#13. How men can deal with uncertainty in a strange Coronavirus world – with Dan Doty (Podcast)

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A lot of guys have this assumption or belief that, all along the way, all along the path of life that they need to know. They need to have things under control. They need to know what to do. They need to know where to go. They need to know what actions to take. And, that basic uncertainty, which is, which is just overwhelmingly true if we slow down enough to find it, is that during this time, we haven’t.

Dan Doty

Show Notes

This is one of the most in-depth conversations I’ve had on this podcast. Dan is the co-founder of EVRYMAN and the host of the EVRYMAN podcast. Some of the topics we cover during this episode:

• How Dan helps men slow down enough to understand what’s happening in their own minds.
• Owning the uncertainty and discomfort of the CORONAVIRUS pandemic.
• What to do when our minds don’t want us to feel what’s really going on
• What if guys didn’t have to live a life pretending that they didn’t feel
• Men who can’t take a compliment
• The relationship between the bottom line and how we treat people
• How Dan pivoted from their men’s retreats after having to cancel 7 months worth of live events, which was 99% of their revenue
• Can we still connect as humans without the face-to-face interaction
• Dan’s suggestions on how to move forward
• How to move from post traumatic stress disorder to post traumatic growth
• How COVID19 situation changed Dan’s vision of the future

About Dan Doty

Dan Doty is a visionary entrepreneur, speaker, consultant, and the co-founder and voice of EVRYMAN. Dan is the host of the EVRYMAN podcast, and the former director of cult hit tv show MeatEater. He has been a 3-time guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, and twice on the Today Show. His role with EVRYMAN has been featured in the NYT, Men’s Health, GQ, and many more national and international publications. Dan is a man’s man with a well-developed tender side. He embodies the ability for men to be exactly who they are, and is sharing that message that there are as many definitions of manhood as there are men on the planet.

Full Episode Transcript

Jason De Los Santos: [00:00:00] Hey guys, Jason here with Spectrum Labs. I have another podcast episode. This one is with Dan Doty. He’s the founder of every man, and Dana is somebody that changed my life. We worked together a couple of years ago, and he just absolutely changed my life for the better. A really amazing man, and I just really appreciate and was really honored to be able to have him on this podcast, for a lot of reasons.

But one is that right now I’m filming this and I think it’s April. Can’t forgetting what it is, and we’re in the midst of the quarantine, lockdown, stay at home, whatever you want to call it. And there are a lot of emotions flying around, a lot of things going in their heads that we don’t exactly understand or know how to deal with it.

And Dan is one of these people who can get to the root of the problem really quickly, or the emotion or whatever that underlying thing is. And  not make you feel silly or stupid for feeling a certain way or for having thought of something a certain way and is good at helping you take that next step, whatever’s right for you.

So for that reason, I wanted to bring Dan on The Hemp Startup Journey. Man, we talk about a lot of different things. This is probably the most in depth conversations that I’ve had so far on the podcast, and I’m super happy to have had Dan on reading his bio. Real quickly for you to get a little, give you a little bit more context of Dan.

The Doty is a visionary, entrepreneur, speaker, consultant, and the cofounder and voice of every man that you can check out every man.com it’s EVR, Y M a N. Then is the host of the every man podcast. Definitely check that out so you can get a little bit more feel for Dan and what he talks about. And he’s the former director of coal hit TV show, a meat eater.

He has been a three-time guest on the Joe Rogan experience in twice, you know, the today show. His role with every man has been featured in the New York times, men’s health, GQ, and many more national and international publications. This is my favorite part about the about his bio. Dan is a man’s man with a well developed tender side.

He embodies the ability for men to be exactly who they are and then sharing that message that there are as many definitions of manhood as there are men on the planet. So in a time where we can’t, you know, as, as men in a time where we can’t. Take a club or a knife or a gun and, attack something –like a tiny Coronavirus — and solve it or fix it or pound it into the ground. T his is a great conversation, not just for men, but just for anybody, right? For men and women, when we’re not exactly sure about what’s happening. The biggest sentiment that I have is that there’s just a lot of uncertainty and they in helps to put this into context and, just some strategies about what’s going on.

And he showed us some of his stories as well, which is really powerful. So. Enough rambling for me. I hope that you guys take the chance to listen to Dan, hear what he has to say. You can go follow him on his different, social media accounts or of course on his website, but, to then listen and please share.

And here is Dan Doty.

Dan, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast today. I’ve been looking forward to this for, since I guess we’ve been trying to get this together for the past couple of weeks.

Dan Doty: [00:03:13] Yeah, well I’m excited too. It’s good to see your face again, Jason.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:03:15] Yeah. Good to see you. So, let’s see what, just to give some context, cause I don’t think I would do service to this and I’ll talk a little bit about how I got introduced to you. Can you explain what you do?

Dan Doty: [00:03:29] Yeah. I’m the co founder of an organization called every man. And, in my role as co founder, I’m also the host of  EVRYMAN podcast. And, I guess you could say I’m sort of chief visionary and voice of, of EVRYMAN , which is really organizing men into a movement, which has really taken off. And it’s, a global movement at this point. And really at the core, what we do is we help break open a new paradigm of how men, live, how they show up, what they feel, how they express themselves. So we are, we specifically are working against two main issues. One is the general state of repression of re repressed emotion.

Men don’t tend to feel or feel like they should be feeling. and the second is isolation, social isolation or human connection. statistically, men are struggling on these two fronts. And so what we do is we bring, bring men together, and with some simple guidance, we help them. Them get in touch with what they feel and give them tools to share that with each other and the world in a way that really fundamentally alters their life in a positive way. So that’s, that’s our bigger mission. And so I also coach, I’m an executive and leadership coach and, and I, I’m dedicated to this entire process of helping men specifically, really know who they really are and bring that to the world. Cause I think, it’s really needed.

