WTF Is Men's Work? - Mark Groves, Sylvester McNutt, Jeremy Goldberg, Traver Boehm, Nick Onken, Dan Harrison, Mike Campbell, And Branden Collinsworth

All right, team. So on January 31, I had a free community call. And that free community call was with some of the most incredible men in my life. Eight men who I have been meeting with on a weekly basis for the past two and a half, three years. And this conversation came about because on January 31st, my book, Men's Work officially launched. And I just want to say a huge, huge thank you. I have been inundated with messages and emails, people tagging me and sharing the book and manning it forward. Reviews that you've left on Amazon, on Audible. And it has just been incredible to receive your feedback. And I'm deeply, deeply thankful for everything that you have said and everything that you are doing to share that book. Because my mission is to have Men's Work be the number one recommended book by coaches, by therapists from men's groups to any man who is stepping into the work. So with all that said, I wanted to celebrate by having a conversation with a few men. So let me tell you about the men that joined me. First was Mr. Mark Groves, who was the best man at my wedding, founder of Create the Love. Second was Traver Bohm, founder of Men uncivilized. Third was Mr. Jeremy Goldberg, aka Long Distance Love Bombs. Also Mr. Mike Campbell coming at us from Australia who is the founder of Everyday Legends Academy. Next is Mr. Dan Harrison who I actually spent some time living with in Vancouver bc. He's a business coach and supports high level entrepreneurs. And Then next is Mr. Nick Onkin who is a personal brand and identity expert and also a world renowned photographer, very close friend of mine. Next is Mr. Sylvester McNutt III. He is a nine time author and coach. And we have Brandon Collinsworth who is a human performance coach and one of Nike's certified trainers. So these men and I have been meeting for a while and we have some really interesting conversations. We talk about absolutely everything that is going on in our lives and in the world, politically, economically, socially, culturally. And this conversation has been a long time coming because we have talked about recording our conversations for quite some time to be able to put them out because we all come from wildly different walks of life. Like just as an example, I grew up in northern Alberta and Sylvester grew up in the, I think the south side of Chicago. And we couldn't have different like upbringings and world experiences. It's just, it's, it's wild. And so everybody brings a very unique perspective, very unique view, very unique approach to things. And so I have been thinking about bringing you more of these style conversations Where I'm in conversation with two or three people, they're a little bit longer format. So if you enjoy today's conversation, of course, as always, man it forward, share it with somebody that you know is going to enjoy it. But let me know if you enjoyed this, if you enjoyed this style, if you'd like to maybe hear more of this. Maybe not with eight guests, because I, you know, want to recognize this a lot, but maybe with two or three on specific subjects and topics. So without any further delay, please welcome my guests in conversation about men's work, masculinity, and modern men. There we go. The integration station unites. Let's see. We'll probably just give it about 60 seconds. So for everybody that signed on, welcome. Thank you. If you were here for the last five minutes and you heard the shenanigans, that's like the B roll, you know, it's just the. The welcoming conversation. For everybody that is on the call, I would love for you to just pop into. Yeah, this is definitely going to be fun. There should be some good jokes and some good laughs and some seriousness. But for everybody that's on the call, please put into the chat box just a couple things. Number one, where you're from, and number two, on a scale of 1 to 10, where your energy is at today. Scale of 1 to 10, where you're at, where you're from. This is how I normally start my alliance calls. Just doing a little bit of a check in. Oh, boy. We got Canada representing Australia. Look at that. Dawson Creek, Poland. Did I see Poland? Philippines. Oh, my gosh. New Jersey, representing Ontario, Canada. Las Vegas. Out of 11.

Jacksonville, St. George, Utah. This is good. Mexico, Oregon, Montana. Everybody's in the house. Very cool. Very cool. So next, before we dive in, I introduce everybody. I would love for you to do one thing, which is just take a moment to think about two to three words that describe masculinity for you. Two to three words that describe masculinity for you. So just take a moment to think about that, and when you're ready, just pop it in to the chat box. Balance, grounded. Sturdy. Integrity. Containment. Humble, focused, powerful. Oh, my gosh. We gotta. This is like ripping in. Dewey.

Dewey's made the list.

Peaceful, authentic, great. Okay, so we're just gonna dive in and basically the format for today is we're gonna have a nice little conversation. I've got some questions for the guys. I might read a little something from men's work from the book that I just launched today that is live. I would love for you to go check it out. We'll have links for you in the chat soon. But I wanted to have this conversation for a few reasons. Number one, these guys and I have met for what, two and a half years now? Gents, has it been about two and a half years? And we have been having conversation after conversation. We usually meet on a weekly basis and we support each other. We do this work, we live this work. And we have talked for a very, very, very long time about having a group conversation, about letting people into the conversations that we have because they're interesting sometimes and we don't always agree and they're hilarious and ridiculous. But we talk about meaningful things that are happening in our lives. We talk about our challenges, we talk about, we talk about becoming fathers, we talk about running businesses, we talk about our failures. And I thought it'd be interesting for us to get on this call today and just talk a little bit about what men's work is, what it can look like, and for these gentlemen to share some of their wisdom. Because in my life, these are some of the most incredible men that I know. And each and every single one of these men have fundamentally changed my life and made me better, made me more of a competent, loving father, husband, brother. And so I just want to first off start by saying thank you guys for, for sharing your night and your time with us. Very meaningful to me and for all your love and support. So with us, you'll see pinned on the screen is Mr. Mark Groves, founder of Create the Love. Can you give a wave, Mark? Yeah, we're going to go through this. I feel like I'm like introducing a basketball team or something like that. Mr. Traver Bohm, founder of Man Uncivilized. We've got Jeremy Goldberg, long distance love Bombs. We got Mike Campbell, founder, Everyday Legends Academy. We've got Dan Harrison, business coach extraordinaire and founder of the Avocado Method, which is pretty freaking cool. Nick on personal brand and identity expert and renowned photographer. And if you've ever seen photos of me that look really good, Nick took them. That's just pretty much the truth. Sylvester McNutt, nine time author, soon to be 10 and coach. And Brandon Collinsworth, human performance coach, Nike ambassador and just all around incredible human being. And then myself, Connor Beaton. I'm the founder of Man Talks. So that's who we all are. Thank you so much to everybody for tuning in. So first and foremost I wanted to talk about this notion of modern men and modern masculinity. And when I look out at the world today. And most people have probably seen this. When you turn on the news, when you read the news, there's a lot of conversation about men being in decline, men struggling, boys struggling, boys in decline, less people, you know, less men going to college, dropping out of high school, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so for you guys, when you look at modern masculinity and you look at modern men in our society, what would you say are the real challenges that guys are grappling with that you've seen either in your own life that you've grappled with, or. Or the men that you've worked with over the years? And so I'm just going to throw out that softball.

