November 7, 2025 • 34 mins
Facing Imposter Syndrome and Grief
In this episode of Real Men Feel, host Andy Grant welcomes Alain Dumonceaux, founder of The Awakened Man, to discuss imposter syndrome and grief. Alain shares his personal journey of loss and self-discovery, including the death of his father-in-law and nearly losing his marriage. He explains how these experiences motivated him to create a supportive community for men to find purpose, power, and wholeness.
Alain delves into the concept of awakening, the importance of brotherhood, and how men can move beyond feeling like a fraud to live with real courage. The conversation also explores the different ways men and women handle grief and the importance of acknowledging and addressing internal struggles.
00:00 Introduction: The Void of External Validation
00:20 Welcome to Real Men Feel
00:38 Meet Alain Dumonceaux: Founder of The Awakened Man
01:13 Alain's Personal Journey of Loss and Self-Discovery
05:21 The Concept of Awakening
06:52 The Inner World of Men: Success and Validation
09:07 The Importance of Values and Beliefs
18:51 Handling Grief and Loss
26:57 The Role of Brotherhood and Community
30:12 Conclusion: Embracing Purpose and Connection
Connect with Alain
Website — https://www.theawakenedman.net/
Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/the.revolutionary.man
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/theawakenedman.net
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg8DCH78anx-r7KZEU8Eclw
Resources
The Revolutionary Man Podcast — https://therevolutionarymanpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Connect with Andy and the Real Men Feel Podcast:
Join me and connect with other like-minded men in the
Authentic AF Community | http://realmenfeel.org/group
Instagram | @realmenfeelshow & @theandygrant
Andy Grant Website | https://theandygrant.com for coaching, healing, and book info!
Real Men Feel Website | http://realmenfeel.org
YouTube | https://youtube.com/realmenfeel
#RealMenFeel ep 378
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Because at some point, there's no amount of external validation
that's going to fill the void. And so we bury this idea of, you
know, I just got to, I'll just work harder.
You know, I'll just try harder. I'll just do more.
And then, then I'll feel more whole and I'll feel more
successful. But the reality is, is that
we're just stuffing what's trulygoing on.
(00:20):
Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel, the show that reminds men
they don't have to go it alone. I'm your host, Andy Grant.
Today we're exploring 2 experiences.
Nearly every man will face imposter syndrome and grief with
someone who has not only walked through both, but now guides
other men to healing and authenticity.
My guest today is Alan Demonco, founder of The Awakened Man, a
(00:41):
movement and community dedicatedto help men awaken to their
purpose, power, and wholeness. Through his own journey of loss
and self discovery, Alan has learned how to turn pain into
strength, and today he shares how men can move beyond feeling
like a fraud and into living with real courage.
And if you're looking for a supportive community, check out
Authentic AF, my free online community at
(01:03):
realmenfield.org/group. Now give us a like and subscribe
and let's do it. Hello Alan, and welcome to Real
Men Feel. Andy, how's it going today?
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
So Alan, first tell me, what were your personal experiences
that led to you creating the Awakened Man?
Oh man, there's been so many. But if I was to boil it down to
(01:23):
a couple of really life alteringones, it would be the death of
my father-in-law and almost losing my marriage within a very
short period of time. And the, the challenge that I
faced was that I thought I was this, this man that could, you
know, handle it all had made lots of changes.
I've made mistakes young in the,in my younger days in my life.
(01:45):
But what really transpired was that while I had maybe
intellectual knowledge, I wasn'tliving with authenticity or with
integrity. And so when my father-in-law
passed and I was the one who found him, it was so devastating
for me because he was more than just a father-in-law.
He was like my dad, like my bestfriend.
(02:06):
And I just didn't have anywhere to go to talk about do the and
do any work on it. And while there are grief
counseling out there, there wasn't anywhere that I felt
comfortable as a man to sit downand basically just bare my soul.
And so when I recognized that there was this gap in this place
that we needed to createspace for guys to get together to work
(02:27):
on things, whatever that may be.And while I was also just coming
through a really challenging time in my in my marriage, I
also found that people that I thought were close friends were
no longer close friends. And so they had to make
decisions in their life. And so again, I felt this
isolation of not being able to reach out or be anywhere.
And so I wanted to create this opportunity for men to work
(02:51):
through things, whatever season they are in their life, but not
just to sit there and complain and dwell in, in our sorrow, but
to be able to work through that and be in the company of other
men. So we can understand and support
and move each other along so that we're not being stuck and
that we actually do walk the talk and and practice what like
what it's like to live with authenticity.
(03:13):
So up until this point of creating the space and
experiencing grief, was this really the first loss you had in
your life? Yeah, I would say, and it's
definitely not, you know, in my early 20s, I, I was a chef.
I competed in the Culinary Olympics.
My professional life was, you know, skyrocketing.
I was doing so well. And I had married my high school
sweetheart and life on the outside looked like it was going
(03:36):
great. We had just bought home and our
second son was born and life just fell apart with stresses,
with with mortgage and debt. I ended up by, you know, losing
my job and ultimately the marriage fell apart.
And it's really the catalyst that started me on this journey
of, you know, trying to become abetter man and answering, trying
(04:00):
at least to answer the question,what is it?
How can somebody be so successful in one aspect of
their life and yet fail so miserably in others?
And what that says to me in my journey, as I found, is that
when we put so much energy in one aspect of our life and we
identify ourselves and men tend to do this around business and
career. And because it's things that we
(04:20):
can measure, it's difficult for us to measure if we're
successful as a husband and as afather.
And so I read a ton of books, did a bunch of training and
certified and, and NLP and, and past life regressions work, all
this different kind of stuff, emotional intelligence.
But again, as I had said earlier, the problem is, is that
so I know this stuff, but am I living it and practicing it and
(04:43):
actually evolving? And I would say for a few years
that happened and then, you know, life settled in.
It was easy to go back into old habits, old routines.
And when we don't have somebody there to help guide us and move
us along, then I think that's when we start to struggle.
And so, yeah, I would say that was really the catalyst that
started things. But it took another 2 by 4, so
(05:04):
to speak, to the side of the head for me to truly wake up and
understand that. OK, I'll you got to start
putting things into practice. Yeah, I know speaking for
myself, often need to learn the same lesson repeatedly or
different levels of that same lesson.
But yeah, yeah, lots of two by fours.
I get it. So what does awakening mean to
you? Yeah, awakening me to me means
(05:26):
that it's when I recognize that there's an opportunity for me to
learn. Am I approaching today with the
intention that I already have all the answers or am I
approaching today with the intention that I'm going to take
some make some space in this cupthat I have this cup.
That's my that's either knowledge or my work or whatever
(05:49):
it is that I'm I'm pursuing and allow for an opportunity to see
something different. You know, I'm going through some
stuff right now with a few individuals.
And one of the things we continue to talk about is that
in order to the ties into this awakening question is what box
am I seeing this individual or these people in?
And if I continue to see myself or someone else in this box
(06:10):
that's from yesterday or last year or five years, then how
awake am I to see what's actually happening in front of
me? How can I properly and I
accurately connect with the individual?
