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Healing Conversations: Why Vulnerability is the Core of Strength · Radiant Voices

• speaker-0: every single human being is on the planet to make a positive difference. How do we do that? Firstly, we're dealing with ourselves, you know, going back to the men issue and not being able to talk. You the most important relationship we have on Earth is the one we have with ourselves, you know, our own inner dialogue. You know, if our inner dialogue is healthy, there's a healthy degree of self-love, self-acceptance, self-esteem, we're able to love freely. You know, we don't need to play out or act out or dominate or... Step back, we can be authentically real. speaker-1: Craig, these gatherings for men sound incredibly powerful. You gave me a name for them. What are they what are they named in Zulu? speaker-0: Madoda, which means man or men, and hlanganani, it's a Zulu word for men gathering together. speaker-1: Sounds so powerful. You know, I I it really makes me think about the masks that men wear, and all of us wear wear masks, but in particular the I'm fine, everything's cool, and a real struggle to show vulnerability, to be genuinely authentic, and essentially to suppress emotions. You know, I think I can remember almost to the year when I shut off tears and crying. in front of other boys. And it w it happened in my junior school, you know, there was a bunch of bullying and I remember I'd I would get into I'd kind of be the more the subject of fights having come from South Afri from Canada to South Africa. And I would go to the bathroom and cry by myself and eventually I I learned to shut them off because tears were humiliating. And that that would be a classic I d you know, classic South African thing. What happened with your tears? Have you managed to be a crier throughout your life? speaker-0: Look, I distinctly remember a slightly different story, but getting on my dad's lap as a young boy and him saying, no, boys don't do that in terms of just the affection. I do cry and you know, I've, it's been a, but again, it's, you know, crying in private and crying in public are very different things, know, crying in public or being vulnerable in public is, there's a dreadful fear in a man of being perceived as weak and, you know, men do not want to be weak or less than, you know, it goes back to that question, do I have what it takes? And there's tremendous pressure on men to have what it takes to be the man. So I think it's that fear of being seen as weak and vulnerable and less than. so crying or being, not even crying, but just being vulnerable or sharing a vulnerable story in a public setting or even in just a group of friends. There's a tremendous fear. I had a terrible incident not long ago. Well, six years ago, a very close friend of mine took his own life. And so we were. At the funeral we were talking amongst ourselves as friends and none of us knew what he was going through none of us knew and it just highlighted that fact that Firstly as a group of men we had failed him because we hadn't created an environment in which he could share but secondly he felt like to share any, and it was a financial thing, to share it would have been seen as a failure and weak, and he couldn't do that. And that just highlights, you know, as men we need to really intentionally, and to see vulnerability not as a weakness, because vulnerability is not weak, it's courageous, man, let's be honest. It's far easier for me to say to you, Jeremy, I'm fine, you know, than to say, gee, I'm really struggling, brother. So vulnerability is courageous. But we need to, and it doesn't mean that you can't still be a warrior and a strong man because you can be both. They're not mutually exclusive, you know. It's not either or, it's both and. know, warriors get wounded. People need healing, you know. We all have struggles. So if we can be both, we will really alleviate a lot of issues that men face. speaker-1: That's it, exactly. Like you know, the initial archetype is this heavily defended kind of set of clanky armor walking around, I'm fine, I'm strong. On the inside there's an absolute mess emotionally. And what you're talking about is that real courage and strength is the willingness to be vulnerable, to to share how we real really feel. And that's where genuine courage comes from. It's it's it's the ability to be fully oneself. and more transparent with the world, unafraid to be one's whole self, rather than just this kind of mask walking around pretending to be okay. And I I really feel like over the last decade specifically, you know, none of us really are on Facebook anymore, but I feel like Facebook almost became a bit of a a mausoleum where where people just kept dying. I literally You know, peers and contemporaries that I've known over the last ten or twenty years, just people dying in a lot, like a huge amount of suicides, like a frightening number of suicides. Looking at South Africa, this I'm gonna ask you a kind of crazy broad question here. Why is South Africa so violent and what do we do about it? It's a big question. speaker-0: That's a big question. brokenness, I mean, we have a very broken past. I