Why Men Struggle With Vulnerability and Connection | Dave’s Head

Host (Dave's Head): Hey, hey. Good morning, afternoon, evening, good people wherever you are, welcome. However you found this moment, I'm glad you did. I'm Dave and this is Dave's head. Where perspective matters and clarity. So sets the tone. Let's get into it. What's in my head. So you may have seen probably news, fear, social media sphere somewhere sphere that 84 year old Mitch McConnell returned from what many say is the grave, but after a three month medical absence, if you will, wheelchair bound, appeared to be very physically frail. And you would think that that would trigger compassion in a lot of people, myself included. The harder thing for people to understand and comprehend and rationalize with their humanity is how someone with such a high position in our federal government, so much power, influence, legislatively, can be in that condition and still be allowed to serve. If you've seen the pictures of video of him being wheeled into the session, mouth agape, stare blank, cognitive, you know, distance. And it's hard for a lot in the public to understand that this is happening, this is being allowed. He's in a condition where he should be treated and made comfortable, enjoy the rest of his life away from D.C. and it's almost like they're forcing the last bit of drops of juice from him. Now there's a possibility he says, listen, I'm going to go until I go. Literally. You know, some people who work careers that they literally drop dead doing that thing. And that could be his intentional or cognitive decision. But is that what's best for the American people? You know, it's widely stated he's voted against a lot of things around paid leave and, and things that are parallel to his situation. He hasn't worked in 90 days, got paid for it, whether that's short term, long term disability insurance, who knows. But he does not look very capable of doing his job. As the example where there was a vote he was participating in and it appeared that he had to be told what to say or to correctly say. There's expectations and we can pretend that we don't have them, but there's expectations that the people we elect are going to go do the job. Now this Congress seems to be the most inept of my adult livelihood or adult lifetime as far as getting things done. I mean, they just took vacation again until the elections, I heard. But there was an agricultural committee markup that he participated in and it appeared that he needed assistance voting the correct way. There's been speculation both ways. No, he just was misinformed and it was corrected and he wasn't given the right Instructions. And that's part of the issue.

Jason Lange: Right?

