Men’s Mental Health, Masculinity, and the Power of Community

Welcome back to the ACT OUT podcast! In this episode, host Adam Tomlin sits down with Jason Lange, founder of Evolutionary Men and a longtime men's group facilitator, for a thought-provoking conversation about modern masculinity, men's mental health, community, and the challenges facing men today.

Jason shares his personal journey into men's work, which began in 2006, and explains how men's groups have evolved from niche gatherings into a growing movement focused on emotional well-being, personal growth, and authentic connection. Adam and Jason explore why so many men struggle with loneliness, isolation, and identity in a rapidly changing world—and why the traditional definition of masculinity no longer works for many men.

The conversation dives deep into topics like the "man box," emotional vulnerability, fatherhood, provider culture, and the rise of online influencers who promise simple solutions to complex problems. Jason challenges the idea that masculinity itself is the problem and argues that what society needs is not less masculinity, but healthier masculinity—men who are connected to themselves, their emotions, and their communities.

Adam and Jason also discuss the growing mental health crisis among men, the importance of meaningful male friendships, and why vulnerability is often viewed as weakness when it can actually become a powerful form of leadership. Together, they unpack how men's groups help participants move beyond shame, build self-awareness, and develop stronger relationships with themselves and others.

The conversation also explores social media, approval-seeking, therapy, coaching, and the role community plays in helping men resist manipulation, overcome isolation, and create more fulfilling lives. Jason shares why connection—not achievement—is often the missing ingredient in many men's lives and how finding a supportive group can dramatically change a person's outlook and well-being.

If you've ever wondered what healthy masculinity looks like, why men are struggling with connection, or how men's groups can help foster growth, confidence, and emotional resilience, this episode offers a refreshing and insightful perspective on what it means to be a man in today's world.

Learn more about Jason Lange: https://evolutionary.men/talk

Tune in every Thursday for episodes that inspire, challenge, and entertain. Whether you’re here for laughs, lived wisdom, or action steps, the ACT OUT podcast is your space to rethink growth, embrace self-awareness, and act out your passions.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Act Out Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Tomlin. Today's guest is Jason Ling. He is a men's group coordinator and also the leader of evolutionary men. Let's roll the tape. Hey Jason, how's it going, man? I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. It is definitely my pleasure. Uh whenever I whenever I saw your uh bio, I was like, oh, this guy's got a very easy job. That's right. How long have you been uh working with uh like men's groups?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Sure, yeah. So I've personally been involved just in terms of my own journey since about 2006 is when I got involved in my mid-20s. And then it's been about eight, nine years since I kind of took a professional turn in terms of okay, I really want to actively step into supporting men around this. And so some some sense I've been going a long time, and some sense I feel like I'm just getting started.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So like whenever you whenever you first started out, uh like was there um in 2006? So I'm trying to like think of like what the like mental health situation was back then. Um from my perspective, uh like I was I was in college then, and um the uh the idea of like feelings and emotions, the only thing I knew were that they were something that had to be conquered. And if you could, if you could suppress them as much as you can, or if you could figure out a way to like numb yourself or dissociate, that's all you needed to do, and you're fine. That was pretty much my concept of mental health back then.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's changed so much, right? Um, just even concepts of like meditation and mindfulness, you know, that was way kind of out there back then. And now it's much more part of the culture and yoga and wellness. Um, and you know, when I got started, you said if you said the word men's group back then, most people would have associated it either with an AA, a recovery group, or some kind of church group, like a Bible study group. And those still exist, but the types of men's groups we're seeing kind of uh roll out in the culture now, you know, are a lot more focused on, okay, just wellness, you know, in a sense. And it is changing, and it is changing fast. And I think it's changing partly because there is a crisis, right? Men have been struggling for a long time. And a lot of the places we've been vulnerable around mental health, I think are just those places are getting more extreme where culture and technology is taking us. In that, I mean, right, back in 2006, you know, Amazon was still selling books and nothing else. Now you can live from your apartment, right? Literally click and have everything shipped to your house and never even have to leave if you work from home. And that's a very different world than men were even living in back then. And it creates a lot of issues that I see showing up for a lot of men these days.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

