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Hey, this is Brett. I've been hosting the AWIN podcast now for 16 years. A thousand episodes in the archives. We've got a lot of stuff that you can listen to. If you want to hear our most popular episodes that have ever been published in the Art of Manliness, I created a playlist with our top episodes. If you want to check out that playlist and listen to them, head over to aom.is slash popular.
That's aom.is slash popular to see a playlist of our most popular episodes. Check it out, aom.is slash popular. Hope you enjoy it. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Community is one of life's most valuable but increasingly scarce resources. While we hear about a supposed epidemic
loneliness many men still resist joining groups or struggle to maintain involvement after initial enthusiasm wanes. Today on the show Frank Schwartz will help us understand the barriers to community and how to overcome them. Frank is the CEO of F3, a free, all-volunteer men's leadership organization
workouts to bring men together and supports hundreds of decentralized chapters worldwide. In the first half of our conversation, Frank explains a second men's hesitation enjoying her How to navigate the wish stream of ideal why expecting perfection kills participation. We then discuss what makes leadership in a decentralized group Transcription by CastingWords when building a community of med. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is.
Frank Shorts, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me, man. Appreciate it. So you are, is it the CEO or president of F3? This is a very good question. And up until a couple of years ago, I could have said president, but now CEO, we kind of eliminated the president position. And the thing about F3 is, and guys who are familiar know, but those who aren't, everything's kind of very made up.
So we have sort of different names for what we do that are a little bit kind of inside baseball. And so, yes, CEO on paper, but the official title within F3 is Nantan, which is an Apache word kind of. meaning a cultural and spiritual leader. All right. So you're the CEO of F3. We've had the guys who started F3 on the podcast. This was back in 2017, episode number 324. And we'll link to that in show notes. But for those who aren't familiar, what is F3?
So F3 is a free... men's leadership group that uses workouts to trick you into coming out so we can teach you about leadership. That's really what it is. But essentially, it is a men's workout group. Our stated mission is to plant, to grow, and to serve small workout groups for men in order to invigorate male community leadership. The founders, as you mentioned, Dave Redding, Tim Whitmire, Dredd, and OBT, affectionately known within F3.
kind of looked around and said, hey, we see a lot of guys at church and other civic organizations and at work and whatever, a lot of guys just standing around with their hands in their pocket. and nobody doing anything about the world around them and influencing their community. And there's just not a lot of leading happening. And Dave, with his Special Forces background,
said, hey, you know, the place I learned the most about leadership and the way I think we could spread leadership throughout our communities and in our world is via training, physical training. It's a great place, pretty low risk to do that. And that wasn't the intention when it started.
which, again, you can probably go back and listen and hear it, but it wasn't the intention when it started, but it is kind of where it ended up. So the short answer to that very long answer I gave is it's a place where men can come into community with one another and get physically fit and learn leadership. And again, it's all free. And you can go to the A3 website and you can find, there's like chapters all over the world at this point. How many chapters are there at this point?
Ooh, I should have had that much more readily available on the tip of my tongue. I think it's about 450, maybe just shy of 450. Okay. And so typically the workouts are early in the morning before work and it's a bootcamp style workout, calisthenics, things like that.
Yeah, typically body weight. Although some places, you know, there's kettlebells or sandbags and some of that kind of stuff that guys use. But yeah, typically, if you're sort of shot at the middle of the curve on an F3 workout, it's going to happen about 515, 530. sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later. It's going to be a lot of body weight and calisthenic type, you know, some running, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups.
And then really get a lot of whatever we can find. Yeah. So you do the workout and then there's also a fellowship aspect to it, a leadership aspect to this.
tell us more about that leadership component because again the workout is the hook you know that's like the trojan horse right for that other stuff it's just the way we sneakily trick you into coming because you know you go hey free workout and the guy goes all right i can try that i mean what's the problem So the three Fs are fitness, fellowship, and faith.
And really, you know, we don't have a program per se, but if you were to, again, if you were to kind of shoot at the middle and go, ah, what's typical, right? Guys get together early in the morning and work out together. It's pretty strenuous, pretty vigorous workout, generally speaking. And then we get together for what we call a confiteria afterward. You hang out.
You make friends and you get deeper in fellowship with one another because, and you know this probably as well or better than most anyone, community is really where we're going to save the country, where we're going to do our best work is in community with one another. Ciao !
We put men in community with one another. And then what happens inevitably once you do that is guys start looking at their lives and go, well, now that I've got these things more or less squared away, right? I've lost some weight. I've got some friends. Well, now what? What am I supposed to do now? And they start looking outside themselves now that they are more settled. They start looking outside themselves and saying, well, what can I do for others?