Host (Dave's Head): That's part of the problem. Cognitively you should know what to expect and more importantly, if you're cognizant to be all there, you would actually recognize instructions. If that's the case, the instructions were incorrect and correct them for them. Right. Because you have vast experience as a legislator, so you would recognize the instructions were incorrect and correct them on the spot. No, that's not what supposed to happen. Except he didn't. And so there's a lot of questions about what actual mental state he's in. I think they're very legitimate questions. I think they've been very legitimate questions. Also, there's a TV personality, I think his name is Scott Jennings or something like that. I think he's on cnn. And listen, I don't, I'm not the fly on the wall, don't know one way or another where he's telling the truth or not. But if he had a 15, 20 minute conversation with that Mitch McConnell three months ago, I'd be very skeptical about that claim from him. He didn't look like he could have any conversation for 20 minutes. But that's just me. That's just my non medical expert opinion. Now physical frailty, true, is not a indicator or positive indicator or definitive proof of mental capacity. However, we've seen people over time look with that gaze, mouth agape, slow to respond, barely respond at all, and know what that condition is. Because he's a politician, he doesn't get special treatment from our observation. Right. Or at least we shouldn't. Now legally he's under the same framework as you know, the Senate rules, right. The center can't be just deemed unfit. It's not like a guardianship or power of attorney thing. The Constitution sets qualifications for senators and in order to be removed, he'd have to either resign or be expelled by 2/3 vote or simply his term ends. And so we're going to be in this situation, if you will, until One of those three things happen. Either he resigns, he's expelled by 2/3 vote, or he simply ends his term when it's supposed to be ended and sails off into the sunset, or rides off into the sunset I think is a phrase. But there's a question about safeguards and whether they should exist for age, illness, prolonged absence, other circumstances that affect a elected official's ability to do the actual job they were elected to do. And there needs to be a serious conversation around transparency. And granted, we have HIPAA laws that prevent a certain level of Transparency. However, if you are mentally incapable of doing your job, that should be known. We don't need to know the exact conditions that create that mental incapacity, but we should know that you're mentally incapable of doing the job. There's another thing I've been pushing for a long time and talking about for a long time, and that's term limits. This is a poster child for why we need term limits. This whole situation right here. And think about this. I, I don't know how many terms he's in now. He's 84 years old. Not to say we don't have healthy sprite, mentally, you know, powerhouse in it, 84 year olds. However, he's not one of them. And the general thing about Representatives and Senators is that there are no tournaments and we need them desperately. The same tired people who play these games session after session get reelected over and over and over again. I think we're to the point where we have enough evidence that this doesn't work anymore with these same people holding on with broken nails dug into a rock face, holding on to power, right? Because that's, that's all this really is. They're running and running and running to stay in power. And stay in power, right? Everybody wants to be the speaker of the House, right? It's about power. Everybody wants to be the Senate Majority Leader. It's about power. And so the longer you stay in, the more your seniority grows, the more likely that's going to be your position. Except you're not doing what's best for the country. When's the last time there was an actual balanced budget in this country? I believe in the 90s. I think it was under Clinton, if I remember correctly. When's the last time the House passed anything meaningful? And please don't say the big beautiful bill that crap. Meaningful meaning help the actual people of this country. When's the last time that happened? And so the problem is without term limits, we're in this situation where power just keeps cycling. Every couple years between Democrats, Republicans, they get older and older and they do the same things over and over again. And every time election comes up, they make promises to do things for the American people. Or during sessions they stand there and talk about, well, the American people want us to do this and American people don't think about that. And they're about as disconnected from what is good for America as it gets. And so we need term limits and we need them yesterday. Want more clarity, perspective and real conversation? Tune in to Dave's head podcast every episode delivers insight, conversation and stories that make you think and maybe even smile a little. Whether YouTube, Spotify, Apple, the Alive podcast network, or your preferred source, subscribe, follow, tune in and share with anyone who needs to hear it. Don't you miss a single episode. Your next great conversation starts in Dave's head. Second thing that's on my mind is as we approach election season, I have my recurring, recurring idea and thought and frustration around why we can't vote digitally yet digitally yet everything else is digital, voting still feels very much analog. We bank, we file taxes, verify our identities, sign contracts, move money from account to account, all from our phones. We are more than capable of verifying who we are on a device that simply fits in our hands and in our pockets and gets dropped a bunch of times and all that stuff. It's reasonable to ask why voting and reporting results still feel technologically behind the rest of our daily lives. This afternoon I made it. Or I got a transaction on my account. I got an email and a text within seconds of that transaction happening. When I do normal transactions with one of my particular accounts, I get two emails and two texts plus a push notification, all within seconds for one transaction. But yet I still need to go into a physical place to vote. And then I get to wait hours upon hours upon hours after the polls close to find out who won election. Why? Why are we still doing this now? It's not to say I want every American to be voting from their phone or computer, but why can't we have that option if I have a camera like I do, Because I'm staring at you. If you're watching on YouTube or Spotify video and I can verify my face with my status shoe id. Right? Because we're all, we want ID for voting, right? That's what we want in this country, right? Supposedly. What's the point in having this ID requirement if I still gotta leave my house physically to go stand in front of somebody and go, yep, it's me. Just to go press a button on the machine and then drive back home. What's the point that wasted time. I think about those places. I'm fortunate because I can get in and out of my voting by polling place probably 10 minutes tops. That's stretching it if it takes that long. There are people who wait in line for four or five hours, which by the way, that is disgusting to me that we still have places or we've been situated because some of this is intentional because you reduce the amount of people voting by forcing them onto one or two polling Places when they used to have seven or eight, now they go from standing an hour in line to four or five hours. Those with that power to do that know that you're going to get reduced people voting because they're not going to want to stand in line for four or five hours. And let's not, you know, forget about the fact that it's really sunny and hot or if it's terrible weather because elections in November, you could have snow on the ground, you could have rain all day. You know, all these things we're forced to do when we have advices that can capture our vote, verify our identity, not in that order. Verify our identity, capture our vote and we can get it done. Internet voting is possible. And to me the security part of it is very simple. We can do all this to file federal taxes and state taxes. We have the security there because you verify my identity to take my money when I file taxes. Well, if I actually owe, but. So I don't see why technology is such a big barrier. Two weeks ago I verified scanning a QR code on my computer and following up with the picture from my phone to verify my identity matched with my driver's license. I did that two weeks ago. So that's the easy part, right? We're so worried about this non existing problem of illegals voting. That solves that. Done. Check. That's gone. So now the secure part, we have the technology for that too. I can't remember last time I seen a banking website hacked. Right? Two factor authentication. We have those abilities. We can put a number of safeguards in place. Idaho verification, Two factor authentication, right. Secure connection. Clearly the website would have to be secure connection or the app would have be secure connected. And then the last hurdle is the data, right? Data is to me easy. I've been working in data for 25 years. Data is the easiest part of this whole thing. Secure connection, secure database encrypted. Encrypted both in flight and at rest, auditable, trackable. We have all these technologies already. The only risk that you run and you have protections for this as well by the way, already in existence is things like denial service attacks and you know, spoofing websites, all that type of stuff. Because people are going to people, right? It's like the people that target the elderly. You know, my dad gets a, a letter every once in a while. You, you got to do this. You're going to lose your access to that. You must call this number. Thankfully he doesn't do email because he would probably lose his mind with Spam, but those people exist. So they're going to people that try the system. But just like banks have protection, just like Amazon, AWS and Azure and Snowflake and all these other data technologies have their protections in place, we can do the same thing. So the, the barrier is us, we don't want to do that. And my theory is because they don't want more people voting. I believe the number is 40%, 45% of the eligible voting population actually votes. We might have gotten over 50% the last major election, but as a general practice, most people in this country don't actually vote. Who are eligible to actually vote. Is it because they can't take off time? Is it because, you know, they don't want to stay in line for four hours when they have to now because polling places are being closed? Is it because they're just disinterested in the election process and politics in general in this country? But would the ability to vote from your phone or from your, your iPad or your computer, PC, would that change participation? My thought is yes. And I think that's part of the reason we're not advancing technologically technology wise in that space. The other side of this is I want to be able to vote from phones, devices, all that stuff, security, ID verification, all the things we talk about that will make best case scenario for secure elections. And I believe the result will be more people will vote. The other side of that is unfortunately more uninformed people would vote and people voting against their best interests. Now, I'm not here to say Democrats do it right or Republicans do it right. I'm a full registered independent, all my life have not ever been associated with a party that's intentional, number one, because there's some things I agree with on the left, some things I agree with on the right, some things I dislike on the left, some things I dislike on the right. I think they're cut from the same cloth, different sides of the same coin. Yes, one side's dirtier than the other, but to me, they do the same things, just some more extreme, more dirty. And so by having more people vote and having more people in that pool, or that pie, if you will, there's going to be a slice that gets a little bigger for uninformed voters or people that vote against their own best interest or vote for certain parties because that's what they're told they have to do, or their own biases, create that check, that check mark. And so we also, I think, need to move along the technology side with the Civics, knowledge, voter, information, side. We need a system that shows exactly who candidates are, exactly what a vote for them would mean, who their donors are, who their contributors are, their history, if they have a long history in politics, what are their votes been? We need all these things and I think a system that shows that honestly, fairly fact checked. Because if there's any slight opinion amongst that information that's presented, then to me it's no longer beneficial because we all have opinions, right or wrong. I simply just want the facts. What did you actually do? What did you actually say and who you are? And if we have those things, we can compare side by side and make an informed decision, simple as that. But also think education is key because I think educated people tend to be more knowledgeable about the social political issues. And also educated people to me tend to be the ones who actually seek that information, seek those facts. I think the higher an education level you get, the more educated and knowledge seekers there are casting votes or casting ballots. I think eventually we'll get there, but until we do, I'm going to keep saying this every time election day approaches and every time we get here. Why are we not voting electronically yet? It seems very annoying, honestly, that I can't simply grab my phone out of my pocket like I have, look at the candidates, cast my vote, hit submit and my vote is cast. And more importantly, the polling place I'm assigned to gets alert. Dave just voted. Bing. And then wouldn't it be nice to be able to go into a computer, go into your phone and say, this is what I voted for, or this is how I voted in 2024, 2026, back in 2000. Would it be nice to be able to do that and see how you may have changed, see it maybe how you've grown, see the issues you may have voted for. It's just data, people. It's one of the things I say all the time. It's just data. Our vote is just data. And so we should be able to put a front end that's secure, verifiable, auditable, capture that data, apply it to an election, determine a winner quickly and store for historical purposes how much paper is being wasted. Because people want to reduce the possibility of voting electronically. We can do both. We can go to polling places and vote electronically. What did I say two minutes ago? My polling place will get a notification. Dave just voted. So if I try to come in, guess what, you voted already. Or if I try to go back in on my phone and vote again. No, you voted already. Now I'm gonna act like and I'm gonna put this out there. There will be no changing of votes. In my perfect world, you vote on your phone, you don't get to go back, say, you know what, damn it, I'm gonna change my vote. It's like dropping. It's like the, when you do TurboTax, if you ever use TurboTax, and when you go to submit your taxes, they'd say before you hit this button, this is just like putting the letter in the mailbox. There's no takebacks. Same thing with your vote. You hit the wrong button, you didn't verify before you hit submit. That's your fault. You voted for the wrong candidate. Thanks for your vote. That candidate says, but we have to get serious. And the other side of the other first part of the conversation about term limits. I think we need to get younger. Legislatively, judicially, in the Supreme Court, we legislatively are 30, 40, 50 years behind adulthood. Right? The start of adulthood, we say, is 18. Where I can go fact check myself or somebody fact check me. I'm willing to bet the mean or median age, we'll say mean. We'll take the average. The average age for the House, for the Senate, you could do individually and the judicial branch. So the Supreme Court, I'm willing to bet the median age is over 50 for all three. I'd be surprised if it was under 50. I would not be surprised if it was over 60 or very close to 60, but it would shock me if it was under 50. And it would be even more shocking if it was like below 40. But I'll do my own fact checking. Maybe I'll do my own fact checking, but for now, that's what's in my head. So a lot of men are taught how to perform strength long before they're taught how to understand themselves. They hear things like, handle it, don't complain, figure it out, keep it moving. A lot of that's the new trend. Keep it moving. But what happens when independence becomes isolation or emotional control becomes emotional avoidance? And that lone wolf identity stops working? Today's guest spent two decades in men's work and believes one of the most powerful answers is surprisingly simple. Men need other men they can be real with. Jason Lange is a men's embodiment coach, group facilitator, certified. No more Mr. Nice Guy Coach. Got to hear about that one. Founder of evolutionary men, a husband and a father. Jason, welcome to Dave's head. How's it going?

Jason Lange: It's going so good, man. So pumped to Be here.

Host (Dave's Head): Thank you. I'm happy to talk about this because it's not a topic that's highly publicized. There's no fame, no confetti about men talking to men and the things that we go through as men, that we go through silently. So I'm happy to shed some light on this topic and talk about these things today, like I do with all my guests. Before we get into it, take a moment. Tell the people who you are, what you do, and what you're about.

Jason Lange: Yeah, so, like, like you said, I'm a men's coach, I'm a husband, I'm a father, and most of all, you know, I'm a man who's trying to figure out what it means to thrive in this current moment in our culture and our planet. And what I discovered in my personal journey over the last 20 years, I think speaks to a lot of the challenges so many men are having right now. And that men end up coming to me toward, around all the things you just talked about. And I think this moment in time is a really crucial one where, you know, there's been, for good reason, frankly, a lot of attention on the damage men can do in our culture, but there hasn't been a lot of attention on, well, what are we supposed to grow into? What's the positive vision for us to become? And, you know, in the world I live in, I think we need a lot more healthy masculinity and healthy men showing up in the world. Right.

Host (Dave's Head): No, I agree. There's always. The news cycle loves a good story. Right. So there's always the stereotypes that are put out there about men, men of all shapes, sizes, colors, and creed, and the things that, like you said, we can do in society, the damage that we can do. And so it's always good to talk about the positive side of what we can do, but also what we can do for each other. And so definitely looking forward to this conversation. Let's start with men's groups. What does a men's group actually look like, and what happens there that doesn't normally happen when guys or a group of guys just simply hangs out? Yeah.

