Episode 58 - The Call to Adventure: Navigating the Landscape of Modern Masculinity - Jindy Mann

In this episode, Kevin Davis interviews Jindy Mann, a certified leadership coach and men's work facilitator. They discuss various topics related to men, masculinity, and connection. They explore the role of storytelling and mythology in shaping our understanding of gender roles. They also delve into the complexity of masculine archetypes and the desire for connection and community among men. 

The conversation highlights the importance of building quality relationships and pursuing adventures to live a fulfilling life. They encourage men to overcome fear and take control of their lives. The conversation explores the themes of adventure, self-exploration, and masculinity. It emphasizes the importance of creating space for personal growth and redefining traditional gender roles. The discussion acknowledges the confusion surrounding men and masculinity in today's society and highlights the need for men to have the opportunity to redefine their roles and explore their true selves.

Takeaways

Storytelling and mythology play a significant role in shaping our understanding of gender roles and masculinity.

• Men often experience a desire for connection and community, seeking more intimate relationships with other men.
• Loneliness is not solely determined by the quantity of relationships, but by the quality of connection.
• Living a fulfilling life involves pursuing adventures and responding to the call for new experiences.
• Men should overcome fear and take control of their lives to create a life that aligns with their desires and fantasies. Creating space for self-exploration allows for the emergence of hidden desires and fantasies.
• Men and masculinity are currently experiencing confusion and a need for redefinition.
• The focus should be on finding one's true self and being comfortable with the roles one takes up.
• The work to be done involves reframing men's roles and allowing men the opportunity to explore and redefine their own version of masculinity.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
03:00 The Role of Storytelling and Mythology
11:26 Exploring Masculinity and Gender Roles
20:20 The Complexity of Masculine Archetypes
27:25 The Desire for Connection and Community
32:40 Loneliness and the Quality of Relationships
39:00 Living a Fulfilling Life and Pursuing Adventures
45:06 Overcoming Fear and Taking Control of Your Life
49:52 Exploring Adventure and Fantasy
53:10 Creating Space for Self-Exploration
55:03 The Confusion of Men and Masculinity
59:54 Reframing Men's Roles
01:00:52 The Work to be Done

Jindy Mann is a certified leadership coach, organisational consultant and men’s work facilitator, with 20+ years experience working in large organisations and startups across multiple sectors. Through his coaching practice, The Selfish Leader, he takes a person-centred approach to deepen self-awareness and understanding. He works with individuals across multiple sectors, particularly people transitioning to more senior positions, founders and those seeking a change of direction.

Jindy is also the founder of Leader Brother Son, facilitating spaces for real and open conversations between men, exploring topics often left unspoken and relating to each other in ways that men may not be able to elsewhere. Leader Brother Son run free men's Circles, host an online community for men, and work with organisations to give talks & workshops and run groups.

To learn more about Maxed Out Man and to maximize your potential, visit www.maxedoutman.com or connect with us on Social Media:

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Transcript

0:00
Welcome to maxed out man helping you
0:06
become the man you were made to be hey guys this Kevin Davis from the max out man podcast this is episode 57
0:14
I'm going to be here with jindy man and uh hey before I forget don't forget to
0:19
check us out on maxed out man.com and go to all our socials we're pretty much everywhere so check for maxed out man
0:25
jendy's the certified leadership coach organizational consultant and men's work facilitator with 20 years experience
0:31
working in large organizations and startups across the multiple sectors through his coaching practice the
0:37
selfish leader he takes a person- centered approach to deepen self-awareness and understanding he's
0:42
also the founder of leader brother son facilitating spaces for real and open
0:47
conversations which we all need uh between men exploring topics o often left unspoken and relating to each other
0:55
in ways that men may not be able to do elsewhere leader brother Son run free
1:00
men's circles host an online community and work with organizations to give talks and workshops and run groups hey
1:06
that's awesome information I know you and I before we got started so we've got coaching organizational work we want to
1:13
talk about men and masculinity and connection and all that so hey welcome thanks for coming I appreciate you taking the time thanks Kevin great to be
1:20
here excited to see how this conversation unfolds yeah it's always it's always fun these you know these
1:25
conversations to get to know people and you know I always say there's like I would never have this is a conversation
1:31
that you and I would never have um you actually pointed out that until like an hour ago you had never heard of Boseman
1:37
Montana so chances are that we would not run each other on the run into each other on the street but hey um fill us
1:43
in I know you were you a little bit unsure like kind of where this topic would go and and what exactly we talk
1:49
about so I know that there's some gaps from that bio that I gave so feel free to fill it in takes take as long as time
1:55
as you want you know it all started back in 19 whatever but uh yeah Ju Just just
2:01
fill me in and and let's uh let's get started yeah um well thanks for the
2:07
introduction and um well um maybe I'll add I'll add a bit of um texture to the
2:13
story and so I'll go a little bit further back maybe and we could go right back to the start but I'll just go back
2:19
to where I when I went to University um I um did two business degrees almost by
2:26
accident uh what I actually wanted to study was um journalism or advertising was kind of persuaded out of it by
2:32
family uh for various reasons and then kind of ended up going into the
2:37
corporate world and then ended up in Consulting and my career kind of continued from there and shortly well
2:45
but maybe about six or seven years into that um realized I was good at what I did but I didn't really enjoy it and
2:50
felt completely lost and then started to really uh think about what I did want to do and I I started working with a coach
2:57
and that was about 16 years ago and then I actually took me on a path that took me in lots of different directions I
The Role of Storytelling and Mythology
3:02
thought I was going to be working on what's my next career move but that's always the tip of the iceberg what I was
3:08
really figuring out was all sorts of stuff about who am I uh what am I here to do what's my mission and that's
3:14
brought me to the things you've described in the introduction that I'm doing now and interestingly I reflect
3:20
back at the P the guy the young guy who wanted to be a journalist and I think that is some of what I'm doing now um
3:26
not just because I I write a lot and and publish stuff but because uh what I'm
3:31
motivated by is trying to figure out what's going on um whether that's in coaching or in consulting or in the work
3:37
I'm doing with men it's my kind of central inquiry is what's really going on here uh and that I think is kind of a
3:43
a journalistic attitude so I guess in some ways I've kind of I've kind of come back to uh to being a journalist yeah so
3:51
it's almost like investigative journalist and you mean what's going on inside each person in society and
3:56
Community how do you how do that kind of walk it yourself out yeah kind of all of those things really it's um so if we if
4:03
we just take coaching for example and being with an individual an individual might come with a particular thing they
4:09
want to work through you know they're been promoted to a senior leadership position or they want to grow their POS
4:14
uh business or they want to exit their business and that's always just the starting point it's it's then always
4:20
