Transcript
Speaker: Welcome everybody. a That's going to go in a blooper.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that's great. Okay, sip of coffee. I feel good. Well, welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the Men's Collective Podcast. I'm so excited to jump in here with my co-founder, Pierre. And if you're new to the podcast, welcome. If you've been a listener over the evolution over the past few years, again, welcome back. I thank you so much for continuing to listen.
Speaker: um And as discussed last week, to go a little deeper into what the Men's Collective is, its vision, If you haven't listened to the previous episode, go ahead and check it out where Pierre and I kind of cast a vision about the the bigger concept and topic around the men's collective.
Speaker: And over the next five episodes, we're going to be covering the five pillars of purpose. And today we're going to be talking about the first pillar of perspective.
Speaker: So Pierre, what what do we mean by perspective? what What is that? Can you tell us about that? Yeah. Well, Travis, at the heart is about honest conversations with yourself, with other men, about where things stand in your own life, where you're looking to make gains with respect, mostly to personal fulfillment. and part of the uniqueness of covering perspective first is that many of us enter
Speaker: into manhood with ideas about what it means to succeed. We don't always get asked what it means to be fulfilled.
Speaker: And when we cover perspective, we're inviting men to zoom out, to acknowledge the experiences, the stories that have brought them to the moment now, and then to consider how that might inform people each man's experience of fulfillment in the future.
Speaker: Yeah. I like that difference between, you know, fulfillment versus success. ba Yeah, really big. um And that's kind of this idea of perspective is what, you know, zooming out,
Speaker: And as you know as we have worked with the men and the cohorts and the collective is kind of that that zooming out process is important to understand what has influenced this and how do we define fulfillment.
Speaker: And I think for a lot of the men initially is I think that's been something quite different from revolving around achievement and quote-unquote success, usually around like financial achievement, degrees, certifications.
Speaker: But that fulfillment piece, I think, is so significant. can you Can you speak a little bit to that to tell us more as to why that might be important? Yeah, because we power through life, often along a path that we think we need to take, collecting titles and degrees and stuff And it's probably too often that we, I mean, that you and I see men reach a point or even ourselves feel like we've lost our way. And perspective is sort of twofold in that way.
Speaker: On one hand, it is looking back at the stories and how we see ourselves and how I might see myself as a man taking stock of the experience from the past and learning from it.
Speaker: appreciating where I am in life and relative to that past. And then on the other hand, it's, it's also inviting you and I and other men to lay the foundation for the future where we seek greater depth and authenticity that helps us to feel whole, to feel like we're enjoying life, whether or not we're reaching the,
Speaker: the markers that we've told ourselves we need to in order to feel successful. I think it's too often that I've seen, and I'm sure you can speak to this as well, men who look on the surface like they've got it all figured out, got great jobs, great family, you know, really picture-perfect Christmas cards or holiday cards, but they're really struggling inside and want more.
Speaker: Yeah, I could definitely agree. you know anecdotally from the men I've worked with over the years, um you're right that there's there could be this ah um perception of success uh and especially as it pertains to even occupation and career um and this idea this mask of like hey everything's together but i've worked with countless men that has you know on one hand looked quote unquote successful but deep down there's a sense of loneliness isolation depression
Speaker: anxiety, fear, worry, a whole number of feeling not enough, like I'm lacking. i mean, that's and on the outside looking in, like you said, it looks like they got it all together.
Speaker: And so I think this understanding of perspective in this, what really truly brings fulfillment is so important because it it goes again, beyond, like you said, this, like, it's not just about the achievement or the result, right?
Speaker: Because often it's an empty fleeting moment anyway, in the end and working with men and and for my, myself included is like, if I, I think early on in my um my early 20s, well, even probably I'm sure even in high school, but it was about trying to get achievement, to to get a sense of, to feel something um like I had value or worth very much wrapped around credentials and um degrees and certifications.
Speaker: And so, and and of course what I found in the end was, yeah, those things, there's a moment where it feels good that I got it and I accomplished something, but then now what? And ah feeling this emptiness at the back end of it. And so through my own work, finding this, I needed to understand what actually truly brings me fulfillment is kind of ah broader, more holistic perspective that will include, part of it will include like aiming at something and and doing work and,
Speaker: going toward maybe achieving or succeeding or overcoming something, but it's so much more than that, right? Yeah, for sure. mean, I i definitely i found myself chasing the next accomplishment and not necessarily, and then even getting there and not feeling as great as I thought I might.
