Pull up a chair.
That is the invitation Mista Yu extends to every man who sits down at the Men’s Roundtable Series—and it is the right invitation, because the conversations that happen around that table are exactly the kind most men never get to have.
I recently had the privilege of joining Mista Yu for one of those conversations. We talked about identity, true manhood, the cost of isolation, what it means to follow Jesus as a man, and the moment in 2019 that changed everything for me.
No performance. No polish. Just real men talking about real things.
THE RETREAT THAT STARTED IT ALL
If there is a single moment I can point to that set the trajectory of everything I am building today—True Man Life Coaching, American Family Renaissance, the True Man Podcast, the books, the speaking, all of it—it was a men’s retreat weekend in March of 2019.
I walked in as a man who had been a Christian his entire life. I walked out as a man who had finally encountered intimacy with Christ—not religion, not activity, not church attendance. Actual closeness with God.
The camp director asked us to listen to three worship songs as if God were singing them to us. The first song played was Josh Groban’s You Are Loved. And in that moment, I heard something I had never truly received before: I want an intimate relationship with you. You are my beloved son.
I looked around the room and thought, if other men are experiencing this right now, where do they go with it? Who do they talk to?
That question became a calling. And I have been living inside that calling ever since.
DEFINING TRUE MANHOOD
Mista Yu asked me one of the questions I get most often and one of the ones I take most seriously: how do you define true manhood?
Here is where I land on it.
True Man is taken directly from Scripture. Jesus Christ, who walked on this earth as a true man, is the model. Not because perfection is achievable. Only Jesus achieved that. But because the model matters. Because when He looked at a group of fishermen, carpenters, and ordinary men and said, “Follow me!” He set something in motion that still reverberates around the world today.
That is where the definition starts. Follow the model. And then, and this is critical, define what that walk looks like for you. Because every man is unique. Every man’s journey is his own. The role of a coach and mentor is not to hand a man the answers. It is to ask the right questions until the man discovers the answers already inside him.
What is missing in today’s world is not more content about manhood. It is men actually sitting down together and having those defining conversations, with enough honesty to say what they really think, what they really feel, and what they are really struggling with.
We have too much yelling and not enough talking. Too many people are trying to be the loudest voice in the room, and not enough men are willing to sit in the circle and go deep.
SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP
One of the threads running through my conversation with Mista Yu was something I come back to again and again in my coaching work: the necessity of reflection and self-awareness.
Men are not built for stillness by default — especially in a culture that rewards speed, output, and noise. But the best version of a man, the most purposeful version, is not found at the surface. It is found through excavation. Through sitting in the silence long enough to actually hear what is true.
The best piece of advice I have received on this is deceptively simple: you have to slow down to speed up.
Stop. Be where your feet are. Pause before you react. Think before you speak. That discipline, practiced consistently, changes a man’s leadership, his marriage, his fatherhood, and his relationship with God more than almost anything else.
THE COST OF THE GAP
Mista Yu closed our conversation by asking me to speak directly to the husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons watching about the biggest gap in how men are being formed today and what it costs if that gap is never addressed.
Here is what I told him, and I mean every word of it:
We bury our struggles and hope they disappear. They never do.
The gap is this: men do not ask for help. They suffer in silence, carry burdens alone, and convince themselves that isolation is strength. It is not. It is slow destruction — of marriages, of families, of legacies, and of the men themselves.
Asking for help is not a weakness. It is one of the most courageous acts a man can commit to. God is there. The right community is there. The right mentors are there. But none of it becomes available to a man who refuses to raise his hand.
Your story is not meant to stay buried. Someone else has walked where you are walking. Someone else needs to hear that they are not alone. And the moment you are willing to open up—that is often the moment everything begins to shift.
WATCH & LISTEN
▶️ YouTube: Watch the full conversation
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🌐 American Family Renaissance: americanfamilyrenaissance.org
Mike Van Pelt is the founder of True Man Life Coaching and American Family Renaissance — Five-Time Bestselling Author, Men’s Mentor, Speaker, and host of the True Man Podcast. He helps men break isolation, reclaim identity, and lead with authenticity in their faith, their families, and their communities.