there's always much more beneath the surface and that's that's my curiosity it's okay well um you know why do you
4:27
want to do this and what's what's taking you to this Point um what are you looking for next and kind of just
4:32
exploring and seeing where that goes very much like this conversation really it's kind of let's let's see where this
4:37
goes but always with the underlying um desire or intention to
4:43
surface what might be really going on um because that that's where the answers
4:48
really lie yeah I think it's it's kind of crazy because if you're if you're journalistic
4:55
and and then also with advertising and marketing um you know this this is a kind of a strange comparison but you can
5:01
almost compare those things I had I had a friend of mine that had a psychology degree and he was amazing at sales he
5:07
was amazing at product development because at the end of the day the idea is to is to get to know the the customer
5:14
quote unquote and and then to expose their pains and expose how you can
5:21
address those pains which is which is actually very similar to what we do as coaches
5:26
right absolutely yeah I've got a book just there actually my sh I'll just show it to you actually right next to me
5:32
there's a guy called uh Rory southernland who um runs a big advertising agency in the it's a it's a
5:38
global one but it's based in the UK and his that book and his whole thinking is
5:43
about the psychology of decision- making it's about the psychology of consumers and and about um how you craft messages
5:50
and communicate to people using principles of psychology so you know his his kind of lens is uh advertising but
5:57
really it's he's talking about how do we understand people because if you want to be a good Advertiser or brand marketer
6:04
or anything in that space you're really talking about understanding people and
6:09
what motivates people yeah and how do you use that within your own coaching given your background and and all of
6:15
that like how do you use that because you're doing individual coaching you're doing major you know kind of doing organizational work what what's kind of
6:22
your process for using that in the back end and kind of how do you approach because each coach each person that
6:28
deals with people kind of has a different approach um in order how to do
6:34
that yeah I um so I don't have a methodology or a process um
6:40
because um as I've kind of alluded to for for me my Pro my the way I work with
6:47
people and organizations is very fluid so there can be a starting point and a and a kind of framework or structure
6:54
just to kind of anchor the the conversation or the engagement but what happens Within is is really fluid
7:00
because organizations are made up of humans humans themselves are complex uh we're complex and ultimately unknowable
7:07
beings so we're always kind of building hypotheses as we go along going it might be this it might be that and just seeing
7:14
seeing what comes out of those conversations so I don't have a strict process but I guess my uh philosophy if
7:21
we can call it that is to start with the person and to help the person um to
7:27
begin to develop more self-awareness because the more they understand themselves the more they're going to
7:32
understand how they make decisions why they're making decisions why they have a particular ambition or goal what might
7:37
be getting in their way and um and that can go in any direction you know
7:43
um at some point um and and maybe at some point we'll talk about you know
7:49
kind of therapy and coaching and how they're different and how they also overlap I um very I never position
7:56
myself as a therapist because I see that as a very protective profession and requires certain qualifications and yet
8:03
um in my leadership coaching work at some point without me asking uh an individual talk about their childhood
8:09
and their parents always so uh so the there has to be a willingness to be able
8:16
to work with that and and try and join the dots of well how's that relevant to what you want to do now and how how
8:22
might that be influencing what you want to do now and have influenced your journey so far um so it is kind of
8:28
journalistic I guess um the approach that I take yeah and in journalism you
8:34
basically start with kind of this idea of what you think a story particular
8:39
story is going to be but then essentially you you follow you know they
8:44
call it following the lead right like it's you follow where the story the story takes you in a journey because you
8:51
may have a conversation with one person you may come up with a fact from one thing you may see okay this is a
8:56
particular path and that that's really yeah that's so my wife's degree she was a journalism major uh ended up writing
9:04
and all that and I I love investigative journalism and it's a little sad because
9:09
uh it doesn't exist kind of in the same way that it did when you and I were were growing up you know now it's more
9:16
Journal entertainment it's all entertainment right so it doesn't really have that I think our our AB our the
9:22
people that are calling themselves actual journalists now that do the work that we you know think of as journalism
9:29
they're they're few and far few and far between now but I think that's really cool that that that process would would
9:34
continue to to be on a micro and macro level micro man you know with the actual
9:40
the person and then macro when you're dealing with organizations right yeah yeah and and uh I like this macro micro
9:47
macro framing because we can think about it at an individual level organization but then we can also go society and
9:54
world and and what's going on and um because those things can be more related
10:00
than we realize and they are there is always a relationship between those different contexts also you mentioned
10:06
story and I think that's really important because we all have a story about our lives you asked me to introduce myself you gave me an intro
10:12
then I added some context to it and you know I could talk for another couple of hours and give you some version of a
10:17
story you could tell me your story we all have a story we live by a story of the person you know the person we've
10:24
become we can tell a story about that and then we have a story about who we are now and therefore you what we're
10:29
going to do next so I think any development work with a human is about
10:36
um helping them understand what stories they're carrying and actually what stories they want to live going forward
10:42
we're constantly formulating stories and that's kind of what journalism does you're trying to get to the root source
10:47
of some facts but you're never going to have all the facts so you build a certain set of facts and then you create
10:53
a story around those facts um and and that's the way a a journalistic story
11:00
makes sense it has to be a narrative and the same is true for us we don't we're not a collection of data points as human
11:06
beings we're a story um so a lot of the work is around stories it's true in
11:11
organizations as well organizations tell themselves a story a brand is a story country is a story it doesn't exist
11:19
unless it has a narrative and a mythology so um I think that's a that's a a nice way to frame it yeah I didn't
Exploring Masculinity and Gender Roles
11:26
plan on this but I'll I'll I'll go I'll take this analogy a little bit further which is we just said that today's
11:33
journalism I'll put that in quotes is all about entertainment and you use the
11:38
word narrative right and that's the that that has such a negative connotation now um but essentially you take a very small
11:46
amount of fact you rewrap it in the way that you think people need to hear it or
11:52
want to hear it to to make them believe a certain thing about that particular
11:57
story it seems like to me and you can you know feel free to expound on this but that's especially as men but I think
12:04
all people that's what we do right like we rewrite embellish change that our
12:11
internal story to fit kind of this not you know some it's societal some it's
12:17
our own you know our own issues but but to rewrite that narrative in order to fit what we think it should
12:24
say yeah yeah I'd agree with that um and gender is a story genders are
12:31
kind of uh gender is a form of identity and identity is something we kind of form unconsciously mostly and so when I
12:39
