Jason Lange on Why Working Dads Need Stronger Connections | Gap to Gig – Working Dads’ Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life

Jason Lange: So much more is expected of us in terms of our relationships, in terms of our presence in our family. It's a rude awakening for a lot, a lot of. A lot of guys who then are at a place in their life where they're like, wow, I might be about to lose this thing. I've worked so hard for this, this kind of ideal family. But my wife's, she's, she's like, something's got to change. This, this isn't working for me. And then he's like, well, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I thought I was doing it Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Welcome to Gap to Gig, the show for dads navigating the in between season when work, identity and priorities start asking different questions. Here we talk about what that season looks like and how to move through with intention. I'm your host, Michael Jacobs, and today on Gap to Gig, I'm thrilled to welcome Jason Lange. He's a men's embodiment coach, group facilitator, and evolutionary guide who helps men find deep clarity in their purpose, relationships, and how they show up in the world. After struggling with loneliness and disconnection in his own life, Jason spent the last two decades doing the work to change that. Today, he's on a mission to help men move beyond the lone wolf mindset into something healthier, more connected and more sustainable, especially through men's groups. Jason, I'm excited to chat with you today. Welcome to the show. I'm really glad you're here.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So pumped to be here. Thanks for having me.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Appreciate that. So a lot of dads listening to this are doing their best to juggle meaningful work and, and being present at home, and still something feels off, like they're checking the boxes, but not quite where they want to be. So when you look at dads today, what feels most out of alignment between the work they're doing and the life they actually want?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So I'm going to speak to the types of dads I primarily work with, which are dads who are, you know, they're showing up, they're involved. Right, right. So, you know, there's a whole range of how fathers can be involved in family and kids life. But, you know, I think you and I are probably most interested in what's it like to be an engaged dad when you're juggling the realities of getting older, career, intimacy, relationship, kids, all those things. And I'm a father of two, and I'm right in the thick of it here with, with so many others and the Number one thing I see for so many guys is they carry a lot of burden. It's like, oh my God, the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I want to be doing everything right. I want to have a kick ass career. I want to be really present, present in my kids lives and showing up to their games or whatever that might be. I want to have a passionate, alive, intimate partnership. And on the road to trying to do that, what I see, and I get it, because there's only so much time in the day, what most dads do is they stop doing the very things that made them feel the most alive, which often help them get into the very life they thought they wanted to be leading. Right? So particularly as guys enter their 30s and 40s, more and more these days, what I see, these guys get married, they have kids, they start to let go of a lot of their relationships, particularly with other men, and they start to prioritize the family. And it's not that that's the wrong choice, but it has a significant cost. Because then as men lose friendships, take on more responsibility in the world. We're also as fathers, immersed in a culture that teaches us well, to be a man means don't be weak, keep showing up, push harder. You got this right, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and we lose the very connection with other men that can help us the most in these stressful burden times. And then a lot of men I work with because they don't have those connections so alive anymore, one of the only places they have to bring any vulnerability, any overwhelm is their intimate relationship. And it's not that we don't want to do that, but when that's the only place we can bring that, it puts so much stress on the relationship. Because suddenly, you know, this day, more than probably any other time in history, our intimate partnership, we expect it to do the heavy load of so many things. It's my lover, it's my co parent, my best friend, sometimes my co life manager, my therapist. What that does is it starts to drain the energy from the actual intimacy and the eroticism. So so many guys I work with, they're like, I'm working all the time, I'm so exhausted. My wife wants more of me, but I have no energy to give her. I don't even know how to give it to her. Sometimes I do bring my fears about my job or whatever and then she gets freaked out. So I don't know what to do. And so it's a particular life phase. Then dovetails with a very real thing, which is middle age, which is this realization, wow, there's potentially less Runway in front of me than there is behind me, right? And what does it mean to know I only have so many more hours left on this planet? I thought X, Y and Z would make me free and happy. A lot of guys I work with, very successful, have the family, they're in it, and they're like. And I still kind of feel dead. Like, I. I feel exhausted. I feel not very alive. I. I work so hard to get to the top of this ladder. I'm up there now, and I'm like, oh, my God, do I even want to be here? I work all the time. This is like my whole life. And so that all kind of swirls together to what is very challenging for fathers and frankly for men.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah. Yeah. So many great points there. There's a lot I want to unpack here. There's a lot of questions about alignment of, like, what is important, what is actually important in the moment. But there's also these. There's the relationship element of it, right? Like, if you're fortunate enough to have a partner, have a spouse, right? Like that burden, it's easy to shift your burdens into that relationship, right? Because that's kind of the first place you turn. And to some degree, it's healthy to share your. Your burdens with your partner, but there are limits into how much you can do that, right? Because your partner also will have burdens that they're going to want to leverage. And if your relationship is only based on burdens, it seems very difficult to foster that relationship any further than it. Than it's already gone, right? And then you have the relationships with your children and maybe your extended family and your friends. And there's this other element of it which you started off with, which is essentially this element of loneliness, right? Of it becomes more difficult as you grow older to make the room for the friendships that. That you need to. To find those people, the people of, you know, quote, unquote, your tribe, right? Of, like, people that are. Have similar interests or similar experiences to you that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can learn from, that you can help teach, that you can build something that is meaningful for you in terms of. In that relationship space outside of your core nucleus at home, right? There's all these different elements that are always changing, always evolving. And then, you know, like you said, there's. As we reach, as we get closer and closer to middle age and get past that, that point, we are Running out of Runway. Right. There's only so many hours, so many days left, you know, that we don't know when the end is. And as far as we know, there's one life to live. And how do we make the most of that time not just for ourselves, but for those around us? Right. Because I think for most of us as dads, we're not trying to build a life just for ourself, we're trying to build a life for those that mean something to us. Right? So it's our family, it's our friends, Right? So what used to work doesn't necessarily continue to work. As you grow older and as your family evolves and as your, your kids grow up, how do you help men recognize when they're sort of in that in between season of like things that were working before are starting not to work. Right. But you know, maybe something's got to change, but it's hard to tell that you do. You need to make some change, whether it's on yourself or in your surrounding environment. So, like, I'm curious, like, how do you help men recognize that in between season?