Men’s Challenges & Opportunities: A Conversation with Scott Savage, Part 1

In this two-part series, I speak with Scott Savage — a long time friend and mentor — about the challenges men face, as well as the opportunities that are available to men, that they might not necessarily be aware of.

In Part 1, we focus on men's challenges, including:

• The impact of isolation on men
• The burden of traditional masculinity
• Co-regulation and emotional expression
• Cultural expectations and the lack of role models
• Self-discovery and personal fulfillment
• Navigating relationships and acceptance of change
• Boundaries
• The importance, and potential challenges, of emotional vulnerability
• Navigating career and personal fulfillment, the pressure of being expected to be the breadwinner — and not getting caught in the egoic trap of thinking your job is actually who you are
• The importance of emotional awareness

More About Scott

• Facilitated the Acumen Men’s Group for a decade
• Facilitated groups for business owners and leaders for 20 years
• B.A Psychology, Southern Illinois University as well as many other credentials and certifications …
• You can learn more about Scott here: www.savagegroup.biz

Scott's Recommended Books

• Balls, by Ron Johnson and Deb Brock (mentioned on the podcast)
• Atlas of the heart, by Brenee Brown

----

ABOUT JOEY
Joey is a certified Teacher of Presence Life Coach, having studied with Eckhart Tolle at The School of Awakening. He has also studied, and practices, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, and the teachings of Ram Dass. Joey has been practicing mindfulness and meditation for many years, and is a long-time student on the subjects of self-care, neuroplasticity, trauma, psychology, spirituality, goals, and relationships.

LEARN MORE
Learn more about Joey, his life coaching practice, or book a complimentary discovery call by visiting his website.

Transcript

Joey Donovan Guido (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Guts podcast. My name is Joey Donovan-Gaito and today we have Scott Savage as our guest. And Scott is a long time mentor and friend of mine for many years and helped me through some really hard times both as a man and as a human being.

And just a little bit of background about Scott is he ran an Acumen men's group for a decade, and that's the first group that I was in with Scott. He also ran for over about two decades groups for business owners and leaders, which have also very helpful. And Scott has many credentials and certifications, one of them being a BA in psychology from Southern Illinois University.

And today what we're going to be focusing on is men and men's challenges. And with that, I'd like to welcome you to the show, Scott.

Scott (00:58)
Thanks Joey, I'm glad to be here with you.

Joey Donovan Guido (01:01)
Yeah, it's really an honor and just so much fun to see you and get to talk about this stuff. Again, as I mentioned really briefly, you were really an instrumental part of my staying sane when my wife first got sick and I was literally falling apart. So thank you.

Scott (01:23)
You're welcome. Warms my heart to hear that.

Joey Donovan Guido (01:24)
And I'll lead off.

Well, I'm glad because I really mean it.

And we'll start off with a question for you, is, what are some of the challenges over those 10 years and even now, what are some of the challenges you see men face? ⁓

Scott (01:46)
Well, I think one of the biggest challenges that I see is isolation. Part of that's always been the case, but I think in recent decades, especially with the growth of technology, ⁓ it has become so easy to isolate, hide behind our phones or our computers, ⁓ live in the social media world where everybody's life is better than mine.

It's a real problem. causes a lot of distress for men. It causes loneliness. It causes depression. ⁓ It can ⁓ further enrage us because there's something missing. ⁓ And sometimes it can lead to suicide.

Joey Donovan Guido (02:36)
It's interesting that you mention isolation. That's been coming up a lot. We also do a group these days called the Consciousness Collective. And it's mostly individuals like you and myself and my wife who are in some way healers or helpers. And I am seeing that a lot in my life, especially post-COVID, this isolation where I am either working

on client work, taking care of my wife or kids. My social interactions for the week come down to when I go to the local supermarket. And when I go to pick up my comics at the comic store. Other than that, I kind of feel like I'm in a vacuum.

Scott (03:27)
It's so easy to be isolated now because of the way our culture is and our world works. It's a challenge. It's a challenge, I think, for most of us.

