David Lion: The Two Hero's Journeys

David Lion is the founder of the Evolving Men Summit, a series of discussions on masculinity. We speak about the Two Hero’s Journey, how moving towards achievement, win or lose, creates internal transformation.

Transcript

Today's guest is the founder of the Evolving Men's Summit,

David Lyon.

I was inspired to bring him on not only because I'm one of the speakers in the Evolving Men's Summit,

You can check out the URL in the episode description,

But David is,

This is his first entrepreneurial endeavor and it's interesting in that the content of the work is tied to masculinity and I really find that this kind of journey to build your own creative business where you're helping people is its own kind of male development.

I mean,

In a sense,

Of course,

This is true for all genders,

But there's something tied to work and achievement and masculinity.

And we go into something that I've been thinking about a lot,

I actually bring up how I spoke about it at the last conference.

I was at the Fearless Conference,

The Integrated Men's Summit about something called the Two Heroes Journeys,

Which is in every story there's two journeys that the protagonist goes through.

There's the journey of achievement,

Which is all the material accomplishment.

He wants to get money,

He wants to get relationships,

He wants to put the ring into Mordor or whatever,

But the real thing that matters to us as the viewer or the thing that moves us emotionally is a journey of transformation,

Which is through the process of trying to defeat Darth Vader or Dr.

Octopus or get the ring into Mordor or whatever the story,

The material story is,

The main character goes through a journey of internal transformation.

Even if he fails like Rocky did in Rocky I,

We can still see how he changed and that's what's so beautiful and that's what I love actually about coaching people.

I get to watch all these different people's Hero's Journeys occur.

But we get to see that and it's interesting that David's work right now is about helping men evolve and he's doing it.

So there's some meta stuff going on.

It was quite fun speaking to him.

We did get cut off around the 45-minute mark.

David kind of got cut off mid-sentence,

But I think we know where he was going with that.

Either way,

The first 45 minutes was very fun and interesting,

So enjoy.

The URL to the Evolving Men's Summit is in the description,

So check that out.

This is Episode 034,

David Line,

The Hero's Two Journeys.

You're listening to the Ruwando Podcast,

Perpetual Orgasm,

Infinite Play.

Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show.

All right,

Man.

Thanks for being on.

I'm glad we're here at Rebel Connect.

Yeah,

Excited to be here.

Yeah,

So we met about six months ago.

You were in one of my courses and then you came with this thing.

You actually mentioned the idea for this back then.

Oh,

Did I?

Yeah,

I think so.

It was like a nascent idea and it was like a lot of people throw ideas and then a few months later you're actually doing it.

That was awesome.

What was really cool is that every coach I know has started with a similar story.

They have an idea,

But not only do they go through their own personal growth,

Putting it out into the world as your own work or your own creation,

It's his own hero's journey.

That's similar to the personal growth journey,

But it's a whole new set of challenges.

So I'd love it if you could speak to what started this business idea or was it really as a business first or how did this Evolving Men Summit come about?

Right.

Yeah,

Happy to talk about this.

So I guess the point I can track it back to is summer a year and a half ago where I quit my studies in psychology.

So I left university because it just wasn't fulfilling me.

Then I went into this space of not knowing what to do next,

Just like feeling empty most of the time.

Sometimes it was really fulfilling to just feel like,

Okay,

There's nothing I need to do right now.

But at times it was also really scary.

Especially given the society we live in,

It was quite challenging to be in that space.

And at this time as well,

I left a romantic relationship with a woman that was super,

Super painful because basically she showed me all the points within me where I was dependent,

Where I needed her approval to feel okay about myself.

And since she wasn't approving fully of me,

I felt like a little boy really.

And so especially because of the breakup,

I realized,

Oh,

There are some things around masculinity that I don't seem to have integrated.

There's basically no structure within me,

No stability that helps me go through turmoil while staying centered.

So it was like every time something came,

I was completely blown away by any challenge.

And then I just started exploring like,

What does masculinity mean to me?

