Evolved Men Podcast
The Evolved Men Podcast is for men committed to growth, confidence, and deeper connections. Through real conversations on personal development, social skills, and leadership, we provide the tools to help you evolve into your boldest, most authentic self. For more information about the Evolved Men Project go to: http://www.evolvedmenproject.com
Evolved Men Podcast
Unmasking The Pressure To Be Perfect with Mordy Gottlieb
What if the “strong” version of you is actually the one that speaks honestly, asks for help, and stops trying to be perfect? That question sits at the center of our conversation with licensed clinical social worker and men’s coach Mordy Gottlieb, whose journey from pastry chef to 13 months in treatment to leading men’s groups reframes what real strength looks like.
We dig into the pressure men feel to hold it all together, how perfectionism keeps peace just out of reach, and why shame multiplies in isolation. Morty explains why men’s groups are uniquely powerful: accountability and compassion delivered by peers create embodied safety that a solo therapy hour can’t replicate. From literal backpack exercises to the vulnerability of candlelit “10 shames, 10 regrets,” he shows how structure and protection allow men to finally put the mask down and be seen without being destroyed by it.
You’ll hear practical ways to start small and build confidence: make your bed to rebuild self-trust, ask a simple question in the store to practice micro-risk, and anchor attention in the part of your body that feels safe when anxiety spikes. We also explore embodied movement and ecstatic dance as bold training grounds for nervous system freedom—no steps to memorize, no “wrong” moves, just the habit of being real in public. Then we bring it home to relationships: crafting clear agreements, telling the truth without dumping, and honoring needs even when you don’t fully understand them. The throughline is simple and hard—your worth is not earned by performance. Act from dignity, not for it.
If you’re tired of carrying the invisible backpack, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a brother who needs it, and leave a review with the one micro-risk you’ll take this week. Ready to trade the mask for real connection? Join us and step forward.
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Are you ready to break free from hesitation, self-doubt, and isolation? Do you want to lead with confidence, build powerful connections, and live boldly? I'm Cory Baum, and I'm here to share the most impactful strategies and mindsets that I've learned through coaching, leadership, and real-world experience. Together we'll forge unshakable confidence, master social dynamics, and create a life rooted in purpose, brotherhood, and bold action. Inside, you'll get the tools and insights to become the strongest, most connected version of yourself. Let's dive in. All right. Welcome back to the Evolve Men podcast, where we explore what it means to live, lead, and love as grounded, authentic men. Today's guest is someone who's been doing the work both on both sides of the chair. I've got Morty Gottlieb. He's a licensed clinical social worker and a coach based in Scottsdale, Arizona, helping men move past shame, perfectionism, and the constant pressure to have it together. So some of the things we're going to talk about today that we'll go deep on is how those patterns form, why so many men struggle silently, and what it looks like to show up, not perfectly, but authentically. So let's get into it. So welcome to the show, man. Glad to have you here. What do you what is it that led you to this work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, every time I tell people what I used to do, then they always tell me that I have to make it for them. But my first career was a pastry chef. And honestly, and then I remember I tell people look, if we have an ongoing relationship, I will absolutely make you something pastry chef. I was an amazing pastry chef, and I envisioned doing that for the rest of my life. And that was my plan. On the outside, my life looked great and wonderful and functional. And probably like most men on the inside, the ones that are struggling, it's just on the inside. On the inside, I was falling apart, filled with shame, depression. A sense of whatever I did was never enough. And as soon as I thought I knew what I needed to do to be enough, and I did that, it still wasn't enough. So essentially I was set up in this loop that I was inevitably doomed. And at a certain point, it became so challenging that I had to numb out the feelings. And I went to food, I went to alcohol, I went to pornography. It led me to a lifetime of becoming addicted to people say, What did you do? I said, I did whatever I could to feel better. So the hurt was so deep, the shame was so bad, I didn't know any way out. So I just used substances to make myself feel better.
SPEAKER_01:Is that so is that what led you into social work? How did that kind of go? I mean, you you know, giving up the pastries is no easy feat. Like that that that takes a big movement.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I went to treatment back in 2014. And it's funny to think about when I went, I had a flip phone back then. And back then, treatment centers weren't five-star hotels. They were really bare bones, and they were like, Morty, you're here to do the work, you're here to get well. We're here to teach you what a man is, which means somebody that takes responsibility for themselves, that doesn't blame other people and say that, oh, when this person changes, then my life's gonna get better. It's about getting consequences. Like my whole life, it was like people bailed me out, they thought they were helping me and supporting me in that, and not realizing that part of being a human being is getting consequences. Because if you don't teach people consequences, they're just gonna continue doing that. I went to treatment initially for five weeks. I was 24 years old. I went for five weeks, I came back about 13 months later. And people say to me, Well, you gave up so much time of your life. And I said, It was worth it for me to invest 13 months of my life so that I could have the rest of my life to live in peace. So I remember I'm sitting there with other men, and a therapist could try to hold me accountable, a therapist could confront me, a therapist could give me empathy and compassion, which was helpful. The most beautiful moments that I had was with other men, either turning to me and telling me, Morty, you're full of shit. Like, I don't know what you're talking about, this makes no sense. Or on the flip side, wow, Morty, that's painful. Let me give you a hug. It was through that experience that I'm like, okay, so I instead of making pastries, being in a kitchen, it's chaotic. As you probably know, it's not the healthiest environment. The hours are crazy. I could literally delicious, yum. Although when you're working, it becomes about performance. And I could sit with people in their pain, in their joy, in their misery, in their good times, in their low times, and help them feel seen and safe. That's what most people need. It's people don't talk about it enough. But what we're really looking for is how do I feel at home and safe in my body? That I don't need to run away from my body. So while I was there, I'm like, after a number of months, I'm like, I saw the transformation that it did for me. And I'm like, I can have Morty's pastries, Morty's baked goods. I'm like, that's not the legacy I want to live. So I decided to change my path, and I'm super grateful I did.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So from that point forward, you you know, how does that work? Like you went back to school, you're just like, you came out and you're like, hey, this is my mission. Like I understand it now. This is my why.