Jason Lange: So it's a great question. And I'll start with, you know, men's group can mean a lot of things. So just like, if I was like, hey, do you meditate? And you're like, yeah. And I'd be like, well, what kind? Right. There's tons of different ways to meditate. There are lots of different men's groups. And when I first got into this work in the mid-2000s, if you said men's group, most people would associate it with a church study group and. Or an aa, a kind of recovery group. Those were kind of the two places it was happening and still happening. Thankfully. Those are both very successful modes of men's group. But what I'm talking about is a little more general than that. And it's essentially a group of men who gather together intentionally at a set frequency and period of time. But here's the key. They gather together not to socialize, but to get more deeply connected to themselves and each other. And it's a place where men intentionally come to go under the surface and get support for the things that are challenging to them in life and get challenge for the things they want to be held accountable for in their lives. And for a lot of men, this is a place where it's so counterintuitive because of how we're raised. All the messaging we get from culture about what a man is, what a tough man is in a men's groups, where we get confronted with everything in our lives and learn, oh, my God. Turns out life's a little bit more fun and a little easier when you have a team at your side.

Host (Dave's Head): You mentioned two words there. I'm gonna come back to one, accountability in a second. But you talked about intentionality or being intentional in your actions, and you said early 2000s, this is where your work started. What convinced you that men needed to be intentional about being a part of a community of other men and having that support or just having conversations or getting to know themselves better? What convinced you that that intentionality needed to be there?

Jason Lange: Yeah, for me, honest to God, it was more like I stumbled into it because of my pain. So for me, I was raised. You know, it took me many years to figure this out in all this work, but turns out, you know, I'm a white guy, lower middle class, Midwest of the US Basic security needs all met. Didn't have, like, an adverse childhood. But what I discovered is I was raised in neglect. So my family had no emotional connection and almost zero touch for as long as I can remember. And that had massive consequences on my nervous system. So I became a teenager. You know, in my case, I'm heterosexual. Hormones are racing. I become attracted to girls. And what I quickly discovered is I was so uncomfortable in my body. I would get tight, I would get tense, I would sweat through my armpits. I could barely talk. And most of all, I would get really stuck up in my head ruminating. And the longer this went the more painful it got. And I did get lucky in high school in that I met some friends, some male friends that, you know, they're kind of my nerds, so to speak. And so I got some connection. But even in that I did notice, wow, they actually relate to each other differently. Mainly they touch each other, they horseplay, they wrestle, there's like physical contact and it just was not part of me. And so I didn't have the words for all of this back then, but I was basically depressed. I felt anxious all the time. I was numb in my body. I was self medicating with Internet porn, food, video games. And every year that went by as a man, my shame around the fact that I was a virginity virgin grew, which drew, which pulled me even more into myself. And it just got to a point where I realized, I cannot live like this. I need some kind of help. So I kind of got opened to the world of personal growth and development and first went down a philosophical path. But luckily it led me to a room of men and a room of men who were aware of body, the body, quite simple, simply somatic therapy and whatnot. And it was in there that I literally got into my body for the first time in my life and had an experience there of, wow, I am feeling something in the present moment that I have never felt before. And for me that was my grief. And when I came out of that first experience, I was like, I don't really understand what's going on here, but I know there's something important here and that changed the course of my life and, and I got deep into that men's group and I'm still with those men.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah, you touched on something else. And I was sitting there trying to think as, as you were talking, you talked about there being a connection, really a third thing that brought you and that group together, the different men that you befriended. And I was sitting there thinking, if I had any male friendships that started without a third connection, whether it's golf or work or, you know, sports, something like that. And I couldn't think of one. And it shame on me. If there actually is a friendship that started outside of those connections. But most men, if not all men, start male, male friendships because of some third connected thing. How. Why do we find it difficult to not have that connection as the entry point into a male, male friendship? Why can't we just say, hey, how are you doing?

Jason Lange: Yeah, well, I mean, you're naming something really important and it's something I often talk about that the default culture for how men often relate to each other is side by side triangulation. And what I mean by that is oftentimes how you and I would get connected out in the world is me and you would be next to each other with our attention on some third thing. Golf, a sports game, watching a movie, fixing something. You could start to think it's like through activities. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that kind of triangulation in relationship building, but what it doesn't do is it doesn't often have us facing each other, where our attention is actually on each other, and particularly what's going on inside of each other. And that all stems from, I think, how we're, the culture we're raised in, right? What we're taught, literally, it goes all the way back to boyhood. There's lots of research about, thankfully it's changing, right? But there's lots of research about how boys and girls are often raised and socialized differently. Right. We just start with something as simple as, like, falling down. Little girl falls down. Oftentimes parent comes in. Care, attention, attunement. Oh, my God. How are you? Oh, it's going to be okay. Little embrace, just being with the tears. Little boy falls down. Oh, you're fine. Yeah, you're tough. It's okay. Just get back up there, get back on the swing, get back on the slide. You can do it. And you know, obviously we want to have resilient kids, but the message that starts to send young boys from a very young age is what's happening in your body, Ignore it. Override it with your head. Right? And then we get into school, Right. Which I'm definitely pro education. But when you think about how most schools are set up, it's sit still, pay attention. What is one thing that is pretty universally recognized if you're around little boys, they got a lot of energy and they need to move.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah.

Jason Lange: How they learn, how they engage is through their bodies and through exploration and movement. So we put them in a school system and say, sit down, pay attention, be still. And if you can't, there's something wrong with you. You're a problem child. Maybe you got adhd. Maybe we need to put you on meds. So the lesson is that urge to move in your body, guess what? Ignore it. Override it with your head. Then we get into middle school. Peer culture comes online. We're hitting puberty at different ages. People, guys are growing. Suddenly there's kind of competition for female attention. What we quickly learn with in groups and out groups is I don't want to be the one that's getting bullied or ostracized or made fun of. So I gotta play cool, what is expected, and I gotta play the part right if I wanna fit in with my clique. And what that really is teaching us is whatever vulnerable feelings you're having inside, whatever you're authentically feeling. Guess what? Ignore it. Override it with your head. And we get out into the workforce as adults. What does a man. What do most men think their purpose in life is? To provide provisionship to work, to make finances right, to take care of. And so what's a successful man? Oh, my God, he works so hard. He works 80 hours a week. He sleeps under his desk. Guess what he's doing? Overriding his body, overriding his heart, et cetera. So point of all this is when we're not in our bodies, which is something we're taught and actually rewarded for culturally as men. Feeling emotion starts as sensation in the body. If we're not in our body, we're not going to be able to connect to our feelings. If we're not going to be able to connect to our feelings, we're not going to know how to talk about them. We're not even going to know how to label them, let alone how to share and reveal that with another man. So what do we do? We just connect around things, outside things, Right. Where we don't have to get vulnerable so much. Yeah, maybe playing a game or something, we mess up, but it's not the same as talking about the ooey gooey fear I have inside or whatever. So for a lot of guys, they just don't know how to do it. We're not trained. And I know I'm kind of going on rant here. We still live in a fairly homophobic culture. Meaning for a lot of men, closeness with another man, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't want you to think, you know, da, da, da, da, da. And so men don't often touch each other. Right. There's like a pretty clear demarcation past boyhood, where often boys are quite sweet with each other. Right. Holding hands, hugging, all that. Then by the time they're in middle school, it's, if anything, you know, I'm punching you, I'm shoving you, I'm wrestling you, you know, and so we just teach young boys not how to connect. And then we become adults who are very human, who have emotions.

Host (Dave's Head): I wonder why we can't connect.

