Brian Tome
We all got 2020, but I'm not playing the victim card and I don't want you to either. We're going to finish the year with some practical, actionable episodes to help you get momentum that will take you into a new life--now. Don't wait until January. Now is the time to get in the fight. I'm Brian Tome. This is the 'Aggressive Life'.

When everything starts shaking, only what is stable will remain. That's a paraphrase from the Bible. The B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me, I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E, that's old school, Sunday school right there.

But it's true. No matter what you believe, the ups and downs of life will shake you, leaving only what is unshakable standing. This year many of us have experienced some massive shaking from social unrest, election distrust and confusion, global pandemic. And, that's saying nothing about our personal lives. 2020 has rocked us. Many of us have massive problems before all those things happened in twenty-twenty, many of us are barely hanging on. So we went out. We thought, who could we talk to who understands how to barely hang on? Maybe, maybe a legitimate cowboy could teach us what it takes to hold on when the horse you're riding starts to go buck wild. Todd Pierce grew up in rural Idaho, a bareback rider. He won three wilderness circuit titles as part of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. He's since hung up his spurs. But you never take the rodeo out of the cowboy.

Incredibly involved, he still is in the rodeo circuit. He works as a chaplain. He's a public speaker. He's a talented horse trainer. He tours the country literally taming horses while audiences watch. He's even found a way to take these tour stops inside the walls of some of the most brutal prisons inside of our country. Above all, he's a mentor who's taken young rodeo riders under his wing to help them navigate the ups and downs of their careers, their families, their life.

He's an incredibly aggressive man. He's an incredibly generous man to give us our time today, he looks danger in the eye, and he scares danger away time and time again. That's him. Welcome to the aggressive life, Todd Pierce.

Todd Pierce
Yeah, thank you so much. That sounds really courageous. Now, why do I feel like I need to go take another piss? I'm scared to do a podcast or a zoom call.

Brian Tome
Did I just scare the piss out of you already?

Todd Pierce
Something like that. Oh, good heavens. What do I say now?

Brian Tome
You're a chaplain. You're not allowed to use those kind of words. Todd Pierce.

Todd Pierce
Oh, I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. We got rules to this game, right?

Brian Tome
We do now actually not, it's the Aggressive Life, even we'll say whatever we want to say and they can bleep out whatever they want to bleep. We'll leave that to somebody else. But I've got a whole bunch of things I wanna talk to you about here. But you're a horse trainer. Give me the secrets of training a horse. How do you do that?

Todd Pierce
Oh, man. The short version would be that to make sure that you know how to control your own emotions because the horse is always more sensitive to what's going on inside of you than what he's observing, you do. And so technique is important, but more important is what's going on inside of you, because like a dog can sense a seizure or something like that, they've got a sense that makes it to where they're more in tune with the unseen world than we are.

And so if I don't manage what's going on inside of me, I'm never going to be able to connect with the animal.

Brian Tome
That's kind of the secret of horse therapy, right? The horse senses something in the person or what's that about?

Todd Pierce
That's that's part of that. I think, you know, like they would with dogs that a horse is really sensitive to what you're feeling. And they have a lot of times really appropriate responses. And so, like, if we're going to train the animal or the animal is going to train us, if we make it a mutual relationship, then there is a lot that all of us can learn on both sides of it.

Brian Tome
So how did you ever get into bareback riding and bareback riding that's riding without any saddle, I assume?

Todd Pierce
Right. So it's one of the sports in rodeo. So there's two bucking horse events. One is saddle bronc and one's bareback. So bareback, you've just got a handle that you hang on to rather than a saddle that you sit in with a rein.

Brian Tome
Got it.

Todd Pierce
How you get into it? There used to be an old joke that you fill your pocket with marbles and every time you get bucked off, you pull a marble out. And when you've lost all your marbles then you know you're ready to be a bareback rider. Pretty corny joke.

But. You know, for me, I was an athlete my whole life. I grew up with horses and but I ended up becoming an elite gymnast when I was young, did the whole football and wrestling and track in college and high school. And then so I was a really late bloomer come into the sport of rodeo because I did that after my second year in college, I actually took a drunk bet literally to get on a bareback horse and thought it was fun.

It felt easy, it got harder. But that was how it began.

Brian Tome
Well, that was my question. Like, how do you, how do you start in that? So alcohol helps release inhibitions sometimes.

Todd Pierce
Absolutely.

