On Coaching Men to Greater Connection, Success, and Happiness

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FORCY Radio, it's employees their affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show, program, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FORCY Radio, its employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Release Cortez. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program. Exter tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Doctor Lease Cortes joining you live from Dallas homebase for me. If we've not met yet before, you don't know me. I'm a management consultant, organizational local therapist, speaker and author. My team and I, at least Cortes and Associates help companies enliven their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by needing and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant workplace. There, people are intrinsically motivated to perform with their best,

1:30 grow into their fullest potential, and are committed to stay and help you deliver on the company's mission. You'll learn more about us and how we can work together at a last quartz dot com. Now let's set in. Today's program with us is doctor John Schinner, who coaches men to greater success and happiness at work and at home. He recently received the Award for Excellence in Healthcare Leadership in two twenty two and Best Executive Coach in Danville for twenty twenty. His areas of expertise include high performance, stress management, man box culture of psychology, anger management, and creating happy, thriving relationships. Doctor John also hosts The Evolved Caveman podcast to coach men to find success and happiness. We're talking today about some of the challenges men facing today's changing society and how doctor John helps them through to growth and greater fulfillment. You joine to today from Danville, California, outside of San Francisco. Doctor John, Welcome to Working on Purpose, Doctor Lees. How are you great to see you.

2:24 Well, I'm suddenly better now that I've got your company. Thank you. So it's great to be on the other side of the mic with you, and I loved being on your program. Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, it really was. It was so great. So you know, what a great topic, one of my favorite topics of men, So we get to talk about that today. But I wanted to start with your podcast. And what a great name, the Evolved cave Man, right, I mean, it's just wonderful and in your coaching and here you are out to help men to experience more connection and happiness. So at first I need to know of where did you get the idea to actually start the show in the first place, and what are you hoping to contribute with your show? Well, it's interesting, yeah, there's a story. I actually went to a Dan Millman retreat in Costa Rica and I went to a sound meditation, which I had never done before, and I went with my fiance and it's you know, she, the lady leading the meditation, has like sound bowls and like shamanic drums and shamonic chimes and all these kind of cool esoteric instruments, and she kind of had us do this deep relaxation and then she said, you know, you're you're entering a forest and there's an elk there waiting to greet you, and you climb on the elk's back and then she kind of lets you go wherever your mind is going to take you. So the stage is set and then your mind kind of takes over. And in my mind's eye, the elk took me through the forest, over a creek and to a cave and I got off, went into the cave and in the back

3:58 of the cave was a treasure your chest, and in the treasure chest was a headset, a microphone, and a laptop. And I thought to myself, oh shit, I gotta do a podcast. So it could have been called the Reluctant Podcaster because I wasn't you know. I was a little nervous honestly to do it, especially talking to men right about things like masculinity and psychology and emotion and you know those are those are a little bit dicey topics out there at present. And I also felt an obligation, as I've been working with men for twenty plus years to try to help them evolve past where we had been socialized, and that that all speaks to that man box idea.

4:48 Now I have to go back here, were there any like mind altering drugs involved in this experience? Here? I was just just pure not at that time, Okay, I was totally sober. Okay, good um. And you know here's the thing, is the thing the insights that we can we get sometimes high on purpose. Right, It's just it's fantastic drug, this purpose stuff, so very interesting that you got led the way that you did. Um. Okay. So now, but I want to situate you know, there's there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. We see women making significant gains and education, career advancement and pay and you know what I'm wondering about. And I have a few conversations with men not like you do. But what I'm wondering about is what are your thoughts are and how men can adjust this change, to adjust to this changing social landscape, will also maintain their own sense of identity and purpose. There's a lot of shift happening. Yeah, and you put the F in that word. I really like that. Um. I think, you know, it's interesting because I think since the seventies, things have been evolving for women. You know, ever since the advent of the pill, which gave women more reproductive freedom.

5:53 I think since the increase of women working in the workforce giving them more financial freedom, there's been some big changes. And I think rightfully so. And I think there's this is going to be an open simplication, but I think there's two camps of men. There's one camp of men that want things to go back to the way they were in the nineteen fifties, and then I think there's another set of men that are behind those forward, forward progress that women have and are a supportive of it and are trying their best to play a support of an encouraging role. It's it's it's strange to me because I don't at some level understand this whole desire of let's go back to the nineteen fifties where women are barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I think you know, to me, once the genie's out of the bottle, it's out.