Because in today's environment, we're no longer just showing up
as robots. We need to be fully present.
And so to do that and we need toslow down enough so we can
(06:31):
awaken to the ideas of what's happening around us.
That doesn't mean I agree with everything that's happening, but
it means though is that I'm muchmore aware, I'm much more
present. And that takes that takes
intention and it takes purpose. And if we don't build that into
our day and then it's easy for us to get back on the on the
hamster wheel and not really make any progress.
(06:53):
So you mentioned seeming successful on the outside and I
hear from that from that from a lot of guys too.
Why do you think it is that a man can have all the trappings
of success, the the career, the business, yet inside there's
something lacking? And are most men aware of that
and they bury it? Or are they lying to themselves?
(07:13):
Like what? What's the inner world?
I think, I think they're buryingit first.
And the reason I, why I say thatis because it's easy for us or
much easier for us to measure success externally as men were
still built for some form of validation.
How do we get that? We get that when we're playing
sports and we win the game or wewin a title or we do stuff.
(07:36):
How do we do that in business? We went and we, we can measure
it because, you know, we hit ourbudgeted targets or we exceed
them. We get bonuses.
Everything for us for a validation comes externally in
relationships. It's hey, does, does the woman
that I'm with, does she does shewant to sleep with me?
Am I, am I attractive? These are the, these are the
ways that we measure ourselves. So when those things start to
(07:59):
become less important because atsome point there's no amount of
external validation that's goingto fill the void.
And so we bury this idea of, youknow, I just got to, I'll just
work harder, You know, I'll justtry harder.
I'll just do more and then thingthen I'll feel more whole and
I'll feel more successful. But the reality is, is that
(08:20):
we're just stuffing what's trulygoing on.
And so in order for us to to really recognize what we're
doing, we have to be prepared tojust take responsibility, take
responsibility for right where we are.
Hey, buddy, what you've done in your life, Al, what I did in my
life, I'm doing in my life is great.
And there are parts of it that need to be adjusted.
So first I got to take responsibility for that.
(08:41):
If I'm going to do it, that meanI'm also taking responsibility
for who I am, how I've been thinking my, my actions,
everything has led me to where Iam today.
And then the third part of that and I start to take
responsibility for who I aspire to become.
And what that means is then is then I had need to slow down
again and start addressing why, what is the driving force behind
(09:03):
me asking or needing this external validation.
So then that really gets into work that we do with, with guys
and they first joined and come into our group is to really
understand what their values andbeliefs are, how they've come to
be. Are they borrowed?
Many of our values and our beliefs are borrowed.
Do they still hold water like they used to like or have they
(09:26):
changed over time what you valued when you were 20-30?
Do they still mean something today or has it has it shifted a
bit? And because we don't spend that
that kind of time considering those questions and doing that
work, then we live in this idea that other things external or,
or what impact me are and are important.
(09:46):
And when we start to shift that mindset and, and really getting
solid on who we are and redefining what our purpose and
our mission is in life, then we can be more in alignment with
what matters to us. And then the decisions are much,
much easier to make because they're coming from a place that
that's deep with inside of inside of us.
And we feel good about it. We don't have this feeling of,
(10:09):
yeah, I'm going to do it. And then at the end of the
whatever it is that you've done,you have an empty feeling.
We find that that work. When we do this work, that kind
of stuff just goes away. Yeah, I'll never forget how the
first time I did any sort of values work in identifying,
Well, first time I never even considered values.
Just went about your day doing stuff like, you know.
But when I did examine and writedown my values, I was amazed how
(10:33):
many of them were things that I thought I was supposed to value,
but they weren't really valuableto me.
So is that pretty common with the men you're?
Working with yeah, I completely agree.
And I, I think we, we, that happened to some for so many of
us. And because we've been taught in
some way, shape or form, whetherthat's directly or indirectly.
(10:54):
And what I mean by that, maybe we had, you know, parents that
were instilling certain types ofvalues, coaches, you know, it
peace people have influenced ourlives.
We're instilling these ideas about what life is about.
And so we took those on and that's what I mean by borrowed.
So now that I borrowed that and for a while it served us, didn't
it? It really did serve us to be
(11:15):
able to move forward. The challenge with it is that we
change, but then our values seemto be stuck back, way back.
And so they aren't evolving. And So what I'm, what I find is
that when we don't take a momentto go back and, and we do our
values and beliefs work on an annual basis because we've grown
(11:36):
and changed as, as individuals, as leaders, as husbands,
fathers. And so we can't think that,
well, this is what I this is what I value.
Like for me, value meant for thelongest time was that I needed
to be successful in business, work hard so that I could bring
home the bacon and take care of my family.
That's on the surface, that sounds pretty good.
Hey, what's wrong with that? Al, You didn't hear me say
(11:59):
anything about taking care of myfamily emotionally with the
presence, with the ability to, to nurture and, and and grow
with them. All you heard was it's all about
me. And that's the challenge and
balancing between near values and marrying them with our
beliefs is that how do we becomea man of service that allows us
(12:21):
to still have some form of identity, but also be there for
the people that we care about most?
And so when we start to think about, hey, if I say I value
family, but I work 70 hours a week and I haven't had this
conversation with my spouse and my family to let them know about
what the goal is overall. And I'm just doing this thing
because I think, well, they should know.
(12:41):
Then that's when we start to fall in traps.
A lot of successful men, and in my own life too, there's that
I'm not enough voice. But how do you recognize when
that's running the show and how do you shift out of that?
Well, that and that I'm not enough voice is really this idea
of how much do we have of self acceptance?
(13:04):
You know, on one end of the scale of this, of the self
acceptance scale is this imposter syndrome.
And all of us go through this, don't we?
There is some point in time if you're going to start a new
career or you're going to you'regoing to learn a new skill,
you're going to feel like you can't do this and you start to
do it. And then you really you think,
(13:25):
well, I got some of this down and then somebody asks you, OK,
I need you to go teach that to somebody.
And then you start to get those this doubt.
I said, well, I don't know if I'm good enough.
I don't know think I can be enough of that.
And So what ends up by happeningis we get caught into these this
phase and the next one, the nextone is this negative self
chatter. And so we start listening and
(13:45):
we're back on that hamster wheeland we have this doubt.
But the true, the truth of it is, is that it's all make
believe because we hasn't haven't yet even attempted to
try to do it. And so the moment we start to
attempt and move forward, then we can start to release
ourselves from this. I'm not enoughness and the the
(14:06):
next barrier we're going to faceand we're going to find is that
we're going to start to compare ourselves.
Well, if I'm going to do this. And then then you maybe got a
couple of paths in the back. Hey, he did a great job there.
That was awesome. And then maybe you've got one
piece of criticism that wasn't as great.
And so now you start comparing, well, am I as good as the next
(14:27):
guy? This is another guy I don't know
about you. I, you know, I have a podcast as
well. I had to fight through these
stages in the early days of putting, putting out episodes.
Boy, is it going to sound good enough to, you know, how my was
I articulate enough to think this is going to touch people.
And at some point you just have to let it go because whenever we
compare, we're never the same. Are we rather going to be better
(14:50):
than or less than And however weframe that.
