00:00.03
Matt Dahse
What is up everybody? Welcome to the father's sons brothers podcast. This is your co-host Matt Dazzi here with Gareth Pickering. And in this episode, we are going to give you the framework you need to step into the new paradigm of leadership. I'm talking about how do you access the magic? How do you step away from your current circles and how do you set up a framework and integrate it into your world so that you can be the leader?
00:27.07
Matt Dahse
you want to be. I'm here with Gareth coming from Guatemala. Gareth, how are you today?
00:31.73
Gareth Pickering
Happy New Year, dude. The last time we did a postgame, I was in Peru, and we've had a little break since then, but it feels so good to be back here. And yeah, I'm excited to dive into today's topic around integrated leadership. And it sort of feels timeless with the everything moving in the world at the moment around like geopolitics. And yeah, it just feels like there's a lot of unsettledness in the world.
00:56.07
Matt Dahse
Yeah, we had a changing of the guard of world leaders, I guess yesterday with Trump coming into office and yeah, I'm still not clear where I stand with that, but I realized that when I check in with my my brothers in the States and it's it's quite a polarized environment that people are swimming in right now, I'm glad I'm coming to you from Spain and not having to deal with those conversations.
01:18.03
Gareth Pickering
Well, we've offline had many conversations about the the political circus. And I know it's been a world that you've at times been really involved in. like And I know there's a lot of energy that hooks us into these global narratives and how important we think those are. And I think the polarizing world at the moment is I know and love people that think Trump being in power is the best thing that's going to save the world. And then I have other people that I love and respect that are like, this is the worst thing ever. And like you, I'm sort of teeing it up to focusing on the things that I can control. I've never really been deep into geopolitics. That's not such a big thing for me, but I'm not disconnected from what's moving in the world. And I think the conversation we want to have today around leadership is really like, there seems to be no one's, no one even those that are happy that trumps in.
02:08.26
Gareth Pickering
would necessarily have chosen him if they could have chosen the best possible person to be a leader. It's like the best the best of a bad choice, you know? And I think, yeah, how do we generally shift what we want to see in our leaders? And that's what we're going to be diving into today.
02:23.89
Matt Dahse
Yeah, bro, I love it. and And how do we be leaders in our own life as well? right like we're We're not leaders of the free world. We're not presidents of countries. you know But we do serve a role in our lives to to lead our families, to be pillars in our community, to be leaders in our business. And I think you know the elements of the mature leader and this new paradigm of leadership that we're going to drop into applies to all of our lives wherever we're at as as as men walking our path. And yeah, I have to get into it, bro.
02:54.82
Gareth Pickering
There's something as well, which is, I think someone said this a few years ago, is like ah politicians and our and our leaders of the world are at some level a reflection of us. Like collectively, if we have given our power away or we're not standing as leaders in our own lives or we don't feel confident enough, we're like, oh, this is beyond me. I'm going to give this to somebody else to do. Collectively, if we're in that space and we don't know quite what else to do or we're collectively all sitting vibrating with a frequency of like.
03:26.77
Gareth Pickering
greed, consumption, capitalism as a theme in our lives, I think it makes sense that we're going to see that in our leaders. And so where I sometimes feel powerless of like, oh fuck, how do we possibly change the current circus that we see in our global leaders and sometimes feel powerless? Like you said, it's like, okay, what can I do? Yes, I want to show up as a leader in my own life. I want to see where am I leaking energy? Where am I not standing in my own power?
03:53.88
Gareth Pickering
where am I not taking a responsibility for my leadership in my own life and trusting that that's what I can change and showing up as a way to support others to do the same and then eventually it will be reflected in our leaders.
04:05.09
Matt Dahse
Yeah, and realizing the leaders that we follow. like you know Whether we're part of ah a culture of a nation or a culture of a community, like we are choosing who we spend our time with. We are choosing who whose content we consume and who we look up to. And like those are the choices we can make as well. like like you know who Who are we engaging with? What type of leadership style resonates with us? And and as we think about our own way, like having having those role models is important. I don't know.
04:35.92
Gareth Pickering
Share some of the the places where you've experienced, let's say, immature leadership in the past, where you've been in a corporate environment, where you have experienced leadership that hasn't always felt healthy and and how that played out in your world.
