Why Therapy Fails Men (and What Actually Works) | Addiction Recovery & Men’s Mental Health

Why does traditional therapy so often fail men struggling with addiction, porn, and mental health?

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Marc Azoulay, founder of Men’s Therapy Online, to talk about why the standard therapy model often doesn’t serve men — and what actually helps. 

We dig into:

✅ Why therapy fails men (and what to look for in a therapist)

✅ The loneliness crisis and why community is the antidote to addiction

✅ The role of mentorship, accountability, and ritual in recovery

✅ How masculinity needs to evolve without losing its strength

✅ Practical advice for men battling porn, sex, drugs, or destructive habits If you’ve ever felt unseen, unheard, or misunderstood in therapy — this episode is for you.

🔗 Connect with Marc and his team for therapy (Men's Therapy Online is an Official Mindful Habit Partner): https://menstherapy.online

🔗 Learn about The Mindful Habit System: https://www.mindfulhabithelp.com

📌 Keywords: men’s mental health, addiction recovery, porn addiction help, sex addiction, therapy for men, men’s group therapy, mindfulness, accountability, self-leadership, compulsive behavior, habits, masculinity, loneliness, recovery community

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody. This is Craig Perry, your host.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
You are watching or listening to Sex Afflictions and porn Addictions.
And I have a very very awesome guest another brother
that I met at that big tent summit that I
told you guys about, really connected with this guy. His
name is Mark Azula, and he is the founder of
Men's Therapy Online and he's been working with men for

(00:23):
many years. Has an amazing team, a whole bunch of credentials. Mark,
what do those mean? Can you share with me what
There's a lot of initials there. Man, Hell, that's pretty impressive,
and I know you're an impressive guy.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, I mean they're more impressive, I will say. You know,
they're kind of viking from insecurity where I just had
to like justify myself of them through them. I mean,
one of them is I'm a professional counselor. He seems
I can deal with mental health. The LAC is a
licensed Addictions Counselor, which means I can work with addictions. Right,
I'm a specialist in that area. The CGP is a
certified Group psycho Therapist. So I've gotten special training, you know,

(00:56):
push graduate training and group, psycho therapy, group facultation. He's
that in my men's groups. And the last one is ACS,
which is a proof clinical supervisor which I have again
advanced training and supervising. So I use that with my
team with the therapies that worked for me.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Wonderful man. What I'm so glad we met. And so
Mark runs a men's therapy online. I'm with his team
and licensed clinicians. Clinicians. He provides ongoing men's group, individual
counseling and powerful wellness retreats to his to his members
the background in psycho and analysis, neuroscience, Buddhism. Mark helps

(01:32):
men uncover and destroy the unconscious barriers that are holding
them back.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Welcome Mark, happy to be on the show. You've been
looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, I know me too. So how did you get
into all this? Mark?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Let's learn a little bit about you first, and then
we'll dive into a couple of great questions that I
have for you.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
But I love hearing your personal story. What brought you
to this place? Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, I'll give them like the overview, and then you
can always dive in ask more questions if you want
on certain aspects. But yeah, I mean like many the therapists,
I was a client. You know, I needed therapy. So
that was a big part of what got me into
this and you know, to run through it basically, you know,
growing up, I was bullied. I was a nerd. I
didn't really fit in. I was like an overoid Jewish
KB with glasses. Growing up in rural Maryland with a

(02:15):
lot of you know, big boys, a lot of the
big football players, people that end up going to the army,
like it just was not the culture that I fed into,
and I was boiled into the ground, you know, to
a place where I had a lot of low self esteem.
I had suicidal ideation. It just wasn't like a safe
place for me to be. My difficulties at home as well,
so I really never felt comfortable being who I was,

(02:37):
and I really kind of hated who I was. They
didn't have a good introduction to, you know, being a man, right,
So that kind of culminated in college where I did
what a lot of young men do, and I reinvented myself.
And I re invented myself as to what you know,
a sixteen century old boy thought was cool, which is
like sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So I kind
of started going to punk shows, a lot of EDM shows.
I started you know, doing a lot of drugs. I

(02:59):
started seeing, you know, telling a lot of drugs. I
was like, became this avatar of this like cool guy.
But underneath it, I was still afraid, you know, and
I would never say no to anything. Right, So, like
when people bringing out like a plate of cocaine, I'm like, yeah, sure,
I've done cocaine tons of times, you know. Or like
you know, when people are taking away too much acid,
I'm like, yeah, do was me again? Like I would

(03:21):
never ever ever say no because they didn't want to
look like a coward. So that culminated in an overdose.
You know, long story short, right, took way too many
drugs one night, odeed and I woke up. At that moment,
you know, that was like my rock bottom moment. I
got into doing recovery work, step work. I went to
Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the biggest group in my town.
I was at Pittsburgh at the time. I got into

(03:42):
therapy and I just started trying to get myself straight,
you know, And a big part of that was Buddhism,
was mindfulness being present in the moment, and you know,
kind of learning what was like to be sober, learning
what was like to find male mentors, learning what it
was like to actually talk to girls without being intoxicated
or without you know, giving a play full of drugs. Right,

(04:03):
And I had to really rebuild my life. And after
that I ended up you know, going to school to
become a therapist and finding a way to guide other
men through this process. Partially, like I said, because of
some insecurity. I was like, I don't know what else
I could do.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
At this point.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
And two because I really do have a passion for
helping men be more real. You know, there's so much
of us and I'm sure we'll talk a lot more
about this that are suffering in silence, that are living
in a place of quiet desperation and just need somebody
to help, you know, crack open their shell a little
bit and see them for who they are. So that's
a very very very fast version, but happy to go

(04:37):
into more detail in certain aspects if you're curious about that.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, no, thank you, Mark. I really connected with not
being able to say no. That was a big part
of my journey more excess. The more I did, the
more significant I felt from the funnels to the lines,
to the dope to the you know, whatever it was,
whatever it was, it was always something to access.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
So what made you choose men?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Because you could you know, with those qualifications, you can
work with anybody, and I know you'd be really good
at it.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
What made you specialize in working with men?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Sure? Yeah, so that's a good question. So my first
job out of grad school, I worked in a prison.
I so worked in the Colorado prison, So worked a
lot of men there. And then I after that, I
worked in addictions. And there's also a lot of men
in addictions right that are in rehabs and recovery centers.
And what I found is, you know, even though I
was kind of specking into addiction work, being that I'm
in recovery myself, I don't know a lot of guys.

