📺 Watch on YouTube and Spotify

“In a real initiation, there's no going back,” says Mike Salemi, renowned coach and men’s work facilitator, who joins Mental Health in a Modern World for a deep exploration of modern masculinity, authentic power, and the missing rites of passage that shape who we become.

A celebrated strength coach turned men’s retreat leader, Mike Salemi shares how his journey from the athletic arena to leading transformational men’s work revealed “there is so much more to this than what happens in the weight room.” He breaks down the true nature of masculine and feminine energies—not as genders but as felt, embodied qualities—and explains why integrating healthy anger is essential for real power and wholeness. With personal stories and actionable insights, Mike Salemi illuminates why organized initiation is critical for men to move past numbness, addiction, and indecision, and instead live with grounded authority, vulnerability, and purpose.

Tune into this episode of Mental Health in a Modern World to learn what a modern-day rite of passage looks like, why embodiment matters more than escape, and how sustained attention and self-trust are cultivated in the presence of real community and self-awareness. Discover why so many men leave Mike Salemi’s retreats saying, “I came in with who I thought I was... I left with a much deeper knowing of who I am.”

5 Key Takeaways

When it comes to cultivating authentic masculinity and greater self-leadership, this episode delivers practical wisdom you can implement today:

1. Embody both masculine and feminine energies—learn to hold your own emotions while also staying grounded in decisive action.
2. Develop a healthy relationship with anger—see it as a source of power, boundaries, and healthy protection, not just aggression.
3. Prioritize meditation as a practice of sustained attention and emotional regulation, especially to cultivate stillness and presence.
4. Evaluate your language—notice and reduce “soft talk” (maybe, I guess, probably), and instead speak with intention and decisiveness.
5. Seek out structured initiation experiences—place yourself in environments that stretch your capacity, deepen self-trust, and create real transformation.

Take action: Pick one of these and implement it in your life this week. Your growth begins the moment you step forward.

Memorable Quotes

"There is so much more to this than what happens in the weight room. Way more."

"If you really don't know what your range is from an emotional perspective, from a possibility perspective, capability perspective, how are you ever—how am I ever going to really deeply trust myself?"

"The integration of both is absolutely critical. You need both the spine and the flow—the masculine and the feminine—for true strength and depth."

Connect with Mike

Mike's Executive Edge Program: https://mikesalemi.io/theexecutiveedge

Men of Movement Retreat / Mike Salemi’s Website – Information and registration for retreats and men’s work. https://mikesalemi.io/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mike.salemi/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@MikeSalemi

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikesalemi111/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mike.salemi.583

X/Twitter - https://x.com/mike_salemi

Resources Mentioned

Paul Chek (C.H.E.K Institute) – Holistic health and performance teachings referenced throughout. https://chekinstitute.com/

Whoop – Wearable fitness and recovery tracker mentioned as an example. https://www.whoop.com/

Oura Ring – Wearable health/sleep tracker referenced for monitoring metrics. https://ouraring.com/

The Four Survival Archetypes (constellation/parts work) – Referenced as a framework for deep personal exploration - https://www.myss.com/library/contracts/four-survival-archetypes/

Connect with Greg

Website - https://www.healing4d.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/4d_healing/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@gregschmaus

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-schmaus-22929589/

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Podcast Production & Marketing by FullCast: https://fullcast.co

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Mentioned in this episode:

Embark on The HTM Journey

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And the heart of what I remember him saying, which I fully agree with, is

in a real initiation, there's no going back.

Like, there's no going back. And this

is why there's, in these structured initiations, there's a

metaphoric death. In a world moving faster than our minds were

designed to handle, mental health is becoming one of the defining challenges of our time.

Welcome to Mental Health in a Modern World with holistic health

practitioner Greg Schmaus. After overcoming severe anxiety and

OCD in his own life, Greg dedicated the past decade to

helping others heal. Over the years, he's facilitated thousands of

sessions, guiding people back to peace, clarity, and a deeper

connection with themselves. Each week, Greg shares powerful solo

insights, conversations with leading voices in holistic healing, and

immersive live coaching sessions that take you inside the healing process

itself. New episodes every Friday. Follow the show and

start reclaiming sovereignty over your mind in a modern world.

Here's Greg. Mike, welcome to the show, brother.

Dude, Greg, thanks for having me, my man. We get to turn the tables a

little bit. Yes, sir. I get to

put you on the hot seat now.

Oh, you know where I'd love to start is your, your

work has evolved a lot over the years. You've, you know,

initially started out in the athletic world, the kettlebell training,

and you've really evolved into doing a lot more deeper men's work.

And I would really love to hear what's inspired

that transition and what really kind of brought you

into this space of going from, you know,

athletics, competitive kettlebell, weight training into

more of like the deeper men's work. Yeah, man,

absolutely would love to dialogue on that. And I

can't believe this is so— I'm again so honored that I'm on your show. You've

been on mine 4 or 5 times, probably. So yeah, definitely the tables have

turned, bro. And just really excited to be here, man.

So I mean, shit,

for— I want to say plus or minus 15

years since I was 18, I was officially coaching, got my first personal

training cert, and since then it was as many

certs as I can stack up, like many personal trainers, to learn as many

skills, modalities, to make me as dangerous

and as useful as I could to the people I

was working with. Early on, it was a lot of athletes, so I was a

Division 1 strength and conditioning coach for assistant for the

University of Santa Clara and then a few other colleges in the Bay Area.

All different sports— baseball, tennis, volleyball,

uh, women's basketball. And I loved that domain.

And what I would argue to say, part of what I enjoyed most about it

was my mentor at the time. He—

their facility is now closed, but they had modeled their whole

methodology and philosophy after Cech's teachings. And so at

17, 18— I came in there at 17, actually. To have

that type of upbringing. Like, I was doing strength and

conditioning work, but also under the lens of the foundations of

what I still to this day make someone a truly badass man

is health is the foundation for high performance. And so I

loved competing. I loved working with athletes. What I will say is,

as a side note, working with male athletes historically has been a

pain in the ass. It was so much easier to work

with female athletes from the sense like they listened a lot more.

When I was working with guys, a lot more egos. Bench press

wasn't even on the program and they were trying to have side competitions

in the back while we're running S&C workouts. But

I loved performance, like absolutely loved it. And I loved working with

guys, even though, like I said, there was, tend to be a lot of side

competitions going on. And over the years, as I started

getting deeper and deeper in my own work as an athlete, as a coach,

I started really realizing, man, there is so

much more to this than what happens in the weight room.

