#38: Emotional Alchemy, Money & The New Masculine | Brandon Hawk

Former professional tennis player, pastor, and elite performance coach Brandon Hawk joins us for a powerful conversation on transition, emotional alchemy, money, masculine conviction, and the new standard for men.

Brandon shares the four stages of transition he sees in high achievers: reveal, confront, transform, and manifest. From leaving the world of religion to building a life rooted in love, purpose, and connected success, he reveals what it actually takes to surrender an old identity and become the man life is asking you to be.

This episode goes deep into the emotional work most men avoid: learning how to handle the tension that arises around money, receiving, leadership, partnership, and power. We explore why “what got you here won’t get you there,” how unresolved emotions sabotage success and intimacy, and why the modern man is being called to embody both providership and emotional depth.

We also discuss the difference between wounded masculine intensity and heart-led conviction, why masculine clarity can bring up fear in women, and how men can stay connected to a woman’s heart without abandoning their vision.

This is a conversation for men who are ready to stop shrinking, stop outsourcing their power, and build the emotional fitness required for love, leadership, and legacy.

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Please visit our website to get more information: https://www.sovereignunion.co

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Most people that don't have money are afraid to talk about money. They're afraid to bring up money in the conversation. I just said, here's my price, Jessica. My prices. And I see that look on your face that goes, Why don't we charge the most for what is the easiest? When I shifted that perspective, that's when I stopped giving my bread away.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Well, a man with conviction sounds like a man with conviction.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Yeah. It's a new age that we're in, and it's a new era for men. Higher energy always brings up lower density. That energy that is masculine without connection has hurt a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I already am feeling fear just hearing you.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Every girl I talk to, they want someone masculine. And there's a reason that they're single. No offense for the yoga instructors out there. What is the end result of an emotional alchemy process? Here's an end result. No, that changed my life. I'm willing to back that financially.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome to the Well Worship Man podcast, where men come to build unshakable presence, become the rock in their relationship, and build a legacy that lasts beyond their years. Here, we explore the path to mature masculinity through humble power, daily devotion, and unwavering integrity.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Thanks, baby. Today on the show, we have a special guest, a mentor of mine. We have Brandon Hawke. Brandon is a former professional tennis player, turned elite performance coach, bringing connected success to more of the men, more of the people that need it. He is leading a movement of heart-centered leadership. He's a best-selling author. And how he found his way to the show today is he's a near and close mentor of mine for almost the past year. And so we're super excited to have him on. Welcome, Brandon. Thank you guys for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, we're excited you're here. Yeah. Um, Isaac just mentioned that you were a former professional tennis player and now you are coach. Is that the term that you use?

SPEAKER_03 2:07

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Okay. Um, and in between there, you were a preacher.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

I was.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So something that stands out to me about that process and journey that you've been on is just like strong shifts in the expression of purpose and the way you were living. Um, and that's that's challenging for some people. You know, I just I just wrote a post about inertia, and it's like an object in motion stays in motion, you know, it's really hard to turn that corner. Um, and so I'm curious what those processes were like and just really changing, you know, your dharma at multiple points in life.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Yeah, that's a great question. I I know for even my clients, right? A lot of clients come to me for or to help them with their transition, whether it be a professional athlete that's now retiring, you know, a founder. I've got a just came here from a call with a a founder of a very large company, and he's you know, he just sold out, he's transitioning his life. And through my distinct transitions, I've started to see that there were some real phases to transition, right? There's some I've had three big ones, and so I started to see that okay, people in transition, I call it the pit without getting too teachy. Um, yeah, there's just four real distinct stages, and I I think what's most personal to me has led to what's most universal to the people that I work with, and even to the world, right? It may not be there's microtransitions and there's macro transitions. And yeah, so uh I've definitely had a few big shifts in my life. You know, even from I would say from religion to love, I grew up uh without diving too deep right off the bat. I grew up, you know, my parents stabilized through religion in Christianity, which I'm super thankful for. I didn't have to experience a lot of things that they experienced growing up because of that that container of stability and safety that they they partnered with. And it gave them some values and some foundations that they needed to create something better for their their lives and their kids' lives. So I'm super thankful for how I grew up. It even led to me after retiring from tennis being a pastor. And but man, that stability that they created also gave me a foundation and like a a lifting off point to really fly, right? Their ceiling could become my floor. And, you know, I had a transition from religion, I would say, to love. Where I had a question, am I gonna be the next Joel Osteen? I knew that world. I know that path. I grew up in that path, you know, under this hat. I've got some good hair and I've got some white teeth, and I can, you know, I know how many songs to sing and what to say. I just knew that world really well. And I had to decide is that the path for me or am I gonna take the unknown path? And I think for myself, choosing the unknown path has been a big part of my life dharma.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

The process that, you know, changing directions takes you on really is being comfortable and like releasing the security that you have. You know, you honored the the church that you grew up in, and it's like, okay, you got some stable roots to feel safe enough that then I think there's some ways that the stability that we do grow up with is kind of untouchable. You know, like the more stability that you have, even if you're not consciously thinking about it, the easier transitions can be, and yet they're still they're still hard. Um, I talked to a lot of our clients about like the better you can get at dying well, uh, the easier life can be because it's gonna take you on these on these transitional paths.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

So so yeah, that process I always always say like what I want to, you know, what I want to control, I need to release. And what I need what I want to run away from, I need to move towards, right? And I think that it's easy to for myself, like like to want to squeeze the money, right? And like I want to, you know, make and and hold it really tight, but making a habit of surrender, right? And letting go, there's always a return back of something greater. Yeah, it's easy to say, yeah, but it takes courage to live out, and like you said, to die those deaths well, to surrender low is a beautiful muscle to build.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, you mentioned something that might help listeners build that muscle. And you talked about people in transition and really four phases that you've identified in transitions. You care to share more? Yeah, I I totally can.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

