The 4 Pillars of Manhood: How to Win Without Sacrificing What Matters Most [Ep. 120 With Cody Smith]
3 Key Takeaways
1. Providing financially isn’t enough. Building a successful business and creating financial security matter, but they don’t replace being a present husband, engaged father, strong leader, or healthy man. Success has to be viewed across multiple areas of life.
2. Your family shouldn’t get whatever energy you have left. The same intentionality you bring to your training, career, and personal goals needs to show up at home. Pursuing your wife, leading your children, protecting your health, and being present with your family all require consistent effort.
3. Your priorities need standards attached to them. Saying your family, health, marriage, or faith is important doesn’t mean much unless your behavior reflects it. Decide what matters, establish standards around those priorities, and consistently live by them.
What Does It Actually Mean to “Have It All”?
I think a lot of ambitious people are uncomfortable with the phrase having it all. It can sound unrealistic or like you’re trying to chase money, status, the perfect body, the perfect family, and some carefully curated version of life where everything always looks great.
That isn’t what I mean.
When I think about having it all, some of the moments where I feel it most aren’t when revenue hits a certain number or I accomplish some massive goal. Sometimes I’m sitting in my backyard watching my daughter play while the trees are blowing, and I have this realization that I don’t need to chase anything to get that feeling. It’s already there.
I’m still ambitious. I still want more. I want to grow my business, become better at my craft, get stronger, create more, make more money, and have a bigger impact. But there’s a point where chasing more can start costing you the things you were supposedly chasing more for in the first place.
That was one of the biggest themes that came out of my conversation with my good friend Cody Smith. Cody has been a friend for close to a decade. He’s a business owner, coach, husband, father, and man of faith, and he’s somebody I’ve watched intentionally work on multiple areas of his life instead of using success in one area to excuse mediocrity everywhere else.
This conversation wasn’t really about finding perfect balance. It was about manhood and what happens when a man decides he isn’t willing to be one-dimensional anymore.
Making money doesn’t automatically make you a great husband. Having an impressive physique doesn’t make you a great father. Going to church doesn’t necessarily mean you’re leading your family. Being physically present in your house doesn’t mean the people inside it are actually getting the best of you.
At some point, you have to decide what kind of man you’re going to be across the board.
Success in One Area Doesn’t Excuse Failure Everywhere Else
Cody talked about how his earliest picture of being a man revolved almost entirely around production. You worked, made money, provided for your family, came home, and did it all again tomorrow. That was the model he had seen, so naturally that influenced his own definition of what it meant to be a successful man.
That mindset eventually carried into his first marriage. His thinking was essentially that he was making the money and providing, so he was fulfilling his responsibility. When that relationship didn’t work and he later began seeing some of those patterns emerging again, he realized something needed to change.
Eventually, he was introduced to the idea of becoming a multidimensional man. You can be incredibly successful in business without allowing business to become an excuse for ignoring everything else that matters. You can pursue professional success while continuing to pursue your wife. You can become an example for your children, take your fitness seriously, strengthen your faith, and continue growing professionally at the same time.
That doesn’t mean every category of your life receives exactly the same amount of attention every day. There will always be seasons where one area demands more from you. Building a company may occasionally require longer hours. A newborn changes your schedule. Family emergencies happen. Health issues arise. The point isn’t perfect balance.
The point is making sure one category doesn’t become so dominant that everything else slowly falls apart.
I think a lot of ambitious men accidentally confuse neglect with sacrifice. They’re working constantly “for the family.” They’re building the company “for the family.” They’re always on their phone “for the family.” Then they expect to eventually reach some finish line where they finally have enough money and freedom to enjoy the people they haven’t been present with for the last decade.
The problem is that those relationships have been developing during those ten years too.
Success has to be bigger than a single scoreboard.
Your Family Can’t Live on Your Leftovers
One of the most important themes throughout our conversation was the idea of continuing to pursue your wife after you’re married.
Think about what happens when you first start dating somebody. You pay attention. You compliment her. You create experiences together. You think about how to make her feel special. You care about how you look and how you show up.
Then people get married, life becomes busy, kids enter the picture, businesses grow, responsibilities increase, and many of those small behaviors gradually disappear.
What’s interesting is that those same men can remain incredibly disciplined in other areas. They know exactly what their training program looks like. They track their nutrition. They review their business numbers. They schedule sales calls and organize their calendar. There is structure and intention everywhere.
Then their marriage gets whatever energy remains at the end of the day.
That’s where we have to challenge ourselves. Your wife shouldn’t receive the leftovers of the energy you spent everywhere else.
The solution isn’t necessarily some complicated relationship strategy. A lot of it comes back to simple behaviors performed consistently. Tell your wife you love her. Compliment her. Kiss her before you leave. Put your phone down when she’s talking. Hold her hand. Plan the date. Ask how she’s doing and actually listen to the answer.
Simple doesn’t mean insignificant.
