The Art of Manliness - Help for Those Stuck Between Boyhood and Manhood

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.140 You probably know a young man or several who struggled to transition from adolescence to

00:00:15.260 adulthood. He's in his 20s, maybe even his 30s, and seems lost and in limbo, unsure how to create

00:00:20.300 an independent, flourishing life. Maybe you're this man yourself. My guest today has some ideas

00:00:24.880 on what has gone wrong in these cases and how to break out of the debilitating cycles many young

00:00:28.940 men whom he calls emerging men find themselves stuck in. His name is Gregory Koufakis and he's

00:00:33.320 a therapist, addiction counselor, and the author of The Primal Method, A Book for Emerging Men.

00:00:37.660 Greg and I begin our discussion with why many men get stuck in their transition from boyhood

00:00:41.340 to manhood, Greg's own story of arrested and frustrated development, and how working as

00:00:45.320 a 26-year-old under a 16-year-old manager was part of what he needed to do to move on from

00:00:50.040 his dream of playing professional football. We then discuss why traditional therapy methods

00:00:53.600 typically don't work for men, how Greg developed his own form of counseling that emphasizes

00:00:57.300 getting outside the therapist's office to move, take action, and participate in real

00:01:00.980 life, what Greg calls entering the agora, and why this approach is so effective. We also

00:01:05.340 discuss the things that help young men move forward, which include Greg's concepts of

00:01:08.740 emphatic challenge and holding the line, as well as finding good mentors and friends. And

00:01:12.720 we end our conversation with what men can do to start nurturing their small, latent spark

00:01:16.160 into a more powerful and purposeful fire. After the show's over, check out our show notes

00:01:20.020 at aom.is slash emerging men. Gregory joins you now via clearcast.io.

00:01:35.660 All right, Gregory Koufakis, welcome to the show.

00:01:38.840 Thank you. Good to be here.

00:01:41.160 So you are an addiction counselor, but you seem to have found your calling in working with a certain

00:01:47.540 type of, I would say, young man, a young man in his 20s, early 30s, maybe. How would you describe

00:01:54.040 the typical man you work with in your counseling work? So I work with young men, 18 to 35. They

00:02:03.220 have, on the surface, a lot of different problems. Mostly, like you said, I'm trained and specialized

00:02:09.320 in addiction. And with addiction comes a lot of other problems. But the main person that I work with

00:02:17.060 is somebody who's getting stuck in the transition from boyhood or adolescence into manhood.

00:02:25.880 Well, and I like in your book, The Primal Method, you start off describing this encounter of a young

00:02:31.020 man that you would probably counsel with a young woman about his same age. And the young man's just

00:02:36.960 sort of like, no vibrancy, no life, no vitality. You can tell he's just, there's nothing like

00:02:43.980 generative there. Nothing, there's no creative force. There's nothing, no vitality. And then you

00:02:47.840 have this young woman come in and she's like, she's got spunk and spark and vital. And I thought that

00:02:53.500 was a good, because I've seen, I've met a lot of those young men you've described.

00:02:57.400 Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's, you know, that is a true story. I remember, you know, going to the juice bar

00:03:07.120 and just sitting there and, you know, a few times in a row, I'd see this young guy and not to pick

00:03:14.940 on him. But that's why I said, this is our guy. You know, this is who we're talking about. It's

00:03:21.920 somebody who is sitting slouched over, you know, you can tell nothing is going on in his life.

00:03:30.680 He's totally disconnected. His face is kind of pale, but, you know, he probably used to be

00:03:38.940 somebody. So there's always that disconnect, you know, like who you were and who you are

00:03:46.760 and then where you're going. And it kind of gets progressively worse. It can.

00:03:54.140 And as you said, oftentimes it starts out that way, where you just sort of a young man,

00:03:58.100 be some sort of disengaged, doesn't know, listless, doesn't know where he's going in life.

00:04:01.700 And as a result, they end up in some sort of addiction, alcohol, drugs, et cetera.

00:04:07.520 Right. Yeah. When you, when you don't know where you're going and you don't have clear guidance,

00:04:15.620 the probability of you getting lost is high. And that's exactly what's happening. There's no,

00:04:25.600 there's no clear, inspired, supported direction. And this is what we have getting lost.

00:04:35.520 And why do you think there's so many young men like that today? Like, what do you think

00:04:38.400 has contributed to this uptick in men getting lost in that transition from boyhood to manhood?

00:04:44.260 Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's a good question. You know, I will say from, I haven't done a whole lot

00:04:53.400 of speculating in terms of why that is, because the people that end up working or meeting with me,

00:05:01.300 it's so obvious that there is a problem. I, I could do a lot of different speculation about it.

