The Art of Manliness - How to Turn a Boy Into a Man

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

00:00:10.480 A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood.

00:00:14.200 They feel lost, directionless, and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and

00:00:18.220 competently navigate the world.

00:00:19.840 Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once part

00:00:23.940 of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared, a rite 1.00

00:00:28.200 of passage.

00:00:29.400 My guest today didn't want his son to flounder on the way to maturity, nor miss out on having

00:00:33.500 an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a six-year journey for him that would

00:00:37.120 help him move from boy to man.

00:00:38.640 His name is John Tyson, and he's the author of The Intentional Father, a practical guide

00:00:42.620 to raise sons of courage and character.

00:00:44.820 Today on the show, John unpacks the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created

00:00:48.560 for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed those components by doing the day your son

00:00:52.500 leaves home exercise.

00:00:53.740 We then discuss how old John's son was when he started his rite of passage and why it

00:00:57.260 began with him having a severing dinner with his mom.

00:00:59.780 We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kickoff ceremony to the challenges,

00:01:04.000 experiences, trips, and daily rituals John used to impart values, teach his son the five

00:01:09.600 shifts of manhood.

00:01:11.040 John shares how moving his son's focus from being a good man to being good at being a man

00:01:15.300 helped him get re-motivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included

00:01:19.600 a gap year after high school, and how John celebrated the end of his son's journey into

00:01:23.400 becoming a man.

00:01:24.420 We also discuss whether John did something similar with his daughter.

00:01:27.260 We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping

00:01:31.180 their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own

00:01:34.800 and into the world.

00:01:36.480 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash passage.

00:01:40.080 All right, John Tyson, welcome to the show.

00:01:56.860 G'day, mate.

00:01:57.500 How are you?

00:01:57.920 Thanks for having me on.

00:01:59.020 So you got a book out called The Intentional Father, A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage

00:02:03.480 and Character.

00:02:04.100 And in this book, you walk readers through on how you developed and carried out a years-long

00:02:12.480 rite of passage into manhood for your son.

00:02:15.860 So let's talk about this.

00:02:16.500 When did you first get the idea of doing this sort of, this was involved, like this started,

00:02:20.020 this is years long, right?

00:02:21.260 Started when he became a teenager, went through until he left the house.

00:02:25.060 When did you come up with this idea?

00:02:27.280 I think the first moment that really hit me was driving back from the doctor when they

00:02:32.880 told me, hey, do you want to know if your son's a boy or a girl?

00:02:36.280 And they said, obviously, it's a boy.

00:02:38.280 And I just had this profound sense of being overwhelmed that I personally did not have

00:02:42.660 what it took to help my son become a man.

00:02:45.700 I got married young and faced all the challenges of my own inadequacy, dealing with the complications

00:02:51.620 of life.

00:02:52.280 And I thought, I have got to do better for my son.

00:02:55.540 And that's where the idea was born.

00:02:56.820 So I think another key moment, I was meeting with a local faith leader, and he was talking

00:03:02.880 about the way their community helped young men move from adolescence into manhood.

00:03:08.540 And I thought, I don't have anything like that, and I have got to build something like

00:03:12.960 that.

00:03:13.240 Yeah.

00:03:13.400 So very, very early on, and I spent about a decade reading, trying to figure out how

00:03:17.040 to do it.

00:03:17.800 Did you have something like that in your own life when you were a boy transitioning to

00:03:21.180 manhood?

00:03:21.500 Did you get a rite of passage?

00:03:23.360 I had absolutely nothing.

00:03:25.780 I mean, zero.

00:03:27.000 So I was working from a pretty big deficit.

00:03:29.460 And I think a lot of dads are.

00:03:31.220 A lot of folks out there sort of feel there's a hole in their life, and they're trying to

00:03:35.020 figure out how to catch up, fill that, and then do something better for their own kids.

00:03:38.480 Yeah.

00:03:38.580 I think a lot of men are like that.

00:03:40.000 They didn't have that experience, but they want it for their own sons.

00:03:43.500 So they're trying to give their sons the experience that they didn't have.

00:03:47.060 Yeah, totally.

00:03:48.140 And something you start off in the book talking about is the research.

00:03:51.440 You've done a lot of research about what happens when boys don't have fathers, don't have

00:03:56.900 involved fathers.

00:03:58.360 What does the research say as to what happens to boys when they lack a strong father figure?

00:04:03.080 Well, I mean, it's actually very, very clear.

00:04:05.440 I mean, sort of the go-to research most people reference is from fatherhood.org.

00:04:09.580 But it's basically what you think.

00:04:11.300 Kids are four times more likely to live in poverty, more likely to suffer emotional behavioral

00:04:16.060 problems, higher levels of risky and aggressive behavior, two times the risk of infant

00:04:21.300 mortality, which is crazy, more likely to go to prison.

00:04:24.540 Only one in five inmates grow up in a home where their father is present, twice as likely

00:04:28.940 to be involved in early sexual activity.

00:04:31.380 So the presence of a dad in a home makes an incredible difference.

00:04:36.560 You know, with all of our conversations about justice in the world today, I don't know why

00:04:40.660 this one doesn't get more attention because one of the greatest cultural advantages that

00:04:45.340 someone can have in life is a present loving father figure.

00:04:49.500 So yeah, the impact is massive.

00:04:52.320 Well, and besides, you're trying to move beyond just having a present involved dad.

00:04:55.740 Like your ideal of a good dad is an intentional father, where a father intentionally thinks

00:05:03.060 about walking their sons through an initiation process.

00:05:06.280 What do you think men lack when they transition into adulthood without having almost like a ritual

00:05:13.480 to carry them into manhood?

00:05:16.300 Well, I think there's some kind of deep internal inadequacy.

00:05:22.000 There's some sense of a desire to bless, pass on and help, but they don't have a source

00:05:30.520 to get it from.

00:05:31.820 So I think there's a lot of confusion.

00:05:33.440 I think there's a lot of pain.

00:05:34.400 You know, our culture has gotten rid of most of the sort of life passages other than formal

00:05:39.780 education.

00:05:41.020 And so there's a lot of people walking around really wondering, am I even a man?

00:05:44.720 When are you a man?

00:05:45.580 When you lose your virginity, the first time you drink alcohol, when you get your first

00:05:49.300 paycheck, when you leave home.

00:05:50.560 No one seems to know when manhood is confirmed on them and then how they distribute it to other

00:05:56.200 people.

00:05:56.580 So yeah, I think there's a hole in the soul of most men and they're seeking and striving

00:06:02.700 to catch up with it.

00:06:03.540 And it's something you talk about in the book.

00:06:05.740 One way men often fill that hole is they create self-initiations for themselves.

00:06:12.840 Yeah.

00:06:13.100 I mean, you see this.

00:06:14.280 Young people, I mean, you obviously remember this.

00:06:17.480 When you hit puberty, the whole world changes. 0.62

00:06:20.700 Your body is filled with testosterone.

00:06:23.440 You've got chemicals pumping.

00:06:25.260 You've got all of this energy.

00:06:27.260 And the number one thing you're trying to figure out what to do with it is how do you channel

00:06:30.680 this in a life-giving rather than destructive way?

00:06:34.280 And that's what these rites of passage historically were designed to do, to create guardrails so

00:06:40.380 the gift of male energy could be channeled for the good of the community and the man.

00:06:45.880 Without those guardrails, you see all the damage we see in our world today.

00:06:49.640 But without initiation, young men will seek to do something with their energy that confers

00:06:55.180 a sense of confidence and blessing.

00:06:56.900 So whether it's risky behavior, whether it's underage drinking, whether it is sexual behavior

00:07:02.840 or whatever, you've basically got young men saying, help me figure out what to do with

00:07:08.920 this energy.

00:07:09.460 And when you look at some of the other rites of passage that other cultures have had, they

00:07:13.620 are, some of them are harrowing.

00:07:16.200 And we would probably take kids away from parents who did some of these ancient rites 1.00

00:07:20.120 of passage.

00:07:20.760 They can sound kind of barbaric.

00:07:22.620 But when you look at the levels of anxiety with our young people today, depression with

00:07:27.640 young men, the challenges that teenage boys face, our lack of initiation at scale is more

00:07:34.060 damaging than the initiation cultures, no matter how intense they were of other societies. 0.90

00:07:38.380 So yeah, I'm a big believer that we have to reclaim rites of passage, create guardrails

00:07:44.720 so that male energy can be channeled for the good of society. 1.00

00:07:47.940 And that's definitely what I'm trying to address in the book.

00:07:50.600 Yeah, I like that idea of, this is, the idea is to channel male energy or masculine energy.

00:07:55.740 And it's one of the analogies I've used throughout the years when I've tried to explain the difference

00:07:59.600 between masculinity and manliness.

00:08:02.500 Masculinity is just that energy and vigor that's born through testosterone, right?

00:08:06.700 Yes.

00:08:07.000 And then manliness is a culture that you use to direct that energy or manhood is a culture

00:08:13.060 that you direct that energy.

00:08:14.280 So it's kind of like electricity, right?

00:08:16.060 Masculinity is electricity.

00:08:17.340 You create a culture of manliness or manhood to funnel that energy.

00:08:21.160 But if you don't have any wires that's directing that masculine energy, it becomes dangerous.

00:08:27.220 Yeah, definitely.

00:08:30.100 Totally agree, yeah.

00:08:31.180 Okay, so let's talk about, you had this idea, your son was born, you're like, okay, I want

00:08:35.060 to create an initiation for him to give him the thing that I didn't have.

00:08:39.100 And so when you started this planning process, you went through this exercise you called the

00:08:46.120 day your son leaves home exercise.

00:08:49.200 Walk us through that.

00:08:50.100 What kind of questions are you asking yourself as you guide yourself through this thought

00:08:54.580 process?

00:08:55.560 Yeah, I got the idea from Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,

00:09:00.100 where he talks about begin with the end in mind.

00:09:02.280 And he has that exercise where you pretend it's your funeral and then you go back and sort

00:09:07.520 of ask yourself the question, what sort of life and legacy do I want to leave?

00:09:10.520 And I thought, you know, that's a great framework to apply to a ton of different areas of life.

00:09:15.480 And I thought, I'm going to apply this to the day where I send my son off to either college

00:09:21.720 or some sort of gap year or whatever.

