August 4, 2025 • 50 mins
What if the biggest breakthrough in your life as a man wasn't found in solitude—but in a circle of brothers? This episode is with Jason Lange, a men’s embodiment coach who believes men’s groups are the missing link to modern masculine healing and transformation.Jason is a men’s embodiment coach, group facilitator, certified No More Mr. Nice Guy coach, and evolutionary guide. He helps men drop in and wake up to deeper clarity in their life’s purpose and relationships. He believes every man should be in a men’s group for the growth and support opportunities they provide.Jason began his own journey into men’s work in his 20s after years of loneliness, disconnection from his body, and difficulty in romantic relationships. He has trained with leading figures such as John Wineland, Dr. Robert Glover, Jun Po Roshi, Tripp Lanier, and Ken Wilber.Find out more about Jason Lange by visiting https://evolutionary.menVisit https://evolutionary.men/talk to book a free exploratory call with Jason. This is your opportunity to talk about what’s going on in your life and explore how men’s work and coaching might support your growth, relationships, and purpose.🔑Rob Z Wentz is a Leadership Communication Expert. Rob teaches, trains, and develops people and organizations to become exceptional communicators and leaders. With Rob, leaders find clarity, take action, and succeed with integrity, making them “the expert” in their industry. 💻Learn more about LIT Coaching & Schedule a call w/ Rob at LeadImpactTransform.comDiscover everything about Rob Z 📲 Linktr.ee/RobZWentz🌐Build Your Brand: Join the Pro Podcaster Academy at RobZWentz.com🔑Rob is also a Christian entrepreneur, founder of The Unstuck Movement (on all social & podcast platforms), best-selling author, social media marketer and strategist, award-winning radio personality, speaker, and influencer. For over 20 years Rob has been leading people to communicate at a higher level.The Unstuck Movement Is Sponsored By:The CLA 👏 ConnectedLeadersAcademy.com📲Contact Jose Escobar 💪The Unstuck Movement: True Testimonies of Breakthrough - Available on all social media and podcast platforms.Do you want to be featured on incredible podcasts AND find amazing guests to feature on your platform? Join PodMatch - www.joinpodmatch.com/usmLIT🔥Coaching | Lead, Impact, Transform
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
Music. Men's groups, emotional
(00:51):
resilience, building that personal growth into our life
and connection over isolation. And that's somewhere where I
want to start because I titled this episode the lone wolf myth.
And there's lots of guys out there in lone wolf syndrome.
They they kind of idolize glory,glamorize this like doing this
journey on their own by themselves.
(01:12):
And as a recovering lone Wolfer myself and you also, I want to
know what changed in your life once you stopped quote UN quote
lone wolfing it. Yeah, when when I really, for
me, the path here was getting into men's work and getting into
men's groups. And I'm gonna just be totally
(01:33):
honest, my life got better. My life got better.
I started making more money. I had AI got I got married, my
health improved. Like if I told if I told guys
there was a pill for what this kind of stuff can do, they'd be
like, yeah, totally. I want it.
But when you tell them, oh, hey,it's actually about developing
(01:54):
real relationships with other men and moving away from this
kind of myth, like you said, of the lone wolf.
They're like, what do you mean? No, it's, you know, I, I really
proud of myself for how, how tough I am, for how alone I am.
I don't need anybody, right. I, I hear this stuff all the
time. And there were parts of me that
believe that too, that, you know, through before I fully
(02:16):
immersed myself here, some of the most challenging or
difficult days, weeks, months ofyears of my life.
I had male friends and I wasn't even talking to them about it.
It's like so ridiculous in in retrospect that I'd be sitting
there with a man who clearly hadfondness for me, but I was so
gripped by it. Now, you don't talk about this
(02:38):
kind of stuff. And I think a lot of men fall
prey to that. And it has massive consequences
on our well-being as men. So, you know, I tell guys, like,
whether you ideologically believe in it or not, you want
to be a more effective man. This is the path.
Yeah, man. And would you say a lot of
(02:58):
that's pride, not wanting to do it, not feeling like you you can
do it or you're supposed to openup?
What would you say that if you had to put a?
You know, Yeah, there's a word. To it, I would say it's pride,
fear, and you know, the bad kindof cultural indoctrination.
It's not like this necessarily comes up from nowhere.
(03:20):
US men were raised and taught this from, from an early, early
age, really. And then it gets, you know,
accentuated and we perpetuate itoften just as much as anyone
else. You know, there's, there's, it's
just romantic. There's these romantic idea
(03:41):
ideals, You know, when I were talking about where we're
located, and we're both here in the States and, you know, in the
US in particular, it's the, it'sthe romantic Marlboro Man, the
cowboy that. Yeah.
It's John Wayne. John Wayne I don't need anybody.
I'm just free and tough as nails.
And you know, there's obviously some real attributes behind
(04:02):
those characters that are desirable in a sense.
But the real world, those guys are usually dying at the bottom
of the bottle or from heart disease or like things, very
real things that we can now map back to the cost of social
isolation and what it does for us as human beings and
(04:25):
particularly us as men, right? There's, I mean, there's just so
much research and data. It's loneliness itself is as
dangerous as poking, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, right?
It's it's a big one that the surgeon general released a
couple years ago. I saw another one that came out
last year. It was men who strongly identify
(04:46):
with kind of traditional masculine and stoic values twice
as likely to commit suicide. So this stuff has a real cost,
real cost to us as men. And part of what we're just
having to do right now is kind of shatter that myth and say,
actually, yeah, there's a betterway.
(05:06):
And the better way involves getting connected to other men
who can support us and challengeus to create the life we want.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So honestly, we're so excited to
have you on here 'cause this is a a a topic of conversation that
I need to have right now. I was a part of a men's group
for three years and through justdifferent circumstances, my life
(05:29):
speeding up all that. I haven't been to a men's group
in well over a year and I and asI was preparing for this
episode, I'm like, oh, shoot, just in time.
All right, man. Jason, we need to have this
conversation 'cause I need to gointo this and there's a question
I wanna ask you. I'm gonna ask you here in one
second. I gotta fully introduce the
podcast before I do So welcome everyone to the Unstuck
(05:49):
movement. This platform was created to
help you find breakthrough. Jason, you've been stuck.
I've been stuck many different points in our life.
You know, we all get stuck and we need at least I do, which is
why I started the podcast. Real examples of people who have
gotten through things. So I know like, hold up, it's
not just me. Everybody goes through this
stuff. I need examples, real life
(06:10):
testimonies that it's possible to find that breakthrough.
We're sponsored by the ConnectedLeaders Academy.
Make sure you check out Connected leadersacademy.com.
Talk about people coming together, over 500 entrepreneurs
from all over the world who serve each other, help each
other grow, and also the Pro Podcaster Academy.
So if you're somebody who wants to launch a podcast, you've been
thinking about it for a long time, but all the nuts and
bolts, you don't know where to begin.
(06:31):
There's so many steps of the process.
I'd love to help you with that, to become the go to authority in
your space, create long lasting personal and professional
connections, and also create a massive impact in people's
lives. If you already have a podcast,
you want to streamline it, you want to monetize it, we do that.
Also, the Pro Podcaster Academy at robzwentz.com, Jason Lang
with Jason Lang with us today isa men's embodiment coach and
(06:56):
certified No more Mr. Nice Guy coach who helps men gain clarity
in life and relationships. He believes every man should be
in a men's group to access deeper transformation, purpose
and support. So one of the questions I do
want to ask as we start, this isa personal one, right?
And I, I'm sure you've dealt with this too.
And maybe every, every guy dealswith this, but whenever you feel
(07:17):
like I don't want to keep complaining to my guy friends,
right? I don't want to come in here
feeling like I've always got something to come in and
complain about. I want to be able to lift other
people up 'cause I noticed this is the mentality that can happen
happen for me. It's like I want to be able to
help everybody else. I don't want to come in every
week. Oh man, this is going on.
Oh, now this is going on, right?And be that guy.
(07:38):
I guess the question is, have you dealt with that and how did
you deal with that? Because for me, I think that was
in the men's group, which I, I had tons of breakthrough in it.
That was one of the the biggest issues I dealt with personally.
Yeah, it's a great question. It's a fear I think a lot of men
have of being a burden to others.
(08:00):
That's right. This This is why so many men
carry so much burden. Yeah, not wanting to be like the
whiner too, right? I don't want.
I don't want to be I. Don't want to be.
I don't want to be a whiny victim.
I don't want to burden people inmy life, you know, I don't want
to burden other men. And you know, I'll be straight
it a lot of the solution to thatcomes down to the depth and
strength of the container of thegroup.
(08:22):
It's very easy to just sit around and complain.
We we can all do it. And there's a way, you know,
what I would kind of call lower level social connection can
happen just through complaint, right?
It's just like we can sit around, we can bitch and moan
about this, that or the other thing.
But a good men's groups going togo deeper than that.
Yes, we're bringing to the groupto our men.
(08:46):
What's not working for us in life?
Where are we in pain, right? Where's the struggle?
Where's the stress? But it's not just one way,
right? So we we bring these challenges
in order to get feedback. And you know, the, the the
Robert Bly popularized the term,you know, in a lot of ways to
(09:06):
get sharpened up by other men who help us see what's actually
going on. And a good group, you know, the
the time type I've been in and II really am passionate about
helping men cultivate is also going to track these things.
So right, if it's three or four months, you've been coming to a
(09:28):
couple groups and you're coming in and complaining about the
same thing. You know, my boss out of this or
I've been problem with this. A good group is going to push
back, not to shame you, but out of love and care of saying, hey,
you've been talking about this for six months now.
(09:48):
Like, do you just want to complain about it or, or do you
really want to change something here?
Right? And they're going to hold your
feet to the fire in a sense, to help you figure out what's the
action you need to take here to bring deeper integrity.
Do you need to start showing up in a different way?
Or do you need to renegotiate whatever it is you're involved
(10:09):
in? You know, it's usually one of
those two paths and and they're going to push you.
