Mikaal Bates and I discuss men's work, intimacy, rites of passage, masculinity, initiation, brotherhood, sacred theater, acting, self-discovery, community, purpose, combat sports, nudism, political landscape, and tribal societies.
Adam 0:02
I'm here with Michael Bates. He is a men's coach and a coach of of intimacy between men and women. I met him in New York right before the pandemic, literally two weeks before the the first news of it, and I had attended a men's circle he held in Brooklyn, and then it was only years later, three years later, that I did my own initiation into men's work. And now I've been paying a lot more attention to what he's been doing, and he's doing some really interesting things. So thank you for being here, Michael,
Mikaal 0:38
it's a pleasure to be here. Adam, thank you for having me. It's good to see you again.
Adam 0:43
Yeah, you too. So, like many of us, myself, I moved to New York coming from a jazz performance area. And you, I understand, are coming from an acting background. I'm I'm curious, like, what was your journey to come to New York and in general, how did your acting inform the work that you're doing?
Mikaal 1:05
Now, it's a great question. I was actually a jazz saxophone player in college, but, uh Oh, wow.
Adam 1:11
Which, which sacks, etc. Nice. I played Alto and Perry Right on man, B
Mikaal 1:18
flat to B flat. You know? It's a nice the nice, big gap, yeah, yeah. Man acting, I mean the arts in general, I would say that you know, so much of the work that I do, especially in the in the rites of passage and initiation space, there is a component of sacred theater to it. There's a component of enacting these rituals, the ritual of masculinity, the ritual of manhood, the transformation of going from one state to another and studying acting in New York at the the Esper studio, which is Meisner technique, was a revelation. It's a spiritual, deep spiritual practice to live or do truthfully under imaginary circumstances. And so it was a huge time for me of self self discovery and learning to use my entire body as an instrument. I had been, as I mentioned, a musician, and I've been an athlete, but there was something about getting to know myself and the instrument of the body so deeply that I could be open to any experience and to take on any experience or role, any any of the vast potentiality of what it means to be human and to be a conduit of that. I honestly don't think there's anything I recommend people do more than go to acting school. It's just such an incredible skill and just an incredible way of getting to know yourself. And so I would say, I use, I use skills that I learned in acting school every day, and the work that I do, literally in the one on one coaching work, and also in the the group, the groups as well. Yeah,
Adam 2:58
the being open to any experience really stood out at me, because in my own experience of men's work, I realized how much, how kind of myopic my my life was, just I'm only operating from my own perspective. So being in, and I imagine this would be group therapy in general, but being in experiences where I'm I'm seeing, in this case, men coming from all walks of life, experiencing all kinds of different issues, and in a way, holding space for that, being a vessel for that, it makes me less judgmental and less reactive to other people's experiences in general.
Mikaal 3:37
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I mean, once you once you meet the entire retinue of human potential, and I think New York is so great for that, you know, just go and go on the subway in New York and just sit and watch. And the whole human spectrum is just there, just laid out in, in, in every single individual and the uniqueness of the individuals there. So it's a beautiful thing. And one of my favorite things about New York to say the least,
Adam 4:04
yeah, so what is men's work? And why does it matter?
Mikaal 4:12
That's a great question. Men's work is a term that's become pretty popular in the last, you know, five to 10 years. I mean, it's, it's the process of men working on themselves. It's the process that once happened to us when we were young men, when we were living in intact tribal societies for hundreds of 1000s of years, regardless of where our genetics come from, if you go back far enough we were living as tribal peoples, and there have been extensive studies done on the peoples of Earth. And one of the beautiful, just unifying aspects of this work is that as teenagers, you and I with the rest of the men of our. Tribe, or the boys of our tribe, would have been taken by the men away from our mothers, away from the comforts of the hearth and the warmth of mother's skirt tails. And we would have been taken out, usually into the dark, into the cold, with the men. And we would get to learn the experience of what it means to be men, the ethos of our tribe, the the mythos, the myths, the stories and we would be literally put through a process of becoming men. And one of the big topics that I love to talk about, we have this idea of patriarchy in the modern world as this pejorative thing that you know, men and the shadows of men, what, has become of us, but when I look at it, I actually think it's something called puerarchy. Puerarchy means rule by boys. And what happens, unfortunately when men are not initiated, is our bodies mature and we become adults. We occupy an adult male body, but our psychologies and our emotional bodies don't just naturally make the transition from boyhood to manhood, and we actually need something to help us do that. And that's what these rituals, these rites of passages, are all about. The idea is that men become men, or boys become men, through a cultural process, through an external process of men putting boys through a process, something that they go through, something hard, something difficult, something challenging. There's this idea that the masculine grows through challenge, whereas our sisters, the menstrual cycle comes for them. It's something that happens, whether they like it or not. Their bodies change as as male bodies do too, but our sisters go through that process and become women, and that happens inside of their bodies. So just the way a female body has sex inside of its body, a male body has sex outside of its body, the rituals and rites of passages are similar. The rituals and rites of passage of womanhood tend to happen inside the body. The rituals and rites of passage of manhood tend to happen outside the body. So what the way I look at our culture right now, our culture is struggling because we live in a society where we have the majority of our adult men in adult male bodies that haven't actually gone through any meaningful transition, any initiation or rite of passage into manhood. And the result of that, I think, is, is the culture that we see, where we don't, we don't have a lot of mature masculine models, role models, or people that are, I would say, occupying a frequency of masculinity that is inspiring, that combines, and I know we're going to talk about this a little bit, but combines what I see as these sort of two, two aspects of masculinity, the sort of strong raw, The sort of stereotypical strong gym going, you know, athletic, Warrior, protector type, and then the soft, sensitive, vulnerable, communicative type as well. And how, how we can join those two elements of the male psyche together, in in in individual, mature men.