think if you denigrate and class as second class citizens an entire racial group, it's a wound that's just... phenomenally difficult to heal because you basically, you know, we all need a sense of pride, a sense of dignity. And we were talking about that with men, know, sense of I've got what it takes, you know. And if you denigrated by the entire legal system, political system, you know, that creates a massive wound. And a lot of these wounds are intergenerational. And there was a lot of There was a lot of migrant labor situation in South Africa too, where families were split up because men had to move to the mines to do the work and they were there for 50 weeks of the year and the family was left, know, so families broke up and then they'd have new families there. So there was a tremendous breakdown of society and breakdown in culture and a tremendous national woundedness, you know, and that's going to play out. You've also now got a situation where our current government has messed up monumentally in terms of the economy is so bad, the inequality levels have actually increased over the last years. So the level of inequality is worse now than it was 20 years ago. Unemployment is at all-time highs and so all of these factors play a massive role in just causing men to hopeless, despairing, useless, you know, and that plays out in a very violent way. So I think there's some very real reasons why it's happening. Having said that, you've got, you we work a lot in communities around South African poor communities, what they call townships. And the desire amongst men to be good men and to find a good life is just enormous. You know, there's a real hunger for that. And I think that's a global hunger. You know, we're seeing even internationally. with young boys attracted to the Manosphere, tragically, because the Manosphere can be very honest, extreme, very toxic, but they're crying out for meaning, they're crying out to be validated. We see in the Cape Flats area, Cape Town area of South Africa, massive gangsterism, and it's so textbook obvious to see what's happening. A boy grows up without a father, he grows up no sense of self-esteem, no sense of family, no sense of validity. The gang offers him that. In order to be part of the gang, you need to do crazy things to be initiated. But once you've done that, you have a sense of belonging. And I mean, these are the three cravings of any human heart. Sense of belonging, sense of identity, and a sense of legitimacy. And a gang provides that. You belong to the gang, you're legitimate because you've done something to be, know, and you have this family and you have an identity. And so... Fathers need to provide that, families need to provide that. think Denzel Washington said it very clearly, know, if a boy grows up without a father and out of family, the streets become his family, the judge becomes his mother, you know, the prison becomes his sense of belonging. So it's very clear why these things happen. The solution is not, it's simple but not easy. Simple in the sense we know what to do, but doing it requires such a lot of intentionality from an entire societal and government point of view. speaker-1: Yeah, I really agree with you. I think the biggest project really on the planet is a healing project, a a project to include everyone and to leave none behind. And to yeah, and certainly in South Africa to to work with what is many hundreds of years worth of intergenerational trauma. And I think the weird thing that most people don't necessarily perceive is that the trauma in South Africa is both perpetrators And victims. And essentially what you end up with is everyone is in this together, whether you're on the receiving end or the perpetrators are also massively traumatized and traumatizing. And so it goes. And unless there are there's a unless it it becomes almost the most important thing to to heal and to center the recovery of a country. the spiral might continue. You know, one might end up in a downward spiral. And as I mentioned to you, I began, I founded the Radiant Foundation a few years ago and we're aiming to put out trauma tools en masse to South Africans because generally in poorer communities there's little or nothing available of the incredible world class tools that are now available on the planet for addressing trauma. But I I I feel like it And I think this is where where where your book, you know, the your title is Force for Good, is it's gonna require kind of all of us on the planet surely to find some space and time to to make a difference. Yeah, is is is is that w is that kind of where the book begins to lead in the latter parts of it? speaker-0: Very much so. I mean, it's basically saying every single human being is on the planet to make a positive difference. How do we do that? Firstly, we're dealing with ourselves, going back to the men issue and not being able to talk. The most important relationship we have on Earth is the one we have with ourselves, our own inner dialogue. And so much of... If our inner dialogue is healthy, there's a healthy degree of self-love, self-acceptance, self-esteem, we're able to love freely. We don't need to play out or act out or dominate or