04:51.78
Matt Dahse
and When I was an investment banker, I was working for some extremely powerful leaders who you know had a goal of making a shit ton of money. and They were very powerful and strong at cultivating young minds like my own to follow in the footsteps necessary to make that happen. and They did that through inspirational language, through demonstrating how ah how to hold power and and wield power in a way that I can now see was quite unhealthy, but I was so drunk with it because I wanted what they were demonstrating to have. And, you know, it's it's sort of like, it's sort of like really understanding and knowing what you're calling into the world is an important piece of...
05:42.63
Matt Dahse
of, of, of not falling victim to those leaders who have the wrong intentions because I can, I can look back at that now and be like, yeah, these, these aren't the type of individuals I would follow as the version of me today. But the 21 year old version of me was all about it and was all in for whatever opportunities they were presenting to me to follow. And yeah, I can see that that happens, especially in investment banking. And I can see it happen in other industries as well. You came from.
06:09.45
Matt Dahse
some toxic corporate environments as well. What did the leadership look like there?
06:15.84
Gareth Pickering
You know, i I had similar spaces. I think what's what's a theme and what you shared there, and it's definitely had been a theme in my life and the world that I grew up in was, I would just say an over-identification of materialism or profit, meaning that money was the most important thing for me.
06:33.21
Gareth Pickering
And so anybody that felt like they were making more money than me would probably have been idealized in some version of me. And i was that was definitely a focus for me.
06:39.51
Matt Dahse
Right.
06:41.84
Gareth Pickering
And I you know i often, very often in my, in my younger years, maybe like you said, the the younger version of me made decisions based purely on money. Like if somebody came to me with a business opportunity, I would assess that opportunity based on its ability to make profits. And it was the guiding factor. That was the thing. It was like majorly weighted around money. And yeah, I've subsequently realized that I've made a lot of money And it's not just about money. And in fact, I think that's probably some of the challenge that we see in unhealthy leadership at the moment, especially in the masculine, which is like, it's just about money. And I know some people have concerns that Trump, for example, is overly identified with making money and the the natural resources on the planet. And so
07:26.11
Gareth Pickering
Again, I think if I had to step back 10 years, that would have made sense to me to be like, fuck, he's the leader we need, just continually more and more money.
07:33.38
Matt Dahse
Yeah.
07:34.16
Gareth Pickering
But it's like, I don't know that that's necessarily true anymore. I realize in my own life, more and more money doesn't make me happier. Yes, I want to make an impact. Yes, the access to resources and money does give me the ability to make a bigger impact and to to show up more fully, to build a bigger team, to create a bigger platform, which is what we're doing.
07:52.56
Gareth Pickering
But I think my journey in my own integration of myself has been recognizing that money is just one part of it. I want to be known for creating a legacy that is beyond just financial welfare.
08:05.68
Matt Dahse
And you've taken the steps now to surround yourself with people who who have that same vision. You know, back when we were stuck in these industries, we were hanging out with people who had these similar mindsets of let's get more money, let's have more success, let's get more, and more, more. And so that sort of drove our behavior. And part of What we're going to be diving into today is this this idea of leadership involves you kind of stepping away from the echo chamber that we build around ourselves in society and finding these these new circles, these new groups of men who have the same or similar goals and ideas of how the world should be so that we can craft our leadership style in that environment rather than the one that we might be stuck in.
08:50.99
Gareth Pickering
yeah it's some this Yeah, we've been talking about this um these three phases of leadership and I think for those listening to this, you know this is really potentially going to be for you if you feel like you have been in a role where you've been successful, you've done all the things that society has said, this is what you need to do to make it as a man.
08:51.24
Matt Dahse
What do you think about that?
09:11.43
Gareth Pickering
And so maybe you've got a family and you've made an impact in the world and you've been through some hard knocks and you've learned some life lessons and you know maybe you've got a bank of account full of cash and you're realizing as you look ahead to the second chapter of your life what really is meaningful what does real real leadership mean to me and i think what matt's talking about in the first phase that i'll share with you now around leadership is In order for you to have a different perspective, you need to remove yourself from the space that has a lot of legacy stories and energy. And this has been true for Matt and myself, meaning he needed to remove himself from the investment banking world in order for him to be able to gain the perspective of what else was available to him. Because in that world, you are only surrounded by people that were focused on profit in your example.