I mean, you know, teachers got to teach, you know, the first stage. I call it, it's kind of cute, but I call it the pit, right? People in transition. But the the first stage is always like the reveal stage, the illumination phase. Like it's like you didn't know, but now you know, and you're like, oh my God, I know, you know, oh my god. Uh, you know, that that like ayahuasca or you know, or you know, plant medicine, or oh my god, you know, this perspective has changed my life. This is amazing. There's always that kind of camp high. If you grew up from a church, you know what I'm saying? Like that camp high energy, and you feel that high from that new perspective and that new illumination. It's always the first stage of of kind of uh transitioning. It's like, okay, now you're screwed because you know something different.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Uh-huh. You can't unknow it.

SPEAKER_04 8:21

You can't unknow it and you can't go back. But that's that's always a problem because you can't go back, right? And and and then you move into the second stage, which is the confront stage. You now have to confront everything that is not in alignment to that new perspective or that new illumination that took place. So if the now you've moved from, you know, from religion to love, if you've gone from conditional love to unconditional love, okay. Now everything in my life that was built out of conditional love now has to become in alignment with unconditional love. And that season's tough because a lot of my life was built out of performing for value, performing it for love, right? Living for something rather than from it. And yeah, that confront stage is tough. Whether, you know, I work with a lot of businesses, a lot of corporations, you know, they go through this process, and the confront stage is tough, right? There's a lot of emotional tension that has to be addressed. That's also birthed a big part of my process is emotional alchemy and how emotions affect performance. Because when you're in the confront stage, it brings up some big time energies in motion in our body, our pain bodies get to be dealt with, right? We get to turn lead into gold, and those densities emerge. We get to confront those. And so, yeah, there's the confront season. You get to confront everything that's not in alignment to the perspective, and then the third season is the transform season. Transform is like you know you've changed, but you don't have a whole lot to show for it. Like you know you're different, and you're like, no, I've changed, you know, it's rooted. Like, I am a different person. I and they're like, Well, your life still looks the same, and it may even be worse. But you're like, no, I've changed, and you feel it, right? You can't ever take, can't fake your vibration, and so now you've anchored into a new frequency that that that you feel. And there's a really cool part of this product, I wouldn't say cool, it's hard. You have this one branch, right? That has a one apple on it, and you're like, see, I've changed. I have fruit, I have a fruit-bearing branch, and then the universe goes. Hey, I need you to prune that branch. I need you to let that branch go fully so that it can not just have one, but you can have 10 apples, a hundred apples on that branch. And you've just come out of confront, and now you're in transform. You're like, see, I've got some fruit. And the universe says, Okay, do you really trust me? And you know, a lot of people I've noticed they don't have to go through transform because they have enough from the first two stages and enough language to make them dangerous. And but what the transform season does, it anchors you in to, you know, which is my passion, the embodied masculine energy, right? Not like a toxic masculine, but not like, you know, the nice guy masculine, but like truly anchored and rooted. The transform season, man, deepens your root system. And it it's what I mean, you gotta go all the way through. And yeah, those are the guys, man, the guys that are really willing to, I call it prune the branch, to risk everything, right? To risk it all. I felt that when I I left being a pastor. I was a young pastor, large congregation, and I had an invitation, and I was going through my own transition, and I had an invitation into something very unknown, but I had to like, I really had to prune the branch, I had to let go of it, I had to cut it, you know. It's like if you if you understand familiar with Bible stories, you know, Isaac on the altar, right? And it's like I had to put the knife through my, I had to sacrifice my own son, right? Which is weird, anyways. Um but for storing purposes, it was like the thing I loved the most and found the most value in. I had to sacrifice it. And I had to be willing to sacrifice it and wouldn't go. And I was. And it opened up coaching for me, which I didn't even know existed. I had no clue coaching existed. I didn't even know about coaching. And as I let that go, coaching emerged. And I went from, you know, being a struggling pastor financially, but having a bigger flock, to then carrying that same influence and making, you know, $240,000, my first event, to then making $400,000 over $400,000, my second event. And I started to, because I pruned the branch, I was able to see an energetic return back to me. Instead of just, oh, you're great, Brandon. Thank you for that message. It really changed my life. And here's your $50,000 for the year, right? To like, no, that changed my life, and I'm willing to back that financially and at the level that you deserve. And so that shift happened. So then it leads us into the fourth stage, right? To which is manifest. And so I was able to manifest things that once seemed yeah, once we're on my vision board, right? And okay, this seemed impossible to go from 60 to 600,000. And those things happened. And they happened in a congruent way, right? In a way that it's easy to apply the laws of success, right? That that feels pretty easy to me. There's certain laws you can apply to success, and they can happen. There's another thing to do it in a connected way, right? In an embodied way, and to create success that doesn't leave you out. And I I felt like I manifested, I manifested something that didn't leave me out. And yeah, that's kind of not process. What I started to see with high achievers, especially, it's very universal with high achievers who are transitioning.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

I am listening to you share this process and these steps. And you know, one of the ways you're showing your transition is through the the difference in monetary energy exchange, which is a really easy, measurable thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Um, and people have a lot of stuff about money. Yeah. And I think that it's really important just to like validate and also emphasize like there is a way that our dharma gets to feel nourishing for us. Like it doesn't need to feel depleting. And I grew up Catholic.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Um, so there's a lot of like things that I've unwound from Catholicism, and it's like the place that I am now is like spirit wants me to have joy. Yeah. Like, spirit wants me to have joy. Mother Earth is abundant, like everything that I could ever need to eat is naturally growing here. And so the shift in the energy exchange you were gaining is an important one because you are still changing people's lives and also you're not depleted as much. But I'm wondering if you could share a little bit more also about like the emotional shifts or other ways of life that have shifted besides just like a monetary tag for anyone who has some money stuff.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