What are my resistances towards that?

So I have a sister who's a feminist and I think I got quite a lot of negativity towards women,

Like Ms.

Andri kind of ingested.

She's older?

She's older,

Yeah.

Where are you in the sibling chain?

Is it just the two of you?

Yeah,

Just the two of us.

Okay,

Gotcha.

Okay,

Cool.

Yeah,

So she was a big influence for me and I looked up to her in many ways.

And so,

Yeah,

I think this negativity towards men was quite present in my life.

And so I started meeting men with similar questions and especially one question that was particularly strong for me was,

How can I express masculinity or how can I be a man and acknowledge the sensitivity that I have,

Like the just the high amount of information that I'm taking in and the challenges that that comes with,

Like being more easily overwhelmed than other people.

And in that process,

I realized,

Oh,

You know,

It seems like I'm not the only man who is asking himself these questions.

And yeah,

So I tried a few things out.

Like I began a blog just sharing my poetry and people started responding quite positively.

But I noticed like,

I didn't have like a clear plan what it is that I want to do with that blog.

So I actually had just,

I'm realizing now that the way this men's project really came up was I needed money.

And so I heard of a certain fund,

Like the EU,

The European Union supports young entrepreneurs.

And so that was an opportunity for me to like get financial stability for half a year.

And part of that was to create a business plan.

And so I had this whole exploration of masculinity before that,

And then I had to create a business plan.

And that's where the summit really came in,

Where I had to become really clear about what is it that I actually want to do?

Who am I targeting?

What's the competition out there?

And yeah,

In that process,

The idea of creating a summit as like my kind of way of fully establishing myself in this online world came up.

And yeah,

That was basically a year ago.

Gotcha.

And I here it is.

So how old are you?

You just got 24.

Okay.

Okay.

I think I knew that.

But anyway,

One thing I want to highlight that you said in the beginning,

Because like,

So I was just at the integrated man summit,

I spoke all weekend,

And I closed with a story,

We're really talking about the hero's journey.

So it's in my mind.

So I might be I might bring it up too many times today.

Don't worry.

One thing I one thing I was highlighting to the guys was that everyone who goes on a self development journey is on a hero's journey,

Just like in the superhero movies,

And it always starts with a call to adventure.

And that's usually pain.

And I wanted to frame that for people because most guys are blaming or upset about the breakup like for you that was a breakup or something like that or losing a job or waking up one day and realizing you wasted your your 20s,

Your 30s.

But that's exactly what gets the hero to go like Frodo only goes on the quest when he has a pain point is Spider Man's uncle dies.

What's that Luke Skywalker's family's killed.

So whatever,

You know,

A breakup is not as life threatening,

But those kinds of things is what actually forces us to do the work because everyone else stays at a status quo.

So I just want to highlight that because I think there's a really framing for most people.

Yeah.

And I just want to add that this is one of the things that so it's one of the key themes for me with the summit to make men aware of the guidance system that they have within themselves with their emotions and like with the pain as well,

Like this kind of sensitivity can actually support you in realizing what is aligned with you and what isn't.

And what we need to let go of for that is believing that suffering or believing that experiencing pain is wrong,

That it's like,

You did something wrong.

And that's why you're experiencing pain.

No,

It's the pain is like,

We're on a learning path.

So it's like,

This is a given that will do mistakes.

And through the mistakes,

We'll,

We'll learn and we'll actually understand how life works and what is actually aligned with who we are.

And so pain is like,

The best feedback system for that.

It's like the most direct one.

Like an alchemy,

They call it the dark night of the soul.

Right.

And that's all the crap falls off because you you root down to what really matters.

You drop the,

You know,

In fight club,

He blows up his apartment.

That's like all the crap he didn't need.

And but also,

Like,

There's no story without the pain.

Like,

It's not interesting,

Your life would be boring.

If you didn't have an origin story with pain in it,

No one would care.

It's like,

Okay,

Everything's fine.

True.

And like,

This is the challenge for me to frame my,

I guess,

My hero's journey in a way where even that part becomes okay.

