E62: Aspire to Harness the Warrior’s Compassion (ft. Sean Harvey) - Real Men, Real Conversations

In this week’s episode of Aspire, Steve Peacock and Gabriel Viscogliosi welcome Sean Harvey, MSOD, MSED, founder of the Warrior Compassion Institute and author of Warrior Compassion: Unleashing the Healing Power of Men, for an honest conversation about men's healing, redefining masculinity, and driving systems change in hyper-masculine spaces like law enforcement, military, first responders, and beyond.

Sean shares his transformative journey from a "soulless" career in Wall Street consulting, where he led 150 people in superficial sessions, to discovering authenticity at Eileen Fisher, igniting his call to help men reclaim empathy, moral courage, and self-compassion. The discussion dives into trauma recovery, overcoming surface-level male friendships, and starting vulnerable conversations without triggering resistance from men who equate emotion with weakness.

Steve and Gabriel learn about Sean's practical strategies, like Men's Soul Adventures (which grew to 330 men seeking deeper connection and purpose), and his MLab framework for bridge builders: the Warrior Bridge (challenging ethos vs. humanity), Inner Bridge (self-awareness), Human Bridge (rehumanizing others), and Embodied Bridge (somatic integration). They address extremism (the "stew" of fear, shame, isolation, and the HYPE effect), and how blending personal transformation with systemic levers can create a lasting change in society.

Sean emphasizes compassionate curiosity over prescription to foster agency and creativity. He closes with the aspiration to bring compassion to every interaction, adversaries, and oneself; believing men have the capacity for profound healing.

For more on Warrior Compassion Institute, visit warriorcompassion.org

To learn more about I Have The Right To, visit ihavetherightto.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Inspire, an I Have the Right To podcast, where we amplify voices, share stories, and drive change in the fight against sexual assault. We explore the critical issues surrounding student safety, institutional accountability, and survivor empowerment. In every episode, our goal is to provide entire conversations with survivors, experts, educators, and advocates, giving you, our listener, valuable information, resources, and actionable steps to create safer environments and cultivate a culture of respect and consent.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Welcome back to the Aspire podcast. I'm Steve Peacock, a board member of I Have the Right To. And I'm here with my co-host, Gabriel. Aspire was created by the nonprofit I Have the Right to as a space for honest, meaningful conversations about survivor advocacy, prevention, and what it truly takes to create safer communities. If these conversations resonate with you and you're interested in bringing them into your school or community, we'd love to connect. I have the right to partners with K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to provide age-appropriate programming for students, educators, and parents on consent, healthy relationships, digital safety, leadership, and more, helping turn these conversations into action. You can reach us at takeaction at IHAFTHRight2.org.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Today, our guest is Sean Harvey, MSOD, MSED, a thought leader, educator, and advocate, working at the intersection of men's healing, leadership, and systems changed. He is the founder of the Warrior Compassion Institute, where he helps men in traditionally hyper-masculine spaces like law enforcement, the military, and first responders reconnect with empathy, moral courage, and humanity. He is Sean is also the author of Warrior Compassion, Unleashing the Healing Power of Men, which invites men to embark on their own journeys of self-understanding and healing, not just for themselves, but also as a catalyst for transforming entire communities. Through his work and his own lived experience as a survivor, Sean offers a roadmap for how compassion can become a form of strength and how redefining masculinity can help bridge divides, build trust, and create cultures of belonging. Sean, we are so grateful to have you join us for this Real Men Real Conversations episode. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

So, Sean, why don't we we just dive in? Uh so in my journey as a male survivor of sexual abuse when I was 10 to 12 years old, I really came more recently to being able to engage with myself and the abuse in a way that has allowed me to, through the connection with I Have the Right to, this great organization, to rid myself of a lot of the shame and the blame that I felt for decades. As part of that work, I started to look deeper into the causes. And in addition, you know, what are the things that we could all be working on to prevent sexual violence in any form in the first place? You've described Warrior Compassion as both a personal and systemic journey. Would love to know what first set you on the path of exploring men's healing work.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

