From Culinary Success to Personal Growth + Resiliency with Alain Dumonceaux (part 1)

Alain Dumonceaux, a celebrated chef who once dazzled the world with his culinary feats at the World Culinary Olympics, joins us for an inspiring conversation about triumph over personal adversity. Alan’s journey from a life of glittering professional accolades to facing the harsh valleys of divorce, bankruptcy, and depression is a testament to human resilience. With the unwavering support of a compassionate partner, he embarked on a transformative journey of self-discovery and deeper understanding of his true self. Alain, now an influential figure in the Awaken Man movement, reveals how the discovery of personal growth and community support has been pivotal in his quest to help others find stability and purpose amid the chaos of life.

In our engaging discussion, we uncover the profound impact of aligning personal values with the dynamics of our relationships. Alain shares practical insights on improving emotional presence and communication, including exercises like completing the thought-provoking sentence "I'm the kind of man who...". This episode provides valuable lessons on stepping beyond traditional roles, embracing vulnerability, and letting go of perfectionism to foster genuine connections and personal growth. As we explore these themes, we promise that you'll discover the transformative power of authentic relationships and the ongoing journey of peeling back the layers of your own life's path to find your true essence.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with you. We had a couple of like false starts or no at-bats, or whatever the sports reference is. Anyways, joining me today is Pam Cass. How are you?

Speaker 3 0:56

Pam, I am absolutely fabulous because it is now a clear blue sky and it is gorgeous out, because we have had cloudy, drizzly cold the last two days.

Speaker 2 1:09

Oh, yes, well, and I am just coming back from Vail for a couple of days and I was greeted with some very hard, heavy snow that decided to just whip and slap me right in the face and I thought, oh bail, I love you in the summer me too.

Speaker 3 1:29

I'm a mountain gal. When it is sunny and gorgeous and everything's green and the rivers are running, and that's that's my kind of mountains exactly mine as well.

Speaker 2 1:40

I love it, yes. Well, we have a very special guest joining us today and I am so excited to dive in. So, pam, why don't you tell our listeners who's joining?

Speaker 3 1:52

us. Okay, so I'm going to try to say the last name and not butcher it, because I so respect our guest that it's here today. So today we have Alan DeMonso. Alan DeMonso as the purposeful action mentor for the Awaken man movement. Alan is on a mission to guide men in creating order and stability within the chaos of life. Only then can men face the inevitable obstacles with courage, strength and purpose, while being supported as they journey to their ultimate goal of living the highest vision of their life, which is absolutely beautiful. So grateful for you being here and joining us today, and so grateful to learn your story, and so I'll hand it over to you for you to start us off. Share us your story.

Speaker 4 2:39

Well, let's see how far back do we want to go?

Speaker 3 2:41

Oh, as far back as you want. As far back as you want.

Speaker 4 2:45

So I'm a child of the 80s, 70s and 80s and so I can remember as a young boy coming home and watching the Galloping Gourmet on TV. Do you remember that TV show with Graham Care? And Graham Care was so inspiring about watching Graham cook because he was making these classical French dishes and then at the end he'd have a guest come by and the nice table and then they'd have dinner and Graham was just so enthusiastic that he almost felt like you were sitting at the table. He was enjoying his food so much. That's the part that I remember cutting into the steak or the chambord or whatever he was making. And it's just that I thought how I want to learn to cook like that, like I just want to do that. And then I'm in Canada and so there was a gentleman up here there's there used to be a TV show and his name is Bruno Drusin. He had the same type of idea. He'd have guests on and he'd have his show, but he had to outdo Graham. His wine glass was about a liter big, so four and a half cups of the worth of wine at a time, and he would do the same thing. And I saw that and I really fell in love with that, and ultimately it came down to Jack Tripper and Three's Company and wanting to be who wouldn't want to be? A single chef living with a couple of ladies. You know what a great way I almost lived that vision.

Speaker 4 4:03

Instead, though, I decided to carry on with my life with my high school sweetheart, and I got into the culinary field, and back in the early late 80s and early 90s there wasn't any Bobby Flay and you know Food Network and all the stuff, iron Chef and the stuff you see here, but I had an opportunity to compete it still happens today in the World Culinary Olympics. There's a culinary Olympics for folks to participate in, and then the time that I was doing that, regional teams this is a team that I participated on. We participated in what's called cold food. I was so blessed to be on a team of five other individuals and won a couple of medals two silver medals, one as a team and one as an individual.

