BraveCo Podcast

James opens up about a hard situation: about five years ago his wife finally confessed to a fantasy and masturbation habit that had been part of their marriage from the start, and he's been trying to figure things out ever since. He uses the term dismissive avoidant and tells me he regularly gets what's called a DARVO response. I walk him through a pro tip I live by: how you want a conversation to end is how you should start it, so instead of leading with accusation, open with love and a real invitation to grow closer together, and let her see you become the one who brings the plan, whether that's research into the Gottman Institute's work or finding an actual therapist.James also shares that he's in a place where, in his words, cows outnumber people, so good local counselors are scarce, and I remind him Zoom has made that a non-issue if he's willing to look. From there we shift to Matt's question, which is one I think so many men carry quietly: a constant inner voice telling him he's not measuring up, even after a year of real, visible progress in the gym, his diet, and his discipline. We dig into where that negative self-talk comes from and why the voice of shame is so sneaky, it shows up disguised as a friend trying to motivate you, when really it's just trying to convince you that your value comes from your output instead of from who made you.I get vulnerable here and share something I don't talk about often: years ago I went through a nervous breakdown that cost me the use of my arms for almost a year, I couldn't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or open a Coke bottle, and the fear that came after was worse than the disability itself. It took my dad praying over me and telling me, "You believe that you're fragile, so you live fragile. You're not fragile, you're agile," for something to click. I talk through how I partnered with that declaration, rewired my thinking breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and eventually loved myself into real strength, and I give Matt (and you) a two-pronged path forward: take radical, daily action, and anchor your worth in who God says you are, not in what you produce. If any of this hit home, please like, comment, subscribe, and follow us at braveco.org for our next live Q&A. Stay brave out there.Chapters:00:00 – Cold Open02:43 – James's Question: Living With a "Dismissive Avoidant" Spouse and DARVO 05:36 – How You Want the Conversation to End Is How You Should Start It 08:21 – The Gottman Institute and Building a 12-Week Plan 11:10 – The Voice That Keeps Saying "You're Not Measuring Up" 13:56 – Why the Voice of Shame Pretends to Be Your Friend 16:46 – Losing the Use of His Arms for a Year 19:33 – Taking Every Thought Captive: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Declarations 22:18 – The Two-Prong Approach: Taking Action Without Tying It to Your Worth 25:09 – Radical Ownership: Rewiring Your Inner Voice for GoodCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

First up is Adam, whose 14-year-old son has a girlfriend, and whose kids' phones lock at midnight for good reason, because that's exactly when he looked down and saw a text that led to a hard conversation. Website: braveco.org/discipleshipHis son admitted they'd taken their shirts off, and when Adam asked why he went along with it, his son said something that stuck with both of us: "I just didn't want to disappoint her. I was scared she was going to break up with me." Adam's stuck on two things, whether he or his wife should be the one to tell the girlfriend's parents, and how to actually get to that heart issue in his son instead of just handling the surface problem.I walk Adam through what a safe place actually means, because a lot of dads think it means no boundaries and no consequences, when really it's the opposite. I tell him about the time I made a similar mistake with my own girlfriend, and how my dad chose to speak to the king in me instead of the fool, thanking me for telling him the truth before we ever got to consequences. From there it's about helping his son own the mess he made and figure out how to clean it up, because trust isn't built by never messing up, it's built by how you repair it. We talk through what it looks like for a 14-year-old to take real responsibility, godly leadership in a relationship, and the actual red flag parents should watch for, not one mistake in the heat of the moment, but a girlfriend who isn't bothered by where things went. If she's fine with it becoming the new normal, that's the real problem, and it's worth having that conversation directly.The second question comes from Eric, who's almost 50 and has walked his whole life without a father, spiritual or otherwise, and is trying to figure out how to move through the stages of manhood John Eldridge talks about without that foundation. I tell him the truth: you can't always choose a father, a father has to choose you, but