09:59.73
Gareth Pickering
in mine It was also just around making money. But if I didn't remove myself from that environment, I was continually surrounded by the same people. And much like a plant is a function of the health of its environment, if you don't change the environment around you, it's really difficult to be able to see any new possible paradigm without removing yourself. You can't read the label from the inside of the bottle. And so this first phase of stepping into becoming a new paradigm leader is to recognize this part that you cannot see what is continually around you unless you consciously remove yourself and we call this severance. It's like genuinely cutting away from your current paradigm of leadership which is your current circles and in the case of
10:43.93
Gareth Pickering
large businesses for the leader that wants to be a new paradigm leader, it requires you stepping out of that frame in order to be able to see a different perspective, in order for you to be able to even recognize that something else can exist because had I not left Johannesburg and the world and the circles and the and the ah environment that I was in, it would have been impossible to be able to see some of the other paths that were available to me without actually doing that.
11:11.17
Matt Dahse
I want to take a quick pause, Gareth, and we we keep using this term new paradigm leader. Can we can we dive into that real quick and and define what that is as opposed to, say, the old paradigm leader?
11:28.07
Gareth Pickering
I've been, I've been holding this as a recognition that we started this conversation with, which is there's been a, for me, a sense of this is the way it's always been. It's always just been like, we got to continually take more and more resources from the planet.
11:44.06
Gareth Pickering
We've got to continually focus more and more on profit. And those are the most important things. And for me, that feels like the old paradigm.
11:50.13
Matt Dahse
Mm.
11:50.15
Gareth Pickering
That feels like an immature expression of masculinity, where it's anchored in this place of like, everybody is competing with everybody else. If we have another business that does something similar to us, they're eating our market share.
12:04.10
Gareth Pickering
And it's for me based in a a paradigm of scarcity, meaning that there's not enough on this planet for all of us. And if Matt has a business that does advertising and I've got a business that does advertising, it's a doggy dog world and we've got to continually compete against one another. I believe that's an old paradigm of leadership.
12:22.22
Gareth Pickering
What we've been talking about on this podcast and we keep continually communicate inside our community as we want to bring a new paradigm of leadership in. It's really anchored in a place of collaboration of how do we work together. There's more than enough resources on this planet. As long as we come from a place of recognizing that, you know what?
12:41.97
Gareth Pickering
why do you want to have 10 houses or why do you need to have 25 million in the bank or be a billionaire like that may be your thing but you could also have a beautiful happy life with a slightly different paradigm or a slightly different story bringing something meaningful to the world that makes you enough money to live and have a beautiful life to do all the things that you want but it's based in this place of there is enough and let's work together and I think the new paradigm of leadership is anchored in this principle of like let's work together let's let go of the the part of us that believes that we're always competing with one another and that we live in a world of scarcity, as in there's not enough resources, we need to eke out our own little place. I think those are the challenges that we see in our old paradigm of leadership. And I think a new paradigm of leadership is anchored in a lot of the principles that we talk about inside the father's son's brother's community.
13:31.51
Gareth Pickering
And there's a paradigm of the the men's work resurgence that we're seeing around the world, which is like, hey, as men, we don't have to sit and fight against one another and continually compete. Why don't we sit around the same fire and see how we can pool our resources and our skills to bring something more wholesome and probably, um, I would say not better to the world, but like a more diverse offering by working together rather than competing against one another. That's a great question. Thanks dude.
13:59.52
Matt Dahse
Yeah, man, collaboration over competition, mastermind principle, you know, people who are already doing the work that we're doing. Yeah. Like the old version of me would look at how we can crush them or compete with them.
14:10.61
Matt Dahse
And now we meet other people in the space and it's like, bro, love what you're doing. How do we work together? And it's, yeah, it creates such a, such a more powerful impact.
14:16.17
Gareth Pickering
Exactly.
