: Welcome to the Aggressive Life. As you may know, each week this month, we're doing a deep dive into the one of the five marks of a man. This is the primal code that separates the men from the boys. But whether you're male or female, familiar with the marks or not, there's something here for you. This week, I'm joined by my friend, Leonce Crump Jr., to take a closer look at the mark that men are team players. Boys, want to be MVP. Boys want to be all-time quarterback. Boys want everything to revolve around them. They don't care about anybody else, but men are team players. Men will play the line, even if they got the best hand-eye coordination as a junior high kid, because that's what the team needs. While our culture might glamorize the lone wolf in the wild, it is the wolves that run with the pack who thrive. Lone wolves are skinnier, sicker, weaker, more hungrier, and die earlier. than wolves in a pack. When you're in a pack, you can gather, pray, and support one another. Guys who call themselves a lone wolf are basically saying, I'm weak and not doing well. Even if it's been years since your days of sports and school, you and I are meant to exist on a team in an interdependent interaction with each other. Your family, your friends, your work teams, any group that is larger than one person, that's a team. And today we're gonna talk about how to get the most out of it. Leonce is an author, activist, founding pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He's done a deep dive into teams that work and he's put that learning into his newest book, The Resilience Factor, a step-by-step guide to catalyze an unbreakable team. We have a lot of people who wanna get in the podcast to talk about their book and we say a lot of nos. But when someone's written a book who is a personal friend of mine, and I think the world of it, I go, absolutely dude, let's get you on the freaking podcast. Especially because I want to talk about men or team players. Welcome to the aggressive life, Leon Crump Jr. Hey, hey, glad to be here. Tell me about the junior. Why junior? You're talking about your dad. Is that why it's junior? You're just like him? Uh, we are very similar. I am a junior and actually my son is the third. And I wanted to carry on my father's name with my son. And my dad, of course, fought my mom to give me his name. And so I've tried to improve on it. And I've told my son he's got to take it to the next level, too. I like that. Leonce. I'd never heard of that name before I met you. Yeah, Tocquecasse-Francais. Tell me about that. What is that? It's French. So Leonce means wimp? Is that what Leonce means? That's what lion means. It means lion. Well, as you were talking about the pack, I was thinking about the pride, because Leon's actually means lion. Oh, lion. Oh, OK, got it. Oh, by the way, dude, I just saw the most brutal thing I have ever seen two grizzlies. The pride reminded me of it. Two grizzlies fighting each other in Alaska. Did I send that to you, Dirk? Did you see that? You did. It was crazy. Oh, my gosh. It was crazy. I will send that to you, Leon. We gotta figure out a way, is there a way to put that on a podcast? We can put a link to it in the show notes so you guys can watch it. All right, let's put it in the show notes. Oh my gosh, brutal. Well, anyway, where are we going? So you got a big family history, a big element of team going on. What makes you so interested in teams? Yeah, it's been my entire life. I started playing football when I was five years old. And so I've been on a team, literally on a team of some kind for almost 43 years. And so my entire life has been fashioned around being interdependent with other people, contributing my gifts and my skills to a larger common goal. It's just how I was raised and our family functioned that way. I'm one of two siblings, God rest his soul. My brother passed away in September of 2021. But that's how we operated our entire life. And that's how our parents raised us. How did your brother die? He had a softalgeal cancer. Never smoked a day in his life. I think it was due to something he was exposed to in the military. He was a naval intelligence officer. I'm still not fully sure of what he did. We got a box of medals mailed to us about a month and a half after he passed away. And so he served our country proudly and faithfully. And I miss him every day. That was my best friend. Oh, that's tough. And he was my best teammate, honestly. Really? Oh, yeah. What made him such a good teammate for you? He went out of his way to understand what would make me win. And in that, what a great team does for each other. He understood the dynamics that would bring the best out of me. And that was from sports to Jesus. He actually came to faith before I did. And so my younger brother actually was integral in leading me to Jesus. So, yeah, he just understood me and he took the time to get to know me. And he pushed me, you know, and we pushed each other. We always pushed each other. We're both wrestlers, always drove each other to try and really get the best out of ourselves. So what gave you the desire or inspiration to write a book on being a teammate? You know, church is an interesting thing. And actually, I was kind of diagnosing, and this is just my anecdotal experience. But I was diagnosing kind of the staff members that we've had challenges with over the years, people have kind of gone left or gone sideways. And as fascinating as this is, they all have one common denominator. Oh, let me guess. Hold on. Oh, fascinating. all have one common