This isn’t just about. Naval gazing or helping men improve themselves. My bigger mission, my bigger attention is always on the bigger picture. And I feel like, at this time in history. We are needed, like men are needed. it’s kind of to me, enough of being frozen enough of being confused enough of, you know, sitting back on our heels and not having our own minds and hearts, reigned, together.

So that’s, that’s kind of a large scale, but, that really is it.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:05:29] Yeah. And so you said a lot there, but some of the reasons that I want to bring you on here. Obviously right now we’re a, I guess a beginning or middle of April in 2020, throughout this whole kind of virus, covert 19 thing. And, there are a lot of emotions going around

Dan Doty: [00:05:44] in specifically for men,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:05:46] where we might not exactly know our place when.

Traditionally that you can speak to this, that we’re, we’re the protectors, right? And exactly. Protect well against, you know, something microscopic, you know, except for keeping people at home.

So we can talk about that. But just real quickly, just to give a little bit of additional context of folks. Is that the, so you and I worked together a little bit for a few months in, I guess it was like end of 18,

Dan Doty: [00:06:11] I think it was.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:06:12] And, the, the way that I, this is always interesting to me. So the way that I found out about you is I read a magazine article that Nate Green wrote about. That’s what it was. I remember that, that every man a retreat, I forget where it was.

Dan Doty: [00:06:28] Yellowstone,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:06:29] Yellowstone, and, I’m like, Oh, this seems interesting.

And the title was, I think it was, there will be tears, right?

Dan Doty: [00:06:36] Yeah.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:06:38] And I was outside of best buy, I was waiting for them to open cause I needed to buy something for the office. And I started reading the article and sure enough, by the middle of the article, I was like tearing up in my car, just for, just because of how, I dunno, just the topics that, that Nate was covering about what you do.

Was so touching and I’ve never heard of anybody talking about those kinds of things. And it wasn’t like, it wasn’t, we were, it wasn’t like, Oh, Hey, let’s, you know of, sit around and sing kumbaya. Like it was really emotional, but really powerful and really,

I don’t know if I ever got a chance to tell you this, but like you, you changed my life in a real significant way.

And hopefully we can talk about some of those, some of the things that you’re talking to your clients and your members about today. and so I figured we can start off talking about, what you’re seeing and what you’re talking to your clients about right now with coronavirus and whatever seems to be most prevalent, whether it’s the isolation thing, whether it’s the emotional turmoil, the word that comes to mind for me, it seems to keep coming back as uncertainty, but you might have a different term.

Dan Doty: [00:07:43] I mean, excuse me. I think if you had to pick one term for the. Pervading ethos of what men are bringing to the table. uncertainty would probably be the best word for it. And, and I think that is, that’s substantial in its own right. Right. Just this, I think, you know, everybody can check in with this if this is true for them, as I say it, but, generally speaking, the male culture, A lot of guys have this assumption or belief that, all along the way, all along the path of life that they need to know. They need to have things under control. They need to know what to do. They need to know where to go. They need to know what actions to take. And, that basic uncertainty, which is, which is just overwhelmingly true if we slow down enough to find it, is that during this time, we haven’t. We’ve been, our, our hands have been cuffed in a sense. We’ve been limited to be at home. I think uncertainty in terms of health is very real and, and scares people at a very deep level. but you add onto that economic uncertainty and, but you know where things are going.

So many men, have been furloughed or fully laid off or. Or just don’t know. Right. And, and again, just that’s, that’s what the uncertainty points do is just that fact of just not knowing. And so what we’ve been doing, I’ve been doing these global calls and drop in groups and men all around the world have been joining us.

And, the first way that we really work with that or speak to it is. We help guys slow down and that uncertainty can bring on a sense of panic or almost like a manic scramble, like, okay, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What am I going to do? What? So we’re just like, Hey, stop. You don’t know. Just feel that, you know, feel actually, feel what it feels like to, to be uncertain, to not know.

And just that little subtle, but very powerful action of slowing down enough. And, you know, we use our bodies and we use our emotions to get more clear with the experience we’re having. So an uncertainty for me. what happens for me when I feel really uncertained and ungrounded is like my chest clamps down.

I feel tight. I feel like my hands want to move. I kind of, I feel like I’m, you know, looking around quickly, my eyes are darting and. It’s just uncomfortable. I mean, that’s the first thing, like it’s just be honest. Being uncertain is really uncomfortable, very deeply uncomfortable. And so what is, it might not be the standard of practice, but when we can just own the fact that we’re uncomfortable and sit across from each other and be like, man.

This is terrifying. I like, I don’t know where my money’s coming from two months from now. I don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I have these ideas, but that panic, that sense of sort of scrambled in this, if I think if we pulled back or pulled up to 30,000 feet, that doesn’t tend to. Help very much.

And so what we’re doing is helping men land on the field with their feet on the ground and be like, okay, yeah, no idea. I’m terrified. And that may not sound helpful on the outset, but when you follow that and part part of what’s happening here and part of what we do at every man is. I use Wim Hoff and his ice bath, practice as an example here, because if we can learn how to relax and be present with excruciating, cold and pain, we can also learn how to relax and be present.

With being uncertain, right? And there’s a, there’s an analog here, right? So when we’re, when we are uncertain, our bodies go into a state, they do that. And when we slow down enough, it happens. It’s different for everybody, but it is real. And it might just be numb, right? We might check out and not feel anything, and that’s fine.