Where I don't have to tell myself that it's wrong that I'm feeling this pain because I think so many people,

So many of us are getting stuck on that,

Oh,

Something is feeling off in my life.

And we're making it wrong,

Like it shouldn't be there.

And that's what creates a lot of suffering.

When we can actually create a frame where it's okay.

Like this is part of the whole journey,

As you were saying,

Like,

That's part of the excitement,

The challenge,

Then I think we can reduce the amount of suffering that we're experiencing in that process a lot.

Yeah,

It's reminding me of one of my teachers said a long time ago that I don't know if this is true,

But pain and learning register the same in the brain.

Like when you learn something new,

It's the same as I don't know if that's literally true,

But it's a it's a nice way to frame it.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Cool.

So when did the breakup happen?

Was that around the same time as was it a year ago as well?

Pretty much.

Yeah.

I mean,

It was an on and off thing and it was never clearly defined.

But so I fully cut ties with her actually,

Basically a year ago,

Because it was like on and off.

And at some point,

I was actually already in a sort of online men's group with some friends.

And I asked for feedback and one of them was saying,

Hey,

I had a similar experience with a girl who I really liked and it was on and off.

And basically,

I wanted more than than she did.

And at some point after like two years of this,

I had to fully cut ties and be like,

You know,

Go cold turkey and refocus.

And that was super challenging and painful,

Painful for me to do.

But it really freed me up to focus on other things in life.

And you said it was also around the same time you decided to the summit?

Yeah,

Pretty much.

Okay.

Were they related at all?

Or were they this is my career life?

This is my love life?

Or did one spur the other?

I know you mentioned you needed money was was that tied to the breakup at all?

Yeah,

For sure.

I think I had I needed this clear breakup to be able to to focus my energy fully on the development of my entrepreneurial path.

I think without this kind of,

You know,

My attention would have been more with her than with my path.

So that since it was for sure connected Yeah.

And and I would say that,

You know,

After quitting university,

I was just in many ways looking for some kind of anchor in my life,

Like something I could orient myself towards.

And so for some time,

It was this girl.

And then I realized,

Okay,

This is really not working.

And so about a year ago,

The focus shifted towards this project.

Cool.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because most of the guys I know,

They had like this pain point,

They go on this development journey,

They learn a bunch of things,

They take a workshop,

They travel the world,

Something like that.

And then after a few years,

You're like,

Oh,

I know some things I want to share something,

But you kind of did it.

I'm,

I don't know if I don't know if you even saw them as differently or I mean,

I'm not throwing the hero's journey at you.

But most guys have like,

I mean,

The hero's journey,

There's the journey of achievement was the external stuff,

And then the journey of transformation.

Here's our tie together.

And I'm wondering if you noted any particular internal challenges with the business specifically.

So just one thing that I would add is that,

You know,

All this going to workshops that has been happening for many years before already for me.

So yeah,

I felt like I was at a point where I could already share,

Okay.

Challenges around the business.

Many.

So one thing money,

Literally,

You know,

Being supported by my parents throughout my studies,

And then me deciding to quit and then being like,

Well,

Then,

You know,

Find a way to sustain yourself.

And the kind of fears that would come with that.

So that was one thing,

You know,

Just lots of change happening.

And then additionally,

Oh,

Okay,

So now money is also a thing,

Kind of,

Yeah,

Just adding up to,

To the change and just facing the unknown,

Like,

Oh,

I don't know,

How can I turn this quickly into something profitable.

And then with the business itself,

I think the biggest thing was,

So I had the vision,

Very clear,

Very,

Like,

Super strong connected to my heart and to what I was truly passionate about,

Like that felt crystal clear.

But then to see,

Okay,

And this will be a process,

This will actually take time to manifest.

And I think this capacity to plan ahead into the future to say,

Okay,

I'm going to work on something right now,

Where I'll probably only see results in like nine months.