It's really interesting that you said that men have been struggling for a really long time. Because I think that there's kind of a uh a perception among some where actually uh men are just now like talking about struggling. There there weren't any problems before. Uh the people were people were just fine uh back in 2006 and 1996, 1986. Uh men are just weak now. Uh what what do you uh what do you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, I think I mean part of the trajectory is the ways men used to cope have changed. And meaning, you know, back in the day, you were a so-called successful man and family man if you provided, right? Like that was actually the equation. Like, are you bringing in money to provide for the family? And that was the deal, and that was enough. And some men found some success in that. A lot of men were drinking, depressed, overworking, cheating. Oh, there's there's plenty of stuff under the surface there. And even if they weren't like, you know, technically in some kind of depressive state, it doesn't mean men were thriving back then because there was a very narrow range of where you were allowed to be as a man that definitely catches up with guys. So I think one of the shifts we've seen is, and one of the challenges is men are expected to be more these days, right? I mean, there was there's a crazy stat I saw. Um, right, I got two kids, 1982. About 43% of fathers had reported they had never changed a diaper. By 2000, that had dropped to 3%. So you could you can see the roles and the expectations were changing, right? Our parents' generation, some previous generations, yeah, you know, like all the kids' stuff was in the realm of the mother. That's changed so much. We're expected to be a lot more involved as fathers now. And myself, many men I work with, we were raised by the fathers who weren't super involved and were just working all the time. And maybe it looked okay on the outside, but there was a lot of suffering on the inside. So as the roles and expectations for us men have changed, that's where a lot of men are coming to me. Like, I don't know how to win this game anymore. Like, I need to be making money, but my wife makes more money than me. I'm supposed to be emotionally present in the relationship. I don't even know what a feeling is. I I could barely have any time to build friendships anymore. There's this sense that things have shifted, and men haven't been given a whole lot of examples of what healthy masculinity looks like right now. And, you know, you and I were talking a little bit before this, and in the vacuum of that, it's left space for all kinds of regressive masculinity to kind of try to reassert itself. No, let's just go back to the 40s and 50s. And, you know, it sounds like a sweet deal, but it doesn't work. There's no going back. There's just no going back. And anyone who's trying to sell you that is literally just trying to sell you something. And we're being asked, you know, as men, to change and evolve and grow.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Man, so you you hit it on a lot of things, but at the at the very end, what you said at the at uh, you know, talking about the uh kind of that that manosphere and like the product they're selling, it essentially boils down to, hey, you're human. I've got the cure for that. And it is it is a trick as old as time that is so fascinating to me that these like regressive ideas are rooted so much in insecurity. Totally. And it's almost as if they're trying to hearken back to a time that never existed in the first place.

unknown 7:04

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's it's a bit of a, you know, it's all kind of made up. And just what I mean is it is selling that kind of energy, it's actually quite fragile, right? It's a fragility, it's a very fragile masculinity that has to be seen and experienced in a very certain way. And if not, you're not a man. And that's just frankly fragile. Like those guys don't have necessarily a lot of depth or fluidity or flexibility. You know, what I will say is oftentimes the challenge with this kind of stuff is, you know, a cultural movement like that, there's often something at the root of it. And what I would say is maybe the positive at the root is we've kind of swung to a space where for a lot of men, they don't feel like it's okay to feel pride in being a man. Hey, I'm a man. I'm proud of being a man. I do manly things. Like that's okay. There was a there was a time where that kind of wasn't okay. And it was culturally, in a sense, necessary, right? Men were kind of the patriarchy's a real thing. We were kind of running the world in a lot of ways. And we have countless, endless examples of what happens when men who are disconnected from their hearts, what they can do to the world, to the planet, to women, to children. We have we've seen all that now. That's that that's still being uncovered in our culture. And the thing is, that doesn't mean all masculinity is bad. It's just what we're addressing there is a specific type of pathology in masculinity. So the the good part, I think, is saying, hey men, it's okay, right? It's okay to be proud of yourself as a man. As long as you're showing up and as long as you're connected to your heart, as long as you care. You know, I tell a lot of people at this day and age, you know, the honest truth is we need more healthy men in masculinity. We don't need less. We just need men who know how to show up in their bodies, control their emotions, and aren't fragile.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

You can do every masculine thing in the book and be proud of it. That it, there's nothing wrong with that. Like whenever there's like whenever you have a problem, is you think like I do these things, therefore I'm better than, or doing these things makes me superior to another, to another person or another gender, whatever it is. That's not it at all. Like you can be proud of doing what you're doing, but it doesn't mean that you're better or that that thing is better than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, it's a movement, and it's a movement, you know, I think men have to be careful about right now, because we are in the midst of a pretty, I think, significant moment in the challenges men are going to experience because we do have generations of men who were raised, even though things have changed, who were still raised with this frame of your value as a man is in your capacity to provide. Right? Being a man means providing. And we are in the midst of a cultural, economic shift that nobody knows where it's about to go. AI, automation, providing is not going to mean the same thing 10 years from now it did back then. And if we don't, if we don't get men ready for this identity shift, it's only going to get worse. And that's what these kind of manosphere people prey on is hey, your identity is being taken away from you and you need to reassert it, you know, kind of posture aggressively, versus what does it mean to be a meaningful masculine presence if the one thing you're supposed to be known for, providing money, isn't the thing anymore? Who are you? What do you want to create in the world? What do you want to bring? How do you want to relate? Those are deep questions. And you can't answer them, you know, in a quick little Instagram video, so to speak. You have to get in there and do the work, which is the kind of stuff I get inspired by.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