Joey Donovan Guido (03:40)
I think it's a good point. You know, lot of the things that we're looking to talk to today are men-centric, but I think there is going to be bleed over, especially with this some degree of isolation for everybody. And also I feel that in this day and age, a lot of issues like stress and burnout from work, which once were more a male dominant problem,

now are kind of go throughout all of society because women have kind of come into that role as well as a breadwinner.

But, you know.

Scott (04:20)
Yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (04:21)
I was going to say one thing I see is still is that even though women are always in my eyes equals to men, no matter what it is, whether it's work or personal, I still see that stigma where men are expected to be the breadwinner. And a lot of men who struggle if it just so happens that they get laid off.

or their wife makes considerably more than them, there can be these feelings of inferiority or failure with a man when he's not filling his like social obligation, if that makes sense.

Scott (05:05)
does. Well, ⁓ we have a long history of having the role of provider put upon us. And that doesn't just mean breadwinner, but it means taking care of everything, of being in charge and making sure the kids are all right and the work is all right and the house is all right. ⁓ And I think one of the consequences of that is as we lose balance. ⁓ And also we're most of us.

did not have good mentors for how to be great men. Our fathers didn't know how to do it. Their fathers didn't know how to do it. You just go back a few generations and it was just all about survival. It was about bread winning or planting or hunting or working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. So nobody knew how to teach us how to do those things. And so we don't know how. And in particular, we don't know how to deal with our feelings.

We don't know how to talk about them. And yet we feel responsible for everything. We saw that in the men's group. That was a big thing many of the men brought was I feel so responsible for all this stuff. And I feel like I'm not keeping up. I'm not holding up. I'm not doing everything I should be doing.

Joey Donovan Guido (06:12)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so a question for you about isolation, I don't want to take us away from that too quickly, is what is your advice when you work with men who are either experiencing it and aware of it or potentially just unconscious of it and just wondering kind of what's wrong, why do I feel this way?

Scott (06:54)
Well, it really boils down to how we deal with our feelings. Because what happens is we bottle them up, we don't understand them, we don't talk about them, ⁓ and they make us feel vulnerable. So we don't share them even when it's appropriate. So there's this kind of burden without the release. So we need to learn how to cope with feelings, in particular feelings of sadness.

So most of us are really good at anger. ⁓ And the other thing that we often say is we're tired, right? Men get angry and tired. And those are the only two emotions that we understand. But they're not the only ones we experience. We experience sadness. And we have to do that. We can't hide from that. Because if we experience it and process it and understand that we're sad about losing

any of the things we care about in this life. Could be a job, could be a relationship, could be a literal loss or a metaphorical loss. ⁓ It crushes us, it pulls us down and for most of us it causes us either to get angry or to withdraw.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:13)
Yeah, and that's when I was at my worst, right when we started working together. I've always been very lucky as a man to be very well spoken about how I feel. Which is unusual and that's an issue in and of itself because men are supposed to, in many cases, believe is to quote unquote, suck it up. You know.

Pull up your pants and just deal with it or suppress it and get what you gotta get done done. And this, yeah, and this usually leads to what you mentioned earlier, which is an angry outburst. Bottling it up until it explodes. And.

Scott (08:46)
That's right.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:59)
You know, one thing that's come up for me, both in Acumen Group, but also just in our conversations over the years, is we don't necessarily need to talk about the thing that's upsetting us when we get together, because there is a co-regulation that happens when two friends, two men get together and have...

time together where they are actually both present.

which is one of the things I learned from you and from the group. And it's an amazing thing. it's, you this co-regulation can also lead to metabolization of some of these stressors, which is why, you know, if you see a really good friend, and this is not, I'm not saying meeting up with a good friend and having a bunch of drinks. I'm saying actually being real with a real friend.

being there in the moment, spending time together and not escaping through drugs or alcohol or something like that. And I think it's really important that we're bringing this up here because I think a lot of men feel like, well, if I go see my buddies, they don't feel comfortable to bring any of this stuff up or to really just sit with the emotion.

Scott (10:24)
Right, and there are many men and women that we really have such a hard time talking about our feelings with our emotions that sometimes we shouldn't. ⁓ But this idea of co-regulation that you mentioned, know, often men need to do something, be doing something. So we need to be fishing or walking or working on a project. ⁓ And by doing that, we can feel that closeness.

without having to talk about all these scary fuzzy words and feelings that we don't really get too well.

