Ryan Michler - Brotherhood, Isolation, And Rising Above The Noise
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All right, team, exciting announcement. If you are a therapist, psychologist, coach, you do men's work, I'm going to be doing a free live demonstration where I teach some of the tools that I use when I work with a man. So this will teach you how to get a man out of his head, into his body, how to work through some resistance when it comes up, how to deal with a man's shadow or his anger, aggression,

defensiveness, all those different pieces. So if you are interested in that, go to mantox.com forward slash demo, D-E-M-O, mantox.com forward slash demo. Sign up. Even if you can't make the call, we will send you the recording and you can tune in because this is going to be one of those experiences where I showcase, I'm going to work live with a man and work through some pretty serious challenges and then teach you some of the tools that I am

using real time. So mantalks.com forward slash demo. See you there. All right, Mr. Ryan Mickler, how are you doing, brother? I'm good. How about you? It's good to see you. Yeah, man. Welcome back to the show. It's nice to have you on. I think this is maybe a three-peat.

I was wondering if I should have looked, but I was thinking it probably was at this point. So I'm honored, man, to see your growth and see what you're doing. And obviously we're talking about similar things and similar missions. It's pretty cool to be able to do this stuff together. Yeah, it's pretty awesome, man. And I mean, it's funny because both of our shows have been around for, man, like...

for ages. I think my show has been around for eight or nine years almost. Yeah, March of this year will be 10 years for me. March 15th is my 10-year anniversary.

You're like podcasting OG. Yeah. I don't. And people ask me about it. They're like, oh man, that was so good. Like, how did you do that? I'm like, I just got lucky. It wasn't, I didn't know podcasting was going to take off. I just enjoyed the medium. And here we are 10 years later. It is crazy though. It's, it seems like it's harder and harder to stay relevant, I guess, is maybe the term because everybody has a movement. Everybody has a podcast. Everybody's

talking about the issues that we're talking about that guys like you and I really were the ones who started, I think in a lot of ways, bringing this discussion to the mainstream. I agree. I agree. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard to, uh,

it's hard to make noise in the noise. You know, like there's a lot of noise out there. There's so many different shows. You know, there's, I think, I think I read something the other day, something like 4.2 million podcasts. I'm like, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Not like podcast episodes, but like shows, you know, like 4.2 million shows. It's like, Oh my gosh. Well,

Well, that also includes the podcast that they did one episode or five episodes and couldn't cut it. I think we're at 1,560 episodes now. So it's just people say, oh, how are you successful with it? I just have done it a long time because it's not intelligence. It's not looks. It's not resources. It's not connections. It's just do it over and over again like a Neanderthal with nothing better to do. Repetition, baby. No.

Never underestimate repetition, right? Chop wood, carry water. That's it. Chop wood, carry water. Well, let's dive into what we're going to talk about today. I think, obviously, for those that are out there listening, Ryan, myself, Larry Hagner, a couple of other great men, Matt Vincent, we're putting on an event today.

outside of St. Louis, and it's called The Forge, The Men's Forge. And there's a bunch of different things that we're going to be doing in there, but one of the things that we're really tackling is men's isolation and loneliness, which seems to really be on the rise. And that's what I wanted to talk to you today about is why does it seem like men are having a harder and harder time maintaining a relationship? And why are men lonelier than they've ever seemed to be? And not just sort of like

This isn't a guess. The research shows this. So what's your take on this? Yeah, I think our approaches are probably... We're probably very much aligned. Your approach tends to be the more evidence and research-based. I tend to be just more anecdotal in the way that I approach things and see things. And I can see it, just trends among friends. But I heard this quote, gosh, probably 10 years ago, that we are...

the most connected that we've ever been. I mean, we can connect with people in the opposite end of the planet easier than we ever have been able to. And yet we can't connect with a person across the table from us. And so I think that's actually a big part of it that's often overlooked.

is that we are getting a synthetic version of connection through social media. And we think it's an adequate replacement for physical connection in the real world. If we didn't have that synthetic connection, I think that we would be more apt to

connect face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, have barbecues, have parties together, go on trips, go on hunting trips, be involved in those activities. But with the amount of activities and demands for our time and attention, we think that this little device is actually replacing the need for physical connection in the real world. And obviously, it's not working. That's why so many men are depressed, isolated, lonely, anxiety-ridden.

et cetera, et cetera, even suicidal, unfortunately. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, in 1990, so I'll give you some research. I'll be the data nerd today just for fun. But I mean, in 1990, they did a study, the Survey Center of American Life

did a study in 1990 and 55% of men had at least six close friends. And in 2021, they did that same study again and found that the number had dropped to 27% of men had six close friends.

And when you start looking at the data, our social circles as men are shrinking. Women's social circles are staying quite robust, but men's social circles are shrinking quite rapidly. And I think one of the detriments to that is, well, a couple of things. There's a bunch of different threads I want to pull on in here, but I think one of the things that we know is that the quality of your friendships

And the qualities of your relationships are one of the greatest determinants for your health, happiness, and life longevity.