That underhand lob, and see who wants to pick it up first. Maybe Trevor Bohm, just so we have some organization.

Thanks, brother. I mean, I agree with you.

It's.

And I'm in the same work in the same field, so I see it, I read it, I hear about it, I feel it. And I think it comes from a number or a number of factors. Connor. But I'll stick with perhaps two, and the first being that men don't really know our place in the world anymore. And I think that's a big deal. We are often quite successful when we're tasked with a job, when we're given something to rub up against, to struggle with, to, like, chew on, to gnaw on, right? Like to. To put our talents towards, to put our efforts towards. I think that it's very confusing right now for a lot of men. They don't, like, they don't know what game to play, so they're not playing any game. They've just checked out altogether. And the reasons for that. There are people a lot smarter than me who can dive into. If you ever. If you guys want to read another great book, beyond Connors is Richard Reeves.

Of Boys and Men.

Of Boys and Men. Thank you. Just. Just like the. The. The 3D. Realistic reasons why, culturally, why guys aren't doing as well as they can. But to me, that's less important. I think what one of the bigger pieces is that men are disconnected, and we're disconnected from so much of the stuff that is.

In our hearts and in our guts. Like, we don't feel our souls. I don't want to get weird, but we. We don't feel the land beneath us. We don't feel a connection to stories, to family, to myth, to history. Like, I think I project that these were the things that a Lot of men leaned into and, and leaned against and draw, drew upon in older times or in different times of like, who am I? Where did I come from? Like, I don't, you know, I've lived in 17 different places in the past 10 years. My family's my, my men are from Germany. Like, I think I spent 45 minutes in the Frankfurt airport. Like, that's my connection to that piece. Right? There isn't a story that I can lean into of like the bones, the men of the Bohm family or even the myth of, of like what men in a lineage that I can even relate to did and who they and what they've passed down to me. And so I feel like a lot of men struggle with that. And that internal disconnection leads to even further disconnection in the modern day world and is perpetuated by. The modern day world is supported by. The modern day world is accentuated.

Right.

We're all living on, and I'm guilty, like living on phones where we don't have real connection to the outer world, but most importantly now, specifically to our own inner worlds. I think that's, it's like, it's far easier for me to come home, light up TikTok and spend an hour scrolling through videos of bullshit and nonsense and, and being captivated but undernourished. And I can do that night after night, week after week, month after month, until the point where I'm like, I'm, I'm starved for anything real and yet I don't have the first idea of where to go get something that's real. So I think in a nutshell, I mean, we probably talk for six more hours, but I know there's a lot of really amazing men on here, so I bide my time. That's what I got to say. Connor, thanks for having me.

Thank you for, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Yeah, no, I, I agree with that. I agree with that entirely. I think that there's a lack of, there's a lack of like, sustenance that, you know, a vacancy of sustenance that has emerged within masculine culture. You know, there's, there's just, and I think it's coming from a number of places. It's easier to numb out, it's easier to be distracted. It's easier to move away from something that's meaningful and purposeful and connected. It's seemingly harder to connect to meaningful things. I'm curious. I just want to open it up to the rest of the guys though. What did you what would you add to that in this? You know, what do you see happening with modern men and modern masculinity? What challenges are men facing today? Or what challenge. What challenges have you had to personally overcome? Mark?

Yeah, you know, I, I was talking to my partner Kylie about this recently that, you know, there's so much of the role of. In the processing of emotion relationally, but between genders is that, you know, we're. It's necessary to hold space for feminine rage, but it's equally as necessary to hold space for masculine grief, you know, because we haven't had space to be in grief and to grieve the fact that we have been socialized to be disconnected from our emotions. And so they just like to sit with the fact that, you know, I often think about this when I see it relationally and I know, I'm sure everyone on the call knows what I'm saying is that the very thing that partnership and the world needs from men is the very thing that men are told to not have. That it's like in direct contrast with actually the def. Quote unquote, the definition of masculinity. So in order to actually show up emotionally fluent or literate or just in the capacity of your emotions, you have to rebel against the construct of what we've been taught from a society per. And cultural perspective. And, you know, that's such a great disservice to us and deserve disservice to the world. And, you know, I think of. I often think too, of how there's like a whole sort of forgotten generation of men that were told to go to work, go to war and work at factories and, you know, provide and then would come home as strangers in their house and not know their families and then their partners in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s leave them. And, you know, there's obviously context to all of this, but my point being that, like, what is demanded of them and what they've done their whole lives, they're now told is not enough. And what they really need to have is emotionality. And it's like, I just feel. Feel like those generations, and I'm sure there's men who are younger, who can relate, are just abandoned by society and told that. Like you and I talked about it on the podcast we did together on my podcast about how even James Cameron said that testosterone is toxic. It's just like, it's so absolutely ridiculous that someone would even say that. It just shows me how little education there truly is and how little space there really has been. For men to have emotion and to, and, and for those emotions to be anything other than anger or, or moderate joy.

I love that. I love that. Sly, I think it looked like you were going to jump in. Was I. Was that right? You had something there.