Joey Donovan Guido (11:02)
Yeah.

Scott (11:04)
Yeah, so I recently moved to be closer to one of my sons, his wife and their new baby, my first grandchild. And ⁓ I get to spend a lot more time with him, which is wonderful. But often it's ⁓ doing projects around his house or my house. And while we're doing those, it opens the windows and the doors for us to talk about things, how we're feeling and.

I can remember and I'll bet you can too when your sons were teenagers sometimes the best talk came while you were in the car together going somewhere.

Joey Donovan Guido (11:43)
Yes.

Scott (11:46)
We have to be careful not to force it, but we can invite it. We can ask questions or make observations about deeper things, about life. So they've got a, he and his wife have a 11 month old, which takes up all the energy and they're tired all the time and it's all they can do to get through their work and through their kid and try and take care of the household.

So there's not a lot of time left over, but it also underscores that idea of all those responsibilities that can weigh on us. Some days he works two jobs and helps with the baby and helps with his laundry and the groceries and everything else.

It's hard. It's a hard role.

Joey Donovan Guido (12:37)
Yeah. And I find it interesting because I see a split. know, I see dads like that. And I am and was that kind of dad where it was as much involvement as I could muster. And even to this day, just last night, even my younger son called me and he was struggling with some things. And he's like, hey, and this is like...

the dad part of being a man, which brings me so much joy. He feels comfortable to come to me and say, hey dad, I'm struggling with this. And for me, this brings a lot of positives because I see that when he does this, I raised him in a way that he knows he can trust me.

because I think part of that role as dad, especially traditionally, you know, has been to be the discipliner, which can include things like spanking or hitting, which we've never believed in. And what I have found is things like that can break a trust between a father and a son or a daughter, and also teach some of these things we're trying to change.

in a more progressive world where men can express their feelings, right? Other than anger and rage. But when he came to me and just kind of spilled his guts about it, speaking of guts, it's part of where the podcast name comes from, it was just a really good moment, a moment of gratitude.

Scott (14:24)
Yeah,

that's so rich. That is such a wonderful feeling. Congrats on having that.

Joey Donovan Guido (14:29)
Thank you.

Scott (14:30)
Well, it's so easy to discourage that. It doesn't take much to break that trust. And actually, it has to be earned. We have to do the right things enough times so they can do that.

Joey Donovan Guido (14:45)
Yeah. I didn't feel that I had that relationship with my dad. I didn't know about you.

Scott (14:53)
No.

And it wasn't, I don't think it was for lack of desire on his part. I think he didn't see it as his role and he didn't know how to do it.

Although you know what I do remember when I think of my dad, ⁓ working on projects with him, working on the tractor, working on the house, doing all those kind of things. And I really treasured that time so much that I would ⁓ sometimes end up smoking like his lucky strikes that he would do two packs a day of. But that was the good time with dad.

You know, one of the things that makes it so hard now for us is these kind of shifting cultural expectations. So there's, I would say, a backlash now, this sort of hyper masculine, manosphere backlash against some of the direction of the past 20 or 30 years where men were encouraged to be more androgynous, more sensitive and

Now you see it, I mean, you see it with RFK taking his shirt off and doing pushups or pull ups. You see it with the things Pete Heccess says. And that's the pendulum swinging to a far extreme. ⁓ And I think most men...

are not inclined to take that extremist of a view, nor are most of us inclined to be this soft, spineless, progressive man that's been depicted previously. So the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. And thinking of a yin-yang, and we have both. We have male and female qualities. And we become whole and balanced by

knowing that and embracing those parts that are really.

Joey Donovan Guido (17:00)
And that kind of brings us back to what you mentioned earlier about role models. And it is, I think right now, the role models, and I'll put those in air quotes, are very misogynistic, very egoic. And it all depends on where you live and how you've been brought up also. But these role models intentionally are not

either men or young men are seeing them and kind of, you know, when you see something enough, you start to maybe emulate it because you think, well, that's the way it should be. And for years, I always come back to this example where, you know, there was a time when people built houses, they put asbestos in the house for, and I think it was for insulation, right? Until one day they realized, holy cow.

