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This podcast is focused on challenges that are routinely encountered by men aged 50 - 70, but
not often discussed. Although targeted to them, this is also applicable to older / younger men
who are looking for ways to age differently, as well as the women that are involved in their lives.
Stress, relationships, male friendships, diet, mindfulness, aging with vitality and dying are just
some of the many topics that are covered. A rotating series of guest speakers join the podcast
to provide insights and wisdom relating to other relevant topics such as EMF radiation,
emotional intelligence, mindfulness and hair health.
(upbeat music) - Welcome everyone and welcome to this episode of 50 to 70 Meaningful Conversations Between Men.
I'm here with my host, co -host, Darius. My name is Peter, Peter Callan, and I'm gonna ask Darius to reintroduce himself again.
Maybe today, maybe today, give a look. little bit more about his background so that the audience can get to know us a little bit better and I will do the same. Good to see you again in episode number two.
Always a pleasure. So today before I introduce myself we're gonna be talking about something that's near and dear to my heart which is we're gonna be discussing male relationships, why we need to have relationships with other males and how to go about and effectively create those male relationships.
- May I ask you why that's near and dear to your heart? - Yeah, because it's something that I let fall apart for an extended period of time in my life and for the last five or six years have made that a major area of focus in reconnecting with those men in my life that know who I am and that I've been.
there through a number of different challenges. Yeah. Makes me wonder how many people in our audience are in similar situation and had similar experiences or living that life today,
you know, not being in touch with friends that they had long ago and have since lost their way. So tell us about you, Doris, a little bit. A little bit about me.
So I grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario. Ontario, Canadian, originally, called Sault St. Marie. It was a steel town, and I'll be referencing stories from some of the guys that I grew up with that I'm still close with,
and in fact, I believe you met many of them. I did. Sorry about that over the summer. Did an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and molecular biology,
and then I did a graduate degree because I didn't know what to do with my life, so I figured I'd just stay in school. I went back and got an MBA. and then I joined the corporate world as a management consultant to Bio Pharma,
or I was fortunate enough to find a career that I was passionate about for 20 years, combining science with business, and ultimately, hopefully, helping people by developing new medicines for people that were sick.
- Wow, you're one of those genius types, I see. - If I'm a genius, this world is in big, big trouble. (laughing) - Well, I'll share that I grew up in a military family and that'll be salient in a few moments.
My father was in the Army, but I was born on an Air Force base in Northern California. And we moved every three or four years. And that's important because it affected relationships,
any kind of relationships that I've had over the years, but also kind of has really affected relationships. out to male relationships and male friendships as well. We moved around quite a bit,
Northern Southern California, Texas, New Mexico, spent some time. Actually, it was the most delightful time of my life, the paradise of the canal zone, Panama,
when I was just 10. And I just remember these these dunes of mounds of termites. termites and fire ants and these sloths climbing the trees and iguanas the size of boulders.
I'm exaggerating. But anyways, it was delightful for someone at that age. And then, by the way, my mother is Cuban and so we would visit that be a couple of years to Cuba.
But from Panama and that delightful paradise, we moved to Georgia in the midst of the civil rights movement.
That's a whole other episode to talk about. That sure is. And we moved from Georgia up to New Jersey and I played sports. I did everything that basically I understood needed to be done to be successful.
in high school and was fortunate enough to be awarded a scholarship to the University of Michigan for football. And from there,
went to undergraduate finishing at Temple in Philadelphia, graduate, I went to Cornell Law and also got my MBA and went to work for corporate as you did.
I'll kind of narrow down the summary of this history. I wound up working with American Express. It took me from New York City to Miami eventually,
which is where I live now. And I had the opportunity to travel quite a bit as the Vice President of International Tax.
tax for the Latin American division. So some successes, and I'm truly grateful for them, but eventually I left the corporate because something in me just kept questioning it.
That's another episode. Sure is. I can relate to that one. Um, long story. short, I went and got another degree in human rights,
Masters of Law in Human Rights at St. Thomas University, and then I started working on my doctorate. But before I finished my doctorate,
I decided to start teaching yoga, studying yoga more profoundly, and moved into that area of knowledge and understanding Which is also another episode we might have some day It led me to mindfulness and currently I teach mindfulness.
