From Atheism to Spirituality with Coach Michael Taylor

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Men Field. I'm your host, author, coach and healer, Andy Grant. You can learn more about me by visiting the andygrant.com. Real Men Feel reminds men that they're human beings and have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men can benefit from. My guest today is Michael Taylor. Coach Michael Taylor is known as the irrepressible optimist with a passion for the impossible. He is an entrepreneur, author of 16 books, a motivational speaker, a certified life coach, and a podcaster who has dedicated his life to empowering men and women to create extraordinary lives. Michael and I discuss spirituality, religion, and Jesus.

0:46 As a life coach, Michael shares some powerful stories on manifesting how. God is like. Coke and what he sees as the greatest challenge on the planet. Let's do it. Hello Michael, and welcome to REAL Men Feel. I am excited to be here, man. It's been a minute. So we've been communicating on Facebook for a couple of years and wow, here we are. So glad to be here. Yeah, yeah, you're one of those interesting, interesting Facebook friends that I I've been friends so long, see your posts often commenting and sharing, going back and forth, yet we had not talked until very recently. So, yeah, I'm excited for this too. So Michael, I know you're an entrepreneur, a motivational speaker, a podcast host, radio TV host.

1:28 Is it? Is it 15 books you've written? 16 actually. 16 now and you're also known as the irrepressible optimist with a passion for the impossible. So my first question is, have you always been such an irrepressible optimist, you know? Interesting enough, the answer is yes. And if there's such a thing as a resilient gene, I got it from my mom because, you know, I was born in her inner city projects of Corpus Christi, TX, to a single mom with six kids back in the 60s. And we were basically the postal children for poverty. But my mom always instilled in me this sense of optimism. I never remember a time hearing her bitch or complain about anything. She just always found a way to make things happen.

2:11 And I think she kind of pass it on to me. So I've always been pretty optimistic. Talk about that, that powerful impact of your mother was was there any male impact in in your childhood? None at all, actually. I had AI, had a grandfather that that dropped a few knowledge of Nuggets of wisdom, but for the most part, very few male influences. And I think that's one of the reasons why I gravitated. I gravitated towards men's work because I really longed for that. I didn't have a relationship with my dad and I know that I had friends that had relationships with their dad and I kind of envied them a little bit. And I guess because of that, you know, I actually became a really good dad.

2:53 I love being a dad. I have 3 grown kids now but the male influence for me early was just people I saw on television. In hindsight, perhaps you didn't know when the time, but were those televised male role models? For the lack of a better word, were they? Were they a positive as influence on you or a negative? Positive, extremely positive. Interestingly enough, I remember in the 70s, you know, the blaxploitation films where, you know, black men were pimps and hustlers and you saw these negative stereotypes in mainstream media. I never gravitated towards any of those. I remember the first person that really sort of I resonated with as a kid was Martin Luther King, because I remember growing up once again in the 60s and seeing all the racial strife and, and, and having actually in elementary school, we had racial riots, believe it or not, in elementary school.

3:49 And I remember seeing this guy, this black guy talking about peace, you know, and I just thought, you know, despite all the, the fighting and the, the racial division we had, here's this guy trying to bring people together. And I just was always moved by Martin Luther King. And did you ever get a chance to see him live? No, did not OK. Did not And so you mentioned that that longing for men's work, longing for relationship with your dad was was it only, as you saw, like friends or neighbors with with their fathers? Is is it that comparison that made you realize you were missing something? No, and here's a unique story.

4:30 When I was probably 10 years old, I remember my dad spiked me for something and we had a house that was up on cinder blocks and I could literally crawl under the house and underneath the steps. I had this little fun place where I'd go and I'd play with my little hot wheel cars and that was my safe space, right? And I remember my dad spanking me and I was under the house underneath the steps. And I remember this the exact thought when I grew up and have kids. I'm not going to treat my kids the way my dad treats me. I was probably 10 years old, but I remember that as though they were yesterday because I remember just sitting or just crying.

