Form Your Tribe

In this episode of the Manhood Tribes Show, host Don Ross discusses the distinctions between buddies and close friends and the importance of forming lasting, transformational male friendships. 

Don outlines the steps to create a 'tribe' of men who will support each other in becoming the best versions of themselves. 

The episode also delves into the series' topics, including the crucial aspects of manhood, camaraderie, and freedom, and offers actionable advice on how to invite men into a tribe, setting clear expectations, and ensuring the relationships' sustainability. 

Don invites interested men to join a launch process to help shape the best practices for forming such tribes.

00:00 Introduction: Buddies vs. Close Friends
01:15 The Importance of Close Friendships
02:20 Challenges in Forming Close Friendships
03:36 Building Your Tribe: First Steps
05:48 Key Considerations for Forming a Tribe
11:40 Inviting Men into Your Tribe
15:39 Maintaining and Growing Your Tribe
20:58 Conclusion and Next Steps

Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.

Transcript

0:00

All right guys, question for you. What's the difference between a buddy and a close friend? Lots of guys have buddies, but very few guys, these days have close friends. And if you don't know the difference between the two, you're going to have a hard time forming those lasting close friendships. So we need to talk about that today here on the manhood tribe show.

Don Ross: 0:42

Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called how manly are you? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free. How manly are you quiz today? That's manhoodtribes.com/manly.