So where do you um do you think that the uh that the idea of the measure of a man is how much he can provide? Where do you think that came from? And where do you see that idea now like evolving to?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, I mean, you know, some of it's cultural, some of it's biological in terms of just, you know, even caregiving a newborn, you know, those first couple years, mom has to do more. Right? The baby has to be closer to mom. And dad's job is to kind of set the stage so mom could be fully present with the kid, right? To kind of create the little environment that that nurse is.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I nickname myself Useless Nips.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, exactly, right? And that's all changed, you know. That's part of all this cultural change is bottle feeding, and all, you know, there's way more ways we can be involved now that you know you couldn't back in the day. But a lot of that kind of comes from there, and this idea that this goes to some deeper stuff, and by no means is this a this is more kind of a population level thing. Every individual is going to be different. But culturally, and kind of worldwide to some extent, one of the big differences, right, in terms of male and female, is um reproduction. So, right, where's the bottleneck in reproduction? Woman can only carry one child at a time. A man can father literally as many children as he possibly could in a given moment. What this does biologically is it puts the scarcity on the female, right? And so traditionally, male bodies have been more disposable, right, in a sense, because if we have war or famine or something, right, we want to protect the women and children because just a couple of men is all it takes, right, to repopulate. But you lose all the women, you're, you're, you're having a hard time, right? That's that that's almost the end of everything. And that has bubbled up in all kinds of ways, in the sense of, you know, it's definitely changed a lot, but traditionally, kind of war was the place of men. Going out and exploring was the place of men. Even today, right? Mike Rowe, the dirty jobs guy, was uh, you know, kind of a big proponent of this. A lot of the most physically dangerous and demanding jobs tend to be held by men. And there's this general cultural sense that male bodies are just a little more disposable. Yeah, go work 80 hours a week. Like, we're fed this stuff still today, right? Oh, yeah, Elon's so great. He works 80 hours a week and he sleeps under his desk. Like, oh, that's something we want to aspire to? Like, what are you talking about? No, that comes at the cost of physical, emotional, and mental well-being. And so there's all of these cultural pressures, I think, that that really push this providership narrative for men that if you're not providing, you're not useful. And it's a real impulse in men. You know, every man I know wants to be of some kind of service. He wants to know he has something to offer his community and world. And so it's not all bad. It just starts to put men in this narrow box, which we talk about in this, right, in in the world of men's work as the man box, right? To be a man, there's a certain box you have to exist in. And if you don't check all the little boxes inside there, you're not a man and you're considered less of. And that comes at us from culture, it comes at us from religion, it comes at us from other men. Sometimes it comes at us from women too. And so our work as men these days is starting to expand that and say, hey, is that actually all we are? Isn't it okay? We we can be more, not be solely focused on providership. Or maybe, yeah, maybe the thing I want the most is not to be providing. Maybe I do want to be a stay-at-home dad and just be totally in there with my kids all day long every day. That is a new reality possible to men that wasn't possible, you know, 40, 50, 60 years ago. It just wasn't in the culture in the same way. So we have more choice in a sense, but that choice can get confusing for men in a lot of ways where they they start to feel lost. So, you know, this stuff still comes at us. And to some extent, I think what I'm starting to see is okay, maybe we can't quite fight the provider narrative, but what we can start to do is expand it. That providing doesn't just mean bringing money. The thing you can actually provide that's genuinely the most valuable more than anything else is just your presence. Yes. Yeah. I'm actually here with my kid, with my spouse, with my family. I'm here. And that's a thing so many of us generationally just didn't have. Absent fathers, barely around, get home at the end of the day, fall asleep watching TV. That's that's a real wound that many men I know carry and that are inspired to find another way to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Dude, you made too many good points. You blew my mind. I did not think of men being uh like so much like uh more disposable and and like worn stuff because of like how easily it would be for a man to be replaced uh like genetically and further, you know, like further than along. And that blew my mind. Um and and yeah, I I I think that you're also correct whenever we're talking about this as masculine as what what it means to be a man uh kind of evolves over time to not to fight the per provider narrative, but to yes, and it. You know, like yes, it is more than it is more than fine to uh to want to be a provider, but thinking about it in just economic terms is where things take a nosedive. Whenever you focus so uh solely on one thing, you leave so many other things completely ignored. And ironically, whenever you ignore all those other things, you're not gonna be able to do as well on the one thing that you're trying to do. Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah. And I mean, I think this is part of the the shifting sands of of culture right now. And let me just be clear, it's not just men, right? Things have changed for women too. They're expected to be a lot more and do a lot more. So both sides are are trying to figure out how do we, how do we win? How do we thrive in this new environment? And we're asked, you know, we're being called to be more, to be more fluid, to be more emotionally present, to be more involved in our kids' lives, to yes, have a thriving career or something we can throw our energy into, but one that doesn't come at the expense of our families, right? I mean, this is a tale as old as time. I I still see, right, that kind of providership narrative that men get sucked into. Okay, I graduate high school, maybe I get a trade degree, maybe I go to college and get a degree. I come out of that, okay. What I'm supposed to do is find a partner, get married, have kids, and grind away in my career, make as much money as I can so that when I retire, they can be okay, I can be okay. And what happens in that career gap is all the energy goes into the career. Kids hit teenage years, man hits middle-age, maybe exit middle age. Kids no longer need them, leave the house. Spouse is like, hey, you and I haven't had an actual relationship for 20 years. I'm not in love with you anymore. I can't do this. I don't even know who you are. You haven't been here. And she leaves, and the man's left. Like, wait, what? I thought I was doing my part. Like I was told this is what I had to do. I'm confused, I'm hurt, I'm mad. And that's, you know, I I work with a lot of guys coming coming to me at that period of like, wow, I didn't know. I didn't know. And it turns out my partner was suffering the whole time, or my kids were suffering the whole time. And now I have to like try to go salvage a relationship with them because I thought I was doing the right thing, you know, taking the job, always upgrading, doing that thing. But it turns out they missed me. And I didn't actually put in the time on that relationship. And learning to mend that is, you know, it's a big deal. And it's not all a man's fault because we're taught, you know, this is what you're supposed to do. And we're just having to rewrite that narrative now that um that's part of what you're supposed to do. But there's other things that are just as important for you to do, and that's where men need a lot of training because we are just not taught how to be in our bodies, how to be relational, how to communicate, all the things that we've kind of been pointing towards under the surface.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I think in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like you're you're in a like someone just kind of threw you in a boat and like, okay, good luck. And uh they didn't tell you, like, uh, hey, if you look down, there is an oar. And if you place that oar into the water, you can actually change the direction of the of the way that you're going. You know, and you you all of a sudden there's there's cells as well. So if if something happens, you can pull these up. It's like you're just kind of thrown in the middle of something and expected to uh it to pick it up. It's it's unrealistic. So I guess that's where you come in.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, learn it, learning, you know. I mean, it's one of the great on that same story of kind of I grind away for 20 years. You know, oftentimes I'll get to men who have kind of hit the career success, and then they've never actually stopped to ask themselves, though, what do I want? Like, where's it all going? So, oh my God, okay, I've made this amount of money, or I finally got the position. And it actually requires me to be away from home or be working all the time. And I never actually thought about what's what's the actual lifestyle I want to live. And then they finally get there and they wonder why they're miserable. So a lot of what I do with men is like, hey, let's figure out where you want to get. Like, literally, how do you want to be living your day? And then we'll reverse engineer from there. What kind of career choices, health choices, relationship choices do you need to make to get you there? And a lot of guys just never stop to actually figure that out. Or simultaneously, they just fall prey to the probably the greatest masculine myth there is of once I X, then I'll feel Y. Once I get the raise, then I'll feel financially safe. Once I finally get the woman, then I'll feel like it's enough. Once I da da da once I retire, then I'll actually have time to enjoy my life. And it just doesn't play out that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Man, I wish you would have uh told me that like five years ago. That would have saved me so much money in therapy, man. But that that has been the that was the story of my life. Like I always assumed like. If if I if I can do this, then this is going to happen and I am set. And it was expecting things to like give me a sense of identity that was never going to come from the outside world.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