5:11 And, and the the problem was, or the issue was he spanked me for something that I didn't deserve to be spanked full. And I just remember it was just so unfair. And again, I didn't have a relationship with him. And my dad was one of the stoic, typical males, never expressed emotion, never, you know, hugged me and said I love you or any of that kind of stuff. He was your typical, let's go home, work hard, you know, drink beer and watch TV. That's about it. But again, and there was just a part of me that intuitively knew that I was going to be a great dad. And I committed to that. And I remember after my divorce, the the fear I had as a dad not being with my kids. What I did was I started studying how to be a great dad. I read books.

5:59 I want your seminars. I want to make sure that I didn't treat my kids the way my dad treated me, and so I can honestly say with no hesitation, I'm an excellent father. Awesome, one of your many books when it really caught my eye was was the title is phenomenal. What if Jesus were a coach? So tell me a bit about how how that came to you as an idea, how that how that particular book developed? Well, but let's go, let's go back a little bit because I was, I was brought up Baptist. And even as a kid, I just knew there was something wrong with what I was being taught at a very early age. I was extremely skeptical about this whole religious thing. And my grandparents who I was living with, we're very, very religious people.

6:49 But what I couldn't understand was they made me go to church, but they never went to church. And they had the statue of Jesus on the wall. They had the pictures of Jesus with the light emanating from his art. And and so this was the person they talked a lot about. But my grandmother was literally the grandmother from hell. She was a raging alcoholic who took out most of her anger and rage on me as a kid. And so the people that I was supposed to look up to and learn about God from or just not very nice people. And so I think that's where my whole skepticism about God started. Well, Fast forward to, you know, I grew up by getting married and go to church temporarily. And then I said, no, I don't really believe this stuff. But it wasn't until after my divorce that I decided to go back to church because number one, I was in a lot of pain and I was trying to figure out how to alleviate that pain. So I'm thinking, well, maybe I it would help if I go to church. So I go to church and I do all the Baptist stuff. I repent of my sins.

7:53 I confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I become saved. I become a Christian. The truth is, I didn't believe any of it. The only reason I was there is because I was in so much pain. I thought it would help. And so after probably 03 or four weeks, all of the questions that I had about God kept popping up. And I had a bunch of them that no one can answer could answer. And there was one question in particular that really it was like, it was like a splinter in my mind that I just couldn't get it out. And so one Sunday, I go to my minister and I said, look, can we meet after church because I got something I need to ask you. He said, sure.

8:35 So we meet after after church in his office. I said, look, I need to ask you a question, and your answer to the question is going to determine whether or not I stay with your church. And he looked at me kind of puzzled. He goes, OK. And I said, all right, hypothetical situation. Let's imagine that there are two people born at the exact same moment. One is born in poverty, the other is born in wealth. Now let's imagine that they go through life and the person that's born in poverty does all the bad things. The person born in wealth does all the good things. Now just imagine that they both die at the exact same moment and they end up at the entrance to heaven and they're standing behind the podium with his book of life is God. So God calls up the guy born in poverty, flips through his book of life, kind of frowns and grimaces a little bit. Go, oh, you did a lot of really bad things, but I'm a loving, forgiving God.

9:34 And there's really only one question you have to answer. Did you And do you accept my son Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? God looks up at God apologetically. God, I repent of my sins. I accept your son Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. And God says, come on in Next he calls up the guy born in wealth flips through his book of life. Big smile comes over his face. He says, wow, you did all the really good things. But there's only one question you have to answer. Did you? And do you accept my son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? God looks up at God, says, well, you got a small problem. I honestly can't do that because first of all, I've never even believed you existed when God says, well, I'm really sorry to hear that.

10:20 And if you'll just go and take the elevator down, you get to spend on eternity inhale. So I looked at my members to point blank and I said, look, is that how your God works? And he didn't even blink? Absolutely. That's what the Bible teaches. That's what I believe. So I looked at and I said, passing no disrespect, but that is the most insane, irrational, illogical thing I have ever heard in my life. How Can you believe such a thing? He said, that's what's in the Bible. That's what I believe. And I said, man, I said, that just doesn't make sense to me. He said, son, you just need to study your Bible. I said, no, I don't. And it was in that moment I became an atheist. In that moment, I walked away from the church and I went, that just doesn't make sense to me.