step back. We can be authentically real. If we have that healing and everyone is whole, I always say there were two people in the relationship. Two people get into a If they're both whole and they don't need each other in a sense to complete them, They want each other because they love each other. That's going to be a beautiful relationship with a positive spiral because I don't need you, but I want to. choose to be with you and I'm going to input positively into your life and I want your greatest good and you want my greatest good. I'm not needing you to validate me because then, you know, and I think that operates in a broader sense in society too. You know, the more whole each individual is, the more they're able to contribute without having to take. know, politicians that take instead of give are politicians that are broken individuals with a very false notion of what humanity is. they're looking to, you know, if look at the whole virtue signaling thing and the whole cultural wars that's taking place, it's all about, you know, I need to receive the likes and the accolades and that because I'm not okay within myself. If I'm okay within myself, I'm able to love because I don't need, I'm able to give and there's such joy in that. So I love what you're doing there and I love the fact that, you know, we do, need to bring healing on mass. And how do we do that? I think a lot of government interventions are not aware of that. They want systems. know, Jamie, I've often believed that the system really doesn't matter. It's the people in the system that matter. If you get any system would work if the people in it are whole and loving and caring and others focused. Any system would work. But the best system with broken people is not going to work because the people themselves are going to corrupt it. speaker-1: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. It's like we said, it you know, the the mask is almost irrelevant. It's really working in the core of ourselves and learning to heal that and then express that in the world. On that note, what do you think healthy masculinity and authentic expression looks like? So what does it look like when a male person evolves to speak and express themselves in a healthy way? What do they look like? speaker-0: I mean, should I run quickly through the six virtues which I put forward in that book, the six pack? mean, for me that's... speaker-1: Right, do it, yeah. speaker-0: So number one, healthy masculinity uses its strength only for good. So his words, his actions, his presence is used for good. He does, he's not passive, he's not aggressive, he steps up, stands up, he's authentically there and he uses everything he does is... is beneficial to those around it, you know, it's not. Because men are physically stronger, 99 % of the time than women, so what do do with that strength? You can be passive and just do nothing, you can use it to be aggressive or you can use it to nurture and to protect and to love. The second one is he takes responsibility, you know, he tends his fields. We all have a field which is our area of responsibility, and in that field is ourselves, our loved ones, our material resources and our roles and responsibilities. And true Maskeny steps up and takes responsibility, makes sure that everything in his field is cared for, nurtured. The third thing he does is he judges himself and defines himself by his character, not by his image. In other words, by what's inside and not on the outside. It's not the car he drives that defines him as a man. It's how he treats his wife, or he treats his friends or partners, whatever the case may be. And so he judges and defines himself by his character. The fourth thing is he, and this is an intriguing one, is he forms a band of brothers. Because men need to sharpen each other. We need to be in relationship with other men that point out our blind spots and help us to be our best selves. You see that in training. If you want to become fit for to run a comrades marathon or something, if you've got a person that's waiting on the pavement for you at five in the morning, you're going to get up and, but there's no one waiting. And so when men become a law unto themselves, they become very dangerous because it's all subjective. We need that band of brothers to hold us accountable, to encourage us to be vulnerable to... The first thing that true masculinity does is it models to the younger generation what true masculinity is. So it lives a life worth emulating that can be an inspiration to younger men and younger women to live right. He's leaving footprints. And the sixth one, and maybe that encapsulates it all, is he makes the world a better place. In other words, he's a net giver. So every person in his life is better off because he's in their life, know. Canada is a better country because you're in it. South Africa is a better country. My wife's a better woman. My kids are better kids. My friends are better people. My place of employment is better because I'm adding value to that. You know, I'm a giver, not a taker. And that requires two things. One is giving more than taking, and number two, discovering your authentic purpose, which is really