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- [00:00]
Brett McKay
So when we first started the Art of Manliness store, there was definitely that voice in the back of my head. What if nobody buys anything? What if this doesn't work? One thing that made it easier was having Shopify. We've used Shopify for years now to run the AOM store and it handles everything in one place. Inventory, payments, analytics. So you're not juggling a bunch of different tools. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from big brands to smaller operations like ours. And Shopify actually helps you find customers. You can run email and social campaigns right from the platform. And that shop pay checkout makes a big difference. Fewer abandoned carts, more completed purchases. And if you ever get stuck, they've got 24. 7 customer support. Which matters when you're figuring things out as you go. It's time to turn those what ifs into results with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.commanliness go to shopify.commanliness that's shopify.commanliness.
- [01:04]
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- [01:42]
Brett McKay
Hey, this is Brett. We're taking a break from new episodes this week, so we're going to rebroadcast Episode number 810, how to turn a Boy into a Man. It's one of our most popular episodes ever. I hope you enjoy it. And while I got your ear, let me tell you something that we're doing over on our substack newsletter, Dying Breed. We're doing a summer book club. We're going to go through my favorite novel of all time. You guys know what it is? Lonesome Dove. The book club is open to paid subscribers of Dying Breed. What you're going to get is an eight week reading plan. It's going to take you through this behemoth of a book weekly discussion prompts from Jeremy Andenberg and I. We'll be giving away Lonesome Dove themed prizes to the best comments throughout the eight weeks. And at the end we're going to have a Q and a with Larry McMurtry scholar Stephen Fry, who we had on the podcast several years ago, to talk about Lonesome Dove. It's going to be a lot of fun. I hope you join us. And besides the book club, when you sign up for a paid subscription of Dying Breed, you'll have access to our archives that has hundreds of articles and you'll get our weekly article that we put out in Kate's Fantastic Sunday firesides. It's just $5 a month or $50 a year and it's a great way to support the work that we do directly on aom, the podcast, the website, everything. You can sign up@dyingbreed.net the reading schedule will drop Saturday, May 30 Hope to see you on the trail with us reading one of the best Western novels of all time, Lonesome Dove. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. They feel lost, directionless and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world. Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once part of nearly every culture in the world but is now almost entirely disappeared. A Rite of passage. My guest today didn't want his son to flounder on the way to maturity, nor miss out on having an initiation into manhood. So he set out to create a six year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is John Tyson and he's the author of the Intentional Father A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, John unpacks the components of the years long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed his components by doing the day your son leaves home exercise. We then discuss how old John's son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a seven severing dinner with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kickoff ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips and daily rituals John used to impart values teach his son the five shifts of manhood. John shares how moving his son's focus from being a good man to being good at being a man helped him get re motivated to continue the process. Why his rite of Passage included a gap year after high school and how John celebrated the end of his son's journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether John did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world. After the show's over, check out our show notes at a Passage. All right. John Tyson, welcome to the show.
- [04:50]
John Tyson
G', Day mate, How are you? Thanks for having me on.
- [04:52]
Brett McKay
So you got a book out called the Intentional Father, A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. And in this book you walk readers through on how you developed and carried out a years long rite of passage into manhood for your son. So let's talk about this. When did you first get the idea of doing this? Sort of, it's, this was involved like this started. This is years long.
- [05:14]
John Tyson
Right.
- [05:14]
Brett McKay
Started when he was, became a teenager, went through until he left the house. When did you come up with this idea?
- [05:21]
John Tyson
I think the first moment it really hit me was driving back from the doctor when they, they told me, hey, do you want to know if your son's a boy or a girl? And they said, obviously it's a boy. And I just had this profound sense of being overwhelmed that I personally did not have what it took to help my son become a man. I got married young and faced all the challenges of my own inadequacy dealing with the complications of life. And I thought I have got to better for my son. And that's where the idea was born. So I think another key moment, I was meeting with a local faith leader and he was talking about the way their community helped young men, you know, move from adolescence into manhood. And I thought, I don't have anything like that and I have got to build something like that. Yeah. So very, very early on and I spent about a decade reading trying to figure out how to do it.
- [06:11]
Brett McKay
Did you have something like that in your own life when you were a boy transitioning to manhood? Did you get a rite of passage?
- [06:17]
John Tyson
I had absolutely nothing. I mean zero. So I was working from a pretty big deficit. And I think a lot of dads are a lot of folks out there sort of feel there's a hole in their life and they're trying to figure out how to catch up, fill that and then do something better for their own kids.
- [06:31]
Brett McKay
Yeah, I think a lot of men are like that. They didn't have that experience, but they want it for their own sons. So they're trying to give their sons the experience that they didn't have.
- [06:40]
John Tyson
Yeah, totally.
- [06:41]
Brett McKay
It's something you start off in the book talking about is the research. Like you've done a lot of research about what happens when boys don't have fathers, don't have involved fathers. What does the research say as to what happens to boys when they lack a strong father figure?
- [06:56]
John Tyson
Well, I mean, it's actually very, very clear. I mean, sort of the go to research most people reference is from fatherhood.org but it's basically what you think. Kids are four times more likely to live in poverty, more likely to suffer emotional behavioral problems, higher levels of risky and aggressive behavior, two times the risk of infant mortality, which is crazy. More likely to go to prison. Only one in five inmates grow up in a home where their father is present. Twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity. So the presence of a dad in a home makes an incredible difference. You know, with all of our conversations about justice in the world today, I don't know why this one doesn't get more attention. Because one of the greatest cultural advantages that someone can have in life is a present loving father figure. So, yeah, the impact is massive.
- [07:45]
Brett McKay
Well, and besides, you're trying to move beyond just having a present, involved dad like you, Your, your ideal of a. Of a good dad is an intentional father where a father intentionally thinks about walking their sons through a. An initiation process. What do you think men lack when they transition to. Into adulthood without having almost like a ritual to carry them in to manhood?
- [08:10]
John Tyson
Well, I think there's some kind of deep internal inadequacy. There's some sense of a desire to bless, pass on and help, but they don't have a source to get it from. So I think there's a lot of confusion. I think there's a lot of pain. You know, our culture's gotten rid of most of the sort of life passages other than formal education. And so there's a lot of people walking around really wondering, am I even a man? When are you a man? When you lose your virginity, the first time you drink alcohol, when you get your first paycheck, when you leave home. No one seems to know when manhood is confirmed on them and then how they distribute it to other people. So yeah, I think there's a hole in the soul of most men and they're seeking and striving to catch up with it.
- [08:57]
Brett McKay
And something you talk about in the book, one way men often fill that hole is they create self initiations for Themselves.
- [09:06]
John Tyson
Yeah. I mean, you see this, young people, I mean, you obviously remember this. When you hit puberty, the whole world changes. Your body is filled with testosterone, you got chemicals pumping, you got all of this energy. And the number one thing you're trying to figure out what to do with it is how do you channel this in a life giving rather than destructive way. And that's what these rites of passage historically were designed to do, to create guardrails so the gift of male energy could be channeled for the good of the community and the man. Without those guardrails, you see all the damage we see in our world today. But without initiation, young men will seek to do something with their energy that confers a sense of confidence and blessing. So whether it's, you know, risky behavior, whether it's underage drinking, whether it is sexual behavior or whatever, you've basically got young men saying, help me figure out what to do with this energy. And when you look at some of the other rites of passage that other cultures have had, they are. Some of them are harrowing. And we would probably take kids away from parents who did some of these ancient rites of passage. They can sound kind of barbaric. But when you look at the levels of anxiety with our young people today, depression with young men, the challenges that teenage boys face, our lack of initiation at scale is more damaging than the initiation cultures, no matter how intense they were of other societies. So, yeah, I'm a big believer that we have to reclaim rites of passage, create guardrail, so that male energy can be channeled for the good of society. And that's definitely what I'm trying to address in the book.