Something Mark said just pissed me off. It triggered me, so I wasn't going to jump in, but I definitely will. You know, when I think about your question, you know, kind of how I view modern masculinity, I pull it back and zoom out a little bit further and just look at modern society as a whole and you look at the value system of. What we value here is money. We worship money. Money is our God. So when you look at money as our God, we literally live our lives to make money, you know, and I remember Francis Weller, who, if you don't know Francis Weller, he's. He's one of the best psychotherapists in the world. You know, he talks about primary and secondary satisfactions, like the psychological satisfactions, and how a primary psycholog, satisfactions make us feel whole, make us feel loved. You know, and those things are like community. You know, enjoy expressing grief, knowing that you have a vessel for wholeness and to be yourself. And, you know, he named the chase of wealth as one of those, like, secondary satisfactions that Marco just alluded to that actually can, you know, leave you feeling empty. You know, you think about. You come across a kid. What do you. What do adults ask kids? Oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? Why do we ask kids that question? Like, that's the craziest question to ask a kid. What do you want to be when you grow up? How about, tell me the best part of your day. Tell me the best part of your year. You know, what's your favorite character to pretend to be? Why are we asking them about, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it's because we've all been indoctrinated into this system where money is God. You go to la, you go to New York, you go to Miami, you get on a plane, you bump into someone within three minutes of a conversation, what do they ask you? Oh, what do you do? What do you do? Like, what is your job? But it's never like, how do you feel? What's going on in your heart today? Tell me a story about your life. It's always, what do you do? And what do we do with that information? Well, as soon as they tell us, oh, well, I do this, I do this, we instantly put them into a Box. We have a value system in our head. Oh well, this person makes this much money based on this job that they have. So I'm going to treat them in this particular way. Like this is where our society has went. Instead of like, tell me a story about your family, you know, tell me about your lineage, tell me what you've overcome, tell me what book you're reading. We never ask those questions. We ask, what do you do, who do you want to be when you grow up? And this society as a whole is, to me, it's just, it's just offensive. It's absolutely offensive that the primary function of this society is capitalism and we've all been just brainwashed with this industrialist mindset. It's completely overtaken our society. So when I see, you know, modern masculinity structures, I think it's just a consequence of the society at home, you know, and if we were to, if we were women having this conversation, you know, and we were talking about feminine energy, I'm pretty sure it would be the same thing. It would come back to the, the bigger umbrella, which is the society as a whole, that to me worship God or worships money is God and capitalism in this, this industrialist mindset.

Yeah, I love that point, man. I appreciate you bringing it up because I think there's, I mean there's a lot of important value in what you're saying. But I think one of the things that stands out to me is this notion that we have a lot of depthless relationships, you know, as a byproduct of that, especially amongst other men. Like, I think back into my past and some of the challenges that I was facing and I felt like a lot of my relationships lacked depth because I was just pursuing and chasing, you know, getting the money to buy the motorcycle, to buy the car, and sort of competing with all the men around me unintentionally and unconsciously and then not being able to share the shit show that was going on behind the scenes in my life, you know, And I feel like one of the things that I've noticed is that the more that we as men can create depth oriented relationships where we're able to talk about things openly and meaningfully, like the quality of our life starts to radically change and the quality of our relationship starts to change. So I love that point. Thank you for bringing it up, Brandon. I know you had your hand up there, so I'm just going to come to you and just, and just a quick note, I'm going to come to you for everybody that's putting up your hand. If you have questions, you can do so. We'll get to them probably at the top of the hour here. So, Brandon, go ahead, brother.

Celebrating you, Connor. There's a quote that I love by Krishnamurti, and it goes, it's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a mentally or physically sick society. And I think a lot of us are realizing that we've been tricked. If you do X, Y and Z and you acquire this thing and you become this thing, you're supposed to be happy, you're supposed to be healthy, and we're seeing that that's not the case. When I started my undergraduate program in psychology, one of the first terms I was given was a term called normative male alexithymia. And if you look in the dsm, it's essentially men's inability to connect with their emotions. What I feel we've lost is connection to the heart. Andrew Bennett said, 18. The longest journey will ever go on is the 18 inches from the head to the heart. And I feel that in community, something we all once had in being seen and being able to bring our challenges and our trials and our tribulations to the altar of, in essence, that's what was the foundation of ArtBeat within the individual and within the community. And so I feel like where we are right now is we're all realizing that despite all the labels that we're given, we're all much more similar than we are different. We all want the same thing at the end of the day. And inevitably, it's through the heart space that we unlock a deeper level of ourselves, but more importantly than that, a deeper level of being human. And so we should be offended by. Not offended in a sense of I'm offended for just men, or I'm offended for just women, but offended that human beings have been disconnected to their heart by a society that was rooted more in materialism than in humanity. And therein lies the opportunity is that as we step forward into this. This age where we have all the tools and we have context, we can now really begin to nourish the content of our own human expression and rooted more in love. And I feel like when a man is rooted in his heart, it unlocks a level of potency and poetry. My. My master teacher in Peru, he always says, may all emperors be poets. May all emperors be poets. And I truly feel that that's just an ode to when the masculine is rooted in the heart. And it's not just the masculine in the physical form, but Also the masculine, the masculine energy that lies with it in us all. This is why in the east we talk about yin and yang. When that balance is there, magic happens.

I love that man. Thank you so much.

It's.

It's true. It's like this notion of like one dimensional masculinity. I don't know if it was Jason Wilson, who I had on my show, who wrote Cry Like a Man and I can't remember the other book that he wrote, but we were talking about this notion of like one dimensional masculinity where we've over indexed on one part of what we think a man should be and cut ourselves off from some of the vital aspects of these other parts of our nature that want to express themselves. I just want to. Just before we move on to any other questions, just see Mike, Dan, Nick, Jeremy, you guys got anything to add in? Anything you want to share, Mike?

Yeah, I'll jump in quickly. And also celebrating. Connor, Much love today, brother. Like, well done. Super proud of you. This is fun.

Hey, look at all these faces.

It's different to every other week. And I think the thing that I love about this month is some of the stuff that we've covered here. And Connor, you spoke about depth. You know, for me, when I come down, you know, in this work with me to like just the dude in front of me and what are those challenges? The thing that I see is very, perhaps present, obvious is like we're really unclear for all of those reasons that we're talking about that. You know, Connie spoke about depth. I think as humans, we want lives of depth. As men, we've often been taught not to have depth. And so we play life on the surface and we learn this idea of who we're supposed to be and our identity gets squished into that. You know, as you said, Connor, that over indexed version of masculinity. And we end up in this place where we're kind of unsure, like what is it to be a man and who the fuck am I? And anything that doesn't fit this narrow version here doesn't really fit into that. So we kind of get twisted and knots. I think we become very unclear at an individual level about like who we are, what our path is and what to actually give our energy and our life force to. And that's unsettling. We can be very good at making it look like that's not the case. But that's often going on beneath the surface for so many men, certainly in my experience. And so I think that that Challenge there of like, actually as Trevor was talking about, connecting back into self is extremely fucking daunting for a lot of people. I mean, shit, I know it was for me when I first started to look in the mirror a little bit more. Of course it's freeing, right? If we want life of depths, then we need to go to our depths. And I think that's where we really see. See the invitation at the end of the day. Yeah.

