Men Have Lost Initiation ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
163.8799
Summary
In this episode, I talk about what it means to be a man and why we don t have a clear line between boyhood and manhood in our culture today. I also talk about why men don t feel like men anymore and why this is a problem.
Transcript
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And here's the hard truth. Nobody is coming to initiate you. Nobody's going to step up and do
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this for you. Not your dad, not your coach, not the government, not society at large, not your
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wife. If you missed the boat and many of us did, I did, then you have to initiate yourself. So what
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does that actually look like? Well, it looks like stepping into voluntary hardship. It looks like
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working out. It looks like pursuing things. It looks like taking risks. It looks like taking
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on challenge. It looks like discipline when nobody around you is watching. What time do you get up?
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It looks like choosing responsibility before you feel ready.
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Men, there was a time when a boy knew when he became a man. It really wasn't ambiguous. It
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wasn't self-declared like Michael Scott screaming, I declare bankruptcy. It wasn't based on his
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age alone. It was earned. And across all cultures, whether it was the Spartan warriors or Native
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American tribes or African tribes or even the early American frontier, boys were tested before they
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became quote unquote men. They were taken into the wilderness. They endured hardship. They faced
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fear. They carried responsibility. And when they came back, they were changed. They were welcomed
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to the seat at the table of men. They weren't boys anymore. They were initiated. But today we don't have
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any of that. Outside of military or sports, all of that has gone away. There's no clear line between
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boyhood and manhood. There's no trial. There's no rites of passages. No older men calling younger men
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forward. And instead we have extended adolescence. And that's the best way to describe it. We have
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taken our youthful years of boys and we have just extended it perpetually. And this is why you have
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30, 35, 40, 50 year old men who don't act like men. They're grown, but they're not men. They're acting
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like boys. They're 35 year old boys, 40 year old boys, 50 year old boys. I know, you know, people like
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this. I know plenty of women who know men like this. They're, they're, they're guys with beards and
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mortgages, but no internal initiation. And I hear from men just about every single day who tell me and
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express that they do not feel like men. They feel inferior. They feel inadequate. They feel unqualified
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to step up into the role that the world and their families and society demands. And there's a cost
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associated with this fact at this point that men are not being initiated because when that disappears,
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when we have stripped that away from society, then the responsibility that we as men have,
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it gets delayed. It gets pushed back. And that's why you see a lot of guys who are victims and
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perpetually blaming all of their woes on somebody else. Discipline becomes optional because there's
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no consequence to not being disciplined. A commitment that you have for other people and
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yourself feels like it might just be negotiable. Hardship that you might face in life feels unfair.
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I mean, how many guys have you heard complain about it's my right, my right, my right, my right to a
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fair and decent wage, my, my right to housing, my right to healthcare. What, what right are you
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talking about? Who, who, who gave you that right that you're talking about? You look at the animal
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kingdom, there's no rights. And it's the same for us. There's no rights that you have other than what
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is given to us by God. And God hasn't given us a right to food and housing. He hasn't given us a right
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to healthcare. He hasn't given us a right to decent livable wages, but our founders decided
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that we wanted to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that's
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biblical. God has given us agency. He's given us freedom to make our own choices for better or worse.
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And then our right, if anything, is to suffer the consequences, positive or negative of the choices
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that we make. And the problem is that nobody has ever told a man that this is the weight of manhood.
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So carry it. There's a legion of young men and old men who are walking around thinking that they are
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owed something from everybody. I heard an interview with a guy who is on snap benefits, uh, just earlier
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today. And he said, you know, these, these benefits are expiring and they're going away. And I don't know
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how I'm going to make my living. And I don't know how I'm going to make my food. And if I'm going to
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be required to work 20 hours a week, then what other benefits am I going to get? And this is a
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pathetic loser. There's no other way to say it. This is a pathetic man who never learned what it means
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to be a man. And it's easy to spot in those moments, but you're probably doing it too, to some
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degree. We're waiting on big daddy government or mommy and daddy or our wife or whoever to solve all of
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our problems. Well, what do I get out of it? I don't know. What are you going to create?
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Because what culture tells people, men specifically to do, and there's a clear and deliberate reason
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for this. And we can talk about it is to stay comfortable is to avoid any sort of risk to protect
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your feelings, to search after happiness, to not offend anybody. Don't lead too assertively or too
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boldly. It might come across as aggressive. I just had a woman message me on Instagram because
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I had said something clear and decisively. I wasn't a jerk about it. I just said what I believe. And she
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said, you're being aggressive. Why? I'm not being aggressive. She probably just doesn't know or isn't
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familiar with the way a assertive, bold, masculine man communicates. And she interprets it as aggressiveness.
