Dating Coach REVEALS Why Men & Women Struggle

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I don't feel empowered. I'm going to put power over so that I can feel empowered. Sounds to me like bolly. Well, it is, 100%. So for me, firstly, it's not about manning up. It's about manning in accountability. Ownership, responsibility. Is this why so many people are struggling with dating right now? We make decisions from very wobbly places in our own psychology, and we choose partners that reflect the brokenness that we think we are. It's not like that quote, we accept the love we think we deserve. And we pursue the love we think we deserve as well constantly. I've also had men come to me and say, I want my woman to be more feminine or women come to me. I want my man to be more masculine. Interesting. How do you respond? I think life is an inside job. Whenever we want to change anything outside of us, the first place I'll go to is also that's interesting. Tell me more about what you actually want to change within yourself. I've seen a lot of comments on my TikTok videos, my Instagram clips from men who have been hurt by a woman and have now gone in the direction of, I f*cking hate all of them. How do we help those people? It's simple answer. What I'm most curious to start on is how do you define, truly define masculine and feminine, 2026? I don't think it's any different to how it has been defined for potentially thousands of years from various spiritual traditions, which is they are simply contrasted energies and ways of doing and being in the world, masculine quote unquote doing. Feminine being, right? That live within us and their practices, their actions, their energetics, the ways of seeing the world, the ways of thinking. I don't think that's changed. I think the cultural layers that were the cultural perception that we've layered on top of that over the years as culture has expressed itself differently in different regions of the world. Gives it somewhat new meaning, but I think the substance of it has really changed. It's the way of expressing living, authenticating, growing in the world. How did we end up in a scenario, though, where people hear masculine and they think, man, and they hear feminine and they think woman? It was I think there's some truth to that. It's not absolute truth, but there's truth to that. You know, I'm not a historian per se. I mean, I'm avid study of history in different areas, which I just, I love, I'm passionate, but I'm not a historian per se. So I couldn't give you the sort of while we've come to this place, but I think over the years, generally speaking, when one group of people, AKA women, experience oppression, there has to be a slingshot effect that comes with that, right? There's distortions in society, there's compensations that happen, there's suppression and repression, there's pain and fear and it circulates. And eventually everything wants to find itself, it's way back to homeostasis. You know, masculine and feminine dynamics are the two wings of the same bird. You know, they live within every single one of us. And if we feel unharmonized within, we'll do what we can sometimes in extreme ways to create harmony internally and externally. - I have heard at some point, there's a big element of masculine and feminine, which is actually how you, how you work through information, logically or emotionally. - Sure. - What's your take on that? And I sometimes, I find myself at a dinner party or at a bar and I'm like, well, hold on, this masculine actually means like work through things logically and feminine actually means work through things emotionally and everyone's like, shut the hell up. - Come on, dude. So I don't really know like how to best think about it in layman's terms, right? And the way that you would talk about it at a dinner party and it not be obnoxious. - Sure, so just remove, remove the terms masculine and feminine. If only I think it bothers you per se, but if someone is bothered by that or they haven't reconciled what those terms mean to them or they have an emotional charge or an aversion to those terms, you can replace those terms because they're just energetics. Again, they're ways of living life that live within each of us that help create contrast. Contrast creates, this is a bit of a paradox, but contrast creates richness in learning where we come back into self. So we need to be almost separate to come back into homeless, right? So I heard Michaela Baum who's a teacher in this space in sacred sexuality and polarity and so forth, doing and being energy, go and flow energy, active passive energy, young, in energy, just use those terms, right? Take the charge out of it, take the associational, the judgment out of it. If someone has that, look, and I would also recommend, hey, if you have a judgment around those terms, if you have an emotional charge around those terms, it may be worth looking into where that comes from and where it lives within you. It's just information, right? It could benefit you. And also in the interim, remove it and just look at those energetics from that perspective. And that could be helpful. Sure. - Yeah. - To what extent is masculine energy, feminine energy in all of us? Just regardless of gender, 100%. I mean, I feel like I know tons of women that are outrageously masculine as you would all interpret and vice versa. - Sure. - And then that shows up in fascinating ways in their work life, in their romantic life and kind of how they integrate with partners, talking about this a little bit. I've never, I've never had a man. I've been in personal transformation for 25 years. Backgrounds in psychology, behavioral science, trauma, semantics, all that area, polarity, dynamics, relationships, dating, intimacy. I've never had a man come to me and say, I want to be more feminine, per se. I've never had a woman come to me saying, I want to be more masculine. In the realm of dating and intimacy, per se. - And have you had them each come to you and say, I want to be more masculine or women say, I want to be more masculine? - Yes. Very much so. And I've also had men come to me and say, I want my woman to be more feminine or women come to me. - Interesting. How do you respond? - In varied ways, but often how I will respond is, I think life is an inside job, right? And anything that is external to us is a reflection of us, but it's also a convenient excuse to not look what's happening within us. And so whenever we want to change anything outside of us, the first place I go to is also, that's interesting. But tell me what would, if you did change something within yourself, how you'd attract differently or receive differently or experience differently, right? - Back to your original statement around a question around men and masculinity, women and femininity, I've never, this is really interesting. Well, I'm curious. Let me ask you a question if you don't mind. - Oh, please. - Have you ever experienced a woman wanting to be more masculine in their intimate relationship? - Yes, but I don't think she never came out and said to me, I'm looking to be more masculine. - Yeah, have you ever heard a woman say that? I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm sure it does, but I'm just curious if you have. And have you ever heard a man saying, or indicating that they want to be more quite a quite feminine in their relationship? That might be a little more popular. That might