My journey will probably be different than any and well, all of our journeys are different, but uh um mine really happened through my organ through my company. So uh I was uh when I was 40, I was the I was leading a consulting division and working with Wall Street clients. And on my 40th birthday, I walked into my CEO's office and I said I'd lost my heart and my my soul and the job, and I resigned for my for my birthday present. And then within two weeks, an opening came along at Eileen Fisher, the women's fashion company. And it was uh it was a company that was 83% women. Um, I was the internal change agent for all creative, and they sent me to an artist commune in Canada for five months, um, as companies do, uh, to learn how to incorporate the arts into creative facilitation. And that's where uh I got the call to work with men. And what I was noticing in this company was how men were being transformed organically without even trying by a culture, an organizational culture that supported authenticity doing the inner work, doing the personal growth work, and being able to have the freedom and flexibility and permission to be messy at work, to be be all things, and uh to explore and do the deeper work. So I was getting that um uh really that awareness through the company I worked for.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Thank you. That's amazing. So, your decision, if you don't mind talking a little bit more about, you know, waking up on your 40th birthday, and having that presence to recognize, you know, the feelings that then led you to go in and say goodbye. You know, I'd love to understand that a little bit more.

unknown 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Uh so I, you know, I think I um I moved into a um uh a leadership role. I was overseeing 150 consultants and coaches worldwide. And so one, I was just, I was um more disconnected from the work because I was overseeing so many people. Um, two, organizations kept asking basically, can you create miracles in two-hour increments? And so basically they would pay for a two-hour session and we were supposed to make magic happen. And it just felt empty. And at the same time, personally, I just felt empty inside. And I knew I wanted more, and there had to be more. And I think when I work with a lot of guys, it's like you, you, you know, you play the game, you get the prizes, you have the success, and yet you still feel empty inside. And that's how I was feeling. And so um, I knew I had to take a I knew I had to make a make a change.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Hey, well, thank you so much for what you just said, Sean. And I think that resonates so much with just kind of being on this kind of fragile level on top that's doesn't really dive deep. And I think that whole topic of just being very surface level with the conversations that you have is true for a lot of male relationships, unfortunately. And I think that's a major issue that a lot of men face and they don't really feel like they have those relationships that really go deep and beyond the surface, where you actually know personal things about the other. And I think that there's many stories where you don't know if their dog just died, all you know is what's their favorite sports team. And I think that's kind of the extent of a lot of these friendships. And I think so a lot of the areas that you go into are these traditional, very socially constructed masculine spaces that are kind of labeled hard to reach by a lot of people and are kind of put off usually as too hard to uh maybe bring them into this more aspirational masculinity side. So I would ask you, how are you able to kind of start these conversations with men? And do you talk about it from this emotional side? Because you said that there's not a lot of room for emotionality in a lot of these spaces, and I think as well, a lot of these men they kind of equate emotion with weakness, and that just puts them off. So, how are you able to approach it without kind of putting them away putting them away and making them fearful and stopping these conversations?

