Latest / Evolutionary Men / What Therapy and Coaching Can’t Give Men

Transcript

What Therapy and Coaching Can’t Give Men · Evolutionary Men

• 0:00
  All right, and welcome back. So on this episode, I want to continue in my series about men's groups.
• 0:07
  And specifically, I want to talk about how men's groups are really this third way in kind of a third place that our culture and men are really needing in this moment in time.
• 0:22
  So I'm going to go backwards here and first talk about this idea of a third place, right?
• 0:28
  This was kind of made famous back in the day when they started Starbucks and really zeroed in on this idea that in America in particular,
• 0:36
  we basically had home and work and we were just moved back and forth in that what people were craving was a third place,
• 0:44
  somewhere I could literally go that wasn't home and wasn't work for relating, for relaxing, and for socializing.
• 0:51
  Here's the thing. A good men's group can actually be that, whether it's a physical space,
• 0:57
  place you're going into or a virtual room you step into, it's somewhere to take ourselves that's outside of that typical dichotomy.
• 1:06
  But going deeper, to take this third thing even further, what I mean by third way is I think men's group really helps fill the vacuum in between therapy and coaching.
• 1:22
  Right? Because men's groups is a third way, right?
• 1:24
  Because men's groups is a third way, is a place to really practice presence, getting real, and growing with other men, and being relational with peers.
• 1:35
  This is really key.
• 1:37
  So in terms of kind of the landscape and why something like a men's group can be so potent and powerful right now, right?
• 1:44
  First, let's start with coaching.
• 1:45
  Something I do with men all the time and I love, I've been coached, I coach.
• 1:50
  And coaching tends to be focused more on optimization, performance, and outcomes, right?
• 1:58
  It's about changing behavior and often has a future focus to it.
• 2:03
  And we all need that sometimes, right?
• 2:07
  We need someone to watch us swing the bat and give us feedback.
• 2:11
  Hey, do you realize every time you do that, you pull your left leg back and that's influencing how you hit the ball, etc.
• 2:16
  Coaching is really that.
• 2:17
  It's that feedback on our performance with an aim to get somewhere.
• 2:21
  And it's very useful.
• 2:23
  And like I said, I believe in coaching relationships.
• 2:26
  Therapy, the other end of that spectrum.
• 2:30
  And, you know, these are less binaries and more ends of a pond that you can put a stick into.
• 2:36
  You know, it really overlaps in different ways.
• 2:38
  But therapy tends to be more about introspection, healing, looking at the past, and how it's influencing how I'm showing up in the present, right?
• 2:50
  So therapy is about healing.
• 2:52
  Coaching is more about optimizing, right?
• 2:56
  We can't really play a full game of ball if we have an injury.
• 3:00
  Sometimes we have to go back and we have to fix that.
• 3:02
  And then we can really work on our performance and strategy and technique again in that coaching sense.
• 3:08
  And these go hand in hand.
• 3:09
  We need them both.
• 3:10
  I have also been in therapy.
• 3:12
  I am not a therapist, so I don't do that per se.
• 3:15
  But I've been in therapy.
• 3:16
  I guide many men that I'm coaching into therapy because it works in a slightly different way.
• 3:22
  It's coming at things from a different end of the spectrum.
• 3:25
  And they're both needed, right?
• 3:26
  We need to heal the past and we need to have a focus on the future.
• 3:30
  Men's group really is about this third place in between, which is about what's happening right now
• 3:37
  relationally between me and my peers.
• 3:40
  And it's about real-time feedback, brotherhood, and deep presence.
• 3:46
  And what's so key about this is, right, there's this wild research study that came out of Canada.
• 3:53
  And it's kind of painful to think about that 60%, 60% of men who had died by suicide had actually seen a mental health professional in the prior year.
• 4:04
  Meaning they did reach out, which interrupts a lot of our preconceptions about what men do with their pain and even was a big eye-opener for me.