They're going to push back. And that takes both a group
who's willing to do that and that takes us also being forward
enough to bring it. Now the the other deeper thing I
wanted to share, Rob, is sometimes guys I work with will
(10:31):
confuse complaint with feeling. And what I mean by this is, oh,
I like I'm feeling sad about something.
I don't want to put that on you.I don't, I don't want to burden
you with my grief, right. So guys are constantly in the
work I do trying to protect eachother in a sense.
And here's the experience, though, that will often blow
(10:54):
their mind is when another guy is bold enough to really come
forward with honesty, transparency, vulnerability.
Not just talking about it from his head, but really getting
into the, the, the truth of what's going on in his life,
which, you know, might be dark, might be ugly, might be painful.
And this, this so-called man witnesses that and ends up, you
(11:20):
know, feeling deeply connected to that man and his courage and
like, wow, I can't believe you brought that forward.
I've never seen that before. Da, da, da.
And then at the end, I'll be like, did it feel like a burden
to anyone that so and so just fully brought their rage or
fully brought their grief? And they'll be like, no.
And I'll be like, so do you think it's that way when you
bring it to other guys? And then they're like, what?
(11:41):
Wait, no, I have the story that anything I bring is going to be
painful for other men to hold. But I just sat through, you
know, sometimes weeks, months, years of other men bringing it.
And it's it's not draining, right?
It actually creates A deeper level of connection.
So that kind of tie it all together here.
One of the big things I see men now doing in these kind of
(12:02):
groups is one of my partners, and I call it lighting the way,
that one of the ways we actuallyserve the men in our group is by
bringing forward the ferocity ofour feeling and our truth.
And when we do that, we often actually inspire other men to do
it who were like, oh man, actually, I thought I was the
(12:24):
only one who was having trouble with my wife.
But when I heard you say that, Iactually felt brave enough to
bring it forward. And it creates this kind of
camaraderie and inspiration in each other.
So kind of two totally differentangles there, but definitely
important things to track in a good group.
That's really good man. I love that.
I am curious the the kind of group that you're talking about
(12:46):
where for well, let's let's justdive into to your own journey in
this. How did you whoops, how did you
end up finding a men's group that was transformational for
you? Did you put it together
yourself? Did you stumble upon it?
Give me some details because I'msure guys listen to this and
there's probably some wives out there girlfriends listen to this
(13:07):
too or like how do I get my man into one of these?
How did that come about for you?Because that is, I would
imagine, for a guy who really needs a men's group.
He's not the kind of guy who's going to go searching for a
men's group, you know? Often particularly.
Yeah, that's starting to change.Thankfully, as, as you know,
spaces like this are rewriting the narrative.
(13:29):
When I got into my first group, I was in my mid 20s.
It was in the mid 2000s and yeah, back then it was a bit of
a different world in the sense that you name said men's group.
Most people would assume you mean like a recovery a, a group
or some kind of church group. Those were the big ones that
most people associated with. It's changed quite a bit since
(13:51):
then. You know, there was an initial
wave of men's work kind of in the 90s with Robert Bligh and
the kind of mythopoetic Mankind project.
And they've been chugging along.But it was in the, you know, mid
2000s that I got lucky. Frankly, I was just lucky.
I had moved to Colorado to kind of pursue some transformational
(14:14):
work. And I, I met some guys at a
company I worked with and we were talking about it like we
wanted to do this to go deep in deeper.
And we got lucky because there was a older man in our community
who is a coach who had been in men's groups.
And so we kind of did both were,you know, I was part of when I
created. And we had a guy lead us for the
(14:37):
first two years to teach us, like, how do we make sure this
doesn't just float to us talkingabout things which men love to
do or complaining, right? Like there's, there's a certain
gravity to male relations by default that'll often just go to
those things talking about philosophy or politics or
whatever, which, you know, there's a place for that, but it
doesn't necessarily go as deep as a good group can.
(14:58):
So we had this guy lead us. And I got lucky.
Yeah. In my 20s, I got connected to an
incredible lead deep group of men who changed the trajectory
of my life so much so that beingin that group inspired me to
move across the country, follow a career and a passion and
really kind of try like go for it in life.
(15:19):
And then once I started a family, I actually just came
back about a year ago and 14 years later dove back in with
those guys again. So it's pretty incredible to
have that continuity of in a sense going on in your his
journey and coming back and be like, yeah, man, I went for it.
Here we go. But so I got lucky.
Not a lot of men are as lucky. The other big thing that is
(15:42):
shifting now that is really partof the tidal wave, I think is
things like this. Meaning, you know, 20 years ago,
if you were outside a major cityor kind of a transformational
hub, pretty hard to find something like a men's group,
like I said, outside of a, a, ora church or faith-based group.
(16:02):
But now, because of Zoom, there is more opportunity than ever.
So you can be out in the middle of nowhere and still participate
in a group. Is it different than being in
the same room? Yes.
But for some guys, is it the only option?
Yeah. And sometimes this is a more
effective option depending on your life stage.
Yes. I get lots of guys who are, you
(16:23):
know, fathers or they just don'thave a lot of time, but they can
definitely make time like this where they don't have to leave
their house or something like that.
So there's more opportunity thanever.
And there's a real swell, I would say, of, of, of the work
right now in, I think it's just based on the very real need men
are feeling and some of the gapsin our culture right now.
(16:46):
Yeah, man, the, the group that Iwas in, by the way, it was a
church men's group. But it, it, it's, I think one of
the things that I, I looked for that I didn't even, I mean, I
didn't know what I was looking for.
But what I found in there was one person starts opening up.
I think, and you already mentioned this one person opens
up, gets a little vulnerable. That's a snowball effect, right?
(17:10):
So being aware that that is thisis part of the puzzle because
most of the times somebody's well, not at most of the time,
all the time, somebody's got to do it.
Somebody has to open up, right? So encouraging that kind of
environment to happen. How do you manufacture that sort
of environment? How do you, and I'm curious
about what you do and how you doit.
(17:32):
How does that happen organicallyor how, how do you manufacture a
group to come together and create that organic openness and
organic conversation that allowspeople to feel safe?
Like, all right, we're all on the same page here, I can do
this. Where do you find the people?
How do you get it put together, get the ball rolling, that sort
(17:53):
of thing? Because that'd be the hardest
part of the whole puzzle. Yeah.
So you know how this shows up for me is it's a combination of
two things, structure and agreements, so that the tighter
and safer a container is, the more comfortable men feel
revealing, going vulnerable, etcetera.
(18:14):
And what I mean by structure andagreements, I'll start actually
with agreements. Agreements are like, what are
the road rules? Literally what are the
agreements? We are all on the same page in
and quite literally opting in onfor how we're going to interact
in these spaces, right? What time do we start?
When do we end? What's participation in terms of
(18:35):
in between meetings and then in the meetings themselves?
How do we handle conflict? How do we share?
How do we deal with confidentiality?
It's very real things that if you don't set them, a group will
almost never go as deep. So setting strong agreements and
getting buy in from men is extremely important around that.
(18:57):
And confidential confidentialityis obviously one of the most
core ones I've found that reallyrelaxes men.
So are you saying like write that down, like put that on
paper, like a binding agreement?This is like most of my groups
once some groups I lead are ongoing, meaning, you know, it's
(19:19):
the same group of guys meeting over a certain amount of time.
Those groups eventually we're not going to read them every
time because everyone's agreed. But if it's a group of people
are coming or going something I read them every time and every
guy has to raise his hand like opt in.
I am a yes, I am agreeing to these Rd. rules for this meeting
and there's lots of different agreements out there in terms of
(19:43):
different strategies around communication and presence and
different things that I support guys in.
But for one, you got to have them.
You literally just you have to have a shared reality of how are
we interacting inside this group, including, you know, a
potent and often hard one for men is learning to speak in I
statements, right. That's often a common one.
(20:05):
I'm I'm supporting men in in terms of, you know, you'll
notice it even I just did it right there.
I notice it in the culture all the time.
It's a very. Revelant thing, particularly for
men to actually speak in the second person when they're
referring to themselves. You know, you ever had one of
those days where you're just you're, you're not doing well
and it's just really hard to getup, you know, as the person
(20:27):
interacting, you're like, oh, you're talking about yourself,
right? And it's a very different
experience to say I'm having oneof those days.
It's really hard for me today. I'm not sure what to do.
A lot of times guys will push away vulnerability by speaking
in second person. So in agreement as an example
(20:47):
would be using I statements whenever possible, owning our
experience, not pushing it out. So that's kind of agreements and
then structure is like literallywhat is the agenda or a group,
what are we doing, in what orderand how much time are we
spending on it? And without a tight structure,
again, it's pretty challenging to go deep.
(21:10):
But so you know, I'm not the only one who's created this kind
of stuff, but there's numerous structures out there you can
bring to groups that will facilitate depth.
And when there's tight agreements in deep structure,
what I have found is men will godeep.
They will absolutely go deep once they feel safe and once
(21:31):
there's something guiding them towards that.
And then that third wheel that you kind of spoke about comes
online that once the culture emerges of oh, wow, right,
someone really goes deep, transparent, vulnerable.
There's a feeling of, oh, these guys aren't messing around,
right? They're going for it.
(21:51):
And in a great way that often inspires men to go for it.
It's like, oh, I can feel like this isn't a place to hold back.
This is a place to go for it. And so that really will spark
things. So, you know, again, is that
going to happen in a very first group of men who have never met
each other? Not necessarily.
But in the groups I lead, right.There's a reason there's a
(22:14):
there's a journey men go on weekto week in order to facilitate
that depth over time. Well, it makes perfect sense
from a just a procedural standpoint.
You know, you, you can't have freedom without structure,
right? Structure and process creates
real freedom. Without the structure and
process, you're just going to have chaos and, and the things
(22:36):
aren't going to happen that needto happen.
And so that, I mean, that doesn't make sense just from a
practical standpoint. You have a system laid out,
you've this is how we do things.Then you're creating that.
That's that place where it's notgoing to go off the rails.
And yeah, you feel safe. I really like that.