That was the biggest challenge to kind of keep enough focus on that vision and on my faith or my commitment that I will make this happen,

Even if I'm at the very beginning and feels like this is so far away.

And actually,

I have no idea if I will ever get to where I want to be.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So,

You know,

I mentioned the book,

The One Thing,

A lot in groups and stuff.

Someone recently on Instagram asked me,

Like,

What's the best book on masculinity?

I just read The Way of the Superior Man.

Should I read another?

He listed a bunch of books.

I was like,

I would actually read The One Thing.

There's something specifically tied to masculinity and future projection and getting things done.

And I do think it's missed out a lot by a lot of men doing men's work.

I mean,

Talking about your feelings,

Of course,

It's critical.

But at some point,

You do need to put something into the material world.

So it's interesting you brought that up.

Yeah.

And actually,

You know,

You having,

I remember that I read about you mentioning The One Thing,

And it's actually helped me a lot.

Like I still do that.

Like,

What's my most important task today?

When I have that done,

I can relax at least to a certain degree of like,

Okay,

I did this.

Can you share a little bit about your work schedule?

I mean,

I mean,

You're a one year entrepreneur.

So you probably went through different phases.

Can you share a little about your work?

So much experimentation.

And again,

I think there,

It's so important to acknowledge,

You will try things out,

You will fail in many ways,

Like you will get a lot of feedback of Oh,

This is not working well for me.

And and then obviously,

There are also phases where you'll need different things.

So I can tell you about the schedule that I'm on right now,

Which is I wake up between 730 and eight.

And then I do just seated breathing meditation,

Followed by the Wim Hof method,

And a cold shower,

A little bit of like physical workouts.

And then I journal for half an hour.

And then I'd say,

At around 1030.

So before that,

No internet,

No smartphone,

Nothing,

Just really sort of focus more inward and within myself,

And then throughout the journaling,

Kind of seeing what it is that I want to do today,

The things that I want to get done.

And then by 1030 11,

I start,

You know,

Connecting to the internet world and to everything that is further out than my own flat.

And yeah,

I go from there.

Cool.

And how often I how many hours do you work?

I'm curious about these details,

Because I think this is one thing that took me so long of I don't know if you found your flow,

But I think I only found mine recently,

Like in the last year.

And yeah,

So like,

How long do you work?

Do you have a Monday through Friday type schedule or what?

Right?

Yeah,

I'm happy to share.

I'm curious to hear from you as well.

What's your schedule?

Okay,

So for the last weeks,

No weekends,

Really,

Sometimes I'd give myself the challenge to take a Sunday more or less off where I'd only,

You know,

Do the most important stuff,

Say,

Two hours of work.

And then I don't have a very clear work schedule,

As in,

You know,

Time slots where I'm working.

That has felt more constricting and supportive for me.

Because I do like to,

You know,

Focus for for 45 minutes or an hour and then chill for 20 minutes,

Like to,

I like to be more in the flow.

And then this kind of when I go to hardcore and like the warrior mode of like,

Three hours doing stuff straight through that I'm so exhausted afterwards that it's actually it's not sustainable.

Yeah.

So yeah,

I mean,

Recent weeks have been intense,

I'd say like 10 to 12 hours of work.

But again,

Not like with this intense single task focus,

But like,

I'd never take longer than one or two hours of like a break and then come back to doing something.

Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Seems like similar.

Yeah.

Two minutes on eight minutes off or something,

Which is very,

Yeah,

It's too structured for me already.

I like to,

Because I find that I can tell and that's like,

It's a very slippery slope,

But I feel like I can tell quite well in the moment what it is that I really need to relax.

And so sometimes that can be going shopping,

Actually,

Or can be playing a few songs on my guitar.

And then when I have just eight minutes,

It feels like it's too structured.

Right.

I think it's more meant for like computer programmers,

Or somebody who works.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I'm happy to share mine because I really have gotten into my groove this year.

And so I kind of have two phases.

There's like my chill phase,

Which is most of the year,

Sundays and Mondays,

I do all my coaching.

