Ep 22: Dan Doty on Slowing Down & Connecting Outdoors

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild.

Welcome to the Adventure Made Podcast.

I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I'm here today with Dan Doty, a somatic meditation teacher, men's coach, wilderness guide, husband, and father. He has taken thousands of men into the outer and inner wilderness, guiding them to vulnerably accept their humanity and connect to each other. He currently coaches CEOs, founders, and teams and runs programs and groups for fathers based on embodiment, leadership, and accessing one's inner wildness. And I am personally really excited for today's interview because of all the different work that Dan has done over the years and is continuing to do today. So, welcome. Thanks for having me. Dan, welcome to the show.

Yeah, thanks, man. Excited to be here.

Yeah, totally. Dan, just to get started, I'd love to hear your background story and kind of how you got to where you are today, um, doing men's work and everything, because I know you've had a pretty diverse background as far as being producing and working with some outdoor brands and, um, influencers in the hunting space. So maybe just let's do a deep dive there.

Yeah, yeah, I have, uh, I, I like my backstory. It's It's certainly not traditional, I don't think. So I'll start with being a young man right after college. I studied all kinds of book stuff. I studied philosophy and literature specifically and got kind of roped into some international living in college and after college and ended up living in Europe for a bit, in South America and Central America. And, was just kind of, I don't know, somehow given a permission slip just to do whatever the hell I wanted in my 20s. And, I kind of went for it. And so, one day I was living in Panama, Panama City, Panama, and I pretty much ran out of money and I needed a job. So, I went to an internet cafe and went on Craigslist and I found a gig based out of Salt Lake City that was a wilderness therapy guide.

Hmm.

And, I didn't know what it was. It was one of those moments you come across something you've never heard of before. And, But I was very interested. And so I ended up flying back to the States and flying out to Utah. And I went out in the mountains west of the kind of like the brown, low, ugly mountains west of Salt Lake City and found myself in the perfect job that was basically— it couldn't have been more perfect for me. I was basically a professional older brother and I would lead these long-term therapeutic wilderness programs for young men. And, I did that for 4 or 5 years and just loved it and wanted to basically move into something a little bit deeper. And, I was at a crossroads. I was either going to become a therapist or a teacher and educator of sorts. And, I moved to New York City, became a New York City teaching fellow. So, that was basically a trade for a free master's if I taught for a couple years in Bronx. I tell this part of the story because it also was my breaking point. It was my sort of really maybe quarter-life crisis, but I really broke down. So literally living in the wilderness for many years, moving to New York City broke my ass down all the way. And that was an important part for me because at that time of breaking down, I found my first men's group, found my first therapist, Started meditating with a specific school and teacher, went to South America and really sort of investigated shamanism and shamanic ceremonies on purpose. And anyway, just completely changed my life. So I had a pretty rad adventurous life before that, but I kind of came to my senses in a sense. And then shortly after that, I got basically— it was a dude in a men's group I was in with was a director of some outdoor TV programming.

Wow.

Hired me to be a PA to basically lug heavy stuff up the mountain and take care of the crew in the woods. And that blossomed very quickly into a career as a producer, director, and executive producer of the show Meat Eater and a couple other shows in the hunting and outdoor space. So I'm going pretty fast there, but yeah, you can slow me down if you want.

Wow. Now, that's a fascinating story. A couple things I'd like to dig into here. One, what was the cause of the breakdown? That just kind of forced you to really crack open and reevaluate yourself?

Yeah, I mean, they were multifaceted. I think on the external level, it was over— I was in overdrive, right? So I was working in a very intense environment during the day in a job that I didn't know how to do, right? They throw you in the classroom before you have any training. And I was studying 4 or 5 nights a week. Taking the train from the Bronx down to downtown Manhattan and getting a master's and working at the same time. And I was way over my head in a lot of ways, professionally over my head, academically over my head, and just the living scenario. I was a country kid that just dove into New York City headfirst. And so that's the external part. The internal part was that even though I had worked in a therapeutic setting for many years and that did a lot of good for me, I was completely blind and I would even say ignorant to my own inner world, right? I didn't know how to have emotions for myself. I didn't know what was going outside. I didn't know how to ask for help. I grew up in a small town in North Dakota and we didn't talk to each other, right? We didn't hug each other. We didn't ask for help. We just kind of survived. You just kind of made good.

Mm-hmm.

And, In that scenario in life, like, that was no longer functional. So, um, yeah, I needed a lot of help, and it kind of came in a dramatic fashion.

Yeah. Wow, that's great. Um, I'd love to dig into a little bit more on the, um, the professional side when it comes to working with Meat Eater. And I believe you did some work with Remy Warren and some others as well. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, I look back on it as a really just incredibly lovely chapter of my life. I never ever had imagined working in television or film before. Like, it was just— I feel like my, my story is one of blindly, luckily stumbling into some pretty cool things. You know, I was probably guided on some levels. But yeah, so I started out, the first show was called The Wild Within. Steven Rinella was the host of that, who's also the host of Meat Eater.

That was his original show, I believe.