I would like to stay on the monetary tag just for a second. I'd like to talk about money. Great. I like to talk about money because the more I talk about money, the more money I make. Great. You know, I mean, it's like the more we're not afraid of something, yeah, the more it it shows up in our world. But most people that don't have money are afraid to talk about money. Right. Right. And they're afraid to bring up money in the conversation. We just had a powerful coaching moment, and how easy is it for a lot of coaches or whoever to go, okay? Well, that was great. I'll see you later, rather than no, hey, this is what I do for a living. I feel like I can help you just as I've done here. Are you open to that conversation of talking about, you know, me being your coach? Right. And having the ability to go there is so important. Something that's big, uh, two things that come up when you asking that question was the first shift in perspective is what comes the easiest has to command the most value. And so, like most people that are in the transformational arts, right? There's there's a thing that comes very easy to them, but the lack of reciprocity on the back end, the exchange is bad because they don't command the most value for the thing that comes the easiest that actually creates the most impact. Because why? You got to think about it. Why don't we charge the most for what is the easiest? Okay. Well, if you grew up like me in a perform for value community or a perform for value family, right, things that are hard equate to what? Value, right? Things that are easy, right? Things that are easy, it's like, okay, that's easy. Is there a lot of value there in a perform for value world? There's really not. So I had to retrain myself that the thing that I would do for free has to command the most value exchange for myself. When I shifted that perspective, that's when I stopped giving my bread away.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Right?

SPEAKER_04 18:41

The bread that was meant for me. That's when I stopped, even like prostituting my gift, right? You know, just you know, here's my gift, here's my gift, here's my gift. And I get back a little bit in exchange. That exchange was not good enough for me.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

That's a powerful like imagery. Right. Prostituting your gift, that is like rampant.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

It's it's rampant, right? In in the transformational arts world. There's a prostituting of the gift, but to anchor into your value, it's very emotional. Right? You have to feel a lot of feelings in your body. You have to be willing to feel those, process those, and move through those to stay aligned to your value. But what happens when we feel tension in our body, especially around money? Money brings up tension. So what happens? I just said, here's my price, Jessica. My price is fifty thousand dollars. You're like, and I see that look on your face that goes, fifty thousand dollars, what happens inside of me, and how I handle what happens inside inside of me determines what happens to me, okay, and what I receive. So, how do I handle that look in your face and how do I handle those energies is so important. So that that emotional alchemy, that emotional out that that alchemy process, you have not because what you receive not, because you can't handle the tension that comes up in your body around receiving. So we have to be able to handle that tension. So that's led to another process of mine, right? That I get to work with my clients through an emotional alchemy called the five A's, turning lead into gold. It's really just my own process of how do I handle the density that comes up in my body, especially around money and charging what I'm worth. How do I handle the density that comes in my body when I ask my wife Jenny for what I want? And we have a conversation about what she wants or what I want. And how do I handle the tension that comes up in my body when she has tension and she's in a feminine storm? Okay, what do I do with that tension? That tension that comes up in me determines the amount of connection I'm going to have with her, right? That determines everything, how I handle that tension. And so it set me on a journey of like, oh, this emotional thing is a big doodle. Like, and it affects it affects performance, it affects connection, right? It affects how my kids, you know, if they receive my love or not, right? What the transfer is to my children. Uh so it took me on a big exploration of emotional energy. Uh and I grew up in a family that we could perform together, we could produce together, do a lot of really great stuff together. We're all athletes, all division one athletes. You know, um everybody's pretty successful. You know, we could be with dense emotions together. There was no room for any kind of emotional pain. And we loved each other, but if there was emotional pain, there was not a container for it. So it left a lot of us, myself included, feeling really alone in them. Right? You don't have a space to share your emotional pain with your dad or with your mom or your siblings. Yeah, that didn't feel great when we're sitting in a runner. You know, how many more ballgames do we need to watch? Right. Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah. Well, everybody feels something in the room. That's right. Some tension that goes unaddressed or avoided. And what you teach and share about emotions as the entry point to anything that people want to change in their lives, if they want to make more money, experience more connection in their relationships, if they want more fulfillment in their career, the entry point that you guide men and corporations through is emotions. And that's very counterintuitive to organizations and to men because what they wish they could just do is implement some new tactics or a new sales script or a different offer, right? That's what they wish that they could do. And there's some fear, a lot of stigma about going into the emotions first. And I think it's one of the hardest parts about this work is to help guys understand the importance of it. And now it's not just feeling for feeling's sake, that the feelings and learning how to work with them can create more of what they want in their lives. So how do you go about kind of flipping that script from the people in the businesses that just wish they had another tactic to now entering through this doorway of the emotional world?

