Being the Noble Knight with Ted Phaeton

Josh (00:00:02) - All right, everybody, we got five minutes on the clock. What is your name? What is your podcast show?

Ted (00:00:07) - What's going on? Josh? The name is Ted Fenton. My podcast show is the Modern Man podcast. We connect men in pursuit of their potential to elevate our capacity for life. We talk everything from finances, fitness, uh, family relationships, self, self-worth, self-education. Uh, we go down the gamut, and it's all about us being the best selves that we can be for our community, our families, and those that we love. It's great to be here.

Josh (00:00:32) - Cool. Why did you start that show, bro?

Ted (00:00:35) - Oh man, I realized I was blessed at a young age. My father just turned 82 years old this year. He's been in my life my whole life. I've been lucky enough to have him as a male mentor. And then when I first got into my job, which is I'm a meteorologist by trade, I moved 750 miles away from home, and I immediately sought out a male mentorship.

Ted (00:00:54) - I didn't know I was doing it at the time. I was just always the youngest out of all my friends that took me from Saginaw, Michigan to Greenville, South Carolina. I'm now in Charlotte, North Carolina, and everywhere I went, I immediately cultivated a group of men to feed off of grow with, and I didn't realize how rare it was until I read No More Mr. Nice Guy. Yes, um, by Donald Glover. And I read, uh, The Mask of Masculinity by Lewis Howes, and that opened up my eyes to the suicide suicide rate amongst men. I identified that men are lonely. We don't have these good male communities to run and grow with. And I wanted to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Josh (00:01:34) - No kidding. Meteorologist. I would not have guessed that, bro. Like, do you stand in front of the green screen and go and it's 74 degrees in Wilmington? Whatever. That's you.

Ted (00:01:43) - Yeah, yeah, yeah, on the easy days, actually, we just had a huge storm roll through yesterday and then we have another one Friday.

Ted (00:01:50) - So I've kind of been working overtime, which is which has been fun because weather was really the first passion and first love of mine that got me started down this whole media path in the first place.

Josh (00:02:00) - Have you seen the movie weatherman? Do you walk around with a bow and arrow like the guy from, uh, named Nicolas Cage?

Ted (00:02:06) - Nicolas Cage? Yeah, I have great movie, great movie.

Josh (00:02:10) - Great movie. All right, so when you started this podcast show, you, you know, you feel like you were blessed. And it's a way for you to connect with other men and level up yourself. Out of all those topics you mentioned what men need. Which one did you struggle the most with as you were starting your show?

Ted (00:02:26) - Oh, man, you hit me with a heavy one. That's huge. I think a lot of the conversations were having recently, our conversations I should have started with where I sought out the successful business people, the successful businessman. I sought out materialistic growth and exponential growth in terms of my finances, fitness.

Ted (00:02:44) - But what the conversations have become was more of the internal growth. So I think the topics that we're speaking of a lot now is looking in the mirror, being honest with yourself, fixing your own things. Uh, I don't know if I could curse on the podcast, but yeah, go for it. You feel like, well, fix your own shit, right? So it's it's one of those things where, um, the topics that we're talking about now is all about responsibility and self ownership. If a baby were to land on your front door, it's not your fault, but it's now your responsibility. And that's how I look at life. It's my responsibility to make the best out of what I have and where I am. And these are the tools that I have. And how can I be of service to those around me and really pour into an area that I feel confident in? And that's what leadership is to me.

Josh (00:03:29) - Yeah. What's your worst weather joke that you throw out every once in a while? What's your go to?

Ted (00:03:34) - Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella?

Josh (00:03:38) - For drizzle.

Josh (00:03:39) - Menzel.

Ted (00:03:43) - There you go. That's the.

Josh (00:03:45) - It took me a minute. I got it, so. All right, so you're doing this, uh, what's your hat say? Noble knights.

Ted (00:03:51) - What noble knights?

Josh (00:03:53) - What's it mean to be a noble knight?

Ted (00:03:55) - Uh, picking up the sword of what I just talked about life and going into battle. Uh, we we used the metaphor of armor a lot, and I'm going to put into the camera if anyone's watching or if you're listening, there's a crack on the helmet. That's intentional, because a clean suit of armor has never been to battle. And this is men we need to pour into the difficulty of life. We go to battle. If I'm about to go in it. Josh, I want the dude who's batted up, beat up, and still standing to teach me how to face this. If you have a clean suit of armor that looks nice, but you might not know what you're doing. So as men, we hide these vulnerabilities.

Ted (00:04:29) - But with the noble knight, it's about picking up that sword, going into your fight valiantly, and then coming out victorious, wearing your vulnerabilities on your chest proudly.

Josh (00:04:39) - Yeah, dude, I absolutely love it. For people listening in, what's, uh, what's the podcast show and where could they find it?

Ted (00:04:45) - Yeah, uh, the Modern Man podcast. Com uh, you can find us on Instagram at the Modern Man podcast.com, and we'd love to have you.

Josh (00:04:52) - Cool, guys, I hope you enjoyed listening in on this podcast interview. As always, reach out to our guests, say thank you. We did this all in under five minutes. Hope you have a great day. See you on the next one!