Adam 8:23
Yeah, wow. I love that. Maybe the best description I've ever heard men's work and why it's important. I just anecdote. I maybe a year ago, I put what is men's work into chat GPT, and it, it slapped me on the hand, and said, men's work refers to construction jobs and and heavy, you know, hard labor. And it's, it's a term that is, it stands in opposition to women's work, which is like working in the house, working in the kitchen. And I love that we are. We are owning this phrase. Now, this such a meaningful thing that, to your point, we it just used to happen, and then it fell out of favor, and
Mikaal 9:12
now we're back. That's it, man. And we're in a wild time as everyone living right now knows we're in a moment where we've, we've, been, I think, very necessarily examining what it means to be men and women in the modern world. What is a man? What is a woman? I think it's really useful to be able to take a look at what that actually means and maybe try to redefine that, but without those definitions, without a set sense of what things are. People also struggle. People struggle with their identities and with definitions. And so what does it mean to be a man in the modern world? I mean, I'd love to see what you'd have to say about that. Adam,
Adam 9:53
yeah, well, to your point, just now I believe that. Well. To go back. Part of the reason that these initiation rituals were so important was because we needed warriors. We needed men that could go out into the cold, that could pick up a bow and arrow or a sword and fight to the death. And the tribes that didn't have these rituals were beaten by the tribes that did. And we don't live in such a confronting environment anymore. So we can have cultures of men that don't go through such initiations. They go off and they get their jobs and they, you know, they work for 5060, years and they retire. And so in other words, my answer to that question is one big part of men's work is that it's a choice now to
Mikaal 10:50
work on yourself. Yeah, yeah, and,
Adam 10:54
and I personally really like that about it. And I like that it is inclusive, in, at least in the in the circles I run in, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. But it's inclusive of of trans men and people that that that come from very different expressions of of masculinity. But what one thing that we all have in common is that we have the desire to experience initiation, and we have the desire to be in conversation with this question of what it means to be a man. Absolutely,
Mikaal 11:28
yeah, absolutely. It's it's a critical question, and it is a question that every man has to answer for himself. And that's kind of the beauty of the work, is that part of the legacy of men's work and becoming a man is, yeah, going out into the dark, into the cold, courting death, the idea of of meeting our maker and testing ourselves, testing ourselves against the world, going on the hero's journey, as Joseph Campbell would call it, and being willing to discover what we're actually about, and the value of that, the value of a man who has done that and who has tested himself and again, it doesn't mean that. That means that we test ourselves as warriors to go and kill other people, but the tenacity, the strength of character, the ability to know oneself, to know what one's limits are, and be able to push through those. Those are incredibly valuable. As a father, as a partner, as a businessman, as a you know a bystander on the street and you see a fight break out. It's like having an intact and connected framework within which you are deeply connected, and not just connected to yourself. But the thing I love about men's work is it's work done in the company of other men. And so I think what so many of us are missing, so many of us didn't grow up with, is a band of brothers and not just your friends from high school that you get together with every now and then and get drunk and, you know, cat call at the women walking by, but men who, like you, have been going through this process, and who are going through the process together, of asking difficult questions, of being held accountable, of telling each other the truth, of offering what, what I call iron feedback in my in my circles, which is somebody will share a challenge that they're having, and then it's like, we don't just, Oh, that's nice. I hope you do well, right? It's like we give, we give reflections of positive feedback, but then we also add, you know, room for improvement. Like, where do we see your not living up to your expectation? And I think men need that. I think we really need to not just have smoke blown up our ass. Like, I want to know where I'm failing, where I'm coming up short, where I could be better. And I want to trust that I've got men around me that are ballsy enough and that know me enough, and that we built that camaraderie, that trust with where I can do that for them, and they can do that for me, and that's needed, wanted and embraced.
