Hello Mighty Men of God, Joe Martin here, man-builder, award-winning speaker, author, and

Tanya's husband and Kendall and Faith's dad.

Welcome to the Real Men Connect podcast, where we help good men become great men, God's way.

Every Wednesday we interview some of the nation's most respected and accomplishment of

faith to find out what it really takes to become the kind of husband, father, and spiritual

leader God called and created us to be.

Today is the real men check-in.. The Real Men Checkin is just a quick

way to help you start your week on the right foot in the right way. Every Monday I share personal

insights, encouragement, and support that will move you beyond church to real change.

I keep it short, I make it fun, and then I'm done.

So let's get started.

Real men are afraid of the dark. That's right, you heard me. I say real men are really afraid of the dark.

Now when I was a child growing up in the projects of Liberty City in Miami, Florida, as you imagine we were very poor. A mother was a teenage

mother, she was 16 years old when she had me. She was single and she had to raise

two kids by herself by the time she was 17 years old and she worked her butt off just to provide the minimum

for us just to survive. Now in addition to not having a lot of money or a lot to eat we

also didn't have many of what I call the normal things even other kids in our poor neighborhood had.

For instance, I didn't even have a room on my own, neither did my sister. We had to share a room.

We didn't have a color television. We didn't have cable. We didn't have a

microwave. We didn't have a yard to play in and we didn't have

Central heating air. Now the last thing I mentioned is significant because

remember I lived in Miami, Florida. Now that means on

...