So I realized I can't,

It's hard for me to switch gears.

Like if I'm in coaching,

It's hard for me to write.

It takes like another two hours to switch my mind.

So I do all my coaching Sundays and Mondays,

Tuesday through Friday,

I focus on writing.

So two to four hours,

I'll write.

Sometimes with a specific project,

Sometimes my book,

Which I've been working on forever,

If it's a specific thing,

And then usually the weekends are chill,

Or I guess Saturdays for the many chill,

Do nothing day.

But I go through phases,

Like when I'm launching a course,

I am putting in a similar schedule.

It's 10 hours a day.

Here's my one thing of the day and the one thing takes all day.

I'm just preparing for the conference.

My one thing was preparing for the conference the previous eight days or so.

But now I'm taking the next week off.

So I'm trying to balance it out.

Because I found that three time is necessary for creativity.

And when you have tasks like that,

A bunch of things clouding your mind,

You can't think expansively and the quality of work is worse.

No one is served by that.

And I really like having a blank day,

Because then I can work and then not work,

Work and not work.

Yeah.

I think this is really one of the,

For me,

One of the biggest challenges of being self-employed and especially in this kind of being self-employed in a creative way,

Where you don't have like,

I guess it will be different if you were,

I don't know,

Self-employed programmer or something like that.

But with the more creative,

Spiritually leaning stuff,

Where it's just not as straightforward,

Like the content that you're producing,

It just has a different quality,

It takes a lot more attunement to the present moment.

It's a fascinating challenge to see where is structure important to actually create freedom?

And where,

As you were saying,

Is it actually constricting my flow of creativity?

And it takes such refinement to find the sweet spot.

Have you read The War of Art?

No.

You would love it.

It's like a very,

Very short book.

It's by a best-selling author.

And he talks about structure and then also inviting in the muse.

It's a very good balance,

But it's about structure for the intangible thing to come with.

I've read it so many times.

It's an incredible book.

Oh,

Sounds good.

I do want to name the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as one thing that's inspired me a lot.

And I'm actually still using the weekly structure that he's suggesting.

Awesome.

I don't remember what the structure was.

I just remember the quadrant thing.

Yeah.

So that's a big part of it.

Yeah.

Cool.

I was going to ask you about the.

.

.

I don't know.

It wasn't my train of thought.

You mentioned something earlier.

I forgot.

Anyway.

Oh,

Actually,

Yeah.

So what was interesting about your Evolving Men Summit was that the very first thing I ever did was a course that totally bombed.

It was a similar structure.

I interviewed a bunch of people.

Actually,

Some of the people that are on your summit,

They're far less.

But I was really intrigued by yours because your page looked way better than mine.

You clearly did a bunch of research.

I had no marketing IQ when it came to it.

I just threw it up.

And I didn't do so well.

But it was a foundational piece in my growth.

So financially,

It didn't return anything.

But I connected with a bunch of people who are now in poor contacts in my life.

I don't want to go in a negative route.

But I'm wondering if you've considered the possibility of it not returning the way you want it to go and how you're going to deal with it,

Basically.

Is that the case?

Totally.

Yeah.

I love being transparent in these things.

So I was hoping for a lot more signups to the summit.

And we're still troubleshooting and trying to understand where we could have done better.

So to zoom out a bit,

I did a crowdfunding campaign half a year ago to fund a team that would support me with all the technical stuff.

So I didn't have to take care of setting up the page and just all the technical stuff that I have quite low knowledge about.

And I'm not really excited to go into in depth.

So I actually have a team who is working with me.

And I think that's a big part of why it looks as professional as it does that they have a lot of experience.

So yeah,

Signups are lower than I hoped.

And yeah,

Obviously,

That's like,

Challenging,

Because I've been working on this for a long time.

And it just triggers emotional processes of like,

Self worth,

Like,

Am I good enough?

You know,

What did I do wrong?

So these things come up.

But what's awesome for me to notice is I'm very much in this mode of,

Well,

What can I do about it right now?