It was. There's only one season. It was on the Travel Channel. And so I got hired for that first season. And I made myself really useful. Let's just say that, like, on the first shoot, like, things went down in the mountains. And there was some really sketchy situations and bad rainstorms and things. And, you know, I made myself super useful and helped keep people safe and keep things together and was very valuable. So they hired me. They kind of kicked me up to the role of safety coordinator and for that first season. And yeah, so I found myself like flying all over the world, you know, South America, Scotland, and just like, it was, it was a, it was a cool gig. And we had a great time. And it was a bummer when the show didn't get picked up. But it wasn't very much longer after that, that they—

Wow.

ZPZ, the company that made the show, rebooted and started Meat Eater, which was a similar premise show, but was sold on the Sportsman Channel. And Meat Eaters now may turn into a really pretty successful brand on its own, right? But yeah, yeah, I started out as a PA carrying stuff, you know, and they put a camera in my hand because I could climb to the places where people needed to have a camera in their hand. And I'm a storyteller and a writer by nature and by, you know, by background. And so, yeah, so I started out just jumping in, you know, we were a small crew, and I was able to take on more roles. So I started associate producing. I kind of jumped up fairly quickly. And honestly, the way it happened is that people on the crew got hurt, and I was there. And we did some rugged— like, it's a super rugged, very rugged experience, very rugged show. And, and it was always that way. And so the, you know, I think I had the capacity and the capability, and they gave me more responsibility continually. And it just, it worked. It worked really well.

That's great. Was there a most memorable experience that you had while working with, with Rinella and Meat Eater?

Oh, man. So way too many to— I mean, I can pull a couple out.

Geez.

I would say we did. Well, the first time we met Remy, we went on a— it was, it was just 3 of us, Steve, Mo, and myself. We went to the South Island of New Zealand for like, like a 2+ week trip, maybe like a 21, 20, somewhere around there. And we shot 5 episodes.

Oh, wow.

And I mean, and Remy's maybe 4 episodes. And, you know, that was the first time I met Remy. And, you know, it was, it was just, it was a perfect trip, man. I mean, we, we did some wild, gnarly shit and created some beautiful episodes. And I, in some ways, I think of that as like the apex of the early days in a sense of the show. And, you know, sitting on the top of a, like, side of a mountain with a 3,000-foot vertical cliff below us eating raw tahr meat, you know, as it like hails and rains and snows on us. And like, there's 4 dudes just like, you know, making art out of adventure. That was a beautiful memory. Another quick one, I guess, was the— maybe the only show I shot entirely myself was— it was actually elk hunt in Kentucky. Which people may not be familiar with.

I'm from Kentucky originally, so yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Please dig in. Yeah, because I've been putting in for a tag for a decade and haven't gotten it yet.

Yeah, I hope you do, man. I mean, that was a rad hunt and it was, it was that actually. Yeah, again, it was a small crew and, and it was a unique experience and I just felt really proud of the show I put together from it. And yeah, there's so, there's so much, man, that we did. I was at like 60+ episodes, you know, of that show and we just got to do All kinds of stuff.

So, so how was your experience doing that? You know, being in the great outdoors, filming, working with some very successful individuals, influencers in kind of the hunting and the outdoor space. How has that shaped what you're doing today?

I mean, it— I mean, in a lot of ways, it— well, that's a great question. It, on a practical level, it boosted, it boosted my profile hugely, right? I've been on the Rogan Show 3 times, twice, twice, actually all All of it prior to launching Everyman, which I'm sure we'll get into, right?

Yes.

But once with Remy, he and I, when we announced the Apex Predator show, he and I went on. I was on Rogan. We did a mule deer hunt in Nevada, and he and I were driving back to the airport, just him and I, and we just did an episode in the car on the way back to the airport. And then basically on the eve of launching Everyman, He had me to his studio and I was on there. So, I mean, that's enough to kickstart any kind of thing that anybody wants to do. So, that was hugely there. But, I would say maybe in a deeper way, I don't know, I learned how to tell stories, man. I learned how to communicate to the world. I learned how to build brands. I learned how to do a ton. It was such a wild crash course in learning how to speak to the masses and be a part of a brand that really catches fire. I learned an immense amount. I mean, I remember at one point I was like, all right, I want to get as good at writing as Steve. I want to get as good at shooting a camera as Mo or Nick. And I want to— so I was a young, hungry, ambitious dude around a bunch of high performers, and it really shaped me in a lot of ways.

It's a great place to be.

Yeah, totally. Totally.

Dan, why is nature and the outdoors so important to you?

I think it started really early. I just have always felt at home there. It's where I feel— well, I'll tell a quick story of— so one of the jobs I had when I did the wilderness therapy work is for maybe 2 seasons, I was the director of a wilderness program in northwestern Montana. And so what that meant is I I hired a bunch of guides and I trained a bunch of guides and I sort of oversaw programming for a couple seasons at this wilderness program. And, when I did one of the guide trainings, I had been working with this woman in a different capacity. And then, she came out to go to the training and we're sitting around a fire. And afterwards, she pulled me aside and she's like, Dan, I like, like, I liked you before, but I didn't get you. But now that we're sitting outside, like under the stars around a fire, I'm like, oh, I get it.

I get it.

You actually don't fit in a house. Like, like, you just don't, you don't work inside. And I'm like, yeah, that's pretty true. Right. And I don't really know what that means other than I just feel at ease, man. I feel, I feel myself. I feel, I feel energized. I just love it. Maybe that's it. I just freaking love it. I just absolutely love being out in nature. And, it doesn't have to be a specific thing for me. I'm not a hardcore mountain biker. I mean, I love to hunt and I love to garden. I love to do a lot of stuff, but I don't identify as a sport or anything. And, there's nothing I love more than shitting in a hole and sitting around a fire and drinking out of a stream and laying on the earth. And I like adventure, man. I do. I'm up for, you name the adventure out there and I'm pretty much up for it.