• 4:13
  The key to that, though, is whether it's coaching or therapy, some needs still wasn't being met.
• 4:19
  In my hypothesis, again, this is just me, is that men's group was the missing medicine.
• 4:26
  Peer connection and brotherhood was the missing nutrient that helped the insights from therapy or the insights from coaching land and stick in a man's nervous system and actually be the place where he gets to put all of that into practice.
• 4:43
  So, the key is, men don't just need insight.
• 4:47
  We need belonging, challenge, and emotional connection with other men to feel alive and to feel part of.
• 4:53
  Now, the thing with a coaching or therapy relationship, and again, I do these things, is they are not necessarily peer-based.
• 5:01
  The gift of them is we are paying for a certain structure that is not bilateral.
• 5:08
  It's not going back and forth, right, unidirectional.
• 5:12
  And instead, the whole point of it is attention is going one way.
• 5:17
  The coach or the therapist is putting their attention on me.
• 5:20
  And that can be profoundly important and healing in our development.
• 5:24
  But that's very different from, well, then now I'm going to put my attention on you and you're going to put your attention on me.
• 5:30
  And that's really what a men's group can excel at, is this flex flow relational capacity where sometimes I'm holding you, sometimes you're holding me.
• 5:39
  Sometimes I need to ask for support.
• 5:42
  Sometimes you need to ask for support.
• 5:44
  Sometimes I take the lead.
• 5:45
  Sometimes you take the lead.
• 5:47
  And in this peer accountability structure, real brotherhood and belonging that I've talked about before starts to form.
• 5:55
  And men's groups fill this incredibly important missing gap for so many men.
• 6:02
  And they work, right?
• 6:04
  The men's groups I'm most passionate about helping men start, even though I often give them some frameworks and can step in as leader at some point, always involves a handoff.
• 6:15
  Meaning it's going to be your group.
• 6:16
  I'm not just going to lead it.
• 6:18
  Which crushes the hierarchical thing and makes it peer-led.
• 6:21
  We're led in a circle.
• 6:23
  It's decentralized in that sense, right?
• 6:26
  I've talked about this a lot, where each man has to take ownership.
• 6:29
  If he's not getting something from the group he really wants, it's on him to bring it forward.
• 6:34
  And that buy-in creates so much more impact for a men's group.
• 6:39
  And it feeds our belonging needs.
• 6:42
  This thing we can't necessarily get from coaching or from therapy, right?
• 6:47
  My men's groups, I'm part of a couple, and some have sunsetted as I've moved around the country around the years.
• 6:54
  But they are the basis for the majority of my community now as well.
• 6:58
  The guys I'm in group with, I know their wives.
• 7:01
  I know their kids.
• 7:02
  My wife and kids know theirs.
• 7:03
  We go camping together.
• 7:05
  We do barbecues together.
• 7:06
  It is the basis of our social framework, my social framework as well.
• 7:10
  And that deep, deep community is incredibly nourishing in a way I've never gotten from coaching.
• 7:18
  I've never gotten from therapy.
• 7:19
  And that starts with a men's group.
• 7:22
  And this does actually count for virtual groups as well.
• 7:25
  Men who I've only sat with for about seven years now in Zoom containers.
• 7:30
  And I consider intimate members of my family in my life.
• 7:34
  Now, men's groups are built around shared agreements, embodiment, vulnerability, and truth, right?
• 7:42
  We're practicing all of these things in a group.
• 7:45
  We can practice these things, again, in coaching or in therapy.
• 7:50
  But it's different in a men's group because it is relational.
• 7:53
  We are actually having to work our relationships.
• 7:57
  You will get triggered by another man in men's group.
• 8:00
  You will not always see eye to eye with another man in men's group.
• 8:04
  And that is actually important.
• 8:06
  That's one of the great gifts about it.
• 8:08
  That friction is what grows us, is what causes us to deepen our relationships.