And this is, again, research data showing us that male loneliness and isolation is probably one of the most harmful things for us psychologically and just physiologically within our life. And so do you think it's just cell phones though? Do you think that there's like a social component to it, a cultural component to it? Like what do you think is contributing to the degradation of our social circles?

Well, I think for men, and we're talking about men specifically, I think the reason why my assumption is, is that the reason why women's groups tend to stay pretty similar based on the data that you're suggesting is because women don't necessarily need a mission or a purpose in order to congregate. They just will. Women are generally more relational. They'll get together just because. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a good thing.

Men need a reason to get together, but we don't really have one. The purposes that I think we used to have like, hey, let's go raise a barn together or our crops need to be tilled before we sow the seed and before the rains come. And so let's do this together.

And we don't have those shared goals. That's why men, the most robust circles that men generally have, if they have one at all, is done through sports and through military service. And if you think about those two things, sports obviously has a shared purpose. We are going to work together as a team in order to beat the other team.

And when it comes to military service, it's to get better so that we become more lethal and we could neutralize any external threats that may come our way. And so we had that in our warrior culture a thousand years ago. We have that obviously when it comes to the sports that we played in high school or at the collegiate level. But once a man graduates college or high school,

The purpose for men getting together seems to be reduced. And you could frankly do everything you're quote unquote supposed to do in life without having to rely on another man for your survival and well-being. So it's the relative ease of modernity that has created an environment where we don't actually need that from a very tangible perspective.

But obviously, on a deeper emotional, mental level, clearly, we still have the need for that. Yeah. I think for a long time, I underestimated the doing nature of my male friendships, that we

we got together to go and do something, go play pool. There was almost always a mission. I even remember, and this is going to sound ridiculous, but this is who I was when I was 19. When we would go to the bars, my buddy and I, because I had a group of guy friends that we were like, I had my bar friends, I had my hockey friends, I had the guys that I just hang out with and play video games with.

But my bar friends, we always had one of two missions. It was either we're going to pick up women at the bar, mission, or number two, we're going to get into a fight, mission.

And it was like, and that was both worthy, worthy goals for sure. We would literally, we would talk about it before, like we'd be having, you know, beers or drinks beforehand, rum and Cokes, which is a little disgusting now to think about, but it's just so much sugar and grossness. But, you know, we'd be drinking beforehand and we'd be talking like, okay, are we going tonight to try and pick up women or are we going tonight to actually get into a fight?

And I think there's a lot of orientation for us as men to do things together. I think shared experiences, even things like going hiking, going camping, those types of things, it's like we want to go out and do something. And yes, we can have conversation while we do it. But I think that's why a lot of men have started to turn towards

you know, personal development is self-help is that there's a doing nature to it. It's like you are doing something, you are bettering yourself for your family, for your finances, for your health, whatever it is, there's something that you're doing. And I think groups like mine and yours are providing a space where you get to do that alongside other men. You know, it's like you're, you're on a mission in your life and these other guys are going along the journey for, with you. Any thoughts on that?

Well, I have a couple of thoughts. Well, I'll share a story. So this morning I went to the chiropractor. I've been having some minor back issues that I'm like, okay, this has gone on long enough. I need to address this. What's going on? And the chiropractor went through the thing and then he set me up on this contraption and then I just had to sit there.

As this contraption was working, just sit there, just lay there. And I was so bored. I'm like, I just have to sit here. I'd rather go lift or stretch or do something. So I think that speaks to what you're saying is the, our ability to sit still and just sit is all but non-existent for myself and most of the men that I, that I communicate with. But I wrote this, um, on Twitter the other day. And I, and I think it was, I think it makes sense based on this conversation. It says this,

People will mock men for doing anything but go to therapy as if there's nothing therapeutic about friends, fighting, building, fixing, solving, and lifting. In fact, if more men engaged in those activities, much of traditional therapy would become obsolete. And I think that's often a woman's perspective that men just need to go talk it out. No, sometimes we need to go fight it out. Sometimes we need to go build something. Sometimes we need to solve a problem.

You know, how often do you see guys as you're driving down the road, let's say a work crew, and we all make fun of them because there's way more of them than is probably necessary, but they're all sitting, you see them all the time. They're standing around leaning on their shovels, but what are they talking about?

Well, they're talking about the problem and what the best way to fix whatever they're dealing with is. They're talking about the sports team, again, directional, right? And goal-based. It's clear that we are designed to be around and with other men, and we have to infuse

some of that sense of purpose back into our lives deliberately. I've got a friend, I don't know if you know Jack Donovan. Is that his name? Yeah, I've had him on the show before. Yeah. He's an incredible thinker in the space of manliness and masculinity. And one of the things that he often says is in today's day and age, you have to choose to be a man. That was not a choice 50, 100, 500, 1,000 years ago. Either you became a man or you died. Those were the options.

