Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Male Strength Redefined: Why vulnerability is man’s most powerful tool for wellbeing, w/ Owen Marcus

Transcript

Male Strength Redefined: Why vulnerability is man’s most powerful tool for wellbeing, w/ Owen Marcus · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  Just really being real.
• 0:06
  And when we can do that, we down regulate our stress, we upregulate that parasympathetic nervous system that rest and digest that relaxation part of us which sets us up for everything to be able to heal our physical body
• 0:22
  and our emotional body, but also that allows us to be more creative, excuse me, more creative, which is what we really need in our lives and particularly in business.
• 0:31
  Today we sit down with Owen Marcus, a pioneer in men's emotional wellness and community building with a fascinating journey that began in psychology and evolved through decades of hands on work.
• 0:43
  From founding a groundbreaking integrative medical clinic to co creating powerful men's group programs like Everyman and Now Mount, Owen has helped thousands of men experience authentic connections, vulnerability and personal growth.
• 0:59
  In this episode, we explore Owen's early influences, the science behind masculine vulnerability, and how a functional, somatic approach to emotional health is transforming lives and even businesses.
• 1:13
  Owen shares honest insights on overcoming setbacks, building real brotherhood, and how men can thrive at any age, physically, emotionally and as successful leaders.
• 1:25
  If you want actionable wisdom on authentic masculinity and building meaningful community, you won't want to miss this conversation.
• 1:33
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:39
  All right, Owen Marcus, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:43
  Thank you.
• 1:43
  Glad to be here.
• 1:45
  Absolutely.
• 1:46
  All right.
• 1:47
  So Owen, how did your early experiences, even before your formal career, shape your understanding of authentic masculinity and the need for communities like Everyman?
• 2:03
  Well, short story, I went to college.
• 2:07
  Got an undergraduate degree in psychology.
• 2:10
  I thought I wanted to be a therapist and decided that most of my professors were more messed up in me and I didn't want to do that.
• 2:17
  Ended up in Boulder, Colorado.
• 2:19
  I had a roommate giving up his law practice of eight years to move to Boulder to learn somatic therapy, body therapy, psychotherapies.
• 2:28
  He convinced me to get into it.
• 2:29
  I did.
• 2:29
  Spent four years in Boulder, which was before graduate school, but really I probably learned more there than graduate school or in undergraduate school really about how the body works, how it works or doesn't work under stress.
• 2:42
  And that really launched my career.
• 2:45
  Moved down to Phoenix in 1980, ended up starting a private practice that grew into a integrated medical clinic and, you.
• 2:54
  Know, worked with a lot with elite.
• 2:56
  Athletes, professional and Olympic athletes, but really generally just stressed out people and had some great results because we were working with a body.
• 3:06
  But what I realized that, you know, my relationships, you know, with the women.
• 3:11
  I was dating just wasn't what I wanted.
• 3:13
  And I realized I was a consistent variable.
• 3:16
  So I Thought, well, maybe I try.
• 3:18
  Men'S work, which is something I was resistant to, which the sign that probably should try it.
• 3:22
  And I tried it and I immediately saw some benefits.
• 3:26
  And I did 10 years of doing.
• 3:30
  Groups, first in Arizona, took a year off in Northern California, moved to North Idaho, and then 20 years ago, I changed the model to be what I call a functional model of men's work, which is really based on
• 3:44
  what you were saying on the somatic or the.
• 3:47
  Physiology of her body, what we do.
• 3:50
  When we're in stress and what our bodies and we do when we're not.
• 3:53
  In stress, and what I call the.
• 3:56
  Communal factor, that Our genome is 99.9% of what it was 10,000 years ago when we were in tribes.
• 4:04
  But we don't have that kind of connection.
• 4:07
  Not that we should go back to.
• 4:08
  Tribes, but we need that more authentic.
• 4:12
  Regular connection to our community.
• 4:14
  And particularly these days, we don't have that.
• 4:17
  So I just saw, you know, when.
• 4:19
  I brought in the physiology into the.
• 4:22
  Context of these men's groups and really accentuated the communal factor, we really changed.
• 4:29
  And you know, in the course of 20 years and these groups I helped start, we probably have several thousand men, started three companies.