think about what does it mean to be a man a question we often explore in our groups or what does masculinity mean
12:46
what we really the the answers we might have already are really stories they're like
12:52
stories about what what the role of man means and that is really rich and
12:57
complex and varied and you know goes back to kind of um mythology you know
13:03
there's so much in ancient mythology that actually still is true now about the way we think about uh gender and
13:10
about men and about women is actually if you look at ancient mythology some of it
13:15
is still true today religion plays a part you know biology plays A Part um
13:20
there's so many things that play a part but it I think I think that's an interesting
13:25
angle that we are living a story when it comes to being a man we're living a role
13:33
really yeah that's you know we I had a I had a guest on last week or week before last and we were talking about he uses
13:40
story from an adventure standpoint in order to help people help men um kind of
13:46
figure out where their identity lies and all that but he has them kind of create characters and in the marketing world we
13:52
call it Avatar you know we we want to create that ideal customer Avatar so we can understand that person
13:59
um but he uses it kind of in his coaching practice in order to help them walk through that can you dig in cuz I'm
14:06
not particularly well-versed on uh you know mythology can you dig into that a
14:12
little bit what you just said about kind of this you know ideology and how everything works and kind of how we
14:18
Define ourselves and and I I'd be particularly interested where that shifts like is it is that based on human
14:26
nature because you know we have thousands of years of of human nature and behavior and those kind of things um
14:33
that's that's kind of my because I I take a pretty conservative approach to all of that stuff not necessarily
14:40
whether I'm right or someone else is wrong but but in my own ideology and belief system that that tends to be uh
14:46
relatively you know traditional I guess you would say uh but I'm interested kind of in that background that you just
14:53
described um so maybe I'll just U I'll give one
14:59
example and it kind of might help to uh explain what what my perspective is um I
15:06
wrote a piece not long ago about the um Prometheus myth and Prometheus was this
15:12
uh Titan in Greek mythology and he's known as uh as a figure myth
15:18
mythological figure he um created Humanity because he uh stole fire from
15:24
the gods he stole fire from Zeus and gave the power of fire as well as many
15:29
other gifts to human beings and for that he was punished he was punished for the rest of his life so um uh and and
15:38
there's so many aspects to that story because well I'll give kind of two aspects to it there's one that um he was
15:44
punished by Zeus so there was this kind of betrayal aspect to this masculine betrayal and so Zeus used his power to
15:50
punish this person and betrayed him even though Prometheus is largely regarded as a kind of noble figure who was kind of
15:57
saying you know humans deserve to have um the these these skills these gifts
16:02
these qualities I want to give them uh elsewhere in the myth is uh Pandora
16:07
appears so the phrase Pandora's Box uh Zeus sends Pandora uh to Earth to
16:14
prometheus's brother who's a less wise character he's a bit of a foolish character to deceive uh prometheus's
16:21
brother and Pandora has been given this box full of things and she's told not to open uh the box so and what we see in
16:28
the myth is that her curiosity gets the better of her and so she opens the box and all of the world's evils and bad
16:34
things fly out and so in just in that we can see how um how women begin to be
16:42
positioned in mythology so Pandora was considered like a punishment to be sent
16:47
to men because women didn't exist until Pandora was sent in this particular myth and also she was told not to open the
16:54
box but she disobeyed because of her innate curiosity so you can kind of see see uh what the Greeks at least had they
17:00
had some ideas about you know men and women and the difference between them and then when we take Prometheus as a
17:06
figure um I mean there's two films that spring to mind because I love connecting it to modern day uh there Prometheus the
17:13
film which is you know the the in the alien Universe uh and Prometheus is kind
17:18
of the concept of that film is that there's um what were they refer to as uh
17:24
Engineers I think who had created Humanity oh yeah I remember yep yeah and and but then the most
17:31
recent one and the film that absolutely blew my mind is Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer is based on um a book called
17:37
American Prometheus which is about it's a it's um a biography of Oppenheimer and
17:43
it's because Oppenheimer created this unbelievable Atomic power but was then
17:49
punished afterwards as we see in the film you know drag Fu sort of Senate hearings and so on uh so he's a kind of
17:54
Promethean figure so we see kind of see these um we see these mythological roles
18:00
and figures and aspects of them play out over and over again we see them in patterns throughout uh history why that
18:06
is we can't say you know we can't say that there there's something innate in biological or whether we're living these myths but there is something interesting
18:13
about when you go back and read these myths you'll immediately connect with them and you immediately see
18:19
figures that throughout history but also in the present day that you can see again and again and again one I often
18:25
use is um James Bond you know James Bond is considered this very masculine sort
18:31
of figure but he's quite a tragic figure as a as a mythological figure um once
18:37
you get beneath the surface of you know the fast cars and the gadgets and the clothes and you know sleeping with lots
18:43
of women would any man really want to be him you know he's got no friends he's got no social life anybody anybody he
18:50
hooks up with dies right anybody hooks up and dies he can't hold down a relationship he's an alcoholic you know
18:57
he's a pretty tragic figure once you get once you get um beneath the surface and you see those sorts of figures in in
19:04
mythology quite often yeah I think you know it's funny that you bring up Bond because I you
19:09
know one of my I think as they got into the Daniel Craig um era of bond I think
19:14
we saw more of that part of of Bond's character and and honestly you know
19:20
truth be told I've never actually read a bond novel so I wouldn't know if that's stuff that they you know when they had
19:27
Sean connory and Roger Moore and and Pierce Brazen and all of those bonds whether or not they just left that
19:33
aspect out of that character but I I particularly enjoyed Daniel Craig as Bond primarily because of that more
19:41
humanistic I said this on another podcast but basically anything that has irreverent humor sort of stuff blows up
19:48
people get shot and cars get driven I'm in like doesn't matter really what it is it could be like the worst movie ever
19:55
but but also to and and you know to have that that kind of that vulnerability
20:00
that Daniel Craig is particularly good at in that character I think is really is really interesting to me yeah I think
20:07
his version of Bon really showed uh the the kind of
20:13
exposed the the fallibility and vulnerability and the the full extent of would you really want to be this guy and
The Complexity of Masculine Archetypes
20:20
I think most guys I think would say actually if I really look at it not a
20:25
life I'd choose and it is um I I've read some of the novels and
20:31
um the he's a much uh in the novels he's a much colder and uh more tragic figure
20:37
he's he's kind of a coldblooded assassin Bond and um as you said a lot of that is
20:43
left out of was left out of uh particularly like Roger Moore uh and Pierce brosen it was kind of left out of
20:49
that Timothy Dalton was quite close to it um Shan connory was a little bit
20:55
closer to it uh and Daniel Craig is kind of almost like a modernized version of it I mean particularly when you go back
21:02
um uh can't remember which film it is where Skyfall where they go back to his childhood home and you you know the
21:09
origin origin story of bond is that he's an orphan um and he's a he's a traumatized orphan who's never deal
21:14
