and then he actually said

I actually

had a conversation with another guy last week

who was saying

a whole bunch of the same things that you're saying

and dealing with the things that you're dealing with

as well which at the time

like that blew my mind right

like oh gosh

I'm not the only guy that's dealing with this

I know that seems like a foreign concept in our world

right now

but you feel it yeah

oh you totally feel it

welcome back today on Raising Men

we are talking about the secret ingredient

to fatherhood success

that most dads rarely think about

and that is a tribe

Don Ross has spent over 20 years as a pastor

helping men discover that the missing piece

to overcoming their toughest challenges

isn't willpower it's not discipline

it's not even prayer it's community

through his work with manhood tribes

Dawn is helping men break out of isolation

overcome addiction overcome self sabotage

and rediscover what it actually means to become a man

this conversation is about why so many fathers

feel the pressure building

why that pressure leaks out into our kids

and how building the right brotherhood

might be one of the most important things you can do

for your son don welcome to raising men

Sean thanks for having me man

I'm I'm really glad to be here

and uh

what an awesome intro

that was a great summary of what I do

thank you for that oh man

I am so excited to talk to you today

I wish that my voice was

I hope my voice holds up for today

I've been struggling a little bit with uh

with a little bit of illness this week

and so I appreciate uh

your Grace on that

and the Grace of the audience as well

yeah

so you've worked with hundreds of churches and

and literally thousands of men

I understand so

what do you see as some of the main issues facing men

today

yeah so uh

good question I

I think um

there's really kind of two

what I would say probably

big buckets of issues that men are dealing with

both in the church and outside it

but uh

I I think we all kind of share this in common

in our culture right now one is that we

we have kind of this large

like

cluster of issues around what does it mean to be a man

and not all of us would really like

ask the question that way

like we're it's not like

it's just kind of like

like living on the surface of my day to day

like I don't know what it means to be a man

and I'm really struggling with that

um

but I think there is a lot of confusion in our culture

over what

what is a man supposed to be

what's a man supposed to do

what is expected of men in our culture

uh you know

what are the ways that men should show up in the world

and shouldn't show up in the world

uh all of that has changed

so rapidly in the past generation or two

that I think most men are just kind of left wondering

confused uh

kind of just floating through life

doing the best that we can

but also like

with not any really kind of like North Star there

no real kind of anchoring sense of yeah

this is what manhood is all about

and I feel like I'm really doing it well

I I see this especially true with younger men

who I think

have now been raised by a generation of men

who have been confused about manhood

and so this

this generation of younger men is like doubly confused

right they were raised by men

who don't know what it means to be men

and now these younger guys are

are asking themselves all kinds of questions

and just

really clueless in the whole world of masculinity

so I think that's I think that's kind of one bucket

um I think the other big bucket

and it's related because I think we're

we're missing some sense of identity there

but the other big bucket is just uh

men are trapped by all kinds of vices addictions

bad habits bad choices

I mean you name it

everything

from porn to online gambling to social media to uh

you know flame wars

uh on the internet over politics

over race over

you know you and I were talking about some of this

before we started recording

but just the reality of like

men are getting sucked in by things that

really aren't all that important

or shouldn't be all that important in life

but because we've kind of lost our way a little bit

we're finding these like

smaller pleasures

or smaller stories to kind of be the things that are

are sucking us up

and really taking too much of our energy as men

so um

figuring out how to deal with all of those things

how to kind of

get back on a path that actually feels healthy

and strong as a man

um most guys don't know how to do that

they feel really stuck really trapped um

and really kind of defeated

when it comes to a lot of those major obstacles

yeah it's almost like

it's almost like I don't know

I mean to

to pick an example the

the the

the gambling or the porn it

it actually costs you a little bit of masculinity

every time yeah

potentially yeah

right it does

for sure like eating away at it

yeah you're

you're giving away a little bit of yourself

kind of every time that you indulge in that

and you know

it it's hard to see that um

but the effect over time

I think really does become noticeable for most guys

it's why most guys who get sucked into those things um

eventually come to a place of saying I

I really would like to be done with this

I just don't know how I

I don't know how to get free of it

yeah and it's

it's really complex because for a lot of things

I mean you know

gambling is a great example

there is there is an amount of gambling that isn't

all that harmful right

or it's not you know

it and it's fun and it's

you know I mean it

it's fine and

but you know the

the the difference between indulging and overindulging

is a very fine line and not and

and frankly it's a business that is designed

to hijack the brains of young men

you know for money

yeah which is

it is exactly the same thing that porn has become

and why it has become you know

so successful as an industry

but so addictive as a you know

as a substance essentially

in the lives especially of young men

it is really uh

you know porn and um

you know all the latest kind of sports betting

all the you know

all the apps that we have on our phones

and the prop bets and the micro transactions and

you know all of that kind of stuff

is so wired towards the ways that the

the brains of young men work

