SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Yes, women have been oppressed by their gender roles, and men have been constrained by theirs. We have assumed a role in our culture that has been the same for generations. And this is the first generation that has to tackle the question okay, if I can't succeed in reaching those traditional qualities of a man that has been the traditional qualities for hundreds of years, where do I fit in? How do I develop purpose? How can I contribute to a family?

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

We have an amazing guest on the show today. His name is Mackenzie BB. He is the co-founder and certified coach at Groups for Men. And we broach so many subjects today that plague so many of us as men. And ladies, the men in your life are dealing with this every day. I promise you they are. For example, toxic masculinity. What even is that? I don't know where that begins and I'm not sure where it ends. But we hear the phrase a lot and it gets thrown around. And with all the traditional roles being either gone or exchanged, where do men fit in today? Are you a man who is going through life feeling that there is no purpose for you? Or is the men in your life feeling that way? Maybe that's why he's depressed and he's not telling you. Women have evolved. Society has evolved, but men are still operating with the emotional software from 1940. Even though this conversation includes all men from all backgrounds, all religions. As a Christian, Mackenzie BB says that God does not give you answers, He gives you the opportunity. And I love that line. And stay through the end for one of the most powerful messages you'll ever hear. And this is for anyone, men, woman, or child, about the way to view life. That's an amazing perspective. This is an episode you're gonna want to share with anyone in your life who is struggling through certain issues that they cannot share with you. As always, our show does not provide expert advice. We are here for educational and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with anything, please consult a License professional. Welcome to Manhood Matters.

SPEAKER_02: 2:24

Let's get to the South.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

So who are you today? Who is McKinsey Baby? And how are you making this world better, brother?

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

So I'm one of the co-founders of Groups for Men, which is a uh a company that specializes in really bringing men all around the country together to not only connect deeper in their male friendships with one another and to meet new male friends, but to also uh be led in a group once a week and be led by a specialized trained coach to help them get better at themselves, get better at the challenges that they experience in their lives. And it really is just an incredible company to be a part of because I'm watching men's lives change every single day and uh all change for the better. So that's what I'm doing now. It's you know an organization that's growing at a rate that's sometimes hard to keep up, but uh it is really rewarding work and something that I'm very grateful to do every single day.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

Fantastic. How big is it today?

SPEAKER_00: 3:53

Yeah, so we started a little under two years ago. And uh right now uh we have about four groups going a night, and we get anywhere between 10 and 15 guys in my groups each night. So even though it's it's like you know, you get this all access pass to all these different groups. Like I only run one certain group every single night, and then we have another coach uh who runs Tuesday, and another coach runs Wednesday. And so we have this great dream team of coaches, and so we've really grown to uh, you know, our we've grown our email list to thousands and thousands of people. We've grown and had hundreds and hundreds of members in groups, so it's it's really picking up fast and it's it's getting exciting. So um, so yeah, I'm excited to talk through it more with you and talk about what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

Absolutely. And so before we get too granular there, I want to ask if I discover this group, as I just did, and I recommend it to someone who might be going through something, maybe struggling in certain aspects of life, there's no fee, there's no membership necessarily, or how does it work? Basically, I need help, and maybe I don't have the right channel, I don't have the therapist, so I can't afford these people. I just need a couple of guys to talk to. And in my own life, I will tell you, I don't necessarily have the people that I can talk to, even though I have people who love me, who are around me, who surround me, who support me. But sometimes I feel like I need the knowledge and I try to reach out and I'm just a voice and a void.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

Yeah. So, you know, that's really where we come in. I think a lot of men uh struggle with permission, permission to open up to others, permission to talk about certain things that may feel culturally or socially off limits to them because they have to feel like they maintain a certain masculine image in front of the people in their communities. And so we really give you that space to meet other guys, to uh bring up subjects and broach topics that you would never broach with anybody else. But then on top of that, what really makes us special is the fact that we have a world-class, trained, professional coach in every single group, running each group, running it with a topic, running it with a question, running it with conversation to really help make that conversation productive, make that conversation something that helps you directly, and also provide you with tools that you may have never had access to before because you were unaware of them. And so uh we really believe that we want this platform to be accessible to everybody of all different income streams. And so we look at the price of therapy, we look at the price of group counseling, and we found ways to make it so that our price was, you know, 20% of what you would pay each month if you were to get private therapy. So our groups are for all access passed to access to all the groups every single week, we're$149 a month and it's a flat fee with a seven-day free trial, and it's something you can cancel anytime. And so you really are getting world-class access to coaching of people who have coached some thousands and thousands of people all around the world, and you're you're able to go through those groups with those coaches and those men and get a lot out of them every single week. On top of that, we also have online courses that come included with your package that uh that you can watch anytime. It really is a special uh special offer that we that we give guys.

SPEAKER_01: 7:24

All right, that's awesome. So tell me about Mackenzie. Who are you? What led you onto this path, and what's your what's your core mission? Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_00: 7:36