SPEAKER_00:So I had a crazy story. So I'm in treatment, and to go to a master's program, you need an undergraduate degree. And I mean, this is pure coincidence, God incidence, whatever you want to believe. I had a guy that I was in school with in my undergraduate days. He came to treatment and he said to me, Morty, by the way, the school got accredited after you were there, and they're able to backtrack to give you an undergraduate degree. He's like, You have a bachelor's. I said, Come on, David, you're you can't. He's like, I'm telling you. So those days we didn't have cell phones. I called my father, I said, Q call the dean of the school and see what the story is. Three weeks later, I had a bachelor's. So literally, when I left treatment, I left in August of 2025. I started school in September. So, you know, it worked out better than I could have ever imagined, as opposed to, you know, sitting in undergrad for four years. So I was able just to literally get out of treatment and then go right into the field.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So how does where in there did you make the transition from, and and before I say this, it I know that there's a lot of overlap between social work and coaching, but where in there did you make the transition from the social work to what I'm guessing is kind of like a it sounds a bit more focused on group coaching, men, like that sort of bit.
SPEAKER_00:So I always knew that I wanted to work with men, and I always knew that I wanted to do groups because people go to therapy all the time. Some get well, some don't. The ones that don't get well go to a higher level of care. Maybe they go to intensive outpatient four days a week. The ones that are really not well need to go to inpatient three months, six months. And I thought to myself, what's the difference between people that go to therapy once a week and people that go to, let's say, an inpatient? What type of therapy are they doing that's different? I recognize there's one piece that they're away from their environment, they're in a safe place. Okay. If that alone was enough, we wouldn't have to do any therapy. And I realized very simply, when they go to higher levels of care, they go to a treatment center, I was in groups 15 hours a week. And I realized when I was in that environment that the solution to most people's problem, which is generally loneliness and shame, if I was brought up feeling shame about myself, I can't go and heal myself of that shame. Just like you're not gonna tell a child to love themselves, children have to be taught that they're loved. And then once they're taught that, then they could go and love themselves. But most people that need higher levels of care weren't taught that. Never believed that. So people need to go to treatment to learn, oh, I can be loved. And the way they're gonna do that is with other people in a group to hold them accountable, to share with them the good times and the bad times. So when I was in treatment, I saw the power of that and I said, that's what I want to do. And my dream is that more people did that. The challenges we could talk about is that men have trouble being vulnerable, and then you want to put them in a group with other men. It's like vulnerability on top of vulnerability, and it's too far removed for them. So I always knew I wanted to do it. When I got to school, thankfully, they had a group a program that was focused on doing group therapy. So I took that. And then a lot of my work has been in treatment centers and then you know, starting my own business, you know, really focused on groups. But I there's something magical and powerful about groups. If you've never seen it, it's hard to believe it. But if you've been to a group that you were felt safe and people felt contained and that you would be protected by the group leader, then nobody could hurt you because you have somebody there that's gonna keep you safe. It's powerful and magical.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely, man. So a couple of things. I I run up until just recently, I I facilitated a men's group in Olympia where I live. And it was amazing, and I've been a part of other groups myself in the past, and it's been it was the first time that I stepped into that space was absolutely amazing to be able to say some of these things, you know, and and I tell the story at times as like a backpack, right? Basically, like walking into the room with this figurative backpack on that's full of like giant fucking boulders, right? And it was the first time in my life when I started doing this years ago of being able to like open up that backpack. And and at first, maybe it was like holding the backpack in my chest, right? And and I'm like, I'm here and I'm with other men, right? Like, I'm not I'm not opening this thing up, right? Like, nobody needs to see what's in here, you know. But slowly really starting to realize that, like, hey, everybody else in front of me's got a backpack on too. And some of these guys, like, hey, he's pulling out rocks that look really similar to mine. It looks the same shape, the same size, right? That that there was some similarities in it, and and that they didn't die. Right. And and so I think at times that you know, and I know it definitely for myself and other men that I've worked with in the past, that there's this that there's this like perception of of men of like perfectionism or trying to that that have to have this persona of having it all put together, right? Like, I don't have any of these problems that you know that I've got it all figured out. Right. And I think that that creates a lot of a lot of pressure in men, right? A lot of I don't want to say necessarily like undue responsibility, because I think as we were talking, I think responsibility is is a good thing, but it's a it's a pressure in there that most men don't know how to at times maybe get their arms around. So, what what do you feel like in the work that you do and the work that you've done? What does that pressure look like in real life with men?