And so I stopped comparing. The only comparison I have is
how much effort have I put into this episode, How much effort
have I put into the tasks that I'm doing?
And can I be 1% better. And so then I stopped looking
for approval, that external validation.
I'll measure my success based onhow I feel I've done my effort
(15:14):
and being mindful that we're notalways going to be at 100%
everyday or 100% will look differently.
But I think when we can finally get to that other end of the
spectrum of true self acceptanceand accept and allow that every
day is going to be a different day at hand.
I'm going to put my best foot forward.
Then we can get start to get ourselves out of this.
I'm enoughness because we're always going to be enough.
(15:38):
And we may never be the Michael Jordan of whatever it is that
we're trying to do. But can there only is there
opportunity for you to be the Michael Jordan of fatherhood,
husbandry of other parts of yourlife?
I would say that there's lots ofroom for that for lots of us.
And so we have to be mindful of how we're measuring ourselves
(15:59):
and having things that make sense for who we are as
individuals. And it's also important to
realize there was a time that Michael Jordan wasn't the
Michael Jordan of anything. 100%reading his autobiography, you
know, every year he worked on a different skill, right?
I remember him reading about, hey, people are saying he's not
(16:19):
a I'm not, he's not a very good defensive player.
Bang, next thing you know, next year, top defensive player in
the league. Oh, this guy can't shoot the
three pointer. Boom.
Next thing you know, shooting 3 pointers.
The point is, is that he was able to shift that that critique
into something that he that drove him as an individual.
And so can we learn from that lesson and how can we then make
(16:41):
better use of it as opposed to having a defeat him and it would
defeat us, right? Right.
So then it sounds like those that in at least some level of
imposter syndrome can be used asa force of growth.
It doesn't always have to be destructive.
Yeah, I completely agree with that because it's in the story
that we're telling ourselves andhow and what is the lesson that
(17:03):
we're that we're pulling out, you know, for years, you know,
in high school. This is so many decades ago.
Yeah, I grew up in a in a mediumsized town here in, in Canada.
Our high school basketball team never made it out of its little
area. We finally, this my senior year,
we finally made it to our provincial finals or it would be
state finals. And yeah, we came, we came in
(17:25):
second. We lost the game by 5 points.
And I carried that loss with me for years.
And it's actually what drove me to wanted to be the best chef I
could be to competing in the Culinary Olympics and all that.
But it also was part of the piece that also hurt me because
I carried the story that I'm notgood enough.
(17:45):
I can only be second best. And, and when I had that, and it
took me almost, well, it took melosing my first marriage to
really understand how how poorlythat was serving me.
But I couldn't see past the trees.
I couldn't see the forest because all I was focused on was
trying to be the best instead ofbeing the best husband and
(18:09):
father and more than just what it meant to be at work.
And so I think we got to be careful of the lesson of the
story that we're telling ourselves when we're in these
negative cycles. And is there truth there and how
much truth and what could be true that we haven't accepted
just yet? And sometimes that takes work
by, you know, joining a men's group or speaking to a buddy or
(18:31):
somebody to doing to helping youget through that because there
is a deeper truth. You just have to be ready to and
willing to hear it. Right.
Yeah, Keep willing. Yeah, yeah.
That that's a big part of of every aspect of growth and
bettering yourself and being of service to your family, to a
business, to the world. I want to get back to you really
(18:54):
opened up with talking about grief and the the loss of your
father-in-law. I've heard you say that grief
can be more than the loss of a loved one can.
Can you expand on on what that means?
Grief happen can happen for in lots of different ways when we
consider that our identity is soas men, you know, big brush
(19:15):
painting here, we attach our identity to what we do in life.
And if what we do gets taken away from us, that's a form of
grief because now how do I identify myself?
How do I identify myself? Hey, I'm Al the culinary chef,
and now I'm no longer that. And so we'll go through the same
(19:40):
stages and steps of grief. And so we're going to fight
that, you know, we're going to we're going to beg for to have
to have it come back. We're going to blame others and
we're going to blame, you know, if you're a faith person, you're
going to blame God. But the truth of the matter is,
is that there is no one to blame.
There's not even for yourself toblame necessarily.
Let's see, we're doing immoral and illegal things and you're
(20:02):
going to have to take account the responsibility for that.
But you're going to go through those grief piece grief steps.
And so the evolution of that isn't being able to recognize
that this is the opportunity forme to learn and to grow from
that. And what are the things that
that I could do differently? How can this prepare me for the
other stages in life? And so grief can happen through
(20:26):
the loss of a loss of work. If you're very much a community
oriented person and you're needing to shift and move your
family or move yourself, that's a form can be a form of grief.
How many people have have heard of being homesick?
Like I can remember moving as a young as a young boy, my father
(20:49):
wanted to move closer to into this other town that was closer
for work so he didn't have to drive a few hours every day.
And I thought my life was going to end right.
It's a 1213 year old because allmy buddies that were being left
behind. But the truth of the matter is
it was an opportunity for me to grow and OK, and I got to make
new friends and I have to learn some stuff and and there was it
(21:10):
was a decision that had to be made.
But as we get older, we can get fixated on how we've aligned our
lives. And so grief can happen through
the loss of relationship, not necessarily like, like losing a
father-in-law, but moving or losing a best friend.
You have an argument and you just have irreconcilable
(21:33):
differences now. And they can't get, can't get
that back together. I see that a lot, you know,
coming out of the pandemic and how much that shifted
relationships with people. And we can lose it through,
through business and we can loseit obviously in our intimate
relationships when when we go through divorce or loss of a
(21:54):
loss of really close loved ones.And so we pay attention that our
no matter where the grief comes,we can still face it with
strength and power. But you need to be in an
environment that allows you to be able to share and go and go
through that. There is no right way to grief.
There is only the opportunity todo it.
(22:16):
And if you don't have that opportunity to do it, then we
tend to stuff our emotions and then that it shows up in much,
much more challenging ways, muchmore destructive ways.
And for many times it can lead to addictions of many different
varieties. How do you see men and women
handling grief differently? And is there something specific
(22:39):
that men need more to deal with grief?
Yeah, I think when, what I, whatI have encountered an experience
is that women are much more emotional and, and vulnerable
with it. And so they'll they'll share
with their friends, their girlfriends and they'll get in
and have the crying, the crying fests and the hugs and that.
(23:00):
And guys, we tend to, you know, buckle in.
We use misguided ideas of Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius in
that. We think that we don't, that we
don't, we show strength is not showing any emotion.
And I don't believe that's what what Marcus intended.
It was about having, you know, having emotional control.
(23:21):
So we're not doing things that are detriment to ourselves and
to others. And So what we need to do and
learn as men is to be able to, yes, have that good cry when
it's necessary, have that vulnerability, But you can only
do that if you're, if you're in a place where you have trust.
(23:42):
And so for men, our challenge is, is that we haven't built the
kind of trust throughout our, inour lives.
Now, I don't know, I'm not a woman, I don't know what it was
like for, for women's sports, but I can tell you growing up,
and maybe you experienced this as well, Andy, And when you're
playing sports, there's, it can be difficult gaining trust if
you're new, the new guy on the team, the rookie, you know, the
(24:04):
hazing rituals that I can remember going through.
