https://youtu.be/UI9l7YKN3WM
Gareth: [00:00:01] Hello. Welcome to episode 12 of the Call to Courage Podcast. It's the final episode of Season one. And I'm joined today from Spain by Matt Dahse.
Matt: [00:00:14] How are we doing, baby?
Gareth: [00:00:17] Good to see you. I know it's a late in the evening for you. There we are diving into a topic called How to Keep the Romance Alive. And it's a topic that came up while I was walking with a friend of mine recently. Simon And we were talking we haven't seen each other for a few years, and we're really just deep diving on relationships and relating and our various journeys with regards to intimacy. And he was asking me how I'm keeping the intimacy alive in my connection. And coming up to four years now and when I shared it with Matt yesterday, we were like, That would be a great episode for a podcast.
Matt: [00:00:53] And it was great because I was so nervous when when you brought it up, I felt like cold things shooting up my spot and I was like, Man, we really going to have this conversation in a live podcast format. And in fact, we are.
Gareth: [00:01:06] Let's dive straight in. You are you're not talking to us sort of two and a half years into your journey, right? How long have you guys been together?
Matt: [00:01:17] Actually, today is our wedding anniversary today. I actually woke up this morning thinking it was tomorrow, but it was actually today and. Yeah. So we're two years. We're two years into our partnership fully. So our wedding anniversary showed up on our partnership. And so we're two years in and we are also eight months into parenting as well. So we've got Baby Milo who is a part of the equation and when it comes to intimacy, he is definitely a factor. There is one of the things that we've been coming up against is finding time. Finding time. And Nilo is actually in bed with us. He shares the bed with us. So there's been a few awkward moments where we try to get physical and then he wakes up or we are exploring our sexuality and he's there presence and he might be passed out in bed. But we're. That's a present thing. Like he's there and it's like there's this shock of like, should I feel awkward about this? Am I being a bad parent? Is this going to have an impression on him when he grows up? Is he even aware of it? And then it comes back to, okay, this is a natural part of the human experience. And he's going to grow up into his body, into his lifestyle as a human being, and sexuality is going to be a part of it. And I'm just going to go on a rant here. I look back at how I was brought up around sexuality and it was never spoken about in my house and. That's a thing, right? Like like at what age are you supposed to talk to your child about sexuality and at what time do you integrate it? And what does that seamless, smooth transition look like? And I don't know. I just started parenting eight months ago. And so it's something we are in the middle of figuring out. And yeah, I would say finding the time with Nilo presence because he needs a lot of he needs a lot of attention right now. Like just finding the time for us to be intimate is a thing.
Gareth: [00:03:28] How do you. How do you dance with. I think about relationships is going through phases and this is what I was sharing with Simon on the walk was like, there's various phases of a relationship. All of us experience the honeymoon phase, the the first few months where intimacy is no problem. It's very easy to feel connected to one another. There's the excitement and the novelty of a new connection that Eros is super strong and that honeymoon phase can last for a certain amount of time. And it also includes how you come together for the first time. If there's a little if there's a little bit of luck, anonymity, or if there's a little bit of luck. This is my first connection after my last relationship, after my divorce or after whatever it is. This all that energy in the honeymoon phase. And that's the beginning of it. And there's various phases that we go through as our relationships develop. And so we're in the sort of four year we really, really know each other and well phase. And how do we keep our intimacy spicy? And I'll share about that. But what I wanted to ask is like you're in the phase now of we want it to be parents. We've been pregnant as as a couple and now we have an eight month old. Like, how do you besides the time piece, how you navigating that with that? Hannah, is that something you consciously talking about or what does that look like?