But what happens when we are deeply uncertain. Our bodies go into a state and the neurophysiology and the understanding of emotions and how they impact us as humans starts at the physiological level. So when we can breathe, slow down, speak to what’s happening in us, we begin to stabilize. We do. We begin to stabilize and have the ability to, To be present with what’s happening. And then from that point, we can start to take a look at actions to take. But that, that first part, it’s, I hope that comes across clear. I think it does, but it’s a step that we often miss.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:12:26] So when we were working together, you taught me about the, you call it a check-in.

so checking in with, you start off with asking questions about how are you feeling? Just physically, just, you know, what are you feeling? And then you, you get further and further into asking different questions. But, the first, I probably, the first few times it was really uncomfortable. I didn’t know what the hell you were driving.

You know? Honestly, it was really weird. But after a few, maybe three or four sessions, I could see the value and I could see that. I could feel the value of the first one. I didn’t know what it was. Right. I could sense that there was something there, but it’s, you know, I think what I’m taking away from what you’re saying, hopefully to translate it to some other folks that haven’t gone through this is to maybe be willing to go through that discomfort of kind of checking in, kind of sensing how they’re feeling, to then get to that other side of at least acknowledging what

that sensation is or what the emotions are so that you can decide whether you want them, maybe sit there or possibly do something about it. Is that the right?

Dan Doty: [00:13:26] Yeah. No, that’s, that’s perfect. I think, you know, another layer to add to it is that our minds and our bodies are kind of intrinsically wired, or at least we’re habituated into not wanting to be present, not wanting to be actually present with what’s real, with what’s real with reality.

Right? So if our true reality is that we are deeply uncomfortable. We’re actually terrified. And we’re, you know, freaking out on the inside like our minds. We don’t, we don’t want to feel that. We don’t, you know, and we don’t want other people to know that about us, right? We don’t want others to see that we’re not calm, collected, and, and moving forward.

So there’s a, what this really offers this checking in process is an opportunity to actually. Just be honest and transparent with reality. And so on the basic level, that’s actually what we’re doing and from that place, and that’s why we do this together. This is, this is a practice you can do on your own, but it’s, it’s deeply something magical and very important happens when we do this with other people.

And it doesn’t have to just be other men, right? Every man does this with men because there’s a specific pain in the world and we’re addressing a specific sort of population. And. Thing, but when we can like slow all the way down own reality and then we show up with other people and we speak that and we communicate that to others, it clicks on this, this social mammal.

We’re also, we’re social mammals right at the, at the basis that we have evolved as social animals. It clicks on this automatic connection between ourselves and others automatically. It’s just, it’s like a, call it like an emotional wifi. So if we’re sitting here and we’re just bullshitting and we’re just having, you know, surface level talk, it’s great.

It’s what we do. It’s nothing. But if I can, like when we first called here, I shared with you that last last night, my grandpa passed away and. So I’m feeling a lot right now. Right now I’m feeling grief. I’m feeling sadness. I’m feeling love for my dad. I’m feeling love for my kids. I’m feeling, a lot of these things on top of a lot of other realities that I’m dealing with too.

But even just as we, as we first checked in, as we first talked, I felt it was important to tell you that because it is my truth right now. And it’s not now that I just get to say it and just get to state it, you know where I’m at, you know where I’m at. And so, It offers us a solid ground to communicate from a solid ground to interact from.

And now, if I was like weeping terribly, and you know, if I was out of control and couldn’t manage my emotions or, or was not okay, I’d just say that and be like, Hey, I’m not okay. I can’t do this podcast. Right. But, I’m guessing, and I don’t wanna make any assumptions, but I’m guessing as I shared that with you.

You felt a human, a pang of humanity. And I’m guessing it connected us a little more deeply. Right? And so that connection, that automatic empathy, that automatic compassion for one another, it’s always available. It’s crazy. It’s literally like this thing, like we walk around interacting with each other all the time, but when we dropped down to that next layer of really just truth, that’s all it is, we’d begin to naturally have each other’s backs. We begin to naturally collaborate. We begin to naturally, Help each other get the best, get what we need in life. And it’s, I just, I mean, to put a really bluntly, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a pretty incredible way to, to relate to others. It’s meaningful.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:17:12] It is. And you, you’re good about encouraging your members or clients or just people to, to share those with, with family or friends. But what if somebody is, let’s say, fearful. Of sharing their emotions or like they’re not used to it with the every man, I forget what you call that, the social app that you have now. Is that, is that a good place to start?

Dan Doty: [00:17:36] Somebody that hasn’t been told about it? It definitely is. So, yeah. Right now the, what we’re offering to the public are free drop in groups and free global calls. So just a place for men to drop in virtually through Zoom, and get together with guys and hear about this and practice this and get a sense of what this is.

Really is, I’m guessing most, if not all guys are fearful of sharing their emotions, right? Not everybody. I mean, some guys that’s part of their, their, their normal day to day, but, you should be scared, right? I mean, it’s not, it’s not normal. It’s something different. It’s, it’s not how we were trained to be as men.

again, that doesn’t cover everybody, but, it is at its essence. It is a scary. It’s a scary moment. It really is. It’s, it’s, it is, it is a pure act of vulnerability is what it is. And that is, by its nature, scary, right? I don’t want to sugar coat that whatsoever.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:18:33] The, the first call that you get that you had on Zoom was, I think it was 149 guys.

Yeah. Something like that. It was pretty amazing and kudos to you for putting that together so quickly. And you know, going back to that, that men and emotions that you asked, I think of her to three or four guys to share, just sort of what they’re feeling. And then again, the way that you, that your term is, you asked some guys to check in, just share how they’re feeling and yeah. I’m still trying to work on removing that sort of stereotypical, like manhood of like, you know, the burly dude who’s just like a man and doesn’t share emotions. It’s just like

big and strong and the protector. And there were some of those guys who were on there, and granted you can only see their face a little bit, but they can still, they still had that image of just.