We are cut from the same cloth in that regard. Totally, totally get that. I'd love to dig into Everyman, how you got started with that and about the company, the work you're doing there.

Yeah. Well, there's a little crossover and interlude too. So when I was doing the media work, when I was in that field, there's a bit of a split personality thing going on, or not personality, but a split interest, right? Where the media work I was doing was so exciting and I loved it. But I also kind of had this thing going on inside me where I had been to that point before I started doing that, I was always working in service, serving others. And that was really important to me. I mean, I think that's an understatement. It was pretty fundamental to me. And that part of me, that sort of men's work, sort of helping others, the vulnerability, all of those things, they weren't a part of my job. And And so I had this internal fight. I had this kind of tussle going on inside of how I could let all the parts of myself out. And not only was I interested about men's work, I mean, I was very passionate, very, very passionate about it. I mean, from my time in the wilderness with young men and specifically to go back to that, when I worked in the wilderness therapy jobs, I got some experience toward the end of my time where I was working with fathers and sons specifically. And that exact— though there's some moments I can point to there, sitting around a fire where a father and a son basically broke down the walls between them and saw each other and loved each other and sobbed in each other's arms telling how much they cared for each other.

Wow.

That was it. That was it. And once that happened and once I experienced that, I could never get that out of my system in terms of what I I knew there was something there that the world would be better off with and that I had an insight into it and I could do something about it. And so I suffered for a couple years there, like, how do I do this? I'm scared. I was scared. I was scared to— and I was both scared and didn't know how to do anything about it. And towards the end of my time in the media career, I started writing some articles that got some traction and I started sort of like, moonlighting and doing more men's work stuff. And it actually, in the sort of the same bumbling way most of my life has been, that I ended up losing that job. I ended up getting kicked out of that job about the same— within the same month that my first son was born.

Oh, wow.

And that was just like a— that was it. That was the push off the cliff. And so, 3 months later, we did the first retreat that ended up becoming Every Man, and it caught fire immediately. And, it was like, all right, let's do this.

Wow. Yeah, that's fantastic. Tell me a little bit more about Everyman and the retreats that you guys put on and the work that you're doing and kind of how that's structured.

Yeah. I guess to be upfront about it, I'm no longer involved. I'm no longer a part of Everyman at this point. I have moved on, but it's a huge part of my life and huge chapter of my life. And so, Everyman was an organization that I co-founded with a few co-founders. And my role was sort of the public-facing part, right? So I was the spokesperson and kind of prime mover on the vision of the thing in the beginning. And it was and still is very, very direct and simple. It's about showing men and modeling to men that we have feelings too, and that there's a lot going on underneath the surface that we don't normally let out. And that we're healthier when we do it in the right ways and in structured supported ways. And so, the first thing we ever did was a retreat called Open Source, which is a 2-day weekend retreat. We did it at a lodge in the Berkshires upstate from New York City, so in Massachusetts. And, it was an experience that was really challenging in a way that most men aren't often challenged, which is to ask them to show up and to be really real and raw and truthful and not hide parts of themselves that they hide all over the place. And, the first one we did was just— it was one of those moments in life where everything came together and it was just wildly beautiful and people wanted more. People wanted more quickly. And so, Every Man has pivoted and now has a substantial online community and is doing a lot of things. But, for the tenure that I was there, we did retreats, we did trainings where we train men to facilitate this type of work. But, I also ran wilderness expeditions. We did expeditions in Yellowstone National Park and then kind of around the outskirts of— oh, why am I not thinking of it? The other national park in Montana up north.

Glacier.

Glacier.

Glacier.

Yeah. And yeah, we did podcasts. I think I did 120 episodes or so of the podcast. And, You know, man, it was a rocket ship. The media sniffed us out and we were in kind of every major features in a bunch of big magazines, Men's Health and GQ and lots of newspapers, New York Times and all of the things. And it was really a wild ride and a beautiful ride. And I was simultaneously like having a family, right? I had Like I said, my son was born 3 months before the first retreat, and then we had another kid 2 years later. And I started coaching along the side because as a startup, I mean, the honest story is I didn't ever make enough to support my family with Everyman. And so I coached, I started a coaching practice also. And that's ultimately what kind of led me to step away and build my own business now.

So that makes a lot of sense. It's unfortunate that sometimes the thing that we're really passionate about and that we feel the greatest mission towards, that the financial side doesn't necessarily work out. And so we have to do the other thing as well to kind of pay the bills. I interviewed Randy Newberg not too long ago, and he was basically saying the same thing that, you know, the, the running joke within the hunting space or what everyone thinks is that, you know, oh, you got a TV show, you're making all kinds of money. He's like, if only. And so, yeah, he's an accountant.

Yeah.

By, by trade. And so that's what pays the bills and enables him to, to create cool content and go out on these hunts and stuff and, and share that with the world.

Yeah, I got to hang with Randy a couple times, go on a shoot. Actually, we got to go on a, a black bear shoot with him in Alaska once, and that was such a blast. He's such a good guy.