dealt with his childhood so when you start to build in those things he's much more complex character which I think is
21:21
interesting from a masculine perspective and that's what made him a target for
21:26
MI6 right like that's the all right this guy's got no connections we've trained him from however I can't remember at
21:33
what age they kind of got a hold of him but we trained him to be this to be how he is but in his nature you know you
21:41
can't escape your your own nature in that case so I don't know how we got on
21:46
the the bond you know kind of soliloquy but but I think there's a new character
21:52
which is I'm really into Jack Reacher I really like Jack Reacher I don't know if you've seen this on Amazon Prime but
21:58
there's a there's like 25 books also that that have been written I've um I've seen the first film
22:06
I think and I've read one of the books because a friend of mine was raving about it years ago and I read I think I read the first book in the series and um
22:15
and now that it's really interesting you talk about Jack Reacher because when I think when when I think about Jack Reacher and I think about the friend who
22:21
recommended Jack Reacher and what really appealed to him and what I found interesting about the book as well was
22:27
uh his self-sufficiency this is a guy who constantly solves problems and and also
22:35
lives in a similar way to bond lives a really minimalist lifestyle he's constantly on the Move he's got no
22:40
attachments he's got like one t-shirt you know that he washes yeah he just he just buys he actually just buys new
22:46
clothes and throws away whatever he was wearing he always shops it at thft stores right yeah got is it Goodwill
22:53
stores you call them in the US yeah Goodwill what do they call them in the UK
22:58
uh just like charity shops or yeah okay they be they'd be called like charity shops or secondhand shops um but yeah so
23:05
he's kind of um I guess there's a few things there there's Freedom there's self-sufficiency
23:11
there's uh lack of attachment so that appeals to I think another masculine archetype and one that I recognize in
23:18
myself and I think a lot of men have but don't quite perhaps don't act on and
23:24
that's a good thing for in some ways which is hermit solo um uh individual
23:31
you know go and sort of be out there on my own sort of looking after stuff uh
23:37
being self-sufficient that's a very appealing um archetype I think um and
23:43
the way that I think about it is that I indulge it every now and again in healthy ways I do Adventure travel and
23:49
you know I go and spend 24 hours Solo or I'll go and do a fast or something um
23:54
because I think that's important it's important for me I think it's um if you you feel a call to that I think it's always worth getting back to uh
24:02
journalistic approaches getting curious about what you're drawn to what is it you need and how can you incorporate
24:09
that in your life without dropping all your commitments and relationships and going indulging your fantasy because
24:15
those things exist in all of us we all have fantasies about what we really want to be be or have and we have these deep
24:21
desires and I think um healthy human development is not about repressing or
24:27
ignoring those desires it's about admitting they exist and then finding a
24:33
way to either uh enact them safely or process them in some other
24:39
way yeah I you know and I think and I I'd love to kind of know how many men
24:46
that you deal with that actually have found kind of that balance I personally am someone that I'm I'm very content um
24:56
I've been married for 28 years years been my wife been with my wife for 30 my kids are great I live the life that I
25:03
want I've been self-employed for 25 years I've got you know the home I want I I travel you know all of these things
25:11
like I don't you know maybe I'm lying to myself we can delve into that a little bit if I am but uh you know feel free to
25:16
feel Co coach me and ask me questions along the way but you know I I wonder how many men are in that place and I
25:24
think that's one of the things that I feel like I can offer to other men is not hey you need to do these things but
25:31
these are the things that I've done and kind of how I how I get there that being said you know I'm 51 my wife's 50 and we
25:39
we we're comfortable in our own mortality and we kind of talk about those things and uh I basically said if
25:47
you die I've had my the love of my life right like I have no desire I have no
25:52
desire to remarry or anything like that like it's not even on the on the radar because because maybe that's my secret
25:59
hermit desire right like like okay I'm I'm done with that and I'll just I'll just kind of be with my friends and
26:06
family and go I joke and say I'll take the two weener dogs sausage dogs as you guys call them which I have I'll go live
26:13
I'll go live on a boat in the Caribbean and be you know some some tour guide or
26:18
whatever but yeah I'm interested to know your thoughts about all that and kind of how how readily are we finding men that
26:27
have you know a really good sense of who they are and where they are in their own
26:33
lives yeah I guess um I mean but by the way you just articulated a beautiful
26:38
fantasy it's like you know if if if you if you do end up on your own then you you'll go and live on this boat in the Caribbean with the dogs and I mean
26:45
beautiful right and that's not to say you should go and enact that fantasy but you you're aware that you know that is
26:51
what you do and there is a part of you that would um that would survive or not just survive that that would Thrive so
26:57
right um hard to hard to generalize I guess about men but I can talk about the men that have been in our groups and and
27:04
and what we kind of see in those groups and I think one of the biggest things so so we our conversation groups they run
27:11
for eight weeks and they're free and we do them online and we have guys from all over the world and we always ask the
27:16
group what they want to talk about uh so as far as possible it's the group deciding what they want to talk about
27:21
every now and again we might drop in a suggestion but it's mostly the group deciding and what we've seen over three
The Desire for Connection and Community
27:27
years now now of these groups is the same sort of themes um reappear the guys
27:33
want to talk about so it's things like relationships work uh stress money
27:39
um sometimes they want to talk about masculinity and what it actually means to be a man they want to actually
27:44
explore that question uh and actually all of the things I mentioned are usually centered around that question
27:50
whether it's money or relationships or stress it's kind of centered around and how am I experiencing those things as a
27:56
man so they're the kind of themes we talk about in our conversations but over the course of these conversations the
28:02
kind of one of the threads throughout hosting these conversations is a sense
28:08
of loneliness amongst men I think um there's a real desire for Community for
28:14
for connection with men in a way that's more intimate than a lot of guys get to
28:20
uh experience male friendships um there's a lot of research coming out now a lot of conversation now about male
28:25
mental health and uh loneliness and uh suicide and and disconnection and how
28:32
men struggle uh to form and uh sustain friendships and um I think what they're
28:38
seeking is perhaps something we all need really as humans is some sense of community some sense of belonging uh
28:44
even if we were Hermits you know a two hermit is quite rare but most of us need other people in some in some form um and
28:52
that we've we've launched that recently we've now got an online community which we started at the uh start this year as
28:58
an ongoing space for guys to just convene and share resources and ideas and we host a started hosting a monthly
29:04
call just for guys to to come together so um so that's that's that's probably
29:10
one of the main things I'm seeing in in our work with with men and before like be you know we'll
29:16
put this at the end but where would they find that if they just get to this EP part of the episode where where would they go to find that those free
29:23
communities yeah so they can uh our website is leader brotherson okay uh and um you can find on there our
29:30