you can build a brotherhood starting tomorrow, and for most men that's actually the bigger gap, not the missing father, but the missing brothers running beside them. I point him toward Brave Co's free Foundations of Masculinity course and our groups built specifically around healing father wounds, and I give every guy listening the same pro tip: start with a hobby, not coffee, because shared activity builds real camaraderie faster than a sit-down conversation ever will. Every man needs a 3 a.m. guy, someone who'll actually show up, and building that starts today. Thanks for joining us on Brave Co, stay brave out there, and go check out braveco.org for the free course and our live Q&A schedule.Chapters:00:00 – Cold Open: The Midnight Text That Started It All 02:40 – The Dad's Dilemma: Who Tells Her Parents? 05:23 – "Speak to the King": Jason's Dad and the Power of a Safe Place 08:01 – What Does a Godly Man Leading a Girl Look Like? 10:43 – Responsibility, Not Punishment: The Real Lesson of Becoming a Man 13:25 – The Real Red Flag: Dating Someone With Different Values 15:57 – A Freshman a Year Behind: Navigating New Freedoms 18:37 – Eric's Question: Becoming a Man Without a Father 21:24 – Building Your Brotherhood When You Don't Have a Father 24:01 – Find a 3 A.M. Guy: How to Actually Build That BrotherhoodCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

Most boys see p*rn for the first time between ages 8 and 11, often by accident. Here's what it does to the brain.Jason sits down with Cole Zick, director of the non-profit More Revolution, to break down the actual science behind porn and sex addiction. Cole's own story is the rare exception, he never looked at porn and met his wife Caitlyn at 16, so his interest in the subject comes purely from research into why so many men sabotage their lives and families over it. Jason's story is the far more common one, addicted to masturbation at 10 and fully hooked on porn by 14, a two-year battle that defines the struggle most listeners already know firsthand. The two walk through the statistics together: nearly 70% of first exposures to pornography are accidental, a misclicked ad or a search gone wrong, and kids are now typically introduced to it between ages 8 and 11, long before any biological drive for it exists.They explain what that early exposure actually does inside a developing brain. It functions almost like a death of innocence, instantly sexualizing every future interaction with the opposite sex and training the brain, through pure repetition, to treat that first experience as "second nature." Fast forward to a 28-year-old man who deeply loves his wife and still finds himself manipulating for sex, and Cole traces that pattern straight back to what got wired in at age 10. Because sex inside an actual marriage, especially early on, is nowhere near as polished as what porn teaches the brain to expect, which is why so many men's first real sexual experience inside marriage feels like a letdown they can't explain.Cole and Jason get into just how distorted those expectations become, citing estimates that 45 to 85% of mainstream porn depicts violence or aggression, and that it reportedly takes 13 minutes of searching on Pornhub to find a non-violent scene. They explain the "power of first mention," the idea that whatever a person learns about sex first shapes everything after it, and walk through an actual lab study on mice to illustrate the role of novelty in arousal. That novelty effect is exactly what turns a wife "boring" in a struggling marriage, not because anything changed about her, but because a porn-conditioned brain has been trained to need constant variety, a pattern Jason and Cole say ends more marriages than people realize.The conversation moves into real neuroscience: dopamine and serotonin, the reward chemicals that make video games and porn so addictive because they deliver a payoff with zero work or relationship attached, versus vasopressin and oxytocin, the bonding chemicals that chemically attach a person to a partner whether or not they ever intended to. Jason shares his own embarrassing confession about getting hooked on Fortnite during COVID, and the two explain why the average American man has six sexual partners before his wedding day, and what that does to a person's capacity to actually bond for life.Where the episode turns practical is in how to actually break free. Cole details a famous study on Vietnam veterans and heroin, showing that changing your surrounding context can do more to break an addiction than willpower alone, and the two walk through setting real boundaries, understanding the detox period, and using the brain's neuroplasticity to build new pathways. Cole closes with the story of telling his father and sisters about his own struggle at 15 years old and wearing a white t-shirt every day for a year afterward as a daily reset, a moment he calls the turning point that made the fight to break