How to Become a Dangerous Man (with Tripp Lanier)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back everyone. I am super pumped to be joined by Trip Lanier today who is the host of the new man podcast, author of the book this will. This book will make you dangerous and important. My first men's coach ever. I was just digging through my Gmail Trip and I found an email from you to me about like our first coaching agreement from 2007. Bright eyed 26 year old man, boy child in a lot of ways. And yeah, it was really just hitting me before we got on this call of you were one of the first men that ever just sat down with me, looked me in the eye and said like, what's going on with your life? What do you want to do? And really just was hitting me of like, like I needed that. And so very grateful for the, the journey I've been on in a large part because of you both from the coaching. And then Trip facilitated the first real men's group I was in. He helped us launch it, which I am now back in after 14 years away. Those guys are still cranking along and we have you respect really is a big part of that to thank.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. Wow. It's great to kind of revisit that, you know, so long ago and, and to hear and see how you're now firmly on your own path and impacting so many other people. It gives me a. I just feel so much, you know, pride and joy. Like hell yeah. Great to see this. Fantastic.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's so great to feel the impact you and your family have had on my family as I, as I worked with your wife Allison quite deeply as well, thanks to you, which was transformative for me. I often tell men stories about that time period and so yeah, the, the thing I really wanted to kind of orient around today is this book you wrote. This book will make you dangerous, which I just have to say it's fucking awesome. It took me a little while to get to it. I had two kids and you had reached out to me and I read it and not only was I laughing my ass off, I was like, oh man, this is just really deep and profound and hits actually a lot of what I work with men, but from like some pretty fresh angles. So first off, thank you for writing it. I mean, I Learned a lot in terms of just some really simple frames to even name some of my experience and the experience I've. I've had with clients and things I've seen with guys. So I want to start talking there. And the first question I know a lot of guys are going to ask is, what does it mean to be dangerous? Right. So that word, what does that mean to you? How does that show up in the work? And what do I imagine a lot of people miss about the importance of that title?

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. So what does it mean to be dangerous? I mean, for this book, it's not about hucking yourself off of cliffs and, you know, wingsuits and playing with guns and fast cars and that kind of stuff. It. It is about recognizing where we have adapted to a certain way of living. That what is dangerous to us nowadays is anything that threatens our sense of comfort, anything that threatens our sense of security and stability and certainty, and anything that threatens our self image that might make us look like a moron. And so we can, if we're unaware that these are the new dangers our lives can become. More. What do I do to avoid being uncomfortable? What do I do to avoid any kind of risk or uncertainty? And what do I do to make sure that I don't look like a.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's such a great distillation. And I think you named it. How did you say it in the book? Protect, please and prove.

Tripp Lanier: Protecting is pleasing. Improving.

Jason Lange: Yeah, such like a simple triad there that as soon as I heard it, I was like, oh, that explains so much about how I've behaved in life and how I see many, many men. And it really struck me I was talking with another guy just about modern conveniences lately and how life's just getting so easy. You know, I order food and I don't even have to talk to anyone, which is great. Yeah, yeah, right, Totally. But that in some ways, you know, how I interpret it, to be dangerous is like to consciously reintroduce certain friction in our life, the good kind of friction that causes us to grow. And so, you know, how do you. How do you see this lack of living dangerously, let's say, how has that shown up and, you know, guys you've worked with throughout the years.

Tripp Lanier: Well, I'll just. I'll just speak personally because I'm 52 now. I like comfort, I like certainty, I like looking good. I've kind of built a nice little, little pad for myself here. And so if it's so easy for me to be unconscious and just whatever choices come at me through the day and just be like, yeah, let's just do the comfortable thing. Yeah, let's just play it safe here. Yeah, let's just make sure we look good here. Just have that become the purpose of our. My life. And I think this is true for a lot of us, that if we look at the purpose that's underlying all of the choices we're make, we kind of are moving in that direction. And so our lives get smaller and smaller. So I. I feel this. I. Even though I wrote a freaking book about it, I can feel this gravitational, this, this for this force that wants to pull us into this place.

Jason Lange: And.

Tripp Lanier: And for me, I feel. I feel like it's easy to go just like sleepwalk through life. And I want to take responsibility for that. Like, I have to work at this. I have to work at this. And like, yeah, go talk to that person, even though you don't want to. Right. Go talk to the person that's bringing your food. Like, get out of this place where it's just so easy to avoid these things. Because when I personally avoid these things, my life feels smaller and I feel. I feel more fragile and I can feel where it's like I'm just closing myself off from all these opportunities. If I won't do the small things that feel a little dangerous, then I'm certainly not going to lean in and take bigger risks in service of what I really want in life. So I didn't answer your question, but we can come back around to that.

Jason Lange: Yeah, no, that's great. I'm curious for you. How do you know when. Let's say you're in a dangerous moment in the good way, like what. What happens for you or what do you feel in your nervous system or body to kind of give guys a frame or an anchor?

Tripp Lanier: I think I've learned the voice, these protector voices. If we were to use some kind of ifs language, like there's just protectors, like, ah, we don't have to do that. Like, there's this kind of procrastination flavor to it. There's a dismissive like, well, that's not a thing. Or it just. It feels young to me. It feels like the part of me that just wants to sit on the couch and watch TV all the time and let life go by. So for me, there's a certain flavor. And I know if I listen to that, I can hear it and be like, oh, okay. And then it doesn't mean that I do everything that is challenging or everything that comes like that's certainly not it, but I do want to be aware of it. I want to be aware more and more of when I am choosing to be contracting in my life or, or and have the opportunity to expand a bit more.

Jason Lange: Okay, awesome. And one of the cool things you, you share a lot about in your story, which I, I gotta also just preface here. I switch between reading it and listening to it and it's funny as shit to listen to it. Your, your full humor comes through your voice. So highly recommend that. Um, but you share a lot of your personal story of in some sense finding a certain type of success pretty early in life with an early career and business you formed. Um, but then, you know, I would say 20 to 30 years sooner than some men found some things that weren't working with that in a sense or, or hit the limitations of that. And I'm curious. Yeah. What did you discover in your path there about this? Kind of like what it really means to live on purpose or be successful that I know you've experienced and I'm imagining you've worked with quite a few guys on as well.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. I can think of two experiences that happened within. Well, they were in conjunction with one another and that I went through a really difficult time in, in my 20s where I was grieving an event that happened in my teens. And there was a point in that really heavy place that I realized there was no amount of money that could get me out of that. That the peace and grounding that I was seeking, like this, this, like, please help me come back. Like, please help me come back to my life. And I want to feel, quote, normal. There was no amount of money that would help me. And I thought that was really interesting considering that so much of life is about money. Money is our God in so many ways. Like, and I'm not saying money is bad, but there is an aspect of that is like, well, money will solve the problems that I have. And so that was a valuable lesson to realize that it wasn't going to solve that problem. And then from there I, I, after that experience it was like, yeah, what the, what the heck am I really doing? And I was fortunate enough to, to build a small business and, and do well for myself and, and realize, okay, this is essentially it. I could coast from here on out and just keep doing the same thing for the next 30, 20, 20, 30 years. And it was scary to me. That much certainty, that much predictability felt very uncomfortable now I was still a very young man, but at the same time it was just like this isn't what I really feel like I'm here to do. And so I recognized what was holding me back was, well, here's your comfort, here's your certainty and people will think you're the biggest moron on the planet if you were to sell this thing and move on. And like, what an idiot you are. There wasn't a lot of encouragement of like, yeah, man, you got to this place, what's the next phase? What's the next chapter? It was like, no, you get here and you hold on, you anchor in. And so I was up against those things without really knowing it at the time. Time. But it just internally I was like, this isn't what I'm called to do. This isn't really what this is about for me.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And I mean, you work with some pretty kick ass men just from, you know what I've, people I've heard you interview and talking about some of the clients you work with, you know, high powered CEOs, Navy SEALs, performance athletes. You know, what's going on in a man's life by the time he gets to you, like, what kind of pain is he in or what's he coming up against in some of these men you're guiding at this point?

Tripp Lanier: I would say a big part of it is there's been this massive investment in themselves and achieving and accomplishing and getting to a certain status in life. So that can be financial or it can be, you know, I've, I've reached this stage and I have these titles and this notoriety and, and you know, look at me. And there's a big disparity between what they thought it was going to be like and what it is like they got to this place and it didn't solve all the problems that they were trying to solve early on in their life. They thought if I just did X, if I just got to Y, if I just became this other person, I'll be set for life. I'll. It'll all be every. It's smooth sailing from there. And they get to this place and they're like, wait a second, I must have screwed up. Or they've, they've gotten to this place before and the goalposts move and they keep striving for more and more because it doesn't feel right. And they're like, I can't keep doing this. And that's a big part of it too is they're like burning out, trying to play the game they played in their 20s. Even though it doesn't work for them anymore. And so they're not recognizing that there's a developmental shift. We're growing as men, we're maturing. And so what got us off in our 20s and early 30s and on, it doesn't work for us. As we get older, our values change, our identity changes. And so it's up to us to pay attention to that information, recognize, wait a second. This doesn't mean things are wrong, but it is an opportunity to grow. It is an opportunity to make a shift. And again, if we're scared, if we don't want to give anything up, if we think, like, if I make a move, it's all going to blow up, that can be really terrifying. And they'll feel stuck.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And you have this great part of the book that I feel like speaks to that maybe that discovery some guys have of going underneath the surface of really kind of dissecting the difference between, I think you call it an outcome and an experience of, you know, we're men, we do men's work. We like goals. I gotta hit the outcome, the number. Once I X, then I'll feel, why explain a little bit about what that difference is of an outcome and an experience. And I think how a lot of us get on the escalator thinking one thing, but we're actually getting stuck on the other.

Tripp Lanier: So as a coach, it's natural that goals are a part of the work. Right. And I realized that I was working with people and they're like, yeah, this. I'm hiring a coach because I want to go from A to B. Like, there's this place, and if I get here, you know, that's what I'm going to do. And I never really bought into that just from my own experience. And so I started asking, like, well, what do you think is going to be different about your life when you get there? Oh, well, I'll have flexibility. I'll have freedom. I'll, you know, I'll be able to do. Nobody will tell me what to do. Okay. We started to. I started to really pay attention to what they were really hoping would be different. And so if they were to have this outcome where they bought the house in this zip code or they got this money, or they married this type of woman and had a family, like, whatever it is, like was this objective, measurable thing, okay, this is what I'm going for, that they had a theory. It was a theory that they would feel something different, they would experience something different. Accumulating that or achieving that would mean that they would feel different. Than they do right now. And so this was a strategy. If I change this, if I acquire this, if I become this, if I accomplish this, I'll feel different. Okay, well, let's talk about what you really want to feel then. And what I found was that a lot of guys were achieving and acquiring and moving up the ladder. And some of them felt trapped. A lot of them felt drained. A lot of them were in marriages or isolated from people or isolated from their friends. They felt. They felt alone, Especially guys that are in leadership positions. Basically everybody was. They could hire and fire, and it was like they were afraid of them. And a lot of them were either bored because they were coasting like I would have done if I stayed in that previous job, or they were overwhelmed because they're just constantly in this more, more, more phase. And I said, well, if we don't want to be trapped, that tells me we want to be free. If we don't want to be drained, that tells me we want to be alive. If we don't want to be isolated, it tells me we want deep connection and love. And if we want. If we don't want to be bored or overwhelmed, then we want peace of mind. And that started to click with me. And I never met anybody that was like, yeah, I want to be trapped or drained or isolated or bored or overwhelmed. But when I talk about freedom, aliveness, love and peace, there's a, like, there's a head nodding. It's like, yeah, especially aliveness, that has a lot of juice for men. And so it's like, well, what if we started to allow more of that today, not just when you accomplish this outcome, and then we can move towards the outcomes we want. But a lot of times, if we start to look at where we can experience greater freedom, aliveness, love and peace today, oh, there are opportunities here. I've just fixated on this ideal future instead of where I am right now.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's so great because that you point to kind of one of the myths I think a lot of men, myself included, have fallen for is, oh, once I X, then I'll get to feel or experience why. And the thing that's continued to shock me is I've both hit my own milestones and worked with men is, oh, wait, I hit the goal. And I'm still, still not feeling that. No, you know, oh, now it's got to be that paycheck or that thing. So maybe it's not about that outcome. So that was such a potent thing when I was reading that. And one of the ways I work with a lot of men is still around, like, dating and relationships. And that's one of the first things we often work around guys with, because there's often the checklist in our head of, oh, I want a person who's like, this, this, or this. And then a lot of guys I work with end up getting around that woman, and turns out they feel like in their bodies, they're anxious or they're nervous, they don't feel comfortable with her. And so by shifting it to, like, how do you want to feel with someone? It's like such a different experience to, oh, yeah, that person hits all my checkboxes. But I actually don't feel relaxed, alive, you know, connected in any of those states. And it's great. You have the poster of those four things right behind you there, so people on video can see those. Um, and because I want to dig into them more. And the first one I want to start with is peace, because I think that you. You kind of hit such an interesting definition of it. Because oftentimes, right when I'm working with men and they think of peace, they just think of, well, no conflict, right. Playing it safe, comfort. How do you differentiate the peace you're speaking about from, you know, the opposite of dangerous, like we were talking about in the beginning? Because they're very different in. In how you kind of lay it out. But I want to hear your words even more than mine.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. The irony is that freedom, aliveness, love, and peace are going to challenge us to go into the places that are uncomfortable and risky and, you know, we might look like a. And so the. When it comes to peace, I like to think of it like, let's say we've got a toothache. I can guzzle Jack Daniels and take painkillers, but that gives me comfort. That gives me a temporary comfort. And so if I'm in a relationship and we're not dealing with what's going on, there are little things that we do to buy time and have comfort. Like, we just kind of brush stuff under the rug. We avoid conversations. We just kind of stuff things inside. And we might have a temporary sense of comfort or kind of like keeping things safe up on the top, but we're not dealing with anything. And. And what that has it is erodes our peace of mind. It kills us inside. Peace, though, if we come back to the. The tooth, it's pulling that damn thing. It's dealing with it. It's going into it instead of avoiding it. And that might be painful. There Might be discomfort, like real discomfort in the moment, but it's getting dealt with. And I've noticed that in my own life and when I work with other people is that when we identify what needs to be dealt with and we choose to turn into it, even though there's still a, like a fear and anxiety, there's also underneath that a deep sense of peace, of like, finally, I'm dealing with this. I'm not running from it anymore. It's a strange sensation. I don't know if you've ever had this, but there's just like, I'm no longer running from this. Even though I'm going to do this very difficult thing, it feels right. This feels like the right thing to do, even though it's very difficult. And that's. That to me is the difference between this kind of short term comfort versus peace.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I see that so much. It's played out in my own life and I just really loved the definition there because it, it kind of shook up, you know, peace and how a lot of guys I work with think about it. That, yeah, it's not necessarily comfortable, but it's like a, it's. It's a deeper type of relaxation. Right. You know, one manifestation of this I, I feel like is in my marriage, we've now gone through some really challenging things with each other. That what's actually more relaxing now is not that we're going to not hit more challenging things. It's that I trust we have a process to work through that conflict. So that's what I trust. Not that it's going to be easy or I'm not going to like shit the bed sometimes or be scared or whatever. It's. Oh, there's a deeper piece in our duo of we can navigate this stuff as uncomfortable as it still often is. And I see that a lot. I do a lot of shadow work with guys these days. Emotionally, same thing. There's the, you know, whether it's some grief or anger or deep fear about something that has been held onto every second of every day, some part of our resource is going to kind of locking that down. And on the other side there's like that deeper. Whatever energy was being used to hold that is now released and it's free to me to put towards the things I want to put them towards again.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah, it's not about building a better castle. There's an armoring that we can have. If I get enough money and I can get enough things that I can armor myself with and I can protect myself from every possible angle and every possible attack. That's a defensive way to move through life. And we. We do need boundaries. We do need to have defenses. I'm not. I'm not neglecting that, but I think that. That if that's the strategy, if that's the strategy we're bringing into our marriage or our careers, we're going to be in a constant state of anxiety. And the reason why is because we're uncertain about where the next attack's coming from, and we don't really feel that we can do something about it. When you described what you were describing with your wife, what I heard was, we don't know what's going to happen. At some point, something's going to happen, but you know what? We can handle it. We'll figure it out. We've learned the skills, We've learned how to work with each other. And there's the peace of mind. There's. There's someone I worked with that was worth a lot of money. He decided to retire, and one of his investments went tits up, and he's freaking out, even though he has plenty of money. But the. The thing he fears is he's like, I can't go make more. This is the. This is the belief. So he lives in this state of scarcity because the lifestyle he's chosen, he can't really afford at this time. And I'm like, or you could go make more. Right? Like. Like, wouldn't that feel powerful? Instead of, oh, God, I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose. Even though he's got plenty, he. He. The fear is. Is lost, but he doesn't realize that he can go make more. He can. He has options there, and that's what kills our peace of mind.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love that. And it makes me realize the kind of. What it means to play full out is another way to think of, I think what you're talking about with dangerous in that, certainly in my experience, and then, you know, particularly around women and stuff. For a lot of guys I coach, the freedom of I took my shot is very different from the freedom of, oh, I was too scared to go for it, and I'll never know. It's not that it's not uncomfortable and it doesn't sting, but there's a certain peace when it comes to, well, I can fall asleep tonight because I know I kind of did my part in the world, and that's part of what I hear you. You speaking towards in this piece, that it's another way to maybe put it is it just, it's, at least for me it's been a shit more empowering. It's just like, oh, I have control, I have agency in my life. Right. There's a certain peace that comes from, you know, taking responsibility for that. That not, you know, we don't always want to do in all aspects of our life.

Tripp Lanier: Not easy, right? Not easy.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And so yet I just want to. We're going to go through these. Love. So love and connection. Yeah. You know, I do Menswear. Not the first word that often comes up for successful, high achieving men. Yeah. Dig into love a little bit more here and how you've experienced it and seen, you know, maybe underneath what a lot of guys think they want. What made this one show up.

Tripp Lanier: Love's the thing, man. So that's why it's a different color. Right. It's where everything arises from. Right. So we could, we could go on the, the esoteric here for a while. But I, what I found, it's just underneath it all when it, when a guy is. And we've been there, we've both been in there, you crumbled on the ground and it's. And then you've got like, what's left is love. Right. It's like who. That's what we look for in that dark moment where money wasn't going to solve my problem. It was love. It was love that I was seeking. That connection that I was seeking. Like everything starts from that place. And so I think a lot of us are confusing attention and validation with love. I like to get attention. I like to get validation. But we can look at it through the lens of junk food versus what's really nourishing for us. And I think a lot of us don't realize that we can develop skills to navigate relationships in a way where we can have genuine connection and genuine interactions with folks and really experience that love. A lot of us are kind of in that castle mode. We don't really talk about what we're truly thinking and feeling and wanting. And so we're always at an arm's distance from, from those that are around us. And so I think that whether it's connections with others, but also just deep connection within ourselves, deep connection to what we can't see, those are all really beautiful, nourishing places that we often cut ourselves off from because we're, we're so fixated on the future.

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's definitely one I see it with a lot of guys I work with is just malnourished like just on output for. So holding their family, holding their job, holding their whatever. And you know, some men literally have no training as to how to even receive love. And it's like, oh, hey, there's actually people around you trying to love you. Are you. Do you know how to say yes or let that in? And they're like, no. And you know, that's been an edge for me too, to just, okay, let, let it in, let it in. So I think that's such a really potent one that I think a lot of guys just miss.

Tripp Lanier: I think I've seen it over and over again that these, especially at the more like the achiever types, there's this kind of thing that can get really ramped up about this ideal future. And then when they actually start to genuinely receive love in their lives, they're like, why did I want all that shit? Like, it's okay if you want to go create stuff, it's not the problem. But, but what they, what they were doing was, it was that theory. That's where I'm going to feel loved, that's where I'm going to feel enough. And it doesn't usually add up that way. But if they, if they can allow love into their lives, they might start to realize like, I didn't really want that to begin with. I just really wanted to, to have this experience.

Jason Lange: Yeah, amazing. And I want to save aliveness for last. So I'll go to freedom next. Okay, tell us about freedom. I mean, is that I just get to do whatever the fuck I want whenever I want. You know, date whoever, sleep with whoever. Like no morals. Freedom mean no morals?

Tripp Lanier: No, no, it's not hedonism and it's not. I think a lot of people just think of, kind of think of this first level of freedom as flexibility. Oh, I want to work from home two days a week, right. Like, and, or I, I want to be able to kind of dictate how I do X, Y and Z with work or something like that. And that's, that's a level of it. But I, I think on a much deeper level, we're wanting permission to be who we truly are. There's a role we've learned to play to be safe, to be accepted and to succeed in life. And a lot of us may not even realize we're playing that role. It just became second nature. But there's a tension the further out of alignment that role is with who we are at our essence. There's a friction, there's a grind that's happening inside. And we can misinterpret that. To believe I must not have enough. I must not be enough. I must not be doing it enough. And so freedom to me speaks to this permission we give ourselves to, like, no, you get to be all of who you are. Not just the good parts, not just the parts you like to present to the world, but also like, yeah, these other, other aspects of you that might be a little weird for other people, they're part of you too. You get to embrace them, you get to accept them as well, and you get to bring them in, into this world. And I think freedom, how I'm referring to it in this book, is starting from that place, is that that permission that we give ourselves. And it's not hedonism, it's not the let me go do anything that I feel at any given moment. Because I think ultimately that doesn't provide us peace of mind. I've been able to have some pretty hedonistic times in my life. I was in a rock band for years. I have a sense of that. But I never felt like that was truly satisfying. I never felt like that was where I felt at peace. I normally felt like Jesus Christ, I can't believe I did that. So that wasn't peace of mind, right? Binging and piling on that stuff doesn't really give us what we're looking for. But through maturity, I think we start to find like, oh, this is what's nourishing. This is where I really feel more expansive and more whole and more me.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love that. And I think that ties into someone else. Sharing is what's become a good compass for me in terms of even. What relationships do I want to invest in? You know, when I'm with that person, do I. Do I feel more free to be myself or, you know, am I in the more prove or whatever kind of side of I have to put up some kind of artifice. And the. The exhalation, at least I witness in a lot of men when they get into that space is just so great of like, oh, fuck all that stuff. All those calculations I think so many of us men are constantly making when that gets to just release. So, so incredible to witness and feel.

Tripp Lanier: I'm sure you've. I'm sure you've seen this many times in men's groups, but it's just like, there's one guy that brings up exits happening in his life, and you can almost see other guys just like, I'm not the only one. And there's this exhale. It's like, you did the work for me today, I tell you. And it's just this. Like, I'm free from this prison that I've kept myself in, that I'm the only one, and I have to hide this. And out of 8 billion people on the planet, no one will understand. It's just like, what a terrible place to. To encase ourselves in.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's one of the great things in groups is seeing that unbur. The collective unburdening of. Oh, we have to. Oh, no, we don't have to. So great.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. Listen to that language. We have to. Right? That's a. That's a construct.

Jason Lange: Right.

Tripp Lanier: It's bringing us in.

Jason Lange: Yeah, exactly. Okay. And then. Yeah. I really wanted to end this. This quad here with aliveness. A. Because it's just. Personally, one of the things I've always enjoyed about connecting with you is there's just a sense of aliveness that I've always felt in your presence and how you engage with your life. And I would say, my word, I kind of put with that is playfulness. And. Yeah, I would love to see. Just kind of talk me through. Yeah, Aliveness and how it shows up in your life and how it does or doesn't show up in many of the men you work with.

Tripp Lanier: I think aliveness is shifted for me as I've gotten older. I think it's always been the same thing. I think just the flavor might have changed. It's not the adrenaline jacked up, fists in the air, wind. That's great. I can certainly appreciate that. I go surf and catch a wonderful wave, and it's just an exhilarating feeling. And that is certainly alive. That is certainly a sense of aliveness there. But what I'm speaking to in the book. In the book is more of this deep sense of being fully here. Not in the future, not in the past, but really here. I feel this. I feel alive. And I have had moments in my life where I was doing something and there was this calm, grounded centerness, but there was almost like this. This thing in my head. I was like, this is why you're alive. Like, there was a. An affirmation of that, and it wasn't in that. There was no fist pumping and no arms in the air and, you know, yelping or anything like that. It was a different thing, and it was very kind of deep. And it was as if something was expressing itself through me and as me rather than something that I grasped and achieved. So I don't want to shit on the first type of aliveness, because that's really fun, and it makes life really, really exuberant. But that deeper aliveness of just being fully here, and that's. That's a different flavor. And in terms of playfulness, I think when we talk about how these all relate together, for me, when we start to take our seat in freedom, aliveness, love, and peace, I think. I think life can become more play because we're no longer in such a defensive posture. We're no longer guarding against discomfort and instability and uncertainty and, oh, God, what might people think? There's. There's just a natural confidence and groundedness. And so for me, my temperament, my type, my essence that shows up as like, well, then this is this. Now we're playing, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Tripp Lanier: Instead of like, oh, gosh, what's my. What's my wife gonna think of me if I try this in the bedroom? It's like, let's give it a shot, right?

Jason Lange: There's ye.

Tripp Lanier: Or what about this? If I say this on a podcast, like, there's. I could be defensive, where it's like, fuck it. Let's see. Right?

Jason Lange: There's.

Tripp Lanier: It's just. There's. There's an energy that comes through and exudes through us, and to me, it feels like play now.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I love it so much, as I've often joked with my wife, of creating a T shirt that just says grumpy, tired and burdened. Like the masculine disposition. And I love that you highlighted this one because. Yeah, play and aliveness and that presence. Right. Is such an antidote to that that even. It's one of the things I've grown to appreciate over the years. You know, again, partly seated because of experiences you co created for me of, you know, we could be doing, like, really deep work, and it could be funny as, like, in the same moment. Right. Like, huge grief release. And then there's like. And then there's the best joke in your life, like, right there. And that lighthearted is. Is such good medicine. And it. One of the other reasons I really loved that you highlighted this one is something I've very hard been practicing very hard to live more in my life of. Remember, I read this book from this teacher, actually, I saw it. This Buddhist geeks things from a friend of ours, Rick Hansen, who did Hard Wiring Happiness, and he just talked about, like, the neuroscience, right, of negativity bias. And it's like, bad moment gets in right away. And he was like, yeah. The research is basically like, if you're having a good Moment. You have to sit there for, like, a minute and say, this is a great moment. I'm enjoying my life right now. Like, and you have to hold it to really let it sink in. And when I saw the. That aliveness as like, a really a manifestation of just being deeply present, it really struck a chord to me. Because, you know, you're a father, I'm a father, and I'm in the earlier phase, and it's just like, you know, every month it's a different kid looking back, and it's like, oh, you know, a lot of the day, I'm so busy. I got to do this. I got to work really hard so I can make a lot of money so I can be present with my kid eventually. And then I'm there instead of actually being present with the child that, you know, is growing up in front of me. And so that practice of aliveness, of just, oh, can I fully give myself over to this moment and just really enjoy it for what it is, is such a big one. And what I would say brings a lot of men to some of the groups I. I run, they're just, like, rung dry. There's just. There's just no. Nothing left.

Tripp Lanier: And.

Jason Lange: And to see men come back alive is just. Is literally probably the most rewarding thing I do in work, Whether it's through play or emotional release or just that exhale of unburdening in one that I just feel like so many men are malnourished on that I work with.

Tripp Lanier: I wonder if you'll agree with this, because there's a. The examples I gave and even the examples you gave of, like, kind of being in this place of malnourished, there's a withholding. There's a, you know, this kind of holding back, and just, like, everything's got to kind of be held within and. Yeah, that's the grumpy. What did you say? Grumpy, tired. What?

Jason Lange: And burdened. The essential masculine disposition.

Tripp Lanier: I've got a wife, I got a kid. I got a puppy that bites me in the dick when I come downstairs. So it's like, I get it, all right? I've got my version too. So. But there's something about aliveness. Is that the. The doorway to aliveness is where is there a little death? So if I'm avoiding these places, there's a little thing like, if I step my toe over this line, there's something at risk here. Little bit. Not big risks, but little risks. And that's where it starts to be fun. It Starts to be fun when we start to take little risks. And so whether I'm in a men's group and it's like, hey, I like ABC and hot butter in my ass crack. And like, who. Anybody else and, you know, somebody else, like, it starts to get fun. If we're willing to play with those boundaries, a little bit of like, oh, I gotta. I gotta stay within here and I'm stuck in here. There are. If we're looking for aliveness, start to look for little chances and little risks that you can take throughout your day. Little ones. So socially, ask someone a question that you wouldn't ask at the grocery store or give somebody a compliment or hold a lady for an old, you know, an old lady getting into her car, like, hold the door. Just find these little things where you're like, that'd be fucking weird. People think you're weird. If you do that, we'll do it. And you're probably like, look, just energy just comes alive in us and it's like, yeah, there you go. It's effusive. And so if we understand that we're avoiding those places all the time. Those are the doorways. Like, places that are narrow are often okay. There's aliveness on the other side.