Relationships Are Built One Rep at a Time
Something I had recently heard in a sermon fit perfectly into this conversation: relationships rarely deteriorate because of one isolated moment. More often, the little things accumulate.
It’s the eye rolls, the missed opportunities for affection, the conversations where you’re distracted, the things you stop saying, and the small gestures you gradually stop making. None of those moments alone necessarily destroys a relationship, but months or years of them can create distance that eventually feels enormous.
The encouraging part is that the exact opposite is also true.
Positive actions accumulate.
Your children see you kiss your wife. They hear you compliment her. They watch you show affection and observe how you handle disagreements. They notice how you speak about her when she isn’t around. Without ever sitting them down for a formal lesson about marriage, you’re teaching them what a relationship looks like.
Cody and I talked about how those repeated positive behaviors become part of what your children eventually model as normal.
I experienced this recently with my own daughter. We were recording a little podcast together for Shannon, and I asked her questions about her mom. Eventually she turned it around and asked me how much I liked mommy. I told her I was in love with mommy, and she smiled and basically told me she already knew that.
That hit me because a little girl doesn’t respond like that because you’ve explained to her that you love her mom. She knows because she has seen it.
That’s the standard.
Your Kids Are Watching the Man You Become
This conversation goes much deeper than marriage because your kids are studying you constantly. They’re watching what you tolerate, how you treat their mom, whether you take care of yourself, whether your word means something, how you respond when things don’t go your way, and what you consistently prioritize.
They’re learning even when you aren’t intentionally teaching.
That’s why I love the idea Cody shared about wanting to become a picture of possibility for his children. The goal isn’t necessarily to become the richest, strongest, most successful person in every category. It’s to show your children what it looks like to continue raising your standards across the areas that matter.
Maybe becoming historically elite at one pursuit requires sacrifices most people aren’t willing to make. That’s okay. You don’t necessarily need to become number one in the world at anything.
What if you built a successful business, developed a strong and healthy body, remained present with your children, built an incredible marriage, deepened your faith, and became excellent at your craft?
Maybe you aren’t the absolute best in the world at any single one of those things.
That still sounds like a pretty incredible life to me.
The Four Roles of a Man
During our conversation, we eventually landed on a framework Cody has been thinking through: protector, provider, leader, and lover. There are plenty of other ways people organize these categories, but I like these four because they force you to think about how you’re actually showing up for the people closest to you.
Being a protector obviously has a physical component. Take care of your body. Be strong, capable, and prepared to take care of the people who depend on you. But protection extends far beyond physical strength. Can you protect your family’s time? Can you create stability? Can you remain calm when situations become difficult? Can you establish boundaries around work? Can you protect your health today so your family doesn’t spend decades dealing with the consequences of you ignoring it?
Being a provider matters too. Money matters. Financial success creates options, buys back time, gives your family experiences, and allows you to help more people. There is nothing wrong with wanting to become financially successful. The problem comes when providing financially becomes the only definition of providing. A paycheck cannot replace presence, and more money doesn’t automatically repair what was neglected while earning it.
Being a leader starts inside your own home. For Cody, his first responsibility is to disciple his own family before worrying about discipling other people. His leadership begins with his wife and children.
That idea applies even outside of the explicitly religious context. Everybody wants to lead a company, team, audience, or movement, but leadership starts with the people sitting around your dinner table. Do your standards show up there? Does your patience? Does your integrity? Does your attention?
It’s easy to look like a leader when you’re holding a microphone. The people living with you know how you actually lead.
Finally, being a lover means making sure the people closest to you genuinely experience your love. Your wife and children shouldn’t have to intellectually conclude that you love them because you work hard and pay the bills. They should feel it through how you speak, behave, and spend your time.
That’s why I appreciate Cody including lover alongside protector, provider, and leader. His wife needs to feel his love. His boys need to feel his love. His children also need to watch how he expresses that love inside their home.
You can protect, provide, and even lead while still being emotionally absent. Love requires expression.
Why Business Is So Easy to Prioritize
One of Cody’s most insightful points was that business gives us a very clear scoreboard.
Revenue increases. Clients sign. Sales go up. The company grows. You make more money and receive immediate feedback that your effort is working.
Fitness is similar. The scale moves. Your body fat decreases. Measurements change. You add weight to the bar. You look different in the mirror.
Marriage doesn’t always work that way. Neither does fatherhood or faith.
You can decide today that you’re going to become a better husband and spend months doing the right things without receiving some obvious metric telling you that you’ve improved by 17 percent.
Cody talked about going all-in on becoming the best husband he could be and not necessarily seeing tangible evidence that the work was paying off for six months to a year. Looking back years later, he can see the accumulated result, but there wasn’t always an immediate scoreboard along the way.
That requires patience and faith.
Sometimes the most important work you're doing won’t immediately reward you.
Do it anyway.
Get Around Men Who Model What You Want
So where do you start when you realize one of these areas has fallen behind?
