Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto, savage.com. Today I've got special guest Trevor, the man behind man Uncivilized on the podcast. He's written a great book, he sent me a copy. Amazing book. And he's got a great group all geared towards getting men feeling confident, who they are feeling capable and what they're able to do. And just getting dialed in in life. And stepping away from this overly civilized world we've now found ourselves in.
In which people just seem to lack the the free will and the desire to push things to the limit and be the very best they can be on all fronts, both from a masking standpoint and from an emotional standpoint. So really wanted to just bring him on the podcast, pick his brand as to what led him to create this brand, this ethos, this business around, you know, the the modern man turning guys into better versions of themself and I really enjoy the conversation.
Got a lot of respect for Trevor and what he's trying to accomplish with this, so by all means, give it a listen. Have no doubt you'll take something from it. Without further ado, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Trevor and we're live. Trevor, how are you man? Quite well. Thank you for having me on brother. I am excited to be chatting with you. You were gracious enough to let me jump on your podcast about a month or two back, and I'm excited to get you on my show, ma'am.
Thank you. I got great feedback on that. Just so you know, I had a number of guys be like, OK, that's what I needed. I'm back in the gym this morning. I'm good. Good. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that I got your book sitting right here in front of me. I I confess I have not read it yet, but I've been wrapping your hat like it's going out to stop. Man, I've been wearing that thing nonstop, and I've got your book on my reading list. I just am working through it
slowly but surely. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So for the listeners, give them to context here. We actually met. We're both part of a mastermind group, which we could totally talk about that on the podcast too. I think that's relevant because I've always been super skeptical of mastermind groups. A lot of times are just like a big money grab.
And you and I have joined that one at about the same time, except they haven't learned to call you correctly and they still call you Trevor instead of Trevor for some reason. I noticed that every time and I just want to like interject him like it's Trevor. I think I did. The first time I was like, it's Trevor, but now you're just rolling with it, huh? Yeah, I like it. I like it. So yeah, we're we're on a mastermind group. We're on Rob Bailey's group.
He's got to his clear, calculated and vicious group, which I guess is now called Training Grounds. But that's been, I don't know what do you think so far you think it's been a pretty good group for you cuz we've both been on it for what, three months, maybe four months now? Yeah, you know, I hear the pros and cons and I love Rob. I interviewed Rob, got a feel for him and was like, wow, that's a really unique blend of business acumen artistry.
Like he's an artist and just general bull in a China shop. Ness. Yeah. And like though that that trifecta was something that I found. Hard to find and I I resonated with. I know they've had some challenges like back end like you're probably the only person I've really talked to from the group and and I I run my own group. So I also know it's hard to get people who are busy and who are motivated to then come onto your app and have you know sideline conversations.
But yeah, I I found it to be really valuable. Every week when I show up for the call, I leave and I probably do. 5 to 8 things I wouldn't have done if it even if it's like make the phone call, send the e-mail, you know it's not 5 to 8 like go by the building and launch the new program. So it's it's definitely keeping me on track and it's just it's there's something about men specifically.
We learn by modeling. And so I want to see a guy like Rob doing the things he does so that my male brain goes, hey, you can do that too. Yeah. And so I've found it to be really valuable. Have you made it on pretty much every Tuesday, live call or no? I think I've missed like one when I was traveling in Europe. I've missed more than one for sure, but I try and go back and listen to the replays or even if I'm am traveling maybe have it like in the background playing like last week's.
I jumped on the tail end of it, but then somebody had some questions about starting up a food business. So I jumped in there and tried to obviously value there, which was cool. I like that component of it. Like you've got a collective of people with different skill sets that can offer value in some form or fashion to the whole for. Sure, for sure. But I want to dive into your story man.
So I've like I said, I've got your book Man and Civilized, which is a super sleek looking book by the way. It's almost like a it's like a coffee table esque book. Like I would. I would proudly place this on display because it's just really well formatted. Like about the imagery, the colors. I mean this. This was not a cheap book to print based off the colors I wouldn't think. It's not. And you know what's so interesting about it, Rob, is when I was writing it, I was
dating a designer. And I didn't know when I met her that she was like literally one of the top three designers in New York City, which is just, you know, that's the Super Bowl of that type of work. And I sent her some of the writing. And she's like, this writing is really, really good. I'm not going to lie to you, men won't read like black ink, white paper. If you just do a standard book, this is going to get pushed to the side and it won't make the impact that you want.
So are you okay if I do some design work with it? And this was, you know, 4-5 years ago, I had no understanding of the power of design or I didn't know anything about branding. You know, I was. I was a writer as an acupuncturist. I owned a gym. I just didn't get playing at that level and design at that level.
And now it's it's one of the most integral parts of my business is her the branding that she designed and of that book, that's the feedback that I get most first is like I, you know, I'm sitting on a table of 10 other men's books. I grabbed yours because there's a gorilla on the cover. There's No title on the cover. You know, it's small print. There's this weird symbol on it. Like, that's what grabbed me. So yeah, the genius behind it wasn't mine, but man, is it made
an impact. Hey, well, it's working from a branding standpoint. I love it for sure. Yeah. Thank you. So with with the whole, I don't want to butcher man, So can you define for me what genre you're you're in right now? I'm in what we call the men's space. OK, that's so fun. But I didn't want to like. I didn't want to say that they'd be like.
You know, like Rob, when I have to like fill out, you know, like I've applied for a loan a couple months ago and they're like what space you in. I was like okay, let's try to figure this out of the nine options I've been giving, which was like electronics, retail, plumbing, you know, Yeah, like other and then have to describe it. But there is this idea that that's caught on more so in the last couple years that when I was first playing with this.
It was so niche, like no one knew what the hell we were talking about. I was very fortunate to get into CrossFit in like 06/07. Meaning when when like there were you know, 50 gyms in the world and people were driving 2 to 3 hours to go work out at a CrossFit gym. And then I opened a gym in 09. And for the first two years, we had to explain to everybody what this crazy thing was of people running around the block and flipping tires and.
Doing pull ups that they probably shouldn't have been doing and and yadda, yadda, yadda. And then two years later, people started approaching us like, hey, I saw this on TV, hey, my buddy does this. I know what it is I want to join. And I kind of got to live through that same idea with the men's space. And we're just around, you know, 2011 CrossFit with with men's work, with understanding that men's mental health is different, that men think
differently, act differently. You know need different things that there's there's a a a paradigm around us that is different than the rest of the world and so the space is opening up business wise, you know with with other other guys doing their own movements, different workshops etcetera. But yeah, it's it's kind of elusive still. Like if I pluck someone off the street and said do you know what men's work is? They most likely don't.
And if I go to the coasts, maybe if I'm in California or in New York or even here in Colorado, there's a bit of a push for it. How would you define men's work? Like how if you were to look that up in the dictionary in today's day and age, what would that be defined as? The way I would define it as like a specific path for men to take to be more successful, to be more relational and just to be more satisfied and. Productive and powerful in their lives, right?
It's like we speak a different language. You know, I imagine a lot of your listeners are fitness people. And so if we said, you know, like bodybuilding, like that's just fitness, right? Like it's no different than long distance running. It's no different than like surfing, right? It's just, it's fitness. You'd be like, no, there's a very specific thing that we do for a specific outcome.
And if you run and surf, you're going to, yeah, you're going to get fitness, just like if your bodybuild, you're going to get some fitness. But it's different to be in this particular genre. So like, I've tried to explain this as like when people understand and I have no religious affiliation, but when people understand, say, Christianity, and it lands in them, they're like, OK, there's a pathway here. There's specific things that if I follow. My life will be better.
If I go against my life will be harder, yeah. Right, like that. That's an obtuse way to explain that. When I take a guy and I sit him down, just like I pluck Johnny off the street and I'd sit him down and like, how's your life? You probably like most. Most guys are like, it's fine. I'm like, cool, let's dive into it. You're you're drinking six
nights, six nights a week. You're looking at porn every day, You're £50 overweight, you're on your second divorce, you know your wife's about to leave you and you don't talk to your kids. So tell me again, are you fine? And again, most guys are like, yeah, it's kind of normal. I'm like, OK, normal isn't fine. What if we actually got you in alignment with a couple different concepts and principles #1 integrity. Your thoughts, your words and
your actions have to match. It's really important for men your thought when your thoughts, words and actions match the vision you have for your life. Meaning you have to have a vision. Your life gets even better now. Your thoughts, your words and actions are in alignment with a vision that's actually yours. It's not your dad's, it's not your grandparents, it's not societies. Because you've worked through who you are and what you want as
a man. Now, your life opens up in all kinds of different ways, and that's just like a quick and dirty explanation. Does that make sense? Makes total sense man. And I feel like there's always been that genre in existence. Like if you look at some of the ancient writings from Marcus Aurelius or you look at like Hemingway, there's all this talk of what makes and embodies a well-rounded man. But I feel like it's become more the need for that genre has become more prominent as of
late. And maybe it's a bias that I hold because I am of that age demographic where I'm really trying to be better as a man now that I'm a father especially. But at the same time, I feel like there's also this massive push for demosculating men. And whenever you have this extreme push towards one end of the spectrum of the other, there's going to be an equalizing effect that takes place. And I think that's what we're
experiencing right now. 1000% I love that you said that if we go back in the beginning of time, right? I was fortunate 2 weeks ago to take a jiu jitsu seminar with Halleck. Gracie and Halleck is horrian son. Horrian started the UFC. So hallecks in like the upper echelon of jiu jitsu. Family elites like like monarchy, let's say right? He's like the Crown Prince of jiu jitsu or one of and he sat down with us and said there's a thread.
That's gone back from the beginning of time, through fighting and through martial arts. And I feel blessed just to be in the last chapter and continuing this same thread. And I'm. I just got chills telling you that story because I got chills in the audience saying, oh, there's a thread that's gone back from the beginning of time from guys sitting around a campfire. To Marcus Aurelius, to guys in
the 60s, to guys in the 70s. I know we jumped a bit there, but from you know to guys in the 80s to guys in the 90s to now. And I feel very blessed just to be at the forefront of this next chapter which in in your description, I don't think it's age, brother, I think you are of an age and I'm 47 where I remember or I've watched the the pathway of masculinity change.
Right. It went from perhaps in the I grew up in the 70s and 80s where it was this very stoic, you know, kind of 1950s Marlboro, who are our idols, Rambo, commando, GI Joe, like guys that that were just kicking ass in the world but didn't have any emotional intelligence or that wasn't celebrated. And then boom. 10 years ago, the pendulum swung the other way. And it was like Rambo commando GI Joe. That's toxic. That's awful. We need to get rid of that.
We need sensitive, emotionally intelligent, very feminine men. And we need to like I I say we threw the masculine baby out with a toxic bathwater. That's what we kind of did societally. Like, wow, men do really bad shit. And I agree with you. I agree with people who say that some men do really bad shit. So unfortunately what we did as society that said okay blanket statement, all men bad, all masculinity bad, anything that has to do with masculinity toxic.
And as you pointed out, that created a backlash, not just of men. When I started doing this writing and speaking 5-6 years ago, what was wild Robert was how many women would reach out and say fuck thank you? Thank you so much. And not only do I want this kind of man as a partner, like a strong, stoic, leader based, you know, faith-based, emotionally intelligent, like I want both. But I I can't say that publicly or I'll get annihilated by my female friends, by feminists, by the culture.
I have to say, like, all masculinity is toxic. And I was like, holy shit, this is crazy. And now here we are, you know, five years later, and those people are it's public. You can say that. You can actually say, like, hey, it's okay for a man to be strong. It's okay for a man to want to be strong. Actually, we need strong men. But what we also need is men who have worked through their
trauma, right? The the, the subtext of my whole movement of the uncivilized is to end the unnecessary suffering in men. And here's why. So that we end the suffering caused by men. Now what we haven't really grasped as a society is that a lot of the really bad shit that men do is because a lot of really bad shit has happened to those men. Now that's a full stop, right? As a culture, especially here in the West, we're like, no, no, no, no, that's that's fine.
Like they they just need to man up. They need to get over that. I get it. He came back from war, saw a lot of really horrible stuff. Give him like a couple Valium and and a 12 pack and tell him to like toughen up and he'll be fine. Like, we we haven't really figured out that a lot of men have been abused. A lot of men have been sexually assaulted. A lot of men grew up in houses that would make your head spin around. Like, I know this because these are the guys that come to me.
They come to the workshops that come to the events that they pull me aside afterwards. Like, hey, this is what I grew up. These are my clients, right? And it's not just guys who have lived through horrible shit, but it's it's like, it's an unknown. If you try this, like grab, you know, five women off the street and say what percentage of men do you think were sexually assaulted as little boys? And it will be something like 3%, you know, it's like a 1%.
Like it doesn't really happen. Like, how could it happen? They're bullet, you know, they're they're they're men, too. And you realize, wow, it's like 3040%, it's some crazy number like, oh, no wonder that dude grew up to like be a terrible human, to be an alcoholic, to be an addict, to be a school shooter, to be whatever it was.
And and we just haven't really. I know I'm on a soapbox here as a culture decide to go like oh shit, in order to stop the the predator or the, you know, the bad person, we actually have to dress the human who's underneath him. Yeah, I completely agree man. I I don't like this notion that being tough and quote UN quote manly is mutually exclusive of having emotional intelligence and being sensitive.
Like there is a symbiotic relationship that can be shared there and if you there there's a yin Yang. Like if you get one dialed in it can only benefit the other if done properly if they're you know in Symphony together. And, like, I feel like, like I look at my own life and I've certainly got a lot that I can prove upon. But I would definitely consider myself, you know, I've got emotional moments. I've got very sensitive moments.
I have a lot of feelings. But I don't think that discredits my masculinity at all. Like, I'm incredibly confident in who I am as a man. And it's because I have those components to my life as opposed to just, you know, burying them down deep inside of me and never, never opening them up. Yeah, we we like ASK men and and we're guilty of this too. Right.
Like, it's not just this. Like society's not just this external thing that lives way out there and isn't comprised of individuals that we also like, bury it ourselves. Or we we we ask ourselves or we ask other men to simply not be human. I'm like, if something bad happened in your life, that's going to create an emotional response. I don't care who you are. I don't care what color you are. I don't care how much you weigh. I don't care how much money you have.
I don't care what your religion is like, that there's a natural response to something bad happening. And if we're able to and when we're able to actually process and work through that as no matter what gender, sex, however you relate like, then you actually get to clear it out of your system, right? Like that's just basic humanity. It's like men and women both need food. Period. I don't care. If anyone wants to argue with that one, go for it. Just like bad shit happens to everybody.
We just process it differently and and like you said, I think there needs to be the balance when bad things have happened in my life. Like a couple months ago I had a a family member unfortunately take his own life. It fucked me up. I went to therapy. I talked to professionals. I talked to my girlfriend about it. I cried about it. I wrote letters, You know, I sat by the fire.
But you know what else I did? I trained my ass off because it actually, like, OK, I want to do something with all of this energy, right? I'm upset. I'm, I'm, I'm angry. I'm. I can't control what happened. What can I control today? I can go to the fucking gym, right? 225 is 225 whether somebody died or they didn't die. So I'm going to use this energy for something.
I think that that combo I found when when men have access to that primal side too with like I've had bad shit happen and surf the biggest waves of my life, you know, come back in and like OKI feel a little bit better. I think I can tackle the day now right? But it doesn't excuse me from actually having to also deal with the thing that happened. But one of the challenges with men's mental health in our society is I think we take that mostly a feminine approach to it.
You either ignore it and do the whole like you just got to man up and get over that, or we take the like, just tell me about your feelings, like let's get lost in this array and sea of feelings. And after the session, don't go okay cool tomorrow, get up and run a 5K because you're also going to feel better from doing that. You're right. It's the yin and Yang of it's both. That's how we really make some
shifts in in men. Yeah, I feel like for me, whenever I've gone through a period of turmoil, if I can have just my nutrition and my training dialed in, that gives me enough of a firm footing to crawl out of whatever hell I currently find myself in. But if I didn't have that, I would be truly lost. And that doesn't have to be the outlet for like for some it may be. Some other art form or something. You know, getting out in the woods, something.
But you gotta have, you gotta have something to give yourself a firm footing or else you will be lost. Yeah. We like I tell people the the feminine and we can call that whatever energy it's. It's more in women but we definitely have it And if people don't like the term feminine, call it something else. But it's very it's the feeling emotion. It's the feeling energy, right? The masculine, us men or whatever we want to call it, is the doing energy.
And so we need to be doing. It's just we we are I I just cannot take. I can't tell you how many men when I go back to the original thing that we talked about like having a purpose and having a vision. When I've gotten men who come into my orbit who are lost, they just got divorced. They just lost their job. You know a parent died a kid was sick. Something awful happened. And I'm like, what are you focused on right now? I'm just focused on that.
OK, cool. Do that for like 2 weeks because I get it. It's a big deal. And what's the thing that you're going to put your attention on afterwards? Because there needs to be another side to the coin or there needs to be a yes and right. Like, yes, I'm depressed. Yes, I'm upset. Yes, I'm hurt. And there's this thing over here that's bigger than me. For me, it was writing books and building the movement, right? Like, that's how I got through my divorce.
I wrote books. I had something I had to get up and do every day that was bigger than me, like an idea that was bigger than me. So you said, like, training and nutrition, you got to do that. It's not just a feeling thing. It's like, OK, you're not going to feel your way. You don't sit on your couch and feel your way through a gym exercise. You drive to the damn gym, you pick up the bar, you push it over your head, etcetera. So I I think it's that blend of of of feeling and doing.
And the challenge we've had in the past societally is men have been asked and then tasked with just doing. We've had them for so many decades be like don't feel, because if you feel we can't get you to do all this stuff that we need you to do. And then the pendulum swung the other way and it was like just feel.
And now we have an entire generation of young men who've dropped out of school, who've dropped out of college, who dropped out of the workforce, who are completely out of shape and are just sitting in their parents house. I know I'm going to pick on video games, but you know, getting high, playing video games and looking at porn, they're not doing. And guess what? They're not happy. They're not successful. They're not satisfied. They don't have joy.
I'm not saying that the tragedy is that they're not out there contributing to our society. I'm saying let's take it even a level lower. They're just not happy people. And and that to me is the shame because they've been lied to. They got sold a false bill of goods. And so when I get guys that age, I'm like, cool, you got to set some goals, right? We get guys in their 50s that come into the program, Robert, and it's like awesome. You've crushed all your goals. How do you feel?
They're like, well no one's asked me that in 30 years, like, OK, I just asked you, it's going to be a foreign question. And then we get these younger guys come in and like, cool, I know how you feel. Now what are you going to do? And they're like, oh, no one's ever asked me that. Like, I know I'm going to sit right in the middle and piss both you guys off. Alright, let's.
Go This is honestly probably why I think I'm having a vehicle that allows some forward momentum and like tangible progress that can be grasped and built upon. But allows you to play into both this action of doing and also this sense of emotion and feeling is key. And for me like business is that vehicle, like with business you have to put forth action, but you also have to be strategic and how you act, dress, you're just going to be pissing in the
wind so to speak. So like business has been that vehicle for me and. Again, I'm assuming there's lots of different vehicles depending on the personality type, but like you need to have something like training's great as well, but I you could easily just, you know, going to the gym and crush it but then not allow that to tap into the emotional state. Like you have to have both, for sure. Yeah. I I agree with you, man.
And I know we're probably biased because I know this works for us. It's like it's it's the vehicle that we've chosen. But I don't know about you, but I have found entrepreneurship and business to be one of the most emotionally stretching and enlightening activities I've ever engaged in 100%. It is a whirlwind of emotion and I think I know your business. So I believe this, even though I'm just going to project it, that like it's feeling.
You have to feel like you got to get a gut sense of like I started uncivilized off on like a gut feeling. I didn't look at the market and go, oh, you know what? I think will be really nifty. I'll just talk to men and have people call me a misogynist for three years and then this thing will take off. It wasn't like an analytical process. It was man, I think we need this and I think I need it. Fuck, I can feel this in my stomach. It actually went against common
knowledge. It went and I know many people said, like, don't do this terrible business idea. Men don't buy anything. Men don't spend money, especially not in self development. Like, whatever. You just like, create a product for women. I was like, Nah, I really want to work with us. You know, I imagine you went through a lot of the similar with keto or the general public's. Like, wait a minute, you haven't had a carb since 2006. How do you eat McDonald's?
Yeah, I don't. That's the fucking point. Like, well, that's crazy. How are you going to start a business based off that? Like your gut had to believe it, right? 100% man like you, you've got to have. The feeling and like it all goes in unison. So I'm a big believer in the entrepreneurship component for for me and for you it sounds like as well. So how does your framework work exactly? Like when when people come to
you, like what? What is your avatar, so to speak, of a client that comes to you? They're wanting to improve upon their current life standing. They've got emotional distress, they've got lack of action. Like, who is the typical avatar and what are the steps look like to getting them to the next level? Great question. You know, it's probably 2 primary avatars, the one I mentioned, The two kind of I mentioned earlier, I'll get guys a lot of them.
And perhaps it's because my first book was about, you know, using your divorce to change and up level your life. And a lot of men come to consciousness like the the getting hit by the the two by four of a divorce is what wakes them up. Like suddenly they realize, oh shit, I've just been skating along or I've been burying my problems and now here I am on rock bottom because my wife just left. I'm living in a studio, you know, I got to pay mortgage on on their house and I got to pay
alimony and blah blah, blah. I've just woken up. I get that guy a lot. Do you know the statistics on divorce by chance of? It's like more than 50% or something, right around 50% of marriages this day and age in the divorce, I think, right? It's like 56. Yeah, so like the obesity percentage of the American population that is considered obese and the percentage of the American population whose marriages in the divorce are both north of 50%, which are two staggeringly sad statistics.
Yeah, second divorce. That's crazy crazy. Rob is like 73. And what that's not even taking into account though and this is where I also get a lot of men is Oh no, I can't afford to get divorced or we're not going to get divorced because of the kids. But I am miserable, right. So so if to answer your question, so the avatars are that's one. The second is the one I mentioned.
Prior is like a younger guy, mid 20s, early 30s, kind of like like maybe a little bit of a failure to thrive or lack of motivation. Most for the younger guys, they're lost. That's really it. Like, I don't know what to do with myself as a man. I don't really know who I am as a man. I don't what it know. I don't know what it means to be a man. And then the older guys, it's the I I know what it is to be a man. But that needs to get rewritten, right?
If you look on the front and the back of the book, on the front is the gorilla, on the back is the Buddha and I had so the primal masculine or the divine masculine, the older guy, he's primal, he's, he's gone out there and kicked ass. He's made money. He's built companies. He's, you know, he's got kids. He knows, he knows, he knows who he is. He doesn't know how to feel. He doesn't know how to be in relationship. He doesn't understand that emotion is actually the glue of
relationship. So this is a guy that we we get in and go, hey, how do you feel? Is like, I don't know. When was the last time you expressed anything but facts and logic to your wife? I I never have. Well, no wonder she's going to leave. She thrives off of emotion. She thrives off of feeling. Right. And then we take the younger guy and go, cool. What are you going to do with yourself? I don't know. What do you want to do? I don't know. OK, well we need to sort this through.
So the first thing, the sort of analysis is, are you way over on the primal side and you need some more emotional intelligence, consciousness divine, for lack of a better term, or are you way over here on the emotional intelligence, feeling divine side and we need to get you a little more primal. And So what the very first thing I do, and I think this is a huge, huge, huge piece that so many men don't have, is we get
them around other men. We are so isolated as dudes or we have these very, very superficial relationships. So you ask a lot of guys, do you have eight people that you could call at 2:00 in the morning when shit hit the fan and they're like, most of them will say, like, I don't have even one or
two, like, OK, we need, we need to change that. #2 I want you, the stoic 50 year old dude is about to get divorced, to watch a guy who has emotional intelligence, who understands how to be vulnerable, understands when to be vulnerable. I want to I want you to watch him do that. I want to watch. I want you to watch him share the realness of like, fuck, this bad thing happened to me. I'm, I'm struggling right now like it's OK to actually say those words.
I want you to experience what that's like, to be in relationship with another man who's being real and honest with you because the word vulnerable throws a lot of people off. So we just say what what's honest, how you doing, you're not doing okay, be honest about that.
Then we take the younger guy or the guy that's all feeling based and we put him with another dude who's out there kicking ass in the world who's saying see this guy, he's got a vision, he's got a purpose, he's got goals, he's got discipline.
This is why it's kind of trophy, probably like the the cold shower thing and you know Jordan Peterson, make your bed jocko, get up at 4:30 that that really appeals to the younger demographic because no one said like, hey, you got to get out there and start like doing some shit with yourself. So first thing we do is is is like get them in a group with other people. Men learn by modeling. We see it. We can do it. And why do you think there's been a decline in that tight
knit man to man relationship? Do you think it's because of social media and it just becomes easier to be superficial? What do you think the catalyst is for that lack of just true camaraderie and friendship like there seems to have been in the past? This is controversial, but I'll say it I think the late 90s, early 2000s, like the worst and and and I grew up then, so I can say it like the fear of being gay. Yeah, it's a biggie, right?
Like I say to my male friends, I say to the fucking president of my company because I've known him for years and he's like, he's a brother. I'll be like, I love you, you know, get off on a call like, love you, man. Have a great weekend like that is. And I have zero, like, attraction to that dude. Yeah, zero. He's got like a £600 deadlift by the way. It's like that fear I think was first. So what we did is that we outsourced our emotion to women. That's what we were taught.
Hey, if I tell my buddy, hey I'm if my if I cry in my buddy's arms, anyone see that like gay. So that's part one. So that taught me take the only time I'm allowed to be emotionally expressive is with women. Then what happens is I may cry in front of Susan, who then goes, wow, you're kind of a puss and and breaks up with me. And I've now learned I can never show emotion to anybody. I can't share anything. I have to keep it to myself, right? Because if I do it with guys,
I'm going to be viewed one way. If I do it with women, I'm going to be viewed as weak. I'm going to be viewed as weak across the board. Now you said the magic 2 words, which I think are such a blessing. And I've also turned our society on its head. Social media. Not only is it social media, but we have a younger generation specifically that has learned how to only have relationship through technology, right? And then you don't express emotion through text.
You don't really share like real shit through text, right? Here's a crazy story. I was. I was leaving Jiu Jitsu the other day and one of the guys I was training with was joking that his 16 year old son doesn't want his driver's license. And I was like, what? What do you mean he doesn't want his driver's license? He's like, yeah, none of his friends wanna drive. I was like, what do you how old are you, Rob?
Yeah. 3131, okay. So maybe this was you're you're probably like, you're you're just out of it. But when I was 15, turning 16, like that was the number one priority because it was freedom. Because that meant I got to get five guys in a car and we drive around all night pretending to be cool and didn't matter. But like, that's how we got together. And so I was like, well, what did these guys do? I asked the guy about his son. He's like, oh, they're just all on like FaceTime, all night
together. I was like, oh, they don't need to be in the same room. But man, I don't know about you. Some of the the most, like, best relationships of my life were built sitting in someone's basement, you know, fucking off, listening to music, drinking beer when we shouldn't have been, you know, going hiking, going camping, like doing stuff
together. And so I think that combo or that trifecta of sharing what's real being viewed as weak plus tech where we now so many guys get 80% of their emotional community, camaraderie, sexual needs met via via technology that they're not willing to go the extra 20% which requires them to leave their houses. That makes sense.
That makes total sense. I feel very blessed because like, I've got, I don't know, I've got a family farm that I've grown up with, been our family for four or five generations. And all of my childhood memories, like really good memories to high school and college and what not, was getting the guys down the farm, shooting guns, blowing things up, drinking way too much beer. Like that was all things that
kind of built. Like it wasn't necessarily the healthiest outlet of my time, but it was primitive, It was pristine. It was beautiful, yeah. And it was for the time, it was probably healthy. Like it like what it what it built was healthy. It built camaraderie. They built brotherhood. It built laughter. It built connection.
Like, I bet if you reached out to any of those dudes, like, hey, remember that time we were on the farm shooting that, you know, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Remember 100% one of his birthdays today. So I just texted him before we jumped on his podcast and told him I love him, man. And exactly. There's no doubt that I'm not gay and he's not gay. So it's like, it just works, You know, it's it's it's the truth
and you. But you guys built the relationship in a real space outside where you where you could, like see each other, touch each other, hug each other. Like there it was real. Drink beer, laugh, clap each other on the back, wrestle a little bit. Like that was real. And so it's really unfortunate to actually talk to young men and and share that, like, hey, have you ever thought about this? Like, imagine five of your buddies out camping. Yeah, no, like it'll it'll never
happen. Like we just text each other. So so you bring these guys of two different spectrums together physically, like this is all done in person or how how is frustrated? Yeah, we, I mean, we do have an online platform, but we also have live groups all over the world and say like, come to a group, come to a meeting and a meeting may be like 8 guys are going hiking this weekend. And at the top of the hike, they're actually going to have a
real conversation, right? Like there there is, there is an element. It's not just like, oh, all you need to do is hike, right? There are elements of like, hey, what's really going on with you? Where are you struggling? Where are you, where are you thriving? Like that needs to be celebrated, right? This is something that's that's really missing from a lot of men's lives. I heard Martin Shaw talk about
this. He said that there's a difference between like a blessing from an older person and a blessing is when an older person has seen you struggle and said, hey brother, I see you. Like, I know you just went through that thing and that's a different, like, level of nourishment than a like on a social media pic, right? Or a buddy saying, like, kind of joking with you, but but not they're like, oh, you really kicked ass, wimp, you know, or
something. It's like there's nourishment is a word that I really like to play with talking about all of this, especially to to an audience that understands fitness, right? Like a like on a social media post is like a bite of cup noodle, but someone pulling you aside in person, putting their arm around you and saying, like, brother, I see you, you're a great dad. I watch how you are with your kids.
Like, imagine the difference between that, like you posting a picture with your kids online and someone liking it, or a mentor, an older guy in your community pulling you aside and they're like, man, I'm watching you, you're doing really good as a dad. Night and day difference. Night and day, right? Yeah. Night and day difference. Do you have. That's a lot of the process. Do you have kids, Driver? I don't. I don't. What do you think? Like, what's your opinion?
You may not have kids yourself, but I feel like because you're working with so many guys that likely do. What is your stance on parenting in the current day and age Like? Do you feel like that is where a lot of this is going sideways? I do. And I'll say that again, like the asterisks by everything I say is I don't have kids. But what I have seen specifically, and since we're talking about men, is that the role of fatherhood has been
disregarded in society at large. It's like we don't you don't really even need Dad's, You just need Dad's money. Dad can work all day and then go hide out in the man cave all all night. Like, that's kind of okay societally, but it's a tragedy to the individual child. That child will grow up missing something. Like it's there's a Direct Line of nourishment that comes from having an active father, whether it's to a daughter or to a son. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a massive Rob.
I think it's massive. There's a big issue. Being a dad and being a parent like the Exactly get to parent your children exactly right. Like when I was growing up. A lot of the dads, and God bless them, like the the society at the time was like, your job is just to work. That's it. Like if you just work and there's food on the table and there's a roof over their heads and you can pay for education, you've done a great job. Now what we're what we know is like, oh, that dad actually has
to be engaged with the child. He has to teach the son how to be a man, right. Otherwise, the son learns from the mother about to be a man, and that's not that's not her job and so she cannot do that job. Or and we can look at how many households don't have a father present in them. And yes, Sir, that also means there's some socioeconomic challenges most often. But even if there aren't socioeconomic challenges, that child will have a like an exponentially higher rate of
challenges for across the board. Health challenges, obesity challenges, problems with authority, problems in education, problems in relationship problems with addiction. Like we you need the masculine energy in a household. I think it's a big, big issue that we're still tiptoeing around. It's weird that it's such a strange, like, polarizing topic though. Like, I feel like like Jordan Peterson has done a really good job at eloquently illustrating
these different needs. Male and female and it it's it's very controversial. Like, there's a lot of people up in arms about it, but I don't like a lot of people dislike Jordan Peterson immensely. But I've listened to his podcast, I've, I've read his books, and there's not really been anything. He said that I'm like, man, that's incredibly far out there. Like everything he says seems to
make pretty good sense. He's calling out the insanity that is prevalent right now, like you listed an obesity statistic. My background is in medicine, and I have a master's degree in traditional Chinese medicine. I was licensed by the state of California as primary care means. I could be people's physicians. And yet, if I say, hey, having a like this much extra body fat on
anybody has the propensity. Not a guarantee, but the propensity for these four or five biological issues, these four or five disease pathways will most likely show up. If you are over a certain weight, I will get skewered publicly. How dare you? Why are you fat phobic? Why are you racist? Why are you whatever everything. Phobic. Why do you hate humans? Like I don't like? We've just lost our minds in 2023. Like, think of what you're asking.
Like, why is it a weird notion to say that two parents in a household will most likely do better than one parent? And of course we're taking the asterisks of, like, one of those parents being a sociopath or psychopath out of the picture. Yeah, it's just it's it's weird, man. I don't fucking know. That's why I named my movement uncivilized. Because I felt like we've gotten so weirdly civilized that we're like, hey, all the stuff that we actually know to be fact that's now controversial.
Yeah, it's it's strange because like who am I to say that my way is better than anybody else's? I mean I'm a pretty live and let live kind of guy, but I look at my relationship with my wife and it works really well. Like we have a very solid relationship and we have very clear defined roles as to, you know, what her expectations are as a mother, as a wife, what mine are as a father and a husband. And like I guess it it could be viewed as oldfashioned.
But like she's totally receptive and respective towards that's what she wants and and thrives with. That's what I thrive with and we're very cohesive and we're able to just exponentially grow at a much faster rate than if we tried to step on each other's toes and fill that void doing what is better determined for the other person to do. Like, I I don't know why that is such a controversial thing and that's that's probably for people who punch a girl above
our weight class. I think what needed to happen and did happen was that the option for choice needed to be there. So if you and your wife wanted to have the opposing relationship where she's the breadwinner and she's the one out crushing it in business and you're the stay at home dad, amazing, that's that's perfectly cool. That's great. If that works for the for a couple, amazing. No shame, no blame, no finger pointing, no less than no
whatever. But the challenge is we opened up all of these options and said if now, if you choose to do the original option, there's something wrong with you. Yeah, I think people need to be objective. Like if what you're doing is completely counter to what I'm doing and it's working for you, I mean, freaking rock on. Keep doing it. Do it. But if you are incredibly unhappy. Unfit your relationships on the rocks and everything's in terminal, then I think it's imperative that you be very
objective with that. And I mean, what is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same different results, like that's likely not your best trajectory. Yeah, I mean, we've gotten away from just the evidence of reality. Like when I get those guys. Remember I said I'll get guys will show up and be like, oh, I'm fine, I'll be cool, Let's let's peel back a layer and look at the evidence.
Oh you're not fine. People who are fine don't drink every night, don't have a small coke habit, aren't jerking off to porn 2 hours a day even though they're married. Right. Do have kids that talk to them like this is we we've we've just show me the evidence and I'll show you how you're doing. Very much so that if I showed up to your gym and I was like, man, I am so damn strong.
I'm one of the strongest people on Earth and you're like, cool, let's let's put you down on the bench and I get stuck under a £45 bar on a single Rep you're gonna be like, well. You may not be the strongest man in the world. What you're doing, what you're doing for training, it could be better. Let's just say perhaps the evidence is pointing out that you what you're doing isn't working. I am with you, man.
If it works for you. I think everybody gets to design their whole life however they want. Yeah, but don't challenge my evidence. Don't challenge my way of doing it if your evidence isn't better than mine. Yeah, that's a fair statement. So I didn't mean to derail your your protocol here. So you bring these guys together, you put them in unison so they can kind of you know model and reflect and learn from each other as they're on different ends of the spectrum.
What what's next in that, in that that that time piece there. I want to look at two things, Rob, Like I want to look at above the surface and below the surface. So if say you come in, you're like, hey, I want this life, I want this vision like, and we can use the idea of like, let's say you want to and I'm not you personally. A guy shows up and is like, hey, I want to lose 30 pounds.
I'm like, cool if we let's look at above the surface and he's like, I don't live within 50 miles of a gym. Like the only store within a 50 mile radius is a 711. That's where I get my food and like, I have no access to the Internet and I've got 2 broken elbows like, cool above the surface. We need to change that. Like we need to change your situation so that you get where you want to go. So that may be cool. You got to move, right? You got to move closer to a gym.
We got to get your elbows looked at. We got to get you understanding nutrition. Now say we have the same dude and he lives upstairs from a Gold's Gym. Across the street is a Whole Foods and he makes 6 figures so he can afford both. But what's under the surface is this huge amount of trauma right from his first grade teacher to his dad to his neighborhood kids. They all told him he was a piece of shit. He'd never amount to anything.
He was worthless, right? He was always going to be a fat kid. Nobody likes him. We could, we could put all of the above ingredients in his face and he's he's not going to do a thing. We need to get what's at what's below the OR below the surface of the story there, the trauma there. So what we'll do is actually work with that guy with a therapist or with some coaches, someone who's got training on how to rewrite and renavigate that that story.
So really, I want to look at that like above and below with every man who comes in and the protocol is to have that man start to look at. Oh man. OK, I have this vision, I have this purpose, but I keep getting tripped up by this one thing. OK, cool. You're self aware. You you're contemplative. What? What do you think it is? I don't know. I don't know. OK, cool. Let's get you into over here with some of our professionals who can help you navigate the story of of what's tripping you up.
Or let's get you over here with some professionals who can help you work into how do you get better resourcing to do the thing that you want to do. Like I think at the at the, you know I gave you the tagline, right? I'd like to end the suffering in men so that we end the suffering caused by men. But one of the biggest sufferings in men is that they don't know what they want to do with themselves. Or if they do know what they want to do with themselves, they don't know how.
So I work on a very down to earth 3D level as well as and we can go up into the, you know, what are the masculine, feminine dynamics like? You know, how are you sourcing power? Where are you sourcing power from? I I speak fucking chakras. I went to acupuncture school. We can get to, we can get metaphysical, we can get spiritual if you want. But most guys need to start here on the ground. What do you want from your life? What is the life that you want to live? Is it yours?
Right is. Are you the 9th generation of guys who who became doctors? But man, you are a fucking ballet dancer and an artist. Then stop trying to be a doctor like we need to. We need to literally get guys to be honest with themselves, to get some self knowledge, to get some introspection of what do you want from your life Now? If you are with us, if you are in our group, if you are on our team of uncivilized, you will relentlessly pursue that vision.
You will do that through creating strong relationships. We're going to teach you how to be in relationship. That's such a big turn. It doesn't mean we're going to teach you how to have a lover or a girlfriend or a wife or a husband. Means we're going to teach you how to be relational. How to engage with the world, how to engage with energy, how to engage with power, how to engage with money, how to engage with food. You have relationships with all of these things.
We got to tap you into your innate power. You as a man are are here, like literally to penetrate the world with your ideas, with your unique vision. We're going to give you permission to do that and teach you how to do that. We got to get you wrong. We got to get tapped back into primal fucking energy. Like when I was first coaching Rob, every one of my clients was powerlifting. I would get guys from like, the IT world. I would get guys like high level
accountants. Never been an athlete in their entire lives, but their marriage is falling apart. They have no sex life. Their woman's about to leave them. I was like, yeah, you got to meditate. You got a journal. You got to do other emotional stuff. You got to learn how to deadlift too, because there are lessons in there specifically for you as a man, of striving, of being like, I'm tired, but I got three more sets, I'm going to do it
right. A feeling when you walk down the street, the difference of when your chin is up and your shoulders are down and you're facing the world head on. Or where you're collapsed and you're crumpled up in a little ball and you just hope no one notices you. Does that makes sense? Yeah, I think, yeah.
If you were to distill all that down to its essence, I feel like guys need to simply do hard shit, like, and hard shit is going to be totally relative based off of their perspective of what hardship they've gone through and done in their life up to that point. But guys need to fight a battle of some form or fashion on a daily basis.
And if they are seeking protection and safety at all times and are, you know, withdrawn within themselves and not willing to fight that battle, they will never likely gain the confidence of perspective they need to truly reach their full potential, 1000%. Here's the only piece I'm going to add to it. They need to do all of that in relationship. So they need to do it in community. They need to do it in brotherhood. They need to do it with other people.
I think it's one of the biggest detractors to male success and one of the biggest additions to male mental health challenges is this sense of isolation. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I put on an event. I put on a workshop, I put on a gathering where I've spent, like weeks of my life planning,
practicing, teaching. Like getting ready for it and then asking the guys at the end what was the most valuable part of this and having them say, man, I had, I had conversations over breakfast with another dude. I've never done that before. I suddenly realized that men could be my friends, that they weren't just competition. They weren't my abusive older brother. They weren't going to try to steal women from me Like I I have. I have friends. These guys are. They were cool.
They were nice to me. They were kind to me, they supported me, they held me when I cried, they high fived me when I won and I'm like, fuck, I shouldn't have planned so much and awesome like beautiful. If that's the medicine and the nourishment that you got. Now you realize that that's out there in the world as well, right? I forget then you may too, that not everybody came up through. Like a gym where you can ask someone to spot you.
A jiu jitsu class where the guy who just choked the shit out of you is now going to teach you how to defend the very move he used against you. A CrossFit gym where we're going to high 5, The last person in as as heartily as we high 5, The person who won. Most people don't have that experience of any level of support. Most people and most men are in even bigger category of that.
In fact, they have the opposite. I started the Uncivilized Nation, the actual men's group, because I had a cop reach out to me. It's like 7 years ago, man. And he's like, hey, I read your book. I started meditating. I told the guys in my department, now they're making fun of me. Now they're like leaving little things on my desk and calling me
a pussy and this and this. And I was like, you have got to be kidding me. In a profession that has your addiction and suicide and mental health challenges, you are getting shamed for meditating by the very people that are supposed to support you. And it was it was a light bulb moment for me because I went OK, this is, this is probably a lot of men's experience that we live in different worlds where I'm like, dude, you just made an extra $1,000,000 last year. Fuck yeah. Good for you.
Let me take you out to dinner. Let me high five you. Let me hug you like you just hit a PR. Fuck, yeah. Like most people succeed in silence and suffer in silence. Men specifically. Yeah, 100% man. So, So talk to me about this group specifically, people listen, if they're interested in jumping on this, getting involved, getting intertwined, building relationships, what does that look like? Tans like, do they sign up on a on the website, like how does
that structured? Yeah, yeah, we do openings twice a year, Uncivilized nations, about 300 men right now. We do have live groups that are like all over the US, couple in Europe. So basically just go to manuncivilized.com/thenation or reach out to me Trevor at man on civilized.com or hit me up on Instagram and we you. We do 2 openings a year because we run guys through a six week
like class 1st of like. It's basically like the same of, you know, joining any gym, like this is what a hinge is, this is what a squad is. But for us it's more of like this is what resistance is. This is what connection means. This is what meditation is. This is why you want to get in touch with your feelings. This is what a cold shower feels like. You don't like that good.
That's what doing hard shit is. And you're on a team with other guys like these are your brothers throughout the journey. So we like to get people going, you know, in a group. But we've also had people join. We haven't joined throughout the year as long as they know somebody in the group. So we know the kind of guy that they are. And then every month, Rob, we put on different challenges,
have him read a different book. I bring a specific teacher in, you know, to talk about whatever it may be. This year we're breaking down for archetypes. Each quarter we're looking at the king, the warrior, the magician and the lover. And right now we're in the magician archetype. So this month I have a buddy of mine who's like photographed like Jayz and Taylor Swift and all these famous people. He's like this freak artist.
And I talked to these men about how you created your life, how you went from a guy who grew up in a very Christian home, even though you weren't Christian, and decided to go against your parents wishes of you becoming a priest and you became a photographer. Now there's a million damn photographers who haven't photographed Jayz and all these famous people. How did you make that magic in your life? Like that's what we're working
on this month. And truthfully, at the end of this week we have a big live gathering here in Denver. Guys are showing up from all over the world and we're not doing anything of importance. We're racing go karts. We're going hiking. We're having a BBQ. You know, like we're just enjoying each other. We're just hanging out. We're having very real conversations. But it's not teaching based or like, you know, progress based. It's just, man, I look forward
to this every year. Like let's just get a bunch of really cool dudes in the same room or in the same house and hang out, you know? So there's a bit of that too. And you do the meet ups like that, that's every quarter. You send the big meet up We do every year. But a lot of the small groups will meet every two to three weeks depending on on like they get to set the frequency. No. Depending on if it's a bunch of guys who travel for work, it may be once a month.
We have some groups that meet every week and it's just bringing forward, you know, like we have a protocol for them. But a lot of times you may have a guy that's like going through a divorce or a guy that's like selling his company or a guy who's got a sick kid or a guy who's, you know, like his parents are dying. Like there's real shit. So it's I just, I want to make it clear like it's not just a
support group. You also have guys that are like, I'm writing my 4th book and it's it's hard, you know, like I just, I just need to know you guys are here or like, hey us as a group. We have a group that's like doing the 10X is is easier than two X. You ever read that book? I have not no amazing, amazing book and they've just all collectively been like, cool. Let's see if we can't 10X our income and do it relationally
right? Like do it in community with each other like supporting each other through it you have. It's basically like a mastermind, like we have that too. Yeah, there, there's something special. You can't even put it into words about the power that comes out of just simply getting a relatively small group of guys together to just simply be together without any, you know, preordained goal or mission or Lesson plan. Like just simply getting them
together outside their normal. Environment, their normal routine and just letting the magic happen. Like every year I I've got a hunting group that I take people in the Quito space. You know, these are doctors, athletes, professionals of some form or fashion. We all just get out in the woods and we just hunt.
But since we're at a campfire at the end of the day, cooking food that we've killed and just talking about our lives like, you know, you hear about the relationships, you hear about the parenting struggles you hear about. The career path pitfalls. Like you hear about all these things and you connect in a way that you never would be able to over a Instagram DM or Facebook Messenger and that. Like those. The moments I freaking live for,
man, right? And when you said in the beginning like this, that's been happening since the beginning of time? Yeah, like there's a through. I just got chills again. There's a through line of 1000 years ago, I guarantee you a group of dudes sitting around the fire, eating food that they killed, grunting each to each other about challenges they have with their women, challenges they have with their bodies, challenges of getting older, challenges of not getting, you know, like all the things.
It's just real. It's raw, it's real, and it's relational. Like that is the essence of what we do, and that is the essence of the medicine that men need now more than ever when they live in a sterile, fake, isolated world. Completely agree ma'am. Completely agree. Where are you located? I'm just north of Denver. I'm in between Denver and Boulder in a town called Westminster, Co. Nice, nice. I got a ton of traveling come up this year, man, but I may actually be going through that
area at some point. We need to stop. Please hit me up if you're here. Get a Get a steak grilled or something. Just catch up man steak in a pound of butter. Yes, steak, pound of butter and some deadlifts and and we're both golden. I'm game, man. Please let me know. Awesome, Trevor. Well, I will certainly keep in touch with you about that, man. We'll make it happen. I will link out to the website, the book, everything.
I love what you're doing. I think that the space that you're in right now is in a much needed space and it needs to be fallen on more ears. So I'm happy to get you on the podcast. And happy to see you doing what you're doing, brother. Cheers, man. Have a great rest of your day. Take care Trevor. Have a good man. All right. See you, Robert.