It's like that's what makes all of us tough.

Brian Tome
So what makes you so the first time you're inebriated or at least somewhat inebriated. But at some point you're getting onto a bucking bronco without a saddle and only rope in and of your own mind. What motivates you to do that? Or what do you what are you thinking about when you have that level of fear that's facing you?

Todd Pierce
I think that's probably why we do it, is that there's something inside of man that makes him to where he wants to do hard things. And, you know, in the culture I was raised in that that was one of the hard things that men could do. And so there's a level of just wanting to conquer the fear. There's there's wanting to impress your friends. There's a lot of dysfunctional parts of it. But the healthy side of it is that there's something else that God put in the nature of a man that's reflective of his nature, and He designed us to rule things.

Although rodeo is not ultimate dominion over anything, you're just getting 'em road for eight seconds. But wanting to do that comes from something pretty deep inside of man.

Brian Tome
Wow, let's camp out there for a little bit. I, my personal journey around manhood was I was just a wild child when I was younger. Uh, I found Jesus and then shortly after Jesus, I found religion, which is really a bad find. And that that really made me fall in love with structure and rules and safety and all that stuff.

And in that in that time period, I did a lot of reading on Everest. And you know the first guy who took Everest was Sir Edmund Hillary. And then he was asked one time, why?

Why did you climb Everest? Because there's nothing up there to get other than a view. Most times you really don't even have a view. And his response was because it was there. That's why I did. And when I first heard that quote as a guy strapped with religion, I was like, that is so ridiculous. What about your family? Now where I'm at in my life, like I get it. I understand it. And that's what you're saying. I think us as men, we are way under challenged and we are discouraged from doing anything that's difficult.

And we're dying in hordes, if not physically, emotionally and spiritually. So just talk more about that. You said we're we're meant to rule. We're meant to take challenges. Just you got a vein of truth I want you to tap in to just get on your soapbox for us.

Todd Pierce
Well, I think that people love their lives to death where that's what what is becoming more of a cultural norm is that we we are so afraid of dying that we would never really do live. And that's, you know, that's more than a cliche to me. It's something that's actually disturbing. I've got three sons and we've we've lived on the edge our whole lives. And so it's not it's not just a reckless lifestyle. It's a lifestyle of doing things that are hard, that keeps the heart of a man alive.

And it doesn't have to be physical danger or doing things with your hands. It could be a lot of men just taking some really crazy risks with what they're doing with their songwriting or dancing or whatever it might be that you're always pushing yourself and keeping something in front of you. The light Jesus even had to have it. He said that I had to have a joy set for me, for me to endure the cross. There's a reason why I'm doing this.

And it's not just to win a trophy. It's because it's keeping my heart alive. And it starts dying when we quit challenging ourselves. And that I believe that in a culture where we're trying to make everything safe, that people are dying on the vine simply because there's something more than our physical life that we're we're talking about. We've got a future and a hope and a destiny. If that's really true and we believe it, then that means that we've got to do something about it.

And we can't just talk about it or say we believe that it's gotta become active.

Brian Tome
Yeah, the whole everything Covid related is certainly rocking our world, and in many ways appropriately so, it is a pandemic. It is legitimate on many levels. But you... one of the things that we're not talking about as much is the emotional and spiritual and relational devastation it's wreaking on our land and our country. I'm meeting more people now who are not going to church.

They've gotten out of that rhythm and they're losing their faith as a result. I'm meeting more people who are dealing with severe depression. We've never had severe depression. They're physically safe, but they're now emotionally dangerous and spiritually dangerous. I think that we're just we're not recognizing that something is going wrong with us if we're not taking an appropriate risk. An appropriate risk does not include having a helmet on while you're on your tricycle in your parents basement. That's that's that's not risky.

Todd Pierce
Yeah

Brian Tome
It's very it's very rarely I get to be with somebody who is beyond where I am and the risk department. Way beyond, way beyond. You said, you said you and your boys, you're living on the edge. So what does that mean? What's that look like for you?

Todd Pierce
Oh, I would I would hope that there'd be some age appropriate stuff with that. But my wife would challenge that, that, you know, I've told the story before where my youngest son was four years old. He was really persuasive and that he could nag me into just about anything. And he had... I had a gun. It was pretty heavy. It was a forty-four mag. And he wanted to shoot that gun for some reason. Like, that was the only gun I really wanted to shoot.