Way more. And it wasn't until I started working one-on-one with

Chuck that I started realizing in real time, as we were

documenting, uh, every single day, morning heart rate,

musculoskeletal system stress, limbic emotional stress,

hormonal stress. Like, we were mapping all those things, not

using tech like an Oura Ring or a Whoop. I was doing it

manually through a Google Doc and making these forms. And every

single month when I would go down to Paul, he would, yes, look at

technique and how I was performing in competition. And

we were simultaneously rehabbing an injury that no one could figure out. But we

were also looking on a day-to-day basis of how were the other things

as an athlete that I might not usually, or someone might not contribute

to my performance, whether it's a fight between a family member,

because I was in a family business at work, uh, if I was going through

a relationship challenge. And I saw all of those life

stressors objectively affecting

what was going on on the graph, therefore the reflection of what was happening inside.

And in my numbers. And then as I started going deeper and deeper, I

mean, Paul says, and you know this well, but, um, if you don't know your

dream, like, find out what the nightmare is.

And over time, my love for performance

training and my identity as an athlete and as a coach, I actually

started resenting it because I started feeling like, man,

there's so much more to me. I have so much more inside,

so much more I want to do. Than, quote, just being,

um, I don't know, a kettlebell guy or a powerlifting guy. And so I

had to go through my own identity crisis. And these

last years, as I've really identified what am I really here to do in

this phase of life, like, what am I meant to do?

And at 30, I got that call. I went to out in the woods for

almost 3, 4 days, and I asked myself that question.

What the fuck do you want to do, Mike? If you could do

anything, anything, what would you want to do? And

over the course of 3, 4 days, I just sat. I asked the question,

I sat, I cried, I meditated, I journaled, I sat, I cried, I

meditated, I journaled, I asked. And I kept going through this

cycle. And at the end of it, I got clear. I said, I want to

try. I want to try and see what my

own brand or what my flavor, what my, like, what's

my heart telling me of how I can use my experience to guide men,

whether it's living in greater responsibility, living in greater ownership, living in

greater happiness, living more of themselves. And so

that's a really brief encompassing of a bit of the journey,

but it, it started with performance and then it

really has now transformed into Um,

like, man, I would do this stuff for free any day of the week. Like,

this is— I have a family to provide, and, uh, it feels so

good to be doing this work. Yeah, beautiful.

You know, I had the same experience working with Paul where

over time, especially because of his system, you can see

the interconnection of all things. You know

how the emotions and the breath and the food and everything is

interconnected. And once you see that, you can't unsee it.

And so I really appreciate, like, how that was a real

invitation into greater depth, you know, beyond just the

objective physical training. And

as you've gotten into men's work, and you talk a lot about the,

the masculine energy, I would love for you to

define, because I love the way you define it How does Mike

define the masculine energy and how does it differ from the

feminine energy? Can you offer us a little definition of those two?

Yeah, absolutely. And I really appreciate how you

talked about it as energy because that's one of the first things I

think in my experience to unpack. And we're a lot—

this is, for me, this is, is not just like

nice things to say out loud. Like, this really does— this is rooted in

practice. This is rooted when you're in front of someone who's in their

masculine, let's say you're in their masculine essence, it's something that's felt,

and it's something that doesn't even need to be said. It's felt. And so

the first thing to understand is, from an essence or an energy perspective,

masculine and feminine are not genders. Like, take that

off the table. And if we distill it down, the

masculine, or masculine energy, or masculine essence

is synonymous with stillness, with consciousness,

with awareness, presence,

integrity. It's the container that holds.

I have a water bottle on my desk right here. This

water bottle, like you just heard me hit that, it has integrity.

It holds. What does it hold? It holds right

here. Electrolytes right now are inside,

but But if I shake it around, there's water inside. And

so the masculine, the greater someone's masculine,

the more they have the ability to hold the

contents of what's inside. And so the feminine, on the

other hand, not gender related, because everybody has a

masculine, everybody has a feminine, we have both. But the

feminine is anything associated with thinking, feeling,

sensing, emoting, action, anything

associated with movement. And that's where some of the

misconceptions can be, because we see men today who may be

taking massive action and we say, oh, that's a man.

But from an energy perspective, just because someone is taking action,

they're not necessarily felt as more masculine. So

the greater or the stronger, the more integrity

someone's masculine the more they can hold their own

feminine feeling, sensing, emoting, as well as that of

the people they're leading, their partner, their kid.

My son, who you know, Luca, who's 3, is one honestly

walking feminine. Just, just, he's sick right now.

Literally, he's crying nonstop. He's just

very emotional. He hasn't developed much.

Of a masculine to hold his containers, which is why he relies on

myself and Lauren to co-regulate, to hold

him. Last night he goes, uh, it was so sweet. I was

downstairs, and again, he's not feeling good right now, he's sick. And he goes,

Papa, can you, can you— my tummy hurts. He thinks because he— we gave him—

we let him have some strawberry ice cream this weekend at, uh, seeing

grandparents. And he's like, I, I think I'm sick because I had strawberry

ice cream. I was like, I was like, okay, bud, sure. He's like,

will you make me feel better? I was like, oh man, it was so sweet.

I was like, buddy, I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. Like, Papa will try.

Why don't you just come here? And so he's, will you hold me? I go,

yeah, buddy. So I just held him, and he was

emotional in that moment, and I just felt him not only

co-regulate, however, I felt him allowing

me to hold his emotional expression, his

wateriness. And like that, he just fell asleep. Yeah.

And it was so beautiful. So those are, from a theme standpoint

or just a good understanding, that would be masculine, feminine, at

least as I define it and what I've learned. Yeah.

You know, one thing I would love for you to touch upon, I think this

was on your podcast with JP Sears,

where you guys were talking about these two extremes that we

find men either falling into today where,

you know, generations ago or decades ago, a man was

defined as like this tough guy. You're supposed to suck it up. You're not

supposed to feel or express emotions. And then

over the last few years, maybe last 10 years or so,

it seems like there's also been the swing to the other extreme,

which has been a little bit of like the feminization of men.

Or like the emasculation of men. And so

I would love for you to touch upon like how you've seen

these two extremes play out and what is the,

what the Buddhists might call the middle way or the path of integration

where you're able to stay in your

power and your sovereignty, but you're also

able to come with an open expressive heart. I'd love for you to

kind of touch on that a little bit. Yeah, man, I love that.

