Iron Sharpens Iron: The Power of Authentic Man-to-Man Relationships

[00:00:00] Hey, my name is Brent. I'm the host of the Fallible Man podcast. And at the end of this episode, you'll discover the power of men's groups, see why there are more than just a support group for guys with issues, have some strategies for building deep, authentic relationships within men's communities, and see an example of how your purpose and your profession can be very different and still both be very successful.

Check out this quote from my friend and my guest, Brett Snodgrass. And let's get into it. I think it's, Maybe just going back to what do you need to do to get radically honest with yourself? And then what do you do about it? That's where it starts. There you go.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential, growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still [00:01:00] take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question in this podcast. We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. Hey, I know you got a lot of choices, so we're appreciative that you're here. Thanks for checking us out. Be sure and hit me up at the fallible man on most social medias.

Let me know what you think of the show, or if you really enjoy it, be sure to leave us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you're on today. My special guest is author Brett Snodgrass. Brett, welcome to the fallible man podcast. Thanks Brent. Appreciate you man. Yeah, you had me on the show. Yeah.

Excited to be here, man. You're awesome. I was just telling you, I like the Grinch behind you. So, uh, I'm digging the pipe art on your wall. Hey, you guys listening to the audio version of this? I stole those out of the house. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I still, we, we take the, we take the plumbing and [00:02:00] then I put them on my podcast wall.

My, my wife loves that style of decor. Yeah. Uh, so. She's always showing me stuff like that. My, my sister has, my sister's uber talented at building things and she built a candle opera out of copper piping. Well, it was made to sit in a fireplace where you could have like 16 candles in a fireplace. So you have the look and effect.

Yeah. Uh, it's crazy how, like, if you just look at the styles of just the history, right, just how they change. And right now it's like, you know, it used to be. You know, gold stuff and then the drywall and the shag carpet. And then now like you just, you don't have any drywall and it's all metal and it's, and it's, you know, concrete floors and.

Just crazy. So it's fun though. The design, how's your trivia? How's my trivia? Yeah, probably terrible. All right. Right. So this one should be right up your alley based on your decor, but we'll see which [00:03:00] famous inventor invented the telephone, Edison, Alexander Graham Bell. Okay. Alexander Graham Bell. Now guys, you know, the rules don't cheat.

Don't go ahead. Yes. For God's sakes, don't write it down if you're driving and we'll come back to that later in the show. Now, Brett, I start my show with the same question because the most important thing I can talk about is, you know, today, right? So who today in this moment is Brett Snodgrass in your own words?

In my own words. Yeah, man, I'm just going to start off with just saying, I'm a, I'm a man of God. Um, my faith is extremely important to me. And, uh, And that's where everything just kind of stems from my purpose, my passion. Um, uh, a man of God, I'm a husband to my wife, Karen for 11 years. I'm a father of four.

Beautiful children. Uh, and I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a creator. I just love to create things. Um, I think God just [00:04:00] designed me with this gift of taking something from nothing and maybe creating something with it. Uh, so I like the blank canvas and I'm not really an artist and I can't draw and I can't paint and I'm not a musician, but I can create things that God designed me to create, which happens to be businesses.

Uh, I love leading teams, organizations, men. Um, so yeah, so whatever happens to, to be creative, I just love to get in that space. I think that's why I wrote the book, the secret war within something from nothing, creating something out of it. So, uh, entrepreneur and creator, I think is, is, is the way I was designed.

Orange juice, pulp, some pulp, no pulp. Yeah, definitely. No pulp. I'm not a pulp guy. Kind of makes me gag a little bit. You a Harry Potter fan? I'm not. I've watched, I've watched Harry Potter, [00:05:00] but I, I have not followed. No, never read a book of Harry, Harry Potter. What house would the sorting hat put you in?

What house would the sorting hat put me in? I have no idea what you're talking about. You said you watched the movies. Come on, man. I want maybe the first one. What was the first one? Come on. Oh, yeah.

That's hilarious. You know how many people I, I have asked that who'd like, uh Do you have Harry Potter fans come on the come on the show? Uh, I have a lot of people who love Harry Potter who come on this show. Are you a Harry Potter fan? I am a Harry Potter nerd. I have two daughters. I have a nine year old and a twelve year old.

Well, what house are you in? Oh, no. That's a family fight. I'm a Okay, I gotcha. Have not officially taken like there's actually a quiz you can take online. Okay. I'm not even asked for that, but all of [00:06:00] my siblings are all Slytherin. Okay, which is the bad house.

I have a Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor child and my wife is a Ravenclaw. So I don't know much about that. Now I do, I do, I'm a fan of tests and personality tests. And, uh, one of the tests that we follow is the Enneagram test. And I'm a, I'm a high seven with a wing three, which basically high sevens are. We love new adventure, creative people.

And then the three is I like to achieve. So if you put me on an adventure with an achievement to it. I'm all in. Let's go. You're an earthen door. That's what that is. Amen. There we go. We, we sorted it out on air. There we go. Yeah. I'm going to have to watch the movies now. So I am a Lord of the Rings fan.

Don't ask me, don't ask me trivia on that either. I just liked, I just liked the [00:07:00] story. I liked the allegory, the story, the, the, the entire series with my children. I rewatched the entire series a couple of years ago when I had COVID. So that was fun. We did, uh, The Hobbit and then the Lord of the Rings, like back to back in the course of the week, we just went through the whole series.

So you love allegories. You love, right. The story with it. Yeah, it's good. I do zombie apocalypse. What's your weapon of choice?

I don't, uh, zombie apocalypse. Um, I don't know. Blowtorch. Is that a, is that a good weapon? I mean, I like, I like fire and I want to, you know, set people on fire. So I like it. Yeah. Like if I went to. There's these, um, one, a group of friends, they, they, there's these things down and, um, I think it's different places, but Texas, but you can actually have blow torches and you can drive over cars with tanks and stuff like that.