the gift you are to the world, and living that out authentically. And it results in strength and nurture, operating beautifully together. speaker-1: What do you see with men when they're exposed to this, when they've perhaps come from a an unparented or a less structured environment and come from trauma when they're exposed to these kind of principles? Do they how do they adopt or how do they react? speaker-0: know, Jeremy, it's a process. If you come into life wounded and damaged, you know, it's not a silver bullet that fixes you overnight. But I do find a hunger in men for this, a hunger to be truly authentically masculine. Because I think the extremes we've gone to is one is the toxic extreme, be dominant, be, you know, that's the menace, that's the andro-tate. The other one is to sort of emasculate men, know, be soft, be, you know, don't step up and stand up and don't be a force, you know. And I both of those are wrong extremes. So men are very hungry, I find, to be good men. But it's a journey, It's a journey of accountability, of internal healing, of looking in the mirror, of being honest with oneself, of honesty, embracing where you've been destructive to self and others, know, looking at your warts and all. And that takes courage to do, which a lot of people are scared to do. speaker-1: Hmm. Yeah, totally. So what I I did position the question before we went into that those six, which were really wonderful, but but just around expression and communication itself. In general, men have been taught to express the superficial or to look courageous. But what do you think authentic, healthy masculine expression can look like? speaker-0: I mean, you use the word often and it's a very hackneyed expression, but authentic, you know, what you see is what you get. This is who I am. And I think also empathy is such a key thing with true masculinity. You know, I listen. as much as I talk, at least as much as I talk. I go into every situation not with a sense of brigadier that I know everything, but with a sense of you're a human being, I'm a human being, let's learn from each other. So there's a quiet, gentle strength, but there's an empathy and a listening and a hearing. And I think posing is something men do a heck of a lot. There's a need to project an image of whatever we think is gonna make us look good. But if we cut away and say, you know, they say that true humility is the willingness to be known for exactly who you are. And if you're very good at something, you're not shy to be known that I'm very good at that, you know, and if I'm not so good, I'm, you know, because that is who I am and the gift I am. It really is rooted in valuing self deeply and valuing others deeply. and that sort of self-respect and other respect. How that manifests in terms of how you dress and how you walk and how you talk, it's different for each individual. But that's the fundamental underlying principle of pitching up authentically. speaker-1: What's touched your heart, for example, when you sat in on those group sessions across South Africa and you watch men using their voices and moving out of posing into really speaking some truth? Yeah, w tell me about w what moves you and and what's moved you. speaker-0: It's a beautiful thing to see because you see men, the mask falls, the rough exterior falls and you begin to see the genuine humanity in these guys. You see also the woundedness, know, and that's very moving to see that every man has a story, man, and a story, we all have a story and our stories are sacred. mean, none of us arrived at adulthood unscathed by life, whether it's parents, peers, circumstances, whatever. And you begin to see that, you know, that the that woundedness coming out and you begin to see a path for healing and you begin to see expressions, things expressed that have never been expressed before and you sense a tremendous bond of brotherhood coming out of that, not rooted in conquest but rooted in humanity and that's very, very moving and very touching. One of the things we do after... We take men away on camps as well. And one of the things we do is we just get them in a circle to say one word, one word that this has meant to you. And that often moves me to tears because you go around the circle and a lot of guys say healed, loved, accepted. And these are things that you don't often hear men talking about, but it's beautiful to see. It really is. It's transformative. speaker-1: such beautiful work. And tell me, do you guys deal with or do you have a perspective on what healthy conflict looks like? speaker-0: Absolutely. mean, conflict is necessary. It's not, if we all, none of us, if all of us agreed, some of us would be unnecessary. Conflict, and yes, Jeremy, you must, we're not getting enough of that in the world now. I there's just putting in a box and canceling. I mean, that's not dialogue at all. So healthy dialogue is, and conflict is the ability to agree to disagree with respect, to say, have an opinion, I have an opinion. Yours is equally valuable to mine. I don't necessarily have to agree with you, but I will respect the opinion that you have. You respect the opinion I have. And we can talk as adult, mature human beings