11:08 So I held firmly put to that belief for about four years. And then I began my own journey. And I, I want to try to find my truth. And actually the way it started is I'd begun investing in personal growth and development stuff, right? And So what I wanted to do was to prove to myself that God didn't exist. And so I started reading Dawkins book, which was the God delusion. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. You know, Dawkins is that world famous atheist guy, whatever. And I really like, I really love the book, right? I realized, OK, so this this kind of lies with what I believe, right?

11:49 But then I started asking myself some questions and then I received what I'll call a miracle. I was watching television one day and there was an interview. This guy was talking to this Buddhist monk, and as I listened to the interview, I really resonated with what this Buddhist monk said. And I went, wow, that's pretty interesting. Now, when I was a Baptist, you couldn't even think about another religion because they said that was a sin, right? You weren't supposed to do that. Well, as an atheist, hey, no problem. So I decided to go, I go to a bookstore and I started learning about Buddhism. And for the first time, I kind of felt something spiritual. And I went, OK, so maybe there's more to this than I thought. And So what I did was I started going to all of the major religions.

12:37 I went to a Muslim mosque. I went to a Jewish synagogue. I went to a Hindu temple. And I just started asking people what they believed and why. I started reading some of their texts. And I was like, wow, OK. And so after two or three years of my own search, I found my truth, my truth about God. And I said, you know, basically every religion said the same thing. And the one thing they said, which to me is what's the common denominator of all of them, is that we have access to something greater than ourselves. You can call it God. You can call it, but there is a higher power, OK. And so I choose to call this higher power divine intelligence. That's just what works for me.

13:18 And so I knew that or once I'd made that connection and I really started digging deeper into spirituality, I just really connected with my truth, what's true for me. And so I decided, you know, I want to share some of the lessons that I learned along this journey. And the one thing that really stood out for me and one of the questions that I asked myself was so after studying all the major religions, I said, you know, for a while, I completely rejected Christianity because of my early experiences. And then I asked myself, you know, what does this Jesus character have to do with all all of this? And so I started researching Jesus's life and I actually bought a Bible for the first time.

14:02 And I skipped straight to the New Testament, started reading some of the New Testament and it, well, actually here's exactly what happened. It was probably 3:00 in the morning and I was sitting at home and something told me to go buy a Bible, right. It just so happened that I live right down the street from this 24 hour bookstore. So I get up at 3:00 or so in the morning, I walk to this bookstore, I go inside, I buy one of those. What do you call those new edition Bibles that's in plain English, you know, because the King James Version just I could never get it with all the way that, you know, the way it was they were speaking. But anyway, so I buy one of these new edition Bibles and I go home and I just start, I something just told me to go to what Jesus said because I remember, you know, in church you read the Bible and everything that was in red. Jesus said, I don't know if you remember that. And I just remember I said, you know, I just want to figure out what he said.

15:05 And I turned to Matthew for some reason. And as I started reading the parts where Jesus spoke, it felt as if Jesus were sitting right next to me, talking to me, explaining to me what he meant. And it was so profound that I literally broke down in tears because I felt this love that I never felt in any church setting before. And that love came from what I was hearing from him in my heart. And so after that experience, you know, I just had a different perception, if you will, of Jesus and religion and so forth. And I said, you know, I want to share what I learned. And I say, what if you took all the religious dogma and doctrine out of religion and simply looked at Jesus as a life coach? What did he teach?

16:02 And that's what the book is about. It's about removing the dogma and doctrine of organized religion and saying, look, put all that aside and just imagine that he's a life coach and he's going to give you some tools to help you create an extraordinary life. Because that's exactly why I think he showed up. And so I know that's a long answer to your question, but that's how the book came about. So do you find that Jesus made a good coach? Absolutely. He was, in my opinion, the greatest life coach that ever lived if we learn to interpret what he said metaphysically, not literally, because it is my belief that every religion originates from the same source and leads to the same place.

16:49 OK, so with that being said, I believe again this is Michael Tay's belief that Jesus was the ultimate expression of God in human form. He came to teach us how to access the Christ within us. So a lot of people say Jesus Christ as if Christ was his last name. No, Jesus was the Christed. 1 He was the divine expression of God, that divine intelligence used to let human beings know that it was there, right? This. So the way I see it is that the Christ, which is the Son of God, is the energy that the divine intelligence sent out into the universe when the universe was created.

