Why Men Lose Power When They Perform (And How to Reclaim It)

Ever notice how “having it together” can feel like acting in your own life? We dig into the subtle ways men get trapped in performance—always adding value, sounding composed, keeping it polished—and the invisible cost that shows up as disconnection, low-grade anxiety, and lost intimacy. Instead of chasing approval, we make the case for a different kind of power: the quiet, grounded calm people feel when you stop editing yourself and start inhabiting your body.

I share a coffee shop moment that exposed my own mask and the hollow echo that followed, then unpack how early rule books like be impressive and don’t be weak turn into automatic performance. We explore dissociation through an NLP lens, why managing perception drains creativity, and how positive psychology points us back to authenticity as the engine of meaning. From there, we get practical: noticing the micro-tells of performance, slowing your words by ten percent, breathing into your feet, and choosing honest answers over perfect ones. These small shifts reclaim energy and create a presence that doesn’t need to prove.

You’ll get reflection prompts to map your triggers and your safe people, plus a hard question: which version of you are you afraid won’t be enough? We close by redefining leadership as the capacity to create calm, speak less and say more, and lead with presence rather than perfection. If you’re ready to drop the act and build real confidence that radiates instead of performs, this one will land.

If this resonated, join the waitlist for the Evolved Men Brotherhood—our private community where we practice honest leadership and build strength through presence, not performance. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this, and leave a review to help more men find the work.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Men before we dive in, I've got something big to
share with you.
The wait list for the Evolve MenBrotherhood is now open.
This is the space where men stopdoing the work alone.
Inside the Brotherhood, you'llconnect weekly with other men
committed to growth, leadership,and living with purpose.
You'll get access to live calls,courses, and the community that

(00:24):
keeps you accountable when lifegets hard.
Registration opens soon.
Join the wait list now atEvolvmen Project.com/slash
Brotherhood and be a part of themovement.

SPEAKER_01 (00:40):
Today we're talking about one of the quietest traps
that I see in good meneverywhere, and that's the
pressure to perform.
So it's funny, most people thinkof performance as arrogance or
ego.
But for me, it looked likealways needing to have it
together.
Right?
A while back, I remember sittingin a coffee shop after a long

(01:03):
stretch of coaching calls andsessions and whatnot.
And someone I knew walked in andthey asked me.
They're like, hey man, what'sup?
You know, how have you been?
How how you doing?
And without a beat, like withouteven thinking about it, I I
answered right with this likethis polished answer of just
like, good man, you know, I'vebeen busy, just dialed in.

(01:26):
And of course, like he smiled,nodded, and and walked along his
way, right?
And and as soon as he did, I Ifelt this hollow like echo in my
chest.
Because the truth was that Iwasn't dialed in, right?
I was tired, I was exhausted, Iwas disconnected, I was
performing, right?
And I I realized that I'd beenon for months, maybe at that

(01:51):
point, right?
Not not fake necessarily, right?
But just just trying to soundsteady, to sound grounded and
professional, even when no onewas asking me to.
And it wasn't that it wasdishonesty, right?
It was it was just this habitthat I had that I was in, right?
A a lifetime of trying to bevaluable.

(02:14):
And that's when it hit me,right?
It wasn't it wasn't from beingit wasn't from I wasn't tired
from life necessarily.
I was tired from performative,of always wearing these masks,
right?
In this sense of like havingeverything together.
So, and that's what thisconversation today is about, and
that's releasing the pressure toprove yourself in every

(02:38):
situation.
Because when we live from whenwe live in this like constant on
mode, we disconnect from ourpower, right?
We we edit ourselves to match aversion that we think that the
world will respect.
And slowly we drift away fromthe truth of who we actually
are.

(02:58):
And that that disconnectioncosts us presence and creativity
and intimacy, right?
It it makes every moment feeljust like a few steps removed,
like we're watching life happeninstead of actually living it
for ourselves.
But when you drop the act, evenjust a little bit, something

(03:22):
starts to shift.
The the world feels closer.
You your breath slows, you startto to inhabit your own skin
again, right?
And that's where real powerlives.
So most men that I coach aren'tpretending, right?
They're they're just trapped inthis like this subtle

(03:44):
performance, the need to alwaysadd value, to stay composed or
to sound confident.
And we we learn early that ourworth is something that you
earn, right?
So we start performing forapproval, teachers, parents,

(04:04):
partners, friends, whoever itmight be.
And after years of doing it, itbecomes invisible.
You don't even realize thatyou're you're managing how you
come across instead of beingwhere you actually are.
So in NLP, we'd call this livingdisassociated.
And that's that's kind of likewatching yourself from the

(04:26):
outside rather than then feelingit and embodying it from the
inside.
It's like narrating your ownlife instead of actually living
it.
And the result of that isdisconnection, it's hollowness,
this low grade sense of beingslightly off-center.

unknown (04:46):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
And so you might ask yourself, like, why do we do it?
So most of us don't, most of uswere raised, right, with this
internal rule book that we'vebeen carrying around all of our
lives to don't mess, don't beweak, be impressive.
We learned that love or respectcomes after performance, right?