SPEAKER_04 8:12

So, when I when I first started this work about 10 years ago, so I'm an organization development consultant practitioner for 27 years. I've been doing this work with men for about the last decade. There's a professor at UC Merced who said, uh, University of California Mercedes said there's one thing, Sean, you can never do working with men, which is sound like a gender studies professor. And so that was that was one of the first lessons, like, you know, make it accessible, make it practical, make it real for the guys. Um and then, you know, it's it's interesting. When I um when I lived in DC, I started something called Men's Soul Adventures DC, um, where outdoor adventure meets deeper male bonding, meets soul connecting conversations, either the existential, uh philosophical or spiritual awakening discussions. 52 guys signed up in the first 24 hours. Uh within three months, we had 180 guys. And then within I went to four other cities and within three days, we were up to 330 guys. So from 180 to 330. So I started asking guys, why is soul adventure? And so a third of them said, I wanted a different type of adventure. This sounds, this sounded interesting. A third of them said, I just I want a place to have deeper connection with guys that goes beyond the superficial. But a third of them said, I just want a place to have deep conversations and I have questions about spirituality and faith, and I don't have a place to go and I don't want to go to church. And so what that told me was, you know, there's a yearning. There's a yearning. And so I think one of the things we do in a lot of these spaces is we think logically and we think about the logical mind of men. So I'm gonna speak to them around what I want them to talk about. But the reality is if we can speak to their deeper yearning, often their minds don't even realize why they're being drawn to something, but they are. And if we can speak to that deeper yearning, so the deeper yearning for connection, the deeper yearning for authenticity, the deeper yearning for sense of purpose and meaning, um, the deeper yearning of feeling a sense of belonging and a deeper sense of community, but also acknowledging that a lot of men struggle in community. And so, how do we walk the dance? And then to your question, then it's really I I think starting with where men can be. And like I, you know, one of the things I was saying earlier, um, I I typically see that like in our in our session, our first soul adventure, um, I just asked guys, what is the we was the it was the week after Easter, right after Passover, right in the middle of Ramadan. So I just asked, new beginnings of renewal, let's just meditate on that. What's coming up for you? 12 of 12 out of the 15 guys at that first event. I'm getting a divorce, I'm about to get a divorce, I'm just getting divorced, I'm having a breakup. I'm but three weeks prior, I was doing something on relationships, no guys showed up. Right? But when you give them the entrance, you give them the on-ramp to a conversation, guys want to talk. But often you can't beat them over the head with it, you have to just go in and open a window. So I think sometimes when we want to talk about vulnerability, when we want to talk about emotionality, it has to be embedded in something else. And we have to model it and embody vulnerability to show there's permission for it rather than saying let's talk about it, because that's gonna freak guys out.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Yeah, that is I'm I've been in the financial services field for 35 years, and it and it sounds like for your background on the operational consulting, it is a very logic-based conversation. Um what's what's striking to me is the uh lack of ability to connect with others that you would think would have developed over time. Meaning that what what you're what I hear you saying is that you're engaging with men in a conversation that they don't even consciously know they're looking for. Like there it like there's a a something that's missing that they're yearning for, and whether it's community, whether it's spirituality, whether it's connection, that presumably I know for my in my case, and it sounds like for your case as as well, is that uh, you know, those surface level conversations that you both have been talking about result in surface level relationships and don't develop uh real skills to be able to uh kind of connect in a way that is is core to being human. So I'm really interested in you know how you think about the uh early development and socialization of boys that then contributes to this almost like a you know one-on-one engagement with boys on an um with men on an emotional level through other um you know non-direct topics like the outdoors adventures and other things.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Well, I think, you know, I I as I think about it, you know, from the time we're probably about five to seven, we're just voting parts of ourselves off the island. And part of that includes how do we be friends? I think what we what I'd find is, you know, I think I've read a study, 38 is the loneliest age for any guy. And it's sort of like the late 30s because you're you're you're you're building your career, you've got a family, um, you've got obligations, and you don't have time for socializing. And I think we learn how to be friends early on. But if there's that superficial nature, what I find is as guys age, they want something deeper. And I'm finding younger guys um in their 20s are already asking for that. So the first thing I often say is, what is what does it mean to be a friend? Because I think sometimes we just don't even, we we have a lot of ideas or assumptions around what it means to be friends. I'm like, we're acquaintances that are friendly. We are we have not crossed over to friends. So what does it actually mean to be a friend? And what does it, what does it feel like to be held by a friend? And what does it show what does it feel like to show up for a friend? And then what does consistency look like in friendship where we are are there for each other? So I think first is like just both practicing, demonstrating, modeling, and then like really challenging maybe some of our assumptions of what does friendship even mean? To then be able to then say, okay, how do we then deepen our relationships with other men? Because I think there's a lot of shadows we also have that because as we're as we are losing these parts as we're as we're younger, you know, then we start to look at how often are we, like when I was writing my book, um, many guys would say, My greatest fear is other men. And part of that was the sense of threat. That that other set that was part of that was a sense of competition. Part of that was they're more manly than I am. And then there's an inferiority, superiority dynamic playing out. And so to really even look at, and before we even get to the friendship, what is our relationship with other men? And uh I asked this of anybody that I'm working with do you love men? Do you fear men? Do you have contempt for men? And I think as men, we also have to ask ourselves the same thing. Are we able to really show up for guys? Or do we have some some baggage in our own wounding that puts a wall between me and that other person? Um, and do I find them a threat? Do I find an opening? Do I find commonality? Um, and so I think just the even just exploring further what is friendship, and then to your question from a younger age, when we incorporate more social emotional learning, and as part of that, we're we're demonstrating what is friendship, and how do we socialize and how do we understand human development and how young men, boys to young men to adults, um really do you connect? And at what points do they disconnect? You know, so I think these are some of the considerations you can think about.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

That topic just resonated so much with me, I think, especially with friendship and especially young young men, as myself being one of those. I think when I have had those conversations about these deeper topics, I've really just felt a complete turn of the friendship. I realized, okay, wow, I'm really getting out of real friendship. That's not just talking about, hey, you saw the sports game last night? Well, I which I do, I do love sports, but it was great that sports wasn't the only thing that we talked about anymore. We actually really got some deep personal things that were happening in our own life, and I got to actually know the person. And I think that is just such an aspect that's often lost amongst many men. And I think just going back to what you're saying, because you often do talk to these people in a lot of these hard-to-reach communities, and let's say within this kind of soul-searching adventure, you do get maybe two men from this police department or two men who are in finance, and you reach them and they kind of have this change of heart and they realize that, okay, this is actually really important work, and this is what I was yearning for. How do you take those people and make it a change within the complete police institution within that group? So it's not just reaching one, but it's kind of reaching that large group and that large dynamic there.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

