Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
How Men Can Build Lasting Confidence (It’s Not What You Think!) image

How Men Can Build Lasting Confidence (It’s Not What You Think!)

S5 E117 · The Men's Collective
Avatar
86 Plays17 days ago

In the final episode of the “5 Ps of Purpose” series, Travis and Pierre explore Power—not as dominance or bravado, but as grounded, authentic confidence rooted in values, emotional awareness, and connection.

They unpack what it means to lead with strength that’s integrated, not performative—and how true power emerges when men support one another, own their stories, and redefine masculinity on their own terms.

Highlights:
Power as emotional awareness and embodied confidence
Why connection—not competition—builds lasting strength
Letting go of external validation to live with intention

Challenge:
Where are you still measuring power by someone else’s standards?
This week, reflect on your authentic strengths—and name one in another man too.

🎧 Listen now + learn more at menscollective.co

JOIN THE COLLECTIVE:

JOIN THE MEN'S COLLECTIVE:
CLICK HERE

JOIN THE MAILING LIST & GET INVOLVED!

CLICK HERE: MAILING LIST

INSTAGRAM: MENSCOLLECTIVE.CO

WATCH ON YOUTUBE:

WATCH HERE

Connect and Support Travis:

YouTube: Travis Goodman

Instagram: @travis.goodman.lmft

Web: TravisGoodmanLMFT.com

Connect and Support Pierre:

Instagram: Braver.Man

Web: BraverManCoaching.com

Recommended
Transcript

Intro: Challenging Norms of Masculinity

00:00:00
Speaker
There are a thousand ways to be strong as a man. They don't look like the same PR at the gym. They don't look like the same high level job. They don't look like the same exact um way of appearing, the same exact way of acting.
00:00:16
Speaker
And so we're meeting what is ah more broad view on strong, healthy masculinity and the in this P. I think that's the kind of more meta, I suppose, view of this P because it helps each individual man to appreciate how am I showing up with strength, but it also is a showcase masculine strength and confidence in its many different forms.
00:00:46
Speaker
which is kind of pretty badass when it shows up in group.

Introduction to the Five Ps of Purpose

00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome back to the Men's Collective Podcast. I'm here with my co-founder, co-host Pierre, and we are kind of finishing up this little mini-series on the five Ps of purpose.
00:01:04
Speaker
um And again, if you haven't listened to the previous episodes, just go check them out because these are all kind of building and culminating to this final P of power And like always, we're going to be kind of opening it up and describing and defining what we mean what we mean by power and the role it plays in our DNA here at the Men's Collective. So Pierre,

Linking Power with Personal Goals and Values

00:01:27
Speaker
what is power? How do we define it?
00:01:29
Speaker
What does it really mean? Where is it taking us? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, great. Yeah. Well, it really, I mean, you said it really well. It's the culmination of and the areas of our focus before the stories that we tell about ourselves and where we're going, the beliefs that we hold about ourselves in the world, the values toward which we aspire to, to act the ways in which we maintain focus and awareness to our emotion.
00:01:57
Speaker
Power is really in harnessing our, our strengths to move us in the direction of our goals and our values.

Embracing Vulnerability and Strength

00:02:05
Speaker
And often it starts by essentially defining how we see our own strength and also inviting other men to share with us and each other, what strengths they see in one another, which is, boy, is that pretty unique.
00:02:27
Speaker
you know i I think especially in engaging men one-on-one, it becomes easy to share, particularly in coaching work and and also in and ah other mental health domains, to share some strength. But when we engage one-on-one with men or even in in group with men outside of the context of um or in the context of everyday life, there's often I don't know. There's often, um silent competition, one upmanship, uh, hesitation to share our own vulnerability because, ah somehow it changes the dynamic or a hierarchy that doesn't even really exist or probably shouldn't really exist in important close relationships between men.
00:03:19
Speaker
So it's rare often, that we get, or it's rare, that we get the opportunity to hear from another man, these are how you're these are the ways in which I'm seeing you show up with tremendous capability and tremendous skill.
00:03:36
Speaker
So power typically starts with defining our own character strengths and inviting other men to share what they've seen in us and in our strength.
00:03:49
Speaker
it also almost always evolves into a discussion of perhaps the biggest reason men reach out and that's because they might feel like they've lost some confidence.
00:04:04
Speaker
And so power also touches upon what does confidence mean for me and how can I build it in a in an authentic, in a meaningful way, in a way that doesn't discount my vulnerabilities or the areas of my, um, or the areas with which I find challenge in life. In fact, it can celebrate those things because it can honor the ways in which I've grown in particular domains or you've grown in particular domains.
00:04:37
Speaker
um But it becomes a really ah really pragmatic discussion of what it actually means to have more confidence, to show up more decisively, to feel um little more proud of who I am as a man.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah.