00:09:24.280 And I thought about this when he was really young and I basically just worked my way backwards,

00:09:30.100 try to keep that day very, very vivid and real in my heart, and then ask a series of questions

00:09:35.240 to design this pathway for him.

00:09:37.400 And the first one was like, what do I want my son to know?

00:09:41.280 I want him to be a man of wisdom.

00:09:42.800 I want him to be able to navigate the complexities of life.

00:09:46.000 Number two, who do I want my son to be?

00:09:48.220 And this was about his moral, ethical, and character formation.

00:09:52.860 Then what do I want my son to be able to do?

00:09:55.180 And this is sort of skill acquisition.

00:09:57.460 A man should be able to do stuff, step in a room and add value through skill acquisition.

00:10:02.500 And then what experiences do I need to design to make this happen?

00:10:06.680 With all the best intentions in the world, without a conscious pathway and designing experiences

00:10:11.120 where these things are developed, it's never going to be there.

00:10:13.800 So yeah, I basically worked backwards.

00:10:15.980 And just like you do with a college degree, sort of, you know, you say, hey, in order to

00:10:20.080 get a degree, you're going to have to do X amount of classes and it's going to have to

00:10:24.140 either be a two-year associate or a four-year or a graduate degree.

00:10:26.980 I just worked backwards starting at around age 13 when he was hitting puberty and then

00:10:33.660 worked it out until he was 18 and then created a pathway around knowledge and character and

00:10:40.760 skill development and the experiences to help him do that.

00:10:43.960 And then one of the things I did was to basically ask the question, who can help me with this?

00:10:48.960 You know, I'm a big believer that, you know, dads are fundamental in a young man's formation,

00:10:53.540 but we're living in a world where a lot of people don't have dads or they're stepdads or

00:10:57.600 they're asking the question about mentoring.

00:10:59.760 And so I sort of came up with this idea of building a tribe or a cohort of fathers who

00:11:04.580 do this together.

00:11:05.660 And then coming up with those dads with an asset map and sort of everybody puts in the

00:11:11.340 middle of the room, what assets do you have available in your life?

00:11:14.940 Someone may say, hey, we have a lake house.

00:11:18.060 Someone may say, I got a second car and I'm willing to let the boys learn a drive in it.

00:11:23.100 Someone may say, hey, I've got a series of key relationships in my industry and I can,

00:11:27.400 you know, or I've got access to some cool sporting events.

00:11:29.940 And then you sort of start dreaming from there.

00:11:32.820 So it was like a big whiteboard exercise.

00:11:36.120 And then I worked my way backwards and that was how I basically designed what I called the

00:11:40.160 primal path, which is this, you know, this sort of six-year journey I came up with.

00:11:44.280 No, the day your son leaves home exercise is really powerful.

00:11:46.540 Like I, I went through it through my head and trying to imagine what my son, he's 11

00:11:51.040 right now and imagine when he's 18 and he's leaving the roost.

00:11:55.040 It's just, it really gets you, it's a gut punch.

00:11:58.360 You're just like, and you want to know like, what, what is he going to be like?

00:12:01.420 What do I want him to be like?

00:12:03.200 Yeah, totally.

00:12:04.500 And I like this idea of developing an asset map.

00:12:06.440 So it's, you, you get the idea of what the things that you want your son to know,

00:12:10.360 understand, be able to do, but then try to figure out, okay, what do I have at my disposal

00:12:15.120 to make that happen?

00:12:16.620 And not just things, but you know, who are the other people in my life that can help

00:12:20.200 me make this happen?

00:12:21.280 I think that was, I loved how you, you focused on that and making this a community project.

00:12:25.280 Oftentimes when I think when I hear dads talk about, I want to do a rite of passage for

00:12:29.480 my son, it's just him and their son.

00:12:31.220 That's fine.

00:12:31.860 But I think something, there's a power when you bring other men into the process as well.

00:12:37.240 Yeah, if you put too much pressure on a dad, I mean, no dad is going to be a perfect father.

00:12:44.940 And so to put all that psychic pressure on a dad can be overwhelming, but to distribute

00:12:48.600 that through a community of men where, you know, a father or a mentor plays a primary

00:12:53.320 role, but is surrounded by this cast of other sort of like wise, passionate, you know, helpful

00:12:59.600 men.

00:13:00.040 I think that is a real gift.

00:13:01.340 And I think it's actually something that young men ache for.

00:13:04.580 Or why is there such devotion to teams, team sports, having coaches around us?

00:13:10.220 Because we need that sense of community and belonging as we grow and develop.

00:13:13.320 So yeah, it was very, very important for me, not just to be, you know, my son and I, but

00:13:18.740 it was like my son and I and a cohort of other guys walking through this.

00:13:23.720 Well, I think too, you know, part of what you're trying to do in initiation or rite of passage

00:13:27.400 is help the boy cut themselves off in a way from their family.

00:13:32.980 So if it's just the dad, that's a problem.

00:13:35.920 That's going to be hard to do because if you're always there in the process, it's hard to cut

00:13:39.820 yourself off away from your father.

00:13:41.280 But if you have another man there, you can have those periods where you can experience

00:13:45.380 that.

00:13:45.640 And I've noticed in my own life, I look back at my own life, you know, my dad was always

00:13:48.840 there and he taught me a lot of important things.

00:13:52.480 But I remember it really like a lot of times, oftentimes the things that he told me or he

00:13:57.040 modeled hit home when there was another man that wasn't my father.

00:14:01.120 You're showing me that.

00:14:03.620 Okay.

00:14:04.160 So you came with this idea, what you want your son to be like.

00:14:07.440 Then you did, you start off an initial ceremony, but it was with your wife.

00:14:13.240 It was mom that kickstarted this thing off.

00:14:16.000 What's that's, I think that a lot of guys think what's going on there.

00:14:19.340 Why'd you do that?

00:14:20.600 Well, that was interestingly enough, the most controversial piece of this period.

00:14:26.460 And this is the place I get the most feedback.

00:14:28.280 Just to take a little half step back, James Hollis, who was, I think, the president of

00:14:33.920 the Jungian Society, he's written a ton of books on midlife, on pathways, on stage development

00:14:41.460 and theory.

00:14:41.960 He basically said all societies have a six-step process of walking boys through adolescence

00:14:47.920 into manhood.

00:14:49.280 And one of those stages is what he calls the death of childhood thinking.

00:14:52.640 And it's an environment where you've got to be cut off from the primary influences of

00:14:57.360 childhood in order to enter liminal space.

00:15:00.900 And one of the things that a lot of societies did was like consciously severed an overemphasized

00:15:06.820 bond between mother and child so that he could learn to be formed by the community of men.

00:15:12.040 So I did what I called a severing dinner, which the publisher reduced down to a directional

00:15:18.740 dinner, which sounded less threatening.

00:15:21.540 And it was basically, I talked to my wife into doing this, and my wife's an absolute legend.

00:15:26.500 She's an incredible woman.

00:15:28.240 And I said, hey, look, I need Nate not to shrink back to you for comfort, but I need you to push

00:15:34.640 him back to me for formation and for challenge.

00:15:37.340 And so she took him out for a dinner to his favorite restaurant, even though I'm from Australia.

00:15:41.700 She took him to Outback.

00:15:42.740 It's a cliche, but it is what it is.

00:15:45.020 And he's at Outback Steakhouse.

00:15:46.460 And then she gave him a series of gifts.

00:15:48.900 And then, you know, I come from a faith background.

00:15:51.820 So she prayed a prayer of blessing over him, sort of like an important marking moment.

00:15:56.240 And then she said to him, hey, I'm your mother.

00:15:58.380 I love you.

00:15:58.980 I'll always be here for you, and I'll care for you.

00:16:00.880 But you need to be handed to your father to learn how to become a man.

00:16:04.640 This is going to be hard.

00:16:05.560 It's going to be a challenge, and you're going to want to come back to me to ease and find

00:16:11.560 comfort for the discomfort and challenges you're facing.

00:16:14.720 And I want you to know I'm going to push you back to your dad, and I'm not going to nurture

00:16:18.000 your immaturity. 0.59

00:16:19.720 And that was a really powerful moment.

00:16:22.280 Now, to fast forward several years, when I was with my son closing out our journey together,

00:16:28.340 I said to him, hey, Nate, I'm getting quite a bit of pushback on the dinner that you did

00:16:33.720 with mom.

00:16:34.220 And he said, no, no, no, no, you have to include that.

00:16:38.240 He said, I cannot put into words how psychologically powerful that was for me to realize I was

00:16:44.660 entering this journey primarily being formed by men.

00:16:48.800 And he was like, that jump started this whole thing in my heart that I was actually entering

00:16:53.240 into a different stage together.

00:16:54.460 So, yeah, it began with my wife and then sort of moved to a formal initiation ceremony on

00:17:00.760 a beach off the coast of New York City.

00:17:02.820 And what did that ceremony look like?

00:17:04.380 Who was there and what did you do?

00:17:06.180 So, I basically got three other dads together.

00:17:09.260 I've been in New York City for the last 17 years.

00:17:11.820 So, it was a few other dads who were my son's closest friends and basically cast this vision

00:17:18.640 for him about building this pathway from adolescence into manhood.

00:17:22.080 And then we designed an initiation ceremony.

00:17:24.160 So, we hyped it up for a few months.

00:17:26.160 So, they'd be a little nervous and also excited.

00:17:29.020 And then when the day came, when all the boys had turned 13, this is late summer, we took

00:17:34.840 them out to the beach and sat them in the sand and gathered around, told them a series

00:17:41.120 of stories, shared some of our own personal lessons and learning, and then sort of try

00:17:46.560 to put, to say it in a good way, sort of inspire them and paint a picture of what was coming

00:17:52.460 and put the fear of God in them about how hard this was going to be.

00:17:56.180 So, there was sort of like that anticipatory terror.

00:17:59.720 And then they ran into the water, sort of like a religious baptism into this journey,

00:18:05.700 dying to their old ways of childhood, and then rising into this journey.

00:18:10.580 And then we took them to Coney Island where they played a bunch of games together.

00:18:14.480 And that was the kickoff.

00:18:16.160 I then gave my son some gifts.

00:18:19.160 I'm a big believer in the power of artifacts.