denominator. I should know this, because we've gotten sideways a good number of staff. Let me see if I can guess. Dirt, you got any guesses? They're bad teammates. Yeah, but that's obvious. That's a given, I guess. That is a given. Okay, how about this? They want personal success more than they want team success. That is a fact. But the other interesting thing, is none of them had ever played a team sport. Ah, wow. Now, I don't know if that was, if that's just my experience. Wow. But literally, to the person, none of them had ever played a team sport. Golfers, swimmer, you know, ran track, but you know, individual events, not relays. And that's just a few of them that, that I'll reference without going too deeply. But it was, it was just this fascinating thing. I leaned back one day and I was like, wow. All of the guys and gals who are still here were long time athletes on teams, every single one. And- Interesting. The ones who have left, they all, now there were other dynamics, of course, and other variables at play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what sparked it in my mind, was we don't know how to be a team. Most human beings don't know how to actually function as a team. And if you've never played on a team or- played a team sport, in fact, even in your introduction, you know, my son, my son has incredible hand-eye coordination and he ended up being the starting quarterback for his football team this year, but he started off on the line because he was the biggest kid out there. And so they stuck him on the line and I didn't balk and he didn't balk because it's best for the team. And I just came to the realization that most nonprofit for-profit, even church staffs, They're not teams, they're a collection of individuals. They are proximate to one another in, in their version of some shared vision, but they're not actually a team. And so I want it to be a part of a project that would help to give shape and scope and clarity, not only to what it meant to be a team, but how to become a resilient team on top of that. Dude, that is really, that is really good. I'm, I'm cycling through the vast numbers of staff members who've dropped out or who we've asked to drop out. And I'm going with my, then I can't actually think of one that I know for sure had an athletic team experience. And then I'm going, well, why is it? You probably know the reason. I'm just processing out loud. I've always thought Why is it my best team experiences were on a high school football team? That's ridiculous. That's so, so fleeting, so shallow, good, important. The, my best team experiences, my most, my greatest locker room talk should come in the context of a local church. That's right. The, the score is much, much more important. And then I think, yeah, when I was, when I was playing football, being uncomfortable was just a normal thing. You did two a days, you were on, and you lost. It was especially my high school. We lost a lot. Right? You learned how to lose. You learned how to play with people who are different than you. I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of transferable thing that I think you get that inherently if you've had that in high school. That's exactly right. Yeah. Even earlier, you know, there is a, listen, I think, I still think to this day, if I had kept playing tight end, I would have had a longer football. But at my size and my speed, I had good hands, but they needed a defensive end. They didn't need another tight end. And so to benefit the team, I changed positions and I never got to go back. And so I went from college into the NFL as a defensive lineman, even though I wanted to be a tight end, but that's what the team needed. And I really do believe that most- Westerners in particular with kind of this rabid individualism, which is not all bad. But if they don't have that honed and formed in the context of an interdependent team, then they don't make good teammates as adults in the real world, in the business world, in the church world. I like that twist you gave, rabid individualism. We oftentimes talk about rugged individualism, which does lead to people being very isolated. But that's a much more which I feel more comfortable with cracking on that than actually rugged individual. Cause I want to be rugged and I, and I want to be self dependent. There's, there's, there's a, there's a stream of health there, but that rabbit individualism, it's about me. It's about my accomplishments. It's about me not being fulfilled. Yeah. That's that that's ruling the day. Yeah, that's exactly right. And, and an idea that I don't need anyone rugged individuals, rugged individualism says, if I'm forced to, I can make it happen on my own. Rabbit individualism says, I don't need anybody and I don't want anybody. They'll just be in my way. And drawing the distinction between that even is so vital to not only health as a man, but health as a team. Are there statistics around today's younger generation, how involved they are in team sports relative to those of us who were in the 80s or 70s? I don't know that I want to tell you. You you're so happy. I don't want you to press. So, you know, the answer to this. I do. You gotta go. What's the answer? It's a rapid decline. I can't give you the exact number, but it is a rapid decline in team sports participation. Alarmingly, the grip strength of millennials and younger is weaker than the men from previous generations. They're they're virility. uh, has diminished significantly in men, millennials and down, uh, compared to previous