SPEAKER_00:So, I first of all, the backpack metaphor, I want to tell you it's not just a metaphor. When we were when as a client when I was there, so the challenge with emotional well-being, it's sometimes so it's not tangible. It doesn't feel like yeah, I have so many problems, but you're like, but you're not, you know, it's hard to accept. They literally would give you a backpack and they would tell you to fill it up with stones and walk around with that so that you could start feeling and embodying, oh, this is a big burden. It does have it does take a toll on me. So I want to let you know that we used to do that in real life because it really helped us embody that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to take it from like literal to you know, figurative to literal sort of thing. Like that's some heavy ass shit. It feels good when you take it off, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and and I think that's a thing, especially in men's work, that making those sort of correlations with men in in a physical sense of what it feels like for them of like, hey, that that weight, that hundred-pound pack that you just took off, like that's shame, right? That's perfectionism, that's some of these other things that there's a feeling that goes on, and maybe you don't always recognize it in your body, but it's there.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting you say that because a lot of times somebody will say, Oh, I just said this to my friend, it's no big deal. And they have a hard time embodying it or feeling it. So I'll say to their, I'll say to them, Would you punch your friend in the face? No, I would never punch them in the face. I said to them, when you verbally harass them, that's exactly what you're doing. They're like, Oh, I didn't realize that. So sometimes doing things on a little bit of the extreme helps them embody it and feel it. And that's what all this comes down to. It's all about we're afraid to be in our bodies, we're afraid to be home. I don't like the way it feels. So I'm gonna do anything I can to run away from it. And really the invitation is how do we bring ourselves back home to our bodies?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and I feel like at times there part of that can also be a like kind of a defensive mechanism, right, of setting up these walls and this perfectionism, right, against these, this shameful part of our life, right? That you know, hey, I'm gonna put up this front of how everything is so perfect, right? I've I've checked every box, I've I've done the career, I've done all of these other sort of things. Maybe at times because of, you know, because of this shame. Right. So I'm I'm curious, when what have you found in in your work around what are some of these subtle ways that that I think at times men don't even necessarily realize that they're they're hiding. And and to that point, even from themselves, right? Like we can sit here and say that, like, oh yeah, that that really makes sense. But I think at times that that people can do this subconsciously, right? Without even like, oh no, I don't, I don't do that, or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00:So the first thing to recognize about perfectionism is that if you're trying to seek out perfectionism and that's your North Star and that's where you're trying to go to, you'll never have serenity. Because while it sounds cliche, nobody wants to accept the reality, or a lot of people don't, that perfection is not possible. And there is this fantasy and this illusion and an allure, one day I'm just gonna get there. And people try their whole life to get there, and unfortunately, they never get there. So that's the first piece of like starting to accept it's sad, it's unfortunate that it's not available to you, but the sooner you accept that, the sooner you could find peace. When people are trying to be perfect, they work more than they would like to. They people please, they don't take time for themselves, they put up a mask. You know, you have a lot of people in relationships, you know, they'll be with a partner or friends, they'll be like, after a while, like I don't even know you anymore. And I'll say to them, you don't know them because you never let they you know you never let them see you, and they never let themselves see you. So you both two people walked around with a mask, and after a certain time the masks come down, it's inevitable that the mask breaks, right? If I'm always being nice and my partner constantly belittles me, and I go with them and I just suck it up and be a man and be okay with it, eventually I'm gonna act out in rage. And the same thing with your partner, she never shared with you her needs because you were afraid you're gonna leave. Eventually, the truth comes out. It's like, of course, you never knew each other. So it's the challenge is when you're trying to aim for perfection, it's in a service of something. People are not idiots. I want to be perfect because I don't want my partner to leave me, but then they're not gonna know you. But their fear, their fear of losing somebody is so great that they're willing to go against their own integrity and who they are and present somebody else. So that's the challenge with perfectionism. It's not I want to be perfectionist and for the sake of being perfect, it's for a cause. And I'll ask people, I'll say, well, maybe it's worth it for you to try to do that. But you're in this office right now, we're having this conversation, so obviously that's not working. Maybe we could try something else.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, I think that you know, if we were to just say that that the struggle is real, right? That I think at any given time that there's there's a real need for all of us or a desire or want to be to be accepted, to be validated, to be approved, to not be left, not not to be abandoned, and that the the thought of that or the idea of that can be terrifying. Right. So it's I feel like it it's completely normal that that struggle is there, right? Whether it's perfectionism or shame or whatever, it's it's the mind's desire, right, to to keep us alive, to keep us safe, to keep us out of those sort of things. But the problem to you know what you pointed out, the the problem is that in doing that, nobody really ever gets to see the real the real me. Right. That that we're really literally walking around having conversations with other masks in life, right? Like I've got a I've got a whole collection of them that I carry everywhere, you know, and that and I've said for a long time that it's that sort of authenticity and vulnerability that creates the the glue for connection, right? That that's what actually makes the that's the the like the liquid that helps the electricity transfer sort of thing. That if you don't have that, it's just two people, it's almost like we're acting between each other, right? I've got my mask and you've got your mask. And you know, I I feel like I've seen a video of this. It's like two people sitting there and they've got like a puppet, right, on their shoulders. Like, I've got a puppet and you've got a puppet, and like the puppets are having conversations, but in reality, the two people are, you know, they have different thoughts and feelings. So those two people are never having a conversation. So how does that like what does that look like for you, you know, for you for yourself and the men that you've seen? When when a man finally starts to open up and let himself be seen. And and and I can tell you, even from my own experience, like that's terrifying, right? And and I tell the story sometimes that like when I would think about it then, my entire life was on the line, or at least it felt like it in that moment, right? If I say anything, and and the longer it goes, the scarier it gets, right? Because man, if I say anything, I've I've got a marriage, I've got kids, I've got a house, I've got a career. Like if I start saying, like, there's only the story I'm telling myself in that moment is like there's there's only one way that this could go.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And so you you've got to continue to support that. But what have you seen in your experience when a man finally does open up and allow himself to be imperfect?
SPEAKER_00:That's where the freedom is. But like you said, as much as scary as it is, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this to the scariness, that's how much freedom is on the other side. And the mask is again similar with the rocks. We would, in treatment, have people make masks, and when they were talking in groups and it wasn't their authentic self, we would say, put on your mask, and they would start talking from behind the mask, and it'd help people realize I actually have a mask. But like you said, if I'm in a relationship with somebody and don't say and don't put myself at risk of getting hurt again, which means being vulnerable, sharing things that I may be embarrassed of or may feel judged on, I cannot have a close relationship with that person. The people that we're closest to could hurt us the most because they know the most about us. But that's why we're so close to them, because like you said, we have all that glue. It's terrifying, and what happens a lot of times is men do it and then they then they retreat, which is so annoying. Like they do like when we take a risk, they do it, and it's like vulnerability overload. They never thought they could share something. They thought that if you really knew me, you wouldn't accept me. I think this is a lot of a lot of thinking that men have. If you really knew what I did, if you knew that my childhood or my behavior, and you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't accept me and you wouldn't be loved. I wouldn't be loved. So they'll share something, they'll get a reaction that's positive, and then they'll be like, okay, but the next thing is gonna be even worse. That for sure nobody's gonna relate to. And one of the ways that I helped men put down their masks, and again, this takes time to build a group safety, but we would do an exercise. It was called 10 shame, 10 10 shames and 10 regrets. So we did a some work to help people feel safe in the group. It was an established group, there was no new people coming in. People would write down 10 things they're most shamed about and 10 regrets that they have in their lives. We turned off the lights, put on some candles, put on some music, and people shared one at a time. And the imitation was obviously before was things that were extreme. So some people have done things that other people don't have space for. So those we like we said, if you abused a child or an animal, those things don't say. Like I have space for that. I work with people that do that, but most people don't have capacity. But if you've lied or cheated or all sorts of things, share that. People share that with the lights closed, it makes it a lot easier. And when the group's ready, we turn the lights on, and people look at each other. And the just me as a clinician watching that, the sense of connection, the sense of unity, the sense of wow, I've done all these, what I've told myself are horrible things. That guy's done it, that guy's done it. They've done things that are I think are worse. The sense of freedom is unimaginable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I love that thought of being in a room, right? Dark, candlelit, however it is, and you know, just the the like the energy that I imagine is in there and hearing those other sort of things. Because I know for myself and and the men that I've worked with that this might be the the first time in their life that they've like they've been they've been listening to this to themselves for years, right? Uh in this dialogue that they've never shared that with somebody. And right, and I feel like it's really easy to tell ourselves that that nobody else has ever felt this, that they've never thought this or considered it when we've never, we've never asked, right? We've never opened up when we've never shared. How do you feel like that that shame, right? How does that show up in in our relationships with with our partners and our kids or or our friends, right? Because it doesn't go away. I I feel like it it's it's present every, you know, that that backpack is there with us everywhere we go.