I teach Mindfulness -based stress reduction. I do a fair amount of coaching and helping individuals privately find a more mindful life and more joy and abundance in it,
and be a better or the best version of themselves they can possibly be. So that brings us to today and currently, and I'm going to shift us back through you to this topic we're covering today,
male friendships. Would you like to introduce us to why and what is it that you want the audience to know about it? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things,
and I'll share an experience I'd love to know if you had one as well. I think male friendships are lacking, unfortunately. I think a lot of males,
as they get to our 50 to 70 age range, have what laps those close relationships, and as a result, they don't have that support network that they need to turn to. to in order to help problem solve or to help overcome some of those challenges that are going to come at us.
We're in a human body. You're going to have challenges. And one of the stories that exemplifies it is what happens at my family. I think about the women and not to sound sexist,
but the women go to the kitchen and they are having conversations with the women and not to sound sexist, but the women and not to sound sexist. matter. Sometimes there's tears, sometimes there's raised voices, but you can listen to what they're talking about.
They're talking about how they're feeling, what's really going on in their lives, what's going on with the children. The men in my family go outside and you gotta remember, keep in mind this is in Canada, to the garage,
usually with a beer or more, they sit around a car and they talk about... about the car, the weather, or a hockey game.
Sports. Sports. But no real, deep, meaningful conversations that are taking place, even within that close family network. How would you define meaningful conversations that they could have had?
Not about how bad the Maple Leafs played or how much much snow we're getting in Canada, but what's actually going on with them, how they're feeling, how they're doing,
challenges that they're encountering, what they're experiencing in life. Now, I don't know if my family is normal, if you've had an experience like that as well. - Yeah, yeah, recently, I was at a wedding and we were watching football.
And the men, we're all in the TV room. living room, at my nephew's home, and watching a game, and all of the conversation was around what was happening on the field if there was conversation.
The grunts, the stuff. Yeah, ooh, that was a great hit. Yeah, but nothing beyond it, whereas the women,
similar to how you just they started out in the kitchen. They also, some of them had drinks, just like the men. They went out to the back porch,
and you could hear the laughing, you could hear the the the conversations being about how people were feeling and about what was going on in their lives.
It wasn't centered around some entertainment like a football game. And I just noticed that contrast so much. And because we were preparing for these podcasts,
the contrast struck me and it was something that I knew I would be mentioning here. Where in our socialization do we get the habit habit,
the conditioning of separating ourselves out as men, isolating ourselves individually, even in that context, rather than talking about things that are going on in our lives that are affecting us maybe profoundly.
We just get numbed and lost in the entertainment, usually a sport. - Mm -hmm. - And... any conversation is around that.
I don't know if you build relationships off of that. I know we have, you know, you have a drink in hand, and you have a buddy that you go to the games with, and you know, that's perfectly fine. There's nothing to condemn there.
It's just that we don't have enough of the other kind of conversations. We don't. I think it's a conscious choice, Peter. If I think back to my own experience, I think it's a conscious choice. had some wonderful friends in high school and undergraduate,
but the conditioning that I received or the beliefs that I instilled or chose or consciously or subconsciously to allow to be instilled, you don't show weakness.
You need to be able to handle everything yourself. Independence is key, and you never ever ask for help. Yeah. And it was interesting because I know exactly when that entire belief system shattered.
It was 2016 and I hadn't seen most of my high school friends for 20 plus years and I decided that was enough and we were gonna get together in Toronto. So we all flew in on a Friday or some guys drove in that live local to the area and we went out and had a meal and some drinks and started going around the table and we said,
okay, let's go. give everybody an update as to what's going on with our life and I was fully prepared to give the standard corporate nonsense how great my life was how everything was going perfectly blah blah blah and a friend of mine Phil went first now I'm gonna set the visual of Phil.
Phil is six five maybe six six two sixty maybe two eighty do any other how much time he's spending in the gym. "In high school was known to chase around other people with a live chainsaw and threats to dismember," said individual,
talking about you right now, Chris. He is not what you'd call a gentle fellow, he's a giant of a man. His alter ego these days is John Wick, the assassin.
So Phil starts talking, and he starts shooting. sharing powerfully, powerfully, beautifully, vulnerably about what it was like to get married young and to have children in his early 20s.
The health struggles that some of his children have faced, the fact that he's been married for 30 years and what that's been like. And when he was done, Peter, I just looked at him and said,
"Okay, here's what's going good. "Eh, what's going good?" stuff is, "Okay, I started a new company, it's maybe floundering, it may be sinking, I don't know." My marriage was a wonderful learning experience.