Love that. Dan. Nick chair. Good. Got something I can tell.

A quick story maybe as a transition to wrap this up.

If you bring up donuts and.

Okay, no, but.

Well, two things, I suppose. The first was I flipped the question around in my head because when you asked it initially, I sort of chuckled like, oh, what are men not struggling with right now? That list maybe would be shorter. And what we're excelling at is emotional repression, disconnection, aggression, rage, et cetera, addiction, suicide. We're doing really good at those things. And then I was recalling this time that in 2010 I went on a solo backpacking trip to Africa. And one day I was in Swaziland and I was walking to this lake that I had heard about and I checked in at the. I, I hope that this is gonna be relevant. So just give me two minutes and then get the big cane, yank me off. But I was given a hand drawn map and said that, you know, the lake is that way. And I was within 10 minutes completely lost. Turned around, I was on my. On my own. I didn't have any guidance. There's no mentors or elders, nobody to talk to. And I got super duper lost in the wilderness of Swaziland. And I was wandering around and then at some point, I sat on a rock to collect my senses and I took out a jar of peanut butter and a joint and I got super high and I ate a bunch of peanut butter. I was basically numbing out because I was scared and anxious and didn't know my way. And after another hour, I was walking down this dirt trail and the trail opened up into a large circle that was a cul de sac. And so I was completely lost, but I had also somehow found a dead end. And I recall shouting at the heavens in angst and fear and frustration and just spinning in a circle like, what the. What the fuck? Like, I'm lost, but I still hit a dead end. This is insane. And I realized that even though I was lost, I still was given directions of where not to go and how not to do it. And while I wasn't clear about where I was going and how to necessarily get there. It was a really beautiful moment for me to recognize that I was still being pushed in the right direction by having direct experience with the wrong direction, I suppose. And I share that because I view that as the state of modern masculinity. I view it as lost in the wilderness. A lot of men trying to do it alone, lacking a map, lacking any people around that know the way, lacking any direct experience with being there or getting there. Nobody told them that, hey, cul de sacs are good, it's okay to turn around, you know, be graceful for yourself, forgive yourself. So that's kind of how I see things. I see us sort of bumping against rough edges and second guessing things, but also periodically and consistently through the help of things like this and books like yours, Connor and some of the men on this call, trying to guide us at scale back home to where we need to go.

That's such a good story. And there was just as a side note, and I agree, I think that that notion of like sometimes how we find our way is by getting so lost that we can't help but find a way, you know, that life sort of guides us back onto a path which I think is. Is pretty powerful. And then there were some side questions about your luggage chair. Just, just so you know, so people are very invested in the lost luggage. That's sort of a side note. I'm going to just read one paragraph from the book that I think sort of pertains to everything that we talk about. In one of the sections I talk about move from medicate to meditate. And this notion that we're overly medicated, someone's going to read it and then we can just talk about it really briefly. Is that we are the children of medicated men and have adopted a medicated way of living. If you're like some men, you use booze to socialize, weed to relax, sugar to feel satiated, porn to release pent up sexual frustration or stress, and any number of pharmaceuticals to regulate your mind and body. The endless options for TV series and movies occupy real estate in your daily life, while social media has quickly hijacked your morning and evening routines, giving you a false sense of connection as you scroll through other people's lives while silently sitting next to someone you'd say is important to you but who you often feel the furthest from as boredom, monotonous routines and petty frustrations mount. Something must be done to alleviate the all too familiar feeling of despair, rage and loneliness that we have become immersed in because of our over consumption of other people's online commentary. These coping mechanisms are tools to help numb out the banal and overly domesticated life most have been sold and told to inhabit. If left unattended, these mechanisms become necessary for finding reprieve from the unique kind of hell we create when living inside the bars of this domesticated prisons. Tools we use to regulate our overtaxed, underworked, stressed out, disengaged and under rested nervous system, often more nervous than a functional system. So I feel like that just kind of touches on some of the stuff that we've been talking about.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. First of all, damn, I didn't know. I don't think anybody knew you could write like that. Cheers. Second of all, what page is that in the book and what chapter is that?

It's page 101, I think, and it's right after the Golden. The shadow, it's called. Yeah, Move from medicate to meditate. So, yeah, I mean, I think this notion of like, I started the book with the line a man's work begins in pain. And I started the book and Trevor and I talked about this on his podcast because I think in many ways that the vacancy that I've seen in a man's life is the vacancy of other men who are teaching us what to do with the pain that we feel, whether it's the hurt of a divorce, the abuse from our childhood, the disconnection, the neglect that we experienced. And so I'm just curious, like, you guys have done a tremendous amount of work in your own lives, and I didn't want to make this too specific. I have a question after about fathers, which I think it will be interesting. But what has been the sort of the pain or the internal challenge that you've had to face within yourself and within your own life in order to find yourself on a more meaningful path? Like, what have you had to confront, what hardship, what, what neglect, what abandonment, what pain have you had to face from your own past in order to sort of do your own healing work? What does that look like? Because I kind of laid on the book, you know, so I'm just hoping to open it up to you guys and see if anybody wants to share, because I think that'd probably be helpful.

I'll go, yeah, I think for me, what the biggest thing was the attachment to my identity and the, the attachment to the validation and of being who I, you know, being my career essentially, and finding my self worth within that, because I didn't know any. I didn't know otherwise. So I think a big piece of me, you know, working through, letting go. Letting go of the attachment to the identity of being a big commercial photographer, shooting this brand and shooting that brand and this celebrity and that celebrity, you know, and having that as like who I was and was giving me like, life essentially, and, you know, going to. Through a dark night of the soul, realizing that that wasn't, you know, that's not the case. You know, like, I am. I am who I am, and everything else stems from who I am on the inside. And I think going through that process has been, you know, there's been many iterations of the identity alchemy process that I've gone throughout my private 15 years or 10 years through that. That space. But yeah, really it's just the ego identity and being attached to that ego.