And that's the big question of faith. What is it that exists outside yourself? And how can you live in such a way that you can kind of wear yourself out in the service of that thing? So we don't make any kind of determination about, well, a guy ought to believe in Jesus Christ, or a guy ought to believe in Buddha, or a guy ought to believe in whatever. We just say, you've got to believe in something bigger than yourself in order to be a virtuous leader.
And that's what we do. And so a lot of times in those meetings after workouts, guys will study. They might study certain kinds of books, you know, whatever. We have a book that Dave wrote, Dred wrote, called The Q Source. And it sort of outlines our overall leadership philosophy and framework. And so guys, we'll study that together and we'll discuss that together. We've got podcasts about it and all kinds of stuff.
So I wouldn't say there's like a super formal program, but we do have what we call stuff worth trying. And so you kind of get in there and you're like, oh, hey, I don't know if this will work for you or not, but here's the framework. Maybe try it until you find something better. But that's the idea is to create leaders amongst men and to take those things that we learn in what we call the gloom, which is those pre-dawn hours when your family's sleeping and work hasn't started calling yet.
Those things that we learn there and take them home, take them to the community so we can be better people. And the leadership structure of F3 is unique. It's decentralized. Tell us more about that, how that works. Absolutely. Conceptually, I think Dave and Tim early on were like, We can't lead everywhere. We can't be everywhere. And if really what we're called to do is to create leaders, then we're going to have to hand off the power here as time goes on.
The idea is that if you start making rules, then you have to make more rules to enforce those rules, and it kind of becomes this big spiraling thing, and then pretty soon you've got 5,000-page bills getting introduced into Congress, right? So we live by a mission, a credo, and five core principles. And the idea is that every man has been born and put on this earth to be a leader. That is his job. That is what he has been created to do. And so what we try and do is help guys to recapture that.
We want men to lean into that part of themselves and to figure out how to... To not just lead a workout well or to even manage something well, but to truly influence others for good in every place that they're in. Okay, so it's all volunteer. I feel like I didn't answer the question very well. No. Oh, right, right. We were sort of decentralized. Since every man is a leader, we say, okay, then I can't be in charge of where you are. Because, Brett, you're in Tulsa, right? Correct.
Yeah, so I don't know what's happening in Tulsa. I can't tell you what to do in Tulsa. I don't have any idea of what the right thing to do will be where you are. So I have to teach you how to lead and give you the power and the empowerment, I guess, really, to say, hey, you make those decisions. I think that, honestly, not to put too fine a point on it, but that's been one of the best things I learned for myself from F3 is that I don't need permission to be a man.
I don't need permission to be a leader. I think that's something that I think men and maybe people in general kind of crave in our world anymore. We want someone else to tell us what to do. I don't know whether it's because we just don't want to make the decision or because we want it to be their fault if it doesn't go well or something. I don't know. But we don't seem to want to take the personal responsibility. And F3 teaches us that there isn't anybody else responsible but you.
And you're the CEO, but again, this is volunteer. You're not paid to be the CEO. This is all volunteer. No salary here. Well, tell us about your experience with F3. When did you join and why did you join? So I joined in late 2014, and the reason I joined is because I was overweight, and I had sleep apnea, I had high blood pressure, I had high cholesterol, and my doctor was like, hey, guess what? You're a stroke waiting to happen.
So I've got to get you healthy somehow. We want you to live for your young kids. And I'll send you the picture. You'll love it. but essentially I was like, well, I got to get in shape somehow. So I started going to the gym, but I kept hearing about this F3 thing, kept hearing about it, kept hearing about it, kept hearing about it. And finally I was like, fine, I'll just go.
And so I showed up one Saturday and I was hooked. I mean, I was absolutely hooked. There was just something very magical about the fact that it's always outdoors, no matter what it was freezing cold. I mean, like, horrifyingly cold because it was november when i went out for my first one on a saturday and uh there was just something invigorating about like we're outside in the elements and then at the end of every f3 workout we have something called a cot or a circle of trust
and it's a place for men to kind of lay down their burdens next to their brothers where we can pick it up together. The old saying, a burden shared is half a burden, a joy shared is twice the joy, something along those lines. And so it's a place where you can kind of lay down your burden and say, hey, help. You know, and I've heard everything. But there was something about that end piece laying my hand on another guy because you get in kind of a big circle and you kind of huddle up.
And then feeling that energy from other men who were in the same spot I was trying to figure this out together. It was just magical. It was magical. So I kind of jumped all in, you know, both feet.
And I ended up finding myself in just weird coincidental places. If you're a believer in coincidence, then it was coincidental. For me, it was providential. And I just would find myself bumping into the right kind of people and just volunteering and jumping in to say, yeah, no, I can help with that or whatever it might be around the F3 universe.
And then pretty soon, you know, became really good friends with Dredd, Dave Redding. And we kind of figured out how we're going to do this together. So, you know, there was a guy he handed it off to. And then that guy, you know, stepped down and handed it off to me. And that's the way it'll always go forever. And I think, you know, kind of to touch on both things, how I got involved and why I got involved is.