And he finally talked me into it. So I let him shoot the gun and of course it came back and hit him in the face because he couldn't hang on to it. And, so all my wife hears is a gunshot, a screaming child, and then I'm carrying him in the house and blood pouring out of his face so you could imagine what my wife thought when she comes screaming in the room like what happened? And my only answer was I told him that it would hurt.

And so she's like, well, he's four years old. You know, you don't tell him that. You don't let him do it. But, uh so I think that my gauge for danger has always been a little bit off kilter. But at the same time, I'm raising three sons that are going to live in a really dangerous world. And if they're afraid of risk and they're afraid of what's going to happen, if they take those risks, they're just not going to ever jump.

And, you know, with with horses, obviously, there's always we had lots of broken bones and wrecks with horses, with the kids. So my wife abandoned ship quite a while ago. So you don't get on anymore because. Well, she never had a fair shot at it because everything we had around the house was something in process of getting good enough for someone else to ride them.

Brian Tome
Huh, interesting. So, has your wife just learned to live with this or she still fight you on it?

Todd Pierce
No, she don't fight me on it.

But I think she does help keep me in balance because sometimes I'm reckless just because I want to be reckless and there's really not a real vision about it. And so especially with our sons, there's got to be some level of OK, yeah, it's OK to wear seat belts. In fact, as we really encourage you to wear seat belts, Dad never learned how to. My first truck didn't have one in it. And so we're all taking calculated risks, everybody hearing this is driving a vehicle.

So if we're going to take the risk with the known facts of how dangerous it is to drive a vehicle, we're all willing to take risks. It's just that what our culture has taught us is an acceptable risk. And I think it needs to change among men nowadays.

Brian Tome
Well, seatbelts, I can put a seatbelt on, which I do. And it doesn't affect my ride at all. It doesn't affect my comfort or anything like that. But there's other things that would affect my life. I would take a little bit of a risk. I would love to see someone do the statistics of emergency room visits for children under 12 in today versus nineteen sixty, nineteen seventy. I tell you what, me and others and you, of course, broken bones all the time.

We just go up our up and down our bodies. Here's this scar, this. You and I should compare. I mean you would, you would win but I'd be able to hang in there for at least ten rounds on ya. Ten rounds of stitches and broken bones. The average kid today has never been to the emergency room for a broken bone, the average kids there... And it's because they're not playing hard, they're not taking risks. And I think this is affecting our psyche.

You agree?

Todd Pierce
Yeah, absolutely.

That's that's probably the middle of my world right now because I'm so discouraged on male leadership to a huge degree. And I want to make some sort of difference in it, that we carry something that's super valuable. And it's not, it's not dangerous in the sense that it's violent. It's, it is a threat to everything that's evil. And we should be a threat to everything that's evil. Now country song says you got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything, and if we don't know what we're standing for, we just become sitting ducks for a whole lot of cultural influence that shouldn't have any voice in our lives.

Brian Tome
How do you see yourself being a threat?

Todd Pierce
What we're doing right now. We're going to talk about what's true. And it's not just an opinion. This is not something that my culture taught me. This is something that the word of God in the heart of my father has taught me through His word is that we are to be the ones that actually shift the culture. We're supposed to be the ones that are forming the culture and that us speaking truth into lies and combating that, being willing to stand for it and actually willing to die for it.

Truth is not subjective to our beliefs. It just is. Whether it's good or bad, it just is. And we get to we get to reckon with that. And if we're got enough guts I'll say to stand up to it, that means that I don't care if I get persecuted in the sense that you can do whatever you want to me. I'm going I'm going to do what's right. And we've taught our boys that I'm not really so concerned about what you boys are going to do in life.

I'm more concerned as a father on who you're going to be. In a culture that's so concerned about what we're going to do in life. We've really bypassed our heart. We've bypassed becoming something that's unmovable. And, you know, you read a scripture right there at the beginning that everything that can be shaken is going to be shaken. The only thing that can be lasting is what's unshakable. And I think that's a father's mercy. That's a father's goodness that he would make it to where we're not built on life that's so frail that every time something comes through, whether it's a pandemic or not, that we start wetting ourselves and uhm...

So us becoming men, that's something that gets developed.

Brian Tome
Well, we're certainly much less physical than all of our forefathers and grandfathers were. We... A guy may have a great workout routine and may be getting physically more fit with his heart rate or his muscle mass. But that same guy and others, they're not they're not out in the cold. They can't remember the last time they shivered. They, they don't they don't remember the last time they slept on the ground.