I've never actually done it. Something I'd love to do. So that just reminded me, I want to do that. [00:08:00] Destination, right? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen a couple of, I told my wife years ago, like my wife grew up, her father worked on, uh, heavy machinery, big caps and stuff. And I told her, it's like, you know, we need just open, like get a bunch of land and buy some excavators, tobacco, and.

You know bulldozers and just have an adult playground. Yeah, that'd be amazing whatever it costs an hour for the gas plus Right. Yeah Yeah, they have uh, like I said some of my friends did they did the tank running over stuff? They had like the the machine guns Crazy stuff. So that'd be fun, man. I told her that that could be our business.

She's like, yeah, it's got a really high startup cost. That is true. What purchase of a hundred dollars or less you made in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life? Man, a hundred dollars or less. Um, [00:09:00] Biggest impact. Man, it's a tough, tough question. Um, I don't spend a lot of things for 100 or less.

I'm a pretty, I'm an expensive guy. Um, I hear that a lot. I could tell you, I could tell you one of the biggest, this is not 100 less, but it's, it's less than 100 an hour. And this is, this is the biggest impact. So I, uh, So I'll just say this one. I travel back and forth from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne because my business is in Indy and I live in Fort Wayne.

It's a two hour trip one way. And I read this book on buying back my time, so I hired a driver. And, uh, that's been, that's been a huge impact on my life because now I can, uh, Be present, get more productive. So I tell you anyways, that's less than a hundred dollars an hour. So a hundred dollars, a hundred dollars.

Uh, you know, this is actually a bit more than a hundred dollars. My wife bought me an aura ring for Christmas and that's, that's a two 50, 300 bucks, but, um, that's been a big impact. I can track my sleep, my health. [00:10:00] Um, but sleeping, I think is huge. Cause I think it's entrepreneurs and creators. I don't know about you, but I'm always.

Sometimes it's trouble. If I, if I've got stuff in my mind, I'm, I'm, I'm spending, I'm, I'm thinking about things. I'm thinking about what I need to do. And, uh, so sleep is, is huge, important for health. And, uh, so that's been a huge impact for Chris from Christmas. Oh, yeah mine like i'm i'm big into doing like a mind dump before I go to bed um Because if I get it's like an itch I can't scratch on the creativity scale, right?

I I woke up one morning at like 2 30 in the morning with an entire Thing worked out in my head and I jumped out of bed and I came upstairs and I turned on my computer I'm sitting here in my gym shorts just For like 40 minutes and I just went back to the couch and fell asleep Came back and read the notes afterwards, but I knew I, I couldn't go back to sleep.

I would miss all of it. Uh, but I had [00:11:00] this, I'm, I'm working on a book. This whole show started with me working on a book and I, I had like, I worked out the cover art. I worked out the intro, like I had worked out like three segments of the book. And I knew I wouldn't actually sleep well and I'd lose half of it if I tried to go back to sleep So I just got started working and when I once I put it all on paper, I went back to sleep Yeah, no, I love that.

Um because in that creative space you can't force it I mean when I was writing my book, I just sometimes you just cannot force it. You don't know when it's gonna come And it comes at the weird times. I mean, people's creativities comes when you're on a walk or exercise or in the middle of the night, uh, through a dream, uh, and you just have to lay it down, uh, when it comes.

And there's many times I tried to force it and it's just, it's hard to force the creativity of it for sure. That's. When I get stuck Right. When I get too business [00:12:00] focused. Yeah. I'll get jammed up there. I have to go do something creative. Mm-Hmm. . I, I have a ton of shirt designs on my website, , that we sell for merchandising.

And honestly, if they never sell, I don't care. I, I did it because I needed to check out of Yeah. Business and do something creative. Yeah. And once that itch takes hold, like I, I can't focus on anything else. Yeah. And that's the thing for me, like, I love the creative space, again, like, the best, my favorite part of writing a book was the rough draft, uh, laying down something from nothing, dreaming about it.

Probably the most difficult part of the book was now, honestly, some of the, the business aspect, the marketing aspect, the transactional aspect sometimes, um, and sometimes that's where we can get stuck. The creative minds, we have to, there's a business behind some of these things, but that's where I get kind of stuck or I get burned out if I'm too transactional, uh, with different things and, you know.[00:13:00]

Uh, that's why I have a, I have a business coach and I have a good coach because I do the podcast and everything I do. I do that forever. Yeah. But then you don't know how to where it makes some kind of income to support what I do. Yeah. That's tough. It's tough. Cause it's your passion. It's your labor of love.

Yeah. It's like, how do you brain dump? Yeah. 'cause you do it anyways. I mean, you would do it, uh, if, if there wasn't any money, but you have to make money, right? At the end of the day. Mm-Hmm. . And then that's that whole balancing act. So Right. That's, but that's where good coaches come in. Yeah. You, you find that coach to walk you through the part where you're not going to do well on your own.

Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I don't need somebody to run me through creativity exercises or stuff. But someone had actually like, you know, put my feet to the coals and be like, all right, Brent, you need to draft up this proposal, put this together. Uh, you know, we, we've got to figure out a way to put some finance behind this.

You can't live [00:14:00] forever doing this. I know they've said the same thing just with my organization iron deep, because that's a ministry and it's a labor of love and I love doing it, but I don't make any money at it, I lose money. Honestly, I spend money to do it. Um, and, uh, I, I, I'm a. Huge proponent of coaches too.

I have a business life type of coach. And right now we're working on about a plan for my family. Cause my last session with him, I was like, man, I just feel like I need to work on my family. I need to pour into them. How do you, you know, as an entrepreneur creator, you're trying to balance that too. Um, and I always encourage guys, what does that look like?