A, how it was almost by accident and how I became the leader of this whole deal. I think also it was almost, again, coincidence or however you want to look at it, but almost by accident. We're just sort of right place, right time. And I think God put me where he wanted me to be. I think that the nice thing, or maybe the nice thing, but the beautiful thing about this is that I will serve for a period of time, and then I will have accomplished what I need to, and I'll hand it off to somebody else.
And so to kind of harken back to the how do you decentralize this thing is first thing you have is a mission. Second thing you have is no ego. i can't lead the mission must lead the mission must take us to the next level the mission must take us where we want to go
I'll help make decisions along the way to support that mission or to move us forward toward that mission. But ultimately, that's how we decentralize it, right? We only commit ourselves to these very few things. We don't try and run an organization. We try and keep a mission in men's hearts and they'll run the organization. They'll figure it out where they are. You guys will figure it out there in Tulsa.
I'm curious like how, I mean, your life has obviously changed because of your involvement with F3, but how have you seen like other men's lives change during your involvement with F3? Sure. There's easy ways, obvious ways. Guys lose weight. They get a little more fit. They start looking better in the mirror. Their health gets better. Their mindset gets better.
that's the easy stuff that we have seen things in f3 where look and one of our our core principles is that it's open to all men no matter what so number one it's always free as you mentioned number two is that it's open to all men And when we say amen, we absolutely mean it, Brent. And so we have convicted felons working out next to billionaires in the same workout. You'd never know. You'd never know. And so...
The way that this changes men or the things that it does is it turns a light on in their hearts again. Because it doesn't matter what your lifestyle has been or will be. It doesn't matter where you've been, where you came from. What matters is that you're a man. When you are a man, you have this need inside you. You have this desire inside you. And the world has a tendency to try and figure out a way to...
quiet that spark down, right? To get that drive tamped down so that we can control you and we can make sure that you become non-dangerous to the things that we're trying to do. So F3 kind of wakes you up. And so we hear stories of guys who beat alcoholism. We've saved marriages, you know, and guys attributed to F3. And, you know, we, people who have, you know, who have been steeped in addiction, who have come out of it because they say, you know, being around you guys has,
made me realize I got to do better in my life and turn their lives around, right? So it's almost innumerable, the number of stories that we could tell. that are out there and guys that in a very acute way, I changed my life today. That's almost innumerable. Probably in some ways for every single guy, however many there are, we estimate something like 75, 80,000 guys, right? So there's 80,000 different stories that we could tell of how it impacted a man's life and made his life better.
That's awesome. So I wanted to bring you on the podcast today to talk about leading groups, like leading men's groups. or even just forming a group of guys who you're trying to get some friends going. Because I know a lot of our listeners, that's something they've been trying to do, they struggle with.
And they run into these issues and they just feel like it's impossible. So I want to tap into your expertise with your experience, establishing the culture in F3 where guys get together. And then you also have other leadership experience as well. And maybe you can find some insights that F3. from F3 that we can apply to other domains of our lives. I think you can. So the first question is, you know, you hear a lot about the male loneliness crisis.
Men today, they seem incredibly lonely. They're looking for friends. But at the same time, men, they seem resistant to joining a community group or even getting things going with another guy just to hang out. uh what do you think is going on what is what's the tension going on there? What do you think's behind that? I tell you, here's what I think, and I could be wrong, but I think that the hesitancy on the part of men to do this kind of thing is, well, a number of things. One is fear.
terrifying is afraid to fail He's afraid to fail. He's afraid to have people criticize him. He's afraid to say, I'm making a stand because that's not an easy thing to do. And I think guys are afraid of that. And I don't blame them. It ain't fun. You know, to have other people be like, you suck. So I think there's some of that. I think there's some fear and some trepidation around doing that kind of thing. But I think also...
It's kind of like we were alluding to before. The thing that I think keeps guys from doing this is they really believe that there has to be some that there's some right way to do it, that they've been just kept out of the loop. You know, they just don't get to know what that right way is. And other people seem to be doing it just fine. But gosh, you know, why won't anyone write the book so I can just follow the program? Well, the problem is there's no program.
And if you believe there's a program, that just means you're following somebody else's dream. You're following somebody else's way of doing it. And so I think that, you know, to some degree, it's like, Why won't a guy do this? Because he thinks there's a right way to do it and he's afraid to fail.
i think that's a lot of it and i think guys get lonely because they have been convinced that somehow that that's what they are and that that's the epidemic and so we just believe it we're like well i guess we're lonely If they say so, I guess we're lonely. They're the ones doing the research.