00:18:21.620 And, you know, there's something potent of one generation passing on something to the

00:18:26.460 next generation that they can handle and know that they're in a part of a continuing story.

00:18:30.720 So, I gave my son a really strong leather journal, gave him a really nice pen, and then along

00:18:35.960 the way, a whole series of gifts to sort of like mark it out and get all along.

00:18:39.500 I had this vision before I started where I wanted my son to start on the coast of New York,

00:18:46.040 and I wanted his journey to end on the coast of Spain.

00:18:50.380 And there's a little town called Finisterre, and it's a place where pilgrims, after they

00:18:55.440 do this long hike, leave behind something at the end of their pilgrimage.

00:19:01.200 And I had planned to sort of like go into the ocean in New York and go into the ocean in

00:19:06.000 Spain.

00:19:06.460 And so, I had a plan to bookend.

00:19:07.860 And so, that's why it was done at the beach, and that's why water was an important part of

00:19:10.940 that.

00:19:11.580 So, yeah, you were thinking with the end in mind, again, going back to Stephen Covey.

00:19:15.340 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:19:16.800 Yeah.

00:19:17.000 And the when he leaves home, I really just, and this is one thing I would encourage dads

00:19:21.320 or mentors to do.

00:19:22.320 A lot of times, men get into the workplace, and they have, you know, they're casting vision.

00:19:28.680 They're thinking about sales or strategy or how to build things out, how to take ground.

00:19:34.300 And they've got a ton of energy and gifts, vision casting, and that sort of stuff.

00:19:38.080 But when it comes to their own kids, we don't apply any of the skills we have in our jobs

00:19:42.400 to our parenting.

00:19:43.700 And if, you know, if you would have put me on like a strength finder test, strategic

00:19:48.880 would be number two for me.

00:19:50.080 So, I was like, hey, I'm a pretty strategic person.

00:19:52.780 Why not apply this to fatherhood and then build this out?

00:19:55.300 So, yeah, I had thought through this journey and tried to figure out the core components

00:19:59.500 of it.

00:20:00.260 And that certainly took away a lot of the panic and fear, even though there still was a

00:20:04.180 ton of that being a dad.

00:20:05.680 So, when do you think a son should start the rite of passage?

00:20:08.060 Like, how do you know that they're ready?

00:20:09.620 I think, you know, universally through history, it's sort of around the age of 13 or so.

00:20:17.680 And I don't know if that is, I don't know if there's anything sort of like culturally specific

00:20:24.440 around that.

00:20:25.060 Certainly not in our world anymore, like turning 13, I guess you're a teenager, but that's not

00:20:28.760 that big a deal.

00:20:29.680 I think it's more connected to puberty.

00:20:31.700 It's when your body's beginning to change.

00:20:34.000 It's when testosterone's coming in.

00:20:36.140 It's when you start to think about sexuality.

00:20:39.080 It's when you start to think about your strength.

00:20:40.940 It's when competition really sets in.

00:20:43.560 That's when you start thinking about, I don't know, even a sense of vocation.

00:20:47.420 You stop wanting to be the things you say when you're four or five and you've got a bit

00:20:50.920 more of a realistic sense of where it is.

00:20:53.260 You know, you're getting into sports or into academics in a new way.

00:20:56.560 And so, I think, again, it's about that male energy.

00:20:59.300 You're trying to figure out, what do I do with this?

00:21:02.260 It can be very, very confusing and disorienting energy too.

00:21:06.100 So, right around the time this is happening within you, you want a community of men to come

00:21:09.480 around you and to tell you the energy is good, it's a gift, it must be channeled the

00:21:14.320 right way, and here is the path.

00:21:16.060 So, yeah, universally, it seems to be sort of around 13, around the age of puberty.

00:21:20.100 Okay.

00:21:20.340 So, your son does the ceremony with his mom.

00:21:23.600 You have the initiation ceremony with his friends and some other dads at the beach.

00:21:27.100 The first part of this initiation, years-long initiation process, was you actually took

00:21:33.200 your son back home where you grew up.

00:21:36.500 Why did you do that?

00:21:37.560 What was the point of this?

00:21:39.780 Well, I mean, if I could sum up modern culture in one phrase, it would be this, project self.

00:21:49.060 Project self.

00:21:50.240 We live in a world that's telling you all the time, you are the center of everything.

00:21:54.600 Narcissism is at epidemic proportions in our world today.

00:21:59.720 And, you know, particularly when you're a teenager, you can be pretty inwardly focused.

00:22:04.140 It is a confusing time.

00:22:05.700 And you can think that there's nothing outside of yourself and that there's nothing that mattered

00:22:09.980 before you showed up.

00:22:11.700 And I wanted my son to have a bigger picture of life.

00:22:14.420 I wanted my son to realize what shaped me, what was going to be shaping him.

00:22:18.420 And I wanted him to step into sort of a family narrative.

00:22:21.760 You know, various family traditions, some ethnic, some religious, record family trees for different

00:22:29.360 reasons.

00:22:29.840 I happen to have a cousin who was a history buff and has got a PhD in history.

00:22:35.660 And he traced our family line back to the 10th century.

00:22:39.280 And so, he presented me like this hundreds of pages of book of our family story.

00:22:47.160 And I mean, the whole thing, family crests, family mottos.

00:22:50.820 I mean, it was amazing.

00:22:52.440 And so, I presented that to my son.

00:22:55.120 Hey, you know, you're a part of a long line of Tyson men and this is what it means.

00:22:59.300 And then I wanted him to see, you know, where I grew up and what it was like for me to develop

00:23:04.820 my own values.

00:23:05.540 So, I took him back to Australia and where I grew up, I'm from a city called Adelaide

00:23:10.420 and basically had him, you know, go through the places that form the values of my life

00:23:15.600 so that when I talked about something, he didn't use what it was.

00:23:19.200 I wanted him to have a context for the story that he was stepping into.

00:23:24.180 And I think without Alistair McIntyre said this, we can only ask the question, what am

00:23:29.480 I to do if I can answer the previous question?

00:23:32.140 What stories am I a part of?

00:23:33.600 Or what stories am I a part of?

00:23:34.960 And so, if you're going to figure out your role, you've got to figure out the story that

00:23:38.060 you're in.

00:23:38.380 And I really felt it was important to give my son a sense of continuity and history so

00:23:42.360 he could understand the story that he was extending.

00:23:44.980 No, I think that's important.

00:23:45.820 I think another way you can sum up modern life is lack of context.

00:23:49.560 A lot of people were just, you're kind of thrown into this milieu where it's just, you're

00:23:52.760 getting bombarded by all these different stories, right?

00:23:55.720 And you don't have a story that you're embedded in.

00:23:57.640 And so, you're disoriented.

00:23:59.220 And I think telling your kid, like, hey, this is, this is, you're part of this story.

00:24:03.960 This is our family story.

00:24:05.040 This is what you're part of.

00:24:06.440 Gives them some context.

00:24:07.680 Now, and I think this is important because it can give them, one, they could step into

00:24:10.540 that and lean into it.

00:24:11.840 But even if they decide not to, by giving them that story, right?

00:24:16.360 They're able to know like, oh, how can I make myself different?

00:24:19.060 Like, it gives them something to push back against, if that makes sense.

00:24:21.560 Yeah.

00:24:22.160 Yeah, totally.

00:24:23.000 Yeah.

00:24:23.180 I think a lot of young people, like, they're just kind of flapping their arms.

00:24:26.200 They don't, they don't know what they're doing.

00:24:28.300 And I think there's a, I think it's important too, to tell the family story in, in a compelling

00:24:34.080 way and an honest way.

00:24:35.920 I mean, you know, the whole idea of a family reunion where it's like a bunch of people you

00:24:40.220 don't really like wearing weird t-shirts, you know, like I wasn't trying to do that with

00:24:45.640 my son.

00:24:46.160 I was trying to let him know, hey man, our family has an incredible history.

00:24:51.480 It's a history of people who have taken big risks.

00:24:54.680 It's a history of people who've sacrificed.

00:24:57.280 It's a history of people who've paid a real price for you to be where you are in the world

00:25:01.220 today.

00:25:02.220 And I want you to know you come from good stock.

00:25:05.640 To be a Tyson, Tyson means fire brand.

00:25:09.040 I mean, like carry the fire.

00:25:10.580 I, you know, I, I have the carry the fire lighters from the art of man.

00:25:14.360 Oh, thank you.

00:25:14.980 But like that, that whole concept, man, this, you're born into a legacy and you don't get

00:25:22.120 to invent a universe from nothing.

00:25:24.480 And there's, there's good things I want you to have.

00:25:27.460 There's bad things I want to warn you about that could flow into your life because of,

00:25:32.360 you know, the things we've been through.

00:25:34.040 And then I want to figure out how to help you carry this forward through your calling

00:25:38.760 and your personality.

00:25:39.640 And that was actually a really, really amazing time.

00:25:43.200 You know, I've had a pretty wild life.

00:25:44.840 I dropped out of high school, worked in a meat factory, bought a house when I was 19,

00:25:49.840 immigrated to another country.

00:25:51.220 I've had, you know, pretty wild teenage years.

00:25:54.040 And I wanted my son to sort of like see that and feel the weight of that so he could understand

00:25:59.060 the context that I was parenting out of.

00:26:01.500 So he really enjoyed that time.

00:26:03.040 Even though I was heartbroken that he came back saying, dad, American food is better than

00:26:07.320 Australian food.

00:26:08.320 What can you do?

00:26:09.000 I mean, I know what I like about what you did too, is you would take them to places

00:26:12.640 where you made really big decisions in your own life.

00:26:16.600 Yeah.

00:26:17.100 And I think that's a really great idea because it allows your son, it gives them, it gives

00:26:22.040 them a pattern to follow when he's making his own big decisions.

00:26:26.300 Yeah.

00:26:26.740 My values were vision, passion, discipline, and risk.

00:26:30.060 You know, when I go back through history, I've always valued visionary men.

00:26:33.860 They look beyond the horizons of what is possible, you know, and they didn't.

00:26:38.980 They dream bigger dreams for themselves and for the culture.

00:26:42.120 I've always loved men of passion.

00:26:45.060 I've respected men of discipline who have channeled, again, their energy to something,

00:26:49.820 you know, redemptive and something good.