14:20.71
Gareth Pickering
I also want to show you know there's something there's something on the there's something in what's also ah ah a
14:22.73
Matt Dahse
It's, it's, it's more joyful to be in in a space that's that way, you know? Anyway, think thank you for addressing that.
14:32.87
Gareth Pickering
I would say like a ah principle inside the father, son's brothers community, which is also why we're called father, son's brothers. And I think the, the old paradigm of leadership is sort of this lone wolf mentality, which is like men that get into the middle age of life.
14:47.96
Gareth Pickering
Let's call it the the king stage, you know, sort of early thirties till the, till the sort of fifties, middle, middle fifties before you move into the state, the sage or the elder area.
14:52.64
Matt Dahse
I like that.
15:02.08
Gareth Pickering
The old paradigm of leadership is like the youngsters don't know anything. The old people are like out of their wits already or no longer relevant to us. And what we've been holding as a new paradigm is like, no, that's not true. At each generation, we have gifts for one another, meaning there's something really energetic and youthful and exciting about connecting with a 20 year old man who's excited and exuberant about the changes and is connected to a world that I at the moment and perhaps a little bit separate from. So why don't I connect with those people, bring them into my world and have them as part of our community and our tribe to be able to harness the gifts that come from youthfulness, while at the same time, Matt and I are both in the king stage of our lives, like in this in this place of really showing up in leadership, harnessing our gift building, whereas my dad and your dad are more in the the elder stage,
15:51.11
Gareth Pickering
We need to create a space where we can sit at the feet of our elders and be like, what are we missing? like what if What can we learn from you on this path? And I think that's also a function of new paradigm leadership, of luck recognizing there are gifts for us at each of these levels. And our elders are carrying wisdom that if we let them go before we tap into that, we're letting go of some really important lessons that we're probably going to have to go and repeat and learn. And that seems like the long read. Why don't we just learn from them? They've already walked this path. And at the same time,
16:19.35
Gareth Pickering
When we do that, we also create a space for them to feel necessary, to feel useful because of what I see in the corporate world is men move through their lives. They have ah a lot of importance in the king phase of their life as a corporate executive. They turn 65 and from one day to the next, they go from being really important to having no purpose and not knowing what to do.
16:42.33
Gareth Pickering
They don't know how to be at home with their wives and they don't quite know what what they're supposed to be doing with their lives. And that can lead to a lot of depression and feeling isolated and they actually have a lot of gifts to bring. And so one of our roles is also to create spaces where we can bring those men into our community as well. And that also sort of creates a piece of the new paradigm leadership for me.
17:02.75
Matt Dahse
Well, thank you for addressing that. And yeah, now that we've anchored that in phase one, getting severance.
17:08.93
Gareth Pickering
Severance.
17:11.96
Matt Dahse
What about phase two?
17:12.67
Gareth Pickering
stepping out of the old yeah so so phase one stepping out of the old creating a space from your current environment to realize that until you do that you're not going to be able to see a new path phase two is really what we call initiation this is the step of the journey where it's like how do i recognize that something needs to die You know, we have a a world where we live where we always think that we need to hold on to things forever. But I recognize that there's a version of me that in my world that I'd created in my early thirties, I needed to let certain parts of myself die because
17:47.76
Gareth Pickering
I now understand it to be my soul, was coming for something more meaningful. A new paradigm leader is coming to create something more than just money. Money might be a part of it, but it may not even be a part of it. And this initiation piece is stepping away in the severance phase and surrounding yourself in ah in a container or a space where you're like, okay, what do I really need to let go of? What do I need to let die so that I can create space for something new?
18:14.62
Matt Dahse
and And I mean, that's the process, right? You got to figure it out. It's like the decluttering. You've got to to clear stuff out so that new things can grow and emerge. And like this process of identifying what's going to die that's so powerful, but how the heck do we do it? How do how do we figure out what needs to go in our world so that we can be these leaders?
18:33.84
Gareth Pickering
That's a great question. you know laka I think the nature of this this journey is that you don't know. This is the fucking point of it. you know You don't get to know what this is. And the point of the hero's journey is if you're sitting listening to this podcast and you're like, I feel like there's something more that I need to bring, but I don't know what it is.
18:50.74
Matt Dahse
Mmhmm.