We've lost the ability to change our own oil. Simple tasks that every man would use to do, change their own oil, fix a lawn mower blade. Bang something out in a vise. Put a square of shingles on, I mean, I could just go on and on and on and on. These, these were just obvious things every guy did until a couple of decades ago it started dropping off. And I think now the average guy, we don't know how to be physical anymore in anything.

And I actually think that affects us spiritually because walking with God is a holistic totality submission of yourself, and that means your physicality. And I just don't see us doing a physical thing. That's why when I can have someone like you on, it's more intriguing to me than having a theologian on, though I may have a theologian on someday. There's just something about that that physical, spiritual connection that gets me like I've never been bucked off a horse.

I've written a few horses. I've never been bucked off one because the ones I'm on tame and lame, normally.

Todd Pierce
We can we can fix that.

Brian Tome
You can fix that? Like come out to your place. Are you invite me to come on to your place and be on a bucking horse?

Todd Pierce
Absolutely.

I won't even make it a bucking horse.

It'll just be one that potentially if you piss him off, he'll buck you off. Then you have a say in the game.

Brian Tome
Well, why why are you so intrigued about me getting bucked off a horse? Why is that turn you on?

Todd Pierce
You brought it up. So I was just I just want to accommodate, Brian.

I know that, you know, in this conversation, we do fragment ourselves and and people could listen to this and say, well, this sounds like a bunch of machoism, but really without anybody feeling any shame over it, that's that's the thing that we we really need to stand against is that fathers were never fathering. And we've got generations of fatherless men.

They're trying to figure this out on their own. And, you know, so I've got a ton of compassion for for men in this situation. And it really is what the plague it's if you want to talk about a pandemic. It's yes, Coronavirus--it's for real, but it's not near as devastating as fatherless

Brian Tome
Fatherlessness is the main pandemic. Yes.

Todd Pierce
That's what's killing us. And so. I'm grateful that I had a dad that taught me to do hard things. I'm grateful that my sons have got a dad that's teaching them to do that. But there's so many men that just don't have that. And so I have a ton of compassion for it and don't want anybody to feel shame over it. And that's why I say you don't have to get your hands dirty to become a man.

You may be a ballet dancer. You know, I was tell the truth when I was it as a gymnast in rural Idaho, my parents were smart enough to put me in gymnastics because I was really small. And...

Brian Tome
Did you enjoy that nice white lycra tidy thing? Did you do look cute in it?

Todd Pierce
Like it was very attached to me that being a feminine man. And so I didn't get it because I was doing way harder stuff than them. And I do a standing back flip and or walk on my hands across the gym or do something like that to show off, to try to show them that look like I can do hard stuff too. But it wasn't until I, I got above five foot tall to where I actually realized that I could get involved in other sports.

But, you know, so as a gymnast, I was doing way harder stuff, but it was just perceived as a feminine thing. And so I just think that, you know, in a world where I don't care if you're a ballet dancer or you sit and write poetry all day, you can become very masculine. And that if you know ways to continue to take risks and challenge yourself and push it to a limit that that others won't.

Brian Tome
Absolutely. I think you're your profession. Your lifestyle just has a lot of spiritual transferable principles. Let's talk about if I were to come over there and I was to ride a horse, I would get bucked off. You get bucked off them regularly, or at least you did

Todd Pierce
Still do.

Brian Tome
Still do when you get bucked off, off the horse. We have all these phrases like, you know, you get bucked of the horse, dust yourself off and keep going.

You know, all these clichéd phrases are there because there actually is truth in them. There's there's a kernel there to bring into our life. So as you've processed through, I'm getting thrown off a horse. I'm putting myself in a dangerous situation. I broke a bone. What are the spiritual parallels for you that help you make sense of it all? If you could, like, walk us through any of those.

Todd Pierce
I think I'll just give you a scenario.

I had a series that it was a tour I was on where I was consecutive events where I was training a horse and giving a presentation through it. You're starting with a fresh, untrained horse every time in Texas at the time. And I'd gotten bucked off the horse the night before and broke my scapula, which is my shoulder blade, and which is a pretty tough bone to break. And it's super painful. But I had to finish that event.

