Bill Valway Podcast

About Bill Valway Podcast

Build the Man. Protect the Legacy. A weekly newsletter and podcast for men who are building something that matters — and who refuse to let who they've been become the ceiling on who they're capable of becoming. Every Tuesday at 6 AM. billvalway.substack.com (https://billvalway.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Bill Valway

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Mar 2026

Latest episode

3 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

32 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   3 Nov 2026

   Burn the Plow, Don’t Keep Walking Back to It

   Book a FREE Discovery Call with Bill at billvalway.com (http://billvalway.com) “So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.” ~ 1 Kings 19:21 If you ask directly, most men will tell you they’re all in. They tell you they’re ready. They tell you they’re committed. They tell you they’re hard at work. Then you look a little closer, and there’s the plow still sitting in the barn. It’s gathering dust not dirt. You’ve heard the line about taking the island and burning the boats. This is the version from the Bible, and I love it. Burn the plows, kill the cows. Elisha had a choice to follow the prophet Elijah or not. He made a huge decision, and then he went all in on it. He slaughtered his oxen, burned the plow to cook the meat, and fed the people with it. He gave himself zero opportunity to turn around and go back. That’s the image I want you to carry this week. The plow is whatever you’re keeping in the barn in case this doesn’t work out. So where in your life do you still have a plan B? I think there’s a misconception about backup plans. Knowing your next move if something doesn’t work out, that’s being strategic. Always thinking in terms of it not working out is something else, and it isn’t helping you. Every time my back has been against the wall, I’ve figured out a way forward. I think that’s true for most of us. There’s a level of intensity and commitment that only shows up when it’s all on the line. It’s one of the reasons I do endurance races. My goal is to finish, so I can’t quit. There are points in every race where you want to. You’re exhausted, you’re fatigued, and the end seems really far off. That’s exactly why it’s so powerful. The prayer that went with this reading stayed with me all week: God, Father, help me let go of plan B, and be completely obedient to your calling in my life. It hit because of where I am right now. I’m letting go of a business I’ve run for twenty-five years and handing the reins to another man, so that he can grow, and so I can grow into this new season of helping and developing men. That’s my plow. When you follow God’s plan, the way isn’t easy, but it’s clearer, and it’s rewarding. Here’s what I know from where I sit today. The immature man keeps a plow in the barn. He hedges. He protects his ego and keeps one foot out the door, so nobody can ever say he failed. Elisha didn’t only burn the plow. He walked away from it to become a servant to the greater calling. That’s the mature man. He goes all in, and what he goes all in on is serving. So, here’s your first move. Take out a piece of paper and answer three questions in writing: * Where am I giving a half measure? * Where am I scared to go all in? * What’s at stake if I don’t? Then circle the one plow you’re keeping in the barn. This week’s lesson: A man who keeps a plow in the barn will walk back to it. Instead, burn it, and go all in. Next, From the Trenches: You Can’t Expect a Man to Know What You Haven’t Shown Him This week I was filming with a younger man on my team, someone still learning the work I’ve been doing for over a decade. He kept pulling me into his process, and it kept not working for me. I could feel myself getting upset, because I felt like he wasn’t hearing me. On one side, I’m paying him to deliver a result. On the other, I’ve got about twenty years more life experience than he does, and I was expecting him to understand my content at a high level while he’s still learning about himself. So I told him, “I appreciate the fact that you’re here and you’re doing your very best, and I believe that you are. And I need to do a better job of leading and directing you on the things I know are important, because I can’t expect you to know what’s important if you don’t know.” We reset, and then we had a really good session. My