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Oh man, I think that in any sales, right, to be an effective at sales, you have to give people the result of what emotional alchemy, what does emotional alchemy produce? And so to sell well, and it's vulnerable to go here, and it's a faster energy, you can feel it in your body. It's easy to give the process, it's easy to give what you're passionate about. Oh, and this is what we do, and we do emotional stuff, and you know, and they're kind of like, well, okay. But to sell something effectively, and I'll I even like saying that word, sell, right? I feel like there's a holiness to influencing someone to partner with you, right? And you have to be able to share the end result. What is the end result of an emotional alchemy process? Okay, what's an end result for a corporation? Okay, here's here's an end result. More money. So the bottom line, more efficiency, okay? Employee retention.

unknown 24:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:49

They feel connected here, they feel like seen and heard, they feel known here. What are they gonna want to do when they feel this is a place where they can feel seen, known, and heard and expressed? Okay, they're gonna want to be a part of it, right? Employee buy-in, the whole thing. So you have to be willing to, and it's not like, hey, I can't promise you what those numbers are gonna be, but I can tell you when you connect to the frequency of the heart, it is a faster, higher energy than the frequency of the mind. So I can guarantee there is going to be an uptick in your results. I can't determine what that is, but there will be an increase. And so, yeah, leading with that, I think it's important, especially, especially in the guy world, right? In the manosphere, you have to be willing to own the result of what that is because you're not gonna get a lot of buy-in on emotional alchemy. But when I let my I just got off the phone with one of my clients, he's playing at Wimbledon, he's getting ready, he's in practice, he's practicing this week. He's there in London, and you know, is emotional alchemy gonna help him win more tennis matches? Is it gonna help him win grand slams? So, what do I have to speak his language? His language is what winning grand slams and feeling good, you know, on the road. I want to feel good, I want to feel connected, and I want to win grand slams. Okay, how have you felt? I've felt alone. Okay, awesome. Let's turn that aloneness into grand slams. We want to, okay. That sounds good, right? That sounds effective. That's an easy buy-in. Yeah, and that's just turning that density into what? That density that's in his world, that density that's that used to fuel him, that no longer fuels him, right? Because those strategies used to fuel us. I mean, I think, can you relate to like like aloneness used to fuel me, right? Like that rejection used need for approval used to fuel me. It stopped fueling me. Oh no, what do I do when my need for approval stops fueling me? And that's what happens to a lot of these high achievers. What got them there doesn't work anymore. And then they're like, oh no, what do I do? That's when we take the density that they've been avoiding all these years and we turn it into, yeah, turn it into higher performance.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

When people hit that space where like, okay, what I've been doing isn't working anymore, that's usually when one of these transition points starts.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

And so the barrier sometimes for people getting from like phase two to phase three that you mentioned is like this embodiment phase. You know, to to die well, it's like, okay, I know that I've gone through these transitions many times, and this is just what it feels like. And it kind of sucks in this in-between phase, but like it's gonna get better. But when people first really start doing this work and start becoming, not that it's necessarily their first change that they're going through, but their first or second or third conscious change where they're intentionally alchemizing their emotions and trying to shift them into something else. There is this phase of like learning trust. Once you learn trust, it's a bit easier, even though the transitions can be challenging. But that learning phase is like you basically have to take someone else's word for it because it isn't embodied yet. And I find that that is kind of like the most challenging part for anyone on this journey is taking someone else's trust basically on a loan.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Oh, yeah. I think that's the importance of like a coach, right? Because someone who is anchored and embodied in what you want to become, sometimes you have to partner with their field before you create your own. And their field is you have to share crop a little bit until you have the energy, capacity, resources to buy your own field. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? I think the temptation is or where we don't want to go is we don't want to turn that person or their field into the into your savior, right? Where they become your savior or your everything. Um, you can see that, right? With church. It's meant to be a field of stabilization, it's a very energy neutral field that gets people from energy poor to energy neutral, and you're able to stabilize your life. And that's awesome. But it was never meant to be, you know, if you still 30 years into this thing, need Jesus to take the wheel, you haven't gone through the maturation process, right? You haven't even moved from the kingdom of God is within me. Now the kingdom of God is, man, I'm called to do greater things because of this power that is within me, right? It you haven't gone on the that that journey of maturation. You're still in this place of codependence with the very thing that was supposed to liberate you, right? How many of us have had codependent relationships with deities? And and whether it be Jesus or plant medicine or whatever, there's a codependency on that thing. It was never meant to be that. It was meant to be a partnership for a season so that you could then create your own.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

You know, and the maturation process is really like becoming aware that spirit's always within you.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

Um I think it moves from this is the bread, this is the body, right? Broken for me to I am.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Right. And and then it moves into we are. Right. And there's there's that process of that that we codependence to independence, right? That autonomy process. And then we emerge into interdependence. And now we're in union, right, with the divine. And so many people want to move from that codependence, which is fine. We like I can't raise myself, I need a parent. Awesome, parent me, right? The dependent phase. But we try to move from that place of dependency to interdependency without ever going through independence, and that's where you see the miss, right? You you see that a lot in church, like like like talking, we are together, this this union without someone going through their own sovereignty and their own power. The power and sovereignty phase is is pretty wild because it looks like heresy. Right? It looks like heresy to the thing that wants saved here.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

And you have to go through this joke threat teacher process inside of that when you first become a joke. What's happened to Brandon? Brandon was on the path to be the next guy, and now he can't even what you know what has happened to him. I mean, he was so successful. He's a professional tennis player, and his family had a successful business, and and he and he had this church, and now, and I mean, he can't even get people to come to his church and know what has happened to him. He is such a like man, his friends don't even, you know, they they don't even trust him because he just he doesn't even believe the same things that he that they believe. Man, is he even of God anymore? I don't even think he's of God anymore. I don't know. Okay, that's the joke. If to become a joke, that joke phase was so good for me. So good. I'd never been a joke in my whole life. Always been successful, always been somebody, and I got to be a nobody, which was awesome, right? I got to I got to be a joke, and I had to find myself, I got to find where my value comes from, I got to find where my approval comes from. I get to feel all the feelings of being a joke. So good for me. Then you become a threat. Once you're okay with being a joke, then you start to threaten. Oh, you start to speak, speak out. Go, no, the power's in you. It's not here. It's not coming here. It's not here, it's in you. Don't you dare get codependent on me. Don't make me your savior. You're your savior. Right? Oh, I don't know, Brandon. That's you know, Jesus is the only savior, right? You know. Uh no. No, actually, you are it.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