That's that's great. And boy, there's a there could
(22:58):
never be enough of that in the sense that whether you realize
it or not, anybody watching or listening, everybody can benefit
from this on like a major level.Like it can be really a a huge
game changer. And I want to kind of circle
back to the whole lone wolf mentality.
So we're going to take a break real quick, right Shot, the
sponsor of the show. When we come back, though, the
(23:20):
lone wolf, how does it happen? How do we break it?
And how does that like that angst that comes with the lone
wolf, right? That's like an angst become like
liberation. And actually you can flip it on
his head and use that as strength.
We'll talk about that in one minute.
(23:41):
Are you struggling to make consistent, valuable content for
yourself? Do you want to have an efficient
and effective way to create content that attracts the people
that you want to connect with inlife, the people you want to
build relationships with in business?
Do you want to be the go to authority at what you do, at
what you're great at? Would it be helpful for you if
you had a platform that connectsyou to incredible people in your
(24:03):
industry? The kind of platform that gets
you leads and lands you clients without you having to beat down
anybody's door or blow up anybody's inbox?
Whether you're already creating content or you're desiring to
start, and it's something that'sbeen kind of burning inside of
you for a while, I urge you and encourage you to check out the
Pro Podcaster Academy. Get started right now.
Join the wait list at robzwentz.com.
(24:26):
Hi, my name is Jose Escobar and I'm the founder and CEO of the
Connected Leaders Academy. We're a growing tribe, a
community of entrepreneurs all over the world, globally.
If you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to grow
personally and professionally, scale your influence, develop
your skill sets, move the needlein your business, more clients,
(24:47):
more money, more profit. The bottom line and of course,
grow your circle and your network like never before Join
the connected leaders Academy today.
Check me out on Instagram and onFacebook The at symbol Jasco 25.
We look forward to having you join us.
Take care. So Jason, loving this
conversation, man, it's really important.
(25:08):
I think it's so cool that this is what you, you do and that you
speak about jumping back to the,the lone wolf's out there and
the Yanks that can come along with that.
What, what are the ingredients to, to break that lone wolf
mentality? Because for some guys it is so
deeply ingrained in them. And it's, I get it.
(25:29):
But at the same time, when you're on the other side of it,
you're like, holy cow, man, you're, you're missing out on so
much. There's so much opportunity
there. How do you help guys to, to
break that, to break that molds?I'm sure you're doing this on a
regular basis. Yeah, totally.
I mean, the the bad news is thatfor most guys, it starts pretty
young. And what I mean by that is one
(25:52):
of the major contributing factors, right?
We we call this in the work the man box, is this idea, this
cultural idea of what it means to be a man that we both
perpetuate as men and the greater cultural around us,
culture around us does. And one big piece of that is
being a man means being invulnerable, spirit means being
(26:16):
invulnerable, never being in pain, never being vulnerable and
definitely never showing emotions and definitely never
sharing those emotions with other men.
So this often starts at a young age for all kinds of reasons.
But the the major impact of it is most men, to be totally
honest again, there's always going to be exceptions are
(26:37):
pretty lacking in emotional intelligence.
We are not taught from young agewhat feelings are how to
identify them inside of ourselves, let alone how to
express them and name them and why that's important.
Is that the cost right, because life's hard right?
(26:58):
First first noble truth of Buddhism, They're like they're
suffering and stuff's going to come at you and that's totally
normal. The challenge for men is because
we aren't given the tools to literally to know what's going
on inside of ourselves, it's very hard to ask for help or
know what to do with them. So what do most men default to
(27:19):
as they age? My internal state feels bad,
don't like how I'm feeling, so I'm going to reach for something
outside of myself so I feel different, whether that's
alcohol, weed, porn and masturbation, sex, food,
overworking, TV, you name it. We reach for things outside of
(27:42):
ourselves to try to numb out from the discomfort inside.
And that starts to create this paradigm of we don't even know
how to communicate what's going inside of us.
We don't have necessarily these relational skills to drop in and
connect with another man. And then you just kind of Add
all the kind of locker room, youknow, adolescent age guys, boys
(28:04):
bodies are changing at a different time and shapes and
there's just a lot of peer pressure at that time.
And most boys learn, don't give any ammo to other men because
they will bully you, they will ostracize you.
They they will sometimes physically hurt you.
Like this is a real thing. Many men I have I was.
Going to say there's a lot of truth to it, right?
(28:25):
I mean there is true. It's a real, real thing.
But so basically there's just all these factors and even just
the way, you know, men by default sometimes are less
relational from a hormonal sensethat we're just not taught to
connect. We don't know how to do it.
So we start to get older and again, how most men default to
(28:48):
connecting is side by side or what we call triangulation.
Me and you with our attention onsome third thing, a sports game
and activity, fixing something, talking about something
philosophically. And that can be a lot of fun.
Like I'm not here to get rid of that, right?
There's a time and place for that.
(29:08):
But when that's the only way you're relating to other men, Lo
and behold, I work with many menwho have the experience.
I just spent the whole weekend with my buddies actually.
And I came home and they don't even know that my wife's about
to leave me because we just didn't.
We don't, we didn't, we don't godeep like that, right?
We just drank her party or, you know, play games or whatever.
(29:30):
And so there's still that sense of I'm alone inside carrying all
the burdens of my life. And so there's a lot kind of
orienting men towards this. Again, this just kind of
romantic myth of the lone wolf, right?
I don't need anybody. I'm totally resilient.
Yeah, if I can speak to it too, even just for a second, because
(29:50):
I just had this happen. This literally just happened
this weekend with my wife. We are.
We're going fast right now. There's a lot going on in our
life, you know, business wise, family wise, just like a a lot
of stuff. And so we had a birthday party
for my son on Saturday, Sunday we're having a picnic for my
(30:10):
father-in-law 'cause he's havingopen heart surgery coming up.
And I was burned out. Like I was just, and I didn't
realize it yesterday, but I was like, I was shot.
I needed like a day just of likerecovery and there was no space
for that. And instead of like, instead of
communicating that, I didn't communicate it because I didn't
(30:32):
realize what was happening. Like I went home, I took a go
asleep for an hour and a half was real groggy.
Was like distant was like I was kind of like just I was
definitely lone wolfing myself. I was like disconnecting.
And so we had a call with our our counselor today, which was
really good. And we were just kind of like
going through it. And I was like, yeah, I, I
(30:54):
didn't communicate how I was feeling because I didn't even
know how I was feeling. I didn't realize that I was
burned out. I was like, I know something's
off here, but I don't know what it.
And I feel like I'm fairly emotionally intelligent in the
sense of like I'm not afraid to talk about how I'm feeling or
what's going on times I am. So that's not true.
(31:16):
Sometimes I am not OK with it. But but, and it was like, I
didn't even realize how I was feeling and how it was affecting
me. So I didn't communicate it
because so then my my wife got kind of mad at me because I
didn't come over to the party for like a couple of hours and I
didn't like say, Hey, I'm like worn out.
(31:37):
I was just kind of saying, I don't know what's going on with
me. I don't know.
So she thinks that I'm, you know, mad at her family or
something or whatever. And so that's just, I want to
give that example that literallyjust happened to me where I was
like, man, I did not know how tocommunicate what was going on
with me and didn't even, and then didn't have the realization
that that's what the situation was until like a day later,
(32:00):
right? So like that happens to us
often. Super common for men.
Again, it it and it starts at a young age in, in that for boys
and men in particular, we are generally rewarded for being
disembodied. So you can even, I mean, there,
there's plenty of research, it'schanging now, but plenty of
(32:23):
research on how parents, same parents will treat a young girl
and a young boy differently froma young age.
Something as simple as they falldown and scrape their knee,
young boy, oh, get up, you're fine, you're tough.
It's OK. Get back at it.
Young girl, like, oh, are you OK?
Or like, you know, are you hurt?Like what's going on, what we're
(32:44):
really telling a boy in that instance is, hey, whatever's
happening in your body, ignore it, override it with your head,
quite literally. Or you know, this goes to boys
and girls, but I think boys particularly are fed this more,
stop crying, right? That is something still said all
the time to children. Stop crying.
(33:06):
You are fine. What you're feeling in your
body? Discount that, ignore it,
override it, Then we're going toput you in school.
What do we teach kids to do in school?
Sit still. That impulse to move, young boy.
Oh, there's something wrong withyou.
You have ADD or ADHD or something like that.
Again, tons of research. Boys in particular need to move
(33:28):
their bodies more. Most educational gap stuff can
be eradicated if you just start the day with two hours of
vigorous activity for boys and they're fine, right?
Then they can totally sit, they can listen, they're well
behaved, they have a lot of energy in their bodies.
They need to move it. Again, we get up to adolescence.
(33:49):
Whatever you're feeling inside, definitely don't share that
because those guys are going to attack you for it.
So just pretend you're tough, you know, just push it all down
inside. Graduate, get out into the
workforce. What?
What's a great man? Oh man, he works so hard.
He works 8090 hours a week. That guy is crushing it, right?
Well, what's he doing to his body in the process?
He's overriding. He's not getting enough sleep.
(34:11):
He's amping himself up with stimulants and then often
bringing himself down. Then he gets on antidepressant.
Like all of these things just start to to happen where again,
we're just not really encouragedto be in our bodies as men.
And so that's part of what showsup in instances like that.
Why I'm such a big proponent of men's groups is it's actually
(34:32):
the Dojo where we get to practice the other way.
What does it mean to actually slow down, get present in my
body, my heart, feel what the truth is and communicate that.
And even if I'm not aware of it,suddenly I have, you know,
(34:53):
681012 other eyeballs looking atme that are going to start to
reflect things to me that maybe I'm not aware of.
I get this. I've had that, you know, so many
experiences of this. A guy I'll be sharing about a
decision he has to make. You know, I'm not sure.
Do I do this or do I do that or Oh my God, like my wife, you
(35:14):
know, she did this and I got so angry.
And it's like, do you realize why you said that?
You were just smiling the whole time, like you were actually
laughing And they're like, what do you mean?