There was difficult for some people to adjust to that, to
adjust to building that trust. And so you needed to be careful.
You know, there was always lots of teasing and sometimes that
teasing would go over the line and be extremely brutal.
And so we've learned as men thatit's difficult to trust other,
(24:26):
be in company other and trust them because I don't know if
that guy's going to take advantage of me some way somehow
down the road. And so we need to build trust
within our environments and the guys that we, that, that we feel
that we can do that with. And, and that only happens by, I
hate to say it, having a little bit of trust and starting to
(24:50):
step into it. And I wouldn't have a, the most
challenging conversation with somebody that you, that you feel
you need to do. I would start with something
smaller that, hey, it's not, it's not a big deal.
I want if it goes one way or theother, it doesn't end anything.
It's an opportunity for you to practice of being somewhat
vulnerable so you can get into deeper conversations later.
(25:11):
But if we don't have them to begin with, then we never build
that skill set. We never build that muscle to be
able to create this foundation of trust within our our male
relationships. Yeah.
Somebody in any relationship needs to be brave enough to take
that first bit of risk. Absolutely.
(25:31):
You know what they're all saying.
If, if it's got to be, it's up to me and, and I live as much as
I can with that model and then doing it also, though, from a
considering a place of as much as much kindness as I can.
And kindness doesn't mean being soft.
Kindness means if I, you know, if the need to share a truth
(25:52):
that, you know, I need to share a truth that Andy needs to hear,
then how can I say that to Andy and still allow him to hear it
and not completely destroy him, try and leave him in a, in a
better place than where, than where we're starting.
And that takes practice. And it's going to be messy and
it isn't always going to come off great.
But I think everyone of us can find that person in our lives
(26:14):
where we can have that. We can practice with that type
of conversation. But if it's got to be, it is up
to me. And when we start to live from
that perspective and start practicing it, and I think we
can find that we can create a much stronger circle of trust.
And then when we have that, thatgoes back to our earlier
conversation that feels much better internally for us.
(26:36):
We'll feel much more validated inside and fulfilled because we
know that I can put my heart on the table and Andy isn't going
to crush it. You know, still might tell me I
have there's things I need to doand I'm OK with that because I
know a brother has my back and he's doing this because he wants
to make sure that I show up the best that I can.
(26:57):
So how important is brotherhood and community for men to heal,
grow and evolve? I think it is the key catalyst
of everything that we do in our in our work.
If we don't have brotherhood, ifwe don't have somebody else to
walk the line with us, to walk shoulder to shoulder, then it's
a lonely trip. There's a saying that go
(27:18):
something like if you want to gofast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go with others and that's really what
brotherhood is about. It's about that opportunity to
be able to be mentored, be a mentee and be a mentor for
someone and to have brothers whocan who were mentoring alongside
with each other. And you can do it when you do
(27:41):
that within a group, whatever size that is.
I think we find as men that we deepen our compassion for for
life. We all have a better
understanding of what it means to truly be men in today's
environment. And then we can support each
other more so than than any other way.
I know that there are guys todaythat if I had an issue at 4:00
(28:04):
in the morning that I could pickup the phone and call and they
know the same comes back. I didn't have that five years
ago, didn't have somebody that Icould do that.
So I would have dealt with my stuff by myself.
And so brotherhood is so important and it takes time to
to build and be in it. And so I encourage men that are
(28:25):
looking, maybe you're looking for that you're not sure about
this brotherhood thing. Pry it out, stick it out, do
some, do the work that they're asking you to do.
I think you're going to find that the guys in those groups in
that circle are there for all ofour all of the group's best
interest, including yourself. And so if there's a man
(28:46):
listening that has that I'm not enough voice kicking in, or
perhaps they're carrying grief that they haven't dealt with,
what's a first small step that could bring some relief?
Yeah, I think the first step, the first step is to truly
understand that you're you're ina in a bad place, whatever that
looks like for you and that do going out of the lone no longer
(29:09):
works. And so admit and, and, and take
responsibility for exactly whereyou're at and then tell yourself
it's OK because you're no longeralone.
And you know what? Google's pretty powerful,
brother. Start looking for men's work.
Men's work today is so prevalent.
There's stuff everywhere. There's no reason why that you
(29:30):
can't find something if it's notwithin your community.
For sure there's something online, but it really takes
starting by really taking responsibility for understanding
I can't do this alone anymore and to start to reach out.
And that may be a close friend that you do that with that you
may be have some trust and you can do it.
(29:51):
And if not, it's reaching out towork that you know, Andy's doing
or right, we're doing with the with the band of brothers.
But you need to take some action.
And I think if you can just takeone small step, you're going to
find there's lots of people out there that are willing to help.
And if they're willing to help and you're willing to start,
then life's going to be much better.
(30:11):
Indeed. So, Alan.
Alan, tell me about your. Podcast.
Yeah. So our podcast is the
Revolutionary Man podcast. It's a podcast that it's about
everybody on their own being on their own hero's journey.
It's about their death and rebirth moment that transformed
their lives into something much greater than they had ever
thought and how they're serving the world.
And so we talk about lots of men's issues.
(30:33):
It's focused on everything from relationships to health, you
know, some business ideas about also dealing in with mental
health, but really about helpingguys hear other people's journey
of what they've gone through. So again, so that they know
that, hey, maybe, you know, I'vegone through that was a while
and look at what this individualhas done.
And so we've had, you know, NFL Super Bowl players on our team.
(30:56):
We've had, you know, doctors, lawyers, we've had all different
kinds of folks. Navy Seals.
It's a great opportunity for youto hear about other people's
journey and to maybe get a couple of strategies of what you
can do to implement to help yourlife.
Ellen, what's one thing that youwish more men knew?
(31:16):
I think more, I wish more men knew that people love you.
And I think, you know, as boys, once we're old enough to run and
crawl and get off of our dad's knee, we don't get much
affection after that. And so we grow up then being
(31:37):
these rough and tumble guys. And don't get me wrong, and
kids, the boys need that energy as well.
We don't get a lot of the nurture piece.
And so I want men to know that you are loved beyond measure and
measuring it from an external perspective is going, it could
be, is going to be challenging. And so know that from within.
(31:58):
Know that you were put here for a purpose and you were put here
to do something, whatever that is, and that all that all that
we're asking you to do is to lean into it.
Lean into who you are and know that you are loved.
Yeah, I can say that the the joyin life is discovering your
purpose and then committing to it.
(32:20):
And that brings a lot more joy and happiness to our daily
experience if you're willing to to do that work.
Percent, brother. Cool.
So Alan, what's the best way forpeople to connect with you and
learn about all of your offerings?
Yeah, best. Place to go is the awake
anddemand.net, go to that. That's our web page.
There you're going to see there's a pop up that's going to
show up. There's a free download or an
(32:42):
exercise. It's called Setting the Compass.
It's an opportunity for you to write your life's headline of
what the past 12 months was all about.