Like,

When it's when it's done,

I can actually take a long time to really reflect and see,

But for now,

My challenge is,

Well,

What can I do to improve it?

And yeah,

So we're doing a bunch of things that that seem to be working really well.

So people are coming in.

Yeah,

And,

Like,

For me,

The challenge,

One of the challenges is to see,

Like to hold both this knowing that I did everything that I could up until now I did my very best.

I learned a lot in this process.

And I really want to honor that for myself and like,

Find space to celebrate that.

Especially just what's happened internally,

Because no one can take that away from me,

You know,

The summit can be a flop and whatever,

But what's changed internally?

Those are resources that I can build upon no matter what.

So that's one element.

And the other is I do want the summit to be a success.

You know,

It's not like I don't care.

But there's a base of I know what's changed internally already.

And then I also want the summit to go as best as possible.

And so when I can hold both,

Then I can still give my best and troubleshoot and see where I need to change action or take more action.

And so what we're doing right now is we're running an ad campaign on social media.

And it seems to be going pretty well.

Yeah,

So yeah,

I don't know,

I'm not yet prepared to,

To,

To say,

It didn't go well,

Because it's,

It's far not over.

And if it does,

I think it will be an interesting process to create spaces with people who I feel safe with,

Like who,

Who I trust,

And to really look into the details,

Because it's so easy to go into this negativity bias of like,

Oh,

It all sucks and whatever.

And I screwed up and I'm such a failure.

But to really look very clearly into like the different aspects,

Like what went well,

What didn't go well,

Where can I improve?

What can I learn?

And to have that be explored in a space where people appreciate me where I feel like they're not seeing me as a failure.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I think it's a really great perspective.

And I'll say,

If it helps really just I mean,

This is this has been my experience.

I've tried many things.

And I mentioned my first thing didn't go so well,

But did establish a ton of things.

And I think you're the fact that you're noticing both the internal and external part of it,

The internal part is a win regardless.

That's important for I think,

For everybody,

When they try something,

You're going to mess up.

And that's actually my message when I closed at the conference yesterday,

Like,

You're gonna mess up,

Like,

That's actually part of your journey.

And,

You know,

Whatever it is,

I hope this is I hope this is successful as well.

But um,

Every single thing I did it the first time,

Where we're signups were a thing.

The first day,

And the first couple days,

I never got signups.

And every time I'm like,

Okay,

I'm gonna quit like this is embarrassing.

And then every time both the first event I put on the first workshop I put on the first online course,

One person signed up.

I remember actually,

The way I met Brian vision was that I put on a men's conference,

A live conference in New York.

And after three days of me sending out email after email for email,

We had no no signups.

I was like,

I think I could get the deposit back on the on the workshop.

I'm gonna quit.

And then one person bought a ticket right before I could cancel.

And I was like,

Shit,

Like,

I can't cancel.

Was it Brian?

No,

Brian was a speaker.

Right?

And then I was like,

One guy,

Like I was he was an acquaintance,

He bought a ticket.

And then I was like,

Shit,

Now I need to hustle to like,

Fill it up in the next seven days.

And we filled up the room.

And boom,

I for that one ticket.

And I don't know if I don't know if this is,

You know,

It translates to what's going on for you right now.

But it's,

It's worth it to just,

You know,

Swing because there's actually no consequences.

Yeah,

Totally.

I think,

You know,

One one important point is,

I am at no place thinking about quitting.

Like,

It's not an option,

Because I've burned my boats,

And there's just one direction,

And that's super clear.

And another level that's helpful for me is,

If I can see more of my small failures and successes like on a micro level,

It makes it I have a different attitude towards both winning and losing on a macro level.

Because I'm sort of,

I'm constantly in the process between winning and failing,

Like it's always happening to some degree.

And then it's not just this like one time thing of like,

And that determines whether I've ultimately won or lost,

But it's just another maybe a bigger feedback than all the other small ones,

But it's it's not like the only one or the ultimate one.

So assuming it's a success,

Or what,

What's your plan for the next thing?