It's like you, you were laughingwhen you were talking about how
mad you and and they realize, wow, I have such a defense
mechanism built up. I didn't even realize what my
body was doing. Or yeah, I hear you talking
(35:38):
about that. You know, I hear you talking
about how excited you are about so and so, but you look and feel
dead as you're doing it. And they're like, what do you
mean? But when he talked about this
other thing, your energy was like through the roof.
These are the ways we can start to support each other.
And as men with the feedback andwith really slowing each other
down into, you know, what we sayis the felt body experience
(36:02):
where emotions do tend to lie, which again, most men are
resistant to because we've not been taught to feel.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. It's fascinating when you see it
and it plays out in real time. It's like, oh, oh, crap.
I OK, I really realize I don't know what's going on here.
(36:26):
Talking about angst becoming liberation.
What? What does that?
What does that look like? Yeah, it's just a simple idea.
I mean, it ties right back to what we were just talking about,
that most men want to get away from feeling.
Oh, there's grief in there. I want to get away from it.
I feel anxious about something. I want to get rid of it, right?
We want to get a rid of and awayfrom certain emotions in
(36:50):
particular that we might label more dark, challenging,
whatever, you know, you might call that negative.
Some people would say, even though I don't really believe in
negative emotions. But the idea is when we start to
identify these things, the path through is actually toward.
It's like the simplest life hackin life.
(37:12):
It's like, oh, I'm feeling sad. I don't want to feel sad.
I'm going to go distract myself.Da da, da, da.
No, it's actually go towards thegrief, go towards the angst.
Really get present to it becauseyou know, the most people have
heard the platitude. It works.
It's useful emotion, energy in motion.
Emotion is a biochemical response to our environment and
(37:38):
something that's happening that is meant to prompt some kind of
action in our nervous system. So it's supposed to elicit a
response if we're disconnected from it.
This is where men will stay stuck, right?
It's right there in the title ofyour thing for days, weeks,
months, years, decades in something because they're afraid
(38:01):
to feel the truth of I actually,if I'm totally honest, I'm
feeling I hate my job. I can't do this anymore or this
relationships not working for meor whatever it is.
Avoid the emotional intensity ofthat.
So your angst is your liberationcame from a Zen teacher I study
(38:22):
with who is brilliant, is deeplyinvolved in the mankind project
and quite a luminary. And his thing was, when you feel
these different places of angst in your life, the key is to move
towards them. The freedom is on the other side
of going towards it, not away from it.
Yeah, the, the only way is through it, right?
I mean, it's, you have to, you have to go through it, but you
(38:46):
avoid it about 10 million times before you go through it, right?
It's like, I can look at it for a minute.
Oh, that was OK. That that didn't feel good.
All right, I can look at it for 2 minutes.
So now I can, I can stare at it for an hour, right?
It's like building up that, oh, maybe callous isn't the right
word, but you're building up that stamina, you're building
(39:06):
that discipline where that, thatuncomfortable thing, it's making
the uncomfortable comfortable. You don't want to look at the
uncomfortable thing. It's like getting stabbed in the
leg and holding your arm or something.
It's like like you need to go tothe source of where that the
problem is for it to get any better.
I don't think that's a great analogy, but I'm going to roll
with it for time's sake. So as we come to the close of
(39:28):
this, the shadow work, you mentioned about the shadow work,
how it can improve a man's life.And this is kind of, I mean,
we've been talking all around this, but how do we identify
things that we don't see out? So obviously joining a men's
group, that's a place where you know, other people can bring
(39:50):
these things to light for you. Do you have any recommendations,
advice for somebody maybe who's not ready yet to dive into a
men's group? They want to maybe check it out,
but they're also like, man, how do I even just identify these
parts of me that 'cause I don't know what I don't know.
You can't see what you, you don't see.
You can't do anything about something when you don't know it
exists. So just the beginning part of
(40:10):
that process. Could you maybe elaborate a
little bit on that? Yeah.
So, you know, shadow work, something I'm super passionate
about, and in particular is a great fit with group work, with
men's work, because shadow work,there's ways to do it solo,
right? So there's journaling prompts
you can go out and do where you write about certain things.
(40:32):
And there's a level of awarenessthat can come from that.
But I tend to focus on the most potent place for shadow work is
in relationship. So it's relational, right?
Because the whole idea is right.Shadow, what are you talking
about? My shadow, I look for my shadow
and it's always behind me, but you're looking at me and you're
saying, dude, you got this huge shadow right there.
(40:54):
It's so obvious. Can't you see it?
And I'm like, no, it's these things are so often apparent and
clear from the outside, but they're very hard for us to see
ourselves. So relationship, whether that's
coaching, therapy, men's groups,that's intimate relationship,
right? You're in one.
You know how it is. Your partner can probably name,
(41:16):
Oh yeah, here's his things. And you're like, yeah, here's
her things. It's one of the great mechanisms
of relationship for presencing this stuff.
But shadow work is really just the process of bringing that
which is in the dark into the light.
What are the unconscious beliefs, processes, strategies,
wounds we've all internalized that actually drive our behavior
(41:39):
without us realizing it? And so for many men, they come
to me and shadow work because it's like, there's this thing I
do I don't want to do, but some,for some reason, I keep doing
it. Why?
Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's a relational habit.
(41:59):
Maybe it's a way they treat themselves.
Maybe it's blowing things up in their job every now and their
life. This this thing keeps happening.
I don't want to do it. And yet I I keep finding myself
back in the same situation. What's going on?
There's almost always shadow material behind that.
Shadow work is really the process of reclaiming that,
(42:23):
bringing consciousness to it so we have more choice.
It's about liberating that and quite frankly, allowing us to
get unstuck again. Stuckness is often deeply
correlated to something in the shadow, a belief pattern, a
previous experience that our body still thinks is a threat.
(42:43):
Now all all these different things kind of add up.
And where again, where I love totie it into men's work is it's
one of the great bonding experiences I now see men have
with each other of, you know, bullet, bullet summary here.
You know, one of the things they've researched that is
different between a male and a female body is male bodies have
(43:05):
more receptors for vasopressin, which is one of our bonding
hormones, which guess what? How does that hormone get
activated? Doing challenging things
together, moving through difficulty and challenge.
Traditionally, in a lot of ways,that was out in the world.
Wow, there's something broken. We got to fix it.
(43:27):
There's another tribe coming to get us.
We got to go find food. Whatever it is, there's
challenge. We have to move through it
together. Modern society's gotten rid of a
lot of that for those of us privileged enough to live in,
you know, places like we do. But one area I've seen it coming
alive very strongly is now what does it mean to move through our
(43:49):
inner challenges together? Some of these patterns of
wounding and shadow and trauma that sometimes they're not only
ours but go way back in our lineage.
And so, you know, I lead one group in particular that's about
taking men through shadow work together.
And it's unbelievable. It's just incredible to see what
happens to guys in about 10 weeks.
(44:09):
They go from complete strangers to, OK, you're my brother to the
grave now. Like I have seen the most
intimate, deep, challenging, dark places your soul has
encountered and been witness to you moving through that and even
supported you. And we're good.
Like we're just it. We're best friends now.
Like there's a level of bonding that is just incredible for men
(44:34):
that I think a lot of men are actually deeply craving in life
and just don't know how to find it.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's really good, really
powerful stuff. And I think going back to a
minute ago, what you just said, she might be seeing these things
for yourself. Maybe you're, you've, you've
awoken enough to be like, oh, wow, I, I noticed that I do
(44:56):
these things. I know that I do them and I
don't want to do them anymore, which can be a very frustrating
place to be, right? You've come to a level of
realization and actualization like, oh, wow, I see these
problems cause before you, before that stage, you don't
even see them. So you're just like lost in them
and maybe it's a fun place of delusion to live in for a while
that you don't know it's even happening.
(45:18):
Then you can blame other people.But once you know you can, I can
only blame yourself. You see, like crap man, I don't
want to do that. Like you said, you don't want to
do it, but you keep doing it andit that starts to drive you
nuts. So doing something about that,
don't stay in that place. Take action, do what you do, and
(45:38):
I would recommend everybody jumpon a call with you.
Jason. I love this conversation.
Really, really important. I want to encourage anybody
who's a part of this conversation right now to book a
free exploratory call with you. Evolutionary dot men forward
slash talk. You want to share a little bit
about that? What if somebody goes and signs
up what they can expect? Yeah, we're just going to hop on
(46:01):
the phone together and talk a little bit about what's going on
in your life and whether you work with me or not, you're
going to walk away with a path of, oh, hey, here's some places
I could focus, here's some resources I could use, whether
it's men's group, coaching, retreats, you name it.
The idea is most guys I know want to change, want to get
(46:23):
unstuck, but they just don't know how to do it right.
They're like literally give me the instruction manual for how
to change my life. And you know, what I've
experienced in my own journey and now, you know, coaching
hundreds of men is men's community is 1 very strong
pathway for that. So getting into a men's group
will change your life in a pretty potent way that, you
(46:47):
know, I'm obviously quite passionate about because I think
it's one of the most potent leverage points we have to shift
culture and the globe right now is getting men more connected to
each other. Very cool.
I couldn't agree more. So get that call, go to
evolutionary dot men forward slash talk to connect with
Jason. And as I always do as we end
these episodes, I want to pretend like I want you to
(47:10):
pretend like you're never going to see or talk to me again.
Anybody watching or listening. You guys are going to separate,
never going to be in contact again.
What lasting message would you want to leave with all of us if
that's the case? Yeah, You know, I'm going to
speak right to the sceptical menhere, I guess for the sceptical
part of all of us as men and really say, you know, stop doing
(47:34):
it alone. And what I mean by that is, you
know, guys will push back with, you know, I don't need anyone
but the honest brutal truth for any man, any human being, but
any man is at some point your body is going to fail you and
you will not be able to just push through.
Whether it's illness, sickness, accident, old age, there is
(47:58):
going to be a time where you're not going to be able to just
push yourself to do the thing. And it's in that moment we fall
back to what is the level of community I have in my life and
the vulnerability of wow, you know, whether it's I can't even
get myself to the bathroom or I need someone to pick me up or
(48:20):
whatever that is. You can start laying the
foundation for those moments now.