18:51.90
Gareth Pickering
You need to actually have the courage to step away and to step into the not knowing in order for this to reveal. The severance is the first part so that you can create the space. How to know what needs to go requires you being in the not knowing for a while. It's inherently part of the journey to recognize that you need to fucking have no idea for a while and there are ways to do it and You know, we've got a retreat coming up in March called the integrated leader where this is going to be part of the process. But part of this is for us to trust in something perhaps bigger than ourselves. You know, the hero that lives on the hero's journey. If you know Joseph Campbell's work around the hero's journey, you don't get to know the path when you fucking step away from home. When I left Johannesburg,
19:33.03
Gareth Pickering
to go on my own version of the hero's journey after hitting a ah bottom where I felt depressed and lost and spiraling and addiction, I had no idea where I was going. But you have to take that first step.
19:42.85
Matt Dahse
Right.
19:44.08
Gareth Pickering
And I think that's inherently part of the process. Now, when you remove yourself from the stories, from the daily routines and the ongoing interruptions that we have and the legacy relationships that we have in the world, being a father, being a businessman, showing up for your team, you can step away There is a place where I think the answer to your question is listen. you know What needs to die? and Just sit still for a moment. Turn off your phone for a couple of days. Do some journaling and just listen what needs to come through because most of us are so distracted in our daily lives. There's not a space for listening. There's too many and interruptions of current things which doesn't create the space to to create that awareness. ah
20:25.18
Matt Dahse
Yeah, and that's a part of stepping away, right? It's like managing your digital world, managing all the noise that takes place, getting getting out of those those toxic conversations and and just just listening. Yeah, that feels right.
20:41.12
Gareth Pickering
Yeah, I think there's also a part of this initiation journey which includes other other elements. um I think there's a solo component of this journey, but I also think that there's a space of getting connected with others that have perhaps been through this journey before, you know, um surrounding yourself with others who are going to ask the right questions or mirror back certain things to you like, you know, as you start to tune into what is it that I don't actually fucking love in my life? What's not bringing me joy? What feels like an energy drain? You're soon going to be recognizing and journaling on certain things that you're going to be like, you know what, this relationship, for example, isn't my highest joy at the moment, or this particular location that I've chosen to live in, or this friendship circle, or this group, or this job, or whatever those things are, those are going to start to come out. And
21:28.73
Gareth Pickering
The challenging part about the this journey, this stepping into a new paradigm of leadership, is once you've seen those things, you can't unsee them. It's not like you can then go back to your life and be like, ah, you know, here's this really shitty relationship that I have with my brother and all that I keep doing.
21:37.28
Matt Dahse
Right.
21:44.28
Gareth Pickering
It doesn't mean that you have to go back and burn all your relationships. But it is gonna require you to show up and be like, okay, my truth is to actually hold some boundaries here or perhaps to let go of this relationship or perhaps to step into something new. But inherently part of that journey is to recognize what are the things that are not serving me and what does feel like it serves me. What do I wanna double down on what does bring me joy? Because I think that's that's inherently part of this initiation journey.
22:09.69
Matt Dahse
Yeah, well, that's one of the indicators, right? Like if if you're having one of those things that you see and you can't unsee, that's that's one of the pieces of the puzzle of of finding those things that you need to let go of.
22:20.95
Matt Dahse
Like that's that's one of the indicators right there.
22:24.01
Gareth Pickering
Absolutely.
22:25.27
Matt Dahse
Yeah.
22:26.70
Gareth Pickering
And so that's the second phase. The second phase is really recognizing that you need to go through some sort of initiation that's been facilitated in a space that's free from your current distractions in order to create the spaciousness to see two things, what needs to be let go of and what am I genuinely calling in.
22:44.66
Matt Dahse
Nice one. Phase three. Bring it.
22:47.82
Gareth Pickering
Phase three is the integration. How do I return back? This is like the returning of the hero's journey. You know you go on this amazing adventure, you go out into the world, you learn all these parts and you learn all these skills.
22:53.69
Matt Dahse
Yes.
22:58.82
Gareth Pickering
The magic is not to just keep journeying and continually on your personal growth path. It's like, how do I return home with this magic and bring it back to my own community and to my own family and to my own life as a as the new integrated leader or as the new paradigm leader?
