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Pick a Lens for Your Year · Evolutionary Men

• 0:00
  Alright and welcome back. So for this episode I want to share with you an
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  awesome tool that I've been using the last couple of years to bring a lot of
• 0:09
  change, novelty, and transformation into my life. And it's basically picking a
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  lens for my year. Now I do this on an annual basis but what I'm about to talk
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  about you could do quarterly, you could do seasonally, you could do for an
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  upcoming experience or vacation or decision or whatever that might be. But I
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  like to do it annually because it gives me a lot of time to really navigate and
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  do this exploration in ways that often bring a lot of insight and surprise to
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  me. Now I first heard about this idea of picking a lens which is really just a
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  way to take a perspective on our lives as being called a theme or some people
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  call it a power word for the year, right? Abundance, health, playfulness, sensuality,
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  joy, financial health, you name it. There's lots of different ways we can we can
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  parse this out for whatever you want to do but the idea is it's usually pretty
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  simple. A word, maybe a couple of words and it's very broad in general. And I
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  really like the term lens versus theme because for me themes often something
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  that only becomes obvious in retrospect where lens has a little bit more of a
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  forward-looking active sense to it, right? It's a way to look into the moment, look
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  at the moment, to take a perspective and like any lens it doesn't change what's
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  there it's just changing our framing of it, right? Are we more zoomed in or we
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  more zoomed out? We're taking a perspective on the moment. So lens to me
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  is a great way to kind of play with this idea and so picking a lens just means
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  okay what's the thing I want to view my experiences through that might not be
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  normal for me that brings a lot of novelty or change or moves me in a
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  certain direction? And these are so great because again you can't fail them it's
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  just a way to look at what's going on in your life so you immediately liberate
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  yourself from the trap of a goal. Now a good lens might help you set certain
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  goals but they don't have to, right? It can be more of an almost artistic
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  process of just experiencing what is in our lives. So I'm gonna give you a few
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  examples of how I've played with this just to make it a little more clear what
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  exactly I'm talking about, right? So I started doing this in 2021 when I first
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  like I said heard of this as being called a theme and my theme for that
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  year was visibility, right? I was wanting to reveal myself more, be seen more and
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  frankly to take up more space in my life and in the world and there's lots of
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  ways that played out in my men's groups, in my intimate relationship with my
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  wife and yeah even in my career in terms of me really putting the flag down
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  around some very important things to me. First and foremost of which was
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  launching this podcast, launching this show of hey I feel like I'm doing a lot
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  of good work in the world, I like what I'm doing, I like supporting men and I
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  got to get it out there more and so I launched this podcast as a way to grow
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  my visibility to be more seen. The year after that I went in a kind of a
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  different direction which was called my lens that year was completion, right? I
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  was juggling so many things as a newish father, as an entrepreneur, having some
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  part-time jobs, having some artistic passions and pursuits and that year to
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  me was about don't take anything else on new, just start bringing things to a
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  close. All these open loops in your life they take energy and I was feeling quite
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  exhausted so my theme was completion. How can I complete things? How can I close
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  loops in my life? In small ways in terms of tensions or conversations with people
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  and relationships and in big ways in terms of projects of things I had
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  hanging over my head that I really wanted to finish and also even internally
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  in terms of different things inside myself that didn't quite feel resolved
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  that I wanted to bring some completion to. That year was pretty big for me as I
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  did really bring across the finish line two huge artistic projects that I had
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  been wanting to do for years and I finally liberated myself from those
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  amongst many other things. Now 2023, that was my next year that I was doing this
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  and the lens I picked for that was impulsiveness, right? I'm someone who's
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  generally pretty thoughtful, pretty tempered in my reactions and how I show
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  up in the world and I had this sense of I'm gonna trust myself more and so for
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  me impulsiveness is this interesting thing of both being about novelty and
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  about actually trusting the impulses in my body. So by following impulsiveness as
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  a lens I made some very different decisions in my life than I might
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  normally in terms of how I was interacting with my wife, spur of the moment
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  sometimes, in terms of how I was interacting with my career and signing
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  up for programs and things I might not do otherwise and in terms of not
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  overthinking things and just sharing it more in a "okay here's what's here right
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  now" that tended to really serve me and actually have a lot of people around me
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  feel a lot more connected to me. It was also a time when I really started to
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  just trust myself and what I wanted to bring forward so I was like "okay I have
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  an idea to create something I'm just gonna do that" and frankly I had some
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  space to do that because the year before it was completion and so I launched one
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  of my big new programs that year as well which was the Heart of Shadow program
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  which was really just an impulse inside of me of "hey I want to work with one of
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  these dear men in my life that I love and I trust and I'm in a group with like
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  what if we just did this thing?" and it really just emerged more than I even had
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  to create it because I was following an impulse of energy that was going through
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  me. Now the year after that 2024 I went in a pretty different direction and this
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  one's a little more complicated because it's a bunch more words but essentially
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  I picked embracing intensity and conflict. There was a lot going on in my
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  life and I had traditionally been someone who was a little bit more
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  conflict avoidant in my life and I realized this was the cheat code for me
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  to get everything I wanted which was just to turn right towards intensity and
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  turn right into conflict and so this really manifested in some pretty
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  profound ways in terms of how I was approaching exercise and working out and
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  how I dealt with big intense conflicts particularly in my intimate relationship.