free "a fair fight" for the first time.Chapters: 00:00 - Intro: Foundations of Masculinity04:23 - Why This Episode Is About the Science of P*rn 07:32 - Addicted at 10: The Shocking Early-Exposure Statistics 14:23 - Why Marriage Sex Can't Compete With Porn's Fantasy 19:55 - The Hidden War Every Porn-Raised Husband Fights 25:52 - Chasing the Orgasm Instead of Chasing Connection 32:25 - Why Porn and Video Games Hijack the Same Reward System 38:49 - Jason's Confession: How Fly Fishing Became His Own Addiction 44:52 - Why "I'll Fish Once a Week" Beats Willpower Every Time 50:33 - Why Tracking Your "Streak" Can Actually Backfire 56:54 - The 48-Hour Trigger Audit That Exposes What's Really Going On 1:03:38 - The Fight Is Winnable: Resources, Encouragement, and a Prayer#PornAddiction #ChristianMen===================================Foundations of Masculinity Small Groups: https://www.smallgroups.braveco.org/Foundations of Masculinity For Your Church: https://www.church.braveco.org/Jason's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayvallotton/CONNECT WITH BRAVECOWebsite: https://www.braveco.org/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/CONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

Jason Vallotton tackles spiritual leadership vs. control, pride vs. godly confidence, and waiting on God in our Live Q&A Show.Want to join the next one? Get alerts and stay connected: https://braveco.info/live-qa-with-jason-pageWe're back with our new live Q&A format on the Brave Co podcast, where I take your real questions on marriage, faith, and becoming a stronger man. This week Dave asks how to avoid confusing spiritual leadership with spiritual control, and I dig into a word study on Eve as "helpmate," a term that in Hebrew is the same word used for God helping man, not a synonym for doing the dishes. I walk through why a husband's job is to lay his life down for his wife the way Christ did for the church, and what to actually do when you and your wife don't agree, including the rule my wife and I live by: whoever has the most buy-in, experience, and gifting in an area usually makes the final call, and when we're truly stuck, we go to a mutual mentor we both trust instead of me pulling rank.Jeremy's question hits close to home for me since I spent years as a firefighter working alongside non-believers and some genuinely rough guys. I explain the difference between positional leadership, where people follow you because they have to, and permissional leadership, a concept from John Maxwell, where people follow you because they want to. I share exactly how I built that with my crew, one lunch and one conversation at a time, and why the principle "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" mattered more to me than trying to get anyone "saved."Wayne asks about waiting on God and stepping out of the boat, and I push back on the idea that waiting means doing nothing, using the farmer who won't plant until God tells him to as the example of what waiting on God is not. I also tell the story of sitting with John Eldredge when a bell rang and his whole team stopped for two full minutes just to listen to God, something I've carried with me since. Finally, JP asks how to tell godly confidence apart from sinful pride, and I break down pride as a mask for insecurity, confidence that's always pointing back to you, versus godly confidence, which points back to God and what He can do through you.If you want to submit your own question for a future live Q&A, follow us on Instagram and watch for the next live stream. Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode, and check out our hats and gear at braveco.org. Stay brave out there.Chapters: 00:00 - Intro02:43 - Dave's Question: Spiritual Leadership vs. Spiritual Control 12:03 - Jeremy's Question: Leading Non-Believers Without Preaching At Them 20:09 - Wayne's Question: Waiting on God and Stepping Out of the Boat 26:10 - JP's Question: Godly Confidence vs. Sinful Pride 30:28 - Wrap-Up: How to Submit Your Own QuestionCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

Snapping at your wife and kids? Working in ministry with your spouse? Jason Vallotton answers real men's questions on marriage, boundaries, and breaking old habits in our first live Q&A.Want to join the next one? Get alerts and stay connected: https://braveco.info/live-qa-with-jason-pageHost Jason Vallotton, a pastor and counselor, draws on his own experience with divorce, a nervous breakdown, co-parenting, and raising a blended family.Chapters:00:00 – Introducing the New Live Q&A Format 02:39 – Joseph's Question: Why Do I Keep Snapping at My Wife? 05:22 – The Target Every Husband Needs: Safe, Seen, Known 08:03 – "The House Has Needs": The Alarm That Changed His Marriage 10:44 – Matt's Question: Married and Working in Ministry Together 13:24 – "My Home Supports My Work" Is Backwards Thinking 16:02 – Why Every Couple Needs to Live by a Shared Calendar 18:40 – Russell's Question: Why Do the Wheels Keep Falling Off? 21:24 – Find a Partner Who Already Has the Habit Built 24:05 – Forgive Yourself: You're Not Back at Square OneCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