There you go. That's it. Exactly. And so that's part of what we're just being asked to get the ore in the water and actually make some conscious choice about where we want to go that includes more of our humanity as men. So we're not just productivity machines grinding away in a in a system that ultimately doesn't care about our well-being, you know, wants to extract. And, you know, that's just how it is. But we have a lot of responsibility we can take for, okay, well, how do I want to participate and what kind of life do I want to create?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So the like your average, your your average client, how how many uh like men do you have in a in a group at a time?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah, it depends on the different programs I run. Some I keep pretty tight. It's just like 10 men at once, some it's 15 to 20. I got private clients, I got people in the community. So, you know, I've worked with, you know, five, six hundred people over the years at this point. Um and men's groups, when I lead those, those tend to be six to twelve people. That's like the real six to twelve of where where men can really drop in and feel connected to each other.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, like uh in your experience, do uh do guys need to be around the same age? Uh like in order to have a have a good group, or is it nice to have a mix of like having uh, you know, some of us old folk in there as well as uh you know some of the younger guys as well?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

There's there's real pros to both. So it's one of those both and situations where there's something great about just feeling people in a similar life stage and kind of moving through that together and the shared reality of culture and history and all that kind of stuff. So that does that is meaningful. But what I will say is that, yeah, the most potent place is when it's a bit of a mix. Because I think one of the big shifts and losses we've experienced in our culture, particularly the younger generations, is they don't get to spend time around older, more mature men. Right? Just the way communities and society have shifted. There's often just not that presence. Where if you're a young kid, like somebody who's 60 years old, why would I ever talk to that person, right? Like they they have nothing to do with my life in the way that old men's clubs or church groups or just even the old kind of trade system, right? This is Robert Bly, who's kind of one of the pioneers of the men's movements in the 90s. He writes about this in Iron John. And one of the big shifts that really impacted boys, men, and masculinity was you know, back in the day, right around eight, nine years old in a lot of traditional cultures, boys are kind of taken by the men to go learn a trade or learn some way to be of service in their community. And what happens then is they spend all day in the shop with dad or uncle or the guy down the street, and they're learning from him, right? And they're not just learning the trade, they're learning, ooh, how does he handle stress? How does he handle uh relationships with other people in the town or whatever that might be? And there's there's like a transmission of wisdom there to guide the young boy into manhood. That all, you know, and again, I'm talking kind of population level stuff here, but that really changed once the Industrial Revolution hit. And what started to happen was well, actually, dad doesn't work at home anymore. He doesn't work in the local shop. Instead, he goes away to the factory all day, and you get sent to school. And school, you know, it's been a mix, but traditionally has been more led by women. So boys were spending more and more time with women for a longer portion of time. And then maybe we'd get into some kind of sporting or coaching thing. But there's a real gap, I would say, in our culture of boys, young men, adults, older men getting to connect and just the wisdom of that. And the cool thing is, yeah, from the elder populations down, there's just all kinds of wisdom and relaxation that gets transmitted of like, uh, yeah, I've been there. I messed up like that. I totally got it. I've been, you know, it kind of makes it okay that, uh yeah, it's it's okay to mess up. Like you're gonna get through it. I've had kids, I did the thing, da-da-da-da. And then through the other direction, actually, there's a lot of vitality that gets transmitted from the young up to the old, a certain verve for life, a plugged-in-ness to the culture that kind of wakes up the older people and it's like, oh yeah, cool. It's like, it's so fun to feel that energy, that zest again. So it can be such a great gift to each other. But outside of, you know, men's work in men's circles, you just don't see those types of connections forming nearly as much anymore. You know, even in terms of careers, you know, one of the big changes generationally is like, you know, our parents, they like get into a job, you work at the same place for like 20, 30 years and kind of work your way up the rank, right? Start in the mail room, get all the way to the top. That doesn't happen anymore. People like the whole career trajectory, people are floating around all the time. There's a lot more contract work. You have less opportunities for that kind of mentorship to begin with. And that's where I think a lot of young boys and younger men do get lost because they're like, I need help, but I don't even know who to talk to to get help, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah, no, I absolutely as you were as you were saying that, uh, I was thinking of um like as we grow up, how like little we kind of invest into children. Like if you think about like so in the if you're gonna play like in a professional sports league, you're gonna have a like a good coach is gonna be with you very good portion of your career. You know, you're gonna you're gonna be with that person for for a very long time. Like, think about like whenever we're in school, teachers are gonna be around for a year, and then you're gonna see uh see another one the next year, another one the next year. And as as now we are in like the kind of the uh socio or the economic society that you're talking about, where we uh are moving around from contract to contract, place to place, there is absolutely no opportunity. You know, there's not only is there there's not an opportunity like realistically, but I don't even think guys consider like, hey, I'm missing something here. Like I don't even think that a lot of people even realize they're missing something to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah. It's something I see in the work I lead in men's groups. I lead when men finally have the experience of um getting connected to other guys and feeling support and community. And instead of the kind of normal lone wolf, I got to do it all myself, men are competition. It's like realizing there's this fuel source they didn't even know was available to them, and they get plugged into it and they're like, whoa, I was running on fumes. Like, I can't believe how little I was working with there. And now that I have like a safe, supporting, loving community of men who will, yes, also call me out on my bullshit when I'm veering off course. Wow. Turns out I can do a lot more in my life. I feel much more, you know. This is the thing a lot of guys I work with kind of get wrong is they they uh they set these goals and then they don't get them, and then they feel bad about themselves and they, oh, I just got to work harder. And oftentimes the part of us that wants to be bold, take risks, go for it, try new things. That actually comes online much more powerfully when we feel safe. It's very simple. Like when there's a net underneath us to catch us, then making mistakes doesn't feel like a big deal. The, the, the young guys who don't have that support around them, who don't have mentorship, who don't have peers. This is how I lived, you know, in my early 20s. I was so afraid of messing up. I went ahead, like, I got to do it all perfectly. So my my nervous system felt like this. Okay, I got to research this one little step, I got to research this one little step. And I didn't have a lot of success, you know, because of it in a sense. And what I've seen in men's group is there's the space of, oh, hey man, we got you. We got your back. It's okay to go out and make mistakes and mess things up. And that kind of love and connection turns out, it's really good for our nervous systems. It helps relax us, and a relaxed, well-regulated nervous system can get so much more done.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

But when whenever you were uh whenever you were uh talking about uh being so afraid of uh of making the mistake that you kind of over like would overwhelm yourself, I was like so afraid of making a mistake that I couldn't even start. Like I I wouldn't even be able to do it because I was I was like, if it if it's not perfect, I'm not gonna be able to do it. And it did not, it didn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

And I'm like so my case too. Yeah, I just I I resonate with that.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

And looking back, I think that at the time I was obsessed with being disciplined. I've gotta have discipline. And I looked at, I think I looked at discipline as the ability to overcome yourself. You know, like if I could just overcome all of these bad things, then I would I I've I've I've got it. I now see discipline is being able to consistently work with myself. And whenever whenever I had that switch, man, all of a sudden I can do so much more stuff. Like, yeah, I can start a podcast. I'm all of a sudden not afraid to get behind a microphone and make a jackass of myself every once in a while. Like it's it's very liberating.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