Yeah, like a man’s man. And they shared very openly what they were

going through and you know quickly about what was happening in their life or just what they were they were sensing or what they were feeling or fearful or whatever it was. And the relate-ability to that was just amazing. And in a strange way was, was really comforting.

Dan Doty: [00:19:44] Yeah, I would love, yeah. Tell me a little more about that comfort that I brought, cause that’s huge. It’s important. And I think you could speak to it.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:19:50] I mean, I think the fact that, you know, just like I’ve been going through all sorts of emotions since this whole thing started, just, you know, for, for myself, for our business, for family.

and I think having that. You. There has been a lot of different emotions and fears, and one has been like, manly am I stepping up to the plate and being whatever, like, you know, the sense of like, Manliness of protect or hurt or, or whatever that was. And I think listening to some of these guys saying like, Hey, yeah, I’m scared, more fearful, or here’s what’s happening.  it helped me see that at least, you know, like, I wasn’t the only one.

Dan Doty: [00:20:24] Yep. Right. And

Jason De Los Santos: [00:20:25] not that I want anybody else to feel shitty, but I think just the fact that there’s somebody else out there, like I’m not the only one. Right. It’s almost

Dan Doty: [00:20:32] like you’re describing what I call, it’s like actually the lowest hanging fruit of both of what we do at every man.

It’s the lowest hanging fruit, but also, I believe, it might be some of the lowest hanging fruit for, you know, self improvement, but also cultural growth, to be honest with you. And to name it. Most guys walk around thinking that what they feel is somehow unique. Yeah. It’s just not, it’s just not. And so I, I’m remembering back in, it may have been on that first call or maybe the second one, but this guy named Corey, Corey McCarthy is from upstate New York.

He was in prison for a long time. He’s so, obviously. A tough guy, right? Like as tough as it gets, really. and when he opens his mouth and shares his truth with people, he’s just, I’m just, I’m bringing him up as an example because he’s especially powerful at it, but it just, everybody can just freaking relax a little bit deeper.

For a guy like that, or for any guy to say, yeah, I’m actually really fucking scared. I’m really terrified. I’m really scared. Everybody else who hears that and sees that, there’s a part of them inside that’s like, “let’s go!”

You mean to tell me it’s okay to be scared? Are you? Are you, you’re actually, and, and it just, it happens instantly. It’s instantly, it’s like, that guy’s scared to, Oh man, I gotta to be scared too. I’m scared. It’s just what you can take that with almost any experience or feeling or emotion, whatever it is.

And it’s this. It, it flips. It literally instantaneously flips the paradigm of what courage means of what leadership means, of what manhood means. It flips it in that instant and it’s, it’s like, Oh God, what if I didn’t have to pretend my entire life that I didn’t feel, but I actually felt it. It’s like, guys are.

You know, imagine I got any man’s life as a movie, and, but it’s an ongoing movie. It’s an 80 year, a hundred year movie, ideally. And in that movie, there are times of, you know, at, there’s probably a phase of the movie that’s the hero movie superhero movie, but there’s also a phase of it, of the sad movie where you’re.

Father dies and you go through grief and there’s a phase of the movie that there’s a romantic comedy or whatever, right? All of the different flavors of life. But most men have been ingrained to try to act like they’re in a superhero movie at all times, which is just kind of like, wow. How practical is that?

You know, like how honest and practical is that? And that’s a little bit of a drama visitation, but I think it, it makes the point that, Yeah. And once we’re not alone, once we can clear that up, once we can get past that, which we rarely do, Oh man, can we get together and heal what’s inside and go after what we want and all of that.

So I think it’d be amazing one day to find some kind of technology that could measure the amount of energy we spend faking it or repressing, or, you know. Pretending.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:23:57] Do you think that for, or let me ask you this question. For the guys that decide to, for the men that decide to share these things, does that in some way take away your man card?

Dan Doty: [00:24:09] Well, that’s the thing that th that that’s, yeah, but you said that, that’s like the, the, now it reissues you a real one. It’s like, it’s like, Oh, it burns your old one and and says like, Oh, here, here’s what, here’s what a Man Card actually should, could be. It shouldn’t be. Right? Yeah. But yeah, that, that, that is a great cultural tool, right. The man card, right. That’d be for the, yeah. What would the, what would that man card be based on? Toughness. 

Jason De Los Santos: [00:24:42] Cowboy

Dan Doty: [00:24:44] winning. John Wayne. Yeah. Basically like being the, being the dominant alpha male with his, you know, mastery of all, you know, Which again, I think like certain times in life, hell yes, right.

And certain times in life, like, let’s exercise that, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. but to pretend or to think that that’s, that’s the best way to live every moment of our life. That’s just, that’s just. That’s unfortunate. Yeah.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:25:13] the other day I saw a commercial, or I guess it must’ve been a few weeks ago, I saw a commercial for one of the giant jewelry companies and it was sort of party.

And then all of a sudden they cut to a couple and the woman kneels down and she proposes to the man. And my initial reaction was like,

what is this? This is crazy. And then

a couple of seconds later, I’m thinking like, well, I mean. This is sort of something we just sort of made up over many, many years.

Right? Like, what is wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with it, but the initial reaction was just wait a minute. I like that. That doesn’t belong there. That’s weird. Or that’s, you know, like she’s not the man. I’m like, what’s happening here? and I’m wondering if you’re seeing a lot of folks, I don’t know.

