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Why Success Alone Won’t Save You (with Luke Adler) · Evolutionary Men

• 0:00
  All right, and welcome back. Pumped to be once again joined by my man at arms, Dr. Luke Adler, the co-facilitator of our Heart of Shadow program.
• 0:11
  And we're doing something a little bit different today, which is we're going to comment and really kind of dive deeper into something that was passed along to us from a friend of ours.
• 0:22
  And that was a recent episode of the podcast Diary of a CEO, and they had on experts Logan Urie, who's a kind of men and women's dating coach, and Scott Galloway, who a lot of people know is kind of an entrepreneurial leader, but has increasingly been speaking up about many of the struggles young men in particular are facing in this day and age, economically, educationally, and particularly relationally.
• 0:51
  And so Luke and I want to just talk a little bit about what they were pointing out today and really highlight a lot of what we think they got right and a lot of what they just maybe missed because they're not quite in the work in the same way that Luke and I are.
• 1:09
  And, you know, we're going to be talking about what they're going to be talking about.
• 1:39
  And I'll just throw it over to you for seconds to say hi, Luke.
• 1:42
  Yeah, great to be here.
• 1:44
  And when I got this, when I got this podcast, I was intrigued.
• 1:49
  These are some thought leaders in masculinity and dating.
• 1:53
  And, you know, these are areas that Jason and I have expertise in, particularly around the depth of what it takes to really develop health and well-being as a man and as a man who's interested in dating and deep relationship.
• 2:11
  And I'm really grateful that, you know, these two spoke out and gave some poignant statistics on dating, on birth rates, on kind of economic implications of dating trends right now that are important to digest.
• 2:32
  And I think if you don't know what they're, you might just think, hey, everything's fine.
• 2:37
  You know, everything's the way it was 20 years ago when I got into a relationship.
• 2:41
  And the truth is things have changed dramatically.
• 2:43
  The culture is very different.
• 2:46
  And as my eyes have been opened wide to particularly men in their 20s to 35, this is a group of men who, you know, the way they orient towards dating is night and day.
• 3:01
  It is totally surprising to dating when I was younger.
• 3:07
  So we want to get into some of these things, some of these things that they shared and make them more known and really offer our perspective.
• 3:16
  You know, our perspective is about depth.
• 3:18
  It's about authenticity.
• 3:19
  It's about skill.
• 3:21
  It's about leadership.
• 3:23
  And I think, you know, Scott and Logan made some really great points.
• 3:30
  And then, you know, there's a way that they don't lead men's work at a really deep level.
• 3:36
  They're talking about more data-driven things, trends, experience from their own kind of experiential interviews, so to speak.
• 3:49
  And so we want to fill that in with a little more color and provide actually a more nuanced, specific direction for men, a direction that we not just think but really have seen.
• 4:01
  This is what men are missing.
• 4:03
  And in some ways, I would say just off the bat, you know, some of the things I heard from both of the presenters is kind of a return to some traditional masculine values that are known to be healthy and good.
• 4:19
  And really what Jason and I heard offers, those are fine to be protective and to be strong and to be kind.
• 4:28
  But there's actually a way masculinity is evolving and it's going further than it's ever been before and deeper.
• 4:36
  And that's the thing that we really want to comment on and make clear for y'all.
• 4:43
  Yeah.
• 4:43
  And so I just wanted to take a moment to kind of highlight, I think, some of the things that got right in which to me was actually really cool and kind of mind-blowing to hear some of this stuff on a pretty mainstream, in a sense, podcast with quite a huge listenership.
• 4:57
  First, just again, really highlighting that the crisis is real.
• 5:01
  Loneliness, suicide, education gap, job losses.
• 5:06
  These are real things for men.
• 5:08
  You know, it's a pretty crazy stat.
• 5:10
  It's like 80% of suicides are men.
• 5:13
  Women are now earning nearly 60% of all bachelor's degrees.
• 5:17
  Over 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2000, which tended to predominantly be men for a long time.
• 5:26
  40% increase in males between the age of 16 and 24 who are like not in an educational pathway or employed.
• 5:34
  And we've talked a lot about, you know, in 1990, 3% of men reported having no close friends.
• 5:42
  In 2021, it was up to 15%.
• 5:43
  And there is this also, what they've talked about, increasing gap in the dating pool, so to speak, particularly for heterosexual couples.
• 5:56
  This is something I've talked about a lot in my dating and relationship programs, which is there's actually a scarcity of men doing the work, so to speak.
• 6:09
  And I don't necessarily blame men for that, right?
• 6:12
  Women's liberation movement kind of started in the late 50s and 60s and came first a little bit.
• 6:19
  And men's work, you know, there was a bit of a burst of men's work in the 60s and then again in the 90s, but it's a little farther behind.
• 6:27
  And I've been involved with and led a lot of co-ed work around relationships.
• 6:35
  And particularly once you hit the age of like 35 and above, you start going into those spaces.
• 6:40
  It's full of women who are like, where are all the conscious men?
• 6:43
  Where are the men who are actually doing their work?
• 6:46
  And the interesting thing about that that they were kind of pointing out, too, was if you are one of those men, suddenly you're a rare commodity.
• 6:57
  And you are actually the scarce resource in a lot of sense.
• 7:01
  But all these distortions then happen in the dating pool, in a sense, because what we tend to see is it's like tends to right now focus mostly on, you know, financial success or a certain type of looks.
• 7:18
  Like 10% of the men, particularly in the online dating sphere, kind of gobble up all the connections and dates.
• 7:25
  And the rest of the men are just left dry.
• 7:27
  And I've worked with many men like that who literally send out hundreds of messages a month and rarely get a swipe or a date.