Or maybe sometimes I think too, they're like, I'm afraid of putting myself out there. I don't really want to get hurt. I don't really want to whatever. I don't want to lead. I don't want to have to take on all that responsibility and all that kind of stuff. But I also think that one of the things that keeps a guy from
from feeling that connection or wanting that, you know, or whatever it might be, or to start a group like this is he just thinks that, again, since he thinks there's some way to do it right, that he shouldn't start until he knows that exact way. When the fact of the matter is, and again, you know this probably as well or better than anyone, is you won't know until you get out there and start. Right.
You just got to start. You just got to do something. And I think the momentum will help carry you. But this alleged epidemic of loneliness, and I do think it exists. I think that people do feel lonely. I think it gets solved by doing things. by being out there and being with people.
Yeah, I think you hear people talk about a lot like, oh, well, we no longer have any third places anymore to go to, etc. It's like, well, you can make a third place. Like, find a park and do a workout. Like, nothing's stopping you from doing that. Nothing. It's funny, and not that you and I frequent Starbucks a whole lot necessarily, but I love that the new CEO brought mugs back.
Yeah. Right? I don't know if he has the intention of turning it back into more of a gathering place or a third place or whatever you want to call it. I don't know. But nothing says get out of here like a paper cup with a sleeve You know, that they shove at the end of a counter and they just yell your name. You know, they don't want you to stay. They want you to get out. They got to turn tables, man, because they got money to make, because they got investors and shareholders to answer to.
And so you don't have to wait for Starbucks to create a third place for you. Although I do see it starting to trend more, maybe back that way. You don't have to wait for church. And you and I both know, like, theoretically, that should be a great third place to do that. It doesn't end up that way sometimes.
Right. And so sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. I was telling somebody this morning, actually, men look around, people look around a lot and go, somebody ought to do something about that. The thing that we teach and that we talk about a ton in F3 for sure is, hey, if you think that thought, the instant you think that thought, the next thought ought to be looking in the mirror and going, wait, I just remembered, I'm that somebody.
Yeah, totally agree. It's that whole Tocquevillian ethos. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about in Democracy in America. He talked about, you know, when he came to America, he noticed how Americans at the time, if there was like a tree in the middle of a road, they would just
form a group together and solve it. They wouldn't wait around. In Europe, they would wait. Who are we supposed to go to to get this thing? Which government agency is going to fix fix this and I feel like we've kind of lost that we've kind of become like Europeans in the 19th century that Tocqueville was criticizing I think you're right I think you're right and I think that's why I'm so grateful that, well, I say I found F3 but I think F3 found me.
to a large degree. And I think that's the way it always goes, right? If you want something good in your life, you'll either find this or it'll find you. But that's been the best thing is it's like guys no longer, guys that I hang out with anyway, we don't sit around going, somebody ought to do that. It's done before anybody had the thought of whether or not it should get done because we knew it should get done. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. Something I've seen in different organizations, whether it's like a sort of informal group of individuals like just guys trying to get together to do a workout together like a you know poker night once a month or even even more structured organizations like at a church group you'll see this phenomenon you'll get it going
And then you'll have guys who enthusiastically show up once or twice, and then they just vanish. And you're like, man, what happened? What's going on? So what do you think is going on there? Is it a failure of... unmet expectations or something else going on. You know, I think it's a similar problem. You know what January 19th is? I think it's the 19th. Yeah, it's like Quitter's Day or whatever. Quitter's Day, right? Exactly. So I think some of it's that.
You know, like everybody starts with great intentions, but boy, when the rubber meets the road and it starts to get hard. I don't want to show up for that. I'm supposed to be entertained, Brent. My phone taught me that. I'm supposed to be a consumer. The commercials, my YouTube pre-rolls taught me that. I'm supposed to just...
eat and drink and be merry. I'm not supposed to go do stuff. I'm not supposed to be something. And so I think guys show up and it happens in F3, as you might imagine. Some guys come out and they blaze out and I always get nervous. Like the guys who are just a little too enthusiastic. And I'm going to be like, eh, you're going to need to save some for the fifth lap here, Megan. You know, like you need to pump the brakes just a little bit because consistency is going to be energy every time.
Yeah. Forever and ever. Amen. Right. Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game. I don't know if you read that one, but it's a fantastic book. And essentially, you know, he kind of says most of us run around with this sort of finite mindset that there's a winners and there's losers. And there are in sports, you know, in places where there is a definite ending, a finite time period or whatever it might be, but there's no winning in life.
It is not a race. It never has been a race. It's a journey that we're all on together, theoretically, or we should be. And I think it's part of our culture where it's like, well, I showed up at the gym three times. I'm not in shape. I can't figure this out. I quit. And you go, well, now you have to show up for months and years. And then you have to stay at it. There's no arrival. Again, it's this finite mindset of,
well, you know, I thought after three times it was going to be perfect for me. And you go, well, the only way it was going to get perfect for you, brother, is if you stood up and made it perfect for you. You have to do it. You have to be the one responsible. You have to be the one involved.