Right now the best and worst things in my life are happening at the same time. My kids are growing up beautiful, and my wife's mother is in the last hours of a two year battle with stage four stomach cancer. I bring on my friend John Mark McMillan, the songwriter behind "How He Loves," who I first found during the worst season of my life, going through my own divorce, listening to his album on 5am walks because I couldn't sleep. We talk about how death and crisis have a strange way of contextualizing your life, and I share something I realized sitting next to my dying mother-in-law, the only thing that actually matters to her right now is the community she built and what she leaves behind, not a truck, not a vacation, not a bank account.John Mark gets real about his own story, middle school bullying that felt like "blood in the water," the one friend who changed everything for him, and how he almost accidentally discovered songwriting while going through his divorce, writing songs at night on a porch for an audience of nobody but God and a speed hump in the road. He breaks down a framework he calls Category 1 and Category 2, Category 1 is what keeps you alive, Category 2 is the actual reasons to stay alive, and traces an entire generation of men's emotional suppression back to our grandfathers coming home from World War II and the Great Depression and being told to just pretend everything was fine. We talk about Victor Frankl, meaning versus pleasure, and the Oliver Anthony song that took a total stranger from 40,000 followers to a million in about a week because he said something people felt but didn't have words for.We close on his favorite song he's ever written, "The Road, the Rocks, and the Weeds," about a God who doesn't just heal your pain but actually feels it with you, and why Jesus's vulnerability on the cross is the only reason any of us can have a real relationship with him. Then we get honest about something a lot of men carry shame over, their sex drive and temptation, and John Mark makes the case that Jesus being tempted in every way, including same-sex attraction, isn't a problem for faith, it's the whole point, because holiness was never about what you can get away with, it's about the joy on the other side of what you're willing to sacrifice. Thanks for listening, guys, stay Brave, and we'll see you next week.Chapters:00:00 – The Best and Worst Things Happening at the Same Time 07:26 – What My Dying Mother-in-Law Taught Me About Success 14:51 – Middle School Survival: "It's Like Blood in the Water" 22:24 – Writing Songs for an Audience of One: God and a Speed Hump 29:50 – How a Song Took Oliver Anthony From 40K to a Million Followers 37:13 – Why Our Grandfathers Were Taught to Never Look Weak 44:44 – Finding the Middle: Surviving Hard Things While Choosing Joy 52:11 – Half a Million Monthly Listens: Keeping Success From Owning You 59:32 – Inside "The Road, the Rocks, and the Weeds," His Favorite Song 1:07:01 – Why Real Passion Always Requires Something to Suffer ForCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

I don't usually lead with this, but most of you have heard pieces of my story and I want to give it to you straight. Real anxiety by age 10, medicating with porn and masturbation by 14. Married my high school sweetheart at 18, three kids by 24, divorced at 27, raising my kids as a single dad. At 29 I hit a full nervous breakdown, the kind where your life feels like it's on fire and you have no idea how to put it out. I got remarried at 31 and spent the next 12 years on medication just to regulate my own nervous system. Then at 35, my wife and I finally got pregnant after five years of trying, and at our 10-week checkup we found out the baby had already died. I'm telling you all of this because here's what I've come to believe: you and I were born into a war whether we agreed to it or not. And here's the part most guys miss, we were also created for it.In this episode I walk through Ephesians 6 and the full armor of God, and I break down why the fight you're actually in isn't with your spouse, your kids, your finances, or the guy who cut you off in traffic, it's a spiritual one, and you can't win it by how much you bench press. I give you three keys to actually winning the war within. First, how you see the battle determines the outcome, and I'll tell you about my dad standing on the sideline of my soccer games, the story of the twelve spies who saw giants and called themselves grasshoppers, and Gideon sneaking into the enemy's camp the night before the fight of his life. Second, don't back down when it gets hard, because pain without vision is the worst pain there is, vision is what gives your pain a purpose. Third, the fastest way to