This is making people sick and killing them. We got to stop using asbestos. But that was the norm. And when we see these things that are egoic and for those of you who aren't familiar when I say egoic, that's very much like in the head, in the mind, in the thought pattern of, you know, very simplistic identifying yourself with how much money you make, you know, how good you look doing pushups.

Scott (18:00)
Right?

Joey Donovan Guido (18:25)
how great your hair looks or doesn't look. That's the flip side of ego when you start to put yourself down. But it's really something that has no connection to what you mentioned, Scott, to that true self. The self that goes beyond what you look like or what your job is. And these kind of role models are very much kind of trying to pull back men into this egoic form where we identify with, man, my car is better than yours.

And that's a troublesome road to walk.

Scott (19:00)
It is, it is. And we're all looking for identity. So I know someone, I have someone in my life who's ⁓ very successful in business, has made a lot of money. And for many years I really looked up to him and I measured myself against him and I said, well, look at all he's achieved and I haven't achieved those things. ⁓ But more recently I've found...

you know that he he has achieved a lot on that side of the ledger. And not so much on the other side of the ledger, the spiritual side, the emotional side. ⁓ And. I've actually shifted my perspective and I. I feel compassion for him. Because I think he really missed out on a lot. I think his his work has been a form of addiction. ⁓ Which has.

kept him focused to the exclusion of many other good parts of life.

So that's been an interesting transition for me to think about him in a different way.

Joey Donovan Guido (20:11)
Yeah, that's something I think I've struggled with as well. Kind of this comparison and seeing people who are really making more money or making more of a professional impact. And, you know, it's kind of like what you mentioned earlier, but on social media, everybody's life looks better than yours because you're seeing like the filtered version, right? And yeah.

Scott (20:38)
Curated, yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (20:40)
and then you know the camera stops and they go for their fifth or sixth drink because they're having trouble coping with life and you know

dealing with their emotions and their relationships.

Scott (20:59)
Yep. Yep. And finding out who they really are. So, you know, there's a ⁓ long list of physicians and attorneys and other ⁓ professional roles like that. They're miserable. They don't want to be doing what they're doing. They ended up in it often because of parental expectations or because of the societal push to achieve in those ways.

So certainly some men are very happy doing those things, but others wish they were doing something else. And then of course they get trapped by the big dollars and the lifestyle and there's no going back for them.

Joey Donovan Guido (21:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think the only, and there might be, there might be other opportunities, but it's in their mind, it's so pigeonholed already.

Scott (21:50)
But you could talk to any number of therapists and they'll tell you that these kinds of men, along with others, come in and they're not fulfilled, they're not happy, they're not satisfied, ⁓ they're not living their own life. And that's one of the challenges for all of us is to figure out what is my own life? ⁓ Some people are really driven.

and they want that to be their life and that can be a big part of it. Others are not, others are more laid back. ⁓ And so we've got to be okay with all those different ways of being and accepting of the many different variants that we come in.

Joey Donovan Guido (22:35)
What have you done when you've worked with a man who had this real narrow focus on what his life was and this unhappiness? What's a first step for someone like that to kind of what I keep thinking as you speak about this is step into that balance more from just being the doer.

to doing while being.

Scott (23:07)
Well, it often starts with some self-discovery ⁓ and using that psychic pain that we're feeling to say, is this about? Why am I unfulfilled? What's missing for me? What are my values? And how am I living them?

And once someone does that sort of reflection, which isn't, you know, it's not a 10 minute process, it's an ongoing process, sometimes they might decide to make a huge transformation in their life, other times they might decide to make a small one. How much money is enough money to make? How much professional success is enough? Can I throttle back? Do I want to spend more time with my family?

So in my case, so for the last 40 years, I've been telling myself I wanted to move to a warmer climate that was not Wisconsin. And I didn't get around to it. kids and I had a family and I had a job and all those reasons I didn't do it. And now in the last year, I've moved farther north to where it's colder, ⁓ because I realized, and this hit me.

pretty much like a thunderbolt after a trip to the South, that I didn't need to be in the South, but what was most important to me was to be near family. And the absolute clarity of that ⁓ epiphany is quite amazing. ⁓ was not vague. It was very clear that this is what I needed to do. And I've done it.