natural style is dominant, so when I don’t feel heard, I go to frustration. And it isn’t only on set. I’m often three, four, five steps ahead of the people around me, expecting them to get it. I can get upset about it, or I can use it as a coaching opportunity to bring them forward. That’s the trap. The further ahead you are, the easier it is to forget you were ever behind. Men, if you know this pattern in yourself, here’s what to do with it. The next time frustration rises because a man isn’t getting it, treat that as the signal. Before you correct him, tell him one thing he’s bringing to the table. Then tell him what matters and why. Before, not after. Is that the man you want to be, the one who gets frustrated, or the one who brings them forward? That frustration is a plow. Burn it, and lead the man in front of you. Next, Here’s What’s Trending in Fatherhood and Child Safety 17 Disney and Universal employees among 281 arrested in Florida sex trafficking sting, sheriff says (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disney-universal-employees-sex-trafficking-sting/) CBS News reported that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida made 281 arrests in a seven-day undercover operation targeting human trafficking and adults seeking to meet children for sex. Seventeen of those arrested were Walt Disney World or Universal Studios employees, and the arrests also included a former Mickey Mouse performer and the head coach of a youth team for players ages eleven to fourteen. Sheriff Grady Judd said Disney cooperated with investigators and fired the employees involved. When are we going to wake up? The sexual damage happening at a societal level right now is getting worse, and they’re hiding in plain sight. People put this whole ideal on Disney World. I’ve seen grown a#s adults go there and have a great time, and to me, you’re so f#cking detached from reality. It’s not even a place for children anymore. You’ve probably heard speculation about that place over the years. This isn’t that. This is real, factual evidence of real things happening with employees of this organization. They have a responsibility to vet the people working there, and they failed. That’s unforgivable. The sad part is there’s going to be no repercussion for Disney, because they quote unquote “cooperated with authorities”, and they’ll make up some bullsh#t story about how this had nothing to do with them. And I love what the Polk County Sheriff, Grady Judd, is doing. He’s a superstar. He publicizes all of it and puts these people on blast, and rightly so. If we don’t shout this from the hilltops, people stay oblivious and go about their days. There are two things I believe you can’t put in someone else’s hands. The first is your health. No doctor is ever going to advocate for you the way you will. The second is your children’s safety. I’ve spent $175,000 on attorneys over the course of a divorce, and I can tell you with certainty that not a single attorney, judge, or therapist has advocated for my children more than I have. No one’s coming to save you. If someone came after my kids, I would 100% go to jail for them. I’ve already proven I’ll go to great lengths to protect my children, and I’m grateful I haven’t sold them out. I’ve seen men who have: * A feminized son who’s having mental health issues now. * A thirteen-year-old daughter dressing provocatively, looking for attention from all the boys. Why? Because you sold them out. You have to make a choice as a father. Are you going to stand guard at the gates of your children’s minds or not? Are you going to give them untethered access to their phones because their friends have it? Are you going to let your daughter hang out with a materialistic friend because she likes her, or are you going to tell her the truth, that you don’t care for that girl, and here’s why? Last week I said you’re the average of the six people you spend the most time with. Is the same not true for a child? We get what we accept. Our children, whether we like it or not, are a living example of how we’ve led. Ask yourself three questions this week: * Who are the six people my kids spend the most time with? * What do my kids have access to only because their friends do? * What truth haven’t I t… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit billvalway.substack.com (https://billvalway.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   27 Oct 2026