6:47 There's no putting the genie back in. And so to try to force control over women's bodies, to try and tell women what they can and can't do, is it strikes me as odd, strikes me as fear based. Yeah. So now I have to ask you, do you have any sense for their proportions there? How many? How many men do you think would would like to see us go back to the nineteen fifties, and how many are more willing to address and be in today's camp? I would say it's if I had to guess, and this is not based on anything, my guests would be about thirty to forty percent are looking to go backwards in time, Okay, it could be as high as fifty percent. And then you've got another fifty to sixty percent that understand that the only way through is to go forward and are looking for ways to incorporate that into their own identity, which is changing, which has to change as a result. And you know, so I think back to your original question. I think the first step is always self awareness. So I think you know, Tasha Yurick's research, which I love, is shows that you know of us will report that we are highly self aware, and in fact it's about ten to fifteen percent, yeah, which you know is scary for those you know eighty eighty five percent that think they're highly self aware and are not. That to me is a recipe for disaster. And so I think, you know, if if we look at self awareness as a foundational skill and then look at Okay, this

8:20 is where we are right now in time, this is where we are in terms of culture, this is where we are in terms of you know, socio political progress. How can I best adjust to these changes so that I can better integrate into the social and cultural milieu. M You know how as you're speaking this, doctor John, I'm really present to you. This last book that I wrote, I just wrote, The Great Revialization, is really about helping companies to get present to what's going on in today's workforce and how you need to really about based change and elevate your practices to be able to keep them fulfilled and want to stay. And of course the same thing is happening. What you're talking about, all this culture change in the world, It does require all of us to change the way that we're interacting with each other in the world. But I also want to recognize that it's got to be really unsettling for men. It's got it's a it's a lot of change, and you know where there's a lot of you know, people really supporting, you know, the changes in the evolution for women, and so that all the reason I wanted to be able to have you on the show to talk about and help us understand what's it like for men, you know, in this time. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think it's a really good question because I think it's scary as hell for a significant proportion of men. And I think that proportion of men and this is a generalization, but I think it holds true that many of these men that are scared by these changes are also under educated, underemployed, perhaps blue collar workers that

9:52 fear their jobs getting taken or perhaps have already lost their job, have been laid off, and they see women as a threat to future employment prospects. On one level, I think um they see women potentially as a threat to the traditional male power paradigm, and so I can see them seeing women as a threat to them on a number of levels. And it's it's I mean, I can go different ways with it, but I think it generally comes in a package deal in terms of I think there's so many of us that're so fearful of change, and so many men that I've talked to that are kind of the attitude of love me as I am. Don't try and change me. I'm happy the way things are. But you know what they don't really realize is they're not very happy even They're just scared. And I get that. I mean, I've been scared of change as well in my lifetime.

10:48 You know what I find fascinating this conversation, John, is I've had another conversation for somebody about change and what I what I what I've kind of come to is change is really really something that we try to stay away from special we don't if we don't know where it's going, if we're going or for losing something. But you know, for example, imagine this change. Imagine I go from driving my little cute you know, Infinity to twenty five today to a really nice Mercedes tomorrow. That kind of change I can live with, right, but that's not the kind of change we're talking about here. And and I really, you know, I appreciate how you just presence for us, just how this must be arresting for a lot of men. Yeah, I think. I mean, you know, I've had clients that are male white supremacists, and you know, to try and speak to them and get them to understand just that change is possible and that you know, you might be happier if you look at the world through different lens, through a different paradigm, if you're not afraid of large groups of people. Well, let's say, if you don't hate large groups of people. And so I think, you know, society in general has become incredibly divided for a number of reasons. And the optimistic side of me says that it will get better, and I think in the long run it will. The pessimistic side of me says it's getting worse, and in the short run, I think it will. M M. Before you, I'm tactically optimistic, and strategically I'm tactically well short term, short term pessimistic, long term optimistic. Okay,

12:24 So before you even utter what you were saying, or what I would occurred to me is you're you're something of a shepherd, John, right, You're you're shepherding a way forward and kind of you know, gently guiding people into a hopefully a future that's better for them. I hope, so pretty important. I just I just look at it as a teacher, mum, and I think you know, we and you know, one of the things I talk about with men is this whole man box notion. May I may I explain that? Yeah. I wanted to hit that because it's it's integral to me, and it's the idea of how we are raised as boys and what we are taught about what it means to be a quote real man.