generations. For real. You're talking about sperm count? Uh, yes. And, and the, uh, libido, the desire. Okay. Um, yeah, I was just reading a fascinating article on that and, uh, and just blown away because, you know, grip strength is an indicator of length of life and, and health of life over time. And, and it is alarming. how much it has declined. Men are using TRT earlier, in their mid 20s and 30s, because it's starting to drop in the mid 20s and 30s, rather than in the early to mid 40s. They're calling it the testosterone epidemic. There's a lot of things happening that show a rapid decline, particularly among men in some of those... those biological markers of maleness and then in participation of some of those things that kind of draw that stuff. I hadn't thought about at all about the drop in team sports. And gosh, that would have a lot of ties to a lot of things. Like maybe why fewer people are getting married because they don't. understand team. They haven't been in team. That's right. Obviously, why fewer people are sticking at employers longer. Why, why employers aren't creating great workplaces, because there's not this inherent thing of, of team. It's, that's, that's really insightful. I had not, I had not thought about that. That, that, that actually explains a lot. It's, in fact, so much, it's almost sounds too simplistic. Seriously. And listen, the remote work culture is only exacerbating the issue. You know, so, and I can send you any of this stuff that you want, because I'm a nerd, but the millennial and Gen Z generations, they're suffering from increased loneliness and intense loneliness and remote work has exacerbated that, you know, because they're working in isolation so they don't actually feel a part of the team. And this was a big kind of hullabaloo on my staff. Now eventually everybody came around and they were fine. The people that gotten so accustomed to just kind of doing their work in their corner and throwing their piece of the pie together to get a project across the line. That when I came and said, hey, we're back in the office. We're gonna be back in the office three days a week. And what I don't understand yet and said, it's the intangible, okay? I know that you might even be more efficient sitting at your dining table than you are here. But all of our greatest ideas, all of our biggest vision. All of our biggest wins have come through proximity, not through you doing an assignment in isolation. And so that was kind of the last big hill team wise that I had to take with my team was like, Hey, we're back in the office. This is how it's going to be. We're going to be a team that is proximate to one another. We're going to be a relational team, not a transactional team. Right. And if you don't want that, then find a new team. Well even there. We as people of us who employ people and manage people, it's pretty well documented that the power dynamic is entirely shifted. Any advantage that the boss or employer had is long gone, because people have other options and they're just not there. And I think also, if you've been in that team environment, you've been able to do that. You've had your coach get up in your grill. Oh yeah. You've been yelled at. You've been yelled at in front of other people. You've been quote unquote devalued. And demoralized. Yes. Demoralized. Right. Exactly. So it's hard when you're a manager, when you know, like every word has to be perfectly just said right the right way because people have never had that coaching experience where it came out wrong. But so what? The coach, the coach, they get what they want. Yeah. You give your boss a level of grace because they're never going to do as bad as your coach did in high school, who was really the last in line when it came to manners. Oh, how about my defensive line coach grabbing me by the helmet, like the face mask, and just dragging me into the ground? And he said, if you don't know which way to step, then I'll push your dumb ass in the right direction. You know, like this, this is what I'm used to. Right. And so when somebody tells me no, or we're not going to do it that way, and I don't owe you an explanation, I'm not going to fall apart. But when you haven't had that type of experience, then yeah, there's a good chance you're going to come undone the first time somebody shows you their teeth. My high school coach got so upset to how we weren't hustling at two a days in the humidity of Pittsburgh in August, he took away our water. No, no, no waters. No, no, no. A 95 degrees outside for three hours. No, you don't guys get any water. Oh my gosh. The water cult of today would completely implode. Well, let me tell you again, sadly. So I coach my son's team. Now I'm trying to say this in a diplomatic way. Why aggressive life isn't a diplomatic life. Come on, let's get the real Leonce navigating their soft ass fathers. and their bullying mothers while trying to coach these boys was one of the toughest things I've ever dealt with. One boy quit in the middle of the game because he didn't want to be hit anymore. And we almost had to forfeit the game because he refused to come back out. So I get his father from the stands, father comes down, he tells his dad, no, I'm done, I'm not playing anymore. Then mom comes down. And he tells his mom, no, I'm not going back out there. And so we almost had to forfeit the game. Luckily, the other coach feeling my pain, and we talked about it afterward. In fact, he said, in some very colorful language, that you can barely coach these MFers anymore because anything