What does it mean to be a man and what does it take to become a man? What role does masculinity play in our lives and how can we reclaim it? In this episode, Ryan talks about the importance of reclaiming masculinity and how we can reclaim what it means to be manly.
00:00:00.000You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:06.020When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.500You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.500This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.760At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.720Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast.
00:00:31.080I want to welcome you, whether you're here for the very first time or you've been tuning in for the past three, three and a half years.
00:00:36.720We need more men in this fight than ever. And I talk about it being a fight because it is.
00:00:41.140I think there's this dismissal and attack against what it means to be a man and masculinity altogether,
00:00:46.040which is the topic of the conversation I want to have with you today, which we'll get into here in a minute.
00:00:51.520Now, if you are new, let me give you a quick synopsis of what this show is about.
00:00:55.700I am interviewing the world's most successful men, New York Times bestselling authors, athletes, scholars, warriors.
00:01:02.800If they've got an interesting story, if they're successful in life, I'm interviewing these men.
00:01:07.380I'm asking them questions. I'm extracting their wisdom, their experience, and then, of course, delivering that to you so that you can improve your life as a man,
00:01:15.120as a husband, a father, a business owner, a community leader, whatever facet of life that you're showing up as.
00:01:20.500It's my goal to give you the tools, the resources, the conversations, and the framework that you need in order to achieve on all levels, on all fronts.
00:01:28.440So I want to welcome you here. If you've been here for any amount of time and you've gotten any value out of the show,
00:01:33.600I would ask that you please, please, please, please leave us a rating and review.
00:01:38.620Guys, it goes such a long way. It's only going to take you a minute or two, and it's a very humble and simple ask.
00:01:45.260Go into iTunes, leave a rating and review, and that way more men can hear about the message that we're sharing.
00:01:51.180And the one that I'm going to share with you today about reclaiming the definition is something that men across the planet and world need to hear because it's critical.
00:01:59.660It's critical that we understand what masculinity is in the first place and then how we can harness and use masculinity to produce effective outcomes for ourselves and ultimately the people that we care about.
00:02:12.740So I'm going to get into this conversation here in a minute. Before I do, I want to give you another quick announcement of our legacy event.
00:02:20.960Now, guys, this is a father-son event. It's our very first one. It's being held September 20th through the 23rd, 2018 in the mountains of Southern Utah.
00:02:30.380You get to Las Vegas with your son. We take care of the rest.
00:02:33.700We're going to pick you up, bring you to the cabins, and we're going to have an incredible weekend,
00:02:38.320which is designed to push you, test you mentally, physically, emotionally, and then help give you the tools and the resources and the guidance and the conversation that you need to help usher your son into manhood.
00:02:51.160Now, I will say that with the boys, they need to be between the ages of 8 to 15.
00:02:56.0208 to 15, again, the dates are September 20th through the 23rd, 2018.
00:03:00.760And I think as of right now, we have four spots remaining, only four spots.
00:03:05.380I know it's coming up quick. We are going to sell this thing out and I would love to see you and your son there.
00:03:09.920If you're interested, head to orderofman.com slash legacy.
00:03:16.580All right, guys, with that said, let's just jump right into this conversation.
00:03:20.620I did a little research as I was planning on what I wanted to talk with you about today.
00:03:26.340And I got to tell you, I'm excited to have this conversation because I know it's a topic that's of interest to you.
00:03:31.780I have gotten so many emails and messages and texts and everything else with men asking about my take and my opinion on the commercial that was put out by a company called Bonobos, which was hashtag evolve the definition.
00:03:51.000And essentially what they're saying is they want to evolve or redefine what the definition of masculinity is.
00:03:58.720Look, you can be masculine or you can be feminine, but you can't just hijack and take a word and make it mean whatever it is that you want it to mean.
00:04:09.400Well, I guess you can. You can do that, but it doesn't make it right.
00:04:13.420And I think that we're facing some real issues when there's organizations and people in general who are dismissing masculinity and how critical it is in society today.
00:04:24.180And it is. I made a post the other day about what it means to be masculine.
00:04:29.820And please don't misunderstand me here.
00:04:31.940There is a difference between being masculine and being a man, which means that even women can display and exhibit masculine characteristics at times.
00:04:42.640And men, on the other hand, can also exhibit and display feminine characteristics at times.
00:04:48.580Masculinity in and of itself does not make you the man that you're capable of being.
00:04:53.720It's a component, sure, but it's not the only element of this.
00:04:57.540And it's important that we understand the correct term, the correct definition, what it is that we're talking about here and why, again, it's so critical that we learn how to harness and utilize masculinity in our lives to produce effective outcomes for ourselves, for our families, our businesses, our communities, our nations, essentially the people that we have a responsibility to serve and to take care of.
00:05:53.720And I agree with a lot of what I have to say, but I had some people that wanted to come out and argue with me about the fact that masculinity is not, in fact, those things that just isn't true.