   Rise or Sink to the Level of the Men Around You

   Book a discovery call with Bill at BillValway.com (http://billvalway.com) “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn Most men don’t choose the people around them; they attract them unconsciously: Whoever was at the job, whoever was at the gym, whoever laughed at the right jokes. Then one day, they look up and wonder why their life looks the way it does. Water seeks its own level. Pour it into connected containers and it settles at the same height in every one. Men work the same way. Whatever level the men around you are living at, that’s where you’ll settle, unless you decide otherwise. Jim Rohn was one of the first motivational speakers I ever listened to. If you get the chance, listen to one of his talks. He doesn’t sound like most speakers. He’s funny and he’s captivating, and I’d catch myself laughing out loud, feeling like he was talking straight to me. He came from almost nothing, and his story was anything but a straight line. Take another look at the quote at the top of this letter. For a long stretch of my life, I proved that quote right in the worst way. When I was living in the immature masculine, a warrior and a taker, I attracted men who would validate my way of thinking. I needed that. My ego couldn’t stand anyone who challenged me. So, if I was a warrior and a taker, I was surrounded by warriors and takers. Everything was a battle. Everything was conflict. One of the philosophies of our business back then was churn and burn. And when that’s your philosophy, people stop mattering. They’re a means to an end. The goal is the only thing that counts. What level was that water sitting at? Low. And I couldn’t see it, because every man around me was standing in it too. There was no higher perspective. What changed that was mentorship, and the humility to be surrounded by men who inspire me instead of men who agree with me. That brings me back to the Rule of 33. Spend a third of your time with men who are working to get where you are. They’re not beneath you. They’re in a season you’ve already walked through, and you have something they want, so you pour into them. Spend a third with men at your level, doing similar things, so you can look across and realize you’re not alone in your problems. Maybe you learn something from how another man parents. And spend a third with men you’re aspiring to become, men who’ll tell you the truth and challenge the way you think. If you can spend real time with five people, make it six for easy math: * Two men working toward something you already have * Two men beside you, to bounce ideas off and laugh with about the road you’re on together * Two men you look up to, where you’d say, if I end up where he is at his age, I’ve done well This isn’t about surrounding yourself with top performers. It’s about variety, men who reflect back the things you do and don’t want, so you’re clear on your own path. Nobody defines that path but you and God. It won’t look exactly like any of those six men’s. Success is different for every man. So here’s your first move. Write down the six men you actually spent time with this month. Which column is empty? This week’s lesson: You’ll settle at the level of the men around you, so choose them on purpose. Two behind you, two beside you, two ahead of you. Next, From the Trenches: The Moment You Want to Go It Alone I’m coaching an executive right now, and this week we found ourselves laughing about how closely our behavioral profiles line up. We’re both high dominant. That means we share the same natural defense. When we get triggered and we feel fear, we don’t reach out. We go it alone. We churn and burn. The voice in our heads says, “People don’t matter. I can figure it out.” We were laughing because we both know where that road ends. People turn into a means to an end, and the goal becomes the only thing that matters. Here’s what sits underneath it. Going it alone feels like strength, but it’s fear. The more scared a high-dominant man gets, the smaller his circle gets, and the fewer men are left who are allowed to tell him the truth. That’s the trap. The moment you most need the men above you is the exact moment your defenses tell you to cut them off. Men, if you know this pattern in yourself, here’s what to do with it. The next time you feel the pull to handle something alone, treat that pull as the signal. Before you make the decision, call one man above you or beside you and say it out loud. Before, not after. Is that the man you want to be, the one who goes quiet and burns it down? Or the one who picks up the phone? Water left alone doesn’t rise. It sits wherever it was poured. The men around you are how your level moves. Next, Here’s What’s Trending in Small Business Majority of Small Business Owners Rely on Their Businesses to Fund Their Future, New Survey Finds (https://metroatlantaceo.com/features/2026/10/majority-small-business-owners-rely-their-businesses-fund-their-future-new-survey-finds/) Metro Atlanta CEO reported on a survey of more than 1,100 U.S. small business owners, commissioned by the exit planning firm Exit Factor. Nearly two-thirds have at least half their net worth tied up in the business, yet a third have taken no steps toward an exit. In the full study, 44% said not knowing who they’d be without the business has affected their planning. I’ve talked about this with my mentor, Nick Nicholson, and with a good friend who helps owners build succession plans, and it comes up constantly in my coaching. Most great entrepreneurs get a tremendous amount of their needs met through the business without realizing it. It funds the house, the cars, the vacations. People know you as the owner. Your wife sees you as the man who runs the company. That’s identity. And the work we haven’t done always shows up somewhere in the organization. For a lot of men, the business becomes a prison. For a period of my life it was mine. After I blew my life up, I surrounded myself with the people I believed I deserved. The owners who sell are the ones who were intentional about what they were building. If you own a business, ask yourself three questions this week: * Who am I apart from this company? * Am I planning on purpose, or telling myself I’ll deal with it tomorrow? * What fear haven’t I said out loud? That last one matters most. There’s a fear underneath, and if you spoke it to someone, you’d be able to name it. Unnamed, it drives the indecision, and it moves you further from what you actually want, which is freedom. That’s what the men above you are for. They’re the ones you say it to. If the business sets your level, you’ll drop the day you walk out of it. Raise the man, and the water rises with him. Next, This Week’s NFN: How You Take Cold Water Is How You Take Everything An NFN, a Non-F#cking-Negotiable, is something you commit to doing one day at a time, for as long as it serves you. First, let me make something clear. Every week I pull one NFN off the Pick Your 30 chart and give you the why behind it. That isn’t a new assignment every week. Pick one and keep it every day for as long as it serves you. If the one you’re running is working, keep it. If none of the thirty fit, change one until it does. My NFN started with one thing I did consistently, every single day. Still today, there’s one thing I do no matter what. If I had a list, I’d never get through the whole thing. Here’s why one thing matters. A small promise, kept long enough, builds you into the man you set out to become, a builder and a protector. You start to live as that man. You’re content. You have love and respect for yourself, and because of that, you have love to give everyone around you. Ready to take on an NFN for yourself? Here’s your challenge this week: Take the last sixty seconds of your shower on cold, every day. While you’re in it, watch how you respond. Do you take your time? Put a foot in first? Get out at thirty seconds? Scream and jump around? How we do one thing is how we do everything. How you take that cold water is very likely how you take everything else you don’t want to do. That’s it. Before You Go You’ve read or listened this far, thank you. This newsletter exists to help one man at a time, so that maybe he’ll help someone else. If the column beside you is empty, that’s what my Men’s Team is for. We meet every week, and a man can start any week. Men, I’m an open door for you. Look at the water you’re standing in this week. Then go find the men who’ll raise it. Thanks,~Bill Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Book a Discovery Call with Bill (billvalway.com) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit billvalway.substack.com (https://billvalway.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   20 Oct 2026