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And what most men will do is they'll cower and they'll buckle and they'll fold because a woman said, you're being
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too aggressive. I don't care about that. And you shouldn't care either. Now, should we determine for
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ourselves whether we're being aggressive or not? Sure, but we can be assertive. But if anybody says to us that we're
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being aggressive because they've never seen it before, that's not my problem. That's somebody else's problem.
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And then we wonder as we're crying about men being too aggressive or too assertive or too bold or too
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confrontational or too assertive that we wonder why we don't feel like men and why we feel lost.
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You cannot expect a man to act like a man if he was never forged into one. And it's ironic when you hear
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women and culture in general who will blast and chastise and mock and criticize and ridicule men
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for being bold and assertive and courageous and taking risks and stepping into the fire when nobody
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else will. And then at the same time, as you mock them and they cower and they buckle, then you'll say,
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where have all the real men gone? You don't, you don't have the right if we're talking about rights to
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say that. You don't get to undermine masculinity at every step and then ask where all the masculine
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men are. You turn them mothers, single mothers, society, teachers, school teachers, the medical
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community, entertainment. You don't get to undermine men and then complain about men not showing up the
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way that you would want them to. You did this to yourself. Guys, there's a missing fire within men
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and initiation into manhood has always involved three very, very specific things. And up until the
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relative ease of modernity, have we stepped away from these things? So let's talk about it. All right.
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Number one, when it comes to initiation throughout all of culture and all of human history, and there's
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no exception to this rule, literally zero exception, a boy was removed from the comfort of his situation.
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He was removed from his mother. He was removed from his tribe. He was removed from the village. He was
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removed from resources that he didn't provide himself. He was literally ripped away. He was kidnapped and
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pulled out of that environment. We removed discomfort. Okay. We've done that with, there's no level of
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discomfort that people have anymore. We've removed physical challenge. There's no real risk in life.
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There's no testing. And without that testing, there's no transformation. I made this analogy the
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other day that if, if you have kids, you understand that kids just want to touch the stovetop, right?
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They want to put their hand on the stovetop. It glows and it's red and it's enticing. And you tell them,
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no, no, no, no. And still they want to put their hand on that stove. And once they do, they realize that
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hurts. I'm not doing that again. And sometimes it takes being burned to learn, but let me run
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something past you. Imagine that you had no nerve endings. Imagine that if you put, or your child put
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their hand on the stove and they couldn't feel that it hurt. Would that mean that the stovetop was less
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dangerous? No, because even if you couldn't feel it, it would still do damage to your hand.
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So the point that I'm making is that the, the consequence, the, the sting, the hurt, the burn,
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the pain, that's the benefit. What that's doing is telling you it's training you not to touch the
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stovetop anymore. Without that, you'd still do it, but you wouldn't feel it, but you'd still get
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burned. You'd still damage your skin and your body. And so as men, oftentimes we think, well,
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I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to experience that. I don't want to go through that
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hardship. I want to ease that suffering. And so we have big daddy government and social institutions
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that come in and rescue us. But you know what? The benefit of pain is undeniable. You have to feel
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pain without it. You would never learn. You would never grow. So if you're sad or sorry, or angry or
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mad or frustrated or contentious, good, good to steal a, a quote from Jocko. Good. You should be in pain.
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You should feel sorry. You should feel sad. You should feel mad. You should feel angry. Now,
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the way we express that is up for conversation, but if you're not feeling that, then it doesn't
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matter enough to you. And the pain has to be there. It's part of initiation. Too many young men have
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never been initiated that way. Okay. Number two is there has to be trial. Now there was a task.
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Typically what happened in ancient villages and tribes and, and culture is that the boy was stripped
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away. Just talked about that. And then he was put into an environment where he had a trial. There was
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a task. There was a hunt. There was a fast. Maybe, uh, maybe it was a battle. It was a journey in the
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wilderness, something that forced a young man to confront the fear. But today we numb all of that fear.
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We scroll, we do scroll, right? We game, uh, we watch porn. We get into alcohol and substance abuse.
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We distract ourselves from the reality of our lives. And you don't become a man by avoiding fear.
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You become a man by walking directly into it in the face of fear. It's not that you shouldn't have
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fear. Of course, we all are fearful at times, but you're going to walk forward in spite of it.