Adam 13:56
I love that. So I was just about to say the thing about the tribal initiations is they were, it was not optional. In my understanding. I imagine it depended on the tribe. But, like, some cultures have something like a eunuch, you know, maybe you were born with a penis, but you didn't do the initiation. And you're gonna and you're gonna have a different role in society. But I'm thinking of, there's other cultures where the initiation, you know, they sew these ants into a glove, and you have to wear the fire ant glove. And the the question I was going to ask, which you just answered? And I would love to just recap, which is like in our culture today, what are the absolute core necessities of men's work and I, and just from what you just said, is like, is honest feedback. Truth is, is the the willingness to expose himself and be examined by other men and sense of camaraderie with other men. Yeah,
Mikaal 14:59
yeah. And my ex, in my experience, Adam, every man needs a mission, like a real mission. In this world, we talk a lot about purpose and in the work that I've done, you know, my and my own journey as well, I It's such a critical piece doing the work to determine, not just like, where I work, you know, and these, these things that I'm interested in, but like, Why did I, why did I incarnate on this planet? Like, why did I actually come here? And it probably wasn't to push paper for someone else's dream or work at Amazon. And no, no, nothing wrong with working at Amazon, right as a means to an end. But every man has something deep inside of him that he knows he's here to do. And the way you generally know that that's your thing is that it's terrifying and that it not terrifying you're not aiming high enough. And so a big part of what we do and why it's important to have other men to be able to excavate this and go into the process of determining what that is, and then being held by your brothers to the commitment to discover what that is to okay, what's that? I don't know why, but I gotta, I need. I need to climb Denali, you know I gotta. I gotta climb this mountain. Okay, what do you what do you need to do to go about making that happen? And so I think you know, it depends on where a man in his in in where a man is in his life. But you know, for young men especially, we need adventure. We need a call to adventure and to go out and test ourselves in the world.
Adam 16:32
I love that I've never thought of that of mission as being born of terror in a way of, well, it's,
Mikaal 16:39
it's, I have a mentor that that talks about, he calls it the fear compass, and he says that there's generally two directions with fear. Like, if you're walking down the street and you see a crazy homeless man wielding a knife walking towards you, you should run away from that. Like, that's healthy fear. Like, get away from a mountain lion, you know, like an elk charging you in the forest like run from that. But that there's another type of fear that is the type of existential fear that we actually need to steer into, that we actually need to turn towards, to examine and be not be willing to have an assassin just sort of lurking in the corner of your mind, right? It's like, what are the things that scare you? One of the things the things that my coach had me do two years ago was come up with a fear inventory. What, namely, what are the one of the things I'm most afraid of. And what I came up with was the open ocean and sharks was I've read Jaws when I was like, 10s bad ideas. But what I ended up doing was I went and charted a boat off Jupiter, Florida, and we went out into the ocean and chummed the water, and the sharks came, and I got in the water, and I swam with sharks in the open ocean, and going out there was absolutely terrifying, but once I actually got in the water, I was like, wow, this is the thing I've been so afraid of. And I realized that I wasn't really that afraid of it, but it had been this thing that was, like, taking up energy in my CPU. You know, it's like that program running in the background that's like, you don't think it's a big deal, but it's eating up like 12% of your battery. Yeah, it's like that. So part of the work that I do with men is really like confronting like, where what are the things you're afraid of? What are the things that are leaking power in your life? What are the things that are stealing your life force? And as men, right? We, we, I really help men learn how to become more powerful. Does that mean, you know, having the biggest stick or being a jerk? No, absolutely not. It means becoming full of power in your life, full of energy, full of capacity, and what it means to be able to examine where in your life you're losing power, where you have power to be gained, and then working towards whatever it is to acquire that power, put it into your life in service of your purpose, in service of your mission, in service of your family, in service of your community, in service of something greater than yourself, essentially, which is another piece of the sort of higher echelons of men's work. Men really want to be of service. And there's something really beautiful and special about doing something for something or someone beyond yourself. And so the modern world, right? Adam has been, we've been so directed towards individualism. And, you know, gotta get mine, and I gotta do this, and it's about me, and it's about me, it's about me. Once you have something else beyond yourself to work towards, there's a whole other element that starts to come online. And a man in my own experience, and so, yeah, these are, these are some pretty important things, something
Adam 19:46
that I see as taking up a lot of CPU with men, something that they're unconsciously or even consciously afraid of, is how they relate to women. And though I've not had the. Privilege of taking any of your offerings beside that one few hour workshop that was many years ago, something I'm very curious about is this desire on fire. Can you talk more about that? Yeah,
Mikaal 20:14