   You Can't Hand Anyone A Happiness They Haven't Built

   “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” (Dalai Lama) So many men spend their whole lives searching for happiness. We’re programmed to look for it outside ourselves. Go buy the thing. Go do the thing. Book the vacation. Find anything that can take us out of ourselves for a while. And when the people closest to us aren’t happy, we do the same thing in reverse. I hear it from men all the time: “My wife told me she isn’t happy.” And the first reaction is the one most of us would have, “I need to fix this. I need to do something to make sure she’s happy.” Here’s what I know from where I sit today. It’s no one’s responsibility to control our happiness. It’s ours. It’s an internal job, and it comes from our own actions, from the work we do inside ourselves. This season, I’m finishing a book. All ten chapters are on the page now, and none of them came ready-made. Every page came out of years of doing the work, and a lot of that work happened at five thirty on Friday mornings with my mentor, Nick, saying things out loud and hearing them reflected back. The book isn’t the happiness. The man who did the work to write it is. Here’s what happened this week that drove that idea home for me. For a stretch of time, I ran dream meetings at my company, helping our people go after their dreams. One man, I’ll call him Daniel, came in and told me he and his wife were taking out a loan, fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, for fertility treatment. They were already financially strapped. So I asked him, “Why do you want to have a baby with your wife?” He said he wanted to show her they could do something together, to be the man she’d always wanted. And she wanted to give him a baby so he could be a real father. “When you bring a baby into this world,” I asked, “who is it about?” “It’s about the baby,” he said. What do you think he realized? They were each reaching for something ready-made to fill the feeling of being incomplete inside them. He went home, they talked, they cried, and they decided to save up for a house instead. I’ve watched a version of the same thing for thirty years in my own father. He’s one of the most selfless men I know. Call him at three in the morning and he’s already in the car. He’s spent his whole life building toward the day he’d finally be free to do the things he always said he’d do. At seventy-five, he’s still doing the same dance he was doing at forty-five. Someday, when this is done, then I’ll live. Is that happiness? Or is it a happiness he’s waiting to have handed to him, ready-made, at the end of the road? Someday is where a man goes to die. Men, look at how many of us have found devices and vices to fill that need. The phone in your hand. The thing in your cart. They’re all ready-made. They’re on the shelf, they’re easy, and they fill nothing. The work you do on yourself is the only thing that builds something real. And once you find that, there’s nothing that can take it from you. Here’s the part most men miss. When you’ve done that work, when you’ve built the man, you finally have something to give the people around you. You can only give what you have a surplus of. This week’s lesson: Nobody can hand you happiness ready-made, and you can’t hand it to anyone else. Build it in yourself first, then give it away. Next, From the Trenches: She Can’t Follow a Plan That Only Lives in Your Head This week I sat with a man I coach. I’ll call him Aaron. He’s an extrovert and a big thinker, and two years ago he started his own company. Right now, his family is in real financial hardship. His wife is home with their two young children. She’s quieter, and over those same two years her stress has kept climbing. As we talked, we realized it together. Aaron had a picture in his head of what this business was going to be. He’d never handed it to her. He thinks in concepts, so he was operating from I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be or how I’ll get there, but I’m going to get there. And what was she getting? No plan. No certainty. No consistency. Only the wins. She wasn’t insecure. She was uncertain, and she didn’t know where the anxiety was coming from. So Aaron went home and told her, “I want to apologize for not doing my duty as a man in our relationship, as the leader of our household. I should have laid out the plan and the path, so you know there’s an end in sight.” Then he thanked her for carrying