you do, their parents are in your face, or they fall apart and quit. They're not built like us. And so luckily, seeing my pain, he just had one of his boys sit so that we can keep the game even. But that's the environment now. That's the generation that is raising the generation that's coming. And I really do think that unless we start to take some of this head on and we talk about this in the book too, how to cultivate some level of psychological safety so that you can have radical candor on your team. Because if I can't be candid with you, we can't be a team, we can't win together, we can't. And- And the way that things are done now, man, it is just, like you said, the song and the dance, the tiptoeing around hard words, that's not going to get us across the finish line. Are we sure that this isn't another example of, us as an older generation, I would put you a generation beneath me here. How old are you? 43 this year. You're 43 and 57. Are we sure this is another example of Older people look at younger people that you just don't measure up to me. I mean, Americans been doing this for 250 years. We always think the next generation is weaker and less than. Are you sure we're not doing the same thing? So it's interesting you say that, because the last article I read started off just that way. Every generation says that the next generation is weaker, but scientifically, this generation actually is. That's literally how the article starts off. the one that talks about grip strength and sperm mobility and all these other things. It's literally bearing itself out in the science, the drop in testosterone, all of that is bearing itself out in science. So I think there could be an air of, you know, like tough enough, you know, you're not like, but there's also some very real data markers that are bearing themselves out in people's bodies. I understand, I can understand the grip strength going down because kids aren't holding on to bats because we don't play baseball anymore. We're not building tree houses and hanging on all that stuff. But what, virility, lack of hardness, what's, why would that be going down? Just the less strenuous things, the less aroused you can get, what's the link there? Yeah. This is actually I propose the aggressive life podcast. Having a non sedentary life increases your libido. It increases your virility. It increases your capacity. There we go. So the sedentary nature of many men's lifestyle, whether that's television or video games or just sitting at a desk all day and then not doing anything else. That's what's contributing to this. Well, I will out myself. Actually, we talked about this before in Aggressive Life, but it's aggressive for me to say it, so I'll say it. I've been on testosterone for the last year. You're 57, though. You're not 25. Right, right. I'm 57. And one of the reasons I got blood count tested, I was at 308. My doc, doctor, like not testosterone clinic that makes money when you have stuff, but my doctor says, If you're at 425, it's not going to do anything for you. I said, I'm at 308. He says, oh, you should definitely do it. But one of the reasons I didn't do it, I believe something was wrong for a while. And a lot of those natural remedies are basically what you're just saying, Leon. It's like, go out, work out, do this, because you can raise your testosterone if you do that. My workout stuff hasn't changed at all. I just couldn't make any gains at all. So it makes sense, though, as we're more sedentary. just moving our thumbs as we're looking at a video screen or we're just staring at Netflix. Yeah, I guess it would make sense that we couldn't keep an erection. That makes total sense. Yeah, it's tied to that. I mean, you know, the number one way to naturally raise your testosterone is to do sprints. Really? That's the number one way to naturally raise your testosterone, just full out sprints, few rounds of sprints. Fascinating. And so when you have kids who don't play outside anymore, You know, my kids go out and play outside every day. And very often it's just them outside playing outside. You know, so we've kind of put ourselves into the show. We're not playing team sports. We're not living active lives. Yeah, you're right. If you're not in a team sport, you would never, you would never sprint. No, no reason to. Wow, dude. Running from a lion, which again, You know, when I was on the Serengeti with the, with the Maasai, oh, you'll like this. Can I go out of frame for a second? Yeah, you can go out of frame a minute. I won this in a jumping contest with a Maasai chief in Africa. Wow. And again, just fascinated by their culture. You know, one of the things you have to do to cross over in manhood is you have to go on a hunt. You know, you have to go on a hunt. And the lions are out. I actually watched lions hunt myself. They were hunting wild boar on the Serengeti. And so those boys at 13, they've got a what? They've got a sprint. They've got to run. They've got to kill. They've got to bring something back. Like I'm already starting to think through what is the rite of passage that I'm going to take my son through at 13 to kind of mark the era in which he's moving into manhood. And I remember talking to the chief about this and this is one of the things that marks you as a man, you get your first spear and it's not yours until after you kill with it. We have lost those things in our post-industrialized nation. And I think there are strategic ways to get it back, but we've got to want to get it back. Love that. When you bring your son to