SPEAKER_00:Shame to me is the number one driver of loneliness. Also, something else that's interesting to think about is people want to be right. I want to be right. You want to, I don't know about you. Most people want to be right. The way I think is right, what I do is right and correct. So if I walk around thinking that I'm worthless and that I hate myself and that I have no value and that I'm not enough, I'm gonna want to do behaviors that remind me that I'm right. So men will all people do this, but especially men when they don't feel they're enough. I'm a piece of shit. Okay, so I could watch pornography. That's that's who I am. I have no value, anyways. So yeah, I can be unethical in business. That's that's just who I am, anyways. And it reinforces who they are, and then when they are that, or they tell themselves the story they tell themselves, they do more of that. Yeah, so there's it's it's scary to think about how even though it's not what we want, we're constantly doing things that reinforce that that's who we believe we are. When the reality is, and this is the is the reality, is that no matter what I do or what I don't do, that never defines who I am. Who I am has nothing to do with what I do or don't do, or did, or will do. Because if I'm judged by that, it's a problem. To me, how do we come to a place where you have a parent, they have a child, the child doesn't have to do anything, they don't do anything, all they do is eat and poop, yet they're still love, they still have value. The challenge is if you never got that, you don't know that. But that's really what we're dealing with is how much money I make doesn't infer my value, what I do for other people doesn't give me value. If I'm a good person, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with I'm a human being and I'm alive. There's some force out there, no matter what you believe, that felt that I had a there was enough, there was a reason for me to be here. And how do we help men accept that that's enough? If you didn't provide for your family, it doesn't define who you are. If you don't have a fancy car, it doesn't define who you are. It's new, and again, it's scary, and that's where the and this is important to rec. I just as we're talking, I'm like, the scarier it is, that's how much freedom there is on the other side. So if you're like very scared, that's fine. Just know that's how much freedom you're gonna have.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's almost like an exciting opportunity, right? To that point of like, man, like that's gonna be it's gonna be so awesome when I can finally it's like a bigger rock, right? Right? Like, hey, you can you can take out all these small pebbles all day long, right? But you really want to take a load off your bag, take one of those big rocks out of your bag.
SPEAKER_00:Right, and I want to say something interesting about rocks because it once happened in a group that I was running. Somebody said he's the rock of the family. And I went around the group and I said to them, When you think of a rock, what do you do with a rock? So this guy says, I step on a rock, I throw a rock, I ignore rocks, and I said to this guy, You're the rock of your family. Obviously, I knew the guy said, But the rock that I think you are to your family is what your peers are saying. You're a rock that's treated like a rock. And that was like, you're right. So there's in his head, he was the rock of the family, but the rock of like he's but really he was being treated poorly and he needed to have boundaries. But again, he was afraid, it wasn't he didn't have permission. But when people start realizing, I think a lot of it's what you talked about if people don't even realize it when you point it out to them, they're they're they're like, it was so obvious, how did I miss it? But if you were never taught or never given language around it, then we blame ourselves that we didn't know. But if you were never taught and never given language around it, how could you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, and I think that we there's so much of our life that we pick up on our own, right? That we pick it up from society and you know, social media and everything else that it's not so much of like, you know, this is my life experience, this is my lived experience. So, like, this is all that I know. Right. And and I learned maybe as growing up that you know men, men don't cry, right? Rub some dirt into it, I'll give you something to cry about. Right. Like you know, men are meant to be the protectors of the family, that emotions aren't helpful. And so when that's our learned experience, that we don't know anything different, right? We don't know that there's another world out there, that other people are experiencing those sort of things. And and I think it makes it really hard in doing that, right? I I think it's really challenging for people to show up authentically in life and in intimacy and and in all areas of right, but be because they've got to be this like I've got to be this rock, right? And maybe in that guy's mind, like maybe he didn't he wasn't coming to that conclusion in the end, but a rock really wasn't something that was was great.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. It was kind of a negative thing. And so I I feel like at times that men can get to this place where you know, being the rock or carrying that bag, whatever it might be, that they start to really like shut down emotionally. Yeah, and and for some men, maybe they've never even opened up to this. Where would you suggest, you know, for the man that's starting to begin opening up those doors, right? Or taking that rock out, like where do they begin in that process?
