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#315: Why Men Are Lonely: The Power of Connection, Friendship, and Purpose (With Nick Papadopolous)

 

In this conversation, Nick Papadopoulos, affectionately known as Coach Nick, and I talk about why men sharing what’s really going on increases quality of live and even saves lives.

 

 

Why Men Are Lonely: The Power of Connection, Friendship, and Purpose: Show Notes

 

There are some things we can figure out on our own.

And then there are things that become heavier, harder, and more confusing when we try to carry them alone.

My guest on this week’s podcast, Nick Papadopoulos — affectionately known as Coach Nick — has spent 25 years coaching men and facilitating men’s groups.

One of the things he sees again and again is how much men carry privately:

The cost of keeping all of this inside is enormous and contributes to male loneliness and a rate of suicide 4x higher than for women.

Nick and I talked about what becomes possible, and how men’s lives are saved, when they share with each other, instead of trying to do life alone.

We discussed:

 

One thing that stayed with me was Nick’s reminder that secrets sap creativity, energy, and resourcefulness. I often see a version of this in my relationship coaching.

When you keep something inside because you’re afraid of being judged, rejected, disappointing someone, or looking weak, you may think you’re protecting yourself or someone else. But you’re actually making it harder for the people who love you to know you.

They can’t support you with something they don’t know about. They can’t understand what you’re going through if you’re determined to handle it alone. And they won’t meet the real you if you’re only willing to show them the version of yourself that has everything together.

Vulnerability is NOT the opposite of strength.

More often than not it is the doorway to the connection, intimacy, and support you’ve been missing.

So if there’s something you’ve been carrying alone, here’s your invitation: have a real conversation with someone you trust. Instead of trying to solve it, or thinking you need to find the right words, just start talking. You don’t even have to know what you need to begin.

If you’re struggling in your relationship or wanting more connection, affection, or sex, schedule a free Effortless Love & Sex Consultation(opens in new tab). You don’t have to figure it all out alone.

Links:

Connect with Nick

CoachNick.com(opens in new tab)

The Arena Men’s Groups(opens in new tab)

Nick’s Instagram (opens in new tab)

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Get a Free copy of Honest Sex: A Passionate Path to Deepen Connection and Keep Relationships Alive.(opens in new tab)
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Bio:

Coach Nick has been leading Men’s Group’s and Men’s Leadership Programs for over 14 years. He has created a community that inspires men to live purposefully and to transform the world.

Coach Nick’s men’s platform is designed for men committed to playing a big game. The men that participate in these groups and sessions are curious about identifying and disrupting their blind spots so they can live unleashed lives out on the skinny branch. Men are supported and coached to disrupt the things that get in their way of being their best version while also disrupting the traditional views of what society says a “man” should be. Through transformational concepts, personal sharing, and playfulness, Coach Nick’s communities cover a range of topics so men can leave their mark and live the lives they’ve always desired.

Through regular connection, men harness the power of the group to take the conversations to a new level of mastery. Coach Nick creates a safe space for men who are dedicated to living life powerfully and holding each other accountable to reach their highest potentials

Transcript:

Shana James (00:00)
 Hello and welcome to this episode of Man Alive. I am excited to be here today with a bestselling author, author of The Men’s Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships, as well as an executive coach and men’s group facilitator, Nick Papadopoulos. Nick, thank you so much for joining us. 

Coach Nick (00:18)
 Thank you for having me, Shana. 

Shana James (00:24)

Well, I’m excited to have you, and I’m excited to talk about the current state of men. There’s a big discussion around isolation and loneliness, and why men are so lonely — and what they can do about it.

And I believe that you, as a men’s group facilitator and coach, have one of the antidotes that is needed: creating connection, helping men feel less alone, helping men not need to hold on to their shame, fears, and desires and think that they’re the only ones, or that there’s something wrong with them.

So I’m excited to have a conversation about how coming together with other men, and sharing instead of holding things in isolation, really can change a man’s life.

Coach Nick (01:15)
 Yes, absolutely.

Sharing is a distinction and a theme in the book, The Men’s Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships. Regardless of whether it’s a male character sharing or a female character sharing, the importance of sharing comes through.

Specifically to your question about men sharing, it’s actually one of the four core values, or four pillars, of our groups. I currently have three different men’s groups. We meet every two weeks, twice a month, and we do a couple of retreats a year.

One of our four pillars is sharing. And sharing has so many positive outcomes. There are so many tentacles, if you will, that disrupt some of the things you already described, like a man feeling lonely or isolated, or feeling like he has to do things or do the world alone.

Shana James (02:18)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (02:19)
 Which is a lot. It’s a lot of pressure on any human. It’s also very exhausting because you end up living in your head.

And often when a man is living in his head — which, by the way, is what we often call “being in the cave.” That’s what the cave is. We go inward, right? We go inward, and the little voices are pumping up the volume.

Generally speaking, when we’re inward, the narrative is disempowering. It could be unhealthy. It could be making us wrong. It’s accentuating shame. Brené Brown talks a great deal about shame living in darkness.