I love that. It's such a shift. And, you know, again, it's part of that identity shift from paradoxically, the less I'm only as worthy, I'm only worth as much as I do or create turns to create, right? It doesn't create a psychology of, I want to try stuff, I want to get out there. And instead, as we relax to, okay, my job is just to kind of follow my curiosity, work with myself. I'm gonna have up days, I'm gonna have bad days. It creates so much more room to move, right? And you know, I've seen this kind of socioeconomically in the sense of um, you know, guys I've worked with who come from families who have financial resource, right? Sometimes by the time they're 25, they've launched and failed five, six, seven businesses, right? I mean, just like, I tried it, but I messed up, but it was okay because we actually had the resource. And so then by the time they're 30, they've launched something and it looks super successful. And in the outside, they look like some kind of prodigy, but you just never see that, oh, actually, what they had was the safety to make mistakes and learn, and it was okay. And when we don't have that safety, like you said, it gets a lot more paralyzing. And this, I think, ties into one of the things I teach around, you know, the uniqueness of men's work, men's groups, and what I would say is, you know, masculine compassion and love. And I kind of tie it to father energy, right? And I don't mean it just in terms of biological father energy, but if I could kind of sum up the father energy at its greatest gifts and where we all need it the most, it's just this very simple thing. And it's a presence that gets in there with you and says, let's figure it out together. You made a mistake there. Okay, that's cool. Let's let's figure it out. What went well, what didn't go well. Oh, yeah, you tried this, that didn't work. Oh, you failed here. Oh, she rejected you. That's okay. It's okay to make mistakes. It's totally okay to mess up. Let's let's figure it out together. And it's that feeling of someone with you who helps you sort through the mistakes and find the path forward. And so many guys, myself included, just didn't really have that. And so that's where that kind of fear of making mistakes comes in. But as we get that, and part of what I teach is you know, you can get that through a men's group, through a community. Turns out it's like, oh, okay, cool. I don't have to do everything perfectly. I'm allowed to go out there and explore and experiment and try stuff. And whatever happens, that is the learning, right? That is where I actually learn something valuable that helps me take it forward in a meaningful way. And that's an energy, men, women, you know, anyone in between. I think we all need that. That safety of, okay, someone's here to guide me and just help me figure it out. And it's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I I I can't believe I'm uh I'm about to share this. Uh so uh literally yesterday, I was kind of doing uh doing it like a meditation, just checking in, seeing what was going on with me. And uh I was feeling I was feeling a like a sense of anxiety. And whenever I like kind of feel a sense of anxiety, I'm like, hey man, like what what do you want to say? What what what what do you got for me? And like, you know, as like as it was going, it was essentially like, you know, like I I'm afraid you're not gonna be there. You know, like and uh and it was like so uh you know, like what then? And uh like just the the thought came to me, it's like if I'm not there, then I'll be there to help you fix it. And uh saying that meant like I started crying. Like I like the like uh crying, there was like chills, like it was a it was a very like very, very cathartic feeling. And um all it was was just being curious and compassionate with myself. That was all it took. Was it being a drill sergeant?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah, I think that's one of the major shifts for men that I'm seeing play out. And I mean, it's just a simple thing that, you know, shame does not work as a motivator or teacher. We like to think it does, but it just doesn't, right? It because then we're always acting out of the fear or the not enough. You know, I see it with my kids, I see it with in the parenting world, I see it with men I work with. And it's like what was so beautiful about that moment is that's the exact moment that what your nervous system needed was not shame or to put yourself down. It was just compassion, right? Like, oh yeah, man, yeah, totally, I get it. You're afraid your nervous system feels hurting that, and it's like, great, cool, put me back in, coach, right? Like that that's the beauty of that. And it's uh, it's just a very different way to relate that is changing, I think, thankfully, in how we relate to boys, men, and each other. But, you know, it takes time. And you're a great example of, you know, it starts with us. It just starts with individually. Like, okay, can I be compassionate with myself first? Because the more I can do that, the easier it's gonna be to bring that to other people as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Shame is uh shame's a tricky one because you think that it's working for you. Because shame works incredibly well until it doesn't. What would happen with me? I would uh like something would happen like, nope, I will never do that again. Like I come down on myself so hard. And I was like, the goal is whatever it is, I would be such a Spartan towards that goal for a bit. You know, like I I could do it for a while, but then whenever I would mess up, I would just start a cycle of shame, and it would just be a rinse and repeat thing that I would just go in a circle over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Yeah, it's so brutal. It it it's just I think it's just overused in a lot of ways for men. You know, there's a time and place for healthy shame, right? Which is just the recognition. Right. Oh, I made a choice, I'm not so happy with that choice. It got reflected to me. But, you know, Renee Brown's really good at this. She she, you know, really teases apart. There's a difference between shaming the behavior and shaming the person. And where I think a lot of men go wrong is it's not, oh, what I did wasn't optimal. It's I'm a piece of shit. Yep. Which is a totally different equation, right? And when we do it at that identity level, it's just poisonous. That's the word gets used a lot, but it's toxic. That's the toxic version versus just, oh, hey, I made a choice there that in retrospect I would like to do differently next time. So I'm just going to get curious about why did I make that choice? And lo and behold, a lot of times it goes back to our nervous system, our childhoods, what we learned, how we learn to protect ourselves, what we think will get us what we want. And we just have to start to see that clearly and bring compassionate compassion to that part of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

And it shows another uh like pitfall or a danger of putting your identity in external things. Because whenever that happens, it is very easy to attribute like a mistake to, well, no, it wasn't that. I'm a piece of shit. It's not, you know, that thing went wrong. I'm bad. So That's it. Man, this this conversation's been so much fun. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Uh so whenever uh I think you said you started in 2006, right, with men's groups? Yeah, that's when I got in my first group. How have you seen kind of uh the type of men that come in change over time?