um it really is designed as a trap

like it's designed as a way to suck you in

and to keep you there um

so that you can't get back out of it

and that's different than those vices were

even just a generation or two ago

where we didn't have things like algorithms

you know to be able to determine that kind of stuff uh

and now yeah

it's got it's gotten so much more problematic and um

it really is

but like they are problems that are bigger than we are

they are they are designed to be stronger than we are

and to

put us in a place where we can't get free of them that

that's that's how they're designed to work

so it's no wonder that we're having problems with it

as men uh

you know we're

we're up against a

a giant of an enemy that we can't overcome on our own

and so figuring out how to do that uh

is really important for guys yeah

I remember when I was I don't know grade school

middle school that kind of age

there was this moral panic

about subliminal messages in advertising

yeah and the idea that you play your records backwards

and you could hear that yeah

a tenth of a second that your conscious mind can't see

but your unconscious mind it

it's a it's a pathway into your unconscious mind

and it's gonna cause you to behave in ways

that are antagonistic towards your values

and all those sorts of things

and there was this huge moral panic over it

and it turned out not to be real

yeah and now we have that yeah

in the form of the supercomputer in our pockets

that's hyper connected to all of social media

where there's an algorithm that

decides what you get to see

yeah and nobody cares

everybody is just too busy scrolling

and doing flame wars about

whatever their politics of choice is it's nuts

yeah it uh

it absolutely is and

and that's why I say um

the these are problems that

you know it's a

like I said

a whole bucket's worth of problems that men are facing

and um

and and

you know to offer a little bit of encouragement to guys

that might be listening that uh

are dealing with any of those problems like um

look I

I don't wanna throw uh

shame on any man who might be dealing with any of that

because I've I've dealt with those things myself um

and and I know how

like defeating and difficult it can really feel

I know the shame and the fear that comes

along with those kinds of things

and I just you know

I wanna say to guys out there like a

you're not alone most men are wrestling

with the same kind of problem that you are

and b there are ways to overcome it

there are probably not

ways that you've necessarily thought of

they're not really oriented around

more willpower or self discipline

typically

you're not going to have enough willpower or self

discipline to be able to overcome these types of

you know super enemies

so to speak but there are ways to be able to break free

and that's that's part of what I try to do with men

is to help them really see

what does it take

to be able to find some freedom in those areas

and that's really

kind of where a tribe begins to come into play

so let's get into that what

what do we do about it

and one of the things that I like to think

so a lot of what we talked about

I mean it's

it's the way the world right

I mean

it's just the way things are and you're really just

you know shouting into the storm if

if you're complaining about it

yeah so what do we do about it

what are the tactical things that we can do now to

to go you know

to fight against that or to

you know not let it affect us negatively

yeah we're our sons

so Frank uh right

yeah exactly

cause uh

you know I've got

I've got two teenage sons

um I've watched both of them come up in this age

where they're they're wrestling with these things and

and we as parents they're on the front lines

they're on the front

lines and they're being experimented on essentially

yeah uh

me and my wife have tried to make some

some conscious choices to to help uh

safeguard them against some of those things

but you can't protect them from everything and

and they've got to learn

to be able to develop their own strength and wisdom

in resisting that kind of stuff um

but it's difficult it's super difficult

so

one of the reasons that I think it is really difficult

is that uh

in our current day and age

as it relates to what it means to be a man

we really have kind of

lost the art of making friends as men

some of that has to do with social media

some of that has to do with

just the way that the whole gender conversation

has gone in our culture um

some of it just has to do with changing norms right

the spaces that were available just for men

a couple generations ago

for the most part no longer exist

there aren't very many

male exclusive spaces in our culture anymore

where guys could kind of

naturally connect with each other

now some of that is for good reason right

there's there's some uh

there's some sexist related thing

related things that probably needed to be addressed

in that space um

but at the same time it

we've kind of swung the pendulum

all the way in the other direction

to say that there shouldn't be any

of those kind of spaces for men

and I think that's been a real detriment to us to the

to the point to where uh

we are now dealing with an absolute isolation epidemic

for men some people call it a loneliness epidemic

I don't mind that term I think that's accurate

but I think for a lot of guys

they don't look at themselves and say

I feel lonely or what I'm dealing with is loneliness

um

they might be able to look at their life and really see

like I don't really have any close friends

especially any close guy friends around me

um they're not necessarily feeling lonely

but if you ask them some questions about

who could you turn to in the midst of a crisis

or who would you turn to

to be able to talk about some of the really hard

or difficult things in your life

who would you ask for help

when you encounter a situation that you can't overcome

but most guys can't name a person right

they they don't have a single guy

to be able to fill in that blank with

and I think that's really

the kind of isolation that I'm talking about

is that we lost that ability

I'll go even a step further for this because I

I am I

I one of the lucky men

I think where

