Why Serving Others Makes You a Stronger Man After 40
Your Greatest Strength Is Found in Service
What does it mean to be a strong man after 40?
Strength after 40 isn’t just about how much weight you can lift, how much money you make, how successful your business becomes, or how much you’ve accomplished.
Real strength is also your ability to show up when somebody needs you.
It’s being able to carry responsibility when life gets difficult. It’s putting someone else’s needs ahead of your comfort when the moment calls for it. It’s having the physical, mental, and emotional capacity to help carry a burden that someone you love can no longer carry alone.
That’s service.
And the older I get, the more I believe that some of the greatest purpose you’ll ever experience as a man can come from serving others.
I learned this lesson in a way I never expected.
EP 194: Men Over 40: Why the Strongest Men Serve
What You’ll Learn
- Why real strength after 40 is about more than muscles, money, and success
- The difference between helping someone out of obligation and choosing to serve them
- Why asking “Who needs me today?” can completely change your perspective
- How serving others can become part of your purpose as you get older
- Why difficult seasons reveal the kind of man you’ve become
- What service has taught me while helping my mother after my father’s passing
- Why real masculine leadership doesn’t require recognition, praise, or applause
- Why taking care of your health is NOT selfish when other people depend on you
- How training, nutrition, mobility, recovery, and sleep help you remain strong enough to serve
- Why Brotherhood and connection matter when life gets difficult
The central mindset shift in the episode is moving from “Why do I have to do this?” to “How can I make this person’s life easier today?”
Timestamps
00:00 – When Life Forces You to Change Direction
00:30 – Losing My Father and Navigating Grief
01:15 – Why I Moved Into My Mother’s Home
01:47 – Helping vs. Serving: The Mindset Shift
02:15 – The Question I Ask Every Morning: Who Needs Me Today?
03:00 – Selling My Parents’ House After My Father’s Passing
03:54 – Emptying a Home Filled With 60+ Years of Memories
04:45 – Why You Need to Celebrate the Steps Along the Way
05:15 – Finding Greater Purpose Through Service After 40
06:04 – What Real Masculine Leadership Looks Like
06:40 – Why You Must Take Care of Yourself While Serving Others
07:00 – Resistance Bands, Mobility, Nutrition and Staying Healthy
08:11 – The Alpha Action: Who Needs You Today?
08:45 – Why the Strongest Men Serve Without Recognition
09:15 – Brotherhood, Connection and Getting Through Difficult Seasons
10:12 – Final Thoughts: Serving Is a Privilege
Why Serving Others Makes You a Stronger Man After 40
Strength after 40 isn’t just about how much weight you can lift, how much money you make, how successful your business becomes, or how much you’ve accomplished.
Real strength is also your ability to show up when somebody needs you.
It’s being able to carry responsibility when life gets difficult. It’s putting someone else’s needs ahead of your comfort when the moment calls for it. It’s having the physical, mental, and emotional capacity to help carry a burden that someone you love can no longer carry alone.
That’s service.
And the older I get, the more I believe that some of the greatest purpose you’ll ever experience as a man can come from serving others.
I learned this lesson in a way I never expected.
Losing My Father Changed My Assignment
On July 24, 2026, my father, Roycroft Harcourt Roberts, who we called “The Crofter,” passed away unexpectedly at 87 years old.
Nothing prepares you for that phone call.
Suddenly, the things that seemed important the day before aren’t nearly as important anymore.
There are tears. There are memories. There are difficult conversations. There are moments when you laugh while remembering something your father did, followed five minutes later by another wave of grief.
Then there are all the responsibilities nobody really talks about.
Funeral arrangements. Banks. Lawyers. Government agencies. Pensions. Paperwork. Phone calls. The estate. The house.
And through all of this, my mother was grieving the man she had planned to spend the rest of her life with.
My parents had planned to sell their house and move to Ecuador together, where they would live out their remaining years.
Then, in an instant, that future disappeared.
That’s when my assignment changed.
I moved into my mother’s house and made a decision.
I wasn’t simply going to help my mother.
I was going to serve her.
There’s a difference.
What Does Serving Others Really Mean?
Service means intentionally using your time, strength, experience, attention, and resources to make someone else’s burden a little lighter without making recognition or repayment the reason you do it.
For me, that meant waking up and asking myself a different question.
Instead of asking, “What do I need to get done today?”
I began asking:
“How can I serve my mother today?”
- How can I make this season a little easier for her?
- What phone call can I make?
- What problem can I solve?
- What decision can I help her navigate?
- What burden can I take off her shoulders?
That simple shift changed my entire perspective.
When you see something only as an obligation, you tend to notice every inconvenience.
You notice how much time it’s taking.
You notice what you’re sacrificing.
You notice the interruption to your routine.
Eventually, resentment and complaining can creep in.
But when you consciously choose to serve, the situation may not change, but your relationship with the situation can change.
You’re no longer keeping score.
You’re answering a call.
Service Is One of the Highest Forms of Leadership
We often associate leadership with being in charge.
I don’t.