I uh I grew up in a very different environment. My parents opened up our house to foster care as well as child care. So we would wake up and get ready for school with eight or nine different kids in the house with us, right? Uh we would come home from school with like 12 to 15 other kids in our house with us, right? We were never alone. And obviously, like have being a foster family and eventually adopting kids in the foster system. Uh you open up your house to whatever comes in that door, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly from other people's challenges and issues, right? And so uh I had to learn from a young age how to navigate some of those experiences and how to navigate some of those issues. And our whole family had to really come together to navigate those issues because it was something that I think looked good at at the outset of when we first like signed up to become a foster family. But then as time went on, like you really it really wears on a family and their ability to stay cohesive and their ability to stay united in their approach. And so um I learned a lot through that process. I also grew up uh going to a boys' camp, uh, and this boys' camp specializes really in not only like developing independence in each boy, but also growing resilience and confidence in them as well. And so as I've grown older, I've really taken a specialty towards boys and men because as I left home to go to college, I really found myself developing some very toxic traits that uh that I struggled with because of you know a lot of unanswered questions growing up and a lot of difficulty in in my family as a result. And so I found a lot of resources out there, luckily, that were in my city, uh, but I was shocked to find how little resources were out there for men like me throughout, you know, online and around the country. And so I was lucky enough to find a men's group, uh a men's support group locally in Chicago, and I learned a lot from that. But then, you know, very quickly in that experience, I was like, number one, this is something that I want to do and give other men. And number two, I'm surprised at how much we can acknowledge a problem as a society, but how little we find solutions for them. And it was shocking to me to see all these troubling statistics about young men, especially my age, struggling in the modern world, struggling to find a job, struggling to get a college degree, struggling to make as much as their parents made before them, and uh uh, but not really having any resources to access in order to push past some of those statistics. And so very quickly into my life, I learned that I'm gonna dedicate myself to helping boys and men find solutions out there that weren't out there for me. And so, you know, I became a men's coach as a result. I ended up being the director of that boys' camp, and now that's what I'm doing today. It's just in a different form in the in the lens of groups for men.

SPEAKER_01: 10:53

You mentioned a couple of toxic traits. Let's dive a little bit into that. Obviously, you have the expertise and you know what you're saying. Some of us might view those as totally normal. I'm just a guy. That's how I am. What were for you those toxic traits?

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Absolutely. You know, for me, it all revolves around something that I read when I was in college called Nice Guy Syndrome. Um, and nice guy syndrome is based out of a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy, written by Dr. Robert Glover. And in it, he talks about essentially, and the way I describe Nice Guy Syndrome is you know, you are trying to influence everyone else's opinion around you and try to influence their opinion to believe and to see you as this nice, caring, thoughtful guy. But deep down you have these inner resiliences or you have these inner resentments, uh, and you have these things called covert contracts where it's like, Stefan, I'm gonna do something really nice for you. And in my in the back of my head, I'm gonna expect that that that gets returned to me. Or even worse, yeah, or even worse, oh Stefan, I'm gonna do this nice thing for you. And then when you call me out on something in two weeks from now, I'm gonna unload the dog shit on you and say, I've been doing this for you, I've been doing this for you, I've been doing this for you. And as a result, you're going, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, I was just telling you that you were struggling here. I wasn't trying to unload all that, right? And so we weaponized that generosity and that compassion towards others as a nice guy. And so I found myself doing a lot of those things, which in hindsight appear very manipulative, but in the moment, it felt like, you know, those were the only tools at my disposal. And so as a result, I was going from really toxic relationship to toxic relationship. I found myself in really difficult um partnerships with girls in which it would always end incredibly confrontational and incredibly trying to use another word, but uh from toxic, but just you know, it would never end well and it would never end amicably. It was always very difficult to get out of them. And I would always sit there going, man, am I just attracting these women into my life? And the truth was, yes, I was. Yeah, and it was. And it was because of some of these nice guy traits that I developed that really created these horrible cycles in my life. And it wasn't until I was illuminated to what the problem was that I was actually able to go back and start changing it and to start adjusting it and to start fixing it. That's really some of the toxic patterns that I really struggled with, um, addiction, as most other guys who go through nice guy syndromes struggle with as well, is like, you know, I'm going to be seen and appear like immune to all pains and challenges to my friends and to my family. But then behind the scenes, I'm coping and using different tactics to do that. And I really become addicted to those, to those uh coping mechanisms. And so um, I think, you know, when I describe the word toxic, I'm really describing the feeling of surviving and the feeling of being in this place of survival and just going from crisis to crisis, just with limited tools at my disposal to navigate them. And so that's what I mean when I when I describe the word toxic.

SPEAKER_01: 14:23

I'm glad you clarified because you know it's like anything else that's trending. You hear toxic men, toxic masculinity, and as a guy, I'm going, oh, get off of it already, man. Like not everything that we do is menaced, toxic, but it seems that it's it's weaponized against us now, so that if a man appears to be what you would call quote unquote a real man or a man's man, or maybe they are more traditional in certain ways, then they're toxic. But I'm glad you described what that actually means because I I do like that definition. Is this what you're doing full-time now?

SPEAKER_00: 14:59

Yeah, and I agree with you. I I do not like using terms like toxic masculinity for many of the same reasons you described. You know, it is easily weaponized against men, and you know, we have to understand the history and context to how we've gotten here to truly understand how damaging that that terminology can be for a man who is not given very many solutions or answers or opportunities in their lives that previous generations have had because of the evolving world. And that's not to say that the evolving world is is bad. I think the introduction to women were going into the workforce in the 70s and 80s and has has really done wonders for our economy and has grown our country to new levels that we've never been able to accomplish before. But the question that we also have to ask ourselves is where do men fit in today? Right? Where do men fit in today? One of the studies I came across when I was doing my research years ago had one of my favorite quotes about the context of where we are. Um, and it said that yes, women have been oppressed by their gender roles, and men have been constrained by theirs. And we have assumed a uh a role in our culture that has been the same for generations. And this is the first generation that has to tackle the question okay, if I can't succeed in reaching those traditional qualities of a man that has been the traditional qualities for hundreds of years, where do I fit in? How do I develop purpose? How can I contribute to a family? And those are the questions that we have to ask ourselves as men nowadays, because of this evolution in our culture. And so it's not a problem if we have and offer solutions. And uh and that's what we really struggle with as a society. And so when I see hear traits toxic masculinity, or that man is really toxic, he's a toxic man, I immediately in my head go to no, that's a man who's struggling to find purpose and struggling to find productive measures to contribute to our society. And as a result, he's finding quick and easy solutions that aren't always the best or productive.