17:35 So for me, Jesus was the perfect coach and Christianity is the process that we go through to become Christ like. So if you again remove all the religious dogma and doctrine from it all and just look at it as this, here's this guy that's going to coach you on being the best version of yourself. And the way you do that is to connect to something greater than yourself, which he called his father. OK, so he said in his own words, these things and even greater things you shall do also. I believe that's a literal statement because what he meant was we had the same access to his father that he did, and if we just follow his teachings, we could do everything that he did. That's how I interpret.

18:30 Yeah, I'm going to say we've, we've had surprisingly similar religious journeys. So, so I, I was not, my parents didn't, weren't falling any religion. I was not raised with one. So as I looked around and saw people going to church and stuff, I was like, oh, whatever. I guess that makes me an atheist. And I remember like at, at 8 years old, I gave myself that term not really knowing what it meant. But I'm like, well, I don't go somewhere on Sunday. So that must mean I'm an atheist. And if I was in college, I was very interested and I took a class on Islam, I took a class on world religions. And much like you did, I, each of them I looked at, wow, they're way more in common than not. And so much unifying things about going within higher power, love really being the answer, the solution, the energy, the force, all of those things. So I love everything you're saying like Jesus never said, worship me, create a religion around me. He just said, you can be like me. I'm I'm doing what you can do.

19:23 You can do bigger and better like as you said. So yeah, so so many they get misinterpreted words over centuries that just continued to go places and and spread out. But it's amazing how many people, how many people praise Jesus literally and and don't act as Jesus. Exactly by his own admission, Jesus said I did not come to be served, I came to serve. Serve that which is greater than myself, which is His Father. So lot of people don't understand Jesus wasn't a Christian. Christianity was built off of his teachings and the people that follow him became Christians, but Jesus was not a Christian per SE. But my point is, after going through this Garland, this journey, right, finding my own truth. And I think that's the key.

20:17 What happens is when we really go on that journey to find our truth and not just accept what we were was passed down to us. And when we authentically connect to that truth, nothing is impossible. So you mentioned, you know that my tagline says I'm an irrepressible optimist with a passion for the impossible. Well, see, I couple of things that Jesus said that I take literally. And one of the things he said was whatever you ask in my name, you shall receive. Now, from my perspective, when I read that, what I hear is that if I set an intention, I have the power to manifest that intention.

21:03 You familiar with Deepak Chopra? Yeah. Yeah. OK. So Deepak Chopra says something I love. He says inherent in every intention and desire are the mechanics for its fulfillment. Put another way, you can't even have the idea without the capacity to manifest. So if we if we accept the idea that Jesus was teaching us how to access this Father that he kept talking about, then that tells me that divine ideas is how God speaks to us. God gives us these divine ideas, and when we learn to trust and follow that divine idea to live our purpose, then we are doing God's work. That's kind of how I see it.

21:50 And so once again, I think Jesus laid the blueprint for what we would have to go through to get to the point to become Christ like. And one of those those the metaphors I love in in the history was the whole idea of death and resurrection. So, you know, we think of Jesus on the cross for three days coming back and all that. But to me for my own, from my own experience, see a part of me literally had to die. And some people would call that your ego self. So when I went through my divorce and all the negative stuff that I talked about and I went on this personal growth journey, it was really about waking up to who I was born to be.

22:30 And so before my divorce, you know, I was a typical American guy. You know, I had the house, the wife, the 2.5 kids, the vacations and all of that. But yet I was completely miserable. And it wasn't until I lost everything that I was resurrected to who I was born to be. And that's what I love about that story because I think that story once again is just a metaphor for what we have to go through. Sometimes a part of us has to die. That ego self, that false self, you know the mass that we wear, All that stuff has to go away before we awaken to who we truly are. Can you expand on some of the differences between being spiritual and being religious? To me, God is like Coke.

23:17 It's the real thing. Some people drink Coke out of a bottle. Some people drink it out of a cane here. Some people drink lots of it. Some people won't touch it. A religion is just a container. Each container holds the divine thirst quencher, which is God. So you can drink from a Muslim container, you can drink from a Hindu container, but those are just the containers that they all hold the same thing. So religious people get caught up into the container. I am a Muslim, you know, but they don't drink what's in the container. Christians, unfortunately, in a lot of cases, especially some of the Christians we see in our society, they're so wrapped up in the container that they never drink it.