So I a couple of things. One, I think a lot of folks who do this work come from a coaching perspective. So they're really focused either on the one-on-one and every man a mankind project. Well, so it's either the one-on-one or the group. And my work really focuses on men's healing combined with organization development for systems level impact. How do we embed this work into organizations? And so it's it's actually catering the programs to specific industries. And so I tend to focus on, in particular, uh law enforcement and first responders, military and defense, construction and energy sector. Um, and then I do I work with a lot of other different types of organizations, but those five are kind of my primary. And so I develop programs for them. We'll do corporate men's circles, we will do uh leadership training. I have something I talk to is like officers as bridge builders or leading as bridge builders. And so, sort of like the let's do some work, let's have an adventure, let's do a men's retreat or let's do a leadership retreat. It happens to be majority of men. And then for hyper masculine systems or warrior cultures where I often go, um, I also they what I call it is the M Lab, men leading as bridge builders. But if it's a mixed gender group, then it's mastery and leading as bridge builders to those types of industries and sectors. So I think it's it's taking it. I'm always I'm an organization development practitioner. I always think from a systems perspective. So even I'm not, I don't think like a coach, I think like a systems thinker. And so what that means is I'm always thinking about how does coaching fit into something bigger, as opposed to how do I operate as a coach and then how do I expand that from there? I look at how does coaching fit into a bigger schema.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I would just love to kind of dive a little deeper into this MLAB framework that you're talking about as men being these bridge builders. And since they are these bridge builders, as you say, what type of bridges do you see men to build and how, what is the importance of these bridges being built?

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Yeah. So I I within that program in particular, um, I have I've identified four bridges. So it blends authentic leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership, and integrated leadership. And then the four bridges are the warrior bridge, the inner bridge, the human bridge, and the embodied bridge. And so the first place we start, and I and I do this particular program with someone from the FBI National Academy. And so we go in together, and and we look at, I really asked the question, how does the warrior ethos as you know it constrict your own humanity and your emotionality? So that's a way into the masculinity conversation without ever saying masculinity. Again, not being a gender studies professor, right? And then the second, so then the second day is the inner bridge. How do I increase self awareness and how do I connect with myself in a way and build a deeper connection to myself? Because I think one of the one of the biggest disconnects for a lot of men is connecting with themselves and even understanding that. Connection to themselves. Then the human bridge is really the bridge building work. How do I humanize the other while rehumanizing myself and understanding within that ways that I might be dehumanizing someone else or myself in the process? And then finally, um, for police officers in general, how do I be the embodiment of a bridge builder, not just a concept? How do I move from intellectualizing being a bridge builder to viscerally experiencing it and being able to bring somatic practice and embodiment work into the way I show up?

SPEAKER_02 22:34

So when I walk through my community, um, I'm not talking about it, I am it. So, so Sean, you uh that is uh extremely impactful.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

And that as I think about a couple of things you've said. One is you've said, you know, men's healing. Uh so I'm curious uh when you talk about that, are you um in fact in that system targeting people who have men who have been hurt? Or is there a general premise that men have the underlying hurt that's developed from what you talked about earlier from childhood and losing parts of themselves or being unable to develop them? And and then what kind of motivated your work to go into these areas where the the men are the hardest to reach? Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