around our differences without anger and disdain and canceling. Gosh, the world needs more of that. We've lost the ability to do that. I think social media has played a big role in that. It's so easy to sit as a keyboard warrior and just cancel someone. But how about getting in front of that person and respecting them and listening to them and hearing them and then sharing what you... You may never agree, but that's okay. There's nothing wrong with not agreeing. It's what makes us human. speaker-1: Yeah, I I f I often say that I think the misunderstanding is that conflict and interpersonal conflict really it is just this kind of mutually assured destruction where you fire missiles, they fire missiles, and we're just really looking to win. And of course that's an archaic idea of what conflict is about. And the real potential in conflict is that conflict is an opportunity to create trust and intimacy and understanding. And if we can see it as an opportunity to really be curious about the other person and to really want to know and understand their point of view when they're speaking, to genuinely listen, to slow down, to be able to repeat back what they're saying without judgment, and to make space that you can allow that point of view. I think that's probably one of the most important things that you said in there was this nonviolent communication concept where we to truly kind of disarm the world. We have to get over the notion that there's one version of right and that completely different points of view that disagree fundamentally is normal and healthy and it's lovable and it's good. And then we can have a conversation where both points of view are expressed, but it doesn't mean we have to fall out of love or trust or connection. speaker-0: The key thing is the concept of human first. Before anything else, I'm a human being. Before I'm a male, I'm human being. Before I'm heterosexual, I'm a human being. Before I'm whatever my religion is, I'm human being. Before my nationality, my race, my ethnicity. Before any of those identities. I am a human being and so are you and so is everyone on the planet. And that's our fundamental worth and our fundamental identity and our fundamental value. And if we come from that standpoint, everything else falls into place, doesn't it? Because those are almost ancillary to our humanity, which is the most fundamental and important thing. And if we can get that right, everything falls into perspective. speaker-1: Well, that's it. Sexism, racism, nationalism are all you could call them behavior patterns where we seek to dehumanize others. And we we struggle to see the humanity in other people. And I I feel that it it is incredibly dangerous. And and it's I think you used that word very clearly earlier, which is empathy, and it's the ability to to genuinely see the value in the humanity. In all beings. And to I I sometimes like to call it to see everything and everyone as us rather than us and them. There's me and my people. We're just here behind the fence. Everyone is us. We are all in this together. We're in this hot mess of a planet and a as a hot mess of a species. And only we've all got to show up to to fix this thing. Like you said in your book. It's like all of us. need to show up to in our own ways in whatever way we feel called to. And at the core of it is this sense of deep humanity, deep empathy and a sense that we are all equal and valuable and lovable. And we just start from there. speaker-0: And you know things like race. mean race for me is a social construct. It's a ridiculous concept in a way because there's zero correlation between your external appearance in terms of the shade of your skin and your heart and your soul and your mind. There's zero, nothing whatsoever. So there's no difference internally, none. You know these are all external things which we've now categorized into these you know identity. labels and where does it get us? It's arbitrary, it's silly, it's dehumanizing. speaker-1: Yes, it is absolutely dehumani humanizing. I think obviously when it comes to the a history of racism and gender based violence, for example, and call it patriarchal societal patterns where men dominated and there is a history that needs healing, you know, like we see in South Africa. And so we we can't if you'll excuse the expression, we can't necessarily just whitewash history. In other words, we actually have to include and and heal from history. Do you have perspective on that at all? speaker-0: Very much so, know, very, very much so. But of course, like anything, it can go horribly wrong. You so for instance, affirmative action in South Africa, affirmative actions is basically acknowledging the injustices of the past and taking positive action to redress them. And it's necessary. One has to do that. The challenge is how do you do it and for how long do you do it? And can it result in... demonizing the previous perpetrators to the extent that you just you know the pendulum swings too much. It's very much like this, know, generally if you're driving a vehicle and you go into skid, in other words you're going in the wrong direction, the natural inclination is to oversteer in the other direction, which