And now you don't have to do manly things. You don't have to engage in manly behavior in order to, I guess, thrive by modern standards. So if we can infuse some of that directionality, even if it's just improve myself and help the guy beside me improve his life, I think we're going to find a lot more fulfillment and satisfaction and a lot less depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Preston Pyshko

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I think part of the interesting part for me is the social and cultural conversation around men. And it does seem, you know, because a lot of my work, I think, is quite a bit more therapeutic in nature. And it infuses a lot of different therapeutic modalities that I find to be helpful that are going to support men. But that industry has become really dominated by women.

And the approach that's often taken in working with men who are entering into the therapeutic space is to sort of, I don't mean to sound crude, but it's just like to treat them like a woman in the sense that all of their problems and challenges are

are meant to be talked about and they just should feel and be more vulnerable. And that will solve everything that they're dealing with. But I think part of the challenge is that, you know, when you look at male loneliness and isolation, as we're talking about, there was a study that came out recently that said men on average need about

twice a week is best for men to hang out with their friends. I can't remember exactly what the study was framed as, but it was like men need two social hangouts with other men per week for optimal mental, emotional, and physical health. And the crazy thing, Ryan, was that when that study came out, the amount of hate

that was spewed out online about that. What was the hate? What's wrong with that? This is ridiculous. Men don't need time together. This is patriarchy. This is misogynistic. Men don't need more men's spaces.

And it was almost like a complete undervaluing and under indexing of how important men spending time together actually is. And that the collapse of men actually spending time together, the collapse of men's spaces has actually had such a damaging impact.

And I think part of the challenge is that from the therapeutic industrial complex's perspective, it's like, well, just talk about how you're feeling. But that only goes so far. You know, it's like, yes, talk about how you're feeling, but also like do something about what you're feeling.

I also think that sometimes just talking about things makes issues more relevant than they actually are. And I'm not saying there isn't a place for it. I think what's so great about the work that you're doing is you take these therapeutic modalities, but you...

you run it through the filter of what it means to be a man. So we can talk about it. We can be cognizant and aware of what we're dealing with and we should be aware of it. And also here's how men deal with it. Here's how men address it. And I think that's really powerful, but yeah, I have a somewhat of a disdain towards modern therapy because of the feminized version that has become, I don't actually want to talk about everything, you know, and there's things that I don't really feel I need to talk about.

I guess my mentality has always been bad shit happens and it is what it is. And my bad shit isn't any worse or less than somebody else's. We're all going through stuff and I'm not special. I'm not unique. This isn't something that nobody has ever dealt with before and get over it. And I think the best way to do that

is to get around other men who have gone through what you've gone through. You know, I've battled alcohol abuse. I went through a divorce. I was raised in a fatherless home primarily. And all of my friends have dealt with the same stuff. And so when a friend comes to me and says, hey man, I dealt with that years ago and here's what I did. Cool. Like that's the kind of conversation I would want to have. It would be like,

going to a marriage therapist with somebody who's never been married. I know you read all the books and you have all the credentials, but you don't know what it's like to argue with a person you love or for them to be mad at you for days on end over something trivial and silly.

You don't, you've never done that before. There's no textbook that prepares you for that. Yeah. Or to have half of your assets tied up with that other person and the, you know, breaking up with them would mean that half of your entire net worth goes along with them. Right. Which is something that I've dealt with. And that drudges up quite frankly, a lot of contention and animosity for me. So I can turn to the guys who have done that. In fact, I had a friend

And we were talking about this and he said, you know, Ryan, I can see where you're coming from on that. And I'd be frustrated in that position too. My kids are homeschooled. My ex-wife teaches them and does that full time, which is great. It's a good setup. But at times it's frustrating as a man to think that some of my income is going toward to her and her lifestyle. And he said, you know, I would look at it like this, that you're paying tuition for your kids to get the best education

education from the person who cares most about them. And I'm not going to say that makes it all go away, but that was pretty, that was an insightful way for me to look at it because he's experienced it before. He knows what it's like. He's had to figure out solutions himself. And now he's sharing those things with me, but

Unless you have guys that you can turn to and talk about those things, there's no solutions that will ever come. And you're left with trying to figure it all out on your own, which you might be able to over time, but it's going to take a lot longer and cause a lot more headache and contention in your life than just banding with men who have done it before.

What do you think that men are doing that's contributing to their own, and not to pile on men, I don't want to, you know, I've tried to been flushing this out from in many different ways, but what do you think that men are doing that is contributing to their own social isolation and loneliness? Well, I think a lot, there's, most of it is what I would call noble obstacles, right?

And a noble obstacle is something that on the surface seems reasonable and even virtuous, and yet blocks you from being the kind of man that you can be. So a noble obstacle, for example, would be somebody who might say, well, I would love to go to the gym every day, but I can't do that because my wife and kids need me home to take care of them and be present when I'm not working. That's true. That's noble.