Matt: [00:04:50] Yeah. Yeah, we what we met, as you know, at a at a conscious sexuality retreat. And so the basis of our sexual relationship was really grounded in communication, in understanding our boundaries and desires and needs in the in the bedroom. And so. We bring communication into it very frequently. And one of our actually one of our tools is something we call the baba ganoush. It's sort of a safe word, but an emotional safe word so that if either of us are feeling uneasy about the dynamic, the whether it be physically or emotionally, we say baba ganoush, and that allows us to have a safe space for us to drop in and let the other one know what we're feeling. And that's a tool that we developed early on in our relating and it's carried through to years later to today and now that we are. I mean, Gareth, we're just now beginning to connect after eight months of after having n'golo. She gave birth eight months ago. It took a while for us to have the time to explore our sexuality. And by the time we finally got around to it. The newness of it. I mean, I feel like a virgin again in a lot of ways. Like I feel like I is a new woman than she was two years ago when I met her at the retreat. And. Yeah, man, there's like this. There's a process of of relearning my partner that I'd never gone through in any other type of relationship. And so, yeah, that's the thing.
Gareth: [00:06:44] What is a what does a conversation look like? You got baba ganoush. I love that. Just above a garnish in the middle when you need some space. And then you're like, Hey, I'm feeling uncomfortable or I need to share something, or How does that look?
Matt: [00:06:59] Yeah, yeah, we stop. We'll pause at that point and take a breath and be present with each other and figure out what the other person needs and and establish sort of an emotional baseline for where we're at. Maybe I'm feeling nervous. Maybe maybe she's feeling pain in her body. Maybe. Yeah. I feel like I'm doing it wrong or that what I'm the pleasure that I'm trying to give. Or maybe I'm not being successful at that and I'm getting in my own head. And with previous relationships I would get in my own head and just sort of power through it and not really be attached to the outcome or results. Just hope it went well. And with our relationship like that. That isn't tolerated. Like we don't tolerate that for ourselves or each other. This is a relationship of emotional freedom and. That's one of the ways that we hold that space. And so when someone says Baba ganoush, we drop in and we're present with each other and we get to the bottom of what that is. And then we re initiate our physical connection and continue on and it ends up being richer and more connective and deeper than. Than any of the intimate experiences I've had to in prior relationships.
Gareth: [00:08:24] I really feel that part of. Of getting into your head and. Araminta and I have a practice called Fears and Desires, and we are conscious of setting that that communication framework by articulating our fears and as well as our desires before each lovemaking session to actually say, this is what I'm fearful of, and these are my real desires for this particular this session of being intimate together and desires could be. I'd like to start with 20 minutes of massage or exchanging something else, or sharing stories, or just dropping into some sort of touch or whatever the desire is, creating that space to be able to speak into it. Do you ever show up to.
Matt: [00:09:10] Those relationships or to those encounters not knowing what you want?
Speaker1: [00:09:15] Way too often, way too often. Mr. Mental will ask me what it is that I want. And I'm like. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know what it is that I want. A lot of the time and. Yeah. It's actually something I'm leaning into is like really checking into what it is that I desire from each intimate connection. I mean, there's a part of me that knows our flow. And what I mean by our flow is like what we normally do before we start making love and how long that normally lasts and what that normally feels like and what positions we normally roll in. And my desires are often for our flow. But I always have the sense that I should want something different or I should want something to be a bit more spicy. And. Yeah. I can't get in my head about that for sure. I can definitely start to think like, you know, other people having more fiery lovemaking than we are, like, should this look different? It's it's something that I can definitely spend time in my head.
Speaker2: [00:10:12] And I could see that. I can see that getting it if we don't have that practice. I love that practice, by the way. I will be installing that practice as soon as Milo goes to sleep. The the desires, I think, would also be challenging for me, not only just to identify what my desire really is, but if that desire is something that maybe I perceive she doesn't want to give me or doesn't want to participate in having, I guess, the courage. Courage would be the component necessary to speak into that, knowing that she has the capacity to say no or to. Yeah. To, to flow with it in some kind of way. I guess that's, that's part of what you all have cultivated in the four years of relating that y'all have built.
