This is the Truth Network where we'll serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. We are on a quest today and how exciting is that?
And I'm personally excited to get the chance to host for a change. Every once in a while I get to do it. And today the reason why I'm, you know, Sam has got the flu, you know, and he's recovering from that, which is sad, but it's also an opportunity for payback, you know what I'm saying?
For those Sam fans out there, you might know that one of his favorite movies is not Princess Bride, right? And often, you know, he thinks his clip makes the most sense and, you know, very rarely do we ever get a chance to hear Jim's clip first. And so you're going to get all those prizes today if you listen to the masculine journey, which we appreciate very much. But tonight's topic, Jim, you want to, since you are the oldest, like you're not only the second to the oldest person here, but as far as boot camp attendees, you would be the guy.
And the, my first one was in 2003 in Alaska, and I didn't even know they called it a boot camp back then. But the clip that I picked, and I struggled with finding them, but one of the one thing that hit me first about what I would tell my, oh, and that's the topic. I think you were actually prompting me to give us the topic. I knew you'd get to it.
He's a rambling man, yeah. But the topic is what we would tell ourselves to get us to go to our first boot camp if we, and we've got a great clip from another person about talking to your older self, or younger self. But this is a opportunity to tell others what would have meant a lot to you. And the bottom line for mine is my wife really appreciates it because I come back as a different man. So my, my clip is Wesley, the hero of the movie and... Princess Bride for those, Sam, so you just can just enjoy.
Oh, enjoy picking on Sam. Yeah, the very first boot camp I went to with these guys, one of the questions you get is what's your favorite movie? And Jim, Princess Bride, yes. So Wesley is, yeah. Wesley's the hero, but he has been tortured to being mostly dead, which will mean a little more after the clip. Actually, they thought he was dead. And his buddies, Fessick and Inigo, have taken him to Miracle Max to try to raise him from the dead.
And that's the clip we're going into, and then I'll connect that to the topic when we get out the other side. You got money? Sixty-five. I never worked for so little, except once, and that was a very noble cause. This is noble, sir. His wife is crippled.
Children are on the brink of starvation. Are you a rotten liar? I need him to help avenge my father. Murdered these twenty years.
Your first toy was better. Where's that bellows crab? He probably owes you money, huh? Well, I'll ask him. He's dead. He can't talk.
Look who knows so much, huh? Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.
Please, open his mouth. Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do. What's that?
Go through his clothes and look for loose change. Hey. Hey.
Hello in there. Hey, what's so important? What you got here that's worth living for? True love. True love.
You heard him? You could not ask for a more noble cause than that. And that is Wesley, having been filled with air and had his chest pressed on, comes up with true love and a miracle backs after this, tries to get out of it because he's afraid to try to help him. But the nearly dead is how I've been a few times in our marriage of fifty, closing in on fifty-one years. No, I guess we finished fifty-one, closing in on fifty-two years. And when I went off to boot camp, the first time, I left her stranded in Washington State at an RV park while I went up to Alaska and had a great time for a week because we were doing a slow version of the boot camp and had two sessions a day and fished the rest of the time. So this would have been a perfect one for several of our folks here.
I caught a fifteen pound silver salmon that outweighed every fish I'd previously caught in my entire life. But the bottom line was, my wife has said multiple times and told others in encouraging them to get their husbands to go, to send them, he'll come back different. And she still maintains that even after twenty plus boot camps that I've been to, that I come back a better husband. And that's what I find I'm still working on. And I hope to someday be like Harold and have it all together in my marriage.
Well, very fun today. We actually have some guests in the studio with us. We have Rodney and Corbin. Guys, Rodney, step up the mic. You just made a movie. It's on YouTube.
Tell our listeners about it. Yeah? Yeah, I made a new movie called The Last Gentle Wind of Autumn alongside my buddy Corbin Kelly.
Here's my director principal photography and a co-producer on the project. And it essentially follows a couple as they start their wedding vows all the way through to the end of their relationship. Yeah, you don't want to ruin the end of the movie for people.