Shana James (02:50)
 Yep. Yep. Yes.

Coach Nick (02:53)
 So sharing is an opportunity. One of the reasons why it’s one of our four pillars is because it’s an opportunity to get whatever it is out of your head, where, again, most men sort of default to living.

And get it out into the world.

The world happens outside of us. And what I have found, as a strategy for using sharing to actually make different choices — or choices with more clarity, at least — is getting it out of your head.

Because once you get it out of your head, that’s actually the first opportunity to change your relationship to that thing, let’s call it. To that voice.

Shana James (03:32)
 To the voice in your own head, or to whatever you’re thinking about.

Coach Nick (03:35)
 Yeah, to the voice in your own head, to the event, the incident. But yeah, it’s the voice or voices in your head.

Once you get it out of your head, you’re like, “That’s what it sounds like,” or, “That’s what’s there.”

And then you can choose differently by actually sharing it out loud. Because sometimes you share something out loud and you go, “That’s really ridiculous.” Or, “Wow, I’m really putting a lot of significance on myself, or that thing, or that person.”

Or you might say, “Hey, you know what? This is really important to me.”

Shana James (04:07)
 This is really important.

Okay. There’s so many ways we could go, and I think I want to rewind just for a moment because I want to acknowledge that for many men, sharing either hasn’t gone well, or they were encouraged to “suck it up, buttercup” in sports teams and in the culture.

Coach Nick (04:24)
 Yep. “Man up. Man up.”

Shana James (04:26)
 “Man up.”

I want to know about the four pillars, and I want to hear more about sharing, but I want to go back first to: What are the benefits that you see? We’re starting to get into those.

And also, for a man who isn’t used to sharing — like, you mentioned a distinction — is it different than just talking about something? What are we actually talking about here?

Coach Nick (04:48)
 Okay, so let me just start with a few benefits of sharing.

One I just started to describe, which is: if you want to change your relationship to something, if you want to interact with that thing, that voice or those voices, get it out of your head.

The second is that when you share, there are a couple of benefits that come immediately.

One is that, especially when you’re in a men’s circle, generally what you’re going to get back is, “Wow, you’re experiencing that too?” Or, “Wow, you’ve gone through that.” Or, “Wow, you’re worried about that? You’re stressed about that? Me too.”

And so you have the experience of not being alone.

Again, because men’s default is, “I’ve got to do it by myself. I can’t share. I’m less of a man if I ask for directions,” right? That old adage.

By sharing, what you’re doing is creating a connection with other people, because they’re also having that same experience of, “I’m not alone in the world.”

Maybe the circumstances are different. If we’re talking about elderly parents, like I have an elderly mom who’s 95, maybe yours isn’t an elderly parent. Maybe it’s a sibling.

Shana James (06:05)
 Right. Maybe I’m parenting and you’re caring for an elderly parent, but there’s that —

Coach Nick (06:08)
 Exactly. Or maybe you’re caring for a sibling, or whatever the case may be.

So that’s number one: You have the experience of, “Wow, I’m actually connected to another human. I’m not all alone in the world.”

That in itself is going to put years on your life.

Shana James (06:22)
 Yeah. Yes.

And the example that I was reading in your book last night was a man feeling really nervous to share about his relationship with sex.

Coach Nick (06:28)
 Ooh, look at you. Look at you, show-off. Thank you for reading.

Shana James (06:33)
 And then every other man in the group had something very similar, some kind of shame that he was holding.

Coach Nick (06:42)
 Yes.

Shana James (06:43)
 Even the man who looked like a tough guy, super masculine, had it all together — he had that as well.

Coach Nick (06:49)
 That’s exactly right.

I mean, there’s truth in that, even that conversation about sex. Years ago, I had a men’s circle, about 15 years ago, where somebody shared that they were addicted to porn. And it was really courageous of them.

Especially in men’s circles, in my experience, sex is often one of the least discussed topics.

Shana James (07:12)
 Interesting.

Coach Nick (07:13)
 So he shares about having an addiction to porn and that he is financially in debt because of porn.

And it took everything for him to do so. And wouldn’t you know it, six other men — in the world of “you can’t make this up” — shared something similar.

Maybe they weren’t financially in debt, but they were sharing how their relationship to porn was getting in the way of their other relationships — with their spouse, with their kids. It was draining their energy.

And so this group ended up — the entire group, and it was a group of 20 men — abstaining from masturbation and porn for several months.

Here’s the thing: One benefit was, “I’m not all alone. I’m not a freak.”

Number two, what it did was, because that person shared, and then it gave permission for other people to share, it took the shame away.

Shame lives in darkness.

And it took the shame away. And all of a sudden, guys are now brainstorming, “Hey, what can we do together?”

So another, a third benefit of sharing is that you can actually brainstorm and come up with some proactive, intentional, go-forward strategies and approaches versus, “I’ve got to figure it out all on my own.”

Shana James (08:37)
 Yes. Yes. So powerful.