• 7:35
  And it's painful.
• 7:36
  It's brutal.
• 7:36
  And then on the, you know, on the other side, yeah, you have just women who can put up an online profile and get a thousand messages in a week.
• 7:49
  And it's like, where do I even start?
• 7:50
  Well, people tend to go down the totem pole and sort on the most superficial surface level stuff.
• 7:56
  And the one that really blew me away they were talking about.
• 7:59
  And that was like, it's something like, I think they said like 90% of women put a six foot tall filter on their, on their things.
• 8:07
  And it's only something like, I think he said like 13% of men are six feet or above.
• 8:11
  And it's just like right there.
• 8:13
  You're already kind of messing things up.
• 8:14
  But anyway, so they, they, they presenced a lot of, um, the truth around the pain and, uh, the widening gap.
• 8:24
  I think we've seen show up in our, in our culture and world where for a lot of men, we, they just don't know how to participate in the current system in a way that they can win.
• 8:36
  And, uh, many men, you and I have worked with, they don't want to be the macho dickhead, me too guy.
• 8:43
  And they've tried the, the nice guy, friendly, safe thing, and none of them are working and they're left in pain.
• 8:53
  And then we pair that with another thing.
• 8:55
  They really did a great job of highlighting of just the lack of masculine role models and father figures in a lot of our culture.
• 9:04
  Um, you know, with here in the West, there's, there's kind of a gift in the curse of, we have the gift of differentiation.
• 9:13
  Meaning we can easily differentiate from pathological family systems in ways that weren't really possible back in the day.
• 9:21
  It was like, you were just kind of stuck in your family system.
• 9:23
  Now, more than ever, people can separate from that and become their own entities, live in different parts of the country, be very independent.
• 9:31
  And the same thing lands true for marriage and relationships.
• 9:35
  You know, the cultural gravity of religion was like, oh yeah, once you're married, you're in.
• 9:40
  So you got to make it work.
• 9:42
  Now we've kind of gone to the other side where it's like, oh, it's not working.
• 9:45
  I'm out.
• 9:46
  It's not working.
• 9:47
  I'm out.
• 9:47
  And that causes a lot of issues as well.
• 9:51
  And just in general, men are being left behind in the current systems.
• 9:54
  There's an overwhelming emphasis on economics and financial purchase power that Scott did a good job of, I think, highlighting.
• 10:02
  And that, um, was just wild to hear Logan.
• 10:06
  She's like, the reason I came on this podcast was to promote this idea of these things called men's groups, which I was like, whoa.
• 10:12
  That's, that's something we, we have a little currency in and, uh, are certainly part of the missing piece.
• 10:18
  The other thing I really wanted to name that, um, whether or not they mentioned it or this led me to it was a kind of a mind blowing fact.
• 10:27
  Uh, I saw particularly around suicides and, um, maybe it was them who mentioned it, but yeah.
• 10:34
  Uh, and I kind of fell prey to this, that, you know, most people assume that men who die by suicide never asked for help.
• 10:41
  But the truth is the facts actually, the facts show 60% had reached out in some capacity to a mental health professional, to a clergyman, to something.
• 10:53
  But something in the current paradigm isn't actually landing for men in their pain where they're at.
• 11:00
  So they, many times they have tried to reach out, but what was offered back to them didn't quite hit in the way they needed.
• 11:09
  And I think that's a big part of what you and I have been exploring together.
• 11:14
  Yeah.
• 11:16
  They, they, um, they, um, they, they hammered across so much data.
• 11:20
  I think that, that data piece, um, on, on the dating thing that blew me away was, uh, you had mentioned, um, you know, women can, um, can dial in exactly the color and the shape and the, everything about a man.
• 11:38
  And the two stats that women pick, like you said, over six feet tall and making over a hundred grand.
• 11:46
  And then, uh, the stat was that that's 2% of men in America.
• 11:49
  So it's created this culture, this interesting culture.
• 11:56
  Uh, the word is hypergamy where you have, you know, if you're a man in that category that all women want, I mean, you're, you're a kid in a candy store.
• 12:07
  These men are just, they have no incentive to settle down.
• 12:10
  So they're having sex with beautiful women all the time.
• 12:13
  And that's created this strange culture where, you know, kind of this, this top echelon of men just kind of aren't committing.
• 12:22
  They're not the men that women want because they, they can, there's, there's no incentive for them to, to, to commit.
• 12:29
  Um, and then women feel like, Hey, you know, I'm, I, I want to be with someone who's like at least horizontal and above.
• 12:38
  So why would I even entertain a guy who's, who's below that threshold?
• 12:42
  Um, and so you just have men who aren't even getting a chance.
• 12:46
  And like you said, I can't remember the stat, but it's like, you know, men have to, um, men have to swipe right.
• 12:53
  Uh, I'm not going to get this right, but let's say 50 times.
• 12:57
  Um, and then you just have to get 10,000 out of 50 times, um, they maybe get, uh, one coffee.
• 13:01
  Um, and they have to get 10 coffees to get a second date.
• 13:07
  Right.
• 13:08
  So like you said, it's created this culture where men have gotten used to being rejected over and over and over and over again.
• 13:17
  Like when you and I were in the game, you know, it wasn't like that.
• 13:21
  It was like, there's this organicness around going to an authentic relating event or a yoga class or whatever, you know, college.
• 13:28
  And it was like the spirit of connection that would kind of arise.
• 13:33
  And, and that was central.
• 13:35
  And what digitized dating has done is just obliterated that and really made it, made it a, made it a meat market of selecting traits that you like.