that is able to answer that question

and is able to name people that I could turn

to in a time of crisis

but what I discovered and part of the reason that I

that I actually started this project

is because a friend of mine

I've told this story a couple of times on the podcast

but a friend of mine

came to me and told me that he was getting a divorce

and I was at his wedding and I was like oh

we gotta you know we're gonna fix it

we're gonna do all this stuff

and he started telling me what his

most recent decade had been like

and I realized oh my gosh

this is like

he's been going through some really tough stuff

and I'm one of his closest friends

and he didn't mention it to me

and I felt betrayed and I realized well

I mean I'm going through stuff

I haven't shared it with him either yeah

and we're really close friends

we've been friends for 40 years right

and we're not sharing this like I right

I'm finding out about this basically on Facebook

essentially and it's like in spite of the fact

not only so it's one thing not to be able to say

I have somebody

it's another thing to even have somebody

but not

you're just not in the kind of culture where it makes

where it feels like the right thing to do

to bring your problems to the doorstep of other people

but yeah then

then I'm feeling betrayed that he's not bringing

his problems to me right

because right

I want the opportunity to be the kind of friend

I wanna be yeah

and you're robbing me of that opportunity

by not letting me do it and it was

it was this really I

I came to the realization that this pathology exists

I said I gotta do something about this yeah

yeah there's a

there's a weird kind of paradox in our culture for men

where um we

we don't want to ask for the help

that we would willingly offer

if we were in our own shoes

you know like if

if we were the friend on the other side of the issue

that we're dealing with personally

would we be willing to step in and help that friend

absolutely but as the man who's dealing with it

are we willing to reach out and ask for help

typically no

like typically

we tend to stay very isolated and kind of self

I wanna say self absorbed

which I think is the right word

but I know that carries some connotations to it

that you're

you're doing something that sounds really bad

or negative um yeah

when in truth

like you're just doing something that's focused on you

and I think that's the thing is that as men

we have been taught uh

both intentionally and just kind of by osmosis

that in our world we're supposed to be self reliant

we're not supposed to need anybody

we're supposed to accomplish everything on our own

and so you know

it's no surprise then

that we have arrived at this place

where men are just really

really isolated and uh

and lonely

and disconnected from other men in their world

so when it comes to these things of

how do I overcome these major obstacles in my life

guys don't know what to do or where to turn to

or even to really ask some questions for

I think I might need help with this

guys don't guys don't really even know how to do that

yeah so what do we do about it

yeah so

that's really kind of

where I really started my work with men who try

was actually in my own story

in my 20s I was really wrestling with pornography

very significantly

and in some of the ways that we've talked about

I mean I would

I would describe it as an addiction in my life

and I don't necessarily use that term clinically

I know a lot of people get hung up on using the word

addiction around pornography

um but I do use it in the sense of saying

it was something that I felt like had control of me

I did not have control of it

like I

I was very much in a place where I had tried to stop

many times I didn't want it to be something

that was still part of my life

um and yet I still

I

I found myself kept coming back around to it regularly

and uh

in my story uh

I'm a man of faith

and so that's been a big part of my life

is just trying to turn to God in the midst of uh

prayer and uh

worship and and really just sort of see like

what's my path here how

how do I find a way through it

um and so

I was actually praying about this and just asking God

like what do I do here

and I I sensed the Lord speak to me

which was not something

that I felt like I had ever heard before

kind of up to that place

but I felt like he told me that I needed to confess it

and I knew that he wasn't talking about just to him

cause

I had done that thousands of times over by that point

but that I actually needed to talk to somebody

else about it and that was really

like the one thing that I was just terrified

of actually doing I just did not feel like

I can't imagine the the courage it takes to do that

yeah well

and this was you know

uh for me

I'm in my 40s now so this was 20 years ago um

when internet pornography was still kind of

a relatively new thing it was certainly a taboo thing

meaning that like nobody talked about it at all

the way that we kind of publicly talk about it today

so it was it was a very shameful thing

it was definitely something I was afraid of

like if I talk to somebody else about this

like are they gonna judge me

are they gonna defriend me

you know

are they gonna just kind of cast me out and abandon me

and I just thought like I have everything

to lose by being honest about this with somebody else

um so it was it was super fearful but I you know

I was also desperate like

I really wanted to not have that

continue to be part of my life

and if I really felt like this is what God was saying

I should do okay

maybe I should do it um

so I summoned up the courage

and found a friend that I felt like was

mostly trustworthy you know

as trustworthy as I could know up to that point um

and just said hey

I need to meet with you

and I need to talk with you about some things that are

kind of heavy in my life

and so I met with him one on one um

I I shared kind of my story and my struggle

and what all of that looked like um

I can remember like physically

like trembling and shaking as I was sharing with him

like I was so afraid of

of what his reaction was going to be

and he was man

he responded in a way that was just kind and gracious

and he just he started off by saying

thank you for telling me all that