00:05:09.740 I think on, if I'm giving an optimistic view, I would say that males, we are evolving and we need

00:05:21.620 more than we got in the past. Like I was thinking about our conversation while I was taking a run this

00:05:29.820 morning and I was like, you know, it, it just doesn't, it just doesn't feed a man anymore to

00:05:36.640 say, well, you know, when you get 18, you go to the army. And then after that, you, you marry your

00:05:42.640 college sweetheart and then you work at the local, you know, wherever that just doesn't do it anymore.

00:05:48.880 So I think part of it is that males are hungrier for a more, a deeper like purpose. And that is the

00:05:59.640 responsibility of a culture, you know, of the community to help nurture what the young emerging

00:06:07.780 men need. And, and that's not happening. So, so it's sort of that, uh, that is what's happening.

00:06:14.780 And, you know, when you were one of these guys, you now counsel, can you tell us your story?

00:06:20.680 Cause I thought, I mean, it was, I thought it was really interesting. What, what, tell us about

00:06:24.100 your story and how did you get to where you're now helping men the way you used to be?

00:06:30.320 Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, like, like you said, I, I, I am one of the men that I used to

00:06:37.600 counsel. I had a whole lot of potential in life. I was born into a very, very good family.

00:06:46.440 They gave me everything they could. In fact, you know, my town gave me everything, you know,

00:06:52.680 the, the community, but I think, you know, for me, obviously, you know, I I've spent a lot of time

00:07:01.240 like thinking about my own story, but I, I really resisted sort of going with the flow and I,

00:07:12.000 I never really wanted to follow what my society or what my culture was, was teaching me. I just,

00:07:20.880 I just didn't want to follow, you know, uh, direction. I didn't want to follow guidance.

00:07:25.920 I did have a saving grace, which was that I was an athlete and I put everything I had into that.

00:07:32.580 But, you know, along with that, I, I started getting exposed to life and that included,

00:07:39.940 you know, different, different drugs, different, you know, temptations, gambling, just overall bad

00:07:48.240 living. And I ended up hitting a wall and hit multiple times. And it was, uh, yeah, it was,

00:07:56.860 as you said, it was a, it was a tough story. I don't really know what to say about it. It's

00:08:01.300 very, yeah. Well, just to be clear, you weren't just any athlete, like you were playing D1 football.

00:08:07.900 Yeah. That's a big deal. I mean, that's like, like 1% of high school athletes will ever get to do that.

00:08:13.140 Right. And you, you made it. Right. And I, and I only started playing football when I was a junior.

00:08:18.520 So for me, you know, it would, it required a lot of dedication and a lot of work. And,

00:08:24.880 you know, if you had asked me at the age of, you know, 17, 18, 19, my only purpose in life

00:08:34.360 was to become a professional athlete. That was, that was it. And, uh, yeah, I played division one

00:08:41.200 football and, you know, learned a lot of lessons from that, but yeah, it was, uh, the top of the

00:08:48.080 top. And as you said, during this time, you, you meant you, you hit multiple walls, like you incurred

00:08:54.340 a lot of gambling debt and then started doing drugs. And then you had these moments where you'd

00:08:58.160 bounce back and like football seemed to be your saving grace. Like you'd always like, well, I'm just

00:09:01.540 going to rededicate myself and get disciplined for football. But then you reached this moment where

00:09:06.640 you, you pretty much hit rock bottom and football was no longer there to save you. Uh, what was that

00:09:12.560 moment and how did that serve as a turning point for you? Yeah, well, I had made my decision.

00:09:19.840 I thought I made my decision to walk away from football and I was kind of at a good place with

00:09:27.240 it. I had a number of injuries and I was really starting to broaden my horizon. And I was living

00:09:36.100 out in Arizona. I was starting to get exposed to different, you know, forms of spirituality and

00:09:43.260 martial arts. And I was kind of ready to move on and, you know, step into the unknown, so to speak.

00:09:51.560 But I was at the gym one day and the quarterback on the team at the time, Ortiz Jenkins, he and I

00:10:00.060 were, were friendly. And I told him that I was, you know, I made my decision and I'm, I'm going to

00:10:05.840 move on. And he challenged me and said, you know, you're leaving on their terms. You're leaving on

00:10:12.360 the coach's terms. You're not leaving on your terms. And that, that really lit a fire under my ass.