be a little, that might happen a little more often given the last 10 to 15 years of Western culture here in the US particularly. - I have heard men say, like I want to, I want to, I have heard I want to do less than just be more. And I think, and that's more being more fair. - Yeah, which is, I think a sophisticated way of saying that. - I also think it's a valuable way. I'm sorry, I also think it's a valuable statement. - Totally. - As well, I think we do too much. And I think we do too much from the quote unquote wrong places within ourselves. I think it's a compensation. I think we need to be more. I believe that more of us could use more feminine, quote unquote feminine energy in our lives. More being energy, more settling down and slowing down. And being more present. - Yeah. - That's not a bad thing. It's a healthy thing. - Totally, in short, to answer both, have I heard women say I want to be more masculine and a man say I want to be more feminine. In their day, I haven't really heard. I have heard a lot, especially in this last six months to a year, women I know through friends, people I work with, whoever, saying, I want to be in my feminine more. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. - Which, yeah. - My wife and I have a program we're running since 2019 called Be the Queen. And it's about, it's for women dating, wanting to refine and evolve the nature of women. their relationships to themselves, of course, but to the type of men they're attracting largely for heterosexual women. And so many of them want to touch these deeper aspects of femininity. And they love some of them entrepreneurs and their business women and their CEOs and they love being in that doing energy or masculine energy or active energy and their work. And they don't necessarily want that in their intimate lives in their romantic partnerships. They want to be able to soften and surrender and receive and be led and so forth. And that can be very aggravating, activating terminology for some people, especially women that have been hurt by the masculine either collectively and/or individually. And that hurts to live in their bodies. I totally get that. And again, that's a call the right of passage. Call it a process for them to move through where they don't need to keep living with that hurt anymore because it's not fair on them. They live with that hurt, right? They live with that. I don't trust men. I don't trust the masculine. So I'll be more of that to suffice for it. But there's an emptiness that they feel. And I'm generalizing here. But again, that's my anecdotal lived experience as a coach and teacher in the space. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've seen it probably way more than I have to. But I've seen a lot of comments on my TikTok videos, my Instagram clips from men who have been hurt by a woman. Let's call it one time and have now gone in the direction of, I fucking hate all women. Yeah. And the same from women who have been hurt from one guy and our fucking hate man. Or the original word, "Ralak," by the mother or by the father, right? Which is is pervasive for so many individuals. We probably need a way more time than what we have on this podcast to discuss. Like, how do we help those people? But high level. We'll go as deep as you think you can, like with empathy, with curiosity, with nothing but care and love and kindness and all the other important traits. How do you, how should I, and how does like an everyday person who has friends, who has a sister, who has a brother, who has a husband or whatever, help the person in their life, who has been hurt once or a few times by someone and now has associated hatred towards the entire gender. Very common, yes. A survival strategy, right? It's a hub of individuals. Simple answer, simple exploration, help yourself. So, you know, I actually don't know if Gandhi said this, but be the change you want to see in the world, right? Like, it's familiar, it's generally given to Gandhi as a quote, but you've got to, you've got to do your inner work. You've got to be that safe harbour. You've got to be that safe nervous system by understanding yourself by integrating your pain, your fears, your torment by being more whole, by having more regulated nervous system, by being able to demonstrate that, hey, not all men are dangerous and not all women are nasty or mean or not nurturing or whatever the rhetoric is that someone holds, the stories are hold within their own heads around one man or many men or many women, whatever may be like you be, you show them that that's possible consistently over time. And when you are able to do that consistently over time, you develop rapport, you build trust, you're showing you're you're validating the experience of, oh, men can be safe or oh, women can be safe. It's not about doing anything different per se for them. It's how can you be different with yourself? Like, how do you heal the parts of you that feel fractured or fragmented and make them whole? Yeah. When it comes to dating, do you see more women meeting men in the early couple weeks or months of dating and finding that a lot of the guys that they're dating are still just super wounded for me to the mother or previous women and women are kind of like, I need I really need you to work on this for this to work because you don't trust any women, or do you see it more of the opposite where men are in relationships and women are more often still caring a lot of that pain and those wounds from the father or other men in their past and men being like, I need the woman to really hope that she can heal some of this stuff. Let's start there because I got a lot of questions on this. Yeah, of course. Yeah, both exist. Yeah, one may exist. So the woman holding that masculine wound probably exists a little more overtly and it's more obvious or it's more spoken to but the quote unquote mother wound or the wound that that man holds with women is less spoken to. There's a few reasons for that. Men aren't taught to really be with their emotions generally speaking from a familial perspective. Most families are in survival mode, right? Barely trying to make ends meet generally speaking or they're very busy, very distracting the world and also society says that men don't need to be in their emotions per se or access to that, right? General consensus, generally speaking. And so that man isn't really familiar with that wound or pain because it's also, well, it's not it's weak for him to be wounded still and holding onto that wound as well, right? And he also doesn't know it like because the mother wound per se or that female wound that then often lends itself to that man having his heart broken as a teenager as a young adult. We'll get to that in a moment because there's a continuation there, a continuation but also a separateness there. It's very unknown. That mother wound is projecting onto that young boy. Those unmet needs that mother didn't experience from her husband, the child's father's often projected onto that young boy, right? That's perentification and meshment entaglement, emotional incest. His mum is a little boy, his mum is a little angel. He doesn't grow up fast enough. He doesn't, he's not given autonomy and sovereignty and agency quick enough. He's still highly dependent or co-dependent on his mother. He's people pleasing. He wants to make sure mum's okay, so he wants to save her. He brings and I'm fast tracking