and then he actually said uh

I actually had a conversation

with another guy last week

who was saying

a whole bunch of the same things that you're saying

and dealing with the things that you're dealing with

as well which at the time like that blew my mind right

like oh gosh

I'm not the only guy that's dealing with this

I know that seems like a foreign concept

in our world right now

but you feel it yeah

oh you totally feel it

you know in in our world right now where it's you know

we kind of know the numbers of like 99% of men are

or have dealt with porn

at some point in time in their life

it it seems weird to think that we might

imagine ourselves as the only guy

who's dealing with that issue

but yeah you know

at that time I did and so just hearing him say that

but also just hearing him be able to say to me like

hey like this isn't gonna affect our friendship

um those were life giving words

those were kind of like oh

this guy actually does care about me as a person

um and I walked away from that conversation with like

a load lifted off my shoulders

I mean I

I remember physically feeling different as I got up

from the table where we had been talking

and just feeling lighter

like something actually had kind of

been broken and been freed in

in that conversation now

that wasn't the end of my journey

and my story with porn it wasn't like

you know just overnight I was radically free

yeah yeah it

it didn't happen that way

uh

but the way it did happen is that what it taught me was

there was real value and freedom to be had

by bringing things that were hidden in the dark

out into the light and that confessing it

you know to

to other men who I could trust

um was a pathway

towards being able to really gain some freedom

and so

that really kind of started me down this journey of uh

what does this kind of like friendship relationship

vulnerability you know

fill in the blank with kind of

whatever word you want to use

to describe whatever I had encountered with this guy

um what does that have to do with the ways that

guys should relate to each other

and how we

ought to be able to talk about these kinds of things

and that's where I

I kind of slowly over the course of a couple decades

honestly began to uh

formulate this idea of a tribe

that men really are built

I think

that we're designed to actually function in small

tight knit communities with other men

we need a group of men around us that we trust

that we depend upon that they depend upon us uh

that we respect and that we're very honest with

that they know our stories in a way

that they know the things that have shaped us

into the men that we are today

so that they can help us

become the men that we truly do want to be

that they can push us and challenge us

and fight for us in order to be able to

to be the best version of ourselves

that we're really trying to aim for um

that only happens in the context of a real intentional

tighten it male community

and that's the kind of

brotherhood that I try to help men

be able to develop

and this is fantastic and I wanna drill into that um

but before I do I

I have I wanna

double click on something that you kind of touched on

and I wanna yeah

I wanna get your feedback about it and

and that is

give me a sense of the role of shame in your journey

here I

this is a hobby horse of mine and I really

I I

I I really like talking about it um

and I just don't know like

I don't know if shame is good or bad and

and so I can imagine that shame

created a situation for you that

really prevented you from being able to talk about

and bring this stuff into the light

I can also imagine that it provided a motivating

force to do that and just give me a second what

what how did you experience

what was your experience with the nature of shame

with this and especially with

you know being a man of faith and

and the and the church utilizes shame in some ways that

yeah may or may not be healthy

I I just love to get your feedback about

about the nature of of shame in your experience

and what you think about that

looking back on that no

that's uh

that's great uh

and honestly man

we we could probably do the whole podcast episode

just on that maybe we'll need to do another one

yeah so I

but I'll try to keep it brief

uh cause yeah

that's a huge question um

yeah it

I played a it played a huge role

especially in kind of

preventing me from getting to that place

of being able to be honest

about what was going on in my life

because shame um

shame I think is different from guilt

um and that's an important distinction

cause I I think

you know to your point

like is shame always bad

um I

I think uh

we we kind of use the terms

shame and guilt interchangeably in our culture

and I don't know that that's horribly wrong

but I'll differentiate them

because I think it's helpful to do so

in this conversation guilt uh

in the way that I think about it is really

like a feeling of I have done something wrong

it's a it's conviction right

something in my conscience is telling me that

I have done something wrong

and I ought to try to make it right

that's a feeling of guilt

and there can be times when that's bad uh

like if you're taking on the blame for something

that isn't really your fault

um but for the most part

guilt typically is a good thing

it's when our conscious is trying to tell us like hey

you're headed in the wrong direction here

or you made a mistake and you need to correct it

like those are typically really good things

that's a a good moral impulse in us yeah

shame on the other hand

negative moral valence yeah

yeah yeah

yeah yeah

for sure yeah

yeah you can use it as a weapon against other people

if you're trying to make them feel bad

for something that they did

even though it wasn't as bad as you're making it

but yeah

again that's a

that's a that's a whole another conversation

um shame

on the other hand

is a feeling of there is something wrong with me right

so guilt is I have done something wrong

shame is there is something wrong with me

it's more about identity

and it really is that kind of Assumption

that I am broken in some way that is irredeemable

like can't be recovered can't be repaired

um I

I this is just who I am

I am broken in this way um there's