13:07 And you know, I've had a lot of men tell me, well, my dad wasn't like this, or my mom wasn't like that. Like, okay, fair enough. They don't need to be Now, some people do get these rules from their mom or dad, particularly dad, but not everyone does. But what I can tell you is you sure as he'll get it from peers, friends and media think movies, TV, social media at this point. But the rules are something like be competitive, be aggressive, don't back down, dominate women, be self reliant, be the provider for the family. And you know some of the two of the bigger ones are don't be homosexual and don't be feminine. And when we're growing up, think middle school or high school. But this stuff begins at the age of five, when we get into kindergarten typically, and you're not at a lesser level, but it builds. But if how are we for swearing on this show, Yeah, go for it. Okay, So I forgive me any advance for these slurs, but this is what we get. So when we're in middle school or high school, if we show too much sadness or fear in front of others, typically at some point we will get something like, dude, stopping such a pussy, don't be a little bitch, don't be a little girl. Now there's other insults that can go in there, but interestingly, those are all the height the epitome of the feminine. The message there is don't be feminine. And I don't think it takes getting those messages many times two, three, four before we go, wow, I am never showing that again. That's embarrassing, that's humiliating, it's painful, and you jump back in the man box. On the other side of the coin, if

14:37 you show too much joy, love, romanticism, excitement, flamboyance, god forbid, someone will say something like, dude, don't be so gay, don't be a fat again. You don't need to get those that many times before you're like, wow, I'm never showing that again. And so then the question is what are we left with that we can publicly display emotionally without fear of humiliation. I would argue it's three things. Lust because if I'm like, oh, look at she's so hot, I do her, that signals to you that I'm straight. There's stress because if I tell you how stressed I am, it says I'm busy or important. And the big one is anger, some degree of anger, irritated, frustrated, annoyed, ray, enraged. And the problem for us men is that the vast majority of our emotions gets funneled through that anger lens. And I can tell you that I've seen in twenty five plus years of working with men, I've seen embarrassment flip to anger, and considered, we're talking about a third of a second flip. So embarrassment flip to anger, guilt, shame flip to anger, anxiety can come out as anger fear, and then we know that male depression, the hallmark of it is irritability, impatience, and little bits of anger sprinkled in, so you know, we then we get into a relationship as we get older and our to emotion and we know that we have signature emotions.

16:02 No psyche has shown that we have these primary or signature emotions inside out. Kind of use that idea as well, and we have these go to emotions, and so we get into a relationship and we get into arguments with our loved one. And right now, women in the US are initiating divorce seventy five percent of the time, and the biggest complaint I hear from them is I can't connect with my man. Well, that makes complete sense. And here's the kicker to it. Men, if you're listening, it's not your fault. In other words, you didn't ask to be socialized like this. It just happens. And I really like that idea of it's not our fault. However, I do believe it's our responsibility to evolve beyond that socializing, beyond how we were socialized, to empower people to also to evolve Okay, so let's grab our first. I can let our listeners and viewers just think about a few of the things you said. They were very powerful.

17:03 I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez, look on you. With doctor John Jenner, who is the host of the Evolved Caveman podcast. We've been talking a bit about just how society has been changing and for women and how let's helped women. We're now talking about what's like from men. Stay what this? We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Quartz is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose.

18:04 This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to a lease a l se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us before we get back to the program. Seems a little bit soft and light to tell you this at this juncture of the conversation, but I do want to announce to you that I have been on a Purpose and Joy Tour. This is a collaboration with Joilie, an organization that teaches mindful practices to build happy, healthy, resilient world, and my firm, Elise Cortesse and Associates that activates meaning and purpose in company culture and leadership to increase fulfillment, performance and retention. Together, we are going to thirty three cities across the United States, starting in Dallas in March and finishing in Virginia Beach in October, to find our tribe and build a community of people who seek to elevate their lives and businesses by cultivating meaning, purpose and joy. I will be dropping in on John in June when I get to the San Francisco area. He was good enough to say yes, I'll take your visit, so you can find a list of cities that we're coming to and find your own at Gusto dashnow dot com. Very excited to be with you in your own backyard. Check out the events, mark your calendar, register and I'll see you there if you're just now joining the program.