Speaker1: [00:11:05] Yeah, it's. It's the part of all of us that believes that when somebody has to say no, that we've somehow inconvenienced them. That's true for me. Like if I ask for something that Araminta doesn't want to give me and she has to say no. There's the sense of, like, maybe I shouldn't have asked and. That really is not my responsibility. We're in an open and authentic partnership. My responsibility is to own my desires. If I can find out what that is and to know what it is that our desire and then to be able to own them, knowing that she's a fucking adult and she can say no if it doesn't feel like something that's good for her. And so that's really been part of the process and. The same is also true. The people pleaser needs to disappear when you feel into a request that comes from somebody else's desire. And so what that looks like is I would like to do this. That needs to be my truth in order for me to be able to say yes to it and to have the courage to say no if that's not my truth, rather than sort of coasting, because I think that's what she wants, but that's not really what I want. It's nuanced, but I think what happens when you say yes and don't mean it. Energetically. The other person feels it and it's better to say no and to own your no, and to be in your truth than to say yes to something that's not your truth. The other person gets like a half yes.
Speaker1: [00:12:28] They hear the words, but they also feel the energy of it not being a yes, you know what I mean? And then and then you're in this sort of weird like she's thinking that is this what he wants? And it goes backwards and forwards, like in a flow of energy that can really get you stuck in your head. It's such an interesting way to get stuck in your head. Is that loop? I have it. I have it the same way when I think about performance in lovemaking, where it's like rather than speaking up and saying, Does this feel good, faster, slower, longer, do you want to finish whatever those questions are? I can get to a place where, rather than ruin the moment in inverted commas, by speaking some story that it needs to be like in silence or something like that, if I ruin the moment by speaking, it's going to take the romance away. So I'll just try and guess what she wants and I'll write. I'll gauge what I think Araminta wants by the sound she's making by her breath, by a couple of virtual signals. But I'm not actually true about what that is, and I think I would probably need to call a Babadook a nurse in that moment and be like, Hey, I'm getting in my head here. Like, are you feeling like we should finish here and actually ask directly, what's spinning in my head at that moment? So exactly that I do that sometimes. But it's a practice I think would serve us if I did it more frequently.
Speaker2: [00:13:45] Yeah, you've nailed it with the application of baba ganoush. That's exactly where it would play in for both of us, for both sides of it. And I also want to go back to the practical side of this. This tool all use around fears and desires. How long does that actually take? Like it's time for bed. You all know you're going to go into a lovemaking session. Is that like a quick little 32nd conversation or is this measured in minutes?
Speaker1: [00:14:13] No, it's a it's maybe a minute. Each side where we get to to share our desires and we get to speak into our fears. We also get to articulate two other things that we often we will be very conscious of whether or not we're going to choose to orgasm or ejaculate. And depending on what that looks like, both of us will own our desire in that place, recognizing that we may not always want to orgasm and I may not necessarily want to ejaculate and have that conversation before making love. And then the second is the sex magic practice of what do we want to consciously bring our attention to in this lovemaking session so that we can send this powerful energy into the creation of what it is that we want? And we'll be very specific about that. That's like we want this launch to go well, we want our parents here to to feel smooth. And it sounds probably weird talking about that. At the same time, we're talking about intimacy, but that's genuinely what's alive. It's like, this is what I want to come into my life. I want to channel this powerful energy to this and mental will speak into the same thing. So the practice looks like probably around one minute each and it includes what the setup is. So we've got 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or are we going for half an hour, something like that or an hour, depending on exactly what our actual time constraints are. And then the desires must be a quickie. No foreplay, no body touch, no massage, just yeah, just drop in or actually create a space where we're going to spend an hour with massage first. And yeah, some other, some other stuff that will come out of the desire section of the conversation.
Speaker2: [00:15:56] That's powerful, man. I love it. There's good stuff there.