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

And there's a certain level of brokenness in that person as well. To your point, you know, they're struggling to find purpose. And I can hear a woman, in fact, I can almost hear one that I'm picturing right now, having had this debate with, when you say, Where do we fit in? Her answer would be, where you always fit in. You created the system. So why are you complaining about what you yourself have created? This is your own design. This is a system that was created by men for men for us to benefit. So, in a way, is it fair for us to even ask, where do we fit in? And if we don't like it, we created it, why don't we change it? I guess that's what you are trying to do. This is part of what this is. It's not against women, but it's how we collaborate as a society to best evolve.

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

You know, and I've worked with thousands of men around the world, and my answer to this question is I think one of the most masculine things we can do as men is hold a safe space for others, right? To be able to allow somebody to share, to be able to allow somebody to cry on our shoulders. That doesn't require making more than our partner. That doesn't require going to war. That that what that makes us is a great father, that makes us a great partner, and that makes us a great contributor to society. 40% of women are now making more than men. We don't have to try to reach that benchmark anymore. We can contribute to our families and to our friends by getting really good at holding space for them and allowing them to share and allowing them to lean on us and our wisdom to help make it through a difficult situation. That's the masculine thing to do. And when I work with men nowadays, they truly feel like they step into their masculine when they can be that shoulder to cry on. But the key to that is we need to get much better at communicating, we need to get much better at articulating our emotions, and we need to get much better at being patient and non-defensive and be open to hearing difficult things from people.

SPEAKER_01: 19:37

Why do we struggle with that so much? Is it bad emotional software, just what we are as is it biology, is it culture? And I know this to be true from personal experience. You know, we are lonelier, even when surrounded with people, dying earlier, a lot of us by suicide. Men are less happy. What is it that's getting us to either never open up and taking this with us to the grave, or having to hit rock bottom before we open up? Is it biology? Is it culture? Is it combination? What is it?

SPEAKER_00: 20:09

Uh yes, and to all of them, right? Let's go back and see where we were a century ago. When you look at men who were raised in the late 1800s, early 1900s, very quickly, we advertised, marketed, and promoted that men, real men, are men of war. Men go to war, they fight for our country, they stand up to evil around the world. And then they come home, like after World War I and after World War II, with a big economic boom, they find opportunities to provide for their family, and a single income can not only buy you a house, but it can also provide for your entire family and also send your kids to college, right? Not so much anymore for most Americans, right? Correct. And so when we look at the history of that, the reason men still want it is because, in our view, growing up, it's still there. We still think it's there because our fathers are still teaching us what their fathers taught them. And that's where the constraining nature comes in is we grow up not realizing there's other options in how we can be contributing men in society today, how we can be able to be helpful to our partners, to our family, to our children, to our friends, and to future generations. And as a result, failing to reach some of those benchmarks that our fathers were able to reach and our grandfathers were able to reach, and our great-grandfathers were able to reach, failing to reach those benchmarks really develops this notion of toxic shame inside of us, this inherent feeling that there must be something wrong with me because I'm not able to do what dad did, and I'm not able to do what grandpa did, and I'm not able to do what great grandpa did.

SPEAKER_01: 22:02

As far as we know, they did it without complaining because they didn't have an outlet and no one to speak to. So all we saw was this tough guy who did all of that stuff and just kind of held it together. And here I am, bitching and looking for a damn therapist.

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

Exactly. Exactly. You know, I often, when I have these debates with people, I often say, you got to think of us as like a remote tribe that hasn't had access to society in over a hundred years. What would their beliefs be? What would their thinking be? Right? We haven't had access to alternative views on how to successfully live life. And no one has really proposed one to us. And so what do we fall back on? We fall back on what our fathers taught us, we fall back on what their fathers taught us, right? We just, the cycle continues on and on and on. And what really disrupts it, this cycle, is the fact that one income doesn't bring in enough to be able to buy a home on your own, to be able to send your kids off to college. More than likely, you have to lean on your wife to help provide that other income for your family. And so we're seeing lots of men really stepping away from the system rather than trying to find an alternative way in this system solely because they don't know that there's other ways to live life and feel fulfilled because they've only been taught one.

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

You just touched on something before I move on. Do you run into a lot of men who still work and they go and they contribute, but they're not the breadwinner because the wife makes more than them? And how do they deal with that?

SPEAKER_00: 23:32

Yeah. It's a struggle that I deal with every day with men is my wife makes more for the family. My wife is the one who's more available for my kids emotionally. My wife is the one who's really running the household. Where do I fit in? And every day. Yep. Every day I deal with men who are navigating that. And uh again, this isn't at all a blame towards women. This is really on men to try to figure out this issue and help find ways to contribute to the family. We need to take responsibility and ownership for the fact that we are just really relying on past ways to live life as the way we're living life today. And so, again, what I really focus with them on is we can be the ones who create the safe space for our kids to share with us. We can create the space for our wife to share with us. And that in a way can be far more contributing to society, to our family, and to the next generation than however much we make, whatever our career is, all of that stuff. The amount of men who are doing more and more risky things financially because they're trying to find desperate ways to make more money than their partner is really ending up screwing their family rather than actually having the man be more financially and emotionally available for their kids.

SPEAKER_01: 24:59

And so that last thing you just said needs to be on repeat a few times, man, because I get it. You willing to roll the dice and jump into anything because we're trying to make it work, and and we end up causing more damage financially, and then we have to work our way out of that, and the problem just repeats itself, right?