Some of the greatest acts of leadership happen when nobody is watching.
Leadership can look like sitting beside your mother while she’s grieving.
It can mean helping your wife through a difficult season.
It can mean being present when your adult children need guidance without trying to control their lives.
It can mean checking on a friend who’s going through hell instead of assuming somebody else will.
It can mean mentoring a younger man without asking what you’re getting in return.
Sometimes leadership simply means saying:
“I’ve got this. Let me carry some of it.”
That’s an important lesson about masculinity.
Being a strong man doesn’t require you to suppress your emotions or pretend nothing hurts.
I’ve cried since losing my father.
I’ve grieved.
I’ve had difficult days.
Service doesn’t mean you stop feeling.
It means you can feel deeply and still recognize that someone beside you may need your strength.
That’s a much more mature definition of masculinity than pretending you’re invulnerable.
Why Service and Purpose Become So Important After 40
Something begins to change as you move through your 40s, 50s, and 60s.
When you’re younger, much of life revolves around building.
- You’re building your career.
- Building income.
- Building a family.
- Building a reputation.
- Building a business.
- Building a life.
There’s nothing wrong with achievement. I’m still incredibly ambitious at 57.
But eventually another question starts becoming more important:
What am I building all of this for?
Research into purpose in later life is interesting here. Reviews of the scientific literature describe purpose as involving meaningful goals, direction, relationships, inner strength, health and well-being, and even the feeling that you matter to other people. Greater purpose in older adulthood has also been associated with better well-being and a range of positive health outcomes, although much of this research is observational and doesn’t prove that purpose itself causes those outcomes.
That’s important.
Purpose isn’t only about accomplishing something impressive.
Sometimes purpose is about mattering to someone else.
Your purpose during one season might be building your company.
During another, it might be raising your children.
Then life changes and your purpose becomes caring for an aging parent.
- Maybe your purpose right now is rebuilding your health.
- Maybe it’s repairing your marriage.
- Maybe it’s mentoring someone.
- Maybe it’s getting yourself through a difficult season so you can eventually turn around and help another man through his.
Purpose can change.
Service gives purpose somewhere to go.
Stop Asking Only, “What Do I Want?”
One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken from losing my father is that life can change very quickly.
That has made me think differently about the questions I ask myself.
There’s nothing wrong with asking:
“What do I want?”
“What are my goals?”
“What do I want to accomplish?”
But there’s another question I believe becomes increasingly important in the second half of life:
“Who needs me today?”
That question changes things.
- Your wife may need you.
- Your children may need you.
- Your parents may need you.
- Your friend may need you.
- Your community may need you.
There may be another man struggling silently who needs somebody to notice.
This doesn’t mean sacrificing yourself for everyone around you or becoming incapable of saying no. Healthy service still requires judgment and boundaries.
It means recognizing that your strength has value beyond yourself.
That’s when success begins evolving into significance.
The House Sold, But the Work Was Just Beginning
Not long after my father passed, we received some important news.
After amendments, negotiations, uncertainty, and more stress than I care to remember, my parents’ house officially sold.
That was huge.
My father and mother had planned to sell that home together before moving to Ecuador.
Now I was helping my mother complete that journey without him.
When the sale became official, it felt like we could finally breathe.
But selling the house wasn’t the end.
It created the next assignment.
We had to empty a lifetime.
- Family photographs.
- Boxes that hadn’t been opened in years.
Every room contained another memory.
If you’ve ever had to empty your parents’ home, you understand how emotional that can be.
But it also reinforced something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Eventually, much of what you spend your life accumulating becomes stuff someone else has to sort through.
What remains is how you lived.
- How you treated people.
- How you loved your family.
- Who you helped.
- What you stood for.
And how people felt because you were part of their lives.
That’s legacy.
Serving Others May Also Help You
There’s another interesting part of this conversation.
Serving other people isn’t necessarily a one-way transaction.
Research on purpose and meaningful activity in older adults suggests that purposeful roles, including roles involving contribution to others, may support well-being and quality of life. The evidence isn’t perfect, and we shouldn’t pretend serving someone is a medical treatment, but there is meaningful evidence connecting purpose, social relationships, mattering to others, and well-being as we age.
Social connection itself is also an important part of health. Public-health guidance has increasingly emphasized that strong social connection matters for individual and community well-being, while isolation is associated with worse health outcomes.
In other words, humans need humans.
Men need other men.
Families need one another.
And I believe one of the best ways to strengthen those relationships is to stop asking only what you’re receiving from them and start asking what you’re contributing.
Your Health Gives You the Capacity to Serve
This is the part I especially want men over 40 to understand.
Taking care of yourself isn’t the opposite of serving others.
Taking care of yourself can increase your capacity to serve.
- I’ve continued working on my health while living with my mother.
- I’ve done my physiotherapy and mobility because my back still needs attention.
- I’ve used resistance bands when appropriate so I can keep moving and training.
- I’ve tried to keep my nutrition simple and healthy.
- I’ve continued prioritizing recovery and the habits that support me.