Speaker1: [00:16:01] Mhm. What's the, what's the journey besides the time thing. Been around. Like I tore on her body. And you moving into this phase of not being a parent, like what is that been like for you guys? Has it been a smooth transition that you that you've taken? Gracefully? I mean, there's a there's a gap of the time that Nailah was born that there was no penetrative intimacy. Right?
Speaker2: [00:16:27] Yeah. We we still haven't got to full penetration intimacy. We just begin exploring. Uh, genital to genital touch may be a month ago, and that was partially because the changes to Tonya's body that took place during pregnancy. She went through a phase of needing to relearn her new body that that came as a result of this and. Yeah. Layered on top of this, was this needing to relearn each other, getting to experience each other after such a long gap of wanting to drop into intimacy with intention and not finding that time and then so much time had passed, it was like, man, we want to do this a certain way consciously and not finding the time. And man, I think we found I know I'll find excuses not to drop into lovemaking if something doesn't feel right. And sometimes I can talk myself out of it for different reasons, like if I'm tired or if I'm nervous or if my mind is elsewhere. Like I'll find an excuse not to not to make love which man I say that out loud. And it's like, Man, there's something wrong with me. What's wrong with me? Why? Why would I do something like that?
Speaker1: [00:17:57] And I resonate with that.
Speaker2: [00:18:00] Yeah, we've had an avoidance pattern that's gone along with it, and I think we each have our own stories about it. I know I've put on probably ÂŁ20 since giving birth. She lost the weight and I put it on. So I'm not feeling great in my body. So I'm not feeling. Super sexy. And yeah, maybe that contributes to it. I'm not sure where to go there.
Speaker1: [00:18:30] I want to share that. When we were doing prep for this call, I was reflecting on. What are we going to say? Like what's going to be a practical tool? And that's one of the things that I'm really enjoying about this podcast is that we actually have to start teaching the stuff that we're living. And often what comes from that is an enhancement of the things that we're doing as we start to articulate it in this conversation, but practically. I was looking at those various phases of our relationship that I spoke about earlier, like the honeymoon phase, the trying to be parents phase, the newly married phase, the newly parent phase, whatever that is. And recognize that. I think what happened for me in the past has been a transition from one phase into the next. Without consciously transitioning, it's like we want to hold on to the honeymoon part of the relationship. And I know what happened in a previous connection was the honeymoon phase was golden and it's always golden. You're projecting your shadow into the other person. You're hoping that they're going to be everything that you hope that they will be. And there's all that romance and love. And the intimacy flows easily. And then. You move into the next phase.
Speaker1: [00:19:40] And what happened for us in that phase is the the rhythm of the intimacy started to slow down. We we didn't have access to the same level of Eros that we had before. And there was a part of us that started to also avoid it, but not even speak about it. We were just completely ignoring this elephant in the room. And there really was something about the process of. Ignoring that thing that made it worse. It became a real like a thorn in our relationship that I don't think either of us had the courage or the confidence to be able to speak into and be able to penetrate. And so one of the things that I recognized that we've got as a practice inside our community is something called a post game, which is the reflective process of looking back on a specific event, let's say a relationship and taking the lessons, taking what it is that you've learned from that particular relationship, and then carrying those, integrating them into your life and then carrying the gold into your new relationships. And what I thought was it probably means that as we transition with the same partner through these various phases, in many ways it's like a death of the existing relationship that I think could be managed a lot more smoothly.
Speaker1: [00:20:58] If we did a post-game of that particular phase. And so. What that could look like for you is the death of the version of you and I. Tonya That was. Yeah. Newly together backpacking. Celebrate that phase. Recognize that that phase is over before moving into the next phase. And when I was doing this, it's actually something that I think Araminta and I, it would serve us to do because we're in the phase now of. The honeymoon is over. And it's been an amazing honeymoon. And we're now in the phase of where we are. Yeah. Making love 2 to 3 times a week. And there's a part of me that's still holding onto the part of the. The honeymoon phase, which was making love every single day, if not two or three times a day. That feels a little bit sad. And I haven't gone through it yet, but I think a post game would really serve us. Yeah. Like really celebrating that last phase, taking the gifts and honoring what that phase was for us and then saying, okay, how are we moving into the next phase of of relating?