SPEAKER_02: 25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:18

What is some empirical data that you have that could be shocking to some, maybe not so much, but maybe things that I haven't heard that you have, and you kind of feel like, hey, this is something that we need to address um immediately, otherwise it's just gonna get worse. And what is groups for men doing about it?

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

There's two statistics that we constantly refer back to at Groups for Men in our internal meetings when we talk about why we're doing this and what we're trying to avoid. Um three out of every four suicides are middle-aged white men who are taking their lives, right? And so the question you have to ask yourself is for a demographic that by all you know other benchmarks have it, right? They have more money, they have more property, they have families. Why is it that they're killing themselves at a rate far higher than any other demographic? And and men of color, it's no better either, right? Men of color, they have far more suicide than other demographics, like women and uh people who identify different different sexualities or different genders, like we are leading the charge, white men and black men on suicide. The other statistic is the fact that in 1990 they did a study and they found that most men, 55% of men, said that they have a really close friend. A couple of years ago, they did the study again and it's dropped down to 25. So we are sinking in our ability to keep male friendships and to grow with other men. And what I find is what often happens is men want to present this image of being immune to pain and immune to problems. And so they don't share with their guy friends. They stay at a very surface level, like a level one basic social structure. And they don't ever share their issues with their relationship, they don't ever share their issues with finances with their other guy friends because they don't want to be prosecuted. What ends up happening is they end up finding a woman in which they can be that woman can be the sole emotional outlet for that man. Yep, they share and unload the dog shit on that woman, right? Once they once that trust is opened, that woman has to bear all the problems of that man. And that woman often goes there when I when I coach couples, she's often going, This is not what I signed up for. Exactly. Yeah, right. That kills the relationship. Exactly, exactly. And so all of this comes down to the fact that men feel like they don't have permission to share with other men. 80% of the problems that men experience in their lives, if they just opened up to another man, they would realize A, their problems are not unique, right? Like you struggle with the same urges, Stefan, that I struggle with, right? You struggle with the same impulses that I struggle with. And number two, that men have actually worked through it. Men have actually dealt with it. And so it feels really backwards, but a lot of times when I start coaching couples, I'll go to the man and I say, Hey, you need to stop sharing a lot of this stuff with your wife and you need to start sharing it with the guys in group. Take some of the burden off of your partner for the problems and the challenges that you're experiencing. You can still share, hey, I'm working on my porn addiction, and this is what I'm doing to work through my porn addiction to your partner. But you're not saying, I just I'm struggling with it and I need your help with it, right? You're not putting that on her, you're owning it.

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

We are way too secretive, man. I can't see going to my wife saying, I gotta work on this porn habit. I got what are you doing? What's going on there? So you can't go to her with that, right? And then you can't go to another guy because what have we been taught to do since we're eight years old? Brag about how many women we got. I don't need this because look at what I've got. And we all know we're all lying to each other, but no one's willing to admit it. And that's kind of where the problem is. We've been lying to each other, we've been taught to do this since we're seven, eight years old. You know, we were raised in a society where it was a boastful thing to say that you have a girlfriend at seven. It's a warped and completely distorted view of the way we you know we operate. It's just completely messed up. And to your point, like again, going to go into the wife, because I've I've lived this and I know of many other men who have going to the wife and going to unload is because oftentimes, and I'm not sure what you're calling middle age, I don't know what the exact science is, I don't know what the data is or what shows middle age. I'm thinking 50 because that's half a hundred, but we don't live to be a hundred, so I don't know what middle age is. Maybe it's 40. I think it it's it's 40 to 60 years old. Okay, so then perfect. So I'm I'm right there. Um, and then we would go to the wife and we would unload. And the reason we would do that is because when we tried the guide. Eyes, A, there wasn't a good response. And B, maybe you can correct me here, just help me with this. But my notion is the more I live, the more I realize that the friendships aren't what I thought they were. Because in a moment of need or crisis, if I reach out, I don't get the response that I thought I would. So in my mind, I go, okay, you know what? Forget this. I'm not doing this shit anymore. Forget, forget this, dude. I'm still friends with everything's still great, but I checked them off the list of people I can go to. And then you end up with the wife that you cried to, and then she goes, You need to toughen up.

SPEAKER_00: 30:34

She's saying to you what your dad would say. This is exactly where group fits in, right? Okay. It's it's a space in which we're not only giving permission, but we're we're really demanding that these topics come up in your life and that these topics get talked about in group. Um, super secure place where it's not only permission, but it's encouraged. Um, we're gonna talk about, and we often talk about, right, the desires to go look at porn and how to navigate that and tools that can actually effectively solve that problem. We're gonna talk about what it means to struggle in a monogamous relationship and how do you deal with those natural human urges to look at other women and to do all of those things, right? That's something that us guys, we know exactly what that struggle is that women don't know. And so why set ourselves up for failure because we want to prosecute each other for not being perfect? We're not really setting ourselves up for success that way. But if we were able to establish a space in which we can talk about some of those very natural, normal things that happen in men and how we can best navigate them, you're setting yourself up for being in a percentile that's so small and minuscule in the world. People go, Wow, what is Stefan doing? in which he's changed his life so much, or he's changed his presence so much, in which he doesn't seem like he has this shame, or he seems like he has this pressure, or seems like he has this anger that most other men appear to have in our culture, right? One of the most culturally accepted emotions for men to express to people is anger. And that's why we have this male emotional funnel system, which is like, oh, Stefan, you're experiencing embarrassment, you're experiencing struggles, you're experiencing this feeling of deception from people, you're experiencing betrayal. You're gonna funnel that and just express it through anger because that is the only one that feels culturally acceptable for you to express. But in our groups, we don't have to do that to each other, right? Because, man, I've already heard his story and he's talking about how he his wife just caught him in the bathroom, you know, looking at this website or whatever. And he just talked about how he was struggling to not go off and and run off and cheat on this girl that he wanted to cheat on his wife with. And he's talking through that. I guess I can start revealing some of the stuff that's going on in my life, too, some of the urges and the and the feelings and the emotions that I'm experiencing. And I don't have to present this notion of, man, I'm this masculine, angry guy as a result. And so it really is powerful when you start seeing those puzzle pieces come together in a guy, their first time coming to group, they're like, wow, I can I can actually talk about this stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 33:19