Speaker 4 4:44

But it was through all of that experience that, while my professional life was soaring, my personal life was falling apart, and ultimately, in 1992, after coming home in the winter from Germany and competing, my entire life fell apart. I ended up getting divorced from my high school sweetheart. We had two very young boys. It ultimately cost me my bankruptcy. It cost me everything that I had precious in my life and put me into a two-year depression. I didn't really recognize that at the time, but I do today, and it's also the first catalyst that started me on the path of personal and personal development.

Speaker 4 5:25

And really I'm trying to answer the question how could you be so successful in one aspect of your life and then the rest of your life seemed to be in shambles? And so I was on this quest to find that answer, and that led me for 25 years to taking different training I'm certified in NLP and timeline therapy and emotional intelligence and got remarried to an amazing woman, and life was on a roll. I felt everything. I thought everything was going well there, but guess what? I almost blew it up again the second time, and this time through my own actions and not being faithful in our marriage.

Speaker 4 6:04

And what I'm so blessed in today is that I'm married to an individual who saw a man inside of me that I was yet to find and gave me the opportunity to truly discover and live that man. And that doesn't mean that those next few years were easy for her or for me, and at any given moment she could have said you know what I'm done, I just can't do it anymore. But she had the wherewithal, the guts to stick around and really see me through it and held me accountable for who I said I was to show up the way I had never showed up before, for who I said I was to show up the way I had never showed up before, to actually put into practice all of this training that I had, all of these tools that were an intellectual piece and never really had an opportunity to be embodied. And so that's one of the biggest reasons of why I started to do men's development work is that I found that there was nowhere for me to go. Yes, there's counseling, there's different types of services, but for guys it takes us a while to get comfortable, to be in a space where we can share what's in our hearts, what's going on with us, and because that's so difficult, we don't tend to reach out.

Speaker 4 7:18

And so the last piece that really pushed it over the edge for me is that I was really close to my father-in-law, and when he wasn't, was missing, he was his, his dance partner. My father-in-law loved to go polka dancing and he'd love to do that and she hadn't heard from him for almost a day and a half and he lives about three blocks from us and we'd see him on a weekend said, hey, I get the call, could you go over and check on Bob? Yeah, no problem, I'll go check on Bob. And when I found him, my heart just left. And again you're in a spot where where do I go? Where do I share this grievance and how do I deal and process with this? And again there was just no place for men to go.

Speaker 4 7:59

And so I decided to look for some help and there wasn't any and Be coming to starting this Awakened man movement to give our guys an opportunity to truly awake to what's important in life, to live our values, to be in aligned with what is important with us, and when we do that we tend to flourish rather than struggle and press on. And so it's a long winded answer, but I really wanted to give your audience a complete background about how I got to where I am today and some of this work that I'm doing Incredible how I got to where I am today and some of this work that I'm doing.

Speaker 2 8:29

Incredible. And so now that you are in this space and you have the opportunity to work with these men right, when we talk about the awakened man, what that really means, like you said, having the purpose, seeing that being aligned and how you show up, I'm assuming, in every area of your life let's start off with just the ideal individual that reaches out or connects to you. Who is that man? Who is that person? Where are they in life? What's happening with them?

Speaker 4 8:55

Well, that's a great question, Natalie, because that's one of the questions that I asked them to get clear on.

Speaker 4 9:01

Men are ready for change, we're ready to take responsibility for where we are in life.

Speaker 4 9:10

Responsibility for where we are in life, like when we finally wake up and recognize that we have a marriage that's flatlined, a career that is no longer going anywhere, or our overall personal life our goals and dreams have totally, they're a distant memory and we can restart to take responsibility for where we are. And we can also look at ourselves and start to take responsibility for who we are, because, guess what? I didn't get here Neither did either of you without all the previous decisions and actions and thoughts that you've had. And so once we take responsibility for those two, then we can take responsibility for the last piece, and that's with who we aspire to become. And so that's about living in alignment. And so I find men come to me when they have challenges in their life and they don't have any. They're no longer clear. The first work that we do with men here in the waking man, it's helping them to gain clarity on purpose and on mission for themselves, so that then we can align the values and look at, maybe, some beliefs that are no longer serving them.

Speaker 3 11:06

Wow, absolutely, yeah, that's incredible. So when we think about the mission and vision, I think that that's something that eludes a lot of people, men and women, and so can you share with us what are some of those activities? How do you help somebody really identify what that truly is to them?

Speaker 4 11:28

That's a great question, and so one of the things that tools that I use is we call it an integrity challenge.