desire and fire is a women's organization based out of Austin, Texas, my dear, dear friends and collaborators, Amy Bucha and Ellie Montgomery, and they've been running this women's program, a women's empowerment program, for about seven years, very successfully. And I started partnering with them, bringing men into their weekend experiences. We've been co creating something I'd been doing some work called that I was calling sacred union when I met them, and we just sort of, not sort of, we just collaborated with Ellie's husband Rob Montgomery, who's my business partner in the king's code, which is the men's initiatory program that we run down here in Austin. Though it is online, you can, you can be anywhere in the world and do it. We just had our big sacred union men's and women's events. So we had a full weekend, three full days, of about 150 men and women that came in to go into this process. And the thing that we did Adam, is we started a WhatsApp group for everyone coming in, and we told them just to introduce themselves in the thread and then share what their struggles have been with men, with women in relationship. Like, what are we struggling with? What are all the things? We took everyone's answer, we put it into chat GPT, and we said, chat GPT. Summarize this for us. It spit out two sentences. First sentence was this, women don't trust men. Period. Second sentence, men don't trust men. Comma, or themselves period. And I think that really sums up where we are. I think we're in a very interesting place in the relationships between men and women. You know, the the battle of the sexes, as I call it, is is raging and has never been more challenging, I think, than it is right now. We we are very much at odds with each other as men and women, for a lot of I think, good reasons and bad reasons. But, you know, we just did an event last night here in Austin as well these men's and women's circles that I helped lead, and it's just so beautiful because we've just forgotten how to talk to each other. We've forgotten each other. Men and women have forgotten that men and women are different, at least we're similar too, of course, but we're different. We look at things differently. We view things differently. And there's something so special about learning how to talk to each other again, how to love each other again. And, you know, there's, there's this really interesting thing in our culture, Adam that I talk about a lot, which is that, over the last 60 years, both men and women have been taught that men are bad, this idea of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, right? And I really love what it's pointing at, because, again, I'm the son of a second wave feminist. I I really love and appreciate feminism for what it has done. It was an absolutely necessary thing. Women's Equality is, if you argue against that, I just don't know what to tell you. It's just such a such a no brainer for me, in that sense of things. And you know, there's a brilliance and a shadow to every movement, and I think as as someone who grew up very much in the internalization of those ideas, well, wait a second, men are bad. Patriarchy, toxic masculinity. I'm a man, I must be bad. And so my podcast is called remasculation. It's about my own journey into emasculation, into the unconscious, unintended castration and emasculation that I experienced in my family, in my culture, growing up when I did, and that, you know, no one's to blame, truly, no one's to blame, but it's all of our responsibility, I think, right now, to start looking at these patterns. And you know, if, if men are the bad guys, men and women lose, because we either are men or we're interested in men. And so with the women that I work with, the biggest, the biggest impediment that I see to them being in the romantic partnerships with men, with with men that they want to be in, is the way they view men and the ideas that they have about men. And it's tough because a lot of women have had bad experiences with men. A lot of men have had bad experiences with men, but we make the mistake of extending that to all men. Well, this men, this man, treated me bad. All men must be bad. It's just not true. There's so many good men out there, just like there's so many good women. So, yeah, I'm really passionate about this work. It's, it's amazing work. Yeah,
Adam 24:55
I've noticed that when I talk about men's work, like at a party for. Example, women lean in, oh yeah, men that are not familiar with the work, kind of like walk away. Yep, and especially when it comes to the topics of sex and intimacy. And I wonder how much of that is in your workshops like sex and romantic intimacy. It's
Mikaal 25:24
all about intimacy. Man, it's all about intimacy. I mean, intimacy is the thing that we're missing most. It's the thing that I believe is having the biggest impact on us as human beings, because we are social animals. We are social creatures, food, water, shelter, intimacy, that's just, that's just the reality of things, and I think we grossly underestimate that in our culture. And you know, intimacy is being it's revealing yourself to another person. It's revealing and sharing yourself with another person, and building intimacy. And intimacy builds trust, it builds relationship, it builds community. And community, the presence of community implies intimacy. And so again, no one taught us anything about intimacy, relationship, conscious conversation, sex. I mean, no one taught any of us any of the tools to be able to be in right relationship with ourselves, with men, with women, with each other. And we're in this we're in this pocket where, yeah, I mean, over half of the marriages are ending in divorce. No one's having sex. Relationships are on the decline.
Adam 26:37
Yeah, yeah. Something I personally have gotten a lot out of was nudism. In my own work, I had a lot of like, body shame when I was a kid, and so I just sort of to your shark analogy. I dumped I jumped into nudism, and I ended up hosting a bunch of naked events in New York City, and it's one of the things that I appreciated in my men's work, is an opportunity for men to just be with each other nude. And what, what if any role has that played in your own in your own work with men?