then causes the car to fishtail and completely lose. The key is to turn the wheels in the direction that you want to go, which is a direction of equality and humanity and equal opportunities. And if you can get that right, the back comes right, you know. So one has to acknowledge it, one has to take action to redress it. But one has to keep in mind where we're going and where we're going is a place where there is equality and there's equal opportunity and equal dignity, you know, and that's very tricky. I don't know any country that's quite got that right, because you see pendulum swingings all the time, don't you? You know, for instance, in the gender thing. You see a lot of... There's an interesting thing. It's the gamma bias. If you come across the gamma bias, it's a fascinating thing. Look it up. It's quite an in-depth study done on bias now against men as a result of addressing the gender imbalance. And what it's found is that... very frequently in media and also in public policy and stuff, the virtues of men are underplayed and the vices of men are overplayed. And the virtues of women are overplayed and the vices of women are underplayed. So you get almost a pendulum. So how do you get to a point where we fix all of that without treading into the other side? So I don't know the answer, but to answer your question briefly, yes. We have to acknowledge past imbalances. We have to take affirmative action to fix them. We have to keep in mind the goal and not go into a fishtail situation. speaker-1: Yeah, just to reflect that in South Africa we have a genie coefficient, which is this kind of structural inequality in the economy that is among the highest in the world. And of course, we know that this is really tied to the history of South Africa, the apartheid in colonial history, and yet it's getting worse under the current system. And what do we do? It it's very difficult. It's certainly something that we can't solve in this podcast right now. I want to pull us back to Just a little bit about the father wound and communication. What is the father wound? speaker-0: Well, I I read an interesting study recently, which was done in the United States, and I haven't done much further study on this, but this person reckoned that only 10 % of men have a good relationship with their father. 30 % have a non-existent relationship, 30 % have a very poor relationship, and 30 % have a superficial relationship. And so... It's something that has gone wrong in the relationship with fathers and it's very tied to the false concepts about masculinity, know, that men don't talk and men, you know, and also the pressures on men historically just have to always provide and get on. That's more important than the human side of things. So I think there has been a breakdown in father-son relationships. And the father wound is a boy looks to his dad for two fundamental things. One is for validation. as a man, and number two for modeling on what it means to be a man. in that process, one of the books I wrote is just called Dad, and I talk about the 12 dad verbs, the things that every father needs to do for sons and daughters. One of the things that a father needs to do is engage deeply with both son and daughter, engage and to see them and to get them and to know them. Now, so many men have been dealing with their own wounds that They, and that's why it's this parallel journey, you know, for me as a father, it's becoming the man that you want your son to become one day, being that good man, but at the same time imparting that to your son and imparting to your daughter. And so a lot of men haven't dealt with their own stuff and therefore emotionally. there's a sense of illiteracy in terms of emotional, the ability to empathize. And so this gap forms in what the father gives to the son. And there's often a sense of abandonment, a sense of neglect, a sense of performative validation as opposed to being validation. The difference is... If I validate you for what you've done, it's based on your performance as opposed to I validate you for who you are, it's based on your being. So a lot of boys grow up without that and they've longed for that from their fathers. There's a longing for my dad to see me, validate me, hear me, get me, engage with me, teach me life and how to be, teach me how to be. woman and how to treat other men, you know, and when that's lacking, a boy grows up a little confused, you know, and sometimes angry and resentful and sometimes with a sense of abandonment, with a sense of a lack of validation. So their father would run steep and it runs deep for both girls and boys, know, father is her daughter's first romance. And it's true that needs to pursue the heart of his daughter and show her that she's worth pursuing, she's worth loving and be an incredibly safe nurturing space for her. And the way he treats her mother plays a massive role in modeling to her the kind of behavior that women should expect from men, know, caring, nurturing. So the father has the ability to win both son and daughter very deeply. that plays a role there based on a man or woman is completely out of control in a drug addicted, know, and it traces back to the daddy