I don't think there's a man listening to this who would think ill of what a guy that wants to be with his family is saying. But if it's hindering your ability to take care of yourself, or even worse, you're using your wife and kids to excuse your lack of performance, that's an obstacle. That's a problem. Do you think that we as men have...

either convinced ourselves or bought into some sort of social narrative that says that friendships aren't important? Do you think that some guys see other men as a threat or that the value of male relationship has been diminished somehow? I don't think the threat thing exists. I mean, sure, if there's a coworker that is vying for the same promotion as you at work, I could see that.

But generally, I don't think we're threatened by other men and the friendships that we have. I do think it's more of a personal issue if that I...

open up in some way to you, then I'm exposing myself as weaker or inferior or inadequate. And that's why I don't actually like the term vulnerability because by definition, vulnerability means weakness. If you look at it in the context of military, for example, any great military leader is going to look for vulnerabilities in his offensive and defensive strategies so that he can fix them.

But by definition, that means weakness. And so when men hear words like vulnerability and it's framed through the lens of a woman, oh, just share and talk about your feelings. That's great. That's what women do. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to do that. And I don't think most men want to do that.

But you know what? I am willing to be humble. I am willing to say, hey, I don't have this figured out. You've done this before. What do you think? I am willing to be honest about my own shortcomings, but it's not for the sake of vulnerability. It's for the sake of growth.

For you and for me. Connor, you and I are friends. We've had personal conversations where I've shared things with you about my own personal situation. I don't feel inadequate or weak. I just feel empowered because you've given me some insight that I was not privy to before. Yeah. I mean, to take the analogy...

I wrote a whole chapter about the myth of male vulnerability in my book because I think it's been so oversold and over-indexed to men as the solution to all of our problems. The asterisk that I would say is that it's still relevant and important. For me personally, in the work that I've seen with men and

And I say that because I think for a lot of us, it's for a lot of men, it's the unwillingness to even be vulnerable ever that leads to a kind of internal perception that they are invulnerable and that fucks their whole life up. It's like, I can overcome anything. I can dominate any problem. I can overcome any obstacle. And I,

I get that kind of relentless optimism. I have that. I have a kind of insatiable, relentless optimism, but it's not naive and it's not blind. And I think that sometimes there's like a, I don't know if it's a story or a perception of manhood that some of us buy into that says like, I have to be invulnerable in order to be manly.

And I think that there are use cases for it. I think that the framing often doesn't land for men. Like I think in my version, what you're talking about of being humble and admitting problems and being open about your challenges, I'm like, that sounds like you're being vulnerable about what's happening in your life. Right. It's semantical at some point. It's just semantics. But I think it is important we dig deeper than just use the word itself because it has so many connotations, especially when it's so bastardized by marketers and

everybody else. Yeah. You know, Connor, I did want to go back to, go ahead. Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt you. Go ahead. No, no. I think the, the, the last thing I was going to say is that I think we have to find ways as men to be

really forthcoming and transparent about our shortcomings and what we are struggling with. And that honesty, whether you want to call it vulnerability or honesty or transparency, whatever freaking word you want to put on it, that is an unlock code for us as men. And I think about good battle teams. I don't know a lot about war or military or being a SEAL or anything like that. You know a tremendous amount more than I do. What I do know is that

really great tacticians of war and fighting. They know their weaknesses inside and out. And that's generally what really good, like SEAL teams as an example, they know one another's weaknesses.

And it's not that they're operating from that place, but they're not hiding it either. And that generally really great teams are the ones like really good. I'll use hockey analogy because I know hockey better than I do military. Really good hockey teams. They know one another's weaknesses and they build strategies and plans around that. They support one another in developing strengths

around those weaknesses or improving those weaknesses. And I think that that's what really good men in our life are meant to do is that if we're open about where our weaknesses are or where we feel inferior or we're struggling in our marriage or our finances or our health,

that other men can contribute to us being able to rectify that in some capacity and that that burden is not just ours to bear alone. So I just wanted to add that last piece in. I mean, I completely agree with that. And that's why I think it's so important that when you're looking for other men to bandwidth, and we are, like even...

The guys who say like, I'm a lone wolf, I'm an Omega or whatever, whatever, you know, Greek term they use to describe themselves. The giga Chad. Yeah, exactly. That kind of stuff. Even those people, I mean, they can't be that dumb that they can't realize that every opportunity in their life came as a result of a relationship they had. Like there's, there's no you alone ever. It's just, it's not possible. So I think everybody's looking for men, but I think

This is why you ought to value humility and honesty in men that you're surrounded with. The problem with that though, is, is it is exposing weaknesses of your own. For example, if you called me up and said, Hey man, like I've seen what you've been doing. You're messing up. Like I care about you, but you're messing up. That's a true, that's actually a true friend. Somebody who would actually say that and have that conversation.

But also, it's not a comfortable conversation for either party. Right. And so I think we need to change our value scoring, our value scorecard from not this person makes me feel comfortable with my performance, but this person... More than I value this person makes me feel comfortable with where I am. It's, no, this person...