Yeah. What's maybe one or two techniques that you or other coaches use to get men to get past the small talk and open up into that real talk?

SPEAKER_00: 33:31

Yeah. So we've actually developed a whole system. All of our all of the coaches that we've worked with and everything, we put our heads together and we've come up with a whole system that works for men in this. And so I can I can break down kind of a high-level view and give you an example of a tool as a result. One of the things we really prioritize and focus on in group is is purpose. And we've broken it down into a science. And we've used the works of you know, David R. Hawkins and Dr. Robert Glover and Ryan Holliday and some of these great philosophers and people who speak on men's issues to help kind of create this system. But we really start with purpose and we develop what it means to grow purpose, how you can have a very active purpose in your life that can help drive your decisions. Um, and it really comes out of this idea that most mental health work is about avoiding bad habits and patterns. Or if that's not the approach, that's what it feels like to the end user, especially for men, right? It's like, oh, I'm struggling with porn. My approach needs to be I need to avoid the urges and I need to avoid the things that remind me of it. We don't operate that way in groups for men. Our business isn't to try to avoid and work around a problem. Our business is to replace it with something that you value a lot more than that issue, right? So it's not about avoiding the condition, it's about replacing it with something you care about more. And you can't replace it until you establish a purpose, a North Star per se, that can give you that direction in life. And so we break that down into a science and we give those guys those per the purpose. That's actually the easy part of this process is finding someone's active purpose in their life. Yeah. The the other piece that we start doing is pointing them towards that purpose. Okay, so here are the qualities you want to be seen as, and this is the legacy you want to leave. This is how you want to contribute to the world. Great. How do we get there? Well, one of the tools we introduce is our language. Language is such a powerful thing, right? If I sit there and I say, man, I really suck in these interview processes, in these interviews uh for podcasts, right? Like I'm just terrible at them. I'm gonna be doing tactics and strategies in which I try to avoid being terrible in this interview. Instead of that, we introduce something called the flip. We want to pivot our language towards what we want, not what we don't want. So rather than saying, man, I really don't want to mess up in this interview, I'm going to instead say, man, I really want to come off in this interview confident and articulate to the problem. Right. And so I'm going to spend the next hour in this interview trying to come across confident and articulate rather than trying not to come across like I'm a bad interviewer, right? And so just flipping your language and pivoting your focus towards what you want and what you don't want is just one of the small tools we can institute into somebody's life in which they can start pointing themselves towards the purpose that they feel like they have been put here to have and to put here to contribute to the world through that purpose. So that's a couple tools and approaches we use for this.

SPEAKER_01: 36:41

Makes sense. I like that. It's a biological fact that we all wired differently. So how can a man stay grounded in their masculinity while showing empathy and depth? Is there something that you can recommend for that? Because I it's always, I feel like it's it's one or the other. Some sometimes regretfully, we dive into too much depth and too much empathy to our own detriment. So is there a balance there or is there some oh yeah?

SPEAKER_00: 37:10

Well, I think the first part of it is understanding why is this an or and not an and, right? Like, why is it that we have to choose masculinity or being open and empathetic? To me, like I view masculinity and a quality of masculinity of being able to protect people, right? Yeah, what's stopping us from being able to protect people from themselves? That to me is a masculine quality is protecting people from themselves, right? Like, would you agree with me on that? Absolutely. So, why do we have to separate that from masculinity? It is masculine to do that, and so getting good at articulating our emotions and getting good at communicating to people around us and getting good at being able to hold safe space for people is to me, it feels very masculine. And it's because I'm protecting people from themselves. And as a result, I hope that people can do the same for me. You know, that alone to me is how you make the pivot is understanding that maybe you're focusing on the wrong things of masculinity, like you're focusing on the output of masculinity. Oh, it's gonna make me a lot of money, it's gonna make me be seen as a provider for my family and independent in myself, a protector. Yeah, we're ignoring how we get there.

SPEAKER_01: 38:30

Right. So, with groups, once they open up in a circle, what changes outside of it that you can kind of quantify? And is there a way that you measure that so you can see how they're growing and becoming better humans overall?