Creating Positive Community Impacts

00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I think this culmination of like coming together, what we mean power, it it really is all these different parts that kind of lead into kind of this more integrative whole.
00:05:04
Speaker
um And that they all need, they all kind of build on each other that I think need to be understood, explored. build awareness around and then doing work in, which when you combine them together leads to the sense of what ah you know the power that we have as men and how we use that you know in our lives and ah you know our family's lives, our community around us. you know that What kind of impact are we having when we embody all these
00:05:37
Speaker
these peas, right? That as we live like in a sense of grounded purpose, because it doesn't just affect, it's not just about us, right? But it's about something far beyond us. And so in order to have that, we need all these, all these pieces that come together that create something. And it I think to some degree, it's unique for each man.
00:05:56
Speaker
You know, there's a, there's, I think there's a, some of it, there's there's a collectiveness to it that there is a, some agreed and sharedness to all this, but it's also quite unique.
00:06:07
Speaker
What is that brings to the table? Well, yeah, I, you know, it speaks to what's been touched on in our past explorations of the other

Advocating for a Broader View of Masculinity

00:06:20
Speaker
peas.
00:06:20
Speaker
And that is that lots of traditional norms of masculinity can highlight one pretty restricted view on that.
00:06:33
Speaker
how to be strong as a man, strong, capable, skilled as a man. And that limited scope of masculinity ends up doing us a disservice.
00:06:47
Speaker
Sure. There are some elements of um traditional masculine norms that are really positive, that are really healthy, especially when and harnessed in in ways that are pro-social, that help other people, that that support our all welfare and the welfare of people around us. On the other hand, therere about there are a thousand ways to be strong as a man.
00:07:11
Speaker
They don't look like the same... the same PR at the gym. They don't look like the same high level job. They don't look like, um, the same exact, um, way of appearing, um, the same exact way of acting.
00:07:31
Speaker
And so we're meeting what is, a more broad view on strong, healthy masculinity in this, in this P I think that's the kind of more meta, I suppose, view of this P because it, yeah, helps each individual man to appreciate how am I showing up with strength, but it also is a showcase of masculine masculine strength and confidence in its many different forms, which is kind of pretty badass when is it shows up in group.
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it is badass when it shows up in group because you get to see that You get to really see that unique power that each man brings to the table and the gift that they have. Right. I think that they all we all have a unique gift to offer the world. And when we're able to kind of step into this place, we're able to really, truly authentically give that gift, which is what the world needs. Right. We all need that. And we all benefit from that. I think that's the thing is it is for this collective, the other that we all it.
00:08:43
Speaker
improves it it betters it connects it heals it i mean so many things that when we're all operating in that place it really is powerful like uniquely powerful and what i offer is different than what you offer versus all the i mean we need all the differences to create something you know like a a tapestry if you will of something that is You know, this without it, it would be bland and not strong. It's like if you have a rope with one cord, like it's not going to hold much, man. We need all of us with the differences and how we how we interwork together to create something really, truly strong and stable and grounding,