Speaker2: [00:21:58] Yeah. And identify what you want. That next phase of the relating to look like speaking about the intimacy as well as as well as I mean like intimacy is one part of that phase but also you, you develop into different ways of supporting each other and being in flow with each other and creating together like all of that can be called into this phase as well, supported by the lovemaking, like you said, with, with manifesting what you want or setting intentions and calling in what you want around sending that energy there. Yeah. That would definitely serve us.
Speaker1: [00:22:35] What I thought I would do is I wrote down a couple of the the five steps that are there actually more than this. And I'll drop a PDF link in the show notes for this episode, which is called Post Game for a Relationship. And a post game, as I said, is any opportunity to reflect on a phase that's that's just gone through. And so in this example, if you're listening to this, what it would probably be, it could be for a posture relationship, but it could also be for a past relationship phase. And so the post game format looks like this. The first step is on your notepad with the pen writing down something that you're grateful for, something that you're grateful for with regards to this connection, even if it feels painful at the moment, or is there still anxiousness or anger or rage or grief or whatever it is about the previous phase? Find something that you can be grateful for. That's the start of the post game. Then what would I do differently? As you reflect back for me on the honeymoon phase, what would I do differently in that phase? What went well in that phase. What were some of the things that I really celebrated from that particular phase or that particular relationship that I want to anchor into my future relationships or take as a lesson to anchor into my daily life as a practice for myself. The fourth thing you would write down is list all the emotions that you felt during this relationship or during this phase. And what that does is it brings awareness to the emotions. Many of us specifically in relationship endings, when you when you feel the pain and anxiety, you can feel like you're drowning in these heavy, dense emotions. And if you take the time to just notice and recognize what those emotions are by writing them down, it brings a level of presence and awareness to those.
Speaker1: [00:24:27] So that you can feel them and be aware of them. And this is not a process of numbing out or not trying to feel these emotions. It's just really bringing the awareness to it and recognizing that the transition of this old relationship has been meaningful. You were. Deeply connected to the version of me that was in this honeymoon phase. And the rhythm of that phase has moved on. That's the natural phase of the relationships. And rather than be sad, I can write down the feelings that I felt in my body of. Yeah, I feel. I feel a bit like. Yeah. It's like, fuck, I want, I want that to carry on for some reason and it's okay to feel that. So write down the emotions that you feel as you go through this phase. And then when you move into the next phase, this is more like a future state. Like Matt was saying, you write down how you want to feel in the next phase. So Mentor are moving into this. I don't know. I would call it a solid building phase where we've got a really solid foundation and we're now deepening our connection and building and the feelings that we want to feel in this next phase. So grounded, heard, seen, supported confidence in the bedroom, in my body. All of those things would be things that I wrote down in step five. So. We'll drop a link to the PDF. But Matt, what do you think about that as a as a way for you to post-game that phase that you've just transitioned out of to set yourself up for the next the next phase?
Speaker2: [00:25:55] Yeah, that feels good. I got a couple of questions. One, is this something that we do together? Like is this item and I sitting down or am I doing my own independent one? She's doing hers and maybe we're talking about it or do we go through it together? What do you think?
Speaker1: [00:26:11] It's a good question. I hadn't thought it through.
Speaker2: [00:26:13] We do a post game for like vacations or we'll go on a camping trip and or take Nilo to the doctor's appointment, whatever it is. We'll game a lot of events like that together. And yeah, that, that, that tends to work. I'm leaning towards doing this together and I realize that doing it on my own is going to yield a different type of gold that I can maybe achieve a level of honesty with myself. I don't know.