23:14.18
Gareth Pickering
And yeah, that requires two things. it requires a plan, whatever that looks like, some sort of blueprint that's like, okay, this is what I'm gonna focus on now.
23:23.08
Matt Dahse
Yeah.
23:23.61
Gareth Pickering
And it requires, actually it's three things and it's the same three S's that we talk about inside our community, which is a plan is the system so that you know where you're headed.
23:34.40
Gareth Pickering
The second is the self-awareness to track yourself on this plan. And then the third is support, which is recognizing that when you step back into your old world, with your old patterns and your old stories and your old friends and your old families and your old relationships, there's going to be a ah bit of tension between the new version of you and the old version of you and the legacy relationships that you have. And how do you stay aligned to this new path so that you can continue to bring it? And that support for us as new paradigm leaders looks like inside the father, son's brothers community, the tribe of men that we sit with every single month in the
24:08.81
Gareth Pickering
in our tribe gathering or the king circle, which is like, Hey, I'm having a hard time bringing my new mission to the world because I've got friends who are not ready to do this work. And how do I do this? The support group that you create around you is a function of this third phase of integration. So having a system, which is your plan of what you want to bring. This means after going through the severance, you left your old world. You went on your hero's journey. You had the initiation. You recognize what needed to die. You go through a process of letting those go.
24:37.14
Gareth Pickering
You recognize what's yours to do now in this part of your life. You come back and then when you get stuck, who do I turn to? How do I how do i show up as this new integrated leader? And I think that has to do with surrounding yourself with new paradigm leaders as well who are going through their own struggles and having similar challenges to you as they bring their magic to the world. And that's essentially what we're building inside the Father, Son, Brothers community. yeah
25:00.31
Matt Dahse
Yeah, bro, and when I sit around the King's Circle and I hear other brothers sharing elements of their journey, the number of things that are going on in other men's lives that resonate with me, that make me say, aha, and make me see those things that I can't unsee in my own world, it takes place in those interactions. It takes place in that container that's safe, that allows us to express ourselves without judgment, without consequence, and to to be heard as we speak our truth, and and as being one of the ones listening, like we're only sharing, you know, when it's our turn to share, being one of those ones listening, that's when the alarm bells for me go off so frequently, highlighting the things that I can change, that I'm ready to let go of, that that I need to integrate into my world to continue to step forward on my path, super powerful.
25:53.87
Gareth Pickering
yeah what What you're touching on there is what we say inside men's work, which is that your work is my work and my work is your work.
26:00.06
Matt Dahse
Hmm.
26:01.10
Gareth Pickering
When I sit in a men's circle, even when I'm holding the circle, when Matt shares something that's a theme for him in his relationship, in his money game, in his power struggles, in his community,
26:11.68
Gareth Pickering
there's always a theme that's like, ah, I have that as well, or I have a similar version of that. And just by hearing somebody else speak about it, it creates a space for me to be able to feel less like I'm holding that part on my own. And that that single piece is the reason why the technology of men's work is so powerful. And I think we've said before on this podcast that men's work is today where meditation and yoga were 30 years ago.
26:41.18
Gareth Pickering
The most successful leaders in Silicon Valley at the moment now almost all have a meditation practice because they understand that meditation is like decluttering for the mind and your mind is the one creating the story. So if you want to be a more clear and calm leader that has the ability to track their stories, then you would have a meditation practice that flows from there and the scientists started to prove this.
27:03.31
Gareth Pickering
In a few years' time, the most successful leaders are going to be those that intentionally create spaces for themselves outside of their paradigm of just being in the boardroom and being like, these are 10 or 15 men that I love and trust that I'm going to sit in a circle with and put myself out there to say, you know what, tell me what I can't see. Where are my actions?
27:23.03
Gareth Pickering
not lining up with the words or the mission that I tell you that I want to serve and I'm going to say to you Matt your so your language around money this week in your share pointed to a place of scarcity or you're not seeing this and Gareth you don't see these things because without that The old paradigm of leader is like, I'm in charge, everybody will listen to me and I know exactly what I've got right. Great, most of us do know what we're doing and we do know what we're supposed to be doing and we've spoken about this. If anybody doesn't think they have a shadow, that's a massive red flag for me. And if you if we all recognize that we have a shadow because we all are inherently wounded as a function of the world that we've born into, how do we understand and identify those wounds and track them?