SPEAKER_00: 38:45

Oh, yeah. I mean, we we measure it in easy ways, like you know, on the back end, our all of our coaches meet every single week and we we literally just go through like, oh, this person shared this. So if he shows up in your group, like you can take him and go from here to here and stuff like that. Like on the back end, we literally keep track of everyone's journey internally. Um, and it's all private information, it's all stuff that we keep private, and we have tactics to kind of pick up where other coaches left off. So it really is, you know, we we take care of you through this process. But then, you know, in the other piece, it's really easy to quantify because we've seen people get out of toxic marriages, we've seen people save their marriage, we've seen people save their finances. We actually a couple months ago opened up our first financial group. So guys who are struggling with finances can go into that group, and there's a professionally trained coach who's who specializes in helping people get out of debt and grow their wealth. And um, and so we have a group focused just on that on Thursdays. And uh and so it's a holistic approach, and so you can really see not only in testimonials that these guys give us, but also in just our internal documents showing the progress of wow, this guy came to us with$50,000 in credit card debt. His wife said he had a week before he she was going to leave him. And now look, they're still together. He managed to get out of that credit card debt, and now they're actually working on potentially starting a family or potentially getting a new job and moving. And so the the quantifiable piece of this is very easy to see. And within the first couple groups that you would attend, you will hear guys share and come to group and say, Oh my God, like my wife and I were able to have our first honest conversation about this this week, or my, you know, I was able to cut down on debt by$5,000 because I was net positive for this month for the first time, or stuff like that. So we track it internally, but then you can also see it externally when you're in those groups all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 40:53

Awesome. And I know this is a different conversation. The whole idea of being in a relationship, wanting to be in that relationship, and no longer having that available to you based on actions you took and certain things you did or didn't do, and these people are losing their family and they're going through a divorce. How do you help those guys overcome their situation? Maybe it's just it's final or it's happening, there's nothing you can do, there's no remedy you can give to that person and say, Hey, you go home and have this conversation, I might fix it. The woman's mind is totally made up, she's ready to go. How do you help a guy through that?

SPEAKER_00: 41:30

By understanding that what they're going through is grief. If a marriage is over or a partnership is over, they're losing something. And it's something that never comes back. And even though you might get another partner, even though you might get another marriage, even though you might get all these different things, it's not the same one that you've had, right? The dynamics that you have with that partner, the comfort that you feel with that partner, you only experience with that person, right? Because you're a different person by the time you go to the next person, right? And so we focus on grieving and how to grieve. And as men, that's a scary thing to do. Grieving is the closest emotion you can feel to death. And so it's a scary place to be, but we've we've gone through it with men. We know how to go through it, and we got you in that process. And uh what's great about groups is like you make friends in these groups that you get their numbers on, and then you can call the other guys in the group whenever you want. Say, right, you know, I've had I've had guys call me at two, three in the morning saying, hey man, like I'm I'm struggling. I can't get to sleep. Like, what should I do? What how can I move through this? And and guys pick up and they answer because they deeply care about you. They know what you're struggling, they know what you're going through. And so, um, you know, how do we get them through it? We get them through it with community, our community of guys who are all trying to do the same thing. And we get through it by by recognizing that we have to process it like we process a death in the family. And we have to process it like we're going through a death. And that requires acknowledging our grief, coming up alongside our grief and getting comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_01: 43:07

Now, Mackenzie, maybe I'm giving my friends the most horrible advice I could be giving them, but I have a couple of friends who are going through one is definitely going through a divorce, the other is trying to reconcile and fix his marriage and trying to save it. But he's making a lot of concessions. Now, both these guys know that I had been through a divorce myself, so they reach out to me and ask me how I was able to survive it, what I did, what I didn't do, etc. And my advice to them now is very different than what I actually did, right? So it's almost hypocritical because what I did was, like you said, I grieved and I did not handle it very well. I'm a different person today. So now I tell them things like, hey, I've discovered who I am. It's kind of like you look in the mirror, you go, man, you know who the F you are. What the hell is this? What are you doing? You know, stand up, be a man, right? And the advice I'm giving this guy is something very much like, bro, you will survive this. You have no idea how good this is for you. I know it sucks, it hurts, but you are actually better off because what is meant to happen is happening, and it's happening for a reason. I know it sucks to hear that, but I'm giving them a lot advice along those lines. And it's really about discovering who you truly are and seeing value in yourself. I could be way off. Part of what I'm saying is tied to a certain level of spirituality as well, because I'm talking about you truly understanding who you are, the true I within. So, how off am I here in this advice? Am I screwing them up and am I sending them up for failure?

SPEAKER_00: 44:39

No, no. Uh, it's a yes and I feel like I've said it a lot past hour, but yes, it's a yes and, right? Like you're right, but that's not step one. Okay, right? I'm actually gonna go a step further than you and say that this is going to work for them. This is going to be the what you feel right now as the worst day of your life will eventually be reflected on as the best day of your life. Yeah. Right? But they aren't there yet. No, they aren't there yet. If they're making concessions, if they're still open to getting back together with this person, they haven't acknowledged the loss. They're in denial. Correct. And and so, first step is getting us to a point to where we have accepted that this person is no longer the person we can trust and go to, right? Because we can't truly move on until we do that. And what I worry about is if they don't grieve, when they're gonna rush into another relationship, or when they do get to another relationship, that other person is still in there and still in that relationship, that that divorcee, that ex-partner of ours, because there is things that we have not resolved, and there are things that we have not acknowledged about losing a relationship that ends up bringing that person into it. I remember there was a someone I date I dated at one point, and it was going fast and furious. And, you know, one night she looked at me and she said, We can't do this anymore. And it was like a great night. And so I was wondering what why can't we do this anymore? She said, because every time I laugh with you, I still think of him. Wow. And that told me in that moment she hasn't grieved, she hasn't acknowledged that he's gone and that he's not coming back, and that it's time to make new memories, not keep relying on the old. And so when she would look at me and when she would have happy times with me, she was only thinking about what the X, right? And so that's the danger of not taking this a little slower and not acknowledging the loss first. That's where I focus is kind of the hard questions, which is like someone comes to me and they're like, hey man, I'd like to start coaching. I go, Okay, how do you feel about her being gone? You know, how do you feel about her not being there anymore? What are you doing in those times of loneliness? What are you doing in those moments where you acknowledge that she's never coming back? She's never gonna be someone you can trust again. Right. Um because we need to understand that we're not gonna go back, we're gonna go forward. And we can't do that until we acknowledge the loss, right? One of the things that David R. Hawkins, who's a author who I study and and read all of his books and everything, he says is the moment that we experience grief and we visit it, and we feel that like just I'm sure you felt it too if you've lost someone in your life, just that feeling of peril, just oh, I that that ugly cry that just like I'm in this despair, right? The natural thing you feel a couple minutes after is self-acceptance and acceptance of reality. And our body does that to pull us out of feeling uh dead, feeling like we're dying, right? Yeah, our body does that because it's a healthy process to work through pain. Once we get to grief, we actually then step into burning grief out, which is like every time grief comes up, we let it out, we let it out, we experience it, we burn it out. And then from there, we're gonna start feeling self-acceptance. And that is when we can start saying, Hey, I am so glad we can thank God that we're going through this because now I can grow into a new man.