(05:32):
And again I'm curious your thoughts on this, Like underneath it,
they really were struggling with masculinity, whether they were in
that kind of like toxic masculinity, manbox class commands, what
do we want.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
To call it?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Where they or I was right, like unable to say no,
always trying to look tough, not having any feelings or
what I'm seeing more often is nice guys, which I
also experienced when I swung my pendum the other way.
Guys that you know, didn't weren't intend with their masculinity
and didn't know how to have discipline or themselves or
move forward with any kind of force or action or aggression.
They were disowning all of that. So I found that

(06:06):
like underneath these addictions was you know, traumas often had
to do with other men, and then a real confusion
about what it meant to be a man in the
modern society. So I've then pivoted into working with men
and work with masculinity specifically. And there's not a lot
of male therapists. There's not a lot of male clients.
We are a minority when it comes to people that

(06:27):
pursue therapy. So my company is all male clinicians, you know,
all male clients. We're creating like an all male space
to do this work, because I'm sure you see this
in near work. It's like it gets fricky when there's
women in the room. You know, I find that men
are less honest. I find that men are you know,
they're trying to flirt, they're trying to you know posture,
they're not as real when it's when there's women there.

(06:50):
So I find, especially in the beginning, having an all
male group creates a lot of safety and builds a
lot of.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Respect, so so important.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
If I had to characterize Mark, the man who come
to me the most broken, and I'll say it kindly
underserved by their female therapists, it's the Christian woman therapist
who is unable to see him. No education can give

(07:19):
her the ability to see what this man is going through.
And so often this man feels like his therapist doesn't
see him, feels like she's always taking the white side.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
He doesn't feel seen.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
And I hate picking out one gender, but there is
something about, you know, having a safe space. You know,
women talk about it all the time and we need
one too. Is that your experience or I guess maybe
just curious to get your thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Totally? Yeah, I mean I think it's and it speaks
to the times that we're in, right. I think when
you say, hey, and there's decent color and most people
women's center, you know, and it's going to be all women,
and it's going to be a safe place for women
to talk about what's going on for them. People applaud
people are like, yes, that is needed, and I agree
that is needed. But I will tell you when I
first opened up my therapy practice, I almost got canceled

(08:08):
because just saying I want a place that is for
men in this space was taboo. I think people thought
I was misogynist. They thought I was like excluding women.
It's wild what the double standard is. And I've seen
just what you say is I think, you know, therapy
in general, I mean, I think coaching is more balanced, right,
I think more men go into the coaching field, but

(08:28):
in the therapy field it's very female dominated. So you
have just what you're talking about, you know, providers that
they don't have a lived experience of what it means
to be a man.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
You're right.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
They also, I think a lot of therapists has been
feminized where it's a lot of validation. It's a lot
of oh my god, I'm so sorry to hear that
that must be so hard, which you know is helpful
in the beginning of a man's work when needs to
be you know, validated for his pain. But what a
lot of men want is they want solutions and they
want someone that they can push back against and they
want someone that will call them out in their bullshit.

(08:58):
And I wasn't taught that the school, you know. It
took me doing things like the Mankind Project. No, we're
doing my own men's work to learn that other kind
of form of self help where I could be more
confronted with my men, be more directed, and ultimately be
more honest. You know, I think a lot of guys
have bullshit detectors, and when they get this like kid gloves,
you know, sympathy, they'd flock away from it because it's

(09:21):
not what we want. We don't want to feel like
we're a victim. We want to feel like we're the
heroes of the story.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
And that leads me to an important question, and you've
covered part of it. But why in addition to what
you said, Mark, why does therapy fail men like my universes?
Guys come into me and let me let me be
abundantly clear. I stand on the amazing shoulders of my therapist.
I would not be here if it wasn't for them.

(09:48):
I am so grateful and get help no matter what,
you know, whatever you do, get help. But I want
to help you guys through Mark's perspective and mine help
you find the right therapy. And certainly I encourage everyone
to reach out to Mark. He's a personal friend and
I and my wife and I think really highly of
him and his wife and their company.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
But yeah, why why therapy fails men? Mark? Let's talk
about that.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, Well, I mean if now I set you over
those talking points, and I want to you know, preface,
I said specifically why therapy fails men? Because and this
is embarrassing for my industry. For the past like ten years,
twenty years, the conversation was why do men fail in therapy? Right?
So we were blaming the men in therapy. We were

(10:31):
blaming that. Oh, men are not being honest, Men are
not committed to the work. You know, men are in
this toxic man box and they don't know how to
have their feelings. You know, men are in they they're
privileged and they don't want to give up their privilege.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
That that truth was and I've been to hundreds of
conferences at this point, that truly was the dialogue in
my industry around this topic. So when I send those
talking points out, I switch it. And now I mean
now starting to switch a little bit. I'm not the
only one doing this, I gotta be you know that.
But there's a group of us that are out saying, no,
men are not failing in therapy. Our industry is failing

(11:06):
the men, right. It is our responsibility to mold and
adapt and change and create methodologies that work for men
instead of pushing them away, instead of demonizing them, instead
of calling them privileged. There's so much there that I
think men end up really recoiling from. So the idea
is I think, like I'm saying, for men to want
to feel like a victim, they want to feel like

(11:27):
a hero. That's kind of the main point that I
make here. And a lot of men that go to
therapy they get this feeling that they don't need to change, right,
They get this feeling that everything about them is acceptable
and lovable, which is good, right, Like that's a good thing.
You say that out loud, You're like, yeah, everything is
acceptable and lovable. However, I think as a man, especially
a masculine presenting dude, we want to get better, right.