free circles it's just called circles uh you can also find on there kinship and kinship is the name of our online
29:37
community which is just ongoing um and has started recently and it's kind of growing and growing okay great I I'm I'm
29:44
trying to practice putting these things in the middle of the episode just in case anybody's noticing I'm starting to kind of try to integrate some of this so
29:51
people because you never know how far people listen so I want to make sure we give the give the resources as we go along I'm interested cuz I've talked to
29:57
so many guests on this podcast that say the same thing this you know Community um
30:03
loneliness and all that do you find you know again like I said before we started it's like this is for my own edification
30:09
and and I'm super happy people listen along but do you find that men that have
30:16
strong family community like whether it's you know I mean I consider my marriage to be exemplary you know we
30:23
have we have tons of stuff that we can deal with all the time but but overall it gets better and happier all the time
30:30
and so I I would love to have more friends but I don't have like a deep
30:36
sense of loneliness and those kind of things and again I'm not saying I'm better than anybody else I'm just trying to understand what that big Miss like is
30:44
it because we're lacking in some of those areas or it's or it's like someone
30:49
can be you know happily married have great kids have a great job but still
30:55
since this you know huge huge point of loneliness and and lack of community yeah I think uh the way I
31:03
think about loneliness it's it's not um it's not the quantity of relationships
31:10
it's the quality of connection and so I think you can be in a long-standing
31:16
marriage or family and be lonely uh equally you can have very few friends
31:22
and just have your family and be deeply fulfilled because the quality of those
31:28
relationships is very good it's very high it's very it allows you to feel um
31:34
uh that you're expressing yourself that you're being yourself and you're being seen and heard and felt you know these basic human uh human needs uh I'm also
31:42
very happily married um to a person I believe is my soulmate uh we had a baby
31:47
eight months ago you know I congrat absolutely thank you um very very happy
31:53
with my family uh and I am someone who doesn't need many friends friends you know unfortunate to know lots of people
31:59
but my close close friends is probably no more than five or six guys and because I've a couple of years ago I
32:05
left the UK and moved to uh Germany to Berlin I don't see those guys that often anymore um and what I have noticed is a
32:13
uh A Drop In My Level of feeling connected um because those relationships
32:19
were important to me so now you know we have to try and connect in different ways you know phone calls and catching
32:24
up on uh occasional trips um but everyone needs different things uh you
32:30
know connection or lack of is is different for everyone and some people um I think it's more about having it
32:37
somewhere in your life finding it somewhere in your life and it feeling it really giving you a sense of
Loneliness and the Quality of Relationships
32:44
um belonging that's kind of sustainable so you you can find it in
32:52
work for example but but will it always sustain will it always be there and you know there's a
32:58
lot of research about what happens to people when they retire men in particular because often when they
33:04
retire by the time they retire they haven't cultivated friendships out work or outside work or relationships outside
33:10
work and suddenly that drops off a cliff and not just their um connection but
33:15
their purpose their meaning in life drops off a cliff uh and in Japan they have this um they call it the salary man
33:22
uh the man who's dedicated to work who at times worked himself to death this
33:27
this phenomenon of kosi where men Japanese men work themselves to death it's been known that when Japanese men
33:34
uh get to the end of their career and often they've stayed with the same company they're so bereft of identity
33:40
and and purpose they commit suicide now that's that's kind of an
33:45
extreme example because that's some rare cases in Japan but it does happen it's a known phenomenon but I see variations of
33:51
that in most of the developed World um uh in in developed economies that there is this real imesh with work that can
33:59
never I think my personal perspective can't really give you the level of connection and an intimacy that a human
34:06
being needs yeah we were talking about this the other day that we you know we were
34:11
we actually was at a trade show last week and with the um I one of my Consulting clients we're actually there
34:17
at this trade show and we were talking kind of as a group um I was the only non- full-time employee but we were we
34:23
were basically discussing hey if if I get hit by a truck within a week someone else is going to
34:29
come and fill this role like the company just doesn't you know is not a widower of me that just that just spends
34:37
the next 10 or 15 years kind of figuring out what they're going to do no you're just you're
34:43
replaceable and and so like how do you I think so many men in particular wrap
34:48
their entire identity around that and I'm I'm guilty of that I'll rep my I'm A
34:53
Serial entrepreneur I own multiple companies and have tons of different brands and projects and all that kind of
34:59
stuff um and I'm guilty of saying you know hey what do you do and I will
35:04
explain it I am an entrepreneur right like that's my that that becomes part of
35:09
my identity and and so I actually have purposely as I meet people especially men I will say what do you do for work
35:18
like trying to get them at least to think about because I don't want them to to Define who they are by what they do
35:25
to make money you know I made I made a huge I made a huge error whenever I was
35:31
younger in the corporate world climbing the corporate ladder you know highly
35:36
successful and oh I forgot that I had a brand new baby at home and a young wife
35:42
right and she was a stay-at-home mom and and it almost cost me my marriage and my family because I had I had so dedicated
35:49
that and I remember her saying we're we're the ones that are going to be here and she was she was right I've since you
35:55
know I left that company 25 years ago yeah but but and it's so easy to
36:00
sacrifice because you have that purpose and you feel like you're getting accolades and in my case like I didn't
36:08
know you know you've got an eight-month-old I assume that's your first child and so if you're dealing with your
36:13
first child like I was like I don't know I had weird terrible upbringing but like I don't know how to handle a kid a baby
36:20
I don't know what to do and so but I was really good at what I did at my work and
36:26
so CH I chose to take the easy path on what was the most fulfilling for me and
36:31
I think a lot of men do that with their marriages with their family with their interpersonal relationships because and
36:38
to your point they get to the end of the road on that and all the crap they should have spit the last 40 years
36:43
building doesn't exist anymore yeah yeah yeah I mean we all know that we all know
36:49
the cliche right no one on their deathbed says I wish I'd spent more time in the office uh and it's it's there's so much
36:57
in what you've just said I think about uh gender roles and how we socialized
37:03
and the masculine idea of what a man should do as a provider and
37:09
and and to be clear I don't think being a provider is a bad thing I don't think that's a bad role that that men should
37:15
avoid taking up it's about the extent to which we're taking up and how how it fits with the rest of our life and you
37:20
know I've I've I've become a parent much later in life than most people I'm 46 um so later in life than most people um but
37:28
I'm also really grateful for that because I've learned so much and I'm at a stage of life where I work myself I
37:34
work from home I earn far less money than I used to but I wouldn't change it for the world because I'm around all day
37:39
and I get so much contact with my son and I see my wife all the time and it's amazing uh I we often think back to you
37:48
know when we were both working for companies and we had to go to an office or a place of work and I would have been
37:53