Or like,

What do you what do you see as the next thing?

Or have you looked into that with this your work,

Your career,

The next projects?

And so I do want to take some time to rest.

That was really important for me,

Because I was,

You know,

Like,

The people I'm working with,

They will are a lot about like,

What's the next product and like,

How you're going to upsell?

I was like,

Like,

I need some time to process all that's changed through the summit,

And then refocus from there.

And so I have a lot of ideas.

So I've started coaching people.

And that's something I definitely want to continue doing.

I don't want this to be the,

You know,

I don't want to be just a coach,

It feels kind of weird to me when people only basically,

Like,

They're,

They're promising other people to be successful,

But the only thing they're doing is coaching.

Like,

It doesn't feel true to me,

You know,

Like,

Like marketers teach marketers how to market.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So I mean,

I see a lot of potential with evolving men,

Just like by the feedback that I'm getting.

And,

You know,

There are lots of options.

And I'm not at a stage where I'm committed to go into any particular direction,

But I'm clear that I'm going to continue with this.

Because,

You know,

Just given by what people are telling me,

They want it.

So and I'm excited sharing it.

So yeah,

I'd imagine it'll probably take different forms over time.

Totally.

Awesome.

Cool.

So,

What,

How are you going to decompress?

Do you have a plan for rest?

I didn't even really have time yet to think about it.

So you know,

I have the summit ends on,

Ends in five days.

And in case people are watching this late,

You do still have an option to access a few interviews,

Even if it's over.

And so I think I'll be fully done,

Like briefly before Christmas,

And then I'll have some time to think about it.

But well,

You know,

It's my birthday at the end of December,

And my partner and I will have some days together,

Probably also over New Year's.

I'd love to be somewhere in nature and just fully disconnect.

Yeah,

Just be in nature.

Really slow down,

Calm down.

And then,

Yeah,

Refocus for the new year or become clear on where it is that I want to be heading.

Cool.

Are you planning on staying in Vienna long term?

No.

So I'm quite clear that I don't want to live in a big city in the near future.

And might be that I'll be moving,

You know,

To the,

Somewhere to the countryside close to Vienna,

But it's I don't feel strongly attached to the place here right now.

Actually Bali is something that's been calling me because a friend of mine is there and amazing stuff happening there.

Yeah,

I've heard really cool things.

It's a really good cocoon for me.

That's where I launched the course that you're in.

I was just in nature in isolation almost every day and I had a very,

Very clear mind.

And it was great.

There's a lot of fun things about Bali,

But that was mainly of my experience.

So the actual content of the summit,

And you've been doing this work for a while,

You knew some of the speakers already.

Was there anything in particular that jumped out of you as like an aha versus,

Okay,

I'm extracting this to share with the audience?

Yes,

Definitely.

So one thing was to understand.

So I for a long time had this perspective of our culture is hyper masculine and we don't understand the value of femininity.

And I still think that's very true.

And that's one of the challenges for really like the collective to understand that the masculine and the feminine,

They're equally important and equally valid and actually weakening one will weaken the other as well.

But that's been,

That's something that's been more present for me already,

But through the summit,

Something that I've realized is that we,

As a culture also don't understand many,

Many of the ways masculinity is expressing itself.

So that's,

That's something that we were talking about male aggression and how,

You know,

I was talking to another guy,

Um,

He calls it sacred masculinity,

Like what aspects of masculinity are actually life generating.

And we were talking about how it's hard,

It might be harder to see with certain ways of expressing masculinity,

How that's life generating like killing,

For example,

Like it's harder to understand how that fits into the cycle of life,

But it does like when,

You know,

He was giving the example,

Example of Wolf killing deer so that the deer population stays at a particular,

Um,

Level so that they don't eat all the trees.

Like it's all part of the,

Of the,

Of the ecosystem.

There's an episode about that too.

I don't know if you watch that.

What?

Magic school bus.

Maybe it's a bit different.

I don't know.

I'm too young for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was one particularly striking thing.