Mikaal 27:14
That's a great question. Adam, I mean, homophobia is a big thing in our culture, right? And there's something about being confident enough in yourself to be able to be naked around other men, that is, it's a big step. And it brings up body shame. It brings up, you know, cock size comparison. It brings up all the things that I think men are, that we're faced with, you know, the comparison that men engage in with each other, the competition that happens between men. These are these are normal, natural things. And again, there's a there's a beautiful aspect to healthy competition, and then there's the unhealthy. So I, I've done a number of different men's work modalities where nudity was a part of it, which I actually deeply appreciate. And I'm someone who's very comfortable with that. Again, I had hippie parents, like we kind of grew up. I grew up in a naked house until I was, you know, nine or 10. So for me, it's, it's, it's an easy thing. For me, I also take really good care of my body. So for for men who maybe have body shame, these types of things, I mean, it's, it's, it can be a real challenge. But again, there's something about the examination of the self, the examination of your relationship to yourself, to your body, that yeah, nudism, or any type of practices around that can be really powerful. You know, in the practices that I've done, the invitation was to get naked up to your level of comfort. So some guys that you know, just took the shirt off, some guy that went down to their underwear, some guys went all the way in, and it's just, yeah, it's a very confronting experience, right? And then the the beauty of getting to talk about the experience, the beauty of getting to talk about sex, losing your virginity, of how you feel about yourself physically, how you feel about your cock, size, or these types of things. I mean, these are, these are powerful conversations, not necessarily you know, ones to start someone out with who's never done any work before, but to be able to build up to that, I think it's critical, though. Yeah, I love that you're that you do that.
Adam 29:28
I'm glad that you named that last bit about it being kind of like a medium to an advanced practice for a lot of modern men. Sure. Yeah, speaking of intimacy and bodies. What do you have any thoughts on, like, sacred combat, physical connection, like, whether it's it's it's combat or or dance or movement? Can you talk about the importance of the body and movement and and combat and mentors? Absolutely.
Mikaal 29:59
I. Absolutely, yeah, I ran a i We literally called it sacred combat. We ran a friend of mine, Dan Hochman, who I've had on my podcast. We ran a circle in in Boulder called red circle. And yeah, red circle conscious combat is what it was. And so very much about getting men into the experience of that energy, the warrior energy, and being able to line up and push contests we had, we had foam battling swords that we would, we would get, get a chance to go in and, you know, either have helmets or no head contact, but like, I mean, full on, like, really, like, go at each other. And it's so rare that we get a chance to have that experience. I think that's why you we've seen such a rise in the popularity of combat sports in the last 10 to 20 years. Men need a battlefield. And it's it's good that we are not killing ourselves on battlefields to the same degree that we once were historically. We have sports. We have these other ways that we can simulate that. But there's something about the male experience of of breaking through to the other side, whether it's on a football grid iron, on a on a on a European football pitch, in actual combat, but to be able to test oneself with other men, to get into the body, to have the, not just the theories and the conversations, which are great, but actually getting physical with each other. You know, showing each other your war face is something I like to do with my guys. It's a very healthy and invigorating aspect. And the embodiment piece, you know, being in the body. Being in your body as men, is critical, absolutely critical. What
Adam 31:45
do you think about combat as a means of of resolving differences?
Mikaal 31:51
I love it. I mean, I think again, sacred combat. What's what makes something sacred, right? It's the it's the intention behind it and the attention that you put on it. So if it's truly to resolve something, I mean, most of the fights I've ever seen, you know, unless the cops come afterwards, the guys are buying each other a beer, there's something about combat for men that, once it's done, actually makes you close. There's a it's a form of in a way, it's a form of love, I think. And for so many men who don't have the permission or the safety or the capacity to acknowledge their love for other men, and I mean, in a in a heterosexual way, to just love each other. There's something about beating each other up or hitting each other across a football field, where there's respect, there's honor, there's there's we're testing ourselves against each other. Wow, this guy was a good opponent. Wow, he knocked me on my fucking ass. Wow, respect. It's like, yeah, I got you, but I love you. Tamir, like, yeah.
Adam 33:00
And it's, to me why it's feels so ugly and so violent when, like in a UFC fight, they don't shake hands after. Or, you know, the because that it leaves it to me, it just leaves it open ended, and it brings up this thoughts of, like, so then what? Now? We go get our our brothers and our homies, and we have an even bigger war, like, that's the, the non sacred version of combat, and it's, to me, important to distinguish the two.