It is you, and it's been you all along. Okay, you start to threaten a way of life by not having them come to the come to the church, right? You start to free them from their guilt and you start to go after guilt and shame and scarcity and scared energy, and you start to let them know that the powers within them and the uh the power structure of the day doesn't like that, right? Whether that's that's your family, right? Whether it's a mother-in-law, whether it's the elders at a church, whatever it is, right? You become what? You become a threat to their safety. And so once you make it through the threat saves, then you become what? Then you become the teacher. Then all those people that called you, uh, said you were a joke and you weren't of God, now they're coming to all your trainings. Then I'm like, awesome, come on in. It's just a hundred thousand dollars for you.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

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You get to pay extra.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Something that's really stood out as I've gotten to know you, and I'm thinking about the threat stage here, is a phrase that you use. It's it's offending your own programming, right? So it's not just a threat to the power structure that you have previously succumbed to. It's a threat to the belief systems that have kept you safe, right? So for a nice guy who has trouble asking for what he needs, he actually needs to show up in a way that feels selfish to him. Perhaps it's not, but to him, it feels feels really disgusting.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

That it's probably the great not probably, it is the greatest threat. The greatest threat, even to outside of power structures, whatever they are, the greatest threat is to our programming and to what was put in us from zero to seven, and how we survived, and how we learned to cope. And when you start to threaten that programming, that's when rockets start to go off in your body, telling you to stop or trying to shut you down, right? We call that the terror barrier from from one elevation, one new paradigm to the next. You have to move through what uh terror barrier. And that's your body saying, This is what's kept you safe. This is what's kept us safe. This is what's kept us in survival, the nice guy. And now, and now you're oh, that's too much, Brandon. That's too forceful. Oh no, that's that's too. They're gonna perceive, oh, they're gonna think you're the next Andrew Tate, right? You better chill out on that. That's too dark, right? And that intensity or you taking on a new programming, you stepping into that is very threatening. It's very threatening to, yeah, just what feels familiar in your own body. And you definitely have to walk through the terror barrier. And uh Gay Hendricks talks about it, right? At the um, you know, the when we have this upper limit, right? When we're about to break through, our body tries to sabotage and bring us back down to a place of homeostasis. And uh that that upper limit problem, right? It's created. And so, yeah, man, threatening your own programming. I love blessed is he who is offended because of me, right? Moving through the hurdle, going through the the portal of offense, offending yourself. And oftentimes it is, you know, for a lot of us, it's if you've been the nice guy, it's now you being selfish. And then what happens that you're finally taking your power back, and then your partner goes, Oh, you're just selfish. Okay, oh, you're just this, and then you're like, Oh, oh, maybe I am, right? Then you you feel all those feelings, and you have to address that part of you of that feminine energy, testing if you're going to be anchored in this new frequency or not. And so I now know when Jenny starts to question who I am, my identity, my identity, when she starts to question that, okay, that's actually I'm on the right path. I need to keep going, but it's also a time that I can check in with her and ask her about how she's feeling. Rather than making it about me and an attack on my identity, usually it has very little to do with my identity. It has to do with how she's feeling and what this new fast energy is bringing up inside of her. So I get a chance to go, okay, is this really about me? Am I an asshole? Am I really selfish? Am I this? No, I'm actually a really good provider. I provide for my family, I pay my bills, but I, you know, okay, all right. This is not true. Let's let's calibrate back. How is she feeling? Okay, this is a faster, this is a more powerful energy. Okay, that's her abandonment wound coming up. I know that that comes up. Let's talk about how you feel. How are you feeling, Jim? What's coming up? I know I'm I'm operating in more intensity. You can feel it. Like, this is where we're going. I feel super clear. What's that clarity bringing up in the she'll usually throw one more jab at me, right? To see if I'm really gonna keep it about her heart. And then once I pass that second, seven-layer dip, right? First two are hardest to get through. So you really, she really likes to put a little jab in there to see if I'm for real. Um, I know you don't do you've never done that. Have you ever done that?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

I'm thinking of a very specific two exchange.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

We're talking about all those people out there.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Well, I have a question about this because in a lot of like masculine-feminine work, which is only one lens, but yeah, um, there will be conversations about like, okay, the feminine gift is the intuition. So, what is the difference between that challenge versus like no?

SPEAKER_04 41:12

Yeah, it's awesome. I love Ginny's intuition. Okay, but here's what first has to be understood. Ginny plays a different game than I do. Okay, I don't play her game, I play my game, and my game's different. How I build my world is different than how she would build her world. Okay, it is not the same. She has a different personality than me, she has a different gift set than me. Right? We're different people. So how I build my world is different than how she would build her world and how she built. So I first have to understand that. She's probably giving me advice on how she would do it for herself. Right? Like, like when I walk into the room, I mean it's obvious, right? I picked the first girl I knew, I saw her, she's mine, I've been with her. You know, it's like, okay, right? That's the one. I walk in, I go and buy some shoes or clothes. Oh, I know I don't need to putt. Those are the ones I want. I see them. I know, right? I'm quick to know. I know if I don't, if if there's nothing here for me, I know very quickly if there's nothing here for me. Jenny's different. She likes to putt, right? She likes to kick the tires, she likes to see, she likes to maybe this and this is an option. That's just not how I am. Okay, I'm not that way. So she wants, man, we need her advice. Let's go a little slower. Let's think about all the options. I don't need to think about all the options, right? That's advice she would give me for who? For herself. Okay. But there is a difference when she I do trust that she's just a person that's very spiritual, it's very deep, that's done the work, that has high levels of uh she's intelligent, she's have many spiritual gifts. So it'd be dumb not to listen to her. I just have to filter it through my own autonomy and how I play the game and my own strengths. What's the methodology for Brandon for success? Here's the temptation. When I'm not in my power, okay, it's easy to go, well, Jenny knows better. And she is smarter than me. She didn't make better grades than me in college. And, you know, she is, you know, she does have a more dependable personality, and you know, it's easy to go down and give my power away to her strategy. But that's not attractive, and that's not what she wants. The pain body side wants that, but not her higher self does not want that for me. She doesn't want all that power in our relationship. That's too much to carry. And so that's the calibration I have to have. What game am I playing? What's my methodology? And yes, I am willing to hear. And where is this coming from? Is this out of your own fear, or is this out of love? Like, I gotta really go, okay, where is this coming from first? Quote unquote intuition can often be just her own fear. So yeah, I gotta do a little digging.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah, I mean, discerning the difference between what intuition and fear feels like and sounds like in conversation is like so essential in the process. Yeah. If you can't tell the difference, then you can't really make it anywhere in those conversations.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