00:10:18.960 And I started to train, you know, to, to get back into football. But at the end, you know, I, 0.98

00:10:27.280 I just couldn't, I got my body back where I needed to, but I couldn't get my academics. I had failed

00:10:33.820 out of school at that point. And I, I remember like I went in and I, I tried to get my grades changed

00:10:42.740 to become reinstated. And it just, I couldn't do it, you know? And I remember walking out of the,

00:10:52.320 the building, sitting on the pavement and just bawling. Like, I don't know, I don't know what

00:11:01.820 I'm doing. I don't know where I'm going. And, you know, it was a very sad, but ultimately cathartic

00:11:11.460 moment because I finally, and I tell this to a lot of the guys that I work with, you have to let go

00:11:19.800 of that old dream that you had, you know, there, there is a new dream waiting for you. My, my whole

00:11:29.600 method rests on that premise that there is a purpose for you. There is a dream for you. And the

00:11:38.400 only real person that's getting in the way of that is you and all of your effort. And I was a,

00:11:45.580 a classic case of that. I mean, life just couldn't get through to me because of my fixed ideas of what

00:11:53.520 I wanted my life to be. And then after this moment, you, you basically had to start from

00:11:58.160 ground zero. You got a job at a coffee shop and you were taking orders from like a 16 year old kid.

00:12:05.220 Yep. 22 and really humbling. And you learned a lot in that process of just learning how to do a good

00:12:11.760 work and be in humility. But how did you make that transition from, okay, I'm working at a coffee

00:12:17.200 shop to I'm going to become a counselor. How did that happen? Yeah. So first of all, I was 26.

00:12:23.820 I was 26. All right. Yeah. 26 year old getting bossed around. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, you know,

00:12:29.760 he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was just bossing me, you know, he was doing his job. But for me,

00:12:34.420 that was, that was very, very humbling. How I got to, from there to where I am is I built my life up

00:12:42.560 brick by brick by brick. And there were multiple times that I wanted to jump ship and build my life

00:12:54.200 real quick because that, that was my MO, you know, like all, all young men want a life that they are

00:13:03.000 happy with. They want, they want to dream big, but what I didn't understand and what they don't

00:13:09.140 understand is that that requires a process that, that requires time. And I, you know, when I felt

00:13:19.240 like I had finally gotten myself into a natural rhythm of life where I wasn't moving too fast and I wasn't

00:13:29.200 moving too slow, it became clear that it was time to think about a career. And I just did a very simple

00:13:38.580 self-assessment and said, I realized that there are two things that I'm good at and two things that I

00:13:45.500 like to do. I, I love to argue and I love to search for the truth and argue for the truth. And so for me,

00:13:56.300 that meant either going into law, which I know you, you have your experience in or going to become a

00:14:03.380 therapist. I felt like that I could, I could reach people and I booked, I had a childhood friend,

00:14:11.180 a family friend who was a lawyer and a family friend who was a psychologist. And I reached out

00:14:16.520 to both of them and said, listen, I want to meet with you. And I want to find out like what your,

00:14:21.000 what is your life like? And the psychologist booked an entire hour for me free of charge.

00:14:29.780 I went to his office, sat down, we talked about what it was like to, you know, to travel that path.

00:14:37.240 And, uh, it was a really a great conversation. And the lawyer was so busy that even though he cared

00:14:44.640 for me, he blew me off. And I said, right then, you know, that's not the quality of life that I'm

00:14:50.960 looking for. And so I went into psychology and went down that path.

00:14:56.740 And now you're an addiction counselor. Well, let's talk about, uh, your approach to counseling

00:15:01.300 because it's different. Cause I think when most guys hear counseling, they think, well,

00:15:04.260 I'm going to go to this office. I'm going to sit down on this chair. They don't have couches

00:15:07.920 anymore. You know, it's just a chair, a nice leather chair, the downgraded, and you're going

00:15:14.100 to talk for, you know, maybe an hour. That's not what you do. You, you get the guy when the,

00:15:20.080 when a man comes to see you, you get them out of the office. Tell us about how you discovered that,

00:15:25.060 okay, just sitting down to traditional talk therapy doesn't work for men.

00:15:28.800 Yeah. I mean, I, I came from the addiction recovery industry and what that industry looks like

00:15:36.520 is that you, you, you have a lot of support and a lot of structure and a lot of leverage.

00:15:43.620 So these guys, you know, by the way, I wasn't just counseling young men when I was in working

00:15:50.120 in rehabs, but I was a very, very effective counselor in, in rehab settings because you,

00:15:59.620 you have that structure. You can really, really lean into people and, you know,

00:16:06.520 they don't have any other distractions in their life. And so I found a way to make that work.