this, right? But he brings that into his adult relationships. He's projecting mother onto relationships normal, what's the **** their mother? And the mother doesn't want to **** her son. And when I say that, what I'm really saying is when you're in partnership and when you're unconsciously projecting that parental child dynamic is not healthy or attractive, you're breaking polarity and magnetism immediately there, especially when it's unconscious, right? And so, also that, that, that man, he learned that intimacy was actually really icky and unsafe. And so he wants intimacy because he wants to be seen, wants to be known, wants to be heard and appreciate or respect them. They get to, he gets too close with a woman and he's like, well, where did he learn that it was unsafe? Through his mother, through his experience with his mother, because she demanded so much of him. She was so over, and domineering, overpowering, perfectionist with him needed so much from him. Because essentially he, she was in a safe place. She wasn't mature in her own disposition. Yeah. And that's not blaming the mother. That's, that's, there's a, you know, the father's involved there as well. It's just a dysfunctional environment, right? The opportunities, of course, through contrast, that man gets to learn more about himself and then doesn't become avoid and doesn't become non-committal, doesn't have just one nightstands and casual, casual rings. And that's why the, the mother wound is pervasive. Now, there's that that then leads him to have experiences in, in, in early adult huddle teenage years where he's a little awkward, maybe or not self-confident. And he gets rejected or experiences humiliation. And that lives with him in his scarred. And now he can't trust women compounded by maybe the experiences had with his mother. It's not every boy experiences that in measurement with mum, right? But it's very common, but it's unspoken to, it's not spoken to enough. Whereas that mother wound, absent father or abusive father, it's very overt, you know, I felt unsafe with men that carries on to other men, attracts other men because it's familiar or attracts other men similar to that, like unavailable or abusive or elusive or whatever it may be. That's more overt and more obvious. But both, both are coming to adult relationship, unhield, fragmented, unresolved, unprocessed words, especially around the opposite sex. And even, and even the same, like the brother wound and the sister wound, women can't trust other women. They're in competition with other women. Men, how many, generally speaking now, you're probably an anomaly, right? But I'm an anomaly. I have very many close friends, like intimate, intimate relationships, men, like they know the darker stuff, they've seen me in my shame. I have very close friends around the world, men. How many men do you know that have really close, like I have one really, really close friend in the general populist, and you're an anomaly lover. But yeah, general populist, I think, I actually heard this number recently, and I wish I knew it off the top of my head. I shouldn't know this off time. I think it's like, what, seven percent of men say that they have a best friend they can like call right now, or in the middle of night for help, something outrageously low, do we know the number? I don't know. It seems outrageously low. So we don't we have these wounds where we just don't trust people, men. And as a result of that, we don't trust ourselves. So we make decisions from very wobbly places in our own psychology, and we choose partners that reflect the brokenness that we think we are. Yeah. Very accurate. And we pursue the love we think we deserve as well, constantly. I think it's one of the reasons, oh for sure, we're just some other reasons. I mean, the dating landscape is confusing. I think dating apps have augmented reality. I don't think it's realistic. I think, I mean, the fact that there are many Bye. In other words, fake accounts, fake profiles that's developed a sense of plenty of fish in the sea grass is always greener So we're not we're not really committing. We're not exposing ourselves We're not being vulnerable. We're not meeting people nervous system to nervous system Like there's so much that goes on by being in the presence of someone when you're on a screen behind a screen You can hide it's fake. It's not it's not completely fake But there's an element of fakeness there. It's not real. I'm not against dating apps by the way But my my process for dating apps and you've asked from giving to anyone is your goal should be to get off that dating app Isap and in person get in real life isap. If you're not doing that, you're wasting your time on a dating app. Yep If you could start your own society Sort of did start your own society and I Almost was about to say like I'm just 25,000 people there Maybe even the question is like what would be the ideal number of people from an anthropological sense? but high level like if you could clean slate and End up in a society where in over the course of the next a few years or decade People have flourishing relationships. Yeah. They're they are feeling whole and embodied in themselves They communicate well. They're happy. They're healthy et cetera Where some of the core pieces that you would start to You you know the core design elements that you would put in place around this Yeah, little society. Yeah, careful about the race a you're putting the same bucket as Bill Gates Could all Billy So I think some of the elements of what would help a Society flourish or a group of people flourish in other words us is Some of what we've been speaking to so so part of that is We're not really relational meaning that So much of our lives we move at a very fast pace. We don't stop a smaller rose We don't slow down enough. So I would I would integrate again This isn't about having mandatory practices or elements within society. This is ideal right again. What's ideal is More nature having access to nature being able to slow down Moving out of survival mode so there's there's actual spaces where we can Experience a sense of wholeness so we bring more of our our healthy our healthy selves online and we relate and Act from that place and so having those support structures in places really important. I'm not It's an interesting question that you ask Move out of any isms or any socio-economic doctrines like you know resource-based economy or socialism or capitalism or anything like that Put all of that aside for a second We as a species don't communicate very well Because we hold a lot of fear of how we're going to be seen or how we may be met or held in those moments of vulnerability Right, so I would really encourage more truth sharing more being okay with who we are as we are So in other words less judgment more compassion not being an advocate for that Also cultivating deeper resilience and toughness toughness our ability to move through challenge resilience our ability to recover through Challenges a very short definition of that. I would I would promote more of that I would promote more nervous system regulation letting that be part of our lives. I would I would Promote more Facilitated deep and difficult conversations in other words if you and I have a great friends and we're having an issue Yes, let's let's connect on it, but also let's have another close friend another close friend here to mediate that to support