• 13:46
  Um, and, and then you kind of have to discover whether there's chemistry or connection or even depth or matchability.
• 13:54
  And it's done these really interesting things to younger men, which has become, um, evident in our work where we'll work with guys between 20 and 35 who say they're afraid to approach a woman because they don't want to seem predatorial.
• 14:11
  They don't want to seem like a me too guy, a macho guy.
• 14:15
  And there's so much emphasis in consent that, um, you have this group of men that are not hesitant because they don't want to have sex and they don't want to procreate and they don't want to date.
• 14:27
  They're hesitant because culturally they've been taught to be extra careful.
• 14:33
  Whereas you and I, in our generation, we don't have that conditioning.
• 14:36
  Like, I don't feel that at all.
• 14:37
  I'd approach a woman, um, you know, in almost any setting, if I was interested, have no worry about being, um, portrayed as predatorial.
• 14:48
  And if I was, I'd still be confident in like, no, I'm not.
• 14:51
  This is like what my interest is.
• 14:52
  And there's nothing wrong with having an interest in sexuality.
• 14:56
  And I liked that Scott was very emphatic about that.
• 14:59
  His, his, one of his points about procreation was it's okay to want to have sex.
• 15:04
  It's okay to want to create life, to want to step towards someone and be open.
• 15:08
  And, and, you know, I like, I like his stance on that and how he stood around, around men, you know, stepping into that.
• 15:16
  And I'm a real champion of that.
• 15:18
  Stepping out of the app, stepping out of that, the kind of technocratic culture around relationship.
• 15:24
  Fuck that.
• 15:25
  You like someone go up to them in the supermarket, go up to them in the yoga class, break through that, that, you know, fourth wall.
• 15:33
  There's a wall of tech that says, no, this is the only appropriate channel by which you can approach a woman.
• 15:39
  And, and I like, I like Scott's vibe around that.
• 15:44
  He's, he's, um, you know, kind of clear of like, you gotta, you gotta take a risk.
• 15:50
  You gotta, as the younger people say, you gotta shoot your shot.
• 15:52
  You know, when it's your moment, you gotta take it.
• 15:55
  Um, so, uh, those were some powerful things.
• 16:00
  And then just the implications of, you know, if we're not, if we're not procreating, if we're not dating, like the birth rates are, are down tremendously.
• 16:08
  In this country, they use the example of South Korea, like the birth rates, um, what is it?
• 16:13
  Like 0.7, um, for, for people under 35.
• 16:18
  Like there's major implications to the future of society and our ability to sustain ourselves.
• 16:24
  If we're not having babies, it reminds me of the movie, Children of Men, where people just stop procreating.
• 16:30
  And you're like, there's no more, like humanity's over because we're not having children anymore.
• 16:36
  And we're not at that level, but there's this, there's this way in which we're so careful.
• 16:42
  Um, and we're so, uh, kind of, there's so much disequity between men and women for financial reasons and kind of what, what is, uh, what is attractive anymore that we're in this, um, interesting place around culture.
• 16:59
  And of course that's reflected politically, like we have these very kind of strange choices around what masculinity is, you know, and, and neither of them are really appealing, um, to men and women.
• 17:10
  It's like, wait, what is, what is masculinity?
• 17:13
  You know, we don't, we're all kind of aversive to what's being presented at the level of, of culture, which brings you and I into play here, you know, what we do.
• 17:24
  Yeah, totally.
• 17:27
  Um, and I, I have, I have a few bullet points, I think that, um, cover a little bit of, from our perspective, maybe a bit of what they missed or where they were just not quite in their place of genius.
• 17:41
  Um, as kind of studiers of the culture, uh, of men's work, but not necessarily immersed in it quite as deep.
• 17:48
  And one, I think you and I would both argue is emotional literacy is a primary, not a secondary problem in that this is a thing that hits men from a very young age.
• 18:00
  I've talked about it ad nauseum on my podcast.
• 18:02
  You've talked about it, the kind of man box, the patriarchy, this idea that as men, we are taught masculinity is invulnerability.
• 18:09
  And one of the best ways to be invulnerable is to dissociate from your body and your emotions.
• 18:16
  And that, um, that causes all kinds of downstream pain and impact for men that causes them to feel lost, to feel depressed, to get addicted.
• 18:28
  And that this literacy piece is core, I would say to pretty much everything.
• 18:34
  And it's something we're pretty big champions of that, you know, it's hard to take care of yourself if you can't even name the pain you're in, in a sense.
• 18:43
  And that is the struggle.
• 18:44
  A lot of men, a lot of men work with in that, um, kind of following that all the way, you know, we've seen it because you and I have worked with these men.
• 18:54
  You can't solve heart problems with a paycheck, right?
• 18:58
  Like you can make all the fucking money in the world, create all the big companies and something inside of you is still in deep, deep turmoil and pain.
• 19:07
  And so this emotional literacy thing, I think is a primary problem and something that we're definitely addressing.
• 19:15
  And I think more men's work leaders are stepping into, um, the, the loneliness thing.
• 19:21
  Yeah.
• 19:21
  It's not just a side effect.
• 19:22
  Again, it's like a primary thing that so many of the structures where men used to bond are kind of evaporating and being wiped away.
• 19:30
  And we're moving to this kind of hyper digital culture where there's like parasocial relationships.
• 19:36
  I follow this person feels like intimacy, but it's not intimacy.
• 19:41
  And that, you know, uh, we've talked about it before, you know, one of the main way ways men bond is through doing hard shit in our bodies together.
• 19:51
  And as we move to more and more virtual, that becomes a harder thing, right?
• 19:56
  A far more challenging thing.