00:16:12.240 But when I transitioned to having my own practice, I tried what was, what is practiced,

00:16:21.580 which is, you know, people have their, their hour long appointment and they come and they sit down

00:16:26.680 and you talk. And I just found that doing that was not really reaching these young men. It just,

00:16:40.560 nothing was really transforming. We might have a good conversation here or there. And also,

00:16:48.060 you know, oftentimes there was nothing to talk about. So I, in a mix of just boredom personally,

00:16:56.220 being bored and also seeing more importantly, seeing that what I was doing, wasn't working.

00:17:02.980 I made a simple decision to tell the young men that I was working with, that I would no longer meet

00:17:09.580 with them in a physical office, that we were just going to go outside and do something. And I had no idea

00:17:17.660 what something was. And it, from that very simple decision to just walk outside over the course of three

00:17:31.180 to four years, an entire method evolved. And I understood why I took them outside and what I was

00:17:41.260 actually doing with them. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:17:48.980 And now back to the show. No, you, you call this, so you, you call traditional forms of therapy

00:17:54.300 dialogic, right? So it's talking, right? Your idea of just getting them out there and doing something

00:17:59.240 like the walking cure you, you, you dubbed, you also dubbed it the diakonetic action or the action

00:18:04.440 axis. So motion or movement. It's like, what do you think, what do you think is going on? Like,

00:18:09.100 why do you think it's just something about men? They're, they're hardwired. So they respond to action

00:18:14.720 for sure. But also, you know, by dialogic, I mean, you know, cognitive or rational and, you know,

00:18:27.780 we all have a rational part of us. It's the reason. And it turns out that young men don't even have

00:18:37.460 that part of the brain fully developed. After I left the office, okay, I saw that instead of just

00:18:46.860 relating to men at the rational level, or what I'm saying, the dialogic, the dialogical level,

00:18:54.540 I started to see that, that we were moving around, we were moving in the world. And I noticed that

00:19:02.700 multiple things were happening. Number one, we, we were moving our physical bodies. And I saw that

00:19:12.540 there was a power in just doing that. Okay. But also we were, we were doing things together and we were

00:19:22.240 creating a bond. I was creating, and we were co-creating a bond ourselves. So we were connecting.

00:19:30.520 And then furthermore, they were learning how to enter the social world and build a life for

00:19:39.920 themselves. So three main things were happening. And when I started to write the book and think

00:19:46.780 about why this method was actually working, because in the beginning, I had no idea really what I was

00:19:54.540 doing or what was going to happen. So this was only in hindsight. I, I saw that what we were really

00:20:02.480 doing is we were reaching beyond the rational mind. We were reaching deeper to the part of our mind or

00:20:12.180 the part of our being that connects with others and with the world. We were reaching into the part of

00:20:21.380 our being that moves. And even the, the kind of more forward thinking, psychotherapeutic approaches

00:20:32.140 know that that is where the source of both the problem and the solution is. It's in how we connect

00:20:40.460 and how we act. So, so by saying diakonetic, I mean that, that we're, we're moving in the world,

00:20:48.660 we're moving in the world together. And yeah, it was, it blows my mind how, how, how this taps into

00:21:00.260 the deeper part of a young man. And it's much more exciting.

00:21:05.360 Right. And you call this, you know, going out into the world, like entering the Agora. So you're Greek. 0.81

00:21:09.420 So you, you brought in some of your Greek culture and heritage into this. And the Agora is just,

00:21:12.980 it's the public. It's like where you go, where people interact. It's where, you know, Socrates,

00:21:17.700 you know, basically accosted people and asked them what, what is virtue.

00:21:21.760 Yeah.

00:21:22.160 But there's something about that. Like you said, that's transformed. Like you're actually,

00:21:25.200 I think one of the problems with traditional therapy is that you're, you're sort of taken out

00:21:28.100 of the world and like what you're doing, it can be theoretical and it can be, it can be useful,

00:21:33.580 but then like the app, learning how to apply that in the real world can be hard. There's a disconnect,

00:21:38.320 but if you're actually learning on the fly in the real world, there's something about that,

00:21:42.720 that can really transform somebody.

00:21:45.000 Totally. And the beauty of that is that then all the, by the way, I do have to say,

00:21:50.420 I'm not against talk therapy. I think it works well in conjunction with what I do. And also I believe

00:21:58.360 that for emerging men, especially you need to act first and then talk about what you did.

00:22:06.240 So does that make sense?