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  I became a lot more vulnerable just going right into things as they were in
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  the moment and not being afraid of what happens if we don't get along or don't
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  agree or this causes tension something I've done a lot of previously in my life.
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  What I loved about that one and this is one that I'm kind of just gonna hold on
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  to forever now because like I said it's turned out to be a cheat code for me is
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  like any lens it's cool in that it can play out on an annual basis and as I
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  look back on my 2024 who did we really do that moved across the country had a
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  new child it was quite transformational and it also played out on the micro
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  level meaning as I had intense moments with my daughter or my family or being
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  overwhelmed or stress around travel and missing flights instead of going through
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  my normal oh I'm gonna resist what's happening right now and be upset and
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  suffer around it my lens was right there and in a moment my whole nervous system
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  could change hey this is what's happening so embrace it which just means
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  go right into it don't resist it breathe with it and I can't tell you how
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  transformative that was for me just in the moment of suffering less where it
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  was like okay I can have this reaction or I can just embrace the intensity of
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  this rep or I can embrace the conflict I'm in with my daughter right now because
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  she wants this and I want that and rather than being mad about that I can
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  just become one with that and frankly relax and smile and start to have even
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  some fun and play with it what would it mean for me to just embrace this is what
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  is talked about this on previous episodes is you know becoming a yes to
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  what is that was really another way to think about my theme for embracing
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  intensity and conflict of last year you know this year I'm recording this in
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  early 2025 my themes my themes celebration right been doing a lot of
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  stuff been pushing hard for many years and I'm the kind of guy that kind of
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  always sees the horizon of what I want to change what I want more of what's not
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  working and so for me celebration is a lens to look at hey what if I just
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  brought some gratitude to what I do have and it's even beyond just gratitude
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  because celebration actually you know kind of has a sense of energy and fun to
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  it as well which I could certainly use more of in my life because I get pretty
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  grumpy I get pretty serious I get pretty burdened by life to me celebration and
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  burden are kind of inverses right so celebration breaks up the idea of burden
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  with rather than having to do this man what if I just celebrated that I get to
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  do this that I could even have some fun doing this thing in my life and I'm
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  really excited to see how it plays out throughout the year and how just having
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  this as a lens in itself will transform how I experience my year now I often do
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  my annual lens kind of picking and choosing and playing in my men's groups
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  the ones that I'm part of because there's something really unique and fun
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  and special about doing this practice relationally and what I mean by doing is
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  picking it right I start usually with a couple I think this maybe that and then
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  what I start to do is play with those of okay if I embrace this lens for the year
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  how does it feel right what kind of energy does it bring to my system and
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  why I love doing stuff in men's groups or relationally is we get feedback right
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  other people can say wow when you talk about this you totally light up when you
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  talk about this it kind of I don't know it feels a little sticky or feels more
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  like a should and so for me celebration is the one that's brought the most
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  energy to my life even if I as I just share about my lens with other people in
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  my life they can feel my excitement around it and they get lit up which then
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  creates a more celebratory moment in fact it's pretty cool how it's already
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  working also like to set these set a lens for the year with my wife for us as
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  a couple which is really cool we do that every year and then we share our
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  individual lenses as well and so this is something I'm gonna be doing with guys
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  this year so you can sign up if you want to actually do an experiential workshop
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  to help you plan your own lens for the year you can just go to evolutionary dot
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  men slash lens and we're gonna be checking in four times throughout the
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  year so this is a quarterly check-in about your lens of just how's it showing
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  up what have you experienced what is it taught you or revealed to you in the
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  process and like I said because we'll be doing it as a group there'll be a
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  relational component so if you're not sure there's actually gonna be a process
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  that helps guide you towards your lens so you can set it and charge forth into
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  your year but that said regardless of whether you work with me or not I
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  strongly consider you pick a lens for your year it's an incredible way to bring
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  novelty and energy both to what's coming up in front of you and will give you
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  different capacities for how to respond in your nervous system to what's going
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  on in the moment it's really quite exceptional in my experience how I can
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  be having something resisting it and then when I think of my lens suddenly
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  this whole other gateway this whole other doorway of energy opens up and it
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  can completely recontextualize the exact same moment I'm just taking another
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  perspective on it again it's why I like lens even more than theme or power were
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  because a lens is a tool for taking perspectives and this is a powerful way
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  to use that tool to just bring change novelty energy and really something new
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  and exciting into your life so if you come up with a lens you know feel free
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  to share it with me definitely send me an email at jason@evolutionary.men or
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  share it with your friends and family and you know see if they're up for
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  something as well this is again something really cool to do in a group
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  which is why I'm leading a workshop for it you can find all the details at
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  evolutionary.men/lens and well until next time