And it's not weakness, it actually creates more
resilience. And even beyond resilience,
something I talk about is anti fragility.
Where as life hits you with stuff, you have a system of
(48:41):
support around you where not only does it prevent you from
falling, it makes you stronger because your network helps you
leverage that. So if you're feeling, you know,
stuck or alone or whatever that might be really, whether it's
with you, with me, with any, reach out, be the one who says,
(49:02):
you know what? I'm going to do this differently
and I'm going to get some support in my life.
And good news, things will get better.
Your relationships will get better, your wealth will get
better and your health will get better.
You know the big three most men are concerned about.
Yeah, great, Jason. I love it.
Dude, that's so good, so powerful, so glad that you came
on here today to share in this journey that you've been on for
(49:24):
yourself and helping other men go through this journey too.
And families, right? You're, you're changing, you're
changing families out there for sure.
So I thank you for that. Another true testimony, A
breakthrough here on the show. Until next time.
This has been the unstuck movement.
Music. Men's groups, emotional
(00:51):
resilience, building that personal growth into our life
and connection over isolation. And that's somewhere where I
want to start because I titled this episode the lone wolf myth.
And there's lots of guys out there in lone wolf syndrome.
They they kind of idolize glory,glamorize this like doing this
journey on their own by themselves.
(01:12):
And as a recovering lone Wolfer myself and you also, I want to
know what changed in your life once you stopped quote UN quote
lone wolfing it. Yeah, when when I really, for
me, the path here was getting into men's work and getting into
men's groups. And I'm gonna just be totally
(01:33):
honest, my life got better. My life got better.
I started making more money. I had AI got I got married, my
health improved. Like if I told if I told guys
there was a pill for what this kind of stuff can do, they'd be
like, yeah, totally. I want it.
But when you tell them, oh, hey,it's actually about developing
(01:54):
real relationships with other men and moving away from this
kind of myth, like you said, of the lone wolf.
They're like, what do you mean? No, it's, you know, I, I really
proud of myself for how, how tough I am, for how alone I am.
I don't need anybody, right. I, I hear this stuff all the
time. And there were parts of me that
believe that too, that, you know, through before I fully
(02:16):
immersed myself here, some of the most challenging or
difficult days, weeks, months ofyears of my life.
I had male friends and I wasn't even talking to them about it.
It's like so ridiculous in in retrospect that I'd be sitting
there with a man who clearly hadfondness for me, but I was so
gripped by it. Now, you don't talk about this
(02:38):
kind of stuff. And I think a lot of men fall
prey to that. And it has massive consequences
on our well-being as men. So, you know, I tell guys, like,
whether you ideologically believe in it or not, you want
to be a more effective man. This is the path.
Yeah, man. And would you say a lot of
(02:58):
that's pride, not wanting to do it, not feeling like you you can
do it or you're supposed to openup?
What would you say that if you had to put a?
You know, Yeah, there's a word. To it, I would say it's pride,
fear, and you know, the bad kindof cultural indoctrination.
It's not like this necessarily comes up from nowhere.
(03:20):
US men were raised and taught this from, from an early, early
age, really. And then it gets, you know,
accentuated and we perpetuate itoften just as much as anyone
else. You know, there's, there's, it's
just romantic. There's these romantic idea
(03:41):
ideals, You know, when I were talking about where we're
located, and we're both here in the States and, you know, in the
US in particular, it's the, it'sthe romantic Marlboro Man, the
cowboy that. Yeah.
It's John Wayne. John Wayne I don't need anybody.
I'm just free and tough as nails.
And you know, there's obviously some real attributes behind
(04:02):
those characters that are desirable in a sense.
But the real world, those guys are usually dying at the bottom
of the bottle or from heart disease or like things, very
real things that we can now map back to the cost of social
isolation and what it does for us as human beings and
(04:25):
particularly us as men, right? There's, I mean, there's just so
much research and data. It's loneliness itself is as
dangerous as poking, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, right?
It's it's a big one that the surgeon general released a
couple years ago. I saw another one that came out
last year. It was men who strongly identify
(04:46):
with kind of traditional masculine and stoic values twice
as likely to commit suicide. So this stuff has a real cost,
real cost to us as men. And part of what we're just
having to do right now is kind of shatter that myth and say,
actually, yeah, there's a betterway.
(05:06):
And the better way involves getting connected to other men
who can support us and challengeus to create the life we want.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So honestly, we're so excited to
have you on here 'cause this is a a a topic of conversation that
I need to have right now. I was a part of a men's group
for three years and through justdifferent circumstances, my life
(05:29):
speeding up all that. I haven't been to a men's group
in well over a year and I and asI was preparing for this
episode, I'm like, oh, shoot, just in time.
All right, man. Jason, we need to have this
conversation 'cause I need to gointo this and there's a question
I wanna ask you. I'm gonna ask you here in one
second. I gotta fully introduce the
podcast before I do So welcome everyone to the Unstuck
(05:49):
movement. This platform was created to
help you find breakthrough. Jason, you've been stuck.
I've been stuck many different points in our life.
You know, we all get stuck and we need at least I do, which is
why I started the podcast. Real examples of people who have
gotten through things. So I know like, hold up, it's
not just me. Everybody goes through this
stuff. I need examples, real life
(06:10):
testimonies that it's possible to find that breakthrough.
We're sponsored by the ConnectedLeaders Academy.
Make sure you check out Connected leadersacademy.com.
Talk about people coming together, over 500 entrepreneurs
from all over the world who serve each other, help each
other grow, and also the Pro Podcaster Academy.
So if you're somebody who wants to launch a podcast, you've been
thinking about it for a long time, but all the nuts and
bolts, you don't know where to begin.
(06:31):
There's so many steps of the process.
I'd love to help you with that, to become the go to authority in
your space, create long lasting personal and professional
connections, and also create a massive impact in people's
lives. If you already have a podcast,
you want to streamline it, you want to monetize it, we do that.
Also, the Pro Podcaster Academy at robzwentz.com, Jason Lang
with Jason Lang with us today isa men's embodiment coach and
(06:56):
certified No more Mr. Nice Guy coach who helps men gain clarity
in life and relationships. He believes every man should be
in a men's group to access deeper transformation, purpose
and support. So one of the questions I do
want to ask as we start, this isa personal one, right?
And I, I'm sure you've dealt with this too.
And maybe every, every guy dealswith this, but whenever you feel
(07:17):
like I don't want to keep complaining to my guy friends,
right? I don't want to come in here
feeling like I've always got something to come in and
complain about. I want to be able to lift other
people up 'cause I noticed this is the mentality that can happen
happen for me. It's like I want to be able to
help everybody else. I don't want to come in every
week. Oh man, this is going on.
Oh, now this is going on, right?And be that guy.
(07:38):
I guess the question is, have you dealt with that and how did
you deal with that? Because for me, I think that was
in the men's group, which I, I had tons of breakthrough in it.
That was one of the the biggest issues I dealt with personally.
Yeah, it's a great question. It's a fear I think a lot of men
have of being a burden to others.
(08:00):
That's right. This This is why so many men
carry so much burden. Yeah, not wanting to be like the
whiner too, right? I don't want.
I don't want to be I. Don't want to be.
I don't want to be a whiny victim.
I don't want to burden people inmy life, you know, I don't want
to burden other men. And you know, I'll be straight
it a lot of the solution to thatcomes down to the depth and
strength of the container of thegroup.
(08:22):
It's very easy to just sit around and complain.
We we can all do it. And there's a way, you know,
what I would kind of call lower level social connection can
happen just through complaint, right?
It's just like we can sit around, we can bitch and moan
about this, that or the other thing.
But a good men's groups going togo deeper than that.
Yes, we're bringing to the groupto our men.
(08:46):
What's not working for us in life?
Where are we in pain, right? Where's the struggle?
Where's the stress? But it's not just one way,
right? So we we bring these challenges
in order to get feedback. And you know, the, the the
Robert Bly popularized the term,you know, in a lot of ways to
(09:06):
get sharpened up by other men who help us see what's actually
going on. And a good group, you know, the
the time type I've been in and II really am passionate about
helping men cultivate is also going to track these things.
So right, if it's three or four months, you've been coming to a
(09:28):
couple groups and you're coming in and complaining about the
same thing. You know, my boss out of this or
I've been problem with this. A good group is going to push
back, not to shame you, but out of love and care of saying, hey,
you've been talking about this for six months now.
(09:48):
Like, do you just want to complain about it or, or do you
really want to change something here?
Right? And they're going to hold your
feet to the fire in a sense, to help you figure out what's the
action you need to take here to bring deeper integrity.
Do you need to start showing up in a different way?
Or do you need to renegotiate whatever it is you're involved
(10:09):
in? You know, it's usually one of
those two paths and and they're going to push you.
They're going to push back. And that takes both a group
who's willing to do that and that takes us also being forward
enough to bring it. Now the the other deeper thing I
wanted to share, Rob, is sometimes guys I work with will
(10:31):
confuse complaint with feeling. And what I mean by this is, oh,
I like I'm feeling sad about something.
I don't want to put that on you.I don't, I don't want to burden
you with my grief, right. So guys are constantly in the
work I do trying to protect eachother in a sense.
And here's the experience, though, that will often blow
(10:54):
their mind is when another guy is bold enough to really come
forward with honesty, transparency, vulnerability.
Not just talking about it from his head, but really getting
into the, the, the truth of what's going on in his life,
which, you know, might be dark, might be ugly, might be painful.
And this, this so-called man witnesses that and ends up, you
(11:20):
know, feeling deeply connected to that man and his courage and
like, wow, I can't believe you brought that forward.
I've never seen that before. Da, da, da.
And then at the end, I'll be like, did it feel like a burden
to anyone that so and so just fully brought their rage or
fully brought their grief? And they'll be like, no.
And I'll be like, so do you think it's that way when you
bring it to other guys? And then they're like, what?