In a lot of ways, I'm uncomfortable because they're achieving at a higher level or they're sharing things with me that I don't want to hear, but I need to hear. And if we learn to value those characteristics better than, hey, I just feel good around the person, I think we'd make better choices.

with the guys that we spend our time with. But I do want to go back to the question that you posed about this cultural influence for men not being around other guys and not working on themselves. It's interesting because, and maybe you have a study to back this up, but what I've seen is when a guy goes out to work on himself,

Let's say he pays to be part of your program or my program, or he invests himself to come to the Forge event in May, or he hires a coach. He will get ruthlessly mocked by men and society, women too, for investing in himself. You know how many times I've heard people mock what we do and say, oh, I can't believe you're getting guys to pay for their friends.

Now, that's a gross misunderstanding of what we do, but it's a complete factor of the mockery that ensues when a guy actually tries to go out and do something. They'll tell him he's an imposter or a fraud or a simp or a beta or a cuck.

all of these negative terms because the guy's trying to go make himself better. But what's interesting is, let's say you wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Do you know how to play the guitar? I don't. I don't. Maybe in the future. I know like three chords and I want to learn how to play the guitar. Nobody would ever make fun of me and call me a cuck or a simp or a beta because I'm learning how to play the guitar.

Or if I want to be a better lacrosse player or football player or jujitsu tactician, nobody ever makes fun of you for going to training to improve and get better. But when it comes to being a man, for some reason, if you invest in yourself as a man, you get mocked for doing it. What's interesting to add another layer to this is that if you don't do it, if you don't go improve yourself,

and you don't know how to do something, you will also be mocked because you should already know how to do that thing. So a man can't win. He gets mocked if he doesn't know how to do it. And then he gets mocked if he actually goes out and tries to fix it. So I think a lot of men have kind of just thrown in the towel and said, you know what? This is my life. This is how we are.

We're supposed to do it alone. We're supposed to buck up. We're supposed to know everything. I don't. So I think I'll just pretend like I do and be miserable in my life. Yeah, I think all of that contributes to it. And I really...

It's funny because I've been bucking against some of the blatant hatred towards men that's pervasive within modern conversation and the sort of cultural narrative. And it's funny how if men talked about women a certain way, it would not be acceptable at all. But if women talk about men in that same way, it's completely fine.

And what I've started to notice is that this whole conversation of like men aren't needed, men aren't wanted, the world would be better without men, it's reached this place that I think is so gross.

You know, because men thrive off of being needed and being wanted in certain spaces, right? Being able to contribute, being able to provide, you know, having the capacity to contribute to people that they love or care about or a society that they're interested in or a community that they're a part of. And I think that there has been this wave over the last however many number of years

that's very insidious, that's continuing to tell men, don't want that. Don't want any of that. That's wrong. That's misogynistic. If you want to be a man that contributes, you shouldn't want that because women don't need men. Society doesn't need men. And it's such garbage. It's such BS. It really irritates me, actually. Because I think, and here's why it irritates me. I've talked about this once before on the show.

There's a guy named Richard Reeves who's done a bunch of research. He runs the Men's Institute for America, something like that. I can't remember what it's actually called. I'll have to look that up. But what they found was they researched a bunch of suicide notes from men. And what they found was that there was a couple of words that were really prevalent in the majority of them. And one of the most prominent words was the word useless.

And for a man to feel useless is for a man to start to really self-destruct and be in decline. But this is kind of what a large part of modern culture and society is telling men. It's like, you're useless. You're not wanted. You're not needed. And in fact, how you are is something damaging. Now,

Are there men that have caused damage? Yes, of course. There are men that make bad choices and that F up and that, you know, the whole nine yards. It's not to deny any of that.

But to say that men are all bad, to say that men are all useless, to say that all men are not needed, I think that that kind of stuff is just petty. It needs to stop. I think this gender war between men and women is really damaging. And I think a lot of men, younger men especially, buy into this notion because they're confused, because they don't have good male role models in their life. And then they end up going down this path of like,

you know, either hating the people that are saying that or being very confused and not, they try and avoid

becoming a really potent man because they don't want to let people down or disappoint them. So it sounds like part of what you were saying in the initial comment, just to pull this back around, was that confrontation is a pretty important part of male friendships. That really good male friendships, really healthy male friendships have a bit of confrontation in there that men aren't

afraid of the discomfort of saying, hey, I think you're screwing up. Or hey, I think you could do that better. Or hey, you said you were going to do X, Y, and Z and you haven't. What's going on? Can you just speak to that piece that's maybe important that men miss out on in their friendships? Yeah. I mean, it's not just an important factor. It's a prerequisite to a male friendship. I mean, we thrive on conflict, whether it's external or internal. It's the only way we get better. In fact, here's an interesting thought.