And I'm trying to work on that. Like, what does it look like to continuously be intentional with your family, but I got these other things going on. Um, anyways, so I'm, yeah, I'm getting coached up to, I think, honestly, I, I haven't, I've talked to so many entrepreneurs on the show over the years now, and I haven't met one yet who didn't have at least one coach actively in their life.

Yeah. Yeah. It was [00:15:00] usually to compliment something that's not their main thing. Mm hmm. But every single one of them has just, I mean, the value to them of having a coach to shortcut the corners, right? Miss the common mistakes. I just helped my friend launch his podcast. It's blowing up. He's two months in and it exploded.

Blowing up faster than my show has ever gone, but it's because he coordinated with me and one or two other guys that he's really close with who have podcasts. And we've been like, nope, tweak this, change this, uh, to avoid those hurdles that we learned the hard way several years into ours and, and he's, it's blown up.

I'm so I'm happy for him. So very happy for him, but it's like, dude, I wish I had had me early on. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, yeah, I'm a, I just did a meetup yesterday. Cause I'm a real estate investor too. [00:16:00] And I was in front of a about 50 or so real estate investors here in Indianapolis. And, uh, I was talking about having a mentor, having a coach and I do it.

It's, it's so important to sit at the feet. Of someone who has walked the road before you and whatever it is, it could be business, podcasting, family. And for mine, like I hired more of this, I hired a, uh, a CEO who was older than I am. He's 60 something years old. He had ran a business, but he's also a huge family man.

So that's why I want to sit his feet. How do you do this? Because my kids are young, you know, how do I, uh, be intentional with business? How do you win at business and at family, right? You know, because a lot of times there's this balancing act. Oh, you're winning it, your family, you're really intentional.

And, and you're, and you're winning over here, but then your business sacrifices or your business sacrifice CP, and I see this all the time. Most of the time, business is success, but the family sacrifices, can you do both? And that's, so I'm getting coached up on that. So like it, I was to sit down at your [00:17:00] dinner table.

What is the funny story your family would tell on you? The funny story my family would tell on me. Um, uh, I love to just like sing songs like musicals with my family. My daughter, she's five and she she's doing like these. Preschool songs and presentations. And, uh, and I, and I love to just do that with her.

Um, I love to be just, just goofy, uh, with my family, whether it's yeah, karaoke or I don't know. I just, I love to dress up. Um, we, we were talking about dressing up as the Grinch. We, we do some, some fun stuff like that at Halloween. I always dress up as like last year, I dress up as an 80 year old man. Um, and I had this mask.

It looked completely just. So I go over, I overdo pretty much everything in my life. Um, so I think again, just the creative side. Singing songs, musicals, dressing up fun, goofy, fourth grader stuff. [00:18:00] That's what I love. Even our iron deep, our iron deep events are for men, entrepreneurs. They're 40 to 50, 60 year old guys.

But I say, you know. I, the program, honestly, is like you're in a fifth grade youth camp at the end of the day and it just gets them back to the innocent heart of a man, right? Um, so I just love doing that. Well, that makes it good because they don't have any good stories they can rat you out because you're like, dude.

That's right. I don't even hide that. This is just me. That's right. I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. What is something people need to know about you as we proceed into the show today? Um, the, I think just, I'm just, uh, a man, um, that has struggles within, uh, even the book, The Secret War Within, I'm still living through that.

I have not, I have not made it. I tried to come here humbly with a humble heart, [00:19:00] uh, a man just trying to figure that out. You know what I mean? If you look at some of the exterior things of my life, I. Maybe you've seen my podcast or you've seen us, our real estate business or heard my story with that. And he was like, Oh, this guy has, you know, so many different things, um, of a success story.

Uh, but no matter where you're at or season that you're in, you still have some of the, the internal struggles of, uh, Of just whatever every guy deals with. Um, and, uh, for, you know, men are men, I think, right? Follow Fallible Man podcast. I mean, men are men. I've, I've been in rooms with highly successful men that have great businesses.

And then I've done prison ministries with men locked up for life. And it's just, it's the same stories. I mean, it's the same struggles. They all desire and want The same things, I think that's, that's just, I think maybe what your [00:20:00] audience maybe can hear today that no matter what season you're in, we're all, we're all in this together and we're all going through, through something.

So guys, we've been getting no bread and then the next part of the show, we're going to dive into a little more about Brett, what he actually does today, his book and men's groups. We're going to roll our sponsor. I'll be right back with more from Brett Snodgrass. Are you tired of tossing and turning at night, searching for that elusive, perfect pillow or just better bedding in general?

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It's really a triple win. So why wait? Head over to mypillow. com slash TFM or call 800 796 9775. That's 800 796 9775 to order now. You can't be your best without a good night's sleep and MyPillow delivers. Guys, welcome back in the first part of the show. We just spent some time getting to know who Brett is at this point in his life and a little bit about him, a sense of humor and his creative streak that fed [00:22:00] into his life and this part of the show, we're going to dive into a little bit more about what Brett does today.

And his book that he wrote that we mentioned a few times, the secret war within and men's groups and why they might actually be the key that you're missing in your life. So Brett, before we dig into your book, tell us the story, right? You're, you're an interesting guy. You've got real estate going on and then out of the blue, you decided to write a book and we'll get to that, but you've got this creative street.

What, what does Brett like? Who are you? What do you do? I'm still trying to figure that out, trying to figure that out. Here's a trivia question. Have you ever seen the movie high school musical? No. Oh, well, there you go. I'm a, I'm a movie nerd. I've never seen that one. All right. It's not a pure spite. Well, I had a daughter, uh, she's, she's, uh, getting ready to turn 17.

Uh, I ha I have a daughter and, uh, we used to watch high [00:23:00] school musical, but, uh, in high school musical, there was an athlete. I don't remember the names, but there was an athlete, he's a basketball player. And then, but secretly he, uh, Wanted to be in the plays and he wanted to be in musical. He's a really good singer, but he didn't want people to know that about him.