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think the place I see actually men sometimes recognize it, which is what makes them show up to me is in their bodies. So I, I like to kind of joke. It's like we come into this world with a preloaded debit card that's got a certain amount of chi energy, vitality on it. You know, we're in our teenage years or twenties and even into our thirties, we're just charging that thing. Okay. Yeah, I'm out late partying, I'm not getting a lot of sleep, I'm working really hard, I'm pushing my body really hard. It's around 40 and particularly 45, 46, that the bills start to come due where the body's like, oh, actually you can't do that anymore. You hurt yourself. It takes three months to recover now, not two weeks. And what happens, I see for a lot of men is their bodies start to catch up with them and they, the ways they've been neglecting their well being. Whether it's illness, fatigue, autoimmune disorders, or just achy tension, like a tight, tense body where they don't actually feel relaxed or they start to see. Well, I'm actually losing physical acuity that I never did before. Right. I can feel like I, I, I can't hit it like I used to. That starts to wake men up to something, as does this kind of more emotional baggage as well. That many men I work with because we're raised in a culture that doesn't teach us men how to know what we're feeling, let alone how to talk about it. That takes energy. So, you know, the, the analogy I sometimes use is it's like, it's like imagine holding a beach ball underwater. There's all this feeling in us and we hold it underwater. It's like, okay, this is cool. But you do that for 20, 30 years, you forget how much energy it takes to keep it down. Right, right. And that becomes very apparent at this age where, like I said, sometimes it's fatigue, sometimes it's depression. I've had guys that were like CEO level just hitting it one day. They literally woke up and they couldn't get out of bed. Their body was like, no, you are done. You're going to kill yourself. Essentially, you're going to wear yourself out. So men start to, usually that come to me, either feel something in their body or they just feel flat. Like, is this it? I, I, I thought getting the promotion would do it. Oh, wait, I thought the new house would do it. I thought the X, Y or Z and they're like, no, it didn't do it. I kind of come right back to my set point. And then the other really big one I see for middle aged fathers in particular is their relationship is whether they're there or not. They start to see on the horizon that empty nest phase. And whoa, for, you know, 5, 10, 15 years, our relationship with me and my partner has fallen to the back burner. Yep. Right. The kids came first. Managing the house came first. We don't even know what to talk about. If we have 20 minutes together, that's not work or the kids or the usual kind of stressful stuff. And so that one, sometimes they're realizing the best case scenario, they see it coming. Worst case scenario, they're often blindsided by a partner who's like, I don't love you anymore. We haven't had a relationship between us for a long time. I don't even know who you are and I don't feel seen or cherished by you. And that can be so painful for so many of us guys because we're raised in the whole provider culture. Well, our job as a man is to provide for the family. And if we're doing that, we're a good, good man or good father.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: And the fact that that contract isn't really enough anymore. We're so much more is expected of us in terms of our relationships, in terms of our presence in our Family. It's a rude awakening for a lot, a lot. A lot of guys who then are at a place in their life where they're like, wow, I might be about to lose this thing. I've worked so hard for this, this kind of ideal family. But my wife's, she's. She's like, something's got to change. This, this isn't working for me. And then he's like, well, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I thought I was doing it right. And that's often the crisis. Men will come to me and.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right. So that, to me, it sounds like there's this crisis of purpose, of, like, very much you think you have this potentially this purpose of being the provider, right? And so I think for a lot of us, the. What we learn at a young age is providing is financial, it's physical, but we don't realize, I think oftentimes, and some people realize it's earlier than others of like, purpose is. Goes beyond providing something physical. It's beyond providing a paycheck, right? It is. You know, the older I get, the more I realize my purpose is built around relationships, right? Around the people I care about most, right? It's my family, it's my friends. Those are the people that I. The success, you know, quote, unquote, success for me looks like surrounding myself with people I care about when they're making them happy and healthy and successful and seeing them, you know, my impact on the world is going to be based on how I impact those around me, right. And hopefully that they will then spread their impact even further. So the hope is that, yeah, I need to earn a living, right? I need to provide for my family, but not at the expense of those relationships. Right? There. There has to be boundaries in both directions, right? You can't just spend all your time focused on your spouse and then, you know, put off work and suddenly you have, you know, you can't afford the roof over your head or you can't feed your family and things like that. Like, there are. You do need to be able to do both. But figuring out what that purpose really is for you and for everybody, that's different, right? Like, for me, I think I've finally identified, like, what my purpose is, at least for the moment of, like, it is my kids, it's my spouse, it's my extended family, and it's my close friends. Like, those are the people that I'm trying to spend, put my energy towards. Like, when I decide what I'm going to do On a daily basis, it's how does that positively impact them? Because they positively impact me. Right. For somebody else, it might be a little bit different. Right. And they might say, well, to me, it's like, I want to do. I want to make sure the work I'm doing is meaningful. Doesn't mean I need to make the most money. It means I need to do something that feels like I'm having an impact. Right. And so everybody. It's different for everybody. Some people want to volunteer more, Some people want to travel the world more. Like, whatever that purpose is, at the end of the day, I think your purpose is almost always tied back to the relationships. Right. It's not just the outcomes, but it's the relations, relationships that you're building. And, you know, I think it's taken me a long time to get to that place, and I think I'm not the only dad that's been there where it's like, I just kind of need to figure this out on my own. Nobody's gonna be able to tell me what to do or kind of where I, like, when I feel I'm struggling, I don't just go and tell everybody. Right. I'm an introvert by nature. And so, like, I don't just go out and when I'm struggling something, just blurt it out to anybody and everybody. I try to, like, I want to fix it myself. Like, that is just how I've been built. And I think, you know, for a lot of dads, that's the easy way out of just being like, I'll figure this out myself. But then you realize, or I'm starting to realize that can't always do everything yourself. You do need help.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): And that's where these relationships come in. Why do you think that instinct is so strong for. Particularly for men, for. For dads of like, oh, I can just do this all on my own. I'll figure it out. And then all of a sudden, yeah,

