Dhru Purohit Show - How to Help the Men in Your Life Get Healthy, Level Up, and Find Purpose

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and WHOOP. Surrounding ourselves with people who elevate us not only leads to a more fulfilling life, it leads to a healthier and longer one too. In fact, loneliness poses the same risks as smoking and can even manifest as physical illness, including chronic pain.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru leads us through a fun conversation on practical ways to cultivate your own community with his friends Antonio Neves, Mark Meyuhas, and Junaid Kalmadi, who are all part of a weekly men’s group called Man Morning. They share about things going on in their life—from health to business to family to relationships. In this episode, we dive into:    -Simple tips for adding more joy to your life (6:27) -What is Man Morning? (30:19) -The crisis men are facing (34:28) -The importance of having mentors (56:06) -The earliest indicators that you are giving leftovers in your relationships (1:07:44) -The power of presence in relationships (1:15:49) -How softening the start-up of your arguments is crucial to resolving relationship conflicts (1:27:44) -The written rules of Man Morning that allow for vulnerable sharing (1:35:09) -A better question to ask instead of “what’s new?” (1:47:15) Sign-up for the Man Morning newsletter here. For more on Antonio Neves, follow him on Instagram @theantonioneves, and through his website, theantonioneves.com. Get his book, Stop Living on Autopilot, here.  For more on Mark Meyuhas, follow him on Instagram @the.tasting.kitchen and @ghisallo.la and through his websites, thetastingkitchen.com and ghisallo.la. Check out his meditation app, Evenflow, here. For more on Junaid Kalmadi, follow him on Instagram @thefarmersjuice, and through his website, farmersjuice.com.  This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and WHOOP. InsideTracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. Right now they’re offering my community 20% off at insidetracker.com/dhru. WHOOP is a personalized digital fitness tracker and health-coaching platform that monitors your physiology 24/7 and provides personalized recommendations based on what your body needs. For me, it's been a game-changer to optimize my sleep and improve my fitness, performance, and overall health. To get yours, go to join.whoop.com and get 15% off your membership with code DHRU15. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are also at a crisis of men. There are so many people that are out there, especially men, that are isolated. You kind of need a little bit of a brotherhood to reconnect with people in person. Welcome to the Drew Prood podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest on the podcast are Antonio Neves, Mark May Youhas, and Janad Kalmadi. Three of my dear friends from my men's group here in Los Angeles, and the men's group that we have is called man mourning.

And by the way, if you're feeling lost, or you're trying to figure out your purpose, or you feel like you need better friendships, a tribe, a community in your life to help you level up, today's conversation is absolutely for you. See, I truly believe that the way we get closer to achieving our goals and dreams in life is by surrounding ourselves with people who help us be better. There's an old saying that says that if you want to go faster,

go alone. But if you want to go farther to your true destination, go together. And going together on our life's journeys of the ups and downs, whatever that is that you want to do, make improvements in your health, write a book, start a business, be a better citizen in your community, your local church group. Whatever your goal is, having the right people around you will help you on that journey. Now, here's the thing. That's important for everyone, but in particular, this is super important for men who tend to be, generally speaking, not as good as investing in relationships as women. That's why a few years ago, my friends in L.A. started an informal club called Man Morning, and each week we meet up for a hike outside and talk about what's going on in our lives,

both the good stuff and the tough stuff we're navigating too. We also typically have a question of the day, a question that we highlight that helps and creates thoughtful introspection and interesting conversations. that we can all learn from one another. Now, every time I leave my weekly man morning group, I feel energized, I feel inspired, and I feel more connected to all the goals than dreams that I have in my life.

And my hope is that for everyone to have a little bit of a taste of that, which is why we set up today's conversation. And who knows, you might be inspired to start a little man morning group of your own. And by the way, you could do a goddess morning group too. That's totally allowed. So on today's podcast, the guys and I are going to cover a few big picture topics that will help you level up in your relationships, in your business, in your community, in your friendships so that you can be a stronger, better version of the

person you truly are. Now, before we jump in, just a quick note about the guys on the pod today, we have Antonio Neves, who's been on the podcast before. He's an entrepreneur, bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and world-renowned speaker known for helping people get unstuck and make their next move with confidence. We have my dear friend Mark Mayyuhas, a serial entrepreneur, restaurateur, investor, an avid health and wellness enthusiast and a husband and father to two lovely boys. And lastly, we have my dear friend Junad Kalmadi, a serial entrepreneur in the health and wellness industry and the CEO and founder of Farmer's Juice. It's a great group of guys we have today, and I'm excited for you to eavesdrop on some of the conversations that we have in our men's

group that hopefully will give you a little bit of insight, a little bit of nudge, a little bit of perspective on the areas of your life that you want to make an improvement on. Stay tuned. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. It's an honor to have you here. Today's episode is with my man morning community, a few of us, at least, that are part of the man morning community. And the first topic we're going to go into, and everybody's going to go around and do quick introductions to help set some context for the audience. But for the listeners and the viewers that are there. Our first question that we're going into today is what's something simple? Simple is the key here that you do either on a weekly basis or daily basis that's added a significant amount of joy

to your life and a little context around this first question on the most simplistic level. You know, it's kind of crazy, but you don't often hear men talking about joy. And joy and delight are such an important part of contentment, of happiness. of connection. So that's why we chose this as our first question that we're going to explore with all of you. Antonio, I'm going to pass over to you. Introduce yourself and then pass it on to Mark and we'll continue from there. Yeah, first, great to be here. I'm Antonio Neves. I'm the founder of the Man of Morning Newsletter. I'm author of the international. I can say international bestselling books, stop living on autopilot. And I'm also a success coach. Beautiful. Great to be here, Drew. Thanks for having us. My name is Mark Mayas. And I'm a entrepreneur. I own a couple of restaurants in the Los Angeles area.

One called the Tasing Kitchen in Venice. Thank you. And another one which is still newer. It's called Gazzalo. I also own a post-production studios in Santa Monica, which we specialize in audio for TV commercials. You guys have probably seen some of them. We do a lot of the Super Bowl spots every year.

And I also created a meditation and mindfulness app called Evenflow. Amazing. We'll link to them in the show notes. Jay. My name is Janath, or Jay. I'm super stoked to be here. I'm one of the younger man morning people. Call us old.

Cool, man. You were all younger at heart. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I grew up in Dubai and India for most of my life. And I've started three companies over the past 10 years, some less successful, some more successful than the others. Currently, I'm the founder of Farmers Juice. We deliver organic corporate juices nationwide. and we specialize in making them low glycemic, working with farmers to save a lot of ugly produce,

so we get the cost down. So our juice are typically like $599. And I'm just super grateful to be here. This man morning has been a great way to sort of open the heart and have a lot of emotional growth. I love it, man. Basically, everybody here is a big deal and they're successful men. And actually, a big part of success is connecting holistically on all aspects of life. And that's a little bit more.

That's a little bit about what Man Morning is about. We'll chat more about it in a second. But, Antonio, first question, I'd love you to jump in. What's something simple you do on a weekly or daily basis that's added a significant amount of joy to your life? Yeah, well, let me start with this. I believe that most of us are emotionally constipated. When I say emotionally constipated, I feel like we have so much emotions backed up inside of us. That can be fear, that can be anger, that can be sadness, and especially can be joy.

And unfortunately, we don't find mechanism or ways to release that. The one thing that I found success was on a regular basis is taking a 30 minute walk, which sounds really simple. But here's the magic when it comes to the 30 minute walk. I do it with no technology, no audio, no podcast, no notifications, nothing like that. And on the surface, it sounds simple. How is a 30 minute walk with no technology, no notifications, audio magical? But let me tell you something.

When you take that 30 minute walk, hopefully in nature, what it does, it creates space for that constipation, if you will, to release. and I will find that sometimes over the course of 30 minutes, that sometimes I'll laugh uncontrollably, that problem that I've been trying to solve for the longest time, finally, that solution shows up. Sometimes, look, emotion can show up. That could be tears, that can be sadness, that could be anger, but I create an outlet, you know, a release for it to finally get out.

And when I get that out, I find that creates more space for joy in my life. So when I get home to my wife, when I get home to our two kids, I can be more present, I can be more joyful. I can be more playful for them with them because there's not such a backlog of emotion that I did not get out. And again, I'm not just talking about

the quote unquote bad stuff, anger and sadness. But that's not bad, by the way. All emotions are loving and they're important. But I create that 30-minute walk that I do a few times a week to create that space and it adds so much to me and my family, most importantly. I think an interesting word that you said is space. It sounds like these walks.

and, you know, one follow-up question that I have. But it sounds like these walks are giving you the room to feel whatever it is that you want to feel. So many of us, men and women and anybody else in between, we go from one situation to the next and we don't often leave time to process actually the inertia of where we just came from. You had a tough meeting in the morning or in your case, you know, you give talks all around the world, sometimes on Zoom. Maybe your talk wasn't as great. Or maybe you didn't get the reception that you wanted to.

Now you're holding that energy inside of your body. And then the next transition is you have a meeting to go to or you got to pick up your kids from school. We take the energy from one situation and the inertia and we bring it into the next. And so we never are fully present, especially as men. And we can't give our partner, our kids, our business, the full attention it deserves because we're still caught up a little bit in the past. Absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize if you're a Mac user, it's like a lot of us, the pinwheel is going nonstop for so many people. They're just unaware that the pinwheel is going because they haven't created that space.

But most importantly, they haven't rebooted. Like a lot of us just need a reboot. By the way, if you haven't turned your computer off in a long time, turn it off. Let it restart for a hot minute. Also, like for folks that work in media and you know about, you know, creating imagery or video, that walk for me is like a rendering, like a real-time rendering that takes place while you're waiting for that image to finish, when you're waiting for that video to get complete and be done. and it creates that process that otherwise wouldn't show up.

And here's a key thing. It has to be intentional. Like that has to be in my calendar. That 30-minute walk in silence is never going to happen on its own. It has to be on my calendar. Do you find it in the morning, the evening, other stuff like it is ever said. I like the midday. I like the midday one where I take a break and I just need to get away from things for a bit.

A little brain space. Mark, I'd love to go to you. What's something simple that you do on a weekly or daily basis? Simple. that adds a significant amount of joy to your life. This episode is brought to you by Inside Tracker. You know, I just turned 40 this year. I can honestly say I've never felt better.

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Well, I really connect with your walk, Antonio. This is something that I do myself. But for me, anything that relates to joy, I would call it something that comes as effortless effort. and if I get up in the morning, my routine has to be there. So for me, joy is how I start my day and how I end my day. So for example, in the morning, I wake up, I get my cup of coffee, I wake up at least an hour before the kids are up. I make sure I get my 15, 20 minute meditation.

I really reflect on the day ahead a little bit because usually I have a lot of tasks and things to deal with. So before I kind of head out and deal with everything, I need that hour to myself. That quiet time in the morning, no phone. I will wake up and just really sit there for a little bit, play with the dog. And then there is also the vulnerability of the kids. When they wake up in the morning, that first five minutes, I usually walk in their room to nudge them to get up. And just that vulnerability that they have, first thing in the morning,

just brings a huge smile on my face because they're like, how do you wake up? and how do we treat the day together? How do we start the day and get breakfast going? So that's always a big part for me. So that morning routine, that space and time for you in the morning, helps you not only have a lot of joy, but grounds you for the rest of the day. Absolutely. For the end of the day, that's another one.

And I would do the same walk, basically a 30-minute walk in the evening. Usually I try to time it around the sunset. We're lucky here to live by the beach. So I'll take a walk in the park, Palisades Park. I'll watch the sunset. I'll take 30, 40 minute walk. And basically reset, reflect on the day and just have a moment of gratitude. Watch nature, watch the sunset, look at the ocean.

And I come home, I'm a better man. I'm basically at that point open to the family and the kids and connect with them and see what's going on for them. So those little things really help ground me and give me joy on a daily basis. It's super interesting because there was a book that I was recommended to, recommended a long time ago. It was like maybe like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was written by David Data, who's a really interesting character, right? And it was called the Way of the Spiritual Man.