24:06 They just carried it around saying, look, see my container, but they don't drink it. So when you drink it and you accept what it's going to give to you, which is the spiritual aspect of who you are, that's when you shift from being religious to spiritual because it's no longer about something outside of you, it's about what's inside of you. It's about that divine intelligence that permeates your core. It is what drives your heartbeat. It's what keeps the planets aligned. It's it's what makes a bone heal. There's an intelligence in this universe. And to me, that's what I call divine intelligence. And so spiritual people make that connection to that intelligence, knowing that you don't have to have a label for it.

25:01 You just have to develop an intimacy and connection to it, and when you do, once again, nothing is impossible. But this also isn't just a blind faith. You, you had experiences, you, you had, you know, lived happenings. You had what you, I think you can use the term a miracle. So it's as if the divine intelligence had to prove to Michael that, yes, this is a real thing. And yes, you can tap into it. Oh I I got it. I have to share this story 'cause this is really cool because one of the challenges I had with organized religion or religion in general, was the fact that I needed proof. That's what she told me.

25:42 You know, don't just say God, prove to me, right? Well, while I was living out of my car, I lived out of my car for two years, OK, In the backseat of my car. So you know Mike Dooley, yes, the guy notice from the universe. You remember Mike OK, so it what's really fascinating about this story and actually let me let me share this story 1st and I'll tell you. So while living in the back seat of my car, I would go to the library and I started what I call my journey of transformation. I thought of reading self help books and listening to audio programs and I came across Mike Dooley's work and Mike Dooley teaches Thoughts become things, OK. And so when I was first introduced to that concept, it really resonated for me.

26:34 The very first time I read it, I went, you know, that makes a lot of sense. OK, so I'm living in the back of my car, I'm studying Mike Dooley. Well, another thing I learned from Mike Dooley was creating a vision board. And I'd never heard of a vision board before I met Mike Dooley. So while living in the back seat of my car, I bought some of those yellow sticky notes. And what I would do is I'd write on the yellow sticky note what I wanted to manifest, and I'd stick it on the back of the seat. And so one of the things I want to manifest was a job because again, I had been out of work for a long time. So I stuck it on the back of the seat. I wanted to manifest the job.

27:16 Well, the next day I'm reading a newspaper when I see this advertisement for laborers. And there's a place called the Labor Hall. And the labor hall is where drug addicts, ex convicts and homeless people go to find work. And the way it works is you walk in and there's a bunch of benches and you sit down. There's a guy up front. He randomly picks people to sit them on these odd jobs. OK, so again, I wrote on the sticky note, I wanted to manifest the job. So I go to the labor hall. I sit on the bench. I sit on the bench for maybe six hours. I never get picked. I go home that night in the back seat of my car and I'm like, OK, universe, this ain't working. All right, Tomorrow we're going to manifest the job, put another sticky note.

28:02 The next day I go to the labor hall. I sit down, I'm there for maybe 8 hours, don't get picked. Go back home that night back, see you in my car. All right, Universe, this shit ain't working. This this manifestation to maybe, I don't know. And so I said a little prayer kinda. And I said, look, I'm willing to do anything, but I need proof that this stuff works 'cause I, I want to believe it. I want to believe that it works, right? And then so the next day I go to the labor hall. And as when I said that prayer, I basically said, look, I'm willing to do anything, just help me manifest the job.

28:44 So the next day I go to the labor hall and I'm sitting on the bench and the guy up front asked if anyone has a car. I raised my hand. I'm the only person with the car. He calls me up to the front. He says, do you have? I said, well, how much do I need? He says, well, it's about 15 miles away. I said it would be close. He said, I tell you what, I'm going to give you $10 and when you come back and complete your day, cash your check, give me my $10 back. Fair enough. That's cool. I'm driving down the freeway and I am so excited. I'm like, holy crap, this, this thoughts become things. Stuff works. I'm manifesting the job. And I was so excited, but all of a sudden my excitement turned to dread as I pull in.