Appreciate that, man. Thank you. Yeah. The loss of our previous identity, though, like, having the. The rug pulled out from underneath us is a. Is a. Is a big one for sure, I think, like, for me. And then I'll. Whoever else wants to share, can share. And we don't have to linger very long in this topic. But like, you know, one of the things that I had to confront and I. In the book, I talk about, like, hitting this rock bottom and having hit that rock bottom because I was hiding so much from people in my life and, you know, hadn't dealt with the pain of childhood. My parents going through divorce, growing up sometimes in a verbally, emotionally and physically abusive household, and not having dealt with that at all and not even having any, like, any awareness that that may have had an impact on me. Like, I think I just, like, really, when I look back and I think about me in my 20s, like, I didn't even have an awareness that being physically abused could even cause some challenge in my life, you know, and so I didn't even think that it need to be addressed or faced or worked on or anything like that. I just thought that that was maybe something that should just be left alone. And so, I mean, those are just some of the. Some of the elements that I. That I've had to work through. I think Mark shared some of his. Anybody else want to share anything before we move. Move on to.

I'll jump in. Yeah, quickly, bro. I'll share. You know, like, perhaps there's some value for some people. I, you know, would have what is probably easily termed like a great upbringing. You know, I didn't experience any abuse and all that kind of stuff. And it's the kind of experience that I've heard in a lot of men where they struggle to see, well, then how have I got to this point here? And for me, I think one of the things that came from my childhood was like this, this safety. But it meant that I was this very safe kid. And anything that felt away from that, I just had, like, didn't have solid grounds on the solid feet on the ground. And I think one of the things that I really confronted when I was kind of in my mid-20s was like a realization that I was who I was and how I felt and how I showed up in the world was so determined on how other people viewed me and saw me. And really what it came down to was whether or not they liked me. And that was such a purifying thing for me to live in and then confront like, oh, shit, I'm just leaning my entire life on the opinions of others. And so to face that was quite daunting because it really meant that I had to now prop myself up. For me, that was kind of one of those steps in towards manhood for me, which was completely foreign territory. So that was kind of something that I think, yeah, I've heard as reasonably common experiences for other guys. For me, it wasn't, you know, trauma so much as like, oh, I haven't really learned to stand on my own two feet properly yet. And that's quite unstable ground. And it was terrifying, but obviously had to do it right. But in there was, you know, mirror facing me of all my insecurities, all my, you know, so called weaknesses and judgments and shame.

Yeah, I appreciate that. That's such an important difference. Perspective. Uh, Trevor, you said that this is the most important topic we're not speaking of and to as men in the culture, the pain that we carry.

What.

What do you mean, like, by. What do you mean by that? Because I think like we, I think that question, you know, we hear that we hear like men are suffering or men are in decline. What does that actually mean to you? And, and what do you think it is? The pain that we actually need to face or confront or learn to deal with.

Clara, I think you spoke to it. You know, the fact that the collective of men and the collective, that's not men, but viewing men we still are just scratching the surface of men are allowed to be in pain. That's actually okay. And not only is it okay, once it's okay, we will make space for it. And you and I have done how many workshops where someone said this is the first time I've cried and 20, 30 years. And the story that they lay out is horrific, or it doesn't even have to be horrific. The cumulation of the small stories would add up to a horrific story. Basically, you know, this guy is unburdening himself for the first time in his adult life and. And literally thinks he's going to be rejected, shamed, abused, physically assaulted. Whatever the pattern was that led him to hold that in from his family, from his. From his neighborhood, from his friends, from whatever. Is that like there is an epidemic of unexpressed pain in men. And as a culture and a society, I'd say as a society, until we can accept that, then we won't start to work with it. And until we work with it, we're going to repeat this pattern over and over and over of men taking their inner suffering and putting it into society.

Right?

And that to me is we had this. I don't want to go off on a soapbox, but we had this grand incident over the past couple years where even more pain was added, even more disconnection. And that's why we're seeing so much, so many outbursts, so much violence. Domestic violence rates through the roof. Sexual violence rates through the roof. Jeremy said it. Addiction, suicide, like, everything's through the roof. Because we can't fucking say, I'm in pain. Or what has happened is a guy has said he's in pain and has been teased, mocked, shut down, left, abandoned, whatever it is. And so he has this evidence that, yeah, okay, I'm allowed to be in fucking pain, but I got to keep it to myself. I think, like, that is, that is like the crux of, Of. Of what you're doing, what so many of us are doing, and what I know your book's going to address, but like, that is, is the nail on the head right there. Like, we want to get to the root of, of 99% of the issues. It's that word pain. Thank you for my other TED Talk.

No, that's good, man. That's good. I mean, in, in the, in the book. And I'll just say like in the book, page 36, I think it's chapter two. I talk about the myth of male separation. And the myth of male separation says that you are stronger, you are a stronger man for separating from anything that might weaken you or cause others to perceive you as weak. The myth of male separation teaches you to disconnect, desecrate, and dominate anything that. That may be a threat to your masculinity, be it Creativity, sadness, grief, trauma, Mother nature, women, or other men. And, you know, I think I. I just saw that growing up, you know, in. In northern Alberta. It was like, don't show weakness. You know, don't do it. Like, that's like, that's the. That's the biggest. That's the biggest threat. You're going to get made fun of. You know, you're going to be called names. And so, like, don't show any kind of weakness and separate yourself from the things that are causing you to feel weak or even be perceived as weak. So, Dan, I wanted to hand it over to you because I haven't heard from you yet. Do you want to comment on anything either this notion of, like, separating from the things that. That cause us to be perceived as weak or where we feel weak in our lives. Have you experienced that? Have you had to navigate that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure if this will answer the question also. Yeah, first time saying anything. Connor. Love you, bro. Super excited for you.

Proud of you.

And just listening to all of you, I'm like, damn, I'm so grateful to know all of you. What was kind of going on in my head as you guys are. Are talking? I'm thinking about just, like, past versions of myself or, like, how I might have addressed some of the issues. And when you're talking about the pain, um, I'm mostly just thinking about my own experience and just, like, looking for. Unsure of, like, what the pain even is and how that manifested in my life through addiction or gambling or just going into a, you know, big pile of debt and trying to fix those problems at such a surface level and it not really working and. And trying to do it all by myself and then feeling a lot of shame about it and being in an isolated hole and I'm just so present to that version of myself and how lonely and how in pain and how much shame he felt. And somehow, by the grace of God, I'm so grateful that I've, like, met good humans and, like, found good books and been able to get into a space where I can actually go into the things that were totally unconscious to me, realizing, like, I would have thought, oh, yeah, I had a good childhood, and realizing, oh, and making connections like this addiction over here is numbing this pain over here, or that this manifestation in my life of. Of debt is because of this past experience. And that would never have happened on my own. That would never. Like, it would have never happened. And so I don't know how I bumbled away, like, through this process of finding myself into a, you know, a container. But I think it was, it was like, just like a genuine, deep desire to, like, learn and be better. And somehow that desire has attracted me to amazing humans that gave me a space to learn from, like, you all and, and the other. Yeah. Just like, men in my life. And I'm just really grateful that I've been able to find this work and to. And then, like, you discover something, you realize, like, oh, there's more to go, and it just keeps going.