Yo. And there's a lot of interesting thoughts on that book. We could do a whole podcast on that. But one of the things that I always took away from that book is that for a lot of men, they recharge themselves and they reground themselves in isolation. Having a little bit of alone time, having a little bit of time away from things, doesn't mean that this is days and days and weeks and weeks and months, but a little bit of time to kind of reground yourself is an important part of,

I don't know, masculine energy, what it really means to be grounded and holistic in all aspects of your life. Do you feel that's true for you, Mark? 100%. For me, it's super important. I actually basically programmed my family to accept that. One of the things for me going home after a long day at work per se is something that I need to have that alone time before I step into the family dynamic. I need to basically not take my day with me and bring it home. So I make sure that I stop, even if I'm in the car for 15 or 20 minutes and do a little. meditation, not scroll through social media or anything like that. It's really that quiet time before you step into the next phase of the day. A transitionary moment. In fact, both of you,

Antonio and Mark, you both have shared in the past that our man morning walks that, hey, you get home and you know that when you step in, you know, I don't have kids, but both of you do, Antonio, you have twins, Mark, you have two boys, super lovely, and they're a little bit older. But before you come into the house and before you have the inertia of everything that comes along with it, which is tasks, to do's, maybe making food, responding to different needs that are there, you're pulling up to your house, but you're taking that little transitionary moment for you, and it's made a big deal. 100%.

I think it was also harder. My kids are a little bit older now, being 13 and 17, but when they were younger, that was a challenge because their attention and the chaos that happens when you walk into house is different than when where we are right now they're a lot more independent and so forth. So there is a transition that happens through life that's also interesting to watch how we are for our families and within ourselves. Jay, jump in. Something small that happens on a weekly or daily basis that's added a significant amount of joy to your life. Yeah, I think to me happiness is like a continuous choice and anything with ritual that can help ground that,

is amazing. So for me, meditating in the morning and the evening, after that, after I meditate, after I sort of like let go of all the stress, burdens, and really connect to that inner peace and that like my heart feels good, it's nurtured, I take maybe two to three minutes and I actually send positive thoughts or, you know, prayer for other people in my life who really need it. And that helps me open my heart. So the practice that helps me is actually opening my heart on a daily basis by thinking about people that need my loving thoughts and attention, even if I acknowledge their presence in my heart, and also if I do that for people I'm just grateful for, like people in my main morning group, people who are just friends, family.

And then I sort of like visualize that sort of like love expanding to sort of like encircle the whole earth and just sort of like feeling like, oh, I'm connected to our human family. And that opening of the heart practice for me, I've learned because especially as an entrepreneur, you can be so on the grind. You can sometimes get disconnected with your heart and just like, I want to be like a healthy balance of heart and head. Don't want to get too much in one of the either. So my post meditation practice of like opening the heart, giving gratitude, sending, you know, positive thoughts has been like very transformative.

Yeah. Do you ever reach out to people that you thought about during that period of time and express that gratitude to them? It naturally comes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think like just sending a text message of like appreciation. Hey, I just really appreciate you for ex. You do a good job of this through. You're really, I feel like the happiest people I know are people who have big hearts and who have open hearts. I just have observed that and, you know, really healthy fathers and mothers tend to have that. But even people who are single, I feel like, just have a healthy community where it opens their heart. So, yeah.

Yeah, the thing about gratitude that I think about, you know, and it's just like what I'm hearing from you, Jay, is like mindfully thinking about the people in your life, which also means in your instance, it may be that they need extra love and attention. Yep. You know, but it also is also, it's a reminder of just how lucky we are to have these people in our life in the first place. And that kind of piggybacks a little bit into mine that I'll jump in on. And then I have a follow up question actually for all of you, whoever wants to jump in first

after it, after I share. but for me, I get a lot of energy from giving gratitude. And so one of the first things I do in the morning is that I'm very close with my friends, my family, you know, you guys, I love to actually. And this is, it sounds like a nightmare to my wife. Like, and she sees it and she's like, how do you do this first thing in the morning? But I wake up and especially having a lot of friends and family on the East Coast because I get up pretty early. I love to just call somebody. I love to just call somebody in my network.

Often it's usually one of my best friends, Nira of me here, you know, family. And I love to just like chat a little bit and check in on them. That could be like checking on something important that's there for them. And it creates an opportunity for sharing. Like here's something that I'm focused on this week. And often my question is like, what's something that you care about that you want to give love and attention to this week? Or anything that you feel. And it's not always like so formal.

I'm not these people's coaches or whatever. It's like, hey, man, how are you doing? You know, they know the drill. So they'll share like, yeah, you know, this is what I'm focused on. This is what's not going as well. almost like the same way at Man Morning we'll often do like, you know, share your highlights and share what you're navigating.

It's a little bit of that. But doing that first thing in the morning, there's something about that that kind of grounds me in the world. So before I get into email, before I get into all the tasks and the to-does of running multiple companies and having a lot of employees, it's just another reminder that I'm on a human experience

with other people and that grounds me. Now, I recognize that for other people, that wouldn't ground them. And I think that's why this answer and this question is so important is that whatever it is for people that are listening today, I think tapping into that thing that gives you joy that makes everything else that much easier or successful in your life. All right. So here's the question that I want to flip for you guys. And that is what is something small that zaps your joy away in the week? Something that you've identified that this thing that you have to do, this commitment or this thing

that you have to do, but you do it the wrong way or the wrong energy. Like, it is a surefire way to zap your joy and delight in the week. Who wants to jump in? Before we talk about zapping joy, I want to just add on to something that you said earlier because I think something we're not talking about when it comes of joy and everything we're talking about is so intentional, every example that everyone gave. One thing we don't talk about enough, I think specifically is. men is ensuring that we don't feel guilty for doing those things. I feel I have a lot of buddies

that I'll share some of the things that I do. Like, yeah, but that wouldn't work for me because of X, Y, or Z. I think we have to make sure guilt doesn't show up. We talked about that space for transition that's needed, et cetera. And something that I didn't know was what was controversial, if you will, but when I brought it up to some friends, not y'all because y'all are all cool with this. It's something my wife and I do going back and needing that space you mentioned, Drew, is probably once a quarter, we take like a staycation alone. Like straight up, no, alone. Oh, alone.

Like we stay in the L.A. area and my wife will go get a hotel for a night or two alone, where she can go recharge, do her own thing. I'll do the exact same thing. Again, to take it could be downtown L.A. It could be six miles away, but we get that night by ourselves. And it gives us an opportunity to recharge or work on some things we want to, maybe lay in bed, sleeping, or whatever, things that normally we can't do when we have our kids around and schedules, et cetera. But when I've shared that with other friends or made suggestions,

maybe you should try doing this, all I hear is why this won't work, why we can't do that because of the home life, et cetera, and a lot of guilt shows up. So I think one thing we have to do with these needs that we have that are so important are make sure we're having some good conscious communication with the people in our life that matter most to explain to them the why behind it so certain friction doesn't show up. My hunch is Mark, there's no friction probably from your wife or your family because they know that 30 minute or 40 minute walk you take in the evening, they know that's making you better, right? No, 100%. And there'll still be some friction here and there. And it's all about how we deal with that friction, right? So I think there's also, I'm not

too skew from the topic too much, but there's also the sense of how do we deal with friction? and do I listen to you if we're having an argument? Do I put myself in your shoes and the quality of the friction itself? So that's a whole other topic. But for me, as far as anything that's disrupting joy, you would basically probably be anything that's disrupting my, especially morning routine. If it happens a few days in a row where I'm, you know,

have a lot to do more than normal and I have to skis schedule myself earlier than I need to, just things that come up in life and my routine just gets skewed. Even if it's for three days in a row, that will be something that takes me off because I feel like now it's like I got to get back into more routine because that what is my anchor. And it's such a huge part of my day that I just am a better man sticking to that routine. So the moment I get disrupted, it's like, oh God, what are we doing now? So I have to really be conscious about that and immediately put myself back into that routine so I can be out there for the world. Not that it completely throws you off in all aspects of life, but you just don't

feel as good. When you don't feel as good, you're less productive, you're less focused in business, you're less able to be there for, you know, your family in the way that you want to. A hundred percent. Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah, I would say if I do anything out of obligation, like if I'm, if I'm, If I'm meeting up with someone, like, for example, I love that when we do our man morning every Thursday morning. We meet at 7 or 8 a.m. I've never felt obligated to show up. I want to show up. But there's some invitations you'll get from friends or old friends or different colleagues or whatever.

And let's meet for this evening or meet this week. Do you want to do at this or whatever? And I feel a sense of obligation. And I know for me, whenever I feel like a sense of obligation, that's like a red light. That's like a red, you know, flashing light that's going off saying I have to get curious about that. Why do I feel obligated to do this versus wanting to do that? And if I do a lot of different things out of obligation, I find that that will zap my joy immediately.

What's your earliest indication that it could be in your body, it could be, you know, stress in your neck? What's your earliest indication that you're responding to something out of obligation? I'm glad you asked that question because typically it's something that we ignore. It's our body. 100%. It can be a sensation in my stomach. It can be a, for me, obligation shows up in my forehead.

There's like a tightness in my forehead that I feel a bit of a furrowed brow or a frown that I feel if something feels a little bit like an obligation, not versus a want. But also something that very rarely are we tapped into, that being our body and those signs that it can show for us. No, I love that. Jay, jump in. Something that zaps your energy. Simple things that, you know, can kind of take away from your joy in life.

Totally. I think what you talked about earlier, with accumulated inertia that's not addressed. I think creating space, be it a walk, be it an introspection practice. For me, if I don't do like a global life perspective, I'd be like, let me feel it out. Well, let me think it out in terms of relationships, work, my own personal health. Where am I getting sloppy in terms of a habit that I took for granted? I was like, oh, I'm amazing at doing X, Y, and Z in terms of going to the gym.

And I'm like, oh, wait, I haven't gone in like three days. You know what I mean? Like, I need to step on my game. Just making that space for not allowing anything that is sort of like a emotional irritation on an unaddressed feeling, like creating dedicated space for that, be it passive in terms of a walk or like active. I need to like be proactive in like investigating my inner life or my outer life. If I don't do that for a few days, the quality of your joy is you're not being honest

fully to yourself, I feel. So I begin to get like more irritable or I can get just, you know, want to put on social media because I'm trying to escape from something versus actually integrating and like flowing through all the emotions in a healthy way and acknowledging them all. So I think just getting sloppy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Letting that inertia build up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

get a chance to talk about, which is what our man morning group here in Los Angeles has meant to us, is that I will say big picture. And again, for everybody listening that might want to cancel me after saying this, is that there's variability amongst men. There's variability amongst women. You masculine and feminine. You can have, you know, a guy that can have, guys have both of those energies that are there. But I'm just talking broad strokes.

I think women are better at being in touch with their emotions, right? And a lot of that has to do with the way that their bodies are designed, having much more hormonal variation, having their infradian rhythm. We've done a bunch of episodes on this podcast and almost being more in tune with how their body's changing on a weekly basis for men. We're primarily driven by the circadian rhythm. And so that means that we're kind of like the same, 24 hours all the time. We're just going through that normal rhythm that's there.

And so because, you know, women are so great at being in touch with their, you know, emotions and kind of feeling what their feelings are, I. I've often found, I'll speak for myself, but also just noticing a lot of the men in my life, for a lot of guys, it's kind of like you don't know exactly how you feel always until you have the moment to kind of like talk it out loud, like actually having a group of friends, other men that you look up to, other men that inspire you, other men that are also trying to be good men, and sharing what's on your mind, sometimes I don't even know how I fucking feel about a situation until I speak it out loud.

And that's what Man Morning has been. And so, you know, for those that are listening, you've probably heard in the intro a little bit, but Man Morning is a weekly group of guys that started here in Los Angeles and we get together on Thursday mornings and we go for a walk together. We'll typically have a captain.