Oh man, he, his, his personality is just infectious. He's a great, great guy.

Yeah, he's from Minnesota. He's, he grew up not too far from where I grew up.

Oh yeah.

I feel, I feel a kinship with that guy for sure.

Totally. Dan, so within some of these excursions that you're doing with Everyman, obviously nature and the outdoors plays a big part into that. Can you tell me a little bit why about that's so integral to the whole experience?

Yeah. I mean, so it goes back to a little bit what I talked about with my time in the wilderness as a younger man. I mean, the work that you do like in my programming now or with Everyman or whatever, I mean, One way to talk about it is that we're finding ways to sort of get out of our head and get into a larger and deeper sense of who we are, right? And the best way to do that is to be in nature, I think. I mean, from my experience, it might not be the fastest, it might not be the easiest, but we learn who we are in the outdoors. We do. If you do it in certain ways, you can't not learn more about who you are. And to me, it's not— I think what people might hear in that or assume in that, I think a lot of people think of the outdoors as a place to prove themselves, right? Like, I'm going to run 100 fucking miles. I'm going to climb up mountains. I'm going to be like a place to learn who I am that I can push myself harder than anybody else. And that's true. That is real. That can happen. And I think we're missing the boat If you don't think about what else is happening. It is a place to fundamentally learn how to have greater awareness, greater awareness of your body and your emotions and all of the inner parts of yourself. Because if you spend 10 days in the wilderness, you have to pay attention. You can't let yourself get dehydrated and all messed up and a headache. You got to know. Even little dumb things like pooping in a hole, you have to pay attention to your body. You have to plan ahead. Things aren't all set up for you. There's just far more fine-tuned self-management. But then also on a relational level, if you're with a small group or you're with a partner or whatever it is out in the woods, you kind of have to learn how to communicate or deal with the consequences. And so I just feel like that's a little bit of the personal and social. But then on a deeper, even deeper level, I would say— Call it spiritual, call it energetic, call it just however you want to think about it, but time in nature where you're not engaged in some specific forward activity, it changes you. It's like a very mild and accessible dose of hallucinogenics, right? It just sort of— you start to feel yourself as part of something different. And I think that it's also just an incredible catalyst for deeper work, right? So if you want to do a men's retreat or you want to do a retreat, like I'm doing a canoe expedition in Maine this September and it's a meditation—

Oh, cool.

Meditation and canoeing, 7-day experience. And if you want to learn to meditate, go sit in the woods. What an awesome like enjoyable way to learn some of the basic skills of a deeper way of being.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That sounds like an amazing trip. I'd like to learn a little bit more about that. Maybe, maybe afterwards we can put links in the show notes to it as well in case anyone is interested in checking that out. You know, part of the work that you're doing and what we're seeing just as a society today, there is this talk about toxic masculinity. And it's like we're going to this other extreme where for a long time throughout society, it was this patriarchal, hierarchical, top-down type of system. And but it seems like we're going to the other extreme, and a lot of men are losing who they are. We've lost that wild side of us. So I'm curious your thoughts here on how we can balance that and how— being in nature and in the wild, how that can help us to recapture that and if that's something that we should.

Absolutely. I mean, I think I'll start with the back part of the question, should we? I mean, I think it's good for us. I wouldn't force anybody into it, but if somebody's called to use that way to sort of balance themselves out and find out who they are, then absolutely we should, right? But yeah, it's a great question. If the over— if the sort of paradigm we've been in is one that, you know, sort of like, let's, let's instead of calling it patriarchy, let's just call it like a dominant mindset, right? Like, I'm gonna win over you, I'm gonna dominate over you.

Yes.

I think that gets easily conflated with, you know, positive natural characteristics that people would consider masculine, you know, like being able to be really focused and solutions-oriented, or, you know, problem-solving orientation, or driving results or whatever. I think it might be interesting for some people to crap on those, but man, they're really important parts of life.

Yeah.

And I think what's actually on offer today is the realization that we don't have to be one way or another. And I think maybe the true realization is that we all have the capacity within us, male or female, non-binary, whoever you are, we all have the capacity. within us to both kick ass and be kind and tender and loving. And I actually think that for men, I think the opportunity is to go in both directions, both learn how to love better and learn how to be more sensitive to others, but then also go leave everything at the door and just get after it and push yourself like you've never pushed yourself before. And, that's why I think a lot of it is just lost in translation and communication because when you're out on a big adventure or when you're out in the woods, it's a pretty round experience, right? It's a pretty full experience. It's not just a testosterone-fueled thing, right? There's a lot of humanity that gets brought. Some of the most deeply human people I know are big wall climbers or people who run big races.

Yeah.

There is another good analogy here, man, is like the Special Forces. Those dudes are the world's biggest badasses, but all of them that I know are also deeply human and can deeply— I think what we're really talking about here is a maturation process.

Mm-hmm.

And I think the idea that it's either one or you're either soft or hard or you're one or the other is Is just a— it's a stage in the game that we need to understand you can grow through and then mature past.