Mikaal 33:28
Yeah, I think, you know, UFC and these combat sports are really, they're, they're, they're incredible mirrors. They're incredible mirrors for where we are. You know, I think it's, it's easy to underestimate what it takes to get in that octagon on television and risk, you know, getting getting your ass kicked publicly and in being on replay, you're you're knockout you getting knocked out is like all time highlight knockout reel. It's like there's something that to go in there, to psych yourself up, to go in there with someone else who is a trained killer and and risk literally your life to get in there. There's something where you have to kind of get hyped and you fuck you, I'm going to fucking kill you. And you have to kind of go in there and get that. I'd say, yeah, about half the time you see afterwards where there's just, there's no fuck you, bro. And then on other times you do see that. You do see that camaraderie. You see the winner come over and graciously like, make sure that the guy who's got knocked out is okay. You have respect that shared afterwards. But it is, I mean, it's a it is a hierarchy. It is who is the best, and these are the best of the best who train at combat, right? So it's a heck of a thing, but I think you see anyway. So
Adam 34:42
there's a version of men's work that I don't have any personal experience with, but there's it's kind of lampooned on social media, of like, these guys that go out and they roll in the mud and they get kicked in the nuts, and it's like, kind of a military boot camp. And when i i. Sometimes when I tell people what I do in men's work, they their mind goes to that. I'm curious if you know about those organizations, or if you can just speak to the difference between that and kind of what we do. Well, I
Mikaal 35:11
think it's really interesting, because most of most modern men's work came out of MKP, the mankind project. It came about, honestly, it came about as a as a counter movement to the Women's Liberation Movement. Women were getting together and doing their things and like, Why aren't the men doing it? And the men started doing their stuff too. So it was a lot of, I would say, largely liberal men, you know, those who are more progressive, more higher in openness, higher and agreeableness that started to do that work. And on the other side, you had things like the military, right, which is, I mean, certainly a form of men's work. But right now, it's really, it's really fascinating, because I as a as a point of practice. For me, I make sure that i i Watch conservative news. I watch liberal news. I make sure that I have a full picture of what's actually happening. And it's wild, because they're like, conservative, there's a conservative men's work movement happening. And it's amazing. There is a big Christian men's work movement happening. Um, there are, you know, if you, if you don't live, you know, if you live in New York or LA, are these sort of bigger cities, you might not know that. Or if social media feeds being what they are, these echo chambers, right? We don't see what the other side is up to. But yeah, there's, there's definitely a flavor of men's work that is a bit more aggressive. And, you know, there is something about the stereotypes, right? Like yelling at each other's face. And you see the, you know, all the, all the websites for the men's work now, it's like, the kind of like, the guys like, yelling. It's like, oh yeah, they're yelling, okay, yeah, men's work hashtag, haha. And yeah, there are certain generalities in men's work that do kind of work and that are being used pretty widely. You know, something about the wild man, getting getting wild, getting into nature, getting out of your fucking button down shirt and your your glasses, and getting in the mud and wrestling with other men. That is primal. We all did that as kids. You know, there's something about breaking out of the matrix of, yeah, all of your control and conditioning. And you know, I mean, nothing will put you in the present moment like getting kicked in the nuts, that's for damn sure,
Adam 37:29
right? Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is that perhaps my observation is coming from my liberal progressive friends making fun of what may be a Christian or a conservative version of men's work that's emerging. Yeah,
Mikaal 37:47
yeah. I mean, it's interesting, because I do, I do this work all over the country, all over the world, and, you know, depending on where I'm at, I would say that if I'm if I'm in a men's group in New York, say, or LA, that I could predict that it's going to be, there's going to be the energy of the group is going to be very different than if I went to one in, say, a church basement in Wyoming or somewhere else, right? There's just going to be, they're going to be doing different things. They're going to be talking about different things. There's nothing bad or wrong about either one. There's just I would say that the again, this is why I love this work, the the prescription that men that lead a little more liberal, so a little more sensitive, focused, a little more vulnerable, a little more accommodating, a little more more heart than sword. Let's say the medicine for them is more sword. It's more sword energy, right? It's more boundaries, it's more directness. So no, no, none of this feeling stuff. What do you actually want to do and what are you going to do about it? That's medicine. Now on the other side of the equation, more sensitivity, more vulnerability, more capacity to share openly from the hearts for the guys that are more like, you know, David Goggins or Jocko will Nick and, you know, rah, rah, masculinity, right? When there's an element of sword in over abundance, the medicine is more heart. So I really use these terms of heart and sword to kind of as as placeholders for the two sides of the equation. And for most men that I work with, it's pretty easy to tell one that every man will have an overabundance of one, usually, and an under abundance of the other. Neither is bad or wrong. It's more of just, how do we find the right balance that allows this man to come fully into his capacity? As a individuated and sovereign man, complete in his ability, yeah, to be to be balanced.