That captain will pick, you know, the place that we want to walk to. They'll have the question of the day. And we will all. meet up on time and we'll walk for an hour and we'll bring up that question and it'll open up different dialogue. And sometimes when we don't have a question, one of the go-to questions that's there is tell us what you're celebrating in life and tell us what you're navigating, which I stole a little bit from this group called Summit series that I'm a part of. And in that

process of people going around and sharing their highlights, but also what they're navigating, which means maybe something that you're stuck on, something that's a little bit like, you know, you feel the frustration or there's inertia, but you haven't talked about it. before with anybody, it's a beautiful opportunity to let go of all that buildup, that emotional constipation, Antonio, that you were talking about earlier. And now you have another group of people that are just listening without judgment, and they're just here to listen. And in some cases, ask really good reflecting questions to help you go a little bit deeper. And one of the things that you see time and time again, besides the fact that there's all this science, I've done an episode

on it, we'll link to in the show notes, about how walking in particular allows for bilateral movement of the eyes, which scans the horizon, which actually relaxes the nervous system. There's a bunch of work that's been done on this from the group and the founder of the EMDR method. And so doing that together as a group has been foundational. It's something that I look forward to every week. And I'd love to just hear from everybody here just a little bit about anything they want to say about man morning and what that's meant for them of regularly having a community of other men that you can go and like talk about what's going on in life. Antonio?

Yeah, I mean, man mourning is so important. You know, I started a newsletter for it to provide this with other men across the country, across the world so they can have this feeling every single day in their inbox. And Drew, I'll provide you with the link you can put in the show notes about how folks can have their own man morning as well. Man morning has provided me with something that I didn't know was missing in my life, that brotherhood, that intention. When we get together, I love that it's happening.

typically at 7 or 8 a.m. There's something about the conversations you have with someone over a cup of coffee or a cup of tea that is so different than the conversations you have as someone at 7 p.m. Over a beer, a mescal or a glass of wine. Don't get me wrong. I like those things as well, but the intention about it is so different. I walk away from all these man in morning gathering so inspired, so sometimes challenge in many ways to think a little bit differently, so encouraged, And to your point, Drew, I've shared some things out loud there that I didn't plan on sharing that were frankly vulnerable. And you said something so key about this, Drew, in that being that it's a place where you're

not judged, where you can share some things that you're going through in your business. We're all pretty much operate our own businesses. You can share things, maybe challenges you're experiencing in your home life with your marriage or raising kids. And you can get some different perspectives. But also, here's what's cool, is you also realize that I'm not the first person to experience this. or I'm not the only one to experience this.

And we have men, obviously, from all different backgrounds, all different ages, et cetera. So, by the way, I was on your podcast previously, and someone told me it's not et cetera with an X, it's with a T, et cetera. So I'll say, et cetera. I'm going to keep saying, et cetera. That's how I roll. But you get these different perspectives.

And, you know, the last thing I'll say is that breakthroughs can come even when you're not talking. I've had so many amazing breakthroughs just listening. I've gone through man mornings and I talk a lot. You know that. But I've had somewhere over the course of that hour, I didn't say a word. I just listened to nod in my head, but I walked away so empowered or I learned something new. So breakthroughs can come even when you're not speaking.

And I think we can forget that. Yeah. And I think before I pass it over to Mark and Jay to jump in, we are also really, truly, I feel, at a crisis of men. And what I mean by that is that there are a lot of young men that are growing up that are more and more isolated. And it's not just young men. Actually, if you look at the statistics of the most isolated people here, especially in America, and increasingly the Western world, it's older men who don't even have one best friend. The New York Times says this whole article about how people after the age of especially 35 and they get into their 40s, 50s, 60s and so on, they barely have one best friend. one best friend, right? And that's so sad to think that there's so many people that are out there,

especially men, that are isolated, don't open up about what they're going through, don't open up about the highs, the lows that are there. And women are so much more better at that. But then that has all sorts of downstream impacts in society. Then you have a lot of young people that are growing up without mentors, without role models, without understanding that the importance of like to be good in every aspect of your life, you kind of need a little bit of a brotherhood to keep you accountable, to inspire you, to make you a better person. So we're getting lonelier and increasingly more and more young men don't have role models and we're doing activities that are driving us towards isolation without that opportunity

to like reconnect with people in person. So Mark, I'd love to hear from you as one of the more newer members, you and Jay into Man Morning. What does it meant for, what does it meant for you in your life? Yeah, for me it's been a huge positive experience and talking about that effortless, That's been an absolutely a huge addition to my life being part of the men morning group. I think for men, just adding to that, in general, we're brought up to be stoic and perhaps less vulnerable. Again, generalizing. And so for men to share feelings, whether it's with our loved ones, our kids, our coworkers, and other friends,

is sometimes really, really hard. We were never really potentially taught by our fathers, grandfathers, how to be vulnerable, how to share our feelings with other men. And what this men morning group has brought is a sense of safety and positivity to really share deeper feelings with a group of whether we're four or six or up to eight of us, walking and talking. And so I look forward to these morning walks every single week. I wait for that text to come in and set up our morning walk. And, you know, it's interesting because I have two boys and I'm already passing a lot of this information to my boys and encouraging them being 17 and 13

to start talking to their friends and how are they sharing their challenges and potential negative views of life and the positive views of life. So it's really important for me as a dad right now to take these experience that I'm getting through Manwarning and immediately sharing it with my kids. Another thing that I've seen happen is, you know, because it's such a positive experience, I'm really more aware than ever

of the people who bring negativity to my life. And so I am really finding myself trying to put a bit of a wall, even if it's friends that I've had for a long time, to noticing their negativity and just trying to just step away from it because it's not doing me any good. I can't necessarily change them overnight, but I'm in a sense protecting myself and really pushing myself towards the positive elements of my life instead. So really being aware and conscious of that, that's becoming a daily routine for me too. Sure, I know that's something that everybody can relate to. And I think you mentioned something else, Mark, is that, you know, for anybody who's listening,

that's like, oh, this sounds like kumbaya, it's all, it's like super soft, it's this, it's that. We talk about fucking crushing it in business. Yeah, yeah. We talk about wanting to make more money in our life to have impact or to do things or create more opportunities. It's not just the soft stuff. It's also the other things. And that's actually what it means to be a man. You can, you can be both sides of those things.

You know, I don't know if you guys have seen this in the news. but there was a gentleman, and I don't know too much about him, but there's a gentleman named Andrew Tate that basically got canceled from social media. And a big part of it was, from what I understand, you know, reading a little bit, is that this was a guy who had very controversial things to say. He had a very specific viewpoint of what being a macho man or a man was about. And from what limited I've seen, yeah, it's probably a very specific, you know, degrading viewpoint of the world that's out there. and, you know, I look at stuff and I'm like, okay, well, why did it get so much attention?

The young men, especially that were listening to him, what were they looking for? And really, people were looking for probably guidance. And in the case of him, you know, he's probably doing it with like flashing money and this and that, you know, there's a lot of stuff that was caught up in it. But it's actually a reminder that society needs more examples of men who are both driven, driven to work out and have and be like better in their body, right? be better in relationship. And it's okay to actually want success for you,

your friends, your family, and to make money and to give back into the world. Like you can be all of those things. It doesn't have to be only soft. It doesn't have to only be quote unquote hard, you know, aspects. It can be a blend of all that. And that's a big part of what I feel like Man Morning is. Jay, jump in.

What does it mean to you as a newer member of the group? Yeah. So echoing, Mark, I think having something on your calendar is amazing where you don't have to like plan a really high quality community gathering where you just know you can jump in and feel a level of safety, emotional safety and like honesty. We can really speak or I've heard things that typical guys wouldn't talk about in other settings in terms of what they're going through with challenges. And I feel like the stigma in general, what I have experienced in my own consciousness,

and with friends over the past 10 years, is just like if there's weakness, if you're going through a challenge with a relationship or with your business or with anything, weakness is unmanly. And I think that is a little bit of like a cultural myth that we may have digested unconsciously. So there is that level of like emotional honesty and freedom

that I find ridiculously valuable. The other thing is like, I feel like there's a lot of, unbalanced winning in this world. So guys, entrepreneurs typically, you know, God bless Elon Musk for creating Tesla, but he's got nine kids. He's got a lot of stuff going on. And I find like in general, in the startup culture, entrepreneurship culture, there's a lot of examples of people getting success by making sacrifices to their health or their relationships. And there's a little bit of the myth that I was in my early 20s. I'm 31, but when I was when I was younger, that,

I bought into that myth, that I have to like work X hours or I'm not going to be winning. So I think with this group, I find guys are more balanced. They care about their relationships. They care about their family. They care about their health. They care about winning, but trying to have the appreciation of like, okay, this is my life garden. These are my life departments. I need to be balanced.

And I can still win. So I think that has been really great, you know, through Mark and Tony. you know, we're all entrepreneurs in our own way and in our own businesses. So it's nice to have like living examples of that and talk to people because we have a similar mindset of a North Star of what is a healthy, successful, impactful life. I love it. All right. A big part of Man Morning is that we bring up questions.

There's a question of the day. We already started off with one. We were talking about joy and what are simple things that we do to add significant amount of joy to our life. Here's another question that we're going to jump into, and it piggybacks off of this theme. And that question is, tell us about someone in your life who's been a role model, could be male or female, and they've helped you be a better man. Who are they, and what did you learn from them? Anybody feel excited to go first?

I'll go. I have to go back way back to undergrad at Western Michigan University. And I walked on the track and field team. I was a long jumper and triple jumper. And it's really connected with manned morning as well. I was a long jumper and triple jumper. And we had a really old school coach that if he was around today, he'd get fired after an hour being on the job because he was really direct and said things

you're not allowed to say right now to people. But after two years of being on the track and field team, I walked on the team, which means I didn't have a scholarship at the time. I was doing absolutely horrible. And I knew I was doing absolutely horrible because one day my head coach, Jack Shaw, rest in peace, came up to me and said, Tony, you're doing absolutely horrible.

He kept it real with you. Then he did something that changed my life in that moment. And he said, I don't know if you know this, but we have two All-Americans on our team. And he pointed to two individuals. These are two folks. One would go on to compete in the Olympics and another one would go on to compete in the world championships.

Do the best athletes in the world. And he said, but in the two years you've been on this team, not once have I seen you spend any time with them. He said, instead you're hanging out with those guys. And he pointed over to the high jump mat, where in high school or middle school or collegiate track and field, it's where folks lay back and laugh and have a good time. That's a party group.

It's a party group. Not bad people, not committing crimes, but not all American. And that's all coached out there. And he walked away. And that moment, he taught me a lesson about, you know, how you can have allies in your life or you can have thieves in your life, kind of like the focus of that negative energy you talked about, Mark, thieves, and I realized who those allies are. And I realized in that moment, I had a choice to make who I was going to spend time with,

who I was going to emulate. And I was fortunate from that, that small interaction with Coach Shaw, I was able to go on and earn a partial scholarship, become an all-conference triple jumper, et cetera. And it's always been a reminder to me that I have to spend my time with people who do make me better. And the question, I always have to ask myself, and I encourage others to ask others. And it goes on that whole, you know, thing we always hear about the five people you spend time with is, you know, just to think about the five people you spend the most time with or who you interact with most on your phone because that's what we do a lot and ask yourself a simple question, do they make you better? I mean, it's a simple question, but a powerful question.

I'm fortunate enough with Man Morning, everyone in that group 100% makes me better and pushes me and challenges me and encourages me, et cetera. And Coach Shaw was that individual way back when I was young. I'm a dude that didn't grow up with a stability, moved over 15 times before I graduated from high school between my mother and father, a total of six divorces, didn't have strong male figures in my life. You know, I didn't have a manual of what certain things were supposed to look like. But that man, at that important moment in my life and probably at, you know, 19 years old, taught me such a powerful lesson without, with barely saying anything, taught me a lesson that stays

with me to this day. That's powerful. I love it. I love it. Mark Jay, does anyone want to jump in? Yes. For me, it's my mom. So she taught me what unconditional love is through her example.

And I feel that is one of the most valuable lessons that she gave to me because it helps me to be a better friend, be a better person within my business. businesses, if I'm a leader, like, can I hold that space for imperfection? And she's had a really, you know, tough life. And she's just like sunshine. She's just like pure joy. So I think, like, your hardship doesn't need to taint your inner joy. And you can still have that high quality love. And it's always like a like a journey to do that. I think that's like one of the most valuable sort of lessons I've got just through having her example. Wow.