And for a man who has never been to a men’s circle and hasn’t shared like this, how do you encourage men to start opening up? What is it that you say to new men?

Coach Nick (08:55)
 So you and I met recently at the Big Ten Summit in Denver, right? And one of my big takeaways — and it seems so obvious in some ways, so it was like, “Come on, dude, you didn’t get this before?” — was so revealing.

I heard a lot of, to answer your question, “Create spaces for men to just even get together and have a conversation.”

Shana James (09:22)
 Mm-hmm.

Coach Nick (09:23)
 Or create a space where you can have a conversation that goes beyond sports, what beer did you make in your garage, and your career, right?

So one of my big takeaways is creating those spaces where men can just go for a walk together, where men can have dinner or lunch together.

And maybe there’s a prompt. There’s a person who’s in my men’s group who actually just started this nonprofit called Dudes Talk Dinner.

He’s in one of our groups, which is awesome to see. Our work, our conversations are inspiring this. It’s a really simple concept.

He invites men, and he usually gets about 25 to 30 men, and they come to dinner.

And he’ll have a prompt or two, which again goes slightly below the surface.

Like, “What’s bugging you these days?” Or, “What’s top of mind for you?” Or, “What’s the thing that excites you most in your life?”

It’s one layer deeper.

Shana James (10:25)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (10:26)
 And so I was inspired when I came back from the Big Tent Summit.

I have a friend of mine who I’ve known since I was five years old. And there I am — you know, we live in Manhattan — and I call him up and I go, “Hey, you want to go for a walk in Central Park?”

And we end up walking for like three or four hours. And it wasn’t a transformational conversation per se. I wasn’t being Coach Nick. We were just having a conversation that went one or two layers deeper.

I met him where he was, and vice versa, he met me where I was. And we had a very different conversation than we normally have.

Shana James (11:05)
 Amazing.

Coach Nick (11:06)
 And it’s because of my “come from.”

My come-from was, “You don’t need to be in a men’s group. You don’t need to see a therapist. You don’t need to go to a workshop.” I mean, great if you want to do any one or all of those. Let’s just have a conversation.

And so it’s a long way of saying: find spaces where you can have a conversation that goes beneath complaining about your spouse or talking about the New York Knicks winning the championship.

Well, you could talk about that a lot if you want. That was good, right?

Shana James (11:34)
 That was good, though.

Coach Nick (11:35)
 Yeah, you like that. But all kidding aside, that conversation is, listen, it’s fine. You and I can joke about it. “Hey, it’s great. It was awesome to watch.”

Shana James (11:41)
 It’s fine.

Coach Nick (11:42)
 It’s fine. That was five minutes.

Shana James (11:45)
 Yeah. But people feel really lonely in the world when those are the only conversations they’re having, right?

I mean, if you’re not having those deeper conversations, it’s such an isolating experience of being alive.

Coach Nick (12:00)
 Absolutely.

I had a COO for a large company who approached me about executive coaching. One of the questions I always ask when someone says, “Hey, I’m interested in coaching. Let’s talk. Let me evaluate you. What do you charge? How do we work?” — one of my qualifying questions is, “Why now?”

I was here yesterday. Why didn’t we talk yesterday? What’s happening in this moment?

And he said — and this is a pretty similar sentiment — “I need to have a real conversation with someone.”

And I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “We just had a child.” He’s in a heterosexual relationship and had a baby with his wife. “We haven’t had sex in six months. My father is dying from cancer, and I’m in a political war at work with the CFO, and I’m losing that political war.”

And he’s like, “I’ve tried to talk to my friends, but all they want —”

Shana James (12:52)
 Wow. A lot of stress.

Coach Nick (12:55)
 A lot of stress, right?

And he’s like, “I need to have a real conversation.”

I said, “What outlets do you have?”

He said, “Well, my friends. I have good friends. We go to the bar, but we’re watching the game.”

And we’re, again, complaining about our spouse or complaining about work, but we’re not having a real conversation.

And that’s pretty typical of men. They want to have a real conversation.

And that’s really the spaces that we create: Let’s have a real conversation. Let’s put aside the pressure that it has to be a certain depth, or that you have to get it right.

Let’s just have a real conversation.

Shana James (13:31)
 Right. Just real. Just revealing something.

Coach Nick (13:34)
 Let’s have a real conversation.

We have guys in each of the three groups who have new fathers. I mean, just transactionally, like, yeah —

Shana James (13:43)
 Mm-hmm. It is a hard time.

Coach Nick (13:47)
 Yeah, like, that’s a big deal, right? I mean, your life is turned upside down.

Shana James (13:49)
 Yeah. And when I think about if you’re not having those conversations, not only do you not get the support, right, of someone who’s been there and has some ideas for you, or someone who says, “Oh my God, I felt that same way,” so you don’t feel alone.

But you also don’t get the benefit of really deeply exploring: How do I want to be a dad? What is most important to me?

Where do I want to go with these next 20 to 40 years of my life that I’m going to be parenting? Who do I want to be?