And then it'll take you through an exercise to write what the
next headline for the upcoming 12 months gives you a chance to
get a flavor kind of work that we do here at the Awakened Man
and our and our men's group. And it's a free resource for for
(33:03):
those that are listening. Well, Alan, thanks so much for
doing your own work and helping other men do their work because,
you know, I believe what this world needs is more men on
purpose enjoy being of service. And yeah, it'll be a different
world when they're just more mendoing that.
Completely agree brother, thank you so much for having me on the
(33:24):
show, I love the conversation. That was Alan Dimonco showing us
what it looks like to face imposter syndrome and grief head
on and turn those challenges into catalyst for growth.
If his story resonated with you,be sure and check out The
Awakened Man at the links in theshow notes.
And remember, you don't have to wrestle with imposter syndrome,
grief, or any other life challenge alone.
(33:46):
That's why I created the Authentic AF Community, a free
online brotherhood where men canbe real, share openly, and be
supported to become the men we're meant to be.
Join us today at realmenfeel.org/group and until
next time, be good to yourself.
Because at some point, there's no amount of external validation
that's going to fill the void. And so we bury this idea of, you
know, I just got to, I'll just work harder.
You know, I'll just try harder. I'll just do more.
And then, then I'll feel more whole and I'll feel more
successful. But the reality is, is that
we're just stuffing what's trulygoing on.
(00:20):
Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel, the show that reminds men
they don't have to go it alone. I'm your host, Andy Grant.
Today we're exploring 2 experiences.
Nearly every man will face imposter syndrome and grief with
someone who has not only walked through both, but now guides
other men to healing and authenticity.
My guest today is Alan Demonco, founder of The Awakened Man, a
(00:41):
movement and community dedicatedto help men awaken to their
purpose, power, and wholeness. Through his own journey of loss
and self discovery, Alan has learned how to turn pain into
strength, and today he shares how men can move beyond feeling
like a fraud and into living with real courage.
And if you're looking for a supportive community, check out
Authentic AF, my free online community at
(01:03):
realmenfield.org/group. Now give us a like and subscribe
and let's do it. Hello Alan, and welcome to Real
Men Feel. Andy, how's it going today?
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
So Alan, first tell me, what were your personal experiences
that led to you creating the Awakened Man?
Oh man, there's been so many. But if I was to boil it down to
(01:23):
a couple of really life alteringones, it would be the death of
my father-in-law and almost losing my marriage within a very
short period of time. And the, the challenge that I
faced was that I thought I was this, this man that could, you
know, handle it all had made lots of changes.
I've made mistakes young in the,in my younger days in my life.
(01:45):
But what really transpired was that while I had maybe
intellectual knowledge, I wasn'tliving with authenticity or with
integrity. And so when my father-in-law
passed and I was the one who found him, it was so devastating
for me because he was more than just a father-in-law.
He was like my dad, like my bestfriend.
(02:06):
And I just didn't have anywhere to go to talk about do the and
do any work on it. And while there are grief
counseling out there, there wasn't anywhere that I felt
comfortable as a man to sit downand basically just bare my soul.
And so when I recognized that there was this gap in this place
that we needed to createspace for guys to get together to work
(02:27):
on things, whatever that may be.And while I was also just coming
through a really challenging time in my in my marriage, I
also found that people that I thought were close friends were
no longer close friends. And so they had to make
decisions in their life. And so again, I felt this
isolation of not being able to reach out or be anywhere.
And so I wanted to create this opportunity for men to work
(02:51):
through things, whatever season they are in their life, but not
just to sit there and complain and dwell in, in our sorrow, but
to be able to work through that and be in the company of other
men. So we can understand and support
and move each other along so that we're not being stuck and
that we actually do walk the talk and and practice what like
what it's like to live with authenticity.
(03:13):
So up until this point of creating the space and
experiencing grief, was this really the first loss you had in
your life? Yeah, I would say, and it's
definitely not, you know, in my early 20s, I, I was a chef.
I competed in the Culinary Olympics.
My professional life was, you know, skyrocketing.
I was doing so well. And I had married my high school
sweetheart and life on the outside looked like it was going
(03:36):
great. We had just bought home and our
second son was born and life just fell apart with stresses,
with with mortgage and debt. I ended up by, you know, losing
my job and ultimately the marriage fell apart.
And it's really the catalyst that started me on this journey
of, you know, trying to become abetter man and answering, trying
(04:00):
at least to answer the question,what is it?
How can somebody be so successful in one aspect of
their life and yet fail so miserably in others?
And what that says to me in my journey, as I found, is that
when we put so much energy in one aspect of our life and we
identify ourselves and men tend to do this around business and
career. And because it's things that we
(04:20):
can measure, it's difficult for us to measure if we're
successful as a husband and as afather.
And so I read a ton of books, did a bunch of training and
certified and, and NLP and, and past life regressions work, all
this different kind of stuff, emotional intelligence.
But again, as I had said earlier, the problem is, is that
so I know this stuff, but am I living it and practicing it and
(04:43):
actually evolving? And I would say for a few years
that happened and then, you know, life settled in.
It was easy to go back into old habits, old routines.
And when we don't have somebody there to help guide us and move
us along, then I think that's when we start to struggle.
And so, yeah, I would say that was really the catalyst that
started things. But it took another 2 by 4, so
(05:04):
to speak, to the side of the head for me to truly wake up and
understand that. OK, I'll you got to start
putting things into practice. Yeah, I know speaking for
myself, often need to learn the same lesson repeatedly or
different levels of that same lesson.
But yeah, yeah, lots of two by fours.
I get it. So what does awakening mean to
you? Yeah, awakening me to me means
(05:26):
that it's when I recognize that there's an opportunity for me to
learn. Am I approaching today with the
intention that I already have all the answers or am I
approaching today with the intention that I'm going to take
some make some space in this cupthat I have this cup.
That's my that's either knowledge or my work or whatever
(05:49):
it is that I'm I'm pursuing and allow for an opportunity to see
something different. You know, I'm going through some
stuff right now with a few individuals.
And one of the things we continue to talk about is that
in order to the ties into this awakening question is what box
am I seeing this individual or these people in?
And if I continue to see myself or someone else in this box
(06:10):
that's from yesterday or last year or five years, then how
awake am I to see what's actually happening in front of
me? How can I properly and I
accurately connect with the individual?
Because in today's environment, we're no longer just showing up
as robots. We need to be fully present.
And so to do that and we need toslow down enough so we can
(06:31):
awaken to the ideas of what's happening around us.
That doesn't mean I agree with everything that's happening, but
it means though is that I'm muchmore aware, I'm much more
present. And that takes that takes
intention and it takes purpose. And if we don't build that into
our day and then it's easy for us to get back on the on the
hamster wheel and not really make any progress.
(06:53):
So you mentioned seeming successful on the outside and I
hear from that from that from a lot of guys too.
Why do you think it is that a man can have all the trappings
of success, the the career, the business, yet inside there's
something lacking? And are most men aware of that
and they bury it? Or are they lying to themselves?
(07:13):
Like what? What's the inner world?
I think, I think they're buryingit first.
And the reason I, why I say thatis because it's easy for us or
much easier for us to measure success externally as men were
still built for some form of validation.