the kids and the finances while he builds. He told me it’s already changed the way he thinks. Underneath it was something I see in so many relationships. The chaotic one and the stabilizer, drawn to each other, then draining each other. We’re there by design. God put those two people together to support one another. But it takes work. You have to recognize what the other person actually needs and put effort into supporting it, instead of assuming you already know. Men, what are you keeping in your head that your people need in their hands? You can’t hand your family a future ready-made. You can hand them the plan. Next, Here’s What’s Trending in Hollywood and Men’s Mental Health RJ Mitte, ‘Breaking Bad’ actor and disability rights champion, dies at 34 (https://www.npr.org/2026/10/13/nx-s1-5999963/rj-mitte-obit) Actor and disability rights advocate RJ Mitte, who was born with cerebral palsy and played Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad, died October 12 in Brownsville, Texas, at 34. He went on to champion disability causes, including through his own foundation. His representative has since confirmed the cause of death as suicide. Mitte once said that living with his condition gave him a different way of seeing how the world saw him, and that it made him better at his work. That’s so much of the work we do. He didn’t choose his condition. He took something incredibly challenging and used it to bring light into the world. At the core, that’s one of the best things a man can do: use what he’s been through for good, no matter how hard it was. I don’t know what he was carrying, and I won’t guess. What I do know is that we all have the void. I believe it’s there by design, calling us back to a relationship with a higher power. I’ve felt it myself, that longing, the loneliness, the emptiness. No matter what you put in it, it doesn’t fill until you do the work on yourself. Too many men are carrying that alone right now. If that’s you, you’re not the only one, and it doesn’t have to stay this way. Call or text 988, or reach out to me. When you do the work, you come out the other side stronger, with a much clearer context about life. Nobody gets that ready-made. You build it, and then it’s yours to give. Next, This Week’s NFN: Gratitude Doesn’t Count Until You Send It An NFN, a Non-F#cking-Negotiable, is something you commit to doing one day at a time, for as long as it serves you. By now you’ve started building a routine, a discipline around your morning ritual. This week we’re going to the Spirit column of the Pick Your 30 chart. There’s a man on my men’s team who kept making commitments about eating healthy and logging his food, and he wasn’t honoring them. We sat down and found a system that worked for him: meal prep on Sundays. One NFN. Yup, it was that simple. He’s down fifteen pounds without setting out to lose a pound. And here’s the part I didn’t see coming. Other men on the team started going to him for advice, because they could see it working. He didn’t do it to inspire anybody. He did it for himself. This week’s NFN works the same way, except the ripple is the whole point. Here’s what I want you to watch for. First, what comes up in you when you do it. Is it uncomfortable, or does it come easy? If it’s hard, that’s showing you a barrier. Second, what happens on the other end. Does it open a new dialogue? Does he reach back out to you? Ready to take on an NFN for yourself? Here’s your challenge this week: Every day for seven days, Saturday and Sunday included, text one man three things you’re grateful for. It can be about him, about your relationship, or something he’s done for you. One man a day, every day. I’m certain that if you do, you’re going to have an incredible experience to share by next week. That’s it. Before You Go You’ve read or listened this far, thank you. This newsletter exists to help one man at a time, so that maybe he’ll help someone else. Men, I’m an open door for you. Reach out anytime. Starting the conversation is the hardest part. Nothing that matters comes ready-made. Not your happiness, not your marriage, not the man you’re becoming. Go build it. Thanks, ~Bill Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. My Website (billvalway.com) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit billvalway.substack.com (https://billvalway.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Contact Bill Valway Podcast

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.