• 4:36
  Every man was my second company and now my third company is meld.
• 4:41
  And we've really honed this technology where we teach men one to one in groups and also in B2B settings.
• 4:51
  Okay, and when you made that change and you saw the need for community, how did you see the results improve as opposed to just individual self improvement work?
• 5:06
  Yeah, I've been around as I sort of inferred for a while.
• 5:09
  I mean I sort of there at the beginning of the personal growth movement.
• 5:13
  And it's still going strong.
• 5:15
  And you know, I'm all for that, but I just saw the limits of that.
• 5:20
  You know, we've become a very sort of personal culture.
• 5:26
  Yeah, we have interaction virtually social media all, but so often that interaction sort of like junk food for our connection.
• 5:34
  And I just saw that when we.
• 5:36
  Particularly as men had authentic connections, we really felt someone and you know, could be ourselves and vulnerable and they could.
• 5:44
  Be and we could have real conversations that in my vernacular took the guy deeper into his own experience.
• 5:52
  We grew in experiential ways and that, that we would grow individually.
• 5:57
  And so a lot of the guys.
• 5:58
  That come to me have done other work, be it therapy, EO or young presidents organizations or whatever, where they've done some emotional work or some growth work.
• 6:08
  But they sort of hit a glass ceiling and they wanted something More, and.
• 6:13
  Often their friend has referred them to, you know, one of the companies or one of the groups I've started.
• 6:17
  And they quickly realize, oh, when I'm.
• 6:20
  In an emotionally safe place, so when I can say something and I'm not.
• 6:25
  Shamed for, as I would be sort of in the external world, but actually honored for, I grow.
• 6:32
  And my growth or my authenticity actually helps others to do the same.
• 6:37
  And we get this sort of experiential.
• 6:40
  Phenomena of men supporting each other in their growth.
• 6:44
  Okay, and you touched on the vulnerability aspect in that last answer.
• 6:51
  So why is being vulnerable such an important yet often misunderstood and aspect of male strength and leadership?
• 7:03
  I think first, it's a culture we've.
• 7:06
  Grown up in, a culture that would literally shame boys and men for being vulnerable.
• 7:14
  You're being weak, you're being a woman, and it's there.
• 7:17
  We might not consciously think about it, but it's there.
• 7:21
  And then what also happens under stress?
• 7:26
  We're hardwired to fight or flight.
• 7:28
  We all know that.
• 7:28
  But what I Learned close to 50 years ago, studying with a guy that.
• 7:32
  Literally wrote all the books on this.
• 7:34
  Is that when our bodies can't run or fight, we default to this third instinctual biological phenomena of freezing.
• 7:44
  And animals do that.
• 7:45
  And I could talk more about that.
• 7:47
  But basically what happens is we, in a psychological level, we disassociate and we don't sort of reassociate, reconnect to ourselves until we feel safe.
• 7:59
  And so, you know, we hear.
• 8:01
  This is my experience, too, from men.
• 8:03
  That, you know, we might have friends and we might, you know, play golf.
• 8:07
  With them or, you know, sit at.
• 8:08
  A bar with them.
• 8:09
  But our conversations, you know, after, say, school or maybe the military, after these more structured situations, our conversations tend to be pretty superficial.
• 8:21
  And if we broach something that's more emotional and more vulnerable, often, maybe we're not directly shamed, but we're indirectly sort of made fun at when someone cracks a joke.
• 8:34
  And we're not encouraged to really go into that vulnerability.
• 8:39
  And the vulnerability doesn't mean that we're crying.
• 8:41
  We're just, you know, revealing something about ourselves or how we're not perfect or how, you know, we had an emotional experience.
• 8:50
  But what I quickly found in all.
• 8:52
  These settings, from, you know, a small.
• 8:54
  Men'S group to these groups I was leading, and he's training for 60 guys.
• 8:58
  Once one or two guys showed their vulnerability, and maybe it's just saying what they felt in the moment, immediately everyone in the room realizes that, oh, if I do it I'm not going to be shamed.
• 9:14
  And actually, it's an act of courage.
• 9:17
  So guys are a little competitive, sometimes very competitive.