leaving at you know say 7:30 in the morning and coming home at s if you know maybe later and if I think about that
37:59
doing that now and the lack of contact I have with my son it's Unthinkable to me it's Unthinkable that I would do that um
38:06
but I was also in that rat race you know I used to used to work for large organizations so um it's a very very
38:15
um pentious kind of role uh or pressure
38:21
or socialization on men to to take up this role and it can sustain you for quite a while particularly if you're
38:27
doing well and you're you're you know you're getting the promotions and you're getting the bigger office and you're getting uh lots of money um but it can't
38:35
sustain you forever unfortunately yeah like yeah unfortunately it can probably sustain
38:41
you for decades until it it's like it's all great until it isn't
38:47
right yeah yeah my kids were home my kids were homeschooled my wife was a
38:53
stay-at-home mom so I you know we we grew up together as a as a family we
38:58
could travel and we had a we had a vacation home in Orlando so we would actually go down there during the winter
Living a Fulfilling Life and Pursuing Adventures
39:04
time and like but this was like our our life right and like you said I could have made more money in the corporate
39:10
world probably I could have had more quote unquote you know traditional success um but yeah that's that only
39:16
lasts for so long I you know thoughts just occur to
39:21
me you were talking earlier about when we were talking about uh sort of underlying desire and Fantasies and you
39:27
described how happy you are with your family and your life and what you're doing and um and it was almost like
39:34
you're wondering well what I think I've got everything I want so what's my underlying but it it could be that
39:40
you're living them right you're like you're you're doing this podcast you said for your edification right you're
39:45
you're you're you're you're doing the thing you want to do you've got multiple businesses that clearly gives you
39:50
something that makes you uh feel fulfilled and it sounds like you've organized it around the other things are
39:56
important in your life um so there there is perhaps you've integrated some of
40:01
your desires and Fantasies yeah I think so I always you know it's funny because like on one of my Facebook I think my
40:08
Instagram Pro profile I actually say living my bucket list so like I've actually made it a point and it's it's
40:15
you know there's this idea that you have this bucket list of things that you want to die or be do before you die and I I I
40:22
realized probably 10 or 15 years ago that I had done everything on my original list and I have to keep and I
40:29
keep doing that I keep having to rewrite and add more things to my bucket list
40:34
because I I keep doing all the things on the list and that's a and again there's
40:39
no humble brag or anything like this hopefully that's inspiring for for men to take that back in 2008 we kind of
40:47
made a family shift our kids were maybe fifth and sixth grade and we made this
40:53
shift to say yes to life and we talk about taking the entrepreneurial approach to life we pulled our kids out
40:59
of school for three and a half months this is they they were homeschooled after this but before that they had been
41:05
in Elementary School uh I think they called Primary School there in the UK um
41:11
but we pulled them out and we did a 34 state road trip around the United States
41:16
12,000 miles over a 100 days 34 states we saw the entire early American history
41:22
and saw the whole you know I'm one of those guys that if you say how many states have you been to it's all of them
41:28
so I've actually been to every state in the United States but that began a series of decision making my wife turned
41:35
from a homemaker to welder rally car racer you know like building cars doing
41:43
trade shows and all of these things because we decided we were going to continue to live that yes life it's like
41:50
say in business a lot of times they'll say when the customer asks you a question the answer is always yes yes
41:57
and then you you just figure out a way to make it happen because that's like good customer service so we took that
42:02
approach to our lives and and to your point earlier about friendships I only
42:07
have a handful of friends but almost but basically all of my close friends are all over the world and so this is like
42:14
this would be the way that I interact with them and by text or Whatsapp or all of those things so I'm able to maintain
42:21
those those relationships but yeah to to answer a question that is kind of what I
42:26
try to do with my life yeah and well that that's such a beautiful example as well of doing that sort of travel doing
42:33
that going on those um experiences together I mean that's phenomenal you're never going to regret that I mean no it
42:39
reminds me um my kind of la la pretty much my last permanent job was um I was
42:48
working for a small consulting firm and we kind of troubled in size over three years and it' been an amazing journey to
42:53
be part of that uh but again it was starting to feel corporate and confining
42:58
to me and it wasn't really what I wanted to do so I asked for a sabatical and um and they didn't have a sabatical policy
43:04
so they gave me a sabatical because I think they knew I'd leave otherwise and they gave me three months off and um and
43:11
and I asked it because I had this Call to Adventure and I don't know where this Call to Adventure came from but I had to pay attention to it and I got this idea
43:17
in my head of I'm going to cycle down the west coast to the US and I didn't even own a bike so I got this like gave
43:24
me permission for this sabatical I bought this bike this touring bikee in March and in May I set off with my then
43:31
girlfriend at the time and we cycled down the west coast of the states uh and that took sort of five weeks we we sort
43:37
of stayed in a few places and stayed in San Francisco for a bit and I came back from that trip a different person and
43:43
there is something about doing that sort of travel something about um just going
43:48
for responding to back to responding to a call to something a desire and I didn't fully abandon my
43:55
life I managed to sort of you know make sure I had a job to come back to I actually quit as soon as I got back um
44:02
but they like damn it yeah I just I can't do this anymore um but there is
44:09
there is something um it's hard to describe the feeling of
44:14
really responding to that call that is coming from the soul and and just saying I've got to do something about this and
44:21
I did and I I didn't have that much money in the bank at the time and I
44:26
never ever regret that I still think about that trip now how do we I think
44:32
all of us have that inside of us right like how do we we all have that sense of
44:37
of Adventure and wanting to do those things and it doesn't have to be a three-month trip like you and I both
44:42
took which is ironic that it's three months-ish how do why do men not and I
44:48
assume I know the answer to this but why don't men lean into that um why don't
44:55
and and what keeps men from actually stepping out and and having that
45:00
adventure and then how can men build up to that not everybody wants to I'm one
Overcoming Fear and Taking Control of Your Life
45:07
of these thing I'm one of these guys that I'm in control of my own life and my own destiny right like it I'm not a
45:14
big I can't guy like because if if you want to do something you can figure out
45:20
a way to do that that trip that even that trip around the United States I think we spent at that time $4 or $5,000
45:29
which is it is a lot of money you know that's not that's not a an a low amount
45:34
of money I'm guessing your bike trip the bike was one of the most expensive things on that you know and food and
45:42
food and hostels or low lowcost hotels or camping or whatever you did but it's
45:47
people men in in particular kind of wear this weight and I call it the half toos
45:53
of life like you you wear this weight of the have to and you forget that you are actually in
45:58
in control of the get to part of your life like just just like that whole just
46:05
do it thing is a little cliche but at some point if you want to do these things you can probably figure out a way
46:12
to get past your fear and make it happen yeah absolutely and I