If you’re just shooting the shit with people, the intentionality doesn’t happen.

Coach Nick (14:26)
 Right.

And again, to go back to some of the benefits, by sharing and getting whatever it is out of your head — which often is, “Am I a good dad? Am I going to be a good dad? My dad may not have been a good role model to map on to or map on from. I’m imperfect. I yelled at my newborn. There’s something wrong with me.”

When you’re sharing, again, by getting it out of your head, guys are like, “Dude, that’s normal.”

It’s normal. Like, “You got upset at your newborn?” Yeah, you’re allowed to. You haven’t slept in three days, and you and your wife want to kill each other.

It’s like, my God, you could just feel the —

Shana James (15:03)
 We can breathe again.

Coach Nick (15:04)
 I can breathe again.

And then, to your point, by sharing, I’ve seen this happen firsthand, guys will share about what worked for them as dads and also maybe what didn’t work for them.

Again, just something to consider. You’re a different human, different circumstances. So the sharing becomes, again, a learning opportunity.

It even becomes a learning opportunity for the dads who are dads, or who have been dads for a long time, because they’re sort of like, “Well, I’m still a dad. And even though my kid might be 20 years old, how am I showing up as a dad? And who do I want to be now that my kid is 20 years old?”

Shana James (15:37)
 Right. Right. They get to revisit.

And even though it’s a different phase, I mean, I think we often learn when we teach, right? We learn something even deeper in revisiting.

Maybe because my kid is 20, I haven’t really thought recently about my intentionality — how I want to be a dad.

So yeah, maybe if there’s anything else there, of course go there, but we can also talk about the other of the four pillars.

Coach Nick (16:00)
 I’ll just say one more thing about the sharing piece, which is often, especially when men have experienced childhood trauma, right?

It could be sexual abuse, sexual assault, or their boundaries being severely violated. Or maybe it was abuse in the family or divorce, whatever that trauma was.

It’s not just men. Women do this as well.

A child will blame themselves. They will take responsibility, right? “What could I have done differently? You know, it’s my fault.”

And again, men will walk around with that burden.

Whatever event happened is challenging enough and intense enough. And then I believe what makes it worse is holding on to that burden, and allowing it to really fester and create this narrative and belief system like, “I’m broken. There’s something wrong with me. I’m a monster.”

Shana James (16:58)
 I’m a monster.

Going back to the story in the book, right, where the man shared and he’s had this story like, “I’m a monster for this thing that happened when I was 13 years old.”

Coach Nick (17:05)
 Exactly. Exactly.

And so by sharing, again, that gives you the opportunity to shift your relationship.

Even as a facilitator, until you get that out loud, I can’t really do a whole lot, because I don’t know what’s there.

And I always like to say our power — your power, my power — really lies in our secrets.

Our secrets really sap everything out of us. They sap our creativity, our energy, our resourcefulness, the ability to be present.

And so, again, that’s why often people have the experience with men like, “I can’t reach them. They seem emotionally disconnected.”

Again, that’s the cave, right? They’re in la-la land, thinking like, “I’m protecting myself.”

Meanwhile, you’re making the people around you feel weird and walk on eggshells because they want to help, they want to support, they want to do something for you because they care about you. Yet they have no clue what to do because you’re deep into the cave, right? And you’re getting lost inside of it.

Shana James (18:09)
 Right. And thinking that you’re taking care of people, you’re not being a burden, you’re not offending people, any of that. But really, then it pushes people away.

Coach Nick (18:18)
 Yeah. Yeah.

I love when men say, “I’m a protector. That’s why I won’t share.” I’ve had men literally say that.

“My job as a man is to protect. And if I share and I lose it, if I get super emotional or I tap into my emotions, I’m not going to be strong and I’m not going to be a protector.”

And my feedback to them is always: Your power lies in your vulnerability. Your power lies in letting go and loosening the grip on your secrets, so that then you can be stronger for your people.

You’re not protecting your people when you’re living in your head in the cave and people are like, “What’s wrong with Nick today again?”

Shana James (18:58)
 Yeah. Yeah.

I often, when I’m working with men, it’s so interesting because I see men jumping out of planes and going whitewater kayaking and all the things that seem so scary, right? That take so much courage.

And then to find that opening up or being vulnerable — it makes so much sense to me, right? You’re supposed to be the rock. You’re supposed to be the protector. That’s the story that they’ve been sold.

But what I often see is when they start to open up with the right people — it’s not with everyone — they will then come back and say, “I feel stronger.”

And I often tell this to women too, because women don’t always get to see, and we weren’t raised to see, men’s vulnerability. And I’m like, trust me, if he starts to open up and he gets vulnerable or he cries, he’s not gone. It’s not like he’s going to stay there forever.

He actually —

Coach Nick (19:54)
 I know. It’s — it is. It’s the —

Shana James (19:51)
 — will feel stronger and more able to be there.

Coach Nick (19:54)
 It’s the access point, the vehicle to actually have the strength, the sustainability.

