The other morning on one of my 4-mile walks, I was listening to Chris Knight’s “Spike Drivin’ Blues,” when it hit me like a freight train: We’ve lost the plot on what resilience means.

For a little background on Knight… He is a singer-songwriter out of Kentucky who didn’t get his first record deal until age 37. The album that this song is from is called The Trailer Tapes, and for good reason: he recorded the entire thing—just his acoustic guitar and his voice—inside his single-wide trailer in 1996.

While there existed bootlegs of most of the material, the official album was not released until 2007. By then, Knight was in his 40s.

In “Spike Drivin’ Blues,” Knight’s railroad man speaks truth that cuts through decades of therapeutic nonsense. Here’s a man “born with steel in [his] hand,” knowing he’ll probably die the same way, yet he keeps swinging that hammer. The train master barks orders, the rain pours down, and the work breaks his back—but he endures.

This isn’t the sanitized version of resilience you may hear peddled in corporate boardrooms or suburban therapy sessions. This is the bone-deep toughness that built America.

The establishment wants your sons soft and compliant. They’ve convinced parents that resilience means teaching kids to “process feelings” and “self-advocate” while wrapping them in bubble wrap.

Meanwhile, the forgotten Americans—the ones who still understand what it means to work with your hands and earn your place—often watch their boys drift aimlessly through adolescence, unprepared for the harsh realities waiting beyond the manicured lawns of their childhood.

Knight’s spike driver knows something our culture has forgotten: Adversity isn’t the enemy of character, rather it is the forge where character gets hammered into shape.

The man in that song doesn’t whine about work-life balance or demand safe spaces. He hates “the train master and [hates] his train,” but he shows up anyway because that’s what men do. They shoulder the burden and push through the storm.

Let’s also be clear: This isn’t about glorifying suffering.

Once one understands that strength comes from facing hardship head-on, not running from it, this becomes clear. Our grandfathers knew this instinctively. They lived through the Great Depression and learned that resilience isn’t bouncing back to where you were at one point.

Resilience is forging yourself into something stronger than what broke you.

The psychological establishment will tell you resilience is about “successful adaptation” and “maintaining well-being.” What sanitized garbage.

Real resilience is about getting knocked down and getting back up, over and over, until you develop the calluses—physical and mental—that let you swing harder the next time.

Where do boys have the opportunity to learn this nowadays? Not in schools that ban dodgeball and eliminate competition. Not in a culture that treats every setback as trauma requiring intervention.

They need mentors who understand that comfort is the enemy of growth, that brotherhood forged through shared struggle creates bonds deeper than blood.

This is why I created The Foundry. We’re not another feel-good program that coddles adolescents, but a crucible where young men discover what they’re made of. We are developing a place where young men can learn that leadership isn’t about commanding others—it’s about commanding yourself when everything goes sideways.

Afte that, they can start to build the kind of resilience that doesn’t crumble at the first sign of adversity.

The spike driver in Knight’s song knows he’ll die with that hammer in his hand. That’s not defeat. That’s dignity. It’s understanding your purpose and fulfilling it regardless of the cost.

It’s the difference between boys who fold under pressure and men who become the pressure that shapes the world around them.

Your son doesn’t need another participation trophy. Instead, how about forming the steel in his spine and stoking the fire in his belly?

How about he learns the lesson that real resilience isn’t avoiding the storm but learning to dance in the rain while swinging a ten-pound hammer?

The train master is calling. Will your boy answer or will he have the strength to keep swinging when the work gets hard?

Join The Foundry today and give your son the brotherhood and backbone he needs to become the man America requires.

The future belongs to those with steel in their hands and fire in their hearts. Everything else is just noise.

As always,
Brian

P.S. – Yesteday, I wrote: “We’ll also encourage them to build businesses that can’t be automated…”

What I probably should have said is:

We’ll also encourage them to build businesses that can’t be automated out of existence.

In other words, we’re looking to develop “permanent things.”

Automating tasks, workflow, etc. within a business is a very good idea. But we don’t want to have our businesses destroyed by automation. We’re looking for the things that endure.