00:22:08.280 No, that makes sense. And to be clear, like what you were doing with these guys is you were taking

00:22:12.420 them out of the office. You might go for a walk, you might go to a coffee shop, but then eventually

00:22:16.200 it was like, Hey, let's go rock climb. Let's go to a boxing gym. And you let them sort of drive

00:22:23.460 that. And, and, and that's the other thing too. I was really impressed by like how patient you were

00:22:27.340 with this. It wasn't like, Hey, right, right away, we're going to go to a rock climbing gym. It was,

00:22:32.160 Hey, we'll just go to a coffee shop. And it might be three months before the guy was like,

00:22:36.480 yeah, I'm ready to go do something else.

00:22:38.120 Exactly. Yeah. That's a great observation. And I learned that because the, the young men that were

00:22:44.620 coming to me initially, they were, they were pretty much the people that were not responding

00:22:50.880 to traditional forms of treatment. Right. So there, there was, there was a real learning process

00:22:59.020 that, that, that we went through to, to figure out how to do this. And, uh, the guys that I was

00:23:05.960 working with, I had to be very, very patient with them. And I learned a really important lesson,

00:23:13.300 which is that it is very important for a man to, especially emerging man to organically come to his

00:23:23.100 own hunger of what he wants to do in life. So for me, it was a huge deal when these, these guys that

00:23:32.880 I started working with would say something like, I heard about this art exhibit in Tribeca and I'd

00:23:41.900 like to go there. And also my uncle told me about an Italian restaurant in that area. For me, that was

00:23:49.060 an example that they were creating a map of the world and they were getting excited about exploring

00:23:56.640 that map. And that's the beginnings I found of creating your life. You, you have to get out into

00:24:06.600 the world and that starts with, you know, exploring the world, poking around, getting excited about

00:24:13.200 different things. And yeah, it's a, it's a very, a very patient process. You know, I work with a lot

00:24:19.760 of different counselors and things like that. And I feel like a lot of times they, they suggest a lot

00:24:27.380 of things to these young men and, and they don't understand why these young men don't just like

00:24:33.060 follow what is being said. Like, but that there's way more power in that young man creating their own

00:24:42.100 sort of a hunger for what they want to do. Well, and another point you make that the reason you

00:24:48.360 want to get these guys out there and doing stuff with them is that you understand, or you came to

00:24:52.700 this understanding that emerging men, these young men, they need to see what it looks like, like

00:24:58.360 actually see what it looks like, feels like for another man. Like, what does it look like for a man

00:25:03.240 to engage with the world? And like, you were serving that mirror for them. Like you were serving as

00:25:07.360 that, that, uh, pattern to follow. Yeah, that's, that's what I, I realized, you know, after a couple

00:25:15.540 of years of doing this, that I was seeing more progress and by progress, I mean, these guys were

00:25:23.900 getting inspired to live and they were starting to make changes in their own life. I saw that we were

00:25:32.960 making more progress just by them seeing how I did it rather than me talking to them. So in, instead of

00:25:40.560 me trying to talk to them and teach them how to build a life, I just went out into life with them.

00:25:48.580 And I, I was right alongside them and they were able, I feel what they were able to do was they were

00:25:56.180 able to see what I was doing and they were able to internalize this model of how you go out and

00:26:05.000 enter life, how you attack life, how you give life your all, how you love life. The most important

00:26:11.960 thing that we can do for young men is put a man that is further along in that journey, right in front

00:26:19.460 of him and just let him see how to do it. And there's a lot of science to back that up too. There's a whole

00:26:25.620 part of the brain called the mirror neuron system, which I think it will be very important to

00:26:32.040 understand that going forward, that really what happens is we mirror each other. We tend to mirror

00:26:39.960 the most influential or the most powerful person that we're around. And yeah, we were, this is what I

00:26:49.260 believe was happening with a lot of these young guys. They were just seeing what I was doing and they

00:26:54.100 were copying it in their own unique way.

00:26:58.020 So basically young men at this age need a mentor.

00:27:01.120 Yeah, they need, they need somebody who can show them how it's done. You know, so if we want to call

00:27:09.580 that a mentor, you know, there are different levels to how, how deep of a bond two men can create. And, you

00:27:19.040 know, it gets into the highest forms of teacher student. But if you just have another man who is

00:27:26.320 actively, genuinely pursuing the best version of his life in an authentic way, this is, this is a true

00:27:35.820 inspiration.

00:27:37.080 This is a true inspiration.