I mean, I think like if we're to play talk about the

extremes, like you're exactly right. And still like, yeah, that might have been the

theme years ago, but there's still, there's still that

perpetuated today. Like the alpha man, the

over-indexing of I can't show any pain.

If I show pain, then I'm weak. If I'm weak, then

I'm vulnerable. If I'm vulnerable, it's dangerous. And

that's as existential for many men. And so there is a lot

of, quote, men's work, or what creates a man, or what

can cultivate a man, is through grinding, pushing,

hardening. So there's that extreme. And then,

like you said, on the other extreme, because we've gone so far for so long,

there's been this desire and craving for so many

men who especially are deep feelers— like, what do

I would say? So many men actually feel much more

intensely than they think or give credit to. They

just don't know what to do with the emotional intensity that

they feel. They don't know how to navigate it. And so what do

they usually do? They usually externalize it

aggressively, so they get reactive and lash out.

They'll internalize it. They'll turn it on themselves,

and that's where we get like a really loud inner critic, like, fuck, you fucked

up, why'd you keep doing that again? That was me and has been

historically. There's guys who are numb to it, so

they're numb to their own emotions. And then there's the one who just stuff it

down. And so you have all of this

melting pot of intense emotions,

largely or again being numb to it. But then what do I

do with it? Because what was modeled— because how do

we learn? You know this better than everybody. But, and as I'm watching

Luca, like, I'm seeing this day in, day out. He's

like studying us so much. And it

may be, yes, in part what we say. And

what I'm really observing with him and his behaviors,

it's so much, yes, what we say, but what we do. So what

he sees, what he hears, what he feels, and

then what he intuits— those, those

create in our environment so much of

what he's learning and downloading from us, from, you know, Lauren and

myself and whoever he's around. And so most men

were not modeled. I wasn't like, what

does healthy masculinity feel like? What does

What does it actually look like for a man to, you know,

be able to— I think you even said this at one of the retreats, but

to— about an emotional expression

I was having. I was experiencing some degree of— I

think my grandfather had just passed, as an example.

And I think in the circle there was a father and

son and they were having a beautiful connection, and it really brought up a lot

for me. And my grandfather, I think, had passed just a few days before.

And so I was feeling really deeply. And in that, this was all like, I

wasn't trying to do any of this, but I remember just sitting

and feeling an overwhelming wave of

emotions and sitting as I would just

normally sit, just sitting tall, strong spine. That's masculine spine, having a

spine, holding ourselves, and then also

allowing this flow of tears to happen.

Not judging it, not saying, why am I crying, making up a

story, being with whatever's coming through

and letting it happen. So

the not knowing what to do with the intensity of emotion I see is a

real problem for most guys. And what's been modeled

from, like, what you were saying, over-feminizing men. And then what

does that lead to? Oftentimes it leads to, I would say,

overly watery, not as a judgment, but literally as an

unstable force. Like, many guys that I coach will come home and

they want to step into that masculine. They want to step into,

uh, allowing their female partners to soften around them,

to melt around them. But they come home and they don't know what to do

with their emotions. And so their wife or partner says, I want you

to feel safe to express, I want more vulnerability from you, and then they

just jump on them, and then they get scared. They're

like— they watch their partner being like, ah, that was a little too much.

And so again, the modeling hasn't been there, and so a lot of guys

have gone extreme in that, but they don't really have a spine. That's why you

need both. The integration of both is absolutely critical.

Yeah, beautifully stated. You know, one of the—

one of the emotions that has been the

hardest for me to connect with over the course of my journey has

been anger. And I've noticed

that in the past, there's been a fear of my own anger.

I know for me, a lot of it goes back to my childhood where I

experienced my dad's anger as either violent or unsafe.

And so when I have anger rise up

inside of me, it reminds me of that lack of safety that I

experienced as a child. But I started to see

how detrimental it is when

myself or men divorce themselves from their own anger.

And so I'd love for you to touch upon why

men having, or anyone for that matter, just the masculine,

why it's so important to have a healthy relationship with

anger. For us to really be able to,

you could say, access our power in a healthy way.

Yeah, yeah. Hearing what you just shared, and, you know, me and you have worked

together, I mean, buds, for, you know, a good handful of years, and it's,

it's so, uh, like striking how

many elements of our stories overlap. And that's

one of the things that's so beautiful about having good men in one's

life. It's how we mirror each other. I can

learn so much from your life. But as you were speaking, I mean, to a

T, in my own way, like, that's how I experienced growing

up. And so for me, I was so afraid

of my anger and what it would mean, because I thought, if I'm

angry, the story that I was creating in my head and didn't even know it

is, I'm a bad boy. I am bad.

And not just I did something bad, yes, that's true, but literally like a

deep, deep character flaw. Like it was not

okay to feel a connection with my anger. And so,

but if you asked me at the time, I don't know, 10, 15, 15 years

ago, something like that, 15 years ago maybe,

if you would have asked me like, Mike, do you get angry? I would

have probably said like a little bit, but Like,

nah, man, I'm not— I'm not an angry guy. Like, I'm not really angry.

And now when I look back, even in journal entries or

things, like, I didn't realize how much—

like, when I look at some of the, the challenges that I've had

from relationship stuff, being cheated on, etc., I was like, damn, I had a

fucking good reason to be angry. Holy

shit. But my association, again, through what was modeled, was

that's not okay. And so how did that impact me personally?

I went much more in the realm of being the peacemaker, that

if everybody's okay, like, if the harmony is

maintained, then, then we're okay. And it wasn't until I worked with a

mentor, um, a shaman out in the UK, Yakov, a guy who taught me

the shamanic drum, where he was like

There's so— to your point, there's so much power, Mike, in your anger. And honestly,

I still think to this day, there's still—

and I've done so much work on it, and I still know there's

more for me there. There's more that I can learn from

my anger because I felt it in a healthy way.

And when it shows up and I really use it to access that

power, it's protective. It's a

strong boundary of what is my yes, what is my no.