Usually, when she has an initial response to what an idea that I have, I know it's fear. It's stirring something up. The higher energy is stirring up density. And that's that's something that you learn in the alchemy game, right? Higher energy always brings up lower density. And so, you know, you've heard it say new levels, new devils, right? That's a little that's a little much for me. Scare them into heaven type stuff. Yeah. Um but there is something there. So what's there? It's the higher frequency will always bring out the lower density. So if I have a high frequency of inspiration and I feel so inspired, and I feel clear, and I feel vision, right? Vision's a function of the heart. Vision, oh man, and I see it and I'm clear, and this is the this is where we're going, this is what we're doing. What do you think that's gonna bring up in her?

SPEAKER_00 45:26

I already am feeling fear just hearing you. Right?

SPEAKER_04 45:28

You hear it.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah, because because I feel like for the feminine, like there's so many examples of like power-hungry men.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

So then, and the only ones we hear, I mean, this is sort of the purpose of this podcast, is so that we can hear other men that are rooted and connected to their heart speak this way. But it's like most of the men in my life that I've heard speak that way are scary and do scary things. Yeah, and get people to follow them to do more scary things. Yeah. So even with you speaking with like that level of conviction and confidence, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, and obviously, like I do I trust you by proxy because you're on this podcast, you know. So it's a good experience for me actually to be able to feel that. But it is here's what I tell Jinny.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

Yeah, I tell her just get on board.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Not just that.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

That's really scary.

SPEAKER_04 46:30

Fresh your fear and get on board.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

But it's an important conversation because it's like if what we want is like, you know, if if women are having this conversation of desiring men who lead from the heart, yeah, like this is the first time that I've ever even really thought about the fact that there's that level of unwinding that's so subtle of well, a man with conviction sounds like a man with conviction. Yeah, but it'll feel once you have this conversation you're talking about, eventually you'll feel like that the heart and the roots are there that you don't get to feel from scary men. But initially that sounds insane.

SPEAKER_04 47:11

And my wife, right, Jenny, she's been we've been together since we were in high school, off and on, and then married when we were 23. And then I mean, it's like she went through those phases with me where I was scary. And that's the truth. That there were parts of me that said, you know, just get on board, and I don't care how you feel, which was not healthy. And you know, as I started to unwind in myself the the scared parts of me and the scared little boy that were never addressed, I just learned how to hit a tennis wall really well to outrun that. As I started to unwind that and started to connect to those parts of myself, it gave me the ability to connect to those parts of terror and the importance of that, right? To that, that okay, this doesn't mean my conviction is wrong. And this doesn't mean my conviction is bad and my clarity is bad. I took that for a long time that, oh, because I am clear and I am a visionary and I do see what that brings up in people must mean what I'm seeing is not good. Or it's tainted in some way. And that could play on my own anxious attachment, right? That okay, I'll dull down my vision and conviction and I'll come back to the fold and I won't be as scary. And so that's been my process, especially with Jenny, right? And instead of, no, awesome clarity is awesome, it's so great. And right, what you're feeling and what that brings up is also important to me. I'm not gonna let what it brings up in you keep me from like my connectedness to that, right? It's not like I've got to hold that, I've got to hold that vision and that clarity for me and for our family, but I am willing to come to your heart and connect to you at that level to see what's really there and what it's bringing up. And when I do that, right, that projection of fear and what I'm doing, like oftentimes what I'm doing, well, that's wrong and that's bad, and and and you just want to be famous, or you just want this, or you just want more money, you know, or whatever, right? Whatever shot is being shot at. When I come back to her heart, and I not I don't take it personal, which is easier said than done. When I come back to her heart and I'm like, okay, this isn't about me. This is about her heart and how she's feeling, what she's bringing up. I'm gonna keep it about you. I'm gonna keep it about you. Hey, babe, I hear you in that. And if it's still important for us to talk about this vision here in about 30 minutes, we can talk about it, but right now we're gonna keep talking about you. Okay? I want to know how it makes you feel. Well, you know, I just feel like, you know, and you go off, and then all of a sudden, and you know what happened when we were 22 is gonna happen again. Let's talk about what happened when we were 22. How did that feel? Oh, it just sighed. You know? I loved you and we thought we were gonna build a life together, and then we weren't out of the wood. You had success and then we broke up. Yeah, that wouldn't feel good. And I can connect back to that and keep unlayering her deeper into what's really there. And um yeah, and then once we do that, then it's like, oh yeah, it won't know that. Right? Or hey, I love it, and can we do it this way this time and not this way like we did last time? Awesome. Right? So that to me is a journey for myself, right? How do I stand the masculine? Which is, you know, in the world, I feel like I think there's some coming back to, but there has been a demonization of the masculine for sure, right? But the hard part is every girl I talk to out there in the world, they what do they want? They want someone masculine. Okay, and there's a reason that they're single is because the guys that they think they want, right? The no offense for the yoga instructors out there, right? But the love and light guys just aren't enough. But the masculine energy brings up something inside of them that you were talking about, that scared energy inside of them that they don't know what to do with. And so it's easy to demonize or push away from someone that's masculine because of the scared energy that it brings up inside of them. And I I just I I I would bet you have a lot of females that watch this. I would hope that they wouldn't push away maybe a man that carries conviction and clarity because of the scared energy that it brings up in them. Maybe it's a doorway for them to feel and process their scared energy. And I'm starting to see that. And I'm starting to see the girls, the ladies that do that, right? It's surprising that guy's actually meeting over there. Right? That's surprising what they're getting to experience because they're not allowing that scared energy to dictate what they're willing or open to receive. Remember what I said? You have not because you receive not, because you can't handle the scared energy that comes up in your body around what you want. Sometimes what we want hits us in the face and it and we go, oh shit, that's a lot. I don't have the internal framework to handle what I really want.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