And so even if you showed up to church or to the poker night or whatever, and after a couple of times, you're like, this was great. Maybe something didn't go your way. And you're like, well, screw that. I'm supposed to have everything I want all the time. Man, what a finite mindset. You're setting yourself up for failure.
But if you recognize that everything you do has purpose because it's part of this long and infinite journey toward your ultimate you know, self-actualization or whatever term you want to put on it, but for you to become what it is that you were meant to become, like if you recognize that and you can kind of, I hate the term, but lean into that.
man, like your life becomes infinitely better because you realize you're playing a long game. You're playing a very different game than other people are playing. And that's what I think is the great thing about F3 and really Art of Manliness and a lot of the things that are out there that we're doing is because... It isn't a finite thing. Everything that you see and encounter is a tool to help you on this journey and to make you a better person as you go.
And I think people forget that and they think, well, I didn't win after the third time, so I don't want to do that. I want to go where I feel good and happy and get my dopamine hit all the time. Yeah. No, I've seen that in my experience with different groups, whether it's at church. or even just friend groups, or we even see this on The Strenuous Life within our geographic groups.
i think some guys they go into these you know like oh man here's a group of guys doing things i want to be part of this community And then I think they have what's called, my wife, she wrote this great series on our news, our Substack Dying Breed about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ideas on how to live in a spiritual community. And Bonhoeffer talked about one problem he sees.
is that a lot of people have like, he calls it the wish dream of community. Like this idealized version of what it should be. And then once they actually encounter the reality of it, It doesn't meet that. And they're like, this sucks. It's not as great. I'm not getting what I thought I'd get out of this. I'm out of here. and i've seen that in so many groups where people i think they have like too high expectations
Or they have this overly idealized version. It's going to be like a Norman Rockwell painting. Everyone's just in the barbershop you know singing playing the banjo and it's this community and community can be that but it's also you have to deal with just annoying people you have to deal with friction and it's like i tell people like if you want community You have to want all of it. You have to want the good stuff and also the frustrating parts of it as well.
Oh, man. Preach, as they would say. Because that's exactly it. We've been taught to think And I don't know, maybe this existed before and we just didn't know because it wasn't as prevalent and it wasn't in our face like it is now with social media. But certainly social media has made it so that, you know, we look around and I look around and we go, well, but they're in Italy again.
We think that only the good parts get to exist. And if there's bad parts, it's because we did something wrong or the thing is wrong or whatever, because the lie is that everything is, it's utopia all the time. But the messy is what teaches you the things you need to know so that you can refine and make it better as you go. So when you show up to the whatever it is, or if you start the whatever it is,
And I can't tell you, Brent, and you probably did the same thing before AOM or Strange Life or any of those things came along too, right? I've started, I don't even know how many things that have just... you know gone out either in a nice blaze of glory failure or a slow whimper into the you know death in the corner failure I've started all kinds of groups. I've tried all kinds of crazy things to try and get done what I want to get done or to bring people together or whatever it might be.
And then I just look and go, well, it's kind of that Thomas Edison idea, right? I didn't invent a light bulb. I invented 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb. You know, I didn't discover the life of or whatever it was. And I feel similarly. I didn't discover how to lead a men's group. You know, I discovered lots of ways to do it wrong. And then I've tried to practice on the other end, you know, how to maybe not do it so wrong.
this time. That makes sense. Yeah, it's continual learning, Kaizen, whatever you want to call it. Sure. Talking about your experiences forming communities. Can it be intentionally engineered or does it have to be... like random or serendipity or is it a mixture of both? I'm going to say, yeah, it's probably a mixture of both to some degree. I don't like the word engineered just because I think it implies that there is some...
something that you can build. I want my bridges engineered because I don't want them to break. We don't want a lot of failure when it comes to bridges. So I don't mind failure when it comes to people. Because that's life. That's just part of how we do it. So I think intentionally engineered, maybe not engineered, but does it have to be intentional? Boy, I tell you what, it better be. It better be. Because if you just, I mean, it can't be complete chaos and just like hope for the best.
i think just like any good leader or any good leadership model you've got to have a mission in mind you've got to have an end state in mind where are we headed What is it that we're trying to accomplish here? And not just tasks, but again, going back to what he might say is a just cause. What is that thing that is much bigger than all of us that we're trying to get to? And if we have a good sense of what that is, then we can be intentional toward that.