React or, I guess. Recognizing that some of the gender roles that we have have been sort of culturally made up over time. Like is that a difficult thing for people to kind of get over?

Dan Doty: [00:26:08] It depends. It depends on who they are, for sure. Yeah. I think for, for probably a good chunk of the population, yeah. I think that definitely it’s, you know, I, I gotta admit though, I live in, I live in a bubble as we all do, right?

And the only place where I see, people really struggling with that in a, in a strong way happens to be in the comments of articles in the comments of YouTube, in the comments of publicly posted, You know,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:26:37] social media and stuff like that,

Dan Doty: [00:26:39] but our social media mine, so I mean, like I, nobody ever tells me directly that like, it’s very rare, so I don’t see it, but I do know that, yeah, there’s a, it is, this is a hard pill.

So, yeah. Let me make it a little more subtle. So while certainly I’m sure out there, many people are offended, scared, freaked out. They, they don’t want to see, you know, this shift. and that’s, you know, that’s cool. I don’t need to try to convince them. There still is a, there are many different levels of aversion to men being, emotionally, fluent.

Right. And so part of it is just in not being sure. Right. So people hear about this and it causes a feeling in them, and they’re like, huh, I don’t know. I don’t know. You know, I give a TEDx talk a couple of years ago and I cried openly in the middle of it. I didn’t expect to, I didn’t plan to, but I did. And yeah, people have shared some of their experiences while watching it, and I think it’s hard.

It’s hard for people to see a, I’m a burly guy, I’m a burly guy with a beard, and like, you know, I kind of looked like a bit of a Viking. it is, it kind of, it kind of, it’s, it’s uncomfortable for people to see the reality or even play with this reality. So, so, yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, and on the other flip side, there’s all a lot of people out there that are, that hear about what we’re doing.

They’re like. That’s it. That’s, that’s, that’s the way that’s we get, you know, like report, pour the gas on the fire. and we’ve been riding a pretty massive wave of positive energy and response.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:20] and just to interject for a second, so the things that you’re talking about, they’re not like, you’re not making it up in your room.  Like you’re, you’re not just in your house, sort of scheming and theorizing, like these are things that you’re applying to with a lot of people. You’ve been doing a version of this for 20 plus years.

Dan Doty: [00:28:38] Yeah. 20 years about,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:39] and plus the number of people that you’ve either led in small groups or in retreats.

I mean, the hundreds or maybe thousands.

Dan Doty: [00:28:48] Thousands for sure.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, so just, for folks that are listening, you know, I’m sure there. Might be a few folks who are like, ah, I’m not really sure about this. Like he’s probably just making shit up in his house. you know, this is proven like you’re, you’re showing results with people.

Dan Doty: [00:29:03] Absolutely. I mean, the, yeah, the proof is in the pudding. Right. But the, the truth, and I, I won’t. I won’t try to make it appear more, well, I won’t dramatize this, but, unequivocally every single event, every group, everything that I’ve ever run, in the 99 point something percentile, This simply improves lives of men for the better. They become better fathers. They become closer to their kids, better partners. it just actually what it does is it is it, it relieves a certain type of mental and emotional, pressure that builds up for men that, that builds up. And then comes out. And a lot can come out in a lot of different negative ways from depression to alcoholism, suicide at the high end of things.

but yeah, our, our retreats at the end of them, man, I mean that you can’t, you can’t frame it other way any other way. Then these men have had a deeply life changing experience. And the basic practices are so simple when you hear the basic practice. So here’s what we do. We get together and we slow down.

So that we can get a sense of what’s up. We put our attention into what we feel, and then we start practicing sharing it, and then we follow that path over and over and go deeper and deeper into what we feel we own, who we are. We get to talk about, you know, the things that have hurt us the most. We talk about things we’re most scared of, but we also talk about our positive qualities.

We get to own the good things. You know how many men out there. Can’t take a compliment, can’t allow themselves to feel proud. They hamstring themselves in their life by not owning their good quality. These two. So again, we, we’re walking around life playing these roles, playing these images that we think other people want us to be.

What we’re actually doing is helping men own who they are, like fundamentally who they are, their own experience. And that’s so it’s, it’s not. At its core. It’s actually, it’s very simple. It’s one of the simplest thing. What it feels like is that, there’s like a sense of coming home to oneself. It’s like, man, I, I didn’t necessarily know I could just be myself, you know? And, yeah. I don’t know if I answered your question. There’s thousands, and thousands of men have come through us. If I’ve worked with thousands and thousands of men before every man, and, I wouldn’t be, I certainly wouldn’t be here on this podcast yakking about it if it didn’t fucking work.

Yeah.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:31:36] So let’s, we can talk about work a little bit. so most of the folks that listen to this are entrepreneurs or business owners in the hemp and the cannabis space. And how are you guiding your clients, as far as dealing with, let’s say, stuff at work rather than you, you figure how business owners and maybe managers or leaders of organizations, as men, how should we be?

I dunno, I, I won’t put any words, but like, you know, how should we be working with our coworkers during this time of great uncertainty?

Dan Doty: [00:32:05] Well, I think the, I think the basic supply here too. So we’re seeing a lot of men who, you know, the first wave was uncertainty. The first wave was, what the hell? What do I do?

and depending on the unique situation, it depends, you know, for some men just slow down, relax and breathe through this and see what happens is the only thing to do, right. But for a lot of, a lot of the entrepreneurial set, the business owners said, I’ve actually been party party to, and an immense amount and an immense wave, I would say, of a proactive and creative thinking.