19:18 My guest says doctor John Schinner, who coaches men to greater success and happiness at work and at home. His areas of expertise include high performance, stress management, man box culture, positive psychology, anger management, and creating happy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, doctor Elie's Cortez, so I did want to see you help us. The man box culture thing is really really powerful, and I have to say, I think it's an utter accomplishment and achievement when men do find a way out of that box, really a plot and appreciate that work. I'm wondering, John, if this is also related to this issue that we hear about of toxic toxic masculinity. Is this the same sort of realm or is it something different? Yeah, I don't use the phrase toxic masculinity because it shuts down men. And what I'm trying to do is get men to listen and consider, which I like, Which is why I like the idea that the whole man box socialization process is not our fault, but it is our responsibility as far as I mean. I guess another way you could look at it is restrictive masculinity, kind of the traditional form of masculinity. And you know the rules that I mentioned before, if you look at them individually, there's some good and some bad to them, and you know there might be individual interpretation as well. But like being a provider for the family in general, that's a good value. And what happens, however, in terms of what I see, is that we go to work and we start to provide for the family and the people we love the most. But over ten twenty thirty years, that value gets morphed and perhaps

20:49 a bit cancerous. And we get so much of our identity from being at work, and we know it's expected of us from work. We get our ego stroked at work, were praised at work, and we come home and many of us don't quite know what we're doing to the same extent, and then people are annoyed at us, and we begin to spend more and more time at work, And if time and attention are the currency of relationship, then we're spending all our money at work, and you know, our spouse and our kids are getting increasingly annoyed and resentful of us. And I've seen that dynamic over and over and you know, just to give you one more example, self reliance really strong value, and self reliance taught to men, and in general that's a pretty good value. But if you look at either end of the extreme of the polls of that poll, it's not healthy.

21:38 So I don't want to be completely without self reliant. I don't want to be completely dependent on others. Nor do I want to be one hundred percent self reliance, which a lot of men that I talk to really tend towards that that end. And this becomes a problem when health issues arise, when depression arises, when anxiety arises, and men refuse to seek out assistance. Just to give you two examples, Yeah, this is just such a rich conversation, John, So related to that, I have to imagine, one of the things I came across in my research for this conversation is that another issue that many men faces, that sense of isolation and loneliness. So here you are, you know, you're you know, we've really found our way that if we if we are just working, we're disconnecting from our loved ones and such, and now put ourselves into another box, you know, a quiet you know box on our own devastating well, I mean the first part of that is we're not socialized to excel in relationship and the way that we grow up in the man box. If you think about for those of the mail listeners that you have out there, the way that we would interact in high school, for example, is put downs, one upmanship, sarcasm and you know, maybe jokes about your mother. But there's no depth there, there's no vulnerability, there's no authenticity, and a lot of men continue that throughout the lifespan. And so again, the fact that we're not that great in relationship isn't really our fault. We just need to find ways to move

23:11 past it, or at least have different gears in which we can switch into. But with my clients, and I think this is true throughout the world, I've seen increasingly the older we get, most of us, for most of us, the more lonely we get, and the less relationships we have. And you know, there's a number of reasons that we lose relationships. People move people to people get divorced, there's fights or disagreements. But also we're not very good at maintaining long term relationships. And I saw this in myself when I had friends from college that I hadn't reached out to for many years. And part of it was I was just really busy with my family and my work life and my kids. And then I got divorced and then I was like, oh, I need to like recultivate some of these friendships.

24:00 And I remember I called up a friend and we set up lunch, and we got to lunch and he's like, hey, you know, I got to ask you, like, how come you didn't call more often? And I was like, dude, the phone rings both ways, Like I'm pretty sure my phone is not the only one that has numbers. But you know, so we'll externalize too, and that's part of that anger dynamic, right, even if we're a little bit annoyed, And when we externalize, we put the blame onto the other party and we completely fail to see our part in that dynamic. And that's dangerous as hell, because if you look at any of the like personality disorders, even like narcissism, they do the same thing. And what it does, the reason it's dangerous is it completely cuts us off from the possibility of self reflection and growth, and that's a huge problem and it's super convenient too. Wow, you know this is this really intense and I am really listeners in your earth? Is this not just opening your mind in your heart too? You know what it is to be a man in today's world, and you know how we can support the efforts on both sides of the aisle. So that brings me to the next sort of related topic that, of course we have to talk about it, and you've sort of been talking about it already here. But this notion that men are typically stereotyped is being emotionally closed off and unwilling to talk about their feelings at all. So I'm wondering, how do you help your clients break down these stereotypes and encourage them to be more open about their feelings. Are their emotions? Oh okay, that's a that's a tough one. So part of it is, you know, I do coaching, not therapy, although I

