Menfolk Journeys

This is a conversation about an epic man's journey from poverty to salvation.   From time immemorial, we have spoken about the Hero going into the Wilderness, about facing the ghosts that haunt us, about finding Grace in the moments of our darkest despair. This is a story of such a hero. Rand Timmerman was born into a life where he felt "doomed to poverty," and found a path out by s...

Do you have moral or ethical pillars that hold up the house of your life? Have you been able to live in a way that upholds your values? And, do you know what your values actually are? Mark's conversation explores how spending time on a farm creates an understanding and appreciation of the complexity of nature, and the simplicity of its lessons. And, we talk about how those lessons can help us...

What makes a strong man? His body? His mind? His convictions? His resilience? His fortitude? Ken was born into a cradle of love and community, and lived a vigorous, athletic youth. Then, in a moment of college football, he suffered a damaging injury, irrevocably paralyzing him from the shoulders down. Undaunted, he continued on...earning his degree, multiple Master's degrees, a JD, and went o...

What does it mean to be a successful man?  Whose definition do you follow? Yours? Someone else's? Justin has a beautiful and unique answer to what makes a man successful. He's arrived at this over the course of a life that started with an innate confidence that he could figure stuff out, and that he could make a life that was his own. From starting out independently at 17 to raising 3 yo...

When do we hit our prime? Is it twenty-five? Fifty-five? Why not seventy-four? Don Akchin hit a slump three years after he retired from his career, only to bounce back with more energy and positive force as a strong 74-year-old. His book - The AfterWork: Finding Fulfilling Alternatives to Retirement - is not only a guide for new retirees, but also a life-line for him. He has chosen to embrace the...

When your life literally depends on your ability to be aware, present, and perceptive, you'd better learn how to do that extremely well. But what if that skill needs to be developed? Or, what if you have it - innately - and it can be cultivated to a master-level degree? Pete Turner is an incredibly perceptive man. He's also a fan of The Muppet Show, which immediately puts him in great st...

Can men be strong and humble? Can men be physically capable, even dangerous, yet be voluntarily in control? Can men strive to excel while embracing failure and discomfort? Can a man learn and grow from stress? Bryce Eddy introduces me to the term Hormesis, which, biologically, is based on the idea that small amounts of positive stress can unlock adaptive response and growth that improves health an...

Don't we all have our own, uniquely lived experience in living? Aren't our thoughts our own? Can't two people experience the same moment differently, based on who they are, and their own backgrounds and other, past experiences? This is a frank, honest, real yik-yak between two guys, one of whom shares stories and lessons from his own Black experience. Which is a different experience...

The latin term Vagari is a verb meaning "to roam" or "to wander." And while it's a cliche to say that not all who wander are lost, Vagari is the root for the noun "Vagabond." For most folks, that's a negative connotation. For Tommy, being a vagabond taught him a new way to live, a different way to apply the laws of human currency and interaction. Do I give t...

How often are you present in your situation? When do you start really paying attention, and learning how to learn? You don't have to have a lot of lived experience to begin good habits. My guest William started thinking about building his habits of how to learn in his early teens, and by building that habit, he's been able to launch his young adulthood successfully...in an unforgiving an...

Perhaps adversity is what makes us who we are. Perhaps we're better for having to overcome difficulties. Perhaps the small decisions and choices we make - every day - define who we become as a man. This conversation is with a man who has decided that, despite any heartaches, illness, and the myriad of challenges we all face, he will wake up each day with a purposeful and hopeful countenance....

In what is and will become an annual tradition, we hear from different men about the lessons they learned from their fathers. Lessons of action, of words, of what was done, or what was not done. What are lessons you've learned? What lessons are you passing on? If you have children, are you dropping pearls for them to learn from? If you don't have children, are you leaving a legacy or men...

What is your appetite for risk? Some men have a life where they seek out new adventures, explore strange new worlds, and boldly go into their futures. And for someone like Brian, it's been how he's lived his whole life. And if you're like that, what do you show your children as a lifestyle to live? And if you have boys, what does it teach them about courage, risk-taking, and a persp...

Who is your tribe? Do you have a large family, or a community that surrounds you, supports you, and perhaps binds you? Are you born into a community, or do you make one for yourself? This conversation with Doug is about the magnetic draw of Community, and the beauty and challenge that comes with it.  What if you think differently than your community?  How do you frame your life individually when y...

"Just be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde Sometimes we lack the courage to really listen to the person you are, or sometimes we might hear, but don't understand what we're telling ourselves. Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to become the person we were always meant to be. My friend Lucio has had a remarkable, successful life...and it unfold...

When do you make the choice to not become your dad? We all think about how we were raised, especially when we have our own children. And, we all think about what we want to do that worked in our past, and what not to do. My friend Michael had to navigate his father’s moods, and tried to make sure that his sons wouldn’t have to experience that kind of growing-up. But we all fail sometimes; and some...

How do you know when you have to change your life? When you grow up in an all-encompassing and all-consuming world but then find that you need to live in another world to be your most authentic self, how do you find the strength to do that? Is it a survival instinct?  My friend Zack grew up in an evangelical Christian home where he had to teach himself to read and live in a world-view that was ver...

Do we ever stop learning from our parents? Even at 70, my friend Cass thinks about his dad, and what kinds of lessons he’s passed on. Maybe the folklore of our parents never leave us. Maybe there are ideas and value that persist and live through us the whole of our lives. And what does that say about how we grow into our own manhood? It could be that our version can sometimes be a continuation of...

Is your responsibility to give and pass on in proportion to what you've been given? If you have been blessed with a head start and a safety net to fall into as a just-in-case, what do you do with that?  My guest David spent that first part of his launching getting deep learning. He challenged himself with an outstanding, elite, and mutli-faceted education. And from that, he spun out a marvelo...

Have you wandered? And if you did, did you get back home or to your own “North Star’? I think the Homeric epic The Odyssey continues to be compelling, especially for menfolk, even after 2,700 years. The story of trying to get back home, but being detained, waylaid, having adventures, learning, and generally exploring various ways of living while maintaining a “North Star” is an apt metaphor. We ca...

The origin of the word “serendipity” is suggested to have from a 1754 fairy tale titled The Three Princes of Serendip, by Horace Walpole. In the story, the heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’. Some folks think that having a life of unexpected - but sought for - blessings come from a divine higher power, or that in some ways the Un...

How do we gain confidence? Where does a sense of full possession, of being comfortable with who you are, come from? Does it ever leave? Or, once you possess yourself, can you hold fast to that belief that you are everything you need to be?  Having that confidence in yourself is an enviable trait...and can give a man a swagger about themselves. But what if that man is your own father? How does that...

When we are growing up, do we know we're missing some vital things in life? And when we grow up, do we try to reclaim the stuff we felt we missed? My guest did, and does. He recognized some things in his life that he wanted to reclaim, and set out on an independent, fearless course to do that in his adulthood. This is a conversation about how to embrace what failure can do for us, creating a...

When we discover our true, authentic selves, it's usually in childhood. Let's say we're about 5 or 6 years old, and we're aware enough of people, we're beginning to form our own identity, but we're not saddled with the expectations from friends or parents, or bounded by societal norms. Sometimes, we keep to that core self, but more often, boys and men are careened off...

What guidance do you have in charting the course of your life? What kind of convention, pillars, framework, or set of rules do you abide by? When beginning an adulthood, many men get lost. So many find that the paths are too winding, open, and there are no clear stepping stones or guardrails to help guide a life. My friend Tim recognized that there could be fundamentals of living a life that set h...