(11:41):
Wait, no, I have the story that anything I bring is going to be
painful for other men to hold. But I just sat through, you
know, sometimes weeks, months, years of other men bringing it.
And it's it's not draining, right?
It actually creates A deeper level of connection.
So that kind of tie it all together here.
One of the big things I see men now doing in these kind of
(12:02):
groups is one of my partners, and I call it lighting the way,
that one of the ways we actuallyserve the men in our group is by
bringing forward the ferocity ofour feeling and our truth.
And when we do that, we often actually inspire other men to do
it who were like, oh man, actually, I thought I was the
(12:24):
only one who was having trouble with my wife.
But when I heard you say that, Iactually felt brave enough to
bring it forward. And it creates this kind of
camaraderie and inspiration in each other.
So kind of two totally differentangles there, but definitely
important things to track in a good group.
That's really good man. I love that.
I am curious the the kind of group that you're talking about
(12:46):
where for well, let's let's justdive into to your own journey in
this. How did you whoops, how did you
end up finding a men's group that was transformational for
you? Did you put it together
yourself? Did you stumble upon it?
Give me some details because I'msure guys listen to this and
there's probably some wives out there girlfriends listen to this
(13:07):
too or like how do I get my man into one of these?
How did that come about for you?Because that is, I would
imagine, for a guy who really needs a men's group.
He's not the kind of guy who's going to go searching for a
men's group, you know? Often particularly.
Yeah, that's starting to change.Thankfully, as, as you know,
spaces like this are rewriting the narrative.
(13:29):
When I got into my first group, I was in my mid 20s.
It was in the mid 2000s and yeah, back then it was a bit of
a different world in the sense that you name said men's group.
Most people would assume you mean like a recovery a, a group
or some kind of church group. Those were the big ones that
most people associated with. It's changed quite a bit since
(13:51):
then. You know, there was an initial
wave of men's work kind of in the 90s with Robert Bligh and
the kind of mythopoetic Mankind project.
And they've been chugging along.But it was in the, you know, mid
2000s that I got lucky. Frankly, I was just lucky.
I had moved to Colorado to kind of pursue some transformational
(14:14):
work. And I, I met some guys at a
company I worked with and we were talking about it like we
wanted to do this to go deep in deeper.
And we got lucky because there was a older man in our community
who is a coach who had been in men's groups.
And so we kind of did both were,you know, I was part of when I
created. And we had a guy lead us for the
(14:37):
first two years to teach us, like, how do we make sure this
doesn't just float to us talkingabout things which men love to
do or complaining, right? Like there's, there's a certain
gravity to male relations by default that'll often just go to
those things talking about philosophy or politics or
whatever, which, you know, there's a place for that, but it
doesn't necessarily go as deep as a good group can.
(14:58):
So we had this guy lead us. And I got lucky.
Yeah. In my 20s, I got connected to an
incredible lead deep group of men who changed the trajectory
of my life so much so that beingin that group inspired me to
move across the country, follow a career and a passion and
really kind of try like go for it in life.
(15:19):
And then once I started a family, I actually just came
back about a year ago and 14 years later dove back in with
those guys again. So it's pretty incredible to
have that continuity of in a sense going on in your his
journey and coming back and be like, yeah, man, I went for it.
Here we go. But so I got lucky.
Not a lot of men are as lucky. The other big thing that is
(15:42):
shifting now that is really partof the tidal wave, I think is
things like this. Meaning, you know, 20 years ago,
if you were outside a major cityor kind of a transformational
hub, pretty hard to find something like a men's group,
like I said, outside of a, a, ora church or faith-based group.
(16:02):
But now, because of Zoom, there is more opportunity than ever.
So you can be out in the middle of nowhere and still participate
in a group. Is it different than being in
the same room? Yes.
But for some guys, is it the only option?
Yeah. And sometimes this is a more
effective option depending on your life stage.
Yes. I get lots of guys who are, you
(16:23):
know, fathers or they just don'thave a lot of time, but they can
definitely make time like this where they don't have to leave
their house or something like that.
So there's more opportunity thanever.
And there's a real swell, I would say, of, of, of the work
right now in, I think it's just based on the very real need men
are feeling and some of the gapsin our culture right now.
(16:46):
Yeah, man, the, the group that Iwas in, by the way, it was a
church men's group. But it, it, it's, I think one of
the things that I, I looked for that I didn't even, I mean, I
didn't know what I was looking for.
But what I found in there was one person starts opening up.
I think, and you already mentioned this one person opens
up, gets a little vulnerable. That's a snowball effect, right?
(17:10):
So being aware that that is thisis part of the puzzle because
most of the times somebody's well, not at most of the time,
all the time, somebody's got to do it.
Somebody has to open up, right? So encouraging that kind of
environment to happen. How do you manufacture that sort
of environment? How do you, and I'm curious
about what you do and how you doit.
(17:32):
How does that happen organicallyor how, how do you manufacture a
group to come together and create that organic openness and
organic conversation that allowspeople to feel safe?
Like, all right, we're all on the same page here, I can do
this. Where do you find the people?
How do you get it put together, get the ball rolling, that sort
(17:53):
of thing? Because that'd be the hardest
part of the whole puzzle. Yeah.
So you know how this shows up for me is it's a combination of
two things, structure and agreements, so that the tighter
and safer a container is, the more comfortable men feel
revealing, going vulnerable, etcetera.
(18:14):
And what I mean by structure andagreements, I'll start actually
with agreements. Agreements are like, what are
the road rules? Literally what are the
agreements? We are all on the same page in
and quite literally opting in onfor how we're going to interact
in these spaces, right? What time do we start?
When do we end? What's participation in terms of
(18:35):
in between meetings and then in the meetings themselves?
How do we handle conflict? How do we share?
How do we deal with confidentiality?
It's very real things that if you don't set them, a group will
almost never go as deep. So setting strong agreements and
getting buy in from men is extremely important around that.
(18:57):
And confidential confidentialityis obviously one of the most
core ones I've found that reallyrelaxes men.
So are you saying like write that down, like put that on
paper, like a binding agreement?This is like most of my groups
once some groups I lead are ongoing, meaning, you know, it's
(19:19):
the same group of guys meeting over a certain amount of time.
Those groups eventually we're not going to read them every
time because everyone's agreed. But if it's a group of people
are coming or going something I read them every time and every
guy has to raise his hand like opt in.
I am a yes, I am agreeing to these Rd. rules for this meeting
and there's lots of different agreements out there in terms of
(19:43):
different strategies around communication and presence and
different things that I support guys in.
But for one, you got to have them.
You literally just you have to have a shared reality of how are
we interacting inside this group, including, you know, a
potent and often hard one for men is learning to speak in I
statements, right. That's often a common one.
(20:05):
I'm I'm supporting men in in terms of, you know, you'll
notice it even I just did it right there.
I notice it in the culture all the time.
It's a very. Revelant thing, particularly for
men to actually speak in the second person when they're
referring to themselves. You know, you ever had one of
those days where you're just you're, you're not doing well
and it's just really hard to getup, you know, as the person
(20:27):
interacting, you're like, oh, you're talking about yourself,
right? And it's a very different
experience to say I'm having oneof those days.
It's really hard for me today. I'm not sure what to do.
A lot of times guys will push away vulnerability by speaking
in second person. So in agreement as an example
(20:47):
would be using I statements whenever possible, owning our
experience, not pushing it out. So that's kind of agreements and
then structure is like literallywhat is the agenda or a group,
what are we doing, in what orderand how much time are we
spending on it? And without a tight structure,
again, it's pretty challenging to go deep.
(21:10):
But so you know, I'm not the only one who's created this kind
of stuff, but there's numerous structures out there you can
bring to groups that will facilitate depth.
And when there's tight agreements in deep structure,
what I have found is men will godeep.
They will absolutely go deep once they feel safe and once
(21:31):
there's something guiding them towards that.
And then that third wheel that you kind of spoke about comes
online that once the culture emerges of oh, wow, right,
someone really goes deep, transparent, vulnerable.
There's a feeling of, oh, these guys aren't messing around,
right? They're going for it.
(21:51):
And in a great way that often inspires men to go for it.
It's like, oh, I can feel like this isn't a place to hold back.
This is a place to go for it. And so that really will spark
things. So, you know, again, is that
going to happen in a very first group of men who have never met
each other? Not necessarily.
But in the groups I lead, right.There's a reason there's a
(22:14):
there's a journey men go on weekto week in order to facilitate
that depth over time. Well, it makes perfect sense
from a just a procedural standpoint.
You know, you, you can't have freedom without structure,
right? Structure and process creates
real freedom. Without the structure and
process, you're just going to have chaos and, and the things
(22:36):
aren't going to happen that needto happen.
And so that, I mean, that doesn't make sense just from a
practical standpoint. You have a system laid out,
you've this is how we do things.Then you're creating that.
That's that place where it's notgoing to go off the rails.
And yeah, you feel safe. I really like that.
That's that's great. And boy, there's a there could
(22:58):
never be enough of that in the sense that whether you realize
it or not, anybody watching or listening, everybody can benefit
from this on like a major level.Like it can be really a a huge
game changer. And I want to kind of circle
back to the whole lone wolf mentality.
So we're going to take a break real quick, right Shot, the
sponsor of the show. When we come back, though, the
(23:20):
lone wolf, how does it happen? How do we break it?
And how does that like that angst that comes with the lone
wolf, right? That's like an angst become like
liberation. And actually you can flip it on
his head and use that as strength.
We'll talk about that in one minute.
(23:41):
Are you struggling to make consistent, valuable content for
yourself? Do you want to have an efficient
and effective way to create content that attracts the people
that you want to connect with inlife, the people you want to
build relationships with in business?
Do you want to be the go to authority at what you do, at
what you're great at? Would it be helpful for you if
you had a platform that connectsyou to incredible people in your
(24:03):
industry? The kind of platform that gets
you leads and lands you clients without you having to beat down
anybody's door or blow up anybody's inbox?