00:27:38.900 Yeah. I love you described you, you, you've experienced this in your own life. What you,

00:27:41.860 when you were a boy. So there's like this guy in your neighborhood growing up who just a cool dude,

00:27:46.780 like had, you know, had a wife, kids, but had a job, was responsible. But at the same time,

00:27:52.860 he didn't let that grind him down. Didn't seem like other men who were just like, I just

00:27:56.960 going to sit down and watch Matlock. He was, he was out there doing stuff, even when it was in his

00:28:03.340 thirties and forties. And you saw that and you're like, man, being a, being a grown man can actually

00:28:08.220 be really cool. I want to be like that. It's important for, you know, men who are further

00:28:16.500 along in their journey to open their world to the younger men in, in whatever forms that takes,

00:28:25.920 because, you know, this guy who we're talking about, he, he didn't sit me down and talk to me

00:28:34.440 about life. He didn't try to solve my problems. He didn't try to, you know, find out what I was

00:28:41.360 feeling or what was bothering me. He just was another man that I could walk with. And I had fun

00:28:50.900 and I realized that I was just taking notes, how he lived his life. And the most important thing was

00:28:59.420 how he, he, he, I felt like he opened his heart and he was, he was enjoying life. That was very

00:29:07.600 important for me to see how a man can open his heart and enjoy his life. And that was all I really

00:29:17.360 needed at that time. So this, this primal method that you've developed. So you, one part of it is

00:29:24.020 getting men out there being action oriented, mirroring, you know, positive masculinity,

00:29:30.180 positive manliness to them so they can see what that looks like, feels like. There's also this

00:29:34.780 other part you talk about that young men need, but they're not getting is this idea of emphatic

00:29:40.020 challenge. What do you, what do you mean by emphatic challenge?

00:29:42.980 I mean, being opposed and feeling a pressure that is exerted on them in the book. I give

00:29:57.460 the analogy of when I was in Japan with my wife, we were in the train and we were looking out the

00:30:06.800 window and I saw these, these green bushes that looked like they were, they were like in

00:30:12.700 pixel. They were animated. And I said, what are those bushes? And they said, those are not bushes.

00:30:19.820 Those are trees. And they actually, if you leave those trees to grow, just to grow like wherever

00:30:27.420 they want and however they want, those will become 30 to 50 feet high. And we, we prune those

00:30:35.620 trees consciously and constantly to pack the color and the flavor into them. And this is what young

00:30:46.580 men are missing. They don't have people over them that are, that are showing them that are kind of,

00:30:54.740 and it's a tough process because a lot of young men, they do have people that are,

00:30:59.860 you know, riding their back, complaining, lecturing them. That is not what, what I'm talking about.

00:31:07.280 And, and that's not what emphatic challenges. Emphatic challenge, of course, is like a level

00:31:12.460 of opposition. You need to be challenging young men. And I would argue men in general, we just need to 0.67

00:31:20.560 be challenged in order to bring out the best of ourselves. And related to this idea of, of emphatic

00:31:26.560 challenge. So, you know, giving, giving young men, like, you know, calling them out basically

00:31:30.900 and seeing if they can step up to it. But you also have this idea of holding the line,

00:31:34.340 right? What is that? And how's that related to emphatic challenge?

00:31:37.260 Yeah. And I, by the way, I want to say about the emphatic challenge, like what that ultimately means

00:31:43.480 for me is when I meet these young men that are, let's say between 18, 25, it's looking at them

00:31:52.900 and challenging their view of the world and themselves. Like everybody has these hidden beliefs

00:32:05.320 on how, how they believe life should go. And my emphatic challenge to them is where did you get the

00:32:15.480 idea that that that's how life works? Where did you get the idea that you're just going to snap your

00:32:24.860 fingers and have this amazing life? Who gave you that idea? Or maybe I'm coming across a little

00:32:33.000 judgmental right now, but it's a genuine curiosity. Where did you get that idea? When? And most

00:32:41.380 importantly, is it working? Is it working for you? There comes a point in a young man's life where

00:32:49.080 he has to look at how he approaches life and he's got to be willing to, to ask whether the way that he

00:32:57.460 approaches life works. You know, why, why did I stay the course when I was at that, uh, bakery getting,

00:33:06.420 you know, bossed around by a kid, six, you know, 16 years old is because I saw that my way didn't work

00:33:15.320 like me thinking that I was this top dog and I was so great. Well, if I was so great, then how come I'm

00:33:22.780 here? So for me, it was constantly humbling myself and learning what are the ways of the world. And to do

00:33:32.160 that, you, you have to seek out men who are really making their life work, right? You, you meet with

00:33:41.620 a lot of people, right? And everybody's telling you your, their ideas, right? Sure. But how are those

00:33:49.260 ideas working? Some of them are. And by a lot of them, not some are, and some aren't, but how do we

00:33:55.500 know if it's working or not? You know, you have to, you have to really look at whether those ideas

00:34:02.660 that somebody's telling you that whether they work, do they make this person happy, truly happy?