Jason Lange: And we wonder why we can't connect. And we wonder why we don't know how to deal with our emotions and feelings, which then, like me, I didn't know how to label what I was feeling. I certainly didn't know how to talk about it. I definitely didn't know what do I do with it. So what do most of us men do to deal with our feelings? We try to numb them out or push them down or override them. Most common way in our culture, Alcohol. Most common, growing and common way. Weed. Porn. Masturbation. Overeating. Video games. Overworking. Over training. There's like so many ways that we try to change our interstate with the, with something on the outside. But I trace that all back to we. We're not taught how to connect to ourselves or to each other as men.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna add Jim in there, but you said overworking the gym. I find, and this is actually from talking to different male friends of mine, the gym has become a physical energy using escape, where you're singular focused on something. You may be working out problems in your head while you're at the gym. Like, I'm always multitasking, so I'm at the gym working on things all the time. But it's become a common thing to some of the friends in my circle that they use the gym as their escape from the house, escape from work, escape from life stresses. And it's a way, you know, they look at it as a dual purpose escape, but also keeping yourself in shape. A couple thoughts queued up, talking about how we meet people and that, that triangle object. The only exception I've found in my life is airports. And granted, we're technically there for the same purpose, although flying out different directions, but people always talk to me in airports. I. I haven't met any true close friends in airports, but I have met people that I've connected with, social media, that type of thing. I. For a period of time, every time I flew out somewhere or I was coming back somewhere, every trip, someone was sitting down telling me their life story. And it became a running joke that, you know, I know that I have to be prepared. And I wear headphones. It doesn't matter. People start talking to you. It's my universal symbol for don't talk to me is put my headphones on, nobody cares.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Host (Dave's Head): But for a long time, it was every single trip I was meeting people through me, sitting down, having a drink before the flight, or having some breakfast and that, you know, just they didn't know they were going to say these things. And so I would say that's the only exception. Other than that, yeah, you're 100% right. The only friendships. And again, I was baking on it because I wanted to find one, but I couldn't. The, the close friends that I have. There's a triangle point mostly through work or most through football. Play football, my fraternity. Just trying to, you know, just trying to find something. There's always a third point there. Um, second thought real quick was talking about how little boys and little girls are raised differently. And one of the things that popped in my head when you gave your example of falling down was typically, I hear or I've heard in my lifetime, you don't want to scrape up your legs to the girl. You don't want to scrape up your knees. You want to keep your, your knees and legs scratch free, scrape free. All that stuff where guys, if our hands are too soft, we are not a worker. If our hands are rough and beat up, then that's like the symbol of a hard working man. And so, you know, oh yeah, just scrape that off. Put some Neosporin or peroxide on it, you'll be fine. A lot of times I hear that guy. So definitely co sign in. That example you gave, that's a great,

Jason Lange: that's a great example. And it, you know, ties into a, a deeper challenge, I think, for the culture men are raised in which, you know, you can use whatever words you want for this, but there is such thing as a patriarchy and it's really just that disposition to, towards men and, and it hurts men and boys as much as anything else. And one of the ways our culture has dealt with that over the years is male bodies are disposable, right? And this goes all the way into biology, like way, way back, right? Why, why were men sent to war? It's not just because we're bigger and stronger. It's guess what, if 90% of the men in a community die, you can still flourish, right? A few men can impregnate many, many women and you can recoup your population if it goes the other way. Doesn't happen, doesn't work, right? So over time, what we've tended to see is men tend to hold more dangerous jobs that actually are much harder on the body. Where men are in toxic situations, they're in dangerous situations. And it relates, I think, to what you're talking about because a male, right, Maleness we consider, oh, he's tough, right? He's survived a lot. He's got scars, he's gotten through it. Right. It's seen as, like, a strength on that side. Whereas someone who hasn't, you know, physically had challenge is considered, you know, all the things we might say in the derogatory sense towards men. So I think you're pointing to something real there. And, you know, it's not as simple as one is right or one is wrong, but this is some of the cultural pressure we are raised in as men.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. And I actually thought of another example. Not to beat this. This horse too badly, but think about physical violence in men versus women and in a teen or young adult capacity. So, you know, a guy throwing punches or slapping or any type of physical thing has looked at violence, whereas a young lady doing it, well, she likes you. That's kind of, you know, her way of showing she likes you. It just. That just popped in my head while you were talking. But so another thought talking about accountability, and I said I was going to come back to it, and we circled all around and finally came back to it. Talk about how these groups create accountability and just stay away from just being the groups where it's validating things in men or validating behavior that may be caused by things in the childhood or the way we're set up.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So the deepest expression of this I'll start with is it's actually what I call the unique texture of masculine love. So this is a type of love that can come from the masculine toward the feminine, toward other men, you know, doesn't matter. And what it is, quite simply, is, as I like to joke, it's the spinach in the teeth moment. So let's say I come on here, I've been doing podcasts all day, and you're like, yo, Jason, dude, you got a big piece of spinach in your teeth. That looks pretty gross, man. And I'm like, oh, I look in the mirror and I see it, and I feel a little ashamed and embarrassed and. And then I'm like, but wait, but, Dave, thank you, man. I've been walking around, going on all these shows, looking like an idiot all day, but you're the only one who is willing to tell me what you actually saw because you care about me. So Terry Real, the famous therapist these days, he calls this carefrontation. And this is really what accountability means in my. In my book, in men's group. So part of what can happen and what's so great about a men's group is it's a place where we get clear about who we are, what we want, and what our vision for our life is. So let me be really clear about this. This is our vision for how we want to be the kind of man we want to be in our relationship, in our work, with our family and our community, et cetera. So over time, our men help us get clear about that and we share that to them. So the benefit of a long term group is they then get to share back what they're seeing and experiencing in us. So, wow, man. You've talked about wanting to get out of this job because it doesn't feel aligned for you and you hate it. For 12 months now you've been talking about it and I notice you're not out of the job. So what's going on? Do you really want to get out or not? And what's in the way of that? So we start to hold each other accountable for the things we're speaking forward or oh my God, I gotta have this really hard conversation with my partner, right? I don't know how to do it. I'm so scared. I'm so vulnerable. I got to tell her about this thing. Guess who's going to hold you accountable? Your men. You're going to say, I need to go have this conversation. And next time I want you guys to ask me, how did it go? And the feedback we get in these situations, what makes it care and not just confrontation is it's love. I'm reflecting this to you because I want you to live the life. You have vision for yourself. So when I see you going astray, I'm going to name it. Not to shame you, but because I want to support you. And I'm not sure you're seeing the thing I'm seeing. And this is why group work is so powerful. Because a lot of times what's run in our lives without us knowing it is in the shadow for us. It's habits, pattern protection, ways of being that we're not even always conscious of. But here's the thing about shadow. Sometimes it's quite hard to see your own. What? What, what, what? Shadow. But you're like, dude, it's right there. Can't you see how obvious this is? And. And I'm like, oh man, you're right, you're right. You're helping me see, I wasn't seeing this thing. Every time I go into my relationship and I go, da, da, da, da, da. I'm bringing the same crap I always brought. And I'm not owning my side or whatever that is. So that accountability, a lot of men are missing it. And when they experience another man who steps in and has been tracking, literally tracking. I've been paying attention to you, what you want, what you're doing. And here's where I notice dissonance, that tracking is felt as love. Wow. You're actually paying attention to me in my life and you care about me. So you're willing to tell me the hard truth. And generally what happens after a care fronting moment is trust deepens. Because I'm like, oh, I can trust you to actually tell me what I see, what you see. And that is so valuable.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. You. You actually touched on two things. I was, I was coming to. I was. I was waiting to ask about trust, but I was gonna. I'm. I was gonna couple it with respect. And we're wired. Program life has taught us that our meaningful relationships come from the ones that we have respect and trust mutually in. And my, My thought is around these groups and how you just, you know, guys may say, hey, this, this isn't my type of thing, because I don't know these guys. And they're saying that they're a group of men they don't know. Now let's take a group of men they do know, but I still don't have that trust and respect to open myself up and be vulnerable, even with my closest friends. I'm not saying me, I'm saying this is an example. How much does that trust and respect factor matter in whether you are receiving this accountability or if you're even sharing to help to be held accountable? Yeah.

Jason Lange: So part of what you're starting to speak towards is what creates the conditions where that's going to be likely to happen. And thank you.