And when I can own that, like, boundaries are meant, yes, to

keep people out, right? If I have a boundary, it's to protect it, to keep

people out. But the boundary is also meant to keep what I

love in, right? Like, if I— if— I mean,

here's an extreme scenario, but if someone were to go up to my wife and

do something, I don't know, grab her

hand or do— I would get fit. I would physically protect her,

right? I would be keeping her in. I'd be keeping that out, but I'd be

keeping my kingdom, my family, my home, my

heart. I would be protecting that. And so

I had no concept of that, and I only viewed,

in very simple terms, anger as aggression. But I didn't know that anger could

be used as assertiveness, as and up. There's so much

energy in anger. Like, if we know how

to use it and be with it— passion. Like, my

family's, uh, my mom and dad are Sicilian. Uh, Lauren's

family's, uh, mainly like German, Austrian. And,

and she loves my family because it's hilarious. It's literally like My Big Fat

Greek Wedding but Sicilian style. And if you walked in the room, you'd

be seeing hands flying, people yelling. you know,

like hugs, kisses, like really aggressive, like not

aggressive, but like really in there. And if you didn't understand

Sicilian, you'd be like, man, everyone's yelling at each other. Everyone's really upset. And

it's like, no, that's, that's, that's love. That's how they

transmit energy. And so one,

connecting with that passion, power, protectiveness,

boundaries, that is, can be so

useful for a man, especially for one's purpose when things get

hard. The warrior, when things get hard,

like, what are you willing to not just sacrifice, but

how far are you willing to go for something that you believe in? Are you

will— what's the hill you're willing to die on? That would be in the realm

for me of anger. If I don't know that, or a man doesn't know

that, then it's so easy with technology

and all the, the, the simple— the how easy things are today

Dude, it's so easy just to sit on the couch. Why? Why would I get

up? Why would I, I don't know, do something that betters my life? Why would

I contribute? So all of those things, for me, are in the

realm of anger. And it's just reframing or having a

deeper understanding of that. And probably the deepest part of that is

allowing oneself permission to go there.

Yeah. And that's even still some truly not saying that because it sounds

good, but truly, that's still something I still know. There's

so much that I can learn in a healthy way from my own anger.

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, one thing that was coming up for me

that I'd love to explore for a moment, you know,

a law in physics that we've all heard is energy can't be created or destroyed,

only transferred. And so since emotions are

energy, when we pretend like our anger is not there, that

energy doesn't go away. It gets diverted into

other outlets or other means So I'm curious whether it's in your

own personal life or even some of the men you've worked with,

what have been some of the ways that that energy that

actually was anger kind of got directed in

other means, whether it's, for example, patterns of shutting

down or patterns of addiction or, you know, whatever it

might be, compulsive patterns, like how have you seen

that energy of anger get redirected in

unhealthy ways when it's not being honored? If that makes sense.

Oh dude, I love the question. Okay, so the first thing that comes up is

from a language perspective, and I'm sure, yeah, you've heard me talk

about this before, probably in one of the groups, but there's

a pattern that we hear in just everyday talk. We call it soft talk.

So soft talk are words that are softening, like

maybe, kind of, I guess, probably,

perhaps. I might, I could, I

should. Those are all words, softening

words that create ambiguity. They create, I would say,

untrustability at times. They create uncertainty.

And so one of the biggest challenges that we have with men today

is, one, they're isolated, they're disconnected from their hearts and

from other people close to them. Even if they're surrounded by people who love

them, there isn't that genuine connection. But largely, like,

I experience many men as flat. And this

isn't a judgment. This is just what I'm experiencing in coaching and what I'm seeing.

There's a flatness to them. And when you have a dialogue, what

you'll hear a lot is these soft talk words.

And so I'll give an example of a sentence just off the cuff.

Like, if I asked, I don't know, What

do you want to do this next year? Like, what are some of— what's some

of your goals for 2027 or for the rest of 2026?

You might hear something like, you know, I've always

wanted to— yeah, I've always

wanted to help people, but I wasn't sure what that could look like. I

enjoy nursing, but maybe I'm too late,

I guess. You know, I guess maybe this might happen

for me. Maybe it won't. I think maybe I have an issue

around this. I'm wondering if I should start

at some point in 3 years.

So when you hear that, I just rattled off off the cuff just a

bunch of soft talk words. And likely you

wouldn't likely believe that man that he's going to actually do that and see that

through. But if I said, I want to help people,

here's one or two professions I'm thinking about, or I'm

looking at, I'm evaluating— even stronger, I'm evaluating—

my goal is in 18 months to

start the process of going to whatever trade school to learn

that thing to be in that job. It's very different. And

so what I tend to see is there's a lot of uncertainty,

a lot of wateriness, and a knot of not enough of just decisiveness in

language. And that can keep people flat.

Like, when's the best time to start anything?

Now. Now. Like, right now. So

if we can start being mindful, and if someone hasn't

looked at that, one of the easiest places to look, if that is you or

if someone— if you're listening, it can be hard to catch in our

daily language because it's so habitual. And so repetitive.

But look at your emails, look at your text, and start

looking for these words that create, again,

ambiguity, uncertainty, a lack of taking ownership and

responsibility. If we eliminated— or at least, because

there is a time and a place for using soft talk words— but if we

just intentionally reduce those by 20, 30, 40%,

I would imagine you would almost have the same flip

experience of feeling more confident, of taking

more clear and decisive action. So that's

one. Uh, does anything come up for you before I go

to what's coming up next? But anything come up for that? No. What I

was just hearing is that when we disconnect from anger, we disconnect from

power. And so it seems like we're more

susceptible to those soft talk tendencies, and I can see it in

myself, you know. And so we don't have access to our own

power. That's kind of sounds like how our language starts to

express itself. If you hear, like, this

is also why if you think of a lot of

CEOs or people who are

executives or people who are in leadership positions, one of

the things that— so if there's a leader just by the name of that,

there's also people who follow, right? A leader, someone who

follows.

A leader is usually someone in a position of some way, shape, or form,

a position of power, right? There comes responsibility

with that. But if that leader— like, would you want to

follow someone into battle who wasn't owning their power, who didn't

feel— absolutely not. I'm like, dude, I'm not laying down my life for,

for this dude. No way. I can't trust him. He doesn't even know who he

is. So that— and not from an arrogant place,

but, but a real grounded place, like a real grounded power.

So yes, difficulty accessing power for sure.

I'm seeing a lot of, or a fair bit of, just

addictive tendencies. So I'm seeing it a

lot in the realm of porn. I'm seeing it a lot with,

I mean, guys going to, guys going to massage parlors

and feeling a lot of shame around that. I'm seeing it with,

with the going along with the power piece, just a lack of drive.

I'm seeing it with

a lack of leadership in relationship.

And that can be really painful.

And also, I mentioned this earlier, but like feeling

isolated, like really withdrawing into oneself,

shutting down and isolating, which is very different, as you know, than

solitude. I think solitude is absolutely— it's medicine for men.