00:26:51.440 And then if you're good at those things, if you've got vision and passion and your discipline,

00:26:54.780 you're going to get opportunities.

00:26:55.780 That's going to require risk.

00:26:56.700 So, I took him to the four places I learned those values.

00:27:00.920 And again, I totally agree.

00:27:03.040 When something emerges in your life, in order for it to be internalized and to become a sacred

00:27:08.360 part of your story, you've got to mark it.

00:27:11.360 You know, the power of ritual and recognition so our life is not just a blur of ordinary days.

00:27:19.020 So, yeah.

00:27:19.640 And I see my son doing that now.

00:27:21.180 My son will take time and say, this place matters to me.

00:27:25.700 This is an important part of my story.

00:27:27.460 Those sorts of things.

00:27:28.240 So, yeah, he learned that by seeing it on the trip.

00:27:31.100 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:27:32.780 And now back to the show.

00:27:36.820 So, one of your big goals through this whole entire process was to teach your son values,

00:27:41.760 family values, help them develop his own personal values.

00:27:45.000 But you also had this idea, like, I want to inculcate masculine values into my son.

00:27:49.380 What were those values and why do you think that was important?

00:27:53.120 It is a confusing time in our culture to ask the question, what is a man?

00:27:59.720 What does it mean to be a man?

00:28:01.000 And there's a lot of stereotypes out there.

00:28:03.380 There's a lot of negative press in there.

00:28:05.760 One of the things I try to emphasize to sort of get away from the controversy, and there

00:28:10.240 is a lot of controversy, was the power of classical virtues.

00:28:14.080 So, the four classical virtues, justice, wisdom, courage, and self-restraint.

00:28:18.680 I felt like the men we need in our world today are embodied in these values.

00:28:25.280 We need just men in a world of tyrants.

00:28:27.640 We need restrained men in a world of excess.

00:28:30.260 We need wise men in a world of fools.

00:28:33.140 And we need courageous men in a world of fear.

00:28:36.620 You know, again, as someone from a faith tradition, the most important values according to St. Paul

00:28:42.220 are faith, hope, and love.

00:28:43.920 And so, to extend that, I'm like, we need faithful men in a world of compromise.

00:28:47.640 We need hopeful men in a time of despair.

00:28:49.760 We need loving men in a world of hate.

00:28:51.240 So, I try to take these noble, historically proven virtues and make those the baseline.

00:28:59.520 And particularly in Greco-Roman culture, these were masculine values.

00:29:04.040 These were values that were associated with men.

00:29:07.060 And so, rather than just sort of pluck from thin air, choose random cultural values, I try to find something that was a little more timeless and rooted.

00:29:15.540 And one way you passed on these values or taught your son these values, you did this, you'd take them on trips and you'd kind of, you'd just show it, right?

00:29:23.340 I think that's a very, I think it's probably the most powerful way.

00:29:25.300 But then you'd have these, every morning you'd sit down with them and you'd have these little talks.

00:29:30.460 And you'd also assign them books to read.

00:29:32.640 Tell us about that.

00:29:33.340 Yeah, well, I mean, again, I think I got the vision of like just college or high school, which is what do you need to cover in order to graduate?

00:29:43.120 Like, how do you graduate into manhood?

00:29:45.480 Like, what do you need to have passed?

00:29:47.800 And again, getting back to, you know, know, be and do as the sort of core tenets there.

00:29:52.300 So, yeah, I just, I got a calendar and I worked back through a series of months and I just said, here's the content I want to cover in this time.

00:30:04.320 And then I just broke it up into little chunks and then we just talked through it.

00:30:08.020 So, yeah, I just wanted to have this point every day where I was connecting.

00:30:12.080 When you ask the question, how does somebody grow?

00:30:15.800 How does somebody change?

00:30:17.060 How are they really shaped or formed?

00:30:19.780 It's normally two things.

00:30:21.100 It's big, powerful, catalytic, defining moments.

00:30:26.220 And then it's like the ordinary, everyday, habitual, repetitive stuff we do in our lives.

00:30:32.840 And so, that's what I was doing in the daily little check-ins.

00:30:35.980 You know, sometimes they're 15 minutes, sometimes they're 40 minutes, depending on what we're talking about.

00:30:40.480 But it was just getting up early before school and then picking the theme we were working on, whether it was like, you know, one of the archetypes or one of the shifts.

00:30:47.840 And then I just come up with content and we just talk it through.

00:30:51.420 So, I think just sowing those small seeds every day over the course of years produces a massive kind of fruit.

00:30:59.000 So, I asked my son, like, you know, like, what are some of the takeaways that you got from that?

00:31:03.320 And a lot of it were like pithy little phrases.

00:31:06.740 My son said the number one thing that I've taken away from all of those years of content was this idea.

00:31:12.400 You are who you are when no one's looking.

00:31:14.700 That's your true self.

00:31:15.720 When you're accountable as your own man in the world before you're created.

00:31:20.300 That's who you really are without people pushing you.

00:31:23.440 And that was just something like I winged one morning.

00:31:26.720 You know, I was just like, okay, let me just like throw that in, you know.

00:31:29.660 So, again, you never know by sowing those seeds what's going to stick and what's really going to like impact and help.

00:31:35.580 And also, throughout the process, you'd read books together or you'd even watch movies.

00:31:39.220 So, if you're talking about courage, you would watch Band of Brothers, for example.

00:31:43.880 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:31:44.680 I mean, we just churned through the movies.

00:31:48.700 If you're a busy dad, I can tell you, come up with a few discussion questions, watch a movie, make them thoughtful, and you can have a great night together.

00:31:56.480 Yeah, the Band of Brothers and Barbecue was a very, very strong season that we did.

00:32:00.920 So, we would just like talk about, you know, watch an episode, talk about what we learned in the characters, and then we'd go out and eat meat.

00:32:07.580 And we sort of went through the, yeah, because I used to be a butcher,

00:32:11.440 we would go to different barbecue restaurants.

00:32:13.800 And we honestly sort of ate our way around New York City as a reward for doing these nights together.

00:32:19.980 So, that was a lot of fun.

00:32:21.400 Build your traditions.

00:32:22.340 With my daughter, we did it with cookies.

00:32:24.260 You know, she didn't want to eat brisket every week. 1.00

00:32:26.480 Well, yeah, I want to talk about something you did with your daughter in a bit here.

00:32:30.980 Okay, so one of the things you did with this rite of passage process is you really,

00:32:35.620 you used the work or looked at the work of Richard Rohr.

00:32:38.180 Or, we've had him on the podcast before, Franciscan monk, who's thought and does a lot about male initiation.

00:32:44.660 And you took this idea that Rohr has of the five rules of manhood that every boy needs to learn in order to become a man.

00:32:52.500 And then you modified it to, and you called them the shifts of manhood.

00:32:56.340 So, what are the five shifts of manhood?

00:32:59.020 Yeah, I mean, Rohr is obviously a sage.

00:33:01.820 I mean, he spent half a lifetime thinking about this stuff and has some very, very strong works on that.

00:33:08.720 But I felt like, I mean, how do you say to a 13-year-old kid, you are going to die, you're not that important, life is not about you.

00:33:17.180 And then how do you help him see that he's making progress on that?

00:33:22.100 And so, I sort of converted him into these shifts.

00:33:24.380 So, the shifts are from ease to difficulty, boys embrace ease, men embrace difficulty.

00:33:30.840 From self to others, boys are about themselves, men are about others.

00:33:34.460 From the whole to apart, boys are all about themselves, men realize they're only a part of a greater story.

00:33:39.640 From control to surrender, boys think they can maintain control, men understand the mysterious power of surrender.

00:33:45.240 And then from the temporary to the eternal, boys only think about what matters right now, but men think out of a larger picture.

00:33:51.100 And then, yeah, I designed these units to help him really learn these lessons.

00:33:57.540 And so, to be able to say, hey, boys are about ease themselves, the whole thing, control and temporary things, and men are about difficulty, others, humility, surrender, you know, think in big picture.

00:34:09.620 So, yeah, I would take a couple of months on each of these, have a little daily talk about it, do this weekly thing that we called man school.

00:34:17.560 And then at the end of it, we would do a challenge.

00:34:19.580 So, from ease to difficulty, for example, my son's terrified of heights.

00:34:23.860 So, I took him in Australia to the highest ropes course and made this thing was, I hate heights too.

00:34:30.240 This was horrific, but I wanted him to see, hey, man, if you do this, you've passed, like you have now embraced difficulty, like you're ready to move on to the next unit.

00:34:39.180 And so, it was a real joy seeing him like do an actual challenge that kind of scared him a bit where he had to overcome something.

00:34:44.440 But it was just a way of showing progress.

00:34:47.260 I think there's nothing more demoralizing for men than working hard and seeing no progress from your labor.

00:34:55.200 And so, I wanted to build in this sense of I am taking ground.

00:34:59.100 I am moving down the path.

00:35:00.940 I am heading down the road from, you know, adolescence into manhood.

00:35:04.640 And this was something that, particularly with my son, was very, very effective.

00:35:08.920 No, and I love for the shift for temporary to the eternal, like you took him to a graveyard.

00:35:13.500 And that was really impactful.

00:35:14.720 That was one of those other, you know, things that really stuck with your son when you asked him, like, what was some of the things that stuck?

00:35:19.880 And it was like this pithy, off-the-cuff remark about, you know, you look at a gravestone and you see the date someone's born, then a dash, then the date they die.

00:35:29.560 And you said, like, you know, that dash, that was their life.

00:35:33.620 And what's going to be your dash?

00:35:36.420 Yeah, what's your dash?

00:35:37.860 That was actually a really meaningful moment.

00:35:40.520 And my son, anytime we go past a graveyard, we'll to this day be like, what's your dash, dad?

00:35:45.260 Make it count, you know?

00:35:46.700 And it is kind of amazing to think, you know, there's that person, their life is over.

00:35:52.840 Like, if they'd do anything to get a second chance at it, gosh, don't squander your life, man.

00:35:58.000 Time is a gift.

00:35:58.880 Time is the most important commodity.

00:36:01.620 And so, like, think properly and steward your time.

00:36:05.100 And I think he is, to this day, my son is very time conscious as a result of that moment.