Jason Lange: the. I mean, it's. It's part of the culture of masculinity we're raised in. You know, we. The. In. In the world, we call it the man box. This idea that all cultures, some. Some, you know, vary a little bit, but overall, there's kind of this idea that, well, to be a man means you have to be X, Y, and Z. There's these boxes you have to check off, and if you don't check those off, you're not considered a man in. One of the primary ones is to be a man means to be invulnerable yeah. Right. It means you. You never show weakness, you never ask for help. And that's often reinforced by, you know, our culture that teaches men other men are competition.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yep.

Jason Lange: Right. Like there, it's kind of woven in to some of what we experience in some ways. And I mean, what you're speaking to also ties into a much deeper issue that. Right. Like what I heard you beautifully say is. What I say is part of providership has evolved, and what it's expanded to is part of providing for your family is being actually present. Yes. For them. So present with your. Your wife or spouse, present with your kids, which you can't do if you're stuck up in your head. If you're so exhausted at the end of the day, you just fall asleep watching tv or if you're working all the time. So it's actually about presence is the thing particularly fathers can bring more than anything else. Just I'm here with you.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right. And it's beyond just physical presence. Right. Like it is.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's emotional presence, it's focus, it's attention, it's attunement. And what makes that challenging for guys is part of what you're speaking to. And the research does show this. Right. There's plenty of work that's been done on the terminally ill and people at the end of their life where they interview them, like, hey, what are the five things you know you're about to die here?

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): You wish. Da, da, da, da.

Jason Lange: It's never, I wish I had made more money. I wish I had worked more. It's always, I wish I had spent more time with the people I love and who loved me. It becomes down to those relationships. And the challenge, I think a lot of guys start to hit in middle age, and particularly fathers, is we don't have the training for how to be in relationship. Right. Like, how to actually be in relationship. Which is one of the reasons it's so hard for us to ask for help. Right. Right. We're not used to it. We hot. We're used to, okay, I gotta hold it all inside. Never show any weakness. Be tough. Be the solid foundation. And it's a losing game. Right. And it really impacts men. Suicide rates three and a half to four times higher for men. You know, the stat. A lot of people talk about loneliness. So that feeling of, I don't feel known or seen in my life, which it's important, doesn't mean you don't have connection around you. Friends, family, et cetera. It's about the Type of connection.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: But that kind of loneliness, it's as destructive as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Know, like, it leads to more heart disease. And I think it was 1990, they maybe did this. It was like 3% of men reported having no close friends. By 2021, it was up to 15%. I would even argue now it's probably higher than that with technology and AI and everything. So more and more men don't have close connections. And the societal structures that used to bring that to us are also kind of evaporating. Right, Right. There's not really many men's lodges or clubs anymore. A lot of churchgoing behavior has dropped out. Work itself is becoming more kind of solo work from home for a lot. A lot of people. There's not even a workplace to go to anymore. And this all compounds with men who then already don't have the skill to build relationships and don't know how to ask for help and keep it all inside. In the paradox, and I've seen this time and time again in groups I've led, is the very thing we feel like we can't share because people would judge us for it. It would show us weakness we feel shame about. It is the thing that will make us most feel connected to other men.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: When they see and recognize and affirm our pain, in a sense. And it's been one of the biggest challenges in my life, learning how to ask for help. It's like, oh, my God, I could suffer around this for three months. Or it turns out I. I called up a buddy and asked him. He's like, oh, you just fix it like this. And it took me 20 seconds, as opposed to tinkering around and whatnot.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: So the cards are kind of stacked against us men in a lot of ways. And just the last thing I just see more and more as I've worked a lot more with fathers over the last five years in particular, I think one of the greatest gifts a father can give their children is for their kids to see them happy, alive, and in a passionate relationship, surrounded by friends and community.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yep.