But when we're isolated, that's when it can become really destructive. Yeah,

it's probably why they say that a lot of depression is

anger turned inward. Um,

you know, I was in a, a recent ceremony,

and one of the things that came through to me, which was really

beautiful, because as you know, I do a lot of work with

archetypes, is the archetype of the knight and the archetype of

the king. And this insight that

came through was that a knight

is someone that wears armor but no crown,

and a king is someone that wears a crown but no armor.

And when that came through, I actually thought of you—

well, as one of the men in my life that truly wears a

crown with no armor. And so I

would love to hear your thoughts and reflections

on what it means to wear a crown with no armor,

and what it means to wear an armor but no crown.

I'm just curious what comes up for you

there.

Wow. Yeah, that's amazing, man. Jesus, I'm gonna—

yeah. Let's sit with that. But, uh,

I mean, it's interesting when you were talking about that, like, the first thing—

a king is someone who wears a crown but no armor— like, immediately,

like, I felt my heart open and

expand. I mean, that's,

that's, uh, stepping into, as I continue to grow, my own

version of what a king means to me. Like, that is what I would say

I would strive to do. Someone who's willing to

take greater and greater levels of responsibility and accountability for his life

and the people that are affected by my life and my choices,

which are for sure my community, the people I serve, and most closely my

family. Like, my family is my most intimate

kingdom that I'm here to serve at the deepest level.

And with that responsibility,

like, my choices have ripples.

And accepting that, acknowledging that, and what a gift as well.

And so the crown is for me taking ownership

and accountability and responsibility for the life that I'm creating for me, for my

family, and those that, quote unquote, follow me or that I'm

here to serve. And then I love the no armor

piece because it's not something that feels at all

arrogant. It really feels so heart-connected

and like, this is me.

Like, this is me. I'm here to be me

and, and show up as

I am, all colors. All shapes,

not trying to be anybody else, but really leading. I mean, the whole—

it's so wild. So I rarely ever wear this shirt, but it's the Men of

Movement, the retreat logo, and this— the signal for

the tagline is lead from the middle, and

there's buffalo on it. Like,

the lead from the middle, which just came up organically, was, was— I mean, it's

multiple. Lead from the heart, lead from one center, the ability to,

uh, the willingness to at times lead from the front, the willingness to

step back, lead from the back, and let others lead, and then also the willingness

to be in the center with everybody going through the shit.

And so the king without any armor for me is the king who leads

from the middle, his middle, and honors that

and doesn't see— like, someone would say if he's not wearing any

armor, he's weak or he's vulnerable, and I would say, fuck yeah.

And he's also— that vulnerability is a strength if it's wielded

with integrity and with groundedness.

Beautiful. Yeah, beautiful.

Um, when I was listening to you, what I kept

really feeling was that the, the way you were describing it is

the crown is the accountability and

the no armor is the availability.

And, you know, I, I hear you speaking as someone

that is taking full accountability but is also so

available at the same time, which is really

just a beautiful combination.

You know, in the, in the realm of

spirituality, I'm sure you have found this to be the

case as well. There's so much of this

energy of going up and out. Hmm.

But what I really appreciate about your work is the going

down and in, the embodiment.

And so what I'd love to explore a little bit, I'd love to hear

your thoughts on, is really approaching

spirituality as a practice of embodiment.

And how you've seen spirituality as more of a practice

of escape with a lot of people, or almost like in a

dissociative fashion. Because one of the things

I've really appreciated about your work is really the focus

on bringing consciousness back into the

body rather than riding a wave of

consciousness to leave the body.

Yeah, man. Hmm.

I mean, this— going back to like the buffalo, right? Like,

there's the buffalo is the totem that I've really resonated with so

deeply. And when you— when I feel at least into the energy

of the buffalo, dude, it is just— I

mean, it's still— it is grounded, it is heavy,

right? It moves as a pack. And so

I've really realized that, especially largely through— I

think it came through my experience with plant medicines. And in

those spaces and in those circles, largely my

early experience was, and maybe to some extent for sure myself

too, was using those to escape and

go outward. And then I started realizing, I was like, fuck, man,

like We're— I'm a speaking person. Like, I'm a

physical being. One's

physicality, connection to our senses, to our bodies.

Like, that's, that's why I love, you know, lifting things with my

hands. So I feel like I've always felt that

connection. And a lot of times in those circles, or even

sometimes, and even in meditation, we can use these practices

as escapes, like you were saying, to go outward. But I started really realizing, I

was like, wow, if I taught myself how to

bring the insights, the awareness, what was out here, and bring them

down into my roots, into my feet, and actually live

them in my life, what could happen?

Which is why, like, I also, for me personally, I bring my family

into a lot of my work because they're the reminder for

me of why I do this. One of the reasons, not the only, but one

of the reasons And so to be embodied means, for me at

least, to take what's out there or in here in the head

and bring that down so it's felt, like

truly, truly felt, and the

transmission of that. Like, I think, you

know, I don't remember the stat, but this is why body language is so important.

But it's like when you walk into a room, or when I walk into a

room, or someone walks into a room, before you even open

your mouth, or I open my mouth, they're taking in information. And I

could be saying— and I've worked with clients, and they're, for me,

truly, they're some of the hardest to work with. I'll just say that

when they have all of the spiritual lingo, like,

they sound super good. But then when you

look at their life, it's not reflective of what's coming

out of their mouth. And that— it can be really

sneaky, like really sneaky. And for me, hard to work with

because like on surface level, like again,

they've got all the right words, but then you're like, but then why do

you keep having these repetitive patterns? Like, why are you still struggling with this if

you know and you have this great connection, you get these downloads, and we're all

one? It's like, yes, and Like,

how's that affecting your relationship? How's that affecting your father? And how's your

patience? How quickly do you fly off the handle? So

for me, the embodiment is bringing it into the body so it can be

felt. So if I'm talking about presence,

you can feel me as presence. If I'm

talking about groundedness, you can feel me as

groundedness. Just as an example. If I were

to talk like this, like, hey, Greg,

it's really cool to be on your podcast today. I'm super grateful and honored.

That versus,

brother Greg, it's so awesome

to be on your podcast today, man. I'm so fucking honored.

Like those two sentiments, almost

verbatim the same, but one, the

register of my voice is lower.

I took a deep breath in, I paused.

When I was sharing that, I was putting my awareness into my

feet. I was like, okay, feel your feet, Mike, like feel the ground,

and also hold half of my attention, my awareness on you.

And my feeling and my love for you. Like, that would

be grounded loving presence for me

communicated through that energy. So,

um, I don't know if that answered your question, but that would be—

and it's been so interesting, I've been learning more and

more and more about myself through witnessing the speed of

speech and the tone of which I'm coming from.