Right. And, I really do think that this is an opportunity, globally, but I think business owners are in a unique place here too. Get a gut check, right? To get a gut check to, to, to, to think about questions of what security actually means. To think about, the relationship between the bottom line and how we treat people.

Right. And, and like the, the stresses of having to lay people off, the stresses of, of all of this. the human part of what’s going on is, is a big part. And then also, you know, I think this in a sense, what’s happening as a wave of really reckoning with what the future is going to look like, which, which is different.

And I’ll just speak from my own experience right now. We have gone into a fundamental pivot at every man. We had to cancel seven months worth of live events, which is to date 99% of our revenue, right? So we’re sitting here like. Completely, dry. And the opportunity came and, you know, I think we did it as founders.

We did a meeting. We didn’t ever man meeting and we got honest. We got real with what we said. And then within 45 minutes, we made the call to launch our online platform and our membership, which has always been our plan, but we’ve never had the opportunity. We’ve never had the time and the bandwidth to do it.

And so I’m seeing, so a lot of friends who have, you know, human oriented businesses and a lot of entrepreneurs are in our network. And, I think that’s. What I’ve seen clearly are two things. One, the pivot to virtual delivery for all kinds of things, and it’s been going well, really well for a lot of people that like, wow, I had no idea.

Like what have I been getting on a plane for every, you know, twice a week for the past seven years. This actually really works. We can connect. And, and so that’s, that’s actually huge. We can connect right now this way, there’s a wave of connection happening because of this, because we’re just not running around like chickens with our heads cut off and we’re not like doing our normal thing.

We have, I think, you know, it’s pretty magical. I used to be, I was the first one to, I was adamant. I didn’t want to do every man groups online. Adamant. I felt like in person connection is what we’re all missing. We have to have it. It’s crucial. I couldn’t believe differently now, like the, the, the value that is being generated.

and even with my corporate clients do my leaders that I coach to, like this is a time of, of fast change. But I also do notice that the human connection element is, is going deeper and being more efficient, which I think are too. Critical, critical things to pay attention to, we can connect quicker. And if, and that’s why some of this sort of communication technology that we use at every man I think is really helpful right now, which is that let’s not beat around the bush.

I’m going to tell you exactly what’s up right now cause we don’t have that much time. And then we’re going to lay it out there and then we’re going to, we’re going to together in as truthful as possible. We’re going to work on an action plan to move forward. So, you know, I think suggestions for people:

One, if you’re overwhelmed and freaked out the first before you do anything, get some freaking help. Get som e support. Have a conversation. Call a mentor. Get a coach like, whatever. You know, get yourself a space to feel what you actually feel. And. Fundamentally, that’ll, that’ll like anchor you into a more powerful course of action.

and then leaning on each other in these times. even when we can’t do it physically, it’s kind of a joke. They’re like, we can’t actually lean on each other, but I do believe that, What an opportunity for, for creative, I guess, efficient, efficient is the second word that comes creative and efficient, practices, right?

Like, there is something to do if, like, if things, if when all is lost, you know, or things seem like they, like, what do you have left to lose? Right, right. so hopefully that, some of that lands.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:36:49] Yeah. and so we thought, you mentioned reaching out to folks. So what’s that? How does somebody get access to the app?

Dan Doty: [00:36:58] Well, I’m not gonna push them through the app right now cause we’re about to, to jump to a whole new platform powered by mighty networks. And we’re going to be delivering things in a new way. Cause this is the way. So we had an app for a short term in between. but we are. I’m pivoting to a longterm home on this mighty networks platform.

So the best way they can get help with us right now is go to our homepage, right on the front of the homepage. Evryman.com there is the, the button to get connected. And you can, you can dive into one of our support groups, free support groups. You can just click calendar, click a meeting and register for one of them.

beyond that, I’d just say, but you get on our newsletter too, cause we’re going to be in the next probably 10 days, ideally. or. Know, a couple of weeks, three weeks at the latest, we’re going to be launching a far more substantial opportunity to get involved. But I also mean just call your dad. I just, I mean, just, you know, these are the times to really, Well, and let me speak to that because it’s really crucial and I meant to get on one of your earlier questions, but, we all know what post traumatic stress disorder is. PTSD, right? When challenging situations come up, when, when we’re put to the fire, One of the things that can happen to us is we can get traumatized by it and then it can stick with us and it can take us out and it can do all kinds of things.

There’s another option called post-traumatic challenge or posttraumatic growth, let’s call it post traumatic growth, which is seeing a challenge and, and, and like walking firmly into it and using it to, to grow from, to, expand to all of these things. And so there’s one critical, important element, and this comes from, actually a great guy to check out.

His name’s George Faller. He’s a therapist. He was a, he was a fireman at 9/11 at the, at the point of the day it happened. And he was also, at the time it happened, he was training to be a couples therapist of all things. And so he became the GoTo therapist for many of the first responders, at ground zero.

And so his, how he can speak to this is just super eloquent, but I’ll paraphrase. The one difference in PTSD, turning PTSD into post traumatic growth is doing it together, is being connected and being part of a human squad or team or, or you know that that togetherness and that’s how we’re wired as humans.

We’re wired to band together and go into challenge. It’s always arrived, you know, Dan together, find food band together, you know, protect our food band together to move on. We needed to move, right? And it’s, we are wired that way, and when we do feel supported and a part of something larger, then we can take on these challenges in a completely different way that can be deeply fruitful.