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Yeah, yeah, I would say there's just a lot more of it, you know, I think is the thing that's happening right now. Where back then, you know, most, you know, I was in uh Boulder, Colorado at the time, which was a little bit more kind of hippie, growth edge, you know, common to have men's groups, but outside of that, they weren't really that present. Now you can kind of go to any major town or city and there's something happening in the men's work world. So it's really just expanding in a really meaningful way. And I think we're just starting to see the shift that, you know, even if we just keep it in the realm of effectiveness, you know, most men want to be effective. They want to be able to have a goal, move towards it, create the things they want. And it turns out you can be a lot more effective when you're also including your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. And so I think a lot more guys are waking up to that. And so I see just a much more expanded population of men, both young and old, kind of coming into the fold of, you know what? I tried the lone wolf thing, kind of sucks. I don't, I'm a little scared to try something else, but here I am. I'll try it, right? I'm ready for anything at this point. So I do see it really changing in just that. I think it's much more part of the culture. I think we're much more aware. You know, it's rarely a month goes by, someone doesn't send me an article from a magazine or a newspaper about the boys' crisis, the men's crisis, the mental health crisis. So it's it's percolating. Like we're recognizing, okay, we need to do something different here as men. And I think men's groups are one of the best solutions to that because it fulfills so many deep needs for us. So I see more and more guys showing up across all generations that it's just like, hey, I want to do something different here. I want, you know, I need community. It's just that simple. I need community. I want good men in my life because my life gets better when I have good men in my life.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

First of all, Boulder is an incredible town. Like, I love that place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Oh man, I started thinking about Deion Sanders and I distracted myself. So with these uh with these groups, and uh kind of like as they've as it's gotten more and more popular, I think one of the biggest shifts uh shifts, and it's kind of like something I that I saw in a sketch, uh like in 2000, you know, it'd be like, hey, uh Adam's in therapy. They're like, what in the world is wrong with that guy? And then now in 2026, it's like, wait, Adam's not in therapy? Like, what's wrong with that guy?

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah, totally. I and I think that's a really positive shift, right? I tell guys all the time, you know, again, some of the masculine culture I think still makes it generally a little more comfortable for guys to go to something like coaching. I think even if it's just the word coaching first in therapy still has a little bit more of a stigma, but it is changing. And I, you know, I ding the bell on so many guys. I'm like, dude, do you only go to the gym when you've had an injury and are recovering? And they're like, no, I go to, you know, get stronger. Same thing. You don't go to therapy just when you're broken. You go to maintain and grow your edge, right? It's it's just the gym for your your heart and your mind in a in a big sense. And it has massive payoffs, right? Getting into a good therapeutic relationship, learning a little bit about your history, freeing yourself from some of that stuff, again, it can just make you more effective. So I love seeing that it's getting normalized in the culture because I think every man should have a coach, a therapist, and a men's group. If, man, if that happened, the world would change so fast, so fast, and we would all be doing a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

What do you think is like the biggest misconception that you see from guys whenever they like start working with you?

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Yeah, I was just talking about this one recently, because I still see it all the time. It's that so many men think their so-called negative emotions, which in the work I do, I don't even, we don't even call positive or negative. There's just there's there's light notes on the spectrum, there's dark notes on the spectrum, right? It's just like a scale on a piano. One's not better than the other. But for the the more challenging things, grief, fear, shame, sometimes even anger, so many men have this story that me sharing that would be a burden to you. And if I tell you how sad I am, it's gonna make you sad, and that's gonna be a burden, and I don't want to be a burden. This is a thing I see so many guys go through. And then here's the experience they'll have another guy in circle will do some. Deep work, step into their grief or their anger, their fear, their shame. Do it in, you know, a fully present, not collapsed, not posturing way, and just get in there and face it and deal with it. And the guy does that, and they're like, oh my God, thank you so much for doing that. So inspiring to see you. Like, you're so strong, right? I can't believe. Like, I don't know if I could do that. And and they actually get lit up. They get lit up by seeing another man deepened into his experience. And then here's the moment where I'm like, well, you realize that's how other men experience you when you do the same thing. It's not a burden. It's actually a gift. And in the same way, you got inspired by that man and are like, well, I wasn't going to share that until I saw Adam. You know, he he bravely talked about that tender moment. And then I was like, man, I can do that too. That's exactly what happens for you. And it just, it's like a matrix moment for guys where they're like, wait, me bringing myself forward isn't a burden to you guys. You guys can handle it and let me know if it is. Like you'll just be like, hey, man, I just don't have the capacity today. No problem, right? And it's just like blows their minds. And suddenly it becomes this different kind of leadership in a group where a man realizes when I bring myself forward, it's not just selfish. It actually serves the other men in my group because it creates more of an invitation for them to do the same. And when every man is doing that, it becomes this incredible vehicle of connection and transformation.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