Confidence through Personal Growth

00:09:25
Speaker
you know. Agreed.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. um You know, what, you know, final encouragement for, you know, this P, I know it's a shorter one because it really is kind of a culmination of all the work that men are doing as part of the DNA, but important.
00:09:40
Speaker
um But I think in order to get here to really be in this place, we really need to build upon all the other foundational P's, which then kind of en encapsulates, you know, living with purpose, living with intention.
00:09:56
Speaker
um But so any other final kind of closing, like ah a challenge or like ah a word for men that are listening um that would kind of invite them in? Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
Well, even as you said that, it's it struck me that men who are looking to build confidence will often turn to other men who exude it in some way or pretend to exude it in some way. yeah Or they may turn to...
00:10:25
Speaker
And I've done this. I mean, I can't just speak in the way. I've turned to to strategies to be more confident. Well, ah you can't really do that, not in a sustainable way, without doing the deeper personal work first.
00:10:45
Speaker
Else it's going to feel like a facade. You're not really going to show up in your most strong, powerful, unique way yeah that honors your story, honors who you are, how you see the world, what your values are, how you experience emotion in the world around you, how you experience your own degree of focus in a confident way if what you're doing is just hacks.
00:11:09
Speaker
yeah So i appreciate your last comment it made me think, well, damn, most of us are... like We want more confidence. There's nothing wrong with that.
00:11:22
Speaker
no But going about it in a way as to sort of extract someone else's confidence is not going to serve us individually as men or or the world around us. It's certainly not going to serve the next generation of men, yeah boys who are becoming men, or even men who are ah entering into ah into the final stages of their lives, into retirement, into creating contentment um and being able to look back upon our lives proudly, which I think which i think is one of the biggest and most...

Learning Across Life Stages and Impacting Future Generations

00:12:09
Speaker
motivating fuels for the biggest and most motivating fires for me to keep going. And I think something that we've shared too, I think it's been amazing to see men at different stages of life yeah be able to showcase their strengths, use their strengths, gain confidence, feel fulfilled, pass that on to next generations in the world around them.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and I think that's the beautiful thing with ah with the collective is we really actually get to be part of this. something Even for me, something far bigger than me that I also, too, have I learned so much from just the different phases of life that the men in our collective are in and what they're bringing to the table because it it impacts me. All of it impacts me and you, I know, right? it's Yeah. And that like it speaks to something deep in me as well.
00:13:07
Speaker
that when I see that it's inspiring, it is motivating, it it's challenging um in in the best way, right? um Because it's calling me to something bigger.
00:13:19
Speaker
Like I feel that pull and and it's And it's really amazing to see too when i when it clicks in another guy, when like it clicks for them. and but Yeah, I do too.
00:13:33
Speaker
It's really it's some of the best part of the work that I think that we do is when that it clicks and you're like, there it is. And then it's like the shift happens. And and there's still work to be done. But like once that shift occurs, it's like there's this different focus of intention. Yeah.
00:13:50
Speaker
And when they do start to veer, which we talked about, think, in our couple previous episodes, that because we all can get veered and pulled away, that our veering and getting pulled away is often much less.
00:14:03
Speaker
ah We often tend to recover more quickly and effectively because we also really know what we're grounded in, right? And so we kind of come back back to that kind of drive, those again, back to our values, back to our principles, you know our awareness. And so...
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, i i I love this work and I love that we get to see those light bulb

Join the Men's Collective for Ongoing Conversation

00:14:23
Speaker
moments. yeah um you know and And to kind of wrap up, man, if if you're if you're inspired by this, if you're listening to this, like, hey, how do where do I go? How do I learn more? Go to menscollective.co.
00:14:33
Speaker
um Again, menscollective.co. um For more information about joining the collective and the cohorts. um Yeah, we'd love to have you and love to answer any questions you have. You can send us a message and fill out a form and we'll we'll reach out to you and check in and answer any questions you might have. But mean, that kind of wraps up the five P's of purpose. And again, which is so foundational.
00:14:58
Speaker
of the men's collective DNA. And yeah, stay tuned for next week and our next topic where we get to just have so much more fun exploring other topics that we're we're talking about and going through with the men in the collective. And that's the beautiful thing is the we have ongoing conversations, ongoing training, things that are relevant, things that men are facing.
00:15:18
Speaker
um And it's all built upon this kind of foundational work that we kind of laid out here for you. So with that said, we'll see you next week. Thank you, Travis.
00:15:29
Speaker
Thank you.