• 8:14
  And men who can move through friction together, whether we're moving together through something
• 8:20
  in my life, you're supporting me, or particularly, we are moving through friction that you and I have,
• 8:27
  right?
• 8:28
  There's some withhold, there's a clearing, there's some fight we have, there's some hurt,
• 8:32
  and we bring it forward and we deal with it.
• 8:34
  That bonds us very, very deeply, right?
• 8:39
  That witnessing, that connection, that challenge, that activates our whole vasopressin system,
• 8:45
  which is what really bonds men, right?
• 8:49
  Our connection often comes through moving through struggle together.
• 8:54
  If we're not moving through struggle together with other men, we are often not nearly feeling
• 9:00
  connected as we could be.
• 9:01
  Now, why now, right?
• 9:06
  I've been talking about this on this podcast for a long time, and there's just a crisis,
• 9:10
  right?
• 9:11
  One in five men have zero close friends these days.
• 9:14
  We need these challenging environments to bond as men, and they are a modern rite of passage,
• 9:20
  right?
• 9:21
  That takes us into connection from isolation.
• 9:24
  And society, in so many ways, is trying to isolate us, because when we're isolated, we
• 9:31
  go to the computer for connection.
• 9:33
  And when we go to the computer for connection, guess what?
• 9:35
  We can be sold shit.
• 9:37
  So it is revolutionary, I'm not joking, to build a peer-based men's group in this day and age,
• 9:45
  where you are getting your connection from other men and humans.
• 9:48
  And this is only going to accelerate in the next couple of years with the advent of AI and
• 9:54
  chatbots and virtual personas and characters that can give us the sense of connection, but
• 9:59
  they are not connection.
• 10:01
  Real connection must involve friction.
• 10:04
  Real connection must involve people who move up and down a range of being fully present and
• 10:11
  totally available and regressing and collapsing into our vulnerability, into our shadow.
• 10:16
  In negotiating that friction and tension with each other, that is what creates connections
• 10:21
  we will trust for the rest of our lives.
• 10:24
  And we need this third way, this third place of men's groups now more than ever, right?
• 10:35
  Because when we don't have it, we are opening ourselves up to all kinds of manipulation and
• 10:41
  control, which we're seeing at a wide scale right now.
• 10:43
  And yes, a men's group's not going to fix every single problem, but I guarantee if more men were
• 10:49
  getting fed from a local or virtual group of trustable men, they would be less susceptible
• 10:56
  to coercion, to control, to manipulation, right?
• 10:59
  There's lots of research studies that talk about the best way to make sure if you're a
• 11:04
  parent, your kid doesn't succumb as easily to peer pressure, right?
• 11:10
  Poor decisions being guided from seeking the approval of peers is when they have a strong
• 11:17
  bond with you, they will prioritize that bond over the peers.
• 11:22
  You know, this connection I have with my parents, they taught me this one thing.
• 11:26
  Yeah, they're wanting me to do this thing, but no, right now, that connection is more
• 11:30
  important to me.
• 11:30
  It actually inoculates kids against peer pressure.
• 11:33
  In my life, I have found the exact same thing to be true of the men's groups I'm in.
• 11:39
  What do I mean by that?
• 11:41
  Is the more I trust men who intimately know me, my background, my pain, my shortcomings,
• 11:48
  my goals, and that I'm vulnerable and transparent with, it's their feedback I care about.
• 11:55
  I do not care about the feedback of strangers who do not know me and are just projecting over
• 12:03
  an interpretation or image of me.
• 12:05
  It doesn't mean I'm not going to listen, but I'm going to weigh them less than I am the men
• 12:11
  in my men's group.
• 12:12
  If they come to me with something and share something they're seeing about me, I am going
• 12:17
  to listen.
• 12:18
  And because I'm going to listen to them more, I don't have to be assuaged by other people.
• 12:23
  It actually empowers us as men.
• 12:26
  This is so, so key.
• 12:28
  Men's groups have changed my life.
• 12:33
  I've been part of a couple different ones, which I've talked about.