And.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know. Those are like, some of the things that I, I, I'm just, like, present to, or I'm just present to my own journey less, you know, not as a men's coach. And like, you guys who see that all day, every day. Yeah. So just present to that.

No, that's good, man. And I think I have the fortune of having known you because we lived together a lifetime ago in Vancouver. Ye. No, I mean, you're just an amazing human being, you know, and you, you're here because of that. And so I think that's just like you, you have so much to, to add and so much to give. In the book, I talk about this notion that I think floats around sometimes that it's easier for a man to say fuck you than it's, than it is to say, I am hurt. But I think what's also equally as challenging is sometimes for us as men to know that we're deserving of love. And sometimes for me, that's like, the hardest fucking thing to do. It's the hardest thing to do because I can be so hard on myself. I can be so critical. I can convince myself that I'm not worthy or not deserving. And it's not to play the victim. It's just like, I, I just find myself in this space as a man. Sometimes it's like, no, I'm not worthy or deserving of love. And I think that that's something that I don't know if you guys struggle with or not or if it resonates with people on the call, but I know that that's been something that's challenging for me and being around other men who give that love so freely. Like, I've just felt so loved and supported by you guys today. And leading up to this, it's like, it's just been insane, you know, it's. I'm like, my mind has been blown by, by how much love and care you guys have had, and it's, it really Feels like an extension of family for me. And it's been interesting to see that part of me show up and be like, do you deserve this? Do you deserve this kind of love? Do you deserve to have other men show up for you and go to bat for you and have your back? And that's just been such a beautiful experience that I think unfortunately a lot of men lack and that they, that they really suffer with that sort of internal state of like, I don't know if I deserve to have that, that quality of relationship and connection. So anyway, I just wanted to touch in Jer and I'm going to come to Brandon.

Yeah, I was just going to add to that. I, I didn't even realize that I was sick until I was given the medicine. And what I mean by that is like, it took months of us meeting week after week after week in a loving, supportive, compassionate weekly group chat until it clicked in me of like, oh, like I have stories and beliefs about men. Like, oh, I'm scared of men. And I had no idea that I had those blocks until I was immersed in the medicine and until I had direct, visceral experience with the alternative. And another example of that, I lead a 10 day walk in Spain Chambers been on it, it's on the Camino. And I led it twice with eight women. And I asked them at the end, you know, what was the most impactful part? What was the most transformative and like, we go to waterfalls and we like see the world and cathedrals and all this stuff. And, and on both of the trips, on both of the years, several of the women said that it was healing in a way they didn't know they needed to be around good men with good, safe energy. And that was echoed again. We ran a retreat over New Year's Eve, Trevor and I and our friend Leela, and several of the women said the same shit. It's like it's been so cathartic to be around good, safe men. And I didn't even realize how impactful that would be for me and how much emotion I was carrying until I've had this medicine. And I think for so many men, we've touched upon the isolation and the loneliness, the carrying of pain, the shame, et cetera. We don't even realize truly how unwell we are because we've never had access to the alternative possibilities. So I think getting in community, I know Connor, you run a men's group. Drave or Mike, I think both run men's groups. So getting in there, even if you don't think that you necessarily need it. As an experiment, I would recommend very highly.

I love that, man. I love it. And so powerful. It seems like it really hit with a lot of the people in the chat box. Just dropping, dropping love for you. And as always, just so wise and poetic, brother. Love that. Brandon, come to you?

Yeah. Real quick. Just to add to that, the first game changer was when I realized that I was deserving of love. The second game changer was when I realized I was deserving, deserving of love even at my worst. I think one of the things that plagues men is that they think through achievement or through showing up as their best, they deserve love. The medicine really happens when we realize that even at our worst, even on our worst days, even in our worst form, even when all of our vices are apparent and we're sloppy and messy, we're still deserving of love. That's when the doorways of healing really begin to flow. And that's when we humanize ourself in a way that people can see themselves in us instead of these propped up artificial humans that don't feel anything. When we can show into our heart and we can give people a glimpse into our struggle and pain, that's when the medicine, for me personally became real.

Love that, man. Anybody else want to jump in on that? Before we wrap up with one final question? Groves. Feel like you got something you don't have?

I'm waiting for this last question. I want to know what's cooking.

Well, on the note of what, what Jeremy was talking about, this notion of, like, feeling, like women feeling safe around us, us feeling safe around other men, what do you think that that is? What do you think that it is that provides? Like, what do you think that we as men have to do in order to feel safer or be safer? Not that we, you know, Traver talks about be dangerous, but not a danger, which I. I've always loved that because I think it's this notion of, you know, know what you're capable of, be connected to your own anger, understand that you're capable of maybe being dangerous in certain occasions and. And maybe even cultivate that skill to some capacity, but don't, but don't be dangerous. So all of that said, to just pull it back to the question. What do you think it takes from us? What work do we need to lean into to be a haven like we've been talking about for other men and for women? And I'll just open that up to anybody.