Jason Lange: Because that sets the template for what they're going to lead themselves into.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. And I think that, you know, your kids tend to follow your actions, not your words. Right. And I think when, you know, you talk about this lack of vulnerability for men these days, you know, particularly for dads, you know, we think we need to be strong for our kids, but being strong for our kids also means showing them what Vulnerability looks like, right? And how we handle situations that are stressful, that are difficult, right? We need to model those behaviors for them, because otherwise, if they see us always being stoic, they're going to expect that that's how they need to be. Right? And so we're just perpetuating the cycle. So when they become fathers, when they become grown adults, they're going to have the same impression of what they are supposed to do, which is, let's be stoic. I need to be. I can't be vulnerable around anybody. I need to keep this all inside. We're not actually helping them lead better, happier, more meaningful, more successful lives if we're demonstrating for them the wrong behaviors. Right? And so we're just essentially perpetuating our own loneliness on them by not being honest with them, by not demonstrating those behaviors of vulnerability. And, you know, I just read there was an article earlier this year from the Washington Post about this epidemic of loneliness among men, right? And so they're. They have these, like, speed friending events and all these other things to. There's activities now for. For men to meet other men, right? And like, you do lots of men's groups. And it is becoming more and more imperative in this day and age, you know, with working from home and with social media the way it is that men need sort of. They need to make friends again, right? When we're kids, it's easy to make friends. We're put in situations on a daily basis to make friends, whether we're going to school, we're doing activities. Right? Or maybe join a baseball team, or maybe we do a. A class together, or we, you know, take a music class or something. You know, we even make friends, like in the waiting room at the doctor's office, playing with the toys, right? Office, right. We're always setting ourselves up to. Or we're being put in situations where we're set up to make new friends. At some point, those situations go away, right? All of a sudden, you're a grown adult and you have all sorts of responsibilities. You know, you need to run errands, you need to take care of things around the house. You need to pick up your kids from their activities. You know, you need to go to work, you need to get sleep, you need to do all these things, and you suddenly don't have all those situations where you have the ability to make friends, right? And it's on us to take some initiative, right? We can reach out to old friends. We can go make new friend, go to events, make new friends. We can join a group, right, to meet others. Because like you said, you do need. See, you can't just rely on your partner if you're fortunate enough to have one for all of your social needs and all of your emotional needs, right? It's an unfair promise. Just like you wouldn't expect your partner to put everything on you, you have to spread out your relationships, right? Yes, you should have a main focus. You have a spouse. Like they are your primary focus. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have time to have friendships outside of the house, right? And because that will allow you to sort spread out yourself so that you're not overburdening yourself or your partner or your relationship. It's. I'm not sure how to put it, but it's like there is such an importance to maintaining friendships, finding new friendship or just having friendships in general outside of your primary family relationships, right? For a variety of reasons. And it becomes more difficult or becomes less apparent as you get older, right? Maybe it's not more difficult because yes, you can make friends. If you have young kids and you're in activities together, you can make friends with other kids, parents, right? There's lots of opportunities there. Maybe you're all on the same team and so you guys are going to the, the games or the recitals or whatever together and you run into people and you start chatting and you, you guys hang out or you have a play date and you meet them and whatever, right? But, and, but as your kids get older, right, Like I've got one in high school, one going into college. You know, we don't have quite as many opportunities now to meet other parents, friends, but we do have other friends, parents, but we do have a little bit more time on our hands now. Our kids are more self sufficient, right? So now it's on us to be like, okay, how do we want to spend our time, right? And yes, like for me, I do need time alone, right? Because I'm an introvert. So like I do want time to read a book, right? And I do want time to, you know, do some mindfulness work and go for walks. But I also realize, like, I do need to socialize a bit, right? I do need to talk to some of my friends and catch up with them. And it's like, you know, I just had brunch with a friend I hadn't seen in a couple years who lives, you know, halfway across the country, right? But I grew up with him. We were super close. And you know, just that hour, hour and a half we spent at brunch was like brought a whole new energy to the game, Just catching up, reminiscing about old memories. Like there is, I find a lot of value in nostalgia. And so like, that is something that we can, me and him can bond over more than I can with anybody else because we had those, we shared those experiences together. Right. There are certain experiences that I share with my wife that we can bond over more than I can with anybody else. There are certain experiences with other friends. And there's also this opportunity to create new experiences that we can bond over and reminisce over.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): In the future. Right. So the importance of having these friendships to just satisfy that loneliness, but to also bring us, you know, renewed energy, renew hope, renew purpose. Right. Because again, if our purpose is at least partially based in the relationships that we're building. Right. You can't. It's just like if you're building a business, you don't want to rely on one customer, probably business. You want to spread out your business across many customers in case something happens to one. Right. Same thing with relationships. You can't put all your eggs in one basket and just expect that your spouse is going to be the only one you ever talk to. Right. It's not going to lead to a healthy long term relationship. You need to be able to spread that out. Right. You need to have friends, you need to have other family that you can talk to, that you can hang out with, that you can just have new experiences with and reminisce on old ones.