• 9:20
  And what happens, like in a group of 60 guys, you go around the room and everyone's sort of checking in or saying something.
• 9:27
  By the time you get to the end, guys are being very vulnerable because it's like, well, if Joe could be that vulnerable, I could be more vulnerable.
• 9:34
  And we start to have what we had maybe as a kid, where we're really supporting each other around just, I would say just being authentic, just really being real.
• 9:44
  And when we can do that, we downregulate our stress, we upregulate that parasympathetic nervous system that rest and digest that relaxation part of us, which sets us up for everything to be able to heal our physical body and
• 10:00
  our emotional body, but also that allows us to be more creative.
• 10:03
  Excuse me, more creative, which is what we really need in our lives and particularly in business.
• 10:10
  Okay.
• 10:11
  Well, I'd never heard something like that in terms of.
• 10:15
  I know, the competition aspect, but you see literally a competition for who can be more vulnerable once you get going.
• 10:22
  Yeah.
• 10:23
  And it gets to be sort of funny, and we start teasing guys about it.
• 10:26
  And a few years ago, we had a guy, one of our trainings, huge guy, tats all over him, ex elite Marine, tough guy.
• 10:36
  And we did this, like a little check in.
• 10:38
  And he's sort of at the end of the the circle in this training.
• 10:41
  He says, I don't like guys and don't touch me.
• 10:44
  We all go, okay.
• 10:46
  And three days later, he's saying, I love you all.
• 10:49
  I want to hug you, and if you need anything, I'm here for you.
• 10:53
  And this Mr.
• 10:54
  Tough guy, as so often the case on the inside, he was like this teddy bear.
• 10:59
  Once he knew this space was safe, he relaxed and he wanted to contribute everything from his own vulnerability to just supporting guys.
• 11:08
  And I think we all have that, but we don't have environments to experience it or develop it.
• 11:16
  Okay.
• 11:18
  And so, Owen, how do you see the role of modern masculinity evolving?
• 11:24
  And then what.
• 11:25
  What opportunities does that present for men today?
• 11:30
  I think it's really evolving.
• 11:32
  I think in just the last few years, you see a shift.
• 11:36
  There's a fellow that wrote a book.
• 11:38
  His name is Richard Reeves.
• 11:40
  Came out a few years ago.
• 11:41
  We had him on our program, a British dude.
• 11:43
  He was working for the Brookings Institute.
• 11:45
  And the book is of Men, Boys and Men.
• 11:47
  And it's really all this research about how boys are men are Struggling and you know, how that's impacting them and their physical, emotional health, but also how it's impacting women in the whole culture.
• 11:59
  And one of the things that he said in this book was the liberals and the conservatives get it wrong.
• 12:05
  The conservatives want to take men back to the 50s.
• 12:08
  Like that's going to solve all the problems.
• 12:09
  You know, guys are in charge.
• 12:11
  And you know what that time was.
• 12:14
  Like in the 50s.
• 12:14
  And the liberals have thought that anything you do for a boy or a man takes it away from a girl or a woman.
• 12:22
  And I think that's shifting, and I think it's shifting on the other end too.
• 12:26
  But particularly this sort of wokeness of, of, of, you know, every man as a toxic masculinity being manifested is really dying off.
• 12:36
  And I think more and more women are seeing that, you know, we care about men, we care about our husbands or sons or fathers, whoever.
• 12:45
  And, and if we as women are going to really not just survive, but really succeed and be happy and have good partners, we need to support men.
• 12:56
  And I think there's this whole shift in the zeitgeist that, oh, men are suffering.
• 13:01
  What do they need?
• 13:02
  And part of what they need is a different model of emotionality.
• 13:08
  And one of the things I talked about years ago in a TEDx talk was that we've grown up in a culture where once men went to work, say a couple hundred years ago, women had to step up and
• 13:20
  raise us.
• 13:21
  So without it being a conspiracy, they just taught us how to be emotional, which is more of a feminine model.
• 13:28
  And guys are starting to go, okay, that's not necessarily a bad model, certainly not a bad model for women, but it doesn't really fit for us.