There's a live audience I need to make sure that I was making my point. But then the next day, I actually had to do another event, so I'm fairly crippled and in a lot of pain. I couldn't clear my lungs because I couldn't cough properly. So to get the, get back on that next night really was why am I doing this? And it comes back to what are the unshakeable things or what are the core values or principles that make it to where I can do what others can't do.

And it had everything to do with, OK, what do I have control over right now? Because I feel powerless in a lot of ways. My physical strength was the thing that was most compromised, so it made it that more important that what I do get to control is what's going on inside of me, because you can't go in there afraid you can't go in there, anxious. You can't go in there mad. I couldn't use any of those.

You know, anger or aggression like raw aggression would have been OK, by God, I can do this. I'm a cowboy, I'm tough. That can't work in that situation, maybe could work in a rodeo situation. But that horse is going to pick up on all of that.

Brian Tome
Interesting.

Todd Pierce
So I had to get back to what makes me feel alive. What what's what's the peace here? And if we translated that into everybody's life, I fail.

I'll just use my wife as an example. I fail her on a regular basis, talk about getting back on a wild bronc?! Re-entering into a relationship with my wife, knowing that I hurt her last time I was close to her. Really comes down to what's the core principles that make it to where I can say I love this woman and I'm willing to to re-engage in this relationship after I've already hurt her or she's hurt me. And and so it it does translate not with without all the the hype and the, like you said, cliche.

This is a core value that we all get to live with. And Jesus modeled it perfectly. That's why he could walk into any situation, regardless of how dangerous or hostile it might be or even religious it might be. And his posture always stayed the same. And he showed something that no one had ever seen before. Like you can keep reading the Scriptures if you want to. Let me show you what it looks like in human form.

Brian Tome
So when you're on that horse and you're just holding on for dear life. I got to think. That translates to other things that all you can do is hold on. Like I feel like right now during where we are in COVID-19 like. What's your plan for the future? What's your thing? I got no plan. What's your vision? I got no vision. What's what's a win for you. I tell her a win for me is I freaking hang on. That's a win. I come, I'm tired, emotionally frustrated. I don't like not doing the things that I like to do. I don't like doing the things I have to do. A win for me is just to hang on a little longer. I wish I was only eight seconds, that's all. Am I too negative here right now, am I too, too narrow minded, what would you say to someone like me or others who feel that way?

Todd Pierce
I would say I feel you, bro. And it doesn't mean that we're going to stop, though, because we have each other's back. You know, there's two different guys I was a mentor or pastor or chaplain, whatever you want to call me for, for 16 years after my professional career, and I could tell which guys were going to make it on tour, which was the top 40 in the world. I could tell which guys were going to make it in their career by just watching the first four or five times they got on their bulls because the guys that won learned how to deal with failure.

They didn't change things just because they failed. And secondly, that they only were concerned about the things they had control over. Those guys are the ones are going to be standing at the end of the year. Those are the ones they're going to win world championships because there's so many factors, Brian that go into a sport like that that are completely out of your control. Including which bull you are going to get on or which horse you're going to ride? So I drew something that I don't want to get on.

We all drew something this year that we don't want to get on. And, so we better get back to what we know we were great at and we better get back to what the foundational truth is that that got us here in the first place. I'm I'm here on this tour because I did these things excellent. And that's still what I have control over. I got control of my equipment. I've got control over my own fitness to to a degree.

I've got a complete control of my own emotions and my mental game, everything else. It's just a drawing contest. I don't get to control anything else. Fit that into your life. What do you have control over? And for me in this stage, I've got control over me--what's going on inside of me. And if I lose control, that I've lost control.

Brian Tome
So learn from your mistakes and learn to live with what you can't control, which is all things pandemic and election related and everything else related.

Todd Pierce
Yeah, learn from your mistakes, but also don't take getting falling down is a mistake. Backing off is not a mistake. Sometimes you just get beat. So if we're going to walk on water, we better learn how to swim because in this day in age I don't hear the voice of God well enough to know that I'm doing what he said to do. If I'm doing what he said to do, I can't lose. But when I feel like I've lost, that doesn't need to equate to I need to learn a lesson here. A lot of times it does. But if I got bucked off, it's just because I'm trying to do something really hard to make a joke out of it, but I've gotten really good at getting bucked off. I like to tell you the truth, I'm better than anybody that I know at getting bucked off, and that's why I can do it without creating a ton of drama with the horse. And I can do it without getting hurt a lot of times.

But let's get good at that. Let's get really good at not being afraid of failing.