- [10:44]
Brett McKay
Yeah, I like that idea of. This is. The idea is to channel male energy or masculine energy. It's one of the analogies I've used throughout the years when I've tried to explain the difference between masculinity and manliness. Masculinity is just that, that energy and vigor that's born through testosterone, right?
- [11:00]
John Tyson
Yes.
- [11:00]
Brett McKay
And then manliness is a culture that you use to direct that energy, or manhood is a culture that you direct that energy. So it's kind of like electricity, right? Masculinity is electricity. You create a culture of manliness or manhood to funnel that energy. But if you don't have any, like, wires that's directing that masculine energy, it's dangerous. It becomes dangerous.
- [11:22]
John Tyson
Yeah, definitely. Totally agree. Yeah.
- [11:24]
Brett McKay
Okay, so let's talk about. You had this idea. Your son was born. You're like, okay, I'm gonna. I wanna Create an initiation for him to give him the thing that I didn't have. And so when you, when you started this planning process, you went through this exercise, you called the day your son leaves home exercise. Walk us through that. What kind of questions are you asking yourself as you guide yourself through this thought process?
- [11:49]
John Tyson
Yeah, I got the idea from Stephen Covey's book the 7 Habits of Highly effective people where he talks about begin with in mind. And he has that exercise where you pretend it's your funeral and then you go back and sort of ask yourself the question, what sort of life and legacy do I want to leave? And I thought, you know, that's a great framework to apply to a ton of different areas of life. And I thought, I'm going to apply this to the day where I send my son off to either college or some sort of gap year or whatever. And I thought about this when he was really young. And I basically just worked my way backwards, try to keep that day very, very vivid and real in my. And then ask a series of questions to design this pathway for him. The first one was like, what do I want my son to know? I want him to be a man of wisdom. I want him to be able to navigate the complexities of life. Number two, who do I want my son to be? And this was about his moral, ethical and character formation. Then what do I want my son to be able to do? And this is sort of skill acquisition. A man should be able to do stuff, step in a room and add value through skill acquisition. And then what experiences do I need to design to make this happen with all the best intentions in the world. Without a conscious pathway and designing experiences where these things are developed, it's never going to be there. So yeah, I basically worked backwards. And just like you do with a college degree, sort of, you know, you say, hey, in order to get a degree you're going to have to do X amount of classes and it's going to have to either be a two year associates or a four year or a graduate degree. I just worked backwards starting at around age 13 when he was hitting puberty and then worked it out till he was 18 and then created a pathway around knowledge and character and skill development and the experiences to help him do that. And then one of the things I did was to basically ask the question, who can help me with this? You know, I'm a big believer that, you know, dads are fundamental in a young man's formation. But I, we're living in a world where a lot of people don't have dads or the stepdads or they're asking the question about mentoring. And so I sort of came up with this idea of building a tribe or a cohort of fathers who do this together and then coming up with those dads with an asset map and sort of everybody puts in the middle of the room, what assets do you have available in your life? Someone may say, hey, we have a lake house. Someone may say, I got a second car and I'm willing to let the boys learn to drive in it. Someone may say, hey, I've got a series of key relationships in my industry and I can, you know, or that I've got access to some cool sporting events. And then you sort of start dreaming from there. So it was like a big whiteboard exercise and then I worked my way backwards and that was how I basically designed what I called the primal path, which is this, you know, this sort of six year journey.
- [14:36]
Brett McKay
I came up with, no, the day your son leaves home exercise is really powerful. Like I, I went through it through my head and trying to imagine what my son, he's 11 right now and imagine when he's 18 and he's leaving the roost, it's just, it really gets you, it's a gut punch. You're just like. And you want to know, like, what, what is he going to be like? What do I want him to be like?
- [14:56]
John Tyson
Yeah, totally.
- [14:58]
Brett McKay
And I like this idea of developing an asset map. So it's you, you get the idea of what the things that you want your son to know, understand, be able to do, but then try to figure out, okay, what do I have at my disposal to make that happen? And not just things, but, you know, who are the other people in my life that can help me make this happen? I think that was, I loved how you, you focused on that and making this a community project. Oftentimes when I think, when I hear dads talk about I want to do a rite of passage for my son, it's just him and their son, that's fine. But I think something, there's a power when you bring other men into the process as well.
- [15:31]
John Tyson
Yeah. If you put too much pressure on a dad, I mean, no, no dad is going to be a perfect father. And so to put all that psychic pressure on a dad can be overwhelming. But to distribute that community of men where, you know, a father or a mentor plays a primary role, but is surrounded by this cast of other sort of like wise, passionate, you know, helpful men, I think that is A real gift. And I think it's actually something, something that young men ache for. Why is there such devotion to teams, team sports, having coaches around us? Because we need that sense of community and belonging as we grow and develop. So, yeah, it was very, very important for me not just to be, you know, my son and I, but it was like my son and I and a cohort of other guys walking through this.
- [16:17]
Brett McKay
Well, I think too, you know, part of what you're trying to do in initiation or rite of passage is help the boy cut themselves off, in a way, from their family. So if it's just the dad, that's a problem that's going to be hard to do because if you're always there in the process, it's hard to cut yourself off, away from your father. But if you have another man there, you can have those periods where you can experience that. And I've noticed in my own life, I look back at my own life, you know, my dad was always there and he taught me a lot of important things. But I remember it really like a lot of times. Oftentimes the things that he told me or he modeled hit home when there was another man that wasn't my father.
- [16:55]
John Tyson
Yeah, totally agree.
- [16:55]
Brett McKay
Showing me that. Okay, so you came with this idea what you want your son to be like. Then you did you start off an initial ceremony, but it was with your wife, it was mom that kick started this thing off. What's. That's. I think that a lot of guys think, what's going on there? Why'd you do that?
- [17:14]
John Tyson
Well, that, that was, interestingly enough, the most controversial piece of this period. And this is the place I get the most feedback. Just to take a little half step back. James Hollis, who was, I think, the president of the Jungian Society, he's written a ton of books on midlife, on pathways, on stage development and theory. He basically, all societies have a six step process of walking boys through adolescence into manhood. And one of those stages is what he calls the death of childhood thinking. And it's an environment where you've got to be cut off from the primary influences of childhood in order to enter liminal space. And one of the things that a lot of societies did was consciously severed an overemphasized bond between mother and child so that he could learn to be formed by the community of men. So I did what I called a severing dinner, which the publisher reduced down to a directional dinner, which sounded less threatening. And it was basically, I talked to my wife into doing this and my wife's an absolute legend. She's an incredible woman. And I said, hey, look, I need Nate not to shrink back to you for comfort, but I need you to push him back to me for. For formation and for challenge. And so she took him out for a dinner to his favorite restaurant. Even though I'm from Australia, she took him to Outback. It's a cliche, but it is what it is. And he's at Outback Steakhouse. And then she gave him a series of gifts. And then, you know, I come from a faith background, so she prayed a prayer of blessing over him, sort of like an important marking moment. And then she said to him, hey, I'm your mother. I love you. I'll always be here for you, and I'll care for you, but you need to be handed to your father to learn how to become a man. This is going to be hard. It's going to be a challenge. And you're going to want to come back to me to ease and find comfort for the discomfort and challenges you're facing. And I want you to know I'm going to push you back to your dad, and I'm not going to nurture your immaturity. And that was a really powerful moment. Now, to fast forward several years when I was with my son, closing out our journey together, I said to him, hey, Nate, I'm getting quite a bit of pushback on the dinner that you did with Mom. And he said, no, no, no, no. You have to include that. He said, I cannot put into words how psychologically powerful that was for me to realize I was entering this journey primarily being formed by men. And he was like, that jump started this whole thing in my heart that I was actually entering into a different stage together. So, yeah, it began with my wife, and then sort of moved to a formal initiation ceremony on a beach off the coast of New York City.