Right?

SPEAKER_04 53:27

Like I need a second to calibrate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

And there's an important discernment process on the woman's end, and they can't truly be discerning if the default that they see a convicted man through is this demonized masculine version. So there has to be a willingness to let that go and to be able to see with clear eyes so they can see truly is is this man convicted from that wounded place, or is he convicted from a heart-centered and a clear place? And being open to that, to that being possible. You know, that's really one of the missions of this podcast is to open the eyes of people that that that that is possible. And if you scroll through the podcast, you've got, you know, hundreds of men.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

Yeah, there's dudes out there doing the work, man. I mean, there are there are guys out there doing the work. And and not that it wasn't, you know, that toxic masculinity, that you know, that that energy that is masculine without connection has hurt a lot of people, right? It has caused problems. The the lack of embodiment, the lack of emotional healing around the masculine energy, void of that, void of that embodiment, void of the healing. Whether it be a a guru or or a head of state, right? I mean, I know a lot of gurus that are disconnected from their body that haven't done the work, but they've got a high gift and a high measure, and uh they're really disconnected from their body, and they're disconnected from from their healing. And man, there's a wake of pain that they've caused in their life, right? And I don't want to bypass that part that's there. That's that's for sure. Man, I'm telling you, there are guys right now that are really doing the hard work that are starting to be able to hold both, right? That strong masculine energy, that conviction and clarity, and also a depth of feeling. And I talked to my guys about you know the age that we're in, right? There's a it's a new age that we're in, and it's a new era for for men. And the era for men, it's not just singular, right, where you're the provider, and you can be an you can be an emotional child and be the provider. That's not the season we're in. Like the ladies can provide for themselves now. They're like, okay, if I've got to have another dependent, it's not worth it, man. I'll just get a cat, right? It's I mean, and I'll just keep providing for myself, and I won't have some some guy that's you know, that's seven emotionally fuck it all up. And and it's just easier to be with myself and be in some relationships or whatever, than to, you know, hook my trailer up to that. And so that's not where we are. Where we are is being a provider and having emotional depth. You've got to be able to play both sides of the piano. And I even like saying the provider part because a lot of people like to leave that out. Oh, women can provide for them, which they can. I don't want to, that's awesome. And I still haven't met a lady yet that's in her feminine that doesn't like a man providing for her. I've yet to meet one that doesn't enjoy that. Okay. And respect that and feel safety in that and feel loved by that. So I've I've yet to meet one that that doesn't. And so the provider part is just as important. It is, it's it is still important to be a provider, to be able to receive energy back to you for your gift and for your value to be given to the world. That's important. But secondly, you have to be able to play the other side of the piano, which is you have to have emotional depth. And uh, you know, I've got two young sons, and uh I'm teaching them both, right? You've got to you've got to be able to connect emotionally, and you also have to be able to provide. It's a great calling, right? It's an up-level for men. And it's an age for us, we're getting called higher. And I think it's I think it's a real opportunity for some dudes that are willing to go there. If there's some guys that are willing to go there and to cultivate that and to create an internal capacity and invest into themselves in the beginning to expand, I call it the and, right? Living in both providership and emotional depth. Man, those guys, the world's open for.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

You know, yeah. I really see two different types of guys. There's guys that answer that call, and then there's guys that say, Oh, I've got to go to the gym and hold space for my woman and make money, it's just too much. I'm gonna opt out of that entirely. And these are the guys that we see, you know, behind their computer screens and nowhere else. Yeah, but that life doesn't really lead somewhere that's fulfilling and inspiring. Uh, but answering the call absolutely does, and it's an adventure to get there. I think every man needs an adventure. It's not like you click a button and you're there, it's a it's a path that you're on throughout your entire life, and there's so much life there. There's so much life-giving opportunity there.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

This will sound really like you know, emotional fitness compared to the heart work I feel like I've done and the depth I've been going, and and the journeys I've been on, and the things that have been happening as I to call it emotional fitness feels a little like uh, you know, okay, not as big as what it is, you know, a little small, but it really is emotional fitness, right? Like, like getting your reps in every day at emotional level. If you're our emotions determine how much we will receive in life, whether it be fulfillment or money, right? Connection or love. I think it's pretty important that you can like like you literally can't receive if you're for my tennis guys, if if you can't allow yourself to feel the emotions and the big emotions of winning a grand slam, you're not gonna win a grand slam. You're gonna find a way to sabotage winning a grand slam. If you do, if you haven't done the emotional work to feel everything in your body that goes into being up 5'3 in the third, being down five, three in the third, it's 95 degrees and 80% humidity, your body's cramping. Like if you can't put yourself in that and feel those feels beforehand and you have the ability to process that, what are you gonna do in the moment, right? What are you gonna do in the moment when your wife or your partner has her first, you know, the girl you're dating has her first freak out? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? How are you gonna respond to that? Like that determines everything. It determines everything how you handle that. And so, yeah, you can say I'm passionate about it. I think our emotions, energies, emotions affect a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