A lot of guys have this weird idea of men and emotions. We're not supposed to be emotional and you're supposed to hide all of that and everything else. And while I would agree, there's times where it's not appropriate to be emotionally reactive. How can a man not be emotional about the things that he's excited about or the things that he's been hurt by? Of course, he's going to feel that way. But I don't buy into the concept of negative emotions. To me, there's no such thing.

Yeah, some emotions are more painful than others, sure. But that's actually a positive. Because when we feel that way, like greed, anger, jealousy, resentment, hate,

When we have those, what people call negative emotions, it's what drives us towards different behaviors. So if more men, instead of saying, I'm not angry, said, no, I am angry. And here's exactly why I'm angry. And here's what I'm going to do about it. I'm not going to go punch a hole in the wall or worse, punch somebody else. I'm going to figure out why, for example, I was passed over for the promotion.

And then I'm going to go to work on improving myself and getting better. But it's the conflict of that so-called negative emotion that drives you to change. And it's the same thing with our male relationships. For anybody who's ever played sports, for example, I remember when I was a kid playing sports, whether it was football and baseball, it's primarily what I played. Man, if I missed an assignment, if I was blocking in football and I missed an assignment and our quarterback got sacked, do you think the other guys around me were like, oh, it's okay. Do better next time.

No, it was like you messed up. You caused the fumble or caused our quarterback to get hurt. Like you need to do better. And there was a lot of conflict in that, but that's what forces us as men to do better. So if, if a man's listening to this and he wants to improve in his life, you can't do it without friction. It's just not possible. One of the questions I get asked often is can a man change without hitting rock bottom? And, and,

I think rock bottom is when you decide to stop digging, you start making different choices. So the answer is, well, of course, you don't need it to be catastrophic. You can just decide to stop doing dumb things and then that's the bottom of the barrel for you. But I would also suggest that if you're on this downward trajectory, that you need some friction. You need somebody to proverbially slap you in the face a little bit and say, oh, no, we're not doing that.

Because we don't allow that in this circle. That is not how we operate. And that's why I think names, whether it's team names,

branding, even family names are so important. Like my kids always roll their eyes when I say this, but Mickler's do hard things. They all know that it's not, it's built into the culture of my family. We do hard things. And when my kids are like, I don't want to do that. Well, the other kids now say, well, Mickler's do hard things. So they're holding each other accountable. You have to have that friction and something to push against because if life is always so easy,

There's no real reason to change. I mean, that goes back to what you were saying earlier about where people will complain about men and masculinity. The only reason they have even the luxury of saying things like that is because men who are bigger, greater, stronger, and tougher than us did what needed to be done. So they have the luxury of complaining about being the recipient of other men's hard work. And nobody complains when there's a fire and men step in.

Nobody complains when there is an active shooter and a man decides to subdue that individual. People say, well, that's different. They're using their masculinity for fill in the blank. No, it's not different. They're using the same set of characteristics that you're complaining about only because you don't need it right now.

But the minute you do, you're going to turn to a man and probably what you'll say if you don't find one is, where have all the real men gone? Well, you mocked them ruthlessly and told them not to behave like men. So that's what they're doing. Yeah, I think it's a really good point.

you're making a really good case for ignoring a lot of the noise that's out there telling men who or what they should be and what they should do and to sort of carve their own path. And I think what you were saying about the hard work piece, you know, "Michlers do hard things."

This is something that I've been trying to instill in my son. I mean, he's not even four. But in, I guess it was September of last year, I was going to build a sauna outside. I did build a sauna outside and had to build a platform for it. And I had to take a pickaxe.

and basically dig like a foot and a half trench in the ground. And the ground outside is like, it's not dirt, it's blue stone, right? Like it's just blue. It's like blue stone all around. It's just freaking rock. But my boy was so into it, right? He's like, dad, I want to help. And I was like, okay, cool. So we're outside.

And, you know, I'm pickaxing away and it's hot outside and I'm sweating and he's got his little shovel out and he's half the time he's filling in the trench. But he's like, you know, he's doing it. And at one point he's like, whew, I'm tired. And I was like, yeah, hard work is good work.

And he's like, yeah, hard work is good work. And then I swear to you, Ryan, for the next three hours that we were out there and the three hours the next day, he must have said that dozens of times. Dada, hard work is good work. And I was like, yeah, buddy, hard work is good work. And I mean, it just made me so happy because he was like, he couldn't have been more content. That little boy's soul and heart was just

full. He's like, I'm out here. I'm with my dad. I'm in the dirt. Hard work is good work. And I think that that energy, that essence lives in all men, that there's something about us that wants to get pulled towards some form of hard work.

and to do that alongside other men. I think that that is the sort of essence of it that we all long for. And I think for me, it makes me sad. It breaks my heart that a lot of men

A lot of men don't know what that feels like, you know, to go through a hard time in their life, whether it's them going through a divorce or whether it's them going through some major challenge at work and they're alone going through it. They don't have another man along their side or a group of men that are saying like, I'm here with you. You're going through this and you have to be the one to have those conversations with your ex-wife or deal with your boss. But, you know, we're with you in that hard work.