manhood, how are you going to treat him differently? I think it's where people I'm interacting with, they're missing on this. They're getting big into the celebration, the ceremony, the marking of the moment. But then afterward, they treat their son the same way. No, if you're bringing him into manhood, then you have a man who's in your house now, not a 13-year-old or a 16-year-old, whatever it was. You've got to treat him as if he's I was actually living in your house. That's right. You know, I gotta honor your rules, it's still your house, but I'm a man living in your house, that means I probably don't have to act the way a 14 year old would. How are you thinking about that with your son? Yeah, for me, I'm thinking expanded independence and kind of raising ourselves to a level of equality and ally addressing, not addressing him as a little boy who... who needs specific direction at every turn, but really speaking to him as an interdependent being who is starting to develop his own outlook and his own worldview and his own perspective. And as you said, he's gonna still follow my rules because he's in my house. But I'm not going to enforce those as I would on a seven or an eight year old. We're gonna dialogue about those things. I'm gonna trust him more. And I'm gonna give him the opportunity to contribute. And I think that was the biggest thing my father ever gave me. I started working when I was 13 years old. And that was my way, a part of my right of passage into manhood. And I don't even know if he would have framed it that way. I don't know if it was even cognizant for him as like, I'm taking my son through this journey. I just remember the ship. where he gave me the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of our household by taking on some of my own needs, clothing or food or anything else, through work. So I started a yard cutting business when I was 13 years old. Had employees by the time I was 14, you know, and I have worked ever since. And my dad helped me to steward that money, manage that money, taught me about giving and tithing, taught me about saving. And began to inform me. for how I was going to be launched into the world. And then at 17 years old, I was launched into the world and I haven't been home since. And so I think about taking my son through the same kind of steps, but with more intentionality because I'm seeing it now. In hindsight, I'm putting together the pieces that my dad offered. I'm putting together the pieces that we find in other more tribal cultures. I'm putting together the pieces that we see kind of in that arc of world history. And I'm plotting a course for my son so that when he leaves my home, he enters the world as prepared as he can be to face it as a man. Love that. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. I gave AG1 a try because I was feeling a bit sluggish, not confident I was getting all the nutrients that I felt that I needed. And I thought maybe this is an easy solution. So I drink AG1 in the morning. I love doing the morning. I do it on an empty stomach. It forces me to get 12 ounces of water into my system. I love doing something proactive and aggressive to make me feel better and at least give me peace of mind. AG1 is designed with this kind of ease in mind so you can live healthier and better without having to complicate your routine. 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So this includes a repackaged edition of the original, along with updated artwork and a new preface, and an all new tactical guide designed to be used with a group of like-minded dudes, giving you challenges, prompts, discussion questions to work the marks into your life. Take my word for it, this isn't your grandmother's fill-in-the-blank guide. It's unlike anything you may have experienced before in written form. Pre-order either book, and you'll get access to a limited edition five marks poster. Get all the details and claim your poster over at bryantome.com slash five mark. That's bryantome.com slash five marks. Now back to the show. You mentioned earlier as leaders of the team, we have to have, we have to create psychological safety for radical candor. Yes. Talk more about that. What does that mean? Psychological safety meaning that if you are honest with me, I'm not going to leverage my power dynamic to punish you or to diminish you or to isolate you or. or to otherwise neutralize your contribution. Because you can be forthright and honest with me. I'm gonna actually talk to you as an equal. So psychological safety says that you know, you can say to me, hey, P.L., that's what they call me. Hey, P.L., I really didn't like that. I didn't like how that felt or I wasn't comfortable with that interaction without me flipping out and using the power I have. to rob you of agency or dignity. Yeah, we've noticed that here, my day job as well, that when we have been most unhealthy, we've had some unhealthy times over the last several years, there has been a lack of candors, what we've said. I like how you say radical candor, which I'm not sure why that is. I've asked our team, why is that? Because you guys know that I'm full of candor with you. Is it you're afraid that? I'm going to whack you if you say something I don't like, which I don't think is the truth, because you guys say that stuff to me all the time. But lower down in the organization, like just one level down, there's things that are very obvious that people are not saying to one another, and it's creating big, big problems. Are you saying that maybe people around me might have