Unbreakable Success Podcast, Episode 60 How to be Consciously and Authentically Masculine with Stef Sifandos.

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Stefanos Sifandos is an author, international speaker, and mentor who -- if you're willing, will help you transform your idea of relationships, quality of life, and modern masculinity.

In today's episode, our friend Stef shares his very personal story that led him on a journey of transformational growth through neuro-empowerment practices, and an integration of spiritual praxis and western psychology.

Stefanos has brilliantly integrated the best of eastern and western methodologies and philosophies, and used integrative techniques methods to create programs and systems to enhance the quality of your relationships and personal performance.

Add to that, Stef is one of the most easily likable people you'll ever meet. Please make sure you've bookmarked his below website, followed him on social, and reach out to him to learn more from his and thank him for his time today.

I'll say "you're welcome" ahead of time for this episode, because after this episode, there's no doubt you'll be grateful for the introduction to Stef. :)

Please listen, share and make sure you're subscribed to Unbreakable Success on iTunes and YouTube.

With love & respect - Aaron

Full Transcript:

Aaron: 00:00 All right, Stefanos, thank you so much for joining us today. Everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Unbreakable Success. I'm excited to have a conversation with somebody who I'm already beginning to think of as a friend is, you know, I have to apologize to you as you're listening, uh, all of you out there listening and watching because we kind of been chatting away and having some conversation. I'm thinking like we really need to be recording this because we're starting to get deep into the conversation, but I think we can pick it up with no problem anyway, for, for those that don't, you know, Stefanos Sifandos, and we were working on your name before we started. Obviously you've got a lot of accolades behind you. You're an author, you've been doing some speaking internationally. you're a phenomenal coach on, on masculinity and relationships. Can you tell us, just tell us a little bit about you, what your work is like today so people can get a good gauge on the things you're doing if they haven't met you already.

Stef Sifanos: 00:57 Thank you. Thank you for the kind introduction. It's a privilege to be here as well. I'm super excited. So for me, I blend the combination of neuro empowerment practices, a Western psychological frameworks and eastern mysticism in terms of assisting people in cultivating their brilliance, actualizing their potential or shifting from a place of pain that they may find themselves in or that they're attached to. And so my coaching or a massive fan of the word coach, but I don't think I have a better one at this moment, but the guiding, the coaching, whatever it may be, the friendship is, um, it comes from a place of really wanting to serve and serve in the sense of how do we liberate ourselves from the tension or the incessant tension that we at times experience. And so the tools and techniques and how I do that. A, again, a combination of what I've mentioned and also leveraging my own personal experiences and of course the amazing experiences of other people such as yourself, such as people that I come into contact with, family, friends, men, mentors of my own and other leaders of past and present as well.

Stef Sifanos: 02:08 And so I just really, I'm, I'm very excited about it. I'm crazy about sacred union. I'm crazy about human optimization in terms of how do we really develop this amazing grand version of self.

Aaron: 02:21 Yeah. And, and I love, what you're saying there. Especially about the term of whenever I hear the word coach and even though it's funny, it's one of those, we were talking about some quandaries that earlier and you know, from a business perspective when you're describing yourself, you have to put something contains it to describe what it is you do. And I think for, for many of us in the work that you do in the work that I do, coaches use the appropriate word, but I never really feel like it covers everything. You know, it's a little bit difficult. So I appreciate you sharing so much. Give us an idea of, you know, for you, you know, when you think of a, uh, a clients if there, if there is a, if there is that ideal person or, or, or, uh, someone who you meet and right away you're thinking, yeah, this is somebody I'd love to work with. What is that like for you? And obviously I'm not expecting you to have just one type of client you'd like, but know what are some of the things that that triggered you to recognize it somebody or group of somebody who are the right people for you to work with? What's that like for you?

Stef Sifanos: 03:28 I love that question. Willingness is the first thing that comes to mind and to be really honest as well, willingness is something that I look for in my intimate relationships as well. Like how willing are you to celebrate your joys? How willing are you to celebrate us as a, as a couple? How willing are you to traverse your own pain and your difficulty? How willing are you to look at as much of life as possible and really absorb it and then be discerning about what you allow in or what you continue to believe is to be true. For me, that willingness, like whether it be with clients, whether it be my friendships with any person that I'm interacting with, that willingness is so powerful for me and it's what, it's a magnet for me. It's like a, what I'm really, really attracted to and what I'm also looking for when I'm working with him.

Stef Sifanos: 04:13 Because if we don't have that willingness, we're closed. We're essentially, we're coming more from fear than we are from courage and theories. Uh, it's a constricted, restricted, tight, rigid place to come from. And so there's very little wiggle room and you know, speaking a little bit to your, your previous career and, and like it got me thinking because I've done a lot, a lot of work with special forces military and it's, I've learned so much from working with these people like so, so much and some of the rigidity that they have found themselves in like you would think, how do you even shift from that, whether it be physically, emotionally underway, willing, willing, you know, in adverse conditions, whether it be our physical environment, our internal landscape in our own spirituality and sense of self when we're, when we're faced with adverse conditions, it's our willingness that instigates our ability to be creative, to move and shift from that place. So if I'm with someone that has zero willingness, it makes it tough, it makes it really difficult.

Aaron: 05:17 Sure. I think we can all relate to it. I mean, regardless of, you know, for those listening, regardless of where you are, we've all experienced that one way or another, whether it's a relationship like you alluded to earlier or you know, somebody is a manager or CEO or, or a team leader or in coaching relationships, we've all been in those situations where we're looking to inspire or influence change in someone, but when there's pushback it makes a lot more difficult. So I, I, I, I love that. And hopefully of course, if your listener of the show, I'm going to assume that you got some willingness to always be learning something new and, and get some new perspective because that's kind of our jam here. So yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm glad to have you here with, look, we catch people up because we were, like I mentioned earlier, we were having a conversation earlier about, um, about masculinity and I was really excited to have a discussion about the topic because we've never really touched on it, at least from my recollection in any of the episodes that I've had on a so far on the podcast here.

Aaron: 06:19 So if we can fast forward to, through to masculinity specifically as a topic, I'd love to get your take on that because that's become at least one of your areas, one of your targeted areas that you specialize in when you work with clients in groups of people. So give me idea of, of number one, what kind of sparks that as being something that felt important to you to kind of focus on and dive into and then help others with that process. And why do you think it's. Why do you feel like it's so, such an important conversation? I certainly have my perspective, but you're the man here. This is your show now here. I got to hear from you. Your take on it.

Stef Sifanos: 06:58 Yeah. That's great, Aaron. Thank you. Yeah. So for me, what really, what really sparked to things in retrospect to one singular experience and then an ongoing experience that really sparked me delving deep into the p...