And then what you have to do, I think, is you have to allow for the chaos around you, right? So you'll be intentional about the things that are... supposed to be controlled, which is adherence to mission maybe, or enforcing standards when it comes to like, hey, you're not living the core principles or whatever, right? but that's more of an arm around a guy and telling him one-on-one kind of thing. But then I think you have to allow for the chaos around you and the...
you know, the serendipitous accidents or whatever you want to call them, right? If, if, And you know, it's actually a good example in a way. to harken back to the early days and kind of the founding of F3. And I don't remember if it's been a while since I've listened to the original podcast that you were talking about from 15 or 17, whatever it was. But the guy, you know, the group that this sort of broke off from was a guy who wanted to control things.
He was capping the membership. He was the one leading every time, you know, stuff like that. But what was recognized was if I let go of control, and if I let go of the leadership, and if I simply teach others to lead rather than try and be the leader all the time. And if I adapt to the circumstances that are in front of me and incorporate them, then I'll come out with a better product.
If it had only gone the way that Dave and Tim and even myself, if I was only willing to accept the things that I think are good ideas, we'd die. We die. I don't have good ideas. I mean, I have some good ideas every once in a while, but that's why the other thing I would, you know, people who are starting groups, don't do it by yourself. Don't do it by yourself.
You can be the person who has most of the vision. You might be the good organizer or whatever. But by golly, you better find some people who have some complementary skill sets and mindsets. and bring them in and you got to influence them and love them into buying into the dream and the mission of what you're trying to get done. Otherwise, I mean, cause I, you know, there's no way I can do this thing by myself. And so I embrace the chaos because,
Either A, I'll get stronger as a man or a leader, or B, I'll learn some stuff that will actually make the group much stronger. Or there might be ideas that it's like, oh, well, that actually is a whole different direction we might take things that we hadn't thought of before. If it was up to me, if it was just up to my vision or our initial thoughts, it would be engineered to failure.
That makes sense. It's a total sense. I'm curious if you've seen this problem in groups, or in F3, because I've seen it in groups that I belong to. Everyone joins a group for different reasons. You think they're all joining for the same reason, but oftentimes they're not. I'm sure for F3, it's the same thing. Some guys, they just want the workout.
Others are there for the friends. Others are there for the leadership training. I've seen this in other groups I belong to where you think, oh, you're here for this thing. Then you see them getting really persnickety about another issue. It's like, oh, actually, you're not here for that thing. And then it causes all this conflict. So how do you balance competing ends in a group?
Well, I often say if it was easy, we wouldn't need leaders. You've got to recognize that any time you do one thing, you're going to get dynamically more of it and dynamically less of something else. And so there is always this eternal tension in leadership of figuring out, well, you know, all the different competing factors. So I say one thing I would say is yes.
Everyone joins a group for their own reason, but they stay typically for a very similar reason. And I think ultimately for a successful group, I think they have to stay for the mission. If they're dedicated to the mission, if they see those things and if they've experienced something in that group where they go, no, no, but I understand what we're really trying to get done here.
then you can look past a lot of the other stuff. Dave introduced me to something he called the Augustinian Code, although apparently it's dubious as to whether or not St. Augustine actually said it. And that is, in essentials, we'll have unity. In non-essentials, we'll have liberty. But in all things, we'll have charity.
And so I think you have a desire and a dedication and a focus on a mission and then a guy joins for whatever reason he joins for but I think he stays because he says no I understand that this stuff that is greater than me these things that are bigger than me Those are things that I serve. I take myself out of it. And then he stays because he wants the same thing we want, which is...
In our case, you know, to help build leaders and to unlock men's hearts and minds so that they can be maximally effective in their areas of influence, whatever that might be. So I think that's the answer. Yeah, I think the key there is just communicate the mission constantly. That's all I do. Yeah, and if you think you've communicated enough, you probably haven't.
So in a traditional leadership setting to a company or even a church, there's typically a clear hierarchy, like the president, vice presidents, et cetera. F3 doesn't have that in these groups. So what does leadership look like in a decentralized volunteer community like F3? I'm sure there's lessons we can take from F3 to any other voluntary group that you might belong to.
Well, that is our hope. In fact, we would like you to take it to the non-voluntary groups that you belong to as well. Because I think there's things that we can teach about leadership that are definitely applicable in every area of life, even those that are non-voluntary. To your point, I think the number one thing to remember is you said, you know, what is decentralization? It looks messy. That's what it looks like.
to have no leader, you know, set person that you're like, well, he just told me, I guess I have to do it is messy. And it's funny because this is something that came up early on and my sort of serving at a national level in F3 was, one of the guys got really frustrated and he was like, what are the men thinking? Why can't they just do the thing that I want them to do? What are they thinking? And I had to say, I was like, well, I think they think that they're free to lead.
You know, I think this is your fault. Like you taught them that they're leaders. And then when they do the thing, you know, they're turning around trying to lead like you get mad at them. So it's kind of funny. But I think that we we want you to recognize in a decentralized situation. that every person ultimately is responsible for the outcome of their own lives. And so if they're leading a workout that day, yeah, they might be responsible for the individual outcome of that workout.