SPEAKER_00:Right. So it's tough to come like if I hate myself, so people will say, Oh, just love yourself. And you're like, okay, great. That's that's amazing advice. If I could do it, I would, but we don't know how to. To me, I always tell my people, I say, I have unfortunate news for you. You may get hurt again. Like throughout this process, if you're gonna take risks, taking risks just means that you may get hurt again. And what you have now here is a group of people that will support you, that will protect you. And to me, my goal for the people that I work with, it's a little bit out there, but you know, bear with me is I tell them we have to become more like clowns. I call it clown theory, which is when you have a clown and they're juggling and the ball drops, and if I was in a group and I was talking about it, I would juggle and show people because I'm very Do you do you actually juggle when you do it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:To show people. It falls, the ball falls. What do clowns do? They don't walk away in shame, the show is over. It's like, okay, the ball fell. How do I pick that up and keep moving forward? How do I start to accept that it's okay to be safe in my body? Now, I think the number one way for men to heal, no one's ever gonna do it. It's not gonna happen. I've suggested it to a lot of people. It's a good idea in theory, they tell me. They know that it would help them immensely, but again, it's terrifying, and I recognize that. Like, if I could only do one thing in this world the rest of my life, this is what I would do. Get men to do the following thing. I would travel across the world to do this. I'm just like, I'll just be doing it myself. Which is get men in a room and do embodied movement or ecstatic dance. I'm a man, build safety, build the container. I say to them, come with me to the class. I'm gonna be there with you, I'm gonna support you in it. That's how I felt, that's how I found a lot of my healing. The problem is you're afraid to show up as you are, you're afraid people are gonna judge you. Okay, here we're in a space. I'm gonna be here with you. People may judge you, they may not judge you, and you're gonna start practicing. And if I decide right now to move my hand like this, even though other people would be like, what the hell is he doing? The music's moving slowly. Why is he doing this? It's a practice, and I don't care about them. What they think about me is none of my business. Because we could talk about these skills from today till tomorrow, but if we don't actually practice them and embody them, it's gonna be useless. So to me, it's telling a guy, because maybe that's an extreme example, telling a guy, you know what I want you to do for now on once a week, I want you to do an activity with yourself. Do an act like, what do you mean? I'm like, I understand you have a partner, I understand you have friends, I want you to start to realize that you're a safe person to hang out with, that you can entertain yourself, that you don't need to numb or run away or do this, that, or the other. I remember once early on in my journey, I wanted to do that. I'm like, I'm gonna go play bowling. I said, could I get bowling lane for two people? They said, Who's the other person? I said, I need for two. I played it, yeah, me and my inner child. Exactly. And of like, how do we start realizing that I'm a safe enough person to hang out with, with myself? So there's the challenge is everybody wants something that's cool, that's sexy, that's exciting. That's well, yeah, if you fast for a month straight, then you'll feel better. People have an easier time accepting that challenge than getting into their body and going to an ecstatic movement class. And I think people have to accept that it's actually not that exciting in the way that they think about it. That's not that sexy on the outside, but on the inside, when you learn it's my body, I can move how I want, the freedom that's on the other side of that, again, how scary is that and how terrifying is that a lot. But on the other side, as you start realizing in this world, I'm going to move how feels comfortable for me. If other people don't like it, they can get out of the way. They don't have to be near me. That's fine. But I'm also gonna learn, because when you're doing ecstatic movement, if you made a misstep, there isn't it doesn't happen because there is no misstep. We're so into like this is what I have to do. Who told you that's what you have to do? This whole life is an improv life, anyways. Everyone's doing improv. I don't do improv. Well, we're having this conversation now. Did you have any idea what I was gonna tell you? No, so then we're doing improv anyways, so why not lean into it and have fun with it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's beautiful. So I I do, I do. You're talking about ecstatic dance. I practice a bit of salsa and bachata dancing. Yeah, now there's a lot of steps.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01:And but I love the idea of the ecstatic, right? To where there's no wrong step or no wrong move. Because I tell you what, for the longest time uh I struggled remembering the steps and the moves, right? Like I would love a dance where there wasn't that weight of like doing it right or doing it wrong, that you're kind of really just able to do however it is that comes to you. But with that in mind, I mean, that is that's challenging to break out of that, right? Because for the longest time, we've and and I I know for myself, like, you know, hey, no, things have to be a certain way, right? That I have to act in a certain way, I've got an image to uphold, right? That I can't just be breaking down everywhere, right? I can't be super emotional about these things. Like, I have to be able to maintain that persona. And so, yeah, I love that idea. Now, granted, I don't know that everybody's gonna start going to a static dancing, but I think the idea of like, what is one thing that I can do today that is taking action towards opening it up, right? In really small sort of micro sort of ways.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's the extreme, and that's like if you really want to get well really fast, just do that for a month. You'll probably get really well, really fast. But again, that's a goal, and it's very hard to get there unless you've done a lot of the deeper work. But it's about, to me, it's so cliche, it's about trying something new, doing something small. You don't want to risk saying that to your partner because it's too, you're afraid of that. How about at the store? Next time you go, instead of walking around Walmart for 45 minutes trying to find your item, take a risk and ask somebody for help. It's so micro that it seems insignificant, but the shifts are huge because for that person, if they're so afraid of it, again, the more afraid you are, the more freedom there is on the other side.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. It's it's finding, you know, I think what you were talking a little bit about earlier was the like a confirmation bias, right? That where people find what it is that they're looking for, right? And as we were talking about gratitude earlier as well, right? That when people are expecting for things to go bad, that often that that's you know, through their energy or whatever it is, that that's how things end up, right? And so something that that I've kind of come back around to a lot lately, you know, for the longest time I didn't really understand where people would say to get up and make your bed every day. All right, like, hey, first thing in the morning, get up and make your bed. Like, first action item, maybe during a coaching session. I don't want you to do anything else tomorrow morning. I want you to make a wake up and make your bed first thing. And it's it's really changing the relationship with yourself around doing things and being successful.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And so going back to that, right, like getting up in the morning and making your bed is showing yourself that like, hey, I I decided that I was gonna get up tomorrow this morning and make my bed. And in fact, I followed through with it, I did it, and everything turned out okay. Right. So instead of, you know, to your point, instead of going to your partner or whatever it is and be like, man, I've got some shit that I have been withholding forever, let me just let it all out. Yeah, like it's gonna, it's gonna rock the boat, you know. But starting with those things that, yeah, maybe it is looking for something at the grocery store, expressing gratitude to somebody, right? Whatever those smallest sort of things might be, but starting with uh this mentality of like one percent better, right? And and building that confirmation bias, swinging it from a sense of negativity to a sense of of you know, I guess positivity would be the other side of that, to where, like, hey, you know what? Like, I can do this, and sometimes maybe it doesn't go perfectly, but I survive it and I've still done it.
