's a very good question. Yeah, um, there's this old adage, it's not what you say, it's what you do. Right? So we can say, tell, and give people information all day long. Uh, I I call it the um you, you know, you lose your religion in the parking lot. You had a great service in church. Pastor had you all energized and ready, and you lost it before you got to the parking lot. Because it's not anything you're doing anything with. The doing part comes from assigning someone to you to hold you accountable. I I have a personal trainer because I I grew up as an athlete that I always had to have a coach yelling at me. You know, Grant, I'm gonna give you the reality. I won't do a push-up right now on my own. If I get up in the morning, I yawn, and I you know, take a shower and it's time for me to do a push-up. I won't do it. But the minute, and I won't do it if I go to a gym where I paid a membership to, I had to get an actual personal trainer. I had someone when I walked into the gym, no one's in there but me and him. He looks me in the eye. Let's go, right? You gotta have someone to hold you accountable. Find your friend, find you an individual. It's your spouse, is it your best buddy? But you find someone to hold you accountable. This is what we said we're gonna accomplish this week. They don't have to be large goals, right? But find someone to hold you accountable. Now, on my website, mendying.com, I have an opportunity where folks can reach out to me and and communicate with me, and I can get into more of the detailed specifics of that and help point you to how you find those mentors and people to shine with you in that way. But in this audience, in the window that that grant you're you're affording me to talk to people, is get someone to hold you accountable. Find that someone who's gonna say, Did you do this today? Did you do that yesterday? Hold you accountable, set a goal, because I can guarantee you, if you don't set a goal, then you're gonna you're gonna meet a goal that's just not gonna be the one you want. I have a goal in my finances, I have a goal in my marriage, I have a goal in how I raise my family. And although I may not attain all of those goals at every turn because life happens, I have a target, and it's important to have one.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

And you gotta get back on track. See, if you have a goal and you know that you have a code, I call it maybe it's your code of ethics, what you do, they can get back on track. Even though life is gonna be life in, as they say, it'll throw you for some loose. But after the storm, guess what? You should still be in the home. And if you're gonna rebuild it, you just rebuild it, but you you you get back on track. That's the whole thing, you know. So you don't just get off your diet, you don't get off your workout plan if that's what it is, but hold yourself accountable and responsible and get the people in your life that can make a difference. I believe that your book will make that difference. This has been wonderful in our discussion. I want people to really lean in and take these things and be accountable. I gave you a little bit about my framework, which is the brave framework, because I think if you're brave in what you want to do, you're courageous on your journey of life. And no matter who you are, what you do, you are on a journey. Most people will say, Yeah, yeah, because you hear you feel the challenges and you're an obstacle course. Maybe your high school teacher didn't tell you that, but guess what? You're an obstacle course and it's on a monopoly board, and uh you got only uh two gallons of gas, and now you got to go get it, you know. So that's life, right? Yes, you know, that's kind of where it goes. But if you can talk to somebody that's been down that road, and I know Derek, you have been, and I I love how you you framed this discussion.

Where To Buy The Book

SPEAKER_00 38:27

I want you to tell the audience again how they can get your book and how they can reach out to you.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Very good. Thanks again, Grant, for all that you've done to help me out this afternoon. Very much appreciated. Again, the title of the book is Men Dying Garden Moments: The Crisis of Masculinity and the Journey Back to Life. My website is www.mendying.com. You can email me at infotmendying.com. There's a link uh when you do that, that'll allow you to purchase my book as well. You can also go to Amazon uh and order the book, type in the search criteria men dying, uh, garden moments, and you should be able to find me there. Kendall, hardback, paperback, soon to be on audio for you as well. And it's also available on Barnes and No.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Awesome. I just got one last question. You've been on a lot of podcasts, you've been on a lot of stages. You you talked about your book in a lot of different places. Your first time on the Follow Brand Podcast. How did you like this experience?

SPEAKER_01 39:20

I I tell you, Grant, you know, uh it's one-on-one. It's man looking a man in the eye, and we're having a upfront conversation, right? You challenged me to speak to what I say I know. Uh, you ask the right right questions to get me there. Um, really appreciated the dialogue. I'm not saying this just to add flour to your conversation. Uh I'd really appreciated it. Um, you you also gave me the opportunity when we spoke earlier to just let me feel you out, let me see where you are, validate me before your show validates me, right? Uh, those things are important. So I'm glad to be a part of this. Hope to have an opportunity to do it again. And if ever I I could provide that same level of support for you, I'd be more than happy to do it.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Absolutely. And you're the kind of guest that makes the Fellow Brand the number one podcast on Feed Spot for personal branding in the world because if you are authentic, that is where the um the path lies, and that you're giving authentic opportunity and truth to other people that they find value in this service that you are providing. And that is what my goal is. And I would encourage your entire audience to see all the episodes of Follow Brand at Five Star BDM. That is the number five at a star S T E R, B for Brand, D for Development, Informasters.com. Again, Derek, this has been wonderful. Enjoy the rest of your day.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Thank you very much. Appreciate you. You're most welcome.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

You take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

You could