(05:10):
After we do these sort ofthings.
But that kind of validationcan't feed you for long, right?
It it's like eating an applause,right?
You you get the rush, but itfades fast.
And deep down, you're stillhungry for something real.
And that's that's being seenwithout the act, without having

(05:31):
to perform.
So the the intimacy side of thisis huge.
When you're when you're alwayson, people can feel it, right?
They they can't relax around youbecause you're you're not
relaxed with yourself.
And and the irony is is that weperform in order to be

(05:52):
respected, right?
But it's our authenticity thatactually earns it.
So how do we start to step outof this performance?
And so you you start by first bynoticing it, like with a lot of
the things that we talk about,you first have to notice that
it's even happening, right?
Notice when you tense up, noticewhen your voice tightens, when

(06:16):
you you reach for the perfectanswer instead of an honest one.
And that moment of awareness,that's the doorway back to
presence, right?
So take a breath, feel your feeton the ground, slow your words
by 10%.
That's it.
Right?
Because presence isn't a skill,it's a surrender, right?

(06:42):
And and I know that a lot ofpeople might be like, oh no,
presence is definitely a skill.
And and I want you to to kind ofask the question, right?
Like, is it to the point that Iwas trying to make is that it's
it's surrendering, right?
It's coming back to your body,to your breath, to your truth.
It's surrendering to the momentof just letting it be and

(07:06):
letting things happen.
So positive psychology would saythat authenticity is what
creates meaning, right?
You can't feel fulfilled ifyou're busy managing perception.
Fulfillment happens when who youare and how you show up finally

(07:27):
match, when those two worldscome together.
Real real power isn't loud,right?
It's not even confident.
Real power is calm.
It's the the peace that peoplefeel when they're around you
because you're you're finallyaround yourself.
So I want to ask you a couple ofquestions, right?

(07:50):
Where where in your life do youfeel the need to be on?
Right?
Who who do you relax around,right?
And what changes in you when youwhen you do, right?
Because these are the sort ofpeople, you know, as we go back
to talking about noticing whenwhen it is that it happens,

(08:13):
right?
And noticing in the same sense,like who it is that you find
yourself relaxed around.
And and as we start to take aninventory of that, right,
noticing what those triggersare.
Like, what are the sort ofthings that in those situations
and in those environments and inthose people that that make me

(08:36):
want to move towards being on,or on the opposite of that, that
I find myself really beingrelaxed and really being
present.
And so what would happen if youif you stopped performing for a
day, right?
No polish, no posturing, just anactual present.
And the thing is with that, isthat at times there can be this

(09:01):
fear or this worry that, man,you know, like my friends aren't
gonna like me, you know, that ifthey really saw who I truly was,
that if I didn't have it alltogether, I'd I'd be too much
for everybody.
And these are the stories thatwe want to start investigating
and we want to start questioningas to how true that they really
are.

(09:23):
So the the next question is whatversion of you are you afraid
won't be enough?
Right.
Because in every in every one ofus, there's multiple parts and
kind of personalities and traitsand quirks and things like that.
And and I find that often,right, when we are on, when we

(09:49):
are having to perform forsomebody, having to say the
right thing or to do the rightthing, that this there's a
version of us that doesn't feellike we're enough to be able to
tell that person exactly how itis that we're feeling in that
moment, that we we have to putthis mask on top of it in order
for it to be okay.

(10:09):
And so I'm curious for you todig into that a little bit and
ask yourself like what part ofme is afraid that I won't be
enough?

unknown (10:20):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
And so, and that's the edge of your freedom there.
That's where the real growthlives when you start to dig into
that.
So here's what I know now formyself is that you don't have to
prove your power.
You embody it when you'represence, right?
You're you're not here toimpress, you're here to express

(10:45):
your authenticity and who it isthat you are and your your
liveliness, your boldness, yourpersonality, right?
And that's anything that itmight be.
Because the the man that you'rebecoming doesn't chase
validation, he creates calm, heleads with presence, not
perfection.

(11:05):
He he speaks less, but he saysmore because it's real.
People feel it.
And every time that you drop themask, you reclaim an energy that
you didn't even know that youwere losing.
And that energy becomesconfidence, not the kind that
performs, right?
But the kind that that radiatesand emanates from your body

(11:29):
outward towards the people thatyou surround yourself with.
So today, I want you to justnotice when you feel that urge
to prove something, I want youto pause, to breathe, and to let
it go.
And just even if in that momentall you do is you notice it,
right?
And just let it go.
And that's power.

(11:52):
So if this hit home for you, ifyou're ready to drop the act and
to lead from something deeper,I'd love to invite you into the
Evolved Men Brotherhood.
It's it's the community wherethis kind of work comes alive,
right?
Men learning to lead withhonesty, building strength
through presence, notperformance.

(12:15):
You can join the wait list atEvolvemenproject.comslash
brotherhood.
The doors are opening soon.
And whether you ever join ornot, right, remember this that
every time that you choosepresence over performance,
you're already doing the work.
So take a breath.
Let the noise drop away.

(12:36):
You don't have to perform inorder to be powerful.
You already are when you'rehere.
I'm Corey Baum, and this is theEvolved Men Podcast.
Thanks for listening, brother.
And I'll see you next week.
Hey, before you go, this podcastis just the surface.

SPEAKER_00 (12:52):
The real work happens inside the Evolved Men
Brotherhood.

SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
This is our private community of men committed to
leading themselves boldly,building confidence, and
sharpening one another in thefire.
Registration officially opensDecember 1st, and we kick off
our Brotherhood calls togetherbeginning in January 2026.

SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
But you can get on the list today and be the first
to claim your spot.
If you're tired of going to lifealone and you're ready for true
accountability, support, andconnection with men who get it,
head to EvolvementProject.comslash Brotherhood.
Don't just listen, step into theBrotherhood.
I'll see you inside.