(11:50):
Our self development is about improving and getting better. It's
like if you have a child and your child like
sucks at baseball, but you know that he loves baseball.
You want that kid to be better at baseball. You
don't think that he's a bad kid for not being good,
but you want to coach him, You want to help him,
You want to teach him a few things. You want
to take him to see professionals play.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
It's you can still love something and want it to
be better. And I think that's what we try to
do at Men's Therapy Online. And that's where you know,
we're pushing guys towards making real change, holding them accountable,
like I said, calling them on their bullshit, using things
like habit trackers, having them actually change their behavior. It's
more action oriented, whereas I think most therapy, you know,
guys will say like I went in, I talked about

(12:30):
my problems, but I think got better, you know, or
they got enabled.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Right.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
I think like an unskilled therapist just like agrees with
their client. Right, it's validation therapy. They're just agreeing or
giving them reasons why they don't need to change. And
I know you know, you as someone in recovery and
me as someone in recovery, we know how dangerous enabling
can be. And I do believe that a lot of
the therapy industry, unfortunately is pretty enabling because we're not
taught to confront our clients. It only really happens in

(12:56):
a dictionary recovery centers, maybe eating disorder centers. But you're
I average private practice therapist. They're not going to challenge
you in the way that you deserve to be challenged
as a man that wants to grow.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
So true, so true.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
I found my therapists were so awesome, but it was
very slow. I picked the agenda and I was in
charge of the agenda, and I was, you know, batshit
crazy at the time. Some structure really would have helped
me because that sense of moving towards something. What are
some yellow or red flags that guys should be thinking
about as they evaluate their relationship with their therapy.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Is there anything jump top of mind?

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Mar Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question.
The first one that ask everyone to ask is like,
is your therapist in therapy themselves?

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Right?

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Are they doing their own work?

Speaker 1 (13:43):
You know?

Speaker 3 (13:43):
Are they seeing a therapists, are they seeing a coach?
Are they in a group? If they're not leave, get
out of there. If they're not doing their own work,
then they're going to be using their unconscious They're going
to be bleeding onto you. They're going to be making
it about themselves. They're not a good therapist, right, That's
a that's a pretty clear for me. Like black and
white litmus test. Another one that I ask guys, you know,
because guys come to me or people come to me
and there saying, hey, I'm sorry, I'm not a therapist. I

(14:05):
got X, Y, and Z problem with them. You know,
they're not pushing me or you know, they're not asking
me the tough questions or like you said, they're not
an't really saying anything. They're making me lead. I asked
them like, can you say that to your therapist? Right,
like what you just said to me, Say that to
your therapist and see how they respond. Do they actually
engage with you? Do they actually say you know what,
that's right? Do they adapt to feedback, do they grow,

(14:27):
do they change, do they try to serve you better?
Or do they do What I think is actually fairly common,
is they do you kind of a run around. They're
say like, oh, I'm not going to answer that question,
but I'm curious why you're asking that question. Does that
come from your childhood?

Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know?

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Did you want more structure in your childhood. Is that
why you're asking me why about structure now? Which is like, look,
I'm a therapist. It's good to do that work. But
sometimes you just want to answer. Sometimes you're just trying
to say, like, let's let's actually get down to brass
tacks and make this relationship more effective. Another one is
if you ask a question directly about the therapist, are
they willing to self disclose with you? Are they willing
to be vulnerable themselves a little bit? Or do they

(15:02):
just a keto it back, you know and say, oh,
why'd you ask that question? Or what's that question for yourself?
You know, Like I think those types of therapies, that
kind of blank wall. One, I think doesn't serve men
at all. I think we want someone that we respect,
and that means knowing a little bit about them, you know,
and knowing that they've walked in the fire as well.
And two, it doesn't deal well with the modern audience

(15:23):
when people are looking at things like influencers or streamers
or these other content creators that are way more open
and transparent. The blank slate is very antiquated. I mean
that's we're talking, that's like Freud, you know, we're back
to like the eighteen hundreds at that point where the
blank slate is what people need. I think people really
need mentorship and connection and realness, right, They don't need
like clinical blank medical treatment. Especially the men that I'm

(15:46):
sure see you and definitely the men that see me.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
In the blank say slate mark, So people know, can
you explain that that's a therapeutic technique.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Correct, Yes, that's a therapeutic technique. It is, like I said,
it's you know, from the eighteen hundreds. I think it
is appropriate in like I said, rehab settings or mental
hospital settings. And that's the problem with therapy in general, right,
is that it was designed to work in a medical setting,
but then unless take into private practice, it didn't really evolve.
And that's we're coaching, right, people like yourself come in.
You've evolved the methods that we used to be used

(16:18):
in a private practice setting. So for instance, if you
think of like, you know, a nurse at a hospital, right,
that that's blank slate. You don't really if you're in
a hospital, you don't really want to know anything about
that nurse, you truly don't. You just want her to
come in and you want her to help you. And
like stop the bleeding right with your doctor. You don't
want to know about your doctor's personal life. You want
your doctor to be an expert in the field, and
you want them to be able to perform the surgery

(16:39):
and you want them to fix you.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
That that's the blank slate. But in modern therapy, you know,
holding that blank slate and not disclosing yes, in some
ways it creates this air of mystique, and the kind
of theory behind it is that it lets the client
project onto you, you know, they it lets them on,
you know, unravel their unconscious and make assumptions about you
which you can then deconstruct, which I think there is

(17:01):
value to that. However, I think the harm, especially to
men that are newer to therapy, is great because these men,
like I said, they want mentorship, they want respect, They
want to feel like that person that therapist is maybe
a surrogate brother or a surrogate father or a surrogate friend,
and they just need that rapport to be built like
man to man, right, I mean that fairs man to man.