Yeah, there's a lot of research on mental rehearsal. They're talking about Olympians visualizing, you know, the ski slope and going through that, but there's really a call for more emotional rehearsal. Um here.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

I mean, some of the greatest, like the Russians back in their heyday, they did a lot of like not visualizing outcome, but visualizing the and experiencing the pain you would have to go through on the track and putting yourself in that. And and you know, you look at Connor McGregor in his heyday, he was putting himself in holds that he knew he could be in before his fights so that his body would get used to how it would respond when the air is choked out of it. And that emotional rehearsal, getting used to how those things are gonna feel is so important. You're right, man. I th I think you should do that. I think you should do that. I bet you do that with your clients.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Emotional rehearsal. It's on tab. Uh we're gonna start to wrap up here. So there's two questions that we ask every man at the end of the podcast. Uh, one is because we don't want this to just be something that people listen to and it was nice, and then they leave and nothing changes. So we ask every guest what one piece of homework they would assign to the listener.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:45

You know, I think the I have an emotional alchemy process called the five A's. And working the five A's every morning for like 21 days, I feel like will change literally change a person's life. Because what it does is it puts them in a different state emotionally, and emotional state affects mental story, it affects physical strategy. And so when you're in an inspired emotional state consistently, you'll have inspired outcomes consistently. And so I think the 21-day like emotional alchemy, we call it taking a bite out of the elephant. Take a bite out of the elephant every day. Then the elephant doesn't have to squash you, like you're just taking bites out of it, you're taking bites out of it, and you're building that muscle. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that they could do every day is to yeah, just to do that. Five A's.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

I can even give a link about that. Yeah, give a link. Give us a link. We'll link your book too. Are they in your book? Yeah. My book. Uh-huh. Awesome. So yeah, you can find the five A's in the description. Turning lead into gold. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

And then the second question is other men that you think that our listeners could look to, whether we could have them on the podcast or they could read a book by them or something that are also embodying this like heart-led uh mature masculinity so that there's more examples and just more voices heard.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

Yeah, it's awesome. More men. You know, I think about some of the men that I hang out with, they're not coaches or podcast guys, right? They're like real dudes. Yeah. And my best friend's Justin Slatovic, who's the realest dude on the planet, and uh has just a successful business, a successful family. He's got a beautiful spread in Incinitas, and all his kids live on the farm, they call it the farm on three in in Incinitas, right? And they all have houses on the I mean, it's like he's built that world. He and his wife Jody, Justin's he's amazing, man. He's he's going through this process, but it may not be out loud on social media, or he may not, he's not even in the transformational arts, but he is living this out. So when I think about a dude that I'm inspired by, it's my best friend Justin. Uh-huh. Yeah, he's he's living it out. I I can name off other guys, you know, Gary Zukoff, he's written The Seat of the Soul and The Heart of the Soul. Those books changed my life for sure. You know, I feel like Gary's embodied what, you know, and given us a blueprint for internal power versus out of aligned external power and how to uh find internal power within yourself as a man. And uh yeah, guys like uh, you know, best friend that I played golf with, Brady Toops. You know, he's a musician musician. He's been on his own heart journey, he's living it out as a single man. And uh, but man, he's doing it so well and with so much integrity. And yeah, so those are guys, you know, got my next door neighbor, Stefanos, right? Got Jordan Bowdic, young guys like that. Yeah, that I'm inspired by, I'm inspired by their energy and and uh what they're aspiring to. What I'm hearing is there's a lot of them out there. Yeah, man, if that's your frequency, yeah, they find you, and and and I'm I'm gonna bang this drum real quick as we close. Like, like ladies that say there's no good men out there, that's actually a representation of your own frequency. And that's not a bypass. I don't say that in like a mansplained way of bypassing the truth of what's happened to you or things that have happened to you, but I am saying that there is a lens which you're perceiving life through that is drawing a man to you that is that is scary. And a man that is is triggered, like that fear, right? That pain body was creating that emotional state, is creating a mental story. And it's causing you to align to a physical strategy that's not getting you what you want. And I have such a love for my wife and our relationship. I I really want people to connect to their partner. And I have a real desire to see people in a thriving, committed relationship with each other. And you know, even in the conscious world, right, there where there's all types of relationships, I love the container of monogamy as a discipline and as a spiritual path. It's a spiritual path, right? And I love seeing other people to um find their person that they've committed to that same path and uh moving through some of the barriers to get that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

Yes. Uh yeah, thank you for sharing that. I uh think that's really important and just about like acknowledging that women who have a story that there are no good men, it is we we've said this before on the podcast, but it's not about being worthy of love, it's about being an energetic match for the love that you are actually about seeking. And there are many good men, and they also run in communities with one other. So, like if you find one, even if you're not attracted to that, you can start changing the story and like being a witness to the fact that actually there are.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:48

He hangs out in worlds I don't run with single people. And uh, you know, he rewrites what even if there's not attraction within another with the person he's with the meetings, he's able to rewrite their experience of goodness, and he also does hang out with other dudes that are that are on that same journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Yeah, awesome. Brandon, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

You can find all Brandon's links in the description. If you like this episode, leave a rating and a review, and we love you. See you on the next one.