00:34:10.080 Are they leading this person down a path in their life that they are excited about? That's evolving.

00:34:16.420 So for me, emphatic challenge means let's get real, let's get honest. And Hey, by the way,

00:34:25.580 I'm going to get honest too. So I'm not saying that I'm fully evolved and that all my ideas are set in

00:34:32.600 stone. So I will tell the young man and they, they appreciate this. I say, listen, I'm we're,

00:34:38.020 we're climbing the same mountain. You and I, I might be 10 feet ahead of you, or I might be 10 years ahead

00:34:44.040 of you. I don't know, but let me tell you something. This mountain is an unforgiving mountain or maybe

00:34:49.280 not. It's a ruthless mountain, but it, it, it's forgiving, but it's ruthless. It doesn't get any

00:34:55.500 easier. So I'm always challenging my beliefs. So that's the piece about the emphatic challenge.

00:35:03.560 Hold the line. You know, if, if you're going to try to do anything difficult in life,

00:35:12.420 somebody has to prevent you from hitting the escape hatch when it gets difficult.

00:35:21.940 And I'd be willing to bet if there are young men listening to this,

00:35:27.060 if your life is not working for you, you can almost guarantee it's because when things get tough,

00:35:35.440 you give up. Now you can, you can give up in a thousand different ways and you can tell yourself

00:35:45.940 whatever you want, but the bottom line is you're giving up. You're, you're not putting your full

00:35:51.920 self in this experience. And when things got difficult, you gave up. And when that happens,

00:35:59.920 you have to have people there that they, they are there to support you, to keep going.

00:36:08.920 You want to know a funny story? All remember in the book where I said that, that team captain,

00:36:15.020 he challenged me and, and he, he brought out the best of me. Right. Right. I went home to my mother

00:36:21.780 mother that day. And I, I had already concluded. I said, football is not for me. I said, this is,

00:36:29.900 this is, I I'm glad I ran through, you know, that line and, and thank you very much. I've learned all

00:36:37.920 the lessons I needed to learn. And I come up with my excuse. I was going to play basketball all fall.

00:36:44.280 And I was going to practice. I had it all mapped out. And she looked at me, said, you are not quitting.

00:36:49.540 You made a decision to play football and you're going to play this season. And I was, no, damn, 0.99

00:36:56.820 you know, she held the line. I went back. I figured it out because the people in my life did not allow 0.99

00:37:04.120 me to quit. Right. This is a chronic pattern in the work that I do. The minute that you push people,

00:37:11.200 they want to give up and their parents or whoever's in their life, they either believe that nonsense

00:37:18.240 or they hold the line and say, no, you're not going to give up. If you're not allowed to give up,

00:37:26.400 what happens is you end up facing the feelings, your feelings that you are trying to run from.

00:37:37.980 You're not running from football or running from your marriage or running from your job. You're running

00:37:45.560 from yourself. You do not yet have the ability to contain all of your feelings. And you've become

00:37:55.700 a specialist at opting out, choosing the easier path, because then you get to feel something that's

00:38:03.020 better. But those feelings are all you. So if people hold the line, then the person gets to feel all of

00:38:11.800 themselves. Okay. So we've talked about young men, emerging men need action. They need to be out there

00:38:20.400 and exploring the world and seeing what, you know, like an authentic, positive masculinity looks like

00:38:26.960 by having a mentor. And this mentor is going to hold the line. They're going to challenge them. But then also

00:38:32.900 one of your goals as a counselor with these guys, when you work with them, is eventually for them to

00:38:37.720 develop their own circle of male friends. That's not just you. I mean, is this guy, you're kind of

00:38:43.700 like their friend, you know, that you become their friend, but you want them to have a circle of

00:38:48.640 friends that might not necessarily involve you as well. Yeah. I become their friend. I become their

00:38:55.460 brother. I'm helping them to resolve the barriers that they have to connecting with another human being

00:39:05.740 at a meaningful level. Once they learn that, or as they learn that, because, you know, each person

00:39:14.600 connects to the world and connects to other people in their own unique way. And the only way to learn

00:39:24.200 how you connect with other people is through experience. And you have to have somebody. When I,

00:39:31.620 when I wrote the book, I realized that what I'm really trying to do is I'm, I'm trying to become

00:39:37.720 a master at connection. Um, I basically say to these parents, when they come to me and they say,

00:39:46.760 you, you don't know our son. He's so lost. He doesn't connect with anybody. He's this, he's that.