Am I perfect?
Absolutely not.
But I know something important.
- My mother needs me right now.
- My wife and family need me.
- My businesses need me.
The men I coach need me.
If I’m physically exhausted, mentally burned out, unable to move well, and neglecting my own health, my ability to show up for all those people becomes harder.
That’s why I want you to think about something I call your Capacity to Serve.
Your Capacity to Serve is your ability to remain physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of showing up when the people you love need you.
That means your workouts aren’t only about your muscles.
- Your nutrition isn’t only about seeing your abs.
- Your mobility isn’t only about eliminating stiffness.
- Your sleep isn’t only about feeling rested.
- Your medical appointments and appropriate health screenings aren’t only about numbers on a report.
They’re part of maintaining the body and mind that allow you to fulfill your responsibilities and live your purpose.
Research has found associations between a stronger sense of purpose and healthier behaviors in older adults, including physical activity and sleep. Again, association doesn’t establish cause and effect, but it supports an important idea: having something meaningful to live for and taking care of yourself may reinforce one another.
So don’t feel guilty about taking care of yourself.
Your health isn’t only about you.
7 Ways Men Over 40 Can Practice Service
Service doesn’t need to involve starting a charity or changing the world.
- Start with the world immediately around you.
- Call your aging parents and ask what they actually need instead of waiting for a crisis.
- Be more present with your wife. Listen without immediately trying to fix everything.
- Spend time with your children, even if they’re adults now.
- Check on the friend who has disappeared lately.
- Mentor a younger man who could benefit from the mistakes you’ve already made and the lessons you’ve already learned.
- Look for a meaningful way to contribute to your community.
And take care of your own health so you’re capable of continuing to do all of the above.
Small acts performed consistently can become a life of service.
How Can a Man Find More Purpose After 40?
Start by looking closer instead of farther away.
You don’t necessarily need to fly halfway around the world to discover your purpose.
Ask yourself:
Who needs me today?
Then ask:
What strength, experience, knowledge, time, or resource do I have that could make that person’s life better?
Your answer may point directly toward the purpose you’ve been searching for.
Research on aging and purpose suggests that meaningful roles, relationships, social integration, contribution, and feeling that you matter can all be important pieces of purpose later in life.
Purpose isn’t always hidden.
Sometimes it’s standing right beside you.
Over 40 Alpha Action: Ask One Question Today
Here’s what I want you to do.
Ask yourself:
Who needs me today?
Don’t make this complicated.
- Maybe it’s your wife.
- Maybe it’s your son.
- Maybe it’s your mother.
- Maybe it’s your father.
- Maybe it’s a friend.
- Maybe it’s someone in your community.
Then find one practical way to make that person’s day or situation a little easier.
Don’t post about it.
Don’t wait for praise.
Don’t expect repayment.
Just serve.
Then notice what happens inside you when you stop making everything about yourself.
The Bottom Line for Men Over 40
Being a strong man after 40 isn’t simply about becoming stronger for yourself.
It’s about becoming strong enough to be useful to others.
- Build your body.
- Protect your health.
- Strengthen your mind.
- Develop emotional resilience.
- Create financial stability.
- Become wiser.
But don’t stop there.
Use that strength for something.
- Use it to protect.
- Use it to provide.
- Use it to teach.
- Use it to encourage.
- Use it to carry.
- Use it to serve.
Because one day, the trophies will collect dust.
The cars will belong to somebody else.
The house will be sold.
The furniture will disappear.
But the people you loved will remember how you showed up when they needed you.
That’s the kind of strength worth building.
Funk Lesson
The strongest men aren’t remembered for how much they accumulated. They’re remembered for the burdens they carried, the people they loved, and the lives they quietly served.
Get It Done!
Your Friend and Coach,
Funk Roberts
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is serving others important for men over 40?
Service can provide an outlet for purpose, strengthen relationships, increase social connection, and allow a man to use his accumulated experience and resources to contribute to others. Research on purpose in older adults frequently connects purpose with meaningful goals, relationships, social integration, health and well-being, and mattering to others.
Does helping other people improve mental health?
Research suggests that purposeful activity, meaningful social roles, and social connection are associated with better well-being, but helping others shouldn’t be presented as a treatment for a mental-health condition. The strongest takeaway is that meaningful contribution and healthy connection can be valuable parts of overall well-being.
How can a man find purpose after 40?
Start with your current season of life. Consider who depends on you, what problems you can help solve, what knowledge or experience you can contribute, and which relationships deserve more of your attention. Purpose doesn’t have to mean one permanent lifelong mission.
Is taking care of yourself selfish when other people need you?
No. Caring for your physical and mental health can help preserve your ability to support the people who depend on you. Exercise, nutritious food, mobility, adequate sleep, appropriate preventive care, stress management, and strong relationships help form the foundation from which you can continue serving others.
What is the Capacity to Serve?
Capacity to Serve is the ability to remain physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of showing up for the people and responsibilities that matter most to you. The principle is simple: build yourself not only for yourself, but so you have something to give when life asks more of you.