And I'm feeling very fulfilled ⁓ with that family time. I like where we've moved to. It's a little colder, a little longer, but I've just accepted that as the way it is and can even enjoy that. So I made a big shift based on what was most important to me.

Joey Donovan Guido (25:15)
Yeah, I think that's really good point. And that's going to be different for everybody, right? But I think from what I have seen when people start to self-reflect, that is one of the top things that comes up is family and connection. And for me, one of my big shifts early on in my process to being more mindful and more conscious was

You know, when my wife was sick, it was all about taking care of her, taking care of the kids, taking care of my clients. And I put all of that before myself. And then one day I realized, wow, this is not working. What needs to be most important, and this is not an egoic thing or a thing about being selfish. It's more about like, you know, making sure your car is...

got the proper air pressure and you've changed your oil and your brakes when they need to be done, is that I need to come first. My well-being.

And whatever that looks like to a man is going to be different for every single person. And I think this is something I'd love to touch upon with you in part two of this. So if you're listening, this is a two part series and the next part is going to be about opportunities for men. And I'd like to really talk about that. How do we start to one kind of crack open and start to come to acceptance of the idea that it's okay.

for us to take care of ourselves? And then what are some of the ways that we might want to explore that as men so it can become a sustainable part of our life? ⁓

Scott (27:03)
Yeah, great thought. It's that provider role that we are taught. ⁓ And we can neglect ourselves. And honestly, women can do that too. ⁓ It's easy to find women who are very good at taking care of everybody else, but they don't take very good care of themselves.

Joey Donovan Guido (27:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. So before we wrap up this session, is there any other challenge that we haven't talked about that men face?

Scott (27:37)
Well, I think we took a good bite out of it. I wanna put a plug in for a book, if you'll allow it. It's not a book I wrote, but I did contribute seriously to it. And it's called Balls, ⁓ Men Finding Courage with Words, Work, Wine and Women by doctors Ron Johnson and Deb Brock, two long time friends and colleagues of mine. And it really gets into this and Balls is basically.

Joey Donovan Guido (27:42)
Yeah.

Scott (28:06)
equated with courage. We need to have the courage to find ourselves, to be ourselves, ⁓ and often it's the courage to speak up, ⁓ but not speak up badly, to speak up effectively. ⁓ It's complicated stuff, but the book is very simply written, it's accessible, ⁓ and it has chapters in it on do's and don'ts for men.

and also for women. So for women, enjoy this book because it helps them understand what it's like to be a man. So the title is simply Balls.

Joey Donovan Guido (28:44)
Yeah, and we'll put that in the show notes when you're listening. You can find the information about the book there as well. And you just made me think of something that I wanted to bring up before we wrap.

you kind of made me think about this again, strength. You talked about men and strength and that, you know, showing our emotions, whether that be sadness, sharing that we're feeling depressed or crying is not a sign of weakness. And I think we've been we've been kind of

beaten down almost into submission as men to think that, if you show these emotions, you're weak. And what I have found, especially over the last eight plus years, since my wife has had so many health issues, is that showing emotion in a mindful way, which to your point that you just mentioned, it's not about just blurting it all out and hurting others. It's about how can I mindfully express this in a way that I'm understood and heard?

without somebody feeling affronted by me as best as possible. Because some people just to feel affronted if you look at them, you know, they're they're pissed off. But how can I express this? And sometimes it's just how can I make a moment for myself to feel this and let it out? Which can often be tears.

Scott (30:17)
Absolutely. of my mentors, and I have many, which is a secret to my success, ⁓ has always told me a man should cry every day because there's always something to cry about.

Joey Donovan Guido (30:30)
⁓ I like that.

Scott (30:34)
And most of us haven't done a good job of crying for many years. So we have a lot of crying to catch up on. ⁓ I prefer to do my crying in private, thank you, as many men do. ⁓ And you gotta be judicious about how and whom you disclose those emotions. Because not everyone knows what to do with that.

Joey Donovan Guido (30:47)
Hmm

Yeah, well said.