So I think it's I think it's uh both and all, not just uh so I think there's, you know, from from in these particular industries in particular, you know, one, what was the what was our what was what was it like as a as a as a boy, as a young man? What was what was voted off the island, right? So there's a reclaiming and so there's what is the trauma of growing up as an as a as a as a boy and as a man today? So that's one. Then two, who pick, who chooses to be a cop, who chooses to go into construction? Like what is already, what's kind of the profile or avatar, right? So maybe what else is already adding a stoicism into the mix or a seriousness into the mix or what have you? And then it's what happens on the job, you know. So as a police officer or as a fire first responder as a firefighter, what traumas do you see day in and day out that are that are activated? And I think as men, we're human, how many of us don't have hurt and trauma and wounding? And the question is most whereas women often have more access, men do not. And what is what is compounded is the stigma of getting help. And so for an officer that might experience a shooting or witness a murder or what have you, when are they going to go and actually seek, you know, counsel or counseling? Or do they just like man up and then just keep going because to go and seek help would be a sign of weakness? So, how do we address the stigma? And how do we look at what can keep getting stuffed down based on our temperament, based on our environment, based on our conditioning, and then based on the job itself? And I pick, you know, the numbers, the statistics for men are then either double, quadripled, or quadrupled when we talk about cops, first responders, veterans. Construction has the second highest rate of suicide of any industry. And then energy is sort of for me like it's a corporate baseline, but it's still in this world. So that I can also be a have a balance between warrior cultures and corporate culture, but still connected so that it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Thank you so much for that, Sean. And I think also I want to talk a little bit about extremism because I know earlier on you mentioned that you've worked kind of navigating extremism and people that are falling into this belief system. And I think especially recently, and a lot of young men are susceptible to scrolling on social media and attaching themselves to this manosphere or other extremist ideas. I would but I think I think it's really important for young men since at this young age they're able to kind of have these ideas really be built into themselves and actually adopt them as reality when they're very, very far from it. So I would ask you how are you do you navigate people who have these extremist views and who have felt susceptible to believing in them? And how do you kind of bring them out of it when they're so kind of deep down in these rabbit holes? And are there maybe some patterns that you see on social media or maybe some strategies on how people can avoid them, or even if they do see them, how they can recognize them as not being reality and dissect them?

SPEAKER_04 27:03

There are a lot of parts to that question. Uh so let me let me start. Um, and I'll try to remember the different parts. Um, so I think, you know, I I just over over the last two weekends, last the last two weeks, I taught a course called Men Masculinity and Extremism at American University. And so in that course, we were really looking at the landscape. So the first day, it was four days. It's a tendon's becoming my theme, four days. So the first day was um get in the landscape of what does extremism look like today? You know, be it if we're talking about the manosphere, if we're talking about uh incels, if we're talking about mass shootings, if we're talking about violence, uh extremist violence. Um, then the second day we started to look at, let's go under the hood, what are the psychological drivers and cultural influences that are shaping America, that are shaping men and boys and also contributing to the radicalization of American men and boys? The third day then looked at what are the how do the systems themselves impact? So it might be um the culture of, say, a police department or what's happening within the tech field, um, what's happening with social media or with artificial intelligence, how are these systems also playing in? And then the fourth day, focused on now for for all of us, how do we engage to be change agents and to be changemakers to be able to bring to bring guys back to center? So I think there's there's two things to your question. One, before someone is radicalized, what are some of the conditions and what are some of the unmet needs that are playing out that become there's an aspirational cell to extremism that is being sold for a better, superficially better something. So to understand what the cells are, what what's being sold, and then also what are the unmet needs of young men in particular that are being met. So that's I think one way to understand some of the the the connection here. Um, because and like I was saying in an article I just wrote, I extremism never starts with ideology. It starts with, and I talk about the stew, the stew, think of a stew of radicalization and what are the ingredients. So I often say in these ingredients, we have healthated models, we have um uh faulty teachings, toxic conditioning. So I'm not gonna say toxic masculinity, I mean just our conditioning in general, right? How we're conditioning our relationship to all these constructs and what does our environment say. And then deep-seated fear, shame, untouched grief, because we often don't feel uh unresolved grievance, which is often what is amplifying anger, fear of avoidance of humiliation, um, the power of humiliation, betrayal, and then that combination with shame. And so we're often avoiding those things that can lead to a consequence. And so that can add to disengaging or shutting down. And then I call this the hype effect, hate, isolation, polarization, extremism, and the isolation piece is so fundamental. And I think it's the the combination of disconnecting, isolating, and then social media is a big contributor, not to create grievance, but to amplify grievance and then finding a tribal, a tribal community to be in that grievance with you. And I think then there's a sense of not mattering. I think there's a sense of losing hope. And I think these, these, these are just a sampling of some of the underlying contributors. And so if we want to pull guys out, I think we have to or pull guys back. Um, we have to understand what those unmet needs are. We have to understand what the deeper yearning is. Um, we have to think about this from a preventative standpoint. How do we reach young men and men sooner? And at the same time, when we start noticing um our friends disengaging, what are ways we can intervene? What are ways that we can say we care? What are ways that um we can start to make note and tell this person you matter? And also understanding some of the maybe the deeper concern, me, deeper needs that aren't being met that can be easily sold from a place of the men who are vulnerable to radicalization. And a lot of it, you know, I was talking to a police offer officer recently, and we were talking about, in particular, uh GBT, so, so gay police officers, so who don't have a home in the system and they have to either overcompensate and they don't have a home in the community. And I think that sense of metaphorical homelessness is often one of the most vulnerable places for folks. So when people don't feel like they fit in, when they don't feel like they're being seen, they when they fear they're being ridiculed, these are often some of the conditions that can play in. So how do we reach folks who might be experiencing that?