Adam 39:51
I love that. Yeah, the heart and sword is a useful dichotomy, and especially, I. Uh, as someone who now I'm, I'm, uh, you mentioned mankind project. I'm, I'm the area communication steward. So I have this question of, like, how do I get more men into this work? And that proposes an answer, which is, well, there's these two types of men, and we can attract, maybe the men that are more attracted to the sword, but they need more heart. They need to see more sword, you know? They need to be like, Wow, that's cool, that sword stuff. And then we sneak in a little bit of heart. Alternative, I am curious about your experience with the mankind project. You I saw on a Facebook post some exchange we had you'd initiate with them, yeah. What was that like, and was that before the cultural appropriation kerfuffle, and what was and what, what led you to leave, in other words, and start your own thing?
Mikaal 40:58
Yeah? Yeah. I went through my, my new Warrior Training weekend in 2016 I went through in New York. And, yeah, it was, it was an incredible experience. It was right at the beginning of my journey for this. And it was, it was really cool. I was reading iron John. I was reading King, Warrior, magician, lover. I was very much in that men's movement ethos of the 80s and 90s, which is what the mankind project emerged from. Yeah, I really, I really loved it. I got a lot from it. What I came to realize later is that I think, you know, it is, it is an incredible starting place. And the eye groups and all these other things are really, really wonderful. They really are. They're really great. The kerfuffle that you spoke to was frustrating to see, and honestly, pretty confusing, because I, I don't know that. I mean, I've been in a lot of diverse groups, but my MKP weekend was pretty freaking diverse. And so getting to see that organization get devoured by political correctness was really frustrating for me, because of all the organizations in the universe that need political correctness and adjusting, I think they would be the last. I just didn't see the need to put all of the attention on those particular things, given the work they were doing, given the breadth of diversity that was already there in the organization, from what I could see, it was very strange to me and very confusing. And yeah, I really kind of lost that. It just that became, that became the focus versus men's work. And so it was, it was, yeah, kind of part of like, oh, well, I, I'm already looking to go in my own direction with this. Here's a here's an impetus to go ahead and do it on my own as well. So yeah, they were a big influence on me. David data's work was another big influence on me. I'd seen those two streams, those two wisdom streams, were the big two for me. But the work that I do now is a bit of an amalgam, you know, the the king's Code program that I run here, the initiatory program. It's a five month program. You know, the weekend is beautiful, but it's three days, and then you're kind of done, and you're back to the world. And, yeah, there's the I groups and these these things to help. But the program is five months. It's one it's one call a week, two hours for five months. And then we do have an in person retreat as well for three days, which we go through. And then we have, we have ways for people to stay in the organization. So we're getting ready to start battalion two here on March 23 and any man that's gone through the first battalion can join the next the next battalion for for a discount, like for a major discount. Like, once you've gone through, you can keep going through. You can keep staying in the work. We really pride ourselves on the organizational structure and that from the WhatsApp threads to the different forms of communication. Excuse me, the Brotherhood, like the actual brotherhood that exists and gets built, is what is what? Maybe the most important thing of this work, you know, yeah, we dive into purpose. Yeah, we dive into connection to something greater than yourself, but the actual brotherhood. I think most of us just don't understand the unspeakable value of a cohort of brothers that you can absolutely trust, because you've gone through some together, and what that means to have people you can rely on. I mean, we see it in the group all, all the time, someone will post. Man, I'm really going through with my wife. I need, I need help. Man, anybody? Can anybody get on a call and it'll be like, three or four guys like, Yo, I'm here. I got you. And. Like instant, instant, instant. So in our culture, right? We we often don't have that. So many of us were raised by women, so many of us were trained to take our issues to our women. And so we turn our our women into our therapists or our mothers, which is the worst thing we can do if we're interested in sex polarity, those types of things. So yeah, it is, yeah, I'll leave, I'll leave it at that.