How do we get that? We get that when we're playing
sports and we win the game or wewin a title or we do stuff.
(07:36):
How do we do that in business? We went and we, we can measure
it because, you know, we hit ourbudgeted targets or we exceed
them. We get bonuses.
Everything for us for a validation comes externally in
relationships. It's hey, does, does the woman
that I'm with, does she does shewant to sleep with me?
Am I, am I attractive? These are the, these are the
ways that we measure ourselves. So when those things start to
(07:59):
become less important because atsome point there's no amount of
external validation that's goingto fill the void.
And so we bury this idea of, youknow, I just got to, I'll just
work harder, You know, I'll justtry harder.
I'll just do more and then thingthen I'll feel more whole and
I'll feel more successful. But the reality is, is that
(08:20):
we're just stuffing what's trulygoing on.
And so in order for us to to really recognize what we're
doing, we have to be prepared tojust take responsibility, take
responsibility for right where we are.
Hey, buddy, what you've done in your life, Al, what I did in my
life, I'm doing in my life is great.
And there are parts of it that need to be adjusted.
So first I got to take responsibility for that.
(08:41):
If I'm going to do it, that meanI'm also taking responsibility
for who I am, how I've been thinking my, my actions,
everything has led me to where Iam today.
And then the third part of that and I start to take
responsibility for who I aspire to become.
And what that means is then is then I had need to slow down
again and start addressing why, what is the driving force behind
(09:03):
me asking or needing this external validation.
So then that really gets into work that we do with, with guys
and they first joined and come into our group is to really
understand what their values andbeliefs are, how they've come to
be. Are they borrowed?
Many of our values and our beliefs are borrowed.
Do they still hold water like they used to like or have they
(09:26):
changed over time what you valued when you were 20-30?
Do they still mean something today or has it has it shifted a
bit? And because we don't spend that
that kind of time considering those questions and doing that
work, then we live in this idea that other things external or,
or what impact me are and are important.
(09:46):
And when we start to shift that mindset and, and really getting
solid on who we are and redefining what our purpose and
our mission is in life, then we can be more in alignment with
what matters to us. And then the decisions are much,
much easier to make because they're coming from a place that
that's deep with inside of inside of us.
And we feel good about it. We don't have this feeling of,
(10:09):
yeah, I'm going to do it. And then at the end of the
whatever it is that you've done,you have an empty feeling.
We find that that work. When we do this work, that kind
of stuff just goes away. Yeah, I'll never forget how the
first time I did any sort of values work in identifying,
Well, first time I never even considered values.
Just went about your day doing stuff like, you know.
But when I did examine and writedown my values, I was amazed how
(10:33):
many of them were things that I thought I was supposed to value,
but they weren't really valuableto me.
So is that pretty common with the men you're?
Working with yeah, I completely agree.
And I, I think we, we, that happened to some for so many of
us. And because we've been taught in
some way, shape or form, whetherthat's directly or indirectly.
(10:54):
And what I mean by that, maybe we had, you know, parents that
were instilling certain types ofvalues, coaches, you know, it
peace people have influenced ourlives.
We're instilling these ideas about what life is about.
And so we took those on and that's what I mean by borrowed.
So now that I borrowed that and for a while it served us, didn't
it? It really did serve us to be
(11:15):
able to move forward. The challenge with it is that we
change, but then our values seemto be stuck back, way back.
And so they aren't evolving. And So what I'm, what I find is
that when we don't take a momentto go back and, and we do our
values and beliefs work on an annual basis because we've grown
(11:36):
and changed as, as individuals, as leaders, as husbands,
fathers. And so we can't think that,
well, this is what I this is what I value.
Like for me, value meant for thelongest time was that I needed
to be successful in business, work hard so that I could bring
home the bacon and take care of my family.
That's on the surface, that sounds pretty good.
Hey, what's wrong with that? Al, You didn't hear me say
(11:59):
anything about taking care of myfamily emotionally with the
presence, with the ability to, to nurture and, and and grow
with them. All you heard was it's all about
me. And that's the challenge and
balancing between near values and marrying them with our
beliefs is that how do we becomea man of service that allows us
(12:21):
to still have some form of identity, but also be there for
the people that we care about most?
And so when we start to think about, hey, if I say I value
family, but I work 70 hours a week and I haven't had this
conversation with my spouse and my family to let them know about
what the goal is overall. And I'm just doing this thing
because I think, well, they should know.
(12:41):
Then that's when we start to fall in traps.
A lot of successful men, and in my own life too, there's that
I'm not enough voice. But how do you recognize when
that's running the show and how do you shift out of that?
Well, that and that I'm not enough voice is really this idea
of how much do we have of self acceptance?
(13:04):
You know, on one end of the scale of this, of the self
acceptance scale is this imposter syndrome.
And all of us go through this, don't we?
There is some point in time if you're going to start a new
career or you're going to you'regoing to learn a new skill,
you're going to feel like you can't do this and you start to
do it. And then you really you think,
(13:25):
well, I got some of this down and then somebody asks you, OK,
I need you to go teach that to somebody.
And then you start to get those this doubt.
I said, well, I don't know if I'm good enough.
I don't know think I can be enough of that.
And So what ends up by happeningis we get caught into these this
phase and the next one, the nextone is this negative self
chatter. And so we start listening and
(13:45):
we're back on that hamster wheeland we have this doubt.
But the true, the truth of it is, is that it's all make
believe because we hasn't haven't yet even attempted to
try to do it. And so the moment we start to
attempt and move forward, then we can start to release
ourselves from this. I'm not enoughness and the the
(14:06):
next barrier we're going to faceand we're going to find is that
we're going to start to compare ourselves.
Well, if I'm going to do this. And then then you maybe got a
couple of paths in the back. Hey, he did a great job there.
That was awesome. And then maybe you've got one
piece of criticism that wasn't as great.
And so now you start comparing, well, am I as good as the next
(14:27):
guy? This is another guy I don't know
about you. I, you know, I have a podcast as
well. I had to fight through these
stages in the early days of putting, putting out episodes.
Boy, is it going to sound good enough to, you know, how my was
I articulate enough to think this is going to touch people.
And at some point you just have to let it go because whenever we
compare, we're never the same. Are we rather going to be better
(14:50):
than or less than And however weframe that.
And so I stopped comparing. The only comparison I have is
how much effort have I put into this episode, How much effort
have I put into the tasks that I'm doing?
And can I be 1% better. And so then I stopped looking
for approval, that external validation.
I'll measure my success based onhow I feel I've done my effort
(15:14):
and being mindful that we're notalways going to be at 100%
everyday or 100% will look differently.
But I think when we can finally get to that other end of the
spectrum of true self acceptanceand accept and allow that every
day is going to be a different day at hand.
I'm going to put my best foot forward.
Then we can get start to get ourselves out of this.
I'm enoughness because we're always going to be enough.
(15:38):
And we may never be the Michael Jordan of whatever it is that
we're trying to do. But can there only is there
opportunity for you to be the Michael Jordan of fatherhood,
husbandry of other parts of yourlife?
I would say that there's lots ofroom for that for lots of us.