lose a war is to fight one you were never equipped for, which is exactly what happens every time you compare your life to somebody else's highlight reel instead of staying in your own lane like David did on his way from shepherd to king.I get real about the seasons where I wanted to run, where doubt crept in and told me I didn't have what it takes, and why I've made the hard call not to rescue my own kids from every struggle they face, because hard times make strong men and I refuse to raise weak ones. This one is personal, it's not a highlight reel, it's the real fight, and I hope it gives you a roadmap for whatever war you're standing in the middle of right now. Guys, thank you for joining me today. Stay Brave. If this episode hit home, do me a favor and rate the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who needs to hear it, that's how we get this message to more men. We'll see you next week.Chapters:00:00 – My Story 04:16 – The Dark Place You're Called To08:29 – You're Not Fighting People. You're Fighting This. 12:48 – The Doubt That Creeps In When You're Already Doing the Work 17:06 – Why I Won't Rescue My Kids From Every Hard Thing 21:13 – How You See the Battle Decides It 25:32 – Gideon's Move29:49 – Why I Get Up at 5:45 AM Anyway 34:02 – Comparison Is a War You Were Never Built to Fight 38:18 – Staying in Your LaneCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

I brought my wife on to talk marriage, with a slight emphasis on the man's role. We've been married eleven years, going on twelve, and our story is a little unusual, she came into my life mid-hike, stepping straight into raising my three kids from my first marriage, and now we've got five kids between us. We use that story to unpack one of our favorite analogies: marriage is an empty box, and the only thing you can pull out of it is what you've actually put in. Most people think marriage is going to solve their problems or fix their loneliness, but the truth is marriage exposes whatever cracks are already in your foundation, and taking ownership of yourself is the first and most important skill for building something healthy.We get really honest about our own early years, including the alarm I used to set on my phone that just said "the house has needs," and how I realized that if I didn't want my wife to feel like my mom, I had to take responsibility instead of waiting to be told what needed doing. We talk about how there's no universal standard of "shoulds" in a marriage, everybody's definition of responsible comes from how they were raised, and how learning to make what matters to your spouse actually matter to you is a skill, not an instinct. We also get into a striking statistic about how a husband coming to faith is far more likely to bring the whole family along than if a wife or child does first, which speaks to just how much of a catalyst a man is for the emotional and spiritual direction of his home.We close out with practical tools for anyone who didn't grow up with a healthy model for any of this: get a counselor, get into a community of healthy men who will call you up instead of enabling you, and stop carrying secrets, because what you hide defines you, while what you bring into the light sets you free. I also bring in John Gottman's research on the "four horsemen" that can predict with striking accuracy whether a marriage will succeed or fail, and why resentment and unforgiveness are so dangerous once they take root. At the end of the day, the goal isn't just a peaceful marriage, it's a connected one, and that takes both people willing to take ownership. Thanks for listening, guys, stay brave, and we'll see you next week.Chapters:00:00 – Intro04:50 – The Marriage Box09:40 – Who's Better at Taking Ownership in Our Marriage? 14:38 – "She Feels Like My Mom"19:28 – The System That Never Gets Set Up 24:20 – When Dad Never Showed Weakness 29:11 – Why Counseling Isn't a Lifetime Sentence 34:06 – The Pressure of Being the Only One Who Knows 38:55 – The Man as Catalyst43:46 – The Four HorsemenCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

On this episode of the BraveCo Podcast, I'm joined by my great friend Cole Zick, director of Moral Revolution alongside his wife, for our monthly conversation about what it actually means to be a man. This time we're tackling a topic most guys avoid talking about out loud: managing your sex drive. Cole and I get into why so many men in ministry and in everyday life are frustrated by their sex drive and even afraid of it, and we make the case that God didn't give you that drive as a curse to manage but as a gift with a real purpose behind it, one built to point you toward your spouse, the one person in your life you actually get to choose.We go deep on what it looks like to train that appetite well, comparing it to learning to manage desires for money, cars, and comfort long before marriage even enters the picture, and we get surprisingly direct about