(17:23):
They want to want to talk man to man. I
think if you want to get into something like psychoanalysis
where you have a truly blank slate and you want
to uncover your unconscious process. It's like that's cool, that's
super cool. I do that work, but that's very advanced
level work for the average dude. They're not interested in that.
They just want to get better and they want to
kick their bad habits and be better husband's, fathers and
community members.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, in some cases, just tell me what I need
to do, right and with that blank slate when you
don't know anything. Like one of the things that I
found mark is that my vulnerability that working alliance. So
I'm not a therapist, so I won't say the therapist alliance,
but that working alliance is so strong because they know

(18:05):
that I've been through what they're going through. And maybe
even like this guy was off his rocker and look
where he is now, gives him the sense of hole,
but it really they shame drops and the openness increases
dramatically when people know that you walked in their shoes.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Absolutely right, and like they respect you because you have
like you said, you've been through some shit and you
got better and now here you are right like you're
running this company, you're doing a podcast, you're doing a
ton of cool shit and like that's inspiring for these
men and they want they need connection. I mean we
learned at the Big Temps sound. I mean we didn't alarm,
so you knew already. I know already. But like, loneliness
is killing guys out there. That's like the main thing

(18:45):
if it all boils down to that. So you're telling him, Okay,
let's come do something relational, something social, whether it be
coaching or therapy. But I'm not going to actually connect
with you, you know, I'm just going to do interventions. I'm
going to be like a robot to be, you know,
a textbook. I'm not going to connect with you. We're
not treating the loneliness. These guys need connections. They need real,

(19:07):
real connections in their lives and they need and that
the therapist or the coach can be that first lifeline
so they can make a real connection with you or me,
and then they can start connecting in their communities.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
And that's a perfect segue because the other thing that
I wanted to talk about, Mark was the importance of mentorship, community,
and ritual, and those are obviously three separate things. What
have you learned in your own personal journey in working
with men and how important this really really is.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, I mean it's all really important. I guess I'll
all kind of run through them. So ship, I think,
is what we've been talking about here, you know, And
like I know, you're a mentor for men. I'm a
mentor for men, especially in this emotional space and the
space of you know, recovery, self development, healing, whatever you
want to call it. Knowing that there are other men,
oftentimes they have to be older than you, that have
done the work, that have been where you've been, that

(19:56):
have been that piece of shit, that have been that coward,
that have been that shitty husb, been that bad father,
that divorced dad, whatever it is, but have gotten better.
That is the most powerful thing. And that not only
that it exists, but that you have access to them
and they are willing to talk to you, you know,
because I think for a lot of my generation, I
know for your generation Gen xer is like we didn't

(20:17):
have our parents. Our fathers were not emotionally intelligent.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
My dad is a wonderful man, he's one of my heroes,
but he does not have the emotional intelligence to be
able to speak directly about his feelings and about what's
going on for him internally. He still you know, performs
as though he has everything figured out and it's inspiring
to a level. But I need a mentor, and I've
found mentors in my life now that tell me like, yeah,
I fucked this up, I made a mistake here, and

(20:42):
then I recovered and I got better, or hey, there's
a time where I felt insecure or a time where
I felt anxious, or yeah, I've also had suicide thoughts,
or I've also struggled with marijuana, youth or whatever it is. Right,
Like that type of vulnerability is so needed and so
missing from our older generation down to the younger generation.
So I'll pause there. I'm curious your thoughts on that,
and I can go into the other two.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, well it's so missing, Mark, because I think about, like,
can I remember.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
A time where I talked to my father about a failure?
Right right?

Speaker 2 (21:13):
As far as I know, he never failed, never had
sex because we never talked about it.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
I mean, not not that I want to know, but
you know what I'm saying, like this was.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Never never a topic and just just you know, looking back,
and you think about what I'm trying to do with
my kids and have that safe place for them.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's a lot we met.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
There was a lot missing with that lack of vulnerability,
and that has impact, you know, had a huge impact
on me. It wasn't until like my thirties where I
said I love you to my father and my grandfather
or giving them a hug and was even conscious of
you know, mental health.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
It took a couple of three rock bottoms, but you know,
I'm a tough learner. Finally figured it out. But yeah,
there was so much I didn't know. All I knew
was success pedestalization. In many ways, wasn't a human because
I only emotion I saw, which wasn't very often, but
I was strong.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Was anger, yeah, totally, Yeah, anger disconnection. I think my
father cried, you know, at his at his father's funeral
and at my grandmother's funeral. You know, but there was
not a lot of feeling there. And you know, I
think it's even harder, frankly for your generation, for gen exerps,
because my generation, at the Millennials, we had and I
had digital mentors, right, I had things like audiobooks that

(22:32):
were readily available, the Internet. I think the media was
I mean, now it's really emotional, but it was more
emotional for us than it was for you. But there's
that kind of fantasy of like that fireside chat, you know,
like you're sitting around a campfire with your dad and
he's like telling you what it means to be a man,
Like I never got that. It sounds like you never
got that either, you know. I think we're able to

(22:53):
supplement that, you know, by media or by podcasts like
the one that you're producing, right, I mean, there's some
ways to get some of that, but we need it
in real life, and we need it from people that
are actually in our lives and actually know us. So
that can be your coach of your therapist, you know,
that can be a member of your men's group. That
can be someone that comes to a men's work retreat
or a weekend with you right where you actually have

(23:14):
an older man. I think, I do think it has
to be an older man that you respect, like takes
you under his wing and say like, hey, I see you,
I got you, and I want you to be better, right,
Like I'm going to help you be a better version
of yourself. That's so powerful and then that's love, like
that's masculs true masculine love.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, so powerful and back to that loneliness crisis. The
other thing that we know is important, but I want
you to speak to it. Community. The opposite of addiction
is in sobriety, it's community. Tell me why that's so
important for you and in your clients, but for us.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, so so community is kind of two facets, right.
The first is something that's really common, of course in
recovery community that's kind of where I came up in
is just having those peers, right, the mentors, the older man.
The peers are the people that are on the same
level that are also going through it, and it's a
place where you can feel like you're part of a
team and you have each other's back.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
You know.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
There's a great book that I love referencing called The
Way of Men by Jack Donovan and when he talks
about forty bombastic book which I love, and he says that,
you know, the lonest form of organization for a man
is a gang, right. Men are born to be in gangs.
And what he means by that it's not a criminal gang, right,
although that's certainly an example, but if you look at
things like hunting parties, if you look at things like