Right. So he had this dilemma of which path to go towards. And, uh, and I can relate to that because I think I was an athlete. I'm a businessman. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been around that world. for 17 years in the real estate business. We flip houses in Indianapolis. I do rental properties. We do some, some cool things with that.

Um, but I've always related more to the creative side. I've always related more to the artist. And, um, uh, so, so I think, you know, to boil it down is I am an entrepreneur. I'm a businessman. I love to create. And to make money and, and to have that success. And we've been able to do that in real estate, uh, throughout the last 17 years of my life.

We flipped, [00:24:00] you know, 3000 plus homes, something like that. Um, I have a team here in Indianapolis of about 10 people. Um, but I'm in this season now of again, I get to kind of go back to my, my creative side and I was like, you know, I was dreaming a couple of years ago about what the Lord kind of wanted to do next with my life and what's this season look like, and I started getting back to some of the childlike innocence, the childlike heart and, um, And that's where some of these things kind of popped out from.

Uh, I wanted to, to write a book that related, uh, to some of my life. Uh, it's an allegory called the secret war within, and it reads kind of like a movie. Um, that's some of the creative side. I also saw men struggling in some of the groups that I was in. Uh, so we tried, we started creating Iron Deep, which is a men's community of Christian men, business owner, And even sometimes real estate, we even lean into more real estate business owners, and that's where that community, uh, came in iron, deep iron, [00:25:00] sharpening iron, and then going deep in connection with God and each other is basically where it came in.

Cause one of the other things is, I don't know about you, but sometimes it's harder for men to build some of those deeper relationships. So the program and your organization designed and, and develops this environment to build a depth to the relationship, not the shallow. Cause even the groups that I've been in.

Again, they might help me with certain things in my life, my business life, whatever that looks like, but I have still walked away with no depth to the relationships in that particular organization. So I was trying to do something, uh, yeah, to build this deep, long brotherhood with these guys to do life together.

Uh, and, and we do different activities within that organization to, to build that depth. So that's a little bit about me. Um, run the men's group, wrote the book, but also entrepreneur family of four. Married. So a little bit in a nutshell, man. So I still trying to figure out what's, what's, uh, what's the path.

What's the season next, uh, in my life, honestly. So, but my, my passion is the creative side, [00:26:00] but the business fuels creative side. Well, that makes sense. That's actually probably a better business plan than mine. And well, you know, the thing is, here's, I think the dilemma is because if you read business books, which you do Brent.

There's books out there called the one thing. There's books out there called 10 X is better than two X or things like that. And it typically all boils down to. Find your one thing, find your niche, go all in, because you can go further with one thing than you can with multiple things. And sometimes that's a dilemma, because right now, right, I have multiple things, um, going on.

But for me, it's always been, the real estate business is great, and I, and I impact there, but it always has fueled, [00:27:00] you know, the goal was to fuel this other, uh, passion of mine, so. That's one of the things they don't tell you in those business books because I've now read a lot of them. In fact, my business coach yelled at me.

He's like, stop reading business books. He's like, the last one you read, have you mastered what you learned in that book? Have you applied it to your business? He said, you're getting into this. He called it a death spiral. And what is a death spiral? Just learning and not doing. Yeah. It's an information, right?

We're all about taking in the next book, the next information, the next, right. We're so busy digging up information that none of it actually ever gets applied and put into practice and tested to see if it works. And it's hard to, so, and it's easy to learn. It's easy to read. It's easy to listen. It's really hard to execute and it takes time to execute and you can't execute everything all at once.

Um, and [00:28:00] it's really hard. And, uh, I think we fall into the trap of, Oh, business owners and CEOs. The average CEO reads 52 books a year, 60 books a year, whatever it is. So now we're like, Oh, I'm a business owner. I have to read 60 books a year. That's one a week. It's hard to execute one thing every single week.

Uh, yeah. So I I'm actually was what if you read 12 books, one a month and executed what you learned and then, and just pick out the ones that like that just blow your mind there that are amazing. Um, and just stick with those, right. Um, there's plenty of books. You should just read again every year and that's it.

So what they don't, they also don't tell you in the business books, right. If you have to have the income. You have to have something that's producing financially for you. Yeah. Right. Those CEOs reading, you know, 52 books a year also are making, you know, a million dollar plus salaries. Right. Are way higher.

Yeah. And so part of it, what they're paid for [00:29:00] is their wisdom insight to ride shotgun over things. And until you get to that point, cramming in that much knowledge and, and having the time in your schedule to process. I can't, I'm sorry, I read pretty quickly. I don't have time to read a book in a week.

Right. Yeah. And I can, I can listen. Yeah. And I can listen to a book. I do a lot of audible types of books and I can listen if it's a really, really good book and it's short and it's like, you know, 150 pages. That's, that's fine. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's just, it's really hard, uh, to execute and, and especially execute everything.

Just pick out, thing. Um, and here's another thing. So I talked to a lot of real estate guys, a lot of real estate investors, and they're trying to Start this real estate business with no income. So very much to the content world. If you don't have an income and you're trying to start this [00:30:00] there's extra stress Involved on top of already something new that's already kind of stressful and you're trying to get it going Plus you got this added layer of paying your bills It's just very very difficult and I always recommend so even like I said, I did a presentation the other day You And here's how I started in the real estate business, I worked for another real estate business for like three years before I went on my own.

So I had this income and started started doing a little bit on the side until the little bit on the side matched my income. And then I was like, All right, let's go in. Yeah, that's what I recommend. I always tell people, you got to have that active income because it's it's very hard to start something with that.

With no income, you can be really busy, be content, anything. So, uh, I think people that, I don't know, I know people have made it and, and it's, and they say, burn the boats and just go all in and, and I get [00:31:00] that. But I think reality is most people don't, don't start that way. Something. If you do like look into the side hustles.