Adam 45:27
Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. The thing that I like to pitch men's work as is an important initiation experience. But the most important thing is afterwards, this this communication, this feeling that you're in a in a brotherhood, and that you can call on these men and they will have your back,
Mikaal 45:50
Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, like to actually have that is, I don't think many people have ever had that, and that's what we all used to have. We all used to have. We all used to come from tribe. We used to come from having, you know, we wouldn't just be going out to get ours. It wasn't this individuated siloed thing, where everyone's, you know, working. I gotta work to make money, to bring home the money to support my family. It's like, no, no. You and I and the rest of us would go out hunting together as the warriors of the tribe, bring home an antelope, bring home an elk, bring home whatever it was, and then all of us would be supported. And if you know, you had a bad day hunting, I had a good day. Guess what you eat too, because next time you're you're going to be the one that brings it home, and I'll be supported by you. So these aspects of community that we've lost and being able to be supported by a super structure, the meta, holding containment of a tribe that I think so many of us in the modern world don't have. Why are we depressed? Why are we anxious? Yeah, we're not living a purpose. Yeah, we're not doing what we're meant to do. But we also don't have community. We don't have the thing we always had as human beings that we evolved having, and now we don't have it. Most of us don't know we don't have it, but the not having is the thing that is actually why we're all struggling to the degree that we are. It's truly my belief,
Adam 47:18
yeah, and to that point I remember when COVID first hit, and I had just done your workshop, maybe this was a couple months after you'd made this brilliant Facebook post that really called to me, which was, it was something along the lines of men. This is the moment. This is the moment we have trained for. And I felt this call in my heart, but I had no men, yeah, so I can, I can really relate to to then this emergency and feeling alone, you know, me and my wife and a trapped in an apartment. And then now, frankly, I've been feeling this similar feeling as to my in my judgment, we're maybe heading towards a kind of civil war. The divide is feeling more tenuous than than ever, politically, in our in the US. But I feel like I have my brothers, and I feel like I have a plan. I have I have a action potential. And so I'm curious right now, like, how do you deal with the current political landscape? How does your brotherhood and your sense of masculinity fit into that
Mikaal 48:33
great question? Then, you know, it was funny, because I after the election the day after the election, again, I feel so blessed. I've lived so many places. I grew up in LA New York, raised me, but my family's in Kentucky. I went to high school in Kentucky. I went to college in Florida. I lived in Colorado. I live in Texas now, and so I feel really blessed to have a real, lived understanding of the liberal and conservative realities in this country, and the day after the election, depending on who I was talking to, the world was either ending, like the world is over, like the Nazis are coming in, like it is the end of the fucking world, that people are losing their minds. And I'm like, Wow, maybe it's the end of the world, maybe this is, this is a horrible thing. And then I'd go to my other friend's page, and it was, like, the best day ever. Like, like, like, the birds are out in the trees again, and the sun is shining again. And like, there's so much hope. And like, you know, RFK is gonna get, you know, get the fucking crap out of our food. And like it was such a dichotomy between those two realities. I was so struck by that. And so I think that there's regardless of what you believe, regardless of what side of the of the aisle you find yourself on, we need our brothers. It's not, it's not. An option to not have male connection in this world, it's just not because you're going to get older, you're gonna have no friends if you're in a relationship, your relationship is absolutely going to suffer because of it, because you're going to turn your woman into everything. You're going to force her to handle all of your shit with you, instead of having a band of brothers that you can figure your out with and then keep the relationship polarized. And so, yeah, have a contingency plan. Have friends talk about these things. What's actually there? I think, you know, divide and conquer is the oldest military tactic in the book. I think there's a lot being done right now to actually divide us, but I think we're, we are. We're actually more on the same page than ever before. I really see that. I really feel that, and that I think, you know, there's nothing more important right now in the world than men doing their work, to wake up and to come into their own empowerment and to come into the process of learning how to stand up for themselves, for those they care about and for their communities, and being able to look at the bigger picture, you know, the bigger picture, beyond liberal and conservative. You know, because government needs both to function.
Adam 51:19
It needs its own polarity. Yeah,
Mikaal 51:20
exactly, exactly. Again, like we talked about earlier, the medicine the the prescription that the Conservatives need is a little bit of healthy liberalism, and the prescription that liberalism needs is a little bit of healthy conservatism. And so those things that balance, then let's see what's happening. So, yeah, man, it's a wild time.
Adam 51:41
Yeah, well, we're coming up on an hour. I really appreciate this discussion. You're just so wise, and this is the most I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with you. So thank you. And I'm curious, how can people find you, and what else? Any parting words?
Mikaal 51:59
Yeah, yeah, hang in there. It's things are actually getting better. Don't believe the hype. Don't watch the news. The news is designed to spike your nervous system and induce fear, whether you're watching CNN or Fox, which I watch both, so I can see what everyone is saying. It's like, there's, there's something being done. So take care of yourself. Believe in believe in us. We're going to make it. I do this work. I know we're going to make it. Things are, things are actually a lot better than we think they are. And yeah, you can find my stuff. My name is Michael Bates. My mom is a hippie. So my name is spelled a little uniquely, so it's m, i, k, a, a, l, Bates, B, as in boy, A, T, E, s.com, the Kings code.org is the name of the men's organization that I run here in Austin. And desire and fire is the women's organization that My dear sisters run. And so, yeah, that's men's and women's work. I mean, it's so important, it's so important that we do our work, so that we can actually do the work of being in relationship. Because in traditional societies, you would never, you weren't allowed to date or marry until you'd gone through your men's work, until you've gone through your women's work. So think about that. You know, pleasure to be here with you, brother, but again, sorry, having a bit of an allergy day over here, so I'm a little stuffy, but that's
Adam 53:23
all right, you know, Zoom does a pretty good job of cutting out all the all the sniffles. Well, thanks for being here, brother,
Mikaal 53:30
thanks for having me. I'll talk to you soon. Yeah, okay, bye.