It's like, what's her name? We got to hear her name because she sounds amazing. Oh, she's got a great name to it. Zamira. Okay. Zamira Kamari. Yeah, she's my hero. You know, in a way I'm hearing kind of like when you know, especially as a kid,

when your brain is still developing and you're forming your sense of the world, it reminds me like Albert Einstein had this quote. He said, you know, one of the most important questions, I'm paraphrasing here. that somebody can ask himself is, is the universe a force for good or is the universe a force for bad? And when you are loved by a mother, which everybody needs, right, regardless of gender, when you're loved by a mother and you really feel like you have that grounded, it's like a safety net that you know all is right in the world and you already start off into this planet, which is like, look, most people are good people.

Sure, there's some bad actors that are out there, but most people are good people or they want to do good. And the world is like a safe place. So let me go out there and let me leave my mark. Versus, and I've talked to individuals like Dr. Gabor-Mate on this podcast before, of when you go through really rough childhoods, which a lot of people have. Or maybe they didn't have that loving motherly or fatherly energy. You come in already with the sense and feeling that you're working against in sort of the world of childhood trauma, which is that the world is out to get you.

The world isn't safe. The world is coming after you. Now, you can heal from all that, but you're already, starting from a place of people are out to get me or people are out to take from me. So it starts to develop your mindset that you have to be, watch out, they're going to come after you, watch out, be protective versus you can be a lot more loving, joyful, kind, and driven knowing that largely the world is here for you, not against you. Totally.

Yeah, I feel like if you're one of the best gifts of life, if you are lucky to receive it with an amazing family, is that receiving that love and in mind. emotional security that becomes part of your DNA. But for me, I've, you know, you can always develop it also with the friendships, like, period. If you can give love unconditionally, you will receive love eventually. I feel like just like how the universe works. Just give love unconditionally, wisely, not to like every random stranger that you meet. You've got to be, have a level of discrimination and obviously kindness, universal kindness.

But yeah, I feel like giving love is a great way to happiness. Mark, jump in. Sure. Yeah, I think for myself, maybe a little bit of a different route. My parents weren't really my role models. I grew up, I was born in Israel, and we moved to Canada when I was a younger kid at about 10, 11 years old. This was due to a bankruptcy that happened to my family, to my dad. And so I was immersed in a new culture.

I had to learn French and English, go to French school, and meet new friends. Everything was a little bit scary and unsettling. My mom was also fighting a little bit of depression and some mental illness at the time. And I could see my dad was really struggling with a new career and trying to rebuild our life. So he's also a scientist.

He's a PhD in physics, and he's pretty much an introvert. And we were just very different. As much as he was a loving father, we didn't have as much in common. So luckily for me at a young age, I also got really interested in music, and I found an amazing music teacher who was, I played bass. And Alain Carrant was his name, and he was an amazing studio session player,

and I connected with him. And he basically became my mentor. He was almost a philosopher and loved learning, and at a very young age I used to not just study bass, but he would take me under his wing and we'd spend hours just talking about life. And he taught me that for him, music was really a way to deliver his own voice into the world, channeling it through music. And so he grounded himself through music.

And I think at a fairly young age, I learned how to do that. And that was a bit of my savior, instead of getting into trouble or going to some, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowds. Music was my anchor. And for my dad, education was really important. So when it came down to finishing high school and going to college, and I didn't want to go that route at the time. I wanted to go and play with the band and go on the road and be a rock and roll star.

And my parents just wanted nothing out of it. So my teacher, Elaine, said, okay, you know what? I'm going to come to your house. I'm going to talk to your parents. We're going to all sit together and they're going to hear you out. I'm just going to sit there and give you support, but tell them what's going on for you and why you're not going to take this route. And we had this beautiful conversation.

I'll remember this forever that I explained to my parents, I'm not going to college. I'm going to take some time off. I'm going to go on the road. I'm going to pursue music, even though they knew nothing about that world, and we'll see what happens. And my dad's reaction at the time was like, okay, let's do it. And I didn't expect that reaction at all. So, you know, from there on, I did end up going to college. Later, I went to Berger College of Music, and then I moved to the States full-time.

So that was another level of immigration. But taken from that, I think for me, it really became important to then, as an adult, to become a mentor for other people. for because I run a few companies and I have maybe 130, 40 employees and my own sons. And how do I show up for everybody in my life, my family, my friends, my employees, and be their mentor is a really important thing for me because I didn't really have it in my parents. And as a parent, it became done much more important for me. Wow, that's beautiful. He was a mentor and advocate.

He really took the extra step in this instance, even be there with you. And I think that one thing that's really important about that is that for anybody's listening that has kids, I think especially for kids, it's so important, you know, even if you have great parents, right, and even if you have parents that are doing their best, we naturally, and the same thing goes for your partner, even if you have a great partner, husband, wife, whatever it might be. You can only learn so much directly from there. We kind of need a village to learn from, right?

We need all sorts of different people from all different walks of life to learn from because we're going to hear the same message you're going to say as your dad or your mom. Even though they weren't necessarily into music, we're going to hear it in a different way. Or they're going to see something different in you because they're not with you every single day. I'm sure there are people that are mentors for your sons that see something in them and say, hey, you know, did you know your son is really good at this or that? And sometimes we can be so close to it that we could overlook it. So I think it's just the importance of having mentors. And of course, as you left us with that note, being a mentor, especially if you've been lucky enough to have one in your life and paying it forward.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. First, I want to meet your mom. And this gentleman sounds absolutely amazing. Something that came up, Mark, while you were talking, and this goes back, thank to the theme that you mentioned earlier. And I'm excited who your person was, by the way, Drew.

But this theme of isolation that men have, and, you know, I think it's one and seven men don't have someone, you know, a close friend in their life. I heard you say very clearly that you had somewhere to be. And I think it makes such a big difference, especially for young men to have something on your calendar somewhere to be, whether it's music class where you can meet individuals like that, whether it's sports, for men right now at the stage of our life, having man morning on our calendar is a place to be that it doesn't, hey, are we doing it this week? No, it's on the calendar. Like, you opt out. You don't opt in. I just think it's so critical to have something there, especially at a young age.

100%. We can go and search it, I think, for anybody. just find that joy and everybody's got going back to joy, what is it that brings joy to you and then go search it out and pursue it? Upright base? No, electric base. I think it's beautiful, too, with Mark, how you basically didn't receive so much of that in your childhood and now you're in a giving state and you have the capacity to be the giver,

which is a great, beautiful mouse. And I feel like with May and Morning, too, I feel like he marks a little bit of the presidential elder statesman. He comes with a different presence. And I think having the diversity of life experiences and our own strengths that come from our own life experiences and sharing that, elevating together has been great. You know, the other thing I'll say,

especially in this day and age, where there's so much emphasis on, like, people want to self-actualize, even if, you know, people have been very success. I have a lot of family members that are doctors. Even within that role, there's this open conversation today, because so many people are talking about joy, purpose, happiness. There's many people that have been traditionally from the outside been successful

and are, let's say, like, in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and they're like, I don't want to do this thing anymore. Or I want more of this. And because more people are talking about it, they're willing to at least acknowledge to themselves. Like, you know what, maybe I don't want to be a doctor in the same way that I'm now. I do want to help people. I want to use the skill sets that I have, but I want to do something different. But what does that look like? I think it's so important today. We often talk about young people, but I think even men that are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, so on, if you want to

reinvent yourself, you need fucking mentors. You're never too young to have a mentor or at least a friend. And a mentor doesn't have to be a structured thing where, hey, every quarter, I'm going to call you. I'm going to talk about what progress I'm making. Sometimes it's that. Sometimes it's just somebody who's a little bit ahead of us in one area of life that we want to learn from.

So I think that's a good challenge for especially people who are like, well, things are pretty good, but I'm trying to think about what the next stage is for me. Well, you don't know unless if you kind of see examples that are out there.

And if you're not seeking people out, how are you going to be inspired to know what's possible? So I'll jump in. Are that one person who's listening right now and I know what they're saying, it's easy for you to say, say, Drew, but I don't have those men. I don't have those women in my life, those mentors.

Until you can find those folks who you have physical, direct contact with, your mentors can be the folks you listen to on podcast. You can learn from their experience. Your mentors can be the folks that you read in books. They can be the folks. You read articles about, et cetera. So it doesn't a mentor, and I've come to think about this new in the past few years, doesn't necessarily have to be the person that you can pick up the phone and talk to. But guess what? You have access to Drew on every single week multiple times on the podcast by pushing play, right? And I think those are,

and there's so many other people we have access to, so mentors are beyond the direct people you have direct access to. Yeah, yeah. I would hear Seth Godin often call it like, you know, these are people that you look up to, and then there could still be a use for somebody, you know, in person. Absolutely. And I think there is a lot of use for people in person.

And I'll steal from my friend Lewis House who has this great quote that I've shared before. If you don't know where to find those people, go to where people grow. Take an interest in your life. Where are those people hanging out that want to grow in that interest? Whether it's tennis,

whether it's an entrepreneurship group, whether it's wanting to learn about coding. Toastmasters is a great place for people who want to get better at public speaking and develop that skill set. Where do people in the interest that you have, where do they go to grow, go there? And now, literally it's like,

ask somebody to catch up for coffee, ask somebody to pick their brain, invite them over for dinner, do something with them to start fostering those relationships, make an invitation to this person, and now a friendship can get started. Also, before I share, Antonio, in your manmourning newsletter, manmorning.com, people can sign up. You also have a little bit of a roadmap. If people are listening to this and are like, wow, that's great for you guys. You guys have this group. Go fucking start your own group. And by the way, you can do that if people go to their website and you kind of like see a little bit of the framework that we use to just set up this informal group.

of people that are all there in brotherhood to support each other. Yeah, I mean, we tell you, we laid out exactly how it works. There's also a recent post in the newsletter where we talk about the type of men you want to have in your life. We break down the five type of men that are critical to have in your life. And these aren't folks you engage with on a daily basis. They don't have to be best friends, but it literally is laid out. These are the folks you want around you on a regular basis.

And so we can provide those links as well. Yeah, definitely. We'll link to that in show note. again, man morning for anybody who's listening, manmorning.com. Okay, I'll jump in. And a little similar to Jay, you're sharing two people that have made me a better man and I want to acknowledge, you know, their influence as well, two people that have made me a better man is both of my sisters, my older sister Herschel and my younger sister

Kea. And each in their own unique way, my older sister Herschel at a time where I was super introverted, kind of like a little bit geeky. high school or just trying to navigate himself and, you know, in the world, on a very practical level, my older sister kind of like took me under her wing once she was in college and there was a little bit of separation. You know, when you're in the same household, you fight a little bit with your siblings, whether it's, you know, brothers and sisters or, you know, brothers and brothers. My older sister took me under her wing, maybe a little bit out of pity, but a little bit also of

like seeing what potential I had. And on the most fundamental things, she would teach me a little bit like, hey, don't dress like that way. Like maybe try doing this, right? She would literally help me like, buy clothes, help me like level up a little bit. She could see, obviously, I had a girlfriend in, in high school, and she could see, you know, my interest in that category. And she said, Listen, if you want to be more attractive to the opposite sex, like, you know, maybe dress a little bit better, right? So that was one thing. Another thing was my older sister would invite me. This is like in the, like probably the year like 1999, 2000, right around then.

When her friends would go out, she'd say, hey, come on, we're all going to this like club. I know the DJ. He'll let us in. But there's only like a couple of rules. Number one, you're under 21. So don't try to drink. You're going to get us in trouble because you look young as shit. Yeah?

Like you have a little peach fudge mustache, but everyone can look at you and you look like, like a middle schooler. But, you know, hang out with us, dance, you know, me people talk. And it really pushed me to become better in conversation. And it gave me confidence I could hang out with people who are older and I could even talk to women who are older and like maintain a conversation with them and ask some questions and other stuff. So on a very practical level, it really shaped my confidence, the way that she helped kind of

helped me step into being a more sophisticated man, right? Before I was like subscribing to GQ, she was kind of like my GQ edition of like navigating a little bit. And then my younger sister, she's been my number one cheerleader when I, Mark, similar to your story, decided that, you know, college was not for me. Even though I'd done great in school

and almost always gotten pretty much all A's and B's, graduated like, you know, near top of my class. I got to university and I realized that I don't want to go this route and I want to build a business. In fact, I was building a business in university and it started having a little bit of legs and some traction. And the first person that I went and I told that I want to go do something different, I might want to take some time off school or drop out and go build this thing was my younger sister. And my younger sister did something amazing. She heard me and without passing any kind of judgment, shout out to Kea, shout out to my older

sister Herschel too. she just listened to me and she tried to put herself into my shoes. And both my sisters are incredible listeners. And they've gotten that from really the male figure in our lives who's been a huge mentor, role model, everything. And that's my dad, my dad, Kumar, Kumar Perraud. Shout out to him. He is such an incredible listener and he will hold back jumping in and putting his

agenda on you before he's had a chance to really understand your perspective. And I don't know why my dad is so good at that, but he's always been so good. And it made everybody in my family a better listener, which benefited my sisters, but also helped me through them to become a better man. That's huge. The better listener, the listener part of it is something that's so important. I find that we always want to potentially add our agenda to other people. And so, especially with family. 100% and I heard you, but here is my opinion. Totally.