Yeah. Yeah. Anybody who's really honest about that will tell you is like, yes, you should probably have a side hustle because you should have two, three, you should have seven strings of income realistically. But. People who are honest about it will tell you, do your job, make your living. This is a side hustle.

Now, eventually if you grow that side hustle enough that it replaces your full time income, and then you want to go all in, go ahead or keep doing both and just farm part of that out. Right. Right. But that's the honest ones. Then you get a lot of the YouTube hustlers who are just like zero down. 15 businesses.

You can start with zero down, right? Yeah. But the Don is probably, they're probably not doing any business. They're just teaching it. Um, yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree with [00:32:00] that. When I said, again, when I started the real estate business, I was, I think I was working a job I was making 40 K a year, and then my real estate business made 40 K a year, and then I just asked myself, what if I took all the time that I spent into that job and I put it into the business, you know, What could it do then?

And that's, that's what I did. So I would recommend, and maybe you don't have to match your income, but at least match where you pay your bills, uh, first before you go all in. That's my recommendation. Oh, yeah. Uh, I, I heard Alex Famosi speaking live at a conference two years ago, or I think it was two years ago now.

Things blur, you know, after a couple, a certain age. I don't care. Yeah. It's like last week, three years ago, I heard him talking about, he's like, we're talking to a room full of YouTubers. I was at this conference in Vegas and he said, you guys are all wondering why your YouTube channels don't take off.

Cause you talk about this and you talk about this, he's like, go do something first, because [00:33:00] everybody can see that you have no idea what's going on. You don't have the experience. You may have the intellectual knowledge on it, but you haven't actually done it. And he said, the reason all of my stuff works is because I built seven multimillion dollar businesses.

I built one of them just to prove that it was easy to do. He said, so when I started doing YouTube, I didn't have to advertise because everybody could see the proof. What I was sharing, right? He's like, so go do something and then you can talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. I totally, I totally agree. I totally agree.

Um, for example, you know, the financial advising type of industry, uh, again, when I see kind of like that young person who Is advising me on like my finances. Sometimes that turns me off because I want them, I want to see that experience. That's why my coaches are people that have done, they're not, they're not learning to be coaches.

They're like my coach right now. [00:34:00] He's done. What can I learn from you? Because you've been in the trenches. You know exactly what I'm going through and other people that just teach. They don't. Oh yeah. So that's why I, I like the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I get like 22 year old life coaches on my show.

You haven't lived. It's not even me trying to be disrespectful. I know that intellectually, like you've been through some training and you think you've seen some stuff because at 20 something, I'm sure I thought I knew some stuff, right? But it's like, you can't tell me how to live a life that you have no idea how to live because you barely started.

Amen. Amen. It's not disrespectful. It's like, there's, there's just some time in the military, they call it time and rank. Amen. Amen. Right. Yeah. You have to be in a rank for so long before you can go to that next rank. It's the same thing in life. There's some time in rank. Don't tell me about [00:35:00] how to take care of my marriage.

Cause you've been married for two years, right? When I've been married for 23. So that doesn't sit well for me. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. It's just that, that, that different seasons. Cause you just don't know. I mean, you're still like the marriage thing. You're still in the, in the honeymoon. I remember when me and my wife, before we got married, we were talking to other couples, um, about marriage and what is this going to look like?

And these couples are married 20, 25 years. And they're like, you know, wait till you guys, when you guys reach this point or this, this 10 year mark or 70 year mark and you have kids or whatever. This is my, how you be feeling at that time. We were like, what, what are you talking about? We're always going to be this way.

We're always going to have feeling that we feel like right now. What do you, but then I'm 11 years in now and I'm like, man, yeah, there's obviously challenges, uh, uh, with it all. That's complexity. Whenever you bring anything into your marriage, um, it, there's this level of complexity. And, uh, I talk [00:36:00] about my team even.

And there's so much with like relationships with your business too. I just talked to my business cause we're starting to hire one or two more people. And I talked to them about, it's like bringing a child into your family. There's this level of complexity that you don't even know. Like the, and there's a lot of different layers.

It's not just like, Oh, bringing this child in, there's just, you know, your relationship with your marriage, with your wife can change. Uh, now you, you're, you have no sleep and same thing with businesses, the level, so businesses change too. Um, Just just with whatever season you're in right? Um, it doesn't get here's what I always tell people it doesn't get easier It just gets different It's never easier my business today is not easier than even when I first got started.

It's just different now I'm just I'm managing people right and then I got their lives and their and their tables need to be their families be fed and It's just, it's just different. So [00:37:00] a lot of people don't know this. I used to, uh, hire do a lot of hiring for my team and my division. And one of the things that I was always looking for, right.

In the interview, in the paperwork. I was confident I could teach you how to do the job because I was also lead trainer. So that's part of why it was part of the hiring process. Um, I was confident if you were relatively intelligent, like reasonably intelligent, I could teach you how to do the job. I didn't care if you had the experience, but we had, so we had a six man team, seven man teams on each site.

And it was all about, is this person going to meld with our Because it was such a small, intimate team that worked 24 hour rotation, right? We had basically, we split the week in half a side and B side, and we had three people who worked each side and then one lead. Yeah. And so the ability it's like, [00:38:00] okay, do you have enough care that you're not going to call in needlessly because you understand that that's going to put these two people into.

A really nasty shift. You, you know, do you meld with our team because when there's only six or seven of you, like we have to be able to function together. Yeah, no, I, I totally agree. And our team's a pretty, pretty small too. And, uh, and we've had people that don't meld and it's just one of those things that, uh, know, one, one rotten can poison the bunch and, uh, nothing against them.

And I think a lot of it is, I think in my own experiences, are they all about the individual or about the team? Because in that small team, I mean, you have to put the mission and you got to put the team first and that's hard to do, right? Cause we all care about us. We all want to make our thing, our money.