Strengthening Relationships Through Values

Speaker 4 11:35

Integrity challenge is an opportunity for them to do a self-assessment into six life pillars. So I use financial, emotional, physical, spiritual, in our profession whether that's a career or business, and as well as in our relationships and why it's important to look at these different aspects. Because go back to my opening story you can be extremely successful in one and yet your life is completely unfulfilled and it's falling apart and it's dragging things down. So they go through the self-assessment of an integrity challenge and get an opportunity to see what part of their life needs the most work. And not only that, but they start to see pattern in what's showing up in these six different pillars. And once we have that as a baseline, then we can start to look at what are the things that you value about the thing that you scored the highest in and how does that compare to what your values are compared to the thing that you scored the lowest in?

Speaker 4 12:34

What I normally find is that there's a disconnect and what we say that we value. I value something, let's say it's in physical. I value taking care of my body and eating healthy and doing all the things that I should do, and yet my relationships are really poor because I don't value and I can't see the connection of how that can make my physical life even better. Because when our relationships are in trouble, I would suggest in my experience that we have anxiety, we feel loneliness. Men struggle deeply with loneliness. We don't feel connected in our relationships, and when that happens for guys, that's when we tend to double down on work or we tend to shut down, we don't engage anymore. And when that starts to happen, that's when it starts to filter into other areas, so it really starts to affect emotionally how we're showing up or not. Resilience becomes even more challenging. And so when we start looking at those two pieces, then we can start to unpack what needs to be done. And I always ask them to complete this sentence I'm the kind of man who and this can work for know. I'm the kind of man who and this can work for anybody. I'm the kind of person who, and whatever you put after the end of that, how you complete that sentence, is really that part about what you aspire to become. So listen, your relationship, you say your relationships, you value those, but that's the part you need to work on the most.

Speaker 4 14:01

So what's the kind of man who shows up in to be in relationship, if it was aligned with his top value, on the value that he had scored on in the other area, and then the light bulb starts to come on right? They're like, oh yeah, that's right, I would be more present, you know, I would be engaged because, physically, I have to be present. I have to be at the gym or work out. I have to be present in terms of what I'm doing. I need to have commitment, all those things that show up and that I say is important. I live those. I'm in alignment with that.

Speaker 4 14:34

Yet on this other aspect, I'm not. And so how can we do that? How can we make that happen so that you can become more purposeful and then you can take inspired action? Because I find with us, with us men, is that we're really good at being doers and we struggle at being beers, to be present, to be available, to be involved in our lives, not from an action perspective, but from a greater perspective, a bigger perspective. And when guys, that light bulb starts to get on for turn on for guys they really start to understand that. Wow, just a little bit of effort goes so far, so much further in their relationship.

Speaker 2 15:16

That's beautiful, and so you have the gentleman. Take that sentence. I'm the type of man who and you, apply that to all six of the categories that you walk them through. Is that correct, correct?

Speaker 4 15:30

Right, Because in any pillar it's about aspiring to. So, if you're in touch with their emotions, I'm the kind of man who, you know, is aware of his emotions, who responds with the right. I always say we respond with the right amount of emotion, at the right time, in the right context, with the right person. That's a lot of work, right? That is when you consider that type of a goal. And so what does that challenge me to do? Challenges me to be present.

Speaker 4 15:59

Now, it's going to be messy, man, and we're we try to start doing this work and the guys get you know it's really messy and see there's frustration. And so you know I'll stay on the relationship side, because it tends to be an area that we struggle with. And so I always ask and encourage the guys don't go out and deal with the biggest thing in your relationship, Go deal with a smaller stuff, Something that is. You know, I love my wife dearly and I tease her all the time and she has a habit of just dropping clothes anywhere and everywhere. You know it's just like, okay, sweetie, like are you still five? Can you pick up your bra? Does it have to be there?

Speaker 2 16:39

yes, am I the only one that sees it? Is it I don't?

Speaker 4 16:42

know like do I have to you know, I always think it's a booby trap for me to the get to the washroom at night. So I just think she's setting me up for the insurance money. You know so, but we have a we can commit about that and while it does bother me, it's an easier conversation to have than saying you know talking about money. Yeah, you know we're talking about. You know how we're going, how retirement's going to go.

The Hero's Quest

Speaker 4 17:09

Those are bigger conversations than one that if you haven't had a really in-depth conversation, it's probably not the first one to do that with yeah, you don't want to go from zero to 60 and yeah, yeah you gotta really learn to practice, and so take on something that's doesn't have as much energy behind it, no matter what the outcome is of it like whether she picks up her clothes or not doesn't change the dynamic of our relationship at all. Yeah, but it's an easy way to have a conversation about something and get practice at gaining feedback, paying attention to her body language. Is she you know? Am I really engaging her in this conversation or is? Is something else happening so that we can practice as a couple, so we can grow?