And every time that you get to do that, your brain is making the connection. Whenever I'm vulnerable, whenever, whenever I step up and I do something courageous, something good can happen. And yeah, that just creating allowing your brain to create that reality is freaking powerful. Exactly. I think a lot of times people don't realize the extent to which you can mold your reality. This is so fascinating to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah. And it's it's I think one of the real somewhat related, but one of the real powers I see in a group to kind of maybe even tie it back to some of the stuff we were talking about in the beginning is one of the challenges these days is when we don't have a lot of connection in our life as men, we're we are, for better or worse, going to try to find approval out in the world somewhere. And we're going to care. What does so-and-so think about it if I post on social media or say whatever? One of the cool things I see about a group is that shifts. And what I mean by that is, you know, I'm part of a long-standing group. I'm part of a couple groups, but those are the men whose opinions I give a shit about because they know me. They actually know me. Warts and all, the things I'm struggling with, the things I'm good at, what I want in my life. They're the ones whose feedback I actually really listen to. Don't find myself nearly as concerned with what everyone else is thinking these days because they don't actually know me, right? They're judging some expectation or image on me. And the freedom I've found in that is so amazing, right? To again then allow me to go out, speak my voice, take risks, try things, be myself in the world to some extent, because I'm like, okay, cool. I got some people tracking me. And if I get off course, they're going to let me know. Or if I'm not showing up in the ways I say I want to be showing up, they are going to let me know. So that relaxes my nervous system so much. Because it means I don't have to be quite as vigilant as I used to be.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Dude, you have blown my mind twice today. The first was with the uh with the war. And then the second, I did not quite connect until you talked about it. Whenever I feel like uh a less of a sense of connection, and then how that correlates to trying to seek approval. Uh yeah. Uh as you were talking about the that's that I'm definitely guilty of that. Yes, okay. That's thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Yeah, yeah. It's while it's hard wearing one wisdom in my in my own life. And, you know, once I saw it, then I was like, oh, this is worth teaching people. Like I, you know, it's it's it's kind of like a good group inoculates us um against manipulation in a sense, because you know, the the red pill, the the you know, so much in the world right now wants to take advantage of our pain. And so we can be manipulated, you know. Oh, your pain, that's not your fault. That's these people's fault, right? And once you get someone into that, you you can use them in all kinds of way. When I when I'm in a group and my pain's my responsibility and I'm getting my approval from them, I'm like, what are you talking about? This is what matters, not that. And it it creates a level of freedom that I think is really empowering.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

I would be weary of anyone who tries to sell you a cure that is like outside of working on yourself.

unknown 49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Someone's like Yeah, exactly. That's a great way to put it. It's a great way to put it.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

I that's yeah, I love that. If your problems are because of a woman or someone that looks different than you, no, that's that's not it, big guy. Whenever, whenever I think about that, uh, you know, there were there were definitely moments uh whenever like I would see someone when that was like secure and strong in themselves. Yep. And that made me viscerally uncomfortable. I I would get like it, I would not like that at all. And my whenever I think about it, it's sad because whenever that moment happened and I I saw someone that was strong and secure, and I realized, hey, there's a there's a there's a power thing here. I, you know, I'm I'm not as strong as that person. My inclination wasn't, I should get stronger, was that person needs to get weaker. Yeah, yeah. That just that that bumps me out.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

I love that. Yeah, yeah, that's such a great, great insight. And yeah, you know, Terry Real teaches about this, I think, in a brilliant way. And now I see it everywhere of just he calls it one up, one down. That rather than relating to people as equals, our default is often posturing grandiosity. I'm better than. Or for a lot of guys I work with, right? I work, I consider myself and work with a lot of so-called nice guys, that the posture is one down. Oh, wait, wait, wait, I'm so sorry. I like I didn't mean to do that. I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. And there's this constant kind of putting down when the real work is to just come into balance and be like, hey, neither of us are perfect. I have some gifts, you have some gifts, I have some weaknesses, you have some weaknesses. How can we actually relate to each other? And that's actually a far more vulnerable place to be because it's less about controlling and it's more about relating.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Dang, man. Like, dude, you have like way too many insights. Man, this is how can folks get in contact with you? Or uh people want to use uh join a men's group.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Totally. Yeah. If you you like kind of what I'm I'm spouting here, you can check me out at evolutionary.men. So not dot com, but dot men. And on there I've got my own podcast, writings, programs, information about men's groups, a free quiz guys can take, all kinds of fun stuff coming down the loop. And, you know, and there's a contact form. So if you're like, okay, I hear you, my my bell is rung. How do I find a men's group? You don't even need to work with me. Literally, just where are you in the country? What are you looking for? I'm so well connected to this point. I'll try to route you to something that's meaningful for you.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Oh man, that's actually a great idea. And I'm gonna contact you as well. I'd like to kind of uh to get into that loop as you know, I'll get the podcast. And, you know, I I think it'd be good to try to try to get this going. Yeah, I love it. Awesome. Yeah, dude. Uh well, Jason, this has been an absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for acting out with me, bud.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Adam. It's been brilliant.