SPEAKER_01: 48:20

You know, that brings me back to when I was going through my situation, whenever I had these moments of grief, not knowing the science and the psychology behind it, I did burn grief out. I allowed it to flourish. And the reason I was able to do that is because I was alone. In retrospect, I hated that I was alone. I hated that I didn't have anyone to go to. I hated that my one person to go to was the person that was putting me through this, so to speak. Obviously, she wasn't to blame. We both did whatever, right? But I expressed it because there was no one around. I was always alone and I was able to let it out. And it got to the point where it was one conversation with one friend later, and what feels like it was just a snap of the finger, and I got up and I was okay. And I said, just hey, this is totally cool. And I guess that's what I'm trying to get my friends to, but I don't know the steps, and I'm not coached, and I'm not, you know, I'm not an expert. So I'm just trying to tell them, hey, here's the finish line. Go ahead and join me over here to this finish line. It's amazing over here, it's great, it's like the best thing ever, without understanding the steps that they have to take to get through there.

SPEAKER_00: 49:29

And that's that's why I think most men choose not to rely on other men, is because they experience men who have already gone through it and don't understand the steps or can't break it down in that way, right? That's where like a coach is very helpful in a group setting, is like, okay, well, we're not there yet. We're gonna take a step back. And so, Stefan, what I would say for you is this is where empathy comes so into play as a masculine man, right? You know exactly what they're feeling. You can just bring that out in them. Empathy is the simulation or the kind of reflection of somebody else's emotion in yourself, right? So if you're grieving, I'm gonna grieve with you, and therefore that gives you permission to grieve, right? It's a powerful tool, empathy, to be able to relate to somebody, to be able to feel somebody's pain. And that's where it's most productive. Empathy is in grief. And so, in those steps, like just being there with them, saying, Man, I've been through that and we're gonna get through it, and it's okay, you're gonna be just fine when you come out of this. Let it out. It's all good. I'm here for you. Those kind of things are what they first need. And then once they get into acceptance, I often, when people are like, Oh, when do I know when I get into acceptance? I'm like, You ever been to a funeral and somebody is giving a sermon or giving a speech and they're crying and they're clearly grieving, but then all of a sudden they kick a joke in there and you're like, Well, okay, we're snapping out of that like really dark, depressed place, and we're now gonna make light of this, right? That's that moment of acceptance, right? That's the healthy moment of acceptance. So you want him to get to that point and you can help get him there, right? Like really feel his pain, really be there with him. And then once they get to that point of like, okay, they've kind of experienced that grief, you can kick a little joke in there and see how he takes it and take him out of that grief. Because then once he gets out of that grief, then you can start talking about what's next.

SPEAKER_01: 51:33

I'm definitely going to put your information in the show notes so that they know where to reach out to you. Because at 149 bucks a month, man, there's no better system. I think that's amazing that it's done that way. Talk to me a little bit about the spiritual aspect of this. You know, I mentioned spirituality a little earlier, and you nodded. How does that factor in? Is it factored in at all? Not everyone has the same beliefs and dogmas. How do you guys handle that?

SPEAKER_00: 52:02

Yeah, so uh great question. We have to understand the where spirituality comes in in our lives, right? So there's two different types of purposes, right? There's uh a divine purpose, right? This is this like pre-existing value to our life, right? Before you're even born, there's this inherent value that you feel, or this inherent meaning to your life that you have because of your divinity, because of your spirituality and what you believe in. And then there's an active purpose. That purpose is the one that brings you into making confident decisions and bring you forward in life and allows you to break things down tangibly. I believe in order to have the strongest purpose possible, you need both, right? Because the the divine purpose gives you meaning, but sometimes doesn't give you direct answers, doesn't give you clear decisions. The active purpose, right? If we can we if we can break down very clearly and articulately what we want to contribute to the world and what we want to be remembered as, and the things that we want to leave the world, those guide us towards making good decisions and making the decisions that we feel like are beneficial. You can live life without a divine purpose. But if you do have a divine purpose in spirituality, I'm a Christian, right? So I feel very strongly in having a divine purpose. Okay. But I also understand that my divine purpose falls short of giving me sometimes clear answers and decisions, right? You could read scripture for your entire life and still debate concepts on the meaning of life, right? Like we don't need that in the times of whether we need to know whether to leave someone or not, whether we need to buy this house or not, whether we need to take this job or not. Right. God doesn't always give us those answers right away. And so what God does give us is a personality and an experience and a feeling in which we can drive those unique qualities about our about ourselves to maximize our impact in the world. And one of my favorite stories, and I tell this in groups sometimes, or my favorite parable, is uh there's a guy who's in his in this little cottage, and it starts to rain, and this hiker comes by and he says, Hey, it's it's gonna flood. Do you do you need to be saved? Do you need me to, do you need to come with me? And the guy sits there and goes, No, God's got me. I'm good, right? And then another guy comes along as it's starting to fill up, and his his cabin is about knee deep with rainwater because it's flooding so much. And someone's like, Hey, you need to get out of here. I'm here to help you. Like, come on. He goes, No, no, no, it's fine. God's got me. And then he's like treading water in his cabin, and another person comes along in a boat, and they're like, Hey, let me get you on the boat. Get out of your cabin. You're gonna drown to death. And he goes, No, it's okay, God got me. Sure enough, he drowns and he goes to the pearly white gates and he asks, God, why didn't you have me? He goes, and God goes, I sent you three people to help get you out of there, right? Like, God isn't going to give you the answer, he's gonna give you the opportunity. And you have to then drive that answer. You have to drive that decision. And that's where active purpose comes in. And so if you could have the two speak to each other, you're in a really powerful place to make a great impact into the world as a man. And you don't need to lean on saying, Oh, if I'm not adhering to traditional masculine qualities, man, then I just must not be an important guide to life. I must not have any meaning in my life. And that's just simply not true. So that's kind of where I see spirituality play in these things. Um, in groups specifically, we don't really address spirituality that much, but we're actually working on creating different groups that identify with different spiritual beliefs that are that are coming soon with coaches who are trained in those. And so those are coming soon, but for the most part, we we focus on the active purpose because that's the one where it's like, hey, how do I navigate the fact that my wife just called me out on lion? Right? Like we can't attack all the divine purposes in in a two-hour group, but man, we can start talking through that decision.