Speaker: it was sort of like I'd find myself chasing an accomplishment, not for the sake of feeling an intense amount of gratitude or joy, But it was almost like I found myself chasing a comp an accomplishment, believing that I would feel less unwhole or less unworthy.
Speaker: And so I wasn't chasing something that was rooted in something present, something that maybe even, even if it's not totally tangible, something that I could actually feel internally.
Speaker: And so often what happened was i would reach a goal, get a a complete, some training or complete a degree and think, well, at this point I should feel like I andm proud of myself, but I feel the same today or tomorrow that I did yesterday, even though something major has happened. So a part of that perspective is also appreciating the moment, the present moment, and maybe even building some gratitude around who I am and what how I'm showing up.
Speaker: rather than what I did. Yeah, that stands out to me as you talk about rather than what I did, the job I did or the task or accomplishment, it's more about, who you know, how am I actually showing up and how am I bringing who I am to this moment, whether it's at work or with my loved ones, my family, my friends, which I would argue is way is more authentic. It allows you to be you versus kind of this version of you that's only really wrapped around achievement, accomplishment, that is this mask that you have to wear. And again, I think what happens we if we're in that place, we kind of miss out on the the humanness of the person, because then it really is about kind of touting those accolades too, with whichever group you're part of as a means of, I would say connection, like, okay, I'm only as good or successful as I share these accomplishments and maybe compare, especially among men,
Speaker: How do I compare amongst other men? And I think it if we are there, it leads us down a very rigid view of what it means to be a man and kind of gets us kind of in that more isolation that, again, it's this competition of like, well, look at my accolades and we're now swapping stories.
Speaker: Right. And that's that's how I see it leading. you know Right. And then we're connecting over just shit that gets put on ah paper. Right.
Speaker: You might have to turn this podcast into an explicit one. I just realized. That's fine. It'll automatically – Right. It'll flag shit as explicit, so it's like it's automatic. Well, beautiful because let's face it. Most of us hide behind titles, degrees – ranks titles degrees when we're just meeting somebody and that's not a way to really connect.
Speaker: no And so yeah part of, I think, what is so beautiful about the work that we do with men is we have men of different backgrounds and lots of incredible accomplishment, but we're not in there talking about their experiences and or or their experiences as ah an attorney or a physician or a therapist or whatever.
Speaker: We're in there talking about how they show up as men, how we show up as men. Right. Right. Which is so far more, not only powerful, but that's really what we all truly are longing for and needing anyway, is his to just show up as inhumanity and learning to listen, to understand, to um to hear, to um bring our true nature into these spaces. And part of this whole, why it's so important is exactly what we just said, is that it's about our, our kind of our
Speaker: who we really are, and are we aware of that? Are we able to bring that into this space, which leads to deeper connections, which leads to moving away from loneliness and isolation to actually like a brotherhood of connection of community, of something bigger than ourselves, that we don't have to compete so much to say is that we can connect and create um camaraderie around life, around this kind of shared experience that we all live in in this world, from differing views, from differing perspectives, from differing um Like you said, differing backgrounds, differing life stages that as men, that's really what unites us far beyond these superficial titles. And so, you know, if you're looking, you know, to kind of wrap this episode up, you know, if you're looking for more of that, that's really what part of our foundation is built upon that, that Pierre and I have co-created is this, um,
Speaker: um for the Men's Collective is the five pillars of purpose is this perspective that is fulfillment. um Yeah, I think so too. It's massive. And so, um you know, as we continue kind of um exploring a bit about what the other four Ps are over the next few episodes, you're going to get a, I think, a clear picture of what we're really about here at the Men's Collective um and so what we're going next week is about around programming and so i'm excited to talk to pierre and kind of go back and forth about what that is and how we see programming within kind of the men's collective and so if you're interested in more about this um we have upcoming cohorts running which is an eight week uh you know small intimate group of men six to eight guys going through kind of an eight-week curriculum with this is the foundation the five p's and then leading into a kind of our ongoing um
Speaker: monthly, bi bi-weekly calls with the the larger community of the Men's Collective, which again is this community of men um kind of built on the foundation of these five Ps while we're engaging each other with our humanity, really, um and showing up.
Speaker: Um, and so if you're interested in that, go to menscollective.co, um, for more information, you know, upcoming events, just go there. Everything's on the website and soon to be launching men's collective Instagram channel, which will be, so be on the lookout. In fact, I'll backlink it here. Um, once this comes out to check it out for content coming there.
Speaker: Yeah. And I'm excited to keep going with this pier. So me too. Yeah. Thanks Travis. Yeah. Until next week. See you guys. so