And that's something that came up with a few of the guys where,

Yeah,

They said,

We don't understand the importance of masculine qualities of like setting boundaries of protecting,

Of being aggressive.

Like we don't understand how that fits into the whole cycle of life.

And it's a lot easier to,

To see how,

You know,

Some of the things we connect with the feminine are life generating,

Like actually giving life,

Like birthing life,

Nurturing,

But that the masculine is equally important and we don't see that.

And it's something that,

Yeah,

In our current culture is just not being acknowledged and appreciated.

And I think that's something that many men are lacking,

Like the being acknowledged,

Being appreciated for what they're bringing into the world.

Yeah.

This was something that came up a lot during the weekend summit at integrated man summit.

A lot of people grew up in this idea that androgyny is the best way,

Like reduce all the sexual polarity and it's like missing.

And these guys they're miserable because they can't date.

They don't know what their purpose is,

Et cetera.

And it's tied to the many other things you just brought up.

I'm curious,

What does,

Did your sister think,

Or did she engage with the work you're doing at all?

Yeah.

I mean,

We're in touch and we're having conversations.

I guess it helps to ask also what kind of feminist is she?

Is she like a militant person or is she seeking androgyny or something like that?

Because there's many different,

One of the issues I used to call myself a feminist until I realized just being,

The word has been attached to all these different things that are beyond women's rights.

Yeah.

What kind of feminist is she?

And in my eyes,

She's in many ways a really cool feminist because she was very excited when I told her about my project.

And I think it's been part of her growth and her growing understanding that men are suffering a lot as well.

And that this kind of us against them only brings us up to a certain point.

And I think there are still elements where from my perspective,

Her pain is so strong that she cannot like sort of relax as an acknowledge her own pain and like meet eye to eye where it becomes kind of like confrontational in a way that I find we're not actually hearing each other.

So that still happens.

But I think she very much sees the validity of what I'm bringing in.

And I think she is able to see with more differentiation,

Just like with feminism,

That there are aspects of men's work that is really misogynist and then aspects that is really where the objective ultimately is the same,

Even if perspectives differ.

Right.

Right.

This is important note.

And actually,

I brought that up this weekend about containing the feminine and like,

I guess this is being displayed with your sister,

Like recognizing that if she throws a lot of charge at you,

It is her pain.

And you being like the man,

You know,

Or reaching into your fatherly archetype,

Which is weird with your sister,

But reaching into like,

You know,

Older men,

Archetypes,

Build a tone,

Whatever slices of sword she throws at you,

Because yeah,

Not about you.

Yeah.

But you know,

While honoring my boundaries,

And especially with family.

Well,

I think we just lost David,

One of the issues of doing these virtually.

But I assume he almost got his entire points.

We'll see.

Yeah,

Well,

Anyway,

Just to close this off,

You can check out David's work and what he's working on at the Evolving Men's Summit.

The link of URL will be attached to this interview.

And I,

If you want to end by saying,

I was really inspired by him just putting this on because I'm only a few years older than him,

But it is very reminiscent of my journey,

Right?

I wanted to learn something,

I went on this hero's journey without knowing the concept yet.

And then I'm,

This transformation bubbled up into a point where it's like,

Oh,

I want to share stuff.

And learning how to share the things in a way that both sustain me financially,

But also really serve people was his own journey.

It was as another,

I would actually call it the guides journey.

It's like the next level of,

Or it's what happens after the hero returns and is transformed,

But wants to do something with this transformation.

So that is to say that this has been awesome.

Check out the Evolving Men's Summit.

My interview with him goes up December 6.

So if you're watching it before December 6,

You're listening to this before December 6,

2018,

Check that out.

I believe it's going to be available for free for 24 hours.

This is Ruan,

You're listening to the podcast and we're going to close out.

Goodbye.

Hey,

Thanks for listening to the podcast.

If you want to catch the rest of my work,

Go to ruandoh.

Com,

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I'm Ruan and please do not forget to subscribe.