• 19:58
  And, you know, here in the West, I mean, just our whole system is kind of set up for privacy.
• 20:03
  Aloneness.
• 20:04
  I've talked about this.
• 20:05
  It's like the American dream is to live separate from, never have to talk to anyone or be bothered by everyone.
• 20:12
  It's this hyper privatization, I think is a big thing.
• 20:15
  They didn't really talk enough about.
• 20:17
  And then, um, you know, another one I was really thinking about was the economic status thing.
• 20:24
  You know, that it's like, oh, you know, once you make a certain amount of job and feel good about yourself, then you can like show up, have a certain job, make a certain amount of money.
• 20:32
  Like your wellbeing will kind of come from that.
• 20:35
  And there's some truth, right.
• 20:36
  Around being able to hold your own.
• 20:38
  But I think what they miss too, which we're on the, I would say edge of is, well, actually, if you, what's going to make you the most successful is developing a deep, present, embodied and well-regulated nervous system.
• 20:56
  Cause that is what actually has people trust you and want to give you money and allows you to move through the world and create a lot of these opportunities.
• 21:06
  And it's a core level thing, right?
• 21:10
  It's not, um, it's the, the pain point.
• 21:14
  I see so many guys I work with come to is like, well, I want to set the goals so I can achieve the thing so I can feel better.
• 21:21
  And they're almost always setting themselves up to fail because if your nervous system is shit, like if you're dysregulated and in pain and not healthy, it's going to be 10,000 times harder to achieve those things.
• 21:35
  But when we get our nervous system handled and regulated first, it's much easier.
• 21:40
  There's just like a natural energy that comes through the body.
• 21:42
  You and I've talked about for taking action or taking risks or whatever that might be.
• 21:46
  And I know I've got a bunch here, but I'm just going to keep spitting fire here.
• 21:50
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  The dating crisis, right?
• 21:53
  It's not just like a high standards things.
• 21:55
  It's a, it's a crisis of depth.
• 21:57
  Women want depth, not just depth financially.
• 22:01
  That is a surface level marker that ideally points to an interior depth.
• 22:08
  That a man that can handle conflict, relate well to people can be a meaningful part of his culture and society.
• 22:16
  Those men tend to garner resources, but they're not.
• 22:21
  The reason they're getting those resources is because of their depth, right?
• 22:25
  People trust them, feel safe around them.
• 22:28
  And so we need deeper and more emotionally present men who, and I think this is maybe where Scott kind of bumps up to some of his limits.
• 22:38
  Logan was speaking to it a little bit more that one of the new challenges for us men is fluidity is required.
• 22:45
  It's not enough to just go out and fucking provide anymore.
• 22:48
  We have worked with dozens of men and I've talked to hundreds of men who stepped on the escalator, busted ass, working hard, paying the bills, but were never in the house, did not raise their kids, had no romantic connection with their wife.
• 23:02
  Kids hit 18, wife's out.
• 23:04
  She's like, we don't have a fucking relationship.
• 23:05
  I don't even know who you are.
• 23:07
  I don't love you.
• 23:08
  And he's like, well, I thought I was doing what I supposed to.
• 23:11
  No, we need both now.
• 23:13
  We have to have that fluidity to change diapers and kick ass, show up relationally for our woman, do the fucking dishes.
• 23:22
  Like it is more work, right?
• 23:25
  I think that's the thing, you know, a lot of men are like, but it's like, yeah.
• 23:29
  And women have to do more work too in their own ways.
• 23:32
  And just final two things.
• 23:34
  The kids thing, you know, having less kids.
• 23:40
  I can tell you in the work I do, one of the reasons for that is a lot of kids had a pretty fucking shitty experience growing up.
• 23:48
  And they're like, I don't want to do that unless I know I can give my child a better experience than I did.
• 23:56
  And I see this time and time again that kind of what I want to point to here is there's a lot of forces against why I think many men I work with are reluctant to start families.
• 24:08
  Because when we do, we want to do it well.
• 24:10
  And so we want to have the inner work done to not recapitulate all the shit that was put onto us from our lineage.
• 24:19
  And we want to have a certain amount of capacity that we know we can take care of them.
• 24:23
  And it takes a lot to raise kids these days.
• 24:27
  If both parents are working full time, how do we be present for the kids?
• 24:31
  And, you know, there is this kind of, I would say, a bit of a conservative backlash.
• 24:39
  Like we got to go back to the family unit.
• 24:41
  You know, men work all the time.
• 24:42
  That way women can be present.
• 24:44
  The thing I just want to name for that is same thing here.
• 24:47
  You know, it's just anecdotal, but I've worked with hundreds of guys who were raised in that family unit and they were profoundly fucked up by it.
• 24:55
  Because the unit itself does not necessitate healthy at all.
• 25:01
  Now, is there a power to that structure?
• 25:05
  Yes, but it in itself will not do it.
• 25:09
  So many men I've worked with extremely damaged living in a household with a mom and a dad in the traditional nuclear family and completely broken.
• 25:20
  And then final thing in this rant here is I think they could have done more to talk about just like initiation and ritual and brotherhood.
• 25:29
  That, you know, part of what has melted away is, yeah, there's not a whole lot of places for men to go to literally be led from boyhood to manhood.
• 25:42
  Like, hey, let's initiate you.
• 25:44
  Let's bring you over the fold.
• 25:46
  Let's give you hard and loving feedback.
• 25:48
  And that is definitely something I think the men's work world is stepping pretty intensely into to fill that gap.
• 25:56
  And certainly you and I have been doing as well.
• 25:58
  So I just put like 8,000 things on the board there.
• 26:01
  So I'm just going to hand it off to you.