And so we have to be mindful of how we're measuring ourselves
(15:59):
and having things that make sense for who we are as
individuals. And it's also important to
realize there was a time that Michael Jordan wasn't the
Michael Jordan of anything. 100%reading his autobiography, you
know, every year he worked on a different skill, right?
I remember him reading about, hey, people are saying he's not
(16:19):
a I'm not, he's not a very good defensive player.
Bang, next thing you know, next year, top defensive player in
the league. Oh, this guy can't shoot the
three pointer. Boom.
Next thing you know, shooting 3 pointers.
The point is, is that he was able to shift that that critique
into something that he that drove him as an individual.
And so can we learn from that lesson and how can we then make
(16:41):
better use of it as opposed to having a defeat him and it would
defeat us, right? Right.
So then it sounds like those that in at least some level of
imposter syndrome can be used asa force of growth.
It doesn't always have to be destructive.
Yeah, I completely agree with that because it's in the story
that we're telling ourselves andhow and what is the lesson that
(17:03):
we're that we're pulling out, you know, for years, you know,
in high school. This is so many decades ago.
Yeah, I grew up in a in a mediumsized town here in, in Canada.
Our high school basketball team never made it out of its little
area. We finally, this my senior year,
we finally made it to our provincial finals or it would be
state finals. And yeah, we came, we came in
(17:25):
second. We lost the game by 5 points.
And I carried that loss with me for years.
And it's actually what drove me to wanted to be the best chef I
could be to competing in the Culinary Olympics and all that.
But it also was part of the piece that also hurt me because
I carried the story that I'm notgood enough.
(17:45):
I can only be second best. And, and when I had that, and it
took me almost, well, it took melosing my first marriage to
really understand how how poorlythat was serving me.
But I couldn't see past the trees.
I couldn't see the forest because all I was focused on was
trying to be the best instead ofbeing the best husband and
(18:09):
father and more than just what it meant to be at work.
And so I think we got to be careful of the lesson of the
story that we're telling ourselves when we're in these
negative cycles. And is there truth there and how
much truth and what could be true that we haven't accepted
just yet? And sometimes that takes work
by, you know, joining a men's group or speaking to a buddy or
(18:31):
somebody to doing to helping youget through that because there
is a deeper truth. You just have to be ready to and
willing to hear it. Right.
Yeah, Keep willing. Yeah, yeah.
That that's a big part of of every aspect of growth and
bettering yourself and being of service to your family, to a
business, to the world. I want to get back to you really
(18:54):
opened up with talking about grief and the the loss of your
father-in-law. I've heard you say that grief
can be more than the loss of a loved one can.
Can you expand on on what that means?
Grief happen can happen for in lots of different ways when we
consider that our identity is soas men, you know, big brush
(19:15):
painting here, we attach our identity to what we do in life.
And if what we do gets taken away from us, that's a form of
grief because now how do I identify myself?
How do I identify myself? Hey, I'm Al the culinary chef,
and now I'm no longer that. And so we'll go through the same
(19:40):
stages and steps of grief. And so we're going to fight
that, you know, we're going to we're going to beg for to have
to have it come back. We're going to blame others and
we're going to blame, you know, if you're a faith person, you're
going to blame God. But the truth of the matter is,
is that there is no one to blame.
There's not even for yourself toblame necessarily.
Let's see, we're doing immoral and illegal things and you're
(20:02):
going to have to take account the responsibility for that.
But you're going to go through those grief piece grief steps.
And so the evolution of that isn't being able to recognize
that this is the opportunity forme to learn and to grow from
that. And what are the things that
that I could do differently? How can this prepare me for the
other stages in life? And so grief can happen through
(20:26):
the loss of a loss of work. If you're very much a community
oriented person and you're needing to shift and move your
family or move yourself, that's a form can be a form of grief.
How many people have have heard of being homesick?
Like I can remember moving as a young as a young boy, my father
(20:49):
wanted to move closer to into this other town that was closer
for work so he didn't have to drive a few hours every day.
And I thought my life was going to end right.
It's a 1213 year old because allmy buddies that were being left
behind. But the truth of the matter is
it was an opportunity for me to grow and OK, and I got to make
new friends and I have to learn some stuff and and there was it
(21:10):
was a decision that had to be made.
But as we get older, we can get fixated on how we've aligned our
lives. And so grief can happen through
the loss of relationship, not necessarily like, like losing a
father-in-law, but moving or losing a best friend.
You have an argument and you just have irreconcilable
(21:33):
differences now. And they can't get, can't get
that back together. I see that a lot, you know,
coming out of the pandemic and how much that shifted
relationships with people. And we can lose it through,
through business and we can loseit obviously in our intimate
relationships when when we go through divorce or loss of a
(21:54):
loss of really close loved ones.And so we pay attention that our
no matter where the grief comes,we can still face it with
strength and power. But you need to be in an
environment that allows you to be able to share and go and go
through that. There is no right way to grief.
There is only the opportunity todo it.
(22:16):
And if you don't have that opportunity to do it, then we
tend to stuff our emotions and then that it shows up in much,
much more challenging ways, muchmore destructive ways.
And for many times it can lead to addictions of many different
varieties. How do you see men and women
handling grief differently? And is there something specific
(22:39):
that men need more to deal with grief?
Yeah, I think when, what I, whatI have encountered an experience
is that women are much more emotional and, and vulnerable
with it. And so they'll they'll share
with their friends, their girlfriends and they'll get in
and have the crying, the crying fests and the hugs and that.
(23:00):
And guys, we tend to, you know, buckle in.
We use misguided ideas of Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius in
that. We think that we don't, that we
don't, we show strength is not showing any emotion.
And I don't believe that's what what Marcus intended.
It was about having, you know, having emotional control.
(23:21):
So we're not doing things that are detriment to ourselves and
to others. And So what we need to do and
learn as men is to be able to, yes, have that good cry when
it's necessary, have that vulnerability, But you can only
do that if you're, if you're in a place where you have trust.
(23:42):
And so for men, our challenge is, is that we haven't built the
kind of trust throughout our, inour lives.
Now, I don't know, I'm not a woman, I don't know what it was
like for, for women's sports, but I can tell you growing up,
and maybe you experienced this as well, Andy, And when you're
playing sports, there's, it can be difficult gaining trust if
you're new, the new guy on the team, the rookie, you know, the
(24:04):
hazing rituals that I can remember going through.
There was difficult for some people to adjust to that, to
adjust to building that trust. And so you needed to be careful.
You know, there was always lots of teasing and sometimes that
teasing would go over the line and be extremely brutal.
And so we've learned as men thatit's difficult to trust other,
(24:26):
be in company other and trust them because I don't know if
that guy's going to take advantage of me some way somehow
down the road. And so we need to build trust
within our environments and the guys that we, that, that we feel
that we can do that with. And, and that only happens by, I
hate to say it, having a little bit of trust and starting to
(24:50):
step into it. And I wouldn't have a, the most
challenging conversation with somebody that you, that you feel
you need to do. I would start with something
smaller that, hey, it's not, it's not a big deal.
I want if it goes one way or theother, it doesn't end anything.
It's an opportunity for you to practice of being somewhat
vulnerable so you can get into deeper conversations later.