Jason Lange: It.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): It's so important. But we tend to. You covered this earlier. If. It's like we tend to put that stuff on the back burner, right. We're like, okay, we need to just, we need to work real hard. We need to make sure that we do these things at home and we just forget to or just deprioritize or de. Emphasize some of these other relationships. I'm curious, like when you see dads sort of maybe unintentionally disconnecting, but like, what do you see are. What do you see happening there? Even if, like they might care deeply about, like they might have certain passions or projects that they, or hobbies that they're into, or you know, they might have these friendships that they've had their whole lives that they care about, but they kind of just keep separating themselves. What's happening there, do you think?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, withdrawal is just one of the simplest tools that a lot of men fall prey to. If I'm just going to start to withdraw. Right. It's. It's actually the opposite of being present because I'm going to actually withdraw further and further into myself. And we probably all know men in our lives who have done that and they kind of in their own way become unreachable.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: And it's so challenging for guys. I mean, a lot of guys come to me and they're like, I hear it, I hear you. But where, how do I meet men, make friends, all of this kind of stuff, because there aren't nearly as many situations for it that, that there used to be. And you're right, what you're naming about the burden in relationship. I always, I like to use this kind of old school metaphor of, you know, I imagine when you were growing up, when I was growing up, you know, you. To hang up Christmas lights, you'd ha. You'd hang up Christmas lights. And if one bulb was out, the whole string didn't work.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah.

Jason Lange: Right. Because it was a single series circuit.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: And that's what happens to men when they lose their friendships. Their system of relationships gets smaller and smaller and smaller till often everything flows through this primary node of their intimate partner, their spouse. The challenge with that is what happens when that relationship is in a point of stress or distress.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Whoa.

Jason Lange: Now the one relationship that is my entire system mostly is bad, is not going well. I have nowhere else to go and my whole life feels terrible.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah.

Jason Lange: It's like, wow, my wife and I are in some struggles right now and it is lonely when we bring friends online or in the way. I'm really passionate about a men's group. What we're doing is we're moving to that parallel circuit where, oh, if that bulbs out, that's okay. Because I got these bulbs around me. I have these different social connections, some of which can hold me through these different points and some of which can give me the reflections I need that I simply cannot hear from my partner because we're so entrenched in who we are. And it's your fault, my fault, whatever. But when loving men look at us and they're like, hey man, this part of this is yours. It's not even hers. I can't tell you how many men's groups I've gone to where, you know, a little tension with me and my wife. And I was going to go in there and da, da, da, da. And they were going to tell me I was right. And by the end of the night they're like, dude, you're full of. That's just as much Your responsibility as hers. And there's something you're not owning there, and then I have to see it. And their only motive is care for me. Right. They're not trying to. Is different than an intimate relationship where all this stuff gets layered on. So then I go home instead of having a fight, I have an opportunity for connection with my partner.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah.

Jason Lange: Hey, I see. There's. There's a way I've been contributing to this dance we're in right now that's really painful for both of us, and I own that. And that leads to a very, very different conversation. So the more we can kind of create that connection, the better. And you're right. Part of the challenge is often what makes our young relationships from high school, college, et cetera, so meaningful is we actually have time to, a, spend with each other, like, just literally time together. Right. And B, we mess up. We make mistakes, we try things, we do wild things. We have these weird adventures. Wow. I remember that time we tried to go on the road trip, and we got the flat tire and da, da, da. And for men in particular, part of how we bond is moving through adversity together. And, you know, it's not as simple as biology, but there's some actual physiology as they've studied male bodies, that we have slightly more receptors for a hormone called vasopressin, which is kind of a. A cousin to oxytocin. Most people know the connection hormone, but vasopressin connection is activated by facing challenge together. Ah, we did this hard thing together. Now we're like best friends, like, forever. See this all the time in the military. Right. It's one of the big challenging things for veterans is when they come home and they know their people are still overseas. They keep re enrolling because it's like, I. I can't leave them behind. They're the closest people to me. And it gets harder and harder to have the time and to figure out how do I, like, do hard things with my male friends where we can make mistakes and get stories and. And it's one of the reasons I really love men's work and men's groups, because instead of kind of the adventure being the outer world, it starts to become our inner world. It's like, whoa, what do you have to deal with inside yourself? And we start to engage with that and we make mistakes and it's hard. And we support each other through real struggles and the depth of bonds. Right. I have both personally experienced this, and now I've supported other men in experiencing this, had many Guys and have myself. Some of my closest male friends now are guys I spent one weekend with on retreat eight years ago who know me better than men I've known for 25 years because of how we connected in that time. And this is more and more a thing I do get men coming to me with. Which kind of blows up the stereotype of, well, I have no friends, right? I had one client that spent, you know, this year, went on a weekend ski trip he goes on every year with guys he's known since he was a kid and he's in the midst of a very painful divorce right now. And only one guy briefly asked him about it because they just don't talk about that kind of stuff. So he spent the whole weekend with guys who have known him and he came home feeling unknown, unseen and lonelier than ever. Because the type of relationships that most men default to is triangulation, right? Which I kind of joke is basically me and you, we have our attention on some third thing and that's what connects us. We watch the sports game, we go fishing together, we fix something. So we're literally looking at something, but we're not looking at each other. And that's a men's group. These kind of deeper relationships that is such the vanguard for us guys to step into now is, hey, what happens when I go out to, to lunch with my buddy and we put our full attention on each other? What is going on? What is it like to be, where are you in pain? What are you celebrating? And it completely changes what it feels like. And you're right, the if connection or the fancier term co regulation. If we sold that as a pill, you could just eat, people would be paying out the door for it, right? Brings down your blood pressure, you shift into parasympathetic, your body relaxes, your heart rate relaxes, like your immune system gets stronger, like so many amazing things. And connection is essentially free to us, right? That just the experience of being fully present with someone who's fully present with us, where we feel seen and known by them, is like a miracle drug that so many men aren't taking advantage of. Where you're like, wow, I went out to this hour long lunch and my battery feels full for like 3 days now. What is that? That's connection.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah, it's so, so interesting to me because like, generally speaking, oftentimes when I'm talking to other dads, you know, the first questions we ask are like, how are the kids? You know, what's going on? Right? Did you see the game last night. It's all surface level stuff, right?

Jason Lange: Yes.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): And it's really. Relationships are more than that. Right. How often do we ask other dads, like, how are you really doing? Like, what is really going on in your life? Like, what can, what can I support you with? Like, we don't ask those questions because they're not comfortable on the surface to ask. They're not what we're used to. Right. We. And like you said earlier, like, we haven't been trained on this, right? No, we didn't go to, most likely did not go to school for this type of stuff. Right. We didn't have a job based on, you know, that was all focused on relationships. Like, we, we haven't had that training to know what is the, the right way to do it. And you know, you mentioned men's group as a way to build these more dynamic, deeper relationships. I'd like to hear more about, like, what is, what is it about those men's groups? Like, what it, what does it entail? What is it? How do you get to that deeper level of connection with, you know, make new lifelong friends that maybe know you better than friends that you've known your whole life? Like, tell me more about the, these men's groups and like, how does somebody who has no experience with men's groups, like, how can they approach it? Like, how do they, how could they get started if it was something that was interesting to them?

Jason Lange: Yeah. At a high level, the first thing a men's group is, is it's a structure that facilitates depth. So the actual structure itself changes the way you relate. And just a simple example of this, right. Which any, any married guy who's in a long term relationship now, this is a great one you can play with this weekend with your spouse. Right. I had to do it two years ago, about four months after my son was born, we got our first like two hour window, my wife and I. And here's here was the rules we used, which is structure that changed the way we relate during this two hours. We can't talk about the kids and we can't talk about work. We sat there for 15 minutes looking at each other. Like, what do we talk about? Oh my God. The habit was to go right there. And it forced us to connect in the way we first connected as lovers, as friends, as two people who just wanted to get to know each other. So that creates a kind of depth. So a men's group is a version of that where you circle up, literally, you sit in circle with other men and you don't do the default culture thing. So what we do is we purposely drop in to our bodies and get real about what's happening. And one of the greatest gifts a men's group can give men is. Is helping men connect to their direct felt body experience. What are you actually feeling in your body and heart right now? In most men will default to reporting about their life. Last week, I did this, and then I did this, and then this happened, and then this happened. And a men's group will cut right through it and say, and what is that? Like, how are you feeling about that? When your wife ran out the door, how did you feel when your boss said you might lose your job in a week? How did it feel for you? Oh, my God. I felt terrified in my belly. I feel so scared. It changes how we relate, and there's so many different structures and ways to do that. But the idea is you're checking in with your real experience, and then you're getting feedback from the other men about how they're experiencing you. This is so key for guys, and it becomes an incredible life hack. Right. Oftentimes, most men I work with, they got some kind of big decision or something they're wrestling with or uncertain of, and it blows me away. You know, just had a guy do this, like, six months ago. I think it was a job or something he had to decide about. It's like, safe, comfy job or this kind of new, risky opportunity. And he was legitimately stuck. He did not know what to do. Or sometimes it's about a relationship the same way. And, you know, path A, he's like, yeah, you know, I could do this thing. It'd be really safe. It'd be really great. Literally, his body is closed, his eyes are kind of looking down. His voice is very flat. Path B, he's like, yeah, wow. It would be risky, But I could see this could happen. This could happen, this could happen. His energy is so much bigger, so much bigger. It's so clear which one actually would make him feel more alive in his life. He doesn't know it until the guys reflect it. They're like, you know, when you talked about A, you were like a dead fish man. We talked about B, you were, like, lit up alive. Your chest was open. And he's like, wow, you're right. It is actually clear to me. So a men's group can help circle that or reflect that to us and simply give us reflection about how we're showing up in our life. And I often say that that Just very simply how we talk about it in the work is it comes down to we get support when we need to be held, when we're knocked off center, when we're stressed, literally, we get support to help us come back to our baseline. The other thing it does, which is often the thing most men are craving, they don't even need, is it holds us accountable. So we get feedback on whether or not we're living up to the standard, not that anyone else set for us, but that we are wanting to live in our life. And that accountability is really important. Where, you know, I've been in groups where it's like six months in someone's like, hey, man, you know, or even two years, you know, it's been two years. And every time you come in here, you check in about how hard it is in your marriage. What are you actually doing to change it? And, like, hold his feet to the fire and then he has to take action. And what that ends up creating for guys is or why I love it is it creates three things. There's three things that bring me back to men's group. One is efficiency. So I am a parent. I have very little time. The eight, the eight men I sit in circle with twice a month here in my town, I literally would not have time to sit down with them. One, one on one every month, just the way my life structured. But four hours a month, I go very deep with these men and feel very connected to them in their lives. So it's extremely efficient for me as a man who doesn't have a lot of time. And then what I see a good men's group do for two men, for men is two things. A sense of deep purpose and belonging. Purpose in that. Wow. My presence in this group actually matters. People feel it and notice it when I'm not here. And sometimes I have the thing to say or reflect to another man that can completely change his life or frankly, sometimes will save his life. And then it also gives us a sense of belonging. I'm part of something. I'm part of a community of men. There's a reason in it completely changes men's lives. And it provides us with a type of brotherhood and love that so many guys don't even know. They maybe touched it on a sports team or something. But to receive love from other men is like clean fusion energy. When guys first get a taste of it, they're like, holy crap, I didn't even know what I was missing. I've been walking around siloed all this time. And here are these men who are just here because they want to see my life be the best version of it they can be.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Absolutely. I imagine then that those relationships make your relationships at home even stronger because now you're showing up better, more present at home because you've, you're not just relying on a single relationship to carry you forward. And you're getting more clarity with these additional perspectives that these, these other men are, are going into. And I, I love how you address the, the time aspect of it too, because I think, you know, the easiest objection that a lot of dads will have is, I don't have time for this. I'm already busy. I got to take my kids here and there and I got to do this for work and you know, I gotta, you know, make dinner at home. Like I don't have time, you know, but two hours, there's what, 144 hours in, you know that, right? 100 something hours in a week. Right. 140 plus 28, 168 hours in a week at times four weeks. So you've got like, you know, over 600 hours to work with. I think you can find an hour or two within those 600 hours every month to do something for yourself. Right. Because I say this all the time of like, you want to show up for work and do something meaningful at work, want to show up for your family, you want to be present for them, you want to be active with them. You can't do those things well if you don't take care of yourself also. Right. And so you've got to be able to carve out an hour, two out of, you know, 600 plus hours to work on yourself. Right. And to take care of yourself so you can show up the way you want to show up for, for those around you. You know, I'm curious, it what's a habit or practice that a dad could carry over into both their work and their family life right now that they might not be thinking about? You have a lot of great ideas in terms of like, how to connect and be friendly. I'm just curious, like, if there's one thing that, that we can pull out of this today of like, what is a dad can do right now, like for next week? Just a habit of practice they can start.

Jason Lange: Sure. Yeah. Honest to God. I mean, there's many manifestations of this, but it's make time to restore yourself.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah.

Jason Lange: Restoration. So that could be going for a walk in the park, that could be calling up a buddy for lunch. That could be getting a massage. That could be the things that don't necessarily feel productive because you've got this huge list that just keeps growing of you got to do. But if you don't have the energy to actually show up for them, you're actually hurting yourself. This is the key thing, right. The platitude in our culture is so true. Like you got to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. And what a lot of men don't get. And I'll tie this into what you just said and why restoration is so important is right. In family therapy, like where they do therapy with families. Right. There's this famous thing where they say, you want to know how dad's doing? You don't ask dad, you ask the kids. Yeah. And they will tell you very directly. Right? Because they see it, they observe all of it or the spouse. And one of the reasons I keep going back to men's group and why my wife supports me taking time out of our family to go to men's group, to go on retreat is because of who I am when I come back.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah.

Jason Lange: The way I am restored, where I am actually more available to my kids, to her, my body literally is softer, more relaxed, there's more energy in my face. And that kind of restoration, whether it's a men's group or any of the things we just talked about, nobody is going to make the time for you to do that. For you guys, you have to be the one. And why that's so key for fathers is your kids will learn to do that by seeing you do that. If you don't do it, they're going to step right into that exact same grind that you have and you will perpetuate this very harmful thing that you think, well, I'm working so hard so I can set them up in their life so they don't have to. But what I'm actually teaching them is well put your body, your well being last. So taking that time, whatever it looks like and it doesn't have to be huge to carve out restorative, in a sense, non productive time. And if you really want to drop the bomb and shake up your life, play, do something fun that is playful and unproductive and relational and your whole life will change.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Love that. I love that idea of restoration. And I think to me it's like it's attainable, right. Because it doesn't have to be this huge commitment or anything. It could be as simple as, oh, you're, you like to draw, maybe just take out pen and paper and just draw for a few. Oh, you want to read. Go read a book. It can be physical. You want to go for a run. Go for a run or do a workout, whatever it may be, to restore yourself, get, you know, treat yourself to a massage. Just something. It doesn't have to be an all day thing. You can carve out that time. Great. And you want to, you know, do even more of that. But just start with one thing. Right. It doesn't have to be the same thing every time. Right. You can. There's that ability for variety and yeah, there's just. So it's such a simple thing to do, but it's not. It's also simple to neglect it. And that is the challenge, right. Of like, you have to overcome your own fear of, well, if I take the time to restore, then I'm taking away time from something else. But really you're. Yeah.