00:06:04.900And specifically, they took issue with my comments of masculinity being aggression and violence, how it was immature and how real men don't do that.
00:06:15.760Again, I come back to the fact that masculinity and manliness are different.
00:06:19.600Masculinity is the raw hormones and the physiology of the way our brains and bodies work that create some of this aggression and the ability to do violence.
00:06:30.120Manliness, on the other hand, is the ability to harness masculinity in a way that's going to, again, I said this before, produce effective outcomes for everybody involved.
00:06:39.360We'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute, but I am amazed at how much confusion there is between what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be masculine, what it means to be feminine.
00:06:52.580And it's ridiculous. I don't even know why it's controversial, why we're trying to evolve the definition, why we're trying to make it mean something that it isn't, because each of those virtues that I listed, courage, risk-taking, strength, aggression, violence, none of those are inherently bad.
00:07:11.040In fact, all of those, in certain scenarios, are desirable traits in men.
00:07:15.840And the reason they are is because when the wolf comes knocking at the door, and that wolf could mean a natural disaster, it could mean an emergency, it could mean a violent encounter with another individual, it could be a potential battle or war.
00:07:29.920But when that wolf comes knocking at the door, if we've redefined what it means to be masculine, and we've asked men not to be masculine, there will be no one to defend, there will be no one to protect, there will be no one to ward off that wolf.
00:07:46.280And obviously, that's going to put us in a very, very compromising situation.
00:07:50.000It's always fascinating when I hear people talk about how bad men are and how toxic it is, and yet nobody complains when men are stepping up to do the work of men, when we're stepping into natural disasters, or when our police or fire departments are stepping into harm's way in order to serve the people that they're serving.
00:08:11.320You know, we had a little situation here the other night, I was working out with my wife in our shop in our gym out back, and we smelled smoke, we couldn't see the smoke, we could smell it, and it got worse and worse over the period of a half an hour.
00:08:22.780We went into the other part of the shop where we could smell it the most and couldn't figure out what it was.
00:08:28.320So we called the non-emergency line for the fire department and had them come out, and they were here with two police officers within a matter of two or three minutes, came out, isolated the problem,
00:08:40.240which was the casing of one of our fluorescent lights had burned, the wiring had burned inside of the casing there, and then some of the surrounding area.
00:08:50.420They said everything was fine, but you know what?
00:08:52.000Nobody complains about toxic masculinity when we have guys doing this, or when a police officer is responding to a call, or when our soldiers are going off to war to fight off the enemy.
00:09:03.860And if we complain about masculinity when times are good, nobody's going to be around when times are not.
00:09:11.440So I say we don't evolve the definition like bonobos and some of these other organizations would have you believe, but that we reclaim what it means to be masculine.
00:09:22.260Now, I want to share something with you because it's easy for me to talk about my opinion and my belief and how this all works, but I don't want to just share that with you.
00:09:32.600I want to get a little bit more specific with you.
00:09:35.560So I'm going to read some excerpts from a book here.
00:09:38.520The book is called The Male Brain, and the author is Luann Brizendine, I think is how her name is pronounced.
00:09:46.700I'm trying to have her come on the show, so we're working on that as well.
00:09:49.460But she wrote this fascinating book about how the male brain works, and it's not just a woman's opinion.
00:09:54.960She is a medical doctor, and she talks about the physiology of the brain.
00:09:58.360She talks about the hormones that are coursing through our bodies and how it makes us behave as men.
00:10:03.840So I'm going to break down a couple of excerpts here and share with you what she has said on some of the topics.
00:10:10.840So bear with me because this is important, and it will tie into the rest of the conversation.
00:10:14.460So I want to share with you a couple of elements of the male brain.
00:10:18.460The first, and I might butcher the names of these because the pronunciations are a little challenging at times,
00:10:24.260but the first is the medial preoptic area, and it says here, this is the area for sexual pursuit found in the hypothalamus,
00:10:32.180and it is two and a half times larger in the male men need it to start an erection.
00:10:36.740The second component, the temporal parietal junction, the solution seeker, this cognitive empathy brain hub rallies the brain's resources to solve distressing problems
00:10:48.680while taking into account the perspective of the other person or people involved.
00:10:54.220During interpersonal emotional exchanges, it's more active in the male brain, comes online more quickly,
00:11:01.460and races towards a, quote, fix-it-fast solution.
00:11:05.440The third is the dorsal premammillary nucleus.
00:12:21.100He furvishly builds all that is male, including the compulsion to outrank other males in the pecking order.
00:12:27.460He drives the masculine sweat glands to produce the come-hither smell of manhood.
00:12:33.100He activates the sex aggression circuits, and he's single-minded in his dogged pursuit of his desired mate.
00:12:41.060Prized for his confidence and bravery, he can be a convincing seducer, but when he's irritable, he can be the grouchiest of bears.
00:12:48.200Vasopressin, she says here, the white knight.
00:12:52.120Vasopressin is the hormone of gallantry and monogamy, aggressively protecting and defending turf, mate, and children.