Of course, of course. The last gentle wind of autumn, right? And that's how you'd find it if you Google it. I mean, if you go on YouTube and just do a search for last gentle wind of autumn or what's the easiest way to do that?
Right, that's a great question. So if you actually, you can go on to YouTube and you can just type in the last gentle wind of autumn, and you'll see a picture pop up of two of our lovely actors, Jasenia Magdalene Blandon and Kelvin L. Register. Very talented actors. Or if you go to the Instagram production page, which is No Excuses Be Great Productions LLC, you'll just type that in on Instagram. No Excuses Be Great. No Excuses Be Great. You can't miss that.
No Excuses Be Great on Instagram. And then you've got all your movies, right? Yes.
Yes. Actually, if you go on to the production page, it'll take you to the other film that I did entitled The Fighter, The Demon, The Waterfall, which follows a boxer as he overcomes his struggles in life, which of course, again, I don't want to give it away, but two great films, of course. And since we're talking about how to get your former self to boot camp and the results here are no excuses, he's great. I appreciate it.
I appreciate it. How would you get your former self to boot camp? How would I get my former self to boot camp?
You know, one of the biggest things I would express to my younger self or former self is that there's so many things you want out of life. You got to slow down. You keep saying that you don't hear God. Well, if you're doing all the talking, you're not going to hear him.
Just that simple. And I will say the boot camp, when I came to boot camp, there was one thing that we did. I won't take too much time, but it's one thing that I thought was so pivotal was simple fact that you all would give us what we call, if my memory serves me correctly, covenant time. Covenant of silence, right?
Covenant of silence. And, you know, you could walk pretty much anywhere on the grounds with the questions that facilitated this time with God. And I remember answering those questions, and it got my mind thinking so much that before I knew it, it wasn't even about the questions.
It was about me spending time with the Father. And I realized, oh, he's talking back. I don't have to do all the talking. I can just listen.
That's absolutely beautiful. And you've got your producer with you, Corbin. And I know Keith is our producer, if he's sitting over there. And he understands, right, that everything depends on the production. It just does. A hundred percent on the production. And it's so crucial to have a strong team and a strong team that knows what they're doing and has a passion behind it as well, you know. Because that's the difference between just doing something because, oh, it's going to be something cool on the internet because, you know, why not?
We're in the century. But versus something that can help somebody and pull an emotion and bring something to them that helps benefit them. Because we don't want to shoot films that are just cool. We just don't want to do anything that's not going to impact somebody. So having the right production team and having the right crew is going to be able to help impact the most people. Right.
No excuses be great, Corbin. The idea somewhat is to, right, give people a – even though it's not a Christian film. That's right. But there's a theme in there which you can take away that would lead you closer to God. Well, you know, as being a minister, as myself in youth ministry, and Rodney, we talk about how many things that go on through life. And sometimes you don't need someone right beside you yelling at you, Jesus, in your face.
But you need someone to kind of walk it through with you and show you how that life is truly like and it's reflective unto him. But not necessarily I'm yelling at you. And this is what you have to deal with now, you know. Right.
And the gentle wind of autumn, right? Rodney, you guys took that idea of, well, wait a minute, Jim was grabbing the mic, so go, go, Jim. No, it sounded like you were closing. Last – the end of last millennium, I was technologically savvy.
I've managed to lose that over the last 30 years, but I was able to type in the last gentle wind of autumn and get that movie popping right up. It comes right up. But what I was – did you get my question? Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. No, the question was, you know, how you felt like you wanted to push – all right, not push, but you wanted God to come through in part of the equation of this particular movie, right?
Right. Really, and again, you know, in all our productions, we want people – our goal is to start a conversation, right? You know, we want to make something that people continually talk about, and the best way to do it is to learn how to weave together stories that have faith – elements of faith, but also have those moments where, you know, people that are not believers can start the conversations themselves, right, and talk about these things. So one of the biggest things in this particular story that I wanted to make sure I was touching on – Well, we've got to go to a break.
Okay. But before we go to that, we want to remind you that we do have a boot camp coming up, and it is just about a week – a month away, so we'll get more on that in just a moment. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger, and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God.