And, but when I've seen people come in really with that individual and their, and their language is, is around their individual, well. I'm [00:39:00] going to look at my numbers. I need to make sure I make what I make. And, and it just, it just kind of comes through. Um, so yes, I totally agree. Uh, just the culture is huge cultures.

Uh, you know, our, our culture is I try to build that family type of culture. And, uh, one, one, uh, and it's just like children, right? It goes back to that children. Like one, one child can disrupt the environment really quickly. Right. So yeah, he can change the whole game. It's obvious that you've got incredible business sense and that you understand this world of business and you like to build business and be successful in that.

And then one day you decided, Hey, I'm going to write a book, not a business book. Now, guys, as always, I read the book. I have my copy here with me. If you're watching the video, if you're not, I'm holding it up. Um, just one [00:40:00] day it was put on your heart. I'm going to write this book that has nothing to do with business that has nothing called the secret war within what brought this on.

Um, yeah, I mean, this, that this has nothing to do. With business, but then it has everything to do with a businessman. And, uh, so the book is about Nolan Banks and he is a, he's an entrepreneur, real estate guy. So a lot of it relates to my story, but really it's about his heart. It's about a man's heart and the secret war within really is about the secret within a man's heart.

So you get to pull the curtain back on this man's life. And even some of the things that I've talked about here today, you get to see some of the struggles that he's struggling with some of the, um, the emptiness, the, the meaninglessness, uh, that he's chased after all of these things, these worldly things, and he's achieved so much of it.

She's achieved the success. He's achieved the platform. He's has this beautiful home, this beautiful car, this beautiful [00:41:00] family, even. Um, but he finds himself just kind of wandering through life and you get to see, uh, you know, what he's thinking about, which you don't get to see that in real life. Um, so I think that's the really thing that men has have really resonated with this book is he get to see his thoughts, you get to see his heart and his struggles.

And yeah. He is just going through a lot, um, whether it's his sins, uh, and, and his battles with, with chasing after all these things. And why am I, have I reached this pinnacle and I don't feel fulfilled? Why do I feel this void in my life? Um, and so. I think, obviously, I wanted to write a story about some of my own experiences, and I could have went the non fiction way, just like every, you know, a lot of people have done.

I could have written my stories, and, uh, I could have written the business book, The Seven Ways, to fill in the blank. Uh, could have did that. That's been done a hundred different times, and, or thousands [00:42:00] of times, right? Um, and so, uh, I've loved to, to read certain types of books like allegories that kind of play out like a movie.

So instead of writing about my story, you get to actually see Nolan's story, which some of it's my story, some of it's not. Uh, but I got to play with that and you get to really see him actually struggling. I could have said, Oh, maybe I've struggled with this. This is some of the areas, but to see it, it's just different.

It just pulls guys in. It puts themselves into the, into his shoes. Uh, So, I, and I think, you know, just the creativity behind it, this is a much, this is a much creative play. So I got to have a lot of fun with that. I really got to go deep into my creativity rather than just writing that nonfiction book and here's the bullet point and here's, here's the, the Bible verses or whatever.

So, uh, anyways, that's just where we landed and, uh, I think it, I think it's a hit home run. So I [00:43:00] hope so. I, I, I will be the first to say I enjoyed reading the book. Uh, the artwork on it is beautiful, by the way, the cover design. Thank you. Kudos on that. I appreciate it. Cover design in art is a whole nother, like that's a whole gift right there.

It is. Yeah. Did you do the design or did you get some help on that one or? I actually did. I actually did that. And it's funny. So I hired a, I hired a writing coach. So to take you back to the beginning, I was going to write this book and I didn't know I was going to write a fictional book. Honestly, I didn't know I was going to write an allegory.

I knew I wanted to do something with, with writing. I'm not a great writer. So I hired a coach. Again, you want to. Shorten the curve. I know no idea how to do this. So I brought a coach in to help me write. It wasn't a ghost ride or anything like that, but just help me, keep me accountable, what, how do I do this?

What's the process look like? I just want to learn all that. Uh, so that's how I started. And [00:44:00] then all the elements of it. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different elements of the book. There's the cover art, there's the author bio, there's the forward, there's the introduction, there's, um, The different style, the chapters of the book, there's the editing of the book, the publishing of the book, the marketing of the book.

There's so many different things that you can do, uh, with this book. Um, but, uh, it's funny, they, they helped design, uh, a cover art, and I was like, that's just not it. And you, you know, when you hire someone to do something, They send it to you and you have something in your mind. You're like, that's not it.

That's not gonna work So then I spent yeah a good five days a week of just thinking. Okay. What do y'all want this to look like? I want it to be Masculine I wanted to to have a motion behind it a feeling behind it and Part of the book wolves are part of this particular book. And really it's the metaphor of there are wolves in the world that [00:45:00] are, that are chasing you, wanting to destroy you.

Um, so that's part of the books. That's where the kind of the cover, the, the, the Paul print kind of came in and then just the messiness of it. The book is a really, you can just see the raw messiness of his life. So I want it to be this gritty, masculine messiness that. Yeah, just kind of, uh, that's where we landed.

So now if you're watching the video version of this, you can see the image of the cover art on the screen. If not, you know, I will have links of course, for Brett's book down in the show notes, guys, be sure and check that out. Now, Brett, you wrapped him out with him getting involved. I, I hate to give away the end with him getting involved with a group, um, which I thought was very, an interesting play based on your other passions.

And this, so why are you such an advocate for men getting involved in groups of men? [00:46:00] Yeah, I just think, uh, I just think it's huge. I mean, I think we're seeing it more now than we have in the past. Obviously you have your, this podcast or the other podcast for men out there, fitness groups. are starting to become popular.