• 13:36
  And one of the things that we've developed and the functional model, and particularly in these groups and trainings, is when guys are together, we end up teaching each other this more naturalistic model of how we emotional in an
• 13:51
  authentic way, not even necessarily in a vulnerable way, but how we emotional in a way that's authentic for us as men.
• 13:58
  And I think that model is starting to seep into the culture.
• 14:04
  Okay, and what specific practices or principles do you think are most effective in creating genuine brotherhood and support within a group of men?
• 14:19
  One of the ways that, you know, I've always sort of cheated and started.
• 14:22
  When I had the clinic is.
• 14:24
  And I first learned it with myself, but, you know, after a few hundred.
• 14:27
  Guys and, and asking him a question.
• 14:29
  That was more emotionally oriented and seeing.
• 14:33
  What we all would do which would.
• 14:35
  Avoid the question, literally Try to get out of the room.
• 14:38
  I started asking those questions in a.
• 14:40
  More somatic or body oriented way.
• 14:43
  In other words, I started asking questions about their stress.
• 14:47
  And every guy likes to talk about the stress, what they have in their life and how much it is and how they deal with it or don't deal with it.
• 14:54
  There's no shame, there's almost pride about that.
• 14:57
  And so I started developing this model where we work with the physiology of the body first.
• 15:03
  And I teach a little of it.
• 15:04
  I mean, there's a lot of research out there that supports it, but just.
• 15:07
  Some of the basic science of it.
• 15:09
  But more how to access the physiology of our body.
• 15:13
  You know, what's happening to our body when we're in a stress state.
• 15:17
  Once we have become aware of it and once we allow ourselves to feel it a little, we down regulate the stress response, which means we up regulate our connection to ourselves somatically, emotionally, which naturally sort of upregulates our
• 15:34
  ability to connect to others.
• 15:36
  And so men have seen sometimes very quickly significant changing changes in their primary relationship.
• 15:44
  And then, you know, once they start to sort of learn that skill and practice it at home, it almost always generalizes into their work environment.
• 15:52
  So I also have a private coaching practice and almost every client of mine, it's an entrepreneur, and if not that.
• 15:59
  Usually a C level executive.
• 16:01
  And what they start to find is when they develop this emotional awareness through their body awareness and they develop or redevelop their innate ability to connect, it starts changing their relationships.
• 16:16
  And I just this morning got an email from a guy that was in one of my groups.
• 16:21
  He mistreated me.
• 16:22
  I told him, you can't talk to me this way.
• 16:24
  A few years later, he apologized.
• 16:26
  He says, I want to hire you.
• 16:27
  I want to hire you to come.
• 16:29
  Into my EO group because you're the.
• 16:30
  Only guy I know that's going to be honest.
• 16:32
  So, you know, I worked with a group for a weekend, shifted it, and.
• 16:36
  Then he came to one of our trainings a couple years later.
• 16:39
  And that was two years ago, he sent me a picture of himself.
• 16:41
  He lost 70 pounds.
• 16:43
  And it's a picture of him at the end of a 10k.
• 16:47
  And it transformed his business, his health and his relationships with because he applied this whole call IT technology that I developed and you know, connecting to his body and connecting to his emotions, which reoriented his whole being to
• 17:04
  be healthy physically and emotionally.
• 17:06
  And that's how it can happen once guys get connected.
• 17:09
  Okay, and let's just dive into that a little Bit deeper too.
• 17:13
  You mentioned about what stress does to the body specifically.
• 17:17
  Can, can you expand on that?
• 17:19
  Yeah.
• 17:19
  So stress is really a survival response.
• 17:25
  And so what happens is we have stress out there, our bodies respond, and in a natural world, the stress or stressor changes, leaves, or we deal with it and then we reset our body.
• 17:40
  That's how we're hardwired.
• 17:42
  But in our world, two things happen.
• 17:45
  Often the stress doesn't leave externally, but it doesn't leave internally.
• 17:51
  And so when the stress doesn't get to cycle through, we don't get to release it or resolve it.
• 17:58
  On a physiological level, it stays in our body.
• 18:01
  It particularly stays in the fascia, which is this form of connective tissue that literally surrounds everything.
• 18:07
  And we sort of know this because if we're really stressed and we've been really stressed for a long time, we.