Speaker 4 17:52

But I didn't do that kind of stuff before because it was just take it for granted and, truth to be told, it was more of a doormat, because I just felt that that was how I saw my parents' relationship and saw other relationships that as long as I was a nice guy and just made sure everything was looked after, there was a roof over our head, there was food in the table then you know who. After the roof over our head, there was food in the table. Then you know, who am I to ask for anymore? We should all ask for everything that we want.

Speaker 4 18:16

It doesn't mean, we get it, but we should ask for everything that we want and let's see where that lands and let's see where that comes. When we start to do that, then at least today, at least my wife knows where I stand on things. You know, in the way I teach. It is about the five levels of intimacy. It's really about how, what we're comfortable with sharing Right and so a lot of guys are get stuck into this and the other's opinion piece, right. That still gives them some safety, right? They can say well, my buddies, joe says that this, you know, this was how, this is how we should be communicating, or this is what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 18:51

This men's work and Al says, suggests that we should do this yeah, that's great, but they still have an opportunity to step back. But if you can turn into, the goal is for them to get into. I feel this is what important to me, this is what I need in the relationship and I would suggest that in the most part, I think women are better at doing that. Asking, maybe clarity also is work and there's work to be done there, but they're better at at least asking, and whereas guys we tend to think that if we're, if we're nice guys, then you know what, then I'll have a better relationship happy, happy wife, happy life. I struggle with that. We should all. Both of us should be happy.

Speaker 2 19:35

Yeah.

Speaker 4 19:36

Shouldn't be hiding things that are, that are important to us, because it doesn't grow the relationship we don't grow, and I think, in the end, if you were to ask my wife, she would say she respects me more today than she did before because we have these conversations Now're willing to get it messy about something that's going on in our life and that's affecting both of us, and so it's a journey. It's one that I haven't felt so alive as I have in these last five years of doing this work and getting on podcasts to talk about it, because I think it's so important that we still need men to show up and provide for our families, take care of our families, but our families are also asking us to be present. They're also asking us to. That idea of safety is so much bigger than just a financial and a physical piece.

Speaker 4 20:27

Does my wife feel safe enough to tell me what bothers her? Yes, does she feel safe enough to tell me what she enjoys when we're intimate and what she doesn't? Is she safe enough to tell me what she truly doesn't like, that I do and that I'm not going to lose my cool? And she feels like, oh, I can't go there without. Yeah, those are things that take practice, they take time, and I think the way we learn that as men is by being around other men having that conversation about how that works, and I provide them some tools. Yeah, do a little bit of modeling to give an opportunity to really you know, somatically understand what's going on in their bodies, to recognize that trigger before it gets to the point where you're blowing up and you're overreacting, and come back to that the right amount of energy at the right time, with the right person in the right context.

Speaker 3 21:21

Yeah, so really giving them the tools so that they can incrementally do it, just small little actions to start, kind of building that muscle so that they know how to have these conversations and rather than going, like you said, to zero to 60 and having that really hard conversation that could end so poorly that then they're just back to ground zero.

Speaker 4 21:43

Yeah, exactly, you think about anything that any of us has learned in life. You know, I can remember as a younger guy much younger guy didn't want to do anything unless I could do it perfectly Well. How do you learn to do anything perfectly Well? By doing it and messing up, by just doing it and continue to do it. I still struggled with that five years ago or so, as I started to become a podcaster, and the amount of editing I would do and the amount of deep breathing I'd have to do just to get through an episode and it's like, okay, well, I listened to some of my favorite podcasts and just human beings having a conversation. So how about I just do health?

Speaker 4 22:23

You know, people resonate with that, and if they don't, that's okay too. To take away the idea and vision I think that's what blocks many of us from really living. Our true mission and vision is that we have an idea that it should be a certain way, and then we don't allow God, universe, whatever you want to call it for yourself, to come in and mold it with us. Yeah, mold it through us, and when we can do that and just let go and not try to control every nuance of it, man like. Life is just so much more fulfilling.

Speaker 3 22:58

As you've gone through this process over these last five years, what's been the biggest aha for you about yourself that you've kind of discovered?

Speaker 4 23:07

That's a great question, you know. I think for me is the just when I think I've got something figured out, I realize that onion has another layer. This onion must be like it's like an oak tree you know the amount of rings and layers on this onion.

Speaker 4 23:25

It's just oh, I got more to go. Yeah, you have more to do, but it's a different piece. I remember, during the darkest times of my life, I was in some counseling and I had an amazing counselor. She was just unbelievable and she talked to me about cause I, you know, I had married my high school sweetheart, you know, and we were supposed to have matching headstones and have matching cups on the bed with our Alka-Seltzer, whatever it is we're going to need in old age, and all that stuff. That's how we were going to go and that didn't happen.