25:33 have a PhD in psychology, and the difference, one of the main differences to me between those two is that I do a lot of teaching versus you know, gee, how do you feel about that? And I think that we men need to be taught a number of things, self awareness, how to get out of our head and into our body, so how to stop over identifying with the thinker in our head, which most of us do, but how to pay attention to what's going on in your body so that you can figure out what it is you are actually feeling, so that you can begin to label those feelings and then speak to them. I also will share a lot of how I'm feeling or where I've struggled, whether it's on the podcast or with my clients, and that's taking uh, you know, I think I started doing that at like forty maybe, And part of what I'm doing when I do that is I'm trying to give other men permission to feel because I think that there's not many role models out there that are masculine and emotionally aware and comfortable with their feelings that you know, it's not how we're brought up. If you look at you know, Vin Diesel or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or you know, any of the action heroes in movies for example, and so you know, and part of it also is to be non judgmental when they do begin to share back what they are feeling and then teach them how to go about dealing with those emotions. You're in my ending me, John. I in twenty sixteen, when I was going through my divorce,

27:03 I took a job with another managament consultancy firm called Insignium and that is co founded by Nathan Rosenberg and Schiapina. And I wanted to join the company, John, because I went up there to visit the organization and one of their summits they were hosting, and Nathan gets up. And Nathan is a man's man, and he's a very he's very strong, he has a strong presence, and you know, he has a look, and he's very very smart, very logical, very very very well educated. And he got up and stood in front of the crowd of people that were seated for this summer let's call about one hundred and twenty five people, and his eyes filled with tears and he said, he said, it's great to have you here. This is really an emotional experience for me. And you could tell that he was actually crying. Yeah, And it was so beautiful. I mean, every single person was like leaning into this man. They had hit full wrapped attention.

27:53 And I at that moment when I want to work here, I want to work for this organization. And it was such a beautiful display of you know, kind of a completeness, right, and very compelling. So I'll put that out there is something that I probably will never forget. Yeah, that speaks to vulnerability, right, and the power of emoting. And I mean, I remember I was doing a radio show in the San Francisco Bay area back in two thousand and six, and you know, coming out of Cow, it had been drilled into me that the only thing you can share, or everything you share, has to be backed up in research studies, data, and so I started doing that and I realized pretty quickly, like, wow, this sucks. In other words, the study could have been amazing and the data could have been really powerful, but all I was doing was speaking to their cognitive mind, to the thinker. And that doesn't motivate anyone to do anything. It does not motivate you to make any behavior change whatsoever. In order to have a chance at motivating behavior change, you've got to speak to the emotional heart, and that means you've got to learn.

28:56 I had to learn to emote. I had to learn how to tell a story, which I think is a great way to connect and teach and inspire. I had to learn how to tell a joke and a vacuum. You know, There's there's skills that can be learned that are quite powerful, and one of those was being vulnerable and being honest about how I felt and how I feel. Okay, So now we've been talking about things like relationships, connection, feelings all that. Now I want to go into the world of physicality. Right. So one of the things that I think I know from my research here is that there's a there's pressure for men to conform a certain standards of physical appearance, I mean, and I'm interested in how men get conditioned around that and what can they do to develop a healthy posture around their physicality. Well, you know, I again, I'm I love traditional masculinity in the sense of I want to be a masculine man, and I also want to have access to the feminine energies in me as well, and I want to balance between those two. And a large part of my masculinity is my physical body, my physical presence. So I really try and take good care of my physical body, and I think that's incredibly important. Now I've seen in the work that I've done. I remember thirty years ago, I never would have saw a man with body dysmorphia, for example, or some sort of body image issue. And then I started seeing more and more younger guys adolescence with body image issues. And I think the more we've gotten into social media, the more difficult that gets, because there's more influencers out there