us through that like more Relationality less hiding from difficult things difficult conversations Difficult ways of being and more let's embrace all of it not just the convenient, but also the what feels inconvenient I think we're very Fragmented and fractured because we're very polarized in our society currently Well, I didn't think we we do very well with dealing with difficulty actually we we sweep it under the rug Thank you for this. It's an interesting question. Yes, right. That's the same question. Yeah It's so lofty to think like I'm going to start a society Yeah, I'm going to design it no one's really actually faced with that yeah real question But I think almost everybody is faced with a small version of that I'll even ask in the first person over the next five to ten years. I plan to start a family a small small little society There's our own little familial unit and I want one Most healthy possible dynamic between Uh partner and myself and equally if not more importantly, I want to raise children that grow up to themselves have very healthy relationships and All the wonderful things we we discussed already For some of the core pieces that you would say to focus on if you're designing out your family life from the start to achieve that Everything I just shared I don't I wouldn't change anything. I just shed. Yeah, definitely not Would I add to it in sure we talk more about this and I'll add to it and I'll keep Thinking it through but that there is that just Being more healthily relational by addressing and dealing with our Compensatory actions that we take our survival strategies that play out that harm relationship that harm us Being more accountable more responsible taking ownership prioritizing and valuing Agreements and sharing more of self prioritizing and valuing growth as a society like internal growth and external growth sure But you know like yeah, let's there's become an interdisciplinary species cool. I love this earth and I love this earth and The internal growth as well. How do I expand my sense of self? How do I deepen myself worth? You know and just honesty and truth sharing man Which is really really hard for most of us because we're we're still concerned worried scared about how we're going to be met And we we retract as a result of that there's too much fear and retraction and contortion and mask wearing Not only in our society, but even in our our peer circles in our family units What's going well In my life Sure, but also in when you look around. Yeah, we just named a lot of like. Yeah, he's wrong And I think anyone listening to myself are like yeah totally like yeah, we're all plagued with the stuff sure and it feels very overwhelming and daunting and um Like a massive uphill battle to even begin to you know reorient or put This this world in a better position when it comes to all this stuff, but what do you think is When you look out in society today and how people are operating how men are operating what what do you think is Going really well We are incredibly resilient as a species. I mean, maybe not compared to cockroaches Or rats, but we're incredibly Given the complexity of our I guess intellect and our our state of consciousness. I think we're incredibly resilient right and For as much darkness isn't there is in the world's either I believe that every living organism and I think the earth in and of itself is a living organism but every living organism Thrives and strives strives for and thrives in homeostasis. I think humans humans when are different individually and collectively And so I mentioned that because For the amount of darkness that is overt and that we witness in the world or the amount of difficulty and challenge and disarmony and war and rupture and all of that right Because we are striving constantly for homeostasis There is equal amount of light. It's just in the dark. It's inverted right. It's also obvious And so that gives me great hope. I think we're we're amazing at intelligently hoping as a species And that and that and that becomes a North Star for us that drives us towards and look I get it subjective relativism subjective Altruism like that. We're going to have different opinions and what You know what you think is ideal what I think is ideal and Our ability to want to come together to be better. I think really strongly exists in our side Otherwise, I think would be in total disarmony actually like way far more More intense than what we're experiencing now far more intense So that that gives me hope the fact that we carry hope is species The ability to be willing I think it works very well in our society in other words the willingness to to face ourselves to Be challenged to face challenge to love ourselves through through difficulty to say sorry to come back to Again, homeostasis when we've regulation when we feel disregulated willingness to really face hard things I think works really well in our society as well to be a stand for what we believe in to be willing to learn and grow from our choices our mistakes Man everything that I said that I think is really challenging in our society the opposite is happening in different ways right and in very similar ways as well So we can't speak to the quote-unquote bad without they being good. It just doesn't exist not in not on this earth plane Not in this level of consciousness. It's a 3-day world. So this is material world. Yep. Yeah, I love to shift gears a little bit Before we started recording I shared a bit about like shows about yeah, and I mentioned that there's a lot of content these days about It's referred to as red pill culture Typically led by folks I can't rotate uh, I think it's very dangerous for a lot of you. young men and just men in general, I'm most curious to start from your perspective, how we ended up in this situation where that is very loud, persuasive content and unfortunately, it has been and is continuing to work in bringing impressionable young men, late teens, early mid-even late 20s over to that side of the internet, let's say. I think any extreme is unhealthy because it pauses away from homeostasis and homeostasis is a more natural state for us. It's a more maybe evolved or conducive state for growth. Anytime we're in extremes, it just pauses from that. Why are we there? Well, I think any extreme that occurs is generally in usually a response to something. Contrast and the slingshot effect plays a very strong role in this. For a period of time, men were told that they're worthless, that they're unworthy, that they're weak, that they're a bad, essentially, at their evil. Where did they mostly, where did men mostly hear that? And still, because I think still looks like we're dewey. Mostly hear that. I mean, the medium or the channel is media and social media is where we hear that, which we're inundated with, which again, is a massive problem, man. As a side note, I mean, go back, you don't have to go back that long, but just go back even say a few hundred years ago. You can go back far less than that, but a few hundred years ago, I mean, you didn't know. Firstly, you probably didn't even know Panama existed. You didn't know what was happening in Iran. You didn't know what was happening in North East Africa. You didn't know what was happening in Ukraine. You didn't even know what Ukraine was, or you're in your own bubble. Like, our psyche is a deeply affected and impacted by this so-called knowledge. And I'm not saying