And those two things have been really helpful for me

to identify practically when I'm starting to spin

up in my head or go outward, whether it's a spiritual thing or

not. And then when do I experience

myself as most embodied, as most grounded?

And when I bring that to my wife, Lauren,

like, I can immediately sense and witness the shift in

her. Like, what me coming from a lower

register, feeling my feet, feeling her,

slowing it down. It's actually not even— it was

a game. I was like, let me just test this out. And it's like, wow,

she's expressing more. I'm seeing her like eyes

and her face start to soften. And it was like, wow, how

I'm caring and embodying whatever it is that I'm doing in that moment

has an effect on the people around me, whether they

realize I'm doing anything or not. Beautiful.

You know, this morning I was in my meditation practice, and, you

know, our teacher and mentor Paul Chek, you know,

taught me years ago how to work with power animals.

And so it's part of my morning practice, and

two power animals that came to me this morning were the lion and the mouse.

And the lion showed up in my throat, which I thought was a very

interesting place for the lion to show up. And

basically what it says is, I show you

the power or lack of power that's carried through

your words based on whether you're

truly embodying what you're saying.

And I was like, oh, that's really beautiful. And it

obviously came up in this, you know, podcast with what you were just

sharing. And the mouse showed up as a deep

listener and the importance of

really listening deeply. And,

you know, that was one of the things that, you know, as a

child, there were not great listeners in my

household. And what I realized was

someone who can deeply listen creates a sense of safety for

those around them. And that when you can

really listen and you're fully present, people feel safe in that

container to express, to share, you know, whatever it might be.

And it was funny because the mouse showed up on my right ear,

which is the masculine side. And it basically said,

your name is Schmaus. I'm in your name.

And so deep listening is actually part of the ways that you're healing

your father's lineage, because deep listening was not

really available in his household.

And so, you know, one of the questions I have

for you is, you know, meditation is a staple in

my life. I know it's a staple in your life and a staple in the

work that you do with the men. That you work with.

And a lot of people ask me, or, you know,

what is meditation? And there's so many answers that people,

you know, can say. It's a practice of awareness. But for me, meditation

is the practice of sustained attention.

And so I would love for you to talk a little bit about

meditation and how the practice of

sustained attention is so important

with the masculine energy. Hmm.

I think meditation is the quintessential

masculine practice. Yeah.

Stillness, observing,

say, like listening, sustained attention.

And it— for me, it's a skill. Like meditation is the, is the window

into those skills. So going back to real quick what we talked

about of being felt more as masculine,

the more still one is, the more that

they're going to be experienced as masculine. Now that can also be

like, there can be shadows of it, like being stoic, like being, or stonewalling,

like being completely shut off because it's especially in relationship

like stillness will be experienced as being more masculine, but that there

still needs to be a relational element to it as well. And I think that's

where many men struggle, is they want to be

in their center and the statue and still, but they

lose again the connection to their heart and the relational

component in any, you know, interaction.

But for me, I would say Right along with you, man.

Sustained attention, sustaining awareness.

For me, it's 3 skills that it's really honing and developing,

which is concentration. So the ability to focus

more on what it is that we do want for longer periods of time. So

that's your sustained focus. Then clarity. So

having sensory clarity of what we're experiencing moment to moment and

really picking up a lot of the nuances in what we're thinking,

feeling, emoting. So picking up all the details and the richness

that's there. And then the third is equanimity, or just say

balance. So the ability to not get so sucked into

something, right, into— and to treat things more

like even keel, like that, that middle way. And so

to be equally open to both pleasant and unpleasant

experiences and to ride that center line.

So for me, meditation is the practice of

that. And you know what comes up a lot? I mean,

I had two coaching sessions today. This comes up almost

in every coaching session— men who have difficulty

with impulse control. Impulse

control. And so they see a, uh, I don't know, a

beautiful woman, and they don't know what to do. They

feel this surge, and so they gotta go pick up on them.

Or I feel this sexual urge, so I need to, need to

have some degree of completion and

elimination, so I need to go masturbate, or I need to go get

rid of that energy. Men who feel the impulse of,

okay, I'm angry, and so I need to lash it out, or I need

to shut it down, as opposed to being

with these things. And so with the meditation practice, I think

it's the most important thing and one of the most important starting

places for a man to be really skillful

with how he manages his mind and his emotions.

Because what ends up happening is— so let's say we're triggered by something.

I don't know, uh, someone flips you off when you're driving,

right? You get triggered. You experience whatever that thing— the person giving you the middle

finger through your lens, through my lens of how we see ourselves in the

world. The trigger creates this whole flood of

chemicals—adrenaline, cortisol—like we want to

fight, right? We get big, okay? And then

what ends up happening is usually we go into thought story and make it

mean something like, uh,

that's wrong, he's a bad man, whatever we end up meaning. And then

we re-trigger ourselves back into that chemical cascade.

And so, but we've lost, we've lost our sense of

grounded presence in that moment. We've merged with whatever that emotion is, and we've

lost the ability to stay in that center. And with

meditation, at least through— I mean, I know there's endless types of meditation, but

from what we're talking about, sustaining awareness or sustaining attention,

so many of us get pulled. And not just pulled, like

snatched and taken, like we are Oh, I

like to say like we're on the merry-go-round, like we're just

in our own thing and we don't even realize it until

much later or days later, and we keep re-triggering ourselves. So

for meditation, the ability to concentrate, to stay in your

center, to witness when you're getting pulled off, that is—

I think it's the most— yeah, I think I would say it's the most important

practice that a man can practice and skill he can develop.

Yeah. Do you think that the short-form

social media content has really compromised people's

capacity for sustained attention? Have you seen that?

Oh dude, so much.

Yeah, it's designed to do the

opposite of what we're talking about that meditation can

cultivate. Stillness, presence,

awareness, concentration, clarity. Like, it's designed

to rile us up, to create an emotional

experience. It's, uh, the switching of things, how

quickly things switch. Like, the ability to just look, I don't

know, at a bottle and just look at the detail of the bottle for 5

minutes would be excruciating for most men. And what one, one thing

that demonstrates this is We did a retreat,

um, two retreats ago, and it was more of a nature-based

retreat. And the hardest thing that I recall for most guys— we

did a mini vision quest, it was 5 hours,

I think it was. I don't know, we went out around 10 PM plus or

minus, maybe 9 PM. So it's 5 hours alone.