Yeah, it seems like when we're much younger going through puberty, high school, college, you know, there's this very much our ego is in control and we're trying to discover who we are and it's like, oh man, masculine, let's play as many sports as possible. And then as we get older, we lose a lot of that and then maybe that's because marriage, kids, you know, bills. Boss, whatever job, whatever the case may be. And so we become more feminine in a sense, and also because society is really pushing that right now. So it seems like trying to find that balance of the masculine and the feminine, the yin and the yang, and not one or the other, but because we're, we're made up of both, you know. And obviously men have more masculine traits, women have more feminine traits and all that, but also being in touch with that other side of ourselves so that we can balance it out and Not brutalize, not just go to an extreme one way or the other.

Exactly. I mean, I like to think of it in terms of men are afraid to step into their power. Men are afraid to be powerful these days for the most part. And I think for good reason, right? There's a lot of examples of powerful people doing bad things and not being— I mean, there's other examples where the opposite, but But I think what helps us allow to let our full self unleash all the way is having a ballast of sensitivity, of being able to know what impact we're having on others, to be able to feel that, to actually have that sense of what are my actions doing to others, and to not to be ignorant or not to pull our head away from that. And I mean, love, right? I mean, at the end of the day, none of us are okay if we don't feel safe or we don't feel belonging and we don't feel loved, right? I don't care how tough you are. That is the human situation and that's necessary. And I think there still is a lot of holdover, and I think it's changing with young people, but there's a holdover in adult males today where there's still this sort of distancing from our basic humanity, which is, it's just bullshit.

Yeah.

And it's sad and it doesn't hurt. It doesn't help anybody to think that we're not Sure.

And then you have the other extreme with a lot of the younger generations where it's like nothing but feelings and kind of logic goes out the window. And so it goes to the other side of that as well. And really just trying to find that balance, which I think finding balance can be one of the most challenging things in life that we do. But that is the work that we're called to, you know.

Well, it's— yeah, it's so interesting. I've been studying recently something called Spiral Dynamics, which is a an overlay of sort of evolution of human consciousness. And, I won't get into it.

I just bought that book.

Did you?

But, I haven't read it yet.

Yeah, cool. I won't get too deep into it, but it's a really kind of clear outlay of the different sort of levels or stages of human consciousness. And, what we're talking about, it's kind of all there. There's just different cultures and in different time periods of our lives. I like to think about just as a maturation process, right? How can we all be— what you named about the adolescents or the 13-year-olds, how can we help people or help ourselves maybe more importantly not get stuck in 13-year-old ways of thinking and not grow past it? And so there definitely is a role there for rites of passage and challenging situations. And And, I think there's a lot of— I don't use this language usually, but other people will say our world is full of uninitiated men, which basically means that men who don't know themselves because they haven't gone through a challenging enough or specific enough rite of passage to actually know that they grew up. And so, they're still arrested in some younger way of being.

Yeah. No, I agree with that. I recently interviewed Mansell Denton who runs sacredhunting.com for the show. And so, he leads some men's groups and first-time hunts and incorporates plant medicine within the hunts as far as ceremony, and then also leads some vision quests. And because that is something that we don't have in our current culture or society where there is kind of that crossing over into adulthood. And that's something that I've thought a lot about for my own sons. My oldest is almost 15, and so he's getting to that age where he's trying to discover who he is, where he fits into the world and his own masculinity and everything. And how do I best teach him and serve him to show him what it means to be a man? What does it mean to own your masculinity, your sovereignty, and not just play into either going too aggressive, too extreme with it, or denying that entirely and becoming too soft, too feminine? And so I'm not sure where the balance is or how best to do that, but that's something that I'm very deeply thinking about at present.

No, it's— I think you and a lot of other people are thinking about it. And part of the reason I think we're all thinking about this is because we have had a pretty full breakdown in our societal sort of norms in terms of community. And we don't all ascribe to a belief system anymore, right? We're not all going to church. We're not all— I mean, depending on where you are, maybe people in your world are all going to church, but as a society at large, we're not unified at all. And so, everybody's out there kind of trying to recover some semblance of the primordial needs that we have in families and communities, which are just kind of not here. And so, we're kind of scrambling and poking around to see what do we need to do and how can we fulfill these needs. So I think it's a hard time, man. It's not an easy time to know how to operate in these ways.

Yeah, totally agree. Dan, you use the term somatic awareness. For any of the audience who is not familiar with that term, can you explain what you mean by that and how you incorporate that into the work that you do?

Yeah. Somatic awareness is the ability to have a sense of what's happening in your body on a very specific and subtle way. So the type of meditation that I practice and I teach is a somatic-oriented meditation. So my teacher is a guy named Dr. Reggie Ray. His organization is Dharma Ocean. He was a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who is a Tibetan meditation master. And so the meditation that I was introduced to and that I do is very different. And I think maybe I'll just tell a story of the first time that I ever did it because it's meaningful and I think it explains it. So I was living in New York. This was during that time that I was all messed up. And, I got invited to a meditation practice and I went and didn't know anybody. They had a bunch of yoga mats on the floor and they had us all lie on a different yoga mat. And then, the teacher guided us just to relax our body and then to basically go through the body and help and just intentionally feel what we felt there. Notice, is there tension in my feet? Can I feel my toe? Is there numbness? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it tingly? And just go through the whole body with a greater sense of awareness of our body. And then, they had us sort of relax and practice melting downward and feeling the ground underneath us. And that was it. That moment, I'll never forget it. I welled up with tears and then I felt exactly how it felt to sleep on the ground those hundreds and hundreds of nights. And it brought back this access to a deeper grounded, safe feeling part of me that I was deeply missing in the city. And so, the somatic awareness is— it's also connected to what I said, when you're in the woods and you got to take a dump or you're thirsty. It's just being more in tune with what your body has to tell you. And, the remarkable thing is that there's a long runway there. The body has an immense amount to tell us. Our subconscious in this way of thinking is the body. So, our body is an avenue and a way to dive into— I guess another way to think about it that I think is helpful is just that it's also an avenue to not be in our freaking head. Right? Not to be stuck in our thoughts and our spinning, you know, crazy loud thing that we're always in. And it's a way when we can learn to drop down and pay more attention to our body than our mind, then some pretty cool stuff starts to happen.