SPEAKER_00:So and one one suggestion for people, because many times people will say, Well, I feel uncomfortable or I feel discomfort in my body when I think about doing that, I feel anxious, and it's so easy to negate that and say, Oh, don't worry, do it anyways. And it's very old school, and whether it works or not's debatable, but it's not safe, and it's not then repeatable. If every time I feel discomfort and I have to push through it, and it's so hard, it's not gonna be manageable. And what I remind people is could you notice a part in your body that does feel safe? I know the first thing that comes up is I notice tension in my chest. Okay. So you have a large body, there's a lot of places there. Do you notice maybe your pinky? That feels safe and okay. I'm like, okay, just let's sit with that and notice it. And as they do that, they stop, you know. I mean, we're focused, how does it go? Where focus goes, where energy goes, focus, where focus goes, energy flows. If I keep on focusing and thinking about I feel discomfort, it's gonna expand. But I notice that, oh, my body actually does feel safe. There's a part of me that's safe, the body will itself relax. So you don't have to necessarily force it, it's looking for the pieces that do feel safe and okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. I think there's a a lot to be done in the arena of men's work and feeling things and energy and things like that. It's it's funny because previously in my life, like most of my life, I would have thought it was just it was all just crazy shit, you know. It's something that I'm still exploring, but it's it's interesting how how things can change like that. So so I want to also look at I I understand that that you've worked with men healing from addiction and trauma and and old wounds and whatnot. What do you feel like is misunderstood about recovery or or like emotional healing for men?
SPEAKER_00:The most misunderstood piece is that people think men don't need it, or men think then they don't need it, or women don't support their men in it. So you'll have men that the partners will tell them, I want you to be more vulnerable, I want you to be more emotional, I want you to feel your feelings, and they'll come home from work. They'll be like, Okay, I'm gonna take a risk, I'm gonna try something new. They're gonna share something that didn't go good that day. And their partner says, Excuse me, you're supposed to be the strong one. What do you mean? I had a bad day. What's going on? You have no right to share that with me. So we have a world where we want men to be vulnerable, yet when then when when then they are vulnerable, we have many people that shut them down. And as much as yeah, go keep comment on that.
SPEAKER_01:Go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that I think that there is definitely a I think at times what can happen, right, is that it goes from no vulnerability to an extreme of vulnerability, right? That there is a happy middle ground where it's like vulnerability is not about puking out your emotions or unloading sort of thing. Because I don't think anybody wants to bear the brunt of anybody's full emotional load, right? But being able to be expressive and to be present is is a start.
SPEAKER_00:Right, I like that, right? It's true. Sometimes people will go from zero to a hundred, and it's important to be careful about that because it sometimes it is too much for the other person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. How do you feel like, you know, and with that and understanding that maybe these men are, you know, whether it's recovery and and where they've been and their the trauma and the old wounds, how do you feel like how do you feel like that we can balance right compassion for for you know, maybe where we've been in the past with our our own ownership for where we're we're going, right? Knowing that, like, yeah, I've I've I've got these things, I've I've got this past. But having compassion for where I was at then or where they're at then and and the direction that they're going now. How do we balance that?
SPEAKER_00:It's I don't think it's a balance. I think people need an unlimited compassion for themselves about where they've been. Like I think that's totally okay. People have this fear that if they have too much compassion, then they're not gonna be able to move forward. It's fascinating. I speak to people all the time and they'll talk about how they're not good parents, that they're not showing up for their children and they're not doing good enough. I'll say to them, that's interesting because when we talk about your parents and your upbringing, all you say is positive things about them, despite the fact that they were far worse than than you were to your kids. And the point of that is is to help people to realize that most of our issues were responsible for it, but they were given to us. If I grew up in a very poor family and I didn't have proper clothing and I was bullied because of that, it's not my I don't have to blame myself for that. If I was abused as a child, I don't have to blame myself for that. So to me, it's how do I look at my past and realize that most of the things I dealt with weren't my fault? I didn't ask for them. I didn't want them. I would have done anything for them not to have happened to me. And yes, and and now it happened to me, and I am responsible for them. So to me, it's unlimited compassion about the past with also unlimited optimism for the future. Because what happens, especially with men, is they'll try something. They'll be like, the last time I went to coaching was 20 years ago. What happened? It didn't work, so I said, screw it. And I say to them, but there's 86 things that you could try that are not coaching that maybe you could get better with. Did you try cold exposure? Did you try meditation? Did you try psychedelics? Did you try breathing? Did you try CBT? I mean, there's endless amounts of things to try. I think men, we get very frustrated, like, try to do it, I can't fix it, I give up. No, it's okay. Something didn't work, maybe that's not the right approach for you. Keep trying till you find something. If you tried 86 things and then you were at your end, call me. I'll speak to you for free, and we can figure out an 87 thing. But there's so many modalities out there that people need to continue feeling hope for themselves.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, I I love that you bring up that point about you know the the past where you know about still accepting responsibility for it and and responsibility for the direction and where it goes after that, right? Like after kind of acknowledging, you know, and and I too believe, you know, and part of my I guess methodology and coaching is at times this sense of of what I call like universal validation, right? And and it's basically like no matter what happened in the past, no matter what the situation was, like it there's always it can always make perfect sense that that why that happened at that time in the life, right? Like, yeah, it makes sense with your upbringing and your environment and all of these other sort of and that's not to say that like having this victim mentality, right? But the reality was that like it it took all of those things leading up to that to shape you into the person that you were. So it makes perfect sense that that's exactly the way that you are today, right? That that's the way that maybe you've acted in the past or you've been emotionally shut down or reserved, or reserved, or carrying the shame. Like nobody ever showed you right what it was like to share or to express that. And now that you know that, you can start taking responsibility for what this looks like in the future, right? You are the captain of your shift, your ship.