• 12:36
  And many times they have helped me deal with a crisis in my health, my relationship, my
• 12:43
  work.
• 12:43
  And sometimes it's been the kind of thing I could only get from a collective.
• 12:48
  Maybe I was told something by one of my therapists, but it didn't quite ring true.
• 12:54
  But I can tell you the power of sitting in a group is when there are six, seven, eight other
• 13:01
  men staring back at you, reflecting something, when they have done that to me, I've had to
• 13:07
  sit long and hard and really grok while either all of these men are wrong in the feedback they're
• 13:13
  giving me or my conception of what is happening.
• 13:17
  That's the error.
• 13:18
  And when it's just one person giving us that feedback, it can be really easy to find a way
• 13:25
  around it, to make it wrong, to outmaneuver it.
• 13:28
  We have very sophisticated minds, but when it's that many men, it's pretty hard, right?
• 13:34
  It's like, wow, either they're all delusional or I am, which one is more likely?
• 13:37
  And many times that has helped me transform decisions in ways I relate to myself around
• 13:43
  how hard I am on myself, how much blame I take, the level of shame I work with, huge things
• 13:49
  my men's groups have helped me with in these last years.
• 13:52
  And they've also helped sharpen me up to be able to go back and have really empowering,
• 13:58
  challenging conversations, particularly with my wife, about things I want or a pathway I
• 14:03
  see for us that I never would have done without the support of that group.
• 14:07
  So what's really key about a men's group is it's not a replacement for therapy and it's not
• 14:13
  a replacement for coaching, but it is the third leg of the stool, right?
• 14:19
  If you really want to accelerate your transformation, you add this piece in.
• 14:24
  Sometimes we need to be in therapy.
• 14:26
  Sometimes we need to be in coaching.
• 14:28
  I would argue we pretty much always need to be in a community-based men's group of peers,
• 14:33
  right?
• 14:34
  Where we're all in it to support each other.
• 14:37
  And there's a momentum to that, right?
• 14:41
  One of the good friends of mine from my Los Angeles group used to call this the sunlight effect,
• 14:47
  right?
• 14:48
  When another man comes in and shares a win or we see transformation on him, it's like a ray
• 14:54
  of sun hitting us.
• 14:55
  Ah, this feels good.
• 14:56
  There's some hope for me too.
• 14:58
  If this man can change, I can change.
• 15:00
  And it has a momentum as one man starts to crush it.
• 15:03
  Often a whole group will start to crush it in some pretty profound ways.
• 15:07
  And it also gives us space that, yeah, if one man brings forward his vulnerability or pain,
• 15:12
  it always makes it easier for the other men to do it.
• 15:16
  We can really accelerate our growth with this third way.
• 15:21
  A men's group, something that's neither coaching nor therapy, but it's quite literally a space
• 15:28
  or place that's separate from home or work.
• 15:30
  We can go into and practice the skills of presence, relationship, honesty, transparency,
• 15:38
  vulnerability, speaking our truth.
• 15:40
  All of that with actual human beings that care about us and that are going to help grow us forward.
• 15:47
  That friction, right?
• 15:50
  Robert Bly calls it, you know, sharpening the iron of each other.
• 15:53
  That hones us.
• 15:55
  It makes us stronger.
• 15:56
  It makes us clear.
• 15:57
  We need that feedback, particularly from other men.
• 16:01
  The masculine part of all of us grows through feedback and challenge.
• 16:06
  If you do not have other men in your life tracking you and giving feedback, you are not as sharp as you can be.
• 16:13
  You might have the story.
• 16:15
  You have it all figured out.
• 16:16
  You might have the story.
• 16:17
  You don't need any help.
• 16:18
  But the honest truth is you are not stepping into your full capacity as a man.
• 16:23
  And a coach can only see so much.
• 16:26
  A therapist can only see so much.
• 16:28
  But I can tell you the more eyes you have on you, the more that can be seen.