1:16

Men welcome to the manhood tribes show. I'm Don Ross. I'm your host. And today on the show, we are going to continue in our series about how to form close France. Now, this might seem like kind of a silly topic to you. And if you're just jumping in for the first time, you may be thinking like, what is this about? Why is this something that men need to talk about? Why is this important? And I think, honestly, it's just because of the reality that these days, most men don't have close friends. Study after study will tell us that close friendships are just kind of a dying art among men in our culture, but you don't have to look at studies to know that, right? Any guy that you talk to, if they're honest, will probably tell you that the last time that they had a close friendship with another guy, meaning somebody that they were seeing on a regular basis and talking to on a regular basis and talking about things of importance and significance in their lives with it probably was high school or college since the last time that they were doing. That. And without those close friendships in our lives, we men are really suffering. And so we need to kind of talk about how it is that we form those kinds of friendships, because frankly. We're just not very good at it anymore. The culture doesn't really help us do that. There aren't natural places for men to form close friendships anymore. And so if they're going to happen, we're going to have to be intentional to make it happen. But it's not the easiest thing in the world to do, to form close friendships, especially when there's just not natural places in our society where men tend to connect. So that's what we're talking about in this series is just what can we do to help men be able to form the kinds of friendships that are going to help make us into the extraordinary men that we want to be? How do we build what we call here and manhood tribes. A tribe of men around us, the kind of men who are actually going to be transformational in our life. That are going to help us be the very best version of ourselves. Now, we've already spent a little bit of time in this series, kind of talking about why we even need to do that. And also just if you're starting from scratch and you're kind of in a place of like, I don't even know that I have friends, where would I begin inviting guys into a tribe? Okay. Well, that's a good question. If those are your questions, go back and listen to some of our pre. The previous episodes in this series and they'll help address some of your questions. But what we want to do today. Is assume that you're at the place where you've got some friends in your life that you think you would like to develop into these kinds of close friendships, but you're just kind of not sure how to take them to the next level. You've got some guys that you're around on a regular basis. Some guys who were more than just buddies, but you're not really sure how to help those friendships kind of evolve into this idea of a tribe or some kind of friendship that's going to help bring you to that level of extraordinary and your life. How do you do that? How do you be intentional with that kind of friendship, to be able to make sure that those things are happening in your life and that that's regularly taking place? Okay. That's a great question. It's not going to happen on its own. Um, no male friendship honestly, is going to just gravitate towards being transformational. Most guy, friends just left to our own devices. We aren't going to help each other be the best versions of ourselves. We're going to tend to default to kind of like lowest, common denominators, more often than not. And so because of that, we've got to really be strategic to think about what are we looking for in those kinds of friendships, what do we need to do? How would we form them and create them in a way that actually does push us and challenge us and mold us and transform us into an extraordinary version of ourselves. So that's what we want to do. We want to talk about how you can form a tribe. How do you form a transformational group of men around you? All right. So I want to give you kind of just a few big ideas on that today. And to also just sort of say, I want to offer some things to you there to help you build a tribe, the way that I would build it, but you don't have to do it the way that I would do it. There's lots of different ways to have transformational guy friendships around you. But since most men don't know how to do that, and aren't doing it on purpose, I want to offer kind of a specific path that I use for building a tribe. If you want to adapt. Adapt it and use it in some other ways. That's totally okay. But we're going to look at kind of the way that I've done it. A few times, both with men and my own life and helping other guys be able to do it as well. Now, when you're thinking about the men that you would like to build a tribe with, there's a few things that you need to really consider. Okay. Let's say you've got multiple guy friendships in your life. Men that you know, well enough, you enjoy spending time around with, you've talked about some things of significance, you know, a little bit about each other's lives. And let's say you've got, I don't know, anywhere from five to 12 of those kinds of guys in your life. Okay. If you've got at least that, then you're probably ready to start thinking about how do I build a tribe with a few of them that could really help take things to the next level. There's at least two things that you really need to consider. Okay. The first is that you want to build a tribe with some guys that you have some things in common with. Now this is probably already true with the guys that you. You know, H have gotten to this place in life with, but you really want to make sure that there's some actual overlap in your life. Okay. So there needs to be something in common, probably around your demographics. Maybe that's your age, maybe that's your stage of life. Maybe that's the number of kids you have or the age that your kids are, or maybe it's that you live on the same street or, uh, you know, some of those kinds of things that help you just have some natural overlap with those men at your place in life. But then even beyond that, you want to probably have some just kind of like commonalities in place, things that you do that you both enjoy doing. We like going to the gym. Uh, we are both really into food and we like checking out food places in town. We, uh, both enjoy woodworking or some other kind of craftsman hobby and like working on or tinkering with things together. Okay. So. Anything like that, those kinds of things will help you just build some commonality. And here's why that's important. When you're building a tribe, there's going to be times within the cycle of the tribe where. Uh, things might get tough. Relationships might get challenging. The things that you're dealing with within the context of a tribe might get heavy. And when that happens, it can be easy for guys to start to kind of pull away from each other. Even if it's just for the sake of, gosh, things are heavy and I could really just use a little bit of a break right now. That's okay. That's kind of normal. But if in taking that kind