SPEAKER_03 32:39

So so Sean, uh I mean, obviously these uh issues are persistent and kind of baked into a at least American society from the beginning. What do you say to people who take the position where you know men have had a long time to figure it out. Men have had a lot of voices, whether they choose to listen to them or not, that tell them that the pain is too much, that the oppression, that the systemic um um thumb on their neck is um has gone too far. And we should focus kind of going forward on building a society of the willing or the coalition of the willing and kind of bring them along. Um because as as you've been talking about, these these, and I I I hear it, and I've wit, I've lived it in my own life and I've seen it with others, which is this uh this feeling of her. And the saying of hurt people, hurt people, which at first I I used to dislike that phrase because it implies that once you're hurt, you know, it's kind of preordained. Um however, I think what I what I missed in my initial interpretation is that that hurt, unresolved, unaddressed is the one that will come out somehow. And that ultimately, if you do figure out this path that you're taking a lot of people on, which I think is amazing, um, you know, you get to the place where hurt people help people. Um, but again, there, you know, the clock is ticking, and there's a ton of frustration built up within communities that have been um hurt by these hurt men. What like how how do we change the dialogue or create a narrative that we all are kind of on the same page? Or can we? There's there's a couple things here.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

One, um one, we need translators, right? So I think, you know, well, what I what I first thing I often say when that when I hear the frustration is well, we could just do nothing and then what? Right? And remember, I'm one person with a small community of people. There are a lot of other people that are meeting the needs of other, like that are creating a mainstream narrative that reaches a lot of guys. There are a lot of of there's a lot of attention on marginalized communities. So those communities are not being taken away from because I'm doing the work I'm doing. So it's not a it's not an either-or. It's like we're all operating in tandem, but who are the folks that are attending to these guys? Right? That becomes a question. So if we do nothing, then what? And then I think second, a lot of the narratives that are created are speaking at, not engaging with. We're talking about these guys, we're not engaging with these guys. So we can extrapolate a bunch of data points and then say, all right, what does this mean? And oh, yeah, we've included working class guys in the mix, we've got their voice, but who's actually going out into these communities and saying, tell me what's really up for you? Tell me what you really are concerned about. Now, my ex-boyfriend was on the path to radicalization. So I also got firsthand exposure at the kitchen table when we disagreed on slavery and we disagreed that he thought all trans people should be killed. These were extreme ideas. These went beyond a uh belief system. There was something else that was happening, and we look at the path. I'm always curious about you can have a belief system, and then when does that move to grievance, the move to rigid thinking, that moves to dehumanization, that moves to moral justification, that then moves to violence. So there's a long line, right? Belief system does not equate to extremism. It's like what actually contributes to that, right? But so I think that one, the the numbers are pretty small in terms of how many people are radicalized. But when we play, when we when we explore at those spaces, my belief is this the work I do is I'm always asking the question: how do we engage the hardest-to-reach men in the hardest to access system to learn models and perspectives for all men across cultures? And by playing at the edges of the impossible, which I call masculinity at the at the edges, um, we can learn, we can learn new ways of communicating, of inviting, of giving permission, and what I call dude psychology. What is the psychology of men? What is the ego of men? What is the psyche of men that goes out of the clinical perspective into just what's universal, what's real, what's what's the complexity of the men we're talking about that speaks to their real world narratives. And if we can engage at the real world narrative of what they're concerned about, why they might be concerned, what is the grievance? And I meet a lot of guys who were far left and then switched over to the far right. And I'm always like, so what was the grievance that moved you from one to the other? And there's usually one. But to even ask that question, I think part of what's key here is compassionate curiosity and separating the humanity of the man from the views of the man because those are two very different things. And if we can really take the time to understand what a man loves and what he cares about and what he holds sacred, and then we can see the views, and we're not conflating his views with his identity, then we have an opening to engage differently. Then we have an opening that we can hopefully mitigate risk. We can bring guys back to center. And then, Gabriel, to your question earlier, one of my measures of success, because I often say we are dealing with decades of conditioning and centuries of messaging. So to think there's going to be like instantaneous transformation, like we have to be realistic, right? And so for me, the simplest way I look at it, I talk to cops all the time. And I have to say my greatest measure of success is starting from a death grip handshake in the beginning to a hug at the end and watching the melt in the middle. And when a guy realizes I'm not a threat, I care about him, I see him and I'm validating his existence and his humanity, even if I don't agree with him. And a lot of times I don't agree with the views, but my my personal views are inconsequential in this moment because I I ask, what is what is needed right now? Not my need to be right. And I think that's another aspect. When we can let go of our rightness and our righteousness and our moral superiority, in the equation to say, what does this man in front of me need? That's usually when I find that we can make headway.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Wow, that's just very, very powerful. And I think I also just want to talk about another area that you talked about. I think religion, because I think religion is another major, major area that can either be used to positively change masculinity into this aspirational masculinity or kind of do the opposite. And you've also mentioned earlier on this podcast that you've spoken to a lot of evangelical evangelical pastors. So I would ask you how have your conversations gone with them and how have you used religion as a way to maybe kind of turn into that aspirational masculinity, or has that been more of an area that's been hard for you and kind of this rigid old traditional norms of Christianity or whatever racial whatever religion it may be?