28:06.26
Gareth Pickering
so that we can show up as the integrated leader, recognizing that we're going to have shadow patterns that are going to run, stories that are based in scarcity or not enough, or some would still perhaps in competition and surround yourself with a group of men that really trust and support you to track and identify those shadows is the role of the new integrated leader.
28:26.39
Matt Dahse
Right, because you can't see your shadows. That's what makes them shadows. And if you can recognize that we all have them, and I can acknowledge that I have mine, I need a you.
28:29.64
Gareth Pickering
Uh huh.
28:35.01
Matt Dahse
I need the other 15 men in the circle who can help point those out to me and do so in a way that allows me to hear it, to integrate it, and to start doing the work to change it, to see that pattern more clearly and and to install a new one.
28:50.12
Matt Dahse
And yeah, it's magic. It's magic. magic
28:54.81
Gareth Pickering
So those are the three frames and the three yeah elements of what's required to step from your current role of leadership into this new paradigm of being a leader. Severance, stepping away from your current routines and responsibilities. And that can look like a retreat like we have at the end of March. I'll speak to that in a second.
29:14.38
Gareth Pickering
That can also look like just stepping into a new space. We have ah a free monthly men's circle called the King's Circle, where even if you've never been in a men's circle before, you're welcome to come and sit in that circle. You'll have the opportunity to share what's allowed for you, whether it's in relationship, in your money game,
29:30.38
Gareth Pickering
in some community challenges, ah whatever it feels like is a theme for you. You'll have a space to be able to share, but you'll also have a space to be able to witness the other men speaking about what's genuinely allowed for them. It's a safe and confidential space where everything you share in the space is stays inside that sealed container and is transmuted inside that container. So step away from your existing spaces.
29:54.33
Gareth Pickering
put yourself in a place to go through initiation where you consciously slow down to be able to listen, stop the current routines and the current legacy Distractions and patterns of life that are part of the Western life at the moment. you know Picking up kids in the morning, breakfast, kiss your wife quickly, date nights as often as you can. But like it just feels like until you can slow down and just genuinely listen, it's going to be impossible to see what's not bringing you joy. And then ultimately, what is my pattern? What are my unique gifts to bring through this initiation process that I want to show up in the world for?
30:28.24
Gareth Pickering
And then installing the support, that's the ongoing support as you integrate this new role of integrated leadership back into your life. And as Matt said at the beginning of this, your integrated leadership journey starts within. It will eventually be reflected out as you show up as an integrated leader in your relationships and your family and then in your work and then in the world. But it really starts with the this integrated journey of reconnecting with these parts of yourself within, coming into greater alignment and then moving out into the world from this more integrated place.
31:01.02
Matt Dahse
I love it.
31:02.56
Gareth Pickering
Yep.
31:03.85
Matt Dahse
Well, King's Circles, those take place on the last Sunday of every month. You can go to our website, FatherSonsBrothers.com and get registered for any one of those coming up. And Gareth, as you said, we've got an integrated leader retreat taking place in Guatemala.
31:20.10
Matt Dahse
Break it down.