00:39:54.340 And I know, and I tell them, I say, I guarantee you that I can connect with your son. That's,

00:40:03.140 that's what I believe. I'm going to be able to connect to the unconnectable

00:40:07.880 through that process. That person teaches themselves how to connect. And then the goal,

00:40:18.280 of course, is that they have to learn how to make connections in their own life. They have to replicate

00:40:26.000 it. But first they got to see what that looks like in order for them to do that.

00:40:30.500 Yeah. And they have to more than see it. They have to feel it. They have to manifest it. They have

00:40:35.780 to feel it in their being. What is it like to connect to another person in a meaningful way?

00:40:42.620 Because a lot of guys, they have people in their life, right? Friends, quote unquote,

00:40:52.060 but they're not really connecting to them. They're not really creating nourishing connections.

00:41:00.520 So even if you're surrounded by people, you still could be missing out on the beauty and the power

00:41:08.260 of connection. And that's what I'm teaching them.

00:41:13.540 Right. And in the end goal of all this, like, you know, hopefully what people get to, and again,

00:41:17.920 like we said, this could take months, it could take years for it to happen. But the, but the end goal

00:41:23.000 is to have that young man that we talked about earlier, sort of like flat, no spark, like fill them

00:41:29.920 with like, they want, like you want that guy to have some vitality. Like you call it generative or

00:41:34.000 creative. You call it like, they have a male womb, basically. They want to create in the world.

00:41:38.440 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is the ultimate goal. And like you said, we are in the darkness of the night,

00:41:46.920 leaning, hunching over a little spark of fire that we found, and we're just gently blowing on it.

00:41:55.060 We're just gently, we're literally, our ears are to the earth, blowing on this, cradling this fire.

00:42:03.380 And then the young man sees that that's what we're doing together. We're blowing on, we're gently

00:42:11.920 blowing on his fire to live. And that's what I mean by the difference between the rational,

00:42:19.700 the dialogic, this is deeper than logic. If you ask a man, you know, questions about,

00:42:28.880 you know, I don't know, like, should you be living at home with your parents? Should you have a job?

00:42:36.760 Do you want to have a purpose in your life? They can say the right answers to that, but it doesn't

00:42:44.100 mean that they're activating their primal power, that, that will to live, that hunger, that inspiration.

00:42:52.380 For me, all the work that I'm doing with these young men is to try to light that fire.

00:42:58.580 That's the fire that's going to keep burning through the night.

00:43:02.500 Well, Greg, let's say that someone's listening to this podcast. Maybe they're a young guy.

00:43:06.040 They've got, maybe they have some sort of addiction. Maybe they don't, but they still,

00:43:08.980 they see themselves in that guy we described for just no, no spark. Like what's like the first,

00:43:15.880 what's something that someone could do today to start, you know, igniting that fire, blowing that

00:43:21.080 little spark that they might have? Well, what I did when I was in that position is I made a deal

00:43:31.460 with myself. I made a deal that I was going to appreciate my life for one year. And by appreciate

00:43:41.580 my life, I meant I was going to do what I needed to do to get my life a little bit better each day.

00:43:53.040 I was going to literally appreciate it. And I wasn't going to put any criteria around it.

00:44:01.460 I wasn't going to say, Oh, by in three months, I'm going to be at level a hundred. I just said,

00:44:08.140 I'm just going to tilt this thing five degrees, three degrees. So what you young men can do

00:44:14.780 is you can just make a decision to be thankful for the fact that you have life and appreciate your life

00:44:24.440 day by day for a year and read the book. Because I wrote this book for you to try to give you some

00:44:32.420 tools that I believe our culture is not giving you.

00:44:37.080 Gregory, where can people go to learn more about the book in your work?

00:44:39.820 The website. So we have go with the bro brother, Gregory, go with the bro.com. And the book is

00:44:46.680 available everywhere that books are sold.

00:44:50.200 Fantastic. Well, Gregory, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:44:53.040 Thank you, Brett.

00:44:54.780 My guest name is Gregory Kufalkos. He's the author of the book, The Primal Method. It's

00:44:58.300 available on amazon.com. You can also learn more about his work at his website, go with the bro.com.

00:45:03.000 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash emerging men. We find links to resources,

00:45:07.240 we delve deeper into this topic.

00:45:08.500 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

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00:45:48.320 Until next time, this is Brett McKay. Remind you not only will listen to a podcast, but put what you've

00:45:52.360 heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - February 15, 2021

Help for Those Stuck Between Boyhood and Manhood

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