29:32 It's one of those companies that manufacturers portable toilets. I go in. The guy that I'm working for is a real jerk. I mean, he's a real knucklehead. He gives me a vacuum, he gives me some gloves, he gives me some disinfection disinfectant. He said, your job is to clean those toilets. My first thought was no freaking what? And I went, uh huh, I'm not doing this. But then I remember, oh, that got 2 bucks. I said, damn, I got to give the guys 10 to bucks. I said, oh, OK, so let me try. So I start cleaning the toilets. All of a sudden it starts to rain. And actually it wasn't raining. It was more like a torrential downpour. Rain was going sideways. The wind was blowing so hard.

30:14 So I run inside and I said, look, can I wait until it slows down a little bit? He goes, no, get that raincoat, get your ass back out there. You need to clean those toilets right now. My first impulse was to smack it, but then I remembered my prayer from the night before and I specifically said I was willing to do anything. And all of a sudden my attitude shifted. All of a sudden a big smile came over my face. I shifted to gratitude and I was like thank you universe, this is disgusting I hate it. But I manifested a job. I said I would do anything so I can't complain.

30:55 I cleaned those toilets for 8 hours with a smile. OK so I go back, cash my check, get a guy $10 back, buy me a nice fat hamburger which I hadn't had in a long time and it was so another sticky note. Our universe. We go back tomorrow, we're going to get another job. I walk into the labor hall and I don't even sit down. The guy sees me and he goes like this. I go to the front and he gives me a ticket. This time I go to this company where they're building this new high rise building. My first thought was at least I'm not cleaning toilets today. So I I go and I meet the supervisor. He takes me to this electrician and my job was to clean up after the electrician as a laborer while the electrician that he partnered me with, he and I could immediately we're talking about family and sports and I mean, we just really connected. And then he asked me if I knew anything about electrical work, which I did.

31:55 He says really? He said I tell you what, go over there and install these receptacles. So he went to see if I knew what I was doing. So I'll go over there and I install the receptacles and blah, blah, blah. So the entire day, rather than being a laborer, I'm actually his assistant. OK, At the end of the day, he takes me to his supervisor's office and he says I need you to hire this guy full time to be my permanent assistant. I went from making 450 an hour to 1550 an hour with a full time job with benefits. Took me a few weeks to get back on my feet, got my own place, but that's how I was able to get back on my feet.

32:35 Now do you think that was an accident, how that occurred? No, it was divine synchronicity. It was trusting, knowing that this intelligence. Listen to my thoughts and actually is the core or the source of my thoughts that guided me to look in the in the newspaper, find the labor hall, go do the work. Despite the fact that I wanted to leave that job, remembering my commitment, which I said I was willing to do anything, and then it manifested. Such an awesome job. Yeah, awesome. I love those stories. Yeah, I know Mike Dooley. Well, I I'm certified to teach his playing the Matrix and Infinite Possibilities trained. I think I did those programs like 10 years ago, but yeah, that the the the first time I did vision bores, the first manifesting thoughts become things all from from Mike and from Andy Dooley as well.

33:26 Next week I'm actually one of the speakers that is Infinite possibility conferences. Oh awesome. Where is it this then? It's all online. It's all online. I thought it's OK. Yeah, used to travel. The world and Grant. Here's another cool thing about it. While I was living in my car, one of the things I put on a sticky note was one day I would share a stage with Mike Dooley. That was 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the coolest things about discovering that power of manifestation of thoughts becoming things is that, Yeah, you, you get exactly what you say. So you really got to be more conscious and aware and, and choose the right things and, you know, right. Yeah, thoughts become things. So choose the good ones, right.

34:06 That's the whole his whole saying yeah. Couple of couple other things I'll share real quickly too. While I was in the back seat of my car, I wrote on a sticky note that one day I would become a best selling author. I knew nothing about writing books. I knew nothing about publishing books. I just wrote a note intention manifest becoming a best selling author. Fast forward 20 years, I've written 16 books. As I mentioned, I've had three bestsellers and I've had two that's won national awards. Started off with just a thought, just an idea, right? And the last thing that, well, not the last, but another thing that I wrote while I was living out of my car. I wrote on a yellow sticky note. I would manifest my life partner. And I've been blissfully married for the past 23 years. Beautiful.