31:23.81
Gareth Pickering
Six years ago Matt and I came to a festival on the lake Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and Something truly magical happened for both of us at that experience. you know um We'd both been moving around quite a bit, and we both had decided that we wanted to create a space to slow down. And we decided that we were going to rent a place on the lake long term for about six months and just settle down. And really we really wanted to deep dive into our our journey of creating men's spaces. And we were going to set up a studio, and we put an offering on a house, which actually didn't happen, but something energetically shifted. and
32:00.29
Gareth Pickering
For the last six years, I've been living full time on Lake Atitlan here in Guatemala and ah at various times Matt's come in and out through my life he spent a good few months living here he now lives in Spain but really this is a ah transient slash vortex of healing there's quite a lot of people coming through the space that are that are seekers that are looking for leveling up their life whether it be through meditation practices or sound journeys or cacao ceremonies or those types of things and really feels like we're holding a point for men's work inside this community and
32:33.68
Gareth Pickering
This is really an opportunity for us to share the work that we've been creating specifically around this topic of leadership. And um we've rented an amazing villa in San Marcos in Lake Atitlan. And for us, it feels like an opportunity to share the magic and the healing of not only men's work in this technology that we've been speaking about on this podcast, but also the land that has held and supported us so much on our own individual journeys. You know, both Matt and I have done a couple of different Easter trainings here on Lake Etitlan, super powerful week long retreats that have integrated so much of my life force mastery and my desires and communication frameworks and a lot of that is interwoven into our work. But yeah, the opportunity for us to create a retreat for men
33:18.37
Gareth Pickering
here in Guatemala is it feels like giving back it feels like creating an opening for other men that are on this journey of wanting to become an integrated leader over these five days by going through this process severance you step away from your life in Johannesburg or Cape Town or New York City where you are and give yourself the gift of showing up for something completely new to turn your phone off for five days and just to be held in a space and facilitated away from the routines that are the hustle and bustle of your daily life. We're going to be facilitating a process for you to go through and to go through this initiation. There's going to be a plant medicine ceremony with a really beautiful cactus called San Pedro. I've journeyed with it before.
34:02.40
Gareth Pickering
super amazing, super beautiful. This is going to be part of your journey, including some spaciousness. This chance to listen, remember we said, until you can really listen, it's hard to know what's wanting to come through you. So there's actually going to be quite a lot of spaciousness in this retreat for you to ask some important questions about what needs to die, what I need to let go of.
34:22.58
Gareth Pickering
and celebrate that as painful as it might feel, as as as dramatic as a death might feel. That's an important part of growth is is the death of the things that are no longer serving you. And then getting the plan that you can take back for the third phase of integration. How do you take this back into your life in New York City and be the leader in the world that you want to be with this new plan?
34:41.69
Gareth Pickering
while continually surrounded by this group of men that are gonna be lifelong friends because you've been through this powerful initiation with you. So the integrated leader is happening from the 24th until the 29th of March, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.
34:55.19
Gareth Pickering
super easy to get here from New York. ah So from the States, it's like a direct flood for most destinations in the States, if not one short stop. And ah yeah, we're excited to host you. We've got space for another six men to join us. And then we will be sold out. And yeah, I'm excited to be sharing it. And Matt, is there any progress on your side with regards to whether you can make it or you still and maybe
35:19.79
Matt Dahse
I am, uh, I'm blessed with, uh, brief flights. And so my ability to, my necessity to plan far in advance is, uh, is not needed. So, um, at this point I'm still a strong maybe and yeah, looking forward to getting back to the lake though. I mean, just to weigh in also, it's one of those energetic spaces in the world where magic takes place where, you know, people come together and are gravitated to there and stay there for a long period of time because of some magical force that keeps them there. It's one of these energy centers of the world and and it's in those spaces that true transformation can really take place. And that's why we've chosen it as a location for this retreat. And yeah, it's gonna be one of those incredible moments in your life when you when you make it there and and transform alongside of other brothers doing the same. So if you're listening out there, book your ticket.
36:17.65
Gareth Pickering
We will put all of the details for the integrated leader as well as the king circle that Matt spoke about in the show notes for this episode. If you are vibing with the content that you hear on this podcast, whether you're consuming this on YouTube or wherever you like consume podcasts, do us a favor, please write us a review and share this content with another integrated leader, whether they're able to join us in Guatemala or not. But yeah, your support of the show really is um helping us spread this important technology of men's work throughout the world. um We believe that healing the masculine both internally is going to be reflected into our external world. So yeah, your support, whether it be joining a king circle to show up at it,
36:57.90
Gareth Pickering
directly for yourself. But if you're in a female body and you share this with ah a husband or a partner or a son, please feel free to to share this content with them. It really does support the show.
37:09.01
Matt Dahse
Well, thank you all for listening to the end of this podcast.
37:12.79
Gareth Pickering
Matt, thanks for showing up, bro. Good to do this again. And we'll be back next week with another hot topic on our weekly postgame. And ah until then, thanks for checking in.
37:22.91
Matt Dahse
Thanks guys. Cheers.