Host (Dave's Head): Part of the sound much better than what I said.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I know, but what part of. And this ties right into your first question. Part of what makes a men's group intentional is literally the intention of why are we gathering? So how we concretize this in a group is what we call agreements. What are our agreements for how we're going to relate and be in this group? One of the most important one for most men I work with in these groups is confidentiality. It's knowing that what we share in our time here is going to stay in the group unless someone has asked you for explicit permission to share it on the outside. Because a lot of times, right, we. Why do we not want to share something? Oh, my God, this might get back to my girlfriend. This might get back to my boss. This might get. Yeah, right. Now, once we have a container of hey, we've all agreed we're not sharing things out of here without each other's permission. Then it's like, oh, I actually, I feel a little safer to share something. And then the other one, which is a really important one, which may be shocking, but it's. We don't give. We don't give feedback without permission. And all that means is like, maybe you're sharing something. Right. I'm noticing something like, yeah, there's a little dissonance here. And I might be like, dave, are you open to some feedback around that? And then you could say, yes, or you could say, no, I'm not right now. And then I'm going to honor that. Right. I'm going to actually honor it if you say no. But if you say yes, I'm going to give it to you just like I, you know, just like I'm seeing it because you opened yourself up to it. And over time, what that builds is a deep level of trust that we can all honor ourselves. So no one's going to come at me with an onslaught of feedback that I'm not ready for, but when I am, I've given you permission. And it's those kinds of agreements that create a culture in the men's group that is so different than our default culture. Like, we were talking.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. And I was sitting there when you, when you talked about the confidentiality, the first thing that popped on my mind. And my fiance will. Will love this topic. Sarcasm. Have you seen any issues around confidentiality being broken? And the context is social media. Right. There are a number of people, some percentage, who my fiance would say share their entire life on social media. And so whether directly or the anonymous example that, you know, sometimes people share a story with, but you know, the person you're connected with on social media who shared this with you knows exactly what you're talking about. So it's not really anonymous to them. Yeah, but have you seen confidentiality being broken, especially around social media sharing? That's obviously, that's breaking a trust that may or may not ever come back. Have you seen that happen?

Jason Lange: Sure.

Host (Dave's Head): And how did you handle it or walk them through handling it?

Jason Lange: I have not seen that happen, frankly, because we treat these pretty hardcore. Like when I set these up in a group, it's like we're getting. It's like you're putting in your word, you're putting in your honor. What we do say is what you can share after a group is your experience. So if I come to group with you and I get feedback about my Marriage, and I'm sharing some tender stuff, and you guys help dial me in and get me straight as to what I need to do. I can go back in the world and share. I went to men's group, and I was having a tough time with my marriage, and these guys tuned me up. Here's what they told me, right? So I can share what's happening for me. But when it comes to other men, we keep it confidential. It's just that simple. Unless we have that explicit permission. And that's what creates the safety. One thing that has blown me away that I think is so countercultural to what people think is once men feel safe, literally once they feel safe, that I'm not going to be attacked, shamed, looked down upon, if I bring my inner world out. Turns out men have a lot of feelings, and we do have a lot of things to say.

Host (Dave's Head): Listen, I'm a crier, so.

Jason Lange: Yeah, me too, man.

Host (Dave's Head): I say that.

Jason Lange: I admit.

Host (Dave's Head): Listen, I cry in the movies. I cry when I get excited. Sometimes literally, my eyes tear when I tell a story that I'm excited to tell about. So it's something that's been happening for dozens and dozens and decades. But not dozens of decades. I meant dozens of years. But, yeah, so the. The other side of that is intimacy and relationships and not to shift away from group therapy too much, but it's a part of it. And so you touched on marriage. I'm having trouble with my marriage. And there's a. A saying out there that you don't discuss your marriage outside the house. You know, some people believe that you keep everything inside. You don't share with. You know, for the girls, you don't go talking to your girlfriend, blah, blah, blah, John's doing this. And for the guys, you don't talk to some guy or even some girl at work. And opposite for the woman, too. How does that square with groups? Because, you know, you go, you're having marriage problems. Your boys, they. They hold you accountable. Let's say this in a perfect world. They actually hold you accountable for what you're doing or not doing. But they also hold you accountable for making sure that you're taken care of as well. Which means you might need to take some feedback back to your wife. How does that dynamic work? And have you seen situations where wife's like, stop talking about my. Our marriage in the group and that type of stuff?

Jason Lange: It can. I. You know, I. There's been a few relationships like that, and then. But what it leads to is those same agreements. We're talking about of how we set up a group, it often means there's a conversation that needs to be had with a partner. Hey, what's our agreement with what I'm allowed to bring in in what you want to keep out. And there's a range there. So some people prescribe to the Stan Tatkin kind of wired for love couple bubble that I don't share anything out there that we haven't already talked about between us. Not everyone does. What I have discovered over time is most partners actually want it because what they want is a man to get feedback. So they don't have to be the only one giving their man feedback. So I'm so tired of fucking nagging him, right? Okay. So I get to share what's going on and other guys get to dial dial me in. And sometimes what becomes clear is, yeah, man, you know, it actually feels, you feel pretty clean around what you're sharing. And it does seem like there's a piece for your partner that you really have to talk to her about here. And the truth, you know, I do a lot of relationship coaching. It is almost never 100% one partner's fault. It's almost always co created what the tension is. And there's always a part we as men can take responsibility for and change on our side. A group can really help us dial that in. And I, you know, I could tell you firsthand, there's been many times, man, I, I've gone into a group, had a little tension with my wife. Oh, here, oh, I'm going to tell them what's going on. They're going to be on my side. That's going to be great. And then I'm going to go back to her and be like, yeah, they all agreed with me. I get in there and I start talking. They're like, yeah, that sounds a little bit more like you, man. And I'm like, oh crap, you're right. And then I see it, I actually see it. I see, wait, yeah, this thing I was making all about her. There's a way I'm showing up that's actually quite damaging to us right now and there's something else I need to share or try. And so then instead of going home and doubling down on the fight, I go home and I say, hey, you know, the guys helped me realize this thing we're doing. Like, I see my part and I just want to say I, I see that, I own that and I'm going to be working on that and they're going to help Me, man, that has saved my relationship many, many times. My wife loves knowing that I got men holding my feet to my fire. To the fire, so to speak.

Host (Dave's Head): Now, a curious question is, this is not a serious question, but it is a serious question. And just an estimate of the time, Jim, going in there with an issue. How many times did your side of the box get the W? And how many times did her side of the box get a w?

Jason Lange: Maybe 50. 50, 70. Me, maybe 30. Her, you know, like, to be honest, like. Or no, I mean, meaning when I say the W. Yeah, I got that reverse. 70% of the time it's like, no, dude, you got something to look at there. 30% of the time they're like, I actually get her. You know, she's got something to look at there. So a lot of times there is something in me to bring it forward. But this is again where the long term accountability becomes really useful. Because if I'm coming in meeting after meeting, complaining about the same thing in my relationship, Even if it's 100% her fault, but if I'm doing that for 6 months, 12 months, the conversation shifts to, hey, you've tried a lot of things. Things aren't changing. Sounds to me like the responsibility is now more on your side. Do you want to stay in a relationship that is so dysfunctional? Because it's pretty clear she's not changing? And that can be very confronting for men in a different way. Because we want to pretend. I know, you know, if I just explain it to her, right. Or whatever. And sometimes that's the thing that wakes us up to, wow, maybe this just doesn't. Isn't going to work. And without that, you know, I've worked with many guys in their 40s, 50s, 60s, who have spent decades in relationships that were so stuck and not growing anywhere and they needed help to actually help them see, wow, this isn't going to work for a lot of men, you know, because we're taught, be tough, just suffer through it, right? Be the, be the man. There can be this experience of, you know, like the frog in the boiling pot. You just kind of get used to certain things and it's just the way it is. Then it turns out, you go to a group of men and you start sharing and they're like, whoa, that's actually pretty intense. I would not stay in a relationship where my partner attacked me or hit me or bullied me or, you know, whatever it is, or constantly threatened to leave me. And that's where often men will start to wake up to, wow, I've totally normalized a level of dysfunction that is quite harmful.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. Your example is actually very. Hits very much home because my prior relationship had a lot of those issues, and I consciously made a choice not to share those issues with my close circle friends until it was too late. And then by then, you know, the first response is, dude, why didn't you say something? And part of that's, you know, the, the pride factor. Part of it is the toughness. It'll get better, stick it out, make adjustments, it's okay. And part of it is just, you know, admitting that those things are happening is a very compromising thing to do because even in that moment, I still didn't have answers. And I'm an answers guy. I need to solve problems all the time.

Jason Lange: Sure.

Host (Dave's Head): So not having a solution and offering a problem is not what I do. It's just not what I do.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Host (Dave's Head): But for. For men out there who hear, you know, men's group and think whatever connotation, stereotypes that they want to put on it, but ultimately it's not for me. What would you say to them or offer them to get them to not dismiss it offhand and actually give it a chance?