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And that's what helps you become a man. And then number three, and this is the last like main
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component. There's a lot to it, but, and I've studied this for 10 years, there's some sort of
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recognition. Okay. When a young man was stripped away from all that he knew and he was put into some
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sort of obstacle trial or adversity. The third component is that there was recognition of who he
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became. When he returned, the older men said, you're now one of us. And then what they traditionally
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did is they marked that individual tattoo. Um, they, they, they burned him, maybe even circumcision
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or pierced him. And there was some sort of recognition that he has now become a man and that
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acknowledgement matters. It matters. Okay. Today men are either criticized or they're completely
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ignored, but there's very little affirmation earned strength. How amazing would it feel
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if your wife came to you tonight when you got home and said, Hey babe, I just want to tell you,
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I appreciate you going to work. I appreciate you battling what you battle. I appreciate you
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sacrificing for our family. And I want to acknowledge that we recognize your effort, your sacrifice,
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your commitment, your dedication, that's recognition. Ladies, if you're listening and you're not doing
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that for your husband, you should start doing that for your husband, not without warrant, but when he
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actually does something good, you should acknowledge it because I'm telling you flat out. Women are praised.
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They're pedestalized. They're, they're complimented. They're flirted with all the time.
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You don't know what it's like to be a man who doesn't receive that acknowledgement and recognition.
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You think because through your own lens, that that just happens because of who you are. It doesn't
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happen for men. And it's your job as your husband's wife to acknowledge what he's doing. Now, guys, that's not
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to say that we do things for acknowledgement. Two things can exist at once. She should acknowledge you.
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And recognize your sacrifices and you should need it. You should do it because it's intrinsically who
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you are. But acknowledgement and recognition is huge. So what happens as a result of us not having
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initiation? Ask yourself this. Consider this. Do you feel like you're drifting? Do you feel like you're
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chasing comfort? Do you feel like you're chasing validation from your woman or from, from your
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clients or your boss or whoever your kids, whoever it might be? Do you chase women around hoping that
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they'll choose you? Do you chase money? Do you chase status? But even though in spite of those
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pursuits, you don't feel grounded, you don't feel grounded. I've been there. I've chased money.
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I've chased women. I've chased validation. I've chased comfort. I do all of these things daily,
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actually. And I have to fight against that. And I have been initiated the way that I'm talking about
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today. But I can tell you when I don't pursue those things, I don't, well, pursue, pursuit is one
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thing, but chase is different. We can talk about that another time. If I don't chase those things,
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I feel like I've proven my worth to myself. I don't need to prove it to a woman. I don't need
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to prove it to a client or a colleague or a coworker or a boss or my kids. I don't need to prove it to
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anybody. I feel internally like I've tested myself. An untested man is always, always seeking proof.
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He's always seeking validation because he's always lacking. There's a gap between, I call this the
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integrity gap. There's a gap between what he knows or wants himself to be and who he actually is.
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And because that gap exists, instead of working towards bridging that gap, he reaches out to other
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people and says, will you do this for me? Will you build this bridge for me? And nobody can build it
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for you. They might try because they love you and care about you. They might try to pull you along or
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rescue you or throw you a rope or do whatever they can. And they, they try diligently, but guys,
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they can't build your bridge. You have to build that bridge. You have to, and here's the hard truth.
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Nobody is coming to initiate you. Nobody's going to step up and do this for you. Not your dad,
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not your coach, not the government, not society at large, not your wife. If you missed the boat and
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many of us did, I did, then you have to initiate yourself. So what does that actually look like?
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Well, it looks like stepping into voluntary hardship. It looks like working out. It looks like pursuing
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things. It looks like taking risks. It looks like taking on challenge. It looks like discipline when
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nobody around you is watching. What time do you get up? Even though nobody's going to ask you what
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time you got up. It looks like choosing responsibility before you feel ready. How many
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guys will say, well, that's above my pay grade when it comes to an opportunity at work. Okay. Then stay
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stuck. That's fine. But don't cry when somebody else gets chosen for the opportunity that you
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complained about you not getting. You didn't do the work. It looks like telling the truth when it
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costs you. You know, even in the dating world, you think about it's like, how many dates have we gone
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on where, you know, maybe there wasn't a connection and instead of just talking to the person and being
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honest and respectful, you just ghost. Don't do that. Just talk to the person. Hey, there wasn't a
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connection. Or maybe your wife is doing something and it bothers you and you're like, no, I'm fine. I'm
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good. I'm fine. And then one day you blow up. That's not leadership. It's not initiation.
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Initiation is saying, hey, babe, I've got a problem with the way that you talked to me last night.
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And here's why it bothered me. And here's why it frustrates me. And here's how I would like to be
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talked to. She would actually appreciate that, by the way, ironically.
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Lack of initiation looks like staying when it's easier to leave.
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It looks like lifting heavy objects physically and metaphorically. It looks like walking into
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the arena, the battlefield of life and being exposed to critique and risk and frustration and all of
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these things that you're going to inevitably face. But if you want initiation, then you need to commit
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to your marriage fully and you need to do hard things. You need to raise your children deliberately.
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You need to go out and build something. How many of you have ideas and thoughts and insights and
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things that you want to accomplish? You need to build something from nothing.
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You need to step up and lead when others hesitate and shrink away and pull away and hide and cower.