wound, you know? Yeah. It's a very real thing. speaker-1: What I know that you work obviously with a fatherless nation, which is an expression that's is sometimes used about South Africa. Can you just talk a little bit like at the scale of this and what is this? speaker-0: The scale, Jeremy, is frightening. mean, recent statistics have come out that... upwards of 60 % of South African children are not growing up with the present engaged biological father. So that's huge. It's massive. And it differs from different sectors of community. For Black South Africans, that figures in near 70%. Funny enough, for Indian South Africans, it's the least, in words, the most present father. So it varies across, and it goes out to the structural imbalances and the whole apartheid system. That's the effect that we're seeing on that. But the scale is massive. Massive, massive, massive. the way to mitigate that is the whole African concept of it takes a village to raise a child. So single moms in South Africa are heroes. They're just carrying a burden they shouldn't have to carry, but doing it admirably. But what I always encourage single moms to do is recruit good men to the lives of their children. So whether it's a scout master, whether it's a male coach or a male teacher or an uncle or an older brother or a grandfather, these are the men that need to be mobilized to become mentors for that next generation. So the scale is huge. It's tragic too, because a lot of men... find themselves unemployed or unable to find employment and they feel disqualified to be a father on that basis. And that's a tragedy because they kind of almost abandon their kids because they feel so useless and they can't contribute. So there's many factors involved in this, but the scale is huge. And we're seeing it in the gender-based violence stats or just through the roof. Our murder stats, I think, are right up there with the worst in the world. I think 37... something like 37 per 100,000, whereas I think the United States is somewhere around three or four per 100,000. So the scale is, the result of it is massive. In our prison population, interviews recently in Palsmore prison, the correlation between fatherlessness and prison inmates is massive. It's incredibly huge. So you see the impact of this on society playing out real time. speaker-1: Mm. Yeah, it's so powerful. It's thank you for I mean, thank you for the work that you're doing. Yeah, I I was reading through the website around Father and Nation. That's the NGO that you founded. And this that one of the things that you call your men into is to become those role models or those members of society that show up in families and in communities to be that guy. Can you talk a little bit more just about what you what you ask of of the men? speaker-0: Absolutely. Well, I we've tried so many different things. I mean, the model we've settled on now is one of we select mentors in communities based on work they're already doing with men. So their men's forums, their community policing forums, etc. So we select men that have shown through their history that they're engaged in meaningful work in this arena. We take them away on a two day very in-depth camp. equip them and train them and they go back into their communities now as mentors. They then are responsible for recruiting groups of men which they then take through a healing conversation and a six pack conversation and then set them up in these bands of brothers or Madura Thlangananis. And we call the men into a journey of personal healing that it's okay to be vulnerable. You know, share your stuff. We all have issues of... Honoring each other as men which we generally don't do you know I mean how often do I say you know Jeremy I just deeply admire you brother you know the work you're doing and what you doing for the community I thank you for that we don't talk to each other like that as men you know we're each other you know so we get them to honor each other and then we get them to embrace the six virtues of positive masculinity and then Translate that into what how they pitch up as fathers how they pitch up as husbands and community members. the hope is this becomes a viral movement, know, sort of an organic movement where men begin to hold each other accountable, men begin to encourage each other, honor each other, teach each other, inspire each other. That'll begin to take hold in communities. Early days, but we are really trusting for a movement here. speaker-1: it's so powerful. You know, I I was so touched. I watched a documentary twenty years ago about a man who stuck a microphone over the side of a boat and he was a classical musician and he was interested in the sounds of the sea. And this happened about fifty years ago or forty yeah, about fifty years ago, and there he heard the sounds of the whales and he recorded those sounds and he ended up releasing an album, The Songs of the Humpback Whales, in the sixties. And it changed the nature of ecology. He just did What was in front of him and basically the whale populations of the world were essentially saved by this one single small act. It initiated really a recovery of the world's populations of whales. And I think