radical candor because they feel, even though I'm powerful and have a mystique about me, making them feel somewhat safe and maybe others lower down might not be making people feel safe? That's exactly what I'm saying. And you know, just from our interactions. You lead at a much larger scale than I do. You've been leading much longer than I have. But you still speak to me as a peer and not an underling. That's the first thing I noticed about you. And there are leaders, we both know them. We've been in rooms with them who are 50 plus and, and they speak to grown men like their children. And I do my best not to be around those types of leaders because I can't hold my tongue. And so rather than harm them or myself, I just steer clear. It's obvious to me that over these years, at least in your executive team and whoever's immediately around you, you've created that same kind of equality. Like yes, I'm gonna use a big word unnecessarily. There's an ontological hierarchy, right? Just like in the Trinity. There's an ontological hierarchy. They know you're the boss. They know you're the senior pastor. It's obvious to me that you've also created an air of equality and interdependence. And that creates radical tender because that's the safety that's there. And so I would say, down into the organization, maybe the digging is to figure out at every level is the point leader at every level operating the same way you are. Are they treating the people who work with and for them are they treating them like underlings? Have they lost their crap before? We all have. And when they did, do they come back around in humility and say, hey, please forgive me, I was way out of line there. Or do they expect everybody to just sweep it under the rug for them because they're the boss? So that'd be where I would do the digging and say, okay, what am I doing differently that's not being done two, three, four levels down? And how do we address it with each of the point leaders so that they are creating the same kind of environment at their level that I'm creating it on? This is rich, man. I probably shouldn't be asking you specific questions as much as allowing you to dictate the conversation. There's a reason that you wrote a book on this. So just tell me what I should be knowing that I'm not even going to know to ask about the resilience factor, step-by-step guide to catalyze the Unbreakable Team. What else? What else do you have to give us to wet our appetite before we actually buy the book? Yeah. So the book, I think personally, is one of the most well-constructed leadership books that I've read because it's practical. And so I will say if you're a theory person, well, actually, if you're a theory person, you're probably not listening to this podcast. So, you said if you're a person who likes to think you don't listen to this podcast. No, that's a compliment. If you're a person who likes to think and not do. This is probably not the circle for you. But if you're a thinker who wants to act on what you learn, then this is a great book because it is formatted like a workbook. So it's not just a leadership book you're gonna read through and then try to distill the six principles you learn from it to your team. But it's actually written so that you work through it with your team step by step over eight movements. And each of those movements are curated specifically to produce a tangible result. So, one of the things we found for teams that thrive and teams that are resilient is they have a very, very clear ability to articulate their shared mission. And maybe you would be surprised, maybe you wouldn't be surprised at the number of teams definition, understanding or spin on what the mission of the team was. And so if you don't have a shared mission, you can't have resilience because resilience is built as a team, it's built in the interlocking strength of commonality. Well, if we're not pulling in the same direction, then we're not gonna be a good team, let alone a resilient team. So it takes you through the steps of forming a common team mission. It takes you through the steps of cultivating. psychological safety so that you can have radical candor. We even give you a map of how to have a hard conversation, where to start, maybe what words to choose, what words to avoid, where are the landmines, right? And we do this over eight movements so that by the time you get to the end of this book, there should be a shared confidence on the team that you are more of a team and that you're a more resilient team on top of it. So this is meant to be done in a team context. This is not just you and your alone time. That's exactly right. Now, is it a good read? Yes, you can do it in your alone time, but you will only get about 40% of the benefit out of the book. It's built so that you and five to seven other leaders are walking through this all together and coming out at every movement with something tangible. that grows the strength of your team. And that's why it's called the resilience factor. You're saying your team will last if you're doing these things together. That's exactly right. Resiliency is a really undervalued characteristic. I think most of us would much rather have success than resiliency, significance than resiliency, richness than resiliency, notoriety than resiliency, all these things. There's just that thing of hanging on. You mentioned grip strength. We've talked before here in Aggressive Life about Peter Atiyah's work. If we talked about that, are you aware of him? Oh, yeah. Love Peter Atiyah. Yeah. About the