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Maturing in Masculinity | Ep. #5
58 Plays4 years ago
Any man who has created a lasting legacy has had three key components present in his life. Cultivating them is not hard, but does require intentionality. Today we breakdown what they are and how to integrate them into your life.
URL's
Host: JoshCearbaugh.com
Podcast: MultifacetedMasculinity.com
12 Week Course: Jumpstartyourlife.com
Free 15 Minute Consultation: Click Here
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Transcript
Complexity of Masculinity
00:00:00
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
00:00:28
Speaker
All
Maturing in Masculinity
00:00:29
Speaker
right, today we are going to be talking about something that I think some women may be cheering in the background saying, yes, please talk about it more. Use all the title. You know what we're going to be talking about. That is maturing in masculinity.
00:00:46
Speaker
And it might be a little bit different than you think. So bear with me as we dive into this topic and the different facets of it. And even, I
Stages of Male Evolution
00:00:55
Speaker
would say more importantly, not just the facets of it, but also the key components that you need to have in your life to really grow into the man that you're meant to be.
00:01:06
Speaker
the healthy masculinity to really embrace it and evolve and not just stay stagnant where you are. And the thing is, is that every man goes through different stages in life.
00:01:17
Speaker
We're not necessarily gonna be breaking all of those stages down today. I would highly, highly, highly recommend a book called The Amazing Development of Men by Alison Armstrong. She goes into great detail about the different stages or the evolution of a man from a little boy or a knight into a prince and into a king. Understanding where you're at within those stages I think is really important.
00:01:46
Speaker
If you're not in any of those stages, you may be in a transition state between one of those stages. And
Navigating Life Transitions
00:01:53
Speaker
sometimes those transition states can be some of the darkest, scariest, most unknown places. But if you know that you're in that transition state, then just having an understanding
00:02:05
Speaker
of where you're at sometimes brings peace, you can't avoid it. There is no avoiding the transitions from one stage to another stage. You have to be willing to accept the reality that you're going to evolve and go through those. But you can shorten a transition to where that discomfort isn't as long and drawn out.
00:02:31
Speaker
So I highly recommend it, The Amazing Development of Men by Alison Armstrong. If you haven't already read it, I would say pick it up, Audible, Amazon, wherever you want to get it. If you have it, I would suggest reading it again. It's one of those kind of cornerstone books, at least for me in my life.
00:02:49
Speaker
Now,
Components of a Well-Rounded Man
00:02:50
Speaker
I don't necessarily want to spend a lot of time there. I want to approach maturing and masculinity from a slightly different angle. But I feel it's important to highlight places that I've gleaned and learned from, and even mentors that I've learned from. And we're going to get into mentors here in just a second. But I want to spend our time today breaking apart the three legs, if you will, on the tripod.
00:03:16
Speaker
that make up a well-rounded man. And having these three components in your life will actually accelerate those transitions that I just talked about, but it'll also even accelerate the stages that you go through.
00:03:34
Speaker
It's not that once you become a king, referring back to Alison's book, that all of a sudden you stop growing as an individual, but by the time you become a king, you really anchored yourself in certain key components that define you internally. Now, going back to what I want to spend time on today, that is those three legs that make up the tripod or those three anchors that you should really have in place in your life in some degree and
00:04:03
Speaker
Essentially, what you're doing is you're building a three-tier life around you, and it drives the fuel for driving that maturing internally.
Role of Mentors
00:04:14
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The first one, it's having a mentor in your life, or having two, or five, or 10, or 20.
00:04:20
Speaker
Now, mentors can be varying in how you glean from them. It doesn't necessarily have to be someone that's local that you can meet for coffee once a week or once every other week. If you can, that's great. Obviously, having somebody that's local that is in relationship with you is ideal, but that's not always available. And not having that available is not an excuse to not have mentors in your life.
00:04:48
Speaker
You can literally have a mentor that is an author or videos that you watch or actors or you name it. Essentially, a mentor is someone who is farther along in life than you are in the direction that you want to take yourself. Now, word of caution here is if you're going to go and find these mentors,
00:05:11
Speaker
You wanna first spend some time very clearly identifying what success means to you. Because a lot of us guys, we have this perception of success, but we end up chasing the wrong definition of it. For some, that is, you know what, success is having $10 million in the bank and retiring by the time I'm 35. If that's your definition, that's great. There's nothing wrong with pursuing that. All I'm saying is,
00:05:42
Speaker
clearly identify what success is for you before you start to go out and find mentors that help move you towards what you may think success is. For me, success is very much defined by me being present with my kids. That's one big component for me.