there's almost no power in the world

that is more defeating than shame is

that will just

keep you stuck in a place of making bad choices

because you come to the conclusion that

I really can't do anything otherwise

because this is just who I am

I'm I'm just broken

for me uh

shame really showed up in um

in some ways around my use of pornography

where I began to think of myself as a failure

I began to think of myself as a pervert

um I began to think of myself as a hypocrite right

I was like at the time I was

you know trying to kind of be involved in

in my church and in my I was in

in college and involved in a campus ministry

and really trying to like

be a stand up guy for my faith

but I had this whole like implicit is life

you know kind of hidden from everybody else

where I was

living in ways that weren't consistent with my faith

and I knew that

and so shame was all over me in that regard that

you know like nobody knows who you really are

and if they did man

they would they would discard you

you know they would just throw you out completely

because you're such a hypocrite

so shame is all of those things and uh

none of those things um accomplish any good

so in that regard

I would say if you're using the word shame to mean that

I don't know that it ever has a good value to it

people use the word shame to mean different things

and so I don't want to major on that too much

but to the point to where we like

degrade someone's value

or we allow other messages to degrade our own value

I don't think that that's ever helpful

I think in fact

the only way to cure shame is to actually bring it

like I said you gotta bring it out into the light

you have to actually talk about those things

because shame thrives in darkness and in hiddenness

it's it's only in that place of hiddenness

that those lies actually make any sense

the moment

that you start to bring it out into the light

with another human being and say

here's what I'm believing about myself

uh you know it's very easy for the other person to say

dude that absolutely is not true

like there's there's no reason

that you should think that about yourself

like have you done some things

that you don't want to keep doing

yes that doesn't make you a failure

that doesn't make you a pervert

that doesn't even really make you a hypocrite

it just means that

you're struggling to do what you actually want to do

and that's every human being right

we all struggle with that so um anyway

you know again

I could get I could get on the soapbox on this one

so I'll stop there but just say yeah dude

shame has enormous power in this conversation

and bringing it out into the open

is really the only way to defeat it yeah

and and so yeah

I mean what I'm hearing you say is that shame

drives the behavior underground oh

and totally underground is where it festers

yep and turns toxic yep

and then it will eventually emerge in these really

really really horrible ways

and I think we're seeing a lot of that

I think that we are coming out of a cultural age

that involved a lot of shaming people

like shaming people as a tool to manipulate behavior

yeah and you know

that's the whole the cancel culture and and

and a bunch of things like that

and I think we're as a result

a bunch of a lot of behavior got driven underground

and now it's emerging in in in really

really ugly ways yeah

that we now have to reckon with yeah

and I'll say this to

just to add it to the conversation

through kind of the lens of being a parent

and thinking about kids because I

I think this is so important

especially with young men today uh

our our young men are gonna get exposed to porn

it's it's just almost inevitable

there's really no way to stop it um

but when it does happen

how we as parents handle that in light of shame

is really really critical for helping them

being able to find freedom

and not get trapped by that issue for the long haul

if the first time that you find out that your kid

has been looking at porn

whether that was on YouTube or Instagram or Onlyfans or

you know whatever

like the first time that that happens

if your reaction is to blow up at them

and to shame them for that

how could you do that what's wrong with you

you know that kind of language

um you're gonna just what you said

you're gonna drive your kid underground

you're gonna drive that issue

away from your relationship with him

to where he will never feel safe

talking to you about it

and then that's only gonna mean that he

he continues to struggle with it

and he will probably struggle with it worse

in silence and in isolation

then if you could leave the door open and say

hey man I realized this is a difficult thing

I'm guessing

this was probably something that you felt weird about

maybe even felt bad about

and I'd love to talk to you about it

and how we can together like

help you make sure that this doesn't become a habit

that overcomes you that kind of conversation

can actually get you the results

that you're hoping for with your kid

which is that they don't get sucked into porn

but shaming them about it is never

gonna drive your son in that direction

so yeah it's gonna

that's why I say you know

just all it's gonna do is damage your connection

and then

you will now not have visibility into the problem

yeah 100% that's right yeah

well okay

so let's uh

let's get into the tribe uh

the the

the tribe stuff I

I love your framework

and this is another one of my hobby horses

because I feel like you know

culturally the institutions that used to

provide the rites of passage

and the the tribal um

connection with other men

those institutions have

have disappeared or are disappearing in our culture

and that provides that that's a problem

but it's also an opportunity

meaning that we get to create them from scratch

intentionally and that's a good thing

and yeah

this is what you've done by creating a framework around

around the three pillars of a tribe

so tell me about that yeah

yeah so I

like you said I call it the three pillars of a tribe um

and those things are manhood

camaraderie and freedom so I

I say that in order to build this kind of life changing

brotherhood that we're talking about

you need to have these three ingredients in there

and so just at a basic level uh