Whether you're already creating content or you're desiring to
start, and it's something that'sbeen kind of burning inside of
you for a while, I urge you and encourage you to check out the
Pro Podcaster Academy. Get started right now.
Join the wait list at robzwentz.com.
(24:26):
Hi, my name is Jose Escobar and I'm the founder and CEO of the
Connected Leaders Academy. We're a growing tribe, a
community of entrepreneurs all over the world, globally.
If you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to grow
personally and professionally, scale your influence, develop
your skill sets, move the needlein your business, more clients,
(24:47):
more money, more profit. The bottom line and of course,
grow your circle and your network like never before Join
the connected leaders Academy today.
Check me out on Instagram and onFacebook The at symbol Jasco 25.
We look forward to having you join us.
Take care. So Jason, loving this
conversation, man, it's really important.
(25:08):
I think it's so cool that this is what you, you do and that you
speak about jumping back to the,the lone wolf's out there and
the Yanks that can come along with that.
What, what are the ingredients to, to break that lone wolf
mentality? Because for some guys it is so
deeply ingrained in them. And it's, I get it.
(25:29):
But at the same time, when you're on the other side of it,
you're like, holy cow, man, you're, you're missing out on so
much. There's so much opportunity
there. How do you help guys to, to
break that, to break that molds?I'm sure you're doing this on a
regular basis. Yeah, totally.
I mean, the the bad news is thatfor most guys, it starts pretty
young. And what I mean by that is one
(25:52):
of the major contributing factors, right?
We we call this in the work the man box, is this idea, this
cultural idea of what it means to be a man that we both
perpetuate as men and the greater cultural around us,
culture around us does. And one big piece of that is
being a man means being invulnerable, spirit means being
(26:16):
invulnerable, never being in pain, never being vulnerable and
definitely never showing emotions and definitely never
sharing those emotions with other men.
So this often starts at a young age for all kinds of reasons.
But the the major impact of it is most men, to be totally
honest again, there's always going to be exceptions are
(26:37):
pretty lacking in emotional intelligence.
We are not taught from young agewhat feelings are how to
identify them inside of ourselves, let alone how to
express them and name them and why that's important.
Is that the cost right, because life's hard right?
(26:58):
First first noble truth of Buddhism, They're like they're
suffering and stuff's going to come at you and that's totally
normal. The challenge for men is because
we aren't given the tools to literally to know what's going
on inside of ourselves, it's very hard to ask for help or
know what to do with them. So what do most men default to
(27:19):
as they age? My internal state feels bad,
don't like how I'm feeling, so I'm going to reach for something
outside of myself so I feel different, whether that's
alcohol, weed, porn and masturbation, sex, food,
overworking, TV, you name it. We reach for things outside of
(27:42):
ourselves to try to numb out from the discomfort inside.
And that starts to create this paradigm of we don't even know
how to communicate what's going inside of us.
We don't have necessarily these relational skills to drop in and
connect with another man. And then you just kind of Add
all the kind of locker room, youknow, adolescent age guys, boys
(28:04):
bodies are changing at a different time and shapes and
there's just a lot of peer pressure at that time.
And most boys learn, don't give any ammo to other men because
they will bully you, they will ostracize you.
They they will sometimes physically hurt you.
Like this is a real thing. Many men I have I was.
Going to say there's a lot of truth to it, right?
(28:25):
I mean there is true. It's a real, real thing.
But so basically there's just all these factors and even just
the way, you know, men by default sometimes are less
relational from a hormonal sensethat we're just not taught to
connect. We don't know how to do it.
So we start to get older and again, how most men default to
(28:48):
connecting is side by side or what we call triangulation.
Me and you with our attention onsome third thing, a sports game
and activity, fixing something, talking about something
philosophically. And that can be a lot of fun.
Like I'm not here to get rid of that, right?
There's a time and place for that.
(29:08):
But when that's the only way you're relating to other men, Lo
and behold, I work with many menwho have the experience.
I just spent the whole weekend with my buddies actually.
And I came home and they don't even know that my wife's about
to leave me because we just didn't.
We don't, we didn't, we don't godeep like that, right?
We just drank her party or, you know, play games or whatever.
(29:30):
And so there's still that sense of I'm alone inside carrying all
the burdens of my life. And so there's a lot kind of
orienting men towards this. Again, this just kind of
romantic myth of the lone wolf, right?
I don't need anybody. I'm totally resilient.
Yeah, if I can speak to it too, even just for a second, because
(29:50):
I just had this happen. This literally just happened
this weekend with my wife. We are.
We're going fast right now. There's a lot going on in our
life, you know, business wise, family wise, just like a a lot
of stuff. And so we had a birthday party
for my son on Saturday, Sunday we're having a picnic for my
(30:10):
father-in-law 'cause he's havingopen heart surgery coming up.
And I was burned out. Like I was just, and I didn't
realize it yesterday, but I was like, I was shot.
I needed like a day just of likerecovery and there was no space
for that. And instead of like, instead of
communicating that, I didn't communicate it because I didn't
(30:32):
realize what was happening. Like I went home, I took a go
asleep for an hour and a half was real groggy.
Was like distant was like I was kind of like just I was
definitely lone wolfing myself. I was like disconnecting.
And so we had a call with our our counselor today, which was
really good. And we were just kind of like
going through it. And I was like, yeah, I, I
(30:54):
didn't communicate how I was feeling because I didn't even
know how I was feeling. I didn't realize that I was
burned out. I was like, I know something's
off here, but I don't know what it.
And I feel like I'm fairly emotionally intelligent in the
sense of like I'm not afraid to talk about how I'm feeling or
what's going on times I am. So that's not true.
(31:16):
Sometimes I am not OK with it. But but, and it was like, I
didn't even realize how I was feeling and how it was affecting
me. So I didn't communicate it
because so then my my wife got kind of mad at me because I
didn't come over to the party for like a couple of hours and I
didn't like say, Hey, I'm like worn out.
(31:37):
I was just kind of saying, I don't know what's going on with
me. I don't know.
So she thinks that I'm, you know, mad at her family or
something or whatever. And so that's just, I want to
give that example that literallyjust happened to me where I was
like, man, I did not know how tocommunicate what was going on
with me and didn't even, and then didn't have the realization
that that's what the situation was until like a day later,
(32:00):
right? So like that happens to us
often. Super common for men.
Again, it it and it starts at a young age in, in that for boys
and men in particular, we are generally rewarded for being
disembodied. So you can even, I mean, there,
there's plenty of research, it'schanging now, but plenty of
(32:23):
research on how parents, same parents will treat a young girl
and a young boy differently froma young age.
Something as simple as they falldown and scrape their knee,
young boy, oh, get up, you're fine, you're tough.
It's OK. Get back at it.
Young girl, like, oh, are you OK?
Or like, you know, are you hurt?Like what's going on, what we're
(32:44):
really telling a boy in that instance is, hey, whatever's
happening in your body, ignore it, override it with your head,
quite literally. Or you know, this goes to boys
and girls, but I think boys particularly are fed this more,
stop crying, right? That is something still said all
the time to children. Stop crying.
(33:06):
You are fine. What you're feeling in your
body? Discount that, ignore it,
override it, Then we're going toput you in school.
What do we teach kids to do in school?
Sit still. That impulse to move, young boy.
Oh, there's something wrong withyou.
You have ADD or ADHD or something like that.
Again, tons of research. Boys in particular need to move
(33:28):
their bodies more. Most educational gap stuff can
be eradicated if you just start the day with two hours of
vigorous activity for boys and they're fine, right?
Then they can totally sit, they can listen, they're well
behaved, they have a lot of energy in their bodies.
They need to move it. Again, we get up to adolescence.
(33:49):
Whatever you're feeling inside, definitely don't share that
because those guys are going to attack you for it.
So just pretend you're tough, you know, just push it all down
inside. Graduate, get out into the
workforce. What?
What's a great man? Oh man, he works so hard.
He works 8090 hours a week. That guy is crushing it, right?
Well, what's he doing to his body in the process?
He's overriding. He's not getting enough sleep.
(34:11):
He's amping himself up with stimulants and then often
bringing himself down. Then he gets on antidepressant.
Like all of these things just start to to happen where again,
we're just not really encouragedto be in our bodies as men.
And so that's part of what showsup in instances like that.
Why I'm such a big proponent of men's groups is it's actually
(34:32):
the Dojo where we get to practice the other way.
What does it mean to actually slow down, get present in my
body, my heart, feel what the truth is and communicate that.
And even if I'm not aware of it,suddenly I have, you know,
(34:53):
681012 other eyeballs looking atme that are going to start to
reflect things to me that maybe I'm not aware of.
I get this. I've had that, you know, so many
experiences of this. A guy I'll be sharing about a
decision he has to make. You know, I'm not sure.
Do I do this or do I do that or Oh my God, like my wife, you
(35:14):
know, she did this and I got so angry.
And it's like, do you realize why you said that?
You were just smiling the whole time, like you were actually
laughing And they're like, what do you mean?
It's like you, you were laughingwhen you were talking about how
mad you and and they realize, wow, I have such a defense
mechanism built up. I didn't even realize what my
body was doing. Or yeah, I hear you talking
(35:38):
about that. You know, I hear you talking
about how excited you are about so and so, but you look and feel
dead as you're doing it. And they're like, what do you
mean? But when he talked about this
other thing, your energy was like through the roof.
These are the ways we can start to support each other.
And as men with the feedback andwith really slowing each other
down into, you know, what we sayis the felt body experience
(36:02):
where emotions do tend to lie, which again, most men are
resistant to because we've not been taught to feel.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. It's fascinating when you see it
and it plays out in real time. It's like, oh, oh, crap.
I OK, I really realize I don't know what's going on here.
(36:26):
Talking about angst becoming liberation.
What? What does that?
What does that look like? Yeah, it's just a simple idea.
I mean, it ties right back to what we were just talking about,
that most men want to get away from feeling.
Oh, there's grief in there. I want to get away from it.
I feel anxious about something. I want to get rid of it, right?
We want to get a rid of and awayfrom certain emotions in
(36:50):
particular that we might label more dark, challenging,
whatever, you know, you might call that negative.