of a break, there's not anything else in your lives that you kind of share in common besides the time that you spend together as a tribe, then it's going to be too easy to just completely break apart. You need some kind of natural overlap, some reasons that you're seeing each other and interacting with each other. Just through the normal parts of your life, because you've got some things shared and things in common. You go to the same church together. Uh, you, you know, your kids go to the same school. And so you're regularly at sports. Events or, you know, school events or whatever, but for whatever reason, this guy is kind of in your life, at least a little bit, you're going to see him on a regular basis regardless. And so you have more in common than just your tribe and that's a really good thing. Okay. So you want to have some shared commonality, it will help increase the bond of your tribe if that's really the case. But the second thing that you really need to think about is that you want to build a tribe with men that you enjoy. Okay. And this is Mike kind of seemed like a, uh, yeah. Duh moment, but at the same time, it's too easy to just kind of force this. If you're looking for these kinds of relationships to where you just sort of say like, well, I really want this to happen. And so, yeah, I kind of know him and we kind of do these things together. When I see him. Uh he's he's okay to talk to like, maybe I'll just give it a shot. I want to really kind of push you and encourage you there to say it needs to be a guy that you actually enjoy spending time around. You're going to spend a lot of time around each other as a part of a tribe. And you're going to share some things of really significance and depth that are going on in both of your lives. This needs to be a guy that you actually like talking to you like being around. He's a good conversationalist, there's an ease between the two of you. You enjoy each other's personalities. You don't mostly get on each other's nerves. You know, just those kinds of things. You need to enjoy this guy because you're going to be spending a lot of time around him and talking about really important things. And if you don't already kind of enjoy the easiness of your friendship, it's just going to make tribe more strained and make it harder for. For those kinds of relationships to really last and in order for tribe to work in order for you to really become the extraordinary man that you want to be, these relationships need to last, they need to be long term relationships, where you can have a significant impact on another man's life, over a significant amount of time, and that he can do the same thing for you. Because when that happens, real transformation. Begins to take place. Okay. So look for guys where you've got some things in common and look for guys that you actually enjoy being around. Okay. That's her. Those are the bar's kind of low, right. But it will take you some time to find guys who really fit all of that criteria. And so, as you do, as you've got kind of a handful of guys that really fall into those categories, then you're ready to say, okay, I want to take some things to the next level. I'm ready to form my own tribe and try to pull together some guys to make this work. But. What does that look like? What do you even do in a tribe? How do you build a group of men that does actually help each other transform. All right. Here's where I said, I want to offer to you some suggestions of how I would do it, how I have done it. When I really recommend to you as a man, who's trying to build those kinds of relationships in your life. The first thing that I would say is that you want to invite those men into a season of exploration. Okay. You, you don't want to just invite them into a major commitment of being a part of this tribe. It's going to be a lifelong thing. These relationships are going to last forever. You know, like that's, that's way too big of an ask for pretty much any man to say yes to. So what you want them to be able to say yes to is? Yeah. I'll give this a shot. I'm willing to consider this. I like you enough that I'd be willing to explore kind of what this looks like with you. Uh, you want a guy to feel comfortable, being able to say yes to something that's simple and easily defined. So you're inviting him into something that he can explore. And here's what I mean by that. You want to give it a definite amount of time? Okay. And starting a tribe. We like to make that time period about 12 weeks. You're going to meet consistently on the same day, every week for about 12 weeks. And you're usually going to meet for an hour or two, you know, something that really kind of allows you to spend some quality time together talking about things that are significant, but also just really enjoying and getting to know one another. So you need some dedicated time together and it needs to be clear how much time that's going to be. Give your guys that you're inviting a clear idea of what it is that you're inviting them into. Okay. So number one, give them a dedicated amount of time. Number two, give them a specific purpose of what this thing is about that you're inviting them into. Okay. You want to tell them that it's really for the sake of, Hey, I'm trying to build a group of men that can help us be the best men that we possibly can be. We're going to talk about things of significance. We're going to challenge each other and we're going to have a lot of fun. So you want to just kind of give them a broad overview of, we're trying this out. It's with guys that are like you, that you're going to enjoy being around and we're going to push each other. We're going to see how extraordinary we can become as men. When you give them a dedicated amount of time and you give them kind of a specific purpose, then it makes them a little more likely to be able to say yes to something like that. But because it probably peaks their interest as well. If you've gotten to the point where, you know, these guys well enough that you're like, yeah, they're kind of like me and we enjoy spending time around each other. They're probably going to be interested in that because you're interested in it. But the final thing to let them know is that there is an actual opportunity for an off-ramp. Okay. So at the end of the 12 weeks or however long, you're kind of setting it up to be, you can let them know that they have an opportunity at that point to just opt out. If they. Enjoyed it, but maybe they don't want to keep going. They have a chance to be able to say no, thanks. And then that's an easy way for a guy to say yes, because he knows that at some point he'll have another opportunity to say no, if he wants to. And that's so crucial for men to be able to consider committing to something like this. Any guy who might consider committing to something like this probably knows that the weight of what's involved in saying yes is going to be significant. If he were to commit to it, he knows it's a pretty big commitment long-term so he wants some opportunity to be able to back out. And you want to be able to give that to him. Now, hopefully as you get guys into it, they're going to have a phenomenal experience in that 12 weeks of kind of