(24:26):
you know a platoon or a squadron, or a fire
team in the military. You know a team of firefighters.
You know, if you look at like a sports team. Right,
as men, that kind of small group, call it like
five to twelve people, that is how we exist. We
don't even do that well one on one. We're not
really made for that. We're not made to be alone,
and we don't really do well in big groups. Women

(24:48):
do a lot better in very large groups. But that
kind of like small, tight knit group is what we
are evolved to exist in. And it if you can
find your guys that are all trying to become better,
that are all encouraging each other, holding each other accountable, Like,
that's the power, right, That's the power of being in community.
The second piece I want to say is meaning, right, like,

(25:08):
guys want to be seen, guys want to matter, and
we want to have legacy. That's a huge part of
being a man, especially in Western culture, is what your
legacy gonna be. I think where my generation fucked up
or maybe got fucked up, depending who you want to blame,
is we haven't told a legacy has to be great.
Our legacy has to be you know, we can do
with everything we want to do. We can be astronauts,
we can cure cancer, we can you know, save the environment.

(25:31):
We had a lot of lofty legacies, which you know
burns us. Now I work with a lot of guys
my agent and we're like, I'm not that right. But
legacy can be something simple as like you're the guy
that makes the best chili at the church barbecue, right,
and everyone loves your chili. Yeah, and like that's belonging.
You're the chili guy. That's awesome, right, Or like you're
you're the coach of your kids, you know, softball team,

(25:54):
and you show up for every single practice and you're
committed and you're taking those kids under your wing and
you're helping them grow and you're teaching them something that
you learned when you were younger.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
That's also legacy. That's community. Is that you get meaning
based on where you fit into larger groups.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Having a role, having a job, having a title in
some way is what makes us feel like we have
meaning because we all want to belong, you know, we
all we all want to belong and it's important to
you know, not important, I guess necessary now to seek
out those communities because they're not given to us in
the same way that they were through most of human history.
They're not baked into our culture. We have to build

(26:30):
them or sometimes even pay for them well.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
And because they're not there, we what's reinforced is competition.
You know, other men are going to take from you,
other men want your job, other men, you know, don't
trust anybody. There was a lot of messaging around that
in the With that community comes context because it counterbalances

(26:53):
this narrative that I have to be the number one
best life coach in the world with the most clients.
And I remember a question recently marked we hired a
fractional CFO to give us some advice on the business,
and it was wonderful advice. And he says, tell me
what you want to accomplish, and I said, I want

(27:14):
a mindful habit to be a household name raving alternative
to anyway. I went on and on about this fantasy, right,
and this guy was so good.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
He was He wasn't a therapist. He was a financial advisor,
so in a way, I know he provides lots of
therapy over the years.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
He said, okay, let's do it. You know here, let's
look at Dave Ramsey, I know somebody who worked with him.
Let's just pick a model and figure out what it's
going to take to do that. So I need you
tomorrow for sixteen hours a day. And then we've got
to talk to the investors, and then we got to
do this, and we got to do that. Well, we
can't hire the first person until we get to you know,
this financial milestone, and we're gonna if we're gonna do

(27:51):
that and six Anyway, he went on and on and
on and on, Mark, and I.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Went, Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, that is
a I do not want that. I do not want
that at all. I want peace in my life life
at this stage. I want to be successful. I want
to pay the bills. I want to take the family
on a couple of trips.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
I want to make sure my son has everything he
needs as he gets older because he has some challenges.
But it was an important perspective shift for me, and
having that kind of mentorship and leadership really got me
off that this fantasy and helped me dial into what
truly mattered to me, because it's certainly, you know, being

(28:26):
being safe and stable is one thing. But you know money,
money can't buy happiness.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, exactly, and we're talking about like that is the
blessing in the curse. I think of American culture, right,
it's like we are super hierarchical, which I think is
actually okay, and I'll talk about that in a moment.
But the opposing part is that we always have to
be at the top of the hierarchy to matter, right,
because if we're not at the top, we're gonna get bullied,
We're gonna get hazed, we're gonna get beaten down. There's

(28:52):
gonna be some you know, consequence or punishment, or we're
gonna be good enough unless we're number one, like I said,
unless mindfel habit is like you know, as big as
or something right like, like, it's right probably the top
of the hierarchy. Whereas I think, you know, matterre hierarchical.
We do judge each other, we do line up in
roads and ranks. That is how our brain works. However,
there's a way to get a healthy hierarchy, you know.

(29:14):
So the example that that I bring, I was fortunate
enough I joined cross fit when I moved up here.
I live no nowhere in the mountains. So my gym
is a going gym around across fit gym. So I
joined it right and I suck. I stuck across fit.
I'm at the like bottom half. When I started, I
was like the weakest man in the hierarchy, you know.
But the gym for you know, you know, grace of

(29:34):
God or whatever like they are, they were accepting, they
coached me. They they're helping me. I fit in. I
belong even though I'm the weakest guy there.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I belonged.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
But there's rules, right as long as I like, don't
get in anybody's way. You know, there's always like the
alpha dudes and they have their there's place where they lift,
as long as they don't fuck that up. You know,
I don't like endanger myself for others. You know, I'm
not annoying during class. I'm not complaining, right, Like there's
rules and there should be. I I feel like I
belong in that group even though and I was welcome
with open arms, right even though I was at the

(30:05):
bottom of the hierarchy. I'm doing it for three years now.
Now I'm around the middle, so probably lower half of
I'm being honest, but like there's something again very masculine,
primal masculine about joining a hierarchy at any level and
then being helped by other men, a community of men
to get better, right to move up the hierarchy. And
now when there's new members that joined, whether where I
was three years ago, I welcome them with open arms,

(30:28):
right and there's no judgment for how much they can
lift or they can't lift, or what their form looks like.
It doesn't matter because as long as we're working towards
the same goal and there's that mutual respect that creates
a healthy community of men.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
I could feel that in my heart when you talked
about being okay not being the best. That is such
an important lesson, isn't it. We don't have to be
the best. It's okay to be a beginner and one
of the kind of you know egos big in me
Mark and I've worked hard on it, but I love

(30:59):
the expression like always the student.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
I want to always be the student. I'm I'm a
master of nothing.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
I may be better at a few things than other people,
but it's really really important to have that perspective because
if you don't, like think of all the people who
are afraid to go into the gym because they know
all the CrossFit masters are in there, and there it
keeps us men from doing things that are good for us,
doesn't it?