Well, I'll hit that One. That one fits for me in that. I think that the. The way to, you know, there's that saying that someone can only love you at the depths to which you've met yourself. And I think to hold space within relationship, to be a safe space, means that you can't be afraid that someone's going to go somewhere that you're afraid they're going to see in a place that you haven't gone yourself. You have to get to know your own complexity. You know, much like you guys were saying that the birth of the work is in. Is through pain, you know, And I think a lot of it is us giving ourselves permission to even have pain, permission to have more than a few feelings that are socially acceptable. But, you know, I was saying that the birth of my own, I guess, like Journey Deeper within as a man, was recognizing the value of the complexity of my feelings, that it wasn't weakness and should be hidden because that was leading to toxic behaviors. It was actually that I needed to embrace that. You know, I think it's Francis Weller who says that the journey goes from seeing ourselves as broken to wounded and then seeing the wisdom that lives in the wound. And I think you can't hold space for someone and even through their own journey of emotion, if you can't sit through your own. We try to save people from feelings we don't know the value of. And so as soon as you've met grief, met anger, met rage, met love, and used it to transform your life, then you won't try to save. When you're sitting with your partner who's in deep grief, you're not trying to save her or them or whoever from grief. You're actually sitting with them and just witnessing them. And so I think that's maybe the. The part of it is to sit with ourselves, to really be witness to ourselves. And that way we can. We can hold that safe space that's healing, you know, for. For men, for women, for everybody. Yeah.

Love that man. Thank you. Sly. You got something.

Let's see it.

What's the question? Can you repeat the question? I want to make sure I answer it.

Yeah.

What.

What do you think is required of us? Or what would you say men are called to do or step into in order to be that. That harbor for other men and for women?

I would say two things. A connection with empathy and a deeper connection with source, spirit, God, whatever a person will want to label it as. The reason I say empathy is because I think I can speak for a lot of us here when you have a full life, you can recall times where you have hurt people, where you've hurt people physically, mentally, emotionally. And when you have empathy, you actually have the ability to see what that space is like, how your actions impact relationships, how they can build or destroy, you know, how they can be a vessel for love or a vessel for pain, you know, And I just feel like empathy as emotion, when we lean to that, it allows us to resolve a lot of the conflict that exists in our relationships peer to peer, you know, husband and wife, brother, sister. And so just, just enabling more empathy. And the empathy that we have for other people will also bring compassion for us. With so much of men's work, we are so critical of ourselves and we put ourselves down so much and we grade ourselves at such a high scale. Having empathy for others is going to enable that compassion for us, to give us that space. Okay, I made a mistake. You know what? Let me, let me be better here. Instead of like, oh, you mother fucking piece of shit, you're always fucking up. And then we're just tapping into that, that rage initiate. It's not a vessel for it. It's not going to move it anywhere, at least not in a healthy, productive way.

But when you have that empathy and.

Compassion, damn, I messed it up again. Okay, like, what do I need to do? Do I need to get help? Do I need to talk to a therapist? Do I tell my wife about. You know what I mean? It's like you have, you're. You're moving from a calmer, less reactive nervous system. And then I would say, secondly, it's a connection, Source, spirit, God, nature, you know, like this morning I got up, I was in Florida this morning I'm back in Arizona now. I got up at 5am and went to the beach, meditated for an hour, just laid there, you know, I could feel the rhythm of the earth. I could, I could hear the vibrations of the earth. There was no humans out there, you know, and it just, it felt like, it felt like it was just me and God. And thus, I'll give you an example of this. One of my triggers came up for me today, you know, and one of my triggers is when someone is trying to, trying to cheat me or take advantage of me. I don't play that shit, right? I don't like that. Like, I react, I become reactive when I feel like someone is trying to take advantage of me, because that's something I dealt with when I was younger. And so as I'm getting off the plane, you know how people on the plane, want to get up, and then they want to run. I'm like, bro, we're in the back. Like, none of us are going anywhere. What are you doing? I can't even move. Now you're on top of me, right? So instead of, like, moving from that place of ego and moving from my trigger, I took a second to just remember, like, bro, you have to do shit more. Don't be mean to this dude. Just relax. Just let it go. But that was my connection with God. And so I turned around and I asked the guy. I was like, hey, do you have to catch a flight? He's like, oh, no, no. The lady two rows back has to catch a flight. So then I, you know, I kind of spoke up and said to her, hey, do you need to go? We can all move. And then everybody in my area was, oh, yeah, we can move. You know? And it's like, it was just that moment that what was initially a trigger turned into, like, male leadership, you know? And I feel like it was because I was connected with God this morning. So bullet point, empathy, connection with source.

Nature, God, like, that was wrapped up with the bullet point at the end. That was great. I appreciate that. I was going to give you one last section. I was going to answer my own question. On page 122, I talk about our relationship to women. I have a section of, like, our relationship as men to women. And in this one part, I say, it's not about her. It's not about figuring her out, trying to change her, solve her, fix things for her, or even getting her to like you. It's about you as a man and what you don't know about yourself that gets revealed when you're around her. It's about the unconscious insecurities, the doubts, the desires, the behaviors, and the beliefs that you become aware of when you are in relationship or trying to build one. And I think oftentimes we're so externally focused as dudes that we can just get lost. And we miss out on who we're becoming in the relationship. We miss out on the insecurities. We miss out on the fears. We miss out on the reactivity. We miss out on the lack of empathy as you're talking about how we're trying to get empathy from other people. You know, and so I think that that's a really valuable piece. Savannah. Yes, Women, absolutely. You can and should read the book. A lot of women have gone through it already that have had me on their podcast and whatnot and said that they have absolutely Loved it. So I would, I would strongly recommend, and I think it'll give you good insight into the work that men are doing in the world and what it can look like for man to be in the work, which is so helpful. So team or Vienna, if you can drop the link in for the book, it's mantalks.com forward slash book, and you can find it there. Can we have an unrelated quick conversation before we get into. And this is going to be maybe charged. How do you guys feel about a little bit of a hot topic that I did not prep you for? Thumbs up.

Let's go.

Everything that we've just talked about. And I just want to, I just want to preface to everybody on the call, I did not prep them for this. And this is a very, this is, I think, partially a charged topic. So we'll see where this goes. Open minds, open hearts. Let's go. Andrew Tate. Men like Andrew Tate.

Just going to drop the tater bomb in there. What is your take on that man's rise so, like, meteoric through social media into prominence men 18 to 26 obsessed, watching and following him. Does he serve a purpose and function? Is it all bad? What do you think the, what do you think the, the attraction is? Is there something important? Like, I just, I'm wanting to hear your thoughts and I know this is a super charged topic because I sometimes I'll just talk about somebody on my podcast or on social media. I'll like mention Jordan Peterson's name or Andrew Tate and people will be. Just because I have said their name. And so I just want to preface that. We're just having discourse about this, but you are free to do what you want. Anybody want to start?

I mean, I'll take that grenade. I'll jump on it.