• 16:32
  And the power of a men's group is even if seven out of eight guys are all right there with you, there's almost always one guy whose tuning fork is a little different.
• 16:42
  It may pick up on something about you, your experience, your behavior that you never would have seen before.
• 16:49
  This is the power of kind of the collective wisdom of a group where every man is bringing their deepest sensitivities, deepest gifts, and deepest learnings and truth to the collective, to the group.
• 17:03
  And that can help grow us even faster.
• 17:08
  So if you're tired of just moving between work and home, relationship and career, right, a men's group is the place for that.
• 17:16
  It is neither just future-based like coaching or just past-based like therapy.
• 17:22
  And yes, I know there's gradations and all those.
• 17:24
  But men's group is about where do I put it into practice?
• 17:29
  Right here, in this group.
• 17:30
  Because, again, I've seen it time and time again.
• 17:33
  I've seen it with myself.
• 17:35
  How you are showing up inside a men's group will reflect how you're showing up in your life.
• 17:41
  Are you too dominating, just talking, not attuning to other people?
• 17:45
  That's going to show up.
• 17:47
  Do you withdraw, withhold, wait for the perfect time to talk, and then almost never have anything to say?
• 17:53
  Or never actually speak up?
• 17:55
  That'll show up in your men's group.
• 17:57
  Do you avoid conflict?
• 17:59
  That'll show up in your men's group.
• 18:00
  Because a men's group is a real living relationship, right, with lots of different guys.
• 18:08
  And all your shadows, all your shortcomings, they're going to get kicked up there.
• 18:13
  And that's not the problem.
• 18:14
  That's the gift.
• 18:15
  Because then you start to get to work it there.
• 18:18
  And you can get the type of feedback, support, and love that is really unique to a group.
• 18:24
  Again, that is neither coaching nor therapy.
• 18:27
  It's something else.
• 18:28
  It's something else.
• 18:29
  And when you can do all three of these together, simultaneously, if you have the resources, you might cycle through them if you don't.
• 18:37
  But they are like the ultimate cross-training on your life.
• 18:47
  You will be living more of the life you want to live.
• 18:51
  It's not just based on outcomes, right?
• 18:53
  You will be experiencing in your body now, not then, the things you want to be feeling more of.
• 19:01
  A group is going to call you to do that in the present, in the actual circle itself.
• 19:09
  That's the great gift of a group.
• 19:13
  If you're ready to step into a group, the easiest way I've created for that is the men's group experience.
• 19:19
  You can head over to men's.group to learn about joining a group and even learn the tools to create your own if you're not already part of one now.
• 19:29
  There's lots of different men's groups I run in the world.
• 19:31
  There's lots of different groups out there.
• 19:33
  Again, I'm just going to reiterate the ones I'm most passionate about are the ones that you're going to end up leading.
• 19:39
  You and your peers.
• 19:41
  When you own it, it becomes an entirely different beast, right?
• 19:46
  Because then you're not paying someone for your time.
• 19:48
  Oftentimes, as I guide men, that's a way to kickstart things.
• 19:52
  I'll give you the structure.
• 19:53
  In certain of my programs, I will facilitate with you.
• 19:56
  But eventually, I'm going to hand you the keys to your group because that's the one that's going to last a lifetime.
• 20:01
  And those are the men that are going to show up when you get married, when you need help in a health crisis.
• 20:08
  Or like me, when it's 8 p.m. and you're moving into a new house with your wife and you're way behind.
• 20:16
  And she's a little frightened because she's like, we're going to be here until midnight unloading.
• 20:21
  And that doesn't feel good to me.
• 20:22
  So you call up your men on the bat phone and you say, hey guys, I need some bodies here at this time.
• 20:28
  And what would have taken four hours takes 25 minutes with men who care about you, care about your family, and care about your life.
• 20:37
  Therapy and coaching, they can't create that for you.
• 20:40
  But a good peer-based men's group can.
• 20:42
  All right.