• 18:12
  We get these knots in our shoulders or back or neck or wherever.
• 18:16
  And these knots is that fascia, that connective tissue, just holding onto the stress.
• 18:21
  And that's a lot of what I did in my clinic was work with that.
• 18:25
  And most of the tension we have in our body is not physical.
• 18:29
  It's from this accumulation of stress or trauma.
• 18:32
  And when the trauma doesn't get resolved, it becomes ptsd, Post Traumatic Stress disorder.
• 18:38
  It stays in our body.
• 18:40
  Then what that means is it becomes self perpetuating.
• 18:45
  And it's like having an accelerator in your car being stuck to the floor.
• 18:50
  And, you know, and so you're going down the road really fast.
• 18:53
  All right, maybe it doesn't matter.
• 18:55
  You stop at a light, you push the clutch in, and the engine's still revving, but you're not going anyplace.
• 19:00
  So literally, our physiology is revving.
• 19:03
  So even though we're not truly in a survival or stress state, our internal physiology is.
• 19:11
  And so that our body's shutting down on healing and rejuvenation and putting all its resources to surviving, even though maybe logically we don't think we need to or we shouldn't be.
• 19:25
  Our bodies are there and we're literally wearing our bodies.
• 19:29
  And on an emotional relationship level, we.
• 19:32
  When you're in survival, you're not oriented towards connection.
• 19:36
  You know, it's like you're.
• 19:37
  You're using everything you can to run away from that tiger that's chasing you.
• 19:42
  And you know, you can sprain your ankle, hit your head on a branch, and you won't even know it because of the adrenaline, the cortisol.
• 19:49
  You're just so focused on survival.
• 19:51
  So what we have to do, if we're really going to get healthy and reset our physiology and our emotions, is leave that survival state.
• 20:01
  And we can do that.
• 20:02
  And that's really what we work with men, is teaching them on a physiological level and on an emotional level and on a relational level how to leave that state and reorient to a more natural state.
• 20:17
  Okay.
• 20:18
  All right.
• 20:19
  And was there a major setback or a moment of doubt that you faced when you were building Every man?
• 20:26
  And.
• 20:26
  And if so, how'd you push through that?
• 20:29
  Well, yeah, I left Every man because.
• 20:33
  And took my team and created Meld because the company just became dysfunctional.
• 20:39
  You know, I had a few partners.
• 20:40
  They left at one partner, and, yeah, he was running the business, and we ended up half a million dollars in.
• 20:48
  Debt and just getting from going from bad to worse.
• 20:50
  And so even though, you know, I was the founder, I was the guy that brought all the.
• 20:56
  The technology, developed all the courses and everything else, and I was going to buy the company, I just said, I'm done.
• 21:03
  I'm leaving.
• 21:03
  We're starting a new company.
• 21:05
  So, you know, at 70, what one.
• 21:08
  I started a new company.
• 21:10
  And yeah, it was stressful, but it was also fun and exhilarating to.
• 21:16
  To do what I want to do, which I love doing with a team.
• 21:19
  I love doing it with.
• 21:21
  And to really take the best of what I developed Everyman, and really enhance it now at Meld.
• 21:29
  And that was something I never planned to do, but as so many business.
• 21:33
  Owners experience that, you know, you.
• 21:36
  You get in a situation and you need to do something you never would have done.
• 21:41
  Okay.
• 21:41
  And so let.
• 21:42
  Let's talk about Melden.
• 21:44
  So what.
• 21:45
  What, is that just a continuation of Everyman or is anything different about this new company?
• 21:52
  Both.
• 21:52
  It's the essence of Everyman, which is what I brought.
• 21:55
  And this stuff we've been talking about.
• 21:58
  The somatics and the communal part, I.
• 22:01
  I took.
• 22:01
  So it's a core of.
• 22:02
  It's the same how we deliver.
• 22:05
  It's improved in terms of the programs, I guess, in some ways, who we attract.
• 22:11
  We tend to attract men that are probably 40 to 55, usually more entrepreneurial, professional men that aren't in crisis rolling, not in crisis.
• 22:24
  Then, you know, they might have some.
• 22:26
  Kind of crisis in their relationship, but they're successful professionally almost always.