SPEAKER_04 41:12

Yeah, I mean, well, first I'm an interfaith minister. So I like went to seminary for the sole purpose of doing soul, soul healing work with men. Um and then coming two days after saying my vows is when the call to work with police opened up, and then cops led to military, then led to extremism and to the body of work I do now. But I think one of the things that we do, especially so I think I find that a lot of the work that's being done for men is often happening on the left. And I find that what's happening on the right hand side of the column is usually coming from the church. And so I see that we're trying to get 10, 20 guys to come to an event, and then an evangelical megachurch can get 2,000 guys to come out for a men's revival with no problem. Right. So just the numbers and the access, the challenge is then when an evangelical church provides a men's revival, there's a dogma in it that it's reinforcing masculinity, a certain particular type of masculinity. I think one of the challenges I challenge my peers on all the time is um, one, we keep we can't just keep to secular. We can't just talk spirituality. We have to, we have to really face our own stuff to say what is the role that religious faith has on definitions of masculinity for particular groups of men. And to acknowledge it and to lean into it, not just to brush it under the under to the side because we don't want to deal with it. And I do think that, you know, I talk to guys all the time. What's what's said at the pulpit does have, and what's said in Bible study, what's said in these faith communities is very indicative of how guys can think about the role of men, masculinity, role of power, the role of dominance. And so to ignore that, I think is really the miss. And not to say that we have to become overly religious, I think we have to acknowledge that that's a system within the echo ecosystem that has to be considered. And are there those of us that are willing to go into these environments and say, hey, let's talk about, you know, the state of men and boys. And I and I talk to a lot of evangelical pastors about the state of men and boys because they're equally concerned. Now, they may have different ideas on how we address, but the fact that we can even be in a conversation means there's an opportunity to say, let's talk about our our different views and what is really in the best interest of men and boys. And what could be the consequence and what could be the cost if we are coming in too dogmatic?

SPEAKER_02 44:06

And what can be the cost to these young men? Yeah, it makes me think about um kind of up-leveling it a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

Thinking about whether it's religion, whether it's organization, whether it's government, whatever the institution is, that there is a huge um leadership and uh issue. And relatedly, it's a who's in the room. And I'm kind of curious as the men emerge and they go through that necessary and beautiful journey you just uh explained about the messiness in the middle and the hug at the end. How do they hold that when they go back into the world, go back in the spaces that they came from from a totally different place? So they've changed. The place hasn't changed. And I see this a lot where I can have individual conversations that are just like incredibly powerful and soul-affirming. And they put them back in the pool, and it's the same behaviors, the same actions, the same things that kind of occurred prior to that. So I'm I'm really curious about the parts of it. I guess it is a two-parter. One is how does it then actually be captured, reflected in leadership? And two, you know, how does, you know, how do we make these changes, these conversations durable once the engagement ends?