The CrossFit community, we've seen what's happened with that. There's another faith based, I think it's called F3. It's a Christian fitness type of group. Uh, men are just starting to see getting together with other men, like minded men, doing an activity. Uh, it's, it's just really, really important, um, and again, I know for my own life, it's been extremely important.

I've been in, uh, with a lot of groups, uh, whether it's real estate mastermind groups, small groups at church, fitness types of groups, and those are all great. And we all do an activity and we're, you know, I was a basketball player, so that was a whole men's group that we tried to [00:47:00] accomplish something, business, um, and I've just, I've learned a lot.

It's, uh, But I also think it's, it's, it's important for men to get together and do activities together. But then how do you build really deep relationships? What does that look like for men? And that's where really Iron Deep was, was born. So I want to, I want to know and I want to be known. A lot of Iron Deep in this book is just about identity.

And there's so many layers with the masculine identity that you don't even know What exactly is going on? You don't even know what you're hiding. You don't even know. Cause a lot of us are just trying to numb, numb our lives out with whatever it is. We're trying to consume. Netflix or drink or women or work.

And we just try to numb ourselves out. We don't want to know, honestly, we don't want to be honest with ourselves. And we definitely don't want other people to know. [00:48:00] Um, so really the whole iron deep, you know, one of our main core values is radical honesty. Let's just come, let's just lay the cards out and let's just, let's just be known.

Let's just be known because we're in a group that is going to encourage you and love you no matter what. And I think that's what we're all afraid of, uh, because I think we don't want people to know because if they know, we're afraid that they won't accept us, they won't love us, and that's, that's the group that I would love to be a part of.

And it was hard for me to see it, it was hard for me to find it myself, so I was like, well, let's just create it. So, and I'm sure there's some, there's some other amazing groups out there. Um, this is just one that, uh, I felt God calling me to do. So super important, sharpen each other, but then, but then building that deep relationship, because I think that's a huge difference.

Like there's groups that can sharpen each other. I can join a fitness group and sharpen me on my fitness. I can join [00:49:00] a business group and sharpen me on the fitness. But I think, again, I walk away with no relationships. And I don't know, I just want something different. So you built iron D why, why do men need that deep relationship with other men?

Mm-Hmm. . I think at the end of the day, it's just, it's very, um, encouraging to have men in your corner. And if you've been. in the military. I've never have, but maybe if you've been in the military or you've had that in your life where you have had men in your corner, it's just, it's just different. Um, men that really, uh, that really care about you, uh, with, with your challenges, with your struggles that you can, you can kind of be honest.

Men that have maybe can encourage you to sharpen you, to give you [00:50:00] some feedback, to give you some wisdom, but then also just can pray for you. It can love you through it. Um, I think it's just, I know that I want it. I know that I need it. And, and I'm sure other, other men, uh, need it too. It's just that tribe.

And I think if you've had it before and now you don't, it's something that you truly miss. And I think, you know, there's been seasons where I've had it and I have it some now, but I just, Just that constant reminder of men in your corner helping you, encouraging you. Can you call someone when you're going through something or when you want to be celebrated?

And one of the things, another value of ours is to celebrate each other. A lot of times, even as entrepreneurs, we don't ever get celebrated. Ever get celebrated. We don't even celebrate ourselves. We're like, Oh, I made the goal, whatever. I'll make a new one and let's just move on. But for men to celebrate you, like if I could truly celebrate your success, I mean, that'd be awesome.

You mentioned your friend about [00:51:00] his podcast success. Like if we could truly have the heart of humility and to celebrate him, even if we aren't successful, even if we aren't doing as good as him, that would be a, that would be an amazing group. We're all flawed, but, but that's, that's the group that I would love to see is to be honest.

To be known, encouraged, sharpened, but then to celebrate each other, to be in each other's corner, no matter what. I don't know. That's the group that I love to be part of. And I think it's hard to find out there, honestly. Um, and if you found it, go, that's awesome. Let's keep, keep going with it. Don't leave it.

I would just, I would just say. Right. For guys trying to level up, right. To pull it all together, who want the business, who want the family, who Move forward in their lives. What are the first three steps they can take right now? [00:52:00] Stepping out of this show to start putting that all together effectively.

That's a tough, that's a tough, deep question. I would just start with, um,

I would just start with again, trying to get radically, trying to get radically honest with yourself and maybe that's brain dumping, maybe that's writing down everything that. You're doing or you're prioritizing, like writing down your life and your calendar and your activities, and then maybe writing down where you want to be.

Like, what, what would it look like for you, for your life, your priorities to really line up to what is truly matter to truly is meaningful and matters to you. Maybe start there and just looking at it. Um, one of the two things that I would recommend as priorities is maybe print out your calendar, look at your time and then print out your bank statements and look at your bank statements.

Sometimes we don't want to look at it because we don't want to know [00:53:00] at the end of the day. Like it's hard for me to even look at both of those things. She was like, Oh, cause cause these two things, this is what I'm prioritizing in my life. And then just start there. And then does it really match, does it really match what you want?

Let me start there, um, huge proponent of sitting at the feet of someone who has walked before you. So once you know what you want, find someone that, that could help you get there. Maybe it's not that 22 year old kid financial advisor, but maybe it's someone who has owned the business and you look at his family and you're like, Oh, that's, you know, he has led a family.

Well, sitting at his feet, talking to him about it. Most guys want to give back, man. They would like, if someone says, man, like I want to do what you do and can I sit at your feet? I don't know. I don't know what that looks like, but maybe it doesn't have to be a paid coach, but coaching, sitting at someone's feet, who's walked through it before you, uh, don't try [00:54:00] to reinvent the wheel.

Um, and then the last thing is, yeah, just getting around that group, getting around that group of like minded men. sharpen each other. It doesn't have to be iron deep, doesn't have to be the fallible man. It doesn't have to be anything. It could be you calling up for you guys and building that structure, building that rhythm.