manhood is you you need to have a clear vision of

what it means to be a man

and some ways of challenging

each other to live that out okay

so that like that sounds really simple

it's actually not all that hard to do um

it's it's really only in our kind of like

modern generations

that we've been so confused about manhood

over the past 50 to 60 years

that we've struggled with this

for the most part you know

half of the world's population for thousands of years

has arrived at manhood without a lot of thought

you know just kind of being like

this is just what we do um

and you know

it's it's only recently that we've kind of

struggled with that but we do need to recover it

because we are struggling with it

and so

we need to give some kind of clear delineation to it

comraderie is really about uh

how do we build those lasting bonds with one another

as men what does it look like to actually

create that kind of connection

in a way that isn't just about

these are my buddies that I go have a beer with

or that I watch a football game with

but these are the kinds of guys who are actually

helping me become the man that I want to be

and I'm doing the same thing for them

we trust each other we depend on each other

that's a different type of friendship

how do you get to that place

how do you build camaraderie

and then the last one is freedom

which is really just to say

we as men in our world today

need some ways of being able to overcome

the major obstacles in our lives

and so a group that's helping us be able to do that

is helping us pursue freedom

we're getting free of the things that hold us down

and hold us back

from being the men we were meant to be

and that's what uh

pretty much only a tribe can do for each other

so those are kind of the the three big ideas

I love that yeah

I had an experience last night that that um

I think

um is relevant to this and

and okay

my wife and I together were watching uh

for I don't know the zillionth time we were

we were watching Ted Lasso

oh yeah

love it a great show

and there's a scene in that show where

where the main character is dealing with yeah

his his wife and son come to visit

yeah and um

and you know

Lasso comes to the conclusion that

you know

it's time for him to step away and let his wife go and

and they have you know

the the emotional conversation about that

it's very difficult for him and um

and then he sits down on on

on a bench or something and right

immediately

Coach Beard comes up and sits next to him and

and hands him a beer yeah

and they just sit there in silence

and I think that's a beautiful scene

and I think that is really

it's a beautiful depiction of male friendship and and

and manhood and tribe

in the way that you're describing it

but it made me uneasy

oh sure

yeah uh I

I love yeah

go ahead yeah

I can jump all over it so I love

I'd love to get your comment on that

it made me uneasy

and I can't really put my finger on why

and I suspect you can yeah

so uh

yeah I'll say uh

I I love Ted Lasso and

and watching through it uh

even with my wife I

I love all of the scenes of the Diamond Dogs right

that's their that's their little group of guys

yep and uh

and I was watching it with my wife and she was like

I think this is a tribe and I was like

oh yeah

it absolutely is yeah

it totally is uh

and yeah you're exactly right

like they are cultivating

that type of camaraderie with each other and

you know it's uh

I I don't wanna be presumptuous and

and kind of naming what it is that you're feeling there

but I think um I

I think there's a sense for guys watching that

who don't have anything like that in their lives

that there's both a sense of longing

you know kind of almost like a

I kind of wish that I had that

I wish I had some guys around me that I could do that

with um

there's a little bit of a sense of shame um

you know of kind of like that I don't have that

have I done something wrong

I should have it I don't yeah

if I were worthy of that I would have like that yeah

exactly yeah

um there's a little bit of sense of fear

you know and

and you you watch that even in the show with

with Roy Kent you know

who tries to like it's just painstaking watching him

try to integrate himself into the

the Diamond Dogs group and yeah

actually say anything of vulnerability

other than the F word you know right

it's like all he can throw out um

and so but I think a lot of guys deal with that

it's like I really want this

but I just can't make myself

go to that place of offering myself in that way um yeah

I I think all of those things are involved in that

but I think that moment that you're kind of describing

of just sort of like

there's this level of trust and vulnerability

that's been so developed to that point

that that beard can walk in

you know crack open a beer and just sit with him

and they can sit in silence

and there's so much that's shared

in that moment of silence but

but that's a

level of camaraderie that has been built up over years

right it takes so much effort to get to that place I

I think that's probably what uh

I say probably

I think that might be what you're describing

a little bit or feeling a little bit of

of is that sense of like

uh gosh there's

there's something in me that it has a

a hunger for that um

that I just don't know how to put words to um

because I that is a core

I think of what men are really made for and built for

and long for

is that sense of camaraderie with other men

we just don't know how to get there anymore

we don't know how to develop it in our friendships

that's definitely part of it

another part of it is that

it wasn't enough to sit and give him a beer

and sit there in silence hmm yeah

OK that was a necessary component

but it wasn't sufficient yeah

and I don't know what the rest of it needed to be like

yeah OK

you don't need to hug it out

you don't need to have a conversation about

I don't know I mean

I don't know what the right thing is because

you know Ted's way of processing that

it's not healthy in the show

right and

and a lot of his affability is a smoke screen for yeah

the vulnerability that he's not able to

to express right

and and that is what that scene conveyed to me in a way

and and that's what made me feel uneasy about it