And it is something that is either you have it naturally like your dad, which is amazing because for most people I don't think it does come naturally, but it is a learned science in a sense how to really hold back and let our ego go for a second and really listen to the other person and be in the other person's shoes, try to understand where that person's coming from before we add our opinion. that's really important. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like having humility is a key quality in listening. Because as soon as you begin to make assumptions that I know what this other person is and I have the perfect picture for the whole situation, if like I always, whenever I'm, if there's some kind of feedback, I'm like, I'd be like, oh, wait, is my perspective correct? Like, do I need to actually take a pause, let go of the ego, create space to listen? Yeah, I feel like humility in being a good listener. or it's like great. So he's your dad a humble person? I'm curious. Oh my gosh. My dad is the most humble person I know. My grandfather was also that way too. Um, maybe to the degree where

he didn't sometimes advocate for himself in, you know, his job or other things like that, even though he's done really well over the years, but he's a very humble individual. And from a young age, would always try to like instill that in us. And, um, but yeah, my dad is a very humble person. Your dad can arrest all of us now, though, right? Isn't he like a, isn't he on the police force? He's like an honorary volunteer deputy. I'm like, dad, how do you want to spend your retirement? He's like, well, I'm going to help you with your business.

I'm going to do this. I have my friend group. And you know what? I might go be a volunteer honorary sheriff or something, like deputy sheriff. And so he's doing that as well. That's gangster. That's gangster. That's great.

I just want to just add, I think it's so special. And again, as a father of young kids, you know, six-year-olds, Mark, I've heard I've you've, you know, been really intentional about raising your kids, hearing that you had that dynamic with your siblings, you know, I feel like in this day and age is so rare. You always hear about siblings that have beef or they don't get along or there's tension. Like, I just think, I'd love to hear that. I want to do whatever I can on my end to ensure that my kids have that kind of dynamic as well. Yeah, it's almost like parents got to fight a little bit to make sure their kids stay close. It's too easy in this day and age for differences and other stuff. But you

you learn from your parents. Your parents kind of role model a little bit. They set the tone. And our parents from the beginning said, look, when you get onto the world, the world is a little crazy. It can be a little crazy. But you guys have each other

and you got to look out for each other and you got to make sacrifices for each other. And still to this date, I literally feel like I won the lottery with my family. I mean, we have issues just like every other family has stuff that's there. But because my family has been so intentional about growth, I feel this immense drive in my life

to sort of pay forward some of those lessons that I've learned from them because they've shaped me so much in who I am. That's beautiful. By the way, I just have to add, when you're talking about your sisters, your face just completely lit up. Oh, my sister's noticeable here. So if your sisters are listening, the love is in the room. Yeah, my sisters are my best friends, you know?

That's dope. And I really just so appreciate them. And I totally feel like I won the lottery with my family. All right, gentlemen, we have our next theme that we're going to get into on the topic. We're going to shift a little bit into the relationship category. So sometimes in Man Morning we have a question. People go around. And sometimes somebody will bring a theme, a topic, a quote.

They'll read it out and then people will respond to it. So I have a quote from somebody who's been on this podcast before. Her name is Esther Perel. And it's been somebody that I've looked up to some of her writings in the world of navigating relationships and the relationship between a husband or wife or partners or whatever it might be. And so the quote that she has, which I think is an important thing that I'd love to get your guys's reaction to is, we often bring, so quote, this is from a stare, we often bring the best of ourselves to work and our friends and community only to leave scraps of leftovers for home and our partner.

I'll read that one more time. we often bring the best of ourselves to work and our friends and community only to leave scraps of leftovers for home and our partner. And by the way, before everybody chimes in, we'll pass it on the table to just get your thoughts about this quote. What does it bring up for you? Can you relate? Do you disagree?

Do you agree? You know, by the way, disagreeing is completely okay on this podcast. Anybody who has a different opinion, but somebody else, please chime in. Aster is not just talking about, obviously, this quote isn't for just men. She just means it for people in general. Men, women, everybody suffers from this thing. But Antonio, let's jump in with you first. When you hear this quote, what does it bring up for you in the context of today's conversation?

It brings up growth how far I've come because I've been that dude. I've been that man that gave my wife and definitely provided my kids with the leftovers. First, it makes me think back to in my bookstop living on autopilot. I tell a story. Prior to living in L.A. and doing the work I do today, I worked in the television industry in New York City for 12 years. as a reporter and correspondent for a variety of television networks there. So on TV on a regular basis, interacting with the public, et cetera, always out and about New York City life, et cetera.

I keep saying, et cetera, et cetera, for that person, just to mess with you. But I remember one time I went to this gala with an ex-girlfriend, a girlfriend at the time. I remember we came back from the gala where we had a really good time. And I can still remember seeing her taking her earrings off in the mirror and I was changing clothes, et cetera. And she said something so kind and loving, because that's the kind of person she was. And she said, you know, sometimes I wish that you could give me half of the energy that you give to strangers. I wish that sometimes you could give me half the energy that you give to strangers

because she would see me light people up. I put smiles on people's faces, create deep connections, create bonds, make introductions to someone I don't even know. But then she would see me in a different capacity be outside of the lights, outside of the public, and I wasn't that guy. I was reserved and I was quiet. Fast forward now to, you know, being married and having kids and a guy that typically travels a lot and speaks on stages in front of five, sometimes five thousand plus people or thousands of people where you can light up an audience. You can connect with these strangers, you know, take someone on this phenomenal emotional ride. you know, your spouse can see that, whether it be on Instagram, reels and videos. And then you come home and you realize you're not bringing any of that to them.

If anything, you're bringing in a dower, a bad mood. You're coming in complaining. I'm speaking about myself right now, coming and complaining if something wasn't clean while you were gone, etc. And thank goodness, you know, I was able to have the conversation and awareness to what I was bringing when I came back home. And the question always begs, I think, for all of us. And we have to ask ourselves regularly is, is, what shows up when you show up. Do things get better or do things get worse? We can all identify that person that, you know, it could be a colleague that when they show up to the office or to a

meeting that you know things are about to take a turn for the worst or even at a party or a gathering and the door opens and a certain person walks in, you're like, oh, man, they're about to call the police because this dude just showed up. But there are other people that when they show up, you know, you know, things are going to get better at that meeting or that party or that gathering. And so I had to take some really intentional steps or when I come home, when I step into my house, whether I'm on the road or not, to make sure I'm showing up with joy. I'm showing up with love. And just briefly, to Mark's point earlier, sometimes what that means for me, if I've been on the road for quite a few days, traveling a lot, that means when I'm driving home from LAX, and sometimes I will park my car

a blocker or two away from home. Put it in park and just breathe and just get present. And no matter how fatigued I am or tired I am from giving other people energy, I have to reset and say, yo, look, when you show up, man, you got to be there for your kids the way you are for others. You got to be there for your spouse as well. Bring that energy. Bring that charge, as Brendan Bouchard says, bring that love, et cetera. And sometimes, you know, yeah, you're psyching yourself up to do so. But it's made a really big difference because someone that's worked in the public light for over

20 years now, I've been guilty of giving people who are close to me leftovers. And now that's non-negotiable. I can't. That's my heart. That's my soul. I got to bring the best of me to them. I love it, dude. Mark, we give ourselves, we give our best selves to the world and we often bring leftovers at home. When you hear that quote, what does it bring up for you? I think like you and Antonio, this really resonates with me. And it actually brings me back to when my kids were really young. And I was at the same time starting my businesses, and there was some overlapping with a couple of them. And it was a pretty stressful time in life,

just trying to build that business. It was a time where I basically put all or nothing on the table when we built the post-production studio, so it was either a go or it wasn't going to go. And so going through that transition and also not having the family support system here in L.A. with us. My family was all in different places around the country and the world. And so it was just really my wife and I.

And we didn't really prepare for all of this to come at once, young kids, new businesses, all that growth. And I am responsible for being short many times when you come home and just not being able to relate to the kids and the wife and giving them the best of me because everything was just coming to the table. I had to really teach myself, so this just can't keep going. The businesses have to keep going. I have to keep growing them, but something has to switch in the way I come to my family and my kids.

So that same exact story, whether it's a little bit of meditation, that pause before coming home, that transition is what created a lot of growth for me. I really learned that in order to give, I got to replenish. You have to give your sense. And it's not a selfish thing. It is actually something in order to give more, you have to

replenish. And in order to replenish is what is it that we do for ourselves that makes us feel good? It goes back to the point of joy, finding joy every single day, and finding gratitude. I found that gratitude practice, because sometimes we tend to be negative. As human nature, we sometimes find the glass half empty versus half full. Negativity bias. Negativity bias is huge, and our society teaches us to be negative. That's all we see all around us. From social media, we're comparing ourselves to other people. What we hear on headlines is negative 99% of the time.

So in order to find that joy and gratitude, the reset, and then go back to the family, and really being present, so being present means it's not about, the quantity of time that we're giving to our family. It's really important for anybody who's listening that the amount of time and is the quality of time. So just listening to a kid, what's going on for you in school?

How did school go today? And just having dinner without the phone in your hand, just really sitting there and listening to that kid, even if it's for 15 or 20 minutes, whether they're young and you're reading that book for them at nighttime, just, that a little bit of intimacy and connection goes a huge way and then actually it helps us replenish as well. But we have to make sure we do it without any distractions. So the distractions

is what we're carrying from the day and the week and everything else that's happening for us is potentially a distraction. How do we remove ourselves from these daily distractions and be the best for our loved ones is something that I needed to work on for quite some time. And at this point it comes pretty naturally. And also my kids are a little bit older and there's a different types of relationship that gets established. But it's something that I will not give up is that replenishing time during the day. And it's the morning, a little bit in the afternoon. Gratitude, practice at nighttime. That's all very helpful to me. Yeah. And you said, you know, it's something that I need to work on. But I think that part of today's podcast is that we're all working on this.

And even when you think you have it figure it out, you'll find a little new experience or moment or like a new level of your relationship where they're like, oh, shoot, I did a bad job of that that week. And actually, that's a big part of the energy around Man Morning. It's like, it's okay not to beat yourself up. It's okay not to suppress that energy, make your partner the problem and said, you know what? I didn't do the greatest job last week. I'm a human being. I'm doing the best that I can. A lot of men feel that push and pull between, in your example, and a lot of us being entrepreneurs, you're, trying to be there as often, at least the way society's set up right now, you're trying to be there as a provider. And you're taking big risk in your case, you know, you're putting everything on the line to start this new studio up to provide a better life for your family. And then we can have a plan. And then there's God's plan that sort of shakes it all up. And then we have kids at the same time, too, and then something else happens. And we're feeling that push and pull of like we're making these sacrifices for our family or for our partner or for ourselves, whatever it might be. And we're also trying to keep in balance these other areas. And I think that a huge part

of that is that it's not about trying to be perfect with all that. It's actually just noticing where it may feel a little bit off, forgiving yourself, being gentle on it, and then just recommitting for the next time. And it's not about a ton of time, as you mentioned. It could even be just holding your wife's hand for a moment before you're headed off to work that day because you've had so many meetings and just saying, listen, babe, I know I've been working so much and you've been such a champion and cheerleader for my projects. And I just want to tell you, that I'm looking forward to us doing a date night together to really reset and have that opportunity.