what the Bible does and doesn't say about masturbation, including an unexpected Old Testament verse that shows God cared enough about this appetite to draw hard lines around it a long time ago. Cole also opens up about his own story, ten years of a sexually active marriage followed by a divorce that took him overnight to zero, and the blunt advice a mentor gave him about staying clean until he remarried. From there we talk honestly about how much harder purity gets for single men, the loneliness that comes with it, and why setting your expectations ahead of time changes everything.We close out with some of the most practical tools in the whole conversation: how a dopamine detox, through fasting, exercise, and real human connection, can reset a brain that's been leaning on quick hits for too long, why owning your insecurity out loud with the people you're dating matters more than hiding it, and why building a group of men who are actually pursuing strength alongside you is the difference-maker Cole keeps coming back to. If you've ever felt like something is wrong with you because of your sex drive, I hope this conversation helps you see it differently. Thanks for listening, guys, stay brave, and we'll see you next week.Chapters:00:00 – Why Men Fear Their Sex Drive 06:15 – God's Vision for Sex: Your Spouse Is the One You Choose 12:33 – Self-Servicing vs. Real Intimacy With Your Wife 18:43 – Training Your Appetite Young: Lessons in Managing Desire 25:03 – Does the Bible Talk About Masturbation? 31:14 – From 10 Years Active to Zero Overnight: Cole's Divorce Story37:31 – Fighting for Purity as a Single Man 43:43 – The Dopamine Detox: Fasting, Exercise, and Connection 49:59 – The Vulnerable Text: Owning Your Own Insecurity 56:20 – Building a Brotherhood of Real AccountabilityCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.

This week on the podcast, I brought on my favorite guest of all time: my mom. I wanted to sit down with her and dig into some of the wildest stories from my childhood, the ones I've never really told on this show before, starting with the night a demon-possessed teenager showed up at our home group and my parents accidentally launched a deliverance ministry that would define our family for years. My mom walks me through it in her own words, along with the story of Tracy Evans, a missionary who survived being shot at, shipwrecked, and hunted in the Philippines, and who later brought a young woman, the spiritual daughter of Anton LaVey, to live in our house.From there we get into some of the most intense moments of my upbringing: a manifestation that turned violent and sent my mom running for her life, my sister Jamie's terrifying medical crisis when she started having seizures as a kid, and the time my two older sisters, ages 12 and 14, were sent to smuggle Bibles into Communist China, one of them getting interrogated for hours and the other getting separated from her group in the middle of the night. My mom also opens up about the hardest financial season of their lives, losing their business, owing 1.8 million dollars, and watching God provide through a string of miracles that included a banker forgiving their debt in tears.We close the conversation talking about her Parkinson's diagnosis seven years ago and how she refused to let it define her, choosing instead to go elk hunting at 500 yards, harvest a black bear with a crossbow, and keep showing up for life instead of shrinking back. This episode is really a tribute to her, to her faith, her grit, and the way she and my dad lived out the gospel in real, messy, unglamorous ways long before it was something either of them had figured out. If this episode encourages you, give your own mom a call, and if you enjoyed it, like, comment, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Stay brave.Chapters:00:00 – Meet My Mom 06:36 – The Night Deliverance Ministry Was Born 13:14 – Taking In Anton LaVey's Daughter19:54 – Growing Up Surrounded by Angels and Demons 26:31 – When "Susan" Turned Violent33:13 – My Sister's Terrifying Seizure and a Demonic Attack 39:51 – Smuggling Bibles Into Communist China as Kids 46:28 – Leaving Weaverville and Losing Everything in Bankruptcy 53:05 – The Miracle That Saved Us From $1.8 Million in Debt 59:41 – Parkinson's, Hunting Adventures, and a Tribute to MomCONNECT WITH BRAVECOJoin Our Free Community for Men (ladies, sign up your man): https://www.braveco.orgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveco.menInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/braveco.men/Shop: https://shop.braveco.org/ABOUT BRAVECO: We live in a time where men are hunting for the truth and looking for the codebook to manhood. At BraveCo, we are on a mission to heal the narrative of masculinity across a generation; fighting the good fight together because every man should feel confident and capable of facing his pain, loving deeply, and leading a life that impacts the world around him.