SPEAKER_00:And that's good news. They used to say, my therapist would tell me back in the day, he said, Morty, I have good news for you. I said, What's the good news? If you want to get well, your parents don't need to change. You need to change. If you if you're if you're in recovery, dependent on someone else changing, you're fucked. But the great news is that this is on you. And while it's like I wish they would change for me to get better, it wasn't the reality. And I had to accept that. And but I knew that ultimately, like you said, I was the captain of my ship, and now was my choice was I gonna get well or not.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So one thing, one uh I feel like theme that I've heard again and again throughout this conversation is is this sense of of not having to be perfect in order to be worthy. Right? That it's that it's a kind of a God given right sort of thing, of of this sense of worthiness, that it's not based on whether or not you've done something right. Right? What what does that truth mean to you personally?
SPEAKER_00:That's a deep question. I was on a bit of a spiritual journey a few weeks ago. It was the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I was in I was in Ukraine. There was like a pilgrimage of sorts for about 85,000 people go. And I'm sitting there, and to me, one of my taglines when it comes to spirituality, well, you know the difference between spirituality and religion. Religion is for people that don't want to go to hell, and spirituality is for those that have already been there. So being a very spiritual person, I always tell myself, I tell people too, I say, stop praying and start talking. I believe in God. I don't I don't pray to God anymore. Nobody's gonna tell me in a book what to tell my God. If it's a person, no one's gonna tell me what to tell my partner, right? Oh, these people wrote a book a thousand years ago. This is what you tell your partner at nine o'clock in the morning. Fuck that. There's value in it and there's beauty. For me, I didn't find value in it anymore. For me, I'm like, this is a relationship between me and God. I'm gonna talk in my own language. I speak English, I understand that well. God understands that. And I'm sitting there having this conversation, and part of talking to God to me is listening. If not, we're not in a relationship. If all I did is somebody's talk, we're not in a relationship. I'm thinking about my year and reflecting on the last year and what do I want this year? And I saw that I was judging how I'm doing by how successful I am financially. Like if I make X amount of money, that means I have value. That means I did enough. And I'll share this with you, and whoever's watching, I'll share this to them so they can know. I realize in that moment, and I my theme for this year is in English, it goes like this no matter what I do or what I don't do, no matter how much money I make, no matter if I'm in a relationship, not in a relationship, no matter if I have children, nothing makes a difference. I still have value. My value doesn't come from what I do, it comes from who I am. And who I am is not influenced by what I do. At the core, I'm a child of God. That means I have worth, that means I have value. It means that no matter what I do, right? And I work with a lot of people that have done a lot of horrible things, and society would say they should be executed, they should be shamed publicly. And I tell them no matter what you've done, you have value. Your behavior is awful, you need consequences. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you cannot do anything that will ever take that away from you. It's a tall order, it's a tall ask, but in a way it makes things so much easier. Like, did I have a good day or a bad day? Is not based on did I do enough or did I work hard enough. It's did I show up and be authentic? Was I true to myself? Was I who I was meant to be? And that's all I could do anyways, and all I have control over.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it sounds like that's a space that in accepting that really opens up the doors for someone to show up uh authentically, right, as their most authentic sort of self.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's been I mean, that with this entire conversation, right, is it's a struggle. But you know, for myself, I think in the beginning, just identifying what that looked like, right? That discerning between uh is it people pleasing or is it a mask? Right? That I you know, I mean we laugh, but it's like it's true. I didn't even know, I didn't truly know what I thought about that, right? Because for so long my own thoughts were derived from what I expected the outcome to be.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. What do you feel? I mean, what what does authenticity look like for you and the the men that have been doing the work with you from day to day?
SPEAKER_00:Scott Peck, uh he wrote a book a long time ago. He said mental health is a commitment to reality at all costs. And to me, vulnerability is a commitment to truth at all costs. If my partner asks me if I did something and I didn't do it, and I'm and I'm gonna lie to her because I want her to be happy, and I think that that's gonna be better for our relationship. That's not a commitment to being authentic. That's not a commitment to truth. That's a commitment to so she's gonna be happy with me, she's not gonna be happy with me, she's gonna be happy with the version of me that I'm not. That's not authentic, that's not connection, it's not intimacy. It's actually what people don't realize, it's actually disconnection. Being inauthentic is lying. I know lying is a strong word, but it's true. It's distrust. It's like going over to my partner and saying, Oh, I uh I went uh I went to the store today and I and I didn't do it. Just because it's passive, just because it's still it breeds disconnection. So authenticity is a commitment to trust at all costs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that that reminds me of a a time when I was having this conversation with somebody that I that I knew, and it was around it was it was kind of the story that's trying to decide how it is that I that I want to tell this story, but it it was it was the between kind of the transparency and honesty, and and I don't know if that's something that you've ever come across, you know. I I used to always think that like, oh, hey, I I I want everybody to be honest, but in reality, like I want somebody to be forthcoming about these sort of things. And so what I heard you describe, right, was about like just straight up deciding, like, I think I'm going to do in this moment what I've decided is the best outcome for that. Right. And and the the story that I was thinking of was this this person that I knew was sharing with me how at times he would he would go out after work, right? And maybe his wife knew that he would tell his wife at the time that you know he would leave work at 3 p.m. He would tell his wife at 5 p.m. Like I and he would buy himself two hours to like go down to the bar, right? And he's telling me all of these sort of things, and I'm like, damn man, and I I I gotta try to make sure not to to use names in this, right? But I'm like, damn man, like don't don't you think that's a problem? Yeah, I was like, well, what's the deal? You know, and he's like, no, man, if she knew that like I was out here at the bar, like she just doesn't get it, she doesn't understand, right? And and I was like, man, you know, and and this kind of going back to what we said earlier about men kind of calling each other forward and and pointing things out and having this conversation, it it would have been really easy for me in that moment to be like, ah, yeah, right. Like, I I you know, I I hear you, man. But instead I called him out like, man, I it sounds to me like like you guys just don't, you know, either she doesn't understand the fact of this time that you need after work, that maybe this is how you unwind, or maybe you're not understanding her perspective about you know why it is that you're doing this. Maybe, maybe you're drinking too much, maybe these other things, but but doing going about it that way is is is just it's not authentic, right? Like again, going back to the masks, like you're putting forward a person that's completely different in this time, and you're living an entirely ulterior life. And so at the end of that conversation, unfortunately, he was kind of like, Yeah. Anyways, right, but it was it was kind of those people, right, that you have that conversation with that they're either they've started to consider different truths and authenticity and how that impacts our lives, right? Like, I can't imagine that it's and and I know for myself, I don't even have to imagine it, that not living authentically and and trying to keep that orchestrated, right? It's just it's it's a huge weight, it's a hurry, huge burden to bear, right? That instead the idea would be like, hey, let's sit down and have a conversation about me doing this, right? And and I'd under I'd like to understand from your perspective the reasons that it's upsetting for you, right, in whatever way it is. Like, okay, you know, maybe you want me to come home and spend more time with the family. I want to be able to have an opportunity to unwind after work. And at the end of all of that, like if we're not a good match, then we need to explore what that means for our relationship. Right. But again, going back to like two people sitting at a table with their their dolls, right? Having conversations with each other that are completely different than the people that are actually running the dolls. And it just it blows my mind that and I was one of those people, right? But it blows my mind looking back that that is so prevalent.