people often don't realize that it's it's just that all we need to do is the steps in front of us and and be called or follow where we're called to in the areas that we're called to. But I you know, I I I see the work that you're doing and I'm it's just so impressive. And you know, this work with what could be seen as essentially the problem of South Africa and turning the lens rather to see men as the as as a potential solution, as a source of strength and healing, and to to do it on you know, have the bravery to do it on a national scale, you know, just you know, does that Does it feel overwhelming to you? or do you just how do you approach it? speaker-0: Jeremy, know the biggest feelings are... Look, absolute joy at what we're doing and a privilege. It's a real privilege. mean, you know, I fell into this by being a single dad and just as you say following one's heart. So it's not like something that needs to be highly praised because it's almost something that you just need to do, want to do, you know. But tremendous frustration because the scale of it is so huge and you want to scale up. mean, and running a nonprofit in South Africa is very challenging because the tax base, the donor base is so tiny. So we're all fishing in this tiny pond to get, you know, I think we've found a model that really works. I'm very, very excited about this model, the healing conversations. And we can scale it up now. know, so my frustration now is, you know, I guess I'm a bit of a pioneer by nature. I wanted to go big, you know, but to go big, need big money. So we're beginning to try and fish in ponds overseas and stuff to help us to scale up the model. But we've got something we can cut and paste. And I was so encouraged the other day. was, I bumped into a guy who's from MediLands in Soweto and he pulled out a a book, let me, I might even have one. He pulled out this book and he says, you know, he started this thing in, in Medellins in Soweto and someone gave him this, this, this course book and it's this one here. And he, and it's one that I happened to write, the one that we happened to be using in Alex. And I thought, wow, this thing is spreading without us even knowing into communities where they're using that as a curriculum for their, their get-togethers with men. So I'm very excited and very privileged and very honored. It's difficult fighting Burnout is a real thing in this because the scale is so big. know, it does feel overwhelming at times and you see so much pain, man, Jeremy. You you walk through a township, the number of unemployed men that are just loitering on the sidewalks. it's a roller coaster, you know, of disappointment, frustration, pain, burnout, but also enormous joy and a sense of privilege. You know, I counted the privilege to be to. You know, if you can wake up with purpose and do what is making a difference, it's enormous privilege because I guess the vast majority of the world doesn't have that privilege, you so I feel very privileged as well and excited. I mean, that's a long answer to short question, but a lot of emotions. speaker-1: No, no, but that's such a beautiful authentic answer. I mean, I think that's such a great description of of what it feels like to potentially live in alignment while trying to tackle the hard questions of the world. It's not going to be easy for us to solve all of the things. But we put one foot in front of the other and and if everyone just if if there's a a movement and a willingness towards contribution and fixing it and and we're gonna just we're gonna take care of us. we're gonna take care of this beautiful jewel of a planet together, then you know, maybe w maybe we'll make some progress. speaker-0: A saying just come to mind and it makes me, I think you fit this so beautifully. Someone described purpose as where your deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger. And you know, look at what you're doing and spreading the stuff you're doing. You know, I mean, I think that's exactly what it is. know, it's beautiful. speaker-1: Yeah, you know, as we wrap up now, I I I'm I'm just really happy to hear that at the r at the center of your work and what supports men to break through their fragile, wounded, toxic masculinity are these healing conversations. So the the extraordinary power that we have bringing people together into a circle and then facilitating and supporting them to move past this superficial. into speaking the truth of their lives and that literally miracles can happen from there. speaker-0: And strength emerges, know, because there's tremendous strength in that, you know, it's not, you're not being weak by doing that, you're being powerful by doing that. And you emerge so much stronger and able to be the warrior that the world needs you to be, you know, it's a beautiful, beautiful alignment. speaker-1: It's a beautiful alignment. Craig, thank you so much for this time. speaker-0: Great pleasure, Jeremy. Thank you for what you're doing too, and the alignment between all of us who are looking to make the world a better place. speaker-1: Hm. Yeah, I look forward to chatting to you about the foundation and potentially doing some work together. speaker-0: Sounds great.