Revolutionizing Men's Work and The Power of Manning Up

A Question I Get All the Time

Every so often, someone asks how I got here. How I ended up doing men’s work. What I learned. What changed me.

The honest answer is I never had a neat plan. I have always been a seeker. I am going to share the path that shaped me and the moment it all turned.

I Was Born Curious

Some people discover they are seekers later in life. For me, it has been true for as long as I can remember.

As a kid, I spent my days in creeks and along fence lines, watching life unfold. I was fascinated by:

• how plants moved with the current

• how crawdads, fish, frogs, and tadpoles shared the same ecosystem

• how everything was interconnected

• how microclimates formed at borders, where a field met a creek or a fence line

Even in single-digit years, what grabbed me was not any one creature. It was the system. The relationships. The way life fits together.

That is still who I am.

Church, Hypocrisy, and Becoming an Atheist

I grew up Lutheran and went through confirmation around early teenage years. I took it seriously. And because I took it seriously, I started asking questions.

I noticed hypocrisy. I noticed people in the church not following the values they preached. And I did not ask polite questions. I was an angry teenager, and I wanted answers.

I eventually declared myself an atheist and decided I was done with church. I stayed out for a long time, other than the occasional holiday with my parents.

Why Atheism Stopped Working for Me

I kept seeking.

Over time, atheism felt empty. It did not answer the questions I was trying to solve. I could not make sense of the idea that life on Earth was purely a cosmic accident, and that we were the only “accident” in a universe filled with an incomprehensible number of stars and planets.

I also had experiences that did not fit neatly into a worldview with no intelligence behind reality. So I kept looking, deeper.

The Month Everything Collapsed

In the early 2000s, my life fell apart fast. Within about a month, I lost my job, my girlfriend, and my housing situation all at once.

I remember coming home after being walked out of the building, sitting on the bed, then collapsing. I curled up on the floor in the smallest space I could find, between the bed and the wall.

I was not suicidal. It was more like surrender.

I cried out to God, whatever that meant to me at the time:
“I give up. I do not get it. I followed all the instructions. I did everything I know how to do and none of it is working. Help me.”

That moment became a turning point.

Because until then, I had done what most men do. I followed conventional career advice. Popular relationship advice. Pop psychology. I tried to be the “right” kind of man.

And it was a profound failure.

So I decided to look for a new way.

The Spiritual Path That Rebuilt Me

I started working with a spiritual teacher and reading deep, challenging books. One of the first was Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.

One thing led to another, and slowly, my foundation changed. The seeking was not just intellectual anymore. It became embodied. Practical. Real.

Why Men Need Men

For many years, the work I did was mostly co-ed, simply because that was what existed. I did not understand men’s work or why it mattered.

After about 15 years of growth and experience, something became obvious: men need their own space, the same way women do.

Here is why.

When men and women are together, we naturally accommodate. We defer. We perform. That is not wrong. It is human.

But a men’s space strips the distraction away. Men can be direct. Honest. Unfiltered. They can address the things they hide in mixed company.

As male-only spaces disappeared over the decades, I watched men flail and fail, including me. Meanwhile, women’s spaces expanded and co-ed spaces multiplied. It never made sense to remove one sex’s space while reinforcing the other’s.

Men were left without a place to become men.

The Basement That Changed Everything

About 10 or 11 years ago, a friend invited me to a men’s group Geoff was running in his basement.

It did not take long for me to see a possibility: we could reach more than the handful of guys in that room. We could build something real.

Eventually, Geoff and I formed a nonprofit. And here we are.

The Most Transformational Phrase of My Life: “Man Up”

There is one more part of my story that matters.

Before that breakdown, I was what you might call a “sensitive new age guy.” A sensitive 1990s guy. I thought that was what a good man was supposed to be.

My first spiritual teacher helped me do something that will trigger some people, and I am fine with that.

She helped me man up.

Manning up doesn’t mean suppressing emotion. It doesn’t mean repression. It doesn’t mean pretending you are fine. It doesn’t mean becoming harsh or cold.

Manning up means becoming fully present in the fullness of your masculinity.

It means:

• You take responsibility

• You stop living as a victim of circumstances

• You make things happen

• You handle what needs to be handled

• You operate at cause in your own life

For me, learning what that really meant changed everything. It took longer than I want to admit to embody it, but it became the most empowering shift I have ever made.

And here is the irony: denying the value of manning up is its own form of suppression. It denies an essential part of who we are.

Why This Matters for The Undaunted Man

This is the heart of why we do what we do.

Men do not need more performance. They need reconnection to their inner compass. To their self-respect. To their strength. To their ability to create a fulfilled life that does not depend on someone else handing it to them.

That is what a solid men’s community helps restore.