00:36:11.060 Okay, so these five shifts, you would spend a few months.

00:36:13.400 Would you revisit, like, you know, say if you did, you know, from whole story to part of the story, you know, a year before, would you revisit it?

00:36:20.420 Say, hey, here's another, we're going to talk about this some more.

00:36:23.380 Yeah, I'm always just, I mean, when you talk about how memory works, you know, we forget in a week 75% of what we've heard a week earlier.

00:36:31.200 And so, you've got to do what they call deep encoding.

00:36:35.260 And that primarily comes through spaced repetition.

00:36:38.240 And we all know that you can cram overnight and pass a test and learn nothing.

00:36:42.200 Or you can study, which means, like, every couple of days, you're, like, loading it back into your mind.

00:36:48.140 And, yeah, I was constantly trying to reinforce the core ideas.

00:36:52.980 And I did that over the course of several years.

00:36:55.040 So, your spaced repetition is really important.

00:36:57.440 Keep hitting the same things again and again and again.

00:37:00.560 And I think all people that educate well get this, just, like, refocusing, putting the emphasis on these things so they go from external into an internal component where they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

00:37:13.740 Another thing that I really, I like that you talked about in the book is this idea of preparing for moments that your adolescent is going to face as they go through puberty, right, into adulthood.

00:37:24.180 And I think these moments are often, if left, if you're not, if you don't have a conscious, intentional rite of passage, these moments often become the rite of passage.

00:37:34.720 Yeah.

00:37:34.880 But what you're trying to do with this idea of preparing for moments is making these moments part of a larger rite of passage.

00:37:42.100 And so, these are things like, you know, first shave, when they get, your kid gets their first cell phone, when they get a driver's license.

00:37:48.220 And you thought about, like, what can I do to make these, Mel, my son, see these moments are part of a bigger picture.

00:37:54.700 Yeah.

00:37:55.220 I mean, I'm a big believer that the book, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, I mean, that was just a masterclass.

00:38:03.180 You know, as a leader, you know, as a person, your life is really a series of defining moments that have shaped you.

00:38:10.520 If you were to sort of map out your story, you know, you're basically going to pull out some disproportionately impactful moments, either of pain or of wounding.

00:38:19.280 And I was like, okay, so these moments, like, we're going to be shaped by these moments.

00:38:24.540 Is there a way to, like, consciously cultivate them to prepare in advance when they, you know, the young men ones happen?

00:38:31.160 But then sort of have a framework on how to do it.

00:38:34.560 And so I was very, very aware.

00:38:36.660 And, you know, I think scientists tell us as well, like, the memories we form in our late teens and early 20s tend to be the strongest memories we carry our whole life.

00:38:44.140 Because we're going through so many firsts and they find their way into our long-term memory.

00:38:50.500 They're converted into our long-term memory by the potency and novelty of the event.

00:38:55.420 So, yeah, I was, like, trying to figure out how to do those things and how to build them up.

00:39:00.280 A classic, I mean, my son got his driver's license.

00:39:03.920 He passed his test in New York City.

00:39:05.900 And you want to talk about a harrowing adventure, taking your driving test in New York City.

00:39:11.480 And when he comes back, he didn't even know if he passed or not.

00:39:16.780 Like, the lady just said to him, you need to work on your three-point turns.

00:39:21.080 And then hands him a sheet.

00:39:22.540 And I was, like, did you pass or not?

00:39:23.760 He's, like, I don't know.

00:39:25.140 I thought, what a missed opportunity.

00:39:27.640 She could have said to him, young man, congratulations.

00:39:30.700 You now can drive to California if you want.

00:39:33.980 The car is yours.

00:39:35.940 The roads are yours.

00:39:38.120 Welcome to freedom.

00:39:39.920 Welcome, I mean, she could have built this into a thing and he would remember that forever.

00:39:44.100 Instead, he had a terrible moment and he barely remembers it.

00:39:47.680 So, I had to mark that moment for him.

00:39:49.940 So, how do you make these moments and use them in ways that bring healing and blessing

00:39:55.060 to our kids rather than our wounds?

00:39:58.280 One of the big ideas they say in the book that I love is, beware the soul-sucking voice

00:40:03.700 of reasonableness, you know, and you can blow a moment out into a lifetime memory by adding

00:40:10.200 15% or 20% more energy to it.

00:40:13.480 So, you know, just by adding a few more little details to it, you can change the whole experience.

00:40:20.880 So, I'll give you a practical example.

00:40:22.080 I had some dads who read my book who flew in from Colorado to have a cigar and talk with

00:40:29.740 me about the book.

00:40:31.180 So, here's what I could have done.

00:40:32.580 I could have sat him down and I could have said, hey, thanks for coming, fellas.

00:40:36.500 But that's not what I did.

00:40:37.840 I went and bought a couple of bottles of, you know, very, very exquisite beverages to pair

00:40:44.720 with the cigars.

00:40:45.580 I got them a box of these Milano cigars.

00:40:48.360 I had this elaborate presentation and when they sat down, they were kind of dumbfounded.

00:40:54.100 Who's this for?

00:40:54.860 I'm like, this is for you.

00:40:56.120 You came all of this way.

00:40:57.220 I wanted to create a great experience for you.

00:40:59.020 And at the end of the night, I let them keep the glasses so that every time they use that

00:41:03.340 glass, they can remember the story.

00:41:05.580 And it's like, those guys will remember that for a very, very long time because a normal

00:41:09.220 moment was turned into a powerful moment.

00:41:11.580 And so, I wanted to get a black belt in creating moments that shape people.

00:41:15.160 And so, I encourage dad to be intentional, to think about these in advance, to have a

00:41:19.660 plan.

00:41:20.640 Like, what are you going to do if you find out your kid's looking at porn, which statistically

00:41:24.500 almost 90% of kids at some point will look at porn?

00:41:27.560 How are you going to respond to that?

00:41:29.280 Are you going to create a culture of shame or are you going to help them understand sexuality

00:41:33.320 and who women are? 1.00

00:41:34.760 Yeah.

00:41:35.020 So, I just went through those moments and I've got a list of them in the book, some of the

00:41:37.880 big ones that you can think through and begin to plan around.

00:41:40.420 But to me, getting those moments right is a huge, huge part of helping us move through

00:41:44.680 the world with blessing rather than wounds.

00:41:46.940 So, as you went through this process, I'm sure your kid was really excited at the beginning

00:41:50.180 because beginnings are always exciting and new because you're doing new things.

00:41:53.320 Yeah.

00:41:53.540 But then your son hit a wall with this process.

00:41:56.420 I mean, he kind of started to lose interest.

00:41:57.920 He's like, yeah, geez, dad, we really have to do these morning talks.

00:42:01.560 Yes.

00:42:02.740 But this is the hard part in any endeavor.

00:42:06.040 This is the part where, whether it's you're starting a business, you're doing a fitness

00:42:10.700 routine, start trying to start a fitness routine.

00:42:12.940 This is the wall.

00:42:13.620 Well, you made a shift at this point to make the process not just about becoming a good

00:42:19.780 man.

00:42:20.200 Because I think that's what you're trying to do.

00:42:21.060 You're trying to help your son harness his masculine energy for the good of the community.

00:42:25.620 But then you shifted it to about becoming good at being a man.

00:42:30.600 What's the difference?

00:42:31.380 And why did that shift reignite the fire in your son?

00:42:35.040 Yeah.

00:42:35.220 I mean, you've had Jack Donovan on before in his book, The Way of Men.

00:42:39.140 And, you know, he's a somewhat controversial figure, I want to note.

00:42:43.740 But he had a core concept that I think really, really shook me.

00:42:48.140 His concept was he talked about Christian men's movements.

00:42:53.260 And that's a part of the tradition that I come from.

00:42:55.740 And he talked about like a vision of good men in our society today.

00:42:59.580 It looks typically like an overwhelmed suburban dad struggling to get his life together.

00:43:07.740 And that's basically it.

00:43:09.120 It's an overwhelmed, somewhat bored dad driven by obligation trying to get his life together.

00:43:14.860 And that's what we think a good man is.

00:43:16.660 He's defined by what he doesn't do.

00:43:19.180 You know, he's not cheating on his wife.

00:43:21.140 He's not out there wasting his money.

00:43:24.460 And it's actually a pretty kind of tame vision.

00:43:27.660 It's not super compelling at all.

00:43:29.880 And he says what men actually want is to be good at being a man, which means like when a

00:43:34.880 man walks in the room, he should have a sense of confidence that he's adding value.

00:43:39.440 And so when you're good at being a man, which means like I am good at understanding how women 1.00

00:43:43.600 work.

00:43:43.960 I'm good at understanding what money is.

00:43:46.260 So I am good at practical skills around the home, obviously, which your website is a,

00:43:50.500 you know, you are part of our central curriculum.

00:43:53.320 You've got thousands of articles on practical stuff.

00:43:56.440 And so I said to my son, hey, why do you think we're doing this?

00:44:00.600 And he says, you want me to be a good man?

00:44:03.320 And I said, I do not want you to be a good man.

00:44:05.580 And he was kind of like, what?

00:44:07.780 I was like, nah, I want you to be good at being a man.

00:44:10.240 I was like, do you want to walk into a room and understand how women think and not be 1.00

00:44:14.140 intimidated?

00:44:15.240 And he's like, yes.

00:44:16.840 I said, do you want to be able to like get through your high school years and have social

00:44:20.960 skills where you can navigate bullies and build friends?

00:44:23.920 He's like, yes.

00:44:25.260 So just, you know, like I'm trying to do the Winston Churchill, which is like get them saying

00:44:28.900 yes or no, you know?

00:44:30.480 And I said, well, that's what we're here for, man.

00:44:32.460 I am here to help you be good at being a man, not to be some opaque kind of good man.

00:44:36.220 And that's when it really kicked in.

00:44:38.380 And that's when I sort of unleashed the archetype content, which was about, you know, like how to

00:44:43.780 understand women and be a lover.

00:44:45.060 How to understand influence and be a leader, how to get in a fight or how to have a cause

00:44:50.080 and be a warrior, how to be a friend.

00:44:52.280 What does it mean to be a brother?

00:44:53.200 How do you be a sage in a world of fools?

00:44:54.880 That sort of a thing.