And you kiss and that's like that honest moment of intimacy, that honest moment of being present, that honest moment of giving somebody your full attention, even if it's just for a few seconds, makes all the difference. I like what you said because the honest moment of intimacy because what can happen, and I'll speak for myself. I'm not sure if this showed up for you at all, Mark,

but you have to pay attention to when justification shows up, like the irony, but I'm doing this for us, right? Well, stop. Well, stop because you're a jerk. If you're doing this for us, bro, it's not working because if this business, this success you're pursuing comes to the stake of our relationships, of that honest intimacy, like, what's the point of it all? So, like you said, it's a journey.

But I wish someone would have told me, like, when you are justifying, that that's a flashing light of awareness to get curious about. But those moments of honest intimacy versus justification are probably the places, not probably over that actual magic can happen. But again, you have to be so intentional with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it kind of struck me that I was doing a little like nature retreat this past weekend and I just felt like it was really therapeutic. And one of the insights is just like came in the silence of like, you know, taking that time to replenish from a busy lifestyle was, you know what? I feel like for me, I don't have enough patience and tolerance when I make mistakes.

and I feel that I don't give myself the leeway to learn and it's okay and that can show up in other relationships. So say for example, if I make a mistake that beating myself up versus being like, you know what, I'm learning. I'm just learning. I'm still like developing in many ways and it's fine. And the same thing with an intimate partnership or a close friendship. It's easy to be like, you know what?

Like you shouldn't have made that mistake because you're. you know, you should have known it. I'm like, you know what? This person's learning. Give me a break. So are you saying a little bit just to make sure I connect the dots? Are you saying that because you're hard on yourself, you can sometimes notice that coming out on your relationship with other people? Is that part of it? With myself and others. Okay, got it. In intimate relationships where you can like, so with family. So in terms of leftover scraps, just kind of grounded there. I feel like with my family, for example, my brother is an important relationship for me to sort of nourish and work on. And, and

I can sort of not have a level of patience and tolerance with his journey that he, where he's at and what level of learnings that he needs to make. And can I not, can I just silence the inner critique? And can I just be his friend? And I feel like turning the dial of like your family is actually, can you be friends to them? Was very powerful with my mom because my mom, she's an amazing woman. but I felt like we kind of were, she was being a mother to me and not a friend all the time. And the quality of conversation is very different.

So I just was very deliberate over time of like selecting questions and guiding the conversation in a thoughtful way in a different scenario. I'd be like, mom, what did you think about this? What did you learn from my dad here? What did you think about this from this period of your life? And over time, you know, she said something really beautiful. I shared in man morning the summer was my father passed me when I was younger. And she said that even though God took away your father, he gave me his best qualities in you as a son.

And that just was a gift that I felt like was an amazing, hard opening experience for me. So I feel like I want to have that with my brother. Like I want to not take the leftover scraps after work and give. it to him and just be short. I want to like invest with him as a friend and nurture that beautiful relationship that is hopefully unfolding soon. I love it, man. You know, when I think about this quote, you know, we give our best selves to the world and often we bring our scraps and leftovers at home. The thing that I think about is I've shared this quote before on the podcast, but you know, Ram Dass has a great quote. And it says, you think you're so enlightened, go spend a weekend with your

family. Right? People who are on a high horse, they think they have it all figured out. They're super enlightened. They have super this, that, whatever. They're so calm.

Go spend a weekend with your family. And then all your buttons and everything. In that same way, I feel like relationships, you know, marriage is one of the best teachers can be one of the best teachers if we lean into it.

Because our, first of all, I think energetically, we often pick a partner whether we realize it or not, who will challenge us and push us a little bit in the areas that we want to get a chance to grow, right? I think that we do that on a subconscious level. And I think from an attraction level, there is something about having somebody with some

polarity that actually builds attraction between two people. The second component is that, you know, your partner, especially if they want to hurt you or you want to hurt them, nobody knows each other's buttons better, right? You and your partner know the person's insecurity, the thing, and that, and especially when you feel like you're on defense, what do people do? Byron Katie has this quote. She says, defense is the first act of war. When you feel defensive, you're, that's like you attacking, right? So when I think about this quote, I think about for me being married now for a little bit over a year and been with my wife prior to that for like about two, three years, I focus a lot on

what are the earliest indications that you feel I'm giving you leftovers? Because it happens. Even probably on a weekly basis, there'll be a moment, a situation where I come back from something. I might have had a tough workout that morning. I had a podcast that I felt like didn't go exactly the way I wanted to. And as much as I focus on trying to be grateful and practicing these things, I'm going to have a moment.

I'm going to have a human moment as an individual as a husband where I come home and I'm not paying attention to her. or she's telling me something that she's super excited about and I'm kind of texting at the same time or on the phone or other stuff. And so I am trying to make sure, because I need her help and she needs my help, I want to know from her, what are the earliest signs that I'm not paying attention or what are the triggers for you? And for me, for one of those instances might be that she is such a cheerleader in my life. And instead of just hearing her and being a champion and a cheerleader for it, right? I might go into the next topic that's there of whatever it is that

we need to chat about or do or, hey, what are we going to eat? Other things, I think a lot of people can resonate with this. For me, it's actually when she's on the receiving end of hearing what I'm excited about or what my day is going on is that I'll share with her, hey, you know, the earliest indication for me is that if you're on your phone or even if you're holding your phone at the same time that I'm talking to you. My wife would joke. She probably upset a little bit that I mentioned this on the podcast, but she's cool with it because she knows that she has a podcast too, so she's going to talk about me on there. There's, my wife would often say, I love being around when you FaceTime your sisters because they get all the goods of what's going on in

your life. They hear about the latest project or thing. And I always laughed a little bit. I was like, yeah, you know, I'm like, my sisters are like two of my best friends. And so I always share a little bit with them. And then this past weekend, we had a little riff and something came up. And I was like, you know what, sweetie, I actually realized, you know, one thing I haven't shared with you, which isn't fair, it's actually not fair for me to share, to not share this with you, which is that when I am excited, if you're looking at your phone or you're on social media, and, you know, she's building a new business. She's busy all the time. She's way busier than I am. She's trying to build this thing. She has so many different things that are going on.

I have much more of a team. I'm more of an established entrepreneur. I have compassion and empathy for the situation she's in. And I share with her that when you're looking at your phone, I feel a little less excited to kind of share about what my day is because I feel like, are you listening or not? She might sometimes ask me, oh yeah, sorry, what were you saying about that? And that, I know, is kind of like a little bit of an insecurity for me. Is that like, oh, somebody's not listening to me fully? And again, she deserves to hear that, right? She deserves to hear that that's a thing for me because now she can look out for that. She can be better and I can be better too.

So I'm always looking for what are those early signs? What are those things that we do to each other because we're both going to have them, even though we're trying to do our best and it'll continue to grow once we have kids and other situations? What are the early indications that we can bring up? And in the Gottman Institute,

and they're going to be coming on the podcast soon, I'm super excited about that. John Gottman and his wife, they call it that presenting your feedback with something called the soft starter. So the soft starter is like, hey, sweetie, listen, I know you're busy. I know you have a lot going on.

And I'm sure you have even more stuff that's coming up today that you have to take care of. And like, I want to acknowledge you for that. I see how hard you're working. And like when you look at your phone while I'm answering a question that you asked me, like, you know, tell me like what was really exciting about your day. It just builds in a little bit of like disconnection between us. I know you don't mean it, but I'm just sharing that with you. Right.

Versus like you never, you can always hear when somebody's getting defensive or ready to kind of put their stuff on somebody else, even if it's honest feedback, you never, you always, right, it's all these extremes, you never pay attention to me, right? Oh, I share with my sisters because they listen to me, you don't listen to me. That's not how to bring stuff up. You know, you bring stuff up in a soft way that doesn't create defensiveness and now we're both looking out for those things. I think what's an amazing theme with what everyone said. Again, is the word intention and the willingness to have the tough conversation. I think, in my experience most tough conversations last 10 minutes or less if you're willing to broach it if you're

willing to have it but you willing to have that conversation with your wife to bring that up which most people are unwilling to do because it's going to cause what a little bit of discomfort potentially in the moment you being willing to talk to your mother and shift that relationship from parent to friend uh the same with spouses etc like that willingness to have those conversations is such a game changer. I think most of us, and I'll speak for myself as well, we're all like one, quote-unquote, tough conversation away from an even better life, right? Because there's probably something that is left unsaid between you and someone that left not the best feeling in your stomach or made you feel a certain way that you've been unwilling to address. And that just sits and sits and marinerates.

And so I'm a challenge all of us to be willing to have that quote, unquote, I even hate the word tough, but that that tough conversation. Yeah, and chances are if you feel it, they feel it too. Yeah, you know, Mark, you know, your wife is in this field. She's a therapist. And I was going to add, yes. One thing that she taught us, and I think that really resonated is, you know, when we get, especially on these autopilot situations, as relationships grow and even with kids and you have, in a sense, life can becomes a little bit of autopilot, you should do this, go, did you do your homework?

You know, what are you doing tonight? Why didn't you do this? Do your laundry. Who cooked dinner? But for any negative that we bring into a person, whether it's a friend, any type of relationship, a kid, a loved one, for any negative, we should add five positives to that person. Right. And because the negative really tends to stay with us for a long time, and it's something that we just tend to hold on to a lot longer. So we want to make sure we offset any negativity with five positives.

And that's something I learned throughout the years, and it's something, again, at the beginning, you become conscious of it, and then it becomes more natural. It's just like, hey, you know, you look beautiful today. Oh, really beautiful job you did on. The dinner was amazing. Just little compliments and positive that we can throw into it for our colleagues and friends and loved ones is huge. It makes a huge difference.

You know, it's like you're reminding people that you've, have their back, you're reminding people that they're seen, and so much, you know, there's a classic book on relationships, and I've read the highlights, I haven't read the whole thing, but I think it's called Love and Respect. And it basically is a book about how, primarily, again, broad generalizations, women mostly come from an angle of feeling like they're not loved, or where do they fit in the context of love with their partner. And men will often come in with a sense of, are the things that I care about,

like, are they being respected, right? Are we leaving on time? And we said that we wanted to leave on time for a friend's dinner. Are we showing up late? You know, respect on one category and love in another category. And really both of them,

even if somebody doesn't really necessarily believe in this, which might be a little bit of an antiquated way of looking at, you know, traditional relationships. But with both of them, the biggest common link with them is being seen. that you feel like you're being seen for something that matters to you. And it takes a lot of effort and energy in today's world with all the distractions that are out there, with all the content that's out there, with all the media that's out there, with a lot

of the negativity that's out there, it takes a lot of energy to pull back, invest in yourself to first get your nervous system good. And it's not selfish. As Mark mentioned, it's actually selfless. It's the most selfless thing that you could do for your partner is investing in your your own health, grounding your nervous system, taking a moment, feeling good, prioritizing working out, prioritizing, eating healthy, whatever it is that needs to happen for you to feel good. When you do that, you're a better person.

It's easier to see people. There's a term, I don't know if you guys have heard of it before, it's called hypoglybici. Right? It's coined by a friend of ours, Dave Asprey. And the whole idea is that even when we're eating foods, we're eating an ultra-processed diet. or a ton of sugar in our diet, you know, that puts on a blood sugar roller coaster. And when we shoot up and we are crashing down from not having a balanced diet or skipping meals, often for women is a big category.

We are more likely to be a little bit of an asshole to somebody else, right? So investing in your health is one way to ensure that you're not an asshole to the people around you. Totally. I feel like the, it's like so many disagreements. Is it like actually a disagreement? or do you just need to go replenish, you know? And I feel like oftentimes when we can have a friction moment, for me, I realize, you know

what, like I need to be, I'm not capable to be the best emotionally self-governed version of myself. So can I just like pause and be like, you know what, I actually need like 10 minutes? Like let me do some push-ups or meditation or just like think about something else. I feel like if you can avoid the initial friction, that's one thing that's I found beneficial. But once you're in the friction and the heat, I feel like the positive deposits that you make in a conversation of if you're making progress when the conversation breaks down. You know what I'm like, hey, honey, I'm like really proud of how, you know, you acknowledge this and how you communicated that. I feel like taking a conversation and molding it upwards is the art and it's it's very challenging.