it's not happening, of course, but this knowledge of this pain and terror that is happening in the world. I don't have to get into the whole reason why news, 97% of news is framed in the negative because it captures our brains oriented. And so that attention makes more money for them, et cetera, et cetera. It's a machine, right? So, why, where did that come from? I think we mentioned earlier around, when any group of people is oppressed, there needs to be a response to that, right? And I'm not saying that women are the only group of people that have been oppressed. That's not necessarily true, but there has been the suppression of femininity and the feminine energy, right? So over time, for various reasons, you know, you can look at feminism as a movement and as waves and you can look at what potentially feminism is linked to and connected to. That maybe has had an impact. There are probably many other reasons that are beyond my awareness and knowledge. However, what I've seen and witnessed is this demonization is demonizing of men, right? Demonizing of the masculine. And so just human nature to not want to be demonized, to not want to experience from our peers. It's literally, I mean, frightening and life-taking and it feels like annihilation that where pieces of **** or when I'm good and so many men will do, they'll do one of two things. I'll retract completely from the world, video games, hide, they'll seek pleasure where there is pain, right? So if there's a lot of pain, greater pain, greater the pleasure, they're going to seek that pleasure to mitigate it so they feel, I feel okay. They'll hide from the world while they get really aggressive and they become more of what the world is telling that they are, even though somewhere actually that before, because there are people that are like men that are like that. And most men would, but they become that. Like, will you tell me, I'm not going to **** you, I'm going to be that, right? If that's in their disposition, their personality to be like that. So then you get that, you know, the Magtown movement, the Red Pill movement. What's the first one? Magtown, men going their own way. Oh, I haven't heard that. I'll tell you about that in a second. Men's rights movement. Like it's all part of that Red Pill movement, right? You know, including, including dating and really using women as just ways to have sex, right? I get, I can't remember the term, sorry, the term's looting me in what it is, but essentially it's, it's, it's an immature way to move from disempowerment to empowerment or it's an autocratic oppressive way to move from disempowerment to empowerment. It's a codependent way because basically saying, again, as versions and varieties of the Red Pill movement, it's basically saying, I don't feel empowered. That's just a separate stance to me like Bolly Inc. Well, it is 100%. Yeah. Like how bullies in high school operate. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And so, so you know that there's, there's a wounded sense of self there. There's, there's hurt individuals there. But the, the same is true for the movement of men are bad, men are evil, right? Masculinity is unsafe, right? There's, there's, there's a bullying there that occurs in the ways that it, maybe it's an intellectual bullying wherever it occurs. That says, I'm so hurt and I'm going to hurt the other people and keep them away from me. So we just hurt people walking around, especially in the extremes, right? Even in the massive passivity here as well where men live in passivity, right? And men live disconnected from the world and don't take action and aren't themotic. They're not a stand for injustice, right? To the extremes over here. And then we're, you know, we're talking about the majority of men, so to speak, really do live more in the middle, right? And how do we speak more to them? Well, you know, it's interesting when we use the terms, even just the term masculinity, it tends to mean different things with different people. I'm a real big believer in you tell, not, you don't tell me what masculinity is, but you tell me what it is for you. Yeah. I've gone on that personal journey of discovery out of show. I can give you the characteristics and I can educate and intellectualize and I can tell you how I live my life. That works for you. Cool. But figuring out yourself, because it's not even figuring it out intellectually, cognitively, it's, it's embodying the journey so that you arrive at a place very viscerally that says, Oh, this is what masculinity is for me. This is the caps that I'm going to live in. I'm going to create my own camp. But we have to go through that journey if we really want to get honest with ourselves. And most people don't, I just want to be, they want to follow, they want to be told what to do. But to me, that's not wisdom and that's not embodiment. And that there's no, there's less growth in that than not. A little story comes to mind, which is this woman I know told me that her husband is the most masculine man she's ever met. And I was like, Oh, that's cool. In what ways he loves power tools. And he is very outdoorsy. And he builds all kinds of stuff around the house. He's very handy. Okay, cool. So I'm very, and I'm very feminine. We're a great match. I'm like, in what ways? So I love to sew, love to cook. I make like all kinds of stuff like crafty things for my kids. On the same, same couple, he's a stay home dad hasn't worked in a, I think like 15 years or something. Very emotional guy, same couple, same couple. She is the breadwinner works long hours, takes care of the house financially, et cetera. And that's there. That's their dynamic. And at first, I'm like, he doesn't sound masculine at all. You don't sound feminine at all. He's actually extremely feminine because he's kept taking nurturing children. Right. And she's the one building doing all the things, which is like actually the traditional definition, I think of masculine feminine. Traditional is even traditional masculine traditional feminities and interesting fries because traditional to what culture, to what Tom period is worth. Sure. I'm thinking in American culture. Yeah. Yeah. But after hearing you say this, I love this framing of if to her and him, that's how they want to define masculine and feminine. And that's, and it works great for them. They're happy as hell. It's very wonderful. Like, great. Yeah. Who the hell am I to say that's not masculine? Sure. Yeah. Are you familiar with Jack Donovan? Yeah. He's a men's author. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm masculine. Great, great human man. I mean, great author, resonating with so much of his work. He really goes into deep historical, factual, philosophical, relational understanding of of men and women and masculine and feminine from an evolutionary perspective. And, and, and you know, I think and I operate in symbolism. I think symbolism is the oldest language we have access to. And so when I'm here, I'll see it all over your body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's who. So when I hear him, like, you know, working with power tools, that's symbolic for me, like he's working with his hands, working men working with their hands, you know, when we go back to again, if we take history at face value, how we've evolved as tribes and gangs and people together and, and, and relational cohorts, traditionally men physically will still are physically bigger, more physically dead. They would be out more in the world. And they would hunt and they would use their hands and they would use the skills with what they could do with their hands, whether it's making a weaponry or, or dragging something back to camp or whatever it was, to, to help the tribe. survive, the family survive. And our role as men in contribution to the greater whole, whether it was six people or seven people or 28 people, whatever, defined defined our sense of self, right? And how effectively we were defined how we all survived and how valuable we were as well. And so our masculinity is tethered to doing in that sense, right? And being effective, you could say the same femininity, because they would maybe forage in the different areas of their brain. Again, this is all evolutionary theory, right? Different areas of their brain developers, as a result of that. So they're more adept in certain areas. But put that aside for a second. So using a hand is actually quite masculine from that perspective. That woman sewing, nurturing, cooking, sustaining sustenance, that could be considered very feminine, given evolutionary roles, not traditionally per se, but evolutionary roles and how we identify or define how we behave and act and how we then complement each other as men and women in a family unit or in a tribal unit, right? And so I can see when she's saying that what she means by all he's very masculine, I think she's tapping to something very archaic, very ancestral. It's I think it's cool. Yeah, yeah. But also what you're saying is, is very true as well from that perspective, too. Like he is, there's an inverse there where he's caretaking more nurturing, more traditionally that has been the woman, right? Yeah. I'll just say traditionally from an evolutionary perspective, historically, I should say. Yeah. Every guest who comes in the show gets asked the following question. It's like our recurring segment. Yeah. What do you think it means to be a man nowadays? What do I think? It's a really great question, because I want to clarify something though. What do I think it means to be like an ideal man? Or what do I think I see in the world? What's my observation of what men generally are? I am curious your answer to both. Okay. My intent with the question was the former. Okay. There's a couple key words here. Yeah. Um, think of, you've probably heard it in your life all the time, especially when we're kids, it's like, uh, be a man. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What does that mean nowadays? So the nowadays is the key piece here. Yeah. I don't know. It's very confusing. I can tell you what it means for me to be a man. I'm very clear on that. But look for the general populace, so to speak. Yeah. What does it mean for you? Let's start there. It's about manning in. Right. So for me, accountability, ownership, responsibility, protection, provision, I, I, I, I, I abide by those. I believe in those. I, in those, in those expressions in life, right, especially in a family unit, um, ownership, responsibility, accountability, let me break that download bit. I want to be responsible for my behaviors. I want to be consistent in my behaviors as a man as a father, as a husband, right, as a friend, as a teacher in the space that I occupy, that means that requires me, um, being more self-aware, taking accountability for my own in a work for developing myself as a human being, for bettering myself, I'm just being a better human, right? And if I'm not doing that on taking responsibility for that, it's not that I'm less of a man. I just don't think I'm living in full potential. And part of that identity is being a man and being in, in my masculine. For me, living through what I'm passionate about, being creative in alignment with what I value, that, that drive, that's masculine for me. That's me being a quote, quote, good man, right? Me learning to apologize, if I've done something that has hurt someone, that I think I could do a better job. In other words, if I've reacted, if I've taken action that has come from a wounded self owning that, I'm giving you examples of ownership, but I like saying, Hey, I'm sorry. I could have done better. This is how I could have done better. This is what I'm committed to. Being less in my ego and personality, and more in my spirit, in other words, being more in my, my, my soul and my personal is opposed to my personality. For me being a man in this modern tire in these modern days means being physically adept. Now, that doesn't mean you have to win the CrossFit Games. We have to deadlift 500 kilos or any shit like that. Oh, you can't do it. Unfortunately, not, unfortunately, not. But just being competent in your physical body, like prioritizing your physical health, let's put it that way. That to me is actually really important. If you're not chopping wood, then get a sledgehammer and a tire and chop wood, like just, you know, being your body, be proud of your body, challenge yourself. That's part of being a man. For me, this is for me, though, right? For me, growing, I want to be a little bit better every day. Doesn't have to be a lot better, but at least a little bit better. Sometimes it needs to be a lot because I want it to be a lot. And being self reflective, I really being self reflective and being a person of integrity and consistent in my word and in my deed, right? That's what I mean by integrity specifically and practicing that and also humanizing myself. So part of that for me is being non-judgmental towards myself, meaning myself with more compassion and self love, being more in my truth. I want to be more in my truth irrespective of how uncomfortable it is for me. That for me is defining my manhood and my personhood as well. I want to, if I have the difficult conversation with my wife, but I have a sense that she may, or I think I project that she may reject, but I'm saying what she may get upset, it doesn't matter. If that's my truth, and I believe she needs to hear that, not from a place of narcissistic ego or hyper selfishness, but also for righteousness, but because it's going to evolve our relationship, then I have a duty. To share that with her and being, I think being beautiful is also really important as well. Now, I don't project all of that and I'm sure there's more. There's a stack more, but I don't project all of that, you know, regulation being like being practiced in emotional regulation for me is really important because I, part of my shadow and part of my reactivity is aggression. And I can be abrasive and I can be impatient and I can be loud and I can be aggressive and keeping that in check because that doesn't, that's not very nice for people to experience that and it's not nice for me to experience that. So that's something that's not come trying to control it. I'm trying to be in deeper relationship with it. So part of my masculinity, or manhood for me is being in deeper relationship with all the parts of myself. Now, if someone aligns with that, take it. If you don't (beep) off, I don't care. I guess not. If you are interested in that, amazing. If not, it's totally okay to find it for yourself, but you've got to have a lived experience on it. You've got to be, you've got to be deliberate and intentional with it. So I'm going to, I really appreciate about your answers that you, you did take in a sense of like, there's all works for me as a man. Yeah. And I invite everyone