00:44:55.560 And so when I sort of rolled out that, those components, his motivation was so high, setting

00:45:01.920 his own alarm, disciplining his life to get involved with it.

00:45:05.460 So yeah, I kind of bland, feeble morality with a stereotypical roles that has no passion,

00:45:16.080 no teeth, no consequence.

00:45:18.680 I'm not interested in that.

00:45:20.780 And I think a lot of people today are sort of like living half their lives because they've

00:45:25.240 been shoved into these passionless scripts that they think this is what it is to be a

00:45:29.700 man.

00:45:30.100 I wanted to turn him loose, you know, give him a bit of a, as they say, fire in the belly.

00:45:35.020 And that just had a massive impact on him.

00:45:36.940 So it went from me trying to get him up to him voluntarily getting up.

00:45:39.960 It was a real breakthrough.

00:45:40.660 How old was he when this happened?

00:45:43.340 Oh gosh, he was 15.

00:45:45.440 Okay.

00:45:46.160 15, so we're a couple years in.

00:45:47.960 And I liked how you took this idea of being good at being a man and tied it into these

00:45:52.800 different roles that you started talking about, okay, as a man, these are the roles you're

00:45:57.780 going to have to fulfill as an adult.

00:46:00.000 How can you be good at fulfilling that role?

00:46:03.100 And I think that gives some direction for that, again, that masculine energy that teenage

00:46:07.320 boys are starting to turn on.

00:46:08.980 Yeah, I totally agree.

00:46:09.920 If you don't, I mean, there's nothing worse than standing in a room and feeling awkward.

00:46:15.760 I don't know how to talk to people.

00:46:17.720 I don't feel like I'm good at anything.

00:46:20.360 And I don't know why I'm here.

00:46:22.340 Like if you're projecting that sort of emotional field, it's not going to go well for you.

00:46:26.020 And that's going to lead, like that's going to spiral into unhealthy places.

00:46:30.320 So to begin to like logically, sequentially, strategically break down the elements of how to be a man in

00:46:39.600 the world and tell him, you can do this.

00:46:42.560 You can do this, man.

00:46:43.840 And I'm going to train you to be able to do those things.

00:46:46.880 That produces a ton of confidence.

00:46:48.940 And I said, and then here's what you do when you don't know.

00:46:51.980 You don't fake it.

00:46:53.460 You ask people who are better than you.

00:46:55.120 And then you compliment them.

00:46:57.600 And then they feel confident in themselves because they're teaching you and they're

00:47:01.500 endeared to you.

00:47:02.180 So, man, we did so much stuff on like all the practical sort of like archetype stuff of how

00:47:09.000 to be in the world.

00:47:09.960 When I asked my son today, he turns 22 this next week.

00:47:14.020 I said, okay, man, we're a couple years out for this.

00:47:17.060 You know, you're a junior in college now.

00:47:18.740 What's your number one takeaway?

00:47:21.640 And he said, the number one takeaway is the mental framework that I can figure out and

00:47:27.600 handle anything.

00:47:29.480 And I was like, touchdown, mate.

00:47:31.800 That's it.

00:47:32.840 If you can get that kind of internal confidence in a young man's heart where he feels like

00:47:38.520 he can face the challenges of life, I mean, that just felt like such a win for me.

00:47:42.560 Okay.

00:47:42.680 So just to start, you mentioned some of these roles.

00:47:44.300 You had lover.

00:47:45.180 So you're talking about, okay, how can I be, how can I get along with women? 1.00

00:47:49.420 How can I attract a mate?

00:47:50.960 That's, I think a lot of boys, they're interested in that because they just feel awkward.

00:47:54.960 A leader, you had that.

00:47:56.860 I mean, I guess like if you're going back to like Jungian archetypes, be like the king,

00:48:00.160 right?

00:48:00.420 Like that would be the-

00:48:01.100 Yeah, no, totally.

00:48:01.900 But yeah, yes.

00:48:03.080 Go ahead.

00:48:03.600 Yeah, the leader, the warrior, the brother, the wise man.

00:48:07.060 There's probably a few more you can put in there.

00:48:09.000 But these, I try to sort of put these in things I felt my son from my tradition needed.

00:48:15.180 You know?

00:48:16.280 And so, you know, one of it was like a faith one, which is being a disciple.

00:48:20.440 You know, one was like understanding women. 0.69

00:48:22.080 One was about like how to have the influence in the world through leadership, how to get

00:48:25.580 in a fight.

00:48:26.200 There's so much, you know, I mean, in many ways, we're driven by two forces, hope and

00:48:30.560 hate.

00:48:31.040 We're driven by like what we want to happen.

00:48:32.940 And then like the thing that's stopping it, the threat against the thing that's stopping

00:48:36.560 it.

00:48:37.100 So, you know, like that's what the warrior energy is.

00:48:39.720 It's like going after the thing you want and then fighting off the thing that's a threat

00:48:43.560 to that.

00:48:44.480 Then the power of friendships, you know, male friendships are so awkward, particularly

00:48:47.620 that age.

00:48:48.240 Social media has definitely complicated it.

00:48:50.640 But, you know, like how do you be a faithful brother to somebody else?

00:48:54.060 How do you stay the course?

00:48:55.000 How do you build long-term friendships?

00:48:56.760 And I'm so grateful for that.

00:48:58.180 My son did a gap year.

00:49:00.020 And in that gap year, he just got a crew.

00:49:04.720 And because of some of the stuff we've talked about, they now do an annual reunion.

00:49:09.080 So, they're three years removed.

00:49:11.320 A couple of them have gone on and gotten married.

00:49:13.240 But every year, they've got this little tribe that gets together to mark the milestones of

00:49:18.380 their life and just talk about like the joys and sorrows they've been through the previous

00:49:21.540 year.

00:49:21.940 So, it's been a real joy to see him, you know, build a little brotherhood.

00:49:25.240 And then how do you be a wise man?

00:49:26.420 Man, the world's filled with fools.

00:49:27.800 It's filled with pain, regret, lack of certainty, confusion.

00:49:32.740 And like how do you navigate, you know, some of the complexities of life?

00:49:36.140 So, we spent a lot of time talking about like what is wisdom?

00:49:38.740 What is the wisdom tradition?

00:49:40.700 And how do you, you know, learn to grow in wisdom?

00:49:43.460 The book of Proverbs talks about five kinds of fools.

00:49:47.500 And there's five ways of being foolish in the world.

00:49:50.160 And there's five kinds of wisdom to overcome the five fools.

00:49:52.840 So, you know, we spent time talking through that, that sort of stuff.

00:49:55.720 One idea that I really liked, and I'm going to swipe from you.

00:49:58.500 I'm going to use it with my own kids, is the LifeArc interview.

00:50:02.700 Yeah.

00:50:03.000 What is that?

00:50:03.720 And what did your son get out of them?

00:50:05.940 Well, yeah, the LifeArc interview is basically saying, you know,

00:50:08.780 life is a series of seasons.

00:50:10.980 It's a series of stages.

00:50:13.040 And without a sense of like knowing what stage you're in or what season you're in,

00:50:18.720 like life can just feel very long and very painful and very, very confusing.

00:50:22.540 But if you realize this, hey, there's certain things you've got to get right,

00:50:25.600 certain things to look out for, certain things to avoid at these various stages,

00:50:29.480 you're going to go in with eyes wide open.

00:50:31.540 And so, it's sort of like a stage orientation.

00:50:34.560 When you're a freshman at college, they do a campus orientation.

00:50:37.960 They do a freshman orientation.

00:50:39.640 They're basically trying to say to you like, open your eyes and here's how to navigate this world.

00:50:44.480 So, yeah, I wanted my son to go through life and figure out what to do with each decade or each stage of life.

00:50:51.360 So, to sit down with someone and basically ask, hey, like, what did you most enjoy about this stage and why?

00:50:56.960 What are three or four of your favorite memories from this stage?

00:50:59.680 What are the biggest regrets you had in this particular stage of your life?

00:51:03.400 If you could do it again, what did you do differently?

00:51:05.680 What do I have to get right?

00:51:08.040 You know, what must I absolutely avoid?

00:51:10.540 And then you begin to get a bit of an arc of what life is.

00:51:14.560 And so, you know, one of the great challenges with young people today is like they want the lifestyle in their 20s that their parents worked for in their 40s.

00:51:22.880 And so, if you say, hey, I mean, your 20s are not for like wealth accumulation as much as they are about vocational experimentation and understanding yourself, you're going to put some relief valves from the pressure of success and confusion.

00:51:38.080 And then hopefully, you know, they've got to have their own chronology, their friends got their own journey to walk, their own challenges and their own pace that they have to navigate.

00:51:46.200 But that at least gets some sense about like here's the territory.

00:51:49.120 If you go on any journey, at some point, you're going to break the journey down into stages.

00:51:54.720 Hey, there's a mountainous stage.

00:51:56.060 There's a flat stage.

00:51:56.980 There's a hot stage.

00:51:57.880 There's a, you know, stop here.

00:51:59.200 See this.

00:51:59.980 We do this on all trips in life.

00:52:01.540 Why don't we do it for life itself?

00:52:03.220 So, that was my vision to sort of like break that down and send him out talking to people older than him who have navigated this with some measure of skill so he can get their accumulated wisdom and have an idea of where to go from there.

00:52:14.680 Yeah, when I read that, I was thinking, man, I need to do this for my kid.

00:52:17.860 Like get, find an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old who's just on it, right?

00:52:22.800 Who was a great kid, you know, had a great teenage part of their life.

00:52:27.280 And it'd be awesome to have my son just like talk to him.

00:52:29.160 Like, what did you do?

00:52:29.980 I mean, that, I was, I'm thinking when, if when I was a kid and I was like, you know, 13 and I got to rub shoulders with some really cool 18-year-old, that has a big impact.

00:52:41.020 100%.

00:52:41.340 And, you know, it's amazing.

00:52:42.860 You're actually helping form that 18-year-old because you're going to make him sort of like codify what he's learned.

00:52:50.400 And he's going to realize, hey, I'm 18, but I've learned a lot.

00:52:52.620 So, that's going to be a gift to him as well.

00:52:54.700 And that'll be something you can pass on to someone else.

00:52:56.700 People, you do the best, you learn your lessons best when you teach it to other people.