whole thing about how to live the last decade of your life, have you heard that whole thing? Yeah, I watched the special he did with Chris Hemsworth, too, which was fascinating. Oh, he did a special with Chris Hemsworth? What was it? Gosh, it's on Disney+. And it's all about Chris Hemsworth learning. uh, how to live the longest he can, the longest possible life and a healthy possible life and, and Atiya is walking him through every step of it. That's, and that's on Disney Plus. So he, he talks on that special grip strength. Yeah. So for those who doesn't know, he says that basically some of things in the early part of your life, the way to keep living is don't do anything stupid. Don't fall out of a tree. Don't have a motorcycle accident without a helmet on. Don't yada, yada. Which I've done all these things, by the way. Fell out of many trees. Had motorcycle accidents without helmets. But anyway, you die because of something like that. The middle parts of your life, I think his thing is about aerobic stuff. Keep down heart disease by keeping the blunt pumping, everything. And he said, the last decade of your life, whatever you're always going to have last decade, he says the main thing is grip strength. Because when you fall and break something as an 80-year-old, 90-year-old, 70-year-old, whatever old it is, your last decade, that's when you die real fast. And you generally fall because you're stumbling and you can't grab onto something and keep yourself up. So grip strength. And he's got basically his test is, unless he's changed it, you've seen the special is, see, work on hanging from a chin-up bar for two minutes. Yeah. And he added farmer's walk. Oh, he did? So what's this thing there? Oh gosh, it's a percentage of your body weight in each hand, think for a 90 second walk or maybe two minute walk. Interesting. Okay, I'll have to check that one out. What he added to it was not only the grip strength, but the balance too. Balance is something that we start to lose as we age. I'm actually, I'm lifting weights less now that I've kind of crossed that threshold. into 40 and I'm doing more sprinting. I'm doing a lot more Pilates, you know, for, for core strength and core balance, uh, and, and doing a lot more functional movements rather than bodybuilding movements for that very reason. You're ringing my bell every year. I say, okay, this year I'm going to do more yoga cause I can feel my flexibility going away. I can just feel it's different when I put on a sock, like I'm not as rooted. I gotta do that. Gosh, it's so hard to go do yoga instead of doing your same old, same old dumbbells, you know? Well, I do yoga at home, so I don't know if that'll help you, but on YouTube, they have a hundred different teachers and I've just worked into my morning routine three days a week. After I spent some time with the Lord, I do yoga right there in my bedroom. How long do you do it for? 20 to 25 minutes. Oh, it's that short. I was saying it was an hour. Oh no, 20 to 25 minutes. That's all you need. All right. All right. Gosh, all right, put that on the to-do list. So I've got a Peloton membership. So they've got all the stuff on the switch around monitor. Oh, nice. Yeah, we may check that. All right, anyway, resiliency, resiliency. So what else? If someone wants to increase their resiliency, what else can we do? Well, it's actually very tied to the conversation we're having, because what is resilience? Resilience is strength and flexibility. That is at its core. what something when something is resilient, it is both strong and flexible. Meaning that it can be pushed to the very brink and still not break because of the strength, but it has gives because of the flexibility. And so to build in resiliency as an individual, you put yourself and this was a part of the thing that he went through with Hemsworth. You put yourself in situations that test your limits. And so in order to build resiliency in a team, what do you do? You put yourself in strategic situations that test the weak points of your team. And that's what this book is taking you through. Because we define resilience as not just surviving a hard thing. That's not resilience. Resilience is going through something challenging and dynamically learning from it so that you adapt to your new reality. through the pandemic in particular. And that's what kind of sparked the resilience angle on this because Warren Byrd and I were having this conversation, which he's one of the guys I wrote the book with. And we found that resilience is the secret ingredient. It is it is it. It's not education, it's not tenure, it's not knowledge, it's not instinct. Leaders that last, companies that last. churches that last at their core is an ability not only to get up again when you've been punched in the mouth, but to move forward with the lessons that you learned and to adapt to whatever the reality is on the other side of that. And you and I've been talking about this with respect to the church. I think part of where the Western church is struggling right now, where I'm struggling, is we are trying to adapt the present to the past. That's not resilience. Resilience is adapting the present to the present, to the reality that you're in, so that you can start to shape the future. Oh, wait, say that again. We're trying to adapt the present to the past. What do you mean by that? Meaning, we're trying to make this reality fit the one that we came up with. Okay. So church attendance, let's just deal with that. Before the pandemic, church attendance was 1.7 times to 1.9 times