Last Tuesday, June 9th, we had our book launch, Jake and I, the co-author of The Men’s Group… a Novel of Messy Friendships.  

Shana James (20:08)
 Congratulations.

Coach Nick (20:09)
 Thank you. Two of my three kids were there. The other one’s in Nepal doing a study abroad, so she obviously couldn’t make it, but my two sons were there.

One is sixteen and the other one’s twelve. They’re about to have their birthdays soon.

I say all that because when Jake and I each gave our talk about thanking our community — we had 75 people there, we had this party — and I shared vulnerably. I shared about why I got into men’s work and my journey. There were a lot of the guys from our men’s groups there, and I shared about how I’m really grateful that they give their trust to us every two weeks, right? All of that.

My youngest son, after we were done, came up to me and he hugged me and he said, “That was beautiful.”

And I say all that because, to your point, I was being strong. I was actually being the rock because he got, like, he’s —

Shana James (20:46)
 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Coach Nick (20:47)
 — youngest son —

Shana James (20:55)
 Well.

Coach Nick (20:55)
 — and I was being strong. I was actually —

Shana James (21:01)
 Right.

Coach Nick (21:02)
 — being the rock because he —

Shana James (21:05)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (21:05)
 — got like, he’s being soulful, he’s being authentic, he’s putting it out there. He’s actually creating connection in this space. He’s — exactly.

Shana James (21:15)
 Right. Vulnerability as strength.

Coach Nick (21:18)
 And, you know, it meant the world to me that he got that. Because I grew up in a world where if a man did something like that, it was like, “Huh, that’s weird. Like, ooh, stay away.”

So we’ve come a long way, which is —

Shana James (21:31)
 We’ve come a long way.

Coach Nick (21:32)
 We’ve come a long way. There’s still lots of ground to cover, and we’ve come a long way that we can give our sons, right, or our daughters, the opportunity to see men differently.

And I think that’s really, really important.

Listen, the main purpose of our book is to make a difference, is to change the narrative. That is the number one difference. If we sell books, awesome. If it becomes a Netflix series, awesome. I just want to make a difference.

I just want — I want you to read the book and say, “You know what? I have a different relationship to shame, vulnerability, sharing,” et cetera, et cetera. Like, that would mean the world to me.

Shana James (22:08)
 Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that’s a — that would have a huge impact, to have more people and more men especially walking around in the world not feeling like, “I gotta hold the world on my shoulders.”

Okay, what’s another pillar that we can talk about?

Coach Nick (22:24)
 So the four pillars are: number one, I’ve already shared — sharing. A second one is contribution, being outwardly focused. We call it contribution, but you might call it being giving, being outwardly focused.

A third pillar is bringing your A game, which is really about the goal-setting part of our work, right? Like moving from point A to point B. And that could be around health and wellness. It could be around your home environment, like, “Do you want to live here? Do you want to have two homes?” You know, do you know —

Shana James (22:57)
 Knowing what you really want and who you want to be.

Coach Nick (22:59)
 So we talk health and well-being, home environment, career, finances, all of the major relationships, both at home and at work, how you show up for yourself, right?

So that’s all inside of that “bring your A game.”

And the A is kind of, you know, it’s really short for being in the arena, which is what our platform is, the Arena Men’s platform.

And then the fourth pillar is redefining what it means to be a man.

Shana James (23:28)
 That’s a big one.

Coach Nick (23:28)
 Yeah.

Shana James (23:31)
 I was like, okay, where — what’s the fourth one? And are we gonna bring in vulnerability and all this? Okay, redefining what it means to be a man.

Coach Nick (23:37)
 Redefining what it means to be a man today.

And we do not claim to know the answer to that, or that we have the answer that we’re going to give you. The exploration through the other three pillars, the exploration through the exercises we do, the distinctions we deliver, the conversations we have, the sharing — all of that helps all of us collectively redefine what it means to be a man.

All that said, one of the things we’ve been able to do in our groups is connect to a higher purpose, right? Which is, can we raise consciousness enough for men? Right? And even everybody, because men — men change.

Shana James (24:23)
 So this is a group higher purpose, not just an individual higher purpose.

Coach Nick (24:27)
 Absolutely. The group higher purpose is about inspiring men, inspiring people to live purposefully, right? Which is really about being on the court, being in the arena to transform the world.

And, like, men shifting the conversation around men is not just a man’s conversation, it’s a human conversation, right? Women get to participate in that as well.

It’s really a human conversation and changing the paradigm, changing some of the norms that are outdated, et cetera.

But our purpose —

Shana James (25:00)
 Yeah. And can you just briefly speak to — because I know Brené Brown’s concept, or Theodore Roosevelt’s concept, right, around being in the arena. But for those who haven’t heard it, can you speak to that — what it means to you?

Coach Nick (25:12)
 Yeah. The Theodore Roosevelt speech that you mentioned was the impetus for creating the Arena Men’s platform.

And what I’ll share here is that being in the arena doesn’t guarantee you victory.

Shana James (25:29)
 What — what actually is being in the arena to you?

Coach Nick (25:32)
 So being in the arena, actually — most men would say being in the arena is working long hours, getting laid a lot if you’re single or you choose to, you know, whatever, have a certain kind of relationship. But it’s getting laid, working out, working long hours, getting the promotions, making money, buying the homes, all of that, right?

For us, the arena is about ways of being.

Do you choose to be authentic? Do you choose to be powerful? Do you choose to be trusting? Do you choose to be giving? Do you choose to be collaborative? Do you choose to be a generous listener?

Because — and it comes from really Buddhist principles, which is “be, do, have,” right?

We live in a Western culture, we live in a culture where, “When I accomplish X, then I’ll be happy.”

And in Buddhism, it’s the complete opposite, which is choose to be happy, right? Or choose to be giving, or choose to be collaborative, or choose to be loving.

And then the choice that you make around, let’s call it, the way of being or ways of being, what will naturally follow are choices and behaviors and actions which would then produce results.

Shana James (26:53)
 Right. That then produce more of the results.

I think — imagine what you’re saying, right? More of the results that we actually want, as opposed to results that just seem to happen to us or life is just happening.

Coach Nick (27:06)
 Yeah.

So, like, for us, being in the arena, especially for a lot of the men, is: Are you willing to choose being forgiving?

You know, forgiving those who may have caused trauma to you, or forgiving your son or daughter who may not be listening to you right now at eighteen or nineteen because they’re way smarter than you are, right?

Are you willing to be forgiving? Fill in the blank.

That is being in the arena because, A, there’s no guarantee that being forgiving is going to produce a desirable result.

What the arena guarantees you is that you will feel alive.

You will get your ass kicked. You will experience the exhilaration. You will stretch yourself. You will be scared.

And to me, feeling alive is where you have the opportunity to learn and to grow.

Shana James (28:04)
 Well, interesting, right? This is part of the reason I called this podcast Man Alive, because most of the men I’ve met, it — it is like death, right?

If you walk around in life not feeling alive or feeling like you’re dead inside, it is just such a horrendous experience.

Coach Nick (28:21)
 Yeah. And when you have that experience of yourself of being dead, right, you’re then becoming a victim of life, victim of circumstances.

And that’s when you’re in the stands, right?

So if you’re doing the visual of the arena, if you’re choosing the opposite of being alive, right, which is the opposite of being vibrant and being energized — which, again, does not guarantee victory, just guarantees that you’re alive.

But if you’re in the stands and you’re playing victim, then your choices become super limited.

And usually when men operate from a victim place, we start to become super unattractive.

You know, often what I’ve seen men do is go into that real childlike place. I love when men go to a playful, childlike place when it’s coming from a healthy, empowered place.

When it’s coming from a place of “Take care of me. Poor me. Shucks, life is hard,” and that’s where you choose to stay — like, everyone is allowed to have, “Hey, life is hard. Life sucks.”

In my personal life, I’m dealing with cancer right now.

Shana James (29:36)
 Mmm. Wow.

Coach Nick (29:37)
 I am super positive and can find, you know, there’s a lesson in everything. I promise you, those first four weeks when I got diagnosed, I was like —

Life sucks. I suck. I’m the worst. I deserve this.

Shana James (29:48)
 Mm. Why me?

Coach Nick (29:50)
 This is what life is. This is how it’s gonna be.

Shana James (30:01)
 This is what life is. This is how it’s gonna be.

Coach Nick (30:03)
 And so, for men, you don’t do yourselves — and I know I don’t do myself — a favor when I choose to sit in the stands.

When I choose to sit in the stands, it is unattractive. My choices become limited. I become less creative, less collaborative. I can’t listen anymore.

Because, again, my world shrinks when I’m in the stands, serving or playing this role of victim.

Shana James (30:34)
 Yep. Yeah.

Coach Nick (30:35)
 So, to go back to the pillars, contribution is really, really near and dear.

So when we talk about contribution, contribution can show up in a variety of ways in our group.

For example, there’s sort of the bigness of contribution. Every year, for example, we do a Super Bowl fundraiser.

And we raise, on average, $25,000 to $30,000, selling literally $10, $20 —

Shana James (31:07)
 Amazing.

Coach Nick (31:08)
 — boxes. Half the guys don’t even like football. I’m not even a big football fan. I don’t really like football.

We raise money, and we’re raising money —

Shana James (31:15)
 Yeah. It doesn’t matter, right? It’s about fundraising, contributing. Mm-hmm.

Coach Nick (31:21)
 For the last seven years or so, we’ve raised money for this school down in Haiti called the Heart School in Haiti.

And I have since —

Shana James (31:29)
 Awesome.

Coach Nick (31:30)
 — become a board member. One of my groups did a service trip down there back in 2018.

Shana James (31:36)
 Nice.

Which is a really powerful way to get out of the victim role, is when you actually —

Coach Nick (31:43)
 Yes.

Shana James (31:44)
 — go into contribution and see —

Coach Nick (31:46)
 Yes.

