What's The Big Idea: Dan Doty: What The World Needs from Men
“The best experience as a human is the full and complete giving of our love”
Today’s guest: Dan Doty
His big idea: The world needs men to overcome their emotional suppression and social isolation in order to lead more fulfilling lives.
Co-Founder of Evryman, Dan works with men to help them connect with those in their lives and help them lead more successful, fulfilling lives. Dan’s career has been wide ranging, but his core of adventure and human growth has always held steady. After college, Dan spent over 600 days as a wilderness therapy guide and led groups of struggling young men up mountains, down rivers, and across frozen lakes. Along the way he absorbed and learned a ton about the process of mentoring and what it means to be a man in our culture today. Following Montana, Dan moved to New York City where he started teaching public high school in the Bronx while completing his masters degree, further strengthening his drive to help guide young men. From writing novels to assisting in the production of Netflix’s MeatEater, Dan is as his core a guide looking to assist men in becoming more emotionally honest.
Listen to What’s The Big Idea on your preferred platform below:
Key insights Shared:
What Dan doesn't like about the phrase “men’s work”: It’s not very specific, it’s very amorphic, there’s not many other modalities of personal inquiry that is so non-specific. It should be more descriptive to explain what it means.
“Men’s work” needs to be a more specific name and to better make an impact and share these ideas we need to give more access to the wider part of the world.
What is mens work?: Andrew’s definition - Personal development that exists in a male container.
Somatic Experiencing: Our trauma, our emotions, our feelings are internalized and they are a physiological experience. It’s not just our psyche, it's a physical issue. Everyman understands that we can deal with this trauma through their body primarily.
Two of the most important issues that Everyman targets with participants include: Suppression and repression of emotions and social isolation.
The suppression of emotion hurts those around us while social isolation is a maladaptive response to dealing with trauma.
What is the antidote for social isolation? Human connection is actually low hanging fruit. The actual antidote is to connect. It may sometimes seem like that’s easier said than done but in actuality we are creating most of the boundaries.
First we need to normalize connection and emotionality for men.
We’re actually talking about fundamental human principles, this is a particularly real problem for men in our culture but these issues exist for everyone. It is not gendered.
Not only is the need to connect universal, but the pathway to connect is universal: What’s needed is to demonstrate to someone that you are open and present and allow yourself to be seen.
There are values that are associated with men that include being the “lone wolf” or being strong and emotionless.
The shift of living more open and honest is the pathway to connection. There are other ways, but they will often take too much time.
How to give yourself and others permission to be open?
The (not so secret) secret: All of the experiences and feelings inside of you is what people actually want, it’s what will make you happy and it’s what will make other people happy.
When men go through the experience of being completely honest and open with themselves and their feelings they naturally have the inclination to show love and demonstrate connection with others.
We have this innate drive to do better, and connect more and love. This isn’t a bogus theory its a valid
There are a lot of guys obsessed with themselves and their own growth, which is good but it has to be a means to some end. We need to see personal growth through the lens of ultimately giving back to others.
A deeper source of impact: The world is as good as it's ever been (in terms of war, violence, hunger, life expectancy) If we are not giving back to other people now when we have the most advantage to do so, what are we doing?
Bodhisattva vow: A buddhist vow of service, vowing to return back to society and do what you can do reduce the suffering of all human beings.
Paradigm shift in men’s work - how to introduce this type of work to a male partner
It's hard to give an answer that will hit the majority of men because there’s always so much variability.
Be straight forward - explain that you’re feeling lonely or sad and that you want to feel closer to your partner.
For the men who might be considering it: It’s scary, it takes work and it helps to look at the men who are willing to take this dive and put themselves out there when doing men’s work.
The peak expression of humanity being love: It’s simply blissful, the feeling of expressing love and serving people. Showing up as your “full self” is a remarkably rewarding experience.
It’s selfish (in the best way) it feels really great to show love and help other people.
What is love? “Full surrender,” acceptance is an operationalizing of surrender. You can accept your partner’s criticism or you can surrender to it and appreciate it in full.
How to reach this place? Start with the centuries of spiritual and religious practices to see how people have been searching for it.
You have to slow down. Stay with “I don’t know” spend time in that space.
Open the door to “what’s happening”
Connect : It’s that piece of vulnerability to reach out. Take that step to engage with someone.
Show up and stick with it, whatever “it” is.
Practice makes perfect: An NFL player can put themselves in the physical and mental state to perform because they’ve practiced to be able to do it anywhere, in any stadium. The same principle applies with showing up and being emotionally honest. You need to practice to be able to adapt it and utilize it in your real life.