Some people would say, even though I don't really believe in
negative emotions. But the idea is when we start to
identify these things, the path through is actually toward.
It's like the simplest life hackin life.
(37:12):
It's like, oh, I'm feeling sad. I don't want to feel sad.
I'm going to go distract myself.Da da, da, da.
No, it's actually go towards thegrief, go towards the angst.
Really get present to it becauseyou know, the most people have
heard the platitude. It works.
It's useful emotion, energy in motion.
Emotion is a biochemical response to our environment and
(37:38):
something that's happening that is meant to prompt some kind of
action in our nervous system. So it's supposed to elicit a
response if we're disconnected from it.
This is where men will stay stuck, right?
It's right there in the title ofyour thing for days, weeks,
months, years, decades in something because they're afraid
(38:01):
to feel the truth of I actually,if I'm totally honest, I'm
feeling I hate my job. I can't do this anymore or this
relationships not working for meor whatever it is.
Avoid the emotional intensity ofthat.
So your angst is your liberationcame from a Zen teacher I study
(38:22):
with who is brilliant, is deeplyinvolved in the mankind project
and quite a luminary. And his thing was, when you feel
these different places of angst in your life, the key is to move
towards them. The freedom is on the other side
of going towards it, not away from it.
Yeah, the, the only way is through it, right?
I mean, it's, you have to, you have to go through it, but you
(38:46):
avoid it about 10 million times before you go through it, right?
It's like, I can look at it for a minute.
Oh, that was OK. That that didn't feel good.
All right, I can look at it for 2 minutes.
So now I can, I can stare at it for an hour, right?
It's like building up that, oh, maybe callous isn't the right
word, but you're building up that stamina, you're building
(39:06):
that discipline where that, thatuncomfortable thing, it's making
the uncomfortable comfortable. You don't want to look at the
uncomfortable thing. It's like getting stabbed in the
leg and holding your arm or something.
It's like like you need to go tothe source of where that the
problem is for it to get any better.
I don't think that's a great analogy, but I'm going to roll
with it for time's sake. So as we come to the close of
(39:28):
this, the shadow work, you mentioned about the shadow work,
how it can improve a man's life.And this is kind of, I mean,
we've been talking all around this, but how do we identify
things that we don't see out? So obviously joining a men's
group, that's a place where you know, other people can bring
(39:50):
these things to light for you. Do you have any recommendations,
advice for somebody maybe who's not ready yet to dive into a
men's group? They want to maybe check it out,
but they're also like, man, how do I even just identify these
parts of me that 'cause I don't know what I don't know.
You can't see what you, you don't see.
You can't do anything about something when you don't know it
exists. So just the beginning part of
(40:10):
that process. Could you maybe elaborate a
little bit on that? Yeah.
So, you know, shadow work, something I'm super passionate
about, and in particular is a great fit with group work, with
men's work, because shadow work,there's ways to do it solo,
right? So there's journaling prompts
you can go out and do where you write about certain things.
(40:32):
And there's a level of awarenessthat can come from that.
But I tend to focus on the most potent place for shadow work is
in relationship. So it's relational, right?
Because the whole idea is right.Shadow, what are you talking
about? My shadow, I look for my shadow
and it's always behind me, but you're looking at me and you're
saying, dude, you got this huge shadow right there.
(40:54):
It's so obvious. Can't you see it?
And I'm like, no, it's these things are so often apparent and
clear from the outside, but they're very hard for us to see
ourselves. So relationship, whether that's
coaching, therapy, men's groups,that's intimate relationship,
right? You're in one.
You know how it is. Your partner can probably name,
(41:16):
Oh yeah, here's his things. And you're like, yeah, here's
her things. It's one of the great mechanisms
of relationship for presencing this stuff.
But shadow work is really just the process of bringing that
which is in the dark into the light.
What are the unconscious beliefs, processes, strategies,
wounds we've all internalized that actually drive our behavior
(41:39):
without us realizing it? And so for many men, they come
to me and shadow work because it's like, there's this thing I
do I don't want to do, but some,for some reason, I keep doing
it. Why?
Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's a relational habit.
(41:59):
Maybe it's a way they treat themselves.
Maybe it's blowing things up in their job every now and their
life. This this thing keeps happening.
I don't want to do it. And yet I I keep finding myself
back in the same situation. What's going on?
There's almost always shadow material behind that.
Shadow work is really the process of reclaiming that,
(42:23):
bringing consciousness to it so we have more choice.
It's about liberating that and quite frankly, allowing us to
get unstuck again. Stuckness is often deeply
correlated to something in the shadow, a belief pattern, a
previous experience that our body still thinks is a threat.
(42:43):
Now all all these different things kind of add up.
And where again, where I love totie it into men's work is it's
one of the great bonding experiences I now see men have
with each other of, you know, bullet, bullet summary here.
You know, one of the things they've researched that is
different between a male and a female body is male bodies have
(43:05):
more receptors for vasopressin, which is one of our bonding
hormones, which guess what? How does that hormone get
activated? Doing challenging things
together, moving through difficulty and challenge.
Traditionally, in a lot of ways,that was out in the world.
Wow, there's something broken. We got to fix it.
(43:27):
There's another tribe coming to get us.
We got to go find food. Whatever it is, there's
challenge. We have to move through it
together. Modern society's gotten rid of a
lot of that for those of us privileged enough to live in,
you know, places like we do. But one area I've seen it coming
alive very strongly is now what does it mean to move through our
(43:49):
inner challenges together? Some of these patterns of
wounding and shadow and trauma that sometimes they're not only
ours but go way back in our lineage.
And so, you know, I lead one group in particular that's about
taking men through shadow work together.
And it's unbelievable. It's just incredible to see what
happens to guys in about 10 weeks.
(44:09):
They go from complete strangers to, OK, you're my brother to the
grave now. Like I have seen the most
intimate, deep, challenging, dark places your soul has
encountered and been witness to you moving through that and even
supported you. And we're good.
Like we're just it. We're best friends now.
Like there's a level of bonding that is just incredible for men
(44:34):
that I think a lot of men are actually deeply craving in life
and just don't know how to find it.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's really good, really
powerful stuff. And I think going back to a
minute ago, what you just said, she might be seeing these things
for yourself. Maybe you're, you've, you've
awoken enough to be like, oh, wow, I, I noticed that I do
(44:56):
these things. I know that I do them and I
don't want to do them anymore, which can be a very frustrating
place to be, right? You've come to a level of
realization and actualization like, oh, wow, I see these
problems cause before you, before that stage, you don't
even see them. So you're just like lost in them
and maybe it's a fun place of delusion to live in for a while
that you don't know it's even happening.
(45:18):
Then you can blame other people.But once you know you can, I can
only blame yourself. You see, like crap man, I don't
want to do that. Like you said, you don't want to
do it, but you keep doing it andit that starts to drive you
nuts. So doing something about that,
don't stay in that place. Take action, do what you do, and
(45:38):
I would recommend everybody jumpon a call with you.
Jason. I love this conversation.
Really, really important. I want to encourage anybody
who's a part of this conversation right now to book a
free exploratory call with you. Evolutionary dot men forward
slash talk. You want to share a little bit
about that? What if somebody goes and signs
up what they can expect? Yeah, we're just going to hop on
(46:01):
the phone together and talk a little bit about what's going on
in your life and whether you work with me or not, you're
going to walk away with a path of, oh, hey, here's some places
I could focus, here's some resources I could use, whether
it's men's group, coaching, retreats, you name it.
The idea is most guys I know want to change, want to get
(46:23):
unstuck, but they just don't know how to do it right.
They're like literally give me the instruction manual for how
to change my life. And you know, what I've
experienced in my own journey and now, you know, coaching
hundreds of men is men's community is 1 very strong
pathway for that. So getting into a men's group
will change your life in a pretty potent way that, you
(46:47):
know, I'm obviously quite passionate about because I think
it's one of the most potent leverage points we have to shift
culture and the globe right now is getting men more connected to
each other. Very cool.
I couldn't agree more. So get that call, go to
evolutionary dot men forward slash talk to connect with
Jason. And as I always do as we end
these episodes, I want to pretend like I want you to
(47:10):
pretend like you're never going to see or talk to me again.
Anybody watching or listening. You guys are going to separate,
never going to be in contact again.
What lasting message would you want to leave with all of us if
that's the case? Yeah, You know, I'm going to
speak right to the sceptical menhere, I guess for the sceptical
part of all of us as men and really say, you know, stop doing
(47:34):
it alone. And what I mean by that is, you
know, guys will push back with, you know, I don't need anyone
but the honest brutal truth for any man, any human being, but
any man is at some point your body is going to fail you and
you will not be able to just push through.
Whether it's illness, sickness, accident, old age, there is
(47:58):
going to be a time where you're not going to be able to just
push yourself to do the thing. And it's in that moment we fall
back to what is the level of community I have in my life and
the vulnerability of wow, you know, whether it's I can't even
get myself to the bathroom or I need someone to pick me up or
(48:20):
whatever that is. You can start laying the
foundation for those moments now.
And it's not weakness, it actually creates more
resilience. And even beyond resilience,
something I talk about is anti fragility.
Where as life hits you with stuff, you have a system of
(48:41):
support around you where not only does it prevent you from
falling, it makes you stronger because your network helps you
leverage that. So if you're feeling, you know,
stuck or alone or whatever that might be really, whether it's
with you, with me, with any, reach out, be the one who says,
(49:02):
you know what? I'm going to do this differently
and I'm going to get some support in my life.
And good news, things will get better.
Your relationships will get better, your wealth will get
better and your health will get better.
You know the big three most men are concerned about.
Yeah, great, Jason. I love it.
Dude, that's so good, so powerful, so glad that you came
on here today to share in this journey that you've been on for
(49:24):
yourself and helping other men go through this journey too.
And families, right? You're, you're changing, you're
changing families out there for sure.
So I thank you for that. Another true testimony, A
breakthrough here on the show. Until next time.
This has been the unstuck movement.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.