30:29 that are selling perfect bodies or showing eight pack abs and you know, showing these ridiculous musky letters in the gym, and then all these younger men see them and they think, oh, that's what I have to be to be a man, or that's what I'm aspiring to. I've seen. I've talked with amateur bodybuilders who have four percent body fat and look ridiculously muscled. I don't know if that's right wording, but right pre competition. And I'll be like, wow, you know, you look amazing, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's nothing, look at this. And they'll pull up on social media like I don't know, mister olympus or you know, whatever the top guy is, and I'm like, oh, you're so screwed. Yeah, like you're standard, you're at the ninety eight ninety nine percentile of physicality and you're looking at the ninety nine and thinking you're falling short. And so that's a point at which I think self compassion can play a big part, where you understand that because of the negativity bias, which means that we naturally over focus on negative thoughts, negative emotions, negative self definitions like I'm not strong enough, or I'm too fat, or I'm too weak or whatever it is, or my biseets aren't big enough, that we have to be able. We have to first be aware of that negativity bias and then be able to counterbalance it by focusing on parts of our body we are happy and satisfied with, knowing that there's always going to be I don't know, i'd say maybe five percent of our body which we're unsatisfied with. And then you begin to learn and practice some self compassion skills of speaking kindly to yourself when

32:01 you do fall a little bit short. That's beautiful, John, Yeah, and of course we women know a lot about that whole spaces. Yeah, it doesn't. Sorry, and yeah, you're absolutely right. But the other thing I want to mention is that masculinity and femininity are gender and that's separate from sex, and sex is male to female, right, So you can have a masculine female, and you can have a feminine male and everywhere in between and every mixture of the two. So, like, you know, you deal in the corporate world lot, and I know that there's a lot of women in corporate USA that have to begin to adopt masculine traits in order to be successful because they're caught in a real double bind where you know, either if if they're too emotional, that's a problem. If they're emotionless, then they're a cold hearted bitch. You know, it's and so it's you're never able to just be one or the other. You're never able to walk that line right in the middle. So I think as a result, many women just learn to become more masculine and probably rely more in anger to some extent, but that's debatable. And they close up their emotions too. And then I meet them and I'm like, hey, I want to open your your respector response and they're like, what, but I've been schooled all these years not to do that. You get out of your cortez, don't be fa Yeah, So spot on, all right, let's grab our last break, I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez. Were on the year with doctor John Schinner, who's the host of the Evolved Caveman podcast and talking about about some of the issues that are confronting men today and what they can do about

33:35 it. After the break, we're to get into relationships men can enjoy and cultivate. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing and meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez.

34:30 To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to a lease a l I se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thank you staying well us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I mentioned to in the last pretet that we're launching and have been conducting the Purpose Enjoy Tour. The last two books that I wrote are part of that tour. One of them is called The Great Revitalization, How activating meeting can radically enliven your business and that helps leaders to learn how to build elevating in high performing cultures and leadership. The other book, the latest one, is called Coloring Life, How Loss advises to live more vibrant lives, and that helps people navigating loss to transform to growth and vitality. So they're part of the tours where you can find them on Amazon as well if you're now just joining us. My guest is doctor John Schinner, who coaches men to greater success and happiness at work and at home.

35:22 Is Areas of expertise include high performance, stress management, man box culture, positive psychology, anger management, and creating happy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, doctor Lesa Cortez, and that brings us to I wanted to land this plane, if you will, and that is in the area of relationships. So the first thing I want to talk about is, you know the role that youth that you see male friendships playing in men's overall well being and how they navigate those which her stands on that well. I you know, I've done men's groups for a couple of years, and there's something radically different about sharing your difficulties and challenges and successes with a group of men that are supportive as opposed to your spouse, let's say, and I think there's a place for both. However, most men, I would argue, don't have the same relationship with others that they do with their spouse if they have an authentic and emotionally fulfilling relationship with their spouse, which is a pretty tall order it. You know, I think growing up, we typically have one relationship where we can truly be ourselves and truly emote and truly express how we're feeling and truly express our fears and hopes and desires. To expand that circle to include a group of supportive men is game changing and it's soul rejuvenating. Now.

36:49 The other thing I realized recently is I have I have a number of adult male clients, and I realized that they were not all of them, but them. We're struggling with adult friendships for the reasons I mentioned earlier. And so I realized, well, if the rules aren't working for us, let's break the rules. And my rule was, you know, I see a client one one an hour in a walk like this, you know, and that kind of and I was like, well, this sucks. So I went to each of them and I said, hey, look, I'm thinking of starting a monthly men's dinner. And there's no cost other than your dinner, your drinks, and there's no agenda other than connection. Would you be interested? And every one of them said, I'm in. And so now there's a list of like thirty and you know, usually eight to ten will show up and we meet once a month and we just we talk about stuff, We laugh, we get real and everyone walks away feeling a little bit elevated. And you know, I've done it, like we have one tonight, and it's it's just about connection. It's just about fulfilling that need for connection relationship, and that's such a fundamental need in our lives. And I think most men have dismissed that, and that's a problem. I mean, we know, like I've kind of been thinking about all the mass shootings lately, and most of the people that are involved in mass shootings or loaners.