- [19:56]
Brett McKay
And what did that ceremony look like? Who was there, and what did you do?
- [20:00]
John Tyson
So I basically got three other dads together. I've been in New York City for the last 17 years. So it was a few other dads who were my son's closest friends and basically cast this vision for him about building this pathway from adolescents in a manhood. And then we designed an initiation ceremony. So we. We hyped it up for a few months so they'd be a little nervous and also excited. And then when the day came when all the boys had turned 13, this is late summer, we took him out to the beach and sat him in the sand and gathered around, told him a series of stories, shared some of our own personal lessons and learning, and then sort of try to put. To say it in a good way, sort of inspire them and paint a picture of what was coming and put the fear of God in them about how hard this was going to be. So there was sort of like that anticipatory terror. And then they ran into the water, sort of like a religious baptism into this journey, dying to their old ways of childhood and then rising into this journey. And then we took them to Coney island where they played a bunch of games together, and that was the kickoff. I then gave my son some gifts. I'm a big believer in the power of artifacts. And there's something potent of one generation passing on something to the next generation that they can handle and know that they're in a part of a continuing story. So gave my son a really strong leather journal, gave him a really nice pen, and then along the way, a whole series of gifts to sort of like, mark it out and get all along. I had this vision before I started where I wanted my son to start on the coast of New York, and I wanted his journey to end on the coast of Spain. And there's a little town called Finisterre, and it's a place where pilgrims, after they do this, this long hike, leave behind something at the end of their pilgrimage. And I had planned to sort of like, go into the ocean in New York and go into the ocean in Spain. And so I had it planned to bookend. And so that's why it was done at the beach, and that's why water was an important part of that.
- [22:05]
Brett McKay
So, yeah, you were thinking way you were thinking with the end in mind again, going back to Stephen Covey.
- [22:09]
John Tyson
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And the. When he leaves home, I really just. And this is one thing I would encourage, you know, dads or mentors to do. A lot of times men get into the workplace and they have, you know, they're casting, vision, they're thinking about sales or strategy or how to build things out, how to take ground. And they've got a ton of. Ton of energy and gifts, vision, casting and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to their own kids, we don't apply any of the skills we have in our jobs to our parenting. And if, you know, if you were to put me on, like, a strength finder test, strategic would be number two for me. So I was like, hey, I'm a pretty strategic person. Why not apply this to Fatherhood and then build this out. So yeah, I had thought through this journey and try to figure out the core components of it. And that certainly took away a lot of the panic and fear, even though there still was a ton of that being a dad.
- [22:59]
Brett McKay
So when do you think a son should start the rite of passage? Like how do you know that they're ready?
- [23:04]
John Tyson
I think you know universally through history, it's sort of around the age of 13 or so. And I don't know if that is. I don't know if there's anything sort of like culturally specific around that. Certainly not in our world anymore, like turning 13. I guess you're a teenager, but that's not that big a deal. I think it's more connected to puberty. It's when your body's beginning to change, it's when testosterone's coming in. It's when you start to think about sexuality. It's when you start to think about your strength. It's when competition really sets in. That's when you start thinking about and even a sense of vocation, you stop wanting to be the things you say when you're four or five and you got a bit more of a realistic sense of where it is. You know, you're getting into sports or into academics in a new way. And so I think again, it's about that male energy you're trying to figure out, what do I do with this? It can be very, very confusing and disorienting energy too. So right around the time this is happening within you, you want a community of men to come around you and to tell you the energy is good, it's a gift, it must be channeled the right way. And here is the path. So yeah, firstly, it seems to be sort around 13, around the age of puberty.
- [24:13]
Brett McKay
Okay, so your son does the ceremony with his mom. You have the initiation ceremony with his friends and some other dads at the beach. The first part of this initiation, years long initiative initiation process, was you actually took your son back home where you grew up. Why did you do that? What's the, what was the point of this?
- [24:33]
John Tyson
Well, I mean if, if I could sum up modern culture in one phrase, it would be this project self, project self. We live in a world that's telling you all the time. You were the center of everything. Narcissism is at epidemic proportions in our world today. And particularly when you're a teenager, you can be pretty inwardly focused. It is a confusing time and you can think that there's nothing outside of yourself and that there's nothing that mattered before you showed up. And I wanted my son to have a bigger picture of life. I wanted my son to realize what shaped me, what was going to be shaping him. And I wanted him to step into sort of a family narrative. You know, various family traditions, some ethnic, some religious record, family trees, for different reasons. I happen to have a cousin who was a history buff and has got a PhD in history, and he traced our family line back to the 10th century. And so he presented me like this, hundreds of pages of book of our family story. And I mean, the whole thing, family crests, family mottos, I mean, it was amazing. And so I presented that to my son. Hey, you know, you're a part of a long line of Tyson men, and this is what it means. And then I wanted him to see, you know, where I grew up and what it was like for me to develop my own values. So I took him back to Australia and where I grew up, I'm from a city called Adelaide, and basically had him go through the places that form the values of my life. So that when I talked about something, he didn't use what it was. I wanted him to have a context for the story that he was stepping into. And I think, without Alasdair McIntyre said this, we can only ask the question, what am I to do? If I can answer the previous question, what stories am I a part of? Or what story or stories am I a part of? And so if you're going to figure out your role, you've got to figure out the story that you're in. And I really felt it was important to give my son a sense of continuity and history. He could understand the story that he was extending.
- [26:38]
Brett McKay
No, I think that's important. I think another way you can sum up modern life is lack of context. A lot of people were just. You're kind of thrown into this milieu where it's just, you're getting bombarded by all these different stories, right? And you don't have a story that you're embedded in, and so you're disoriented. And I think telling your kid like, hey, this is. This is. You're part of this story. This is our family story. This is what you're part of, gives them some context now. And I think this is important because it can give them one. They could step into that and lean into it. But even if they decide not to, by giving them that story, right, they're able to know, like, oh, how can I make myself different? Like, it gives them Something to push back against, if that makes sense.
- [27:15]
John Tyson
Yeah. Yeah, totally.
- [27:16]
Brett McKay
Yeah. I think a lot of young people, like, they're just kind of flapping their arms. They don't. They don't know what they're doing.
- [27:22]
John Tyson
And I think there's a. I think it's important, too, to tell the family story in a compelling way and an honest way. I mean, you know, the whole idea of a family reunion where it's, like, a bunch of people you don't really like wearing weird T shirts, you know, like, I wasn't trying to do that with my son. I was trying to let him know, hey, man. Our family has an incredible history. It's a history of people who have taken big risks. It's a history of people who've sacrificed. It's a history of people who have paid a real price for you to be where you are in the world today. And I want you to know you come from good stock to be a Tyson. Tyson means Fire brand. I mean, like, Carry the Fire, you know, I have the Carry the Fire from the Art of Man that we got. But, like, that. That whole concept, man, this. You're born into a legacy, and you don't get to invent a universe from nothing. And there's. There's good things I want you to have, there's bad things I want to warn you about that could flow into your life because of, you know, the things we've been through. And then I want to figure out how to help you carry this forward through your calling and your personality. And that was actually a really, really amazing time. You know, I've had a pretty wild life. I dropped out of high school, worked in a meat factory, bought a house when I was 19, immigrated to another country. I've had, you know, pretty wild teenage years, and I wanted my son to sort of, like, see that and feel the weight of that so he could understand the context that I was parenting out of. So he really enjoyed that time, even though I was heartbroken that he came back saying, dad, American food is better than Australian food. What can you do?
- [29:03]
Brett McKay
I mean, what. And what I like about what you did, too, is you would take them to places where you made really big decisions in your own life.
- [29:10]
John Tyson
Yeah.
- [29:10]
Brett McKay
And I think that's a really great idea because it allows your son. It gives him the. It gives him a pattern to follow when he's making his own big decisions.