Speaker1: [00:26:43] It's probably the way to do it I think start with yourself especially depends on the I would say it depends on the stability of your current connection of where you are in your relationship as you're doing this. If you're pretty rocky with your current partner, things feel like they're a little bit out. Then I would say, do this on your own and see what gold comes from it and take that into into the connection as a way to to build authenticity and to show a level of commitment to your partner. And so what what that looks like practically for me is because I'm in such a solid partnership with such a grounded, an amazing woman who can hold all the parts of me. I can very easily do this post game with her, and it's something we're all going to do together. If you're a little anxious about the current dynamic of where you are in your relating or The Elephant has been in the room for four years and we haven't spoken into it. Give yourself the gift of doing this in a comfortable way so that you feel the process for yourself first and then see how you want to bring it into into your connection with the lens of articulating it. I would say this is something that you should own as a desire for you if you're going to bring this to your relationship. So not like, hey, our sex life is fact. We got to do this thing that feels a little bit like having it done to the other person. This is like, Hey, I heard about this exercise. These are the steps that we go through. I would love to do it as a way for us to transition from our past relationship into the new phase of our relating. And I'm doing this because there's this connection is important to me. Whatever that conversation sounds like, that's how I would that's how I would frame it.
Speaker2: [00:28:18] That's so good. I, I'm with you in that my connection with Eitan is strong enough where we can do this together. And I know so many brothers who don't have these conversations with their partner that the elephants have congregated and formed an entire herd sitting in the corner of the room. And to bring up something like this could make the partner feel attacked and could end in tears. If it isn't, if it isn't brought to the table carefully, sort of like radical honesty, like you have to have safety to do radical honesty and there's a commitment to the other party involved to be ready to receive it, rather than just dumping all this radically honest observations onto them. Right?
Speaker1: [00:29:04] Uh huh, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. This is such a rich topic. I think we could spend hours unpacking this. It does segway into us doing a reflection and a post game. On what has been the first season of the Call to Coach podcast. How are you feeling about that?
Speaker2: [00:29:23] I mean, we've got a podcast now, Gareth. We've been talking about doing this for a while. We finally have one and I tell you, it's something to pull up my Spotify and see it sitting there next to Rogan and Sam Harris and and all these podcasters who I really admire and I feel like it has given me a taller stance that I walk the earth feeling more proud of our work. And yeah, it feels great.
Speaker1: [00:29:54] I agree. It's. For me, it's been all the things. It's been. It's been. Yeah, we've got a podcast that's the best thing we've ever done through to Oh my God, we've got a podcast. There's so much work. And it's our weekly commitment for these last 12 weeks, as has sometimes felt like a bit of a treadmill. In some ways, the days keep rolling underneath our feet and we've got to keep running and creating and. In many ways, I'm so grateful that we made that commitment. And as we reflected yesterday, getting ready for this show and. I'm excited about taking a break, and that's really doing a slightly deeper dive into our post game and really recognizing what the goal has been from season one and how we can improve in season two. So what are you thinking about with regards to lessons that we've taken from this, this first season and how we can roll this into the second season?
Speaker2: [00:30:51] I think. I mean, what is it? It's Monday night. I'm going to go off the grid for three days and we've got this podcast due on Thursday. That's not a way to make a podcast. We've got a I'm looking forward to season two, us being ahead of the game and and having some content to having great conversations ready to press play onto our channels. I think that's going to really serve us. And this pause between season one and two is going to allow us to get our shit together in that regard. And that feels really good. How about you? What lessons you take from season one?