SPEAKER_01: 56:18

I love that God doesn't give you the answers, he gives you the opportunities. And that's part of that has a lot to do with us being co-creators of our own destiny.

SPEAKER_00: 56:28

Yeah. And I believe that God really wants us to develop an active purpose ourselves. He wants us to develop what our meaning and contribution is to the world. He's given us the gift of life, he's given us the gift of perspective and our unique perspective to life. He wants you to develop it, right? God gives you a challenge just to get you ready for the next challenge. You have to be the one who comes up with how you drive yourself through that challenge, how you build yourself in that challenge so that you become a more impactful person to the world. It's not a limitation, it's a permission from God to really develop an active purpose. He's going to leave a very passive approach to your life. You have to build the active approach to your life. And that's just my fundamental belief with it. Yeah. But um, that's how I justify like being able to develop an active purpose in every single person, regardless of their religious affiliation.

SPEAKER_01: 57:26

Speaking of challenges, what's one thing that you can say to every man listening that you would challenge them to do this week, with or without groups, so they can start the inner work on themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 57:40

This one's easy. This is where I uh I'll give them two things. Okay. The first one is what we mentioned earlier. I want each guy to use the flip to help not just avoid the problems and patterns in their life that are causing them pain and shame and troubles. But I want them to replace it with something they want more. The other piece is a much larger perspective, which is every single time you put yourself in a victim-like mindset, uh, I want you to get out of this notion that life is happening to you and start thinking about how life is happening for you. Right. You and your wife had an argument last night. Good. What are you gonna do about it? You just lost your job or your furlough right now, good. What are you gonna do about that? Right? Right. Start finding ways in which life happens for you, not to you. And if you just make those two pivots in your life and you make it very active in your day-to-day decision making in life, you will find that you're gonna go to bed a lot more sound than how you're going to bed now. You're gonna be able to actually get a good night's rest, and you're gonna be able to uh not lean on your shame and your guilt to get you through life. You're gonna be leaning on the qualities of you that make you special to the world.

SPEAKER_01: 59:07

You know, from listening to you, it sounds a lot like it's not about being fixed, it's about being seen and heard, understood, even if that's by your own person. A lot of what I'm learning today is that the real strength is not in the silence, it's in that circle.

SPEAKER_00: 59:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 59:25

Am I getting that right?

SPEAKER_00: 59:27

Absolutely. That's a great way to put it.

SPEAKER_01: 59:29

Awesome. What's a final message that you can put out to our audience before we ask where to find you and about your socials? What's one final message that you have that if I did not ask the right questions today, you're like, you know, Stephon, here's one thing I needed to say, so here it is.

SPEAKER_00: 59:48

People will hold on to a story until they find something that they value more. Perception is made up of narrative. We have a narrative about who we are, we have a narrative about Who we're not, and that creates conditions in our life. Every time I say, Man, I suck at running, I'm putting a condition on my life. Or every time I say, Man, I hate oranges, I'm putting a condition on my life. We're holding on to stories that keep us trapped and that keep us limited. And so if we find a story we value more about ourselves, which is I want others around me to remember me as kind, compassionate, caring, impactful, inspiring, and I care about that story more than the other stories, I'm gonna drop the other stories. And that's how we grow. That's how we live, that's how we thrive in life, is by falling into the stories that work for us and the stories that drive us forward in life, not the stories that give us conditions and keep us held back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:50

Mackenzie Baby, you are a gift to humanity. It's been an honor for me to have you on the pod. I've learned a lot today. Can you tell us where people can find you, where they can follow, where they can reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:04

Groupsformen.com. Pretty simple to remember. Groupsformen.com, we have a seven-day free trial. You can go for a week, see if it's your thing, and then and then leave and dip out with no money down. You know, we do that so that guys can dip their toes in the water and see if this is for them. And you can go to group tonight and get your work started. We have you, we want you there. We want you to grow friendships and relationships that will benefit you for the rest of your life, but it requires you taking the leap and pressing that sign up button in order for you to get there. Wonderful. Thanks for being on the show, man. Absolutely. Thank you, Stefan. It was a pleasure. Take care.