I know you will.

I know you and that's why I listen. Let's go. Let's go.

I don't know. I haven't listened to a lot of his stuff, but I've listened to a bit of it and I think he offers a similar thing that Jordan Peterson offers. Very different. I know I'm not making this straight correlation between those two. And I, you know, Ant in the chat said he doesn't live in his heart, he lives from his woundings. I think that's it is he's given and some other people have reiterated that, that he has given voice to the sort of victimization or martyrdom. And I, and I'm not dismissing it or diminishing it. There's that. There's so Much value. He's giving voice to the victimization that men have felt in terms of having feelings, dismissed, circumstances dismissed, all those types of things. But he also is a polarizing person, much like I think Jordan Peterson can be polarizing. So I think he is giving voice to things, but he almost like represents an extreme version of that voice. I think much like far right men's movements, things like that, they're giving voice to masculine pain, but they're not doing it in a way that's conversational or desires an open dialog to actually see how that type of reactive emotion is actually destructive. You know what I mean? So that's maybe my first thoughts on it. But curious what other people have to say about that.

Yeah.

Open up the floor.

I have a question more. So I'm curious if anybody has listened to Andrew Tate speak for longer than 15 seconds on a clip, like an interview or, or like a longer.

No, I, I have. I listened to a few hours intentionally to try and get a sense of this because I'm like trying to understand what, what's actually going on. So I've watched a fair amount of it to try and get like what, what's the appeal? But yeah. Is there, is there something else you wanted to add?

No. Well, just, just that in that you're probably the expert here who has a better perspective because I, I think his whole model is basically like his meteoric rise.

Marketing strategy more so than anything. And so I, and I haven't really listened to him longer, but I've just seen one, you know, there's enough 15 second clips that you could put enough pieces together and he could be anybody. Like if you only saw this selection of 15 second clips or this sex selection. And yeah, so I don't have an. I would say like, I don't. I haven't listened to him in, in depth and don't have a, a smart enough perspective on, on him or who he is.

I appreciate, I think he was viewed like 12 billion times or something like that on, on Snapchat or something like that. Mike. Or. Yeah, Traver. And then Mike, did you have your hand up to you?

Yeah.

I think men, we could probably explore a few whack. And I think Mark hit on something really, really on point there. And for me, I think what I see is this the resonance in young men who feel disempowered and disconnected and disenfranchised and, and so there's this focus on essentially like the claiming and taking power over others and it feels powerful. But regardless of who you are and any way you're doing it, it's never the path to empowerment, the power over others. So I think for those who feel disempowered, it just creates this shining light of like, oh, yeah, I go towards that and then I'll feel a sense of power. But I mean, we never will. We've potentially all been in a situation like that in some different contexts in our lives. So I think it really speaks to that. And it's like it's giving me a path to feeling some semblance of power and importance and significance, which, you know, I think a lot of us realize it definitely isn't. And so it's dangerous. And the way that it's. He, from what I've seen to Dan's point, espouses essentially the power over others, often woman. And then of course, it plays onto the. The more things and accolades and money and shiny objects you gather, the more worth you have as a man, which is a model that doesn't work. And I think it's, again, a dangerous one that doesn't send boys and young men into a place of empowerment.

Appreciate that perspective. Thanks, Mike. Trevor.

Yeah, Mike used the word that I was going to bring up, which was power. And I think for most men, but especially younger men who have never gotten in contact and had real connection with true power, heart led power. Power in all of its flavors and, and expressions. Any power will do. And so when he comes along, it's like, oh, that's power. That has to be power. I'm nine through 18. I have no status in the world. I have no power in the world. Let me latch on to someone who's going to teach me how to get the trappings or what I think power is. So to me, it seems like he's the false God. He's a false idol, right? It's all pomp and circumstance and no depth, no connection, no heart. And so it's like selling cotton candy to a bunch of starving people, right? Like, I'll take it. Look at it. It's shiny, it's food. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel part of something. So he's. I think Mark and Mike together nailed it. He put voice to the bullied, underdeveloped, not yet made it in the world. You know, like the little guys. The guy who's not good with women doesn't know how to. And it's just like his ego is grasping for something to make him feel like he's okay in the world. And as Dan's point. And some very, very well done marketing.

Right.

Some very, like, take, take the most shareable, obscene comment and it will get shared in a billion times. And then if that comment speaks to the fragile ego of a young man who has no sense of real power, then he'll latch onto it.

Yeah, I appreciate all those perspectives and we don't have to spend much time here. I was just curious to get you guys perspective because I think one of the things that I've noticed more and more and more, one of the things I talk about in the book is like this, the plague of absent fathers and how I think the stat is like 1 in 4 children in America will grow up without a father figure in the household. Right. One in four. And so I think as we, as we live into generations of fatherless households, of not growing up around other men, seeing other men having other male role models, what they are replaced with when we don't see them around us in our lives because we don't necessarily maybe see them at school, maybe you don't join a sports team, et cetera, is that they are replaced by what we think a male role model should look like online. And we crave after strong masculine role models. I think a lot of men crave after strong masculine role models that are presenting things in a certain way. And you know, I did a whole video about how Jordan Peterson, I think in many ways is like the embodiment of, of like father energy for a lot of men who have just never had any, any father energy in their life and they don't even know what it feels like. And along comes an older man online that says, clean up your room, make your bed, dress properly, you know, all, all things that maybe they just didn't get growing up. And so not right, not wrong, just, just an interesting conversation and one that, you know, I haven't heard a lot of guys get into without it getting sort of like, you know, I love him or him versus like, well, why, but why? You know, I think that's a much more interesting question. Okay, we're going to close this off. I'm going to wrap us up there because we are 20 minutes over. And listen, I cannot thank everybody enough for joining us and celebrating this. What is something so meaningful? And so thank you so much. Thanks for the guys for jumping on the call. Thank you for all your questions. Grab the book, man it forward, share it with people, and maybe we'll have more of these conversations because there's almost 200 people on the call tonight. I think almost like 900 people signed up, which is bonkers. I will be sending this out to everybody, so if you missed part of it, you'll get it. But thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. Love to everybody. Gentlemen, they're still in the call. Dan, Jer, Nick, Traver. Love you guys. Thank you so much.

Thank you, brother. Love you, too.

All right, be well. Thank you.

Thanks, brother.

Sam.