34:55 How cool is? How cool is that? Very cool. So. So with all that you've experienced, all that you create and share, what's one thing that you wish more men knew? I think the greatest challenge we have on the planet right now is to redefine manhood masculinity. And I my hope is that men will open their minds enough to recognize that the old paradigm of masculinity no longer works. It's no longer sustainable. So as men, we had to be willing to embrace this new paradigm of masculinity. And I define a paradigm as a rigid way of believing, thinking, and behaving. That to me is a paradigm.

35:39 So as we we get caught in these rigid ways of believing, thinking and behaving what it means to be a man. So we have to be willing to open our minds a little bit, say, you know what, maybe that's a different way of being a man. And so my hope is that men, and, and again, the optimist in me is really excited because when I started writing 25 years ago, there were very few men having these types of conversations. As a matter of fact, I got attacked and vilified because especially as a black guy, I'm talking about emotions and feelings. And they're like, wait a minute, you've been hanging around the white people too much, right? But again, my hope is for men to tune into shows like this to recognize that there's better ways to be.

36:23 We don't always have to do. There's better ways to be, to be happy, to be joyful, to be grateful, to be empathetic. You know, there's better ways to be. And we just have to open our hearts and minds to to that tree. Yeah, yeah, I to me, it's really simple. And I often ask guys, you know, if whoever taught you what it means to be a man was a miserable bastard, why the hell do you want to model that? Yeah. Men, men deserve joy. Men deserve to be happy. Men deserve to know their divinity, Right. When men are powerful creators, It's. It's not that. Yeah. I don't, I don't believe there's toxic masculinity. I I believe there's misguided masculinity. And what the world needs is, yeah, is less paradigm, more flexible masculinity and more men in their power. And.

37:10 Yeah. And so here's here's my take on this whole toxic masculinity thing. As you just mentioned, there's no such thing. People confuse toxic behaviors with masculinity. Toxic behaviors are not toxic masculinity. The reason this man is acting out in a toxic way is because he's disconnected from his authentic masculinity. Because if he were connected through his heart, connected to his authenticity, he would never act out in toxic ways. So again, there's in my experience, there's no such thing as toxic masculinity. That's just how I see it. Yeah, no, couldn't agree more with with all you've done, what stands out top of mind for what you're most proud of?

37:54 Not falling victim to victimhood. It could have been easy for me to say, well, society is not going to allow me to do such and such because I'm black, because I don't have a college degree, because I don't have this background. I didn't fall victim to any of that. And the fact that I learned to listen to and trust my own heart, trust my own intuition, trust my own knowing that despite not having all those credentials, I had a lot to say. And so I remember when I first started writing books, I definitely dealt with that impostor syndrome. Like, who am I to write a book, that kind of stuff. But now I'm extremely proud of the fact that, number one, I listened to my own heart, I developed that intimacy in connection to divine intelligence, which guides everything that I do, and I'm committed to making the world a better place, and I'm really proud. Yeah, you're, you've lived quite a life and let me rephrase that, you're still living quite a life. That's a lot more to create and share. So Michael, tell me what, what's the best way for people to find out more about what you're up to and, and all the various things that you are up to?

39:09 Well, first of all, since we're focusing on men, which I think it's really important if they'll log on to A New Conversation with men.com, A New Conversation with men.com, and they can get this free ebook that is called The Five Illusions of Manhood. And it is these five illusions that I believe drives most negative male behavior. It's a powerful document that's a part of a book that I wrote of the same title called A New Conversation with Men. But they can log onto the website, get the free book, and jump into the five Illusions of manhood. It will open your eyes and change your mind about what it means to be like.

39:51 Awesome, awesome. Well, that is what we are all about and I'm glad you're doing it. Glad I'm doing it. Glad everyone listening finding us is doing it willing to do it at least. So again, thanks Michael for joining us today. Thanks everybody for listening. Wherever you're finding real Men feel, please share, like, comment, share this episode with someone that would would be benefiting from it. You can join the Real Men Feel Private Facebook group by visiting realmenfeel.org/group. It can always reach out to me at realmenfeel@gmail.com. And until next time, be good to yourself.