You find some area in this beautiful nature location and

you're being with yourself for 5 hours.

And at the end of the— whatever time was, 2 AM or whatever— I went

around the property and it was pitch black, but sounding the drum for

everybody to come back. And I checked in like, how was your experience?

The amount of men, uh, that commented, one, that

was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but two, I was so ready

to throw in the towel. Like, it was amazing that you

sounded it when you did. I understand why, from

food to technology and social media, all

of these things, it is so difficult for us

to be still and be with ourselves, to be

intimate into me I see, intimate with

ourselves. That very well may be the scariest thing for

all of us, which for me, like, from an athlete

perspective when I would identify

something that was hard for me, I don't know whether it was a

specific style of deadlifting or I don't know, a

specific type of bench press or a kettlebell movement. The thing that brought me into

kettlebell sport largely— I loved kettlebell sport, but I hated kettlebell

sport. When I went into it, I was like, man, I grew

up my whole life being a one-rep athlete. One rep on the

bench as heavy as you can, one on the dead, one on the squat. Very

focused attention, very short. Kettlebell sport is Olympic

movements but done for 10 minutes unbroken. You can't set the bell down.

And I remember thinking like, oh my God, that is

horrible, that looks disgusting, or that

just looks appalling. I have to do it.

Yeah. So wherever there's that gap,

there's also the potential for an opportunity. And if

meditation is hard or sitting still is hard and you're having difficulty for

5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, if that— if you can

develop, or one can develop, a new relationship with that and see the opportunity

in that, I think so much can open up for us.

Yeah, beautiful. And that brings me to

the next topic that I'm really curious about, is

the importance of organized initiation.

Why is— and I say organized because a lot of times people

look for initiations unconsciously, but

why is it so important for— we'll, we'll say

men, but this might be across the board. I think women have it built

into their physiology more, you know, through childbirth and things like

that. But why is it so important for men to

go through organized initiations?

Such a good question, man. Largely the proof is our entire conversation.

Like, we can go like, what's the importance of it? And also, when

it's not there, what happens?

I mean, you get again all the challenges of addiction. I mean, I think

80% of the suicides now are from men. Yeah, 80% of

suicides are now from men. You look at there's

so many challenges connecting with anger, being disconnected from our heart,

depression, sad, like all of these challenges that men are

facing. Not all of them can be traced back, but largely

them not knowing themselves, them being afraid of being intimate with

themselves. And what is the initiation when it's organized, when it's thoughtful, when it's

intentional, when it's guiding men to,

to their edge? I asked one of my mentors, Ted Ryder,

who's been doing this work for a number of years, and I'm going to

paraphrase, but this was a few years back. I said, how would you define, uh,

initiation? And the heart of what I

remember him saying, which I fully agree with, is in a real initiation,

there's no going back. Like, there's no going

back. And this is why there's, in these structured

initiations, there's a metaphoric death that needs to happen,

whether, you know, I mean, cultures would do all sorts of

different things, but a vision quest is an example of a structured

initiation. Some tribes would cover you in fire ants and

you'd have to go to that brink of metaphor death and maybe

even literal death too in some scenarios. Obviously it's not what we want

to do today, but like at the same time we're

stretching our capacity. It's in that space,

in that space when there's no turning back. I just got chills. There's

no turning back. That

is what I think, from a psyche perspect— from a psychological

perspective, creates the level of

maturity and development that happens in

these initiations. And so for, I don't know, thousands of years,

at specific ages, it was just built into

the structure of a culture, of a tribe, because they knew

without that, their leadership would be shit.

We're going to be going to battle, to war

with complete lack of power, lack of

grit. As soon as it gets hard,

as soon as it gets hard, people are going to run back.

And so structured initiation, and when it's done through elders,

through people who have done this, who have guided this, again, taking a man to

his edge as safely as possible so that he can have a breakthrough

in his level of maturity, in his worldview, in his

ability to know, like, really fucking know himself.

Because when shit gets really hard in life, and it is

If you really don't know what your

range is from an emotional perspective,

from a possibility perspective, capability perspective, how are you

ever— how am I ever going to really deeply trust myself?

So forget about other people trusting me. If I don't trust myself, I

mean, that's the worst of all. So the confidence to

make a decision in life, to follow your dream, or

buy a house, or start— if like all of these things, again, going back to

today, largely I experience men with the challenge of being flat,

of being with their hands, their feet stuck in quicksand or in

cement because they're so afraid of making a mistake. Well,

what if it's not a mistake at all? What if you got to go out

there to see what's there for you? Let's find your edge. Like, find

your edge, of course, in a safe way, but find your edge and do so

around community and be guided and be held and

be integrated. How is this going to impact your life for the better?

Fuck, man, I think that is— I

think that's what I think. That's the work that we're doing, yeah,

is helping men and people, not just men, but initiate

themselves intentionally, productively, and really with

a purpose. And if they do, I

don't think that they see themselves the same. And I don't think that they see

the world the same after that, because there is no going back.

And this is what you offer at Men in Movement. So talk to us a

little bit about the retreats that we have coming up. Yeah, man,

that is, is very much what we do. And

I think one of the sentiments that you and I have heard, which is so

beautiful, is many men come in with the

sentiment or the saying afterwards, like, wow, I

came in with who I thought I was or who I thought I needed to

be for my family, for whoever.

And I left with a much deeper knowing of who I am. Yeah.

And like, what's possible from there? Fuck.

Infinite. Infinite. And so the Men of Movement is a very

structured 3-night, 4-day experience in Mount

Shasta. Where it's really— you could think of it like the

arc of the hero's journey. So myself, you,

Dr. Johnny, uh, Tim Corcoran, who runs our sweat lodge— he's been doing men's

work for over 50 years— getting elder

wisdom from him, it's a very structured,

methodical approach where every single

activity builds on the last to create deeper levels of

safety connection, openness, getting

stretched, but all in this beautiful

container. And there's specific skills, like

meditation is one of them we talked about. It's the quintessential masculine practice.

And so as its own skill for guys to learn there and then hopefully take

home with them, because that was one of the biggest things that I wanted to

do with the retreats is really teach practical

shit. Like really things that

guys can have enough time under tension

in these. Like if we just do one, I don't know, meditation

practice and there's a structure to it and it's all very thoughtful,

okay, they might get one skill, but then they'll probably forget it. But if you're

doing a meditative practice 1 to 2 times a day,

every single day, and everything is progressive that builds on the

last skill, It's like you've had 6

at-bats of that one tool, and then

you might have a video after or get a recording or whatever. Your

ability to feel confident enough to take these things when you're there and

integrate them in your life is going to be so much greater.