And, you know, we have, it remains to be seen for EVRYMAN, whether this pivot works, right? I mean, there’s risk at play here too, but, We’ve been doing it together and we’ve been powerfully moving through this time. Yeah. So,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:39:57] One of the, I’m just going back to, to some, the conversation at the beginning. one of the things that I’ve felt a couple of times is, the sort of the unfairness of things. so last night we had crazy thunderstorms here, and I thought the roof of our house was going to just fly off. I’ve never felt anything like this here in Asheville. And so I, I, I had, I didn’t sleep whatsoever, had sort of these like awoken nightmares of insurance bills and, you know, like all the horrible stuff that could happen to my family and whatnot.

and then this morning the power went out cause you know, there were down power trees and power lines all over the place. and just that addition to what we’re currently going through. And, you know, being at home and my wife taking care of both of our kids, it was like, you know, like a shit layer on top of another shit layer. and it was kind of getting me down, today. and I started to consider it.

I don’t think you never ever talked about this, but. If I were to be in space and looking down at planet earth, I would probably be thinking like, Oh, like it looks like it always looks right. Like, you know, things are just happening as they normally do.  Not because someone or something is making these sort of, penalizing you or, or making these things happen to you. and I wonder if that has anything related to what I think you, you’ve talked about Siddhartha before and. ontogeny and sort of like, just the cycle of life, that it’s not, you talked a little bit about this before, about the, the, the movie, right?

You have great times and bad times. I wonder if you can speak to that, if that relates to you a little bit.

Dan Doty: [00:41:42] It really does. And, and I’ll try to be gentle and kind about it, but, and this is less, this is less EVRYMAN ethos. This is just Dan Doty speaking. I have concerned for many, if not most of the people in our culture as being deeply and grossly disconnected from.

The reality of, of life. Like we have a button, we have bought into our food system, our culture, our technology, as, as if it, there’s no chance it could ever go away. I think that is just fundamentally flawed. And I think that, you know, that could be a type of thing that sends somebody in a panic. And that’s not the intention, but the, the veneer of safety is thin.

Right? And, and. I’ve spent thousands of days out in the wilderness. And I think part of that is we’re, we’re deeply disconnected from the life cycle. We are, we, you know, we, we imagined that, you know, death is just this thing that’s, you know, I guess it’s going to happen to me. It’s going to happen to everybody, but it’s, you know, we don’t live with it in mind.

You know, we, we keep that hidden. And I’m not, in no way am I trying to say we’re all gonna die. I don’t think we are. And I think that are, we’re going to right the ship, and I think we’re going to be okay. But I do think there’s, there’s many, many layers of wake up calls that. It could be real here. And there’s a sense of entitlement, too

I think people are, well, I, this is all we got. You know, like, what do you mean I couldn’t go to the grocery store? I’m like, are you kidding me? Like, that’s just some God given. Right? Like, that couldn’t, couldn’t change. That’s crazy. You know? What do you mean? I couldn’t like my job? Go. It’s like, and so it’s not like I’m sitting here every day before this event, you know, just like, I’m just as connected to the, the reality is, you know, it’s not like I have a store, a bunker of food and all, you know, that’s, that’s not my reality either. But, I, I do hope that this period of time, Is something of a helpful and sobering experience to, recognize that there are a lot of us living on this planet right now, like a whole lot, and, you know, the way that we’re feeding ourselves and getting calories in our body and staying safe and healthy and stuff.

I think, I just hope that this becomes a proactive, a moment of proactive. it’s coming together, you know, and, and, and, yeah. I believe humans are fundamentally good, and, and I, I’m sure that they are. And I think I feel a lot of hope, honestly. I’m feeling a lot of hope about what can happen. And, I guess.

What I hope doesn’t happen is that this happens and then we all just kind of go right back to sleep, right? We all just kind of, you know, take the pill, go back to sleep and imagine that a hall man, glad that’s over. You know, nothing else is going to happen again. You know? so again, I’m trying to, I don’t want to be alarmist or anything here, but, but this does, this resonates deeply with me.

I feel like, some practical thinking could be employed.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:44:48] You have a really clear vision about what you want to see. And I think your timeline is like 20 years or so. And you mentioned that in some of your emails and so many of your, your speaking engagements, has this time period changed that vision for you?

Dan Doty: [00:45:01] It has, it has bolstered what I feel is a sense of urgency for sure. or it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s bolstered my passion for sure. I feel like what I, what I wasn’t. Comfortable saying publicly before, I’m getting more comfortable saying now, which is this, and I feel like, I just had a guy in the pod, every man podcast last week.

His name’s Ryan Inglehart. He’s the founder of a NGO called kiss the ground. And what they do is they are, bringing regenerative agriculture. PR processes to farmers and to backyard people. And based on the scientific knowledge that it’s very possible in 60 years that our planet will no longer be able to feed the people here 60 years.

My kids are, I’m looking at it right now at the window. One’s one and one’s three, that’s firmly in their lifetime. You know, and again, not to be alarmist here, but. What I’m sobering up to is that some serious, serious work needs to be done in the next chunk of human history. And, you know, and I, and I’m aware that political bias might change how you feel about this, and that’s fine. But I think men are, frozen. I think that there’s this, I think one of the biggest and, ripest, resources that our planet has is locked up in a bunch of dudes, millions and millions, tens of millions, a hundred millions, maybe billions of guys who are, stuck, frozen, you know, squeaking by in life.

I think we need, when we like, we need to, we need to step up, you know? and not that men are gonna save the planet, but we need to do our part, right? We need to do our part, both, both locally with our families and in our businesses and everything. And, I’m slightly uncomfortable even saying this on the podcast here.

It’s, it’s, it’s. you know, I’m a, I’m a little, not embarrassed, but just, I guess, nervous that, to set such big stakes here. Right? And, and I don’t, I don’t know that this is going to be like the main message and all that, but I guess just being honest, it’s where I’ve been. it’s where my mind and heart, and I’ve kind of been reading lately.