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

So I think we we have to we we have to ask ourselves, what is the engagement? Right. Is the engagement a training? Is it a retreat? Is it an adventure? Or is it a series of experiences that are really not coming from a learning and development perspective, but a personal transformation perspective and the time that it takes and what are the reinforcement? The fact is, I again blending individual transformation and organization development, it's always thinking about the relationship between the individual, the group, and the system, the system itself. So I think most of the initiatives are either at the systems level or at the individual level, not both. So what is the relationship? I am the organization is allowing me to go through this experience, right? So I'm gonna have some transformation. Then are we also looking at the conditions that you're coming back into? What do you have agency over as the individual? What do your leaders, what does your leadership have agency over to be able to start to adapt and morph the culture and the systems and the levers to then be able to make sure there's there is sustainability in this and you're not coming back to an to an environment that's going to then not be supportive of your development and growth. And then the same thing, I mean, I see this also all the time. You know, guys will do their inner work in men's circle, and then they'll go back to their partners who haven't been doing the work, and then they're going back into their family system, and it's like, okay, wait, there's a disconnect. So, how do we create, from a systems perspective, alignment? So that's always in my head. Like, what are we doing if I'm working with an organization? What's happening organizationally, what's happening at the group level, what's happening at the leadership level, and the individual men themselves. And how are we shifting the levers for all? Right. I think one of the things that I train facilitators on to do this work is to move from a program design from a programmatic standpoint to a systemic standpoint. So that you're really thinking about whatever I'm going to plop into a system. And I think when I talk to folks who want to create a men's experience in a system, they're just thinking about the experience. They're not talking about thinking about the ripples that that system that can have in the system. And so I'm always encouraging change agents and facilitators to think about the relationship. And then also, how can men transform culture and how can culture transform men? What's a symbiotic relationship, right? So I think it's, and so then you go back to the engagement. What is an engagement? So I'm having more organizations than say, Sean, can you train our internal change agents to lead these conversations? So when you leave, we still have a community of men leading this in the organization. And then we support those men while creating an imprint in the system without having to be so labor intensive throughout the organization. So it's it's different ways of scaling, it's different ways of leveraging. And then I think the other part we're gonna have to consider at some point is how does AI come into the mix? And if we're gonna talk about systems and organizations, what are ways that we can leverage the human capacity to do this work and how can technology help us scale the work without replacing our work?

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Wow. Well, thank you so much for that, Sean. And thank you for also this entire conversation. I just want to kind of wrap this up with one um question that hopefully all of our viewers and listeners, and other than all this amazing insight that's been spoken and said today, can take away is what would you say is kind of one simple everyday act of compassion, either external or internal, that, because we talked a lot about self-compassion, that can begin to change the culture around them, that men or even women can institute to really create a change within them?

SPEAKER_04 49:57

I always asked, I always ask folks when we talk about compassion, the aspiration is kind of on three levels. How do I bring compassion to every interaction 24-7? How do I bring compassion to my greatest adversary? And how do I bring compassion to myself? And then ask yourself which of those three scenarios is the hardest? And that's the place to then have compassion for yourself to do the work. I think from an external standpoint, it's moving, it's it's a couple of things. It's moving from in our work, prescription to inquiry. I have the answer to I don't have the answer. Help me find the answer together. To move from certainty to comfort in the ambiguity that we don't have all the answers. I will always tell, and part of what is very helpful, especially the work I do with cops, is I'm like, look, who am I to tell you what healthy masculinity is? I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna tell you what that is. Because who am I? But you best believe I'm gonna ask you the questions to get beneath your protective layers for you to discover your own truth. So I think if we can also, part of the compassion is believing that men have the capacity for transformation, for healing, and the agency to be able to discover their own truth that works for them. We are guides. We are not the ones informing them how to be men, but we're guides to walk alongside them as they engage and to create the containers and the spaces for men to just have the space to be curious with each other without bragging and boasting and telling how great they are, and they can really get curious about other men. And I think as we practice that with other men, then we're preparing to practice that with women and those beyond the binding so that we can really be showing up fully across the board from a place of compassion, curiosity. And from curiosity leads to creativity and we can start solving problems differently.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

I love that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing and thank you for having the conversation. We are holding so much gratitude for you today, Sean. I'm just gonna ask you one uh parting question that we ask everybody on the show, uh, like the names, uh the organization's namesake. Just fill in the blank. I have the right to.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

I have the right to be fully and unapologetically me.

SPEAKER_04 52:37

And allow others to be unapologetically and freely them.

SPEAKER_03 52:42

Clearly, you're you're you're following your own words, and uh that's such a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

So thank you so much for joining today. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much, Sean. I thought that was such a powerful message and this entire episode. And so thank you so much, Sean, for joining us on this podcast. Thank you. It's great to be with you, brother.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Thank you so much for listening. Like and subscribe to the podcast on all platforms. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a five-star rating and tell your friends about us funny. Follow us on social media at I Have the Right To. Learn more about our student and executive programming at our website at IHATHRight2.org.