And they may have sort of positions or kind of different areas of responsibility or something within a region or group of F3 or whatever. I have a different job, I guess, technically than maybe some others, but ultimately. It isn't that one job is more important than another. It's understanding that, A, if I called the guys in Tulsa and said, hey,
You're going to do this for your workout tomorrow. I mean, when they stopped laughing, we could probably have a discussion about it, right? I don't have any, I can't tell anyone what to do. I wouldn't even pretend to. I wouldn't attempt it. Because number one, you know,
It's not my job. Number two, they understand now that they're the ones with the responsibility. And coming from me, it would be comical because they ask me questions all the time. You know, guys ask questions like, well, how old should a kid be before we let him come to an F3 workout? You're looking for a rule, and I get that, and I understand why you want it. But ultimately, you have to make that decision. You're the one responsible.
And I'm sorry, I know that frustrates you, but that's just the way that it is, right? I can't tell you what to do. So my job is not to tell you what to do. My job is to stand and to help you discover the right answer. that you already know or that you have in your heart? Or what is the answer that aligns most with the mission that we theoretically all believe in? That kind of a thing. And so I think it looks messy, but it also looks like just a lot of love, a lot of influence.
I don't remember how many times I've not answered a question to a guy, but suddenly at the end of our conversation, he seems to know what to do. No, I've had that experience too with A Strenuous Life. Yeah, right. I'll get... questions from guys like well does this count for this requirement or if i do this will it count or how about if i do this for our group is that okay
And we have this guiding principle in the strenuous life. I'm sure our strenuous life listeners know what I'm about to say. Phronesis, which comes from the Greek, ancient Greeks, is basically practical wisdom. It's like knowing what the right thing to do for the right reason, the right time for the right purpose.
And I just tell people, like, use your furnaces, man. Use your brain. Like, you've got, I trust you. You can make that decision. And a lot of guys, they get frustrated with that because they just want to be told exactly what to do. I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I want you to develop this capacity. to make decisions and use your judgment.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, fundamentally, and this is something that I think is so critical to leadership of any kind, certainly of any small group and very, very certainly of any sort of volunteer type organization like what we're doing out here. It's different when you've got a boss and a boss can just tell you what to do or they can threaten you to get fired or whatever. That's not leadership. That's just management.
So if you're going to be in real leadership, I think another thing that we forget amongst the many is that this is a love endeavor. This is a love endeavor. And our world has taught us that if I love you, That I will kind of plow the road ahead of you and you never have to worry about anything. I will accept you exactly as you are and I will let you do whatever you want because that's love. But it's not. It's permissiveness. And permissiveness actually is its own kind of sin in my estimation.
And so I think that what you're talking about there, that's real love. Real love is loving you enough to let you fail. It's loving you enough to let you figure it out and struggle through it and make your own decision. Dude, if I could just tell my kids exactly what to do and have them do it, my life would be infinitely easier.
It's infinitely easier. It is messy and horrifying that I send them on their way and they come to me and they're like, Dad, what should I do? And I look at them and I go, you've been taught how to make decisions. I think you should do that.
They don't love that, as you might imagine. But that's how I answer the things to the guys in F3 too. They're like, well, what should we do? I think you should employ those tactics and those techniques that you've learned along the way on how to make decisions, and you should do that. Because I can't tell you and I should not tell you. In fact, I love you too much to tell you. You have to know for yourself.
If I tell you it's what I think, if it goes wrong, then it's my fault. If it goes right, then it was my success somehow. And I love you too much. You get to do this. This is your deal. How should leaders of small groups of men, whether it's a church or you got a book club or whatever, how should they define success?
That's a good question. Every group is going to have its own definition, I'm sure. And so I would say success looks like adherence to whatever that mission is. So for me, how about this? How about I answer it this way? for F3. Here's what I think success looks like. And guys all over the country and even our board sometimes and certainly from outside organizations look and they're like, well, how are you measuring success? And I'm like, well, that's a good question.
It sounds like you probably have an opinion about that. Why don't you tell me what you think? And they're like, well, growth numbers. How many men are in F3? You should be tracking that. You should know. And I'm like, okay, but what if every guy in F3 is an idiot? But we have 500,000 of them, but they're idiots.
And they're like, oh, I hadn't thought about that. Exactly. So that can't be it. Okay, well, what if we have only 10 guys that, you know, in it, but they're really dedicated to the mission? Is that success? Again, I go, well, maybe. I don't know. Here's what I know. For me, success looks like I wore myself out. My personal success, right?
I wore myself out in the service of the mission. And I think success across the organization, for us anyway, is largely anecdotal. It's the stories I hear about men saying, I recaptured my life. My wife and I get along now. We snatched our marriage from the jaws of divorce. or it looks like I quit drugs and alcohol, or I lost 100 pounds, or whatever it is. The individual results of quote-unquote success, I think you're going to have as many as there are individual guys.