Jason Lange: Yeah, you know, you gotta try it for one. And you might have to try a few groups to find one that really resonates with you. But, you know, most men who I find don't engage. And, you know, I'll be brutally honest here, this is a projection. But as I get to know them, they're just afraid. They're afraid. They're afraid of what it would mean to get into deep connection and more. Shockingly, many men I've met actually cannot handle the amount of goodwill and love that can come toward them in a group. For so many men, we have no idea how to receive comfort and care and love. And so when we get into an environment where, where it's actually coming at us, it can be so uncomfortable for some guys. They're just. They eject. Like, literally, they just eject. I can't. I can't handle that. And then just culturally, what I'll often say is, you know, kind of riding that traditional masculine viewpoint. Right. I'm here in the States. You are too, in our country, one of the, you know, highest orders, we could say of, like, what's a successful man? What do we point to a Navy SEAL? But guess what? They're the Navy SEALs. They are a team. It is not individuals. They very specifically train as a team because it is far more effective. That's it it's not about ooey gooey and feelings. It is more effective. So what I tell guys is if you're hesitant when you find the right group, I. I kid you not, your life will get better, you will make more money, your relationships will get better, your health will get better just because of connection. And the thing you have to get over is your feeling, your fear of feeling and being revealed and known by other people. And once you do that, it turns out all of that stuff that's often under the surface that runs our lives, we have so much more choice over it. So, you know, and compared to when I started 20 years ago, it's happening. There's like a tidal wave of what we would call men's work and men's groups right now, because men are waking up to, oh, wait, that whole lone wolf, Marlboro man myth I was fed. It doesn't work. We're lonelier. We're more depressed, we're on more meds. We die earlier from heart disease. All our suicide rates are higher. And I particularly think we can trace this all back to the fact that we're taught to do it alone.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. First of all, I haven't heard the Marble man in a long, long time. So nice historical reference there next to last question. So let's talk about the other side. Bad men's groups. What are red flags that people you say, you know, sometimes you have to get a couple men's group them before you find the one. But talk about the ones that you really should run away from. The red flag groups.

Jason Lange: Yeah, sure. What I would mostly say is if they're about posturing and shame. So posturing is about. I am going to take an orientation of toughness. Right. And this is kind of more the red pill manosphere culture, which is about really teaching men to dominate others. And domination is something that is most often a form of control. And it's driven by fear. The only reason I'd want to control you is because I'm afraid of what it would mean to actually be in relationship with you and not control you. I might get hurt. You might walk away from me. You might choose someone else. So as long as I'm in the dominant over position, I don't have to ever feel vulnerable and weak. So all that crap, I would say, honestly, crap. They're selling this kind of retro, 1950s man on top stuff. Just run. It's, it's, it's. It's snake oil. It's a form of control. They're trying to monetize men's pain, and they're trying to recreate a world that never actually existed. The other thing I would say is in this is kind of a little bit different, but more subtle. It's less of a thing now. But in certain transformational and kind of spiritual communities back in the day, there's this kind of orientation of push, or what we'd call shame transformation, of, like, whatever you do, you just gotta go for it, and if you don't, you're, you know, bad at it.

Host (Dave's Head): Pussy and.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And there's a time and place kind of for that. But I've worked with literally thousands of men at this point, and I can tell you, and I'm a parent, and I've been parented, and I parent. Shame does not work to grow people. All it creates is more fear. So if you're in a group where they're trying to shame you into something, it is not a group you want to stay in. You want to run for the hills. That doesn't mean they don't hold you accountable. But there's a huge difference between accountability with love and shaming someone. So those would be two groups, you know, I would kind of stay away from as well as any group. That's just really about making some other group wrong. Right. You can think there's plenty of stupid examples in our world right now where it's like, well, what's bringing us together is they're all messed up and we got to get rid of them.

Host (Dave's Head): You just.

Jason Lange: You just run from that.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah, I mean, you know, the. The cheering crowd and. And cheering us on. I'm all for that and, you know, great job and push you to do better. But, yeah, the shaming part just. I mean, it's counterproductive, and it actually probably drives you further away from sharing anything with anyone.

Jason Lange: It drives you further into shame.

Host (Dave's Head): The other thing, I love the analogy about the Navy Seals. I always reference football as the ultimate team Sport because there's 11 guys on your team. But if one guy messes up or, you know, you sometimes have to pick up the slack. So when I played football, and so it's an easy analogy for me, but it's one of my favorite analogies for teamwork because, you know, if you ever watch the plays when there's X's and O's and they kind of move on a diagram, you all see, it's like a. Like a wave of effort all in one unit, which I love. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And I think that to the, you know, we kind of Talked about the negatives of triangulation, but to the positive, I think that's a lot of what draws men to sports is for many men, it's one of the only experiences they get of I'm on a team, literally, I got my brothers and we're all charging the same hill. And that is a really unique kind of bonding experience that for many men, once they get out of, let's say, high school or college, they don't know how to recreate that in life. That's part of what we get to do in something like a men's group. It's just that the challenge, the edge turns from something out there to what's happening inside all of our lives. That's the hill we charge together.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah, I would say fraternities and sororities as well, I think. And not sort of sororities. That's good for fraternities as well, is another experience. A lot of times before you get to college, you haven't, especially if you haven't played any sports. You've had really no team oriented anything going into college. Fraternity is a great way to introduce you to a brotherhood. Literally a brotherhood. So talk about last question. Evolutionary men. Um, the concept and idea around that. And what do you look to get out of there, help people with?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so evolutionary men's kind of my organization. And really the mission I'm on at this point is every man should be in a men's group for all of the reasons we're talking about. So this is my organization where I teach men how to run men's groups. I run men's groups, I do retreats, I talk about healthy masculinity. And it's a place for men who, you know, a lot of guys have this kind of sense of, is this it? You know, we're like, we're fed the escalator of like, okay, yeah, yeah, get an education, get a job, get married, have kids, get the next promotion. And then we start to get on it and we realize, wait a second, like, all the things I thought were gonna free me and make me happy. I mean, I can literally give you lists of men who made the money, got the hotter way. Like, guess what? They come right back to the same place. So the work is also about deepening into realizing what really matters in life. And instead of trying to chase some goal because you think it's going to make you feel a certain way, it's get really clear about what's the life I want to be leading. And then we reverse engineer everything. From that. Right. What kind of job do I need to have? What kind of relationship do I need to have? What kind of life do I want to live so I can be free? And Evolutionary Men's all about that. And it's the. You know, right there in the title is the. The thing that there's nothing wrong with being a man. Right. So I'm not someone who believes in toxic masculinity. There is definitely a masculinity that gets dissociated from its body and its heart. Pathologically, that is very dangerous and very damaging. But masculinity itself is a good thing. And us men are being asked to evolve. That's it. Right? It used to be enough if you. If you paid the bills, you were a good dad. And a good husband doesn't cut it anymore. I've worked with too many men who did that. And their wives come to them and say, this isn't enough for me. We haven't had a relationship for 20 years. I'm not in love with you. Or their kids grow up, and they say, thank you for getting me the house in the pool. But I never saw you because all you ever did was work. And I'm mad at you because I never had an actual dad. Right. This is the stuff that men. We think we're doing what we're supposed to do, and then we feel like we got the short end of the stick. So Evolutionary Men is partly about, well, okay, what really matters then? And how do we have to grow as men to be real leaders in our families and communities with other men? And that brotherhood is kind. You know, if we could take all the benefits of brotherhood that I'm talking about here, put it into a magic pill form and sell it on Instagram, people would be buying it like you wouldn't believe when I tell them, well, you can get those same results from sitting down and putting your attention on eight other guys. They're like, ah, no way. Not gonna do that. But the truth is, it will change your life, and it has changed mine, and it's changed hundreds and thousands of men that I've worked with at this point.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah, your example of the guy who does all the right things, and then the wife comes in and says, we didn't have have relationship and marriage for 20 years. I'm divorcing you made me think of last episode, actually, my last segment called Grin, which stands for great reason to be in love with Now. I focused on football, and I talked about how football's back and all these things and one of the items I touched on was that, you know, your relationships don't have instant replay. Sometimes it's okay to turn the game off and focus on your relationship. Doesn't have a DVR in your relationship, but yeah, so that type of stuff. Same thing with your children and family. You know, we all love, most of us love our football season, college football, NFL football, and Sundays and Saturdays turned into this whole thing where we just don't even pay attention to our partners sometimes, especially if they're not into football, which is a whole nother thing, because you're literally not paying attention to them now. So the point of all that was just a parallel. What I talked about in my last episode, that, yeah, you know, putting that time in beyond the manly, manly things is very beneficial for relationships. Dave's AT Podcast is now part of the Alive Podcast Network, the home of black voices, where community, culture, and creatives live. Dave's Ed Podcast adds to the vast catalog of titles available on the Alive Podcast network app on iOS and Android. Check out Dave's ED podcast and many others on the Alive Podcast Network app, the home of Black Voices. But Jason, that's the last of my Q and A. And now I want to move to my favorite segment, my guest called first thoughts. First for those who are joining us for first time. Like I always say, shame on you, but I'm happy you're here. The way first Thoughts works is I offer a word or a phrase to my guests to get their first thoughts. Obviously, Jason's not privy to them because that would ruin the whole first thoughts narrative. Jason, ready for some first thoughts?