But that tough conversation, if you put small deposits of positivity and you both do that for each other, it just eases the tension and it can like dissipate the friction energy. It's something that I'm like, it's like the ultimate training. It's way difficult. But yeah, that's what I found helpful. I love it. I love it. All right, gentlemen, I have one other areas.

that I want to get a chance to go into, and that is to a version that feels comfortable for everybody to share as we kind of are in the tail end of this podcast, I'd love to show people what an example of our classic question. Tell us something about your life that you're celebrating. Tell us something about your navigating. Obviously, we're not in our private little man morning group where we are a lot more sort of willing to share about some of the intricacies because there's a sense of also trust and confidentiality. So you can keep at high level. here, but it's a nice thing to do. But before we do that, Antonio, trust and confidentially is like a core pillar of how to be and be a part of Manmourning, if somebody's going to have their group.

What are some other ones? And actually, Mark and Gene, you guys have probably seen this, but you may not have known that these things are kind of like unwritten or written rules. Antonio, can you give us a few other written rules that are part of Man Morning that allow for this sort of vulnerable place of people sharing? And like, it leads to you. to being something super productive that every one of us looks forward to in our life. Sure. And if you set the table, if you will, for your conversations with the friends, they'll make all the difference.

First and foremost, as you mentioned, Drew, trust and confidential. Confidentiality is absolutely key. You have to know that what you're sharing around folks is not going to be repeated and it's going to stay there. So that's critical. Can I interrupt you for one second? Even our wives know, like, if they're asking about something like there's certain things that we just don't even go into.

100%. There are things I've heard of Manmourning about spouses that our spouses spend time together that I'm not going to bring it up even if they ask a question. How so-and-so doing? Like if it said in the space of Man Morning without a man saying, hey, it's okay if you share this. It's not going to be shared. And I just respect my friendships like that overall. So trust and confidentiality is paramount. 100%. It has to be a no-judgment zone where I think men feel they feel safe, they feel protective, or they're not feeling like they're being judged. Now, can we challenge, positively challenge someone, call someone up versus out 100%.

So we don't want, you know, judgment taking place. A quick example, again, this is on the calendar. It's not something that you opt into, you opt out. One that is really critical that shows up a lot in relationships and conversations, probably with men and with women. And you probably can speak to this as well, and this is a tough one for me. We try to limit sarcasm and cynicism in our conversations. We just find that when sarcasm shows up or cynicism shows up in those conversations, it doesn't

take it in a right direction. And it's not always productive. It doesn't mean you can't be funny. It doesn't mean you can't tell a bad, corny joke, which I'm guilty of many times. But we find that sarcasm and cynicism, some thief kind of energy can show up and it can kind of derail what's taking place. Yeah, there's no greater way to shut down a conversation between a group of men when somebody finally starts to open up a little bit. And obviously Patrick, you know, bleep this out, everything like that. But somebody's like, dude, stop being a pussy. Yo. Right? That will shut the conversation down. And it just takes one person who's trying to be funny in that moment to then completely kind of mess up the vibe. And I think that even for people who don't have a group like this but are trying to foster better relationships with other people, sarcasm is often one way that many men do connect. And so, stepping out of it and becoming a big part about being a better listener, which also creates a sense

of trust with other person that you're connected to. Yeah. And I think one last thing I'll share is, and this is what's cool about this group, and you guys are new. I'm curious if you can speak to this is we don't try to solve people's problems. It's very rare that in a man morning that we're prescriptive. Okay, Jay, you're experiencing this with your significant other, you're experienced this in your business. Do X, Y, and do Z. It's very rarely, is a prescriptive. Most times what I'll And even with one-on-one conversations with Drew or with anyone here, what you'll hear is, well, in my experience, this is what I've seen. When I experience something similar, this is what I did. Or they'll say, can I make a suggestion? But very rarely are we there trying to solve? It's more of a definitely a coaching dynamic. I want to just as a coach who works as professionals all across the country and globe. I want to make sure folks know there's a difference between coaching and consulting.

when you tell someone what to do, you are being a consultant. You are no longer a coach. A lot of managers out there at organizations, they think, oh, we're bringing in coaching emphasis to our work. No, you are, you're being consultive right now. You're telling them what to do. But with coaching, you're asking really great questions and you're getting out information and creative ways to learn more about the situation.

So it's definitely a coaching type of environment, not a consultative type of environment, unless that person specifically says, hey, is it okay if I'm prescriptive. scriptive right now, which we tend to ask for permission first to do so, then they'll dive in deeper. So those are some key tenets. Yeah. And sometimes we've had past situations where somebody might step out of the bounds of one of those areas. And it's just a nice, honest conversation of like, hey, listen, you're just sharing a little bit.

We kind of don't do that as much because it kind of does X, Y, and Z. So, you know, not always jumping in. And everybody's very receptive, except for the people that we never invited back again because, you know, they're not a good fit. Just joking. By the way, it's tough. People, when they hear about man morning, they all. I always want advice.

You know, let me talk to the guys first. Like, we have to, you know, we get permission. Can I bring someone? Can I bring a friend? People always want in. And I feel bad sometimes where I'm like, no. It's kind of like the best thing that we could do is this podcast, which is go start your own because this group is almost in a way it's like a little bit full and you don't

want to have so many people in it that you don't end up having the intimate connection that you have. And that's a big reason why Antonio, you're starting your newsletter, why we're hosting this podcast here is like, if any of this sounds exciting to you, like, Go find a group and create this. And actually, we've had a few people. One of our dear friends, Chris, was part of our LA group and he moved out to Tampa and he just started a group out there.

Our buddy Nirov has gotten some guys together in Austin area. Like, people have gone off and gone and created their own versions. Anything else you guys want to add in about stuff that you've seen that's unique about the dynamics about this group, either Mark or Jay? For myself, again, being on the newer side of the group, again, it's something that I really look forward to. But another thing that's really cool is because we're a group of about six to eight on any given time, I find myself that it's also important to connect one-on-one at that point with the members of the group. So I can learn a little bit individually about each member as well.

I haven't done it with everybody in the group, but it is something that I find is also really important just so we can kind of, you know, there's new friendships that are really developing here. And obviously personalities, everybody brings their own to the table. So it's really beautiful to see how the group works together, but also as individuals and the dynamics we're having, you know, with each other as individuals. Oh yeah. And it makes the group stronger. Yeah. Right. And you're great at that, you know, sending out invitations to go on a walk where you guys did or people catch up or in the case of also business, you know, with you having a bunch of businesses and other people in the group have done this too, just even inviting somebody for a little tour

of your studio, seeing like a little behind the scenes. You know, I truly believe, especially because I know a lot of more, a lot of men and a lot of women that are listening that feel like they have a partner, a boyfriend, whatever, somebody in their life could even be a brother or a cousin, that they wished like that this was available for them. One angle that would get a lot of more people excited. It's like, this has impacted every aspect of my life, including my career success. When you're younger and people ask you, what do you want to do when you get older? Right? You ask a kid. Kid says astronaut, police officer, veterinarian doctor, right? Maybe teacher, a few other things. And then let's say you get into high school. Okay, you have those

and you have a few more. You know about an engineer, you know about an accountant. But the surprising thing is that as people are looking to evolve in their career, when they're in high school, and even post college, they know maybe instead of 10 when they're a kid, they know about maybe, you know, 200 professions, right? There are literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ways to make an impact in the world and get paid for it. And one of the best ways to find that aspect of your life, which I know is important to a lot of men in sort of being driven by success and other things

like that, is to see other examples. So when somebody invites you into their world and you get a chance to see how their team is run. You get a chance to see of how they built this business. You get a chance to see the conversation of what were the ups and downs that they had to go through on their path of success. That is a clear way to expose you to something completely different that you wouldn't have seen before. And that is actually a really strong motivator for anybody who may not necessarily think that they're going to get a lot from something like this. It's going to absolutely help your relationships, but it's also going to help your career as well.

Jay, anything you want to add? Yeah, I think just the act of regularly getting together and having something on the calendar is an amazing, like, midweek tension release. And I love the midweek, like, you know, community dinner in general. But outside of sort of like the mornings, one of my favorite things has been like doing the stuff outside of the man mornings, to be honest. because the friendship, the group energy that we build, like when we had our dinner at Mark's restaurant, that was amazing. Tasting Kitchen, shout out to the best menu in Nabbyn. It's just really great to prioritize those other activities that we could do outside of

Man Morning, which really enriches the Man Morning ritual in the morning. So going to dinner, going on a hike, throwing those sprinkles of those diversity, I found like I found to really sort of like help the group bond. Yeah. Like when we did the, we changed it up too. We went to Silver Lake. We went to the East, East L.A.

And the type of question too that we did, I felt like was like a milestone. From our member Adam Cobb. From Adam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was incredible. We just basically did probably like 10, 15 man mornings.

And then it was almost like a like acknowledging what we think this other person is incredible at. And so. any chance to share gratitude about each other. Yep, yep. And that was, that was that happened, but the, well, that was possible because we spend 10, 15 man mornings together. Um, so I think getting creative with it and like making sure what can develop the group

bond. To your point. Man of morning, just with this group that started off in LA, what, seven years ago, we've had outings to Las Vegas. Like we did day trips there to go have a great time together. We've done. Do you want to preface that with, uh, that's a great time in Las Vegas. I'm going to leave it in that.

We left in the morning, came home at night, and we had a great time, meals. We did silly stuff. We went to some place where we broke stuff. What's that? You put on, you put on, like, protective gear and you get to go break old. A break room, I think is what it's called. A break old, like, computer equipment before. Paintball.

Yeah, before it's recycled. We did paintball and all that. We didn't hit up one casino, none of that standard Vegas stuff. We've done a man morning in Austin, Texas, over the course of the weekend, where we played basketball and had great dinners. had some swimming and intentional sessions. We've done a man morning group abroad in Italy where we took our families. I mean, like, so what can spawn from it, you know, over time is just absolutely amazing.

Absolutely. Well, one corner question that we kind of return to often, and again, you know, I don't know if they stole it from somewhere else, but shout out to Summit Junto, which is a group that I'm part of and they kind of ask this question there. Instead of asking people, so what's new, which is often a question that. people ask, it's actually my least favorite question because now the individual has to kind of like really think about like, well, it's almost like that question makes you perform a little bit. Yeah. So a more enlightened version of that question that we often ask in Man Morning is like,

tell me what you're celebrating, tell me what you're navigating. And the beautiful thing about that question is that you could be celebrating something big or small. You could be celebrating something internal or external. We often think about what's new feels very external. Tell me about the new thing. Oh, I got a new car or I got, you know, hired a new employee. It's external, but I'm curious about often internal, right? Tell me something you're celebrating, a realization and an idea, you know, something, a spark, some interest, and then navigating. This is the one that I think is especially important for men. What's something in your life that you feel is maybe a a little stuck. What's something in your life that might be a problem, but you're not sure?

What's something in your life that doesn't feel good and you're just kind of trying to figure out? And that's the part that I think that men in particular don't always open up on. So as a sort of benefit for the community that's listening, if it gets to do a little roundtable for whatever you want to share, you know. And Antonio, why don't you start us off? What are you celebrating? What are you navigating your life? Sure. What comes up? Let me thank for a second. What comes up for me now, this is an easy one based on the conversation, is the new man morning newsletter that I'm putting out. And there's a reason behind that. I mean, I think it's growing so fast as early. We haven't really spread the word aggressively, but I'm having a blast with it.

And the reason why I'm celebrating it is because some of the first endeavors, first things I've done that doesn't involve my name directly out in front. So it's reminding me that at this stage of my career in life that I can do some pivots and I can be bold. I have a whole roadmap laid out. out of newsletters that I'm going to release that have nothing to do with Antonio Nevis per se that I'm going to create and put out there in the world. And I'm excited to do that as a publisher, CEO, editor-in-chief, et cetera. And I'm just loving the feedback. We're getting so far with this first product being Man Morning. So I'm celebrating that. I came from an idea and here we are. What I'm navigating is very similar. For the past 20 years, I've been my product.

12 years in the television industry. I was the guy holding the microphone, the guy on television for major networks, etc. For the past 10-plus years, I've been my product as an author, as a speaker, traveling across the country and the globe and as a coach as well. So what I'm navigating is this shift

from selling me to selling something. These products, these newsletters that I'm creating, et cetera, that this media company, if you will. And that requires a bit of a different mindset for me to approach that from a true entrepreneurial perspective and not from a say service industry perspective. So that's been fun. It's been a challenge.