So I think success for us is knowing that we did the best we could to adhere to the mission and serve the thing that is greater than us. That's the best I can answer on that one. So then I've, had to struggle with as a leader of different groups I belong to is cultivating the patience, That's often required to lead whenever it seems like things are just going slower than you want.
Have you had that struggle as well? And what have you done to overcome it? Yeah, no, I struggle from a condition known as perpetual dissatisfaction. I don't know if you've said something similar, but no, patience is not my jam. I tend to move fast. I decide things fast. I live fast. In fact, a guy, CEO of a very large fitness company just yesterday was like, you have an intensity issue. And I was like, do I? That's interesting coming from you, but okay. But so I recognize that that's my mind.
I say that to say I have tons of biases, and I'm always going to be slightly dissatisfied or I'm always going to think that it's not moving fast enough or I'm always going to be unhappy with the result of something. And I'm happy with a lot of results, too. I don't get the impression that I walk around sad all the time going like, why can't everything be wonderful? It's not that at all.
but I know that I have biases. So the advice that I would give to someone starting a thing or who's looking to lead in any way, the way to cultivate that patience is to segment your life a little bit, right? So exhibit patients in those environments where it's appropriate. And then by golly, get yourself a mentor and get yourself a small group. We call them in F3, we call them shield locks.
You lock shields with two or three other guys, and those are the guys that hear the best and the worst and the hardest and the whatever. And I unload it to those guys, and they get to hear it. And then they get to tell me that my head is in my rear end. Or they get to tell me where I might be choosing poorly or where I might be choosing well.
So, okay, it's not moving as fast as I want. Fine. Too bad. It's moving as fast as it can. It's moving as fast as it's supposed to. The analogy I give a lot of times to guys is I go, All right. And because I'll say in their marriage, you know, something went wrong in their marriage and they're struggling and then they're trying to make good on it, but they can't seem to get their wife to forgive them and to move forward or whatever. And I said, well, here's the thing.
You think of it like a seed that you put in the ground. And you can put all the nutrients you want in that soil and you can cover it up at the perfect depth. and you can measure the pH and the moisture content, and you can make this thing just as optimal, the perfect amount of sunshine, keep the temperature, whatever it is, right?
But that seed is going to sprout above the edge of that soil when it is darn good and ready. And the only thing you can do is to consistently try and create a perfect environment or as optimal an environment as you possibly can. That's your job as the leader in the group or in the organization or whatever it might be. That's your job is to consistently try and create optimal conditions so that when growth is ready to happen, it happens. So again,
we get our minds caught in this finite game of, well, but I didn't get this done by X date. And so it must be not going well, or it must be a failure or any number of things. Right. And I just say, nah, man, again, I think you're just, You're playing the wrong game. as a leader particularly of a volunteer organization, but I think as a leader in general.
It only serves us to remember that this is an infinite game that goes on forever and ever and ever. And so patience is all you have. Time is all you have. You can't control any of the other factors. I can do what I can to maintain an optimal environment.
And then when that seat is ready, it'll come up. Well, Frank, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about F3? Just go outside and whether you see some crazy guys in a parking lot somewhere barking in cadence, then you'll know. That's where we... No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, go to F3Nation.com. There's a place like, if you've never heard of F3 before and you think to yourself, man,
That sounds like a thing I might want to try. Go to F3Nation.com. You'll see a link in there up at the top that says locations. I think it's under like new or get started or something. I don't remember now. But you find the map, find the locations, find one near you. And men, just show up. Just show up.
And then we'll help you through the rest. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We'll guide you. We'll get you moving. But yeah, go someplace. Just find one near you and show up. And you can read all about us on the website there. Fantastic. Well, Frank Shorts, thanks for time. It's been a pleasure. Brett, I appreciate the time, my friend. Take care.
My guest name is Frank Schwartz. He's the CEO of F3. You can find more information about F3 at f3nation.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash men's groups where you can find links to our resources and we can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanly.com where you find our podcast archives. And make sure to sign up for a new newsletter. It's called Dine Breeze.
sign up at dyingbreed.net. It's a great way to support the show directly. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, I'm Brett McKay. Remind you to listen to my podcast with Brett McKay. you've heard interaction. Last quick recommendation before you go. In episode number 386, The Rise and Fall of the American Heavyweight Boxer, writer Paul Bestin walks us through the golden age of heavyweight boxing. Ali.
Frasier Foreman and the cultural impact of the sweet science's biggest personalities. Again, it's episode number 386, The Rise and Fall of the American Heavyweight Boxer. Or you can go directly to it by going to aom.is slash Boxing Kings. aom.is slash Boxing Kings. I think you're going to enjoy it.