Speaker1: [00:31:31] I had a you know, you've been through this. I'm showing this for those that don't know the story between the Eclipse season, which was about a four week period that ended about two weeks ago. If you're listening to this that's recorded on May the 30th, I think it was somewhere around May the 21st that we had the second eclipse. But that's just to say that I had a fucking rollercoaster of emotions and self doubt and. Yeah. Me being really hard on myself about the creation of our of our show. And yeah, that internal feeling reflected back to me in the world around me for a good few weeks. And I found it pretty tricky. What it's opened up for me was a couple of things. It was perfectly timed for a leadership, a mentor mentoring leadership program I was on called Leading three Fire with Jamie Wheel, which was amazing. I got some amazing tools from that, which I know supported me through that time and I'm definitely going to be part of my experience going forward, but also the analogy of. Me getting more into the conductor seat of our business and our creation and less into the current seats of the orchestra. We've spoken about this and what that really looks like is. What are we building? What does it look like? What is the frequency? How do we build a six week window of content, like you said? So we're not recording podcasts on a Tuesday to go live on a Thursday that we're ahead of the game and that I'm not the one and you're not the one necessarily having to push all of the buttons.
Speaker1: [00:33:05] And so my two polarity is my tension points. There are built the team to do the work while also making sure that it's done the way that we want it done so that the brand shows up the way we want to so that the show notes are the level we want it to be. Oh, and that requires some letting go and it's not always the easiest to do. And so yeah, that's, that's really the lesson. And I'm, I'm excited to, to take this breather and to look at what those lessons are going to be going into season two. And at a very high level. I'm sure we're going to deep dive into this. I'm doing it through. The lens of understanding my human design. And for those that know what human design is, this might be. A little bit duplicated for you, but it's new for me. I only came into my world a few years ago, but essentially the idea that each of us has got a very different energy signature of who we are and what are the tasks that best suits us based on our specific energy signature.
Speaker1: [00:34:08] And when we live in a when we know what those tasks and ways of being are and we live in relation to those. Life is so much easier if you are living in a way that you are. Doing tasks that may not necessarily be suited to your specific energetic signature. Life feels like swimming upstream, and I've definitely felt that. And so what I recognize as my human design, as being a projector, which I'm trying to build into my current personal workflow at the moment, is I should be leading. It's very clear that I should be leading and guiding people, which is the orchestra analogy. And yeah, setting up my life and my team and my to do list so that I'm standing in front of the orchestra and not also playing double bass and violin strings and rolling between all these different roles. And it's going to be a little bit of that for a while, but that really feels like something that I want to anchor in as we move into the next phase. What about giving us some feedback on your current call to courage? When we teed up the the frame that we have of call to courage. You you made a pledge of what your current call to courage was. Maybe you want to give a feedback into what that call to courage was and how it's going.
Speaker2: [00:35:27] Yeah. My call to courage involved showing up financially for my family. I had. Ever since entering into this relationship and struggling to make money and having a kid and moving to Spain brought a whole bunch of expenses. And I wanted to change the way that money was flowing in my world. And that involves setting up my personal brand and making an offer to the world that I could stand behind and earn money on my terms the way I wanted to, doing work that suited my passion and purpose. And I am proud to say that as of a week ago, I have launched a beta version of a product that involves helping people find and broadcast their authentic voice. The product does not live for public consumption. I have found two clients who are taking it on with me and I'm walking them through an eight week program that they are paying me for. So I've got now $2,000 of revenue in the past week that will turn into 4000 when the eight weeks are done. And after that I will have a product that will be ready for offer to the masses in the form of an evergreen, something I'm calling an experience pathway. And so my call to courage has been a success. And there's something to naming it out loud to my brothers, to you, to everybody in the world who's listening to the podcast that really ignited a fire under me. And I'm proud. I'm proud of the way I showed up. And today is our anniversary, autonomous anniversary. And I was able to take her out to a restaurant and pay for it with my credit card, which is something I haven't been able to do for the entirety of our relationship. And so, yeah, it feels incredible and amazing and yeah, thanks for checking in on that. You also named your own Call to Courage and maybe you'd like to share a little bit about that.