38:14 They are a loan they are they feel misunderstood. They have been you know, eating hook line and sinker from you know, the darkest holes in the Internet, which are filling their minds with some pretty nasty ideas in my opinion, and so I think, you know, male friendship is has been overlooked until recently, and I think it's critically important that we find more connection and support from our brothers. M John again, I still see you as a shepherd, my friend. That's how I'm seeing you. I have been conducting things like this for quite a long time for women, and women are they're more of a seems like a natural thing for them, and we at the same happens where you gather and convene. And I would say that in addition to feel elevated, I think people actually leave feeling enlarged. I think that's what you're doing too. And so I'm now when I go out and drew the coloring life the grief conversation on the road as men and women come to that, and it's beautiful to watch men and women talk about their loss, and it's hears come and the expanse comes and you see some insights, you know, show up on the faces and people. It's just it is so beautiful and I'm grateful that I get to facilitate that. So now that I know that you're doing this for men as well, that's more people need to know about that, John, Yeah, thank you. And I mean, it's it's fascinating to me because I think when I was growing up, I realized at a pretty young age, twelve or thirteen, that I felt

39:45 things deeply. And that's when you're that age, that's not how you want to be as a guy, because you buy end of the socialization process. But I remember, you know, if I had to have the option, I would have ripped out my emotions, left them in together because they humiliated me once or twice or more. And you know, I think that in you know, doing this work for thirty years, I've had this conversation with a lot of men and shared exactly that what I just shared with you. Those men have said, yeah, me too, I feel things deeply too. So the idea that the emotions didn't leave us. We left the emotions, we buried the emotions. But we are human, and we are human before being male or female, and so we are necessarily going to feel and so to just be able to give that permission and space is massive. I'm so glad to know you, John. This is such good, yummy stuff.

40:49 What we're doing for our listeners of yours today is just it's so inviting. Na please come with us. This is a great journey. So we can talk about male friendships now. I want to move into you know, actual relationship shifts a significant others with whether it's a woman or with a man. Interested in what you're seeing in terms of how men are navigating these relationships, these significant other relationships in our lives and what kinds of issues are they finding there. You already told us a little bit in the beginning about if they're not getting you know, support at home, we're going to go into themselves into work kind of thing. But what else are you seeing? Well? On the negative side, I think we can go into addictions, whether that's you know, addiction to sex, addiction to alcohol, addiction to drugs, addiction to working out, addiction to adrenaline, addiction to TV sports.

41:37 I think there's a number of ways that we numb ourselves that you know, we get overwhelmed from our emotions that we're not supposed to feel, and then we try and find a way out, and a lot of the ways out aren't healthy and they're not serving us. Now, you know, for those of my clients and myself that want to look for ways to evolve, I think there's a number of scientifically backed tools that you and learn and learn with some ease. It takes some practice, but there are ways that you can get better in relationship. And you know, if we're not taught how to be in relationship naturally, normally by society, by our family, if we didn't have a good blueprint for a marriage, let's say from our mom and dad, which I would argue most of us probably didn't, then you got to learn those skills somewhere. And you know, just to give you an example, I really like the line from Terry Real where he says relationships don't typically end because of a large transgression like an affair. Relationships typically die via death by a thousand paper cuts. And those paper cuts are really tiny hurts, annoyances, resentments that sit inside us and fester over time, and they accumulate. And to give you an idea how small these hurts can be, I like the idea of John Gottman and the idea of bids for attention.