Speaker 3 (31:24):
It does? It does? Yeah? I mean what I Yeah, well,
I guess I take a step back. So my wife
is pregnant, and the one thing we talk about, you know,
what do you want to impress upon your kids? And
what I want to impress upon my kid is exactly this.
It is the willingness and the ability to learn that
is my prime value is knowing that you can learn anything.
You can learn anything. You might have to figure out
how you learn. You might learn differently in other people,

(31:45):
who knows, But you can learn anything, and you have
to be willing to learn to be a student, just
like you're talking about. You know, when I work with
my guys, I say, you know, you're going to be
good at being bad at stuff? Right's learn how to
be bad at stuff? Yeah, and learned how to fail
and learn how to learn and learn how to like
you know, improve along the way. But I don't think

(32:05):
people are incapable of things. I mean, maybe there's a
you know outlliar's disabilities and things, certainly, but I think
most people are able to learn. It's just like you said,
getting the ego out of the way and being willing
to show up time and time again and be humbled
by whatever the thing is you're trying to do.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, I want to suck at something. What a great attitude, right, I'm.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Looking forward to sucking at something too, because I've been
thinking about picking up a couple of hobbies. I absolutely
love that perspective, and it's so important for us men
who always think we have to be perfect and failure
is bad. Failure is an essential part of life. The
road to success is paved with the bricks of failure.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
I say that one often. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah, you should be failing. It was talk about you
you should be failing three to forty percent of the time, right,
because that's how you know that you're pushing your comfort zone.
If you're always winning, you were deep in your comfort zone, right,
And I'm sure I was failing. Okay, maybe if you're
back it up a little and make your life a
little bit less challenging because you're still some stuff to
learn and grow. But you should be failing, like at
least a third of the time. That's how you know

(33:07):
that you're growing, you're actually challenging yourself.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, in so many blind spots, and that's why mentorship
and community is important. The third piece that you mentioned
was ritual. And I'm really curious about this because for
men who don't go to church, they lose ritual. And certainly,
when you can contrast our evolutionary history, the lack of

(33:31):
ritual in today's society for men is basically absent unless
you are one of the lucky ones who seek it
out and find you know, someone like you.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Tell me about ritual. Why is that important to you?

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, it's criticals. Again. Two points here are how kind
of like big ritual and small ritual. I'm gonna start
with big ritual because it actually kind of bleeded in
from community. Big ritual is if you think of you know,
Christian sounds like some Christian listeners, right, it's like communion.
You know, I'm Jewish. Show for me, it's like the
bar mitzvah. You know, for many peopeople it's their wedding, right,
it's like a big ritual. A funeral is a big ritual.

(34:04):
So bigger ritual are these like milestone It's these checkpoints
and these keystones. Along the way where you're like, something
big has happened. You are now a man, you are
now married, somebody that you loved has died. As humans,
especially as modern men, because there's so much stimulation out there, right,
I know you talk a lot about sex and porn addiction. Right,

(34:24):
there's like so much ways that you can just blow
your mind out with dopamine and constantly never be able
to slow down. The ritual forces us to slow down,
and as masculine dudes, we need that structure and we
need those you know, costumes like you wear the you
know you're standing at the altar, you have your audience,
you know you say the vals like. We need that
structure to be able to get into our feelings because

(34:47):
for most men, and again especially for American modern men,
we move so fast that we don't feel anything. So
the rituals are critical because it forces us to sit down,
shut up, and slow down and actually feel right. You know,
I think I said a little bit earlier, but the
only time I saw my dad cry was at his
parents' funerals. And it's because I think he find I mean,
he's such a I love my day. He's such an

(35:07):
active dude. But he never slows down, and the funeral
forced him. Forced my dad, who was like a force
of nature, it forced him to slow down and feel
his grief. That is so powerful for men. And you
can do that through things like these men's weekends.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
You can do it, you know, through religious organizations, spiritual groups. Right,
you can create it within your own friend groups, you
can create it in your families. But having times where
you force yourself to slow down and just feel, that's
what it is. Even like I'm not even talking about
like God or magic or trans personal woo woo shit,
Like that's a whole other level, right, and I do
believe in those things. But for the average dude, it's like,

(35:44):
just make yourself slow down and feel something. For ones,
you know, feel alive. Those are what bigger rituals are for.
The next piece is a small ritual, which you know,
this is more of an advanced thing, but it's the
idea of bringing micro rituals into your life. And it
can be as simple as meditating in the morning, That's
what I do. It's a very common one, right. Or
it can be taking your dog for a walk and

(36:04):
not having your headphones in and just trying to like
enjoy the sunrise, you know, or it can be picking
your kid up from school and asking them kind of
the same series as questions, you know, hey, any highlights,
any low lights? Would you like? What are you grateful for?
Anything that is repetitive and intentional is a small ritual, right,
that's something Again, it's men. We love routine and I
mean your mindful habit, right, Like you're an expert on

(36:24):
this shit, right, Like things that are these habits that
bring us into being able to be present and having
that intention in our lives. Again, it's the big ritual,
you know, sit down, shut up, and slow down. But
in that micro moment of like, hey, pay attention, pay
attention to this moment. Stop rushing through everything, stop focusing
so much on the future. As men, we really need

(36:46):
that because if we do, we're gonna, you know, be
in our deathbed and we're gonna be like, damn, I
missed it, you know, I missed it?