Jason Lange: Let's do it.

Host (Dave's Head): All right, First. First thought I have for you is armor. If I say the word armor, what does that mean? What's your first thought?

Jason Lange: Protection. Yeah. So trying to protect something we care about, and it's something a lot of us men do by trying to avoid feeling and not sharing.

Host (Dave's Head): Okay, next first thought. Integrity. What's your first thought?

Jason Lange: Yeah, integrity I think of as congruence, which means my behavior in the outer world matches my behavior inside of me. And when they're aligned, it actually feels relaxing for everyone around. And integrity is not something we can always hit, but it's at least something we can be aiming for and we can get feedback on. Yeah. Where. Where are we not integrity. And how do we come back? And it's the willingness to come back to integrity, I think that actually matters way more than are we always in integrity. It's how do I repair or reestablish harmony when something's out of alignment, it's like intentional integrity. Yeah.

Host (Dave's Head): Thinking of social media. You know, some people live a social media life and a personal life. That's the first thing that came in mind, and I'm sure my fiance is going to love that comment, too. Last, first thought? Home. What's your first thought?

Jason Lange: Family, warmth, relaxation, and a place to rest.

Host (Dave's Head): Got you. All right. So what I started last season was something called to first thoughts, which is an opportunity for my guests to throw a first thought back at me, to get my first thought. It's been wild and fun, all types of things thrown back at me. So, Jason, if you had a first thought for me, what would it be?

Jason Lange: Yeah, what? What? Has one of your deepest struggles in your life made you uniquely qualified to support another man? In navigating

Host (Dave's Head): betrayal, I've had multiple. Multiple layers. I'll say not layers, levels of betrayal from the closest of people to people who just. Just got my trust and then they betrayed it that fast. But we're talking double digits of people very close to me who've done varying levels of betrayal, but moving. Not necessarily moving past it, but healing from it and learning the lessons from it and applying them in the future. Not really stonewalling future relationships, but understanding the red flags when you see them. Um, it's. It's something that I think I can. I can talk all day about that type of stuff.

Jason Lange: Beautiful, powerful, and needed.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Host (Dave's Head): All right, Jason, first of all, this was. This was healing to me. Just having this conversation about the. The ways that men can support each other, I think is something not only we need to have more conversations about, but we need to participate in a lot more. So before I let you go, as always do with my guests, if there's anything you want to talk about or promote, feel free to do so now.

Jason Lange: Yeah, easiest thing I'd say is if you're a man out there, just hop over to my website and you can check out, you know, all the programs I run, the podcast I have about masculinity, men's groups, and in particular, I got a free quiz for men at Quiz Evolutionary Men. And on there, you can discover your masculine edge. And what I mean by that is this really interesting thing is often the thing that is our edge, our leg up, our deepest gift. Right next to it is our deepest edge of growth, the thing that's limiting us at the same time, you know, with every gift often comes a challenge and a shadow. So you can take that quiz and get pretty clear around what might be happening. In your life and where the next place to grow is.

Host (Dave's Head): Gotcha. I thought you're gonna say, with great power comes great responsibility, but that's just marvel. Marvel in me.

Jason Lange: It's so good, man.

Host (Dave's Head): Yeah. But no. Jason, I want to thank you again. Two words stick out from this conversation, accountability and intentionality. So if anyone listening or watching takes anything from this, be intentional and accountable to not only who you are inside, but how you're moving through life. So I'll leave you with this. What I wish all my guests is that I hope that every today is the best day of your life.

Jason Lange: Awesome, man. Thank you so much.