And I think that that's something that we all deeply long and crave for. So I'd just love to pass that back to you. Well, and I think I agree first and foremost, but I think all men just, we know that. So when there's a difficult situation, we can inherently just feel like, oh man, I need help. Now, whether or not you act on it, it's entirely different story, but I think we all feel it.

The problem is if you've done no work up to that point of building male relationships, you don't have anybody to turn to. I think I saw a study to quote a study, but kind of loosely because I can't remember where it was, that there was a group of men that they surveyed who could not even figure out one man, not one, that they would be able to call in a moment of crisis. Not one. Right.

I mean, that's horrible. And so what I would suggest in addition to what you're saying is don't wait till something gets bad to decide you need another guy to hold accountable to, be held accountable to. Do it today. Do it now. And you can do it in these really easy ways.

convenient ways that frankly are just more enjoyable. I'll give you an example. I've been working out for years, but I've got a friend. He's a friend, but I didn't really spend much time with him. I knew him. He knew me. And for whatever reason, I got thinking, you know what? He needs to work out. He needs to come work out with me. I think his life would be better if he did and mine would because by default, I would be getting some accountability too.

So I called him up and I said, Hey man, like I'd like you to come work out with me. And I think it'd be good for you. I think it would help improve your life. I would like to have somebody to work out and train with. It'll help me. And he's like, yeah, okay, I'll come work out. And this is a big athletic, strong guy, but he hasn't been to the gym in admittedly he said in over a decade. And so we're working out, we've been working out for the past roughly three months now.

And the gym is just better because he's there. It's more enjoyable. Sometimes we're both in a bad mood because we go at six in the morning and we don't talk. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we joke. Sometimes we have serious discussions. Most of the time, it's not serious at all.

But I know that if I come across a hardship, I can call him right now. I could call him and say, hey, I'm dealing with this thing. And he would be there in a heartbeat. And I would be there for him in a heartbeat because we spend an hour together every morning, five days a week at the gym talking about nothing, just working out. And the ancillary benefit to that is he is bigger and stronger than me, maybe not as good a shape, but he's getting there very quickly.

And so he's motivated to catch up and I'm motivated to stay out ahead of him. So that's the ancillary benefit is that he's motivating me to get better and I'm motivating him to get better. And we're both, as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all ships. Yeah, I think it's the shift from...

you know when i grew up i think a lot of my male friendships i had i had two really solid friendships that weren't like this but the rest of them were they were very competition-based relationships you know and i was sort of in competition with those other guys

And there was always this big space versus being in competition alongside the men beside me. And that feels very, very different. You know, I think sometimes we have a kind of not, yeah, we have a kind of adversarial relationship sometimes with the other men in our life. And I think shifting that to, you know, a more you influence me and I influence you. You know, there's a reciprocal, Dr. Glover talks about reciprocal relationships, right?

versus an adversarial relationship or versus a competitive relationship. Yes, competition can kind of be a part of it. It's like my buddy Traver and I, whenever we get together and we go to the gym, we have this push back and forth of like, who's going to bench the most? It's like, am I going to outbench you today? But it's fun. It's play. It's not like

if I beat you, then your pride as a human being is destroyed and you owe me money and you're a piece of shit. It's like we're playfully competing alongside one another for one another's betterment. And I think that is the really heart and soul of healthy male friendships. It's like we're competing alongside of one another for one another's betterment. It's like I can call you forward

which is what you were talking about before, like giving feedback, I can call you forward. You are better off for it. And you trust me more because I've done that and vice versa. And so let's just, maybe we can wrap with some tacticals. And for the guys that are out there listening, we'll have a link in the show notes. You can go to themensforge.com and check out the event that we're doing. We're going to have some amazing activities.

that are there, everything from axe throwing to some jujitsu and some other keynotes and workshops. And it's going to be experiential and it's going to be awesome. It's going to be some amazing, amazing men there. But give us some of the tackles, Ryan, of what you've seen work well for men to deepen or just develop friendships with other men. Well, I mean, the first thing you have to do is go where the men are. And that's not always convenient and it's not always easy. And you might feel like the new guy. And frankly, you will be the new guy.

But think about where the men you want to be like hang out. I know where they are for me. They're at church. They're at the gym. They're at jujitsu and they're at business meetings. That's the guys that I want to be like, they're at those four or five places and that's it. Now they might be doing other things, but it's a revolves around those places. And the beauty of that, every one of those church, the gym, jujitsu, work conferences, everything.