I think for me, like, I think guys, we, it's funny with like relationships because we'll call up a friend. We haven't talked to him in like four months and we'll be like, why don't we talk? Why don't we hang out? What's going on? And we try to organically do it. But I think for me, I need the rhythm. I need the structure of a setup.

We're like, I don't have to ask, Hey, do you want to hang out? Let's just set it the rhythm. So getting in a group and setting the rhythm, we're going to get together. I don't [00:55:00] know what it is once, once every couple of weeks and then having a structure with it too. I think structure is important. Organic is good of just hanging out.

You need that. You need, need that. Uh, but so like I was saying, having, having a structure, a goal, a mission with the group, I think it's important. So radically honest with yourself. Getting a mentor coaching at their feet, getting a group, uh, to have a mission together. What's next for Brett Snodgrass? Um, I mean, right now I've have been thrown back into the trenches of the real estate business.

I was, I was in the owner's box for about three years. Last year, real estate is going through kind of a funky time. So now I'm back into what does this look like? How do I. Strategically place this to help do some of these other passions in my life. I mean, I'm a relational, I'm a relational guy. You talked about personality tests.

I'm a high eye on the disc, this score. I want the brotherhood, these relationships. I want to leave my family. Well, [00:56:00] um, but right now, yeah, it's, I'm going to run this real estate business. I'm going to try to build a team again to rebuild that. But the passion is Iron Deep. Um, Iron Deep of men. We're trying to do things in Iron Deep.

I have events that we're going to be putting on our website, IronDeep. com. We're doing a husband and wife event for some of the members. It's like, man, I'd love to bring my wife to something. So we're going to do that. Men don't want to be taken away from their kids all the time. So we're trying to integrate children into this.

We're doing a missions trip to Guatemala as a family trip for some of these guys. So again, one of the things is these groups continuously take men away. So we're trying to, you know, we're sharpening each other with these small groups. We're also doing things that bring the families closer together so they can see it too.

They can experience too, because a lot of times men, they go on these retreats, they get hyped up, they get jacked up, they get inspired, they come home, their [00:57:00] family's still the same, and then they lose some of that. But what if their family can start to see, see that too? So that's some of the things that we're doing to Iron Deep and I'm super excited about it.

I love it. Are we going to see a sequel to The Lion, Secret War Within? Um, I don't know yet, man. I mean, this is my first rodeo with the book. Uh. It is one of, if not the most challenging thing that I've done, um, from a creative space. Uh, so I know how much energy it takes. Obviously, I, I, it'll shorten, I know the process now, um, but I know how much work, energy, I mean, this is an 18 month, 20 month, um, commitment project.

Uh, so I, when I get there, uh, right now I'm just enjoying what we have. So I'm curious about the next chapter. He's home now, where, where does he take this whole experience? Right? There you go. What does that translate? Gives me some good ideas. I'm very curious. I, [00:58:00] right. He had this amazing moment, this life altering time.

And it's the same. I, I had a, so I told you we do a men's conference. Uh, I have one of the guys last year stopped me on my way out. I was up front. I did the closing of the event was trying to move the back to the auditorium, make sure I could talk to all the guys on their way out or whatever. One of the guys stopped me as I'm walking through the auditorium, just get through his arms around me, hug me.

And it's like, man, you saved my life. I was like, no, no, no, you chose to be here. You saved your life. But here's the question. Tomorrow's Monday. What happens tomorrow? Right. Yeah. It's just a weekend. If you don't take what you took this weekend into tomorrow, and that has a really happy ending. I know the rest of that story is phenomenal.

Yeah. But. Right. That's I'm curious because that's that's where we get with stories like this. Sometimes we get that yay moment, right? I want to see the next chapter, [00:59:00] right? And I think that's really important and I think that's really important and we've done We've done the men's awakening retreats to and same thing.

I mean you kind of Get out there and you want to just tackle the world when you get home, but then how do we continuously do life together with, with sharpen each other? How do you continuously be reminded? I think it's just so important because we forget so quickly. We have like amnesia, um, so quickly when the first challenge comes up and.

Whatever you're stuck in traffic on, you start cussing somebody out again. I don't know, whatever it is. Yeah, we just forget. We just forget really fast. So I think it's I think it's important. So the next chapter I think that's a that's a really good feedback. Um, for that. What's next for his life? How does he how does he live this out?

Yeah, like it and the struggles with that. I think that will be a very Identifiable story. Yeah. Right. For sure. I love it. What's the best place for people to find you? [01:00:00] Um, I would say if you want to email me, reach out to me. I have my assistant Amanda too. And we kind of, we would love to set up something, uh, breath, B R E T T at iron deep.

com. Um, check out our website, iron deep. com. Uh, this is where you can see, uh, some of what we're doing, the events, get the book on their, um, best place to just help support the book. Obviously buy the book on Amazon and then, uh, Leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Hopefully you get something out of that.

And, uh, yeah, that's the best place. So thank you. Thanks for having me on the show, Brent. And you guys, the book will live forever on the library shelf of my website as well. It's already there. Uh, available now with links to Amazon so you can get a copy of it. It is a great book. I really enjoyed reading it.

I know you're really losing sleep over this. What inventor Lou invented the telephone? You said Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah. I told you, you would know this one. Alexander Graham Bell did invent the phone for all of you who challenged. So that was the correct [01:01:00] answer. Alexander Graham Bell into the telephone.

I like it. Thank you. Out of here, what, if someone heard nothing else today, what is the most important thing you want them to hear? I think it's maybe just going back to what do you need to do to get radically honest with yourself? And then what do you do about it? That's where it starts. There you go, guys.

For Brett and for by myself, thanks for hanging out with us today. Be better tomorrow because of what you do today, and we'll see you on the next one. This has been the Ible Man Podcast. Your home for everything, man, husband, and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www.thefallibleman.com for more content and get your own fallible man.

I ain't playing with [01:02:00] you.