00:06:03
Speaker
financial success, absolutely. But even deeper than that is being present with my kids, investing in them, loving them, guiding them. So for me, I'm not going to pursue someone who maybe their advice or their coaching or their trainings or whatever it may be is, you know what, you just need to work. You need to find somebody that's gonna watch your kids and you need to work
00:06:30
Speaker
100 hours a week because that's the only way you can get successful in life. That might be for them, but for me, that's not my definition of success. And so I'm going to find men who have modeled what my definition of success is, in the sense of, yes, absolutely providing for my kids.
00:06:50
Speaker
But along with doing that is being present with them, is cultivating an environment of safety and growth and love. You know, me and my kids, we have this thing that we say, well, we're going to fagual.
00:07:07
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So you might be asking, well, what is Figuol? Well, that is, we identified five anchors in our family that we are going to be known for. And those are family, growth, wealth, adventure, and love.
00:07:24
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And so, fagual. And we will literally say to each other, have we fagauled this week? And if we haven't, if we haven't been leaning into those, then we draw our attention back to that and do, okay, we gotta do something that's gonna be adventurous this week because fagual is what makes up who we are.
00:07:44
Speaker
And so because my definition of success is wrapped around my family unit and being a good dad and a present dad, then one of my mentors is individuals who are challenging that aspect of who I am. So first and foremost, you need to identify what success is for you. And don't take it lightly. You need to spend some time on that.
00:08:07
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And then from that, it's a springboard into, now, where are individuals that are further along than I am in my definition of success that I can lean into? Once you've identified them, then you need to position your heart. And position your heart means being willing to let, whether it's that content or that individual, challenge you, challenge your norms, your perceptions, your beliefs.
00:08:36
Speaker
your habits, all of that. If the individuals that you say are mentors are not making you feel uncomfortable every now and then, or disrupting what you have created as a norm, then I would actually question whether or not they're a mentor. So the first leg in this tripod is the mentors. The
Support from Peers
00:08:57
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second leg is your peers. And not just, hey, I've got a couple friends that I have fun with every now and then.
00:09:05
Speaker
When I say peers, what I'm talking about is the men that are in the trenches with you. Now, they could be local, they could not be local, but they are in the trenches, meaning they are the individuals that you invite into your vulnerable moments, the moments that you don't want to let people into. For me, I struggled with porn addiction for years, and one of the biggest things that disrupted that
00:09:35
Speaker
was when I started to have the poll towards that, I literally picked up the phone and called a friend, one of my guy friends, one of my peers. It was like, hey man, I don't even know why, but I want to look at porn right now. I just do. And sometimes just calling them was enough to disrupt it to where that poll wasn't there anymore.
00:09:57
Speaker
Sometimes it was a deeper thing that emotionally was coming to the surface and I was terrified of. And so I wanted to gravitate towards a false sense of intimacy or comfort. And that was the outlet that I learned at a really young age. So the peers are the ones that are in the trenches with you. They're your core. I say it's good to have anywhere from two to four, less than a handful of guys that are in your core.
00:10:25
Speaker
They're the guys that you are brutally honest with, the good and the bad, in where you're at. They get to see that quote-unquote ugly side of you. It's not meant for everyone. It's only a select few that you've established trust with. Now, you may be saying, Josh, I don't have peers. Like, I don't have peers in that sense. You're defining. I don't have guys that are in the trenches with me.
00:10:55
Speaker
And I would say to that, well, it may be time for you to disrupt the kind of relationships that you've grown accustomed to and invite men into those areas that maybe you're keeping them at bay. The only way that trust is established is if you're willing to risk and be vulnerable.
00:11:15
Speaker
the guys that I have in my life that are a part of my core, some of them I've known for eight, 10 years, some of them I've known for months, one in particular, but we really clicked and I was willing to open up and risk
00:11:36
Speaker
And in the response to risk was love, and then vice versa, he did the same. And through that, we've become very close. And so now he's a part of my core. It's important to have at least one guy who is local. If you don't have that right now, that's okay. A lot of us guys, we don't naturally build community the way that a lot of women can. It doesn't mean that we can't, but it requires more intentionality and time.
00:12:06
Speaker
And so peers, that second leg, is the guys that are at a similar place in your life. For me, I'm in my late 30s and I've got three kids. And my peers, maybe they don't have kids, some of them do, some of them don't, but they're at that similar stage of life. And so they're at a similar place of evolution in who they are. And they're being vulnerable with me and opening up, and I'm able to champion them.