Fitness is one of my favorite places because your body gives you a tangible opportunity to practice discipline, self-control, confidence, and personal responsibility. You can train, improve your nutrition, prioritize sleep, get stronger, and begin proving to yourself that you’re capable of consistently following through.
But Cody offered another answer that I completely agree with: get around people who already have what you want.
If your faith is weak, spend time around somebody whose faith is strong. If your marriage is struggling, spend time around couples whose relationship you genuinely respect. If your business is struggling, learn from somebody further ahead. If your health is a mess, hire a coach.
Cody described this like standing next to someone who is on fire. If you spend enough time around somebody who is genuinely passionate and disciplined in an area where you want to grow, some of that energy naturally starts influencing you.
That’s the value of mentorship, coaching, and community.
The people around you help determine what you begin to see as normal.
Choose those people carefully.
Stop Ignoring the Areas You Know Need Work
There was another analogy in our conversation that stuck with me.
Kids go through a stage where they cover their eyes and somehow believe you can’t see them. If I can’t see Dad, Dad can’t see me.
It’s hilarious when a small child does it.
Adults do something surprisingly similar.
We avoid the scale because we don’t want to acknowledge how much weight we’ve gained. We avoid getting bloodwork because we don’t want to know the results. We know our marriage feels disconnected, but we keep working late. We know we’re constantly on our phones around our kids. We know our spiritual life has become nonexistent.
We avoid looking directly at the problem and hope that somehow makes it less real.
It doesn’t.
Cody made the point that you can keep covering your eyes and pretending an issue isn’t there, or you can acknowledge it and begin turning things around one small piece at a time. It will take patience, but avoiding reality doesn’t change reality.
You don’t need to completely transform your life by next Monday.
You just have to stop hiding from the areas you already know need attention.
Standards Make Your Priorities Real
Everybody says family is important. Everybody says health matters. Most people say they care deeply about their marriage, children, faith, and future.
The better question is: What standards prove it?
One of mine is that I don’t answer my phone after 8:00 p.m. That’s when we’re winding my daughter down, reading her a book, and getting her ready for bed. After that, I’m spending time with my wife.
Somebody can call tomorrow.
That doesn’t have to be your standard. It’s mine. But your priorities need behaviors attached to them.
If your wife is a priority, what does that mean practically? Maybe it means a weekly date. Maybe it means no phones at dinner. Maybe you kiss her before you leave every morning. Maybe it means you refuse to complain about her to your friends.
If fitness matters, when do you train?
If faith matters, where does it exist in your schedule?
If your children matter, what time have you intentionally protected for them?
Toward the end of the episode, we talked about how prioritizing your family also requires understanding what that actually feels like to the other people in your family. Cody specifically talked about asking his wife what makes her feel like the family is being prioritized instead of simply deciding for himself that he’s doing a good job.
That conversation might be uncomfortable.
Have it anyway.
Stop Being Half-In
This might be the simplest takeaway from the entire conversation.
Stop being half-in.
There comes a point where you have to stop saying you’re “trying” and start defining the choices you’re actually making.
You either meal prepped or you didn’t. You either trained or you didn’t. You either put the phone down or you didn’t. You either made time for your wife or you didn’t. You either kept the standard or you didn’t.
That doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You’re going to make mistakes. There will be seasons where business needs more of you. There will be emergencies, newborns, launches, financial stress, deaths in the family, injuries, travel, and plenty of other things that disrupt even the best routines.
That’s life.
But there’s a major difference between adapting during a difficult season and permanently living half-committed to everything you claim matters.
Near the end of our conversation, we came back to the idea that many areas of life change when you stop living half-in and half-out and start making clear choices about what you're actually going to prioritize.
Decide what matters.
Then build standards around that decision.
What Kind of Man Does Your Family Get?
That’s ultimately the question this episode left me thinking about.
We can ask how successful you are as an entrepreneur, how much you can lift, how much money you made this year, or how impressive your career looks from the outside. Those things can matter, and I care about plenty of them.
But zoom out.
What kind of man walks through your front door every night?
Does your wife feel pursued or ignored? Do your kids receive your attention or whatever energy is left after work? Does your family feel protected? Do they feel provided for? Do they feel led? Most importantly, do they feel loved?
And someday, when your children grow up and build families and lives of their own, what did watching you teach them?
You don’t need to become the greatest man alive in every category, and you don’t need to achieve some mythical version of perfect balance.
You can simply refuse to abandon the areas of your life that matter most.
Keep raising the standard. Become stronger. Provide for the people you love. Lead them well. Pursue your wife. Show your children what a healthy relationship looks like. Build the business without sacrificing the reason you wanted to build it in the first place.
Protector. Provider. Leader. Lover.
That’s a pretty solid place to start.
Choose hard.
Catch the full Episode with Cody McBroom and Cody Smith on The Choose Hard Podcast here: