Savage & Saint (with Michael Holt)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, guys. So I am super excited to be joined by my brother here, Michael Holt, who is the founder of the Savage and Saint Collective, an international brotherhood built on a tactical framework for integral masculine self development. And Michael has a deep background in meditation, martial arts, shamanism, psychology and. And holistic health and performance. This guy knows his shit and gotten to spend some time with him in circle and in life. And I'm feeling pretty good in my body these days. And a lot of it has to do with some of the wisdom this man here transmitted to me. So thanks so much for being here, brother.

Michael Holt: Thank you for having me, man. I'm happy to be here with you. Always good to rap with you. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And today, you know, we're going to explore, you know, what it means to hold kind of the. Both the primal and the peaceful, which, you know, Michael calls in his system savage and saint. It's such a clear distillation and transmission. So we'll be kind of exploring that. But first thing I'd love, man, is if you could just tell a little bit of your story. Like you, you have a pretty wild past and you came to a lot of this wisdom I would project, you know, pretty hard earned through your life. And I'm curious, kind of what led you to the work you do and the man you've become.

Michael Holt: I don't think there's any other way to come to wisdom than hard earned. If you didn't get it the hard way, you done got it. And yeah, I'm no exception to the rule. Hesitant to call myself wise, but I'm in the business of getting my shit together. And I've been walking this path of getting my shit together for decades. And I can say that I'm pretty thoroughly cleaned up. You know, I really do feel I will risk hubris or arrogance here and say that for me, the healing path has ended. And what is open for me is the path of walking as a healed individual and being really capable of being of service to other people and help them walk their hero's journey through the dark and into the light. And you can't. You're not qualified to facilitate that experience for somebody unless you've walked those miles yourself. And I have, you know, I have A troubled past, as any teacher worth his salt does. I come from Philly and I didn't. I wouldn't say that I had a, you know, a hard upbringing, but not a lot of emotional intelligence. Some trauma that really lived deep in my guts for a long time and dictated my course of action in the world in ways that I was not aware of. And, you know, through various methods with various teachers, you know, I undertook that. That journey of going deep into your own caves and contacting the scary parts of yourself and inviting them in for tea, seeing what they need. Where do they come from? How did you come to be the way that you are and meeting those lesser aspects of your own nature with love and compassion and forgiveness and integrating the lessons that they have to share and inviting them in, inviting their gifts into an integrated self structure that can then be useful in the world. And, you know, you can ride that vessel of an integrated self into your path of meaning. So, yeah, the early chapters of my, you know, personal history involve a lot of booze, some drugs, a lot of violence, some incarceration, a lot of self hatred, you know, a lot of anger, a lot of rage, depression, and it's all been thoroughly cut through. And so, like I said, I'm. I'm in a position where I can see somebody clearly. You know, I can recognize the fragrance of that pain that, that I lived in for a long time, and I can facilitate the journey, of course. Can't do it for you, you know, not possible. You gotta do it yourself. But I got the map.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I'm curious in retrospect, you know, a lot of guys, they. They don't get out, so to speak. You know, whether that's a place like Philly or a place of hurt and trauma. You know, what do you think happened that got you from there to here that not every guy has the opportunity for or doesn't see or doesn't take responsibility for.

Michael Holt: When I look back, man, the only answer I can give to that question is blind luck. You know, whenever I say that, people say, no, no, no, you've done a lot of work. You know, you gotta. You gotta pat yourself on the back. And I get that, and it's partially true, but I've been. I've fallen ass backwards into the laps of real deal teachers who showed me the path. And I was so lucky to find that. You know, it's a. I think you have to open the perspective to some kind of divine intervention. And I consider myself very, very fortunate to have stumbled into very precious teachings that showed Me the path to freedom.

Jason Lange: And then you stuck with it. Which, you know, I do want to give you credit for. Right? Yeah, not everybody does that.

Michael Holt: There's definitely a capacity of stick to itiveness of discipline, really relentless discipline that at the outset of the path is require. But as you stick to the path, the fruits of the practices begin to blossom and the journey to keep going becomes self motivating and self fulfilling. So it's. It becomes quite effortless eventually. But at first, at first you really gotta bite down on your mouthpiece and fucking commit. And it's. That's right, it's.

Jason Lange: It.

Michael Holt: In retrospect, it's way easier to walk this path than it is not to. But from a certain vantage point in the early stages, it's really, really hard.

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally, fully agree. And so break down for us. You know, some of the guys that listen to my show, they're not familiar with you. Break, break down the idea, the philosophy of the savage and the saint for us.

Michael Holt: Well, if you would have asked me maybe 10 years ago, I would have told you that. Well, Saint, you know, the Saint Pole is about the cultivation of a positive affect, the cultivation of positive feeling states, the contemplative path, or the meditative path in service of all beings. And the savage path is about making yourself hard to kill, you know, developing a formidable kind of body mind and cultivating a relentless discipline to charge forward into the scary parts of yourself and really force positive outcomes. But as my perspective deepens through the.

Jason Lange: Years.

Michael Holt: I really more and more see the savage within the saint. You know, I often say, if you do have the good fortune of encountering a bodhisattva, you know, a being who authentically emanates joy from their spine, you know, and who lives tirelessly to help liberate wounded individuals who are suffering. That's a savage, man. That is a savage. And so the saint harnesses this savage discipline to wrangle their own mind, concentrate their own mind to rest fully into the ground of being, and then incline their thoughts and behaviors in a positive direction. So the foundation of any saint is a savage. And so you really have to start by building that foundation of relentlessness. And the ways that I find most useful to do that is in the avenue of your own vitality. You know, if you want to be a truly healthy, happy individual in this culture where that is the exception to the rule, you have to be willing to be an outlier. And that requires some bit of savagery. You got to leave the hero and go your own way. And so the savage and the saint to me is much like the Yin Yang symbol, the Tai Chi symbol, the savage. The eyes of the savage are within the saint and the saint is within savage. And it's just to be complete, you really have to integrate both of those poles.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Oh man, love that and feel that when I get to connect with you, it's really, really potent and profound in ways that I think maybe on the first understanding of that I didn't get until I really got to contact you more. And you know, take this for what it's worth, but a polarity I sometimes feel for you, I'm sure you've gotten. This is fucking teddy bear. Like, yeah, this, this bear could fucking crush my head. But man, one of the things that shocked me the most as I got to know you was just your exquisite sense of sensitivity and honestly, sweetness, which you know, like in that, in that saintly way that you, you live it and it, it feels really good to be around.

Michael Holt: I appreciate that, man. And I'm on a mission really to, to prove to individuals that you don't have to pick one or the other. You don't have to be a namaste numbskull man bun, you know, harmless individual, but you also don't have to be so hyper vigilant and so tough that you, you lose contact with your own heart. It's not an either or path, the path must be both. And it's possible. And I didn't know that was possible. You know, my come up, I didn't really encounter a lot of individuals who were. Who had a, you know, one foot in each pond. But it is rare, but it is possible. And I'm on a mission really to, to prove that, to live that, but also to, to invite that into, you know, the population. Because I really do feel on a soul mission, that's, that's what the world needs. It needs men who are sensitive but strong. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And along those lines, I'd be curious to get your take. You know, it's. It's a popular word. I talk about it all the time. Vulnerability. What do the tough guys get wrong about it and what a kind of, you know, I don't know, the nice guys, the soft guys, the namaste guys get wrong about.

Michael Holt: That's a great question, man. The tough guys get wrong that it's weakness, that vulnerability is. Should be avoided at all cost. And the sensitive, you know, new age types get wrong that it means collapsing into your emotional waves and wearing, you know, wearing some kind of control is not the Right word. Because you don't want to control your emotions, but you certainly don't want to be victim to your emotions. And so I think what they get wrong is that you open the floodgates to your emotion and you, you lose your sovereignty in that. But to me, real vulnerability is taking the armor off and stepping into battle fully exposed. It's entering the war of the human experience with no armor and allowing whatever comes up to come up, but always with the shoulders back and the chest open.

Jason Lange: Wow, fucking love that. And you know, through the work you do in your own experience, you know, what, what does an emotionally evolved man look like?

Michael Holt: So he's sensitive. And a lot of the guys I work with that that word sensitive is to be avoided. I'm thinking particularly of my youngest student, 16 years old, and he's very sensitive. It's his gift. But every time I point that out to him, he's like, oh, I'm not sensitive. You know, I'm not sensitive. But I like to frame sensitivity through the lens of martial art. Look at somebody like Khabib Nurmagomedov, he's very sensitive. Okay? Sensitivity just means the capacity to feel energy. Okay, sometimes that energy is emotional, but not all the time. If you push Khabib, he's going to pull you. If you pull him, he's going to push, he's going to push you. A sensitive martial artist is really just in a perceptual state where they're very in tune with the energy. And because they're in tune with the energy, their behavior, their movements are skillful, so sensitivity is required. And then you bring that sensitivity firstly to yourself so that you can begin to contact and process all of the stuff that's bubbling beneath the surface that you successfully avoided and that our modern culture encourages you to avoid. And you allow those aspects of yourself to liberate. And then because you cultivate the sensitivity in the form of meditation practice, it doesn't go away. When the bell rings, you walk around as a well attuned instrument. And when you're with somebody, you're feeling them, you're picking up this language of vibration and energy. You become very fluent in that language. And because you speak that language well, your behavior is very skillful. And so when you're with somebody, they feel like you're really with them. And for a lot of people, it feels a little scary, a little off putting actually to be so witnessed. There's nowhere to hide. But to bring that capacity to another individual, you have to first bring it to yourself. And you have to take a really unflinching, unflinching look at yourself. That's what the journey to Matt's. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And this is something I work with a lot of guys around that. I like how you phrase that. Because even if you just consider it, you know, the ability to tune in, to be aware, you make better decisions. Right. If you want to be a fucking leader, you want to have as much information.

Michael Holt: Exactly.

Jason Lange: Good information to make an informed decision as you can. And if you're closed or armored or disembodied, you're losing a shit ton of information and trying to grind it out all up here to make the right decision. And oftentimes there's so many layers that you're just. You're missing. And I just really love how you phrase that in the martial arts sense that, yeah, you want to be fucking exquisitely sensitive so you can really be feeling the moment and creating and bringing an appropriate response.

Michael Holt: And to that point, which you made so elegantly, A big part of sensitivity is just having a general baseline of health. The human body mind is the most biologically attuned instrument in the known universe. It's highly advanced and highly evolved. We come stuck with a lot of supernatural abilities. Natural is the key word. And the cultivation of robust health and vitality is the reclamation of what you were born with. Unfortunately, you were born into a culture that has normalized insanity that blunts those capacities. So the mundane, practical things like sleep, hygiene, proper hydration, exercise, you know, nutrition, breath, although quite practical, actually give birth to a very mystical experience of sensitivity.

Jason Lange: And availability. I would say as well, you know, as a father of two and, And a. And a husband, if I don't. If I'm not attending this, guess what? I don't have shit to give my wife or my kids when I. When those rare moments of time come up, like if I'm drained, I'm not available. And it's one of the things I, you know, I did one of your programs a couple years ago that I really appreciated that, you know, we live in a, I don't know, Instagram Y hot sexy life hack, ayahuasca weekend kind of culture. And like, it's not that you were teaching basic stuff, but foundational stuff that as I've, you know, turned more towards it and honestly work with clients around it, it's not the shit that most people get excited about because it's not like super sex, but it's where the movement often really happens in terms of, you know, for me, like, literally what does it feel like to be in my body moment to moment?

Michael Holt: Right.

Jason Lange: If it's depleted, if it's intention, if it's under resourced, if it's ruminating, it's not particularly pleasant. And those things you just listed, you know, as I've. I don't have it ironed out perfectly, but as I put attention on them, yeah, my overall well being has gone up and it's more of like a slow, gradual thing that, you know, we were talking about this like there's a certain addiction's not quite the word, but maybe preference I now have for basic sobriety. Just, I'm here, I'm aware, I'm relaxed. And the work you really support men in was foundational really for me in looking at that. I thought I had some of that shit figured out, but man, I did not.

Michael Holt: Sure, yeah, that's a great point. Earlier you said, you know, the stuff you teach, it's not basic, but it is basic. It's super basic. And in my experience, I had to do a whole bunch of studying in a whole bunch of different domains to recognize that the stuff that actually works is very, very basic. It's very, very simple. It's very, very practical. It's not easy in a culture where the opposite is the norm, but it is simple. And I think oftentimes the reason individuals talk themselves out of the healing path is because they think that it must be complicated and that gives them an excuse not to do it. But really it's very simple. And the true inquiry in the healing path, especially in the modern era, the information age, everybody knows the stuff that I teach. I don't teach anything that is brand new. I think when people's minds blow open a bit in my workshops and stuff is I can connect the dots maybe in a way that they haven't done it before. But like I said, it's not the information. Everybody knows what they could do or should do to take better care of themselves. Where the rubber meets the road is this inquiry. If you know how to take good care of yourself, why aren't you, what is your relationship with yourself?

Jason Lange: Like?

Michael Holt: How do you conceptualize yourself to yourself? What do you think of yourself? You think of yourself as someone worthy of care or not. And those are the threads you want to start to pull on. And that's when you know, the cookie crumbles.

Jason Lange: Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, that's so, so true. You, you, you've been present for a few moments in my life where my cookie crumbled up. Oh, shit. There's there's some loathing in there I had been dissociated from.

Michael Holt: Sure. And where does it come from? And then you start to kind of develop a more coherent narrative around your, your relative self. And then as you clean that up, you know, now you, that propels you forward into a deeper relationship with yourself. Capital S. But the first thing you got to do is get right with the man in the glass and start to take good care of him, you know, start to revere him. And really I think in the interest of keeping everything simple, because it is simple, the healing journey is just making friends with the man in the glass.

Jason Lange: So, so wise.

Michael Holt: Love that.

Jason Lange: So simple. And on this thread I was kind of talking about, you know, in the men's work world and online world, you know, there's, there's kind of the cult of productivity and output and you know, we live in a pretty, I don't know, I would say grind oriented culture of just more, more, more, more and within your framework and you know, a lot of the work you transmit, you do focus a lot on like self leadership and discipline. You know, to you, what's like, I guess, what's like a sustainable model of masculine productivity or you know, how to be disciplined but also not, I don't know, on this escalator or hamster wheel that is so, I don't know, it's just fucking there. Sure.

Michael Holt: Well, I think the pitfall of productivity is a lot of it is tied up with self worth. So there's this unexamined notion that if I produce enough, if I'm becoming successful enough, if I jump through enough hoops, I will eventually encounter a finish line where I can accept myself. I will have earned my own positive regard. And as you know, you know, that finish line never actually comes. It's always onto the next thing, onto the next thing. You know, in my private practice I work with a lot of very high performing individuals who, you know, have more money than a man could spend, who are at the top of their respective field, but it's not ultimately fulfilling. And so a more wise perspective around productivity is to, and this is where I, where I get buy in with guys around emotional regulation. Because for me the prerequisites for lasting productivity for boundless energy is emotional regulation. It takes, you know, there's four ways we experience emotion attunement with another individual. You know, you can, you can really sit and be with somebody and get a feeling in your body for what they're feeling in their body or if you watch a movie and the actor's given a great performance. It moves you so you can feel emotion through someone else. You can generate emotion through your own thinking. Everyone, I always say show of hands, if you've ever thought your way into a really shitty feeling, you know, we can do that. That's what we all do. And then there's the carried feelings that we inherit from our family system that are just kind of hidden in plain sight. So prevalent that they're really hard to even contact. And there's the residue of experiences that we've been through that come with an emotional tone that we haven't fully metabolized. And then there's the reaction to the conditions of the present moment. So where you want to focus is the carried feelings and the unresolved emotions that are living in your body, because those come with a huge energetic cost. To hold all of that stuff in and down beneath the surface of your awareness cost an enormous amount of energy. And as you can start to soften and relax and allow that stuff to begin to self liberate, all of the energy that was tied up in holding it in and down is now free for you to be productive. But this flavor of production is tireless, effortless, and it's not like Sisyphus pulling them, pushing the rock up the hill. It's just boundless. And I've seen it embodied. You know, some of my teachers, elders, men in their middle 70s or older, who are still publishing works, who are, you know, working tirelessly around the clock giving seminars, giving talks, and there's just this aliveness in their body. And I'm, I'm tasting it now. So there's, there's productivity as a distraction against emotion, and then there's productivity as the inescapable consequence of liberating emotion. And that's the productivity that I'm working with. And that's what I'm encouraging people who step inside my circle to taste for themselves.

Jason Lange: That's such a beautiful frame and way to tie in, you know, so much of the emotional work I've got to experience and facilitated from men around shadow and the, the real, the very real metabolic cost. Yeah, that particularly once we hit middle age, starts to catch up with guys, autoimmune disorders, back things, depression, fatigue, and they're like, I don't know why I don't want to really live as well. There's all that stuff you haven't felt that's taking all of that energy to hold it in that you don't realize. And then, you know, we do and it can.

Michael Holt: It can become. It can become chronic pain, sickness, disease. You know, it's a weight that you're carrying. So that's the way I'll frame it to get guys to buy into this difficult work of leaning into what they've successfully avoided for a long time. Because on the other side of liberating it is a new version of you who's put the boulders down and now you can just take off. So skillful emotional regulation in my framework, is a prerequisite for performance excellence. Boom.

Jason Lange: Right there, guys. Double click that. Memorize it. Yeah, it works too. And so another thing I wanted to get into was, right, I mean, you're a very accomplished martial artist, and yet you talk about. I think what might be a surprise to some guys is meditation as the pinnacle, like, of warriorship. What do you kind of mean by that?

Michael Holt: Okay, so, you know, you're familiar with this concept that you have to be really living at your edge. If you. If you're moving towards your edge, you're moving towards your growth, your evolution, your greatness. And so for a warrior, the greatest edge is not necessarily to persevere, to keep fighting. You got an arrow in your back, one in your heart, your neck's bleeding, but you're still swinging the sword. It's not easy, but it's aligned with who you are and how you want to be. Scarier than continuing to fight is surrendering is giving up. But it's not I give up, it's give up. I to surrender this conceptualization of yourself as independently existing, stable, and apart from everything else. So meditation is the gradual surrender of that identity. Not permanently. It's a useful organizing principle that you want to keep in moments, but in other moments, give it up, dissolve. And that's scary, but that's the cost of the mission into the hall of the real warriors. So meditation is the surrender, surrender of all defenses against what needs to be seen, witnessed, felt, and the surrender of your identity. It's really death. The way of meditation is the practice of dying before death and then living as a free individual. So that in. In my conceptualization, in my framework, that's the pinnacle of. Of warriorship. And try, you know, I've said this before. Years ago, I was working in the gyms with clients 10 plus years ago, but I was really heavy into my meditation retreats, you know, long retreat practice. And I would say to my peeps, I'm going to be away for two weeks. I'm going on a meditation retreat. They would say, oh, that sounds so nice. That Sounds that's, that's going to, that's going to be great. I wish I could do that. And it's not nice. It's not great. It's hard as you know, it's removing all distractions and sitting into the moment and contacting reality as it is, not as you want it to be. That's not easy. That's warriors work. And it's really, really hard, especially at first. Eventually opens up to a vantage point of liberation that everything pales in comparison to. But to get the ball rolling, you got to be a, you got to be a warrior.

Jason Lange: Such a great anecdote because it's so fucking true. I'm like, oh my God. There's almost been nothing more challenging than just sitting still for seven days straight, right. With nowhere to go, nothing to do. I'm like, yeah, was not relaxing at all in that sense. It's not like kicking back on a beach. It was one of the most confronting things, you know, I've experienced sitting like that.

Michael Holt: Sure. But it does as you, I'm sure you'll agree, open the door to a, to a state of relaxation that is ineffable. But you gotta pay the cost of admission.

Jason Lange: Exactly. Yeah. There's a certain totally. Um, and then another thing actually, I mean you've, you've actually worked with quite a bit of men really, on the meditative elements. You know, what are some of the, I don't know, big misconceptions or mistakes mental make when you see them approaching meditation?

Michael Holt: I've had the good fortune of being schooled by some real deal bonafide enlightenment based teachers who frame the practice as the path to liberation in this very lifetime. And it's a systematic cultivation of attentional skills that require effort, discipline and consistency. And I think the pitfalls that a lot of guys have, and it's not their fault, it's just the way practice is framed in pop culture is that it should be relaxing and that if it's not relaxing, then you're either doing it wrong or it doesn't work for you. But chapter one in the meditation journey is effortful mindfulness or effortful concentration. Think of it like training a puppy. The puppy doesn't necessarily want to be trained. You got to apply, you know, in the, in the text, in the sacred text, it says at the beginning, the whip and the rope are necessary. So if you're going to tame the wild animal behind your eyes, you got to bring some savagery to it and you really got to go for it. And I've had guys come up to me after a retreat or after I've led a practice and they'd say, I've never heard anybody say, like to try harder. Like initially your effort becomes a hindrance and you have to surrender effort. And then the concentration, the mindfulness becomes effortless. But only after you've gone too far to the point where you start to feel a little bit of agitation. But most guys, if not all guys, need to start with trying too hard and then months, if not years down the line, then start to ease up. But at first it should be, you know, it's like, I got beef with so called meditation teachers. Everybody's a fucking meditation teacher. I live in Venice. Everyone's a meditation teacher. It doesn't mean anything. But just because you say in a breathy voice, and now just relax, press your awareness outside your body.

Jason Lange: And feel the emptiness. Yeah.

Michael Holt: Just because you say it in a breathy voice doesn't mean anyone can actually do it. And because they can't do it, they're thinking, I must not be doing this. Right. It would be like me bringing someone into the gym and saying, Put £225 on the bar and press it over your head. Just because I say it in a, in a sexy, breathy voice doesn't mean they can do it. But you can give someone the progression to be able to do that if they develop the requisite skills and the attributes required. And so that's what meditation is. It's not relaxing, it's not supernatural, it's not even special. It's the training of attentional skills. And over the course of time, those attentional skills coalesce into a vantage point, a perspective that is very liberating. And it becomes the perspective that you view your occurring world through. And your behavior becomes more skillful, your daily life becomes more aligned with your values. Everything starts to clarify, but it begins with hard work. And that's, I think the number one misconception is that don't try hard enough.

Jason Lange: That's so true. I think, I think that just helped me understand kind of, I don't know, the maybe where some of the breakdown is with kind of the, the Oprah stress, stress reduction kind of popularization of meditation, which is very different from what you're talking about.

Michael Holt: Sure.

Jason Lange: And I think that's the one that's kind of sexier to sell on the magazine cover and you know, count your breath for five minutes and all your hormone, your stress levels and hormones will be balanced. But what you're talking about is, I Think it has a much deeper gift definitely. When you contain that beast.

Michael Holt: Yeah. And there's a place and a time for mindfulness based stress reduction and learning how to calm down. And it's all useful, but remember, we're talking about warrior work and this is the path of liberation. This is a tradition that has been passed heart to heart, mind to mind for thousands of years to become absolutely free. And if that's what you're going for, then you really gotta go for it. 5 minutes of half assed practice a day, it might alleviate some of your issues. But it's like using a machete to butter your bread. That's. You can do it, but that's not what a machete's built for, man. It's built to cut.

Jason Lange: That's great. Uh, awesome. And then another thing I've really, you know, I think it's just one of the amazing, I don't know, vibrations I feel from you and that you're putting out. Is that, how do you say it, like health is rebellion?

Michael Holt: Yeah.

Jason Lange: In. In a soft world. Can, can you describe what you mean by that?

Michael Holt: Well, you know, we're on the tail end of the woke. The woke movement and everyone wants to protest and, you know, change these worldly structures and the battle of the sexes and these grandiose plans to bring about change in a new era. But I'm, I'm much more interested in the local revolution, you know, and the local revolution is the cultivation of vitality in a world that encourages depletion and decay, that encourages disconnection from your food and from your breath. The revolution is to stand and fight for freedom. And the best way you can do that is to cultivate a body mind that is fully alive. And that requires drawing a line in the sand and saying, okay. These behaviors, although they may be normal in this culture, they are not, they are insane. And I won't participate. And you don't need to bring anyone else into that revolution. You just gotta live it, really live it. And then what'll happen is you will be in a much greater, you'll be much more effective in your larger revolution in who you can inspire and the changes that you can make at a broader level. But if you're skipping the first step of getting your, getting your own self, you know, optimal, alive, vital, healed, healthy, happy, whole, then whatever you do isn't really gonna help any. And if the only thing you do is get your own shit together, that's enough.

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's actually a massive often win for our entire lineage. You Know, just, I got this transmission of this body mind to a place of health. And, you know, it strikes me part of also what I think makes that dangerous in a good way is at least in my experience, you know, when I'm feeling more in that place of health, wholeness and vitality, it's much harder to sell me shit.

Michael Holt: Totally.

Jason Lange: Right. Because most of the stuff I'm being sold is promising that without any work.

Michael Holt: Yeah. It's sparing you the hard work of actually, you know, addressing your preferences for comfort and laziness. You can just take these pills. Yeah. You don't have to do anything that comes up in the, in the masculine vitality program often because I encourage guys to just, you know, when we get to the, to the block on food and just eat real food, everyone is like, what about my supplements? And I say, well, why don't you just leave them alone for two weeks and see how you feel? And they're all like, I don't need any of this shit. I don't need any of it flushing my money down the toilet. Now, some supplements are useful, you know, but by and large, most people are taking them to let themselves off the hook for all of the poor habits that they're not willing to address.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's the, I, I, I've so been there. And it's the, well, I get to feel like I'm doing something about it.

Michael Holt: Exactly, exactly.

Jason Lange: If I'm taking this. But I don't actually have to change my behavior. And it's alluring. Hey, I get it. I've been there, I've, I've succumbed. And I won't say I won't again. But the more I see it, and the more I just focus on those basics, the more that that need is just dissipating totally.

Michael Holt: Yeah. And the basics, what are the basics? Learning how to concentrate, which is critical. Concentration is a skill that can, can be developed, and there's no upper limit to how concentrated you can become. And when you can concentrate your mind, you start to live with a service animal that is pleasant to be with, that actually amplifies your performance. Learn how to breathe well, and then you can breathe yourself into transcendent states that you feel profound union with the source. Anyone can do it. Anyone can do it. Get good sleep, like really examine your sleep. I'll say in the work, if I had a pill, if I had a supplement that promised to improve your cognition, help you lose weight, build muscle, become a better lover, become smarter, healthier, happier, funnier, would you. No side Effects at all. Would you be interested? That's what sleep is. Drink clean water, eat real food, move your body. Those are the basics. When you address those basics every single day for a significant chunk of time, you know, a couple of months, six months, a year, nobody can fuck with you, nobody can lie to you, nobody can sell you shit. Because you come to this place of deep knowing about natural law, and you become impossible to coerce or manipulate. Now, what might our culture look like if the majority of men were impossible to coerce or manipulate? That would actually bring about a new era. But what is required for that to happen is for you to get your stuff together and me to get my stuff together and forget everything else. Just focus on the man in the glass. That's the revolution. That's health as a revolution.

Jason Lange: Yeah, fucking love that. And, you know, I'm tracing into some of my own history, and it's interesting, connecting some of what you shared around sleep, because there was a time where it'd be very easy for me to, I don't know, fuck around, stay up too late, make myself feel like I was doing something productive so that I could feel better about myself because of all this unaddressed shit inside that I can just see how the knot can start to form of how these things fuel each other. I'm not actually getting rest. And then when I do wake up in the morning, I'm not in that place. And that's a big one.

Michael Holt: Feel a little stress, feel a little cranky. That Cinnabon looks a little more appetizing than it would otherwise because you get a nice little dopamine dump from it. Now, you ate that, so you're feeling a little bubble gut. So do you really feel going to the gym now? Now you have a pretty steady momentum of losses behind you, so you're not going to get to the meditation pillow. You're feeling pretty unfulfilled at night. It hurts, actually, to just sit there alone. So rather than do that, you're going to have your laptop on your chest and scroll YouTube videos instead of going to sleep. But the flip side of the coin is the positive momentum that you can start to build when you address these six things on the daily. So you start to live in the inside of a positive feedback loop. And these six things that I laid out, concentration, breath, sleep, hydration, nutrition and movement, they don't exist in vacuums. They influence each other. So once you start really living in that vibration of vitality, it becomes something that you naturally want to protect and keep fueling and the discipline that is required to get started eventually can just literally just like a snake, sheds its skin. And the discipline's no longer required. If somebody mirrors your day, they think, this guy's a fucking machine. He's a warrior. He must be running only on discipline. You say what? Discipline? No, this is what I want to do. This feels amazing. That's allowing discipline to fall by the wayside and stepping into the path of harmony when the thing that you want to do and the thing that's best for you and your people are the same thing. And so it becomes quite effortless.

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's so. Man, that's so true. I've hit that, you know, a few times in my life. I feel like I'm in a run of that now. And I think how I've always phrased that, that I think matches it. It becomes easier to do the thing than to not do it. It's just like, oh, it's just. It's easier to keep working out. It's easier to keep eating healthy. It's easier to get to sleep because when I don't, I really feel it now.

Michael Holt: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: And it feels so. Ugh. It's just. Oh, it's fucking easier to just do it. And then it self generates and it is quite liberating and not easier.

Michael Holt: Good point. Not easier. Like I have to do this because if I keep doing this, then one day I'll be straight. It's its own immediate reward.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Michael Holt: Good healthy meal becomes it's. As the body becomes more and more clean and clear and you become more attuned to your food and you can actually taste food and your vessel is cleansed. A good healthy meal is its own reward in the immediate. You're not doing this for some future moment. You're already here. Yeah.

Jason Lange: You're living it.

Michael Holt: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Kind of. One last area I want to hit I'd be curious about. You know, obviously I've spent a little time with you, but what role, if any, has, you know, male community had in your personal journey and, you know, how does it now inform what you're up to in Savage and Saint?

Michael Holt: Yeah, it's been, it's, it's been one of the, the levers, I guess I'll call it, that really helped me get out of the muck, you know, and stepping into men's work for me years ago, 15 years ago, it made me want to jump out of my skin, man, to sit in a circle of guys who are talking about their emotional hardships. I'm sitting there Thinking these fucking guys are pussies and I'm a pussy for being here, and I hate this and I hate these people. But then, you know, inevitably somebody says something to you and they see a part of you that you thought you had hidden and. Or somebody shared something that you all you can relate to, but you would have never had the balls to actually admit. And it starts to occur to you that. Or it starts to occur to me that my little prison of pain that I thought I alone was trapped within is a pretty universal experience. And there are individuals who can help me deal just by sitting in a circle together. And then you start to get your act together and then you can help somebody else out. So the men's work, the utility of men's work is liberation from the idea that you alone struggle with sex, with self confidence, with your finances, with all of the things that we all struggle with and getting support and giving support. Because helping somebody out, you don't have to wait until your shit is all squared away and you're perfect to help somebody out. Helping somebody else out is actually one of the best things you can do to help get your own stuff together, to set aside your own misery and pain and show up for somebody else. That's a baptism. And so that's some of the things that I gained from stepping into a community. And now it's something that I foster because I see the profound benefits of transparent sharing. And in my, in my, in the Savage Saint Collective, you know, we go deep. There's no topic off limits and bring anything. But we also around and tell dick jokes and, you know, have fun and that's, you know, that's what it's about. And then there's the whole piece around accountability. So major, that's one of the, you know, the foundational aspects of Savage Saint Collective is you're going to say what you have to do. You know, what you got to do. You're going to tell us, and in two weeks we're going to get back on this call, we're going to ask you if you fucking did it. And everybody says, I did it, but I didn't want to, and if I didn't, if I wasn't being held accountable, I wouldn't have done it. But then you start to get this forward momentum, and then the things that, things that you needed to express to be held accountable for because, you know, you don't have the rocks to actually get it done at some point in the not so distant future, they just become something that you do. Doesn't really. And then, you know, you can continue to level up. So support and accountability also something that I'm huge on in the seven Saint collective. I'm really like trying to. Sometimes it feels like pulling teeth with the guys. But, you know, I never want to be a part of any community where it's always just like unconditional loving acceptance. Like the namaste stuff. I always describe that. There's the. There's the alpha entrepreneur bros. Macho, you know, how much money can you make? How much chicks can you fuck? That grosses me out. They're missing the point. And then the other extreme is the namaste man bun. You know, super soft kind of. That grosses me out too. What I'm building is right in the middle. And so there's definitely support, unconditional support. But I'm always encouraging guys to call each other out on their. Because one of the things I failed to mention a moment ago when you asked. One of the biggest level ups that I've gotten in my foray into men's work is criticism. And I've gotten a lot of praise through the years, but I don't even really remember much of it. It just kind of rolls like water off a duck's back. But when somebody says something to me that kind of calls me out on something that I wasn't aware of, that is a profound gift. And actually in my inner circle, I only allow people in who have the capacity to criticize me because that tells me two things about them right from jump. Number one, you're paying attention. You're actually observing me at a deep level. You're seeing me. You're noticing patterns. You're paying closer attention to me than I can pay attention to myself. Number two, you had the balls to say it. And those are the kind of people I want around me. So that's a good solid criticism is something that's indispensable in men's work.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I think it in my experience as sometimes giving and oftentimes receiving. It's also like you just said, it's what engenders the deepest trust in me. Like when a guy's, you know, the spinach in the teeth kind of moment like, hey, sure, do you fucking see this? And you're like, fuck, ouch. It hurts to see that. But hey, you fucking told me and all these assholes all day didn't.

Michael Holt: Right?

Jason Lange: Right. So now I'm going to be more inclined to, to, to listen to what you have to say. And oftentimes some of the Biggest growth, you know, for me has come from that which, you know, you've certainly been a part of. And in a thread of just, you're fucking really hard on yourself. You know, it's a different kind of like feedback. No, I'm not. I'm like, da, da, da. Here's all the reasons I'm a shithead. And then finally it gets through. It's like, oh, maybe, maybe all these men who are deep and I trust, maybe they're not wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should look at that. Right? And then it's like, oh, fuck. Whole process, you know, unfolded from there.

Michael Holt: I love the way you phrase that. The spinach in the teeth moment. Yeah. Because it's like everybody saw it. But why didn't anybody say anything?

Jason Lange: Right? Because they didn't want to hurt my feelings or didn't know how to say it or just were scared to trigger their own shit. Who knows?

Michael Holt: So there's a place and a time in this work to dispense with the niceties and say some hardcore shit that's going to ruffle somebody's feathers, but it's coming from a deep place of wanting the best for them.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Michael Holt: And that's a, that's an. There's an art to that.

Jason Lange: And I think in my. What I've seen with a lot of guys I've worked with, I think is that is the masculine love so many men are craving that they don't even know they're missing. But once they get it, it's like, fuck, someone cares enough about me to call me on my shit.

Michael Holt: Totally right.

Jason Lange: Never had that before. So awesome, man. Anything else that just comes to mind? You want to share on your mind or heart before we close here?

Michael Holt: Nah, man, we had a great chat. I can't believe that was an hour. Time just flew by. Yeah.

Jason Lange: So what's the best way for guys to learn more about you and keep up with you?

Michael Holt: Savagesaint.com and actually I would recommend go to the website. And there on the website you'll see a pop up for a free email course that I developed. Put a lot of work into it and all you gotta do is subscribe and then over the course of two weeks, you'll get a lesson every other day and it's really deep and take it for what it's worth. And if you dig that, then you'll know that. Okay, maybe I should stay connected to this initiative. You can find me on Instagram Avagensane. But yeah, hit the website. Subscribe to that email course. And let me know what you think.

Jason Lange: I'll put all that in the show notes as well. So thanks so much for your time, brother. Such a pleasure to be here with you. And until next time.

Michael Holt: Thanks bro. Great to talk to you.

Jason Lange: You're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world? Just go to evolutionary men apply.