• 22:33
  And they've reached a point where their coping mechanisms, the survival strategies, have done them well.
• 22:41
  They survived, number one.
• 22:42
  And often it's been one of the keys to their success, like disconnection, for.
• 22:47
  Example, that allowed them to really focus.
• 22:50
  But Those survival strategies or coping mechanisms has hindered other things, particularly the relationship and most particularly with their partners.
• 22:59
  And so they're coming to us and going, all right, I've tried some things.
• 23:04
  I become more aware, got a little traction, but I really need to change this.
• 23:08
  Like the gentleman I just told you about, and they've heard about us, and they go, okay, sounds like it might work.
• 23:15
  And because they're more entrepreneurial, you know, they do their due diligence, but they're willing to take a risk and try something different, because we're not usually going to get a different result unless we try something different.
• 23:26
  We go at it in a different way.
• 23:28
  And that's essentially what we're doing, is teaching these guys skills that they never saw a little known I taught to them.
• 23:38
  Okay, now, you mentioned starting a new company at 71.
• 23:43
  I mean, this, this show is all about entrepreneurship.
• 23:46
  But even the best entrepreneurs sometimes would hear that and just say, wow, that's, that's quite a feat.
• 23:52
  So, you know, into your 70s, too, you've remained very healthy and, you know, vibrant and running a company and doing what you love.
• 24:01
  So can you talk about your, your own routine in terms of what you do to.
• 24:07
  To develop this type of health and vitality and longevity as, as you age?
• 24:13
  Yeah, I should sort of back it up a little.
• 24:16
  It was first in graduate school, I.
• 24:18
  Was, I realized I was dyslexic, which is explained why school was such a, particularly elementary school was such a struggle.
• 24:25
  And then later I realized I had Asperger's syndrome, which explains some more.
• 24:30
  And then later I realized because I grew up in the Northeast, while in high school, I got Lyme disease and didn't know it, and then would suffer for chronic fatigue for decades or on and off.
• 24:41
  And so I used all my holistic functional medicine training and experience and connections to heal, certainly the Lyme and most of the, you know, the, the, the.
• 24:55
  Dyslexia and Asperger's and all that was.
• 25:00
  Really a setup for me to develop everything we've been talking about.
• 25:04
  But also, it's like I said, you know, I've invested this much in being healthy.
• 25:11
  I'm going to keep investing.
• 25:12
  And so every year over the last 50 years, even though I've gotten older, I've gotten healthier because the nutritional programs I, I follow exercise, dealing with chronic stress, getting it, the chronic stress out of my body, which was
• 25:30
  a huge thing, and having ways to deal with stress.
• 25:36
  You know, ongoing stress, from, you.
• 25:39
  Know, body therapies I do to meditation to, even if need be, taken a nap.
• 25:46
  But also, you know, I've been in a men's group for 30 years in this group I started 20 years ago, which has now had over 500 guys in the group and currently over 60.
• 25:57
  Guys in five groups.
• 25:59
  Yeah, I go there every Wednesday night.
• 26:01
  You know, tonight I'm going to be in my men's group.
• 26:03
  So that is one of the ways I continue to support my health.
• 26:09
  Okay.
• 26:10
  All right.
• 26:10
  And, oh, and if people want to find out more about you and the work that you're doing with Meld, what's the best way that people can reach out to you?
• 26:19
  Probably through the website, which is Meld Communities.
• 26:22
  So it's m e l d.community spelled out.
• 26:26
  And they can message me or email me through Owen Meld and.
• 26:33
  Or Meld Community.
• 26:34
  And I'll be glad to connect with anyone that.
• 26:37
  I mean, my.
• 26:38
  My goal is to give people, men.
• 26:41
  And women, but certainly men, the tools.
• 26:42
  That they need to, you know, succeed.
• 26:45
  In life and in all the ways that they can.
• 26:48
  All right, and we'll link all that in the show.
• 26:50
  Notes for everyone.
• 26:51
  Thank you.
• 26:52
  Okay, well, Owen, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our audience.
• 26:59
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 27:01
  Thank you, David.
• 27:02
  It's an honor to be here.
• 27:03
  All right, that's all the time we have for now.
• 27:05
  We will see you next time.