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You need to step up. You need to train your body when you don't feel like it. Go to the gym. Hey,
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I woke up this morning and I didn't feel like it. I don't care what you felt like. Go to the gym.
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Go get it done. You need to join a band of men who are going to hold you accountable.
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Brotherhood is actually modern initiation. You didn't go to the military. You didn't maybe play
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sports after high school. Having a brotherhood of men who will hold you accountable is initiation.
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The hardship that you choose if it's done voluntarily and voluntarily is important,
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that's modern initiation. So if you're a man who's listening to this podcast and you're like,
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man, I don't feel like a man. I didn't have a dad around. I didn't have anybody to teach me these
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things. Good. So what? You're 25 years old. You're 30 years old. You're 40 years old. You're 50 years
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old. You're still waiting for daddy to come save you? Volunteer. Step up. And this matters because
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culture is confused about men right now. It really is. Some people will say masculinity is toxic.
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A lot of people will say it's under attack. Some will say even masculinity is outdated
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or unnecessary. But the real issue isn't masculinity. It's the absence of masculinity.
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Disciplined. Dangerous. Grounded. These are the type of men who aren't toxic. They're stabilizing.
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They protect. They're steady. They step up. And a culture, despite what social media might tell you,
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desperately needs you to be initiated. So I've got a challenge for you today.
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I want you, I want to ask you a couple of questions. I want you to write these down if you can,
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if you're in a place where you can write it down. Number one, where have I avoided initiation?
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Number two, where am I still acting like a boy? Is it in your marriage, your business, your life,
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your fatherhood? Where am I still acting like a boy? Number three, where am I willing to be chosen
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instead of choosing? Where am I be, where am I willing to be chosen instead of choosing?
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And then the second part of that is to do something difficult this week.
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Not reckless. Okay. Not, not dangerous, not performative, but, but something difficult,
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a hard conversation, a hard decision, waking up when the alarm goes off,
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having some discipline, joining a brotherhood, going to an event, starting that new project,
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asking for a raise, starting a business, asking for a promotion. There's an endless list of things
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that I know are on your minds and too many men aren't doing them because they're little boys.
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They're, they're little children where they don't think they can ask out of life, what they want
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life. And I heard this quote a long time ago, we'll give you exactly what you ask of it.
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So if you're not happy with where you are, then maybe you ought to start asking some better
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questions. Life is giving you exactly what you ask for guys. Initiation isn't about ego. It's
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about integrating your entire life and becoming more of the man that you want to be. And more of
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the man that the people in your life need you to be. It's about becoming someone who can carry the
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burden and the mantle of masculinity without buckling, without folding, without crumbling.
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Think about that metaphor for a minute. You got a pack on you and it's a hundred pounds.
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How long can you carry that pack? Are you going to buckle? Are you going to fold? Are you going to
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collapse because that weight is too much? Or are you just going to soldier on?
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Are you going to carry that weight diligently and do your job and have responsibility? That's what
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people need of you. The world doesn't need louder men. It's a bit ironic because I'm on social media
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trying to be as loud as I can be to share these concepts and insights, but it doesn't need louder
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men. It needs steadier men to step up in a very powerful way.
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The steadiness that you need to have in your life, it's forged. It's not just gifted to you. It's
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built through initiation. So I want you to choose the fire. And when you walk through it, you don't
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need somebody else to declare that you're a man. You don't need somebody else to say what a man is.
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Even me, you don't need me to say a real man should. You won't need any of that. You'll just
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know. You'll know I'm a man. You'll know you're a man. And you'll have confidence and boldness and
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courage as you lead your family, yourself and your business and your life, your community,
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every aspect of it. Guys, I want all of us to be initiated. All of that has been stripped away.
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Some of us self-imposed, some of us externally imposed, but we need to initiate each other.
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We need to initiate ourselves and we need to be men in a world that is critically, critically lacking
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men. If you want to know more about this, you can head to orderman.com and learn. You could
00:24:49.820
subscribe to the podcast, or if you're really ready to initiate yourself, then join the Iron Council
00:24:54.920
at orderman.com slash Iron Council. If you're not ready for that commitment, then come out and meet
00:25:00.420
with us in April for three days and we'll tell you what you need and we'll show you a way to be
00:25:06.640
initiated into manhood with hundreds of other guys. You can go to themensforge.com and check that out
00:25:13.420
April 23rd through the 26th. So you've got your marching orders. You need to initiate yourself because
00:25:17.860
nobody else is going to do it. Join us at orderman.com slash Iron Council or join us at
00:25:23.140
themensforge.com. Guys, I hope that helps. I hope that serves you. We will be back for our interview
00:25:30.120
next week. Until then, go out there, take action, and become a man you. Amen.
00:25:35.260
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be
00:25:40.380
more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.