Shana James (31:47)
 — this is how other people live. These are other people’s struggles. I’m not alone.

Coach Nick (31:50)
 Yeah. I mean, I took Kabbalah many, many years ago. And one of the things — this is my interpretation of it — when in doubt, focus out.

In Kabbalah, what I learned was when you’re down, when you’re frustrated, when you’re doubtful, when you’re angry, the path forward, or the way to get out of that with velocity, is actually to be in contribution to someone else.

Now, you don’t have to do a fundraiser. I mean, it could be as simple as texting you, Shana, and going, “Hey, I was just thinking about you. Hey, I hope —”

Shana James (32:21)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (32:21)
 — you’re doing okay,” or something, right? Or, “Hey, here’s an article,” or something, right?

That’s a way to get yourself out of there.

So, to go back actually to the Haiti example: yes, on the surface, that’s really cool. We did a casino night two times for them.

We’ve probably raised about $250,000 over the last seven years. We’re not fundraisers, but that’s part of —

Shana James (32:42)
 Amazing.

Coach Nick (32:43)
 — the experience.

There’s the real power of contribution. What comes up for the men when they’re fundraising? Their relationship to money, their relationship to asking for support. I’m telling you —

Shana James (32:57)
 That.

Coach Nick (32:58)
 — right now, I’m going to reach out to you next February and I’m gonna say, “Shana, our group is doing —”

Ha, ha, ha. And you might blow me off. You may not respond. You might laugh at me. I mean, I’ve had some people go, “Haiti? You know, like, yeah, right.”

Shana James (33:14)
 Why Haiti when there are problems in here?

Coach Nick (33:18)
 So what starts to happen is you start to learn about your relationship to money, like asking for money, your value of it, asking for support.

What you also start to learn is —

This really messes with guys’ heads — the condition of their relationships.

Shana James (33:34)
 Huh.

Coach Nick (33:34)
 If you see that people are not inspired to give because you haven’t shown up in their lives, then you get to see —

Coach Nick (33:42)
 Exactly.

Shana James (33:43)
 — that without trying to put rose-colored glasses on it.

Coach Nick (33:46)
 It’s really, really fascinating, this concept of, you know, even doing a fundraiser.

We’ll end up having two or three sessions that are each like two hours each, where guys are — each guy’s having a different breakthrough or breakdown or both, right? — around some of these topics that I’m describing.

Shana James (34:05)
 Yeah.

You talked about sharing and contribution. It sounds incredibly powerful as one of the pillars.

I also am very curious about what you have come to in these group conversations around redefining what it means to be a man today.

Coach Nick (34:17)
 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, what’s so — we started talking about it a few minutes ago — the general sentiment, right, when a man is in the arena or on the court, is to — in Western culture — it’s very much about the tangible, right? Like the promotion.

Coach Nick (34:17)
 The amount of money, the number of cars, the number of houses, the number of vacations, the bigger the vacation, you know, all those tangible, material-type things, right?

Or, like, the degrees — getting a master’s or a PhD.

And here’s the thing: we don’t make that wrong. We do live in a culture that values those things or puts a certain set of values, right? It’s like — the world we live in.

We do need to have money, right? Like, we’re on this platform right now and you pay for it.

So we’re not about being exclusionary of some of the traditional —

Shana James (35:22)
 You’re not bringing your alms bowls around and trying to get people to —

Coach Nick (35:25)
 Yeah, no. It’s like, it’s okay that you want to be rich, let’s say, or you want to have a PhD or you want to write a book. All great.

It goes back to what I said earlier.

So one of the ways that we have redefined what it means to be a man is through our four pillars and through the ways of being, right?

So each man actually has what we call an anchor —

Shana James (35:48)
 Yeah.

Coach Nick (35:49)
 — and a higher purpose.

So everybody — each individual, like the group has a higher purpose, but then each individual has their North Star and then their three ways of being, or if you want to call it their three core values.

And I would say one of the ways that we redefine masculinity is that to be rich —

Coach Nick (36:24)
 — is to be rich in your relationships, in the depth of those relationships —

Shana James (36:22)
 Mm.

Coach Nick (36:24)
 — in how meaningful are they, how trusting are they, how forgiving are they, how, again, collaborative are they, right?

Because if you —

Shana James (36:33)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (36:34)
 — can, if, if, if you can get, like, my favorite movie, which everyone knows is It’s a Wonderful Life, and I make my kids watch it every Christmas Eve, even though they —

Shana James (36:45)
 That was in the book.

Coach Nick (36:46)
 It’s in the book, exactly. And they moan and groan and all that.

But that’s been one of my biggest shifts, even as going through cancer during the last five years, which is, I always put my value and my validation on my career.

How many podcasts can I get on? Right? How many books can I sell? Right? How much money can —

Shana James (37:09)
 Yes.

Coach Nick (37:09)
 — can I make?

And it’s not about, like, “Hey, I want to get on podcasts because I’m a loudmouth and I want to share my story.” I want to have an —

Shana James (37:14)
 Mm-hmm. You want to have an impact on the world.

Coach Nick (37:17)
 — impact.

But that’s become the North Star, which is: I want to make an impact, and I want to be in relationship with people where I have an opportunity to make an impact for them.

You know, most men — I mean, the research shows most men, or at least half the men out there, claim that they don’t even have one quality relationship.

Shana James (37:37)
 Well.

Coach Nick (37:37)
 You know, that’s dangerous. I mean, it’s —

Shana James (37:39)
 Painful.

Coach Nick (37:40)
 It’s one reason why there are 34,000 men who die by suicide, which is, you know, almost four times more than women.

So the redefinition of masculinity, the big one for us, is: you can be the richest man in town through the quality, the depth, the connection of those relationships.

And, by the way, all those other things can still be a part of it. We’re not looking to take it away. Like, you want to have two homes?

Coach Nick (38:01)
 Awesome. I want to have a bestselling book. I want my book — I’m being sincere — I want it to be a Netflix series.

However —

Shana James (38:14)
 Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Nick (38:16)
 what I want more, first, is, like I said, when Jake and I had our launch party last Tuesday in New York City, it was so overwhelming to be with our community and to really get firsthand how much they want us to win.

And I’m like, I’m the luckiest dude alive, man.

I know it’s cliché, and you know what? I don’t care. Like, there’s a reason why clichés are clichés: because they actually work. Because they actually have power in them.

And so, yeah, I would say that’s the biggest redefinition.

Is your relationship with your son or your daughter different today than when you first joined the group?

Is your relationship with your elderly parents different?

Is your relationship to your employees, if you have employees, et cetera, et cetera, right? And your partner — all every, every, every —

Shana James (39:09)
 And your partner, yep. I love it. Amazing.

Coach Nick (39:12)
 Relationship that matters, both personally, professionally.

Shana James (39:15)
 Yes. Amazing.

Well, thank you so much for this conversation. I know, in a way, we’re just scratching the surface and there’s so much deeper we could go.

But for men who are interested in learning more about the Arena, getting the book, let’s guide them where.

And also, do you have any last words of encouragement or some kind of action that a man could take, whether or not he’s interested in joining a group, but to start opening up and having these more real conversations?

Part 5 — Cleaned Transcript

Coach Nick (39:44)
 Yeah, so let me do the logistics, I guess.

The book, The Men’s Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships, is available in a lot of places. Our preference is Amazon. You can go to Barnes & Noble. There’s other places as well.

If you want to reach out to me, Coach Nick at CoachNick.com. That’s probably an easy email address to remember.

We also have TheArenaMensGroup.com if you want to check out our men’s group.

But again, ultimately, if you email me at CoachNick.com, I’m happy to direct you if you will.

So thank you, Shana, for asking and giving me that opportunity to share some of the contact information.

A parting shot would be: do something.

So, similar to what I described, I came back from the summit and I reached out to my oldest friend, who’s not in any of my men’s groups, never has been, does not plan to be. And we went on a walk in Central Park.

And the value of that was that we also went on the walk without anything to distract us.

What I mean by that: we weren’t eating. We weren’t watching a game. We weren’t playing foosball or some kind of video game or anything like that.

There’s something really, really powerful when you can connect with another man.

And if you can do it even sort of like the way women do — women do it face-to-face, where men often do shoulder-to-shoulder. If you can even do it face-to-face, but short of that, go take a walk. Or go sit on a bench with somebody.

Shana James (41:32)
 And have a real conversation.

Coach Nick (41:34)
 Or go over to their house and just sit on the couch.

Again, don’t turn on the game. Just do it for 15 minutes. Do it for 10 minutes. No agenda.

It doesn’t have to be like, “Hey, I want to talk to you about my partner, Shana,” or “my son or my daughter.”

It’s like, just go with the intention of connecting.

So that would be my invitation and call to action:

Stop doing life alone.

It’s not your superpower.

Your superpower is to be inclusive and to go on the Yellow Brick Road with a whole lot of other people.

It’s so much more fun. It’s so much easier. You will grow so, like, exponentially much more if there’s a bunch of people going down the Yellow Brick Road with you.

Shana James (42:25)
 I love it.

Well, thank you for being on the Yellow Brick Road with me. I’m glad that our paths crossed and that we are now — I think we’re now bonded and on the road together.

So thank you for doing this in the world.

Coach Nick (42:27)
 Thank you. Same here. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate being on here. Thank you for your questions.

Shana James (42:41)
 And thank you for creating a safe space for men to get supported and not feel alone, and know that they’re not worse off than someone else.

And really find their own strength and their values and who they want to be in the world.

It’s a powerful thing.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for being here.

Coach Nick (42:58)
 Yes. Absolutely. Awesome. Great to be with you. Thank you.

 

Questions We Explore in This Episode:

❤️ Love & Romantic Relationships

🤝 Friendship, Connection & Men’s Groups

🧠 Men’s Emotional Health & Vulnerability

🎯 Purpose, Success & Redefining Masculinity

 

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