It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. So what's kind of been your favorite part so far? I know we've got a little ways to go in this masculine journey thing, so – My favorite part is really just being able to talk to other men about real things, you know, and hear from you guys. You guys have been through a lot, and just listening to these guys' stories, their advice, it's just – it's really uplifting to me. Kind of growing up in church my whole life, you know, I really haven't been as close, and I feel like coming to boot camp has helped me get more close, because, you know, I'd kind of gotten to a point where I'd fallen away a little bit. And then my first boot camp, my mom told me about it, and I was like, okay, yeah, we'll go. We'll check it out.
We'll see. And then I came, and I was like, you know, I'm always going to come back, because I'd never been to a place like that before. I really appreciate you guys. I'm glad I can be here. Register today at masculinejourney.org. The prisoner wishes to say a word. Freedom!
What would you tell your former self in order to, you know, try to inspire yourself to go to boot camp? And freedom is – I did like what Jim had to say, that if your marriage is mostly dead, but it's the freedom that God allows us to walk into, and it's a process, but it begins the journey of the masculine Journey to attend a boot camp to help you receive some of the freedoms that will allow your marriage to be not quite so mostly dead at some point in time. We've got some other interesting clips.
But I couldn't be more excited about the freedom that I've seen, you know, God do through the folks that are in the room today. But we're wrapping up right before we get to Danny's clip and his part of the section. Rodney, you wanted to share another thought, again, along the lines of how you even got into your production. Again, the film that we were talking about right before the break is The Last Gentle Wind of Autumn.
The Last Gentle Wind of Autumn. Correct, correct. One of the things that I just want to discuss briefly is the fact that when it comes to our productions, we want to make sure that people are able to see the heart of our production company. It's kind of like when you walk into a room or someone walks into a room and maybe someone walks into the room and, excuse me, it's before you understood who Christ was. You're like, man, there's something special about them. That's how we want people to feel about our films. You know, you watch a good movie and sometimes you can adopt the character's persona or something like that. It impacts you. So we want our films to be able to do that same thing.
And through that, we want them to be able to seek Christ as a result. I like what you guys said, to start a conversation. And so, you know, the film The Last Gentle Wind Breeds, The Last Gentle Wind of Autumn, only eight minutes and forty- Eight minutes and forty-three seconds. Eight minutes and forty-three seconds and it will start a conversation. I would be shocked if it didn't start a conversation.
So that's very cool. So Danny, today's topic, right? From your point of view. From my point of view.
I love this topic because, you know, talking about what would you tell your younger, your former self in order to get them to go to boot camp. And it's fascinating to me that, you know, because when I first started hanging out with you guys, you talked about all these movies. I'm like, who has time to watch all these stinking movies? But as I've dove into this with you guys and have watched some of these movies, that it's amazing what Hollywood does on accident. But the clip I chose was from The Kid, the Disney movie with Bruce Willis. And if you hadn't seen it, I mean, it's been out for twenty-some years, so there's no spoiler alerts here. Unlike our friend Rodney in his movie, we weren't going to spoil his because it's fresh.
This one probably will spoil something for you. But, you know, the clip is, you know, Bruce Willis' younger eight-year-old self comes into his life. And there's all kinds of shenanigans between them, getting to know who they are and that kind of thing. But in this scene, the younger Bruce has an interchange with his father. They had had some dealings.
His father was really hard on him. But what he didn't realize was his father was dealing with losing his wife, you know, Bruce's mother. And so you'll hear an interchange about a screw. And he's found the screw because he's fussed at him about losing the thing earlier on. And he's telling you, trying to kill her because she had to go to school, get him, and just a rough interchange. And then the interchange between older Bruce and younger one and what they talk about.
And I can talk about what I would tell my younger self afterwards, but if you play the clip, it's pretty awesome. Stop trying. Look at the screw.
Here it is. Stop trying. Stop. You got to grow up now.
Do you understand? Grow up. Grow up.
Mom's dying. I know. Do you? Yeah.
For your next birthday. Did I do it? No. No, you didn't do it. It's not your fault. Dad was just saying those things because he's scared.