Open invite. They want more people there. So you never have to worry about being rejected or not being accepted. The gym always is looking for new members. The church is always looking to grow its congregation. Business luncheons, they're always looking to expand their network. So you're invited. Just show up. But here's the other thing I would say. Don't be a fly on the wall. Because if you just go through the motions and for example, you go to the gym and you don't talk to anybody, you put your earbuds in,

you listen to whatever you're listening to and you just never engage with anybody, it's not actually going to, I mean, you might get strong, but it's not going to do you any good in the relational department. Or if you go to a business luncheon and listen to everybody else, but you're too afraid to ask questions, then that's not really going to benefit you all that much.

much. So what I would suggest is as you go to these places, insert yourself into the conversations that are happening. Be honest, be humble. One of the best things that you can do at the gym, and guys will think this is weird. I don't think it's weird at all. I do it all the time and it works, is let's say you've been going to the gym for a month and there's a couple of guys you see every morning because everybody goes at the same time they normally go at. So you see this guy over the next 30 days and

He looks like he's strong. He looks like he's got a good physique. He looks like, man, maybe that's a guy like who could be in my corner. You don't know, but you want to open that conversation. It's very easy and it's so non-threatening. Just go up to him and say, hey, you know what, man? Like, hey, I got to stop you for a sec. I see you here every day. I've never even introduced myself. I'm Ryan. What's your name? I'm Joe.

Joe, this is a silly question, but you look like you're fit. You look like you've been doing this for a long time. I'm just getting started. I'm really trying to build bigger shoulders or bigger arms or a bigger chest. Any pointers that you're, I mean, obviously you're doing something that works. Any pointers you have for me?

That is the easiest approach ever to even just open a conversation with another guy. Because that guy is going to feel flattered. He's going to feel valued. Talk about useless, right? Now he's not because he's adding value to your life. He's pouring into you. And that could potentially over the course of the next several months, several years become a really deep and powerful relationship. And it's easy. You know, the other day I was in the squat rack and I saw this guy next to me and I see him.

Every day over there, I've never said anything to him and he was doing squats, but his depth was like really low. And so I got done with my set and I looked over, I'm like, Hey, I got a question for you. Like, how do you, how do you get so low on your squat? Like my hips lock up. I can't get as low as I'd like.

And we sat and talked for, I don't know, five, 10 minutes about what I can do, but it opened the path to a conversation. If you go to a networking event, Hey, what do you do for work? What are your goals? What are your dreams? What, what keeps you up? What, what are your struggles? You know, if you go to church, just show up and talk to the men there. Hey, I'm new here.

I'm new in the area or I'm new to church. I've wanted to build my spirituality. Do you have any pointers or any tips for me on how I can do that? If you're humble, you don't need to expose all your weaknesses, but if you're humble and you're honest, people love to open up and share and pour into you. You just have to do it. That's the reality. You just have to do it. My hilarious marketing brain, my ridiculous marketing brain is

always thinking about funny, funny shit to put out. And I was like, I was just thinking about a carousel for Instagram that said like five pickup lines to get more male friends, you know? Like here's five pickup lines to, to, you know, create new male friendships. Cause I think that's, that's so true. Right. I mean, what you're saying is so true. And, and I think it's, you know, it's, yeah, it's like, it's one of those things that for guys, it's like, ah, it's weird.

We think it. You look at the guy at the gym and he's got the arms that you're trying to build or the squat form is great, which by the way, I get because my left knee is, I mean, it feels like 70 years old sometimes. And so I have to be really pristine with my form. But it's those types of things that oftentimes men don't act on. And so I love that guidance and advice. Any final words for the guys that are tuning into this before we wrap up? Yeah. I would just say,

What I would say too is, you know, where we've got this event coming up and I know it can be intimidating. It can be challenging to reach out and develop these friendships, but there's other opportunities like the event that we're doing in May where we facilitate the interaction. We facilitate the activities. We facilitate the interaction. You know that every single person in attendance other than you, well, you too, but every single person in attendance is there to get better, to build friendships.

to be accountable, to hold others accountable, to march in lockstep towards visions and goals that are shared, all of the barriers are out of the way. And if you could just get to a place like that, whether it's our event or something else,

man, it makes it that much easier. And I've had lifelong relationships with people that I've met at events that I didn't know before. And now we talk every couple of weeks. They're part of what I'm doing. I'm part of what they're doing. It's just a huge, huge opportunity. And I hope to see you guys there. Absolutely. Well, thanks for jumping on, man, and talking about something that's near and dear to my heart. And I think near and dear to yours, because we see it all the time. I see it all the time with guys that are just

they're really lonely. And I think the only last thing I'd say is like, normally it's the men that know they need it that have the hardest time taking the action on the thing that they know they need. And so for the guys that are out there listening to this, if this conversation resonated with you, man it forward, obviously, share it with somebody that you know will enjoy it and take action on some of the things that we talked about, whether it's approaching another guy, keeping a male friendship that's already in your life, creating a new one,

going to that conversation. I mean, I'm thinking about my own life. The dads of my son's preschool, one of the guys put out an email and was like, hey, let's all get together. And at first I was like, I have a lot of good friends. So I was like, I'm probably good. My wife was like, go to it. What harm is it going to do? So I was like, yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly.

So, you know, show up to those types of things. So link in the show notes for the Men's Forge. We'll have that. Definitely check it out. And hopefully we'll see you there. Take care.