Jason Lange: Let me just note one key here that I realized with my life. I'm an entrepreneur, I work all the time. And there was a time where I wasn't working Saturdays. So in my mind I was taking Saturdays off. And then it was in my men's group. I had it reflected to me, well, what do you do Saturdays? I'm with my kids and family all day. That is not restorative time.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: In the way I'm talking about here. For, for men, for the masculine restorative time. The easiest way you can think about it is time of no demand. There is no demand on you for presence, for attention, for anything. There is no demand. You are in a place of having no demands on you showing up in any kind of way. And when I realized that, I was like, wow, I have severely neglected and I've had to intentionally start to carve out space to go on hikes with friends or just hang out or. A simple one for me is I love going to movies alone. Just duck into a cold air conditioned room for two hours. I come out of there, I'm like, oh my God, it feels so alive. This is so great. So like, you're right. It doesn't have to be a huge fancy vacation to Costa Rica or something that you want to micro dose this stuff to have the most impact.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): That's such a, a smart way of putting it, of taking away the demands on yourself. Right. Of having a moment of no demands. So I want to go from the super smart to the not so smart in the speed round. Five quick questions have nothing to do with anything. Starting with what's the first kid show theme Song that comes to mind.

Jason Lange: Oh, man. G.I. joe.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): G.I. joe.

Jason Lange: Real American hero. Yeah. Yeah.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): What was your very first job?

Jason Lange: I washed cars at a Honda used car dealership.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Oh, wow.

Jason Lange: In the summer, it was actually great because they would just. I'd just be on the lot, we'd turn up the music, and we'd wash cars all day. No one would bother us.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): That's great. How old were you when you do that?

Jason Lange: I was 15, maybe 16.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Oh, perfect. Great. HLA. Would you rather spend 24 hours with a toddler sized T. Rex or a T. Rex? Siiz. Toddler,

Jason Lange: toddler. Siiz. T. Rex.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Why is that?

Jason Lange: I think it'd be easier to manage.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Okay, fair enough. What's your go to karaoke song or the one you would sing if you had to?

Jason Lange: I really like White Wedding by Billy Idol, Rebel yo by Billy Idol, and Losing My Religion by REM oh, great

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): choices all across the board. And finally, what's the weirdest thing you've ever carried around in your bag, briefcase or pockets?

Jason Lange: Weirdest thing I've ever carried around in my bag, briefcase or pocket. That's a great question. I don't know if it's super weird, but I had a German roommate in college who gave me a bottle opener with like some German thing on it, and I literally still have it on my keychain today, even though the thing itself broke off. So it's just this. And I don't open bottles ever.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Right.

Jason Lange: But it's just a key part of my keychain.

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): That's awesome. Love that. This is so much fun, Jason. I appreciate it. I want to. For anyone listening who's resonating with what you had to say and wants to go deeper into your work, learn about what you're doing with men's groups and stuff. Where should they go? And like, what should they. How should. How can they find you? Yeah.

Jason Lange: Easiest thing to do is go to my website, Evolutionary Men. So it's not dot com, but it's dot men. And on there you can find my social media links, my podcasts, my programs. I've intro men's groups programs. I have live retreats. I have all kinds of stuff. I also have a quiz for men at Evolutionary Men. Quiz that will show you two amazing things. What your gift is, is as a man, probably what you're really good at and where that points to probably your deepest area of growth simultaneously in your relationships in life and takes about 20 minutes. It's pretty fun and good way to kind of kickstart the. Ooh. What Do I do now?

Host (Gap to Gig – Working Dads' Guide to Fatherhood, Meaningful Work, & Finding Balance in Life): Yeah. Love that. We'll have links to, to your website and to the, the quiz and everything in the show notes. Jason, this is a really important conversation and I'm so appreciative that you made the time to, to have this with me today. And I love how practical and grounded. You know, you make this something that to me was maybe a little abstract at first, right. Of just as us as men, like how do we evolve and how do we focus on what's really important to us. You made it into something that, with clear actions that we can take, right. And they don't have to be overwhelming actions. And it can be. You can start small and build from there, but it gives you an opportunity and you, you've demonstrated like how you can actually refocus yourself to focus on what's important to you and give the energy that you want to give in the relationships that you have and, you know, focus more on your purpose. So thank you again for, for being here, for chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. I think a lot of dads are going to hear this and realize they don't have to do this alone, right? It's, you can do it and you don't just have to rely on your partner. You have. Everybody has a vast network, whether or not they've work, they've worked on it recently or not. And you can always expand your network. And so I appreciate you coming on and sharing your message. So thank you for being here. And finally, before you go, if you're a dad listening to this and you find yourself in between navigating a season that feels different, head to gap2gig.com subscribe to the Gap to Gig newsletter comes out every Friday and it's quieter space to reflect on work, life and what really matters right now. If this conversation resonated, consider sending it to another dad who might need to hear it. Until next time, I'm Michael Jacobs. Thanks for showing up and listening to Gap 2 gig.