exploration time. And of course, they're going to want to say yes, of course, they're going to want to keep going. But some guys want, and they need to be able to have an opportunity to say. Ah, thanks. But no, thanks. And to just opt out at that point. Okay. So a dedicated season of time, a specific purpose. And an opportunity for an off-ramp. If you can give them all of those things, most guys who are already at that place of friendship with you would probably say, sure, I'll give it a shot. And that's what you're after you're after inviting guys in and having them be able to give you a yes. Okay. So now once they have given you a yes, what are you actually going to do? What do you do in a tribe that actually does produce the kind of transformation that you're looking for? How do you lead a group of men that will help each of you be able to challenge each other in ways that you will get better? What does that even look like? How do you do those kinds of things? Well, We're going to fall back on the three big pillars of what we talk about here at manhood tribes, manhood, camaraderie, and freedom. You need ways to be able to do all three of those things within the context of your tribe. So when you're going through those initial 12 weeks or however many weeks, it is of exploration. You want to be able to present those three things to your group in a way that helps them understand this is what we're going to be about. And this is how we're going to do these things. Okay, so you want to be able to give them a clear vision of manhood. Really? That's the first thing you need to be talking about. We're trying to become extraordinary men. What does that mean? How do we become the man that we really want to be? And what do we mean by being a man in the first place? That's where you can go back and talk through our five marks of manhood. What does it look like to be able to possess all of those traits so that you can demonstrate manhood to the world? Where are you strong in some of those traits? Where are you weak? What can you do to be able to get better in some of those places? How can you help each other get better? What ways can you challenge yourself? What ways can you challenge the other men in the group? How can you challenge each other together, which is going to honestly be a lot more fun. All of those are the kinds of things that you want to be able to present about manhood. You want to have a shared idea and understanding of what it means to be a man so that you can help each other get better in those ways and continue to grow in being the extraordinary kind of man that you really want to be. Okay. So you need a clear vision of manhood. You also want to be able to give them a pattern of what these relationships are going to look like. What is it that we're going to actually do together if we're forming a tribe and this is about building some kind of camaraderie. What are we going to actually do? How do we do that? We're going to spend a whole lot more time kind of on that particular question in our next episode, but let me give you just a little bit of a brief rundown right now. Let me give you just a little bit of a brief rundown right now. You want the guys to understand that as being a part of a tribe, there's going to be a balance between both serious and fun aspects of your friendships. You want to be able to do things together that you're all going to enjoy. You want to let off some steam, you want to take some adventures and do some challenges together that are going to. Both push you, but also be something that you really enjoy doing that you're going to create experiences that everybody has a lot of fun doing together. But you're also going to have time together where you're going to talk about things of significance. You're going to get to know each other really well in terms of the ways that, you know, and understand each other's stories. How you've become the men that you are today. And you're going to talk through those things and ways that will help you figure out how could you be better in those places? What are some ways that you need to improve? What are the major obstacles in life that are holding you back from being the best man that you can beat? You're going to be able to talk about those things. And you're going to have some ways of being able to address them that will help you get better in those areas. So a balance between serious and fun, and you're going to be, you're going to do it by meeting regularly, probably once a week. For the most part. Maybe occasionally you'll take some breaks here and there, but you need to have regular personal contact with the guys and your tribe. So let them know that that's kind of what we're aiming for. And this will be the pattern that we're pursuing. Lastly, you need to give them some ways of being able to be transformed. You need to help them understand? What are the things that are actually going to get us to the next level? How are we going to become the kind of men that we actually want to be? What's going to help us get over the humps and break through the barriers that are going on in our lives right now. Now in order to do that, we're going to cover some very specific things in our next episode, that will help you understand the method that all tribes use to help men be able to pursue transformation. It's going to be really cool. And I think you're going to enjoy it. I can't wait to be able to talk to you more about that, but for now, let me just remind you, those are the three big things that you want to try to cover during your season of exploration. You want to cover manhood, camaraderie and freedom. You want to help the guys understand what a vision for manhood looks like? You want to help them be able to grasp the idea that you're building lasting friendships and here's the components of what a lasting friendship actually contains. And you want to help them understand that you're pursuing freedom. We are trying to break free from the things that hold us back from being the best versions of ourselves. Now in tribe, we have some specific ways of doing that, and that's what we're going to cover in our next episode. But for now I hope this has been helpful for you, as you think about how to launch a tribe. It really is an incredible group of men to be a part of. If you're interested in something like that. And if you're listening to this episode and you go, yeah, I want to form my own tribe. How do I do that? Where do I get started? Do you have some resources to help me with that? I'm actually in the process of forming that now. And I would love to get some feedback from other men as I go through that process to get your ideas on how I can make it the best process possible for you. So if you're interested in that, I would love for you to go to manhood tribes.com/launch and put your name on the list there to help me know that you're interested in not only launching a tribe, but giving me some feedback on how to be able to do it the best that? I can do it. So. That's manhood, tribes.com/launch. And just add your name to the list there. I look forward to being in contact with you. And I look forward to touching base with you guys again on the next episode of manhood tribes, I'll see you. then.