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah? Yeah, And I love this.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
I love the distinction you made about the macro rituals
in the micro which rituals because what those rituals that
I have that are so important to me, are they
anchor me?

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Like they slow me down. They remind me of what's important.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
They remind me to not get swept up into the
small stuff.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
They remind me of what my.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Morals are, my ethical compass, all of it. It's just
reminders of who I want to be. And one of
my rituals Marcus. I walked by this picture of myself
every morning, and it's a picture of me when I
was in the orphanage, taken through the window. The only
picture they have of me at birth, because I was
given up for adoption. And I know that when I

(37:37):
was in the orphanage because that's how they used to
do things back then. They didn't hold the babies because
they didn't want the babies to form an attachment to
one of the nuns, knowing that that child was likely
going to be adopted. And I was adopted four to
six months after I was born. But I so and
around this picture, I have a certain toys, figurines Megaladon,

(37:59):
Shark two that I remember buying when I was a child,
and all these little things. That's my daily reminder of
this is where it all started, and I got this
little boy inside me, and I'm gonna make sure through action, indeed,
I'm gonna honor him. And so that's an example of
one of my special routines that keeps me grounded, keeps

(38:20):
me focused, reminds me of what's important.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Like I said before, So, yeah, I agree with you,
very important.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
That's beautiful. I love knowing that about you, right, And
it's just a thing of like reminding yourself that you
have that inner child and that that kid is important, right,
and like to keep them close to your heart every day.
I think that is That's a powerful moment.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yeah, and I love the toys.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
There's something about the childhood toys that reminds me. I
heard this quote lately as a video. Someone is micro
dosing the light and joy and so on my walks,
I stop and smell the flowers. I had one time
the lady walks out her front door. My face is
in her rose bush, far away from the house.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
It's still.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I said, Hey, I'm stopping and smell the roses. But
that's my micro dose of delight. I love the smell.
It smelled differently a week ago because the flowers changed,
And it's my micro reminder to stay focused and don't
overlook the beautiful things.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
In my life that you might not otherwise see when
you're you know, doing doing, doing, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
And realized, like, that's what all the work is for. Right,
The work is so that you can live in a
nice neighborhood with beautiful flowers and be you know, feel
safe enough to walk outside. Right, it's like that you've
built the life that you can now reap some of
the benefits of. Like, that's that's what it's about. I
think so many men we get focused on productivity and
building and building and building, expanding, expanding, expanding, that we

(39:43):
don't actually take time to appreciate where we're at. So
then we're stuck in that kind of workaholic thing where
it's just about more money, more growth, bigger house, better car,
but we don't enjoy any of it. It just feels
so empty.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
And and do you have clients mark, you know some
of them, you know, like like really high net work,
and you're on the zoom call and you see this big,
massive house and it is so empty, like it looks
so beautiful on the outside. An architectural Jiant Digest has
featured and it was designed by blah blah blah blah blah.
There were a few instances in my career where that

(40:17):
open space massive, you know, like people don't realize how
much space some of these people have in their houses.
In the contrast between its beauty and his distress, emptiness
and loneliness was something that has really stuck with me.
It's a little jarring to see like all of this
wealth and opulence and all of this empty there was

(40:40):
just nothing there.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
There's something there. Yeah, rooms that they don't go into, right,
like all the money that's being paid to maintain things
that people don't use. I mean, it's like this wild thing.
It's like pouring, you know, water into a black hole, right,
you just keep pouring and pouring and pouring, and it
never goes anywhere.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
You know, I think a lot of men it never
goes anywhere.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
And there was no family because wife taking the kids,
like I can't take it anymore.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
You know, we'll figure it out financially. She's certainly not
worried about that.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
But the emptiness is something that's really really stuck with me.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And yeah, no, no, this is awesome.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
So here here's a question that I have for you,
Mark that sometimes I've got like a sense of what
the answer is. But man, at the big tenth Summit
defining masculinity, what it is and how it needs to
evolve was a lot more challenging than I expected, and
it was really interesting getting all these different perspectives.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
How do you think masculinity needs to evolve?

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, so it's really interesting because at the Big tenth Summit,
I feel like and I feel like a lot of
the industry is still behind. You know, we're still working
with the boomer man that needs to be more emotional,
that needs to be more open, that needs to you know,
express their feelings. But when I work with my guys,
the millennials and the gen zs, we are super emotional.

(41:55):
We are very emotional creatures. We are we have high eques,
are raised by women's or single moms. You know, we
have that. We have that openness lack is actually what
is the masculinity, is what I would say. You know,
it's like that kind of nice guy syndromeals alluding to
a little bit earlier. So what I think men need
is to get back to some of the wisdom of

(42:17):
the older generations, but not to lose their emotionality right,
not to lose their open heart, not to lose their
sense of meaning and purpose, but to build some of
those classical things like grit, discipline, you know, the values
that I have for my organization. You know, our definition
of a good man is a strength, courage, mastery, and honor.
And I'll just go through really quick because I know

(42:37):
we're you know, time thing. But so you know, strength
is like, it's not just physical strength, although I think
that is important. I think taking care of your body,
being in shape, being capable. You don't have to be
a bodybuild or being capable is a masculine trade. But
we're all talking about emotional strength, right. The ability to
hold big emotions at a funeral, being someone that goes
up and gives a eulogy that moves the crowd to tears.