Speaker1: [00:37:39] Mm hmm. Firstly, kudos, brother. I want to give you. Yeah, I want to give you thumbs up for for showing up for that. The money topic is so gnarly. It's something we're going to talk more about in our future. But yeah, well done on on putting in the hours and doing the work to to get to this place. It's. It's no small thing.
Speaker2: [00:37:59] We're all done. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker1: [00:38:02] Yeah. My call to courage was also a mention of what the next phase of our co-creation was going to look like. The Fathers, Sons, Brothers, Tribe membership. And it's the the online community that really supports this podcast. And it's a community of men that want to show up fully and courageously as a father, son, brother, lover and leader and. The conversation starts on the Call to Courage podcast. What you're listening to at the moment and what we're putting in place, which is going to be starting in a couple of weeks, is going to be a series of fortnightly every two weeks. We're going to hold a men's circle, a free men circle, and it's going to run for about three months. And we aim to use those circles to really unite our tribe and to connect with other men that want to dive a little bit deeper into the types of conversations and topics that we've been talking about on this podcast. And it's as much as having the opportunity to be able to share what we've already experienced as it is for us to bring experts into that circle and for us to be able to learn through asking questions and sharing those conversations at a deeper level inside our men's circles. And so. It's changed shape since I committed to my Call to Courage, which was bringing this version of our work into the world.
Speaker1: [00:39:27] And it's it's not there yet, but we're definitely a step closer. And Matt and I, you know, we've spent a huge amount of time behind the scenes taking a look at what this is going to unfold into. But I'm really excited about these these upcoming circles that are really going to be the next layer of the fathers, sons, brothers, tribe that came after our Founders Circle, which we put in play probably around five months ago. From there, we grew into the podcast. We really refined the winds that we had from creating that circle with those first eight men that were part of our tribe and taking the gold off to doing a post game and really using that to shape this next off. And I'm really excited about what's going to be coming. So. If you're interested in connecting deeper with our tribe of father, sons, brothers, go to call to courage, love. Register for the Cult of Courage conversation. That'll also put you on our email list. And as soon as we're ready to go and we have the agenda for the eight circles that are going to be coming soon, we can share them with you. And I'm super jazzed about this. I feel like it's by far the simplest and cleanest and most beautiful thing we've created. And I can't wait to get it out the door.
Speaker2: [00:40:39] Yeah, I'm excited to. There's something around sitting in a men's circle and getting raw and authentic and vulnerable and honest and finding our truth amongst other brothers who are doing the same. And that's part of the experience that we'll be facilitating through these eight circles. They'll be done online with Zoom calls. And yeah, like Gareth said, go to Call to Courage, Live to get on the waiting list for that. And season two will be coming soon after. So stay tuned for all of that. Gareth, do we have anything to wrap this up?
Speaker1: [00:41:12] No, I think that's it. It's it's been beautiful to to drop in, beautiful to for you to share your win around your current cult of courage. Thank you for being so open with where you are in your current intimate relationship with with Eterna and both of us strapped in with our partners before this episode to just make sure that we were in alignment, to talk about our intimate lives with the whole world. And fortunately, we are connected to beautiful women that are supporting the work that we're doing. And so, yeah, I'm really I'm really honored to be in that, in that journey with Mentor and to be a part of it with, with you and Tana on this same topic, we have episode five, we've got Bubba Dez Nichols. A Episode five of Season one was a really rich conversation around love, intimacy, relating, self pleasuring. There's a lot of gold in there with regards to how to keep the fire alive. So we wanted to keep this short because it was really a wrap up of season of season one. But check out episode five and stay tuned for season two. Matt It's been an honor brother and I can't wait to co-create with you for many more seasons to come, my man.
Speaker2: [00:42:23] Gareth, thank you. This has been an incredible journey and your leadership ability and our ability to see where we're at, where we're going and you do this with intention. Create with intention has been incredible. So thank you, brother.
Speaker1: [00:42:39] Much love, everybody. See you next time.