Do you think that that's harder today to do just because of the technology and the constant bombardment that we are so much stimuli just in our urbanized society?

I think it's harder and it's easier. I think it's harder because we have so many things to pay attention to. But then, when we get down to the act of paying attention, I think it's maybe easier to grasp. This is just a theory I have, but I've had a theory that over the last 20 years, the minimum effective dose of wilderness and outdoors has gone down because we're so digital.

Oh, wow.

Well, because we're so in our heads and so digital all the time, Maybe what felt like 20 years ago before all the digital explosion, going out in the woods wouldn't feel that different. But now, the gap is so fundamentally big that 3 hours of sitting in nature can yank you pretty good. Really, it's a big gap and it's a huge experiential gap between being on Instagram and slowing down and putting your feet in a river.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, that's the truth. Living vicariously through the pictures that you're seeing on, you know, your favorite feed or whatever, to actually getting out there and experiencing yourself. And that can be really challenging for some people that don't have any of that experience.

Yeah.

Yeah. Dan, what do you see as both the biggest need and the biggest opportunity as far as for working with men today and helping them to rediscover who they are and to become the best versions of themselves?

I don't know if it's the biggest need, but what I'm most excited about these days is fatherhood. And, I think it may not be the biggest need and biggest opportunity, but I have 2 kids and another one on the way. And, after close— I'm coming on 2 decades now of spending most of my time working with men in different ways. And, I'm going back to that same image that I shared that started the whole thing for me. It was the 18-year-old thug falling apart and crying in his dad's arms and that, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, I feel like I think the biggest opportunity may be to— I mean, if I think about it in terms of impact or helping the planet or helping people or helping society, I think if we were able to affect a portion of fathers or a generation of fathers that could be present and whole and loving and involved and okay, fathers who do enough of their inner digging so that they're not dumping their own traumas on their kids and just passing the unending chain of things on. I think that it's a huge opportunity, A, because it's effective, but also because there's huge motivation.

Sure.

Dads have massive motivation to do things differently. And, it's just something that I've been finding is you get a kid or two out, And things aren't going so well and you're not showing up for your family. And it's like there's not much more that's going to motivate you to make some moves, you know? And unfortunately, it takes pain usually to make moves like we're talking about.

People only change when the pain to remain the same is greater than the pain to change.

There you go. There you go.

Yeah. I watched your TED Talk, which I thought was fantastic, talking about what's needed. When it comes to men and fatherhood. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how you ended up giving that talk?

Yeah, I think it was the first or second year of the Every Man Journey. I think I had had it in my head for a while that I wanted to do something. It was a bit scary to do it, but basically, I just got on the stage and vomited out my most vulnerable shit.

It's fantastic.

It was a good experience. I've given some other talks since that I guess were maybe similar in nature, but it's definitely not the talk I would give today. But, that was me just in the midst of really taking what felt like a lot of risks, really kind of putting it out there in the world what I believed.

Yeah. Nothing risk, nothing gain, right?

Yeah.

So I know you are a proponent of men's groups. And so I'd like to hear a little bit more from you about that, how you would define what a men's group is, the way if someone does not have access to one, how they could create one for themselves, how they can incorporate nature in the outdoors with that, and all those things that surround men's groups and getting together and forming communities.

Totally. Yeah. A men's group defined in a fairly loose term is a group of men that are committed and dedicated to getting together for a certain purpose. And, what I'm talking about when I talk about men's groups is personal growth, sort of personal development, personal realization would be the point, right?

Yeah.

And, I sat in my first men's group when I was 27 in New York City. I didn't know what I was getting into. That was a very kind of hard-nosed, hard-edged men's group. It was based on principles by an author and a teacher named David Deida, who wrote a book called The Way of the Superior Man. And so that was my intro to men's groups. And it was so rad. I was this 27-year-old kid and I was the youngest by almost 9 or 10 years. And it was a bunch of ass-kicking, very, very successful, evolved men. I kind of stepped into that room and came out with like 9 mentors that I really looked up to. And really the point of that group was like, we're not going to bullshit each other. We're going to come here. We're going to tell each other what we got going on, what's in our way. And we're going to hold each other to be accountable to not— like, we're going to call each other out on our BS. Right? So it's a little bit of a strong edge to it. I then moved out to Montana shortly after being in that group. And I found a group led by Owen Marcus, who became a co-founder. with me of Every Man. And, Owen's style of men's group was more about the body, the somatic part, and then the emotional part. And, he's a ninja, man. He developed a system of men's groups that's just so deeply effective and powerful. And, he became a teacher and a mentor and a friend and a collaborator. And, we started Every Man together. And, the basic the basic principles of Every Man are things he developed and things he learned. So in terms of finding one, I mean, go to Every Man. I think they're the best around. The Mankind Project is another legacy group. They have really good experiences too. But I still send everybody to Every Man. I think they have online groups that you can join and I'm not sure if they're running it anymore, but we used to have ways to help people start their own groups in their own community. I'm actually going to my group tonight. I just moved my family to Maine and I started a pretty informal, the most informal men's group I've ever been a part of. We just meet once a month and it's not high stakes, it's not high intensity. So yeah, I think A couple of the basics of why they're good and why I think guys should get into it. I mean, I guess I'd ask yourself, what's easier, what has less barrier to entry to you? A bunch of peers or a therapist or a coach? My suggestion to guys is get somebody to talk to.