Because he knows that he has to raise you alone and he doesn't know how to do it. I thought you never got it. Not since my eighth birthday. Guess I'm starting up again. Go on.
Because I just figured out where I got that twitch from. Somebody call the Lambiolans. Got to need them now, huh? Come on. You got to get out of here.
Let's go. If you had an opportunity like that to pour into your younger self and that's what we were talking about, I would have to tell the younger Danny it's going to be okay. That God's going to bring some healing in your life and you don't even see it coming because you didn't know you needed it. But I just thought life was just messed up for a long time and I've messed it up even more with addictions and all kinds of things, just trying to figure life out and being too proud to ask directions.
My wife says I still am when we're traveling. I know a shortcut. But it's okay to take the long road and you'll get there and there will be acceptance. There will be, and I love what somebody said in pre-show, there will be lots of food. But meeting you guys, and Robby you said it well in the pre-show, it'll make still your thunder, is it set me on a path to healing. It was an instant. We're not saying come to boot camp and you're going to walk out and everything in your life is going to be wonderful.
No. I'm going to hopefully give you some tools and let God unpack some stuff for you to help you deal with life. You're going to figure out you're in a war and I didn't even know I was fighting.
People were shooting at me and I got wounded and I wasn't even sure what was going on. But it gives you tools to deal with things in different ways and just a sunnier, brighter outlook on life. I think I'm a little more lighthearted. I'm a lighthearted guy.
I think I'm a little more lighthearted now than I was four years ago. Yeah, every agreement you break, right? Yeah.
Every vow you come out from underneath, your heart gets lighter. And so we're so blessed always to have the world's oldest man on set with us. And, you know, he came to camp before there were boots. It was sandal camp, yes.
Sandal camp. I have no idea who you're talking about. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. Go ahead, Harold, I know you. Now, you have to think way, way, way back to your former self, but, you know. Well, actually, I only have to think as far as I can reach because my friend Rodney just did a wonderful job of talking about what I had planned to talk about.
Oh. Because that was the thing that was on my mind is to tell somebody that when you go to boot camp, you learn to listen. Before I went to boot camp, I viewed prayer as a one-way street. I did all the talking and none of the listening.
And that's a rather inefficient way to try to go through life. So I agree with Rodney that that's a very powerful attraction is to introduce someone who's never experienced it to the covenant of silence where you try to get away from everybody else. You agree you're not going to talk. And you go off to a place of solitude and open up your heart. God doesn't speak to your ears. He speaks to your heart. And you can hear and you can realize that there is a God. He loves you so much more than you realize, and there is a way to deal with the things of life that give you trouble. One of the other aspects that is very special to me is rescuing the beauty.
I like that. I've been rescuing my sweetheart now for over 60 years. And I can tell you that you don't have to get old in your marriage. You can't stop your chronological aging as much as people that manufacture cosmetics and so forth would like you to believe.
I think it was Blake Eldridge, John's son, who uttered the famous words, the problem with rescuing the beauty is she doesn't stay rescued. Well, you know, to me, too many people are unhappy in their marriage. And I'm here to tell you that you can be married to the same person for over 60 years and still be excited about it. You just have to try a little bit. Come to boot camp. Yeah, if you come, I'll talk to you. I feel qualified to tell you what you may not know. So we have Mike is with us as well. Well, apparently we've got one minute, so I'm going to use that minute to tell you that if you listen to the after hours version that's coming here shortly where we're going to go deeper and all that, you can listen to the podcast to do that.
You can find that wherever you find good podcasts. But what we're going to try to help you see is you need to tell your former self like, man, there is a boot camp coming. And for those of you who've been to previous boot camps, this one is all new. It's in Royston, Georgia. How fun is that going to be to make a little road trip action to Royston, Georgia? It is going to be March like it's right around the corner, March 13th through the 16th in Royston, Georgia. Of course, if you go to masculine journey dot o r g, you can register and we've kept the price low, low, low, just one hundred ninety nine dollars. You can get yourself a trip that could make a difference in the rest of your life. I can assure you again, masculine journey radio dot o r g. Thanks for listening. This is the Truth Network.