00:13:00.880Along with testosterone, he runs the male brain circuits and enhances masculinity.
00:13:06.280Now, there's other hormones, of course, including cortisol, dopamine, even estrogen, but these are primarily the male and masculine hormones.
00:13:16.540I want you to understand that because these are scientific terms.
00:13:41.360Now, again, all of these characteristics are important in men because if we're faced with, for example, a natural disaster or a war or a potential threat,
00:13:51.840we want to exhibit these masculine characteristics in order to ward off those threats, in order to keep people protected, in order to keep ourselves safe.
00:14:02.400I don't understand why there is this complete dismissal.
00:14:06.100Now, if you're hearing this and you're a man and you feel like that doesn't describe you, that's okay.
00:14:12.000But that doesn't mean that masculinity is something else.
00:14:15.280It means that maybe you're not as masculine as the next guy.
00:14:22.760Obviously, these are very masculine men who probably have higher levels of testosterone and vasopressin that are causing them to behave that way.
00:14:33.220Now, just because you don't have these higher levels or aren't as quote unquote masculine does not make you less of a man.
00:14:40.100Because as I said earlier, there is a difference between masculinity and manliness.
00:14:44.920Masculinity is the physiology of our brains and our bodies.
00:14:48.540It's also the hormones, the chemicals that are going through our bodies in order to create the behaviors that we generally exhibit more of than our female counterparts.
00:15:01.020But that doesn't mean that you can't be a man because manliness is about harnessing the tools that we have, the physiology, the brain makeup, and the chemicals, the hormones going through our bodies in order to produce the outcomes that we're after.
00:15:17.860And what's interesting in studying and doing some research in this is as we get older and as we become men, for example, our testosterone levels naturally decrease and other hormones take over so that we can be better caretakers or providers for our families and our loved ones.
00:15:35.560So again, this is, this is, this is not subject to interpretation.
00:15:40.760It simply means that masculinity is the hardwiring and the physiology of who we are.
00:15:47.640And I'll tell you what, this is important.
00:15:53.480I know men who are more feminine, but that doesn't make them any less manly.
00:15:58.720As long as a man is out there doing what he needs to do and the way he needs to do it and feels he needs to do it.
00:16:04.760And he's protecting, he's providing, and he's presiding over himself, his family, his business, his community, and the people that he has an obligation and responsibility for.
00:16:14.460I believe he is acting in a manly manner.
00:16:17.320Sometimes that's going to require a healthy dose of masculinity and other times it's going to require a healthy dose of femininity.
00:16:23.660Now, when I think of femininity, what I think of is nurturing, compassion, empathy, kindness, love, all things that a man can exhibit as well.
00:16:34.820It's not necessarily exclusive to women.
00:16:52.980And so at times I need to tap into some other energy in order to produce the outcome for myself and produce the outcome for them.
00:17:01.820But what I want you to understand is that this dismissal at best in this downright and all out assault on masculinity is also an assault on femininity.
00:17:13.060See, I think there's this goal, this objective to make men and women the exact same.
00:18:35.200They'll say, I can't believe you stay at home and you have this degree and you should be out in the workforce creating this and doing this good work.
00:18:40.960As if staying at home and turning our house into a home and raising our children with love and kindness and empathy and compassion and supportiveness isn't noble work.
00:18:53.600If it isn't noble work, I can't think of what is.
00:18:57.160Gentlemen, I know you don't need my permission, but I'm going to say it anyways.
00:19:06.400In fact, it's encouraged that you be a man.
00:19:08.640It's encouraged that you display courage and risk-taking and strength and aggression and even violence at times when the situation calls for it.
00:19:20.980And what that means is that we are not the same.
00:19:24.040We are of equal importance, although the way that we accomplish certain tasks and what we bring to the table might be unique and might be different.
00:19:32.480And maybe, just maybe, they complement each other.
00:19:37.760I'm not going to go on and on about this all day.
00:19:40.160This gives you some insight into what I believe about that commercial, which is, again, I think it's called hashtag evolve the definition.
00:19:47.100It's quite honestly, it's pathetic, it's misguided at best, and it's destructive and dangerous to our well-being and society at worst.
00:19:56.320So, with that said, I am countering that claim instead of evolve the definition, I suggest that we reclaim the definition, that we step more into what it means to be a man, that we learn how to utilize and harness the raw masculine virtues and the hormones and the physiology that make us men.
00:20:16.800When we learn how to do that, we better society, we better our families, we better our businesses, we better the communities in which we live, and we create the outcomes that are desirable for ourselves and the people that we have an obligation and responsibility for.
00:20:32.980So, gentlemen, with that said, I want to thank you, as I always do, for being on this journey with me.
00:20:47.360Either way, if you agree with me, let me know.
00:20:49.900If you disagree, let's have a civil discussion about it because I think there's some real confusion about what masculinity is, what manliness is, and how important we are in society today.