So guys who come get exposed to a whole

sort of different practices, modalities, but

it's not just throwing things to throw things at men. Like,

that's one of the things that I enjoy most about collaborating with,

like, you and Johnny, is also our energies work really

well together, and our hearts and our intentions are right in the right

place and feel really good. And

it's remarkable what happens in the course of such a short amount of time

when it's held in that way. That is the most important thing that I do—

create the container, do my damn best to hold it

and to just let the rest happen. And within that, again, there's a

lot of structured things that we do— sweat lodges, breathwork,

meditation, story work, your archetype work. We'll be doing

parts work. But largely, it's an initiation experience

filled with just super cool men. Beautiful.

So if people are interested in May's retreat,

um, where would you like to direct them? So my website would

be great, so mikecelemy.io, and then in

there's a tab that says For Men, and then if you click Retreats, you'll get

all the information on this one, which you'll be facilitating at.

And, um, and then also, uh, we'll have one in September that's more

nature-based. So that would be the best place. And I would

love, if you're open to it, would you mind sharing at this one what you're

bringing to the table? Maybe unique from other ones that if even if guys

have, we have some repeats for sure, but I would love to hear that too.

And for how you have that share. Yeah. So what we'll be bringing this

time around, in the past we focused more on the archetype wheel,

which is incredible, lots of fun and very much a

crowd pleaser. Um, but you know, you

and I spoke and we said we want to go deeper this time. And so

this time we're really going to be honing in on The Four

Survival Archetypes and taking a deep dive into

some more constellation work, parts work, and working with some

unconscious contracts. So we're going to go

kind of more like an inch wide but a mile deep into some of these

core areas rather than kind of doing the overall wheel, which is fun.

Um, but we're going to go a lot deeper into some of that work this

time around, which I'm super excited about. So

aside from the retreat, anything else in regards to your work that you're really

excited about? New offerings? Anything else that you'd like to share

that you have coming up? Or, you know, floor is yours.

Yeah, thank you. You know, even when you were just sharing

about the retreat real quick, like, I

know I'm sure like a lot of your listeners like love the depth and that's

why they listen to you and your level of just meticulousness and

depth and care. And I want to be

clear with people, like, we've got guys that come to this stuff at all

levels who have done zero work, and it is

deep. Like, we're there to initiate, to help initiate. Like, we're there

to do good deep work, and it is so goddamn

fun. Like, the energy that just naturally happens— you'll be in

one second doing some deep stuff like, whoa, that was a lot. Like,

I really felt the shift in that, or that really, wow, I teared up, cried,

whatever, whatever's there is all welcome. And then literally a minute later,

it's going to be belly laughter. And I just want to encourage

anybody, if you're listening to us, and this is, you're like, wow, this is,

this is heavy stuff, or this, I'm afraid, or I'm nervous, great.

Bring that too. And it's a hell of a lot of fun.

So know that. And then also, What I like to say, man,

it's like, okay, yes, this work can be

uncomfortable. Yes. But like, what's more uncomfortable?

Like living in the same repetitive patterns that

are not getting you the result that you want in your life

and creating a bunch of unnecessary— I don't say unnecessary, but shame and fear,

all like, what's harder, that or fucking stepping in with 20

guys who literally want— they got no skin in the game, they don't

even know you. And yet they still want the best for you and want to

cheer you on and want to have your back. So it's

deep and it's really beautiful. And

then other things, I'm starting to do more work with

executives, founders, or I'd say high operating

entrepreneurs. And I've got a new offer

that I just recently launched and it's called the Executive Edge that I'm super pumped

about. It's not, let's say, coaching-based. There's

very little coaching in it, but it's more about installing

an infrastructure in these men's life

so that the ambition that they're running at and the

drive that they have, their body can

come along for the ride. Because most men who have

high aspiration, high drive, want to kick ass, take names,

amazing, and usually their

body or their relationships takes the toll because

they've prioritized that. It's usually like whatever we prioritize gets our attention.

So if we prioritize winning in the business

domain— not always, but most often of what I see— the

downstream consequences, other things get neglected. And

most of these guys have already so much on their plate, high pressure,

high responsibility, a lot going on, that

adding programs and walk 10,000 steps

a day, work out 3 to 5 times a week, send me pictures

of your diet— that is so overwhelming to an already

overloaded system. So what I've done in this

offer is really looking at Amanda, how they're operating already,

and really not really adding much at all. And just

enhancing how they're already moving. And it's way

less of like— it's way— it's more of either

subtraction or what can we meticulously personalize

to you so that you can get more out of your day or how you

want to live, but also not feel so burnt out or wrecked after.

So that might be a timing thing.

As an example, instead of drinking coffee right when you wake up and going to

the phone, trying to postpone coffee for an hour to 90

minutes after waking, right? Instead of going right to the phone,

wait 20 minutes, eat some protein, or get your eyes in the sun for 5

minutes. So it's less about adding a whole program and all this

whole list of responsibilities, meeting guys where they're at

and enhancing largely what they're already doing and getting the

fundamentals down packed. And at

first when I was coming up with this, I was like, oh, doesn't everybody know

this? I was like, no, no, no, no. The more that I

started digging, I was like, wow, like the fundamentals and the basics,

but done exceptionally well. Yeah, like

exceptionally well. So the most high-leverage things that a

man can already input into his life and not feel like

he's having to do a whole shit ton more. Beautiful. And so

where can people find out about these programs? So

I will put it on my website. I just literally launched it

via an email list, so I'll have it on

my website soon and then I'll be sure when this comes out to have

a web page for that. So the offer's fresh and I'm super pumped about it.

Beautiful. Mike, thank you so much for

not just coming on the show, but being a friend, a brother, a teacher.

You know, and just coming at this work so open-hearted. Any

parting messages? Anything you want to leave the audience with?

Yeah. Yeah, really the

invitation to take time to be with your heart,

whatever that looks like. Taking an extra breath before you

speak, noticing your tone of your voice,

taking 5 minutes of stillness with not even

the objective, but just the

honoring of your heart, however that

looks. That's my invitation and reminder.

Thank you, brother. Thank you. And thank you

to all the listeners that joined us on this beautiful conversation.

Please check out Mike's work, check out Meta Movements. You will not be

disappointed. Mike is the real deal. So Mike, thank you for coming

on the show. Oh, brother, thank you. Aho.