Brian Tome
Yeah, that's a good word. We we don't have high enough self-esteems to recover from failure. We don't have high enough self-esteem. Shoot, man the average young male doesn't have a high enough self-esteem to ask a girl on a date. You know, it's texting and hanging out with friends, never putting myself out there and actually asking somebody out because we're afraid of failure.

Todd Pierce
I think men are we're just shackled with it, Todd. It's not good. It's not good. It's not good for our culture.

Brian Tome
Yeah, let's let's do our part in bringing some hope to 'em.

All right, a couple of things I got to talk to you about here. Yellowstone. You ever seen the TV show Yellowstone?

Todd Pierce
I haven't.

Brian Tome
Oh, come on. How have you not? I thought I could. I can hear from you. Is that the way it really is on a dude ranch? Have you heard about it?

Todd Pierce
No. Yellowstone National Park just right here by us. Is that what you're talking about?

Brian Tome
I see this exactly why you're a real man and I'm old man wannabe because I actually stream things on Netflix while you're actually out living your life and breaking bones. No, yeah. Yeah. Yellowstone as they are as a series with Kevin Costner set in Montana. And he has this massive this massive thing he's trying to keep. And there's a young guy and their name is Jimmy. He's a he becomes a rider and he breaks whatever you haven't seen. So we can't commiserate it. If you ever lower your standards and actually stop living your life and watching TV instead. Watch Yellowstone.

Todd Pierce
OK

Brian Tome
Editorial note after the fact. This is a very brutal show with incredibly mature and some controversial themes. Watch at your own risk. But I'll go on record and say I liked it. I liked it a lot.

All right, here's the deal. Todd, you have been your questions have been amazing. You've been like on point and amazing. I think you're up for the lightning round. You think you can handle the lightning round, Todd. You do have the gonads to handle a topic and answer it in one sentence or less. Can you do it?

Todd Pierce
One sense I ain't scared.

Brian Tome
Alright, I aint' scared. Maybe I'll let you have it on two. Here we go. Lightning round.

A few topics. Give it to us real quick. Best advice for marriage.

Todd Pierce
Learned a lesson to make her feel heard.

Brian Tome
The key to perseverance.

Todd Pierce
Knowing why you're doing it.

Brian Tome
The one thing if everybody hearing you today, if everybody did it today, what is the one thing that would change their life?

Todd Pierce
Knowing who God is as a father.

Brian Tome
Most unconventional lesson you've taught your sons.

Todd Pierce
How to swim?

Brian Tome
Todd. You're just, now you're just downright boring, you're just like you're just you're just the rules guy.

You're just

Todd Pierce
There's one story behind every...

Brian Tome
I expected you'd give me like four sentences about how you cut your kid's pinkie off to teach him manners or something like that. No, you're just giving boring stuff that somebody in the suburbs give.

Todd Pierce
Okay, my son forgot to water the horses, so he went without water for a day.

Brian Tome
That's what I'm talking about, that's why you're on the aggressive life. Did he die?

Todd Pierce
Nope, he was just thirsty.

Brian Tome
Well, I love that. Went without, didn't feed the water, went without water for now. Now, when you tell them that, does he does he keep trying to convince you that he should be able to have water? Or is he learned that when Dad says that he really means it?

Todd Pierce
Well, while he's thirsty, it keeps convincing me that it wasn't his fault until he actually realized that this is for real. So he's I don't know that he's ever forgot again.

Brian Tome
That is great. I am so glad that my kids I was right in the end of it. I was doing stuff to my kids that if parents did them to their kids today, I'd have had child services called on me. I mean, whatever it was, the the the giving my son sharp knives when he was four, four and older, everytime I come back from a trip, give him sharp knives. How he practiced spanking. Oh, my gosh.

You know, spanking kids. Challenges I would give them just, you know, when they were when they were young little kids having them at a Reds game baseball game, walk out of my eyesight and stand in line and get me a hot dog and be out of my sight for 20 minutes and then come back, you know, just on and on. We've got to push our kids and we've got to we've got to give them extreme things if we want them to rise up. Yes?

Todd Pierce
Yes.

I don't know what good a double life is or an unloaded gun. So just treat all of them like they're sharp or they're loaded.

Brian Tome
Oh, guns. I wasn't supposed to I wasn't planning on talk like I did, I bought a new hunting rifle today. So manly. Have you ever hunted...

Todd Pierce
Today?

Brian Tome
Today. Have you ever hunted elk?