46:17
um I see more and more men actually doing that which is really encouraging um I had coffee with a friend here the
46:24
other day a German friend and he uh his his baby's due in uh a couple of months
46:30
his first baby and he's taking a full year off from work he's he gets full paternity leave and he's taking the full
46:36
year and he is delighted he cannot wait to have this year off with his with his new baby and his and his wife um so uh
46:44
and I have another friend who really sort of career focused guy but he took uh the maximum paternity leave he could
46:51
in the UK when his first son was born and they went to Japan for five weeks uh
46:57
with their little baby and they just have the most amazing trip like once in a lifetime trip so I see I see more and
47:02
more guys doing this uh perhaps of a certain generation uh what does it take or how
47:08
do we respond to that call it really varies for every person and and and I think travel is just one way of doing
47:16
that you know for for me I often talk to my wife you know there kind of I have these polarities on the one hand I'd
47:22
love to just go and climb a mountain and you I love mountains and going and doing adventure travel on the other hand I get really nourished
47:28
by sitting in a room on my own and reading a book as well and that for me is a different form of uh nourishing and
47:35
and filling myself up so um it's finding uh ways to do that that are easy First
47:41
Steps perhaps and something I often recommend to clients is um well something my coach gave to me and you
47:48
know is has been passed on by many people is this idea of the solo spending time just alone uh and I did a I did a
47:55
vision recently where you spend four days four nights alone fasting and my coach had done that many many years ago
48:02
she uh recommended to me years ago just do 24 hours alone no distractions no
48:09
stimuli no talking to anyone no food for 24 hours and I did it and it was um a
48:15
really really uh insightful and striking experience and I tried to do something like that quite regularly when I say
48:22
this to clients I sometimes say let's make it as small as possible just do hour find one hour in your schedule
48:28
where you sit in a room you don't have to meditate you don't have to do anything at all other than be on your own without any distractions and just
48:36
just see what happens just see what it feels like see what comes up and usually there's a a look of fear comes over
48:42
their face Ju Just in spending one hour alone they start looking for their phone how do I sneak you know how
48:49
do exactly yeah you know where's my phone notebook do I take a notebook do no just an hour alone uh so it's finding
48:57
these micro ways of of doing the things again responding to the fantasy you know
49:03
if the if you if we dream of I want to go to the Caribbean and you know get a yacht or something well what's a tiny
49:10
way you can do that you know and sometimes I I watch a lot of Adventure films because I can't go and do all the
49:15
adventures I want and I get a huge amount just from watching an Adventure film um it can really sort of give me it
49:24
can fill me up for a bit in the absence of you know going to the Alps or the Rockies or wherever yeah and I think Men
49:30
A lot of times don't even know what that fantasy is like they they may have like an inkling or they may borrow their own
49:38
fantasy from like you said an Adventure film or Bond film or book or um you know
49:43
something they see on social or whatever but I think they doing those little micro escapes um and Escape may be the
49:51
the wrong word but doing those little micro things may be the way to begin begin to explore your your own adventure
Exploring Adventure and Fantasy
49:59
your own fantasy like what could this look like if I had more time I had a conversation with a buddy of mine um
50:07
actually a couple days ago and he was talking about this 10day trip he did he went overlanding and overlanding if
50:14
you're if you're not familiar with this basically you have a self-contained vehicle and you go camping but you drive
50:20
to different locations so we went to three or four states and but he was he's like I had and you know this is America
50:26
so I had my pistol for protection I I had my Bible I had a few books and that
50:32
was it and I was in areas where my cell phone didn't even work um he said I used
50:38
my cell phone for music and that was it and it was he said I cannot wait to get back and do that again right and so
50:45
that's part of that but that's 10 days right you're talking about doing it for an hour I use the sauna I have a little
50:52
sauna that I built in my house and so I'll use that 30 minutes or 20 minutes whatever to be in the sauna to do that I
50:59
use my I walk on the treadmill first thing in the morning and that's part of that you can do different things and
51:05
then begin to explore and do uh longer times yeah Absol I love what you're
51:11
saying all whatever form you use it's about creating a space to just be with
51:19
yourself and seeing what emerges in that space you know so there and going back to mythology
51:27
mythology religion they all somewhere in all religions is a practice of um
51:33
Solitude you know Jesus went into the desert and you can see variations of that in most major religions uh practice
51:39
of pilgrimage or or um or going and spending time uh on your own
51:45
somewhere and whatever form you take it allows
51:50
things to surface that are worth paying attention to and I often find I I
51:56
meditate every morning and often find just images and thoughts and things will come sometimes they're the most
52:01
surprising things there are things that I wasn't even aware I still remembered
52:06
and when they some of these things it's like why is that coming up now now that I've allowed space fit why is it coming
52:11
up or do I need to pay attention to it and that can happen on you know I go for
52:16
a long run or cycling or something the same thing can happen it can happen in dreams as well you know Dream Work is I
52:22
don't do dream work but I know people who are really um experienced practitioners it's it's where deeper
52:28
parts of yourself your unconscious can start to release some images and some of those desires fantasies uh other things
52:36
that need to be surfaced and they can be Clues as to what you need to pay attention to it's it's rarely you need
52:43
to go on a cycling trip or you need to go to you know kind of uh Montana but it
52:49
is there's usually something that comes up is worth worth just being curious about and that can give you the clues as
52:55
your saying to maybe I need to pay attention to this desire that I don't get to give space to yeah and I I like
53:02
the idea of giving space to it like being able to allow yourself to do some more of those things that you want to do
53:08
or get to do versus because I think I mean for me personally there's always a list of have toos like there's always
Creating Space for Self-Exploration
53:14
going to be more work there's always going to be more chores there's always going to be things that I need to do around the house and and uh but to
53:20
really you know to have some sort of practice to be able to get alone and and to explore that I think is great I want
53:28
I want to be respectful of your time but I want to ask one kind of what do you feel and you you can be as you know
53:35
brief or long as you want on this where are we at in terms of men and masculinity I know that in the US it
53:42
probably looks a little bit different than it does in the UK and Germany however I think there's you know there's
53:47
probably more similarities than differences um because I think it's a weird it's actually a great time to be a
53:54
man but it's also kind of a a a weird time to be a man you know especially
54:00
someone that tends to lean more towards like myself right like I kind of you know my wife and I are pretty gender
54:07
role what we you know kind of more traditional gender roles as you would expect in in America and we're totally
54:13
fine with that like that's that's our that's kind of you know I'm a workout guy and I go build things and work on
54:20
cars and shoot guns and all that you know American probably American West
54:26
culture um but and and I don't judge other people if they don't do that but
54:33
that also is like I'm an upper middle class white guy like I'm the enemy to