Yeah.

Right? Where just get someone other than your wife or your partner, other than your buddies with a beer where it's not actually engaged in a productive way. Find somewhere to let it out. It's just very basic. And I think that it's also just a place where there's a lot of normalization that happens. Most dudes are on an island and they think that what they're struggling with is just their problem when that couldn't be further from the truth. Most guys think, well, I'm ashamed of I don't know. I'm ashamed that I'm not as far along in my career. And it feels like I'm probably the only one on the planet that feels this way. And then you go to a men's group and you share it and everybody else is like, well, me too, dude. It starts to take the pressure off. Everybody's little story that they made up that is so precious that makes things seem like such a big deal, it normalizes things. And it's a really good way to It's also just a good way to make friends and like real friends, you know, for guys that are tired of like putting on a mask or being something they're not or talking about sports when they don't give a shit or whatever that is. Like, it's a good place to, to make friends, but also just learn how to be yourself without putting on airs. Right? That's, that's kind of the point.

Yeah. That's a great point. I totally agree. And Seems like we have evolved over the past several years where it's become these groups that are forming. They're much more open and vulnerable where we're actually digging into deeper things as opposed to years ago when you had groups like the, like the VA clubs and Knights of Columbus and the Elk Club and all of these different ones.

Yeah.

That were— it was just an excuse. I mean, they did charity work and things like that, but it was an excuse to get together and just drink beer and hang out and have a good time. Nothing wrong with that at all. I mean, I think we all need that, but it seems like in this modern context We're talking about digging in and doing a lot of inner work and really connecting on a much deeper and emotional level.

Yeah. I mean, my sense is that's what is asked of us today or that's what's being— not everybody buys into that, but yeah, I think it serves a purpose. I think it serves a common purpose right now that that is— in my TED Talk, which you referenced, I mean, kind of the main point there was that Most of our kids are not in danger from bears or even war or even crime or whatever. They're most in danger from our undealt with traumas that we're just unwittingly dumping on them. And, I think that's real. And, I think that's one thing that these men's groups are a response to.

Yeah, I agree with that. Hurt people hurt people. And trying to break those cycles and intergenerational trauma is a big thing. And the more we can dig into that, into ourselves and really work on those issues that we all have and be better fathers and husbands for our families, for our kids, and not pass those things on. Very important work. Dan, I'd like to talk a little bit about conservation and kind of our symbiotic and harmonious relationship with nature or how we should most appropriately most appropriately be living in harmony with nature? Because it seems like there are so many different sides of this where you have some people that are just hippie-dippy environmentalists where it's, you know, we have to do everything we can to save the planet. And then you have this other side that, oh, it's fine, the planet will take care of itself, litter, don't recycle, whatever. I'd like to get your take on this and what we should or should not be doing there.

Well, I'll tell you what excites me the most is There's a nonprofit called the Wild Foundation and they have an initiative. It's not huge or in the news or anything, but it's called Nature Needs Half. And it's an actual plan to put half of the planet into protected natural areas. And politics aside or anything aside, to me, nothing I've ever sort of come across has resonated as deeply with me as that. I mean, take it, I've been incredibly fortunate to spend immense amounts of my life, like outsized proportions of my life out in real nature, in real wilderness. And I don't know. I mean, it may be a losing battle. I actually don't have a ton of hope for humanity as a whole, but I do think it's worth our effort just in the same way it's worth our effort to care for our children. And that's one thing I've just never understood. about the whole thing is there is a— if we took seriously a role to protect and provide for our children, we would be looking into the future far more than a lot of current practices are. We would. Maybe our father role, maybe it ends in 5, 15 years, maybe. But, I don't know. I would love to— I'm interested in what it would take to have a greater sense of responsibility. Actually, as I say that question, I know exactly what it would take. It would take actual knowing of the Earth, actual communion with, actual being in touch with, actual experience of nature. And I think once you have that, most likely it begins to mean something different. And then wanting to preserve or protect or care for— there's a bunch of conversations in my head about this. One is that if we can get out into nature and actually experience it and know it and feel it, then that'll shift things. But that's not operationally possible.

Sure.

The more operational thing in my head is the options of either our planet is going to burn us up or or not, we might as well shoot for the one that's better for us in the long run. So, that's my sense. I mean, I guess without shading it, I'm an all-the-way Earth-first sort of mindset.

Yeah. Got it. What has been the biggest life lesson that nature and the outdoors has taught you, Dan?

Just how small we are and how this human life that we're all living is pretty flimsy and thin.

Is there a memorable outdoor experience that you had that was— or let me rephrase it. What is the most memorable outdoor experience that you've had and what did you learn from it? And/or is there an experience that you've had that you would never want to repeat?