and I'm not like I

I recognize it I recognize it in myself too

yeah and that's good

I still I still

I couldn't quite put my finger on it

but yeah that yeah

I like that I would say um

I think I think what they're depicting in the show is a

is a very therapeutic model of

of male friendship it's certainly not bad

it's definitely way better than what

most male friendship looks like in our world today

but I do think as it relates to kind of

what I talk about with the tribe

I do think it's lacking a little bit

in that third area of freedom

what does it take to actually push a man towards uh

wisdom uh

towards truth towards overcoming major obstacles

you know like um

not just having a buddy that sits well with you

in the midst of your pain um

but also might be able to challenge you to

how could you recover your marriage

and what would that actually look like

what would you need to do to be able to do that

who do you need to become

in order to recover your marriage right

so there's

there is some possibility for freedom and for growth

there um

that I think

the therapeutic model has a hard time accessing

and so I think there's a little bit of

that's what's that's what's maybe missing there yeah

yeah I

I think you put the you put the

the the point right on it

I think you put the point right on it

that's exactly right

so talk to me about how do you build a tribe for

you know for a dad listening

by the way I'm

I think I'm one of them I'm not sure I have a tribe

I I have somewhat of one

but yeah but

you know where do I start

yeah uh

you need to start with some guys around you

and so this is actually the hardest uh

part of the phase of building a tribe for most men

is just saying

who are the men that I could do this with right haha

um I need some guys to be able to do this with and

and a lot of guys don't have anybody to start um

I try to encourage every guy to say

a tribe really needs to be local

it needs to be guys who are physically around you

so that you can be physically present to each other um

that's hard for guys because a lot

for a lot of men their closest

male friends

are guys that they knew from high school and college

who they may no longer be physically

in proximity to anymore and so the thought of

you know who would I do this with um

becomes a little a little bit difficult

so that's why I just say like

it doesn't have to be the perfect mix of guys

that you have longstanding history with um

it does need to be some men

that you have some actual life overlap with

and by that I just mean like

there's something shared among you

maybe you uh you guys all go to the same church

or you work out at the same gym

or you live in the same neighborhood

and do enough together

that you're interacting with each other regularly

or your kids all go to the same school

and so that's putting you in contact with each other

because you're doing you know

parent stuff together it really can be anything

but

something that's causing you to have a little bit more

overlap of your lives than just simply like

we're in this tribe together

and we see each other once a week for tribe

you know you need a little bit more than that um

if you don't have anything

in your life that might accomplish that

then that's where I would say as a man

part of getting healthy as a man

is that you need some things like that

you need whether you call them hobbies or whatever uh

you need to get out

you you need to get out of your house

you need to get out into the real world

you need to be in some places

where you're interacting with

and surrounding yourself with some like minded men

and so finding some of those spaces

I I do a lot of work and helping guys with that

like they'll come to me saying

I'm wanting to start a tribe and I'll say well

tell me about you know who you could do that with

and we really kind of have to say like

hey look

before we can get to step a of building your tribe

we gotta start at step like

you know negative three of who like

let's create some guys in your world who how to

who and how do you do that

um so that you know

I I do start with some guys

in that place

of just how to be able to bring those guys around you

but once you've identified them um

then it's just a matter of kind of saying like hey

I I think I wanna try this thing out

that's meant to help us grow as men

and um would you be willing to do it with me

we're just gonna meet weekly

uh for 12 weeks and kind of give it a shot

see if this thing helps us

if it doesn't we don't have to keep doing it if it does

we'll keep going um

and then for 12 weeks uh

I I use a lot of video teaching content um

and just basic discussion questions

to help

guys be able to bring some men to a place of saying

do we want to do this thing as a tribe

so we talk about manhood we talk about camaraderie

and we talk about freedom

and we talk about what that looks like

and how to do it um

and putting all of those building blocks together so uh

it's it

in the end it's not that hard

that's why I say it's kind of a lost art um

but it's not an art that's so lost that it's like

men have are just completely disoriented to this

you know it really is like just building friends

and for the most part

that's not that hard of a skill for men to remaster

just one that they're you know

have sort of set aside for the moment

um and we just need to recover it

yeah I love that sentiment

and yeah it

it's it's

it's not complicated um

and it's not hard but it's also not easy

right right

yeah it's

you know it's like going to the gym

we just yeah

you use the word framework

and I think that's a really good word for it

like we just we're

we're missing some frameworks

you know it used to be in our culture

that some of those frameworks were already baked in

to places where men interacted

and we just didn't notice that they were there

you know

whether that was country club or the barbershop or the

uh you know

pick up game of basketball or the woodworking

club or that you I mean

like you name it

like whatever those things were

where guys would hang out with each other

um there was some framework built into those things

and they revolved around

you're spending lots of time together

physically in the same place

and very often uh