• 26:03
  Easy, easy to take the torch there.
• 26:04
  Yeah, I mean, I mean, the, the, the modern initiation really for men is just sports, you know, and that's still the kind of, there's a few domains that men get to exist in, right?
• 26:17
  It's like making money, career, and sports.
• 26:20
  And it's like, well, whatever, whatever town, you know, major city is near you.
• 26:25
  That's your team, whether it's collegiate or it's professional.
• 26:28
  And that's what we talk about.
• 26:31
  That's the modern day kind of gladiorship of, you know, it's so weird now that you and I are in our, you know, our middle age.
• 26:38
  It's just like, we're obsessed with these like 18 to 24 year old men who are throwing a ball or kicking a ball.
• 26:45
  And it's like, we're just, we just love these men, right?
• 26:48
  And it's like, these are boys that we're obsessed with.
• 26:52
  And we want to wear their jerseys.
• 26:53
  And then of course, once they're 27, 28, they're not as good at their sports and, you know, they're washing out.
• 26:59
  And unless you're Tom Brady, you know, we're, we're just like, who's the next 19 year old star in a sport, you know?
• 27:05
  And it's, it gets a little strange, you know, just from a kind of what we value standpoint, let alone the pressure.
• 27:13
  Like my daughter's 10 years old and her ballet teacher wants her there 12 hours a week.
• 27:19
  Says she's going to be a professional and I'm like, yo, all I want my daughter to do is know how to exercise when she's older.
• 27:26
  I don't want her fucking obsessed with her hair and her goddamn makeup all day and how she's looking in the fucking mirror when she's on bar, right?
• 27:34
  Like, fuck that kind of pressure we put on kids.
• 27:37
  Like the, the professional pathways to become pros in every sport as a kid right now are gross.
• 27:44
  It's like, you know how many kids are going to go pro?
• 27:46
  It's not even 1%.
• 27:48
  Of who's entering sports, right?
• 27:50
  So it's like, what are we teaching kids about value and initiation and rites of passage, right?
• 27:55
  Get them fucking outside.
• 27:57
  Let's go for a hike.
• 27:58
  Let's go walk along the river.
• 28:00
  Let's like get into an immersive place so that when we're older, we know how to exercise.
• 28:05
  It's like, you know how to take care of your body, not getting these hyper kind of focused spaces around,
• 28:11
  around, you know, being, being the next star in whatever sport that you're interested in.
• 28:19
  So that rant is just, you know, kind of another criticism of like what's available to young people and still what we praise as adults.
• 28:28
  And ultimately what's missing and what we get from sports is connection.
• 28:33
  You know, like the best time growing up playing sports was in the locker room, you know, and it's cheering each other on and it's pushing to complete a time trial on a run or something.
• 28:42
  It's going through something hard together, you know, whether we won or we lost was secondary to the bonding that would occur, you know.
• 28:53
  So back to the podcast.
• 28:58
  I think, you know, the thing that started to rub me the wrong way, you know, Scott was going really hard on, you just got to make money.
• 29:08
  That's the main thing.
• 29:09
  Make money, be a provider, be dependable.
• 29:12
  And he, you know, and then he made some interesting critiques.
• 29:17
  He said, you know, as a, he's, what is he, 20 years ago, you could be a principal of a junior high and like no karate.
• 29:24
  And you were considered like a pretty viable mate.
• 29:27
  And now that that, now that guy is like actually not that attractive.
• 29:30
  Like he's, and he used the example of you can be a fucking dipshit who made a bunch of money on Doja coin and you're a multimillionaire and you're a terrible person, but your prospects are wide open.
• 29:41
  Because, you know, essentially women just want someone who's got money.
• 29:45
  And here's our big critique, which you've already said.
• 29:48
  That might be true at the surface level of initial attraction.
• 29:52
  And that's more true at different demographics, right?
• 29:56
  If you're an older woman, you tend to want someone with more money for reasons of, you know, you're fucking tired.
• 30:02
  You want someone who can provide, right?
• 30:03
  It's, it's harder to make money when you're older because of a waning vitality.
• 30:08
  But the truth is, and this is something you and I see, and I've seen it as a clinician for, you know, 25 years now, is that the biggest thing that, that destroys relationships isn't money.
• 30:23
  It's a factor sometimes.
• 30:25
  It's that men don't know how to communicate.
• 30:27
  And sometimes women don't either.
• 30:29
  Men don't know how to identify what they feel and articulate it.
• 30:34
  Men have hair triggers around shame.
• 30:37
  And they're unwilling to sit with it and communicate and apologize.
• 30:42
  And men are hesitant to bring forward their needs because they're so sentenced to be a provider, to be tough, to be these things that are being emphasized in this podcast.
• 30:53
  And I think it's really deleterious to just think of yourself as, fuck, I just need to pursue excellence and make money.
• 31:01
  And maybe my job is just to support my, my wife.
• 31:04
  She's, she's making more money.
• 31:06
  So I'm just going to support her.
• 31:08
  And that's, that's masculinity.
• 31:09
  That's nice.
• 31:11
  But inevitably in any relationship, we bump up against our blind spots.
• 31:16
  We bump up against our limitations around how to talk and communicate when there's conflict.
• 31:24
  And if we don't have those skills because we don't know ourselves, we don't know our conditioning, our trauma and our wounding and how we can get hit in a, in a moment around the kids, around finances, around our wellbeing.
• 31:39
  And start to get really reactive and shut down or really reactive and blame.
• 31:45
  You know, no partner's going to put up with that forever unless it's a hyper-orthodox culture where men just control women.
• 31:51
  And no one, no one's happy in that dynamic either, right?
• 31:56
  That's a fucking horrific situation.
• 31:58
  Something you and I have seen multiple times, which is what we're pointing to around going back to some older model where, you know, men are providers.
• 32:08
  And women take care of the household and the children are having what they need and men are halfway showing up in terms of their emotional presence.
• 32:16
  Like, no, no.
• 32:19
  I mean, really the, the, the point we're driving home here is men are being asked to evolve.
• 32:27
  Right.
• 32:30
  And, and let's bring in politics here for just a second.
• 32:32
  On the right, men are being asked to return to some dickheaded asshole, cruel version of actually men who weren't really present in the U.S. ever.
• 32:42
  Right.
• 32:43
  Other than subcultures.
• 32:44
  I mean, it's like this idea of a 1950s men.
• 32:46
  Men in the 1950s still had a sense of decency, kindness, and moral integrity.
• 32:52
  So what's being presented on the right is this kind of cruel, callous, compassionless masculinity.
• 32:58
  It's like, no, that's, that's not it.
• 33:00
  And they offer this critique in the podcast.
• 33:04
  And on the left is like, men are supposed to act more like women.
• 33:08
  Like, be really passive, really centric to, you know, marginalized groups.
• 33:15
  And it's like, well, that's great.
• 33:17
  Those are great qualities.
• 33:18
  But that's not what, where men are being asked to evolve.
• 33:22
  Right.
• 33:22
  And that's where men's groups come in.
• 33:24
  And that's where our work comes in.
• 33:25
  And, you know, like your program, Pillars of Presence, you know, it's a dating program around like men who are in pain around, you know, finding love.
• 33:36
  But, you know, I'm putting words in your mouth for a moment.
• 33:38
  But the premise of the program isn't like how to be more fuckable or how to make more money.
• 33:43
  It's authenticity.
• 33:44
  It's how to be more of who you are.
• 33:47
  It's how to bring forward what's true for you and how to communicate that.
• 33:50
  And that ultimately, ultimately, what everyone wants is when shit gets hard, when it gets tough, can you keep showing up?
• 33:59
  Can you soften, communicate and listen and not hyperreact and dig down into your trauma and shut down and filter out what's being said and only here where you have to be protected?
• 34:18
  You know, it's a really set of advanced skills, advanced relational skills that human beings are utterly capable of.
• 34:26
  And by the way, really make us different than any other species.
• 34:30
  Right.
• 34:31
  We have this ability to reflect and refine our behavior.
• 34:35
  We have that ability.
• 34:37
  Dolphins have that ability.
• 34:38
  There's one or two other species that have that capacity.
• 34:41
  The rest of the living kingdom is reactive and survival based.
• 34:46
  And that's part of what I didn't like about the podcast.
• 34:49
  There's parts of it that were like, let's return to survivability.
• 34:52
  I'm like, no, not okay.
• 34:55
  That will not evolve who we are.
• 34:57
  Yes, we need to survive.
• 34:59
  We need to put a roof over the head.
• 35:00
  We need to have water and clean air and food.
• 35:03
  Yes, of course.
• 35:04
  But that's not enough.
• 35:06
  We have the capacity for more.
• 35:09
  Oh, fuck more.
• 35:11
  Yes, fucking more.
• 35:12
  That's what we have to do.
• 35:13
  We have to grow in a certain way.
• 35:15
  And that's where men's groups, particularly a group like Heart of Shadow, where we're delving
• 35:19
  into the hardware, the hardware in the psyche that's just reactive, responsive, and will
• 35:27
  just shut everything down if it feels a sense of threat.
• 35:30
  That's what we're teaching men.
• 35:32
  And it's utterly badass.
• 35:35
  The results are incredible.
• 35:36
  Yes, it leads to a financial upside.
• 35:40
  But what it ultimately leads to is love and connection.
• 35:45
  And like you said, much more beautiful families.
• 35:47
  Families like we haven't seen before.
• 35:49
  Right?
• 35:50
  There's a whole new culture.
• 35:51
  Let us not get so scared that we just want to return to procreation and perpetuate culture
• 35:58
  that's actually unhealthy, that's not useful, and won't evolve just because we have money.
• 36:07
  Money is just one part of it.
• 36:09
  You know?
• 36:10
  Yeah, so much.
• 36:14
  Great stuff there.
• 36:16
  And creating healthy families.
• 36:21
  You know, that's certainly, I think, part of our mission.
• 36:23
  You know, I've been saying it lately is like healthy men get into healthy relationships,
• 36:28
  create healthy families, or participate in healthy community.
• 36:31
  And that's really kind of what we're talking about.
• 36:33
  And I think what they were missing a little bit that my sense is you were really tuning
• 36:38
  into.
• 36:38
  Because, right, even that stat about, I think they had a statistic that was something about
• 36:42
  like the number one thing that ends a lot of marriages are when a man loses his job.
• 36:49
  And like, that's the number one thing that will often split it up.
• 36:51
  And my sense, my projection is, right, Scott saying that's because he lost his job.
• 36:57
  But I think what you and I know is, no, it's actually the shame underneath that.
• 37:02
  That it's when a man collapses around his pain of this expectation of, I have to be a provider,
• 37:08
  and he doesn't know how to handle this pain.
• 37:11
  And the shame takes over.
• 37:13
  That's when he becomes unavailable for relationship.
• 37:17
  And that is what drives it apart.
• 37:19
  If a man had more of this emotional literacy and capacity and training like we do, okay,
• 37:26
  fuck, I got knocked down there.
• 37:27
  It's painful.
• 37:28
  And I know how to resource myself to stay available to you, my spouse, to my kids, my community,
• 37:36
  and to get support so I can keep moving forward.
• 37:40
  I think that's the big thing we're really pointing to here.
• 37:43
  And that, you know, men's groups, particularly like our shadow work group, really get, you
• 37:47
  call it in your work and your books, you know, this core level awakening.
• 37:51
  It's the thing underneath all the surface stuff.
• 37:54
  It's actually what drives the surface stuff.
• 37:57
  It's the, you know, the losing the job is the tip of the iceberg above the water.
• 38:03
  It's all of the emotional structures underneath that actually are the root of it.
• 38:09
  And that's the thing that they didn't speak to quite as much, I think, as we've actually
• 38:13
  seen.
• 38:14
  Because like we said, we've worked with the guys who are making a lot of money and that
• 38:18
  shit doesn't touch this.
• 38:20
  Now, is it better more or less in society to be making that money than not?
• 38:25
  Yeah.
• 38:26
  Fuck.
• 38:26
  Yeah.
• 38:26
  We want to create those structures for men because it gives you more resource, but it
• 38:30
  doesn't necessarily touch that thing underneath.
• 38:32
  Men's groups can do that.
• 38:34
  Shadow work and emotional healing can absolutely do that.
• 38:37
  This process of moving from numbing to feeling to embodying does that, that we really lead
• 38:44
  men to in getting this brotherhood in literally getting love back online for men that brings
• 38:51
  forth a new type of, you know, masculinity that, yeah, hasn't really been seen before, I think
• 38:57
  is so key.
• 38:58
  And, you know, one way I was thinking about this to tie it all together is I think part
• 39:03
  of the challenge for men right now is, you know, they talked a lot about the structural
• 39:08
  stuff and there's some real truth to automation, to AI, a lot of the kind of manual labor, you
• 39:15
  know, they're not actually connected, but there it is right there in the word manual labor,
• 39:19
  you know, different, different routes, but, um, these things that, you know, as men, we
• 39:25
  used to be rewarded from doing generally doing with our body was kind of how we succeeded in
• 39:32
  the world that is increasingly going away.
• 39:35
  Any fucking job or task that requires repetition, like just doing the same thing over.
• 39:41
  That's all going away.
• 39:42
  That's all going to the bots, whether they're virtual or real in what we've been seeing in
• 39:48
  cultures like ours here in the United States is a shift to more services and relational
• 39:55
  work, right?
• 39:56
  This is where you're actually interacting with people.
• 40:00
  And that is an area men are tremendously underdeveloped in, right?
• 40:06
  Our relational capacity is kind of the new, um, precious resource.
• 40:12
  And just because of the way culture has played out, yes, some, some, um, biological components
• 40:18
  can contribute to it, but women tend to be more predisposed to relationality and have a little
• 40:24
  bit more of a skillset and know how to communicate and deal with people whose energies are all over
• 40:29
  the place.
• 40:30
  As men, we're rarely taught that.
• 40:32
  And we're being asked to step into that now is more and more jobs and positions involve that.
• 40:38
  And in a lot of ways, you know, this is the big shift that the masculine is being confronted with,
• 40:45
  which is shifting from all of our emphasis and worth and validity coming from what we're doing
• 40:52
  to now it's about how we're being right.
• 40:55
  That's the new currency.
• 40:56
  How are you being in the world, in your job, in your relationship?
• 41:02
  And that's where, you know, I think a lot of their diagnoses were right, but some of
• 41:07
  the, um, prescriptions aren't quite deep enough.
• 41:11
  I think that's the thing that it's like, yeah, you can get out there and do that as a, as a,
• 41:15
  as a kid, as a, as a young man.
• 41:17
  And it's not necessarily going to get you what you want, right?
• 41:20
  What we're offering, I would argue through men's work and men's groups and emotional fluidity
• 41:26
  and, um, evolving this idea of masculinity, it will get you there.
• 41:31
  I mean, it's a work in progress.
• 41:33
  We're trying to figure it out as we fucking go, you know, we don't have all the answers,
• 41:36
  but we, we're seeing the needle move for men, right?
• 41:40
  Of all across the spectrum from the young guys who feel totally fucking lost to the older men
• 41:46
  who followed the script and are still, still ended up suffering and in pain that, okay, there's
• 41:52
  something underneath that, that frankly, therapy and coaching don't quite get to, but something
• 42:00
  about, um, the work we're doing in groups really does seem to really, um, land.
• 42:07
  Yeah, it was cringe.
• 42:09
  I think that's why I reached out to you, Jason, because it, it was cringy when I heard this emphasis
• 42:15
  on, you know, pursue excellence, make a lot of money and, and, you know, and then, you
• 42:22
  know, he admitted that he gets critiqued for it and start drinking some more, you know, drink
• 42:26
  more alcohol.
• 42:27
  It was like, okay, but like, what do we do it here with this message?
• 42:32
  You know, because, you know, we have these examples of like men, lots of men that we've
• 42:37
  worked with who make a ton of money and who have suffered profoundly in relationship.
• 42:43
  Um, and money didn't do it for them and excellence didn't do it for them.
• 42:46
  You know, it was like all of these underdeveloped parts of theirs, their emotional well-beings
• 42:52
  were what was getting triggered in relationship or keeping them from relationship or causing
• 42:58
  relationships to fail.
• 42:59
  And so, um, in that sense, I cringed for any young man who was listening to that podcast
• 43:06
  and went, Oh fuck, like I need to triple down on my associate's degree or my, um, you
• 43:15
  know, bachelor's degree or a master's degree or fuck.