No, the first one is I was, I don't know, I was probably 24 and it was that— maybe 23. It was that That first year, that first season I was in Utah as a wilderness guide and I woke up in the middle of the night and no tarp, no tent, just laying on my sleeping pad and sleeping bag, opened my eyes and it was just bright. It was weirdly, wildly bright. And, I looked up and this blood-red orange moon that looked like the size of a mountain was just breaking the surface of the Earth.

Oh, wow.

It was just coming over the horizon. I was all, you know, everybody else was sleeping and it was perfectly still and quiet. And I just kind of laid there and watched this incredible moonrise. And it was just one of the more perfect and beautiful things that I've ever experienced. And, you know, it happened and the moon came up and fell back asleep and, you know, kept going with my next day in my life. But—

That's beautiful.

I could probably pull 500 images like that up, but that's one of them.

No, that's great. Dan, since we are a gear company, we love to talk about gear. So, I'd love to hear from you what equipment or gear that you consider essential and that you always take with you when you're leading an outdoor excursion or even when you were working with, say, Meat Eater and on some of those shows.

Yeah. I'm a big tarp fan. That's pretty rudimentary, but I like your ultra-lightweight fly tarps. I like to have one. They weigh nothing. And you just have that and some paracord in your pack. And I like to have that even just for hikes. If it starts raining or you want some shade, it's just fun to string up and put. I like to sleep under a tarp. I prefer it to a tent usually if the bugs aren't too bad. It's just one of those little utility things. On that same line, I love kind of my higher-end gear thing that I love is a teepee-style tent. I use one that by from a brand called Seek Outside. And again, there's just these ultra-lightweight, very packable, very usable, but large and kind of beautiful. And, they come with titanium wood stoves that you can heat in the winter. I love that. I like a good pair of boots. I like a good pack. I'm not really too specific of a gear guy. My main knife is still the one I was given when I was 21.

Mm-hmm.

I don't tend to invest a ton of money in gear, but I like kind of simple elegant basics, right? I think I would prefer to have something that's really, really, really, really nice and simple and have it for a really long time and not ever fucking think about it again basically.

Totally agree there. The equipment that we are designing and building is just following that same model.

Nice.

Buy once, cry once.

There you go. Yeah.

Are there any outdoor brands, uh, that you feel like are doing just a great job, whether it comes, it comes down to the product quality or their conservation ethic or the work, how they're supporting, uh, men and getting people back into the wilderness?

Yeah, I'm not sure about the men part. I, I don't really know of any, but maybe, maybe you all are, are the first. Um, that's one of our goals. So I'm not sure about that.

Yeah.

In terms of— I mentioned Seek Outside. I just love their stuff. I'm a huge fan of— I am a huge Arc'teryx fan, but not as much anymore. I used to use one of their packs, the Naos, which is a fully immersible waterproof full-on pack. It was the best piece of gear I ever had.

Hmm.

I like Mystery Ranch out of Bozeman, Montana for packs now a lot.

What else? You mentioned the tarp earlier. Who makes the tarp that you like?

That's a good question. I have a couple. Again, they're 10 years old, so I don't remember. And I actually— I'm not sure.

It just lasts a very long time.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other companies that you really like?

Nothing else comes to mind, man. Nothing else comes to mind. Trying to think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. DN, is there a book or books that have had a huge impact on your life over the years?

Yeah. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Kind of a young man's coming-of-age story with a sort of spiritual bend to it. I would say they're all going to be fairly heavy on the spiritual side. The Tao Te Ching, that was the beat-up copy of that I kept in my backpack for 10 years on every outdoor adventure I ever went on.

I'm currently listening to Wayne Dyer's audiobook about Change Your Mind, Change Your Life, which is about the Tao Te Ching.

Oh, is it really?

Yeah, really good.

Oh, cool. Very cool.

What else?

Well, Owen Marcus, who I mentioned, who's an Everyman co-founder, wrote a book called Grow Up. It's a guide for men on how to grow up. And super, super legit. Definitely worth a read.

Cool. You know, put all these in the show notes. Dan, what is one piece of advice that you would give to our audience?

Slow down. Do whatever it takes to slow down. Yeah. Get outside and slow down.

That's really solid advice. And just in closing, this has been a really fun interview, really impactful. And I think there's a lot of info that people can take and use and some of the resources that you mentioned, which we'll include in the show notes here. But where can people find more find out more about you online and the work you're doing?

Yeah, dandoty.com, D-A-N-D-O-T-Y.com. Everything that I'm doing is up there. I am on Instagram and sort of attempting to build a more steady presence there. I'm hunting for the Dan Doty who has the Instagram handle Dan Doty. So, if you're hearing this, I'm coming for you. I'm Daniel Doty. Daniel Doty on Instagram, you can find me. And yeah, that's it. That's pretty much it for now. I'm going to have I'm working on a new podcast to launch in the next couple months and definitely more to come, but that's where it's at.

What's the name of that one going to be?

I'm working on the name, man, but what I want to do is build the world's biggest fatherhood podcast. That's what I want to do.

Amazing. Yeah, that'd be fantastic. Super. Dan, thanks so much for your time today. This has been fantastic. I really enjoyed chatting with you. And thank you everyone for listening. Until next time. Stay wild and check out rewildgear.com.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You can check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out At rewildgear.com.