(25:11):
But if we don't have them to begin with, then we never build
that skill set. We never build that muscle to be
able to create this foundation of trust within our our male
relationships. Yeah.
Somebody in any relationship needs to be brave enough to take
that first bit of risk. Absolutely.
(25:31):
You know what they're all saying.
If, if it's got to be, it's up to me and, and I live as much as
I can with that model and then doing it also, though, from a
considering a place of as much as much kindness as I can.
And kindness doesn't mean being soft.
Kindness means if I, you know, if the need to share a truth
(25:52):
that, you know, I need to share a truth that Andy needs to hear,
then how can I say that to Andy and still allow him to hear it
and not completely destroy him, try and leave him in a, in a
better place than where, than where we're starting.
And that takes practice. And it's going to be messy and
it isn't always going to come off great.
But I think everyone of us can find that person in our lives
(26:14):
where we can have that. We can practice with that type
of conversation. But if it's got to be, it is up
to me. And when we start to live from
that perspective and start practicing it, and I think we
can find that we can create a much stronger circle of trust.
And then when we have that, thatgoes back to our earlier
conversation that feels much better internally for us.
(26:36):
We'll feel much more validated inside and fulfilled because we
know that I can put my heart on the table and Andy isn't going
to crush it. You know, still might tell me I
have there's things I need to doand I'm OK with that because I
know a brother has my back and he's doing this because he wants
to make sure that I show up the best that I can.
(26:57):
So how important is brotherhood and community for men to heal,
grow and evolve? I think it is the key catalyst
of everything that we do in our in our work.
If we don't have brotherhood, ifwe don't have somebody else to
walk the line with us, to walk shoulder to shoulder, then it's
a lonely trip. There's a saying that go
(27:18):
something like if you want to gofast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go with others and that's really what
brotherhood is about. It's about that opportunity to
be able to be mentored, be a mentee and be a mentor for
someone and to have brothers whocan who were mentoring alongside
with each other. And you can do it when you do
(27:41):
that within a group, whatever size that is.
I think we find as men that we deepen our compassion for for
life. We all have a better
understanding of what it means to truly be men in today's
environment. And then we can support each
other more so than than any other way.
I know that there are guys todaythat if I had an issue at 4:00
(28:04):
in the morning that I could pickup the phone and call and they
know the same comes back. I didn't have that five years
ago, didn't have somebody that Icould do that.
So I would have dealt with my stuff by myself.
And so brotherhood is so important and it takes time to
to build and be in it. And so I encourage men that are
(28:25):
looking, maybe you're looking for that you're not sure about
this brotherhood thing. Pry it out, stick it out, do
some, do the work that they're asking you to do.
I think you're going to find that the guys in those groups in
that circle are there for all ofour all of the group's best
interest, including yourself. And so if there's a man
(28:46):
listening that has that I'm not enough voice kicking in, or
perhaps they're carrying grief that they haven't dealt with,
what's a first small step that could bring some relief?
Yeah, I think the first step, the first step is to truly
understand that you're you're ina in a bad place, whatever that
looks like for you and that do going out of the lone no longer
(29:09):
works. And so admit and, and, and take
responsibility for exactly whereyou're at and then tell yourself
it's OK because you're no longeralone.
And you know what? Google's pretty powerful,
brother. Start looking for men's work.
Men's work today is so prevalent.
There's stuff everywhere. There's no reason why that you
(29:30):
can't find something if it's notwithin your community.
For sure there's something online, but it really takes
starting by really taking responsibility for understanding
I can't do this alone anymore and to start to reach out.
And that may be a close friend that you do that with that you
may be have some trust and you can do it.
(29:51):
And if not, it's reaching out towork that you know, Andy's doing
or right, we're doing with the with the band of brothers.
But you need to take some action.
And I think if you can just takeone small step, you're going to
find there's lots of people out there that are willing to help.
And if they're willing to help and you're willing to start,
then life's going to be much better.
(30:11):
Indeed. So, Alan.
Alan, tell me about your. Podcast.
Yeah. So our podcast is the
Revolutionary Man podcast. It's a podcast that it's about
everybody on their own being on their own hero's journey.
It's about their death and rebirth moment that transformed
their lives into something much greater than they had ever
thought and how they're serving the world.
And so we talk about lots of men's issues.
(30:33):
It's focused on everything from relationships to health, you
know, some business ideas about also dealing in with mental
health, but really about helpingguys hear other people's journey
of what they've gone through. So again, so that they know
that, hey, maybe, you know, I'vegone through that was a while
and look at what this individualhas done.
And so we've had, you know, NFL Super Bowl players on our team.
(30:56):
We've had, you know, doctors, lawyers, we've had all different
kinds of folks. Navy Seals.
It's a great opportunity for youto hear about other people's
journey and to maybe get a couple of strategies of what you
can do to implement to help yourlife.
Ellen, what's one thing that youwish more men knew?
(31:16):
I think more, I wish more men knew that people love you.
And I think, you know, as boys, once we're old enough to run and
crawl and get off of our dad's knee, we don't get much
affection after that. And so we grow up then being
(31:37):
these rough and tumble guys. And don't get me wrong, and
kids, the boys need that energy as well.
We don't get a lot of the nurture piece.
And so I want men to know that you are loved beyond measure and
measuring it from an external perspective is going, it could
be, is going to be challenging. And so know that from within.
(31:58):
Know that you were put here for a purpose and you were put here
to do something, whatever that is, and that all that all that
we're asking you to do is to lean into it.
Lean into who you are and know that you are loved.
Yeah, I can say that the the joyin life is discovering your
purpose and then committing to it.
(32:20):
And that brings a lot more joy and happiness to our daily
experience if you're willing to to do that work.
Percent, brother. Cool.
So Alan, what's the best way forpeople to connect with you and
learn about all of your offerings?
Yeah, best. Place to go is the awake
anddemand.net, go to that. That's our web page.
There you're going to see there's a pop up that's going to
show up. There's a free download or an
(32:42):
exercise. It's called Setting the Compass.
It's an opportunity for you to write your life's headline of
what the past 12 months was all about.
And then it'll take you through an exercise to write what the
next headline for the upcoming 12 months gives you a chance to
get a flavor kind of work that we do here at the Awakened Man
and our and our men's group. And it's a free resource for for
(33:03):
those that are listening. Well, Alan, thanks so much for
doing your own work and helping other men do their work because,
you know, I believe what this world needs is more men on
purpose enjoy being of service. And yeah, it'll be a different
world when they're just more mendoing that.
Completely agree brother, thank you so much for having me on the
(33:24):
show, I love the conversation. That was Alan Dimonco showing us
what it looks like to face imposter syndrome and grief head
on and turn those challenges into catalyst for growth.
If his story resonated with you,be sure and check out The
Awakened Man at the links in theshow notes.
And remember, you don't have to wrestle with imposter syndrome,
grief, or any other life challenge alone.
(33:46):
That's why I created the Authentic AF Community, a free
online brotherhood where men canbe real, share openly, and be
supported to become the men we're meant to be.
Join us today at realmenfeel.org/group and until
next time, be good to yourself.
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