SPEAKER_00:Something important that you mentioned I think is underrated, which is we talk about this thing of understanding. Well, my partner's not going to understand why I enjoy watching sports. And it's like, well, my partner doesn't have to understand why I enjoy doing something. But can my partner be open to understanding this is what I need, even if they don't understand it? My partner has a lot of needs that I don't understand. To me, it makes no sense. I'm like, why do you need to take an hour and a half to get ready in the morning? That doesn't make sense to me. I don't need that. But it's like, oh, that's what she needs. I don't know. I mean, I understand it conceptually, but it's like, I don't understand it, I don't get it, I don't relate to it. But what's important to me is not about the details. It's that's what you need, great. Even if I don't understand it, we're not going to be understood, even with friends. They don't understand it. It's like, oh, that's a Morty thing. That's what he likes. Do they like it? No, but it doesn't make a difference if they don't understand it. It's I'm in a relationship with you. What do you need? If I understand it, great. If I don't understand it, also great, because it doesn't make a difference. It wasn't about understanding. It was about how can I show up for you and what you need.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, that that really makes me think of just the agreements that we have in an in a race in a relationship, right? And that can be a friendship, partnership, marriage, wife, what you know, whatever it is, your partner. But the agreements that we we step into in or we agree to when we're signing up to that and really, you know, defining those. And when they don't fit that place in our life anymore, like stepping back to the table and reassessing those agreements to to have a better to have a better understanding, right? Of to your point, right? Like I don't necessarily have to understand it to be okay with it, right? But the other per the person on the other side of that, right, part of that agreement is honesty. Right. And so you know, part of that agreement might be like, okay, well, if you're gonna do this, I'm not going to necessarily understand it, and that's okay. But part of this agreement for me is that these other sort of situations are met, or this criteria of the agreement, right? That that they're not they're not permanent, right? That they're the you can go back to re renegotiation, it doesn't have to be just once a year or whatever, you know, and that people change.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Right, and people need to be, yeah. I mean, there's still these conversations are endless because people are so complex and each person is so different. And just as soon as you know, I think I know my friend well, then they shift or they change or they evolve and I evolve. And it's so important to be open that if I'm not evolving and I'm not changing and they're not changing, and we don't continuously have conversations. Okay, I know this is what we needed five years ago, quite a different place now. Like I used to be had a friend, if I didn't call him back that day, he would go into a panic as if I didn't care about him anymore. That was on his trauma. So I was very mindful of that and I made sure to do that. But as we evolved and grew, he's like, Morty, it's not it's not urgent. Like, you don't have to don't worry about that anymore. We have to be open to that. And to me, if we're not changing and not evolving, then that's also to me not a it's not the way that I would want to live. My relationships are constantly changing and evolving. That's just and it's it keeps it fresh and exciting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're that's that that's like the spice of life, right? So any of those sort of things that I would hate to think that I ended up at the end of my life exactly the same way I I was when I when I started it. Right. And and kind of to that point, right, that that I think for a lot of these sort of things at times that and that's why community, right, and these men's groups and the men's work in general is so important is as having a place, right, where these this sort of awareness can be brought forth, right? With in a safe place with other men and a container where you can be called out, you know, called forward for these other sort of things that maybe you don't see.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And from there, having being having enough like having an initiative of self-leadership for yourself to to really start to reframe right your your identity and who it is. And and at the end of that, like all of that only happens from taking action.
SPEAKER_00:Right. We could talk about this from today till tomorrow, but nothing will shift if we don't do things different.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, hey, Morty Man, this was a super powerful conversation. I really enjoyed having it. I think that I think that every man listening can really relate to that tension between who we think we are, or I guess better said, like who we think we should be and who we actually are, right? I think you know, between our these those rules that we write for ourselves and the belief that that that there can be a tension at times when those are two different things. So yeah. So how how can the the men that were listening to this they how can they connect with you more?
SPEAKER_00:If they want to reach out to me, they could go to my website, thegamechangergroup.com. I'm sure it'll be in the show notes. You could email me, schedule a time to meet with me. I am delighted to meet with people and really connect with them. If you're professionals and want to start working with men and understand more about that work, happy to connect as well. There's a shortage of people that are willing to support men, and we need more people that are willing to do that in a way that is authentic and real and is compassionate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I feel that, man. Well, hey guys, if this conversation hit home for you today, share it with a brother who needs it, right? And as as always, keep doing the work and keep evolving. And I'll see you in the next one. Hey, before you go, this podcast is just the surface. The real work happens inside the Evolve Men Brotherhood. This is our private community of men committed to leading themselves boldly, building confidence, and sharpening one another in the fire. Registration officially opens December 1st, and we kick off our Brotherhood calls together beginning in January 2026. But you can get on the list today and be the first to claim your spot. If you're tired of going to life alone and you're ready for true accountability, support, and connection with men who get it, head to Evolvement Project.comslash Brotherhood. Don't just listen, step into the Brotherhood. I'll see you inside.