Host (Dave's Head): My favorite segment of my podcast is My Grin, which stands for great reason to be in love with. Now, we're coming up on the end of September 2026. First of all, that means we only got four episodes left after this one for the seventh season of Dave's Head. Thank you for sticking with me for so long. But fall is coming. At least around me. The leaves are already starting to turn colors and drop, and annoyingly, I gotta push them out the driveway and my walkway and just crunch, crunch, crunch all over your feet now. But fall is coming. It's gonna be plenty of leaves from now until November. Fall is nature's reminder that change doesn't always have to look like loss. Yeah, the air gets cooler, the scenery changes. And before winter pushes in and pushes much of the country indoors, we get this one last beautiful window of existence. An area to move our bodies, gather people, and enjoy being outside before it gets too cold to be outside. And me, I don't mind being outside in winter, especially about a football game. Tailgating doesn't matter to me. But I wanted to talk about ways that we could take advantage of this last gas of outside weather to move our bodies, engage with people, and be outside the first one. This is not really my thing. I don't really do that that much. And I used to do. We used to go for walks. We haven't done much this summer. We're busy, just busy people. But a fall foliage hike, right? Pick a trail, state park, a wooded path. You know, don't go too far off the beaten path. We ain't trying to be GPS looking for you. And let the changing leaves become the scenery you look at during your walk. Nice cardio session if you want to add hills or a longer route to make it a little more intense, but that's one way to get the body moving. And they do say you're supposed to go for a walk at least twice. A week. I think to stay active and healthier, it's either twice a week or it's 20 minutes a week, something like that, just to maintain that. And I, you know, one of the things I do when I go to the gym, I try to go to the gym and work out three times a week. I golfed on this past Tuesday, so I count that as my workout because golfing is a workout, whether you want to believe it or not. But I always start my gym workouts with a walk. Sometimes I do a run as well or run walk. What I've added is incline walking. So I'll put it on 10 on the treadmill and I'll walk. So I'll do depending on the workout I'm doing that day. I try to cap my treadmill time at 30 minutes, depends on what I'm doing. And maybe 20, like if I'm doing a very long workout after my warm up walk, then I'll cap it at 20 minutes. But usually what I do, I'll do five minutes walk, five minutes incline, five minutes walk, five minutes inclink and then five minutes walk, which is 25 minutes. If I want to do a little longer, I'll put a 10 minute climb in there somewhere or I'll add a five minute run as well. So number two, a neighborhood power walk. So cooler morning or evening or you know, now it's not too hot during midday so you don't have to worry about walking in 90, 95 degree heat, but cool morning or, or evening, ideal for brisk walk. Invite your partner if you're friendly with your neighbors or any friends in the area. So you know, it's a great opportunity to turn exercise into conversation time as well, which is great when you have a partner. Number three, an outdoor boot camp. And so this is one of those things where maybe you take a 10 pound dumbbell or 15 pound dumbbell or something like that, or you meet with a bunch of people and they each bring little things with them to work out and you do like a circuit, right? So you might bring dumbbells. So everybody's got to do burpees, right? Burpees with dumbbells that you raise in the air. So you go down, you pick up the dumbbells, put them in the air, you put them back down, you do a burpee, right? But you could do a whole circuit. Squats or squashes. I'm hungry. Squats, lunges, push ups, step ups, planks, short walk, jog, jogging intervals. Everyone can modify their movements to their level, but it's an opportunity for you to get outside and do like a pre winter boot camp, right? Because the idea is once you're back inside during the cold winter months, that's when some of the bad habits start creeping in. You're sitting around eating the donuts and kicking the feet up and beer and pizza for football, you know, games. So getting that last bit burn, you know, while you still can outside, it's a great, great thing to do. Number four, bike and brunch. So choose a bike trail or a safe route. Ride as a group, then finish with breakfast or brunch somewhere. Turn into a whole social thing. If you have a group of friends that like to bike, you know, it's something that you can do a lot of movement in. Biking is high on the cardio, high on the, you know, get the heart rate up and all that stuff. And then, you know, have a nice little brunch afterwards. Sitting there, you're not probably sweating too much because it's a little cooler, but you're sitting there as a group of people who just worked out. Maybe you have a nice brunch breakfast or brunch afterwards. Number five, if you're into this thing, you know, and this is for men and women, maybe a pickup football or flag football game. Football is obviously a great season to talk about football and introduce the idea to friends and family. Got the perfect excuse for it, right? Football weather, right? Quote, unquote. So you stop watching other people do it and do it yourself a little bit. No, nothing too serious. You're not tackling people, you're just out there playing a little two hand touch. Or you want to get some flags, play some flags. Here's an idea. You can tear up a T shirt, right, that becomes flags. But yeah, pick a football game. Flag football game. Always works. Now something I've never done, interested in doing it. Maybe it might be something where I'm like, okay, I'm bored, let's go eat. But apple orchard, right? So apple picking, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, fall festivals, right? All those things can wrap up or rack up the steps and rack up, you know, the cardio, make a day of it, right? Like I've said, I've never done apple picking, pumpkin patches, corn mazes. I've done fall festivals, but they were just kind of like the candy apple corn eaten. And what's the other thing to have? It was things, some pies, right? That type of stuff. And so it's an opportunity, especially with like the, you're on your feet all day, the picking orchids. Or just I'm so hungry, it's not even funny. Picking up apples and pumpkin patches and corn mazes. It's a good day. You're literally walking around all day, which is great cardio. Next one, outdoor yoga, right? Or a mobility session. And so depending on your size of your deck or your backyard, you can find a park or quiet trail where you can sit off the side. Obviously not going to do yoga in the middle of the trail, but you can get some stretching time in. And it even could be something as simple as if you have a, like a patio door or something like that as a screen. Open it up, get the fresh air in, listen to the birds chirp, you see leaves falling every once in a while, and you can do yoga right there in your living room or wherever that that patio door sits. But yoga is a good thing too. Yoga is a good workout, regardless what people say. If you're somebody like me who gets really, really tight, really, really fast, I need to do more yoga myself. And I would love to do, and I keep saying this, I feel like I've been saying this for 20 years. I would love to do some hot yoga. I feel like hot yoga is made for me because it combines heat with stretching and I need that. So. So a walk and talk gathering is the next one. And this is different from the power walk we talked about earlier where you can have your partner or a neighbor walk with you, but this is actually like getting a group of people together. So maybe I might get my fraternity brothers together from my chapter or get some of my friends together and we all just kind of go walk one day, one Saturday morning, we all go for a walk. Not a bad idea, actually, but that's an opportunity to get, you know, a 30, 45 minute meeting in. Really. If you have a group of people who all say you're on the same committee or you share the same interest, or you're planning something, instead of jumping on a zoom call or meeting at a building and sitting around at a table, how about we do a walking meeting? Right? That's an idea for you. Next one, next to last one is a yard work workout. Now, I don't know if you have ever raked leaves before. It can be pretty tiring, the same recurring motion over and over again. My previous house had a ton of trees around it, none of them on my property, not a single one. But all the leaves would dump into my yard, dump into my driveway, front of the house, all that stuff. And so year after year, I'm raking the heck out of my yard, cleaning it, filling up trash bag at the trash bag, and at one point, big cans after big cans. And you get a lot of leaves together. It's actually not that light anymore, right? Leaves. You think, oh, these things barely weigh an ounce. I don't know what leaf weighs, but say it weighs an ounce. You get a bunch of those things in a huge, huge trash can or a huge trash bag. It's got a little weight to it. So a yard work workout is definitely real. But treat it like a chore, right? Work steadily, lift carefully, switch sides. And so I'm a right handed person and so I tend to when I rake, I'm raking with, you know, the right side in motion. I had to consciously tell myself, you got to switch sides because this turning motion is great for those love handles if you, if you have any of those. But you're gonna have one side that's really flat and the other side that's actually. You got the love handles if you stick to one side. So make sure you change it up. Don't overwork one muscle or one side of your body if you can. Because, you know, some, we're not all ambidextrous and all the different activities a yard cleanup or yard work might entail. So if you can use both sides to keep balance, you want to have one half your body sore and the other one not. And you're kind of walking up the steps with a limp now because you did some yard work. The last one, which is my favorite of all them, or at least top two of my favorite, is a fall fitness challenge. And so this is something you could do with your friends, your family, your partner, where maybe a challenge to do two miles, whether it's running or walking every week, or number of steps you do every day, or number of outdoor workouts or park visits every week. And so this turns accountability, which is a key word from this episode, it turns accountability into an item that exists for the fall or ending part of your year, right? And it's something that everyone can share. So as you think about fall, the changing of the leaves, the yard work you may have to do, the opportunity to get outside, the decrease in allergies, hopefully if you have, if you suffer from allergies. Some people suffer all year long and fall doesn't even help it at all. But for people like me, it reduces the algae so much because the leaves are falling down, there's no more pollen growing. It's just amazing this time of year. These hopefully are some ideas that can get you out the house before it gets too cold and snow and ice and all that stuff on the ground. But also get your body moving because it's important that we keep our activity running every day if we can, if not every day, enough times a week that our bodies are in pretty decent, healthy shape. So a fall foliage hike, a neighborhood power walk, outdoor boot camp biking, a brunch, pickup football or flag football, an apple orchid or apple picking or pumpkin picking, core mazes, that type of thing, outdoor yoga or mobility session, a walk and talk gathering, a walk and talk meeting, a yard work workout, and finally a fall fitness challenge. Think about all those things as fall continues. I want to thank Jason Lange for stepping into Dave's head like I told him. And I think I said it at the end of our interview, but I think I also told him personally. It was very powerful interview for me. It's a topic we don't talk about enough. Men being there for men and men being willing to be in a circle or be in a group or get accountability, being intentional with that, being open with our feelings, being trusting with our feelings is not something we do a lot. And so having the conversation even about that topic was powerful for me because over the course of my life, I've had to become someone who became open with sharing things. Not just man to man, but just me to people I trust as well. So happy to have that conversation, happy to have Jason on, and hopefully you got something out of that conversation as well. Check out his website, Evolutionary Men on Instagram, at Evolutionary Men on Facebook, fakes, Evolutionary menswork, and on YouTube Evolutionary Men. As always, for every episode, at least the last couple seasons since I started this, going to end this episode with a quote. I think it's appropriate, especially the conversation that we had with Jason about men's groups and intentionality of being in those groups and accountability those groups can provide to men. The first steps to getting in the group is taking the first step. And I think this quote sums up that process or that trigger to being in a group and being in the place that's safe and home. As was my last first thought to Jason, it's by James Baldwin from as much Truth as One Can Bear, which was published in the New York Times in 1962. It goes like this. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. You gotta face us men, we gotta face our feelings. We gotta be open to accountability. And we got to be intentional about our wanting growth and part of growth is environments that we consider safe enough for us to be open with others. The first step is admitting, number one, that we should be talking about some things, we should be open to talking about some things. We can be vulnerable and trusting that our vulnerability will not be exploited. But until that's faced, until we take that first step, we cannot work through things that may be holding us back, not only in life personally, professionally, but as men. Period. So I'm thankful to Jason for coming on and talking about that. That's James Baldwin. Check out that article from New York Times in 1962 if you want. There's obviously a lot more content in there if you're interested. So I want to thank you for stepping into Dave's Head. Until next time, make sure to get your daily dose of perspective and always be the tone setter in your life. That's all for this episode of Dave's Head. If you enjoyed this episode, I'm sure sure you'll love similar content in the Alive Podcast Network app. Plus you can support this podcast and enjoy ad free listening to nearly 100 other Black hosted podcasts. Download the iOS or Android app, become a member and experience unlimited access to Black hosted content week after week. Follow like and or subscribe to this podcast on Facebook, Instagram and or x@davesheadpod and on YouTube at Dave Dave's Head Podcast. For more information and links to all things Dave's Head, check out our website at Daveshead Card with two Rs co episode premiere on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, enjoy life because life should be fun. Take care.