00:53:00.280 So, yeah, I'm definitely grateful to be a part of a community that is multi-generational.

00:53:05.920 And, you know, living in the middle of New York City, my son's, you know, growing up in Manhattan for 17 years before he left home.

00:53:11.760 And so, for him, you know, he was surrounded by some like very, very accomplished people, but also people with a lot of pain.

00:53:18.500 Like, you know, unhealthy ambition and lack of focus.

00:53:22.360 And so, like, yeah, that being surrounded by a multi-generational community was a real gift.

00:53:25.880 I encourage everybody to try and find that.

00:53:28.380 But this, I think, is this sort of multi-generational long-term thinking doesn't happen in our world at large.

00:53:34.460 And this is definitely something that I think kids will appreciate.

00:53:37.680 So, you mentioned your son took a gap year.

00:53:39.460 Was this part of the initiation process?

00:53:42.780 Yeah, 100%.

00:53:43.680 100%.

00:53:44.700 All of these traditions, like when James Hollis talks about this, he says that all traditions have this thing they call the ordeal.

00:53:50.560 And the ordeal was to send the young man out into the world to see whether or not he is internalized and taken on the lessons that have been given to him from the community.

00:54:01.740 And, again, various traditions have done this.

00:54:04.140 Some communities have a mission that they go on.

00:54:06.740 They send people off.

00:54:07.920 I grew up in Australia.

00:54:08.900 Very, very common to do a gap year, which is, you know, basically debaucherous hitchhiking across parts of Europe.

00:54:14.500 But here's what my vision was.

00:54:16.660 I was like, okay, I've put a lot of content and a lot of experiences in my son.

00:54:21.860 And college is such a formative experience.

00:54:25.200 I mean, it just swallows you whole.

00:54:28.460 And I was like, I need to give him a little bit of space before he just rushes headlong into college to sort of see the kind of man he has become away from me where he could test it in the real world.

00:54:38.920 So I also had a goal.

00:54:41.180 I want to, you know, like I'm surrounded by a lot of wealth in Manhattan where he grew up and a lot of privilege.

00:54:48.040 And I was like, I want to irreparably break my son's heart for the global poor.

00:54:52.480 Like I want him to see that the privilege is growing in, the disparity in the world.

00:54:57.980 I want him to feel the pain of that gap.

00:54:59.660 And I want him to be exposed to other places and other cultures so he's not just like, you know, an American only in terms of his worldview and his thinking.

00:55:09.940 So he did a nine-month trip.

00:55:12.160 He went to Swaziland.

00:55:14.420 He went to Guatemala.

00:55:15.680 He went all over the place and has since traveled all over the place.

00:55:20.860 And he came back, and I'm going to tell you, he was a different kid.

00:55:23.400 And he was like being with a few friends, like I said, he built this little brotherhood, this little tribe.

00:55:30.400 And stuff that like, so the biggest example, my son, and I don't say this to sort of put him down.

00:55:36.340 He's actually a remarkable young man.

00:55:38.660 But like he was a whiner. 0.87

00:55:40.340 He would just complain.

00:55:41.940 He would just complain.

00:55:43.620 And it was like such an unattractive quality to just complain.

00:55:48.040 And, you know, I'd have my wife's, you know, daughters come over and talk like how attractive, you know, like a little panel. 1.00

00:55:56.740 So like here's five women and here's my son interviewing these five women on the panel.

00:56:01.380 And I'd say like, you know, do you think, what do you think about men who complain?

00:56:05.300 They're like, oh, it's so unattractive.

00:56:06.520 But even that, these like attractive young women in their 20s on this little panel that my wife had formed, none of that worked.

00:56:13.420 But he comes back from this trip.

00:56:14.780 Like, my son is like a yes, sir, on it, sir, kind of kid.

00:56:19.300 And I'm like, where did this come from?

00:56:20.840 He said, dad, two weeks in, I realized I was a whiny, complaining child.

00:56:26.440 And I had a mirror amongst my peers of how unattractive it was.

00:56:30.240 And I was like, I do not want to be that guy.

00:56:32.260 And to this day, my son just like owns it and solves it.

00:56:37.380 But that never would have happened with all of my years of effort.

00:56:39.720 I couldn't get that done.

00:56:40.980 He gets in the world, sees the world.

00:56:43.320 That sort of stuff is formed in him.

00:56:45.320 He also just came back from, he just did another three-month trip that he went on.

00:56:50.960 And he was in Turkey for that trip.

00:56:53.000 And again, he came back.

00:56:54.740 And I was like, the maturity that was developed by getting out of his regular life and context was massive.

00:57:00.340 So I'm a big believer.

00:57:02.340 You know, one bad year of college can undo 18 years of good parenting.

00:57:06.420 And so I think there's a lot of wisdom in, you know, having a liminal space where they can go through the world and sort of figure it out.

00:57:13.680 So, yeah, that was the vision for that.

00:57:15.900 And he was willing to do it.

00:57:16.980 Interestingly enough, like my daughter did not want to do that. 0.59

00:57:19.880 So that was something I had to sort of cast some vision for for my son.

00:57:23.680 He was worried like, hey, all my friends are going to college.

00:57:26.160 I'm going to get left behind.

00:57:27.040 And we processed that and eventually he came over and realized, hey, this would probably be good for me.

00:57:32.260 So part of this gap year, we're getting to the end, right?

00:57:35.060 This is the ordeal.

00:57:36.120 Yes.

00:57:36.620 Six years.

00:57:37.440 Six years.

00:57:38.440 He goes through his ordeal.

00:57:39.660 He passes.

00:57:40.380 It changes him.

00:57:41.320 It's mission accomplice.

00:57:42.840 You have this capstone ceremony.

00:57:45.220 How did you cap this journey off into manhood with your son?

00:57:49.680 Well, one of the things I realized by talking, like I said, there's quite a few sort of different groups and different organizations.

00:57:57.040 That will facilitate a gap year.

00:57:59.180 I think it's becoming more and more popular.

00:58:01.760 And one of the things in my research about sort of the come down from the high of the gap year is that they didn't debrief them too well.

00:58:09.120 So I said, I'm going to do the Camino de Santiago, which is a 500-mile hike across Spain.

00:58:17.820 And it took us 33 days to do it.

00:58:19.820 I said, we're just going to walk 500 miles.

00:58:22.160 There's nothing to do but talk.

00:58:24.200 And we're just going to debrief this journey together.

00:58:26.680 We're going to debrief the gap year, what happened in him, what did he learn.

00:58:31.060 We're going to debrief all the content we went through.

00:58:33.180 So I did like a series of questions every day, sort of recap in the six-year journey, you know, just trying to, again, deepen coding, reinforcement.

00:58:40.460 And then we just had a ton of fun.

00:58:42.220 And at the end of the 33 days, you come to the city and there's this big cathedral.

00:58:49.900 It's actually like, it's overwhelming.

00:58:51.860 I mean, you weep if you talk about it.

00:58:54.200 It is such a profound experience.

00:58:56.080 And you come into this cathedral, this city, and there's another 80-kilometer walk or so where you enter this village called Finisterre.

00:59:06.120 And, you know, the idea of a pilgrimage was you're leaving something behind.

00:59:09.540 And our idea for this pilgrimage was he's leaving his childhood behind.

00:59:12.980 So we end up in this city called, this little town called Finisterre, and we go to this cove on a beach.

00:59:19.160 And I've got all these letters from these men who've, you know, been journeying with him, spoken into his life, many respects.

00:59:25.380 And I take him down on this beach and I'm like, mate, I want to tell you right now, man, this, well done.

00:59:30.340 You have passed every test.

00:59:32.940 You have earned this for the rest of your life.

00:59:35.380 You need to know in your heart, you are a man.

00:59:38.720 You are a blessed man.

00:59:39.760 In the Christian tradition, there's a scene in the life of Jesus where he is baptized at the start of the Gospels.

00:59:47.720 And a voice from heaven says, this is my beloved son who I love.

00:59:51.820 In him I'm well pleased.

00:59:53.740 And because Jesus knew he was beloved at the start of his ministry, he had the courage and security in his identity to heal the sick, confront hypocrisy, fight off evil forces in his confrontation with the devil.

01:00:08.000 So, he was blessed to, his sense of identity enabled him to overcome.

01:00:13.340 And I wanted to say to my son, you have my blessing.

01:00:16.440 You are moving through the world, a blessed man.

01:00:19.660 And you can overcome anything because you have what it takes within you.

01:00:23.880 So, anyway, so he runs into the ocean like he did when he was 13, but now he's 19.

01:00:28.560 And he comes out and I do this big booming voice, you know, like my God voice or whatever.

01:00:34.600 And I'm just like, who is this man that's emerging from the ocean?

01:00:37.780 Behold, this is my son.

01:00:39.560 And then he comes out and, you know, we just cry.

01:00:42.080 And it's a super, super powerful and emotional moment.

01:00:45.020 And it was just, it was a blessing ceremony.

01:00:47.460 And, you know, we both have a tattoo on our arms.

01:00:49.960 The only tattoo I have, he's got a few more.

01:00:51.700 But it's of our journey together.

01:00:53.740 It's in my inner arm.

01:00:54.840 And it's the route of that Camino that ends in this little bay, this little cove where

01:00:58.960 we did this journey.

01:01:00.000 And that's it.

01:01:00.720 He left his childhood behind.

01:01:02.120 So, if you were to ask my son, how do you know you're a man?

01:01:04.640 He would say, I died to childhood psychology.

01:01:07.320 I went on a journey.

01:01:08.760 I've learned the archetypes.

01:01:09.960 I've made the shifts.

01:01:11.180 I've done the ordeal.

01:01:12.720 I've been blessed by my father.

01:01:14.480 I know I'm a man because I've earned it.

01:01:16.700 Bingo.

01:01:17.240 What a gift.

01:01:17.820 So, that was such a definitive moment that was six years in the making.

01:01:23.300 So, it wasn't just the moment itself.

01:01:25.160 It was marking a journey that he had been through that we had sort of done together.

01:01:30.800 And really, really significant.

01:01:32.360 A real gift to be a part of.

01:01:33.900 That's really powerful.

01:01:35.360 So, you have a daughter.

01:01:37.200 Yes, yes.

01:01:37.720 I have a daughter, 19.

01:01:38.880 She's studying nursing in university.