What do you mean by that? Oh my God, that's a nice euphemism for a wonderful year of learning experience. It was a challenge. Yeah. And the divorce,
obviously, was real. upsetting and left some of those samskaras, those individual scars that you don't see. And so I shared about how my marriage was and as I was sharing another friend of mine,
Jimmy was just staring at me the whole time. So we went around the table and nobody said anything and then we were walking to another establishment to continue our quenching of our thirst at around 12 o 'clock.
And Jimmy grabbed me and he looked at me and said, I'm married. your wife." And I said, "Oh, no." He's like, "They're identical." "Well, what do I do?" And I said, "Okay,
well, listen, I clearly couldn't solve it, but I'm here for you. Tell me what's going on." And the fact that I had shared and been vulnerable allowed him to see that he wasn't alone in a very challenging situation.
Another guy started talking about the challenges he had with women. of his sons who was special needs. And I don't think if Phil would have started the way he did, and I just said,
"Okay, no bullshit. We need to be real. We need to be authentic. These guys know me." I don't think that would have happened if it wasn't for that. So did you guys feel like you had to fix each other's problems or rescue your friend from whatever was going on with them?
what was the reaction to all the conversations you had? Love and support. That was it? That was it. That was enough? That was it. There's nobody trying to fix anybody else.
It was, "Hey, if you need to talk about this, let me know I'm here. I know you. You got this." But you can't. One of the things I've come to learn, you can't fix somebody else.
You can show people paths. You can show them that there are options. But in the end, they're going to make the decision. You know this as well as I do. - Yeah, it's their life. - It's their life.
And what might be best for me, I'm clearly not gonna be best for them. But it was profound, Peter, to know that these men who had known me when I was five years old,
they know who you are because they have seen you. And yes, the surface changes, but those same corporate changes. those values, those beliefs that you have, they're consistent.
And because there was that common heritage and that common history, it made it easy for us to support each other. Yeah. I suspect, and I share this with the audience because it's something that I try to introduce throughout my teaching and my coaching.
paying attention to the emotions that are ever present is really critical to being awake and aware.
Those emotions are really raw when you're younger and you're forming friendships. So wouldn't there be more bonding going on, more interrelating? Wouldn't there be a deeper connection?
kind of connection? Possibly so. I don't know. I'm just kind of speculating. Well, I think kind of building off of that. The other thing that I've learned is the people that I'm close with,
there is a common bond that's also called sweat. I either played a sport with them or exercised physically with them or done something or more.
recently it's just getting in the sauna and sweating because as a man, at least in my body, when I sweat with somebody, I bond with them because you're having conversations that matter either during the moment,
on the way to the moment, or after the moment. Yeah. Sports are one of those experiences, at least in this country, and I would venture to say in a lot of countries abroad as well,
that has been traditionally quite a bonding mechanism, bonding experience for men. It's probably, from my perspective, the closest we come to true relating and relationships and sharing vulnerabilities because physically you show your vulnerability.
You get blasted on a cross -country. pattern playing football as a receiver Yeah, you you you feel vulnerable in that moment, but it's not only that I was never a football player But I played a lot of soccer and I did a lot of martial arts and I would get blown up because I'm not that big I would look up and there would be two guys who ever took me out Colliding on that guy and you knew who was gonna have your
back and who wasn't in that moment Yeah, yeah, but I think there's the physical vulnerability and then I think there's the stuff that I have historically struggled with and have gotten much better with being emotionally vulnerable and showing yourself to who the people are that you're relating to.
Yeah. Yeah. Even with my experiences, my practices, I still am very challenged with that. I'm still learning.
I have to admit that. - I'd say one of the things I've learned, so I've made a conscious effort, starting around four years ago, just be vulnerable. 90 % of the time when I'm vulnerable,
I am met with, if I had expectations, they would have been exceeded. Support, love, kindness. 10 % of the time, I am met with somebody who's closed off,
wants to change the subject. subject, and in those situations, Peter, I've come to learn it's not about me. I'm clearly stepping in an area that makes them uncomfortable. I'm potentially triggering something or bringing something up that they don't want to or not ready to remember.
And so in that situation, I gently back off. They now know because I've extended the olive branch that I would love to have this conversation. They're not willing to. I'm not going to force them. - Super important,
super important for us as men to be aware of our pains and our vulnerabilities and the episodes in our lives that created them.
- Peter, why is it challenging for you to be vulnerable? - Wow, it's partially as,
as I have witnessed, observed with others. And from witnessing and observing myself, it's the upbringing. I was raised in a military family with military discipline and rigidity.
And you basically followed orders regardless of how you felt about it. And that's how I was raised. And that's the imprint in my psyche that extended through my life.
And like all of these imprints, all of these experiences we have that are challenging and difficult and can be emotionally havoc,
they also have a plus side because especially in our society and our cultures, they spur us, they position us to have the strength the courage that we need to be successful.
And so the military wouldn't be successful without this kind of discipline and this kind of order. And it's very easy to understand it from that context. It doesn't apply all the time when it comes to family and children.
And so that's where a child should be. or someone who was raised in the military has to kind of learn to figure things out.
And military is not the only thing. There's other aspects. Corporate life is another one that, you know, has its own set standards and order and you follow them and your feelings about them are not important.
What's important is the mission. What's important is the goal. goals and the projections. But yet we're human beings.
I'm a human being. I have feelings. I have emotions. I have fears. I have anger. I have guilt. I have shame. And they affect my present moment. I can either be blind to it or I can be aware of it and then make a choice.
I can be blind to it, unaware, unconscious, and just react, stressed out about what might happen in the future and worried about that, keeping it to myself,
coping, which is what I learned to do. I believe we all learn to cope in one way or another. Sometimes it's just numbing. Sometimes it's just not speaking,
not sharing. And that brings me back to male friendships. Other than on the sports field, there wasn't a lot of sharing that I've done throughout the years. And the other thing is I was always the ear.
I think you can relate to this. I sure can. I was always the one people would come to for counsel advice. I was always, when I say always, let's put that in perspective.
from the time of adulthood, and let's say from the time of young fatherhood, I took on the role and the responsibilities of being the one who had to be sage and figure things out,
had to be the one to solve the problems. And so I never learned to share, and I still feel that it's true.
challenge for me. I know it is. If you ask my wife, she would say it definitely is. And so, it's something I'm continuing to learn. But again,
you and I are talking so that maybe we bring this to people's awareness and maybe men start looking at it and asking themselves the same questions we've been asking ourselves. The questions I'm asking myself now.
Yeah, and I'll acknowledge something, Peter, which is us doing this podcast. podcast is an incredibly vulnerable thing for us to both do because not only are we sharing stuff with each other,
we're sharing it with hundreds, thousands of other men so that they can learn and so that that guy who's sitting on his couch watching TV unhappy with his life realizes I have friends.
They're out there. I just need to reconnect with them, and I'll give you an example. Earlier this year, there's five of us, a really close in high school, and four of us had gotten back together.
The fifth guy we hadn't seen, hadn't heard from, and I decided enough was enough. So I went on to Twitter. I've never had a Twitter account in my life.
I found them on Twitter. Well, truth be told, I might have had some law enforcement help finding him on Twitter. Here he is, this is the guy,
so I reached out to him. My phone rang the next day. He and I talked for two hours. And there were some issues that he had had towards the tail end of our relationship.
And he owned up, he's like, I'm really sorry. I fucked up, that was really sad. stupid. I know why you're mad at me You had every right to I said, yeah, I had every right to be mad But I didn't have every right to kick you out of my life after everything we have been through.
I'm sorry, too Guy came out to my 50th birthday party. It was delightful seeing him He and I pulled a little bit of a prank on some of the other guys And then after the party he stayed and Peter we had a delightful day together when he was a Was flying back out he left a little note in the room he'd staying.
Said, I love you. I folded that note. It's now on my dresser, so that I'm reminded of that every day and the power of those friendships. And Jill,
you know, man, I love you too. It's good seeing you. - That is the underlying power of friendships and relationships, I believe. I was, it's love. - It is love.
- It's love. - It's hard. for men sometimes to admit it that. And I think we might extend an invitation to them here to not feel that they can not be vulnerable in that way.
And maybe it's actually a strength. Maybe love is one of the most powerful elements in the universe. We do a lot of things because of love. Children, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the women we marry, for instance. Let's talk about Grief and death, it would mean nothing if we didn't love correct It's a powerful element So let's talk about How to actually build These male relationships and what needs to be and we've talked about being vulnerable We've talked about it's okay to share with your friends how you feel I am now it's gotten to the point where when I talk to my friends
I'll usually conclude the call or the call will conclude. I love you buddy. You need anything you let me know What else do you think we need to do?
For someone who like me let those relationships lapsed. What else do we need to do to bring them back and to create them? Well first step step is to reach out.
Call somebody, a friend. You haven't spoken to six months or more. And call them. Have a conversation. Don't text them.
- Don't text. - Don't email them. They probably already get enough of those. Don't tweet them. Call them and see how they're doing. And listen. - Listen.
- Listen. Just listen. You don't have to fix anything. You don't have to rescue them. They're not asking you to solve their problem. You don't have to feel like you gotta solve their problem. - That's right. - Just listen.
Sometimes I think I feel that as human beings, and especially with this loneliness epidemic, we just need somebody to listen. - Oh, it's so true.
And what I've learned is in having those conversations with people who know. knew you or know you, they can relate to you in ways that nothing against people who are close,
better in your new circle. You've known these people for 20, 30, in my case, 40, causing them 50 years, they know you. Yeah.
And they can help. Yeah. There's a difference, though, that I'd like to highlight. And that, that difference is is contrast the friends from high school let's say to the ones in the corporate world that you became close to quote unquote friends.
Yes. What was the difference? When I was of no longer use to my friends in the corporate world, they weren't my friends anymore.
So what was the difference in the bond bonding? Bonding the bond was superficial. Yeah, and I had Peter there's dozens of people that if you would have asked me in the moment,
I would have thought were my friend. Sure I'm sure I don't hear from them. I had that same experience. I had some that We had a mutual admiration for one another The values and you know,
we had a bond outside of just work and so so that had a ripple effect. But even then, it's not the same, my experience, from people that you knew in high school when you're in your formative years,
and again, your emotions are raw and you're just developing them. I gotta tell you, having that support network is just profound. So about a month ago, you remember on that Saturday when you almost reached out to me and you said,
"You feel disturbed." disturbed I Was going through stuff with my mom who's recently been diagnosed with dementia and it was It was really sending me for a loop because I was seeing the personality changes And I was realizing that she wasn't going to be there forever and what was coming up was was grief Yeah,
I didn't I wasn't aware what was coming up was was grief. I Was cognizant that I felt off, that I was depressed, that I was lethargic,
but I couldn't put my finger on it. So one of my wonderful coping mechanisms is when things go sideways in my life, I like to point at my beautiful partner, Wendy, and blame her for it.
So I tried that move and she basically said, it says nothing to do with me. Get out and go figure this out. I'll be here to help you along the way. - Yeah. - My friends were so worried about me.
They were calling, stopping over and texting. Are you okay? Are you moving? Are you eating? What are you doing? And knowing I had that support really helped me know that if I did fall apart,
I'd guys that were gonna be there that would help put me back together and get me moving. - So that's evidence of the importance of male friendships. - It is. is, I went through it last month.
- Yeah, so what more should we share here, this episode on male friendships before we end and conclude anything?
- Well, I think we need to share the call to action and then as we're doing in every episode, we'll end off with a poem and mine won't be quite as elegant as your peace poem from the last one.
But I have one that I would like to share No judgment here We can save that till after I'm done So do you want me to give the call to action?
Yeah, what's our call to action this time? So our call to action to our audience is to please make a call to a male friend and I want to say here we're not intentionally excluding women.
That's not what we're doing. It's just that maybe men have a greater need and so we're focusing our attention there. And so men who are out there,
part of our audience, I wanna invite you to pick up a phone and give a call to somebody you haven't talked to in six months or years. ask them how they're doing,
and listen. And speak if you wish, say nothing if you choose it, just let them know that you're there listening and that you support them.
And do that with as many old friends or untouched friends as you possibly can, maybe one a day, and see what it's like for you, how it feels.
feels. And so that's our call to action. The meaningful conversation is just calling them. That's it. That's the meaningful action.
So please, please do that. I love it. I think it's an excellent call to action. Find that guy that you just know you need to talk to. Yeah. And let us know how it goes.
Absolutely. Get on agedifferently .com. just let us know how that went for you. - Absolutely. So the poem. - Please. - It's called "Choose Your Heart." And it basically says,
life is hard, but you have the ability to choose your heart. Being alone is hard. Being in a relationship is hard. Choose your heart.
Going to love is hard. Going to the gym is hard. Sitting on the couch and dealing with the effects of becoming obese or diseased is hard.
Choose your heart. Being vulnerable is hard. Being alone is hard. Choose your heart.
And it goes back to why is advice that somebody gave me that we'll be talking about. three words if you choose. That's another episode.
That sure is. Darius blasts again spending this time with you and hopefully we've impacted one person out there in our audience and we'll keep doing this in the next episode is one that I in some ways brought the rise.
and I into contact, kind of indirectly. Our next episode is going to be on that insidious, maleficent experience that's out there lurking in the world,
affecting millions every day. We're talking about stress. Wonderful. Thank you, Peter. Thank you.