Todd Pierce
Yes, sir.

Brian Tome
Yes, of course you have.

Todd Pierce
Yes.

Brian Tome
I thought I could ask something manly. Oh, no. People actually hunt elk. Now of course you have. Well, I'm going to hunt my first elk in a week or so out to Colorado. So I've got I've got a I got a variety of guns, but I do not have a hunting rifle. So I bought a teka and three hundred win mag. I am I am very excited about it.

Todd Pierce
Does it have a muzzle brake on it.

Brian Tome
No. It has a muzzle break that I can put on it.

It does come with it, but it's...

Todd Pierce
Put it on. Or actually don't. Shoot it, shoot it once before you put it on. So you can feel what it's like to be a man and kicked by a mule.

Brian Tome
It's that bad?

Todd Pierce
Oh, they kick. Yeah, they're not fun. You know, you start flinching before you pull the trigger. So you need to put the muzzle brake on.

Brian Tome
All right. That's good. I've never had a gun and have a muzzle brake or even have the right to throw out a barrel on my forty five, which someday I'm going to get my license and put a suppressor on there. But this is my first actual like hunting kill, so I mean, I've got I've got guns and rifles that are for shooting itself, but it's my first, like, long rifle, something will die with this in my hands, so.

Todd Pierce
Yeah, well, bring warm clothes. It's winter.

Brian Tome
I know. I hear you. OK, two more here. Go back to the lightning round, OK? The importance of men in our world.

Todd Pierce
They're every bit as important as women. We need each other, but if we're talking about masculinity. It's absolutely vital to our survival that we learn how to be masculine and dangerous and tender and compassionate.

Brian Tome
What is the secret to holding on?

Todd Pierce
Everybody needs an anchor, and so it needs to be something that doesn't move.

It's the only way you're going to be able to hold on and you need to know what the truth is about who you are.

Brian Tome
Todd, this is great, great, amazing stuff, is there anything else you're going, hey, man, I meant for you to ask me about this. I really wanted to talk about that. And I didn't tee up anything else you want to talk about.

Todd Pierce
Oh, bro, you've already like I want to talk about everything with you because I know what your heart is, but the. Probably the most important thing would be is that people have got access to a Bible, make sure that that Bible is leading you to an encounter with the Father, because most of what we listen to or we hear is nonverbal. And if all we're doing is reading the Bible as though it's a text, we've got no voice to give it. We've got no context to give it. We've got no emotion to it. But when you know this is coming from a heart of a father that wants to empower and equip people, then I could say there's one book that I would recommend is by a man named Andy Taylor that's called Reading your Bible for all it's worth.

And it's just really how do we get equipped and how do we get farther? If we didn't have a father and God, that's exactly who God is. And so until we learn to relate to him as father, the Bible is not ever going to make sense. And so that would be the probably the most important thing I'd say in the context of this conversation, because we've got a world of men out there that aren't being fathered and they're like, well, how do I get it?

And if you don't have a man to help you do that, the word of God really is a living thing that that can father you as you allow Holy Spirit to do that.

Brian Tome
That's great. Fantastic. So, Todd, if someone wants to hear about what you're doing and follow up with any other great ideas you have any place where people could go or how people can follow you on social media.

Todd Pierce
Yeah, RidingHighMinistries.org is a website, so that's kind of the pathway to to anything. We're doing a thing called Ground Shakers right now, which I'm not sure if maybe that's where you guys got that passage from, but it's all about the fact that we're living in a world that's shaking what is unshakable and how do we get to that. And it's through me working with a lot of horses that that we teach those principles.

Brian Tome
Well, there you have it, boys and girls. We've got another episode of the Aggressive Life. How often can you get to hear a real live cowboy talk about physical things and spiritual things? If you like this podcast, why don't you like it or don't you subscribe to it? Why don't you tell people about why don't why don't you rate it on whatever your streaming platform is? We want to get this kind of stuff out as many hearts and minds as possible because people are hurting and we've got some answers for them.

Todd Pierce gave us answers today. Welcome to the Aggressive Life.

Hey, thanks for listening for more aggressive living, head over to BrianTome.com to get signed up to the mailing list to get regular shots of positive aggression sent straight to your inbox. And while you're there, you can also find articles, podcasts and books. I'm also active on Instagram search Brian Tome, special thanks to the band Judges for the music. The Aggressive Life with Brian Tomes, a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.