(43:00):
That's emotional strength, right. Spiritual strength being able to really
deal with tragedy and loss in your life and being
able to keep your commitments to moving forward, right, whether
that be in your family, your marriage, your community, whatever
it is. Mastery is just getting good at shit. And
this is the kind of the moment. It doesn't have
to be masculine. Stuff doesn't have to be like being
a football player or being you know, black belt. It's like,

(43:21):
you can be really good at painting or playing music,
or basket weaving or you know, making bouquets of flowers. Like,
it doesn't matter what the thing is. But I think
the process of getting good at something the probably we
were talking about during this the show of improvement, that's masculine, right,
building mastery and trying to really become an artist in

(43:42):
in whatever your field is, whether it be business, a hobby, relationship, spirituality, Like,
getting better is a masculine trade. Next one is courage,
which is doing stuff while you are afraid. Right, it's
not not being afraid, because that's just being a coward
in some ways. Right, it's doing stuff while being afraid.
Jacko Willink, which I'm sure your listeners are familiar with

(44:02):
Navy seal influencer guy right Like. He says that the
difference between Navy seals and regular people is that Navy
seals know how to operate while they are afraid. Right,
they still feel fear, but they're able to act while
they're in a state of fear. And that's what courage is.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
It's doing stuff that scares you, you know, and it's scared,
but you're still going to do this stuff. Right. And
then the last one is honor, which it comes to
this idea of being a good man, being ethical, having
a spiritual practice, doing good in the world, not lying,
not stealing, right, not polluting your mind with drugs or alcohol, right,
like not you know, deceiving people, not cheating. Right, this

(44:38):
idea of being honorable, being like a night of the roundtable, right,
having that ethical moral code that you stick to, especially
when times are tough, right when you're presented with like
the cheap, easy option, or when you have an opportunity
to do something bad and no one's gonna catch you. Right,
having that internal sense of honor is critical, I think
to being a man because ultimately you gotta look yourself

(44:58):
in the mirror and you got to know that you
you're a man that you respect. You got to have
that self respect for yourself.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
And that is so so awesome, Mark, I absolutely love it.
What is we're getting close to the end and what
is the one piece of advice that you think is
important that every you know that really is important to
you and that's helped you throughout your life.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
What do you want to share?

Speaker 3 (45:19):
I think like the biggest piece of advice something that
I talk to my guys is like don't expect it
to be different. And what I mean by that is like,
if you're doing a scary thing, don't expect yourself not
to be afraid. You know, if someone close to you died,
don't expect yourself not to be sad. Right, if you're
getting you know, abused at work, don't expect yourself not
to be angry. I think as men, we try to

(45:41):
think that we're better than our emotions and that we
shouldn't have these feelings, and as what gets us into
trouble because then we start to do things like look
at porn or drink too much or smoke or dissociate
because we don't want to have these feelings. But the
idea is like, don't expect it to be don't expect
enough to be bulletproof. It's okay to be human and
to feel these and they're all information that you can

(46:02):
use to shape the course of your life.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
I think men start pushing the other humanity, they start
killing themselves. Right.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, as you were talking, I'm smiling because here's a
running joke. Amongst my guy's mark, there was this we'll
call him brother Joe, not his name, and I'll never
forget the call.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
He got on the call and he was.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Like incredulously but a little mocking saying like Fan, thank you,
like Craig, this is so great.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
No more coping strategies. He had his wife had a.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Medical scare, Mark and seventy two years old, first time
in his life, had a.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Real serious thing that it could have been.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
The one big difference was he didn't have his coping strategy.
First time in his life. Panic attacks, first time in
his life, panic attack. He's like, and I said, listen,
I told you there were consequences of not having a
numbing coping and escaping strategy.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
This doesn't make things easy. In fact, in some ways
it makes it harder. This is one of those examples.
So there's this running joke amongst the guys like, oh,
I can't wait to get better and have a you know,
a mental health challenge that I never had before because
I don't have my coping strategy.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Yeah yeah, like you should panic if your wife has
a health scare that could kill her, right, Like that's
a scary thing. But yeah, it's like you're getting more
and what therapy and what coaching does, like it doesn't
make you feel happy all the time. It kind of
like expands the aperture, so you feel more of everything. So, yes,
you're going to feel happier, but you're also going to
feel more sad. You're also going to feel more angry.

(47:34):
You're also going to feel more grief. Right, you get
all of more of everything, but it's more being human.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
You are going to feel more well. Mark from Men's
Therapy Online, thank you so much for being a guest.
Before we go, how can and I'm gonna put all
the links guys who were listening.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
This is a personal recommendation from the Mindful Habit. We
want to.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Diversify our offerings and I really like what I've learned
about Mark, and so all the links are going to
be in the chat. But why don't you tell us
where can people find you and what should they be
looking for?

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah, so everything is Men's Therapy dot online. That's the
hub for everything. So we offer individual, we offer group,
we offer couples counseling, We have retreats. We also have
a shit ton of free content. So we have our
own podcast, which you will be a guest on I
think in a couple of weeks. We have tons of blogs,
we have all kinds of We have online courses, many
of them free, right, so that's kind of the hub

(48:29):
for everything. If you want to work with me or
one of my associates, the place to go is Men's
Therapy dot on awesome.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
And you also do wilderness for retreats. Mark, can you speak
to that just a little.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Yeah, Yeah, we will retreat so we kind of get
back to the primal sense of men. We build that
community and it's kind of like a wellness vacation. So
you're gonna do something cool with a bunch of guys
that have been through some shit. You're gonna go we
climb thirteen years when it's thirteen thousand feet mountains here
in Colorado. So you go, you do something really hard,
and then you get to gumback and you connect with
these guys. You get us fireside chats that we were

(49:01):
talking about a little bit earlier. You get that sense
of brotherhood and as men, we connect by overcoming challenges together.
So that's what our retreats do is we put a
challenge in front of you and we help you and
the other guys overcome it. So you do tell them
that you're actually proud of You can go home and
you'll make that a really big moment in your life.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Well, that's awesome. Offline, I want to pick your brain.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
We're doing our third retreat in Palm Springs coming up
in February, so I love to brainstorm on that.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. Mark.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
I'm so glad that you were here, so privileged. Look
forward to doing it again. Hope to have you back.
Please people check him out. He will see you, he
will help you. Really really happy with the resources that
I've been exposed to. Mark, thank you so much for
being here and look forward to staying in touch.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Great, Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
You're welcome. All right, guys, you're listening to sex afflictions
and porn addictions. Stay healthy, stay happy, feed the right wolf,
embrace your power of choice, and I wish you the best. Bye, everybody,