Scott (31:03)
So to follow you,

you have to find a way to experience them, especially sadness and hurt, because we don't like to feel that way. But the great thing about sadness is when we fully experience it, it finishes, it completes itself, and then it sets us free.

Joey Donovan Guido (31:25)
Instead of it recycling over and over and over. Doesn't mean sadness won't come back about that thing or something else, but it's a process of letting go.

Scott (31:39)
Right.

And sadness is always about loss and it's usually about loss of something we love. Even if it's a car gets crashed, we can love our car. And if it gets destroyed, that's pretty sad.

Joey Donovan Guido (31:56)
That's a big one, I think, that a lot of men don't think about is loss. Because loss doesn't just mean the death of a person, which I think is how a lot of people frame loss, or loss of a job. There's also the loss of a marriage, even if it's a healthy.

separation. There's still loss there. And there's also loss within marriages that are still healthy when somebody gets sick.

Scott (32:30)
Yeah, you know that one.

Joey Donovan Guido (32:32)
Yeah, and we haven't even talked about how men, when all of sudden this role of caregiver comes on to them. And, you know, what do do with that? What do you do with that when you're supposed to be this kind of macho guy who just sucks it up? you know, that can cause a great rift in one's self.

What word am I looking for here, Scott? One that self-image.

Scott (33:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yep, I should be tougher. I shouldn't let this bother me. I should be able to handle it. Those are all lies we tell ourselves. ⁓ You know, you mentioned in the intro being a man and a human being. Well, yeah, we are human beings for better or for worse. We're complex. I do have one little soap box I want to add. So ⁓ a lot of the men I've worked with.

Joey Donovan Guido (33:28)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Scott (33:37)
have been dealing with marriages that were about to end or had ended. And I think that's important terminology. Often when marriages end, it does not mean they failed or that we failed. Often when they end, it's because they need to end. They need to end so one or both people can keep growing and it's not working anymore and maybe it never worked. Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't work on ourselves and do some learning.

based on marriages that end. But sometimes a marriage that ends is a great success. ⁓

Joey Donovan Guido (34:13)
Hmm.

Good point. And you know, yeah.

Scott (34:16)
or other relationship. Maybe not

married, still a deep relationship that ends does not mean

Joey Donovan Guido (34:24)
It goes back to that feeling of responsibility. And I think a lot of times we can put the blame on ourselves. This is kind of two-pronged because...

In one sense, a lot of times we'll put the blame on ourselves if something doesn't work. And if something doesn't work, like you said, it doesn't mean we failed, but we will put that feeling of failure on ourselves, which is an immediate kind of like this real heaviness that we'll feel. And I think that is a misstep that any human being can make. I think the flip side of that, Scott, and I'm glad you brought this up before we wrapped, is

is the person who puts all the blame on the other person. And I think in most cases, unless they're extreme, it takes two to tango. So when a relationship ends, or that form of the relationship, like a marriage, ends and becomes something else, I think it's really important to one, not just put the blame on anybody.

but to try and make space to step back from it and just look at it as something that didn't work the way we hoped and also self-reflect.

And we've talked about self-reflection a few times and I think something important to note is that I know it was true of me when I started with that self-reflection. I didn't always like what I saw.

Scott (35:59)
Mm-hmm.

Joey Donovan Guido (36:02)
And that didn't mean it had to stay that way.

because we can change.

Scott (36:10)
can't. Some things we can change, other things we just have to accept.

Joey Donovan Guido (36:15)
Yep, Eckhart Tolle says that you know it probably as well as I do. He says there's three things you can do if you're in a situation you don't like. You can walk away, you can make a change, or you can accept it.

Yeah, he is a smart guy. Well, on that note, Scott, I'd to thank you for coming today and talking about men's challenges. We hope. Yeah, and if anybody wants to learn more about Scott, you can visit his website at www.savagegroup.com.

Scott (36:34)
smart guy.

been my pleasure.

Joey Donovan Guido (36:57)
And yes, that is his actual real name, Scott Savage, which is like the coolest name ever. And I get to call you my friend and my mentor, and I love you.

Scott (37:10)
you Joey this has been good.

Joey Donovan Guido (37:12)
Yeah, see you next time.