01:01:41.240 Well, have you and your wife done anything similar with her?

01:01:44.480 We did.

01:01:45.520 It's a little different.

01:01:46.180 My wife played sort of the primary role in the formation of my daughter.

01:01:50.940 So, she's got a whole thing she did, you know, starting when she hit puberty and walked

01:01:56.820 her through her teenage years.

01:01:58.480 In her senior year, she came to me and she said, Dad, like, I want you to just give me

01:02:05.100 a year of your best, like, development into adulthood.

01:02:08.980 So, I did a thing with her that I just, you know, I'm a bit of a branding guy.

01:02:12.960 I'm a bit of a program guy.

01:02:14.080 So, I created this thing for her called 50 Pieces of My Heart, 50 Key Deposits Every

01:02:19.180 Dad Has to Make in His Daughter's Life Before She Leaves Home.

01:02:22.580 So, I did 50 weeks and it was like a little daily check-in and then one dinner a week where

01:02:29.500 we talked about, like, the 50 most important things I wanted her to know about life.

01:02:35.580 And yes, we did that for a year.

01:02:37.140 My daughter, sadly, her senior year was in COVID and my daughter loves beauty.

01:02:42.600 Like, my son loved the challenge.

01:02:43.940 So, like, on the Camino when we're walking 500 miles, it's a heat wave.

01:02:47.700 We've got blisters that are almost down to the bone.

01:02:51.200 You know, we lost 20 pounds.

01:02:53.320 I mean, it was like a wild ordeal.

01:02:55.540 My daughter loves beauty.

01:02:57.440 So, one of the only countries that was open in COVID was Iceland.

01:03:00.980 And so, we did our ring road together.

01:03:04.580 We rented a car and we drove around the country of Iceland.

01:03:08.660 And I sort of, like, created this experience for her, recapping these important things and

01:03:12.940 just, like, filling her heart with beauty.

01:03:15.020 It was framed by a Frederick Buechner quote.

01:03:18.440 Buechner is obviously a very, very prolific, gifted author.

01:03:22.340 And the quote says, here is the world.

01:03:25.040 Beautiful and terrible things will happen.

01:03:26.840 Do not be afraid.

01:03:28.560 And so, our whole year was based around beauty and terror.

01:03:33.540 Like, the terror of life and the beauty of life and not being afraid to enter into it.

01:03:37.660 And so, that Iceland trip was an immersion in beauty.

01:03:41.180 And again, that was, like, a really powerful time.

01:03:43.280 So, very, very different relationship with her.

01:03:45.620 My daughter is a very feminine in the traditional sense and wonderful, wonderful young woman.

01:03:51.640 She's a helper, very kind, studying nursing.

01:03:54.060 And so, but my wife will have to write the book of what she did with her. 0.98

01:03:57.700 I was just intentional in my relationship with her, but really did a strong year with her

01:04:01.680 to sort of close out her adolescence and to send her off.

01:04:05.080 I tell you, a very, very, very, very moving moment about the importance of seizing time.

01:04:11.440 I was the last person to drop her at college.

01:04:14.380 My wife left the day before, and I had one bonus day with her.

01:04:17.200 And after, you know, 18 years of meeting with her every week, this really intense year,

01:04:23.320 we spent an hour together every day for a year.

01:04:26.620 And at the end of it, we had our final dinner, and I'm walking back to my car,

01:04:30.860 and she's walking to her dorms, and we have this one last hug.

01:04:34.440 And she hugs me, and she will not let go.

01:04:37.420 And she says, Dad, I need more time.

01:04:39.780 I need more time with you.

01:04:41.480 I don't have the wisdom.

01:04:42.920 I don't have everything I need yet.

01:04:44.780 I need more time.

01:04:45.760 And I was like, sweet girl, you've got what it takes.

01:04:48.740 This is in you.

01:04:49.720 You're going to be fine.

01:04:50.840 I'm still with you.

01:04:52.300 And I walked off in tears.

01:04:54.140 But I was like, oh, those words.

01:04:55.460 I need more time.

01:04:56.380 I was like, that was the thing.

01:04:57.920 I was like, gosh, our kids are gone before we know it.

01:05:02.220 You know?

01:05:02.500 And so a lot of times people say, John, this sounds pretty intense.

01:05:07.220 And listen, man, I am a busy man in the middle of New York City.

01:05:13.060 You know?

01:05:13.280 I got a lot on my plate, a lot of responsibilities, a lot of stuff I handle.

01:05:17.420 So it was a real sacrifice to take the time to do this for my kids.

01:05:21.440 But like now that they're both gone, if I had my time again, I'd go harder.

01:05:27.080 I'd sacrifice more.

01:05:28.940 You know, those days, like I just entrusted, you know, the hands of God and say, hey, I

01:05:33.340 did what I could.

01:05:34.200 I did this with love.

01:05:35.620 I did my best.

01:05:36.740 And I'm going to have to trust him and them.

01:05:39.060 But I tell you, I'd go harder again.

01:05:40.900 So it probably, yeah, maybe someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, my gosh, this

01:05:43.900 sounds like a lot.

01:05:44.760 Yeah, it is a lot.

01:05:45.960 But it's worth it.

01:05:47.200 Absolutely worth it.

01:05:48.760 Well, I mean, let's say you guys listen to this and like, well, you know, maybe I just,

01:05:52.700 I can't do everything, right?

01:05:54.120 I mean, this is awesome.

01:05:55.020 What you did was awesome.

01:05:55.780 And maybe some guys just don't have the bandwidth, creativity, etc.

01:06:00.780 What would you say like, okay, just to get the ball rolling?

01:06:03.880 Because I think oftentimes, once you get the ball rolling, you pick up steam and you start

01:06:07.000 adding to it.

01:06:08.080 What are a few practices that you would think could help that?

01:06:12.660 You know, I would say this.

01:06:14.640 Consistency is more important than intensity.

01:06:17.620 So I would say, I mean, it's like if you want to lose weight.

01:06:20.520 Yeah, I mean, you can do a liquid fast for 30 days and then intermittent fast and eat

01:06:25.780 one meal a day.

01:06:27.200 And you'll probably do that for six weeks and put all the weight back on.

01:06:29.840 Or you can cut out soda for three months.

01:06:32.800 And then you can cut out soda and then you can cut out dessert.

01:06:36.500 I mean, like, it's just like, it's what can you do consistently?

01:06:40.660 That's what has the formative power.

01:06:43.020 So you've got to find, like, every kid is different.

01:06:45.320 You know, you've got to find that tension of, like, is this actually making a difference

01:06:48.880 in their life or not?

01:06:50.220 And how much does each kid need in what season after that?

01:06:53.380 I would say this.

01:06:54.380 Let me give you a larger principle rather than a specific because that's so personal.

01:06:58.660 I think the number one goal is to build and maintain an emotional bond.

01:07:05.140 That is the whole thing.

01:07:07.180 Because if that bond is there in the relationship, you can pass anything through that bond.

01:07:13.580 That bond can handle any teenage rebellion.

01:07:18.200 That bond can handle any hard conversation.

01:07:21.160 But if that bond is not there, it is very, very hard to reinsert yourself because it just

01:07:27.160 sounds like moralizing or lecturing.

01:07:29.820 So to me, it would be like whatever it takes to build that bond.

01:07:33.580 You know, you might do something as simple as, I know on your website, you've got a list

01:07:37.780 of quotes.

01:07:38.680 I mean, you might just do something as simple as, like, sit down and create a ritual where

01:07:43.120 you read one quote a day about a theme.

01:07:46.000 Or maybe it's like one night a week.

01:07:48.940 But whatever it is that keeps that bond alive, that's the most important factor.

01:07:52.300 And then play the long game.

01:07:53.820 Put a date on your calendar and work backwards and just say, okay, here's what I'm going to

01:07:57.600 do from now to then.

01:07:59.060 And then I'll also say two other thoughts.

01:08:00.920 Number one, something is better than nothing.

01:08:04.340 Do what you can do.

01:08:05.520 Don't be overwhelmed by what you can't do.

01:08:07.480 Something is better than nothing.

01:08:08.980 And then secondly, if your kids are gone and maybe you're sitting here with a sense of

01:08:14.500 regret, I would just say to you, it's never too late.

01:08:18.080 You just don't know the power of a father or a mentor's heart moving towards a kid with

01:08:26.220 repentance and with hope.

01:08:29.480 I've got so many stories.

01:08:31.500 I mean, part of what I do is I lead a faith community in New York, you know, and over

01:08:37.020 the past almost 20 years, thousands and thousands of stories of impossible relational reconciliations

01:08:43.800 when you're willing to move with, like, forgiveness and humility.

01:08:46.760 So don't give up hope.

01:08:48.600 Set your heart and, you know, move towards your kids slowly in love.

01:08:53.440 And you'd be amazed at the blessing they ache for, the relationship they ache for, and the

01:08:59.200 power of restoration if you do it with humility and consistency.

01:09:02.620 Well, John, this has been a fantastic conversation.

01:09:04.540 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

01:09:06.860 I've got a course on this.

01:09:08.320 It's at primalpath.co.

01:09:10.400 That's .co.

01:09:11.580 And on there, there's a link for a weekly email.

01:09:13.960 So every week I send out, like, a short thought for dads and men about how to navigate the

01:09:19.620 complexity of being a man in the modern world.

01:09:21.800 You can sign up for that.

01:09:22.720 It's absolutely free.

01:09:24.260 And then if you go to Amazon and just look at The Intentional Father, you'll see that that

01:09:28.740 book is there, available in all formats.

01:09:31.080 Fantastic.

01:09:31.380 Well, John Tyson, thanks for your time.

01:09:32.380 It's been a pleasure.

01:09:33.420 Okay.

01:09:33.760 Cheers, mate.

01:09:34.240 Thank you.

01:09:35.700 My guest name is John Tyson.

01:09:36.880 He's the author of the book, The Intentional Father.

01:09:38.840 It's available on amazon.com.

01:09:40.180 You can find more information about his work at primalpath.co.

01:09:43.020 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash passage.

01:09:46.080 We find links to resources.

01:09:47.220 We delve deeper into this topic.

01:09:55.780 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.

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The Art of Manliness - June 13, 2022

How to Turn a Boy Into a Man

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