Speaker 4 23:57

And I can remember her telling me, using the metaphor of a tornado when you're in this in life, life is like a tornado, right, you know, here's the experience, oh, man, and you're living through that experience, and then you're coming around the other side and go, okay, I've learned a little bit more, it's not so bad. And then next year you're coming back in that experience. Something happens, a song, you know, something gets said, and then you're finding, like man, I'm right back there where I was, but I'm not really. I've grown a little bit and if I'm willing to see that nuance, then I'm able to transcend and grow. And so I use that metaphor and changed it.

Speaker 4 24:37

So one of the programs I offer is called the hero's journey or the hero's quest, and it truly is about us being on a quest. The idea of the quest is that life is great, something happens to us, it takes us to that dark place, the decisions we've made, the conversations that we've had or didn't happen. So now we're in this place and we have to learn and ultimately we find the mentor, and when the mentor challenges us and challenges us to learn and to do something and to grow, and then we learn and we grow and we conquer and we come back and we take that lesson back back to life, back to our life, back to our home life, and then the cycle starts all over again. And so I love the idea and the metaphor of the hero's quest is because we're constantly in a quest. Like I talked about the six pillars, each of those are a quest and within them there are hundreds of quests.

Speaker 4 25:32

But if we don't have the skills to recognize when we're in the pit, to recognize that we, that we need help, there's the mentor who just showed up in that to take that. You know, be willing to take that advice and to start to do something with it. You know to see oh, here's the challenge gets me to practice. Great, I get to practice this skill that I don't have except I'm lucky.

Speaker 4 25:53

And then you know, when you're first in, you're like I don't really want to practice this skill. You know this really bugs me, but we get to practice that. And then we get better, a little bit better, a little bit better. And then, next thing, you know, you know, if you take time to really reflect about life, then you, then you start to recognize hey, actually it wasn't too bad, I handled that pretty good, because before I just would have slammed the door and walked out. Today I was able to stay. I could feel the tension, I could feel the pressure, but I was able to stay and stay engaged.

Speaker 4 26:26

And when you start to get to that point, you know, then we see the wisdom in our work, we see that it's starting to come through and it's that bit of that first part of that journey is a challenge for guys. That's why in the program the hero's quest, I have numerous check-ins in the early days to make sure that they're on point, stay through it, because that's when they're going to be challenged the most. I'm not seeing anything happen out Like I don't know if this is really working. Okay, buddy, well, if you're 40 pounds overweight, it didn't happen yesterday, right, so you're not losing 40 pounds tomorrow, right, right. So what was the plan? You know how are you living in alignment with what you said you valued? Is the plan too rigid? What do we need to adjust? And then to give them that confidence and to give them the opportunity to keep moving just a little bit forward, just a little bit, one step at a time.

Speaker 2 27:17

Well, and I think that it all comes back to what you mentioned in the relationship pillar, just that one pillar was having the conversations. The other pillars all give us the opportunity to have that self-reflective piece right. We should still have the conversations about our health, what we think about in terms of our career or our profession, because oftentimes we pick up the narrative of the people around us as our own and then, 40 years into this fabulous journey, we're like that this sucks, this is not mine. Yes, because, yeah, what, how did I end up in this place where you don't feel fulfilled in whatever pillar that may be? And so, if you can ask that question of yourself, like the type of person who like, fill in the blank, right, like who am I?

Speaker 2 28:05

The other example that you brought up was the emotional piece, and that's one of my pillars that I'm currently working through, because if I were to answer it, it's like I'm the type of person that will deal with my emotions someday, and so that's not a healthy space to be.

Speaker 2 28:17

I'm aware, and I'm working through it, but I at least am aware of it, right, and I don't wish that onto anyone that's listening, because what you'll get is opportunities to check in with your emotions, and so these are the things, it's the self-reflection Like how am I showing up for me? Who am I aspiring to be? Fill in the area of life and then truly like embracing that. I think it's huge. So I know that you said that you're doing this body of work with men, but I think all of our listeners can have that takeaway. We hope that you've enjoyed part one of our two-part interview with Alan DeMonso, the founder of the Awakened man Movement, on a mission to truly show the importance of being present and how men are showing up in their lives. Make sure that you come back and join us for part two, because we're gonna dive into finding that rhythm and dance within our personal and professional relationships that really help you show up and shine.

Speaker 1 29:16

We'll see you all soon. Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.