Jason Lange: Oh, I love that. Look for the places that are narrow because those are your doorways. That's such a beautiful image. Yeah. Just feeling the contours of that in my own life, even. How cool. And so, you know, I'm curious. One other part I wanted to ask you about because, I mean, you do work with a lot of high achievers and how have you found or what do you see? Like, because, you know, there's this emerging thing that literally the name of your show is the New Man. Right. Trying to go beyond a lot of the old definitions. Where does emotion come into play for, like, you know, integrated, modern, dangerous man?

Tripp Lanier: I mean, it's. It is. It is huge. I. I think it's a yin to the yang of this objective reasoning, rational stuff. And I think that emotion gets a bad rap. We learn early on that we can't trust emotions and we can't trust our emotional world. Why? We're young. It's a lot to handle. It's a lot to be with. And then also it's like, if I get emotional, if I get sad or I cry or something, then. Well, then I'm going to be chastised for it. So it's easy for us as men to shut down our emotional world. We don't recognize that our Emotions are really powerful guidance system like. Like we can learn to listen and recognize that this is where things go. This is where I feel more lit up. This is where I feel more contracted. You were talking about the relationship relationship stuff earlier. I identify more as a creative. I came up, I went to art school, I was a musician. So when I'm working with achievers that they're very much future oriented. Like you put a plan together, you put it on the wall, it's a chart. All this stuff, it seems to be. It's a void of any kind of interiors. And that's okay if that works for them. I recognize everybody's got a different temperament, but when it asks, like for a creative person, there's. There's a reason why that cord goes there. There's a reason why that scene goes in the movie. There's a reason why we use this lens versus that lens. Is there? It's because there's just a felt sense that that's. That's what's needed there and that comes from inside. And if we lose touch with that, we'll kind of wonder why. We've got plenty of shit, but none of it feels right. Like there's this kind of emptiness or it feels off track. But if we can embrace that, we have a part of us that likes to use maps and vision and all that kind of stuff. But then ultimately come back to. We have, we have some feedback that's letting us know I'm not quite, you know, this doesn't feel quite right or this is getting more and more draining. We can learn to access that too. So I like to have both of those and not play one or the other.

Jason Lange: Yeah. It's striking me, for whatever reason, for the first time, first time maybe that, you know, sometimes guys have a little resistance to the emotional stuff. In my experience of why do I need to do that? You know, be stoic, like just hit the goal and go. But I mean really instinct is just emotional content, right? If we're not in touch with our emotions, we're not going to be really connecting to instinct. It's maybe just a more masculine way of saying it. It's like all that stuff that's happening in your body that helps guide you so that. Yeah, it's, it's appreciating that takeaway just from what you said.

Tripp Lanier: It's also like I. I like certain emotions, I don't like others. So there's this kind of preference, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Tripp Lanier: I don't know about you. Mine's more of a Pipe. Like, they're all in there.

Jason Lange: Yep.

Tripp Lanier: And I spent many years of my life trying to, you know, repress certain emotions. Grief, you know, sadness or whatever. And it was cutting me off from a lot of other things. Everything became. My life was essentially this really narrow band of experiences. And so if we can learn through experience that we can handle emotions, that they can move through us as electricity moves through a circuit. Oh, well, it comes and it goes. And I'm not. I don't. I don't necessarily enjoy feeling sadness or anything like that, but it's part of that piece that we were talking about earlier. It's like, all right, I don't want to do this, but I can do this. Like, I can have this experience. Well, then we also just feel more expansive. We're allowed to be with all of who we are, and I think that's what we. As we were talking about. This is what we're really wanting when we talk about freedom and aliveness.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah. And just. It's so funny that that pipe metaphor. You were the one that gave it to me. I can remember. I remember now, like. And how formative that really was for me in particular, and how, you know, back in that day, gross simplification, but kind of my range was good, bad, and fine.

Tripp Lanier: Like, Right. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And like a lot of men.

Tripp Lanier: How are you?

Jason Lange: I'm fine. I'm good, bad.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Like, there's not. It doesn't leave much room for feeling freedom, aliveness, love, or peace when that's the range. And the willingness to open up to some of my deeper grief and hurts and fears has totally allowed that other side to greatly expanded. Yeah. It's so fun connecting the dots, even on that. Back to you.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah. And even if, like, oh, I want aliveness, well, how would you know? It could come out of the toilet and bite you in the ass and you wouldn't know if you've shut down that part of your life, if you've put duct tape over all the gauges on your dashboard, you numbed yourself to this part of your world. How would you know? How would you know it was right here, right now?

Jason Lange: Oh, so true. And as we start to wind down here, I'll be mindful of time. The other part, something else I wanted to ask you about was. Yeah. The. The. Your experience, both in your own life, as much as you'd like to speak to it, and in men you work with, of. Yeah. The power of a collective in a group that, you know, there. There's a lot we can do. One on one and alone. And there's also something else. And again, you know, one of the first places I really got to know you was not only in one on one coaching you were doing with me, but you led really the first men's group I was in and have been deeply involved in the scene for, you know, far longer than I. So I'm just curious. Yeah, what, what do you see like in terms of what's possible or useful or what do some guys not get about the power of, of growing together or relating or connecting or whatever that, however you might want to phrase that.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah, well, first I have to say I miss it. You know, I, I have moved around and where I live now, I've not been in a men's group for years. And so I remotely, I'm still connected to a lot of the people that are, that served in that, in that function. But the power of being in the group I haven't experienced in many years. So when you talk about and you're back with those guys, there's a part of me, it's like, like, man, that's really, I'm just envy, like, it's like really, really happy that you have that. And also like, wow, I can feel that I'm missing that because I know that I'm at my best when I'm in that environment as well. And so I think. What, what. Here's, here's one thing that I've noticed. I've been talking to more and more younger guys. Younger, meaning anybody younger than 52.

Jason Lange: Right.

Tripp Lanier: But there's a generation that's coming up. They're more apt to do medicine journeys and they're more apt to talk about their feelings with chat GPT.

Jason Lange: Yes.

Tripp Lanier: But there's this chasm of relationship that they're not grasping and they don't have any idea of what, what's really possible there. So they'll go be in a room with a lot of others in a medicine journey, but there's no interaction, there's no sharing, there's no challenge, there's no support in that regard. It's like, yeah, we went through a thing, but we're all kind of on our own. There's this individualization that I see happening a lot. I got into this because of the power of being with other men. The first kind of real men's thing I did was going down to Costa Rica and we were told not to use our names or talk about our lives back at home. Well then what the hell do you talk about? And that forced Us to learn how to communicate and be with each other as we were in the moment and be like, reflect how we were experiencing each other at the moment. You can tell somebody about that, but until you experience it and you cut away all of the social stuff and really start to be with other men in that way, you just have no clue of how deeply nutritious that is because there's a nourishment we can only get by being with other men in that context. Not being together, watching the game, not doing that, not, not that kind of stuff. There's something that we only get in that, in that, the context of something like a men's group. And so even, even guys I know that go to churches and do men's groups there, there's still a very safe way that they're approaching it because everybody knows each other's wives and there's a, there's, there's a lot still on lockdown. The places where we feel like we allow ourselves to really be seen and be challenged by other men are the places we get something that we're seeking elsewhere, but we're not going to be able to find it elsewhere.

Jason Lange: Oh, beautiful.

Tripp Lanier: Would you agree with that? That's my, my take 100%.

Jason Lange: Totally. Yeah. I mean it was, you know, we had a wide open field for where to move in the States in a lot of ways. And the fact that I had a group to return to was the single biggest check mark.

Tripp Lanier: Oh yeah.

Jason Lange: What brought me back here because I was like, that's not a small asset to be able to plug into and have like instant community and depth and things that can be hard, you know, to rebuild, particularly as we're older and busy in kids and life and. But that been one of the most life changing things for sure for me is being in a group that can reflect to me what they're seeing week to week, you know, every other week even. And, and then hold me, quite frankly, hold me when I've had the knocked out of me in life. And yeah, you've been working with guys, you know, for a while now. And I'm just curious as we wrap here, you know, what, if anything, has given you hope for men these days? Like anything you're seeing or noticing that feels emergent in these last two decades.

Tripp Lanier: Yeah, well, when we, our mutual friend Casey and I started the New man podcast many, many, many moons ago. What, 2007, I think 2008. I remember in the back of my mind, like, what's the mission? The mission was let's get to a place where this isn't weird to talk about, because at the time, it was so stigmatized. There were not other podcasts. There was. YouTube was not a thing. It was like personal growth, personal development, spiritual development was all feminine. It was Oprah's domain. So there was this, quote, weirdness. It was dangerous. We'll go back to that. It was dangerous to allow people to know that you were interested in this stuff. Like, somehow you were admitting that something was wrong with you. And so it's flourishing. The fact that men are now more open about this and that you kind of have too many options to. To go through. And of course, there's healthier and less healthier versions of this, but the fact that there's more discussion about what's happening in our lives other than what do you do for work and what scotch do you like to drink, I'm really happy about. I didn't think this would happen for another 10, 15, 20 years. Like, it thought it would take a couple of generations. And so I'm really hopeful. And we both have studied evolution in various different ways, and it's just like, yep, you get to this level, and of course, there's the. The. The not so great things, and there's the. The better things. But here we are. It's. It's. It's establishing itself, and it's become, quote, normal that. That guys can talk about this stuff. And I think it's freaking awesome.

Jason Lange: Oh, so great. And yeah, deep, deep. Thank you. And Bow for trailblazing and really leading the way, both for me personally and. And for this whole space that is absolutely emerging right now. So, so cool. And what's the best way for guys to keep up with you and what you're up to?

Tripp Lanier: And. Yeah, well, obviously this book will make you dangerous. Is great. If you're interested in anything we talked about today, you can get that on Amazon or audible there if you want to listen to it. And the. The Newman podcast is still going. Get that wherever you get your. Your podcasts. And then if you want to learn more about the coaching work that I do, just go to trip linear.com.

Jason Lange: Oh, well, thank you so much, man. Such. Such appreciation for your time today. So fun to be here with you.

Tripp Lanier: Great to reconnect.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah. Till next time, guys. You're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary Men. Apply.