else to define for themselves. And try to teach you. And it's, I've done 40 plus, I've asked it 40 plus times in one any japa so doing this for about a year. No one has framed it like that yet. Everyone including myself has framed it as this is what's important for all of us these days. Skies, this is what's important for men now. Can I say something to them? Please. I think one of the challenges we have in our society is that, and it's a, it's a really beautiful challenge. And I feel the same way. Like I, you know, I study and sustainability, I have a master's degree in sustainability, which is quite different from the core of my studies in psychology and behavioral science and mathematics and trauma and nervous system and all of that. But I did that because I wanted to give to the world. Like I thought, how can I help the world be a better world? That was part of it. I was just very interested in energy or renewable energy tech and all of that. But something that I've noticed in my very short time on this planet, and this is, I'm speaking for myself here as well, is we as a species, and this is very natural lives within us, particularly as men. We want to save the world. And we want to, we want to, we want to do everything we can for everyone. That is a very big feat. And the probability of that happening is about zero to. As we would say, Australia. So they're sort of say we shouldn't pursue that. But again, in my very humble opinion, I, the greatest impact we have is when we focus here internally, we have the greatest possible mastery over that. And even that is difficult. And then we let it see about. And who you being the world, it ripples man, it ripples, it ripples, it ripples. And again, it's not to say that we don't, I mean, I'm, I like creating life changing businesses and non-for-profit. So it doesn't mean we stop doing any of that. But we stop resting our laurels on that being the thing and being so attached to our way for how we see the world. But if you just make it for yourself, man, not only do you experience greater peace, when I say you got them in you, specifically us, we experience greater peace. But we actually make more impact that way. But it's also hard because it caused us to really look in the mirror. And it's easy to say, Hey, you guys, do you group of people make these changes? And I'll just sit over here and I'll tell you to make those changes because they're good and very well could be. But it's got to be here. That's the power. What do you think it means to be a woman nowadays? And I recognize we are two guys talking about this. So we can't really know. Yeah, but this is, but this is, this is this question. Well, you've framed the question differently because you know, what's his name? Matt something? Matt Hussie? No, no, Matt, they go with a beard. He's on. Anyway, he's been asking this question, he did a documentary on it, what did he say? What is a woman? He just said, define a woman, right? But you're asking a different, you're, I think you're asking a different episode. You're saying, what does it mean to be a woman nowadays? Now, which is no different than the question of what does it mean to be a man nowadays? Sure, sure. You know, obviously I can't speak from direct experience, right? Because I'm not that and I don't see myself as that. I mean, man, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a proponent of self-examination, man. I mean, my heritage is Greek Italian. I come from a very rich lineage of philosophical thinking. And part of that is, be self-reflective, but not figure it out yourself. I don't mean to be harsh or say like that, but really deepening your exploration of womanhood for you as a woman if you're listening to this, right? And manhood for you, if you're a man and you're listening to this, deepen your exploration in that space and give yourself an opportunity to embody and experience the curiosity you have around this character trait or this particular expressive, right? Can I speak from a masculine feminine perspective of what is ideal maybe for a woman to be for me and wear about in my life? Sure, I can do that. How I ideally love my wife to be is honest and open with me, is receptive to me, is open physically to me as well, you know, but I also understand that for that to happen because I know her constitution, not only as a woman, but as an individual, I need to be safe in my expression and consistent and not volatile, right? And volatile is a strong word, but I'll use it anyway, I can't be inconsistent like that. I want her to be nurturing, I want her to be caring and curious about me. But to me, I wanted to be respectful, but you know, all of these things, these, maybe these characteristics that I'm labeling, they're quite individualized in the sense that it's not like I need every woman because in the, you know, three and a half, four billion women in the world, I may have contact with, I don't know, a few hundred or a few thousand like, I don't, and I don't, and even then, I don't need every woman to be what I've just asked for then because I don't have that level of intimacy, right? And so I think it becomes really imperative that you are who you want to be for what you want to create in your life, and you really, you yourself reflective and you allow yourself to feel, really feel what that expression could do and be in your life for you and for those that you love and care for, because we're relational beings, we're like, we care for people that have tribes that are important to us. There's someone who is really, really trying to find their person this year, they really want their, they're so ready, they believe they're so ready, they've done the work. If you could tell them anything, but what you're telling, the work only gets deeper when you find your person, no matter how much work you've quote unquote done, right? And like you've got to be really prepared for that and it's hard. It's like my friend and God bless me passed away a couple of weeks ago. I'm sorry. Thank you. I appreciate that colon cancer, but honoring him and his family's got six children. Yeah. And he said to me before I just ceremony on his land for my own father blessing and my, you know, right of passage into fatherhood. And he said to me, he said, it's definitely a matter of what I tell you and I've got six kids. And no matter what anyone tells you, never ever be prepared for that child. I'll come into your life, right? And it's very similar to no matter how much work you think you've done. You'll be ready enough to a certain point to meet that person that's meant to be in your life and just know that if it's a real growth oriented relationship where you're both deeply willing and committed and it's a quite a quite conscious relationship, then it's going to come with not hardships and ugliness, but it's going to come with deep challenge. You're going to be tested in the most beautiful ways. And so if you can really embrace that, like embrace the good and the convenient with the inconvenient, you will be more open and receptive to greater alignment in bringing that person into your life this year. If that's what you want this year, you said that you got a ceremony into fatherhood. Is that how you framed it? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it was about four and a half years ago. Okay. Not even like four years ago. A little over four years ago. Yeah. It was, we did a, we went on the land, he's got, he's got some acreage and add in Texas. I was living in Texas at the time. And there was a group of us, probably about 15, all fathers and just dear friends of mine, and we just sweat lodge and we did some sacrament, some wachuma, and we're very intentional. What's that? It's a plant medicine essentially, cactus. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a psychotropic. Yeah. It was very mild. It wasn't, it wasn't anything that, you know, shut us off into the space for 24 hours or anything like that, but just to really grant us, connect us to land into self. And that was just part of the ceremony. And we, we got together elements of the ceremony, obviously the sweat lodge. And so that was part of it, blessing me, speaking our truths, speaking our fears as men, connecting on the value of fatherhood and what that meant, that would give me blessings and advice as well, which are very much asked what we broke bread together. There were many elements to that, but it was a, it was a day process essentially. Yeah. Can I ask selfishly for an abridged version for a, a future father to me, I can't wait to be a dad. Yeah. That's amazing. It's, don't know when it's going to happen, but I'm patiently excited to love your clarity. Yeah. Thanks. And I've always wanted that. And that is, it is so important to me. What would be words of advice aside from you can never really be prepared. For all that's going to entail based off some of the stuff that was shared with you. Yeah. At that ceremony. I'd say two things to you. I'd say the first is keep being in the yearning and the desire of the clarity you have around fatherhood, let that, because that's a feminine and energetic as well, let that really, and it's just a beautiful, beautiful, you're feeling the whole magic of that, that yearning, let that being your body as often as you need to, right, like really embrace that part of you, that yearns that and then longs for it when you don't have it, right, I really longs for it when you don't have it. And the other part is men, you know, one of the pieces of advice that I was given by one of the elders there and not only because he was in his 60s, but because he really embodied elderhood like he had a maturity and a wisdom there and I'm very grateful for his presence. He said, man, as a man and as a father, you may be ostracized by your family, by your daughter, by your son, by society. It is your duty to keep coming back to your center, to your equilibrium, to your values, to who you know you are and trust yourself. I thought maybe I'll give you another bonus piece as well, which was very evident by the men I had there. So you have to surround yourself with good men, men, like healthy men, men that are going to keep you accountable, challenge you, support you, meet you with compassion and meet you with non-judgment. You guys have each other that you trust that you can rely on so you're not alone in that journey. That's important. I heard in passing, I don't know, a couple of years ago, and I thought I was a fascinating take, which was like, as a man, there will be times when you have to make a call on behalf of your family that everyone disagrees with. And you'll be in the villain. Absolutely put up a fight. Your wife is like, we're not, there's no f***ing way we're doing that and all your kids are kicking and screaming. But you know, for the greater good of the family, this is going to cause some short-term pain, but is the right call for the long term. Based off how you just reacted in your body language, you're like, hell yeah, it seems like. What's up with that? Nothing's up with it. It's what I think we spoke about earlier, about leading and being led. Or maybe I was, that was in the previous podcast, my apologies, but I think what's really important, one of the traits that I practice myself in terms of what defines my masculinity is practicing leading with efficacy and being led with efficacy. Sometimes my wife knows more than me, and better than me in that moment. And my ability to be led and knowing when to be led and when to lead is wisdom. Right. And so what's up with that statement is that as a man, if you know in that moment, you have deep, deep conviction, so even as a man, this is a person, right, you have deep conviction that this is the path you got to go, hold the line and go, that doesn't mean you're not open. Like a mature healthy king has counsel, doesn't mean you're not open to other people's perspectives, ultimately, they trust yourself. And there'll be times where your wife, she knows and follow, that's why he married her. Thank you very much. This was a lot of fun. Bless you man. Thank you. You could ask a question to people listening for them to go journal about her ponder or ask their friends, ask their spouse, what would it be? Who am I? I don't know. I didn't make that up obviously, no, obviously, but I learned that from, was it Ramana or Mahashi, I think he asked this one question. It was just who am I constantly ask yourself, who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Any given moment? Who am I? Is there something about that? Are you really, really sit with that? Who am I? Keep asking it, keep answering it. Who am I? Keep going. Who am I? Sit across from someone and say, I am, I am for five minutes and they switch and then do that 10 times. I just keep unpacking it, you'll be surprised what comes through. comes through. It's funny that when you first edit, think that we're migrating. And I imagine myself journaling about like, "Who am I?" It's like, "Oh, I'm somebody who does this and does that "and acts in the sway and acts." Now these are my values, these are my principles. As you kept sharing in every moment, right? I imagine myself like sitting in traffic on a 405 and I'm (beep) sweating and I'm late to wherever I gotta be and someone cuts me off and I'm in road rage and just like at my worst. And I know for me, that's like usually what I'm at my worst. And in that moment to ask like, "Who am I?" That's probably the more important moment to ask that question and run that in that moment. Am I someone who loses their (beep) over this, am I somebody who wants to operate in that way? Yeah, I don't know. How can people find you online? Yeah, I appreciate it, man. I've been very blessed to release my first, it's my second book, but it's my first published book with Hay House last month in February. And you can find that book. I think it's a really easy access to a lot of my teachings and learnings and the way I sort of navigate the world and tuned in and turned on book.com. There's a stack of bonuses and the audio book has even more bonuses because I narrated that myself well after the fact that I wrote the book. If you wanna work with me in a one-on-one capacity coach with Steph and if you wanna find me on social media, I'll put a stack of content out there at Steph and I'll defend us. Awesome, thanks so much, man. Lots of fun. Appreciate your brother, thank you. It's good stuff. Real innovation is powered by real people. This is Amix Corporate, trusted experts, smarter technology, 24/7 dedicated support from day one to answer questions, help set up policies and approvals, and consult on spend capacity as your business needs evolve. Plus, on-demand resources help level up operations at every stage. That's the trusted service you've come to expect. Built to simplify, designed to scale. This is Amix Corporate.