doing similar things right

there's action or activity involved

um you're talking to each other

which is you know

like wow

you know

amazing that that would be a part of friendship

but we do so little of that these days

we've kind of forgotten how much talking

is no longer a part of our culture

so yeah you know

some of that kind of stuff that was

that was sort of baked into the world

that we've lost touch with

they just need to put back in place

oh that's amazing

now I like to finish up these conversations by uh

by asking every guest the same question

putting them on the spot

um if there is one principle

that every parent listening should think about

think about incorporating into their lives as

as they raise a son into a man of excellence

what would that principle be in your opinion

hmm this is really good

um I would say that that principle would be honor

is what I I would call it

so um

we I didn't talk about it much today

but within the tribe world

we have what I call the 5 marks of manhood so

you know manhood is one of the pillars of tribe

the way that we go about that kind of our definition or

you know idea of manhood is what

what I call the five marks of manhood

one of those marks is honor

and

honor is really just about doing right by your peers

it's about learning to be part of a group

by carrying your weight holding your own uh

acting in such a way that the people closest to you

would affirm you and esteem you

and hold you in high regard

because you're sharing the same values as them

and showing that you respect those values

most of us learn honor in our families

you know we start out by seeing

here's what my family values and respects

and if I uphold those values and uh

respect my family members among them

I'm gonna be held in honor by my family

if I don't there's gonna be consequences right

I'm I'm acting in a way

that's not consistent with my family

yeah um

in the same way uh

young men in particular are going to

whether they mean to or not

are going to gravitate

heavily towards the honor of their peers

as they start to get into the teenage years

we call this peer pressure

you know we call it by a whole bunch of different names

where it's just like

I'm looking for the approval of my friends

and so I'm gonna do whatever

I think is gonna win me that approval

even if it's dumb

even if it's risky even if it's stupid

maybe even if it's illegal or harmful to someone else

if it might earn me the approval of my friends

or what I would call honor

I'm gonna go after that

so the important piece here to kind of

to answer your question is in

in teaching your young men to learn to value honor

from other young men who are valuable and honored

things that are worthy of being honored

so that's hard to do right

because we're guys are wired for it

we we will seek it out in any way that we possibly can

but learning to have the wisdom to say yeah

these other guys are upholding things that

I actually think are good

and that I wanna uphold

and so I wanna be worthy of their honor

I wanna pursue that

I wanna pursue being honorable in their company

not over here

with these guys who are choosing those things

that's why parents are so intentional about saying like

it's really important to choose who your friends are

because you're gonna end up becoming like them

that's absolutely true

and that's what honor is all about

so helping your young men understand honor

and to find honor from young

other young men who are worthy of it and are

are choosing good values as a part of it

I think that's super critical

I that is a fantastic principle

I really appreciate you adding that to the corpus

that's that is amazing

yeah um

where can we learn more about Don Ross

about the manhood tribes about all of this stuff

yeah uh

so I've got a website people can go to if they want to

just check that out at manhood tribes.com

but the best place honestly

to be able to kind of get into the orbit a little bit

is I have a quiz

it's called how Manly are you

and it actually talks about those five marks of manhood

that I just kind of mentioned

and will help any guy whatever age

you know adolescent

adult wherever you're at

to really kind of figure out

what are some places that I'm doing well as a man

what are some places that I maybe need to grow

and how could I take some next steps in those things

so the quiz is really simple

it's not hard to do it's not

you know personally invasive or anything like that

it's a little more light hearted

but it will give you kind of

some good ideas about yourself as a man

and how to be able to grow

so how manly are you

you can just go to how manly are you

dot com and download the quiz right there

oh that's spectacular

and the link

we'll put the link in the show notes so that people can

uh have really

really easy access to this yeah perfect

um you know

and I mean I think

one of the things that I'm really taking

away from this discussion is

we're not meant to do this stuff alone

yeah you're absolutely right

we and and

and our sons aren't either

we're meant to do this together

and we're losing the art of doing it together

and we need to get that back

yep uh

100% and

you know that's my hope

is really just to be able to help men recover that

and to see the power in that kind of community

but also just the joy of it

I I think

there's a lot of joy that men are missing out on

in our world today

because we have lost touch with this kind of community

and I think if we could recover it

men would be a lot healthier than we are right now

so yeah

you're you're totally right

and it's my great hope

and privilege to be able to help men

kind of recover that

I love that and so

to every dad listening you know

start thinking about this go

go to the manhood the

go to the assessment in the show notes and check it out

start building your tribe and not only for yourself

but also for the man that you want your son to become

and um

don thank you so much for spending the time

and thank you for joining us on raising men

yeah Sean my privilege

thanks for having me and everybody listening

thank you and remember that you are a great parent

raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez

this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino