The Powerhouse Men Brotherhood With Steve Miller

00:00:08:10 – 00:00:31:08

Nick McGowan

Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us and the lives we lead on our path to self-mastery. Today on the show, we have Steve Miller. Steve is the founder of the Manly Club and the Powerhouse Men Brotherhood. So we’re going to talk about some manly things on this episode.

00:00:31:12 – 00:00:55:15

Nick McGowan

But ladies, don’t turn this off just yet. We’re going to talk about some topics that both men and women work through. So we’re going to hear from Steve about his background and what he believes makes up a powerhouse man. And he shares what has led to creating the Brotherhood and what he’s learned leading a group of over 13,000 men for five years and now building something even greater.

00:00:55:22 – 00:01:08:16

Nick McGowan

So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.

00:01:10:26 – 00:01:13:06

Nick McGowan

Hi, Steve, welcome to the show. How are you doing, man?

00:01:13:27 – 00:01:14:24

Steve Miller

Pretty good. How are you, Nick?

00:01:15:05 – 00:01:34:15

Nick McGowan

I am great. And I’m so excited that you’re on this show today. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been a part of the Facebook group that you have, and I’m going to be a little ambiguous right now, but I’m part of that Facebook group for a handful of years, and I know that we’re building something big in the group outside of that as well.

00:01:34:15 – 00:01:43:05

Nick McGowan

But dude, I’m so glad that you’re here. Ben Why don’t you kick us off, Steve, and tell us what you do for a living? And one thing that most people don’t know about you.

00:01:43:16 – 00:02:07:15

Steve Miller

Thanks, Nick. Thanks for having me on. I’m super excited about being here. I you know, it’s I don’t really do the traditional work anymore. You know, I used to be a Silicon Valley guy, and now I’ve kind of floated away from all that. You know, I think that if you talk to a lot of former Silicon Valley guys, they’ll say, you know, I took the money in Iran.

00:02:07:23 – 00:02:28:20

Steve Miller

You know, they just you know, and it’s really it’s really a kind of a it seems almost like a temporary lifestyle for a lot of people. Right. It’s like, well, I’m going to do this for now. I’m going to do all the grinding and all the hustling, and I’m going to do the 16 hour days for now. And you kind of know in the back of your mind, at some point you’re going to you know, you’re going to ride off into the sunset.

00:02:28:20 – 00:02:50:10

Steve Miller

Right? And you’re going to and you’re going to leave and you’re going to find a nice, quiet place to live out the rest of your years. And it’s kind of it’s kind of an idea. Did I still do some of the stuff? I still, you know, collaborate on a lot of projects. But I’ve been very fortunate to not have to any longer worry about, you know, the job.

00:02:51:06 – 00:03:17:00

Steve Miller

And it’s a good feeling, you know, up in Oregon now, we moved up about eight or nine years ago. And I’m just enjoying life up here. And I do like like I said, I do some sales, marketing stuff. A lot of a lot of what happens to two people who leave that lifestyle all from Silicon Valley is they keep a lot of their connections.

00:03:17:10 – 00:03:44:07

Steve Miller

And then these these temporary assignments just kind of come their way. They help out a lot of friends. You know, they’ll do some short term projects with people and it’s really cool. They can kind of have, you know, some of that still, you know, some of that excitement still. And then at the same time, you can stay away from that whole scene, which is, you know, it’s great for some people.

00:03:44:12 – 00:03:59:17

Steve Miller

But then really, like I said, it’s kind of a it’s kind of a short term thing. You know, there are some people who can withstand it, you know, for ten, 15, 20 years and other people, you know, like me, it’s a saying, well, the whole time, practically, I was saying, oh, man, I got to get away from this.

00:04:01:00 – 00:04:34:09

Steve Miller

So something that people don’t know about. I mean, I think that people think that I’m a coach and I’m not I’m not a coach. I have people, you know, through, you know, we Max in the Mountain Club. I mean, I’ve been running the marathon club now for over five years. We just had our five year anniversary and over the years just being engaged online and talking to men, it’s just assumed that, you know, you’re a coach.

00:04:34:18 – 00:04:58:18

Steve Miller

So I guess I still to this day get messages, you know, DMS from people saying, you know, hey, you know, can I hire you say, no, you can’t hire me, there’s nothing to hire. And then really what I do is I kind of, you know, I kind of steer people towards the coaches that I do know. And I work with a lot of coaches.

00:04:58:18 – 00:05:22:06

Steve Miller

And so I think it’s a it’s a common thing that people misunderstand. But I guess that’s it. I guess that’s my answers. Yeah. I’m not a coach. Nothing against coaching. I think I probably would love it if if I ever got into it. I think that it’s a great it’s a great thing that people do is, you know, they get you know, they get involved at that level.

00:05:22:13 – 00:05:32:27

Steve Miller

And, you know, there’s there’s a lot of coaching that’s happening that is just life changing stuff, you know. So I respect it and I work with these guys, but I just don’t do it.

00:05:33:24 – 00:05:57:28

Nick McGowan

It makes sense why people would ask you, Are you a coach? Because the Manly Club on Facebook is kind of what, close to 14,000 men at this point. So to think of the owner of that group, while he must do something that has to do with coaching or something of the sort, it’s funny, I never really thought about that and I’m a coach, but I’m sure there are people that just hop in.

00:05:57:28 – 00:06:18:11

Nick McGowan

They have no idea who you are or they see you and go, Oh my gosh, I wonder if he can help because he set this thing up. And dude, I’ve got to be honest, the group that you set up is a massive group and there’s a lot of engagement. But I know one of the big things that we’re going to get into and you know, what, 5 minutes into the show, we may as well just get into the damn thing now.

00:06:18:28 – 00:06:27:23

Nick McGowan

So, Steve, tell us about the powerhouse Men Brotherhood that spun off of the Manly Club and give us a little background of that. Like where did the idea come from?

00:06:28:18 – 00:06:57:21

Steve Miller

The name of the powerhouse Men Brotherhood came from my past. You know, I’ve been around a lot of men. I’m from back east, I’m from Brooklyn, born and raised in Brooklyn. And a lot of the men around me, you know, my my dad had seven brothers. So my, my, my mom had brothers. A lot of the people around me were these larger than life figure.

00:06:57:22 – 00:07:21:12

Steve Miller

So, you know, these these men who, who just came into a room and they just had presence. And I always considered them to be powerhouse men. You know, they had they had it all together. You know, they they were dialed in with their family. They were dialed in with their careers. They were dialed in in every aspect of the word.

00:07:21:12 – 00:07:49:07

Steve Miller

They were just squared away men. And I always viewed them as these powerful men. And I think a lot of people questioned the name Powerhouse Man, because it it sounds like we’re promoting some type of power over other people. And the reality is that powerhouse men hold power over themselves. That’s their objective, right? They want to be a totally cool they want to be in total control over their own personal life.

00:07:49:19 – 00:08:10:22

Steve Miller

And so that’s where the name came from. The idea came from the fact that in the Manly Club it’s really kind of superficial stuff. We cover it, we do cover a lot of important things, but it’s more kind of like a place for men to hang out and talk about man stuff. O’Malley Club, you know, topics come up.

00:08:10:22 – 00:08:36:26

Steve Miller

Some of them are really important. Some of them are dangerous. You know, we get guys who are who are struggling with suicide and, you know, then we try to steer those those men to the right resources. That, of course. But the Manly Club is very difficult being on Facebook. It’s very difficult to engage at the level that I wanted to engage with men in.

00:08:36:26 – 00:09:07:26

Steve Miller

I could see over five years, I could see that there was a missing element to this, right? There was something that the man the club was not providing. And I could see the conversations. You know, men would come in and they would start talking about some serious stuff, some heavy duty life stuff. And I just didn’t feel like the interface was capable of sustaining good conversations.

00:09:07:26 – 00:09:30:18

Steve Miller

First of all, Facebook throttles a lot of stuff, right? They don’t really allow the reach. So you’re not really getting a lot of men seeing the most important posts and then the conversations. You know, it’s just kind of like this long stream, right? And and it’s kind of a lot of reading, you know, this kind of, you know, men don’t really want to read through all of the stuff and then you get a lot of redundant posts, right?

00:09:30:28 – 00:09:56:02

Steve Miller

And so the interface itself was kind of a hindrance. So I knew that we needed to do something else to, to create a different environment. So we spun off the powerhouse men brotherhood from that based on need. And then we, we had at the beginning we had a lot of focus on the things that we thought the Brotherhood should be.

00:09:56:07 – 00:10:14:13

Steve Miller

And then we started listening to men and understanding that the Brotherhood really needs to be a place that is it’s so much built on what we think it should be. It should be built on what they think it should be. And so we start listening to more and more men, and they were saying, Hey, I really want this, this and this.

00:10:14:13 – 00:10:56:07

Steve Miller

And then we just started plugging away and putting pieces of it together. And now we have something that is building into a pretty dynamic place for men to go and to to find some really good solutions. I think, you know, some men just they just all they really want is friendship. They want camaraderie. Other men are going through trauma, know they want they want help with something and they want some men are looking for purpose and meaning in their life, which is I think a big part of the Brotherhood were purpose of meeting I think we we all kind of struggle with that at some point we all kind of hit that patch in our

00:10:56:07 – 00:11:21:10

Steve Miller

life where we’re like, hey, you know, I’m doing all the things, you know, I got I got the schooling done, I got the job, I got the family, I got the investment account that the cars, got the vacations. Why do I feel empty, you know? And, you know, and that that’s a very real question that men ask themselves.

00:11:21:10 – 00:11:38:12

Steve Miller

But then but then what do you do once you hit that point? What do you do? Where do you go? You know, you can talk to your friends, but you you know, your friends who you who you have around you. Some people are fortunate to have a lot of friends around them and this can be a really good resource.

00:11:38:12 – 00:12:00:27

Steve Miller

And then other men is just the other men are just completely disconnected, right? They’re they’re loners, maybe unintentionally, you know, or maybe it’s because of where they live. But it’s very difficult to find men to talk to and be a little vulnerable and talk about these things, say, hey, you know, I feel kind of I feel kind of lost.

00:12:00:27 – 00:12:18:21

Steve Miller

I don’t really know where I am in life. It’s like I’ve done so much and I thought it would feel different. Yeah. Yeah. And so we’re trying to create that kind of environment. So basically what that is, is, you know, so you have the spectrum, you have somebody coming in with the most basic of needs, right? Which is hair.

00:12:18:21 – 00:12:41:00

Steve Miller

Just want to find some men to hang out and talk to. And then all the way across the whole spectrum to men who need a lot of help, we’re bringing on some of the men with, you know, some of these some of these experts, if you will, that we’re creating teams with. You know, this these these leaders are experts in what they do.

00:12:41:07 – 00:12:50:24

Steve Miller

And so we’re trying to cover a lot of ground. But at the same time, we also want a place where men feel very, very comfortable.

00:12:51:28 – 00:13:17:18

Nick McGowan

Such a it’s a sad thing almost to think about how many men are out there. And I’m sure there are women, too, but I think of the men that are out there that are just hurting and don’t know what to say or how to say or what to do about it. And then if they turn to somebody, it’s almost like they get bitched out by a friend because they’re like, Hey, man, I don’t feel good about this thing or This is not right or whatever.

00:13:17:18 – 00:13:38:08

Nick McGowan

And that friend’s like, Well, just put some dirt on it. That doesn’t really make any sense here, buddy, but think about how many shitty people and I say shitty people in the sense that they’re just hurting as well and they just spew back some sort of negativity. Typically that’s from a fear state where they’re like, I don’t want to hear it because I’ve got my own shit that I don’t even want to think about.

00:13:38:18 – 00:14:01:00

Nick McGowan

Can we just sit here and continue to drink at this bar, you know, and another gets bars or nothing, but at the same time, if that’s where they’re just focusing and just going through that, I think that’s a huge a huge talking point that we could get into is just the idea of men being able to actually open up and have other men that can respect the fact that they opened up and they talked about things.

00:14:01:13 – 00:14:37:08

Nick McGowan

And then there’s the power of technology. I mean, we’re doing this podcast and I’m in Florida. You’re in Oregon. You know, the technology allows us to talk from wherever we are. And I know that we have a handful of people, at least that I’m aware of, that are already part of the powerhouse Men Brotherhood, veteran, semi remote parts of the country where they’re probably in that spot where they’re like, Well, I don’t want to join a kickball league down at the YMCA and I don’t want to drive ten miles to go sit at a pub to hopefully maybe make a friend, because that’s a lot of effort, a lot of work and a lot of

00:14:37:12 – 00:14:38:12

Nick McGowan

excuses.

00:14:39:03 – 00:15:05:22

Steve Miller

One of the other bigger hindrances in this is that we have men who are holding back, even if they have access to resources like other men around them is. They’re too embarrassed or they’re too, you know, you don’t want to somebody who you are engaging with all the time and you have kind of like this peer group set up.

00:15:05:22 – 00:15:35:00

Steve Miller

You don’t want to reveal something, you know, and then face that man in the future because you feel squeamish about your vulnerability. And that’s a very real concern. I mean, you know, you can criticize it and say, well, you know, just, you know, suck it up, buttercup. And you could you could you could tell those men. Well, to just to do it any way or or, you know, you could convince them that, well, if you open up and you show vulnerability, they will do all that really doesn’t translate into real life stuff, right?

00:15:35:00 – 00:15:56:21

Steve Miller

So if you have a place that you can go to and these men and that’s one I think that’s one of the benefits of having an online community just in general, is that you’re engaging with your friends with them and you’re getting the camaraderie. But you also have that, that space, you know, and and I think that that’s part of what men need.

00:15:56:26 – 00:16:16:22

Steve Miller

I know that early on that was one of the surprising parts of the band. The club, when I first started it was that I liked that part of it. I liked I like that, that aspect of it. And, you know, vulnerability is one of those things that, you know, you could talk all day about it, but a lot of men have different opinions about it.

00:16:16:22 – 00:16:44:16

Steve Miller

Right. Vulnerability shows weakness. Right. And. Okay. Yeah. So. So what are you are you going to are you going to pretend that you don’t have moments of real weakness? That’s okay. We all do, right? We all we all have those moments. But as soon as we see other men, right, you see other men who are maybe men who you look up to and you respect and admire.

00:16:44:16 – 00:17:06:05

Steve Miller

Right. High character men. Right. You look at them and it’s like, okay, they’re being vulnerable, right? They’re talking about some of this difficult stuff that I’m going through and they’re doing it and I still respect them. And, you know, maybe that’s, you know, something that I can do. I can be a little bit vulnerable and I can I can put myself out there more.

00:17:06:05 – 00:17:32:19

Steve Miller

And that’s why we encourage that. And that really starts out slow. You see men who kind of come in and they kind of lurk, you know, they kind of hang out and and then they slowly kind of work their way into conversations. And then again, really, if you have if you have a core group of men like our leaders, you aryal all lag all these, you know, all these of the leaders of the powerhouse men.

00:17:32:19 – 00:17:59:11

Steve Miller

If you have, you know, these men on there talking this way and, you know, expressing themselves this way, it really kind of eases their mind. And the one thing about vulnerability that I think is that a lot of men misunderstand the worth, the value in it. So. Well, you know, that’s not really going to you know, it’s not really going to help me too much.

00:17:59:11 – 00:18:20:29

Steve Miller

And I think a lot of that is, you know, this kind of masculine mask that men, you know, feel like they need to wear it. Right. And, you know, when you’re wearing that mask and you are, you know, putting up this persona, it’s it’s it’s it’s kind of misleading, right. Is can you get you get a weird perspective, right?

00:18:21:06 – 00:18:43:22

Steve Miller

And you kind of misunderstand what’s really going on when it comes to masculinity and vulnerability kind of. You know, I think that I think that you get lost in that. And then once that stripped away, once you realized that you don’t need to you no longer need to wear that mask, you know, no, not no longer need to hide behind anything.

00:18:43:22 – 00:19:05:24

Steve Miller

Once you get into that zone and then you start feel comfortable, then you start realizing in that there’s a lot of value here. And getting men to that point, though, is very difficult, very hard to, you know, get them to that point. So we’re working on that. We’re working on ways to to get men comfortable and get them talking and then realize that the solutions are out there.

00:19:07:02 – 00:19:34:01

Nick McGowan

Yeah, sometimes just the the act of talking about something I’ve realized helps me in so many different ways. And I’m sure other men are the same, you know, clients of mine, friends of mine, family, tell the conversations you and I have kind of off air in a sense, when you are able to talk about stuff and just start to get the things out and you feel confident enough to just feel in a safe space, sometimes you’ll even answer your own damn questions.

00:19:34:11 – 00:19:50:03

Nick McGowan

We are like, What should I do with this thing? What about blah blah blah? And you kind of start talking through it. But I’ve realized being part of the powerhouse Men Brotherhood, those daily check ins that we have, people either do them in the morning or the doom at night like the last thing before, like today was this or whatever.

00:19:50:11 – 00:20:14:15

Nick McGowan

It’s interesting to see how certain men, like when they first start, they’re kind of hesitant with what to put like. Well, I’m excited for today. And then a couple of days in, they’re like, woke up and I was in a real shitty mood and here’s what’s happening, here’s what’s going on, but here’s what I’m thinking. And I love that piece of it because the men that we’re actually attracting that are part of the group are the men that are like, Look, I got to be honest, I woke up and fucking hated waking up.

00:20:15:03 – 00:20:32:13

Nick McGowan

But at the same time, after that I thought, Well, I don’t normally hate it, so what can I do to better myself? And having even some of those check ins that you can see, oh, I think you had mentioned something earlier on one of those check ins like today was a little rough. And then I saw this and it just kind of lifted me up.

00:20:33:29 – 00:21:06:00

Steve Miller

Yeah. Yeah. And having those conversations, they just get better over time. And I think that’s the that’s the misleading part about being vulnerable. It’s like you think that there’s some negative part of this and then you realize pretty fast that there isn’t. Right? And then you really realize that there’s a lot of growth potential here. You know, we we we we look at other men in a different way when once you realize that they are it.

00:21:06:01 – 00:21:34:25

Steve Miller

This is the weird part. It’s like, well, wait a minute, that’s actually a sign of masculinity, let’s say. And then, then then the respect level goes up and say, wow, you know, I thought I thought, you know, a lot of that. I thought this myself personally that if I if I were to be too vulnerable and if I were to be if I wasn’t always wearing that mask of masculinity that I was, people were going to think less of me.

00:21:35:03 – 00:21:59:23

Steve Miller

And they weren’t going to know that I’m a high character man and I’m manly just like that. My masculine. And and I was afraid that I was going to be found out by some other thing and that I was going to be misunderstood as some other thing. And I really didn’t want that. So I was I was always hiding behind this, you know, and it’s it’s really hard to figure that out on your own.

00:22:00:00 – 00:22:25:05

Steve Miller

That’s why in one of our exercises that we do in the in our house, men Brotherhood is we do these exercises around like man in the mirror, right? And we try to ask very specific questions. And these questions are designed to get you thinking in a certain way. And they’re all everything is is geared towards us trying to peel away those layers.

00:22:25:12 – 00:23:03:27

Steve Miller

Right. It’s like, you know, we we can dig down a little bit further, a little bit further every day. And then once you start getting used to having those man in the mirror conversations with yourself and being honest with yourself, it becomes easier and easier to open up and have the more powerful conversations. I think there’s a lot of power in a man who can sit down and have an honest conversation with himself and admit the hard stuff to himself and use that information that he’s learning about himself to build a better life going forward.

00:23:04:11 – 00:23:36:06

Steve Miller

But until someone points that out, it’s kind of hard to see, you know, in sure we we we have these life vision exercises right where we we help men build a vision and then build a life philosophy, you know, and then to also put some action towards those things with a journaling practice. Right. So you, you know, there’s a systematic approach to what we’re trying to do with men who want to, you know, within the Brotherhood, we don’t force men to do this.

00:23:36:06 – 00:23:59:05

Steve Miller

But anybody who feels like they need to to to stop drifting. Right. And it’s a it’s really a mental drift. It’s not a physical drift. Right. Like I said earlier, a lot of men who are really squared away do a lot of a lot of aspects of their life, but then they’re kind of mentally drifting right. And say, well, I don’t really understand my purpose and my meaning.

00:23:59:15 – 00:24:42:03

Steve Miller

And then once they realize that if you if you put some structure to it, you put some protocols in place, you you write down a vision for your life. You write down a philosophy, and then you follow that up with some journaling practices that work on those aspects of what you just built. I think that that putting that on paper and putting that in motion in an actual system is, I think, one of the biggest mistakes I think a man could make is to dismiss that as something that they don’t need.

00:24:42:03 – 00:24:57:25

Steve Miller

This is really hard. I mean, think about it. How many men are going to say to themselves, you know, what I need to do is I need to you know, I’m really suffering right now and I’m kind of lost. And what I need to do is write down my vision. So you it really it’s not really, you know, it’s not really just going to show up, right?

00:24:58:02 – 00:25:13:22

Steve Miller

It is hard to think of those those solutions. But when you come into a brotherhood and other men are working on their own lives, you know, and then it becomes very clear, it becomes very purposeful once you see other men doing it. And I think that’s the power of a brother.

00:25:14:26 – 00:25:36:18

Nick McGowan

Big time is you’ve said purpose a number of times, even growth. And obviously the point to this show about mindset and self-mastery, those things tie in directly to what we’re doing within the powerhouse men brotherhood because of that mindset, somebody comes into any sort of situation, be it a brotherhood or a job or even just cleaning the damn dishes.

00:25:36:28 – 00:26:00:22

Nick McGowan

If you go into it with a fixed negative mindset, then you’re not going to get anything out of it, or at least anything worthwhile. But being able to go into something that you can have processes and protocols to be able to walk you through and guide you through that tough stuff, the logical things that are sometimes hard to peel away from the emotional side and being able to have that growth mindset with other growth oriented people.

00:26:01:00 – 00:26:18:20

Nick McGowan

And I got to be honest, that’s one of the things that attracted me to the group when you had first launched the beta, was that late last year, maybe Q4, Q3 of last year, saying, hey, we’re going to launch this thing and we’re looking for a handful of men that want to be a part of this to help us grow this thing.

00:26:18:25 – 00:26:38:28

Nick McGowan

I noticed right off the bat that those people that were part of it, the handful of us that started it with you, and that sense they for the most part were growth oriented. The people that weren’t, they’re not part of it. So it’s interesting to see those people that come into this knowing like, well, I’ve got to kind of work through that.

00:26:39:06 – 00:26:48:02

Nick McGowan

And there are certain people that I think we’re going to help them work through that within the Brotherhood where we’ll watch them kind of bloom. And that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

00:26:49:14 – 00:27:22:03

Steve Miller

Yes. Yes, I agree. And it can be difficult. It can be very difficult for for men to see the vision and to see the value of a brotherhood. And what I try to convince men to do is to just stick with it and give it a chance, you know, given yeah. Give it a real opportunity, you know, tune in, try to participate, ask questions, talk to other men, and then you’ll see what this is all about.

00:27:22:03 – 00:27:53:03

Steve Miller

It’s it is a powerful resource and it’s something, ironically, that is actually changing my life. And, you know, when I look back on how I lived my life, you know, and I could have used this 25 years ago, but it’s like the men how how much different would my life have been had I found a brotherhood that was so, so passionate about helping others?

00:27:53:06 – 00:28:27:24

Steve Miller

You know, how how much different would my life have been? So, you know, I think that that’s the misunderstanding. You know, we’re saying, well, you know, if a man is currently going through something in their life, right, currently in some phase of their life where there’s a struggle. Right. There’s some adversity right now. I think that the most common reaction or the most common response from a man is to man up and to, you know, just to, you know, suck it up, buttercup.

00:28:27:24 – 00:28:53:03

Steve Miller

Get through it. This is what men do, you know? And they feel like if they go to a resource where they’re asking for help, that that’s going to reveal some weakness like we were talking about earlier. And I think that’s a huge misconception. And I think that’s something that is a mistake. I think that any man I don’t care where you are in life, it doesn’t matter where you are in life, it doesn’t matter what age you are.

00:28:53:03 – 00:29:12:25

Steve Miller

It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. If you if you reach out and you try to connect with others, you’re going to learn something and it’s going to change you. And that’s something that we want to get the message out to men. It’s okay, give this an opportunity. Look at what it is. Look and try to understand that we’re not judging you.

00:29:13:13 – 00:29:34:24

Steve Miller

We’re not labeling you. This is not what a brotherhood does. People who judge and label are not in brotherhoods. You know, they’re they’re out doing other stuff, right? They’re not online trying to better themselves. So they’re not trying to improve themselves. Right. They’re not here. And if they do show up and somehow work their way in to a brotherhood where you really get rid of them.

00:29:34:28 – 00:29:59:11

Steve Miller

Right. And so give it an opportunity, you know, give it a chance, talk, you know, open yourself up a little bit, making so little vulnerability, other men look at vulnerability different than what you think. Other men look at vulnerability as a sign of masculinity, not as a sign of weakness. That’s that’s the biggest message.

00:30:00:13 – 00:30:23:12

Nick McGowan

Yeah. I think that’s a thing that’s also changing over the course of time. It’s kind of on us, you know, you’re a little older than I am. You have kids, so it’ll be on your kids as well to be able to help continue that, to grow and allow people to be open and talk through things. It’s so interesting that journey that people need to go through, just the personal development journey.

00:30:23:23 – 00:30:44:00

Nick McGowan

I had a conversation with somebody maybe two weeks ago, an episode. That’s probably what I before this we’re talking about how clumsy and awkward you are as you kind of go through your personal development. And for the most part, it’s all by yourself. And as a man you’re like, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I’m trying to do these different things.

00:30:44:00 – 00:31:03:20

Nick McGowan

And but if you’ve got a group of people, you can connect with a group of other men that are either on the same path as you are or round about that, or maybe even a little further. That can help and be a guide. I am right there with you, man. I could have used this years ago and it’s funny because I’ve seen this so many times.

00:31:04:06 – 00:31:23:12

Nick McGowan

Be the man or be the person that you needed as a kid or that you needed years ago. And now we’re literally doing that, creating that space for men to be able to be open and vulnerable. But there’s that process that they need to go through. And this is calling out all the men that are listening to the show and all the men that come into the group.

00:31:23:15 – 00:31:43:00

Nick McGowan

There’s a process you’re going to go through that you have to actually go through and some of that shit when you want to just run off or not show up or not do this thing that’s a great sign to just do it. Just step in and do the damn thing, because that little bit of fear is like, Oh, you don’t want to be a part of this thing.

00:31:43:11 – 00:31:59:27

Nick McGowan

This isn’t going to help you when all reality, all it’s going to do is help. So it’s interesting to see some of the men going through some of that now. And as the leadership, we can see different people and it’s on us to be able to kind of tap in and be able to love on those people and help them out.

00:32:00:21 – 00:32:09:13

Nick McGowan

But those men, it’s on them to actually walk through that and then raise their hand. And it’s interesting to see how some of that’s happening.

00:32:10:06 – 00:32:34:09

Steve Miller

The resources are out there. But if you think about what what resources you actually have, if you’re if you’re a man and you’re and you’re struggling with something and you’re trying to figure something out, trying to better yourself in some way, the resources are so limited in that. Well, they’re not limited. They’re all over the place. Right? There’s YouTube videos, there’s books, there’s there’s all kinds of resources.

00:32:34:09 – 00:33:00:27

Steve Miller

But at the end of the day, the there there has to something has to happen. Right? So let’s say you watch a bunch of videos, right? Every day for a week. You watch these videos because you’re trying to you’re trying to fix something about yourself. Right. The thing that you have identified as being the thing that you need to move yourself forward and maybe get yourself out of this funk that you’re in, make you feel stuck.

00:33:00:27 – 00:33:26:01

Steve Miller

Right. So I’m going to watch videos every day for a weekend and then or I’m going to I’m going to read a bunch of books right on the subject. Right. But then at the end of the day, there’s something that has to happen, right? You have to convert that information and all that learning into actionable steps that you actually take in your life and then you implement these changes.

00:33:26:10 – 00:33:46:24

Steve Miller

That’s the disconnect, right? It’s like you read a great book. You know, you read a great book on on something, but then you have to implement it. You have to actually use that data. You got to use that information. So now what is that? Is that accountable to me? Yeah, that’s that’s accountability. Right. And that’s are you going to hold yourself accountable?

00:33:46:24 – 00:34:07:04

Steve Miller

Well, maybe maybe not. You know, be it we we get these bursts of short term enthusiasm, right. And so we want to we want to go out there and we want to we want to learn honestly. We want to learn about a subject or something. We we have identified and then we really are super excited about it, but then we slowly kind of wane.

00:34:07:06 – 00:34:26:00

Steve Miller

So we read the book and then we slowly kind of slip back into our old habit, right? We get very habitual in our thinking, we get very habitual in our behaviors, and then you’re right back to square one. So you short term enthusiasm push you forward, right? It’s like you push forward and then you slowly start sliding back.

00:34:26:00 – 00:34:49:07

Steve Miller

Well, in a brotherhood, what happens is you talk about reading a book and then you talk about things that you’re working on. You’re talking about these changes that are trying to make. And then your brothers of the Brotherhood are right there holding you accountable for those changes. Okay. The last week we talked about this thing that you’re working on.

00:34:49:07 – 00:35:18:08

Steve Miller

How’s that going? What did you do you now? What new actions can we take to push this even more forward and continue this conversation and continue these changes, continue these new behaviors, these new habits, and then it becomes it becomes something special, really, what happens is you start doing that for yourself. You know, you started you start reaping those benefits and then you start doing that for others.

00:35:18:21 – 00:35:43:15

Steve Miller

You start holding them accountable. And that’s where the magic for brotherhood just starts coming together. You start realizing and say, Hey, wait a minute, I’m growing myself and I’m growing others. I’m growing with these other men. That’s that is the power of a brotherhood. You’re growing yourself and you’re growing at the same time, other men. And you’re all doing it together.

00:35:43:15 – 00:36:09:18

Steve Miller

You’re all pushing forward. And those types of relationships, personally, I think those are the most powerful ones. You know, they’re they’re they’re not superficial. Right. We have a lot of in-person, superficial relationships. Right. But we’ve talked to our buddies about fishing and hunting and we talk about cars and we talk about surface stuff. Right. But and those are those are important friendships to have.

00:36:10:07 – 00:36:23:25

Steve Miller

But when it comes to real, actual change in our life and really pushing our life forward, the relationships and the and the work that you do inside of a brotherhood, I think it’s one of the most powerful things that we can do.

00:36:25:02 – 00:36:46:15

Nick McGowan

TIME The accountability of it all is, a major, major factor of it. You know, I keep thinking about this. This man, there’s nobody in particular but a man that is kind of living their life. They’re doing their things. They’ve checked off the boxes, like you’ve said, but they don’t have anybody really near them that they can do this sort of thing with.

00:36:46:19 – 00:37:05:28

Nick McGowan

So to be able to jump into something and have a monday night call or a Thursday night call with your team and be able to work through stuff, this is even something that people can work through as they work through how they talk about the things with their family and with their friends. Because, you know, we’ve all heard you are the sum of the five people you hang out with the most.

00:37:05:29 – 00:37:29:21

Nick McGowan

And I’ve had to tell clients and friends and family that includes you A you are that for somebody else. So it’s interesting to see the men start to develop some of this and then spew some of that back out. We’re seeing some of that within the group now. And let’s be real here. The group’s only a handful a month old, so it’s still growing.

00:37:29:21 – 00:37:44:20

Nick McGowan

Men are still kind of opening up. But at this point, we’re we’ve got a solid amount of men that are already part of the group. In fact, on that note, Steve, why don’t you talk a little bit about what it looks like to check out the group and to be part of the group? And we’re also running a promo right now.

00:37:44:20 – 00:37:44:27

Nick McGowan

Right.

00:37:45:23 – 00:38:17:06

Steve Miller

We have a special going on 50% off through the Mountain Club dot com website and we’re inviting men in and we are trying to build this right now in the early stages. We’re trying to build out all of these features that we’re hearing that men want. You know, one of the one of the current things that we’re working on right now is creating a buddy system to wear the day to day accountability of, you know, because it’s one thing to be on a team.

00:38:17:13 – 00:38:38:00

Steve Miller

And so there’s there’s two parts of this. One is you’re on a team and you meet weekly with your team. And then every week the team hold you accountable riders. If you have a team of 15 guys every week, there’s going to be five guys who are on the hot seat right there, the guys who show up and they’re the guys who have to talk about the stuff that they’re working on right now.

00:38:38:00 – 00:38:59:27

Steve Miller

Next week is the next five guys, that kind of thing, right? So that’s one thing, one method. But then we’re all different, right? Some people need this daily support, this daily accountability. So we’re creating this buddy system right to where you and another man are constantly. Maybe it’s over text message, maybe it’s over email or whatever it is.

00:39:00:03 – 00:39:20:27

Steve Miller

Maybe it’s a phone call, maybe it’s a zoom call or whatever it is, and you’re holding each other accountable. Every single day. And so it’s a constant accountability process because that’s what a lot of us need. Right? And it really depends. And that’s really going to be different for a lot of men, right? It’s going to be it’s going to be a different need for a lot of men.

00:39:21:09 – 00:39:41:24

Steve Miller

Some men are going to be annoyed by that. Right. And then some men are going to really value that. And so we’re trying to build those features that are going to cover as many different types of men as humanly possible. And that’s what we’re doing right now. Our growth stage, our early growth stage is based on just listening to what the men are telling us.

00:39:41:24 – 00:40:06:29

Nick McGowan

And they have been vocal. So thank you, man, for being vocal on Down Up about things. I know I was one of those being vocal about stuff too. It’s interesting to be able to build something and be able to help other people and then be able to implement something so quickly. And you touched on the startup life. It’s way different than corporate world where you have to go through bureaucracy and meetings after meetings, after meetings.

00:40:06:29 – 00:40:23:18

Nick McGowan

I mean, there are certain times of week we have to have meetings as leadership, but will knock things out at the end of that meeting and say, oh, this is the next thing, it’s going to happen. So it’s cool to see how we’re able to be a bit nimble and flexible as we kind of work through this. But Steve, I really appreciate you being on the show today.

00:40:23:28 – 00:40:30:27

Nick McGowan

And like I ask every single person that’s on the show, what’s one piece of advice you’d give somebody that’s on their path toward self-mastery?

00:40:31:18 – 00:40:55:25

Steve Miller

I would say, get your thoughts, your emotions and your actions in alignment. You know, it’s really as simple as that. And it’s something that is, I think, misunderstood and undervalued. You know, when you first hear people talking about things like this, you know, the first reaction is, you know, oh, you know, there we go with the cosmic gurus, right?

00:40:56:05 – 00:41:25:11

Steve Miller

And you know, it’s a it but get it passed and get past that. Understand that you don’t you don’t need to suffer. Right. Once you once you understand that they’re there well, first of all, you’re in total control, right? Once you understand that there is a systematic approach that you can take to to put these things in place, I think it’s an eye opening experience.

00:41:25:11 – 00:41:50:05

Steve Miller

It really is. And really, in a nutshell, it really boils down to getting that alignment in place. And there are men out there who can help you do it without the judgment, without the labeling, but find those resources. And if it’s not powerhouse men brotherhood, find another one, but do something about it and take action and follow through.

00:41:50:05 – 00:42:00:12

Nick McGowan

That’s awesome, man. Again, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s a pleasure to work with you. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Steve, where can people find out more about the powerhouse men brotherhood.

00:42:01:06 – 00:42:19:10

Steve Miller

Man club dot com the manly podcast everything is there all the resources all the information you can you can actually reach out directly to me through that website and I answer all of my emails personally and all.

00:42:19:11 – 00:43:06:03

Nick McGowan

They’re perfect, so check out the Manly Club dot com and you can get more information about powerhouse men brotherhood again. Steve, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks to another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. Now, I know a lot of men listen to this show and ambitious men at that. So sometimes we as ambitious men just find it somewhat friggin easier to just bottle shit up or maybe confide in a friend, but only so much to an extent about maybe a tough, tough situation.

00:43:06:07 – 00:43:29:06

Nick McGowan

But for the most part going to be like, Man, I’ll be all right. So ask yourself, why is that? Why and are you okay with that? That level of depth? Probably not really. Wouldn’t be listening to the show. And there’s a daily battle to be fought and lessons to be learned if we’re willing to listen, be coachable and accept accountability.

00:43:29:23 – 00:43:47:09

Nick McGowan

And we’re building something incredible over the powerhouse men brotherhood that’s going to help with that. So check it out. Like Steve said, we’re currently running a 50% off promo. When you sign up to tell them you heard about it from the show, we may have a little something extra for you. So what did you think of today’s episode?

00:43:47:12 – 00:44:06:03

Nick McGowan

I’d love to hear your thoughts and everything we talked about, and if you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to iTunes, subscribe rate and leave a five star review. It really helps us to be found. It helps others to be healed. And if you really enjoyed the show, go ahead and share with your friends, your family, coworkers, whoever comes to mind.

00:44:06:03 – 00:44:31:07

Nick McGowan

And check out the show notes for more info, contact info for Steve and check out other episodes on the Mindset and Self-mastery. Show icon as well as our YouTube channel, The Mindset and Self-mastery Show right there in search. Hit the enter button, overturn or whatever on your computer and find this. And I want to thank our sponsors, the Manly Club and the Powerhouse Men Brotherhood.

00:44:31:07 – 00:44:52:00

Nick McGowan

And do you consider yourself to be a powerhouse man? The criteria for becoming one is simple live with virtue and do good work. You see, a powerhouse man builds his life. He doesn’t settle for it. He attacks mediocrity at the root. And that’s exactly what we do in the powerhouse men brotherhood visit the manly club dot com for more details.

00:44:52:23 – 00:45:13:10

Nick McGowan

Thank you for hanging out with us. Thank you for being a supporter of this show and thank you for doing what you can to continue to grow. So with that, remember, your mindset matters and so do you.