I guess if you know, if none of that’s true and survival’s easy, you know, fine. I’m willing to be, Haven’t been outspoken and be wrong, but, if this means my, my children’s lives, then I’m feeling quite urgent, I guess. Yeah.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:47:35] I guess this is, this is an opportunity, right? Like even despite those concerns that they could be great outcomes. and even if it, that’s not exactly the outcome. If we don’t make changes, the fact that we’re. That we would be working towards making some of these positive changes and know with men and sort of this the feeling sort of locked into who we’re supposed to be as opposed to who we really are like that can bring some really positive changes. Despite anything that could come in the future.

Dan Doty: [00:48:07] I love that you nailed it. Yeah. Reframe it is an opportunity and I think that’s very real. You know, I think there’s an opportunity right now, to, to change the trajectory. And again, I make it personal. It’s about my kids, you know, and other people’s kids do this.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:48:22] awesome. We covered a lot. is there anything else that you think we should go over?

No,

Dan Doty: [00:48:29] I, I feel, I feel that this, yeah, just at this moment is it, it feels ripe, right? It feels good. It feels like we live on a farm here in Southern California, and my favorite thing is there’s a row of guava trees and for whatever reason, they fruit at different times throughout the year. Right? But, I just have this image of like the perfect guava. It gets like a deep yellow, and you can just tell you see it on the vine. You see it on the tree hanging there. I call my God, that’s the one. That one is perfect.

And I have that sense about, about these times right now. And I think that can be true locally. And I also do think it can be on a cultural level here. I do feel like there is some sort of, at the moment is ripe and, and I’ve, I mean, you know, maybe to take the, the, the metaphor a little further is that ripe fruit, if it doesn’t get picked, you know, it’s, it’s going, it’s starting to rot, it’s going to fall off.

and. Yeah. I’m just hoping we can all, we can all sort of harvest this time to its greatest capacity. And, that might be again, to, to not go to the superhero mode of thinking that might be very small. It might be something that, you know, I have felt, My own family during this time. Simply the fact of me not being on the road and no vision, right?

There’s no, I have no flights booked, you know, for, for as long as I can look. Right now, I am home. The quality of our family’s life together has. It feels like the hockey stick curve that I didn’t even know. Right. And I have a great family life, man. We were connected, but the, the time spent, my personal values are being really rewritten and codified now in a way that’s, that’s new. And I feel like a lot of old stuff is, is sloughing off. I really do. And I’ve been working hard at this for a long time to stay real and present. Right. But this, this is something of a, of a weight. That’s it. It’s, it’s, it’s wild. It’s wild too.

Are, I mean, even very specific things. So like even how we, how we spend our money. Like we had been working hard on being smart for a long time, but now like we just cut a bunch of stuff and it hasn’t went away. It’s like, wow, well, they need that. That’s crazy. I’m sure. Thought we needed that before.

Right. And, and childcare, that was, that was this big, huge hurdle. We were scared. Like, we won’t have any time for ourselves. And, yes, it’s. It’s a lot, right? But my God, is it paying off? Like I’m looking at our little yard. In the past week, we planted three raised beds of the garden. We built a picnic table.

we ordered some cha. I mean, and these are, these are may smart sound like small things, but for whatever reason. It has allowed us to settle into our reality here on, and, and businesses the same way. But like, we are just like, we are, the things that aren’t working are falling away. And the, it’s like we’re being guided to, to what’s actually most important.

And when it comes down to it, that’s okay. That’s one of the most beautiful things that I can imagine. That’s, that’s what lights me up. Like what if we can live our lives paying far more attention to what’s really important and let the other stuff go. And I think, you know, like coaching helps, like men’s group had, like, we can do that on our own to some extent, but I feel like when the bigger picture steps in and things that we can’t control, have a seat at the table, it’s, it’s even a different ball game.

You know, so, and I think that that’s scary. You know, change is scary. And, this woman that she talked to right after me at the TEDx talk that I did, and she talks about resilience and, resilience being her strategy was that, listen, you’re going to die. People are going to get sick. Life is going to be really hard a lot.

And it’s also really incredible. A lot. So pay more attention to the really incredible stuff. It’ll balance out the shit. There you go. That’s resilience. And I’ve really taken that to heart and I feel like that’s, like we’re having these little dance parties together and we’re like cooking our food with more care.

And, I don’t know if there’s something, there’s something really, I think when you can let go into the process and let things fall away. you know, I, I think there’s a lot of, a lot of real good as well.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:53:08] Thanks for sharing that, Dan.

Dan Doty: [00:53:09] Yeah.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:53:10] I, Yeah, I think we’ll leave it there. That’s probably a good place to end it.

Dan Doty: [00:53:14] I’ll

Jason De Los Santos: [00:53:14] put some, your links and places that people can connect with you on the show notes, but I imagine just the EVRYMAN podcast. Is there any other place people should reach out?

Dan Doty: [00:53:24] Evryman podcast. evryman.com a newsletter drive to newsletters. Great. And, Yeah, I mean, we’re on Instagram and all those things too, awesome.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:53:32] Yeah. Definitely encourage anybody that, were any of your insights. If it resonated even just ever so slightly to just at least check out the website, there was nothing, you know, no harm can come to you

if, if you check it out. So, thank you Dan, and, really appreciate everything that you do.

what, what you’ve done for me and what you do for, so many other men and their families out there. So thank you.

Dan Doty: [00:53:55] Yeah. Thanks, Jason.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:53:58] ——————————-

Hey guys, and before you go, this is Jason from Spectrum Labs. Please be sure to visit us on the web as the spectrum labs.com for any show notes and links discussed in the podcast.

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