- [29:20]
John Tyson
Yeah. My values were vision, passion, discipline, and risk. You know, when I go back through history, I've always valued visionary men. They look beyond the horizons of what is possible. And they dream bigger dreams for themselves and for the culture. I've always loved men of passion. I've respected men of discipline who have channeled, again, their energy to something redemptive and something good. And then if you're good at those things, if you got vision and passion and you're disciplined, you're going to get opportunities. That's going to require risk. So I took him to the four places I learned those values. And again, I totally agree. When something emerges in your life, in order for it to be internalized and to become a sacred part of your story, you got to market, you know, the power of ritual and recognition. So our life is not just a blur of ordinary days. So, yeah, and I see my son doing that now. My son will take time and say, this place matters to me. This is an important part of my story, those sorts of things. So, yeah, he learned that by seeing it on the trip.
- [30:24]
Brett McKay
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- [32:36]
John Tyson
Banking services for MyPay and ChimeCard provided by Chime's bank partners.
- [32:39]
Brett McKay
Optional products and services may have fees
- [32:40]
John Tyson
or charges, stated annual percentage yield and cash back for Chime prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on the JD Power survey published 10-20-20. For more information on APY rates, my pay, Spot Me and travel Perks, go to Chime.com disclosures if you ever try
- [32:51]
Brett McKay
to document how something actually gets done on a computer, especially when it jumps between a few different apps, you know how quickly that can turn into a grind. What should take five minutes quietly expands into an hour. You miss a click, forget a setting, skip over something that feels obvious in the moment but isn't obvious to anyone else, and by the end you've got a document you can't fully trust. I run into this problem all the time with AOM when I'm trying to create standard operating procedures, just trying to get a repeatable process out of my head and into something another person can actually follow. Which is exactly the problem Scribe was built to fix. Scribe is a workflow AI platform that captures what you're doing in real time and turns it into step by step instructions automatically. And it's trusted by over 80,000 enterprises, including nearly half of the Fortune 500. You just do the task like you normally would do on the computer and it builds a guide for you. No stopping to manually take screenshots, no cleanup afterwards. I've been using it and it's one of those platforms that removes a surprising amount of friction. Instead of blocking enough time to document a process, I just do the process and by the time I'm done, the documentation is done too. What used to take an hour now takes a minute or two and it's usually more accurate. It also handles some of the annoying parts, automatically, redacts sensitive info like emails and account numbers, and gives people following the guide on screen cues so they know exactly where to click. And it's not just documentation. It can surface where steps are redundant or clunky and suggest ways to streamline things so you're not just recording processes, you're improving them. All that while keeping things contained to approved apps with user level data anonymized by default. If you want to see what Scribe could look like for your organization, go to Scribe. How Manliness. That's Scribe. S C R I B E How all right, so it's grilling and smoking season and I've been firing up the pellet smoker a lot more lately. And one thing I've learned, the quality of the meat makes a big difference. That's why I've been using Butcherbox. Butcherbox delivers premium, responsibly sourced meat straight to your door. Everything from grass fed beef to wild caught seafood. I have loved having meat on hand from Butcherbox because it just makes meal planning easy. I don't have to run to the store and hope they got something decent. I know I've got good options ready in the freezer, ready to go and ready to smoke. Just the other week in effect, I did some sirloin steak from Butcherbox for the family and it turned out great. Butcherbox is clean, high quality protein, no antibiotics, no added hormones and you can customize your box depending on what you're cooking. As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between free sirloin tips, ground beef or chicken wings in every box for life, plus $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com AOM that's right, your choice of free sirloin tips, ground beef or chicken wings in every box for life plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com AOM that's butcherbox.com AOM and don't forget to use that code to let them know that we sent you. And now back to the show. So one of your big goals through this whole entire Process was to teach your son values, family values, help them develop his own personal values. But you also had this idea, like, I want to inculcate masculine values into my son. What. What were those values? And why do you think that was important?
- [35:58]
John Tyson
It's. It is a confusing time in our culture to ask the question, well, what is a man? What does it mean to be a man? There's a lot of stereotypes out there. There's a lot of negative press in there. One of the things I try to emphasize, to sort of get away from the controversy and there is a lot of controversy, was the power of classical virtues. So the four classical virtues, justice, wisdom, courage, and self restraint. I felt like the men we need in our world today are embodied in these values. We need just men in a world of tyrants. We need restrained men in a world of excess. We need wise men in a world of fools, and we need courageous men in a world of fear. Again, as someone from a faith tradition, the most important values, according to St. Paul, are faith, hope, and love. And so to extend that, I'm like, we need faithful men in a world of compromise. We need hopeful men in a time of despair. We need loving men in a world of hate. So I try to take these noble, historically proven virtues and make those the baseline. And particularly in Greco Roman culture, these were masculine values. These were values that were associated with men. And so rather than just sort of pluck from thin air, choose random cultural values, I try to find something that was a little more timeless and rooted.
- [37:21]
Brett McKay
And one way you passed on these values or taught your son these values, you did this, you take them on trips, and you'd kind of. You just show it it.
- [37:28]
John Tyson
Right?
- [37:28]
Brett McKay
I think that's a very. I think it's probably the most powerful way. But then you'd have these. Every morning you'd sit down with him, and you'd have these little talks, and you'd also assign him books to read. Tell us about that.
- [37:38]
John Tyson
Yeah, well, I mean, again, I. I think I got the vision of, like, just college or high school, which is, what do you need to cover in order to graduate? Like, how do you graduate into manhood? Like, what do you need to have past? And again, getting back to, you know, no, be and do as the sort of core tenants there. So, yeah, I just. I got a calendar, and I worked back through a series of months, and I just said, here's the content I want to cover in this time. And then I just broke it up into little chunks, and then we just talked through it. So yeah, I just wanted to have this point every day where I was connecting. When you ask the question, how does somebody grow? How does somebody change? How are they really shaped or formed? It's normally two things. It's big, powerful, catalytic, defining moments. And then it's like the ordinary, everyday, habitual, repetitive stuff we do in our lives. And so that's what I was doing in the daily little check ins. You know, sometimes they'll 15 minutes, sometimes they're 40 minutes, depending on what we're talking about. But it was just getting up early before school and then picking the theme we were working on, whether it was like, like one of the archetypes or one of the shifts. And then I just come up with content and we just talk it through. So I think just sowing those small seeds every day over the course of years produces a massive kind of fruit. So I asked my son, what are some of the takeaways that you got from that? And a lot of it were like pithy little phrases. My son said, the number one thing that I've taken away from all of those years of content was this idea. You are who you are when no one's looking. That's your true self. When you're accountable as your own man in the world before your creator, that's who you really are without people pushing you. And that was just something like I winged one morning, you know, just like, okay, let me just like throw that in, you know. So again, you never know by sowing those seeds what's going to stick and what's really going to like, impact and help.
- [39:40]
Brett McKay
And also throughout the process, you'd read books together or you'd even watch movies. So if you're talking about courage, you would watch Band of Brothers, for example.
- [39:48]
John Tyson
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm in my. I mean we just churned through the movies. If you're a busy dad, I can tell, you come up with a few discussion questions, watch a movie, make him thoughtful, and you, you can have a great night together. Yeah, the Band of Brothers and barbecue was a very, very strong season that we did. So we would just like talk about, you know, watch an episode, talk about what we learned in the characters. And then we go out and eat meat and we sort of went through the. Yeah, because I used to be a butcher, we would go to different barbecue restaurants and we honestly sort of ate our way around New York City as a reward for doing these nights together. So that was a lot of fun. Build your traditions with my daughter. We did it with cookies you know, she didn't want to eat brisket every week, so.
- [40:31]
Brett McKay
Oh yeah, I want to talk about something, what you did with your daughter in a bit here. Okay, so one of the things you did with this rite of passage process is you really, you used the work or looked at the work of Richard Rohr. We've had him on the podcast before. Francisco Monk, who's thought and does a lot about male initiation. And you took this idea that Roar has of the five rules of manhood that every boy needs to learn in order to become a man, and then you modified it to and you call them the, the shifts of manhood. So what are the five shifts of manhood?
- [41:04]
John Tyson
Yeah, I mean, Raw is obviously a sage. I mean he spent half a lifetime thinking about this stuff and has some very, very strong works on that. But I felt like, I mean, how do you say to a 13 year old kid, you are going to die, you're not that important. Life is not about you. And then how do you help him see that he's making progress on that? And so I sort of converted him into these shifts.
- [41:29]
Brett McKay
Yes.
- [41:29]
John Tyson
So the shifts are from ease to difficulty. Boys embrace ease. Men embrace difficulty. From self to others. Boys are about themselves, men are about others. From the whole to apart. Boys are all about themselves. Men realize they're only a part of a greater story. From control to surrender. Boys think they can maintain control. Men understand the mysterious power of surrender. And then from the temporary to the eternal. Boys only think about what matters right now. But men think out of a larger picture. And then, yeah, I designed these units to help him really learn these lessons. And so to be able to say, hey, boys are about ease, themselves, the whole thing, control and temporary things. And men are about difficulty, others, humility, surrender, you know, thinking big picture. So yeah, I would, I would take a couple of months on each of these, have a little daily talk about it, do this weekly thing that we called man school. And then at the end of it we would do a challenge. So from east difficulty, for example, my son's terrified of heights. So I took him in Australia to the highest ropes course. And mate, this thing was, I hate heights too. This was horrific. But I wanted him to see, hey man, if you do this, you've passed like you have now embraced difficulty, like you're ready to move on to the next unit. And so it was a real joy seeing him like do an actual challenge. That kind of scared him a bit where he had to overcome something. But it was just a way of showing progress. I Think there's nothing more demoralizing for men than working hard and seeing no progress from your labor. And so I wanted to build in this sense of, of I am taking ground, I am moving down the path. I am heading down the road from, you know, adolescence into manhood. And this, this was something that, particularly with my son, was very, very effective.
- [43:13]
Brett McKay
No? And I love when, for the shift, for temporary to the eternal, like you took him to a graveyard. And that was really impactful. And that was one of those other, you know, things that really stuck with your son when you, you asked him, like, what was some of the things that stuck? And it was like this pithy off the cuff remark about you look at a gravestone and you see the date someone's born, then a dash and the date they die. And you said like, you know, that dash, that was their life. And what's going to be. What's going to be your dash?
- [43:41]
John Tyson
Yeah, what's your dash? That was actually a really meaningful moment. And my son, anytime we go past a graveyard, will to this day be like, what's your dash, dad? Make it count, you know, and it is kind of amazing to, to think there's that person, their life is over if they do anything to get a second chance at it. Gosh, don't squander your life, man. Time is a gift. Time is the most important commodity. And so think properly and steward your time. And I think he is, to this day, my son is very time conscious as a result of that moment.
- [44:15]
Brett McKay
Okay, so these five shifts, you would spend a few months and would you revisit, like, say if you did, you know, from the whole story to part of the story, you know, a year before, would you revisit it? Say, hey, here's another, we're going to talk about this some more.
- [44:28]
John Tyson
Yeah, I'm always just, I mean, when you talk about how memory works, you know, we forget In a week, 75% of what we've heard a week earlier. And so you've got to do what they call deep encoding. And that primarily comes through spaced repetition. And we all know that you can cram overnight and pass a test and learn nothing, or you can study, which means every couple of days you're loading it back into your mind. I was constantly trying to reinforce the core ideas, and I did that over the course of several years. Spaced repetition is really important. Keep hitting the same things again and again and again. I think all people that educate well get this, just refocusing, putting the emphasis on these things so they go from external into an internal component where they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.
- [45:18]
Brett McKay
Another thing I really, I like that you talked about in the book is this idea of preparing for moments that your adolescent is going to face as they go through puberty right into adulthood. And I think these moments are often we. We. If, if left. If you're not. If you don't have a conscious, intentional rite of passage, these moments often become the rite of passage. Yeah, but what you're trying to do with this idea of preparing for moments is making these moments part of a larger rite of passage. And so these are things like, you know, first shave when they get. Your kid gets their first cell phone, when they get a driver's license. And you thought about like, what can I do to make these Melboy sons see these moments are part of a bigger picture.
- [45:59]
John Tyson
Yeah, I mean, I'm a big believer that the book the Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, I mean, that was just a masterclass. You know, as a leader, you know, as a person, your life is really a series of defining moments that have shaped you. If you were to sort of map out your story, you know, you're basically going to pull out some disproportionately impactful moments, either of pain or wounding. And I was like, okay, so these moments, like we're going to be shaped by these moments. Is there a way to like consciously cultivate them, to prepare in advance when they. That, you know, the young men ones happen, but then sort of have a framework on how to do it. And so I was very, very aware and I think scientists tell us as well, like the memories we form in our late teens and early 20s tend to be the strongest memories we carry our whole life because we're going through so many firsts and they find their way into our long term memory. They're converted into our long term memory by the potency and novelty of the event. So yeah, I was like trying to figure out how to do those things and how to, to. And how to build them up. A classic. I mean, my son got his driver's license, he passed his test in New York City. And you want to talk about a harrowing adventure, taking your driving test in New York City. And when he comes back, he didn't even know if he passed or not. Like the lady just said to him, you need to work on your three point turns. And then hands him a sheet. And I was like, did you pass or not? He's like, I don't know. I thought, what a Missed opportunity. She could have said to him, young man, congratulations. You now can drive to California if you want. The car is yours, the roads are yours. Welcome to freedom. Welcome. I mean, she could have built this into a thing and he would remember that forever. Instead, he had a terrible moment and he barely remembers it. So I had to mark that moment for him. So there's. Because how do you make these moments and use them in ways that bring healing and blessing to our kids rather than our wounds? One of the big ideas they say in the book that I love is beware the soul sucking voice of reasonableness. You can blow a moment out into a lifetime memory by adding 15 or 20% more energy to it. Just by adding a few more little details to it. It. You can change the whole experience. So I'll give you a practical example. I had some dads who read my book who flew in from Colorado to have a cigar and talk with me about the book. So here's what I could have done. I could have sat him down and I could have said, hey, thanks for coming, fellas. But that's not what I did. I went and bought a couple of bottles of very, very exquisite beverages to pair with the cigars. I got them a box of these melanio cigars. I had this elabor, and when they sat down, they were kind of dumbfounded. Who's this for? I'm like, this is for you. You came all of this way. I wanted to create a great experience for you. And at the end of the night, I let them keep the glasses so that every time they use that glass, they can remember the story. And it's like those guys will remember that for a very, very long time because a normal moment was turned into a powerful moment. And so I wanted to get a black belt in creating moments that shape people. And so I encouraged dad to be intentional, to think about these in advance, to have a plan. Like, what are you going to do if you find out your kid's looking at porn? Which statistically almost 90% of kids at some point will look at porn. How are you going to respond to that? You're going to create a culture of shame? Or are you going to help them understand sexuality and who women are? Yeah. So I just went through those moments and I've got a list of them in the book. Some of the big ones that you can think through and begin to plan around. But to me, getting those moments right is a huge, huge part of helping our son move through the world with blessing rather than wounds.
- [49:51]
Brett McKay
So as you went through this process, I'm sure your kid was really excited at the beginning because beginnings are always exciting and new because you're doing new things.
- [49:58]
John Tyson
Yeah.
- [49:58]
Brett McKay
But then your son hit a wall with this process. I mean, he kind of started to lose interest. He's like, ah, geez, you know, dad, we really have to do these morning talks. Yes, but this is the hard part in any endeavor. This is the part where, whether it's you're starting a business, you're doing a fitness routine, start trying to start a fitness routine. This is the wall.
- [50:19]
John Tyson
Yeah.
- [50:19]
Brett McKay
You made a shift at this point to make the process not just about becoming a good man, because I think that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to help your son harness his masculine energy to be, you know, for the good of the community. But then you. You shifted it to about becoming good at being a man. What's the difference? And why did that shift reignite the fire in your son?
- [50:39]
John Tyson
Yeah, I mean, you've had Jack Donovan on before in his book the Way of Men, and, you know, he's a somewhat controversial figure, I want to note, but he had it. He had a core concept that I think really, really shook me. His concept was he talked about Christian men's movements, and that's a part of the tradition that I come from. And he talked about, like, a vision of good men in our society today. Looks typically like an overwhelmed suburban dad struggling to get his life together. And that's basically it. It's an overwhelmed, somewhat bored dad driven by obligation, trying to get his life together. And that's what we think a good man is. He's defined by what he doesn't do. You know, he's not cheating on his wife. He's not out there wasting his money. And it's actually a pretty. Pretty kind of tame vision. It's not. Not super compelling at all. And he says what men actually want is to be good at being a man. Which means, like, when a man walks in the room, he should have a sense of confidence that he's adding value. And so when you're good at being a man, which means, like, I am good at understanding how women work. I'm good at understanding what money is. I am good at practical skills around the home, obviously, which your website is a. You know, you are part of our central curriculum. You get thousands of articles on practical stuff. And so I said to my son, hey, why do you think we're doing this? And he says, you want me to be a good Man. And I said, I do not want you to be a good man. And he was kind of like, what? What? I was like, nah, I want you to be good at being a man. I was like, do you want to walk into a room and understand how women think and not be intimidated? And he's like, yes. I said, do you want to be able to, like, get through your high school years and have social skills where you can navigate bullies and build friends? He's like, yes. So just, you know, like, I'm trying to do the Winston Churchill, which is like, get them saying yes or no, you know? And I said, well, that's what we're here for, man. I am here to help you be good at being a man, not to be some opaque kind of good man. And that's when it really kicked in. And that's when I sort of unleashed the archetype content, which was about, you know, like, how to understand women and be a lover, how to understand influence and be a leader, how to. How to get in a fight or how to have a cause and be a warrior, how to be a friend. What does it mean to be a brother? How do you be a sage in a world of fools? That sort of a thing? And so when I sort of rolled out that those components, his motivation was so high. Setting his own alarm, disciplining his life to get involved with it. So, yeah, a kind of bland, feeble morality with stereotypical roles that has no passion, no teeth, no consequence. I'm not interested in that. And I think a lot of people today are sort of like, living half their lives because they've been shoved into these passionless scripts that they think this is what it is to be a man. I wanted to turn him loose, you know, give him a bit of, as they say, fire in the belly. And that just had a massive impact on him. So it went from me trying to get him up to him voluntarily getting up. It was a real breakthrough.
- [53:45]
Brett McKay
How old was he when this happened?
- [53:48]
John Tyson
Oh, gosh, he was 15.
- [53:50]
Brett McKay
Okay, 15.
- [53:51]
John Tyson
So a couple years in.
- [53:52]
Brett McKay
And I liked how you. You took this idea of being good at being a man and tied it into these different roles that you started talking about. Kate, as a man. These are the roles you're gonna have to fulfill as an adult. How can you be good at fulfilling that role? And I think that gives. It gives some direction for that. That, again, that masculine energy that teenage boys are starting to turn on.
- [54:13]
John Tyson
Yeah, I totally agree. If you don't, I mean, there's nothing worse than Standing in a room and feeling awkward. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't. I don't feel like I'm good at anything, and I don't know why I'm here. Like, if you're projecting that sort of emotional field, it's not going to go well for you. And that's going to lead. Like, that's going to. To spiral into unhealthy places. So to begin to, like, logically, sequentially, strategically break down the elements of how to be a man in the world and tell him, you can do this. You can do this, man. And I'm going to train you to be able to do those things. That produces a ton of confidence. And I said, and then here's what you do when you don't know. You don't fake it. It. You ask people who are better than you and then you compliment them, and then they feel confident in themselves because they're teaching you when they're indeed to you. So, man, we did so much stuff on, like, all the practical, practical sort of like archetype stuff of how to be in the world. When I asked my son Today, he turns 22 this next week, I said, okay, man, we're a couple years out for this. You know, you're a junior in college now. What's your number one takeaway? And he said, the number one takeaway is the mental framework that I can figure out and handle anything. And I was like, touchdown, mate. That's it. If you can get that kind of internal confidence in a young man's heart where he feels like he can face the challenges of life, I mean, that just felt like such a win for me.
- [55:47]
Brett McKay
Oh, so just you mentioned some of these roles you had. Lover. So you're talking about, okay, how can I be. How can I get along with women? How can I attract a mate? That's that. I think a lot of boys, they're. They're interested in that because they just feel awkward. A leader. You had that. Yep. I mean, I guess, like, if you're going back to, like, Jungian archetypes, be like the king, right? Like, that would be the.
- [56:05]
John Tyson
Yeah, no, totally, but yeah, yes, go ahead. Yeah. The leader, the warrior, the brother, the wise man. There's probably a few more you can put in there, but these, I try to sort of put these in things. I felt my son from my tradition needed did, you know. And so, you know, one of it was like a faith, one which is being a disciple, you know, one was like understanding women, one was about, like, how to have the influence in the world through leadership, how to get in a fight. There's so much, you know, I mean, in many ways we're driven by two forces, hope and hate. We're driven by, like, what we want to happen and then the, like the thing that's stopping the threat against the thing that's stopping it. So, you know, like that, that's what the warrior energy is. It's like going after the thing you want and then fighting off the thing that's a threat to that. Then the power of friendships. Male friendships are so awkward, particularly that age. Social media has definitely complicated it. But how do you be a faithful brother to somebody else? How do you stay the course? How do you build long term friendships? And I'm so grateful for that. My son did a gap year and in that gap year he just got a crew. And because of some of the stuff we've talked about, they now do an annual reunion. So they're three years removed. A couple of them have gone on and gotten married, but every year they've got this little tribe that gets together to mark the milestones of their life and just talk about the joys and sorrows they've been through the previous year. So it's been a real joy to see him build a little brotherhood. And then how do you be a wise man? The world's filled with fools. It's filled with pain, regret, lack of certainty, confusion, and how do you navigate some of the complexities of life? So we spent a lot of time talking about what is wisdom, what is the wisdom traditional and how do you learn to grow in wisdom? The book of Proverbs talks about five kinds of fools. And there's five ways of being foolish in the world, and there's five kinds of wisdom to overcome the five fools. So we spent time talking through that, that sort of stuff.
- [58:00]
Brett McKay
One idea that I really liked, and I'm going to swipe from you, I'm going to use it with my own kids, is the life arc interview. What is that and what did your son get out of them?
- [58:10]
John Tyson
Well, the life arc interview is basically saying life is a series of seasons. It's a series of stages. And without a sense of knowing what stage you're in or what season you're in, life can just feel very long and very painful and very, very confusing. But if you realize is, hey, there's certain things you got to get right, certain things to look out for, certain things to avoid at these various stages, you're going to go in with eyes wide open. And so it's sort of like a stage orientation. When you're a freshman at college, they do a campus orientation, they do a freshman orientation. They're basically trying to say to you, like, open your eyes and here's how to navigate this. Well, so yeah, I wanted my son to go through life and figure out what to do with each decade or each stage of life. So to sit down with someone and basically ask, hey, like, what did you most enjoy about this stage and why? What are three or four of your favorite memories from this stage? What are the biggest regrets you had in this particular stage of your life? If you could do it again, what did you do differently? What do I have to get right? What must I absolutely avoid? And then you begin to get a bit of an arc of what life is. And so one of the great challenges with young people today is they want the lifestyle in their 20s that their parents worked for in their 40s. And so if you say, hey man, your 20s are not for wealth accumulation as much as they are about vocational experimentation and understanding yourself, you're going to put some relief valves from the pressure of success and confusion. And then hopefully, you know, they've got to have their own chronology, Their friends got their own journey to walk, their own challenges and their own pace that they have to navigate, but that at least get some sense about. Like here's the territory. If you go on any journey, at some point you're going to break the journey down into stages. Hey, there's a mountainous stage, there's a flat stage, there's a hot stage, there's a, you know, stop here, see this? We do this on all trips in life. Why don't we do it for life? It's so that was my vision to sort of like break that down and send him out talking to people older than him who have navigated this with some measure of skill so he can get their accumulated wisdom and has have an idea of where to go from there.
- [60:19]
Brett McKay
Yeah, when I read that, I was thinking, man, I need to do this for my kid. Like get, find an 18 year old or a 20 year old who's just on it, right? Who was a great kid, you know, had a great teenage part of their life. It'd be awesome to have my son just like talk to him, him, like what did you do? I, I mean that I, I, I was, I thinking when, if, when I was a kid, when I was like 12, you know, 13 and I got to rub shoulders with some really cool 18 year old that has a big impact, 100%.
- [60:46]
John Tyson
And you know, it's amazing. You're actually helping form that 18 year old because you're going to make him sort of like codify what he's learned and he's going to realize, hey, I'm 18, but I've learned a lot. So that's going to be a gift to him as well. And that'll be something you could pass on to someone else. People you do the bet you learn your lessons best when you teach it to other people. So yeah, I'm definitely grateful to be a part of a community that is multi generational and you know, living in the middle of New York City. My son's, you know, growing up in Manhattan for 17 years before he left home. And so for him, you know, he was surrounded by some like very, very accomplished people, but also people with a lot of pain, like, you know, unhealthy ambition and lack of focus. And so like, yeah, that being surrounded by a multi generational community was a real gift. I encourage everybody to try to find that this, I think, is this sort of multi generational long term thinking doesn't happen in our world at large. And this is definitely something that I think kids will appreciate.
- [61:42]
Brett McKay
So you mentioned your son took a gap year. Was this part of the initiation process?
- [61:47]
John Tyson
100%. 100%. All of these traditions, like when James Hollis talks about this, he says that all traditions have this thing they called the ordeal. And the ordeal was to send the young man out into the world to see whether or not he has internalized and taken on the lessons that have been given to him from the community. And again, various traditions have done this. Some communities have a mission that they go on, they send people off. I grew up in Australia, very, very common to do a gap year, which is basically debaucherous, hitchhiking across parts of Europe. Here's what my vision was. I was like, okay, I. I've put a lot of content and a lot of experiences in my son and college is such a formative experience. I mean, it just swallows you whole. And I was like, I need to give him a little bit of space before he just rushes headlong into college to sort of see the kind of man he has become away from me, where he could test it in the real world. So I also had a goal. I want to, you know, like, I'm surrounded by a lot of worlds wealth in Manhattan where he grew up, and a lot of privilege. And I was like, I want to irreparably break my son's Heart for the global poor. Like, I want him to see the privileges growing in the disparity in the world. I want him to feel the pain of that gap and I want to be him to be exposed to other places and other cultures so he's not just like, you know, an American only in terms of his worldview and his thinking. So, so he did a nine month trip. He went to Swaziland, he went to Guatemala, he went all over the place and has since traveled all over the place. And he came back and I gotta tell you, he was a different kid. Being with a few friends, like I said, he built this little brotherhood, this little tribe and stuff that the biggest example my son, and I don't say this to put him down, he's actually a remarkable young man. But like, he was a whiner. He would just complain. He just would just complain. And it was like such an unattractive quality to just complain. And, you know, I'd have my wife's, you know, daughters come over and I talk like, how attractive. You know, like a little panel. So like, here's five women and here's my son interviewing these five women on a panel. And I'd say like, you know, do you think, what do you think about men who complain? They're like, oh, it's so unattractive. But even that these like attractive young women in their twenties on this little panel that my wife had formed, none of that worked. But he comes back from this trip. My son is like a yes, sir on it, sir kind of kid. And I'm like, where did this come from? He said, dad, two weeks in, I realized I was a whiny, complaining child. And I had a mirror amongst my peers of how unattractive it was. And I was like, I do not want to be that guy. And to this day, my son just like, like owns it and solves it. But that never would have happened with all of my years of effort. I couldn't get that done. He gets in the world, sees the world, that sort of stuff is formed in him. He also just came back from, he just did another three month trip that he went on and he was in Turkey for that trip. And again he came back and I was like, the maturity that was developed by getting out of his regular life in context was massive. So I'm a big believer, you know, one bad year of College can undo 18 years of good parenting. And so I think there's a lot of wisdom in, you know, having a liminal space where they can go through the world and sort of figure it out. So yeah, that's that, that was the vision for that and he was willing to do it. Interestingly enough, like my daughter did not want to do that. So that was something I had to sort of cast some vision for for my son. Yeah, he was, he was worried like, hey, all my friends are going to college, I'm going to get left behind. And we processed that and eventually he came over and realized, hey, this would probably be good for me.
- [65:37]
Brett McKay
So part of this gap year, we're getting to the end, right? This is the ordeal.
- [65:40]
John Tyson
Yes. Six years.
- [65:42]
Brett McKay
Six years. He goes through his ordeal, he passes, it changes him. It's mission accomplice. You have this capstone ceremony. How did you cap this journey off into manhood with your son?
- [65:54]
John Tyson
Well, one of the things I realized by talking, so there's quite a few sort of different groups and different organizations that will facilitate a gap year. I think it's becoming more and more popular. And one of the things in my research about sort of the come down from the high of the gap year is that they didn't debrief him too well. So I said I'm going to do the Camino de Santiago, which is a 500 mile hike across Spain. And it took us 33 days to do it. I said we're just going to walk 500 miles, there's nothing to do but talk and we're just going to debrief this journey together. We're going to debrief the gap year, what happened in it, him, what did he learn? We're going to debrief all the content we went through. So I did like a series of questions every day, sort of recapping the six year journey, just trying to again deep in coding, reinforcement. And then we just had a ton of fun. And at the end of the 33 days, you come to the city and this is big cathedral. It's actually like, it's overwhelming. I mean you weep if you talk about it. It is such a profound experience. Experience. And you come into this cathedral, this city, and there's another 80 kilometer walk or so where you enter this village called Finisterre. And you know, the idea of a pilgrimage was you're leaving something behind. And our idea for this pilgrimage was he's leaving his childhood behind. So we end up in this city called this little town called Finisterre. And we go to this cove on a beach and I've got all these letters from these men who, who've been journeying with him, spoken into his Life, many respects. And I take him down on this beach and I'm like, nate, I want to tell you right now, man, this, well done. You have passed every test. You have earned this for the rest of your life. You need to know in your heart, you are a man. You are a blessed man. In the Christian tradition, there's a scene in the life of Jesus where he is baptized at the start of the Gospels, and a voice from heaven says, this is my beloved son, who I love. In him, I'm well pleased. And because Jesus knew he was beloved at the start of his ministry, he had the courage and security in his identity to heal the sick, confront hypocrisy, fight off evil forces in his confrontation with the devil. So he was blessed to. His sense of identity enabled him to overcome. And I wanted to say to my son, you have my blessing. You are moving through the world. A blessing best man. And you can overcome anything because you have what it takes within you. So anyway, so he runs into the ocean like he did when he was 13, but now he's 19. And he comes out and I do this big booming voice, you know, like my God voice or whatever, and. And I'm just like, who is this man? They're emerging from the ocean. Behold, this is my son. And then he comes out and, you know, we just cry. And it's a super, super powerful and emotional moment. Moment. And it was just. It was a blessing ceremony. And, you know, we both have a tattoo on our arms. The only tattoo I have. He's got a few more, but it's of our journey together. It's in my inner arm, and it's the route of that Camino that ends in this little bay, this little cove where we did this journey. And that's it. He left his childhood behind. So if you were to ask my son, how do you know you're a man? He would say, I died. To childhood psychology. I went on a journey. I've learned the archetypes. I've made the shift. I've done you a deal. I've been blessed by my father. I know I'm a man because I've earned it. Bingo. What a gift. So that was such a. Such a definitive moment that was six years in the making. So it wasn't just the moment itself. It was marking a journey that he had been through that we had sort of done together. And really, really significant, a real gift to be a part of.
- [69:38]
Brett McKay
That's really powerful. So you have a daughter?
- [69:42]
John Tyson
Yes, Yes, I have a daughter, 19. She's in studying nursing in university.
- [69:46]
Brett McKay
Well, have you and your wife done anything similar with her?
- [69:49]
John Tyson
We did. It's a little different. My wife played sort of the primary role in the formation of my daughter. So she's got a whole thing she did, you know, starting when she hit puberty and walked her through her teenage years. In her senior year, she came to me and she said, dad, dad, like, I want you to just give me a year of your best, like, development into adulthood. So I did a thing with her that I just, you know, I'm a bit of a branding guy. I'm a bit of a program guy. So I created this thing for her called 50 pieces of my heart. 50 key deposits every dad has to make in his daughter's life before she leaves home. So I did 50 weeks, and it was like a little daily check in and then one dinner a week where we talked about out, like, the 50 most important things I wanted her to know about life. And yes, we did that for a year. Sadly, her senior year was in Covid. And my daughter loves beauty. My son loved the challenge. So on the Camino, when we're walking 500 miles, it's a heat wave. We've got blisters that are almost down to the bone. We lost 20 pounds. I mean, it was like a wild ordeal. My daughter loves beauty. So one of the only countries that was open in Covid was Iceland. And so we did a ring road together. We rented a car, and we drove around the country of Iceland. And I sort of, like, created this experience for her, Recapping these important things and just, like, filling her heart with beauty. It was framed by a Frederick Buechner quote. Beechner's obviously a very, very prolific, gifted author. The quote says, here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Do not be afraid. And so our whole year was based around beauty and terror. Like, the terror of life and the beauty of life and not being afraid to enter into it. And so that Iceland trip was an immersion in beauty. And again, that was like a really powerful time. So very, very different relationship with her. My daughter is a very feminine in the traditional sense, and wonderful, wonderful young woman. She's a helper, very kind, studying nursing. But my wife will have to write the book of what she did with her. I was just intentional in my relationship with her, but really did a strong year with her to sort of close out her adolescence and to send her off. I tell you, a very, very, very, very moving moment about the importance of seizing time. I was the last person to Drop her at college. My wife left the day before, and I had one bonus day with her. And after 18 years of meeting with her every week, this really intense year, we spent an hour together every day for a year. And at the end of it, we had our final dinner, and I'm walking back to my car, and she's walking to her dorms, and we have this one last hug. And she hugs me and she will not let go. And she says, dad, I need more time. I need more time with you. I don't have the wisdom. I don't have everything I need yet. I need more time. Time. And I was like, sweet girl, you've got what it takes. This is in you. You're going to be fine. I'm still with you. And I walked off in tears, but I was like, oh, those words. I need more time. I was like that. That was the thing. I was like, gosh, our kids are gone before we know it, you know? And so a lot of times people say, john, this sounds pretty intense. And listen, man, I am a busy man in the middle of New York City. You know, I got a lot of my plate, a lot of responsibilities, a lot of stuff I handle. So it was a real sacrifice to take the time to do this for my kids. But, like, now that they're both gone, if I had my time again, I'd go harder. I'd sacrifice more, you know, those days, like, I just entrust it into the hands of God and say, hey, I did what I could. I did this with love. I did my best. And I'm going to have to trust him and them. Them. But I tell you, I'd go harder again. So it probably, yeah, maybe someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, my gosh, this sounds like a lot. Yeah, it is a lot. But it's worth it. Absolutely worth it.
- [73:53]
Brett McKay
Well, I mean, let's say you guys listen to this and like, well, you know, maybe I just. I can't do everything right. I mean, this is awesome. What you did was awesome. And maybe some guys just don't have the bandwidth, creativity, etc. What would you say? Like, okay, just to get the ball rolling. Because I think oftentimes once you get the ball rolling, you pick up steam and you start adding to it. It. What are a few practices that you would think could help that you.
- [74:17]
John Tyson
I would say this consistency is more important than intensity. So I would say, I mean, it's like if you want to lose weight. Yeah. I mean, you can do a liquid fast for 30 days and then intermittent fast and eat one meal a day. And you probably do that for six weeks and put all the weight back on. Or you can cut out soda for three months and then you can cut out soda and then you can cut out dessert. I mean, like, it's just like, it's. What can you do consistently? That's what has the formative power. So you gotta find, like, every kid is different. You know, you've got to find that tension of like, is this actually making a difference in their life or not? And how much does each kid need in what season after that? I would say this. Let me give you a larger principle rather than a specific, because that's so personal. I think the number one goal is to build and maintain an emotional bond. That is the whole thing. Because if that bond is there in the relationship, you can pass anything through that bond. That bond can handle any teenage rebellion. That bond can handle any hard conversation. But if that bond is not there, it is very, very hard to reinsert yourself because it just sounds like moralizing or lecturing. So to me, it would be like, whatever it takes to build that bond. You know, you might do something as simple as, I know on your website you've got a list of quotes. I mean, you might just do something as simple as, like, sit down and create a ritual where you read one quote a day about a theme. Or maybe it's like one night a week. But whatever it is that keeps that bond alive, that's the most important factor. And then play the long game. Put a date on your calendar and work backwards and just say, okay, here's what I'm going to do, do from now till then. And then I'll also say two other thoughts. Number one, something is better than nothing. Do what you can do. Don't be overwhelmed by what you can't do. Something is better than nothing. And then secondly, if your kids are gone and maybe you're sitting here with a sense of regret, I would just say to you, it's never too late. You just don't know the power of a father or a mentor's heart moving towards a kid with, like, repentance and with hope. I've got so many stories. I mean, part of what I do is I lead a faith community in New York, you know, and over the past almost 20 years, thousands and thousands of stories of impossible relational reconciliations when you're willing to move with, like, forgiveness and humility. So don't give up hope. Set your heart heart and move towards your kids. Slowly in love. And you'd be amazed at the blessing they ache for, the relationship they ache for, and the power of restoration if you do it with humility and consistency.
- [77:07]
Brett McKay
Well, John, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
- [77:11]
John Tyson
I've got a course on this. It's at Primalpath Co. That's co and on there there's a link for a weekly email. So every week I send out like a A short Thought for Dads and Men about how to navigate the complexity of being a man in the modern world. You can sign up for that absolutely free. And then if you go to Amazon and just look at the Intentional Father, you'll see that that book is there, available in all formats.
- [77:35]
Brett McKay
Fantastic. Well, John Tyson, thanks for time. It's been a pleasure.
- [77:38]
John Tyson
Okay, cheers mate. Thank you.
- [77:40]
Brett McKay
My guest name is John Tyson. He's the author of the book the Intentional Father. It's available on Amazon.com you can find more information about his work at Primalpath co. Also check out our shownotes at AOM is passage where you find links to resources where you can delve deep deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the A1 podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanlies.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you'd like to enjoy ad free episodes of the AOM podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com Sign up use code manlies at checkout for free month trial. Once you're signed up, download this trap on Android iOS and you start enjoying ad free episodes of the A1 podcast. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to get us review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot. If you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay remind listen podcast Put what you've heard into action.
- [78:56]
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- [79:18]
John Tyson
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