54:38
society these days it in some ways an American society but I'm curious like
54:43
what like what you feel like where we are as men and masculinity and kind of how we lean into that how we help other
54:51
men to lean into whatever their own version of masculinity looks like CU I think that's just a great thing to
54:58
explore yeah um a long answer would be too long I
The Confusion of Men and Masculinity
55:04
think so I'll give a I'll give I'll give a a short answer I think um um I think
55:10
there's a lot of confusion um right now um there are commonalities I think
55:15
between the US and UK and other sort of developed uh countries um a confusion about what uh
55:24
men's role should be um there it's become very political um and there's
55:31
these kind of there seems to be an unnecessary War about uh gender and um
55:38
uh in a kind of some of it I find uh counterproductive in in this drive for
55:45
being more Progressive and I would describe myself as fairly Progressive person but we're in danger of replacing
55:51
one set of uh gender roles or norms and saying these are outdated and just simply
55:58
providing a new set and and that's not healthy either to say you need to you now need to conform to this and I think
56:04
where I where I generally land and it's hard to give a sort of single fixed answers on this but where I generally
56:10
land is kind of what you've described about yourself and your wife are both
56:15
people or whoever comfortable with the roles they've taken up are they
56:20
conscious and aware it sounds like you're quite conscious and aware of the sort of person you are and this is what I do
56:25
are they happy with that because if if they are and they're not harming anyone else then then it doesn't matter um I
56:33
have a friend here who had another friend who I had coffee with and and he
56:38
uh described himself as uh patriarchal and he was kind of saying it feels like I you know society's telling me I
56:45
shouldn't be like this and when I asked him what he meant by patriarchal uh he is someone who um he
56:52
does a lot of stuff with his hands he fixes stuff he he loves cars he takes care of things he really takes
56:57
responsibility for things he organizes things you know he's kind of um just
57:02
really sort of um organizing arranging fixing uh in that way that U might be
57:10
considered uh patriarchal and he was actually in one of our men's groups and when he shared that in one of our men's
57:16
groups someone said to him well that's that's not patriarchal that's someone who takes responsibility and you you should be you
57:22
should be proud about that and it was a really uh useful framing for him reframing for him so I I think uh I
57:29
guess where I land the short the short answer I can give is um there is confusion I think it's about coming back
57:35
to what we were talking about earlier find out who you are and really are and
57:42
kind of work with that rather than sort of trying to fit into some external role
57:48
or what the world is telling you you must be yeah I tend to take a a a fairly
57:53
libertarian approach to the whole thing like it's like I you know I I don't need to like this is this is my life this is
58:00
what I believe about myself this is how my wife and I and our family kind of do our thing and like I don't I don't need
58:05
you to do that in order for me to be happy and to feel fulfilled I don't really care what you do right like
58:11
that's a that's that's up to you to make those decisions and and I think if you know honestly I think if to your point
58:18
it becomes politicized and it's like we're making a big deal out of stuff that doesn't need to Big be a big deal
58:24
and I think if we all just mind our own business a little bit more we we would we would probably all be all be happier
58:31
and healthier and I I love that that that you shared that about his thought because I would I wouldn't call myself I
58:37
would actually probably refer to myself in the same way patriarchal but to that person's point
58:43
that you know corrected him like I'm one that like I'll push my wife out if if
58:49
we're going to get mugged she stands behind me not the other way around right like I will that's I'm the protector and
58:57
provider and you know not and dude she's a badass like there there's 100% she's a
59:03
boxer so technically I should probably put her in front of me if there's no weapons involved but but so I don't I
59:11
don't discount her ability to do that but that I feel like that that's my role it it to be that protector and provider
59:19
and and I am the guy that gets things I fix things I also break things but I fix
59:24
things you know and so those are you know so I think that's okay and I think the point is that like whatever role
59:31
that you have continue to explore that but not in lie of you know don't say
59:37
well this is what Society tells me to that I can or can't be like try to
59:42
figure out who it is who you are as a person and as a man that fits your own you know where you want to
59:49
be yeah well it's interesting to um read
Reframing Men's Roles
59:54
some uh feminist authors and feminist thinkers on this and they firstly there's no single uh View and secondly
1:00:02
it's really I found it really striking how much they share this sort of view and so to take one very contemporary
1:00:09
example Esther Perell uh talks a lot about masculinity she's talking been talking a lot about masculinity recently
1:00:16
and she said something like we've had 50 years of feminism that's allowed women to reexamine their role and you know
1:00:21
that's still a work in progress and you know we're tearing down structures and barriers that prevent women from living
1:00:27
in their fullest expression but she said we haven't given men the same opportunity we haven't given men the
1:00:33
chance to reframe what their role is and kind of rethink what their role is and who they want to be because they're
1:00:39
still confined to a role a particular role or a particular idea of what it means to be a man so that's the work I
1:00:45
think that's where we are now to come back to your question that's that's the work that we need to do with
1:00:51
men I think it's a great place to startop I I think that's you know that's that's um as micro says and I say this
The Work to be Done
1:00:58
on all the podcasts but I think that's a great place to land the plane so to speak I think there's a lot of work to
1:01:03
be done I think unfortunately now the feminist movement is going to struggle because of some of the weird stuff
1:01:09
that's going on and you know we're all we're we're a people that struggles to figure out who we are individually and
1:01:16
um yeah let's let's just continue to work and have conversations and and do that do that you know quote unquote deep
1:01:22
work and you know go out spend an hour go out spend 24 hours go out spend 10 days or three months whatever that looks
1:01:28
like for you um you know really start to have that time together hey this is this is amazing I really appreciate I know we
1:01:36
didn't really know which direction we were go and then you know an hour later I think we I think we had some great discussion how do people find you again
1:01:43
um let's go ahead and put that out there yeah uh it's to so my coaching practice
1:01:49
is selfish leader so selfish leer.com uh the work I do with manam masculinity is
1:01:55
leader brothers sun.com and you can find me on LinkedIn it's the only social media I use really uh gindy man I don't
1:02:02
think as many of us on Linkin uh you can find me on there uh I've got a couple of newsletters they're on the websites um
1:02:08
you can sign up there okay that's awesome yeah I um you're probably a healthier person by just being on
1:02:14
LinkedIn uh mentally mentally especially and staying off the other socials um for
1:02:19
sure and you can find us speaking of Socials we're on Tik Tok and Instagram and Facebook and I'm on there personally as well well maxed outman you can search
1:02:26
for that or maxed out man.com and I hope you listen to other podcasts make sure you rate and review if you can and uh
1:02:32
hey jindy I appreciate this this has been awesome hope you enjoy the rest of your day you too Kevin really enjoyed
1:02:38
this thank you if you're looking to really maximize your life and become the
1:02:43
man you were made to be head over to maxed out man.com and get your journey
1:02:49
started today