42:55 And we make bids for attention all the time. And a bid for attention can be something like, hey, at least, did I tell you about dot dot dot? Or you know, you put your hand on your lover's leg and you want to look at her, look her in the eyes, or you put your hands around her waist, or you make a bad joke. But we're always trying to get other people's attention. And there's three ways you can respond to a bid for attention. There's positive, neutral, negative. So let's say I'll give you a stereotypical nineteen fifties example. Let's say I'm at home in the morning with my fiance and she's making breakfast because she just cooks better than I do, and I'm reading the news on my phone, which I like to do, and she says, you know, hey, honey, did I tell you about the Johnson's. So that's her making a bid for my attention. So if I respond positively, I'm like, no, honey, you didn't you know, I put my phone down, I give her my eyes, and I'm curious. If I respond neutrally, I may not hear it, but I don't respond, or I'm just ignoring her and it just goes right over my head. If I respond negatively, maybe I'm a little bit annoyed. Well, honey, can't you see that I'm reading the news? Like why always interrupting me? Now, the interesting thing is the neutral response is the most damaging of the three, because if I'm annoyed and I have that kind of poor reaction, at least I'm aware of it, hopefully, and I can say, hey, you know what, I'm sorry. I was reading about slave labor or something and it really

44:28 put me in a bad mood. But if I'm not aware of it, there's no repair attempt possible. Now, the data shows that a happy, thriving couple will respond positively about two thirds of the time to bids for attention from their partner. A couple that's looking that's nearing the end of that relationship, it's about a third of the time. Now, the thing I love about this idea is it doesn't matter where you are right now. What matters is that you become aware of it and you slowly get better at it over time. So there's skills like that that are really impactful and if you think of, you know, one of those paper cuts that accumulates and leads to the end of a relationship, all that has to be is a missed bid for attention. That perspective really woke me up and I was like, I was like, holy smokes, Like I need to pay better attention. M Okay, we're coming close to the end here, and I want to get one more question in for your own relationships, and that's definitely with kids.

45:31 I know so many people that talk about there's connection with their father and that oh you know, there's stuff this residue that's left there. So I'm interested in, you know, from your experience and what you know or what is the common issues that men face in their relationship with their children and how can they actually improve those relationships? Ah, well, boy, common issues. I think it's different for sons and daughters, I think, and I think it depends on age too, so teenagers versus childhood. Um, you know, dads with daughters. I think a lot of times daughters make us uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. You know, we aren't comfortable talking about things like periods or sexuality, um, drugs and alcohol and then I think the other part of it is I think their own sexuality can make us uncomfortable in ourselves, and so I think to be aware of those things, to know that those are normal, but to also be willing to step into those areas of discomfort, um, so that you can have conversations around those areas with your daughter if if that's serving both of you, because I think a lot of times it's easier just I'll just leave that to mom. But I think I'm divorced and I have hundred percent custody my seventeen year old daughter, and we talk about all that stuff. And I could tell you I was really uncomfortable with a lot of that stuff at first, but A I didn't have a choice, and B I knew we needed to talk about it because you know, one of the big things to me is, you know, as our kids become older and older, and as they get to adolescence, the

47:07 last type of influence you have on them is not control. It's not consequences, it's not punishing them into good behavior, which never works. It's communication. It's conversation. It's values based parenting. And so you know, if you have any prayer of influencing their behavior. It's going to be through uncomfortable conversations, and so you want to lay the groundwork for that early on and make sure that you're both cool with that. UM as far as you know, sons go. And I'll stick with adolescence for now, I think. But a lot of men get into UM dominance based parenting, like they want to be more physical, They want to teach their sons how to fight, They want to UM. They want to do the same thing that they did with their friends in high school, put down sarc as a what upmanship And you know again, I want to urge the fathers out there to really begin to connect with their sons at a deeper level, at a more authentic level, at a more emotional level. M So, I really don't want to let you go. So I'm glad we stay connected to here. What you're doing the world is so important and I'm happy to share reind listeners and viewers, thank you so much for being on working on purpose. John. It's really great to have you. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure, doctor Release Listeners, viewers, if you'll learn more about doctor John Schinner or the work he does coaching meant a greater connection and happiness or find the Evolved Caveman podcast he host. You can start by going to the Evolved Caveman dot com. You can also visit guide to Self dot com for some more resources.

48:40 Last week, if you've missed the live show, it can Sketch It Reaccorded podcast. We were on near to doctor Lance Secreton, who is my mentor and spiritual guru and coach. He's the pioneering guru in the inspirational leadership space, and we were talking about his latest beautiful book called Reawakening the Human Spirit, Finding the Spark, the Flame, and the Torch within. Next we'll be on the air with Jim Lair and Sheila Olsen talking about their new book, Wise Decisions, a science based approach to making better choices. See you there. Remember that work as an integral an important part of our lives and so our relationships and one about the world of work. It's going to be one of the best adventures and means of realizing and potential and making the impact that we crave. So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose, featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they create.

49:39 See you there, Let's work on purpose.