• 43:18
  I got to go for a PhD because I have to pursue excellence around being able to make money and
• 43:25
  provide and become that man that, you know, it's like, okay, dude, you're a professor at
• 43:31
  NYU, you're a near billionaire and you're telling men what you've done.
• 43:36
  Like, that's great.
• 43:37
  Like, you know, I'm talking about Scott Galloway, like, you know, in some ways you're just projecting
• 43:41
  your formula.
• 43:42
  Like that's wonderful.
• 43:43
  Most, first of all, most men are never going to be able to attain that.
• 43:47
  And I, I acknowledge that, you know, at the end he softened around, you know, just get
• 43:52
  a job and be dependable and, um, you know, manage money.
• 43:56
  Well, I was like, okay, thank you for offering that in the last 10 minutes of the podcast.
• 44:01
  Right.
• 44:01
  But the bigger, the bigger point that you and I are making is money's not enough.
• 44:08
  It's not enough.
• 44:09
  And like, guys, you don't have to go out there and make a ton and pursue excellence.
• 44:14
  If you want to pursue excellence in something, pursue excellence of your own being, pursue
• 44:20
  the excellence of knowing yourself emotionally, of knowing yourself in terms of your trauma
• 44:26
  history, your wounding and conditioning.
• 44:28
  That's the stuff that's going to, going to absolutely train wreck your future relationships.
• 44:35
  And we work with men all the time who are like, I wish I had had these skills.
• 44:40
  I wish I could pause around my shame.
• 44:42
  You know, I wish I would have done this differently in this relationship.
• 44:46
  Um, and you know, if you, if you're a super stud, who's making so much damn money and you
• 44:52
  can choose whatever you want, then I actually kind of feel sorry for you in a certain way,
• 44:57
  because you're relegated to almost this, um, monarchy class where actually the world revolves
• 45:04
  around you and you don't have to grow.
• 45:06
  Like there's this example of a Prince Philip, which I think is, you know, uh, one of the,
• 45:12
  one of the, uh, not Harry, but Harry's brother's son.
• 45:16
  And they bring Prince Philip six eggs every morning and Prince Philip will only eat the
• 45:22
  two eggs that are perfect.
• 45:24
  And then they throw the four eggs away.
• 45:26
  Like, yeah, this is what it's like to be on the very top is actually your idiosyncrasies
• 45:33
  are created, are, um, cratered, are catered to, are catered to.
• 45:40
  Right.
• 45:40
  And, and you're not, you're not asked to grow or change.
• 45:45
  Actually society revolves around you and your proclivities and your kind of underdeveloped
• 45:50
  issues.
• 45:51
  And this is what's happening for like super, uh, wealthy, like look at, look at, um, Elon
• 45:57
  Musk, right?
• 45:58
  Like, I mean, I don't have to go deep into criticism here, but here's a guy who treats people really
• 46:04
  poorly, who's done some pretty shitty things to a lot of Americans.
• 46:08
  Um, and you know, he doesn't have to deal with it because he has so much money and gets
• 46:15
  to exist in this shelter.
• 46:17
  Now he is suffering to some degree.
• 46:19
  I mean, relatively that many billions of dollars he has now that he's fucked up Tesla.
• 46:24
  But my point is, is that, um, you know, men like that who, who have reached this kind
• 46:30
  of upper echelon, they're in this place.
• 46:33
  That's actually pretty deleterious for their wellbeing, which is growth.
• 46:37
  Isn't something that they have to look at, you know, and, and ultimately the real currency,
• 46:43
  the ultimate currency, the only currency that we have, the real wealth.
• 46:47
  I say this, I say this often is the love you create, the love you give and the love that
• 46:55
  you generate when you leave this body, you know, and, and that's all we've got.
• 46:59
  That's all we've got.
• 47:01
  That's the only thing in my sense that actually lives beyond your body.
• 47:05
  You know, and I know I'm getting a little esoteric here, but, but if you ask, if you ask anyone
• 47:11
  what matters most to you, no one's going to say money.
• 47:15
  And if they do, it's not coming from any place of joy.
• 47:19
  There's right.
• 47:21
  There's countless research of people terminal at the end of their life.
• 47:26
  And it's always the same message.
• 47:29
  I wish I hadn't worked as much and I wish I'd spent more time with people I love.
• 47:32
  I think that really sums it up.
• 47:34
  And so, you know, again, super grateful for Scott and Logan and Steve, the host of that podcast for bringing
• 47:40
  these issues forward.
• 47:41
  Cause they are important.
• 47:42
  I think maybe we'll just end with, you know, if we want a generation of men to thrive again,
• 47:46
  you know, it's not just about the surface.
• 47:48
  It can't just be about better test scores, a fitter body or a bigger paycheck.
• 47:52
  Like it's the deeper hearts, it's community.
• 47:55
  It's being able to feel and stand strong.
• 47:58
  And that's what I would say we're champions for.
• 48:00
  And if you want to, you know, check that out with Luke and I, you can learn about our program,
• 48:05
  the heart of shadow, which is a really incredible men's group experience we've created for guys
• 48:10
  that will take you probably deeper than if you've ever been before.
• 48:13
  You can find out more about me at evolutionary.men.
• 48:16
  And you're at Luke Adler healing.
• 48:18
  Is that correct?
• 48:19
  Dot com.
• 48:19
  Yeah.
• 48:20
  Luke Adler healing.com.
• 48:21
  Yeah.
• 48:21
  Awesome.
• 48:23
  Well, pleasure, my man.
• 48:24
  Until next time.
• 48:25
  Awesome.
• 48:28
  Cool.
• 48:29
  I have to, sorry.
• 48:30
  I have to bounce.