00:12:33
Speaker
Essentially, we link arms with one another and move forward in who we are meant to be. So we have mentors. Those are the ones that are challenging you. And one thing to point out is a peer can actually have moments of mentoring you. I know for me,
00:12:51
Speaker
the guys that are my peers that are part of my core, they've called me out. And that's where that kind of mentor type role is, big brother, whatever you want to call it. But overall, they're a brother. Doesn't mean they don't have big brother moments, or I've even had peers that really stepped into kind of a father type role in a moment. And it was really healing to me.
00:13:13
Speaker
but it's not the role that they are primarily in. Primarily they're in a place of, hey, we're at a similar place and I'm gonna invite you into my process and you're inviting me into your process and we're really linking arms. We're in the trenches together, the emotional trenches. So you have the mentors, then you have the peers. Lastly,
Guiding the Less Experienced
00:13:36
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you have the mentees. Now, similar to a mentor, it doesn't mean that they are younger than you.
00:13:43
Speaker
What it means is they are not as far along in some part of life as you are. And you're investing in them. You're investing your time or your energy or your knowledge. You're actually inviting them into your process, but their exposure to your process is really for the sake of teaching them or equipping them or challenging them, right? You're the mentor in that relationship.
00:14:11
Speaker
A couple things I think is really important in that is, one, if you have individuals that are fitting that bracket, then I would say you need to set expectations. Because as someone who is going to be the one challenging, who's going to be the one who is stretching them,
00:14:28
Speaker
It's really important to have that clarity in that relationship. It doesn't mean like, all right, so you've applied for this role as a mentee and I'm going to be challenging you in these ways. I'm not talking about that. It's more along the lines of, hey, do I have permission to be really honest with you if there's certain things that I see that you're either doing or feeling or expressing that might be unhealthy or maybe mistakes that I have made that I would love for you to not make?
00:14:57
Speaker
However you want to position that or say that. But really what you're doing is you're giving of your experience, of your time, of your energy, of your emotion, without the expectation of getting anything back. You're investing in someone because it's the thing that you need to have that third leg and the tripod of masculinity.
00:15:21
Speaker
Because believe it or not, you get something out of it, not in a manipulative way, but when you start to invest in others, then what happens is you start to get clarity in your identity. I know for me, a lot of my growth has come from when I am teaching or leading.
00:15:42
Speaker
It's not that I have arrived and I have mastered X, Y, or Z. Sometimes me saying something, whether it's in this podcast or speaking or wherever it may be, sometimes me saying it is challenging myself, or it's helping me refine my message in life, my identity. And so finding men to invest in is really valuable for you, but at the same time,
00:16:11
Speaker
valuable for them. There's too many men that are growing up fatherless and that doesn't necessarily mean the dad's not home. There are a lot of fatherless men who had a dad present physically but not emotionally or had a dad that provided financially but was never even physically present.
00:16:34
Speaker
And so it's important for you to step into that role for the men that you see that are not as far along in life as you are in certain areas. Now, it could be something official, like you could have an intern, or it could also be just a friend or someone that has really trusted you with their process. They may not have communicated, hey, I'm positioning my heart to be stretched and to learn from you.
00:17:01
Speaker
But they've been open to your input and to your guidance. And in that, whether you like it or not, you are shaping their world. You are shaping their future. You're shaping their internal paradigms. And at the same time, you're shaping your own identity in the way that you choose to articulate and invest and be emotionally available for the people that you end up mentoring. So
Maturing and Self-Discovery
00:17:28
Speaker
maturing and masculinity, it's a lot like anything else.
00:17:31
Speaker
you will become more successful at it the more you're willing to invest in it. So if you go out of your way to find these three different elements and you will find yourself becoming more and more clear in who you are and really owning that king that is inside of you and is longing to be embraced and celebrated. So how do you mature in masculinity?
00:18:01
Speaker
Well, the best thing you can do is find those three legs, find those three different areas of relationship. Individuals that are investing in you or challenging you or teaching you and are further along in your definition of success. Peers who are in the trenches, who you pick up the phone and call when it's the last thing that you want to do, that you choose to be vulnerable with.
00:18:28
Speaker
and get messy with, and then finally those that you want to invest in. You have those three, and you'll be surprised how quickly you can mature into this well-rounded masculinity that so many in our society are starved for.