I've been very fortunate that I have like amazing entrepreneurs like within reach right at this table right now where I can ask questions, where I can get feedback, where I can learn from. But it's been a shift to navigate again thinking like I'm selling me as a service at this product to really shifting to really jumping into something that can truly scale from an entrepreneurial perspective which I as an individual cannot. So frankly, that's daunting.

It's scary. I ask myself, am I crazy for shifting this way? And I'm excited to do it, but it's daunting. And I got to say, I know I'm doing the right thing, man, because I woke up like at 4.30 in the morning multiple times on my own. I get emotional.

And I got on my own. Yeah, a little bit of angst and anxiety doing this. But also excited to get to the, computer to go right and to go create and to go build. Most times in the evening after the kids go to bed, I'm getting fired up now. I'm navigating. After the kids go to bed, most times, you know, I'll sit up with my wife, will chill, watch some Graze Anatomy reruns or something.

But now I'm like, let me go put in a couple more hours of work, which I haven't done in a while because I haven't had to, if you will. So now that energy of like, I'm about to go put in more, not because I have to. I technically do, but because I want to. I haven't felt that want, that excitement, you know, the kid getting up for the first day of school or that sports game when you're fired up because we had a game tomorrow. I haven't felt that in so long. So it's one of those things that's simultaneously exciting and scary at the same time.

Yeah, and just to like firmly connect the dots, you used to get paid, and I'd still get paid for giving talks for coaching executives to doing all this great stuff that's there. And as you mentioned, it's Antonio the brand. And now you're literally building man morning as like a business, starting off with like a newsletter that provides value. And the other thing is just seeing you from the outside, you're so fired up about this because you are like living it every single day. Not that you're not living the other things every single day, but it's like a new adventure. It's a new journey. And it's been exciting to kind of be along for the ride and to watch you shine on it. And I can't wait for

everybody here to sign up for it. Manmourning.com, definitely sign up for it and to see all the evolutions that it gets a chance to take. Yeah, I'm excited. I can't wait to see where it goes and where that's going to take the other platforms as well. Mark, tell us what are you celebrating? What are you navigating? I'll start with the navigating. So what's going on right now? One of the things I probably mentioned a little bit earlier in the conversation is certain

people in life that potentially I find a little bit more negative. And there is a good friend of mine who have known probably for a good 15 years or so who tends to be on the negative side and perhaps more stressed out in general and brings a lot of that to the table unconsciously a lot of times. And I've throughout the years just tried to kind of soften it up and even giving him suggestions on wellness and certain things that he can do to.

And he's very receptive to it. He just hasn't picked up the pieces and actually started doing the work, even though he's completely aware of it and wants to do it. like. So part of me has also been patient and just kind of watching and thinking, okay, after this conversation, I bet you is going to pick up the phone and call this person or start doing this and that. It just really hasn't kicked in and I'm finding myself in a bit of this dilemma because

I am retreating a little bit from the relationship and I'm trying to talk to myself and what else can I do in order to reconnect because I'm finding it's a little bit more. one way coming more for me and I'm not really getting the what I need from the relationship with this friend and so maybe it's just a transitional phase and maybe we'll see where this goes but it's definitely something that is happening the other part of it in my house these days as far as what I guess we're celebrating is all the talk in the house these days is my son Eli's college college applications are due starting end of the month through end of the year. And so this has been an ongoing process.

And at the beginning of the process, I found myself being a lot more involved or trying to be more hands-on. And how are you taking these applications? What are you doing this summer to help your applications? Are you checking all the checks and balances? and there was a little bit of that friction at the beginning because it's like, Dad, I got this. I know what I'm doing.

But I'm also watching him pivot. And some of the choices that he's made are no longer valid. And he's like, I'm going to the left at this point. And as he's doing this, I actually have seen him tremendous amount of growth in him throughout this whole process. And my wife and I have basically pretty much let him drive the whole thing. And we're just there supporting and really watching

from 10,000 feet above and just letting him really make all the decisions by himself. And the more we let go, the more driven he's getting. And so really giving him that space and just supporting him when he wants to obviously come up. And hey, guys, you want to hear my latest essay about this? Sure, I'll stop everything at that moment. Be like, tell me, read it out loud. And this is pretty much the celebration because it's really that time where we're really seeing him become an adult, a young adult. And we know a big transition is coming this summer where he's going to move on and take off.

So it's kind of interesting time to see how much growth is happening with him. Kind of like your dad gave to you a little bit of that freedom. That's true. You're passing it on to him. That's beautiful. I love that. Jay. Awesome.

So I was traveling for about nine days and I just came back and I lived with two of the most amazing people who are my close friends. But I started to realize they were becoming more of my roommates and not like my friends. And they're just like incredibly brilliant. They're entrepreneurs. You're really emotionally intelligent. And I was like, I need to, yeah, I'm super grateful that we can have a conversation about literally anything.

And we actually have a meaningful conversation. every time. And so I'm sort of like getting into the mode of just celebrating just I have a jackpot in terms of who I live with. And can I, can we have inspired by actually man mourning? Like can we have rituals as a house as like three of us as amazing guys? Can we like meditate together? Can we go out and, you know, grab dinner, not as roommates as like friends, how we used to. kind of took away from their relationship. So I'm just super grateful stepping away from my house and then coming back. I'm like, whoa, I have amazing roommates.

Whoa. So I'm like stoked about it. That's awesome. In terms of what I'm navigating, I think, you know, this is just as an entrepreneur, when you're starting out a business, you have to do a lot on your own. You have to hustle, hustle, hustle, but when success comes, you have a healthy customer base. We're kind of like a little bit of an inflection point where I feel like, um, You know, I read this quote by Andrew Wilkinson.

It was the founder of tiny. He said, you know, good, no, bad CEOs execute everything. Good CEOs have their team execute everything. So for me, I really like and enjoy parts of the business that I'm doing. I'm like, you know what? Like, but I don't need to be doing that. And even though I'm good at it, I enjoy it. Can I redesign the org chart?

Can I like think through what I need to do? So it's been a challenge of like, hey, I need to be still doing this work. it's taking energy, the company is growing, but I have to find somebody that's incredible at two roles that we're looking for. So it's just taking more energy from me, just to be the doer while finding someone that is incredible to trust over this role

so I can free myself. So if you're looking for a gig, Farmersjuice.com slash jobs. The humble side drop, please come and talk to us. That's great. Right. Yeah, let's link that up. You know, it's a while that tweet from Andrew Wilkinson, I remember I shared that with Drew and Nerve as well.

That was a brilliant. Oh, that's the same quote? Same one. Oh, nice. Yeah, same one. Let's link to the quote in the show notes, Melanie, if possible. Shout out to Melanie. I love that, man.

Very beautiful. I'll jump in on the celebrating side. I'm actually celebrating this conversation here and having you guys on because a big part of my focus is that I want to increase the output of the podcast and talk more. Sure, I'm going to do my traditional health episodes and have the different experts on and have great conversations with them. And I know that especially my audience isn't familiar with like my whole world of man morning. We've done a couple like mentioned about about it. And it may not be necessarily a topic that initially people think like, oh, am I going to get a lot of value from this conversation?

But if 5% or 2% of my community gets ongoing value from these conversations, and it inspires people who really need it to go and start their own groups or at least take away with some of the insights that we have. Like, that means a lot. So I don't need these episodes to do amazing or be the biggest episodes that are there. It's actually scratching my own itch. And the whole reason I started a podcast in the first place is that I want to talk about what I do. And if people want to listen, great.

And a big part of my life is you guys and the rest of the extended group. And having close friends and especially a strong group. of guy friends that have each other's back within this context that we've set up as man morning has added so much to my life. You know, you guys have been a part of the group in the last, and we're going to be doing some more podcasts with the rest of the group.

You guys have been part of the group in basically the last year, year and a half. Prior to that, we've been doing this group basically for the last like seven years. So for seven years, maybe even a little bit more, for almost like 30 weeks out of the year of 52 weeks in a year, we're regularly getting together.

the depth, the growth, the insights, the friendship, the joy. And what's also interesting as you zoom out is like one person starts doing well financially in a new area of their life or one person has a book or starts this thing or that. It inspires the rest of the people in that group. You know, you really become the average of those people that you hold up that are that role model, that inspiration to you. So if we can pay that forward and it be an example for other people, that is freaking huge.

So that is what I'm celebrating. On the navigating side, you know, I've shared with you guys, but I started this new workout routine and group and I've been working out with this trainer. I did a very inspirational episode with a friend of mine, Dr. Gabriel Lyon. And I got really clear that especially me turning 40 this year, I really want to prioritize a few aspects of my health where, yes, I'm active. Yes, yes, I go hiking. Yes, I play tennis and other things, but I never really doubled down on the strength training piece. And especially because of her message of sort of muscle-centric medicine and strength training going together and their critical role in longevity, sure, they make your body look great like Mark,

who's the fittest out of all of our entire group, but they're actually key for your longevity. And while 40 is so young, 50 so young, 60's so young, I just realized like I had not put as much attention to there. And I'm in that phase, if you guys are familiar with this term, I'm in that phase of the dip, right? So in the beginning, it's all exciting. It's, you're doing something new. You're doing new workouts, new routine, new sort of eating resume, et cetera, whatever.

And then naturally, I've been doing it now for about like, sick. I'm entering into like my, I'm like my sixth week. And, you know, you lose a little bit of momentum. You're kind of like, okay, is this, did I sign up for the right thing? And I know it's all right. And just even saying that out loud to my audience and to you guys is just a reaffirmation of, I want to do it. It's tough, but that's the reason that I signed up.

And it's not, is it tough? Is it worth it? And it's totally worth it. And it'll probably still be tough moving forward from here. But I have a great trainer. And I'm so glad that I went down this path because it's brought a lot to my world and my life. And I feel stronger in my body.

I feel more energized. And I get to be more of an example to my community for all the aspects of, health that I love to talk about. So that's something that I'm navigating. For a good reminder that most things that are worth it, simultaneously are tough. Totally. Even having friendships that have your back, it's tough. You've got to carve out time. You've got to, you know, great connection. You've got to be interested. You've got to be a good listener.

But it's worth it. And I think that that's the message we want to leave you guys with for today's podcast. Gentlemen, this was fantastic. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming on. We're going to do this on a regular basis. We'll figure out the cadence twice a month, something like that, mix it up, have different topics. I feel like this was good because it set the foundation. Next time we can just go into a bunch of new themes that are there. Amazing.

So Mark, Jay, Antonio, thank you guys for coming on. Final links and mentions to the stuff you're up to. We'll go in reverse order, Jay, business and where people can follow you. Yes. My Instagram is Happy Life, Janad. And my website is Pharmash Juice.com is the company. but I was actually serious. If you are interested in working for a health and wellness companies that actually

through advises, please come and give us a shout out. Get ready for your inbox to be full. Let's go. Let's go. I actually also want to say one last thing. Drew, you are like there's captains, but you are like the leader of man mourning. And I really want to give you a shout out for even having these, like you have an amazing orbit of high quality people.

And it took your initiative to invite. Mark and I recently and Antonio, like you've helped facilitate this. And I feel like every man morning needs a Drew type person who's the first person who's like our anchor. You're the anchor. And, you know, we end up being captains, you know, for a month, et cetera. But thank you for doing what you do. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it.

Mark, how do people follow you and how can they learn more about your businesses that they want to check them out? Are they visiting L.A. They want to try your restaurant. Well, if you're in the L.A. area or visiting. Please come to the Tasting Kitchen in Venice, thetastingkitchen.com, or Gazzallo in Santa Monica, gizalo.com. And for those of you who are interested in perhaps dabbling into meditation and mindfulness, we spoke about it a little bit earlier. You can check out our meditation app called Evenflow. And you can go to Evenflow.io to find out more information about that.

Beautiful. I love it. Antonio. First, I want to concur with Jay. Anchor is a good term, man. You're out of anchor, so thank you for all you do. For those men that want to have a dose of inspiration of aha moments and inspiration in their inbox every single day. Head on over to manmourning.com. You can check out my book, Stop Living on Autopilot.

And I'm available everywhere on social at the Antonio Neffs. Love you. All right, gentlemen, thank you so much. It was an honor. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.