a month. That's what it was. Now it's one. or less times per month. So for me to try and figure out ways to get people in the door more often, is trying to adapt the present to the past. Rather than realizing that people have worn new grooves and so I'm going to have to follow this river around with them and lead them in this present reality knowing that I'm only going to get them one time a month. So how does that change my preaching schedule? How does that change how we do groups? How does that change how we do communication? You know, one of the things that one of the tangible outworkings of that is normally we do a vision Sunday. Well, I think this year I'm going to do like a vision month or vision three weeks because I know that I'm not going to have the even the majority of the core in the room. If I only do one vision Sunday versus, you know, hanging on to this vision Sunday because well, this is what we did in the past. And so I'm going to adapt the present to the past. And that's not that's not resilient. Yeah, that's a good reminder for all of us. I think when you don't have resilience as well, you just bemoan the way things are right now. And that's why you just keep clinging on to the past. That's exactly right. If only it was the way it was back when, then I would feel better right now. If only it was the way back when, then I'd be able to do x, y, z. Whereas resiliency really demands that we live in the present world. That's, that's really well said, man. Living in the present world with the lessons that we've learned on our way to it. Yeah. Like, what did we learn through the pandemic? What did we learn? What did we learn about people and their patterns? What did we, you know, what did we learn from the fact that people were going to two or three churches at once, but what did we learn? by the fact that in our sector, I know people are in many different sectors on this who listen to this podcast, but in our sector, what did we learn from the fact that for most churches, our income either stayed the same or went up, even though our attendance went down? And are we adapting to those realities? But as leaders, it seems like people distrust leaders more today than they did in the past. Yes, no? Yes, yes, we actually, the opening chapter starts there. That leadership itself is way more distrusted. And in fact, one of the paradigms we put together is now direction is seen as dominance, clarity is seen as control, expectations are seen as burdens, accountability is seen as abuse. Like these are real. variables that we're having to navigate through as leaders. And how do we navigate through them? Or do we just not do those things and everything goes weak? Or do we do those things and look like ogres? We do those things with a gentleness and a wisdom that maybe we have not had in the past. And that doesn't mean, I mean, I don't know the future. I don't know if everything will go well. But I've been brought back. over and over again to Jesus words, be wise to serpents and gentle to scubs. And so it has really changed my approach. I mean, we just let someone go recently. What I would have done in one conversation, this is just a concrete example. What I would have done in one conversation, I did over the course of seven conversations over several weeks. So that they felt heard, they felt seen, they got to express. their perspective. It wasn't going to change the outcome. But as far as I can tell, they've walked away from the situation, still maintaining a love and respect for me, even where we disagree. And the outcome is the same. Whereas, you know, in years past, I would have come in and said, here are the numbers. Here's where things are. This is this can't continue to go forward. Love God bless you. Blessed additions, blessed subtractions. Amen. Leonce, this has been fantastic. I know we only graze the surface. If someone wants to find you, find this book, find your information, where do they go? Yeah, at Leonce, Crompe, L-E-O-N-C-E, C-R-U-M-P, on any social media platform. And then the book releases June 20, and you'll be able to get it everywhere books are sold. I love when we've got a topic that's relevant to my life and when it's from a friend of mine who I respect very, very greatly and when I am challenged now to do something different. I hope you get the same thing. Hey, friends, look, let's remind ourselves. This is not the interesting thoughts life. It's not the leadership philosophy life. It's the aggressive life. There should be something here that you're gonna be pushed to do when you get out of here. conversation process that Leon's just talked about, somebody in your organization, or are you going to increase your grip strength and start hanging on a chin up bar for a while? Are you going to go out and do wind sprints? Are you going to start yoga? Are you going to repent of being a self-centered weenie boy and weenie girl who can't play well with others in the sandbox because you've never been on a team? I don't know what it is, but there's got to be something for you. And all those things, they are for you. This isn't a new law or new uadas. These are for you. We do these things. We grow, we thrive, we go forward. So Leonce, thanks for building into us. Everybody else, we'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes and live events over at bryantome.com. Pre-orders for my new books, repackaged edition of The Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps. Get this show in front of new listeners. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.